Cupcakes and Killing: A Cozy Mystery (Sweet Shoppe Mysteries - Book 2) (5 page)

Chris arched an eyebrow. “Oh, I don’t think I’ll forget
that
anytime soon.”

“Well, maybe we should help them out like we tried to last time,” Kaye continued. “I’m not saying we should get completely involved and try to take over the investigation, but I’m sure they could use our help.”

“Yeah, I think that might be a good idea,” I said slowly. Anything we could do to help reveal Zara’s killer would certainly make us all feel a lot better. Kaye and I had always loved reading murder mystery books and discussing them, and while we’d never dreamed that we would be thrust into two murder investigations within the space of a year, here we were. I didn’t exactly like the idea of being involved in something that hit so close to home, but I knew my amateur sleuth’s mind would always win out, driving me nuts until I tried to fit the puzzle pieces together. We had to at least try, for Zara’s sake.

Daniel smiled and patted Kaye’s shoulder. “I’m not sure it
is
a good idea, sweetie…but I know what you’re like when you get an idea in your head. Chris, why don’t you come back to our house for a beer, and we’ll leave these lovely detectives to it?”

Chris nodded. “Sounds good. Call me if you need anything,” he said, kissing me on the cheek before heading off with Daniel.

Kaye turned to Tori. “Do you want to help us?”

“Sure,” Tori said before holding her hands up. “But before we start, I’d like to say that it wasn’t me! I know what happened with Rosie, but I promise your favorite employee is not the killer this time.”

“Oh, of course it wasn’t you,” Kaye said. “You were with us the whole time at the reception. Someone else obviously saw Zara put her drink down and then slipped the poison into it when no one was looking.”

“There were so many people there,” I remarked. “It could have been anyone. Where do we even begin?”

Kaye and Tori shrugged, and we drove back to my house in silence, trying to think of something.

“Oh!” I said as I unlocked the door. “Tori, do you have that camera in your bag? The one you were using at the reception, that is.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, pulling the little pink digital camera out of her handbag. “Why?”

“Well, you were taking pictures all day. If you managed to take some photos of the area of the marquee where Zara left her drink, then you may have captured the killer.”

“Good idea,” Kaye said.

“I’ll need a computer,” Tori said. “You have one, right?”

I nodded and led her into my study and then watched as she uploaded the pictures from the camera onto the computer.

“There’s a lot of pictures, but they’re all ordered depending on what time I took them,” she said, glancing up at me and Kaye. “Do you remember what time it was when Zara came over to talk to us?”

“Hmm…it was about a quarter to two,” Kaye said. “So she must have put her drink down around that time. She came and spoke to us for about ten minutes or so, and then went back to get her drink before joining us again.”

“Okay, I’ll get all the pictures from between around 2:40 and 3:00 just to be sure,” Tori said.

A minute later, we were slowly scrolling through a slideshow of photos from the reception, and Kaye wrinkled her nose. “Do either of you remember exactly where it was that she left her drink?”

I racked my brains for a moment, trying to recall it. “Um…I think it was on a little table on one side of the marquee. She went behind me to go back and get it, so it must have been on the right side, because I was definitely facing the left.”

Tori peered at the pictures as she went through them, and she made a triumphant sound and pointed at the background of one. “Aha! Right there. That’s Zara walking away from a table near the edge and heading towards where we were standing. She must have just put the drink down.”

She checked the timestamp. “Yep, 2:47. Okay, let’s have a look at the rest.”

After figuring out which photos had the table in question in them, we made a list of everyone who happened to be caught on camera standing near it at any point within the short timeframe.

“Okay, there’s the reverend near the table in this one, talking to Mr. Armstrong…then we have Linda Davis in this one… and in this one it looks like Deputy Ted and Officer Bobby are close by,” I said.

“Who’s the brunette woman standing near Ted?” Tori asked. “She’s half out of the frame.”

“It looks like his sister Evie,” I said, squinting at it. “She’s visiting Ted right now, along with their mother. He must have brought them along to the wedding.”

“Okay. Oh, here we go… Amy McNamara is in this picture, right next to the table. And it looks like she’s reaching into her handbag for something!”

“Let’s not jump to any conclusions,” Kaye said. “She might’ve just been getting out her cell phone or lip gloss.”

All in all, we ended up with a list of eight people who had been in close proximity with the table in between the time Zara left her drink there and later went to retrieve it. Mia Keilson wasn’t among them, and most of them didn’t seem to have any motive to have killed Zara whatsoever. Except Amy. She was starting to look more suspicious by the minute.

“Can we rule Mia out, then?” Tori asked.

“Hmm. I’m not sure. It’s not like you were photographing every single second. I suppose there’s a chance she managed to slip something into the drink when you had your camera pointed in another direction.”

“True. But Amy is looking more and more likely to be our prime suspect,” Kaye said. “What should we do next?”

“I think we should have afternoon tea,” I said. “And then we should head down to Palmer’s Warehouse.”

“Why Palmer’s Warehouse?” Tori asked.

Palmer’s Warehouse was an enormous store just off the main street, and it sold hardware, gardening equipment and all sorts of other DIY materials.

“Because,” I replied. “From what I’ve read, a lot of garden fertilizers have cyanide in them, so our killer could very well have synthesized some from that. We should ask Mr. Palmer who’s bought fertilizer recently.”

“Ooh, good call,” Kaye said. “All right, it’s a plan.”

I made sandwiches and lemonade for afternoon tea, and we had a nibble before heading out to see Mr, Palmer at the warehouse.

The store was relatively empty, and Mr. Palmer greeted us as we approached the counter. “What can I do for you ladies?” he asked.

“We were wondering if you could help us out with something,” Kaye asked. “Do you happen to remember who’s been in here to buy fertilizer lately?”

He scratched his chin and raise his eyebrows. “I didn’t realize you three were working for the cops,” he said. “They just came in and asked me the exact same question.”

“Oh…we aren’t working for them,” I said. “Zara Keilson was a friend of ours, and we just want to help out in finding her killer.”

He nodded. “I see. Well, I’ve already spoken to the cops, so I may as well tell you the same thing I told them. I remember every transaction I make, and only a handful of people have purchased fertilizer in the last couple of weeks.”

“You remember all of them?” Tori asked.

He gave us a wry smile. “I might be old, but I’m still as a sharp as a tack, young lady. Anyway, let’s see…Mrs. Barnaby came in around two weeks ago for some fertilizer, then a few days after that Sam Spencer came in.”

“Who’s Sam Spencer?” Kaye asked.

“Local gardener. He maintains the gardens and lawns around the school, police station and church,” he replied. “Then after that, Mr. and Mrs. Clintock came in to grab some, and then after that there was only one other person. Amy McNamara.”

I drew in a sharp breath and exchanged glances with Tori and Kaye. “Thanks, Mr. Palmer. You’ve been very helpful.”

“Good luck,” he said. “It’s a damn shame, what happened. I don’t know what’s happening to this town.”

As we left, my heart beat extra fast, and I turned to Kaye and Tori. “It’s really not looking good for Amy, is it?”

“No,” Kaye said. “But we have to remember, just because she bought fertilizer doesn’t mean it was her. For all we know, the killer just used fertilizer that he or she already had lying around in the garage.”

“That’s true,” I admitted. “And Amy was working for Zara as a florist’s assistant, so she obviously loves flowers, and I think she might have her own garden at home. So it would make sense for her to be buying fertilizer for non-nefarious purposes.”

“Yeah, exactly. Let’s take a break for the night,” Kaye said. “We’ll open the shops tomorrow, and when we have some spare time in the evening we’ll keep looking into this.”

“I suppose we do need to make money!” Tori said. “And speaking of money, if we’re going to keep poking into this case, maybe we should invest in some trench coats and little Sherlock Holmes hats…”

***

The next day was hectic at both shops, and we barely had any time to chat in between filling orders, baking, and serving customers. I was currently in the cupcake store, and Kaye was over at the candy store training a girl who was doing work experience for school.

In the late afternoon, the busiest period was over, and I put my feet up while Tori removed our latest batch of cupcakes from the oven.

“Those cupcakes need to cool before we ice them,” she said. “We don’t have any customers. Why don’t we take a break to see if we can think of anything else that might help with Zara’s case?”

“Good idea,” I said. “I’ll just give Kaye a call and see if she’s not too busy at the Sweet Shoppe.”

Apparently the Sweet Shoppe was just as empty as the cupcake shop now, so Kaye left it in the hands of two other workers and headed over to us.

“I’ve barely had a moment to think straight today,” she declared as she plonked her handbag down. “Then just before you called, the place suddenly emptied out.”

“Late afternoon lulls are always nice, aren’t they?”

“Yep. Anyway, have either of you had any ideas?”

“Well, by this stage the police have probably already gone and spoken to Amy and Mia, seeing as they’re the most likely prime suspects. Maybe we should go and talk to them too,” I said.

“What good would that do if the police have already interviewed them? It’s not like they’d admit anything to us if it was either one of them,” Tori replied.

“I know, but they might feel a little less jumpy around us, seeing as we aren’t police. If they are innocent, maybe they’ll remember something helpful that they forgot to tell the officers interviewing them. It can be pretty nerve-wracking talking to the police, so they could have easily forgotten something.”

“Hmm…I suppose so. Worth a shot, anyway,” Kaye said. “I overheard someone saying that Mia is staying at Zara’s house at the moment, seeing as someone will need to pack up all her things.”

“Poor girl,” I said. “She must feel awful, if she wasn’t the one who killed Zara, that is. I mean, her last words to her mother were so harsh.”

“That they were. When should we go talk to her?”

“Why don’t you two go now, and I’ll stay here and watch the store?” Tori asked. “Besides, those cupcakes still need frosting.”

“All right.”

Kaye and I headed to my car, and I steered it through the maze of back streets that led off the main strip. “Zara lived three houses down from Linda Davis, right?” I asked.

“Yep. It’s the pale yellow house with the ivy.”

That was one of the positives of living in a small town. Even if you’d never been to someone’s house, you still knew exactly where they lived in most cases.

We walked up the little garden path to the front door and knocked, and Mia opened the door a moment later, her pale face peering out at us with narrowed eyes which appeared to be red and puffy from crying.

“What do you want?”

“Hi, Mia. We were friends with your Mom.”

She opened the door a fraction more to get a decent look at us. “Come to accuse me of killing her like the police basically just did?”

“No, we just wanted to know if we could talk to you about her.”

She paused and stood there silently for a moment, then finally her shoulders sagged and she relented. “All right. Come in.”

She led us into the lounge room, where a large cardboard box sat on the coffee table and photos and papers were strewn over one of the sofas.

“Sorry about the mess,” she mumbled. “I’m trying to find all her photos.”

“It’s fine,” Kaye said in a soothing voice.

She gestured for us to sit and then sat down across from us. “So you actually don’t think I did it? Because you’d probably be the only ones. You should see the way people looked at me when they called me down to the hospital after she…after she passed.”

She sniffed and wiped her face, and I leaned forward. “We aren’t here to accuse you, Mia. Like we said, we just want to talk about your Mom.”

“I feel so awful. The last time I ever spoke to her I said the most horrible things. I was in a bad mood and we’d been fighting a lot, but I never thought…I never thought it’d be the last time I spoke to her. I can’t believe she’s gone, and she died thinking that I hated her.”

“I think she knew that deep down you loved her,” Kaye said. “She spoke to us about you, and I don’t think she ever believed that you actually hated her.”