Sweet Somethings (Samantha Sweet Mysteries) (15 page)

“Carinda had insulted a couple of
the contestants. The previous day she made remarks about the school Farrel O’Hearn
attended—called the place a pretentious, overpriced mill for short-order
cooks.”

“She said that directly to Ms. O’Hearn?”

“No. She muttered it to Kelly, but
I’m sure Farrel overheard. She was staring daggers—uh, sorry, bad choice of
words. She gave Carinda hateful looks all afternoon. Still, she would have had
to harbor that anger overnight and show up full of rage the next morning.”

“It’s been known to happen.”

He offered to clear the plates.
Sam picked up the serving bowls and followed him to the kitchen.

“Nancy Nash was another one
Carinda insulted by saying her chocolate-dipped strawberries could be made by a
four-year-old.”

“Ouch.”

“Actually, they probably could,
but anyone with a degree of politeness wouldn’t say so.” She pulled a carton of
ice cream from the freezer and found bowls. “Really, the only person there who
seems too nice to have hated Carinda is Harvey Byron. The ice cream guy. He
somehow manages to put a positive spin on everything.”

Beau wiggled his eyebrows. “It’s
the nice ones who’ll fool you.”

Sam shut him up by handing him a
bowl and spoon. She leaned a hip against the kitchen counter and dug into her
own.

“Does that include my own
friends?” Sam asked after her first spoonful of butter pecan. “Because
everyone—Kelly, Riki, Rupert—they were all milling around. Things were such a
madhouse this morning, anyone could have followed Carinda out the back door.”

She recalled looking for Rupert
right before the show opened, since he was to make the announcements. Neither
he nor Bentley had been in the ballroom. But he had come in minutes before ten.

Beau interrupted that line of
thinking. “For now, aside from figuring out who did the crime, we’re looking
for Carinda Carter’s next of kin. There’s not a lot to go on. We found her
purse, locked away in the trunk of her car. She still had an out-of-state
license, but all I’ve gotten from that is verification that she had no criminal
record and she hadn’t yet made New Mexico her permanent residence.”

“What state did she come from?”

“New York. I don’t have any
personal contacts there so all my queries have to go through channels. It may
be days before we get anything substantial.”

“She lived in an apartment in
town. There’s probably some personal correspondence or something, maybe an
address book.”

Beau finished his ice cream and
set the bowl in the sink. “Yeah, we’ll get to that soon. Meanwhile—” He let out
a huge yawn.

“We should get to bed early. I
have to go by the shop in the morning and pick up more stuff that Julio baked.
We actually made a lot of sales today, in spite of all this other.”

Sam put the last of the dishes
into the dishwasher while he walked out to the front porch with the dogs. Fifteen
minutes later, with all of them safely inside, they went upstairs. Sam lay in
the dark, hunting for that pleasant state of doziness but mainly plagued by
scenes from the day that kept rolling through her mind.

Carinda marching through the
ballroom, tossing last-minute orders out to the vendors, passing by Farrel O’Hearn’s
booth, two flashes of the same shade of blue. Sam’s eyes flew open. She hadn’t
made the connection before this very minute. O’Hearn was wearing a blue dress,
too, form fitting, a bit low cut, very similar to Carinda’s. Both women were
slender, both had reddish hair cut about the same length. The prestigious chef
had no shortage of enemies. Danielle Ferguson was chief among them. But she’d
battled with Carinda and had belittled a couple of the other contestants as
well.

What if Carinda had not been the
intended victim at all? What if someone had really been after Farrel O’Hearn?

Sam rolled over to tell Beau about
her idea but he was snoring softly on his side of the bed and she didn’t have
the heart to wake him. He would be only too happy to hear her theory tomorrow
rather than tonight. She closed her eyes again but images of the festival
continued to fill her head. Was there anyone among the crowd who seemed uneasy,
edgy, afraid of being caught? She found herself in an endless loop, rehashing
everything she and Beau had discussed over dinner, frustrated that her mind
would not shut down.

When her alarm rang at
four-thirty, she felt as if she’d had no more than an hour’s sleep all night.
She dragged herself to the bathroom where she quietly slipped into her work
clothes and brushed her teeth, trying not to wake Beau.

Sweet’s Sweets looked a little
forlorn and Sam realized her shop had missed having her own touch. She neatened
the window display and beverage bar in the sales room, then visited her desk
where notes and bits of stuff that didn’t have any better place always seemed
to end up. She filed some receipts, paid a couple of bills, and went to the
website of her main supplier to replenish her stock of flour, sugar and butter.

The baked items for the festival,
which Julio had finished yesterday afternoon, waited in neat boxes on the
worktable. She peeked in and helped herself to a couple of cookies.
I’ve got to stop doing this—sneaking treats in
lieu of breakfast; I’ll never lose these extra pounds.

She stuck the second cookie into
her desk drawer—as if it might vanish from there and never tempt her again. The
back doorknob rattled and Becky came in.

“Ready for another day,” she said.
“Although, I tell you, I completely crashed when I got home last night. Don got
the boys a pizza and put them to bed, on his own.”

“Feel free to close the shop a
little early if things are slow,” Sam said. “If it’s like yesterday, most of
our customers will have found us at the festival.”

Becky nodded and picked up the
stack of order forms. “I want to finish any special order items before seven.
Most likely I won’t get back into the kitchen once the Open sign turns over.”

The noisy sound of a motorcycle
came from the alley and Julio appeared within a couple of minutes. The three of
them loaded the bakery boxes into Sam’s van.

“Okay, looks like you two have this
under control,” Sam said. “I’m going to head out.”

What she really wanted was a
decent breakfast before spending the day surrounded by tempting sweets. It
wasn’t too early anymore to call Beau so she got into her van and dialed his
cell. He suggested they meet in the restaurant at Bella Vista.

Probably not the best idea, as it
turned out. Sam started to tell him her idea that Farrel O’Hearn might have
been the intended victim, but then she realized the restaurant was quickly
filling up with other people from the festival. They ordered eggs and kept
their conversation neutral.

Sam was struggling to resist
slathering jam over her healthy whole-wheat toast when Beau’s phone chirped to
signal an incoming text. He read it quickly and sighed.

“Looks like I need to check with
my dispatcher. I’ll step outside. It’s fine if the server wants to take my
plate. I’m probably leaving anyway.”

It was all Sam needed to pass up
the toast. She signaled for the check as he walked out. By the time she’d paid
their tab she saw that he was sitting in his cruiser, parked near the high
portico. She walked out to say goodbye.

“It’s the peace-and-love bunch.
Looks like things got a little rowdy overnight and we may have to hand out some
citations for use of fun-but-illegal substances. Rico’s there but he can use
some help. I still have a lot of people to question here, too. Ben Garcia and I
will be back after awhile.”

“I’ll be here all day,” Sam told
him. “I can keep my ears open on the Carinda situation, if you’d like.”

“Keep an open mind, darlin’. It
could turn out to be someone completely outside the festival.”

She nodded. Down inside, she knew
that. But so much of Carinda’s life had revolved, in recent days, around the
events of the weekend. It seemed a little farfetched that she died here if the
murder had nothing to do with anyone in this crowd. She watched Beau drive
away, more determined than ever to learn what she could about all the players.

A line had already formed in front
of the ticket table and Sam realized the doors would open to the public in
another ten minutes.

When she entered the ballroom, the
first thing she noticed was that Farrel O’Hearn was not in her booth. If Farrel
was the intended victim yesterday, she could still be on someone’s radar. Sam
quickly took inventory: Rupert was chatting with the two lady judges on the
dais; Bentley Day was not there yet, but that probably was no surprise—he’d
done the late-appearance thing yesterday; Kelly and Jen were already in the
Sweet’s Sweets booth, uncovering the tables and adding new stock to the
display; Danielle Ferguson was in her own booth, seemingly occupied with her
wares, as were the vendors in all the other booths. Except for Nancy Nash. Her
crock pot and strawberries were gone. Evidently, the hurt feelings went deep
and she’d decided her time as a festival vendor was over.

Rupert picked up the microphone,
as he had yesterday, welcomed the vendors and repeated the instructions for
submitting their entries to the judges. Today’s entry must be something
different than yesterday’s and must be sent to the front anonymously—and good
luck to everyone.

 
The doors opened and the crowd poured in.

Sweet’s Sweets immediately became
busy. Word had obviously gotten out about Sam’s amaretto cheesecake because
they had four requests for it within fifteen minutes.

“I’m going to sneak out back and phone
Julio,” Sam said to Jen. “At this rate, we’ll need more of these before the day
is over.”

She hurried out and made the call,
coming back to find that Kelly had been pulled away to deliver contest entries
to the judges and Jen was a little swamped. Together, they sold boxes of molded
chocolates and bags of cookies and brownies at a frantic pace for two hours.

At the west end of the room, Sam
was slightly aware of Bentley Day’s arrival and his antics with the microphone
but, frankly, she no longer saw his charm. If it turned out that Beau proved
him to be a killer, it wouldn’t sadden her a bit.

Somewhere around noon, they
noticed a lull in the size of the crowd.

“Finally, a chance to check things
and neaten up our stock,” Jen said quietly, after sending a woman and her
little girl off with smiles and cupcakes. “This is wild. At the shop I’m used
to having enough quiet moments to keep the place cleaned up.”

Sam chuckled. “Yeah, the whole
atmosphere of a festival is really—” Her phone buzzed and interrupted that
thought.

She stole a glance at the readout;
the number was somewhat familiar but she couldn’t quite place it.

“Sam, hello. It’s Marc Williams.”
His voice was hollow and Sam guessed the bad news even before he delivered it.
She signaled to Jen that she would be right back.

“It’s Sarah?” she asked, her eyes
welling up as she pushed her way out of the ballroom and found a deserted
pathway into the garden.

“Yes. I’m afraid she had a fatal
stroke early this morning.”

Sam felt herself deflate. “I’m
so
sorry. We’re really going to miss
her.”

“Right before the end, my aunt
regained consciousness and actually spoke a little. She wanted you here but it
was rather late last night. I told her I would call you in the morning. I
should have tried sooner . . . I’m really sorry I didn’t. If I’d realized at
the time, I think she was saying goodbye.”

“Oh, Marc—” Words seemed so
useless—they didn’t change anything.

“Sam, do you know a historian
named Doctor St. Clair? A woman. I got the impression she might be connected to
a wooden box that Aunt Sarah spoke about.”

The name meant nothing to Sam. “Did
Sarah talk about this box as she was dying?”

“No, not really. A mention of it,
then she asked if you were nearby—otherwise it was only family things. I’m sorry,
Sam. I wish I knew more. I just wanted to let you know about Sarah.”

She thanked Marc and asked about
funeral services. Tuesday, he said, and she promised to get in touch again as
soon as her festival duties were over. She hung up, feeling the weight of the
loss. There had been so much left unsaid. She would always regret that she had
not known Sarah better.

Chapter
13

Sam dropped her phone back into
her pocket and looked up to see Beau’s cruiser pulling into the parking lot.
She swallowed the lump of sadness over the news of Sarah’s death and walked
toward her handsome husband.

“How did it go?” she asked when he
joined her at the sidewalk near the place where the vendors had unloaded their
wares Thursday afternoon.

He lifted a shoulder. “Okay. No
arrests, just a bunch of warnings. I couldn’t see the use of going after
warrants to find out that Moondoggie and his bunch keep stashes of pot in their
buses. This murder case takes precedence, so Ben Garcia is joining me to
conduct more interrogations. Want to sit in?”

True to plan, Garcia’s vehicle
wheeled in and parked next to Beau’s.

“Let me check on my booth real
quick. I ducked out to take a phone call a few minutes ago.” She told him about
Sarah’s death, but since he’d not known the woman and the death wasn’t
suspicious, his interest quickly turned back to his real purpose.

“We’ll be in the same room Garcia
used yesterday,” he said as they parted in the corridor.

Behind their small sales counter,
Kelly and Jen seemed to have things under control. A Sold tag leaned beside the
bathtub cake.

“Yeah, a lady who is hosting a
bridal shower tomorrow afternoon,” Jen said. “She raved over this cake—said it
was perfect for her group. I guess they are all into spa weekends and such. She
wanted to take it with her now but I told her we wouldn’t let it get away. She
was okay with that. I think she wanted to spend a little time indulging in more
chocolate anyway. She did pay for it.”