by Tonya Kappes
This time, I wasn’t nervous because we were going up and getting out of there.
“Now what?” She asked, dropping me back off at the Cookie Crumble Bakery where I’d left my car.
“I’m going to get a Facebook account and check out what this guy meant about Dawn’s photo with Nadine.” I didn’t want to get on social media, but it was time. Especially if I wanted to figure out just who Dawn was and how to get her on the suspect list.
“I’ll go and see Abby. Make sure everything is okay. I’ll see if she remembers anything else.” Betts waved me off.
I hurried to my car, dodging more big flakes of snow. There were a lot of snow squalls, where the snow would stop for a brief time before it fell again, but in very large quantities. It was something that wasn’t unusual for this area, which made me take it extra slow on the way back to the campground.
By the time I made it back, it was lunchtime and I could smell the chili Dottie had cooked in the large kettle pot on the outside fire pit. I’d initially had it built for the nightly cookouts the campers enjoyed so much during the warmer weather.
Around suppertime, each camper that wanted to participate would build up their outdoor firepit and get it going with something tasty, making enough for everyone to come around and have some. By the time you made it around to each camper, you’d had a full meal. That turned into me making the main meal over the big fire pit and something the entire town turned out for.
We had desserts out the ying-yang along with any sort of drink, including cocktails, you could imagine. The meats, vegetables and dairy were fresh from the farm, which reminded me of the Cookie Crumble Bakery and Dawn Gentry.
Dottie was sitting at her desk with her feet propped up, looking through one of them trashy celebrity magazines.
“Looky here.” She flipped the pages taut and folded the magazine in half. She tapped the article she wanted me to read. “It’s the account of that photographer who had a fight with Nadine White. I bet he killed her.”
“Let me see that.” I hurried over to her, shedding my coat as I went.
“According to this, Nadine White got a restraining order against this photographer. Her photos brought him tons of money, making her his cash cow.”
“And he could have killed her to get revenge.” I grabbed my notebook out of my purse and made another timeline below Dawn’s. “Does it say what his name is?” I sat down at my desk.
“Mmmhmmm…” Dottie pulled her eye readers off the top of her head and put them on. She lifted her chin and drew her eyes down her nose. “Some feller by the name of Reed Fowler.”
“Reed Fowler,” I repeated and wrote his name down along the line. “Now I have three suspects other than Abby.”
Things were looking a little better and I couldn’t wait to tell Hank about it tonight.
“Who?” Dottie dragged her feet off the desk and took her readers off.
“I’ve got Valerie Young because Nadine White was going to take her income away by firing her as her agent.” I quickly told Dottie how I’d overheard Valerie and Nadine yelling when Fifi and I were walking home.
“Money can be so bad.” Dottie tsked. “It brings out the evil in people.”
“Then there’s Dawn Gentry.” I’d completely forgotten I’d not told Dottie about the name listed as Nadine’s contact person on the rental contract. “What do you think about that?” I asked after I told Dottie all the sketchy stuff Dawn had done since she’d been in town. “I’m going to open a Facebook account, so I can dig deeper into that photograph.”
I shook the mouse hooked up to the computer and brought the blank screen to life.
Dottie looked over my shoulder with her readers back on the edge of her nose.
“Put your email there.” She pointed out. “Right there is a password.”
“Dottie,” I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. “Do you want to do this?”
“I want to make one for Happy Trails, but you didn’t want to do that.” She was good at reminding me of things I’d been opposed to once the campground started to take off. “I told you that millennials have got this spirit to camp, glamp, and hike. They are begging for a place like Happy Trails.”
“Fine.” I pushed my chair back. “Have at it.”
“Now you’re talking about killing two birds with one stone. We get business, while you can use it to snoop around.” She was able to talk and get the Happy Trails Facebook page up in no time.
We talked about Abby and how we needed to figure out if she had an alibi, which made me wonder if she had been able to remember anything for either Ava or Betts. Neither of them had called me, and I didn’t want to bug them, so I’d keep trying to find new suspects. I was pretty proud of myself so far. Three would put a little bit of doubt in Hank’s head.
“Also, I went to see Colonel Holz.” I took out my phone. “He said Nadine’s stab wound was secondary.”
I scrolled through the photos of the autopsy report that I’d illegally taken.
“Where’d you get those?” Dottie was caught off guard with the photos.
“If I told you, I’d have to kill you.” I teased and decided it was best for her not to know. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that Abby didn’t kill her. It was something else, but he wouldn’t tell me what.”
“Let me see that.” She reached for the phone. Her eyes squinted behind the readers as she used the tips of her fingers to make the photos bigger and smaller. Drawing them together and then apart. “It looks like she had been poisoned.”
“I knew it!” I grabbed the notebook. “I think Dawn Gentry poisoned the donuts and gave one to Nadine.”
“Even if she did poison her, how did she get poison?” Dottie asked, looking up over the top of her glasses at me.
“I don’t know. But it’s a good theory anyways. Good enough for me to tell Hank and he can do his detectiving to find out.” I recorded the poisoning theory in my notebook.
“Is detectiving a word?” Dottie smiled and went back to typing on the computer. “I’ll use the pretty lake photo from the tiki summer party we had.” She was getting into building the Facebook page.
“Can I look around and let you finish that up in a minute?” I asked.
“Why are you in such a hurry? Got a date?” She snickered. “One without a dead body?” She laughed louder.
“Yes. Yes, I do. It’s a do-over date. And without a dead body.” I flipped the notebook closed and looked over her shoulder at the screen. “Look up Dawn Gentry,” I told her. “On her page, you’ll find a photo of her and Nadine.”
I watched her scroll down.
“There. Stop. Back,” I instructed after she scrolled right on past the photo.
“It’s recent too.” She pointed to the date on the status, which was two weeks ago. “Here’s the comment.” She used the pointer of the mouse to point to the photo of the guy who’d left it. She clicked on it and brought us to his Facebook page. “Mae,” she gasped. “Reed Fowler.”
Fifteen
“Good girl.” Dawn was sitting cross-legged on the couch when I walked back into the RV. She was having Fifi do tricks for treats for Mary Elizabeth, who was sitting next to her. Fifi had been trained to do many tricks before I had her, and she was good at it. That was one of the things that had made her a champion. . . until I ruined it by letting Rosco around her.
“Still here,” I mumbled the observation, noticing that Fifi had warmed up to Dawn. But when Dawn looked at me, her eyes were puffy and red.
“Me or her?” Mary Elizabeth asked.
“Are you okay?” I took a good look at Dawn before I started to yell about how I knew she was friends with Reed Fowler, the paparazzi that’d followed Dawn to Normal.
“She didn’t kill Nadine.” Mary Elizabeth chirped up, all while rubbing the back of Dawn’s back, comforting her.
“No. I’m not okay. My best friend is dead. Remember?” She shifted, pushing her legs out in front of her and curling Fifi in her arms.
As though she had just processed with Mary Elizabeth had said, she retorted, “Did you just say I didn’t kill Nadine? Of course, I didn’t kill her. I’m just not doing well with this. No one will help me. I’ve called the police and I called that detective. No one will tell me anything. I need to go see her.”
“We’ve talked.” Mary Elizabeth pushed Dawn’s legs together. “Honey, southern ladies don’t sit with their legs spread as wide as Texas.”
“You’re giving her lessons in manners?” I looked at Mary Elizabeth in disbelief. “Listen, I know that you lied to me.” I tugged my coat off and hung it up. I took my notebook out of my purse and sat down at the table. “You acted as though you were in Chicago when I called you this morning. Then you told me that you were on your way. You showed up fast. Then I found out you’d gone to the Cookie Crumble Bakery and got donuts.”
“I never once told you I was in Chicago. How did you know I live in Chicago?” Dawn asked me with a scowl on her face.
“Her boyfriend probably told her.” Mary Elizabeth shrugged. I glared at her.
“Who is your boyfriend?” Dawn had a demanding tone in her voice.
“Detective Hunky Hank.” Mary Elizabeth winked.
Dawn’s brows rose.
“You actually told me you came from Chicago.” It wasn’t a lie. She did tell me earlier, but Mary Elizabeth didn’t know that. “My friend Abby Fawn is sitting in jail right now because she’s suspected of killing your friend. If you think for one second that it sounds perfectly normal that you lied to me about being in town and now that we know Nadine wasn’t killed by that knife and it was pois. . .” My lips snapped together.
“Spit it out.” Mary Elizabeth eased to the edge of the couch. “What about the knife and something else?”
“You were going to say poison, weren’t you?” Dawn sat up next to Mary Elizabeth, both of their beady eyes snapping at me.
“Did you poison the donut you gave Nadine? Did you kill her because you two didn’t speak for a long time?” I questioned her like I’d seen on TV. My voice was stern. I wanted to smack my hand down on the kitchen table for effect, but I refrained since Fifi was already shaking from me yelling.
“This is nuts. Get a hold of yourself.” Mary Elizabeth stood up and tugged the hem of her Christmas cardigan sweater down over the waist of her black slacks. The bells that were sewn on the collar around Rudolph’s neck on her sweater jingled and his nose lit up.
Fifi growled and then barked at it.
“Tell her where you were.” Mary Elizabeth drew her pointer finger from Dawn to me to get her to do it. “Go on.”
“Fine. Nadine called me to come here for the holiday and help her bake. I’m a pastry chef in Chicago. Though you probably already know that.” She rolled her eyes as the sarcasm dripped from her mouth. “We’d gotten in an argument years ago when she decided to take a pen name. I told her not to, but she insisted she didn’t want people to know she wrote all the dirty talking stuff.” She uncurled her arms and clasped her hands in her lap.
Mary Elizabeth pushed Dawn’s knees together. Heaven help poor Mary Elizabeth, she was trying to keep manners alive and well while she was still kicking.
“Nadine came to Chicago to see me. We had so much fun reconnecting. She’d forgiven me after all these years and said that she did regret not keeping Dembrowski as her author name. Then she said that she was going to do this cookbook and fire Valerie. She also said that Valerie insisted she come with her here. I told her it wasn’t a good idea if she was going to fire her, but she insisted she owed it to Valerie to tell her in person.”
So far, everything I’d uncovered was coming together, but I still heard a few inconsistencies and wrote a few things down in my notebook.
“Tell her where you were last night at the time of Nadine’s death.” Mary Elizabeth tapped Dawn on the shoulder.
“I’m getting there.” Dawn sat up even straighter. “Nadine made some sort of deal with Ty Randal to use his kitchen at night to test the recipes for her new cookbook.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “She met with him the day she got into town. The same day Reed Fowler showed up.”
“She also met with Hank to talk about security.” I recalled the event well.
“Yes. She was upset about that because she gave Hank a piece of paper with the restraining order against Reed.” Quickly I remembered the piece of paper Nadine White had scribbled on at the diner and handed to Hank. I’d been so focused on her flirting with him and the written words from her steamy romance novel along with the fear she might test her words out on him, I’d forgotten to ask him what was on the paper.
“A restraining order,” I said with a sigh of relief. “That still doesn’t clear you of killing her. You’re jealous of her.”
“Far from it. I don’t hide behind my creations and I told her not to hide behind her talent, but she couldn’t see past her ego and I think that’s what got her in trouble.” She drummed her fingertips together.
“Go on.” Mary Elizabeth encouraged her. “Tell her your alibi so we can put this behind us and get the real killer.”
“Nadine, Ty, and I worked on a few of Nadine’s ideas yesterday afternoon. Her recipes are really good. Ty even told her he’d let her serve some to his customers during her stay here, so she could get some feedback. She even took me by surprise.” She smiled at the memory of her and her friend. “She got a phone call from Valerie.”
This got my attention.
“Valerie had fixed up a basket of goodies to give to your local librarian, which I’m assuming is your friend, Abby. Because I met her.” She swallowed so hard, I could she her throat move up and down. She licked her lips.
“Yes. You met her here.” I shrugged.
“No. I saw her when Nadine took the basket to the library. But I don’t think she saw my face.” The lines between Dawn’s eyes deepened. “Ty and I found a chemistry between us that lead to a passionate kiss. Abby let herself in the diner and saw us kissing.”
You could’ve knocked my teeth out and I wouldn’t’ve felt it, her words so caught me off guard and numbed me.
“Yeah. I think she was a little shocked and he was upset. I tried to tell him it was no big deal and that we weren’t anything, but he said something about this town and small talk and Abby.” She blinked several times. “I think he even mentioned you.”
“Are you telling me you were with Ty Randal all night long and he didn’t try to go find Abby?” I questioned. No wonder Abby was out of her mind and shocked all night.
“Yes, but not like you’re thinking. We started drinking after Abby wouldn’t talk to him. So I stayed there to make sure he was okay until we practically passed out from being so tired. When I got your call, I woke up in one of the diner’s booths. He’d left me a note on the table.” She pointed to her jacket. “It’s in the pocket.”
I hurried over to her jacket and took the note she’d referred to out of the pocket.
It was Ty’s scribble. I recognized it. He said he was going to go look for Abby. He was sorry for any problems he’d caused. It was just like him to apologize. Deep down I blamed Dawn. Though. . .there were two sides to every story and Ty shouldn’t have kissed Dawn.
“Ty is your alibi.” I had mixed emotions about this. I was glad she hadn’t killed her best friend, but I was sad on numerous levels for Abby. Now I had only two suspects. “You’re going to need to tell Hank all of this. He’s coming here for supper tonight.”
I told her about Hank coming over so she could figure out a place to stay. I was going to make it easy on her and let her stay with Valerie in Nadine’s camper since the police had cleared it, although I hadn’t seen Valerie since the police station.
“What do you know about Valerie’s job?” I asked. I wanted to know all the particulars to learn why Valerie Young would have a great motive to have killed Nadine.
“She’s the agent. She is the one who negotiates all of Nadine’s book contracts with the publisher. All the deals she ma
de for Nadine, she got fifteen percent of each deal.” Dawn rubbed her fingers and thumbs together in the money sign gesture.
“For the life of the book?” I asked.
Dawn’s chin slowly lifted up and then down.
“How long is the life of a book?” I asked.
“Forever.” Dawn’s word had some force behind it. “Even if Nadine fired her, Valerie will still make fifteen percent of all the deals she’s made so far. Nadine said that sales do drop off after a period of time, but. . .” Dawn stopped.
I had a niggling feeling she was keeping something to herself.
“What? What were you going to say?” I had to get it out of her.
“I hate to even say it out loud and I’m not going to say that it will happen with Nadine, but you see it with stars all the time.” Dawn gnawed on the inside of the cheek. “Sometimes stars become more famous in death than they were alive, which would mean Nadine’s work so far would go up in value.”
“You have to go tell Hank all of this now.” It made so much sense why Valerie would kill Nadine.
“I’ll take her down to see him.” Mary Elizabeth walked over to get her fur coat and matching hat. “Come on, honey. We need to get this over with.”
Reluctantly, Dawn stood up.
“This town is really going to hate me now. I probably broke up a good relationship.” Dawn put her jacket on.
“No one is going to hate you.” Mary Elizabeth looked ridiculous in that fur, but she loved it.
The pairing of Dawn and Mary Elizabeth struck me as odd, but it kept them both out of my hair.
“You can even stay with me tonight.” Mary Elizabeth winked at me on her way out.
After they left, I went back over my notebook and notes, crossing Dawn off my list, but not Reed or Valerie.
I jerked the door open when I heard a knock.
“What did you forget?” I asked and found Hank standing there holding a brown bag of Chinese food.
“You forgot me, didn’t you?” He looked hurt.
“Not at all.” I opened the RV door wide to let him in. “Mary Elizabeth and Dawn Gentry just left. They’re going to the station to give her statement.”