That wasn’t true. Speech impediments were often simply just that, impediments. I started to tell that to Luella Marie, but Lidia voice was louder and commanded more attention. “The boy might be guilty, especially if you saw him arguing with Cassidy moments before his death.”
“But we need proof,” I jumped in to say. “You need to talk with the police. You need to tell them what you saw. Immediately.”
“I c-c-can’t escape this p-p-prison for another t-t-two weeks,” she said, her stuttering lisp even more pronounced.
I was offended for Fletcher. “Do you mind not talking like that?”
“L-like w-w-what…? Oh, sorry. I sometimes don’t realize what I’m doing when I think deeply about another person.” She cleared her throat. When she spoke again, she seemed to be using Lidia’s booming voice. “The press is vicious. They can’t accept that a woman ages. No one in La-La Land accepts that a woman ages. It’s even harder now with high definition 4K cameras. Those darn things highlight even the faintest facial lines. If I want to work, I have to have this work done. But Heaven forbid anyone discovers I actually went and got plastic surgery. That’s unforgivable. That’s admitting that you’re too old.”
“I’m sorry about that, but your silence may cause an innocent person to go to jail for a murder she didn’t commit,” I said. “You need to talk to the police.”
“Ah, but the bobby’s ‘ave their culprit, now don’t they?” she said, with a terrible Cockney accent.
“Did you see Jody shoot Cassidy? Did you actually see her pull the trigger?” I demanded.
“I saw ‘er shootin’ all manner of things until all the lights on that mansion went dark.” She pulled a bottle of water from the rusty fridge, twisted off the top, and took a long sip. “But even after the lights went out, the shooting continued. Two more shots.” Her voice was now as flat as the Midwestern plains. “Then I saw him. Flat on his back. Staring at the stars, but not seeing them. He was dead. I loved him. I loved him like I’d loved no other. But he died.” She drew a long, deep breath. “And you can’t get warm at night by loving a dead man.”
Luella Marie had loved Cassidy? My jaw dropped from shock.
At the same time Lidia jumped to her feet and started clapping wildly. “Brava! Brava!”
Althea laughed and clapped as well.
My mouth still hanging open, I stared at my two friends. Had they lost their minds?
Luella Marie smiled broadly. She flung her arm out as she dipped into a low bow.
“A Rocky Love Story is one of my all-time favorite movies,” Lidia boomed. I’d never seen her so animated.
“It is a classic,” Althea agreed.
“I don’t know why the critics were so hard on it,” Lidia continued. “I cried my eyes out when I first heard those words. Look.” She touched her cheeks. “Tears. They’re here in my eyes even now.”
“The best movies are always scorned.” Luella Marie now sounded like a professor in a lecture hall. She drew out her words, putting emphasis on the vowels. “Jealousy. Pure and simple. They are afraid of the powerful, the brilliant. They applaud the mundane because it’s safe.”
“So … wait,” I said. “Were you in love with Cassidy or not?”
She laughed a long, fluid chortle. “I thought I’d already made that obvious. He was an odious little man, a nobody from nowhere. How could I love him? He’d do nothing for my career.”
“Then why were you so upset? Why were you screaming as if you’d just lost your best friend … or your lover?” I demanded.
“Because,” she said still using her professor voice. “Because,” she said in her English accent. “Because,” she said in what I assumed was her natural voice. It sounded lyrical and Southern. “He was shot a few feet from where I was standing. The killer could have easily missed and killed me! I’m a star about to embark on the role of a lifetime. And some nobody who was angry at another nobody had nearly killed me! Honey, if that wasn’t something to scream about, I don’t know what is.”
This conversation wasn’t getting me anywhere. I had too much to do to waste my time here. “You didn’t see who shot Cassidy. But you heard Fletcher arguing with him. You saw Jody shoot the lights on his neighbor’s house. But you didn’t see her shoot Cassidy. Did you see or hear anything or anyone else?”
I got up from the sofa and started to move toward the door even before she answered. Lidia and Althea remained planted on that horrible sofa.
“Did you have a reason to kill Cassidy?” Althea asked.
“Of course I did. He wanted me to … er … entertain him. The jerk said that if I kept his bed warm he wouldn’t call TMZ and tell them what I was doing here in Camellia Beach. But I didn’t kill him, see,” she said, sounding like a female Carry Grant. “Someone wacked him before I could.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Do you believe her?” Althea whispered. The three of us had left Luella Marie’s cottage soon after the actress had confessed to wanting Cassidy dead. Lidia had started to hurry away toward the Pink Pelican Inn.
“You’re not going to tell anyone, are you?” I’d called after her.
“I told Luella Marie I wouldn’t,” Lidia had actually whispered. “But I need to talk with someone about this. I figured since Harriett already knows about Luella Marie, I could gab with her about … you know.”
While Lidia had vigorously and loudly promised Luella Marie not to tell anyone what we’d seen or heard today, both Althea and I had only promised not to cause trouble for her. I’d also crossed my fingers behind my back for good measure. For one thing, Detective Gibbons would arrest me for obstruction of justice if I didn’t tell him all about this meeting with Luella Marie. As soon as Lidia was out of sight, I sent him a quick text, telling him that I’d found Muumuu Woman and included her address.
I then followed Althea to her crystal shop. Her part-time helper could only stay through lunch, which meant Althea needed to get back right away. As soon as we got to the shop, Althea took over unpacking a crate that her helper had been working on. One by one she carefully unwrapped what looked like (to me) the kind of rocks you could find in any gravel parking lot. After she removed each stone, she applied a price sticker.
“Do you believe her?” Althea asked again.
I leaned against her checkout counter and rubbed my chin. Did I believe an accomplished actress’ protestations of innocence? “I think I do believe her. Why would she admit to wanting to kill him if she actually killed him? That’d be stupid. And she didn’t strike me as a stupid woman.”
“If not her or Jody, that just leaves Fletcher. He had motive and was at the scene of the crime,” Althea said.
“That doesn’t mean he’s guilty,” I was quick to say. “He’s only been working at the Chocolate Box for less than a day, and I already can’t imagine not having him around. He could easily become an asset wherever he worked. Why would someone like that get so upset over losing a relatively new job that he’d commit murder? He could get work anywhere and in any town.”
“Why would someone like that kill? Pride? Ego? Money?” Althea ticked those points off far too quickly.
“He’s not a killer.” I refused to believe anything different.
“I’m not so sure. Luella Marie heard him arguing with Cassidy right before his death. She—” Althea dropped the rock she’d been holding. It landed with a crash on the floor. “Wait a blasted minute. What did you just say? Fletch is working at the Chocolate Box? At the Chocolate Box? As in right now? You left him working alone with Mama in the shop right now? You left Mama alone with a killer?” She ran toward her shop’s front door, pausing only to flip the “open/closed” sign over to the “closed” side. “Don’t just stand there and gape at my agates. Come on.”
As I jogged down the street alongside her a text message came in from Detective Gibbons. CALL ME, he’d written. When I didn’t call him right away he texted again, WE NEED TO TALK. When I didn’t respond to that text he wrote, I’M COMING OV
ER.
Great, just great. I didn’t have time to calm Althea down and deal with Gibbons. I’d given him the information he needed. All he had to do was drive over to the cottage and talk with Luella Marie. He didn’t need to talk with me about it first.
“I swear, Althea, if you scare off the best employee I’ve ever had, save for Bertie not that I consider her an employee, I’m never going to forgive you. He’s a wizard with the blender. And he does things before I even have to ask,” I shouted as I struggled to keep up with her.
Althea glared at me before picking up her pace. For someone with short legs, she could sure move fast when she wanted to. We rounded the corner onto East America Street. The shop, less than a half-block away, came into view. Customers were wandering in and out of the front door. A small crowd had gathered on the wide front porch. They were talking, laughing, and enjoying themselves. Standing as far away from any of that without actually stepping foot into the road was a sour-faced woman with her arms crossed over her chest.
At the sight of her my feet stumble over themselves. Before I could catch myself, I ended up face down on the pavement.
“What happened?” Althea reached down to help me back to my feet. “What made you trip?”
“Stupid. Clumsy. Graceless,” I muttered under my breath, unconsciously repeating the litany of descriptions Grandmother Cristobel used to call me. As soon as I realized what I was doing, I bit my tongue. Hard.
With Althea’s hand under my arm, I started to crawl to my feet. The woman had marched over, not out of concern for my safety, but to stand with her hands on her hips and glare down at me as I rose. First I saw her shiny teal leather pumps. Then her perfect knees, knees that looked as if they’d never scraped against the pavement. Her neatly pressed teal and white flowered flare dress looked as if it’d been stolen from the nineteen fifties. Her blood red painted lips pursed with a look of distaste. And finally her hairspray had glued every piece of her artificially blonde hair into place.
“Mother,” I said.
She visibly shuddered at the word.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. Althea hugged my arm in a show of support.
“You called. You told me that you wanted to talk. And I agree. We do need to talk.” She turned and curled her lip at Althea before adding, “In private.”
“No,” I said. “Not in private.”
“That’s right. I’m not leaving,” Althea agreed.
We then did the one thing I knew someone like Florence Corners, AKA Mommy Dearest, would hate the most, we walked past her and headed toward the Chocolate Box.
The clap, clap, clap of her heels followed us.
Inside the shop, we found Bertie and Fletcher standing nearly toe to toe, their hands on their hips. They were singing at the top of their lungs a peppy show tune. A peppy show tune? Bertie and Fletcher were two of the least peppy people I knew on Camellia Beach.
They were singing a show tune?
I shook my head.
“Mother!” Althea cried in horror.
The song abruptly stopped.
The handful of customers cried, “Hey!” and “Don’t stop!”
“Althea Truman Bays,” Bertie snapped the name out with an angry slap of her hands. “You interrupted us mid-verse. Is that how I’ve taught you to act?”
“But-but-but,” she stuttered as she waved her hands at both Bertie and Fletcher. “You-you-you-you are singing a show tune about love. With him. Where anyone can hear you.”
Bertie slapped her hands together again. “There ain’t nothing wrong with what I was doing and don’t you pretend otherwise.”
The customers in the shop seemed to agree. All of them clapped and whistled except Bubba. Bubba was sitting slumped on the sofa near the coffee station. His arms were crossed over his broad chest. His lips were pulled down as if they were trying to reach the ground.
Gracious, that man needed to swallow his fear and ask Bertie out on a date already. Getting jealous over her singing with a man who was younger than her own daughter was ridiculous. Heck, if he wanted to sing with her, he should have simply gotten up and joined in.
Althea continued to sputter until I nudged her arm with my elbow. “You shouldn’t be embarrassed. Everyone loves your mother’s singing.”
“I’m not embarrassed. I’m just…” Althea looked at me, at Fletcher, at the smiling customers, and finally at her mother. With a shrug, she walked over to Bertie and gave her a big hug and a heartfelt apology for interrupting the song.
Bertie hugged her daughter back, but still scolded her a bit more for her rude behavior. After that, things in the Chocolate Box seemed to go back to business as usual. Fletcher returned to work the milkshake blender. Bertie checked the coffee urns. And I slipped a crisp white apron on over my head. This one read, “A day without chocolate is like … just kidding. I don’t know what a day without chocolate would be like.”
“See?” I whispered so only Althea could hear as she followed me behind the counter. “There was nothing for you to worry about. Fletcher isn’t a killer. Killers don’t sing show tunes.”
She didn’t argue, but she did keep a cautious eye on Fletcher as she nudged my arm. “Are you going to just let her stand there?”
I glanced over at the entrance where Florence Corners glowered.
“Sometimes I envy those baby sea turtles you work with,” I said.
“Why’s that?” Althea asked.
“It took me close to thirty-seven years before I got to meet my mother. And your lucky sea turtles never get to know if the turtle swimming next to them is related or not.” It was such a sad thought. Every living thing deserved to know the power of a mother’s love. A mother’s love was supposed to be like a healing balm. It was supposed to make life better. “I kind of wish I was a sea turtle,” I said while keeping my distance from Florence.
“She’s going to scare off customers,” Althea warned. “You need to do something.”
“I was hoping that if I pretended she wasn’t there she’d go away.” Clearly, my ploy wasn’t working. “I suppose I can’t just ignore her. I did call her. And she did come.” I had to force myself to lift my head and look directly at Florence. “Would you like to try some of our new chocolates?” I asked her. “We have a new spicy bonbon that’s wildly popular. And our new salted sea turtles are so popular someone has been stealing them.”
“I wouldn’t touch anything you made,” she called from the doorway. “You don’t even belong here. You stole this place from my family.”
“Oh, come now. You shouldn’t say that. You’re my mother.”
Florence’s eyes grew wild as they darted around the room. She sucked in several sharp breaths. “Don’t say that.”
“It’s not a secret,” Bertie said. “You should come into town more often. If you did, you’d already know that everyone on Camellia Beach has heard all about what you told our Penn.”
Like a banshee set on vengeance, Florence crossed the room to stand directly in front of me. With her hands on her hips, she glowered. I wondered if she practiced that angry look in a mirror. It was flawless.
“We had an understanding,” she growled. “You weren’t supposed to tell anyone what I’d told you.”
“Didn’t seem like information I should keep quiet about. You’re my mother. People would talk if you showed up for Thanksgiving dinner with Bertie and me with no explanation why you’d be invited.”
“I would never have Thanksgiving with you,” she spat.
I shrugged. “Maybe we can bond over Christmas, then. Your place or mine, Mother?”
Without warning her hand shot out and slapped me so hard across the face I stumbled backwards several steps.
“Don’t call me that.” Her voice sounded like the low warning of a cornered animal. “Don’t ever call me that.”
I rubbed my sore jaw. “But it’s what you are. By blood, at least.” It wasn’t as if she’d ever been a real mother to me. Real mothers didn’t leave infant
daughters on doorsteps. Real mothers didn’t try to steal their daughters’ chocolate shops.
“You lying, scheming witch.” She may not have used the word “witch,” but that’s the word I chose to hear as her low, raspy voice grew a decibel louder. “Carolina died before she had any children, which means you’re not my sister’s daughter.”
“No, I’m not.” The truth of it still hurt in my chest. “I’m—”
She swung at me again. This time I was prepared. I grabbed her wrist before her open palm could strike flesh for a second time.
“Don’t,” I said. “Don’t you ever raise your hand to me again.”
With a violent twist, she pried her arm from my grip. “You and I both know you’re not my daughter. I only told you that I’d birthed you when I thought you might be Carolina’s kin. You’d already conned my mother out of her shop. I didn’t want you getting your filthy hands on the big, fat pile of money my mother had set aside in case Carolina or one of her heirs ever returned to Camilla Beach. But now we all know the truth. You’re not Carolina’s daughter. And you’re certainly not my daughter. You are nothing but a lying, scheming witch.”
“I haven’t lied about anything.” Why in the world was she saying this to me? Was she so embarrassed about the circumstances of my birth that she felt she needed to publicly deny our connection? Since Carolina couldn’t possibly be my mother, it had to be Florence. My father couldn’t (or wouldn’t) tell me anything about the woman who had dropped me off on his doorstep. He claimed he couldn’t remember anything about the one-night-stand that had produced me. But the DNA test that the now deceased Skinny McGee had arranged for me had concluded I was Mabel’s granddaughter. This meant my mother was one of Mabel’s daughters. Simple genetics. They were Mabel’s daughters, and I was her grandchild.
In Cold Chocolate Page 20
