Madeleine Murder

by Sandi Scott

  Betty said, “How we doin’ on desserts, Ashley? Still good?”

  She decided that now was not the time. “Aside from a few teenagers who eat cake like elephants eat peanuts, we’re doing pretty well. We have plenty left for the anniversary, but we’ve started to dip into the extra desserts that they wanted to pass out at the VA home.”

  “I’ll let Alfretta know,” Betty said. “You can take a breather if you need to.”

  Ashley glanced at the door where the kitchen staff had exited. She wasn’t exactly thrilled about having to walk through the smoke, but she also wanted to check on Dizzy, who was hopefully lounging in the shade somewhere. She walked through the door, into the small mudroom, and out the back exit of the building. Dizzy was just to her right, enjoying a nap in the shade of the house.

  A few yards behind her were three of the kitchen staff standing in a small circle. They looked up at her with eyes wide, like deer caught in the headlights.

  One of the men was the tall guy with the blond dreadlocks, the mystery guitar man. The one who kept showing up on the edges of this mystery.

  “Excuse me,” Ashley said to him. Dizzy roused herself and sat to attention. “Do you have a minute?”

  The blonde started backing away casually, but quickly. Ashley started walking after him, so he turned and quickened his pace.

  Dizzy wasted no time in jumping up and chasing the guy. She was not an intimidating dog by any means—she didn’t weigh more than fifty pounds soaking wet—but what she lacked in size, she made up for in heart. In a flash, she was running in circles around the guy, jumping on his shorts and barking up a storm. It only took Ashley a few steps to catch up to them.

  “Dizzy,” Ashley said. Dizzy kept her paws on the guy’s shorts but held still and looked at her owner.

  The man held his hands up, palms forward. “I mean no harm, lady.”

  “Dizzy, down,” Ashley said. Dizzy lowered her paws and sat in front of the guy, tongue hanging out and panting. “It’s okay. I just want to talk to you. I keep seeing you everywhere. What’s your name?”

  “Beau Remondet,” said the young man.

  “Remondet… as in Betty Remondet?” Ashley pictured Betty’s last name printed in red ink on her business card.

  “Yeah, that’s my mom,” he said.

  “Beau,” said Ashley. “What exactly are you…” She motioned toward the other two guys, who had wised up and were slowly making their way back inside. “What are you doing out here?”

  “Listen, lady,” said Beau. “I think we both know the answer to that. All I’ve got to say is that smoking a little herb here and there never hurt anyone.”

  As he spoke, Ashley wracked her brain for all the places she had seen this guy—first at Sparrow’s tent when he alerted him to the flat tire, then in the suspicious exchange with Betty, who it turned out, was his mother. Then again at the park with Moonbeam. Now here.

  Something was going on here, and Ashley was determined to find out more.

  “What about Sparrow Soulbrother?” Ashley asked. “He was murdered over pot. At least, that’s what it looks like.”

  “I didn’t have anything to do with that… we… I…” Suddenly he floundered and was silent.

  She decided to press him. “I saw you with Sparrow the day he was killed, Beau. And I keep seeing you hanging around all the suspects in his murder—first Moonbeam, and now, well… I know the police questioned your mom. And Detective Luna asked me what I knew about a young white man with budding dreadlocks who was seen with the victim frequently. He mentioned something about a reward…” Ashley improvised as she talked, and Beau was looking increasingly anxious with every word.

  Beau fingered his dreadlocks, nervously twirling one of them around his finger.

  Ashley continued, “I got ripped off last weekend, and I could use the money. I suppose I could call Detective Luna…”

  She made a motion to leave, even signaling to Dizzy to come along with her. It was a bold bluff, she knew, but she also knew she had a great poker face.

  “Wait, wait.” Beau put out his hand, motioning for her to stop. “We didn’t have anything to do with Sparrow’s murder. I can explain. My mom and I, we run a family business: the food truck of course. We know the vendors from the festival circuit and Sparrow, well, let’s just say we were customers of his business.” He looked at Ashley, to gauge if she was following.

  “I’m assuming it wasn’t the hemp products you purchased,” Ashley said.

  “That’s right. So, when we went to patronize Sparrow’s business the day before Seagrass Days started, he told us he had some, uh, excess inventory and asked if we’d be interested in delivering it for some extra cash. My mom would normally stay miles from selling that kind of product, but we’re up to our ears in business debt; we’re just a few missed payments away from the bank repossessing our food truck. Mom said we’d do it just this once, to make ends meet and so she told Sparrow ‘yes’.”

  “So, you and your mom usually buy weed from Sparrow, but then all of sudden agreed to sell it out of your food truck at the festival?”

  Beau hung his head. “As I said, we needed the cash bad, so… yes.”

  “So, yes,” Ashley repeated. “Let me guess, you were the delivery boy. That’s why I keep seeing you all around town, making these deliveries.”

  Beau nodded again.

  “But Sparrow ripped off your mom.”

  Beau made a face but didn’t deny Ashley’s charge.

  “I’m sure that made you mad—mad enough to kill, maybe?”

  “God, no! I’m way too chill for that, lady.” Beau took a breath. “My mom and I were pissed, of course. We figure he stole some credit card numbers from us the night he came over to offer us the deal. That guy was scum, man; he just couldn’t resist ripping us off, even before our deal was done. And, yeah, I was mad. But he was dead long before I could confront him about it—my mom didn’t even tell me he had ripped her off until the next day, after he showed up dead. In fact, she told me to lay low for a while. That’s why I went to find Moonbeam that day you saw me at the park. I just wanted to let her know that we were done.”

  Ashley listened closely, watching the man’s body language. Everything he said made sense. If he was the guy responsible for deliveries, that explained a lot. It confirmed Ashley’s feelings that he was up to something and that Betty, his mom, was not all she appeared to be.

  A family business—what a family, selling marijuana from a food truck.

  “Ashley? You out here, hon?”

  Betty was standing in the doorway along the back of the house, staring at them. She bit the inside of her cheek—it was probably obvious that something was up—then walked toward them. A fake smile plastered itself onto her face.

  “Everything all right?”

  Ashley steeled herself. “I was just talking to Beau about the family business.”

  Betty looked around the back of the building, her eyes lingering on Dizzy. “Beau’s a great cook back on the fryer in the food truck—those pistolettes have never been better since he started helping.”

  “Mom,” Beau said.

  “It’s okay, Beau,” Ashley said. “Betty, I’m talking about your other family business.”

  15

  Betty looked at Beau, who nodded. Her face sagged.

  Ashely continued, “I’m not pleased to find myself working with that type of family business… but I’m more concerned that I might be standing next to a murderer.”

  Betty pointed a finger in Ashley’s face, for a second so angry that she was speechless.

  Ashley stood her ground.

  “Now, you listen here,” Betty said. “My son is not a murderer. That Sparrow Soulbrother was a lousy guy who probably got what was coming to him. He and his girlfriend-of-the-moment Moonbeam ripped us off in more ways than one. They were underpaying us for our little business deal, all the while stealing from my credit cards. The nerve!”

  Betty took a breath and lowe
red her hand.

  “But I guess that’s what intoxicating love can do,” she continued. “You saw Moonbeam’s face. Those two were red-hot, toxic love about to explode. And it’s not like the guy was even faithful. I’ve seen him at multiple festivals, and each time he’s with another woman. In fact, I’ll tell you who probably killed him—that woman who pounced on Moonbeam at the bonfire after it was out, yelling about stealing her man and how she was going to kill him after she beat up Moonbeam. Nothing more dangerous than a woman scorned, I tell you.”

  A woman fighting at the bonfire? Ashley hadn’t seen it but remembered hearing some kind of commotion as she was leaving.

  What had her little slice of paradise that was Seagrass become?

  “Plus,” said Betty, “Beau here has an alibi. We both do. We went to visit my mother in the hospital the night of the murder. She had a small stroke, and it was an emergency. Luckily, she stabilized pretty quickly and it wasn’t too serious. She’s too far gone with dementia to remember us, but we logged into the visitors’ book when we got there.”

  Ashley was stunned into silence. She’d have to ask Ryan about the fight at the bonfire. And as for Betty and Beau… she almost felt like she should apologize.

  “Let’s finish talking about this later, hon,” Betty said. “Right now, we gotta get in there and finish this job. Always keep the customer happy is my motto.”

  Ashley took a deep breath. It was true.

  “All right,” said Ashley. “C’mon, Dizzy.” She walked back toward the house and signaled for Dizzy to sit by the door again. As she walked into the house behind the mother-and-son crime duo, she thought how sad it was that Betty had brought her son into her life of crime.

  She thought of Coyote and his mom—a mother and son team working together towards repairing their lives which had been put on hold because of crime. What a difference.

  The rest of the day did not go well. At all!

  After Ashley had helped pack the leftover desserts in pastry boxes so they could be more easily transported to the VA home, she watched as Betty and her son and their assistants packed up the Bayou Cuisine truck. She had seen the anniversary couple with Betty earlier, exchanging hugs after giving her a long white envelope and thanking her for a wonderful job. It looked like Betty had gotten paid, so Ashley waited off to one side, wondering if she should just walk up to Betty and ask for her money for the desserts.

  “Umm.” Betty looked away from Ashley and fidgeted with the white envelope she was still holding, when Ashley finally worked up the nerve to ask her when she would be getting paid. “It’s difficult to say, hon. I’d love to cut you a check right now, but I don’t have my checkbook here and I need to settle a few other things first.”

  “What!” Ashley gasped. “I was counting on that money. Remember, I told you at the festival that someone had cleaned out my personal bank account!”

  Betty smirked, “Welcome to the real world, honey! I’ve had lots of money taken out of my account, too. I got almost a dozen different business loans taking money from my account faster than I can put it in there. And that doesn’t even include the fraudulent charges Sparrow made.”

  The fact that Ashley had been hit by the thieves directly seemed to make no difference to Betty at all. In fact, Betty seemed smug when she told Ashley that she wasn’t going to pay her right away. It was almost as though Betty were taking revenge on Ashley for finding out about their little “family business.”

  The more Betty tried to justify herself, the angrier Ashley got, until finally Dizzy started to pick up on it and started growling.

  Then Betty and Beau had started to get nervous.

  “Fine,” Ashley said. “I’ll send you an invoice. Anything after thirty days will have a late fee added.”

  “I’ll be sure to get it to you as soon as possible,” Betty said.

  “Uh-huh.” Ashley didn’t believe a word coming out of the woman’s mouth. She looked down at Dizzy. “Come on, Diz. Let’s get out of here before we get taken advantage of again.”

  * * *

  Back at Fresh Start Kitchens, Ashley banged around her pans, flung utensils in the sink, and muttered under her breath about traitors to the profession.

  She had kept it together long enough to drop Dizzy off, drive over to the kitchens, then start a batch of chocolate chip cookies. Patty was in, working on making some kind of fried puffy potato ball concoction—sour cream and chives were involved. It wasn’t quite a tater tot, but it smelled heavenly—and she kept giving Ashley looks when she thought Ashley wasn’t looking.

  But now that the cookies were in the oven and the timer was on, Patty put down her measuring scoop and said, “Ma chère. You know you can tell me anything, don’t you?”

  Tears welled up in Ashley’s eyes. “Oh, Patty. I shouldn’t have gone.”

  “What happened?”

  Over the next eleven minutes, Ashley poured out everything that had happened at the anniversary event. She was just starting on her fears that she was never going to have an anniversary, single, let alone a fiftieth one—when the timer went off.

  She dried her face and took the first batch of cookies out, then put the second batch in.

  Patty helped her move the cookies to the cooling rack. “And so, in short, you have two problems. First, Ryan needs to kiss you. And second, you need to figure out who the real murderer is.”

  “This murder is a tricky one,” said Ashley. “First I thought Moonbeam may have killed Sparrow in a crime of passion. Then I turned my suspicions on to Betty and Beau, and for a moment, it seemed like they were the ones who did it. Now, the only suspect I have remaining is someone I don’t even know—the woman that was fighting with Moonbeam at the bonfire. I have no idea who she is, and even less of an idea of how to find her.” Ashley shrugged. “And I still have to figure out how to get my money back, on top of it all.”

  Patty put down her spatula and cracked her knuckles. “Very soon, you won’t have that problem anymore. Five minutes and a phone call to Lee, and we’ll have the problem with Miss Betty resolved.”

  Patty’s eyes seemed to blaze with fire.

  “Um,” Ashley said. “Thank you, but no. I don’t even know if I want the money anymore.”

  “What? Don’t say that. You can’t let that woman win. Not after what she did to you. She should be drummed out of the state!”

  Ashley shook her head. “That money is tainted, Patty. You and I both run businesses, but if we got into financial problems, we wouldn’t just start up a drug running operation to pay our debts—come on! I don’t even want to be associated with them. At all. It’s bad enough that I worked with her.”

  “I refuse to accept that.”

  “By now, she’s hundreds of miles from here. It’s not like you should let Smoke Daddy Lee and his friends drive across state lines to go get her, either. That could have serious repercussions.”

  “At least call the police.”

  Ashley screwed up her face. Detective Luna would be all over this, interpreting the situation in the worst possible light. Ashley might even be accused of being a drug dealer as well, just for working with the woman once, if it was up to him! If only she could put a bug in Sheriff Mueller’s ear that the woman wasn’t to be made welcome in the area, without having to deal with Detective Luna at all…

  “I’ll think about it,” she said.

  “I’m still going to tell Lee about it,” Patty said. “I’m sorry. He needs to know.”

  “Needs to know what?” Smoke Daddy Lee in person swept into the kitchen, throwing an arm around Patty and planting a kiss on her cheek with a resounding smack. “You sound feisty, just the way I like my women and my food!”

  Patty half-heartedly pushed at him, “Let me go, you brute. Ashley was just telling me that Betty Remondet was the one who was selling marijuana from her truck at the festival.”

  “Hmmm,” Lee said. “I did not see that one coming. She didn’t exactly scream street smarts to me, but maybe that
’s why she got away with it.”

  “I don’t think she really got away with it more than this once,” Ashley said. “She says she did it to pay off some debts and, based on the fact that she didn’t pay me that sounds believable.”

  “Didn’t pay, huh?” Smoke Daddy Lee cocked an eyebrow. “Say the word and I’ll find a way to get you paid, darlin’.”

  “Thanks, Lee, but I don’t want anybody chasing after Betty and trying to wrestle the money out of her purse or something. It’s not worth any of us getting in trouble over.”

  Patty sighed. She looked shocked, too. “No, I suppose not. But it bothers me that she thinks she can look you in the eye and do this to you.”

  Smoke Daddy Lee was firm. “All we really need to do is make sure that everyone knows not to work for her. I’m pretty sure if we hinted to Gordon Jessup that she was up to no good, she’ll never be invited back for the festival again, for example. If nobody will hire her… then she’ll get the hint.”

  Patty gave him a quick hug. “I’m sure Lee knows best. Maybe we could do a fundraiser for you Ashley… a big barbeque out at the campground?”

  Ashley smiled. “Let me get things straightened out with my other two problems first.”

  Patty squinted at the rows of chocolate chip cookies. “Ahhh… so that’s what the rush of baking was for. I thought it was just because you were upset.”

  Ashley tapped the side of her head. “If I can work things out with Ryan, then I suspect that not being able to out who the murderer is won’t bother me so much. I’m on the way over to his house as soon as the last batch is done.”

  Smoke Daddy grimaced. “If you two gals are going to do more girl talk, I’m out of here. I just stopped by to see my favorite chef and tell her about my latest culinary creation…”

  Ashley groaned. “Please, not more potatoes.”

  “No,” Smoke Daddy insisted, “no more potatoes. My new idea is fried ice cream. It will cause a sensation, and everybody will want to try it.”

  Patty waved Ashley toward the door. “Just go already. I’ll watch over the rest of the cookies until they’re cool and put them in the freezer. Yes?”