by Rosie Sams
“Don’t drink so much with Gloria that you come in hungover,” Kerry cautioned Leslie as she got ready to leave, an hour or so later.
Leslie blew her a kiss. “I won’t!”
Melody’s phone buzzed with a text from Al: On my way.
It was perfect timing. Soon, he had arrived, and the two of them sat down at one of the café tables by the front window with cups of coffee and some Irish shortbread that Kerry had just pulled out of the oven.
“You had something for me?” Al asked, already sounding tired. The poor man, he would likely be up half the night, making sure the investigation team had what they needed.
“Yes,” Kerry said. “When you left me—on purpose, didn’t you?—in the tent with your three suspects, I was able to find out a few things.”
Al cleared his throat. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” he said with a grin. “Did you mind?”
“No, no,” Melody reassured him. “I just wasn’t expecting it. I didn’t mind, aside from getting accused of both influencing the outcome of the judging and actually baking Gloria’s pies for her by Eleanor—”
“You didn’t, did you?” Al asked.
Melody rolled her eyes. “Of course, not. It hadn’t even occurred to me that people might think that. Aside from that, what I found out was that both Jillian and Eleanor seemed to know ahead of time that Perry was having an affair with Gloria.”
“Well,” Al said, “we did already find that out from talking to Jillian and Eleanor. They told us, um, all about it.”
“If nothing else, Gloria didn’t protest against their accusations. It also sounded like Jillian was convinced that Perry had been unfaithful multiple times and might have moved on from her to someone else.”
Al nodded. “I heard about that, too.”
“What I don’t think you heard about was that Gloria hadn’t seemed to know that ahead of time, so might not have had a motive to kill Perry at all.”
“What did she say, exactly?” Al asked.
“When Jillian told her, she kind of sighed the word no and started crying.”
“Hm,” Al said. “I’ll pass that along, in case the detectives want to question those women again. Was that it?”
“No, there was something else,” Melody said. “Eleanor had a bad pie in her bag.”
“A bad pie?” Al asked.
Smudge was lying at Melody’s feet; Melody bent over and gave her Frenchie a scratch behind her ears. Smudge stretched out her legs, luxuriating.
“Smudge found the clue,” Melody said. “She pulled at a tote bag that Eleanor had with her. Inside was a dessert carrier, you know, the kind with the plastic top.”
“Go on.”
“It stank. Jillian demanded to know what was in there, and grabbed the carrier away from Eleanor and opened it. Inside was a pie that smelled absolutely rotten. It must be full of rotten fruit. At first glance, it might have looked attractive, though—the crust was well-baked. And it was decorated exactly the same way that Gloria’s pies were, with the maple-leaf top.”
Al half-whistled between his teeth. “Was it one of Gloria’s pies?”
“I can’t imagine that it would be, although I’m not sure how to prove that. Maybe the pie dish was different. But I’m sure Eleanor has cleaned the dish out by now.”
“I’m sure,” Al agreed. “Come to think of it, everyone had to bring the same number of pies. It shouldn’t be too hard to ask Mike Sampson whether both Eleanor and Gloria brought the correct number of pies. What do you think that was all about?”
“It looks like Eleanor was going to try to swap out Gloria’s pie before judging,” Melody said.
“So why didn’t she?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Maybe she just missed her opportunity. Why didn’t she get rid of the spoiled pie before the police questioned her? Maybe she ran out of time. And how did she know what the pie was going to look like ahead of time? I doubt that Gloria told her. Does that mean Perry was having an affair with both women and told Eleanor about Gloria’s pies? I don’t know that, either.”
“It’ll take some thought,” Al agreed. “But I’ll tell the detectives. It might help quite a bit. I found out something for you to think over, too.”
“What?”
“When Gloria was interviewed, she admitted that she had tasted the pie several times as she was baking it.”
“And she didn’t die of cyanide poisoning,” Melody said.
“That she didn’t. What do you think about that?”
Melody sighed. “All right. I have to admit that what I really wanted was for Eleanor and Perry to have been having an affair, behind Gloria’s and Jillian’s backs, and that, when Perry tried to break things off, Eleanor decided to poison him at the baking contest when she knew Jillian would be there, then blame it on Gloria, which would have stirred up trouble for everyone she doesn’t like, including me, as well as getting rid of Perry.” Melody drew in a deep breath, having finished her most rambling of sentences.
“Not a bad theory,” Al said.
“Thank you. But why both poison one pie and then try, and fail, to swap it out with one full of rotten fruit?” Melody shuddered at the thought of having to bake that rotten pie. It would stink up the entire house.
“Misdirection?” Al said. “Maybe she wanted to get caught with the bad pie, which would imply that she hadn’t poisoned the first pie.”
“Or she was warned,” Melody said.
“By whom?”
“She and Jillian seemed to be ganging up on Gloria out in the tent.”
“Jillian…” Al said thoughtfully. “Melody, what do you think about checking up on Jillian tonight? Unofficially. If she’ll let us in, that is. We’ll tell her that you and I are going out on a date, but that I found something of hers at the festival grounds that I needed to drop off first.”
“What?” Melody asked.
Al took a slim purple card wallet out of his jacket. “Credit cards and driver’s license, that’s all. Think she’ll miss them?”
Chapter Fifty-Six
They drove to Perry and Jillian’s house—now, just Jillian’s house. Melody had washed her face, brushed her hair, and freshened up her lipstick at home while Al changed into the polo shirt and blue jeans that he kept in the back of his car for emergencies. Melody decided to bring Smudge with her; if she really were going on an informal date with Al, they would pick a place where dogs were allowed outside on the patio. And the Frenchie had been super-helpful already that day and would feel sad if she didn’t get to go out with them.
The Wexler house was big but kind of awkward, with details that were supposed to look impressive but just looked odd. Decorative shutters that were much smaller than the windows they surrounded, plaster half-columns around the front door, white plaster “blocks” on the corners of the gray cement siding.
“This house reminds me that Perry was all about the look of things,” Melody said.
“That’s what it’s starting to look like,” Al said. “His supposedly happy marriage wasn’t one, anyhow.”
They pulled up in the driveway and turned off the SUV. A few lights were on, but the shades were all drawn. Al took the lead, coming up to the front door and ringing the doorbell.
“Coming.” The voice sounded muffled and distant. They heard footsteps coming from deeper within the house. The door opened, and Jillian Wexler stood there, mascara wasted and streaked, still wearing the same clothes she was in at the festival. “Hello, Sheriff. You need something? Or did you think of more questions you wanted to ask?”
She sounded empty and hollow. Exhausted.
“I suppose I do,” Al said. “But Melody and I are headed out on a date. What I came for was to drop this off.” He held up the purple wallet.
Jillian sagged in relief. “Oh, thank God. I had been looking for that everywhere. Where was it?”
“You left it behind with the detectives.”
She shook her head. “I can’t believe
that I left it behind. Of all things. But you said you were on a date. Don’t let me keep you.”
“Jillian, are you all right?” Melody asked from beside Al. “We don’t have a reservation or anything. We can sit and talk for a while if you need us. Can’t we, Al?”
Al shifted from foot to foot. “Well…”
“Nonsense,” Melody said firmly. “Jillian, let me just make sure you don’t need anything before we go.”
“Actually, I would…I would like to talk to someone about things. Unofficially.” Jillian said.
“I’ll just wait out in the car, ma’am,” Al said.
“Don’t be silly.” Jillian stepped back and opened the door. “Come in. I’ll start some coffee.”
They followed her into the kitchen, where Jillian busied herself, making a pot of coffee.
The house felt empty, even emptier than it should have felt with one of its owners dead. Melody had noticed a pair of large roller suitcases by the front door as she had come in, and, looking around the kitchen, she spotted several empty spaces on the walls that might have once held family photographs or cozy kitchen art. Places where another woman might have hung signs saying God Bless This House and Love, is What Makes a House a Home, etc.
“So, you know I was planning to leave him, right?” Jillian said.
Melody nodded. “You took all the photographs down.”
Jillian turned to face her, her eyes filling with tears. “I knew he was cheating on me. I knew, but I told myself I was just paranoid. For years.”
“What changed your mind?” Melody asked.
“What made me see and believe what was happening right in front of my face?” Jillian asked sarcastically. “I don’t know. It just seemed like it became too much all at once. Proof that he was cheating on me was everywhere, all of a sudden. I felt like he was getting ready to get rid of me. I started to feel like it was a choice between him leaving me and me leaving him, and I didn’t want to be the last one left behind, you know?”
“I’m so sorry,” Melody said. “That sounds so painful.”
“It was. I was planning to leave in the morning. Now I don’t know what to do. I felt like I’ve been left behind already.” Jillian wiped her face, then pulled three coffee mugs out of a cupboard and set them on the counter. “I don’t feel like I can stay, honestly. I’ve already packed my favorite mug. Isn’t that silly? Making a choice like that, based on your favorite mug.”
She poured three cups of coffee. “Cream? Sugar?”
“Cream, please,” Melody said as Al asked for sugar.
Jillian poured cream into two of the mugs, then hunted around for the sugar bowl. She apologized. “Neither one of us took sugar. I take cream, but Perry always insisted that a real man took his coffee straight. I’ll get some out of the baking cupboard.”
She bent over and dragged out a plastic container full of sugar, then hefted it up onto the counter.
Smudge sneezed, then walked over to the cupboard, shoving her face in through the door of the cupboard before Melody could catch her. Smudge sneezed again, then backed out and began to bark.
“What’s that all about, Smudge?” Melody asked, picking Smudge’s leash off the tile.
Jillian grimaced. “No idea.”
“Do you mind if I take a look?” Al asked. “You don’t use poison for mice, do you?”
Jillian shuddered. “That’s all I need, mice. No, unless Perry was using it and didn’t tell me. Go right ahead, as long as you promise to take care of any dead mice you find.”
Al bent down, then straightened up, now holding a clear plastic bottle with a white label on it. He squinted at it, then said, “Do you recognize this?”
“What is it?” Jillian asked.
Al put the bottle carefully down in the right-hand side of the sink. When Jillian reached for the bottle, he grabbed her wrist to stop her. “I wouldn’t.” Then, calmly, he turned the water on over the other half of the sink and washed his hands with dish soap, as thoroughly as any doctor before surgery. He had grabbed Jillian with the hand that hadn’t touched the bottle, Melody realized.
Finally, Al turned the water off. “You don’t recognize it?”
“No,” Jillian said.
“It’s sodium nitroprusside.”
“What’s that?” Jillian asked.
“A type of cyanide,” Al said. “At low doses, it does a good job of lowering blood pressure.”
Melody felt as though a shock had run through her. Jillian looked nearly the same.
“Cyanide?” Jillian whispered.
“Did your husband have high blood pressure?”
“No.”
Al was watching her intently. “Where do you think this bottle came from?” he asked.
“I have no idea.”
“Plastic bags?” Al asked.
“Third drawer to your left,” Jillian answered.
Al used an inside-out plastic bag to pick up the bottle, then placed it in a plastic grocery bag. He folded the top shut, then signed and dated the bag. “You don’t have any staples or tape, do you?”
“Top drawer, the junk drawer.”
Al took out a roll of packing tape, sealed the bag, and said, “I’m sorry, Ms. Wexler, but I’m going to have to arrest you.”
“For what?” Jillian asked incredulously.
“For the murder of your husband,” Al said. “Unless you were planning to use that cyanide on someone else, that is.”
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Jillian had seemed too stunned to complain about her arrest until the official police cars pulled up. Then she began to protest that she had never seen the bottle before in her life, and she wasn’t planning to murder her husband, just leave him.
“I didn’t want him dead,” she kept saying. “I just wanted to get away from all his games.”
But Al only shook his head. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I have to bring you in,” he said in his calm, authoritative voice.
Jillian then claimed that she would have been “within her rights” to murder Perry, but she would have found it more satisfying to take him for everything he was worth during the divorce. “I would have made him give me the Seafood Shanty. Then I would have sold it to Horace, just for the pleasure of seeing Perry being driven out of business.”
“Ma’am, when I read you your rights, I advised you to keep your silence until you get a lawyer,” Al said. “Let me remind you of that advice again, because the detectives are about to step in the house, and it’s an important point.”
Within seconds, the detectives had climbed out of their cars and entered the house, taking over for Al and complimenting him on securing the evidence and suspect so quickly.
“Smudge here helped me,” Al said. “Sniffed that there was something strange in the cupboard and nosed around until she found it. So, if you find a dog hair on the bottle, she’s likely where it came from.”
“Good dog,” said the head detective, bending over to pat Smudge on the head.
Smudge eyed him warily, but then wagged her little tail.
Sooner than Melody would have thought possible, she and Al had been questioned and released, to go out on their date. But Melody was no longer in the mood to even pretend to have fun.
“I don’t know if you did the right thing, Al,” she said. “I don’t think Jillian is guilty.”
“If not her, then who?” Al asked. “And why? This is the strongest lead that’s been offered to us so far. If we’re doing our jobs as servants of the people and the law, then we have to arrest someone in the face of evidence as strong as this.”
“I just don’t know,” Melody said.
“Think about it,” Al said, sounding sincere. “And tell me anything you come up with.”
He drove her and Smudge home, but Melody found herself too restless to settle in, so she and Smudge went for a walk. Jillian had been angry at Perry. That was understandable. She had been betrayed. Eleanor had been angry at Gloria. She had felt like Melody and Perry had u
ndermined the legitimacy of the contest. And Gloria had been upset. She had been betrayed by Perry as well.
Melody went through several different scenarios, trying to find one that fit. Could Gloria have murdered Perry and framed Jillian for it? Could Jillian have murdered Perry and framed Gloria for it? What if the reason everything seemed off was that no one’s plans had gone according to plan? What if Eleanor had tried to sabotage Gloria’s pie in the contest, only to be stopped by Jillian, who knew that Gloria planned to murder her husband?
It all made Melody’s head spin.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
The next morning, Melody got up, took a shower, and had an idea. She checked on the bakery and spent a few hours minding the cash register and filling orders.
Then, at ten o’clock, she took Smudge for a walk to the newspaper office where Quincy Atkinson worked. When he saw her, he gave her a polite but non-committal smile, then brought her into his small office to talk. It was almost as though he had been expecting her.
“How’s Port Warren’s favorite baker doing this morning?” he asked.
“Curious,” Melody said.
“You’re curious, or you’re doing curiously?” Quincy asked.
“I’m curious about the photographs you took at the contest yesterday,” she said.
“Yesterday… yesterday,” Quincy said. “Oh, the day of the murder. I suppose you want to look at the photos, don’t you? I might just be able to be convinced. The photos are digital. I had to give the police the files already, but I made copies for myself and the newspaper as well.”
“You might be convinced?” Melody asked, narrowing her eyes. “What do you mean, convinced?”
Quincy threw his hands up. “Nothing dirty, woman! I just want a thank-you cake. And some of your brownie-stuffed chocolate-dipped strawberries. I’m single. I don’t get treats like that very often. And you’ll have to look at the photos here. If anyone finds out I let you look at the photos, that’s one thing—but giving you copies is another.”