Mint Creme Murder: A Donut Hole Cozy Mystery - Book 47

by Gillard, Susan

  Tiffany realized she wasn’t the center of their attention and came back to claim it. “It’s a shame your kitchen doesn’t need to be overhauled.”

  “A shame?” Eva asked.

  “I’m great at redesigning kitchens. I have lots of innovative ideas for counters. I love to install cutting board counters, which are functional as well as eye-catching. When I redo a kitchen, I also make sure to include a set of my signature knives in the display. Yes, there is a Tiffany Turner knife line. Very reasonably priced for how useful they are. I bet I’m making you jealous. I could still redesign your kitchen for you. I’d be happy to.”

  “What a diva!” Amy said. “This is her without a TV show. Imagine what she’d be like if she did get one. She’d say that she’d be in her trailer all day, except the trailer would have to be renovated to her standards.”

  Tiffany seemed to have selective hearing and only heard mention of the show. “Did you say I’d be good on my own TV show? I was so close to having one. The camera loved me and my design ideas, but it didn’t love my sister. She came off as boring. She was a dead weight that dragged me down, ruining my chances of stardom. But that’s all right. I work alone now. Maybe someday I’ll have a one-woman show.”

  “Could we focus on the renovation needed here?” Heather asked. “We’d like—“

  Tiffany cut her off with the wrong answer. “You’d like new flooring! In the fire damaged areas, it’s obviously necessary. But we could find some nice wood paneling to redo the whole house.”

  This was getting ridiculous.

  “Look,” Heather said, putting her foot down. “We want to hear your design ideas, but you need to listen to what your clients want too. And right now, Eva and Leila would like an estimate of what the basic home repair would cost. Then you can give another estimate of the other renovations you’d like to do. All right?”

  Tiffany sputtered.

  “Any estimates on when she’ll regain her voice?” Amy joked.

  It wasn’t long. Tiffany took out a notepad and smiled at her clients. “Of course that’s all right. I’ll make two separate estimates. Though after hearing my design details, I know you’ll want to carry them all through to completion. But Tiffany Turner turns homes around the way a client wants. If it’s more subtle, so be it.”

  “I don’t know subtle it is,” Amy said. “You are putting walls back up.”

  “I just want you all to be happy in your home. And so if you would like your kitchen redone, I can add that to the estimate too.”

  Wild horses might be easier to reign in than Tiffany’s plans. Heather was about to say something else when her phone rang, announcing a call from Ryan. She excused herself from the group and answered it.

  “Shepherd,” Heather said. “How’s it going? Do you have a case for me to help with?”

  “No,” Ryan said. “Just a favor to ask.”

  “Sure. What is it?”

  “I know you’re helping Eva and Leila now, so I hate to interrupt. But could you pick up Nicolas for his playdate with Lilly today? I’m not sure I’d make it in time.”

  “Of course. But is everything all right at the station?”

  “Yes,” Ryan said and then paused.

  “It’s never a good idea to keep secrets from your wife,” Heather reminded him. “Especially if she’s a private investigator.”

  Ryan sighed. “It’s nothing dangerous and nothing related to a case. It’s only that I know you’re not a big fan of Hoskins and I wasn’t sure I wanted to add more fuel to the fire.”

  It was true that Heather thought Ryan’s partner was an inept detective and she didn’t approve of the sexist comments he had made when they first me, but she didn’t think he was a truly bad person. She didn’t want to be associated with negativity towards anyone and tried to give him the benefit of the doubt when she could. Sometimes it was hard, but she tried.

  “What sort of fuel?”

  “He accidentally locked both sets of keys in the car, and we need to figure out the best way to get them out.”

  Heather suppressed a laugh imagining policemen breaking into a car and assured him that she could pick up the kids.

  She rejoined her friends. Tiffany was explaining how a chandelier could change the look of a room but seemed to be dutifully keeping the two estimate lists separate from each other.

  Heather explained how she had to leave and then asked Amy to keep an eye on the designer.

  “I’ll keep both eyes on her,” Amy said. “But I’ll try to keep my tongue in check. Unless she gets really off track again.”

  Heather thought this could be quite possible as she left and Tiffany was still talking about updating the kitchen.

  Chapter 4

  Playdates with Lilly and Nicolas were always a delight, and this one was no exception. Nicolas had listened to Lilly’s latest story, fresh off the press from her pink typewriter. Then they had found some music they liked and had an impromptu dance party. Dave included himself in the dancing and spun around in circles, almost catching his tail in time with the music. When he tired of spinning, Cupcake helped with the chase and swatted at his tail with a small paw.

  Heather found herself bopping along to the music as she tidied up the house. It wasn’t the most glamorous part of her day, but with five people currently living there, along with two animals and frequent guests, the house occasionally needed a little care. She reminded herself how lucky she was to be in the home she loved with her family. She thought Eva was handling the destruction of her home and subsequent rebuilding annoyances much better than she would have under the circumstances.

  Then again, Heather thought to herself, maybe she could have been as brave as Eva. Heather had found her own strength tested again and again, and had been pleasantly surprised how she had met most of her challenges. When she opened Donut Delights, she had expected only to be a baker and store owner. She didn’t expect to a become private investigator who solved a slew of murders or to adopt the sweetest little girl in the world and become a mom, but now she couldn’t imagine her life any differently.

  She was smiling with these thoughts swirling around her head when the sweetest little girl and her best friend joined her.

  “Do you need any help, Mom?” Lilly asked.

  Heather’s heart swelled as it always did when she was called mom, but she was also proud that her daughter had such good manners and was always willing to help.

  “I’m doing fine,” Heather said. “But you two have been dancing so much. I need to make sure you stay hydrated. Why don’t you grab a juice box?”

  They danced off to grab some juice and started discussing setting up their own lemonade or juice stand that summer. Heather smiled again. Maybe her entrepreneurial side was rubbing off on her daughter too.

  She heard Eva and Leila return but was disappointed to see that their faces were glum.

  “Did Tiffany keep pushing to change the kitchen?”

  “Amy kept her pretty much in check,” Leila conceded.

  “Then what’s wrong?”

  The two women showed her what was wrong, and Heather gasped as she saw the written estimate for what the renovation would cost.

  “This is for the extra design elements?” Heather asked hopefully.

  “That’s what she said it was for basic repairs,” Eva said. “Including all the discounts she got from her construction friends.”

  “How could her estimate and the insurance’s be so different?” Leila asked.

  Heather dug through her pockets and found the business card that Tiffany had bestowed on her that morning.

  “Would you two mind watching Lilly and Nicolas for a little bit?” She asked.

  “Where are you going?” Eva asked.

  “I’m going to visit a certain designer’s office, and make sure she’s not trying to take advantage of you.”

  “Do you think she is?” Eva asked. “She might think we’re silly old women that she can cheat?”

  “I have b
een known to be silly,” Leila said. “But I hardly feel old. Especially with Lilly around. And no one cheats us.”

  “That’s what I’m going to go investigate.”

  “You’ve already done so much for us,” Eva said. “You don’t have to run out on our account.”

  “No,” Heather assured them. “This is for me as much as for you. I won’t be able to get any sleep tonight with this on my mind.”

  ***

  Heather drove her red Chevy Spark to the address listed on Tiffany’s business card. She hoped that Tiffany was at her office. It was getting late, and she realized she probably should have phoned to see if Tiffany was in. However, her feelings of indignity and anger on her friends’ behalf had demanded that she take action right away.

  She parked and took note of the layout of the office. There were a lot of trees that did make for a lovely design, but also made it hard to see if anyone else was in the area.

  She walked up to the front door of the office building, noticing the modern siding and wondering if there would be chandeliers and electric fireplaces inside this building too.

  The door was unlocked, so Heather was expecting that Tiffany would be found inside. She didn’t expect to find her stabbed to death on the floor.

  Heather stifled a scream of surprise and alarm. Instead, she let her investigator skills takeover. She had to notify the police of a murder.

  Chapter 5

  Heather was used to working on murder cases and seeing dead bodies, but it had been a while since she had stumbled upon a victim by chance, especially one that she had spoken to mere hours ago. It was an unsettling feeling, but she kept her up her professional demeanor.

  She even remained professional as she dealt with Detective Hoskins. She was used to Hoskins barely hidden distaste for working with her, and with his obvious taste for candy bars that he chewed on even at crime scenes. However, she never liked being questioned by him.

  “You’re sure you didn’t touch anything?” He asked.

  “I already told you. I only touched the door,” she replied. “When I saw Tiffany there, I knew it was too late to do anything to help her. So I called Ryan and waited for the police to arrive.”

  “You’re sure you didn’t move anything? Disturb any evidence?”

  “I’m sure,” she said, tired of repeating herself.

  “Did you sneeze on anything?”

  “That’s enough,” Ryan said. “She’s a witness, not a suspect. And she’s about to join our investigation.”

  Hoskins grumbled about how he was going to check with the coroner now anyway and took a bite of his caramel chocolate bar as he waddled off.

  “I like when I call you to a crime scene to tell you about a case, not the other way around,” Ryan said.

  “Sheer dumb luck,” Heather said. “This was the designer that we asked to make estimates about Eva’s house. I wanted to talk to her and make sure she wasn’t trying to cheat them.”

  “That is something to look into. We’ll look at past clients and make sure she didn’t cheat any of them and made them angry enough to kill.”

  “I don’t know for sure that she did,” Heather said neutrally. “But it is worth investigating. She mentioned a sister too. It seems like they didn’t get along.”

  Ryan made a note on his notepad. “I think she’s the next of kin that we’ll have to notify of the death. I’ll see if we can get her alibi when we talk to her too.”

  “Is there anything else you found out while Hoskins was trying to grill me like a steak?”

  “Not too much yet, I’m afraid. There will be an autopsy, of course, but it looks pretty obvious that the stab wound was the cause of death. Right now it looks like she was dead about an hour before you arrived.”

  “She must have been murdered soon after her meeting with Eva and Leila. She returned to her office and then was killed. Do you think the killer was waiting for her to get back?”

  “It’s possible. We’re asking the neighbors if they noticed anything unusual, but with all the trees here it’s hard to see if anyone entered.”

  “I noticed that when I came in too. I’m glad I always carry a Taser with me now. I hope it would have been a match for that knife.” Heather had a thought. “That knife. Was it by any chance from the Tiffany Turner knife line?”

  “It did have TT etched on it in fancy letters. And it’s not a style I recognized. What’s the Tiffany Turner knife line?”

  “She kept talking about how she loved renovating kitchens and how she would include special knives from her own line in the room. I think this might be one of them.”

  “We’ve been looking around the office building. We haven’t found much of interest. There are some contracts and blueprints, but it seems like pretty routine stuff. And there’s no storage area for kitchenware and knives.”

  Heather looked around the office space and saw he was right. It was easier to examine the office now that the body had been removed. The space was tasteful and modern, with a few unusual items that must have been talking points for potential clients. There were some paintings from artists that Heather didn’t recognize.

  It looked like Tiffany had chosen a light fixture to be the focal point of the room. It was a boxy piece that had different colored squares balancing on chains. It was situated over her desk, a large impressive gray piece or furniture with colorful accents to draw the eye to it.

  It was so open that there didn’t seem to be storage space for knives, or for anything else for that matter.

  “So it wasn’t an item found here,” Heather said, recapping the knife situation.

  “No. The killer brought it with him. This was a premeditated murder.”

  “And while there might have been multiple copies of that particular knife, there’s only a few people that had access to getting them.”

  “So one of them is our killer.”

  Chapter 6

  “I can’t believe you investigated a crime scene without me,” Amy squawked.

  “It was an accident,” Heather assured her bestie. “If I had known there would be a dead body there, I wouldn’t have gone inside.”

  “Yes, you would have. You would have notified the proper authorities and such, but you would have gone in to see if there had been foul play. You can’t resist it now.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “It’s your superpower. Solving crime and making donuts. Maybe I can combine them into a hero name. The Donut Do-Good-er.”

  Heather laughed.

  “It’s a work in progress,” Amy said. “But my point was that you need your trusty sidekick partner to back you up. You should have called me to the crime scene.”

  “I’m making it up to you now. You’re with me to question the first suspect. And she’s a prime suspect – the sister.”

  “Tiffany did mention their problems, and she blamed her for the failed TV show. Do you think her sister blamed her back?”

  “That’s what we have to find out. That and if the family troubles were reason enough to kill.”

  Heather and Amy got out of their car and walked up to Taryn Turner’s office. It was also a tasteful building, but very different from Tiffany’s. Instead of siding on the outside, there were cobblestones, giving the office a cottage-like feel. However there were fewer trees outside, so they could see if there were other people nearby. Based on the number of cars, it looked like Taryn was alone inside.

  They entered the office and saw other design differences. Instead of a sparse modern design, Taryn’s office was full of design elements. It came close to being cluttered but still felt homey.

  A woman who looked similar to Tiffany entered the room. Her hair was pulled back in a simple ponytail, and instead of a suit, she wore jeans and a lacy pink shirt.

  “Miss Taryn Turner?” Heather asked.

  “Yes,” Taryn said. “Are you the fish tank ladies? I told you I wouldn’t have the dimensions until tomorrow.”

  “Go fish,” Amy said, indicati
ng she had guessed wrong.

  Heather gave her friend a look and then said, “No. I’m Heather Shepherd, and this is Amy Givens. We’re working with the Hillside Police, investigating a murder.”

  “So you’re here about Tiffany?”

  “We are. Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?”

  “Go ahead,” Taryn said, leading them towards one of her colorful couches. “Even after she dies, she interrupts my business.”

  Amy took out her tablet and prepared to take notes, but couldn’t keep herself from saying, “You don’t seem too broken up about your sister’s death.”