“Derek?”
She gave me a miserable look. “He can be very persuasive.”
“But he had no authority to sell the shop.”
She shook her head. “Edward made that crystal clear when I met with him. He told me his younger brother couldn’t be trusted with any amount of money.”
Even his own brother distrusted him with money? That would give him one more motive to make sure no one found the DNA report Skinny had with him the night of his death—that is, if the report proved I was Mabel’s granddaughter. But Derek couldn’t have killed Skinny. He had an alibi the night of his murder.
Didn’t he?
Jody should know. “The night of Skinny’s murder, were Derek and Cal hanging out together the entire time?”
She jerked back, apparently surprised by my sudden change of topic. “What does this have to do with the sale of the Chocolate Box?”
I leaned forward. “It could have everything to do with it.” Not exactly a lie, but also not exactly the truth.
Nodding gravely, she closed her eyes. “They started out the evening together. But then, later, I spotted Cal sitting in a corner of the bar all by himself.” She opened her eyes and frowned. “I can’t see what this has to do with me. How does it help solve my problem?”
“Um . . .” I didn’t have an answer to that.
Derek’s alibi had just fallen apart. He had a strong motive to silence Skinny if the Hodgkin DNA report said what I suspected it said. Derek had said it himself—the possession of money led to an insatiable need for it, especially when it was gone. Had that been a confession?
He needed money, and someone had robbed the Chocolate Box. He was there when we’d left to buy a replacement lock for the broken back door. Heck, we’d left him standing there at the back door as we’d headed to the hardware store. It would have been a simple thing for him to walk back in and empty out the cash register and the pantries. Which would mean I’d put a lock on an empty shop.
While I understood why he’d steal the money, why did he also take the chocolates and the supplies? Was he trying to encourage me to give up and leave town?
Oh, heck, the reason really didn’t matter. I needed to get this information to Detective Gibbons, but Jody remained planted in her chair, glaring at me.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked.
“I want you to sell the shop to me instead of signing it over to Mabel’s family. I’ll give you a good deal.”
Mabel’s smiling face popped into my mind. She’d given me the shop because she’d thought—hoped—I’d preserve what her family had built. Because I was part of her family? Maybe. “What are you going to do with the building? Are you going to renovate it?” I asked, hoping she’d save it.
It was, after all, more than a hundred years old.
“Renovate it? This place?” She barked a laugh that was so loud it brought Bertie hurrying out from the kitchen. “The only renovating I’d do in this place would involve a bulldozer.”
Sure, I’d thought that myself. Many times. But hearing Jody say it sounded horribly wrong. I thought about the newer houses on the beachfront that her company had built and how out of place they looked on this wild beach island. “But what about the building’s historic value?”
That only made her laugh harder. “Not everything old has historical value. If we never tore down existing buildings, we’d run out of places to build new ones. You wouldn’t want to expand out into the natural areas of the island. If we’re going to preserve nature, we’re going to have to focus on redeveloping the existing areas.”
That made sense. But still, this was Mabel’s heritage we were talking about. She had loved this place and had resisted selling it to anyone, especially to Jody and her bulldozer.
“If you look at the other beach islands in the area,” Jody said, “you’ll find million-dollar houses and upscale boutiques. There’s no reason in the world why Camellia Beach shouldn’t enjoy the same riches. It’s colonialism at its worst at work here. The rich, like Mabel and her ancestors, come in and keep progress from happening in order to preserve the ‘way of life’ of the natives. But what they’re really saying is that they don’t want those ‘natives’ to enjoy the same economic progress that they do.”
“Let me think about it,” I said as I rose from the table. I had more important things to do, like call Detective Gibbons.
“Don’t wait too long to do the right thing,” she argued. At least she’d followed my lead and stood as well.
“I’ll give you an answer after the festival.”
“You do that.” With an angry snap of her head, she stomped out of the shop and slammed the door closed behind her, which was surprising, since the door had one of those gadgets on it that forced it to close slowly.
“What in blazes was that Jody girl doing here?” Bertie asked as she wiped her hands on a towel.
I shook my head. “I think she just helped me solve a murder—I mean, two murders.”
Chapter 22
I immediately called the number on Detective Gibbons’s card and got his voice mail. In one long, excited sentence, I told him everything I had learned about Derek and asked him to call me immediately.
So Derek had killed Skinny. And even more disturbingly, if test results came back positive, he may have also killed his own mother. And he’d done it all because of money.
I checked the time on my phone. How long was I going to have to wait before Detective Gibbons returned my call? Unable to get anything productive done in the shop, I grabbed the shopping list Bertie had helped make and headed to the island’s only grocery store to pick up some of the essentials while we waited for a rush order from the shop’s wholesale distributer to arrive.
Bunky’s Corner Pantry wasn’t the brightly lit, abundantly stocked supermarket I was used to. It looked more like a hole-in-the-wall convenience store. My knee-jerk response had been to turn up my nose at the store and leave. This place was just another symbol of Camellia Beach’s decay. The community couldn’t even support a decent grocery store. I’d simply have to find a ride to a chain supermarket on nearby James Island.
I was in the process of returning the miniature shopping cart back to its corral when I spotted a framed picture hanging next to the banana display. The black-and-white photo was of the store during what must have been the town’s heyday. A half-dozen ridiculously large cars were parked out front. All but one of the cars had at least one long surfboard strapped to its roof. A pair of teenaged surfers with their arms thrown over each other’s shoulder’s had tossed their heads back and laughed just as the cameraman captured the moment.
Someone had used a permanent marker to boldly handwrite on the photo, “Bunky’s, family owned and operated in Camellia since 1948.”
The island’s history lived and breathed within these walls. I drew a deep breath of my own and remembered the comparison between the newer beachfront houses and the humble but welcoming home the Dalton brothers owned together. If you had asked me a few days ago which house I would have preferred to stay in, I would have picked one of the newer mansions.
But the more time I spent in this town, with residents who were doggedly set in their ways, the more I was starting to see things with a new set of eyes. Bigger and newer didn’t always mean better.
Sure, shopping for supplies might be easier in a sleek supermarket. But how often would I get a chance to shop in an authentic family-run corner grocery store? Did these even still exist?
Feeling as if I’d stepped back in time, I started searching the crammed shelves for the items on my shopping list.
I’d rounded what appeared to be the nuts and chips aisle when I spotted Harley pushing a half-full shopping cart toward me. The same young boy I had seen with Jody when I’d first visited the Chocolate Box was walking alongside him. The boy grabbed an oversized bag of chips and tossed it into the cart. Harley said something—I was too far away to hear him—before he returned the bag of chips to the shelf.
Harley bent down to listen to what his son, Gavin, was saying. His son pouted about not getting to buy the bag of chips he’d wanted, but it didn’t look as if he was going to throw a tantrum like any one of my younger siblings sometimes still did whenever they didn’t get their way. Father and son must have been negotiating, because a few moments later, Harley plucked a bag of baked chips from the shelf and handed it to his son. The boy smiled before dropping the slightly healthier version into the shopping cart.
As they continued to banter back and forth, it struck me how Gavin looked nothing like his father. His nose was slightly pudgy. And when he smiled, his cheeks made a cute pair of dimples.
I was amazed how a child could resemble one parent and not the other. And I suppose some children could look like neither parent. Gavin’s face had neither Jody’s sharp edges nor his father’s square features. Perhaps the boy still needed to grow into them.
I was still shamelessly watching father and son when Gavin wrinkled his nose and jutted out his chin in an act of stubborn willfulness.
All of a sudden, it felt as if the bottom had fallen out of my world. I abandoned the shopping cart and hurried out of the store.
Oh, no. No, no, no. It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t.
I leaned against the grocery store’s painted brick wall and forced myself to take several slow, deep breaths. But no matter how many deep breaths I took, I couldn’t stop my mind from putting two and two together and coming up with four.
I needed to make sure what I suspected was true. And I knew just the person who could tell me.
* * *
Early the next morning—a bright and sunny Monday—I carried two mugs of hot chocolate from Mabel’s small kitchen into the living room, where Althea had already made herself at home on the comfortable sofa. I chose the armchair across from her. Stella barked at Althea until I tossed her a bit of the bacon Bertie had set aside in the fridge.
“I’m pleased you called me,” Althea said after she took a slow sip of her drink. Bertie had already made her way down to the Chocolate Box to sort out the supplies I’d purchased yesterday. “I do want to be your friend. What is it you want to talk about?”
“Skinny McGee,” I said. My hot chocolate remained untouched.
She set her mug on the coffee table next to mine. Tension creased the skin between her brows. “He was your friend,” she said with care.
I nodded. “You’ve said more than once that Skinny had come into town to stir up trouble. I need to know what you meant by that.”
“I don’t—”
“Harley won’t tell me what had him so upset that he would threaten Skinny’s life. It can’t be Skinny’s relationship with Jody that stirred him up. It can’t be because he saw Jody with Skinny at the Low Tide the night of his death. I’ve been around Harley enough to know he wouldn’t go back to Jody even if she begged him. So it has to be something else that Skinny had threatened—something else Harley cares about deeply.”
“Even if this was true, why are you asking me?” Her large brown eyes seemed to plead with me to let the matter drop.
I leaned forward. “I’m asking because you are close to Harley.”
“We’re just friends,” she said quickly.
“Are you just friends? Or are you still in love with him?”
She smiled sadly. “I do love him, but not romantically. Not anymore. We’ve been friends since forever. He’s always been my rock through difficult times. And I try to be the same for him.”
“So he trusts you? He talks with you?”
“Penn, I don’t—”
“I need to know what he told you. I need to know why he threatened to kill Skinny.”
She pressed her lips together and turned her head away with such speed the brass mandala pendants hanging around her neck clanged an unhappy tune.
“Please, Althea. I need to know the truth.”
“I can’t.” She leaned her head against the sofa’s cushions and closed her eyes. Was it a signal that she wouldn’t help me?
I was about to give up on getting the information out of her when she whispered, “It would kill Harley if it got out.”
“It’s about the DNA test, isn’t it?” I prayed she’d say no.
Her eyes flew open. “You already know?”
I shook my head. “I know the police found a fragment of a letter from a DNA testing company in Skinny’s pocket. I had hoped it had something to do with me. But it isn’t about me. Please, tell me. What was in that letter?”
“Oh, no. Oh, no. The police have the letter? Then that means they’re already in contact with the testing company. No, no, no. It’s motive. Don’t you see? It’s a damned good motive for murder.”
“Which is why Harley threatened to kill Skinny?” I grabbed both her hands in mine. “You have to tell me what you know.”
“Harley’s not Gavin’s father.” Her quiet, whispering voice trembled ever so slightly. “Skinny is.”
“Skinny was a father?”
Although I’d suspected it, the truth crashed into my chest like a powerful tidal wave. I covered my mouth with my hand and sat back in the chair. Yes, the armchair was still underneath me, even though it felt as if someone had yanked it away and I was falling.
I had hoped I had found my mother. I had hoped I’d found a loving grandmother who’d reached out to me because she’d wanted to share her legacy. But that wasn’t what had happened. Instead, I’d simply been the dupe in yet another con.
My cell phone rang. Hands shaking, I pulled the phone out of my pocket. I started to send whoever was calling to voice mail. But the caller ID stopped me.
“Detective Gibbons,” I said as I answered the call.
“You can’t tell him,” Althea whispered. “You can’t tell anyone.”
“Don’t worry,” I mouthed before saying to the detective, “Thank you for returning my call. I have some important information—”
“Please,” Althea hissed.
“Ms. Penn, I just got off the phone with the police lab, and I’d promised both you and Bertie Bays that I’d let you know what we learned right away,” Gibbons said, not giving me a chance to talk. “We don’t usually get results back this fast. Actually, we never do. But our lab tech smelled the powder inside the pills we took from Mabel’s medicine chest and recognized it right away.”
“What was in the pills?” I asked.
“Chocolate.”
Chapter 23
“I’m sorry to tell you this.” Detective Gibbons spoke slowly, his voice grave. “I’ve opened a new case file to investigate Mabel Maybank’s suspicious death.”
I drew a deep breath. “You’re saying she was murdered?”
“We’re not ready to say that, but her death is definitely going to be investigated further.” He then explained what needed to happen next. He would need to formally interview both myself and Bertie. He also mentioned that he’d need to question Althea and anyone else who was around the chocolate shop in the days leading up to her death.
“Well, I have a suspect you need to question regarding her death,” I blurted out.
“No!” Althea cried. “He’s my friend. I know he didn’t kill anyone.”
“I won’t—” I tried to tell Althea that I wasn’t planning to tell Gibbons the secret she’d shared with me. But she wouldn’t listen.
“Don’t you understand? Talking about it will only hurt Gavin.”
“I’m not telling him!” I shouted, which caused Stella to start barking again.
“Hello? Hello?” Detective Gibbons’s voice boomed. “Is everything okay over there?”
I jumped up from the chair, which got Stella barking even louder. Between my dog and Althea, I could barely hear the detective. “Wait a minute,” I shouted into the phone.
Hoping to get a little peace and quiet, I closed myself into Mabel’s bathroom. Stella continu
ed to bark as she scratched at the door.
With one finger pressed against my ear and crouching down on the toilet seat, I said, “Sorry about that.”
Detective Gibbons was quiet for a moment before asking, his voice slow and careful, “Are you safe?”
I nodded and then remembered that only Granny Mae had the ability to guess I was nodding when on the phone.
“I’m safe. I think.”
“You’re not investigating, are you?”
“No, not really. I’m just—”
“I hope I don’t have to remind you that there’s a killer who may have murdered two people close to you in the last couple of weeks. You need to be careful.”
“No, sir, you don’t have to remind me. But I did discover something interesting when talking with the residents about the upcoming festival.”
I told him all about the break-in, even though he’d already heard about it that morning from the police chief. I then told him everything I’d heard from both Cal and Jody about Derek Maybank’s problems with debt and how I suspected he’d robbed the shop to both discourage me and get his hands on the large amount of money we’d left in the cash register when we’d closed the shop the previous day.
Detective Gibbons made small grunting noises as he listened. I could hear a pencil scribbling in his notebook. Since it seemed like he was taking me seriously, I also told him about the hole in Derek’s alibi. On the night of Skinny’s death, he hadn’t been with Cal the entire night as everyone had believed.
My heart started to thump against my chest. “He needs money. He’s told me that himself. I think he killed Skinny and Mabel. I think it had something to do with that fragment of the letter from Hodgkin—”
But the information I’d thought I’d find in that letter—my missing mother and a connection to Mabel—wasn’t true. It wasn’t true.
If what Althea said proved true, that letter established that Skinny was Gavin’s father, which would make Harley the prime suspect again.
Asking for Truffle: A Southern Chocolate Shop Mystery Page 20
