“And you don’t think the police will check Holpurn out for the same reasons?” Joe asked wryly.
Irma, though, seemed a lot more understanding. “We know Dinah’s your friend as well as your employee, Carrie. We understand why you want to make sure she’s not arrested for something she didn’t do.” Then Irma hesitated. “She couldn’t have done it, could she?”
“Of course not.” I wished I felt as sure as I sounded.
“Well … look, dear. We don’t always know who our patrons are anyway, but if we happen to see that Holpurn man, we’ll call you—but only if you promise to stay here to question him, then let one of us or one of our employees accompany you to your stores or the clinic, wherever you’re going. And also if you promise then to be very careful and watch out for him, in case he’s really insidious and tries to hurt you afterward.”
“That’s so sweet, Irma,” I told her. “And I’ll be very happy to do as you say. I don’t want to be hurt or anything else, so I’ll definitely try to be smart. And I won’t just stay on the lookout for Holpurn, either. He’s had two men with him every time I’ve seen him, who are apparently his brothers. I’ll have to watch out for them, too. And you be careful as well. If Holpurn was horrible enough to kill the mayor, no one really knows what he, or his cohorts, are capable of now.”
“Maybe we’d better not serve them,” Joe stated, crossing his arms.
“Or maybe he got paroled early because he really was innocent,” I said. “We just don’t know. But we’re smart enough, all of us, to be careful—right? If nothing else, please take this conversation as a warning, since we’ve had another murder in this town with no answers so far. Who knows what the motive, or state of mind, of the killer might be? Everyone could be in danger.”
I hoped not. But the Joes meant a lot to me, and if anything happened to them as even a remote result of anything I said or did, I would never forgive myself.
Biscuit and I left a short time later, after I insisted on paying for my drink and tipping Kit. I hugged Irma and Joe yet again and promised to come back soon.
And to be careful. And smart.
Fourteen
Dinah was late coming to the shops the next morning.
Fortunately, I’d scheduled Janelle to come in first to help with the baking, and she popped in early, all jazzed and ready to work. I gathered that she had spent an enjoyable night with my brother. While standing across from me in the kitchen, kneading dough for some Icing cookies, she told me they had gone to see a new movie that had just come out, all about a photographer—which is what she was in her spare time.
“Great film,” she said, “all about how people nabbed some wildlife poachers by taking their pictures in a sanctuary.” Janelle took photos mostly of people, from what I knew, but I was aware she was an animal lover, especially of dogs, as demonstrated by her love for her own pup, Go. Goliath, as he was officially called, was her beautiful, black, purebred Labrador retriever. She sometimes brought Go into the shops to keep Biscuit company but hadn’t this week. She did have a nice and reliable dog walker take Go out a couple of times a day when he stayed at home, though.
“Sounds like a good movie,” I said, making a mental note to try to see it, preferably with Reed.
We finished our baking in time to fill the display cases in both shops before opening time at seven. Dinah was due to come in then—but she didn’t. I had some work to do in my office but it had to wait, since at the moment Janelle and I were the only ones around to tend to the shops, and we had some customers in both immediately, which was a good thing.
I didn’t mind taking care of those customers in the Barkery. Not at all. Plus, I got to see that Biscuit had settled down in her enclosure and mostly lay there watching people come in, sometimes with their dogs, to buy treats.
But I was concerned about Dinah. Surely she hadn’t been arrested overnight—had she? I considered calling her between packing treats into bags or boxes and taking care of payments at the front counter, but I decided to wait, at least for now.
If she didn’t come in before, say, nine o’clock, then I’d definitely call her.
She arrived at eight thirty, entering the Barkery from the kitchen door, dressed in a yellow Barkery and Biscuits T-shirt over black jeans and wearing a large smile like she used to wear nearly all the time—but not over the past few days.
“Hi, Carrie,” she called out, walking directly to the glass counter where a new customer had just appeared with a miniature pinscher mix. Dinah immediately opened the counter’s rear door and removed a couple of treat samples for the delighted min-pin. Since she’d entered from the kitchen, I assumed she’d done the usual: left her purse on the bottom shelf of a supply cabinet and shut the door, then washed her hands carefully before coming into the shops. She had been following that routine longer than I had owned the shops.
Dinah continued to smile and act happy as she waited on her customer. I wondered about the origin of her happiness. Was it just because she hadn’t been arrested? Because she was aware someone else had been, and since I’d been here in the shops I hadn’t heard? Because she was engaged in conducting some research she enjoyed, whether or not it was related to Henry’s murder?
The good thing was that our shops were busy that morning. I’d been going back and forth between the Barkery and Icing and just didn’t have time, with people coming in and out, to take Dinah aside and chat. I was glad she appeared happy, but under the current circumstances, I was very eager to find out why.
I was about to hurry over to Icing and once more see how Janelle was getting along there and help out if necessary. But as a matter of habit, I looked toward the Barkery door as it swung open, making its small bell ring.
I didn’t move when I saw who entered, since I felt shock zing through me. Not that I should have been surprised, no matter who walked through the door. We’d had some unusual customers at times, some of whom were downright nasty and others who simply seemed a bit nuts.
But something didn’t feel right at all when Mike Holpurn and his brothers suddenly stood inside the Barkery, all of them scowling, with their arms crossed.
And staring at Dinah.
Biscuit started barking, which was unusual for her. She loved people and generally stayed quiet no matter how many customers we had or how stressed any of them seemed to get about long lines or whatever.
“It’s okay, Biscuit,” I told her, heading over to pat her head. She quieted but still seemed tense, the way she sat there and stared.
Her bark had been loud enough to attract Janelle’s attention. She poked her head into the shop from Icing, then backed out again with a worried look on her face.
Fortunately, we weren’t crowded at that moment. Our most recent Barkery customers had just left. I didn’t like what was happening, whatever it was, but at least no patrons were here to see it—or possibly to be in danger, no matter that I’d told Biscuit it would be okay. I certainly didn’t trust Holpurn the confessed killer, nor his buddies, and their apparent attitude didn’t help.
“You’re Dinah Greeley,” Holpurn said, glaring in Dinah’s direction. “We’ve met before.”
“Yes, I am, Mr. Holpurn,” she said, with a small, happy grin on her face. “And please remind me who the gentlemen with you are?”
Very nice way to ask, although I doubted that either of them would rise to the level of a gentleman.
“My brothers, if it’s any of your business,” grumped Holpurn. “Bill and Johnny.”
Aha! I finally knew their names. All three guys were tall and had receding hairlines, although Mike seemed to have the least hair. One brother had much darker hair than Mike, and the other’s was slightly lighter. I’d already figured Mike was in his forties. One of the brothers appeared to be older and the other younger.
I still had loads of questions, such as had Holpurn actually murdered Mayor Flora? Had one o
r both of his brothers been involved? Had they helped to get him out of prison? In any case, how and why had he been paroled?
But at the moment, what I really wanted to know was why they were at the Barkery—and what they wanted with Dinah.
I was about to ask, but Dinah beat me to it. “Welcome, Mike, Bill, and Johnny,” she said, aiming her smile at them. “I’m so glad you came by today. I wasn’t sure I had the right phone number when I texted Mike with the invitation.” This was probably why she was smiling, then. Her research bug was buzzing. “Now that you’re here, what can we do for you? Do you have any dogs? Would you like to buy them some treats from the Barkery? Or would you like to buy yourself some treats from Icing on the Cake? We might even give you a free sample or two if you’re nice to us.”
“We have no intention of being nice to you, Dinah Greeley,” Mike growled. “You’ve certainly not been nice to me. That’s why we came here today, on your invitation.”
Uh-oh. What did that mean?
“Oh, do you mean that Detective Crunoll told you what I said about you? The thing was, he was questioning me in great depth, as if I’d had something to do with Henry Schulzer’s murder. I just suggested he ought to look further and mentioned some of the things about you I’d found out during my research. I’m a writer, you know, and I’m always conducting research. Right, Carrie?”
All eyes moved to stare at me, and I gave a faint smile back. “Definitely,” I said. “But research doesn’t always provide answers right away.” I was hoping to say something to get these men to back off—and I also wanted to find a way to call my buddy Wayne Crunoll and let him know what was going on.
“No, of course not,” Dinah said. “And what I do with it is create fiction, anyway, although I still haven’t published much. I haven’t had a lot of time to do anything yet, but I was trying to figure out how you got paroled only ten years after confessing to the mayor’s murder, and—well, I got the idea that there was more to your confession back then, that you might have been attempting to protect someone by pleading guilty. But you eventually came to believe that Henry Schulzer had killed his own wife. Which meant you no longer needed to take the blame to protect someone. Who were you protecting back then?”
Ah. More research.
Mike Holpurn made a startled motion from where he stood near the doorway. “What do you mean?”
“Okay, you still don’t want to talk about it. But I gather the authorities finally bought into the possibility that you were innocent, despite your confession, and gave you parole. And once you were out, you decided to pursue your theory that the mayor’s husband was the killer, right?”
“Now, look.” This was either Bill or Johnny. “We’re just here to make sure you know we’re aware that you’ve been pointing fingers at Mike about the Schulzer murder, as if Mike did it and not you. Well, we know otherwise, and we’ve already told the cops, but in any case we want you to shut up about Mike. Got it?”
Dinah’s expression froze. “I don’t like to be threatened,” she said softly.
“Then shut up and we won’t threaten you,” said one of the brothers.
This needed to stop. But before I jumped in to tell them to leave, Dinah said, “I’m sorry—kind of—that I mentioned you when I was being questioned. But … well, it was partly to try to get them to stop grilling me that way, as if they were certain I’d killed Mr. Schulzer—which I didn’t, by the way.” She waved her hand as Mike took a step closer to her on the tile floor. “I didn’t tell them you did it, either—although I also didn’t tell them you didn’t do it. I was just trying to figure out if they had other people they considered major suspects. And I shouldn’t be a suspect, by the way, just because I kind of argued with the man. We were in public, and he was giving me a hard time, and—well, never mind.”
It was a good decision to stop talking, I thought. Mike had taken yet another step toward her, and she wisely slipped in behind the counter.
“Okay,” I finally broke in. “Let’s just take the position that no one in this shop right now was the person who killed Henry Schulzer, all right? At least as far as the cops are concerned. We can suspect anyone we want to, but we’ll keep it to ourselves when we’re discussing the situation with the authorities.”
“That’s not gonna work,” said one of the brothers. He’d moved toward the front of the store, which concerned me. Was he attempting to block us if we tried to run outside? Or maybe he was making sure no customers came in, since I thought I saw a couple of people with dogs come up to the front window.
But they weren’t the ones to open the door. No, it was detectives Wayne Crunoll and Bridget Morana who walked in.
“Hello, all of you,” Wayne said. “Now, what are all of you doing here together? Confessing? Were you in collusion when you murdered Henry Schulzer?” He was grinning broadly, so I figured he was kidding. At least I hoped so.
“Oh, we were just discussing other possible suspects to sic you onto,” Mike lied, looking first at the detectives with a similar grin, then turning back toward us with what appeared to be a warning scowl. “Right?”
“Close enough,” Dinah said. “Mike and I know we’ve each been pointing fingers at the other when we’ve talked to you, and we’ve agreed not to do that anymore.”
That seemed to appease Mike, at least somewhat, since he nodded and his posture appeared to relax a little. “I think it’s time for us to go,” he told his brothers.
Which made me relax. Especially since the detectives were here.
I considered sending the Holpurns out with some sample people treats from Icing, just to ease any remaining tension—although it wouldn’t stop any of us from suspecting the others. But I mostly wanted them to go, so I didn’t even suggest it.
In moments, they’d walked out the door, and I inhaled deeply, only realizing then that I’d been holding my breath.
“Thanks for coming,” I told the detectives. I decided to give them some samples, both from the Barkery for the Wayne’s dogs and from Icing for themselves.
“Any time,” Detective Bridget said. “Oh, and you can thank your assistant Janelle for calling us rather than 911. Since we’ve already spoken with her about this case, she knew of our involvement—and interest.”
As if she’d overheard, which she probably had, Janelle pushed open the door between the two shops and walked in.
“Are you two okay?” She headed toward me with her arms outstretched for a big hug.
I reciprocated. “We are, thanks to you,” I said. I pulled back and looked at the detectives. “And to be fair, the Holpurns didn’t exactly threaten us, but they were clearly unhappy that Mike’s name had come up in your questioning of Dinah, and maybe elsewhere.”
“And maybe that’s because we haven’t removed any of them from our list of suspects,” Wayne said. “Nor have we removed anyone.” He looked straight at Dinah. “No matter how well our interviews seem to go. So if any of you want to confess right now, we’re ready.” That smile of his reappeared.
“Thanks,” I said, “but not right now. Or ever. But if we happen to figure out who actually committed the murder and come up with some proof—”
“We’ll let you know right away,” Dinah finished.
Fifteen
Dinah came in to work on Sunday, as scheduled, and then took her regular days off on Monday and Tuesday. She and I kept in touch by phone calls and text messages now and then—something I encouraged so that I could remain certain she still hadn’t been arrested. Plus, I was doing some nosing around on my own to try to ensure that neither she nor anyone else who’d been at her birthday party was taken into custody by the cops.
Not that I had any real idea about who killed Henry. Not yet, at least.
Things remained fairly normal at the shops over those next few days, as well as at the vet clinic, where I had a couple more shifts while my helpers did their us
ual things at the Barkery and Icing.
No visits from Wayne or Bridget during that time, either—not even when Dinah was working. Nor did either of them stop in to get my current take on who’d killed the former mayor’s husband, despite my successes in figuring out past murders.
Soon it was Wednesday, and I was in the kitchen baking, and Biscuit was inside the Barkery as usual. Of course my mind kept slipping to the current murder situation, but fortunately not much appeared to be going on. In fact, I felt rather complacent with nothing in particular happening, at least that I could see. Dinah remained free, and so did everyone else.
Which meant, of course, that the cops hadn’t gotten enough evidence to arrest anyone … yet. But I had no doubt that they would. Eventually.
Now, placing the dough for some of our very special red velvet cupcakes into the white pleated paper cups we used, I couldn’t quite keep my mind off it—maybe because Dinah would arrive at the shops soon.
We’d talk, I felt sure. In the meantime, I’d been encouraging her to do her favorite thing and keep me informed about her research into who might have had something against Henry.
Like she did? Henry’s threats against Dinah had been fairly serious—potentially ruining her writing ambitions, or her life. But heck, her altercation with Henry had been too spontaneous and too brief for me to consider Dinah much of a suspect. Both arguments had happened on the same night, and they seemed related to the stress of the party. Most importantly, I knew Dinah. I just couldn’t accept the possibility that she might be guilty.
Still, I’d feel a lot better when the real culprit was caught.
Someone else who’d been at the resort restaurant that night?
One interesting thing was that Dinah had found out, after our little meeting with them, that Mike Holpurn and his brothers Bill and Johnny had rented an apartment from an Airbnb host. She wasn’t sure how long their commitment was, but at least we now knew where we could find them—maybe. Their renting the place didn’t mean they were staying there, and even if they were, that didn’t mean they were doing anything other than sleeping there at night.
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