Poison & Pie Page 8

  “She did the water by herself,” he said and then frowned. “She got upset about the lemonade. She didn’t have enough cups. But she sent the square glasses guy over to the restaurant next door and borrowed some.”

  Oh…well…that was interesting.

  “So she didn’t bring it with her?”

  “No….”

  “Did you see who brought it?”

  “Was that how he died? How come they all didn’t die?”

  “I don’t know,” Zee said. “We’re just trying to get a picture of things. Did you see who brought the lemonade?”

  “Well…no…I think it was there. I mean…if she didn’t bring it. It was there all set up.”

  My gaze met Zee’s. Who had put it there, then? And how had they got in?

  “But you were there when the doors were opened?”

  “Yeah, me and my friends were waiting outside with a couple of others for it to start.”

  “So the doors were locked or you didn’t check?” I asked him, examining my fingernails as if I didn’t really care about the answer.

  “Well…the doors were locked. We tried them. Kitty needed to use the restroom, so if we could get in early, we would have.”

  “The librarian judge even tried the backdoor. She said that she was cold and she didn’t want to linger around. She was irritated that we had to wait.”

  “Who let you in?” Zee asked just as nonchalantly as I tried for.

  “Well…the mayor’s assistant when she arrived. She wasn’t happy about letting us in when she got there because she still had to set up, but Kitty really did need to use the bathroom, so she let it go and let us in. It helped that Kitty was bouncing around like a little kid.”

  I sighed and wondered if Kitty had done that to let them poison things. But the mayor’s assistant, Inge would know if they showed up with lemonade. It sounded to me like they hadn’t. And if they hadn’t…well…maybe Lyle wasn’t the killer. But the killer would have been someone who could get into the Lion’s club.

  Someone who knew how to do it. Who knew about when the mayor’s assistant would show up. But even if they’d gotten in and delivered the lemonade, how did they poison only Murphy Jesse? The mayor’s assistant was the one who had set up the drinks, and she hadn’t had the glasses.

  It didn’t make any sense. None of this did. Lyle had a solid motive, but I didn’t see how he could have gotten into the Lion’s Club and delivered the poison. I wondered if anyone had checked the backdoor for a break-in. Maybe he’d broken in, put the lemonade out, and then come back around the front? But…how did he Murphy to be the only one who died?

  “Did you see anyone…”

  Before I could finished my question, someone banged on the door. They made Zee’s slamming of her fist against the door seem almost polite. I jumped and heard Simon’s voice—deep and commanding—shout, “Open up! Police!”

  Our gazes met and Zee rose to open the door while Lyle leaned over a garbage can and heaved into it.

  “I didn’t…” He said under his breath, “I wouldn’t.”

  As Simon, Carver, and several other uniformed officers flooded the room, Lyle’s gaze met mine and he said, “Help.”

  FOURTEEN

  “You said we were a team,” Simon shouted at me.

  I looked past his shoulder because I wasn’t quite sure how to say, ‘Well, we are’ when he was shouting at me. I actually took a step back and then had to take a deep breath before I could answer. I didn’t want to lash out, and I didn’t want to fight, but I wasn’t a fan of how he was yelling. His police friends were watching from the parking lot as if we were a side show exhibit.

  “I don’t understand why you’re upset,” I told him.

  “I called you about Lyle. I told you to stay away from him. I said we’d handle him,” Simon shouted. “You could have been hurt. You and Zee both. It’s one thing to go gossip with the chick at the B&B and play at being detectives, but…”

  “Play?” Zee asked meanly from behind me. “Her phone is in the car. She didn’t answer you because she didn’t know you were calling.”

  I took a deep breath. He knew I didn’t really want to investigate. I’d be just as happy in my diner making pies and serving up home cooked meals, and…my eyes burned a little bit. I met Zee’s gaze and then turned and went to my car.

  “Rose…wait…” Simon cursed, but I didn’t turn back. I was upset, and I deserved to be. I heard Carver say something to Simon and Zee and I heard Zee shoot back a snarky response, but I didn’t listen to the actual words, just the tones. I could tell that Simon was sorry he yelled at me, but…man…I wasn’t really all that ok with him screaming at me like that. I needed some time to let him apologize and be willing to accept it.

  I got into the car and Zee ran after me.

  “He was worried,” she said. “The good thing is he was so worried he lost it. That means he loves you. The bad thing is he lost it.”

  I wasn’t crying, but I kind of wanted to. Instead, I started the car and said, “Let’s find Inge. But I can’t imagine that Roberta will let us talk to her. The mayor despises me.”

  Zee considered and then nodded. “You’re right. But…I can get her out.”

  Zee made the call, and I didn’t really think much about it. I just drove where she wanted me to go with the scene with Simon yelling at me, replaying in my head.

  “Turn here,” Zee said, and I turned. Simon’s eyes flashed at me. Zee said something else, but it was muttered under her breath, and I let it go. This was Zee we were talking about, so whatever she said was probably mean.

  I pulled into the place where she directed, and found we’d arrived at the park. The rain was a steady drizzle, but Inge was in the gazebo. The wind was high and the smell of rain in the air pushed at me.

  “He asked for help,” I told Zee as we got out of the car. “Lyle needs us.”

  “I think he killed him,” Zee said. “We’ll trap him, and Carver will trick him into a confession or something, and we’ll be done.”

  I didn’t think it was Lyle though. I bet anyone who knew how could break into the Lion’s Club, it wasn’t like it was Fort Knox. So…it would need to be someone who knew how the contest ran…which would include Lyle since it sounded like he’d been to a day or two of the contest.

  Zee asked questions while I didn’t listen at all. Lyle wasn’t from Silver Falls. He didn’t make the lemonade in his hotel room. I’d seen that stuff. It was the real deal. It had made my mouth water a little bit. Inge hadn’t been prepared for it. It had been berry lemonade. It would have been someone who could get in and leave the lemonade…and then….come back and put poison berries only in Murphy’s cup.

  Or…make it seem like that was the delivery method. We still didn’t know for sure. How fast was belladonna? That had felt awfully fast. What if he had been poisoned before? I thought back to the pie contest. He’d been sitting next to Carver with a white bag and a note book. He’d been making Inge lean over to refill his drinks, so he could look down her shirt. Something about the image was niggling at my brain.

  I had seen that bag before. I rubbed my brow and tried to remember where. Suddenly it all came back to me. I gasped and Zee stopped questioning Inge to stare at me. I grabbed Zee’s phone right out of her hand and called Carver.

  “Zee?” He said with a bit confusion as if he hadn’t expected her to call. Maybe he’d been mean to her like Simon had been to me.

  “Did Murphy have a review of any breakfast places that he hadn’t published?”

  “Um? Rosemary?”

  “Yes, geez. Did Murphy Jesse have a review of any places?”

  “What? Why are you asking? I’m not telling you about our case. You and Zee are a menace.”

  Zee and Inge had stopped talking to stare at me.

  “Well…it was Martha’s B&B right? She’s famous for her muffins, I bet.”

  Carver hmmmed.

  “I mean..falling dead over lemonade? That’s a bit fast i
sn’t it? But…. a few minutes after a muffin. That’s why no one was worried about who would die from the lemonade. It wasn’t how he died. It was a freaking…what do you call them, Zee?”

  “Red herring. Damn it, Rose! I was gonna figure it out first this time.”

  I laughed at her and then I said, “Carver…the killer is Martha Sloane. I bet you’ll find that she killed him using her muffins that she puts out at her B&B.”

  “Well…that’s a good guess.”

  “Go get the evidence,” I told him. “And tell Simon I expect flowers and chocolate for yelling at me.”

  Inge stared at me while Zee grumbled.

  “I thought you were stupid,” Inge said. “Roberta says it so often, I just assumed she was right.”

  “Jealous,” Zee told Inge. “Simon actually loves Rose. He never loved Roberta.”

  Inge winced for the mayor, Roberta, and then glanced me over as if I were interesting suddenly.

  “That doesn’t matter,” I said. “They need to find the evidence, get Lyle off, and we need to get back to doing what we do best.”

  “We find murderers best,” Zee said. I scowled at her. That wasn’t what I wanted to do best. “They’ll take care of the rest of it. It’s what they do best.”

  I laughed at that even though I was still upset about Simon yelling at me and about poor Lyle being in jail and about Martha being driven to murder by a stupid little troll and I was upset that Martha had stolen Murphy’s second chance before he even knew he needed it. He might have changed, but now he’d never get the chance.

  I, however, wasn’t so unlucky, and I would take my second chance, my new life, and I’d keep working on making it just what I wanted.

  FIFTEEN

  “Welcome to The 2nd Chance Diner,” I called when the bell over the door rang. We were busy because Roxy was off taking placement classes for the local community college, and we’d been closed for too long. Our regulars wanted pie and the gossip about the murder.

  Zee had a sparkle in her eye and a bounce in her step that said she was looking forward to slinging her gossip now that she had the goods. I was just glad to be back in the kitchen making pies and talking with Az. My friend, Maddie, had come to help us out and because she wanted an expensive pair of boots that were outside of her budget. I was glad she was here, because I loved having the people I cared about around me. If you added in my dogs, Jane, and Simon—they’d almost all be here. Mom would come visit again soon. We’d shop and have girls days, and I’d feed her the kind of food she never let herself eat at home.

  I was thinking about business and staffing problems when someone slid their hands around my waist. I knew the feel of those arms, so I turned slowly to face Simon. I stared up at him and he looked down at me. I hadn’t seen him for a couple days, but I knew he had been working hard.

  Lyle and his mom had come by the diner and he’d thanked me for helping him out. They’d talked about coming back to Silver Falls and creating their own second chance. I hoped they did. Either way, I knew they’d be ok. They had each other.

  Me and the dogs had gone back to my little rental that I’d taken after the cottage I had been staying in had burned down a few months ago. It had been lonely without Simon and I spent more evenings having coffee for dinner than the grilled yummies that Simon usually fed me.

  I missed him. We weren’t broken up. After all, flowers had arrived three days ago with balloons. The next day chocolates had been delivered. The day after that I’d got a fruit basket. But I hadn’t seen Simon or heard from him beyond the gifts.

  “Hey,” he said.

  My gaze narrowed on him. I had been upset he’d yelled at me. I was hurt I hadn’t heard from him. He looked at me with trepidation and then said, “I should have called.”

  “And apologized before now,” Zee called from the other side of the window where she was unabashedly watching us. Az nodded from behind Simon’s shoulder and I wished for a breath of privacy, but I knew neither of them would give it to me. In fact when I glanced at Zee, I saw Maddie watching too, biting her lip to hold back her own commentary.

  “You were right,” Simon said.

  “We know,” Zee called out again, “We heard Martha got arrested and Lyle released because he came right over to thank her.”

  My look to Zee told her to butt out. Her stare told me that it would never happen.

  “I was worried. Terrified even. I knew I cared but when I thought…” Simon cursed and then he put his finger under my chin and searched my face. I wasn’t sure what he was looking for but maybe he found it? Because he simply cupped my cheeks and placed a kiss on my forehead. And then one on each cheek. One on the tip of my nose, and he said, “I was so scared you would be hurt. That I would lose you. I shouldn’t have yelled. I should have known you’d have answered. I was just so worried.”

  He was speaking low, but Az was flipping burger behind me and Zee had resorted to sticking her head through the window to catch what he was saying.

  “I love you, Rosemary Baldwin. I didn’t know you’d become the center of everything until I thought I might lose you. Please forgive me.”

  Tears burned in my eyes. I had given up on falling in love a long time ago. No one ever had really loved me except my mom. Oh, I hadn’t expected this at all and I wasn’t sure what to say or do. My hands felt like they were someone else’s. They fluttered at my side while Simon stared at me, and I stared at him.

  Suddenly, Zee snorted and said, “She loves you too.”

  Maddie giggled and Az muttered something under his breath with his dark chocolate voice.

  Simon didn’t look away, his gaze held mine until I…finally…nodded.

  “You love me?” he asked softly.

  “Yes,” Zee and I said in unison though my voice was much softer than hers.

  He pressed his forehead into mine, closing his eyes and just breathing in.

  “It’s ok, big guy,” Zee told him. “Just remember to stop yelling at her, and she’ll make you boring cake forever.”

  He kissed me on the lips then, and I remembered that seconds chances weren’t just about new careers, they were about forgiveness.

  “I love you, Simon,” I said it clearly this time. Fervently and with my true feelings showing. And then I let him show me, yet again, how very lucky I was to have come to Silver Falls and create my new life.

  THE END

  It’s impossible to explain the surreal nature of strangers reading your art and—hopefully—enjoying it. Thank you for finding my books and giving me a chance! For independently published authors, like myself, a review means the world, and I would be so grateful for one.

  The next book in this series Double Mocha Murder, is available for preorder now!

  If you enjoy cozy mysteries, you may just like my Mystic Cove Mommy Mysteries. Just keep flipping to check out a free sample.

  Enjoy a sneek peek of the cozy mystery, Bedtimes & Broomsticks which is published under my author name, Amanda A. Allen.

  Chapter 1

  Her first mistake was taking both Ella and Luna grocery shopping. Her second mistake was not going to a different store when the two-seater, car-shaped, devil-designed, ridiculously heavy grocery carts were all unavailable. Her third—and worst—mistake was thinking that the nutrients of the groceries mattered.

  Scarlett had picked up two boxes of frozen waffles and was comparing the sugars in the store-brand versus the hippie-brand when she realized her cart was gone.

  “Luna?” Scarlett’s voice was a tremulous whisper. “Ella?”

  Scarlett looked around frantically and heard the high-pitched, shrieking laugh that belonged to her youngest daughter. It was echoed by the barely-more-restrained cackle of her oldest daughter. The worry of missing daughters morphed into dread. She knew those mischief-filled laughs. Dropping the waffles, Scarlett darted to the aisle over, but it was too late.

  “Stop,” she shouted. “Goodness! Stop!”

  Ella, to give her credit, trie
d. With the wisdom of her seven years of age, she was smart enough to know the game was up. But Luna, at four-years-old had control of the cart. And when little Luna looked back and saw her mother’s face, the effect was the same as if the fires of hell were in pursuit. Luna ran faster, not even looking where she was going. Her eyes were fixed on her mom, and she was driven by the need to escape.

  “Stop!” Scarlett cried, trying a gentler shriek, but her daughter wasn’t fooled. Scarlett raced past Ella, but somehow—Luna with her chubby little legs was faster than Scarlett.

  “No! Stop!” Scarlett shrieked. She had given up on any attempt at sweetness. She might commit murder once the little fiend was contained.

  “One! Two!” Scarlett cursed, causing a woman in her 70s to gasp as Scarlett and Ella ran after Luna together. Luna, glancing back once again, yelped and let go of the cart, diving behind a display of chips to hide.

  The cart plowed into another display—of dishes. By the stars, no!

  There was a cacophony of crashing shattering platters and bowls and gasps of the onlookers. Scarlett froze, staring in horror. The starkest part of it wasn’t the mess, it was the way each and every head swiveled to her.

  There was the African American man with gray hair and kind eyes that shared Scarlett’s horror. There was the sour grandma who still seemed offended by Scarlett’s language. There was the mother with a pair of angel-faced little boys who looked on—as shocked as their mother. There was the middle-aged woman shopping in the heaven of solitude who took one look, snorted with laughter, and said, “My grandmother left her kids outside on the bench in her day. Too bad we still can’t.”

  The sour grandmother said, “This is what comes from poor parenting and the unwillingness to use the belt.”

  “Hey now,” the man with kind eyes started, apparently willing to defend Scarlett and her devils.