Muffin But Murder (A Merry Muffin Mystery)

by Victoria Hamilton

  “He had started hanging out with Zo-bitch in Buffalo, you know, but he was still with me, too. He kind of went crazy when he heard about his brother. His mom and he were on the phone ranting and raving about it, so I heard a lot about Autumn Vale, and then she sent him a message through someone else to get the people responsible and make them pay.”

  “Dinty Hooper died in Merry’s woods, but no one here killed him, for heaven’s sake,” McGill said, his tone unusually acerbic, voicing what we were all thinking. “Merry didn’t even live here when he died, and neither did these other two. As far as we know, Hooper never made a move against the guy who actually killed his brother in self-defense. Why the heck did he come to the castle?”

  Juniper shrugged. “Look, don’t ask me about any of this, ’cause that’s about when he cut me out of his life. I decided to go to Ridley Ridge after he dumped me for that flossy-haired floozy because I knew he was heading there himself. I just wanted him to tell me why, you know?”

  Ah yes, the continual girl cry: Why? Why don’t you love me? Why did you choose another girl over me? What is wrong with me? She needed to read He’s Just Not That Into You or Guys Who Make Girls Crazy and the Crazy Girls Who Love Them, but she didn’t seem like the book-learning type. And Davey was dead anyway. If not an answer, it was at least an ultimate end to the “why” query. But there were still so many questions about her story. She curled up in her chair, looking so tired and sad that I began to feel for her. “So Davey was heading to Ridley Ridge,” I prompted. “And so were you. Why Ridley Ridge?”

  “He was going to stay with Les, who was a buddy of his brother’s. That was about the same time he took up permanently with that bleached freak and dumped my ass.” She choked back a sob and sat up, doubling over.

  I shared a look with Pish. Why had Rusty, who had actually killed Dinty, gotten a free pass? And why had Davey been lingering about in Ridley Ridge without taking his revenge? We knew they had all been there for the better part of a month. I asked her those questions.

  With a helpless shrug, she said, “Look, like I said, Davey cut me out of his life. He started up with Sleazoid Barbie, and after that I was, like, no one to him. It hurt so bad. Les and Dinty were buddies from jail—”

  Aha! That was true . . . Dinty Hooper was a jailbird, too. Birds of a feather . . . “So you headed to Ridley Ridge to be near Davey, even though you two were no longer an item.”

  Juniper sniffled back a sob and wiped her nose on her sleeve. “I didn’t know what else to do. I just wanted to be close to Davey so that when he figured out I was better for him than her, I’d be close by. When I got off the bus, I told Les that Davey and I were engaged, but Davey and Zo-whore showed up and told him the truth a coupla days later. I asked Les to let me stay anyway, and he said okay.” She frowned and started chewing on a ragged fingernail. “I don’t know why.”

  None of this made a bit of sense to me yet. I kept expecting something she said to add up, but in her storytelling style, one plus one equaled fritters. It seemed like they had all just collected in Ridley Ridge and done . . . nothing. “Did Davey Hooper ever talk about me?” I asked.

  She gave her fingernail a break, looking up at me as she shook her head. “Never heard of you until I started working for Binny. Not by name, anyway. I think I heard about some bitch who sent his mom to jail.”

  Still didn’t make sense. Why did Hooper come to the party at the castle if not to accost or attack me for having some tangential part in his family drama? “Why did you come to Autumn Vale to get a job?”

  “After Les tossed me out, I had to go somewhere, and I saw Binny’s ad for help. It kept me close to Davey. I kept hoping . . .” She sighed hugely and flopped back in the wing chair. “It seems so freakin’ dumb now, but I kept hoping Davey would ditch that Channer witch and come back to me. Or that she would ditch him and he would need me, you know?”

  It was hard to believe Davey Hooper, lowlife scum, jail rat, and son of a grifter, could have had two girls in love with him. Though, for a girlfriend, Zoey did not seem particularly broken up about his death. I surmised that for her it was thrill seeking, some way to fill a hollow life. I had seen her type all too often in the fashion world, the celebutants who turned to men, booze, or drugs—or all three—for excitement. I was anxious to get to Juniper’s version of the night of the party. “So the night of the party you found out he was still with Zoey Channer, right? And you were jealous. You accosted him, or he talked to you, right?”

  Pish made a face at me and jerked his head. He had something to tell me.

  “Hold that thought,” I said, and followed him out to the hallway.

  “I just wanted you to be cognizant of everything before we speak more with young Miss Jones,” he murmured. “Earlier I made a few calls of inquiry about the people involved; that phone call just before she arrived was an answer. I’m starting to lean toward our theory that Channer might be the guilty one. I know of the man’s financial dealings, of course—some of them are questionable, and many downright illegal—but what I didn’t know is the latest Percy Channer news. . . . He is a suspect in a case involving the disappearance and probable death of a business rival.”

  “Wow,” I said. “It doesn’t surprise me, somehow, having met the charmer.”

  “We’re pretty sure now that that Juniper let Percy Channer into the party, and she would have been watching Hooper more intently than anyone else. Maybe she can tell us something about Channer’s movements that night. And I have more. I got another call at the same time; my federal friend tells me that he heard from an unnamed source that someone was trying to blackmail Channer with shameful photos or video of his daughter. Zoey Channer is a wild little thing and, as we know, has a liking for bad boys. It’s possible Davey Hooper was the blackmailer.”

  “If that’s true, Channer had an even stronger motive than just splitting them up,” I mused. “I know I said he was just the kind of guy to kill someone who got in his way, and I wouldn’t want to cross the man, but still . . . would he kill Davey Hooper to prevent photos or video of his daughter coming out? Wouldn’t he be motivated to keep him alive at least until he got the photos or video?”

  “The killing may not have been a planned ending. He could have met Hooper to pay him off and ended up arguing with him.”

  “True. Okay, let’s get back. I’m anxious to hear if she saw anything that night. I just don’t know whether to call Virgil or not.” Agitated, I stepped back and forth from foot to foot. “What do you think I should do, Pish?”

  He thought for a moment, then said, “Let’s hear her out first.”

  It was what I wanted to do, too, so I agreed. We returned.

  “Why did you come here, Juniper, to Autumn Vale?” I asked, to ease her back into her story. “Why not just go back to Buffalo once you figured out Davey really was hooked up with Zoey? You couldn’t have thought he’d dump her. She was rich.”

  She swallowed hard and stared at me. “There was stuff going on, stuff with Davey and his crew, that I didn’t understand. That I wanted to understand.”

  “What kind of stuff?” Pish asked.

  Juniper was silent, just looking miserable and shaking her head.

  I exchanged a look with Pish as Shilo and McGill looked on, a little puzzled, perhaps, but silent. “Okay, so you let Percy Channer, Zoey’s father, into the party that night. Is that true?”

  She nodded.

  “Did you know who he was? Did you tell him Davey was there? How did that go down?”

  She shifted around and looked off toward the fire. “He met me at the bakery and asked questions. I found out who he was and told him I knew Zoey. Then he told me he just wanted to get his daughter and shove her in rehab to get her out of her parole-violation rap.”

  It made sense that Percy would approach her that way, though I wasn’t sure the plan he shared with her was the complete truth. It w
ould have appealed to Juniper as a way of getting rid of her rival and maybe getting Davey back. I thought for a second and asked, “Did he seem to know your name?”

  She nodded. Channer had done his homework. “He offered me a hundred bucks to get him into the party without anyone knowing about it. It was so easy! The ladies in the kitchen didn’t know who was supposed to come or go.”

  “So you figured turning her over to her father would get her out of your way, leave the field clear for you to get Davey back.” I said it just to keep her talking while I thought.

  She nodded.

  “Did you see him talking to Davey? What went down?”

  “I don’t know; I lost sight of the guy. Those damn football goofs kept talking to me, and they tried to hoist me up on their shoulders until I jabbed one in the arm with a canopy pick.”

  “Canapé,” I corrected.

  “Whatever.”

  “Who all was here? We know Davey and Zoey were, but who else?” Pish asked.

  I held my breath, waiting.

  “Zoey, yeah, and Davey, and Les.”

  “Les Urquhart was there, too?” I glanced over at Pish. “He told me he wasn’t . . . or, well, not really. He just avoided the question, I guess. He must have slipped away, maybe with Zoey? But why did he leave? Did he know Davey was dead?” I mused aloud. “Did he maybe kill him for some reason?”

  “I told you, it was that bitch Zoey who killed him!” Juniper said, her face reddening and twisting into a grimace.

  “That is entirely possible,” I mused, pondering again the small handprint, “because she left, too, and why would she if she wasn’t guilty? I mean, Davey Hooper was her boyfriend. Surely she came with him and would expect to go with him.” Juniper had taken off, too, but I would get to that later. No point in treating her as a hostile witness. Yet. My mind tangled a bit, as I wondered when Zoey and Les became as chummy as they seemed to be now. Before or after Hooper’s death?

  “Why were they all at Merry’s party anyway?” Pish asked.

  “I asked Les,” Juniper said. “He told me that Davey was there to meet up with someone, some business associate.”

  “Davey Hooper meeting a business associate at my party?” I asked, skeptical.

  She nodded.

  I exchanged a look with Pish; was that business associate Zoey’s father? Had Davey taken Zoey there, giving her some kind of story, so he could meet with Percy, get a payoff, and hand the girl over to her father? It hung together, pretty much, except then I wondered: why had Percy needed Juniper to get into the party? I could explain why Les and Zoey had disappeared from the party; if things went bad between the two men and Percy killed Hooper, they wouldn’t have wanted to be involved. “Did you actually talk to Davey at any point?” I asked, remembering seeing her with the cowboy who’d turned out to have been Davey, aka the murder victim.

  She hung her head. “Yeah, for a minute. He told me he was sorry for how Les canned me.”

  “Juniper, you’re so insistent on one point, and I want to know . . . why do you think Zoey would kill Davey?”

  “She had taken up with Les, the little sleaze.”

  So . . . before Hooper’s death. “Zoey Channer was having a fling with Les, too?”

  Juniper nodded, tears welling. She fisted the tears from her eyes like a little kid, any attempt at grown-up world-weariness gone. “She had Davey, and she treated him like crap. I just don’t understand. How could she?” In a second her expression changed to loathing. “I hate her. I want her dead.”

  Wow, the girl had mood swings! Not that I hadn’t dealt with my share of mood swings; with Leatrice it had been much the same, from weepiness to giddy laughter and back again in minutes. “But why would she kill Davey?”

  She shrugged and sobbed.

  If Davey Hooper had come to my party to meet up with someone, who was that someone? Was it Percy, as I now suspected? It wasn’t Juniper, certainly. And why had he had Zoey and Les with him? I frowned. The only thing that made sense was that Hooper planned to meet Channer at my party so he could receive a payoff, and he needed Zoey there to hand her over. But had Zoey been in on it or not? It could have been her plan all along to blackmail her father.

  “I am sorry for all the pain you’ve been through,” I said in all sincerity. “It hurts to lose someone you love.” No matter if he was a big jerk.

  She covered her face and wept, clearly brokenhearted.

  “Did you see him talking to anyone that night?” I pressed, feeling like she might still be holding information back.

  “We do want to figure out who did it,” Pish said. “And we can’t assume Zoey is guilty.”

  I know women, and there was no way Juniper did not follow Davey Hooper as much as she could that night. I remember what being a lovesick twentysomething is like, and it is exactly like being a lovesick teenager but with more freedom. She wasn’t responding to questions, but I had to keep trying. “Who did Davey talk to? Did he argue with anyone? When did you last see him?”

  She took a deep, heaving breath and looked up. There was no denying the depth of her loss, and I actually felt sympathy for her. I didn’t know what in her life had led to a piece of crap like Davey Hooper being worth crying over, but her pain was real.

  “Juniper, I know you think Zoey killed your Davey,” Shilo said, the first she had spoken in a while. “Maybe it was Zoey, but if it wasn’t, you still want whoever did it to be caught, right? And pay?”

  Shilo’s voice seemed to work some kind of soothing magic on Juniper, who said, “Yeah, I do. I’ll tell you what I can. I only saw Davey now and again, because I had to take food around. He had Zoey tagging after him when she wasn’t taunting me. I swear, I should have taken her out then, and maybe Davey would be alive.”

  She was getting distracted again by her Zoey-as-murderess theory. “Who else? You said Les was there, but I didn’t see him. What costume was he wearing?”

  “I don’t know who he was supposed to be. He had some weird wig on and a white lab coat.”

  My eyes widened, and Pish and I shared a look. Les Urquhart was the Demon Barber? And had he indeed been carrying the straight razor that we suspected was the weapon? I had to tell Virgil this! I kept a hold on my excitement and said, “How did Davey and Les get along?”

  She scrunched up her face. “Good. Why?”

  “No conflicts?”

  “No, of course not. Look, Les can be a douche, but he’s no killer, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  And just because he brought the weapon, didn’t mean he’d used it, I realized. He could have put it down or given it to someone else. “So, who else did Davey talk to?” I asked.

  Juniper bolted up out of her chair, pointed toward the door, and hollered, “You!”

  Chapter Eighteen

  I REALIZED RIGHT AWAY she did not mean me, and I whirled in my seat. There, at the door of the parlor, was Cranston Higgins. “What are you doing here, Cranston?” And how the hell did he keep getting into the castle? I turned back to our guest, who was still standing and staring. “How do you know Cranston?” I asked Juniper.

  “I saw him at the Party Stop a couple times,” Juniper said. Her voice was steady, but she looked spooked. Her gaze moved around the room to each of us. I was frankly puzzled.

  “Hey, Merry, Pish, Shilo, McGill,” Cranston said, nodding to each of us in turn. He pulled off his black wool bomber-style jacket and slung it over a table, then unwound the scarf from his neck. “Well of course I’ve been at the Party Stop! I’ve been staying at a boarding house because you didn’t want me staying here,” he said to me, pointedly. “Even though you’ve got lots of extra rooms. So I went to the Party Stop to pick up cheap paper plates and plastic utensils. It’s a rough life for a bachelor, am I right, Pish? McGill?”

  “Actually, I won’t be a bachelor much longer,” McGill said, an
d held out Shilo’s engagement finger with the pretty ring encircling it.

  Cranston hooted and said, “Congratulations, you two! Couldn’t be a nicer couple.” He charged across the room and grabbed Shilo up in a bear hug, then pumped McGill’s outstretched hand with enthusiasm.

  “I don’t feel well,” Juniper said, hand on her stomach. “Those chocolate muffins . . . they’re sitting like . . . like freakin’ rocks. What do you put in those things? Where’s the bathroom?” She put one hand over her mouth.

  Damn. Maybe they were too rich on an empty stomach? Allergies? I hoped to heck she didn’t have a nut allergy. I had many questions for her, because I still didn’t know where the girl had gone after the party nor where she had been staying, but it would all have to wait until she felt better.

  I showed her to the ground-floor bathroom, a little powder room tucked away behind the butler’s pantry near the back doorway, and went to the kitchen to get a glass of cold water and a damp cloth in case she vomited. I could hardly wait to ask her about seeing Cranston: why had she been so surprised to see him at the castle? I also wanted to ask her why she’d come to the castle this night. I stood staring out the kitchen window into the darkness and lost a few minutes pondering that. How much could I trust Juniper?

  After a few minutes I went to the hallway outside of the powder room. “Juniper, are you okay?” I asked. I tapped, then put my ear to the wood door and listened for the sound of retching. Nothing. “Juniper?” No sound at all. I pushed open the door to an empty room. Sometimes I wonder . . . Am I really as bright as people tell me I am? I should have figured on this.

  She was gone, and she had a good ten minutes on me. I didn’t even know how she had gotten out to the castle, but she must have driven. For all I knew she had stolen a car, and with the time I had allowed her in the bathroom, she could be past Ridley Ridge by now. I called the police station, giving the dispatcher a detailed message for Virgil about Juniper’s arrival and abrupt departure. Maybe I should have called them right away, but there was no use beating myself up over that now. I hung up and girded my loins to tackle my “cousin.” There was something fishy going on, and there was more to it than just his spurious claim to my castle.