by Donna Doyle
Sammy watched him go, wondering just what kind of security they had in this place. Was there really supposed to be a bouncer at the door? Or had they gotten rid of him once they knew she was on her way in? Was McTavish aware that she was onto him, just acting friendly enough to keep her there while he decided what to do with her? Sammy wasn’t going to stick around and find out.
When she saw the owner head behind the bar on the opposite side of the room, she stood up as calmly as she could and turned toward the door she had entered through. A big man dressed in black stood there now, and he watched her closely as she approached. “Have a nice night,” she choked out. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up as she opened the door, sure that he would stop her, but she made her way out into the lobby and to her car without incident.
Chapter Nine
She wanted to get away from the theater as fast as she could, but the bright red-and-blue lights that showed up in Sammy’s rearview mirror a few minutes later showed her just how fast she was going. But at least if she was being pulled over, then anybody from the casino who might be in pursuit of her wouldn’t dare to stop.
And of course, it was Sheriff J.J. Barnes who showed up at her driver’s side window. “I should have known it was you, with that out-of-state license plate.”
“Sheriff, I was just coming to the department to talk to you. I’ve discovered something really important.”
He raised a thick gray eyebrow. “So important that you were speeding on your way to the sheriff’s department? That doesn’t seem very likely to me. Step out of the vehicle.”
“What? Why?”
“You were going at least fifteen miles per hour over the speed limit. You’re coming with me.” He beckoned at her with his finger.
Panic swept over her. “I can’t just leave my car here on the side of the road. Can’t I follow you to the station or something?”
“I’ll call someone in to tow it, and you can pick it up at the impound lot when you get released. Besides, I’m already on my way to a call, and I don’t have time to sit down and chit chat. Let’s go.”
With little choice but to comply, Sammy turned off the ignition, grabbed her purse, and got out. Barnes escorted her once again into the back set of his squad car. She listened impatiently as he made the call for the tow, and then they were on the road again.
“Listen, I really need to talk to you about something,” she started, figuring that if Barnes was going to make her sit in the back of his car, she would at least use that time wisely. “I think I might have just found an underground gambling den in the Stargazer Theater. No, I mean, I know I did.”
“Right,” Barnes replied from behind the wheel. “And I suppose the people who run this place are also the ones who poisoned Sheriff Jones?”
“Well, maybe. I don’t quite know that part yet, but it seems possible. You see, Jones was dating Henry McTavish’s daughter, but I heard they broke up. Now she’s back in town, and her dad didn’t seem all that happy to see her. Maybe he doesn’t want a cop coming around when he’s hiding a casino in the back of the theater. He could have poisoned him to get rid of him.” The timing didn’t quite seem to work out, but it was the best theory she had so far.
“Save it. I’ve got more immediate concerns right now. Jones is on the mend, and I’ve got a call about an intruder at Cricker Dairy Farms. The deputies tell me that Bob’s probably just drunk and imagining things again, but I’ve still got to check.” Barnes swung into a long driveway, pulling up in front of a cluster of farm buildings. He turned to glare at her over his shoulder. “I’m not sure I trust you to stay in here by yourself. You’re coming with me.”
“If you insist.” Sammy wasn’t particularly looking forward to seeing Bob Cricker again, but she climbed out when Barnes opened the door for her.
The two of them approached a big red barn. It looked like it was used for storage, since the buildings full of cattle were a little further back on the property. Barnes had a flashlight in one hand and held the other over his gun, just in case.
“Come on in,” said an inebriated voice from just inside the door. Bob Cricker stumbled into the light from the officer’s flashlight and reached inside the door, flooding the interior with light.
Inside, Sammy noticed a lot of dairy equipment. She didn’t know exactly what all the big steel vats were for, but she knew they must have had something to do with processing the milk. The walls were lined with big shelves. These were weighed down with various bottles, jugs, and crates.
Barnes shut off his flashlight. “What seems to be the problem, sir?”
“That dang kid has gotten in here again,” Bob said, shaking his head.
“What kid is that?”
“That Absher boy!” Cricker shouted. “I found him in my cattle barn last winter, curled up in the corner. My guess is he tried this barn so he could steal some milk or cream.” He stumbled between the rows of equipment, looking behind the big vats as if he expected to see Austin hiding behind one of them.
Sammy’s stomach curled in on itself. If Austin really had been here—something she was a little doubtful of considering Mr. Cricker’s drunken state—then Barnes probably wouldn’t handle him as nicely as Jones had. He didn’t know Austin or his situation. “Are you sure?”
Barnes turned to look at her. “I can handle this, thank you very much. Mr. Cricker, are you sure it was him? I don’t see anyone here.”
“Oh, trust me. It was him. I’d recognize him anywhere. I feel sorry for the kid, but what am I supposed to do when he’s coming onto my property without permission?” Bob stopped at an old fridge in the corner, extracted a beer, and popped the top.
“I’ll take a look around,” Barnes promised. He glanced at Sammy. “You stay right here. Don’t move.”
“I won’t,” Sammy promised. This whole thing was ridiculous, but she wasn’t going to go against the law. She stood in the middle of the barn, studying the big room and looking for any sign of Austin. Somehow, she was going to find a way to help him.
After Barnes had thoroughly looked over the premises without finding anyone, he came back to report it to Cricker. The dairy farmer had finished his beer and was reaching for another one. “Doesn’t that just figure. It takes the law so long to get out here that the criminal is already gone. I’ve got a lot invested in this place, you know. I can’t just let people come in and out willy-nilly.” He put out a hand to lean against one of the shelves on the wall, but he missed. Instead, Bob knocked over a big green jug. It fell to floor with a thump. The black cap popped off, sending a greenish liquid sloshing over the floor.
“Oops!” Bob laughed. “Guess I’d better watch where I’m going. That happened a few weeks ago, too. But it fell straight into a batch of cream, and I had to throw the whole thing out. What a waste!”
Sammy watched as the last of the liquid glugged out onto the floor. “What is that stuff?”
“Just some pesticide,” Bob replied with a shrug. “It’s not even the commercial-grade stuff, ‘cause I can’t afford that. But it works around the sides of the barns and on the fence lines.”
“I see.” And she was wondering just how much she was seeing. The gears in her mind were clicking and whirring. All she had to do was get someone to listen to her, and she knew she would already have the rest of the evening to chat with Sheriff Barnes.
Chapter Ten
A week later, Sammy bustled from one table to another. The lunch rush was just about over, but she had already spent all morning in the kitchen baking. The shelf in the back, with a big sign advertising their new bulk bakery items, had been thoroughly stocked with donuts, cupcakes, and rolls. Helen no longer restricted her to the back, and the customers were tipping her generously.
“Samantha,” Helen said from behind her, “there’s someone here to see you.”
“Okay, just a sec. I’ve got to take these orders.” Sammy had just seated a table of four.
“Let me do that, dear. I think this is important.�
�� The older woman took the pad and pen out of Sammy’s hand and gestured with her head toward the door.
She hadn’t seen him since that first encounter, but Sammy recognized Alfred Jones immediately. She instantly smiled at seeing him standing in the doorway, looking perfectly healthy. “Sheriff Jones,” she said as she approached him. “What brings you by today?”
“I have a few things I’d like to speak with you about,” he replied. “Is there someplace private we can talk?”
She bit her lip, thinking. “Yeah. Follow me.” Sammy led him through the restaurant, to the kitchen, and out the back door. She wasn’t about to bring him up to her apartment, and the alley was the quietest place she could think of. “Is everything all right?”
“Well, you’re not being brought back in for questioning again,” he replied, one dark eyebrow raised.
Sammy laughed. “That’s a good start. I take it Barnes finally listened to what I had to say.” It had been a very long night when they had gotten to the sheriff’s department after leaving the Cricker Dairy Farm. Barnes had brought her in not only because of her speeding but because he had a few more questions to ask her. Regrettably for him, she had done all the talking.
“He did, and as soon as I was cleared by the doctors, he passed all the information along to me before he headed back to Calmhaven. The department has been very busy in the meantime tracking everything down. We had to call in to the state boys when we raided McTavish’s place. It sounded like a pretty big job compared to the size of our force.”
“And?” Sammy had been anxiously listening to the news on the radio, waiting to hear something. She knew the police had gone in; that much was obvious from what she’d overheard from her customers. But the details were still fuzzy.
“And you were right,” Jones confirmed. “There was quite the operation going on in the back. I guess McTavish must have been very select about who he let come in, otherwise he would have been busted a long time ago. I didn’t tell him you were the one to come to us with the information, but he guessed. Of course, he blamed it all on his bouncer for taking a break when he was supposed to be working.”
“I see. Does that mean I’m in any danger?” She’d never done anything like this before.
Jones scratched at his square jaw. “No, you don’t have to worry about that. McTavish is behind bars, and he’s not going anywhere anytime soon. There was a lot of paperwork to be gone through at the Stargazer, some of which was very interesting to the state police. They called in some special investigators, and they have evidence that the casino was just a small part of a much bigger criminal organization.”
“Oh.” She didn’t know what else to say. “I’m glad I didn’t stick around there any longer, then.”
“Still, it makes you quite the hero for discovering it all. But there was some more information they uncovered, and that’s really what I’m here for today.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
Sammy swallowed. “That doesn’t sound good.” She suddenly wished she’d asked Jones to stay somewhere in the restaurant with her, so at least she could be washing dishes or wiping down tables while they talked.
“In that paperwork, the detectives discovered that Henry McTavish isn’t Henry McTavish at all. His real name is Bernie Philpot.”
She whipped up her head to look at him. “What did you say?”
“I see you recognize the name. I didn’t really know you when we were younger, but I knew of you. Everyone did, with all that in the papers. I recognized the name right away, too, and I knew he was the man who had testified against your father and set him up. He had disappeared after the trial, but apparently he just changed his name and went out of the country for some plastic surgery. He’s still the same man who framed your father. Do you want to press any charges against him?”
Never in her life had Sammy imagined that she would have a chance like this, but she still didn’t want to take it. She’d been through enough drama, and she was ready for things to be normal again. She knew the right thing to do was to forgive him, even if his actions had been very wrong. “No. What’s done is done. My father isn’t even alive anymore, so there’s no point in dragging it all back out into the light. Besides, it sounds like he’s going to spend plenty of time behind bars with everything else he’s got going on.”
“That’s true. And so is Bob Cricker. It turns out your guess about the pesticide in the cream was correct. All the cupcakes you made were contaminated, and so was all the rest of the cream from that batch. The amounts were small enough that it didn’t affect most people beyond a little bit of a stomach ache, but apparently I’m allergic to one of the chemicals used in it. Lucky me.”
“Does that mean you forgive me for giving you a cupcake?” she asked, hoping that she wouldn’t forever be known as the one who gave a tainted treat to the sheriff.
“I admit that laying in a hospital bed for several days isn’t exactly what I would call a vacation, but yes, I forgive you. And I’m glad that nobody else ended up as bad off as I did. The health department did a thorough inspection of Cricker Dairy Farms, and everything should be all right from now on. Bob signed the place over to his nephew, who doesn’t like to drink as much as his uncle does.”
“Sounds like everything is all wrapped up, then.” It felt odd to know that it was all over. Sammy was glad she wouldn’t be going to jail, but she wished she’d had more time to conduct a proper investigation. If she’d had time to do some of the things she’d talked to Helen about, like getting information from the local doctor or finding a way to break into the sheriff’s computer, then it could have been fun. It had mostly been an accident that she had helped solve this case, but maybe it didn’t have to be in the future.
“It is,” Sheriff Jones agreed, “but I want you to know that cupcake was the best cupcake I had ever had, poisoned or not.”
She blushed, her cheeks hot despite the cool September air. “I’ll have to make you another one sometime. Just let me know your favorite flavor.”
Later that night, when Sammy had worked a full day and she hauled herself up the stairs to her apartment, she knew there was one final task she had yet to take care of. It took a while to dig the business card for the Cozy Bridal Agency out of her purse, but she called Molly Gertrude Grey as soon as she found it tucked inside her wallet.
“Hello?”
“Um, hi. This is Sammy Baker. We met a couple of weeks ago in church, when you came and sat next to me.” Now that she was actually on the phone with her, she felt incredibly silly. Why would some stranger care what had happened to her?
“Oh, yes! I remember you, dear! How are you?”
“I’m all right. And that’s just the thing, Miss Grey. When you and I met, I didn’t think I would be all right at all. I had been through so much, and it just seemed like I wouldn’t get over it. Things have still been very interesting here in Sunny Cove, but they’re working out. I’ve got a good job, a nice apartment, and my boss is wonderful.” A job and a home weren’t everything, but they provided a certain sense of security that Sammy really needed. “I even helped solved a crime, and it led to finding the man who framed my father. It’s such a weight off my chest.” She went over the events of the past couple of weeks, hoping she wasn’t talking too much.
“I’m delighted to hear it, dear. I think about you often, you know. I even put you on the prayer list at church. I hope you don’t mind.”
“I don’t,” Sammy replied honestly. “And I’ll be praying for you, too, even though I’m sure I don’t need to.”
“And why is that, dear?”
“Because I’m quite certain that God himself sent you to me.”
Molly Gertrude laughed. “That’s a wonderful thought, dear, and it’s that sort of thinking that’s going to keep you going in life. I wish you the very best. Just be careful when you track down your next criminal.”
“I think for now I’ll stick with baking. It’s a lot less dangerous. I’ll save the high-spee
d chases for the professionals.” They said their goodbyes and promised to talk again soon before they hung up. Sammy settled down on the sofa with a Mary Higgins Clark novel she had picked up at the library. Yes, life was much easier when she wasn’t trying to track down a wrongdoer. For now.
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