Cream Puff Killer: Lexy Baker Cozy Mystery Series Book 13

by Dobbs, Leighann

  "No," Nans said. "The police wouldn't let us through the tape, but we did get to talk with Stan again."

  "Yes." Ruth swallowed a bite of her tart then shuddered. "I do wish that man would wear something over those tank tops of his. All that body hair…"

  Lexy chuckled. "What did he have to say?"

  "Lots. He's been paying attention whenever the cops are around, investigating." Ida devoured the last bite of her first cupcake before continuing. "According to what he's heard, the victim—Sherman Wilson—had been killed at least a few hours prior to the time we arrived. Around midnight, maybe one a.m., per what the ME said. Stan was very forthcoming with the information."

  "Of course, that was before he turned all hostile with us after Ruth tried to get him to sneak us in after hours to look in her car." Helen took a dainty bite of biscotti then laid it back on her plate. With her crisp, stylish clothes and perfect silver hair, she always looked as if she was ready for the country club. No wonder the Ladies Auxiliary had practically fallen all over themselves to get Helen as a member, what with her prestigious family name around town and the old money she'd inherited from her late husband. "I've no idea what made him react so badly all of a sudden. Ruth pays a hefty price to store her car there during the winters. I don't think asking for a bit of a favor is out of the question. Especially under these circumstances."

  "Well, my intuition still tells me he's hiding something," Nans said around a bite of brownie. "Didn't you hear him backtracking after we asked him about sneaking us in to see the car later tonight? He kept muttering about entrapment and telling the cops he hadn't been anywhere near that storage unit when the murder occurred and how he thought they were trying to pull something on him. Then he went off on a tangent about people wanting money from him. It was all very confusing and suspicious."

  "I can tell you Stan's never been what I would call a nice man," Ruth added after finishing the last bite of her tartlet. "I've seen some pretty shady characters hanging out in the back of his office over the years. It wouldn't surprise me at all if he's doing something illegal at that storage place."

  "Huh. Well, at least we managed to find out he hasn't seen any cars around that area aside from the ones we already know about." Ida popped the last of her second cupcake into her mouth then wiped her hands. "The rusted old orange Jeep, Myra's silver station wagon, and the police cars."

  "Unless the person who killed Sherman Wilson didn't arrive at the storage lot by car," Lexy said before she could stop herself. Darn it. She'd vowed not to get involved. Too late now, though, considering the inquiring looks the other ladies were giving her. She shrugged and fiddled with her water bottle on the table. "I'm just saying that maybe the killer parked elsewhere and climbed the fence to get in. The killer's arrival could have all been a coincidence, and once they got there and spotted Wilson already inside, a fight ensued."

  "Good point, dear." Nans smiled. "Truth is, we really just don't have enough to go on yet. Like Helen said, what we really need to find is that list. And to do that we need a way to get into Ruth's car and search inside."

  Once more, the ladies turned to Lexy.

  She sat back and held up her hands. "Nope. Don't look at me. I'm already in enough trouble for interfering in the case as much as I have. Besides, I promised Jack I wouldn't get involved, and I intend to keep my word. He's my husband, and we're a team too, and I need to honor that. How would it look to him if I went behind his back to sneak into a crime scene?"

  "If you won't help us"—Ida glanced over at Cassie behind the counter—"then how about her?"

  "Cassie? I don't know." Lexy frowned. The odd conversation they'd had about John coming home late when Jack had been relatively on time made her wary. If Cassie and John were having marital problems, the last thing Lexy wanted to do was make things worse. And John was Jack's partner on the force. What if John said something to Jack about the ladies snooping again? This sounded like a bad idea all around. "I think maybe we should—"

  "Well, if you won't ask her, I will," Nans said, getting up.

  Lexy asking her best friend to get her husband to let them into a restricted crime scene was bad enough. She couldn't imagine how one of the other ladies wouldn't make it worse.

  "No." Lexy pushed to her feet and hurried toward the counter. "I'll do it. Hey, Cass. I hate to do this, but could you maybe ask John if he'd get us in to see Ruth's car later? I know it's still impounded, but Ruth's got a couple of things she needs to get from the vehicle, and Jack said they were done dusting for prints and swabbing for DNA."

  "Oh, yeah, sure. I guess." Cassie shrugged then gave Lexy a knowing look. "What's the matter? Jack tired of you playing detective?"

  Yes. "Sort of."

  "Right." Cassie pulled out her cell phone and hit a speed dial button. Seconds later, she smiled. "Hey, John. It's me. Listen, Lexy and the ladies would like to get in to see Ruth's car later. Can you arrange that?" She grinned at Lexy, one brow raised. "Great. Yep, one hour. I'll tell her. Thanks. Oh, and if you could maybe keep this between us and not tell Jack, that'd be awesome." Her smile faltered, and she frowned down at her toes, her voice growing quieter. "No. Of course I didn't say anything. Yes, I'll let her know that, though."

  Lexy's pulse stumbled. What was that about? Were Cassie and John keeping some kind of secret, or was it just her imagination? Her chest squeezed with guilt. There wasn't really much she could say about it, considering the phone call her best friend was making on her behalf, but still. The strange vibes she'd gotten from him that night with the wine and roses now took on a much more ominous tone. She waited until Cassie had ended the call then asked, "Tell me what?"

  "Oh, nothing. That part wasn't about you," Cassie slid her phone back into the pocket of her apron and avoided Lexy's gaze. "John said they're wrapping up their investigation at the scene now and they will release the vehicle in an hour."

  The bells above the door jangled, and Herman Conti rushed in, making a beeline for Ruth. "Are you okay, my darling?"

  Ruth harrumphed and pulled away when he tried to take her hand. "Yes, I'm fine, thank you. And I'm not your darling."

  "So very glad to hear that. I've been searching you out for days," Herman continued as if Ruth weren't scowling up at him with disdain. "And what about that fine piece of automotive machinery of yours?"

  "The Olds? Fine." Ruth gave him an annoyed glare. "They're releasing it from custody today."

  "Ah, I see. In that case, please allow me to give you a ride, my darling." Herman made an elaborate bow, and Lexy stifled a giggle. Seemed the man was well and truly smitten with Ruth.

  "It's not just me who has places to go, Herman Conti," Ruth said. "My friends and I require a ride back to my storage unit at Stan's place. Maybe you wouldn't mind driving us all?" Ruth's tone turned sweet at that last part, and she looked up at him coquettishly through her lashes.

  "It would be my honor to escort you ladies anywhere you need to go," he said, gesturing to the door. "My carriage awaits at the curb, my queens."

  Lexy did laugh then, not missing the eye rolls from Nans and Ida as the women stood and walked out of the bakery. A part of her couldn't help feeling a little envious, though, at all the attention Herman lavished on Ruth.

  There'd been a time when she and Jack had first started dating that Jack had treated Lexy that way too. But time and familiarity had lessened their attentiveness. At least it seemed that way sometimes. Now, with overhearing Cassie's words to John, she felt even more compelled to find out what was going on with her husband. Was he bored with their life together? Was he unhappy?

  "Hey, you ready to go?" Cassie asked, walking up beside Lexy.

  "Huh?" Lexy gave her a confused look. "Where are we going?"

  "Didn't Jack message you?"

  "No." Miscommunication seemed to be the word of the day where she and her husband were concerned. "Why?"

  "John said your car's done at the shop. Jack asked if I could take you over to pick it up."

&nbs
p; "Oh." Lexy pulled out her phone to double-check, but there were no texts or missed calls. She sighed and shoved the device back into her pocket before removing her apron and grabbing her purse. Seemed she was so unimportant to Jack these days he couldn't even bother to call her himself to tell her that her car was ready, and he sent her messages via John. Not good. Not good at all.

  Chapter Nine

  After picking up her cheery yellow VW Bug, Lexy didn't feel like going home just yet. Never mind she'd just shelled out eight hundred dollars to the mechanic, who'd claimed her baby was on its last leg. The day was sunny and warm, the breeze carried a hint of fresh pine and flowers, and she wanted to be out to experience it all. And so what if Jack hadn't bothered to call or text her all day? Jack obviously didn't see fit to tell her everything that was going on in his life, so why should she feel guilty about helping her grandmother and her friends find a menace to society, huh? She had better things to occupy her mind.

  Like finding out if the ladies had discovered the whereabouts of Nunzio's mysterious list.

  She signaled then pulled out into traffic and headed for the storage facility on the edge of town. With luck, Nans and her friends would still be there, going through Ruth's Oldsmobile. Sure enough, as soon as Lexy pulled into the lot, she spotted them inside the open bay door, tearing apart the car. Parts were strewn about the ground. They might've been part of the eighty-plus crowd, but from the looks of things, the ladies could give a NASCAR pit crew a run for their money.

  Lexy parked near the entrance to the storage bay and walked up to the front of the Olds, one brow raised at the sight of Ida's orthopedic shoes sticking out from beneath the vehicle's front fender, close to the same spot as the victim. She'd had no idea that any of her grandmother's friends knew anything about auto mechanics, but she'd come to expect the unexpected when it came to the Ladies Detective Club.

  "Hi, ladies. Find anything interesting?" Lexy said, sidling around the tight space along the side of the car toward the back of the bay. On the opposite side of the vehicle, she spotted Ruth and Helen, busy prying off the interior door panels.

  "Are you sure this is a good idea?" Helen asked Ruth. "These things don't seem to want to budge."

  "Yes," Ruth said. "People hide stuff in them all the time. I saw it in a movie once."

  Lexy stifled a grin and continued around to the back of the Olds, where she found Nans with her upper body inside the trunk and her rear end jutting up in the air.

  "Hey," she said, approaching slowly so as not to startle her grandmother. "What's going on?"

  "Got another one!" Helen yelled from the side of the car.

  "You found the list?" Lexy asked, standing on tiptoe to peer over the top of the Olds.

  "What?" Helen straightened and frowned, holding up a sparkly object between her fingers. "No. Another silver dime. This thing is loaded with old change from Ruth's late husband. Must've fallen out of his pockets and into the seat cracks, I suppose. These things are rare nowadays. They don't make solid silver dimes anymore."

  "True." Ruth took the coin from Helen. "I found a bunch too. In fact, that's what I had my bracelet and earrings made from as a sort of keepsake from old George." Her expression softened with nostalgia at the mention of her late husband. Old George had been gone for about forty years now, if Lexy remembered correctly.

  "Did you bring us any goodies from the bakery, Lexy?" Ida asked, rolling out from beneath the car and wiping her hands on a rag, black streaks of oil and grease marring her otherwise lavender-hued hair. "I've worked up a big appetite doing this search, you know. Wouldn't want me to get weak from hunger and perish, now would you?"

  "I don't think you're in danger of perishing, Ida," Nans said, removing herself from the trunk. "It hasn't been that long since our snack. Besides, we've taken this whole car apart and haven't found that blasted list."

  "Obviously, Nunzio hid the list because it was dangerous. And that man was killed for it," Ruth said. "Maybe it's better that we don't find it. Maybe we should leave it to the police."

  A brief twinge of guilt resurfaced inside Lexy over her promise to Jack. She wasn't a suspicious person by nature, but she also didn't like the idea of him keeping secrets from her. Not when he was demanding full disclosure from her. It wasn't fair. And considering she'd all but fallen off his radar these days, this small rebellion suddenly didn't seem so bad after all.

  "No," she said, squaring her shoulders. "I think we should keep looking. If it's not here in the car, then the next best thing would be to find out the identity of Nunzio's associates. Maybe if we can talk to those people, we can figure out who's looking for this list and who might've killed Sherman Wilson."

  "In that case, I'd say we start with Herman," Helen said. "He's sweet on Ruth, and he used to hang out a lot with Nunzio back in the day."

  "He did?" Lexy was stunned. Herman Conti had seemed so sweet and honorable. But if he hung with people of Nunzio's ilk, then he couldn't have been quite so squeaky clean after all.

  "Yeah, remember Ruth said Nunzio tried to warn her away from Herman because he was jealous, right?" Helen turned to Ruth.

  "That's right. I guess they traveled loosely in the same circles," Ruth said.

  Ida made a face. "You mean that guy with the hats used to be a gangster too? You sure know how to pick 'em."

  Ruth rolled her eyes. "No, Ida. Herman wasn't a gangster. He knew Nunzio when they were young. I think maybe they worked together." Ruth scrunched her lips together and tilted her head. "Or did they go to school together?"

  "Either way seems like he'd be worth talking to. We have no other leads." Lexy smiled to hide her lingering discomfort over everything. "We can go visit him tomorrow. I'll even take along a box of his favorite blueberry scones to make him more amenable to our cause."

  Chapter Ten

  "Did you find anything interesting in Ruth's car?" Lexy asked Jack that night over dinner, trying to act as nonchalant as possible. It was the first time she'd talked to him all day, and her doubts from the conversation with Cassie earlier still lingered. She'd considered just coming right out and confronting him about what she'd overheard her best friend say to John, but given the current tensions between them, she didn't want to make things worse or cause a small disagreement to go into a complete meltdown. She wasn't even sure if what she'd overheard had anything to do with her. Cassie had said it didn't, and her best friend wouldn't lie, especially if it was something important about Jack.

  "Honey, you know I can't really say too much about an ongoing investigation," he said around a bite of corn. He'd been quiet since he'd gotten home, which wasn't like him. He barely gave her a peck on the cheek tonight, and certainly no wine or roses. The ache in Lexy's chest intensified. "We were able to determine that the rusted-out orange Jeep on the scene belonged to the victim."

  "Oh. Really?" She swallowed a bite of pork chop without really tasting it. Between the current strain on her relationship with Jack and the fact she and the ladies had found precious little in their own search of Ruth's car, that tidbit of information gave them virtually nothing to go on. "Anything else?"

  Jack gave a one-shoulder shrug, still not meeting her gaze. "There was no evidence of anyone cutting the fence or breaking into the property at the storage place. The fence is pretty high and surrounds the property, so that suggests the killer came and went by car also."

  Lexy perked up a bit. Now that was something she could work with. She snuck a tiny piece of meat to Sprinkles, who sat dutifully at her feet, then swallowed a bite of her roll and sighed. "Interesting. What about the murder weapon? Did they find any DNA from the murderer on it? Perhaps anything out of place at the crime scene?"

  Jack gave her a wary look over the rim of his glass. He set it down with a decisive thump on the table and frowned. "The coroner said Wilson was killed with a small wireless drill, and the news reported that earlier. Forensic testing of samples from the wound site showed traces of titanium from the drill bit, nothing else conclusive
. Why are you asking me all these questions tonight, honey?"

  "Oh, no reason." Lexy took a sip of her water, averting her gaze as her cheeks heated. A super spy she was not, apparently. Still, getting Jack annoyed was better than no response from him at all. "Just curious about your day is all. Sounds like it was pretty gruesome, with all those titanium drill bits and wound forensics."

  Jack exhaled and shoved his mashed potatoes around on his plate with his fork. "That wasn't even the worst of it. The ME also said that whoever killed Wilson drilled right into his pacemaker and stopped his heart dead."

  "Wow." Stunned, Lexy blinked at her husband for several seconds. "That's horrible. I didn't even know that was possible." She shook her head while cataloging the information in the back of her mind to share with the ladies later. "And you think the killer got the drill from inside Ruth's storage bay?" Lexy tried to remember the inside of the bay. It had been small, but she didn't remember a lot of tools inside. Why would Ruth have tools? Maybe they had been Nunzio's.

  "That's what the evidence suggests, but my instincts say not. I'm guessing the murderer brought that weapon with them." Jack pushed his half-eaten plate of dinner away then sat back in his seat, his handsome face etched with fatigue. "Titanium drill bits are used specifically for metalworking. They're not something the ordinary person would have in their toolkit. And they aren't used on cars, unless maybe you want to drill out the VIN number to erase it."

  "Huh." Lexy finished her roll then stood to clear their plates. Sprinkles followed her to the sink, glancing from the dishes to her bowl, apparently hoping Lexy would scrape some scraps into it. "Interesting. And it certainly sounds like you're right. Ruth would have no reason to have one of those lying around near her car. And she wouldn't have a need to drill out her VIN number—she owned the car."

  He shrugged and shook his head. "Honestly, nothing with those ladies would surprise me anymore. Funny thing is, though, the drill we took into evidence at the crime scene wasn't the one used to kill Sherman Wilson. That drill is still missing. The only thing the one we've got was used for was to bore through the lock on the vehicle door."