Muffins & Murder (Sweet Bites Book 3) (Sweet Bites Mysteries) (11 page)

“I talked to Glenda, who had a chat with Karla, who works with Connie’s husband. They worked on Friday evening. They don’t get off until after seven because they’re calling to the west coast. Anyway, I thought you’d want to know. Oh, and I promised Glenda that if she got the information that you’d give her half a dozen cupcakes of her choice.”

I laughed. “Of course. She can pop in anytime.”

“Keep me in the loop, and call me if there’s anything else I can do.”

“Oh, I will. Thanks.” We said goodbye and I hung up.

“So Cole wasn’t really fishing?” Honey asked after I filled her in on Marge’s news and, more importantly, my research trip with Jack the previous evening.

“No. Or at least, the ranger doesn’t remember him being there. But that isn’t exactly proof.” I wiped down the dirty bistro tables in the bakery since things were finally slowing down for the afternoon lull. “I don’t know if Cole can prove it one way or the other. Maybe someone else saw him, but if so, don’t you think he would have mentioned it to Tingey?”

“He owns his own boat?” Honey picked at the edge of her chocolate chip cookie. “Maybe there’s some proof in the boat. You know, fuel receipt or something gross like fish heads so we know he had it out that weekend.”

“Or maybe not.” We’d found information in less likely places, though.

“We could swing by his apartment and talk to him,” Honey suggested. “I just can’t see him as the murderer. He’s too, I don’t know, stuck in the past, I guess.”

“If Tingey can’t find him, what are the chances that we’ll find him?” I asked. “Tingey’s been looking since last night. And if the guy’s truck was there, Tingey would have found an excuse to get into his apartment by now.”

“I don’t know. But you have some errands to run this afternoon, right? We could swing by Cole’s place and see what’s up.” She grinned, lifting a piece of paper between two fingers. “I looked up his address before I came here. I hoped there might be a reason to stop by there.”

“Wow, are you omniscient now?” I asked, loving that she was so ready to jump into this with both feet, and a little nervous that I was going to get her into trouble again.

Lenny came to the doorway between the kitchen and front counter. “You better not be gone long. You promised I could take off early tonight. We have some things to do before Kat’s family arrives tomorrow.”

I saluted him. “Sir, yes sir. I’ll be back quickly, I promise.”

His lifted his brows. “Right. If you’re not back at five, I’m locking up anyway.” He turned and returned to the kitchen.

“I love being in charge,” I said to Honey. “Don’t you just feel the respect radiating off him for me as his boss? It makes me feel so important.”

“Hey, you’re the one who called him your little brother.” She smiled. “That’s what you get for adopting him into your family.”

“That was smart of me, wasn’t it?” I put the cleaning rag into the bucket of sanitizer. “Give me a second to grab the deliveries and I’ll meet you at your car.”

“I’ll make it quick,” I said to Lenny as I grabbed my jacket from the hook near the back door.

“Yeah. You’re always fast.” He voice was low and gruff.

A note in his tone made me pause. “What’s going on? Nervous about meeting the future in-laws?”

He shrugged and kept scrubbing the stainless steel counter where he’d been rolling out sugar cookies earlier.

“Hey, speak to me. What’s up?” It made me nervous that he was so quiet. He hadn’t wanted to get married initially, concerned about making the commitment and what would happen between him and Kat afterward. But he’d seemed pretty good with it since he begged her to stay and proposed that summer. It was like a scene out of a movie—well, I actually wasn’t close enough to hear the proposal, so it was like a scene out of a silent film. It was sweet and they were ridiculously happy, so his questions now made me nervous.

“There’s just a lot to do still. I’m a little stressed because Kat has these big ideas. I thought this was supposed to be a small, simple ceremony. And now it’s blown out of control.”

“Says the man who made enough wedding cake to feed two hundred, even though you only invited like twenty people to the ceremony and maybe double that many invites went out for the reception.”

His lips twitched. “That’s totally irrelevant. I didn’t make the cake to feed the number of people I expected. I made it to fit the design in my head.”

“And it’s awesome. Kat is going to flip and everyone in a hundred miles will want you to do their cakes instead of me.” Despite our banter, he didn’t look any less worried. “Hey. You’re not going to back out, are you?”

“And screw things up with Kat now? No. No way. It’s too likely I’ll make a mess of things later. Guess I need to take the chances I’ve got while they’re here.” He wiped the bits of dough he’d scraped off the counter into the garbage can.

“You really think you’re going to mess everything up?” I asked. Seeing them together, the way he took care of her, and she took care of him, the way he lit up whenever she came into the bakery, I knew something major would have to go wrong for him to make a mess of things.

“I don’t know what I’m doing, Tess. I’ve never seen a good relationship. My ma didn’t settle for one guy for long, and before Kat, I didn’t stick with a relationship for more than a few weeks. If you can call it a relationship when it’s that short. I’m always doing and saying stupid things. It’s a miracle she’s stayed with me this long.”

I pressed my hand to his cheek for a moment. “You’ll be fine. Anyone who cares as much about his wife as you do for Kat is bound to hold up his end of things. Give yourself a break.” I straightened the jacket across my shoulders. “I’ll be back long before five. No worries.”

“Good thing, because I’m serious about locking up if you’re not back.”

“I know you are,” I called to him as I stacked the box of cupcakes for the baby shower on the box of cookies for the Shriner’s meeting.

“What kept you?” Honey asked after I stashed the treats in her back seat and joined her up front.

“Just a quick heart-to-heart with Lenny. Pre-wedding jitters. But he’s good.” I hoped. “Are we on track for the decorating this weekend?” I asked. Honey had sort of appointed herself wedding planner and was working closely with Kat on organizing everything except the food. Lenny and I were handling that.

Kat had made friends with a local artist, Cleve Dutson, who had an amazing backyard. He and his wife offered to let her be married and hold the reception there. It was a nice gesture, especially since moving expenses, along with Lenny’s minimal income, made their wedding budget pretty small. Lenny had talked about running off to Vegas, but Kat put her foot down, wanting a ceremony with family and friends, even if it wasn’t big.

“You betcha. George will come home early Friday to ride herd on the kids and we’re going to stay up decorating that yard until we’re ready to drop,” Honey said.

“I don’t think it’ll take
that
long,” I said. “They don’t have that many things to set up the night before. Most of it will need to go up the next morning.”

“That’s beside the point—I’m not going home early. I haven’t had a girl’s night in longer than I can remember. One of the kids is always cutting it short because they need stitches or something. We’re going to do girl’s night afterward—maybe some dancing and a sweet cake-ish delight. Thoughts about that?”

“I can handle that. Kat said no bachelorette party, but there’s no reason we can’t have cake and dance—no men allowed.”

“Good. I already mentioned it to Kat and we can work together to get her mom and sister-in-law on board. I need some away time.”

“And now you want to stop by Cole’s? You must be in full avoidance mode.”

“You know it.” She put the car into gear and we headed out.

It didn’t take long to drop off the goodies to my clients and Honey had been right when she said the address was on my way, or pretty close. We pulled up in front of Cole’s apartment. Two covered spots were marked with his apartment number—one was empty, but an old fishing boat on a trailer was parked in the second one.

“This must be his boat,” Honey said.

“Guess so.” We got out and walked to his apartment, knocking on the door. “He’s not here.”

“No, but we might as well try again before we start poking around his boat.” She pounded on the door and called in, “Hey, Cole. It’s Honey Anderson and Tess Crawford. You in there?”

There was a long moment of nothing. “Guess not,” I said.

“All right then, let’s check out the boat.”

We walked back over and loosened the tarp he’d secured to the boat trailer. I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to keep the rain out—an unnecessary effort in our droughty area when he was already parked under a car port—or if he was trying to discourage anyone from stealing stuff from it.

When we peeled back the tarp I realized theft couldn’t be the issue. There was nothing to steal. “It’s bare, not even a spare set of oars,” I pointed out.

Honey uncovered the far end and stared at it, a smirk on her mouth. “Not even a motor. You think he pulls it and stores it inside? This isn’t exactly a high-crime area. Would anyone be desperate enough to take the chance of being caught while they disconnected the engine?”

I noticed the tire by my feet. “They wouldn’t get very far if they tried to take the whole boat. The tire’s flat over here. I wonder when that happened.”

A guy in his early twenties came out of the apartment next door. “What are you doing? Does Cole know you’re messing with his boat?”

“We stopped by to talk to him, but he’s not home right now,” I said. “He promised to take me out some time. I wondered if the boat would keep the water out.” Improvising wasn’t really my strong suit, but once in a while I managed a likely story. I wasn’t sure if I’d succeeded this time.

He put his hands on his hips. “I’m gonna call the cops if you don’t get out of here. There’s nothing to steal in there anyway. He always left it empty.”

“Even the motor?” Honey asked.

He pulled out his cell phone. “What’s it to you? You want me to call the cops?”

“Hey, we’re tying this back down,” I said as I picked up the rope and began wrapping the boat again. “And if you’re going to call the cops, how about if you call Detective Tingey? We’re checking something out for him. He’s investigating that murder of the school teacher.” I really didn’t want him calling Tingey, but better him than one of the other cops who wouldn’t be quite as understanding.

He looked at me, his eyes narrowing. “Straight up. You two ain’t cops.”

“Nope. We’re just checking things out, covering a few details so he can focus on the big stuff.” When he looked uncertain, I pushed a little harder. “So, did Cole usually take his motor inside or did someone boost it?”

“He took it inside. Said he had one stolen,” the guy said.

 “How long has the tire been flat, do you know?” I tossed my end of the rope to Honey and she tied it down, pulling it tight.

His brows furrowed. “A couple of weeks.”

“Are you sure?” Cole said he’d been out in his boat on Friday night, but there was no way he’d haul it out to the lake if the tire had been flat and the boat would stick out of the back of the truck too far to haul it in the bed.

The guy shot me an irritated look. “He’s been moaning about how he would have to wait until his check this week so he could afford to replace the tire.”

Interesting. “Do you have any idea where he is now? I’ve been trying to track him down.”

He shrugged. “I haven’t seen him for a couple of days.”

I exchanged looks with Honey. “Thanks for the information. We’ll let the detective know.”

“How do I know you’re really working with him?” he asked.

I tugged open my coat to show off my chef’s jacket and the logo for my shop on the left side. “Call and ask him if you want.” I really, really hoped he didn’t or Tingey would be back in my place having words with me about interfering and making false claims.

“I will.”

“Good.” I motioned to Honey and we headed back to her minivan. “Interesting, that,” I said when we were out of his earshot.

“I wonder if Tingey learned about the flat. So if Cole wasn’t fishing, where was he?”

“I don’t know, but I intend to find out.” After I got back to the bakery. A glance at my watch told me I was going to be well within the time limit Lenny gave me. Maybe I’d let him cut out early.

I am sewing impaired. I mean really, truly hopeless, yet somehow I find myself at the twice-monthly quilt-guild meetings more often than not. It’s been a valuable place to make contacts for future orders for my shop, to keep up with what’s going on in the community, and surprisingly, to research when I’m investigating a murder.

Since one of the biggest controversies around Francine was the fight over who owned the rights to the quilt designs she sold online, I figured it was the ideal place to find out more. Plus, they bought a big order of cookies and cupcakes for the event that I needed to deliver.

Honey was already there when I arrived at the library’s meeting room with my load of sweets. She smiled at me across the room and met me at the table as I opened the bakery boxes and started setting it all out.