by Maymee Bell
“Now, calm down,” I encouraged her. She looked like she was about to raise all sorts of hell, with her face a dark flush and her eyes narrowed.
“That—that—that—” She spit out the words but couldn’t wrap them around her tongue.
“That what?” Charlotte asked.
Madison pointed her finger at me and shook it.
“That boyfriend of yours!” she blurted out. “He accused me of killing Ray Peel. The nerve.” She crossed her arms in front of her body and jerked them tight to her. “And you’re going to help him realize it wasn’t me.”
“Did you have the murder weapon?” I asked.
“Heck no.” She looked at me like I didn’t believe her, and then turned to Charlotte. “Charlotte, you believe me, right?”
“Of course I believe you, and so does Sophia.” She nodded.
“Yes, of course I believe you. I don’t think you could do it, but Carter must have a really good reason to believe that you could’ve been involved.” I was about to say something I was sure I was going to regret. “It’s up to us to find the real reason someone did it.”
“You mean the killer? Yeah. You did it once. You can do it again.” She wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
Not that I should’ve been surprised that Madison was a suspect since I saw with my own eyes what went on when I was at the sheriff’s department giving my statement earlier in the day. I was a baker, not a sleuth like the ones on the television shows that I loved to binge-watch on a lazy weekend afternoon.
“We’ll all meet at your house since it’s your boyfriend who got me into this mess. Plus, you don’t have a husband or children to worry about like Charlotte and me.” Madison made it real clear that I was alone in that department just like Bitsy loved to do.
“Fine. I’ve got to call Bitsy and let her know that I’m not coming for supper. She’s going to be all sorts of mad.” I dragged my phone out of my back pocket.
“We’re out of here, then.” Charlotte tidied up the kitchen and put the baked goods for tomorrow in the refrigerator or freezer before she left.
“I’ll just follow you to your house.” Madison wasn’t about to let me out of her sight.
“You’re going to love what’s for supper,” Bitsy said over the phone. She wasn’t going to be happy when I had to tell her that my plans had changed.
“I love you—remember that.” It was my way of buttering her up before I gave her the news. “But I’m not going to be able to make it over tonight.”
“Oh, goody.” There was an uncanny delightful tone in her voice. “I can only assume that you aren’t coming because you and Carter are going to be spending some time together. Oh, Sophia”—her smile was so bright, I swore I could see it through the phone—“I can’t wait until I see you come down the aisle.”
“Okay. You can stop right there.” There was no sense in letting her think Carter was the reason I was cancelling. “No, I’m not going on a date with Carter. I’m going to spend some time with my friends.”
“I was looking forward to a good home-cooked meal.” I left out that Charlotte was going to grab takeout Chinese and meet us at the house. There, we would put our heads together and try to come up with anything we’d seen at the Grape Valley Winery. “We need to come up with some other people for Carter to check out who’d have reason to kill Ray Peel.”
I had a few in mind but decided to wait to say anything until we all got together.
“You mean to tell me that you’re going to spend time with criminals? Killers?” She sounded so appalled on the other end of the phone that I could almost see her holding her hand to her chest in disbelief.
Without even having to ask who or what situation she was talking about, I already knew.
“You and I both know Madison didn’t kill Ray Peel, so get that out of your head.” I had to defend my friend.
“That’s not what I heard at the Garden Club meeting that you didn’t attend today like you said you were going to. Thank goodness, Charlotte arrived with Dolores’s order made for the meeting. We have another one in a couple of days, and I told them you’d be there.” It was amazing how Bitsy went from one subject to another, and each time made me feel guilty.
“I hope the ladies enjoyed the treats.” I’d completely forgotten about it after the afternoon I’d had. “I’ll call you soon.” I needed to get off the phone with her because I felt like I was a dog chasing my own tail. Our conversation always went around and around.
“Sophia,” Bitsy whined. “I see you less now that you live here than when you lived in Manhattan.”
“That’s not true,” I retorted. “I just saw you this morning. Which reminds me, why on earth did you put a coupon in the paper for a Ford’s Bakery Maple Long John?”
“What?” she snapped.
“The coupon,” I said again, but a little bit louder.
“What coupon?” she asked in a tone such that I almost believed her.
“The coupon in the Rumford Journal you put in to bring in more customers to the bakery.” I reminded her of how she’d made that comment.
“I wouldn’t use a coupon, much less come up with one to give something away for free. How do you run a successful business giving away free food?” She made a good point.
It was true. Bitsy didn’t ever use or cut coupons.
“You didn’t put a coupon in the journal?” I asked and heard a shuffling of papers on her end of the phone. “Page three.” I could tell she’d gone to retrieve the Rumford Journal and was thumbing through it.
“I ought to slap you silly when I see you.” Bitsy would never lay a hand on me, but her words were more effective. “You know better than that. Now, the real question is who is trying to put you out of business? Robert!” Bitsy screamed so loud in the phone, I had to pull it from my ear. “Robert! Someone is trying to make Sophia go bankrupt.”
“Bitsy. Mama. Mama,” I continued to call after her when she didn’t pay any attention to me. “No one is after me. Bankrupt? I took care of it.”
There was no sense in me trying to even talk to her. She wasn’t having it. If someone wronged me, she was always the first one by my side.
“Heavens to Betsy, Sophia.” She came back to the phone. “What on earth are you saying?”
“I’m saying if you didn’t do it, maybe the paper accidentally pulled an old ad.” It was probably just as simple as that.
“Here, talk to your daddy.” She didn’t give me a second to protest.
While jumping into my car and waiting for her to give the phone to Dad, I noticed how the carriage lights downtown had turned on and gave a warm glow to the sidewalks and fronts of all the shops. There was a light breeze tonight that made the banners hanging down from the dowel rods sway. I hoped it wasn’t a sign that a spring storm was coming.
On my way out of downtown, toward my neighborhood, it had gotten darker from the lack of streetlamps. A feeling of home swept over me as I turned onto my street.
“Honey, what’s this business about someone wanting you to go bankrupt?” My dad was now on the phone.
“Nothing, Daddy.” I turned off the car and leaned back in the driver’s seat. “Bitsy is getting all worked up over a mistake at the newspaper. That’s all. I’ll go see Lizbeth Mockby in the morning.”
Lizbeth was the head honcho at the Journal and it didn’t surprise me one bit. She loved all things news.
In my gut, I knew there was no mistake. Not in today’s world. It was just another thing on my list to get to the bottom of.
“If that’s all it is.” He didn’t sound so convinced.
“Yes. That’s all it is,” I confirmed and watched as Madison pulled up behind me in the old station wagon. “Give Mama a kiss, and save me some leftovers. I’m sorry I can’t make it tonight.”
“It’s alright, honey. I know you’ve got your own life, and we are very proud of you.” Daddy was always so complimentary to me. “And thank you for the treats you sent home today.”
“You’re welcome.” I grabbed my bag and opened to car door to get out. “Bye, Daddy.”
We hung up, and I slipped the phone into my back pocket. I’d get in touch with the Journal in the morning.
“Are you okay?” I asked Madison. I wanted to get the real low-down before Charlotte got there and ask Madison about the conversation she and I had before I’d found Ray.
“I can’t believe they think I killed Ray Peel.” She shivered. The situation had gone from making her mad to her coming to the realization that she could be charged. We walked to the front door of my little house. “I have two children and a husband to think about. I can’t even clean the kid’s boo-boos when they get hurt. Blood makes me ill.”
“Carter told me that they still haven’t found the murder weapon.” I gave her a squeeze on her arm to show her I supported her.
I handed her the keys to my door while I plucked a couple of the dead flowers from the window boxes. I loved the small flower bed and the flower boxes under the front windows of my house. Those were just a couple of the things that gave my home so much character and made it so cozy. I’d worked really hard to keep the pink and white wild cosmos, teal forget-me-nots, purple coneflowers, a few red poppies, and black-eyed Susans alive because I enjoyed watching the butterflies flutter around. I was lucky that the landscape was perfect, and I loved it exactly the way it was when I bought the house.
I walked to the small water fountain feature on the right side of the door. One of the river rocks was making the flow of the water go all wonky, so I moved it to the side to unplug the clog, letting the water go back to flowing down the fountain and into the pool of water at the base.
“He didn’t tell me that,” she grumbled on our way into the house, still worrying over my comment about the murder weapon.
Duchess ran up to us, rubbed on our ankles, and ran to the kitchen. It was her way of saying, Hello, now feed me.
The kitchen had sold me on the house before I even knew I was in the market for one. When I’d come back to Rumford for a visit that turned permanent, this house had been for sale, and I’d agreed to bake some chocolate chip cookies in the kitchen for Madison, so her clients would smell them when they came to tour the house. I instantly fell in love with the shiplap walls, but the repurposed screen door with the chalkboard that led into the biggest pantry I’d ever seen in a house made my buying the house a foregone conclusion.
Since I needed a place to stay while I was in town, and Madison didn’t have a buyer, she and I had agreed to do a contract like the Airbnb ones that were so popular. A week later, I’d decided not to go back to New York City and to stay in Rumford instead, making it a no-brainer for me to buy the small house that was the perfect size.
“And that’s why I need you.” She put her hands on my kitchen counter island and leaned forward. “Carter is in love with you, and I need you to convince him that I didn’t do it.”
“I know you didn’t do it.” At least the Madison I knew couldn’t. “But he has to have some sort of reason to believe it.”
“That alone should be enough proof.” Madison’s jaw tensed.
“Carter said he was going to subpoena the phone company and see if he can get anything that might’ve been erased. There was nothing at Ray’s house.” I offered a sympathetic smile. “It’s going to be a few days until the phone records come back. Until then, we need to figure out other people with motives. Maybe check out a few. Why does Carter think you did it?”
“He thinks I did it because Ray Peel turned me down to be the real estate agent for the land. Ray said I was a hillbilly real estate agent with hillbilly clients,” she snarled. “I’m not saying I’m glad he’s dead, but Ray Peel was crooked as a dog’s hind legs.”
“Madison,” I gasped. “He said that you were a hillbilly? I knew you were upset, but you never told me what about. Only that you would strangle him with the grapevines if you could.”
“Right!” She threw her hands up in the air. “Strangle him, not hit him over the head,” she said, as if those words were proof of her innocence.
“Please tell me that you didn’t say that to anyone else but me.” I closed my eyes and waited for her to answer. I had a nigglin’ suspicion that she’d let her loose lips spread bad words about Ray and how he thought mean things about her business.
“Tell anyone but you what?” Charlotte had let herself in the front door. She had a brown bag in each hand. The smell of Chinese food wafted across the room and made my stomach gurgle in delight.
“That she wanted to strangle Ray Peel, right before he died,” I said and opened one of the bags, taking out the little containers filled with the yummy food.
“You said that?” There was disbelief on Charlotte’s face. When Madison nodded, Charlotte said, “Well, no wonder you’re a suspect.”
“Just because I said it doesn’t mean I did it. I didn’t do it.” She dragged over one of the containers. She snapped the wooden chopsticks apart and stuck them in the food.
The three of us stood there with our heinies leaning against my kitchen counter and dug into the food. All of us were deep in thought.
“I’ve got some people we can look at.” I put the container on the counter. “Lanie Truvinski.”
“Thank god for her order, or we’d have been in trouble today.” Charlotte continued to stuff her mouth.
“No.” I shook my head and walked over to grab the chalk on the ledge of the chalkboard on the pantry door. “Suspect and motive,” I said and wrote the two words at the top. “Lanie Truvinski.” I wrote her name under suspect.
I stood back and looked at what I’d written.
“Okay.” Madison pushed up, to stand. “Who is Lanie Truvinski, and how did she save you from being in trouble?”
“Bitsy put a coupon in the paper for a free Long John. And when Lanie didn’t follow through with her order—” Charlotte started to tell Madison about the whole mess.
“No. That’s not it,” I interrupted. “Lanie Truvinski and Ray Peel knew each other.” Under motive I wrote that she was friends with Ray and this wasn’t the first time he’d betrayed the friendship. “You saw her. Remember the lady you thought was a high-end real estate agent at the winery?”
“Yeah.” Madison nodded her head, her eyes lowered. She walked over with a sudden interest.
“Ray had promised to let her use the winery for the annual wine tasters’ convention. I overheard him tell her he was closing the winery that night, and she said he’d promised her she could have the convention there. She smacked him across the face, and I’ve not seen her since.” It was all starting to come back to me. “Now I can’t find her. I’ve called her several times. Reba told me the convention had been cancelled.”
“Write that down.” Madison pointed her finger at the board. “Do you think anyone else heard or saw this happen? She could have motive.”
“Well, Catherine Fraxman might have, but …” My heart dropped. “She was standing there when you told me you wanted to strangle Ray. Remember, she said thank goodness you were a good Southern girl?”
“Then it was Cat who told Carter I said that. Hussy,” Madison muttered. “Carter wouldn’t tell me who told him, but I knew it wasn’t you.”
“Think,” I encouraged them. “Did you hear or see anything? The smallest of things.”
“What about Cat?” Charlotte asked. “Did she get the money from Ray that he’d pledged?”
“Oh, right!” I clapped my hands together. Duchess took off like a jet. “She did say Ray wasn’t able to give the money, and she was mad. She said she believed in karma.”
“So that’s two people we can look into besides me.” Madison took the chalk from me and wrote down Cat’s name.
“But what about Tammy and Giles Dugan? They’d have the most to lose if their business was taken away.” I shrugged. “Why not put them on there?”
“I’d overheard something about Tammy’s son going to a fancy college while I was at the fund-ra
iser. She was bragging on it.” Charlotte jarred my memory again.
“Bragging on it?” I asked. “She was mad before the event When I tried to get my check the first time. She said that she hadn’t been saving tuition for him. We need to get the lease agreement.”
“Why?” Madison’s brows furrowed.
“Because we need to know what, if anything, is in it for the Dugans if something happened to Ray.” I wrote down on the chalkboard to get the agreement. The motive could be in it.
“I thought Giles was set for life.” Charlotte threw it out there.
“Giles might be, but what about the kids?” Madison asked.
“Kids? I hardly think Tammy or Perry are kids. Besides, Perry is a big-time attorney. He doesn’t need his dad’s money.” Charlotte took the chalk from Madison. “But Tammy sure would be affected by it. She’d not only lose her job but her income. She worked at the Piggly Wiggly for years as a cashier before the winery took off. I’m sure she wouldn’t want to go back to that. I think you have someone there to look into.”
All three of us stood back and looked at the chalkboard, with silence hanging over us.
“And”—I gnawed on my bottom lip—“Ella Capshaw told me today that she’d heard Ray and Reba were cozy in the corner table at Café Italia. That new place.”
“Really?” Madison drew back and looked at me funny.
“I asked her about it, and she got all weird and nervous like I’d hit a nerve.” I looked between them. “Like she was hiding something.”
Madison went ahead and wrote Reba’s name on the board too.
“My pantry door should have my grocery list on it, not a list of murder suspects,” I half-joked to lighten the mood.
“There’s no way I can go see any of these people.” Madison looked at me.
“You’ve got the in.” Charlotte looked at me too. I was in a friendship sandwich.
“How do I have an in?” I wondered.
“You can deliver cookies and treats.” Charlotte made it seem so simple. “You’ve got that knack.”
“Right. You helped figure out Emile’s death.” Madison threw that horrid memory at me. “And people feel comfortable with you. They tell you things.”