German Chocolate Killer (Cupcakes in Paradise Book 11) Read online

  “Your gardener knew Leigh?” Missy was surprised.

  “Yep, they went to school together,” Agnes confirmed.

  “Poor guy. What’s his last name?” she asked, an idea brewing. Chas had talked a little bit about the case, and Missy wondered if she might be able to help him out.

  “Donaldson,” Agnes supplied, handing Missy cash for her cupcake.

  “Well, that’ll be an easy one to remember,” Missy smiled faintly.

  “Really? Why?” Agnes stared at her.

  “Harley Davidson…” Missy raised her eyebrows.

  “No, Donaldson,” Agnes didn’t catch the reference.

  “Yes, I know, but…oh never mind,” Missy shook her head. “You take care, okay?” she called as Agnes headed toward the door.

  “I will, dear. You too,” Agnes waved on her way out.

  **

  “So, let me get this straight,” Echo sipped her coffee the next morning. “You want me to call this Harley Davidson guy…”

  “Donaldson,” Missy interrupted.

  “Donaldson, whatever,” Echo waved a hand impatiently. “And have him come work on my gardens so that we can question him?”

  “Yes. I’ll pay for it,” Missy nodded.

  “But Scott does the gardening at our house and he’s really proud of it,” Echo beamed, thinking of Kel’s sixteen-year-old son from a previous relationship. The young man had come to live with his father a little over a year ago, when his mother was murdered in another state.

  “Well, don’t you have a tree that needs to be taken down or something?” Missy pleaded.

  Echo shook her head. “Nope, Scott is on top of all of that sort of thing. The only better garden in town is at the Botanical Society,” she grinned. “But what about your place? Maybe you could add some landscaping,” she suggested.

  Missy sighed. “I didn’t want to take a chance of him being there and running into Chas, but I guess I’ll have to risk it. Hopefully he answers his phone. Agnes said that she hadn’t been able to reach him,” she worried.

  “Well, if we can’t reach him by phone, we could always pay him a visit,” Echo smiled slyly, loving a good adventure.

  “But, what if he’s dangerous?” Missy whispered. “What if he’s the killer?”

  “It’ll still be two against one,” her bold friend pointed out.

  “Good point,” Missy agreed.

  **

  “We shouldn’t be here,” Echo groused. “You know Chas wouldn’t like this.”

  “We don’t know that for certain,” Missy said stubbornly, pulling up in front of Harley Donaldson’s ramshackle apartment building.

  “Oh, yes we do,” Echo argued. “This place doesn’t even look safe and it’s daylight,” she complained, glancing about at abandoned, rusty cars, trash piled against the side of the building and more than a few broken windows.

  “Don’t judge,” Missy scolded, reaching for the door handle.

  Echo put a hand on her arm to stop her.

  “I’m not judging,” she hissed. “But did you ever stop to think that we might be walking into the den of a killer in a neighborhood where no one would notice if we never came back out?”

  “You’ve been watching too much television,” Missy rolled her eyes. “Come on. We’re really good at finding bad guys and it’s been way too long since we’ve had a little adventure,” she cajoled.

  “A little adventure? You call this a little adventure? I think Beulah is right, you’re good common sense is being eclipsed by your hormones.”

  “Echo Kellerman, where is your backbone?” Missy demanded. “A lovely young woman died and we have a chance to help find her killer. Why are you being such a chicken?”

  “A chicken? You’re calling me names now?” Echo tried to be indignant, but laughed in spite of herself.

  “That’s my girl,” Missy grinned. “Now, I’m going to march up to that door,” she pointed at 212A on the second floor. “And I’m going to knock on it and have a conversation with Mr. Harley Donaldson. Are you with me, or are you going to go pout in the car?” she challenged.

  “Fine,” Echo sighed, reaching for the door handle. “I hope they can at least find our bodies someday,” she groaned.

  “Come on, drama queen, we’re just going to have a conversation,” Missy linked arms with her best friend and they crossed the street.

  Standing in front of Harley’s door, Missy’s bravado deserted her, and she raised her hand to knock, but didn’t, keeping it in the air in front of the door.

  “Now who’s chicken?” Echo taunted, shaking her head. “Come on, let’s just get out of here, while we still can.”

  Missy chewed her lip, indecisive, then frowned. “Nope, we came all the way over here, we’re doing this,” she said, and rapped hard on the hollow-sounding door, which rattled a bit beneath her fist. “Wow, that doesn’t seem very secure,” she commented nervously.

  “Why would a psycho murderer need a secure door?” Echo muttered.

  “Shhh!” Missy cautioned, putting a finger to her lips. “We have no idea if this guy even did anything wrong. He could just be this normal person who happened to have a crush on a woman who got murdered.”

  Echo’s only reply was a long stare. The two of them waited, listening for a response from inside.

  “Maybe he’s sleeping,” Missy wondered, knocking again.

  “Great, so we’ll be rousing the sleeping killer from his nap. Perfect,” Echo grumbled.

  “Oh stop it,” Missy shushed her again.

  When there was no answer this time, Echo took her arm again. “Oh well, too bad, so sad, he’s not here, let’s go,” she said, herding her best friend toward the stairs.

  “Great, we can use this chance to take a look around,” Missy agreed.

  “Wait…what?” Echo stopped on the stairs. “What are you talking about? Why on earth would we look around here?”

  Missy shook her head. “Because, silly. If he is the killer, and this is his home, he may have dropped a murder weapon or something,” she pointed out.

  “We don’t even know how Leigh died,” Echo exclaimed. “What could we possibly look for?”

  “Anything suspicious,” Missy continued down the stairs and Echo trailed behind.

  “Are you kidding me? Everything in this complex is suspicious. There are probably body parts in the dumpster.”

  “Hmm…I never thought of that. We should look in the dumpster,” Missy started across the parking lot toward a rusty, leaking brown receptacle that had seen better years.

  “Okay, now you just stop right there,” Echo trotted after her and grabbed her by the arm. “Melissa Beckett, this is getting ridiculous. You are too pregnant to even be thinking about doing this stuff. You know what’s going to happen if you just peek into a dumpster? You’re going to throw up, and rightfully so. Your husband is a detective, let him do his job,” she demanded, hands on hips. “You could be in danger right now and so could that baby you’re carrying and I won’t stand for that. I just won’t. You’re going to march yourself back to that car and you’re going to drive us somewhere to get some food because I can’t even think straight right now and neither can you, got it?” Echo commanded.

  Missy’s lower lip trembled. “I’m sorry,” she shook her head. “I just feel like my whole life is about to change and I’m not going to have the chance to do anything like this anymore and I don’t want to be…boring,” she admitted, staring at the ground.

  “Trust me, Missy, you are anything but boring,” Echo hugged her friend, then began leading her back across the street. “Look at it this way, I have Jasmine, and you have Kaylee, and being a mom has made us even more interesting, don’t you think? I know my problem-solving skills have been finely honed since that baby got here,” she chuckled. “Life is better with babies, not boring.”

  “I don’t know what I was thinking,” Missy confessed, tearfully.

  “Look, I know how scary all of this new baby stuff is, and I�
�m here for you. Girlfriend, if I can do this parenting thing, you’re going to be great at it,” Echo assured her.

  “I hope so,” Missy sighed.

  “I know so.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  * * *

  Chas parked his nondescript police sedan in front of Shimmer, the crystal shop downtown where Brock Treadworth had purchased an elephant for his wife’s anniversary present. When he entered the shop, there were no other customers, so he was able to approach the salesperson on duty.

  Flashing his badge, he introduced himself.

  “What can I do for you, Detective?” the woman, whose nametag said ‘Irene,’ asked.

  “I’d like to review your surveillance footage from Friday, between the hours of five and nine, please,” Chas requested.

  “Oh, I was working between those hours on Friday, is there something that I can help you with?” Irene asked, eyes wide.

  “Do you recall selling a crystal elephant to this man?” Chas asked, showing her a photo of Brock Treadworth.

  “Yes, I sure do,” she nodded.

  “Can you tell me anything unusual that you might have noticed? Did he seem stressed or upset in any way?”

  “He was very abrupt, like he was in a hurry, but then a woman came in and talked to him for several minutes, so he couldn’t have been in too big of a hurry, I suppose,” Irene shrugged.

  “Do you know who the woman was?” Chas asked.

  “I don’t remember, but she paid for a purchase with a credit card, so I can find out if you’d like,” she offered.

  “Yes, that would be helpful,” Chas nodded. “Do you recall what time the man left the store after speaking with her?” he asked as Irene searched through an accordion file of receipts.

  “Ah, here we go,” Irene pulled a receipt from the file. “Anna Fellinger is her name. I don’t have any contact info for her, but I hope this helps. I can’t say precisely what time they left, but we close at nine and it was well before that.”

  “Let’s take a look at the footage then, so that I can have a better idea as to the timing,” Chas reminded her of his purpose in coming to the shop.

  “Oh, right, of course. I’ll show you where the system is and how to run it back to the date that you want, but then I’ll have to come back up front, if that’s okay,” Irene led him to a door in the back of the shop.

  “That’s perfectly fine,” Chas assured her. He actually preferred to look over the footage without someone else peering over his shoulder.

  He reviewed the footage, took half a page of notes, and thanked Irene for her time on his way out, letting her know that he’d like a copy of the footage from that night. She assured him that she could have a copy ready in a day or so.

  **

  A visit to Harley Donaldson’s apartment proved fruitless for the detective, so he headed for his P.I. office, to talk to his computer genius, Ringo.

  Entering the technology center at the agency, Chas was immediately struck by the pervasive scent of day-old pizza. There was a stack of pizza boxes by Ringo’s bank of computers which were undoubtedly the source of the smell. As usual, there were assorted candy wrappers and empty chip bags scattered around the hacker’s domain. Chas found such disarray to be a bit disturbing, but indulged the young man’s odd habits because he’d never encountered a more talented hacker. If Ringo couldn’t get into a system, no one could, and his skills had come in handy in solving crimes more than once.

  “Hey, Boss Man,” Ringo greeted him, taking a long pull from a straw in an oversized cup.

  “Morning. I need you to find some info for me,” Chas thought about sitting in the office chair next to Ringo, but saw crumbs and other detritus and thought better of it.

  “Your wish is my command. What’s up?”

  “I need to talk to a guy named Harley Donaldson, and he isn’t answering his phone or his front door. If he skipped town, I need to know where he’d go, and if he’s still local, I need to know where I might be able to find him,” the detective explained.

  “No problemo,” Ringo laced his fingers together and cracked his knuckles before turning to his main keyboard.

  There were three oversized computer screens mounted in a semi-circle in front of him, and for his most important projects, he often used all three at once. The young man might be sloppy and addicted to junk food, but he came through when it counted.

  “How long do you think it’ll take?” Chas asked, on his way out of the technology center.

  “What does the guy do for a living?”

  “Landscaper.”

  “Shouldn’t take long at all. I’m guessing that he won’t have gone to great lengths to hide his online footprint,” Ringo shrugged, already tapping on the keyboard.

  “Let me know when you have a report ready.”

  “You got it, Boss Man,” the hacker mumbled, already engrossed in his task. “Hey, any chance we can get some Chinese food happening?” he asked, before Chas could shut the door behind him.

  “I’ll have Holly place an order,” Chas promised.

  “You’re the best, man.”

  **

  Typically when Chas went to the marina to talk to Andrew Koslowski, he found the affable young man stretched out on a lounger on the dock, working on his tan, but today, there was no lounger to be seen in front of the boat rental shack. Andrew was inside the tiny building, which had just enough room for a file cabinet and a cash register, perched on a stool, staring out over the water.

  “Andrew?” Chas stopped just outside the doorway.

  “Hey, dude,” Andrew lifted his chin in greeting, lost in his own world.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Chas said quietly. It was evident that Andrew had been profoundly affected by his sister’s untimely death.

  A muscle in the young man’s jaw twitched.

  “Thanks. I figured you’d come around to talk to me eventually,” he sighed, every trace of his normally jovial manner gone.

  “Do you have any idea who might have done it?”

  “Heck no, dude,” he shook his head. “Leigh was the best. Seriously, like everyone loved her,” he clamped his lips shut, struggling for control.

  “What kind of relationship did she have with her husband?”

  “Broccoli? He was alright, I mean, he could be a jerk, but she loved him,” Andrew shrugged.

  “Broccoli?” Chas raised an eyebrow.

  “That’s what I call him because he’s like…uptight. You know, like I think my sister married him because he was supposed to be good for her…like broccoli.”

  “I bet he hates it when you call him that,” Chas guessed.

  “Oh, totally. I get some serious side-eye from him,” Andrew smiled faintly.

  “Do you know a man named Harley Donaldson?”

  “Harley Donaldson? Is that for real?” Andrew stared at the detective as though waiting for a punch line.

  “Yes, it is. He went to school with your sister.”

  “Oh, you mean the guy who plants trees and stuff?”

  “Yes, he’s a landscaper,” Chas confirmed.

  “I mean, I don’t know him, but I’ve seen him around. Looks at my sister like he’s in love with her.”

  “Did your sister ever mention having any sort of conflict with him?”

  “Nah. He was just annoying, she wasn’t afraid of him or anything, I don’t think.”

  “Do you know anyone with whom your sister did have conflicts?”

  “She didn’t really like the wife of the other guy who’s running against Broccoli. They ran into each other at campaign events and I guess she was pretty snotty to Leigh. I don’t know why she would be, but some people take this whole campaigning thing way too seriously, you know?”

  “Mrs. Kimbrel? Bart Kimbrel’s wife?” Chas clarified.

  “Yep. You wanna hear what nickname I gave him?” a shred of Andrew’s sense of humor glimmered briefly in his eyes.

  “Uh, no. That’s okay,” Chas held up a hand.
>
  “It rhymes with…” Andrew began.

  “I’m sure it does,” Chas cut him off. “Just to be thorough, where were you on Friday night, between the hours of seven and nine?”

  Andrew sobered immediately. “At home, with my roommate. We were watching movies and eating the cookies that Leigh brought over that afternoon. I’m glad that I got to hug her one last time,” his voice caught, and he looked out over the water again, recovering.

  Chas was silent for a moment, pretending to take notes to give Andrew a minute.

  “I’m gonna figure out who did this, you know,” Andrew muttered. “I’m going to hunt him down and make him pay.”

  Chas spoke carefully. “Andrew, you need to trust me to do my job. We don’t need any vigilantes out there on the street. I don’t want you to be the next victim. We don’t know who did this just yet, but anyone who has killed once is certainly able to do it again. You need to stay alert and stay safe, but leave the detective work up to me, got it?”

  Andrew shook his head. “No promises, dude. If I find this guy, there’s no telling what I might do. I’m just keeping it real, here.”

  “Look, Andrew. I didn’t know your sister, but it sounds like the two of you were very close. Do you think that she’d want you to go to jail for life just because you tried to avenge her death?” the detective asked reasonably.

  “No,” Andrew muttered, frowning.

  “Good, then honor her memory, and do the right thing. This case is my top priority, and I’m going to do everything I can to get justice for your family, okay? Trust me?” Chas prodded.

  “Yeah, okay…I guess.”

  “Let me know if you think of anything important, or if anything out of the ordinary happens, deal?”

  “Deal,” Andrew nodded, shaking the detective’s outstretched hand.

  “Thanks for your time,” Chas said, turning to go.

  “All I got is time, dude.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN