Murder with Cucumber Sandwiches

by Karen Rose Smith

  Gavin’s face reddened. “You’re not going to want me to kick in if it’s an investment for you, right?”

  “That would be best. But if you want to help them pay the utilities . . . or buy furniture, I have no problem with that.”

  “You’re being too generous. They made a mistake, and this feels like a reward for that.”

  “Not a reward, but a way for them to start a life together. If they want to get married, if they truly want to be parents, then I feel we need to help them.”

  “What would you do first?” he asked.

  “First, I want to meet with the architect who helped me renovate the barn. He was easy to work with and did a wonderful job. The bones of the apartment are there. We just have to decide on the rest and what would be purely functional.”

  “They’d be on your property. Are you sure you want that? They could run to you for help anytime they needed it.”

  Daisy shrugged. “I think I’d rather have them in an apartment on my property than living in my house with Jazzi and me . . . or with you. Don’t you think?”

  Gavin shook his head and eyed her with a resigned small smile. “These kids don’t know how lucky they are. If I had done something like this, my dad would have thrown me out.”

  Leaning forward, Daisy wanted to make one point perfectly clear. “I want to stay close to my children, Gavin. I want them around me for the rest of my life. Don’t you?”

  He grimaced. “I guess I do since I fought so hard to have Foster stay in the house. And if you’d like, I could be the contractor for the job.”

  “That would be wonderful! I’m sure Foster would really appreciate your help. And there is something to look forward to,” Daisy added with a smile.

  “What?”

  “You’re going to be a granddad and I’m going to be a grandmom. I like the idea of holding a baby in my arms again.”

  Gavin sighed and leaned back in his chair. “That would sure bring back memories. You call the architect and check if all this is feasible. I’ll try to put a crew together and see how soon we can get started.”

  “And think about being a granddad?” Daisy teased. They had to keep their sense of humor or they wouldn’t survive.

  He nodded. “I’ll think about being a granddad.”

  “I have cinnamon scones ready to put in the case for today. Would you like one?”

  “I would. Maybe a scone will help my disposition. Right now, Foster thinks I’m an ogre.”

  “He knows better than that.”

  Looking worried, Gavin expressed one of his concerns. “Somehow I have to figure out how to explain all this to my other two kids, as well as drum into their heads that Foster and Vi have made a monumental mistake.”

  Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe Vi’s and Foster’s lives would be harder because of bringing a baby into the world. But on the other hand, a baby could pull their families together. A baby could motivate Vi and Foster to achieve a better life than they might have had without one. She just hoped they truly loved each other, that they truly understood what vows would mean, that they would work to make a marriage a lasting one.

  * * *

  Wyatt Troyer, the architect who had helped Daisy design and renovate her barn home, met her in front of her garage when she returned home from the tea garden. She’d texted him when she’d left so he’d know what time to meet her. She’d picked up Jazzi at school so she could join them too. This was just an idea session. She’d have to clear everything with Foster and Vi if they wanted to do this. But first, she wanted to discover whether or not it was feasible. The space over the garage was about eight hundred square feet. Large enough for a couple and an infant?

  Wyatt was probably looking at the other side of forty. He had a full head of blond hair that usually parted and fell to the side. He kept the back trimmed short above his collar. He’d once told her he wore contacts. She tried to imagine him with glasses and couldn’t. Today he was dressed in his office attire since that’s where he’d come from—dress slacks, a gray shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and black loafers. He was about five-foot-eleven with hazel eyes that had a tendency to twinkle. Since he had a good sense of humor, he often wore a grin. She liked him as a person and as an architect.

  She raised the garage door from the remote in her car, drove her car inside, and climbed out with Jazzi. Jazzi hurried to the side door and opened it to let Wyatt inside.

  “Hi there, Daisy,” he said with his resident smile once they met at the staircase. “Jazzi, you’re growing up too fast. In two years, you’ve gone from a child to a young woman.”

  Jazzi blushed.

  Wyatt motioned toward the stairs. “I see you never really finished them. Those are still the construction stairs, correct?”

  “Yes, they are because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. We had talked about possibly creating a landing. I didn’t want to decide on anything permanent until I knew how I was going to use the upper space.”

  “And now you do?”

  She told herself there was no point being embarrassed about what she had to say. Life was life. When it threw rocks at you, you tried to catch them.

  “My daughter Vi is eighteen and unmarried. She just found out she’s pregnant. She and her boyfriend, who’s twenty, intend to marry as soon as possible. If they stick by that, and it actually happens, they need a place to live.”

  Wyatt pointed up to the second floor. “That’s not a huge space up there—maybe eight hundred square feet. But there are unique types of furniture and different things we can do with it to make an apartment work.”

  “I need ideas from you so I know what I want, or what Violet and Foster want. I just need to get an idea from you today if this is feasible.”

  Wyatt said, “You’re using the extra space down here in the back for your garden tools and mower. What if you put a shed behind the garage for the tools. That would give you extra space down here that could easily be made into a small office.”

  She examined the area. “I like that idea. Foster does a lot of computer work. He wouldn’t have to worry about space for that upstairs.”

  Always prepared, Wyatt took a tape measure from his pocket.

  “An office is a great idea, Mom,” Jazzi agreed. “It would be quieter to work down here if the baby is fussy.”

  “That’s what I was thinking,” Daisy said. “They could put a bookshelf in there and a desk. Maybe even two desks.”

  “It will be dark,” Jazzi said. “Unless we put in a window or a door with glass at the top.”

  “That’s not very secure,” Daisy reminded her.

  “But you have to get light in here somehow.”

  Overhearing their conversation, Wyatt responded to it. “First of all, you have enough space back here to put a small office. I know a craftsman who makes sheds. I can probably get you a discount. And as far as light in here . . . we could put a skylight on the roof to let more light into the apartment. I know you’re going to be security conscious with your family living here, so I’m not going to suggest a window. But if I use Plexiglas under the skylight as flooring in the upstairs unit, say two-foot by four-foot, light would beam down into the office.”

  “That’s a brilliant idea,” Jazzi enthused.

  Daisy smiled. It actually was pretty smart. “I didn’t even know companies made such a thing.”

  “If you really want this to be economical, we can put solar panels on the roof. That would help keep heating bills down.”

  “That’s something I hadn’t thought of either. I suppose it depends on how much money I want to put into this. I’ll get a break if Foster’s dad, Gavin Cranshaw, does the construction. I’m thinking Foster and friends will help finishing projects to cut down costs.”

  “Sounds good to me. But you will need an expert for the solar panels. Why don’t we go upstairs and look around?” Wyatt suggested. “You’ll have to figure out if you want a baby section in addition to the couple’s bedroom, or if you want a Murphy bed for
them and go from there.”

  “What’s a Murphy bed?” Jazzi asked.

  “It’s a bed that folds up into the wall. That way it saves space and you could put, for instance, a playpen in front of it during the day and fold up the playpen at night and put down the bed.”

  “Sweet,” Jazzi said.

  Once they’d climbed the stairs and took time tossing about ideas for a baby section and where they would put the bathroom, Jazzi announced, “You don’t need me anymore. I’m going to the house and get started on homework.”

  “Turn the oven on to three-fifty, would you? I made a casserole last night.”

  “Do you want me to put it in?” Jazzi asked.

  “No, I’ll let the oven preheat. I’ll put it in when I come in.”

  After Jazzi said good-bye to Wyatt, she took her time going down the steps, holding on to the rail.

  As Wyatt retracted his tape measure, he looked away from Daisy. “I heard a rumor that something you made at the tea garden killed Derek Schumacher. Is that true? I don’t want to know for gossip’s sake, but if it’s not true I want to know so I can tell people that it had nothing to do with you.”

  “It had nothing to do with me. The detective is checking out my staff, but I know they had nothing to do with it either. Derek took some of our sandwiches home, and my guess is somebody put the substances in there.”

  Wyatt eyed her curiously. “Substances?”

  “The detective asked me not to talk about it.”

  Wyatt studied her. “I understand. I hope this doesn’t hurt your business.”

  With another panicked pang, Daisy admitted, “It’s hurting us already. For two years, we’ve built up a good reputation. I don’t want it to be ruined.”

  “Derek wasn’t an easy man to work with,” Wyatt murmured, turning toward the stairs.

  “He was your client?”

  “He was. I designed and renovated his second floor for his mother.”

  “Why do you say he was hard to work with?”

  Wyatt moved toward the stairs and so did Daisy. “Derek wanted the renovations done before Harriet came home from rehab and was very particular. At the same time, he counted every nickel. I understood why he decided to fix up the upstairs so Harriet would have privacy. I suggested he put an elevator in. Since his mom did so well in rehab, he decided to put the chair lift in instead because it was more economical, less than half the price.”

  “On Tourist Appreciation Weekend, I saw Harriet in her wheelchair. Bradley was pushing it. Does she ever go out without it?”

  “Apparently, there was a reason for the chair lift rather than the elevator besides the cost. Harriet’s doctor wanted her to be on her feet more. I’m not sure how much she’s listening to that advice. On the other hand, Derek told me he once caught a glimpse of her walking around her apartment without her cane or her walker. I’m not sure what that meant. Derek seemed to believe she just wanted sympathy when she used her cane or walker or wheelchair, but that she was really strong enough to move around without it.”

  “What did you think?”

  “Whenever I saw her, she was using one or another device.”

  Daisy couldn’t imagine Harriet ever wanting to hurt her son. But if she could get around easier than everyone thought she could, she could have gone downstairs and put the heart medicine in Derek’s cucumber sandwiches.

  Wyatt continued, “You know, you mentioned someone at the house might have put the substance in the sandwiches. Derek’s brother and sister-in-law have keys, and Derek’s first co-host, Miranda Senft, also still had a key. When we were renovating, Derek kept saying he had to ask for it back. But I don’t know if he ever did.”

  So Miranda Senft, the woman scorned in more ways than one, could have let herself into the house, slipped the drugs into the sandwiches, and left them for Derek to consume.

  Murder made easy.

  * * *

  Daisy sat at her computer mid-morning on Wednesday, scrolling through the comments on her website. The rumors and gossip made her sick to her stomach. As Foster had suggested, she’d left replies as positively as she could. But with business so slow, she worried constantly. Especially with considering a construction project.

  She left her website and put her computer to sleep. It was probably getting a lot more sleep than she was. Last night, for most of the night, she’d rolled around the idea of Miranda Senft putting drugs in Derek Schumacher’s sandwiches. It was certainly possible. It was also possible his mother could have done it. And what about Birgit Oppenheimer? Did she have a grudge against him too? No wonder Detective Rappaport was grumpy. So many suspects, so many interviews, so little time. The longer it took to figure out who the murderer was, the harder it would be to do it. There had to be clues somewhere. She just didn’t know where to find them.

  As she thought about what steps to take next, she considered meeting with Clementine Hankey. She could also visit Harriet and June again. She had the feeling that there was something in their background that they didn’t want going public. The question was whether or not it had something to do with Derek. She’d really like to know what their thirty-five-year argument had been about. If she had that answer, would she find others?

  She was contemplating what she knew so far when Tessa knocked on her office door. “There’s someone here to see you at the sales counter.”

  “Thanks, I’m coming.”

  She’d slipped off her clogs under her desk and now she fitted her feet into them again and hurried out to the sales counter. There was a gentleman standing there. He looked very . . . proper. He was wearing a white dress shirt with a herringbone-pattern vest. His slacks were charcoal, and his tie was black-and-white-striped. His shiny shoes told her he’d polished them recently. He could easily be near her age or a little older. When he saw her coming, his light brown eyes lit up. His face had an orangey glow as if he used a tanning salon, or she supposed it could be one of those spray-on colors that was supposed to make you look tanned. One thing she was certain of was that she’d never met him before.

  He held out his hand before she’d even stopped walking. “Mrs. Swanson?”

  She took his hand. “Yes, and you are?”

  He blushed a little. “Oh, I thought maybe you followed my blog. My name is Leonard Bach. I came here to meet you because I’d like to write a review about Daisy’s Tea Garden.”

  Her immediate reaction was a profound “no.” However, she tempered her reaction. “I don’t know, Mr. Bach. I’m sure you’re well aware of what happened to Derek Schumacher here. Our business has slowed considerably since then.”

  He frowned. “I’m so sorry to hear that. Then maybe my reviewing your establishment could help you. The truth is—I’m hoping to win over Derek’s blog readers and build up my reputation, first in Pennsylvania, then up and down the East Coast.”

  There are two ways to play this, Daisy thought. She could tell him a straight out no; however, she did own a food establishment. She couldn’t stop him from coming in and sampling her food. As far as a good or bad review? She didn’t think either would make a difference right now. It wouldn’t hurt her to be pleasant to him. After all, she was usually pleasant with everyone else. But food critics left a bad taste in her mouth these days. No pun intended.

  “Were you and Derek friends?” she asked.

  “You could say we were,” he answered evasively. “We were colleagues who ran into each other quite often.”

  “How long have you been a food critic?”

  “I’ve been a food critic all my life, but I just started my blog about two years ago, not long after Derek started his. Of course, his caught on because he was a celebrity.”

  It sounded to Daisy as if there had been a rivalry between the two men, at least on Leonard Bach’s part. Did she want to aid and abet him?

  Did she really have a choice?

  Chapter Seventeen

  As if she’d conjured her up, Daisy found Clementine Hankey in the main tea ro
om when she’d finished baking brownies for the sales case. She probably needed the chocolate more than her customers. Motioning to Iris that she’d take care of Clementine, she went to the journalist’s table.

  Maybe Clementine had learned more about Derek’s enemies . . . or maybe she’d unearthed some secret. She had another question she wanted to ask her too.

  “It’s good to see you again,” Daisy said pleasantly. “You came back for the scones, right?”

  Clementine nodded so quickly that her hair brushed across her cheek. “Actually, I did. And for some of your Daisy’s Blend Tea. I wanted to take that along with me.”

  Daisy saw Clementine’s cup was empty. “I’ll be glad to bring you more.”

  “That sounds good,” Clementine said. “And maybe you could bring me a serving of that grape and carrot salad? That’s good for me, so it will make up for having two scones. Do you have a few minutes to talk?”

  Right now, Clementine was one of two customers in the tea room. “As you can see, we haven’t been busy.”

  “I wish I could help you fix that. Maybe if we put our heads together it will help.”

  “I’ll be back with tea for two,” Daisy assured her.

  When she returned to Clementine’s table, she was holding a teapot with a cozy around it on a tray with her own cup and a serving of the carrot and grape salad. After she arranged everything on the table, she sat across from Clementine. “Have you learned anything more?”

  Clementine shook her head. “No. The police are tighter than clams. I can’t get anything out of anyone down there. Usually there’s a leak, but not this time. I’ve been checking Derek’s blog regularly to see if anyone posts something unusual. Killers have been known to do that . . . even go to the funeral’s guest page and pay their respects. It’s sick, I know, but a killer has to be sick to murder.”

  “I’m not sure about that,” Daisy protested, thinking about the last murder case she’d helped solve. “Sometimes it can be spur-of-the-moment anger.”