A Spoonful of Murder (29 page)

Lucky’s ears went up, and Sophie swiveled on her stool to stare curiously at Rosemary.

Rosemary took a large bite of her sandwich. Still chewing, she said, “You remember you told me you thought you lost an earring? And I said I hadn’t seen one?”

Lucky nodded in response.

“Well, I asked Melissa, the other receptionist. She said a patient had gone out to the parking lot and then came back. The woman had found an earring by the steps to our back door.”

“What did it look like?”

“Don’t
you
know?” Rosemary looked at her in confusion.

Lucky was stumped for words for a moment. “Oh yes, I remember now. It was dangly with rhinestones.”

Rosemary wrinkled her brow. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No. Why?”

“Well, Melissa said this earring looked very expensive,
like diamonds. That’s why she remembered. She put it in the box we leave in the drawer for lost items, and she asked everyone else—our nurse, the lab woman who comes in sometimes and the records clerk—and they all said it didn’t belong to them.”

“Is it there now?” Lucky asked, excitement rising in her chest.

Rosemary took a last bite of her sandwich and wiped her mouth delicately with a napkin. She dipped her spoon into the soup and sipped the hot liquid carefully. “This is delicious. Thanks, Lucky. Did you make this?”

“No. It’s one of Sage’s he had prepared ahead of time.” Impatient, Lucky asked again, “Is the earring still there, at the Clinic?”

“Well, that’s the strange thing. Melissa said she put it in the drawer, but now it’s gone, so somebody took it. Now why would somebody steal one earring, even if it is valuable?”

Lucky felt her hopes dashed. She was willing to bet that earring matched the one found on Patricia Honeywell’s body. It could prove she wasn’t killed behind the Spoonful. It would go a long way toward clearing the restaurant and hopefully Sage. It might also point in the right direction to her killer. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed likely that Honeywell could have been killed at the Clinic.

Sophie turned a questioning look on Lucky. Lucky shot her a quick glance to be silent. “Well, that couldn’t be mine. Believe me, I don’t own any diamonds. I’m sure whoever it belongs to got it back.”

Rosemary quickly finished her soup. “I hope so. I just wanted to tell you myself, and not say anything around the Clinic. Tell you the truth, I was just afraid somebody might have stolen it. And I didn’t want to get blamed for it.”

“I won’t breathe a word, believe me.”

“Thanks, Lucky. This was a treat. What do I owe you?”

“It’s on the house.” Lucky smiled.

“Are you kidding?”

“Nope. But you have to come back again and bring some more customers with you, okay?”

Rosemary laughed. “I’ll do my best. People are being so silly about this whole thing.”

Lucky thought “silly” was hardly an adjective to describe the terror a murder conjured up, but she was glad Rosemary at least had that attitude. Lucky wondered if the information Elias had given her was accurate—that Honeywell wasn’t a patient at the Clinic. As far as the computer records went, it was true, but what if she had been a patient and her name had slipped between the cracks. Perhaps work had piled up and the records clerk hadn’t gotten around to entering the information. Or perhaps someone at the Clinic had deleted her name from the database.

“You’ve never seen this Honeywell woman at the Clinic, have you?”

Rosemary was winding her scarf around her neck. She hesitated. “I’ve never seen her there. Why do you ask?”

“No special reason. Just curious. If she was staying in the town, she might have needed to see a doctor for some reason.”

“Anything’s possible, but I’m sure I’ve never seen her there. I think I’d remember someone who wasn’t local.” Rosemary headed for the front door. Lucky moved quickly around the counter and followed her. She opened the door for Rosemary and then stepped outside with her, holding the door closed with her hand.

“Rosemary—one other thing.” Rosemary raised her eyebrows. “What kind of a car does Jon Starkfield drive?”

“You’re full of questions today, aren’t you?” When Lucky didn’t respond, she continued, “A black Volvo—he and Abigail have identical cars.” Rosemary waited to see if Lucky would explain her curiosity. “What’s going on, Lucky? Why are you asking about Dr. Starkfield’s car? Is there something you know that you’re not saying?”

“It’s nothing, really. I saw a car for sale up in Lexington Heights, and I thought it might be his, but the car wasn’t black. I must have mixed things up.”

Rosemary’s curiosity seemed to be satisfied by Lucky’s answer. It was a weak answer, but better that excuse than have Rosemary picking away at her for asking questions, or
even worse, spreading gossip at the Clinic. Rosemary headed down the street and Lucky returned to the counter.

“Okay.” Sophie grabbed her arm as she tried to pick up a dish from the counter. “What was all that about an earring?”

Lucky was hesitant to confide in Sophie. Other than wanting to clear Sage’s name, she wasn’t totally sure Sophie didn’t have another layer to her agenda. She hesitated but finally decided she couldn’t see what harm it could do—as long as Sophie kept her mouth shut. She leaned over the counter and spoke quietly. “Don’t you dare breathe a word of anything I tell you. It’s really all speculation anyway, and I don’t want Nate or anybody else coming down on me.”

Sophie shook her head negatively. “I won’t. Just tell me.”

“I don’t think Honeywell was killed here. She could have been attacked in the lot behind the Clinic.”

“Where did you get that?”

Lucky glanced over at Jack. Jack was the person she trusted most in the world, but she wasn’t ready to tell him her suspicions until she had something concrete. “I ran into Chance the other day. He remembered something—something he didn’t think anything of the first time I talked to him.”

“Yes?” Sophie asked expectantly.

“He said Honeywell hurt her leg skiing one day, and he offered to check if one of the doctors at the Resort could see her. She said not to bother, she’d be fine. Then she said she got all her medical treatment for free anyway.”

“And you’re thinking she was seeing one of the doctors at the Clinic.”

“I was looking out the kitchen window from my apartment and realized that, other than the alleyway behind here, the only thing that separates the parking lot behind the Clinic from the alleyway is the Victory Garden, and there are gates on each side of the fence around the Garden.”

“And the murderer could have dragged her body from the Clinic to the alleyway and dumped her here.”

Lucky nodded.

“Assuming you’re right, that her body was dumped here
to draw attention from the real murder scene, it’s just as possible she was killed in her car and someone drove it here and dumped the body. Or her body was loaded into somebody’s car and the alleyway was as good a place as any to leave her. It doesn’t prove she was killed at the Clinic.”

“When they found her…” Lucky took a deep breath. “I saw the body, Sophie. And there was an earring dangling from her ear—only one earring. Nate and his technician have gone over that area with a fine-tooth comb and it hasn’t turned up.”

“So Rosemary’s just confirmed that an earring was found. But you have no way of knowing if it matches the one you saw on Honeywell’s ear.”

“In a nutshell, yes. That’s why I was hoping it was still in the lost-and-found box at the Clinic.”

“I see.”

“The other night—I dug around in the snow and the frozen ice to see what I could find.”

“Anything?”

“No. But if the earring found at the Clinic was Honeywell’s and it’s gone missing, then somebody stole it, and that somebody must work at the Clinic.”

Sophie gasped. “You could be right. Maybe she had something going with that older doctor. And what about that cute younger one—what’s his name?”

“You mean Elias Scott,” Lucky answered, watching Sophie carefully, wondering if she was aware of any gossip that they were seeing each other, but Sophie’s face betrayed no sign of it. “Still doesn’t prove anything. She could have been a patient at the Clinic. Could have met someone else there at night—I don’t know. But please, Sophie, don’t repeat this. Keep it under your hat. It’s just a wild guess and I can’t prove it and I don’t want to ruin anybody’s reputation with gossip. Please.”

“Damn. I wish we could have gotten our hands on that earring.” Sophie stood, slipping on her jacket. “I better get going. I’ve got to get up to the Resort. I’ll call you soon. You call me if you hear anything else, okay?”

“Wait a minute. Not so fast.”

Sophie halted in her tracks and turned slowly back to Lucky, a guilty grin on her face. She didn’t say a word.

“What did you do?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know very well what I’m talking about. I saw your face when I told you Honeywell was getting threatening calls.”

“So? She deserved it.” Sophie shrugged a shoulder. “I got one of the guys in the office to call a few times.”

“Sophie!”

“Teach her to mess with my head.” Sophie smiled, turned on her heel and waved good-bye over her shoulder.

Lucky watched Sophie’s retreating back. One mystery solved, at any rate. And hopefully she hadn’t just committed a big mistake in telling Sophie about the earring and her suspicions about the Clinic. Sage may not have an alibi for the night of the murder, but it really hadn’t occurred to her that Sophie might not have one either. If no one could confirm that she stayed at the Resort all night because of the storm, Sophie could be under suspicion as well.

J
UST BEFORE NOON
, two customers came in—a middle-aged couple. Lucky was sure they were winter tourists and also sure they must have just arrived in town and hadn’t heard the local gossip. They looked around questioningly. “Are you open?” the man asked.

“Yes, we are. Please have a seat.” Lucky led them to a table near the window where passersby could see new customers. Every little bit helped, she thought. “Our menu’s a little limited today.”
Our chef’s in jail.
“But we have a very nice chicken and artichoke soup and a potato leek. For sandwiches, we have turkey with dried cranberries, grilled cheese with bacon and an avocado, tomato and sprout sandwich.”

The new customers ordered two bowls of the potato leek with halves of turkey and cranberry sandwiches. Lucky returned to the kitchen and quickly made up their order. She glanced out through the hatch, where Jack sat at a table reading the newspaper, and caught his wink.

Lucky wondered if it was worth attempting to talk to Nate about the earring that had been found at the Clinic. She
doubted it, but she felt it was something she had to do, even if Nate became angry. That is, if he wasn’t annoyed with her enough as it was.

L
UCKY SAT ON
a hard wooden bench in the outer waiting room and watched Bradley peck at the typewriter behind the counter. Nate was due back any moment, or so she was told. She was impatient, but there was nothing for it but to wait. Now that she had summoned up her courage, she didn’t want to back down. But she didn’t dare mention to Nate any knowledge of the datebook, the fact she had searched the house on Bear Path Lane or that she knew there was a connection between Tom Reed and Honeywell. She wasn’t supposed to know any of this, and she wasn’t about to let on to Nate that she did. Considering that she had promised several people she would keep her mouth shut, she wasn’t sure what she could reveal. She wasn’t supposed to know Honeywell was pregnant nor that the murdered woman claimed to get her medical treatment for free. Her lips were sewed shut. If she revealed anything at all she was sure Nate would accuse her of interfering in his investigation—not that there was an ongoing investigation that she could see.

She heard a door slam in the rear of the building, opposite the side where the cells were. Heavy footsteps came down the corridor toward the front desk. She jumped up and approached the counter so Nate could not ignore her presence. He pushed through the swinging counter door and slipped off his jacket, hanging it on a chair by a rear desk. He looked up and spotted Lucky. His expression was not exactly welcoming, but she forged ahead.

“Hi, Nate.”

He heaved a sigh, preparing himself for more questions. “What can I do for you, Lucky? Sage isn’t here now.”

“I know. I heard. It’s something else. Can I talk to you privately?” She noticed that Bradley’s ears went up.

Silently, Nate held out a hand and indicated his small office. He waited until she entered and then shut the door
behind them. He sat heavily in the large chair behind his desk. He still hadn’t said a word.

Lucky took a deep breath and started in. “Nate, even if you’re not willing to confirm it, I don’t think that Honeywell was killed behind the Spoonful.”

Nate’s eyelids flickered a tiny bit. Lucky continued, “I think she could have been killed behind the Snowflake Clinic and her body dragged through the Victory Garden to the alleyway behind the Spoonful before the storm started.”

Nate stared at her for a long minute. Finally, he said, “Do you have any evidence to prove this theory?”