“All night?”
“Yes.”
“With friends, or were you alone all night?” David asked.
Julie put her hands on her hips. “I don’t understand what this has to do with anything. Why does that matter?”
“Look, I have a report to fill out. It’s part of my job,” David said.
“Yes, I was alone,” Julie replied. “Now, are we done?”
David held his pen up again. “Just a few more questions. Have you ever worked a closing shift?”
Julie narrowed her eyes. “I was at home last night. I already told you that.”
“Wow. Someone’s awfully defensive all of a sudden,” David said.
Julie dialed back the level of annoyance in her voice. “Sorry. I’m still really rattled after finding Clarissa’s body. I’m having a hard time getting that horrifying image out of my head.”
“I’ll tell you what. The quicker you answer the question, the quicker we can get you out of here,” David said.
Julie squinted at David. “What was the question again?”
“Have you ever worked a closing shift?” he asked.
“Yeah, but it’s been a while.”
“Now, the restaurant closes at ten, right?”
She nodded.
“When does the last employee usually leave the building?” David asked.
“Around eleven,” Julie said.
David’s eyes widened. “Eleven, huh?”
“Give or take a few minutes.” Julie’s nose scrunched. “Why?”
“When you worked a closing shift, did you do it alone?”
“No. There’s always a dishwasher who finishes up around the same time,” Julie said.
“That’s it, then? It would be you and whoever the dishwasher was that night? No one else?” David replied.
“Yes.” Julie ran her fingers through her hair again. “Can I go now?”
“That depends. Do you have any travel plans?” David asked.
Julie shook her head. “No.”
“Good. Don’t make any,” David said.
“All right.”
“You’re free to go,” David said.
Julie had been fraught with hesitation during the entire interview. That all changed when David gave her the go-ahead to leave. She headed off in a hurry.
As Julie made her way to her car in the parking lot, I turned to David with a wary look on my face.
“Did she seem pretty jumpy to you?” I asked.
“She sure did,” David replied. “Especially for someone who was supposedly home last night.”
“Do you think she was lying about where she was?”
David shrugged. “I’m not sure what to think. I’ll tell you this, though, I’m not going to rule her out as a potential suspect.”
“Speaking of the suspect list, we should take a look at the schedule and see who closed last night.”
“Good call.”
David and I looked around the back of the restaurant and spotted an employee shift schedule taped to the wall beside Clarissa’s office. I took a brief look at the schedule, but found my focus pulled away by the sound of yelling coming from outside the restaurant.
My eyes widened. “What’s that?”
“I don’t know,” David said. “But I think we should check it out.”
Chapter Sixteen
By that point in the investigation, deputies had cordoned off the area with yellow police tape. That didn’t sit well with Clarissa’s daughter, Kaitlin Anderson, who stood on the other side of the yellow tape. The trim-bodied, five-foot-two, thirty-five-year-old argued with Deputy Mitchell, who kept her from entering the restaurant. Unlike her mother, who generally had a sweet demeanor, Kaitlin was much more of a firebrand. There was an outraged look on her angular face as she went toe-to-toe with the deputy.
“You have to let me through,” Kaitlin said.
Deputy Mitchell didn’t budge. “I don’t care what you say. You’re not getting by me. This is a crime scene.”
Kaitlin raised her voice even more. “But this is my family’s restaurant. I have a right to know what happened here.”
“I’m not going to ask you again. Step back,” Mitchell replied.
Deputy Mitchell didn’t recognize the woman, but David and I both did. As David reached the yellow police tape, he had instructions for the deputy.
“Mitchell, let her through,” David said.
“Are you sure?” Mitchell asked.
David nodded.
“Sure thing, Detective,” Mitchell said.
Instead of thanking David for letting her beyond the yellow tape, Kaitlin immediately carried on with her own agenda. “I want to know what’s going on here—now!”
David took a deep breath. “Ms. Anderson, I have some bad news for you.”
Kaitlin’s forehead wrinkled. “What is it?”
When the situation called for it, David could be as stern as anyone I knew. But in times of tragedy, he also knew how to approach a situation with a soft touch.
So much of being a detective was about uncovering the facts. Emotions were typically relegated to the background. But there were times when even the most stoic of detectives could not ignore their feelings.
“It’s about your mother,” David said. “I hate to be the one to have to tell you this, but she’s…”
Kaitlin squinted. “She’s what?”
“Dead,” David said.
Kaitlin stood in the parking lot with a look of stunned silence on her face. David and I awkwardly watched her, waiting for her to respond.
After a few seconds, Kaitlin was able to produce just a single word. “Dead?”
“I’m afraid so,” David said.
Kaitlin put her hands over her mouth. “I can’t believe it.” She shook her head. “This can’t be real. No! It has to be a mistake.”
“I’m very sorry. I wish it was a mistake, but it’s not.”
Kaitlin put her hand over her chest. She closed her eyes and then took a few deep breaths.
“If you need a few moments alone, I completely understand,” David said.
Surprisingly, Kaitlin’s eyes shot open. “How did it happen?”
“She was murdered.”
“Do you know who did this?”
“We’re working on that,” David said.
A fire came to Kaitlin’s eyes. “You need to do more than that. You have to find out who did this and make them pay.”
“That’s the plan,” David said. “Speaking of, I know this is a terrible time for you, but we need to ask you some questions.”
Her eyebrows arched. “Me?”
“Yes—” David started saying.
“What do you need to ask me about?”
“If you’ll let me finish, you’ll understand.”
“Can’t this wait? I mean, I just found out that my mother was murdered.”
“I understand that. And if the situation wasn’t so urgent, we would hold off on the questioning. The problem is, the person who did this is still out there. If we’re going to catch them, we’ll need all the information we can get,” David said.
“Right,” Kaitlin said. “Don’t get me wrong. I want whoever did this to fry for their crime. I’m just not sure what you want from me?”
“Well, you’re the assistant manager, right?” David asked.
She nodded. “Yeah. So?”
“So if any of the employees had a beef with your mother, you’d know about it, then, right?”
“You think one of employees did this?” Kaitlin asked.
“We’re not sure,” I said. “Can you think of any employees who had an ax to grind with your mother?”
“Actually, yeah. He’s an ex-employee, and Felix Martin certainly wasn’t a fan of my mom. Especially since she fired him last night.”
I nodded. “We heard about that.”
“Can you think of anyone else who might have wanted your mother dead?” David asked.
Kaitlin thought the question over then
replied, “Actually, yeah.”
“Who?” David asked.
“Wade Becker.”
“Why him?”
“He blames my mother for not promoting him to assistant manager.”
“He wanted your job, then?”
“Don’t kid yourself. He still wants it. He has convinced himself that I only got the promotion out of nepotism,” Kaitlin said.
My forehead wrinkled. “If he’s responsible for this and he wanted your job, why wouldn’t he have gone after you?”
“Who says he won’t?”
“Are you implying that he might want to kill you, too?” I asked.
Kaitlin shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s pretty scary to think about. I’ll say this, though. Wade hasn’t stopped talking about the promotion for months. He refuses to admit that I earned the title of assistant manager. I got that promotion through hard work, not nepotism.”
David scratched his chin. “Can you think of anyone else who might have wanted harm to come to your mother? Anyone at all—employee or not?”
“No. Just Felix and Wade.”
“What about your father?” I asked.
Kaitlin narrowed her eyes at me. “What about him?”
“Your mother and father got into a big fight last night,” I said.
“I don’t know anything about that,” Kaitlin replied.
“That may be the case, but it happened. I saw it with my own eyes.”
Kaitlin scowled at me. “Are you really implying that my father might have killed my mother?”
“No. I’m just asking you questions—”
“You have a lot of nerve. How would you like it if I accused your father of murder?”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Exactly.”
David put both of his hands up. “Let’s just calm down now. No one is accusing anyone of anything. Ms. Anderson, I know some of these questions are uncomfortable, but we have to ask them.”
Kaitlin folded her arms and groaned. “Can we move on to the next question?”
“Sure. Now, you closed last night, right?” David asked.
Kaitlin squinted. “How did you know that?”
“From the employee schedule hanging in the kitchen.”
“Oh.”
“What time did you leave here last night?” David asked.
She thought her answer over. “I don’t know. About ten thirty, I guess.”
“Were you the last one to leave the restaurant?”
Kaitlin shook her head. “No. My mother was doing some paperwork in her office.”
“What about the dishwasher?” David asked.
“Jimmy left a few minutes before I did,” Kaitlin replied.
“So when you left last night, there wasn’t anyone else around but your mother?”
“Yeah. It was just her.”
“And where did you go after you left the restaurant?” David asked.
“Why are you asking me that?”
“I just need to know for the record,” David said.
Kaitlin gave him a wary stare, but finally answered, “I went home and crashed out.”
“Did you go home alone?”
She shot him a glare. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”
“This is all just standard procedure. I need to put an answer down in my report. Now, did you go home alone?” David asked.
“Yes,” Kaitlin replied. “Now, are we done here?”
“Are you in a hurry to be somewhere?”
“No. I just want a chance to mourn.”
David stared deep into her eyes. “All right. That’s all we need from you right now. But don’t go leaving town on me.”
She scoffed. “Why would I leave town?”
“Just stay local until further notice,” David said. “And tell your employees that this restaurant is closed until the forensics team is done gathering all the evidence they can.”
Chapter Seventeen
After finishing up with Kaitlin, David and I went back inside the restaurant. That was a big mistake. My body didn’t hesitate to let me know it. The moment I stepped back inside the kitchen, a sinking feeling came to my stomach. That was followed by my chest tightening up. It got to the point where I had trouble breathing. Not to be outdone, it suddenly felt like the walls were closing in on me. I wasn’t normally claustrophobic, but the air in the restaurant felt stifling.
I had to get out of there.
I darted back outside and took a few deep breaths.
Phew.
Being back in the fresh air immediately made me feel better.
I didn’t know what had come over me in the kitchen, but that was sure scary. It felt like a panic attack on steroids. I was so relieved that it was over. So much for being able to hold myself together. If anything, I was even more of a mess than I had realized.
I purposefully looked away from the restaurant and stared out at the horizon. It took a few seconds, but I was able to get my bearings back.
David came out of the restaurant and stood patiently by my side. When he saw my breathing return to normal, he put his hand on my shoulder. “Are you all right?”
I turned toward David and looked at him like he had two heads. “Of course not. How could I be when someone murdered Clarissa?”
His face strained as he clarified his point. “That’s not what I was talking about. You just ran out of the restaurant in such a hurry. It made me worry that something else might be going on—”
“It all kind of just hit me again—the shock.”
“I’m sorry. Do you want me to arrange for a deputy to drive you home?”
I shook my head. “No. I want to know how you do it.”
His forehead wrinkled. “Do what?”
“Keep such a strong face in the midst of a tragedy like this?”
“Because it’s my job.”
I stared deep into his eyes. “I’m being serious here. You’re one of the most compassionate guys I’ve ever met. So to see Clarissa’s lifeless body on the ground like that with a bloody knife beside it…” I took a deep breath and continued, “How is that image not eating you up inside?”
“Who says it isn’t?” he replied.
I gazed at him. “It doesn’t look like it is.”
“I’m just keeping my true feelings bottled up,” David said. He put his hand over his chest. “Trust me, in here, I’m a mess. But, I have a job to do. It’s my responsibility to find out who did this and bring them to justice. Until I do that, I can’t afford to let my feelings run wild.”
I exhaled. “I get it. Besides, it turns out I’m doing enough freaking out for the both of us.”
He pulled me in close and wrapped his arms around me. “I hate to see you like this. Do you want to go home?”
I shook my head as a sense of resolve started to build up inside me.
David stared deep into my eyes. A curious expression then came to his face. “Sabrina, what’s on your mind now?”
I scrunched my nose. “Did Kaitlin Anderson seem like she was hiding anything?”
“Now that you mention it, both Julie Lambert and Kaitlin Anderson were really tense.”
“I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels that way.”
“Sabrina, are you sure you want to talk about the case right now?”
“It’s not that I want to. I just can’t get this case off of my mind,” I said.
“I certainly understand that.”
“You know, when the police came and talked to me after my sister disappeared, I volunteered all the information I had. I was as open as could be with them. I just wanted the truth to come out. It’s never like that with the people we interview.”
“There’s one key difference between you and everyone we interview.”
“What’s that?”
“When the police talked to you after your sister’s disappearance, you didn’t have anything to hide.”
“Are you telling me that you think Julie and Kaitlin are
hiding things from us?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t have an answer for you on that one yet, but I wouldn’t rule it out. I’ll say this, if they are hiding things from us, we’ll figure it out.”
My eyebrows arched. “We’ll?”
“Yes. As in, you and me. Unless you’re not feeling up to investigating this case.”
“No, I am.”
“Good. Now, I think Clarissa’s husband should be the next person we talk to. Are you ready to head out?” David asked.
I shook my head. “Not quite yet.”
“Are you still rattled?”
“No. I just want to take a moment to acknowledge something.”
“Sabrina, there’s a lot of work to do.”
“I know that,” I said. “At the same time, this is a pretty big moment. After all, you’ve never asked me to investigate a case with you.”
“I didn’t ask you to investigate. I just assumed you were going to search for Clarissa’s killer, regardless of whether I was okay with it or not. Am I right?”
I was coy with him. “Well, you’re not wrong.”
“Exactly. Given those circumstances, I’d rather have you by my side than throwing yourself into danger all alone.”
I folded my arms. “So that’s what this is about? You wanting to protect me?”
“Don’t get me wrong. I would prefer it if you would sit this one out and just leave the investigating to me, but since I know you won’t, I figure it’s a waste of time arguing with you.”
“So your decision has nothing to do with the fact that I’m pretty good at this whole sleuthing thing?”
“Sabrina, why are you making such a big deal of this? You know you have really good instincts.”
“Yes, I know that. But I just wanted to hear you say it. A little appreciation goes a long way.”
“Trust me, I appreciate all the good work you have done on previous cases,” he said. “I would also appreciate it if we could get to work on this case.”
“Sure thing, partner. Let’s do this,” I said.
He held his pointer finger out. “Let me just clarify something. You’re not my partner.”
“I hope you’re not planning on calling me your sidekick. Because let me tell you something, I am no one’s sidekick.”
“Calm down. You’re not my partner or my sidekick. If anyone asks, you’re an independent consultant who is assisting me with this case. Got it?”
Daley Buzz Cozy Mystery Boxed Set Page 37