The last thing that I needed was for Detective Spinner to come arrest me in the middle of my investigation.
I made my way back to my car. I needed to figure out another way to talk to Laurel. Preferably an option that wouldn’t leave me blocked by her overbearing mother.
Chapter 15
I called the real estate agency on the way back to the bakery.
“Alric Hofstadter, how may I help you?” he answered.
“Hi, Alric,” I said. “It’s Coco. Listen, you know how I inherited that big old house? I was wondering if Laurel would be interested in coming by with me later to look over everything.”
“Laurel? Do you want both of us to join you? It’s a large house. I’m sure it could benefit from the expertise of a team.”
I couldn’t reveal the real reason why I wanted Laurel to join me. I couldn’t properly question her about the murder if Alric was hanging around with us.
“Actually, I think it could really just use a woman’s touch,” I said. “No offense, of course. I’m sure you’re really good with this stuff as well.”
He sighed over the phone. I hoped my lie had held.
“Alright. I’ll let her know. There’s nothing in her schedule to say she wouldn’t be able to do it. I’d really love to see that house at some point, but Laurel is really talented with this sort of thing.”
“Thanks, Alric,” I said. “I’m sure I’ll pull you in later for something.”
“Is there anything else, Coco?”
“No that’s all. Thanks.”
I pulled back into The Mad Batter and got out. I went inside and quickly finished up the rest of the preparations for the day. When I was finished, I went back out to pick up Laurel.
She was waiting for me when I arrived.
“Hi, Coco,” she said as she got into my car. “How are you doing today?”
“Oh, I’m alright,” I said. “How are you?”
“I’m doing well, thank you. So, what are we looking at doing today?”
“I just thought we could go down to the house and see what sort of changes we could make,” I said. “Obviously my aunt lived there before. I’m interested in updating it a bit.”
She smiled. “Well, you’re a baker and that’s a sort of artist, so I’m sure you’ll have wonderful taste. Why don’t we look and see what the bones of it are? I’m sure we can do something fun with the kitchen as well.”
As much as I wanted to focus on stealthily interrogating her about the murder, I had to admit that Laurel was nice to talk to.
We pulled up to the Grove and I unlocked the door. As soon as we walked in, Laurel’s face lit up.
“Oh, Coco, this is just gorgeous,” she said. “There’s so many things you could do with this space.”
She started to move around the first floor of the house to get a feel for everything that was there.
“It’s certainly old-fashioned, but we could update this,” Laurel said. “It has an old-world charm to it that I think we could retain while making sure you have all of the modern amenities.”
“Do you really think so?” I said, looking around. I always knew the house was beautiful, but now my mind was filling with possibilities.
“Do you imagine this as more of a family home or a bachelorette pad?” She asked.
Bingo. I saw the perfect opportunity to get in a few pressing questions.
“Oh, it’s just me for now,” I said. “After Daniel, I didn’t want to focus too much on revolving my life around another person.”
She nodded. “I can understand that. He really could be quite pressing with what he wanted.”
“He could, couldn’t he? He wanted all of the power while bringing in nothing. He always had trouble holding down a job.”
“Oh yes. Even when he did have it, he would spend it quickly. Somehow that was never his fault though.”
She sounded a bit wistful. I was surprised she was being so open.
“Are you planning to date again?” I asked.
“My mother wants me to,” she said. “She’s practically arranged a proposal with Cedric Howard. You know him, right? The local councilman. She can be so funny sometimes.”
Cedric Howard? I thought to myself. I added that to my mental list of leads.
She finished looking through the lower level of the house.
“Shall we look upstairs now?” she asked.
I didn’t get much more information out of Laurel after that. However, the lead with Cedric was good, and I got a few more ideas for the house.
I dropped Laurel back off at the real estate agency, and we said our goodbyes. However, I was about to drive away when I saw something out of the corner of my eye.
It was hidden well enough that I almost missed it, but, hidden in the branches of a tree across the street, someone had placed a camera, and it was pointed directly into the front window of the real estate office.
My heart began to race. This was another lead, one that could confirm or break some alibis.
I waited in my car to see who would pick up the camera. I waited for what felt like hours. The realty office had closed by the time something happened.
Finally, someone dressed all in black leather rode up on a motorcycle.
I leaned forward to see who it was. Their face was blocked by a helmet. I held my breath in anticipation.
They turned away from me and took off their helmet. They reached up into the tree to get the camera. When they pulled it down, they turned back towards my side of the street.
I gasped. It was Clive.
I immediately got out of my car and rushed over to him.
When he saw me, he jumped and immediately got back on his bike. I stepped in front of him, blocking his exit.
“What do you think you’re doing with that?” I tried to grab the camera, but he pulled it out of my reach.
“Get out of my way, Coco,” he said. “This has nothing to do with you.”
“Clive, that’s evidence in a murder investigation,” I said. “Plus it’s really gross that you’re filming people. How long has that been going on?”
“This has nothing to do with the murder,” he said. He turned his front wheel to try to get around me, but I blocked his path again.
“Clive, that could show someone is lying about their alibi. It’s important.”
He shook his head. “If you really want to know about the night of the murder, Laurel went home and stayed home. She didn’t do it, Coco.”
He whipped his front wheel around me and rode off into the distance, leaving me standing there in the street. I had new evidence, but I wish I got it in a less creepy way.
Chapter 16
I couldn’t believe what a creep Clive turned out to be. I can’t believe I almost dated him or even considered him sort of charming in any way. It gave me chills just to think about it.
I was angry as I drove away. How dare he spy on someone like that? I knew that journalists could be skeevy, but this was beyond the pale.
Clive had done a lot of terrible things, but this was by far the worst one. Even though he managed to confirm Laurel’s alibi and clear her name, I still felt really upset and grossed out by his behavior.
I tried my best to put Clive and what else he could be doing out of my mind. I needed to focus on something more positive or else I was going to have to find him and give him a piece of my mind.
Still, I was relieved that Laurel didn’t end up being the killer. She was so sweet. It was hard to imagine her doing something so heinous.
When I got back to the shop, I decided to make her a little gift basket. Officially, it would be for helping me go through the home, but, unofficially, I felt bad for making her a murder suspect.
I put together her favorite vegan cupcakes and a few other treats and wrapped them all up in a basket. I decided to add a few of our cute harvest festival test treats as well for some additional flair. It was too late to deliver them then, but I thought it would be nice to drop it off in the morni
ng.
I tried to make the basket as pretty as possible. I knew Laurel had an eye for nice things, so I wanted to impress her. When I was satisfied, I took the basket and headed home for the night. I planned to bring her the basket first thing in the morning and got ready for bed with that intent.
The next day after I got ready, I grabbed the basket and headed out to Laurel’s home.
I drove with the basket in the front seat. It took me a couple minutes to get from my house to hers. I tried to leave enough time to be able to open The Mad Batter on time.
I went up to the front entrance and knocked on the door. Once again, Ernestine answered. She obviously remembered our last visit.
“You again,” she said. “What do you want this time?”
I held up the basket. “I put this together for Laurel. She was such a help yesterday when we went over to my great aunt’s home. I wanted to thank her properly.”
Ernestine took the basket, but she looked largely unmoved. “Is that all? She isn’t home. You can’t talk to her.”
“I just want to say too that I know what she’s going through. Not exactly, but I understand better than anyone that Daniel was a hard man to be around.”
Ernestine’s expression softened. “Yes, he was very difficult.”
“Right. I did marry him after all. I feel my life is so much more improved now, but it still must be so difficult. I hope she doesn’t have too much guilt over that.”
“Laurel’s always been softhearted,” Ernestine said. “I’m sure she would never feel joy over such a thing, but things had gotten quite bad.”
“Oh, I understand. They got bad with us too. Though I suppose that’s obvious.”
“It was fine in the beginning when he had money to throw around, of course, but after that he got angry and mean. She’s such a pretty, sweet girl. A real prize. She shouldn’t have been wasting her time on him.”
“I think so too,” I said. “I’m so terribly sorry she had to go through that.”
“I had been worried about her for a while, but it’s all over now.”
“Yes. It’s all over.”
We stared at each other for a moment in silent understanding.
“Well, I should be getting back to the bakery,” I said. “I’m sorry I missed Laurel, but please make sure she gets that.”
“I think she’ll enjoy it. I’ll leave it out for her.”
“Goodbye, Ernestine.”
I went back to the car and drove back to The Mad Batter.
When I got in, I immediately went into the back to decompress. I felt incredibly guilty for accusing Laurel of committing murder when she hadn’t done anything. She was suffering with Daniel, but it doesn’t mean she would do something so horrible.
If Logan wasn’t involved in the case, I would have given it up right then. I hated what I was doing. The case was exhausting, and being wrong and siccing Detective Spinner on someone who may be innocent made my skin crawl.
But Logan was a good man. I couldn’t let him suffer the consequences of a crime he didn’t commit.
But that made it harder. Daniel was Logan’s total opposite. Getting to know Laurel and digging into Daniel’s past was bringing up a lot of painful memories.
I wondered if I should leave this case to Detective Spinner after all. Maybe he was right. Perhaps it will help Logan and the others in town if I just stay out of it.
I was almost ready to throw in the towel when Vivian and Stella burst through the front door.
I heard the bell from the back and went up to the front to see them out of breath. Stella was holding something in her hand.
“Coco,” she said in between breaths. “You need to see this. It’s about the case.”
I shook my head. “I’m not involving myself with the case anymore, Stella,” I said. “It’s way too risky. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”
Stella and Vivian exchanged a look.
“You should see these before you decide anything,” Vivian said.
“But you should be sitting down for this,” Stella warned.
My heart started to pound. “Why? What’s wrong?”
“Just look at the pictures, Coco,” Stella said.
Stella walked up to me and handed me the pictures.
I opened the envelope and pulled them out. My jaw dropped.
This changed everything.
Chapter 17
The pictures were of Angie and Daniel. They both looked awfully cozy together.
“What is this?” I asked. The pictures got more shocking as I went through them. Angie and Daniel were obviously hiding an affair from me.
Vivian wrapped her arms around me. “I’m sorry, Coco.”
“But when did this happen?” I asked. “When he was dating Laurel?”
I wanted to believe that to be the case, I really did.
“He looks awfully young for these to be that recent, Coco,” Stella said, gently.
She was right. These pictures were definitely older.
“Do you think...?” I started to ask a question that I didn’t want to know the answer to.
Stella took my hand. “We think they started seeing each other while you two were still together.”
I felt like all of the air was suddenly pulled out of my lungs. I didn’t understand how that could be. I could almost expect that behavior out of Daniel, but how could Angie betray me like that?
“So Daniel was having an affair with Angie while we were married?” I asked.
Stella sadly nodded. Vivian tightened her hug.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “How could this happen?”
“Daniel was a dog,” Vivian said. “He probably tricked her.”
Stella scoffed. “As if she didn’t know what was going on. She’s a grown woman, Viv.”
I was quickly becoming overwhelmed with their conversation. I looked through the rest of the envelope. There was still an untouched roll of film inside. I didn’t want to see even more of their affair.
I set the envelope down on the table. “I can’t do this, right now,” I said. “Please stop fighting.”
They immediately silenced their bickering.
Masie walked in to The Mad Batter. She looked confused.
“What happened?” She asked, sensing something was wrong. “Did I miss something?”
I sighed and held out the envelope of pictures for her. She took them, curious about their contents. As she looked through them she gasped.
“Coco, look at the dates on these,” she exclaimed. “That’s when you two were still married.”
I nodded. I didn’t feel like talking about it anymore.
She took a seat down at the table. “Oh, Coco, I’m sorry. I can’t believe this.”
“I need to call her,” I said. “I need to find out what’s going on.”
I’m not sure where the sudden urge came from, but I felt like I would die if I didn’t follow through with it.
I dialed her number. It rang a few times and went to voicemail. I tried calling again and the same thing occurred.
I put the phone down and sighed. “No response.”
Masie thought for a moment. “I think she mentioned to me before that she was planning on seeing Sam today. Maybe she’s there.”
I immediately stood up. Masie, Stella, and Vivian exchanged a look.
“Are you sure you should go right now, Coco?” Masie asked. “Maybe we should think about this for a bit.”
I held up a hand. “I’m fine. Really. I’m just going to see if she’s there.”
“Okay...” Masie sounded cautious, but she was giving me permission to go.
I grabbed my keys and left the bakery. I didn’t know what I was going to say when I found Angie, but I knew I needed to see her.
As soon as I walked into Sam’s I heard Angie’s voice.
“It just needs to be kept confidential for as long as possible,” she said. “Can’t have anyone else finding out.”
“It’ll be har
d to keep it away from Coco, Angie. She’s always sticking her nose into other people’s business,” Sam said in response
“She means well. She wants to protect Logan, but I can’t have her get any closer to the truth. If she knows about me and Daniel...” She trailed off. I was shocked that Sam seemed to know about this as well.
“She won’t find out, Ang. No one is going to figure out what happened.”
My mind began to race with possibilities. Could they have committed the murder together?
I rounded the corner and came across the two of them talking very intently to one another. I cleared my throat.
They both turned to look at me. Neither of them looked happy I was there.
“Coco,” Angie said in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to talk to you, but I guess I could ask you the same thing.”
Angie visibly tensed. “I’m here for my cookbook.” I wasn’t convinced.
“Your cookbook?”
“Sam has all sorts of recipes for me. I’m hoping to include some in my sequel.”
“Really? Sam, your wife is a very talented cook, isn’t she? Maybe you should ask her for input too, Angie.”
The mood in the room immediately shifted. It was tense before, but now they both looked furious.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Angie asked. I could hear the fury in her voice.
“Just that she’s a talented chef,” I said. “I’m sure you two would have a lot in common.”
“My wife has nothing to do with this, Colleen,” Sam said. I wondered for a moment if he could be referring to the murder.
“It was just a suggestion,” I said.
Angie and Sam exchanged a pointed look. Angie turned back to me.
“I think it’s best if you just leave, Coco,” she said. “This isn’t a good time.”
“Why not?” I asked. “You can’t pause a book sequel for a bit to talk to me?”
“Just go, Coco,” Angie said. She turned away from me in her seat.
I stood there for a moment, waiting for an apology that never came.
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