Murder by Meringue (Sky High Pies Cozy Mysteries Book 25) Read online

  The front door opened and Rebecca’s sister rushed in with bolts of fabric clutched tightly in her arms.

  “Help me, Becca!” she called. “I don’t want to…” She stopped in midstride. “I’m sorry, Katie! I lost one of my contacts at the store, so I thought you were Darnell Pryde.”

  Since Darnell Pryde weighs as much as the Space Shuttle, I simply smiled and offered to start washing the windows.

  “Oh, you don’t need to do that,” she said. “That’s why we hired Darnell.”

  Rebecca cleared her throat. “Uh, Shari? Do you mind? Katie and I were in the middle of a conversation.”

  “Well, shame on me!” Shari said. “I’m in the middle of my freakin’ life. And I need some help with all this velvet junk that you wanted.”

  “Hey, Becca,” I said quietly as Shari dumped the bolts of fabric onto a counter near the front of the salon. “If you want to help your sister with that, I can come back tomorrow.”

  She offered a self-conscious smile. “Sorry about this,” she said. “A friend and I are making curtains for her elderly parents. I asked Little Miss Sunshine there if she’d run by the fabric store so I could wait for Darnell. Last time he cleaned the windows, we had streaking issues and I do not want to live through that madness again.” She subtly shifted her gaze toward Shari. “Somebody didn’t stop griping about it for a month.”

  “I heard that!” Rebecca’s sister cried. “And any sane person on the planet would’ve done the same! We pay Darnell twice what he—”

  The door swung open again.

  “Hey, ladies!”

  It was Darnell Pryde. He was accompanied by his two teenage sons. The boys carried an assortment of buckets, squeegees and sponges along with moody scowls that made it crystal clear they were not thrilled to be walking into Tips & Toes at six-thirty on a Wednesday night.

  “I’m going to head out,” I told Rebecca. “Thanks for your time. I’ll be in touch with you later.”

  Her face turned bright red. “I’m so sorry, Katie. I’ll come by Sky High tomorrow, okay?”

  She gave me a quick hug. Then she hurried over and collected the bolts of blue velvet while Shari began lecturing Darnell about the critical importance of spotless windows.

  When I made my way to the front door, he gave me a sideways glance.

  “Evening, Katie,” he said. “Me and the boys will be by for breakfast on Saturday if you need the windows done at your place.”

  “Thank you, Darnell,” I said, greeting his sons with a little wave. “That will be perfect. I’ll make sure we have a fresh batch of the coconut oatmeal raisin cookies that you like, too.”

  Darnell winked. “Better make it a double batch,” he said with a laugh. “Those two boys are eating twice their weight in everything these days.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Zack was working late on a freelance photography project, so I decided to enjoy one of my favorite appetizers before eating a Caesar salad with grilled chicken for dinner. As I unwrapped the Toblerone bar and got ready for the first bite of chocolate, my phone chimed in the pocket of my jacket. I’d dropped it in the living room when I walked in the door, a location that suddenly seemed more like twelve miles away rather than a dozen steps.

  “Are you sitting down, dear?” said Blanche Speltzer after I answered the phone.

  “Not at the moment, but I can easily collapse onto the sofa.”

  “It was a figure of speech, Katie. I don’t think you’ll really be in danger of fainting when I tell you the bombshell that I just heard tonight at pickleball.”

  “I didn’t know you were a pickleball fan,” I said. “My parents are just getting into it.”

  Blanche scoffed. “I don’t go for the games,” she said. “I’m a fan of the social hour that follows the last point of the night.”

  “Where do you play?” I asked. “Er, where do you socialize after the other folks play?”

  “There are courts on Parsons and Third,” she told me. “About a mile past the spot where someone that we both know and love was first romanced by a very handsome gentleman of a certain age.”

  “Are you talking about your current handsome gentleman?” I asked.

  “I am,” Blanche said with a little giggle, “but let’s stay focused. I wanted to call you and pass along a few juicy morsels that I heard after the game this evening.”

  “I’m listening,” I said.

  She sighed. “No, you’re talking! Hush up and hear what I have to tell you!”

  We’d danced this particular tango on more than one occasion, so I knew that the brief pause that followed the admonition was a test to see if I would keep quiet. After I passed with flying colors, Blanche began recounting the gossip that she’d learned while socializing with her pickleball friends.

  “I was informed tonight that everything Amelia Felton told her friends about Ken Ballard actually happened during her last romance with someone else,” said Blanche. “Apparently, after she stopped going out with Ken, she had a whirlwind fling with a professional snowboarder named Kyle David Hardy.”

  “He sounds like a law firm,” I said.

  She snickered. “Might as well have been one, what with all the litigious nonsense that took place.”

  “Who filed a lawsuit?” I asked.

  “The better question is, who didn’t?” Blanche said. “Although, to be fair, Amelia really did undergo some traumatic experiences during that relationship. According to what I heard, Mr. Hardy posted quite a few risqué pictures of her online. He also spread some truly vicious rumors about Amelia, stole a piece of expensive jewelry from her bedroom and swindled her out of five thousand dollars.”

  “What’s his name again?” I asked.

  “Well, the moniker that I’m using for him isn’t suitable for polite conversation,” she answered with another fluffy laugh. “In his daily life, most people call him Crazy Kyle.”

  “I don’t know him,” I said. “Does he live here in Crescent Creek?”

  “Vail,” she replied. “He also has a place in Vancouver.” She cleared her throat. “And that’s where Mrs. Crazy Kyle lives.”

  “Oh, so…” There was no need to state the obvious. “That’s so sad for Amelia. I sort of remember Julia talking about that guy. Wasn’t that when she was starting her new job with QuikFlash Couriers?”

  “Yes, it was around that time,” she said. “They went out for almost a month before Amelia found out that he was married with children. When she confronted him, he went loco.”

  “That’s kind of fitting when you consider his nickname.”

  “Shameful,” Blanche said. “That’s what it was. He tried to humiliate that woman with lies and photographs that were meant to be just between the two of them.”

  “Did Crazy Kyle’s wife figure out what her husband was doing down here?” I asked.

  “I can’t answer that one,” Blanche told me. “And I wasn’t really that interested in trying to find out any more details.”

  “That’s unusual,” I said. “You generally get as much scoop as you can.”

  “True, but it was getting late. Boris wanted to be home in time for one of his programs, so I told Maureen and Tess that we could finish the Crazy Kyle conversation next week.”

  “Maureen Jorgenson?” I said.

  Blanche chortled. “The one, the only! You should see that dame hit the ball! Like a superstar! Like a World Series champion!”

  “Good to hear,” I said, imagining the short cheerful woman with the gray pageboy haircut scurrying around a pickleball court.

  “There were one or two more quick things that the ladies shared with me,” Blanche said. “They claimed that the betrayal by Crazy Kyle was like the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

  “How do you mean?” I asked.

  “You’ve no doubt heard that expression before, haven’t you?”

  “Well, of course,” I said. “But what exactly are you talking about?”

  “Amelia went into a rage,�
� Blanche said. “She was at Café Fleur with one of her coworkers and a college friend. I guess her phone was totally inundated with texts from friends after they started seeing the suggestive pictures popping up online.”

  “Isn’t that illegal?” I said.

  “It’s called ‘revenge porn,’” Blanche replied. “And there are laws against it in forty states or more. When someone sends or posts sexually explicit images or video of another person without getting their say-so, they’ve broken the law.”

  “I’ve read about that,” I said. “But I’ve never known anyone that it happened to.”

  “Well, now you do. And what a sad state of affairs. Amelia Felton got involved with a married snowboarder who doesn’t know how to keep his britches buttoned. Then she lost her job. And then she had the horrible misfortune of being poisoned by someone with a dark, evil heart.”

  “Did you just say that she lost her job?” I said.

  “Ken fired her,” Blanche replied.

  “Really? Because I’ve heard that she quit.”

  “Time to clean your ears, muffin,” Blanche said with a lighthearted chuckle. “Ken told Boris that he fired Amelia because she had sticky fingers.” She stopped for a few seconds. “And I am not implying that Amelia sat at her desk all day eating Goo Goo Clusters.”

  “Did she take money or merchandise?” I asked.

  “Hmmm,” Blanche purred. “Is there a third option?”

  “Like what?”

  “Oh, you know,” she said. “It’s called ‘All of the Above,’ because Ken has security video of Amelia helping herself on more than one occasion to petty cash as well as enough office supplies to open a stationery store.”

  “Well, that’s a game changer,” I said.

  “For who?” Blanche asked with a yawn. “Ken or Amelia?”

  “All of the above,” I said with a laugh. “It may explain why she was acting so strangely in recent days, but it may also give Dina a suspect for the murder investigation.”

  “Do you mean Ken Ballard?” she said.

  “Yes,” I replied. “Maybe he confronted her about stealing from his company, but things got out of hand.”

  “Well, part of that is obviously true,” Blanche said. “When one person is dead and another is in the ICU, things have most definitely gone haywire.”

  CHAPTER 8

  “We’ve got a problem,” my mother said that night when she called.

  A half dozen nightmarish images flashed through my mind. They all included someone in Crescent Creek telling her that the quality at Sky High Pies had declined sharply since my parents retired and I’d taken over the business.

  “Okay,” I said cautiously. “Is it we as in you and dad? Or we as in you and me?”

  She issued one of her high-pitched giggles. “Don’t be silly, honey. I’m taking about your father and me. We realized last night that we’ve been remiss in telling you what an amazing job you’re doing with Sky High. We’re incredibly proud of you, and your grandmother feels the same. I communicated with her last night, and she said that I needed to get down off my high horse and make this call.”

  I was momentarily speechless. My mother was apologizing. And she’d just implied that she and Nana Reed had chatted the previous evening. Since my beloved grandmother had passed away years earlier, a face-to-face chat would be impossible unless she was referring to a conversation from a dream.

  “And before you say another word,” my mother said, pulling me back from musing about the logistics of their discussion, “I know this whole thing will sound radical and crazy. But Lottie Haskins introduced me to her personal psychic. And I’m here to tell you, the woman is amazing! She knew things that I’ve never told a soul before in my life.”

  “Such as?” I asked.

  “Well, she knew about your father’s recent tummy troubles, but we don’t need to get into that at the moment.”

  “I absolutely agree. What else?”

  “Nothing besides the stomach issues,” she said. “In fact, he had a physical about six weeks ago with our new doctor down here, and the tests all came back clean as a whistle!”

  “I was talking about the psychic,” I said. “You suggested that she knew about multiple secrets that you’ve never shared.”

  My mother huffed. “Did I call them secrets, Katie?”

  “No,” I replied. “Sorry about that.”

  “Apology accepted,” my mother said. “You and your sister both have a terrible habit of leaping to conclusions with both eyes closed.”

  “Speaking of Olivia,” I said, “does she know that you went to see a psychic?”

  There was a noise on the other end of the line that sounded like a congested duck.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “Just your father,” she said with a heavy sigh. “He went swimming at the fitness center a few days ago and caught a terrible chest cold.”

  “What’s he taking for it?”

  She exhaled again. “Mostly Johnny Walker Black,” she said. “The old fool refused any of my suggestions.”

  “What were they?”

  “Chicken noodle soup,” she said. “And a couple shots of the Gran Patrón Platinum that he got from his buddies at the VFW.”

  “Isn’t that expensive?” I asked, remembering that Harper had told me once that it ran around one-hundred eighty per bottle.

  “It is in my book,” she said. “But you know how your father and his posse can be.”

  “Dad has a posse?”

  “Isn’t that wild?” she said. “Your dear, sweet father is making new friends again. After we moved here, he met a couple of other men from our community. But the new group is larger and much more fun! They rent party buses and we go out to Olive Garden and the mall.”

  “Wow! It’s really nice to hear that you two kids are having some good times down in sunny Florida.”

  “Well, it’s been an adjustment, that’s for sure,” she said. “We miss you and Liv and our grandchildren.” There was a pause and I cringed, knowing what she was going to say next. “And speaking of grandchildren, when are you and that cute photographer going to get engaged?”

  “Oh, you know…”

  “No, I don’t,” my mother said. “You love him. He loves you. Neither one of you are getting any younger. What’s the holdup?”

  I laughed. “You make it sound like the Grim Reaper is waiting around the corner. Zack and I are both in our early thirties. We want to make sure it’s right before we take it to the next level.”

  She grumbled. “The next level? What are we talking about here—a parking garage?”

  “You know what I mean,” I said.

  “Yes,” she replied. “And I’m not going to say another word. If you want to wait until both of your parents are too old to get on a plane and fly back to Colorado, that’s your choice.”

  I let the wisecrack fade into silence. Then I asked if she’d talked to my brother lately.

  “And that’s another one!” she said. “Life in San Diego is too darn exciting for that boy. He hasn’t found time to call his mother and father in six months. Six months, Katie! That’s an eternity in this day and age. Things happen so fast. People come, people go. Good news, bad news. Life and death.”

  “Hey, I’ve got an idea,” I said when she finished.

  “What’s that?”

  “Ask your psychic friend,” I suggested. “She should be able to tell you when I’m getting engaged and how much longer before Brody calls you guys from California.”

  CHAPTER 9

  I was still pondering the idea of my mother consulting a psychic when Dina Kincaid’s name flashed on my phone.

  “I got your text,” she said after I answered. “Something about Amelia and a restraining order?”

  “Against Ken Ballard,” I said. “Do you know anything about that?”

  “I actually checked in the system after I received your message,” she said. “There was nothing that involved Amelia and Ken. I know
they dated for a couple of years, but I thought that’s been over for a while now.”

  “Some embers reignite,” I said. “After Ken stopped to see me this morning, I made a couple of calls. I learned that different versions of their story have been floating around town?”

  “He came to see you?” Dina said with a hint of surprise. “Was it about Amelia’s death?”

  “I think he was more concerned about trying to control the damage from the rumor mill,” I said. “He knows that I’m friendly with Blanche, and he wanted to get his side of the story out there.”

  Dina chuckled. “Ken Ballard? Spinning the truth?” Her voice was laced with sarcasm. “As if he’s ever done that before, right?”

  “Maybe a time or two,” I said.

  “Or three hundred,” she added. “But who’s counting? At this point, Ken is considered a suspect until we can verify his alibi and straighten out the differences in the stories that he and Amelia have been telling people.”

  “I’m happy to check around town,” I said.

  “Thanks, Katie,” Dina replied. “I appreciate that offer, and I also accept it. Now, what was the deal in your text referring to Doris Linklater. What was that about?”

  “Well, I heard a rumor that Doris had something to do with the end of Amelia and Ken’s relationship,” I told her.

  “Okay,” Dina said, sounding doubtful. “But if we chased down half the rumors that relate to the cases that we’re working on, we’d never get anything done.”

  “I know,” I said. “Why don’t I start there?”

  “The Doris angle?”

  “That and whatever else I come across,” I said. “It just seems like something—”

  “Something doesn’t add up?” she interjected quickly.