Chewy Chocolate Chip Murder: A Cookie Lane Cozy Mystery - Book 1 (3 page)

Detective Jack Bradshaw held the note
at arm’s length and squinted at it. He tilted his head from one side, then
swapped the angle out to the other.

“Is everything okay?” Cat asked.

“Yeah, fine. I forgot my reading
glasses,” the Detective said and gave a sheepish grin. He zipped it off his
lips a second later.

Bradshaw had arrived at the bakery in
record time. Not ten minutes after she’d made the call had passed, and he’d
rapped his knuckles on the front door downstairs. Only then, had she been brave
enough to go down into the bakery and open up for him.

“I’m sorry, I don’t have any reading
glasses. Otherwise, I’d give them to you,” Catherine said.

“No, no, it’s fine. I’ll have to take
this to the station, though. It’s evidence.” Detective Bradshaw folded it up
and placed it on top of the coffee table. He glanced at the TV and the dance
instructor frozen mid-step. His eyebrows did a dance, but he didn’t say a word.

“That’s it?” Catherine asked. “You’re
just going to take the note in? What about the break-in? There could be someone
in the bakery, right now.”

Bradshaw pursed his lips. “Right. You
stay here. I’ll go check it out.  Give me five minutes.” He walked out of the
room and down the hall before she could reply.

Catherine shook her head. Manners
clearly weren’t Jack Bradshaw’s strong point. She rose from the sofa and
crossed to the bookshelf, then lifted the ‘death journal’ from the top.

She turned it over in her hands and
stroked the leather cover. This was her only piece of evidence now. She had to
figure out who’d killed Beth, not just for herself, but for the woman who’d
given her hope in her darkest moments.

Cat tucked the book against her chest.
“This is personal.”

Jack’s footsteps clomped up the
stairs. Catherine hurried back to the sofa, then shoved the journal beneath one
of the cushions. She sat down on top of it and crossed her ankles.

Detective Bradshaw entered the living
room and clicked off his flashlight. “No one in the bakery,” he said. “But I
found the back door wide open.”

“That’s impossible. I locked it this
evening.”

“Are you sure?” Detective Bradshaw
asked, in a monotone. “Because the lock wasn’t broken.”

“I am positive, detective.” Cat
glanced at the curtains which obscured the road from view. She shut her eyes
for a second, then opened them and focused her gaze on Bradshaw’s. “Someone’s
trying to pin this murder on me.”

“It’s too early to make those kinds of
assumptions, Miss Kelley.”

“Call me Cat,” she said, then blinked.
“And it’s not too early. That note insinuates as much.”

Jack touched his palm to his top
pocket. “I’ll have to examine it back at the station, Miss Kelley.”

“Cat.”

“I believe you attended Mrs. Walter’s
memorial service?” He asked, and tucked his arms behind his back.

Catherine kept a straight face. “Yeah,
I attended, all right. And the Walters were exceptionally rude to me. Beth was
my best friend. No, she was more than that. Obviously, I attended the service.”

Jack Bradshaw bobbed his chin up and
down, once. He opened his mouth to say something. Another question, no doubt.

“You said Beth was hit over the head
and pushed off the pier?” Cat asked.

Bradshaw snapped his mouth shut. “Yes,
that’s correct but –”

“And you don’t have the murder
weapon?”

“No, not yet, but it looks like she
was hit with something heavy. Perhaps, a tackle box,” Jack said. His cheeks
colored and he clicked his teeth together.

“A tackle box? Does that mean your
main suspect is a fisherman? Or a fisherwoman?” Cat asked. She’d never
questioned anyone before. It was fun. Intimidating, but fun.

“No,” Jack replied.

“Then why do you suspect a tackle box
to be the murder weapon? What information led you to believe that?” Cat asked,
and put up a smile – the brightest she could muster while talking about her
friend’s murder.

“We’ve had some reports of a stranger
hanging around the pier,” Bradshaw said. His eyes widened, and he pressed his
lips together.

“A stranger?”

“That’s enough,” the detective said.
“This is an ongoing investigation, and I’m not at liberty to share that kind of
information with you. Is that understood?”

Catherin sighed. She had pushed him a
little far. But that extra push had just given her a new lead. “I’m sorry,
detective. I didn’t mean to put you in an awkward position.”

He brushed off his dark blue shirt,
the corners of his lips twitching into a smile. “That’s, it’s, yes, it’s all
right.”

“Thank you for coming out here,” Cat
said. She’d been pretty freaked at the thought of a stranger in her bakery.

“It’s what I do,” the detective
replied. “I’ll see myself out, Miss Kelley. There’ no need to come downstairs.”

“Thanks,” Cat said and glanced at the
TV.

“Yeah, I’ll leave you with your dance
lessons,” he said, and his mouth twitched again. An almost smile.

His almost smile was cute.

Cat shook her head to get that thought
out. “Good night, detective,” she said.

“Miss Kelley,” he grunted, then turned
and marched back down the hall. The door closed a second later, then the gate
after that. His footsteps echoed down the stairs and into the bakery.

Oreo hopped into her lap and settled.
His purr radiated through her sweats, and she stroked his velvety ears.

“The pier,” Cat whispered. “That’s our
next lead, Oreo. We’ve got to get down there and find out what happened.” She
practiced a few breathing exercises, then leaned her head against the sofa
cushions. This was ridiculous. She couldn’t let a little break-in, and a
strange note set her on edge.

Tomorrow, she’d go back to the scene
of the crime. What would Bradshaw think about that?

Lacy and Cat stood shoulder to
shoulder, staring at the slatted bench.

“This is it?” Lacy asked.

“Yeah, this was her favorite bench.
She used to come here on days like this. Sunny Saturdays,” Catherine replied,
then sighed and ran a hand through her shoulder-length dark hair.

“I can’t believe she’s gone,” Lacy
replied.

The crash of waves against the rocks
interrupted her sentence. Lacy stepped up to the bench, then turned and sat
down. She looked out at the ocean, and a salty breeze tussled her short-cut red
locks. She shivered, then pointed out at the pier.

Catherine followed her gaze.

Three or four men stood huddled
together on the end of the stone and wood construction, their fishing poles on
their shoulders.

“Is that where it happened?” Lacy asked.

“I can’t be sure. But it was somewhere
here. And that means the killer was here too,” Cat replied. She narrowed her
eyes at the huddle of fishermen, then sniffed. The strong tang of fish hit her
olfactory cells full on. “Wow. Kinda fresh out here.”

“Tell me about it,” Lacy replied.

Catherine strolled down the wooden
walkway and folded her arms against her pale yellow cardigan. The men on the
pier hadn’t noticed her, yet.

“Hey, wait for me,” Lacy said. She
rushed up beside Cat and tapped her on the arm. “You can’t just leave me back
there. I mean, there’s a killer on the loose, right? What if he decided I was
next? What if –?”

“The sky fell on your head?”

“Ha-ha, very funny,” Lacy said.

“If you continue freaking out like
that I’m going to start calling you Chicken Little.” Catherine linked arms with
her friend and led her down the dock.

Seagulls cawed overhead, scoping the
area for a quick bite to eat. They swept down and landed on the end of the
pier, white and black bodies far too fat for scavengers.

Beth had loved them. She’d fed them
bait, and bits of fish and other gross tidbits Cat hadn’t asked about. Bleh.

The women turned onto the pier, then
strolled down.

Shouts reached their ears. The
fishermen huddle didn’t budge, but the men glared at each other across the
short distance which separated them.

“I didn’t touch the old lady. She was
my friend too, George. You’ve lost your tackle if you think I have it in me to
–”

“Uh huh?” The shorter guy asked, and
tapped his heel on the rough boards. “Then how come you were the last one to
leave the pier the other night, when she was here. Huh? Explain that. I bet you
did do it. You should be ashamed of yourself. She was a saint!”

“She reminded me of my great grandma,”
another man said, and dabbed a crusty handkerchief beneath his lower eyelids.

“She was everyone’s grandma,” the
short man yelled.

“Keep it down,” the final fisherman
said, a portly guy in a loose shirt. He pointed at Cat and Lacy. “We’ve got
company.”

The men turned to face them, and Lacy
tugged on Cat’s arm. But Cat didn’t stop moving. She walked right up to the
group and flashed them her brightest smile. “Hi,” she said, “I’m Catherine
Kelley.”

“We know who you are,” the tall man
said. The guy who’d been accused of hurting Beth. “We heard that you’re the one
that’s getting all Beth’s money.”

“I’m not,” Cat replied. She hadn’t
heard anything about a will or money, apart from accusations, and she didn’t
care, for that matter. “I was one of Beth’s closest friend’s though.”

“Bob,” the tall man said, and extended
a grimy hand.

Cat shook it. Lacy grimaced.

“George.” That came from the short
man. “The fat guy is Bill, and the weepy guy is Leonard.”

“They’re like the seven dwarves,” Lacy
said, “only there’s four of them.”

“Who are you calling a dwarf?” George
replied, and drew himself up straight. He shifted the fishing pole against his
shoulder.

“Oh no,” Lace said, “I didn’t mean it
like that. I just meant –”

Cat waved a hand to draw attention
from the fishermen – and to take the heat off her best friend. “I’m
investigating Beth’s murder.”

“You’re not a cop,” George said and
folded his stubby arms. “Show me your badge.”

“You’re absolutely right, George,”
Catherine replied. The wind whisked her hair around her face, and it whipped
her across the nose. She hooked it back behind her ear. “I’m not a cop. But the
cops think I did it, and I loved Beth with all my heart.”

“Oh, Beth,” Leonard wailed, then
dabbed at his eyes again.

“So, you didn’t kill her, then?” Bill
asked, and adjusted the hem of his pants around his expansive girth.

“Of course, she killed her,” George
yelled. “She’d say anything to get out of it.”

“A second ago, you said I killed her,”
Bob replied, and lifted a finger into the air. “Everyone shut up and listen to
what this nice lady has to say.”

George pouted and examined the end of
his fishing pole. “Fine.”

“Right,” Cat said and searched her
thoughts. She had to get back on track after the interruption. “Right, so as I
was saying, I’ve taken to investigating.”

“So you can pin the murder on someone
else,” George grumbled, and Bob slapped him on the back. He made an ‘oof’
noise, then shut his mouth.

“I wanted to find out if you guys had
seen anything suspicious around here, in the weeks leading up to Beth’s
murder.” A bitter taste spread on Cat’s tongue. The word murder didn’t fit into
her vocabulary.

“I didn’t see nothing,” George
replied.

Bill let out a massive burp and Lacy
recoiled, then pressed her palm to her mouth.

“Anyone else?” What if they didn’t
speak to her because she didn’t have a badge? That would make her little
mini-investigation even more difficult.

Bob raised his arm. “I saw a stranger
hanging around the day before Beth’s murder. Short, bald guy.”

“You sure you’re not talking about
this stranger?” Bill asked, and jerked his thumb toward George.

The short man growled low in his
throat, then pointed to the tufts of gray hair which encircled the naked patch
of skin at his crown. “Do I look bald to you?”

Bob ignored them. “I tried speaking to
him. We’re fishermen. We stick together around here. But this guy, sheesh, he
didn’t want anything to do with us. He just gave me this real creepy lookin’
grin then wandered off. He spoke to Beth, though.”

“He talked to Beth? Did she tell you
what it was about?” Cat asked.

“Nope, but she didn’t like him either.
I could tell from the look on her face.” Bob stood his fishing pole straight
and placed the end on the wooden boards. “Didn’t catch his name either, but I
haven’t seen him around since Beth since she –”

Leonard burst into a fresh set of
sobs, again.

“Thank you, Bob, that’s helpful.” Cat
stepped back and waved to them. “I’ve got to go now, but I’ll let you know what
else I find out. And hey, if you guys like cookies, you should stop by my store
on Monday. I’ll fix you up with something good.”

“You got any of those ginger cookies?”
Bill called after her.

“You bet,” she replied, and gave him a
thumbs up.

She grasped Lacy’s arm, then walked
back down the pier. Her hair whipped around her head, tangled by the salty
breeze.

“That was… an experience,” Lacy said.
“I thought I’d die when he burped.”

Cat rolled her eyes. “C’mon,” she
said. “All this investigating has given me an appetite. Let’s go to the
farmer’s market and check out the produce.”

“That’s the best idea I’ve heard in
weeks. Apart from the Choc Mudslide Cookie, of course,” Lacy replied.

“Of course.” But Cat couldn’t get the
image of the strange, short man out of her thoughts. Another lead, and another
suspect. The cookie dough got stickier by the minute.