Cast Iron Will (The Cast Iron Cooking Mysteries Book 1)

by Jessica Beck

  Once we were all outside, Kathleen got started. “Did Pepper find you?”

  “He did,” I said. “Thanks for sending him our way.” After he’d told Annie about the alibi, he shared it with me as well, leaving us a substantial tip on his way out, too. I suspected that we hadn’t seen the last of him based on the way he had raved about Annie’s cooking.

  “Good. I asked him to come by. It turns out that Bryson is in the clear, and so is Lydia.”

  “What?” Annie asked incredulously.

  “You sound surprised,” Kathleen said.

  “That’s because she was near the top of our list,” I chimed in.

  “Why is that?”

  “According to one of our sources, Chester suspected her; she wanted his money, not to mention their mother’s jewelry.”

  Kathleen looked at me oddly. “How did you hear about that?”

  “What can I say? People talk,” I said noncommittally. I was reluctant to tell our older sister where I’d gotten the information. Harper had placed her trust in me, and I saw no reason to name her as my source.

  “I bet they do. We still haven’t been able to crack open that will yet, but thanks to Chester’s letter that you two shared with me, we have a pretty good idea what is in it. The good news is that we found all the jewelry in question in Chester’s safe, and Lydia’s alibi checks out, too. I was able to confirm it this morning.”

  “Wow, that was good police work, Kathleen,” Annie said.

  “Believe it or not, I haven’t been sitting around just waiting for you to solve this case for me. Just in case he made your list, too, I was able to clear the attorney, Robert Benton III, as well.”

  “How did you know that he was among our suspects?” I asked her.

  “I didn’t know for sure, but he made mine, so I figured there was a good chance you two were looking at him as well. Luckily for him, he was in Atlanta when the murder occurred. Who does that leave on your list?”

  “We’ve still got Harper and Franklin left,” I admitted.

  “Well, you can forget all about Harper. Franklin did it, as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Do you have some proof that we don’t?” I asked her.

  “If you think about it, it’s pretty clear that he’s the only one left who had the motive, the means, and the opportunity. It’s no secret that he and his brother disliked each other in the extreme, and he lied to me about not seeing Chester days before he died. I have an eyewitness who puts them together the night before the murder, just after Chester’s argument with Harper. That leaves his greed, and there’s no doubt in my mind.”

  “Was Les your eyewitness to that argument, too?” Annie asked her.

  Kathleen looked at her askance. “I’m not even going to ask you how you knew that, but yes, Les was the one who told me. Oh, and Franklin drives a dark-blue Suburban, so he could have easily been the one who tried to run Chester down. My guess is that when that failed, he decided to take a more direct approach with a rifle before he settled on a frying pan.”

  “We can’t even confirm that he was at the Iron the day before the murder,” I said. “How could he swipe Annie’s pan?”

  “Maybe he took it a few days earlier than we first thought,” Kathleen said, and then she turned to our sister. “Annie, can you honestly tell me that it wasn’t missing until just before the murder? Do you use that pan every day?”

  “I think so,” she said, and then she looked at me. “Pat, could I have been wrong about that?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m inclined to doubt it,” I said. “Annie, you work with those things every day.” I turned to Kathleen. “What about the shooting? Do you have anything concrete about him owning a weapon of his own? And what about his alibi?”

  “Just because we can’t find any record of him being armed doesn’t mean that he’s not, and as for the alibi, nobody saw him driving back to Maple Crest. He might as well have claimed to be home in bed alone like a few of my other suspects. No, it’s Franklin. I’m sure of it.”

  “I wish I could be as sure of it as you seem to be,” I said.

  “Pat, if we wait around for all of our questions to be answered, it may be too late. I’m not about to stand around doing nothing while Franklin takes off for parts unknown. Do me a favor, you two. Stay away from him. He’s dangerous, and I don’t want you taking any chances. I can’t afford to lose either one of you, even if one of you is just a spare.” It was an old joke, but she’d made her point.

  “We won’t go anywhere near Franklin until this is resolved if we can help it,” I said.

  “Pat, how can you possibly promise that?” Annie asked.

  I just shrugged. “We don’t have much choice, Annie.”

  She reluctantly nodded her head. “Okay, I agree.”

  Kathleen looked more relieved than anything else. “Thank you both. I was afraid that was going to be harder than it turned out to be. Don’t worry. I’ll let you know when it’s all over.”

  She left, ducking into the rain instead of going through the store to get back to her cruiser.

  Annie wasn’t ready to go inside just yet, though.

  She grabbed my arm before I could move, either. “What was that all about? Why did you force me to make that promise to Kathleen?”

  “Because I think she’s wrong,” I said. “I’ve been thinking about it, and I believe Harper is the real killer.”

  CHAPTER 24: ANNIE

  “Harper?” I asked Pat. “Really? What makes you think that?”

  “Let’s consider what we’ve been able to learn so far,” my brother said. “Everyone now knows that Harper had a major argument with Chester the day before he died. Shoot, she even admitted it. She also confessed that she’d come by the Iron earlier that same day, so she could have easily swiped that pan of yours, and lastly, her alibi was that she was home alone. Why couldn’t it be her?”

  “She drives a red Miata, for one thing,” I reminded him.

  “That doesn’t mean that she couldn’t have borrowed someone else’s car to take a run at Chester, or even that it might have just been a coincidence,” he argued.

  “Okay, then how about the gunshots? We can’t find any evidence that she’s ever fired a gun, let alone owned one.”

  “This is the South,” Pat said. “Need I remind you how many women are taught to shoot at an early age by their fathers? Dad taught you, didn’t he? Why should Harper be any different? There’s something else, too. She’s been awfully interested in discovering what I know about the case, and just as dedicated to feeding me information and speculation about our other suspects.”

  “She could be doing all of that out of her love for Chester. Her explanation that she wanted to share what Chester told her before something happened to her too could still be valid,” I reminded him. “Harper doesn’t deny that they had a fight, and the next day he was murdered before she had a chance to make up with him. Isn’t that motivation enough for her to do her best to make sure that the killer is caught?”

  For the first time, my brother was beginning to look a little unsure about his theory. “I guess you could be right. Maybe I was just blinded by the way she kept seeking me out so she could feed me information about everyone else. Perhaps Kathleen is right after all, and Franklin is the real killer.”

  “It’s possible,” I said.

  “So, do you honestly think that he might have killed his brother, too?” Pat asked me.

  “I’m not ready to say that, but I don’t think we should give up on either one of them until we get more information. That’s why I didn’t want to agree to stay away from Franklin.”

  “Sorry, Sis. It looks as though I blew it.”

  I wasn’t about to kick my brother when he was down. “If I’d had the same experience with Harper that you’d had, I probably would have felt the same way you did,” I said. “We might not be able to approach Franklin, but Kathleen didn’t say a word about us talking to Harper again.”

  “You’re r
ight. Let’s get the store closed up, and then we’ll go see if we can put a little more pressure on her. Who knows? We might just get lucky and make her crack.”

  “It’s worth a shot,” I agreed and I turned to go back inside.

  Through the rain, I heard something in the woods beside the store, like a stick breaking from a heavy footfall.

  Someone was out there; I just knew it.

  Was it Franklin or maybe even Harper eavesdropping on our conversation? Or perhaps it had just been a squirrel running through the woods. If it was one of our two last suspects, then they knew our game plan, and worse yet, how to thwart us.

  I nearly jumped out of my skin when my cell phone rang as I peered into the rain. I planned to ignore it until I saw that it was Kathleen.

  “Hey. Did you get Franklin?”

  “We can’t find him,” she said, sounding nearly out of breath. “You two need to be extremely careful. He’s dangerous, and if your theory is right that he has something against the two of you as well, you’re both in danger. You need to get away from the Iron as fast as you can right now.”

  “Do you really think that he’d come after us?” I asked her softly. There was movement in the woods again, but I still couldn’t see anything suspicious.

  “He killed Chester on your front porch with one of your frying pans for a reason. We just don’t know what it is yet.”

  “Okay, we’ll be careful, but we have to close up first, even if he’s outside waiting for us.”

  “Is it worth dying over, Annie?” I didn’t think I’d ever heard my sister that agitated before, and it had my nerves on edge.

  “We’ll be as quick as we can,” I said. “Do me a favor and let me know when you find him, would you?”

  “Will do.”

  “What was that all about?” Pat asked me after I hung up.

  “Let’s go inside first,” I said, still trying not to be so obvious as I scanned the woods.

  “Now do you want to tell me?” he asked as we walked into the Iron.

  I bolted the back door before I spoke. “Did you hear something in the woods just then?”

  “I did, but it was probably just a squirrel,” he said. “They sound as though they weigh a hundred pounds sometimes. Are you getting jumpy, Sis?”

  “Shouldn’t we both be on edge?” I asked him. “After all, there’s a killer loose in town, and they may want to harm us.”

  “Who was on the phone? Was it Kathleen?”

  “It was,” I said. “She can’t find Franklin.”

  Pat took that news in before he spoke. “That doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s going to come after us next.”

  “It’s not exactly good news either, is it?”

  “What does she suggest we do?”

  “She told me that we need to get away from the Iron as quickly as we can manage it,” I told him.

  “That’s probably not bad advice,” Pat replied.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind.”

  He shrugged. “What can I say? We’re both new at this. How can we be so sure that we’re right about either one of them? I’m going to send Skip home, and then we’re going to wrap things up here as quickly as we can. I don’t see what possible harm it could do taking Kathleen’s advice on this.”

  “Are you worried?” I asked him.

  “You said it yourself. There’s a killer roaming the streets, and we may be the next two people on their list.”

  “Does that mean that you’ve changed your mind about pressing Harper?”

  He sighed. “No, I don’t think we have any choice. If Kathleen’s right, it won’t hurt anything, but if she’s wrong, somebody needs to keep an eye on our other suspect.”

  “Then we have a plan. We finish up here, and then we lock up and go find Harper Gentry.”

  CHAPTER 25: PAT

  It was the fastest we’d ever closed the Iron, and I had to wonder if Annie hadn’t skipped a step or two cleaning up her grill. She was usually diligent in making sure that everything would be ready to use first thing the next morning, but we had something more urgent to do.

  As for me, I didn’t even bother running our reports or totaling the cash we’d taken in. I decided to do that in the morning, and I jammed the entire till’s contents into our safe. “Are you ready?” I asked her after I’d safely stored the money away.

  Annie frowned as she looked around her area. “I hate leaving things like this.”

  “We can always come in early tomorrow,” I said. “From what you said, Kathleen was pretty adamant about us getting out of here as soon as possible.”

  “Between what she said and the feeling I had out back that someone was watching us, I can’t get out of here fast enough.”

  We went out through the front door, locking up behind us, and we headed to the parking area where we kept our vehicles. I decided to bring something up that I’d been thinking about since Kathleen had called my sister. “Annie, should we split up? It will make searching for Harper a lot easier, because we can cover twice as much ground.”

  “I don’t care how much sense it makes, Pat, I don’t want to be away from you right now. Do you think I’m being silly?”

  “No, you’re probably right. It’s bound to be safer if we stick together,” I said. “Let’s take your car. It’s not as obvious as my truck is, and besides, if we leave my vehicle parked out here, anyone who comes looking for us will think that at least one of us is still inside.”

  “How is that to our advantage?” she asked me.

  “If the killer thinks that we’re here, they won’t expect us to be someplace else,” I said.

  “That makes as much sense as anything else does,” Annie answered as we headed for her car.

  We drove to Harper’s place, but Annie stopped well short of it. “Why are you parking here?” I asked her.

  “Well, we can’t exactly drive up to her house and knock on the front door, can we?”

  “Why shouldn’t we do exactly that?” I asked. “After all, we’re not accusing her of anything. We’re here to ask her some questions. Is there any reason this shouldn’t be presented as a normal visit?”

  “Probably not,” Annie conceded as she started her car again. “I guess I’m still jumping at shadows. You’re not armed, are you?”

  I looked at her oddly before I answered. “Have you ever known me to carry a weapon around on me?”

  “No, but these circumstances are a little different. What if she is the killer and she decides to make a run at us?”

  “Well, one thing’s certain; neither one of us is about to turn our back on her, so if she comes after us with any sort of weapon, it won’t be a sneak attack.”

  “Just because she may have conked Chester on the back of the head with one of my skillets doesn’t mean that she’ll try to use the same kind of weapon against us,” Annie said.

  “Sorry, but I’m not armed. Don’t you have anything in your car we can use for protection?”

  “Not that I can think of, but feel free to look through the glove box,” she said.

  I opened it and started rooting around. “Hey, here’s the multitool I gave you for Christmas two years ago.” It was a combination set of pliers, a file, screwdrivers, small knives, and a few other doodads, all presented in one tool.

  “Sorry I haven’t used it yet,” she said. “I’ve been meaning to take it out of the car, but I keep forgetting.”

  “Right now, I’m glad that you didn’t,” I said as I started unfolding the tool and opening the largest knife within it. It was only three inches long, but it was the best that we could do on such short notice. “Take this. You might need it,” I said as I folded the knife back into the handle.

  “What are you going to use?” she asked me as she took it.

  I tapped my temple and grinned at her. “I’ll think of something. After all, I’m the brains of the operation, remember?”

  “Pat, this isn’t the time to be funny.”

  “I
know,” I said, “but don’t worry about me. If things get rough, I’ve got you to protect me.”

  Annie tucked the multitool into her pocket, and we drove all the way up Harper’s drive.

  Once we got out of the car, I said, “Here goes nothing,” and we approached the front door.

  There was only one problem, though.

  She wasn’t home.

  “What do we do now?” Annie asked me.

  “You go that way, and I’ll go this way,” I suggested. “There’s got to be a chance that she’s around back.” At least the rain had finally stopped.

  “What happened to us sticking together?” Annie asked me.

  “We’re not driving off in separate directions. We need to split up for just a minute to make sure she doesn’t sneak up on us. Don’t worry. Everything will turn out fine.”

  “Okay, but be careful,” Annie said.

  “See you in a minute,” I said.

  Annie took off in one direction, and I headed in the other. If Harper was outside instead of in the house, one of us would run into her soon enough, and the other would be there soon, coming from the other direction for backup.

  At least that was our plan.

  It was too bad that it didn’t work out that way.

  When I got to the side door, I decided that it wouldn’t hurt anything to peek inside. As I approached, though, I was startled when it opened suddenly, and our murder suspect was standing much too close to me for my own comfort.

  “Pat, what are you doing creeping around outside my house?” Harper asked me critically. She was toweling off her hair, and her clothes looked fresh.

  “In my defense, I rang your bell first,” I said. I didn’t want to give away the fact that my twin was there with me, so I vowed to keep using the singular instead of the plural.