Death By Chocolate: A Cozy Mystery (Sweet Shoppe Mysteries - Book 1)

by Cora Wilkins

  “A falling out?”

  “They’d been seeing each other, but she caught him out on a date with another woman,” Kaye said. “They had a big fight in the main street the other day.”

  “I see. Well, this has all been very helpful,” he said. “Would you mind making me a coffee before I head back to the station? I’ve been up all night investigating this, and I’m absolutely exhausted.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  We all went through to the front of the store, and as I frothed the milk for Ted’s coffee, Chris snapped his laptop shut and came over to me.

  “I need to head back to the city for a while,” he said. “Problem at the warehouse. I’ll call you soon.”

  He grabbed his laptop bag from behind the counter and then gave me a peck on the cheek. As he crossed the store, he turned his head over his shoulder to smile at me and accidentally walked into a chair, hitting his shin. In a reflex action, he dropped the laptop bag on the ground and leaned down to rub his leg, and Ted jumped up.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. “Here, let me help.”

  Chris’ bag had spilled open where he’d dropped it, and papers and other small items had flown out of it all over the floor. Ted knelt down and began to pick things up.

  “I hope I didn’t break my computer,” Chris grumbled, rubbing his shin again before crouching down next to Ted and retrieving some of the items that had fallen out.

  Ted swept up a pile of papers and then paused. A clear plastic bag filled with something that appeared to be chocolate had fallen out along with the rest of the things, and he held it up, staring at it with his eyebrows knitted. “What is this?” he asked.

  Chris looked up. “Oh, it’s some chocolate fudge that Anne gave me the other day,” he said. “I must have left it in there and forgotten about it.”

  Ted peered at the bag and held it up to the light. There was a small red smear on the top of the plastic, and he narrowed his eyes. “This looks an awful lot like red food coloring,” he said, his words careful and measured.

  “What? No…it can’t be…” Chris’ voice trailed off, and Kaye’s hand flew to her mouth.

  The rest of the shop was deadly silent, and all the customers were staring now, mouths hanging open and eyes wide. Ted stood up and hauled Chris to his feet.

  “I’m going to have to take you down for questioning,” he said, face stony.

  “No, I haven’t done anything,” Chris protested. “This is all some sort of misunderstanding!”

  “We’ll see,” Ted replied.

  Chris cast a helpless glance in my direction as the Deputy pulled him towards the door, and I called out to him. “Don’t worry! We’ll figure this out.”

  Ted looked back at us. “Ladies, I appreciate your concern, but you need to let me do my job,” he said.

  With that they were gone, and Kaye, Rosie and I stood in shocked silence for a god five minutes.

  “My God,” Kaye finally muttered. “Anne…you don’t think…I mean…”

  She couldn’t even get the words out, but I knew what she was trying to ask. Could Chris have really done this? In the short time that I’d known him, he’d been nothing but the perfect gentleman, but he had mentioned on our first date that he wasn’t Mr. Frobisher’s biggest fan. Perhaps I had been so blinded with infatuation that I hadn’t even considered the possibility that he could have killed him. After all, he had lost quite a lot of money when Mr. Frobisher had changed their business deal.

  Rosie called out to the customers in the store. “Sorry, everyone! We’re going to have to close for the day.”

  Everyone muttered amongst themselves as they slowly filed out of the store, and Rosie turned back to me. “I thought we should have some time alone,” she said. “Let’s sit down and talk about this, and we can try to figure out who really did this.”

  Kaye pursed her lips for a moment. “It might well have been Chris,” she said. “But on the other hand, it might not have been. Rosie’s right. Let’s see if we can figure this out.”

  I nodded, my hands shaking. “Thanks, ladies,” I replied softly.

  We sat down at a corner table, and my heart raced uncontrollably as I mentally scrolled through everything that had happened.

  “All right,” I finally said. “If someone really did murder Mr. Frobisher, we need to make a list of everyone who didn’t like him.”

  “Well, there’s Mrs. Barnaby,” Kaye said. “And we all saw Mr. Lilley yelling at him at the festival.”

  “Okay, that’s two people,” I said. “Also, I really hate to say this, but I spoke to Reverend Barker the other night, and he really didn’t seem to be a big fan of Mr. Frobisher.”

  “Why?” Rosie asked, her eyes wide. Implicating general townspeople was one thing, but the local clergy was quite another.

  “He was afraid Mr. Frobisher was affecting church attendance. Apparently he was quite the atheist and not afraid to talk about it to anyone that would listen.”

  “And Chris?” Kaye asked. “I’m sorry, Anne, but we do need to consider it. We could be wrong about him.”

  “Yes, I know. He didn’t like Mr. Frobisher either. They did business together years ago, and apparently Mr. Frobisher did something quite dodgy which resulted in Chris’ company losing quite a large amount of money.”

  Kaye drew in a deep breath. “Wow. I hate to say it, but that doesn’t sound good. Money can be a huge motive in crime.”

  I looked down at the floor and then back up again. “I know. But I really don’t think he did it. I know I haven’t known him for all that long, but he’s such a nice man.”

  Kaye squeezed my hand. “All right, then. Let’s make a plan and get started on it. Regardless of what Deputy Ted says, I think we can do this. I mean, he even admitted they may have missed a key piece of evidence regarding that rose petal. Doesn’t exactly inspire much confidence in the police here, does it?”

  “No, it really doesn’t,” I replied, shaking my head. “Let’s do it. Let’s figure this out.”

  ***

  Forty-eight hours later, we were no closer to finding out who could have killed Mr. Frobisher. Unfortunately, the police thought they already had their man. I’d overheard a reporter outside the Sweet Shoppe saying that the red smear on the plastic bag of fudge that had fallen out of Chris’ laptop bag had been confirmed as red food dye number forty-two, so it really wasn’t looking good for him. Not only that, he’d had full access to the fudge at my booth all day, meaning he could have easily tampered with it when I had my back turned, as brazen as that would have been. He’d been taken into custody, and the whole town was talking about it.

  Even though so many things were pointing to Chris, I still had faith in him. There was no way he could have committed such a heinous act, and I had a sneaking suspicion that someone was setting him up. Whoever killed Mr. Frobisher had already proven themselves to be quite sneaky. I mean, who would inject food dye into fudge? It was one of the sneakiest things I’d ever heard of in a murder case. Not only that, the Sweet Shoppe had been broken into via the store-room. Chris had full access to the fudge at the booth, so he had no reason to break into the shop.

  Kaye had suggested that if it was Chris, he could have broken into the shop and tampered with the spare fudge in the kitchen before joining me at the booth, and I had to admit it made sense. Tampering with the fudge at the booth in front of me and all the festival crowds was simply madness.

  I still didn’t believe he could have done it, though. Something deep down was still telling me he was being set up.

  I sipped at my coffee, and Kaye returned to the shop a moment later with Rosie.

  “We just got back from the Lilley’s house,” she said. “Did you talk to Mrs. Barnaby?”

  “Yes,” I replied. I’d gone to visit her earlier today, but that had only led to more confusion. Apparently she’d come down with a terrible flu on the festival weekend, and her neighbor had been taking care of her. She simply hadn’t been capable of ge
tting out of bed, breaking into the Sweet Shoppe and poisoning the chocolate fudge, which her neighbor had confirmed.

  I filled Kaye and Rosie in on what I’d discovered, and they shook their heads.

  “Darn,” Kaye said. “I really thought we were onto something with that rose petal. Now I feel bad for suspecting poor Mrs. Barnaby.”

  “Same. Anyway, what did you two find out?” I asked.

  “You aren’t going to like this,” Kaye said. “Mr. Frobisher wasn’t actually having an affair with Mrs. Lilley.”

  “What?”

  “Apparently Mrs. Lilley was an old friend of Mr. Frobisher’s from years and years ago. She’d been having trouble with her marriage to Mr. Lilley, so she’d turned to him for support. The dinner dates, the hand-holding…it was all friendly. He was just trying to console her because she’d been so upset lately. We all assumed it was something more than it was.”

  “Okay, but Mr. Lilley clearly didn’t know that. We all heard him arguing with Mr. Frobisher at the festival and telling him to stay away from his wife. Someone must have told him they suspected Mrs. Lilley was cheating on him.”

  “Yes, that’s what we thought too. We thought he killed Mr. Frobisher and only found out afterwards that there was no affair, but that wasn’t possible.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because some of the advice Mr. Frobisher gave Mrs. Lilley was to take her husband and speak with Reverend Barker about their marriage issues. Mr. Frobisher was an atheist, but he apparently still believed that the reverend could help. So the Lilleys were in church on Sunday morning, and they had a private session with the reverend afterwards to discuss their relationship. During their talk, Mrs. Lilley admitted she’d been going to her old friend Mr. Frobisher for advice, and Mr. Lilley got angry and immediately stormed out. He headed straight to the festival to find Mr. Frobisher and yell at him for interfering in their marriage. He simply didn’t have time to break into the store and poison anything.”

  “And you’re sure he headed straight to the festival?”

  “Yes, Reverend Barker followed him. He was trying to calm him down. That’s why he was right there to break up the argument between Lilley and Frobisher when it happened.”

  I sighed. “I suppose that rules out Reverend Barker as well. If he was too busy giving a church sermon and then marriage counseling before chasing Mr. Lilley to the festival, then he also wouldn’t have had time to do anything. Not only that, it’s unlikely Mr. Lilley or Reverend Barker even knew about Mr. Frobisher’s allergy.”

  The three of us lapsed into silence. My head was spinning as I tried to work it all out. So far, we’d managed to knock off every suspect from our list except Chris. It was literally impossible for Mrs. Barnaby, Mr. Lilley or Reverend Barker to have committed the crime, and it was looking more and more like the local police were right. Chris was the only one left who hadn’t been completely vindicated.

  The bell tinkled a moment later, and I called out without looking up. “Sorry, we’re actually closed today.”

  “It’s me. I just thought you’d all want to hear this.”

  We looked up to see Daniel standing in the doorway, and Kaye smiled. “Oh, hello, darling. I thought you were at work.”

  “I was, but I overheard something you’ll all want to know.”

  His face was pale, and he stepped closer to us. “I’m so sorry, Anne…but they’ve charged Chris with murder.”

  I clapped a hand to my mouth in shock.

  “My God,” Kaye said. “They’ve actually officially charged him?”

  “Yes. All the evidence was just too much to dispute. The fudge in his bag with the food coloring…the fact he was seeing Anne and was thus likely to have heard about Mr. Frobisher’s allergies…the fact that he had a business deal gone sour with Frobisher a few years ago.”

  “No,” I replied. “I never mentioned the allergy to Chris.”

  “Are you sure?” Kaye said, gently squeezing my hand. “You’re sure you didn’t just slip it into a conversation once?”

  “That’s not exactly something I’d slip into a conversation with a man I’ve just started to date,” I said, my cheeks reddening. “Why would I? You’re the only person I mentioned the allergy to, and obviously it wasn’t you who killed the man.”

  The four of us went silent again for several moments.

  “Look,” I said, finally breaking the silence. “No, the evidence against him doesn’t look good. But he could be the perfect scapegoat, given his history with Mr. Frobisher. Maybe someone knew about that bad business deal and decided to set him up.”

  “Anne…” Kaye said. “We’ve been taking about him possibly being set up for a while now…but I think it’s time we faced the facts. We don’t know of anyone else who would have set him up.”

  “I know, I know,” I said, sighing heavily. There had to be something we were missing. I could feel it in my bones; there was some major aspect of this case that was eluding all of us.

  “I think it’s time you sleuths took a break,” Daniel said. “Come on, Kaye, I’ll buy you some lunch at Jerry’s.”

  Kaye gave me a sympathetic smile and hug. “Sorry, Anne. I’ll call you later, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said, giving her a dejected smile in return.

  She and Daniel headed out of the store, and Rosie cleared away our coffee cups.

  “Thanks, sweetie,” I said. “You can just go home if you want. I doubt there’s anything more we can do.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked.

  “Yes, go ahead. I’ll call you if I need anything.”

  She gave me a quick hug. “All right. I’ll just go to the bathroom first. All the coffee we’ve had is making me need to pee like a racehorse.”

  I laughed at her comment and watched as she headed to the bathroom, and then I went to the kitchen to clean up a bit. A jingling sound echoed in my ears a second later, and I looked around and saw Rosie’s tote bag near the door. It was her cell phone ringing, and I called out to her.

  “Rosie! Your phone!”

  She must not have heard me, so I crouched down and dug through her bag so I could grab the phone and take it to her. As I looked for it, something caught my eye, and my pulse doubled as I realized what it was. It was a photo of Mr. Frobisher. But why would Rosie have that?

  Frowning, I pulled out a folder that the photo seemed to have slipped out of. I opened it, my mind whirling with confusion as I looked through it. It was practically a dossier on Mr. Frobisher; photos, articles about his company, and a newspaper article with a familiar-looking town in the photo. The article was from twenty years ago, and it featured a smiling Mr. Frobisher standing in the York main street. The article was titled ‘Ice Cream CEO Lets His Hair Down In Historical York’, and it was a fluff piece about Mr. Frobisher’s short vacation to our town.

  I vaguely remembered Mr. Frobisher mentioning his previous visit to York when I’d first met him, and I gasped as something suddenly occurred to me. I’d known all along that there was something I was missing, and it was like the final puzzle piece had fallen into place. When I’d first met Mr. Frobisher, I’d been struck by how familiar he had seemed. I couldn’t quite put my finger on the reason why, and I’d assumed it was because he was relatively famous, having founded such a major ice cream company.

  But now it was dawning on me. It was his eyes that were familiar. A very distinct green color with an almond shape that I’d only seen on one other person. Rosie. They had the exact same eyes. The shape, the color…everything.

  Rosie was nineteen, which meant she’d been conceived almost twenty years ago, and all of that put together could only mean one thing…

  “Anne?”

  I sprang to my feet, and Rosie was standing right there, looking down at me. Her face looked preternaturally calm, and I tried to pretend I hadn’t seen anything.

  “Oh…your phone was ringing,” I said. “I was just about to bring it to you.”

  My little innocent act was of
no use. Her little dossier on Mr. Frobisher was scattered all over the floor by now, and cold seeped into her eyes. She moved a lot faster than me, and she grabbed a kitchen knife and waved it at me. Holding my hands up, I took a step back.

  “Rosie….you don’t have to do this!”

  “I would have thought someone your age would know better than to go through someone else’s bag,” she said, lips curled into a snarl.

  “I…I thought it might have been your mother on the phone. I thought she’d get worried if you missed the call. That’s it. I would never go through someone else’s bag otherwise.”

  “Well, I’m sorry you did,” she said. “Because now I guess you know the truth.”

  “Frank Frobisher was your father, wasn’t he?”

  She nodded. “He came here twenty years ago. My Mom met him at a pub, and one thing led to another. He was married at the time, so she never told him when she found out she was pregnant. She just raised me all on her own like an idiot.”

  “Your mother isn’t an idiot, Rosie,” I said.

  “Yes, she is. She could have told him he was the father. He was rich as anything; she could have stuck him for enough child support to give me a better life.”

  “Yes, and you would have grown up marked with shame. Everyone would whisper about you and talk about how you were the love child of a famous man,” I said, trying to keep her talking. “I think she was trying to protect you from all that. And your life has been fine. Your mother has worked very hard to make sure you had everything you needed.”

  “She could’ve found a way,” Rosie hissed. “When he moved here, I ran into him on the street. I just knew, the minute I saw his eyes. So I did some research, and guess what? I found a newspaper article that showed he’d been here pretty much around the time I was conceived. I knew it was him.”

  “Pretty good sleuthing, Rosie,” I said, trying to edge my way out of the kitchen.

  She noticed my movement and waved the knife at me. “Stay back!”

  “What are you going to do?” I asked. “You’re going to kill me too? Why did you kill him, by the way?”

  “Because I went and spoke to my mother about it. It turns out she had already contacted him a few months ago to finally tell him about me. And yet he hadn’t even bothered to come and find me! He obviously didn’t care. He obviously didn’t want me.”