The Iced Princess (5 page)

“Well, I didn't notice the odor on Molly's body, which I should have in that confined space.” Clint stepped in and did his own sniff test on the coffee. “Nope, I'm with Mark. Coffee is all I can smell.”

The bell on Pinky's door dinged. I thought it'd be the Buffalo County guys until Pinky and Erin came storming in through the archway. Then I remembered Clint had locked that door, anyway.

Clint lifted his arm and pointed for them to halt right where they were. “You can't come in here. We're investigating a crime scene. Mark, get some tape from your car to cordon it off.”

Mark left to take care of it.

Pinky's curls bounced around her headband with a life of their own when she and Erin stopped in their tracks. “Then what is Cami doing in there?”

“She found the victim and has been helping us. But you make a good point.” He turned to me. “Camryn, if you'll go wait in the coffee shop until we're ready to talk to you some more.” Clint switched his attention to Pinky. “And you, too. Hang tight until we get back to you.”

I was abruptly excused from being in the thick of things. And I had to admit it was intriguing watching how the officials worked to get to the bottom of it all. Once I got past the fact that Molly had died, and that someone had probably killed her. Molly and I had not been close friends by any stretch of the imagination, but I didn't think she would have poisoned herself. It was obvious she was needy, but she
hadn't given any indication she was depressed enough to kill herself. She'd even mentioned wanting to start a family.

Mark returned with a roll of crime scene tape, and the next thing I knew I was being nudged into Brew Ha-Ha to join the other two Musketeers. Mark secured the tape to one wall then stretched it across the open span and taped it to the wall on the other side. Pinky, Erin, and I stood back, just far enough.

“Thanks a lot for ratting me out, Pink.”

“Well?”

“If you had kept your mouth zipped shut, at least one of us would have had a front-row seat to watch what was happening,” I said in a whisper.

Pinky flicked her hand at a loose curl by her ear. “It just came out. I wasn't thinking that far ahead.”

“I don't blame you, really. It's not easy to process something like this,” I said.

Pinky pointed into Curio Finds. “Could there be anything more awful?”

“As awful as this is, we all know there are a lot of things that could be worse,” I said.

Pinky, Erin, and I hovered in the archway. Erin was in the middle and reached over and grabbed my hand then reached for Pinky's with her other hand. Two Buffalo County deputies wearing black polo shirts with “Crime Scene Team” embroidered above their hearts came through my shop door. One was a man around fifty, and the other was a woman somewhere in her early thirties. The man had a black duffel bag, and the woman was carrying a camera. They glanced up at us, no doubt wondering who we were and why we were there. We must have been a sight. Little five-foot-nothing Erin
standing between Pinky, who was almost a foot taller, and me, who was a half a foot taller. I was a little surprised myself that we hadn't been told to wait somewhere out of the way.

The crime scene team went about their business. Clint pointed out the coffee cup with its questionable contents. They took pictures of everything, it seemed, and put the coffee cup in a container to take back to their lab. Pinky, Erin, and I whispered back and forth.

“Pinky, I didn't tell you this yet, but that's the cup. They think someone put cyanide in Molly's coffee,” I said.

“Oh my God! I don't even remember her getting a cup of coffee from me,” she whispered back.

Erin squeezed my hand even tighter. “You're cutting off my circulation,” I said.

“Mine, too,” Pinky said.

“Sorry,” Erin said. She eased her grip then dropped our hands altogether.

Mark walked over to the archway. “The deputies went to get the gurney from the medical examiner's van, so Clint wants you girls to back away, maybe sit down at Pinky's counter. Molly's husband will be here before long, and he'll have enough to deal with without gawkers, besides. Then we'll talk to you and you.” He nodded at Pinky and me.

“I don't know anything, I swear,” Pinky said.

“You might not think you do,” Mark said, then he turned around to get back to work.

We backed up and watched as the crime scene team came in, rolling the gurney. We heard bits and pieces of what the officials were saying then saw Clint and Mark carry Molly's body out of the bathroom and lay it on the gurney.

Erin and Pinky each put an arm around me. We made
sounds but couldn't form words, not knowing how to adequately express ourselves. Seeing Molly the way she was now, not looking like the Molly we knew, was dreadful. Pinky and Erin were getting their first view of her since she'd passed on.

“The way her mouth is wide open, it looks like she was gasping for air,” the female deputy said.

“That would support my theory that she died from cyanide poisoning. Her body was crying for oxygen while she was asphyxiating,” Dr. Long said.

“Why didn't she tell someone she needed help instead of going into the bathroom?” the male deputy said.

“Once it's ingested, cyanide works very quickly. The victim probably felt dizzy, like she might faint. She may have headed to the bathroom because she was nauseated and thought she was going to be sick. She didn't know she was in real trouble until it was too late, and she wasn't able to call for help.”

Dr. Long's details of what Molly had suffered through made it even worse. I nudged my friends. “Emmy and I were both here and had no clue. Golly, I feel bad for every negative thought I had and every not very nice word I said about Molly,” I quietly said.

“Me, too,” Pinky said as a tear rolled down her cheek.

“Even when you're not the best of friends with someone, you still like having them around. And you surely don't want them to get poisoned to death, that's for darn sure,” Erin said.

“Pinky, can you think of anybody who acted suspicious around here this afternoon?” I said.

She shrugged. “When we were swamped, half the people could have been acting suspicious and I wouldn't have noticed. Wait a minute. There was a guy who stopped by looking for
you when you were out on your break. He seemed a little odd. And he described you, instead of asking for you by name.”

“Really? What did he say?”

“He asked if the blonde who worked here was around.”

“The blonde, huh? What did you tell him?”

“I said, ‘Oh, you must be talking about the manager of Curio Finds.' And he sort of shrugged and said, ‘Yeah,' and I said you were out but would be back later.”

“What did he look like?”

“Holy moly, let me think. He was a little taller than me. He had a stocking cap on. I think it was brown. He must have been pretty normal looking, because I can't think of a good way to describe him.”

“Big nose? Small nose? Beard? No beard? Glasses? No glasses? Pale looking, or not so much?”

“He was a white guy, but he did not strike me as overly pale. I didn't notice that his nose was overly big or especially small. No beard. Sorry.”

“Don't worry about it. He might have been someone I helped in the past who didn't know my name. He should have asked Molly or Emmy if he was looking for something.”

“Maybe he did and they had no clue how to help him. That's why he asked Pinky,” Erin said.

“Maybe.”

—

W
ill Dalton, a man we had never met, knocked on the Curio Finds door. Mark let him in. Will literally burst into the room and filled the whole shop with his presence. And it wasn't because of his size. He was around five-ten
and on the slim side. He had a worn-out look that added years to his face. A youngish, petite redheaded woman crept in behind him.

“What in the hell happened to my wife?” He seemed angry more than anything else. The way he said “my wife” sounded like she was his possession, not his partner in life like my mother was to my father.

Pinky started to visibly twitch and shake. The man's tone had clearly frightened her. Maybe she thought the murder weapon, poisoned coffee from her shop, would come back to haunt her in the form of a lawsuit or worse. That's what popped into my head listening to the man, a well-known, powerful attorney who was demanding to know how his wife had died.

I put my hand around Pinky's waist for support, and we moved closer to the archway for a better view. I felt Erin's shoulder touch the back of my arm as she settled into a spot behind me.

Molly looked like she was sleeping. The display area of the shop was better lit than the bathroom, making it more obvious her face was indeed an unnatural shade of pinkish red.

Will Dalton dropped to his knees by the gurney. It looked like he was about to dive headfirst into Molly's stomach when Clint put a hand on his shoulder. “Sorry, but we need to keep contamination to a minimum.”

Will turned and stared at Clint. “What?”

“This is an official crime scene. Every one of us has any number of particles on our persons that we leave behind here and there. Until we get to the bottom of what caused your wife's death, it'd be best if you didn't add to the mix.”

Will thought about that for a minute while he stared at
Molly's body. He stood, and tears finally formed in his eyes. My first impression of the man was that I was not impressed. There was something about him I didn't like. Maybe it was the way he put everything else ahead of Molly, according to what she'd said, anyway. Maybe it was that he reminded me of the power-crazed people I'd met in Washington.

And something about the young woman with him, his assistant, struck me as off. She looked like a Hollywood star with her flowing red hair and professional model body. Why on earth had she come into the shop with her boss? If I was in her place, I would definitely have waited outside out of respect for poor dead Molly. She had enough people studying her, including Pinky and Erin and me. But we had a stake in the tragedy and a good reason to be there. The officials wanted to question Pinky and me. Erin was there for moral support.

Okay, I'd give the assistant the benefit of the doubt. Will Dalton may have made her come into the shop with him. She looked like the proverbial deer in the headlights, unsure of what to do or which way to go. She hung back and then seemed to notice she was surrounded by snow globes. She picked one up, gave it a shake, then set it down and watched it snow. A distraction for her, and for me also as I watched her. My imagination was probably playing tricks on me, but it seemed I'd seen her somewhere before.

Dr. Long's voice plucked me out of my daydreaming. “—and we'll notify you as soon as we're ready to release your wife's body.”

“Release her?” Will said.

“For burial or cremation, whatever you choose. It'll most likely be later tomorrow, after the medical examiner has completed the autopsy.”

Will looked a little dazed. “Autopsy?”

Dr. Long handed Will a card. “And after the exam and the tests, we should be able to positively pinpoint the cause of death.”

Clint cleared his throat and took out his notepad and pen. “In the meantime, Mr. Dalton, can you tell me, did your wife mention having any kind of trouble with anyone, or had she received any threats?”

He looked down then shook his head. “No.”

“If you find out anything different, let us know right away.”

Will nodded.

Mark stepped in closer to Will. “Molly's mother. Do you want us to tell her?”

“I'll do it,” he said, then he left without saying another word. His assistant followed him out the door. Out of curiosity, I scooted over to Pinky's door and opened it a crack to watch where they went, but they were already out of sight. And what business of mine was it, anyway? Both sides of the street were lined with idling parked cars. With the number of official vehicles there, the town was anxiously waiting for the story of what had happened in Curio Finds. And the medical examiner's van made it clear to all passersby that someone had died.

T
he team finished processing the scene, and Dr. Long left with Molly's body. Clint and Mark each took down an end of the crime scene tape that spanned the archway between Curio Finds and Brew Ha-Ha and rolled it up. They joined Pinky, Erin, and me, who were sitting silently at the coffee shop serving counter. Each of us was lost in our own thoughts.

Mark sat down next to me on the third seat from the end. I had been thinking about Molly's coat and cell phone and keys and wallet. “You forgot to send Molly's things with her husband. And what about her car?”

Clint moved in behind Mark. “We didn't forget.”

All part of the investigation, I supposed.

“Pinky, let's go back to one of your tables where we can talk,” Clint said.

“Just Pinky?” I said.

“Yup, just Pinky. But you're next, so don't you run away, Camryn.”

I couldn't run if I tried. “I will be right here.”

Pinky and Clint disappeared to the back area.

“Do either of you want something to eat or drink?” I asked Erin and Mark.

“Nah,” Mark said and leaned his arms on the counter.

Erin lowered her voice. “Don't tell Pinky this, but drinking a cup of coffee seems downright scary to me after what happened to Molly. And I have no appetite whatsoever.”

“I know what you mean.” I glanced up at Betty Boop's hands. “Golly, it's after six o'clock. Time flies even when you're not having fun.”

“You know what I've been thinking that is really terrible?” Erin said

Mark leaned closer to me, and I leaned closer to Erin. “What?”

“That as bad as I feel about Molly's death and the way it happened, I can't help comparing it to the shock I felt when my father died. It's not even close.”

“Of course it's not, and that's not terrible at all,” I said. Like my own parents' death when I was only five years old. Nothing could ever compare to that awful day if I lived to be one hundred. Thinking about them reminded me of the penny I'd found earlier, the one I believed my mother had left for me. At the time I'd hoped it was to reassure me that things would get better.
Mama, I guess you were warning me that time, weren't you?

Pinky rejoined us some minutes later. She bent over and whispered in my ear, “Your turn with Officer Eye Candy.”

“Do not even go there,” I mumbled back. I cringed when
she said it, even though it was true. And if I was asked under oath if I found him to be a good-looking man, I'd have to answer, “Yes.”

Clint's five-o'clock shadow was right on schedule and gave him a more human look. He looked up at me like he was seeing me for the first time. Although we were not bosom buddies, we had gotten to know each other during the course of a previous murder investigation.

“You know, we really should quit meeting like this,” I said.

His lips tugged ever so slightly upward. “That would be fine by me. Sit down.”

If Clint worked harder on his bedside manner, it was possible I might grow to like him.

He had his pen and notepad at the ready. “I know we went over some of this already, but tell me everything you remember from the time Molly arrived at your shop this morning to the time you found her body.”

I filled him in on as many details as I could. I started with how Molly arrived at work in hideous clothes and how I'd given her my spare outfit to change into. I highlighted the challenge of training both her and Emmy, and about how irritated Emmy was with Molly all day. As an afterthought, I included the part about Ramona Zimmer being in Curio Finds and breaking one of my snow globes—probably on purpose—and then racing out of the shop without so much as an apology.

“And to top off the terrible behavior shown by the senator, her husband had actually been in earlier this morning. He had the nerve to stop by to see me.” I waved my hand in the air. “Never mind about his visit, since it was before Molly started work and wouldn't count.”

Clint narrowed his eyes, and I suspected he was trying his
best to read my thoughts behind what I'd said about the Zimmers. I'm sure he'd heard as much about that scandal as everyone else in the country who was tuned in to any kind of media source. And I was the hometown girl, so most people in Brooks Landing thought they had a personal stake in the whole mess.

“The visit does count, but not in this particular investigation. Unless he came back later and bought a cup of coffee and laced it with poison,” Clint said.

His words caused nerve endings to prickle on the back of my neck. With all the people in the shops during the afternoon rush, it was a possibility Peter Zimmer had been back. Not likely, but it was remotely possible he had mixed in unnoticed with the crowd. Even if he had returned, what motive would he have had to kill Molly? None, as far as I knew.

Clint placed his left forearm on the table and leaned into it. “Tell me what you know about Emmy Anders.”

“I'm guessing her given name is Emma, but I've heard her tell people to just call her Emmy. I met her when I returned to Brooks Landing last spring. She stops by here often. I got the impression she hasn't been in town for long, but I haven't really talked to her about it. She isn't the kind who talks much about herself.”

Clint looked up from his writing. “I'll be interviewing her later. Go on.”

“Okay. Well, I've always thought of Emmy as a lonely, kind older woman. But she wasn't overly kind to Molly today. The two of them did not hit it off at all.”

“You don't say.”

“It's not that they hate each other or anything. I mean, why would they? But Emmy acted like she was irritated with Molly from the get-go.”

“You don't say.”

The way he was concentrating on me made me more and more nervous by the second. “I mean what possible reason would Emmy even have to poison Molly, if that's what you're thinking.”

“That's not what I'm thinking, nor am I putting words in your mouth.”

He was right; I was the one who was blabbing on and on about dear old Emmy. If he'd just quit looking at me like that. We were way too close for comfort, so I leaned back in my chair.

“Pinky told me you helped her out here in the coffee shop for quite a while during the afternoon rush. During that time your two new employees, Emmy and Molly, were alone in your shop, correct?”

“Yes, that's correct.”

“Did you notice anything unusual going on between the two of them when you returned?”

You mean how Emmy looked like she was ready to seriously injure Molly at any given moment?
“Well, to be honest, things were tense between them. But you have to remember it was their first day on the job, and they were trying to learn as much as they could about Pinky's business and my business. I'm sure you understand how hard that would be. Emmy hasn't worked for years, and it doesn't sound like Molly had an outside job during most, maybe all, of her marriage.”

Clint nodded. “Regarding the cup of coffee Molly allegedly drank from, did you see anyone deliver it to her? Did she get it herself?”

“No, I saw Emmy carry a cup from Pinky's shop to mine, but I didn't see what she did with it.”

“We've collected the trash bags from the two shops, so we have any discarded cups if we need to check DNA.”

Clint impressed me from time to time.

The bell on Pinky's door dinged, then Mark's voice rose in volume like he was addressing a crowd. Apparently he was talking to someone outside. “Sorry, but I'm not authorized to release the name of the victim just yet. We're doing an investigation to cover all the bases, and we'll let you know as soon as we can.” The door's bell dinged again followed by the click of the dead bolt lock.

Clint let out a sigh. “We'll have to get a statement together for our friends at the newspapers and radio stations. The waiting public needs to be informed before any number of rumors start circulating.”

I nodded. “And that reminds me, I left a message for my parents earlier and I'm surprised they haven't called me back.”

“We'll wrap this up for now, but you will call if you think of anything else, right?”

“Right. Can I ask what you meant when you said you didn't forget to give Molly's things to her husband?”

He put his pen and pad in his pocket. “We want to check her phone and her car to see if there is any evidence that someone had threatened her.”

“Oh.” Police had to think of everything.

We returned to the serving counter where Pinky, Erin, and Mark were all swiveling right and left on their counter seats. Clint lifted his thumb when Mark looked at him. “Let's shove off, partner.”

“Ten-four, boss. An evening of report writing ahead of us, huh?”

“Yup, after we pay a visit to Emmy Anders.”

“See you girls when the sun is shining again and we all feel better,” Mark said, then he followed Clint out the door.

Pinky jumped up to lock it behind them. “You better check your door, too, Cami.”

I wanted to call Emmy to tell her about Molly and let her know the police were on their way. But what good would that really do? Police were trained to deliver all kinds of upsetting news.

Pinky, Erin, and I slowly wandered into Curio Finds. I tried the door, and it was indeed locked. I sighed as I turned back to my friends. “Golly, what should we do now?”

“I don't think I can do any baking tonight. Maybe we should go somewhere and hash this all out.”

Erin looked around the shop. “I've read that sometimes ghosts don't know they're dead and they hang around in the place where they met their untimely death. Cami, you have that psychic thing of yours going on. Do you think Molly is going to haunt this place?”

“I'm not an expert on ghosts, but no, I don't.” My friends gave me more credit for understanding the spirit world than I did. Yes, I sensed my biological mother's—and even my biological father's—presence at times, but I was not psychic. Plus, I believed everyone had times when they instinctively knew what to do or what to avoid or felt like they were being guided. Some people called it having a sixth sense; some called it extrasensory perception. I was just more in tune with it than others, that's all.

Pinky reached over and gave Erin's shoulder a small shake. “Stop that, Erin. It's dark out, and the way the wind is howling and banging against these old shop windows makes it feel eerie enough. We don't need any ghost stories.”

That was for sure. On to more practical matters. “How are we ever going to be able to use that bathroom again?” My voice had a whiny ring to it.

“Do you think you should close it down until you can get professionals in to clean it, or what?” Pinky said.

“I don't know.”

“Cami is like a professional cleaner. Who could do a better job than she can?” Erin said.

“True,” Pinky agreed.

I'd think about it when I could do so more clearly. “Let's get out of here. If you two want to do something, go on ahead without me. I need to tell my parents the news before they hear it from anyone else.”

“I hope your dad doesn't blow a gasket,” Pinky said.

“Maybe we should go with you,” Erin said.

I put a hand on each of their shoulders. “Dad has mellowed a lot in his older age. It'll be good to spend some time with them; it helps keep me grounded. Then, if it's not too late, I'll stop by Emmy's house. She'll be upset by her police visit, I'm sure.”

—

T
he cars parked outside our shops, filled with curious onlookers, had all left at some point, and the main street through town was deserted. The sun went down early in mid-November, about 4:45 p.m., making it seem much later than 7:20. Pinky had picked Erin up on the way to the shops and parked in the back lot next to my car. We took the path between our building and the one north of it, momentarily protected from the cold wind. The streetlamp on Central
Avenue shed some light, and it was comforting to have my friends alongside me. If it wasn't bad enough Molly had died in Curio Finds, Erin's ghost talk had taken it to a scarier level. I'd never seen a ghost before, and it was a trend I planned to continue for the rest of my life.

“We'll be at Erin's for a while, if you want to stop by,” Pinky said.

“Thanks. I'll let you know.”

We all got in our vehicles, and I drove to my parents' house and let myself in through the side door of their attached garage. I knew they were gone, because all the lights were off except the one over the kitchen sink. They kept that on twenty-four hours a day for a reason I had yet to find out. I'd asked my mother about it one time, but instead of giving me an answer, she only smiled like she was keeping a secret. “Hello?” I said out of habit, knowing there would be no reply. I stepped into the kitchen and flipped on the switch, pushing out the darkness.

The red light on the answering machine was blinking, indicating my message hadn't been heard. It was possible my parents had gone out for dinner, but the best bet was that they were at the home of one of my four siblings. I picked up the phone and tried each of them, but not one of them answered. I leaned against the counter, wondering if I should try their cell phones next. I gave my dad's cell phone a try. It went straight to voicemail, which meant it was probably turned off. My mom's did the same thing. No one had called to tell me anything was wrong with anyone, so that was good. When my family members heard about Molly's untimely death in Mom and Dad's shop, the phone lines would be
burning. I wrote them a note to say I'd stopped by and to please call me the minute they got home.

—

I
hadn't been to Emmy's house, but I knew where she lived. It was in an older part of town, not far from my own neighborhood. I parked on the street in front of the small rambler instead of pulling into her driveway. The branches on the trees and bushes in people's yards were being pushed this way and that by the wind, making them look like living creatures in the poorly lit area. I was not the bravest person in the world and tried not to let my imagination run wild when I got out of my car and made the maddest dash possible to Emmy's front door.