Pistols & Pies (Sweet Bites Book 2) (Sweet Bites Mysteries) (4 page)

She looked into my eyes, desperation in her face. “I know he wouldn’t have killed Eric, though. He’s not a bad boy, just a little confused.”

I thought that I knew a lot of parents who would say the same thing about their kids even if they were guilty. But as I studied her, I decided to take her at her word. For now anyway. “So tell me about this cop and why you think he did it.”

Honey slid my notebook onto the table, opened to a clean page and set a pen on top. She looked smug, as if knowing she was going to get her way and we would investigate. I had the feeling she might be right.

I picked up the pen and tapped it against the paper. “Who’s the cop, anyway?”

She twisted her handkerchief in the tabletop. “It’s stupid, really, but the man owns some property next to the proposed site for the state prison. He insists his property value is going to drop if the prison gets approved and he’s already in the process of subdividing.”

“Right, and your husband was working on getting the prison approved.” There had been plenty of controversy in the papers and heated town hall meetings. It was definitely a hot topic right now.

“Yes, because it’s going to bring in a lot of jobs to the area and more jobs means more homes and more taxes and everyone benefits.” She spoke with an intensity that said she agreed with her husband’s feelings on the project.

I made a few notes. “So who is it?” I asked again.

“Gary Roper. He retired last year and his family has owned this land since the beginning of time. They used to run cattle on it, but with the beef industry being what it is, they sold all of the animals years ago. He rented it to others the past few summers, but now he’s seeing new homes and dollar signs. And who does he think is going to buy all of those houses if the new prison doesn’t come in, anyway?”

That seemed like a fair question to me, though people in Prescott were pushing into the surrounding towns in search of less expensive housing and a small-town feel. I imagined the lots would sell okay even without the new jobs. And I could totally understand why someone wouldn’t want to live next door to a prison. “Money is always a powerful motivator. You said he’s a cop?”

“Former,” she corrected. “He worked at the county jail—ironically enough. He retired last year, so he’s got a pension, a wife who is absorbed in her hobbies and too much time on his hands.” She pursed her lips as she dabbed at the angry tears rising in her eyes while her lips pursed in a hard line.

“Right.” I made a few more notes about issues I should check into. “I’ll need to talk to your son.”

Her brow furrowed. “But why? I already told you he’s innocent.”

“Because I need to know his side of things, and to see if he has any other ideas. The more I learn, the more likely I’ll uncover something important.” And I was pretty curious about this mixed up kid who was wrongly accused.
Maybe
wrongly accused, I reminded myself.

“Well, I suppose.” She twisted the bit of fabric in her hands. “Could you get to work on this right away?”

It only took me a moment of consideration before I gave in. I couldn’t let Michael go to jail if he wasn’t guilty. “I have a wedding cake to set up but I’ll get on it as quickly as possible.”

She touched my hand. “Oh, thank you, I’ll owe you so much. I wish I could afford to pay.” She cried softly into her handkerchief for a moment, then sucked in a shuddering breath and looked at me again. “I really appreciate it.”

We watched her go. I turned to Honey, who gave me a knowing look. “What?” I asked. “It’s not like I went in search of an excuse to investigate. I did say that I wouldn’t do it unless I had a compelling reason. The woman’s son could go to prison. Nothing is more important than that.”

She snorted. “You’re such a big-hearted sap.” Her eyes teased as she waited for me to drop the angelic excuses.

“Yeah, aren’t I though?” I grinned and flipped my notebook closed. “Okay, so the boy is still on my suspect list, but I’m going to keep an open mind about the former cop. After all, there’s nothing cops like more than to band together to protect each other.” I doubted that would be a problem here, as Tingey seemed honest enough to me, but it was somewhere to start looking.

“You’ve seen too many police dramas if you think Detective Tingey won’t give every one of the suspects a close look, regardless of their former job,” Honey said. She ducked behind the counter and picked up her cooling cappuccino.

I wiggled my brows. “I know, but it sounds like a compelling reason to investigate, doesn’t it?”

“You bet. Now go set up that wedding cake so we can start planning.”

Marge was in the shop chatting with Honey when I returned.

“I’m glad you’re here,” I said to Marge as I grabbed a cup for a shot of espresso. I was paying for the late night and had been yawning for the past half hour. “I was going to come pick your brains this afternoon anyway.”

“I decided I needed a few minutes’ break and wondered if you were going to go all detective on me again.” Marge nibbled on her sugar cookie.

“You know me. I have an insatiable curiosity. And Honey is such a bad influence.”

“It’s not like you weren’t going to do it anyway. I just gave you some encouragement.” Honey passed over an order form. “You have a wedding cake request. I told her I’d have you call for more particulars.”

I looked at the picture clipped to the form—it was five tiers and had at least sixty full-blown sugar roses on it. I could already feel my checking account getting fatter—until I saw the note that the bride only wanted to spend two hundred dollars. I snorted. “In her dreams for that price. The flowers are going to cost nearly that much if she wants a full-scale replica.” I shifted the form to the stacker for me to take care of later. “I’ll call her in a bit.”

“I told her I thought that was shooting low, but she didn’t want to listen to me,” Honey said.

“So, tell me everything you know about Eric Hogan,” I said to Marge. We sat at one of the bistro tables while Honey helped another customer who came in for cookies.

Marge had a memory like an elephant—a really, really old elephant. I swear she never forgot a face or a family connection. She could probably list every member of every family from the area going back five generations and how they were connected to every other family. It seemed the Hogans went way back to the beginnings of Silver Springs—possibly to the time of the Vikings.

Eric was an only child and in addition to being city councilman, he was an accountant specializing in audits. He traveled to other states all the time, which is how he met his wife. I supposed marrying an accountant was somewhat more acceptable than marrying, say, a sewer cleaner. More boring, probably, but there had to be accountants out there who were interesting in real life. Eric hadn’t been one of them.

Marge gave me the full rundown of his teen years, his failed relationships and his marriage to Sandra with her three children—two of whom were grown and out of the house. It had been a whirlwind affair with a short engagement. The woman hadn’t been divorced from her first husband for two years yet and she was already a widow. Poor lady.

“So, anything you think could be helpful?” I asked.

“You could always check on his client list. No one likes an audit,” Marge pointed out. “Though at least he doesn’t work for the IRS, so it wouldn’t be a tax fraud issue. Also, his decisions on the city council weren’t always popular, so you could see what he helped pass that someone might be unhappy about.”

“His wife did mention he had an issue with Gary Roper,” I said, scribbling like mad to keep up with Marge’s agile mind.

Marge nodded. “You should start there, and with the step-son, of course. His mom probably sugar coated it, but he’s a real trial for her. He and Eric hated each other, and he’s been in trouble for riding that skateboard all over town where he shouldn’t be instead of sticking to the skate park. You mark my words: the boy is destined to spend time in jail one way or another.”

I thought of Lenny and how he’d grown up. Would Marge have said the same thing? Of course, if she had, it would have been true—when he was a teen—but that was beside the point. “Thanks for the feedback. I’ll keep it in mind.” My fingers were cramping from writing notes and I wondered if I should start carrying around a voice recorder like Detective Tingey. The thought made me smile.

 “Get me out of here.”

It was Lenny’s voice on the line. We’d been keeping in regular contact since I left Chicago, and I knew my former assistant pastry chef had been looking for a new job since I left. He hadn’t liked the kitchen manager any more than I did.

“Bad day at work?” I asked.

“If I have to put up with that woman’s snark one more time, I’m going to go postal and then I’m going to end up back in jail. Kat is going to leave me for someone who doesn’t have temper problems and my life will be ruined. Please tell me you magically thought of somewhere else that might be hiring.” His voice had turned to a whine, a sign that he was uber stressed.

“You mean besides me?” I was only half serious, though, because there was no way I could afford to pay him what he had been making before, even if business was much better than I had anticipated this early on.

“Are you serious?” His voice brightened. “Because you know Kat can work from anywhere. She doesn’t have to do her painting in Chicago.” Kat was his live-in girlfriend of three years, the sweetest mouse of a girl and his polar opposite.

I stopped at the desperation in his voice. “You’re kidding me, right? I mean, I know Kat could live somewhere else if she wanted, but you’re such a city boy. You’d die living in Cowboy Springs.” It was his favorite nickname for my little town. Words could not express how much I would love having him work for me again, but the thought of being responsible for him making a living terrified me. A few months ago I wasn’t sure if I would be able to support
myself
.

“Prescott is nearby, and Phoenix is only an hour away, right? So it’s not like I couldn’t get to a place with streets that have garbage and bums and where you can’t smell anything but the fumes of cars—like the world is supposed to be.” He had a twisted idea of life, I know, but I couldn’t help loving him.

“You better have a talk with Kat. I’m not exactly swimming in the money here, so I wouldn’t be able to keep you on full time, or pay you anything like what you’re making now.” He had been learning steadily while he worked with me and was getting very good at the art portion of our job, but I wasn’t sure how he’d feel about the customer service end of things. “And you’d have to work the shop sometimes and deal with clients.”

“I can do that. You know I can.”

Yes, he was good enough with people, once they got past his unconventional exterior. I wondered if it would be more of a liability in Silver Springs than it was in a five-star restaurant in Chicago. “I can’t say that I’m having any luck with employees here, that’s for sure.”

His whine had turned to wheedling, like a little kid asking for a big favor. “And I know all about cakes, so I won’t help people make stupid choices like a filling that needs refrigeration in a fondant cake.”

I chuckled—it was one of the most classic stupid things that Karen had done during her tenure as kitchen manager. You don’t refrigerate fondant once you put it on the cake—not unless you want condensation marks all over it. “I couldn’t hire you full time. Not right away,” I reminded him.

“That’s fine, maybe I’ll pick up a second job. Hey, maybe someone there could use a good computer hacker.”

Though I knew he was joking, it made me shudder. His previous time in the slammer hadn’t been computer related, but I knew some of the things he did walked the line of legality. He’d crossed that line for me during my previous investigation and I hated to think of what would happen if he got caught. “I think you best save your hacking skills for me and not spread them around. At least your illicit ones.”

People hacked systems all the time just to see if they could do it, then told the website administrators about the problem. He’d made a habit of this, claiming he was doing them a good turn—it’s not like he did anything malicious when he was in their system, after all. He claimed he was honing his talents, but his heart was in cake decorating, so it’s not like he’d use his computer skills professionally.