Murder with Lemon Tea Cakes Read online

  Rappaport studied her up and down, from her blond hair, down her apron with its huge daisy, to her flat shoes. “I’ll be talking to your aunt in a few minutes. No one mentioned she was dating Harvey Fitz.”

  “It wasn’t a secret. They’d been going out for a month or so.”

  “I see,” the detective said.

  Daisy didn’t like his tone. “What do you see?”

  “I’m asking the questions, Miss Swanson.”

  “It’s Mrs. I’m a widow, but still Mrs.”

  “Mrs. Swanson,” he acknowledged. Then he took a look around the kitchen and the interior of the tea garden again. “You were finished for the day?”

  “We were closed, if that’s what you mean. I was going to stay and work on the computer.”

  “What kind of work?”

  If he was trying to catch her in a lie, he wouldn’t. “I had receipts to enter and orders to study. We’re also preparing a cookbook for the tea garden, and I was going to work on that.”

  “How long were you considering staying?”

  “Until around nine. I was going to pick up my daughter at a friend’s.”

  “How old is your daughter?”

  “She’s fifteen. I don’t see what that has to do with any of this.”

  “My job is to ask the questions, and yours is to answer them. If you’d like to leave now, you can.”

  “I’m not going anywhere without Aunt Iris.”

  “Do you live together?”

  “No, but she’s shaken up. It might be a good idea for her to come home with me tonight.”

  He studied her again and then nodded. “You’ll have to wait out here,” he ordered her. “I need to speak with your aunt alone.”

  Although Daisy wasn’t happy about that, she did understand. The detective was interested in seeing whether their stories matched up. She’d watched enough cop shows to know that.

  As gossip came and went, she’d heard tidbits about the detective. It was rumored he’d once worked with the Pittsburgh PD, but he’d taken this job in Willow Creek for a slower-paced position. There were also rumors that he’d left Pittsburgh after an internal affairs investigation. But just like with Jonas Groft, no one knew the real story.

  Daisy wasn’t sure she cared to know it. The less she had to do with the police chief and Detective Rappaport, the better.

  However, five minutes later, Daisy peered through the glass partition and decided Detective Rappaport could put his rules and regulations back in his source book. Her aunt looked pasty and white.

  Suddenly, Iris put her head down between her knees.

  Daisy had run from the kitchen and opened the office door before anyone told her she couldn’t go in. She went to her aunt and put her arm around her.

  “What happened?” She stared at the detective accusingly. “What did you say to her?”

  The detective didn’t answer her but crouched down in front of her aunt, took an ampoule from his pocket, and pressed his finger into it.

  He waved it under her aunt’s nose. “Take a whiff of this. You’ll feel better.”

  When Iris did take a whiff of it, she sat up and waved his hand away.

  The ampoule contained smelling salts, and Daisy wondered if the detective had found himself in situations like this before with fainting witnesses all around him.

  Daisy took her aunt’s hand. “Aunt Iris?”

  Her aunt shook her head as if trying to clear it. “I just got a bit fuzzy, lots of black dots, ears ringing.”

  The detective looked up at Daisy and then rose to his feet. “I just asked for her name and address, nothing tough yet. Mrs. Albright, would you rather go home now? You can come into the station tomorrow to answer my questions.”

  “It’s Ms. Albright,” her Aunt Iris told him. “I’ve never been married.”

  The detective shook his head. “I’ll get this right eventually. Are you sure you’re feeling well enough to continue?”

  Iris looked at Daisy. “Could you make me a cup of black tea? That should help.”

  “I don’t want to leave you.”

  “Mrs. Swanson, I assure you that your aunt will be safe with me,” the detective told her gruffly. “I’m not going to badger her. I just need the facts. By the time you steep the tea, we’ll probably be finished.”

  “You know about steeping?”

  With obvious patience, he explained, “My mother was a tea drinker.”

  “Could I get you a cup of tea, Detective?” Daisy asked politely.

  He shook his head vigorously. “I’m a straight java man all the way. Though I’m not opposed to all of the food that goes with the serving of tea. Your desserts are excellent, and so are your soups.”

  “You’ve had them?”

  “I’ve had your scones and sampled the rest. Some of the officers stop in here, and they bring a selection back to the station. Word does get around about practically everything.”

  Daisy was sure that was true. With another look at her aunt, and her aunt’s affirming nod, Daisy left to steep the tea.

  While Daisy was in the kitchen, she heard the footsteps and clatter of a team arriving through the Victorian’s front door. She peeked into the green room and spotted a man carrying a camera. He was followed by another gentleman who carried what looked like a toolbox. A patrol officer motioned them toward the garden entrance.

  By the time Daisy had steeped the tea, sliced lemons, and assembled sugar cubes with the teacup and saucer on a tray, Detective Rappaport seemed to be winding down.

  As Daisy set the tray on the desk in her office, the detective asked her aunt, “When were you and Mr. Fitz planning to be married?”

  Now it seemed her aunt was flustered, her cheeks going rosy. “I don’t know. He hadn’t signed his divorce papers yet. After he did, we were going to discuss our next step.”

  “Are you sure there was going to be a next step?”

  Daisy almost protested, but the detective’s sharp look cut her off.

  Her aunt was precise when she said, “All I know, Detective, is what Harvey said and what he did. He was acting like a man who was in love with me. He said he would talk about our future as soon as his divorce was final. I believed him.”

  Rappaport suddenly closed his book and pocketed his pen. “That’s it for now. I’ll need to see you both at the station tomorrow, say around ten AM?”

  “But the tea garden—” Iris began.

  “I’ m afraid you’ll have to close it at least for tomorrow,” he explained. “The techs will finish with the crime scene as soon as they can. Someone will contact you when you can get back in.”

  “This could be mightily bad for business,” Daisy said. “It’s a horrible thing to have happened. Customers coming in might not want to even think about it.”

  “On the other hand,” Rappaport said, “you could have a lot more customers who are interested in gawking. You know—see the place where the man was murdered.”

  Her aunt was thoroughly outraged. “Detective Rappaport! We would never, ever encourage anything like that.”

  The detective looked from Iris to Daisy. “Maybe. Maybe not. And something else. Where are your vehicles?”

  Daisy answered, “My van is in the back lot. Aunt Iris’s car is there too.”

  “I’ll be issuing search warrants for them and impounding them. Let me walk the two of you out.”

  When Daisy emerged with her aunt from the front door of the tea garden, all she wanted to do was find a quiet spot to call her dad so he could come and get them. Thank goodness, she’d driven the van today and her car was still at home. Daisy’s father could still be at Gallagher’s Garden Corner—the nursery her parents owned—with end of the day customers.

  In the midst of the noise and commotion, a woman shouted to them from beyond the perimeter tape. “What happened in there?” she yelled. “I’m with Channel 18 news. The public deserves to know.”

  There were others with cameras beyond the tape, many just curious
citizens. But Daisy saw one familiar face, and he was motioning to her.

  Jonas Groft looked tall and sturdy and like a port in the storm. He was gesturing to her and Iris, and pointing toward a black SUV. His vehicle?

  Daisy clung close to Iris. “Come on. Let’s hurry over there to Jonas Groft.” She took her aunt’s arm to guide her.

  Jonas came to meet them at the tape, and he formed a bodyguard stance as he led them to the vehicle. He’d already opened two doors. Daisy quickly hopped in the front, and her aunt hiked herself up into the back. They slammed the doors shut, and soon Jonas was in the driver’s seat.

  “We can sit here, but they might surround us, or I can take you home. Your call.”

  “It would be great if you could take us to my place. Oh, but I have to pick up Jazzi.” She looked at the time on her phone.

  “My clerk’s locking up the store,” Jonas said. “We can pick her up along the way.”

  “Are you sure you don’t mind?”

  “I don’t know what happened back there, but I do know what a commotion it is. I don’t have any other demands on my time, so it’s no problem.”

  “Thank you,” Daisy said gratefully and gave him the address of Jazzi’s friend.

  Daisy called Jazzi, and she answered after one ring. “I know I’m late,” she told Jazzi. “But I’m on my way to pick you up.” She glanced at Jonas. “Or rather I’m with a friend and Aunt Iris, and we’ll pick you up. Watch for a black SUV.”

  “Did something happen with your van?”

  “No. But something happened at the tea garden. I’ll explain when I see you.”

  “Mom . . . ,” Jazzi started, and Daisy knew her daughter was ready to ask questions.

  “We’ll be there in ten minutes. I love you, honey.”

  Something in Daisy’s voice must have warned Jazzi to be patient. She responded, “I’ll see you then.”

  Jonas just drove, without asking questions, until Daisy couldn’t keep it in any longer. “Harvey Fitz was murdered in our garden.”

  With that burst of news, Jonas cut her a quick sideways glance. “I thought you might have had a break-in.”

  “I wish it were that simple. Someone bashed in Harvey’s head with something, and he was lying in the herbs.”

  Jonas glanced in the rearview mirror. “Ms. Albright, are you all right?”

  “I’m not going to pass out, but I’m anything but all right. I just can’t believe . . .” Her voice broke.

  “Murder is unbelievable,” Jonas said, as if he knew, and he probably did. After a silent moment, he asked Daisy, “Who took your statements?”

  “Chief of Police Schultz and then Detective Rappaport.”

  “What kind of things did they ask you?”

  “Just what happened, what I saw and heard, that kind of thing.”

  “Nothing about how you and your aunt knew Harvey?”

  “Yes. I told him Aunt Iris and Harvey were dating.”

  Jonas gave a small grunt.

  “What?” she asked, puzzled.

  “You shouldn’t tell Schultz or Rappaport anything you don’t have to tell them.”

  “I don’t understand. We want to help.”

  “In a murder investigation, whoever finds the body is always suspect.”

  “You’re not serious!”

  “I’m very serious. Do you have to go down to the station tomorrow to give statements?”

  “Yes, around ten.”

  “When you do, just tell them exactly what happened tonight and nothing else, not until you know where this investigation is headed.”

  “But how am I going to know that?”

  “There will be scuttlebutt. I’m friendly with some of the patrol officers, and I might be able to get details. But protect yourself.”

  “You sound more like a lawyer than a cop.”

  The silence in the SUV was weighty until Jonas said, “I’ve seen a detective go after the right suspect with a vengeance. I’ve also seen suspects railroaded because there was no one else to find.”

  “Do you know anything about Detective Rappaport? Is he fair?” Daisy asked.

  “Whether he’s fair or not, he’s going to look hard at your aunt because she and Harvey were dating. But there will be other suspects too. After the scene at Harvey’s twenty-fifth celebration, his wife will definitely be a suspect. I’d be looking at her and maybe his kids. But a man like Harvey could have lots of enemies. You can’t be as successful as he was, and as rich as he was, without ruffling feathers or being a bit ruthless.”

  All of a sudden Daisy realized Jonas Groft’s outlook on life could be altogether different from hers. As a former detective in a big city, he’d probably seen the unthinkable. He’d probably seen way too much. There was a reason he owned a furniture store in Willow Creek and had left the law enforcement profession behind. She’d been a bit intrigued by him before. Now she was even more interested.

  However, her mind was on her aunt, and how she was going to tell Jazzi and her parents about this whole thing. “My parents are going to be worried sick if they see anything about this on the news.”

  “And they will. You can bet some of those lookie-loos with cell phones were uploading their video to the news channels. You’d better give your parents a call to prepare them.”

  Prepare them. How could anyone ever be prepared for murder?

  * * *

  Daisy drove her purple PT Cruiser into the parking lot of the Willow Creek Police Department the following morning. The police department building was almost as old as the town, settled back in the late eighteen hundreds. The building had been revamped and refurbished, but its brick exterior needed sandblasting. It was located smack-dab in the middle of the downtown. The town council had allotted funds a few years back for automated front doors and refurbishment of its only jail cell. At least that’s what the Willow Creek Messenger had reported. Daisy had never been inside the building and really didn’t care to go in there now.

  But she and her aunt had no choice.

  “I shouldn’t have had that coffee this morning,” Aunt Iris said from the passenger seat. “I feel like I’m buzzing like a radio with static. I should have stuck to our herbal tea.”

  “I think you’d be wired no matter what you had to drink. Jazzi said you didn’t sleep at all last night. She heard you tossing and turning.”

  “I just kept seeing . . .” Her aunt’s voice broke.

  Daisy took her hand. “I know, and we’re probably going to have post-traumatic stress syndrome symptoms for a while. You can talk to me about it any time.”

  “What do you think the police are going to ask me?” Aunt Iris inquired, worried.

  “I don’t know. But it’s two minutes before ten, so let’s go find out.”

  Other than those electronic front doors, the inside of the police station took Daisy back to earlier decades. A dispatcher sat near the front door at a desk that had seen years of wear and tear. The woman sitting there looked to be in her forties. She had short brown hair and was wearing headphones and typing on the computer. A wooden fence of sorts cut off the reception area from the space farther back in the room. A swinging door in the middle reminded Daisy of a gate one might see in a nineteen-forties film. Inside that gate sat six desks with computers. Officers occupied two of the desks.

  Daisy and Iris stood at the gate, not knowing whether they should push it open or not. One of the officers saw them, and he approached them with raised brows.

  “We’re here to see Detective Rappaport,” Daisy said.

  The officer glanced over his shoulder to another cop. “Rappaport’s in, isn’t he?”

  “Yes sirree,” the other officer answered. “He’s taking statements this morning.”

  The first officer, who wore a nametag bearing the name Bart Cosner, motioned them inside the gate. “Follow me.”

  Daisy and her aunt did just that. After they went inside the officers’ area, they followed the man to the right and down a short ha
ll. Detective Rappaport emerged from an office.

  “Mrs. Swanson,” he said. “Ms. Albright. Right on time. Mrs. Swanson, Officer Cosner will take you into Interrogation Room One. He’ll take your statement. Ms. Albright, how about if you come into this room?”

  “I thought we were going to do this together,” Daisy protested.

  “No, ma’am. You’re not. I’m mostly finished with you, but I need to ask your aunt more questions before I tape her official version of what happened. She’ll meet you out in the reception area when she’s finished.”

  Daisy didn’t like this wrinkle at all, but there wasn’t much she could do about it. She could call Jonas, she supposed, and ask his advice. But ever since Ryan had died, she was used to standing on her own. She’d retell her experience from last night, then she’d wait for her aunt, hoping Detective Rappaport didn’t shake her up too much. Daisy wanted to be there to hold her aunt’s hand, to support her, to back her up. But she’d have to do all that after the detective had finished with her aunt.

  An hour later, Daisy sat on a ladder-back chair near the dispatcher, waiting. She’d checked her phone for messages about a dozen times. Last night, when she’d reached Tessa, who’d been having dinner with Reese, she’d related everything that had happened. Her friend had been shocked, then appalled at the events and had decided to spend the night with a friend in town since she probably couldn’t get into her apartment. She’d also been interested in how Jonas Groft had become involved, how he’d dropped off Daisy, Iris, and Jazzi at her home, but yet he hadn’t come in.

  Tessa had said, “You invited him in, didn’t you?”

  “Of course, I did. He’d gone out of his way to help us.”

  “So why didn’t he come in?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he thought Iris and Jazzi and I needed the time alone, and he was probably right. Jazzi was upset. Iris was upset. I was just trying to keep us all calm.”

  “Have you told your parents?”

  “Before I called you. Mom wants Aunt Iris to stay with them for a few days.”