“That must’ve caused some problems for you.”
“For everyone. And especially for George,” Mike said. “He’s our boss. He’s the one who hired her to be the front-of-camera lady. Biggest mistake of his life, I bet. She’d been nothing but a pain in the neck from day one.”
Heather brought out her mini notepad and pen from her pocket. She wrote George’s name at the top. “Do you have a contact number for George?”
“Yeah, he’s staying at the hotel, same as Tina. Same as me. He even rented out an office building downtown because he’s thinking of expanding,” Mr. Martin said, then rolled his eyes. “Who would want to expand in a town like this?”
Heather ignored the anger in the pit of her belly. This guy had a serious attitude problem. He had to be in his late forties, but he acted like a sulky teenager at best. “What’s his full name?”
“George Rockwell. Come on. You have to have heard of him. The entrepreneur from Dallas?”
“No, I haven’t,” Heather said. She made a point of avoiding newspaper and the news. They always put her in a terrible mood. Too much destruction and negativity. “Was there anyone else who might’ve wanted to hurt Tina?”
“Sure, I’ll write you a list.”
Heather pressed her lips together and counted to ten in her head. “Anyone in Hillside, I mean.”
“Oh, well…” Mike Martin sniffed and glanced to the side. “Oh yeah, there was this one woman who keeps hanging around the hotel. Lottie, I think that’s her name. She’s some old friend of Tina’s. Or she was, whatever.”
Heather scribbled down the name beneath George Rockwell’s. “Lottie,” she said.
“Yeah, but that’s all I know about her. She’s young. She’s got blond hair that she puts in two braids.”
Heather wrote the information down. Sharon Janis, the town gossip had already set up her table in the corner of the store. She’d probably know all there was to know about Miss Lottie the mysterious lead.
“Is that all?” Mike asked, and wiped his chocolate coated fingers on his shirt. Two smears stretched down the front. “I’ve got to get back to the so-called office and find out when this stupid competition is going to take place.”
“One more thing, if you don’t mind, Mr. Martin,” Heather said. The sooner he left, the better.
“What?”
“Where were you after your fight with Tina? Where did you go?” Heather asked.
“I went back to my hotel room and got in a bath. If you must know.” Mike Martin scraped his chair along Heather’s precious golden boards. Gosh, if he’d left a mark... “Tina had a gift. Draining all my darn energy.”
“Is there anyone who can corroborate that?” Heather asked.
“Only the walls and the bottom of my bathtub,” Mike replied. “Now, I gotta hit the road. See ya.” He marched to the door of the store, opened it and hurried into the street outside.
He let it slam shut behind himself.
Heather grimaced and stared at the half-eaten donut on his plate.
“Sacrilege,” Amy said, and pointed at it. “Never trust a guy who doesn’t finish his donut.”
Heather couldn’t help but agree.
Chapter 4
“Just like that, eh?” Amy asked, and leaned against the wall beside the door. “One word to Sharon Janis and you’ve got her home address.” She adjusted her grip on Dave’s leash.
“I know, I know,” Heather said and flapped her palms at her bestie. “She’s objectionable at best, but at least she has the information I need. Most of the time.”
“Yeah, and now you know Lottie’s full history, as well,” Amy replied.
Heather knocked on the front door again. “Hey. I didn’t say she was a credible source of information. She’s useful, though.”
“Who are you?” A woman asked, behind them.
Dave barked and spun in a circle on the end of the leash. Amy pivoted and flung out her arm. She caught herself on the wall, just in time to keep from falling over. “Dave,” she hissed.
“What do you want?” The woman asked, and folded her arms. She wore her hair in blond braids over either shoulder.
“Lottie Jameson?” Heather asked, and took a step toward her. “I’m Heather Shepherd.”
The youngster shrugged. “Okay? That doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“I’m working in conjunction with the Hillside Police Department,” Heather said.
Amy mouthed the words in time with her. Apparently, she’d said that a lot in the past few weeks.
Oh well, it made investigating the cases a lot easier.
“And?” Lottie asked.
“It’s come to my attention that you were friends with a woman by the name of Tina Laurent. She was a reporter.”
“Was a reporter? What do you mean, was?” Lottie flicked her braids over her shoulders and stared at Heather. Her gaze flicked to Amy. “What does she mean?”
“Heather, she’s talking to me,” Amy said. “What should I do? Usually, they just ignore me.”
Dave barked at Lottie, then sat down on Amy’s foot and scratched underneath his collar. His nametag jingled, a frantic bell to accompany their stilted conversation.
“Uh?” Lottie took a step back. “Can someone explain what’s going on here?” Her knee-length coat fluttered in the breeze.
“Yeah, sorry, Miss Jameson.” Heather cleared her throat. “Miss Laurent passed yesterday afternoon. I’m investigating her murder.”
“Murder!” Lottie grasped her throat and stumbled back further. “No!”
A little dramatic, but okay.
“Were you and Miss Laurent close?”
“I – we’d better talk inside,” Lottie replied, then rushed past them to the front door. She unlocked, and it swung inward. “Follow me.”
The younger woman marched down a short, hall and turned right.
“Creepy.”
“Everything’s creepy to you,” Heather whispered. “Let’s go.”
They traipsed down the hall, past pictures of Lottie Jameson in a variety of situations. One had to be a prom photo. The other was a sunny picnic with the family. Another, a group of friends on a boat.
None of those pictures contained Tina Laurent.
They turned right and entered a dingy living room.
Lottie raked open the curtains across the window, and light twitched across the boards and caressed the back of a striped sofa.
“Please,” Lottie said and gestured to it. She stood beside the window and stared out at the back garden, which was no more than a flowerbed and a tiny patch of green grass.
“I’m sorry for your loss, Miss Jameson,” Heather said and sat down.
Amy picked up Dave and tucked him against her chest. He licked her chin once, and she didn’t bother fending him off.
“She was one of my best friends,” Lottie said. “Since High School. She left to become some hotshot reporter afterward, and I hardly ever saw her. We kept in touch.” The sentences came out morose.
But they didn’t sit right. No, this seemed a little too sad, a little too melodramatic.
Okay, so she wasn’t in tears of the floor, but something about Lottie Jameson made Heather’s stomach turn. Suspicion settled around her shoulders.
“We were supposed to meet today, actually. For the first time since she arrived back in town,” Lottie said.
Heather’s gaze swept the room and settled on the coffee table. An item stared back at her. An object that confirmed her suspicions. “For the first time,” Heather said, and stared at the pearl earring atop the dark wood.
Amy followed her line of sight, and her mouth formed a tight ‘o’ shape.
“Yeah,” Lottie replied, and turned to face them. She leaned the heels of her palms on the windowsill.
“That’s interesting, because,” Heather said and plucked the earring off the coffee table, “we found an earring just like this in Tina’s hotel room.”
Lottie grasped her right ear, then cleare
d her throat. She flapped her mouth open and closed, without a word.
“Would you care to explain, Miss Jameson?”
Lottie bit her lip hard, then released it. “Fine, I saw her yesterday. I didn’t want to tell you because I thought you’d think I was guilty or something.”
She certainly hadn’t hinted toward her innocence.
“What happened?” Heather asked.
“I – look, I just wanted to see my friend. I went over there, and we got to talking. She was angry about something to do with the network or the channel. I don’t know how that stuff works. I told her to calm down and, yeah, we got into an argument.” Lottie sighed and pressed her lips out. “I thought she’d be happy to see me, but she wasn’t She just took out her bad mood on me.”
“I see,” Heather said. A tirade of information and thoughts. “What happened then?”
“I left. I wasn’t about to hang around with someone who doesn’t want to hang around me if you know what I mean, so I left.” Lottie clapped her hands.
Dave growled, and Amy tapped him on the nose, once. He quieted and nuzzled into the crook of her elbow.
“Did you see anyone or anything on your way out of the hotel?” Heather asked.
“No.”
“And you went home afterward?”
“Yeah.”
“And is there anyone who can confirm this?” Heather rose from her seat and face Lottie, the liar.
“No,” the woman replied. “No, there isn’t. And I know what you’re thinking, but I had no idea she was – you know, she was dead until you told me, just now. I had no idea. Okay?”
“Convincing,” Amy said and turned it into a cough.
“I think that will be all for now, Miss Jameson,” Heather said. “We’ll be in touch.”
Chapter 5
Heather handed over the coffee and presented a bright smile to her customer. “Thanks for your patronage,” she said.
“I’ll be back,” the woman said, around a mouthful of donut. “This is unbelievable.”
“I’m so glad you’re enjoying it.” Heather couldn’t quash the joy in her heart. Her mind, on the other hand, had different notions
She couldn’t get Lottie’s lie out of her thoughts. The woman had been blatant and unapologetic about lying and didn’t have an alibi. Frustration grumbled along beside the thoughts.
“Heather?” Eva Schneider stopped in front of the glass counter.
The sunshine outside had brightened since they’d opened that morning, but clouds had rolled in and brought a darker atmosphere, now.
“Hey, Eva. You’re in later than usual. Is everything okay?” Heather asked, and bent to get Eva’s daily donut.
The elderly woman enjoyed the weekly made donut. She’d tasted every single one since the store had first opened. Her stamp of approval meant more to Heather than anything else.
“I need to talk to you about something private, dear,” Eva whispered. She grasped the edge of the counter, and her fingertips went white. “It’s of the utmost importance.”
Heather straightened, then brushed off her apron. “All right. Let’s talk in my office,” she said, then waved Ange over. “Take care of the front for me, please Ang?”
“No problem, boss,” Angelica replied and gave her a double thumbs up. “Anything for you.”
Heather walked to her office door, then opened it and held it for Eva. “Is everything all right?”
“Oh yes, dear, everything is fine with me,” Eva said but left the rest of the sentence in the air between them.
Heather followed her oldest friend into the office, then shut it behind herself. She hurried to her seat behind the desk, then lowered herself into it and rocked back a bit.
Eva sat down and placed her handbag on the desk. She curled her tiny, wrinkled hands together in her lap, and sighed. “I’m sorry I was so mysterious. It’s better we talk in private, that’s all.”
“All right,” Heather replied, and smiled at Eva. “Please, tell me what’s going on.”
“I read the paper this morning. That reporter died,” she said. “I didn’t think too much of it until I read her name.”
“You know something about the case, Eva?” Heather asked.
“I’m not sure. I think I might,” she replied. “I was at the field on Sunday morning. I was going to come to your tent thingy, but I couldn’t find the spot.”
“What a pity. We would’ve liked to have seen you.”
Eva shifted her handbag to one side. “Yes, well, I stopped to ask this one woman for directions, and that was when I saw her.”
“Tina?”
“Yeah,” Eva said and leaned a little closer. “She was angry. She marched right past me, and then this other man stopped her.”
“What did he look like?” Heather asked, and cast her mind back to the messy appearance of one of her prime suspects. Mike Martin would’ve stuck out to Eva, all right. The woman hated sloppiness.
“He wore a suit without a tie, heaven forbid, and a pair of wire frame glasses. Tall, but not too tall,” Eva said. “Anyway, this Tina woman just flipped out when she saw him and yelled.”
“Oh wow,” Heather said and scooched forward. This was new information. “How did he react?”
“He told her to calm down. And then she said something really strange.” Eva licked her lips. “Goodness, I couldn’t figure it out. She mentioned rats.”
“Rats?”
“Yeah, she said she wanted to do an expose on the rats at the competition,” Eva replied.
“Maybe she meant someone in particular? A rat?” Heather tapped her bottom lip. It could’ve been that Tina despised someone at the competition and had referred to them as a rat. “Wait, rats plural?”
“Yes. That’s what bothered me,” Eva said and worried the bottom of her sweater. “I think she meant actual rats. Vermin.”
“Oh boy,” Heather said and pushed back in her seat. “Amy’s going to love this.” They’d had a particularly memorable – horrible, in other words – experience with rats a few months back.
“And this man, I don’t know what his name was, told her that she couldn’t do any report on rats. I was so flustered. I hardly heard what they said. And then I finally found your tent, and you were already gone,” Eva said.
“I’m so sorry, Eva. If I’d known, you were coming –”
Eva waved away her apology. “Don’t worry about it, dear. I saw you later in the evening, and I got to spend time with darling, Lilly, and her cat and Dave.”
“Thanks so much for that, by the way,” Heather said. Her smile came naturally for Eva, who’d been nothing but supportive from day one. “And this information really helps. I think I know exactly what I have to do next.”
“I take it, that won’t be eating another donut,” Eva replied.
“No, unfortunately not.” Heather had much dirtier work in mind. Poor Amy’s toes would curl.
Chapter 6
Amy stood beside Heather and glared out from underneath the navy umbrella. She pursed her lips, then stomped her feet in her boots. “Let the record show that I objected to this.”
“He might bring Cheetos, Ames. There’s always a silver lining. Or an orange, cornmeal dusted lining, I should say.”
“Whatever,” Amy said, but she perked up regardless. Amy was the junk food queen, yet she kept her figure. Maybe she ate carrot sticks and tomato juice at home to make up for the sweets and salts.
Heather checked her filigree watch, then tapped its pearlescent face. “He’s late.”
“I’m here,” Bob grumbled and clanked up beside Heather. “Darn rain had me running late.” Bob, the Bug Debunker, had arrived in all his exterminating glory. He tipped his dirty cap toward Amy and Heather. “Almost crashed my van. The paint’s coming off my bug.”
“That I’d like to see,” Amy said.
“It’s no laughing matter,” Bob replied and readjusted his hat. “So, what’s the deal, ladies? We got a rodent infestation or not?”
Heather gestured to the row of tents in front of them. The competition had been postponed, not canceled, and nothing had been taken down. “We’re here to find that out, Bob. I’ve gotten some intel which suggests we might have a problem here. It would be best to sort it out as soon as possible.”
Bob sniffed and tugged his beige pants upward. “ASAP. Got ya.” He stomped off toward the nearest tent. “You gals stay out here. I’ll call you if I find anything whiskered.”
“He didn’t bring Cheetos,” Amy said and glared at Heather.
An orange packet flew from the tent Bob had entered.
Amy caught it with her free hand and grinned. “Okay, this isn’t so bad.” She popped open the bag, reached inside and brought out a single, powdering chip. “But, I still don’t get why we’re here. What’s this got to do with the case, Heather?”
“We’re here for two reasons,” Heather replied, and raised two gloved fingers to drive the points home. “Firstly, I have no interest in participating in a baking competition which isn’t up to health standards. That’d just give Donut Delights a bad name, and it’s not safe for anyone who tastes the food.”
“And secondly?” Amy asked, and stuffed Cheetos into her mouth. She crunched and crinkled the bag.
“Secondly, anything that Tina took an interest in before her death might be a clue. She spoke to someone about these rats, and that someone had the authority to tell her not to do an expose on them.”
“Which means they wanted the rats around?” Amy asked, and scratched her temple. She smeared orange dust there.
“Maybe, I can’t be sure. I think I know who she spoke to, though,” Heather replied. “It has to be this George, guy. The one who’s rented out an office downtown.”
“I don’t get why he’d do that just for a baking competition.” Amy slurped down more of the Cheetos, then folded the empty bag and slipped it into her pocket.
“I’m not sure. I guess we’ll have to ask him ourselves. But I want to know if there’s a problem here, first.”
Bob marched out of the first tent and into the second. His boots slipped in the puddles. A shout rang out, and he peered out at them. “You ladies might wanna come take a look at this.”
Double Chocolate Pistachio Murder: A Donut Hole Cozy Mystery - Book 27 Page 2