by Jessica Beck
“If anything, I think it’s a good sign,” Grace said. “We’re rattling some cages, so of course there are folks who are going to resent it. Is she still here, by any chance?”
Trish nodded. “I don’t understand either one of you, but as long as you both seem to get each other, I suppose I’ll have to accept it. She’s still sitting at a table in the back, trying to pin down Thad Belmont about the two of you.”
I knew Thad well from the donut shop. Beatrice had chosen the wrong man to seek information from. Thad was the biggest gossip in April Springs, but the trouble was you could only believe a fourth of the information you heard from him. What was more, he’d been known to practice a little friendly extortion while hanging tantalizing bits in the air that usually led nowhere. I had a feeling that he was going to ride that horse as long as he could, and then he was going to pull the rug out from under her. “What has he gotten out of her so far? I hope she’s at least buying him dessert.”
“Actually, she paid for his entire meal,” Trish said with a grin. Even though she was worried about Grace and me, she couldn’t help but display some amusement at Thad’s behavior.
“Should we give him more time to get that dessert before we go out?” I asked Grace.
“No, he should be happy with what he’s managed to squeeze out from her so far,” she said.
I stopped to pat Trish’s shoulder. “Thanks for worrying about us.”
“Why wouldn’t I? You two are my best friends,” she said, and then she added with a grin, “Sad, isn’t it?”
“More than I can tell you,” I said as I hugged her, with Grace quickly following suit.
Trish followed us into the dining room, as I knew she would. Grace and I walked back to the table where Thad was holding court, talking about the two of us to one of our prime suspects. None of what he was saying was even remotely true, and he winked at me when he realized that he’d been caught in the act. I had to give him credit for that. He might not have had truth on his side, but he certainly had confidence in his presentation.
“Ladies, we were just talking about you,” Thad said as he stood. “I believe you know my dinner companion.”
At least Beatrice had the good grace to look embarrassed at getting caught. She had on another long-sleeved blouse, but this one didn’t manage to cover her arms as well as the last one had. Was that a bandage sticking out from one of the cuffs? I couldn’t be sure, because the moment she noticed me looking, she tugged at it self-consciously. “I’ve been looking all over town for you two,” she said as brightly as she could, though I noticed that she couldn’t make eye contact with either one of us as she said it.
“Well, what do you know? We were right here all along,” I said as I took a seat at their table.
Beatrice didn’t look too pleased by that development, and when Grace braced her on the other side, she actually started squirming a little in her seat. Beatrice somehow managed to knock her purse over in the process, and I spied something that looked like a photocopied blueprint inside it before she hurriedly bundled it all back together. Thad was in paradise as he settled back into his own chair to watch the show. The only problem with that was I didn’t particularly want an audience. “Thad, is Trish motioning for you to join her?”
He didn’t even look in her direction as he pushed his empty dinner plate aside. “That’s okay. I’ll catch up with her later.”
Trish saw that she was being ignored, and then she had a stroke of brilliance. Ducking back into the kitchen for a moment, she emerged again with a piece of orange pineapple cake. I knew from personal experience that the cake was just about the best thing I’d ever tasted in my life, and that was really saying something.
“You might want to look,” I said sternly.
He appeared not to want to be bothered, but when he saw Trish offering him a substantial slice of cake, he was out of his seat in no time. I had a hunch that the only thing more alluring to the man than gossip was dessert. “I’ll be right back,” he said as he stood.
“Take your time,” I answered, getting his attention and warning him with a single glance that he didn’t want to poke this particular bear just now.
He got the message. “I will, then. Ladies,” he said, tipping a hat that wasn’t there, and then he hurried off before Trish had the chance to change her mind.
“That man treated me like a fool,” Beatrice said huffily once he was gone.
“What happened? Did he not deliver when you tried to bribe him with a free meal?” Grace asked her sweetly, though there was no warmth in her voice as she did so.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Beatrice said after pausing too long before coming up with a believable response.
“Of course you don’t,” Grace said.
“Why were you looking for us?” I asked her before she had a chance to rebound from Grace’s sarcasm.
“I have information for you,” Beatrice said firmly.
“About?” I asked, though I knew full well what she was talking about.
“Maggie Moore’s death,” Beatrice said sharply.
“Murder, you mean,” Grace corrected her harshly.
“Yes, of course,” Beatrice replied. “Murder.”
“Why come to us? Shouldn’t you go straight to the police if you know something?” I asked her.
“They don’t want to listen to what I have to say, but perhaps you will,” Beatrice said.
“We’ll certainly hear you out, and you don’t even have to buy our meals,” Grace said happily.
Beatrice chose to ignore her comment. Instead, she focused on me. “So tell me, Suzanne, do you want to know what I have to say, or not?”
“I want to know,” I said. Enough with this cat and mouse.
“Correction,” Grace added. “We want to know.”
“Very well,” she answered. “I have information that might just crack this case wide open.”
Chapter 15
“Go on. We’re listening,” I told her as I glanced over at Grace. She looked just as confused as I was. What exactly was going on here?
“Did you know that Crusty stole money from Maggie just before she died?” she asked with a knowing look on her face. “That’s why he probably killed her, so she wouldn’t go to the police about it and have him arrested.”
We hadn’t heard anything about this wild theory, and given what we’d learned from other sources, it didn’t make much sense. We knew that Maggie had sunk most of her money into the pie shop, so what was there for Crusty to steal? Leanne had told us that Maggie had put just about every dime she’d made in the past few years into establishing it. “That doesn’t jibe with what we’ve heard from other sources,” I said.
I was about to allow that it was possible, but before I could say another word, Beatrice shrugged off my objection with something brand new. “Okay then, if you don’t like that, how about this? Gabby had her own reasons to kill her cousin,” Beatrice said with a frown. “Have you even considered her? Of course not, she’s a friend of yours, and you don’t think she’s capable of a crime like murder.”
“We have our doubts that she did it, but it has nothing to do with our friendship with her,” Grace said. It was odd hearing my best friend defend the woman, given their rocky relationship, but it was true enough. “It doesn’t fit her character, plus Gabby is working with us earnestly to help solve the crime. Doesn’t that tell you that she’s innocent?”
Beatrice shrugged. “I’m working with you, too! What do you call this?” She paused a moment, and then she asked, “What if she’s helping just to keep you from discovering the truth?”
It was a possibility, and one I hadn’t really considered as of yet. Was Gabby really that diabolical? I didn’t think so, but I’d been wrong before. Then again, if that rationale applied to Gabby, then it had to apply to Beatrice as well, given her own s
tatement a moment ago. “Okay, let’s suppose for a second that Gabby killed Maggie. What motive would she have?”
“Come on, that’s easy. You know how abrasive Maggie was,” Beatrice snapped. “Everyone who ever knew her had a motive to poison those pills.”
“Maybe so, but Gabby cares for her family above all else, even the people she doesn’t particularly like. Her emotions run deep, and without another motive better than irritation, I’m not sure she deserves to even be mentioned in the same breath as our other suspects.” You included, I wanted to add, but I wanted to see what else Beatrice would claim to know. With any luck, she might just end up hanging herself.
One could only hope.
“Fine. Maybe Gabby didn’t do it. Surely you have to consider Jane Preston, though. She had reason enough to hate Maggie. After all, they were rivals for Crusty’s affections, and you know how that can infect people’s emotions and actions. She was getting rid of a rival.”
“I don’t know who your source of information is, but we disproved that theory today. Jane’s beef was with Crusty, not with Maggie. Beatrice, what’s this really all about? Are you possibly trying to distract us from the fact that you had the most motive of all to see the woman dead?”
“That’s ridiculous,” Beatrice said a little more strongly than she probably should have. “What about her business partner, Leanne? It’s a joke calling her that; she was nothing more than an employee.”
“True, but only because that’s the way Leanne wanted it,” Grace told her. “Is that the best you can do?”
“How about the pie recipe book?” she asked triumphantly. “Did you even know about that? There was going to be loads of money made off of that, and Maggie stole every last recipe from Leanne.”
“Again, you’re way off base, Beatrice,” I told her. “Leanne was happy with both arrangements. Now stop grasping at straws and tell us the truth. Why are you trying to sully everyone else’s name but your own? Is it to keep us off your trail?”
“Trail?” she asked angrily. “There’s no trail, because I didn’t kill the woman, and I won’t sit here and listen to this nonsense anymore.”
“Why not?” Grace asked her. “That’s exactly what you just asked us to do. All you did was spout nonsense.”
“You’ll see,” Beatrice said, shaking a finger at both of us angrily as her face continued to redden. “When the truth comes out, you’ll both be sorry.”
And then she stormed out, the perfect exit.
Trish came over to join us after Beatrice left the diner. “What was that all about? I was carrying a tub of dirty dishes, and that woman nearly knocked it out of my hands in her rush to get out of here so quickly.”
“I couldn’t say. We were just having a little chat,” I said as innocently as I could manage.
Trish clearly didn’t believe me, but then again, she also must have noticed that half a dozen of her patrons were paying particularly close attention to us. “Okay. Whatever you say.” In a softer voice, she added as she leaned forward, “You two had better hope that she’s not the murderer. By the look on her face as she left here, she’s ready to kill you both.”
“Sometimes we have to stir the pot to get results,” Grace said.
“And there are times when the pot boils over anyway, despite your best efforts to contain it. Just be sure that what happened to Maggie doesn’t happen to the two of you. Believe it or not, I’ve grown awfully fond of you both over the years, so I’d hate to see anything happen to either one of you.”
“We would, too,” I said with a smile. “Now that Beatrice is gone, what are the chances we can get two of your specials for dinner?” I glanced at Grace and added, “I don’t mean to order for you. You can have whatever you’d like.”
“Really? Anything? Gosh, you’re the best friend a girl could ever have.”
We both busted out laughing, and Trish soon joined us.
The rest of the diner looked at us all as though we were crazy.
In truth, maybe we were. We’d gone out of our way to antagonize one of our primary suspects in Maggie Moore’s murder, and Trish wasn’t completely out of bounds when she’d suggested that it might not have been a good idea to purposely anger a possible killer. Then again, we couldn’t just sit back and wait for things to happen. Grace and I believed that sooner was almost always better than later, and if it took a little pressure—and risk as well—it was probably worth it.
The meal was amazing; Gladys had outdone herself. She’d once been temporary, filling in only when needed, but her skills had elevated enough to go to work on a full-time basis, though she usually just cooked either late at night or very early in the morning. The country-style steak had been done to perfection, the homemade mashed potatoes were smooth and creamy, and the skillet-fried green beans had the perfect amount of seasoning and crispness to them. Had she been taking cooking lessons? Or more likely, had someone else given her a hand in the kitchen before we’d arrived? My money was on the latter instead of the former. After we finished eating, we lingered a bit at the table, sipping our sweet tea, neither one of us ready to go back out into the world and grill another suspect.
Grace asked, “What do you think about Beatrice’s little performance earlier?”
“It did feel a bit staged, didn’t it?” I asked her.
“The first part of it, anyway. There at the end, it was almost as though she was coming up with theories on the fly. I half expected her to blame us for Maggie’s murder before she left.”
“It wouldn’t have surprised me.”
“She did get me to thinking, though,” Grace said after a few moments of silence.
“Well, stranger things have happened,” I said with a grin. “What did she trigger?”
“Is it possible that Crusty really did steal money from Maggie?”
“I know Leanne said she sank every penny she had into the pie shop, but what if there was more going on behind closed doors than she knew? Maggie didn’t exactly seem the type to share everything with her employee, did she?”
“I wouldn’t think so,” Grace said with a frown.
“What are you so troubled by?” I asked her.
“I was just hoping that we wouldn’t have to go back to Crusty’s yet again,” she said.
“We have to, though, don’t we?”
“I don’t see any way around it, and the sooner the better, too,” Grace said as she stood.
“Let’s split the bill tonight,” I said. My friend had been picking up far too many tabs lately, and I didn’t want it to get to be a habit for either one of us.
“I wasn’t going to suggest we do anything else,” she said with a shrug.
I didn’t believe her for one second, but I did appreciate her trying to allow me to at least try to save a little face.
Unfortunately, Crusty wasn’t home when we got there. There was a pile of freshly trimmed branches at the curb, and I knew that the town workers would be picking them up in the morning. I had knocked on the door, rung the bell, and knocked again, even though his vehicle was gone, all to no avail.
“What do you think we should do now?” Grace asked as she frowned, looking around for someone to blame for the man’s absence.
“Short of camping out on his doorstep, I don’t think we have much choice, and we both know that I’m not that far from my bedtime. Thank goodness Emma and Sharon are coming back in a few days. I got a text message from my assistant while we were eating. It’s been nice not having to pay her wages, but the work is killing me.”
“I get that,” Grace said as she headed back toward the Jeep.
I walked with her, but I stopped after a few steps, though.
I was poking around in the bush Crusty had been cutting earlier when Grace rejoined me. “Suzanne, what are you doing?”
I ran my hands across the leaves and branches, and I was sur
prised to find that they yielded easily to my touch, thin and pliable, but more importantly, not a single thorn on any stem I touched. “This branch is harmless.”
“So?”
“Crusty was a little late putting his jacket on the last time we were here,” I said. “I happened to notice that there were welts, almost like scratches, all over his arms before he could cover them up.”
“But this bush doesn’t have anything that might cause that,” Grace said as she ran her hands over some of the nearby branches as well.
“No, but the ones at the pie shop certainly did,” I said.
“Do we think Crusty did it now?” Grace asked me.
“Well, the truth of the matter is that he wasn’t the only one a little scratched up,” I said. “Not only was Beatrice wearing long-sleeved blouses every time we’ve seen her, but I saw the hint of a bandage on one of her arms. It could have easily been covering up a scratch. Also, Leanne had a bandage on her arm as well, but I know I’ve certainly scratched myself enough working in a tight kitchen, so at least she has a plausible excuse.”
“Suzanne, is it possible that we are both being so paranoid that we are seeing clues that aren’t really there?”
“Anything is possible at this point,” I said. “There’s no use hanging around here. We have no idea when, or even if, Crusty is coming back.”
Just as I said it, though, the man in question drove up and parked in his driveway beside my Jeep, and he was clearly as unhappy as we were seeing him yet again.
“What do you two want?” he asked us, no sign of civility at all in his voice. “I thought things were finally settled between us.”
“How did you hurt your arm, Crusty?” I asked him, abiding by his wishes to get to the point without fanfare.
“This?” he asked. “If I said it was none of your business, would you leave me alone?”
“No,” I said, “but if you tell us the truth about two things, we’ll go away.”
“For tonight,” Grace amended.