Death of a Kitchen Diva (Hayley Powell Food and Cocktail Mysteries) (14 page)

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Authors: Lee Hollis

BOOK: Death of a Kitchen Diva (Hayley Powell Food and Cocktail Mysteries)
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Chapter 23
 
The moment Hayley e-mailed her column to Sal for his stamp of approval, along with a long explanation as to why she wanted to delay her Karen Applebaum tribute, she knew she had a little downtime. So she immediately called Liddy to update her on her own investigation into Karen’s murder.
Liddy ate up all the details regarding the clues Hayley and Randy found in Karen’s house, how the phone message led them to Winnie Cornbluth, and how Winnie confirmed Hayley’s suspicions that Karen had a secret lover.
“So do you have any idea who it might be?” Liddy asked breathlessly.
“No,” Hayley said. “That’s why I’m calling you.”
“There can’t be that many men in town who would even consider romancing Karen Applebaum. I would make a list of local widowers with health problems who want a nursemaid and guys with really low IQs.”
“Liddy, don’t be that way. We both know Karen was a very attractive woman.”
“Then ask yourself why this secret lover is so secret? Obviously because he didn’t want anyone to know who he was slipping it to every night.”
“I don’t think that’s the reason,” Hayley said. “Maybe he’s married.”
“Hold on,” Liddy said before screaming, “Move it, Alice! I’ve got an open house and you’re making me late!”
“Who are you yelling at?”
“Alice Richardson. I’m in my car and she’s taking her sweet old time in the crosswalk.”
“She’s eighty-eight years old!”
“And perfectly healthy. You know she’s never liked me ever since I sold her that money pit on Glen Mary Road. She just does this to annoy me.”
“So do you think Mona might know who Karen was having an affair with?”
Hayley heard Liddy honking her horn at Alice Richardson.
“Liddy, stop it!”
“The old biddy just flipped me the bird!”
One more short honk. “You have a nice day, too, Alice!”
“Liddy, are you still with me?”
“Yes. I wouldn’t bother calling Mona. She doesn’t even remember the name of her own husband half the time.”
“Somebody must have some idea who Karen was secretly shacking up with.”
“Well, what else did you find at Karen’s house?”
“Well, I definitely want to go talk to her son Bradley ...”
“Don’t you dare go alone!”
“And I found out an interesting fact about her ex-husband ...”
Hayley suddenly felt a presence behind her and looked up to see Bruce hovering in the doorway.
“Just a sec, Liddy,” Hayley said, pressing the HOLD button and glaring at Bruce. “Can I help you?”
“Are you going behind my back conducting some kind of investigation into Karen Applebaum’s murder?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Because local crime is my beat and I don’t appreciate you encroaching on my territory.”
“Encroaching? I see you found the dictionary. What I do outside office hours has nothing to do with you or your job here at the paper. I can spend my free time however I choose,” Hayley said cooly.
“But this isn’t your free time. Look around. You’re at the office. It’s during office hours.”
“Don’t be so smart, Bruce. It’s really annoying.”
“You need to stick to your grandmother’s angel food cake recipe.”
“And you need to stop eavesdropping on my phone conversations and start actually covering the crime beat,” Hayley said.
Bruce’s nostrils flared. They did that a lot.
“Now if you’ll excuse me,” Hayley said, swiveling around in her chair and turning her back to him. “I’m in the middle of a phone conversation.”
Hayley pressed the HOLD button again. “Sorry, Liddy, where were we?”
“I can’t really talk now. I just got pulled over by Dumb and Dumber for making a rolling stop. Can you believe this? Now I’m going to be late for my open house.”
“Call me later. And say hi to Donnie and Earl.”
Hayley hung up and turned back to her computer screen.
Bruce was still standing in the doorway.
“Bruce, please, leave me alone.”
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t eavesdropping, I just happened to come out of the copy room and I heard you say something about finding dirt on Martin Applebaum.”
Hayley eyed him for a moment. “You look nervous.”
“I’m not nervous. Why would I be nervous?”
“You’re nervous that I might be making progress on the case and you’ve got zilch. And if I actually come up with some real answers it will make you look bad.”
“That’s got to be the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Bruce said, dramatically rolling his eyes for effect. “I am not in competition with a food and wine columnist.”
“Food and spirits. I really don’t know a lot about wine,” Hayley said.
“Fine. Whatever. All I am suggesting is that we pool our resources, share what we’ve both found out so far, and maybe work together.”
Hayley studied him and then called his bluff. “Okay. You go first.”
“Why can’t you go first?”
“I was right. You’ve got zilch.”
“That’s not true.”
“Then why won’t you go first?”
Bruce’s head was about to explode. His face was beet red, his fists were tightly clenched, and he was gritting his teeth.
“You want me to tell you everything I know so you can write it up and take all the credit,” Hayley said, folding her arms.
“Is that the kind of guy you take me for?”
“No, you’re the kind of guy who hands over evidence to get me arrested so you can get the scoop. I’m a long way from trusting you, Bruce.”
Bruce lowered his voice, trying to contain his temper. “It is your obligation as an employee of this paper to hand over any information you might have if it pertains to a story we’re tracking.”
“No, actually it is my obligation to write about food, according to you. Now, if you don’t mind, I need to go dig up my grandmother’s delicious angel food cake recipe for a future column.”
Bruce didn’t move.
“Good-bye, Bruce,” Hayley said, stone-faced.
Bruce marched off in a huff.
Hayley picked up the phone and called Randy at the bar.
“Hi, Randy, it’s me.”
“Hey, sis,” he said.
“You wouldn’t happen to know who the county coroner is, would you?”
“Yeah, why?”
“I thought I’d give him a call and see if he would be willing to give me a heads-up on Karen Applebaum’s final autopsy report. I know the county just hired a new one and I was hoping we might know him.”
“Oh, you definitely know
her.
”
“A woman? Oh, good. Who?”
“Sabrina Merryweather.”
Hayley’s heart sunk.
Sabrina Merryweather was Hayley’s arch-nemesis in high school, a former cheerleader and queen bee who made Hayley’s life a living hell for four long years.
Now, after all these years, Hayley was going to have to play nice with her?
This case just got a lot more challenging.
Chapter 24
 
Hayley actually felt a ringing in her ear after Sabrina Merryweather stopped squealing on the other end of the line. She hadn’t expected such an excited reaction from Sabrina when she decided to call her at home after work. She didn’t exactly know why. Perhaps it had to do with Sabrina making it her personal mission during their sophomore year in high school to tear down Hayley’s confidence and fill her with crippling self-doubt.
Whether it was a low test score, a bad haircut, or an unfortunate wardrobe choice, Sabrina was always around to point out Hayley’s many imperfections. When Hayley tried out for the cheerleading squad, Sabrina, as head cheerleader, was on the judging committee alongside her easily pliable coach, and convinced the coach that poor Hayley just couldn’t master the splits and was a tad too heavy to be hoisted atop any of the team’s pyramids. And one look at her untoned arms was proof enough that she couldn’t hold up a pencil let alone a hundred-and-ten-pound buxom teammate.
No, Hayley just didn’t have what it took to even be an alternate member. And it was all cloaked in an earnest concern for her fellow cheerleaders, whose livelihood could be endangered by someone like Hayley, who might drop them, or at the very least, make them look bad during one of their award-winning routines.
Hayley wasn’t that gung ho about being a cheerleader anyway, so she took the rejection in stride. But Sabrina Merryweather wasn’t through playing with her. Hayley felt like a ball of yarn to Sabrina’s cat, completely at her mercy and an amusement to be batted around and toyed with.
When Hayley met a boy she liked in social studies, and he asked her out, she had no idea he had already been targeted to go steady with one of Sabrina’s BFFs. Sabrina was incensed that Hayley would interfere with the natural order of things, namely, her decisions on who should be dating whom, so an all-out assault was launched on Hayley’s reputation. By the end of the school day, Hayley was suspected of cheating on her history test, battling an infectious venereal disease, and was seen kicking a defenseless dog in the school parking lot. Her budding romance with her new admirer was suddenly a nonstarter, and the next thing she knew Sabrina had brokered a date between him and her gal pal for the upcoming Homecoming Dance.
When Hayley finally got sprung from high school, she thought she was free of Sabrina Merryweather forever.
No such luck.
Sabrina went on to become a respected doctor and was interviewed for the paper’s health column all the time. Her fake plastic smile was constantly plastered all over the paper. Sabrina also busted up her best friend’s marriage to the president of one of the local banks. The friend had stuck with him through a financial scandal involving bad loans that nearly brought them to ruin, only to have him leave her for Sabrina after one particularly rowdy couples retreat to a Mexican resort one winter a few years ago. They got hitched the same day the divorce was final.
Hayley wasn’t the only one who despised Sabrina Merryweather.
Liddy refused to allow the name Sabrina Merryweather to even be mentioned in her presence. Not because she had a history with her like Hayley did, but out of pure jealousy. Sabrina dressed just as stylishly as Liddy, who did not appreciate the competition when it came to being the best dressed in Bar Harbor, a title not a whole lot of people spent time vying for. It was basically a two-horse race, and Liddy was determined to remain in first place and not let Sabrina come up from behind.
Hayley had run into Sabrina on several occasions over the years, mostly at social events, and chose to keep a healthy distance. Sabrina did call the paper once to complain that the caption underneath a photo of her at a local charity event did not include the word “Doctor,” and that she had spent far too much money going to medical school, and worked very hard for years to earn that title, for it to not be used. Sabrina didn’t seem to recognize Hayley’s voice when she called, so Hayley didn’t jump at the chance to alert Sabrina that it was she who was on the other end of the line.
But now, with Hayley’s column a local hit, it was impossible for Sabrina to ignore her any longer. She had to pretend to be chummy with Hayley, since her own mother was a fan.
But Hayley had no idea that Sabrina would rewrite history, and cast them as close friends since those memorable high school years. Now the story from Sabrina’s point of view was that she valiantly fought to get Hayley on the cheerleading squad and was shot down by darker forces who for some reason had it out for poor Hayley. It had been such an injustice. And if Sabrina hadn’t been so dependent on a cheerleading scholarship for college, she would have quit the squad in solidarity.
Honest.
Hayley would have loved to have told Sabrina to go to hell. Bar Harbor was a small town, but not too small. There was plenty of room for two people to avoid each other. But she needed her. And she was resigned to play along with Sabrina’s new game.
“I’ve been thinking of you, sweetie,” Sabrina cooed. “I’ve been so meaning to call you.”
“You have?”
“I miss you!”
“Miss you, too,” Hayley said into the phone as she stuck a finger in her mouth and pretended to gag.
“Where does the time ago? Why haven’t Matt and I had you over for dinner?”
“It’s been a busy time for both of us, I guess.”
“Well, you certainly have been busy,” Sabrina said, giggling. “Who knew you would be the talk of the town?”
“I have to say I’m surprised the column has gotten such a positive reaction.”
“I’m not talking about that cute tiny recipe thing you do in the back section of the paper,” Sabrina said, effortlessly finding a way to belittle Hayley’s new job. “I’m talking about your reputation as a badass.”
“Sabrina, you’ve known me since high school. You don’t think I had anything to do with—?”
“Oh, of course not, Hayley. A crime like that takes careful planning, and we all know how scatterbrained you are. Ever since high school! Did you ever get your diploma?”
“Yes, Sabrina. I sat next to you at the graduation ceremony.”
“Really? I could’ve sworn you flunked out.”
“No,” Hayley said, gritting her teeth.
“I know you flunked out of something. Was it college?”
“I didn’t flunk out. I dropped out.”
Sabrina decided to let it just lay there so the silent point could be made that Sabrina was a success, and, in her eyes, Hayley was a big fat failure.
“Right. That’s when we lost touch, I think. I went off to college and then medical school and then did that stint with Doctors Without Borders where I gave free medical care to those poor African villagers who have no running water. Thank God I had a driver to get me to the nearest Marriott at the end of the day.”
Hayley desperately wanted to hang up. But she knew she needed Sabrina’s help, so she kept her lips sealed and took whatever Sabrina wanted to dish out.
“When I moved back to Bar Harbor and found true love with Matt ...”
After stealing him from her best friend.
“I was certain we would pick right up where we left off.”
Yeah, right.
“But I guess we both let life get in the way. Matt has the travel bug, so when I do get a vacation, we’re usually off to some exotic destination like Bali or Tuscany. And you, well, I’m sure being a single mother with no man around to help can keep you extremely busy.”
“Oh, I get by.”
“Well, we shouldn’t let our harried lives keep us from staying friends. And I’m determined not to let this new job as county coroner completely get in the way of my having an active social life. We need to have a girls’ night out one of these days. Maybe invite Liddy and Mona.”
Liddy and Mona would rather eat a bowl of Karen Applebaum’s New England clam chowder than spend an evening with Sabrina Merryweather, but Hayley wasn’t about to let Sabrina know that.
At least not right now.
“I’m so proud of all you’ve accomplished, Sabrina, really I am,” Hayley said, laying it on thick because she was so anxious to find out what she needed to know and get the hell off the phone.
Hayley was going to indulge Sabrina as much as it took, since she knew this would be the absolute last time she would ever have to speak to her.
I mean, really. What were the odds that Hayley would be investigating the facts surrounding a mysterious death ever again in her lifetime?
Pretty high, as it would turn out.
“So, is there any chance you could give me a little insight into the circumstances of Karen’s death?” Hayley asked cautiously.
“Oh, sweetie, you know I would love to, but it’s against policy for me to share anything with a journalist before the police receive my final report.”
“Don’t think of me as a journalist. Think of me as a friend.”
“I am so touched by that. Really, I am.”
“I look up to you, Sabrina, and everything you’ve accomplished, and, frankly, I find it awe-inspiring. . .”
Hayley stopped.
Had she gone too far? Was Sabrina on to her sycophantic assault?
Then she heard Sabrina sniffling.
“Sabrina?”
“No one’s ever said anything that nice to me before.”
Hayley was almost there. She swallowed hard and trotted out her biggest gun. “My daughter tells me all the time she wants to be as pretty and successful as you.”
Using Gemma was low. The girl didn’t even know who Sabrina Merryweather was. But desperate situations sometimes required desperate measures.
That was all Sabrina needed to hear. “What do you need to know? Hurry. Matt’s going to be home any minute and he can’t know I told you anything. He’s always telling me I don’t act professional enough.”
“Time of death. Just give me a ballpark.”
“Given the amount of cyanide in her system and the condition of her body, the time of death had to be between eight and ten o’clock that night.”
“Give or take a few minutes?”
“No. According to my findings, she had to have died within that time frame. Not before. Not after.”
Hayley was floored.
“Anything else? I think Matt’s pulling into the driveway.”
“That’s all I need. Thanks, Sabrina.”
“So when are we getting together for cocktails?”
“I’ll call you.”
Sure. And Dustin would have his homework done when she checked on him.
Hayley hung up.
She just stood there, her mind racing. This was a huge development. Because even though Sabrina Merryweather was a bragging blowhard, she was good at her job. Her report would undoubtedly be accurate. That would mean Karen Applebaum was already dead at ten o’clock. But Hayley’s e-mail from Karen was time-stamped 10:15. Karen was already dead by then!
That could only mean one thing. Karen didn’t send Hayley the e-mail.
Someone else did.
Someone bent on setting Hayley up for murder.

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