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“I’M GOING TO CALL MITCH.” Lauren pulled out her phone. Luckily, nobody had entered the café since they’d found the bead.
“Brrt?” Annie asked. She’d been silent since she’d shown Lauren her trophy.
“It’s Annie’s Lost and Found again,” Zoe marveled, “except this time she’s found a clue.”
“Brrt!” That’s right!
“Shouldn’t we call the detective who’s handling the case?” Zoe countered. “It’ll be quicker.”
“Good idea.”
Zoe dug out her phone from her jeans’ pocket and dialed. “He gave me his card when he interviewed me, and I added his number,” she explained to Lauren. “Just in case.”
She nodded, watching her cousin frown as she listened on her cell.
“Yuck. I have to leave a message.” Zoe quickly explained their theory of Helen being the killer and ended the call. “I hope he takes us seriously.”
“So do I.”
“Brrt!”
Lauren was on tenterhooks for the next hour, wondering if Helen was suddenly going to burst in and confront them, but as five o’clock came and went, she slowly relaxed. Since it had been quiet, she and Zoe had gotten a head start on the cleaning and now there was very little to do.
“Maybe she’s not the murderer.” Lauren locked the big oak door, shooting the bolt across.
“Who else could it be?” Zoe stacked chairs on the tables. “If it’s not Jeff, and it sounds like he had plenty of motive to kill his ex-wife, then who?”
“Helen’s husband?” Lauren guessed. “Maybe he didn’t like being in the middle between his wife and Paula.”
“Ooh, that’s a good theory,” Zoe praised. “Except why would he wait until now to kill Paula?”
“We should think about that while we finish tidying up.”
“Yes, boss.” Zoe grinned.
It didn’t take long for them to ready the café for the next morning.
“I want to check on the herb garden,” Lauren said. “Let’s go out through the kitchen today.”
“Okay.”
Lauren opened the private hallway for Annie, who scampered toward the cat flap leading to the cottage. She wondered if Annie would then shimmy through the other flap attached to the back door to the cottage, which led to the rear garden.
Zoe followed Lauren through the gleaming commercial kitchen, and out the back door where the herb garden was situated.
“Brrt!” Annie sat near the herbs, looking like she’d been waiting for them forever.
“I’ve just had a genius idea!” Zoe’s expression looked impish. “Why don’t we set a trap for Helen? And then we’ll know for sure if she’s guilty.”
“How?” Lauren asked.
“We’ll tell her we’ve found a pink bead and ask if she lost one from her bracelet. And we’ll also tell her we picked up another pink bead from outside the salon – we don’t have to mention it was when we found Paula’s body,” Zoe added hurriedly.
“No, that’s too dangerous,” Lauren said. “If we can’t get hold of the detective who interviewed you, then we should call Mitch. Even if we have to leave a message, he might get back to us faster than the other detective.”
“O-kay,” Zoe grumbled. “But I bet my idea will get us faster results.”
“Your idea might get us killed.”
“How right you are, Lauren.” Helen came into view from around the side of the building.
Zoe sent Lauren a desperate Eeek! glance.
“What are you doing here, Helen?” Lauren faked furrowing her brow. She didn’t think it worked.
“I realized just now that that I’d lost another bead from that darn bracelet. The only place I visited today was your café. So I came back to see if anyone had found it, but you were closed. I knocked on the door and there was no answer, so I thought I’d try around the back. I know your kitchen’s here.” She pointed to the back door they’d just exited – and locked.
“Here’s your bead.” Lauren held it out to her, not caring they were giving away evidence. She only wanted the three of them to get away safely.
“Thanks.” Helen snatched it and shoved it into her purse. “I was worried you’d noticed today a bead was missing – that must have been the one I’d dropped when I placed Paula’s body outside the salon. That’s why I covered it with my hand when you admired it today.”
“And I thought you were patting your bracelet because you liked it so much.” Zoe looked put out. “It’s one of my best pieces.”
“I’d stopped wearing the bracelet after I noticed a bead was missing after Paula’s – death. But then I thought that might look suspicious, so I started wearing it again.”
“Huh,” Zoe muttered.
“I’m afraid I heard everything you said just now.” Helen looked around the garden, scanning the tidy lawn and the occasional bush. “It’s a shame there’s not a hair dryer handy – two, actually. I suppose I’ll just have to make do with my bare hands.”
Lauren, Zoe, and Annie all took a step back.
“But why?” Lauren asked desperately. “I thought Paula was your friend.”
“She was,” Helen replied. “But she pushed me too far. It was bad enough she made a pass at my husband a couple of years ago. She apologized later and said it was the alcohol talking, and how awful she was feeling about her marriage breaking up. And like an idiot, I believed her and I forgave her. But not this time.”
Lauren and Zoe exchanged worried glances.
“What did she do?” Zoe asked.
“She stole my quilting patterns.”
“Huh?” Zoe wrinkled her nose.
“My original quilting patterns. I won first prize at the county fair with the quilt I designed myself. I loved quilting and coming up with new ideas. But it can be expensive. My husband started criticizing my spending and saying we couldn’t afford to spend so much on my hobby, so I gave it up for a while.”
“Couldn’t you have sold your patterns to make some extra money?” Lauren asked.
“I didn’t think anyone would buy them,” Helen explained. “The quilting groups I was involved in all kept saying, why should we pay for patterns when there are so many free ones online and in books? I didn’t think it would be viable, so I kept my patterns just for myself.”
“So how did Paula get her hands on them?” Zoe asked.
“Brrt!” Exactly!
“Stupid me believed her when she said she wanted to give quilting a try, but didn’t like any of the patterns she’d seen online. She said she loved the quilts I’d designed and wanted to make them for herself. So I gave her copies of my patterns, and photos of the finished quilts.”
“Did she make them?” Lauren asked.
“No.” Helen shook her head. “She kept saying she was just about to start, and I told her I’d be happy to help her whenever she needed it, but she never asked for my assistance.” Helen sounded sad.
“Why were you friends in the first place?” Zoe asked curiously.
“I felt a little sorry for her. She didn’t seem to have a best friend and I thought that would be all she needed to show everyone what a good person she was deep down.”
“Very deep down,” Zoe muttered.
“But I was wrong,” Helen concluded. “She took advantage of me, and also of other people. She borrowed Rhonda’s expensive hair dryer and didn’t give it back.” She barked with laughter. “I thought it fitting that I used my old hair dryer to strangle her.”
“Um, about that,” Lauren began.
“I didn’t want to.” Tears welled in Helen’s eyes. “You have no idea how awful I felt about it. A rage just came over me when I found out she’d been passing off my quilt patterns as her own and pocketing the money. I could have used that extra cash.”
“How did you find out?” Zoe asked.
“That day in the café when Rhonda told me her daughter had seen one of my patterns for sale online. When I got home, I searched online for my work, and she was right! My quilting patterns were for sale, along with the photos I’d given Paula of my finished work.
“I confronted Paula, and you know what she did? She laughed in my face! Said I’d been stupid not to make money from my craft. She told me she didn’t think I’d ever find out, as I don’t buy patterns. And she was worried at first when I told her I was taking up quilting again, but said she didn’t think I was smart enough to discover what she’d been up to.”
“I guess you showed her,” Zoe uttered.
“Zoe!” Lauren hissed. She didn’t want them to make Helen even more murderous.
“But why did you place Paula’s body outside Brooke’s hair salon?” Zoe asked.
“To place suspicion on Brooke. I felt guilty about that, but since I strangled Paula with the hair dryer cord, I thought it would be a good idea to dump her body there.”
“How did you even manage it?” Lauren asked, fascinated despite herself.
“I went to Paula’s house early one morning. I was going to ask to borrow her hair dryer, which isn’t even hers, it’s Rhonda’s. I’d found out the night before that she was profiting from my quilting patterns – the sales listings even had a photo of her on it!”
“Wow,” Zoe murmured.
“During the drive to her house, I wondered if I’d be able to forgive her if she really was sorry. But she wasn’t. And that justified my decision to kill her. I’d brought my own hair dryer and hid it in my big purse when I entered her house. All I had to do was stand behind her, pull out my hair dryer, and wrap the cord around her neck.”
The trio took another step back.
“And now you know too much. Lucky for me, the detective hasn’t returned your call. Don’t you just hate that?”
Helen lunged at them.
Lauren and Zoe shrieked.
“Run!” Lauren made a beeline for the cottage.
Annie raced ahead of her, aiming for the large cat flap in the back door.
Lauren looked behind her.
Zoe yanked her bracelet off and flung it at Helen’s face.
“Ow!” Helen placed a hand over her cheek. “You could have gotten my eye!”
Lauren skidded to a stop, pulled off her shoes and hurled them at Helen.
“Ouch!” Helen clutched her head. “Stop throwing things at me!”
“Stop trying to kill us!” Zoe yelled.
“Brrt!” Annie demanded Lauren’s attention. She wriggled through the cat flap, turned around, and stuck her face into it from the cottage kitchen. “Brrt!”
Lauren glanced back. Helen advanced toward them, her face battered and red.
Tugging the zipper on her pants pocket to grab the key for the back door, Lauren froze. The zip was stuck. She had no way of unlocking the back door.
“Brrt!” Annie’s tone was urgent.
Looking into Annie’s eyes, Lauren realized what the feline was trying to tell her.
“You want me to crawl through the cat flap?” She shook her head. “I’ll never fit.” She dug out her phone and pressed 911 with shaking fingers. “Zoe, climb through the flap!” At least she and Annie would be safe in the cottage.
“Here goes – oomph!” Zoe rushed past. Her slim body looked like a wriggling eel as she pulled herself through the cat door. “I’m going to be one big bruise tomorrow.” She pulled out her phone. “I’m calling 911 right now!”
“And I’m already calling,” Lauren shouted to Helen. The other woman stopped two yards away, suddenly looking uncertain. “Even if you kill me, you can’t get to Zoe and Annie. The door is locked and you’ll never get through the flap.” A voice came on the other end of the phone and Lauren’s voice broke as she gave her address and told the operator she was fending off a killer.
“You can too get through here, Lauren.” Zoe’s voice was fierce as she poked her head through the cat flap. “Come on! Annie and I will help you. We’re not leaving you out there.”
Lauren crouched down, keeping a wary eye on Helen, who hadn’t moved. She knew the other woman was too big for the cat door, but could Lauren fit her curves through it?
She pushed her head and arm through the flap, wiggling and turning her shoulder, until the top half of her was inside the kitchen.
“Brrt!” Annie approved.
“It’s not fair!” Helen suddenly wailed. “Why did Paula have to steal my quilting patterns?”
“What’s she doing?” Lauren whispered. She couldn’t contort her body to look behind her.
“Helen’s sitting on the grass and crying.” Zoe kept her voice low. “You’re nearly inside.” Zoe pulled on Lauren’s shoulder.
“Ouch!” She sucked in her stomach and wriggled until she thought she could get a job as a contortionist.
“Brrt!” Annie peeped at the side of Lauren’s face touching the ground as she slid into the kitchen. “Brrt!” See?
“You were right, Annie,” Lauren gasped. “I did fit in the cat flap.” She lay on the cold kitchen floor wondering if she’d ever be able to get up.
A uniformed officer suddenly appeared on the other side of the back door, bending down to peek at them through the flap.
“Is she the killer?” He pointed to Helen, still sitting on the grass, and sobbing.