When Magic Is Murder (Sky High Pies Cozy Mysteries Book 4) (14 page)

CHAPTER
32

Two hours later, after finishing a
few more items on the prep list, I asked Julia if she could handle the rest of
our special orders for the day.

“Is water wet?” she asked. “Is snow
white?”

I gave her a goofy frown. “Are some
questions silly?”

“Go on then,” she said with a
bubbly laugh. “I’ll call you if I get in the weeds.”

Once I’d fixed a fresh cup of tea
and settled in at my desk, I returned a few phone calls and answered my
sister’s email about whether or not Zack and I could come to Denver in a few
weeks for dinner. There were also a couple of invoices to pay, but I decided to
take a moment and organize my thoughts about the Alec Halstead case.

“What do we know?” I asked myself,
leaning back in the desk chair. “It would seem that the deceased apparently had
quite the reputation as a ladies’ man.”

I thought about Whitney Morgenson
and Eloise Turner for a moment. Then I considered my conversation with Jenna
Burton.

“If she said it wasn’t what she
paid for,” I murmured, letting the steam from the tea warm my hands, “does that
mean—”

“Katie?”

I turned and saw Harper in the
hallway. “There’s a guy out here asking for you,” she said. “His name is…” She
checked the business card in her hand. “Christopher Edgerly.”

“Tell him that I’ve been abducted
by aliens,” I mumbled.

“Quick like a bunny,” she said,
snapping her fingers. “I’ve got two new tables that are about ready to order.
Should I tell him you’re too busy right now?”

I shook my head. “No, that’s fine.
I’ll be right out.”

“Perfect,” she replied. “He’s
sitting on the bench near the front door.”

After quickly checking email to see
if there was anything new from Dina, I left my office and headed for the front
entrance hall. Christopher Edgerly looked up from his phone when he heard my
footsteps.

“I hope you’ll forgive the
interruption,” he said, giving me a big smile. “But I had something very
important to tell you.”

I nodded. “Why don’t we go into my
office and talk?”

“I won’t need more than a minute or
two,” he said, patting the empty space to his right. “Let’s just sit here.”

Despite the fact that we were in
full view of anyone coming or going, I reluctantly agreed. If he was telling me
the truth, Edgerly would be out the door before the seat was even warm.

“Okay,” I said, joining him on the
bench. “What’s so important that you needed to tell me in person?”

He cleared his throat and raised
one eyebrow. “I’m no longer interested in buying Sky High Pies,” he announced.

The declaration left me
overjoyed—and speechless. I stared at him skeptically as he explained that my
comments during our conversation at the Lodge had caused him to question his
own motivation regarding the acquisition of property in Crescent Creek. He told
me that he needed to overhaul his plans, revamp his attitude and take a second
run at the project.

“You really opened my eyes, Kate,”
he said. “I owe you a huge debt of gratitude.”

I brushed aside the compliment with
a shrug. “So, you’re not buying property in Crescent Creek at all?”

Edgerly laughed. “Oh, that’s not
what I meant. I’m still negotiating with a few of your neighbors. If they
accept my terms, you and I will be seeing a lot more of one another.”

“How does that overhaul and revamp
your plans?”

“I just meant in terms of Sky
High,” he explained. “I never realized what family pride actually means until I
heard you talk about Nana Reed and your parents and all the rest.”

I smiled. “But you already knew our
story. Why did talking to me change your mind?”

“Because you brought it all to
life, Kate. It was no longer a spreadsheet and a legal offer and a bunch of
blueprints spread out on a conference room table. It was flesh and blood and
hopes and dreams. It was a
real
family with an
authentic
tale of
success.”

I looked around. “Is this the part
where the producer and cameraman pop out and announce that I’m being punked on
a reality show?”

Edgerly laughed; a warm, sweet tone
that was surprisingly genuine. “No,” he said. “This is the part where I shake
your hand and wish you well.” He got up from the bench. “I’m serious, Kate; you
made me reconsider why I wanted to buy Sky High in the first place.”

“Okay,” I said. “Why?”

The skimpy grin on his face burst
into an wide smile. “I’m not even sure how to answer that yet,” he confessed.
“I think it was just because I wanted to buy as much of Crescent Creek as I
could.”

“The whole town?”

He shook his head. “Mostly your
part,” he said. “There’s something incredibly beautiful about the landscape,
the trees and that little stream that winds through your property.” His face
brightened even more as he pictured the area in his mind. “In the end,” he
continued, “it was just my massive ego, trying to have my way and push people
around.”

I fought the urge to laugh;
Edgerly’s sincerity seemed almost scripted, but I wanted to get him out the
door so I could return to thinking about the Alec Halstead case. I stood up and
offered my hand.

“It’s nice talking to you again,” I
said as we shook. “I’ll look forward to seeing you around Crescent Creek once
you gobble up whatever properties you’ve still got your eye on.”

He squeezed my hand a little too
tightly before loosening his grip. Then he wished me a good day and disappeared
through the door.

“There goes trouble,” Harper said
from the dining room entrance.

I smiled. “There it goes, but I
suspect it will return again.”

CHAPTER
33

The conversation with Christopher
Edgerly left me feeling a mix of triumph and melancholy. I hadn’t talked to my next
door neighbor in a few days, but I hoped she wasn’t one of the people on the
land-hungry titan’s list. I was getting ready to go over and see if Viveca was
home when Harper’s cheery face appeared in the doorway again.

“Call for you on line two,” she said.
“It’s Connie Larson.”

I thanked her, hurried back to my
office and picked up the desk phone.

“How’s it going over there,
Connie?”

She laughed. “About as well as you
might expect. I feel like a broken record, telling people that it’s safe to stay
here and the incident in the gazebo was a fluke.”

“Yeah, that’s a tough one. Once the
news gets out, it’s hard to keep people from twisting it all around.”

Connie’s sigh was like a faint
buzz. “I suppose,” she said. “I’m calling to tell you that I found Shannon’s
notes from the other night; not the actual event orders, but something I hope
will be helpful. I would’ve called sooner, but it’s been totally nuts!”

“Oh, there’s no need to apologize.”

“Thanks, Katie.”

“You bet,” I said. “Now, what do
you see in the notes?”

She exhaled loudly. “Well, I don’t
know if this will be much at all,” she said. “But it looks like there was a
last-minute switch from chocolate mousse to individual pear and peach
cobblers.”

“For which of the three events?”

“The bachelorette party,” Connie
answered. “Although it didn’t even really matter because the desserts got left
behind in the confusion. The guests for that party enjoyed some of Luigi’s
delicious Semifreddo instead.”

“Did the client request the
change?”

Connie hummed to herself for a few
seconds. “I can’t be sure,” she said. “There’s just a line through the entry
for chocolate mousse and Shannon’s hand-written note about the cobblers.”

“Okay, if the client didn’t ask for
something different, who would’ve substituted one dessert for another?”

“I don’t mean to sound
thickheaded,” she said, “but why does it matter? The bachelorette party was
moved to Luigi’s.”

“I’m just trying to get as much
information as possible,” I explained. “You never know what might be important
in these types of situations.”

“It may have been Eloise,” Connie
answered. “Since she was handling desserts for the events that night.”

“Has she done that before?”

“No,” Connie said firmly. “And she
won’t
be doing it again if she wants to keep working here.”

“Did you ask her about it?”

“Unfortunately, no. Eloise is still
home sick. I plan to address the matter first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Okay, that’s helpful.”

“Why’d you want to know?”

“Alec Halstead was terribly
allergic to birch pollen,” I answered. “There’s a chance that his death was the
result of an allergic reaction.”

“Birch pollen?” Connie said in
disbelief. “At this time of year?”

“Let me explain,” I said. “Based on
what Dina’s associate learned from Alec Halstead’s doctor, it seems that he
suffered from oral allergy syndrome. Basically, his immune system reacted to
birch tree pollen the same way as compounds found in quite a few fruits and
vegetables, including apples, pears and peaches.”

She was quiet, contemplating what
I’d just shared. Then she asked me who I thought was responsible for the
victim’s death.

“At this point, there’s no way to
be certain,” I said. “But I will tell you this—I suspect the person was aware
that Alec had severe allergies. And they also may have known that if he ate one
of those fruits, the reaction would be devastating and potentially lethal if he
didn’t have access to an EpiPen or immediate medical treatment.”

CHAPTER
34

After Connie Larson promised to keep
looking for the event orders from the Crescent Creek Lodge, I picked up the
phone and called Dina.

“Sorry about being a whirling
dervish this morning,” she apologized. “I need about twenty-four more hours in
the day to juggle all of these cases.”

“When it rains, it pours, right?”

She laughed. “Well, it’s felt more
like a nonstop deluge lately. What’s the latest on your end, Katie?”

I quickly told her that Connie had
confirmed that someone had changed the desserts for one of the special events
to include peach and pear cobblers.

“On one hand, that sounds pretty
trivial,” I explained. “But, on the other, it could also be the cause of Alec
Halstead’s death.”

“Fruit as a murder weapon,” Dina
said. “You don’t hear that too often.”

“Like never,” I agreed.

“But how could someone change plans
for a private party?” she asked. “Especially after the customer already
approved the menu?”

“Maybe there’s another
explanation,” I suggested. “Maybe the person responsible for making the change
also somehow convinced the client that it would be better. Or maybe they were
double dipping.”

Dina exhaled loudly. “Double
dipping?”

“Yes,” I said. “If the point of
making something with pears and peaches was to cause Alec Halstead to suffer an
allergy attack that worsened into anaphylaxis, then perhaps the responsible
party didn’t actually change the items prepared for the event.”

“Meaning what?” Dina said after a
yawn. “They followed the original plan, but also had someone make the peach and
pear desserts?”

“Exactly. I did a little more
research earlier about oral allergy syndrome and anaphylaxis. If you ingest a
substance that causes an allergic reaction, there’s a narrow window of time to
offset the inevitable symptoms.”

“Okay, but…” Dina paused, humming
quietly on the other end. “Do we know how many people were aware that Alec
Halstead’s allergies were that severe?”

“According to his sister and
ex-wife, not too many. He kept it pretty quiet.”

“Family members were probably
aware,” Dina speculated. “And I would imagine a few close friends.”

“Quite possibly. And there’s also a
chance that one or more of his conquests knew.”

She groaned. “I’m sorry to say
this, but Alec Halstead sounds like he was kind of a creep.”

“Because he was a ladies’ man?”

“That’s a nice way of putting it,”
Dina said. “Ladies’ man, player, womanizer…no matter how you describe it, the
guy wasn’t exactly Mr. Prudent. Have you seen his Facebook page?”

I laughed. “It hasn’t been high on
my list quite yet. What’s on it?”

“Mostly pictures of Alec Halstead
with a regular cornucopia of scantily clad women,” Dina answered. “Along with a
few kitten videos.”

I didn’t say anything.

“And a pretty rage-fueled rant
about his ex-wife,” Dina added. “From what he wrote, I think it’s a safe bet
their divorce was anything but amicable.”

“A very safe bet,” I agreed. “When
I talked to Jenna Burton, she made it pretty clear that she didn’t want to
discuss Alec or anything related to him.”

“Remember her stooge?” asked Dina.
“The good-for-nothing named Dallas that she called after you talked to her?”

“Sure, I remember.” I chuckled
softly. “Have you learned anything new?”

“Well, Tyler Armstrong had a very
interesting meeting with someone from the Boulder PD. It seems the seedy guy that
Jenna was talking with when you were…” She stopped and I heard her fingers
flying across a computer keyboard. “…um, his name is…here we go; Dallas Kramer.
He was picked up in Boulder for public intoxication the afternoon that Alec
Halstead was found at the Crescent Creek Lodge.”

“Okay,” I said. “If Kramer was
arrested that afternoon, then—”

“He wasn’t involved in Alec
Halstead’s death,” Dina said. “At least, not
directly
involved. There’s
always a possibility that he passed along the information about Halstead’s oral
allergy syndrome to someone else.” She chuckled softly. “Either way, the guy
was pretty rattled when he sobered up in the jail cell. Between the booze and
his regularly anxious state, Kramer thought he’d been arrested for taking a
five-hundred dollar payment from Jenna Burton to beat some sense into Alec
Halstead.”

“He told the Boulder detective
that?”

“Yes, he did. And from the way my
contact described it, Kramer was a wind-up toy going bonkers until he ran out
of steam. Like Chatty Cathy or something. Apparently, they moved Kramer to an
interrogation room about an hour after his beady, bloodshot eyes opened this
morning. And before the Boulder detective even asked his first question, the
guy spilled the beans.”

“About Jenna hiring him to assault
Alec?”

“Well, I doubt if he uttered the
word ‘assault,’” Dina said slowly. “He probably used more colorful language to
confess to the scheme.”

“And all for five hundred bucks?”

“I guess you get what you pay for,”
Dina snickered. “From what I heard about Kramer’s BAC level after he was
booked, I’d say he probably spent a big chunk of the money on whiskey before
dining at Taco Bell. He was arrested in the parking lot there after a scuffle
of some sort.”

I laughed. “Tacos and whiskey?”

“A class act,” Dina remarked.
“Nothing but the best for Dallas Kramer.”

“What’s going to happen to him
now?” I asked.

“Dunce cap and three weeks in the
corner sounds about right,” Dina suggested.

“But he can’t be charged with
anything if he didn’t actually assault Halstead though, right?”

“Depends on our investigation,” she
said. “If we can link Kramer and Jenna in any way to the death of Alec
Halstead, there would a good case for conspiracy and premeditated murder
changes.”

“There are definitely mixed
messages here,” I said. “Alec’s sister told me that Jenna broke into his SUV
and destroyed his custom-tailored tux. But then Jenna claimed she hasn’t talked
to Alec in months, even though several people saw them arguing outside his
sister’s pizza place recently.”

I could hear Dina’s fingers tapping
away at a keyboard.

“You need to go?” I asked a few
moments later.

“Oh, yeah…” Her voice was hazy and
remote, like she was distracted by something on her laptop. “Sorry about that,
Katie. I just got an email related to the Chadwick case.”

“What’s the latest?” I said. “Bella
and Danny doing okay?”

“More or less. They’re both tough
and resilient, but I…you know what? I really need to focus on this for a while.
Can I call you later?”

“Of course. I’ll text you if I
learn anything new about Alec Halstead.”

“I’d love to know what Jenna Burton
has to say,” Dina remarked. “From what my contact in Boulder told me, she’s a
pretty savvy character. I’d love to know how she reacts when she hears that
Dallas Kramer ratted her out.”

“Well, you know what they say,” I
replied. “There’s no honor among thieves.”