“People,” he remarked with a fake smile.
“On the plus side, he left his room spotless,” Maggie commented.
“Have you cleaned it yet?”
“No, I figured that I’d wait until the morning.”
“Don’t worry about it, I need to burn off some of this adrenaline, so I’ll take care of it now,” he offered.
“You are a gem, Spencer Bengal,” Maggie patted his cheek.
“Takes one to know one, Maggie,” he called over his shoulder, heading for the stairs.
***
“So, Sharlene killed her mother, and then someone tried to kill Sharlene?” Missy asked, putting large mugs of chamomile tea in front of Echo, Kel, and herself. Maggie had gone off to bed after seeing that everyone was okay.
“Maybe,” Kel shrugged, blowing on his tea to cool it a bit. “Or, maybe the same person killed Clara, then tried to kill her daughter.”
“But who would do that?” Echo wondered.
“Well, there are a couple of choices, actually. Warren Metzler, Walter’s partner, and Melvin Chandler, the shunned supplier, both stand to potentially benefit from having no family members trying to seize power of the company.”
“Who do you think it is?” Missy looked at Kel, wide eyed.
“I don’t know, but it seems to me that Mel Chandler has more to lose and possesses a much more volatile temper than Warren.”
She nodded. “That makes sense, because Warren still had a significant role in the business whether Clara or Sharlene interfered or not, but Melvin is on the verge of losing everything, from what you said.”
“Exactly. Hard to say for certain though; they’re both known to be good guys.”
“Poor Walter, that man must have no idea who he can trust,” Echo observed, taking a large bite out of a vegan carob cupcake. “I’m glad that I don’t have anything that anyone would want to murder me in order to get.”
***
Spencer checked over every inch of Steve’s room thoroughly, and discovered that the guest had to have been the man that he and Janssen suspected he was. There was no trace of him in the room. Not one hair left behind, nor a single fingerprint. The Marine was glad that he was gone, but would be looking over his shoulder for a while, wondering if and when his nemesis would appear again.
CHAPTER 16
“Good morning, Dayne. How are you feeling today?” Missy asked, when her new friend came into Cupcakes in Paradise shortly after Echo and Kel had gone off to start their day.
“Well, you know, I have to tell you, Daimler and Benz’s coats have absorbed their share of tears lately. I still can’t believe that my best friend is gone, and her daughter seems to have gone off the deep end,” she sighed heavily, leaning against the front counter, gazing at the cupcakes in the display case. “It’s all just so painful.” Dayne absently touched a bandage at her temple.
“Aww, darlin, I know it’s difficult now, but it’ll get easier as time passes. I’m sure it’ll help to have closure too, when the murderer is caught,” Missy assured her, handing the depressed woman a caramel crème cupcake.
“I sure hope so. I have my suspicions about who might’ve done it too,” Dayne confided, lowering her voice.
“Really? Who do you think it was?” Missy handed over a mug of coffee, and poured one for herself.
“Well, I hate to point fingers, because I know how serious this is, but… there is a nurse at Havenwood, Lynette Kempthorn, she’s always seemed oddly overprotective of Walter, and used to argue with Clara non-stop about his care.”
“That’s sort of strange,” Missy frowned.
“Well, in some ways, I could sort of understand it. Clara didn’t always think clearly when it came to making decisions regarding her husband’s care, and Lynette had no problem pointing out the flaws in her thinking.”
“But, why would she be so bold with the spouse of this one patient? Was she like that with all of her patients?” Missy was puzzled.
“I’m not sure, actually, but I think I know why she was so protective of Walter. Lynette was in the same class in school as his daughter Sharlene. Sharlene was a popular girl who hung out with the ‘in’ crowd, and Lynette was a shy, studious young lady who never quite fit in, so spent a great deal of time by herself. Clara threw a big birthday party for Sharlene when she turned fourteen, and she forced her daughter to invite Lynette to the party.”
“And Lynette didn’t get invited?” Missy broke in sadly.
“Oh no… Sharlene invited her, and then she and her girlfriends embarrassed the poor girl horribly in front of all of the most popular kids in school, including the young man that she had a crush on. Can you imagine how awful that must have been? The poor girl didn’t have a friend at the party, and had to endure some pretty ugly treatment,” Dayne shook her head, clucking at the memory.
“Clara just watched it all happen, thinking ‘kids will be kids.’ Well, Walter caught wind of what was going on, and sent Sharlene to her room after making her apologize publicly to Lynette. After lecturing the agitators about their behavior, he sent all of the party guests away. Lynette cried all the way home, and he went in and apologized to her mama. I don’t think she ever forgot about that, and she never spoke to Sharlene again.”
“Which would explain why someone would want to hurt Sharlene,” Missy murmured to herself, thinking of the car wreck.
“I’m sorry, what, dear?” Dayne asked, taking a bite of the luscious cupcake.
“Oh, nothing. Wow, that’s such an awful thing to happen to a poor, shy girl.”
“These days they call it bullying… and it drives people to do things that they otherwise wouldn’t. I think it’s worth considering. While it’s a horrific thing, maybe Lynette’s memories drove her to kill, poor lamb.”
Missy found it odd that Dayne would sympathize with the killer of her best friend, but said nothing, knowing that the woman was trying her best to cope. Although Lynette’s experience did sound pretty brutal, she had obviously gone on and made something of herself. Could she have really carried a murderous grudge for that long?
“Well, if it was Lynette, I’m sure something will turn up that points to her. It’s just such a sad situation all the way around. That poor man is sitting in a nursing home, helpless while his world crumbles around him,” Missy mused, sipping her coffee.
Dayne nodded.
“Yes, that’s the real tragedy. Clara and Sharlene weren’t the only victims in this mess, Walter is too. Well, sweetie, I’ve prattled on and taken up too much of your time, so I’ll get going now, but thanks for lending an ear. It does help,” she patted Missy’s hand.
“Anytime, darlin.” Missy gazed thoughtfully after Dayne as she left the shop, then picked up her phone to text Chas.
CHAPTER 17
Lynette Kempthorn peeked her head into Sharlene Schenkman-Wilkins’s hospital room. The patient was awake and complaining loudly at the nutrition tech who had the misfortune of bringing the bruised and battered young woman her lunch.
“I have no idea how you expect suffering people to recover when you feed them slop like this, it’s an utter abomination. There’s no way I’d even…”
Sharlene stopped in mid-sentence, her mouth falling open at the sight of the target of her childhood bullying. Her eyes narrowed with contempt.
“Go away,” she snapped at the profoundly relieved tech, who escaped as fast as his feet would take him. “What are you doing here? Hoping to inject my IV with arsenic?” Sharlene glared at Lynette, who silently counted to ten and marveled that clearly, some things… or people never changed.
“I heard you were in an accident and I came to see how you were doing. Your father was so upset when your mother died—he must be worried sick about you,” the nurse replied quietly.
“What do you care? Oh, I forgot, he always did like you better than he liked me,” Sharlene replied sourly.
“That’s ridiculous, he loves you.”
“He’s sure got a funny way of sh
owing it,” her jaw flexed in anger.
Lynette had had enough.
“Why? Because he’s too smart and too kind to allow you and your mother to screw your customers and employees over so that you can travel to Europe every year and buy the latest model German car? You poor baby. Give it a rest already. You were a spoiled brat when we were in school and you’re still a spoiled brat today. To think I felt sorry for you,” Lynette fumed and spun around to leave, nearly colliding with the broad chest of Detective Chas Beckett.
“Miss Kempthorn? I’d like to have a word with you, please,” Chas said, flashing his badge.
***
Kel decided to go to the Café Calgon for lunch. It was a lovely day, and the exotic sandwiches and salads on the patio sounded like just the treat he needed as he geared up for the art show that was just around the corner. The café was a quiet spot that played lovely classical music and had ceiling fans overhead on the patio, so that diners could keep cool, even on the most humid Florida day.
The artist looked as though he belonged in the quaint café, dressed in a crisp linen suit, with expensive but comfortable loafers on his feet and a jaunty straw fedora on his head.
“Well, Phil Kellerman, don’t you look smart today,” a familiar voice trilled as Kel perused the menu.
“Dayne Baker, how are you this lovely day?” he grinned, standing to give her a hug.
“Just ducky, dear. May I join you?” she gave him a smile that was pure sunshine.
“I’d like nothing better, dear lady. Please,” he motioned to the seat across from him. “How are you holding up these days?” the artist asked, knowing that she and Clara Schenkman had been close friends.
“Well, I think I should probably buy some stock in the facial tissue industry, but I’m getting on. The world just seems to be a different place these days,” she shook her head.
“Good heavens, what have you done to yourself?” Kel asked, noting the bandage at her temple.
“Oh, nothing really. I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going and walked into the corner of an open kitchen cabinet. What about you? You look like you’re as accident prone as I am,” Dayne observed, gazing at a long cut on the back of his hand.
“Well, this wasn’t actually my fault. My fiancée and I were driving down Offshore Drive, coming back from dinner, and some maniac ran into an SUV that was behind us. We were lucky and only suffered minor injuries. The driver of the SUV ended up in the hospital.”
Dayne turned pale and seemed flustered. “Oh dear, I just don’t know how much more awful news I can take,” she shook her head.
“Then let’s not talk about it,” Kel suggested.
Their server approached just then and they ordered before resuming their conversation.
“So, something positive… tell me what you’ve been up to today,” Kel directed, sipping his lemon water.
“Well, I stopped by and got a caramel crème cupcake from Missy this morning,” she confessed with a chuckle. “That got my day started nicely. Then I volunteered over at Havenwood for a bit, and after that I had a nice chat with Walter at Farmstead.”
“How is Walt? Poor guy has had his share of challenges lately,” Kel said ruefully.
“He’s holding up well, all things considered. I think it was a bit easier for him than one might think, because Clara had seemed somewhat distant ever since he moved out of their home.”
“It must have been a tough transition for such a smart, take-charge kind of guy suddenly to have his entire life rest in the hands of a nursing home staff,” the artist mused, hoping that he’d never have to face that prospect.
“It was,” Dayne nodded. “But, it seems like these days, when he’s not in the grip of dementia, he’s so much more like the cheerful, optimistic man that he used to be.”
“As I recall, you two used to be an item, didn’t you? Way back in the day?” Kel leaned back so that the server could put his salad niçoise in front of him.
Dayne blushed and giggled. “Oh yes, we were a couple during our college years,” she replied, a faraway look in her eyes.
“You seemed well suited to one another. What happened?” he took a bite of the crisp lettuce, delighted to bite into a sizable piece of tuna and a tangy olive.
The look on Dayne’s face was like a shadow passing over the sun.
“Walt had to go to Europe for six months to learn his business’s manufacturing process from an uncle. While he was gone, Clara, who was my best friend even then, wrote to him every day, and in some of her letters, she hinted that I was being untrue.”
“Doesn’t sound like much of a friend,” Kel observed dryly, spearing a crisp green bean with his fork.
“Well, I didn’t find out until much later that she had done that. All that I knew is when Walter came back, he barely spoke to me and started seeing Clara. It broke my heart, but I chose to forgive him. It was better that way—I didn’t have to give up my best friend, and I could still be friends with them as a couple,” she said sadly.
“That had to have taken a lot of strength and character,” Kel commented, looking at her closely.
“I couldn’t just shut them both out of my life, after they’d both been so important to me for so many years,” Dayne shrugged.
“So how did you find out that Clara wrote the letters?”
“Well, I always felt a strong connection between Walt and me,” she confessed, blushing again. “Even though he and Clara were married, I’d often catch him looking at me… the way that he did when we were seeing each other.”
“Do you think Clara picked up on that?” Kel put down his fork for a moment, and sipped his water.
Dayne nodded. “It was pretty hard to miss, and I think that, in some ways, Walt didn’t care if she noticed, because he felt like she had just married him for his money,” she sighed. “But anyway, I suspected that she had done something, but I wasn’t sure until Walt was moved into Havenwood.”
“What happened?” Kel resumed eating, but stayed entirely focused on Dayne’s compelling story.
“Clara and Sharlene were in Europe when a suite became available, so I volunteered to oversee the move. I helped Walt by instructing the moving men which items to pack and take. In one of his lucid moments, Walter had told me about a secret compartment in the back of his dresser, and gave me a key to make certain that it stayed locked during transit.”
Kel chewed slowly, paying rapt attention. He always loved a good story.
“I’m a bit embarrassed to admit this,” Dayne took a quick gulp of her iced tea. “But… after Walt gave me the key, my curiosity got the best of me, and I opened the secret compartment. There were some financially related items in there—I didn’t pay any attention to those things—but there was something else in there that changed my life forever.”
“What was it?” Kel’s eyebrows shot skyward, and he leaned forward.
“It was a bundle of letters. All the letters that Clara had written to him while he was gone,” she murmured.
“And that’s how you found out that she told him that you’d been unfaithful to him?”
Dayne nodded, her eyes pooling a bit.
“What did you do?”
The server came to collect his empty plate, while Dayne still picked at her spinach soufflé. Kel ordered a Tahitian vanilla gelato and an espresso. This was one story that he definitely wanted to stay awake for.
“I waited until he was having a good day, and I talked to him about it. I told him the truth, and he told me that he had never stopped loving me. All those years…” she whispered.
Kel placed his hand over his heart, touched.
“How on earth did you remain friends with Clara after that?” he asked, astonished.
“I could never even remember a time when she and I hadn’t been friends,” Dayne shrugged, her smile faint. “And I knew, if I ever wanted to have a snowball’s chance of seeing Walt in Havenwood, I’d have to stay on her good side. She had been nice to him in the beginnin
g. Then it seemed like she loved the money more than her husband. It was so sad… I’ve adored that man my entire life.”
“Is that why you’ve never married? I hope I’m not getting too personal,” Kel dug into his creamy, rich gelato.
“Of course not, sweetie. You’re so easy to talk to,” she beamed at him. “But, yes, there was never a man in my life who could hold a candle to Walt.”
“So, what happens now?” the artist washed down a sublime bite of his frozen treat with a hot, bitter jolt of espresso.
“Now that Clara has passed? I don’t know. Walt seems to have more lucid days, and has been more talkative, but I think it’s really too soon to talk about what will be.”
“Do you have a good relationship with Sharlene?”
“Oh, Kel, does anyone have a good relationship with that… young woman?” Dayne snickered.
“Good point. I’ve only met her briefly on a couple of occasions, but I’ve heard the horror stories,” he nodded, pushing back his empty gelato cup and signaling for the check. “My treat,” he insisted. “This has been the most entertaining lunch I’ve had in a while,” he chuckled. “You, dear lady, have quite the tragic love story.”
“Well, maybe it’ll have a happy ending,” she grinned. “And thank you for lunch. If you’re going toward downtown, would you mind dropping me off at the City Hall? I need to meet with the mayor’s secretary about the May Day Parade.”
“I’d be happy to assist. Did you walk all the way here from Farmstead?”
“Goodness no, I’d never have survived that,” Dayne laughed. “One of the CNAs gave me a ride.”
“Well, where’s your car, dear lady?”
“She’s in the shop. I’ve been having some transmission troubles, so I didn’t want to take a chance of getting stranded.”
Caramel Creme Killer: Book 3 in The INNcredibly Sweet Series Page 6