Deadly Pumpkin Slice (A Sinful Sweets Cozy Mystery) (5 page)

“
Twin Peaks Diner
or
Paradise Café?
” Grace asked.

“
Paradise Café
, hands down,” Sydney told her. “I’m surprised you even had to ask!”

“Just making sure nothing had changed.” They both chuckled.

Over a lunch of creamy potato soup with fresh bread, they dove right back into their own investigation. Sydney caught her best friend up on the rest of her conversation with Mia.

“I just can’t believe she’d throw me under the bus like that,” Sydney complained. “She’s my sister!”

“It’s not like Detective Massey wouldn’t find out about your breakup one way or another. And maybe just having Mia know him will be an asset in the long run. Now he knows he can trust her with this case.”

“Maybe. We’ll see. Did you bring the list of orders we have to check out?”

“Yeah. Right here. There’s Jody Durham, Michael Helmick and Madelyn Kountz. All new customers.”

“And they’re all in Westhedge?” Sydney asked.

“Yup.”

“What about gift ordering. Were any of them ordered as gifts and shipped elsewhere? Like to a hotel?”

“It doesn’t look like it.”

“How can we be running into so many dead ends?” Sydney asked, exasperated.

“Do you remember any of these names when you were living with Aaron? Maybe they’re connected to him somehow,” Grace suggested.

“Nothing familiar. Let’s head to the library and look for Allison.”

They paid for their lunch and walked the short distance to the library, hoping to find Allison.

Before they could get there, they saw Detective Massey coming their way.

“Good afternoon Sydney. Grace,” Detective Massey greeted them on the street. “I’m surprised to see Maple on a leash. I didn’t think she’d ever leave your side.”

“Just following the rules, Detective,” Sydney said, hoping this was just a chance meeting and he wasn’t following her every move.

“Glad to hear that. I think it’s time we had another chat. Could you come down to the precinct with me?” he asked Sydney.

“I’d be happy to. Let me just bring Maple home and I’ll be down in a half hour,” she told him.

“I think it’ll be best if you come with me right now,” he said authoritatively.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take Maple. We’ll go for a long walk,” Grace said, always coming to the rescue.

“Thanks. Here are my keys. You can keep her with you or bring her back to my place if I’m not home yet. I’ll text you when I’m on my way.” Sydney handed her keys to Grace and squatted down to Maple’s level to give her a quick hug and receive a kiss. If for no other reason, she had to clear her name so she could come home to Maple.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be fine together,” Grace reassured her and they parted ways.

“Ready to go? Sorry about all this,” Detective Massey said, completely changing his demeanor now that he was alone with Sydney.

She didn’t have a response, so just got into the passenger seat of the cop car. He courteously held the door open for her. She was thankful she didn’t have to go through the embarrassment of getting into the back of the car.

Now that she was alone with him and had the time to study him, she couldn’t deny his good looks. His hair was the kind you would be able to run your fingers through if you were given the chance. And those eyes. Sydney knew most girls fell for the deep blue. But Detective Massey’s dark chocolate eyes were eyes she could get lost in.

As he turned the key and started driving, she also noticed his long slender fingers. Fingers made to serenade a girl with piano melodies.

She looked away before she got caught staring.

“I’m really sorry to be doing this, Sydney.”

“It’s all part of your job.”
Why am I reassuring him?
she wondered to herself.

“It is. But I wish it wasn’t. Sinful Sweets has always been good to the department. I’d hate for anything to happen to its owner.”

“That’s nice to hear. We treat everyone as well as we can.”

Sydney really wasn’t interested in making small talk with Detective Massey. She was frustrated that she was missing work for a second afternoon in a row, and that she wasn’t able to track down Allison today. The library would undoubtedly be closed by the time she was released, though she wasn’t sure how long giving a statement generally took.

They arrived at the police station and Sydney was escorted to an interrogation room. She was not given the pleasure of having Detective0020Massey as her interrogator. She would have enjoyed being able to look at him again. With a good reason. Instead, she was met by Detective Mike Luck.

Detective Luck wasn’t endowed with the same dashing features that Massey had. “Where were you two nights ago?” he asked, hands clasped in front of his enormous belly. Sydney wondered why she never saw him in Sinful Sweets. He was clearly eating plenty of donuts.

“I was home.”

“Is there anyone who can verify that?” he asked, double chin doing all the work.

“No. I left work just after five. Grace was the last person to see me before I got home 20 minutes later.”

“So no one can account for your whereabouts between, say, five thirty and midnight?” he confirmed.

“That’s correct. Oh no, I got a phone call around seven thirty. Here, I have my cell phone, you can check the time the call came in. I remember it now, because I was on the phone for over an hour.”

“Let’s see.” He started scrolling through her recent calls. There hadn’t been many since then, so she didn’t know what was taking him so long. “It looks like you were on the phone from 7:24 until. . .8:49.” He paused to do the math.

“Yes.”

“But you could have been anywhere. You didn’t have to be at home.”

“But I was. Can’t you check surveillance videos from the crime scene to see that I wasn’t there? Or track my whereabouts from my phone’s GPS?”

“We’ll get to that, Miss Marshall. But right now, we’d like to know how your fingerprints ended up at the crime scene if you claim you weren’t there.”

The conversation continued for what felt like hours. Sydney was sure it was well past closing time when she was released, so was surprised to see that it was still only 4:30.

She sent Grace a text,
On my way to work. You there still?

She had to unload about the circular questioning and pull her weight with the fulfillment orders.

Working away. See u soon
, Grace texted back.

Sydney had refused a ride from Detective Massey and she’d left her bike at the bakery, so she was on foot back to Sinful Sweets. She was happy to have the extra few minutes to get her frustration out and figure out where to go from here.

“What happened? I was worried they’d keep you overnight,” Grace nearly shouted as soon as Sydney let herself in the back door. They met in the kitchen where Grace had been working. Boxes were spread out over every surface in various stages of being packed.

“My fingerprints!” Sydney shouted back. “My fingerprints!”

“Slow down. What about your fingerprints?”

“They’re in the hotel room where Aaron was killed!”

“How did they get there?”

“You know as well as I do that I wasn’t there, so I have no idea.”

“Did they ask where you’d been the night he was killed?”

“Yes, but no one can verify that. I was on the phone for over an hour, but they said I could have been anywhere. We need to get this case solved so I can sleep at night.”

“Well here’s something interesting,” Grace started, changing the subject and putting on a much more positive tone. “We got a big order for an event in Westhedge. You’ll never guess what it’s for.”

“A welcoming for Allison at her new library,” Sydney said with cynicism.

“No. Even better. For the funeral of Mr. Gibbs.”

“You’re kidding!” Sydney cried, snatching the order request out of Grace’s hand. “The first thing they need is 200 pumpkin scones for a wake. If only I could go so I could check out more possible suspects. There have to be more people we don’t know about.”

“Maybe you can’t go, but I could,” Grace offered.

“No. Even better. I need to call Mia.” Sydney whipped out her phone and dialed her sister.

“Mia,” she said after a longer than expected wait. “Aaron’s wake is coming up. You ended on better terms with him it sounds like, and you’re not a suspect in his murder. I need you to go scope out everyone in attendance,” she rattled off before she could be interrupted.

“Sydney, are you out of your mind?”

“No. I was just questioned about his murder. My fingerprints are in his hotel room. I can’t go there alone, and the police think I did it. I need you to go see if there’s anyone suspicious looking so I can clear my name.”

“Sydney—”

“Mia,” she interrupted. “I would do it for you.”

“I was going to say alright.”

“Great, thanks. Let’s get together tomorrow to talk about what to look for.”

“Like you’d even have a clue. I’ll ask Austin.”

Austin
, she thought to herself. “Please don’t bring Detective Massey into this.”

“He’d want to know that I was getting involved.”

“Then don’t think of it like that. Just go to the wake as a friend of Aaron’s and talk to his grieving friends and family. Report back to me and stay out of it.” Sydney added a hint of cheer to her voice.

“Alright. This one time. But then I’m really out of this investigation you have going on.”

“Thank you, I owe you one!”

“She’s in?” Grace asked, a smile on her face.

“Yes. It took some convincing, but she’ll go. Let’s make another list of suspects that we can give her tomorrow, or what we’d be looking for in someone guilty.”

“But let’s finish these orders first.”

“Not going to happen. Trouble approaches,” Sydney said, the cheer gone from her voice and demeanor. She saw Detective Massey knocking on the front door. “What can he possibly want now?”

Sydney walked slowly to the front of the store, leaving Grace to keep working alone. She made a mental note to give her an extra large bonus this year.

“Sydney, sorry to bother you again,” Detective Massey said when Sydney had unlocked and opened the front door.

“Come in. I’d rather this conversation be held inside, not where potential customers could overhear.”

“Thanks. Again, I’m sorry about all this. I know your sister, and I don’t want to think that someone in her family would be capable of murder. We just have to go through the steps to get everything cleared up.”

He paused, but Sydney had nothing to say to him.

“So right now, we’re going to have to test your kitchen for possible contaminants and poisons like the one used in Aaron’s murder.”

“What? You can’t be serious!”