Sage Advice to Cover Up a Murder! (Outer Banks Baker Mystery Series Book 2) (5 page)

An exhausted Jason showed up at Melissa’s house that evening. From the moment she opened the door, she knew something was wrong. However, she was not the type to push. She simply waited. He would tell her when he was ready. That night they enjoyed a quick and light dinner as the boys planned to go fishing until dark. It was sacred bonding time between Jason and Logan. Melissa appreciated the attention Jason gave to her nephew. She knew he needed a good male role model at this precarious stage in his life. Unfortunately, she felt her brother was not fulfilling that need in Logan’s life.

Shortly after the boys left, Melissa went to join her friends Cheryl and Maria for a glass or two of wine at a quaint bistro a block away from the beach. Ladies’ night had not been interfered with, despite the presence of a man in her life. The women enjoyed teasing their friend about her boyfriend, but they were truly glad she had found some happiness once again. After ordering their drinks, they seated themselves at a small, round table on the second-story porch with a lovely view of the ocean.

They discussed a number of topics. Maria’s eldest son had failed his economics class at NC State last semester. His summer would now be spent on campus. Cheryl had a nasty argument with the local vegetable supplier she used for her restaurant. The spinach delivered over the last several weeks had been rotten. She was in the process of finding another supplier. Melissa updated the women on Logan’s visit. He spent a lot of time with Emily Hawkins. She smiled at the thought of the two teenagers. Logan had confided to her that he really, really liked the young lady. He was still too nervous to do anything more than hold her hand though. Melissa thought that was lovely. At their age, holding hands was quite enough.

At the mention of the Hawkins’ granddaughter, Cheryl perked up. The expression on her face made the other two women realize there was something she wanted to add, but she held back for a while. It wasn’t until she finished her second glass of the house red wine that Cheryl loosened up. “Speaking of the Hawkins family, have either of you seen Sophie lately?” Neither woman had seen the widow, but considering she just lost her husband they had not felt it was unusual. “Well,” Cheryl continued, “I saw her yesterday afternoon. She was getting out of a new Mercedes convertible in front of the jewelry store on Main Street. Seems like she is wasting no time spending her poor husband’s life insurance money.” The women were surprised, but not too much. They realized Sophie had a taste for the finer things that had only been curtailed by her husband’s income that couldn’t keep up with her expensive demands. Half the town gossiped that it was his attempts to keep his wife in a lifestyle he couldn’t afford that had attributed to his early demise.

The women didn’t dwell on the subject of Mrs. Hawkins too long though. Maria’s phone rang, interrupting their sojourn. Her husband, Luis, had a problem with their washing machine and needed her help. Apologizing to the other women, Maria reluctantly left to tend to the defunct washer. “Who says men know how to fix things? Someone needs to start a business to fix things that husbands ‘fix,” she stated with a laugh. Melissa made to leave as well, but Cheryl stopped her for a moment.

“Melissa, has Jason mentioned anything about the Hawkins case to you?” she asked. Technically, cops could not discuss cases with anyone not within the department. However, since it was ruled there wasn’t a case, that the man had died most likely from natural causes, they had discussed it a little. The other woman had a gleam in her eye, so Melissa suspected she knew more than she had previously let on. When questioned about it, Cheryl opened up. It didn’t take much persuading. The woman loved to gossip. Her husband worked at Johnson Shipping International and had dealt with Mr. Hawkins a lot over the years. He confessed everyone was shocked when the older gentleman retired so suddenly. One day, after a heated argument with Mr. Johnson and his lead attorney, he had stormed out with a look of defeat on his face. Mr. Hawkins was as stubborn as a mule, and didn’t ever concede. Ronnie couldn’t imagine what would cause the old man to react so defeatist. Within the hour, an email had been sent to the entire organization announcing his retirement, effective immediately. The old man didn’t even have time to clear out his desk before he was escorted from the building. “Doesn’t sound like a voluntary retirement, does it?” she asked.  Melissa concurred that it did not.

“It gets even more peculiar,” she continued. Later that afternoon, Ronnie’s assistant witnessed Mrs. Hawkins bursting into Mr. Johnson’s office. Normally, someone would be thrown out of the building by security, but she wasn’t. After about half an hour, she left with a big smile on her face.

“Okay,” Melissa exclaimed, “that IS weird!” What on earth could Mrs. Hawkins have to say to Mr. Johnson? The old man wasn’t known for being civil to anyone, so why he didn’t have her tossed out immediately only added to the mystery. Melissa made a mental note to ask Jason about it later. Her curiosity was piqued as was Cheryl’s who said she’d nagged her husband to find out more. Unfortunately though, Ronnie wanted no part of it. If there was something there, he didn’t care; it wasn’t worth losing his job over if he was caught snooping around. He valued his paycheck and his retirement account too much.

The boys returned from their moderately successful fishing excursion around 10 pm. Both were dirty and smelled of the ocean. The younger man excitedly told his aunt about the puffer fish he caught and how it ‘puffed up’ before heading off to take a long, hot shower. In the meantime, Jason relaxed with Melissa on the back porch. Smelling fishy, he wasn’t allowed on the indoor furniture anyway. After a brief story of the fish that got away, that was “this big”, she decided to just come out and ask him about Hawkins. That look of exhaustion came back over his features so she knew something was amiss. “He didn’t die of natural causes, did he?” she asked. Jason assured her that Mr. Hawkins had ‘probably’ passed away from a heart attack or stroke or something completely normal. However, the case was being re-opened at the insistence of Hawkins’ son and the meddling of his partner, Cory. Aside from that, he could no longer discuss it with her. Although he was prohibited from telling her anything about an ongoing investigation, she filled him in on what Cheryl told her that evening.

Jason told her that he would mention it to his partner, but he still thought this whole thing was a dead end. It was his job though to follow leads. As he drove home later that evening, he inwardly cringed at the idea of having to question Mr. Edward Johnson and his attorney, Peter Andrews. Neither man was the pleasant sort. This would be just the sort of thing to set them off. After their encounters last summer over the Stevenson murder, he was not looking forward to tangling with them again.

The next morning, Logan set out early to meet up with Emily for a promised surf lesson. He tried last summer to teach her, but the young woman had not mastered the art form yet. He thought it would be an excellent way to keep her mind off her grandfather’s death. Her heart was broken. Logan just wanted to see the beautiful young woman smile again. The Surf Shack was not open yet, so he waited outside on the highly splintered picnic table. It was a glorious morning as the burnt orange sun peeked over the ocean’s horizon. “Today is going to be perfect,” he thought.

Emily tried sneaking up behind him to startle him. Although waif-like in appearance, she still had the clumsiness of an awkward teenage girl. By attempting to tiptoe over to the table, she failed to avoid a sharp seashell sticking up in the sand. Instead of silently tapping him on the shoulder, she yelped and hopped over to the table. She nearly fell on top of Logan in the process. This would have been fine with the young man. Rather than catching the damsel in distress, she plopped down beside him holding her bleeding foot. Logan examined the wound tenderly. Neither had a first-aid kit, but the boy knew the manager of The Surf Shack kept one in the back room. Unfortunately, the shop was closed at the moment. Logan decided it was worth the risk of getting in trouble, so he shimmied the back door lock. Tanner had taught him the trick last summer. He doubted the owner knew his shop was so easily broken into.

He fetched the first-aid kit and tended to Emily’s bleeding foot. Logan made a great nurse. Soon the cut was cleaned and the foot wrapped in gauze. He just returned the kit to its place and closed the back door when the manager walked up. Logan casually remarked, “Good morning, Mr. Sullivan.” The man grunted something similar to a “Good morning” as he opened the front door of his business to prepare for a long day of summer tourists who knew zilch about surfing. Emily and Logan barely contained their laughter as they realized they had been so close to being caught breaking and entering.

Since surf lessons were now off the agenda due to the young woman’s injury, Logan offered to drive Emily over to his aunt’s bakery for some fresh muffins for breakfast. She happily agreed, but needed to call her grandmother first to let her know where she was going. After the call, Logan helped his friend hop over to his scooter. He enjoyed the feel of her slight frame as she leaned against him. The ride over to the Kill Devil Delicacies was also enjoyable as Emily wrapped her slender arms around his waist. The smile on the young man’s face was priceless.

Melissa and her assistant, Maddie, had just opened the front doors of the bakery when the couple arrived. The aroma from the back room was tantalizing. Maddie had prepared her scrumptious blueberry-cheesecake muffins early that morning. The muffins were still hot when she served them to the teens with tall glasses of orange juice and bowls of cantaloupe. Melissa was in the back finishing up her loaves of lemon sage bread and cranberry orange bread. She peeked her head out of the back room. “Logan, sweetie,” she began, “when you’re done can you take these boxes of breadsticks and bread bowls over to Cheryl?” The poor boy cringed at the endearment, “sweetie”. Emily smiled and chuckled.

Logan nearly dropped the boxes as he collided with Jason coming in the door for his morning coffee and muffin. Laughing, he helped the young man carry his load across the street. The two returned quickly. Melissa wiped her flour coated hands on her apron as she came out of the back room. There was flour in her hair so Jason teased her about going grey. She smacked him with a kitchen towel in reply. Usually, he would hang out for a while before heading into the office, but today was different. He dreaded what awaited him at the precinct, but knew Cory would already be hard at work to prove Mr. Hawkins had died of unnatural causes. In Jason’s opinion, the young detective was way too enthusiastic in his determination for this to be a murder case. The older cop often thought Cory was more suited to a career in a district with far more interesting crime than what occurred in the small town of Kill Devil Hills. Reluctantly, he kissed Melissa softly on the cheek and walked briskly down the street towards the precinct.

While the others enjoyed a relaxing morning of warm muffins and conversation, Jason’s experience was much more stressful. Cory greeted him with a huge Cheshire cat smile as he entered the office. “Okay, apparently you have some news,” Jason stated as he plopped down in his desk chair. “Don’t leave me in suspense,” he ordered. Delighted to fill his partner in, Cory informed him that forensics had finished their tests on every dead seagull that had been brought in. All of them had died of a particular manufactured poison. It was such a distinctive chemical that it was mostly prohibited for use in the United States.

“Okay,” Jason began, “how do we connect the poisoned birds to the dead body of Mr. Hawkins?” He continued, “Do we know how the birds came to ingest the poison?” The younger detective gleamed as he related the rest of his story. Forensics found the poison had been contained in snippets of bread that the birds ate. Other pickings of trash from the ocean or seashore that the birds ate did not contain the poison. 

At this point, Cory’s expression became more reserved. He knew something more, but somehow was reluctant to just come out with it. After a few moments of contemplative silence, the younger man confided in a hushed tone, “There was bread found with Mr. Hawkins’ things. It was lemon sage bread from the Kill Devil Delicacies bakery. Forensics is testing the bread now to determine if it’s the same bread that killed the birds.” Jason’s heart nearly stopped. Kill Devil Delicacies was his girlfriend’s bakery. Lemon sage bread was one her most famous specialties. At this point, it appeared Melissa could be a suspect in another murder if it was proven that Mr. Hawkins consumed the bread. All he could think was that they had just gone through a similar set of circumstances last summer. He knew she couldn’t possibly have poisoned anyone, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be considered a suspect. Jason also knew that he would most likely be removed from the case if the bread was found to be poisoned. Off the case, his hands would be tied and he would be unable to help exonerate her…again.