Fudgy Fatality: A Pumpkin Hollow Mystery, book 10

by Kathleen Suzette

  “Some relationships are tricky,” I said carefully and ran my hand along Belle’s neck. “So you hadn’t seen her for a few weeks before she died?”

  “She came by my apartment and picked up some of her things about two weeks ago. But she still has some things there at my apartment. I don’t know what I’ll do with them. I guess I can give them to her family now.”

  His eyes teared up as he spoke, and I watched him carefully. Were they genuine tears? Or was he just trying to make me think he was the grieving boyfriend? Or rather, grieving ex-boyfriend.

  “They would probably appreciate getting her things back.” Belle nudged me with her nose when I stopped petting her, so I ran my hand along her neck again. “So you don’t have any idea what might’ve happened to her?”

  His brow furrowed as he thought a moment. “Honestly? If I were going to take a guess, I think it could have been Bryce Jenkins. He had a thing for Olivia, and she didn’t like it.”

  “What do you mean she didn’t like it? What did she say about him?”

  He shrugged. “She didn’t say a lot, but she said he would show up at places where she happened to be, just pretending to run into her. Like at the grocery store, or the dry cleaners.”

  “She didn’t think it was a coincidence?” I asked him. Jane had mentioned that Aaron had done the same thing and it made me wonder.

  “At the time she said it felt odd. I asked her if she wanted me to talk to him, but she said no. Then another time, she brought it up when she’d seen him again and she said it was creepy. I offered again to go and talk to him, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She said maybe she was just being paranoid.”

  “Did Olivia tend to be paranoid?” I asked him. It made me wonder if she really felt she was being followed or if she was jumping to conclusions.

  “Not that I noticed. I don’t really know what was going on, and when I brought it up later, she acted like it was no big deal. They used to date you know, she and Bryce. A few years ago.”

  “I think I heard that. Do you know how long they dated?”

  Belle began to pull on the lead rope he held, wanting to be turned out with her other horsey friends out in the paddock. “Whoa, girl,” he said and chuckled. “Let’s walk her down to the paddock and let her loose with the other horses. I think Olivia and Bryce dated for about a year and a half and they broke up about three years ago, if I remember right. She said things didn’t end well.”

  “Did she say exactly what that meant?” I walked alongside Belle, keeping one hand on her shoulders. The smell of horses always made me happy. It reminded me of summer for some reason.

  “He accused her of cheating. She swears she didn’t, but he was livid about it and insisted that she was lying. But apparently, that was how their relationship went. He would accuse her of cheating on him, and she said it was always an out of the blue accusation and that she had never done anything like that.”

  “Do you think she was capable of cheating?” I glanced at him as we walked to see what his reaction to the question would be.

  His mouth formed a straight line, and he didn’t look at me as we walked. “Maybe. But I don’t know. It seemed like there were a lot of texts and phone calls from different men. When I would ask her about it, she would just say it’s an old friend from high school, or a cousin, or she’d have some other explanation for it.”

  I didn’t know what to think about that. I liked Olivia, and I wouldn’t have thought she would’ve been one to play games like that. But sometimes you don’t really know a person like you think you do. But Jane had said it was Olivia that found texts on Aaron’s phone.

  “Maybe it was all innocent,” I said as we got to the paddock gate. I leaned on the rails while he opened the gate and turned the horse loose with the others.

  He closed the gate and turned and looked at me. “Yeah, that’s what I always told myself.”

  I remembered what Jane had said about them fighting and him leaving a bruise on Olivia’s arm. “Did you and Olivia argue a lot?”

  He looked at me, surprise showing in his eyes. “I suppose we had our moments. But honestly, what couple doesn’t argue?”

  “That’s true,” I said carefully. It wasn’t true though. Ethan and I had never argued. Disagreed, yes, but we had always stopped short of a fight. “But I guess it depends on to what extent the argument escalates.” I watched his face as he took this in.

  He shook his head and looked away. “Her sister told you I hurt her, didn’t she?”

  “I don’t know. Did you?”

  “One night Olivia and I had had too much to drink, and things might’ve gotten out of hand. But she started punching me in the chest, and I grabbed her arm and shoved her away from me. I did not beat on her.” He didn’t look at me when he said it, but he seemed sincere about what he was saying, and I hoped it was true.

  “Sometimes things get carried away.”

  He turned to look at me. “They sure do. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a lot of work to do around this place.”

  I nodded and watched as he headed back to the barn. I might have made him angry, but I didn’t care. I needed to know what happened to Olivia.

  I headed back to my car, thinking over the things he had told me. I knew Bryce Jenkins from high school. He had been on the football team, and he was a big guy just like Aaron was. Olivia had been very petite, but she seemed to like tall, muscular men. It wouldn’t have been difficult for either Aaron or Bryce to strangle Olivia.

  Chapter Eleven

  I didn’t know what to think about what Aaron had told me. He seemed sincere, but did that mean anything? Some people were just good liars. When I got into my car, I glanced at my phone. I still had more than thirty minutes left of my lunch hour. Olivia had received a flower delivery the day before she died. I didn’t know if florists kept records of deliveries or not, but I was going to find out.

  I pulled up in front of the Happy Hollow Flower Shop and turned off the engine. The outside of the flower shop was decorated with a large uncarved pumpkin sitting near the door and a scarecrow made of burlap standing beside it. A black crow sat jauntily on the scarecrow’s hat while a smaller Frankenstein stood on the other side of the pumpkin.

  Inside the shop, I stopped and inhaled the scent of pumpkin spice and vanilla candles. Frankie Malone owned the flower shop, and she was waiting on a customer at the front counter. She leaned to the side to look at me around the customer and smiled at me. “Hello, Mia. I’ll be right with you.”

  “Thank you,” I said and headed over to the display of candles. There were some fat black pillar candles on candlesticks, and I picked up the closest one and smelled it. It smelled like blackberries. I inhaled again and smiled. I put it back and picked up one of the orange ones and smelled pumpkin pie. The cream candles were vanilla, and there were some that smelled like red candy apples, too. Candles were one of my favorite things about the holidays. There were so many scents and I love them all.

  When Frankie finished waiting on her customer she came out from behind the counter and joined me at the display of candles. “Aren’t they wonderful? I always overbuy because they smell so good. I can’t resist them.”

  “I can see where that would happen,” I said and chuckled. “They smell good enough to eat.”

  “That’s what I tell my husband. He says I spend too much money buying stock on these candles, but I always end up selling them. No one can resist them.” Frankie was middle-aged and had dark brown hair done in a pixie cut.

  “I certainly have a hard time resisting them.” I picked up a purple candle and inhaled the scent of plum cobbler. “This one smell so good.”

  “I had to have some of those. I took three of them home with me when they came in.”

  I laughed. “I try not to stop by often because I’d end up spending my entire paycheck on candles and flowers. I hope you won’t hold that against me.”

  She laughed. “No, I won’t hold it against you. I should probably offer a freque
nt buyer program. A free candle with every twelve purchases.”

  I turned to her, eyes wide. “That is an excellent idea. No wait, that will mean I’ll be in here spending my check for sure.”

  “Okay, I’ll try not to tempt you then.”

  “Frankie, can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course,” she said and picked up a yellow, orange, and white candle and handed it to me to smell.

  I inhaled and the scent of candy corn came to me. “Oh my gosh, that smells wonderful. If I burned it in my house, I’d probably be sitting around eating candy corn all day long.” I handed back the candle. “Did you hear about Olivia Summers being murdered?”

  She nodded and looked at me earnestly. “What a terrible shame. She was such a lovely young woman.”

  “She really was. But I wondered, did somebody come in and buy her a bouquet of fall flowers last Friday? It would have been delivered to her workplace.”

  Her brow furrowed in thought. “Last Friday? It’s possible, I guess. Why do you ask?”

  That was the question I was dreading. I hated snooping around, but sometimes people told me things they wouldn’t tell the police. Besides that, Olivia deserved justice. The problem was that I didn’t want to reveal anything that I knew about the case if someone asked. I was always worried I might let something slip out that Ethan had told me in confidence.

  “I stopped by her place of business, Storage Inc, and I saw an arrangement sitting on her desk. I admired them and I wondered if they were ordered from your shop.”

  “I was out of the shop Friday afternoon, but I know we didn’t take an order for Storage Inc in the morning. Maybe somebody picked up flowers from the grocery store and dropped them off to her?”

  “No, I heard they were delivered.”

  She looked at me steadily. “Who did you hear that from?”

  I hesitated. “I’d rather not say. I was just wondering if they came from your shop. Since you’re the only florist in town, not counting the grocery store floral department, it’s most likely they were ordered from here. Unless of course, they ordered them from the flower shop in Truckee and they were delivered.”

  “Sometimes some of the florist shops over there make deliveries out here. It’s a long drive for them, but I know if they have a couple of deliveries, they’ll make the trip.” She shrugged. “I’d get offended about it, but it’s not like I can control things like that. My prices are lower, and I think my arrangements are nicer.”

  “Your arrangements are beautiful,” I told her. “I can’t imagine paying extra money to have somebody drive an arrangement over from another town.”

  She shook her head and folded her arms across her body. “Thank you. I can’t imagine anyone doing it either. But, one of my part-time employees may have made up the arrangement and delivered it in the afternoon.”

  “If the order wasn’t put in until the afternoon, would they be able to make it up and have it delivered the same day?”

  She nodded. “Yes, especially if it’s one of the arrangements already pre-made in the coolers here.” She motioned toward the refrigerated display cases and I walked over and looked in.

  “It looks very similar to that one,” I said pointing at a pretty bouquet of fall flowers. I couldn’t remember if the one on Olivia’s desk had mums in it, but it was certainly very similar to it.

  “I try to keep one of those, or something similar to it, made up for walk-in customers. It’s possible someone came in and saw it and asked one of the girls to deliver it that afternoon. It would’ve only taken a few minutes.”

  I nodded. “Do you think your employees would remember if they delivered it?”

  She looked at me, her head tilted to the side. “It’s important?”

  I hesitated. “Yes, it’s important. I mean, maybe it won’t be in the long run, but I think it’s important to know for now.”

  She nodded. “I understand. Let me ask the girls, and I’ll get back to you on it. Are you sure it was an arrangement like this one?”

  I nodded. “Yes, it might not be exactly it, but it was very similar.”

  “I’ll ask the girls as soon as they come in this afternoon. They’ll be in shortly. I usually have them work in the afternoons so they can make deliveries of everything I’ve made up in the morning.”

  “Do you keep a record of deliveries?”

  She shook her head. “No, there’s really no need to do that. I do however, keep a logbook of arrangements that are special orders. Not for any reason other than I want to record the instructions from the customer. When the book is filled, I usually just toss it in a drawer and eventually, it gets thrown out.” She shrugged. “I’m from the old school order of florists. It would be so much easier and faster if I did it on the computer, but it seems like more of a hassle doing it that way.”

  “Sometimes computers don’t save as much time as we think they do.”

  “You can say that again. Mine exists merely to frustrate me.”

  I chuckled. “Well, I better get back to work. I’m on my lunch hour, but I’d appreciate it if you can find out who might have ordered it.” We walked toward the front door.

  “There was no card on it?”

  “No, it was sent anonymously.”

  She nodded. “People do that sometimes.”

  “Thanks, Frankie, I’ve got to get going now.”

  “Okay, I’ll talk to you later, Mia. And don’t forget, I’ve got lots of candles if you change your mind.”

  I smiled and nodded. “I will remember that. I’m sure I’ll be back at some point and get a couple of them. They smell too good to resist.”

  I headed back to my car, hoping one of her employees remembered who came in and bought the arrangement.

  Chapter Twelve

  It was two days later when I remembered that Lisa’s mother, Gayle, had been at the parade taking pictures. Might she have taken a picture of the killer? Had she only taken pictures of the parade, or was she on the street where the parade assembled, taking shots there, too? There was a chance she may have gotten some pictures in front of Storage Inc, and I wanted to know if there was anything in those pictures. Like the killer.

  “Hi, Mia, how are you?” she asked when she opened the door.

  “Hi, Gayle, I’m doing great. I brought you some fudge.” I held up the bag.

  She grinned. “Oh, don’t tell me, Lisa has told you I keep eating what she brings home, right?”

  I chuckled. “She didn’t, but I thought I’d bring you some and see if I could take a look at the pictures you took at the parade the other day. Consider it a bribe.”

  “Well, that’s a wonderful bribe, but I would have let you see them without it.” She stepped back to let me in and I handed her the bag. “Come on in and I’ll get them for you.”

  “Thanks.” I sat down on the sofa while she went to get the pictures. The Anderson’s living room was bright and airy, and Gayle had already begun to decorate for Halloween. There was a big sparkly pumpkin near the fireplace and some small wooden pumpkins on the mantle.

  “Here we are,” she said returning, her arms full of pictures she had printed out. “I got several of you and your sister and mother that I was intending to bring by. I think they turned out really well.” She picked up four pictures and laid them on the coffee table in front of me.

  “Those are nice,” I agreed, looking them over. Gayle was a natural. The pictures were bright and focused. “I love this one.” The picture was the one where Christy and I had our arms around one another.

  “You can have them all, if you want. That one would look nice in a frame.”

  “It would be wonderful in a frame. Do you mind if I look through the others?”

  “Go ahead, but I think those are the only ones with you and your mother and sister.”

  “I’d still like to look at the others. You did such a wonderful job, capturing the parade.” I flipped through the pictures, trying to focus in on people’s faces. “Did you get any of the
parade lineup before it started?”

  “I did get a few, but not many.”

  I stopped on one of John. He was looking at something to his left. The picture was a closeup, and I couldn’t tell where on the parade route he was standing.

  “Does that one interest you? Isn’t that Christy’s husband?” she asked, looking at the picture.

  I glanced at her. “He’s her ex-husband. I don’t want it, though, thanks.” I continued looking through the pictures and found one of Aaron and another of Bryce. I paused on them, looking closely.

  “Is there something you’re looking for, Mia?” she asked after several minutes. “If you tell me what it is, I may remember seeing it when I developed the pictures.”

  I looked up at her. “Did you hear about Olivia Summers?”

  She nodded, frowning. “It’s a terrible shame. I hated to hear it.”

  “Did you happen to get any pictures of the front of Storage Inc?”

  Her brow furrowed, and she began searching through the pile of pictures. “I did.” She searched some more and then pulled out two pictures. “Here. The kids were so cute in their costumes.”

  She laid them in front of me. There was a school group standing in front of the office and the camera was focused on them. I squinted at the pictures, trying to see into the glass front window, but it was no use. They were out of focus. “Do you remember seeing Olivia there at the parade?”

  She thought about it. “I think I did, and I think I got a picture.” She sorted through the pictures again and stopped on one, then laid it in front of me.

  I picked it up. Olivia was looking over her shoulder at something. “Do you remember anything about this picture when you took it? Was there anyone that didn’t seem to belong in the area? It seems like she’s looking at something.”

  She shook her head. “No. Nothing stands out. I forgot about that picture. Makes me sad. I had to have taken it right before she died.”