No Scone Unturned

by Dobbs, Leighann

  “Okay. If we can’t look into her finances that way, then how about we attack it from a different angle?” Ruth asked.

  “What do you mean?” Helen asked.

  “Well, we certainly can’t ask Rupert or Susan, but there’s one person who might know something about what’s going on,” Ruth said. “We saw that letter in Susan’s mailbox addressed to her son. If she was trying to reconcile with him, she might’ve let something slip.”

  “I don’t see that we have many other options, so I guess it’s worth a phone call,” Nans said.

  “In the meantime, I’ll look into this convention to see if I can find evidence that Connie really was there,” Ruth said.

  “Good idea.” Nans looked in the direction of the Pendleton house, her forehead creased in worry. “I just hope the person we saw fall from the balcony is the only murder victim. We have two people that are missing.”

  “Once you’ve killed one time, it’s easier to do it a second,” Ruth said. “And there could be a lot of evidence at the Pendleton house from the first murder. What if Connie or the maid stumbled across some of it and Rupert had to silence her?”

  “Worse yet,” Ida said, “what if Olive stumbles across that evidence or asks too many questions? Rupert could get anxious. And if he gets too anxious, Olive could be his next victim.”

  20

  Where to?” Lexy asked after they were belted into their seats in her car. “I need to get to the bakery. I can’t leave Cassie to do all the work, especially since there’s the added cleanup duties from the Kingsley brunch.”

  “Oh, we can help with that,” Nans said. “Ruth can dig into that writers’ conference on her iPad and also get me Susan’s son’s phone number. I can call right from the bakery.”

  Lexy didn’t really want the ladies’ help. Their idea of helping was usually to sit at the front table in the corner and eat her pastries for free. But she wanted to stay up to date with the investigation, and it couldn’t really hurt anything to have them at the bakery.

  “Okay, fine, but don’t eat all my chocolate-frosted brownies like you did last time.” Lexy swung the car around and headed toward the Cup and Cake, with Ruth tapping away on the iPad the entire time.

  “I didn’t find anything about Olive—or Connie, rather—other than to say she was at the conference. There’s no pictures or anything, and she wasn’t on any boards or panels, so I’m afraid my research is inconclusive,” Ruth said as they all piled out of Lexy’s car and into the back door of the bakery. Cassie was in the kitchen, working on a Boston cream pie. Her eyes widened and her face cracked into a smile when she saw Nans and the ladies.

  “Hey, ladies, what a great surprise. I didn’t know you were coming to visit today.” She winked at Lexy.

  “Oh, we’re just here to help out. We took up some of Lexy’s time, and we know you girls are extra busy with that catering job this morning, so we figured we’d come in and lend a hand,” Nans said.

  Cassie’s gaze flicked from Nans to Lexy. “The café tables need to be cleaned, and the pastry case needs to be stocked with these cookies.” Cassie pointed to a tray of flower-shaped cookies decorated in colorful blue, pink, and purple frosting.

  Nans, Ruth, Ida, and Helen reached into the box of food-service gloves, each pulling out a pair and putting them on. Ida grabbed the tray of cookies. “Don’t worry, we’ll do a good job,” she assured them as they turned and hurried toward the front of the bakery.

  Happy to be among the familiar sights, smells, and sounds of the bakery, Lexy got to work putting away the things they’d used at the Kingsley brunch. She boxed up some of the leftover pastries to bring to the food shelter later on and made a special box for Nans and the ladies to take back to the retirement center.

  “Things went well at the Kingsleys’,” Cassie said as they worked side by side in the kitchen.

  “Very good…until Ida almost went swimming in the pond,” Lexy said.

  “That was kind of funny,” Cassie said. “Are you making any headway on that case? It sure was a shocker that Olive Pendleton was still alive. I thought she was your murder victim.”

  “Yeah, no kidding. But we did see someone get murdered. We have a couple of ideas who else it could be.”

  “But didn’t you see it on video? How come you thought it was Olive?”

  “It looked like her. Turns out she has an assistant that could be a stunt double, and the maid is blond with a similar hairstyle. The video was kind of grainy, and Ida was a little jittery. We only ever saw the victim from the back.”

  “Oh, I could see how you could make that mistake. Did you tell Jack yet?” Cassie peered up at her over the Boston cream pie.

  “I texted him. I’m not supposed to call him during the workday unless it’s an emergency.”

  “John said that Jack was doing some extra work looking into this. He’s not going to be happy.”

  “No kidding. But it was an honest mistake, and somebody did die, so there is a murder to investigate.”

  The bells over the door chimed, signaling the entrance of a customer. Cassie nodded toward the front. “Your turn.”

  Out in front, Nans and the ladies had cleaned off the bistro tables, stocked the cookies in the display case, and were now sitting at one of the tables with various brownies, scones, and cupcakes laid out in front of them, as well as steaming cups of coffee and tea.

  “We can wait on the customers, too, Lexy,” Ruth said hopefully.

  No way did she want Nans and the ladies waiting on customers. “That’s okay. I’ll get them.”

  Lexy turned to the middle-aged couple that had come in. “Can I help you?”

  “We’d like a dozen cupcakes. Can we pick them out?”

  “Of course.”

  Lexy opened the back door of the case and pulled out the cupcakes one by one as the woman picked them out. She placed them in a white bakery box, which she tied up with twine and brought over to the cash register once they were done.

  After the couple had paid and were out the door, Nans motioned her over. “I’m going to call Susan’s son now. Do you want to listen in? I’ve already figured out a good angle to get him to talk.”

  Lexy glanced out at the sidewalk. It was not a busy time of day. The bakery was usually busiest at lunch time and after people got out of work. This would be a perfect time for Nans to call, with little risk of customers coming in and wondering what in the world they were doing.

  “What’s the number, Ruth?” Nans asked.

  Ruth rattled off a number, and Nans dialed then held the phone a little bit away from her ear while everyone leaned in to try to hear the conversation.

  “Hello?” The son’s voice came out of Nans' phone.

  “Hi, is this Brent Chambers?” Nans asked.

  “Yes.” The voice was cautious.

  “Oh, good. This is Helen Smith. I’m a reporter at the Brook Ridge Falls Chronicle, and we’re doing a piece on family members of famous local personalities.”

  “I think you might have the wrong number. I live in Kentucky.”

  “I know that, dear, but your aunt, Olive Pendleton, is a local celebrity, and I spoke with your mother, Susan, and now I could really use your input to my article.”

  “You talked to my mom?”

  “Yes…” Nans paused. “I know you’re having some difficulties, but I think things are going to work out.”

  Brent snorted. “Work out? I don’t think so.”

  “What do you mean? Why just the other day when I spoke to Susan, she was mailing you a letter.”

  “Yeah, a letter telling me to stop contacting her.” Brent’s voice turned suspicious. “And why are you asking about this anyway? If you talked to my mother, you would know she doesn’t want to talk to me. And just what does this have to do with my weird aunt Olive anyway?”

  “So you think she’s weird, too, huh?” Nans said. “She’s known to be very eccentric, and her husband doesn’t help much.”

  “Yeah, I’ll s
ay. They have my mom turned against me, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh, that’s terrible, dear. You must be awfully upset. What happened?” Nans' voice was sympathetic, but her eyes held an eager glint as if she’d found a little chink in his armor that she could work away at and hopefully get more information.

  “We had a stupid falling out over an old girlfriend I had years ago. We hadn’t talked in almost five years when I contacted her trying to reconcile. Apparently since I left, she’s spent more and more time with Olive and Rupert. I guess she doesn’t need me anymore.”

  The ladies exchanged a look, and Lexy knew what they were thinking. What Brent didn’t know was that apparently Susan had been spending a lot more time with Rupert than she had with Olive.

  “I’m sure that’s not true, dear. A mother always needs her son,” Nans soothed.

  “Well, apparently not my mother, because my mother is on an extended trip in Europe. She sent me a picture of her and Olive and told me in no uncertain terms that she would be incommunicado. I’m not stupid. I can take a hint.”

  “So you’re not even going to keep trying to reconcile?” Nans asked.

  “It seems pointless. She’s refusing to talk to me, and the last letter made it pretty clear that she was still angry.”

  “But that won’t last forever.”

  “Well, the original fight was pretty bad. She even changed her will… but that’s not why I’m trying to reconcile with her. I don’t care about the money.”

  “Of course not, dear. Then why are you trying to reconcile?”

  “She’s my mom!” Brent’s voice took on a sheepish tone. “And, well, she was right about the girl.”

  “I see,” Nans said. “Moms usually are.”

  Brent chuckled. “Yes, I realize that now that I’m older. Maybe things will work out. I just don’t know if Aunt Olive is such a great influence.”

  Nans' brows shot up. “Oh? Why do you say that?”

  “It’s nothing bad, just that my mom doesn’t have a very strong personality. She can be easily persuaded to do things, and Olive and Rupert are…well they’re a little odd. I just don’t want Mom to get into something that she can’t get out of.”

  Ruth snorted and muttered under her breath, “Too late for that.”

  “So, as you can see, I don’t really have much information about what it’s like to have a local celebrity in the family. I’ve been out of town for years. So unfortunately, I don’t think I have anything to add to your article.”

  “Well, thank you for your time,” Nans said. “And I hope things work out with your mom.”

  Nans hung up the phone, a sad look on her face. “I didn’t have the heart to tell him that his mother is right here in town.”

  “And the suspect in a murder investigation,” Ida added.

  “Seems weird that she would tell him she’s in Europe,” Ruth said.

  “I bet Rupert put her up to it. It sounds like Susan can be easily manipulated, and Rupert wouldn’t want Brent to come sniffing around,” Lexy said.

  Ruth tapped her index finger against her pursed lips. “Another thing he said bothered me. He implied he’d been written out of Susan’s will, which means Olive was probably written in.”

  “Which means Rupert is probably after that money, because it’s fairly obvious he doesn’t have any, and I’m beginning to doubt whether Olive does either.”

  “Yeah, but how is he going to do that? I’m sure that if Susan wrote Brent out of the will, she probably made Olive her beneficiary.”

  “There’s only one other way for Rupert to get the money. He’d have to marry Susan or somehow convince her to make him the beneficiary,” Helen said.

  “And if he was going to marry her, that would mean he would have to not be married to Olive,” Lexy pointed out.

  “And there’s only two ways for him to accomplish that." Ida paused dramatically. "Divorce her or kill her.”

  21

  Lexy drove home that night with a feeling of dread weighing down her stomach. She hadn’t heard back from Jack after texting him that Olive Pendleton was still alive. Would he be mad at her? She needed his help now more than ever, because all indications were that Olive could be in danger. They had to figure out how to get some evidence into the hands of the police so a real investigation could be done soon.

  She walked in the door to the smell of pizza and the exuberant greeting of Sprinkles. Jack came in from the kitchen.

  “So your murder victim wasn’t really murdered, huh?” Jack dropped a kiss on her forehead, and relief flooded through her.

  “Yeah, sorry about that. You’re not mad?”

  “No, I’m not mad. Though I will say it is a little bit unusual. But you still did witness a murder, right?”

  “Yes. We just assumed it was Olive because it was at her house. But we uncovered some new clues today that might shed some light on things.”

  “Let’s discuss them over pizza,” Jack said. “I got your favorite—hamburger, green onion, and pepper.”

  Lexy’s stomach grumbled. “Thanks! I’m starving.”

  Jack went into the kitchen and got the pizza, talking to her over his shoulder as he went. “How did your catering job at the Kingsleys’ go?”

  “It went off almost without a hitch. Except for the part where Nans, Ruth, Ida, and Helen almost fell into the Pendletons’ pond.”

  Jack reappeared with paper plates, napkins, a roll of paper towels, and the pizza, all of which he deposited on the coffee table. While devouring a piece of gooey, salty, cheesy pizza, Lexy gave him the rundown on the Kingsleys’ catered party, as well as the clues they’d spent the rest of the day following up on.

  Jack picked up a second piece, folding it in half and shoving the pointed end into his mouth. “It sounds like Susan’s son was a dead end. You already knew everything that he told you. You knew Susan had money, and since the son is in Kentucky and hasn’t talked to Susan in years, it’s unlikely he knows anything.”

  “The assistant could be the likely victim…or the maid.”

  “Is Rupert manipulative and controlling?”

  Lexy thought back. Was he? He had seemed aggressive with the way he’d charged out after them, but Olive didn’t seem to be any slouch in that department, either. She didn’t seem like the type that would let a man control her. Then again, it was hard to tell, not having seen them together other than that one time at the edge of the pond. “I’m not really sure. Why do you ask?”

  “If he’s the controlling type, he might have pretended he was taking Connie to the convention. Or he might have manipulated things so that Olive thought Connie went there. It would be easy enough to do if he has her trust.”

  “Good point. And then Olive would think Connie was at the convention, so it would be perfectly normal that she wouldn’t be coming over to assist her. Rupert might have taken the charade as far as even having Olive pick up Connie’s mail.”

  “Devious.”

  “But what about the maid?”

  “That’s the other angle you need to investigate. Your theory about Rupert wanting to hire another maid because he didn’t want Olive to ask questions about Amelia could be a good one. If Amelia is the victim, she’s obviously not going to show up and clean the house. Rupert could be trying to circumvent any questions by explaining why she’s not coming in advance. But I thought the maid was younger. And you seemed to think it was Olive in that video.”

  “Well, we didn’t get a good look. We only saw the back of her head, and she was wearing an old-lady sweater. But Amelia’s sister said that Olive gave Amelia some of her old clothes. So she could literally have been wearing Olive’s sweater. And the other thing is that I think we just assumed it was Olive because it was her house.”

  “So either way, it seems like one of these unfortunate ladies saw something she shouldn’t have seen going on between Rupert and Susan and then tried to take advantage of it by blackmailing them,” Jack said.

  “Right. So I can’t rea
lly feel too bad for them, though they didn’t deserve to be murdered,” Lexy said.

  Sprinkles came over and nudged herself in between Jack and Lexy on the couch. As Lexy scratched Sprinkles behind the ears, a pang of sympathy for her fellow pet lover Olive Pendleton surfaced. She hated to think of how hurt Olive would be when the truth came out about Rupert and Susan, not to mention the dead person in her pond.

  “We did mention the pond to Olive, and she seemed like she might want to get it cleaned out. But if Rupert’s controlling like you said, he probably won’t allow it. Though it would make it easy if they did, since then the body would turn up,” Lexy said.

  “Yeah. Looks like we’re going to have to find the body a different way. We need an official reason to question Olive and Rupert. We need a reason for the police to be on that property. And what better reason than a missing person?”

  “Right! How are we going to do that?” Lexy asked.

  Jack petted Sprinkles behind the other ear. “I think the thing to do is to figure out who the victim is. If Connie is supposed to be at the conference, you guys could go out to the conference and verify. Or you could go to the Bahamas and try to find the maid. Maybe if you could prove that one of them was missing, we could file a missing persons report and get an investigation going.”

  “Wait a minute! The sister said Amelia was coming back tomorrow. It would be a lot easier to check up on her than go all the way to that convention.”

  “Well then, it sounds like that’s what you should do. First thing tomorrow.” Jack pulled her up from the couch. “For tonight, I have a special undercover assignment for you,” he said as he led her upstairs.

  22

  The next day, Lexy called Nans on her way to the bakery. “I talked to Jack last night and went over all our clues.”

  “Was he mad about Olive still being alive?” Nans' voice was hesitant.

  “No. Not really.”

  “So he still believes there was a murder?”

  “Yes. In fact, he had a good suggestion. He said that if we could prove that either Connie or Amelia were missing, we might be able to put in a missing persons report.”