Fatally Frosted (27 page)

“Good-bye, David.”

I hoped I still had time to catch Heather before she left. I doubted I could get her to confess if she did it, but maybe I could make her sweat a little before she took off.

“Hi, Suzanne. What a surprise,” Heather said as I walked into Peg’s house. “I was just getting ready to leave.”

I looked around the living room and saw a lot of things boxed up and ready to go. There was a lot left, though. “What happens to all of this?”

“The Girl Scouts are taking care of it for me. I’m giving them a pretty nice donation, and they’re having a yard sale with everything that’s left. I’ve taken a few things with me, mostly sentimental stuff.”

I nodded. “Peg would have approved.” I unscrewed the top of the coffee carafe and asked, “Would you like some for the road?”

“Sure, that would be great. Just let me grab my travel mug. It’s in the other room.”

She went into the back bedroom, and I decided a little coffee would be nice as well. As I moved to a box near the kitchen in search of a mug, I inadvertently hit Heather’s purse, spilling its contents to the floor.

“What happened?” Heather asked pointedly as she came back into the room.

“I’m so clumsy,” I said. “I didn’t mean to knock over your purse. Sorry, it was an accident.”

I started to gather her things together when Heather
pushed me aside. “That’s all right. I’ll take care of it myself.” She must have seen the expression on my face, because she suddenly asked me, “Suzanne, what’s wrong?”

“What? Oh, nothing. I just feel a little faint. I think I stood up too fast.”

“Let me get you some water,” she said as she moved into the kitchen.

There was a clear path out, and I started for the door. “That’s all right. I just need a little fresh air.”

“I don’t think so,” Heather said behind me. Her voice was calm and clear, but I could tell that something was wrong.

When I turned back to look at her, she was holding a knife on me.

Heather was moving closer toward me as she asked, “You saw something in my purse, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, doing my best to sound believable.

Heather laughed. “Suzanne, you’re not that good an actress. You might as well tell me what you saw. Lying isn’t going to do you any good at this point.”

I couldn’t believe I’d allowed myself to be caught just as I’d figured it all out.

“It was the candy,” I admitted.

“You’re kidding me, right? I don’t know many women who don’t have some kind of candy in their purse.”

“Not that particular brand of caramel,” I said. “I checked, and they don’t sell it in April Springs. I’m willing to bet you got it while you were away at college.”

“So what?” she said. “It’s not illegal to eat candy.”

“No, but it is incriminating. I found a wrapper near Peg’s body, and everybody knew her weakness was my donuts. This morning I found one at the donut shop, but I never linked them to you until I saw them in your purse.”

She shook her head. “So, you figured it out because I’m addicted to caramel. I don’t believe it.”

“There was a lot more to it than that,” I said. “You dyed your hair at Peg’s after you realized I’d spotted you at Marge’s when you were waiting for your aunt to come outside. I’m willing to bet that a lab will confirm that your hair was dyed red before the recent change. When you weren’t arrested right after the murder, you must have realized that I hadn’t seen your face, but that I could have easily seen your hair. That was pretty clever of you to dye it before you came to see me at the donut shop. Grace even found the box you used in Peg’s trash can, but we both just assumed it had belonged to Peg and not you. I didn’t think a thing about it when I saw that your hair tint matched hers perfectly. I just assumed it was genetic, and not out of the same bottle of dye.”

“Nobody else will get it.”

I said, “Don’t kid yourself. If I put it all together, the police are sure to be able to as well.”

“I doubt it,” she said. “By the time they make the connection—if they ever do—I’ll be gone. There’s not nearly as much here as I’d hoped, but I did manage to find Peg’s hiding place, so I’m not leaving empty-handed.” She took a banded stack of money from a hidden section in her purse and fanned the money with her free hand. “I thought for sure you saw this, and it would be a little hard to explain, given how broke Peg and I apparently were.”

“You’re not going to kill me, are you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “If I were going to do that, you’d already be dead.”

There was something in her eyes that made me
realize she was lying to me. I was going to have to fight for my life, or I’d never make it until sunset.

“Why me? I didn’t do anything to cause you to come after me, yet you’ve been hounding my steps for days.”

She laughed. “If you can believe it, I thought you were on to me. That’s why I started watching your house, but you never put it together, did you?”

“You were on my list,” I said, defending myself.

“With Peg gone, now you’re at the top of mine.”

“Did you bring the poison with you from school? It must not have been that hard to steal one of my donuts the morning I wasn’t at the shop, but the poison has me puzzled.” I had to stall her. Maybe someone would come back before Heather stabbed me. If anyone did, I had to be ready to act. I’d only get one chance, and I had to make it good. As I talked to Heather, a plan started to formulate in my mind. It was a long shot, but it was the only chance I had of getting out of this alive.

Heather said, “It was in her shed out back. You know how she felt about your lemon-filled donuts. It was the one thing I knew she couldn’t turn down, so I took one from her stash.”

“I still can’t believe you killed your own aunt. She was family.”

“Some family. I don’t have to tell you that my aunt was no angel. When I needed help with tuition, she turned me down, even though I knew she had money. Look at the way she dressed. And she didn’t have to work. She had time to run all of those charities. It wasn’t fair. I figured I’d just speed up my inheritance a little when it could still do me some good. When I
slept over here a few months ago, I found her ledger in her office after she was asleep. I still can’t believe she tricked me like that!”

“I think she was lying to herself more than anyone else. She bought most of her clothing used,” I said, “and she was skimming off charity proceeds to finance her standard of living.”

Heather bit her lip, then said, “You don’t think I found that out as soon as I started really looking at her bank accounts and her credit card statements? I realized I’d made a mistake pretty quickly after I killed her, but by then, it was too late. I had to salvage what I could, so I took the jewelry and some of her nicer things, but I knew she had money squirreled away somewhere around here, and I was right.”

“Why did you agree to have Grace and me help you, if you were looking for Peg’s hidden money?”

“I wanted you to be the one to find the ledger, and it took you long enough,” Heather said. “I nearly had to help you myself.”

“But why did you need me?”

“I figured it would look better for me if someone else found it. Fat lot of good it did me.”

“But you’re not coming away empty, are you? Where’d you find that cash, in the cookie jar?”

She frowned at me. “My aunt was a lot craftier than that. It took me forever to find it, but I finally did. One baseboard came off at my touch, and I realized she’d used magnets to secure the trim in place instead of nails. That’s where I found the money.”

“Are you sure you found it all?” I asked.

“What are you talking about?”

I was stalling—that was pretty clear—but I hoped
her greed would supersede her caution. “I just discovered this morning that your aunt skimmed over three hundred thousand dollars in the past two years. The chief of police came by my shop an hour ago and told me the audit was complete. Did you find that much?”

It was all a lie, but I knew Heather couldn’t exactly call Chief Martin and ask him. “No,” she said a little warily. “Nowhere near that, but after all, she had expenses.”

“That much? Peg didn’t live in luxury, that’s pretty obvious. My first thought is, what did she do with the rest of it?”

Heather scowled. “After I’ve taken care of you, I’ll keep looking.”

So much for that tactic. For all I knew, there might still be money hidden in the house, but it appeared that I wasn’t going to live long enough to see it.

If I was going to make it out of there alive, I needed to do something, and do it fast. I looked for anything nearby that I could use as a weapon, but the only thing within reach was a stack of old books. Not much of an arsenal, but it was all I had.

Before Heather could stop me, I lunged for the book on top, an old mystery.

At least it was a hardcover.

My movement was all the incentive Heather needed to strike. She made a hard backhanded swing in the air at me with the blade, nicking my hand as the knife flew past. I felt a brief sting, but I couldn’t let that stop me. I swung the book at her head, trying my best to break her nose with it.

She was too quick for me, though.

With a sudden jerk, Heather ducked enough for
the book to glance off the top of her head instead of making a solid impact with her face.

Even worse, the book slipped out of my hands and fell when it failed to find its target.

Heather looked at me with a new level of rage.

I could rush her and take my chances, but that meant facing the blade in her hand with no weapon of my own, and the way she was looking at me, she was ready to kill me.

I really had only one option.

I had to run.

I started for the other room, and as I did, I heard her just behind me.

Heather lunged again, and if she hadn’t stepped on the book that I’d just dropped, I knew I would have been dead. Fortunately for me, she pulled up at the last second as she lost her balance, but her stabbing attempt was still close enough to tug at the back of my shirt. My adrenaline was pumping so hard at that moment that I had no idea whether I’d been cut again or not.

I looked wildly around for something else to defend myself with, and I saw that I was close enough to my coffee to grab it, but how could I possibly use it to go against a crazed woman with a knife?

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement on the front porch. It was George!

I had to stop him from coming inside. I wasn’t about to let her kill my friend.

As the front door started to open, I shouted out a warning to him.

Heather pulled the knife off me and started swinging it toward George.

I knew I had to act fast.

I reached over and grabbed my hot coffee and threw it on her hand. She jerked it back, and the knife clattered to the floor. The coffee hadn’t been scalding, but it was hot enough to catch her by surprise.

We both fell to the floor as we scrambled for the blade. Heather and I were still fighting for it when George said, “Drop the knife or I’ll shoot you. I swear I will.”

Heather immediately loosened her grip on the knife, and I picked it up and pointed it at her.

George said, “Sorry I was a step behind you.”

“Better late to the party than never,” I said. “How did you know to come here?”

“It finally made sense, once I realized what was going on.”

“Did the wrappers clue you in, too?”

“No,” he said, looking more than a little confused. “I suddenly realized that Heather hadn’t known that ledger was a fake. She might not kill her aunt for the little bit she got out of her inheritance, but what if she thought it was worth a million dollars to see the woman dead?”

“I’m glad you made it,” I said.

George looked down at Heather and said, “Would you mind calling the police for me? I don’t want to take my eyes off her.”

“I’m happy to. What should I tell them?”

“Let the chief know that we found Peg Masterson’s killer,” he said.

After Heather was in custody, I was still at the house, waiting to talk to Chief Martin once he’d dispatched
his prisoner to another patrol car. It was his request, not mine. All I wanted to do was go home, take a long, hot bath, and go to bed for a week. I still couldn’t believe how close I’d come to getting stabbed worse than I had been, and my nerves were more than a little shaky.

Finally, the chief had time for me.

The first thing he did was gesture toward my hand, which was now wrapped in gauze. “You okay?”

“I got lucky. She barely scratched me.” The blade had barely nicked me on the first pass, and it had missed my back completely, thanks to Heather slipping on the book I’d tried to clobber her with.

I’d have to replace my top, though. It had been that close.

The chief nodded. After a moment, he scowled at me, then ordered, “Okay, from the beginning, tell me what happened.”

“I don’t know when the beginning was,” I admitted.

“When did you know Heather killed her aunt? Suzanne, I swear to you, if you knew when you sent me off on a wild goose chase looking for Marge and Burt this morning, I’ll lock you up out of pure spite.”

I confessed, “I didn’t know it until I saw her purse fall open. She had a handful of the caramels and freshly dyed hair, so I knew she had to be somehow involved.”

“Why kill her aunt, though? Was it really for the money? Peg didn’t have all that much.”

I nodded. “We all know that now, but she talked a good game, didn’t she, and that ledger she kept
made her look like a success in her niece’s eyes. I can’t imagine that she’d realize it would be the motive for her eventual murder.”

“People do the most awful things for money,” the chief said.

“That and love,” I replied.

At that moment, my telephone started its laughing summons. I glanced at it and saw that it was Jake, so I asked the chief, “Are we done here?”

“For now, but don’t wander too far off,” he said.

“I’m just going out onto the porch. There’s better reception out there.”

“Sure there is,” he said.

I didn’t mention more privacy as well, but it was pretty clear he already knew that.