A Killer Cake (11 page)

“I know I shouldn’t encourage you, but I
can’t seem to help myself,” she said as she kissed his cheek as
well.

After my mother was gone, Moose turned to me.
“So, what do you say? If we start interviewing folks now, we can
get an hour’s jump on things.”

“I say no, and I shouldn’t have to tell you
the reason why,” I said, scolding him a little with my tone of
voice.

If it bothered him in the least, he didn’t
show it. “Fine, but I still think it’s a bad idea to just sit
around here and wait.”

“Maybe so, but we gave our word,” I said, and
then I instantly regretted it.

Moose must have seen something in my face.
“What’s wrong, Victoria?”

“I have no idea how we’re going to keep our
promise now,” I said as I pointed over his shoulder.

We weren’t going after any of our suspects,
but one of them was about to walk right into our diner, and I
wasn’t sure just how much we could talk about until noon came
around.

“Kelly, I’m surprised to see you here. Have
you ever even been to the diner?”

As she walked in, I could have sworn I saw
Asher outside on the sidewalk, but when I looked back, whoever had
been there was gone now. If it
had
been Asher, had he had
the same idea to come in to talk to us about his father’s murder? I
hoped that he’d come back after Kelly was gone. I wanted to speak
to both of them, and doing it at the diner was much preferred,
since it was on our home turf.

Kelly shook her head. “Actually, I’m allergic
to so many things, it’s nearly impossible for me to find something
to eat out anywhere I go. It’s quite lovely,” Roy Thompson’s
secretary/receptionist said as she looked around.

The Charming Moose could be called many
things, but I wasn’t sure that ‘lovely’ was one of them. Sure, we
had our own eclectic charm, and the jukebox in the corner gave us a
little color, but I knew what we had. It was a place to come when
you wanted to feel as though you were home, surrounded by friendly
people, heavenly aromas, and food that made you feel as though
you’d never left your childhood home. Some folks called it a hole,
some a dive, but I didn’t mind. I knew better than most what it
was, and I loved it because of that, not in spite of it.

“Thank you for your kind words,” I said. “If
you didn’t come by for the food, what can we do for you?”

“Well, I
do
drink coffee,” she said
with a smile.

“Then pick a seat, and I’ll fix you right
up,” I told her. “If you tell my husband the things that you
can
have, I’m sure he could come up with
something
for you to eat.”

“Actually, I’m not really hungry. I was
hoping to get a chance to speak with you and Moose about my boss,
though.”

I was on the horns of a dilemma now. Did this
qualify as going after a suspect in the sheriff’s mind? After all,
she’d walked into our place of her own free will. I felt as though
I had abided by the sheriff’s demand that we not go after her, but
I didn’t want him stopping by before noon and seeing my grandfather
and me grilling someone on his forbidden list.

I was still debating the ethical quandary
when Moose settled it for the both of us. “There’s nothing we’d
like more. Follow me,” he said as he led her to a table away from
everyone else. I had no choice but to trail along behind them. I
might not believe that we were in the clear one hundred percent
with the sheriff, but that didn’t mean that I was going to be left
out of the conversation, either. Ethics was one thing, but this was
something else entirely.

I grabbed three cups and the coffee pot, and
after we were all settled in, Kelly said, “I suppose you think it’s
odd that I’m coming to you two, but you were so interested in Mr.
Thompson’s murder that I felt as though we all want the same thing,
to figure out who killed him. The sheriff was so cold and official
when we spoke that it seemed to me as though he was following some
kind of script. To be honest with you, the man intimidates the
daylights out of me.”

I wasn’t about to say anything bad about
Sheriff Croft, and I needed to stop Moose from doing it, either.
“He has boundaries and restrictions that we don’t,” I said. “Given
his limitation, he’s very good at what he does.”

“Maybe so,” Kelly said, “but there’s a lot
more to it than that. I’ve asked around, and I understand now why
you two started your investigation. This isn’t the first time
you’ve looked for a killer, is it?”

“We’ve been thrown into a few situations in
the past,” my grandfather admitted rather humbly. We both knew full
well that there was a lot more to it than that. We’d actively
tracked murderers before when our motivations had been strong
enough. Having a murder victim die after eating a piece of our cake
gave us both more than reason enough to dig into what had
happened.

“You solved them, though, didn’t you?” she
asked.

“We did, one way or another,” I replied. “Is
there anything you can add to what you told us yesterday?”

“Oh, there’s lots more I know now,” she said
as she dug into her purse and started digging through it. After
nearly a full minute, she pulled out the back of a Chinese take-out
menu, and I saw that it was nearly covered with notes and names.
Kelly appeared to be quite dynamic in her musings, because I saw a
host of exclamation marks, bold stars, and heavy outlines marking
up the paper.

“May I see that?” I asked, curious about the
intensity of her note-taking.

She just laughed. “I’d give it to you, but
I’m afraid that you wouldn’t be able to make anything out of it. I
tend to ramble when I do this, so without me as a guide, you
couldn’t make heads or tails of the whole thing. It’s a lot easier
if I just tell you what I found out.”

“I understand,” I said, though that wasn’t
quite true. “Go on, and we’ll both try to follow along.”

“Here goes,” she said as she studied the back
of the menu. It appeared that, at least at first, she was having
trouble herself knowing exactly where to begin. After a few moments
though, she nodded, and then the words began tumbling out of her
mouth as though she had less than a minute to live. “James
Manchester threatened Roy before, around the time someone ran Roy
off the road in his car. Are they connected? I think they might be.
Sylvia Jones tried to get Roy arrested for domestic violence when
they were married, even though I’m positive that it never happened.
A long time ago, his son, Asher, threatened him with a .22 caliber
pistol when he was sixteen because Roy wouldn’t buy him a Corvette.
I found out that Hank Mullins was his mystery partner, and
evidently the mayor lost more than he could handle in one of their
deals. He’s not nearly as rich as he pretends to be.” She peered at
the menu again, and then added, “I was looking through Roy’s
calendar, and I saw that he had an appointment that he never told
me about last night. It was with someone with the initials L.J.,
but I’ve gone through all our files, and I can’t find anyone who
matched. Roy was awfully good at keeping secrets, and it took me
quite a while to uncover all that I found.”

“You did a remarkable job of it,” I said,
meaning every word of it. “But I’m curious about something. Did you
just uncover all of this, or did you know some of it before we came
by the office yesterday afternoon?” Her answer would be quite
telling, no matter which one was true. If she knew so much before
Moose and I came by, then she’d held out on us, but if she’d found
out in the interim, that meant that she must have found some kind
of diary or journal afterwards. Roy didn’t strike me as the type of
man who would record his thoughts on paper, but then again, I’d
been wrong before.

“I knew quite a bit of it before,” she
admitted, “but I wasn’t sure how much I could trust you with the
information. Like I said, though, I asked around, and several
people in town told me that I could count on you.”

“We thank you for your faith,” Moose said.
“Did you share any of this information with the sheriff?”

“I tried, but he didn’t seem all that
interested in my speculations, so I finally just shut up. I had the
distinct impression that he didn’t like me.”

I knew that Sheriff Croft liked to keep a bit
aloof when he questioned folks he considered suspects, so I was
sure that was what Kelly had experienced. It was interesting to me
that Kelly made his suspect list, but then again, I could see how
he might believe that her working for Roy and putting up with the
man on a daily basis for seven years was plenty of motive for
murder.

“I’m sure he was just doing his job,” I
said.

“I have a question for you, Kelly,” my
grandfather said. “Who do
you
think killed your former
employer?”

“Honestly, it could have been any one of
them,” she said as she frowned. “It’s sad, isn’t it?”

“What’s that, the fact that Roy was
murdered?”

“Yes, of course there’s that, but I mean the
idea that so many people wanted to see him dead. I’d hate to think
that you’d be able to come up with a list like that if something
ever happened to me.”

“Did you ever hear Roy mention anyone named
Loretta Jenkins?” Moose asked in passing.

The secretary/receptionist frowned in
concentration, and then she shook her head. “No, not that I can
think of right offhand.” After a moment’s pause, Kelly asked,
“Could that be the L.J. he had an appointment with last night?”

“It would make sense if it were,” I said. I
wasn’t ready to tell her that Loretta claimed to be Roy’s daughter.
Springing it on her might come in handy later.

“Could you describe her for me?” Kelly
asked.

“She’s a petite woman in her early thirties
with jet-black hair and brown eyes,” I said.

Kelly looked at me curiously. “Are you
sure?”

“That’s as good a description as I can give,”
I answered. “Why?”

“Well, I don’t know her name, but that sounds
exactly like the woman I told you about earlier that’s been
stalking Roy for the past two weeks. I wanted to call the sheriff,
but Roy wouldn’t let me. She
has
to be the same woman.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me in the least,” Moose
said.

“The police should
definitely
talk to
her, then. She made me nervous every time I spotted her
nearby.”

I was about to respond when my earlier fears
were realized. I didn’t know if it was merely coincidence, or if it
was by plan, but when I saw the sheriff walk into the diner, I knew
that it didn’t matter one way or the other.

All that really counted was that Moose and I
were busted.

“I didn’t expect to find the three of you
chatting at this time of day,” the sheriff said as he approached
us. It was clear that it was a direct jab, and given the
circumstances, I didn’t know that I could blame him.

“Kelly just dropped in all on her own for a
cup of coffee and a chat,” I said. “We were honestly surprised to
see her visiting the diner.”

Kelly looked at me a little oddly as she
said, “I didn’t realize that my absence here in the past was all
that big a deal.”

The sheriff stared at her a moment, as though
he were analyzing the situation. “Let me get this straight. You
came in here of your own free will, is that right? No one called
you and invited you, did they?”

“No, I did it on my own. Why, does it
matter?” She looked confused by the line of questioning, which just
added to our credibility.

“Not really,” the sheriff said. “Do you mind
if I pull up a chair and join you?” As he asked it, he did as he’d
threatened and started to sit.

“Actually, there’s no need. I have to go,”
Kelly said as she abruptly stood. “I forgot all about it, but there
was someone I was supposed to meet earlier, and I’d hate for them
to think that I stood them up. What do I owe you for the coffee,
Victoria?”

“Today, for you, it’s on the house,” I said.
After all, it was the least I could do after she went out of her
way to add to our knowledge pool.

“Thank you. That’s most gracious of you.”

After she was gone, the sheriff said, “You
know, I don’t think Kelly likes me very much.”

“Then the feeling must be mutual, because she
doesn’t think you like her, either,” I said. “As a matter of fact,
she just told us that you intimidate her.”

“What else did she happen to tell you while
she was here?” the sheriff asked.

“Are you fishing for information?” Moose
asked.

“Well, I hate to be picky about it, but in a
way, you are still on my time.”

Moose just shrugged. “It seems to me that you
could drop a few nuggets our way as well. It’s not asking all that
much, when you consider how much we’ve been giving you lately.”

I wasn’t at all sure that my grandfather was
handling things the proper way, but the sheriff surprised me when
he smiled. “You make a good point. Okay, here’s something
interesting that I just found out. The poison used in your cake was
just on Roy’s piece. The lab analyzed the rest of it, and it was
all clean.”

“What kind of poison was used?” I asked. “Can
it be traced in any way?”

“I’m afraid not. It was just common rat
poison,” he said. “It’s probably in a hundred basements and garden
sheds around town, and the chemical makeup is so generic that
there’s no way in the world to track it back to the owner unless we
find a box of it at one of our suspects’ places, and unless we get
more of a reason to ask for a warrant than that, we aren’t even
going to be able to look.”

“We might be able to handle that for you
ourselves, unofficially, of course,” Moose said.

“I’m going to pretend that you didn’t just
suggest that,” Sheriff Croft said.

“That’s fine with me, but does that mean you
don’t want us to do it, or you’d just rather not know ahead of
time?” Moose asked.