by Tonya Kappes
“Bankrupting?” He scoffed. “That’s just the tip of the iceberg. He gave our family so much stress, I started drinking more and more. I had a wife and a kid on the way. My parents lost everything and had to move in with us.” Tears filled his eyes. His nostrils flared. “I wasn’t myself. My parents watched as my marriage drowned because of my drinking. My father said it was his fault for contacting that so-called food critic and just when I thought it couldn’t get worse, my dad hung himself.”
The pain was so vivid in his mind, his body trembled as he fidgeted with the hammer.
“The judge will hear all of this and I’m sure there will be leniency,” I sputtered. “You had all the right in the world to do what you did,” I lied. It was the only little bit of hope I had that I could get out of here without a hammer to my head.
“You think I believe you?” He cackled, taking a step forward. “You had me. You really had me.”
I took a step back.
“I really didn’t know that you knew until you looked at the floor. Then I realized you knew the floor was down first. Rookie mistake,” he pointed out.
“Not to mention the frozen food container in the garbage. I did find part of one at Ben’s. At first I thought it was Chef Mundy’s, but no real chef would ever buy, cook, or eat a frozen dinner.” The way I saw it, I might as well throw it all out there so if they found my dead body, I’d have taped the conversation, hoping he wouldn’t get away with it. “You bought a frozen pot pie, put the poison in it and made Frank believe it was Mama’s pot pie. He bought into it and thought mama sent him the sample the night before the actual tasting. He ate it. He died, making mama look like the killer.”
“If you can get into the family room, Finn has a gun in the drawer of the side table of the couch.” Poppa disappeared.
I started to slowly edge my way around the kitchen.
“The missing permit signs were also a clue that maybe Danny Shane was right about you not having the right credentials. But the big aha moment…” I slipped around the door jamb and ran down the hall to get to the gun as fast as I could.
“Stop!” He was screaming as his footsteps thundered behind me. “I said stop right there or I’ll kill you right here!”
“No! Not if I get you first!” I jerked the drawer open. Nothing. “I thought you said the side table!” I screamed at Poppa’s shadow. He stood in front of the window and the afternoon sun was streaming in.
“The other side table.” Poppa pointed.
The heavy hand of Riley grabbed me and shoved me. As I was going down, I looked over at Poppa. He disappeared, leaving me a good view of the outside world. Mrs. Brown was standing in Finn’s yard with her mouth dropped open.
“I know I can’t kill you in Finn’s house. I’m going to have to take you to the country.” Riley was nodding as he played out the scenario in his head. He shook the butt end of the hammer at me as he gripped the head. “You see, now that Mundy is dead and because of the note I planted, Finn thinks the case is closed. He just left before you got here to do the final report. I kinda like it here. Now that my revenge has been taken care of, I’m ready to live my life as Riley Titan.”
He grabbed me by the arm. I winced.
“I can’t live that life with you around.” He flung me in front of him. “Now we’re going to go for a little ride.”
If I could keep him here for a few more minutes, I knew Mrs. Brown would get me help. At least I prayed she’d get me help.
“Your belt.” I huffed and puffed the words out of my mouth, pointing to his belt. “I recalled reading about your family in an article. Before you kill me, I really need to know how you pulled it off.”
“That.” He laughed and put the handle of the hammer in his back pocket.
He took off his plaid shirt and ripped it apart in long strips that I could only imagine he was going to use to tie my hands. “I’ve been waiting for an opportunity for Frank to visit a small town to make my move. After I’d gotten my job with Ben, I listened very carefully and found out where Frank was staying. The media didn’t report that. I’d only planned to kill him, but your mama, god bless her heart.” He put his hand flat on his chest. “That’s what you say around here, right?” He winked.
“Right,” I answered sarcastically.
“I had no idea I was going to use her as the scapegoat, but it was perfect. Then Chef Mundy was a bonus. He said he wanted to figure out how to make your mama’s pot pie. He loved to figure out secret ingredients. I saw him at the grocery store picking up all sorts of stuff. According to that sweet Malina, who is desperate for a man, Mundy had been cooking the whole time he was there using their oven. It was a perfect set up.” He ran his hands through his hair before he gestured me to go closer to the door. “I saw your mama take a casserole dish, so I took a dish from the same pattern and put one of the frozen pot pie dinners in it. After I put a little sodium fluoroacetate in it, I left it on the counter with a note for Malina. Of course I didn’t put a name on it. Just that it had to be delivered to Frank Von Lee.”
He jerked my arm around and grabbed me by my wrists.
“Now, enough talk. I have to get you out of here before Deputy Vincent gets home,” he said.
My heart hammered in my chest as I felt the fabric slide along my wrists. It was times like these that the instructors at the academy warned you that you needed to perform the take out moves as easy as you breathed. I wasn’t fond of that class and I didn’t memorize all the moves, though now I really wished I had.
“Hold it right there, buddy,” Betty Murphy threatened Riley Titan, Tooke, or whoever he was, my shotgun pointed straight at him. “Don’t make me waste a bullet on you.”
Mrs. Brown stood behind her with a wooden rolling pin lifted in the air. “I knew he was too cute for a reason. Makes up for his evil insides.”
He took his hands off me and put them in the air. I got up and inched around him, taking the gun from Betty.
“How did you know I was here?” I asked Betty.
“Mrs. Brown called me and I knew I could get here quicker than Finn.” Betty and Mrs. Brown high-fived. “He’d made a detour to grab a bite to eat before he came to finish up the paperwork on Mundy.”
“Betty, can you run down to my Jeep and grab my police bag?” I asked.
Without a word, she high-tailed it out of Finn’s house.
I kept the shotgun on Tooke and pulled my phone out with the other hand. I turned off the voice recording and noticed the time. I was going to be a little late to finish my cake. I messaged the recordings to Finn’s phone, and then I called the reserve office telling them to send someone to Free Row and haul the real murderer off to jail.
“You got this until the reserve officer comes?” I asked Betty after I’d securely cuffed Tooke by the hands and feet and noticed the time.
“You’re leaving?” she asked with fear in her eyes and took the shotgun when I handed it to her.
“Yep. I have a cake to finish baking and I need to check on it.” I brushed my hands together and took one last look at Tooke all cuffed up.
“About that.” Mrs. Brown’s voice faded away. “There was smoke coming from the backyard and I went over to make sure everything was okay. Your cake.”
“Yeah.” I lifted my head to listen.
“It’s burnt.” Mrs. Brown’s nose crunched up. “To a crisp. I figured you were down here so that’s when I came down to get you. I saw through the window what was going on.”
Thank God for nosy neighbors.
Chapter Thirty
“It’s not an original Kenni Lowry cake, but I guess it’ll do.” I forked a big piece of Ben’s hot fudge brownie pie with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream and fed it across the table to Finn.
“I still can’t believe you’re taking a cake-baking class.” He smiled and my heart beat double time. He got up from his side of the
table and came over to sit in the seat next to me. He slipped his arm around my shoulder, picked up a spoon, and fed me a bite.
“It was for the good of the badge.” I winked, tilting my head up to kiss him. I dropped my chin on his shoulder with a sigh of pleasure. “It feels so good to have Frank’s death behind us.”
“I knew something was wrong when I read Mundy’s letter. It didn’t seem authentic. I’d even gone back to Ben’s on my way back to the office to finish the report and he told me that he never discussed finances with Mundy. He mentioned it in passing to Riley after he and Danny Shane had his blow up. That’s what made me head on out to Danny’s and talk to him. He told me that he told you Riley didn’t have the proper certification. Things started to fit together after that.” He scooped another big bite with a lot of fudge. He held it up to my lips and I happily accepted it. “I called dispatch to let Betty know I was going to head home to confront Riley about his work and she didn’t answer. I also wanted her to read the rest of the lab results to me. I took it upon myself to call the lab and he told me that Mundy’s prints weren’t on anything in Frank’s evidence. He said all the blood from Mundy’s room and knives you’d taken in as evidence only had chicken and his own blood on it. He pulled one print from Frank’s room. He ran the print in the database and it belonged to Riley Tooke.”
“He had a record?” That was new to me.
“He’d been picked up for shoplifting as a kid and his print was still on file.” He took his arm from around me. He leaned against the table and rested on his forearms. “I made a quick call to the reserves and they pulled his name and photo. It was Riley Titan.”
“He was smart. He positioned himself everywhere Frank would be and Mundy would be. Even staying in the same inn as both.” I couldn’t believe that it took us this long to solve it, but Riley was smart.
The bell over the diner door dinged. For a second it dawned on me that maybe it was Poppa with his real ding and not him mocking me. When I turned around, I saw it was the next best thing.
Mama.
“You ain’t gonna believe this.” She waved a magazine in the air. “I’m famous!”
She smacked the magazine in front of me and Finn opened to the page she wanted me to see. She jabbed it.
“I’m in here.” She pointed to one of the photos that Edna had taken of her in the diner that morning before all this mess had happened.
“That’s fantastic.” I stood up and gave my mama a huge hug.
“Is that it?” Ben walked over and pointed to the magazine.
“It is.” Mama took out a piece of paper from her purse. “And I want you to have this.”
“What is it?” He opened it. “It’s a check.” His jaw dropped.
“That should be enough to buy this old run-down building.” Mama hugged Ben. “I told the magazine that I knew they were going to make a big documentary on Frank’s life and death and if they wanted my interview they had to pay me. Pay me good.” She nodded.
“Mama, you never cease to amaze me.” I drew her into a big bear hug. Ben grabbed both of us.
“Now get off me. I’ve got to show people how famous I am.” She pulled away from us and darted over to a group of the Sweet Adelines, bragging on herself.
Ben rushed back to the counter where Jolee was helping him. By the look on her face, they were happy he’d be able to keep the diner.
“Are you okay?” Finn asked.
I looked around the diner. Mama was walking around showing the full diner her famous spread. I could see Jolee and Ben joking around with each other from behind the counter. And a warm arm had slipped around me.
“I’m more than okay.” I looked up at my devilishly handsome boyfriend. “Life is just about perfect. Everyone I love is happy and healthy.”
“Are you saying you love me?” Finn whispered in my ear. My body tingled.
I gulped. My palms started to sweat and my mouth suddenly went dry.
“Because I love you.”
His words were music to my ears.
About the Author
Tonya has written over 20 novels and 4 novellas, all of which have graced numerous bestseller lists including USA Today. Best known for stories charged with emotion and humor, and filled with flawed characters, her novels have garnered reader praise and glowing critical reviews. She lives with her husband, three teenage boys, two very spoiled schnauzers and one ex-stray cat in Kentucky.
The Kenni Lowry Mystery Series
by Tonya Kappes
FIXIN’ TO DIE (#1)
SOUTHERN FRIED (#2)
AX TO GRIND (#3)
SIX FEET UNDER (#4)
DEAD AS A DOORNAIL (#5)
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