Chicken Soup & Homicide (8 page)

Mrs. Mahoney wiggled her computer mouse. "Of course she can participate. The more the merrier. I'll add her onto the list right now." Her fingernails clicked on the keys for a few seconds. A ring with an emerald the size of a lima bean sparkled in the light cast from the lamp on the corner of the desk. "Please make sure she knows that cocktail attire is mandatory."

In other words, if Trisha showed up in her usual jeans and T-shirt ensemble, she wouldn't be allowed in. Tales of being kicked out of charity functions by the infamous philanthropic event organizer, for not following her ironclad guidelines, had been floating around Kellerton for years. Those deemed unworthy for one event could kiss their chances of being allowed into another good-bye. One strike and out forever in Bridget's world. Amy nodded and said, "I already let her know about that. She's more than happy to dress up if she can raise some money for the garden."

"Good. I find that people at my fundraisers tend to donate more when things look nice."

Things. Did she mean the baked goods or the bakers? Or both? Most likely both. Bridget Mahoney surrounded herself with fine things. Of course she would want the desserts and partygoers to look as fabulous as possible.

"While we're on the topic of donations"—Amy flipped her black leather clutch over on her lap—"I was wondering about the showdown. What happened with the money raised by that?"

"There wasn't any raised. I refunded all of the tickets since that idiot Chet got himself killed." Bridget took a sip of water from a cut crystal glass. It cast a constellation of tiny rainbows on the wall courtesy of the dim morning light coming through the window that overlooked the frozen Cooley River. "I am going to donate $1,000 from Mahoney Incorporated to each of the charities you all were competing for."

"That's very generous of you."

"It's the least I can do. The people that benefit from the charities don't deserve to lose out because Chet was a lying weasel and somebody finally decided to get the ultimate revenge."

Mrs. Mahoney was busy organizing the sugar-filled Parade of Desserts, but she wasn't sugarcoating her feelings.
My, my, Mrs. Mahoney, such hostile words.
Sweet and innocent could be the balm to keep her talking, maybe even find out why she was so unenamored with the chef. "I have to say I wasn't looking forward to competing against Chef Britton. I've heard he is quite ruthless."

Bridget snorted. "Ruthless…among many other unpleasant traits. The nicest thing about him was that he was a generous benefactor to many charities. My showdown was ruined, but the silver lining is his death saved us all from seeing him showboating onstage in front of his slobbering fans."

Amy held her breath and willed her eyes not to bug out like a squirrel facing down a hawk. The rant was building steam, possibly even to a murder confession. She swallowed the breath as Mrs. Mahoney's cackles echoed through the huge office.

"Oh, Amy, sweetheart. You look like you've seen a ghost or have come face-to-face with a killer. I'm sorry. I forget not everybody appreciates my candidness. Offending people is one of my hobbies." She smiled. A genuine, warm smile. "I didn't care for Chet's business practices, but neither did any other person that dealt with him. I assure you I didn't have him killed. He was annoying but not worth that much effort or bother."

* * *

Amy tapped the brake pedal and flipped on her turn signal. As her mailbox came into view through the windshield, she realized she didn't remember a thing about her drive across town. All the way home she had been on autopilot as she pondered whether Bridget really did have a macabre sense of humor, or if there were more than a few grains of truth in the jabs at the undearly departed Chef Britton. Amy glanced at her rearview mirror just in case she had zoned out and run through a stop sign. No sign of any of Detective Shepler's cohorts, so she smacked the garage door remote on the visor and carefully pulled past Carla's red Nissan Juke, which was parked in front of the other door on Alex's side of the garage. Her best friend was pacing back and forth on the front porch of the house.

"What are you doing, besides trying to get an epic case of frostbite?" Amy asked as she unlocked the side door leading into the kitchen. The warm air inside the house still smelled faintly of apples from the oatmeal-apple breakfast cake she had baked earlier. She waved her hand to get Carla to move faster. Perhaps she had been there a long time and was almost frozen. "Come on. I'll make some coffee."

"That sounds good," Carla said as she stomped her boots off on the welcome mat. She and Amy moved to face each other, on opposite sides of the rug, to remove their hats, coats, scarves, gloves, and clunky waterproof, arctic-cold rated boots. "I've been here for about twenty minutes."

Amy hung her black cabled wool scarf on the coat rack and hurried to the coffeemaker. Lots of hot caffeine was in order. "Did you try calling me before you came over? Maybe my phone wasn't working in the Mahoney Building. Knowing Bridget, she probably has the place so fortified the president could safely run the country from there during a zombie apocalypse."

Carla shook her head as she plunked down on a stool on the other side of the kitchen island behind Amy. "I didn't call, just hoped you would be here. What were you doing in the Mahoney Building?"

Amy finished prepping the coffeemaker and switched it on. She turned to find a small but tall paper bag printed with the Columbo's Market logo sitting on the counter in front of Carla. "I was chatting with Bridget Mahoney about a charity function and Britton. No love lost between those two, but she flat out said she didn't have him killed."

"She randomly told you that she wasn't responsible for Chet's murder?"

"Pretty much. She talked about how his death meant we were all saved from watching him strut around onstage. You know I can't keep a straight face. She ended up reassuring me that I didn't have to worry. I wasn't sitting across the desk from a killer…because he wasn't worth the effort of killing him." Amy leaned on the island's white marble countertop as the coffeemaker bubbled and hissed happily through its chore. "I bet
she
plays high-stakes poker every weekend. That seems like something she would do. She can probably tell when a person is lying just by looking at their eyebrows."

"Eyebrows can indicate if a person is lying?"

Amy shrugged. "Well, they could. Maybe. If she doesn't play with a bunch of women who have had so many facelifts and Botox treatments their eyebrows have become immobile."

"Been there, done that for at least half of the equation." Carla had sported the look of stone all summer after making a hasty decision to use paralyzing Botox to help smooth out a couple hairline wrinkles. "Just because she said she didn't shove the knife in his chest, that doesn't mean she's innocent. Do you think she could've had anything to do with the murder?"

"Honestly, I think she's too smart to get involved with something as messy as murder. If she really didn't like him, I'm sure she has enough money to torture him while he was still breathing. Buying a bunch of bad reviews for his restaurants or getting a lease or two canceled…that sort of thing."

"True. Mrs. Mahoney didn't get to be the head of a huge corporation by making stupid decisions. Then again, money can't buy sanity. You know, millionaires can be crazy too." Carla slid the bag across the white marble countertop toward Amy. "Do you think you can dig up any more promising suspects? I bought you some white truffle oil as a little advanced thank you. Long shots, crazy enough to have done it weirdos, whoever you can think of."

Amy pulled the small bottle full of golden yellow oil out of the bag. What a treat, but she didn't know what to think of the gift. "You didn't need to give me this. You know I'll help. All you have to do is ask. But isn't Shepler better suited to the task?"

"His hands are tied. If he even looks at Pitts the wrong way, he goes running to the chief crying interference." Carla sighed. She stared at the bottle of oil for a few seconds before looking at Amy. "Pitts talked to me in the parking lot while I was waiting to go out to lunch with Bruce yesterday afternoon. During the interview on Sunday, I told Pitts that I had dated Chet when he asked me how I knew him. Bruce told me not to lie about it if it came up. Today, when I refused another Q&A session with Detective Dipstick, he retaliated by telling Bruce that he thought I was cheating on him with Chet. I need you to help figure out who the real murderer is."

That wasn't just playing bad cop. Pitts was wallowing in a mud pit, splashing muck on everybody. "How about I make some yummy pasta with this that you can share with Shepler to soothe any suspicions Pitts may have stirred up? If Pitts wants to spend his time playing pin the murder on an innocent woman, I think he deserves to be shown up by a murder-solving housewife."

Carla wrinkled her nose. "I don't think I like truffles, so I'll pass on the pasta. I'm scared. Please help figure out who the real killer is. This is getting really serious, really fast."

"I will. I promise." Amy poured mugs of coffee for both of them. She set a mug in front of Carla, along with the sugar bowl. "I know it may not feel like it for you, but Pitts is looking at other suspects. He's insinuated to me and Sophie that he thinks we killed Britton so we could win the showdown."

Carla paused from her task of shoveling sugar into her coffee. "Why didn't you tell me this before? I'm whining about being a suspect, but you're one too."

Amy leaned back to rest her hips on the cabinets behind her. She crossed her arms over her stomach. "I've assumed Pitts will move on from messing with all of us when he finds a legitimate suspect."

"I think I'm his legitimate suspect."

"Maybe at this moment, but listen to this." Amy slid the sugar bowl away from Carla. She had added so much sugar the coffee was millimeters away from overflowing. "I've heard from two people that Britton had sketchy business practices. Maybe he annoyed the wrong business associate. Plus, Sophie told me she was his lover while she was the pastry chef at Cornerstone. He didn't treat her well either. The torment got really bad when she broke up with him."

"Damn. I guess he believed in equal opportunity and treated every girlfriend like crap."

"Bingo!" Amy splayed her fingers and did jazz hands. "Sounds to me like he should've come with a toxic boyfriend warning…tattooed on his chest. The big question is, who was he dating now and how bad did he treat her?"

Amy set the wicker basket on a small table and unbuttoned her coat. It was toasty warm inside Riverbend Coffee, and if she didn't lose a few layers of wool, she would be feeling like soggy, over-buttered toast within minutes. Only a few customers were scattered around the coffee shop, just as she had hoped. A quiet time between lunch and the rush of commuters refilling their caffeine reserves for the commutes home. Sophie sat in the corner near the fireplace, staring at the undulating flames.

"You look nice and comfy," Amy said as she plopped onto the easy chair across from Sophie. "Taking a well-deserved break or trying to figure something out?"

Sophie turned to look at Amy as she dabbed at her eyes with a tissue covered in black splotches of mascara. "Detective Pitts was just here. He's gone from hinting that I could be a suspect to saying I'm a primary suspect in Chet's murder because I was competing against him. What is he going to do if he finds out I also used to be in a relationship with him?"

So, Pitts was still looking into other suspects. Unfortunately, he was going after another innocent person who could never commit murder. Even more infuriating, Pitts was targeting another one of her friends. It was only a matter of time before he ratcheted up his intimidation on her too. Yay! Just what she needed.
Not
. Amy leaned forward and put her hand on Sophie's forearm. "I'm sorry you're going through this. I think Pitts has no idea who really committed the murder, so he's shaking every tree in the orchard hoping the real killer will fall out, gift wrapped and complete with a bow."

"Well, I don't like his tactics. He made me so nervous, saying that I don't really have an alibi because I could've paid off my employees to say I was in the Riverbend booth at the expo during the time of the murder." She leaned back and rested her head against the back of the chair. "Can you believe that? I was so shook up I'm sure I was acting like a guilty person."

"He actually accused you of bribing your employees to cover for you?" That was slimy. And terrifying. How far would he go to put the solved-homicide notch on his shiny new badge? "Do you know if he's talked to them?"

Sophie stared at the ceiling. "Unless they're lying to me, and I highly doubt it, he hasn't said a word to the baristas that were with me at the expo. I don't get it. What is the detective trying to do?"

Amy glanced at the front door when it opened. She blinked, looked again at the person making a beeline directly at her, and sighed. "I'm not sure, but I think we'll find out."

"Ladies," Pitts said as he slid into the space between their chairs. Since they were sitting, he towered over them. "Having a little meeting to calibrate your alibis? I'm onto you two."

"What are you talking about?" Amy looked him in the eye. He was intimidating, like a rabid coyote, but she was determined not to let him know that. "You've figured out we're working together to expand Riverbend's menu?"

"Nice try." He actually patted Amy on the top of her head like she was an obedient puppy. He sighed dramatically, then locked his predatory gaze on Sophie. "You two worked together to eliminate your competition by hiring your nurse buddy to do some amateur heart surgery on the chef."

Amy balled her hand into a fist. She was sitting. Pitts was standing. What would be the consequences of sucker-punching a cop in the crotch? She couldn't poke around and find the real murderer if she was in jail, so she'd have to be satisfied with challenging his theory. "I found Britton's body. If I masterminded his murder, why would I make a point of discovering him?"