Green Velvet Murder: A Donut Hole Cozy Mystery - Book 16 (6 page)

Bob’s Bug Debunkers.

Lime green, printed words sprawled
across the plate glass window next to the steel rimmed front door. Bug pictures
splattered the jamb and the handle on the door? Insect-shaped, of course.

“Wow,” Amy said. “I like this Bob,
guy. He’s got some kinda style.”

“Not the good kind,” Heather replied.

Amy snorted, then linked her arm
through Heather’s. “Shall we?”

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
Heather cracked her knuckles – a terrible habit she’d picked up from Ryan – and
stared at the crawling bug pictures. “Any lead from Geoff gives me
butterflies.”

“Ah, Mr. Lawless. Inducer of
butterflies, master of lies, boiler of fudge balls.”

“First of his name?”

“Sacrilege,” Amy replied.

They hurried to the door, and Amy
opened it then held it for Heather. She traipsed inside and hit a wall of
citronella scent. She coughed and scrubbed at her nose.

“Keeps the bugs out,” Bob said and
straightened behind the counter to the left. “I saw you ladies hanging around
outside. You got a bug problem?”

Amy strolled into the store, hands in
her pockets. The door swung behind her and clanged shut. “I suppose you could
classify a murderer as a pest.”

“What’s that now?” Bob dug his pinky
into his ear and wiggled it. “My hearing is almost gone. All those bug bombs.”

“Bub bombs take your hearing away?”

“I got to blame it on something,” Bob
replied. “Can’t be anything else.”

Amy lowered her head and muttered,
“Might want to try a shower, ol’ buddy, ol’ Bob.”

Heather ignored her and walked between
the two rows of shelves in the store. Bob had arranged rattraps and poison,
alongside canisters of the accused bug bombs. She picked up a can of pest
repellant and shook it. The marble clattered around inside.

“What do you need killed?”

“Her curiosity.” Amy grinned from ear
to ear. “But that’s a two-day job, at least.”

“Bob,” Heather said, and shot Amy a
mean look, narrow eyes, and thin lips, the works. “I need to ask you a few
questions. I’m investigating the murder of Bernie Belushi. I’m sure you heard
what happened.”

“Some old lady kicked the bucket in
her new house,” Bob said, still wiggling his pinky in his ear.

“I missed your sensitivity, Bob,”
Heather replied.

“Her bucket was kicked for her.” Amy
strode to the counter and placed her palms on the wood. “Say, you got any Cheetos?
I’m jonesing for orange dust.”

“One sec,” Bob said, then reached
below the counter and brought out a sealed bag. He plopped it down.

“How much?”

“On the house,” he replied, then
turned to Heather. “I’d answer your questions any day, Mrs. Shepherd, but today
is a bad time. A real bad time.”

Amy popped the bag open and brought
out a chip. She inhaled it, crunched on the orange goodness, then licked her
fingers. “Why’s it a bad time, Bob?”

“I’ve been robbed,” he said. “And my
good for nothing assistant didn’t come into work either. I don’t know why I
gave her a chance. She’s been a letdown since day one. Always taking long lunch
breaks and turning up late.”

“I heard about the robbery. What was
taken?” Heather asked. She didn’t give up easy – today’s interview wasn’t an
exception to that rule.

Bob sighed and slapped his cheeks,
then dragged them down. “Someone broke into my safe. I’m the only one who knew
the code, so I dunno how they got in without exploding the darn thing.”

“Puzzler,” Amy said, and ate two more
Cheetos.

“You didn’t write the code down
anywhere?” Heather asked. That seemed like a ‘Bob’ thing to do.

“Well, yeah, otherwise I would’ve
forgotten it. I wrote it on my desk pad,” Bob replied, shamelessly.

“I see. And your assistant had access
to that office?” Heather asked.

“You don’t think she broke into it? Oh
man, that’s why she didn’t come into work?” Bob fumed behind the counter. He
slammed his fists onto the wood. “I should have known better than to trust
her.”

“How could you know?” Amy asked, then
stopped chewing and flinched. She stared out of the front window of the store,
past the massive green letters and bugs. “We’ve got company.”

“Huh?” Heather peered past her bestie.
A slow smile parted her lips. “Bob, you’re going to get your shot at justice.”
She pointed to the cruiser in the street outside, and the handsome officer
beside it.

Ryan strode to the store, then opened
the door. He narrowed his eyes at Heather. “Fancy meeting you here, Shepherd.”
He winked at her.

“I could say the same for you,
Shepherd,” she replied.

“That’s Detective Shepherd to you.”

Amy fake gagged. “So cute I could die.
No really. Are we done here?”

Bob looked from Amy to Ryan and then
to Heather, confusion crumpling his brow into a series of cavernous wrinkles.

“Yeah, let’s leave Detective Shepherd
to his work,” Heather said, then strode past her husband. She brushed the back
of his neck with her fingertips.

Ryan chuckled. “Stick around outside,
please, I need to have a word with the two of you.”

“Sounds like we’re in trouble,” Amy
muttered.

They walked out into the sunlight and
stopped on the sidewalk. Heather gazed at her husband through the glass. He
brought out his notepad and pen, then gestured and wrote down a note.

Bob the Debunker talked and waved his
arms around. He pointed to the back of the store, then at the roof and the
floor.

“I wonder what Ryan has to say?” Amy
asked, gaze on the clouds overhead.

Heather didn’t have a clue, for once.

Heather and Amy milled around on the
sidewalk. A couple of people strolled by tipped caps or smiled a ‘hello,' other
than, it was pretty quiet.

“The suspense is killing me,” Amy said
and peaked at Ryan and Bob inside the store. “I left my Cheetos on the
counter.”

“You and those Cheetos,” Heather
replied, and shook her head. “You’d better not like them better than my
donuts.”

“You know nothing can compare to your
donuts.”

Heather hummed Nothing Compares To You
by Sinead O’Connor, then cut off midway and giggled. “I can’t believe all
this.”

“What do you mean?” Amy asked.

“I mean, so much has happened around
us and to us. So many things are changing, and the older I get, the more I
realize that, ugh, I don’t know how to put this into words.”

Amy readjusted the straps of her
summer dress. “Try.”

“Remember when we were twenty?”

“Oh yeah. I remember. Blegh,” Amy
said, then shook her arms out.

“See? That’s what I mean. When we were
twenty, we thought it was ‘the time.' The time of our lives that we’d cherish
and remember and enjoy.” Heather shrugged.

“I think I get what you mean. The
twenties are supposed to be the years where it all happens. You’re young.
You’re having fun, and it’s the best time of your life,” Amy replied.

“Except it’s not. Every year I have
more fun. I’m older and heck if I paid attention to all the trends and the
magazines they’d probably tell me I’m past my peak. But, Ames, I feel like I’m
reaching it every year,” Heather said, then scratched her chin.

“Kind of like a fine wine?”

Heather made a pair of pincer fingers.
“I’m not that old.”

“All right, all right, no need to get
touchy. A harmless joke. Sheesh.”

The door to Bob’s Bug Debunkers
slammed behind them. They jumped and turned on the spot.

“What’s going on out here?” Ryan
asked. “Is Heather about to commit a crime?”

“Only if that crime is baking the best
donuts in Hillside,” Amy replied.

“This is why I love you.” Heather
dropped the pincers and swapped them out for a hug.

“I ain't no snitch,” Amy said,
narrowing her eyes at Heather’s hubby dearest.

Ryan blinked at them, then checked his
notepad in his pocket. He unhooked his pen and then refastened it.

“What did you want to talk to me
about?” Heather asked. She walked to him and kissed him on the cheek. She’d
never risked affection during work hours, but they were on the street and
married, for heaven’s sake.

“About Karly Belushi. I have some
information for you. Let’s face it, honey, I need your help on this case.”

“Words I’m sure your captain would
love to hear you utter,” Heather replied.

“He’s on an extended sabbatical, and
under investigation. And don’t make me feel guilty, Mrs. Shepherd, you’re going
to be my consultant soon. Only a couple more weeks!” Ryan stepped closer to the
women.

They leaned into an informal circle.

“What’s Miss Belushi been up to?”
Heather asked.

“She’s been getting rich,” Ryan
replied. He whipped out his notepad and paged through it, then stopped and
showed her the messy writing on the lines. “I spoke to Bernie Belushi’s lawyer
today. Turns out, Karly inherited all the money.”

Amy gasped and clapped a hand to her
mouth.

“That doesn’t make any sense.” Heather
touched her forehead, then took the notepad from her husband and examined it.
“Why? They had an ongoing feud according to Kent, and her son didn’t have kind
words to say about the Aunt.”

Ryan perked up and unhooked his pen
from his shirt pocket. “You’ve seen Tiny, recently?”

“Not since the break-ins, sorry,”
Heather replied. She stroked the page of writing, whorls of her fingertips
bumping on the indentations. The sharp strokes and long curls in Ryan’s
handwriting. “No, this doesn’t make sense.”

“You want to hear the crazy part?”
Ryan asked.

A car sped past, a flash of white and
black. Heather craned her neck, but she couldn’t catch a glimpse of the model.
“What’s the crazy part?” She asked and turned her gaze to her husband again.

“Bernie changed the will a week before
the murder. Her lawyer said she came in and demanded to have it changed,” Ryan
said.

“That doesn’t sound like Aunt B,” Amy
whispered, finally dropping her hand from her mouth. “She didn’t demand
anything from anyone.”

“Yeah, apparently, the will named
Bernie’s son, Tiny, as the main beneficiary.” Ryan took the notepad back, then
slotted into his pocket. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

Heather bobbed her chin up and down,
once. “Karly has to be your main suspect. She benefitted from Bernie’s death.”

“Couple this evidence with the
recording of Karly slipping something into Bernie’s drink and I have enough
evidence to pull her in for questioning and a DNA swab,” Ryan said. “But not
enough for an arrest warrant.”

“It was her,” Amy hissed. “That Karly,
ugh. I knew it. She’s such a horrible witch of a woman, but to do this? To sink
this low? Wow. Just wow.”

“We don’t know that for certain yet,”
Heather said and patted Amy on the back. “I know she gave you a lot of stress,
Ames, but we have to clear all the options. Investigate –”

“All the avenues,” Amy said, then
rolled her eyes. “I know. I swear the more time you two spend together, the
more you sound the same.”

Heather couldn’t help smiling at that.
Ryan did too, then winked at his wife again.

“I’ve got to head back to the station
before I do any questioning. Check out the last of my leads before I drag Miss
Belushi off, kicking and screaming.”

Amy shuddered at the thought.

“See ya, gorgeous,” Ryan said and
kissed Heather on the forehead. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t.”

“You can count on that,” Heather
replied. She already had her next stop, and it wasn’t Donut Delights.

 “I will never forgive you for this,
Heather Shepherd,” Amy said. Dave trotted along beside her, keeping his easy
doggy pace, as always, and silent for once. Perhaps he sensed the gravity of
the situation.

Or he’d gorged himself on donuts at
Lilly’s house, and he didn’t have complaints, for once.

Heather would have to talk to her
about that again.

“You’ll be the death of me. I just
know it.” Amy flicked Dave’s leash.

He picked up the pace and Amy had to
match it or run the risk of being dragged down the sidewalk by the small dog.

“Have I mentioned you’re a drama
queen? At least five times this week, I swear. C’mon, Ames, this is a solid
lead. I’m doing Ryan a favor by checking it out first,” Heather replied.

They turned the corner into Karly
Belushi’s street.

Amy pulled up short, and Dave did too.
“Ryan said not to do anything he wouldn’t.”

“I’m not. Ryan would question Karly.
You and I both know that,” Heather said, and wriggled her eyebrows.

“Uh, Ryan has the permission to
question Karly. The authority, I mean. You don’t.”

“Yet!” Heather clapped once. “That’s
never stopped me before. Trust me, Ames, we need to talk to her first. My
sleuth gene is dancing around on the chromosome. I can’t focus on anything
else. And that means I’m missing something.”

Amy chewed her bottom lip. Dave sat on
her foot and whined up at them. “Missing something?”

“Yeah, there are too many puzzle
pieces missing. The last case was the same. Everything was there, fitting
together, but it didn’t work quite right. And that was because we missed out on
a suspect altogether. But this, huh, I just don’t know.”

Amy stiffened, and Dave hopped off her
shoe. “Well, you’d better figure it out,” she said, “because here comes Karly.”

“Shoot,” Heather whispered.

Karly Belushi stormed down the
sidewalk. The front door to her house stood open in the distance. The woman’s
blonde hair bobbed up and down. Her high heels slammed into the concrete.

“She looks tickled pink,” Amy said.
Dave growled at Karly, then broke into a flurry of high-pitched barks. “I
second those sentiments, Dave.”

“You! I told you to stay away from
me,” Karly yelled. She halted two feet from them and threw her arms up.

Amy’s eyes widened. Dave quit barking
and tilted his head to one side.

“Actually, you told me to get off your
porch, if memory serves,” Heather replied.

“Who cares? She’s clearly angry. Let’s
go,” Amy muttered, out of the corner of her mouth.

Karly’s gaze flickered to Amy, and she
narrowed her eyes. “Ah, so it’s my nephew’s talentless worm of a girlfriend.”

“Wow, back up,” Heather said and took
a step forward. “Don’t you dare talk to Amy like that!”

“It’s okay, Heather. Let’s just go.”
Amy shrank back, and Dave followed her, growling under his breath.

“No,” Heather said and shook back her
hair. “It is most definitely not okay. Apologize to Amy.”

Karly puffed out her chest. Her
complexion turned bright purple. “I most definitely will not.”

“You will, or I’ll call my husband and
have him come down here to arrest you. You’re already on his list,” Heather
muttered.

Karly froze mid-arm wag and stared at
Heather. “Pardon me?”

“That’s right. You’re the main suspect
in his case. You wanted me to help get you off? You’ll lose your chance unless
you apologize to Amy. Understood?” Heather folded her arm. She didn’t click her
fingers – she wanted to, though.

Karly flapped her mouth open and
closed. She searched Heather’s face, then switched her gaze to Amy. She
clenched her jaw. Released. “I’m sorry.”

Amy made a tiny squeaking noise.

“I didn’t hear that, did you, Amy?”

“Heather, I don’t know if –”

“I’m sorry,” Karly repeated, louder.

“Good, that’s better. Now, you need to
tell me everything about your little feud with your sister or I can’t help
you,” Heather said and kept her arms folded. She had to present that flawless
front. The confidence in her questions and rebuttals.

Any hint of weakness and bully Karly
would pounce.

Poor Bernie had put up with her sister
for years. The woman must’ve had the patience of a saint.

“My sister stole my fiancé from me in
high school. They married, and he left her after Tim was born. Reasons abound
as to why. I assume it’s because the boy is deformed,” Karly said, stiffly.

“Then why did she make out her will to
you?” Heather asked.

Karly’s jaw dropped. “How did you know
that?”

“I have my sources,” Heather said and
tapped the side of her nose. “Why did she make it out to you if you two
despised each other? And why did you drug her coffee in Donut Delights?”

Karly shuddered from her dark roots to
the toes of her pink pump heels. “My sister was a diabetic. I refused to allow
her to drink sugar. I put Stevia in her coffee mug to sweeten it so she
wouldn’t get one of those foul sachets of sugar.”

Heather’s mouth formed an ‘o’ of
surprise. She wiped it off and readjusted her camisole. “All right. And the
will?”

“I can’t speak for my sister’s decisions.
If that makes me a suspect, so be it. She loved me, and I loved her, even if we
didn’t show it to prying eyes like yours. Are you done with these ridiculous
questions?” Karly asked, and tapped her heel on the sidewalk.

“Yeah,” Heather replied. “But you
might want to change your attitude when the cops interview you. They won’t
accept it like I have.”

Karly flicked her nails at Heather,
then turned and charged off down the street.

Amy let out a sigh of relief.

“Don’t get too happy, Ames. This isn’t
over yet,” Heather replied.

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve got one more lead to
investigate. Tiny might not be home, but his girlfriend is, and we need as much
information about his relationship with his mother, as possible.”

“You think she’ll know that? They’d
just started dating, remember?” Amy asked, but hurried to Heather’s side and
peered after Karly.

The elderly blonde woman slammed the
door behind her.

“Lavender might not know,” Heather
replied. “But I bet there’s some evidence in his house.”

Amy grunted. “I guess if it’s
absolutely necessary.” She rubbed her arm to squash her goosebumps. “Ugh, I
just realized something.”

“What?”

“Just how sick this murder is,” Amy
replied.

“What do you mean?” Granted, any
murder sickened her, but why this one?

“Karly said Bernie was a diabetic,”
Amy whispered.

“Yeah?” Heather walked down the road,
and her bestie hurried to catch up. Dave bounded alongside them, panting and
wagging his tail.

“The
killer choked her to death on a fudge ball. A sugary, sweet fudge ball, ugh.”
Amy shivered again. “Here, you take Dave, I need to purge my mind of these
thoughts.”