Hot Chocolate Glazed Murder: A Donut Hole Cozy Mystery - Book 29

by Susan Gillard

  “Thank you for your time, Mr. Alvarez,” Heather said. “That will be all for now.”

  Uncle George sagged against his desk.

  Chapter 15

  Dave trotted down the sidewalk, his doggy tail in the air and the fresh breeze flapping his soft ears.

  Heather smiled at his back and readjusted her grip on her handbag.

  “That was eventful,” Amy said. “You cracked him like an egg.”

  “Not quite. I think he wanted to talk all along. All Mr. Alvarez need was a little persuasion,” Heather said and tapped the side of her nose. “I’m just glad this is over so we can get home. I can’t wait for Ryan to finish up for the day. Lils is so looking forward to another movie night.”

  Amy jived along. “Oh yeah, it’s a Friday!”

  “The only bad thing about today is we don’t have an alarm tonight,” Heather said.

  “What? Why not?”

  “Ryan called the company yesterday, right?” Heather said. “Well, there was some complication installing it and –”

  Dave let out a single long, bark.

  Amy stopped and frowned at him. “That’s rude, Davey. You’re only supposed to interrupt strangers and bad guys. Don’t you remember?”

  But the doggy dearest didn’t respond to Amy’s scolding. He stared dead ahead at the entrance to Heather’s garden.

  She followed his line of sight, then gasped. “Cupcake?” Heather hurried toward the furry, white ball nearby.

  The kitten sat beneath one of the bushes at the edge of the garden. She meowed at Heather, then unfurled and hurried toward her.

  Heather swept up the kitten and hugged the cutie to her chest. “What are you doing out here, girl. You know, Lilly would have a fit if she found out you’d decided to take a stroll without permission.”

  “She probably slipped out when you left this morning,” Amy said. Dave snuffled around at her feet, then promptly sat down on one of them.

  “No,” Heather said. “No, she couldn’t have. This doesn’t feel right.” She narrowed her eyes and glanced back over her shoulder, then up at the house. A white page fluttered against her door.

  Amy gasped. “What’s that?”

  “I don’t know,” Heather said. “But I’m almost positive it’s not a Naught or Nice list.”

  “Well, of course. Santa would never let that out of his sight,” Amy replied, and chuckled at her own joke.

  Heather handed her the kitten, then strode up the garden path. She reached the stairs and mounted them. “It’s a notice,” she said. Her insides turned cold again. How many times would that happen this week?

  Heather reached the door and unpinned the page from the door. The ragged edge flapped against her palm, and she steadied it in both hands.

  “What does it say?” Amy asked, from the front lawn.

  Heather stomped back down the front stairs and stopped in front of her best friend. “This is one of the lost pages from Sharon Janis’ diary.” She flashed it at her bestie. “And it’s about me.”

  “Oh gosh. Is it mean? Did she write horrible things about you?” Cupcake meowed and purred in Amy’s arms.

  “It says I’m a meddler. That I ruin lives. I interfere where I shouldn’t, and I deserve to be punished,” Heather whispered.

  “Ha,” Amy said. “That’s rich coming from Sharon. Uh, may she rest in peace and everything.” Ames glanced up at the house, then back at Heather. “I don’t understand, how did the note get here? What does it mean?”

  “It means I was wrong about the case,” Heather said, with certainty. “And that I need to call Ryan, right now.”

  Chapter 16

  Heather pressed the phone to her ear and listened to the rings. “Pick up, honey. I need you.” Ryan had never failed to answer her calls. Not once since they’d met, as far as she could recall.

  Amy stood on the sidewalk, the leash in her right hand and Cupcake tucked against her chest in the left. Her gaze didn’t leave the front door of the house.

  “Detective Shepherd,” he said, at last.

  Heather scrunched the note up into a ball. “At last,” she said. “Honey, I was wrong about everything.”

  “What? What do you mean? Is this your way of admitting that we shouldn’t have bought all those Christmas lights?” Ryan asked.

  “No, and how dare you even suggest that,” Heather said. “I was wrong about the case.”

  “Why? How?” Ryan asked, and the connection crackled for a second. “Are you there?”

  “Yeah. We’ve been focusing on the wrong set of suspects, entirely. We were so set on what’d happened to Sharon Janis, that we forgot to consider the other victim of the crime.”

  “Which other victim?”

  “Me,” Heather hissed. “My car was stolen and used to murder her. Why do you think that was?”

  “I don’t know, but I hope you’re going to tell me.”

  “Because the killer wanted to target me.” Heather turned and glanced back up at the house. The living room curtain shifted. “I need two things from you, love.”

  “Anything,” he replied, without hesitation.

  “Phone the lab and ask them to cross-reference the sample they got from the cigarette butt with all of the samples from our old cases. Anything within the last six months or so. I have a feeling they’ll get a hit,” Heather said.

  “Okay, done.” Ryan scraped something on the other end of the line. Probably a pen to a piece of paper. “What else do you need?”

  “You. Here. In the next few minutes. There’s someone in the house, and I have a feeling I know who it is.”

  “You’re not going in there, are you?” Ryan asked as if he already knew the answer.

  Under normal circumstances, Heather wouldn’t put herself in this kind of danger. But this was personal.

  The killer, whoever they were, had scratched up the side of her house, stolen her car and endangered her family. Yeah, this was as personal as it got.

  “I’m waiting three minutes,” Heather said. “After that, I’m going in.” And then she hung up.

  “Please don’t be serious,” Amy said.

  Heather dug around in her handbag and brought out her Taser. “I’m dead serious,” she replied.

  Chapter 17

  Heather squared her shoulders and gazed at the door handle to her house. Heat flushed her face, and sweat dripped down the back of her neck, despite the wind. Despite everything.

  “You can’t go in alone,” Amy whispered. “I won’t let you.”

  “I have to, Ames,” Heather said and raised her Taser. She clicked off the safety and gestured with the device. “I need you to go around to the back of the house with Dave. Make sure he doesn’t try to get out that way.”

  A sneaking suspicion had entered her mind. A memory which made her sleuthin’ gene itch in place. She knew who was in the house. She just didn’t want to believe it, yet.

  “Heather,” Amy said, and Dave whined in stoic support of his master. Amy clutched Cupcake to her chest with her free hand.

  “Enough,” she said. “I need you two to do this for me, okay. Trust me. I have this under control.”

  “All right,” Amy replied, at last. “All right. Just be careful.”

  Heather gave her bestie a thumbs up.

  Amy walked down the front stairs and hit the front path. She made her way toward the side of the house, Dave in tow. The same side that the killer had scratched up only a few days ago. The dog and the blond disappeared from sight.

  Heather focused on the door handle again. She grasped it, and the cool metal slipped against her clammy palm.

  She pressed down, and the door swung inward. Splinters hung from the jamb. The lock had been broken.

  Heather stepped into her entrance hall and walked along the carpet as if she didn’t have a care in the world. She clasped the black plastic in her palm, finger on the button.

  The alarm pad had been removed from the wall. The guys at the company had come that morning t
o upgrade the house’s system, only to tell them that they didn’t have the right parts and leave shortly after to fetch them.

  “Serendipity,” Heather murmured. Surely, the murderer hadn’t counted on a silent house to break into. Or perhaps, he hadn’t cared.

  Heather halted beside the living room entrance. She inhaled and stepped under the white archway.

  The finished Christmas tree stood where she’d left it.

  Billy Fordyce sat on the sofa behind it. His expression didn’t alter upon her entrance.

  Heather inhaled and exhaled. Basic movements. Nothing that would spook this guy into action.

  “Billy,” she said, at last. “Why?”

  “I thought you’d have it all figured out,” he said and ran a shaking hand through thin hair. “Aren’t you supposed to be the amazing Private Investigator Heather Shepherd? The one and only? The answer to Hillside’s problems?”

  Heather moved toward the TV screen. She stopped in front of it with Billy in the center of her view and the window behind him.

  Outside, the street was quiet, except for a single car. It pulled up across the road and parked. A man got out, dressed in a blue uniform. Her husband had arrived early.

  She needed to know more before Billy was arrested.

  “I don’t know everything, Billy,” she said. “I’m sorry about what happened to your mother. I heard she didn’t handle things well after Christa died.”

  Billy’s laughter came out in choked. “My mother decided I was the reason everything had gone wrong. She maintained that I drove my sister toward her death.”

  “But that’s crazy. Christa didn’t die because of you. It was –”

  “I know that,” Billy snapped. “But it doesn’t matter that I know that. It matters that my mother didn’t. You came along with your notepad and your little investigator gig and tore through our lives.”

  Heather swallowed the lump in her throat, but it didn’t budge. “I didn’t mean to harm your family. I wanted to do what was right for Christa.”

  “No,” Billy said. “You wanted to do what was right for you. You didn’t care about Christa or anyone else. This was about your store. Your life. Your strange need to solve the mystery. Don’t pretend you cared because you didn’t.”

  “I –”

  “Don’t!” Billy yelled. The dark circles under his eyes hadn’t disappeared since the last time she’d seen him. He was skinnier, now, though. “You want to know why I killed that stupid gossip?”

  “Yes,” she said, and it was the honest truth. She still didn’t fully understand his reasoning.

  “At first, it was because I wanted everyone to believe you did it,” Billy said. “I planned it for a long time. Weeks, actually. I watched you from afar, the movements you made. I knew that if I involved you in the case, you’d have to investigate it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I wanted this to happen,” Billy said and rose from the sofa. He paced back and forth behind the coffee table, but didn’t come any closer than that, thank heavens.

  “But why Sharon?”

  “I wasn’t going to hurt her, at first. But then I overheard her talking about my mom, a couple of weeks back. She spread rumors about her and about how unhappy my parents were. It made me real angry.”

  “Where is your father?”

  “He left after Christa died. He hated the way my mom acted when you interviewed her. They fought a lot after that, and he left,” Billy said, then shrugged. “That’s my mom’s problem, not mine.”

  This was a lot of information to absorb in one sitting. Heather shook her head to clear it, then honed in on Billy Fordyce again.

  “I stalked Sharon after I heard that. I followed her everywhere. And I broke into her house after I found out where she lived.”

  “And you found her diary,” Heather said, and slowly pieced the puzzle together. “You read all the stuff she’d written about your family and me.”

  “That’s right,’ he said. “And I realized she deserved punishment as much as you did.” Billy cracked his knuckles and made to turn toward the window.

  Heather buzzed the Taser to get his attention.

  He spun to face her and glared. “What, you think you’re going to shock me, now?”

  “What do you want, Billy? Did you come here to talk to me about what you’ve done? Or about what you think I’ve done?”

  “I don’t think it,” he said and pressed his finger against his temple. “I know it. You ruined my family by interfering in our lives. My mother disowned me completely. She always loved me the best, and she disowned me after you spoke to her.”

  Heather’s heart ached. She couldn’t blame herself for this now. All she could do was deal with the current situation and take stock of the damage later. “Billy, you need to calm down,” she said.

  “Why? Why should I calm down?” He asked and grabbed fistfuls of his hair again. “I’ve got nothing left to live for. I planned everything so that I could get to you. Do you really think it was so that we could talk?”

  Heather’s heart skipped a beat. Cold sweat slid down the back of her neck, even though she had two lots of backup on the way. Her husband, and her ever-faithful dog and best friend watching the back entrance.

  But Billy Fordyce wasn’t about to run.

  He reached into the front pocket of his tattered jeans and brought out a switchblade. “I found this is Sharon’s drawer,” Billy said. “Fitting, don’t you think?”

  “The irony isn’t lost on me,” Heather replied. And raised her Taser. “Don’t take a step closer.”

  “But here’s the thing,” Billy said and flipped the knife’s blade out. It didn’t glint at all. Had he used it to scrape up the paint on her house? “I can’t stab you from here, and you can’t shock me from there. We have to move closer to each other. Am I right? It’s only logical.”

  “Don’t move, Billy,” Heather said. “Don’t you dare move.”

  “Or what?” He flashed her a grin, his teeth pitted and stained.

  “Or this,” Ryan Shepherd said, and stepped into the living room. His gun was out, pointed directly at Billy’s head. “Drop your weapon, Fordyce.”

  Billy’s mouth flapped open and closed. “No,” he said. “How? I – what? This isn’t possible!”

  “It’s over, Billy,” Heather said. And for the first time in a long time, she didn’t feel a hint of triumph over closing a case.

  Chapter 18

  Ryan dangled the long string of lights from the top of the ladder and made grunting noises. “Do we have to?” He asked. “I mean, this many?”

  “Yeah, we have to,” Lilly called up. “It’s going to be awesome. If you move it to the right, you’ll get the top of his hat right.”

  Lilly had donned the hat of creative, art director for this particular project and she wore it well.

  Ryan didn’t appreciate the role ‘workhorse, ’ but he didn’t complain either.

  “A miniature Santa Claus in lights,” Amy said. “Now, that’s true Christmas inspiration.”

  “I think Ryan would beg to differ on that one,” Heather replied.

  “Yeah, but he’s a man. Men always complain,” Amy said.

  “You do know that voices carry, right?” Ryan asked, between grunts and ridiculous maneuvers at the top of the ladder.

  “Don’t try to deny it,” Amy called up to him.

  The setting sun colored the front of their home orange. And highlighted the bright pink bow in Lilly’s hair. Eva had called a couple of minutes ago to say she’d come over for donuts and coffee.

  Only a few more weeks till Christmas and Hillside were alive with lights, wonder, and activity. Without the snow.

  “I guess we won’t get a white Christmas this year,” Heather said and raised her palm to the sky. “What a pity.”

  “When last did it snow?” Amy asked. “I forget.”

  “Like three years back? Just a light dusting, though. Not a blizzard.” Heather sighed and dropped
her arm. She focused on her family and the happiness in the scene in front of her.

  “What’s bothering you?” Amy asked. She grasped Heather by the arm and dragged her aside.

  “No, to the left,” Lilly said and waved her arms. Her pink coat made rustling noises. “The left, dad.”

  “All right, relax, would you? I’m getting there. Going to have to move the darn ladder,” Ryan grumbled and squeaked down the steel rungs.

  Heather smiled and turned her back on the scene. She stared out at the residential road instead, empty of cars, including hers.

  “Is it Christmas? Do you have pre-Christmas blues? The long lines? The Christmas shopping?” Amy pressed the back of her hand to her forehead. “Oh, the humanity.”

  “No, goofy. It’s not Christmas that’s bothering me,” Heather replied.

  “Then what’s up?”

  “The case,” Heather said.

  “But the case is over?” Amy asked. “Unless I’m missing something here.”

  Heather stuck out her tongue, then retracted it. “Heavens it’s cold. Look, I’m just not happy with how things went. I didn’t think I’d ever see Billy Fordyce again.”

  “Why?”

  “How do I put this?” Heather asked and pressed her palms together. She placed the sides of her fingers against her lips. “Look, I solved that case. It was the first case I ever sold. Poor Christa was poisoned, and I was nearly blamed for it.”

  “Right, I remember,” Amy said.

  “I thought for sure that I did the right thing by solving that case, but this thing with Billy,” Heather said. “It just makes me feel that I didn’t do the right thing.”

  “Why?”

  “Clearly, Christa’s death was hard for him. But the fact that I solved it, that I pried into his personal life, that affected him more. It created that rift between him and his mother, and in the end, Sharon Janis became the collateral damage.” Shame circled Heather’s mind and curled into a ball in the center of her brain.

  It was there to stay.

  “Okay? I don’t think I’m following.”

  “Don’t you see?” Heather asked. “Sharon would still be alive if it wasn’t for me. She’d be here, gossiping her heart out for Christmas, but because I solved that first case, and didn’t do it the right away, mind you, I created some weird butterfly effect which ultimately ended in Billy ruining his life and Sharon’s.”