Sweet Somethings (Samantha Sweet Mysteries) (16 page)

“Mom? Everything okay?” Kelly
asked.

Sam told them about Sarah
Williams. “I wish she could have been here to see how well the festival turned
out. I’ll try to pass the word quietly to the rest of the committee.”

The girls nodded and a customer
walked up, pulling Jen’s attention to the cookie selection in the display case.

“Beau and Garcia are here,” Sam
murmured to Kelly. “If you girls can handle things in the booth, I think I’ll
go see how their work is coming along.”

“This is about Carinda?”

“Yeah. They seem to have too many
suspects and not enough solid leads at this point. They’re re-interviewing
people from yesterday, so don’t be surprised if they call you in.”

Kelly shrugged. “Not a problem.”

Sam made her way through the
crowded ballroom without getting hooked into conversation and took the stairs
to the second floor. The door to the suite stood open and she spotted Beau in
the same chair where Ben Garcia sat yesterday. She tapped at the door and
walked in.

“You two learning anything new
yet?” she teased.

“Just getting organized. Ben went
to the ballroom to bring up our first witness. We’re starting with Bentley Day
and working our way through everyone else connected with the festival.”

“Are you sure I should be here?”

“It’s fine. I always appreciate
your take on the interrogations. You didn’t, by chance, handle that little—”
His hands formed a square that indicated the size and shape of the carved box.
Although Beau didn’t know exactly how the object affected Sam, there were times
when she’d been able to tell that someone was lying. Once, she’d even spotted
invisible toxic dust inside a house that carried fingerprints, where the lawmen
hadn’t thought to dust for them.

“Sorry, no. I didn’t think of it
today.”

“Well, if your aura-vision or
whatever you call it should happen to go on alert around any of our suspects,
you be sure and let me know.”

“Right.”

Voices in the hallway caught their
attention before Ben Garcia and Bentley Day stepped into view. Once inside,
Garcia closed the door and ushered the celebrity chef into the small living
room setting. Bentley eyed Sam for a moment. Other than the confrontation over
his rudeness toward that young girl last evening, she’d never had a real
conversation with the man and he seemed a little confused as to what her role
really was. Oh well, let him wonder.

He settled on the couch when the
two lawmen took the upholstered chairs; Sam stood with a shoulder against the
wall, taking a spot at the edge of the room near the small dining table.

“I know you are busy, Mr. Day,”
Garcia began. “Thanks for taking a few minutes to help us out.”

“Dunno what you want,” Bentley
said. “I answered everything yesterday.”

“Can you go over it again, for my
benefit,” said Beau, “since I wasn’t in the room then.”

Bentley gave an impatient sigh.

“
And
since your very-identifiable knife was used to commit the
murder.” Beau gave him a firm stare.

Day’s attitude receded marginally.
“I told your detective—I was in my room on the third floor. Checked in Thursday
evening, hung out in the bar awhile and chatted up this cute girl. Monica, I
think her name was, but I have to admit that I don’t really remember. We ended
up in my room. She left maybe one o’clock or so. I slept like a real happy man
until nearly ten o’clock when someone came along and pounded on the door to
wake me up.”

“Who was that?”

“The woman. The dead one.”

“Did you let her into your room?”

“I met her at the door, wearing
nothing at all. She seemed a little surprised—maybe she was impressed, hell if
I know.”

“Did she come into your room?”

“Nah. Got a little flustered, said
they wanted me downstairs, would I please get my clothes on and get to the
festival. I said sure. She wasn’t my type anyway—I like women with some curves
to them. Last I saw of that one she was beating a path toward the elevator.”

“How long before you went down to
the ballroom?”

“Fifteen, twenty minutes?
Thereabouts. I go into my routine, wow the crowd . . . you know.”

“Did you see Carinda Carter before
you went to the ballroom? Maybe you agreed to meet her in the garden before
show time?”

“Nope. Not interested, like I told
you.” Bentley fiddled with his watchband as he spoke.

Sam wasn’t sure she believed the
line about Carinda not being his type. From what she’d seen of Bentley and his
continuous flirting with the women in the crowd, it didn’t seem there was any
female who wasn’t his type.

“Did you see Carinda after you
went to the ballroom?” Garcia asked.

“No! Man, that’s just gross. The
woman was dead by then, wasn’t she? What would I want with that?”

That much was true—Bentley had
been on the dais, in full limelight when Carinda’s body was found. Garcia
leaned toward Beau, showing him something written on his small notebook. If the
goal was to make their suspect nervous, it worked. Bentley fidgeted in his seat
but that might have been solely because he wanted to get back to the throngs of
eager women downstairs. Beau dismissed him with a caution not to leave town
without their permission.

When the door closed behind Day,
Beau turned to Sam. “What do you think, does the timeframe fit?”

She thought back to the hectic
morning. “Once the doors opened and people began to come in, I got pretty busy.
But it seems more than fifteen or twenty minutes went by from when Carinda went
looking for Bentley and when he made his flashy appearance on stage.”

“So he might have had time to get
dressed and follow her to the garden?”

“You only have his word for it
that he greeted Carinda at his own door stark naked. If he was dressed when she
arrived, sure, there would have been plenty of time.”

Garcia piped up: “The man was
wearing chef whites when I interviewed him yesterday and they were spotless.”

“And,” Beau added, “we have to
look at motive. What could have enraged him so quickly?”

Sam thought back to the numerous
other people Carinda had managed to antagonize in short order. “What if the
rest of Bentley’s story is fake, too? The woman he took up to his room the
night before—what if it wasn’t a random hook-up? It could have been Carinda.
She was certainly enamored of his celebrity status and she might have showed up
at the bar. Given several hours together, yeah, I could see the anger begin to
flare.”

Beau keyed his radio and got
through to Rico. “Find out who was bartending here at the hotel last night. If
he or she remembers Bentley Day picking up a woman, bring the bartender up
here.”

“There would be DNA or some other
evidence in his room,” Garcia suggested.

“But if the sheets were changed
and the room vacuumed yesterday morning, it’s probably all gone. We didn’t have
any reason to tell housekeeping not to clean the guest rooms at ten o’clock
yesterday morning.”

That aspect of it seemed a dead
end, Sam had to admit.

“Let’s take a look at Carinda’s
other enemies. Remember, anyone in the place could have gotten hold of the
knife.” Beau flipped to a new page in his notebook. “Sam, you were there. Who
else left the ballroom right before the show opened?”

She searched back in her memory.
“Farrell O’Hearn wasn’t in her booth. I remember that because it seemed odd
that her assistant had the place, right before the crowds were due to come in.
Danielle Ferguson had a row with Carinda over her booth location, but that was
the previous afternoon and I thought it got settled to everyone’s satisfaction.
Danielle did leave the room that morning, though, and when she returned she
seemed agitated.”

“What about your committee
members, Sam? I know you don’t want to think badly of any one of them but they
did have the most contact with Carinda, the longer history.”

“Let’s just say that no one was a
fan, myself included. She and Rupert got crossways at our last meeting. The
worst Harvey ever did was send her a firm look whenever she gave him one of her
glares. Kelly and Riki mostly ignored her.”

“Where were each of them at the
time Carinda was killed?” Beau asked.

“Kelly and Becky were helping me
with my booth. Riki’s been busy with her grooming shop and hasn’t been around
the hotel at all. Harvey is running his ice cream stand. I don’t recall any
particular friction between him and Carinda after we got it settled that she
didn’t have the right to assign booth spaces—at one point she’d tried to put his
booth outdoors in the sun. That didn’t go over too well.”

A tap at the door and Rico came
in. “Sheriff, I located the bartender on duty last night. She’s a friendly type
who seems to chat up the patrons. She remembered Bentley Day coming in Thursday
evening, ordering a Scotch, neat. But she doesn’t at all recall him leaving
with a woman. Says things got a little busy around nine so she can’t swear to
it, just that she didn’t recall anybody with Mr. Day.”

“Thanks, Rico.”

“I brought Mr. Penrick with me,” Rico
said with a tilt of his head toward the door.

Rupert came in as Rico left,
reeking of impatience until he spotted Sam.

“What’s this about?” he asked as
he sat across from the two lawmen.

“Routine questions, Rupert,” Beau
said. “We’re only trying to figure out where everyone was at the time Carinda
Carter was killed.”

“He did that yesterday,” said
Rupert, nodding toward Ben Garcia.

“I know, and we appreciate your
statement. Sometimes new information comes in that requires a little
clarification. We understand that you left the ballroom for awhile right before
the festival officially opened.”

“Yes. Last-minute pit-stop, okay?
Everyone needs those.”

Beau shuffled in his seat. “True.
Did you see Bentley Day around that time, outside the ballroom?”

“I did not. I would have ordered
the man to his post because everything was running a bit behind schedule by
then.”

“You had an altercation with the
victim just before that, something about the girls taking tickets?”

Rupert gave Sam a withering
glance.

“It wasn’t exactly a fight,” he
said. “The woman butted into every small aspect of the show and I was only one
of many who resented her intrusion. Clearly, I should not have voiced that
opinion to the wife of the sheriff.”

Sam crossed the room and sat
beside Rupert on the small sofa. “Rupe, don’t be this way. I didn’t say that
you harmed Carinda. There’s no way I would think such a thing.”

“Settle down, Mr. Penrick,” Ben
Garcia said. “We’re just trying to get a picture here. While you were outside
the ballroom, did you see anyone go out the back doors toward the garden?
Carinda Carter or anyone else?”

“No. Of course there were so many
people milling about, most of them making their way to their booths . . .
truthfully, I wasn’t looking for anyone other than Bentley Day at that point.
He lollygagged around his room until the last minute, apparently, because Sam
and I had to start the announcements ourselves. Our
celebrity
didn’t bother to show up until it was nearly time for the
judging to begin.”

Sam nodded. She remembered
Bentley’s obnoxious chopping routine and ill-timed act with one of his knives.
His clothes had indeed been spotless, but there had certainly been time for him
to rush back to his room for a change before anyone actually saw him in public.
Carinda’s version of meeting Bentley and going up to his room to remind him
about coming downstairs didn’t exactly gel with his story, but what would have
been the star chef’s motive to get rid of her?

Chapter
14

In the elevator she took Rupert’s
hand. “I swear, Beau does not consider you a suspect,” she said. “He has to ask
everyone about their movements so he can put together what happened.”

He squeezed her fingers. “I know,
Sam. I’m not blaming.”

Sam’s eyes watered up as her mind
switched gears.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he said.

“I didn’t get the chance to tell
you—Sarah died, in the early hours this morning.”

“I’m so sorry, girl. We all really
liked her. I’ll plan to go to the funeral and I can tell some of the others on
the committee about it.”

“Thanks.” Sam patted his shoulder.

In the corridor, things were a
little quieter than before. Rupert paused to speak with the judges, discussing
the opportune time to call for the next few entries in the chocolate contest
and spark things up again. Most of the booths had a few customers and a fresh
batch of twenty-somethings hovered near the dais, cute girls in tight tops who
were flirting outrageously with Bentley Day. He gave Sam a long glance then
immediately turned his attention back to a young brunette in hot pink.

Sam paused in front of the ice
cream cart to pass along the news about Sarah to Harvey. He expressed sincere
condolences, then became distracted by a woman signaling him across the room.
In the Sweet’s Sweets booth Kelly finished ringing up a sale for a man with a
cup of coffee in his hand and suggested the garden as a nice place to sit with
his dessert. She and Jen both repeated Rupert’s sentiments when they heard
about Sarah.

Sam mindlessly flipped through the
cash bag, in case they needed change, wishing she had someone to talk to about
the fact that the older woman had died before they got the chance to talk about
the one subject foremost on Sam’s mind, the mysterious wooden box. Maybe later
at home with Beau. She picked up a broken cookie and ate half of it in one
bite.

“Boy, this is weird,” Kelly said,
looking up from her copy of
People
,
which she had opened to a random page. “Some wealthy woman threatened to leave
forty billion dollars to her dog after all her other heirs pissed her off.”