Murderous Mummy Wars

by Nicole Ellis

“Well, let’s get moving so you can get home.” She replaced the photos in the cardboard box and folded the top closed. “Can you reach that other box?” She pointed at one next to the one I’d taken down.

  “I think so.”

  This time, we had better luck. It was full of file folders and notebooks.

  “Bingo,” Desi said. “I bet it’s in here.”

  I took out some of the folders and looked through them. “Not in these.”

  “Not these either.” She picked up one of the last file folders in the box and opened it. Her eyes widened at the contents.

  “Oh my gosh. You’re never going to believe this.”

  “What?” I put the files I had just gone through back into the box and removed the last set, then leaned over to see what she had.

  “Mindy wasn’t so sweet after all.” She plucked a sheet of paper covered in numbers. Someone had circled several of the figures with a black Sharpie. “I think this is a copy of the main ledger.”

  I looked up at her sharply. “The ledger you’re looking for?”

  “No, the main ledger for the district, not for our group.”

  Desi rifled through the folder. “She’s got dirt on a ton of people. Every single paper in here is a note about a different person and their transgressions. This folder is like her little black book.” She pulled the ledger copy away from the other papers. “This one doesn’t have anyone’s name on it, but if these are the books from this area’s MUMs district, it appears she’s questioning some of the transactions.”

  “How much money could the district office of MUMs possibly have running through it?” I asked. It seemed odd that a nonprofit organization like MUMs could have that much money in their coffers.

  “You’d be surprised,” Desi said. “They do lots of fundraisers like the haunted house and there’s income from dues and classes too. Multiply that by all of the MUMs groups west of the Mississippi. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a couple hundred thousand in their bank account.”

  “You’re kidding.” I grabbed it from her and scanned the page. Desi was right—this did look like Mindy had been suspicious of someone. “Didn’t Angela’s husband say something about Mindy accusing her of stealing? She did have that forty grand just laying around in her office.”

  “And if Mindy told Angela she knew, Angela may have murdered her to keep her quiet. Maybe the police arrested the right person after all.” Desi set the paper aside and took out another sheet of paper.

  “Enter suspect number two. Apparently she had some dirt on Lisa too.”

  “What could she possibly have on Lisa?” I asked.

  “You know those fancy hats and dolls she crochets and sells for hundreds of dollars each?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “So they’re homemade, but not by her. According to this account, she buys them from a Mexican woman and sells them as her own up here. Mindy caught Lisa at the post office receiving a shipment from Mexico.”

  “Technically, that’s not illegal. They are handmade, so she’s not advertising them fraudulently.”

  “Yeah, but the legality of her business isn’t what’s most important to Lisa. If her friends and customers found out she was a fraud, that would mean the end of a successful business for her.”

  “What else is there? Anyone else we know?” I tried to see the folder over Desi’s shoulder.

  “Not much else, but there’s a photo of Drew in here. Looks like it was one of him and Angela, but Mindy cut Angela out of the photo. I wonder what she had on him? Except for the copy of the ledger, all of the others contained both the person’s name and what she had over them.”

  “She did tell him about Angela’s alleged embezzlement. Maybe she was blackmailing him to keep quiet?”

  “Hmm. From what we’ve seen at her apartment and in here, Mindy led a pretty quiet lifestyle. I don’t remember seeing anything particularly high value. If she was profiting from these tidbits she knew, it wasn’t showing up in her daily life. Where’s the money?”

  “I don’t know.” I leaned against a stack of boxes to think for a moment. “So Mindy knew a lot of people’s big secrets, may have been a blackmailer, had an angry ex-husband and a money hungry daughter. It could have been anyone that killed her.”

  Desi nodded. “I think we need to talk to Lisa and find out if Mindy ever followed through on what she knew about her. I wish we could have found that ledger though. We’re out of time for today and I don’t want to borrow the key from Stacey again.”

  I picked up the files that I’d removed from the bottom of the box and rifled through them.

  “Voila!” I held a green folder containing a ledger to Desi.

  She glanced at it then held it to her chest. “I thought we’d never find this thing.” She glanced around. “Now, let’s get out of here. This place is creepy.”

  “I agree.”

  We put everything but the group’s ledger back where we’d found it, including the incriminating information about Lisa and Angela, but not before snapping photos of them with Desi’s phone camera—just in case.

  Desi rolled down the storage unit’s door and snapped the lock on it shut. We dropped off the key with Stacey at Lindstrom’s, but neither of said anything to her about what we’d found.

  When we were back in Desi’s minivan, I turned to her and asked, “Why didn’t you say anything to her about the folder with all of the blackmail-worthy information in it.”

  She shrugged. “If it were my mom, I wouldn’t want to know she’d kept such a thing. Stacey’s mom was murdered—right now, she doesn’t need to know this about her on top of everything else she’s going through.”

  I nodded. Desi was right.

  “I do want to ask Lisa about the crocheting though.” I thought about Desi fighting with the lock and remembered finding Lisa standing in front of the storage shed by herself the day of Mindy’s murder. “She was the first person at Angela’s house that day.”

  “I know,” Desi said grimly. “I hope she didn’t have anything to do with Mindy’s death. But we should ask her about what Mindy had on her. I don’t want to be stuck on thinking she’s the murderer without having all the facts. Maybe she never even knew that Mindy knew.”

  “I guess.” I had my doubts about that. If Mindy had accused Angela of embezzlement in front of her husband, who knew what else she was capable of?

  17

  I would have liked to put off talking to Lisa about the crocheted hats, but Desi and I had both signed up for the baby and child CPR class that MUMs offered the next day.

  “Where is everyone?” Desi asked. The parking lot outside the elementary school where the class would be held was empty.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I swear it said to meet at four o’clock.” I checked my watch. “We’re a couple of minutes early and Lisa did say none of the MUMs are ever on time, so maybe the others haven’t arrived yet.”

  The doors were unlocked and, in a minute, we found ourselves standing outside the classroom. No one else was inside except Lisa. She saw us through the window in the door and waved at us. Reluctantly, we entered.

  “Hey, girls,” Lisa said, beaming at us. “I’m so happy to see you. But why are you here so early? I’m just getting things set up and the CPR instructor won’t be here for another hour.” She held out a sheaf of neatly stapled documents. “These are the instructions for Baby and Child CPR that I printed out for everyone.”

  Desi and I looked at each other.

  “I thought you said four,” Desi hissed at me under her breath.

  “Maybe it was five?” I whispered back. I’d forgotten to write it down when Lisa had told us about the class the week before, but after the hard time I’d given Desi about not writing down the storage unit number, I hadn’t wanted to admit to her that I didn’t know for sure.

  “We were excited to take this class,” I said to Lisa. “I’ve always meant to attend one, but then life got in the way.”

  “It’s so impor
tant though, isn’t it?” Lisa said earnestly. “I feel every parent should go through it.”

  I nodded. My heart beat a little faster. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to talk with Lisa, but how were Desi and I going to bring up the Mexican crochet artist? It wasn’t really something that came up naturally in conversation and I didn’t want to just blurt it out.

  Desi, on the other hand, had no such compunctions.

  “While I was searching for the MUMs financial documents, we uncovered some unsettling information about your crocheting business.”

  “Oh, really? What?” Lisa stopped separating out the packets onto each desk in the classroom we were in and focused her attention on us.

  “Mindy left a note stating that she’d seen you at the post office receiving a package from Mexico and you were telling the agent that it had crocheted hats in it. She said that someone else was creating the items that you sell as your own.”

  All the color drained out of Lisa’s face. “What?”

  Her legs wobbled and I helped her into a chair.

  “She told me she wouldn’t tell anyone,” she whispered.

  “So you did know,” Desi said.

  “Was Mindy blackmailing you?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “No. Not now at least. She told me she knew what I was doing, but she hadn’t made any threats to me. I always wondered when she’d use the information against me.”

  “Then why did she tell you she knew?” Desi asked.

  “I don’t know.” She grimaced. “Mindy may have seemed nice, but she had a nasty streak running through her. You just never knew when it was coming out.” She leaned forward toward the desk and her long blonde hair draped around her face. When she sat up, tears dripped down her cheeks. “You’re not going to say anything to anyone are you?”

  “I promise I won’t say anything to the other MUMs, but I might need to tell the police about this.” Desi kept her attention on Lisa’s face.

  “You don’t think I killed Mindy, do you?” Lisa asked.

  I couldn’t make eye contact with her.

  “I just need to make sure the police have all the information possible so they can solve this case,” Desi said smoothly.

  “Ok.” Lisa dried her tears on her sleeve. “Hey, why are you two involved in the murder investigation anyway?”

  “Well, we were all there when Mindy’s body was found and we promised to tell the police if we noticed anything that seemed suspicious,” I said.

  “Oh. They didn’t say anything like that to me.” She sniffed again.

  “It’s probably because Desi’s husband is a local cop.” Desi glared at me, but I ignored her. “Did you make any of those hats yourself?”

  Lisa nodded. “At first, I made all of them, but then the orders came in and I was such a success. I couldn’t keep up with all of them and still be a good mom and keep my house clean. Something had to give, so when an acquaintance mentioned they’d seen similar items when they were on a vacation in Mexico, I decided to track down the crochet artist.”

  She dabbed her face again. “She’s wonderful to work with and I can do all of the designs—really, I can. I just don’t have the time for it. Everything is still handmade—just not by me.”

  “But still, if it got out, that wouldn’t be good for you,” I said, handing her a tissue from my purse.

  She accepted it and smiled at me gratefully before blowing her nose. “No. I’d probably lose at least 50 percent of my business. My husband’s company has been unstable lately and we really count on the money from my business. I can’t afford to lose it.”

  “Well, you don’t have to worry. If anyone in the group finds out the truth, it won’t be from us,” Desi said firmly.

  “Thank you both. I appreciate it.” The color returned to her face and, in a brighter voice, she said, “Since you’re here anyway, can you help me put these out on every desk? I want to make sure everything is ready for when the instructor gets here.”

  “Sure.” Desi grabbed the stack of paper and handed me half. When we finished distributing them, we met in the back of the room.

  “I’m thinking we should have confronted her after class.” I looked over at Lisa, who was near the window, typing something into her phone. “Now we have to be around her for another two hours.”

  “I know. It’s awkward. But I saw an opening and I went for it.” She shrugged. “At least now we know what happened—at least the way Lisa tells it.”

  “Do you think she’s lying?” I whispered.

  “I don’t know. From what I’ve seen, Lisa’s business is built around her reputation and the cache of her brand. If the other moms in the group and her other customers found out, her name would be dragged through the mud. Anyway, it’s not my business to call her out on it. I’ll tell Tomàs so he can let the investigators know that it could be a factor, but that’s the extent of it.”

  I nodded. “I agree. We stay out of it.”

  “I did kind of want to get one of her unicorn hats for Lina though,” Desi said. “Now I feel weird ordering one.”

  “It’s still the same hat,” I said.

  “Yeah, but now it feels tainted—we don’t know that she isn’t the killer.”

  “True.”

  Before we could continue our conversation, other women entered the room, gabbing amongst themselves. We claimed desks near each other and became model students for the rest of the evening. I made sure to avoid eye contact with Lisa.

  Desi and I were the first to leave the class, making sure to avoid Lisa. We reached Desi’s car first. She opened the door and started to get in.

  “Don’t forget Ella’s birthday party tomorrow.”

  She smiled. “Don’t worry. I’m still bringing an Elmo cake.”

  “Thank you, Aunt Desi.” I laughed. “Seriously though, the kids are going to grow up remembering all of the cool cakes you’ve made them for their birthdays throughout the years. My grandmother made all of our birthday cakes when I was a kid and I still remember them fondly.”

  “Of course,” she said. “I really don’t mind. I don’t get to use my cake decorating skills as much as I’d like nowadays. I love that I get to bake almost every day for the Boathouse and the BeansTalk, but sometimes it gets a little old to make the same things over and over again. I’ve got to dust off some of my mom’s old recipes and branch out a little.”

  “Maybe you could start selling them to that place in the mall,” I teased.

  “Maybe.” Her tone was serious. “I’ve been thinking about what you said to me before about it. Once Lina’s a bit older, I may give it a try. After having the BeansTalk threatened by Mr. Westen, it’s made me realize how important it is to diversify my business.”

  I nodded. “I think you’d be good at it. Just think, you’ll have the Torres baking and catering empire soon.”

  “Yeah, maybe not soon, but someday.” She gave me a goofy smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

  “See you.” I walked over to my car. I was a little surprised by Desi’s change of mind about baking for the coffee stand, but I shouldn’t have been. She was always up for a challenge and even motherhood hadn’t slowed her down.

  I could also understand why Lisa hadn’t turned down the extra business once her crochet creations had taken off. It would be hard to stare at success and give it up so easily, especially when the income was needed. Still, it did give her even more of a motive to kill the person who was threatening her livelihood.

  18

  I’d planned a low-key first birthday party for Ella, only inviting our family over for dinner and cake. My parents planned to drive in from Idaho. They hadn’t been to visit us since August, so I was happy to have the chance to see them. Like last time they’d come to visit, they’d insisted on staying in a hotel.

  Normally, I’d protest that, but this time, I was grateful. Our house was a mess and I didn’t know if I could mentally deal with having both of my parents at our house for an extended per
iod of time, knowing they weren’t together anymore.

  Of course, I’d left most of the preparation for the afternoon of the party. I was rushing around the kitchen, cooking enough lasagna to feed an army, when Adam came in.

  “I hung up all of those Elmo decorations we had left over from Mikey’s party a few years ago.”

  I nodded quickly. “Great. I can’t wait to see her reaction when she sees Elmo.” I smiled, thinking about how she loved to dance holding on to her little table while Elmo sang on TV. My baby was growing up. It was a little sad, but I was excited to see her personality developing.

  “You ok in here?” Adam asked, raising an eyebrow. “We’re having our parents and my sister’s family over, not the entire town.”

  “I know. I hate to be short on food.” Looking around the kitchen though, I realized I may have overdone it. Oh well, there’d be plenty of lasagna to freeze for quick meals during the long winter.

  “When are they coming again?” he asked.

  “I invited everyone for six. My parents called a few hours ago to let me know they were in Ericksville, so we should be able to start dinner on time.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll finish setting up the table.” He came over and kissed my forehead. “It’s going to be a great party.”

  I readied the salad to toss with dressing right before serving and popped the garlic bread in the oven. Desi had brought over the Elmo cake along with a smaller smash cake that I’d set on the counter. Everything looked great. Sweat dripped down my back and I pulled the ratty T-shirt I’d worn for cooking and cleaning away from my body.

  “I’m going upstairs to take a quick shower,” I called to Adam. We’d dropped the kids off with Lincoln that afternoon so we’d be free to prep for the party. Having them gone had made the difference between two and six hours of prep time.

  While I was drying my hair, I heard an ominous crash in the kitchen. I rushed out of the bathroom and shouted down the stairs.

  “What was that?”

  “Uh, I don’t want you to freak out,” Adam called back up.