Clambake Murder: A Rocky Cove Culinary Cozy - Book 2

by Summer Prescott

  With the Foster Development hearing behind her, and scads of organizations from every corner of the community pitching in to fight, Becca turned her attention back to handling the busiest season for catering that she’d ever had. Thankfully, the insurance company had covered most of the costs that she had suffered as a result of the damages done to the clambake site and in her very own kitchen, but she had to absorb the loss of payment from the Crestwood event, and would be working long hours to make up for the lost revenue.

  Becca met with clients all day long, stopping only long enough to confirm orders for new cookware to replace that which had been stolen, and to sign off on food items to stock the pantry. Things were back on track, with two events scheduled for today, and a weekend jam packed with catering. She had given the entire staff a bonus for coming together at the last minute to handle the crisis, and the team was poised and ready to give their all for every event.

  Hey Katie, how does tonight look?” Becca asked when her friend popped into the office around 4:30.

  “Perfect, we’re rockin’ and rollin,” she grinned, loving the clockwork-like precision of her staff. “You have a call on Line 3, boss lady,” she called out, disappearing back to the kitchen.”

  “This is Becca Rogers,” she answered, distracted because she was trying to add up some accounts at the same time.

  “Ms. Rogers, this is Detective Lance Reynolds. Can you meet me at your residence?”

  Her heart pounded with dread. “Certainly, Detective…can you tell me what’s going on?”

  He paused for a moment, then sighed. “I’d rather show you when you get here.”

  Becca tried her best to maintain the legal speed limit on the way home, not knowing what awaited her when she got there. She pulled into her drive and saw her neighbor, Sally, Detective Reynolds, and Hubert Finch on Sally’s front porch. Hubert and Sally occupied the two rocking chairs and the detective leaned against the porch railing. Not bothering to pull into the garage, she jogged over to Sally’s to find out what was going on.

  “Becca, honey, these darn hooligans are at it again,” Sally said without preamble.

  “Hooligans?” she asked, looking to Reynolds for answers. Before the detective could answer, Hubert weighed in.

  “Kids these days just ain’t bein’ raised right,” he shook his head in disgust.

  Detective Reynolds interrupted before any other opinions could be offered. “Mr. Finch, that’s a pretty big bandage you have there, what happened to your hand?” he asked casually, deflecting the irascible man from the topic at hand.

  “Nuthin. Workin’ on my car and burnt it on the engine,” was the embarrassed reply as Hubert tucked the offending appendage under his arm.

  Reynolds nodded thoughtfully, and led Becca back to her house, advising Sally to stay around for further discussion.

  “We’ll need to go in the back yard,” he directed, leading the way.

  Horrified at what she saw, Becca’s hands flew to her throat. Someone had spray painted epithets and warnings to ‘get out’ in bright red on her back fence.

  “Between you, me and the fence post, I don’t think this was the work of kids or random vandals,” Reynolds said grimly.

  “Who do you think it was?” she asked, looking around, uneasy.

  “Can’t say for certain, but there were an awful lot of Foster Development folks in town the last few days,” he looked at her pointedly.

  Becca told him about her encounter with Samuel Jenkins at the courthouse, and how he had said that it ‘wasn’t over.’

  “Looks like Mr. Jenkins and I will be having a little chat,” the detective stated, scribbling some notes.

  “Did this happen at Sally’s too?”

  Reynolds nodded, still writing. “Yup, at Sally’s and a couple of other places in the neighborhood. There were more gardens torn up, trash cans dumped and scattered, acts of vandalism that would typically seem random, but are a little too coincidental in this case.”

  “What should we do?” Becca worried.

  “I have a team of officers investigating. You can help by keeping your eyes and ears open for anything out of the ordinary, and calling me with any information, sound good?”

  “Okay, I can do that,” she sounded uncertain, wrapping her arms around herself.

  “We’ll be stepping up patrols in the area for a while and keeping an eye on things,” he reassured her, walking back to the front of the house.

  It appeared as though Sally and Hubert were having quite the animated conversation when Becca and Reynolds came into the front yard, with Hubert ultimately waving his hands and making his way back across the street.

  “Do you think you could go check on Sally before you go?” Becca asked. “She’s probably pretty shaken up.”

  “Of course, no problem,” Reynolds agreed, heading in that direction. Becca called out her thanks and the detective lifted a hand in response.

  Stepping into her own foyer didn’t feel as safe as it once would have, and she was grateful for the entirely unconcerned presence of her best furry friend as she moved through the house in a daze. She found it extremely hard to believe that someone from Foster would go to such lengths to try to scare her and the other hold-outs away, but she didn’t have any other ideas as to who would do such horrible things either. She carried Poppy out to the kitchen to make certain that the cat’s food and water bowls were filled, and paused for a moment when she saw that they had been overturned. The food was scattered across the floor and Poppy’s dinner mat, and the water had seeped into and puddled around the mat.

  “How on earth did that happen?” she wondered, scratching the purring feline’s furry brow. Poppy couldn’t have done it, even accidentally, because the heavy ceramic dishes were impossible for her to tip over. Goodness knows she had tried when Becca brought them home to replace the noisy tin ones that had been their predecessors. Stepping further into the kitchen, she detected a faint, unpleasant smell, and was dismayed to note that her freezer was open a crack, and thawed substances had dripped down the front of the refrigerator, reminding her of the mess left in the kitchen at work. She abruptly set Poppy on the floor, and ran out to see if Detective Reynolds was still at Sally’s. As luck would have it, he was just about to climb into his generic, unmarked vehicle when Becca called to him from the porch.

  He jogged up the front steps, not a bit out of breath. “What’s the matter?”

  Becca led him inside and showed him the mess. He called for a forensics unit to come out and examine the scene and advised her to spend the night at a hotel or, preferably, with a friend.

  “Vandalizing your yard is one thing, but when someone has been brazen enough to send a message by coming into your home, we need to take matters much more seriously,” he said gravely.

  Becca called Katie and asked if she and Poppy could come hang out with her for a few days, letting her know that she’d explain what was going on when she came over, and of course her friend jumped at the chance. They’d been working so hard lately that there had been virtually no ‘girl time’ and they had both missed it. She packed a bag with her things and filled a sack for Poppy, bringing a litter pan and spare bowls because Detective Reynolds was going to check her regular bowls for fingerprints. Winding up her phone charger and stuffing it into her purse, Becca mused that she’d probably get a better night’s sleep at Katie’s than she had at home in more than a week.

  Chapter 8

  Katie made them tea and set out a plate of chocolate chip cookies while Becca brought her up to speed on what had been happening at home. She listened with rapt attention to the tale, her mouth often dropping open in a shocked O of disbelief. Poppy made herself at home on the overstuffed ottoman, and the two friends talked for a few hours, wondering, speculating and coming up utterly baffled. Giving up even trying to understand the strange events of the past week, they each went to bed and fell deeply asleep, hoping that everything would look better and clearer in the morning.

  A
fter a refreshing night’s sleep and a hearty homemade breakfast, Becca remembered that she left her file folder of pending contracts at home, and convinced Katie to ride with her when she went back to get it. Morning had dawned beautifully in Cape Cranston – the sun was shining, the sky was blue, and the air was just warm enough to open the sunroof in her car on the ride home. The cheery mood set by the weather, darkened considerably once Becca pulled into the driveway, wondering what new horrors awaited. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, she got out of the car slowly and walked to the back door, noting the horrible graffiti that had been left, but aside from that, nothing out of the ordinary. Sally Case’s little Pomeranian, Pumpkin, was barking so hard from inside Sally’s house that the poor little thing sounded as though she was screaming, which was more than odd for a creature who spent most of her life tucked quietly under her mistress’s feet.

  Becca went in, glad that Detective Reynolds’ team had cleaned up the mess in the kitchen after they had gathered the information that they needed, and nothing seemed out of place. She went straight to her home office, found the file folder that she had come after, and headed for the back door again. She had only been inside for a few minutes, but was bothered that when she came out, Pumpkin was still making the odd barking/screaming noise.

  “Hey Katie,” she called, getting the attention of her friend who was playing a game on her phone in the car. “I’m going over to check on Sally, I’ll be right back.” Katie waved, nodded and went back to focusing on her game. Becca opened the side gate and went around to the front of the house and onto Sally’s porch. She listened at the door, and not hearing anything other than the shrill shrieks from the dog, rang the bell. When Sally didn’t appear, she rang again and knocked, calling out her name. Still the sweet woman didn’t answer, so she went down the steps and over to the garage, peering in to see if Sally’s car was gone. The classic Chevy Bel Air that she used on the rare occasion when she drove, sat gleaming in the semi-dark garage. She tried calling Sally’s number three times in a row and received no answer. She went to every window in the house, trying to peer in, but either the rooms were too dark to see anything, or Sally had pulled the shades. The rational side of Becca knew that the elderly woman could be in the shower, or in the basement putting away canning jars and just not hearing the doorbell, but her gut told her that something was wrong. Not willing to take any chances after the somewhat sinister events of the past week, she called Detective Reynolds and, after letting Katie know what was going on, and trying all of Sally’s doors to see if any were open or unlocked, sat down on Sally’s porch to wait.

  Reynolds was there in short order, moving up the steps in a hurry to bang on the door. Becca told him that the entire time she had been there, Pumpkin had been making that terrible noise, even when she spoke soothingly through the door, trying to calm him. A police cruiser pulled up and the detective went to the car to speak with the officers, who then got out and went to the back of the vehicle, pulling out a battering ram. They mounted the front steps and Becca stepped in front of the door.

  “Detective Reynolds, wait, please,” she pleaded. “Sally loves this house and would be absolutely appalled if you came crashing in through her century-old mahogany door. If there has to be a drastic entrance like this, can you please do it to the side door? It’s painted and not nearly as old.”

  Reynolds frowned, realizing that Becca had no idea of knowing that, in instances where such measures had to be used to enter a residence, quite often the occupant was in no condition to know or care about their antique front door. “Sure, we can do that,” he said quietly, then motioned the men around the side of the house. “Stay here,” he directed. “We can’t allow private citizens to participate in a forced entry.”

  Becca nodded and lingered at a reasonable distance in the side yard. She covered her ears when she saw them about to use the battering ram, and still heard the sharp crack as the heavy wooden door gave way. Reynolds and his men disappeared inside, and the detective came back out shortly, speaking urgently into his phone. She heard the wail of sirens in the distance, saw the look on Lance Reynolds’ face and knew that something awful had happened.

  “Detective?” she said as he approached her with a look of compassion.

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Rogers,” he said, shaking his head.

  Becca put her hands over her mouth in horror and began to weep. “But…what…happened?” she cried, overwhelmed. Katie came running over from the car and embraced her friend, staring at the detective.

  “We can’t be sure of that yet, there will be a thorough investigation, but the way that it looks now, she simply missed a step and fell down the stairs,” he explained, giving away more than he should, out of respect for the friendship that Becca and Sally had shared.

  Becca shook her head, backing away and well on her way to becoming hysterical. “No..no…there’s no way she fell. Someone did this, someone who is trying to scare us! I could by next, they could be coming after me!” her voice rose, trembling, and Katie shushed her.

  “We don’t know that that’s even a possibility at this point,” Reynolds soothed. “Let me see what we come up with, and in the meantime, I don’t want you to worry. Let’s just calm down and try not to jump to conclusions, okay?”

  Becca turned her face into Katie’s shoulder, weeping. “I’ll take her to my house,” Katie assured the detective, turning to go.

  “Wait!” Becca wailed, turning back suddenly and rushing to Detective Reynolds. “What about Pumpkin? Is he okay? What’s going to happen to him?” The little dog had ceased barking when the officers came crashing in.

  “One of our officers is taking care of him right now, getting him calmed down, and then the little guy is going to come home with me until we can find him a new home. Do you know if Sally has any family in the area?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so,” Becca shook her head numbly, wiping her still streaming eyes.

  “Well, for now, don’t worry about Pumpkin, he’ll be in good hands,” the detective assured her.

  “Thank you,” she mumbled, leaving in the circle of Katie’s arms.

  Chapter 9

  Becca sat at her desk, staring unseeing at the stack of invoices sitting in front of her. She had tried to keep herself busy in the days following Sally’s death, but often found her thoughts circling round and round the strange events that had occurred before the tragedy. In some ways, she felt partially responsible. Perhaps if she hadn’t fled to Katie’s in fear, Sally would still be alive. Becca could’ve seen something, heard something, called the police and reported an intruder, saving her lovely neighbor’s life. She wrestled with the guilt of those thoughts daily, and horrible scenarios haunted her dreams at night. She had returned to her bungalow a couple of days after the fact, determined not to let whoever was trying to scare her keep her from the home that she loved, despite the fact that every time she looked out her windows, past the crabapple tree that separated her home from Sally’s she shed a tear, remembering. Her only small consolation was that the elderly woman’s only relative, a sister, refused to sell her home to Foster, and that fact that it would be tied up in probate for quite some time, put a kink in the developers plans.

  Thanks to Katie and her amazing staff, the catering business had been running smoothly, despite the pitfalls that Becca had been experiencing on the home front, but she was falling behind in paperwork, and was desperately trying to focus. A local neighborhood watch group had organized hundreds of volunteers so that her neighborhood was being patrolled by citizens on foot, almost 24 hours a day. There had been no further incidents of vandalism since the citizen patrols had started, and Becca only had to make it through the next three weeks, when the City Council would make its final decision regarding the Foster request. She was convinced now that the huge corporation had resorted to fear tactics to scare away the residents who refused to sell their family homes. A couple had caved under pressure and agreed to sell, but Becca and the others stood
firm in their refusal.

  A knock on her office door shook her from her reverie, and Katie slipped quickly inside.

  “Hey boss lady, there is a very slick looking dude who just pulled up in a stretch limo and is asking for you,” she whispered, leaning over the desk.

  “Great, another interruption,” Becca’s head dropped into her hands and she massaged her temples in frustration.

  “Should I tell him that he’ll have to make an appointment?”

  “I don’t know, when is my next client due in?” she asked wearily.

  “Umm…tomorrow.” Katie said carefully, worried about her friend. “You were planning on finishing up the end of the month paperwork today, remember?”

  “Oh! Right. Yes, I think I said that before lunch,” she agreed.

  “Did you even have lunch?” Katie’s eyes narrowed with concern.

  “I’m sure I did,” Becca responded vaguely. “Go ahead and send him in. Whatever it is, I might as well get it over with now rather than trying to work another appointment into my schedule.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, it’s fine, show him in please,” she waved off her friend’s concern.

  Becca stood as Katie showed a portly little florid-faced man with thinning black hair combed over his bald pate into her office.

  “Ms. Rogers?” he asked, extending his hand with a slight, dignified smile.

  “Yes, I’m Becca Rogers,” she replied, shaking his hand.

  “My name is Gareth Foster, and if you don’t mind, I’d really appreciate a few moments of your time. May I?” he asked graciously, indicating the club chair in front of her desk.

  Katie’s eyes grew wide when the visitor introduced himself, and she quietly left the room, giving Becca a questioning glance on her way out.

  “Yes, of course,” Becca responded automatically, dumbfounded that someone this wealthy and powerful was sitting in her office. In her business, she dealt almost exclusively with the rich and shameless as she jokingly called them, but the man now sitting across from her was akin to American royalty, and was reputed to be ruthless and wily. “What can I do for you, Mr. Foster?” she asked coolly.