Chocolate Covered Murder

by Kate Bell

  I lifted one eyebrow and looked at him. “We really don’t have the time to build a fence and bleachers and then round up goats. However, as silly as it might sound, it’s not a bad idea. It’s perfect for families with little kids and would fit in with the carnival. I’ve seen it at a couple of rodeos and everyone seems to have a good time.”

  “See? That’s what I’m saying. You have a lot of great ideas. Maybe you should work on that for next year, and I mean that seriously.”

  “I just might do that,” I said, thinking about it. We really hadn’t had a new event in years and something more for the families was just what we needed.

  The waitress came and took our orders. We sat and stared at each other for a few minutes, with very little talking, but I didn’t care what anybody thought. I was on a date with Ethan Banks and I was happy.

  We were still waiting to vote on the Halloween season, and even though we had another murder on our hands, when I was with Ethan, I felt like everything was going to work out.

  Chapter Ten

  The next day I wandered over to the haunted house. I was surprised to see Joe Small sitting on the bench out front. The house was still closed, and I really hadn’t expected to see anyone there; I had just wanted to get some exercise on my break.

  “Hey, Joe,” I said and took a seat next to him on the bench. “Are they opening up the haunted house soon?”

  “Supposed to open this weekend,” he said, not looking at me. “I’m just waiting for Charlie. He’s going to bring our checks by. I guess I’m a little early.”

  “He doesn’t do direct deposit?”

  “Nope. Charlie’s cheap and I’m sure the bank would charge him a fee to set it up. He isn’t going to pay for that. He’d rather have all his employees make a trip to our banks to deposit our checks,” he said and took a sip from the cup of coffee he held in his hand. Joe was nearing middle age and his light brown hair was thinning on top. He always had the appearance of being tired.

  “That’s inconvenient. I didn’t know banks charged for direct deposit,” I said. My mother had set up direct deposit to have mine and Lisa’s check deposited every two weeks, but I thought it was something the bank did to get her business. I had never considered asking her if she was charged for it.

  “Yeah, it’s very inconvenient for me to have to run down to the bank to deposit my check,” he grumbled.

  “So, any idea what might have happened to Greg Richardson?” I asked casually. He had already pointed his finger at Charlie, but I wondered if he would say anything more.

  “Like I said before, it was Charlie,” he said without elaborating.

  I looked at him sideways. “Why do you say that?”

  He shrugged. “It’s his haunted house. How else would Greg have gotten inside? Charlie told Gary to take everyone’s key back, but it’s not like Charlie ever knew how many keys were out there to begin with,” he said with a snort. “Charlie is the most disorganized person I ever met. There’s just something about Charlie I’ve never trusted. If I were a betting man, I’d bet on him.”

  I considered this for a moment. It was odd that Greg was killed in the haunted house, and Charlie was the owner after all. But what motive did he have? Joe just sounded bitter to me.

  “So the haunted house was searched before closing late Friday night, right? Did you go straight home afterward?”

  He glanced at me. “Yeah, it was searched. I went straight home because I have to be up delivering newspapers at six a.m. on Saturday morning. If Charlie weren’t so cheap, I wouldn’t have to work four jobs just to make ends meet.”

  I couldn’t understand Joe blaming that on Charlie. The haunted house was a seasonal part-time job at best. How could he expect to eliminate one of his other part-time jobs, even if Charlie paid his employees a little more money? There just wouldn’t be enough money to go around and Charlie needed to make a profit.

  “It just doesn’t make sense that Greg was here in the haunted house if everyone went home,” I said thoughtfully. I wanted to bring up what Evelyn said about Joe getting evicted from one of Greg’s houses, but I wasn’t sure how to do it.

  “Me and Sarah Johnson closed up and checked the rooms. Gary showed up at the last minute to lock up since we didn’t have a key. Everyone else was already gone.”

  “I just hope this thing gets settled quickly,” I said.

  “Have you heard anything new about whether the city council is going to vote on keeping the Halloween season? I also work at Little Coffee Shop of Horrors. Two of my jobs depend on the Halloween season. It would be just great if they shut the season down, I’d be out of two jobs then,” he said dejectedly.

  “We’ll hear for sure next week,” I said. “I didn’t know you worked at the coffee shop. Amanda and Brian are friends of mine.”

  “I started last week. I just do some cleanup during the week and help out where I can. It’s not too many hours, but I do get paid a little more than I do here. Can you believe that? I’ve been here twenty years and I’ve only gotten raises when the state minimum wage goes up,” he snorted again and shook his head.

  “Amanda and Brian are good people. I’m glad you found a job there,” I said, trying to stay noncommittal about the pay here at the haunted house. It was a obviously a sore spot with him.

  “Yeah, they seem nice. I just wish I could find a full-time job so I don’t have to work so many different jobs.”

  “It can be challenging working different jobs,” I agreed. “I did a lot of part-time work while in college. It’s rough. Some years I had some real financial challenges.”

  “Yeah, me too,” he said mildly.

  “I’m considering moving out of my parents' house now,” I said. “Do you know if the Pumpkin Hollow Apartments are still nice to rent?” I knew that Greg owned these apartments, and I was hoping he would comment on that.

  He looked at me. “Greg Richardson owned those. They’re overrun with bed bugs. You don’t want to rent one of those.”

  “Oh, no, I wouldn’t want to do that,” I said. “Are you sure about that?”

  He nodded. “Oh yeah. I rented one of those last year and the place was filthy with the nasty things. I kept telling Greg he needed to get someone in there to get them exterminated, but he refused to do it. Said it was my imagination. I asked around the complex, and the other tenants had them, too. So I refused to pay my rent. By law, he was responsible to get rid of them and he refused.”

  “What happened then?” I asked.

  “He evicted me!” he said angrily. “Can you believe that? It’s the law that he get rid of bugs and rodents and he was too cheap to do it. There were children living in some of those other apartments and I saw the bug bites on their arms and legs. But he didn’t care. He wouldn’t do anything about it.”

  “Wow,” I said. The shock in my voice was genuine. I’d heard bed bugs were almost impossible to get rid of and if Greg was aware of them and refused to get rid of them, then that said a lot about his character. “That’s really awful. Did you fight the eviction?”

  He shook his head. “I thought about it, but in the end, I decided it wasn’t worth it. I didn’t like living with those bugs any more than anyone else did. It really sucked though, I had to get rid of everything that couldn’t be run through a hot dryer to kill those things. There’s no other way to get rid of them.”

  “I bet you were angry about that. I know I would be.”

  He nodded and took a sip of his coffee. “I still get mad when I think about it. I was out a lot of money when I had to replace my furniture and mattresses.”

  I eyed Joe. Evelyn had been right about the eviction, but she had left out the part about him being driven out by bed bugs. I wondered if Joe was angry enough to kill Greg over it. If Evelyn was also right about his temper, then he just might have been.

  Chapter Eleven

  I was running errands for my mother and myself the next day on the far side of town. I was so entrenched in Halloween that it seemed we
ird to see businesses that weren’t yet decorated for the holiday. Everything was ordinary, and it made me feel just a little sorry for the other businesses. I stopped in at the Java Bean coffee shop for some liquid caffeine. I felt a little guilty, like I was cheating on my friends Amanda and Brian, who owned the Little Coffee Shop of Horrors, but I needed coffee.

  The line was long, and I went to the tail end of it. I inhaled the scent of freshly brewed coffee while I waited. The woman standing in front of me seemed familiar. I tried leaning to the right a little to see if I could get a better look at her, and she caught me out of the corner of her eye and turned around, looking at me. I smiled big when I realized it was an old friend from high school. Carrie Green had been in my chemistry class in my junior year and several other classes when we were seniors. We had never been very close, but she was a nice person and we always had something to talk about when we ran into each other.

  “Hi Carrie, how are you doing?” I asked.

  “Mia, how are you?” she asked and gave me a hug. “I didn’t know you were back in town. When did you get back?”

  “I’m doing well, I moved back about a month ago. How have you been Carrie?”

  “I’m doing great,” she said and scooted up a little as the line moved forward. “You know I got married about six years ago, but you might not know we had twin girls two years ago. They keep me so busy. Sometimes I can’t tell if I’m coming or going.” She laughed. Carrie was petite at five-feet-two, with blond hair and brown eyes. She wore silver wire-framed glasses and had an upturned nose.

  “I had no idea, congratulations! I’m so happy for you,” I said. I suddenly wondered if I had stayed in Pumpkin Hollow would I have been able to say something like that by now? Married with two children. Would Ethan have asked me out if I had come back six years earlier, and would we have been married and have kids by now? I pushed the thought out of my mind. It was silly to think like that. Things were the way they were supposed to be, and I was fine with it.

  “Yeah, we had wanted to wait a while to have kids, but you know how things go. I found out I was pregnant one day, and life has been full speed ahead ever since,” she laughed. “Of course, it’s meant that I have to work two part-time jobs—twins are expensive! But Tom and I have alternating schedules so one of us is almost always with the girls. And when we aren’t, one of our mothers has them.”

  “Wow, that sounds like a lot of work,” I said and scooted up in the line with her. “Where do you work?”

  “One of my part-time jobs is at the bank down the street,” she said turning toward me as we spoke. “The other is at Pizza Town. At least we get free pizza for dinner a couple of times a week.” She laughed. “It’s not gourmet food, but it is tasty.”

  Pizza Town? “Well you can’t beat pizza,” I said. “Carrie, you work with Frank Garcia, don’t you? How is he to work with?” I looked over my shoulder to see if anybody was listening but no one was in line behind me.

  Carrie made a face and rolled her eyes. “Oh, you mean the hardest working person on the planet?” She laughed again. “I have to hear over and over how hard he works and how nobody else works as hard as he does. Of course, getting him to come to work is a job all by itself.”

  My antenna went up. “Really? Because the other day he said he’d been working six days straight without a day off.”

  She shook her head. “It’s more like we’ve been trying to get him to come to work for six days straight.” She said and chuckled again. “To be honest, he has come in for six days straight. But he’s only worked two or three hours each day because he’s always saying he’s sick, or he forgets to come in and then the boss has to call and make him come in, but yeah I guess he has worked six days straight.”

  I looked at her. “Wow. Why does the boss put up with him?”

  “Because he’s the boss’ wife’s nephew. The assistant manager is also his aunt. It’s a real family affair up there.”

  Ah. Frank had just earned himself a spot at the top of my list of suspicious people. But there was the question of why he would want to kill Greg at the haunted house. He had threatened Charlie, but why kill Greg there? Unless he really did resent Greg for firing him from his job cleaning up rentals. And if he could somehow set Charlie up for the murder, he would pay back two people for firing him at one time.

  “I guess some people get away with murder don’t they?” I said.

  She laughed, and we scooted up another couple of spaces in line. “Some people do. Why are you asking about him?” she wondered.

  I shrugged and tried to come up with an answer without giving away the fact that Ethan and I had talked to Frank about the murder. “My mother is looking for another part-time employee.” I left it at that. I didn’t want to lie to her, and it was true that my mother was looking for another employee. We had lost one several weeks earlier.

  Carrie’s face lit up. “I hate working at Pizza Town. Do you think your mother would look at my resume if I sent it to her?”

  “Of course she would,” I said with interest. “I think that’s a great idea. Email me your resume, and I’ll have my mom take a look at it. She’s in charge of all the hiring, and I’m sure she’ll remember you from when we were in high school.”

  “That would be great. Mia, did you hear about the murder at the haunted house?” she whispered.

  I nodded. “It’s the talk of the town.”

  “Don’t tell anyone I said this, but the haunted house is in foreclosure. The bank I work at holds the mortgage,” she said, glancing over her shoulder.

  “Really?” I said thoughtfully. “Sounds like a lot of bad luck for Charlie McGrath.”

  She nodded. “I’m so glad I stopped in here for coffee,” she said. “I almost passed by but I suddenly got a craving for coffee. I’m so glad you were here.”

  “I’m happy about it too,” I said. And that was the truth. If she hadn’t been here, and I hadn’t stopped in, I wouldn’t have known that Frank wasn’t telling the full truth about being at Pizza Town for six days straight and that Evelyn wasn’t telling the whole truth about the haunted house’s financial outlook. If Frank was only working two or three hours a day, he had plenty of time to commit a murder. And did an imminent foreclosure on the haunted house play into Greg’s death somehow?

  I needed to talk to Ethan. He needed to know about both of these things.

  Chapter Twelve

  The candy shop door swung open and Ethan stepped inside. I was wiping down the front counter and I turned to look at him. He was wearing his uniform and a patrol car was parked out at the front curb.

  “Whoa, I almost didn’t recognize you. Why are you wearing a uniform?”

  He came to stand beside me. “I told you I still have to be on patrol sometimes,” he said with a grin. “I can’t be on patrol and not be in uniform. Someone might think I stole the patrol car if I were wearing a T-shirt and jeans.”

  “That’s kind of a bummer,” I said.

  He shrugged. “I don’t mind. I never expected a promotion anyway, so when I don’t have to wear my uniform or patrol the streets, it’s a bonus.” He turned toward my mother who was washing the front window. “Hello, Mrs. Jordan.”

  She turned and smiled at him. “Hello, Ethan, it’s a lovely day today.”

  “It sure is. The weather is beautiful.”

  “I have some news for you,” I whispered to him. “Let’s step outside for a minute.”

  We walked over to the squad car and stood next to it.

  “I spoke to Carrie Green, who works over at Pizza Town. She said Frank has worked the last six consecutive days all right, but only about two to three hours each day. It seems that for all of his talk about being the hardest worker in the restaurant, it’s really just all talk. His aunt is the manager’s wife at Pizza Town, and the assistant manager, who we met, is another aunt. Apparently, he gets away with murder.”

  “Two or three hours, huh? That sure leaves an awful lot of time during the day,” he said
thoughtfully. “Time he could use to do who knows what.”

  “That’s what I was thinking,” I said. “Of course, being lazy really isn’t a motive for murder.”

  “No, it isn’t. But people only lie to cover up something,” he said.

  “Someone that would make up something like that sure makes you wonder. Do you think he killed Greg in hopes that Charlie would be blamed?” I asked him.

  “I think it’s a stretch, but it’s something I have to consider,” he said.

  “Carrie also told me the haunted house is in foreclosure,” I said.

  He looked at me. “That’s interesting. It may be another piece of the puzzle.”

  His radio crackled to life and a call about a domestic disturbance came over it. “I guess that’s my cue to leave. I’ll talk to you later, Mia. Thanks for the information.”

  “I’ll see you later, Ethan,” I said and watched him get into his patrol car and pull away from the curb.

  I headed back into the shop to finish tidying up. Early evenings usually saw a rush of customers as people stopped in after work and I wanted everything to be neat and tidy.

  “How is Ethan?” Mom asked.

  “He’s great,” I said and looked up as the door swung open. It was Charlie. “Hi Charlie, how are things going?”

  “Hello Mia,” he said, walking up to the front counter. “Things aren’t going as well as they could be, but you know about that already. I don’t know what could have happened to poor Greg Richardson. It’s just terrible.”

  I nodded. He seemed properly saddened, but I had to wonder if it was genuine. “The things that have been going on around here are scary. But I’m sure the police will get this thing sorted out soon.”

  “I certainly hope so,” he said looking over the candy in the display case. “This all looks so good, Mia. I’m glad I don’t sell candy because if I did I’d have a mouthful of cavities.”