“Whoever you are, this is the police. Come out with your hands up.”
Joe’s warning didn’t yield the results that he wanted. I heard another bark coming from the back of the house, which was followed by the loud thud of a door slamming. Joe sprang into action, darting through my foyer. As he ran down the hallway and into my kitchen, he saw Buster barking at the back door.
When Joe peered through the window that took up the top half of the back door, he faintly saw the silhouette of a shadowy figure dressed in all black, booking it as fast as they could away from my house.
Joe gave chase, hoping to catch up with the figure. Unfortunately, they had a significant head start. By the time Joe had opened my door and bolted into the backyard, the figure had already gone entirely through the neighbor’s yard and was approaching the front of their house.
Joe didn’t give up hope. He ran as fast as he could after the figure. Meanwhile, I stayed behind and checked to make sure Buster wasn’t injured.
Chapter Eighteen
Luckily, Buster was just fine. His emotions were rattled, but physically, he was no worse for wear. That was such a relief to me. We’d been through so much together. I didn’t even want to think about what I’d do without him in my life.
A chilling thought then entered my brain. What if I didn’t own a dog at all? I would have said goodbye to Joe, gone inside, and would have had no warning that the shadowy figure was waiting for me. If it wasn’t for my little furry best friend, there was a good chance that I might not even be alive right now.
A shiver went down my spine as that grisly thought entered my brain. I gave Buster some pets as well as a few treats for being such a good boy.
“Thank you, honey. I owe you more than I even know.”
He panted as he wagged his tail. To him, he was just doing his job as a good dog. He’d protected his home, and his owner, just like dogs always did.
I thanked God that he wasn’t hurt in the process. He could have been seriously injured or even killed. As I rubbed his fur, there wasn’t a scratch on him.
***
While there was good news about my dog, I couldn’t say the same for Joe. My brother was a lot of things, but a lightning-fast sprinter was not one of them. Add to the fact that the shadowy figure had a significant head start, and it was no surprise that Joe returned five minutes later, huffing and puffing, completely empty-handed.
“Do I even have to ask how it went?” I said.
When Joe finally caught his breath, he broke the bad news.
“I did everything I could, but they just had too much of a head start on me.” Joe put his hands on his hips, his pulse still racing. “I’m afraid they got away.”
He looked at me, expecting me to be more upset upon hearing the news. When I wasn’t, he crinkled his nose.
“Don’t worry. They won’t get far.” I said.
He took a cue from my confident answer and responded with resolve in his voice. “That’s right. We’ll track them down.”
When I looked into Joe’s eyes, I could tell that he thought I was just trying to stay optimistic to keep our spirits from sagging. That was anything but the case.
I tried to clear up whatever confusion he had but did not succeed. “Of course we will. And I know just where.”
He furrowed his brow, still in the dark. “What do you mean?”
While Joe had been out back trying to chase down the shadowy figure, I took a look around my kitchen to see if the figure had left anything behind in their haste to get away. That’s when I’d found something. In the skirmish with my dog, the figure had dropped something.
I picked it up from the ground with a tissue to keep from compromising any fingerprints that may or may not be on it, then held it up for Joe. What was it? None other than a plastic employee key card that had a very recognizable restaurant logo on the front of it. This was the key to everything. The break we’d been looking all day for.
Suddenly, it became all-too-clear who the killer was, and it was time to bring them to justice.
Chapter Nineteen
Joe brought the key card back to the crime lab to get it run for fingerprints. As expected, the lab was able to pull prints from the card that incriminated the exact suspect that I had in mind. From there, a police deputy detained Steven Zell and brought him into the interrogation room at the police station for Joe and me to question him.
Steven was feisty and confrontational, a far cry from the subdued, robotic tone he’d given us at his bistro previously. “I don’t know what the big idea is.”
“Murder is the big idea,” Joe replied.
“I already answered your questions,” Steven argued.
Joe corrected him. “You mean, you already lied to us.”
Steven folded his arms. “I don’t have to talk to you.”
“Fine. Let us do the talking,” I said.
“I’m not saying anything else without a lawyer present,” Steven replied.
Joe put an evidence bag with the key card inside it on the table in front of Steven.
“Fair enough. But what good is a lawyer going to do for you when we have this?” Joe asked.
Steven’s eyes opened wide.
“This was found in my house,” I said. “I sure didn’t put it there. It seems you left it behind when you broke into my house. I’ll bet it fell out of your pocket when you were busy running away from my dog.”
Even though Steven had just gotten done telling us that he wasn’t going to say another word without a lawyer present, he looked ready to go back on his word.
Joe could sense an argument coming on, so as Steven opened his mouth to reply, my brother gave him a word of warning.
“Don’t try to deny it. The lab already ran the card and your prints are all over it.”
“That puts you on the hook for breaking and entering, but it’s the murder charge that will put you in jail for the rest of your life,” I said.
“You’ve got this all wrong,” Steven pleaded.
“Do we? So, let me get this straight. You just happened to break into my place last night for the thrill of it, not because you were worried that I was getting too close to cracking this case?” I asked.
Steven became tongue-tied.
The same could not be said for me. I had plenty more to say. “Let me tell you what I think happened. You killed Claude to get revenge for leaving that review that tanked your restaurant. Then, after we interviewed you yesterday, you could tell it would only be a matter of time before we discovered that you were the killer. So, you decided that your only course of action was to kill me too. When you were done with me, I’ll bet you had plans to murder my brother as well. Am I right?”
Steven averted his eyes. He couldn’t stand to make eye contact with me.
I prodded him again. “There’s nowhere to run now. You’ve been caught. It’s over. Just come clean.”
Finally, Steven looked up, his face wrestling with guilt. All the emotions that were absent when we first interviewed him were on full display now.
After a little hesitation, the truth spilled out of him. “Fine. I did it. I killed Claude, then I broke into your place to kill you, too. I thought I had it all figured out. Then again, I thought I had the restaurant business figured out, too. Everything was going just fine until Claude Giraud wrote that review. Suddenly, my whole life was turned upside down. After his review was published, my business immediately tanked. I tried hard to get the customers back. I introduced all-day happy hour, constant specials, and half-off appetizers. But none of it worked. No matter what I did, no matter how hard I tried, my bistro remained a ghost town.” He stopped and took a deep breath. “You know, people are wrong when they say that time heals all wounds. To me, as time went on, my hatred for Claude grew. It all came to a head when I got a letter from the bank the other day. I’d been behind on my payments, and the letter said if I didn’t pay up, they’d take my bistro. That was too much for me to take. I’d sunk every dime I had into
that place. Then, with one bad review, that food snob ruined everything that I’d spent years building up. That wasn’t right. Claude had taken everything from me, so in return, I took everything from him. It’s funny because he won his award in part for lacerating my place. I figured it was fitting that he was killed with his own award statuette.”
There it was, the truth, every nasty word of it. Joe cuffed Steven and dragged him off to a jail cell while I absorbed everything I’d just heard.
Chapter Twenty
What a tragic end. If there was any bright spot I could take away from all this, it was that at least justice would be served. With the killer behind bars, I could finally take a deep breath. What I really wanted to do more than anything was to catch up on my sleep. With my adrenaline wearing off from the case, exhaustion had caught up with me. I had my brother drop me off at home, where an unexpected visitor was waiting on my front step. Thankfully, it wasn’t someone who had a vendetta against me.
Instead, it was my sweet boyfriend, who had brought over a bouquet of flowers for me. As I took a gander at the violet tulips, I couldn’t help but comment how stunning they were.
“They are beautiful,” I said.
“Not as beautiful as you,” Daniel replied.
Only someone as kind as Daniel could make a line that cheesy sound sincere. I began blushing. It wasn’t the first time he’d told me I was beautiful, but it was one of those things I never tired of hearing.
My boyfriend continued. “I’m so glad you’re safe.”
I nodded. “Yeah. It could have turned out far worse.”
“It looks like someone was watching over you.”
I glanced up at the sky. “God always is.”
Daniel then leaned in and gave me a big hug. It felt so good to be in his arms.
“So, what are you going to do now?” he asked.
I didn’t have to think about that one long. “I was just planning on crashing.”
Daniel became deflated. “Oh.”
For some unknown reason, my answer had taken the wind out of his sails.
“Why? What’s the matter?”
“It’s just that in honor of you cracking another case, I thought I’d take you out for a congratulatory dinner.”
It was a nice sentiment. And, under other circumstances, I would have jumped at the offer. As things were, unfortunately, I had to decline.
“Are you kidding? After all the restaurant shenanigans I’ve dealt with in the last few days, I’m only going to be ordering delivery for a while.”
He chuckled. “Fair enough. Although, I could do you one better.”
“I’m all ears.”
“It turns out I’m not a half bad chef. How about a little home cooking?” Daniel said.
I smiled. “Now you’re talking.”
The End.
Murder of a Movie Producer
Prologue
Was my friend a killer? A shiver ran down my spine at the mere thought of something so horrifying. It couldn’t be true, could it? I’d known Sophie Paulson almost all of my life. We’d gone to school together. She was one of the oldest friends I had. She knew all of my secrets, and I thought I knew all of hers.
Had I been wrong? I didn’t know what to think. My emotions were raw. A jumble of thoughts fought for attention in my mind. I was so confused.
There were certain things that I believed I would never have to think about. Yet, ever since the accusation that my friend was a murderer had rolled off the police detective’s tongue, I couldn’t think about anything else. As unbelievable as it was, I was staring down the very real possibility that one of my oldest friends had killed someone.
At least, that’s what the authorities seemed to think. I was not nearly convinced. At the same time, I didn’t feel a hundred percent confident saying she was completely innocent, either.
A year ago, I would have sooner believed that Bigfoot was real, and that aliens were living amongst us before I would have entertained the ridiculous notion that someone like Sophie could have committed murder.
A lot had changed in the last year. Namely, Sophie’s personality. I had always known her as an optimist. She was the kind of woman who could see the bright side in any situation. She was a ray of positivity, even when the world spewed nothing but negativity at her. Those were the old days. Recently, I had seen a different side of Sophie. One that had given me serious pause.
There was an old saying about how no one was immune to change. I didn’t use to believe that. Now, I wasn’t so sure. Then again, I wasn’t really clear on anything anymore. I found myself asking how well I really know my friend. Like with the other questions I was grappling with, I had no answer to that. At least, not yet.
With all the confusion I was wrestling with, there was only one thing I was sure of—that my mind was a complete mess. What I needed more than anything was some time to sort things out. If I was given the chance, I knew I could make sense of this all. Unfortunately, the detective seemed to be in a hurry to put my friend behind bars for life. Unlike me, his mind was made up. Suddenly, the question became, would I be able to find out the truth before the detective locked up my friend and threw away the key?
Chapter One
One Year Earlier
I hated saying goodbye, especially to an old friend. In this case, parting ways was inevitable. Sophie Paulson had made her mind up. She was determined to leave Florida and to chase her acting dreams in California. I wished her luck. She’d definitely need it. Building a successful acting career was difficult at any age. But, seeing as how Sophie was on the wrong side of forty, her odds became infinitely worse.
That was one of the things in life that I had plenty of experience with. Before I had moved back to my home state of Florida and opened an animal shelter, I had been Victoria Sassy, the lead character on a television detective show. It had taken me years of toiling in obscurity before I had finally landed that role. Then, seven years into the show’s run, the program was canceled, and with it, my acting career floundered.
The network pretended the cancellation was due to the show not having stellar ratings, but the behind-the-scenes chatter that I heard was that Hollywood believed I was over the hill. To me, that was a crazy statement, considering I was just over forty years old.
The sad truth was that Hollywood wasn’t kind to middle-aged women. That’s why I worried about Sophie pulling up stakes in Florida to seek acting fame in California. At forty-three years of age, she was already older now than I had been when my acting career had flamed out. In addition, Sophie knew how my Hollywood story had ended. She was fully aware that Hollywood had chewed me up and spat me out. Still, despite my warnings, she was determined to give it a go anyway. God bless her heart.
“So, I guess this is it then,” I said.
It was an unexpectedly overcast day in Southeastern Florida. I only brought up the weather because after a long stretch of clear, sunny days, it was odd to see a patch of clouds obscure the sun just as my friend was leaving town. I sincerely hoped that was just a coincidence, and not a sign of bad things to come.
“There’s no easy way to do this, is there?” Sophie replied.
“There never is,” I said.
Sophie and I had both grown up in Hollywood, Florida, together. While I had also lived in California for the better part of two decades, this had always been Sophie’s home. Aside from a few scattered vacations, she’d spent her whole life here. I had always viewed her as a townie for life.
Clearly, I had been wrong. I had underestimated how much Sophie craved a career in acting. How much it meant to her to make it on the world’s biggest stage. And how she was tired of deferring her dreams.
While I had left Florida two decades before to follow my acting dreams, Sophie had remained behind to take care of her ailing mother. After her mother’s tragic recent passing due to complications of multiple sclerosis, Sophie realized how fleeting life could be and how precious every moment was. Sophie didn’t want to loo
k back one day and regret not trying to make her dreams come true.
“Keep your chin up. Everything will work out,” Sophie said.
With everything that was going on in her life, for her to be focusing on me and the fragile state of mind I was grappling with, was amazing. See, this was before I’d met my boyfriend, Daniel Jacobsen. Before I had fallen in love with him. It was back when I was reeling over the way my previous boyfriend had broken my heart. In those days, I worried that I’d turn into a hopeless spinster.
Sophie, meanwhile, was an eternal optimist. I had never met a bigger sweetie in my entire life. She was the kind of woman who always found a way to look on the bright side of things. That was even more remarkable, considering the tragedy she’d had to grapple with. Her mother’s struggle with multiple sclerosis was long and hard, yet Sophie didn’t let that break her spirit.
I knew I could take some cues from her optimism. Not just because it was a great quality to have, but because it was something that I distinctly lacked. Just being around Sophie made me want to try harder to focus on the positive and to not let negativity rule so many of my days.
As caring as Sophie was to put my feeling first on such a momentous day in her life, I wanted to put the spotlight back on her.
“Sophie, you’re leaving. Let’s not make this about me,” I said.
“You’re one of my oldest friends. I know all of your personality quirks. So if you think I’m going to let you try to change the subject on me, you’re dead wrong.”
She had me there.
Sophie continued. “Just keep believing in the best and good things will happen.”
I flashed her a smile. “I will.”
“Good.”
“Speaking of good things, don’t forget about me when you’re famous,” I said.
Sweets, Suspects, and Women Sleuths Cozy Mystery Set Page 39