by Diana DuMont
I just had to do it before the murderer figured out a way to completely cover his or her tracks. And I had to do it before Mitch found a way to pin the murder on me. No small task perhaps, but I was quickly learning that nothing was quite as motivating as the prospect of spending life in prison for a crime you didn’t commit.
Chapter Nine
The next two days were relatively uneventful, although the pie shop was surprisingly busy. It seemed that Molly had been right: once people tasted the pie, they weren’t able to stay away. Not even the fact that I was a suspect in a murder case could keep people from stopping by to try a peach brandy cobbler or a strawberry moonshine pie. Business was booming, and as long as I could clear my name in the end, it looked like being accused of murder might have been the best thing that could’ve happened for my little business.
I hadn’t had a chance to go back to the Sunshine Springs Winery, and I hadn’t had a chance to discuss things with Molly, either. The library was having a book fair this week, so Molly was just as busy as I was. We were planning to catch up on the weekend, but in the meantime, I was left on my own to ponder the meager clues I had.
As another day at the Drunken Pie Café came to an end, and the crowd of customers dwindled down, I was happy to look up and see a familiar, friendly face walking through the front door. The bells above the door jingled to announce that Scott was walking in with a delivery. I hadn’t seen him since Mitch had kicked him out of the police station, and seeing his warm smile now boosted my spirits more than I would have thought possible. My heart warmed as he grinned at me, and I felt a little bit of an electric rush zoom through my body.
I forced myself to push away thoughts of how handsome he was. Now was not the time to be ruining one of my only friendships in town with a silly crush. Besides, I wasn’t exactly ready for another relationship. My divorce had yet to be finalized. That would happen tomorrow, actually, and I figured I should settle into my new life as a single woman and business owner before I started thinking about men again. Not to mention, I should probably focus on clearing my name of murder before I focused on getting a date.
I could still look though, right? And boy, was Scott a looker.
“Afternoon,” he called out, completely oblivious to the embarrassing thoughts that were running through my head at the moment. “I have a delivery for you. Must be to-go cups. The box is super light.”
“Oh, good. I’m almost out of to-go cups. It’s amazing how quickly my little business has taken off. Being accused of murder apparently does wonders for your bottom line.”
Scott laughed, but then his face turned serious. “Speaking of that…I have some news you might be interested in.”
I leaned across the counter, hoping that he was about to tell me that some evidence had turned up to prove that Theo was the murderer. Or perhaps Josie had been proven to be the killer. I knew Violet had talked to Mitch about the pills Josie had supposedly put in Caitlin’s drink, but nothing had come of that as far as I’d heard. Maybe Violet was just a crazy old lady, and Mitch had known better than to put much stock in what she said. But in any case, before Scott could get out another word, the bell above the door was jingling again. I turned to greet my customer somewhat reluctantly. I should be grateful for any business I got, but at the moment I didn’t want any more customers. I wanted to know what Scott had to say.
When my eyes fell on the woman entering the pie shop, though, I realized that she wasn’t here to buy a slice of pie.
Josie Dixon was storming into my café, looking as though she was ready to kill me. I shivered slightly. It was possible, according to Violet at least, that Josie was the murderer. And if she had killed her own sister, what was to stop her from killing me? I cringed, glad that Scott was in the shop as well. Surely, Josie was not going to murder me in cold blood with an eyewitness standing right there. Grams had taken Sprinkles for the day again, and I wished she hadn’t. Maybe I needed to just keep Sprinkles at the shop here with me until this murder case got sorted out.
“You!” Josie screeched at me. Her cheeks had turned almost purple with anger.
“Josie,” I said, trying to keep my voice as calm and neutral as possible. “What can I do for you?”
“What can you do for me?” she spat out. “You can go confess to this murder, so I can get back to my life and move on from this whole horrible situation!”
I frowned at her. “Josie, I didn’t kill your sister. I’m sorry for your loss. Truly, I am. But I swear to you that I had nothing to do with her death.”
“I don’t believe you!” Josie yelled. “I have no idea what you had against my sister, but you had to have been the one who poisoned her. I don’t know how you did it, but somehow you put something in her food!”
“Josie, I swear I didn’t do it,” I repeated. “What reason would I have to kill your sister? You should be talking to Theo over at the winery. He’s the one your sister was investigating. He’s the one who stood to lose a lot. Why isn’t anyone going after the only one with the real motivation to kill Caitlin?”
I threw my hands up in exasperation. Apparently, even Josie didn’t think Theo was guilty.
“Theo didn’t know we were coming to the winery that day,” Josie retorted. “We purposely kept our visit secret until we got there. Caitlin wanted to catch him off guard in hopes that he wouldn’t be able to hide his guilt if we surprised him with sudden accusations.”
I almost laughed. Apparently, Caitlin had been trying the same thing on Theo that I had: attempting to surprise him into admitting guilt.
“And?” I asked, unable to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. “Did it work?”
Josie narrowed her eyes at me. “I don’t know. I didn’t think that Caitlin was able to get anything truly damning out of Theo that day. He was definitely surprised that we were there, and he was angry at Caitlin’s accusations. But to me, he did a pretty good job of acting innocent. In any case, by the time he realized we were there, we had already all had a full round of tastings. It was too late for him to put anything in our drinks. If he wanted to poison us, he would’ve had to have done it another day when he had more time. Which means it must have been you. For some reason, you poisoned her food when we came to your pie shop!”
“Josie, you’re not making any sense. I had no time to prepare a poison either! I didn’t know you were coming to my pie shop that day. And even if I had, what motivation did I have to kill your sister?”
“I don’t know! That’s what I’m here to find out.” Josie raised an accusing finger and pointed it in my direction. “You ruined my life, you know that? My sister is dead, the love of my life broke up with me, and I can’t even leave Sunshine Springs without getting permission from the sheriff or he’s going to think I’m trying to run away from a murder accusation!”
“Todd broke up with you?” I asked, ignoring for the moment the fact that she was screaming at me and accusing me of murder.
She let out an exasperated sigh. “Yes! He told me that he loves me, but that this whole ordeal is too much drama for him. He said he doesn’t want to date someone who gets him tangled up in a murder investigation.”
I considered this information. I remembered thinking that Todd was acting guilty when we were first accused of murder down at the police station. But over the last few days, he had fallen to the bottom of my suspect list. Theo had a much greater motivation to kill Caitlin, and if what Violet said about Josie was true, then there was some possible evidence that Josie had been the one responsible for the poisoning. The only motivation Todd would have had to kill Caitlin was Caitlin’s interference in his relationship with Josie. But surely, if he had killed Caitlin for Josie, then he wouldn’t have broken up with Josie after Caitlin’s death.
Unless, of course, he was nervous about being caught. Maybe he thought that breaking up with Josie would make him look like a less likely suspect. I chewed my lower lip in frustration as Josie started yelling at me again. I had no strong evidence against anyone,
and I was getting more frustrated with every day that passed. I needed to figure out a way to definitively prove that someone else had committed the murder. But there was no hard evidence against anyone, and I felt like the more I learned about Caitlin and the whole situation, the cloudier everything became.
Theo was still my top suspect, but if what Josie said was true, and he hadn’t had time to actually poison Caitlin, perhaps it had been Todd after all. Or perhaps Violet was right and it had been Josie. Josie might be trying to cover her own tracks right now. This whole thing was so confusing.
“Are you even listening to me?” Josie yelled. Her angry screeching drew me back to the present moment. But before I could figure out what to say to her, she had run out of patience and was lunging across the counter at me. Her hands reached for my neck, and before I could react she was starting to squeeze tightly, cutting off my airflow. I struggled against her, shocked that someone so petite could be so strong. She was in a rage, and for a moment I panicked. Was I going to be able to get her off of me?
Before I could panic too much, I heard a strong, deep voice yelling at Josie. I had forgotten that Scott was in the room, but I was so glad that he was.
“Hey!” he yelled. “Get off of her!”
The next thing I knew, Scott had grabbed Josie’s hands and pried them away from my neck. He gave her a shove across the room, sending her tumbling backward into one of the café tables. She shrieked as chairs went flying, but Scott paid her no mind. He turned to me, concern etched deeply into his eyes.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
Shaken, I nodded. “I…I think so.”
I rubbed my neck, which felt tender where Josie’s fingers had been. I had a feeling I was going to have bruises there tomorrow, but Josie hadn’t done any serious damage. She had, however, brutally attacked me.
Suddenly, I was moving her back up to the top of my suspect list. If she was willing to try to choke me, did that mean she was willing to poison someone? Had she been willing to poison her own sister? I looked over at her with disgust. She was on her hands and knees on the floor of the pie shop, cursing at me and cursing at Scott. Her purse had flown out of her hand, and its contents were everywhere. She was scrambling to pick them up and put them back into her black leather bag.
“Look what you did!” she yelled. “This is all your fault! You’ve made a complete mess of everything!”
I glanced at Scott, who was scowling at her. I wasn’t sure if she was talking to me or Scott—or both—but I wanted her out of my store. Overcome with a sudden burst of anger, I hopped over the counter and kicked her wallet across the floor toward her.
“Get out!” I yelled. “Get your stuff, and get out! I don’t want to see you in my pie shop again. I didn’t kill your sister, and strangling me isn’t going to bring her back!”
Josie looked up at me with an angry scowl, then grabbed her wallet and threw it into her bag. As she reached for a small notebook that had fallen out of her purse, I realized that a small, unmarked bottle that looked like a pill bottle had also fallen out of her purse. It was under a chair that she had her back to at the moment.
My pulse quickened. Was that the same bottle of pills that Violet had seen her using at the winery the day Caitlin died? Was it possible that Violet had been right, and Josie had poisoned her sister?
As quickly as I could, I strode past Josie, bent down to pick up the bottle, and slipped it into my apron pocket. I walked back around the counter and stood there as she threw everything back into her purse.
She was angry, and never stopped cursing at me. She didn’t seem to miss the bottle of pills, and once she had looked around and made sure that nothing else from her purse remained on the floor, she stood and kicked one of the chairs that had fallen, causing it to go clanging across the floor a few feet. She turned in my direction, literally spat, then hiked her purse over her shoulder and stormed out the front door.
I turned back to look at Scott, unsure of what to say to him. He was shaking his head and walking toward the pile of overturned chairs that Josie had left in her wake. He started reaching down to right the chairs, and he glanced back at me with concern still filling his eyes.
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I’m fine. A little shaken up, but fine.” I didn’t think he’d seen the pill bottle or noticed that I’d grabbed it. If he had, he didn’t say anything about it. Instead, he continued shaking his head in disgust as he righted all of the overturned furniture.
“I can’t believe that girl,” he said. “She was acting like she was literally going to strangle you!”
I fingered at the pill bottle in my apron pocket. Perhaps, I thought, if she had strangled me, it wouldn’t have been the first time that she’d killed someone. With shaking hands, I pulled the pill bottle out and held it up to show Scott. I needed his help, and I was hoping I was right in believing I could trust him.
He looked at the bottle in confusion. “What’s that?”
I took a deep breath and explained it to him. I told him what Violet had told me about seeing Josie put ground up pills into Caitlin’s drink, and then I told him that this had fallen out of Josie’s purse just now. Scott turned pale as I explained everything.
“You should take that to the police. They’ll want to analyze it and see what it is.”
“I should,” I said slowly. “But I’m not sure Mitch will believe me that this came from Josie. Maybe I should find a way to have it analyzed myself, and then I can confront Josie with it.”
Scott frowned. “You’re right to be wary of Mitch. And if you took in this bottle, he probably wouldn’t trust you that it came from Josie. Tell you what. I know some of the guys in forensics. Let me take the bottle and ask them to analyze it. If it turns out to be something poisonous, I’ll figure out a way to bring it up with Mitch. If Josie has poison, this probably isn’t the only bottle of it she has. I’ll convince Mitch to get a search warrant and go through all of Josie’s things.”
I nodded weakly. It wasn’t the most ideal way to handle things, but I didn’t see what choice I had. Mitch would listen to Scott more than he would listen to me. With any luck, Scott could convince Mitch to get a search warrant and go through Josie’s things. I handed the bottle over to Scott.
“Here you go. Please keep me posted.”
Scott nodded. “I will. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine.” A lump formed in my throat. “Thank you for looking out for me. I have to say, even though this town frustrates me, it’s nice to know that there are good people who see beyond the fact that I’m an outsider. You and Molly have both been so kind to me, even though I’ve been accused of murder.”
Scott shrugged. “I like to think I can tell good people when I see them. And you’re good people. Don’t worry. I know this is all stressful right now, but I’m sure it will work out. In the end, the truth will come out. It always does.” He smiled warmly at me, causing my stomach to flip-flop delightfully.
I smiled back weakly. “Thanks. And thanks for rescuing me from Josie. I owe you.”
“If you really want to thank me, I wouldn’t mind a complimentary slice of that peach brandy cobbler.”
I grinned at him. “Easy enough. I’d trade a slice of peach brandy cobbler for my life any day.”
I went to grab a plate, and put an extra large serving of cobbler on it for him. I set it on the counter, and Scott picked up the fork to start eating it without bothering to carry it to a table. After he’d taken his first bite, I reminded him that he’d said he had some news for me.
“What were you going to tell me before Josie stormed in here?” I asked.
“Oh! I almost forgot about that. It seemed like such a big deal, but I’ll be honest: I’m not sure it’s that exciting of news considering that Josie just tried to strangle you. I was going to tell you that I overheard down at the station that Todd is missing.”
“Todd is missing? That seems like a pretty big piece of news to m
e.”
“Yeah, I suppose so. I overheard Mitch talking about how they tried to contact Todd and haven’t been able to reach him. He left the hotel where he’d been staying, and he’s not answering his cell phone or his home phone back in San Francisco. I thought it pointed to the fact that he might be guilty, but after the way Josie just acted, and after what you told me about the pills, it seems like she might be the more likely suspect. Still, I suppose it’s significant when a murder suspect disappears.”
I nodded slowly. This new bit of news had only deepened my confusion.
“Perhaps they were working together,” I said. “Maybe they both wanted to kill Caitlin, and now that it’s done and they’re being faced with a murder investigation, they’re turning on each other.”
Scott shrugged. “Perhaps. But I feel like there are pieces of this puzzle we’re missing. It doesn’t all seem to fit together quite right if you ask me.”
I sighed. “I have to agree with you. Do me a favor, and keep your ears open for anything else you might overhear at the Sheriff’s office.”
“Will do,” Scott said with a grin. “You can pay me for the information with more slices of peach brandy cobbler. This stuff is so good that you could probably convince me to eat it even if I knew there was poison in it.”
I groaned. “Don’t say that.”
Scott shrugged. “Just trying to lighten the mood. But seriously, I’ll keep an ear open for you. For now, I need to get going. I have a few more deliveries to make today. Are you sure you’re all right? I’m worried about leaving you here alone after what Josie just did.”
“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. I doubt she’ll be back today, and she’s not going to catch me off guard like that again.”
“Alright,” Scott said, but then grabbed a napkin and pulled a pen from his pocket. He scribbled down his phone number and pushed the napkin toward me. “Here’s my cell number. Call me anytime, day or night, if you think you’re in trouble.”