Coffee Cake & Murder: An Oceanside Cozy Mystery - Book 7

by Susan Gillard

  "But we just heard how the odds were stacked," Maricela said.

  "It still happened," said Amy. "And it's more impressive that you were moved to the room she predicted than one of the three of us being assigned there. And based on her predictions, things are going to work out with Shirley. She's going to forgive us."

  "I don't believe that either," said Maricela. "I think I should take out my rolling pin."

  "Calm down, both of you," Heather said. "Or we'll get annoyed with one another and won't have a happy future."

  "I'm just saying that we're in Salem and we ran into a psychic who gave us a real prediction," said Amy. "I think we should follow it and go visit Shirley again."

  "And I think we should do the sightseeing that we agreed to," said Maricela. "Because psychics aren't real. And we wanted to cheer ourselves up after yesterday."

  "Compromise," Heather said. "We'll make a quick stop at Salem Sips and Sandwiches to see if Shirley will even talk to us, and then we'll go on a historic walking tour. Based on how things go today, we might be able to catch flights home in the morning."

  The others agreed, and they made their way to the sandwich shop. They entered and again waited for someone to appear.

  "I think this is taking even longer than yesterday," said Maricela.

  The hair on the back of Heather's neck stood on end. She felt that something was wrong. She moved to the back of the shop and poked her head into the employee area.

  "We're not going to be able to catch a flight home in the morning," said Heather.

  "Why not?" asked Amy.

  "Because Shirley Hunt is dead," Heather replied. "We need to call the police."

  Questioned by Police

  "Tell us again what you were doing when you found the dead body."

  Heather sighed. She didn't like being on the opposite end of an interrogation table. However, she, Amy, and Maricela were seated across from two detectives that were definitely doing their due diligence when asking them questions. Heather felt like she had answered the same questions at least three times.

  She had tried her best to explain the unusual circumstances of how they met the victim. She had been honest about how they came here trying to understand the negative review, how they had been pelted with donuts on their first visit, and how they hoped another interaction with her would be better because of a psychic's vague advice.

  The detectives kept questioning them, and Heather couldn't tell if it was because they didn't believe the strangeness of their story or they thought of the trio as actual suspects.

  "What were you doing there?"

  "We wanted to get some finger sandwiches," Amy joked. "But we didn't think there was a chance they'd be real fingers."

  Maricela giggled.

  "This is a serious matter," Detective Blackwell said. "If you can't take this seriously, we will separate you."

  He had gray hair that fell to his shoulders and a hooked nose. Even in his modern-day police uniform, his look reminded Heather of the magistrates from the colonial days. His partner, Detective Thorne, had a kinder face, but she still looked at the donut bakers suspiciously. She had short brown hair and freckles and was writing down everything that they said.

  "We are taking this seriously," Heather assured them. "My friend just uses gallows' humor to deal with tragedy and murder. It happens all the time at home."

  "You've encountered many murders before?" Detective Blackwell asked.

  "As I said before," Heather said, trying to keep her cool. "We're licensed private detectives. We've helped with several cases."

  "A ton of cases," Amy corrected. "We're super helpful."

  "You could contact the Key West Police to validate what I said. Or the Hillside, Texas police where we used to live. They'll back up what I've said," explained Heather.

  "Is this the same for you?" Detective Thorne asked Maricela.

  "No. I'm just a donut maker."

  "And a store manager," Heather said. "Don't sell yourself short."

  Maricela shrugged. "I'm not sure how good a job I've been doing. We still haven't figured out what was wrong with the donuts she got."

  "Let's keep the focus of conversation exclusively on answering my questions," Detective Blackwell said, with a touch of annoyance in his voice.

  "How many times do we have to answer them?" Amy asked. "I never should have listened to that psychic. I should have gone on a walking tour or visited the wax museum. Instead, I followed her advice. Now all the sightseeing I'm doing is seeing a corpse and a table."

  "Now, you traveled all the way here to confront the victim about her bad review?" Detective Blackwell asked. "A review that you said is hurting your business."

  "Not confront her," Heather said. "We wanted to find out what went wrong with the order. We've never had something like this happen before. If it was our fault, we wanted to make sure that the error would never happen again. If it wasn't our fault, we did hope that she would retract the review. But we weren't threatening her. We wanted to make it up to her."

  "Even after she started throwing things at you?" Detective Thorne asked.

  "We still hoped that we could resolve the issue," Heather said.

  "Instead, you just so happened to stumble upon her dead body?" Detective Blackwell asked. "You have to admit that this all sound suspicious."

  "Not as much as you might think," Heather said. "When we first saw her, Shirley Hunt said that our donuts tasted like metal."

  "I bet that description of them didn't make you too happy," Detective Blackwell snarled.

  "It didn't at first. But now I think that it makes things make more sense," said Heather.

  "How so?" asked Amy.

  "How did the victim die?" Heather asked. "Has the medical examiner completed their autopsy yet?"

  "It seems like we've been sitting here long enough for it to be done," Amy muttered.

  "Was it poison?" Heather asked.

  "We're the ones asking the questions," Detective Blackwell said.

  "It looked like poisoning to me," Heather said. "Based on her coloring and how it appeared like she had been sick before dying."

  "Gross," said Amy.

  "Throwing up is grosser than dying?" Maricela asked.

  "Good point," said Amy. "But now it's double gross."

  "Why do you want to know how she died?" Detective Thorne asked.

  "Because the metal taste could be tied to her death," Heather said. "I know arsenic can leave a metallic taste in your mouth, and some other poisons might have a similar effect. I think it's very possible that whoever killed Shirley Hunt tried to kill her the day of her Halloween tea reading event. They poisoned the donuts she ate, but it backfired. She didn't eat enough of the poison to kill her."

  "Just enough to make her hate our food," said Amy.

  "So, the killer had to come back and finish the job," Heather said. "They poisoned something else that she ate."

  "That's a very interesting theory," Detective Thorne said.

  "We'd be happy to help with the case," Heather said. "We met the victim before her death, and know a lot about donuts, which are the potentially poisoned food. We'd be happy to offer our investigative services."

  "No," Detective Blackwell said.

  "You can contact any of the police departments that I mentioned. They'll tell you how we assisted before," Heather started.

  "No," Detective Blackwell said again, this time with a slight smile. "We're not in the habit of letting the prime suspects investigate their crime."

  "You can't think we had anything to do with this," Heather said. "We weren't here when the donuts were poisoned. It had to be someone there in person to make sure that only the ones she ate were tainted, and not the ones that everyone else could eat."

  "Possibly," said Detective Blackwell. "Or possibly you killed her today because of the bad review and are now pushing this crazy theory about two poisoning attempts to cover your guilt."

  "We wouldn't kill someone over a bad
review," said Heather.

  Detective Blackwell shrugged. "Don't plan on leaving town anytime soon."

  Common Ground

  Since they couldn't leave town, Heather and her friends headed to the Salem Common. It was a grassy park in the center of town. Though events and carnivals were often held there, it was quiet as they arrived. Heather was thankful for the peacefulness because she needed a moment to clear her head after the events of the day.

  They found some benches to sit on and looked at the stone gazebo-like structure in the middle of the Common.

  "You'd think detectives would get tired of thinking of us as suspects," Amy said. "It's never us."

  "They're detectives we haven't met before," Heather said. "And as much as I hate to admit it, they do have the beginnings of a case against us."

  "Traveling here because her review upset us does look like a motive," Maricela agreed.

  "And while I thought I was being helpful in telling them about my poison theory," Heather said. "It does make it look like I know an awful lot about the murder weapon."

  Amy groaned. "I don't like the idea of Detective Blackwell thinking of us as suspects. He has a mean look in his eyes. I feel like he'd like to have us hanged or burned at the stake."

  "You're letting the lore of this town get to you," Maricela said.

  Heather agreed. "He's a modern-day detective. There's laws and warrants and protocols now. He'd need to find some more evidence to send us to trial."

  "The witches had trials too," Amy said. "And based on what I read in the guidebooks, they probably weren't witches. They were just women that the town turned against and wanted to accuse of stuff. What if we get accused of something we didn't do too?"

  "I wouldn't particularly want to invite Detective Blackwell over for dinner, but I don't think he's evil. He's harsh, but he's trying to do his job." Heather frowned as she continued, "But if he and his partner don't look into the first attempted murder with the donuts, then I think they're missing out on a big potential lead."

  "Does this mean that you think we should investigate the case?" Maricela asked.

  "I think we have to," said Heather. "What's concerning me more than the thought that we could be considered suspects is that the real killer is still running around free."

  "Great," Amy said. "More cause for nightmares."

  "We might be the only ones who believe this crime was attempted twice," said Heather. "This gives an investigation an edge."

  "How?" asked Maricela.

  "Because it would mean that the killer had to be at Salem Sips and Sandwiches both days to plant the poison," said Heather. "We might be able to determine who was there both times."

  "What if he left the poison there earlier?" Amy asked. "And Shirley didn't eat it until today."

  "It's possible," said Heather. "But that would be reckless. She works in a sandwich shop. If the killer put the poison out too early when he wasn't watching to make sure that she ingested it, there would be a good chance that it could have hurt an innocent person too. Because the killer made two attempts, I'm pretty sure he only wanted to kill Shirley Hunt."

  "But why?" asked Amy. "What did she do to make anybody else mad?"

  "That's what we're going to have to find out," said Heather.

  "I hate to say it. But there is one silver lining in all this," Maricela said. "If someone did poison her food, then it means that we didn't do anything wrong with our Pumpkin Glazed Donuts."

  "If I were tasting poison, I'd be unhappy with my dessert too," said Amy. "And if it was really that bad, then I could understand her leaving a bad review. She wasn't being hateful. She didn't want others to eat poison-tasting-y food. She just didn't know that's the reason why it was bad."

  "Exactly," said Heather. "She had a valid reason for what she did. And even if she was unpleasant to us, she didn't deserve to die. We owe it to her to find out who did this."

  "I just hate that whoever wanted to kill her decided on poison," said Amy. "I hate poisons. Especially in dessert. I know we've faced this sort of thing before, but it always bums me out. If someone decides to poison my donuts, I'm done for."

  "We all are," Heather admitted.

  "Yeah," Maricela agreed, trying to contain a smile. "I'm sorry I keep smiling after a woman died. But I'm just so relieved that I didn't make a mistake and ruin Donut Delights."

  "I always believed in you," Heather said. "I knew there was some other reason for it."

  "And now we know what the reason is," said Amy. "Murder."

  "What do we do first for the case?" Maricela asked.

  Heather looked to Amy. "Should we let Maricela help us on this one? She doesn't have her P.I. license."

  "That didn't use to stop us," Amy said.

  "Yeah," Maricela agreed. "Besides, didn't I save you from getting shot by an arrow before?"

  Heather had to admit she was right. "All right. You can help us," she said. "But if anything dangerous happens, you have to promise that you'll let Amy and I handle it."

  "I promise, boss," said Maricela.

  "She did raise a good question though," said Amy. "What should we do first?"

  Heather thought about it. "I think first we need to return to the scene of the crime."

  Amy sighed. "Back there? Every time we go there, something bad happens."

  The Sandwich Shop Assistant

  Luckily, this visit to Salem Sips and Sandwiches wasn't as horrifying as their other times had been. They didn't plan on crossing the crime scene tape without the detectives' permission.

  "Detective Blackwell would just love that excuse to lock us up," Amy has said.

  Instead, they questioned the other nearby shop owners. Unfortunately, no one had noticed anyone visiting the sandwich shop earlier in the day, but that also didn't mean that no one had entered. Salem Sips and Sandwiches also had a side entrance that was blocked from the street view of the other neighbors.

  The last neighbor they questioned was a photographer named Andy Mathers who had backgrounds inside his small store for instant pictures. Amy enjoyed dressing up in a witch hat and standing next to a Frankenstein's Monster for a tourist picture, while Heather asked him the same questions she had asked the others and was determining that she knew just as little about suspects.

  "I'm sorry," he said. "People wander around so much on this street that it's hard to take notice of them."

  "Do you know anyone who would want to hurt Shirley Hunt?" Heather asked.

  "I'm afraid I didn't know her that well," said Andy. "But if anyone would know the answer to that question Gwendolyn would."

  "Who's Gwendolyn?" Amy asked as best she could with a mask over her face.

  "Shirley's assistant at the sandwich shop," said Andy.

  Heather smiled, and Amy hurried to get out of costume. Following this lead, they ended up at the home of Gwendolyn Davis.

  After they explained that they were private investigators looking into the death of her employer, Gwendolyn brought them into her small living room. She was a young woman whose bookshelf was filled with romance novels.

  "I can't believe Shirley is gone," she said. "I feel terrible that I wasn't there for her."

  "Where were you?" Heather asked.

  Amy had taken out the tablet that they used for taking notes of their questioning. Maricela, wanting something to do with her hands and wanting to be helpful, was taking notes on her cell phone. Unfortunately, it just looked like she was texting and was ignoring what was going on.

  "I was at my cousin's wedding," Gwendolyn said. "I've been gone all week in Illinois, helping with the bride's every whim. Not that I begrudge her that. I'm sure I'll get the same treatment when I get married. Which will happen. Eventually."

  "When did you come back?" Heather asked.

  "I flew back this afternoon," said Gwendolyn.

  Heather nodded. If Gwendolyn was out of state, then it ruled her out as a suspect for the second and successful poisoning. The police would be able to check that
she was on the flight that she said.

  Gwendolyn continued, "I arrived home, and two detectives were at my door, asking about who had keys to the Salem Sips and Sandwiches."

  "What did you tell them?" asked Heather.

  "Only Shirley and I had keys. I keep mine on my usual keyring with my house and car keys, so I had my copy in Illinois. We had some extra help in October, but they didn't have keys. And they all left right after Halloween."

  Heather thought about this. If the two keys were accounted for, then the killer had to visit the sandwich shop the morning of the murder as she had suspected. The killer wouldn't have been able to set up his poisonous trap overnight.

  "Did Shirley get along with all her employees?" Heather asked.

  Gwendolyn nodded. "Everyone loved the seasonal job. It's busy, but it's fun. And she was a good boss. They were good employees too. There were two cute guys who worked there for the season. I had hoped that one of them might ask me to go to the movies or something, but it never happened. I guess it just wasn't meant to be."

  "It's probably because you were coworkers," Amy said, trying to cheer her up. "Dating someone you work with can be complicated."

  "Tell me about it," Maricela said.

  Heather frowned, realizing for the first time that there might be trouble in Maricela and Jung's relationship. She cared deeply about both of her employees and had been ecstatic when they started dated and made each other so happy. She wanted to ask Maricela if she wanted to talk about it but realized it would have to wait. She needed to finish her questions about the murder first.

  "I bet that's it," Gwendolyn said. "Thanks. I have to admit I've been a bit impatient waiting for my Prince Charming. I've been a bridesmaid thirteen times. Can you believe that? Unlucky number thirteen. And I've caught the bouquet six times. And still no potential groom."

  "I'm sure you'll find Mr. Right at the Mr. Right time," Amy said.

  "It's so frustrating waiting," said Gwendolyn. "I've been tempted to go into some of the specialty shops here and order a love spell. But then I remind myself that I'm not that desperate. Yet."