Strawberry Cream Murder: A Donut Hole Cozy Mystery - Book 1 (6 page)

“I’m sure she would be,” Michelle said.

“Well.”  Heather clapped her hands together once, briskly.  “Are you ready to get started?”

***

When her phone rang in her back pocket, Heather’s hands were covered in icing, sprinkles, and bits of crumbled sugar cone.  “Michelle, grab that, would you?” she said, turning her back to her assistant.

Michelle slid the phone out of Heather’s pocket, accepted the call, and held it to Heather’s ear.  “Hello?” Heather said.

“Heather, this is Ryan Shepherd.  I promised to call you back when I was finished talking to Joey Gorham.”

“Yes, Detective Shepherd,” she said.  “Hang on just a minute.”

She pulled away from the phone a little bit and said in a low voice, “Let me wash my hands, and then I’ll take it.”

Michelle stood holding the phone until she could take it herself.  “Okay, I’m back,” she said.  She hurried into her office and shut the door.

“He lied,” Shepherd said.

“What?  Who lied?”

“Joey Gorham.  He wasn’t ever going to be Christa’s assistant.”

“Then what—why was he in her shop?”

“He claims that he just wanted to meet with her.  Talk to her.  That when he got there, she was dead.”

“If he lied about being her assistant, how do we know he’s telling the truth now?”

“We don’t,” Shepherd said.  “Believe me, we’re looking at him pretty closely.  But he’s not going anywhere for awhile, so we have plenty of time.”

“What do you mean?”

“I arrested him,” he said.  “When I got there, he was just finishing a deal.  He didn’t think I saw him.”

“So you talked to him, and
then
you told him he was under arrest?”

“Of course.  I’m not new to this game.”

No, she supposed he wasn’t.  “I wonder if he was lying about dating Christa,” she said.

“I don’t think so,” he said.  “I asked him that.  He had a picture of her in his wallet.  They were at a party, and they looked pretty cozy.”

“But if he wanted to talk to her, and if they were still dating, he wouldn’t have had to go to her shop,” she said.

“Exactly.  When I pointed that out to him, he admitted they weren’t dating anymore.  Hadn’t been for several months, apparently.”

“What if he wanted to keep dating her, and she broke up with him?  He might have gotten really angry.”

“Exactly,” Shepherd said. “And since he’s pretty familiar with drugs and powders, he could have easily obtained some cyanide.”

“I wonder if he did,” she said.

“
That
,” he said, “is the $64,000 question.”

***

“Michelle, do you have a house alarm?” Heather asked.  “Maricela?”

Maricela shook her head, but Michelle answered, “I do.”

“What company do you use?”

“AHS.  American Home Security.”

“Good prices?”

Michelle shrugged.  “I think so.”

“I’m going to give them a call,” Heather said.

“Did something happen?” Michelle asked.

“Got home last night and found Billy Fordyce sitting at my kitchen table,” she said.

“How’d he get in?”

“Wouldn’t tell me.  Said you just ‘learn things.’”

“Go sign up with AHS,” Michelle said.  “You want to know you’re safe.”

Heather Googled AHS and clicked on the link to take her to their official website.  In the upper right corner was a toll-free number and the suggestion to “call now for a free estimate.”  She dialed the number.  It rang four times before a recorded voice began asking Heather to pick her way through various menu options.  Somehow, she navigated the system, punched “1” for “residence,” and was advised that her call was very important and would be answered by the next available representative.  She sighed and leaned back in her chair to wait.

Thirty minutes later, she had an appointment for a technician to come and install the alarm system she had signed up for.  Rubbing the kinks out of her neck and shoulder, she decided to call it a day.  “I’m leaving,” she called to Michelle and Maricela as she headed for the back door.

“Have a good one,” Michelle said before turning her attention back to the customer she was serving.

Just as Heather was about to back out of her parking space, her cell phone rang.  She glanced at it, saw Amy’s number, and picked up.  “I have been on the phone
all day
,” she said.

“So come talk to me in person.  I want your opinion on something anyway.”

“You’re at home?”

“Where else?  I don’t have a life during the daylight hours.  That’s you, remember?”

“Whatever,” Heather said, laughing.  “See you in a few.”

Amy’s house was ten minutes from Donut Delights.  Heather parked in the driveway, knocked on Amy’s back door, and let herself in.  “You know, you really ought to start locking your doors,” she called out.  “Anybody off the street could just come wandering in.”

“Too trusting, I guess,” Amy called.  “Come on back.  I’m painting.”

Heather walked down the hallway to the rear bedroom Amy used for her studio.  She dropped her purse on the raggedy but oh-so-comfortable couch and flopped down next to it, her feet hanging over the arm of the couch.  “Really,” she said.  “Could be anybody.  That’s why I’m getting an alarm.”

“You’re what?”  Amy turned away from her canvas to look at Heather.

“I’m getting an alarm.”

“Why?” Amy asked.  “Oh, I bet I know.”  She pointed her paint brush at Heather.  “So no more Billy’s come in and plunk themselves down at your kitchen table and scare you half to death.”

“Exactly,” Heather said.

Amy shrugged.  “I suppose I don’t blame you,” she said.  “Here.  Come look at this.”

With a groan, Heather lurched up off the couch and went to stand looking over Amy’s shoulder at the landscape she was painting.  Two trees composed of short slashes of color stood at the edge of a lake painted in the same style.  Yet despite the choppiness of each individual stroke, somehow, it all blended into a gorgeous whole.  “Wow,” Heather said.  “That’s really nice.”

“Thank you,” Amy said.  “So here’s what I need your opinion on: People, or no people?”

“Two boys,” Heather said.  “Taking a nap under the trees.”

“Hmm,” Amy said, squinting at her painting.  “That might work.”

Heather flopped back down on the couch, sitting upright this time.  Amy turned to face her.  “So ask me what I found out today,” Heather said.

“What did you find out today?”

“Just two itty-bitty things.  One, that Mrs. Fordyce didn’t love Christa very much and blamed her for Billy’s getting cut out of the will.”

“What?” Amy said, her mouth agape.

“Yeah.  She’s grieving over Billy’s life being ruined, not over Christa’s death.  And she says it’s Christa’s fault his life was ruined.  Apparently Mr. Fordyce had threatened to cut Billy out of the will if he went to rehab one more time.  Mrs. Fordyce says Billy was doing great.  Making lots of progress.  Until one day, Christa accuses him of using drugs, and dear old Dad just takes her at her word, plops Billy in rehab, and cuts him out of the will.”

“She thinks Christa was lying?”

“Mrs. Fordyce said if Billy had been using, she would have known about it, because she’s his mother.”

“Um…yeah, sure,” Amy said.  “But the point is, she thinks Christa was lying and deliberately set up the favorite child—at least
Mrs.
Fordyce’s favorite—to get cut out of the will.”

“Yep.  And she’s bitterly angry.”

“Sounds like she’s a suspect,” Amy said.

“But that’s not all.  Remember how Joey Gorham was the one who discovered Christa’s body?  The one who claimed to be her assistant, and claimed to have dated her?”

“Yeeeeees,” Amy said.

“Apparently, he did, in fact, date her.  At least a couple of times.  But he was never going to be her assistant.”

This time, when Amy’s mouth fell open, she remained silent.

“He says he just wanted to talk to her.  And when he showed up, she happened to be dead.”

“What did he want to talk to her about?”

“Nobody knows.  He wouldn’t tell Detective Shepherd.”

“Ah, the hunky Detective Shepherd,” Amy said.  “
I’d
tell him anything he wanted to know.”

“I’m sure you would,” Heather said.  “But here’s the thing I still don’t get: Why did she date him in the first place?”

“To make Mommy Dearest mad?”

“Maybe so,” Heather said.

“But then maybe it made
Joey
mad when she broke up with him,” Amy said.

“That very well could be.”  She sighed.  “And then there’s Billy, who was apparently angry with her, too.”

“Wow,” Amy said.  “That’s three people in her life who were probably angry enough to kill her.  Yikes.”

“Yeah.  Yikes,” she said.  “I’m just glad that Don seemed plenty happy to get rid of me.  He wasn’t angry at all.”

“He was a jerk,” Amy said. 

Heather sighed.  “I just wish I knew who actually did it,” she said.  “They were all three angry enough with her to kill her, but which one actually did?”

***

The wraparound front porch was one of the things Heather loved best about her little house, if not
the
thing.  A languid breeze blew through the tops of the trees as she sat slouched in a white wicker chair, her feet up on a matching ottoman.  A glass of lemonade sat on the wicker table next to her.

Curled up on the welcome mat, Dave snorted in his sleep and flailed his paws at something he dreamed of chasing.  Another dog?  A squirrel?  A rabbit?

That’s what it felt like
she
was doing—chasing rabbits.  So much information leading so many different directions, but none of it leading toward an answer.

She took a sip of her lemonade and let the cool liquid wash down her throat.  Wondered if the cyanide had slipped down Christa’s throat as smoothly.  And sat straight up in the chair. 

Maybe that was the next direction to go: finding out how the cyanide had been administered.  All three suspects had had motive and opportunity.  If she couldn’t figure out
who
had done it, maybe she could start by figuring out
how
it had been done.

Because if it hadn’t come from the donut Christa was eating, it had to have come from somewhere else.  Something else she ate.  Something maybe the pathologist had overlooked in the stomach contents.

And just what do you think you can figure out that a trained professional couldn’t?
she asked herself.

The answer came back startlingly clear. 
Maybe nothing.  But at least I can
try.

“Come on, Dave,” she said, standing up and snatching up her glass of lemonade.  “We’re going to go do a little research.”