There was still a part of me that refused to believe that Alicia was guilty. Was it stubbornness? Or was it my special intuition?
The door was open to Benji’s shop, but nobody was inside. The place was in a state of disarray, like a struggle had taken place. Benji’s motorcycle was not parked in the back either.
“I better have the Sheriff send us a crime scene unit too.” Kyle pulled out his phone.
“Is that blood on the floor over there?” Lexi asked, pointing to a spot near the work bench.
“Yes, it is. Not much, but it’s fresh.”
I was in a daze, protecting myself from the psychological chaos by singing Disney princess songs in my head. I sat on the front counter, which was fairly low to allow people to set furniture on it, and pulled out the transcription of the cell phone conversations that Kyle had given me.
This will give me something to do until the Sheriff arrives.
It wasn’t long before I got another one of those sinking feelings, but this time it was accompanied by a racing heartbeat.
“Kyle! Kyle! Come here!”
He put down his roll of yellow tape that he had just gotten from his car.
“What is it?” He could sense my agitation.
“Alicia is innocent! I’m sure of it! And she’s in danger!”
“Jessie, I haven’t got time for more wild stories. I’ve got to tape off this crime scene.”
“Look at this, Kyle.” I pointed to a line of one of the text messages. “It doesn’t say that she was upset because he didn’t kill Daddy’s little girl, like you said!”
He read the line. “Well, yes, but I didn’t want to use that word in front of you and Lexi, you know.”
“It says ‘Daddy’s little bitch,’ Kyle. Alicia is innocent!”
“I’m not sure how you’re getting from Point A to Point B there, Jessie. Please…”
“Kyle, that’s what Cassie called Alicia when the Sheriff was handing her over to you in handcuffs, remember? She said. ‘I knew you killed my daddy, you little bitch’…little bitch. Cassie is the mastermind that was trying to take over the company, and probably to steal her mother’s ex-lover too.”
“I don’t know…”
“We’ve got to get to City Hall. Cassie is going there to kill Alicia! My premonition was right.”
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Chapter Sixteen
It was the longest five blocks I ever traveled in my life. Pedestrians were crossing in front of us constantly, so Kyle finally turned on his siren for a minute. We finally got to Apalachee Avenue and made the left-hand turn. We pulled in behind the Dairy Queen,
tossing a little gravel when we stopped in front of the entrance to the stairway to City Hall. Right next to us was a long Cadillac SUV limousine.
Is that Benji in the backseat in handcuffs, hanging his head? It was hard to tell through the darkly tinted windows.
Kyle told Lexi and I to wait in the car and grabbed his service pistol from the locked glove compartment. He ran up the stairs, four at a time. Lexi didn’t feel much like climbing stairs and stayed, but I followed close behind.
The situation at the top of the stairs was tense and silent. Freddy and the two deputies were locked in the holding cell. Alicia was sitting in a wooden chair in the middle of the room with her hands cuffed behind the back of the chair. Around her neck was the big black ring I had played with at Benji’s workshop last weekend – the forty-thousand-dollar GPS thing for a tank, or something like that.
But it didn’t look like it was being used as a locating device right now. Cassie stood behind her stepmother with a gun in one hand aimed at Hector and then at Kyle, and a small remote control in the other hand – aimed at the big black collar around Alicia’s neck.
Alicia had on a brave but resigned face. “Don’t hurt Cassie, Hector…or any of you. Just let her push the button and go. This is Dane’s new laser device for cutting and polishing diamonds. It focuses a precise beam at the center. It can cut a stone into any shape, or it can be set for about 5,700 degrees – 3,000 degrees hotter than lava – and melt the rough edges off a diamond, making it smooth and crystal clear. It’s so much faster and more precise than a torch, and it was going to revolutionize the jewelry industry. I should have figured out that it was used to…to…”
She almost broke down, but she swallowed hard and kept her emotions in check.
“…to kill him.”
“Shut up, you whore. You stole my father away from me and had him convinced to let you take over his handbag designs – which would have been fine if he was designing grocery sacks. It was my designs that everybody wanted. Everybody who isn’t an old fossil like you, anyway…though your bags do work nicely for carrying this laser guillotine. My designs are cute, young, and practical…right, Miss Delacroix?”
The tension was high but manageable. I didn’t feel like I was in any immediate danger…but I had to wonder, how could we all get out of here without any bloodshed? How can this end well?
“Yes, they are, Cassie.”
Just then I felt something brush firmly against my leg. I looked down out of the corner of my eye and saw a black furry creature.
“Moondance?”
“Hi, Jessie.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Well, my good friend, Arthur, and your grandmother wanted to come, but I knew they wouldn’t be able to do what has to be done. So I rode along in the car with you.”
“You are a stealthy creature.”
“Cassie is talking to you now. That’s your cue to step in front of Hector and Kyle and keep talking to her. Then I’ll count to three. You’ll know what to do.”
This was crazy, and I would probably get shot, but I wasn’t nervous.
“Yes, Cassie” I said stepping forward. “You’re a very talented designer.”
“Get back, Jessie,” Hector and Kyle said in near unison.
“Don’t try to be a hero, Miss Delacroix. There will be a lot of dead people – and at least one without a head – if you do. Like most spoiled rich brats, I’m quite well-trained in the use of firearms.”
“Well, if you are half as good with weapons as you are at acting, then you are quite formidable, Cassie.”
She nodded her appreciation of my twisted compliment.
“Nice of you to notice, Miss Delacroix.”
“On three, Jessie…”
“Please…call me Jessie.” Moondance slithered in front of me unnoticed.
“One…”
“Jessie, then. We could be great friends, you know, Jessie…”
“Two…”
“…I truly hope I don’t have to kill you.”
“THREE! RRRAAAAAWW!”
On the final count, Moondance pounced nearly five feet straight up in the air in front of Cassie with a terrifying feline growl and hiss. His fangs were out, and his left paw deftly tapped the gun from the stunned girl’s limp right hand as the weapon and the remote control both dropped to the floor. I swiftly lifted the collar off of Alicia’s neck and hurled myself forward into Cassie’s body, taking us both to the floor.
We rolled on the floor two…three…four times, and it seemed for a second that the guys were just going to stand there and watch the girl fight. But, I guess it was just one of those situations where a few seconds seem like an eternity. Kyle put one arm around my waist and lifted me to safety as Hector rolled the girl over that he had spent years protecting and clamped handcuffs on her wrists. Kyle grabbed the gun, the remote control, and the deadly ring of death.
Sheriff Muldoon arrived, ducking under the doorway as he entered the modest City Hall of Whispering Pines. Lexi was right behind him.
He looked around the room. Hector was pulling Cassie to her feet, I was brushing off my clothes from my roll on the floor, and Kyle was setting the weapons on his desk.
“I take it this lady here is not in cahoots
with our killer?” the Sheriff inquired in a routine manner.
Everyone nodded, and the Sheriff unlocked Alicia’s handcuffs. Then his gaze turned to the holding cell.
“Rodney, Edgar…It looks like you weren’t much help to Officer Carnigan and the others here.” They hung their heads. “We’ll just let you all sit there for a minute. So who do I have to thank for cleaning up this case for me? A couple hours ago we had no clue who the killer and his accomplice was for sure. Now I see we have a man in custody downstairs and a girl in handcuffs up here.”
“It was Officer Carnigan and Hector who solved the whole thing, Sheriff,” I said. Kyle could use some recognition for all the hard work he does.
“Is that right, Officer Carnigan?”
Kyle looked at me and then back at the Sheriff with a smile. “Yes, Sir. With a little bit of help from Miss Delacroix here. All she did was figure out that it was Benji Wilkes and Miss St. George who were the killers…”
“And then she disarmed the suspect and got us all out of a standoff without anyone getting hurt,” Hector added.
I looked for Moondance to give him the credit he deserved, but he was gone.
The Sheriff smiled and looked at me, He took off his hat and extended his hand.
“Well, thank you very much, Miss Delacroix…” He looked at Kyle and Hector and then back at me. “…for your small contribution to solving this case. Rodney and Edgar, you two can take our two perps to Stony Point for booking – if you think you can handle that – while I take the rest of these fine folks to lunch at L’Auberge Hantée.”
We walked in the front door to the lobby, and the group went into the Tea Room. I lagged behind and looked toward the pawnshop. Anika came out with her big smile.
“That was fun, wasn’t it!”
“Ahh…it was all right. Thanks for your help.”
“Any time, Jessie. Let’s do it again real soon.”
“Let’s not!” I looked at the big clock behind the front desk. “Well, lookie there, Anika. It’s almost 12:30. I believe you said I’d have the case solved by Noon.”
“Nope…No. I said you’d solve it before lunch.”
She smiled and extended her arm toward the Tea Room door. “Bon apetit!”
I got a nice round of applause when I joined the others at the double table by the window. Platters of sandwiches and other delicacies kept arriving.
“So, what I don’t get,” Lexi said, “is how Benji and Cassie got to be in cahoots and what their relationship was – and how you ended up with Benji in your car, Hector.”
“Well, it was a stroke of good luck that I found Mr. Wilkes.” Hector picked up four finger sandwiches and held them while he talked. “I stopped at the Waffle House in Jessup, about hallway between here and Savannah, on my way down from Charleston this morning. Well there was a motorcycle with a CCAD duffle bag strapped on the back out in front, and I sat down at the counter right next to the driver. Turned out I recognized him from the picture I found of Miss Alicia at a company holiday party 8 or 9 years ago. When we got outside, I slapped some cuffs on him and threw his bike into the limo. I’m a licensed bounty hunter in three states.”
“Wow. Lucky you found him,” I said. “How about him and Cassie?”
Ashley set down a plate of Oysters Rockefeller and retreated to the kitchen while Lexi and I exchanged perplexed looks at the new menu item and each other.
“Well, on the ride back, he told me how he pretended to be in the Reserves so he could run up to Charleston once a month and visit Alicia after he got done with art school. After she started falling in love with Mr. St. George, he kept trying but she wasn’t interested. Eventually he caught the eye of Miss Cassie, who was always spending time there and watching the designers.”
Lexi jumped in. “Whoa. She was just a kid.”
“Well, according to him, it was never anything like that. He was just using her crush on him to try to work his way into the company, sell some of his designs – I guess he designs boots too – and keep close to Alicia. Later on, she started using him, baiting him with promises of buying his designs, if he helped to make her the owner and head designer of the company. Maybe she thought that when she was 18 she could win his heart too. I guess she couldn’t though. She jabbed him in the leg with a screwdriver when she was missing yesterday and ran off with that laser device when he refused to kill Alicia. Great oysters.”
“So, are you coming to work for us here, Hector?” Kyle seemed to be genuinely interested in that possibility.
“Over my dead body!” Alicia said quite resolutely.
That got a stunned hush from the rest of us, just as Ashley set a delicious smelling plate in front of us and began topping off all of our beverages.
“Oh, chill,” Alicia admonished us. “My head is still firmly attached – thanks to Jessie.” She wrote something on a napkin, turned it over, and slid it across the table to Kyle. “Unless you can beat that figure, he’ll be staying with me, thank you very much.”
Kyle and the Sheriff both looked at it. Their eyebrows slowly raised and their heads slowly turned towards each other.
“Good luck in your position with Mrs. St. George,” Kyle said, extending his hand across the table to shake Hector’s hand.
Hector motioned for Kyle to give him the napkin from Alicia, and he seemed to be impressed with his new salary.
“And,” Sheriff Muldoon added, facing Alicia now, “If he ever needs an assistant for half that amount…”
“A third!” Kyle offered.
“…just give a call.”
“My goodness, these crab cakes are delicious,” Alicia said as Ashley finished filling our glasses of iced tea.
“Yes they are,” agreed the Sheriff. “Send the chef out. I want to shake his hand.”
“Yes, sir!” Ashley rushed off to the kitchen.
Two minutes later a mid-twenties redheaded girl in Pippi Longstocking striped tights, non-matching pigtails, and green tinted wire-rimmed glasses came walking out of the double doors from the kitchen towards our table.
“What did I do this time?” she said loudly, wiping her hands on a white kitchen towel and walking with all the delicacy and sophistication of a retired bronco rider with a full diaper. “I can’t help it if those darn oysters weren’t dead yet!” She snorted twice at her own joke.
We all turned and looked at her with blank stares. Kyle regained consciousness first.
“We just wanted to say that your crab cakes and oysters were delicious. Everything was great.”
Sheriff Muldoon shook her hand. “Great job, little lady. You’re a real chef. Miss Delacroix, this one is a keeper.”
“Oh, so you’re my boss! Jessie, isn’t it? I’m Ginny, Ginny Vandersnoop. Chef Randall sent me.”
I looked at Lexi with a “Did you hire her?” look in my eye. She shook her head.
“It’s a pleasure, Ginny. Your food is delicious.”
“Well. That’s a relief . And, I understand, of course, that this is just an audition. But I got all my bags in my Volkswagen van outside just in case you want me to stick around. I can start…now! I’m an all-around chef, but I really love being a pastry chef. I have a specialty in pies and breakfast pastries, and I’m also an experienced short order cook. I can do great omelets, Eggs Benedict, you name it – and I tinker with crab cakes and oysters and other fancy-shmancy appetizers. Oh – and I could use a place to stay – and a part time shift at a bakery would be nice too, unless you’re paying six figures here.” Two more snorts.
Maybe this is our girl, designed just for Whispering Pines and the Nirvana Tea Room.
Forty-five minutes later everyone was getting up from the table and saying their farewells. The last one to go was Sheriff Muldoon. He looked a little anxious, like he had something on his mind.
“Miss Delacroix…”
“Yes, Sheriff?”
“Please tell your other chef, the big fella, that we melted all his knives trying to see how hot we could get �
�em.”
Swell. I’d rather wrestle an alligator.
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A Sinister Slice of Murder: A Jessie Delacroix Murder Mystery (Whispering Pines Mystery Series Book 1) Page 12