Chicken Soup & Homicide (24 page)

Alex leaned forward in his chair. "Has anybody looked into the possibility of him murdering Britton?"

Shepler nodded. "A couple guys are checking him out. The security video is concrete evidence that he committed arson. Since he started the fire while most of the restaurant staff was in the building, he put a lot of lives in danger. There's a definite possibility he could be capable of stabbing someone."

He began punching numbers into his phone as he walked out of the room again. Carla grabbed Amy's hand and squeezed it. "He's going to figure out what's going on. The chief called this morning, and he's going back to work tomorrow. Sounds like the department has figured out Pitts has just been running in circles crying wolf instead of actually trying to solve the murder."

Had Bridget had a hand in that? "I'm glad Shepler's back on the case because I'm confused. Last night, after Cornerstone went up in flames, I was ninety-nine percent sure Chef Michael was the murderer. Now, considering Trisha's mystery herb, I don't know what to think." Amy wrapped a strand of hair around her finger. It was crusty with something that had most likely spewed out of her body. She dropped it and continued. "She was so disappointed that she didn't win any money for her community garden charity. She was Britton's partner, so she needed him to win the showdown. Killing him makes no sense. It pretty much would guarantee a loss. Plus, what would be the point of making me sick, especially now?"

Carla shrugged. "I don't know. She and Pitts were dating, right? You said yourself that maybe he had something to do with the murder. The chief kicked him off an investigation that isn't close to being over. Something is going on. It wouldn't surprise me if he put her up to it because he was pissed that you stood up to him."

"If I don't have some kind of flu, I suppose it could've been a mistake. She used a toxic plant by accident." Amy looked at Carla. Hopefully, the thumping in her chest was natural excitement, not some delayed effect from the poison. If she really had been poisoned. "But she's an herbalist who supplies herbs to almost all of the restaurants in town. I doubt she would still be in business if she makes accidents like that."

Carla walked to the computer terminal installed in the corner of the room. Her fingernails clicked on the keyboard. "Let's see if they've figured out what made you so sick."

Amy continued chattering to try to work out the flood of new information. "I told Trisha a couple of the people I suspected. Maybe she's somehow involved with one of them and panicked, thinking I would make the connection. It's hard to squeal on a murderer when you're so sick you can barely remember your own name."

"Or dead." Carla shook her head. "This isn't a virus. You ingested a poison called lobeline, which is produced by the cardinal flower plant. It's potentially fatal."

Like it or not, that last piece of murder puzzle clicked into place. Amy closed her eyes. "And probably pretty easy to grow in a heated greenhouse year around."

The next morning, Amy hurried through her bland breakfast of runny oatmeal with a side of runny applesauce, apparently the standard breakfast for people with temperamental tummies. Although hers was back to normal, the doctor had left strict instructions that she could only order tasteless sludge. She was craving a gooey grilled ham and Swiss sandwich on sourdough bread, and getting discharged was the only way she would get it.

So she suited up in her walking attire and hit the halls. Beyond torturing her with a baby food diet, the doctor also instructed her to start walking around to prove that she was fit to be released. As she pulled on the baby-blue terry cloth robe, she vowed to make a caramel layer cake for Carla as a thank you for bringing the robe and a set of cute cotton pajamas. The ensemble was much better for cruising the halls than the double-gown layout many of the other patients wore, with one gown on the right way and the other backward to try to eliminate embarrassing gaps. No matter what, there was still some body part playing peek-a-boo. She pulled on the hospital-issued beige slipper socks and headed out of the room.

Walking was almost as good as cooking for working out problems. And she had a lot of things to think about. Trisha had successfully poisoned her once, then attempted it again with the crackers when she didn't join Britton in the cemetery. Why? If this was Trisha's idea of friendship, she needed a system reboot to return herself to normal defaults. Maybe Carla was right, and Pitts put her up to it. But even if Pitts was like a Greek god in bed, was the slimeball worth getting caught in attempted murder? Amy came to an intersection in the hallway. A bank of elevators was straight ahead, so she took a right turn.

A dark horse of a hypothesis came out of nowhere and charged to the front of her theory list. If Trisha wasn't just plain crazy, and Pitts wasn't behind her poisoner alter ego, then could she somehow be connected to Chef Michael? Since she supplied Cornerstone with herbs, most likely she did know him. Were they secret lovers currently driving to Florida like the foodie version of Bonnie and Clyde? The murdering arsonist on the run with the gorgeous evil herbalist.

Amy stopped walking. Sawhorses and table saws lined the hallway instead of restless patients and no-nonsense nurses. Hiking while lost in thought had literally left her lost in the sprawling hospital. There was a lesson somewhere in that story. A paper bag sat on the counter of the unmanned nurse's station to the left. Little pats of butter wrapped in gold foil were scattered on top of the crushed brown bag.
Butter.
Amy stared at the abandoned meal. She knew who the murderer was.

She turned around to backtrack out of the construction zone. Shepler was supposed to go back to work that morning. She had a nice big murder tip to welcome him back. A hand slapped across Amy's mouth. Fingernails ripped into her scalp as the person grabbed a handful of hair. Her body followed her head as she was yanked into a dark room and flung into the wall. The gloomy room turned nighttime dark as she struggled to find the breath that had been slammed out of her. She coughed and twisted around to see her attacker, even though she already knew who it was. Trisha. Of course.

"Well, you seem to be feeling better than I had anticipated. Did MIA hubby come home early and save you, or didn't you like the taste of my special herbs?"

"How about I'm tougher than you thought I was?"

Trisha pulled a knife out of the top of her knee-high boot. The specks of silver in the black handle glinted in the cracks of light seeping in around the sheet of plywood Trisha had used as a makeshift door. "Even tough-guy Chet wasn't a match against one of these."

"So you killed him? Here I thought this whole messy poisoning thing was you protecting your lover, whoever that is, Pitts or Chef Michael." That was a lie, but she needed to buy some time. Life was so unfair. Ten seconds after she figured out who the murderer was, she got attacked by her. Amy held up her pointer finger as she leaned against the wall. Her knees were not cooperating in her quest to stay standing. "Wait. I know—you're involved with both of them!"

Trisha grunted. "What the hell are you talking about? Why would I protect either one of those idiots? Pitts was a sucker who believed whatever I told him as long as I let him sleep over. Getting his partner in New Jersey knocked off because of his mistake made him depressed and pretty oblivious. He wasn't even smart enough to figure out my herbal cocktails were making him sick. I have no idea how you connected me to pretty-boy Michael."

Confusing your assailant. Wasn't that one of tips for surviving an attack? If it wasn't, it was the only one Amy could execute at the moment. There were all kinds of coconspirator scenarios she could throw out. She needed to keep Trisha busy while she figured out how to get out of the dark room of potential death. "I figured Pitts asked you to poison me. His revenge for me not caving in and confessing to the murder even when he said he had evidence against me. Michael burnt down Cornerstone last night because he thought he was being demoted back down to assistant chef. Someone who reasons like him could easily kill to get ahead in their career."

"All good theories." Trisha traced a circle in the air with the tip of the knife. "Wrong, but good. Except after getting screwed over by Chet, I don't really feel the need to help any man. They're all bastards and can fend for themselves. No man is ever going to take advantage of me again."

Ugh. Amy wasn't feeling good enough to solve the riddles of Trisha Dunbar. She needed the Cliff Notes. Trisha's plot twist gave her a major brain cramp. Or maybe that was the effects of being shoved head first into a wall. "Okay. Now I'm confused. What did Chet do that upset you enough to kill him?"

"He took my farm away."

Well now,
there
was a motive. Not a good idea to take something away from a woman after she worked so hard to get it. The real estate signs in Trisha's kitchen. They were a big part of the puzzle. Too bad Amy had listened to Trisha's excuse and not realized how important they were. "Did Britton buy it when you put it up for sale?"

"Yes. He told me that he would take it over while I got back on my feet. He said I could pay him back. Once we were settled up, he'd sign it back over to me. Then I found out not only was he cheating on me with Bridget Mahoney, he was selling my farm to her. The only way to get it back was to get rid of him before the sale was completed so the farm would revert back to me. Sabotaging the showdown was my revenge on the bitch. She won't stop pestering me to sell the farm. But you discovered the propane leak and found Chet's body too soon. You messed everything up."

There were too many twists to keep up with Trisha's story. Amy held her hands up in surrender…to not understanding. Not to indicate she was ready to be killed. "Whoa. Chet was cheating on you? So you were involved with him? I thought you said he didn't even flirt with you when you two teamed up for the showdown."

Trisha smirked. "Yeah. I've said a lot of things that weren't true, like that I saw your friend Carla backstage."

If Carla found out about that, a knife wasn't going to be enough protection for Trisha. "So what else did you do to mess the competition up, besides trying to blow me and Sophie up? Didn't it ever occur to you that we could've been badly injured or killed?"

"Sure, I thought of that. Collateral damage. Sometimes innocent people get killed. It happens." She shrugged, then took a step closer to Amy. "I had so much fun watching all of you freaking out. Jake gladly tried one of my special herb crackers after I batted my eyelashes a few times when he stopped by my expo booth that morning. Preston was being a good boy helping his mommy, but he just couldn't resist sampling the entire bottle of whiskey that I gave him. I figured he'd discover the body when he went looking for the bottle of vodka I told him was in the freezer. You beat him to it because you just had to put your butter in the freezer." She took a deep breath and tilted her head to the side. "Let's see…what else? Oh, Sophie left her knife case just sitting in a drawer. Such a careless thing to do. Someone like me could've taken them."

Amy sighed. The butter was the clue she had overlooked. Of course, food was the clue to solve the murder of a chef. Trisha had tried to get her to chill the butter in the onstage coolers instead of taking it to the freezer. "I'm surprised you didn't use one of her knives to stab Chet."

Trisha snapped her fingers. "I wish I would've thought of that. Unfortunately, Chet was already chilling out in the freezer when I spotted her knives. Damn. Since I used rubber gloves, only her prints would've been on the murder weapon. That would've saved me the trouble of seducing that creep Pitts. I have to give it to you—you're smarter than he is."

Amy's eyes had adjusted to the dim light. She could see that Trisha was holding a fillet knife. The long, thin blade was supposed to be used on the delicate flesh of fish, not a person who was still recovering from being poisoned and now sported a goose egg on her head, a throbbing hip, and tender ankle courtesy of being tossed into a wall like a human spitball. She could yell for help, but Trisha would slice and dice her long before any of the construction workers could come to her rescue. Time and options were running out.

There was a loud crack, and light flooded the room. Trisha screeched like a demon. Amy blindly bolted to the right, away from the wall, hoping Trisha hadn't done the same thing. She blinked to focus her vision. Someone else was in the room, but the person was just a silhouette in the bright light coming from the hallway.

"Nobody frames me or my friend for murder," Carla said.

There was a groan from under the sheet of plywood. Carla stomped on it with her foot. "Amy, are you okay? Is your head bleeding?"

Amy touched the side of her forehead. It was sticky with warm blood. "She scratched me when she grabbed my hair to drag me in here. How did you know where we were?"

"I went to your room, and Becca said you had gone for a walk. I just caught a glimpse of you turning down this wing. I couldn't figure out where you went, but then I heard your voices." Carla leaned forward to put more weight on the plywood. An angry hiss came from under the sheet of wood. "I called Bruce. Once I heard her confess, I didn't think you had much time left to stall, so I figured I'd help you out."

Shepler burst into the room with his gun drawn. Two uniformed officers followed closely behind him. They lifted the plywood off Trisha and pulled her arms behind her back. One read her rights while the other fastened the handcuffs. Shepler holstered his gun and gathered Carla in his arms. He gazed at Amy over the top of Carla's head. "Are you okay?"

"I will be now that this is over."

The constant whir of the wheelchair's rubber wheels and rhythmic thuds of the aide's shoes seemed to be the hospital version of a lullaby. After getting a short statement about Trisha's ambush, Shepler had deposited Amy into the wheelchair and ordered her back to her room. She wasn't in any shape to argue. Besides, the teen girl pushing the chair had the wide brown eyes of a frightened fawn as she maneuvered through the pack of police officers clogging the hall outside of the room that had almost become Amy's coffin.