Murder for Millions (Sky High Pies Cozy Mysteries Book 7) (2 page)

CHAPTER 3

Deputy Chief Trent Walsh was comfortably
arranged in one of the rocking chairs on the front porch at Sky High as I described
the visit from Boris Hertel. It was an hour after the curious conversation with
the mysterious man on the phone. I’d dialed Trent the instant that call had ended
and asked if he had time to stop by and talk.

When he’d asked me to explain and I’d
shared the strange poem, Trent had told me to keep the letter safe until he arrived.
That suggested I might be dealing with something more complicated than a tipsy
old guy spouting nonsense and a call from someone with a fondness for anonymity.
Before placing the letter in a plastic bag to protect possible evidence, I’d
made a copy of the poem and Bubble Brite receipt. My sixth sense was on high
hover and I thought it might be handy to keep a record of both just in case I
ended up doing a little sleuthing.

“What was the drunk guy’s name
again?” Trent asked on the porch.

“Boris Hertel. He and my dad used
to play cards every week. I didn’t recognize him at first because he was…well,
he was pretty disheveled. And he’s aged a lot.”

Trent nodded. “Yeah, I know. Since
his wife died, the poor guy’s been on a downhill slide. He closed his business,
sold the house and moved into a rental over on Bear Point Trail. Someone said
he has a new girlfriend and that’s straightened him out a little bit, but it
sounds like her magic touch might be fading fast.”

“And what about the list?” I
pointed at the cryptic note in his hand. “Don’t you think that’s a bit on the
strange side?”

He smiled. “Well, of course, Katie.
I also think it could possibly be tied to a burglary down in Aspen a couple of
weeks ago.”

“Are you serious?”

One of Trent’s eyebrows lifted. “Aren’t
I always?”

“No, but we’ll leave that for
another day. What’s the deal with the burglary?”

He jabbed one finger at the poem.
“Top line here,” he said. “Carter Devane. That’s the name of the guy who
reported a break-in to the Aspen PD.”

“What do you know about it?”

Trent shook his head. “Not much
really. Devane’s about forty. He’s a wealthy guy. He reported a burglary a
couple of weeks ago. And he and his family spend part of the year in Aspen and
the rest in Palm Springs. Other than that, I don’t know jack squat.”

“Devane sounds like a lucky guy,” I
said. “Living in both of those places would be a dream come true.”

Trent laughed. “He’s lucky
and
smart; Carter made a fortune when he sold a tech startup that he launched right
after college. It was some sort of travel-related website business, but he sold
it for millions and millions. Then he turned around and started a second
company that sells those Minty Dog things that everybody’s talking about. And
then, as if that wasn’t enough success, he sold
that
business for
another pile of cash just a few weeks ago. The lucky duck is now worth about
ninety million.”

“What did the second company sell?”

“Minty Dog Chews. They clean a
dog’s teeth and freshen its breath.”

I smiled. “Maybe I should keep some
behind the counter. Just in case Mr. Hertel comes back for another little
chat.”

“Yeah, back to that.” Trent scanned
the sheet of paper that Boris Hertel had delivered earlier. “The Aspen PD is
working the Devane burglary, but they don’t have much at this point. They didn’t
find any prints, the housekeeper was at the store when the intruder broke in
and the exterior security cameras had been on the fritz for a few weeks.”

“No prints or clues?”

Trent shrugged. “Not to speak of,”
he said. “They did find a gold button with an embossed eagle insignia.”

He swiped and tapped his phone
until the screen was filled with the photograph of a button tucked into the
angled corner of a Bureau scale. I’d learned to use the two-sided six-inch
black-and-white ruler when I worked as a private investigator in Chicago. The
button found at the scene of the Devane burglary was about three-quarters of an
inch in diameter.

“That’s better than nothing, but it
isn’t very distinctive. It could possibly be used on dozens of different
garments.”

He smiled. “You’re the fashion
expert, Katie.”

I skimmed over the remark and asked
what was missing from the Devane residence after the break-in.

“That’s another thing that’s
unusual about the case. The only items the intruder took were a pair of
earrings and an old book.”

“That’s odd. If the Devanes are
rich, you’d think their house would be chockablock with expensive art and
priceless collectibles.”

Trent smiled. “Picasso, Warhol,
Rembrandt and Koons.”

“Showing off, deputy chief?”

“Nope. Those are just four of the
artists that Carter Devane collects. According to the detective I talked to
down there, his house in Aspen is like an art museum.”

“The guy’s house is like the
Guggenheim, MOMA or Louvre,” I said skeptically, “but none of his artworks were
stolen.”

“Showing off, Katie?” Trent
chuckled. “Dropping those fancy museum names and everything?”

I smiled. “Am I right?”

“Completely. Whoever broke into the
Devane place didn’t take anything but earrings and an old book. I don’t have a
picture of the book, but I can show you the glitzy baubles.”

He tapped the phone again, used his
thumb and forefinger to enlarge an image and then held it up to reveal a
stunning pair of earrings made from diamonds and pearls.

“Not bad,” I said. “What do you
know about the book?”

He scrolled through the email on
his phone for a few seconds before reporting the title:
Desire of Eden
. He
added that it was a first edition by a celebrated British writer from the 17th
century.

“Why do you know about the Devane case?”
I asked. “You’ve usually got your hands full up here in Crescent Creek. It
seems kind of odd that you’d be aware of a burglary that happened in Aspen a
couple of weeks ago.”

Trent’s faint grin ballooned into a
broad smile. “My hands might be full, Katie. But I can still keep one finger on
the pulse of the region.”

I groaned at the comment. “Did you
come up with that on your own, deputy chief?”

He shook his head. “Some speaker at
a conference. I liked it, so I’m using it.” He puffed out his chest and
straightened his shoulders. “Besides, it’s the honest truth. I keep in touch
with a bunch of buddies around the area on a regular basis. A guy I know with
the Aspen PD gave me a heads-up about the Devane investigation because one
other thing they recovered from the scene was a weird poem that mentioned four
names and an equal number of apparent threats.”

I felt a chill down my back as I
asked Trent if the note found in Aspen was the same as the one he was holding.

“Yup.” He hoisted the envelope that
Boris Hertel left with me earlier. “Except there was one difference; none of
the entries had been crossed off on the sheet found in Carter Devane’s
kitchen.”

We sat together without talking for
a few seconds. Trent folded the sheet of paper and slipped it back into the
envelope. I did my best not to let my vivid imagination run wild.

“Don’t worry, Katie,” Trent said
finally.

I shook my head. “I’m not.”

“Yes, you are. I’ve known you for,
like, twenty years. I can tell when—”

“Twelve,” I said firmly. “We met
when we were seniors in high school. And then you broke my heart by leaving me
for Dina. And then you—”

“Give it a rest, will ya?” Trent
said. “I apologized about that little indiscretion. And we both know that I
messed up. So let’s leave the past in the past.”

I laughed and punched his shoulder.
“I’m teasing, big guy. I thought a little levity might be in order.”

Trent smirked. “A little levity?” He
held up the envelope and flicked it with one finger. “It looks like somebody’s
threatening to murder a couple of people. Where’s the levity in that?”

I studied his expression to see if
he was being serious. After a decade with the Crescent Creek Police Department,
Trent had been involved in plenty of tight spots. But I also knew that he could
be a lighthearted joker with close friends and associates.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean
to be disrespectful.”

The booming laugh that followed
told me that Trent’s reputation as a joker was intact. Before I could decide on
the most appropriate way to respond to the juvenile smirk on his face, the screen
door opened and Harper appeared on the porch.

“Katie?”

“Everything okay in there?” I
asked.

She nodded. “Oh, absolutely. We’re
doing great. But there’s a call for you about the Bollinger catering job.”

Trent pushed up from the rocking
chair and slipped the crumpled envelope into his pocket.

“I’ll be right there,” I told
Harper. “I need to finish this first.”

Once we were alone again, Trent
pulled out his phone and swiped the screen. He grumbled, cursed under his
breath and said, “Well, your friend Boris Hertel’s not having a very good day.”

“What now?”

Trent shrugged. “I just got a text
that said Boris was arrested for being drunk and disorderly at Food Town.
Nadine Talbot called 911 after she found the old guy plopped down in the potato
chip aisle eating from three opened bags of Fritos.”

“Oh, brother. Is he at the station
already?”

“Not quite,” Trent said, shaking
his head. “I guess Denny Santiago and Amanda Crane got him loaded into their
car, but then the geezer blew chunks all over the seat.”

“Too many Fritos?” I asked.

“Probably too much scotch. From the
report I got on my phone just now, Mr. Hertel made a pit stop at Tipton’s
Liquor Mart on the way to Food Town. While the cashier was on the phone, Boris
grabbed a bottle of Glenfiddich and waltzed right out of the store.”

“Does he have family in the area?”
I asked.

“Who—Boris Hertel?”

“Yes. If he’s been spiraling out of
control since his wife’s death, maybe a son or daughter could help get him into
rehab.”

Trent smiled. “Hertel’s
daughter-in-law told me the other day that she and her husband had tried three
different clinics. But the old guy keeps walking away and returning to Crescent
Creek. She and his son actually moved back to town a few months ago to try and
help Boris stay sober.”

“Well, maybe the fourth time will
be the charm,” I said, trying to sound as upbeat as possible. “Everyone
deserves at least two or three second chances.”

CHAPTER 4

I was walking toward the front door
of Bubble Brite at four that afternoon when I realized the flour-dusted Sky
High apron was still around my neck. I decided to leave it on and hope that
June and Marv Taggart would find it amusing. But instead of the couple that
owned the laundry and dry cleaning business, their 19-year-old daughter was
behind the counter with another young woman about the same age.

“Can I help you?” asked Melissa
Taggart when I walked through the door.

The other girl smiled. “You’re
wearing an apron,” she said.

“That’s very true. I forgot to take
it off when I left work.”

The phone on the wall behind the
counter rang. Melissa glowered at it briefly before trundling over to answer.

“Yeah?” said the second girl. “Where
do you work?”

“Sky High Pies. It’s the bakery
café over on Pine.”

She stared at me as if I’d just
said something obscene in an exotic and ancient language.

“I don’t know what that is,” she
mumbled. “I just moved here.”

“Oh, great! Welcome to Crescent
Creek!”

She grimaced. “Uh, thanks. I guess.
I liked New Orleans a whole lot better. But my father decided we should move
half way across the planet so he could take some lame job with—” She suddenly
stopped, her cheeks turning crimson. “I’m sorry, ma’am. That was rude. We had a
big blowout this morning, so I’m kind of still coming down.”

“I get it,” I said. “I was your age
once.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Yeah? Did your
dad make you move away from all of your friends?”

I shook my head. “No, I grew up
right here.”

She offered a weary smile before
asking if I was dropping off or picking up.

“Neither,” I said, reaching into my
pocket for the copies I’d made earlier. “I was wondering if you could tell me
who this dry cleaning ticket belongs to.”

I unfolded the paper and held it
up. She examined the photocopy for a few seconds before pointing at the duplicate
of the Bubble Brite receipt.

“She’s a witch.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“That ticket number is, like,
totally seared on my brain right now,” the young woman said. “It belonged to
Marla Soble.” She paused to see if I’d react to the name, but I didn’t
recognize it. “Or maybe I should say
belongs
to her. She and her son came
in earlier acting like it was the end of the world. She’d dropped off a silk
dress a few days ago. I guess it’s this
really
expensive designer thing,
okay? Between the two of them, my ears are still burning. I mean, almost
everyone curses now and then, but Mrs. Soble and her son take the cake on how
many F-bombs you can stuff into one sentence.”

“That’s a shame,” I said.

“Totally,” the young girl droned.
“And he’s so cute, but
way
too creepy.”

“Creepy?”

“Yeah, he asked another girl that
works here out on a date. She’s, like, way older than me, more like your age.
Anyway, when they got to the movies, he pretended like he forgot his wallet and
she had to pay and he didn’t even really say anything about being sorry.”

“And that qualifies as creepy?”

She harrumphed loudly, flicking her
hair over one shoulder. “Well, yeah. Don’t you think that’s just, like, sketchy?”

I figured it was easier to agree,
so I smiled and asked what happened after Marla and her son cursed up a storm.

“Not much. Because she lost the
ticket. And Missy’s mom and dad—” She swerved her gaze over one shoulder toward
Melissa Taggart on the phone. “—well, they’re
über
-strict about not
letting any garments go unless the customer can produce a receipt.”

“But don’t people lose them now and
then?”

She rolled her eyes. “Like, every
five minutes.”

I made a mental note to never misplace
a dry cleaning receipt. Then I asked what the Taggarts do when a customer comes
for their order without proof of ownership.

She laughed softly. “Nothing. I
think it’s just some weird red tape thing. If the person can describe the
stuff, then we usually let them have it.”

“And so the woman you just
mentioned…”

“Marla Soble,” she said. “I will
never
forget that name as long as I live. She was just, like,
completely
hateful.” Her lower lip jutted out. “She called me
fat
.”

The girl looked like she weighed
about as much as a feather pillow after a weeklong juice cleanse.

“Well, if you’re heavy,” I said.
“What does that make me?”

Her eyelids fluttered nervously.
“My granny would call you ‘big boned,’” she said. “But I think you look, like,
fine.” She did a little swirl in my direction with one finger. “Although the
apron is kind of poofing out right around your stomach. You might want to lose
that before you go out in public the next time.”

I smiled. “Duly noted. And I will.
Today was really busy, so it slipped my mind.”

“I hear that. We had a huge rush
from the second I clocked in until about twenty minutes ago.”

“Was Marla Soble part of that?”

The twinkle in her eyes vanished.
“Uh-huh. It was her third time in today, too.”

“Was she victorious?”

The girl frowned. “Was she
what
?”

“Did she get her dress?”

“Well, she
took
it, if
that’s what you’re saying. Me and Missy were doing our best to explain the
policy, but the freak just, like, barged her way around the counter when she
saw the dress go by on the conveyor. She grabbed it, refused to pay and ran out
the—”

“Okay!” Melissa Taggart
interrupted, grinning at her coworker. “You will
not
believe who just
called.”

I raised my hand. “Marla Soble?”

They both looked at me.

“How did you know?” Melissa asked.

“Lucky guess,” I said. “We were
just talking about her and—”

Melissa grabbed the other girl’s
arm. “You
told
her? My parents said we should never gossip about people
with other customers.”

“It’s okay, Missy, “I said. “I’m a
friend of your mom and dad. They come to Sky High all the time.”

She frowned. “Uh…” Then she
squinted to get a better look at my face. “Oh! You’re Kathy, right?”

“Kate,” I said. “Kate Reed.”

“Yeah, right. But still…” She shot
another disapproving look at the other girl. “We’re not supposed to.”

“Well, sorry,” the tittle-tattle
artist said. “She had a copy of Marla Soble’s receipt, so I thought maybe it…”
She stopped when the harsh expression on Melissa’s face held steady. “But I
guess not, huh?”

Melissa swallowed hard. “Will you
please not mention this to my mom and dad, Kathy? They said that if I did
really good working here in the afternoons there was a chance they’d pay for my
trip to Cabo next year.”

I smiled, deciding not to correct
the error with my name again. “That’s awesome!” I cheered. “Going to Mexico
sounds like a blast!”

The other girl muttered something
in agreement. Then she asked again if I had anything to drop off or pickup.

“Actually, no,” I said. “The reason
for my visit was to see if I could find out who the dry cleaning receipt
belonged to.”

Melissa lightly poked the other
girl in the side. “Don’t say her name again! Don’t say it!”

The other girl giggled. “Marla
Soble! Marla Soble! Marla Soble!”

I put the copy of the receipt in my
pocket. Then I thanked the duo for their time and made my way back outside. As
the door closed behind me, I could still hear the singsong refrain.

“Marla Soble! Marla Soble! Marla
Soble!”

I’d lived my entire thirty years
without once hearing that name, and in the space of about two or three minutes
it had peppered my ears nearly a dozen times. After getting back in the car, I
sent a text to Trent:
Do you anybody named Marla Soble?

What’s it worth to you?
he
replied.

I smiled.
Package of that
teriyaki beef jerky you love?

Deal
, he wrote back.
Marla
Soble is Ira Pemberton’s on/off girlfriend.

I stared at my phone for a few
seconds. Then I quickly asked the next logical question:
Why do you know
that?

Long story
, Trent replied.
Not
enough time now, but ask me later
.

I promised to remind him the next
time we spoke. Then I dropped the phone on the passenger seat, started the car
and headed for home.