A Frothy Fiasco: A Cozy Mystery (Sweet Home Mystery Series Book 3) (10 page)

Read A Frothy Fiasco: A Cozy Mystery (Sweet Home Mystery Series Book 3) Online

Authors: Constance Barker

“I’ve never seen this woman before in my life,” Tony insisted.

“That’s right, Toe. She’s the girl with the motorcycle. And the man you saw her with was Tony.”

“Oh, no, it wasn’t Tony. That guy had a ponytail and a moustache.”

“Like this?” I reached over the counter and grabbed the cap I had bought at Hog Heaven off the top shelf and put it on Tony’s head.

“Well, I’ll be,” said Toe. “It looked just like that. Same hat; same light brown ponytail.”

“That doesn’t prove it was me wearing it. It could have been anybody,” Tony said, but he was beginning to feel trapped.

“Well, I pulled a hair identical to these off your shirt a few days ago. Oh…and that shiny new Ice King machine at Hog Heaven got me thinking, so I called this morning. It turns out you were installing it when the ponytail hats arrived. That was the same day that Schooner’s mp3 player went missing too. So many coincidences, huh? But she’s the one who robbed Mrs. Portswain.”

“I didn’t kill anybody,” the woman said defiantly.

“You didn’t intend to,” I said.

Eli picked it up from there. “But, unfortunately, Mrs. Portswain had a liver transplant several years ago, and she has to take anti-rejection drugs. That suppresses her immune system, and with her age and allergies, that would become fatal. She surprised you by coming into her apartment while you were burglarizing her unit, and to keep her from screaming you put your hand over mouth and nose. That was enough for the powder and the latex in the glove to send her into anaphylactic shock and stop her weak heart. Unfortunately for you, causing someone’s death in the course of committing a felony is a little thing we call
felony murder
.”

“You have no proof it was me.”

Karen Crenshaw handed Eli a list of items that had been found in her motorcycle saddlebag.

“I would be willing to wager that one of the pawn tickets found on your motorcycle will lead us to Mrs. Portswain’s tiara. Shall we bet, say, a hundred dollars?”
She just glared at him with disgust.

Mr. Jackson from the hardware store stood up. “And I’ll bet she was the one that stole my deposit too. I would have seen that tall man in my store, but she’s shorter than the rows of shelves, so she could have been in the aisles and I would have never seen her. I’ll bet her fingerprints are on those burglar tools she was going to buy too.”

“Officer Crenshaw already picked them up, Marcus,” Eli said.

“But what makes you think I actually know her, besides a hair on my shirt? There’s nothing to connect us.”

Eli pulled Tony’s cell phone from his shirt pocket. “I have a warrant to search this and your car too. There will be a text on here from about 1:30 this afternoon sending her to Jules’ address.”

Tony looked at the woman with hatred in his eyes and then turned his head downward.

“It’s over, Tony.” Eli looked him in the eye. “She’s a nurse at the only hospital in the area that uses gloves powdered with Lycopodium. I suspect that’s what we’ll find on your gloves and in your pocket. Oh…and she’s your wife. Her name is still Cynthia Rollins, but we found a marriage license issued to you and her, and a legal separation too. I don’t know what she’s holding over you to make you help her with this little crime spree, but I’ll bet we can find out.”

Hank brought a stack of newspapers in and set them on the counter.

“Just stay in your seats. I’ll pass them out,” Jules said. Her heart soared when she looked at her first issue. It was real now,
The Sweet Home Gazette
. “It’s got the robbery story and all of the pictures from the festival this weekend, but we’ll have a complete issue for you tomorrow.”

“I’ll take your coffee orders,” Essie said loudly and handed a pad to Hildie to help her.

“I guess I’ll be filling orders.” I went behind the counter and started grinding beans. “I suppose it’s too late to ask you for another case of coffee, huh, Tony?”

Chapter Fifteen

The next day was Wednesday, and the whole town seemed to have a lighter and livelier feel to it. There was an upbeat vibrancy pulsing through Sweet Home that I hadn’t felt for a while.

Toe and Harvey were laughing and chatting like their old selves, and some new faces from the meeting last night were starting to pop up in the Coffee Cabana too.

“Any idea when we’ll get our stolen things back, Lily?” Harvey kind of missed his little electronic tablet. “I liked playing solitaire on it.”

“You should ask your son that, Harv. As far as I know, Eli sent an officer and a lab guy around to the pawnshops to gather up some of the stolen goods. There was still some cash and a few other things in Tony’s trunk and Cynthia’s Harley, and he already has your iPad…”

“And my pen!” Toe added with a smirk.

“Yeah, I’m not sure that pen will be a priority, Toe.”

Essie was filling coffee cups. “Some things they’ll need to hold onto for a while for the trials, and some things might be released as soon as it’s processed; maybe after the weekend. That’s what they told me when I went down there to identify my items. But they didn’t have any of my items.”

“I s’pose I should call Eli,” Harvey said. “Maybe I’ll get it soon since it wasn’t in Tony’s possession and it didn’t have any of their prints or powder residue on it.”

It was a little past lunchtime, and Jules came sauntering in the back door looking a little haggard and tired. Carmen and Moira came in the front at the same time.

“Shoot me, Lily. This newspaper is a lot of work.” I sat her down at our table with Hildie.

“Tea? Or would you rather have a cold bottle of water today?”

“Water please.”

Essie grabbed a bottle from the fridge and slid it to me. “But you love the Gazette, don’t you?”

A smile gradually came to full bloom on her face. “Yeah, I really do.”

“And you won’t have a festival and a crime spree every week, Jules. Besides, it takes a little time to get it down to a system a get a proper staff to help with the work.”

Moira perked up and walked over to us with her business face on. “Miss Ledger.” Her eyes grew big with excitement, and she looked back at her mother and then at Jules again. “I was the editor of the school paper in middle school, and I’m going to try to be a staff reporter for the high school this year too. I would be happy to be a reporter for you. I can cover the school activities or a write column for kids or whatever else you might need. And I can help out next door after school some days too.”

“She gets a big thumbs up recommendation from me, Jules. Moira is a powerhouse.”

“I can only afford minimum wage for starters, Moira, but if that’s okay—and it’s okay with your mom—you’re hired!”

“You mean, you’d pay me! I mean…I think that would be satisfactory, Miss Ledger. Thank you!” She bounced joyfully back to her mother.

I’m not sure who was happier, Jules or Moira. “You should offer to print the school paper as a section of your paper every week in the Gazette. You’d boost circulation right away with all the parents and kids, and it would be a draw for advertisers too. And they probably pay a fortune sending it out to be printed once a month right now.”

I think Jules liked the idea, but everyone’s attention was turned to Eli and Officer Crenshaw as they came in the front door.

“Two cold waters please,” Eli said, holding up two fingers. He and Karen sat at the table right next to ours.

We scooted our table closer and leaned in. “Curious minds want to know…what’s happening with the arrests?”

“Well,
off the record
,” he said looking the newspaper lady directly in the eyes, “there are a few things. We picked up a lot of jewelry, phones, and other small electronics at the pawn shops.”

“And Mrs. Portswain’s tiara?”

“Yes, that too,” Karen said. “It was in Kissimmee. The clerk said he was hoping it wouldn’t be picked up before the due date, because he looked it up and, with the engraving from the 1954 Miss South Carolina Pageant, he figured it was worth about $7,000. He only gave the girl $200 for it.”

“Wow. A great lady died for $200.” Jules was visibly disturbed at the thought.

Well, all of us were really wrong about Tony. He seemed like such a good boy.” Hildie shook her head at the shame of it all.

“Well, I’m not so sure about that, ladies.” Eli leaned in a little closer. “It looks like he’s been trying to get away from his wife for over a year now. But she had built up almost 25 thousand dollars in gambling debt, and told him she wouldn’t give him a divorce unless he helped her pay it off first. He resisted her burglary plan for a long time, but it seems it was around the time he met Jules that he felt like he really needed to get this woman and his marriage behind him.

“Me!” Jules shrieked loud enough for everyone to hear, and they all turned toward our tables. Then she whispered very softly. “You’re going to blame this whole thing on me?”

We all tried to control our laughter.

“You are an irresistibly beautiful woman, Jules,” Hildie offered with a nod.

“The face that launched a thousand thefts!” I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t resist.

“He liked you too, Lily.”

“Yeah…but only if you weren’t around. He was just using me to get to you.”

“I’m going to knock off around supper time, Lily.” Eli said. “How about if I stop by and we go for a walk or something?”

“Walk?” My feet would be killing me by 6 o’clock. “That sounds like a lot of fun.”

Karen whispered something in his ear, and he nodded a few times. Then they got up and left.

“Final edition comes out in an hour.” Jules stood up and swilled down the last long swallow of her water. “Back to the salt mines!”

The afternoon flew by, and the heat wave that hit a few days prior seemed to be mellowing out at last. The street was still filled with activity—kids on wheels of every type and couples walking hand-in-hand.

“Are you ready for some exercise?” Eli came in the door looking very casual and cool.

I had just gotten twelve hours of exercise in the coffee shop, but the thought of spending some time with Eli gave me my second wind.

“Let me just wash a rack of mugs, and I’ll be right with you, Eli. Beverage?”

“Nope.”

“Lily, go on and get out of here. We’re all caught up, and you’ve been here since 6 a.m.”

“Are you sure, Hildie? Is it okay with you Essie?”

They wanted me to go, so I went! I grabbed my purse and headed out the front door and then turned to Eli.

“So, where do you want to walk to?”

He smiled and pointed behind me. “I’ve got a better idea.”

I turned around and saw a tandem bicycle he had rented from Albert and Carmen.

“A bicycle built for two! I’m not sure I’ve ever ridden one of these.” Now I was pretty sure about what Karen had whispered to him –
Don’t make her walk!

We stopped at the Tastee Freeze for a small cone and sat on a bench to enjoy it.

“This is your reward for being so helpful in solving the case.” Eli wiped a drop of soft-serve from my chin with his finger.

“Ah, I see. You’ll buy me a seventy-five cent cone now rather than wait for me to guilt you into a steak dinner later for my detective services.”

“Now you’re thinking like a man! And a detective.”

That was nice. I was a pretty good detective. Jules too.

“Back on the bike. It’s time for our next stop.

We crossed Sunshine Avenue and took a side street to Honeybee Lane, which had the post office and a lot of churches. We stopped and parked the bike in front of O’Hennessey’s Funeral Chapel and went inside. The sign on the easel pointed the way to Helen Portswain’s visitation. Her relatives were in town, and the burial and church service would be in the morning. Many of the seniors and others who had known her were there to bid their final farewell to a dear friend. Some were praying, some were standing in small circles talking, and some were having a small beverage and a canapé.

Jules and Karen Crenshaw were there, and they waved us over to them. Karen was holding a small brown bag, and they were talking to a woman they introduced as Olivia Cantor, Mrs. Portswain’s niece and the executor of her estate.

Eli looked at Karen and she nodded once. Karen opened the bag, and Jules reached in and pulled out a beautiful bejeweled tiara covered with small sparkling diamonds and deep blue sapphires, with larger stones at the tips of the spears of the headpiece.

She handed it to Olivia, and she gasped as tears streamed down her face. We all walked the few steps to the casket where the regal woman lay. She wore the beautiful silver-sequined ball gown she had worn some 60 years ago, which still fit her perfectly, and the slightly timeworn
Miss South Carolina
sash that was a great source of pride for her. Olivia wiped her eyes and then took the crown and placed it on her aunt’s head.

“Thank you,” was all she could say.

Karen and Jules and I were a bit overwhelmed with emotion too, so Eli spoke.

“We talked to the prosecutor, spent the day taking photographs and verifying the authenticity and chain of control of the evidence every step of the way from the pawn shop to here. Our videographer will be back here in the morning to verify the engraving on the back before the casket is closed. I hope that won’t be too intrusive for you.”

The woman hugged Eli and then Karen and Jules. I gave her a hug too, and then I turned to all three of my friends.

“Thanks to you guys, this wonderful lady can spend eternity the way she always wanted to.

“And thanks to you and Jules,” Karen responded, “the case was solved in time to give us the chance to do that.”

“Is anybody hungry?” Jules asked. “I’m starving.”

“How about pasta?” Eli asked, before I could suggest steak.

That sounded good to all of us. But best of all, it was good to know that Eli was more concerned about the budget than my waistline.

*****

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