He followed her out into the police station reception area. Dozens of people milled around. Some sat on chairs in the waiting room. Others stood at the front desk and yelled at the officer in charge.
Kim paused to get her bearings. A few feet in front of her, a uniformed policewoman comforted a crying woman. The woman wailed and thrashed against the policewoman’s embrace. For some reason, Kim couldn't take her eyes off the woman. Aaron came up next to her. “Who is that?”
“That’s Pat Malloy’s widow, Natalie,” Aaron replied. “Christine is just breaking the news to her now.”
All of a sudden, Natalie Malloy clapped her eyes on Kim. She shook the policewoman’s hands off and flew at Kim with her teeth bared. Aaron tried to step between them, but he didn't move fast enough. Natalie clawed at Kim's face with her fingernails and only just missed gouging her eyes out. She would have torn Kim's flesh from her bones if Aaron hadn't pulled her away.
“You did this!” Natalie shrieked. “You killed my husband. Pat always favored you, and this is how you repay him. He told me how careful you were to pass all your inspections. He told me you planned for weeks to get ready for his visits. You had something going on with him, didn’t you? Admit it. You ran around with my husband behind my back, and then you killed him. You witch! I'll get you for this!”
Kim tried to answer, but she was too busy defending herself to get the words out. By the time Aaron dragged Natalie away, emotion got the better of Kim, and she beat a hasty retreat out of the police station.
The afternoon sun blinded her, and she paused on the sidewalk outside the station to get her bearings. Across the street, the domed pinnacle of the courthouse spread its marble arches into the clear blue sky. The bell at St. Andrew’s Church on Harbor Square pealed across the city to chime the hour of one o'clock. People relaxed all over the square. Some of them smiled at Kim.
She dropped her eyes to the ground and hurried away. She wasn’t part of Camellia Cove's peaceful scene. She wasn't even alive anymore. She couldn't listen to the conversations of tourists pointing at the courthouse and the church and taking pictures. She couldn't wave to the driver of the Seaside Express just rolling out of the train station. All those sights and sounds galled her to her core.
A familiar voice hailed her from behind. “The dead have arisen from the crypt. All hail the Queen of the Dark.”
She turned around to find Betts approaching with her arms outstretched. A popsicle stick hung out of her mouth. Kim spun around and started walking the other way. “Leave me alone, Betts. I'm not in the mood for jokes right now.”
Betts missed a beat and stopped. Then she raced to catch up. She strode at Kim’s side and twirled her popsicle in her mouth. “Hey, Kim. I was walking down the street earlier today, and I saw a cat with a tail shaped like a balloon. It stuck up above the cat's back end and lifted it off the ground. The cat walked along on its front paws, and the balloon held up its back end so it didn't have to use its back feet at all. What do you think of that?”
Kim stopped and faced her friend. She glared at her, and Betts sucked her popsicle with a big silly grin on her face. In the end, Kim couldn’t hold herself back anymore. She burst out laughing, and Betts laughed along with her.
Then Kim’s laughter changed. Her shoulders heaved, and her chin sank down on her chest. She laughed until the tears rolled down her cheeks and she covered her face with her hands. She howled in despair.
Betts ran over and threw her arm around Kim’s shoulders. “Hey, hey, hey. What’s going on here? Is this the way you respond to my jokes? You're gonna give me a complex.”
Kim sobbed on her friend’s shoulder. “You don’t understand, Betts. This morning everything was hunky-dory, and now everything's fallen apart. What am I gonna do?”
“Well, you know,” Betts replied, “I always find sugar and caffeine to be a big help for that sort of thing.”
“Can’t you stop joking for five seconds and listen to me?” Kim screeched. “I could handle a capital murder charge. I could even handle going to prison for the rest of my life. It’s the shop I can't stand losing. I put every penny of my divorce settlement into this business after I split up with Eric, and I've put every hour of my life and every scrap of my heart and soul into this business. Now it's all fallen apart.”
Betts stopped walking again and held Kim against her chest. She didn’t say anything for a long time. After a few minutes, she guided Kim to a bench next to the sidewalk and sat her down. She didn't remove her arm from Kim's shoulders.
Kim finished crying and wiped her face on her sleeve. “How could this happen? Everyone always raved about my cookies. That’s what gave me the idea to open my own bakery. Now they want to pin Pat's murder on me. Do you know what Aaron said? He said someone put strychnine in the cream cheese frosting. He said I'm the one who would know Pat was the only customer who got frosting on his cookie. He says I'm the only one with access to the frosting, so I'm the main suspect.”
Betts snorted. “Well, at least you didn’t put eggplant into it. Then you would have nothing left. I don't know if I could help you if that was the case.”
Kim launched herself off the bench. “I’m not talking to you anymore. This is serious, and all you can do is joke around. Leave me alone. I'll deal with this by myself.”
Betts hurried after her. They strode down the block and turned a corner until Kim froze in her tracks. She stared across the street at the Pembrooke Bakery. The curly decorative trim around the roof and the italic lettering on the remaining front window smiled out at the world like nothing ever happened. But the yellow cordon tape screaming “Crime Scene” and the empty window frame sticking out like a missing tooth told a different story.
Betts came up next to her, and the two women gazed together at the deserted cookie shop. In the end, Betts broke the silence. “Listen, Kim, no one knows better than I do how much this business means to you. You had a rotten time with Eric, and after he put you in the hospital last time and you finally got up the nerve to leave him, you found a new reason for living with this business. I’ve been with you every step of the way, and I'll be with you every step of the way through this murder charge.”
Kim humphed, but didn’t answer.
“I know you’re innocent,” Betts went on. “You always got on well with Pat Malloy, and you never had any reason to kill him. I can think of dozens of other people in this town who will stand by you, too, including that hunky Detective Sergeant Aaron Walker.”
Kim bit her lip and turned away. “You don’t know what it was like to sit across the table from him and listen to him accuse me of murder. I've had a crush on Aaron since we moved up from middle school to high school. I always hoped one day we could be something more than friends, and now he thinks I'm a murderer.”
“He doesn't think you're a murderer,” Betts countered. “He knows you're innocent, and I bet if I was a fly on the wall while he was questioning you, I would have heard him say so. He's a cop. He's got to investigate the murder, and you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. He has to suspect you. You know that.”
“I know,” Kim muttered.
Betts took hold of her friend’s shoulders and turned her around to face her. She even took the popsicle out of her mouth. “Listen to me, Kim. Stop looking at the shop. You’ll only make yourself more depressed about it, and we've got work to do.”
“I can’t work,” Kim replied. “I’m not allowed to re-open the shop until the Crime Lab says so.”
“We’re not going to work on your cookies,” Betts told her. “We’re gonna solve this murder case. We're gonna prove you didn't kill Pat.”
Kim frowned. “How are we going to do that? All the evidence points to me.”
“We’re gonna find out who really killed Pat,” Betts replied. “You didn’t do it, so somebody else did.”
“Who?” Kim asked.
Betts waved her hand. “Oh, I don’t know. You're ten times smarter than I am, and prettier, too. Everybody l
oves you.”
“That won’t help me solve a murder case,” Kim argued. “I’m a cook, not a sleuth.”
“Well, we can’t stand around mooning over spilt milk,” Betts declared. “The only way you’re going to get your cookie shop back on its feet is to find out who killed Pat and how. So that's what we're going to do.”
Kim started to ask again how they were going to do that when neither of them had any investigation experience when she paused and studied her best friend. Then a light came on in her face. “You know what, Betts? You’re right. We're gonna crack this case, and I'm gonna make my shop better than it ever was. You wait and see.”
Betts stuck her popsicle back into her mouth. “Good. That’s more like it. Now what do you want me to do first?” She spread her arms wide. “I am yours to command, Oh Master.”
Kim snickered. “Thanks, Betts. You always make me feel better.”
Chapter 3
Betts went home, and Kim turned away from the empty shop to do the same when a ball of fluff squeezed out from behind a tree. He rubbed against Kim’s legs. “Winslow! What are you doing here still? I thought you would have gone home hours ago.”
She gathered the cat into her arms. She groaned when she picked him up. “You really have to stop eating so many cookies. The vet will have me up on charges pretty soon.”
The cat snuggled under her chin and purred. “Were you waiting for me? Is that why you didn’t go home? Were you lost and confused and waiting for me to come back? You poor thing. Come on. I'll take you home and we can both relax. Maybe if I put the case out of my mind for a while, I'll be able to think of a way to solve it.”
She turned away. She couldn’t look at her precious cookie shop anymore without a lump sticking in her throat. Would it ever re-open? Was this the end of her dream?
Before she could take a step, a flash of movement caught her eye from a corner of the building. She looked closer and recognized a man with a thick thatch of brown hair. A bushy mustache covered his upper lip and hung down on either side of his mouth.
Kim scooted down the path with her cat still cradled in her arms and peeked around the building. The man stood with his back to her in front of her loading dock. The rolling door stood open with boxes and cans and crates of food ingredients sitting in plain view just inside the store room. Aaron didn’t give her a chance to close the door before he took her downtown.
The man wasn’t interested in the supplies, though. He fiddled with the padlock hanging loose from the hasp. Kim always hung the lock there when she opened the shop in the morning. He lifted it off the hasp and turned it over in his hand.
Kim burst out from her corner and shouted at him. “Ivor Wilson! Just what do you think you’re doing here?”
Ivor jumped three feet into the air and spun around. “Oh, Kim. There you are. I was wondering when you would get back from the police station. I heard Detective Walker questioned you in connection with Pat Malloy’s death.”
Kim narrowed her eyes at him. “Of course he questioned me in connection with Pat’s death. Pat died in my shop with my cookie in his mouth. How could I not be connected with his death?”
Ivor shifted from one foot to the other. “Well, exactly.”
Kim hitched Winslow up in her arms. “Now why don’t you tell me what you're doing, poking around my loading dock and messing with my padlock.”
Ivor looked down at the padlock in his hand. His eyes widened as though he was seeing it for the first time. “I was just….you know…..I just wanted to make sure everything was secure here. As I said, I didn’t know when you would be coming back.” He hung the padlock back in its place on the hasp and wiped his hand on his pants.
Kim frowned. “Maybe you wished I wouldn't be coming back. Maybe you would be glad if I got convicted of Pat's murder. Then all my customers would come to your Dappley Donut shop, and you wouldn't have to worry about competition from Pembrooke Bakery anymore.”
Ivor’s eyes popped open. “What makes you think that? I would never want that, Kim. I wouldn’t want you convicted of Pat's murder, no matter how much competition your cookies gave me. You know I've always thought the world of you, Kim. We've always been on friendly terms, even if we are in competition. Let's not spoil that now.”
“It seems to me,” Kim growled, “you’re the one spoiling it. I never stuck my nose into your loading dock, and I never went around handling your locks when you weren’t around.”
Ivor shook his head. “You've got me all wrong, Kim. The whole town is talking about Pat's death. A dozen people came into my donut shop to tell me about Pat dying from eating a poisoned cookie in your bakery.”
Kim snorted. “Great.”
“No one made sure your shop was closed and secure after you left,” Ivor went on. “I came over here to close the doors and lock it up. That’s all. I swear.”
Kim frowned. “Well, I’m here now. I'll close up myself. Thanks anyway. You can go now.”
Ivor started to protest, but then he sighed and nodded. “You let me know if there’s anything I can do to help you. I'm your friend, Kim. Just remember that.”
Kim inched her way around in front of him and positioned herself between him and the rolling door. She took the padlock off the hasp and hefted it in her hand. “I’ve got enough friends helping me. You stick to your own business and stay away from mine.”
Ivor dropped his eyes. “All right. I’m sorry I came around when I wasn't invited. I'll go now.”
Kim watched him slink away around the building and disappear. She stroked Winslow. “I don’t like that guy. He had no business coming around here. If he came snooping around my storage room now, he may have done it before. Maybe he had something to do with Pat's death.”
She sighed and turned around. She surveyed her storage room with one last wistful pang before she balanced Winslow on one elbow and took hold of the rolling door. Then she noticed something odd. The yellow cordon tape covered the front of the building. Kim caught the flash of yellow through the front window.
But no cordon tape blocked the back of the building. Not even the open loading door tipped the Crime Lab off to search the rear of the shop. Maybe they missed something in their investigation of the murder scene.
Kim studied the storage room, but didn’t see anything out of place. She pulled the rolling door down and locked it. Should she tell Aaron the Crime Lab missed searching her store room? What good would that do? He already suspected her, and anything they found there would only implicate her further.
She got her arms around her cat and set off for home. She hurried past the people mowing their lawns and trimming their hedges. Some of them smiled and waved to her the way they always did. The people of Camellia Cove were world famous for their friendliness. But Kim kept her head down and pretended not to see them.
She usually strolled through her neighborhood with a contented smile on her face and even stopped to talk to the people on her street. She knew most of them by name and the decorative gingerbread around their roofs gave the neighborhood a cheery, bygone charm.
But not now. The same delightful tranquility she loved stabbed at her heart. She could never belong to their world again. She could never look at those contented people again without wondering which of them suspected her of Pat’s murder. They would never trust her enough to eat her cookies again. She might as well cut her losses now and close up her shop.
She fought her rising emotions all the way home, and when she got to her own brick brownstone house, she dashed inside and slammed the door on the blue sky and green grass outside. She let Winslow down to the floor and collapsed into a chair.
Winslow went straight to his food dish and started eating. Kim kept her thoughts away from the murder and away from business. If only she could forget about everything outside her house for one night, she might not dissolve in despair.
She forced herself out of her chair and started moving around the house. Now that she didn’t have to worry about getting up and go
ing out to work first thing in the morning, she just might get some much-needed cleaning done.
Sure enough, moving around and focusing on her immediate environment cheered her up. She tidied her kitchen and even vacuumed the floor. Then she set about making herself dinner. The sun slanted down toward the western horizon and set. Kim gazed out the window while she ate, and the old contentment returned. She smiled on her neighbors hanging their laundry on the line to dry and the dogs barking over the fences. She could live with this murder charge if she could find a minute or two to recover.
The sun set, and darkness covered the landscape. Kim cleaned up the dinner dishes and stretched out her legs on the couch. She pulled her favorite book closer with a deep sigh. But before she could open it, her door crashed open and her mother Candace exploded into the room.
Kim wilted, all her peace of mind gone. “Oh, hello, Mom. How are you?”
Candace didn’t even say hello. “Haven’t you heard the news? How can you sit here reading a book when this is going on?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Kim told her.
“It’s that rotten Ivor Wilson again,” Candace yelled. “How could you stand by and let him stab you in the back like this?”
Kim stiffened at the mention of Ivor. “You’re not going on about him cutting his prices, are you? I told you that has nothing to do with me.”
“I’m not talking about that,” Candace shot back. “This a brand new outrage, and you sit here like nothing is happening. If you had acted against him when he attacked you the first time, none of this would have happened.”
“He didn’t attack me, Mom,” Kim grumbled. “How many times do I have to tell you? Ivor has a business to run, just like I do. He’s allowed to cut his prices whenever he wants. I would be making a big mistake to get my knickers in a twist every time he did.”
Candace narrowed her eyes at Kim. “I hope you’re not turning into a joker like your friend Elizabeth. You know I can't stand that ridiculous humor.”
Murder in the Oven: A Camellia Cove Mystery Book 1 Page 2
