Brownies & Betrayal (Sweet Bites Mysteries, Book 1) (21 page)

“So, what’s this all about?” Millie asked, a façade of calm on her face, though her hands shook.

The doorbell rang and we all turned. Millie gave us an irritated look and stomped over to it. When she opened up, Detective Tingey stood on the other side. “Hello, I’d like to ask you a few questions, if you have a minute.” His words were solicitous, but his manner suggested that even if she didn’t have a few minutes, she’d be chatting with him anyway.

“Come on in, then. Might as well make a party of it. Sorry I don’t have any good snacks.” She practically growled out the words as she ushered him in.

Detective Tingey’s forehead crinkled for a moment. Then he saw Honey and me. “I thought I told you not to come over here.”

“We’re just having a friendly chat,” I offered with a smile. I pretended I wasn’t intimidated, but wasn’t sure if I succeeded.

His scowl said he wasn’t fooled. “Really?”

“It’s nothing,” Millie said. Apparently getting in trouble wasn’t on her to-do list that day, either. “What can I do for you, sir?”

“I came to ask you about a certain necklace you have in your possession.”

Millie curled her fingers together in front of her. “What necklace would that be?” Her voice cracked.

“Don’t play games with me. The one the victim wore the day she was murdered.”

I became the recipient of Millie’s accusing glare. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Ma’am, it’ll be much easier if you show it to me and explain yourself. I can get a warrant, but I won’t be nearly as nice if I have to wait for it.” He met my gaze. “Maybe you ladies should be going along. I’ll be able to handle this just fine. You shouldn’t interfere in police business.”

I gave him my best “Who, me?” expression, but he didn’t appear to buy it. “Okay, but I do have a question or two, which I’m sure you’d like to hear the answers to as well.”

When I could see he was going to kick us out, I did my best to convince him. “We learned some new things, and if you haven’t learned the same information yet, it could save you some time.”

He sighed. “Fine. But keep it brief, then get out.”

I wasn’t about to try his patience, so I turned to Millie. “Valerie was wearing that necklace when she went on her date, but it was missing in the morning. You didn’t pick it up in Analesa’s room during the party. So how did you get the necklace, Millie?” 

She looked at us, then at Detective Tingey, who crossed his arms over his chest and stared her down. Her fidgeting increased. “Look, I know what it seems like, but I didn’t kill Valerie.” Millie turned and started to pace. “Yes, okay, so I didn’t find the necklace in Analesa’s room. Valerie wore the jewelry that night. You can’t imagine she’d go anywhere without the proper accessories, after all.” Her voice held scorn.

“I admit, it did seem out of character,” I said. “So if you didn’t kill her, how did you end up with the glitters?”

Millie turned and looked at me. “I had a chocolate craving. I kept thinking about your awesome brownies and the fact that there had been some left after we finished dinner. It was late, almost one, and I knew the only other thing I’d find in that hole would be a candy bar from the machine in the hallway.” She paced across the carpet, gesticulating as she spoke.

“Go on,” the detective prompted when Millie stopped talking for a moment.

“I didn’t notice anything wrong or out of place. Not really. It looked fine, except that the hotel staff had left the tray of brownies out when they cleared everything else. I saw her purse there, sitting partway open and the flash of her necklace inside it. I didn’t see her anywhere.” Millie swallowed hard. “She was probably already under the table.” She rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “The thought of that freaks me out.”

“So you took the purse?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Just the necklace. I really hate Valerie. You have to understand—she ruined my life, stole the man I loved and left me in debt because she refused to pay back the money she owed me. Finances have been really tight lately, and she has all that expensive stuff. The jewelry was sitting there, and she wasn’t.

“I didn’t want to admit I had the necklace after you found the body because I figured I’d be blamed for her death.” She turned to face us. “I swear, I didn’t kill her.”

“So if you took the necklace, where did the purse go?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Millie said.

“The hotel staff turned it into the front desk. We have it,” Detective Tingey said.

“So you stole the necklace because it was convenient?” I asked. Millie’s story sounded great, but I wasn’t convinced, and Tingey’s expression said he wasn’t, either.

“Spare me your Nancy Nice attitude. You’d have taken them too, if you were in my spot,” Millie insisted.

I wouldn’t have, and neither would Honey, but I decided Millie wouldn’t believe me, even if I tried to convince her. I studied Tingey’s stony expression, but he wasn’t giving anything away, so I looked at Honey and lifted my brows.
What do you think
?

She pulled the face that said she thought it might be true.

Millie didn’t seem much like the type to kill, and the story sounded reasonable to me, even if it made her sound like a total idiot. But I’d leave her in the “maybe” category for a while longer.

As if the silence made her nervous, she prattled on. “I keep wracking my brain. I mean, I heard her on the phone with her sister, Lidia, arguing about something that afternoon. And Jeff and Valerie were bitter work rivals. I actually thought they’d come to blows a couple of times during the rehearsal.”

“I’d heard about that.” And I was still considering it. The loss in court must have tweaked Jeff’s ego, and I knew that a hurt ego was a great motivator—I was setting up business in Silver Springs largely because of my own, wasn’t I?

“I don’t know who else. It seemed like a lot of people didn’t like her much. As I said, she was a user. I’m still not sure why she and Ana stayed such good friends over the years.” She seemed to forget that she had been telling everyone how close she’d been to Valerie. I guess having bad taste in friends didn’t sound as damning as being a murderer.

“Is that the end of your questions?” Detective Tingey asked us.

“Yeah, that’s it.” I clasped my hands in front of me.

“Then move along while I finish chatting with Miss Lawson.”

Though I was dying to find out what other questions he had for her, I knew I was already pushing my luck. “Thanks.”

Honey and I said goodbye and headed back to the car. 

We returned to Honey’s place to figure out what to do next.

Lidia showed up at the door with Dahlia fifteen minutes after we arrived.

At the kitchen table, I sipped on the glass of sweet iced tea Honey had given me. “Well, we know when Valerie came back to the hotel. The question is what her business was about, and who was she meeting. It sounds like she planned to talk to someone that night, doesn’t it?” I asked after we filled Lidia in on the conversations.

“Yeah. Strange that she said she had
business
. Could she have gone out again?” Honey asked.

“The hotel clerk said that she came in before midnight, and the police think she died in the following hour, so I doubt she went anywhere else.” 

Chance came over, waving a piece of paper. “Tess, can you get me pictures of your family for my science fair project?”

“I’d be happy to. I’ll go through my pictures tonight and see what I can pull out.” I wracked my brain, wondering what I had handy. There were plenty of pictures of me hanging on the walls from when I was growing up. I supposed I could always have color copies made for him.

“Do you look more like your mom or your dad?” he asked, studying my face.

“A little of both. I have my dad’s hair and nose, but my eyes and a lot of my face look like my mom. Just like you have your dad’s eyes and your mom’s nose.” I tweaked his nose between my knuckles and made a honking sound.

He didn’t look amused. Note to self: apparently kids don’t enjoy that anymore by the time they’re eight. “I have my dad’s eyes and chin,” he said.

“True, but I still see your mom when I look at you.” There was so much of her in his face. I didn’t expect it to stay that way for long. In a few years, the testosterone would kick in and he’d start to fill out. The thought amazed me. I still remembered when he was a new baby. Eight seemed so old—the mental image of him as a man made me feel ancient.

“That’s gross. She’s a girl, I’m a boy,” he protested. “I can’t look more like her.”

I held back a grin. “I see your dad in your face, too. Don’t worry—in a few years you’ll probably look way more like your dad than like your mom.”

He scowled, not soothed by my words. Then he turned to Lidia. “You’re Dahlia’s aunt, right?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have pictures of her mom and dad? Can I use them too?”

She looked a little surprised by his request—flustered even. “I’m sorry, I don’t have any pictures with me, but I’ll see if I can find some with Valerie from the wedding rehearsal. I should be able to get a few from the photographer. I’m told she took dozens of pictures there.”

“Okay.” He took off again and started working on the poster board laid out on the table at the other end of the room.

Lidia looked at her watch. “Honey, I appreciate you letting Dahlia stay here with you. There is so much to do still.”

“No problem. We’re glad to have her.”

“I need to head home too.” I turned to Lidia. “Would you mind giving me a ride?”

“No problem,” Lidia said. “I wanted to see inside your restaurant. I heard you’ve been working hard to fix it up.”

“Let me show you around.”

Lidia gave Dahlia a kiss goodbye and we headed out to her Mercedes. Apparently her husband was doing well financially.

I slid onto the butter-soft leather seats and felt the warmer kick in. The interior was spotless—perfection that far outdid anything my Outlander ever saw. I doubted she’d ever have to apologize for cracker crumbs and spare cereal bits on the seats. Her dash shone from treatments and her windows were spotless, holding only a parking permit and the sticker in the corner that indicated when it was time for the next oil change. Ever diligent, she’d had it done only the week before. The woman was an organizational menace, I thought, and smiled.

 When we were on the road, I asked, “So what does your husband do?”

“He’s a software consultant. He travels all over the world for big companies, troubleshooting and helping fix systems in trouble. Sometimes I travel with him, but right now he’s in the Philippines, and two weeks there was more than enough for me.” She firmed her lips in distaste.

“So is he’s gone most of the time? That must be difficult.”

“It is, yes, but it’s always been like that, so we’re used to it. When he was in France, I spent all day touring museums and eating crusty bread at little sidewalk cafes. It was lovely.”

“So there are benefits.” I grinned at her. “I love France. I spent a year there myself on internship, though I wasn’t living in Paris. I managed a few trips into the city of love. I had to work out every morning to keep from gaining a hundred pounds while I was there. Lovely area, as long as you’re careful about your pocketbook and what parts of Paris you wander into.”

“But that’s true everywhere,” she agreed, tipping her head in my direction. “Good thing my masseuse training taught me so much about pressure points. It came in handy the one time I wandered into the wrong neighborhood.” She smiled as she pulled into the back parking lot at my home. “So what are you calling this place?”

“Honey’s going to get her way, of course.” I chuckled because we’d gone back and forth on names in the week leading up to the wedding. She had mentioned this one at least three times a day. “It’s the Sweet Bites Bakery.”

“Catchy.”

We got out of the car and I pulled out my keys to the back entrance. We walked through the narrow kitchen, past the freezer and walk-in fridge, past the empty spot in the wall where the oven would be installed the next week and along the stretch of stainless-steel countertops. Boxes of equipment and supplies were stacked everywhere.

“Purple, I see,” she said as she looked at the walls. “It looks surprisingly great.”

“I hope you’re not the only one to think so.” We passed through to the customer area of the business. Big cutouts in the wall would allow people to see me work—which had me a little uncomfortable, really—but they wouldn’t be able to touch anything or get in the way. In the long run, I hoped it would create interest in my cakes and be a draw that sold goodies. “More purple in here. I’m not quite done, but I hope to finish up by the end of the week.”

“Too bad about the ugly tables and benches,” she said with a frown of distaste.

“Yeah, hideous, but orange and purple are complimentary colors, right?”

She lifted her brows and gave me a look that said I was stretching the Pollyanna attitude.

I tipped my head in acknowledgement. “I’m looking into replacing them with bistro-style tables soon. The sidewalk is wide enough that I thought I’d see if I could put a table or two out there when the weather’s good.”