Pies and Prejudice (10 page)

Taking another moment to kiss Chewy on the top of his head, Ella Mae grabbed her purse and cell phone and followed Officer Hardy to the police cruiser.

“I’ve never been in a cop car before,” she said anxiously, wondering whether her mother was watching the scene unfold from her bedroom window, but the main house was dark and no figure appeared in the void between the curtains.

Sensing the reason for her hesitation, Hardy said, “You can call someone once your interview is over.”

Ella Mae put her hand on the car’s smooth roof and turned to Hardy with frightened eyes. “Am I under arrest?”

Hardy offered a noncommittal grunt. “You’re considered a person of interest.”

Nodding, she got into the backseat of the car. “I wanted to be well-known in this town because of my culinary skills. This is not the kind of ‘interest’ I was looking for.”

Hardy closed the door on her words.

Two hours later, August Templeton joined her in the police department’s conference room. He handed her coffee in a Hardee’s takeout cup and a sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit wrapped in wax paper.

“God bless you. I couldn’t drink the stuff they offered me.” Ella Mae poured a little cream in the coffee and took a grateful sip. The drink warmed her belly and the familiar scent gave her comfort. Unwrapping the breakfast sandwich,
she popped a small piece of buttery biscuit into her mouth. “If this is my last meal, it’s a damn fine one. Thank you.”

August smiled. “It’s not quite that dire, Ms. LeFaye, despite the fact that the men and women of the Havenwood police force are quite beside themselves over this case. There hasn’t been a suspicious death here since 1918, and now they’ve got a combined murder
and
arson investigation on their idle hands. They’re as shiny-eyed as a child on Christmas morning!”

“I’m glad the cops are so excited, but they think I hit Bradford on the head with a rolling pin, locked him inside Loralyn’s nail salon, and set the whole place on fire. I’m having a hard time sharing in their enjoyment.”

Looking instantly abashed, August took Ella Mae’s hand. “You’re not under arrest. You’ve been asked to be available to assist the police with their inquiries. That means no jaunts to Paris, but being questioned does not necessarily mean that you’ll be charged with a crime. There’s simply no evidence to implicate you.”

Ella Mae sagged in relief. “They didn’t tell me a thing, August. Why
do
they suspect me?”

August cleared his throat and smoothed his perfectly pressed tie. “Several witnesses claimed that you threatened Doc Knox at the Peachtree Bank.”

Groaning, Ella Mae put her face in her hands. “I wasn’t talking to
him
. I was yelling at Loralyn Gaynor, but she put up the car window in the middle of my…” She trailed off, remembering the exact words she’d used.

“Threat?” August finished for her.

“Yes,” Ella Mae admitted with regret. “But I had nothing against her fiancé. If anything, I felt sorry for the man. Why on earth would he want to marry such a cold, shallow, gold-digging bitch? Excuse my French.”

August pursed his lips. “I don’t remember learning that word in French class, but perhaps Mr. Knox was swayed by Ms. Gaynor’s looks. She is quite a beauty.”

“Sure, if you like Botoxed blondes. She’s got more plastic holding her together than Legoland.”

Raising his brows, August said nothing.

“You’re right, that was ugly,” Ella Mae mumbled contritely. “Loralyn is Hollywood gorgeous and her family name carries lots of weight in these parts, but I can’t understand what the two of them had in common except for horses. The Gaynors run a horse farm and Bradford treats horses. Is that enough to base a marriage on?”

“A shared passion can be a powerful bond,” August said wistfully, and Ella Mae sensed that he was referring to Delia. Reba had told her that August wrote big checks to area animal shelters each year as an anonymous donor. Delia received cards from these shelters detailing how the funds given in her honor were used to save sick or homeless animals.

Ella Mae decided that a love of horses still wasn’t enough to sustain a marriage but didn’t feel like arguing the point with August. She had more important questions to ask. “Am I the only person under suspicion? What about Loralyn? Maybe she and Bradford had a big fight? She’s always been hot tempered and it
is
her nail salon. I couldn’t have unlocked the front door, but she has keys to the place.”

“Loralyn spent the night in Atlanta with three women from her college sorority. They got together to pick out bridesmaid dresses. Both the maître d’ of the restaurant where they dined and the front desk clerk at the Ritz-Carlton recall Loralyn clearly.” August gave Ella Mae a teasing grin. “Apparently, your childhood friend wore a black dress that showed a scandalous and, therefore, very memorable amount of décolletage.”

Getting up from the table, Ella Mae tossed out the paper from her biscuit. She stopped in front of an oil painting of Lake Havenwood and stared at the depiction of the town’s famous rowboat race. She hadn’t been to the event for seven years but recalled how much fun it had been to watch. The painting’s colorful boats skirting across a stretch of shining
water forced her to consider that Bradford Knox had probably been attending the Row for Dough race for more than twenty years. Now he would never see it again.

“He seemed like a nice person,” Ella Mae said, breathing her pity onto the glossy surface of the painting. “He had a kind face. I saw him in the driver’s seat of his car at the bank and we exchanged a smile. That was all. But to think of someone striking him down and then leaving him in a burning building to die…” She fixed her gaze on a red balloon floating into a sky filled with cotton-ball clouds. “Who would do such a terrible thing to another human being?”

August stood and pushed his chair against the table. “It is an incredibly cruel and violent act. Someone was very, very angry.”

“Loralyn said she would get me back for buying the property on Swallowtail Avenue,” Ella Mae continued as though August hadn’t spoken. “Did she point the finger at me?” She shook her head, nonplussed. “We obviously haven’t outgrown our stupid childhood issues.” Turning to face the attorney, she added, “I know it doesn’t make any sense, but my dislike of her occurs almost at the cellular level. It’s as if I’ve been programmed to be her enemy and vice versa.”

“We are in charge of our own fate,” was the attorney’s rejoinder.

Someone rapped on the door and August opened it a crack. Ella Mae heard low murmurs from the hallway. August listened, nodded once, and then swung around and smiled at her. “Speaking of the future, let’s get out of this stuffy room. You’re free to leave, and I do believe you have a pie shop to open. If the rest of your treats are as heavenly as the tart you brought to my office, then you stand to make a fortune.”

Ella Mae looked down at her hands, which still bore faint traces of fingerprint ink. She felt prickles of unease beneath the pads of her fingertips. “What if my prints are on the rolling pin? If it’s a plain marble rolling pin, then someone
could have switched it out with the one in my mother’s kitchen. They’re sold everywhere.”

August opened the door wide and gestured for Ella Mae to leave the room first. “No sense worrying about information we don’t have. I’m going to stand by you, Ms. LeFaye, no matter what happens.”

“You believe me, then? That I had nothing to do with this horrible thing?” Ella Mae’s eyes welled up with grateful tears. She felt as fragile and disconnected from the ground as the red balloon in the oil painting. If someone didn’t grab hold of her, she’d surely float beyond reach. She could almost feel the air growing thinner, colder, as the earth dropped away beneath her.

“Steady now.” August grabbed her by the elbow. “Of course I believe you. The LeFaye women are known for honesty.” He gave her a sad, sweet grin. “Besides, your aunt Delia called and asked me to come here. While she was on the phone, she told me about the lovely meal you all shared together last night. She also mentioned how much you had to drink.”

Remembering the flowing champagne, Ella Mae nodded like a child who’d devoured every cookie in the jar right before supper.

“It would have been quite a feat for you to have driven to town, lured Bradford Knox into the nail salon, hit him hard enough to knock him out, and then started a fire using a container full of gasoline,” August continued. “However, it would be in your best interest for the police to come up with a more plausible suspect.”

Ella Mae gave him a keen look. “Who benefits from Knox’s death?”

August considered her question. “I’ll try to discover which of my esteemed colleagues will be handling the estate. You might want to puzzle out who held a grudge against Mr. Knox. Because if you don’t, and the prints on that rolling pin match yours, the police might not be over-whelmingly
inspired to chase down other leads. You’re simply too convenient, Ms. LeFaye.”

Releasing a sigh tinged with worry and fear, Ella Mae said, “And here I thought my husband’s infidelity was the worst thing that could ever happen to me. I think being a murder suspect trumps jilted wife any day.”

Lacing her hand through his arm, August led Ella Mae out of the station. “My dear, you’re going to be the most exciting thing to come out of New York City since bagels and lox. Don’t let this little incident derail your pie shop plans. Your mama and aunts will help you sort this out, and this humble barrister is at your beck and call.” He gave a brief bow, holding a palm against the swell of his belly as he did so.

Right then and there, Ella Mae could have planted a grateful kiss on the top of his bald head, but she held the impulse in check. Instead, after declining his offer to drive her home, she thanked him effusively. As he walked away, his brisk, small steps calling to mind the image of a dapper penguin, she vowed to ask Delia why she’d never given this sweet, smart, and loyal gentleman the opportunity to court her.

Ella Mae then turned directly into the path of the rising sun and headed down Copper Avenue toward the smoldering building that housed Perfectly Polished, one of Loralyn’s two nail salons.

The acrid smell of charred wood and melted plastic filled the air, but Ella Mae was oblivious to both the unpleasant odor and the orange cones set up across the intersection of Emperor Street and Copper Avenue.

The tightly spaced cones were clearly meant to dissuade pedestrians from approaching the scene, but Ella Mae stepped over the line, drawn like a magnet to the blackened structure partially obscured by a neon yellow fire truck.

Walking around the truck, she heard firemen calmly shouting instructions to one another. They were no longer
spraying flames with water but were moving in and out of the ruined salon with crowbars and axes. The building’s façade looked odd with its punched-in windows and missing door, like a child who had lost several teeth and now had a smile full of holes.

Ella Mae recognized Hugh Dylan immediately, even though he wore a helmet and she could see only his profile. He was squatting a few feet inside the doorway, examining something on the ground.

Hugh abruptly stopped what he was doing and looked up, meeting Ella Mae’s gaze. It was as if he knew she was there before he saw her. Tucking a digital camera into the pocket of his jacket, he removed his helmet and marched over to her.

Ella Mae watched him draw near, fascinated by how his body moved, how his stride seemed light despite the heavy boots, how powerful his chest and shoulders appeared in the snug, navy blue fire department T-shirt, how the early light wove silver into his hair. His movements were fluid and full of strength and incredibly alluring.

“Ella Mae?” he asked hesitantly. “What are you doing here?”

She couldn’t halt the smile that bloomed on her face. “So you remember me now?”

Hugh glanced at the ground. “When I saw you at your aunt’s school, I thought it was you, but it’d been so long….” His eyes found hers. They were a glistening, peacock blue, and Ella Mae believed she could stand there for the rest of her life and gaze into them. “You took me by surprise, but I hadn’t expected you…” He shifted the helmet in his arms. “I wasn’t prepared for how beautiful you became. I couldn’t think of a single intelligent thing to say. You…stole my breath away.”

Ella Mae felt all the heat from the burned wood rush into her and imagined she now glowed red and orange like the fire’s embers. If she didn’t look away from Hugh’s blue stare,
she was certain to turn into a pile of ash and be carried off by the wind. “It looks like the ribcage of a slain dragon,” she said, pointing at the fallen beams that jutted skyward in ragged, black points.

Hugh followed her gaze. “Lots of burned buildings get that skeletal look. If this fire had gone unchecked for another hour or so, the whole thing would have just collapsed. It looks like air going out of a lung—that’s how fast it happens.”

Ella Mae caught sight of a policeman in conversation with another fireman and shrank back, finding cover around the corner of the enormous yellow truck. “How did this fire start?”

“Gasoline,” Hugh replied. His brows were furrowed and Ella Mae knew he was probably wondering why she was acting so strangely. She didn’t want him to hear her name in connection with this wreckage. Or to a murder. But if her prints were found on the rolling pin, everyone in Havenwood would know that she was a suspect.

“I never met Bradford Knox,” she said. “I’d heard he was engaged to Loralyn Gaynor, but I didn’t know him. Did you?”

The furrow deepened. “Not well, but I talked to him a few times over the last two years when I first got my business going. I needed advice from the area veterinarians and he was really helpful. A nice guy. His life shouldn’t have ended the way it did.”

“The police think I had something to do with this!” Ella Mae blurted out as though Hugh’s last statement was an accusation. “But I didn’t! I had no reason to harm Knox and I don’t even own a car! How would I transport the gas? In my bike basket?” Her voice rose and her words tumbled forth. “How could I unlock the nail salon? Or lure Knox inside? Or hit him on the head when he wasn’t looking?”