Fudge Bites Page 25

  “Gotta let Ritter check her out,” he said. “We’ll call the morgue if she’s—”

  “Oh, she’s dead,” Ritter said as she knelt beside the body. “She’s stiff. Fender, call Dr. Murphy and let him know that we’ve got a dead body for him.”

  “Will do,” the younger man said. He grabbed his walkie-talkie and started talking.

  Jim Hampton took some pictures with his cell phone, then he and EMT Ritter turned the body. I saw her face and gasped.

  It was Agnes Snow.

  “You know her?” EMT Ritter looked up at me.

  “It’s Agnes,” I said. Agnes was my aunt’s rival at the local craft fair. They had been feuding over who won the grand champion ribbon for decades. It didn’t matter which craft my aunt picked up, Agnes was always there with an award-winning entry.

  Aunt Eloise had begun to act secretively, hiding her latest craft, certain that Agnes was spying on her. She’d even gone as far as driving all the way to Portland to buy her materials on the off chance that Agnes was somehow keeping track of what my aunt bought at the local craft store.

  I should have known Agnes from the way she was dressed. Agnes always wore high-end, boutique clothes. She looked like a woman who came down to spend two weekends a year in her million-dollar beach house. In fact, Agnes had lived in Oceanview her whole life. She had married into a local family with plenty of political clout. Her husband of thirty-five years had been mayor of Oceanview for over half of those years, although now he was just a regular citizen. They never had children. Instead, Agnes had gotten good, very good, at every craft known to man.

  “Wait, is she the ex-mayor’s wife?” Ritter asked.

  “Yes,” Jim said. “Mayor Snow’s wife—and Eloise Johnson’s biggest rival.” He glanced at me, his blue eyes squinting in the bright autumn light. “Might explain the label you found in her hand.”

  “Label?” Ritter asked.

  “One of my lip balms,” I said. “I own ‘Let It Bee.’ The honey store in town. I make handcrafted lip balm, lotion, candles, and—”

  “Candy,” the surfer dude EMT said. I turned to him.

  “Yes, candy.”

  “The best candy,” he said, grinning a toothpaste grin at me and leaning in. “The salted caramel with honey is to die for.”

  “Let’s hope Agnes didn’t agree,” Jim said.

  “I’m sure there’s no connection,” I said. “Besides, it was a lip balm label, not candy.”

  “It still doesn’t look that good for you,” Jim said, his face suddenly sober.

  “Wait, you think I had something to do with Agnes’s death? That’s nuts. Why would I call 9-1-1 if I killed her?”

  “You watch crime shows,” Jim said. “You know the answer.”

  “Because I want to involve myself in the investigation?” My voice crept up two octaves. “That’s crazy. That doesn’t happen in real life. Does it?”

  Jim raised an eyebrow. “It happens often enough that they put it in television shows.” Jim was a handsome man. He reminded me of that old actor, Paul Newman. My Aunt Eloise raised me on old movies, and I remember he played a cop in one of them. Jim looked especially like him just now.

  “Well.” I hugged my cat. “It’s silly to think I could hurt anyone.”

  “Any idea how she died?” Fender asked. He leaned over the dead woman and studied her. “I don’t see any obvious trauma.”

  “Cause of death is for the coroner to determine,” Ritter said.

  “Stand back,” said a woman my age as she walked up with a black bag in her hand. She wore a blue shirt that was marked with CSU. “You all are muddying up my crime scene.” She put down her bag, opened it, then pulled on a pair of gloves. She glanced at me. “Is that a cat?”

  “Everett,” I said. “He found the body.”

  She stepped over to me. “Hello there, handsome,” she practically purred and scratched Everett behind the ears. He purred back at her.

  “Is he wearing a leash?”

  “He loves to go for walks, and the leash keeps him safe,” I said, patting his head.

  “Okay,” she said. Then she turned on her heel. “All of you, do not move! I need to see where you all have come in and messed up the crime scene.” She shook her head and took a large camera out of her kit. “Really, Officer Hampton, you know better.”

  “We moved the body,” he said. “Needed to see if she was hurt.”

  “I have pictures,” I said, holding up my phone.

  “Someone is smart,” she said as she took more pictures. “I’m Alison McGovern.”

  “Wren Johnson,” I said.

  “Wren, like the bird?”

  “Yes,” I said. I was used to the question. “My mom loved them.”

  “It’s cool,” Alison said. “Okay, you two can remove the body.” I watched in fascination as she continued to work the crime scene and bully the EMTs and Jim. I swear, she bullied the grass into giving up its secrets. But she did it in a slow and methodical way.

  After a while, Jim stood beside me and watched her work.

  “She’s good,” I said.

  “Thorough,” he agreed. “I’m surprised that cat is letting you hold it so long.”

  “Everett? He loves to be held.”

  “That is not my experience with cats,” he said. “My experience is they lure you in to pet their belly, only to scratch and bite and run to hide under the bed for the next day and a half.”

  I laughed. “Yes, that also sounds like a cat. They’re all different, you know. Just like people.”

  “So where were you for the last twelve hours?”

  I turned to him. “Are you still thinking I’m your number one suspect?”

  “Can you answer the question?”

  “Can you?” I asked him. “I mean, twelve hours is a lot of time to account for.”

  “I’ve been working for the last six,” he said.

  “That doesn’t mean you didn’t kill someone,” I countered. “Did anyone see you every minute of the last twelve hours?”

  He shook his head at me. “I’m not a person of interest.”

  “I’m not, either.”

  “Not yet,” he said, taking out his notepad. “That could change any minute.” He started writing in his pad. “Let’s start from the beginning. You found the body?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  I went over how I found Agnes step by step, right up until the time I turned her hand over and pulled the label out of her fist.

  “I see,” he said as he took notes. “And you know Agnes how?”

  “Like I said—and you know—Agnes and my aunt have this informal competition going.”

  “Can you explain what you mean by informal competition?”

  “The two of them have been competing against each other my entire life,” I said. “I think it started when they were in elementary school.”

  “What kind of competition?”

  “Everything,” I said with a shrug. “Most recently, it’s been about crafts.”

  “Crafts?”

  “Quilting, scrapbooking, knitting, crochet, flower arranging, jelly making . . .”

  “Right,” he said. “And how do you do any of that competitively?”

  “Oh, there are all kinds of contests,” I said. “Church contests, county fairs, senior center contests . . .”

  “I get it,” he said. “I think. So they were rivals.”

  “Yes, everyone knows that. You even said it yourself.”

  “So I did. Do you think your aunt killed her?”

  “What? No, no,” I said, hugging Everett just a bit too tight. He squeaked. “She would never. Besides, she was in Portland last night.”

  “Why was she in Portland?”

  “She had a date,” I said with a shrug. “I assume she has an alibi for every minute of her night.”

  “Did you have a date?” he asked.

  “Is that relevant to this case?” I replied, raising my eyebrow.r />
  He shrugged. “If it provides you with an alibi.”

  “No,” I said with a sigh, watching the outgoing tide. “I was home alone, making a batch of hand and body scrub.”

  “Hand and body scrub?”

  “Honey is good for the skin,” I said. “I make the scrub with sugar and salt. It helps exfoliate and soften.”

  He grinned. “I can imagine honey is great for the skin.”

  His look made my cheeks burn with embarrassment. “Stop it. Have you been in my shop?”

  “Best candy ever,” the surfer guy said again as he came back from putting the body in the ambulance. He bent down and picked up his bag, then held out his hand. “Rick Fender.”

  “Hi, Rick. Wren Johnson.” I shook his hand.

  “Nice to meet you, Wren,” he said, then grinned. “Do I get a discount on the candy?”

  “Come in while I’m there, and I’ll see what I can do,” I said.

  “Perfect.” He waved and walked back to the ambulance, where EMT Ritter closed the door and walked over to the driver’s side. The two EMTs made an odd pair, as EMT Ritter was a large woman with square shoulders and Rick was lanky, like a guy who ate whatever he wanted but never gained an ounce.

  “Well, I’ve got to get back to the store,” I said to Jim. “You know where to find me?”

  “I think perhaps you should come down to the station first,” he said.

  “Are you kidding me?” I asked, somewhat unnerved by the idea. I’d been by the police station, so I sort of knew where it was, but I’d never been inside. In fact, Officer Hampton was the only police officer I’d ever spoken to. The first time we’d met was at a chamber of commerce meeting. I was lucky enough to have never run afoul of the law. Until today.

  “I suppose you can take the cat home,” he said. “It would be too big a distraction at the station.” He reached over and scratched Everett behind the ears.

  Everett meowed as if he agreed.

  Relief washed through me. “So I can go home?”

  “For now,” he said. “But don’t go anywhere. Right now, you are suspect number one.”

  Everett and I left the beach. The wind was colder than I remembered. I felt like the business owners were watching me as I walked by. Suzy from Suzy’s Flowers stared. I turned my sweater collar up. Mrs. Beasley of Beasley’s Gifts watched me from across the street. I sent her a little wave, and she stepped back.

  Then there was Wallace Hornsby from Hornsby Tailor Shop. He peered at me from behind his small, round glasses, and I sent him an uncomfortable smile. Everett meowed, so I hugged him. “It’s okay,” I said. “They’re just curious.” I paused and decided I was going to act as naturally as possible. So I put Everett down, straightened my sweater, and walked the rest of the way back to my shop. The last thing I wanted to do was act like a murder suspect. Actually, the last thing I ever wanted to do was find a dead body. I guess I needed a new last thing.

  Photo by Lach Craft Productions

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  NANCY COCO is the pseudonym chosen by popular author Nancy J. Parra for use exclusively with the Candy-Coated Mystery series and her forthcoming Oregon Honeybee Mystery series. With degrees in engineering and journalism and a MA in Writing Popular Fiction, Nancy has published cozy mysteries, romantic suspense, and sweet western historical romances.

  An Air Force veteran who rose to the rank of sergeant, Nancy is a member of an online group of female veterans who are authors—“Military Women Who Have Turned the Sword to Pen.” The group’s website is www.romvets.com.

  Nancy is also a member of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime. She has given workshops on a number of writing topics and enjoys doing author panels at fan conferences, including Malice Domestic and Bouchercon. She lives in Oregon with her dog, a bichon poo affectionately known as Little Dog on Nancy’s Facebook and Twitter accounts. Check out Nancy’s website at www.nancyjcoco.com.

  The author will donate a portion of her earnings from this book to the ASPCA. Learn what you can do to help at www.aspca.org/donate.