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

CHAPTER
14

The Sky High kitchen smelled like
peppermint and cinnamon when I opened the door the next morning a few minutes
after five. Julia was already at work, standing beside the industrial mixer
with a small ceramic bowl cradled in the crook of one arm.

“Morning, Katie!” Her voice was
bright and cheery. “How’d you sleep?”

I walked over and leaned against
the counter. “Like a baby,” I said. “How about you?”

She smiled, nodded and went back to
the mixer. “The same. I fell asleep on the sofa watching the news. My hubby
covered me with a quilt and I was there all night.”

“Thank goodness for small miracles.
Your sleep patterns have been way off lately.”

“I know. Probably too much caffeine
in the afternoon.”

“Speaking of which,” I said. “Can I
pour you a cup?”

“I’m good.” She pointed at a mug I
hadn’t seen behind an enormous bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips. “I’ve got
coffee and chocolate within reach, so I can handle just about anything this
morning.”

I peeked at the recipe card on the
counter and then glanced at the whiteboard.

“Beginning with two dozen Peppermint
Puffs for Mrs. Baldasari?”

She gave me a thumbs up. “Yep. Two
dozen of these and then another two dozen chocolate chips for a workshop that
Herman Bright’s doing at his insurance agency this afternoon.”

“Busy, busy!” I cheered. “We’re
glad to hear that, right?”

“Definitely!” Julia said. “After
all, you know what they say about idle hands.”

I nodded. “Yes, I do. Nana Reed
used to remind us kids of that every day after school. My brother once snuck a
pair of red horns into the kitchen, thinking he’d surprise her when she rolled
out the old adage.”

“Did he?”

I laughed at the memory. “He did.
But it was something that only happened once. My grandmother was so surprised
by the horns that she dropped a tea cup that had belonged to her
great-great-grandmother.”

Julia winced. “Ouch! Did he get
punished?”

“Grounded for a week,” I said.
“Plus, he had to sweep and mop the Sky High dining room for a full month.”

While she continued with the
special order she’d already started, I poured a cup of coffee, added a splash
of cream and shuffled back to her side.

“Did you hear about the fire?” I
asked.

She nodded. “Jared went out to buy cereal
for the kids late last night. He ran into Amanda Crane at the MiniMart on Lookout
Road. I guess she was just finishing her patrol shift when the call came in.”

“Did she actually go to the body
shop?”

Julia shrugged. “Couldn’t tell you.
But she gave Jared the scoop; the fire department suspected arson from the
get-go because they found gasoline cans inside the building.”

“That’s not all they found,” I
said, sipping my coffee.

She frowned slightly. “What else?”

“A body.”

“Oh, my goodness! Ira Pemberton?”

“No, although it seems that he got
whacked on the head pretty good by whoever set the fire. Trent told me Robin
Bellmore and that new guy she’s partnered with—”

“Andy Davidson!” Julia blurted. “Is
he a dreamboat or what?”

I chuckled at her response to the
name of the new EMT. Andy Davidson had joined the Crescent Creek Fire
Department a couple of months earlier when he and his wife moved to town. Mrs. Davidson
was a pediatrician and she’d agreed to relocate to our mountain paradise to
take over Dr. Shannon’s practice. He was retiring after six decades as the
area’s most popular doctor, a slice of news that caught many local residents by
surprise. Since he’d delivered nearly all of them when they were born—along
with their own children—most people felt his retirement was the end of an era.
But I liked Lili Davidson and it was amusing to watch women in town swoon over
her husband.

“I mean, Andy has got the bluest
eyes,” Julia went on, beaming like a schoolgirl. “And his arms are the size
of—” She stopped when she noticed the bemused expression on my face. “Oh!
Sorry, Katie! I ran into Andy and Lili a couple of days ago at Scoops of Joy.”

“No need to apologize, sweetie. I
totally get it. The guy’s a hunk. And she’s like a runway model dressed in
scrubs. They’re one of the most attractive couples in town.”

Julia’s eyebrows wiggled. “Right up
there with you and Zack!”

“Not to mention you and Jared.”

She beamed. “My husband
is
pretty hot. But I’m like a—”

“Stop right there!” I warned. “I
don’t want to hear one disparaging remark out of your mouth. Words are
powerful, Jules. What we say and think creates energy, either positive or
negative.”

She smirked. “Did you DVR Dr. Phil
again?”

“No, I read that somewhere.”

“In one of his books?”

I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter where I
saw it. I think it’s totally true.”

She sighed. “Sorry, Katie. I got
distracted by that mention of Andy Davidson. You were telling me about the fire
and whatnot.”

I nodded.

“Who did the police find at Ira
Pemberton’s place?”

“His name was Jacob Lowry,” I
answered. “He was dead at the scene.”

“Oh, that’s horrible,” Julia said
in a hushed voice. “In the fire?”

“No, he was discovered in a car
parked out back. I won’t go into the gruesome details, but Trent told me it was
staged to look like a suicide.”

Julia narrowed her gaze. “Like
someone murdered him, but wanted people to think the guy had killed himself?”

“That’s it in a nutshell.”

“Why would they do that?”

“No idea, but you can certainly
speculate plenty of possibilities. Maybe the arsonist killed Mr. Lowry when he
happened upon the scene as they set the fire. Or maybe he was involved, but his
partner decided to go solo after burning Pemberton’s.”

Julia’s eyes went wide. “Oh, like
maybe they had a fight or something?”

“Could be,” I said. “Once you start
guessing about the motive for an unsolved crime, you can take it in at least a
dozen different directions.”

She pursed her lips, deep in
thought. “Yeah…” Her gaze wandered from my face to the whiteboard to the mixer.
“And, I hate to say this, but speaking of directions…” She tapped the recipe
card on the counter. “I should get back to Mrs. Baldasari’s Peppermint Puffs.”

“And I need to make myself useful,”
I agreed, glancing at the next special order on the list. “I’ll take care of
Herman Bright’s cookies before I check email and phone messages.”

Julia smiled. “A little calm before
the storm?”

“Something like that,” I said. “My
sixth sense is telling me it’s going to be another wild and crazy Sky High
day!”

CHAPTER
15

When the dust settled later and the
flood of lunch diners had slowed to a trickle, Julia was slumped against the kitchen
counter with a glass of lemonade, two Peppermint Puffs and her face suffused
with the look of someone who’s just witnessed a life-changing event.

“Can I tell you how much I dislike
your sixth sense right about now?” she moaned.

I’d been expecting her to say
something. It had been our busiest back-to-back breakfast and lunch rushes
since I’d taken over at Sky High Pies. Although my grandmother and parents had
often regaled my brother, sister and me with tales of their most frenetic days
when they were at the helm, there’s nothing like living through a madcap session
with nonstop orders, grouchy customers and delivery drivers piling up at the
backdoor.

“Sorry my intuition was on track,
Jules.” I raised my cup of coffee. “But here’s to you! As brave and courageous
as any chef I’ve ever known!”

She blew the bangs out of her eyes
and sipped her lemonade. Then she asked if I wanted one of the peppermint
cookies.

“I’m okay, thanks,” I said. “I’m
going to fix a sandwich before I go into the office and do some paperwork.”

She smiled, nibbled on a cookie and
swept the back of one hand across her forehead. “I’m going straight home and
into the bathtub when we close,” she said. “And if one of the kids or my
husband interrupts me, it won’t be pretty.”

We laughed and toasted our successful
day. Then I headed across the room toward the walk-in. I was in the mood for a spinach
tortilla wrapped around roast chicken with pesto mayonnaise, shredded romaine
and mozzarella. But before I reached my destination, I heard Trent calling my
name.

“Yo! Katie!”

I glanced over my shoulder and saw
him standing beside Harper in the pass window.

“Look who I found wandering around
the dining room!” she joked.

“It’s your favorite deputy chief of
police,” he said with a lopsided grin. “Have a few minutes to talk?”

I motioned for him to come around
to the swinging door. When he appeared a moment later, I suggested we sit in my
office. He agreed to the idea and started to leave the kitchen until his
wandering eyes locked on the peanut butter chocolate chip cookies cooling on
the back counter.

“Are those spoken for?” he asked.

I nodded. “Those are Adam
Martin’s,” I explained. “His youngest broke her arm yesterday. He’s taking
those to try and cheer her up.”

Trent smiled. “They’d make me feel
better, too.”

“Will you settle for some coffee
instead?”

“Not quite as cheerful,” he said.
“But that sounds good.”

After pouring a cup for Trent, I
grabbed his elbow. “Let’s go, buster. If you behave and mind your manners,
maybe we’ll find a couple of cookies for you after our meeting.”

“What about the free cupcakes you offered?”

I shrugged. “Same qualification
applies,” I answered. “Behave and we’ll see how it goes.”

He groused and grumbled as we
walked down the hall to my office, but the pouting had completely subsided by
the time we were settled on opposite sides of my desk.

“This isn’t very comfy,” he moaned,
squirming on one of the guest chairs.

“For good reason,” I said. “If
people get comfortable and stay too long, I won’t get my work done.”

He rolled his eyes and reached into
one pocket, coming out with a small notebook open to a page covered in notes
and doodles.

“You brought audio-visual aids?” I
asked.

Trent ignored the remark, flipping
silently through the notebook until he found what he wanted.

“Okay, then,” he said, sitting back
in the chair. “Let’s start with the BMW. You told me that it belonged to a
brunette, right?”

I shook my head. “I told you that I
saw her getting into it. I don’t know if she actually owns it or not.”

He looked up from the notes. “Are
you in a grumpy mood or something?”

I shook my head.

“Then why are you being so
argumentative?”

“I wasn’t. I simply clarified the
difference between what you said just now and what I told you during our
earlier conversation.”

He scowled. Then he muttered. And
then he flipped more pages in the notebook.

“Let’s try again, okay?” He glanced
up, waiting for my response. When I smiled silently, he sighed. “Alrighty then.
The BMW? It’s registered in the name of Velma Lancaster. The address on the
title is in—”

“Utah?”

Trent raised one eyebrow. “No,
smarty pants. She’s got a Sacramento address, although she previously lived in Utah.
And the plates on the car were stolen, remember?”

“Okay, so Velma Lancaster is from California.
But she came to Crescent Creek driving her own car with someone else’s license
plates on it?”

“Sounds about right,” Trent said. “Although
Mrs. Lancaster denied any knowledge of the stolen tags. She claimed that her California
plates were intact when she left home last week. She also stated that she has
no idea who exchanged her legit plates for a stolen set or when the switch may
have occurred.”

“Or why?” I added.

“Yeah,” Trent agreed. “That as
well. Although I suspect someone was either playing a practical joke on her or
trying to incriminate her for stealing the plates in the first place.”

“Did you actually talk to her?” I
asked.

“I was getting around to telling
you that part.”

“Where’d you pick her up?”

“We didn’t,” he answered. “Velma
Lancaster came to the station last night around ten o’clock.”

“She turned herself in?”

He nodded. “And guess who she was
with?”

“Boris Hertel?”

“Nope. Want to try again?”

“Ira Pemberton?”

“Strike two! He was already at the
station talking to Dina and Tyler. Care for a third time at bat?”

I felt my pulse quicken. “No,
Trent. Just tell me. Who came in with Velma Lancaster last night?”

The megawatt smile on his face was
so bright that I couldn’t help but grin.

“It was Carter Devane,” Trent said,
lifting his chin slightly. “The millionaire from Aspen who—”

“The burglary on the rhyming
extortion note?” I interrupted.

“One and the same,” Trent said.
“Velma and Carter waltzed into the station and said they had a story to tell
me.”

I sat forward in my chair. “What
was it?” I felt an icy tingle on my neck. “Did they tell you who was responsible
for assaulting Ira, burning down his body shop and killing Jacob Lowry?”

CHAPTER
16

The office was so quiet I heard a
bird twittering in the distant meadow. I kept my position, tilting toward Trent
like an expectant pupil at the foot of the master. He continued smiling; it was
the same self-satisfied expression that accompanied all of his momentous
pronouncements.

“Well?” I said finally. “What’s the
deal? Did Velma and Carter identify the arsonist and murderer?”

Trent shifted on the guest chair,
frowning with discomfort. “I mean, the least you could do is put a cushion on
here or something, Katie. This thing is killing my—”

“Yeah, okay. I’ll look into it. In
the meantime, will you please stop dragging your feet?”

His smile vanished. “Look who’s
impatient now? You’re usually the one telling me to calm down.”

“Because you’re usually the one being—”

“Anyway,” Trent cut in, “Dina and Tyler
had a very interesting chat with Velma and Carter after they finished talking
to Ira Pemberton. They were at the station until about three o’clock this morning, going over what Mr. Devane and Mrs. Lancaster had to say about the
situation.”

He paused, arched one eyebrow and
waited. But I didn’t bite. I sat back in my chair, folded my arms over my chest
and smiled.

“Thank you, Katie. It’s a whole lot
easier when you let me talk.”

Another pause, another raised brow
from Trent while I continued smiling.

“Okay, so…”

I shook my head. “I’m not going to
take the bait, big guy. I’m going to sit here and calmly listen to what you
have to tell me.”

He chuckled. “Man, I wish I had
this on tape.”

“But you don’t, so let’s keep
going.”

“Yeah, good idea. We’ve both got
work to do, right?”

I nodded.

“Alright, so Mrs. Lancaster and
Devane showed up with a whopper of a story,” Trent continued. “At first, Dina
and Tyler thought they were bluffing because it sounded way too far-fetched and
convoluted. But they made a few calls this morning to the PD in Sacramento and Aspen.
Turns out Velma and Carter were telling the truth.”

“About what?”

“Well, according to Carter, he got
a call from Boris Hertel out of the blue one day about three—”

“Hang on a sec,” I interrupted.
“How does Boris know Carter? There’s what—a twenty year age difference?”

The corners of Trent’s mouth
lifted. “I thought you were going to be patient and listen?”

“Oh, right. I’m sorry.”

He laughed softly. “It’s okay,
Katie. I had the very same reaction. But it’s actually pretty simple. Carter Devane
and Boris Hertel’s son are actually friends of Jacob Lowry, the man we found
murdered last night. Kevin and Jacob are from here, and they met Carter when
they went to college in California. Even though he told his parents when he
first left Colorado that he’d never be back, Jacob visited Crescent Creek
between semesters and over the summers. In fact, even though he settled in California
after school, he bought a piece of land on Old Sunshine Trail and built a
vacation place for his family a few years ago.”

“Sounds like he had some bucks,” I
said.

Trent smiled. “He was a
multi-millionaire,” he said. “After graduating from college, a tech company in California
hired him as one of the company’s first employees. When the company went
public, Jacob zoomed from living a paycheck-to-paycheck existence to incredible
wealth. He was chief marketing officer for several years until he eventually
left the company to spend more time with his wife and kids. That’s when he moved
his family to Colorado.”

I nodded. “And how does Velma know
Carter, Kevin and Jacob?”

Trent took a sip of his coffee. “All
roads lead to Crescent Creek, Katie.”

“Don’t tell the people in Italy.
They’ve been under the impression for the past two thousand years or so that all
roads take you to Rome.”

“Well, obviously, Kevin and Jacob
are from here,” he began. “And so is Velma.”

“Really? I’ve never heard their
names before.”

“I’m not surprised. You were in Chicago
for a long time, and they’re all about ten or eleven years older than us.”

“Velma’s forty?” I asked. “She
looks amazing!”

After more coffee, Trent rolled his
eyes. “She’s had so much work done that she’s like a Dairy Queen spoon wearing
makeup and a wig.”

“I’m not sure what that’s supposed
to mean.”

His eyes looped around again. “Cosmetic
surgery, Katie. Even though she’s only forty-one, Velma’s been under the knife
more times than a stick of butter at a pancake breakfast.”

I smirked. “Aren’t you funny?”

“Funny looking maybe.”

“Should we take a vote?”

“Right now?” he said with a
sideways grin. “It’s just you and me, Katie. That’d be a landslide victory with
no questions asked.”

I waited.

“No barrel full of monkeys?” he
asked sheepishly. “No laughs and giggles?”

“Only on the inside,” I said after
a long pause. “Can we get back to the conversation now?”

“Sure. Where were we?”

“Kevin, Jacob and Velma are all
from here,” I said. “And they met Carter—where? Or did one person meet him and
then introduce the others?”

Trent shook his head. “Berkeley.
The three guys all went there for undergrad degrees. They shared a house while
they were in college.” He paused and smiled. “Wait a sec. The tree amigos lived
together, but Kevin dropped out after their sophomore year and continued rooming
with the other two chuckleheads.”

“And Velma?”

He smiled. “Didn’t we already cover
her?”

“You made a couple of cracks about
plastic surgery,” I said. “But we didn’t go over how she fell in with the others.”

“That’s an easy one. Kevin and
Jacob kept in touch with her after they all left Colorado. During the years
that the boys were at Berkeley, despite the fact that she was already married
to her husband, Velma had a crush on Carter Devane. From what we’ve learned so
far, the attraction went unrequited until they were both having trouble with
their marriages. They had a red-hot affair that burned out after a few weeks.
Eventually, they both went back home to revive their own version of wedded bliss.”

“Does that mean Velma went to Berkeley
with Kevin, Jacob and Carter?”

He laughed. “She may have driven by
the campus a few times or attended some of their parties. But if you’re asking
did she attend the University of California, that’s a big, fat no.”

“Where did she go to school?”

He laughed again. “Hard Knocks U,”
he said. “Have you seriously never heard her story before?”

I shook my head.

“Oh, shoot. It’s wild. When Velma
was a senior in high school, she basically flipped overnight from Little Miss Muffet
to Daughter of Lucifer. There was a really bizarre scandal that involved her
parents and a woman that lived around the corner.”

“A juicy scandal that I know
nothing about?”

“Hey,” Trent said. “Don’t blame me
if your mother and sister fell down on the job. I particularly can’t believe
your mom never mentioned it.”

“Maybe she was trying to be
tactful,” I suggested.

He grinned. “Or maybe there were
too many other spicy stories to tell you about.”

“I suppose that could be true,
although my mother can turn an overheard whisper into a colossal tale of
infidelity and loose morals.”

We shared a laugh and a warmhearted
moment reflecting on my mother’s love of innuendo and chitchat. When the memory
faded, I asked Trent to get back to the connection between Carter Devane, Velma
Lancaster and the dead guy at Ira Pemberton’s body shop.

He groaned. “Didn’t I already cover
that? Somebody started calling Carter out of the blue a couple of months ago
with a cockamamie story about…actually, a cockamamie
threat
would be more
accurate. They claimed that Carter stole the original idea and formula for
those dog mouth wash chew thingies.”

“Minty Dog?”

“That’s it, yep.”

“Sounds like a shakedown scheme
then.”

Trent smiled. “That it does. When
the anonymous caller demanded a million dollars to keep quiet, Devane told the
guy to get lost.”

“Anonymous calls in addition to the
notes?”

“Yep.”

“And the blackmailer is a man?”

“Figure of speech,” answered Trent.
“Dina conducted the interview and I’m not sure if Carter actually specified the
gender of the person making the threats.”

“Okay, so when did the scheme move
from telephone calls to anonymous notes written in verse?”

Trent shrugged. “Sorry, Katie. I’m
juggling more than one hot potato. I didn’t memorize the dates.”

“That’s okay.”

“It’s not relevant to the overall
matter anyway,” he said. “I’ve got an arson and a murder to solve.”

I held his gaze for a moment or
two, thinking about the connections between the longtime residents of Crescent
Creek and an anonymous extortionist.

“Okay,” I said a moment later, “if
Carter Devane is the target for the scam, why were the other three included on
the unsigned note?”

“You mean the crappy poem?”

I nodded. “If Devane’s the rich guy
that someone is trying to blackmail into a million-dollar payoff, why include
Ira Pemberton, Velma Lancaster and Boris Hertel’s son? And what about Jacob
Lowry? He isn’t even mentioned in the note.”

“Excellent questions,” Trent said.
“Feel free to connect the dots between the millionaire, the dog chews, the
arson and Mr. Lowry’s murder.”

“All in good time,” I said. “You mind
if I do some sleuthing around town?”

Trent laughed. “Don’t mind a bit,”
he said. “Just stay aware of the invisible line, Katie.”

I asked him to explain.

“The separation between the efforts
of a former private investigator,” he said, “and the work of the handsome
deputy chief from the local law enforcement authority.”

“And that would be you?”

He winked. “One and the same,” he
said. “One and the same.”