Sinister Sprinkles (19 page)

George frowned. “Tell me you didn’t go in.”

I’d heard that scolding tone of voice from him before. “George, the chief has had plenty of time to search Darlene’s place. I don’t know what assumptions he’s working under, but if he ignores the murder victim, how good could he really be?”

He didn’t say anything, but I could tell George wasn’t happy about it. Just then, his cell phone rang. He looked at who was calling him, then said, “I need to take this.” George grabbed his coat and walked out into the bitter cold.

A minute later I heard the front door chime, and I expected to see George walk back in, but it was Taylor Higgins instead.

“One coffee to go, please,” Taylor said.

“Will you eat a donut if I give you one on the house?” I asked, trying to joke him into taking one.

“Just coffee,” he said. “Any news on what’s been happening?”

“Nobody tells me anything,” I said as I got him his coffee, sliding a fresh glazed donut into a bag and pushing it toward him.

He managed to resist the bait. “Sorry, no sale.”

“It’s on the house,” I said.

“You keep it,” he said, trying to avoid looking at the bag.

“You honestly don’t like donuts, do you?” I said, staring at him in open wonder.

He frowned, bit his lower lip, then said, “No, I’m sorry. I never acquired a taste for them.”

“And yet you keep showing up here,” I said, retrieving the spurned donut.

“I like the coffee, and the company,” he said, and then left, disappearing back out into the early morning darkness.

George came back in, stomping his feet at the door. “It’s going to be a few more minutes.”

“Until what?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Not yet. So tell me, what did you find at Darlene’s place?”

“What makes you think I found something?” I asked.

“Come on, I was a cop too long not to be able to see the signs. You might as well go ahead and tell me.”

“Don’t get mad,” I said.

“No promises.”

I shrugged. If I wanted George’s help, I was going to have to trust him with everything I knew. If that meant another chewing out, then so be it.

I reached into my jeans pocket and pulled out Lester’s business card—complete with the odd number written on back—and the matching hundred-dollar-bill.

George looked at both items, then got a clean napkin and took them from me. After a full minute, he asked, “Suzanne, where did you find these?”

“The hundred dollar bill was in a box in her closet, and the card was in her purse.”

I could tell he was uneasy with what I’d done, but at least he kept it to himself. I asked, “Do you have any idea what this might mean?”

He shook his head, so I said, “After I lock up today, Grace and I are going to talk to Lester about it at the radio station.”

“That’s probably not the smartest thing you’ve ever done in your life,” George said. “You should let me handle it.”

“If you go, it will seem like the police are investigating. I want him off-guard.”

“I’m not a cop anymore, remember?”

“George, you might not have a badge, but every single mannerism you have screams police.”

He shrugged. “I still think you’re taking a risk.”

“Grace and I are going together, and honestly, what’s Lester going to do in broad daylight? Can you truly see him trying to hurt us?”

“If he’s covering up for another murder, absolutely,” George said.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be careful.”

George waved the bill in the air. “You said you found this in Darlene’s closet. Was there much money there?”

“All I found was five individual hundred-dollar bills,” I said.

“And did any of the rest of them have numbers on them?” she asked.

“No, just this one. Several of the cards had numbers written on the backs of them, though. Why?”

George took a sip of coffee, then frowned. “I’m not sure.”

“Don’t hold out on me,” I said.

He thought about that, then said, “That five hundred dollars could be money she stole from Wilma.”

“I suppose it’s possible,” I said. “But would she take hundreds? Those are easy to miss, whereas tens or even twenties might be simpler to take without Wilma realizing she was even being robbed.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out,” George said. “In the meantime, I see why you want to talk to Lester, but be careful, okay?”

“We will.” I looked at his empty mug. “Would you like more coffee?”

George nodded, but just then, his telephone rang. He ducked back outside before I could top his mug off, and I waited patiently until he came back in. From what I could see, he was doing most of the talking, never a good sign with George. I was about to go outside to see what was going on myself the front door opened, and George rushed in.

He said, “Okay, it’s time for a field trip. Grab your coat and let’s go.”

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“I just found out where Muriel’s been hiding, but if we don’t hurry, we’re going to miss her.”

I shouted out, “Emma, I’ll be back in a little bit. You’ve got the front until I get back,” as I grabbed my jacket and rushed out the front door with George.

It probably wasn’t fair to keep sticking her with a job she hated, but I couldn’t let that stop me.

Maybe it was time I was finally going to get some of the answers I’d been searching for.

CHAPTER 10

“I’ll drive,” George said.

I didn’t have any problem with that, so I got into his Cadillac. “Be careful. The roads are still a little tricky.”

I had a sudden insight into where we were going. “We’re heading over to Gabby Williams’s place, aren’t we?”

George took his eyes off the road for a second and looked at me intently. “Which is it, Suzanne? Are you a lipreader, or a mindreader?”

“Neither one,” I said. “Why do you ask that?”

“Because unless you saw me mouth the name or read my mind, how else would you know where Muriel’s been hiding out? You haven’t been holding out on me, have you, Suzanne?”

“Of course not,” I said. “It just makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“Not to me,” George said. “Go ahead and explain, I’m listening.”

“You probably didn’t realize it because you don’t know Gabby the way I do. She suddenly closed her shop sometime in the last couple of days and disappeared, which is odd enough to mark her behavior, but then she didn’t come by my place first to tell me what was going on. Gabby feels it’s her personal obligation to tell everyone whatever she’s doing, and she seems to take particular pleasure in keeping me in the loop of what’s happening in her life. If there was something big enough to get her to shut her shop down until further notice, trust me, she’d take an ad out in the paper.”

I looked back at George to see if he believed me. “I swear, I’m not holding out on you.”

“I believe you,” he said. We were nearing Gabby’s place, and there was one question I had to ask before we got there. “I told you how I reasoned it out, but you didn’t mention how you knew.”

He pointed ahead, and there was a car parked on the street with its lights on, and from the plume of smoke, it was idling, ready to take off at a moment’s notice. We were just a hundred yards from Gabby’s house, but George pulled in behind the idling car instead of driving up to Gabby’s.

I couldn’t have been more surprised if the Easter Bunny had stepped out of the car when I saw Officer Grant get out.

He and George shook hands, and he nodded to me before addressing George. He said, “You have five minutes, and then I’m calling the chief.”

“Got it,” George said. “Let’s go,” he said to me.

I looked quizzically at the police officer, but he didn’t meet my gaze.

I quickly caught up with George, then asked, “What’s going on? Why is he helping us?”

“He owes me a favor, and it’s a big one,” George said. “I called in the marker to get his help, but he wasn’t all that happy about me being here before his boss. That’s what took me so long on the phone. He’s a good cop, and this goes against his grain.”

“That must have been some favor he owed you,” I said.

George just shrugged. “Come on. We don’t have much time.”

He walked up the front steps, then pounded on the door. “Gabby, open up. I see your light’s on in the hallway and I noticed your shadow a second ago, so don’t try to pretend you’re not awake yet.”

There was no response, then George said, “Everyone knows Muriel’s there. You’ve got four minutes until the police get here, so you might as well talk to me first.”

There was no response.

I said, “Let me try.”

George shrugged, so I said, “Gabby, it’s Suzanne Hart. Let us in. We’re here to help Muriel, but if the police get her first, we might not be able to do anything for her.”

George looked at me as if I’d lost my mind, but to our mutual surprise, the front door opened, and Muriel burst out of the house, wrapping me in her embrace.

*   *   *

“I can’t take it anymore,” Muriel said. “This is killing me,” she added as she pulled away from me.

Just behind her, Gabby looked clearly peeved as she said, “You might as well all come in. At least it’s warm inside.”

“The police really are coming,” I said. “There was nothing we could do about that.”

“Let them come,” Gabby said. Though it was barely past six
A.M.
, she was dressed as impeccably as usual, in a tailored pale-blue suit and matching shoes. “I have no reason to hide from them.”

“You were harboring a person of interest,” George said.

Gabby laughed as she looked at him. “I ask you, is there anything illegal about letting an old friend stay at my place, a woman who’s been accused of no crime as far as we know?”

George shook his head. “No, not when you put it that way.”

Gabby smiled in triumph. “Then let them come.”

We all moved inside, and George asked Muriel, “Just between us, why have you been hiding?”

“Someone’s trying to kill me,” she said. “You used to be a police officer. Surely you can see that.”

“Do you have any reason to suspect that candy cane was meant for you?” George asked. It was amazing how calm his voice had become since he started questioning her, and I could see the old cop coming out. He must have been very good at what he did when he was on the job.

Muriel said, “She was dressed like me, in my coat and wearing a wig that almost matched my hair color, though I’ve never had a gray hair in my life. What further proof do you need?”

“Why would someone want to kill you, Muriel?” I asked. “That’s what we’ve all been wondering.”

Muriel’s lower lip began to quiver, and before she could stop it, she broke down in a crying jag that lasted until Chief Martin showed up six minutes later. Officer Grant had kept his word and discharged his favor to George, but just barely.

“I should have known I’d find you here,” the chief said the second he saw me.

I didn’t know how to respond to that, so for once in my life, I didn’t.

After a few seconds, he shook his head, then the chief looked at Muriel. “Where have you been?”

Gabby stood between them, and I’d never seen her so fierce. “You don’t have to answer that,” she told Muriel as she faced the chief down.

“But I want to,” Muriel said, finally getting her crying jag out of the way. “I’ve made such a mess of things. I never should have gotten a computer. Everything started to crumble because of that.”

The chief looked at all of us in turn, and I was proud that George’s gaze didn’t flinch when their eyes met.

After a few moments, he said, “It’s not worth the trouble getting rid of you two, so you might as well stay. Let’s all hear this together.” He turned back to Muriel and said, “Why is your computer to blame?”

“I got a computer because it seemed like an interesting thing to do,” she said. “Then I heard everyone talking about the Internet, and that sounded like fun, too. I even opened one of those e-mail accounts, and I got the most fascinating mail from around the world, coming from people I’d never met.” She stifled another crying jag, then she added softly, “And then I lost everything.”

“Don’t tell me,” I said. “The e-mail was from Nigeria, wasn’t it?”

She nodded. “He promised me riches, but he ended up taking everything.”

I often got scams from foreign countries in my email inbox, but I deleted them just as quickly. The stories of scammers running rampant on the Internet were no urban legends; they were real. Unsuspecting victims kept funneling money to the thieves, whether out of greed or humanitarian reasons, or so they believed.

Muriel had grown suddenly calm. “I lost everything, and when my gentleman friend, Grayson, found out what a fool I’d been, he broke it off with me. Then, when someone tried to kill me, or someone who looked like me, I knew he’d actually come after me.”

“Grayson?” I asked.

“No, Peter Exeter, the man I’d been sending money to all along.”

The chief shook his head. “Muriel, if you’ve been sending him money, why would he want to kill you?”

“Because I ran out of things to liquidate. He’s been most insistent I keep paying. He says I’m in too deep and has been threatening me. I know he’s after me.”

I spoke up again. “Muriel, where did you send the money? Was it somewhere in the States?”

“No, it went straight to Nigeria, of course,” she said, looking at me as if I were some kind of idiot.

“You can relax, then. He’s not trying to kill you. As soon as he realized you didn’t have any more money, he dropped you and moved on to his next victim.”

A glimmer of hope registered in her eyes. “Do you honestly think so?”

“I know it,” I said, and was surprised when the chief didn’t scold me for butting in again.

“Why, that’s the most wonderful news I’ve had forever,” she said. Then Muriel frowned. “But if Peter didn’t try to kill me, who did?”

I almost said, “That’s what we’re trying to find out,” but I somehow managed to keep my mouth shut, miracle of miracles.

The chief said, “We’re not sure anyone did. Think hard, Muriel. There’s no one who might want to see you dead, is there? No one who might benefit from your death?”

She actually laughed at that. “Why? There’s nothing left to inherit, and I cashed in my life insurance policy weeks ago.”