Twice Baked Murder

by Daphne DeWitt

  “I don’t think so,” I answered. My heart broke as I sat there trying to comfort her, and knowing that nothing I could say could ever really make it better. Was this how my father reacted when he heard the news about me? Was this what happened to Peggy and Aiden?

  She shook her head. “I begged him not to come here. We were happy in New York. I was a couple of years away from making partner at my law firm.”

  “New York?” I asked. “I thought you guys were from Philadelphia.”

  “Please,” she snorted. “Patrick hated the Phillies. We were New York born and bred. We were childhood sweethearts, you know. I remember the first time we ever saw each other, in that awful place. We were barely old enough to know what love was, but we knew we had something special.” She shook her head. “And now, he’s gone.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I answered. I was about to push just a little harder, try to get information on the “awful place” she was talking about. But, she wasn’t quite finished yet.

  “I begged him not to come here!” she repeated. “He visited here when we still lived in New York, and he lost his mind. He kept talking about how affordable everything was, how quaint the town was.” She gritted her teeth. “And I told him he was crazy. I mean, how quaint can a place be when two people are killed on the night you visit?!”

  “What did you just say?” I asked, narrowing my eyes. Patrick was in town for a visit on the same night Mrs. Hoover and I died. That couldn’t be a coincidence.

  “The police only count one of them as a murder, but what does that matter? Who knows what they’ll classify Patrick’s death as?”

  “But if--”

  “I’m sorry,” Angela stood quickly. “I have to go. I just want to get this memorial over with and get out of this town.” She stopped, looking at me with glassy eyes. “You should come.”

  “I didn’t really know him very well,” I admitted, feeling strangely guilty about not being able to share in her hurt and perhaps give her some solace.

  “Still, I think he’d have liked you. I know I do.”

  She brushed past me before I could press her any further, not that I was even sure I would have. That sort of hurt didn’t need any pressure applied. Besides, there were other ways to get the information I needed.

  My phone- a burner I'd bought this morning at the general store, buzzed in my pocket.

  A text from Sheriff Dash flashed across the screen. There was no need to ask how he got my number, not unless I wanted to hear the whole “best detective in D.C.” spiel all over again.

  It’s ten minutes after ten, it read. You have five minutes to get here unless you want me to start getting suspicious.

  “Like you weren’t already,” I muttered, and headed toward the police station.

  Now, the fun was really about to begin.

  7

  Walking into the Second Springs Police Department should have felt like coming home. I spent so much of my formative years inside these four walls. I lost my first tooth playing around in the drunk tank. I broke my arm swinging around on the cell bars. Aiden even picked me up for the prom here. In what must be every teenage boy’s worst nightmare, he strode in with a pink carnation for me only to find my dad surrounded by pistols and backup. I knew this place. It was my second home. Only, it wasn’t anymore.

  From the instant my feet (my new feet anyway) first graced that black and white tile, none of it felt right.

  All I could see were all the changes. The way the coffee maker sat on the right side of the room instead of the left, the new layout of the desks, the fact that the name on Dad’s door now read Sheriff Dash; it all tugged at my insides and hurt.

  “Hey, Esther,” I said instinctively as I walked through the door. It was good to see that my dad’s receptionist had kept her job, but I bristled when I realized there was no reason for this me to know her name. “How are you?”

  Thankfully, she didn’t seem to hear me correctly. Staring at me for a moment and finally saying, “I think they play in Denver next week, but their relief pitcher is on the disabled list.”

  Luckily, some things never change.

  “Good of you to finally show up,” Sheriff Dash said from the other side of the room, sipping coffee from a mug that read “Mondays are for Winners.”

  “Would you believe me if I said that I forgot?” I asked, begrudgingly moving toward him.

  “Not likely,” he answered, taking another sip. “I’m a pretty good judge of character, and you don’t seem like a very forgetful person to me. Why, I bet you even remember the two sugars I take in my coffee.”

  “Three,” I corrected him.

  He smirked at me. “Well then, now that we both know what each other knows, at least as far as coffee is concerned, how about we step inside my office and get that deposition out of the way?”

  “The sheriff takes statements now?” I asked, cocking my head, but moving toward the door nonetheless.

  “He does when it’s about a murder investigation,” Sheriff Dash answered. “And when the clearly not forgetful witness in question seems intent on getting herself in trouble.” He opened the door to his office for me. “How’d you like the Key Lime pie anyway? Interesting enough for you?”

  “Absolutely transcendent,” I answered, as he shut the door behind us.

  “I figured if you didn’t like the real thing, maybe the virtual version would suit you better.” He grinned.

  Dad’s office had gone through a similar renovation. Sheriff Dash had taken away all the homey touches the space used to have; fishing poles, pictures of friends, my five-year-old handprints in plaster and replaced them with sterile degrees and commendations.

  He had kept the same desk though. I could tell from the scuff mark at the bottom right-hand corner, where I had bumped my head when I was eleven.

  Other than that, any sign my dad had even set foot in this room, let alone worked inside it for thirty-five years, had been scrubbed clean.

  “Take a seat, Ms. Redoux,” Sheriff Dash said, motioning to the pair of chairs sitting in front of his desk. “I doubt this will take long.”

  Sheriff Dash looked exceptionally fresh this morning, especially for someone who had likely spent the entire night dealing with the first murder to occur during his tenure as sheriff.

  I doubted I looked nearly as chipper. Though, when you take the whole “coming back from the dead” thing into consideration, I had been through a lot more than him. So it was to be expected.

  “Should I be nervous?” I asked, only half joking.

  “That depends on whether or not you’re planning on attempting to break into my database again,” he answered, taking the seat across from me. As I looked over at him, I noticed there were no photos on his desk and (not that I cared) no ring on his finger. Our Sheriff Dash looked to be a lone wolf. Which I suppose made us two of a kind at the moment.

  “You realize I could have you arrested for that,” he continued.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I answered, shrugging my shoulders. Yeah. I had been around enough police officers to know that, if they’re going to arrest you, they usually don’t start by telling you how they could.

  “Our system logged a sign in from an unspecified location late last night. You expect me to believe that wasn’t you?”

  “Honestly, I couldn’t care less what you believe, Mr. Dash. If I remember my high school social studies correctly, what you have to do is prove it,” I answered. And I grinned because I knew (among other things) how to reroute a signal through enough dummy servers to make it pretty much untraceable. Being the sheriff’s daughter did have its perks.

  “It’s Sheriff Dash, Ms. Redoux. And you can rest easy. I have bigger things to do than busy myself with a little online trespassing. Though you’ll find more than a slice of pie waiting for you the next time.”

  “Noted,” I answered, shuffling uncomfortably. “Can we get on with the questioning? I have a batch of pies that aren’t going to bake the
mselves.” I glared at him. “None of which are Key Lime.”

  “And just when I was starting to like you,” he answered, typing on his desktop. “Where are you from originally, Ms. Redoux, and what’s your business in town?” The playful lilt vanished from his tone.

  “I’m from Plano, Texas,” I lied, knowing he wouldn’t find anything online and figuring it would take a couple of days for him to get intel across state lines.

  That should give me enough time to whip something up.

  “And I’m here for a fresh start.” That part was true … if involuntary.

  “What brought you into the Pie Ladies’ Paradise Bakery last night?” he asked, typing furiously on his keypad.

  “Pie,” I answered curtly. “Also ladies. Honestly, the paradise part tempted me too.”

  Okay, so I was being a little smug, but I couldn’t help myself. Sheriff Dash was asking all the wrong questions. He was focusing on me instead of what was actually going on. This murder was connected to Mrs. Hoover’s two years ago, and maybe mine, as well. It was as clear as day.

  There was also the huge hole in Mrs. Hoover’s floor and the way the place had been ransacked, like whoever killed her was also looking for something.

  And the fact that Patrick came from New York, but told everyone in town that it was Philadelphia. That had to mean something. They were all pieces to a puzzle; a puzzle Sheriff Dash would never be able to put together if he wasted all his time focusing on me.

  But how could I tell him what I knew without telling him how I knew it? It seemed impossible.

  “You witnessed the victim scuffling with someone?” he asked, still typing.

  “Not really,” I answered. “We heard the altercation and then saw someone running away from the scene. But the parking lot was backlit, and I couldn’t really get a good look at them.”

  “That’s convenient,” Sheriff Dash responded.

  “Not for Patrick,” I answered.

  “Look, I’m going to level with you, Ms. Redoux. I don’t trust you. You come waltzing into town on the same night of our first homicide in two years. You just so happen to be at the scene of the crime, and you keep the shop’s proprietor busy while the homicide occurs. You ask strange questions and seem to know a suspicious amount about this town and the people in it, almost as though you’ve been casing us.” He stopped typing. “But all of that, I could mark down to coincidence, if not for what you said last night.”

  “What’s that?” I asked, my fingers tightening around the arm of my chair.

  “You mentioned the wrench,” he said.

  “Of course I did. It’s obviously the murder weapon,” I stammered.

  “Not that one. You mentioned the wrench at Mrs. Hoover’s house two years ago.”

  “Well, it was obviously the murder weapon there too, and don’t you think it’s suspicious, finding an item at two separate murders, an item that unrelated to either setting?”

  Finally, I could ask the questions I needed to without giving too much away.

  “Of course I do, Ms. Redoux. So did our last sheriff. He found the placement of the wrench so curious, he thought he could use it to weed out suspects. That’s why he kept it out of the official report.”

  Uh-oh.

  “It never went to any media outlets. It never made the papers or the newscast. It was never seen by anyone who hadn’t taken an oath to serve and protect. So it’s never even been a subject of gossip.” He leaned forward in his chair. “So I ask you, Ms. Redoux. How do you know about it?”

  I searched my brain pretty frantically. Sheriff Dash was staring at me with those intense brown eyes. He wasn’t moving. He wasn’t even blinking. Suddenly, my brain went into overdrive.

  I was the smartest person I knew. Okay, maybe not the smartest traditionally, but I was definitely the most resourceful. I was a problem solver. So solutions came to me pretty easily, with the noticeable exception of here and now.

  I opened my mouth, ridiculously unsure of what I was going to say, when the door flung open.

  “Not now, Officer Coulson,” Sheriff Dash said without taking his eyes off me for even an instant.

  This guy was a machine.

  I turned to see Harvey standing in the doorway. He made eye contact with me for just a moment before turning back to the sheriff.

  “I understand that you’re busy, Darri- I mean, Sheriff Dash. But I’d like to make a confession, and I’m not sure you’re going to like it,” Harvey muttered.

  This did manage to pull Darrin’s attention away from me, though only for an instant. “I think that whatever it is can wait until I’m done here.”

  “See, that’s the thing,” Harvey said, nervously tapping his foot against the floor. “Esther had her coffee cup resting on the intercom before, and I heard what you were asking Ms. Redoux here as I passed by. Esther didn’t hear it, naturally. But I did, and I think I need to jump in here before things go any further. I wouldn’t want Ms. Redoux taking the fall for something that really wasn’t her fault.”

  “Harvey, what on earth are you talking about?” Sheriff Dash sighed.

  “Well, after the first murder, I received a lot of phone calls. The press and people like that.” He looked down at the floor like a scolded child. “I was being asked a lot of questions, and I had been through a bit of personal tragedy myself, seeing as how Rita- the other Rita,” he amended, looking over at me. “Was a real friend to me. Well, to make a long story short, there was this one reporter who got a little bit more information out of me than she should have. “

  Sheriff Dash looked from Harvey to me.

  “And I suppose you’re going to tell me that you used to be a reporter?” The sheriff obviously had his doubts about this, but it seemed like as reasonable an explanation as I was likely to come up with. So, I nodded and agreed.

  “Used to be,” I said. “It was kind of a downer for me though, so I decided to make a career change.”

  “To a pie shop?” Sheriff Dash couldn’t have looked at me with more disdain if I had slapped his grandmother.

  “What can I say?” I shrugged though, on the inside I was worried that the new sheriff was seeing right through my web of untruths.

  “I’m afraid to venture a guess.” Sheriff Dash stood from his seat and motioned toward the door. “I’m going to let you go now, Ms. Redoux. But don’t think that means I’m not keeping an eye on you. Stay in town.”

  “Where else would I go?” I asked, standing.

  “And you, Harvey, I’m very disappointed in you.”

  Harvey blanched and kept his head down.

  Sheriff Dash glared at me, the visual equivalent of the sourest slice of his beloved (and nasty) Key Lime pie.

  “I’ll see you around, Ms. Redoux,” he said, as I followed Harvey out of the office. “Sooner rather than later.”

  I marched step for step, with Harvey, feeling more than a little guilty about the dressing down he had just taken.

  “Look, I’m sorry about coming back around like this,” I said, keeping up the guise of an intrepid reporter. “I would never have given you up.”

  “You can cut the act now, Rita,” Harvey said as we stepped outside of the station and back onto the street. “I might look stupid, but I’m not. At least, not anymore. I know exactly who you really are, Rita. And I know exactly what’s going on.”

  8

  As I stared at Harvey, my heart resting firmly in my throat (in what seemed like its new permanent position), I couldn’t help but think about the past.

  Harvey and I had known each other since forever. He grew up in Second Springs, just down the street from my house.

  He was the butcher’s son, but he was always more interested in my dad’s line of work. And Dad took a liking to him, too. Sure, he wasn’t the absolute sharpest person in the world, but he had a good heart, a strong stomach, and a follow through that would make Michelangelo himself green with envy.

  You set Harvey on the right path about a case, and he wa
s like a dog with a bone. He’d give himself lockjaw before he let go of it.

  So, had someone put Harvey on the right path about my case? Was it possible he actually did know who I really was, that … underneath this floral, redheaded exterior ... he saw the heart of the true Rita beating in my chest (or my throat as it were)?

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, figuring playing dumb was my best bet.

  Hey, Jessica Simpson did it and, unless the last two years have been seriously bad for her, she spun it into gold.

  “Stop,” he said, raising his hands to quiet me. “I made a mistake back then. I used to make a lot of mistakes but, after my friend died, I started to tighten up the ship. I realized I needed to be better, that I needed to grow up and take pride in my work. I think about the mistakes I made back then a lot.” He shook his head. “Especially this one. I remember when I gave up that information like it was yesterday. I knew it was wrong when I did it, and I never did it again.”

  Wow. Harvey had changed a lot in the last two years.

  He tightened his jaw as he continued. “I told one person about that wrench, just one. I know who you are, Amelia.”

  Okay, so he didn’t know that I was the reincarnated version of Rita Clarke, which was a relief. Because how on earth was I going to explain that? But who was Amelia? I was going to have to switch tactics.

  “You got me,” I answered, looking around the street with my eyes narrowed. “Are you sure it’s safe to talk about that here, though?”

  Harvey matched my level of narrowness almost exactly and nodded.

  “You’re probably right,” he conceded. “Follow me.”

  Harvey turned tail and walked into the parking lot. Passing by a dozen or so squad cars, he settled in front of a small, navy blue Toyota.

  “Get in,” he said, unlocking the passenger door and holding it open for me.

  “You don’t have a squad car?” I asked, remembering very clearly he did. Aiden and I took a picture with Harvey in front of it the first day he brought it back from the station.