by Tonya Kappes
He didn’t even look up as she guided him through the crowd. Poor kid shuffled his feet and went along with her.
“I didn’t break in,” Wes did repeat a few times. “I have a key. I’m telling you, I have a key.”
Angela was very stoic as she continued to walk him through the crowd, not appearing to listen to him at all.
Instead of focusing on him, I tried to get a good look at what Angela had in her hands. It looked like it was a painting in a broken wooden picture frame.
I gasped.
“What?” Mac looked at me.
“I wonder if it’s Florence’s expensive painting?” I couldn’t help but ramble on. “Florence had a very expensive painting Courtney was trying to get, but Angela said nothing was going to come out of the house. Do you think Wes broke in and stole it?”
“I have no idea.” Mac shook his head as though he were disappointed in me. A look I’d never seen him throw at me.
“Come on, Mac.” Lucy Drake appeared out of the air and twirled her finger in her long fake hair.
He looked at me, and my eyes narrowed like I was asking him telepathically what on earth he was doing with her.
“See you around, Bernadette.” He grabbed Lucy’s hand, and off he went.
The banjo player plucked a couple of strings to get the band back on key, and the Doubletoe Cloggers picked up right where they left off. But not my mind. It reeled with thoughts about Florence and the painting.
“What was that about?” Iris had some flour on her cheek. She leaned in.
“I think Wes Rogers broke into Florence’s house.” My words were monotone. My heart was numb.
“No. Mac and Lucy?” Iris grabbed me and dragged me across Main Street and into Pie in the Face. She locked the door behind her.
Half out of it, she led me into the kitchen and sat me down on the stool that butted up to her baking workstation, which was a complete mess.
“Here. This’ll help.” She put a complete sheet cake in front of me and handed me a fork. “Congratulations, Tiffany.” I read the icing scrolled in the Sugar Creek Gap High School colors.
“I can make another one. It’s not due until her party tomorrow afternoon. I thought you could drop it off at the community center on your route so you could snoop a little.” Iris had already been working on our plan. “But first, I want to hear about Mac and you.”
I pierced the cake with my fork, and by the time I told her the entire story, I’d eaten about a fourth of it.
“I really don’t want to talk about it though.” I smiled at my best friend, who’d also joined me in eating the cake.
“I heard on the scanner that someone had broken in Iris’s house, and when Angela showed up, the robber ran out. Angela chased the robber on foot.” Iris was good at listening to me.
I knew for now she wasn’t going to make me talk about it, but she would sooner rather than later. Maybe not tonight, but possibly tomorrow.
“The robber was Wes Rogers, huh?” She quickly changed the subject back to the case.
“I think he might’ve stolen Florence Gaines’s expensive painting Courtney had mentioned.” I couldn’t believe it. “But why would he do that?”
“Umm…college money.” Iris rubbed her fingers together. “Wasn’t he up for the scholarship?”
“Yes.” I snapped my fingers. “And Grady said Wes was so upset about not getting the scholarship that he couldn’t do his yard work jobs, which included Courtney. That’s why Grady was there.”
The warm smell of cinnamon, sugar, and nutmeg curled around me, making me feel somewhat better after I put Mac and Lucy in the back of my head.
Iris had all her ovens going. My eyes were filled with the assortment of pastries on the wire shelving that Iris filled with trays waiting to be put in the ovens to be baked. Her timers were set.
“You’ve been busy,” I commented.
“I made sure I got all the items made up so while they all bake, we can figure out exactly who you and where you need to snoop. Unless the Rogers boy did it.” She had a big whiteboard on the wall in the kitchen area of the bakery, where phone orders were written as well as a weekly checklist of the orders she had to work on during that time. “I wiped it clean and wrote Florence’s name on top.”
She’d also made columns with various headings like suspect and motive.
“I see you wrote down Courtney as the number one suspect and then Zeke as the number two.” I still wasn’t sure if it should’ve been the other way around, but it would all come in due time. “We also need to add Tiffany Franklin. I think these are Angela’s three picks.”
“Bernie, Tiffany is a ch—” Iris gasped as if I’d already convicted her.
“And children kill all the time. She had a huge motive.” The dry-erase marker was Velcroed to the board. I peeled it off and started to write their names. “Florence’s scholarship would’ve changed her life. And Wes is a child too. He stole her painting.”
“I refuse to believe any children in Sugar Creek Gap would have it in them to do such a horrific thing. And to someone so giving to the community.” Iris rotated one of the cakes in the oven with one sitting on top of the oven that needed to be baked.
“Iris, since when did you become such a big fan of Florence Gaines?” My brows rose. “Not that either of us didn’t like the woman, but you and I both know Florence was a little bit of a dill pickle.”
“We aren’t speaking ill of the dead.” She gave me a sideways look. “Unless it’s someone we really didn’t like.” Her evil grin appeared. “Write all the reasons for the kid to have killed Florence, then you need to put Wes on there too.” I went to write Wes’s name on the board but wrote Julia instead.
“Julia?” Iris asked.
“Oh gosh.” I went to erase it. “I guess I was thinking…”
“What?” Iris had that all-knowing look. “Tell me now.”
Just like Iris suggested, I told her about Julia and how she’d seemed to take matters into her own hands when it had to do with Courtney while I wrote under Wes Rogers’s name the motive he’d have had for killing Florence. I listed how he really needed a scholarship to go to college, help get his family out of poverty after college, and to help him add to the small scholarship he’d already gotten for football. Then there was Tiffany Franklin, who not only confirmed her parents thought Florence was a nut ball but had also pointed out how Florence didn’t have anyone to care for her. If I correctly recalled, Tiffany’s exact words were, “You better hope that you die before you get put in a nursing home because you don’t have no one to take care of you! I hope you get struck dead right here on the spot!”
“I’m just glad Julia was out of there before the killer came.” I stepped back and looked at the whiteboard to make sure I’d covered most of the motives from memory. Now that I wrote it all down, it did seem to be a silly thought that one of the two kids could’ve done it.
Maybe their parents? That wasn’t entirely out of the question but possible, so I wrote “parents” with a question mark beside it.
“You know, my concern with Julia when I came over the other morning was that I vividly remember feeling cold, like I was damp.” Iris flipped one of the tins upside down on a cooling rack, slowly letting the chocolate cake out of the pan. It looked so nice and fluffy. “Like rain.”
“What are you saying?” I think I knew but didn’t really believe Iris would think…
“Maybe Julia killed Florence.” Iris threw it out there like she were tossing a couple of dice in a game of craps.
“What? My daughter-in-law?” My mouth dropped completely to the floor. “My. Pregnant. Daughter-in-law?” I chose my words clearly so Iris couldn’t misunderstand me.
“If she went over there because she was worried Julia had some sort of idea about Grady, yeah. Maybe one thing led to another. Maybe Florence heard it. Maybe Florence was there, and when Julia left, Florence went out the door after her, and whack!” Iris had dropped a pan of cake batter on the co
unter on purpose to smack it down before baking.
“What kind of friend are you?” I just couldn’t believe it. “No.” I shook a finger at her. “What kind of aunt are you to Grady to believe such a crazy notion that his pregnant wife would do anything to harm his family or their unborn child?”
“Hormones. Plain and simple. Didn’t you say she even admitted to crazy hormones and that Grady teases her by calling her Judy?” Iris shrugged and stuck the cake pan in the oven. She took a knife and began to cut the cooling cake’s top off, making it perfectly flat before she threw a big glob of buttercream icing in the middle.
She was like a bricklayer with the spatula as she slid the tool over the creamy icing to make it the perfect thickness, moving it back and forth until the icing covered the entire top of the cake. Then she slapped another cake on top, making the layers look like bricks neatly stacked with cement between them.
“I can’t even begin to think that.” I knew I should be fuming at Iris. My best friend turning on a family who’s only supported her all of her life. That included my parents when we were growing up.
“I’m not saying she did, but if she wanted to get Courtney out of town and the only reason Courtney is in town is to keep an eye on her aunt, killing Florence is the fastest way to get her out of town. Plus, you know how sensitive Julia is to gossip.” The timer on one of the ovens went off, and Iris walked over to turn it off. She opened the oven door to check on the cake. “If Florence had heard Julia and Courtney arguing, Florence would’ve told everyone the next day.”
Iris put the spatula in the buttercream and walked over to me.
“Here.” She handed it to me. “I know it seems far-fetched, but you put your head in the sand. If this was someone other than your daughter-in-law, you’d be totally making them a suspect.”
I listened to her while I took a lick off the big spoon. Iris was right about two things. If this was anyone else other than Julia, I would’ve put them on the suspect list. The other thing…buttercream icing made everything a little better.
“There’s more that doesn’t make this seem too far-fetched.” I couldn’t believe I was going to say this out loud since I’d yet to make any sense of it myself, but here it went. “Vita told me the shovel found at the scene wasn’t Courtney’s and the set of prints they’d found on it weren’t hers.”
“Whose shovel was it?” she asked.
“I have no idea. I didn’t see the evidence, but I did see someone at Courtney’s house today with a shovel.” There was something about me even thinking this that made my stomach hurt. Or maybe it was too much buttercream. Either way, neither were good in large doses…
“And?”
“Grady helped Courtney with her mulch, remember?” It was like my words flipped on a light switch.
“No.” Iris had a horrified look on her face. “No.” She shook her head. “No,” she said matter-of-factly. “You just need to find out where he was that night.”
“I know where he was. He was at home while Julia snuck out.”
“Bernie.” Iris now understood exactly who I was talking about. “Julia?”
“She said she drove Grady’s truck over there, and he keeps tools in the back of the truck.” I gulped.
“Don’t worry. We’ll figure this out.” She crossed her arms and looked at the whiteboard.
Like a true friend, she was also my partner in crime.
At least in this crime.
Chapter 10
Even though it was pretty late, I had no desire to go home right then. I didn’t want to haphazardly look down Little Creek Road toward Mac’s house and see that Lucy’s car was there or worse…his wasn’t.
Instead, I decided I was going to go to the sheriff’s department and see what Angela had thought about Wes Rogers and the painting. Or if he’d become a suspect.
“I didn’t kill her. You have to believe me.” I could hear Wes’s voice pleading with Angela from her office.
“Not a good time, Bernie.” Vita Dickens, the dispatch operator, was standing near the coffee station, filling the pot with fresh water. “Angela is in a bad mood.”
“Congratulations.” I turned my focus on Vita. She was the eyes and ears of the department and always full of information. “I heard you got your deputy badge.”
“I did. I can’t wait to get off dispatch.” Vita had been going to school to become a deputy. It was a big accomplishment.
“I bet. Iris told me they’d gotten you a big cake, strawberry and cream,” I gushed, knowing it was her favorite because sometimes when I needed a little information, I’d grab a couple of Iris’s strawberry-and-cream cupcakes to bring to before I left Pie in the Face.
Not necessarily a bribe, but a good gesture was how I liked to look at it.
“It was so good. I thought I was going to have some to take home, but it was gone by the time I got off work.” She tapped her new badge pinned to her brown sheriff’s shirt. “I start this week. We hired someone to take the dispatch job, so he’ll start tomorrow.”
“He?” I questioned.
“Yeah, Aaron Brotherton.” She couldn’t’ve knocked me off my feet any more than she’d just done.
“I thought he was going to college?”
“For law enforcement.” She told me something I already knew. I was off my game.
“Poor choice of words. I didn’t know he wanted to work here.” It was news to me.
“I think he doesn’t know what he wants to do, but you know his parents. They carry a lot of weight on elections.” Vita tilted her head toward Angela’s office. “Favors get called in.”
“Really?” I couldn’t believe it. “I had no idea the Brothertons backed Angela.”
“Backed her? They paid for her full campaign. Something about their families go way back.” The phone buzzed, and Vita grabbed it. “Sugar Creek Gap dispatch.”
I let her take her call and moved my focus back to Angela’s office window, where I could see the back of Wes. His head was buried in his hands.
Angela was standing over him and facing the window. Her face slid up, and her eyes locked with mine. They narrowed. She said something to him, and he turned around. He’d been crying. He looked at me. I straightened up when I noticed Angela was walking out.
“Bernie.” She gave me a chin lift like she was gesturing me over.
“Did he steal the painting?” I didn’t try to convince her I should be there. I just wanted to know what was going on.
“He did. But he claims he had a key from where he cut her grass. Do you know anything about that?” She was asking only because she knew I’d see people out cutting grass while on my route. Over her shoulder, I saw Wes talking on his cell phone.
“Yeah. I know he does lawn work for extra money. In fact, he was also going to do Courtney Gaines’s mulch, but he was pretty upset about not getting the scholarship. But I’m not sure if he had a key.” I guess Florence could’ve given him a key.
“I’m checking out his alibi now. And we should have the fingerprints back from the shovel tomorrow.” Angela’s dark circles underneath her eyes seemed to be getting darker by the second. “You didn’t hear anything today.”
I was going to tell her about Julia going over there, but we got interrupted by none other than Courtney Gaines.
“Sheriff, let that boy go.” Courtney charged in like Florence would have. “I paid him to go into my Aunt Florence’s house to get the painting. I knew he cut her grass and had a key to her house so he could get into the garage to get her lawnmower.”
Wes heard the commotion, and he stood up and looked out the office window. There was a look of relief on his face.
“I thought I told you nothing was leaving that house,” Angela snarled. “I ought to have you locked up for interfering with a homicide.”
“I didn’t take anything that didn’t belong to the family. I only have twenty-four hours to get what she left to the charity since she got married to that gold digger,” Courtney said, contin
uing to plead her case.
Angela took Courtney into another room, and I slipped into Angela’s office.
“I’m sorry I knocked you down. Coach Butler is going to be so mad at me.” Wes had no idea how much trouble he’d gotten himself into. And it was sweet that he was worried about what Grady was going to do when he found out Wes had knocked me down.
“It’s okay. Coach will be fine,” I assured the frightened young man. He was still just a kid, and what Courtney had had him do was horrible. “But I need to know more about what Courtney had you do so I can help you.”
“She called me and asked if I could meet her at Ms. Gaines’s house about the grass cutting. I thought she was going to fire me since Ms. Gaines had died. I need the money. Since I didn’t win the scholarship, I’ve got to pick up even more grass-cutting jobs to save for college.” His lips quivered. “She told me she’d put my name in for their family’s scholarship or something if I’d grab the painting after I cut the grass. And that’s what I did.”
“Someone called in a burglary,” I told him.
“I don’t know who.” He shrugged. No wonder his clothes were filthy. He’d just come from cutting Florence’s grass. “I didn’t steal anything.”
“Did Courtney tell you the painting you took was not hers to take?” I asked him, trying to establish if Courtney had manipulated the poor kid.
“I didn’t question her at all. All I knew was she’s Ms. Gaines’s niece. The coach introduced us at school, and he told me she was moving here and wanted to know if I could cut her grass this summer too.” I didn’t like hearing that Grady introduced her.
“When did Grady introduce you to Courtney?” I wondered.
“It was back during school when she took the job. I was in his office, and she came in. That’s all I know. I gave her my phone number and told her to text me when she needed her grass cut.” Wes Rogers was just a simple kid, and Courtney had used him.