“Wait. Julie didn’t confirm that I was at the restaurant? Because I was,” Harmony said.
“She verified that you were at the restaurant, all right,” David said.
Harmony’s forehead wrinkled. “Then what’s the problem?”
“You said you left the restaurant around ten. Your friend Julie, however, told me that you left around nine,” David said. “That’s right around the time of the murder. In addition, the restaurant is only a few blocks away from your sister’s crystal shop.”
“This is all a big mistake. I think Julie got the time mixed up,” Harmony said.
“I’m more inclined to believe your friend than you. Now, will you please tell me where you really were between nine and ten?” David asked.
“Look. Regardless of the time, when I left the restaurant, I just drove home and headed off to bed,” Harmony said.
“Is there anyone who can verify that?” David said.
Harmony raised her voice. “I didn’t kill my sister. And I’m offended that you would accuse me of doing so.”
“Ms. Reardon, I haven’t accused you of anything. I’m just asking you questions. Now please answer me,” David said.
“I was alone,” Harmony said. “But I had nothing to do with Delilah’s death.”
“I really want to believe you, but you need to give me a reason to,” David said.
“She was my sister. My own flesh and blood,” Harmony said.
“Yes, the same sister who you betrayed by sleeping with her husband,” David said.
Harmony fell silent.
“That’s right. We know what you did,” David said.
“I had a moment of weakness. I admit that,” Harmony said.
“Just one moment?” David asked.
Harmony nodded. “Justin and I only slept together once.”
“You can try to downplay it all you want, but once was enough to tear your sister’s marriage apart,” David said.
“It was also enough to create a huge rift between you and your sister,” I said.
“Which I am eternally sorry for. Don’t you see? I didn’t want my sister dead. What I wanted more than anything was for her to forgive me,” Harmony said.
“Maybe she’s dead because she refused to forgive you under any circumstances,” David said. “Because she wouldn’t let the past die.”
Harmony shook her head. “No. You’re just making wild speculations now.”
“Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me that your sister was willing to forgive you. She certainly wasn’t willing to forgive Justin,” David said.
“For the last time, I didn’t want Delilah dead,” Harmony said.
“Fine. If you didn’t do it, then who did? Justin?” David asked.
“No. I don’t believe he would do that,” Harmony said.
“Why not? He had the most to lose. Delilah was about to take him to the cleaners in divorce court,” David said.
“Justin isn’t a killer,” Harmony said.
“What makes you say that?” David asked.
“Because I know him,” Harmony said.
“Or maybe you just don’t want to believe that he’s a killer because you still have feelings for him,” David said.
“You know who you should talk to is Ziggy Hummel,” Harmony said.
“Really, Ms. Reardon? Why don’t you be more obvious about trying to change the subject?” David asked. “Admit it. You still have feelings for Justin.”
Harmony shrugged. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“It might have everything to do with this. Especially since Justin was determined to try to get back together with his estranged wife instead of reciprocating the feelings that you have for him,” David said.
“There you go, making crazy speculations again,” Harmony said. “Why don’t you leave me alone and go talk to Ziggy Hummel?”
I squinted. “There’s that name again. Fine. I’ll bite. Why should we talk to Ziggy?”
“Because Delilah fired him the other day,” Harmony said.
My eyebrows rose. “Do you know why?”
“She caught him trying to perform a dark ritual,” Harmony said.
“What kind of dark ritual?” I said.
“He was preparing to perform a hex on Justin,” Harmony said.
“Delilah’s estranged husband?” I asked.
Harmony nodded.
“Why would Ziggy do that?” I asked.
“Because Ziggy has a crush on Delilah, and he believed that Justin should be punished for breaking Delilah’s heart,” Harmony said.
David’s face strained. “Wait. I’m confused. If Ziggy was willing to do all that for Delilah, then why did she fire him?”
“Delilah was a strong believer in surrounding every situation in a positive light. Dark rituals were strictly forbidden in her shop. By trying to perform one, Ziggy crossed a sacred line,” Harmony said.
David stared Harmony down. “That’s all very interesting, and we will investigate it further, but none of that changes our suspicions about you.”
“You can be as suspicious of me as you want. The fact is, I had nothing to do with Delilah’s murder. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to be able to mourn my sister’s death in peace,” Harmony said.
Chapter Sixteen
Ziggy Hummel was a trim-bodied, forty-one-year-old man who had long, stringy brown hair, hazel eyes, and a goatee. When David and I arrived at his redbrick rental townhome, he was sitting under a tree in the front yard, strumming a guitar.
At first, he didn’t put up any resistance to answering our questions. But when we got to the heart of the interview, his demeanor began to change.
“Mr. Hummel, I’d like to know where you were last night,” David said.
Ziggy tensed up. “Why do you want to know that?”
David folded his arms. “I’m the one asking the questions here. Now will you please answer?”
Ziggy’s nose wrinkled. “I just don’t know why that’s relevant.”
“It’s standard procedure during a case like this. I ask everyone that question,” David said.
“You say that, but you’re giving off a much different vibe than you were a few seconds ago,” Ziggy replied.
David groaned. “Mr. Hummel, it’s a very simple question. Can you please not make things so complicated?”
“All right, man. Chill out. There’s no reason to get all bent out of shape. I was doing some meditating last night.”
“Where?”
“Here. I went really deep. It was transcendent.”
“Were you alone?” David asked.
“Well, yeah. Of course. You can only go that deep when you’re by yourself,” Ziggy said.
David gave him a wary look. “Uh-huh.”
“You know what it’s like when you’re meditating. You’re just trying to get as close as you can to enlightenment.”
“I’ll have to take your word for that,” David said.
“Wait. You don’t meditate?” Ziggy asked.
“I’m the one conducting this interview,” David said.
“Because if you’ve never tried transcendental meditation, you really should. It will change your life.”
“Mr. Hummel, there are some important questions that I need to ask you. Can we please get to them?”
“Man, it’s crazy how tense you are. You know what would help you with that?”
“I’m going to stop you right there.”
“Right. You have questions for me. So what else do you want to know?”
“To start, I can’t help but wonder how you manage to be so laid back when you were just fired from your job a few days ago.”
“If you had completed five different meditation sessions in the last seventy-two hours, you would be calm as well.”
“So you aren’t holding a grudge about getting booted from your job, then?” David asked.
Ziggy shook his head. “No. If anything, I owe Delilah a debt of gratitude.”
<
br /> David’s nose crinkled. “How do you figure?”
“I was in a dark place, but she showed me the light.”
“By firing you?”
“Sometimes drastic measures are required to make someone see what is truly important.”
David gave him a wary look. “Uh-huh.”
“Besides, working at the crystal shop was never my true calling. Now that I have been freed from the shackles of hourly labor, I can pour my passion into creating my music.”
I held my pointer finger up. “Speaking of hourly labor, let’s go back to why you were fired. You said you were in a dark place.”
“I would prefer not to revisit that storm cloud in my past,” Ziggy said.
“I’ll bet. Especially since you were trying to put a hex on Delilah’s estranged husband,” I said.
“Why must we discuss this?” Ziggy said.
“I think that’s pretty obvious. You clearly had strong feelings for Delilah. But she didn’t feel the same way about you, did she?” I said.
Ziggy fidgeted. “I’m not comfortable with the direction of this conversation.”
“Because she didn’t have feelings for you?” I said.
“I don’t know where you got the idea that I was romantically interested in Delilah,” Ziggy said.
“How about the fact that you were willing to perform a hex on her husband?” I said.
“Justin is a dark shadow of a human being with a lump of coal for a soul. He broke Delilah’s heart. If anyone deserved to be hexed, it was him,” Ziggy said.
“Ziggy, you’re just proving my point now,” I said.
“Say I did care for Delilah romantically. That would only make me more broken up by her death,” Ziggy said.
“Only you’re overlooking the part where your feelings were unrequited,” I said. “Love is a magical thing, except when it goes wrong.”
“I would never hurt Delilah. And if you’re trying to insinuate otherwise, you’re wasting both your time and mine,” Ziggy said.
Chapter Seventeen
Matt Tilden was a brawny, mustached, tattooed, thirty-eight-year-old man who had a shaved head and very little interest in speaking with David and me. But he had no choice. We weren’t going to leave his workplace, Treasure Cove Auto Repair, until we got our questions answered.
Matt elected to head out back behind the repair shop to talk to us instead of conducting the interview in plain view of his boss.
“Mr. Tilden, isn’t it true that you stormed into Delilah’s crystal shop yesterday in a rage?” David asked.
“I wouldn’t say it was a rage,” Matt replied.
“We heard differently,” David said.
“Who told you that? Was it that space case who was behind the cash register?” Matt said.
“Mr. Tilden, the focus is on you right now,” David said.
Matt scoffed. “This is crazy. I can’t believe you just showed up at my job to hassle me like this. Why don’t you just leave me alone?”
“We’d be happy to,” David said.
“Good—”
David cut Matt off. “Once we get answers to our questions. Now, back to this incident at the crystal shop.”
“First of all, it wasn’t an incident,” Matt said.
“Fine. Misunderstanding. Whatever you want to call it. From what we hear, it was pretty heated,” David said.
Matt pointed at David. “I know what you’re doing.”
“Trying to discover the truth,” David said.
Matt shook his head. “No. You think I had something to do with that crazy lady’s death. But I didn’t.”
“Why don’t you calm down?” David asked.
“How about you back off, first?” Matt said.
“You know, when you behave like this, you aren’t exactly helping your case,” David said.
Matt threw his arms out. “How else do you expect me to behave? This is nuts. I had no reason to want that woman dead.”
David snickered. “You must think we’re idiots. But guess what? We’re not.”
“We know about the memory eraser enchantment that Delilah performed on your ex-girlfriend,” I said.
“I’m sure you do. And I’ll bet you think that gives me a killer motive,” Matt said.
“Well, you did storm into the crystal shop and make a big scene,” David said.
“I admit that I didn’t react well when I found out about that crazy enchantment,” Matt said. “But when I left the shop, I cooled down and moved on with my life.”
I put my hands on my hips. “You can understand why we’d have a hard time believing that.”
Matt shook his head vehemently. “No. This is all just nuts to me. After all, my girlfriend is the one who broke up with me. If I really had such an ax to grind, why wouldn’t I have just killed her?”
“Because maybe you thought you could win your ex-girlfriend back. I mean, clearly you still have feelings for her. Delilah, meanwhile, was the one who had the power to make your ex forget about you,” I said.
Matt scoffed. “Come on. You don’t actually believe that crazy crystal shop mumbo jumbo, do you?”
My eyebrows knitted. “If you thought Delilah’s services were bogus, then why did you get so worked up and storm into her shop in the first place?”
“Because it’s not about what I believe. My girlfriend was the one who bought into Delilah’s hogwash,” Matt said. “That crazy crystal lady poisoned the well.”
I scratched my forehead. “Wait a minute. Something isn’t adding up.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Matt said. “You’re wasting your time suspecting me of anything.”
“That isn’t what I meant. Now, you just said that Delilah poisoned the well. But if your ex only went to Delilah for the memory eraser enchantment, it would have been too late for that to be true. After all, you had already broken up by then.” I bit my lip. “Unless your girlfriend had gotten some service previously from Delilah—before your breakup occurred.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Matt snapped.
I stared deep into his eyes. “I just hit on a sore spot, didn’t I? Your ex-girlfriend had gone to Delilah before, hadn’t she? What did Delilah tell your girlfriend that made you believe that she poisoned the well?”
Matt narrowed his eyes. “That doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me,” David said.
“Yeah? Well it doesn’t change anything. Like I told you before, I didn’t kill Delilah,” Matt said.
“There’s one way to prove that,” David said.
“How?” Matt said.
“Tell us where you were last night,” David said.
“I was at home, watching the Marauders game,” Matt said.
“Alone?” David said.
“Do you want me to tell you everything that happened during the game to prove that I was watching it? Because I can do that,” Matt said.
“That doesn’t prove anything,” David said. “You could have taped the game and watched it later. Or you could have read a summary of the game.”
“Look. I was watching the game last night—”
David cut Matt off. “Alone, you mean?”
“Yes. But I was at home,” Matt said.
“I have a difficult time believing that,” David said.
“I don’t know what else to tell you,” Matt said. “Except that I need to get back to work.”
Chapter Eighteen
The walk back to David’s car was a disappointing one.
“Who knew the truth was so hard to come by?” David said.
“Especially from a group of people who were so quick to plead their innocence,” I said.
“Yeah. It’s a shame they were so allergic to giving us straight answers.”
“Well, it is allergy season,” I joked.
“Too bad there isn’t a medication to clear up chronic lying.”
“No. That would make this case too easy.”
“You wouldn’t hear me complaining,” he said. “Doing things the hard way gets awfully tiring.”
“I’m with you. Exhaustion is having its way with me right now,” I said.
“I’m sure your empty stomach has a little something to do with that.”
“Yeah. I could definitely go for some brain food.”
David put his hand on his belly. “Or just any food, really.”
“It’s settled, then. Let’s take a break before getting back to work.”
“I actually think we should give this case a rest for the night.”
My eyebrows rose. “Really?”
“Unless you have any burning leads that I don’t know about.”
“I’m afraid I can’t help you there.”
“Neither can I,” he said. “We’ve questioned all the suspects, we’re completely out of leads, and my brain feels like pudding right now.”
“Mmm, pudding.”
He chuckled. “I can see that your mind isn’t on the case right now, either.”
“Hey, you’re the one who brought up pudding.”
“You’re right. I should have known better than to have mentioned a dessert item around you.”
“It’s too late now. I have chocolate pudding on my mind, and there’s no getting rid of it until I have a bowl of my own.”
“How about we start with some dinner first?”
I shrugged. “I suppose we can do that.”
“If it were up to you, we’d just jump straight to dessert, wouldn’t we?”
“What can I say? It has been a stressful day. During times like this, it’s hard to go wrong with chocolate.”
Chapter Nineteen
Once again, chocolate did not let me down. But even though pudding was able to buoy my spirits for the remainder of the evening, the break in the case that I was looking for remained elusive. So after finishing up dinner and dessert, David and I decided to shut our investigation down for the night in favor of getting some much-needed rest.
Unfortunately, when I woke up the following morning, I was just as stumped as ever. Perhaps some caffeine could jump start my mind. I headed over to Daley Buzz to find out.
Daley Buzz Cozy Mystery Boxed Set Page 91
