Red, White, and Blue Murder

by Kathleen Suzette

  “Well, he’s more than my mailman, silly. He’s my husband’s cousin.”

  “Oh,” I said with relief. “Sorry, I didn’t know that.” Julie’s behavior was odd, to say the least. Why didn’t she just say he was her husband’s cousin to begin with?

  She laughed again. “Don’t be silly, I’m not just inviting my mailman to dinner. Although, I don’t suppose there’s anything wrong with inviting your mailman to dinner.”

  I looked at Lucy and the look on her face said she was as in shock over this conversation as I was.

  “So, did she spend a lot of time with Dave?” Lucy asked and took a sip of her coffee.

  Julie handed her a plate with a piece of cobbler on it and shrugged. “I don’t know if I would say it was a lot. But he usually hung around the house on the weekends if he wasn’t working.”

  I took a bite of my cobbler, trying to figure out how to proceed in asking questions at this point. She clearly didn’t see that there was anything wrong with a married woman spending time with another man, so I asked the only question I could. “That’s nice that your family and your husband’s family get along so well. Was her husband able to get away and spend as much time here as she did?” And what about Dave’s wife? Did she know her husband was spending his weekends at his cousin’s house when his wife’s cousin just happened to be in town visiting? This whole thing reeked.

  She shook her head. “No, he didn’t come every summer. It was every two or three summers for him. He would spend a week here and then he would head back. He had work to get back to, you know.”

  I nodded. “Of course.” I so wanted to give Lucy a look. And then I realize that Dave was a tall blond-haired man like the guy on the beach had mentioned, and I thought we might have our killer.

  “Allie, this cobbler is wonderful,” Lucy said as she took another bite. “Putting cherries and blueberries together was a great idea.”

  I nodded. “Thank you. It was kind of a last-minute decision. I’m glad it turned out so well.”

  “Dave must also be devastated now that Anita is dead,” Lucy said, eyeing Julie. “I mean, since they were friends.”

  She nodded. “He just completely fell apart when Jack called him and told him. Said he was crying on the phone.” She made a clucking sound and spooned a big piece of cobbler into her mouth.

  It was all I could do to keep from saying, see! He’s the killer!

  I took a sip of my coffee. “I didn’t see Dave at the fireworks show. Was he there?”

  She nodded. “Yes, I saw him on the beach, but I didn’t get a chance to talk to him that day.”

  The front door slammed and heavy footsteps could be heard coming toward the kitchen. I looked up and saw Anita’s son, Mike, standing in the doorway. Mike was tall like his parents, and his dark brown hair was almost to his shoulders and unkempt. He narrowed his eyes at us. “What’s going on in here?”

  “Oh, Mike, honey, Allie here brought us a lovely cherry and blueberry cobbler. It’s delicious. Would you like a piece?”

  Mike wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “No, why would I want some of that? Sounds disgusting.”

  “Now, Mike,” Julie said, looking at me and shaking her head. “Allie worked hard to make this cobbler for us. She’s the best baker in town and you are missing out if you pass over a piece of her cobbler.”

  “Who cares,” he said with a snort. I’d never seen anybody react that way to being offered a piece of my cobbler before.

  “Mike, we are so sorry about what happened to your mother,” I said ignoring his lack of excitement over being offered a piece of my cobbler. I didn’t know if his anger was a result of his mother being murdered or if he was always this way. Or maybe it was the cobbler.

  Mike’s face crumpled, and for a moment I thought he would cry. But he quickly recovered. “Whatever.” He turned and stomped down the hallway and a door slammed.

  “I’m sorry,” Julie said to me. “Mike is just going through a phase.”

  “And his mother was just murdered,” I pointed out.

  She nodded. “But for years now, Mike has been a difficult boy. His mother struggled terribly with him.” She shook her head. “Since he became a teenager, he’s been so insolent and angry. I don’t know what brings that out in him.”

  I wanted to say that it could be the fact that his mother yelled at him all the time, but this wasn’t the time or the place to comment on that.

  “I’m sure he’s really struggling now,” Lucy said.

  “Of course,” Julie said and took a sip of her coffee.

  We talked a while longer and then finished our coffee and cobbler and Lucy and I left.

  “That kid is something else,” Lucy said when we got in the car. “You don’t suppose he could have had something to do with his mother’s murder, do you?”

  “I don’t know about him, but if it was Dave Jones she was arguing with near the restrooms, then he’s a prime suspect.”

  Chapter Six

  After our visit with Julie, I dropped Lucy off at her house and then drove through the drive-through at the Cup and Bean coffee shop. They sold the strongest coffee in the county, and also the tastiest. I picked up an iced mocha for myself and an iced vanilla coffee for Alec.

  I headed over to his office and climbed the stairs. When I got to his door, I shifted one of the coffees to the crook of my arm to free up a hand to knock when Bob Payne stepped out of his office. Bob was the mayor of Sandy Harbor and not a fan of mine. I smiled. “Hi Bob, how are you today?”

  He scowled. “I’m fine.” Then he turned around and slammed his office door and stuck the key into the lock.

  “How’s your mom doing?” I asked. I shouldn’t have done it, but I couldn’t resist. His mother liked me less than he did. Some days I wasn’t as nice as I would have people believe me to be.

  He turned around and grimaced. “How my mother is, is none of your business,” he said and slammed down the stairs.

  “Okay then, sorry. Have a nice day,” I said and turned around and knocked on Alec’s door and then pushed it open.

  Alec looked up at me as I approached his desk. “Did you just ask Bob how his mother was?”

  I nodded and smiled. “Yeah, I swear it was out of my mouth before I thought it through.”

  He snorted. “Sure it was. What have you got there?” His eyes went to the drinks in my hands.

  I leaned over and kissed him. “An iced mocha for me, and iced vanilla for you. Unless you’d rather have the mocha?” I sat down on the chair in front of his desk.

  “No, vanilla is fine,” he said, reaching for the coffee.

  “So fill me in. What’s going on with the investigation? You are handling it, aren’t you?” The chief of police wasn’t one of my favorite people and it wouldn’t have surprised me if he had changed his mind and not given the case to Alec.

  He nodded, taking a long draw on the straw in his iced vanilla coffee. When he swallowed, he nodded again. “Yes, Sam Bailey gave me the case. And right now I’m just interviewing the list of people that were in the vicinity when Anita Towers’ body was found.”

  Alec had been a detective on the local police force, when the chief of police, Sam Bailey, had gotten on his nerves badly enough that he retired this past January. Now he was a private detective, but he still worked for the police force. It was different now, of course, because if Sam didn’t treat Alec right, he could just decline the cases. It uncomplicated a complicated matter.

  I sat back in my chair. “Anything interesting happening yet?”

  He shook his head. “No, not much of anything interesting just yet. It’s early though, have faith in me.”

  “I have absolute faith in you that you will get your man. Or woman.”

  He grinned and took another drink of his coffee. “This is really good coffee.”

  “The Cup and Bean sells the best coffee around.”

  He nodded. “What have you been up to?”

  “Well, Lucy and I stopped
by and had a nice long chat with Julie Sommers. I made her a cherry and blueberry cobbler and I have to say that it turned out pretty good.”

  “I’m sure it did,” he said. “But did Julie tell you anything that might be helpful to the case?”

  I smiled. “Of course she did. Why else would I bring it up?”

  He chuckled. “Spill it. What did she say?”

  In the beginning, Alec had been unhappy about me helping out on investigations, but he soon realized that I was indispensable. I could get information from the most stalwart character. Being able to make delicious desserts had its advantages, and when I couldn’t sweet-talk someone into giving up information, the desserts usually could.

  “Did you know that Dave Jones is Julie’s husband’s cousin?”

  His brow furrowed in thought. “No, why would I care?”

  I smiled. “Because it seems that Anita Towers had been coming to Sandy Harbor every summer and sometimes spent a month or longer here. She was friends with Dave. And I’ll put the word friends in quotation marks.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “So I see. And would Dave Jones have happened to be there at the fireworks show the other night?”

  “He certainly was,” I said. “And he is a tall, blond-headed man, and that one guy said he had seen the victim arguing with a tall, blond-headed man near the restrooms.”

  “Interesting,” he said, thinking about this. “No one else mentioned this Dave Jones.”

  I shook my head. “No, they didn’t.”

  He took another sip of his coffee. “So, we have a tall blond-haired stranger that might be Dave Jones who argued with her, her husband argued with her, and her son argued with her. Am I leaving anyone out?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose it’s a possibility that Julie or her husband or son could have argued with her, too. That woman seemed to argue with everyone that day. But I didn’t actually see her argue with anyone from Julie’s family.”

  “Does Julie find it odd that she wanted to spend her summers here in a small town in Maine? And that she enjoyed visiting with Dave?” He sat back in his chair.

  I shook my head. “No, Julie seems to be completely oblivious to it. I mean, maybe they really were just friends. But it’s suspicious that they argued about something and then she turned up dead.”

  “That son of hers sure is a surly bundle of joy,” he said.

  I pointed my finger at him. “That’s exactly what I was going to say. He has a terrible attitude. Maybe it’s just because he’s upset about his mother being killed, but they argued there at the beach, and Julie said the two of them argued quite a bit.”

  “He told me he didn’t care who killed her.”

  My mouth dropped open. “Are you serious? Why would he say something like that? When I told him I was sorry about his mother dying, for a minute I thought he was going to cry. But then he recovered and stormed off to another room. I thought it was because he’s distraught over her being murdered.”

  He shrugged. “Some people have a hard time showing their emotions. Maybe saying what he didn’t care when I talked to him was just a defense mechanism.”

  “He’s a teenage boy. I know he has to be sorry his mother is dead. Even older kids still need their moms.”

  He nodded and was quiet a moment. “I’m sure he is. It was probably just a way to protect himself from what happened.”

  “Unless,” I said thinking about this, “unless he’s also been coming here during the summers with his mother. And he knows about Dave and he’s angry about it. That could be why he’s so hostile toward her.”

  “That’s a good point,” he agreed. “And I wouldn’t blame him a bit if he was angry about it. You didn’t happen to ask if he comes here for the summer with her?”

  I shook my head. “No, Julie said that her husband comes every year or two, but not every year like Anita did. It’s possible she brought her son with her and he’s angry about the whole thing. I don’t know why Julie isn’t seeing more into that situation then she appears to.”

  He took a sip of his coffee and laid his head on the chair back. “Does Julie strike you as someone immature or naïve?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe a little immature. She’s also very nosy and gossips a lot. I don’t see most gossipers as naïve people. They usually jump to conclusions about people and spread what they believe is happening in a situation, even when they have very little insight into it.”

  He nodded. “Well, maybe it really was just a friendship. But maybe the boy suspects more and is angry over it.”

  “That makes sense, too,” I said. “I still can’t get over the fact that she was killed so close to where we were laying and we didn’t hear a thing. I would have thought there would have been a struggle. Wouldn’t you think she would have screamed?”

  “She must have died instantly and never saw the killer coming,” he said. “The medical examiner will be able to determine that for sure. All that noise with the fireworks and everybody oohing and awing made a lot of noise by itself. Even if she were able to make a sound, other than a scream, it probably wouldn’t have been heard.”

  I sighed and took a long drink of my iced mocha. “Well, I was hoping for a nice quiet summer, but I guess that isn’t going to happen.”

  He shook his head and chuckled. “Nope. Never a dull moment around here. So, did you happen to bake two cherry and blueberry cobblers?”

  I eyed him. “No, but I did something silly. I bought a great big box of cherries and then I bought a single cherry pitter.”

  His brow furrowed. “Single cherry pitter? What are you talking about?”

  “The pits. Cherries have pits and they need to be removed before I can cook with them. And I bought a pitter that only does single pits instead of one that does half a dozen at a time. Do you know how big those boxes of cherries are?”

  He chuckled again. “I can see where that might be an issue. So again, did you make me a cherry and blueberry cobbler? Or, will you make me one?”

  “Sorry, what I meant to say was that pitting them singly is a lot of work and I did not make you a cherry and blueberry cobbler. However, if you have a little patience, you just might get one. I ordered another pitter and it will be here in a couple of days.”

  He frowned. “I have to wait a couple of days?”

  I shrugged. “I guess I can work on pitting the cherries with the one I’ve got. But I don’t think it’s going to happen today.”

  “Fair enough, I guess it doesn’t have to happen today. But I’m going to hold you to it. I want one of those cobblers. Please.”

  I got to my feet and leaned over the desk and kissed him again. “I could never deny you. I’ve got to run now. I’ll see you later.”

  “See you,” he said as I headed to the door.

  I hoped that Anita’s son didn’t kill her. I couldn’t imagine him having to spend the rest of his life in prison if he did. But worse things have happened by more surprising killers than her son would make.

  Chapter Seven

  It was a frustrating few days with no new information on the murder of Anita Towers. I had made Alec his cobbler, and he had been delighted with it, as he usually was with whatever I bake, so there was that. And my new cherry pitter had come in the mail and I was excited by how well it worked. Cherry preserves were high on my list of jams to make. I also thought I’d try blueberry preserves. I’d considered mixing the two, but realized it would just turn into a very dark looking mess. I was pretty sure the flavors wouldn’t be distinguishable once the fruits were mixed and cooked.

  I packed up the cherry pies, cherry and blueberry cobbler, and blueberry pies I had made for Henry’s Home Cooking Restaurant and I was on my way over to drop them off. I made the desserts that Henry’s sold, and while it was satisfying work, I still felt something was missing in my life. I had talked to Steve Anderson down at the organic foods Co-op and he had agreed to sell my jams and jellies there, and the baking blog was going well with traffic increasing monthly. But I
still felt like I needed something more. I just didn’t know what that more was.

  When I finished dropping off the desserts at Henry’s, I got back in my car and decided that an iced coffee was in order. Again. I may have been developing an addiction. The weather had warmed up and there was nothing as satisfying as an iced coffee on a hot day. Except, of course, for good old-fashioned Southern sweet tea.

  I pulled into the Cup and Bean coffee shop and parked and got out of my car. Jennifer had loaned me one of her sundresses and the sun was warm on my shoulders. I went inside.

  “What will you have?” the young man at the front counter asked.

  My eyes were on the menu board above him. “How about that raspberry mocha iced coffee, right there,” I said, pointing at the board. “Make it a large, please.”

  The boy didn’t turn around to see what I was pointing at. He just said, “all right. Raspberry mocha iced coffee coming up.”

  I watched as he went to work on my drink. His dark hair was pulled back into a tiny ponytail and he was tanned. I hadn’t seen him around before and I wondered if he was new. “Have you been working here long?”

  He glanced at me as he poured milk into the cup. “Yeah, a couple of months I guess.”

  I nodded. “I haven’t seen you around before. I come into this place far more than I ought to.”

  He nodded but didn’t comment.

  “Do you enjoy working here?”

  He glanced at me and smiled. “It’s a job. It beats fast food.”

  I nodded. “I bet it does. At least you’re not dealing with the heat from the kitchen at a fast food place and going home smelling like French fries.” I chuckled. “I had a few fast-food jobs when I was in high school.”

  He glanced at me again. “Yeah.”

  I shrugged and paid for my drink. The boy wasn’t very talkative. When I turned around, I spotted Mr. Winters at the back corner table. I headed over to him. Why beat around the bush and play coy? Mr. Winters had his finger on the pulse of Sandy Harbor.