Murder So Sweet (A Sweet Cove Mystery Book 2) (2 page)

As Angie made the emergency call to the Sweet Cove police department, she crouched next to Courtney and averted her eyes from the body. She put her arms around her sister.

“Let’s go back to the front. Can you stand up?” Angie put her hand on Courtney’s shoulder. “Why don’t we wait in the front room for the police to arrive?”

Courtney nodded. She leaned on Angie and stood. They shuffled to the customer section of the store and Angie opened the front door a crack to let in some air.

“Who would do this?” Courtney leaned against one of the candy cases and brushed her hand over her forehead.

Angie shook her head. She couldn’t believe that another murder had been committed in their small town only a little more than a month after Professor Linden was killed. The professor’s murderer had been caught. Now there was another killer on the loose in Sweet Cove.

A police car careened to a stop in front of the store and Chief Martin and Officer Talbot emerged and hurried to the entrance. An ambulance pulled up right behind the police car.

Courtney pointed to the back room of the shop. EMTs raced inside past the officers.

“It’s Finch?” Chief Martin’s face was beet red.

Angie nodded. “I walked Courtney to work this morning and….”

Courtney took over. “The lights weren’t on. I knew something was wrong. Mr. Finch always puts the lights on.”

“We came in and found him on the floor.” Angie tilted her head in the direction of the body.

“Wait here.” Chief Martin started towards the candy making room. “Or stand outside. You can sit in the cruiser if you want to. I’ll need to talk to you in a minute.”

The girls went outside and stood on the sidewalk. Some town residents, who owned stores next door and across the street, approached the girls. “What’s happened?”

Angie said, “Mr. Finch is hurt.” She just shrugged as people peppered her with questions. She didn’t want to reveal the details of what had happened to Mr. Finch. Courtney said nothing.

Another police car pulled up. The officer got out and asked people not to congregate in front of the candy shop. He stood at the door shooing the gawkers along to keep them from peeking inside. A few minutes later, Chief Martin came out and asked Angie and Courtney to come back inside so that they could talk in private.

The girls told the chief the same things they told him when he first arrived.

“How long have you been working for Mr. Finch?” The chief was writing in a small notebook.

“A week…no, ten days. I started right after graduation.” Courtney had her arms wrapped around herself.

“Did you notice anyone ever arguing with Mr. Finch?” Chief Martin asked.

“No. Mr. Finch rarely came into the customer area. He stayed in the back, making the candy. He didn’t interact with anyone.”

“What were your duties?”

“I kept the front of the store clean, waited on customers, filled the candy cases, and shipped the candy orders out.”

“Did he seem like anything was bothering him? Did Finch seem worried?” The chief’s pencil was poised over the page of his notebook.

“I didn’t know him well,” Courtney said. “He was always the same when I was here. He didn’t talk to me, just a few words about what to do. He wasn’t cheerful or talkative at all. He was always sort of angry and grumpy.”

“Was Mr. Finch married?” Angie asked.

The chief slipped the notebook into his back pocket. “No. He wasn’t. He lived alone in his house over on Wildwood Road. We’ll go over there later, to see if there’s any evidence of relatives, like an address book or something. Courtney, could you look around in here and in the back room?”

Courtney had a look of horror on her face at the chief’s request. She didn’t want to see Mr. Finch’s dead body again.

The chief saw her pained expression. “Mr. Finch is covered over. Angie can go in with you. If you can manage it, it would be a big help.”

Courtney sucked in a long breath and gave a slight nod of her head.

“Look around. See if anything looks amiss. Does anything look out of sorts? Is anything missing? Anything. No matter how subtle.” The chief looked kindly at Courtney. “Can you do that?”

“Yes.” Courtney inhaled a deep breath and squared her shoulders. She moved behind each of the candy cases, she checked the cash register, and looked over all of the shelves. “Nothing seems wrong here. The money is still in the drawer.”

“Would you look around in back? Just don’t touch anything.” The chief nodded reassuringly.

“I didn’t ever spend much time back there. Mr. Finch liked to work alone. But I’ll go see.” Courtney glanced at Angie, and her sister came up beside her. Courtney took Angie’s hand and the two of them stepped into the back room.

A police officer was photographing the scene and another officer spoke into a phone. The EMTs stood off to the side talking. Courtney moved gingerly about the space being careful not to get too close to Mr. Finch’s body.

The candy maker had a small built-in desk against the wall just inside the entrance to the work room. A shelf above the desk was lined with books. Courtney moved around the room, glancing at the pots and pans, the marble counter, the appliances and candy making tools. The girls opened the walk-in refrigerator, and then they looked over the items in the storage room. Nothing seemed out of place.

Courtney turned to Chief Martin. “Everything looks the same as it always does.”

“Okay, thanks for checking.” The chief gestured to the doorway and the girls returned to the front room.

Just as she stepped over the threshold, Courtney’s face clouded. She took a backwards step into the work room and turned her head to Mr. Finch’s desk. A thought played at the back of her mind, and then floated away. Courtney shrugged a shoulder.

“Anything missing or out of place?” Chief Martin asked.

“I’m not sure.” Courtney took another quick look around the back room. “I knew better than to touch Mr. Finch’s things. I never asked questions except what I needed to know to run the front of the store.” An odd tingling sensation ran over Courtney’s skin. She looked back at the dead body.

“Thanks, Courtney.” The chief ushered the sisters to the front door of the shop. “You girls can go now, but I’ll probably need to talk to you again later.”

“Chief.” An officer called from the sidewalk.

A slender, slightly stooped, elderly man dressed in a cardigan sweater stood next to the officer. He leaned on a cane, his face pinched with worry.

The officer said, “This man says he’s Thaddeus Finch’s brother.”

Chapter 3

Chief Martin hurried to speak with the man who claimed to be Mr. Finch’s brother and Courtney and Angie headed back to the Victorian.

Courtney kept her voice down. “Who would murder him? Nothing seemed to be stolen. Was it a robbery that got interrupted?”

“Who could have interrupted it?” Angie pondered. “Not us. He looked like he’d been dead for a while. Do you know what time Mr. Finch usually got to the store?”

“He was always early. I think he got there around 7am or 7:30am every day.”

“And you get to work at 8:30,” Angie said. “That leaves an hour or so that someone could have attacked him.”

“Maybe a delivery person?” Courtney asked.

“It could have been. I wonder if maybe it wasn’t a robbery at all. It could have been someone who was angry at him, had a grudge against him. He sure wasn’t popular in town.” Angie was trying to think of any scenario that might fit. “There might have been a business disagreement with somebody.”

“Well, it must have been quite a disagreement.” Thinking of Mr. Finch’s stab wound, Courtney unconsciously moved her hand to her abdomen. “I can’t believe he’s dead. Murdered.”

They turned onto the brick walkway that led to the front steps of the Victorian. “Wait until Jenna and Ellie hear this,” Angie said.

“Tell Euclid,” Courtney suggested, only half kidding that the cat should be consulted. “He solved Professor Linden’s murder.”

“Maybe the chief should deputize him. He can be the first deputy cat in history.” Angie smiled, remembering how Euclid saved her from drinking poisoned tea by leaping at her and knocking the mug to the floor. “We should bring Euclid to the crime scene and see what he can discover.”

The front door opened and Ellie stepped onto the porch with Attorney Ford. They shook hands and Ford came down the porch steps carrying his briefcase. He nodded at Courtney and Angie as he passed them.

Ellie gave Courtney a puzzled look. “You’re home? I thought you were going to the candy shop. Why aren’t you at work?”

Courtney walked up onto the porch. “We need to tell you something. It isn’t good.”

Ellie’s eyes widened. “Oh, no.” After last month’s murder of Professor Linden, she’d been hoping to settle into a comfortable rhythm running the bed and breakfast with no troubles and no worries to interfere.

Angie came up the steps behind Courtney. “Where’s Jenna? We can tell you both at the same time.”

Ellie held her hands together and squeezed them. She was the family worrier. Her sisters teased her that if worrying ever became an Olympic sport then she would win the gold medal. “Jenna’s working in her shop.”

They headed along the wraparound porch to the rear of the Victorian where Jenna used one of the rooms to design and construct her jewelry. She ran an internet business selling her pieces and also had two cases of her designs at the front of the shop for walk-in sales. Jenna was hunched over her table near the windows using a tool to close a clasp on a necklace. Euclid, their giant orange cat, was curled up asleep on a corner of the desk. Jenna and the cat glanced up when they heard the girls come in.

“Hey. What’s up?” Jenna’s light brown hair was in a braid hanging over her shoulder. Euclid stood up and stretched. Jenna smiled at her sisters, but it quickly faded when she saw the looks on their faces. “What’s happened now?”

“Exactly.” Ellie sat in a chair next to Jenna waiting for the bad news.

Courtney rubbed at her forehead and temples. “Mr. Finch is dead. We found him. Murdered.”

“What?” Jenna nearly leaped from her chair.

Ellie’s hand cradled the side of her face. “Not another murder. How can this be?”

Angie sat on the small sofa that Jenna had placed near the entrance to her shop. “I walked Courtney to work this morning. When we got there, the place was quiet. The front door was unlocked. We went in.”

Courtney sat down next to Angie. “I looked in the back room. He was on the floor, bleeding.”

“He’d been stabbed,” Angie said.

Jenna and Ellie both gasped.

“What on earth?” Ellie clutched the arms of her chair.

“Are there suspects?” Jenna put her jewelry tool down next to the necklace she was putting together.

Angie and Courtney shrugged. Euclid walked over and jumped onto Courtney’s lap.

“Finch was a foul tempered creature.” Jenna was thinking out loud. “Maybe he rubbed someone the wrong way?”

Ellie gave Jenna an exasperated look. “Well, he
must
have rubbed someone the wrong way. He’s been murdered.”

Jenna got up and started pacing. “It could have been a robber. Some nut. It doesn’t have to be someone with a grudge against him.” She turned to her sisters. “The killer doesn’t have to be someone living in Sweet Cove this time. Maybe the killer is long gone.” She hoped, anyway.

Ellie sighed. “Two killings in just over a month. I hope this isn’t going to scare tourists off from coming here this summer. It could kill the town’s economy.”

Courtney scratched Euclid’s cheeks. “
Kill
the economy? Poor choice of words, Sis.” She leaned against the sofa back. “Maybe it will actually draw people to town. Lots of people love murder mysteries.”

Ellie rolled her eyes.

“Was anything missing from the candy store?” Jenna asked. “Was money stolen?”

“It didn’t seem like it,” Angie said.

Courtney ran her hand over Euclid’s luxurious fur. “Everything seemed to be in place. The money in the cash register looked untouched. I didn’t notice anything missing in the shop.”

Euclid’s hazel green eyes made contact with Courtney.

“I wonder if someone stole something I didn’t notice.” Courtney had a faraway look on her face.

“Maybe it was someone with a grudge against Finch?” Angie wondered.

“A grudge?” Ellie had a look of disbelief. “Would someone murder a person over some stupid grudge?”

“I guess people have killed for less.” Angie gave Courtney’s shoulder a squeeze and stood up. “Chief Martin said he’d probably want to talk with us again later. Maybe he’ll have some ideas about what happened.” She looked over at Ellie. “How did it go with Attorney Ford?”

“It went well. He gave me some good information. I have a folder with things I want to go over with all of you. See if you think it’s a good idea to incorporate the business. And I never let Ford out of my sight. He had another appointment so I didn’t get to pursue why he was in the house the night Professor Linden died.” Ellie stood and moved to the doorway that led to the hall. “I need to get back to the dining room to see to the guests.” She glanced at Courtney. “I guess you need a new job now. Want to help me with the B and B duties?”

Courtney followed Ellie into the hall. “Yes, anything to get my mind off of seeing Mr. Finch with a knife sticking out of his gut.”

Angie winced at the image. She moved over to stand near Jenna’s work table, her face serious. She kept her voice low. “You know, I wonder if Courtney is developing powers.”

Jenna’s eyebrows went up. “What do you mean?”

“When we got close to the shop this morning, I could almost feel something coming off of her, some kind of energy. She seemed, I don’t know, like hyper aware. She seemed to sense that something was wrong.”

“Could it just have been her intuition?”

“It’s possible.” Angie looked out the window, thinking. “But it seemed more than that. I think I felt something similar when Lisa tried to poison me.”

Jenna sat in her chair and fiddled with a tool on her desk. “Courtney told us that Nana said we would probably develop powers as we get older. Maybe Courtney’s powers are bubbling up.” Jenna turned and eyed Euclid still curled comfortably on the sofa. “Do you ever get the feeling that cat knows stuff?”