Batter Off Dead
Page 5
“Sophia, is that you? Gawd, I hope it’s you standing next to your car,” she called across the street, trying to squint through the dark. “It is you.” She straightened up.
“What are you doing? Go back to bed,” I called back in a hushed whisper.
“Oh, good. You’re up and at ’em.” She darted off the porch and ran across the street in her bare feet. “Early bird catches the killer.”
“Catches what?” I’d obviously misheard her, because she fanned her hand in the air. “You’re going to catch a cold. What is wrong with you?”
“I’ve been up all night, thinking about Ray Peel.” She gnawed on her bottom lip. “Who do you think killed him?”
“I don’t know. But I’ve been thinking about it too,” I told her.
“That’s what I was hoping you’d say.” She fidgeted uneasily back and forth on her feet. “I think Madison is a suspect.”
“Madison?” I laughed at first, then realized she was serious. “Our best friend, Madison? As in Madison Ridge?”
“Do you happen to know any other Madison?” she asked. “Yes, our Madison.”
“Why do you think that?” I asked and wondered where on earth she’d gotten this crazy idea. “Or let me guess: the gossip telephone game has begun.”
Anytime there was some juicy gossip, the phone lines remained busy. It wasn’t enough for people to gossip. No, no. They had to talk and talk about it. Run over it, and then put it all in reverse to run back over it until the gossip was beat into the ground and smashed so it didn’t resemble anything like the truth.
“Last night, after you left, I overheard Tammy Dugan talking to Carter. I heard her say something to Carter about Madison having an argument with Ray right before you found him. And no, I haven’t talked to him since I left the winery.”
There’s no way Carter thought that Madison could kill anyone. We were all friends.
“I wonder what Tammy overheard them say.” It was impossible that Madison had killed Ray. At least, the Madison that I knew. “Never mind that.” I blew her off. “I’ll talk to Madison and see what’s going on. But for now, you keep this between you and me.”
“Got it. And you’re going to ask Carter, right? Because if Madison is in trouble, she needs us.” Charlotte’s shoulders seemed to relax a little as I nodded in agreement. Of course I was going to ask him. As soon as I talked to him, but I would let him call me since I got up before the crows of roosters.
“I’ve been waiting up all night for you to wake up,” Charlotte said.
“Now you can go back inside and snuggle up with Brett for a couple of hours before you have to be at work.” I winked and gave her a quick hug.
“See you soon, boss.” She hurried back across the street, and the lights in her house were already off by the time I’d started to drive down the street.
Now that I was back in Rumsford and a little older, I wasn’t going to take my hometown for granted anymore. Downtown was so charming. It wasn’t your typical small town with old brick buildings one after the other. They were all different shapes and sizes.
Rumford, being one of the oldest towns in the state, had the charm of a Southern city while needing little construction to keep it updated. It was one of those old Kentucky mining towns where the miners came and built a city with all the houses in a row. Unlike most Kentucky towns, Rumford had made it through all the transitions and remained a viable town.
The old homes had been transformed into cute shops and city buildings that lined both sides of the street. They’d replaced the large sidewalks a few times and had updated the carriage lights with dowel rods that held beautiful baskets of seasonal flowers along with a seasonal banner.
Each shop had a grassy patch in the front or on the side, since it’d been reconstructed from an old house. Some had small picket fences to add character while others had homey front porches as well as colorful awnings with the shop name printed across the front. A few of my favorite shops I’d frequented since I’d been home were the Family Feud Diner, Small Talk Café, Peacock and Pansies Clothing Boutique, Back-en-Thyme Flowers, and Sassy and Classy Salon. They were all within walking distance of For Goodness Cakes, but the coffeehouse was right next door, which made it easy to deliver their daily order of treats and do some events with them.
I’d also done some collaborative work with Back-en-Thyme Flowers for different social occasions. I’d really found my groove after I’d gotten over the hump of the first murder I’d happened upon. And now my groove seemed to have hit a roadblock.
My normal routine was to turn the ovens on as soon as I walked in the door. After that, I’d get the donuts out of the freezer, as well as some of the other desserts that I’d premade, but not baked yet. Today was no different—or so I thought.
“What on earth?” The oven was stone cold when I opened it to slide in a few of the racks of donuts. I looked at the oven knobs and realized I hadn’t turned them on; my mind had been on other things. Madison. “Let it go, Sophia,” I said to myself out loud.
Before too long, the ovens were baking, the timers were dinging, and the warm smell of cinnamon, sugar, and nutmeg filled the bakery, bringing a cozy comfort to my soul. It made me feel a tad bit better about Charlotte’s claim that Tammy had overheard a heated argument.
The knock on the front door made me jump. On a different day, I’d have just looked up, but the thought that whoever had killed Ray was out there put my nerves on edge.
Dolores Master and Ella Capshaw had their noses pressed up against the door. When they noticed they’d gotten my attention, both waved.
I unlocked the door and flipped the “Closed” sign that hung on the door to “Open.”
“Good morning.” I stood back as they pushed their way inside.
“Sophia, are you open?” Dolores asked. She and Ella walked right on in whether I was open or not.
“I am now,” I muttered and then smiled. “Come on in.”
There was no need to encourage them. I quickly closed the door because there was still a bite in the air. My skin pricked with goose bumps.
“I was so busy getting all the freshly baked donuts in the display case that I forgot to unlock the door.” Technically it wasn’t a lie. I could be on autopilot and bake.
Dolores abruptly stopped in the middle of the bakery, stuck her nose up in the air, and took a couple of whiffs. She looked like she’d just stepped out of Southern Woman’s Magazine, with her brown hair swept up in a bun on top of her head, a black mock turtleneck, skinny jeans, and a pair of black flats. Even though it was a simple outfit, somehow Dolores took sophistication to a whole ’nother level.
“It always smells so good in here.” Ella’s smile reached her eyes when she glanced over the freshly baked donuts that’d just come from the oven.
She was just a few years older than me, but much more fashion forward, making me feel a little frumpier with my khaki pants and white button-down. Granted, I did try to spruce myself up with a pink scarf tied around my neck to make myself feel a little bit better about being the one to find Ray, but no pop of color was going to brighten that doom-and-gloom feeling deep in my gut.
“I’m working on making some coffee too.” Though Small Talk Café was right next door, I still made regular coffee because I loved it. “Y’all take a look around, and I’ll be right with you.”
While they took a gander at the morning’s specials, I filled the stainless-steel coffeepot with water and carefully measured out the freshly ground coffee that I’d bought from Jessie Pearl Longley, the owner of the Small Talk Café.
“Good morning,” Bitsy trilled when she walked into the bakery. “I’m not sure if it’s the chill this early spring morning or the fact there’s a killer on the loose.” She rubbed her arms vigorously.
Bitsy’s eyes drew up and down Dolores—a clear sign she was assessing her and comparing herself to Dolores. They were around the same age, but Dolores had always outdone Bitsy in the fashion department, which really put
a burr under Bitsy’s saddle. Many times, Bitsy wanted to take me shopping after church on Sunday because she’d see something Dolores had worn and felt she herself needed something new for the next week. Bitsy was a right-now person: she got something in her head, and she wanted to do it right now. As a teenager, I’d groan and moan that I wanted to spend time in the kitchen baking, but she’d insist that I had to get new clothes and become a debutante.
“I heard,” Dolores Masters said, and her face lit up with a curiosity as she nodded toward Ella Devon Capshaw. “Can you believe it?”
“I’d believe it. Ray Peel was probably caught with his pants down,” Ella replied. Her blue eyes narrowed speculatively.
Ella was good at throwing stones at a glass house. It wasn’t too long ago she’d been a suspect in a murder—well, suspect on my end. It proved to be false, but she was known to have had an affair or two.
“With who?” As much as I tried to stop myself, I just couldn’t. The thought of what Charlotte said about Madison being a suspect wasn’t just a breeze flying by—it’d taken root in my bones and chilled me to the core.
“I did hear the other day that he and Reba Gunther were seen together, huddled up in the corner table at that new Eye-talian restaurant in town.” Ella’s accent dripped with Southern charm.
“Café Italia?” I asked. “I’ve been wanting to go there because I heard the waiters walk around singing in Italian.”
“Yep.” She snapped her fingers and nodded. “That’s the one. I mean huddled up in the corner. As in row-mantic.” Her lips pressed into a duckbill.
“By the other day, how long ago?” I asked because in Rumford when someone said the other day, that could’ve meant any time between now and three hundred and sixty-five days ago.
“Lordy be, Sophia,” Ella snarled. “Just the other day.”
“Mm-hmm,” Dolores ho-hummed, and she walked down the length of the glass display case. “What have you heard, Bitsy?”
I busied myself with to-go boxes so I could listen in without interruption, because I’d already made Ella mad. Then I wondered if Carter and I could make a reservation at Café Italia. While we were there, I could talk to the staff and see if anyone else saw Reba and Ray. Reba sure didn’t seem too upset when Tammy took me into the offices last night. If they were an item, I’d think she’d have been pretty upset.
I sure was curious to what Ella had heard. I’d been gone so long from Rumford that I wasn’t clued in on all the gossip, and I still couldn’t shake the idea Madison could be a suspect, even if Charlotte overhead the ridiculous notion.
“Ask Sophia,” Bitsy boasted. “She’s the one who found him.”
Now, Bitsy would’ve never been proud to say that in public, but she knew she had something Dolores didn’t have. The inside scoop. Not necessarily the gory details of Ray Peel’s murder, but the fact that I was the one who found him. In Bitsy’s book, this was a one-upper.
“I’ll have a cup of that coffee with one of your Cherry Flip-Flops while you tell me about it.” Dolores’s long nail tapped the glass case.
“And I’ll take a little information on who you think did it.” Ella stared at me with cow eyes.
“You might as well make that a few coffees.” Bitsy sat down on one of the bar stools I had butted up to the long bar top that I’d put in on the right side of the bakery just for customers who came in for a quick dessert, even though we weren’t a café.
Bitsy plopped her designer bag on the bar and shimmied her shoulders back so she sat straight up. She carefully crossed her legs at her ankles and folded her hands in her lap. Her face beamed from the knowledge that she knew something Dolores didn’t.
“Really, it’s nothing.” I filled three mugs with coffee and carried them over to the three nosy women, along with three Cherry Flip-Flops. “I was going from the winery to the offices through the vineyard. It was almost dark, and it’s so hard to see at that time of the night.”
The Cherry Flip-Flops were my version of a turnover, only better. The cherry filling oozed out the sides, and the vanilla icing melted into a perfect stream across the top. The tartness of the cherries and the sweetness of the icing along with the fluffy pastry were perfect to wake up the morning taste buds.
“Go on,” Dolores’s expression didn’t hide her nosy side. “Don’t leave out a single detail.” She dug her fork into the fruit-filled pastry.
“I was enjoying the beautiful night when I fell over him,” my voice trailed off.
“Fell on him.” Bitsy nodded with arched brows.
“You didn’t.” Ella’s face curled at the thought.
“I did. Nose to nose.” I tapped my finger to my nose.
“Were his eyes open?” Ella asked.
“Yes. Frightened eyes.” I gulped and couldn’t help but wonder what Ray had seen right before he was murdered.
“How did they kill him?” Dolores brought the steaming cup of coffee up to her mouth. The curl of steam made her question seem more eerie.
“Hit him over the head.” I sucked in a deep breath. When Megyn Oslica came in, I waved hello and then returned my attention to my gruesome story.
“We were on my way out to the fund-raiser, since Grant was going to give a big donation. Running late of course.” Ella had recently started to date Grant Livingsworth. She winked. “You know he’s got all these write-offs since he’s such a success in the food industry.” Grant owned the Piggly Wiggly, Rumford’s only grocery store. “Grant had to swerve to miss a car that’d crossed the line as they were speeding away from the winery, and I spilled wine all over myself.”
“You were drinking wine in the car?” Bitsy drew back and looked at Ella.
“What? You act like I’m an alcoholic.” Ella had yet to learn to take Bitsy’s comments with a grain of salt. “We’d just been to dinner, and I wasn’t going to waste a single drop of the fifty-dollar glass. Call me a hillbilly, but I took that glass of wine right on out of that restaurant.” Ella lifted her nose and shook her hair in place.
“Do you know what time that was?” I asked, just in case it had something to do with Ray Peel’s murder.
“Well …” She opened her purse and dug down in it. She pulled out a piece of paper. “Here’s the receipt from the restaurant.” She handed it to me. “As you can see, we spent over two hundred dollars on food and drink. That Grant,” she bragged, “he spoils me.”
The only reason she’d offered me the receipt was the pure fact of the total. She loved to boast about Grant Livingsworth’s money and how he spared no expense when it came to her. Still, I was only interested in the time. My eyes scanned down and noticed it had been stamped eight forty-five last night. I clearly remembered looking at my watch before I found Ray, and it had been eight thirty.
“What kind of car?” I asked.
“You sure are asking a lot of questions.” Her lips pursed. “Silver. I think it was silver. Grant even said how pretty the car shined. Or something like that.”
“Good morning,” Megyn greeted us after she’d stopped briefly to talk to some customers. She was the mailman—or mail lady, actually—for the downtown area of Rumford. “Just a couple of things today?” she asked when she picked up the few stamped bills I’d stuck in the wire basket that was my mailbox.
“That’s all.” I walked over, and she put my mail on the counter.
“I see you made the paper again.” Her eyes focused on my mail. She pushed the plastic wrapper with the rolled-up newspaper in it toward me. “Not in a good way either.”
“I told Sophia she has to stop finding all of these dead bodies,” Bitsy whined. “Murder magnet. That’s a reputation you don’t want.”
“Two dead bodies. Not all,” I corrected her. “I can’t help it. I didn’t plan either of them.”
“It doesn’t seem like it. At least not in there.” Megyn shrugged. “See you tomorrow.”
My brows knitted in a frown. Was Bitsy right? Did everyone think I was some sort of murder magnet?
“I wanted to see if you had some tea cookies with a little flower on top of them. We’ll be discussing the flower swap. Jessie said that your spring collection would pair nicely with her black tea.”
“I do have a nice sugar cookie I infuse with some black tea that you’ll love.” It was going to be good to head back into the kitchen and start something from scratch. “I’m actually going to make some for the wine convention, and I can do a double batch so I have some for you.”
“Wine convention?” Ella asked.
“I’ll be right back.” I held up a finger and hurried through the swinging door between the kitchen and the bakery.
Charlotte was busy rolling out the dough for the tea cookies.
“Did anyone call this morning about the wine convention?” I asked, wondering if Lanie had cancelled the convention, not only because of Ray’s death but also because of the conversation I’d overheard at the winery before Ray was murdered.
“Not a word. The phone hasn’t even rung.” She used the flower cookie cutter for the shapes of the tea cookies and quickly placed the cutouts on parchment paper on the baking trays. “Strange, right?”
“Yeah. Maybe everyone is busy talking about Ray. Which reminds me, I’ve got some new information to tell you that might just help Madison.” I grabbed Lanie’s business card from the magnet on the chalkboard. “But first, I need to call this lady to make sure she still needs the items for the wine convention.”
“I hope she does, because we’re going to have cookies and cake out the wazoo if she doesn’t.” Charlotte put the cookies in the oven. “Would there be a reason she wouldn’t?”
“The convention is supposed to be at the winery, and if it’s closed due to the investigation, then I kinda need to know that.” I left out the conversation I’d overheard between Lanie and a breathing Ray. There was no need to alarm Charlotte and get her juices going any more than they already were with Madison. “Speaking of Ray, have you heard from Madison?”