“Markers?” Heather asked.
“I dunno,” Ryan replied, then picked up a napkin from the tabletop. “It’s some DNA lab technical jargon. Whatever it is, at least we know that the killer is a guy.”
Alarm thrilled up Heather’s spine. “Mark Leon smokes. And he lives just down the road from us. And he told me that George Alvarez and Sharon Janis were in love.”
“You think he’s our guy?” Ryan asked.
“Too early to say,” Heather replied. “I want to find out more about George. Both of them may have had the know-how when it comes to cars. And I guess that cigarette tells us that Jane Leon is no longer a suspect.”
“She could’ve encouraged her son to strike out at Sharon,” Ryan said.
“Maybe,” Heather said. “Maybe.” She scratched the center of her forehead. “I just – okay, I know I say this every week, but I just get the feeling we’re missing something.”
“Like what?” Ryan asked.
“Sharon,” Heather said. “Sharon is involved in this intimately. Did you get anything of interest from her house?”
“Hoskins processed the scene. We got a crumb-covered tablet and a laptop.” Ryan rolled his eyes.
“That doesn’t sound very professional.” Though neither was removing Sharon’s strange ‘hit list’ from her home.
“Yeah, Hoskins is on his last leg. The Captain has had enough of his slack attitude,” Ryan replied, and shook his head. “But still, he’s better than Davidson. Thank goodness he never came back.”
“Did you find anything of interest on Sharon’s devices?”
Ryan shook his head. “I’m going to look at them this afternoon. I haven’t gotten the chance because of all the new stuff that’s been coming in. And I put in a call this morning to the alarm company. They’re going to upgrade us to the next package, whatever that means.”
“More security, I hope,” Heather said.
“Fort Knox style security,” Ryan replied, and clicked his fingers.
“Good. That’s one thing off the list.” She’d spent so much time worrying about Lilly and the case that she’d hardly gotten into a Christmas mood the entire week. “You know what,” Heather said, “I’m going to go back to the store and do some donut stuff for the rest of the day. George Alvarez can wait until tomorrow.”
“Good idea, love. I’ll call you if I find anything of importance on Sharon’s laptop.” Ryan lifted his burrito and gobbled down the rest of it. “Oh, that’s so delicious.”
Heather couldn’t help but chuckle.
Her husband’s love of food was unsinkable.
Heather picked up her lunch and took a big bite.
Chapter 13
Heather clicked on the order page and scanned the list of incoming donut orders. They ranged statewide. From Dallas to Houston to Amarillo way up in the north, and almost every order read the same.
“Two dozen Hot Chocolate Glazed,” Heather said, out loud.
Amy sat across from her and tapped on the keys of her laptop. “Date?”
“One week from now,” Heather said. “Amarillo.”
“Amarillo?” Amy asked. “Why does that sound so familiar?” She hummed a tune and wiggled her head from side to side. “And sweet Marie who waits for me. It’s a song!”
“Whatever you say, Ames.”
“Is this the way to Amarillo,” Amy sang. “Every night I’ve been hugging my pillow.”
“Oh for heaven’s sake. Cat choirs again?”
Amy stuck out her tongue at her bestie then typed on the keyboard. “All right. Two dozen to Amarillo.”
“Next is five dozen Hot Chocolate Glazed,” Heather said and tracked down the order list with her fingertip. “To Dallas.”
“Date?”
“Two weeks from now,” Heather said, and adjusted her position in her seat. “Boy, we’re getting a lot of online orders.”
“We can handle it,” Amy said. “We just have to keep working at the same pace.”
“I guess,” Heather replied. She continued to the next order. Her finger hovered, then dropped. Her eyes went round as donut holes. “Oh goodness.”
“What’s wrong? More than five dozen?”
“No,” Heather said. “It’s an order from Chicago.”
“Chicago! Chicago!”
“You’re in a musical mood this week,” Heather grumbled.
“It’s Christmas. So sue me for wanting to lighten the mood during admin hour,” Amy replied. “But seriously, from Chicago?”
“That’s right. Gosh, at this rate we’ll be getting orders from the UK.” Heather laughed, but her throat closed halfway through. “What on earth will we do if we get an order like that?”
“Cancel it?” Amy suggested.
That was something Heather had never done before. “I don’t think I’d be able to do that. It goes against every bone in my body.”
“It’s a worry for another day,” Amy said. “So, Chicago. How many donuts. What date?”
“Two weeks from now. Ten dozen.”
“Oh my gosh. That’s a stretch,” Amy said.
“We’ll have to use expedited shipping for that one,” Heather said.
Amy made a note of it on her spreadsheet, then stifled a yawn. “I could use a coffee. Would you like one too?”
“Please,” Heather replied.
Her bestie plopped the work laptop on the other end of the desk, rose from her seat and then danced her way to the door. “Amarillo,” she sang, under her breath. She opened the office door, and noise flowed through it from the interior of Donut Delights.
Happy customers devoured donuts and chatted away their troubles.
“Sweet Marie who waits for me.” Amy shut the door behind her.
Heather snorted a laugh at her friend. Trust Amy to remember the lyrics to a song from the 70s.
She bent over her laptop again and focused on the orders. They’d be busy for months, at this rate. Still, she promised her staff a short holiday over the Christmas season, and she’d follow through on it, orders or not.
Heather’s phone buzzed on the end of her wooden desk. She snatched it up, then swiped the green icon to answer. “Shepherd,” she said.
“You stole my line,” Ryan said. “That’s how I answer the phone.”
“Not anymore,” Heather replied, and chuckled. “It’s nice to hear your voice again, and so soon after lunch.”
“I found something interesting on Sharon’s laptop,” he said. “I thought you’d like to hear about it right away.”
“Oh wow, that’s great news. What did you find?”
“I’m emailing it to you now,” Ryan said. “Basically, George definitely did lie about his relationship with Sharon.”
“Why do you say that?” Heather asked and clicked through to her email. The little mailbox icon at the bottom of the screen flashed once, and Ryan’s email popped up at the top of her list of unread emails.
She double clicked on it. “I’ve just opened it.”
“Check out the attachment. It’s an email correspondence between Sharon and George Alvarez.”
Heather clicked on it, and it opened in a word document. She scanned the text. The emails would’ve made Danielle Steele wince in embarrassment. Too much gooey romance in too many words.
“Wow,” Heather said.
“I couldn’t get through most of it. It makes for heavy reading,” Ryan said. “But, I did find out that Sharon definitely encouraged George to fire Mark for stealing.”
“I thought that was probably true,” Heather said. “Sharon’s little diary proved that to me.”
“Well, it’s not for the reason you think,” Ryan replied, and cleared his throat. “Turns out George Alvarez is stealing from his own business. He needed to pin it on somebody, and he chose Mark on Sharon’s urging.”
“Did Sharon know about this?” Heather asked. “Wait, did George have partners in the business?”
“Two big city folks. They live in Dallas, and they both knew m
oney had leaked from the business,” Ryan said. “They don’t know who Sharon is and both have solid alibis for the time of her death.”
“And Sharon knew George was stealing,” Heather said. “She had to, otherwise why suggest Mark in the first place.”
“Oh, she knew all right. In fact, I’m pretty sure she benefited from the money he stole,” Ryan replied.
Heather sat back in her high-backed chair, then swiveled to look out of her window. The trees across the road waved a merry greeting in the brisk wind. “This is the second time we’ve had a case of theft and murder in the same week,” Heather said. “I hope it doesn’t become a trend.”
“Me too,” Ryan said. “Anyway, that’s all I needed to tell you, love. It looks like our evidence against Mark Leon has strengthened.”
“Don’t rule out George yet,” Heather said. “I think there’s more to this than meets the eye.”
The office door swung inward, and Ames’ entered, a cup of steaming, hot coffee in either hand.
“I think it’s time I pay good ol’ Uncle George another visit,” Heather said, to her husband.
Amy groaned her complaint.
Chapter 14
The receptionist at Uncle George’s Pre-Owned Cars batted her purple eyelids at them. She flicked her blond hair back and sighed. “I can’t just let you go in there. He’s in a meeting. You have to wait your turn.”
“When will he be out of his meeting?” Heather asked, and practiced easy breathing.
“Count to ten, Heather. You’re about to explode,” Amy said.
They’d been stuck with the snooty receptionist for the past half an hour, and it was already past five in the afternoon. Ryan would be off work soon, and they’d fetch Lilly from Eva’s and return for their usual Friday evening family dinner and movie time.
With Amy thrown in for good measure, of course.
“Look, I don’t know what to tell ya,” the receptionist said. She smoothed her long nails across her nametag, which read ‘Milly.’ “He told me he doesn’t want to see anybody.”
“Wait, I thought you said he was in a meeting.”
Dave whined and tugged on the end of his leash. They’d brought him in, and no one had complained, yet. He did up the cute factor in the place. The doggy scratched behind his ear and groaned this time.
Heather pinched the bridge of her nose. “Did I mention I’m here on behalf of the police?”
“I don’t see a badge,” the receptionist replied, and bobbled her head from side-to-side.
Amy bent and swept Dave off the floor. She aimed his underside at the receptionist. “This dog needs to pee,” she said. “If you don’t let us speak to your boss, I’m going to create a nest out of all those fancy magazines of yours and let him pee on that. Do you understand?”
Milly looked down at her array of Cosmopolitans and back up at Amy. “I –”
Dave whined to add to the drama of the moment.
“Fine,” Milly snapped. “Fine. Just wait here. And don’t touch anything.”
“Dave can’t make any promises,” Amy replied, in ominous tones.
Milly launched herself from her office chair and rushed toward George Alvarez’ office door. She knocked once, then entered.
“I’d like to call that a stroke of genius,” Heather said. “But I don’t think Dave needs the bathroom.”
“Of course, he doesn’t,” Amy replied. “He went before we came in. You didn’t really think I’d rip up her magazines, did you?”
Heather couldn’t help but laugh at that.
George’s office door opened and stayed that way. Milly hurried out, then crooked her finger in their direction. “He’ll see you now,” she said. She teetered on her high heels, and Dave growled at her in passing.
Their backup dog. What would they do without his assistance?
Heather entered the office and walked toward the cheap seat in front of George’s desk.
Amy plopped Dave on the carpet and made for the calendar in the corner again.
“Ladies,” George said, in unctuous tones. “To what do I owe the pleasure? Here to buy a car? I hear you need one, Mrs. Shepherd.”
Heather lowered herself into the chair opposite his and brushed off her jeans. She removed her handbag from her shoulder and placed it on her lap, then dug inside it and brought out her tablet.
“Fancy bit of equipment, you’ve got there, milady,” George said.
Amy groaned, and Dave mistook it for a growl and barked once.
Heather unlocked the screen of her tablet and opened her notepad app. She clicked through to George’s page and narrowed her eyes at the screen. She didn’t have much on the guy, after all.
George swept his cowboy hat off his head and left behind an oddly shaped haircut. A kinked pudding bowl. “Are we just going to sit in silence? My receptionist gave me the impression that you required urgent assistance.”
“I need to ask you a few questions, Mr. Alvarez,” Heather said. “Let’s call it a follow-up on our last discussion.”
“Sure,” he said. “How can Uncle George help you out?” There went that ‘unca’ again.
Heather squirmed and stopped herself after a second. She had to maintain control here. “It’s come to my attention that you were in a relationship with Sharon Janis.”
“I already told you, Sharon and I were just –”
“Ames,” Heather said.
Amy removed a sheet of folded paper from her handbag and handed it to George.
The sleazy car salesman accepted it, and confusion reigned his every movement. He flipped the page open and scanned it. Confusion disappeared, replaced by fear. Sweat beaded around that pudding bowl hair style.
“Now, look here –”
“That’s an email correspondence between you and Miss Janis. Is there a reason you’d lie to me about that, Mr. Alvarez?” Heather asked. “What do you have to hide.”
“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing. Look, I just didn’t want you to think I’d killed her. I just – we had a fight before she died. Right before she died, I mean. She left here angry, and I was angry, and a lot of the folks in the store overheard us screaming at each other.”
“I see,” Heather said. She let her lack of answer do all the talking in the world, and tapped notes on the touchscreen tablet, instead.
“But I didn’t hurt her. I’d never hurt her,” George said. “She was everything to me, but she got too needy at the end. I felt real bad about firing Mark. I told her that it was the wrong thing to do, but she insisted that he was the thief.”
“But he wasn’t,” Heather said.
George slid open his desk drawer and drew out a pack of cigarettes. He lit one, and it bobbed between his lips. The smoke curled through the air above his head. “I don’t know – I –”
“But you do know,” Heather said and crossed her legs. She adjusted the tablet, accordingly. “You know who the thief is because the thief was you.”
George sucked on the end of the cigarette and didn’t reply.
Dave sneezed and snuffled around the legs of Heather’s chair.
Amy wrinkled her nose.
“I know that you stole from your own business, George. We have the evidence in that very transcription you’ve got in your hands.”
He inhaled another lungful of smoke.
Heather leaned forward, plucked the cigarette from his lips and stubbed it out in the ashtray on his desk. “You won’t smoke with my dog in the room, thank you.”
“Or your Amy,” her best friend whispered.
“It was Sharon’s idea,” George said, at last. His bottom lip quivered, and his curled mustache did a dance atop his lip. “She thought we needed more money. We planned on moving in together, but the business has been making a loss for some time.”
“So, instead of fixing it, you decided to steal from it,” Heather said.
“I had to,” George replied. “Sharon said she would leave me if I didn’t come up with enough money for us to move in
together. I loved her with everything. Surely, you can understand that.”
“No,” Amy said and shook her head.
“Yeah, I can understand love, Mr. Alvarez. But not the kind of love that makes you do things that are against the law,” Heather said. She tapped more notes on her tablet.
The gentle shake of each letter’s appearance on the screen strengthened her line of questioning. George was on the back foot now.
“I did what I had to do,” George said. “And when the partners came down on me, I turned to Sharon for help, and she suggested blaming Mark.” He shook his head and pressed his palm to the back of it. “I didn’t feel good about it. He was a good kid. A real good kid. I – Sharon seemed happy, and that was all that mattered to me.”
“Goodness,” Amy said. “Sharon sure was on a roll.”
Heather mentally agreed with that. “And you fought with her about it.”
“Yeah, I did. The guilt and the pressure, it all got too much. I told her I’d have to tell the partners about what I’d done and she freaked out. S-she threatened to break me if I didn’t go along with what she wanted,” George said.
“And that made you angry,” Heather replied. Close now, so close. Would he confess to the crime? Or was this another loose end that dangled free of the case.
“Of course it did,’ George said, and glanced at the broken cigarette in his glass ashtray. “But not angry enough to hurt her. I’d never do that. I couldn’t hurt a fly, Mrs. Shepherd.”
“Only steal from one,” Amy remarked. She bent and picked up Dave, then cradled him in her arms.
“Did Sharon mention any enemies?” Heather asked. “Anyone who might’ve wanted to harm her?”
“Well, yeah. She was always talking about everyone in the town. She used to tell me stories about how much people hated her and why ” George replied. “I didn’t take it seriously. Sharon was a little insecure.”
Heather nodded, at last. It was the most she’d get out of Uncle George. Either way, he’d be on his way to prison if he didn’t settle out of court, provided his business partners decided to press charges.
Hot Chocolate Glazed Murder: A Donut Hole Cozy Mystery - Book 29 Page 5