Bee tapped her chin. “I wonder why the murderer didn’t take advantage of that rather than killing Madeline in a room full of suspects.”
“Maybe they wanted to avoid suspicion. If everyone was in the hall when they murdered Madeline, it might’ve been too obvious that they weren’t there and put a target on their back.”
“Or they wanted to make the murder as terrifying as possible. Remember Junior Haynes, the singer?”
“Oh yeah, I remember.” I opened my emails and found the one that Petey had forwarded to me on Francescan’s behalf. “OK, Katrina Sweete is in the Cherry Bungalow. Which I think is quite close to ours. Ooh, it says here that Katrina and Madeline were sharing a bungalow.”
“Interesting,” Bee said. “Very interesting. Let’s go have a chat with her.”
Bee and I started down the path together, linking our arms, our puffy jackets keeping us warm. My breath misted and my nose stung from the cold, but it was kind of refreshing. I liked winter, and I loved snow, even though it presented a unique set of problems when it came to the food truck and life in general.
We passed our bungalow—the Mint Bungalow—and continued down the little pathway that had been shoveled this morning. The Cherry Bungalow looked no different than any of the others, though the edges of the shingles on its roof were red—the rest was covered in snow.
Smoke whorled from the chimney, and the front door bore a cutesy wooden sign that read, The Cherry Bungalow.
Bee and I stopped on the doorstep. I raised my fist, but Bee caught my hand and placed a finger against her lips.
“No! It’s not fair, Dad. I don’t care what you say, I’m not going to stay away from the ball just because Madeline got herself murdered,” Katrina said, inside, her voice whiny and thin as a reed. “Nobody likes me here. Everybody acts like they’re better than me, and I’m so tired of it. If I don’t go to the ball, it will get even worse.”
A quiet and then it sounded as if something broke inside the cabin.
“I’m going! I don’t care that Madeline died. I’ve told you that like a million times. Just because you went and married that witch doesn’t mean I have to act like she’s my mom. She’s not my mom. I’m not leaving!” Another pause fraught with tension. “I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!” And then the thump of something hitting the wall next to the door.
Bee and I exchanged a glance. Katrina had a bit of a temper. Prone to throwing things around too. But did she have the temperament to attack Francescan? Or kill Madeline?
I knocked on the door, and the latch clacked a few seconds later.
Katrina appeared, her cheeks red, and her nose running. She dabbed a Kleenex against it. “Yeah, what do you want?”
“We were just passing by,” I said, “when we heard screaming. After what happened to Madeline, we wanted to check whether you were OK.”
“Madeline,” Katrina said her stepsister’s name like it was a curse word. “Madeline, Madeline, Madeline. Everyone’s so obsessed with her. She’s dead. So what?”
Bee coughed. “Are you OK?” It was a leading question. Katrina was, quite obviously, not OK. She looked like she needed a long vacation in a room with four white walls and soundproofing.
That was an insensitive thought, Ruby.
“I’m fine!” Katrina cried, sending spittle flying. “I’m fine, fine, fine. Why wouldn’t I be? Just because Madeline got all the attention? Maybe if I’d died people would finally be asking questions about me?”
“But we just asked you a question about you,” I said. “Do you need some tea? Coffee? Hot chocolate?”
“I need to be left alone.” Katrina retreated into the bungalow and slammed the door shut.
Bee and I listened to her rocketing around in the room, occasionally letting out a frustrated scream. She sounded more like a teenager than a young woman. Could her behavior be driven by grief over losing her stepsister?
Or was this nothing more than jealousy?
Bee and I left Katrina’s bungalow and headed back to ours. Once inside, Bee got the fire going and I fixed us two steaming mugs of hot chocolate with marshmallows bobbing in them.
“What do you think?” I asked, taking a seat on an armchair in front of the fire.
We had two separate single beds in here, with a desk, a TV on the wall, and the fireplace and armchairs. It was comfortable, with its wooden walls and a rug on the matching floor. A nice place to take a break from all the craziness of the past couple days.
“I think that Katrina and Francescan are our main suspects,” Bee replied. “They both seem to have had an issue with Madeline. You heard Francescan on the truck today. She was angry with Phillip for choosing Madeline over her.”
“Two jealous women… but wait, Katrina and Francescan fought too, remember? Over Petey, the assistant. Francescan told me that they had been competing for Petey’s attention—basically that Katrina had been trying to steal Petey away.”
“I wonder…”
“What is it, Bee?”
“I don’t think we’ll get any information out of Francescan or Katrina. But what about the car Francescan brought up here? The pink one Petey’s been driving her around in? There might be something inside that could give us a clue as to whether Francescan had the motivation to do anything.”
“The Chevrolet,” I said, nodding. “It’s been parked right in front of the events hall since we arrived. Right next to the truck. And Petey mentioned he’d driven Katrina around in it too.”
“The perfect place to hide evidence. Think about it, the murderer made a hasty getaway, leaving only a shoe behind, yet none of the guests, when pulled back into the dining area later, were missing a shoe. They must’ve had the opportunity to change and change quickly.”
That was true. The management had gathered us all together the minute the cops had been called.
“Sounds like we need to put our gloves on,” I said. “And start snooping.”
Bee wriggled her eyebrows excitedly and took a sip of her hot chocolate.
9
The Valentine’s Day Ball was in full swing, the guests dressed in pinks, reds, whites, and blacks. They drifted through the hall, either dancing to the music, or snacking on the treats.
Bee and I had done our job stacking the desserts table with s’more pots, cupcakes, cake pops, and donuts. Usually, I would’ve enjoyed watching the antics of the people attending the dance, from Stony Williams standing in the corner devouring a s’more pot and ignoring every woman who came his way, to Francescan who danced wildly, her arms flinging left and right, nearly knocking other people out.
Red and white lights flashed across the dancefloor, and every now and again, a smoke machine would hiss and produce a mist that drifted across through room.
“Look who’s in attendance,” Bee said, raising her voice over the music.
Detective Spasinski stalked through the crowd, veering left and right, and stopping to glare at people occasionally. From what we’d heard, he hadn’t questioned any of our main suspects since the night of the murder.
Tension wound through my gut.
Were we really going to do this?
“Ready?” Bee asked, leaning in so she wouldn’t have to shout it.
I nodded.
Bee and I, wearing mostly black, but with red hearts affixed to our thick sweaters, left our stations, and hurried for the door. No one paid any attention to us—we were the hired help, and they had bigger fish to fry. Or catch. Or kiss?
We squeaked the doors open and exited the building into the night. It was cold, but the snow had stopped, and the news said that the passes had started opening.
That made figuring out who’d killed Madeline even more important—the murderer could slip away without anyone realizing. And heaven knew, Detective Spasinski wouldn’t stop them.
“There.” Bee gestured to Francescan’s Chevrolet. It sat under an overhang in front of the events hall that had prevented too much snow from settling atop it. That was good—if we
had to shift the snow away to get to the car, it would be a dead giveaway.
I glanced left and right, checking the coast was clear.
Bee peeked through the car’s windows first, but there wasn’t much inside. “It’s super neat.”
“Must be that assistant guy, Petey,” I said. “He probably has to keep it that way to avoid Francescan’s ire.”
Bee moved to the trunk and tried it.
“Bee, what if the car alarm goes off?”
“No alarm on this model,” Bee said.
“What are you doing?”
Bee reached into her pocket and extracted something silvery and small. “What I do best.” She held the object aloft. “Lockpicking set. Watch this.” She crouched down and set to work, fiddling and tweaking, mumbling under her breath.
I folded my arms, stamping my feet in my boots and constantly glancing over at the doors to the hall.
“Shoot,” Bee said. “This is more complicated that it looks. I can’t get it open.”
“Maybe it’s a different kind of locking mechanism to a normal door? I mean, you usually need that latch thing to pop the trunk open. You know?”
Bee grunted and admitted defeat. “What a total waste of time.”
I peeked into the car’s interior again, removing my phone from my pocket and switching on the flashlight app. A glint of glittery silver beckoned from the bottom of the car, peeking out from beneath the front seat. “What’s that? Bee, come take a look at this.”
Bee joined me, squinting, and turning her head this way and that. “Wait a minute. That’s a shoe! That’s the other shoe,” she hissed. “Ruby, you’re a genius.”
“I shone a flashlight in there,” I said. “I hardly think that qualifies me for a Mensa membership.”
“Remember the shoe that Madeline had clasped in her hand? The one that could only have been from her attacker?”
“Silver and glittery.”
“Right. Look carefully.”
I frowned and studied the object. My heart leaped. She was right! That was the end of a silver, glittery pump. “What’s it doing in this car?”
“Isn’t it obvious? Only two women used this car,” Bee said. “According to Petey, they were Francescan herself, and the evil stepsister, Katrina. Those are our two prime suspects. One of them must’ve run out of the hall and changed their shoes in the car.”
“Oh, my heavens,” I whispered. “We should tell Detective Spasinski about this.”
“Ugh.”
“Bee, we have to. He might be able to get a warrant to get into the car’s trunk. I mean, what if the murder weapon is in there?”
“You’re right. There would be nowhere else to leave it. Shoot, I wish we could’ve gotten this darn trunk unlocked.” Bee circled to the back of the car again, dropping down into her crouch and muttering about her knees. She inserted her lockpick again and tried with all her might to pop the lock. “Come on. Come on…”
“Bee, we should get back to the—”
“What are you doing?”
The deep voice sent a shiver down my spine. We’ve been caught.
Bee had gone rigid, her mischievous hazel eyes wide. “Oh, hello there.”
Petey stood outside the door to the events hall, his arms folded, and one eyebrow arched. He tapped his booted heel—a tik, tik, tik of disapproval. “You’re thieves, aren’t you?” he asked. “I knew it. Things have been going missing from my room for the last two days. I thought I was going crazy!”
“We’re not thieves,” Bee said, extracting the lockpick and pocketing it.
“I can explain, Petey.”
“You have five seconds.”
Bee gave me the barest hint of a nod, and I broke into the tale—we were here because we wanted to figure out what had happened to poor Madeline. And we suspected that either Francescan or Katrina might’ve done the deed.
Petey listened with impatience. “While I appreciate you’re trying to… solve the case,” he said, and put up two fingers on either hand for inverted commas, “this is a violation of my employer’s privacy. I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to tell her what you’ve done.”
Francescan would lose her mind if she found out. “Petey, is that really necessary?” I asked, pleading in my tone.
“You made your bed,” he replied, and walked back into the hall.
Things are about to get very, very messy.
10
A half an hour later…
Francescan perched on the edge of a comfortable armchair, her ankles crossed daintily, her claw-like pink fingernails tapping on her phone screen.
After we’d been discovered, we’d headed back to the desserts table—there was nothing else to do but wait for the hammer to fall—and Petey had come over within five minutes to summon us to a private meeting with icy Queen of Hearts, Francescan.
And here we were. Eek.
Petey stood behind her chair, his mouth thinned into a disapproving slash. Occasionally, he would shake his head at us in avuncular disappointment.
Bee was unimpressed by the show of dominance from both Francescan and Petey. She scanned the room, haughtily, sniffing on occasion.
Yes, we had done the wrong thing, but Bee wasn’t one to bow down and admit defeat. Even when apologizing, she was feisty.
“Francescan,” I said, trying to break the ice.
She raised her palm at me.
Bee clicked her tongue. “There’s no need to be rude.”
“Rude!” Petey barked. “You two were trying to break into Miss Taupin’s trunk.”
So much for being so annoyed with Francescan, you don’t want to work for her anymore, eh, Petey?
“We’ve given our explanation, and it was reasonable.”
“Reasonable!” Petey exclaimed. “About as reasonable as one a criminal would give. Miss Taupin, should I have them escorted off the premises? I’m sure Detective Spasinski would be interested in what they’ve done.”
Again, Francescan’s hand came up. Silence resumed.
I took the time to check the room for anything suspicious.
Francescan, as the hostess and the one footing the bill for the Valentine’s Day celebration, had the biggest bungalow. It consisted of several rooms, decorated in the log cabin style, with two fireplaces, and a full living room suite. A flatscreen TV played a fashion show in the background, though the sound was muted.
There was nothing I could make out that would be of interest, barring the shut closet that might contain Francescan’s shoes. If only we could get the shoe out of the car and compare it with one from the closet. Would they be the same size? Could we tell Spasinski about that?
Finally, Francescan cleared her throat.
“I’m, like, super disappointed that you two would do this to me.”
“We were concerned about Madeline,” I said. “You know us, Francescan, we’re always trying to solve the—”
“Like, don’t interrupt me when I’m talking.”
“Rude,” Bee snapped. “You interrupted Ruby. Not the other way around.”
Francescan gave Bee an icy glare. “How dare you talk to me like that,” she said. “You two were messing with my private stuff, and you think you can yell at me? I hired you!” She was so angry, she’d dropped her ‘likes.’ Good heavens.
“You hired us to cater an event, not to stay our suspicions,” Bee replied. “And you are mighty suspicious. You continued with your Valentine’s Ball even though Madeline was shot in that events hall. You’re lucky that Spasinski is such a terrible detective and allowed you to go back in there. You’re trampling through evidence and you have an incriminating item in your car. If this had happened back in Prattlebark Village, you’d be toast.”
Francescan rose from her chair, gripping her cellphone so hard the plastic squeaked and complained. “And you’ll be lucky that I don’t spread the word about what terrible caterers you are to my social media accounts.”
Bee didn’t pale, but she quieted. She didn’t wan
t the Bite-sized food truck affected by our sleuthing.
“Francescan,” I started, “we’re sorry we interfered with your car. We weren’t trying to steal from you, just figure out who might’ve hurt Madeline.”
“Killed Madeline,” Bee corrected, her stare vicious.
“We noticed that you have a shoe in your car. A silver one? It was, uh, tucked under the driver’s side seat?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Francescan growled.
“Well, the other shoe in the pair was the one Madeline was holding when she died.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. And I don’t, like, care.”
“Please, Francescan, you’ve got to understand that we were trying to help,” I said.
“By accusing me?” She rolled her eyes heavenward. “Did you think I would be OK with that?”
“We weren’t accusing you, just—”
“Miss Taupin,” Petey interjected, placing a hand on Francescan’s shoulder that was a little too familiar. Were they dating? “I can get the detective for you if you’d like. As I said, I’m sure he’d be interested in hearing about this.”
“No, Petey.” Francescan shrugged him off. “That, like, won’t be necessary. I already know what I have to do.”
I braced myself.
Francescan turned to us. “Your contract is, like, terminated. You can keep the deposit I paid you for your services, but I won’t be paying you anything more. You can take your ugly little food truck and leave this place. Like, now. If you’re not gone in the next half an hour, I’ll tell the detective what you did, and he’ll probably arrest you or whatever.”
“Francescan,” I whispered. “We were… trying to help. You were attacked, remember? The person who hurt Madeline might be the one who did it. It could be Katrina.”
“I wasn’t attacked!” Francescan shrieked, losing her cool, completely. “I, the most popular woman in the entirety of Vermont, would not get attacked randomly. People love me. They adore me. And you’re just, like, bakers. Boring, stupid, old bakers.”
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