Murder and Marshmallows Read online

  “Would he really have offered up that information freely, though? It makes him look kind of suspicious.” I sipped my coffee.

  “Maybe, but I don’t think it makes sense that it would be Mr. Grace. Just from the way he reacted to his building burning down,” Bee said. “Either way, if we go out there and do some snooping, we might be able to find out more about the case. You never know.”

  I glanced at Jamie.

  “I’m fine with it,” he said, waving a hand. “You’ve won me over with the marshmallow cupcakes. And it’s fun to get involved in this type of thing again.”

  “You want to come with us?” Bee asked.

  “Why not?”

  “Are you sure?” I raised an eyebrow. “Because we may or may not break a few laws that you wouldn’t approve of.”

  Jamie shrugged. “Let’s live a little.”

  19

  Instead of heading out in the middle of night, Bee, Jamie and I had decided we’d check out the butcher’s house in the morning. I’d slept fitfully, tossing and turning thanks to the coffee, my nerves threatening to get the better of me all through the night.

  I yawned my way over to the breakfast table and glugged back coffee at 9am.

  “I feel like I’ve been dragged backward through a bush,” I said.

  “You look it,” Bee replied, massaging the dark circles under her eyes. “And so do I.”

  “You both look lovely.” Jamie gave me a kiss on the cheek and sat down at the table. “You’re too hard on yourselves.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Bee replied, gesturing to him. “Men always age like fine wine.”

  Jamie shook his head at her, bearing an affectionate smile. Bee busied herself with her breakfast, avoiding the coffee like it was the plague.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked Jamie. “You’ve been pretty much against us investigating. Why the change of heart?”

  “I tried to explain it last night, but I guess the best way to put it is that I’d rather help you than feel terrible when you wind up getting hurt or in trouble because I wasn’t there.”

  “We’d be fine with or without you,” Bee said, between bites of a croissant.

  “I don’t doubt it,” Jamie replied. “I’d just feel better this way.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  I chewed on the inside of my cheek. I couldn’t change Jamie’s mind about this, like he couldn’t change mine about investigating. This would be an interesting morning, all things considered.

  Carl’s fancy triple-story home, notably in the same street as Henry’s, was empty. No cars in the driveway, and the doors shut tight, curtains drawn. Regardless, we had parked the food truck around the corner, in case someone looked out of their window and saw us arrive.

  Bee, Jamie, and I walked up the sidewalk casually, on a nice stroll through suburbia. Hopefully, it seemed that way.

  We checked the coast was clear before entering the front yard and heading down the side of the house. The apartment at the back of it—where we’d found Carl unpacking his things—was locked up tight. No method of entry.

  “What about the back door?” Jamie asked.

  We headed up the stairs to check, but that was locked too.

  “Shoot,” I whispered.

  “Wait a second,” Bee said, and turned in a slow circle. “This is a nice neighborhood and a small town.”

  “OK. Where are you going with this?” I asked.

  “So, why did they lock everything up?” Jamie suggested.

  “That too,” Bee replied. “But I was thinking more along the lines of…” She bent and fiddled around in the soil of a potted plant to one side of the door. “This!” She held a key aloft. “Seriously lax security. Works to our benefit at least.”

  “And as a bonus, there will be no signs we broke in,” Jamie put in, drily.

  “Second thoughts about coming along?” I asked him.

  He gave a shake of his head, but anxiety was written all over his face.

  Bee inserted the key into the lock and turned it. And just like that, we were in. Hopefully, that was a good thing. We entered a pristine kitchen—shimmering white tiles and silver appliances—and Bee closed us in.

  “We’ll want to do this quickly,” Bee said. “Ruby, you take this floor. I’ll take second. Jamie take the third. Look for anything that might help us. Got it?”

  Both Jamie and I nodded.

  “Good. Let’s do this. Fast!”

  We split up, and I started my search in the kitchen drawers—never knew where there might be an errant notepad with an incriminating note scrawled on it. But no. The kitchen was clear of suspicious items. Apart from a carton of milk that was two days past its expiration date.

  I moved through a grand archway and into the living room. It was neatly laid out with two couches, an armchair and a flatscreen TV on the wall. A laptop lay on the coffee table and my heart leaped.

  “Guys,” I called, halfway between soft and loud. “I found a laptop.”

  The thump of footsteps on the stairs followed the announcement.

  Bee and Jamie piled into the living room. I grabbed the laptop, opened it, and we all sat down on the couch together.

  “It’s got to be the butcher’s right?” I asked.

  Bee nodded, fervently. “Or the wife’s. Miranda’s.”

  “Email first,” I said.

  I clicked on the icon and opened the email tab. There was nothing in the inbox. Pretty suspicious. I cycled through the folders, but no, there was nothing. Not even in the trash folder.

  “Try the spam folder,” Jamie said.

  I clicked on it and gasped. “There’s something here. And it’s not one of those scam emails either.” I opened it, and the thread unfolded before us. It was a correspondence between Henry and Miranda. The baker and the butcher’s wife.

  I scrolled all the way down and started reading from the bottom, the earliest email, up.

  To: Miranda Anthony ([email protected])

  From: Henry Hughes ([email protected])

  You’ve got to be careful about this. If you’re going to do it, you need to be smart.

  If you’re serious. Big if. Are you serious?

  -H

  “Uh oh,” Bee said. “This isn’t looking good.”

  We continued reading.

  To: Henry Hughes ([email protected])

  From: Miranda Anthony ([email protected])

  Of course, I’m serious, Henry. I want to be with you and no one else, and I’m not going to get any of his money if he finds out about us. So, yeah. We have to do this now. I just don’t know how yet.

  Something that’s easy and quick.

  Like a shovel? Shovel to the head?

  “They’re not this stupid, right?” Bee asked. “To discuss murdering someone over email?”

  “You’d be surprised at how dumb people can be,” Jamie said. “Just watch a few true crime shows. People murdering their wives or husbands, calling 911, and expecting to get away with it. People wearing the same shoes to the interview room that they wore when murdering someone. Seriously.”

  To: Miranda Anthony ([email protected])

  From: Henry Hughes ([email protected])

  Well, if you’re serious, we can do it quick and simple.

  Look. Carl likes to go hiking. Loves the outdoors, right? So we organize a morning hike next week, you, me and him. We’ll all go together. I’ll hide a shovel out on the trail. We’ll retrieve it when we get there. You hit him with the shovel. I’ll help you bury him. Got it?

  -H

  That was the last email in the string.

  I hadn’t realized when I’d been reading, but my jaw had dropped. I snapped my mouth shut.

  “Those… idiots,” Bee whispered.

  “The target wasn’t Henry.” Jamie slapped the back of his hand into his palm. “It was Carl. Miranda’s husband!”

  “So, let me get this straight,” I said. “Henry and Miranda wanted to get
rid of Carl because they wanted to run away together with his money? Then what happened?” My eyes widened and I gasped. “Bee! Remember when we spoke to Carl at the butchery? He said that he couldn’t go hiking with Henry because he had a meat-related emergency that morning! He blamed himself because he was sure if he’d been there, he’d have saved Henry from dying.”

  “And he was right,” Bee said. “Because Carl would’ve been the victim instead, and Henry would’ve been there to help bury his body.”

  “But how did this happen?” I asked. “How did Henry die?”

  “It must’ve been Miranda,” Bee hissed. “She retrieved the shovel and hit Henry over the head with it when he came around the corner. She mistook Henry for Carl!”

  “I agree.” Jamie nodded, staring at the laptop’s screen. “I bet these two met in person after this email and organized to have Miranda wait in the woods and Henry lure Carl to the spot where they’d ambush him. But it all went wrong when Carl didn’t turn up.”

  We fell silent, each of us stunned by this twist in events.

  It all made sense.

  No wonder Miranda had been so upset. No wonder she’d known exactly where to find Henry’s body so soon after the murder. And she’d tried to pin the murder on Carl.

  Instead of calling 911 after hitting her partner in crime over the head, she’d buried him. Doubtless, she’d been afraid that the police would discover her real target. They’d never buy it was an accident if they found out she’d hit Henry with a shovel.

  “Uh oh,” Bee said.

  “What?”

  “Carl. What if Miranda tries to finish the job?” Bee asked. “Carl knows Henry and Miranda were having an affair now. Miranda might try to murder him before he has the chance to change his will or life insurance policy or whatever it is that would’ve paid out if she’d done the job the right way around the first time.”

  “You’re right,” Jamie said.

  “Shoot! What do we do?” I leaped off the couch, nearly toppling the laptop to the floor. Jamie caught it just in time.

  “I’m calling Detective Boyd,” Jamie said.

  “And I’ll call Carl to warn him, just in case.” Bee fished her phone out of the pocket of her jeans.

  “I’ll wipe our fingerprints off the laptop.” We set about our tasks, and I listened to my boyfriend and my bestie on the phone, both commanding in their own way, my nerves building by the second.

  “He’s there!” Jamie called. “Detective Boyd is at the butchery. Miranda’s inside.”

  “Carl says she pulled a shovel on him,” Bee added in. “Oh. Oh no, he’s just hung up. Oh no. Jamie?”

  “Hello? Detective Boyd? Can you hear me? Hello?” Jamie hung up. “We’d better get out there. We’ll say we found the laptop outside the house somewhere. We were driving by and saw it in the trash.”

  It was with a wildly beating heart that I followed Jamie and Bee back to the truck. I drove at break-neck speed, taking corners like a crazed woman to get to the butchery in time.

  In time for what?

  I screeched to a halt outside it and—

  Detective Boyd emerged from the butchery, one hand grasped the upper arm of Miranda Anthony. She was firmly cuffed, but her eyes were wild, darting from side-to-side as she searched for an escape that would never come.

  Carl sat in the back of an ambulance, holding a cloth to his head. But he was alive and well—as well as a man could be who’d nearly been murdered by his wife.

  “It’s over,” Jamie sighed. “Wow. What a rush.”

  “Now you see why we do it,” Bee laughed.

  All that was left to do was hand in our evidence and hope that the people of Grapefield forgave us for our interfering ways. I wouldn’t hold my breath.

  20

  Five days later…

  “This has been the most wonderful time.” I hugged our hostess, Eleanor. “If we didn’t have another town to get to, I’d love to stay.”

  “Oh, what a pity,” Eleanor replied. “It’s been such a pleasure having you here. Don’t pay any attention to what the newspaper said. You’re lovely people. Welcome at my guesthouse any time.”

  “Maybe we will come back one day,” Jamie said.

  “When the heat’s off our backs.” Bee held the handle of her wheeled suitcase, occasionally glancing toward the open front doors and the food truck beyond.

  It had been an eventful week, but all-in-all, we’d enjoyed our vacation. Unfortunately, staying here wasn’t an option. After Detective Boyd had made his arrest and received the laptop, word had gotten around about our meddling. Thankfully, Boyd hadn’t identified that it was Jamie who had called him to pry him for information. We’d gotten around that by handing in the laptop ourselves and having Jamie wait in the car.

  The folks in this town hadn’t taken too kindly to our interferences. In particular because the local newspaper had run a special on us, calling us “The Two Blind Mice.” A terrible reference to how we’d fumbled our way into the case and messed everything up before lucking out and finding the laptop in a trash can.

  It was mean, but a small part of me had to admit that they were right. We had messed up a bit this time.

  But hey, at least we’d figured out who’d committed the crime. More than could be said for Detective Boyd, who’d still been waiting on autopsy results for the deceased Henry Hughes.

  While no one deserved to die, there was poetic justice in the fact that Henry had been killed in an attempt to murder his friend.

  Poor Carl had called us to thank us, but that was as far as the hospitality in this town went. And no amount of treats would make up for our meddling.

  I gave Eleanor one last hug before we took our bags out to the cars. Jamie helped us load our bags into the back of the truck before placing his in the Porsche.

  “Well,” he said. “This is it. I guess it’s time I head back to Muffin.”

  “Are you serious?” Bee asked. “You don’t want to come with us? We’re going to head down to Pennsylvania. It’s going to be great. Don’t tell me you can resist Philly Cheesesteak, Jamie. I don’t buy that for a second.”

  “Oof, tempting as that sounds, I’ve got to head back for a while. Make sure everything’s running fine at my grandmother’s estate. And that Boyd hasn’t managed to track down my number and report me for calling him.”

  “You don’t think…”

  “No,” Jamie said. “I don’t. But it was still a risky move to pull.”

  “Suit yourself.” Bee gave Jamie a quick hug then hurried to the passenger side of the truck and got in. She knew Jamie and I would need a minute to stay goodbye.

  “You’re not going to stay in New York?”

  “I love the state,” I said, “the food, the people, but I’ve got a lot of bad memories here. I’m not ready to confront them yet.” I nibbled on my bottom lip. “Jamie. I—Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?”

  “I’m sure.” He gave me a kiss on the cheek. “The more I get to know you, the more I realize that you’ll only be happy when you’re free to do what you need to do. When you’re ready to settle, I’ll be around. Besides, we can always do another vacation like this some time. It’ll be fun.”

  “It will.” I hugged him tight. “Thanks for this week. Thanks for being understanding.”

  “Thank you. Don’t do anything illegal this time.” One last hug, and Jamie got into the Porsche and started the engine. He drove off, and I waved until he was out of sight.

  Inside the food truck, Bee had already put on her seatbelt and gotten our snacks ready for the road trip. Two thermoses of coffee, a box of marshmallow cupcakes, and a bag of barbecue flavored chips.

  “Ready for our next adventure?” she asked, wriggling her silver eyebrows at me.

  I put the key in the ignition and winked at my best friend. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  Ruby and Bee’s adventures continue in Book 16 of the Bite-sized Bakery Cozy Mystery series, Donut Murder, coming March
2021!

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