Batter Off Dead

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Batter Off Dead Page 4

by Maymee Bell


  “I’m excited you’re here and hope you still plan on giving generously to the library addition. Especially since you are in the Friends of the Library Club.” Cat wasn’t so subtle in asking for money.

  “You can rest assured we have our check.” My dad patted the front pocket of the suitcoat before he took one of the Heart of Rumford cookies.

  “I hope it’s big,” Cat chirped.

  Dad dropped the cookie, and Bitsy quickly picked it up.

  “Blow it off. It ain’t dirty.” She popped the cookie in Dad’s mouth. “Sophia needs all the people here she can get. I noticed no one was in her bakery today. This will be good advertisement.”

  I gave Bitsy the stink eye. It was best to ignore her. She knew I wasn’t going to say anything at the fund-raiser.

  “Dad, can I talk to you?” I asked him.

  He looked at Bitsy like he needed her permission.

  “I’m going to go say hi to the girls from the Garden Club.” Bitsy excused herself.

  “What’s going on, kiddo?” My dad treated me like I was still a teenager.

  “I wanted to ask you about intellectual property law. I was cleaning out the bakery office, and I found the Fords’ old recipe journal. It appears to be really old, and I’d love to recreate some of their recipes. Is that illegal?”

  “It’s true you did buy the bakery, but morally I think you know what you need to do.” His head tilted, and his soft eyes looked down at me.

  “I was afraid you’d say that.” A sigh escaped me. “I did try to call them, but I guess I could stop by their house.”

  “They’d love that. I wonder, do they know you were the one who bought the bakery?” He asked a good question. Everything with the sale had been done through their lawyer and Madison, since she was the real estate agent.

  “Thanks, Dad.” I gave him a quick hug and let him go enjoy his evening.

  Cat was still waiting for me.

  “Are you okay?” I asked. Tears lined the ridges of her lower lids, and if she blinked, they would flood right on over and mess up the pretty makeup she wore.

  “No.” Her jaw tensed as she swallowed back that wall of tears. “Ray Peel said he wasn’t able to give the donation he’d pledge to give.”

  “How much is he donating?” I asked.

  “Much less. Like nothing. Nada. Zip. Goose egg.” She held her fingers tips together in the shape of a zero.

  “But—but,” I sputtered, “what about the half million?”

  “That man.” She spat out the words. “I swear …” She started to say something but stopped herself. Her eyes became flat and unreadable. “Karma is a bitch.”

  Of course, after Cat had stormed off, I’d kept my eye on the crowd and how many people seemed to give her checks for donations. I had to give her credit because she’d taken the donations with a smile on her face, though I knew she was dying inside. She seemed to be holding it together when the entire addition to the library was crumbling in front of her eyes.

  From what I’d heard, there had to be a certain amount pledged before the bank would even give the city the loan to build the addition. It was rumored that Ray Peel had made the pledge as long as his name was on the new addition. Of course, it was hearsay. Gossip around town spread like butter on a hot, fresh, out-of-the-oven biscuit.

  “Did I miss anything?” Charlotte asked as she hurried next to me, shoving her purse under the counter. She pushed her hair back with her hands and grabbed the apron I had brought for her to put on over her clothes.

  “Did you ever,” I responded, pointing her face toward Cat. “Ray Peel has not only pulled his funding for the project, but he’s also planning on selling the land. Oh …” I pointed my finger in the air toward her. “Remember the lady who ordered the pastries for the wine convention?”

  Charlotte nodded.

  “She was here, and she smacked Ray.” I watched as Charlotte’s eyes grew big. “You missed a lot.”

  “Okay.” Her jaw dropped. “The land is no big deal, but the funding? What’s going to happen with the library addition? And why did that lady smack him?”

  I shrugged. “I guess they’ll have to pay on the loan from the bank.” I looked at my watch and noticed it was already eight-thirty. I didn’t want the offices to close before I got my money.

  “Maybe you can get some inside scoop while you’re here.” I untied the apron from around my waist and hung it on the corner of the display case. “I’m going to go get my check from the Dugans before they decide they can’t pay me. Do you think you can hold down the fort?”

  “Absolutely.” There was a gleam of excitement in her eyes. There was nothing Charlotte loved more than good gossip; she’d have all the answers before I got back.

  It was that strange time of the day when it isn’t quite dark, but it was past dusk. The sun had set on the rolling hills on the horizon and painted the sky with a burnt orange and dark blue. If I didn’t hurry, it’d be dark before I got back, and the vineyard would become a maze.

  I hurried down the row of the grapevines, and it took a lot of willpower for me not to pluck off a grape. I loved grapes. Especially when I put them in a dessert to sweeten it a little more. Or threw some in a baggie and put in a freezer for a nice garnish to a cocktail at a catered baby or bridal shower. It was the little touches that made the catering business so special and kept customers coming back.

  Being around the grapes, the setting sun, and the entangled vines had my head swimming with creative ideas. My foot got hung on an old, tangled, dead grapevine. I tried a couple of times to jerk my foot out. Without success, I felt myself start to tumble. I put my arms out to gain balance, grabbing a ripe grapevine on my way down. Unripened grapes cascaded from the vine one by one as my hand slid down, following suit with the rest of my body.

  “Oh, no!” I screamed when I realized I’d not fallen on top of a soft piece of ground, but on top of and face-to-face with Ray Peel. A wide-eyed and blue-lipped Ray Peel. “Ray?” I frantically called out his name and put my hand on the front of his shirt. “Ray?” I asked again when I didn’t feel or see a rise and fall of his chest. “No, no, no,” I pleaded and put my ear up to his heart to see if I could even hear a heartbeat.

  Nothing. Ray Peel was dead.

  Chapter Four

  “Sophia,” Carter Kincaid said, running his hand down his face. He looked at me and inhaled a deep breath. It wasn’t the endearing look I was used to seeing on his face. The kind of look that told me he was so happy I’d moved back to Rumford and that he had fallen in love with me. “Don’t move. I need to call dispatch.”

  Nonetheless, being the girlfriend of the sheriff actually came in handy tonight. Calling Carter on his private number from my cell phone probably wasn’t the best idea since this was an official I-need-you-right-now sheriff’s call. I should’ve run back to the winery and called for help, but he was the first person I’d thought of.

  “This is Sheriff Kincaid. Can you please send the coroner and a few officers to Grape Valley Winery? We have a homicide. Blow to the head.” He used his formal work voice that sent shivers up my spine. He moved in front of me when he saw me staring at Ray.

  I tried not to stare at the lifeless body, but I couldn’t help noticing the blood dripping down the side of his temple and the look of fright that’d stiffened on his face.

  “Tell me exactly what happened.” Carter brought me out of my thoughts. His brown eyes grew still and serious.

  “I … I …” My mouth was dry. I gulped, licked my lips, and tried again. “I was walking from the winery to the office so I could get my check from the Dugans before they went out of business.”

  I looked down at my hands. They were shaking. I clasped them together to try to get them to stop. I couldn’t take my eyes off Ray. Carter took his hand and cupped my chin, bringing my gaze back to him. I blinked a couple of times to come back to the present and out of the images in my head.

  “Anyway,”—I cleared my throat and continued to
look at Carter, which seemed to calm my nerves and ease my stomach—“I was admiring the scenery when I fell and tripped over Ray.” My voice cracked, and I could feel the sting of tears as they rolled down my face. “I should’ve called nine-one-one so it was on record, but you were the first person to pop into my mind.” I gave my head a little shake. “I’m sorry. I should’ve—”

  “You did fine,” he assured me.

  The sirens were getting closer and closer. Soon the guests of the fund-raiser would know what’d happened.

  “The fund-raiser wasn’t going as well as Cat had wanted it to, and now this.” My voice lowered, I started to ramble, as I always did when I was nervous.

  “It’s okay. You didn’t know what to do.” He tried to break the tension with a thin-lipped smile. “Forensics and the coroner are on the way, so we can start to investigate.” He pointed away from the crime scene. “Why don’t you wait over there?”

  In an instant, he went from boyfriend to sheriff. Fright swept through me as I watched Carter’s flashlight going over and around Ray’s body. Deep breathing was the only thing keeping me from jumping out of my skin. The question of who could have done such a thing stabbed at my heart.

  “Who could do this to you?” I asked when I glanced back over at Ray.

  I squinted when Carter flashed his light in my eyes, and I drew my hand up to shield it from blinding me.

  “What did you say?” he tried to ask over the loud sirens and squealing tires in the background. I said it again.

  “I can’t hear you. Hold on,” he said. He went back to looking over Ray.

  It wasn’t long after that that the crime scene was swarming with officers and guests.

  “Sophia, what happened?” Bitsy ran up to me. My dad, Charlotte, and Cat weren’t too far behind her. “We heard the sirens.”

  “I was going to see the Dugans, and I tripped over Ray Peel,” I spoke in a suffocated whisper and wrung my hands together. Suddenly, I was very cold.

  “Is he okay?” Bitsy’s head bobbled back and forth as she tried to get a better look.

  “No, Mother. He’s been murdered,” I informed her.

  “Don’t tell me.” Bitsy’s eyes met mine. “You found him?”

  I nodded my head.

  “Oh, Sophia.” Bitsy’s disapproving tone was apparent. “Not again.”

  “I’m afraid so.” Like I said, this wasn’t my first experience with Carter in a similar situation. The head chef at the Rumford Country Club—RCC for short—had been murdered the week of Charlotte’s wedding. It wasn’t as if I’d been truly trying to solve the crime. I was trying to make sure that the RCC didn’t shut down, so Charlotte could still have her dream wedding. What’s a best friend to do?

  But when I’d gotten in the killer’s line of vision and been run off the road, it was Carter who had to come to my rescue.

  “What’s going on?” Perry Dugan rushed up and peered above the crowd. Tammy and Giles were behind him.

  “Ray Peel’s been murdered.” Charlotte relayed the story to them. In fact, she told everyone who walked up about what happened and my part in it.

  Cat didn’t seem too impressed. I watched as she walked back to the winery.

  “Are you okay?” Perry asked me. “You seem to be shaking.”

  “I am?” I asked. “I guess it’s my nerves.”

  “Why don’t you come back into the office, and we’ll get you a blanket,” Perry suggested to me. Tammy’s head nodded rapidly in approval.

  “Yeah,” Tammy said, wide-eyed, and motioned for me to follow her. “I can’t believe that Ray has died.”

  “Died? He was murdered.” Images of Ray Peel’s expression haunted me. “He was surprised too.”

  I couldn’t help but look Tammy over—her hands, her clothes, any sign of a struggle, or anything she might have used to hit him on the head. I glanced around the ground as we walked, but the darkness was setting in fast, and it was hard for me to find any sort of big object she might’ve used.

  “Well, we’ll go to the office and get you a blanket.” She held the door open for me and led the way.

  She sat me down in a chair in the reception area and told Reba about the murder. I couldn’t help but take my focus off Tammy and watch Reba’s reaction, since she’d already lied to me today about the Flip-Flops.

  Reba did that whole nodding and shocked expression thing before she ran off toward the back of the building. Tammy made a phone call and glanced up at me a few times before she turned her back and finished the conversation.

  Reba came back up front with a plaid red blanket draped over her arm and a cup of something steamy in her hand.

  “Here you go, Sophia.” She set the cup on the small table next to me and laid the blanket on my lap. “You can warm up with a cup of tea. Herbal to calm the nerves.”

  “Thank you.” I was grateful for the hospitality.

  For the next hour or so, I sat there and watched the door of the offices barely close before they were ripped opened and yet another officer would walk in. One of the offices had become a makeshift sheriff station. Carter was running the operation as if the police were on a secret mission. He’d gotten the layout of the winery from blueprints Tammy had, and he dispatched deputies, along with dogs, to search the property for anything and anyone.

  Giles Dugan rushed into the winery offices. He looked around, and when he saw Carter talking to Tammy in the makeshift office, he headed back there. He and Carter shook hands. Giles’s expression was serious, and he kept nodding his head in agreement to whatever Carter was saying.

  Then it started. The shock of the murder started to wear off and crazy theories about who could dislike Ray Peel so much that they wanted to wipe him off the face of the earth hit me like a brick. Tammy Dugan for sure wanted Ray Peel gone from the winery. Now that he was dead, what would happen to the vineyard?

  Chapter Five

  The sound of a crash startled me awake. I flung off the covers and reached for the flashlight on the bedside table because it was the only thing I had to protect me from whoever or whatever had made that sound.

  The stillness of the pitch-black darkness surrounded me as I lay still and tried to hear anything above the sound of my heart pounding in my chest. All I could think about was whoever killed Ray Peel could now be after me since I was the one who’d found Ray. Did the killer think I’d seen something?

  Out of pure fright, and hoping whoever was in my house wouldn’t notice that I’d turned on my bedside table lamp, I slid out from the comfort of my bed. I gripped the flashlight in case I needed to whack someone. I peered out the bedroom door and down the hall. The glow from the table lamp I kept on in the living room didn’t show any shadows from an intruder or anything out of place. It wasn’t like I lived in a palatial estate; it was a four-room house that had once been a small carriage house before a developer bought the land and built a neighborhood on it. So if someone were in the house, it’d be hard to miss.

  Meow. Duchess, my cat, ran across the counter.

  “Duchess.” I let out an audible sigh when I saw one of the cupcake stands from the fund-raiser that I’d brought home, now on the family-room floor. “Did you knock that off the island?” I asked her, as if she were going to talk to me.

  She’d already beat me to the splattered cupcakes and tried to lick away the evidence. She looked up with her big blue eyes and charmed me as she batted them.

  “You can’t have that, sweet girl.” I put the flashlight down on the island and picked her up, flipped on the kitchen lights, and walked into the pantry to grab a scoop of her kibble. “This is much better for a middle-of-the-night snack.”

  I rubbed down her fur a couple of times to get the slight purr I loved to hear, and then put her down. I watched as she ate up her food, and was very grateful there wasn’t an intruder in my home.

  “I guess I should’ve checked your bowl when I got home.” I grabbed the role of paper towels and walked back around the island to clean up the
mess. “You’re a good girl.”

  She pranced around the kitchen for a few more minutes, brushing against my leg until she’d had enough.

  It’d taken me a couple of hours to fall asleep after I’d gotten home from the winery. Carter hadn’t let anyone leave the crime scene without giving them a time to come down to the station for an interview and to make a statement. I assured him I was going to be okay, and he didn’t need to stop by my house after he was finished doing the initial investigating. I didn’t really give him a time that I’d stop by the department. I knew I’d see him at some point during the day, and he’d definitely call me if he needed to see me right away.

  I noticed the time on the microwave—four AM, which only gave me thirty more minutes to sleep until I had to get up to get ready to go to the bakery. It truly was not worth getting back into bed. It was best to just get ready and head on into the bakery to help get my mind off Ray’s murder.

  Duchess ran down the hall and jumped into the window seat to clean herself, and I flipped on the coffeepot to brew while I jumped into a hot shower to wake me up.

  Spring mornings in Kentucky meant it was still chilly, but the afternoons were warm. After pouring more kibble in Duchess’s bowl and filling her water bowl, I grabbed a light jacket.

  “You’re in charge, Duchess. Run off any would-be killers.” I said, only half-joking, and headed out the door.

  Charlotte and her husband, Brett Ponder, lived across the street in a cute gray Cape Cod house. Brett was a developer who bought old run-down property and neighborhoods in small towns to revitalize them. He’d been instrumental in working with the land developer in turning the place where I lived into a neighborhood, making it into one of the most desirable areas in the mid-income range—not like my parent’s fancy gated community on the outskirts of town.

  There was a light on in Charlotte’s house, and I couldn’t help but notice her looking out the window. I just so happened to look back over at her house when I got into my car. Charlotte was standing on her small porch with the front door wide open, staring at me.

 

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