by Rose Pressey
“Where is Hunter? I haven’t seen him in a while,” I said.
Mary Jane and Grandma Honey looked around.
“Well, I haven’t seen him either,” Grandma Honey said. “He must be in the back cleaning or something.”
The three of us headed to the back, but we still didn’t see him anywhere. In the kitchen area my office door was slightly open. I’d thought I’d closed it, but maybe I was so distracted that I had forgotten.
“I bet he quit,” I said. “See, all that murder talk and he was probably listening.”
“He shouldn’t have been eavesdropping.”
“We weren’t being quiet, so he wasn’t eavesdropping to hear that.”
“Oh, yeah, right,” Grandma Honey said.
“He didn’t quit. That would be ridiculous,” Mary Jane said.
As we moved closer to my office I spotted him. He was coming out of my office.
“What are you doing in there?” I asked.
He looked like a kid with his hand caught in the candy jar.
“Did you need something, Hunter?” I asked.
“I was looking for you,” he said.
“I was right out front,” I said.
“I thought I heard your voice in the room. I thought you called for me.”
“No, maybe it was just a sound from outside or something.”
“That’s probably it. I’m sorry I thought you called for me. I wouldn’t go in there without you asking me.”
“That’s okay. It’s no problem if you thought you heard me. We were just closing up so I just wanted to let you know that you can leave now.”
He started to take the apron off. “Great. Well, it’s been a great day, and I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Yes, see you in the morning,” I said.
He walked out the back door.
“See, I told you there was something suspicious about him,” Mary Jane said.
“What are you talking about? He was just looking for me.”
“Oh, yeah, right, that’s what he says, and you believe him?” Mary Jane asked.
“Well, of course I believe him. He seems like a nice kid.”
“I still say he’s up to something.”
“What can he be up to at a candy shop?”
“I don’t know,” Mary Jane said.
“You can never be too sure,” Grandma Honey said. “Perhaps you should just keep your eye on him.”
I nodded. “Absolutely, I will.” I’d thought I was already doing that, but I didn’t mention that part.
We finished up with restocking the candies and cleaning the floor. I closed out the register and turned out the lights. Then we walked out the front door. I locked it behind us. Thank goodness there was no murder today, although I kept thinking about what the detective said. Maybe the murderer had been really looking for me. Why would someone want me dead?
“Okay, so who’s going to drive?” Grandma Honey said.
“You mean you need a ride home?” I asked.
“No, what I mean is, who’s going to drive to Mr. Sutherland’s home?” Grandma Honey said.
I waved my hand. “No, we can’t do that.”
“We discussed this and you said you were going to do it.”
“I never said I was going to do it.”
“Nevertheless, I think we should, so who’s driving?”
She wasn’t going to let this go. Perhaps I should go over there and show her that there was absolutely nothing we could discover just by driving to Mr. Sutherland‘s house.
“I’ll drive,” Mary Jane volunteered.
“Great. Where did you park?” Grandma Honey asked.
“Right there.” Mary Jane pointed.
I followed them over to the car. The whole time I was thinking that this was probably a bad idea, but I would go along with it. Then they would know I was right. We all got into the car. Mary Jane pulled out onto the road and pointed the car in the direction that I had given her. I only had Mr. Sutherland’s address because it had been on the papers I signed when I bought the building. For all I knew he could’ve already moved out.
After navigating the streets of Cinnamon Mary Jane pulled up in front of the house that I’d given her the address for.
“Is this the right place?” she asked as she put the car into park.
“It’s the address I have for him,” I said.
We started out the windows at the house.
“What do we do now?” I asked.
“We should go inside and have a look around,” Mary Jane said as she cut the engine.
“How in the world can we go inside and look around? It’s not like he left the door open,” I said.
“You never know. Maybe he did or maybe the police left the door open,” Grandma Honey said.
“I doubt that,” I said.
“Well, we could at the very least look in the windows,” Grandma Honey said.
This sounded like a bad idea. A tiny voice in the back of my head said, Don’t do it, but I didn’t want to disappoint Grandma Honey, so I agreed to take a peek around the house. My grandmother wasted little time opening the car door and getting out.
“Just for the record, I think this is a bad idea,” I said as I got out from the backseat.
The house was a ranch style with red brick and black shutters. Shrubs lined the path to the front door.
“Do you think he lives with someone?” Mary Jane asked.
I stopped in my tracks and Grandma Honey bumped into the back of me. She groaned. “Sugar, you have to announce when you are going to come to a complete stop. You’ll cause me to break a hip.”
“Sorry, Grandma. It hadn’t even occurred to me that someone could be here. What if they call the police?” I asked.
“That’s why we ring the doorbell first. If no one answers then we’ll know the place’s empty,” Grandma Honey said.
“That’s not necessarily true. Maybe the person just isn’t home,” I said as I followed Grandma Honey toward the door.
“Was he married?” Mary Jane asked.
“He never mentioned a wife and she wasn’t there when he sold me the building.”
“Then we’re probably safe then.” Mary Jane walked past me and joined Grandma Honey, who was already standing in front of the door.
Grandma Honey reached out and rang the doorbell. Nerves danced in my stomach.
“What if someone answers?” I whispered. “What will we say to the person?”
Mary Jane and Grandma Honey looked at me. Ah-ha. I’d known that they hadn’t a clue what to say. If anyone answered we’d all be at a loss for words. Several seconds passed and no one came to the door.
“Just to be sure,” Grandma Honey said as she reached out and pushed the doorbell again.
“I guess no one is here,” Mary Jane said.
I released a breath of relief. “Okay, let’s get out of here.”
“Well, we can’t leave until we do what we came for,” Grandma Honey said. “We at least want to take a look in the windows.” She wrapped her hand around the doorknob and turned. “It’s locked,” she said with frustration in her voice.
“I told you,” I said.
Grandma Honey stepped off the porch step and over to the window. I followed her because I didn’t want to let her get hurt. She cupped her hands around her eyes and pressed her face against the window.
“What do you see?” I asked from over her shoulder.
“Not a darn thing,” she said.
Mary Jane chuckled.
“All right, now I think it’s time for us to leave.”
Finally, I managed to get Grandma Honey away from the window. We walked down the path toward the car.
“Well, that was a disappointment,” Grandma Honey said.
“It’s okay, Grandma Honey. Things will work out.”
She really wanted to solve this case.
As I walked by the scrubs something pink caught my attention. It was a piece of paper. Mary Jane and Gran
dma Honey were walking in front of me and hadn’t noticed it. I stepped over and picked up the piece of paper. Now Grandma Honey had noticed that I had stopped.
“What did you find?”
“It’s a flyer for the grand opening of my shop.”
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I supposed I shouldn’t be too surprised to find this here. This had to be why Mr. Sutherland had shown up at the shop. Now I had to know who had given him the flyer.
“The victim has a flyer from your shop?” Mary Jane asked with wide eyes.
This wasn’t a random killing.
I showed the paper to Mary Jane and Grandma Honey. Grandma Honey pulled her reading glasses from her pocketbook.
“Well, my word. What do you make of that?” Grandma Honey said.
The message on the flyer read, Meet me at the new shop on Fifth Avenue at nine in the morning.
Someone had asked Mr. Sutherland to meet them at my shop, but why there? Was there some connection to me? The detective would want to know about this.
Now that we’d found this huge clue it was time to get out of there. I’d had an uneasy feeling about this trip from the start. Grandma Honey had a bounce in her step as we headed to the car. This was just the clue that she had wanted to find. I had to admit this was a move in the right direction.
“What will we do with this flyer?” Mary Jane asked.
“I guess we need to show it to the police,” I said as I got in the car.
“Yes, I guess that would be the thing to do.” Mary Jane didn’t sound so sure about that.
At least this hadn’t been a wasted trip.
“Now we know that someone wanted him there at that specific time to murder him,” Grandma Honey said.
“I don’t know, Grandma. Maybe it wasn’t planned. I mean, if you wanted to kill someone you probably wouldn’t want to do that in such a crowded place.”
She looked back at me and smiled. “You are a smart cookie. You’re right, sugar.”
“Maybe they spoke outside the shop and when he started to enter the person got mad and decided to shoot him.” Mary Jane fastened her seatbelt.
“He definitely could have been arguing with someone. If we find that person then possibly we will have found the killer,” I said.
Mary Jane had just started the car when the sound of another vehicle approaching caught my attention. I looked over my shoulder and spotted the detective getting out from his car parked right behind us.
“Uh oh,” Grandma Honey said.
Uh-oh was right.
“Do you think he’s going to arrest us?” Mary Jane asked.
“Possibly,” I said.
The detective made eye contact with me as he approached our car. I figured the look on my face gave away the fact that we were guilty of something. How would I explain the fact that I was at the victim’s house? I guessed I was going to have to do that anyway when I gave him the flyer.
“I’ll handle this,” I said as I got out from the backseat.
Mary Jane and Grandma Honey got out of the car too.
When the detective got neat he said, “Ladies, funny that I find you here.”
“We were just out for a drive,” Mary Jane blurted out.
Oh, no, now she would just make it worse.
“Would you care to explain what you are doing here?” he asked.
“Not really,” Grandma Honey said.
Oh, dear. Now he would probably arrest us. How would I explain to my mother that I had gotten Grandma arrested?
“Well, I had his address from when I bought the building. We just thought…” I looked over at the house.
He quirked an eyebrow as he waited for me to answer.
“We just thought we’d have a look around,” I said.
“You really shouldn’t be here,” he said.
I supposed now was the time to confess to what I’d found. I held the paper out. “Take a look at this.”
“What’s that?” He took the paper from me.
“I found that in the bushes in front of Mr. Sutherland’s home.” I pointed toward the front of the house.
He studied the front of the flyer. “It’s for your shop.”
I knew he was confused.
“Turn it over,” I said.
He flipped the flyer over. A couple seconds later our eyes met.
“You found this here?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yes. Clearly the killer had asked Mr. Sutherland to meet him at my shop.”
“Whoa. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” he said.
“What else could it be?” Grandma Honey asked.
“Exactly.” Mary Jane nodded.
“I’ll look into this.” He pointed at the flyer. “In the meantime, I can trust you all not to investigate any other locations?”
None of us were quick to respond. As a matter of fact, we remained quiet for probably thirty seconds. The detective didn’t take his sexy gaze off me.
“You have my word,” I said with a forced grin.
The reluctance was probably evident in my voice.
He smiled. “Thank you.”
When he looked at the car, I knew that was the hint that he wanted us to leave. After a couple seconds, I turned to Grandma Honey and Mary Jane.
“Come on ladies, I think our work here is done.” I motioned for them to get in.
Once in the car, I peeked back at Detective Monroe. It looked as if he was trying to bite back a smile.
“Why did you tell him that we wouldn’t investigate any other locations?” Grandma Honey asked.
“I just told him that. It doesn’t mean it’ll really happen,” I said.
Chapter 12
It was later in the evening. Grandma Honey, my mother, and Mary Jane were at my place. We had decided to have a pizza night. Currently we were waiting on the delivery. The six o’clock news had just started. The newscaster said she had an update on an earlier report about a murder investigation at a local candy shop. My eyes widened.
“Oh, my gosh, they’re talking about you,” Mary Jane said.
“The owner of the candy shop was one of two witnesses to the crime. Reese Sweet was hiding with her assistant in a closet and saw the murderer. Police hope that they’ll be able to help identify the suspect.”
“What are they doing? Do they want to kill us?” I yelled at the television.
“I can’t believe they did that.” Mary Jane’s voice held a slight tremble.
“This is totally unacceptable,” Grandma Honey said.
“Very irresponsible of them,” my mother said. “I’m going to call that station right now.” She pulled out her cell phone, searching for the number to the local news station.
“Now the killer knows we saw him. He’ll be coming after us for sure. I can’t breathe,” Mary Jane said. “I think I’m hyperventilating.”
Grandma Honey grabbed her purse and shoved it up to Mary Jane’s face.
“What’s this for?” Mary Jane asked through her pants for breath.
“If you’re hyperventilating then you’re supposed to breathe into a bag.”
“I think that’s like a paper bag, Grandma.”
“I don’t have a paper bag right now, so I improvised.”
Just then the doorbell rang and we all screamed. My mother dropped her cell phone and it slid across the hardwood floor.
I rushed over to the door and peeked outside. No one was there. Though I knew someone had to have pushed the doorbell. Someone could be out there watching us.
“You should call the police,” my mother whispered.
***
It was the next morning and I had woken up early. Sleep hadn’t come easy the night before. After dressing, I grabbed my bag and headed for the door. I was running late because I had drifted off right before the alarm went off, then couldn’t get myself up on time. When I got to the front door, I peeked outside to see if anyone was around. The killer could be hiding anywhere. I slipped outside, locked the door, and then ran
to my car. I kind of ducked my head as I went, in case any bullets flew. I would be watching over my shoulder the entire way to work.
The detective had offered to send someone to protect me, but I told him that wasn’t necessary. The police didn’t need me anymore. I’d already given them a description of the killer. I supposed if the killer was caught then I would need to testify in court. That was a scary thought.
I started the car and pulled out of the driveway in a hurry. The faster I got to the shop the safer I would be. When I arrived, I looked all around before getting out of the car. However, if someone was hiding somewhere and waiting to jump out at me then it would do little good. I headed down the sidewalk and toward the front door of the shop. Once there I unlocked the door and hurried inside.
Whew. At least I had made it without being caught. I switched on the light and then put on my apron. I was ready for business. I started filling the jars with candy. Now I realized that I’d sold more than I’d thought yesterday.
Now that I scanned the area It looked as if someone had been in the store. Okay, nothing had been moved, but it was just a feeling. I couldn’t quite put my finger on why I felt that way. I stood in the middle of the room and looked around. There had to be something amiss to explain why I felt this way. Nothing was turned over and nothing appeared to be missing. That was when I noticed that one of the jars was turned to the side. I knew that I hadn’t left it that way.
I knew this because I always made sure that the jars were neat and orderly before I left. There was no way I would have left that jar that way. Things had to be in order or it would have driven me crazy all night. I would have rushed over and fixed the jar’s position just so that I would be able to sleep through the night without tossing and turning. Therefore, I knew someone had been in the shop after I had closed last night. That was impossible, right? I had to ask Mary Jane if she had been in the store last night after we closed.
When I looked up Mary Jane and my grandmother were coming through the door. Mary Jane was supposed to work today, but Grandma Honey hadn’t told me she’d be here.
“Grandma Honey, what are you doing here?” I asked.
“I was just worried about you, dear, so I thought I would come in and kind of stand guard.”
“That’s not necessary,” I said.
Although she would probably be tougher than the police if she caught someone trying to mess with me. That pocketbook of hers felt as if it was full of bricks.