A Burned Out Baker: Classic Diner Mystery #7 (The Classic Diner Mysteries) (6 page)

“And if we choose not to?” Moose asked.

“Then Curtis and three of his friends will be delighted to show you the way,” Cliff said as three other men appeared from the office behind the desk.

“Thanks for the offer, but we know the way out on our own,” I said as I took Moose’s arm.

My grandfather was reluctant to go with me, but I finally managed to persuade him that it was time to leave.

Once we were back outside, Moose pulled his arm free. “We didn’t have to leave, Victoria.”

“Are you kidding? I didn’t want to ruin the Senior Bowling League,” I said. “Just think about what a mess you would have made handling all those thugs on your own.”

“I could have stood my ground with them,” Moose said, though he knew just as much as I did that it was a ridiculous premise.

“I’m sure that you could have, but this way you’ll be rested enough to tackle the rest of our suspects.”

“Who did you have in mind next?” he asked me as he started the truck engine.

“I’d like to have a chat with Sandy myself. The last I heard, she was working at the Starlight Diner out on Route 70 near Laurel Landing.”

“Fine,” Moose said. “We can even order some pie while we’re there.”

“You’re not really still hungry after all we had for lunch, are you?” I asked. My grandfather could put it away, but I was still a little surprised that he could eat anything so soon after lunch.

“Pie doesn’t count, Victoria,” Moose said. “There’s always room for that.”

“Fine by me,” I said. “I’m just having sweet tea myself.”

“You say that now, but wait until you see their display case. I’m guessing that you won’t be able to refuse.”

I was indeed a fan of the diner’s desserts, as my waistline attested whenever I went there. “Maybe we could just split a piece.”

He laughed heartily at my suggestion. “Dream on. If you want some pie, you’d better order it yourself, because I’m not about to share.”

“I know that all too well,” I said. Now that my grandfather was in a little better mood, I asked him, “What do you think about Cliff Pearson’s reaction to the news about Barry Jackson?”

Moose hesitated a moment, and then he said, “My first impression was that he didn’t know about the fire until we told him. Did you see him pause when he heard the news?”

“Maybe he was trying to think of something to say,” I said.

“Exactly. If he’d been responsible for it himself, he’s the kind of guy to have a story ready for the cops or anyone else who asked him about it.”

“So, you think he’s innocent?” I asked.

Moose laughed at the suggestion. “Victoria, I doubt that man came out of the womb innocent, but my gut tells me that he didn’t kill Barry Jackson. The money Barry owed him had to mean more to him than a lesson in the pitfalls of not paying to his other customers. Cliff looked genuinely pleased when I suggested that it might be a warning, so I doubt that was his motive. Word is going to get out that Barry wouldn’t or couldn’t pay and that Cliff took steps to punish him, but I doubt that the rumors will be any truer than most of the other gossip we hear.”

“I see your point,” I said, “but I’m not ready to strike his name off our list permanently just yet.”

“We can leave him there as far as I’m concerned too, but in the meantime, I think we should focus on the other suspects on our list. I hope we don’t add too many more names to it in the course of our investigation. We’re already drowning in the possibilities.”

“Who knew that a baker could make that many people angry enough to kill him?”

“I don’t know, but we need to find out before folks start questioning our own involvement in the case,” Moose said.

“You’re right. This is one case we need to solve, and fast.”

“I don’t see Sandy anywhere, do you?” I asked Moose as we walked into the Starlight Diner in Laurel Landing. The place looked as though it had been scooped up straight from the fifties and brought forward in time. The floor was tiled with alternating black and white linoleum squares, the booths were all covered in shiny red vinyl, and the countertop was stainless steel. A jukebox played in one corner, and the waitresses on duty wore outfits straight from long ago.

“Let’s ask,” Moose said as he approached one of the women waiting on tables.

“Have a seat anywhere you’d like and I’ll be right with you,” she said automatically as my grandfather and I approached her.

“We’d like to sit in Sandy Hardesty’s section, if we could,” Moose said.

She pointed with her pen as she said, “It’s going to be over there by the window, but you’re going to have to wait if she’s the one you want. Sandy’s not officially due to start work for another five minutes.”

“Do you happen to know where she is right now?” I asked. “We’d love a chance to chat with her before she gets too busy.”

She shrugged and pointed outside. “Sandy allows herself one cigarette a day before her shift, but she doesn’t like to be disturbed when she’s back there.”

“Fine, then,” Moose said. “Thanks for the information.”

I hadn’t really wanted pie initially, but my grandfather had gotten me in the mood for a slice. As he headed back for the door, I asked, “Does this mean that we’re not getting pie after all?”

“Not right now,” he said, “but maybe later.”

We went outside and around the building, and there Sandy was, sitting at a worn-out old picnic table in back of the restaurant putting out a cigarette. “What are you two doing here? Don’t you get enough diner food at your place?”

“We wanted to talk to you about Barry Jackson before your shift started,” Moose said.

Sandy frowned, and then she stood. “What about him?”

“We understand you two had a bad breakup recently,” I said.

“I wouldn’t say that it was particularly bad,” she replied, trying her best to feign an air of nonchalance that wasn’t quite convincing. “It was more of a mutual agreement that we’d be better off seeing other people. Why are you asking me about Barry?” Her expression clouded up again. “Did he say something otherwise? Because if he did, the two of us are going to have ourselves a little chat.”

“Relax, Sandy, we didn’t find out about you from him. Well, at least not directly.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sandy asked. “If he’s been spreading rumors that our breakup was anything other than mutual, then he’s lying, and I’ll make sure he shuts his mouth from now on when it comes to me.”

I suddenly realized that she must not have heard about the fire if she was telling us the truth. “Sandy, there’s something that you need to know.”

“Hang on a second,” she said as she pulled out her phone. “I’m going to get to the bottom of this myself right here and now.” I tried to tell her what had happened, but she held a hand up as she waited for an answer that wasn’t ever going to come. After a few moments, Sandy put her phone back in her purse. “He’s not picking up, the little coward.”

“Sandy, he’s not answering because Barry is dead,” Moose said to her.

The waitress looked at my grandfather as though he’d just told her a bad joke in poor taste. “Sure he is. At least he’s going to wish that he was after I get through with him.”

“It’s true,” I said. “There was a fire at the bakery this morning, and they found him inside.”

“No. No. I don’t believe it,” she said softly. “He can’t be.”

“I’m sorry, but it’s true,” I said.

I watched a gamut of emotions run through her, and for a moment I thought she was going to lose it completely, but miraculously, Sandy finally sighed heavily as she said, “That’s tough news to hear. The man wasn’t all that nice to me in the end, but he didn’t deserve to die.” There were no tears or wails of grief from her. It was as though she’d already come to grips with what had happened. Or maybe it was just the end of her acting with us. If she’d set that fire herself, it was entirely possible that this was the way she’d decided to play it when Barry’s body was discovered.

Either way, this woman was cold inside, icier than I could even imagine.

“Aren’t you more upset than that?” Moose asked her. “You must have loved him at one point not all that long ago.”

Sandy tried not to dwell on my grandfather’s words. “I don’t know if it was ever really love. What does that matter now anyway? He’s gone, and there’s no getting him back now.”

“Sandy, we heard the message you left him on his answering machine,” I said. We needed to crack through that tough façade of hers, and that was the only weapon we had left at our disposal.

“What message? I never left him a message,” she said angrily.

Wow, she was actually going to try to deny it. “It’s no use. We have a recording of it ourselves. Would you like me to play it back for you?”

I showed her my phone and started to dial my home number when she said, “Fine. So I left him a message a while back. I was upset, but I didn’t mean it.”

“It sounded to us on the tape like you did,” Moose said. “Where were you this morning between five and six AM?”

“I was home, alone, in my bed and sound asleep. Where were you?”

“I was with my wife,” Moose said, “but then again, I don’t need an alibi.”

“That’s not what I heard. Everybody’s talking about it. Barry was going to take your diner away from you.”

“It’s not his diner,” I said. “It’s mine.”

“Not for long, from the way I heard it. I suppose you were with your husband this morning.”

“Actually, I was on my way to work for fifteen minutes of that,” I said, realizing that I really didn’t have an airtight alibi of my own.

“Victoria, she doesn’t need to know that,” Moose snapped.

“The whole world’s going to know soon enough,” I said. “Besides, I don’t have anything to hide.”

“Neither do I,” Sandy said. “I didn’t kill him, and I certainly didn’t burn him to death. As a matter of fact, I’m afraid of fire.”

“That’s going to be hard to prove, don’t you think?” Moose asked.

“Not really. When I was a little girl, I went camping with my folks. They were taking a nap, and I found my dad’s lighter. I was playing with it, I dropped it, and the weeds around us caught on fire. I burned half of a national forest down before they could put it out. Ever since, an open flame scares me to death.”

“And yet you light up a cigarette every day,” I said.

“That I can’t help. It’s an addiction. You know who you should really be talking to?”

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“Susan Proctor. She’s the one Barry dumped me for. That chick is certifiably insane if you ask me. She could have easily gotten upset with Barry and lit him up.”

“What makes you think she’s crazy?” Moose asked.

“Have you seen where she lives? It’s nothing but a hole in the ground. Literally.” Sandy glanced at her watch, and then she said, “Listen, I’m sorry about Barry, but there’s nothing else to say. I need to go now; I’ve got to go to work or they will dock my pay, as bad as it is.”

We started to follow her into the diner when Moose’s cell phone rang. Sandy went ahead, and I started to follow her myself when Moose grabbed my arm. I stayed behind, and I heard him say, “Fine. We’ll be there shortly.”

“What was that all about?” I asked Moose.

“It was your husband.”

“What’s wrong with Greg?” I asked, worried that somehow this mess had come back on him already.

“Nothing. Someone is at the diner, and she wants to talk to us right now.”

“Is it Susan Proctor?” I asked.

“No, though it would probably be better for me if it were. Holly is waiting for us there. She told Greg that she had something important to tell us.”

“Martha must be pleased to have her there,” I said sarcastically. Judge Holly Dixon was an old friend of my grandfather’s, and though he swore nothing had ever happened between them, she was the one woman who could make my grandmother jealous. I had a hunch that she had a reason to feel that way, not that Moose would ever be unfaithful to Martha, but he hadn’t been married to her his entire life, though he often claimed that it felt that way. All I knew was that there was some kind of history between the judge and my grandfather, and I wasn’t really sure that I wanted to know anything more than that.

“We both know better than that,” Moose said. The man was so distracted by the judge’s appearance that he’d missed my sarcasm, a sure sign that her presence at our diner had thrown him off. “We need to get back to the diner right now.”

“What about Sandy?” I asked.

“We can discuss her on the way, but I’m not sure what else there is to say. It doesn’t matter right now, anyway; this can’t wait.”

“Fine. Let’s go then.”

It appeared that I’d have to have my pie later. I agreed with Moose, though. This had to be important, or else the judge wouldn’t have come to The Charming Moose.

As my grandfather drove us back to Jasper Fork, I asked, “Do you believe Sandy’s telling us the truth?”

“Which part of her story are you talking about?” he asked. “The part about the fire from her childhood sounds suspiciously convenient as an explanation for why she couldn’t have done it.”

“I might give it a little more credence if she hadn’t been smoking when we got there.”

“You don’t buy her aversion to fire, do you?”

“Moose, a flame is a flame, and if something happened when she was a kid, surely it would have scarred her enough to keep her from ever having a lighter in her life again.”

“Who knows? Maybe it’s true. Then again, she could be a pyromaniac for all we know.”

“She very well may be,” I said. “I want to check out her story, and I’d also like to talk to Luke Yates about her.”

“What do you want to ask Luke?” Moose asked.

“I want to see if there have been any other suspicious fires surrounding Sandy’s life in the past,” I said. “I have a hunch this might be part of a pattern.”

“That’s a good idea,” Moose said, clearly distracted. He wasn’t watching the road close enough as his front left tire drifted off the pavement into the gravel. “Sorry about that,” he said as he overcorrected and got back on the road.

“Would you like me to drive?” I asked him.

“No, I’m fine,” Moose said.

“Then pay closer attention, okay? I want to get there just as fast as you do, but I’d prefer to make it all in one piece.”

“You’re right. I’ll be more careful.”

I glanced over at the truck’s speedometer and saw that he’d backed off a little on his previous pace. Moose was actually within ten miles of the posted speed limit, something I considered amazing given his agitated state, and his clear desire to get back to the diner as fast as humanly possible.

Miraculously, we got back to The Charming Moose safe and sound. My grandfather pulled up in front, a spot we almost always reserved for our customers, but it was clear that he was in no mood to wait a second longer than he had to.

Martha wasn’t up front at her station when we got there, never a good sign.

Instead, Ellen was working the register.

“Where’s Martha?” I asked.

Ellen glanced over at Judge Dixon, who was currently nursing a cup of coffee, as she said, “She’s on break.”

“Is she ever planning to come back?” I asked softly.

“Not as long as the judge is sitting over there,” Ellen said. It was clear whose side our waitress was on in the war between my grandmother and the judge.

“Thanks for taking the register, then,” I said as I hurried to catch up with Moose, who had already joined the judge at her table.

“What did I miss?” I asked as joined them.

“Holly was just about to tell me why she came by,” Moose said as he kept glancing back toward the kitchen. He was in hot water, and what’s more, he knew it, but there was nothing he could do about it at the moment.

“I’m sorry to just drop in, but I thought this was important,” she said.

“And we appreciate it,” Moose said. “What’s going on?”

“I was at the police station taking care of some unrelated business when I happened to overhear the sheriff say something.”

I stopped her. “Hang on, Judge. You’re not about to violate any kind of ethics rule or anything, are you? There’s no reason for you to get yourself into trouble on our account.”

The judge reached over and patted my hand as her face softened. “Thank you for thinking of me, but this is fine. It’s not privileged at all.”

I hoped that Martha hadn’t seen the familiar touch, as much as I appreciated the gesture. I liked Judge Dixon, but I loved my grandmother, and if I ever had to choose between the two women, there was no doubt in my mind that I was on Team Martha all the way.

“What did he say, Holly?” Moose asked.

The judge took a deep breath, and then she said, “The sheriff is threatening to bring in outside help if he can’t wrap this case up in forty-eight hours. There’s some hotshot state police inspector who is supposed to be really good. He’s based in Raleigh, but I understand that he spends quite a bit of his free time over in April Springs.”