by Linda West
Ethel dolloped fresh whipped cream onto the top of the mini soufflés and served us each a plate.
As if reading my mind, she said, “I think we need to find out more about Mia and what her life was like before she showed up in Kissing Bridge.”
I agreed. We did need to find out more about the mysterious dead woman. No one had ever seen her in Kissing Bridge until the big church upheaval. But she had mentioned she lived in Six Pines. It looked like another breaking and entering was in order.
“So…” Ethel continued as she tried a bite of the soufflé and seemed satisfied. “We need to find out where Mia lived and go search around her place and see what we can find. I’ll bring my bat/cane.”
I nodded. I liked Ethel’s enthusiasm, and I liked the cut of her metal. I was starting to think that this senior was even more rebellious than I was. Not to mention one heck of a cook. I ate the chocolate soufflé, and life seemed good for a minute.
CHAPTER 44
Ethel picked me up the next day at my house with her signature three rapid beeps, which was our new official spy code, and I trudged through the snow and jumped in the side seat of the van. It was an extra cold afternoon, and the snow was still falling hard. It would be even colder when the sun went down.
For some reason, Ethel had decided to wear the flounciest blue gingham dress that poofed out all over and barely fit in the front bucket seat. I was in jeans and a sweatshirt.
“What’s with the dress?” I asked. Hot air from the car vents blew on me.
She shrugged. “Just wanted to look nice for Earl later.”
We drove into Six Pines bent on finding something that would give us more information about Mia. I had Googled her name and came up with nothing – Jamie did say her name wasn’t quite her birth name either. I hadn’t even been able to locate any legal proof of their marriage.
Ethel and I had a plan. We were going to divide and conquer. Ethel was going to go to the local coffee shop where other goth attired young people hung out and ask some questions. After a quick social search, we found out a coffee place called Nevens Coffee Heaven was all the rage with that crowd.
Her car, the white Mercedes she’d been in, was registered to Jackson and had his address. Since we didn’t have any real leads, but knew she was from this part of town, we just figured Ethel could hang out and be nosey and we hoped we’d get lucky.
Since I had encountered Brice, Helena, and Frankie last night, I was going to go in and give my report at the Six Pines Police Station. After my research, it seemed Helena and Frankie really had been duped by Jackson, thus making them real suspects.
I had looked up an old article in the paper about the oil they had found under the Jennings’ land. Jackson must have known about it all along and somehow he duped Helena into selling him her half of the family house they had inherited. She had just gotten divorced and lived in another state and needed the money at the time, so she agreed, on the condition that Jackson kept it and didn’t sell it. What Jackson neglected to tell his sister was that their family lot had a whole pile of oil under it. He hid that from her until she had signed off on the house.
I also needed to share my sad suspicions about Mr. Maritime and Brice. I didn’t want to be right; I just wanted charges lifted from Carol.
I also wanted to suggest a possible forced body check of Mr. Harvard and Mr. Maritime for any telltale marks from my bottle cap. They were both the same size as the creeper I saw at the scene, and present at the same time Jackson was murdered. I started up the stairs to the police station with all our theories of who the real crockpot killer was.
CHAPTER 45
I wish I could have had Ethel’s job. Although I did worry she may be getting socially rejected right now by the cool goth kids at the ultra-trendy coffer bar with her Little Bo Peep outfit. At least she was getting a fresh ground brew, a tasty pastry, and antisocial rhetoric. I ended up with Fuzzbottom.
Did this guy ever get off work? He seemed lost in his own world. When they let me into his office, he was looking at a photo. I caught a glimpse of a younger version of him with his arm around a happy looking girl, smiling from ear to ear. Did Fuzzbottom have feelings? He tossed the photo into his drawer and looked at me like I was a piece of dirt.
Once again I found myself across from his interrogation detective’s desk.
Of course Fuzzbottom didn’t like me. Maybe it was the way I couldn’t help staring at his overly hairy neck, or my penchant for tipsy donut moves in a blizzard. Whatever it was, he barely listened to anything I had to report and instead looked up at the clock with an irritated wince every few minutes.
He wasn’t taking mine and Ethel’s detective work seriously and I wasn’t really sure how to phrase that Ethel was a Murder She Wrote expert.
“Anyway,” I continued, “someone has my bottle cap mark on them – you find them and I’m pretty sure you find the killer. How’s the hunt for that attacker going?”
Fuzzbottom’s eyes glazed over.
“It’s quitting time for me, lady. I’ve got your story; I’ll make sure it gets passed on.”
He stood and waddled over to the coat hanger, grabbing one off the rack. Then he opened the door and walked me straight out the front door.
I turned around, flustered. “Are you not even going to talk to me?”
He grunted and just pushed me into the street with him as he swung on his coat.
“How can you not care?” I said.
But here I was, standing smack in the middle of the freezing parking lot. The snow had stopped, and the temperature was way below freezing. There was ice everywhere. I stopped in my tracks; I didn’t even have a car. I’d have to call Ethel.
I watched as Fuzzbottom walked to his dingy looking maroon Ford Escort. He opened the trunk and rooted around, then opened a cigarette case and stuffed a cigarette in his mouth.
He looked back at me looking at him and slammed the trunk down with finality. I turned quickly away so he wouldn’t see my face.
A flash of the photo he had held in his hand earlier came to my mind. I recognized that sweet gap toothed smile from somewhere… yes, the hair was lighter, and there was no goth make up to hide her freckled face, but I was sure…
I froze as Fuzzbottom’s car pulled up close to me. I pretended I was talking to someone on the phone and he slowly pulled away.
And I knew that black cigarette case.
It was Mia’s.
CHAPTER 46
I fumbled in my purse, faking a search for my keys as I watched Fuzzbottom through my periphery pull out of the station parking lot and drive away. I looked back to make sure he had made the turn off Six Pines Alley, and then I ran my little butt back into the police station.
I sprinted to the front desk and demanded to see Captain Sykes. After a bit of arguing with the officer at the front desk, Captain Sykes stuck his head out of an office in the back and made his way towards me.
“What’s going on?” he demanded of his officer.
“She wants to know the schedule for our crew on the night of the Jennings’ murder.”
The Captain faced me squarely. I could see he remembered me from being a friend of Ethel’s – but he didn’t seem too thrilled to see me again.
“Why are you asking?”
I let out my breath. “With all due respect, sir, I think I know who murdered Jackson, and Mia too – I just need to know for certain. Was Det. Fuzzbottom on formal duty the night of Jackson’s murder?”
The Captain looked at me earnestly, and then nodded to his sergeant.
“Look up the schedule for last week, and let me know if Fuzzbottom was on the schedule last Saturday.”
The officer punched things into the computer at his desk.
“Nope. He was off.”
The Captain looked at me.
“Does that help you?”
I nodded. “Yes, sir. You see – Det. Fuzzbottom is the officer that showed up on the scene – right after the murder. He wasn’t on duty, bu
t he was in full uniform. And he was there in seconds.
“You see, he couldn’t have any other officers poking around the crime scene because he had to make sure he covered up his tracks. He didn’t count on me seeing him because everyone was inside busy with the end of the contest. Mia and he must have written the note to Carol so she could be framed. I’m guessing by the time he booked poor Carol back here at the station, he was in back in his normal street clothes. If I’m not mistaken – that would be all black except for the entry bracelet proving he was at cook-off chili contest the night of the murder.
“And that’s why this murder hasn’t been solved. My account of the attacker didn’t matter to him – it was him all along anyway.”
The Captain called out to one of the officers seated in the back on a computer. He was faking as if he were working because he almost fell off his chair when he was addressed. “Waterman, check the intake pictures from the night they brought in Carol Landers.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Captain went back and took a look at the screen. He glanced at me, and I knew I was right. He came back and ushered me into his office.
I continued to tell the Captain everything Ethel and I had discovered. Fuzzbottom was the crockpot killer. He had also murdered his girlfriend – Mia. I told him to check the photo in his desk, and he would see that the smiling, red-headed, all-American girl that was arm and arm with Fuzzbottom was Mia. With the exact same telltale gap in her teeth. They were in it together, only something must have gone wrong and he got rid of her too. “If you send cars now to pick up Fuzzbottom, you’ll find him with not only Mia’s cigarette case, but, if I’m right – he also has my signature branding of a bottle cap wound on him that would prove he was at the scene of Jackson’s murder and had been the one that tried to attack me.”
I told him how I kept going back to the scene of the crime, as Ethel kept reminding me was Jessica’s motto. It was all right there.
Carol holding the crockpot – the perfect suspect. Jaime coming in with me – and then Fuzzbottom suddenly appearing. When he ordered Jaime around to get the evidence bag, he made a big deal of taking the crockpot himself out of Carol’s hands. Of course that would have put his fingerprints on the crockpot as well – the perfect cover up for his prints that were already on the murder weapon.
My story must have sounded crazy to the Captain, but it must have also made sense. He got on the phone right away and made some calls and told me to wait out front where it was more comfortable.
Meanwhile, I called Ethel on my cell and told her the mission was off and she needed to stay low until we could get her over to the police station safely. She was all hyped up on caffeine and conspiracy theories, and I had to talk her down from a debate going on around her about Monsanto taking over the farming industry. It sounded like she was agreeing to be a speaker at the protest with the goth kids.
“Ethel. Ethel!” I yelled in the phone to get her attention over the loud music at Nevens. She came back to the phone.
“Hey, I like this place, Kat! You want me to pick you up and bring you back over here? GREAT COFFEE. So gnarly.”
I rolled my eyes. I knew I should have gone to Nevens instead of her.
“Listen Ethel. It was Fuzzbottom, Ethel. He was Mia’s boyfriend for years. I saw a picture of them together. They planned this whole thing. That whole goth attire was just an act to cover up her real self. To lure Jackson and murder him for his money. Only Mia must have decided to take the money and run. Fuzzbottom found her before she could go – and murdered her. He had her cigarette case. Listen, Ethel – he’s out there, and he’s onto us. Stay put and I’ll have the officers come over and pick you up.”
But Ethel was already waving goodbye to her new friends and on the road, pumped up on double espressos and adrenaline. “I’m on my way.”
I didn’t like the thought of Ethel being on the road in her condition, and with Fuzzbottom loose. It was super icy outside. Even a veteran mountaineer could lose control in these conditions.
The bakery van was also really big and obvious, and Six Pines was a small town.
We knew who killed Jackson and Mia, but who knew where Fuzzbottom was now, or if he still had murder on his mind?
CHAPTER 47
Ethel started down the hill to Six Pines Alley and stopped at the corner before making the turn.
Fuzzbottom was waiting for her.
He had seen the look on Kat’s face and knew it was only moments before the police caught up to him.
He had pulled off and hidden his car behind a wooded area, waited, and listened. He still had his police radiophone on when he heard the order to look for him; he also heard that Ethel was on her way via Pine Ave.
Fuzzbottom peeled out of his parking spot and headed up the pass to Pine Avenue to get to her first. He cruised to the top of the hill, just out of sight of the main road, and blocked the barren street with his car. He pulled out his mobile light unit and slapped it on top of his Escort so he looked like he was on duty.
Ethel rolled down her window, assuming Kat had sent an officer to pick her up. But it was Fuzzbottom. He ran up to the van and reached for her through the window. Ethel rolled and rolled the knob trying to close the window as fast as she was able and then reached to lock the door, but Fuzzbottom was faster. He grabbed for the handle quicker than the senior – even hyped up on coffee as she was.
Ethel struggled to get the lock on, but it wouldn’t click shut. Fuzzbottom pulled at the door from the outside to open it and Ethel pulled to keep it closed from the inside. Ultimately, his strength won out over her adrenaline, and with a final thrust he yanked the door handle so hard that Ethel came catapulting out of the driver’s seat.
She landed on the ground ten feet away, all piled up in her blue gingham dress. Fuzzbottom decided his best bet at this point was a hostage, so he ran over to retrieve the old lady and force her into his car.
He tried to get a hold of Ethel’s arms as she flailed around with gusto and attempted to free herself of her dress. He finally hooked her delicate arm in his grasp.
“Get off me!” she screamed.
Fuzzbottom dragged her along towards his car, but she went limp. She hung on his hairy arm, and she trailed her feet as if both her ankles were broken.
“Wait – I can’t walk. I need my cane.” She moaned like an old lady.
Fuzzbottom glanced at the van door, and considered getting the cane for the poor old woman. Then decided it would be easier to just throw her over his shoulder. And that’s when Ethel struck.
Ethel’s cane/bat had been in her dress the whole time. There had been a method to her voluminous dress madness, other than sheer style. When Fuzzbottom turned to scoop her up over his shoulder, Ethel hit him square in the jaw. Blood went flying. She swung that cane/bat like a Joe DiMaggio and Fuzzbottom fell over like a lump.
When the police arrived, Ethel was still standing over Fuzzbottom. He was barely conscious, and she was shaking her head.
“Season 3 Episode 7 – ‘The Lady in the Blue Dress.’ I was counting on you to not be a Murder She Wrote fan.”
CHAPTER 48
Ten minutes later, Ethel arrived in the van with a full police escort. They had Fuzzbottom in cuffs in the back of another squad car.
I ran to Ethel and clung to her tightly. She hugged me back.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” said Ethel.
“Oh, Ethel. I’m so glad you’re okay.”
I hugged her tighter and she pulled away and smiled at me.
“I told you that cane/bat was a good idea.”
I shook my head. “It’s a baseball bat, Ethel. You didn’t fool anyone with that cane bit.”
“Humph.” She tossed her head like the baking royalty she was. “Fooled him, and that’s all I needed.”
I laughed out loud. She had me there.
Captain Sykes came out from the back offices of the station and motioned us to follow him. He handed me a photo he had just printed out.<
br />
“The boys just sent me this. Thought you might like to see it.”
He showed me the picture. It was a shot of Fuzzbottom’s hairy stomach with a two-inch patch near the naval now shaved, with a distinct round-rimmed bottle cap wound branded on it.
I looked up at the Captain.
“That’s my beer bottle cap mark.”
He nodded.
“Looks like you ladies caught our killer. Maybe you can give my crew some lessons.” He looked around at the officers – they all put their heads down. It was never good when the bad guy was one of your own.
The Captain walked us out to the van, and assured us all charges against Carol Landers would be dropped. He did ask Ethel to surrender her cane/bat though.
CHAPTER 49
The grand opening of the Enchanted Cozy Café was a smashing hit.
Everybody agreed they might've had the best time they've ever had at a party. People showed up – young and old – in Kissing Bridge to celebrate their famous blue-ribbon-winning ladies, and of course everybody couldn’t wait to see the new Enchanted Cozy Café and try the food.
I spotted Mr. Maritime, his wife, and all three of the triplets with their broods in tow. Mr. Maritime was smiling again. He caught me looking at him and made a beeline in my direction.