by Louise Lynn
“This is pretty morbid, even for me,” Violet said and snapped a photo of the dried blood with her cell phone.
The thought of the cell phone brought Hazel here. If they could find Brandon Sizemore’s cell phone, maybe they would know something more about his death. There had to be a reason it was missing, and if the killer took it, they might never find it.
Hazel sighed and looked around. She peeked under the hedges and looked for anything the deputies may have missed.
A sign of disturbed soil.
Something!
So many people had walked through there it was hard to tell where the killers footsteps had been. Hazel went out of the maze a different way than she’d come in, and Violet followed behind.
“We didn’t go this far last time,” she whispered.
Hazel nodded. “The deputies probably did though.”
But Sheriff Cross never said they found anything. So why did she think she could?
She was about to give up. One more turn in the maze and then—
Hazel turned and came upon something she didn’t expect. A staircase that led up a rise in the landscape. It was stone and steeper than she thought it had a right to be. The ground near it looked like the rest of the gravel, as if it was walked on regularly, but the steps themselves were swept clean. Not a single branch or leaf marred them.
“Is it just me or are these steps too clean to be outside?” she asked Violet.
Violet took a photo and shrugged. “It hasn’t rained in a while, so I guess. What do you think?”
Hazel sighed. “I don’t know yet. I thought we might find his phone, but no luck there. Let’s head back. I’ll buy you a cupcake, in exchange for keeping this last bit from your uncle,” she said with a forced smile.
Violet agreed, but as soon as they walked out of the garden, they ran into Tyson Bridger.
He was looking at the crime scene tape with that sour expression that turned bitter when he spotted them. “I see the keep out signs don’t mean anything to you,” he said and put his hands on his hips. He was wearing the same navy suit, but he’d replaced his slick oxfords with a pair of green gardening boots and held a pair of brown mud-stained gloves in his hands.
“The sheriff asked us to look and snap a few more photos of the scene,” Hazel said and gave a quick glance to Violet. She seemed unperturbed by the lie.
Tyson’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t question her further. “And the young lady is your assistant? I thought it was that pudgy fellow from the other night.”
“I’m new, just learning the ropes. And the sheriff is my uncle so…” Violet said with a shrug.
Tyson’s expression had so much vinegar in it he looked in danger of pickling himself. “Well, I would like some official word next time you want to go poking around on my property, crime scene or not. You know how ridiculous this is. How am I supposed to host weddings when they have half of my land quartered off? Not to mention the downturn in business. I have a home to pay for. Do you have an idea how expensive an historical Manor is to maintain?”
Hazel thought about that. She’d seen a documentary about the huge manor that Downton Abbey was based on and knew that it cost millions. She wasn’t sure if it was the same for this place, though she wouldn’t be surprised. “I assume it’s incredibly expensive.”
Tyson nodded. “You have no idea. More money than you’d ever see in your lifetime. And how am I supposed to cover it when my Manor gets such a bad reputation? It’s ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous, I tell you. And you can say that to your boss and her uncle. He needs to take down this crime scene tape. We all know who killed that boy,” Tyson snarled.
Hazel raised an eyebrow and her heartbeat sped up. “You do? Did you see something that night?”
He gave her that thin smile. “I see everything that happens on my property,” he said and pointed at a camera on the back of the house.
“Does the sheriff have those recordings?”
Tyson nodded. “He will. We were still making copies. It takes a while to go over the whole system. As it’s not as new as I’d like it to be. Actually, I’m going to upgrade my security after this, especially considering that priceless Nara era oil lamp that went missing,” he said and shook his head.
Hazel’s mouth went dry. “Who did you see with Brandon that night?”
Tyson let out a haughty bark of laughter. “Who else? That lowlife Jay Turner.”
Chapter 13
“Who is Jay Turner?” Violet asked as Hazel drove back into Cedar Valley proper.
Hazel glanced at the teenager next to her. Violet held her backpack in her arms, even though there was plenty of room in the back seat of the truck for her to put it. At least she wasn’t playing on her phone. “He runs the local bar. He was at the dance, but you probably wouldn’t remember him. Leather jacket. Smirk. Looked like he wants to be in Grease.”
Violet scrunched her nose in thought. “Oh yeah. That guy. Cute, for an old dude.”
Hazel let out a bark of laughter. “Old dude? Pretty sure he’s my age,” she said.
That’s right. Teenagers thought being in your thirties was old. They’d learn, eventually.
“Well, not that you’re old. But then you don’t really look it. That guy reminded me of Uncle Colton. But don’t tell him I think he’s old either. Only he kind of is. Older than you,” Violet said, and Hazel could tell she was scrambling not to sound insulting.
“I promise I won’t tell your uncle you said he was old. And you’re right, he’s thirty-nine. I’m only thirty-five,” Hazel said with a forced smile.
She needed to talk to someone about this new information, and that someone probably shouldn’t be Sheriff Cross. Jay or Travis would work, but she wasn’t sure where Travis would be at four p.m. on a school day. And if she hinted that there was evidence that Jay had killed Brandon, Jay might skip town. Which wouldn’t be good either.
Had Jay actually done it?
She chewed her bottom lip. No matter what she thought of him, it was starting to look as if he may be guilty.
Her stomach twisted into knots, and she drove past her studio, and right up to her mom’s shop instead. The sign in the window was flipped to open, and she climbed out. Violet joined her.
“I thought I got a cupcake.”
“You do, but I need to ask my mom something. Did you happen to take pictures of the Nara era oil lamp like the one Mr. Bridger said went missing the night of the dance?”
Violet’s eyes lit up. “I think so. Every time he pointed something out as a crazy expensive antique, I wanted to snap a picture of it, so I could see if he was telling the truth or not. You know, sometimes they put replicas up, and then they keep the actual expensive stuff in a safe somewhere else. I mean, it only makes sense, right?”
Hazel nodded. It did make sense. A lot more sense than leaving priceless antiques in your Manor while you were throwing a dance for high schoolers.
Violet zoomed in on the photo so Hazel got a better look.
The phone Violet had was nicer than Hazel’s own, and she wondered if she should finally upgrade. Maybe she’d have to, if she was going to keep doing this. While her cameras could catch all sorts of details, they were larger and more conspicuous than a cell phone.
The door jingled as they stepped inside Esoterica, and Tess blinked at them from behind the counter.
Her glasses took up half of her face and were pushed so close to her eyes it made her look like an owl. The oversized shawl she wore in shades of brown and tan didn’t help matters.
“Beware the Ides of March,” she said and looked back at a book spread on the counter. Hazel was pretty sure it was upside down but decided not to say anything. Tess had a habit of only speaking in cryptic poems, and Hazel wasn’t sure if she thought she was being profound or was just on the far edge of eccentric.
“Ides of March? But it’s April,” Violet said and ran her fingers across the tarot decks on display. Then she moved to the incense and started smelling each
individual stick.
That strong floral fragrance that seemed so out of place in an early spring garden. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that it was around Brandon Sizemore’s body.
Hazel was sure she’d know it if she smelled it again, but how likely was that? And she wasn’t about to ask Sheriff Cross if she could go to the morgue and sniff a dead teenager.
“Is my mom in?” Hazel asked Tess.
As if summoning her, Hazel’s mother popped out of the back room and bustled over to give Hazel a big hug. “Here I am, dear,” she said and smiled, though it wasn’t as wide as usual. Maybe the mood of the town was affecting her too.
“Do you have essential oils?” she asked and glanced around the shop.
Her mom’s eyes sparkled behind her wireframe glasses. “I never thought I’d hear those words come out of my sweet little Hazel’s mouth. Asking for my help on something like that. Yes, and I’m sure you could use some in your place. It’s starting to reek like sage,” she said and gave Hazel a look.
Hazel rolled her eyes. “If it reeks like sage, it’s your fault. You’re the one who keeps burning it when I’m not around.”
Her mother shrugged. “Well, someone has to cleanse the place, and you won’t do it.” Then her mother bustled over to a shelf near the incense and pointed. “Everything we have in stock at the moment. Did you have a certain fragrance in mind?”
Hazel shook her head. “No, but when I found Brandon Sizemore’s body, it smelled heavily of something floral. I thought it might be perfume or oil, something like that. Which reminds me, Violet, can you show her the picture of that antique?”
Violet nodded and showed the picture to Hazel’s mom.
She pushed up her glasses and tilted her head, so her bifocals focused on it. “What is it I’m looking at?” her mother asked and blinked at the screen.
“It’s a Nara era oil lamp. An antique from the Rockwell Manor. There used to be two on either side of that fireplace, but one of them is missing. According to the owner, it went missing the night of the dance,” Hazel explained.
Her mother nodded. “You might as well show it to your father. It doesn’t look familiar to me, though I do have a vase in those colors. Kind of a squat little thing, isn’t it?”
Hazel nodded. Now that she looked at it properly, she wasn’t sure why she thought it was a vase. It couldn’t hold much, and it didn’t have a typical vaselike neck either. “Yeah, I think I will. But does it look like anything you could burn essential oil in?”
Her mother shrugged. “Well, you could put essential oil in just about anything, I suppose. And if you’re going to ask, I had teenagers coming in and buying stuff by the droves. The day after that boy was found, I sold five spirit boards. Can you believe it? All to teenagers, mostly girls. Of course, the football players aren’t going to come in here and buy one, but one came in and got some incense,” she said with a shrug.
Hazel’s eyes widened.
Violet frowned. “You said I couldn’t get a spirit board unless I was properly trained in its use.”
Hazel’s mother waved her hand. “Of course I said that. I want you to be properly protected. I gave them the same advice I give everyone. Sprinkle salt around the area you’ll use it and don’t summon any bad spirits, but the girls were just so distraught, and I didn’t want to put them out.”
Hazel shut her mouth to keep from reminding her mother that the spirit boards started at forty dollars and went up from there, so she probably didn’t want to lose out on the lucrative sales either.
“Do you remember any teens coming in and getting essential oil before the dance?” Hazel then described Amber Ross to her mother, though she knew it was probably an exercise in futility since Amber’s friends all looked so similar to her.
Tess perked up behind the counter. “The one with hair like summer wheat and another with a sneer like a donkey met. They both bought some oil,” she said and looked back at her upside-down book.
Hazel glanced at her mother, who shrugged.
Hair like summer wheat could mean blonde, but a sneer like a donkey meeting her? Could that be Tyson Bridger? He was rather sneery. She had no idea if that’s who Tess meant, but it made sense.
Tess’s habit was to speak in nonsense riddles, though one of them had helped in Hazel’s last investigation. Even if she was loath to admit it.
“Do you know which scent they purchased?” she asked, but Tess wouldn’t tear her eyes away from the book.
“You know how she is. She had her say, so there’s no point asking her any more questions before she’s ready. Have a look at the essential oils, but don’t break them because then you might have to buy it,” her mother said with a sweet smile.
Hazel rolled her eyes. “You can’t wait for tourist season, can you?”
Her mother laughed. “It’s not the sales I’m worried about, but it does get awfully boring here in the winter. Actually, your father and I were talking about that recently. He said he might take me on his next assignment during the winter. If you girls wouldn’t mind so much,” her mother said and had that beaming girlish smile she often got when they spoke about her husband and Hazel’s dad.
“Why would I mind? Esther might, but I think it would be good for you guys to get away.”
She started going through the essential oils, but none of the fragrances reminded her of the smell in the hedge maze.
“You think that Brandon kid is the one who stole the oil thing?” Violet said and started sniffing the little bottles of oil with Hazel.
Hazel shrugged. Unless he knew it was worth something, why would a teenager want something like that? Well, probably because he was a teenager. “I don’t know. It’s just odd.”
“Everything about this case is odd,” her mother said and flopped on one of the chairs near the wood burning stove.
Hazel looked at her mother. “How do you mean?”
Her mother usually didn’t keep abreast on every tiny detail with a local murder investigation, so Hazel wanted to hear what she had to say.
“Well, it reminds me of that girl who died in the same place.”
“Wasn’t that a drowning accident?” Violet asked.
“That’s what they said. I mean, the old sheriff ruled it an accident, but that doesn’t mean it really was,” she said and met Hazel’s eyes.
Violet looked back and forth between them. “Does that mean you think Jay Turner killed that girl too?”
Her mother started. “Jay Turner? What does he have to do with this? And why would he have killed that girl?”
Hazel shrugged. “It’s just something we heard. Not sure if it’s true yet. And don’t tell Celia,” Hazel said and gave her mom a pleading look.
Her mother’s expression softened. “I won’t tell Celia a thing, but if you honestly think Mr. Turner had something to do with this, you should talk to her before it gets out.”
Hazel already knew that and sighed heavily at the thought of the conversation waiting for her. “Come on, Violet. We have to go stuff our faces with cupcakes.”
She didn’t say the second part—that she might have to break it to her best friend that Jay Turner was, in fact, a killer.
Chapter 14
Hazel’s stomach grumbled as soon as she stepped into Let Them Eat Cake. It was late enough in the afternoon that Esther and Ruth were almost the only people present.
To Hazel’s surprise, Celia was at the counter picking out some cupcakes. It wasn’t that Celia never came to Esther’s bakery—she did, but it was usually after CATfeinated had already closed.
Plus, Hazel hadn’t prepared herself for what she was supposed to tell Celia about Jay either.
“Did you skip lunch?” Esther said and looked her sister in the eye as if she could read her mind.
Her mother would say Esther had latent psychic abilities or something else silly like that. Hazel figured her hungry expression gave her away. Or the drool did.
“I was really busy, and it slipped my mind
, but now I’m starving,” Hazel admitted and stepped next to her best friend. She bumped Celia’s shoulder with her own, and Celia grinned.
“Did you guys make a date for dinner yet?” Celia asked, innocently enough, but she had to do it in front of both Esther and Violet.
Hazel felt her cheeks go crimson. “No. We haven’t really talked about it. But… That’s… I’m hungry,” she said and pointed at the last piece of quiche in the display case.
Esther raised her eyebrows. “Dates? Dinner? With who?”
“Uncle Colton,” Violet said from her position bent near the display case.
“How did you—” Hazel started and Violet threw her a grin.
“He told me about it when he got home that night. He went to the bar to play pool for an hour, he always does that by the way. Hey Violet, I’m going to be gone for one hour, can you handle yourself alone? As if I haven’t been home alone before,” she said and rolled her eyes. “Anyway, he went to the bar for one hour, and when he came home he was a little flustered, like you. So, I said what’s up, and he told me that he asked you to dinner and you said you had to feed your cat and left.”
“You did what?” Esther said and set the quiche on the counter harder than necessary.
The dish clinked, and Hazel felt herself flinch. “I had to feed Anthony Ray. It was nothing against him.” She turned to Celia. “And why are you bringing that up here?”
At least Celia had the sense to look apologetic about the whole thing. “Sorry.” She squeezed Hazel’s shoulder. “I thought you would’ve told Esther by now.”
Violet pointed at the Death by Chocolate cupcake. “I want that one.”
Esther gave Hazel a long look that said many things. It most loudly screamed: we are going to talk about this later!
But at least she didn’t try to force the subject now. Instead, she heated up the quiche while Hazel chose her own cupcake, chocolate with strawberry frosting, and settled down to eat it.