Salted Caramel Killer Read online

  “Exactly. We have an approximate time of death, based upon morbidity and all the usual markers, but we don’t know how soon after the deceased either was pushed, or fell, that he died. I’ll need to look at his brain.”

  “Why?”

  “To see if seizures were involved. I have a hunch.”

  “Care to elaborate?” Fiona blinked at him.

  “No. Too early yet. Get me ten small specimen packets,” he waved her off.

  “Fingernail scrapings?” she guessed, hurrying toward the supply cabinet.

  “Precisely. I’ll need a slide too. There’s a smear on the neck that is far too pink to be blood.”

  **

  “Do you recognize this, Mrs. Beckett?” Detective Art Solinsky seemed to hate even saying her name, as he held up an evidence baggie with a cupcake in it.

  “That looks like a cupcake from my shop,” Missy’s eyes grew wide. “It has the paper with my logo on it, and looks exactly like the Salted Caramel cupcakes that I baked yesterday and the day before.”

  “Mrs. Beckett, did you interact with a Mr. Andre Weisman at Chez Vogue department store two days ago?”

  “I don’t know if Weisman is his last name, but yes, I met a very nice man named Andre there and bought a dress and shoes from him,” Missy nodded.

  “Then did you sell him some cupcakes from your shop yesterday?”

  “Oh no, he told me that they were for a mutual friend, so I didn’t charge him for the cupcakes.”

  “You just gave them to him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you in the habit of giving away your cupcakes?”

  “Certainly, when friends are involved.”

  “And just who was this mutual friend that he was getting cupcakes for?”

  “Joyce Rutledge. She’s a delightful gal, who…” Missy began, only to be interrupted by the detective.

  “I’m acquainted with Ms. Rutledge. Are you aware of the relationship between Ms. Rutledge and Mr. Weisman?”

  “Andre was Joyce’s trainer.”

  “And are you expecting me to believe that a trainer would bring cupcakes to one of his clients?” Solinsky raised an eyebrow.

  “Well, Joyce isn’t a typical client. She loves her dessert, and loves her body just the way that it is.”

  “Then why would she take on the expense of hiring a trainer?”

  “I have no idea. I do think she had a bit of a crush on him though.”

  “Did she say that?”

  “I don’t know, I just heard it from Echo. She’s my friend who is Joyce’s boss,” Missy explained, trying to be helpful.

  “Hell hath no fury…” Solinsky muttered under his breath.

  “I’m sorry, what?” Missy asked, not having heard him.

  “Nothing. You had a break-in of some sort this morning?”

  “Yes, some officers came out and took a look around, but didn’t find anything.”

  “Seems to be a lot of that happening lately,” Solinsky stared her down.

  “I don’t understand,” Missy frowned, not looking away, despite the somewhat hostile-seeming nature of his gaze.

  “You had a “break-in” with no evidence of someone actually breaking in, your friend Echo had a similar situation, as did Joyce Rutledge. You’d think that the three of you could have planned out something a bit more original to set the stage.”

  “Set the stage? What are you talking about, Detective?”

  “I don’t know why, or how, the three of you managed to kill Andre Weisman, but I’m going to find out,” Solinsky said, standing. “We’re done here. For now. My guys aren’t quite done investigating your “break-in” yet, so I’d advise you to just go on home and not interfere with their work.”

  “You can’t search my shop without a warrant.” Missy didn’t appreciate the detective’s tone or his insinuations.

  “No one said anything about a search,” Solinsky gave her an oily grin. “We’re investigating your break-in call. If we collect evidence that may be valuable in solving who broke in, that’s a good thing, right?”

  “You’re a sorry excuse for a detective,” Missy’s look was venomous. “This isn’t the end of this,” she said in a low voice.

  “It certainly isn’t. At the end of this, you and your snooty little friends will most likely be in jail. Don’t leave town anytime soon, Mrs. Beckett. We’ll be talking again real soon,” Solinsky sneered and gestured for her to leave.

  Missy snatched up her purse, shot him a scathing look and walked slowly to the door. “Your career just ended,” she said quietly, as the smug look on his face slipped away.

  CHAPTER NINE

  * * *

  “Did you talk to Chas?” Echo asked Missy as they sipped coffee in the cupcake shop, both trying to recover from their experiences with Detective Art Solinsky.

  Missy nodded. “He feels like they may be getting close to resolving the case in Illinois, so he can’t break away right now,” she sighed, wrapping her hands around her cup and shivering a bit, despite the warmth of the Florida morning.

  “Then we’ll have to take care of this mess ourselves,” Echo’s mouth set in a determined line.

  “But where do we start? Who on earth would kill Andre and set you, me and Joyce up to take the blame for it? I don’t have any enemies, do you?”

  “Not that I know of, but Joyce does.”

  “How is that even possible? She’s wonderful.”

  “Yes, she is, and that’s the problem,” Echo mused regretfully.

  “How do you mean?”

  “I’d bet dollars to donuts that the killer is Andre’s girlfriend. She probably saw the way that Joyce and Andre interacted at the gym and got jealous.”

  “But, assuming that she was crazy enough to kill someone out of jealousy, wouldn’t she just kill Joyce, rather than her own boyfriend?” Missy pointed out.

  “Maybe Joyce is next,” Echo’s words were chilling.

  “Maybe we all are. What better way to close an investigation for murder than by making the suspects disappear?” Missy shuddered.

  “Persons of interest. If we were suspects, we’d be in jail right now,” Echo corrected absently, lost in thought.

  “If Solinsky had his way, we all would be,” Missy’s lip curled at the thought of the detective. “So, how do we find out who the girlfriend is?”

  “The trainer who stood in for Andre seemed very nice. Maybe if Joyce and I flirt with him, he’ll tell us who she is.”

  “If he knows.”

  “Gyms are like little gossip centers. Everybody knows everybody’s business. He’ll know,” Echo was confident.

  “Well, it’s worth a shot, but then what?”

  “We can have Kel start asking around about her, because he knows everyone, and if we do it, it’ll look suspicious. In the meantime, we can have Chas’s hacker dude looking into her records. He’s pretty much sitting around the office doing nothing since Chas and Spencer are in Illinois, right?”

  “I have no idea what Ringo does with his down-time. Chas says sometimes he works until three a.m., then shuts the door and sleeps in the office during the day,” Missy made a face. The eccentric young man had always baffled her. He was a genius, and very helpful, but had no social skills whatsoever.

  “Well, we’ll bring him a pizza and a six pack of cola and he’ll be like putty in our hands,” Echo smiled faintly.

  “I suppose it’s worth a shot. At least until we can find something more to go on,” Missy sighed.

  “You should eat something,” Echo said softly, taking in her friend’s weary look.

  “It all tastes like sawdust right now. I’m going to go do some baking. Let me know what you and Joyce find out from the new trainer.”

  “Will do. Do you want to stay with me tonight?”

  “While I’d like to, I think it might just add fuel to Solinsky’s fire and make him think that we’re plotting or something.”

  “You’re probably right,” Echo nodded, giving h
er friend a hug. “Call me if you need me.”

  “I will,” Missy promised.

  **

  “Good morning, Simon,” Echo greeted the trainer with a wan smile.

  “Good morning, Echo. I wasn’t sure if I’d see you today.”

  “It feels weird being here, but…anything to take my mind off of…what happened, you know?”

  “I hear ya. There’s been quite a pall over this place for the past couple of days. How’s Joyce?”

  “Shaken, but okay.”

  “Let her know that I asked about her, if you would,” Simon’s expression was compassionate.

  “That’s very sweet. I’ll let her know. Did Andre have any family in town?”

  “Just his cousin Amanda. She worked with him at Chez Vogue. Nobody’s seen her for a few days. I’m not even sure she knows what happened yet.”

  “Oh how awful. I can’t even imagine the grief. Andre’s poor girlfriend must be devastated,” Echo mused, avoiding Simon’s eyes for a moment.

  “Girlfriend?” Simon’s brows shot up his forehead.

  “Oh, you know, the brunette with the ponytail who follows him all over the gym,” Echo waved her hand breezily.

  “Oh, Jenna. She’s not a girlfriend, she’s more like a groupie,” Simon smiled sadly. “Andre was his usual flirtatious self with her, and she took him a little too seriously.”

  “Understandable. He was quite the charmer,” Echo remarked.

  “That’s what I’ve heard. All the ladies liked him. Shall we get started?”

  “Sure,” Echo smiled bravely.

  **

  “Are we sure that we want to do this?” Missy worried, carrying a hot-out-of-the-oven combination pizza from the best pizza joint in town.

  “I did not go through the agony of leg day at the gym only to have you chicken out now. Let’s get to the elevator,” Echo gestured with the six pack of cola that she was carrying.

  “I brought a mini-cooler full of candy bars,” Joyce said softly, lifting the cooler for them to see. She’d been unusually quiet lately, so they’d brought her in on their plan in order to take her mind off of what had happened.

  “Good thinking. Dessert after pizza,” Echo nodded her approval. “Let’s go.”

  She pushed the elevator button and the doors slid silently open on the floor where Chas had the office suite for his Private Investigation Agency. His receptionist, Holly, greeted them with a bright smile. She’d been holding down the fort while Chas and Spencer were gone, and not much had been happening, so she was delighted to see friendly faces in the foyer.

  “Hello ladies,” she beamed at them from behind her imposing marble desk, professionally dressed as always, even though the boss was away. “Looks like a picnic,” she commented, a bit confused.

  “Hi Holly,” Missy greeted her. “We were hoping that Ringo might be in.”

  “Really? Uhhh…okay, sure. He’s in the “nerve center,” doing whatever it is that he does in there. Hold on a sec,” she pulled open a file drawer and grabbed a can of air freshener, handing it to Echo. “You might want this,” Holly smiled apologetically.

  She and Ringo were both important assets to the agency, but the two interacted with each other as seldom as possible. The consummate professional and the disheveled hacker apparently couldn’t find much common ground.

  “Thanks,” Echo was amused, despite the gravity of their situation. She loved the fact that Ringo was unashamedly himself, flying in the face of societal norms, and was brilliant enough to get away with it.

  “Down the hall, third door on the left. If it’s locked, bang really loudly – he wears headphones quite often.”

  “Thank you, Holly,” Missy smiled at the dignified young lady, wondering just what they were about to encounter.

  Joyce, Echo and Missy stood uncertainly outside the door that Holly had indicated, wondering just how to proceed, when it suddenly flew open to reveal a messy-haired, unshaven and rumpled Ringo. The hacker looked at them all one-by-one, confused.

  “Is this virtual reality, or am I dreaming?” he ran a hand through his hair. “Three chicks show up with pizza and soda and stuff,” he blinked. “Did I order pizza?” He was talking to himself, not them, but Missy answered, taking charge.

  “Hi Ringo. I’m Missy, Chas’s wife. The girls and I brought you some goodies and we’re hoping that you might be able to help us out with finding someone,” she explained, handing him the pizza.

  “Hmm, I am awake. That’s cool,” he nodded, sniffing the pizza box, as if for confirmation. “Welcome to my lair,” he gave them a lopsided grin, then kicked an empty chip bag out of the way so that they could enter a room filled with computers, security screens and various other equipment. While it smelled a bit stale, the room was bearable.

  Ringo plopped into a swiveling office chair with the pizza and began eating it as though he hadn’t had a meal in days.

  “You here about the missing kid in Illinois that Chas is looking for?” he asked, mouth full of pizza.

  Echo handed him a soda. “No, actually. We need to find someone else. We only have a first name, but we know where she has a gym membership, and what she looks like.”

  Ringo popped the tab open on the can of soda, and guzzled half of it in one swift slug, belching afterwards. The look on Joyce’s face was priceless as she observed probably the most ill-mannered man she’d ever seen.

  “Piece of cake. Probably take me ten minutes to find out anything you’d like to know. Whatcha got in there, gorgeous?” he pointed to the cooler in Joyce’s hands, and, unable to even utter a sentence, she handed it over.

  “That’s how I like ‘em, quiet and bearing gifts,” he chuckled at his own awful joke, while the three women stared at him. “Candy, awesome. I’ll need these after I finish the pizza.”

  He tossed the cooler aside, grabbed another slice of pizza, stuffing half of it in his mouth in one bite, and setting the remaining half on his knee while he tapped a series of characters into his laptop.

  “Okay, what’s the name of the gym?” he asked, his words dulled by pizza.

  Joyce told him and he tapped it in.

  “Hold on, it’ll take a sec for me to get past their firewall,” his fingers flew across the keyboard, then he stuffed the rest of his piece of pizza in his face and stared at the screen while numbers trailed up and down in a sequence that made no sense to anyone in the room but him.

  “Okay, we’re in,” he swallowed. “Name?”

  “Jenna,” Echo replied.

  “Okay, come to papa, Miss Jenna. Let’s see…member photo ID’s…here we go,” he muttered to himself. “We got four possibilities here,” he motioned for them to move closer, and enlarged the four pictures on the screen to show them, then tore the wrapper from one of the candy bars that Joyce had brought.

  “That’s her,” Joyce pointed to the screen.

  “Are you sure?” Missy asked.

  “Couldn’t be more positive. That’s the woman who came in and said that she was Andre’s girlfriend,” the young woman nodded.

  “You have a beautiful voice, anyone ever tell you that?” Ringo asked her, licking a flake of chocolate off the back of his hand. Joyce merely stared at him.

  “So what do you need to know?” he turned to Echo.

  “Everything you can get. Full name, address, occupation, background…”

  “Criminal records check,” Missy chimed in.

  “I gotcha,” Ringo nodded. “If you lovely ladies would like to come back in about an hour, I’ll have everything you could possibly need and more on Miss Jenna. Oh, and in case you were wondering, there’s a burger joint a couple of blocks from here that makes epic burgers and shakes,” he hinted.

  “We’ll see what we can do,” Echo smiled faintly at his blatant unspoken request.

  “Thank you for your time, Ringo,” Missy said, heading for the door.

  “Anytime Mrs. B. Come back soon and bring that fine young thing with you,” he eyed Joyce.


  The trio left without saying another word, leaving the strange genius to his computer magic.

  CHAPTER TEN

  * * *

  Missy, Echo and Joyce decided to send Kel back to Chas’s office to get the reports from Ringo, armed with two loaded double cheeseburgers, a monster-sized order of fries, and a chocolate shake.

  “I hear you’re the young man who knows how to get things done around here,” Kel barged into the nerve center, bearing his gift of fast food for Ringo.

  “Dude, is that from Fat Charlie’s?” Ringo asked, apparently not rattled at all by a total stranger bursting into his realm.

  “Indeed it is.” Kel handed him the large bag of food and the giant shake.

  “You bring ketchup and salt?” the hacker inquired, pawing through the bag.

  “Naturally. How does one exist without ketchup and salt?”

  “Right? That’s what I’m talking about,” Ringo began tossing fries into his mouth at an alarming speed. Kel merely sat back and waited for the frenzy to slow a bit, so that he could have the young man’s undivided attention.

  “Whatchu need, bro?” Ringo asked, halfway through his second burger.

  “I’m here to collect the information that the three ladies asked you for earlier.”

  “Yeah, I kinda figure that, since you brought Fat Charlie’s and all. I’d offer you a fry, but I think better when I eat, so I’m just gonna eat ‘em.”

  “Not a problem, please, enjoy,” Kel smiled. “Were you able to find out anything about our friend Jenna?”

  “Chick is all over the place. She must hang out with your ladies a lot.”

  “What makes you say that?” the artist asked casually.

  “I traced her cell phone locator for the last week and tracked her movements,” Ringo shrugged.

  “Good to know,” Kel hid his growing excitement…and concern. “Anything else?”

  “She was definitely a gym rat. Spent a ton of time there. She doesn’t eat much. Doesn’t go out much, other than to hang out with your ladies or the dudes from the gym.”