A Case for the Cookie Baker Read online

  We sat and ate in silence for a bit. After I finished, I went to take her hand, and noticed bruising.

  “Jake, look at this.”

  I showed him and he frowned. “Was that there before?”

  “You don’t think someone here hurt her, do you?” My blood boiled. Anyone who hurt an old woman while she was in a coma was lower than rot.

  He shook his head. “No. Don’t get upset, Ains. The bruising could have happened when she was attacked and is just now showing up. She’s pretty tan from working in her garden, and it could be it was there but none of us noticed.”

  I took a deep breath. “I’m calling Kane.”

  Of course, he didn’t answer. It wasn’t my fault he outed himself the night before. He was the one who brought up the height thing.

  “Stop screening my calls. I’m in Mrs. Whedon’s room and there’s something…I need you to look at her hands. Please, Kane. Come as fast as you can.”

  My stomach swirled and acid came up my throat. I would make sure she was never alone again. Even if this had happened during the scuffle.

  My phone dinged. Heading that way, Kane texted.

  A few minutes later, he texted for the room number and I gave it to him.

  He came in with his doctor bag. That’s where he kept a lot of his CSI stuff.

  “What is it?”

  Jake explained what we’d seen.

  Kane took out a big scope-like thing, with a big light, and gently put her hand on the table that went over her bed.

  He studied her hand for what seemed like forever. Then he put the scope away.

  “Did someone hurt her?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think so. These are several days old.”

  He bent her fingers and then looked at the bruising again.

  “It isn’t possible. No.” He was talking to himself. Then he took the scope out and looked again. “I need to get back to my office to look at something.”

  He grabbed his bag and headed for the door.

  “Kane. Stop. Please. Tell me what’s going on.”

  “It looks like she punched someone,” he said. “I examined her from head to toe the other night. Her hands were red, because of her body temperature. But I didn’t notice any bruising then. But those are a few days old. She hit someone. Maybe our victim. That’s what I have to take a look at.”

  Had Gran seen someone attacking Becky and punched them? I wouldn’t have put it past her. She was a tough one, and strong for a woman her age.

  My eyes went wide. I stared at Gran and then back at Kane.

  This time I was the one shaking my head. “No. It isn’t possible.”

  “What?” Jake asked.

  “That Gran is the killer. Or at least, had some part in whatever happened. But then how did she end up injured in the freezer? She didn’t throw herself in there and hit her head on the slab.”

  “I can’t see her lifting up that skillet,” Kane said. “Let alone, swinging it. She has a tiny frame.”

  “I’ve known Gran a long time,” Jake said. “She never ceases to surprise me. If she thought she was saving Becky’s life, there’s no telling what she might have done.”

  He wasn’t wrong. She’d lived a rather interesting life.

  My hands were in fists and I forced them to relax. “None of it makes sense though. She landed on top of Becky in the freezer. Someone had to have pushed her in there.” My mind whirled with a thousand possibilities at once.

  “What were you going back to your office to look at?” I asked. My mind was so cluttered, I couldn’t remember if he told me.

  “The victim had contusions on the side of his face that wasn’t smashed in and we weren’t sure what caused them. Those contusions may match her knuckles. I need to get back to look at the photos.”

  “Maybe she hit him because she mistook him for a robber or thought he was trying to hurt Becky. But then—what? He tosses her in the freezer and someone else comes in and kills him?”

  As I said it, things began to click in my head. There was a good chance Gran and Becky believed Mort was an intruder. Maybe he heard the killer coming and shoved them in the freezer.

  “Why does she look like that?” Kane asked. “Is she in a trance?”

  “She just figured something out,” Jake answered.

  Or. He heard Mrs. Whedon coming and then shoved Becky in the freezer. Then Mrs. Whedon hit him with a frying pan—and killed him.

  “I have a theory. I’m not ready to share,” I said. “Can you be a hundred percent certain that she hit him?”

  Kane shrugged. “Ainsley, I’m pretty good at my job. I’d say I’m about eighty percent sure right now before I even look at the photos. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what had caused that bruising. Most of the time when someone receives a punch, you can see indention a bit better. But she’s older, so she probably didn’t hit him that hard.”

  “Right. So she hit him, but there is no way to prove she killed him. And that she ended up in the freezer, as well, means she couldn’t have dealt the death blow.”

  “My brain hurts,” Jake said.

  “Mine too,” Kane added.

  “It’s a working theory. I’ll put it in my report but I won’t send it to your brother just yet. I need to do some more tests.”

  “Kane, how much does that pan weigh?”

  “It’s a big one, about twelve pounds. But it would take one heck of a swing to do damage like that. She’s in her eighties and maybe weighs a hundred pounds.”

  Kane pressed his lips together. “You’re right. So what are you thinking?”

  “The victim may have shoved them in the freezer to save their lives. If someone was after him, that might have been what he wanted to tell Lizzie. It would explain why he came to town two days earlier than expected. Given the contents of his will, he might have been worried about her safety.”

  “It makes sense,” Jake said. “From what you said last night people genuinely liked him, maybe even more than they did the rest of the family. If the killer was chasing him, maybe he just did what he could to save the others.”

  “Or he was getting them out of the way so he could fight,” Kane added. “There were scratches on his arms, but those were from Becky. His DNA was under her nails. Like I said, I’m not one for assumptions. But you may be on the right track. I’ll call you after I have a chance to do a bit more work on this.”

  He left, and I sat back down in the chair.

  “Gran, I need you to wake up right now and tell me what happened. This is driving me crazy.”

  But she didn’t answer and the ominous silence didn’t help. What if the killer came back for her?

  Wait. The guard who had been posted outside her door hadn’t been there.

  I jumped up and flung open the door.

  No one was there.

  “What is it?” Jake asked.

  “We have a problem.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Jake and I waited in Mrs. Whedon’s room until my brother showed up. I wanted to yell and scream but I had a sneaking suspicion it wasn’t his fault.

  Jake pulled me into his arms, probably to stop my pacing. I did that when I was worried. “Maybe it was some kind of mix-up,” he offered.

  I shook my head. “Greg was just as surprised as I was that no one was outside the door of Gran’s room.” He’d promised last night that he’d keep it covered.

  “Someone could have come in here and—”

  “But they didn’t,” Jake said. “She’s fine and her vitals are great. I’ve been watching them since I came in.”

  He squeezed me tight. I wrapped my arms around his waist and soaked up the strength he was giving me. “Take a deep breath, hon. We’ll make sure she’s protected.”

  “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  “You’re never going to have to find out.”

  I called the shop to tell them I’d be late, and Mike answered. I explained why I wasn’t back yet.
r />   “You stay there,” he said. “I promise you by the end of today, you won’t have to worry about her ever being alone. We had that going for the first few days, but everyone has been so busy getting ready for the festival. But she’s our priority now. One of us will always be there. We protect our family.”

  I had to blink back tears. The people who showed their wares in my shop were so much more than coworkers, they really had become family.

  “Thank you.”

  Not long after that, Greg walked in with his angry face. I prayed it wasn’t directed at me.

  “There won’t be a problem from now on,” he bit out. “Kevin was stationed outside the room but says a blond woman said she’d sit with Gran for a bit and that he should take a break.”

  He nearly growled his words. If I wasn’t so mad at him, I might have felt sorry for Kevin. “Did you check the security cameras?” Jake asked.

  “That’s my next stop. The nurses say they didn’t see her.”

  “Maybe the tapes will show something,” Jake said. “I’ll stay here. Why don’t you and Ainsley go take a look.”

  My brother opened his mouth to disagree, but I held up a hand. “I’m going.”

  He nodded. “Jake, I’ve got Clyde coming in for the first watch. He should be here in a quarter hour.”

  “Okay. Go, you two.” He shooshed us out the door.

  “I know you’re mad at me,” Greg said as we moved quickly down the hallway. I had no idea where we were going but the hospital wasn’t that big. It only had two floors.

  “I’m not,” I said. “I’m scared for her. If we hadn’t shown up when we did—I don’t even want to think about what might have happened.”

  At the end of the hall, he knocked on the door that said security. A heavy-set man in a blue uniform opened the door.

  “Sheriff.”

  “Hey Ronny. This is my sister Ainsley. She’s—helping with the investigation. Did you take a look?”

  The other man nodded. “I’ve got it ready for you.”

  They only had cameras in the long hallways.

  The first part of the video showed Kevin sitting just outside the door reading a comic book. A little bit later, a woman with a hat showed up and talked to Kevin. She wore a floral dress and high heels. There was something familiar about her.

  The young deputy left, and the woman stood there for a minute. Then she glanced down the hall both ways, and pushed open the hospital room door.

  The woman went in for about five minutes, and then came back out and had a tissue in her hand.

  The nurse we’d seen in the room when we came in passed the woman in the hall, but she’d been staring down at her charts. The nurse entered the room without ever looking up.

  Then Jake and I came into view.

  “Uh,” I said.

  My healthy lunch did a turn in my stomach. Even though her face wasn’t visible, she was familiar. I just couldn’t place her.

  “We should move the patient to the second floor,” Ronny said. “I can code the elevator so that only one of our guys can punch it in for visitors. And we’ll lock the side entrances.”

  “Ronny, are you sure you don’t want to come work for me?” Greg asked.

  The man chuckled. “I’d never pass the health exam.”

  Greg patted him on the shoulder.

  “The other thing is that she doesn’t lift her head once. It’s like she knows those cameras are there,” Ronny said. “With that hat on, there’s no way to identify her, unless someone on the staff got a good look. Did your guy have a description?”

  Greg grunted. “No. Other than she was taller than him, which we can see here, and she was older. He said maybe in her late fifties or early sixties. She had that plastic kind of face.”

  “Like she had too much plastic surgery?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Greg answered.

  The body shape seemed familiar. She was tall and extra curvy.

  “Excuse me, Ronny. Can you back that up to right before she opens the door?”

  He rewound it and then paused the tape.

  The diamonds on her hand. Every finger was covered with large rings.

  I closed my eyes. Where had I seen those?

  “Funeral,” I said out loud. “Oh. No. That’s her.”

  “Who?” Greg asked.

  “You’re not going to believe this, and I only saw her once for a short time, but she made an impression. I’m fairly certain that’s Mrs. Gallagher, Mort’s mom.”

  “What?” Greg coughed. I patted him on the back.

  “Maybe if we see her vehicle, we can confirm it’s her.”

  Ronny shook his head. “Sorry. We have them out the front but not in the parking areas. It’s a small town and we have a pretty small budget for security.”

  “I understand,” I said. “I’m grateful for your help.” If only she’d looked up.

  “What if she goes to Lizzie? She might know the truth.”

  Greg and I looked at each other.

  “The bakery.” We said it at the same time.

  He took off running so fast, there was no way I could keep up with him.

  I slid to a stop in front of Gran’s room. I already couldn’t breathe. Running is something I just didn’t do.

  Jake jumped up. “Is everything okay? Did you see who it was?”

  I struggled for breath. “Greg’s gone to the bakery to check on Becky and Lizzie. We think—” I gasped for breath. “What if she tries to hurt them?”

  As much as I wanted to run after my brother, I would not leave Gran alone. “Will you go? Please? Make sure they are all right?”

  I closed my eyes. They would be fine. They would be fine. They would be fine.

  “I’m not leaving you, Ainsley. Greg has it handled. But you’re in just as much danger.”

  There was a knock on the door, and I might have screamed. In my defense, I was a bit on edge.

  The door slammed open, and Deputy Clyde was there with his gun. “Police,” he said sharply.

  “Sorry, Clyde. You scared me.” My hands were shaking so hard that Jake took them in his.

  “Ains had a bit of an upset,” Jake said.

  Clyde nodded as if that explained everything.

  “You there?” Greg’s voice crackled through Clyde’s walkie-talkie.

  “Yeah, boss.”

  “Tell my sister the bakery is secure.”

  I nodded.

  “She heard you.”

  The knot in my stomach released.

  “You two can go on if you want,” Clyde said. “I have instructions to move Mrs. Whedon upstairs. The staff is getting her room ready now.”

  “Okay. But just so you and the other officers know, family and friends will be doing shifts by her bedside. We want to make sure—uh…”

  “That she has someone close when she wakes up,” Jake finished for me. “We’ll make sure you have a list of names.”

  “All right. They’ll need to bring IDs. We’ll be checking those closely from here on out.”

  I forced myself to smile. “Thank you.”

  His walkie-talking crackled. “Get my sister to the station ASAP.”

  What now?

  Chapter Twelve

  Jake came inside the station with me. Kevin was at the front desk with his head hung low. My brother was fair, but he expected excellence from his deputy. As much as I wanted to feel sorry for him, he’d put Gran’s life in danger.

  Not that I thought Mort’s mom would kill her.

  Or would she? If she’d found out about the will, and that she had lost her home… People had murdered for less.

  I headed back to Greg’s office. He was in there grabbing some photos.

  “What’s up?” Jake asked.

  “We pulled her over for a broken taillight and she assaulted the deputy.”

  Oh. My. That woman was unreal.

  “She also doesn’t have a license. She’s already lawyered up, but I was wondering if you could do that thing you
do?”

  I pursed my lips. “What do you mean?”

  “Where you get people to talk to you casually.”

  My eyes went wide, and Jake chuckled behind me.

  “Gregory McGregor, are you asking me to help? And to spy on that woman?”

  He sighed wearily. “Yes.”

  “Get me a cup of tea and a cup of coffee.”

  After he did what I asked, I carried them to the interview room. “Greg, are you in here?” Then I stopped short when I saw her.

  “Mrs. Gallagher? Are you okay?”

  She narrowed her eyes at me. “Do I know you?”

  Thank goodness she didn’t remember. “No, ma’am, but I was, uh, friends with Mort. He was just the sweetest.”

  Her lip trembled and a tear fell to her cheek. “I miss him so much. That boy could get in my craw, but I just loved him to death. I can’t believe he’s gone. A parent should not outlive their child. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

  “Um. I’m so very sorry for your loss. Let me find you some tissues. This is coffee, and that’s tea.” I sat the cups on the table. “Take one if you need one or I can get you a bottle of water.”

  “Can you bring some cream and sugar for the coffee?”

  “Of course. I’ll be right back.”

  The coffee bar at the station was in the back. I ran to get everything and came back.

  “Here you go.” I handed her an entire box of tissues.

  “Did something else happen? It’s not like you haven’t been through enough already.” I gave her my sad face.

  She dabbed her nose. “I lost my temper and they hauled me in like a common criminal. I was upset. My son was killed in this awful town. My detective that we keep on staff is useless. But he did find out others had been hurt that night. One of them was some old woman. Of course, he left out the fact that she’s in a coma. He won’t have a job when I get home.” She waved the tissue. “Especially after all of this.”

  Rude.

  “You’d think they’d understand I’m grieving. I have to know why my son was murdered. Any mother would do the same.”

  Except maybe not beating a police officer with a cell phone.

  “I’m sure. Have the police not been helpful?”

  “No. Every time I call, I get the same non-answer. It’s an ongoing investigation. I don’t know why that Hernandez girl isn’t locked up tight. She’s been after my son and his money for as long as they’d known one another.”