Murder in the Elfth Degree: A Camellia Cove Cozy Mystery Book 2 (A Camellia Cove Mystery)

by Jessica Preston

  Aaron frowned.

  Kim’s words came out in a rush. “And that’s another thing. He was killed in the men’s bathroom. Don’t you think somebody would have noticed a six-foot-two-inch female elf in the men’s bathroom in a death struggle with a man?”

  Aaron rubbed his chin. “Hmm.”

  “And don’t forget,” Kim went on, “he was immobilized and suffocated. He could have been there long before he was found. Anyone could have killed him and then hurried out here to mingle with the crowd. Just because Betts wasn’t here on time doesn’t mean she killed him.”

  Aaron’s features softened. “You make some good points, and I know Betts is a friend of yours. But until we establish who had motive and opportunity, she’s our best and only suspect. I’m afraid I’m gonna have to ask you to come with me, Betts.”

  Betts stared at him. Then she glanced around with wild eyes. She caught hold of Kim’s hand. “Help me, Kim! Don’t let him take me away!”

  Kim held on tight. “I won’t let him take you. Please don’t do this, Aaron. You know she’s not guilty.”

  Tanya stepped forward again. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself. A man is dead under the most gruesome circumstances, and you’re interfering with a police investigation.”

  “She’s right, Kim,” Aaron told her. “You can’t stop me from taking Betts in for questioning. I’m sorry about this, but you have to let her go.”

  Betts seized Kim with both hands. “Hold onto me, Kim.”

  Kim held Betts tight and stared up at Aaron with pleading eyes. “At least let me come with her. Let me stay with her at the police station.”

  “You can come with her,” Aaron replied, “but you can’t be present during any questioning. Only her lawyer is allowed to be present for that. You’ll have to wait our front.”

  Kim glanced back at Betts. Tears stood in the corners of Betts’s eyes. The sight startled Kim more than anything. Betts’s grip crushed the blood out of Kim’s fingers. “All right. I’m coming with you.”

  “What about me?” Tanya snapped. “I invested thousands of dollars in this event, and now it’s ruined. Who’s going to compensate me for that?”

  “Is that all you can think about at a time like this?” Kim asked. “Be glad none of the children saw that man with a bag over his head. Be glad they’re all happy to play video games in the toy store instead of sitting on Santa’s knee.”

  “But all their parents will want their money back,” Tanya replied. “What am I supposed to do about that?”

  “Take them all down to the Pembrooke Bakery display at the other end of the mall,” Kim told her. “Let them stuff their faces with all the cookies they can hold and send them on their way. That should keep them happy.”

  Tanya compressed her lips. “All right. But don’t think you’ve heard the last out of me. Whoever ruined this event is going to pay for it.”

  Kim turned her back on Tanya, but when she saw Betts’s face, she froze in her tracks. “Don’t listen to her. She’s just upset.”

  Betts shuddered. “You don’t know her, Kim. She’s vindictive as all get-out. She’ll never rest until she pins this murder on me.”

  Kim shook her head. “Don’t think that way. Come on. I’ll go with you to the station, and when you get finished giving your statement, you’ll be out in no time. Then you can come back to the bakery with me and help me get ready for the Tingle family reunion.”

  Aaron led them outside. The winter wind screeched off the ocean and stabbed into Kim’s eyes and cheeks. It ripped right through her clothes and froze her skin. She’d left her winter coat back at the display table. She sighed and rubbed her arms when they got to Aaron’s car.

  He opened the back door and put Betts inside, but when Kim tried to get in next to her, he shook his head. “You have to ride up front. Only the suspect rides in the back.”

  Kim stared at him. “But she isn’t a suspect yet, is she? Besides, you said I could come with her.”

  He shook his head again and opened the front passenger door. “You have to ride up front.”

  Kim would have protested further if the wind hadn’t been so brutal. She couldn’t stand out here a moment longer. She slid into the passenger seat and he slammed the door. He climbed into the driver’s seat and drove through town to the police station. He stopped at the curb outside.

  “You get out here,” he told Kim. “Take a seat in the waiting area, and Betts will come out when she’s done.”

  Kim hesitated. “Where are you taking her?”

  “I have to take her through the back,” he replied. “It’s standard procedure. You’re a visitor. You go through the front door and wait in the waiting area.”

  “But I’m acting as her support person,” Kim pointed out. “I should be with her.”

  Aaron shook his head. “If you want to come at all, this is the way it’s got to be. This is the closest you can get to staying with her.”

  A desperate moan floated up from the back seat. Kim didn’t turn around. Her shoulders slumped. “All right. I’ll wait in the waiting area.”

  She slammed the door behind her and raced into the station. She didn’t get a chance to wave to Betts before she left or to wish her luck. She had to get out of that wind. The waiting area wasn’t much warmer than outside, and Kim shivered when she sat down on the cold, molded plastic seats. No one else was there, and the officer behind the front desk lounged in her chair with a steaming cup of coffee at her elbow. She held a romance novel in front of her face and paid no attention to Kim.

  Kim couldn’t see anything else behind the tall partition separating the waiting area from the rest of the police station. The officers could be back there playing snooker for all she knew—all except Aaron. He was questioning Betts in connection with Simon Cox’s death.

  Why did he have to be such a stickler for the rules? He must know Betts was the last person on earth to kill someone. She couldn’t even get into her elf costume without tripping over her own feet. Besides, she had the concentration of a gnat. She couldn’t plan and execute a murder like this if she tried. Whoever killed that man in the men’s bathroom was cold, calculating, exacting, and physically powerful—everything Betts was not.

  Aaron didn’t even listen to Kim’s reasoning when she explained why Betts couldn’t have killed Simon and how someone else could have done it instead. He just stood there with his forehead crunched up and didn’t say anything. How could you deal with a man like that?

  He should know her well enough by now to know she wouldn’t defend someone she wasn’t certain was innocent. He’d dated Kim for six months since Pat Malloy died in her bakery. Could she really have mistaken him for a good, kind man when he was really an insensitive clod? Her track record with men wasn’t anything to brag about, but she couldn’t be that brainless. Could she?

  At least no blood-curdling screams came out of the back of the police station. She’d been back there for questioning herself. She knew what it was like, but she couldn’t stop herself from imagining the worst. She kept glancing at the giant clock over the front desk. The second hand dragged around the circular face. Why couldn’t it go any faster?

  In the end, Kim turned her attention to the piles of moronic magazines stacked all over the waiting room tables. Let’s see. There was Women’s Weekly, and Reader’s Digest by the dozen, and The Star. After ten minutes of searching, she found a Home and Garden Magazine and flipped the pages. She read articles on gardening, entertaining, and sewing—all the things she wasn’t interested in and didn’t have time to do anyway.

  She read the whole magazine cover to cover. Then she started on the Reader’s Digests and very quickly remembered why she didn’t read Reader’s Digest. But she kept reading. There was nothing else to do. Once, when she read a particularly inane story about a little girl who found a snail in her garden and took it home for a pet, she got discouraged and gave up.

  She played with the children’s toys in the dilapidated cardboard box in t
he corner, but even that didn’t keep her occupied for long. She went back to the Reader’s Digests, and when she got through with those, she had nothing left but to find out in The Star what Kim Kardashian said about Rihanna last Saturday night. But at least she caught up with all the latest news on little Prince George and Princess Charlotte.

  Chapter 3

  Kim tossed the last magazine on the table with a sigh when the door swung open and a blast of freezing cold air rushed into the police station. The officer behind the desk didn’t look up from her book, but Kim gasped out loud. “Grandma! What are you doing here?”

  Ethel Harris smiled at her granddaughter and settled down in a chair next to her. Kim eyed her fuzzy knitted scarf and wooly hat. Ethel wasn’t so crazy that she didn't go out dressed for the weather—unlike her supposedly clever granddaughter.

  Ethel picked up The Star with a sigh of satisfaction. “I come here every Wednesday to catch ups on all the news.”

  Kim stared down at The Star she’d just thrown away. “You don’t really read that stuff, do you, Grandma?”

  Ethel inclined her head toward Kim’s ear and dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Did you know they get The Star every week? You can come down here and read it for free, and you don’t have to pay for it.” She leaned back and gave Kim an impish wink.

  Kim snorted with laughter. “I always thought you were so law-abiding, Grandma. And right here in the police station, too. You’re wicked.”

  Ethel let out a high-pitched giggle. “I know. But don’t tell anybody, okay, sweetie? If the police found out, I'd be in big trouble.”

  Kim cast a glanced at the officer behind the desk. The police already knew about Ethel Harris reading their copy of The Star every week, and they didn’t give a hoot. Why should they? Ethel never bothered anybody in her life. “I won't tell anybody, Grandma. Cross my heart.”

  Just then, the officer sat up behind the counter. She glanced at her computer screen and turned to Kim. “Your friend is coming out. You can take her home now.”

  Kim glanced at the clock. It was four-thirty in the afternoon. She’d been sitting here all day. A door opened between the waiting area and the station proper, and Betts came out with Aaron behind her. She still wore her elf costume, and the bell on the point of her head tinkled with every step she took.

  The baubles on the points of her slippers bounced when she walked, and her bright green suspenders and bloomer pants didn’t fit in that cold, sterile police station. Kim’s jaw dropped when she saw Betts’s face. Bright red rings surrounded her eyes, and tears stained her cheeks. Kim never saw Betts break down in all the years they’d been friends.

  Kim turned on Aaron. “What did you do to her?”

  “I didn’t do anything to her,” Aaron replied. “I just gave her the standard questions. You know how it is.”

  Kim peered into her friend’s face. “What happened, Betts?”

  Betts shut her mouth and turned away. Kim glared at Aaron. “If I find out you did anything to hurt her, so help me, I’ll....”

  Aaron shook his head. “You know I wouldn’t do anything to her. Now you better take her home. She’s pretty upset about this.”

  Kim shot him another black look. How could she deal with a man like that, who would just stand there as impassive as a brick wall while her best friend broke down in pieces? How could she trust him again after this? He could be the handsomest man in town. He could even kiss her and tell her he loved her. But she could never sacrifice Betts for him or any other man. If he made Betts cry like this, he wasn’t the man she thought he was.

  She took hold of Betts’s hand. “Come on.” She led her to the door, but before she walked through it, she remembered the wind. She had no coat and no car. How was she supposed to get herself or Betts home in this cold?

  Her mind raced. Then she patted her pockets. She’d left her wallet at the mall, too. She’d been too anxious to stay with Betts in her hour of need to remember anything. She would have forgotten her head if it wasn’t attached. She was getting as bad as Betts these days with her forgetfulness.

  She glanced at her friend. Betts gazed at her in wonder. Kim had to do something. She couldn’t fall back on Betts. She was supposed to be helping her, not the other way around. “I left my wallet at the mall, or I would call us a cab. We can’t walk home. It’s too cold outside, and neither of us has a coat.”

  Betts cleared her throat. “I have my wallet.”

  Kim’s eyes popped open. “You do?” She scanned the costume. “But where?”

  Betts threaded her hand down inside her bloomers and brought out her own slim wallet from God knows where. Kim didn’t even want to think about where Betts stuck it when she changed her clothes. “I’m sorry about this. I should be taking care of you instead of you taking care of me.”

  Betts turned away. “Never mind. Call a cab, and we’ll get out of here.”

  Kim stared at her. At least Betts was holding up all right in spite of all the signs of recent tears. Kim called a cab, and when it came, they made a dash for the car. The cab took them back to Kim’s house in Pembrooke. She couldn’t watch while Betts paid the fare.

  Before they knew it, they were curled up in front of the heater with steaming cups of hot chocolate and a plate of Kim’s Chocolate Cherry Bomb cookies in front of them—Betts’s favorite. Kim leaned back in her chair and eyed Betts. “So.....”

  Betts dropped her eyes to her cup. “So.....I’m a murderer.”

  “You better not be,” Kim shot back, “or I’m not playing with you in the sandbox anymore.”

  Betts indulged in a tiny smile, but she didn’t look up. “Everything points to me, Kim. I’m in big trouble on this one.”

  Kim stared at her. “Is that what Aaron said?”

  Betts nodded. “He doesn’t have any other suspects. No one else had motive and opportunity.”

  “What motive could you possibly have? You didn’t have....” Kim stopped. “You didn’t have anything to do with Simon Cox, did you?”

  Betts head shot up. “You know who Simon was, don’t you? He was the chemistry teacher at Camellia Cove High School for the last fifteen years.”

  Kim’s eyes lit up. “Of course. I had him for chemistry in high school. I think he took the credit for getting me interested in cooking.”

  Betts fixed her eyes on Kim’s face. “I had him for chemistry in high school, too.”

  “Well, who didn’t?” Kim asked. “Everybody under the age of forty had him for chemistry in high school. That doesn’t make you a suspect. If it did, we’d be looking at a couple thousand people for Simon’s murder.”

  Betts slammed her fist down on her knee and smacked her lips. “I swear, you are so thick sometimes, Kim. Do I really have to spell it out for you? I didn’t just have Simon Cox for chemistry. I had him for real. I had an affair with him. There. I said it. Now do you understand why I’m the prime suspect in his murder?”

  Kim stared at her. “You....what?”

  Betts threw up her hands and jammed herself back against the couch. “I screwed him. I bonked him. I rolled in the clover with him. How many times do I have to say it? I had an affair with him and he had an affair with me. Now stop staring at me with drool running down your chin and help me, or I’m gonna be walking around Riker’s Island in a pair of slippers and an orange jump suit.”

  “But,” Kim stammered, “when did you have an affair with him? We’ve been out of high school for years, and I haven’t seen you with anybody, let alone Simon Cox. I would have remembered that.”

  Betts launched herself off the couch and tipped her hot chocolate onto the carpet. She clenched her fists at her sides and stamped her foot. “Don’t you get it? Do I have to draw you a danged map with a big red X to mark the spot before you pull your head out of your cocoa cup and get it? I had an affair with him in high school. I was his student and he was my chemistry teacher in more ways than one. We used to sneak off to his store room behind the chem lab during mornin
g break and rattle the shelves while you and your friends were listening to Pink Floyd: The Wall on your headphones. There was no one around to hear me scream. Now do you get it?”

  She stood there glaring at Kim and panting. Her fingernails cut into her palms, and her knuckles glowed white and hard in the dim light. Kim gulped. Then before her eyes, Betts dissolved. Her anger melted away, and her ragged breath lengthened and deepened into great racking sobs. Tears rolled down her cheeks, her shoulders heaved, and her chin sank down on her chest.

  “I loved him,” she moaned. “Do you hear me? Simon Cox was the first man I ever loved, and I never even got the chance to tell him so. He’s probably been doing it with every other girl in his chemistry classes, too, but I still dream about him at night, even after all these years. And now he’s dead and everybody thinks I killed him.”

  She bent her head and howled in agony. Kim managed to set her cup down without knocking it over and hurried to Betts’s side. She circled her friend’s shoulders with her arms. “I’m so sorry. I’m an idiot. I shouldn’t have made you admit it like that. Come on. Sit down again. It’s gonna be okay.”

  Betts slumped onto the couch, and Kim held her until her tears diminished. “You should have heard Aaron at the police station. I’ll never be able to look him in the eye again after the questions he asked me.”

  “What did he say?” Kim asked.

  “He didn’t say anything,” Betts replied. “That’s the problem. He asked if I knew Simon Cox. I tried to hedge around, you know, but he kept staring at me with that weird look he gets when he knows someone is lying. You know the look I mean?”

  Kim smiled to herself and nodded. How well she knew that look! Aaron could make the toughest criminal confess, and he didn’t have to say anything. He just stared into their eyes until they cracked and told him everything. A softy like Betts wouldn’t stand a chance against him.

  “I didn’t know Simon was going to play Santa Claus at the mall,” Betts went on. “I hadn’t seen him in years. But I could never kill him. I worshiped him.”