Cozy Creek

by K M Morgan

  “Double chocolate,” Samantha replied.

  “That’s the one I want, then,” Adam said.

  “Anything else?”

  Adam shook his head. “That will do for now.”

  Samantha put the chocolate cupcake on a plate and handed it to Adam as he paid at the register.

  Adam handed the plate back to her. “Can I get this in a bag or a to-go box?”

  “Sure. Sorry, most people can’t resist eating right here in the bakery,” Samantha said.

  “I imagine, but this cupcake is for my wife,” Adam replied.

  “Oh, how sweet.”

  Most people would be happy to be given a compliment like that. At the mention of his wife, however, the troubled look returned to Adam’s face.

  His mind drifted elsewhere. “Right. Yeah. I hope she likes it.”

  Granny Annie had no doubt in her mind. “She will. As Daisy here likes to say, you can’t go wrong with chocolate.”

  Daisy concurred. “That’s so true.”

  Adam suddenly looked like he was in a hurry to leave the bakery. “Anyway, I should be going.

  The mayoral candidate grabbed the to-go box and left Sweet Tooth, but the speed in which he did so led Daisy to speculate.

  “Did it seem like there was something wrong with him?” Daisy asked.

  Granny Annie was quick to make a wisecrack. “He’s a politician. There’s plenty of things wrong with him.”

  Chapter Four

  By that evening, Daisy had thankfully been able to steer clear of any further mention of politics. As her fiancé, Gavin Watson, picked her up for their dinner date, she hoped that streak would continue. That could be difficult to do, given that the handsome private eye was typically never short of opinions. One of the things going in Daisy’s favor was that, like her, Gavin had expressed political fatigue of late. But, with this ever-changing election, new developments seemed to keep cropping up on a daily basis.

  Even so, Daisy was so fed up with the mayoral race that she was willing to go out of her way to talk about something else. As she took a seat on the passenger side of Gavin’s blue sedan, she tried to nudge the conversation to a nonpartisan topic.

  “Anything crazy happen at work today?” she asked.

  Gavin’s career had reliably provided fodder for entertaining anecdotes the entire time that Daisy had known him. Hopefully, that would be true this time.

  Gavin shook his head. “No. It was actually a pretty slow day at work.”

  That was exactly the answer that Daisy didn’t want to hear. She decided to try again. “Nothing off the wall, then?”

  “No. Nothing out of the ordinary happened.”

  She was deflated. “Oh.”

  Gavin raised his eyebrows. “You sound disappointed.”

  “I just like hearing your wacky stories.”

  He gazed deep into her eyes. “Daisy, what’s the matter?”

  Before she had a chance to answer, her boyfriend threw out a theory.

  “Did the mayor give you more trouble?” Gavin asked.

  It was uncanny that he was able to guess exactly what had been bothering her. His instincts were certainly as sharp as ever. It was one of the things that made him a great private eye. On the flip side, those instincts also happened to make it very hard for Daisy to hide any thoughts that were troubling her.

  Having already gone over this topic at Sweet Tooth, Daisy tried to downplay the matter in hopes that she wouldn’t have to go into great depth about it.

  “I finished up the job and got my check,” Daisy replied.

  Her attempts to skirt the issue were unsuccessful.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” Gavin said.

  Daisy wrinkled her nose. “That’s usually my line.”

  Surprisingly, Gavin didn’t force the issue. “If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine. Just know that I’m here for you if you need me.”

  “I know you are,” Daisy replied. “Thanks. It’s just that the less that is said about today, the better.”

  “Fair enough. I’ve had those kinds of days,” Gavin said. He switched gears. “How about some music?”

  Daisy nodded. “That sounds good.”

  ***

  A few minutes later, Gavin made a right turn into the parking lot of Chow’s Chinese Restaurant. That threw Daisy for a loop, mostly because she thought they were on their way to get pizza, not Chinese food. Not that she was complaining. Daisy happened to be a huge orange chicken fan, and no one made that dish better in Cozy Creek than Chow’s.

  That being said, Chow’s was the kind of restaurant that Daisy only went to on special occasions. So why had Gavin brought her there that evening? As far as she could tell, there was nothing special about this occasion.

  A tinge of anxiety came over her as she wondered if that date on the calendar held some sort of significance that she had forgotten about. The more she thought about it, the more she drew a blank. In her mind, it was just another day. What did Gavin know that she didn’t?

  She turned to her fiancé with a befuddled look on her face. “What are we doing here?”

  His answer was simple. “Getting you some orange chicken.”

  “What happened to getting pizza?”

  “It seems like a Chow’s kind of night to me.”

  Daisy remained in the dark about one thing in particular. “But what’s so special about this occasion?”

  “I just thought that you could use a pick-me-up, and I know that an order of orange chicken usually does the trick.”

  Daisy was touched by her boyfriend’s gesture. “Really? You came here just for me?”

  “I happen to like the food here, too, but I figured you could use a really tasty meal after the day you had.”

  “As always, you’re so good to me.”

  Gavin leaned in and gave Daisy a kiss. When they were done lip-locking, they entered the crowded restaurant, where a short hostess named Ginger greeted them.

  “Can I help you?” Ginger asked.

  “I’m looking for a table for two. Do you have any available?” Gavin asked.

  Ginger made a quick scan of the restaurant. “Take a seat. It looks like a table is about to open up in a minute or two.”

  Gavin and Daisy took a seat on a padded bench beside the hostess stand and waited for a table to become available.

  They had only parked themselves down on the bench for a minute when they heard some arguing coming from a nearby table that propelled them to stand up and take notice.

  Daisy fixed her eyes on the table in question, where the wife of mayoral candidate Adam Mitchell was sitting.

  Leah Mitchell was a slender forty-nine-year-old redhead who had freckles on her round face. She wore dark-red lipstick that matched the color of her form-fitting dress.

  Leah was sitting at the table with another fortysomething woman that Daisy didn’t recognize. The identity of Leah’s friend wasn’t nearly as important as who Leah was arguing with. That woman Daisy knew quite well, as did anyone who had read a newspaper or watched the TV news in the last two months.

  Hailey Bennett was more than just a curvy thirty-three-year-old woman with long brown hair who had applied a thick layer of eyeshadow around her crystal-blue eyes. She was also Adam’s former mistress. Even though Adam had insisted that their affair had ended ten years ago, the resentment between Adam’s wife and his former mistress still seemed to be burning as hot as ever.

  Daisy and Gavin listened from the bench at the front of the restaurant as Leah yelled at Hailey.

  “Get away from me. You’re not welcome here,” Leah barked.

  Hailey tried to get a word in edgewise, but Leah continued to rail against her.

  “I don’t care what you have to say. Now get out of here,” Leah demanded.

  Leah had been so loud that it had attracted the attention of every pair of eyes in the restaurant. When Hailey saw that the spotlight was on her, she tucked tail and ran. In a fit of panic, she bolted o
ut of the restaurant.

  While that brought an end to Leah’s vocal fireworks, her yelling had also drawn far more attention to her than she was comfortable with. She said a few words to her friend at the table, put two twenty-dollar bills down to cover her portion of the check, then excused herself and made an exit of her own.

  At that moment, Daisy’s hopes for a quiet evening seemed like nothing more than an impossibility. The only comfort she could take was that at least she had not been in the thick of the drama. Instead, she was able to watch it from the sidelines. Even so, as Daisy sat on the bench beside the hostess stand, she was completely stunned, so much so that when the hostess returned, she had to tap Daisy on the shoulder to get her attention.

  “Your table is ready,” Ginger said.

  Thankfully, the rest of the evening went by without a hitch. Unfortunately, with all the commotion, Daisy found it hard to calm her mind down. So when her order of orange chicken was brought to her table half an hour later, the flavorful dish ended up being a very welcome distraction.

  Chapter Five

  Daisy was not a morning person, but when she woke up the next day, she felt energized, mostly because she knew that she finally had a day off. Whenever she finished a decorating job, she always made sure to keep the next few days on her schedule open in order to reboot and recharge. Daisy had two very important things on her agenda for the day—resting and relaxing.

  Shamus, her super-cute West Highland terrier, had other ideas as he jumped up on Daisy’s bed. There was no resisting Shamus, so she didn’t even try. Instead, she took her little boy out for the walk that she knew he wanted.

  Once Shamus had marked his territory on every tree and fire hydrant within a three-block radius of Daisy’s place, she was able to head home without her little guy putting up a fuss. Once they had returned home, Shamus had a new request—breakfast.

  That got Daisy’s stomach rumbling. Not for kibble, mind you, but for something infinitely better. There was nothing quite like a warm, fluffy, delicious muffin in the morning that had been baked-to-perfection at Sweet Tooth. Daisy’s mouth began watering just thinking about the blueberry muffin that her taste buds had been craving. She put some bonus dog treats down on the kitchen floor for her furry little friend then headed off to her favorite bakery in town to satisfy her pastry craving.

  The prospect of a blueberry muffin excited Daisy, filling her thoughts on the entire drive over, right up until the moment when she entered Sweet Tooth Bakery and spotted the bearded, cherubic, middle-aged body of Detective Chris Crumple of the Cozy Creek Police Department standing at the front counter talking with Samantha and Granny Annie.

  That was when confusion took hold of Daisy. Seeing Crumple at the bakery rather than at his favorite donut shop made for a most peculiar sight. As a matter of fact, Daisy was so perplexed that she skimped out on pleasantries altogether and went straight to questioning him.

  “Detective Crumple. Aren’t you in the wrong place?” Daisy asked.

  Crumple whirled around and saw Daisy approaching him.

  “Ms. McDare. Why did I get the feeling I would run into you here?” the detective replied.

  “Probably because you know I come here for breakfast. The real question is, why aren’t you at the donut shop?”

  “I was there earlier.”

  “Are you telling me you’re having a second breakfast? Does your girlfriend know about this?”

  He corrected her. “I’m here about a business matter.”

  Daisy’s curiosity took hold. “What kind of business?”

  “The kind that is none of your business,” Crumple replied.

  While the detective was not eager to volunteer any details, Granny Annie had no such reservations.

  “Adam Mitchell was murdered last night,” Annie somberly revealed.

  Daisy’s eyes widened as a sense of shock took hold of her. “What?”

  Detective Crumple shot Annie a glare. “How about a little discretion?”

  Granny Annie scoffed. “You’re talking to the wrong person. I only have one mode—bold.”

  Crumple groaned. “I can see that.”

  Daisy tried to circle back around. “Can we get back to the matter at hand? Adam Mitchell was murdered?”

  As Daisy wrestled with her disbelief, the detective had other things on his mind.

  “Ms. McDare, this doesn’t involve you,” Crumple said.

  Granny Annie couldn’t believe how quickly the detective had dismissed Daisy.

  “Really? You’re going to talk like that to Daisy McDare, master sleuth extraordinaire?” Annie asked.

  Crumple raised his eyebrows at Daisy. “Is that what you tell them to call you?”

  Daisy bit the corner of her lip. “No. That’s what they insist on calling me despite me urging them otherwise.”

  “Let me tell you something. There are far worse nicknames in the world. Ask Booger Armstrong,” Granny Annie joked.

  Daisy grimaced. “Poor Booger. That guy can’t catch a break.”

  Crumple was done with all of the nickname talk. He was eager to restore some order to the conversation. “Can we just get back to the matter at hand, please?”

  Granny Annie clued Daisy in on the details she was missing. “The detective found one of our Sweet Tooth to-go boxes at Adam’s house. He was questioning us about how it got there.”

  Samantha spoke up for the first time since Daisy had arrived. “I told the detective that Adam had come in here yesterday to buy a cupcake.”

  Detective Crumple tried to get back to business, focusing on Annie and Samantha. “You still haven’t answered my question yet.”

  “Which one?” Samantha replied.

  “You were one of the last people to have seen Adam alive. Did he seem out of sorts to you? Did he say anything that raised your eyebrows?”

  Instead of replying, Samantha turned to Daisy. “Do you want to take this question, or should I?”

  That only made Crumple more agitated. “Ms. Johnson, I asked you the question.”

  “I know that, Detective, but Daisy was here the same time that Adam was, and Daisy happens to be the resident sleuth around these parts.”

  Crumple’s last nerve was slipping away. He let out a sigh and turned to Daisy. “Fine. Ms. McDare. What is your answer to my question?”

  Daisy didn’t hesitate to reply. “Adam seemed really distracted when he came in here. He said he was buying the cupcake for his wife, but he didn’t seem to be doing it as a sweet gesture. I got the sense that maybe they’d had a fight and he was going to try to use the cupcake as a peace offering.”

  “Did he actually say that he had gotten into a fight with his wife?” Crumple asked.

  Daisy shook her head. “No, but he just gave off that vibe.”

  “Say you’re right. Do you have any idea what they might have fought about?”

  “How about Hailey Bennett?” Daisy said.

  Crumple’s forehead wrinkled. “His mistress from a decade ago? Why would they have fought about her?”

  Daisy shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t have an answer for that. What I do know is that I saw Leah Mitchell and Hailey Bennett arguing last night at Chow’s before they both stormed out of the restaurant.”

  “Really?” Crumple asked.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What time was this?”

  “Seven,” Daisy replied.

  Crumple’s eyes opened wide. “You’re sure about that time?”

  “Yeah. Why?” Daisy asked.

  The detective wanted to be crystal clear about the timing of Daisy’s story. “They both stormed out around seven?”

  Daisy nodded. “Yes. Hailey ran out first, then a couple minutes later, Leah made her exit.”

  “Thank you,” Crumple said.

  The detective tried to make an exit of his own, but Daisy wasn’t having it.

  “Wait a minute. Crumple, tell me what’s so important about them storming out around seven o’clock,” Daisy said
.

  “Adam’s time of death was between seven and eight last night. Chow’s is only a few minutes away from his house. A heated exchange like that could go a long way in determining a motive.”

  “It sure could.”

  “Your story is especially interesting since Leah was the one who found the body,” Crumple revealed.

  Daisy’s mouth hung open. “I’ll say.”

  “Then you throw in the fact that Leah told me she was at the restaurant until eight o’clock. Suddenly becomes very interesting.”

  “She lied to you, then,” Daisy said.

  Crumple nodded. “It makes me wonder what else she lied to me about.”

  “I would be curious to find out.”

  “I’ll bet you would,” Detective Crumple replied.

  Daisy and Crumple’s conversation had reached the moment of truth. This was typically when the detective put up a blustery fight to keep Daisy from interfering with his case. Only that time, he didn’t. There was no arguing to be had. Instead, Crumple had only one thing to say.

  “You coming?” Crumple asked.

  Daisy had no idea what had brought on the detective’s change of heart, but she was happy to see it. She was completely on board, with one little caveat.

  “Not without a muffin,” Daisy replied. “Not to mention a cupcake for later.”

  Granny Annie laughed. “That’s our Daisy.”

  Chapter Six

  Daisy hopped into the passenger seat of Crumple’s car, and they headed over to the crime scene. Adam Mitchell’s dark-blue Victorian-style house had been cordoned off by yellow police tape as Crumple’s car pulled up in front. A mustached police deputy held back a crowd of people that had congregated on the street to crane their necks at the house.

  Detective Crumple led Daisy inside the house, where the medical examiner and a forensics team were just finishing up their work. Daisy saw a chalk outline in the foyer beside a creaky wooden staircase that led to the second floor of the house. The body itself had already been bagged up and loaded into the examiner’s truck, which was fine by Daisy, as her stomach was not a fan of ghastly sights.