Ice Cream Murder (2 page)

Chapter Two

The room fell silent for a few seconds while everyone stared at Regis’ still body.

Then it erupted in action.
 

Winston shot out of his seat, the chair clattering to the ground behind him.
 

“Dad!” He pulled Regis’ head out of the bowl, pressing his fingers to the older man’s neck.

“Daddy!” Olivia squealed from Regis’ other side.

Lawrence stood up, worry etched on his face, and helped Winston lay Regis out on the floor.
 

Nans dug her cell phone out of her purse and called nine-one-one while they performed CPR.

“Get out of the way. I’m a doctor.” A man stood up from one of the tables and made his way to the head table. Lexy couldn’t really see what was going on from where she stood—they had laid Regis down on the other side of the table, which blocked her view.
 

Her heart raced as she watched the crowd gathering around the old man’s body.
 

The doctor pushed his way to the middle, then knelt down. A few seconds later, he stood, placing his hand on Winston’s shoulder, which was still bobbing up and down as he performed chest compressions.

“It’s no use,” the doctor said gently. “He’s gone.”

Lexy gasped along with the rest of the crowd. She turned back to look at Nans, Ruth, Ida and Helen, but the ladies seemed to be taking it in stride. Anna, on the other hand, was not as calm. She stood behind Nans’ table wringing a white cloth kitchen towel in her hands, her face drained of color.

Lexy rushed to her side. “Are you all right?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never had a client die on me before.”

Lexy pushed Anna into a chair next to Nans who took her hand, patting it soothingly. Ida pushed her untouched whiskey sour toward Anna.
 

“Drink up, this will help calm you,” Ida said.

Anna obeyed, gulping the drink and then practically spitting it out.

“It’s not like it should be a surprise to anyone that Regis Banks would die,” Helen said amidst Anna’s choking noises. “I mean he
was
one-hundred years old.”

Ruth nodded. “He had a good long life.”

“Guess you missed your chance,” Ida said to Helen, a mischievous glint in her eye.

“Ida! That’s inappropriate!” Helen hissed.

Nans had been unusually quiet all this time, her eye on the front of the room where the EMT’s had arrived and were looking over the body. “I wonder why they aren’t removing the body …”

Lexy’s head swiveled toward the front. “What do you mean? They’re probably just doing … whatever it is that they do. It takes time to go through their procedure, doesn’t’ it?”

“Not usually this much time. I mean, once there’s nothing they can do, they usually just cart the body off,” Nans said. “Unless …”

Lexy frowned at her grandmother. “Unless what?”

 
The four older women exchanged raised eyebrow looks and a feeling of unease started to bloom in Lexy’s stomach. Her grandmother and friends had a strange hobby—they investigated murders. It was more than a hobby, actually. They’d even had business cards printed with their name—
The Ladies Detective Club
.
 

Lexy had to admit, they did have a good record on solving cases and they’d even helped out the police on occasion. The problem was they sometimes saw murder where there was none … and the death of Regis Banks surely wasn’t murder.

“Oh, come on,” Lexy said. “You guys must be bored because you haven’t had a case lately. Regis wasn’t murdered here in front of everyone. He was one-hundred years old. You saw yourself, his heart just gave out. It’s certainly understandable at his age.”

“Well, of course it
would
be, my dear.” Ruth said, her eyes on the door. “But if that’s the case, then what is our favorite homicide detective doing here?”

***

Lexy whipped her head toward the door. Ruth was right. Lexy’s husband, homicide detective Jack Perillo and his partner John Darling were standing there talking to the EMT’s.

Across the table, Anna’s china blue eyes were wide with alarm. “Homicide?”

“What?” Lexy’s brows mashed together. “That’s crazy. I’m going to ask Jack.”

She stood, catching Jack’s eye. He held up his finger, indicating that he’d be over when he finished with the EMT’s. Lexy sat back down.

“Let’s make a list of suspects.” Ruth grabbed her beige patent leather old-lady purse from the back of her chair and rummaged inside, pulling out an iPad which she placed on the table in front of her.

“I know his wife is long dead, but did he have a girlfriend?” Nans asked.

“I bet he did. A young one,” Ida offered. “I bet he wrote her into the will and she killed him off for the money.”

The others nodded their agreement. Ruth tapped a note into the iPad.

“Wait a minute.” Lexy held up her hand. “This is some kind of mistake. I’m sure Jack is here for some other reason.”
 

“Some reason other than what?” Jack asked, appearing at Lexy’s side.

“Other than murder,” she answered, looking up into his honey-brown eyes. “Please tell us that’s
not
why you’re here.”

Jack slid his eyes toward the front of the room. “Well, I can’t tell you if Mr. Banks was
murdered,
but we were called because his death might be suspicious.”

“Really?” Ida’s eyes twinkled.
 

“I knew it!” Ruth exclaimed.

Anna sucked down the rest of the whiskey sour and grabbed the fruity umbrella drink from the table in front of Ruth.

“Suspicious, how?” Lexy asked.

“Mr. Banks didn’t die of natural causes,” Jack said.

“What? We all saw him die. It looked like a heart attack to me,” Lexy said.

Jack nodded. “It probably did. But the EMT’s noticed evidence that he died from anaphylaxis.”

“What’s that?” Anna asked as she noisily slurped the drink through the straw.

“An allergic reaction,” Nans said. “Can cause swelling, hives, vomiting, low blood pressure…”

“My cousin is allergic to bees. She has to carry an epi-pen in case she gets stung. She has to inject herself right away or she could die.” Anna turned her big blue eyes, which Lexy noticed were starting to become slightly unfocused, on Jack. “Is that what happened to Mr. Banks?”

Jack nodded. “His throat swelled, making it impossible to breathe.”

Lexy cringed. “How awful. But I don’t remember seeing any bees in here.”

Jack’s eyes darkened as he looked back up to the head table. She followed his gaze to where John was putting Regis’ ice cream bowl into a large plastic bag. John sealed the bag, then turned and walked toward them at the back of the room.

“Hi, Lexy,” John pushed his long ponytail back over his shoulder as he greeted her.
 

“Hi, John.” Lexy eyed the plastic bag in his hand.

“I see you are in the middle of a controversy once again,” he teased.

Lexy laughed. She didn’t mind being teased by John. They were good friends as he was not only her husband’s partner, he was also married to her best friend and assistant at her bakery
The Cup and Cake
.
 

The truth was, she
did
have a knack for ending up in the middle of a crime. It had happened several times—in fact, she’d met Jack when she’d been accused of killing her ex-fiance. But this wasn’t a crime … was it?

“What’s with the bag? I thought you would be looking for a bee,” Lexy asked, her stomach already sinking at the look on John’s and Jack’s faces.

“It isn’t only bee stings that cause anaphylaxis. Food allergies can cause it, too.” Jack looked pointedly at the ice cream.

“Food allergies? You mean like peanut butter?” Anna wavered in her chair. “We served peanut butter sauce on the ice cream, but some of the Banks family were allergic to peanuts. That’s why we had to be extra careful when serving them.”

All eyes turned to Lexy and she felt her stomach sinking.
She’d
served the ice cream to the head table. But she was sure she’d been very careful to give the bowls to the appropriate persons.

“Yes, exactly like peanut butter.” Jack’s eyes slid to the plastic bag then back to Lexy. “Is there any way you might have served peanut butter sauce to Regis Banks?”

Lexy shook her head. “No, I’m sure I set the tray up properly and served in the right order.”

She had, hadn’t she?
 

She had been kind of rushed but Lexy took food serving very seriously. She was certain she hadn’t screwed up.

John shrugged. “Well it could have been an accident. Maybe he switched spoons with someone or tasted someone else’s dish.”

“Right,” Lexy said hollowly. “It must have been an accident.”

Anna gave Lexy a woeful look and Lexy’s heart twisted. “I’m sure it was an accident. A horrible accident. But that can’t be good for business … for either of us.”

Chapter Three

“Accident my patootie.” Nans handed Lexy the now clean, metal ice cream container which was the last of the catering equipment they were packing into the back of Anna’s van.

“You don’t really think someone gave him the peanut sauce on purpose, do you?” Lexy asked. “I mean, they seemed like a close family.”

“
Seemed
like,” Nans replied. “On the surface it looked that way, but anyone could see there was conflict going on underneath.”

Lexy screwed up her face. She hadn’t noticed any conflict. “I think you’re just looking for an excuse to investigate something.”

“No. I’m sure something funny is going on,” Nans said. “I know you would never screw up something as important as that, especially when there’s a food allergy involved.”

“I hope not,” Anna glanced nervously at the van. “I just bought this van and the bad publicity could kill my business.”

Lexy’s heart crunched at the worry on Anna’s face. What if she
had
screwed up? “Don’t worry, Anna. None of this was your fault. If I accidentally served him the peanut sauce, I’ll own up to it and make sure it doesn’t hurt your business.”

“It won’t come to that, right girls?” Ruth looked from Nans to Ida to Helen who all nodded their agreement.

“That’s right,” Ida added as she stuffed a folded napkin bulging with the left-over madeleines into her large purse. “You girls have nothing to worry about—
The Ladies Detective Club
is on the case!”

Helen patted Lexy’s arm. “Don’t worry, Lexy, we’ll get to the bottom of it.”

Lexy smiled at the four older women, her heart warming. It was nice to have friends that stuck by you even if it might turn out that she did make a mistake. But she felt certain she hadn’t.
 

She tucked the ladies into Ruth’s gigantic blue Oldsmobile and watched them drive off, wincing when Ruth took the turn too wide, running over a patch of white petunias that had been planted on the corner.

Lexy turned back to Anna who was climbing into the catering van. “Don’t worry, Anna. Everything will be okay.”

Anna gave her a wan smile. “I know. I just wish Mr. Banks hadn’t died in the middle of the party.”

“Or while eating my ice cream,” Lexy added. “I’ll call you later when I find out what Jack has to say.”

“Thanks.” Anna smiled, put the van in gear and drove off, leaving Lexy alone in the parking lot with her yellow VW bug.

Lexy took the long way home to give herself time to think. It was possible someone had switched the ice cream dishes. But who would want to kill Regis? And who would have been able to do that without anyone noticing?
 

She tried to think back to who had visited the head table, but she’d been pretty busy serving and hadn’t had her eye on it the whole time. She knew there was a lot of milling about—almost everyone at the party went up to the table to congratulate Regis after dinner.
 

Which meant that almost everyone at the party was a possible suspect.

Lexy tried to clear her head as she turned into her neighborhood. Nans must be rubbing off on her. Now
she
was looking at everything with a suspicious mind. Most likely, it was just an accident. She’d know more once she talked to Jack.

A tinge of nervousness ran through her as she thought of Jack. He wasn’t happy about the way she always seemed to get herself mixed up in the middle of murder cases. She hoped he wouldn’t be mad at her.

Lexy pulled into the driveway of the 1940s bungalow she shared with Jack. The house had been Nans and when Nans had moved into the local retirement community, she’d sold it to Lexy. Now that Lexy and Jack were married, he’d moved in and they were preparing Jack’s house for sale.

Lexy opened the front door and was immediately assaulted by a flurry of white fur. Her Shih-Tzu Poodle mix, Sprinkles, leaped at her knees in her usual over-exuberant greeting. She bent down to scoop the little dog into her arms.

“You’re home.” Jack made his way to her with a glass of wine. Taking the dog from her arms, he kissed her, then shoved the wine into her hand. “I thought you could use this.”

Lexy smiled, feeling a little relieved. He wasn’t mad.
 

“Thanks.” She accepted the drink, kicked her shoes off and collapsed on the couch. It had been a long day and she didn’t realize how exhausted she was until now.
 

“So, did the police find anything more?” Lexy asked Jack over the rim of her wine glass.

“Looks like it was nothing but an unfortunate accident. I hope you’re not blaming yourself.” Jack’s eyes brimmed with concern. He gently picked up her left foot and put it in his lap, his forefinger and thumb working the tension in the arch.

Lexy frowned. “I hope they won’t sue me or anything.”

“First of all, no one even knows it was
you
that gave him the peanut sauce. The plates could have been moved or he ate out of someone’s dish.” Jack’s fingers pressed on the points below her toes and Lexy felt herself relaxing back into the couch. “And second of all, the family didn’t seem too upset about Regis’ passing.”

Lexy’s radar pinged and she sat back up. “Really? Don’t you find that suspicious that the family didn’t care?”