Meowsical Death: A Hazel Hart Cozy Mystery Two

by Louise Lynn

  Esther shrugged. “Okay. And that’s a good motive. But who was the one sending the threatening letters? That doesn’t sound like something Mrs. Jeffries would do.”

  It didn’t, and Hazel had to concede that fact. “I’m working on it. It’s not as if I could ask Mrs. Jeffries. By the way, did you kill Roberta Martin to get her out of the way?”

  Esther snorted. “Isn’t that what you did last time?”

  Hazel felt her cheeks turning pink. “Not outright.”

  Though, she had come rather close on a few occasions.

  “Have you told the sheriff?”

  If Hazel’s cheeks were pink before, they turned bright red now. “Course not. I can’t talk to him about this.”

  “Why not? You’re going to need his help. Even if he’s the one who thinks mom did it now.”

  Hazel stabbed at her quiche and finished off the last few bites without answering. Mostly because Esther was, infuriatingly so, correct.

  Still, that didn’t mean she wanted to face Sheriff Cross after the way she’d left things yesterday. Well, truthfully, after the way she left things two days in a row.

  Double awkward.

  Maybe she should have that tattooed on her forehead: I am bad at social interaction with certain people. Mostly handsome sheriffs named Colton Cross.

  Esther leaned her elbows on the counter, and her long hair fell in a sheet over her shoulders, smooth and untangled. Hazel tucked one of her own renegade curls behind her ear and glowered. “If you bring him the information about the letters, he’ll probably forgive you.”

  Hazel thought about the way he’d said her name the day before. Her first name. It hadn’t struck her then, but it did now. The fluttery butterfly took flight in her stomach. She glowered at it too.

  “The last time I brought him a lead on a case, he was rude and dismissive. And he told me not to get involved, which I ignored.”

  “So? You proved yourself by solving the Barkley murders. He respects you now.”

  Hazel snorted and dug into the chocolate croissant. It tasted as good as if she’d flown to France and plucked one from a street café in Paris. The croissant was light and buttery and the chocolate thick and dark. There was a fine dusting of powdered sugar on top as well, and she licked her lips to get rid of the crumbs and dust.

  “Fine. I’ll go after I finish this.”

  A grin beamed from Esther’s face. “Don’t go unarmed.”

  “You want me to bring a weapon into the Sheriff’s office?”

  Esther shook her head and began piling cupcakes into a pink box. Her logo was on it, a delightfully tall cake with a crown on top. “Armed with food, I meant. It drops everybody’s guard.”

  “Great. You want the sheriff to know what a good cook you are. And that you’re single,” Hazel said under her breath.

  Esther’s eyes narrowed. “Jealous?”

  Hazel finished her croissant in silence, and wished she had a cup of coffee to pair with it. Esther did have a little coffee station in the corner, next to the water station, but it wasn’t as good as CATfeinated.

  “Anyway,” Esther said as she finished with the box of cupcakes and pushed it across the counter. If she was giving away free cupcakes, she definitely had too many. “The sheriff hasn’t even looked at me twice. You, however–”

  The butterfly took flight again, and Hazel snatched the box of cupcakes and marched to the door.

  She hated it when Esther was right.

  Chapter 13

  Stepping into the Sheriff’s Office that afternoon felt akin to waltzing into enemy territory, her only weapon a pink box of cupcakes.

  Reject cupcakes, at that.

  Though, she knew Esther wouldn’t have admitted it. And that the deputies, sheriff and secretary, Edith with a beehive, probably wouldn’t even notice the difference.

  Edith with a beehive narrowed her eyes when she spotted Hazel, and then un-narrowed them when she saw the box of cupcakes. Maybe they did work in ways Hazel hadn’t imagined yet. “You here for the sheriff?”

  “I’m here for a peace talk,” Hazel said, and Edith gave her a confused look.

  Perhaps she shouldn’t have taken the war metaphor so far in her own head. Especially when she hadn’t explained it to anyone else.

  They weren’t technically fighting. They couldn’t be fighting. They weren’t anything to each other, really. And people who aren’t anything to each other can’t fight.

  They were two people with opposing views of the situation.

  And one of them wanted to put the other one’s mother in prison.

  Okay, maybe they were fighting.

  A little.

  Hazel sat the box on Edith’s desk, and the woman flipped it open and grabbed out one with pink frosting. “Sheriff’s not here,” she said before she took a bite that looked larger than humanly possible. And she managed not to smear it on her face, something Hazel could never quite do.

  Part of Hazel wanted to snatch up the box and march out that second, but she held it at bay. Instead, she smiled sweetly. What was it her father always said? Get on the good side of the people running an office and you can get whatever you wanted. Well, Hazel could do that.

  “You know where he is?”

  Edith with the beehive finished her cupcake in two more massive bites and licked the whipped cream frosting off her fingers. “Course I do. But what do you need to see him for?”

  “I have a lead on this murder case. I thought he might want to hear it.”

  Edith’s eyes snapped from the box of cupcakes to Hazel’s face and she let out a huff. “Are you gonna leave the cupcakes here?”

  Hazel nodded.

  “He’s at the crime scene,” Edith said.

  Hazel grinned her thanks. “And you don’t happen to know which one of these cupcakes is Sheriff Cross’s favorite, do you?”

  With another heavy sigh, Edith pointed at the chocolate one with a mound of chocolate frosting on top, whipped and fluffy.

  Hazel snagged that one and pointed at the sheriff’s personal office. “Mind if I leave it in there?”

  Edith smiled, and Hazel swore it was the first time she’d seen that expression on the sour old woman’s face. “Go right ahead.”

  Hazel did, and if he had a few papers on his desk pertaining to the current investigation, it wasn’t Hazel’s fault if her eyes fell across them.

  She scanned them quickly. Something about a timeline for the murder. It looked like the coroner put Roberta’s death close to six-thirty a.m, which was a good thirty minutes before Hazel ever arrived.

  But the principal said Roberta usually didn’t get there until seven a.m. Why did she come in that early? Odd. It suggested a strong connection between Roberta and her killer—perhaps the killer lured her there? And Ms. Jeffries was the perfect person to do that.

  This further cemented it.

  At the sight of the other paper Hazel’s heart jumped to her throat. Her mother’s name was jotted on the top, along with the content of their fight from the school. ‘Motive’ was scribbled next to it with a little question mark.

  That should have eased Hazel’s fears somewhat, considering he didn’t have a motive for her mom yet. But it didn’t. Because it meant he was still looking.

  Hazel set the cupcake on the papers and rushed out of the office in time to see deputies gathering around the box of goodies.

  “Are these from Esther Hart’s bakery? Who went out?” Deputy Simmons said.

  Edith hooked a thumb in Hazel’s direction and she gave them all as pleasant a smile as she could manage. “I left one in there for the sheriff, so nobody touch it.”

  The deputies nodded as they each picked out a cupcake of their own, and Hazel left them to it.

  She hoped she wasn’t too late.

  It was nearly time for school to let out when Hazel pulled into the elementary parking lot. Thankfully, Sheriff Cross’s SUV was parked around back, near the music room, the crime scene tape still slung across the doo
r.

  Hazel’s heart throbbed in her throat as she climbed out and made her way toward it.

  Just as she was ducking underneath, the door swung open and she almost ran nose first into Sheriff Cross’s chest.

  “Trying to sneak around the crime scene?” His tone was decidedly accusatory.

  Hazel couldn’t help the scowl that formed on her face. “No, I was looking for you.”

  Sheriff Cross’s eyebrows danced above his beautiful blue eyes. “Oh? You didn’t find another body, did you?”

  Hazel’s scowl deepened. “No. But I have some further information that might help with this case. Roberta Martin had been getting threatening letters for years, and—” Hazel dropped her voice. “Mrs. Jeffries wanted her out of here. I talked to her this morning, and she didn’t seem the least bit sad that Roberta Martin died.”

  Sheriff Cross didn’t look convinced, but then he never did. “I hadn’t gotten the bit about the threatening letters yet. Who told you?”

  “Ambrose Angel,” Hazel said, as if it were common knowledge.

  The sheriff’s brows drew into a line. “How is he connected to this case?”

  Ha! A little bit of information he didn’t have.

  Hazel told him.

  The sheriff frowned again.

  “Well, if she kept the letters, then I’d assume they’re in her house, but there’s a problem.”

  “Oh?” Hazel asked, mirroring his words from a few moments before.

  “The son is being difficult about giving us access. Says he wants us to get a warrant before we go through the house.”

  That sounded suspicious, though after what Mrs. Jeffries said about Bobby and Roberta not getting on, maybe it wasn’t so odd.

  Still, he gave Hazel an idea. “I might be able to help with that.”

  “How so?” Sheriff Cross asked and walked after her as she turned back to her truck.

  Anthony Ray perched in the passenger seat and put his paws on the window.

  Hazel poked at her cat’s nose through the glass. “Well, first, we have to go grocery shopping.”

  To Hazel’s surprise, Sheriff Cross didn’t put up much of an argument, or even ask that many questions when it came to why they were heading to Super Foods Plus, tucked in the middle of Cedar Valley.

  She hoped Bobby was at work today, and not somewhere else. And she hoped she’d read his interest in her the day before properly, though maybe interest was a strong word.

  He probably wanted her to give him a good word with Celia. It had happened so often since high school that Hazel was more than used to it by now.

  Sure enough, Bobby Martin was in the back, doing something with boxes.

  His eyes widened in instant recognition as she stepped back there. “Hazel Hart? Something wrong?”

  She heard Sheriff Cross’s boots behind her, but he lingered far enough back so he wouldn’t intimidate Bobby. “Not really a problem, but can I talk to you about your mom?”

  He glanced at the sheriff and then back at Hazel. “Sure thing, I’m trying to work to keep my mind off it, but anything to help the case.”

  “We think somebody had been sending her threatening letters for years. Had you heard about this?”

  Bobby put his hand to his mouth and scratched his chin. “No. Mom never said anything like that. How did you find out?”

  “Ambrose Angel said she confided in him when she went to New York a few months ago.”

  Bobby’s expression froze, and he nodded slowly. “Yeah, that sounds like mom. She wouldn’t want to worry me, but she’d tell Ambrose anything. Why didn’t she go to the police?”

  There was a hint of anger in his voice when he said Ambrose, and Hazel wondered if it was the old jealousy coming back. If Bobby was ever jealous of Ambrose in the first place. Ambrose was the kind of guy who would claim the sun was jealous of him.

  Hazel shrugged. “We don’t know, but we think we might be able to find the letters if we could look around the house. And they might lead us to the killer.”

  Bobby crossed his arms, his hands balled into fists, and he let out a shuddering breath. “I don’t have anything against that. I know when the deputies asked, I said that they needed a warrant. It’s what those crime TV shows always say. And I didn’t want them to go in there and toss the place. It’s all I’ve got left of her,” he said and dipped his chin to his chest.

  Hazel patted his arm empathetically. “We know. And we’ll be careful, right, Sheriff Cross?”

  Sheriff Cross raised an eyebrow but nodded nonetheless.

  Bobby fished around in his pocket and placed a pair of keys in Hazel’s hand. “That’s for the front door. You can bring them back when you’re done. Or maybe I’ll see you at the café?”

  “Maybe,” Hazel said and gave him a kind smile, before turning and walking back out.

  Sheriff Cross trailed behind her, and he didn’t bother to catch up until they were in the parking lot. “We?” His shoulder brushed against hers.

  “Well, he gave me the keys, and I gave you the lead. I think it’s only fair I get to take a peek.”

  Sheriff Cross let out a breath through his nose. “Fine. But you wear gloves, and if you find anything you tell me about it. No hiding evidence.”

  “When did I hide evidence?”

  “You haven’t. Yet.”

  “What does that mean?”

  His only answer was a smirk.

  Hazel muttered under her breath about him not trusting her, and Sheriff Cross motioned to his SUV. “We’ll go together. And yes, you can bring Anthony Ray.”

  That annoying butterfly took flight again, and it really shouldn’t have. He remembered the name of her cat. It wasn’t some insanely difficult detail to recall.

  That butterfly needed to learn some manners.

  Hazel gathered Anthony Ray from her truck and plopped into the SUV. It smelled heavily of pine and Sheriff Cross’s spicy aftershave. She tried to push that thought from her mind, but it was ever present. Like his office, the SUV was slightly cluttered with coffee cups and leaves trudged in from boots.

  At least it wasn’t overly neat, like Esther’s SUV. Hazel never understood how someone could be so orderly all the time. It was uncomfortable. And she liked comfortable.

  Sitting next to Sheriff Cross shouldn’t have been comfortable.

  But it was.

  A little.

  The old Martin house wasn’t far from the grocery store, and they pulled up to the place around ten minutes later. No one had bothered to shovel the ice from the driveway, so they stepped through the snow instead.

  The house looked lonely to Hazel.

  The sensation that the people who may have been happy here in the past were never going to return filled her chest. Old buildings always made her feel like that. Her mother’s explanation was that their spirits were talking to her, which she obviously didn’t believe.

  She liked her father’s explanation better. That the history of the building was talking to her. Not spiritually, but the essence of the history that took place there collided with her own.

  It didn’t sound as silly.

  The key slid easily into the lock, and she nearly forgot she was still holding Anthony Ray when she stepped inside. “Oh. I can put him back in the car,” she said and pushed open the door.

  Bobby Martin hadn’t bothered to turn up the heat, so it was only about twenty degrees warmer inside than it was out. Warm enough to keep pipes from freezing, but not enough to be comfortable.

  Sheriff Cross frowned at Anthony Ray and let out a breath. “It’s not a crime scene. Just make sure he doesn’t pee on anything.”

  Hazel took that offense in Anthony Ray’s stead. “He doesn’t pee anywhere except for the litter box.”

  Apparently, Sheriff Cross wasn’t impressed by Anthony Ray’s restraint in that department.

  The house was like Roberta Martin’s music room—perfectly organized to the point of obsessiveness. There were smudges of mud on the floor, and
Hazel assumed that was from Bobby Martin and not Roberta herself.

  Sheriff Cross handed her a pair of latex gloves, Hazel slid them on, and they both got to work.

  While she’d photographed dead bodies before, and watched detectives go through crime scenes, she’d never actually done it herself, so looking at an entire house that could be full of potential clues left her overwhelmed.

  But as Sheriff Cross went through the downstairs drawers and closets, Hazel padded upstairs. Or, more accurately, Anthony Ray tugged her upstairs.

  There was a bedroom that looked like it’d probably belong to Bobby Martin at some point, a small twin bed tucked into the corner, but it wasn’t filled with his childhood things. It had been converted into a sewing room with a fancy machine in the corner and an ironing board against the wall.

  The rest of the room was filled with bins of fabric and other crafting supplies.

  Esther would have a field day here, Hazel thought.

  She opened the drawers and closets but didn’t find anything that looked like incriminating letters.

  Anthony Ray soon grew bored and trotted down the hall to the master bedroom. That seemed more likely to have what she was looking for, but she hovered at the entrance for a moment. She always felt strange, walking into somebody else’s bedroom when she hadn’t explicitly been invited. It was a violation, and she knew for a fact the Roberta Martin would not have wanted Hazel Hart traipsing around in there.

  Still, she was trying to solve Roberta Martin’s murder, so maybe the woman would cut her a little bit of slack. Plus, Anthony Ray had already made himself at home on the bed. He found a few throw pillows that he needed to get his scent on and was rolling around near them, batting at the tassels.

  Hazel shook her head and checked the drawers on the nightstand and the dresser, but she came up with nothing but socks and an address book.

  She sat on the bed and flipped through it quickly. The names and numbers for people all throughout town filled it, much to Hazel surprise. Roberta Martin wasn’t the social type, but she seemed to know where everyone lived and what their phone number was.

  Still, it wasn’t a threatening letter.

  Hazel put it back and shut the drawer. Now, if she were Roberta Martin, where would she hide threatening letters?