A Nip of Murder

by Carol Miller

  As though he could sense that she was thinking about him, Rick’s gaze suddenly shifted to her. Daisy met his eyes. They were black with wrath. It shook her slightly. She had expected him to be mad about what had happened to Caesar, of course. In her experience, Rick was just as loyal to his friends and associates as he was to his brother. It was, in fact, one of his finer qualities. But there was something more to the darkness in his eyes than plain anger. Brenda really had used the right word. There was trouble.

  Rick held Daisy’s gaze for a long minute, then his arms finally loosened their grip around Laurel. She looked up at him, and they spoke briefly. Although Daisy couldn’t hear what either of them said, she saw Laurel smile and nod. Maybe Brenda was right about that as well. Maybe Caesar’s dead body had been too much of a shock for Laurel, and Rick had been trying to comfort her.

  Together the pair turned away from the steadily growing crowd at the side of Sweetie Pies and started to walk across the gravel toward Daisy. Watching them, Brenda clucked her tongue.

  “Something sure is strange there,” she said.

  Daisy agreed.

  “I can’t quite put my finger on what it is, Ducky, but—” Brenda clucked her tongue again. “Well, I suppose it isn’t any of my concern.” She shrugged. “I got no dog in that hunt.”

  That brought a smile to Daisy’s face. No dog indeed. It wasn’t any of her concern either who was marrying, embracing, comforting, or even simply admiring whom, so long as she was told in a timely fashion whether or not she was supposed to make a cake for the occasion.

  “Would it be okay if I went inside and got myself cleaned up?” Brenda asked Deputy Johnson.

  “Cleaned up?” he responded distractedly. While Daisy and Brenda had been scrutinizing Rick and Laurel, the deputy had been silently scrutinizing the throng that was swelling around the ambulance.

  Brenda lifted her stained palms in his direction. The dried blood was peeling away from her skin like rust flakes cracking off an old metal mailbox.

  “Oh, yeah.” Deputy Johnson waved his hand back at her. “Go ahead.”

  Picking at the crusty blood, Brenda headed toward the back door of the bakery.

  “Try not to touch anything important,” the deputy shouted after her. “We don’t want you destroying clues.”

  Daisy raised a dubious eyebrow at that remark. The man was about as capable of finding clues as he was of identifying corpses. Thank goodness poor Jordan Snyder’s parents had driven over from Richmond, otherwise their son would probably still be nameless. Too bad they couldn’t also provide some sort of explanation for why he and his friends had wanted to steal her cream cheese.

  “How is she?” Rick said to Daisy, as Brenda disappeared into the building.

  “She wasn’t so good at first, but she’s holding her own now,” Daisy replied.

  “Is there anything I can do?” Laurel asked. “For her? For you?”

  She spoke with such warmth and evident sympathy that Daisy was genuinely grateful.

  “Thank you for the offer, but I’m all right. And I think Brenda will be all right too, after a while. She had a pretty nasty fright this morning.”

  “I can only imagine.” Laurel shuddered. “What a terrible thing to see—a man shot right in front of you.”

  “Brenda didn’t actually see it,” Daisy corrected her. “But she did find him. She tried to save his life, only she couldn’t.”

  Laurel gave a deep sigh of commiseration. “It’s so sad, but I’m very glad that both of you are safe.”

  Daisy thanked her again for her kindness, then she looked at Rick. “I’m sorry about Caesar.”

  He looked back at her with a murky expression.

  “You will let them know how to contact his kin, won’t you?” she pressed him after a minute.

  “Of course,” Rick responded flatly.

  “I don’t understand it,” Laurel mused. “How could someone do that to him? Do they have any idea why, or who it was?”

  Laurel’s questions sounded so much like her own that it reminded Daisy of Deputy Johnson wanting to talk to her and Chris about the other geocachers still in the area. She turned to the deputy, whom she discovered wasn’t paying the slightest attention to their discussion.

  “This is—” Daisy began in introduction.

  “No photographs!” Deputy Johnson hollered.

  He gestured furiously at a spectator who was merrily snapping pictures of the body in the ambulance. The man didn’t heed the admonition, and the deputy rushed off to put a quick halt to it.

  “Another time, I guess,” Daisy mumbled after him.

  “They’ll match the gun,” Laurel declared with confidence. “That’s how they’ll figure out who it was. They’ll match the bullet to the gun.”

  Daisy looked at Rick once more. His jaw twitched, but he didn’t speak.

  “First they have to find the gun,” Daisy told her with decidedly less confidence, “which won’t be easy on these long, isolated farm roads. And even if they do find it, it probably won’t have any fingerprints on it, or no fingerprints that are in the system.”

  “But that shouldn’t matter,” Laurel said. “They can match the gun to the person who registered it.”

  “That’s not possible.” Daisy shook her head. “There is no firearm registration in the Commonwealth of Virginia.”

  “No registration? But then how do they know who has a gun?”

  “They don’t know. Although they can pretty well assume it, because most everybody around here has a gun, usually somewhere between half a dozen and several dozen guns. And a lot of people carry one with them at all times. There are more concealed weapons permits listed in the local newspaper each week than there are marriages, divorces, births, and deaths combined. Frankly, I’m amazed there’s anyone left to issue a permit to. I would think that nearly every citizen in the county—or the state, for that matter—has one by now.”

  Laurel gaped at her. “Do—do you have a permit?”

  “Nope.” Daisy shrugged. “When it comes to concealed carry, I’m a peace-loving holdout.”

  “I keep telling you that’s a mistake,” Rick said.

  “You also keep telling me there’s money to be made in hog farming,” she rejoined.

  “There is money to be made in hog farming.”

  “So when I take up hog farming, I’ll be sure to get a concealed weapons permit.”

  Rick started to growl at her, but then he seemed to catch himself, and his face abruptly went blank.

  Daisy’s gaze narrowed. Brenda had been spot-on. Something was strange about Rick—suspiciously strange. “What are you scheming at?” she murmured under her breath.

  Laurel reached out and squeezed Daisy’s arm. “It’s too bad about yesterday.”

  “Yesterday?” She didn’t understand.

  “Well—um—Chris said your date had a few bumps along the way.”

  Rick gave a sharp cough. Daisy glowered at him.

  “Maybe you could give it another try?” Laurel suggested, squeezing her arm again. “I know Chris would like to.”

  Daisy hesitated. There was the whole awkward situation with the nip joint to consider. It hadn’t quite been resolved.

  “How about tomorrow?” Laurel continued. “I’m still working on collecting the remaining caches from the hunt, and Chris was going to help me with that today. But he’s free on Thursday.”

  This time Rick snorted.

  “Or maybe Friday would be better? After what happened this morning, I understand that you might not feel like…” Glancing at the ambulance, Laurel paused.

  The mention of Friday triggered Daisy’s memory.

  “I almost forgot,” she said. “Aunt Emily wanted me to invite you to a combination bridal shower and bachelorette party Friday afternoon.”

  Laurel took a step backward in surprise.

  “It’s not going to be anything big or overblown,” Daisy explained. “Just some food and drinks with a few of the girls a
t the inn.”

  “I—I don’t know what to say,” Laurel stammered.

  “I hope you’ll say that you’ll come, because otherwise Aunt Emily is going to throw a fit about how she hasn’t been a proper hostess for your wedding. And,” Daisy added with greater sincerity, “I think it could be fun.”

  “Of course!” Laurel exclaimed, gathering herself. “It’s so nice of you all to think of me. I didn’t expect this.”

  Rick’s sharp cough repeated itself.

  Daisy glanced at him quizzically. Was he upset? But why would he be upset about a bridal shower and bachelorette party? It suddenly occurred to her that neither Rick nor Laurel had made a single comment about Bobby that morning. Had something gone wrong in relation to the wedding?

  “Is everything still going forward as scheduled on Saturday?” Daisy inquired, reluctantly.

  “Of course!” Laurel exclaimed once more.

  Daisy glanced at Rick a second time. If he had any reaction—good or bad—to Laurel’s confirmation, he didn’t show it.

  “Oh, wow.” Laurel checked her watch. “How did it get so late? I was just hoping to pop in for a croissant and have a quick chat about Chris. Then I saw the ambulance and Rick pulling up in his truck. And now I’ve left Chris waiting for me for over an hour.”

  “So can I tell Aunt Emily that you’re on board for Friday afternoon?” Daisy asked. “Is four o’clock okay?”

  Laurel smiled graciously. “Four o’clock is perfect.” She turned to Rick. “Would you mind walking me to my car? I’d like to talk to you about a wedding gift that I was thinking of getting for Bobby.”

  Rick agreed, good-byes were exchanged, and the pair set off in the direction of the front parking lot. As Daisy watched them depart, she noticed that they were walking awfully close to each other. But how close was too close?

  When they turned the corner of the building, Rick paused and took a quick look back at her. His expression was once again murky. Daisy wondered at his strange behavior. She had the distinct impression that he knew something she didn’t and that he was up to something—something in all likelihood troublesome—but she had no inkling what. And she couldn’t think about it now. She had Brenda, and the bakery, and Deputy Johnson to worry about.

  With a weary sigh, Daisy remembered that she still needed to give the deputy the three crates that were sitting inside her trunk. There didn’t seem to be much of a reason for it anymore, now that the man Brenda had stabbed had been identified. But there was still a small chance of finding a useful fingerprint on them. Maybe it could be linked to another geocacher. Except even if Deputy Johnson somehow managed to make such a connection, it would surely come too late. The last geocacher would be long gone from Pittsylvania County, and Fuzzy Lake Campground would be empty and shut tight for the winter.

  Unless she succeeded in nosing around the campground first. Perhaps she could discover some clue there that would help her piece together the enigmatic puzzle of the cream cheese and the broken window—or broken windows. Daisy pondered the idea with growing excitement. The timing was good. Laurel had just told her that she and Chris would be out all day collecting the remaining caches from the hunt, which meant that she didn’t need to be concerned about running into either of them at the campground. And Sweetie Pies would have to stay closed until tomorrow, in any event, while the surrounding area was searched for the gun and the storage room was cleared of glass shards.

  Daisy looked at Deputy Johnson. He was busy dealing with the crowd, the ambulance, and the other deputies—so busy that he probably wouldn’t notice if she left. She could talk to him about the crates and Caesar and everything else later. Daisy congratulated herself on not mentioning to him where Laurel, Chris, and the rest of the geocachers were staying. He would figure it out eventually, of course. But he wouldn’t get to the campground before she did and interfere with her investigation.

  First she would check on Brenda and apprise her of the plan. That way Brenda could cover for her temporarily if Deputy Johnson did happen to detect that she had disappeared. As Daisy headed toward the back door of the bakery, she saw that Rick was still stopped at the corner of the building. Although he wasn’t actually touching Laurel, he was standing very close to her. Laurel was speaking, and Rick seemed to be listening attentively, but his eyes remained on Daisy.

  She smiled at him, shrewdly. Rick could stand as close to Laurel as he wanted, just so long as he kept her away from the campground. He didn’t smile back. There was an uneasiness in his gaze, as though he had in that moment realized that she might be up to something too—that she had her own agenda—and he didn’t appear to like it in the least.

  “Daisy—” Rick started to say, in a tone of warning.

  But he was too late. Daisy had already slipped through the door and out of sight.

  CHAPTER

  16

  “Tell me again, what exactly are we looking for here at the campground?”

  “You’ll know it when you see it.”

  “Or smell it?” Beulah returned.

  Daisy laughed. “After four days out of refrigeration, I would think that cream cheese has got to be pretty ripe.”

  “So then it’ll be more of a stink than a smell—just like Duke’s feet.”

  “Duke’s feet!” With one leg out of the car and one leg still in, Daisy looked over at Beulah, who was sitting on the passenger seat next to her, pulling back her red mop and securing it with a pink rubber band. “Should I even ask?”

  “Duke and Connor were working at the salon this morning,” she explained, “when all of a sudden water started pouring in from out of nowhere. Duke’s boots got soaked through, and he pulled ’em off. The stench was so bad, I was sure the flood had carried in a dead raccoon from underneath the stoop. I couldn’t imagine it came from anything still alive, but it did. It was Duke’s feet.”

  “Lovely.” Daisy wrinkled her nose.

  Beulah nodded. “Even after wading around in his socks for a full hour, the smell still didn’t get any better.”

  “Maybe instead of delivering Rick’s moonshine,” Daisy said, “Duke should try soaking his feet in it.”

  “They do call it rotgut for a reason. Enough of the stuff will kill just about everything.”

  “Whether you want it to or not!”

  “Too bad a little ’shine can’t also make Rick a little less of a weasel,” Beulah remarked dryly.

  Daisy merely shrugged. Her focus wasn’t on Rick. “When did Duke and Connor get to the salon today?” she asked Beulah.

  “Around eight, maybe a few minutes after. Why?”

  As she climbed out of the car and closed the door behind her, Daisy tried to calculate how long it all took. Could Duke or Connor have broken the storage room window, shot Caesar, and made it to the salon by eight, or a few minutes thereafter?

  Beulah finished tucking up her curls, then she climbed out of the car too. “If you’re worried about Aunt Emily talking to them, she knows that they’re going to have to dig in the yard. She’s not happy about it, of course, but she understands that it’s got to be done if we ever want to figure out what the problem is.”

  “I wasn’t thinking about Aunt Emily,” Daisy replied, somewhat absently. “I was thinking about Duke and Connor. Did you see them when they first arrived? Did they act peculiar in any way?”

  “Act peculiar?” Beulah snorted. “It’s Duke and Connor. They’re always a bit peculiar, and it’s never an act. I just told you about Duke’s feet.”

  Daisy frowned. Surely Beulah would have noticed something unusual about the pair if they had been at Sweetie Pies. Neither Duke or Connor was the slick, callous sort of person who could gun down a man one minute, then calmly tinker with the plumbing the next minute. They’d be spooked, and they’d show it.

  Suddenly Beulah’s hazel eyes widened. “You don’t believe they had something to do with what happened at the bakery this morning?”

  “No.” Daisy shook her head. “The timing does
n’t work. They couldn’t have driven from one place to the other, not by eight. The distance is too great.”

  “Forget about timing and distances. Think about Rick! Caesar worked for him, didn’t he? Nobody who knows Rick would dream of messing around with someone who works for him. It’s suicide! And killing Caesar? You might as well flay and barbecue yourself, because Rick won’t be so nice when he catches up with you.”

  Beulah was absolutely right. Rick protected his own, fearlessly. Everybody in Pittsylvania County knew that—Duke and Connor included. Duke himself worked for Rick bootlegging. Daisy remembered how nervous he had gotten at the nip joint, and that was just in relation to a clay marker and a jelly jar. He would never test Rick’s wrath by hurting Caesar, not even inadvertently.

  “Well, at least that rules two people out,” Daisy said. “Last evening when I saw the crates outside the nip joint I was thinking that practically anybody could have stolen the cream cheese. Anybody who knew both about the bakery and the nip joint. Now I know it was a geocacher—or at least one of them was a geocacher—and it makes me think that maybe it was a geocacher at Sweetie Pies today also.”

  “A geocacher who obviously doesn’t know Rick!” Beulah exclaimed.

  “None of them do, other than Laurel and Chris.”

  The hazel eyes circled around the campground. “How many of them are still here?”

  “I don’t know.” Daisy’s eyes circled around too. “But I’m hoping we’re going to find that out.”

  Beulah gave a little grunt. “Preferably without ending up like Caesar in the process.”

  “If we see anybody, we just say we’re looking for Laurel. That’s perfectly plausible. I am making her wedding cake, after all.”

  “I’ll remind you of that when we’re staring down the barrel of a gun.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Daisy scoffed. “The gun from this morning is long gone. I told that to both Laurel and Deputy Johnson. There are those ponds along the farm road by the bakery. They’re an ideal spot to dump a firearm.”