Chocolate Covered Murder

by Kate Bell

  “Wow, it’s nice to come into a house where there’s actual furniture to sit down on. You must be the upper class,” I said, flopping down on his sofa.

  He chuckled at me. “Some of us know how to live. What can I say?”

  “I have something to tell you,” I said. “My mom hired Carrie Green part-time, and she stopped in to say hello today. She had some interesting news.”

  “What did she have to say? And can I get you something to drink?”

  “Water would be great. Carrie said Frank Garcia was caught stealing from the cash register at Pizza Town.”

  “Really?” he said over his shoulder as he headed to the kitchen.

  “Really,” I confirmed.

  Ethan brought me a bottle of cold water and handed it to me. “Did they file a police report?” he asked.

  “No, not with his aunt being the assistant manager there. According to Carrie, she’s always covering up for him. He stole over three hundred dollars from the cash register and tried to cover it up by saying there was a computer glitch that made the cash register report more money taken in than there actually was. Carrie thinks he’s doing drugs. He lives for a few weeks at his mom’s house and then a few weeks at his aunt’s house and doesn’t seem to take responsibility for anything.”

  He sat down on the sofa next to me. “Between you and me, we’re trying to get an arrest warrant issued for him for vandalism. But, it hasn’t happened yet, so we need to keep it quiet.”

  I nodded and took a sip of my water. “I hope that happens. I think if he’s desperate for money, maybe he lured Greg into the haunted house to rob him, things went wrong, and he ended up killing him.”

  “It’s a possibility, I guess,” he said thinking it over. “Still, we don’t have a lot of evidence for Frank being the killer.”

  “What about that broken window in the basement?” I asked.

  “There weren’t any fingerprints around the broken window. I thought someone might have tried opening it to get out of the haunted house and when it wouldn’t open, they broke it. But, there weren’t any fingerprints around the window.”

  “It may still have happened that way. The window is at street level and faces the back of the house. Maybe the killer was wearing gloves. Is Frank still high on the list of suspects?”

  Before he could answer me, Boo jumped up on the sofa and started kneading Ethan’s leg. “Make yourself at home, Boo.”

  “I think he just did,” I said and ran my hand along Boo’s back. “Veronica also dropped by the candy store today. I feel so bad for her, she’s a nice person. Did she stop by to talk to you about the email she found?”

  “She did. The password worked on the laptop and we found some more email from Charlie McGrath in a file. We’re waiting on a judge to issue an arrest warrant,” he said. “Again, we’ve got to keep it quiet.”

  I gasped. “Really? Charlie did it?”

  “It looks that way. We should get the warrant before morning.”

  I sat back on the sofa. “Charlie McGrath. I don’t know, Ethan. Something in my gut says otherwise. What was in the email that made you decide to get a warrant?”

  “I can’t tell you everything, but Charlie wanted to meet Greg at the haunted house the day Greg was killed.”

  I was having a hard time believing Charlie had done it. He just didn’t seem like a killer, not that that really meant anything. “Charlie did it,” I said, thinking it over.

  He nodded. “Greg wanted to buy the haunted house out from under Charlie and Charlie got mad and killed him,” Ethan said quietly. “It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  “That does make sense,” I said thoughtfully. “I just don’t feel right about it. But what about Frank?”

  “He was definitely there at the haunted house that night but we’re not sure how he fits in with the murder. I’m not going to stop looking at other options just yet, at least not if clues point to someone else,” he said.

  I nodded. “Okay. We’ll keep our options open, just in case.”

  I was troubled about Charlie being arrested for the murder and I wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because I liked Charlie and didn’t want to think of him as a killer. Or maybe I was overlooking something.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The following day I baked up a batch of orange cupcakes and topped them with chocolate frosting. On the tops of them, I piped white frosting ghosts. While I worked, I went over everything we knew about Greg’s murder in my mind. Unless Charlie really did lure him into the haunted house, it made no sense that he was in there at all. I sighed. Somebody somewhere had to know what happened, and they were keeping that information to themselves. I put the cupcakes in the display case on the shelf beneath the fudge. Fudge was one of our best sellers and was always front and center on the top shelf of the display case.

  The cupcakes had been selling well since we had introduced them several weeks earlier and I was surprised we hadn’t had any trouble with Stella Moretti about selling baked goods. I expected it would only be a matter of time before she came in and had a fit over it. But Stella only halfway participated in baking and selling Halloween-themed goods in her bakery. She hated the Halloween season. The problem was, she was the Halloween themed bakery and the city council kept a tight hold on what businesses did in the Halloween business district.

  “I think the cupcakes were a good idea,” Mom said coming in from the kitchen. She carried a tray of orange lollipops that she had drawn black cats onto with sugar.

  “Those turned out so cute,” I said looking at the tray of lollipops. “And I do think the cupcakes were a great idea. If Stella decides she doesn’t want to fully participate in the Halloween season, then we will just pick up the slack where we can.”

  “Speaking of the Halloween season,” she said and set the tray of lollipops on the front counter. “I’m so glad we got the good news that we will be continuing it.”

  “Me too, it’s the best news we’ve had in over a month. I’m really concerned about the trouble we’ve been having lately. But, our luck has got to change soon, doesn’t it?”

  “I agree with you one-hundred percent,” she said. “We’ll just stay positive.”

  “If you don’t mind Mom, I think I’m going to take some cupcakes down to Ethan and the other officers to thank them for all the hard work they do for this community.”

  “That sounds like a great idea. You go ahead. I think I’m done making candy for the morning. We’re pretty well filled up with everything now,” she said as she arranged the orange lollipops in a cute fall-themed tin. She had wrapped each lollipop in clear cellophane and tied them with either orange or black sateen ribbons.

  “I’ll be back in just a few minutes then,” I said and headed back to the kitchen to get the rest of the cupcakes I had made. I put them in a carrier and headed out the door.

  ***

  “I brought treats for the hardest working police officers in the state,” I said to Ethan as I held the cupcake carrier out to him.

  “Oh wow, Mia, that was so nice of you to think of us,” he said and took the carrier from me, leaned over, and gave me a quick kiss.

  We were standing in the break room at the police station. There was half a box of donuts on the table, and I pushed them over a little so Ethan could set the box of cupcakes down. Opening the lid I could smell the wonderful aroma of orange and chocolate.

  “Those look really good,” Ethan said as he reached for one. “By the way, we got the arrest warrant and a couple of officers have gone to pick Charlie up.”

  I looked at him. “Really? I was kind of hoping the judge would say there wasn’t enough evidence.”

  “What? You don’t want me to be successful on my first case and put away the killer?” he asked, cocking one eyebrow and tilting his head toward me.

  “Of course I want you to be successful on your first case. I was just hoping it wouldn’t be Charlie,” I assured him. “If you really think there’s enough evidence to convict h
im, then I’m glad a killer will be off the streets.”

  He held the cupcake to his nose and inhaled. “Well, if you do the crime, you gotta do the time. You know what they say,” he said with a grin. “This smells so great.” He began peeling the cupcake liner away from the cupcake when we heard loud voices down the hall.

  “What’s going on?” I asked turning toward the open door.

  Ethan set his cupcake down on the table and headed to the door. “I’ll take a quick look,” he said over his shoulder.

  I followed Ethan to the door and watched as Charlie was brought down the hallway in handcuffs by two officers. He was quiet, with his head hung low, but his wife was hot on their heels. “You can’t do this! You have no right! I’m going to get a lawyer!” she cried following behind the officers.

  “Ma’am, you need to keep your distance,” Officer Ramirez warned her.

  “Don’t tell me what to do! You have no right to do this. You have no proof!” she cried.

  Ethan hurried to Evelyn, holding his hands up to her. “Evelyn, let’s try to calm down. We have an arrest warrant to bring Charlie in. You’re not making things any easier.”

  “I don’t care what you have. This is a mistake! You’ll be hearing from my lawyer, I already called him!” Evelyn’s curly hair hung limply above her shoulders and her cheeks glowed red. The anger that rolled off her was frightening.

  “We will be happy to speak with your lawyer,” Ethan said calmly. “We’re just doing our jobs, Evelyn.”

  The officers steered Charlie into the receiving area and closed the door behind them.

  “Ethan Banks, this is a terrible mistake,” Evelyn said, putting her hands on her hips. “I want to speak to the chief. Now. Someone is going to pay for this. No one arrests my husband without cause and gets away with it.” She narrowed her eyes at Ethan and jutted her chin out.

  “The chief is out of the office on business right now. If you want to go to the reception area, you can wait there and as soon as he returns I’m sure he will speak to you,” Ethan told her firmly. “But you cannot stay here if you aren’t going to keep your voice down.”

  Evelyn huffed at Ethan and opened her mouth to say something else when she caught sight of me standing in the doorway. She turned and looked at me. “Mia, tell him what a mistake this is. You know Charlie. He could never kill anyone. He couldn’t hurt a fly and you know as well as I do that this is a terrible mistake.”

  I wished I had stayed back in the break room where she couldn’t see me. There wasn’t anything I could do to help Charlie at this point, as much as I wished he wasn’t in this predicament. “I’m so sorry Evelyn,” I said. I really didn’t know what else to say to her. “I’m sure your lawyer will sort this thing out. I’m so sorry.”

  She strode toward me taking long steps and stopped in front of me. “This is a sad day in Pumpkin Hollow when somebody as decent and upstanding as my husband has been arrested for a crime he did not commit. I’m going to speak to my lawyer all right, and we will get to the bottom of this. I don’t know who killed Greg Richardson, but it wasn’t my husband.” She turned and headed back toward the door she had come in, shoving it open with her open palms.

  After the door closed behind her, Ethan turned to look at me. “I wish things hadn’t turned out the way they did, either. It really is kind of a sad day for Pumpkin Hollow, isn’t it?”

  I nodded. “But maybe there’s been a mistake. Maybe you’ll come up with more evidence and it’ll be somebody else that killed Greg.”

  He nodded. “I think I need a cupcake now. Stress makes me want sugar.” He gave me a grin and walked past me and back to his cupcake.

  I did hope that Charlie didn’t kill Greg Richardson. Part of me wished there would be some other explanation, like some stranger had killed him, but in my heart I knew that that wasn’t the truth, either.

  Chapter Twenty

  The following days were quiet ones for Pumpkin Hollow. Charlie had been arrested for Greg’s murder and Greg’s funeral had taken place earlier in the week. I considered going to the funeral, but I really wasn’t close to either Greg or his wife and I thought it might be an intrusion. I felt funerals were a personal occasion to be shared by family and close friends.

  I was hanging Halloween decorations in my new house and Boo was rubbing up against my legs as I used a thumbtack to hang a vintage black cat Halloween cutout on the wall of my living room by its black ribbon. I had been collecting vintage Halloween decorations for years, and I had a lot of really cute items.

  “Boo, I think this looks just like you.” The vintage paperboard cutout looked back at me with its yellow eyes and seemed to grin. No one had claimed Boo, and I had begun to think of him as mine.

  There was a knock at the door and I left my decorating to see who it was. Ethan stood on my front step when I opened the door. “Well, hello there,” I greeted him. I pushed the door open wider for him to enter.

  He gave me a quick kiss. “Hello Mia, and Boo,” he said and bent over to scratch Boo’s head.

  “You’ll spoil him if you give him what he wants every time you see him,” I warned and headed back into the living room.

  “I guess it’s a risk I’m willing to take,” he said with a chuckle. “Looks like you’re making things festive in here.”

  “I needed something to put me in a good mood, and Halloween always puts me in a good mood.”

  “I don’t know if you heard or not but I’ve got news that might be of interest to you.”

  I looked at him. “Oh?”

  He nodded and picked up a paperboard cut out of a big orange jack-o’-lantern with a small black cat lying across the top of it. “We arrested Frank Garcia today.”

  “Really? For Greg’s murder?” It wouldn’t surprise me if Frank had committed Greg’s murder, but I wanted to know if Charlie was released. “What about Charlie?”

  “No, Frank was arrested for graffiti in the haunted house. We checked down at the hardware store, and the day before Greg was killed, Frank had bought two cans each of green and black spray paint. We had also checked the security camera at the haunted house. The camera was extremely outdated, but there was a very blurry, spotty image of someone that looked like Frank. We needed more evidence to arrest him, so we held onto that until we found out about the spray paint he bought. His fingerprints were all over the place in the haunted house which isn’t surprising considering he worked there, but we’ve got enough to convict him on vandalism.”

  “Okay,” I said thinking this over. “Now you have proof that he was in the haunted house the night that Greg was killed. So why isn’t he being charged with his murder? And is the murder on the videotape?”

  “The video camera was in the lobby of the haunted house. And unfortunately, that’s the only video camera in the entire haunted house. If Charlie had invested in decent cameras, the camera probably would have caught the killer and maybe set him free. But as it is, there was only the one camera. Frank finally admitted he still had a key, and he also admitted to spray-painting the haunted house. He let himself in the front door, and that’s why he was on the camera. However, our killer most likely entered through another door since no one else came through the front door.”

  “The killer entered through another door, not the broken window?” I asked.

  “Just like we suspected, that window was broken from the inside. It was done to make it appear as if someone had broken in. But, they actually entered through another door and we have no video of that.”

  “And why don’t you think Frank killed Greg?” I asked.

  “Because Frank entered and left through the front door and Greg never appeared on camera, so he didn’t enter that way. Plus, we’ve got a time stamp. It didn’t take Frank long to graffiti the wall and he would have needed additional time to kill Greg. He just didn’t have enough time.”

  I sat down on the sofa and Boo immediately jumped in my lap. I ran my hand along his back and gently scratched the base of his tail. �
��So you got Frank to admit he was in the haunted house that night, and that he left the graffiti on the wall. I assume it’s because he was afraid he was going to be charged with murder?”

  Ethan sat down next to me and ran his hand over Boo’s head. “That’s exactly what happened. Frank’s afraid he’s going to have a murder pinned on him, so he confessed to the graffiti.”

  “And are you sure the murder shouldn’t be pinned on him?”

  “Everything points to Charlie. We still have a lot of work to do though, and Charlie is still maintaining his innocence.”

  “Have you been in touch with his lawyer?” I asked.

  He nodded and chuckled. “Oh yes, we’ve been in touch with his lawyer. But the chief still feels Charlie is our man.”

  “Well, I guess for now that’s the way things are. But I really think Frank is the murderer. We already know he and his aunt lied about him being at work that night.”

  “I went down and had a talk with his aunt without Frank around. She was very nervous and admitted that she really didn’t remember whether Frank was at work or not. I asked about timecards and she had to admit he frequently forges timecards and they just pay him whatever he writes down. But there’s little chance he was at work. Frank said he had gone home after he got off work, but we know he doesn’t tell the truth about much of anything.”

  I sighed. “Well, this is something,” I said. “At least Frank will be charged with vandalism. I just hope if Charlie is innocent that he will get off.”

  He nodded. “At this point, it doesn’t look good for Charlie.”

  All I wanted was for the killer to be put away. I was tired of thinking about the case.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  “What are you so down about?” Carrie asked me when I finished ringing up a customer. It was just after ten o’clock and I had been clock-watching all morning.

  I glanced over at her. I was glad we had hired her, Mom had told me how much work she had been doing around the shop since she had started working there a week earlier. She also had a lot of great ideas for new flavors of different candies.