Cozy Christmas Crimes - A Cozy Christmas Box Set

by Tonya Kappes

  “Oh, Susan…” she murmured, pulling the baker into a comforting hug. “That must’ve brought back such awful memories for you.”

  “Ok, you should be all set,” Larry lumbered toward them, tools in hand, clearly clueless.

  Joe was close behind, doing something on his smartphone. These two certainly didn’t seem terribly worried about the medical emergency that had just rocked everyone else’s world.

  “Great…uh, good…how much do I owe you today?”

  Marilyn gave Susan’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze, then went to the register for a check, finding it difficult to switch gears back into business mode so quickly.

  “If you have a few pies to spare, I’d work on a trade today,” the large man grinned, raising his eyebrows.

  “You’re the best, Larry, thanks so much. We’ll box something special up for you.”

  “Can’t wait,” he grinned, hooking his thumbs in his pockets.

  Chapter 7

  Marilyn had meant to call and check on Fergus in the hospital, but business picked up again for the evening rush, and she’d been swamped with an unusually high number of tourists. Susan went home for the day once traffic slowed to a dull roar, leaving her to tidy up and close on her own. When everything was finally tucked away in its appropriate place, she flopped into one of the chairs, wondering just how she’d be able to even eat her dinner after such a long and eventful day.

  Deciding that she deserved a little treat, just to take the edge off, she slipped off her shoes, grabbed a slice of pie she’d left out for herself, along with a mini bottle of cabernet that she had stashed in the office, and let out a deep sigh, debating whether or not she wanted to take her car home. She disliked driving on principle and tried to avoid it whenever possible…but her feet might not make it all the way home after the day she’d had.

  Just as she put the first luscious forkful of pie to her lips, the shop phone rang. Feeling delightfully empowered, she chose to ignore it…for at least three rings. But, having been long cursed with the compulsion to be responsible, whether it involved answering phones, or responding to texts and emails, she gave in and picked up.

  “SubLime Sweets, this is Marilyn,” she leaned on the front counter, exhausted, not even bothering to try sounding perky and professional.

  “Is this Ms. Marilyn Hayes?” a deep, decidedly male voice asked.

  “Yes, speaking,” she replied wearily, too tired to be intrigued by the voice.

  “This is Detective Bernard Cortland of the Key West Police Department. I’m going to need you to come down to the police station to answer a few questions regarding the incident at your shop this afternoon.”

  “Incident?” she repeated, confused.

  “I’m investigating an incident involving a Mr. Fergus Downey. Are you familiar with Mr. Downey, ma’am?”

  Marilyn suddenly sank to the floor, sliding down the counter, and taking the phone cord with her.

  “Fergus? Is he…?” she trailed off, unable to even finish the thought, and dreading Detective Cortland’s answer.

  “He died on the way to the hospital this afternoon, Ms. Hayes.”

  Tears filled Marilyn’s eyes, remembering his dear pallid face as he was wheeled out.

  “What happened?”

  “That has yet to be determined,” the detective dismissed her question brusquely. “You’re going to need to come in for questioning, ma’am,” he repeated.

  Marilyn’s mind whirled. She physically shook her head, as if the action would somehow cause a clearing of the myriad of thoughts that currently overwhelmed her.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” she murmured, in shock at the loss of her friend.

  “Well, frankly, ma’am your understanding is irrelevant. You can either come to the station or I can send a patrol car to escort you in.”

  “Oh my,” she exclaimed, wondering at the reason for the detective’s no-nonsense tone. “Right, of course…of course, I’ll be right there…” she promised, continuing to hold the phone even as the line went dead, leaving her staring at the floor.

  **

  Marilyn gave her name to the desk sergeant, and quickly followed behind the portly and officious man as he led her to Detective Cortland’s office.

  “After you,” the sergeant held the door open for her to enter.

  “Marilyn Hayes,” he announced to the rugged-looking detective seated behind a desk that was stacked with file folders and scattered papers.

  The detective’s office smelled like day-old coffee, and the vinyl chair in which he sat was the color of exposed avocado.

  “Ms. Hayes,” Cortland gestured to one of the molded plastic chairs in front of his desk and Marilyn sat, mechanically. “I’m Detective Cortland. I believe you were acquainted with Fergus Downey?”

  “Um, yes Detective, I am…was…” she stammered, rattled.

  She’d never been inside a police station before, and found the stark environment entirely foreign and more than a bit intimidating. She was also still reeling from the fact that someone whom she saw at least twice a week, every week, had just passed.

  “I take it he came into your shop on a frequent basis?” Cortland asked, pen poised over a legal pad.

  “He came to the shop every Wednesday and Saturday and sometimes more than that—but he never missed Wednesdays or Saturdays…unless he was out of town or something,” she recalled, her heart aching.

  “Where would he go when he left town?” the detective eyed her shrewdly.

  “I think he had a sister, but I’m not really sure. Our relationship pretty much revolved around his obsession with Key Lime Pie,” she smiled sadly.

  He nodded, eyes narrowed, lips pursed.

  Marilyn spoke up hesitantly.

  “Can I ask what this is all about? Even though Fergus had a heart attack this afternoon, we all thought, I mean we all hoped that… that he would live. He really didn’t seem that old, and he walked everywhere. I just don’t get how someone who seemed so fit for his age could just…” Marilyn couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.

  “It appears that Mr. Downey did not have a heart attack, but an extreme reaction to a toxin in his blood stream. The hospital ran some labs and the results looked suspicious, so we ran them by our forensics team. They found a chemical compound that shuts down lung function. Mr. Downey essentially died of asphyxiation.”

  “I don’t understand…that makes no sense,” Marilyn said, shaking her head.

  “He was poisoned,” the detective said flatly. “A search of his home brought up the possibility that the lethal substance may be linked to a product that was purchased from your store.”

  Marilyn’s hands went to her throat in shock. Cortland watched her intently, trying to gauge her reaction. She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again when nothing came out.

  “Do you have video feed in the shop, Ms. Hayes?” the detective asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Her voice was shaky. “No…I don’t. We’re in a very safe neighborhood, so I never thought I’d need something like that.”

  “Do you know if any of the neighboring shops have that sort of equipment?” he persisted.

  “I don’t think that they do, but really I have no idea,” she mumbled, dazed.

  They sat silently for a moment, Marilyn gazing at her hands that were now clasped together in her lap to keep them from trembling. Cortland stared at her, shifting in his chair.

  “Where you were when Mr. Downey became incapacitated?” he asked, tapping his pen on the pad in front of him.

  Marilyn looked up, abruptly torn from the endless loop of thoughts swirling through her head. The detective was staring at her so intently that she felt like a bug under a microscope – a bug that might get squashed at any moment. Despite the pain of Fergus’ death, and her extreme discomfort with being in a police station, Marilyn couldn’t help but notice, for the first time, just how handsome the detective was. He had a strong jaw and eyes were like vel
vety chocolate. His shirt was wrinkled and his tie was askew, and that did absolutely nothing to diminish his striking good looks.

  “Ms. Hayes?” he prompted.

  “Call me Marilyn,” she murmured absently. “Um…yeah, sorry,” she said, giving herself a mental shake and trying to focus. “I was delivering pies for a garden party on 16th Terrace, the other side of the island. I drove my car…obviously.” she explained, not knowing exactly what type of information he was looking for.

  “Ok,” he made some notes on the pad in front of him. “I’ll need you to write down, on this piece of paper, the name of the client to whom you were delivering the pies, along with their telephone number, please,” he tore a piece of paper from his legal pad and handed it to her with a pen.

  Marilyn did as she was asked, then handed him back the pen and paper.

  “And who was working in your shop while you were out making the delivery?” Cortland asked.

  “My daughter, Tiara Hayes, and our new baker Susan Dwyer. There was a line of customers that wound out the door and onto the sidewalk when I left.”

  “So you’re saying that you left to make a delivery with that many people in your store, leaving only a young girl and a brand new employee to handle that kind of traffic?” the detective asked, incredulous.

  Marilyn sat up straight, anger flashing in her eyes at his implication.

  “Of course. I used to do everything myself, so I knew that two people would be perfectly capable of handling all the customers in the line. Besides, I had made a commitment to deliver my pies on time, and professional integrity is important to me,” she fumed.

  Detective Cortland nodded, raising his eyebrows a bit and writing something else down. Marilyn subtly scooted up to the edge of her seat and leaned on the front of his messy desk, to try to sneak a peek at his notes. Noticing her movement, Cortland took the notebook off his desk and snapped it shut, giving her a weary look.

  “…and you returned when the victim was being placed into the ambulance?”

  “Yes.” she nodded, shuddering at the memory of Fergus’s pale, waxen complexion.

  “Who was there when you came back?”

  Marilyn sighed and ran a hand through her hair, tired of replaying the afternoon’s events over and over in her mind.

  “Joe and Larry, my handymen, were there, fixing the ovens, Susan, Tiara, Drew…”

  This was the first time Marilyn had thought about Drew since this afternoon but she’d had more than enough to be concerned about without having to worry about his intentions for her daughter.

  “Drew is the teacher at Yoga on the Beach.”

  “I see. And Joe and Larry, what are their last names?” he opened the notebook again, sitting back and holding it in his lap while he wrote.

  “I have no idea,” Marilyn admitted, never having considered that fact.

  “They’re new to you?” the detective looked up from his pad.

  “No, not at all. I just don’t ever remember hearing their last name, I make the check out to MR-FIX-IT,” she shrugged.

  Cortland scribbling something across the page, letting the legal pad rest on his desk again.

  “Oh, no there are two hyphens in there and no period after the Mr.”

  She’d been craning her neck to watch him write notes again. He glanced up at her, irritated, and she raised both hands in surrender, sitting further back in her chair.

  “So…? Now what?” she asked, exhausted.

  “That’s it.”

  Marilyn stared at him blankly. “That’s it?” she repeated, feeling dull and fuzzy.

  “For now,” he stood, coming around the desk to let her out of the office. “I’ll get in touch with you if there’s anything else we need.”

  “Well, okay then,” she stood awkwardly, noting absently that the handsome detective was tall and broad-shouldered.

  She followed him out and found Tiara waiting in the reception area, nervously tapping one foot.

  “Hey,” she said, surprised when her reserved, level-headed daughter rushed into her arms.

  “Mom,” Tiara hugged her hard, speaking into her shoulder. “He died.”

  “I know honey, it’s such a terrible thing. How did you know I was here?” Marilyn lifted her daughter’s chin to see her face, which bore all of the signs that gave away the fact that she’d been crying.

  “I didn’t,” she looked worried. “A detective called, wanting to ask me some questions.”

  “Oh, well I guess that makes sense,” she sighed. “I’ll sit right here and wait for you. Ok?”

  Tiara nodded, and the same officer who had led her mother back to see Bernard Cortland, indicated that she should follow him.

  Chapter 8

  By the time mother and daughter left the police station it was past midnight. The entire day had been surreal, and Marilyn had no idea what to make of any of it. Detective Bernard Cortland had been impossible to read, and she felt like he had been a bit accusatory at times. She had to wonder how on earth Fergus had ingested poison. He was retired, so it’s not like he had a whole lot of exposure to toxic environments. Her head swam, trying to figure out the whole bizarre situation in her exhausted state. When she awoke the next morning, she managed to make it through her normal routine in a relatively normal manner, despite the fact that she still felt tired after a night of restless sleep.

  Deciding that walking to work might clear her head, Marilyn turned the corner of the block where her shop was located, and stopped dead in her tracks, her stomach flip-flopping with dread. A police car was parked outside of her shop and the cozy little bakery was a veritable hive of activity.

  “Excuse me!” she called out, running the rest of the way to the shop. “Excuse me, but I own this shop…and someone had better tell me just exactly what is going on here,” she demanded, hands on hips.

  The mixed crowd of police personnel, some in uniform, some not, didn’t bother to acknowledge her presence as they carried equipment, unloaded trunks of instruments, and took photos of a roped off area in front of the shop.

  Out of the handful of people in front of her shop, she spotted Bernard Cortland.

  “Excuse me…Detective, what is going on?” she demanded, raising her eyebrows, clearly upset.

  “Oh good, you’re here early,” he said with just a touch of sarcasm. “Now we won’t have to break the glass in the door.”

  “Break the glass? What on earth are you talking about? I just spoke with you last night, and you gave me no indication that I’d be seeing you here this morning,” her temper flared. “Particularly with a handful of your closest friends,” she glared at him, gesturing to the officers and techs milling about.

  “Marilyn Hayes, let me introduce you to Detective McNabe,” he led her over to a bearded man with a clipboard. “He’s here with the Special Investigations Division of the Miami PD, and will be having direct oversight of this case from now on.”

  “What’s going on here, Detective McNabe?” Marilyn could feel her nostrils flaring in anger.

  “I’m sorry ma’am,” the detective peered at her from beneath his bushy eyebrows. “You’ll have to relinquish your keys to the building and step back, this entire area, including the interior of your shop, is part of a crime scene investigation.”

  Having relinquished her store keys to the close-mouthed detective, Marilyn paced on the sidewalk just outside of the police tape. Men and women had been roaming in and out all morning, coming and going in a pragmatic manner which was quite a contrast to the determined officers that she liked to watch on TV detective shows. Right now she seemed to be the only person present who was truly disturbed by the whole ordeal. Everyone else looked as though it was just another day at the office.

  “Marilyn.”

  Bernard Cortland startled her by magically appearing behind her with a cup of coffee. He held the cup out to her and she took it gratefully, thankful for any distraction that the hot, fragrant brew might provide.

  “Thanks,”
she tried to read the detective’s face.

  He seemed to be somehow nearly as frustrated with the situation as she was.

  “They took over your investigation?” she asked tentatively.

  Cortland didn’t respond, pretending that he hadn’t heard her question, but Marilyn thought she saw his jaw muscles flex, indicating that he had. She noticed that he was wearing the same outfit that he’d had on the night before, his tie was gone, the top of his shirt unbuttoned, and his face was peppered with a rugged, two-day stubble. He took a long sip of his coffee, avoiding her eyes.