Fudge Cake, Felony and a Funeral (The Charlotte Denver Cozy Mystery Series Book 2)

by Sherri Bryan

Mike and Ryan laughed. “So you reckon you could look after yourself if you needed to?” asked Mike.

  “She definitely could,” said Ryan. “She’s just got her … what is it, Bella?”

  “My brown belt in judo,” she said proudly. “I reckon I could take any guy who was looking for trouble. I was Regional Junior Champion, y’know.” She hoisted herself back onto her stool and continued with her lunch.

  “Wow! I’m seriously impressed,” said Mike.

  “Yeah, she may be pint-sized, but she’s really deadly!” said Ryan, as he fought off Bella’s playful punches. “Ow, that one hurt!”

  “Yeah, well, that’s for not calling and telling me where you were last night. I was worried sick,” said Bella.

  “Oh, man! I told you, I couldn’t call you,” said Ryan, dropping his voice to a whisper. “Can we please just drop it now?”

  Ryan didn’t want the whole of St. Eves knowing that he’d spent most of the previous evening at the police station. There were already enough accusations and theories about the murder flying around the place as it was - he certainly didn’t want his name to be added to the mix.

  Bella pushed her plate away. “Okay, whatever. Just as long as you know that I didn’t ask my mum about the money last night, because I couldn’t focus on anything with you missing. If you can promise me that you won’t go walkabout again, I’ll ask her tonight.”

  Ryan grinned. “Okay. I promise.”

  ººººººº

  At precisely 5.03 pm, Ryan called Nathan.

  “Hello, it’s Ryan Benson here.”

  “Oh, hi, Ryan. Good news. Can you be at The Bottle of Beer tomorrow at six? You can? That’s great. When you get there, ask for Will. He’ll be expecting you – and listen, don’t be late, okay? If you are, you can forget about the job. Will’s a stickler for timekeeping.”

  “I don’t know what to say, Chief Inspector Costello. Thanks so much,” said Ryan.

  “Don’t say anything. Just get the job and do yourself and your dad proud,” said Nathan, a smile in his voice.

  He was glad to have been able to help.

  ººººººº

  Nathan had just started interviewing his second suspect of the day.

  Across the table sat Ellis Potts, his dark crew cut glistening with styling wax. Unlike his brother-in-law, Ellis was cool and calm, and it occurred to Nathan that the ability to remain unflustered under pressure must surely be a pre-requisite for a pilot.

  “Okay, Mr Potts. Can you tell me how you felt about the fact that certain members of your family disagreed with Miranda keeping the lottery ticket for safekeeping?”

  Ellis visibly bristled at the question. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said tersely.

  “Oh, you don’t? Well, that’s strange, because on the afternoon of your father’s funeral celebration, at least fifty people heard your brother-in-law, Greg, and your sister Victoria, raise objections to Miranda keeping the ticket … and to you defending her, Mr Potts.”

  Ellis looked at him in disbelief. “Of course I was defending her. She was sister! My twin sister! What on earth is this all about?”

  “Mr Potts, I would imagine that an airline pilot’s salary is pretty impressive. Is that the case?” asked Nathan, changing tack.

  “I do okay,” replied Ellis, puzzled at the line of questioning.

  “I see. It must be an amazing job, flying the world. Meeting new people, new friends,” said Nathan. “The thing is, new friends can often be so demanding of one’s time, don’t you find, Mr Potts?”

  Ellis eyed him suspiciously, and for the first time, began to squirm in his chair. “Listen, I agreed to come in for questioning because you said it could help find Miranda’s killer, but I really don’t see how you asking me ridiculous questions about my salary and my job is going to help. Now, will you either please ask me something that is relevant to this case, or damn well let me go!” he shouted.

  Nathan observed Ellis as his mood changed from laid-back to highly agitated in a matter of seconds. Interesting, he thought.

  “All I’m trying to do is ascertain who was in such desperate need of money that they were prepared to kill for it,” said Nathan, walking around to Ellis’s side of the table and pulling up a chair next to him. “And you’re free to go whenever you like, Mr Potts. You’re not under arrest.”

  Ellis gave him a sideways glance. “Am I a suspect?”

  Nathan nodded. “Yes, you are, and until we can rule you out as a suspect, you will remain as one.”

  Ellis became agitated again. “Listen to me! You don’t understand. Miranda was the only one I really trusted. She would never have betrayed me and I would never have hurt her!” His eyes darted from Nathan to PC Farrell in desperation.

  “If my company find out that I’m a suspect in a murder case, how do you think it’s going to look? I could lose my job, for God’s sake. Look. I promise you - I had nothing to do with Miranda’s murder. She was looking out for me. You have no idea …”

  “No idea about what, Mr Potts?” asked Nathan.

  Ellis threw his head back and flung his arms across his face. “Okay, okay … if it puts me in the clear, I’ll tell you, but you must give me your word that you will never tell Rachel.”

  This family has an awful lot of secrets from each other, thought Nathan. “I’m not about to start making indiscriminate promises, Mr Potts, but I will give you my word that I will not tell Mrs Potts what you are about to say, unless the need to do so becomes absolutely imperative to the solving of this case.”

  “I suppose that’s the best answer I’m going to get from you?” asked Ellis.

  “It is,” replied Nathan.

  Ellis rubbed his palms together and blew out a deep breath. “Okay … I don’t know what’s going on with Rachel, but she’s been so distracted, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s seeing someone else. She hasn’t been interested in me for months, that’s for sure - not in the bedroom, anyway. It’s like she doesn’t understand me anymore, like she’s forgotten that I’m a red-blooded guy … forgotten that I have needs. You know what I mean, Chief Inspector?”

  Behind him, PC Farrell rolled her eyes in contempt.

  “Go on,” said Nathan.

  “So anyway, I met a woman – Cristina - last year during a stopover in Madrid. It was just friendly conversation to begin with, but it, er, it became more than that after we’d met a few times … if you know what I mean. We got together after a one-night-stand. I know I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t resist her. She was so passionate, so sexy.” He shook his head.

  “I rented an apartment for her near the airport in Madrid so that we’d be able to spend time together more easily, but it wasn’t easy at all. I had to open a separate bank account without telling Rachel, and arrange for all my bonuses to be paid into it. They’re what pay the rent on the apartment.”

  He stopped and drank a whole glass of water.

  “Anyway, a couple of months ago, Cristina began pressuring me to leave Rachel and move in with her. I told her it’s not practical for me to live in Spain. My kids and my job are in England, you know? Well, she went mad, telling me that she was going to find out my home number and tell Rachel about us. I couldn’t let that happen. If Rachel even dreamed that I was seeing another woman, she’d string me up by my … um, sorry.” He turned and apologised to PC Farrell who was eyeing him with intense dislike. “She’d take me to the cleaners and I’d end up with nothing.

  “Eventually, I persuaded Cristina not to involve Rachel and she let it drop. Or so I thought. Next thing I knew, she told me that she wouldn’t tell her about us, providing I give her €10,000 when I go back there next month. €10,000! That’s more than £7,000. There’s no way I can get access to that kind of money without Rachel finding out. That’s why I couldn’t believe our luck when I found out about the lottery ticket, and why I wanted Miranda to be the one to look after it. You see, I’d already told her about Cristina. She’s the only one I told. I told her about
her demanding money from me and how I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do.

  “When Dad died, I knew we’d all be getting some money from the will, but Rachel would know the exact amount. With the lottery winnings, if we were careful, the only person who would know exactly how much they were would be Miranda, and from the minute we found out about the ticket, we were already thinking along the same lines. She was going to make sure that it was she who checked the numbers, she who had all the dealings with the lottery claim, and she who collected the winnings. She was going to make sure that I got what I needed to pay Cristina off before anyone else got their share.”

  Ellis looked Nathan in the eye.

  “So do you see now, Chief Inspector? There’s no way that I had anything to do with my sister’s murder. I had too much at stake to kill her. Without Miranda and that damn lottery ticket, I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do.” His shoulders sagged and he slumped, dejectedly, in his chair.

  “Okay, Mr Potts. I think we’ll leave it there. Thanks for coming in.” Nathan concluded the interview for the benefit of the tape, and watched as PC Farrell escorted Ellis from the room.

  ººººººº

  Bella Potts watched her mother closely.

  If she ever needed to borrow money, she always gauged her mum’s mood by how well her online poker game was going.

  If she was upbeat, that meant she was winning and more likely to be receptive to requests to borrow money, but if she was snappy and irritable, it meant she was losing, and most definitely not receptive to requests to borrow money, or anything else for that matter.

  Bella sat on the couch, reading a magazine. Actually, she wasn’t reading it at all. It was just a prop to disguise the fact that she was carrying out surveillance on her mother. Her Uncle Greg and Aunt Victoria had gone for a drink, her dad had gone to bed with a migraine and Brandon was upstairs playing a shoot-em-up game on his phone. She wasn’t going to get a better opportunity to talk to her mother alone about borrowing the money for Ryan, so she was going to have to take it before it passed her by and the moment was lost.

  “Yes, yes, yesssss! I win!” Rachel punched the air and stretched out her back. She’d been sitting hunched over her mobile phone for over two hours.

  “That’s great, Mum.” Bella congratulated her and joined her on the couch. “Can I get you a drink? Cup of tea, coffee - something stronger?”

  Rachel eyed her daughter suspiciously. “Okay, what’s going on?”

  Bella took a deep breath. It was now or never.

  “Mum, I need to ask you something.”

  “Oh, God, I know that whiny voice. How much d’you need to borrow?” Rachel smiled at her daughter and gently pulled one of her pigtails.

  “Um, look, promise you won’t go mad,” said Bella.

  “Bella, just tell me. If I’ve got enough in my purse, and you need it for a good reason, you can borrow it.”

  “Well, it’s definitely for a good reason, but I very much doubt that you’ll have enough in your purse,” replied Bella, looking around the room.

  “Why, how much do you want?”

  Bella took a deep breath. “£20,000.” There, she’d said it. It hadn’t been too bad at all.

  Rachel frowned. “£20,000? Are you mad? What the hell d’you need £20,000 for?” Her voice was becoming louder and louder.

  “Mum, you said you wouldn’t go mad,” Bella reminded her.

  “Actually, I didn’t. Now tell me, what do you need that much money for? Oh, my God! That Ryan has got you into trouble, has he?”

  “Mum! No, of course not.” Bella blushed scarlet.

  “Well, thank God for that,” said Rachel. “What then?”

  “It’s so that Ryan can go to college, and to pay for home care for his dad while he’s away.”

  Rachel looked at her daughter, her expression immediately changing from one of pure benevolence to sheer malevolence. She tapped her fingers against the side of her ears.

  “Sorry, love. You’ll have to say that again. For a minute there, I thought you said that you wanted to borrow £20,000 so that Ryan can go to college and his dad can have a nurse come to the house every day?”

  Her voice was loaded with sarcasm and there was an edge to it that made Bella feel decidedly uncomfortable.

  “Um, yes … but it sounded sooo much better in my head.” She gave a feeble laugh. “Perhaps I should have waited until after we know how much granddad Tom has left us in his will.”

  Rachel grabbed her arm and pulled her daughter close to her.

  “Ow, let go … Mum, you’re hurting me!” Bella wrestled to pull away but her mother’s grip was strong.

  “Now you listen to me, you ungrateful little bitch. You think money grows on trees? You think me and your father have a bottomless pit of money that we just dip into whenever you or your brother want something? Do you?” She shook Bella hard.

  “We work for our money. Something you wouldn’t know anything about. And every penny we earn goes towards paying for us to have a better life, not your good-for-nothing boyfriend and his damned father!

  “Whatever is in your granddad’s will is for this family – our family – and if I find out that a penny of it has gone elsewhere, you can’t even begin to imagine the problem you’re going to have. My God, Bella, you need to get your priorities right, you really do.”

  She let go of Bella’s arm and the young girl jumped up from the couch, quickly putting as much distance between her and her mother as she could.

  As if nothing had happened, Rachel calmly settled herself on the couch and picked up her phone again. Without looking up, and completely without remorse, she said, “Now get out of my sight, before I do something I really regret.”

  Bella rushed into the bathroom. Tears stung her eyes and as she looked at her arm in the mirror, she saw that a large bruise was already visible. Sitting down heavily on the toilet, she rubbed her arm, inwardly cursing her mother.

  “Hurry up. I have to go!” Brandon banged on the door.

  “Get lost!” Bella shouted.

  “I need to pee! Let me in!” His voice became urgent and Bella allowed herself a brief moment of enjoyment, knowing that her brother was on the point of embarrassing himself.

  “Bella, if you don’t let me in right now, I’m going to call Mum!”

  Bella jumped off the toilet and flung open the door, pushing her brother aside. Running to the bedroom she’d bagged for herself since her Aunt Miranda’s unfortunate demise, she threw herself on the bed and fumed, trying to figure out what had caused her mum to have a major freak-out.

  She wallowed in self-pity until she became bored with it. Recalling one of her dad’s favourite sayings, she told herself, “Self-pity is for losers, and I ain’t no loser.”

  Jumping up from the bed, she looked in the mirror again. The bruise was turning purple. She dried her tears and her thoughts became vengeful.

  How dare Mum put her hands on me like that? How dare she? I’ll show her. She’s gonna to be sorry. Oh, yeah, is she gonna be sorry …

  Chapter 9

  The trouble with knowing someone as well as Nathan knew Charlotte was that it became very difficult to keep secrets from them.

  Not that Nathan couldn’t keep secrets from Charlotte. He could when he wanted to, but he figured that as far as she was concerned, it was actually best to share some of his information with her.

  He’d come to this decision very recently, in the hope that if she knew he was making progress with his enquiries, she wouldn’t feel the need to take it upon herself to go out like some vigilante crime-solver late at night … as had been the case during the last murder investigation in St. Eves.

  He didn’t tell her everything, just enough to let her know that the case was moving along nicely. There was a definite method in his madness.

  “So you’ve ruled out Ellis Potts and his brother-in-law?” Charlotte sat, cross-legged on the floor playing tug-o-war with Pippin and a rope toy. “I�
�m surprised about Ellis. He strikes me as having murderous tendencies.” She shivered.

  “No, we haven’t completely ruled them out,” said Nathan as he pulled on his trainers in preparation for a run, “but now that I’ve questioned them, let’s just say that neither of them are the prime suspect at the moment. Of course, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that they’ve both pulled the wool over my eyes, but if that’s the case, they’re very convincing actors.

  “I’ll tell you one thing, though. The more people I speak to, the more I realize how disliked Miranda Potts really was. It’s pretty obvious that Greg couldn’t stand her, but after speaking to Ellis, I don’t think he liked her, either. I get the impression that he was just using her to get what he wanted.”

  “And you say he has a woman tucked away in Spain, and he’s convinced that his wife is seeing someone else, too?” Charlotte threw the rope toy for Pippin and he raced after it, skidding on the wooden floor.

  “Well, he’s not certain she’s seeing someone else, but she’s not paying him much attention and she’s been very distracted, so he assumes she is,” said Nathan.

  “Of course, if she is, that would explain her hissy-fit at the café this morning,” said Charlotte. “I could only hear her side of things, but it sounded very much like she was arguing with someone who could have been a lover. I remember her saying, “’How could you do this to me?’, as though she’d just had some bad news.

  “And on the subject of bad news, she left her backpack at the café and when I looked inside, I saw three letters from loan companies, all refusing her credit. She obviously needs some money for something.”

  Nathan looked up from tying his laces. “Does she, now? That’s interesting. Although why would Bella Potts be telling Ryan that her parents have got pots of money if they haven’t?”

  “Maybe she was referring to the money they’re going to get from Tom’s estate. Or maybe she doesn’t know they have problems. I would guess that most parents don’t share their financial difficulties with their children.”

  “You’re definitely in the wrong job, Charlotte.” Nathan grinned. “Okay, I’m going – be back in around forty minutes.”