“I hate to ask you this, but do you know where your father was the morning the bakery burned down?” I asked her.
“My son has many flaws, but he’s not a killer,” Judge Dixon said firmly.
“Pardon me for saying this, but we aren’t always the best judges of our own children’s behavior,” Moose said.
“Perhaps not, but the morning in question my son happened to be sleeping on my couch.”
“He and Mom had a huge blowout fight about me,” Natalie said. “I tried to get them to stop fighting, but Dad left before I could set things straight.”
“When that happened, he came home to me,” the judge said, “where I scolded him for his behavior, and then I made a space for him on my couch. I have a perfectly good guest room, but I didn’t want him to get too comfortable there. I’ve taught my son to face his problems, no matter how dire they might seem, and I wasn’t about to go back on that belief. He wouldn’t tell me what the fight was about at the time, but it’s clear enough now, isn’t it? In any case, there’s no way that my son could have been involved with whatever happened to Barry Jackson on the morning of the fire. You have my word on it.”
“That’s good enough for me,” Moose said, and I wasn’t about to dispute it.
“How are you holding up, Natalie?” I asked her.
“I’ll be all right,” she said. “I’m not looking forward to the next hour, though.”
The judge said, “My son and his wife are on their way over here, and Natalie is going to tell them the truth. We’re going to clear the air, once and for all.”
There was a knock on the door, and the bailiff stuck his head in. “I’m sorry to interrupt, Judge, but he’s here.”
She nodded, and Lenny stepped aside, allowing a young man inside the cramped quarters. The second he was there, he rushed to Natalie and embraced her. “Are you okay?” he asked gently.
“I’m fine,” she said. “What are you doing here, Jarod?”
“I called him,” the judge said. “It’s high time that there are no more secrets in this family.”
“But I’m not a part of your family,” Jarod said. “Your son has made that clear time and time again.”
“Young man, my granddaughter is carrying your child,” the judge said. “That makes you family.”
It was time for us to leave. “If you’ll excuse us, we’ll be on our way,” I said as I stood.
The judge said, “Natalie, Jarod, would you both mind waiting out in the hallway for one minute?”
Natalie looked terrified by the prospect. “What if Mom and Dad come?”
“Don’t worry. Lenny will be right there to keep the peace,” she said.
They agreed, and after the young couple was gone, the judge said, “I trust this ends my family’s involvement in your investigation.”
“I said that it did,” Moose replied. “You know that you can trust my word.”
“I do,” she said, and as she said it, her calm demeanor slipped for just a second, and I could see the woman beneath it. “This is a trying day for all of us.”
“I know that you’ll handle it like a pro, Holly,” Moose said softly, and she didn’t even chastise him for not calling her judge.
She nodded her thanks to us both, and then Moose and I left.
We said our good-byes to Natalie and Jarod in the hallway, and then Moose and I made our way back out to his truck.
“I wouldn’t want to be any of them in an hour,” Moose said. “There’s no one that it’s going to be easy on.”
“Life can be sticky sometimes,” I said, “but with the judge there, I think they’ll all be okay. She’s a tower of strength, isn’t she?”
“She can be, but sometimes I worry about her,” Moose said.
I was glad Martha hadn’t heard him say that. “Why?” I asked softly.
“Never mind,” my grandfather said, dismissing my question. “Now that we’ve settled that, we can get back to our investigation.”
“That sounds good to me, but where do we go from here?” I asked. “We’ve spoken with all of our suspects today, and there’s nothing new that we can ask any of them until we get more information.”
“Then I suppose the only thing that’s left is to head back to the diner,” Moose said. “Don’t worry. I’m sure something will turn up.”
It did, too, before we even got back to The Charming Moose.
As we were driving, a police siren went off behind us, and I looked back to see flashing lights following us closely.
It appeared that Sheriff Croft had grown tired of waiting for us to report back to him.
“Don’t tell me you’re going to give me a ticket for something,” Moose said as the sheriff walked up to his side of the truck. “I know for a fact that I wasn’t speeding, and I just had this thing inspected at the garage. Wayne gave it a clean bill of health.”
“This isn’t about your truck,” Sheriff Croft said. “I didn’t know how else to get your attention. I tried flashing my headlights, but you ignored me.”
“I thought you were just one more lunatic trying to run me off the road,” my grandfather said.
“You might not be that far off,” the sheriff said. “We need to talk.”
“Why don’t you follow us back to the diner?” Moose suggested. “We’ll all be a lot more comfortable there, I can promise you that.”
“Sounds good,” the sheriff said. “I could use some pie.”
“I’m always in the mood for that,” I said. “We’ll see you there.”
As he walked back to his squad car, I asked Moose, “Did he seem to be in a particularly good mood just now?”
“For him, he was practically doing cartwheels,” Moose said.
“I wonder what’s up?”
“I’m trying to figure out if he’s even going to tell us,” my grandfather said. “Maybe there’s been a break in the case.”
“If there has been, it’s not because of us. This thing started out so promising when we found all of those clues at once, but we’ve just hit dead end after dead end ever since.”
“You know as well as I do that there’s no predicting how these things are going to work out,” Moose said. “Maybe this is going to be one of those times where the sheriff beats us to the punch and solves the case without us.”
“To be honest with you, I wouldn’t even mind that happening,” I said. “I’m willing to bet that there are several folks around town who think that we killed Barry to stop his lawsuit against us, and they aren’t going to change their minds until the real killer is found.”
“Victoria, I taught you long ago that you can’t worry about what other people think of you.”
“That might work in the schoolyard, but in real life, things don’t always work out that way,” I said. “If our reputation is tainted by this, we might lose some of our customers forever.”
“If they feel that way, then I say good riddance.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re not responsible for the bottom line anymore,” I reminded him. “If you wanted to, you could move up to your fishing cabin and forget all about The Charming Moose.”
“I think your grandmother might have something to say about that,” Moose said.
“Who knows?” I asked with a grin as we pulled up at the diner. “She might even encourage it.”
“You talk that way now, but you’d miss me if I were gone,” he said lightly.
I suddenly realized how I must have sounded. I cherished my grandfather, and while I knew in my heart that I wouldn’t have him with me forever, the prospect of ever losing him was one that sobered me instantly. “You know that I love you, right?” I asked before we got out.
He looked startled by my confession, but in an equally somber voice, he answered, “I love you, too.”
Hearing it made me suddenly feel better.
“Then let’s not keep Sheriff Croft waiting,” I said with a smile.
“We can’t have that, can we?” Moose asked with a
grin of his own. “How’s he ever going to solve this case without us?”
“I don’t know that we’ve helped all that much so far,” I said.
“Hey, we found the original clues in this case, remember? We may not have been able to do much since then, but without that secret drawer discovery, we’d all be flailing around in the dark.”
“That’s true enough,” I answered. “Maybe it’s time for the sheriff to add something to the investigation.”
Moose winked at me. “Why don’t you tell him that once we get inside?”
“I don’t think so,” I replied, wondering what we were about to hear.
Chapter 15
“Moose, why don’t you join the sheriff while I get us all coffee and pie,” I told my grandfather as we walked into the diner. Sheriff Croft had already chosen a booth away from the few other diners we had at the moment, and I signaled to Jenny that I’d take care of them myself. Moose and I had burned most of the afternoon dealing with Natalie Dixon and her own particular set of woes, and Ellen had left long ago.
I popped into the kitchen for the pie and gave my husband a quick kiss as he worked the grill.
“Hey there, stranger,” Greg said. “You’ve been busy today, haven’t you?”
“It seems like it, but we haven’t gotten much accomplished,” I said as I collected three slices of Greg’s Dutch apple pie and put them on a tray.
“Well, at least there’s pie,” Greg said. “Who’s the third piece for?”
“The sheriff wants to talk to us,” I said. “He’s already out there with Moose.”
Greg flipped a towel at me and grinned. “Well then, you’d better get out there. You don’t want to miss anything.”
“You’re right,” I said, “as much as I’d love to hang out back here with you.”
“Don’t worry about that. There will be plenty of time for us later,” he said. “Now shoo.”
I did as he said, grabbing a coffee pot on the way.
The two men were already in earnest conversation, and as I filled three cups with coffee, I asked, “Did you two get started without me?”
“Just some of the preliminaries,” Moose said.
“Well, isn’t that a shame,” I said as I slid a piece of pie in front of each man, holding one out for myself.
“Why’s that?” the sheriff asked.
“You’re just going to have to start all over again now that I’m here,” I said with my brightest smile.
“Victoria, it was nothing, really,” Moose said.
“Then it shouldn’t be that hard catching me up,” I replied.
Moose looked at the sheriff and shrugged. “I told you we should have waited.”
Sheriff Croft sighed once, and then he said, “Okay, to recap, here’s where we are so far. After your grandfather brought me up to date on what you two have uncovered, I was just about to tell Moose that we’ve been able to eliminate two of our mutual suspects.”
“Two? How did you manage that?” I asked.
“Well, I’m the first to admit that it doesn’t hurt having official status investigating, plus, our resources are much broader than yours. You shouldn’t be discouraged by what we’ve uncovered.”
I smiled at him. “Discouraged? You misunderstood my reaction. I’m elated that we’re going to be able to strike two names off of our list. Who have you eliminated so far?”
The sheriff lowered his voice, and then he said, “This is just between the three of us, agreed?”
“We promise,” Moose said.
I echoed the sentiment.
“Okay then. Cliff Pearson is off the hook, unless he paid someone else to torch the bakery, which I find highly doubtful.”
Drat. He was one of my favorite suspects. “How can you be sure?” I asked him.
“Evidently, at the exact time that the bakery was being torched, Cliff was being tailed in Charlotte by the police force there. It seems that he has been branching out from our area in an attempt to hit the big leagues, and he’s come to the attention of the Charlotte Police Department.”
“Are they sure it was him?”
“It’s a positive ID,” the sheriff said. “I’m fully confident in it.”
“Like you said, though, he still could have paid someone to do it for him,” Moose said.
“That’s possible, but doubtful. Evidently Cliff prides himself on being a hands-on criminal. He’s even broken a few legs of delinquent clients himself.”
“Who else have you been able to mark off your list?” I asked him.
“Susan Proctor was just getting back from a business trip when Barry was murdered,” he said.
“She could have come back here earlier to do it,” I suggested.
“Not from Seattle. Her plane landed at Charlotte Douglas Airport ten minutes before the fire started, and it’s an hour and a half drive from there to here. We got confirmation that she was on that exact flight.”
“Why didn’t she tell us that earlier and save us all a lot of trouble?” I asked.
“Evidently the meeting was a job interview, and she didn’t want anyone to know that she was looking for something else. That woman was more afraid of losing her current job until she secured a new one than she was in clearing her name of murder.”
I remembered the fire she’d been burning when Moose and I had visited her, and how certain I’d been that she was covering up the smell of smoke on her from something more nefarious.
“You look disappointed now, Victoria,” the sheriff said.
“I kind of had my hopes pinned on one of those two,” I admitted. “Cliff made sense because of his background, and Susan was burning things in a trash can by her house when we went to see her the afternoon of the fire. I was positive she was covering something up.”
“Well, it often works out that way. We don’t usually get our killers wrapped up in nice little packages,” Sheriff Croft said.
“Then that leaves us with three amateurs,” Moose said. “Unfortunately, they each have their own motives for murder.”
“It’s awfully cold blooded, killing Barry and then starting a fire to hide what they’d done,” I said.
“Who knows if that’s why it even happened? The entire thing could have been done out of sheer panic,” the sheriff said. He was about to add something to his comment when his radio went off. After a whispered conversation, he said, “I’ve got to go. Somebody just broke into the mayor’s storage shed, and he’s ready to mobilize the National Guard.”
“Can he do that?” I asked.
“Not a chance, but I’ve got to get over there before he tries.”
After the sheriff was gone, I turned to my grandfather. “He just took away my favorite two suspects.”
“I know. I liked them both myself.”
“So now we have Barry’s brother, his old girlfriend, and a man who wanted to buy his property at any cost. The bad thing is, any one of them could have done it.”
“Then we need to dig a little deeper and find out which one it was,” Moose said.
“I’m not disagreeing with you. I just don’t know how to go about it.”
My grandfather glanced at the clock. “We don’t have a lot of time left this evening anyway. Why don’t we both sleep on it and compare notes again in this morning? We’re not going to be able to solve this case tonight; that’s for sure.”
“I wish I could argue with you, but I’m fresh out of ideas. Go ahead and take Martha home. She deserves a break after the day she’s had, and I’ll take over here.”
“That sounds like a plan,” Moose said as he stood. “Don’t worry. Something will come to us.”
“I hope you’re right,” I said.
After my grandparents were gone, I told Jenny she could take off early.
“Are you sure?” she asked even as she headed for the door.
“Positive,” I said with a laugh, and then she was gone.
After I topped off a few teas and coffees, I ducked into the kitchen fo
r a second. “I sent Jenny and Martha home. It’s just the two of us now.”
Greg grinned at me. “We only have ten minutes left that we’re going to be open. I think we can handle it. Should I make us something to eat?”
“That would be glorious. Let me throw the last few diners out, and we can start now.”
He laughed. “I’m not going to tell you how to run your business, but I can wait ten minutes if you can manage it.”
“I know in my heart that you’re right,” I answered with an exaggerated sigh. “I just don’t have to like it. Ten minutes it is.”
“Don’t worry, it will fly by.”
It didn’t, but I wasn’t about to hold that against my husband. Finally, after what felt like forever, I was about to lock the door behind our last customer when Cass Hightower came rushing up to the door.
“Are you closed yet?” he asked.
“Sorry, you just missed the cutoff,” I said. Cass was a huge gossip, a man notorious for ordering a cup of coffee and a piece of toast and making them last for hours while he regaled anyone who would listen with his latest lies and rumors.
Cass frowned, and then he suggested, “How about if I get it to go?”
I thought about it for a second, and I realized that I really didn’t want Cass adding any stories about us to his mix of tales. “It’s got to be Greg’s choice, but I’ll give it to you half-off if you take whatever he makes for you,” I said.
I suspected that Cass’s tightwad tendency would overrule his sense of taste, and I was right. “You’ve got yourself a deal,” he said.
Reluctantly, I let him in, and then I locked the door behind him. “Sit right here and wait for me,” I said, and Cass did as he was told.
When I came back into the kitchen, Greg said, “See? That wasn’t so bad.”
“You’re not finished yet,” I said. I explained the deal I’d made with Cass, and my husband grinned.
“I’ll make him a turkey sandwich. He hates turkey.”
“We don’t want to alienate him if we don’t have to,” I gently reminded my husband.
“I was just kidding,” Greg said. “I’ll fix him some chicken soup and make him a quick grilled cheese sandwich. When he orders more than toast, that’s almost always what he gets.”
A Burned Out Baker: Classic Diner Mystery #7 (The Classic Diner Mysteries) Page 14