Christmas Cookies with a Side of Murder Read online

  “I’ll have to take your word for that. All I know is that when it comes to this case, things aren’t looking good.”

  “Maybe there’s a way we can turn things in our favor.”

  He gave me a blank stare. “How?”

  “One thing I have learned from investigations in the past is that sometimes details that don’t appear to be important at first glance can actually be quite significant upon further inspection.”

  “Such as?”

  “Think back to the night of the party. When was the last time you talked to Julie?” I asked.

  “Just a few hours before she disappeared. I told her that I would pick her up at six thirty that night.”

  “So then you finished up at work and went home.”

  He nodded.

  “What happened after that?” I said.

  “I went out for a run, came back home, took a shower, got dressed, then headed over to Julie’s place to pick her up. She didn’t answer her door, so I called her. When she didn’t pick up, I phoned Home Away From Home Cooking to see if she was still at work. Her boss told me she had left more than an hour before. I drove over to the party on the off chance that she was there, but she wasn’t. And you know the rest.”

  I exhaled. “Did Julie tell you she was going to stop somewhere on the way home from work that day?”

  He shook his head. “No. She was just going to go home, get changed for the party, then wait for me to pick her up.”

  “Maybe she stopped to get gas on the way home. Or went to the local supermarket.”

  “Sabrina, David has already gone through all of those possibilities with me.”

  “I know. I’m just thinking out loud. Trying to come up with an idea of what might have happened to her.”

  “You mean something other than the worst-case scenario?”

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Unfortunately, that scenario is looking more likely.”

  “Don’t talk like that.”

  “Sabrina. The last thing I want to do is to believe the worst. But it’s not easy to stay positive at a time like this.”

  “I know,” I said. “But you have to find a way.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The next day

  “Why hasn’t David called me yet?” I asked.

  I checked the time on my phone again as a sense of disbelief took hold of me. I had expected my boyfriend to call me shortly before I woke up in the morning, as he usually did. Instead, I was halfway through my shift at Daley Buzz and had not heard a peep from him. That was quite odd.

  As was the fact that David had not popped in to the coffee shop to order his customary double espresso. The rare mornings that he didn’t come in to get a jolt of caffeine, it was usually because he had gotten a break in a case that he was working on.

  That said, on those occasions, he would still typically call or text me to inform me that he was in the thick of investigating. So the fact that I hadn’t heard a single word from him was practically unheard of.

  I could only keep my concern about him at bay for so long before my patience whittled down to nothing. Finally, by midmorning, I had worked myself into a fervor.

  I was about to take a break from work in order to step outside the coffee shop and give him another call.

  Before I had the chance to dial David’s number, my phone rang. Talk about an incredible sense of timing.

  I answered without even checking the caller identification screen on my phone.

  “David, is that you?” I asked.

  When a male voice that didn’t belong to my boyfriend replied over the phone line, I was disappointed. Not to mention rather shocked. Especially when I realized that it was Wally Tuttle who had called me.

  “This isn’t David,” Wally replied.

  My nose scrunched. “Wally? Why are you calling—?”

  A panicked tone was in his voice. “Sabrina, you have to listen to me very carefully—”

  Concern came to my face. “Why do you sound so frantic? What happened?”

  “I didn’t do it,” Wally replied.

  “You didn’t do what?” I asked.

  “You have to believe me.”

  Unfortunately, Wally wasn’t making much sense. At the exact moment when I needed him to be as clear as possible, his replies were fragmented.

  To make matters worse, he didn’t seem to be listening to me. It was like we were having two different conversations.

  I tried to get some clarity. “Wally, you need to back up a little. What’s going on?”

  “The police are here,” he replied.

  “Wait a minute. Where?” I asked.

  “They just showed up at my door.”

  My eyes widened. “So they are at your house? Are they questioning you again?”

  “No.”

  “Then why are the police there?”

  “Because they found her body.”

  A queasy feeling came to my stomach. “Whose?”

  “Julie’s.”

  I gasped. For a moment, I stopped breathing. When my heart did resume beating, I nearly tripped over my tongue. Thankfully, I managed to get my question out.

  “So wait…Julie’s dead?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he replied. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

  Shockwaves reverberated through my body. Words were suddenly hard to come by. I became choked up. When I was finally able to slow my breathing down, I replied, “What happened? Where did they find it?”

  Wally didn’t answer my questions. Instead, he became more frantic. “You have to talk some sense into your boyfriend. I didn’t do it.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “Wally, I need more information. Where did they find the body?”

  Once again, he ignored my question. He replied with sheer terror in his voice. “I think they are going to arrest me.”

  I opened my mouth to speak but couldn’t get any words out in time.

  I then heard a second male voice over the phone line. I immediately recognized that voice. It was David.

  “Wally, put the phone down,” David said.

  A shiver went down my spine. I yelled into the phone. “David? What’s happening over there?”

  Just then, the call dropped.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I hated to leave my mother short-staffed at Daley Buzz, but Wally’s unexpected phone call had left me with more questions than answers. If that wasn’t bad enough, what little information I did know was absolutely shocking. I left work in a hurry and dashed over to Wally’s place.

  Ten minutes later, my car pulled up in front of my ex-boyfriend’s recently purchased green ranch-style house. By the looks of it, the entire Treasure Cove Police Department was on the scene. The medical examiner’s van was in the driveway. A half dozen squad cars were on the street in front of the house.

  I ended up parking on the side of the road a few houses down from Wally’s. As I got out of my sedan and approached Wally’s place, Deputy Joe Donaldson was cordoning off the area with yellow tape to keep the growing collection of concerned neighbors from interfering with the ongoing investigation.

  It would take a lot more than just some tape to keep me from getting answers. Especially when I spotted Wally being detained in the back of one of the squad cars.

  As I reached the deputy, he gave me a surprised look.

  “I was wondering if you were going to show up,” Deputy Donaldson said.

  I had an interesting history with the police department. And David’s coworkers. Not surprisingly, for a long time, the police captain didn’t want me anywhere near a crime scene. I didn’t blame him. He was just following protocol. A number of the deputies also had some mixed reactions about my freelance sleuthing.

  Deputy Donaldson was one of the last to warm up to me. But after all of the homicide cases that I had a hand in solving, it was impossible to deny my investigative skills. Even the captain, who was staunch about protocols, had finally become more lax with his policies and had recently allowed me to consult on a few cases.

  Deputy Donaldson’s formerly icy exterior toward me had thawed as well. Not to the point where he greeted my presence with a smile. But at least he didn’t scowl the moment he spotted me approaching a crime scene anymore. In my book, any progress was better than nothing.

  “I would have been here sooner, but David hasn’t been answering his phone,” I said.

  “The detective has been busy,” Donaldson replied.

  “Too busy to even text me back?” I asked.

  Donaldson looked like he had no interest in tackling that subject. “That’s between you and him.”

  “You’re right. It is. Now let me get by. I need to talk to him.”

  “I know you probably don’t want to hear this—”

  I put my hands on my hips. “Are you going to give me a hard time?”

  He shook his head. “I was going to say that I don’t think there’s any investigating left for you to do. This case looks to be pretty open and shut.”

  “You might be right. Then again, sometimes appearances are deceiving. That’s why I want to get all the information that I can.”

  Donaldson opened his mouth to reply, but before he was able to get any words out, I spotted David speaking with the medical examiner about twenty feet away.

  “David!” I yelled out.

  My boyfriend turned his head, spotted me, and began approaching. As he made his way toward me, the pained expression on his face was unmistakable. Was that because he didn’t want to talk to me? Or because the details of the case were just so disturbing? Then again, perhaps it was a little bit of both.

  “Sabrina, what are you doing here?” David asked.

  “Wally called me,” I replied. “Is it true? Did you find Julie’s body?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  David quickly pulled me aside. The last thing he wanted was for me to be in earshot of the crowd of neighbors that had gathered to gawk at the police activity.

  Although as I stared into David’s eyes, I got the distinct impression that he would have preferred for me to have stayed at Daley Buzz.

  It was too late for that. Whether he liked it or not, I wasn’t going anywhere until I got some answers.

  “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” I asked.

  David groaned. “I really wish Wally hadn’t involved you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you don’t need to be here.”

  “I disagree.”

  “That’s because you don’t know the facts.”

  “Fill me in, then.”

  “I know that open-and-shut cases are uncommon in Treasure Cove, but this is a rare exception,” he said.

  “So it is true, then? Julie’s dead?” I asked.

  He reluctantly nodded. “Unfortunately.” He reached out and put his hand on my shoulder. “Look. I’m really sorry. I was hoping that we’d find her alive—”

  I put my hand over my chest. “This is heartbreaking.” It took all the willpower I had to stop myself from breaking into tears. “I can’t believe it.”

  “I know this must be especially hard for you to hear—”

  I knew David was just trying to be sympathetic, but his words didn’t console me. Learning of Julie’s death was bad enough, but I had a feeling he was about to compare this case with my sister’s. That made my mind go to a dark place.

  Granted, the similarities in the cases were strikingly similar. Both Jessica and Julie had disappeared out of the blue, only to be found dead later. Talk about heartbreaking. Just thinking about it took the wind out of me.

  Which was why I did my best to fight off the memories of Jessica. At least for the moment. In the future, there would be plenty of time to think about how much I missed my sister.

  Right then, I wanted to focus on Julie.

  Clearly, she had not died of natural causes. There would be no need for this many squad cars, nor the presence of the medical examiner if that were the case.

  What limited information I had pointed to Julie’s death being the result of murder. Until I was convinced that her killer was behind bars, I wouldn’t be able to rest.

  Which brought me back to Wally.

  “You’re convinced that Wally did this?” I asked.

  Instead of getting a straight answer, David replied with a question of his own. “Sabrina, are you sure you really want to get into this right now?”

  “Don’t worry about me,” I said.

  “It’s hard not to. I love you. And one of your friends was just killed.”

  “Look, David. Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate that you are looking out for my feelings. But I want to know the truth.”

  He took a deep breath. “Fine. I’ll tell you what you want to know. But be warned—you’re not going to like what I have to say.”

  “You’re convinced that Wally did this, aren’t you?”

  He nodded. “All signs are pointing to him being guilty.”

  “What signs are those?” I asked.

  “To start, we found Julie’s body in Wally’s garden shed.”

  My eyes widened. I tripped over my tongue a number of times as my thoughts spilled out of my mouth in a fragmented fashion. “That’s…wow…I don’t even know what to say to that.”

  David winced. “I know. It’s really disturbing. At the same time, it’s also highly incriminating.”

  My nose crinkled. “It’s also very strange.”

  “I’m not sure if that’s the right word for it. Don’t you mean twisted?”

  “That, too. But it’s also undeniably odd. I mean, who murders someone then hides the body in their garden shed?”

  “I admit, if you are trying to keep people from finding a dead body, there are much better places to hide it than there. Maybe he planned on disposing of it at a later date but he just hadn’t found the right time.”

  I squinted. “Perhaps.”

  “You don’t believe that?” he asked.

  I gritted my teeth. “It just doesn’t add up. I mean, granted, Wally isn’t a criminal mastermind, but I can’t believe he would be so stupid as to hide the body here.”

  “My job isn’t to question how smart or stupid criminals are—”

  “But that’s the thing. I’m not sure that I believe that Wally is capable of something as heinous as murder.”

  “Sabrina, how can you ignore the fact that Julie’s body was in his shed?”

  “I’m not ignoring it. I’m trying to make sense of it.”

  “While you’re doing that, there’s more incriminating evidence that you don’t know about.”

  “Such as?”

  “Julie’s body had a fatal stab wound in her chest,” he said.

  I grimaced.

  David continued. “That’s not all. Forensics found a bloodstained knife in the shed beside the body.”

  I lowered my head.

  “I know that’s not what you wanted to hear—”

  “Were there any prints on the knife?” I asked.

  David shook his head. “Surprisingly, no. But—”

  “So wait a minute. Are you saying that Wally was careful enough not to leave fingerprints on the murder weapon but careless enough to leave Julie’s body in his shed? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I admit that is quite odd.”

  I squinted. “That’s not the only peculiarity. What made you even look in Wally’s shed in the first place?”

  “Dispatch received an anonymous call.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “Anonymous?”

  “I know you’re always skeptical of anonymous calls, but the information provided was spot-on. The caller told dispatch that they saw Wally loading something into his shed that was very large and covered in a black bedsheet. My team searched the shed and found Julie’s body there.”

  “My argument isn’t with the validity of the information. It’s with the caller. I mean, why not state their name? Why all the secrecy?” I asked.

  “Maybe they were afraid of giving their name,” he replied.

  I scratched my chin. “Perhaps.”

  “A lot of people are afraid of retribution. Most people, actually. And especially when dealing with a killer.”

  I corrected him. “Suspected killer.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  I nodded. “You make a good point.”

  “Of course I do. Very few people would be as fearless as you are when it comes to staring down potential murderers.”

  “True. How about the caller’s gender?”

  “Dispatch believes the caller was a man, but it’s possible that it was a woman.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “Apparently, they had a very raspy, androgynous voice.”

  I fell silent and wrestled with my thoughts.

  “Do you have some other explanation for how this happened?” David asked.

  “The caller sure provided a lot of detail. Plus, their account of what happened requires a unique vantage point. Some random passerby on the street wouldn’t have been able to see all that. You’d need to have a view of Wally’s backyard.”

  “Okay. So?”

  “That means the call most likely came from one of Wally’s neighbors. Have you talked to any of them?”

  He shook his head.

  “Were you planning on it?” I asked.

  “I don’t need to. We have the body. Does it really matter who made the call?”

  I nodded. “It is if the call wasn’t placed by one of the neighbors.”

  David shrugged. “Who else would it have been placed by?”

  “Did it occur to you that the caller might actually be the killer?”

  He held his hand out. “Wait a minute. I need to stop you right there. Those are two really big assumptions. First, that Wally didn’t kill Julie. And second, that someone else did—some unknown person who anonymously called in a tip.”

  “Hey. It’s a possibility.”

  “Really? Do you have anything to back that up? Or was that just a random thought that popped into your mind?”

  I took a deep breath. “My gut is telling me that something doesn’t add up.”