Sweet Somethings (Samantha Sweet Mysteries) (12 page)

Rupert must have signaled the
ticket girls because the wide doorways were suddenly filled with people. They
flowed like a molten stream into the room, branching out to the booths with
exclamations over each new discovery. From the height of the dais Rupert
glanced toward Sam’s booth and gave her an exaggerated wink.

Two women who were regulars in
Sam’s shop immediately recognized her sign and came straight to the booth.

“I just couldn’t wait to see what
special thing you’ve made this time,” said Mrs. Greenbaum, her white fluffy
head bobbing as she scrutinized the items in the display. “Oh! I bet it’s those
little candies shaped like the pueblo.”

“You are right—they’re exclusive
to the festival,” Becky said.

“Have one, on the house.” Sam
picked up one of the chocolates with tongs and held it out. Of course, Mrs.
Riley had to have one too.

“That is fabulous—I’ll take a
dozen of them.” Mrs. Greenbaum reached into her purse. “Do you have change for
a fifty?”

Becky’s face went pale. “I knew
there was something I forgot to bring inside. The cash bag you brought from the
shop—it’s still in the van. I’ll run get it.”

Sam sent a smile toward the two
ladies. “There’s always some little forgotten detail, isn’t there?”

They assured her it was fine;
while Becky rushed out they continued to browse the display, pointing out
molten lava cupcakes, s’mores brownies and chocolate nut drop cookies, each
filling a bag.

Sam found herself glancing toward
the doors. Becky’s errand seemed to be taking a long time. When she spotted her
assistant, Becky was rushing along the crowded aisle. Something was definitely
wrong. Pushing her way into the booth, she handed the money bag over to Sam and
turned her back on the customers.

Sam quickly made change for the
two women, excused herself a moment to the others who were browsing, and turned
to get a good look at Becky. The younger woman’s face was pale and her hands
shook.

“What happened out there?”

Becky glanced toward the throngs
of people in the room. Her voice came out a ragged whisper.

“There’s a—a body, out in the
garden. I’m pretty sure she’s dead.”

Sam felt the blood drain from her
face. Of all the disasters that might have happened at the festival, this was
one she’d never considered. “I wonder who—?”

“It’s Carinda Carter.”

Chapter
10

Sam took Becky’s shoulders and
forced her to stand still. “Did you call the police?”

Becky shook her head.

“We need to do that. I’ll find
someplace private—” A distant scream interrupted.

Sam turned to the customers in
front of her booth. “I’ll be right back. Just let Becky know what you want.”

She shot Becky a look that said,
take your mind off the other and just stay
busy
. Edging out of the booth, she met the challenge of speed walking and
looking nonchalant at the same time. The single scream had largely been ignored
inside the ballroom. Once Sam was past the corridor she rushed to the garden.

A hotel maid had dropped a stack
of white towels onto the damp lawn; she stood with both hands to her mouth, her
eyes wide. Sam reached her at the same time as a gardener. On the ground, among
the rose bushes, lay Carinda Carter in her tight blue dress. Unfortunately, the
shiny fabric was marred by a massive red stain spreading from the hilt of a
large knife that protruded from her back. By the angle of her limbs, she was
most assuredly dead.

“Has anyone called the authorities?”
Sam asked.

The maid seemed in danger of
hyperventilating. Sam gestured to the gardener to lead her away from the body,
while she pulled out her phone.

The hotel was outside the town
limits so this would fall in Beau’s jurisdiction. She felt as if her
explanation probably came out garbled, but he got it. He said he and his men
would be right there.

Time stood still but it couldn’t
have been more than five minutes before she heard sirens. Damn. She met the
first cruiser at the curb in the loading zone, recognized Rico, one of Beau’s
deputies, and rushed toward him, explaining that a festival was going on inside
and if they didn’t want several hundred people to come rushing out into the
crime scene, it would be better to do this quietly. He got on the radio and
when two more cars arrived, it was without fanfare.

Sam pointed Rico in the direction
of the rose garden, although one of the other men stayed behind and started to ask
questions. Who had discovered the body? Did she know the deceased? Where had
she been when she heard the maid scream? She was becoming impatient with the quizzing
and worried about going back to her booth when Beau drove up.

He sent the deputy to mark off the
crime scene.

“I need to get back to Becky and
make sure she’s okay,” she said. “I think it would be best if questions about
the murder were done away from the crowd inside. Of the hundreds of people here
in the hotel, only a handful really even knew this woman. I can give you a
list.”

Beau walked with her as they
circled the ribbon of yellow crime scene tape. One of the deputies was already
snapping photos and collecting evidence around the body. “Don’t let people
inside start talking about this. Just advise everyone to cooperate when it’s
their turn to answer questions, but remember that anyone has the right to an
attorney if they want one.”

She nodded, a little impatiently.
Who on earth didn’t already know this?

“I’ll get Kelly to take over my
booth so Becky can talk to you.
And
I’ll
pass along your words of wisdom.” She started to open the heavy door to the
corridor but turned back to him. “Oh, Beau, who would do this? I mean, Carinda
was really irritating, but who would hate her this much?”

He pulled her into a hug and
rubbed her back as he murmured soothing sounds. “We’ll talk later, once I get
this organized.”

“Thanks. I’ll be in my booth near
the northwest corner of the ballroom.”

Becky looked a little better when
Sam arrived. Bagging cookies and boxing up slices of cheesecake for customers
had helped bring the color back to her face, although her hands were still
pretty shaky.

“What’s going on out there?” she
whispered to Sam when a slight lull came in the activity around the booth.

“A lot of standard procedure, I
suppose. Beau or one of his deputies will want to talk to both of us. Don’t
worry. You just tell them what you saw. I’ll go find Kelly now. She’ll help out
here while we’re busy with that.”

She headed toward the dais, where
she’d last seen Rupert chatting with the police chief’s sister just before Sam
had returned to her booth. The woman was tapping something into her cell phone
and Rupert’s princely head of hair showed above the gathering out in the
corridor. Sam breezed past the dais and caught up with her friend.

“Dish, girl. What’s going on
around here?” he asked when she tapped his arm.

“I need to find Kelly. Have you
seen her?”

“Over by the ticket table.” He gripped
her wrist. “Wait-wait-wait. What’s the deal?”

Sam took a breath and pulled him
into a small alcove away from the traffic. “Carinda’s been killed. Beau’s men
are here and I’m doing my best to keep it as quiet as possible. Do
not
say anything to
anyone
. They’ll want to talk to everybody who saw or spoke with her
in the last few hours.”

Rupert actually blanched.

“Rupe? Did you have another run-in
with her?”

He waved away the thought. “I just
had a brilliant idea for a scene in my next book.”

Writers. Sheesh. Sam reminded him
to keep quiet before she hustled off to catch up with Kelly.

“I’ll need you to handle my booth
for awhile.”

“Sure, Mom.” Kelly gave Sam a hard
stare. “What’s going on around here? It’s like there’s an electric current
running through the carpeting.”

She might as well make an
announcement over the PA. But that would lead to complete chaos.

“Tell you later. Whatever is said,
please just brush it off and keep selling brownies, okay?”

A man in jeans and a leather
jacket was standing at the booth when Sam and Kelly approached, and Becky
seemed shaken all over again. It was one of Beau’s deputies—Ben Garcia.

“Hi, Sam. Beau asked me to take
preliminary statements. Not being in uniform, I guess, will make people less
nervous with me.”

Sam assured Becky it was all right
to go with him. Luckily, a large group of customers walked up just then so Sam
and Kelly had no opportunity to talk about anything but baked goods for the
next fifteen minutes. Becky returned, looking more relaxed than she had since
the discovery, and told Sam that Ben Garcia was ready to talk to her now. She
gave directions to a room on the second floor. Sam sent a warning glare toward
both of the younger women.
Do not talk
about this here!

Garcia smiled and offered coffee
when she entered the room, which Auguste Handler must have offered as a
temporary interrogation space. It looked like the living room portion of a
small suite. She gratefully accepted the coffee and sat on the couch he
indicated. He flipped through a little notebook before asking what she knew of
Carinda’s movements that morning.

“Last I saw of her she said she
was going to rouse our celebrity judge and get him downstairs before the doors
opened to the public. Now that I think of it I haven’t seen him, even yet.”

“Did you or your committee people
have any problems or arguments with Ms. Carter?” Garcia asked. “Beau kind of
hinted.”

Let me count the ways . . .
“Carinda has—had—a way about her. She
managed to antagonize people just by walking into a room. Of our committee—”
She stopped. What was she doing? Handing her friends over for something that
surely none of them would have done? “Let’s just say that she was pushy and irritating,
but everyone knew to blow it off and stay out of her way.”

“Were there specific incidents
that provoked anger? Stabbing someone involves a lot of rage—anyone dislike her
that much?”

Sam recounted what she could
remember—the woman’s uncanny ability to butt into every aspect of the festival
planning but when the real work began how she could manage to vanish. “But I
never saw anyone actually threaten her. Truly, her mannerisms were more of an
annoyance.”

“We’ll need to locate her next of
kin. Do you know who that might be?”

Sam shook her head. “She never
talked about family. I got the idea that she was really new in town and had
joined our committee because she had no one else to be close to.”

He nodded and jotted more notes.
Sam got the impression he was finished with the questions.

“Oh,” he said, reaching beside his
chair and picking up a sealed evidence bag. “Do you recognize this?”

The bag contained a large and
deadly looking knife, complete with blood. Sam’s stomach lurched. It looked
like Bentley Day’s famous chef knife from his TV show. On the handle, a metal
medallion had the show’s logo. She’d assumed it was only a prop, not actually
sharp enough to inflict damage.

“Carinda showed me this knife,
just this morning. It was in a box of items belonging to Bentley Day.”

“Bentley Day . . .” he scribbled
as he said the name. “Is that
the
Bentley
Day from
Killer Chef
?”

“I—I—yes, it is.” Sam’s thoughts
tumbled in her head like bingo numbers in a hopper. “This doesn’t look too good
for him, does it?”

“He would have had to come down to
the ballroom to retrieve the knife before meeting Ms. Carter in the garden.
Surely someone would have noticed a celebrity among the crowd?”

True. And no one had mentioned
seeing him this morning. So, what did that mean?

Garcia didn’t seem to expect an
answer. He stood up and Sam followed suit, glad to leave the room but a little
shaken that she’d come away with far more questions than answers. Bentley Day’s
prints would surely be on the knife, but then so would Carinda’s and probably
half the people she’d been showing it to. On the way back down to the ballroom
Sam wondered whether any of her inner circle of friends would be among them.
She really wished she could sneak Beau away from the garden right now and
discuss all this.

In the downstairs corridor, Sam
caught a flash of white heading into the ballroom. She followed, just in time
to catch a murmur passing through the crowd.

“G’day, Taos!” The man in kitchen
whites standing on the dais with both arms raised must be Bentley Day. Curly
blond hair in some kind of a shaggy cut peeked out below the band of the chef’s
hat on his head. He ramped up the volume on the Aussie accent: “I say, g’day,
Taos!”

A cheer rocked the room and people
crammed as close to the judging table as they could get. Both of the female
judges had retreated to the back of the space on the platform.

“What do you say, we eat some
great chocolate!”

Crowd roar.

“What do we do in the kitchen?”
Apparently some kind of
Killer Chef
buzzword.

“Chop! Chop!” the crowd roared.

“Yeah, chop-chop!” Day picked up a
large knife from the table and swished it through the air twice.

Sam flinched. How did he get that
thing back—? Then she realized he surely owned more than one of them.

“Where’s my cake?!” he shouted.

Someone set a paper plate with a
small chocolate cake in front of him. He whacked it with the knife and crumbs flew.
The crowd went wild.

“Chop-chop!” they shouted.

He chopped a few more times until
there was nothing left of the poor cake. Sam caught Rupert’s eye. This was in
incredibly poor taste, considering the morning’s tragedy. She tilted her head
toward the door and he edged out into the hall with her.