Death to the Highest Bidder: A Jill Andrews Cozy Mystery #2

by Nicole Ellis

  In a loud voice, she asked, “More cookies, kids?” She flashed them a smile.

  They nodded and she brought the full plate over to them before returning to the kitchen.

  She looked into my eyes. “I didn’t kill him. You believe me, right?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Whoever killed him knew he had a peanut allergy, but it wasn’t me. I would never have hurt him. I really thought things were going well between us.”

  “Until he died, and you found out he was married.”

  “Yeah, there was that.” Her lips turned downward. “I never suspected he was married. Probably because he told me he was divorced.” She leaned against the counter. “How could I have been so stupid? I dated a married man, and now he’s dead and I’m a suspect. Karma’s coming after me.”

  She looked like she was hurting so much that I wanted to comfort her. I put my hand on her arm. “It’s ok, I believe you.” Brenda had been through the wringer in the last week, and I myself had peanuts and peanut butter in my cupboard. That didn’t make me a murderer any more than it did Brenda.

  With tears in her eyes, she said, “Thank you, Jill. I don’t know what I’d do without your friendship.”

  “No problem. How are things going with Brad? Is he still thinking about moving?”

  “Things aren’t great with him. He found out that I’m a suspect in Louis’s murder, and I just know he’s going to request full custody of the girls.” Her eyes flickered to her daughters. “I don’t know what I’d do without them. He can’t move them out of state.”

  “I’m sure he won’t.” I pulled her over to the dining room table and scoured the room for anything to distract her from her worries. My eyes landed on a box of cards, laying on a bookshelf. “How about a game of cards?”

  She closed her eyes briefly and took a deep breath. “I’d like that.”

  The dining room table was covered in gift baskets just like the one Brenda had given Louis, minus the love note. A few had the plastic sealed at the top and a wide ribbon emblazoned with her real estate company’s name on it across the middle. Others were still missing bottles of wine, which I spotted in boxes underneath the table. They all contained boxes of chocolates, which I fervently hoped didn’t contain added peanut extract.

  “Pretty,” I said.

  Brenda smiled. “Yeah, I’ve found them to be great marketing tools. I try to make them classy and elegant as they represent my brand.”

  I ran my finger over one of the finished products, the plastic making a pleasant crinkling sound where I touched it. “How do you seal the tops? It looks like the plastic wrap is molded to the basket.”

  “I use that tool to heat seal it.” She gestured to a device perched on one of the chairs. An unplugged electrical cord hung down from it. “It makes the basket look more professional. I tried making those fancy bows, but I’m just not crafty.” She moved the baskets to the floor against the wall and we sat down at the table.

  “So what’s going on with you?” she asked as I dealt the cards.

  “Just the auction stuff and work. And trying to juggle all that with family responsibilities.” I set the deck down on the table. “How do you do it all?”

  She guffawed. “I don’t. I try to keep all the balls in the air and then mitigate the damages when I drop one or two.”

  I stared at her. “But you make it seem so easy. You’re always put together, and your kids seem happy.”

  “They are—well, I hope they are. But I’m not always put together, and you should see my house on a Friday before I can get it cleaned up over the weekend. It usually looks like a tornado went through here.” She looked over at her girls. “I just try to do my best, and that’s all I can do. Don’t be so hard on yourself. The first couple of years after I went back to work weren’t easy. It’s only been in the last year or so that the systems I’ve put in place have started to click and things have been easier. Until my unfortunate relationship with Louis, at least.” She grimaced. “I never bargained on that. I knew I shouldn’t have started dating again, but it had been a couple of years, and I thought it was time I get back out there.”

  “I’m sorry, Brenda.” The corners of my mouth drooped. “You couldn’t have known. From what I’ve heard, he was good at hiding relationships from his wife. He probably did the same with the other women he dated. You are a good mom, and I’ll keep your advice in mind, ok?”

  She nodded. After a few hands of two-handed pinochle, the tension had evaporated from her shoulders and she laughed genuinely when she won a hand. For a while, she was simply a divorced mother of two little girls and not a murder suspect. For her sake, I wanted to keep it that way.

  As promised, Beth dropped Ella off at our house after work. Mikey and I had already eaten dinner, so I fed her some mashed sweet potato and avocado. Mikey was full of questions about everything under the sun, from why Brenda’s girls had dark hair and his hair was light to how tall he’d be when he was older. After spending an hour explaining to him that he’d never be six-foot-seven like my sister Becky’s husband because his daddy and I weren’t extremely tall, I finally had to tell him we’d come back to the discussion later. After bath time and a bedtime story, the kids fell asleep quickly, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

  The sweet potato and avocado I’d attempted to feed Ella were now smeared on the dining room floor, but I couldn’t make myself get out the steam mop. I’d try to get to it in the next day, but after the week I’d had, I wasn’t going to beat myself up if that didn’t happen. I should probably do something productive with my time though.

  I sat down at my desk, which was built into a long wall in the living room. A few days of mail waited there in a pile for me to sort through. One piece of mail caught my eye—a glossy flyer for an all-inclusive couples resort in Jamaica. We’d spent our honeymoon at a resort in the Caribbean, and Adam kept promising he’d take me back to one for an adults-only getaway, but work always got in the way.

  I pulled out my phone and texted him. I didn’t know what time zone he was in, but at the moment, I didn’t really care if I woke him. Being the kids’ only parent for weeks on end wasn’t fun.

  Hey, how’s it going? Do you know when you’re coming home? We miss you.

  I waited, but there wasn’t any answer. Whether he was asleep or avoiding my question, I didn’t know. I set my phone down, determined to not be the needy wife.

  I picked the Jamaica ad out of the pile. The Londeux Resort. The front of the brochure showcased beautiful white buildings overlooking sandy beaches and impossibly blue water. Room service, couples massages, and swimming with sea turtles. It looked amazing. I stared at the couple on the flipside. They looked so happy. I wanted that to be Adam and me. My eyes teared up. Someday, maybe, it would be. For now, I could dream about it. I set it aside to bring upstairs so I could look at it right before bed. Maybe I’d be lucky enough to experience all of that in my sleep.

  The phone vibrated once, shaking me out of my wishful state. Adam.

  Not yet. Should be soon. How are the kids?

  Fine. Missing you.

  Sorry honey. I hate having to leave you and the kids so much.

  I know. But that will be over soon when you leave the firm, right?

  No texts came through for a few minutes.

  I love you. Got to get to sleep. It’s after eleven here.

  I noticed he hadn’t answered my question about leaving the firm. He always said he missed us, but sometimes I wondered if he secretly enjoyed his trips away from the chaos at home. I flipped my phone back over and shuffled through the rest of the mail. That was about as much communication as I’d gotten out of him in the last week. An official-looking envelope stood out from the junk mail. I peered at it closer. Snowton County District Court. Why were we getting something from the county? I slid my finger along the seal to break it and pulled out the letter.

  After scanning through it, I broke out in laughter. Adam had been issued a traffic ticket fo
r running a red light. He always gave me a bad time about my driving, so although I wasn’t happy to pay for the ticket, it was nice to have proof that his driving wasn’t perfect either.

  Upon closer examination, my laughter faded. He’d been issued a ticket on Grand Avenue, a part of Snowton County that he didn’t usually have any reason to visit. And the traffic violation occurred midday on a weekday. Why was he there when he should have been in Seattle at work?

  I sat back in my chair, idly tracing the edge of the notice with the tip of my thumb. I’d always thought of Adam as being extremely honest, but now I had some doubts. I checked the calendar on my phone for the date of the incident. I was pretty sure Adam hadn’t mentioned leaving work early that day. If the red light camera hadn’t caught him, I’d never have known he wasn’t at work that afternoon. I flung the notice back on the pile of mail, ironically, on top of the brochure for the Jamaican couples resort.

  The lovers on the front stared at me and shook me out of my suspicion. What was I thinking? Was I really considering that my husband was cheating on me? As I discovered more and more about Louis Mahoney, my faith in mankind was diminishing.

  It was silly. I knew my husband wasn’t cheating on me, and I couldn’t believe the idea had crossed my mind. I tacked the notice on the bulletin board so Adam would see it when he got home and finished sorting through the rest of the mail. Most of it was junk that I dumped in the recycle bin.

  I spent the rest of the night curled up on the couch with Goldie, watching television. He may not have been Adam, but he was comforting, and that was something I was desperately in need of at the moment.

  11

  By the next morning, I’d calmed down a little but was still a mess. I was supposed to be at the Boathouse by nine thirty, but I called Beth and told her I’d be in by eleven. After I dropped Mikey off at school, Ella and I walked down to the BeansTalk Café for a much-needed visit with Desi.

  Desi was ringing up a customer at the cash register, but she smiled and waved to us when we came in. I busied myself with reading the Ericksville Times while I waited. The newspaper staff had managed to get a quote from Terri for their article about the investigation into Louis Mahoney’s murder on the front page of the Thursday weekly edition. The byline was that of Niely MacDonald, whom I’d had a run-in with earlier in the year. It wouldn’t have been easy getting a quote out of Terri. After dealing with both women myself, I wasn’t sure whom I felt more sorry for; Niely or Terri. Niely had noted that there were suspects, but she didn’t give any names.

  I hastily flipped to the second page. I’d lived through finding Louis’s body, and it didn’t appear that they had uncovered anything new on the case. However, the article did include information about his funeral, which was scheduled for today at one o’clock. Should I go to it? I hadn’t known him when he was alive, so the idea of attending his funeral felt strange. But it would be a good opportunity to casually meet Sandy, Louis’s widow.

  “Hey.” Desi ruffled Ella’s hair, causing her niece to smile. “What’s up? I thought you’d be heading in to work by now.”

  “Do you have time to talk?” I asked quietly.

  “Yeah, sure.” She glanced over at her assistant, who nodded that she’d seen Desi leave. “Let’s go sit outside, ok? I need to get some fresh air.”

  She grabbed cups of coffee for us and led me out a private side door to a small wrought iron bistro table for two.

  “When did you put this in?”

  “Last week. I found a used patio table and chairs online and bought them to create my own private oasis.” She smiled at me. “Sometimes I just want to get away from all the customers on my break. I told my staff they could use it too.”

  “It’s nice.” I admired the area. She’d planted colorful flowers in two large white urn planters and hung a bird feeder from the eaves. White lattice fencing enclosed two sides of the patio area, and the café building made a third side, leaving only the view to the water open. It was like being in a secret garden. I liked how it was cheerful, yet distinctly Desi’s own style, something I noted for a future upgrade to my office.

  “So what’s going on? You sounded upset.” She picked up her mug of coffee and held it in her hands.

  I adjusted Ella in her front carrier and covered her head with a thin blanket. Desi’s break spot was mainly shaded by the building, but some sun still broke through. I knew if any sunlight hit Ella’s eyes, she’d scream like a vampire caught in a ray of light. “It’s a little of everything. Things were going great until we found the body, and now it seems like everything is collapsing around me.”

  “How so?”

  “I’m finding things out about my friends that I didn’t want to know.”

  “About Brenda you mean?”

  “Yeah.” I was quiet for a moment, watching a bluebird perched on top of the lattice. “Desi—she lied to me about not knowing Louis was allergic to peanuts. She asked me to get cinnamon out of her spice cabinet when I was over at her house, and there was a bottle of peanut extract there. We got to talking about it, and she became nervous and finally admitted that she did know about his allergy.”

  “So she could have been the one to kill him,” Desi said slowly.

  “Yes, but I don’t think she did.” I ran my thumb over the smooth porcelain handle of the mug. “Remember how the basket on Louis’s desk had a bow on it? Brenda’s don’t have that. She uses some sort of heat-seal on them. Whoever opened it to tamper with the chocolates must have tied the top with a ribbon so it didn’t look like it had been opened. Also, what motive did she have? She didn’t know he was married.”

  “Maybe she did.”

  I looked up sharply. “Why would you say that?”

  Desi fidgeted in her chair. “When I picked Anthony up at preschool yesterday, I overheard some moms gossiping in the lobby. They were talking about how one of them saw Brenda in her van crying last Wednesday morning. When she got out of her car, the other mom asked her what was wrong.” She stared out at the glassy waters of Puget Sound. “Brenda said she had found something out about her boyfriend.”

  “Wednesday morning. So she knew about Louis’s wife before he was killed.” I curled over Ella and rested my elbows on the table to cradle my head. My temples had started to throb.

  “Yeah. It seems so.”

  “Crud. That’s not good.”

  We sat in silence, the only sound the crying of seagulls as they flew overhead.

  “Do you really think she could have killed him?” I asked. I didn’t want to believe Brenda could be a killer and felt guilty even thinking that was possible.

  She sighed. “I don’t know. You know as well as I do that she was pretty mad at her ex-husband when he cheated on her. I’d hate to see what she’d do if she found out she was the other woman in a relationship.”

  I tugged at my hair. “This is so messed up. You know, we received a parking ticket notification in the mail yesterday. It was for a part of town that Adam doesn’t even have business in from the middle of the day.”

  “Ok, so what?” She squinted at me.

  “So my first thought was to wonder if he was cheating on me.”

  “Jill.” She gave me an incredulous look. “Other than Tomàs, my brother is the most honest man I’ve ever met. When we were kids, he’d always spill the beans to our parents when we did something wrong.”

  “I know, I know,” I said. “That’s how crazy this is making me. Before this happened, the thought would never have crossed my mind that Adam was cheating on me.”

  “And he’s not,” she interjected.

  “Ok, I know that. My point is that I’ve been trying to help Brenda out by attempting to figure out who killed Louis, and it’s making me nuts. With that weird phone call from my mom, the auction, and everything else, it’s just too much. I want to help her, but I can’t go on like this.” I looked down at Ella and my stomach twisted. I knew what I’d said was true, but I hated the idea of Brenda’s husband moving her k
ids out of state.

  “You do have a lot on your plate.” She sipped her coffee. “I really want to help Brenda too. I asked Tomàs if he knew anything that might help her, but he said he couldn’t talk about the case. He also warned me not to get involved, especially after what happened to you last time you tried to investigate a murder on your own.”

  “Yeah. That’s what I was thinking too. Please don’t do anything you aren’t comfortable with, Desi. It’s just not worth it. And I don’t want to cause any problems between you and Tomàs.”

  “Don’t even worry about it. Is there anything I can do to help you with anything else?”

  “No, I’m fine. This storm will pass soon.” My mind couldn’t get away from Brenda’s situation. My gut was telling me that she wasn’t a murderer. But how could I prove that?

  “Brenda wasn’t the only woman he was having an affair with. What about Terri?”

  She laughed. “You’re like a dog with a bone. Is Terri the receptionist you told me about?”

  “Yeah.” A plane’s engine roared high above us, and I waited for the noise to dissipate before I finished my thought. “She didn’t seem too pleased that Louis was dating Brenda. And she quit right after he died. She also had access to both the basket from Brenda and to his office.”

  “But there’s nothing linking her to his murder, right? A basket with chocolates that have been tampered with is pretty damning.”

  “I know, but that’s weird, right? To quit so soon after he was killed? Maybe she’s fleeing the country.”

  “I think you’ve been watching too many made-for-TV movies. Did his wife know about the affairs? If Tomàs had an affair, I’d be mad enough to kill him.”

  “Not that I know of. According to his business partner, Dorinda, his wife Sandy was very devoted, always brought him lunch every day. The only bad thing she had to say about her was that she spent money like it was water.”