Pistols & Pies (Sweet Bites Book 2) (Sweet Bites Mysteries) (10 page)

“How many times do I have to tell you? Of course it sucks; it’s not a flashlight, it’s a dark sucker. The batteries must already be full of darkness.” Honey’s voice held a laugh, reminding me of our childhood joke. A moment later, there was a soft light beside me.

I looked over and saw her holding her cell phone in front of her, using the backlight to illuminate the space. Wondering why I hadn’t thought of it myself, I pulled out my cell phone and turned it on. “You take that side, I’ll take this one.”

The light didn’t stretch very far, but by following close to the wall, I was able to see what was around me. A horse pawed the ground and there was rustling in the straw—were those mice running around? I found a door and tested it, but it was locked. I made a mental note to come back to it if we needed to and continued on.

“Come look at this,” Honey hissed to me from across the room. How had she gotten so far down the wall?

Sweat beaded on my forehead and started to run down my face as I turned toward her. It was stifling in here—didn’t the man care about his horses at all? Shouldn’t there be at least a window to let in a cross breeze? “What is it?”

Hinges squeaked and reflexively, I jumped, then looked back at the door to see if anyone was coming in. Stupid, I know, but if Mr. Roper caught us here we could be arrested. I really didn’t look good in jail-house orange, so I wanted to avoid that at all costs. Well, and there was the whole being locked up in jail thing, far, far away from my fondant tools. On the other hand, that would be better than being shot and having him bury our bodies.

Honey had left a door open and stepped inside. When I reached her, she was already coming out again. “Nothing in there. Of course, the whole thing could be a wild goose chase.”

“I know. That’s what I’m afraid of.” I stuck my head inside, but it was just bags of oats. I wondered why he bought it by the bag. Couldn’t he get them in bulk? Wouldn’t it be cheaper that way? “The gun could be buried between or under the bags,” I suggested.

She gave me a withering look. “If you think I’m moving two dozen fifty-pound bags of oats to look for a gun that might not even be there, you’re crazy. Especially since the email mentioned tack, not feed.”

Hard to argue with someone when they make a point like that. I returned to my side of the building and continued searching down the wall. I came upon the horse stalls and poked my head in each one, looking to see if maybe one of them was being used as a tack room. The first two were empty—not even sporting a fresh layer of straw. When I came up on the third one, a horse head loomed at me from out of the darkness and puffed air in my eyes. I squeaked and stepped back, right into Honey.

She pressed a hand to her chest. “You’re going to give me a heart attack. Cut it out!”

“Sorry. My heart’s not exactly calm, either.” The shot of adrenaline from that scare made me more anxious to get this over with. As if I hadn’t already been nervous enough, now my hands were shaky with anticipation.

We finished the row of stalls, finding several more horses, but nothing that looked like a tack room.

“There has to be someplace here to keep their saddles and stuff,” Honey said, her hands on her hips as she surveyed the room.

“Unless we plan to go into the stalls to check for a gun there, we’ve only got one place left to look,” I whispered. I gestured for her to follow me.

We returned to the locked door and I gave the handle another twist, but it didn’t budge. “Now what?” I asked.

Honey looked at me and frowned. “I knew I’d have a need for this skill someday.” She reached up to her head, then knelt on one knee and stuck something in the key hole.

“Are you picking the lock?” I asked. What was this, a Nancy Drew mystery?

 “I’m trying. I read something about it on the internet, but I’ve never tried it before.”

“You think it’ll actually work?” I asked.

“I guess we’ll see.” The minutes stretched and I checked my phone a couple of times to see how long it had been. I was just about to give up when she pumped her fist.

She stood and turned the knob. “We’re in.”

“I’m impressed. I didn’t think you’d get it.”

She chuckled. “Me either.”

She walked into the room and I followed.

Bingo. Tack.

The walls were covered with hooks filled with bridles and straps and a dozen things I didn’t even recognize. We started poking around the room, looking behind saddles, checking between and under the blankets that were piled in one corner and then we hit pay dirt. In the gleam of my cell phone backlight, I could see the pistol shining in all its silver glory.

Honey met my gaze and we did a high-five. I turned my phone back toward me and dialed Detective Tingey.

  It rang four times before he picked up. “Hello, this is Detective Tingey.”

“Hi, this is Tess. I received an email tip earlier.” I didn’t realize until I heard his voice that I wasn’t sure how to explain what I was doing in Roper’s barn. I decided to ease into it.

He huffed. “Do not tell me you went searching for the killer.”

I hooked my finger into my belt loop and felt my eyes shift to the side—as if he could see me. “No, not the killer.”

My voice must not have been very convincing because his grew hard. “Tell me.”

“Well... the tip was that someone knew where the murder weapon is.” And I thought this was a good idea because…? Tingey was going to kill me. But not with the murder weapon—that was obviously evidence.

“And?” he asked when I didn’t go on.

“I’m in Gary Roper’s barn and we found it. The gun.”

“Really? Because people around here don’t have guns that
aren’t
murder weapons?”

I shifted my shoulders anxiously, feeling uncomfortable at his point—there were an awful lot of gun owners in the area. “Well, it’s where I was told it would be, in the tack room.”

“Okay, first, that’s private property, and if you don’t have Gary’s permission to be there, it’s trespassing. Second, I’m sure Gary has guns. Most people in this area do, and it’s not illegal to own one. I don’t have any reason to believe he’s behind the murder. Get your butt off his property before I have to come arrest you.” He hung up.

“Of all the rude, close-minded attitudes.” I looked back at Honey. “He said to get out of here before we’re caught trespassing and he has to arrest us. He didn’t even care about the gun.”

“If that’s not the most irritating thing ever,” Honey said, her hand on her hip. “Seriously, he didn’t even care? No wonder Sandra needs your help if the sheriff’s office really is ignoring the problem.”

A light flipped on, blinding me. “What are they ignoring?” a deep voice asked.

All my muscles tensed. It was definitely not George or Jerry (neither of whom knew where we were anyway, but that was beside the point). I turned and looked into Gary Roper’s face, and found myself at the wrong end of his rifle. “Hello?” I said, my voice quivering from fear.

He looked at me, then Honey. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for a murder weapon,” Honey told him, her voice going up at the end, as if she were asking a question.

I stared at her. Like that was a smart thing to say when a possible murderer has a gun trained on you. Really, what was she thinking?

“What murder weapon?” His rifle lowered so it was pointing down more, and slightly to the side rather than directly at me.

I breathed a sigh of relief—being at the business end of a rifle was so not my idea of fun. “The gun that Eric Hogan was killed with.”

The rifle lowered even more and his eyes narrowed. “What do you mean? Why would I have the gun? And why would you look for it here?”

I wet my lips, nervous and unsure exactly how to tell him about Mrs. Hogan’s suspicions. “We heard from someone that you had a big beef with Eric because of the prison he was trying to bring into town. A few hours ago I got an email saying you stashed the gun in your tack room, so we came to check.” I gestured to it glinting on the ground. “And there it is.”

“You’re mistaken.” But he tipped his head in confusion as he looked at the weapon. “Where did that come from? Did you plant it? I’m going to call Tingey.”

“I just spoke with him. He said you’re entitled to have a gun if you like, and he won’t come out,” I explained. As soon as I said it I wished I hadn’t. Hello—possibly murderer, rifle and I just told him the detective wouldn’t come looking for us. What kind of idiot am I?

Gary’s brows lowered into a straight line across his forehead, thunder in his eyes. “Well he’s going to come now. You’re trespassing and planting evidence, and I want you arrested.”

“We didn’t plant the gun,” Honey objected. “We just found it. We haven’t even touched it.”

He looked at her for a long moment, then drew his phone from his pocket. “I’m calling Tingey.”

I swallowed hard. Was he really going to have us arrested? Better than being shot, of course, but still . . . When he hung up, he looked at us again. He leaned back against the door jam, crossing his arms over his chest. Clearly, he had no intention of letting us go anywhere. “He said he’d be right over.”

“Great.” Nice that he calls and Tingey jumps, but I call and nothing happens. I see maybe Mrs. Hogan wasn’t so wrong about the situation. But then again, Tingey did warn me that we were trespassing—as if we weren’t already well aware of that fact.

“So where did you ladies get the gun? Did you file the number off first?” He gave us both disgruntled looks. He lifted his rifle so the barrel rested across his other arm, but didn’t direct it at us again—for which I was truly grateful. As far as I was concerned, it was menacing enough just existing.

“We didn’t plant it. We found it,” Honey said. “Someone contacted Tess and told her it was here, so we came to look for it.”

His eyes moved to me. “And I suppose you have no reason to want me to take the fall? You short an alibi?”

“Me?” I squeaked. “I barely met Eric. He bought pies from me. I delivered them. End of story. Why would I want to kill him and frame you?”

He harrumphed and looked bored, obviously not believing me. What was it with cops who didn’t listen—okay, former cops in his case, but still.

We stood in silence for several minutes and heard the sound of car tires on gravel. I hoped it was Tingey. Maybe he could help us out here.

There was a knock at the outside door, and Tingey’s voice called back to us, “Hey, Gary, are you in here?”

“Yep, come on back,” he returned.

Tingey appeared in the doorway in blue jeans and a T-shirt. I think I’d only seen him so dressed down a couple of times before. “I would ask what was going on here, but I’m pretty sure I already know.” He looked at us, his disapproval clear. “Gary, you want me to take them in for trespassing?”

“And planting evidence. I think they must have been in on the murder if they’re calling you here—and didn’t she,” he pointed to me with a stubby finger, “find the body?”

Of course I found the body, but Tingey had already been through all of this with me in the previous murder, so he really ought to know better than to think I’d be the killer
this
time. I looked at him in irritation. “You know it wasn’t me. Seriously, why would I want Eric dead? I’d barely even met the guy.”

“But you think I would have killed him?” Gary asked. “I’m a former law enforcement officer. I would never do that.” He held his head a little higher, as if above such petty disagreements.

“Right, because police officers
never
go bad. Not once in all the history of the world did one do something illegal or use their position of trust to take advantage of the system.” I crossed my arms over my chest. Even if he was innocent, his argument was too full of holes to be ignored.

“At least you have an actual reason to want him dead,” Honey said. “We don’t.”

“That’s enough,” Tingey said, rolling his eyes at us. “What do you want me to do, Gary?”

“Take them in, and take the gun they planted too.” He gestured to it. “I want trespassing charges and anything else you can think of that will stick.”

Tingey stopped in surprise and looked at Gary. “Wait, the gun isn’t yours?”

“No. You don’t think I store my weapons in the barn, do you? I keep them in the safe, like every smart gun owner—except for the ones I’m using at the time.” He brushed his fingers along the barrel of the rifle and gave me a hard look.

“And you had that out for a bit of skeet shooting, did you? In the middle of the night?” I asked. Inside, my organs quivered. I was going to be arrested. I would get an inmate number. I’d spend the night in jail. And my business would fail. My grandma would be so ashamed (if she were around to see it). Lenny would tell me I acted like an idiot. Later he would laugh. At me, not with me.

“Don’t be a fool. I was out shooting rabbits. Nasty critters have been eating my vegetables.”

“So the gun was just lying there on the ground in your barn, but it’s not yours,” Tingey clarified, returning to that issue.

“Said so, didn’t I? They obviously planted it,” Gary repeated.

“Actually,” Honey said, “It wasn’t sitting out in the open. It was under that pile of saddle blankets.” She gestured to the blankets in question, which we had to move out of the way to unearth the gun.