Sweet Somethings (Samantha Sweet Mysteries)

by Connie Shelton

  Rupert picked up the microphone, as he had yesterday, welcomed the vendors and repeated the instructions for submitting their entries to the judges. Today’s entry must be something different than yesterday’s and must be sent to the front anonymously—and good luck to everyone.

  The doors opened and the crowd poured in.

  Sweet’s Sweets immediately became busy. Word had obviously gotten out about Sam’s amaretto cheesecake because they had four requests for it within fifteen minutes.

  “I’m going to sneak out back and phone Julio,” Sam said to Jen. “At this rate, we’ll need more of these before the day is over.”

  She hurried out and made the call, coming back to find that Kelly had been pulled away to deliver contest entries to the judges and Jen was a little swamped. Together, they sold boxes of molded chocolates and bags of cookies and brownies at a frantic pace for two hours.

  At the west end of the room, Sam was slightly aware of Bentley Day’s arrival and his antics with the microphone but, frankly, she no longer saw his charm. If it turned out that Beau proved him to be a killer, it wouldn’t sadden her a bit.

  Somewhere around noon, they noticed a lull in the size of the crowd.

  “Finally, a chance to check things and neaten up our stock,” Jen said quietly, after sending a woman and her little girl off with smiles and cupcakes. “This is wild. At the shop I’m used to having enough quiet moments to keep the place cleaned up.”

  Sam chuckled. “Yeah, the whole atmosphere of a festival is really—” Her phone buzzed and interrupted that thought.

  She stole a glance at the readout; the number was somewhat familiar but she couldn’t quite place it.

  “Sam, hello. It’s Marc Williams.” His voice was hollow and Sam guessed the bad news even before he delivered it. She signaled to Jen that she would be right back.

  “It’s Sarah?” she asked, her eyes welling up as she pushed her way out of the ballroom and found a deserted pathway into the garden.

  “Yes. I’m afraid she had a fatal stroke early this morning.”

  Sam felt herself deflate. “I’m so sorry. We’re really going to miss her.”

  “Right before the end, my aunt regained consciousness and actually spoke a little. She wanted you here but it was rather late last night. I told her I would call you in the morning. I should have tried sooner . . . I’m really sorry I didn’t. If I’d realized at the time, I think she was saying goodbye.”

  “Oh, Marc—” Words seemed so useless—they didn’t change anything.

  “Sam, do you know a historian named Doctor St. Clair? A woman. I got the impression she might be connected to a wooden box that Aunt Sarah spoke about.”

  The name meant nothing to Sam. “Did Sarah talk about this box as she was dying?”

  “No, not really. A mention of it, then she asked if you were nearby—otherwise it was only family things. I’m sorry, Sam. I wish I knew more. I just wanted to let you know about Sarah.”

  She thanked Marc and asked about funeral services. Tuesday, he said, and she promised to get in touch again as soon as her festival duties were over. She hung up, feeling the weight of the loss. There had been so much left unsaid. She would always regret that she had not known Sarah better.

  Chapter 13

  Sam dropped her phone back into her pocket and looked up to see Beau’s cruiser pulling into the parking lot. She swallowed the lump of sadness over the news of Sarah’s death and walked toward her handsome husband.

  “How did it go?” she asked when he joined her at the sidewalk near the place where the vendors had unloaded their wares Thursday afternoon.

  He lifted a shoulder. “Okay. No arrests, just a bunch of warnings. I couldn’t see the use of going after warrants to find out that Moondoggie and his bunch keep stashes of pot in their buses. This murder case takes precedence, so Ben Garcia is joining me to conduct more interrogations. Want to sit in?”

  True to plan, Garcia’s vehicle wheeled in and parked next to Beau’s.

  “Let me check on my booth real quick. I ducked out to take a phone call a few minutes ago.” She told him about Sarah’s death, but since he’d not known the woman and the death wasn’t suspicious, his interest quickly turned back to his real purpose.

  “We’ll be in the same room Garcia used yesterday,” he said as they parted in the corridor.

  Behind their small sales counter, Kelly and Jen seemed to have things under control. A Sold tag leaned beside the bathtub cake.

  “Yeah, a lady who is hosting a bridal shower tomorrow afternoon,” Jen said. “She raved over this cake—said it was perfect for her group. I guess they are all into spa weekends and such. She wanted to take it with her now but I told her we wouldn’t let it get away. She was okay with that. I think she wanted to spend a little time indulging in more chocolate anyway. She did pay for it.”

  “Mom? Everything okay?” Kelly asked.

  Sam told them about Sarah Williams. “I wish she could have been here to see how well the festival turned out. I’ll try to pass the word quietly to the rest of the committee.”

  The girls nodded and a customer walked up, pulling Jen’s attention to the cookie selection in the display case.

  “Beau and Garcia are here,” Sam murmured to Kelly. “If you girls can handle things in the booth, I think I’ll go see how their work is coming along.”

  “This is about Carinda?”

  “Yeah. They seem to have too many suspects and not enough solid leads at this point. They’re re-interviewing people from yesterday, so don’t be surprised if they call you in.”

  Kelly shrugged. “Not a problem.”

  Sam made her way through the crowded ballroom without getting hooked into conversation and took the stairs to the second floor. The door to the suite stood open and she spotted Beau in the same chair where Ben Garcia sat yesterday. She tapped at the door and walked in.

  “You two learning anything new yet?” she teased.

  “Just getting organized. Ben went to the ballroom to bring up our first witness. We’re starting with Bentley Day and working our way through everyone else connected with the festival.”

  “Are you sure I should be here?”

  “It’s fine. I always appreciate your take on the interrogations. You didn’t, by chance, handle that little—” His hands formed a square that indicated the size and shape of the carved box. Although Beau didn’t know exactly how the object affected Sam, there were times when she’d been able to tell that someone was lying. Once, she’d even spotted invisible toxic dust inside a house that carried fingerprints, where the lawmen hadn’t thought to dust for them.

  “Sorry, no. I didn’t think of it today.”

  “Well, if your aura-vision or whatever you call it should happen to go on alert around any of our suspects, you be sure and let me know.”

  “Right.”

  Voices in the hallway caught their attention before Ben Garcia and Bentley Day stepped into view. Once inside, Garcia closed the door and ushered the celebrity chef into the small living room setting. Bentley eyed Sam for a moment. Other than the confrontation over his rudeness toward that young girl last evening, she’d never had a real conversation with the man and he seemed a little confused as to what her role really was. Oh well, let him wonder.

  He settled on the couch when the two lawmen took the upholstered chairs; Sam stood with a shoulder against the wall, taking a spot at the edge of the room near the small dining table.

  “I know you are busy, Mr. Day,” Garcia began. “Thanks for taking a few minutes to help us out.”

  “Dunno what you want,” Bentley said. “I answered everything yesterday.”

  “Can you go over it again, for my benefit,” said Beau, “since I wasn’t in the room then.”

  Bentley gave an impatient sigh.

  “And since your very-identifiable knife was used to commit the murder.” Beau gave him a firm stare.

  Day’s attitude receded marginally. “I told your detective�
�I was in my room on the third floor. Checked in Thursday evening, hung out in the bar awhile and chatted up this cute girl. Monica, I think her name was, but I have to admit that I don’t really remember. We ended up in my room. She left maybe one o’clock or so. I slept like a real happy man until nearly ten o’clock when someone came along and pounded on the door to wake me up.”

  “Who was that?”

  “The woman. The dead one.”

  “Did you let her into your room?”

  “I met her at the door, wearing nothing at all. She seemed a little surprised—maybe she was impressed, hell if I know.”

  “Did she come into your room?”

  “Nah. Got a little flustered, said they wanted me downstairs, would I please get my clothes on and get to the festival. I said sure. She wasn’t my type anyway—I like women with some curves to them. Last I saw of that one she was beating a path toward the elevator.”

  “How long before you went down to the ballroom?”

  “Fifteen, twenty minutes? Thereabouts. I go into my routine, wow the crowd . . . you know.”

  “Did you see Carinda Carter before you went to the ballroom? Maybe you agreed to meet her in the garden before show time?”

  “Nope. Not interested, like I told you.” Bentley fiddled with his watchband as he spoke.

  Sam wasn’t sure she believed the line about Carinda not being his type. From what she’d seen of Bentley and his continuous flirting with the women in the crowd, it didn’t seem there was any female who wasn’t his type.

  “Did you see Carinda after you went to the ballroom?” Garcia asked.

  “No! Man, that’s just gross. The woman was dead by then, wasn’t she? What would I want with that?”

  That much was true—Bentley had been on the dais, in full limelight when Carinda’s body was found. Garcia leaned toward Beau, showing him something written on his small notebook. If the goal was to make their suspect nervous, it worked. Bentley fidgeted in his seat but that might have been solely because he wanted to get back to the throngs of eager women downstairs. Beau dismissed him with a caution not to leave town without their permission.

  When the door closed behind Day, Beau turned to Sam. “What do you think, does the timeframe fit?”

  She thought back to the hectic morning. “Once the doors opened and people began to come in, I got pretty busy. But it seems more than fifteen or twenty minutes went by from when Carinda went looking for Bentley and when he made his flashy appearance on stage.”

  “So he might have had time to get dressed and follow her to the garden?”

  “You only have his word for it that he greeted Carinda at his own door stark naked. If he was dressed when she arrived, sure, there would have been plenty of time.”

  Garcia piped up: “The man was wearing chef whites when I interviewed him yesterday and they were spotless.”

  “And,” Beau added, “we have to look at motive. What could have enraged him so quickly?”

  Sam thought back to the numerous other people Carinda had managed to antagonize in short order. “What if the rest of Bentley’s story is fake, too? The woman he took up to his room the night before—what if it wasn’t a random hook-up? It could have been Carinda. She was certainly enamored of his celebrity status and she might have showed up at the bar. Given several hours together, yeah, I could see the anger begin to flare.”

  Beau keyed his radio and got through to Rico. “Find out who was bartending here at the hotel last night. If he or she remembers Bentley Day picking up a woman, bring the bartender up here.”

  “There would be DNA or some other evidence in his room,” Garcia suggested.

  “But if the sheets were changed and the room vacuumed yesterday morning, it’s probably all gone. We didn’t have any reason to tell housekeeping not to clean the guest rooms at ten o’clock yesterday morning.”

  That aspect of it seemed a dead end, Sam had to admit.

  “Let’s take a look at Carinda’s other enemies. Remember, anyone in the place could have gotten hold of the knife.” Beau flipped to a new page in his notebook. “Sam, you were there. Who else left the ballroom right before the show opened?”

  She searched back in her memory. “Farrell O’Hearn wasn’t in her booth. I remember that because it seemed odd that her assistant had the place, right before the crowds were due to come in. Danielle Ferguson had a row with Carinda over her booth location, but that was the previous afternoon and I thought it got settled to everyone’s satisfaction. Danielle did leave the room that morning, though, and when she returned she seemed agitated.”

  “What about your committee members, Sam? I know you don’t want to think badly of any one of them but they did have the most contact with Carinda, the longer history.”

  “Let’s just say that no one was a fan, myself included. She and Rupert got crossways at our last meeting. The worst Harvey ever did was send her a firm look whenever she gave him one of her glares. Kelly and Riki mostly ignored her.”

  “Where were each of them at the time Carinda was killed?” Beau asked.

  “Kelly and Becky were helping me with my booth. Riki’s been busy with her grooming shop and hasn’t been around the hotel at all. Harvey is running his ice cream stand. I don’t recall any particular friction between him and Carinda after we got it settled that she didn’t have the right to assign booth spaces—at one point she’d tried to put his booth outdoors in the sun. That didn’t go over too well.”

  A tap at the door and Rico came in. “Sheriff, I located the bartender on duty last night. She’s a friendly type who seems to chat up the patrons. She remembered Bentley Day coming in Thursday evening, ordering a Scotch, neat. But she doesn’t at all recall him leaving with a woman. Says things got a little busy around nine so she can’t swear to it, just that she didn’t recall anybody with Mr. Day.”

  “Thanks, Rico.”

  “I brought Mr. Penrick with me,” Rico said with a tilt of his head toward the door.

  Rupert came in as Rico left, reeking of impatience until he spotted Sam.

  “What’s this about?” he asked as he sat across from the two lawmen.

  “Routine questions, Rupert,” Beau said. “We’re only trying to figure out where everyone was at the time Carinda Carter was killed.”

  “He did that yesterday,” said Rupert, nodding toward Ben Garcia.

  “I know, and we appreciate your statement. Sometimes new information comes in that requires a little clarification. We understand that you left the ballroom for awhile right before the festival officially opened.”

  “Yes. Last-minute pit-stop, okay? Everyone needs those.”

  Beau shuffled in his seat. “True. Did you see Bentley Day around that time, outside the ballroom?”

  “I did not. I would have ordered the man to his post because everything was running a bit behind schedule by then.”

  “You had an altercation with the victim just before that, something about the girls taking tickets?”

  Rupert gave Sam a withering glance.

  “It wasn’t exactly a fight,” he said. “The woman butted into every small aspect of the show and I was only one of many who resented her intrusion. Clearly, I should not have voiced that opinion to the wife of the sheriff.”

  Sam crossed the room and sat beside Rupert on the small sofa. “Rupe, don’t be this way. I didn’t say that you harmed Carinda. There’s no way I would think such a thing.”

  “Settle down, Mr. Penrick,” Ben Garcia said. “We’re just trying to get a picture here. While you were outside the ballroom, did you see anyone go out the back doors toward the garden? Carinda Carter or anyone else?”

  “No. Of course there were so many people milling about, most of them making their way to their booths . . . truthfully, I wasn’t looking for anyone other than Bentley Day at that point. He lollygagged around his room until the last minute, apparently, because Sam and I had to start the announcements ourselves. Our celebrity didn’t bother to show up until it was nea
rly time for the judging to begin.”

  Sam nodded. She remembered Bentley’s obnoxious chopping routine and ill-timed act with one of his knives. His clothes had indeed been spotless, but there had certainly been time for him to rush back to his room for a change before anyone actually saw him in public. Carinda’s version of meeting Bentley and going up to his room to remind him about coming downstairs didn’t exactly gel with his story, but what would have been the star chef’s motive to get rid of her?

  Chapter 14

  In the elevator she took Rupert’s hand. “I swear, Beau does not consider you a suspect,” she said. “He has to ask everyone about their movements so he can put together what happened.”

  He squeezed her fingers. “I know, Sam. I’m not blaming.”

  Sam’s eyes watered up as her mind switched gears.

  “Hey, it’s okay,” he said.

  “I didn’t get the chance to tell you—Sarah died, in the early hours this morning.”

  “I’m so sorry, girl. We all really liked her. I’ll plan to go to the funeral and I can tell some of the others on the committee about it.”

  “Thanks.” Sam patted his shoulder.

  In the corridor, things were a little quieter than before. Rupert paused to speak with the judges, discussing the opportune time to call for the next few entries in the chocolate contest and spark things up again. Most of the booths had a few customers and a fresh batch of twenty-somethings hovered near the dais, cute girls in tight tops who were flirting outrageously with Bentley Day. He gave Sam a long glance then immediately turned his attention back to a young brunette in hot pink.