Murder by the Slice (Sky High Pies Cozy Mysteries Book 1)

by Mary Maxwell

  “Speaking of which,” I said. “Is there anything more you can tell me about the night you saw Muldoon and Miss Foster talking to the woman from Crescent Creek?”

  “Hmmmm,” he murmured. “I’d had spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, and my dad was—”

  “I mean about Muldoon and the others,” I interjected.

  “Oh, uh....well, they were arguing in the parking lot. And the woman had this weird little suitcase on her arm. But she didn’t ask for a room, so I wasn’t sure what that was all about.”

  “A little suitcase?”

  “Yeah. But like I said, she was in the shadows so I just saw like the silhouette of her. And she had a little suitcase dangling from her left arm while she argued with the redhead and the British chick.”

  In a flash, I guessed that I might know who had stopped by the Moonlight Motel for a heated conversation with Muldoon and his femme fatale accomplice.

  “That’s actually very helpful, Earl. Thanks for remembering that little detail.”

  “Yeah?” He sounded pleased. “Well, I just want to be helpful, Kate. You were always nice to me in school. And I want to return the favor now that you’re back here. Know what I mean?”

  “I do, and I appreciate that.

  “I’m just sorry I couldn’t be more helpful,” he said. “Since I didn’t actually get a good look at her face or anything.”

  “Oh, that’s okay,” I told him. “I think I’ve figured out who it was.”

  “Really! That’s amazing! Who is she?”

  “I probably should keep that close to my vest until I have a chance to do some more sleuthing. I wouldn’t want to misidentify anyone, especially since they might be an accessory in a murder case.”

  There was nothing from Earl for a moment or two. I thought maybe he’d been distracted by the football game again, but then he cleared his soggy throat and came back on the line.

  “So you think the woman from Crescent Creek and the other two are responsible for killing that guy here at the motel?”

  “It’s entirely possible,” I said. “But I’m not conducting the official investigation. I’m just trying to help behind the scenes a little bit. I’ll be sure and pass this new information along to Trent and Dina so they can add it to the mix.”

  “Sounds good, Kate. I felt more comfortable calling you with it anyway.”

  We talked for a few more minutes, sharing old memories and reminiscing about a particularly unsettling algebra test that left Leticia Hackett in tears and Earl’s GPA in the toilet.

  “I’ll never forget Miss Isaacson,” he grumbled. “She was the bane of my existence that year.”

  “And I’ll never forget Leticia,” I said. “Doubled over in the girl’s restroom with her book bag on the floor and her frizzy hair flying everywhere as she sobbed.”

  Earl snickered. “Yeah, well that frizzy brown mop is bright and blonde now,” he said. “I read in People that she pays something like six hundred bucks for each haircut.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “But that’s how the dice roll, Kate. Some of us hit it big and end up on TV. The rest are destined to live here in Crescent Creek and deal with snotty British women demanding sushi in the middle of the Rocky Mountains.”

  “Luck of the draw,” I said. “But no matter what anyone thinks, be they a snotty Brit or a famous television actress, I’m glad you and me ended up here, Earl.”

  “Amen to that,” he said. “Now, you should probably get back to sleep, huh?”

  “Yep. And you should get back to the Broncos and that bag of Cheetos you’re working on.”

  CHAPTER 39

  The next morning at four-thirty, I stood in the Sky High Pies kitchen, staring at my grandmother’s recipe card for Blackberry Streusel Coffee Cake. It was one of her better efforts at legible penmanship; most of the words were decipherable and the scattered stains from years of use hadn’t obscured any of the key ingredients. I was already on my second cup of coffee; the strong dark roast Colombian was beginning to loosen the weary cogs in my brain. During my restless and all-too-brief catnap on the sofa upstairs, I’d rotated between worrying about the business and fretting about the fact that a stranger had rummaged through my apartment looking for something related to Rodney’s last case in Chicago. I was contemplating the package that he’d mailed to me with the mysterious computer files when I heard a key in the backdoor.

  “Why the long face?” asked Julia, hurrying into the kitchen.

  I shrugged. “It’s practically the middle of the night,” I grumbled. “If we had regular jobs, we’d both be in bed.”

  She raised one eyebrow. “No sleep again?”

  My reply was a garbled string of words that would’ve turned Nana Reed’s face as bright red as the filling for her cherry pie puffs.

  “Whoa,” Julia teased. “I’m not used to hearing you sound so grouchy.”

  I finished my coffee and headed for a refill. “I’m sorry, Jules. I guess all of the stress and strain of the past few days is catching up with me.”

  She came over and patted my shoulder. “That’s okay. I think anybody in your shoes would feel the same way, Katie. Everything that you went through in Chicago was bad enough. But then having your apartment burglarized and being accused of murder? Well, that’s like a double whammy of insults piled on a big ol’ injury.”

  I sipped the coffee, closing my eyes as the warmth spread through me. The last few days had been a whirlwind, but I held fast to the hope that everything would be resolved in my favor.

  “You’ve got to believe in all that’s good and true,” my Nana Reed always told me when I was a girl. “No matter what you’re facing, keep your chin up, your mind clear and your feet planted firmly on the ground.” I smiled at the memory and glanced over at Julia as she called my name.

  “What was that?” I asked, stumbling out of the misty recollection.

  “Olivia should be here in a few minutes,” Julia said. “Why don’t you go enjoy that cup of coffee in your office?”

  I glanced at the curls of steam rising from the mug. “You don’t mind?”

  She shook her head. “We’re in really good shape for the day,” she said. “Libby King’s book group ordered a couple peach pies, but I can take care of those before we open.”

  “What time are they coming to pick them up?”

  “Noon,” Julia answered. “Now, skedaddle! Go savor that coffee while you’ve got the chance.”

  I gave her a quick hug and walked down the hall to my office. The desk was just as cluttered as it was the night before, so I spent a few minutes organizing stacks of paper between sips of coffee. Once I could seek the blotter underneath the chaos, I sat back in my chair and tried to relax.

  “Think of ocean waves,” I said to the empty room. “Picture a calm mountain stream tumbling over moss-covered rocks.”

  Despite my best attempts and a few other pastoral suggestions, my mind kept spinning like a runaway train. I thought about Ben Carson’s murder and the blood-stained knife and Muldoon’s freckled face. I replayed the shock of finding my apartment after the burglar ransacked it the other day. And I thought about Rodney’s strange package and the mysterious files on the flash drive he’d mailed to me for safekeeping.

  When the last drop of coffee was gone, I put the mug on the desk and turned on my laptop.

  There was still plenty of time before Sky High opened to try and take a peek at the things that had possibly cost Rodney his life. Once the computer was humming nicely and the folder was open on the screen, I stared at the individual files and a few of their cryptic labels: GL XAM, Z-546, LISBON, Graubündner Kantonalbank, CK CI.

  I knew that Lisbon was in Portugal, but I didn’t think Rodney had ever traveled there. Since one of the file names included the word “bank,” I Googled the entire name and learned that it was a government-owned commercial bank in Switzerland. The other labels looked like names for rockets or robots. But the final label struck a chord. Could CK be C
het Kozlowski? Since he and Rodney were best friends and often discussed cases confidentially, maybe whatever was in the password-protected file had something to do with Chet.

  “One more try,” I muttered, double clicking the CK CI icon.

  When the password box appeared, I leaned forward, staring at the screen and thinking about Rodney’s usual preferences for secret codes to protect his files. I tried the first three that came to mind—his mother’s maiden name, the year he was born in reverse and the street where his first office was located—but the file remained locked.

  “Okay, what else?”

  I looked over at the picture of Rodney that I kept on my desk. It was a slightly blurred shot from a family picnic that he’d invited me to a couple of years after I started working for him. He was grinning at the camera with a relaxed confidence, one arm draped around his wife’s shoulders and the other cradling their youngest daughter.

  I turned back to the laptop and typed his wife’s name in the password box.

  Nothing.

  Then I stared at the picture again, trying to remember the nickname that Rodney and his wife used for their little girl.

  “This is it,” I said, guiding my hands to the keyboard and entering the two words I’d dredged up from my memory. “If ‘Baby Biscuit’ doesn’t do the trick, I’m throwing in the—”

  And a small green circle suddenly flashed as the password box vanished and the folder expanded to reveal one graphic image icon in the middle of the screen. It was also labeled CK CI, so I double clicked and nearly fell out of my chair when I saw a photograph of the British woman that I’d talked to at the Moonlight Motel.

  “And so it goes,” I said, reaching for my phone. “It really is a small world after all.”

  It was an hour earlier in Chicago, but I decided to throw caution to the wind. Maybe Chet was up early. Or working late.

  I scrolled through the contacts on my phone until I found Chet Kozlowski’s office number. It had been months since I’d last talked to him, but the digits looked as familiar as if I’d dialed them the day before.

  “Kozlowski,” he said a moment later in his booming voice.

  “Chet?”

  “Speaking,” said the Chicago PD detective.

  “This is Kate Reed. I worked with Rodney Alexander, and I—”

  “Hey, Kate,” he said warmly. “I’m so sorry about what happened.”

  “Thanks, Chet.”

  “I didn’t get a chance to talk to you after the funeral, but I wanted to express my condolences. Rodney was an amazing guy. We all miss him around here.”

  “I know,” I said quietly. “I swear that I can still hear him calling my name. You know—the way he’d start talking to you before he was actually in the room?”

  Kozlowski laughed, a full-bodied rumble that I’d heard coming from Rodney’s office plenty of times in the past.

  “Yeah, I remember that. The guy was a piece of work. And I miss him more every time I go for a beer. I still reach for the phone to ask if he wants to join me. Isn’t that nuts?”

  “No, it’s understandable. Rodney was…” My mind slipped into a rapid-fire review of my former boss and mentor. “I mean, he was smart and funny and compassionate.”

  “Not to mention a pain in the butt,” Kozlowski added. “I remember the day he told me that he was leaving the force to open his own business. I kept trying to get him to change his mind. But he just smiled and said—”

  “‘It is not in the stars to hold our destiny,’” I interjected. “‘But in ourselves.’”

  Chet laughed. “Yeah! That’s exactly what he’d tell me.”

  “It was one of his favorite quotes,” I said as a wave of déjà vu passed through me. “And he’d use it whenever he got the chance.”

  We shared a silent moment, each of us lost in a private memory of the late, great Rodney Alexander. Then Kozlowski asked why I was calling him so early in the morning.

  “It’s about a file I found on a flash drive that Rodney sent to me,” I explained. “I think it may be connected to you.”

  “Possibly. What’s in the file?”

  “A picture,” I said. “Of a woman. And the file was labeled ‘CK CI’ so I thought maybe she was one of your confidential informants.”

  “Could be,” said Kozlowski.

  “It’s connected to the Gustave Landecker case that Rodney was working.”

  I heard Chet pull in a slow breath. “That’s an ugly can of worms,” he said. “I do have a CI helping me on that one.”

  The fact that he’d used the present tense sent my heart thudding. “So it’s something you’re still working on?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Ah, something you can’t comment on because it’s an ongoing investigation with the Chicago PD.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Can you describe the woman?” I asked. “Or would that be violating your code of ethics?”

  Kozlowski chuckled. “Blonde, beautiful and buxom,” he said, sounding like the knucklehead I remembered from Chicago.

  “And can you do it again?” I asked. “But maybe be less of a caveman and more of a cop?”

  He started over, giving me a rundown of the woman’s attributes in a more clinical fashion. When he finished, he laughed again. “But you know what? I’ve got a picture of her. It’s from a stakeout Rodney and I did a few months ago. Not the best quality, but her face is crystal clear.”

  “Can you send it to me?”

  “Sure thing,” Kozlowski answered. “Fax or email?”

  I smiled. “Does anybody use a fax these days?”

  “Just us cavemen,” he said. “But I’m guessing you want an email, huh?”

  “Yes, please.”

  I could hear his kielbasa fingers clicking on his computer keyboard. “I still got your contact info from when we were all working that human trafficking ring last year.”

  “That’s all changed,” I said. “I don’t work for Rodney any…”

  “Oh, man.” Kozlowski sighed. “I’m sorry, Kate. I was on auto pilot mode there.”

  “It’s okay, Chet. Don’t worry about it. I can give you my new email address whenever you’re ready.”

  “Fire away,” he said.

  After I provided my Sky High Pies email and then repeated it twice more when he fumbled the domain name, Chet grumbled to himself.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “I just said that some people get all the luck,” he answered. “You go from the dirty, gritty streets of Chicago to some pie factory in the mountains.”

  “It’s a bakery café,” I said. “My family’s owned Sky High for forty years.”

  “Is that right?”

  “My grandparents started it before I was born,” I said.

  “Don’t rub that in either,” Kozlowski growled. “I’m not getting any younger up in here.”

  “Well, you’re still as feisty and handsome as ever, Chet.”

  He disagreed with a few choice words. Then he asked if the picture of his CI had arrived yet.

  I checked my inbox, opened his email and then double clicked on the attached photograph.

  “Got it?” Chet said again.

  “Yes, thank you. The image is opening now.”

  “Good deal,” he said. “My CI’s on the left. She was walking down LaSalle with some other blonde broad. Nobody that me and Rodney had ever seen before.”

  I kept my eyes on the computer screen. When the attachment opened, I quickly glanced at the woman on the left in the picture. It was the British woman that I’d talked to at the Moonlight Motel.

  “That thing open okay?” asked Chet.

  “Yes, I was just—”

  But my breath caught in my throat as I swiveled my eyes to the right side of the image and saw the last person I expected to see walking down LaSalle Street in Chicago with Chet Kozlowski.

  “I’ve gotta go, Chet,” I said quickly.

  “Okay, Katie,” he said. “Take care of yourself
out there in the mountains.”

  “I promise. You do the same in Chicago.”

  “You betcha,” he said. “Don’t be a stranger.”

  As soon as the line cleared and I could dial Trent’s number, I punched it into my phone and waited. The call went to voicemail.

  “Hey, Trent,” I said after the beep. “It’s Kate. You are not going to believe who’s involved in the Gustave Landecker case. Call me as soon as possible!”

  CHAPTER 40

  There was no call from Trent during the night, so I left another message the next morning. About five minutes later, he sent a text to apologize. He’d driven to Boulder on another case and wouldn’t be back in Crescent Creek until later in the day. And two minutes after that, my phone rang.

  “Hey, Kate!” Trent said, sounding rushed and irritated. “Sorry about not calling back last night.”

  “It’s okay. I got your text just now anyway.”

  There were other voices in the background on Trent’s end of the call. One was loud and shrill; a woman who kept demanding that someone stop threatening to put her in handcuffs.

  “Wow,” I said. “Sounds like you’re having a worse day than anyone else I’ve talked to so far.”

  He chuckled. “It’s the unmistakable combination of alcohol, guilt and mortification,” he said. “I’m up here with Dalton on another case. The Boulder PD stopped the suspect for a minor traffic violation and discovered that we have a warrant out for her.”

  “It’s not Blanche Speltzer is it?” I asked, hoping a little levity might help.

  “Not this time,” Trent said. “But she’s a firecracker, so you never know.”

  “True, and if she—”

  An ear-splitting scream interrupted my thought. I waited until things calmed down before suggesting that Trent and I talk after he was back in Crescent Creek.

  “But your message sounded pretty urgent,” he said.