by Louise Lynn
Hazel nodded. If this was anything like the other murders, she’d welcome all the help she could get.
Chapter 7
A quick glance at her phone told Hazel it was much earlier than she’d imagined. Only three thirty in the afternoon. It felt like the events of the last few hours had taken days.
The guests were still cordoned off in the tents at the beach, and Violet walked purposefully next to Hazel toward them. When they arrived, they heard the commotion before they saw it.
“If you don’t listen to my orders I’m going to start arresting people for disorderly conduct,” Sheriff Cross said to a group of angry guests. Among them was the dark-skinned and regal woman Hazel had noted from the day before badmouthing Monica. Next to her stood the blond man with the shockingly white teeth.
“This is absurd. I’m the manager of KQTV, and I have a station to run. I need to get back to it by four a.m. Monday morning. Do you want me to contact my lawyer?” the woman said.
“And I have to be back to report the news. What are people going to say if Mace Daily isn’t on their screen at seven in the morning?” the man said.
Mace Daily? The name sounded completely made up, by a person with a lousy imagination, Hazel thought, and fought the urge to snort. Not to mention he was referring to himself in the third person, which was tacky as well.
Sheriff Cross looked ready to pinch the bridge of his nose, but somehow abstained. “I can’t force you to stay in town after Monday, but I will say everyone here is to stay at the inn until Sunday. The groom informed me all of the guests had reservations until late Sunday, so that shouldn’t be a problem. I’m trying to find a murderer, and if anyone gets in my way, I will arrest you for obstruction, you understand?”
There were grumbles of dissent, but everyone seemed to concede. If they were planning on staying had the bride not been killed, what was the harm now?
Hazel knew Colton was looking at it from a different angle, however.
The station manager and Mace Daily both sneered.
Across the crowd, Sheriff Cross’s eyes met hers, and she saw the worry there. He’d just given himself a time limit, and it wasn’t a long one. She could see it etched across his face.
But what choice did he have? These people weren’t locals. He couldn’t force them to stay in town past their reservation. Not without arresting everyone, and the Cedar Valley jail wasn’t big enough for that. Hazel wasn’t even sure if there were more than two cells.
“That’s him.” Violet pointed at Mace Daily. “The guy who insulted Esther’s cakes.”
Yeah, Hazel figured.
Somehow, the man heard her and turned, beaming his ridiculously white teeth in their direction. Hazel blinked for fear of going blind. “Are you talking about me, little girl? Did you want an autograph? I know I’m a bit of a local celebrity,” he said with a noxious chuckle.
Hazel fought to keep her face neutral. If she was reading him right, he seemed like the kind of guy who craved attention. That could work in her favor if she wanted information from him. Which, she obviously did.
She nudged Violet. “Oh yes. We’d both love your autograph. And a word, if possible,” Hazel said and fluttered her eyelashes in a way that made her feel ridiculous.
“Anything for fans,” he said and started looking around for something to scribble his name on.
Hazel rushed over to one of the tables. Many of them were empty, since the guests had huddled in larger groups. She grabbed a napkin for him to sign.
“You’re so right. We can’t wait to see you on air every morning at seven, first thing,” Violet said and gave Hazel a conspiratorial smile.
“I know. And can you imagine the sheriff is trying to keep me from the people; especially with this tragedy? You know, I’m going to talk to Candace about doing the exclusive. I think it’ll go something like this.” His face changed suddenly, and it seemed as if a serious mask had replaced the plastic smile he’d worn before. “Good morning, Reno. This is Mace Daily reporting, and I have some terrible news. My co-anchor, Monica Lopez, was murdered this weekend at her wedding. It’s a great loss, but I will carry on in her stead, as the solo anchor at KQTV, bringing you all the news you can handle,” he finished with a smile, and Hazel swore his teeth glinted at her.
Hazel and Violet glanced at each other and gave him a brief and tentative applause.
“Well, I’ll have to work things out with Candace, like I said, but it’ll be something like that. Just a preview for my fans,” he said with a wink.
He looked ready to walk away, and Hazel scrambled for something to keep him there. A glance at Esther’s beautiful confections gave her an idea. “Did you eat any of the cake?”
“No,” he said, and crossed his arms. “I hadn’t gotten a chance to get any before Monica fell face-first in hers. She would’ve been furious about that—cake on her face. Actually, that’s kind of… what’s the word? Sarcastic? Getting cake on her caked-on makeup,” he said and chuckled at his terrible joke.
Hazel refrained from correcting him that it was ironic and not sarcastic.
“You did ask about the cake though; I was there. You asked me,” Violet said and gave him her sunniest smile.
Mace Daily blinked. “Did I? I don’t recall.”
“Oh, but I do,” Violet said, her smile fading. “You said the cake matched her big ego, and then when you found out the small cake was hers—”
“What is this? I—I was just joking around. Monica and I had a friendly rivalry. You can ask anyone. I loved the girl like a—like a sister. She was a decent anchor, and before that she’d been a pretty good reporter. But she did have an ego, if you didn’t notice. Did you hear what she did yesterday at the rehearsal? She was screaming at everyone. And then inviting Candace and me after what she pulled,” he said and shook his head. That plastic smile vanished, and so had the newscaster mask he wore the previous moment.
Hazel had an idea that this was the real Mace Daily, and he wasn’t entirely friendly or too bright either. “What had Monica done? I mean, we’re huge fans of yours, but we were never big fans of hers. Like you said, huge ego, right?”
Violet nodded.
“What did she do?” Mace glanced back and forth as if someone might be listening. When he seemed content no one was, he went on. “She’s been having contract disputes with our station manager, Candace Stratford, for months. She keeps trying to get more money—as if she’s a bigger star than me. Ha! Candace wasn’t folding, so Monica kept threatening to leave the station. Like she was so big she was going to run off to L.A. or some other city. They’d have never taken her before. And now, well, they can’t,” he said and cast a glance at where Monica’s body had been.
Hazel swallowed the bile in her throat. “Wow. So, she was leaving the station?”
Mace shrugged. “I don’t know. Candace doesn’t discuss contracts with other parties.”
“Well, do you know of anyone who would’ve wanted to hurt Monica?” Hazel asked carefully. “I mean, it seems like she was killed on purpose, and it would be a pretty big story if you can find out who the killer was.”
Mace’s eyes brightened, and he flashed his ridiculous teeth at them once more. “Who would have wanted to kill her? Everyone. She shrieked at everyone on set on a constant basis. The makeup artists, Candace, even poor Stan. Always yelling. And Pablo, he got it the worst.”
Hazel searched the tent for the groom, but she didn’t spot him. “Really?”
Violet raised her eyebrows. “But the groom seems so nice.”
Mace nodded. “Oh, Pablo’s a great guy. He knows his place as a weatherman, and he doesn’t care. He likes to be the comedy relief and that’s that. He just wants to read the weather and have a good time. He’s not an ambitious little—well, you get the idea. Like Monica.” He scowled when he said her name, and Hazel frowned.
Yeah, she got the idea Mace really did not like his coworker. He wasn’t the least bit put off by her murder either. But did he not like he
r enough to get her out of the way permanently?
She wasn’t sure.
“Well, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’m going back to the bar. Since they’re paying for it,” Mace said with a shrug.
Hazel squinted at his retreating back, and Violet did the same.
“I feel slimy for saying I was his fan,” Violet said and gave an exaggerated shiver.
Hazel silently agreed.
Well, that opened up a whole new can of worms. If what Mace Daily said was right, her coworkers, and even her husband, had reasons to want her dead.
Here she thought she was going to narrow down the list of suspects; instead, she made it bigger.
Chapter 8
By five that evening, the deputies had finished questioning all of the guests and let them return to their rooms at the inn. The Lakeside Inn had been hospitable and gave all the information to the sheriff’s deputies that they could. But, since the staff was so small, they hadn’t witnessed anyone sabotaging the cake either.
And Sheriff Cross tentatively crossed the inn’s staff from the list of suspects since none of them had a motive to want Monica dead. Well, unless she’d yelled at them, but she’d done that to practically everyone.
Currently, Hazel and Sheriff Cross stared at a laptop screen of the wedding photos. He thought something suspicious might’ve shown up on them, and Hazel agreed a peek couldn’t hurt. Anthony Ray had left Esther’s company in the broom closet, and now slept on Colton’s lap. He absently brushed his fingers through the silky black fur every now and again, and Hazel smiled.
Petting cats was supposed to relieve stress, and she knew the sheriff could use it just about now.
He pinched his eyes and gave her a weary smile. “You know, I have just over twenty-four hours to solve this thing before most of my best suspects leave the state,” he said.
“I heard. You want me to get you some coffee?”
He let out a bark of humorless laughter. “It probably wouldn’t hurt, but sleep works too. We’re going to need some. I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m not in college anymore.”
Hazel smiled. “What? Here I thought I was dating a younger man. Actually, that sounds awful.”
She’d filled him in on what Mace Daily had said, and the fact that he’d been snooping around the cakes interested Sheriff Cross. He hadn’t found out anything of note from his deputies questioning of the suspects, but in Hazel’s experience, people lied when it came to murder.
“You sure it’s not a family member?” Hazel asked as she clicked through the wedding photos with him.
“None of them seem to have a strong enough motive. Think there was an affair going on?”
Hazel wrinkled her nose. She’d seen too many investigations with affairs for her liking. “I hope not. There was something interesting that Mace Daily said. Something about her trying to leave the station. And I heard the station manager say she wanted to get rid of Monica yesterday. Do you think that would be a reason to kill her?”
“Seems like there are a lot of reasons to kill someone, so maybe.” His jaw tensed as they looked at the smiling faces in the pictures on the screen, and she wasn’t sure if she should ask or not.
This case was going to be harder than the others. At least they’d had more time before. There wasn’t a ticking clock above their head. “Am I an unofficial part of this investigation or not?”
Colton turned from the computer. “I thought it went without saying. You are my unofficial partner and good luck charm, and Anthony Ray is my official deputy cat,” he said with a smile with more warmth in it than Hazel thought he could manage at that moment.
“I like the sound of that. Might have to start billing you for my services though. You keep taking advantage of me, and my dad taught me better.”
He let out another bark of laughter, but this one wasn’t humorless. “You know, this next quarter the budget looks a lot better, so I think there might be room for a forensic photographer. Part-time.”
“I wouldn’t mind that. Does it always have to be forensic photography?” she said and wrinkled her nose. “I opened up my photography studio to do something different and yet–”
“And yet the dead bodies keep pulling you back in. Maybe it’s because you’re talented. Or the spirits like you,” he said in a way that Hazel knew he was joking.
She rolled her eyes. “Let’s hope not. I have enough problems with living people—I don’t need spirits involved too.”
At the mention of spirits, Hazel half expected her mother to pop up out of nowhere and offer to do a séance. Thankfully, that didn’t happen.
Though something on the screen caught her eye, so quick it reminded her of a ghost.
“Go back one. No, two. There,” she said and pointed at the screen. She had to zoom in to get a good look.
Michael must have taken the photo, because Hazel didn’t remember doing it. It was a wide shot of the dining tent, with the bride and groom sitting at their table and the rest of the guests gathered around eating. It was before the cake had been cut, and the thing that caught Hazel’s eye was a tall, dark figure standing over Monica’s cake.
Standing a little too close for Hazel’s comfort.
And now, Hazel knew the woman’s name—Candace Stratford—and she had a good motive for wanting Monica Lopez dead. The image of the woman standing over the cake sent a shiver up her spine.
“It’d be pretty brazen of her to poison the cake in front of everyone, wouldn’t it?” Sheriff Cross said and pushed his reading glasses up his nose.
Hazel gave him a sly smile. “Yeah, sort of how it would have been brazen of me to shoot a man in my own studio, but that didn’t keep you from thinking I was a killer.”
Colton caught one of Hazel’s hands and squeezed it. “I made a mistake. Kind of like you misjudged me first off as well.”
“I’m still not sure I did. Do you want to have a word with Ms. Stratford while I keep going over the photos or–”
He gave her a rueful smile. “I have a feeling she’d probably be more receptive to someone who didn’t have a badge. Plus, Anthony Ray is so comfortable; I wouldn’t want to disturb him,” he said and gave the cat a scratch under his chin.
“You can’t use that excuse for everything,” she said, but rose to find Candace Stratford, regardless.
Chapter 9
As Hazel started toward the Lakeside Inn to find Candace Stratford, she noticed a figure heading in her direction out of the gardens and trees. In the falling twilight, it was difficult to make out the figure clearly; only that it was pale, and seemed to be wearing many flowing layers that flapped in the cooling evening breeze.
For a moment, Hazel’s heart stood still in her chest.
Oh no, it couldn’t be a ghost. She dedicated her life to not believing in supernatural things—the things her mother spouted off incessantly. And yet, for one fleeting moment, she saw this flapping, pale, insubstantial figure in the grayness around her, and that was the one thing that came to mind.
Then, the bit of fading sunlight caught on the figure’s glasses and the frizzy red-blonde hair around its familiar face. “Hazel? There you are. Where is your sister? I came just as soon as I heard.” Maureen Hart rushed forward.
Hazel shook her head. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m looking for Esther,” her mother said.
Upon closer inspection, Hazel’s mother, Maureen Hart, didn’t look anything like a ghost. She was a few inches shorter and stouter than Hazel, and had been as long as Hazel could remember. Her hair was longer, and it curled the way Hazel’s did—though perhaps it was safer to say it frizzed. And her mother didn’t seem to mind, although Hazel did.
She dressed in an impossible number of layers from a flowing skirt to a tunic with a shawl thrown on top, and they were in many different pastel colors; the reason she looked like a ghost from a distance.
“Why are you looking for Esther?” Hazel asked and glanced around.
No one was lu
rking about the wedding tents anymore, besides a few random deputies.
“I said I heard. You know what a busybody Carol is, and she got word that the bride died of a poison cake. The cake Esther made. Has the sheriff already arrested your sister?” Maureen Hart asked, hands on her hips.
Hazel shook her head. “No, Colton knows Esther wasn’t involved in this. And Esther isn’t even the one who made the cake—Carol is.”
Maureen blinked behind her glasses. “Oh really? That busybody was spreading rumors about my daughter. Probably to keep herself from being involved,” she said and shook her fist.
Hazel pinched her mouth shut to keep from saying Maureen herself tended to spread gossip as well, and was just as much a busybody as Carol, but she thought it wise to keep that to herself.
“I’ll help you find her. The last I saw she was hiding in a broom closet,” Hazel said with a frown.
“The poor dear. You know this probably brings back memories of middle school. Though no one ever thought she was a poisoner then.”
Hazel nodded. “Well, no one should think she’s one now. The sheriff sure doesn’t. We know Esther didn’t do this.”
Her mother hooked her arm in Hazel’s, and they strolled back up to the inn purposefully. “So? How exactly did the bride die? I mean, of course it’s a terrible tragedy, but what were the effects of the poison?”
Hazel glanced at her mother and noted the bright spark in her eyes. She had always been interested in herbalism, and poisons were a part of that. Not that she had ever poisoned anyone or been close enough to the cake to poison it, but she might have some helpful insight. “She basically fell face first in her cake. Her tongue was purple, and there was a little bit of foam around her lips, but that was it.”
Her mother tapped her lips. “Was there anything else? A smell?”
Hazel nodded. “Yeah, and it was bitter and almondy.”
“Bitter almond? And with a purple tongue and foam on her lips as well, it’s definitely cyanide. Although I’m sure Sheriff Cross had a sample sent to the closest lab, if I had to guess, that’s what it is. Oh dear, you know what that means?”