Wedding Bell Blunders: A Freshly Baked Cozy Mystery

by Kathleen Suzette

  I shook my head. “I was more concerned about him. And I’m so sorry that he didn’t make it.”

  She sighed and took a sip of her coffee before setting the cup down. She picked up her fork before saying anything and looked at me. “They’re saying that he took a large dose of a diabetic medication. But he wasn’t diabetic.”

  “Is it a possibility that he was sick, and he just didn’t tell you?” I asked. I was pretty sure I knew the answer to that, but I needed to ask.

  She shook her head and cut a piece of the pie with the edge of her fork and took a bite. She smiled. “This is a wonderful pie. You have such talent.”

  I chuckled. “Thank you. I do like to hear that people enjoy my baking.”

  She nodded. “You should be proud of it. The crust is so flaky. But no, he wasn’t sick. He would have mentioned to me if he was having any kind of health issues and the doctor at the hospital said the dose he took was far too large for anyone to take.”

  I wanted to ask her if she thought he was doing drugs. Lucy and I had wondered if maybe he had bought some drugs from somebody, and they had slipped these in as a fake for something else, but I didn’t know how to ask that question. “This has to be so difficult for you and your other son.”

  She nodded. “Skip can’t believe his brother is gone.”

  “Were they close?” I took a bite of my pie. Mary was right, it was tasty. When you’ve baked as many pies as I have, it was almost impossible to make a mistake.

  She hesitated before answering. “Well, the boys were always at one another when they were younger. They were very different people. Skip is very studious and quiet, while Richard was loud and boisterous. But as they got older, they got closer. It’s not that they always got along, but it certainly was a lot better than when they were younger.” She chuckled sadly. “And now, this.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She nodded. “The detective thinks he was murdered. But I just can’t imagine how that could have happened. He would have to have taken the pills and known he was taking something, right?”

  I looked up at her and hesitated. “Maybe. Unless they were slipped to him. Or unless he thought they were something else. Is it a possibility that he thought he was taking something else?” There. I had to ask it.

  She stared at me and shook her head slowly. “I can’t imagine that happening. Richard was a good boy. Sure, he got into trouble when he was younger, but he was a good boy. And yes, when he was in high school, he got mixed up with the wrong crowd, and he did get into drugs. But he put that behind him a long time ago.”

  I took a sip of my coffee. “I’m glad that he was able to escape the drugs. That’s a difficult thing to do.”

  But if he had escaped using drugs, how had he managed to take these? It was something that I needed to know.

  She nodded and took a sip of her coffee. “I told Alec that he couldn’t have taken them on purpose. Somebody had to have slipped them to him somehow, without his knowledge.”

  She was probably right, but how would they have done it?

  “I’m sure Alec will figure out who killed him.” I wanted to be able to tell her something that would ease the burden that she was now bearing with the loss of her son. But I knew there wasn’t anything I could say that would make her feel better.

  “The funeral won’t be until next week. I think I need that long to deal with the thought that I have to plan his funeral.” Her eyes teared up as she spoke. “It doesn’t seem right. It doesn’t seem right that he should die like that.”

  My heart went out to her. “When my first husband died, I wrote a blog on grief. I don’t add entries to it anymore, but the articles are still there. You might want to take a look at it. There might be something there that helps you through this time.” I slipped a business card across the table to her. I still carried them with me in case I ran into somebody that might need it.

  She picked up the business card, looked at it, and then looked at me. “You wrote about your grief after losing her husband?”

  I nodded. “Yes, it helped me to get through it. That and baking pies.” I chuckled. “I still bake a pie occasionally, but it’s for different reasons these days.”

  She nodded and smiled. “I might have to check into that blog. And maybe I’ll bake a pie or two.”

  Poor Mary. She was having to deal with something she had probably never thought she would have to deal with. Children were supposed to outlive their parents, weren’t they?

  Chapter Ten

  “Where are we headed?” Lucy asked, squinting out the car window.

  The rain had begun before dawn, and it hadn’t let up. The rain was cold, and the dark clouds put a damper on my mood. I was looking forward to summer. “How about the Cup and Bean?”

  She looked turned to me and smiled. “I hear they’ve got a raspberry mocha on the menu that is to die for.”

  I nodded. “I love raspberry mocha. Heavy on the mocha. I don’t know who came up with the idea of combining raspberry and chocolate, but it’s genius.”

  She nodded. “I was thinking the same thing. It’s chilly out, and I need something warm. I wonder if they’ve got any blueberry muffins?”

  “I’m sure they’ve got muffins of some kind,” I said as I maneuvered through the street that was on the verge of being flooded. We’d gotten so much rain this spring that I wondered how the entire town wasn’t flooded yet.

  I parked the car, and we headed inside. Mr. Winters was sitting at a table in the corner reading his newspaper. I nudged Lucy and nodded my head in his direction. She nodded back, and we stepped up to the counter and ordered our coffees, and then we each got a cranberry orange muffin to go with it. I love the flavor combination of orange and cranberry, and I would take it over a blueberry muffin any day.

  We headed over to Mr. Winters’s table. He was one of our biggest sources of information, and since he had come to my wedding and made balloon animals for my guests, I decided I didn’t need to be coy about asking for that information.

  He looked up from his newspaper and nodded. “Allie. Lucy. What are you two gals up to today?”

  I pulled out a chair and sat down without him asking, and Lucy did the same. “We thought we’d stop by and pick up a coffee. It’s so chilly out that we needed something hot.”

  He nodded and held up his cup of black coffee. There was no lid on it, so I could see that he hadn’t had them add anything to it. But that wasn’t a surprise. I didn’t think Mr. Winters ever drank anything but black coffee. “You can’t beat a good cup of coffee in the morning. Or any time a day, for that matter.”

  I nodded, glancing at Lucy. “The balloon animals were a hit at the wedding.”

  He looked at me steadily and took a sip of his coffee. “Of course they were. Did you have any doubt?”

  I did not answer right away. I had doubts about those balloon animals. I had plenty of doubts. But in the end, they had been a kind of fun addition to the wedding. They were better than a dead body at a wedding, anyway.

  I finally shook my head. “No, I never had a doubt.” I could sense Lucy turning to stare at me, but I ignored her.

  “I’m the best balloon animal maker in the state. Guaranteed.” He took a sip of his coffee.

  “I have no doubt. Thank you for thinking of it. I certainly hadn’t.” I took a sip of my coffee and slowly turned to look at Lucy. She was still staring. I shrugged and turned back to Mr. Winters. “So Mr. Winters, what do you know about Richard Thomas’s death?” He had to have come up with something by this time.

  He set his coffee cup down on the table and turned the newspaper page. “I know it wasn’t an accident. But I suppose you already know that.”

  I nodded. “Yes, Alec has already determined that. But we need to know who would slip him those pills. Or did he take them willingly because he thought they were something else?”

  Mr. Winters thought it wasn’t an accident, and neither did I. But there was still that possibility that Richard though
t he was taking something else.

  He nodded. “What I know is that Richard Thomas got himself into a lot of trouble when he was in high school. I was a high school English teacher for a few years, you know.”

  I nodded. “Yes, you told us that.”

  “Was Richard Thomas in your class?” Lucy asked him.

  He shook his head. “No, I had retired before he got to high school. I heard he was in a lot of trouble, though. I keep in touch with some of the teachers at the high school. He was a smart aleck and had his mouth going all the time. And then there was the matter of the drugs and alcohol that he was consuming.”

  “I heard that he went to rehab and got himself straightened out,” I said.

  “Sure, it was rehab. If you call the county lockup rehab. He went to the county juvenile detention center for three years and then was released.”

  “But what do you know, Mr. Winters?” Lucy asked, leaning forward. “That’s what we want to know. What do you know about what happened?”

  He smiled. “From what I hear, he was selling drugs behind that catering business. I believe that he got himself into some trouble that he couldn’t get himself out of. You might want to talk to Jared Thomas. That was his supplier.”

  “Jared Thomas?” I asked.

  He nodded. “He’s Richard’s cousin. I bet his mother doesn’t know that though. That he was her son’s supplier, I mean.”

  I gasped. “His cousin was his supplier? And you think that he killed him?”

  He nodded. “Indeed, I do. I think things went wrong between them, and his cousin killed him.”

  Lucy shook her head. “What a shame. That would be a terrible thing to have happened. His mother will be crushed when she finds out. More so than she already is from the death of her son, I mean.”

  I nodded. This didn’t look good for Richard’s mother. She was in for even more pain than she was dealing with right now. “Where can we find Jared?”

  “Try the little ramshackle house at the end of Mossbury Lane. The one that’s just about to fall down.”

  Mossbury Lane? That was a bad area of town. I wasn’t sure what to do about this. I couldn’t just wander up to a stranger’s house and knock on the door, could I? No, I couldn’t. Especially not when that stranger is a drug dealer. It would probably get me into more trouble than I have ever been in before.

  I took a sip of my coffee. “Does he work anywhere?”

  He nodded. “Sure, he works at the grocery store. Frozen foods department.”

  I nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Winters. We’ll have to look into this.”

  He picked up his cup of coffee, took a sip, and set it down again. “You girls are going to get yourself into trouble one of these days. Drug dealers don’t take kindly to strange women showing up on their door and asking questions.”

  I shook my head. “I’ll think about how to handle this. Maybe I’ll see if I can run into him at the grocery store. It’s a little safer with other people around.”

  “That’s a good idea. So how was your honeymoon? Where did you go?”

  “I’ll tell you as soon as I get to go on it. Alec’s been working on this case, so we’ve put the honeymoon off for the time being.” I hoped it wouldn’t be long, but I had an idea that Alec wasn’t going to want to leave in the middle of the case.

  He made a clucking sound. “That’s a shame. And it’s a shame that you had someone die at your wedding, too.”

  “It’s a shame he died at all,” Lucy said and took a sip of her coffee. “Mr. Winters, how do you come by your information?”

  It was a question that I had wondered myself. Mr. Winters didn’t appear to be the sort of person that would be spreading rumors around town, but he sure did collect them quite handily.

  He shrugged. “I can’t give away my sources.”

  “I don’t blame you,” I said and took another sip of my coffee.

  “Now, what do you girls have for me? I gave you some information. You give me some information. What have you found out about this case?” He leaned forward in anticipation.

  It was only fair that he should ask us for some information, but I didn’t like giving out the information that I knew. Alec wouldn’t like it, either. “Honestly, we don’t know much of anything. We know that he died after taking some diabetic medicine, and he wasn’t diabetic.”

  He thought about this, then nodded. “That’s what I heard. Seems odd if you ask me. Somebody did it on purpose, though. I think it was his cousin. You tell Alec that he needs to have a long talk with him.”

  “I will definitely do that,” I said.

  He nodded and folded his newspaper over. “If you ladies will excuse me, I’ve got to get home and get some laundry done. I don’t know why laundry doesn’t do itself, but it doesn’t.”

  I nodded. “That it doesn’t. That it doesn’t.”

  “Goodbye, Mr. Winters,” Lucy said as he got up.

  He nodded without a word and headed out.

  I looked at Lucy. “So Richard had a dirty cousin. I wonder if he got him back into drugs after he’d gotten off of them?”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me. Some people are just bad seeds, and that bad seed might be his cousin.”

  I didn’t know if that was true or not, but I certainly didn’t want to believe that Richard had been the bad seed. His mother was so sweet that I couldn’t stand the thought.

  Chapter Eleven

  Before we left the Cup and Bean, Lucy and I picked up a large raspberry mocha and an orange cranberry muffin for Alec. He’d been spending so much time down at the office, I knew he would enjoy a break and a treat. Alec’s office was above a doctor’s office, and as we climbed the stairs, I came face-to-face with Bob Payne near the top as he was on his way down. Bob was the town’s mayor. He narrowed his eyes at me.

  “Allie.”

  I grinned. “Well, Bob, good morning. How are you doing today?” I was blocking the narrow stairway with Lucy on the steps behind me. I made no effort to move. Bob didn’t like me much.

  “I’m doing great. I’m kind of in a hurry.” The words oozed his loathing of me.

  I paused and took a sip of my coffee. I held a bag with the muffin and Alec’s coffee in my other hand. “Are you? What’s going on? Is there a fire somewhere that I’m not aware of?”

  He snorted. “Wouldn’t you like to know? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get going.”

  I nodded and took another leisurely sip of my coffee. “All right. I guess if you’ve got to be going.” I took another step up and took another sip of my coffee. It wasn’t nice of me, but Bob had never been nice to me.

  He snorted and clenched his teeth. “Allie, will you get out of my way?”

  I looked at him wide-eyed. “Bob, that’s so rude. You need to learn patience. Didn’t your mother teach you to be patient?”

  His face went red at the mention of his mother. “It’s none of your business what my mother did or didn’t do.”

  I shrugged and stepped up onto the landing. “Suit yourself. Have a good day.”

  Lucy hurried behind me, stepping to the side to let Bob by. He snorted and started down the stairs.

  At the top of the stairs was a small visitor’s area that was straight out of the 1970s with brown Naugahyde furniture and green shag carpet. The early James Bond movies could have been filmed in this waiting area. We headed over to Alec’s office door.

  “Allie, one of these days Bob is going to come for you.”

  I looked at Lucy over my shoulder. “I doubt it. He’s all bark and no bite.” I liked giving Bob a hard time. There was something about him that made me feel he had it coming.

  I knocked on Alec’s door, but I didn’t wait for him to tell me to come in. I pushed it open. “Good morning, my sweet husband,” I called and headed over to his desk.

  He looked up at me and grinned when he saw the coffee cup. “Good morning. Has my sweet wife brought me some coffee?”

  “And an orange cranberry muffin.” I held
up the bag and set the cup and the bag on his desk. “I thought you could use a break.”

  He nodded. “Thank you. Good morning, Lucy.”

  She nodded, still a little breathless from our climb up the stairs. “Good morning, Alec. I like your office, but you could use a little more, I don’t know, decorative accents in here.”

  He chuckled. “I kind of like the clean, simple look I’ve got going on.”

  “What he means is that he likes the sparse, undecorated look,” I said as we sat down at the chairs in front of his desk. “So, what’s going on? Have you got a killer yet?”

  He sat back in his seat and took a sip of his coffee. “Oh. What is this?”

  “Raspberry mocha. Don’t you like it?”

  He nodded. “It’s nice. And to answer your question, not much is going on yet. I don’t have a killer, but I intend to have one soon.”

  “I hope so because I’d like to go on my honeymoon. Please.”

  He nodded. “I know. You want to go on your honeymoon, and I don’t blame you.”

  “Don’t keep your wife waiting,” Lucy said to him.

  He shook his head. “I know better than to keep Allie waiting on anything.”

  “You’re a smart man, Alec Blanchard. We talked to Mr. Winters when we were at the Cup and Bean,” I told him.

  He nodded and took another sip of his coffee. “Why does that not surprise me? What did Mr. Winters have to say?”

  “He said that Richard Thomas’s supplier is his cousin, Jared Thomas. I guess I don’t know him.”

  He sighed and set his cup down. “I heard that already. Jared is a bad guy, and I wouldn’t want to mess with him.”

  “Really?” I asked. It wasn’t often that Alec said that someone was so bad he wouldn’t want to mess with them. Alec wasn’t afraid of anyone, and the statement was telling.

  He nodded. “If Richard had had any sense, he would have steered clear of him. He obviously didn’t have any sense.”