Cinn full secrets, p.6
Cinn-full Secrets, page 6
Bella closed her mouth. She looked at Adrienne, then at her boss, then went back to cleaning up and prepping for the next day.
“Erin would never do anything to get you in trouble,” she said. “I’m just blowing off steam. She wouldn’t repeat it.” Bella looked at Erin over her shoulder. “Would you?”
“No. But you do need to be careful what you say and who you say it around. Adrienne is going to have enough trouble with the police looking into Simon’s death without either of us saying anything to anyone. And you…”
Erin looked at Bella, chewing on her lip. She didn’t like to think that Bella might have lost her temper with Simon and done something she couldn’t take back. But Bella was fiercely protective of Adrienne and the children. And sooner or later, the police would put everything together and come knocking at their door again.
“Just be careful, Bella. Be careful what you say and do. I wouldn’t want you to get in any trouble.”
CHAPTER 12
It had been a long day, and Erin didn’t feel much like making a meal, even just for herself. It was easy enough to prepare a sandwich or open a can of soup, but she didn’t feel up to even just that. She suspected Terry would be engrossed in the Simon Simpson case and wouldn’t be able to join her for dinner. She called him from her car after closing up.
“Erin, is everything okay?”
There had been enough drama in Erin’s life, especially around untimely deaths in Bald Eagle Falls, that she supposed he could be excused for immediately worrying that something might be wrong. Had she found another body? Been threatened by someone? Heard something in the parking lot in the dark?
“Everything is fine,” she assured him. “I just wanted to see if you wanted to go out to dinner. Can you take a break from your work?”
“I’m supposed to be off.”
“I know. But are you actually going to put everything aside and come home?”
There was a pause while Terry considered this. Maybe he had been planning to go home but, looking at everything on his desk now, realized that there was no way he would be getting out of the office until late.
“Uh… you’re probably right,” he admitted. “I have a few things that still need to be done. Avenues of inquiry that need to be followed up on before the trail starts to go cold.”
“Right,” Erin agreed. “So, do you want to come home for supper or stop for something at the restaurant…?”
She hoped he would understand that her suggestion of a restaurant meant she didn’t want to cook. He should know her at least that well.
“Uh… a restaurant is fine. I was probably just going to order something in.”
If he ordered takeout, he wouldn’t have to interrupt his work. He could just work at his desk. Or he and the rest of the police department would eat a pizza or two in the boardroom while discussing the case. It would mean that she wouldn’t see him all night. Probably not before she went to bed. She had an early bedtime due to the need to rise early in the morning to bake before the opening of Auntie Clem’s.
“Of course I’d love to see you,” Terry said, his thoughts following these same lines. “I’m sorry. Yes. We can go to a restaurant.”
“It will probably be good for you to get away from the office for a little while. Give you a new perspective.”
“That’s true,” Terry agreed. “Sometimes stepping away from a case for a few minutes is just what you need to make a breakthrough.”
“So you can take a few minutes for supper?”
“Sure. What are you in the mood for tonight?”
“I don’t even know. I’m too tired to make a decision.”
“Sure,” Terry agreed. “I don’t think you got enough sleep last night, and the gossip at Auntie Clem’s probably has you all worn out.”
“It’s been quite the day,” Erin admitted. She thought about Bella and Adrienne. With the right encouragement, she might learn more about the progress of the investigation from Terry. His investigation might be focused in another direction altogether. Maybe she didn’t have to worry about the two young women.
“How about Chinese?” Terry suggested.
“Sure. Whatever you like is good for me. As long as all I have to do is sit there and eat it.”
“Okay. Are you leaving now, or are you still closing up?”
“I’m in the car. I’ll be there in five minutes.”
“I’ll see you there, then.”
In a few minutes, they were seated at a table in the Chinese restaurant. Erin just motioned to Terry when he asked her what she wanted. He knew what she liked, and she was in no mood to have to choose. He ordered their favorite dishes.
“You shouldn’t have gone in today,” he said. “You really look worn out.”
“I’ll be fine. It was a long day, though. I sent Vic home early.”
“You should have sent yourself home early.”
“I like one of us always to be there, not just a couple of the part-time employees. Other than for the ladies’ tea.”
“A couple of hours in the afternoon wouldn’t hurt.”
“No… it wouldn’t hurt,” Erin admitted. It wasn’t a rule that was set in stone. She didn’t mind leaving Charley in charge, even though she wasn’t the best baker, because she was the half-owner of the bakery. And she had sometimes left Bella in charge. Though in light of the current circumstances, she probably wouldn’t do that again if she could help it.
Terry’s head was cocked. Erin looked at him as if she were coming out of a dream. “Sorry, did you ask something else?”
“No. Just wondering where you are.”
“Nowhere. Just tired.” She didn’t want him to read the truth in her eyes and averted her gaze. She had a sip of water. She was probably dehydrated. She had been talking a lot and had not thought much about taking care of herself. She was sure she had stopped for lunch but couldn’t remember what she had eaten; it seemed like a long time ago. Her stomach ached with hunger.
“So, how is the investigation going?” she asked.
Terry paused to take a drink himself. He would have had a beer if he had been at home but, since he was still returning to the office, he had settled for an RC instead.
“I know that discussing the case over dinner is not ideal. And you’re already tired, but…” He trailed off, watching her.
“What?”
“You saw the body. You saw the murder weapon.”
Erin swallowed. She just nodded, not answering.
“I didn’t ask you anything about it that day because I didn’t realize it was special.”
“There was something special about it?”
“I thought it was just a knife out of a block set, like you would get at the department store. Some kind of chef’s set that any household might have.”
Erin nodded. She hadn’t said anything about it then, hoping that was the direction the police department would go. It was just a regular knife that anyone could have bought or had in their kitchen. Just an average, run-of-the-mill kitchen knife.
“But I’m told by the techs who were helping me to identify it that it is a cake knife.”
Erin nodded. “Anyone could have a cake knife.”
“But it isn’t one that someone would have just picked up at the department store.”
“A kitchen store would have them, though.”
“It’s a high-end knife. The type of thing that a bakery would have. High-quality materials and workmanship.”
“But anyone could have one. It doesn’t have to be a bakery.”
“I suppose you have one at Auntie Clem’s.”
Erin nodded. “Sure. Of course.”
“So you could show it to me.”
Erin took a deep breath in and let it out again.
“You’ve checked to make sure that you still have yours at the bakery?” Terry pressed.
“I have more than one. I could show you.”
He studied her as the waitress delivered their dishes, arranging them on the table.
“Then I guess the question is… are you missing any? Are they all the same brand and model?”
“I bought them at different times. They’re not all identical.”
“You didn’t say whether you are missing any.”
Erin sighed and rubbed her forehead, where a knot of tension was gathering.
“Just one,” she sighed.
CHAPTER 13
Terry gazed at Erin steadily.
“I see. And how did your missing knife end up in Mr. Simon Simpson?”
“I certainly didn’t put it there.”
Terry chuckled, but he didn’t sound amused. K9 looked up at him and readjusted his position, putting his head down on his paws.
“Who had access to the knife?”
“Anyone in the kitchen. Me, Vic, Charley, and any of the part-time employees. We don’t allow the public into the kitchen, but sometimes there are other people… deliverymen, repairmen, people picking up day-old bread.”
“Who does that include for the past week?”
Erin hadn’t had any repairmen in. All of the employees had taken at least one shift. She didn’t discuss who used the day-old bread program.
“I already gave Sheriff Wilmot the list of employees and their phone numbers. So he knows everyone who was on shift. I don’t think… I can’t remember anyone else that we’ve had in the kitchen in the days before Simon was killed. A few deliveries, but they’re in and out pretty quickly.”
“Adrienne?”
Erin shook her head. “Not in the week or so before Simon was killed.”
“How long was the knife missing?”
“I’m not sure. Like I said, we have others, but Vic had noticed that one had gone astray around the middle or end of the week. It’s hard to know when something isn’t there anymore. You don’t necessarily miss it right away. I figured it would turn up sooner or later. Sometimes people put things away in the wrong drawer or put it on top of the fridge or something silly like that while juggling things.”
“You allow people to juggle knives in the kitchen?”
Erin rolled her eyes and gave a tired laugh at the way her words had come out.
Terry was still serious, and he also looked tired, but he was trying to lighten the mood and keep them from getting bogged down in the investigation. It was too easy for them to get tangled up in the immediate, in something that was pressing like a murder investigation, and to forget to take care of their relationship. They had not arranged to eat dinner together just to further the investigation. It was supposed to be their chance to connect.
“I know it looks bad,” Erin said, “But couldn’t it have been an outsider? A vagrant or someone who was passing through and argued with Simon? I mean, he didn’t exactly steer clear of trouble. He liked to threaten.”
“How did that person get your cake knife?”
Erin rubbed her forehead. She dished up a little food from each of the bowls. “I don’t know. Maybe…” She tried to think of a scenario in which the cake knife had been taken from Auntie Clem’s for an innocent reason, and then someone else had gotten their hands on it. Just one of those things, a bunch of things happening at the same time to cause the perfect storm. A murder that looked like it had been committed by an employee of Auntie Clem’s when it had not. “I’ll have to think about it,” she admitted.
“I would be willing to entertain the possibility that it was someone else in Bald Eagle Falls or someone else from outside of Bald Eagle Falls,” Terry said. “But we would have to be able to explain how a knife from your bakery was used as the murder weapon.”
“I can’t believe any of my employees could have done something like that. And if it was someone from the bakery, why would they leave the knife there? They had to know it would point right back at the bakery employees. Why not take it back into the bakery, clean it off, and put it in the drawer? No one would know the difference.”
Terry shrugged. “Criminals are famous for doing some very stupid, self-incriminating things. If he was killed in the heat of the moment, I could easily see an unsophisticated killer leaving the weapon behind even though it pointed back at them. That’s how we catch people. He—or she—panics and runs away, leaving it behind.”
“But the body was there for two days. They could have returned to get it when no one else was around. If it was an employee, she would have a key and could let herself in when no one was around. Wash the knife off and put it away. Or put it on top of the fridge or in a place where it didn’t belong so everyone would think it had just been misplaced for a few days. No one would connect it to the murder.”
Terry’s lips compressed together. “I think we would still have figured out that it was the murder weapon. There aren’t a lot of knives around that fit the profile. That wide spade shape is pretty unique.”
Erin shook her head. She ate some of the noodles on her plate, even though she felt more tired than hungry. “I just don’t think it could have been anyone at Auntie Clem’s.”
“There’s another possibility.”
She looked at him hopefully.
“What if it was Simon who took it?” Terry suggested. “One of the dangers of arming yourself is that your weapon could be used against you. What if there was a struggle and someone else ended up with his weapon?”
“Yeah…” Erin liked that idea. She tried to figure out how Simon could have gotten his hands on the knife. He’d been in the bakery several times asking about Adrienne. He had come to the back once and his body had been found behind the bakery.
What if the back door had been left unlocked at some point? An employee going out to smoke and then forgetting to lock it again? A delivery man who brought in more than one load and had left the door propped for five minutes while he returned for his second load? Or what if an employee had used the knife in the front of the shop and had put it down on the counter where Simon could reach when he had been in?
She tried to picture each time she had talked to Simon. Had she kept her eyes on him the whole time? Watched every move that he made? She probably hadn’t. She had tried to show him she wasn’t interested in helping him by going on with her other work as if he hadn’t been there. She had deliberately ignored him, hoping that would make him leave sooner.
“I guess it’s possible,” she said. “And if Simon was the one who stole it, then the killer could have been anyone. Not just an employee.” She felt lighter at the possibility. The idea that the killer could be one of her employees had been tying her gut in knots.
Terry sighed. Having a larger pool to draw on was not necessarily good for him. It was much easier for the police department if they only had a few suspects. Or only one.
CHAPTER 14
Erin couldn’t help smiling at his dismay. “Simon wasn’t such a nice guy,” she pointed out. “Did he have a lot of enemies?” Bella and Adrienne had implied that he was a gambler, swindler, or both. He had abandoned his family, which probably meant he’d had interests elsewhere. Maybe he was the type who had “a girl in every port” as he gambled his way around the country. For long-suffering Adrienne to say that she’d wanted to throttle Simon more than once, he must have really pushed the limits.
“We’ll have more suspects than we know what to do with,” Terry admitted, “if we don’t find a way to narrow the pool.”
“Well…” Erin ate a few more bites of her dinner, hungrier now as she considered unknown suspects instead of her friends and employees. If they could prove it was someone else, she wouldn’t have to worry about Bella or Adrienne or anyone else. They could all go on as usual and forget that Simon had ever been a part of their lives. “What do you know about the time of death? Did you get anything from the medical examiner?”
“We’re looking at Friday afternoon or evening, shortly after you kicked him out.”
“After you kicked him out,” Erin corrected.
“After we kicked him out.”
Erin frowned.
“He had eaten part of the cinnamon roll he bought from you,” Terry contributed, giving her more details. “He wouldn’t have carried it around for several days.”
“No,” Erin agreed, nodding. He must have been killed within a couple of hours of leaving Auntie Clem’s. Had he been interrupted after eating part of it? Had he gotten hungry after standing around watching for Adrienne and started picking at it, or had he met his fate within just a few minutes of leaving the bakery?
“Did the ME examine the stomach contents?” she asked. “They can pinpoint the time of death from that, can’t they?”
“Only if they knew what time he ate the cinnamon roll. And it will keep dissolving in the stomach acids after death so, when the body has been there for two days already, it’s pretty much useless. But…” he frowned and stopped himself. He shook his head. “Nothing.”
“What?” Erin demanded.
Terry concentrated on a sweet and sour chicken wing. “These are really good.”
Erin watched him, waiting. He wasn’t doing a good job distracting her from the fact that he had nearly told her something and then taken it back. She knew that he was holding something back, and she was going to wait until she knew what it was.
Terry looked at her after a moment. “So how was the gossip at Auntie Clem’s today? I assume everyone now knows everything there was to know about Mr. Simpson and how he was killed?”
“But what?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Hmm?”
“But what about the stomach contents? They found something else? He’d had pizza for lunch? Swallowed an SD card? Was muling drugs?”
Terry was shaking his head, but didn’t fill in the facts. Erin stopped eating and sat back.
“I’m sorry,” Terry said, “you know there are things I can’t tell you. And that there are things that we hold back from the public.”
Erin reviewed the conversation in her mind. He hadn’t said that the ME had finished the autopsy yet or had examined or not examined the stomach contents. He had just made general statements about it. Statements that Erin figured would have been replaced with details if he had known them.
