Muffin But Murder (A Merry Muffin Mystery) (14 page)

Apparently the
Ridley Ridge Record
had made quite a bit out of the “rash” of murders at my place. They made it sound like I was the Autumn Vale Slasher. No wonder I was getting a reputation, even though the killings had nothing to do with me. “I don’t even know why he was there, that’s the thing,” I said.

A dad with a sulky teenage son and younger daughter came up to the counter with an armload of costumes. He gave me a friendly smile, and I smiled back; definitely not a native Ridley Ridger. He fished out his wallet, complained about the price, argued with his son, and finally left.

“Les, I’m checking something out for a friend. Did you employ a girl named Juniper Jones?”

His look became guarded. “Why? What’s she done now?”

Taken aback, I said, “Nothing that I know of. She got a job at a friend’s shop in Autumn Vale, but she left work this morning and didn’t come back. Have you seen her?”

He shook his head.

“What can you tell me about her?”

“She was trouble from the get-go,” he said. “I felt sorry for her. She just rolled into town on the Greyhound, nowhere to go, nothing to do, so I gave her a job straightening up the stock for the holiday season. She did squat of the diddly variety and caused trouble all over town, so I let her go.”

That corroborated the waitress’s story of a troublesome Juniper. I was afraid of that. “Maybe it’s a good thing if she’s taken off from Binny’s place.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say. “I’d better get going.”

“Sure,” he said.

“I’m just going to have a look around first.”

His expression changed, and he looked shifty again, like he had the first time I’d seen him. “Uh, nothing new since last time, you know.” His gaze flitted to the back and then back to me.

“I’ll look, nonetheless,” I said, my determination hardened by his worried look. Would I find Juniper hiding in the stock area, perhaps? I headed toward the back, past a startled mom dragging her twins from costume to costume in desperation.

I wove through the place, then around one last long shelf filled with dusty plastic totes. The back was empty, except for piles of boxes near a loading-dock door that was open, letting the cool autumn air waft in. There, sitting up on a stack of the boxes like a princess on a cardboard throne, was Zoey Channer.

“Well, hello,” she said, taking a drag on a cigarette and blowing the smoke out. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Zoey! So, did your dad ever connect with you?” I asked, examining her exaggerated Cleopatra makeup and frizzy blonde updo. My voice echoed strangely in the cavernous storage area of the Party Stop. “Or are you still avoiding him?”

I heard a rustle behind me, and Les came screeching out from the aisles and skidded to a stop, eying us both. He was dressed in sagging cargo pants and an Ed Hardy T-shirt; it was hard to see what the attraction would be for a girl like Zoey Channer, but maybe that was the point. Her father would hate Les Urquhart.

“I’ll take from the silence that you haven’t let your father know where you are yet.”

“Daddy dearest can kiss my ass,” she said, and tossed the cigarette down on the cement floor.

“How many times I gotta tell you, butt it out,” Les said, hopping over and stomping on the glowing cigarette end.

“Did he not fund your partying properly, or did he make the mistake of wishing you wouldn’t spend so much time in jail and around jail rats?” Silence. “So, why did you crash my party?” I asked her. “I know you were there.”

She shrugged, fished in her purse, extracted a package of cigarettes, and pulled a fresh one out of the pack. “I was bored to tears. Thought Daddy might show up at the party looking for me, and I wanted to see what he’d do.”

Les nervously looked from her to me and back. “Zoey, why don’t you take off? You, too, lady. I got customers to look after.”

Despite his wish to get me out of the way, I wasn’t going anywhere until I found out where Zoey was staying so I could sic the police on her. She may have seen something, given that she smoked and would have had reason to be out on the smoking terrace. “It was a wild night,” I said. “Did you enjoy the party? You were following around those two local girls. I saw you.”

“Fancy you recognizing me with the costume on,” she said, giving Les a look. “Told you I should have gone as a vampire.”

Vampire. There had been a surfeit of vampires that night, not all of them accounted for. “Did you come, too?” I asked him, wondering if he was one of the random Draculas.

He shook his head but didn’t say anything. Oh, I was
definitely
going to send Virgil Grace their way. I couldn’t think of any reason why they’d kill Davey Hooper, but I didn’t know everything about these two and what, if any, relationship they had with Hooper. I was confused; Les
must
be the guy Zoey had met through a cell mate, I figured. Or was he? Davey Hooper had been seen arguing with/talking to Zoey Channer, so he could have been the guy she’d met, her jailbird boyfriend. Was she the bewigged person Sonora Silvio had seen in a car with the cowboy? Had they come to the party together?

One thing I felt sure of: Davey Hooper must have been the vampiric night crawler Susan the suddenly chatty waitress reported to have been staying with Les. My head swam with possibilities but no certainties, dizzying me as random threads and thoughts zipped around in my brain. I hate when that happens, especially when I don’t have time to sit down and think things through. I gave myself a shake and still stared at Zoey, who was making faces at Les. Ultimately, once I had pointed Virgil in their direction, it would be none of my business. I couldn’t think of any reason to keep probing, except an insatiable curiosity and a desire to find anyone to pin the murder on
other
than Pish.

Ignoring Les’s antsiness—he kept glancing over his shoulder toward his shoppers, who I could hear rummaging in the shelves and dropping things, kids shrieking and mothers yelling—I asked Zoey, “Did you see anything that night? Out on the smoking terrace, for example?”

“Are you kidding me?” she asked. She lounged back and puffed on her cigarette—such an attractive look for a young woman—and smirked.

“Why would I kid?”

“Oh, I just thought you were. I don’t
do
smoking terraces to smoke, that’s all. I smoke wherever I damn well please.”

“Such a rebel,” I said mildly, sure she would not get the intended sarcasm. Les did, though, and glowered at me. I eyed him and thought,
He’s trying to get in good with this girl because her daddy is Percy Channer of Channer Hotels International
. How would that feel, I wondered briefly, to know that guys would try to date you just because of who you were? Not great, I concluded. Not great at all.

I heard a rustling sound, and someone called from the cash register, “Hey, does anyone work here? Or should I just damn well help myself to these (expletive) overpriced nasty-ass costumes for my (expletive) nasty kids?”

Must be a true townie, I concluded, just happy to be alive and living in lovely Ridley Ridge.

“I’ll be back,” Les said, and waggled his finger at Zoey. “You behave yourself.” He took off at a lope around the shelf and disappeared.

Good, a chance at Zoey alone and unhindered. “Which one is the fella of the moment, Les or Davey Hooper?”

“Davey who?” she asked, blowing a smoke ring toward the ceiling.

So that’s how she was going to play it. “You came to my party just to see if your dad showed up, you say. Then why were you watching my place originally? Are you the lookout for some particularly stupid band of crooks?”

“Who do you think you are to talk to me like that?” she said, suddenly snapping out of her nonchalance. She glared at me, her face pinched into an angry expression. “What gives you the right?”

“What gives me the
right
? Oh, that’s good. Let’s see . . . first, how about finding you skulking around in my woods and having your father come to my place looking for you while pretending to want to buy the castle? Oh, and then?” I glared at her and spoke very precisely and succinctly. “And then, how about finding a man
dead
and
covered in blood
, his throat slashed ear to ear . . . on my terrace?”

Her face paled and she was silent. I couldn’t read her expression, which had gone blank, but it looked to me like she was trembling. Now that I had at least managed to wipe the smirk off her face, I would try again. “Did you at any time see the fellow dressed as a cowb—” I was interrupted by someone hurtling through the open back door and running toward us.

Zoey cried out, and the girl—Juniper Jones, I quickly realized—flew at her, screeching, with a knife in her hand. I was stunned for a moment as the two girls fell in a heap behind the boxes, screaming and wailing. Juniper was shrieking what sounded like a steady stream of “Ihateyou! Ihateyou! Ihateyou!”

“Stop! Stop it . . .
Juniper!
” I raced toward them and tried to pull Juniper off Zoey, but she kept slipping from my grasp. Her dark makeup was streaked all down her face, but there was a look of such hatred there as she attacked Zoey, whose clothes were beginning to look like ribbons from the slashing of the knife. Blood oozed and splattered, soaking into the fabric of her sleeves.

“Call nine-one-one!” I yelped over my shoulder, my hands getting slippery from blood. I tried to grab Juniper’s hair, but she whirled and fended off my hand, then returned to her victim.

Les was suddenly there. He leaped on the wailing girl, grappling her into a headlock, but Juniper, wildly powerful, struggled out of it like a greased pig. By this point I was in full panic mode; not much does that to me, but I don’t do well with physical conflict. I’m sorry to report that I was jumping up and down, flapping my hands like a useless chicken. A teenage customer—clearly with a better head on her shoulders than I—came running back, cell phone in hand, dialing and then babbling into it about a stabbing at the Party Stop.

And then everything paused for one moment, like a still from a movie. Juniper, blood on her face, knife still in her hand, stared at me, her expression full of wonder and pain. She did not seem to know how she had gotten there, nor what she was doing. She looked at Zoey, and then at the knife in her bloody hand. She dropped it, and it clattered on the cement floor and skidded under a box, but she didn’t appear to notice. Her expression crystallized into hatred, and she spat on Zoey, then ran out the back door, leaped off the loading dock platform, and disappeared.

Les, bloodied by the conflict, galloped after her as I thumped down on the floor on my knees and grabbed a costume another customer was holding to stanch Zoey’s bleeding wound. She was sobbing, rolling around on the floor, and wailing that it hurt, not so cool now that she was in trouble.

Police erupted into the place, and I babbled out that the assailant had taken off, and Les, the store owner, was chasing her. An ambulance arrived and paramedics took over my nursing duties, as Les came limping back. Apparently his own leg had been slashed by the mad delinquent as they had grappled on the floor.

It was going to be a long day in Ridley Ridge.

Chapter Thirteen

I
SPENT
THE
REST
of the afternoon in the Ridley Ridge Police headquarters being interviewed by the local sheriff, Ben Baxter, who was a lot older and not nearly as good- looking as Virgil Grace. Not that that mattered. They called Virgil for a character reference, but when the sheriff came back from the conversation, it seemed that Virgil had not been completely complimentary. Baxter implied that he had heard I was an interfering sort.

I walked the sheriff through my impulsive decision to head to the Party Stop, what I had said to Zoey Channer, and what had happened next. He asked a lot of questions, and I answered as best I could. I had a lot to think about, but my brain was not processing by the time I was done with the hamster wheel of questions, each one asked multiple times in different ways. Why had I come to Ridley Ridge that day? Who had I spoken to? Why had I asked the waitress at the café about Les Urquhart and the Party Stop? Was there a particular reason I had decided to come to Ridley Ridge that day? Were they to believe that I had just happened to find Zoey Channer in the back of the store and that was exactly when Juniper Jones attacked her? Had I been in contact with Juniper?

I kept my cool. From conversations I overheard I gathered that both Zoey and Les were still in the hospital, but their wounds were not considered life threatening. During breaks in the questioning, I thought things over. I wondered if Juniper Jones had been supplanted in Les Urquhart’s affections by Zoey Channer and had come back to the store to take her revenge. Was that what she had been weeping over in Binny’s Bakery, her broken relationship? I was too tired to think clearly, because some things were staring me in the face and I
still
didn’t get them.

Given that I was exhausted and sitting there in blood-stained clothes, I think I was cooperative if not exactly affable, but when they let me go, it was with a warning to stay out of Ridley Ridge unless Baxter specifically asked me back. I would not only comply, I would warn everyone with whom I had contact to stay out of Ridley Ridge.

He also warned me not to interfere in their investigation into what had happened. As if I would!

When I finally got back to Shilo’s car—walking, because the police officers were “too busy” to give me a lift for another hour or more—there was a ticket on the car for parking too long, over the two-hour street-parking limit. I considered storming back to the police headquarters. I had only been parked there over two hours because I had been doing my civic duty in talking to them! But the idea of going back to Sheriff Baxter gave me cold shudders, and on a day that was already too long, I couldn’t face it.

I climbed into the car out of the drizzling, misty rain, longing for a vehicle with an actual working heater. That would not be Jezebel, even on a good day, so I’d need to shiver for heat until I got back to the castle. At least I was confident that this rotten day wouldn’t get any worse. But then, when I tried to start the pathetic wreck, it whined and groaned, refusing to even turn over. Like a creaky senior with rheumatism, it did not like damp weather.

I sat, head bowed, feeling alone and dejected, but I couldn’t stay that way forever. I pulled my cell phone out of my damp purse and scanned the numbers. I tried the castle, but no one answered. I tried Shilo’s cell and then Pish’s, and then even Cranston’s. Still, no one answered. I couldn’t pull Binny away from her bakeshop, and Gogi had a new tenant moving in that day.

My only option was Virgil Grace. He answered promptly, was there in ten minutes, and ushered me to his sheriff’s car. I got in, watched by several of the gloating citizens of Ridley Ridge, and put my hands to the heat vent, hoping I would thaw. I truly never wanted to see that town again but would need to, to retrieve Shilo’s broken car. I sighed and laid my head against the passenger window of Virgil’s car as he drove out of the town and onto the highway.

“Merry, I—”

“Not a word!” I said, holding up one hand. “I do not want to be chastised as if I am some delinquent teenager who disobeyed direct orders. I do not want to be chided or warned, nor do I want to be scolded or reproached. I’ve had just about enough today.”

“I was just going to say how sorry I was that you got in the middle of that,” he said mildly enough.

Suspicious of what sounded like sympathy, I looked over at him. “You’ve already had your revenge by warning the sheriff that I was troublesome.”

“I didn’t do that,” he claimed.

His jutting chin, clothed by stubble, was pointed straight forward, hands on the wheel at ten o’clock and two o’clock, so I examined him in the gray light of late afternoon. He seemed sincere. My tone was more conciliatory as I said, “Virgil, I hope you know that I don’t go looking for trouble.”

“Sure,” he said easily, then ruined it by adding, “It just seems to find you.”

I magnanimously ignored that. “And, despite what you may think, I know for certain that Pish Lincoln is not guilty of murder and could never hurt anyone.”

He was silent. Me, too, for a while, anyway.

“Merry, I don’t
think
he did it,” he finally said. “But I am in a position where I have to keep an open mind. He had a motive, but it’s a weak one, since he doesn’t seem to be hiding anything. That I
know
of. I’m investigating; let’s leave it at that.”

Given that I still feared Pish was hiding something, I knew I had to let it go. So I told him all I had learned. That Sonora Silvio may have seen Davey Hooper and Zoey Channer in the same car. I filled him in about Juniper Jones and Les Urquhart and Zoey Channer, especially the fact that Zoey smoked and had been at the party. She may have seen something in the smoking pit or even been a part of something. “The waitress at the café, Susan, told me Urquhart has been hanging around a guy who sounds a lot like Davey Hooper. There could be a connection there, Virgil.”

“There could be,” he said, nodding. “I’ll look into it. And I mean
I’ll
look into it, Merry. Stay out of it.”

I wouldn’t promise, not while Pish was a suspect. Instead, I said, “Well, I’m sure your buddy counterpart in Ridley Ridge will help you out.”

“Not likely.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t get along with Sheriff Baxter.”

I waited, but no explanation was forthcoming. “Okay, Virgil, why don’t you get along with Sheriff Baxter?”

He shifted in his seat and wheeled off the road and up my drive. “I divorced his daughter,” he replied and gunned it.

“What? Your ex-wife is the next town’s sheriff’s daughter?” I gabbled, hanging on to the hand rest at the sudden acceleration. “Who was she? What was her name? Why did you divorce?”

He parked, looked over at me, and said, “I don’t talk about it. Ever.” Then he got out of the car.

I would have pursued it, but I didn’t have the opportunity—I was distracted by the scene in front of the castle. There had been no rain at the castle, but the sky was still gloomy. The parking space in front of the castle held, besides Jack’s Smart car, a tow truck and two Cadillacs; one was the old one that had been in the garage out back, and the other was brand new and familiar to me. Caddy one had a mechanic bent over the hood, with Gordy and Zeke clustered around, and Caddy two had Percy Channer and the driver standing outside of it talking to Pish, Shilo, and McGill. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly as I emerged from the car and circled to stand next to Virgil.

“Does that bozo worry you? The fireplug guy?” Virgil muttered.

Surprised by his perspicacity, I said, “Not really, but he’s Zoey Channer’s multimillionaire father. I think we ought to tell him about his daughter, if he doesn’t already know.”

“Let me handle it.”

As I stood by the police car, I looked over at Pish, Shilo, and Jack and shook my head at them, putting one finger to my mouth. We needed to let this play out without interference. Of course, at this point, I had completely forgotten about the blood on my clothes, so I didn’t get why my friends looked so alarmed. I followed as Virgil strode toward Channer, who whirled, his pudgy face suffused with dark red. The multimillionaire was about to duck around Virgil to come at me, bellyaching about his daughter, but the sheriff put out one arm and halted him in his tracks.

The driver/bodyguard made a move to intervene, but Channer held up his hand. “It’s okay,” he said to his edgy employee. He adjusted his expression to one more conciliatory, even though his face was still red. He looked me over, then asked, “Has my daughter, Zoey, been here?”

“That’s a good question,” I replied. “You should ask her that.”

His lip trembled into a sneer and his chin lowered, making him look even more like a bulldog. “I keep hearing she’s been to your place, and been around that town, that Autumn Valley or whatever the eff it’s called, but no one will talk to me.” His anxiety was ratcheting up as he spoke, and he moved jerkily, fists on his hips, his feet apart. “What gives? You hiding her? If you are, I’ll have your tail in court so fast it’ll make—”

“Stop right there,” Virgil growled, gripping the man’s shoulder as my friends trooped toward us. “I wouldn’t advise threats toward Miss Wynter.”

“What do you expect?” he griped, wresting himself from Virgil’s hold as his chauffeur/bodyguard trembled in anxious abeyance. “My daughter has been hanging around some lowlife jail scum, and I want her back where she’s supposed to be, in New York.”

“Lowlife jail scum?” I said. “Do you know what this guy looks like?”

“I haven’t seen him,” he admitted, squinting over at me. “Hear he’s got long hair. Can’t stand long hair on a guy. Didn’t like it when I was a kid, don’t like it now. When I came here to find her . . .” He paused. “I mean, I’m looking for her everywhere. Need to keep her out of trouble.”

I noticed the mistake, and I didn’t think he meant the first time he barged into my castle. “You
did
come to my party, didn’t you?” How had he gotten in? How had he been dressed? And why hadn’t he checked in at the door? I had invited him, for goodness sake. Of course, if he’d had evil intentions, he would not have wanted to make himself known. He struck me as a guy who liked to do things his own way.

Virgil went still beside me, and I could feel tension radiating from him. Percy Channer was an unknown factor, one of the unaccounted-for guests. This could be very important.

Percy sneered. “Maybe I did get in, and maybe I didn’t; you don’t need to know. But you oughta ask yourself: how much were you paying the waitresses? Right? You weren’t paying the serving staff much, I’d bet. Money talks.”

Virgil was listening and watching, as were Shilo, Pish, and McGill, while the gearheads still piddled around with the old caddy. For once, the sheriff stayed silent. I could ask and say things he, as a police official, could not, and I was willing to take advantage of that. I thought for a moment, as Percy eyed me with suspicion, then said, “You paid off Juniper Jones, I’ll bet. I’ll let you in on a little secret; she was only trying to get rid of your daughter and would have let you in for free. Didn’t you see Zoey? She was
here
, all right, at the party. Did you miss her? Again?”

“Damn it!” Percy exploded, shaking his fist in the air, his face getting red down to his thick neck. “How the (expletive) does she keep getting away from me?”

Virgil was restive, and I knew I had not taken the investigative route he would have preferred. He was right, if that’s what he was thinking. I had blown my chance just so I could take a cheap shot at the guy; I guess I’m not much of a Watson.

“Mr. Channer, we have some things to talk about, but not here,” Virgil said. “If you would have your driver follow me to the police station—” He took the shorter man’s elbow, ready to lead him back to his car, but Channer surprised him by yelping and cringing.

“Get away from me. Police brutality!” He whirled toward his chauffeur. “You dingbat, what am I paying you for?” As the chauffeur leaped to get between his employer and the sheriff, Percy sneered at Virgil, “I don’t need your crap; I’m just looking for my daughter.”

I was horrified by his swift and weird changes in personality. The chauffeur had now leaped over to the car and was opening the back door. I did not envy that guy his job, looking after someone like Percy Channer.

Virgil didn’t rise to the bait, but did say, through gritted teeth, “If you truly want to know where your daughter is, you’ll need to talk to
me
. She’s in the hospital right now.”

“Hospital? What happened to her?” He glared over at me, and his eyes traveled my body, pausing on my sweater. “Did
you
hurt her? If you did, I’ll have you locked up so fast you’ll spin like a top.”

“I did
not
hurt her,” I exclaimed, shocked at the suggestion. “Why would you even think . . . ?” I stopped as Shilo, eyes wide, glanced up and down at my bloodstained sweater and slacks. “Oh. That. This is her blood, actually, but I didn’t—”

“What is going on?” Channer shouted, stamping his foot and balling his fists, punching them in the air. His face and thick neck were completely suffused with red. “Where is my daughter?” he screamed.