by Tegan Maher
Ms. Maisey hovered near her and rubbed her chin, something she tended to do when she was considering something.
"I think she's telling the truth," she said after a few moments.
I echoed her sentiments aloud.
"Wait," I said. "You said she was in her room among other things. What other things?"
Gabe pinched the bridge of his nose. "You're not gonna let this go, are you?"
Dee and I shook our heads, then stared at him expectantly.
He took off his hat, ran his fingers through his hair, then slammed it back onto his head. "The murder weapon was in her room."
I had no idea how to respond to that, even though I knew in my bones Faith didn't do it. I bit my lip and examined her again. She looked as shocked as I felt. Her face was paper-white and her eyes were huge.
"If you don't mind me asking," she said, tilting her head at Gabe, "what was the weapon?"
He pinched his lips together for a second, then closed his eyes and shook his head. "An iron skillet."
Faith barked out a mirthless laugh. "Then I can guarantee you've got the wrong girl. I don't even own an iron skillet. Hell, I only own two regular old skillets, and I hardly ever use them. I cook grocery-store pizza and mac and cheese. You can bet your bottom dollar I wouldn't travel with my own cookware."
"Then how do you explain the one we found?"
She shrugged, a confounded expression on her face. "I have no idea, but I promise you—you won't find my prints on it."
Gabe crinkled his forehead, then studied her face and heaved a sigh. "I consider myself a good judge of character, and it just so happens, my gut says you're telling the truth. My problem is I'm between a rock and a hard place. The evidence points to you, and it's not like it's all circumstantial. I have people to answer to, so I have no choice but to take you in."
He shot a stern glance toward us. "And you two leave the investigating to me. I know how you like to dig in, but resist the urge. I've got it under control."
I bit my lip to keep from telling him that he obviously didn't, because that would have just been a knee-jerk reaction. I'd told Faith he was a good cop, and I believed that. However, people would talk to me and Dee a lot quicker than they'd talk to him. If we happened to overhear something, he couldn't hardly blame us for that.
Maisey must have been reading my mind, because she gave me a knowing nod and blinked out.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
As soon as they left, I turned to Dee. "We need to follow up on that suspect list."
"I was thinking the same thing. I assume Gabe'll still be questioning the contestants this morning. I believed him when he said he didn't think she did it, so we have to assume he'll still do his due diligence and follow through with the original plan."
Feet pounding down the staircase and the smell of cooking bacon and muffins brought me back to reality. "First, we have to finish breakfast. I don't think there's anything we can do before then, anyway."
"Morning ladies," Jay, one of the guys staying with us said, a smile lighting his face. "I heard a car door. Are the new guests here already?"
He looked around as if expecting to see other people.
"No," I said, shaking my head. "We just had an early visitor. Gabe stopped by."
They all knew him because he was a semi-regular guest at breakfast and we'd hosted a couple of cookouts, so that wouldn't seem out of the ordinary.
"Why didn't he stick around to eat?" He stuck his nose in the air and took a big sniff. "I smell something orange and sweet. That almost has to be delicious."
"He had to get to work," Dee said, and left it at that. There was no reason to tell him Gabe had been here to arrest another guest. Thankfully, the guys didn't spend much time in town and their entire work crew was from out of town. With any luck, they wouldn't even hear about the murder.
"That's a shame," he said. "If it's gonna be a few minutes yet, I'm gonna grab a quick shower."
I glanced at the old-fashioned pendulum clock hanging by the door—six thirty-five. Was it possible all of that happened in the course of five minutes?
"You have twenty minutes or so," I replied.
"See you in fifteen then," he said, then headed back up the stairs.
Dee and I went back to work cooking. Fortunately, the rue had been thick enough that I hadn't ruined it by setting it aside. I checked the bacon and decided it needed another few minutes.
"Dang," Dee said, pulling open the oven. "It looks like my end of things is almost covered."
I gave her a small smile. "Yeah, I wanted to let you sleep as long as possible. I was just gonna do pancakes and eggs and bacon, but Faith volunteered to whip up some biscuits and muffins."
She pulled the muffins out of the oven and gave them a poke. "These look great. Nice rise. Spongy. She is good." She pulled the towel off the biscuits and broke one in half, then took a bite. "Holy cow," she said around the bite. "These are amazing. Even better than mine."
That was high praise indeed, because Dee was picky. I guess the one bad thing about being a baker of her caliber was that she picked apart everything she ate. It wasn't that she was critical, it was just sort of second nature. And she was twice as hard on her own work as she was of other people's food.
"What can I do?" she asked.
"If you wanna start the pancakes, that would be awesome."
She turned the griddle on and leaned against the counter while she waited for it to heat. After a few minutes, she turned to me, a conflicted look etched upon her face.
"What's wrong?" I asked, "besides the obvious, of course. I'm worried about her, too, but we'll figure it out. I have faith in Gabe to do the right thing."
She pinched her lips together, then sighed. "It's not that, or at least it's not just that. Are we sure Faith didn't do it? I mean, my gut tells me she's innocent, but I thought the same of Naomi in the first murder. Maybe I just don't want to believe Faith could murder someone."
Naomi was a woman who'd taken Dee under her wing, then ended up being the reason Dee was accused of murdering her aunt. I shook my head. "I don't think so. Think about it—do you believe she could have brained somebody with an iron skillet then jumped in the car five minutes later, relaxed as can be, and gone to dinner with us? Besides, she was as shocked as we were when Darla called you, and she doesn't strike me as dumb. She wouldn't have left the murder weapon in her own room."
Her expression was troubled. "Yeah, but you asked the normal question when I said Bella'd been murdered-what happened. She asked if they knew who did it."
She had a point, but I still couldn't see Faith doing it. "Maybe she only asked that because I'd already asked what happened."
"Maybe," Dee said, but I could tell she still had her doubts.
"At any rate," I said, "we wouldn't be doing her justice if we don't at least give her the benefit of the doubt and look into the other contestants."
"Oh, of course," she rushed to say. "I just don't think we should go in with tunnel vision. We should allow that there's at least a chance she did it."
I cast a glance at her out of the corner of my eye. She was frowning as she drizzled the batter onto the griddle, and I had to wonder if, maybe this time, I was the one wearing blinders. I searched through my memory for any hint that Faith was hiding something, but came up empty. And the look on her face when Gabe had nudged her out the door was not the look of a guilty person.
"So who tops your list of suspects?" I asked as I crumbled the sausage into my gravy.
She thought for a minute. "I think it was Lena. She definitely had a bee in her bonnet about something, and she was defensive of the judges' critiques to the point of being rude. And did you see the look on her face when she left? It gave me goosebumps. What about you?"
"I'm leaning toward Lena, too. I'm anxious to hear why she was so mad. Is it just her nature, or did she have something going on?"
Ms. Maisey popped in, an odd expression on her face. It was a mix of irritation and impatienc
e—I knew it well because when we were working in her rose garden or on another project dear to her heart and I didn't understand what she wanted me to do, she used it on me.
"Hey! What's with the face?" I asked as I poured the gravy into the bowl.
She glanced over her shoulder, apparently at something we couldn't see. "You know how you kept seeing something out of the corner of your eye at the competition?"
"Yeah." I turned my full attention to her. "What about it?"
"Well, After Gabe took Faith, I decided to pop in on some of the other contestants and see what I could find out. I didn't expect to hear anybody confess or anything, but I figured maybe I could get a feel for them. Apparently, you're not the only one who noticed weird things at the conference center. Three of them were at the cafe talking about the murder and whether or not the competition was going to be canceled. One of them said she'd rather see it moved somewhere else because the center gave her the creeps. Said it felt like somebody walked on her grave. The other two described the same thing you did, about experiencing something out of the ordinary like cold spots and the feeling of being watched when nobody was behind them. Now, in my limited experience just from hearing what people say about me, the cold spot's what it feels like to a person when a ghost walks through them."
"Okay, so how does that relate to the murder?" Dee asked as she put the biscuits and muffins in baskets.
"I don't know if it does or not, but I do have something—or rather somebody—that I want you to see." She looked over her shoulder. "Milt! Show yourself, right now!"
She had her forehead scrunched and looked like a mother getting onto her kid. Slowly, a portly middle-aged man with a handlebar mustache came into view beside her. He was wearing a bowler hat and an old-timey suit complete with a string tie, waistcoat, pocket watch and chain. Dee and I both gasped.
"You ... you're a ghost." Dee said.
"Thank you, Ms. Observant," he snarked.
I turned to Ms. Maisey. "I didn't think there were any other ghosts in town."
"I didn't either, but it's not like I've spent any time outside of the lodge until recently. I caught him skulking behind the drapes at the conference center."
I pulled in a deep breath and let it out, then turned my attention to the ghost. "Let's start over. My name's Toni and this is Dee. What's your name?"
He grumbled a little and did one of those deep, grumpy-old-man throat clearings that expressed his dismay beyond a doubt, but Ms. Maisey shot him a dirty look.
"Milton Hicks the Third. I don't know what you people want, but I wasn't bothering anybody, and just want to be left alone to my afterlife."
"Well too bad, Milt," Ms. Maisey said in her most bulldozing voice. "You may have information that we need, so suck it up, buttercup. Besides, what else do you have on your calendar? Didn't look to me like you have much of an afterlife."
He shot her a glare. "I assure you, Madame, my afterlife is perfectly satisfactory, and I have no information."
"We'll be the judge of that," she said.
Milt heaved a sigh of defeat. "Fine. Just ask me about whatever it is you think I might know so I can get back to the conference center. I don't want to be bothered."
"I think you're lying," I said. "I think you miss being part of things. Otherwise, why were you skulking around the competition? I saw you, or at least caught a glimpse of you, and so did other people. I think you like being around people but were scared to show yourself."
A pinkish-lavender blush rose on his silvery cheeks and he crossed his arms. "I like being around some people," he allowed. "You two didn't seem awful, but most of the others seemed like heathens. The way that young man just let the door close on you two? And that girl who got the boot. Why, I watched her the whole time she was cooking, and she had no clue. Over mixed, over baked. Added too much salt. It's no wonder her coffeecakes were more like coffee bricks. Then the attitude she gave that lady judge after the competition!"
"Wait, what?" I said. "Are you talking about Bella DaCourt?"
He rolled his eyes. "She was the only lady judge, correct?"
"Yeah, but I wanted to be sure. What exactly did they talk about? It was right after the competition?"
"That's what I said, is it not?" He harumphed through his mustache, and his double chin wobbled, reminding me of Jello. He patted his belly and swooped closer to examine me with narrowed eyes. "Do you have a hearing problem, young lady, or is your train just a little slow to leave the station? I've been forced to repeat myself twice now, and I find myself questioning my initial assessment of you as a bright young woman."
I glowered at him. "There's nothing wrong with my hearing or my comprehension. You just provided us with a couple of clues that may help solve Ms. DaCourt's murder."
"What's that you say?" he asked, "Ms. DaCourt's murder?"
I raised a brow at him. "Now who's hard of hearing?"
He lowered his brows, but didn't say anything.
"Knock it off, you two," Dee said as she flipped the pancakes. "And Milt, what did Lena say to Bella DaCourt?"
"The judge was simply trying to encourage her and give her a bit of advice as to how to improve. The young woman was quite angry and responded with a lewd suggestion for where Ms. DeCourt could put her advice. She seemed to be of the opinion that it was the judge's fault she was eliminated, and blamed her for ruining everything, in her words. Then she threatened her, in a manner of speaking. She was quite enraged at that point, and told Ms. DaCourt she'd like to knock her off her pedestal and choke her to death with her own silver spoon." He put the last part in air quotes.
"Did anybody else see this?" I asked.
He shook his head. "No. Everybody else was still in the main conference room, mingling."
I sighed. So we had an alternate suspect, but no viable witness to back us up. We were going to have to do it the hard way.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Just as we were setting the table, the guys thunked down the stairs, their work boots sounding like they weight fifty pounds and were made of concrete. Or steel, I supposed.
"Morning, ladies!" Jason, the guy who'd originally contacted us about renting a room, said, smiling. He stuck his nose in the air and sniffed. "It smells amazing as always. Is that hot maple syrup?"
I slid a plate heaped high with pancakes onto the table and Dee placed a small pitcher of the warm syrup down beside it. "It sure is. No pancake is complete without hot maple goodness to drizzle over it."
"Or at least peanut butter and bananas," Dee said.
I shot her a glance. "You're kind of a weirdo on that one, but I'll let it pass."
"Hey," she said. "It’s just takin’ Elvis’s peanut butter and banana sandwich to the extreme. Can you carry a pancake covered in syrup with you? No, you can't. But you can slather one with peanut butter and slice a banana onto it, then fold it in half and take it wherever you want to go."
Lou, another of the crew, laughed. "Now that's a food group I can get behind. If there are leftover pancakes, I wouldn't mind taking a couple of those for lunch. It'd be like lunch and dessert all wrapped into one fluffy, delicious package."
Danny, the third member of their group, didn't waste any time jabbing a fork through a couple pancakes and lifted them onto his plate. "Same for me, but you're assuming there are going to be leftovers."
The guys took a couple minutes to heap their plates full and dig in, and Dee and I did too. Eating was serious business to them; they treated it like it was a competitive sport.
After he'd made it a third of the way through his plate, Jason turned to us. "So what's this about one of the cooking competition judges being murdered? I saw it on the news last night. Is that the same one you're competing in, Dee?"
So much for them not hearing about it. Good news travels fast, but usually depends on word of mouth. Bad news, on the other hand, makes the news for all to see.
"It is," Dee replied, dragging a piece of bacon through a puddle of syrup. "It's kind of shocking
to me, because she was the nice one out of the two. Tragic, too. She did a lot of good in the cooking community."
"So what happened? The news just said she was attacked outside her hotel room."
"Yeah," I replied, then figured I may as well fill in the blanks for them. "Somebody hit her in the head with an iron skillet."
"Wow," Lou said, "What a way to go. Do they have a suspect?"
Dee and I glanced at each other, unwilling to admit they'd spent the night in the same house as the person suspected.
"They do," she replied carefully. "But we think they have the wrong person. There are several people with motive, and the investigation is just getting started."
"Love or money," Danny said around a mouthful of muffin. "My brother-in-law is a homicide detective in Atlanta, and he says murders are rarely as complicated as they make them out to be on TV. Follow the money trail or look for relationship issues and you'll find the killer."
"That's just the problem here, though," I said, laying down my fork. "There's twenty-five grand at stake and twenty people competing for it. And she wasn't married and didn't have any kids, so love is pretty much off the table as far as we can tell."
"Yeah," Jason replied, "but it seems like if it was a competitor, it would be easier to figure out who did it rather than harder. It was obviously personal because they only attacked her, not the other judge, right? So who would benefit from killing her? Or who did she offend badly enough to justify homicide?"
I reached across the table for the scrambled eggs. "She was the one who was hardest on the girl who was eliminated, and they had an argument right after the competition. Or, more accurately, the girl gave her a piece of her mind."