1 Nothing Bundt Murder (8 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN
TEEN
             

Casey checked his watch and handed me one of the coffees he’d just bought at the Sunrise Palms Coffee Cafe. I took it and yawned. “Stevie, the guy who answered the phone, said the detective won’t be in until Seven a.m. We’re still a half an hour early,” I told him.

He nodded and looked at his watch. Then he quickly covered his wrist again when he saw me staring. He got into the car and closed the door. “We have time. Would you mind if we make a stop on the way?”

I shrugged. “Sure. No problem.” I yawned again. We’d both taken a nap at my place—Casey on the couch, me in my bedroom— while waiting for Detective Sanders to start his shift. But  four hours wasn’t nearly enough sleep for me.

We’d been hoping to bring our evidence in last night, but since it
wasn’t exactly an emergency, Stevie refused to call him in, in the middle of the night. And though I assured Casey that I’d be alright alone, he was worried that Doug might come after me, so he valiantly offered to stay at my house until morning.

Neither of us were in the best shape for our presentation to the detective, but we wanted to do it first thing in order to help get Babette out of jail as soon as possible.

Casey started the car but instead of taking a left towards the police station, he took a right.

Five minutes later, just as the sun was starting to come up, he stopped the car in front of a fence, got out to unlock it, then got back in the car and drove us onto a construction site.

We drove past a bunch of trucks and bulldozers and flattened black dirt, and pulled up in front of a white trailer.

“Where are we?” I asked, looking
around, then at the trailer. “Is this where you work?”

He nodded. “I just want to show you som
ething. Follow me.”

Inside the trailer, he turned
on a light. “Here take a look.”

I followed him
over to a table, upon which was sitting some large, detailed color drawings.

“What is all this?” I asked, looking at the top one. “Is this the mall you’re building?”

Casey nodded.

I looked from one picture to the next to the next. “But it doesn’t even look like a mall really,” I
said.

“Exactly. You see,” he pointed to one of the drawings. “This what it’s all going to look like. It’s not your standard soulless shopping mall, contrary to what Babette told you on that tape.  It’s going to be a pedestrian mall. No cars. A walking area. For families. And couples.”

“ Not only will it not hurt the local merchants,” he continued. “It will help to revitalize the whole area. And over here, you see, there’ll be a housing development--some of which will be for low income seniors.”

I tried to follow his excited explanations as he pointed out various aspects of the drawings.

“It’s really something,” I said, studying the drawings. “It’s beautiful. Nothing at all like I expected.”

He nodded, looking so sincere and intense. It almost broke my heart.

“So…I guess you’re not such an evil real estate developer, after all,” I said.

He looked at me, surprised. “No. I guess I’m not.”

But he’s still a cheater! My inner voice screamed.

“Well…I guess we better get to the police station,” I
said, taking a step back.

“Right,” he nodded. “Okay. Let’s go.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

We waited in Detective Sanders’ office as he watched the footage from the thumb drive. It seemed to take forever.

“Hmnn,” he said, when it was finally done.

I’d promised Casey that I would be calm and let him do the prodding which was probably a good thing, because at the moment, I felt like screaming.

When no one spoke, I leaned forward in my seat, growing impatient and angry, my natural journalistic nature coming out. “Detective, obviously that t
ape means Babette’s innocent. Right?”

Casey shot me a look, then he looked back at the detective. “A
s you can see, Detective, that tape pretty much proves that Babette was telling the truth. She was not the one who put the poison into the frosting.”

“It does look that way, Detective Sanders said, still stroking his moustache “I didn’t believe her about that cat she claimed she heard outside. But it looks like she was telling the truth."

I nodded eagerly.

He looked over at me. “You say you ‘found’ this in her house?”

“Yeah, in Doug’s den,” I said.

Casey shot me a look in warning. “Um…” I frowned. “I went in to get the cat and I…stumbled on this footage.”

The detective stroked his beard again, studying me.

Casey sat forward but still spoke calmly. “The fact that Doug obviously had possession of this footage and didn’t turn it in, seems somewhat suspicious, does it not?”

“It does at that,” the detective said. “Especially considering he’s the one that found the poison research in her web history.”

“Because he was probably the one researching
it himself!” I interrupted. “To try to kill Babette!”

Casey put his hand on mine to calm me. Which it did in one way. In another, it had the opposite effect.

“It is possible,” the detective agreed.

“So you’ll let her out?”I prodded.

The detective stood up.” I appreciate your coming in,” he said. “But we’ll handle it from here.” He walked to the door to show us out.

I looked at him in disbelief. Then I looked at Casey, urging him on with my eyes. But he just started walking to the door
. But just before walking out of the room, Casey turned and looked at the detective. “You do realize, if you have evidence that exonerates Mrs. Berwick, and you keep her locked up, it won’t look good. She might even have a lawsuit against you.”

“Especially once the newpapers find out!” I added.

The detective looked at him. Then he exhaled loudly and went over and picked up the phone. “Fred, we’re going to be releasing Babette Berwick from our custody,” he said. “Yup, that’s right. Some new evidence has appeared that calls her guilt into question. And have an officer go by Doug’s house and bring him in. I have some questions for him.”

I squeezed Casey’s excitedly and smiled at him. He smiled back.

“Satisfied?” the detective asked.

“Yes! Thanks!” I went up and hugged him, which surprised the heck out of
him. And out of me. “Thanks!” I said again as Casey took me by the hand and led me out.

***

“We did it!” I screamed, when we were outside. “I can’t believe it."

“You did it,” Casey said, seeming amused by my exuberance. “I was just along for the ride.”

“No, you were wonderful!” I hugged him quickly and then I pulled back and put on my best British accent: “You do realize Detective that if you keep Babette in custody she will have quite the lawsuit on her hands. Cheerio…”

“That’s a dreadful English accent,” he said, shaking his head with a horrified expression on his face. “Nothing like mine. Nothing at all.”

He then tried to do his best imitation of an American accent which actually wasn’t all that bad. But of course I didn’t tell him that.

As we walked back to his car he looked me in the eyes. “So, shall we go celebrate? Tonight? For dinner?”

I nodded shyly. “Yes. I’d like that,” I said.

As he looked at me and I at him, we both found ourselves moving slowly towards one another as if drawn by a magnet. And this time there was no inner voice warning me off. In fact my thoughts were running in the opposite direction.
So what if he has a fiancé. Maybe they’ll break up. He’ll change. For me. Yes, I was sure of it. He would change for me…

Our faces moved towards each other as if in slow motion, our lips were just about to touch—when suddenly the sound of my inner fears blar
ed out from in between us: “Don’t fall for that cheater. Don’t fall for him again! No don’t give him the time of day, cause cheaters never change.”

I gasped and pulled back. Casey looked at me puzzled. “Where did that come from?” he asked, looking around then up, then down in between us
.

I reached into my purse and pulled out my cell phone. “It’s my personalized ringtone for Kevin,” I said, urgently trying to figure out how stop that stupid song. 
“Some old country song.”

Finally I hit the ‘ignore call’ button which sent Kevin’s call to voicemail.

“Kevin. That’s your boyfriend in New York? The one you were talking about to Babette?”

I nodded.

“Right,” Casey said. He was looking at me, biting the inside of his cheek--he seemed to be waiting for some kind of explanation about the current state of my relationship with Kevin.

I ran my hand over my ponytail, shaking my head at the irony. All I’d wanted for the last few weeks was for Kevin to call me. Then, he finally
did I no longer cared. Because I was falling hard for another cheater. Another guy I couldn’t let myself be with.

I blew out my breath.

“I don’t think I can go celebrate with you tonight,” I said, forcing myself to think more clearly.

Saved by the personalized ringtone.

Casey nodded, still looking into my eyes. For a moment I could have sworn I saw some emotion flash by in his eyes. Hurt, or disappointment or something. But it was just a momentary flicker, then his usual charming, amused expression returned.

“So…I guess you’ll want to call him back then,” he said. And without waiting for an answer he walked to the passenger side door and opened it. “Here, I’ll give you a lift home and you can talk to him in private.”

“No…I…,” I started to explain. But how could I tell him that Kevin didn’t matter? And that he was the reason?

I couldn’t. Because he was just as bad as Kevin was. I couldn’t open myself up to being hurt like that again.

I got into the car.

We drove in silence all the way home, then I opened the car door, mumbling a quick ‘thanks.’

As I walked up the walkway, I heard his car zoom off, sounding almost angry. I turned back and watched him drive away, feeling bad for Casey for a moment. But then I reminded myself what a cheat he was. And I felt bad for me instead.

CHAPTER
NINETEEN

Instead of going straight to the guest house, I stopped inside, Nana
’s condo. She was there with Birdie, both wearing their colorful walking clothes.

“Was that the count’s car we heard leaving? So early?” Birdie asked as I poured myself some coffee and joined them at the granite island that sat between the kitchen and the living room.

“The lord,” I said sadly as I slipped onto one of the stools. “And that’s not him. It’s his da. But yes, that was him.”

“Hmn. Late night?” Nana asked, trying to sound casual. And not pulling it off. “I guess your dinner went well?”

“Yeah, dinner was great. We solved the crime,” I shrugged.

“You did?” Birdie said.

That surprised both of them.

I nodded. “We got Babette out of jail by finding footage of Doug breaking into the store. He was setting her up for the crime.”

Nana eyed me with suspicion. “And just where did you find this footage?”

I considered not telling her that I’d broken into Doug’s house, but I knew it was only a matter of time before she got it out of me, so why fight it?

“We……I broke into Doug’s house and found it on his computer.”

To my surprise, she shrugged it off.  “Good for you, honey,” she patted my hand. “Have a danish. You look thin.”

I took one but didn’t really felt like eating.

“So why didn’t you invite Mr. Baron inside,” Birdie asked, putting her hand on mine. “Or did you? Did he blow you off?”

“What? No. I didn’t invite him. I promised myself I wouldn’t date a cheater anymore and… that’s just what he is. A cheater.”

“You don’t know that,” Nana, said. “Just because he cheated on someone else doesn’t mean he’d cheat on you.”

“I think it does,” I said sadly.

“Okay, that’s it!” Birdie said. “You’re off the island.”

“What?”

Nana took my Danish away as Birdie nudged me off of my stool.

“We’re voting you off the island…”

“What island?” I looked at them confused and tried to grab my coffee which they’d moved to the other side of the counter.

“The kitchen island, obvs,” Nana said rolling her eyes. “We’re not going to let you stay and regale us with sad tales when you have a wonderful guy who so clearly likes you!”

I looked at them, realizing that someone had been watching too much reality TV.

“Nana…” I said. “C’mon.” I rolled my eyes and reached for the Danish.

“Nope!” she swatted my hand away. “Not until you wise up. You’ve given up. On your career, on your love life…”

“On your hair!” Birdie chimed in.

“If you don’t start taking your life more seriously, no one will.”

I looked at them, blinking, my feelings hurt. Then I shrugged, saying nothing more as I walked back to the casita and lay down for a nap. 

I’d never felt so alone.