Peanut Butter and Jelly Murder: A Donut Hole Cozy Mystery - Book 54

by Susan Gillard

  “Over fifty, I think,” Leila agreed.

  “I’m sure they can figure out this one quickly,” Eva said.

  “We want justice for that sweet little lady that sold us a vase,” Leila said.

  “So why didn’t you call us?” Heather repeated.

  “If you let me answer, I’d be happy to tell you,” Ryan said.

  “This had better be good,” said Amy.

  “I didn’t call you because there hasn’t been a murder,” Ryan said.

  “That might be good,” Amy said begrudgingly.

  “What do you mean?” Heather asked.

  “I mean that Amelia Seward was found dead this morning, but her death wasn’t considered a murder. It was ruled a suicide.”

  “Suicide?” said all the women in a unison of disbelief.

  “I take it you didn’t think that was possible?” Ryan asked.

  “She seemed so on top of things yesterday,” Heather said.

  “Her only problem seemed to be with heights,” Amy agreed.

  They exchanged looks with Eva and Leila. They also shrugged with confusion and disbelief.

  “She seemed rather happy,” Eva said.

  “You can’t always tell with these things,” Ryan said. “Some people can hide how they are really feeling, especially from strangers.”

  “This doesn’t seem right,” Heather said.

  “She sold us things,” Leila said. “We arranged to pick them up today. Why would she do that if she were thinking of killing herself?”

  “Maybe in the moments before she felt so lost that she didn’t think about it,” Ryan said. “Or it could have been part of her plan. Maybe she wanted to make sure that her body would be found, and so she made sure that people would come to her shop in the near future.”

  “So, she was found in her shop?” Heather asked.

  “Honey, this isn’t a murder case. And you knew the person who died. There’s no bad guy to catch here. I think hearing about this is just going to upset everybody,” Ryan said. “Maybe you should let this go.”

  “I can be a professional,” Heather said. “This seems wrong to me, so I want to hear all the details to make sure that there hasn’t been a mistake.”

  “The coroner ruled it a suicide,” Ryan said. “But I know there’s no talking you out of something once your mind is made up. What do you want to know?”

  “How did she die?” Heather asked.

  “And don’t say suicide,” Amy added.

  “She hung herself,” Ryan said.

  “Hung herself?” Heather asked.

  “Yes,” Ryan said. “She used some rope that appears to have been part of a display in the store.”

  “It was probably near that big swordfish statue,” Amy said. “I remember nautical rope there.”

  “She put the noose around her neck and jumped off the loft area in her shop. It killed her quickly.”

  “She might have been hanged,” Heather said. “But she was also murdered.”

  “How can you know that?” Ryan asked.

  “Aunt Amelia was deathly afraid of heights. She couldn’t climb up the ladder while we were there. There’s no way that she chose to kill herself by jumping off the second floor,” Heather said.

  Ryan offered, “But at that moment, she might not have been thinking clearly.”

  “If you were going to kill yourself, would you choose the scariest way possible for you?” Heather asked.

  “No way,” Amy said.

  “I’ve been having some nightmares about fire recently,” Eva said. Heather felt a pang of sorrow at this admission because it must have been the arson at her house that caused this fear. “I hate to admit it’s been frightening me. I wouldn’t choose a fire as a way to kill myself because I’m so scared of it. I just wouldn’t be able to start a blaze.”

  “I’d avoid sharks,” Leila said.

  “That does make some sense,” Ryan agreed.

  “And as the owner of an antiques store, I’m sure she’s come into contact with items that she could have used to kill herself in a way that didn’t involve heights,” Heather said. “Somebody murdered her and tried to cover up their crime.”

  “All right,” Ryan said. “You’ve convinced me. Let’s go to the crime scene. I’m calling you in. You’re on the case.”

  Chapter 6

  “It’s strange,” Amy said. “Aunt Amelia’s Antiques looks pretty much the same.”

  “Except there’s no more Aunt Amelia,” Heather said, frowning.

  Ryan had brought them to the antiques store. Heather and Amy were calling it the crime scene. Ryan was reserving his judgment, caught between the coroner’s finding and his sleuth wife’s instincts. However, Ryan’s partner Detective Hoskins was calling it a waste of time.

  “Why did we have to come back here?” Hoskins complained. “This case was already solved.”

  Heather took a deep breath. She often had to take deep breaths and count to ten (or sometimes one hundred if the occasion warranted) when dealing with Ryan’s partner. Hoskins wasn’t a bad person, but he wasn’t really a good cop. He could be lazy and liked to do the least amount of legwork possible. A bad habit of his was snacking at crime scenes. While Heather loved sweet treats as much as the next person, she didn’t think it was professional to chomp away on candy while searching for evidence at a murder scene.

  She turned to face him and saw that he had already started to unwrap a candy bar. He was turning to nougat to comfort him in his annoyance at having to repeat work. She was saved having to respond to his whining by Ryan’s reply.

  “We might have missed something,” Ryan said. “They met the victim and brought some new information to light that brings the idea of suicide into question.”

  “It wasn’t suicide,” Heather said.

  “You know what her hunches are like,” Ryan said with a note of pride in his voice.

  “I do,” Hoskins said. “And she’s normally right.”

  Heather did a double take. By Hoskins’s standards that was a huge compliment. He didn’t sound exactly happy as he said it through a mouth full of chocolate, but it did sound sincere.

  Heather gave him a smile and then set to proving him right that she was right. She needed to find some proof that someone had killed Amelia Seward.

  “Where was she found?” Heather asked.

  Ryan pointed to a section of the loft railing. Now that her attention was directed to it, Heather could see some marks in the wood.

  “The rope was attached to the railing, and we believed that she jumped over it and hung herself,” Ryan said.

  “I still believe that’s what happened,” Hoskins said.

  “She was too afraid of heights to climb the ladder when we were here,” Heather said. “I don’t see how she could have managed to get herself up there.”

  “Unless she was forced,” Amy agreed.

  Heather looked around and saw the red floral vase was still sitting on the counter. “Look,” Heather said. “This vase was being kept upstairs, and she didn’t return it to its proper place.”

  “What does that mean?” Detective Hoskins asked.

  “Nothing on its own,” Heather admitted. “I think I have to go up there.”

  Heather and Ryan took turns climbing up the ladder to reach the loft. Hoskins decided to stay firmly on the ground, so Amy decided to look around on the ground level for clues too.

  “Does anything look out of place?” Ryan asked.

  “No,” Heather said, slowly. “This looks exactly like it did yesterday. But that seems suspicious to me too.”

  “Come look at this!” Amy yelled.

  Ryan and Heather ran to the gap in the railing to reach the ladder. Upon reaching it at the same time, they both offered that the other one should climb down first. Eventually, they both made way down the rungs and then picked up their pace again to reach Amy.

  Amy was pointing to the butter churn that she had been playing with the day before. It was in the
same spot that they had found it last time, but now it was sporting a giant crack down its side.

  “Look at the crack on this thing,” Amy said.

  “So?” said Hoskins. “This is an antique store. Some things are bound to be broken.”

  “But it wasn’t yesterday,” said Heather.

  Ryan consulted his notes. “Her glasses were found over here,” he said. “We thought they could have fallen during her jump and the momentum pushed them over here.”

  “I think,” Heather said. “That the killer killed Aunt Amelia over here. He broke the butter churn, and the victim lost her glasses during the struggle. Then he hung her body from the railing to cover up what had happened.”

  “So, it was a stranger,” Amy suggested. “Somebody who didn’t know she was afraid of heights.”

  “Or someone who was banking on the police not considering her fear of heights to be enough evidence to dispute a ruling of suicide,” Ryan said.

  “Luckily, you have us around,” Amy said.

  “The nautical rope over there looks like it has been cut,” Heather said. “That was what was used for the noose?”

  “Yes,” Ryan said.

  “That display is right in the killer’s line of sight from where this struggle happened,” Amy said.

  “Look, we’re getting ahead of ourselves,” Hoskins said. “The coroner had said it was suicide.”

  “I contacted him to review his findings based on the new information,” Ryan said. “He said he would get back to me soon.”

  Heather went to examine the remnants of the thick rope with Amy and then Ryan’s phone rang.

  “Perfect timing,” Ryan said. He answered his phone, and they could tell that he was talking to the coroner. However, based on responses, they weren’t sure what the new verdict was. They waited anxiously to hear validation of what they suspected.

  “The coroner reexamined the case,” Ryan said. “That rope that was used is so large that its marks cover up any other marks that might have been there. However, he agrees that this could have been murder. It is possible that she was strangled with strong hands evenly dispersing their weight, and then the rope obstructed those markings with its own. Or the killer could have strangled her with the rope here. But based on the angle, the killer had to be taller than she was.”

  “That’s not difficult,” Heather said. “She was a small woman.”

  “If it’s based on that, it’s going to be a long suspect list,” said Amy.

  “But it is time to start a suspect list,” Ryan said. “This is officially a murder investigation now.”

  Chapter 7

  “After such a close call, I think I need a comfort snack,” Amy said.

  “Close call?” Heather asked.

  “They almost ruled it a suicide,” said Amy. “There was almost no justice for Aunt Amelia.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Heather said. “But after being caught in a treehouse with a killer, being poisoned with a laced donut, and having a mechanic chase me with a crowbar, I think I have a different definition of a close call.”

  “Someone almost got away with murder,” Amy said.

  Heather nodded solemnly. “True,” she said. “And I think we do deserve some donuts for our work so far.”

  She handed Amy a Peanut Butter and Jelly Donut, and they both had a snack. They were waiting in Heather’s car outside of Aunt Amelia’s Antiques while the forensic team finished up inside.

  “I bet this donut would go great with a glass of milk,” Amy said.

  “I think so,” Heather agreed. “But I don’t keep any milk in my car on a hot Texas summer day.”

  “Probably a smart plan,” Amy said. “Do you think they’ll find anything inside?”

  “I hope so,” Heather said. “But the killer did look like he knew what he was doing. Everything looked like it was back in its proper spot. And the scene was convincingly set for a suicide.”

  “Maybe it was a professional,” Amy said.

  “An assassin to kill Aunt Amelia?” asked Heather.

  “Maybe her store contained an item that a secret ninja society wanted back, and so they snuck in and killed her.”

  “I could definitely get behind the idea of a robbery,” Heather said. “Her store contained so many items. There could be something that someone was willing to kill for.”

  “And Aunt Amelia interrupted the thief,” Amy agreed.

  They were both considering the robbery angle when Ryan appeared and waved them over. Forensics was finished collecting evidence samples, and they were allowed back in the building. They quickly finished their donuts and hurried over to Ryan.

  “Did they find any clues?” Heather asked.

  “They collected a lot of fingerprints,” Ryan said. “But it’s a shop, so that’s to be expected. There might be too many of them to be useful. But they’re going to start trying to match them. They’ll eliminate Amelia Seward’s prints from what they found first.”

  “Were there any on the butter churn?” asked Heather.

  “It looked like it had been wiped clean,” Ryan said. “But we did find one partial print. We might be able to match it.”

  “Anything by the railing or rope?”

  “I’m afraid not,” said Ryan.

  “What else did they find?” Amy asked.

  “A lot of cluttered potential evidence. There have been a lot of customers who came into the store. It’s going to be difficult to separate what is related to the crime and what came from regular business.”

  “Based on the type of store it is, we were considering whether a robbery had occurred,” said Heather. “Is there any evidence that that could have happened?”

  “Amelia Seward did have an alarm system. Unfortunately, it’s one that’s connected to the power system. If the power went out so did the system. And it looks like the power did go out for about a half hour last night around ten p.m. That fits into the coroner’s time of death,” said Ryan.

  “You believe the power was cut intentionally?”

  “Based on the circumstances, yes,” said Ryan. “But before you ask, there wasn’t much forensic evidence found by the breaker box. I think the lock on it was picked open but by a common tool. That’s not much to go on.”

  “If we can find out what was stolen, that could help us come up with a list of suspects who had a motive,” said Heather.

  “Right,” Amy agreed. “Whoever wanted the item enough to kill for it committed the crime.”

  Chapter 8

  “Will this never end?” Amy groaned.

  She and Heather had been conducting an inventory of Aunt Amelia’s antiques in her store to see what was missing. The records she kept in her office were impeccable, but the amount of items in her store was overpowering.

  Heather had tracked down all fifty-two sugar bowls that were for sale in the shop, while Amy had been deciphering the difference between a dresser and a wardrobe. Ryan and some uniformed officers were helping with this massive undertaking.

  Unfortunately, everything in Amelia Seward’s lists could be accounted for so far. Nothing appeared to be stolen. Everyone was starting to get cranky. Conducting the inventory was both monotonous and precise. There were often markers for authenticity that needed to be checked. They had spent hours working on this, but felt like were not accomplishing anything because they could not find anything missing.

  Amy checked the desk that she had bought and never picked up off of her checklist with a sigh. After all the evidence had been processed, she would be able to take the desk home, but that was not what made her sigh. They had not expected a murder case to drop into their laps when they tried to finish decorating Eva and Leila’s home, and now a nice lady was dead.

  “All the autographs are accounted for,” Hoskins grumbled to Ryan.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Of course, I’m sure,” Hoskins snapped. “I checked against her list. Everything is there. A. Wolfsmore on a title page is there. The film sta
rs here are—“

  “Okay, okay,” Ryan said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Look, I think we’re all getting a little tired and hungry,” Heather said. “Hoskins, why don’t you stop by Donut Delights and bring back some donuts for everybody? I’ll call the staff and tell them you’ll pick them up. The donuts are on me.”