Butterscotch Dream Killer Read online

  “I hurry for no one,” Tim muttered. “Good work takes time.”

  Fiona snickered. “Want me to call Solinsky and tell him that?” she stood on the other side of his desk, hands on hips, tapping her foot.

  Her favorite thing was arriving on scene and following Tim while he puzzled out whether the death in question was suspicious. She absorbed information like a sponge from watching her boss, and hovered over him regularly, watching and learning. She could anticipate nearly his every move at this point, which, while disconcerting at times, came in handy for Tim.

  “There’s no need to be snide,” Tim looked over the top of his horn-rimmed glasses at her. “Solinsky can wait all day, as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Yeah, but the stiff can’t,” Fiona pointed out. “You tell me all the time how much more information there can be when a body has just died, rather than when it’s been sitting for a while.”

  “Did you…” he began.

  “Yes, your bag is in the car,” Fiona rolled her eyes.

  He asked the same questions every time, and the answers were always the same, but she humored him nonetheless.

  “Are the…”

  “Yes, the mortuary doors are locked.”

  “Have you…”

  “Yes, I grabbed the camera and it has plenty of battery. All I’m waiting on is you,” Fiona grumbled, looking pointedly at her watch.

  “Do you…”

  “Yes, I know where we’re going. The woman died at a chili eating contest at the festival.”

  “I can’t say that I’m surprised. I don’t know why anyone would put that vile stuff in their mouth,” Tim grimaced.

  “You don’t like chili?” Fiona’s brows shot skyward. “I never met anyone who didn’t like chili,” she commented, astonished.

  “It’s not even worthy to be called food.”

  “Wow, everyone always says that you’re weird…now I think maybe they’re right,” she teased.

  “Weird is a matter of perspective,” Tim sighed, rising and heading for the garage, where the hearse was parked.

  **

  “Vomiting, scratch marks on the body, probable heart attack,” Tim muttered to himself.

  “Suspicious circumstances?” Fiona asked. She was the only one close enough to him to decipher his mumbles.

  “Decidedly so,” Tim nodded.

  “I’ll get the camera.”

  **

  “Any news?” Missy asked when Chas strode over to where she stood with Beulah.

  “The woman passed away, obviously, and Timothy Eckels just determined that there is sufficient cause to suspect homicide, so I’m going to be here for a while. I’ll talk to some of the contestants and babysit Solinsky to see if he does anything that crosses the line during his investigation.”

  “Oh, that’s awful,” Missy said sadly.

  “Yeah, it is,” Chas agreed. “Listen, I’m going to be tied up here for quite some time. I’ve gotta run a bit of interference so that Solinsky doesn’t bug Eckels. Can you pick up Kaylee and spend time with her while I’m here?”

  “Of course, darlin, don’t you worry. Kaylee and I will go keep Echo and Jasmine company. Just let me know if you’ll be home for dinner.”

  “Unfortunately, I can give you that answer right now,” Chas sighed.

  “I’ll save you a plate then,” Missy promised, giving him a quick kiss. “Does Beulah have to stay here?”

  “Until Solinsky interviews her, yes, she does,” was the apologetic reply.

  “Can you do it?” Missy asked.

  Chas shook his head. “That could be construed as a conflict of interest since she works for you.”

  “Can you at least be present when that awful man talks to her?”

  “Of course.”

  “Don’t you worry none about me, Miss Missy,” Beulah chuckled. “That man done crossed me before and comes out on the losing side of things every time,” she assured her.

  “Okay then. I’d better run. I’m supposed to pick up Kaylee in ten minutes,” Missy glanced at her phone.

  “You go on and get that child. Old Beulah will be just fine.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  * * *

  “Hey darlin!” Missy cooed, arms outstretched, when she saw Kaylee at the Children’s Home.

  “Ma, ma, ma, ma,” the child ran toward her, hugging Missy’s neck hard when she swept her up into her arms.

  “Mama?” Missy mouthed to the social worker who’d come with her to the playroom to get Kaylee.

  “Every time we mention you and Mr. Beckett, that’s what she says.”

  Missy held Kaylee close, her eyes filling with tears. “Oh, I hope so, sweet girl. I really do,” she whispered.

  “No cwy,” Kaylee patted the tears on Missy’s cheek with a look of concern.

  “It’s okay, baby doll, I’m just happy,” Missy hugged her again. “You want to go see Miss Echo and her baby?” she asked.

  “Babee…” Kaylee smiled, then put her fingers in her mouth.

  “If you could return her by seven, that’ll give us plenty of time to get her ready for bed,” the social worker smiled.

  “We can do that,” Missy set Kaylee down and took her hand, leading her out of the Home.

  **

  Echo and Missy sat on the floor, building towers out of colorful wooden blocks with Kaylee, while Jasmine napped in her crib.

  “She’s doing so well,” Echo whispered, watching Kaylee happily playing.

  “She really is,” Missy agreed, drinking in the sight of the precious child. “When we first started visiting with her regularly, she barely spoke and never smiled.”

  “You and Chas are going to be amazing parents.”

  “I just hope we get the chance to be,” Missy worried. “We still haven’t gotten the assessment on her dad’s family members yet.”

  “I’m sure the decision will come down in your favor, how could it not?” Echo smiled as Kaylee handed her a stuffed animal.

  “I hope you’re right,” Missy sighed.

  “I wonder how Beulah is doing.”

  “Last time Chas texted, Solinsky hadn’t even gotten to her yet. Little does he realize that the longer she has to sit there, the madder she’s going to get. Solinsky clearly doesn’t know who he’s dealing with,” Missy chuckled.

  “She is definitely a force to be reckoned with,” Echo agreed.

  Echo’s phone chirped just then, indicating that a text had come in, and she sat bolt upright, whipping her phone out of her pocket.

  “Oh gosh,” she whispered.

  “What?” Missy’s eyes widened.

  “This is from the helicopter pilot that Spencer was flying with. They’ve found a plane wing in the snow, so he dropped Spencer off in a clearing near it, and it’ll take him a day or two to get back to where the wing is located. Missy…in a day or two, Kel could be…” Echo trailed off, struggling to maintain her composure so that she wouldn’t frighten Kaylee.

  “Kel could be waiting to be rescued,” Missy said firmly. “That’s what we’ll continue to believe unless we hear something to the contrary. Which we won’t,” she reached over and squeezed Echo’s hand.

  “Ma, ma, ma, ma...” Kaylee came over and plopped down into Missy’s lap, handing her a book.

  “I hope you’re right,” Echo murmured.

  “I have to be,” Missy replied, opening Kaylee’s book as Jasmine let out a wail from the next room.

  **

  “I’m a long way from Florida,” Spencer commented to himself as he trudged through thigh-high snow to get out from under the whirring blades of the chopper. He had snow shoes strapped to his backpack and would be putting them on as soon as the helicopter took to the sky.

  He was armed with a map, a compass, and a week’s worth of supplies. If it took him longer than a week to find Kel…he didn’t even want to think about it. Moving along on the top of the snow, now that he had the snowshoes on, was much faster, and he hoped that he could at least
get to the wing of the airplane in a day’s time. The Swiss authorities had said that they’d send out a team if the weather permitted, but they had their own routes that they were going to explore, to search for the presumably downed plane. Once Spencer got back to the wing, the real search began…for the rest of the plane.

  The air in the Alps was thinner and much drier than the air back home, and he had to start more slowly than he would’ve liked, in order to avoid getting too fatigued in the high altitudes. He plowed on, one foot after the other, stopping only briefly for light snacks to replenish his energy, and noted with trepidation that clouds were moving in.

  A tone on Spencer’s cell phone notified him when he lost all cell reception, alerting him to the fact that he was now entirely on his own, cut off from the outside world. He made note of the location, because he would then know where he needed to get back to in order to communicate, if necessary. It was a wild, brutal snowscape, and one bad move could jeopardize his mission and his life.

  Just after he ate a protein bar for his mid-afternoon meal, the wind picked up, and the clouds overhead thickened, bringing dusk far earlier than it should have been.

  Recognizing that a storm was likely coming, he began looking for shelter now, rather than pressing on and stopping for the night later. Frustrated by his lack of progress, and hoping that the storm wouldn’t make his task impossible, he looked for a clump of trees where he could set up camp. Luck was with him, and he found an outcropping of rock, surrounded by a cluster of trees, some of which had dead limbs hanging low.

  When Spencer dug underneath the edge of the outcropping, he discovered a shallow cave, where there was actually bare ground beneath the rock, and fortunately there were no hibernating animals holed up inside. The hollow would make an excellent campsite, and just as he finished gathering large sticks with which to make a fire, the snow started coming down in thick, heavy flakes.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  * * *

  Phillip “Kel” Kellerman knew that he was surrounded by bright light before he ever opened his eyes, and the searing pain that shot through his right arm had kept him whimpering even in his unconscious state.

  “Wha happen?” he whispered hoarsely, eyes still closed.

  The artist felt as though everything that he was experiencing was shrouded in a heavy grey fog. Time had slowed, and the pounding of his heart thrummed in his ears and inside his brain. His head throbbed, his throat was abominably dry, and it seemed like there was a heavy blanket on top of him, weighing him down. Slowly, and with great effort, he opened his eyes, blinking in the shaft of light that glared through the front window of the plane.

  Memory came rushing back, and his pulse sped up as he remembered the engine failing. There had been a jarring crash as one wing was lost after clipping a stand of trees, and the pilot had ordered him to prepare for impact. The small plane had catapulted through the trees and then…nothing. Having been thrown violently into the side of the plane, Kel lost consciousness, and was only now returning to his cold reality.

  “Jim?” he whispered, his throat on fire.

  No response from the pilot.

  There was a heavy weight on his chest, which Kel finally realized was his suitcase, which had broken free of the cargo net in the rear of the plane. Even though he used his left hand to push the suitcase off of his body, hearing it clatter its way to the bottom of the plane, his right arm sent a lightning bolt of pain through him, and he greyed out for a moment, fighting hard to stay conscious.

  “Whass happening?” he murmured again, feeling nauseated after the burst of pain and adrenaline.

  He was still strapped into his seat, with his injured right arm pinned between his body and the side of the plane. Trying to assess the extent of his injuries, without changing position, he carefully moved both of his legs, which seemed to be fine, aside from a dull aching. He already knew that his left arm was fine, because he’d used it to free himself from the suitcase, and he turned his head from side to side to check on his mobility, grateful that, aside from making his headache worse, he seemed to have full range of motion.

  Leaning to his left, momentarily closing his eyes against the pain in his arm, he peered around the partition in front of him and looked into the cockpit, sickened and terrified by what he saw. The pilot, Jim, was still belted into his seat, but the upper half of his body was leaning toward the right side of the plane. His head was angled toward his shoulder in a manner that made Kel assume that his neck had been broken, and his right arm dangled in its socket, the fingers of his hand curled in an odd position.

  “Jim,” Kel again tried to speak, dismayed that his voice was barely more than a whisper.

  “We need help,” he muttered to himself.

  A glance outside the window of the seat across from him, to his left, let him know just how true that statement was. He could see the bark of tree branches that seemed to engulf the little plane, and when he looked out his own window, all he saw was a never-ending sea of white. The wind blew and the plane creaked, sending adrenalin surging through the artist’s veins. It appeared that the plane was lodged in a mass of trees. Kel couldn’t determine how far above the ground they were, and his heart pounded wildly as he considered what might become of him and Jim if it broke free and plummeted toward the earth. He was afraid to move, but knew that he had to, if he wanted to survive.

  Thankful that he was left-handed, Kel unbuckled his seat belt with fingers that were nearly numb with cold. His breath panted out in frosty puffs, and he realized that the plane was cooling down to temperatures that could quickly become dangerous.

  “This is going to hurt,” he muttered, using his left hand to grab the partition in front of him and pull himself off of his injured right arm.

  There was no one around to hear his agonized screech of pain as he repositioned himself so that he was in a crouched position, his feet beside the window that he’d just been pinned up against, his head bumping the seat across the aisle. His breath coming in pained gasps, he closed his eyes, willing himself not to pass out as he fought the agony that ripped through his arm. When the dizziness and nausea ebbed a bit, he looked toward the cockpit again, knowing that he needed to get to the pilot to see if he’d survived the crash. From the angle of the inside, it seemed as though the plane was lying on its right side, with its tail angled up in the air and its nose angled toward the ground. Gravity would help him get to Jim, but might dislodge the plane if it was actually dangling in the midst of limbs rather than resting on the ground. Not seeing that he had a choice in the matter, Kel braced himself with his left arm and took tiny steps toward the cockpit, moving slowly and cautiously, his right arm hanging useless at his side.

  With a strong grip on the back of the pilot’s seat, Kel maneuvered himself into the cockpit, and once there, he leaned against the empty co-pilot’s seat to rest and catch his breath. The effort of taking those few steps had weakened him, and he needed to recover. While he slowed his breathing and gritted his teeth against the pain in his arm, Kel looked at Jim’s face and discovered all that he needed to know. The pilot’s color was mottled, as a result of blood pooling after his death, and his eyes were wide open, seeing nothing any longer.

  “I’m so sorry, Jim,” the artist squeezed his eyes shut as the dire reality of his situation registered.

  The pilot was dead, he was badly injured, and he had no idea where they’d ended up. His mind filled with thoughts of his wife and daughter and son as he wondered whether he’d ever make it out of the Swiss wilderness alive.

  CHAPTER NINE

  * * *

  Beulah and Missy were uncharacteristically quiet as they prepared cupcakes for the opening of the shop, each lost in their own thoughts.

  “I hope Kel is okay,” Missy sighed, shaking brown sugar onto the top of a batch of cinnamon apple cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. “Poor Echo.”

  “Joyce said Miss Echo’s been working overtime, trying to keep her mind occupied,” Beulah shook her
head.

  “I can’t even imagine how awful she must feel right now.”

  Both women jumped as a loud banging on the back door to the commercial kitchen intruded into the morning quiet. Missy put down her shaker of brown sugar, and the pounding started again.

  “Just a minute,” she called out, annoyed that whoever was on the other side of the door was being awfully impatient.

  When she opened the door, her annoyance got much worse. Standing there, looking oddly pleased with himself, was Detective Art Solinsky.

  “We’re not open yet,” Missy made no secret of the fact that she was not glad to see the detective.

  “Good, then it’ll be a little bit less embarrassing for you when I take your employee to the station for questioning,” Solinsky smirked.

  “Hey now, what’s this all about?” Beulah came up behind Missy and glared at the detective.

  “It’s about the fact that your chili bowl was the one with poison in it. The poison that killed Belle Fitzhugh. You can either come down to the station willingly for questioning, or I can arrest you for suspicion of murder and we can handle it that way. Your call.”

  Missy and Beulah exchanged a wide-eyed look, stunned.

  “That’s impossible. Beulah would never hurt someone,” Missy murmured, in shock.

  “No sir, I wouldn’t,” Beulah frowned and shook her head.

  “Let’s go. We’ll take a statement from you at the police station,” Solinsky reached for the set of handcuffs hanging from his belt.

  “Ain’t no need for all that,” Beulah sighed. “I’m coming.”

  “Do you want me to come with you?” Missy asked, worried.

  “You can’t,” Solinsky stated flatly.

  “I’ll be alright, Miss Missy. There ain’t nothing to this. I’m sure that I’ll be back in a little while, don’t you worry none,” Beulah patted Missy’s arm as she passed by to follow Solinsky out the back door.