“And did you notice the stain on his collar? Purple.”
Bee inhaled, sharply. “Like the color lipstick Gillian was wearing.”
“Exactly.”
“And what was he doing at the restaurant anyway?” I shook my head. “Something doesn’t add up. I say we go back there and find a way in.”
“Ruby!” Bee sat forward. “That’s the most exciting thing you’ve ever said.”
“I don’t know, maybe I’ve changed. Maybe it’s—” I’d wanted to say it was meeting Jamie that had changed me, but that seemed shallow. I was finally letting go of what had happened with Daniel and the incessant need to be liked by people.
I’d spent months after Daniel had ditched me alone. My friends had turned away or gossiped behind my back.
I shook my head to clear it. “What do you say, Bee? Should we do it?”
“You don’t have to ask me twice. I’m the one who’s always ready to put us in potentially life-threatening situations.”
“The best friend a girl could ask for.”
Bee snorted, but her mirth faded, and her face settled into a frown. “We can’t go in the food truck. On foot.”
“I’m ready when you are.”
“If anyone stops us, we say we’re out for a walk to admire the Halloween decorations,” Bee said.
We took a slow, roundabout walk toward McKene’s restaurant, passing only a few people under the glow of the wrought iron lampposts on the street. It was past 8 pm, and while the town wasn’t dead quiet, it was cold and that meant the streets weren’t bustling with activity.
McKene’s was as dark as it had been when we’d arrived the first time around.
We slipped into the alleyway and tried the side door, but it was locked. A quick exploration of the perimeter of the building showed us exactly one unguarded entrance. A window high on the wall that had been left open a crack.
Bee and I did rock, paper, scissors to decide who would go in, and I lost.
“Give me a boost,” I whispered.
Bee formed a cradle with her hands, and I stepped into it. She boosted me up, and I caught the ledge. I hoisted myself in, wheezing, whacking my head into the edge of the window and muttering under my breath, before tumbling head first into a tiled bathroom.
“Ow!” I yelped, pain shooting through my arm. “Ow, ow, ow.”
“What?” Bee hissed from outside. “You OK?”
“Fine.” I rose, testing my wrist. For one horrible second, I’d been sure I’d twisted it, but it was only a little tender. I shook it out then navigated through the dark, holding my hands low. The cool edge of a sink met my fingertips, and I shimmied along. In a stroke of genius—sarcasm, of course—I’d left my phone with its handy flashlight app back in the truck.
I found the door and clunked it open. Inside the restaurant’s hall, I switched on the lights. I’d have to make this quick—the hallway led into the restaurant’s main dining area, which looked out on the street through glass doors and floor-to-ceiling windows. If someone saw me moving around in here…
I skedaddled into the kitchen, passing silver countertops and a massive burner, and opened the back door for Bee.
“Switch off the lights!” she hissed.
I jogged back into the restaurant and switched them off. Thankfully, there was enough light from the streetlamps to navigate around in here without bumping into anything. Although, that meant people could probably see our silhouettes.
“Now what?” I whispered.
“The office. There’s got to be a computer or something.” Bee’s darkened shape moved to a staircase in the corner.
I followed her, and we found the office door unlocked on the second-floor landing.
Bee shut the door behind us and switched on her flashlight app.
“All right,” she said, by the somewhat spooky blue light from her phone. “Let’s do this. I’ll check the computer. You check the desk and filing cabinet.” She handed me the phone.
I did as she’d suggested, working around her as she sat in the massive leather executive chair and tried to crack the laptop’s password.
The filing cabinets were empty except for a few receipts. “Weird,” I whispered. “There’s nothing in here. Surely, they would’ve kept paper records?”
“Might be on the computer.” She still hadn’t gotten in.
“Or someone got rid of it all? Arthur?”
“Maybe. Maybe.”
I opened the top desk drawer and found nothing but a few pens and an empty notepad. The top page had been torn free. I made a mental note of it but closed the drawer and moved onto the next one. It was empty.
A glint of light caught my attention—it had come from the carpeting near the base of the desk. I dropped into a crouch and scanned, then sucked in a breath. “Bee!”
“This darn computer,” she muttered, shifting in her chair. “I can’t—”
“Bee!”
“What?”
“Look at this.” I shone the light onto the item wedged underneath the desk. It was golden and covered in dark, brown stains. “It’s a ring. A wedding ring.”
Bee shoved out of the chair and dropped down next to me, removing a plastic baggie from her handbag. “Lift the desk for me, Ruby.”
I got up, grabbed the edge of the desk, and lifted. My muscles strained, but the desk did rise an inch.
“Got it,” Bee said, with a crinkle of plastic. “You can let go of the desk.” She rose, holding up a clear plastic bag and the item inside it. “You’re right. A wedding ring. Stained with blood.”
“Do you think it belonged to—?”
The door opened before I could finish the sentence.
9
Bee hid the evidence bag behind her back. I fumbled with the phone, trying to switch off the flashlight app. It didn’t work, and the office lights came on before I could do anything of use.
The mayor stood in the doorway, wide-eyed, his hand still on the knob. “W-wh-wha—?” He backpedaled and slammed the door shut.
“Wait!” Bee yelped. “Arthur wait!” She stowed the evidence bag in her handbag then ran at the door. The lock clicked before she reached it. “Arthur!” She jerked on the doorknob.
“Bee, what do we do?” I finally managed to switch off the flashlight app. “We’re on the second floor. We can’t… there’s… what do we do?”
“Arthur, open this door!”
“The window.” I ran over to it, opened the blinds and pulled the window up. Cool air flooded the room, but there was no way down, and jumping would only land us on top of a dumpster. A closed dumpster. So that wasn’t happening. “Bee!”
She marched over and peered down at the alleyway below. “That’s not happening.”
“Then what do we do?”
“There’s nothing we can do,” she replied. “Bar breaking the door down. Oh! We should break the door down.” She turned toward the exit again.
This isn’t happening.
We’d been caught in the act of investigating, and even in breaking and entering before, but this was a new low. Being locked into the place we’d broken into? What happened now? What if Arthur was actually the murderer and he’d locked us in here while he went and… what? Got a weapon?
“Bee,” I whispered. “We’ve got to get out of here before—”
A police vehicle whooped outside. That was both a good and a bad thing. We could rule out Arthur murdering us at least. And I’d been arrested once before because of something like this.
“Back away from the door and wait,” Bee said. “We’ve got to act relaxed. Almost like we’re meant to be in here.”
“What are we going to say?” Panic welled in my throat. “What if we get thrown in prison for this? It’s breaking and entering.”
“Let me handle it, Ruby.” But Bee was tense, and I could make out the cogs working in her brain.
“The chef,” I said. “We could say, uh, we could say—”
Footsteps thumped on the stairs tha
t led to the office. The door opened, Arthur holding it for none other than Detective Snodgrass. The last person we’d wanted to see.
And she looked like the cat who’d caught the mouse and drank the cream. She flashed a broad smile at me and then at Bee. “Ladies. Fancy seeing you here.”
“Arthur,” Bee said. “You didn’t need to call the police.”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk.” Snodgrass waved a finger at her. “You let me do the talking, ma’am.”
Bee sent a pleading look the mayor’s way, and he broke eye contact like he felt he owed her something. Bee was better at flirting than I’d realized.
“All right, so what, you two thought you’d break in here and steal from the office?” Snodgrass asked. “I had a bad feeling about the pair of you when you first came to town and I was right. Good work catching them now, mayor, before they can do something. Like poison us all with their cakes.”
“We would never!” I gasped.
Bee gritted her teeth. “We didn’t break in to steal anything. You can check the cash register or the safe or whatever you have on the premises. We haven’t taken anything.” Not technically true. We had taken evidence.
A bloodied wedding ring.
My gaze fell to the mayor’s left hand. His wedding ring was still on, so it couldn’t be his ring that we’d found.
“You want to check that out, mayor?” Snodgrass asked. “We can do that later. I’ll arrest these ladies and then you can confirm—”
“I’ll check,” Arthur said, and backed out of the room.
That left us in an awkward silence with the detective. Although, that silence was constantly broken by her sniffing, sniggering or pacing to the window then circling back around us, her boots squeaking.
Arthur returned. “Nothing’s been taken,” he said.
The safe isn’t in the office. That’s weird.
“Nothing, huh?” Snodgrass narrowed her eyes at us. “Then what are they doing here?”
“We’d have told you if you’d let us,” Bee said, and huffed a sigh. “We were hoping to eat here this evening, but when we passed by we noticed a light on inside and we saw… someone come out. We couldn’t make out who.”
“But they smelled of bourbon,” I put in.
Bee shot me a look that told me to quiet down before I said the wrong thing.
“So, we decided we’d try to check the place out. The back window as open.” Bee folded her arms. “We didn’t mean any trouble.”
“You expect me to believe that you saw a light on inside the closed restaurant and, instead of calling the cops, you decided to take matters into your own hands and break in here?” Snodgrass asked.
That’s it. We’re getting arrested.
“The last time we spoke to you, you basically told us we were your prime suspects,” Bee said.
“Yeah,” I managed, lamely.
“We didn’t want to call you without reason. And we were afraid you’d think we were up to something.” Bee grasped at straws.
“Yeah, because this is far less suspicious.” Snodgrass folded her arms over her buttoned shirt.
“What are you even doing here?” I managed. “Doesn’t this town have any beat cops?”
“I happen to be on speed dial for the mayor, in case he runs into any trouble.” She clapped the older man on the shoulder. “We go way back.” Her nose was hooked, her skin pale, and her hair still tied back in that incredibly tight bun. She reminded me of Anjelica Huston in Roald Dahl’s The Witches.
“Oh,” I choked it out. “Well, we haven’t done anything.”
“You’re trespassing on private property. I’m afraid, I’m going to have to call this one in. You know, a woman was murdered a couple nights ago.”
Wait, a couple nights ago? Gillian didn’t die in the morning?
“No.” That had come from Arthur.
“What?” Snodgrass turned to him. “Mayor, surely you don’t want—”
“I’m not going to press charges,” he said. “They clearly didn’t take anything. They probably meant well, even if they did go about it in the wrong way.”
“Thank you, Arthur.” Bee smiled at him, but he didn’t return it. I got the feeling that this was our first and last chance to mess up, and that the mayor wouldn’t be as receptive to our questions and investigations in future.
Why is he letting us go now? Our excuse was lame.
There was something strange going on here, but it wasn’t an option to look the gift horse in the mouth. “We’ll leave,” I said. “We’re sorry for causing a disturbance.”
Snodgrass looked as if she’d eaten a lemon whole, peel and all. We trooped past her and down the stairs, Arthur following with keys in hand.
Outside, Bee and I linked arms and headed back to the food truck.
“He let us go because he didn’t want the police in that building. Or because he didn’t want them messing around in his personal business,” Bee said. “I’d bet my last donut on it.”
“What do we do now?” I asked, quietly.
“We figure out what he’s hiding.” Bee stared ahead, the lamplight reflected in her sharp, hazel eyes.
10
“He has no alibi,” I said, finishing off the last of my omelet with a flourish of my fork.
The mood at the Oaken Branch Guesthouse hadn’t changed since the discovery of the body a few days ago. Most of the guests avoided us, some even refused to look at us, and Jules, the owner, paid us the barest of attention.
We’d taken to eating our breakfast out on the terrace, most times in the cold, because sitting inside meant eating eggs under scrutiny. Nothing ruined a good fried breakfast like being stared at from every corner of the room.
It was easier to talk out here too, especially since we had a suspect now.
Bee cut a piece of her cheesy omelet and ate it, chewing thoughtfully. “Let’s examine the facts,” she said. “Arthur has no alibi for the time of the murder, which we now know was the night before.”
I nodded, taking a sip of my coffee. “And he’s besties with Detective Snodgrass. They could be in on it together.”
“That or it’s easier for him to get away with things because of their friendship.” Bee ate another piece of omelet. “Or he’s in a position of power and no one’s going to challenge him because of that. We’ve heard a lot about Gillian, but how do we know he wasn’t the puppet master behind the scenes, driving her instead of the other way around?”
“We don’t,” I replied. “We don’t know anything concrete about their relationship.”
“Exactly. And we broke into McKene’s restaurant, he caught us, and didn’t press charges against us. That’s highly suspicious.”
“Yeah, he wasn’t doing it out of the kindness of his heart either,” I said. “He wouldn’t even look at us.”
Bee finished her omelet and pushed it aside. “We’ve got to keep an eye on him. You know, follow him, see what we can learn.”
I hesitated. “See, I agree with you, but shouldn’t we keep a low profile? What if we get caught again? I doubt that detective will take it easy on us, or that he won’t press charges a second time around. And Bee, we also haven’t been on the food truck for a few days. We need to get ourselves out there.”
“Assuming anyone will buy our cakes,” Bee grumbled. “OK, what if we go check out the mayor’s place first and then after that we sell some cakes? That way, we can discuss what we’ve discovered.”
I chewed on the inside of my cheek. I had to admit, I wanted to figure out who’d killed Gillian as much as she did, and the fact was, the mayor was mighty suspicious, especially after we’d discovered Gillian’s bloodied wedding ring.
“Ruby?”
“Yeah, all right,” I said. “Let’s do this.”
* * *
We hoofed it to the mayor’s house rather than taking the truck—it wasn’t exactly conspicuous—and kept circling the block, passing by the mayor’s house, and checking that he was home each time.
“I
don’t remember a time I’ve done this much cardio,” I said, huffing out breaths. “This had better be worth it.”
“It will be worth it when we clear our names.”
But the more we circled, the more I doubted that we would find anything of use. It wasn’t as if the mayor was going to go ahead and kill another person in broad daylight out on the street. If anything, the most we could do was rummage through his trash when he wasn’t home or peek through the windows, and after last night, I wasn’t keen to do that.
We came back around the corner, and I opened my mouth to air my grievances to Bee.
She grabbed my arm and jerked me behind a tree. “There he is,” she said. “Look!”
Arthur had emerged from his swanky home and strode down the front path. He opened the gates and headed to the house directly across the street, his hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans. He whistled under his breath, tilting his head toward the sun as he walked.
“If that’s grieving…” I trailed off.
The mayor’s shirt hung loose on his skinny frame—he reminded me of an oversized vulture—and he stopped to rearrange it before traversing the steps to the house opposite his. He spritzed breath freshener into his mouth then knocked on the front door.
It opened. I gasped. Bee squeezed my arm.
Sara Robertson stood on the threshold, smiling at him.
“Bee.”
“I know.”
She hugged the mayor and stepped back. The mayor entered and the door closed.
“The rumors must be true!” I said. “They’re having an affair.”
“That sneaky… he told us that to throw us off his scent. I bet they did it together!”
“Poor choice of words.”
“The murder,” Bee whispered.
Bee and I chased across the road and into Sara’s front yard. There was only a moment of hesitation from me—heck, I’d grown brazen after a year of investigating shenanigans. We circled the house, listening for noises, and found the pair sitting in a living room near the back of the house, watching TV.
Bee and I crouched beneath the open window, popping up every now and again to spy on them.
Murder With Sprinkles: A Bite-sized Bakery Cozy Mystery Book 11 Page 4