Gluten-Free Murder

by P. D. Workman

  So, the shop sat there without the locks being changed. For at least another week.

  She thought she heard a noise in the distance. The clink of a tool. Outside? Downstairs?

  “Is there somebody here?” Erin called down the stairs.

  Was she really expecting someone to answer her? A silly excuse, ‘oh, I was just here because I thought I left something incriminating in the bathroom when I murdered Angela.’ Or, ‘I just wanted a look at that locked cabinet,’ or, ‘I was just testing to see if these were the keys you were looking for.’

  But there was no answer. Erin put down her groceries. She couldn’t take them down to the storeroom if there were someone else in the store. Unless…

  “Vic, is that you?” Maybe Vic had forgotten one of her possessions there and had walked back over from the house. She might have had something stashed away. Or had left her favorite lipstick in the bathroom by accident.

  But there was no reply from Vic.

  Erin pulled out her phone and searched for Officer Piper’s number. Had she remembered to enter it? She remembered him giving her his card, telling her that there was an after-hours line that was manned twenty-four hours a day, even though there was no 9-1-1 service in Bald Eagle Falls. But she didn’t know whether she had put the number into her contacts or not.

  There was only one number listed for Officer Piper and she hadn’t noted whether it was his office number or the 24-hour number. She pressed ‘call’ anyway and waited while the phone took its own sweet time connecting. She had two bars, so it should go through. Finally, she heard the ring tone and waited a bit more for the dispatcher to answer the call.

  “Piper.”

  “Oh… is this your personal cell phone?” Erin was flummoxed and didn’t know what to say.

  “Yes. Who is this?”

  “It’s Erin Price. I meant to call the emergency number, but I must not have written it down. Can you tell me what it is?”

  “They’re just going to turn around and call me, I’m on call tonight. What’s wrong?” His voice had taken on an edge.

  “I’m at the bakery and I think… I think there’s someone here. In the basement. The back door was open. Someone must have picked it or used an extra set of keys to get in.”

  “I told you to change the locks.”

  “I know, but the guy is on vacation…”

  “Michael Fletcher is about as useful as a steering wheel on a mule. You should have called me, I would have lit a fire under him. I’ll be at your store within five minutes. Don’t go down to investigate. Go back outside to your car. Are you parked behind or in front?”

  “Behind.”

  “Just wait for me. Don’t try to do anything yourself. Even if the burglar comes back out, just stay in your car with the doors locked.”

  “Okay.” Erin slipped back out the door. “I called out to them. That was probably a stupid thing to do. I was startled, it was just my first reaction.”

  “I’m hanging up so I can get over there. Just get in your car and wait.”

  “Okay.”

  Piper terminated the call and Erin slid the phone back into her purse. She got into the car and locked the doors, then sat looking at the back door, waiting for the intruder to come back out.

  She didn’t even see Piper at first. He had a dark car and crept down the back lane with no lights on. He pulled in behind her car. He and K9 got out and headed for the back door. Erin unlocked her door to get out and talk to him, but he motioned for her to stay put and entered the bakery, weapon drawn. It was like watching a TV drama with the sound off. Except that once he entered the building, there were no cameras following him, so she was left to imagine what was going on.

  It had to be at least ten minutes before Piper returned to the car. He motioned for her to roll down her window. Erin did.

  “Was there anyone there? Did you find anyone?”

  “They were gone by the time I arrived. Out the front door. I’m sure it wasn’t their preferred exit route, because they could have been seen out on the street, but knowing that you were at the back door, they didn’t have much choice.”

  “Did you see them? Do you know who it was?”

  “No.” He frowned at her. “Why would someone be breaking into your store? We already searched it for evidence in Mrs. Plaint’s murder. I can’t think of a reason for anyone to be there, other than the thrill of visiting the site of a murder.”

  “Well…” Erin trailed off, trying to think of how to avoid telling him about her amateur investigation. “It could be that.”

  “Or…?”

  “It could be the ghost. Seeing if they can catch a glimpse of my ghost.”

  “We both know that your ghost was Vic.”

  “But everybody in town doesn’t know that. Just the three of us. We couldn’t very well go around telling everyone that she’d been hiding out in my bakery.”

  “What else?” He was staring at her. As if he could see right into her brain and tell if she was lying.

  “I might have said that there was a locked cabinet down there,” Erin said slowly. “A mysterious locked cabinet that might hold the secret to a buried treasure. Or something.”

  “And why would you have said that?”

  “I was trying to find out who might have keys from when Clementine was here. She apparently gave out a few of them and I wanted to track them all down. To help you out.”

  “So, you told people there was a locked cabinet.”

  “I thought if I said that I didn’t have a key to it, but Clementine might have given a copy to someone with keys to the bakery… I might be able to find out who had keys to the bakery.” It all sounded pretty lame to Erin when it came out of her mouth.

  “And it didn’t occur to you that people might want to investigate this mysterious cabinet with its clue to a buried treasure on their own? To beat you to the punch?”

  “I didn’t think it through. It was just spur of the moment.”

  “Why don’t you leave the investigating to me?”

  “Yeah. Sorry. It turns out there were a lot of keys floating around, though. If that helps you. Probably Mary Lou, and Melissa, and Gema. Angela herself. Maybe some of the other church ladies.”

  “We may never be able to trace them all. It seems like she gave out her keys pretty indiscriminately. The killer isn’t going to tell us they have keys.”

  “No. I guess not. Did you find anything down there? Any clue as to who it was?”

  “A crowbar. Like someone might use to pry open a locked cabinet.”

  “Oh.” Erin remembered that Gema had suggested something like that. Which didn’t mean it was Gema, of course. Melissa might have taken up her suggestion. Or someone else might have overheard, or had the same idea. It wasn’t exactly proprietary technology.

  “I’ll need you to write up a statement. I’ll get you the forms.”

  Erin nodded. Her evening wasn’t over yet.

  Piper went back to his car and returned with the statement forms for her to fill out.

  “Are you actually after a buried treasure?” he inquired.

  “Uh… no. Vic and I found a map at the house, to some caves and mines in the area, so that’s why it was on my mind.”

  “Really.” His lips pressed together grimly and Erin wondered what he was thinking.

  “Yes… you sound like you don’t believe me.”

  “You haven’t exactly been forthcoming.”

  Erin thought she had been pretty up-front with him, so she wasn’t sure what omission he was talking about. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

  “We found an old map at Clementine’s house. That’s all.”

  “A geological map. What would she have a geological map for? She wasn’t exactly in a business that required it. She didn’t hike or climb. It’s curious.”

  “Well, curious, yes. But not suspicious.”

  “I didn’t say it was suspicious.”

  His expression and body language certai
nly had. But Erin couldn’t argue with what he said. She turned on the car’s dome light and bent over the witness statement to start filling it out.

  “You’re not planning on exploring any caves or mines?” Piper said, watching her.

  “Uh… Vic wanted to go see a cave. She’s picked one out on the map. We’re not going to do anything adventurous. Just have a look around. Nothing that’s too deep or requires special equipment.”

  He shook his head. “I wouldn’t advise it. Some of those caves look perfectly safe, but have hidden hazards. If you want to see a cave, go see one of the touristy ones with guides and barriers. Not a random cave from the map.”

  “We’ll be careful. I won’t let Vic go into anything that I’m not sure of. And we’ll be together, if something happens.”

  “You’ll have to make sure it’s on public land. You don’t want to run afoul of some moonshiner with a shotgun because you’ve trespassed on his land.”

  Erin laughed, but then realized he was serious. “Are there really moonshiners around here still? I mean, prohibition ended long ago.”

  “Alcohol is regulated and there are unregulated stills operating in the mountains around here. You want to stay away from anything like that, because moonshiners can be very touchy about strangers.”

  “Okay. I’m not going to mess with anyone’s still or trespass on private land. And we’re not going to do anything dangerous.”

  Erin went back to writing her statement. But she gathered from the way Piper was hovering over her that he wasn’t finished. She looked up at him.

  “There are other things going on in the hills too. This may be the back country, but that doesn’t mean there’s no crime. The drug trade makes use of those large tracts of unmanaged land. There are growing fields, drug labs, stashes. It’s not really safe to go poking around.”

  “You make it sound like the wild west. Or some ghetto. It’s not really that bad, is it?”

  “It’s bad enough that I’m warning you.”

  “Okay… well… noted. I’ll talk to Vic about it. Maybe I can convince her to go to a public admission cave instead.”

  He nodded. “Good.”

  Erin scratched out a few more words on the witness statement. “I was going to ask you about William Andrews.”

  “What about him?”

  “Is he… okay? Is he a suspect?”

  “Everyone is a suspect. Why William Andrews?”

  “He was hanging around when I unloaded groceries before Angela died. He seems like sort of a shady character and I just wondered… it’s possible he could have tampered with something. I can’t imagine why or that Angela would have been his target, but it’s a possibility.”

  “Hanging around how?”

  “He was trying to help me carry things in. Grabbed one bag of flour when I asked him not to. He was still trying to help out after I told him not to. I eventually had to chase him off by threatening to call you.”

  “Did he have the opportunity to put something in the flour or any of the other ingredients?”

  “I… don’t think so. He’d have had to be quick and have planned ahead. But it was dark and my back was to him, and I was out of sight in the bakery for a few minutes. So, it is conceivable.”

  “But not likely.”

  “No… I don’t see how he could have targeted Angela. But maybe it wasn’t just targeted at her… do we know for sure now that it was an allergic reaction and not a poison?”

  “That’s what the coroner says,” Piper said with a nod.

  “So, it wasn’t just a general toxin. Unless it’s something that everyone is allergic to, like poison ivy.”

  “If it was poison ivy, everyone would have had a reaction. Not just Mrs. Plaint.”

  “Yeah… you’re right. But even if he didn’t contaminate something then, when he was trying to take my groceries in, that could have just been his first attempt. He could have tried and succeeded with something else later on.”

  “It’s possible. Is there any indication that he might have had a key?”

  “No. Just… I understand he does odd jobs around here. It’s possible that he did some work for Clementine and had a key. Or was hired to maintain the place after she died.”

  “I’ll have to make inquiries. I don’t know if your aunt kept any financial records at home, but if she did, you could look through them and see if there were any check stubs to Mr. Andrews.”

  “Okay. I’ll do that.” Erin smothered a big yawn. “I’m beat. Can I finish this statement in the morning? I can barely put two thoughts together.”

  “Sure. Just drop it by the office.” Piper gave a little frown, as if troubled.

  “What is it? What are you thinking about?”

  “Mm. Nothing. Just that Mr. Andrews is the courier we use to send evidence to the coroner.”

  “He has access to the evidence in this case?” Erin was horrified at the thought.

  “No. Not access, exactly. Everything is sealed and the coroner would let me know if anything had been tampered with. But I might just ask them to do a full inventory, to make sure that all evidence was accounted for. It would be risky for Mr. Andrews to ‘lose’ anything along the way. Chances are the coroner would notice it was missing when comparing the log in sheet with the inventory sheet that was sent over. But sometimes, when there’s a load of exhibits, it’s easy to miss one and things do go missing.”

  “Why would you use someone like that as a courier?”

  His brows drew down. “Someone like what?”

  “Someone so…” Erin trailed off, realizing that she had adopted Angela’s opinion of the man, as someone shiftless and lazy, a drifter. Someone to be suspicious of. But when she compared what she knew of the man firsthand, she realized there was nothing to back the opinion up. The man had volunteered to help her with her groceries, not asking for anything for doing it. She had seen him doing work for others. The police department used him as a courier. Every indication was that he was a busy, productive member of the community. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I don’t really know anything about him.”

  Piper nodded. “You can’t judge people by their appearances,” he reminded her.

  And she was. “No. I’m sorry. I didn’t even realize I was doing it.”

  He looked mollified by her apology.

  “What exactly does he do?” Erin asked. “I mean other than acting as a courier and doing odd jobs? His skin… he looks like he does welding.”

  “He’s a prospector of some sort. He keeps himself to himself, so I don’t know the details. Some kind of mining out in the hills.”

  “Gold?”

  “I said I don’t know. He doesn’t trade it in town. Whatever he digs out of the mountain he takes elsewhere for processing or sale.”

  Erin thought about his warnings about drug dealers working in the area. Could William Andrews be one of those drug dealers? If he were doing so many other odd jobs, it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that he was involved in some stage of the drug trade.

  Erin rubbed her forehead. “I’d better be going. Sorry to keep you. I feel sort of silly about calling you when I’d already scared the burglar off.”

  “Don’t say that,” Piper ordered. “You did the right thing. You never go into the building when you think there’s been a break-in. These heroines on TV who just go waltzing in to investigate for themselves or confront a burglar, in real life they would be dead. You let me deal with it.”

  Erin gave him a little smile. “Okay, Officer Piper,” she agreed. “I don’t feel so bad, then.”

  “Bring that by the police department in the morning. Or when you take a break.”

  #

  “I hear you had a burglar,” Mary Lou said, startling Erin when she fell into step beside her on her way to the police department the next morning.

  Erin put her hand over her heart to calm its rapid beating. “How did you hear that so soon?”

  “Word spreads fast in a small tow
n,” Mary Lou said. “I think your young Vicky mentioned it to Mrs. Foster.”

  “Oh. Sure. Well, yes, somebody was in the basement when I went by to drop off some supplies.”

  Mary Lou shook her head, smiling. “That’s what happens when you start spreading rumors of treasure maps and such. Best you keep your mouth shut about things you don’t want anyone to know.”

  “Yes,” Erin agreed. “You’re right, of course. It was pretty stupid of me.”

  “Is that your report?” Mary Lou nodded to the pink form that Erin held clutched in her hand.

  “Yes.”

  Mary Lou lifted her brows and made a small motion with her hand as if she expected Erin to hand it to her. Erin resisted her automatic impulse to hand it to her.

  “Nothing too interesting, I’m afraid. I never saw who it was. They were out of there before I could see who it was.”

  Mary Lou’s shoulders dipped a little. There was a slight relaxation of the muscles around her eyes. Erin tried not to react to these small indications. They didn’t qualify as proof that Mary Lou had anything to do with the burglary and was relieved to find that she was not suspected. There might have been something else on her mind, or Erin might be completely misreading the signs, just seeing what she wanted to.

  It was unnerving having the store broken into, even though nothing was damaged or stolen. Erin wanted to know who had done it. She felt vulnerable and angry at the same time.

  “You don’t have any idea who it could be?” she asked Mary Lou.

  “Goodness, how would I? Everyone was talking about your treasure map and the missing key. It could have been anyone. Even someone from out of town.”

  “Not just anyone. Someone who had a key. The back door was unlocked.”

  Mary Lou’s eyes flickered. “You might have left it unlocked by mistake.”

  “No, I didn’t. Whoever broke in let themselves in with a key. Which means it was someone from town.”

  “I suppose it does. You didn’t have any luck finding out who your aunt gave keys to…?”