Deadly Desserts (Sky High Pies Cozy Mysteries Book 6) (16 page)

CHAPTER
37

Dina Kincaid was sitting alone at a
table near the front door when I rushed into Java & Juice. I was a few
minutes late, a fact that she underscored with a disapproving look at her watch
and an exaggerated frown.

“If I’d known you’d be late,” she
said, “I would’ve ordered a second sugar cookie.”

I glanced down at the crumb-covered
plate beside her cappuccino. “I’d be happy to get another one for you,” I
offered. “That could be my atonement for making you wait.”

She took one hand, pinched at her
waist and shook her head. “These love handles are big enough as it is, Katie.
But thanks for the offer. Why don’t you get something to drink and we can go
over some of what Tyler Armstrong learned up at Horsetooth Reservoir.”

“You sure?” I asked humbly. “I feel
terrible for being so tardy.”

She smiled, shooed me away with one
flick of her wrist and went back to the email she’d been reading on her phone.
When I returned with a blueberry spinach smoothie, Dina recoiled in horror.

“What is
that
?”

“Something healthy,” I said. “There
may have been an incident late last night with several snickerdoodles, a
Butterfinger and the last piece of double chocolate bundt cake.”

“Stress eating again?”

I shrugged. “It comes and goes. I
couldn’t sleep, so I got up to think about Lacy.”

A sad smile appeared on Dina’s
face. “That makes two of us,” she said. “Although, after I tell you about the
results of Tyler’s trip to Horsetooth, I think you’ll be pleased.”

I could hear it in her voice;
forward movement in the investigation. After slipping out of my jacket, getting
comfortable in the chair across from Dina and sampling my smoothie, I asked her
to give me the good news.

“Can I start with the bad news
first?” she said.

I nodded.

“There’s a little bit of something
healthy on your upper lip, Katie.” She touched one finger beneath her nose
before pushing an unwrapped straw across the table. “I think maybe this will
help.”

“Yeah, thanks.” I plucked a napkin
from the dispenser on the table and dried my mouth. “I was in a hurry to hear
about Tyler’s trip to the marina, so…anyway, I’m ready now.”

She waited until I’d unwrapped the
straw and slipped it into my drink. Then she launched into an organized and
meticulous description of what her coworker had uncovered the previous day. As
usual, she focused on three elements: means, motive and opportunity.

“I have to tell you,” she began, “I
wasn’t really surprised about Horsetooth Reservoir. It’s been a magnet for some
Crescent Creek residents over the years, including Nathaniel Craig, Thomas
Green’s brother-in-law and Daphne Wright’s father. At one time or another, all
of them kept boats at Inlet Bay Marina.”

“At one time or another?”

She nodded. “Yes, the manager in
the marina office keeps immaculate records. When Tyler explained what he was
interested in, the guy searched his database and delivered a printout in less
than five minutes.”

“Sounds like the turnaround time at
Sky High,” I said with a smile. “An order hits the wheel, Julia or I get it
going and the customer is digging in—” I could tell from the expression on her
face that she wasn’t looking for a comparison, so I let it go. “Okay,” I
continued, “where does that leave us? Any idea who still has a boat at
Horsetooth?”

Dina tapped her phone. “Tyler’s
email was as organized as the marina manager. He got the scoop, including type
of boat, horsepower of the engine and whether or not Mr. Green’s brother-in-law
is conscientious about following marina rules and regulations.”

“Ah, so Thomas may have visited the
reservoir to use his brother-in-law’s boat,” I said. “And that may explain the
water hemlock, which would explain the cicutoxin, which would—”

“Hang on there, Katie. That may be
one more ‘which would’ reference than we need. Long story short, the marina has
a pretty extensive system of security cameras. We now have footage from the two
cameras that are aimed directly at areas where water hemlock grows profusely.”

“What good does that do?” I asked.
“There’s no way to know when the killers went there to get the stuff.”

She smiled. “Killers?”

“Yes, I think it was a conspiracy
involving at least two individuals.”

“A conspiracy?” she said. “Who do
you suspect?”

“Well, can I start with who I
don’t
think was involved?”

“By all means.”

“Suzanne Craig,” I said quietly.
“Remember that Zack thought he saw her downtown the afternoon that Lacy died?”

Dina nodded.

“Well, I heard from a very reliable
source…” I paused, offering a faint smile. “…also known as Blanche Speltzer,
that Suzanne
was
out of town like she told everyone, but she came back a
day early and didn’t feel like going to the food festival meeting.”

“Can’t say I blame her,” Dina
murmured. “Considering that Portia can be a bully and eating all those samples
in one sitting can really add up!”

“It wasn’t about judging the
contest entries,” I said. “Suzanne was livid with her husband. They really
were
fighting on the corner by the ATM.”

“Okay, so…Suzanne may have an
alibi. What about the others? Who do you think was involved?”

I looked around the crowded juice
bar. “I don’t think we should actually—”

“Here,” Dina interrupted, pushing
her notepad and pen across the table. “Just write down the names. Nobody will
be able to see that from where they’re sitting.”

I quickly scribbled three names. I
wrote “Accomplice” next to one and “Possible Killer” beside the other two. Then
I filled her in on what I’d just learned from Colin Drake and Brewster McCoy.

“A Photoshop
what
?” Dina
asked skeptically.

“Composite,” I said. “Zack took
their pictures and added a few of the elements stolen from the community
theater’s costume archive.”

Dina stopped me and asked why I was
talking about the community theater.

“There was a break-in,” I told her.
“The day that Lacy was poisoned someone used a set of keys to unlock the
storeroom where all of the theater’s costumes and props are kept.”

“And they took a fake mustache,
baseball cap and sunglasses?”

I smiled. “Don’t know about the
shades,” I said. “But they definitely took a handlebar mustache, jacket,
baseball cap, wigs and some other things. That’s why I asked Zack to make
composites.”

“I’m feeling dizzy from that list
of random things,” Dina said. “What’s the point exactly?”

“Well, I showed the retouched
images to Colin Drake. He identified the first name on the list…” I nodded at
the notepad on the table. “…as the person that pretended to buy lunch for
Nathaniel Craig on the day Lacy died.”

“Okay,” she said, still sounding a
little cynical. “What did Brewster have to add?”

I pointed at the same name on the
notepad. “She also has a tattoo on the inside of one wrist,” I explained. “The
word
love
.”

When she looked at the short list
again, Dina smiled. “I was actually thinking about her.” She pointed at the
other woman’s name on my list. “But why do you think the first one would want
to kill Lacy?”

I glanced around to make sure the
nearby tables were still empty. Then I put a hand beside my mouth and whispered
the rationale. “It’s the same old song and dance,” I said softly. “Jealousy,
revenge and rage. I think she’s the other woman that Nathaniel Craig had been
involved with, the one he stopped seeing so he could focus entirely on Lacy
Orvane.”

Dina’s mouth dropped open. “Come
on, Katie. Why would he go for someone like that?”

I shrugged. “Low hanging fruit.
She’s still bitter about her divorce, so it may have provided some kind of
twisted pleasure. And then when he left her for Lacy, well…the slow-burning
fuse was lit.”

“But didn’t her husband cheat when
she was married?”

“Exactly right,” I said. “And
that’s why I’m leaning more toward her as the one that actually injected the
poison into the food festival samples.”

“Okay,” Dina said, pointing at the
second name on my list of suspects. “What was his role?”

“Arranging for the poison,” I said.

“Because of the connection to the
marina at Horsetooth Reservoir?”

“Exactly right. Which takes me back
to the surveillance footage. How is that really going to help? Unless you
actually know the specific date that the killers went to get the water
hemlock.”

Dina cocked one eyebrow. “I have no
idea when that happened,” she said. “But our suspects won’t know that. If we
can knit together enough evidence and get someone in for an interview, that’s
the kind of information that we can reveal in a very, shall we say,
careful
manner.”

“Does that mean you’ll deceive
them?”

“That’s a very strong word, Katie.
I won’t
deceive
them at all. I’ll simply suggest that the camera footage
shows all visitors to the marina in the past few months.” She took a quick sip
of her cappuccino. “You know what I’m saying, right? We’ll suggest it in such a
way that they’ll
think
we have them on tape.”

“I saw Olivia Benson do something
like that a couple of weeks ago,” I said.

“Who’s Olivia—” She smirked. “Oh,
you mean on
Law & Order
?”

I nodded. “She’s got a knack for
solving crimes,” I said. “But, then again, so do you, detective.”

The compliment sailed by without
acknowledgment as Dina continued telling me about Tyler Armstrong’s visit to
Horsetooth Reservoir. Although I didn’t really need to know that he spilled a
Mountain Dew on the case file once he’d returned to the office, I could tell
that Dina thought it was hilarious so I laughed along with her delight.

“And so,” I said when we finished
snickering, “do you agree that they’re responsible for Lacy’s death?”

The question earned a shrug. “Now,
Katie,” she said. “You know that I can’t openly speculate with you.”

“But that doesn’t mean that I can’t
openly speculate with you.”

She smiled. “Speculate away, my
friend. What’s your theory?”

“Well, as far as means,” I began,
“that’s been established by the lab results, right?”

“The initial reports, sure,” Dina said.
“There were no contusions or wounds, so it looks like cicutoxin was the murder
weapon.”

“Right,” I said. “But there’s
something about this that doesn’t exactly scream murder.”

Dina’s brow creased with surprise. “Really,
Katie? The woman is dead. I think we all agree on that, don’t we?”

I kept quiet, knowing that she
needed to take her high horse for a quick spin around the block.

“Exactly,” she went on. “Lacy
Orvane is deceased. And did the autopsy show natural causes? A heart attack? Pulmonary
or arterial embolism?” She cut the list short, tilting her head slightly. “Nothing,
right?”

“Right,” I said. “But what if—”

“So, if it wasn’t natural causes,”
she continued, guiding her snooty pony right over my toes, “then it must be
murder.”

I waited a few seconds. “Are you
done there, detective?”

She grinned faintly. “For the time
being.”

“Alright then, the reason I said it
might not be murder is because I was thinking about the situation. And here’s
the thing—maybe whoever did this was trying to
frighten
Lacy, not kill
her.”

“Frighten her?” Dina scoffed. “I’m
not sure how you frighten someone with a lethal poison.”

“What if you don’t know how toxic
it is?” I said. “Or how much will be fatal?”

She shrugged, but didn’t say
anything.

“If they weren’t familiar with
cicutoxin, then maybe they were trying to scare Lacy.”

“To do what? Help them embezzle
money from the bank? She was a mortgage loan officer, Katie. I don’t know if
that would give her the keys to the kingdom.”

I shook my head. “What if they
didn’t want her to
start
doing something?” I asked. “Instead, they
wanted her to
stop
?”

“Oh, right,” Dina said. “Maybe they
wanted to frighten Lacy so she’d stop seeing the married guy.”

CHAPTER
38

I’d been sitting in Nathaniel
Craig’s office at Crescent Creek Bank for twenty minutes, listening to him talk
on the phone with someone about the fine print on a business contract.

“Sorry about this, Miss Reed,” he
whispered at one point. “It’ll only take another two shakes or so.”

When I’d called earlier in the day
and the bank president accepted my request for a last-minute meeting, I’d hoped
it would be a speedy conversation. Instead, as soon as I arrived and got
comfortable in his office, the phone rang and he scooped it up without warning.
I considered tiptoeing out into the lobby to give him privacy, but he saw me
reach for my coat and motioned for me to stay seated.

“Well, now that couldn’t be
avoided,” Craig said when he finished the call. “I do apologize, Miss Reed.
Rudy Drexel handles legal matters for the bank, and we’ve been trying to
finalize an important contract dispute.”

I smiled at the explanation. Rudy
Drexel was a Friday morning regular at Sky High Pies, a short, round attorney
with pudgy hands and a fondness for waffles smothered in butter, maple syrup
and pecans.

“It’s no problem,” I said warmly.
“I just appreciate that you could fit me in this afternoon.”

“Are you kidding me?” He pushed
away from the desk, leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. “How could I
ever deny Audrey and Darren’s little girl?”

The smile on my face softened. “Oh,
that’s too kind, Mr. Craig. I know you and my parents are good friends, but I—”

He interrupted with a hoarse laugh.
“Your old dad probably never told you this, but he and I were going to be
fraternity brothers at one point.”

I’d heard the story so many times
that I could recite it verbatim. My father and Nathaniel Craig were high school
classmates. They both enrolled at the same university in Texas, pledged the
same fraternity and intended to study business and agriculture together. But
then a freak skiing accident sent Craig to the hospital with two broken legs
and no hope of sticking to his plans for college.

“Actually, I’ve heard the story,” I
said, once again beaming at him like a studious pupil. “But I don’t want to
take up too much of your time, so I was wondering if I could ask you a few
questions.”

He sat forward in the chair. “Fire
away! Are you here about a loan for Sky High? Maybe a line of credit to put an
addition on the place?”

I felt my stomach quiver; I’d been
vague on the phone earlier. The Sky High business accounts had been with
Crescent Creek Bank since Nana Reed first opened the doors, so his questions
were understandable. But I didn’t want to talk about a line of credit. And I
didn’t want to discuss expanding the old Victorian.

“Can I ask you about the day that
Lacy Orvane was poisoned?” I said, trying to sound as casual and carefree as
possible.

“The day Lacy was…” The corners of
his mouth lifted slightly. “I must say, Miss Reed. I don’t understand why you…I
mean, I thought you wanted to talk about business matters. As in, Sky High
business, not something the police are handling. Didn’t you leave all of that
behind when you came back to Colorado?”

I wasn’t surprised by the remark.
I’d heard it before since returning to my hometown after more than a decade in Chicago.
Most people in Crescent Creek were aware of my previous experience as a private
investigator. They also knew that I was good friends with everyone on the local
police force, and had actually helped solve a couple of cases in an unofficial
consulting capacity.

“You’re right, Mr. Craig,” I said
as the crease in his forehead began to relax. “The police
are
handling
the investigation. But I was there that afternoon. I held Lacy’s hand as we
waited for the ambulance to arrive. So I feel sort of…invested in the
situation. Deputy Chief Walsh and Detective Kincaid are both aware that I’m
talking to a couple of people in town.”

“A couple of people?” he said. “Who
else besides me?”

“I’d rather not say. I’m very
discreet about these things, as I’m sure you can appreciate.”

He shook his head, frowning deeply.
“I don’t know, Miss Reed. What would your parents say about this? How would
they feel if they knew you were skulking around like some kind of amateur
sleuth?”

“Actually,” I said with a smile,
“my parents know that I’m intrigued by solving crimes and unraveling mysteries.
They’re proud of the work I did in Chicago. And, although they may not
completely
understand, they support me in whatever I do.”

Craig sighed and shifted again in
his chair. “Well, I don’t know…” He raised his hands, planted both elbows on
the desk and formed a steeple with his long, slender fingers. “I suppose it
couldn’t hurt, but I don’t have much time. We’re still working to resolve the
contract issue, so my attorney will be calling again after he talks to the
other party.”

“Thank you, Mr. Craig. I promise it
won’t take more than a few minutes.”

He chuckled and dropped his chin
onto the upturned fingers. “And I promise you that’s all I can spare, Miss
Reed.”

“Okay,” I said, quickly retrieving
my phone and tapping the screen. “I understand that you and Mr. Green both
attended an off-site meeting the day that Lacy died. You were both at the Civic
Center from…” I paused to check the notes I’d made earlier. “…uh, from
ten-fifteen that morning until shortly after five that evening when Officer
Amanda Crane from the Crescent Creek—”

“Yes, yes!” Craig said with a dark
scowl. “Although I can’t understand what you find intriguing about something so
routine. It was an annual meeting for the Chamber of Commerce.” He gave me a
weary smile. “I’ve been involved for the past twenty years, and I invited Mr.
Green to attend because there’s a very good chance he’ll succeed me as
president of the bank some day down the road.”

“Wow! That’s a big endorsement,
isn’t it?”

He raised both bushy gray eyebrows.
“Well, I know talent and dedication when I see it, Miss Reed. Thomas Green is a
go-getter; he’s loyal and committed and doesn’t take no for an answer.”

“Sounds like an exemplary
employee,” I said.

Craig laughed again. “The
consummate
employee,” he said proudly. “Thomas Green is willing to take care of anything
and everything—without question and without fail. Over the years, he’s run
errands for me, picked up my dry cleaning, taken my car to the dealership for
an oil change. Heavens, he even offered to call Pinky Newton’s shop this week
and place my standing order for flowers when I was running late for a meeting.
I’ve trained him well. In fact, that the other day when we were at the meeting,
Green took it upon himself to hand deliver the revised contracts.”

“What do you mean?”

He grunted softly. “What do I mean?
It’s quite simple; we were finalizing the latest round of revisions on the
contract. The Chamber meeting was on a short recess, so Green and I had a
conference call with our attorney. When we finished, I asked Thomas to call
Speedy Messenger to deliver the documents to the client, but he insisted on
doing it himself.”

I considered the reply. Then I
said, “If I’m hearing you correctly, that means Mr. Green left the Civic Center
to make a delivery on the afternoon that Lacy Orvane was poisoned.”

Craig smirked. “Aren’t you mixing
metaphors, Miss Reed? Those two things took place on the same day, but they’re
hardly related.”

“I’m just trying to get an idea of
what happened.”

He looked at his watch and the
expression on his face suddenly changed. “Why are you bothering me with all of
this? I’ve already given my statement to that detective…what’s her name? Kincaid?
And I told her all about our utterly fascinating schedule; we went to the
meeting, people got up and made presentations, I laughed at all of the same bad
jokes Bill Schulte tells every year. And after the early afternoon recess, I
sent Thomas Green to Prescott Insurance with the revised loan contract.”

When the gruff banker stopped to
wipe his forehead, the last statement seemed to echo through the office.
That’s
very interesting.
I thought.
It seems that Mr. Green may have been less
than forthcoming about his whereabouts the day that—

“Are we finished, Miss Reed?”
Nathaniel Craig snapped. “Because I’ve got a business to run here. And I
believe that you do as well.”

I gathered my coat and purse,
getting out of the chair at the same time that the banker stood behind his
desk.

“I’m sorry to be short with you,”
he said, coming around to shake my hand. “But I really don’t see how repeating
the same dreary facts over and over can possibly bring Miss Orvane back from
the grave.”

I nodded and thanked him again for
the meeting. Then I left his office, hurried across the bank lobby and stepped
out onto the sidewalk.

“It can’t bring her back from the
grave,” I whispered to myself. “But it may help explain who put her there.”