Apple Pie With A Side Of Murder

by Meredith Potts

  “Was she already dead when you found her?” David asked.

  Julie nodded. “Oh yeah.”

  “How did you know?”

  “I yelled her name and she didn’t reply. She didn’t even move,” Julie said. “I ran over to check on her but she was completely stiff and…lifeless.”

  Julie got choked up.

  “I’m sorry. I know it’s a very hard thing to talk about.”

  “It really is.”

  “We’re almost done,” David said. “What happened after that?”

  “I called 9-1-1,” Julie said.

  I squinted. “While you were waiting for the police to show up, did you happen to see anyone else around?”

  “No. As far as I can tell, I was the only one here,” Julie replied.

  “Did you happen to see or hear anything strange?” I asked.

  Julie’s eyebrows arched. “What? Seeing my boss’s dead body isn’t horrifying enough?”

  “I meant, did you see anything suspicious? Something that might help us find out who did this?”

  “No. Like I said, I was the only one around. And it was dead quiet.” Julie tensed up. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have used that wording. It’s just that I’m really worked up right now.”

  “I understand. Were you and Clarissa close?” I asked.

  “We weren’t best friends or anything, but we got along well at work,” Julie replied.

  David held his pen up. “That’s good to hear. Did she have any enemies that you know of?”

  “Felix comes to mind,” she said.

  “Go on,” David replied.

  “Well, she fired him last night.”

  “You don’t say,” David replied.

  “Oh yeah. It turned into a big scene.”

  “Were you here when that happened?” David asked.

  Julie shook her head. “No.”

  “Then how do you know about that?”

  “Are you kidding? When something that big happens in a town this small, word travels fast.”

  Ah, gossip. Forget tourism—wild speculation might be the most thriving industry in all of Treasure Cove.

  “If you weren’t here then who told you about Felix’s firing?” David asked.

  “I read about it on social media,” Julie said.

  David’s eyes widened. “People were talking about Felix’s firing online?”

  “Like I said, word travels fast, especially since interesting things rarely happen in this restaurant…at least, they used to happen pretty rarely,” Julie said.

  “What was posted online about Felix’s firing?” I asked.

  “Just that it was a long time coming.”

  “How so?” I replied.

  “Clarissa and Felix hadn’t been getting along for a while.”

  “Is that all?” I asked.

  Julie shrugged. “There’s not much else to say. They had their share of arguments—over money, mostly. But when Felix started stealing food from the restaurant, that was the last straw.”

  David stared deep into Julie’s eyes and waited to see if she would elaborate on her point.

  She didn’t.

  David moved on. “Other than Felix, did anyone else have problems with Clarissa?”

  “No. Not that I can think of,” Julie said.

  “Now, for the record, if you weren’t here last night, where were you?” David asked.

  Julie’s muscles tensed. “Why do you want to know?”

  “It’s all standard procedure. I have to ask that question to everyone,” David said.

  Julie loosened up. “Oh. I was at home.”

  “All night?”

  “Yes.”

  “With friends, or were you alone all night?” David asked.

  Julie put her hands on her hips. “I don’t understand what this has to do with anything. Why does that matter?”

  “Look, I have a report to fill out. It’s part of my job,” David said.

  “Yes, I was alone,” Julie replied. “Now, are we done?”

  David held his pen up again. “Just a few more questions. Have you ever worked a closing shift?”

  Julie narrowed her eyes. “I was at home last night. I already told you that.”

  “Wow. Someone’s awfully defensive all of a sudden,” David said.

  Julie dialed back the level of annoyance in her voice. “Sorry. I’m still really rattled after finding Clarissa’s body. I’m having a hard time getting that horrifying image out of my head.”

  “I’ll tell you what. The quicker you answer the question, the quicker we can get you out of here,” David said.

  Julie squinted at David. “What was the question again?”

  “Have you ever worked a closing shift?” he asked.

  “Yeah, but it’s been a while.”

  “Now, the restaurant closes at ten, right?”

  She nodded.

  “When does the last employee usually leave the building?” David asked.

  “Around eleven,” Julie said.

  David’s eyes widened. “Eleven, huh?”

  “Give or take a few minutes.” Julie’s nose scrunched. “Why?”

  “When you worked a closing shift, did you do it alone?”

  “No. There’s always a dishwasher who finishes up around the same time,” Julie said.

  “That’s it, then? It would be you and whoever the dishwasher was that night? No one else?” David replied.

  “Yes.” Julie ran her fingers through her hair again. “Can I go now?”

  “That depends. Do you have any travel plans?” David asked.

  Julie shook her head. “No.”

  “Good. Don’t make any,” David said.

  “All right.”

  “You’re free to go,” David said.

  Julie had been fraught with hesitation during the entire interview. That all changed when David gave her the go-ahead to leave. She headed off in a hurry.

  As Julie made her way to her car in the parking lot, I turned to David with a wary look on my face.

  “Did she seem pretty jumpy to you?” I asked.

  “She sure did,” David replied. “Especially for someone who was supposedly home last night.”

  “Do you think she was lying about where she was?”

  David shrugged. “I’m not sure what to think. I’ll tell you this, though, I’m not going to rule her out as a potential suspect.”

  “Speaking of the suspect list, we should take a look at the schedule and see who closed last night.”

  “Good call.”

  David and I looked around the back of the restaurant and spotted an employee shift schedule taped to the wall beside Clarissa’s office. I took a brief look at the schedule, but found my focus pulled away by the sound of yelling coming from outside the restaurant.

  My eyes widened. “What’s that?”

  “I don’t know,” David said. “But I think we should check it out.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  By that point in the investigation, deputies had cordoned off the area with yellow police tape. That didn’t sit well with Clarissa’s daughter, Kaitlin Anderson, who stood on the other side of the yellow tape. The trim-bodied, five-foot-two, thirty-five-year-old argued with Deputy Mitchell, who kept her from entering the restaurant. Unlike her mother, who generally had a sweet demeanor, Kaitlin was much more of a firebrand. There was an outraged look on her angular face as she went toe-to-toe with the deputy.

  “You have to let me through,” Kaitlin said.

  Deputy Mitchell didn’t budge. “I don’t care what you say. You’re not getting by me. This is a crime scene.”

  Kaitlin raised her voice even more. “But this is my family’s restaurant. I have a right to know what happened here.”

  “I’m not going to ask you again. Step back,” Mitchell replied.

  Deputy Mitchell didn’t recognize the woman, but David and I both did. As David reached the yellow police tape, he had instructions for the deputy.

  “
Mitchell, let her through,” David said.

  “Are you sure?” Mitchell asked.

  David nodded.

  “Sure thing, Detective,” Mitchell said.

  Instead of thanking David for letting her beyond the yellow tape, Kaitlin immediately carried on with her own agenda. “I want to know what’s going on here—now!”

  David took a deep breath. “Ms. Anderson, I have some bad news for you.”

  Kaitlin’s forehead wrinkled. “What is it?”

  When the situation called for it, David could be as stern as anyone I knew. But in times of tragedy, he also knew how to approach a situation with a soft touch.

  So much of being a detective was about uncovering the facts. Emotions were typically relegated to the background. But there were times when even the most stoic of detectives could not ignore their feelings.

  “It’s about your mother,” David said. “I hate to be the one to have to tell you this, but she’s…”

  Kaitlin squinted. “She’s what?”

  “Dead,” David said.

  Kaitlin stood in the parking lot with a look of stunned silence on her face. David and I awkwardly watched her, waiting for her to respond.

  After a few seconds, Kaitlin was able to produce just a single word. “Dead?”

  “I’m afraid so,” David said.

  Kaitlin put her hands over her mouth. “I can’t believe it.” She shook her head. “This can’t be real. No! It has to be a mistake.”

  “I’m very sorry. I wish it was a mistake, but it’s not.”

  Kaitlin put her hand over her chest. She closed her eyes and then took a few deep breaths.

  “If you need a few moments alone, I completely understand,” David said.

  Surprisingly, Kaitlin’s eyes shot open. “How did it happen?”

  “She was murdered.”

  “Do you know who did this?”

  “We’re working on that,” David said.

  A fire came to Kaitlin’s eyes. “You need to do more than that. You have to find out who did this and make them pay.”

  “That’s the plan,” David said. “Speaking of, I know this is a terrible time for you, but we need to ask you some questions.”

  Her eyebrows arched. “Me?”

  “Yes—” David started saying.

  “What do you need to ask me about?”

  “If you’ll let me finish, you’ll understand.”

  “Can’t this wait? I mean, I just found out that my mother was murdered.”

  “I understand that. And if the situation wasn’t so urgent, we would hold off on the questioning. The problem is, the person who did this is still out there. If we’re going to catch them, we’ll need all the information we can get,” David said.

  “Right,” Kaitlin said. “Don’t get me wrong. I want whoever did this to fry for their crime. I’m just not sure what you want from me?”

  “Well, you’re the assistant manager, right?” David asked.

  She nodded. “Yeah. So?”

  “So if any of the employees had a beef with your mother, you’d know about it, then, right?”

  “You think one of employees did this?” Kaitlin asked.

  “We’re not sure,” I said. “Can you think of any employees who had an ax to grind with your mother?”

  “Actually, yeah. He’s an ex-employee, and Felix Martin certainly wasn’t a fan of my mom. Especially since she fired him last night.”

  I nodded. “We heard about that.”

  “Can you think of anyone else who might have wanted your mother dead?” David asked.

  Kaitlin thought the question over then replied, “Actually, yeah.”

  “Who?” David asked.

  “Wade Becker.”

  “Why him?”

  “He blames my mother for not promoting him to assistant manager.”

  “He wanted your job, then?”

  “Don’t kid yourself. He still wants it. He has convinced himself that I only got the promotion out of nepotism,” Kaitlin said.

  My forehead wrinkled. “If he’s responsible for this and he wanted your job, why wouldn’t he have gone after you?”

  “Who says he won’t?”

  “Are you implying that he might want to kill you, too?” I asked.

  Kaitlin shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s pretty scary to think about. I’ll say this, though. Wade hasn’t stopped talking about the promotion for months. He refuses to admit that I earned the title of assistant manager. I got that promotion through hard work, not nepotism.”

  David scratched his chin. “Can you think of anyone else who might have wanted harm to come to your mother? Anyone at all—employee or not?”

  “No. Just Felix and Wade.”

  “What about your father?” I asked.

  Kaitlin narrowed her eyes at me. “What about him?”

  “Your mother and father got into a big fight last night,” I said.

  “I don’t know anything about that,” Kaitlin replied.

  “That may be the case, but it happened. I saw it with my own eyes.”

  Kaitlin scowled at me. “Are you really implying that my father might have killed my mother?”

  “No. I’m just asking you questions—”

  “You have a lot of nerve. How would you like it if I accused your father of murder?”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  “Exactly.”

  David put both of his hands up. “Let’s just calm down now. No one is accusing anyone of anything. Ms. Anderson, I know some of these questions are uncomfortable, but we have to ask them.”

  Kaitlin folded her arms and groaned. “Can we move on to the next question?”

  “Sure. Now, you closed last night, right?” David asked.

  Kaitlin squinted. “How did you know that?”

  “From the employee schedule hanging in the kitchen.”

  “Oh.”

  “What time did you leave here last night?” David asked.

  She thought her answer over. “I don’t know. About ten thirty, I guess.”

  “Were you the last one to leave the restaurant?”

  Kaitlin shook her head. “No. My mother was doing some paperwork in her office.”

  “What about the dishwasher?” David asked.

  “Jimmy left a few minutes before I did,” Kaitlin replied.

  “So when you left last night, there wasn’t anyone else around but your mother?”

  “Yeah. It was just her.”

  “And where did you go after you left the restaurant?” David asked.

  “Why are you asking me that?”

  “I just need to know for the record,” David said.

  Kaitlin gave him a wary stare, but finally answered, “I went home and crashed out.”

  “Did you go home alone?”

  She shot him a glare. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

  “This is all just standard procedure. I need to put an answer down in my report. Now, did you go home alone?” David asked.

  “Yes,” Kaitlin replied. “Now, are we done here?”

  “Are you in a hurry to be somewhere?”

  “No. I just want a chance to mourn.”

  David stared deep into her eyes. “All right. That’s all we need from you right now. But don’t go leaving town on me.”

  She scoffed. “Why would I leave town?”

  “Just stay local until further notice,” David said. “And tell your employees that this restaurant is closed until the forensics team is done gathering all the evidence they can.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  After finishing up with Kaitlin, David and I went back inside the restaurant. That was a big mistake. My body didn’t hesitate to let me know it. The moment I stepped back inside the kitchen, a sinking feeling came to my stomach. That was followed by my chest tightening up. It got to the point where I had trouble breathing. Not to be outdone, it suddenly felt like the walls were closing in on me. I wasn’t normally claustrophobic, but t
he air in the restaurant felt stifling.

  I had to get out of there.

  I darted back outside and took a few deep breaths.

  Phew.

  Being back in the fresh air immediately made me feel better.

  I didn’t know what had come over me in the kitchen, but that was sure scary. It felt like a panic attack on steroids. I was so relieved that it was over. So much for being able to hold myself together. If anything, I was even more of a mess than I had realized.

  I purposefully looked away from the restaurant and stared out at the horizon. It took a few seconds, but I was able to get my bearings back.

  David came out of the restaurant and stood patiently by my side. When he saw my breathing return to normal, he put his hand on my shoulder. “Are you all right?”

  I turned toward David and looked at him like he had two heads. “Of course not. How could I be when someone murdered Clarissa?”

  His face strained as he clarified his point. “That’s not what I was talking about. You just ran out of the restaurant in such a hurry. It made me worry that something else might be going on—”

  “It all kind of just hit me again—the shock.”

  “I’m sorry. Do you want me to arrange for a deputy to drive you home?”

  I shook my head. “No. I want to know how you do it.”

  His forehead wrinkled. “Do what?”

  “Keep such a strong face in the midst of a tragedy like this?”

  “Because it’s my job.”

  I stared deep into his eyes. “I’m being serious here. You’re one of the most compassionate guys I’ve ever met. So to see Clarissa’s lifeless body on the ground like that with a bloody knife beside it…” I took a deep breath and continued, “How is that image not eating you up inside?”

  “Who says it isn’t?” he replied.

  I gazed at him. “It doesn’t look like it is.”

  “I’m just keeping my true feelings bottled up,” David said. He put his hand over his chest. “Trust me, in here, I’m a mess. But, I have a job to do. It’s my responsibility to find out who did this and bring them to justice. Until I do that, I can’t afford to let my feelings run wild.”

  I exhaled. “I get it. Besides, it turns out I’m doing enough freaking out for the both of us.”