A Killer Cake

by Jessica Beck

  “Should I tackle her by myself, or do you want in on it, too?” I asked Moose.

  “Just wait out here, Victoria,” he said.

  “Not a chance,” I replied with a grin. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

  “I’m not trying to lock you out of this,” Moose said impatiently. “I’m going to ask Chris to come outside and talk to us, and I’m going to present it so that she thinks you’ve got something to ask her in private, which is true.”

  Chris noticed us standing out front, and she waved tentatively in our direction with her clippers. She was a slim, older woman, with closely cropped hair that was halfway through the transition from brown to silver.

  “Why me?” I asked as I waved back, doing my best not to smile at her. I didn’t want Chris to think we were there for haircuts.

  “If I go in and ask her alone, there’s a better chance that she’ll come outside to talk to you,” Moose said, and before I could refute it, he walked into the barbershop. I had no choice but to back his play, knowing that I could trust him to do what he’d said he would do.

  Sure enough, Chris came out immediately, despite the older man still sitting in her chair. She said something to him as he started to get up, but he settled back into the chair quickly enough.

  Chris came out on Moose’s heels. “Victoria, what’s so urgent, and why couldn’t we discuss this inside? Kyle Norman’s not too happy with either one of us right now.”

  “Kyle has nowhere else to be, and we all know it,” Moose said.

  Chris just waved off his comment, her gaze never leaving me. “I’m waiting, Victoria.”

  I took a deep gulp of air, and said, “Moose and I didn’t want anyone else inside to know that you’ve been dating Roy Thompson.”

  As I said it, all the blood went out of her face, and if Moose hadn’t been standing nearby to steady her, I have no doubt that she would have hit the sidewalk in front of her shop like a big bag of sand.

  “Are you okay?” Moose asked Chris as he helped her to the bench in front of the barbershop. In warmer weather, it was a magnet for the old men in town to sit around and gossip, but thankfully, it was a little too chilly for that today.

  “I’m fine. I don’t know why I reacted like that. I wasn’t ashamed of going out with Roy, but I thought we’d been pretty cagey about keeping it quiet. How’d you find out?”

  Moose was about to answer when I said, “Our source asked for our discretion, and we’re going to give it. Chris, if word gets out, it won’t be from us. Moose and I are digging into what happened to Roy, though, and we’d appreciate any help you could give us.”

  “I wish I could,” she said with a frown, “but you see, Roy and I broke up last week. I suppose that there was a chance that we might get back together later, but somebody sure stole that from us, didn’t they?”

  “Why did you break up, if you don’t mind us asking?” I asked gently.

  “There was no major rift, if that’s what you’re trying to figure out. Roy and I just decided to go our separate ways for the moment. I kissed him on the cheek good bye, and that was that. Sorry I can’t give you a more explosive story, but there was no hate there, or love either, truth be told. We might have found it later if we’d had more time, but it wasn’t there yet. Why are you two so interested in my love life all of a sudden?”

  I was about to answer when she held up one hand. “Strike that. It makes sense. He was poisoned with your cake. Why wouldn’t you try to solve his murder? I’m just sorry I can’t help. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to Kyle’s haircut. As it is, the old miser’s probably going to try to get a reduced price because he had to wait.”

  “Chris, were you at the celebration earlier?” I asked her.

  She turned, stared at me for a second, and then she said, “My chair was never empty. I couldn’t afford to close the place. I was here from eight this morning, and the first time I’ve stepped out the door was to talk to you. You can ask my girls, or any of the customers I cut. Now, is that all?”

  “That’s it. I hope there are no hard feelings,” I said.

  “Not between us,” she said with a slight grin. “Good luck with your hunt.”

  “Thanks. We’ll need it.”

  After Chris walked back in and picked her scissors up, I asked Moose, “Do you believe her story?”

  “About the breakup? It sounds about right. The only thing is that she didn’t seem all that choked up that someone killed Roy, did she?”

  I shook my head. “If they’d broken up six months ago, her reaction would have been perfect, but since it was just last week, by her own words, she was a little too casual about the whole thing.”

  “She’s got an alibi, though,” Moose said. “Nobody would make that bold a claim without being able to back it up.”

  “You’re not worried that her employees might lie to protect her?” I asked.

  “Not about murder. As far as I’m concerned, she’s in the clear unless we learn something that contradicts what she just told us. Are you ready for a little ride?”

  “Sure, I’m up for it if you are. Where are we going?”

  “Our next lead is in Molly’s Corners,” he said.

  The town was a good half hour away from ours, and I wondered who we’d be visiting. “Who are we going to be talking to there?”

  “It turns out that James Manchester wasn’t the only business partner Roy crossed. He also had some pretty bad blood recently with Hank Mullins.”

  “Hang on a second. He’s the mayor there, right?”

  “He is,” Moose affirmed. “Apparently Roy only partnered with folks rich enough to afford losing their investments with him.”

  “Didn’t anyone ever make any money working with him?” I asked as Moose drove to the next town.

  “I’m sure that they did, but earning money isn’t much of an incentive to kill someone, is it? I figure the only folks who had cause to want to see Roy dead lost something in their bargains with him.”

  “You realize that we could be in for a long list of names before this is all over, don’t you?” I asked.

  “That’s why it’s so important we get busy now,” Moose said.

  “I can’t argue with that.”

  Chapter 5

  “How exactly are we going to approach Hank Mullins?” I asked as Moose and I drove to Molly’s Corners. “We can’t exactly say, ‘Hi there, Mr. Mayor. You didn’t happen to kill Roy Thompson, did you?’ It wouldn’t make us his most popular visitors of the day, would it?”

  “You’d be surprised. I’ve got a hunch that being mayor has its own set of troubles, but no, we’re not going into this cold. I’ve got a message from someone he’s bound to listen to. He might not like talking to us, but he can’t afford to say no when he knows who’s on our side.”

  “Wow, we sound important all of a sudden,” I said with a smile. “Who is this backer whose name we’re about to drop?”

  He mumbled something in response, but even sitting as close to him as I was on the bench seat of his truck, I still couldn’t hear the name. “Care to repeat that in a decibel level above where termites talk?”

  “It’s Holly Dixon,” Moose admitted grudgingly.

  “You called the judge for a favor, knowing how your wife feels about the woman? You’ve got some nerve, that’s all I can say.”

  “Victoria,” he replied heatedly, “Martha has no reason to be jealous of Holly. I’ve told her that until I’m blue in the face, but she just won’t listen to me.”

  “She might have a little reason,” I said, remembering the last time I’d seen my grandfather and the judge in the same room. They’d been like two teenagers with a secret that no one else was in on. It made me suspicious of their past, and I didn’t even have a dog in the fight. I wasn’t at all surprised that Martha had never warmed up to the woman.

  “That’s nonsense,” he said dismissively, but I wasn’t about to let it go that easily.

  “It’s
not nonsense if your wife feels otherwise,” I said. “Moose, we don’t have to solve this murder that badly. I don’t want you getting in trouble with your wife over it.”

  “Holly and I are just friends. There’s no reason I shouldn’t have called her, and there’s nothing I feel guilty about. Now, I’ve just about said all I’m going to on the subject. Do we understand each other?”

  I knew that tone of voice; it was time to drop it, at least for now. “Got it.” I looked out the window at the barren trees as we passed through the mountains. “I miss the leaves; I can’t wait until they show up again.”

  “You do tend to jump around sometimes when you talk, don’t you?” he asked with amusement thick in his voice.

  “Hey, I’m nothing if not an obedient granddaughter,” I said.

  We both held it as long as we could, and then my grandfather and I both burst out laughing at nearly the same time.

  As we drove into Molly’s Corners, I found myself enjoying the architecture of the town. It was different enough from Jasper Fork, and yet similar enough to make me feel as though I was in a place of odd familiarity. The town square was different, though. While ours was an actual square, theirs was much more of a long rectangle, and while we had a cannon in the center of ours, they had a large L constructed of fine white stone, built in honor of the original Molly, at least the one the town had been named after. Molly had been one of the first settlers in the area, and their group had been at war with a local tribe of Catawbas. Molly’s husband died defending their land, and without hesitation, history said that Molly held out until darkness came, and then she slipped away into a nearby creek with her daughter. They managed to make their way back to the nearest settlement, ten miles away on foot, traveling only at night, and when she’d been asked how they’d managed it, Molly had said she just peeked around every corner until no one was there. I kind of liked the name of the town myself.

  As Moose parked, he asked me, “So, are you ready for this?”

  “I’m going to follow your lead this time,” I said. “After all, you’re the one with the letter of recommendation.”

  “I don’t have a letter,” he told me. “Holly just told me that I could use her name if I thought it might help.”

  “I understood that. I meant what I said, though. I’ll let you take the lead.”

  “That would be great.”

  We walked into the town hall, and Moose approached a police officer standing nearby. “We’re looking for the mayor.”

  The officer looked us over, and then he pointed to a nearby door. As we started toward it, he said in a voice barely above a whisper to me, “If your business can wait, you might want to come back tomorrow. He’s already thrown three people out of his office today.”

  “Is that some kind of record?” I asked, just as softly. I stayed behind, and Moose hadn’t even realized that I’d tarried.

  “Are you kidding? We’re not even close yet, but I have a hunch we’re about to add two more names to the list.”

  “Thanks for the heads-up, but we’ll take our chances,” I said.

  Moose finally noticed my absence. He paused, turned around, and then he asked me, “Victoria, are you coming?”

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” the cop said with a smile. “See you in a second.”

  “We’ll see,” I replied.

  I caught up with Moose, and as I did, he asked, “What was that all about?”

  “It appears that the mayor is in one bad mood.”

  “Well, it’s not getting better for him any time soon,” Moose said.

  If we weren’t investigating a murder, I would have looked forward to the confrontation that was about to happen. My grandfather was quite good at arguing his way around any issue, and it sounded as though the mayor was a man cut from the same cloth.

  There was a stylish woman in her sixties sitting behind the desk when we walked through the door, and I noticed that she perked up considerably the second she laid eyes on my grandfather. “How may I help you?” she asked. The name ‘Helen Parsons’ was etched on her nameplate, and it was placed precisely on her desk.

  How had the old charmer managed such intense and immediate attention? I didn’t blame my grandmother one bit for resenting the attention that Moose got at times from women his age, and even younger.

  “Helen, it’s so nice to meet you. We’re here to see Hank,” Moose said in an easy voice that made it sound as though he and the mayor were old friends. It was bold, a big fat lie, and told very convincingly.

  The woman smiled at the sound of her name, but it dimmed when Moose mentioned the name Hank. In a soft voice, she said, “No one calls him Hank here. It’s Mr. Mayor, or Mayor Mullins. Anything else gets you thrown out immediately.”

  Moose smiled warmly at her. “Thank you for the tip. Would it be possible for us to see him?”

  “May I ask what it is in reference to?” she asked, her smile warming right back up. Honestly, it was as though I wasn’t even there.

  “I’d tell you if I could, but I’m afraid it’s rather personal,” Moose said lazily.

  “I don’t doubt it, but if I try to send someone into his office without giving the mayor fair notice about what it is concerning, I’ll lose my job. I’m truly sorry, but there’s nothing I can do about it.”

  “We completely understand,” Moose said. “I’m sure he wouldn’t want us broadcasting it, but we’d like to talk to him about his connection to Roy Thompson, the man who was murdered in Jasper Fork earlier today.”

  That got an immediate reaction. Ms. Parsons stood abruptly, slipped past us, and went to the door across the way from her. She entered without knocking, or sparing us a single look back.

  “Wow, that turned out to be a hot button, didn’t it?” I asked Moose.

  “I believe that we hit a nerve,” my grandfather said.

  “While we have a second, I have a question for you. Do you realize it when you’re doing it, or does it just come naturally to you?”

  Moose was still staring at the door Ms. Parsons had walked through, and he barely gave my question a second thought. “Do what?”

  “Seduce every woman anywhere near your age that you come into contact with,” I said.

  That got his attention. “I’ll have you know that I’ve been loyal to your grandmother since the day we said our vows, young lady.”

  “Okay, maybe ‘seduce’ was the wrong word. How about charm? Do you like that any better? You should, since it’s what you named your diner when you opened up. Sometimes I forget just how slick you are when you’re in action.”

  “First off, I do like the word ‘charmed’ quite a bit better; it’s not nearly as crass as ‘seduced.’ And second of all, I do no such thing. I merely treat women, all women, with respect, and I listen to what they have to say, with all my attention. That’s the only ‘charm’ I’ve ever had.”

  I thought about it, and suddenly I realized that most of what my grandfather had just told me was the complete and unvarnished truth. I’d never realized the source of his charm before. Evidently, a man of any age listening with all of his attention and not just some fraction of it was more enticing to most women than movie-star looks or a billionaire’s money.

  I was about to comment on it when the door we’d been watching suddenly opened. Instead of Helen Parsons, though, we were instantly faced with a large and angry man who looked perfectly capable of throwing us out of his office without anyone else’s help, and more than ready to do just that. His hair was disheveled, and there was a fire in his eyes that was a little frightening. This was obviously a man it wouldn’t do to get angry, but clearly we’d managed to do just that.

  “What’s this nonsense about me being tied to Roy Thompson’s murder?” the mayor asked as he stared hard from Moose to me, and then back again.

  “Do you really want to have this conversation out here where anyone can hear what we are discussing?” Moose asked him.

  “I have nothing to hide,” t
he mayor said angrily.

  “Listen,” Moose said, keeping his own voice calm and level. “I wasn’t going to even bring this up if I didn’t have to, but a friend of mine thinks it might be a good idea for you to talk to us.”

  “I’m not impressed by your friend, whoever he is,” the mayor said, but I did notice that his tone of voice softened as soon as Moose made the statement.

  “Judge Dixon will be saddened to learn that,” Moose said, and then he turned to me and touched my arm lightly. “Let’s go, Victoria. It’s clear that we’re wasting our time here.”

  I knew that he was bluffing, and I was pretty sure that the mayor probably realized it as well, but that didn’t stop us from walking toward the outer door.

  We never made it, though.

  “Why don’t you both come in and we can talk about it?” the mayor said.

  I knew that grinning would be inappropriate, but it was still hard not to do it as Moose and I walked in. As we did, Ms. Parsons passed us, but there was no eye contact made between any of us. Evidently, we’d dropped all pretense of being friendly now.

  The mayor’s inner office was huge, expansive and a little too well-decorated for a town the size of Molly’s Corners. There was no way the town’s budget could afford what I saw, from leather chairs to a massive mahogany desk that looked like a piece that belonged in a museum. Mayor Mullins took his place behind it as though it was the most natural place in the world for him to be, and as he did so, he gestured toward two close chairs. “Please, have a seat.”

  We did as we were told, but Moose didn’t say a word after we sat, and neither did I.

  After thirty seconds of silence, the mayor finally spoke. As he did, his voice was much calmer and more reasonable; it was about what I would expect from a civil servant. “Forgive my outburst earlier. It’s been a trying day, and your misconception about Roy Thompson caught me completely off-guard.”