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

by Gillard, Susan

  “What problems did you have?”

  “She was a nice enough girl. But she charged too much for everything. If you’ve heard the expression ‘it cost an arm and a leg,' well, Tiffany’s projects would cost all your limbs.”

  Amy was racing to keep up with his comments as she took notes. Heather was interested to see whether she would include that variation on the classic phrase in them.

  “Didn’t you discuss prices before she began work?” Heather asked.

  “Of course we did. But she kept adding projects here and there without consulting me. I’m sure she also overcharged me for certain items. I’m not a home repair expert. I’m a businessman. But I know when prices look overblown and suspicious.”

  “Did you report her?”

  “No. Perhaps I should have. Maybe then she couldn’t have done this to another person. And maybe she wouldn’t have been killed.”

  Heather raised an eyebrow. “You think another client was the one who killed her?”

  “Isn’t that why you’re talking to me? You suspect every client, and there are probably many, who had an issue with her.”

  “We’re following several leads right now,” Heather said, enjoying the usefulness of this line during interviews.

  “Are you looking at the sister at all? Tiffany went on and on about all the wrongs that had been done to her by her sister. At the time I thought it was family angst and melodrama, but now that might not be the case.”

  “Let’s talk about that overcharging on your bill again.”

  “I paid what she told me to pay when she finished her work,” John Wallens said. “I figured I would give her the benefit of the doubt. After all, I had hired a professional. Turner Sister Homes had had wonderful reviews.”

  Amy nodded, knowing the feeling. She had been feeling guilty that her attempts to help Eva and Leila’s home had resulted in more troubles. This was not the way things went on the home repair shows she watched.

  “It was later, a few weeks after I thought everything was finished when she started sending me bills again. For add-on renovations that she said she had forgotten to tag onto the original bill. That was when I became angry.”

  “Did you pay her?”

  “Eventually, I did. And for a good amount of money too.”

  “Why?” Amy piped up from behind her notes. “It sounds fishy to me.”

  “It did to me too. But she kept hounding me for payment. I eventually decided it was easier to pay up than to go through a lawsuit like she was threatening. I didn’t have any concrete evidence that has been scamming me. Only strong suspicions.”

  “Do you have any of those later receipts?” Heather asked, curious.

  “No,” John said, reddening. “I’m afraid I pushed them down the new garbage disposal in my kitchen. I was rather mad at the time.”

  “So Tiffany redid your kitchen?”

  “She remodeled everything. The business I work for has been very successful, and luckily my salary had increased. I was willing to upgrade the whole house in celebration. I think perhaps that was why she was trying to take advantage of me. She thought I had money to burn.”

  “Did she give you a set of signature knives in the new kitchen?”

  “She did,” John said. “But I got rid of them soon after the new bill arrived. I threw them away. I didn’t want anything with her name on it displayed in my home. They weren’t great knives anyway.”

  “Seemed pretty sharp to me,” Amy muttered.

  “I bet she has a whole room of them stocked somewhere,” John said. “Cheap knives that she overcharges for at every place she remodeled.”

  “She did put them in all her new kitchens, but it seems she had them custom made each time.”

  “Is that right?” John asked. “Maybe one thing was the proper price she said it should be.”

  “Just one more question,” Heather said. “Where were you Monday evening?”

  “I was working from home Monday night. I can’t prove it minute by minute. But I did have to send emails throughout the night.”

  “Thank you. If you could show the timestamps on them to Detective Shepherd that would be helpful to verify.”

  “I will do that,” John said. He showed them out, and they thanked him again.

  On their way to their car, Heather received a call from Ryan.

  “I’m glad you called,” she said after they greeted each other. “Our last two clients can’t account for their knives and have shaky alibis. John Wallens is going to provide his emails though to verify some of his time at his computer. What did you find?”

  “Something you might find interesting,” Ryan said. “Taryn was the beneficiary of Tiffany’s will.”

  “Taryn said her sister didn’t have any money.”

  “Taryn was either wrong or lying. She’s about to inherit more than her business is worth tenfold.”

  “Well, then I think we need to have another talk with the prime sister suspect.”

  Chapter 10

  “It doesn’t make any sense,” Taryn protested. “Tiffany didn’t have that kind of money.”

  “So you said,” Amy replied. “But maybe you only said that so you wouldn’t have as big as a motive.”

  “No. Tiffany and I worked together for years. We were relatively successful, but we didn’t have that sort of profit.”

  “Maybe she was doing better on her own than she was with you,” Amy said.

  “You’re trying to get me mad, so I confess to something, but I didn’t kill my sister.” Taryn started rearranging the furniture in the office as she spoke to give herself something to do.

  “How was business?” Heather asked.

  “Together it was good. Good enough that I thought we were both happy, and that a TV network was interested in testing out a pilot TV show with us.”

  “And after you split?”

  “It’s been okay. I’m not as flashy as Tiffany. And I’m not as good at marketing myself. I guess that’s why most new clients found her instead of me.”

  Heather made a mental note that if Taryn ever got off their suspect list, she would introduce her to her assistant Jung who helped her with her own website. But until Heather was certain she wasn’t talking to a killer, she was going to be all business.

  “Did this upset you?”

  “Sometimes. We could both be jealous of each other. I thought we could recognize each other’s strengths and weaknesses as equally as we could our own. But after the show, she blamed me for everything.”

  “I see how that’s frustrating.”

  “I like things comfy and colorful in my own style. But when I work on someone else’s house I just follow instructions. I’d give people what they wanted. Tiffany could push people towards something they might love even more than what they thought they wanted. When we were together, we were balanced. Now I’m afraid people think I’m boring, and they think that Tiffany is – was a diva.”

  “Could she have gotten money from another means?”

  “We haven’t been close for a while, so I haven’t spoken to her recently. But remodeling homes takes a lot of time and effort. I don’t think she could have handled another job on top of it.”

  Taryn moved a particularly heavy couch to vent her frustration but then was so tired she had to sit down. Heather and Amy joined her.

  “Is it possible that she could be so successful so fast with her new clients to have that sort of money in her account?”

  “It’s possible. But unlikely. That’s what I mean when I say I can’t explain it.”

  Amy gave Heather a look. It was clear that she thought that the explanation was that Taryn had been lying about knowing about the money, and now was trying to cover her tracks. Heather was less sure.

  “I can’t believe we’ll never be able to make peace,” Taryn said. “I thought someday we would.”

  “Have you been able to find your set of the knives?” Heather asked, trying to focus her again.

  “No,” Ta
ryn said miserably. “I can’t believe you think I did this.”

  “We’re just gathering information,” Heather said. “But you do inherit her money, had access to a knife matching the murder weapon and had documented problems with your sister.”

  Taryn got up and pulled a DVD out of a desk drawer. “I didn’t find the knife to help clear myself. But I did find this.”

  She handed it over to Heather who wasn’t sure what to make of it. “What is it?”

  “It’s a rough copy of our show that never aired. Maybe it can help you somehow. Maybe it will help you to see that we were sisters. We fought, but we never really wanted to kill each other.”

  “Thank you for this,” Heather said, placing it safely in her bag. She could tell Amy was excited to watch it. A home decorating show that might help solve a murder? That was right up her alley.

  “And,” Taryn said. “If you ever want me to look at your friend’s house, I’d still be happy to.”

  “I believe I told you I didn’t think that would be appropriate,” Heather said.

  “You probably did say something like that, but I really am the best choice for the remodel. I will turn their home around. Taryn Turner always does.”

  “I’m getting so sick of this catch phrase,” Amy said. “We’ve been getting a double dose of it.”

  “She used my catchphrase too?” Taryn said, angrily.

  “Your catchphrase?”

  “It used to be both of ours. But I came up with it. I should have been the one to keep it.”

  “She really was trying to take everything from you, wasn’t she?” Heather asked. “Your slogan? Your chance on TV? Your business?”

  “Look, when you put it like that, it sounds bad,” Taryn admitted.

  Heather and Amy gathered up their things and started out.

  Taryn stopped them with a seemingly heartfelt plea. “Please catch whoever did this to my sister.”

  “I will,” Heather promised. “Whoever it was.”

  They left the office and Taryn who was beginning to move furniture again.

  “Do you think the ‘whoever’ is Taryn?” Amy asked.

  “It’s certainly possible. She had means, motive, and opportunity. But something doesn’t feel quite right about it. If she was planning on killing her sister, why do it then? They’d been quarreling for a while. And if it was about the money, shouldn’t she have created a better alibi for herself?”

  “We know it was premeditated because they brought the knife with them, so couldn’t the same be said about any of our suspects with weak alibis?”

  “That’s true. Luckily we have a fun bit of new evidence to examine.”

  “Do you mean the DVD of their show? I’m so excited to watch it. Movie night tonight?”

  “In the name of justice, I think we better watch it tonight. But if it’s as dramatic and trashy as I think it is, we’ll have to wait til after Lilly goes to bed.”

  Chapter 11

  “What did I just walk into?” Ryan asked, laughing.

  Heather and Amy had a giant bowl of popcorn on the bed with them. They had to watch the DVD in the bedroom because of their houseguests in the living room.

  “We’re doing important research,” Heather said. She patted a spot to sit down next to them and offered him some popcorn.

  He took a bite. “Buttery and delicious. But how does this help with the case?”

  Heather smiled and pushed play on the remote. They were instantly greeted with upbeat music while pictures of houses appeared onscreen. Then Tiffany and Taryn danced around in the opening credits, seeming to make houses spin around and then reveal a new fancier designed home.

  “Don’t say it,” Amy wished.

  “Turner Sister Homes,” the onscreen sisters said. “We’ll turn your home around!”

  “This is the TV show that never was,” Heather explained to Ryan. “The cause of the sisters’ feud.”

  As they watched the episode, it became clear that both sisters were partly to blame for the show’s downfall. Tiffany seemed very bossy and condescending when she spoke to clients, in a way that would not have been good for business. Taryn looked completely uncomfortable being onscreen. She walked around very stiffly and looked afraid to answer questions when she knew the camera was directly on her.

  “If this is what they chose to put in the episode, I’d hate to see what was cut out,” Amy said.

  “This is pretty difficult to watch,” Ryan admitted.

  Onscreen Taryn was explaining how to add texture to a ceiling in a monotone. Later when she was applying the paint and seemed not to know the camera was on, she looked at ease and confident with her design skills. But every time she spoke into the camera, it looked like she was doing so at gunpoint.

  Tiffany was more at ease. They knew she loved to hear the sound of her own voice, but it was even more obvious on camera. They listened to her explain about lighting fixtures for an extended period of time.

  “People like to say that you should make a lighting fixture the focal point of a room, but that just seems silly to me. That’s inviting people to stare at a light. That’s like inviting people to stare at the sun. Why? Yes, choose a lighting fixture to complement the room. But choose something else to draw focus. Maybe it’s a nice plant, a fireplace, or a family photo.”

  Tiffany revealed a family photo of her and Taryn, and they actually looked happy in it.

  Throughout the show, the sisters bickered and made up. They actually did seem like they loved each other even if they also annoyed each other. At the end, the house they renovated together was a dream home. It was also perfect for the couple that they had been designing for.

  It ended with a line that made Amy groan again. “Turner Sister Homes. Could the next home we turn around be yours?”

  “Well,” Ryan said. “I don’t know if that was illuminating. But the popcorn was good.”

  “I can see why the show wasn’t picked up,” Amy said. “They both did what you shouldn’t do on TV, but on opposite ends of the spectrum.”

  “Agreed,” Heather said. “But even if we objective observers can tell that they were both partly to blame, that doesn’t mean that it’s how the sisters felt.”

  “That’s true. Every client we interviewed said that Tiffany was still mad at Taryn,” Amy said. “Which would have made the case easy if the opposite sister had been killed.”

  “Taryn did give us this DVD when she didn’t have to. Not that it really proves things one way or another in their relationship.”

  “Still. It was very brave of her to share it.” Amy said, “If it were me in that show, I’d have destroyed every copy I could find.”

  “Can it be my turn to share?” Ryan asked.

  “You secretly loved the show?” Amy asked back.

  “No. I have some more information about Tiffany’s financials.”

  “That’s a great thing to share,” Heather said. “Where did the money come from?”

  “It’s all relatively new money. It looks like it came from her new clients.”

  “She was really that good?” Amy asked.

  “She was really overcharging,” Heather corrected.

  “And a large chunk of it came from John Wallens,” Ryan said.

  Amy nodded. “His house did look the nicest. And he said he paid two arms and two legs.”

  “It also came in two payments,” said Ryan.

  “He mentioned that,” Heather said. “He wasn’t too happy about the add on charges after the first bill was completed.”

  “I wouldn’t be either,” Ryan said. “He paid almost as much the second time around as the first.”

  “That is strange,” Heather agreed.

  They all thought about the case for a moment and then Amy yawned. “I think I’m going to head home. And I’ll let you two get to, well, bed.”

  She wished them a goodnight and then left. Ryan waited until he was sure her footsteps had died away. He turned to his wife.

  �
��Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “More popcorn?”

  “It is almost midnight. It’s practically a midnight snack.”

  The couple chuckled together and went to pop some more salty kernels.

  Chapter 12

  The next day Heather and Amy were all set to talk to the final two of Tiffany’s clients and to determine if they still had signature knives. They were driving down the street with Eva’s house on it when Heather suddenly demanded that they stop.