Pistols & Pies (Sweet Bites Book 2) (Sweet Bites Mysteries)

by Heather Justesen

  “And?” he asked when I didn’t go on.

  “I’m in Gary Roper’s barn and we found it. The gun.”

  “Really? Because people around here don’t have guns that aren’t murder weapons?”

  I shifted my shoulders anxiously, feeling uncomfortable at his point—there were an awful lot of gun owners in the area. “Well, it’s where I was told it would be, in the tack room.”

  “Okay, first, that’s private property, and if you don’t have Gary’s permission to be there, it’s trespassing. Second, I’m sure Gary has guns. Most people in this area do, and it’s not illegal to own one. I don’t have any reason to believe he’s behind the murder. Get your butt off his property before I have to come arrest you.” He hung up.

  “Of all the rude, close-minded attitudes.” I looked back at Honey. “He said to get out of here before we’re caught trespassing and he has to arrest us. He didn’t even care about the gun.”

  “If that’s not the most irritating thing ever,” Honey said, her hand on her hip. “Seriously, he didn’t even care? No wonder Sandra needs your help if the sheriff’s office really is ignoring the problem.”

  A light flipped on, blinding me. “What are they ignoring?” a deep voice asked.

  All my muscles tensed. It was definitely not George or Jerry (neither of whom knew where we were anyway, but that was beside the point). I turned and looked into Gary Roper’s face, and found myself at the wrong end of his rifle. “Hello?” I said, my voice quivering from fear.

  He looked at me, then Honey. “What are you doing here?”

  “Looking for a murder weapon,” Honey told him, her voice going up at the end, as if she were asking a question.

  I stared at her. Like that was a smart thing to say when a possible murderer has a gun trained on you. Really, what was she thinking?

  “What murder weapon?” His rifle lowered so it was pointing down more, and slightly to the side rather than directly at me.

  I breathed a sigh of relief—being at the business end of a rifle was so not my idea of fun. “The gun that Eric Hogan was killed with.”

  The rifle lowered even more and his eyes narrowed. “What do you mean? Why would I have the gun? And why would you look for it here?”

  I wet my lips, nervous and unsure exactly how to tell him about Mrs. Hogan’s suspicions. “We heard from someone that you had a big beef with Eric because of the prison he was trying to bring into town. A few hours ago I got an email saying you stashed the gun in your tack room, so we came to check.” I gestured to it glinting on the ground. “And there it is.”

  “You’re mistaken.” But he tipped his head in confusion as he looked at the weapon. “Where did that come from? Did you plant it? I’m going to call Tingey.”

  “I just spoke with him. He said you’re entitled to have a gun if you like, and he won’t come out,” I explained. As soon as I said it I wished I hadn’t. Hello—possibly murderer, rifle and I just told him the detective wouldn’t come looking for us. What kind of idiot am I?

  Gary’s brows lowered into a straight line across his forehead, thunder in his eyes. “Well he’s going to come now. You’re trespassing and planting evidence, and I want you arrested.”

  “We didn’t plant the gun,” Honey objected. “We just found it. We haven’t even touched it.”

  He looked at her for a long moment, then drew his phone from his pocket. “I’m calling Tingey.”

  I swallowed hard. Was he really going to have us arrested? Better than being shot, of course, but still . . . When he hung up, he looked at us again. He leaned back against the door jam, crossing his arms over his chest. Clearly, he had no intention of letting us go anywhere. “He said he’d be right over.”

  “Great.” Nice that he calls and Tingey jumps, but I call and nothing happens. I see maybe Mrs. Hogan wasn’t so wrong about the situation. But then again, Tingey did warn me that we were trespassing—as if we weren’t already well aware of that fact.

  “So where did you ladies get the gun? Did you file the number off first?” He gave us both disgruntled looks. He lifted his rifle so the barrel rested across his other arm, but didn’t direct it at us again—for which I was truly grateful. As far as I was concerned, it was menacing enough just existing.

  “We didn’t plant it. We found it,” Honey said. “Someone contacted Tess and told her it was here, so we came to look for it.”

  His eyes moved to me. “And I suppose you have no reason to want me to take the fall? You short an alibi?”

  “Me?” I squeaked. “I barely met Eric. He bought pies from me. I delivered them. End of story. Why would I want to kill him and frame you?”

  He harrumphed and looked bored, obviously not believing me. What was it with cops who didn’t listen—okay, former cops in his case, but still.

  We stood in silence for several minutes and heard the sound of car tires on gravel. I hoped it was Tingey. Maybe he could help us out here.

  There was a knock at the outside door, and Tingey’s voice called back to us, “Hey, Gary, are you in here?”

  “Yep, come on back,” he returned.

  Tingey appeared in the doorway in blue jeans and a T-shirt. I think I’d only seen him so dressed down a couple of times before. “I would ask what was going on here, but I’m pretty sure I already know.” He looked at us, his disapproval clear. “Gary, you want me to take them in for trespassing?”

  “And planting evidence. I think they must have been in on the murder if they’re calling you here—and didn’t she,” he pointed to me with a stubby finger, “find the body?”

  Of course I found the body, but Tingey had already been through all of this with me in the previous murder, so he really ought to know better than to think I’d be the killer this time. I looked at him in irritation. “You know it wasn’t me. Seriously, why would I want Eric dead? I’d barely even met the guy.”

  “But you think I would have killed him?” Gary asked. “I’m a former law enforcement officer. I would never do that.” He held his head a little higher, as if above such petty disagreements.

  “Right, because police officers never go bad. Not once in all the history of the world did one do something illegal or use their position of trust to take advantage of the system.” I crossed my arms over my chest. Even if he was innocent, his argument was too full of holes to be ignored.

  “At least you have an actual reason to want him dead,” Honey said. “We don’t.”

  “That’s enough,” Tingey said, rolling his eyes at us. “What do you want me to do, Gary?”

  “Take them in, and take the gun they planted too.” He gestured to it. “I want trespassing charges and anything else you can think of that will stick.”

  Tingey stopped in surprise and looked at Gary. “Wait, the gun isn’t yours?”

  “No. You don’t think I store my weapons in the barn, do you? I keep them in the safe, like every smart gun owner—except for the ones I’m using at the time.” He brushed his fingers along the barrel of the rifle and gave me a hard look.

  “And you had that out for a bit of skeet shooting, did you? In the middle of the night?” I asked. Inside, my organs quivered. I was going to be arrested. I would get an inmate number. I’d spend the night in jail. And my business would fail. My grandma would be so ashamed (if she were around to see it). Lenny would tell me I acted like an idiot. Later he would laugh. At me, not with me.

  “Don’t be a fool. I was out shooting rabbits. Nasty critters have been eating my vegetables.”

  “So the gun was just lying there on the ground in your barn, but it’s not yours,” Tingey clarified, returning to that issue.

  “Said so, didn’t I? They obviously planted it,” Gary repeated.

  “Actually,” Honey said, “It wasn’t sitting out in the open. It was under that pile of saddle blankets.” She gestured to the blankets in question, which we had to move out of the way to unearth the gun.

  “So it could have been there a long time,” Tingey
said.

  Gary shook his head. “Nope. Had my brother in town last weekend; took his whole family out for a ride. We used all the blankets and saddles. It wasn’t there then. They planted it.”

  “We haven’t even touched it.” I stepped forward, hoping to get Tingey’s attention. “We found it and called you immediately.”

  “So let me restate this and make sure I understand,” Tingey said to me. “Someone, we don’t know who, contacted you by email and told you the gun was in this room,” Tingey shifted his gaze to Gary. “The gun isn’t yours and hasn’t been here for more than a few days, but the person who sent the email knew it was here, and unless they’re just trying to make busy work for me, it’s the murder weapon.”

  Put like that, it did sound kind of fishy. “You think it was planted?” I studied both of the men and looked back at the pistol. It was a legitimate explanation.

  “Where did you go to school, girl? Of course, that’s what he’s saying.” Gary didn’t use the teenage slang ‘duh,’ but it was implied in every word. “And since you’re the one who put it there, you should understand that pretty clear.”

  “I am going to take it,” Tingey said. “I’ll get an evidence bag. Don’t touch anything.” He turned and nearly ran into Sheralyn, who was wearing a pair of her tacky high heels, even at this time of night, and in the barn.

  “What’s going on here?” she asked, staring at all of us.

  Marty glared at Honey and me, “These two planted evidence in the barn and tried to pin the murder on me.”

  Her jaw dropped and she looked at me. “I thought you were so nice.” She looked down at the gun lying on the floor then and cocked her head. “Didn’t we used to have a gun like that?” She grabbed her husband’s arm as if she felt faint and needed the support. Considering her spike heels, I wasn’t surprised she was having trouble with her balance.

  “No,” he denied. “It was a Colt, this is a Kahr. It’s differ’nt.”

  She patted his chest a little and glared at me. “I can’t believe you’d accuse my husband of killing someone. He would never do that.”

  I wasn’t convinced and wondered if the informant saw Gary stash it. But why wouldn’t he have gotten rid of it instead? There had to be a hundred spots in the desert where you could bury a body and it would never be found again—a gun had to be much easier to conceal. My doubts about Mrs. Hogan’s accusations started to rise. Maybe she had been responsible. Maybe it was a cover up.

  Tingey came back, took pictures of the scene and bagged the pistol. He turned to Gary. “You still want to press charges for trespassing?”

  Gary looked at us for a long moment, until I thought maybe he was going to let us go. “They’re trespassers. I want them to see a judge,” he said instead, a tiny smile on his face.

  I looked at Honey, and she met my gaze with equal dismay.

  “I can’t believe you’re arresting us,” I told Tingey when he ushered us to his car.

  “Not technically. I don’t want to bother the judge with a video phone call this time of time. I’m just going to see you to your vehicle, and make sure you go home. And you’re getting tickets to appear in court.”

  Lucky for us. I don’t know if I could stand the shame of being cuffed. “You don’t really think we put the gun there, do you?” I didn’t need him looking over my shoulder again—that kind of stress was bad for my complexion.

  “No, but you were trespassing. Gary has a right to press charges for that.” Tingey’s face was expressionless, so I couldn’t tell if he thought Gary was right or not. He put the car in gear and pulled onto the pavement.

  He stopped at my Outlander, which still waited by the side of the road a block or so down the road. “Will the judge send us to jail?” I asked.

  “Not likely since this is your first offense, but it depends on if she’s having a bad day or not.” When Honey gasped, he rolled his eyes. “You’ll probably pay a fine and maybe get community service. It’s not that big of a deal.” He shrugged. “But you’ll end up in the police beat in the newspaper anyway.”

  “Terrific.” It would be all over town by morning, I knew it—even if the local paper wouldn’t be out for several more days. I might as well close my shop and move now. Honey should hate me. We climbed out of the back of his car—after he opened the doors for us.

  “I can’t believe you two are getting involved in this again,” he said in full lecture mode. “What were you thinking? You should have contacted me and told me about the message.”

  “Like it would have done any good.” I folded my arms over my chest. “When I did call you, you told me to get out and leave it alone. You weren’t taking it seriously when I found the gun.”

  “He’s got livestock, is a former cop and hunts,” Tingey explained. “I’d be shocked if he didn’t have a few weapons. The barn is a bad place for them, but it’s not criminal to store it there. It’s not like he has small children.”

  “It should be criminal,” Honey insisted.

  “From now on, I want you to stay home and leave the investigating to me. This isn’t your job, or any of your business.” Tingey wasn’t going to give on this point.

  That was okay, though, because I wouldn’t stop either. “Interesting, isn’t it, that we’re investigating this because Mrs. Hogan said you weren’t looking at Gary Roper as a serious suspect, and tonight you proved that she was right.”

  He glared at me through the rearview mirror and his jaw muscle twitched. “The woman is grieving and upset. You can’t blame her for not wanting her son to go to jail, but that doesn’t mean we’re not looking at every angle. I’ve been a detective for more than a few years. I do know what I’m doing.”

  I decided to keep my mouth shut after that as I could see I was getting on his last nerve and didn’t want to push my luck.

  Detective Tingey followed us and I swung by Honey’s to drop her off. We were met by George at the curb. We waved the detective off before turning to explain and face George’s disapproval.

  “I can’t believe you girls. What were you thinking?” George asked when we told him what had happened.

  “That we needed to investigate,” Honey said. But there wasn’t much conviction in her tone. Apparently she was somewhat cowed by the whole experience.

  I couldn’t blame her. I thought of my mom’s expression if she were alive to learn about this. I was almost glad she wasn’t around to see it. Oh, the disgrace. I thought of Jack and wondered what he would say when he heard—would he stop bringing his daughter by the shop, sure I would corrupt her? Would he forgo his favorite blueberry tarts and shun me? Oh man, would I have to slink away in shame?

  Some might say I was having hysterics, but I was not hysterical, just trying to be realistic. Worst-case scenarios are important preparation tools for a pastry chef. It’s important to prepare ahead to be able to fix a disaster if things happened to go down the drain. I’d dealt with many emergencies over the years and decided I could weather this storm too.

  I know, I rebound fast. But now that I knew the worst-case scenario, I needed to figure out how to combat it. I needed to powwow with Lenny. The man knew what it’s like to be a convict, and could give me pointers to help me cope. Then again, pointers could turn into laughing at me, which wouldn’t be helpful at all.

  After I said goodnight and reached home, I went upstairs to find Lenny sitting on the sofa, eating popcorn and watching late-night television. He looked at me when I walked in. “What’cha been up to?” he asked around a mouthful of kernels.

  I gave him a long look, wondering where to start. He set down the popcorn, studied me and patted the sofa beside him. “Come tell Uncle Lenny everything. I know something is wrong.”

  “Give me a break—we’re not related, and I’m six years older than you.” But I took the spot anyway. I even rested my head on his shoulder for a few seconds before having enough of that heart-warming scene. “I almost got arrested tonight. He ticketed us to appear in court instead.”


  “What? Get out. No, you didn’t.” His expression was a mixture of laughter and disbelief. Apparently he decided that if it was true, it was funny.

  I’d known he’d do that, so why had I decided to confide in him? Oh yeah, I thought he might be sympathetic. “Yes, I did. So did Honey. Oddly enough, she doesn’t appear to hate me.” I wasn’t sure if she should blame me that she would be getting a criminal record. She was pretty gung ho about the search for the gun, but I couldn’t keep from thinking I was responsible.

  “What did you do?”

  “We were trespassing.” I looked down, a little ashamed I’d been caught, not so much that I’d done it, or that it had led to Tingey taking in the gun for testing. If it was the murder weapon, tonight’s charges would be worth it.

  Now Lenny really did laugh, slapping his thigh and yucking it up as if he’d never heard anything so funny.

  I stood from the sofa and headed for the kitchen. I needed to cook something. “That’s it. You’re on leave of absence until you find somewhere else to live.” I turned on the oven.

  Lenny followed me. “Oh, come on. Trespassing? That’s barely even serious enough to be charged with. And you actually let this bother you? What were you doing anyway?”

  “We got a tip about the murder weapon, so we followed through.” When he gave me a hard stare, I sighed and told him the whole story in plenty of Technicolor detail.

  “And you’re worried about this because? I mean, the fine’s going to be obnoxious, but you can handle it and it’s not like you don’t do community service already—you make and donate cookie and cupcakes to charitable organizations all the time.” He boosted himself onto the ancient—and thankfully very sturdy—kitchen table.

  “No, I bake for the business and donate the things when they get too old to sell. That’s not the same thing.” I opened cupboard doors and started pulling out ingredients.

  “And,” he went on as if I hadn’t spoken, “You have a record that’s clean as a whistle. If that gun ends up being the murder weapon, the city will probably give you a commendation. You’ll be a hero. You might even get a key to the city.”