Toasted Almond & Murder: An Oceanside Cozy Mystery - Book 17 Read online

  “Do you think he’s telling the truth?” Janae asked. “Was somebody really killed?”

  Luz shuddered.

  “Watch the shop while we go check it out,” Heather said to her assistants.

  Mr. Rankle pointed to the side of his shop that they should investigate and the two women hurried forward. Mr. Rankle followed, shuffling after them with his cane and not too anxious to be next to them longer than necessary.

  Heather and Amy reached his novelty store’s building and took just a brief pause before they ventured down the small alley next to it.

  “Are you ready?” Heather asked. “I have a feeling that this isn’t a prank.”

  “I’m ready,” Amy said. “I just need to stand firm so that I can maintain my New Year’s Resolution and not scream when I see a dead body. I’ve been doing pretty good with it so far. It’s a shame Mr. Rankle didn’t have a resolution to be nicer to us.”

  “Even if he did, coming across a dead body would surely put him in a bad mood,” Heather said. “Can you imagine if we came across one when we came out of Donut Delights?”

  “I don’t want to imagine it,” Amy said. “I’d surely abandon my resolution then.”

  They took a deep breath and walked down the alley. Mr. Rankle had not been lying. Near an exit door to his shop was a body.

  Heather took out her phone and called Ryan. "Hi, honey. I'm afraid you and Detective Peters are going to have to come to Sun and Fun Novelties… No. Mr. Rankle is fine."

  “As fine as an old meanie like that can be,” Amy muttered.

  “There’s a dead body next to the store,” Heather said. “And based on the knife sticking out of his back, I’m pretty sure it’s murder.”

  Ryan assured her that they would be over soon, and Heather hung up. She surveyed the crime scene. Blood was smeared on the ground near the door, which must have happened when Mr. Rankle opened the door before seeing what was there. A knife with a festive blue handle decorated to look like a fish was visible.

  “I’m keeping my comments about being fish bait to myself,” Amy said.

  “You would be if you didn’t just tell me that,” Heather responded.

  Mr. Rankle joined them and sighed. “Look what you did to the neighborhood.”

  “Do you know this young man?” Heather asked.

  “He’s a delivery boy. I don’t know his name. But he brings me deliveries every so often.”

  "Don't call him a delivery boy," Amy said "That makes him sound even younger, and it's already sad enough. He looks like he's out of high school. Maybe twenty."

  “We’ll have to figure out who he is,” Heather said.

  “Such a shame,” Mr. Rankle said, shaking his head. “Those knives were some of my best sellers too.”

  “Wait a minute,” Heather said. “Are you saying that you sold the murder weapon?”

  “I must have,” said Mr. Rankle.

  "So, your delivery boy was killed by your store with one of your knives?” Heather recapped.

  “But nothing like this happened until you moved here!” Mr. Rankle said.

  The Police Station

  “Do you think there’s any chance he really could be the killer?” Amy asked.

  Heather and Amy were at the police station with Ryan and his partner, after they had examined the crime scene. They had also asked Mr. Rankle to come in for questioning, and he was waiting in the interrogation room.

  “I always thought he was a bad guy, but I didn’t think he was a bad guy,” Amy continued.

  Heather nodded. “I know Mr. Rankle likes to start trouble for people he doesn’t consider locals, but I don’t see him stabbing anyone.”

  “We wouldn’t be doing our due diligence if we didn’t question him,” Ryan said. “Right now, there are many elements of the crime that are tied to him.”

  Detective Peters nodded. He was a young detective who was still learning to trust his instincts, and so he stuck to trusting his notes. He consulted his notebook and listed off what they knew so far. "The victim made deliveries for Mr. Rankle and was killed with a knife that was sold in his shop while he was right outside his shop."

  “But could he physically have killed him?” Heather asked. “He leans on that cane.”

  “The medical examiner gave us some preliminaries on his findings,” Ryan said. “The knife definitely killed the victim. Unfortunately, because of where the stabbing occurred, the angle doesn’t give us a clear indication of the killer’s height. Sometimes you can extrapolate on a killer’s build based on where the murder weapon was used. However, because it was the victim’s lower back, here it could be tall person or a short person.”

  “Any chance there’s fingerprints on the knife?” Heather asked.

  Peters shook his head. “We had a forensics team search the area, but it’s outside and near a public street. It’s hard to determine if anything we found is related. There was a piece of gum and some hair. But we’ll need to see if they appeared there near the time of the crime or if they’ve been there for days.”

  “And we still don’t know who the victim is?” asked Heather.

  “He didn’t have any ID on him,” Ryan said.

  “That’s unusual, isn’t it?” asked Heather. “Was he robbed?”

  “It’s possible,” Ryan said. “We didn’t find a wallet on him. But he was wearing an expensive watch that wasn’t taken.”

  “So, if it was robbery, then the killer wasn’t very thorough?” Amy asked. “Ignoring a shiny watch?”

  “Or the robber only took exactly what he wanted?” Heather suggested. “Something in his wallet if the victim was carrying one? Or he took whatever Mr. Rankle was having delivered.”

  Chief Chet poked his head out of his office to see how the investigation was going. Chief Chet was the most laidback officer Heather had ever met. While he cared about keeping his island safe, he also cared about his relaxation time. He often wore sandals to work and liked to read case files on the beach. He also insisted everyone call him by his first name instead of Chief Copeland.

  “How’s this new case progressing?” Chief Chet asked.

  “We still need to find out more about the victim in order to find out who the killer is,” Ryan said. “But we brought someone in for questioning.”

  “Great job, investigators,” he said. “Keep me informed of the progress.”

  Then he went back into his office and Heather could hear that he began playing music. At least, he trusted them to figure things out on their own.

  “Hopefully, Mr. Rankle will have some more information for us,” Ryan said. “The other neighbors didn’t hear anything odd around the time this must have happened.”

  “I’m afraid we didn’t hear anything either,” Heather said. “We were in the kitchen.”

  “Making this week’s new flavor?” Detective Peters asked. “What is it this time?”

  “A Toasted Almond Donut,” Heather said.

  “That sounds delicious,” Peters said.

  “I should have brought some, but I was distracted by the murder. Stop by and get a sample,” Heather suggested. She knew that Detective Peters also had a crush on her assistant Janae, so stopping by Donut Delights should be doubly pleasing for him.

  “I’d love to. Both your donuts and your staff are so wonderful,” Detective Peters said enthusiastically, before catching himself and returning to business mode. “But first, I have some investigating to do. We need to get to the bottom of this.”

  “I just wish we had some good news when it came to the clues,” Heather said. “But right now, it seems pretty open-ended.”

  “There is some good news,” Amy said. “How often do you think we’re going to be able to interrogate Mr. Rankle at the station? This should be fun.”

  Heather allowed herself a smile, and the investigators all headed into the interrogation room to question Mr. Rankle.

  “It took you long enough,” Mr. Rankle said. “My coffee is cold now.”

  “
I’m sorry about that,” Ryan said. “But we do have some questions about the case.”

  “I told you everything I know,” Mr. Rankle said. “And I don’t like being brought in here from investigators from out of state.”

  “Detective Shepherd is a part of the Key West police force,” Peters said. “And these private investigators help out to make sure we solve a case speedily.”

  “And we want to find out what happened to this delivery boy,” Heather said.

  “Please, don’t call him a boy,” Amy said. “It sounds so sad.”

  “He might have been a local too,” Heather said.

  Mr. Rankle decided he wanted to help but began directing all his answers toward Detective Peters who was the only person originally from Key West.

  “What can I tell you that will help, officer?”

  Peters wasn’t used to being the lead investigator on a case and swallowed with apprehension, but then continued on admirably.

  "Are you sure that you don't have any information about the identity of this delivery boy?” Peters asked. “Maybe a nickname or the company he worked for?”

  “I didn’t know his name,” Mr. Rankle said. “And I didn’t know where the packages came from until I got an invoice. I think he did odd jobs, delivering things around the island.”

  “Were you expecting a package today?” Heather asked.

  She sighed as Mr. Rankle ignored her. Detective Peters was forced to repeat the question and then Mr. Rankle responded, "I was expecting a novelty sunglasses shipment this week. The company normally sends them to their warehouse on the island and ships them out from there. It's possible that's what this was. I don’t remember all the details.”

  “Did the victim handle all your deliveries?” Heather asked.

  Again, Detective Peters had to repeat the question for Mr. Rankle to say, "No. My larger orders come from big shipping companies or directly from the place I order from. This guy only made small package deliveries so often. I had very little to do with him. I don't know why he had to be killed on my doorstep."

  “Did you hear any disturbances outside the shop this morning?” asked Ryan.

  Mr. Rankle waited for Peters to repeat the question, but instead, Peters said, "You might want to answer the other police officer."

  Mr. Rankle’s face flushed. He did answer but still kept it directed at Peters. “I didn’t hear anything that caught my notice. If I knew something like that was happening I either would have helped or run for the hills.”

  “Did you have reason to dislike the victim?” Peters asked.

  “No,” Mr. Rankle said. “I barely knew him. And there are plenty of people that I do dislike that I haven’t killed.”

  He gave Amy a look.

  “He might have a point about that,’ Amy conceded.

  "We'd like to know more about that knife," Ryan said.

  Mr. Rankle decided to answer this right away. “Those knives are supposed to be used for dealing with fish. Because fishing is something that tourists like to do, they were a popular item. I’ve sold a bunch of them. I still have them on display in my shop.”

  “So, there are many people who had access to this type of knife?” Detective Peters said.

  “Exactly,” Mr. Rankle said.

  “Did the victim every buy one of those knives?” Heather asked.

  Mr. Rankle frowned and did answer. "I don't remember. He didn't buy one today. And if it wasn't done today, why would be carrying it around with him? It's a big knife that's meant for fish."

  “That’s a very good question,” said Heather.

  "I think that's all the questions we have right now," Detective Peters began.

  “Unless you’d like to answer some questions about how you’ve been sneakily trying to shut down Donut Delights,” Amy said.

  “I’d rather leave and try to salvage my reputation,” Mr. Rankle said. “How can Sun and Fun Novelties continue if people associate a murder?”

  “Maybe change the name to Stab and Grab?” Amy joked.

  "I've spent a lifetime building up the business," Mr. Rankle said. "The store has been in my family for generations. I'd hate for it to fail because of this."

  “Don’t worry,” Heather assured him. “We’re going to find out who did this, and then business can go back to normal.”

  “Well,” Mr. Rankle said, grudgingly. “If you did do that and helped save Sun and Fun, well, that would be quite neighborly of you.”

  He shuffled out of the room. Heather turned to Amy.

  “I think that’s the nicest thing he’s ever said to us.”

  Other Neighbors

  “It’s been a long time since we had a John Doe as a victim,” Amy said. “I wonder why they chose Doe as the fake last name for people who you can’t identify.”

  “I don’t know,” Heather said. “But hopefully, we’ll find out who he really is soon.”

  Because the victim had made deliveries on the street for Mr. Rankle, they decided to ask their other neighbors to see if he had ever made deliveries to their businesses as well. Heather and Amy admitted that the victim looked familiar, so it was possible that they had seen him on the street before, though they had never received any deliveries from him before.

  Heather had suffered through an overly dramatic scene in which Digby portrayed both of the characters who were proclaiming their undying love for one another so that she could pick up some of her Toasted Almond Donuts before they started their questioning. It was nice to bring something to her neighbors. She also found that people were often more willing to talk when they were presented with a sugary bribe.

  They began by visiting their friend at Bernadette’s Beachy Books.

  “You don’t know who someone is?” Bernadette asked. “Is he wearing a mask like in The Phantom of the Opera?”

  “No,” Heather said. “It’s more in the vein of we have a murdered John Doe on our hands.”

  “Oh dear,” Bernadette said. “I’m glad you brought some donuts with that not very cheery news.”

  “Me too,” Amy said. “But you’ll be pleased to know I’ve been keeping my resolution not to scream when I come across a victim.”

  “What can I do to help?” Bernadette asked, taking a donut.

  “We believe the John Doe was a delivery boy who worked around here,” Heather started.

  “A delivery person,” Amy amended.

  “Do you know anyone who this might have been?” Heather asked before adding a description. “He was about nineteen or twenty with shaggy brown hair. We found him wearing a blue baseball cap.”

  Bernadette gasped. “A delivery boy.”

  “Person,” Amy said again.

  "I think I might have met him before. He was wearing a blue baseball cap then too. He delivered some bookmarks to me before. The company was supposed to ship them directly but sent them to a warehouse instead first. He was apologetic for the delay. I had said All’s Well that Ends Well, but I guess it didn’t end too well after all.”

  “What was his name?” asked Heather.

  “You’re not going to believe this,” Bernadette said. “But his name was Fitzwilliam. Just like Mr. Darcy.”

  “Thank you very much,” Heather said. “If he has a distinctive name like that we should be able to track him down.”

  They left the bookshop, feeling hopeful.

  “Should we keep questioning the neighbors if we already have this information?” Amy asked.

  “We might as well,” Heather said. “Maybe someone knows his last name. And I think Harmony is waving at us.”

  They waved at the yoga instructor and walked over to her. She had been one of the neighbors who had been cold to the newcomers at first but had become friendly with the investigators after they helped her with a missing-persons-turned-murder case.

  “Is it true?” Harmony asked. “Was there another killing on our street?”

  Heather nodded.

  “Something is wrong with the karma on our block,” H
armony mused. “I don’t remember anything unusual in the last couple days. But is there anything I could do to help?”

  “Do you know a Fitzwilliam who made deliveries around here?” asked Heather. “He was a young man.”

  "Fitzwilliam?" Harmony asked. "No. The one delivery boy I know around here was named Rye. He brought us some yoga mats before. He had shaggy hair and wore a blue baseball cap."

  “And his name was Rye?” asked Amy.

  “I know it’s not a name you hear very often,” Harmony said. “But I think it’s very new age.”

  Heather thanked her for her help with a donut and walked away.

  “What does this mean?” Amy asked. “Is our John Doe actually a Fitzwilliam Doe? Or A Rye Doe? I don’t know which one sounds crazier.”

  “It means that we have to talk to some more neighbors,” Heather said.

  Next, they visited Juan and Don’s Taco restaurant. The two men were best friends who ran the place together but also knew how to get on one another’s nerves.

  “His name was Joe,” Juan said.

  “No. I’m certain it was Mo,” Don argued.

  “But we’re all talking about the same person, right?” Amy asked.

  “Right,” Juan said. “Shaggy hair.”

  “Blue baseball cap,” agreed Don. “His name was Mo.”

  “It was Joe,” Juan said.

  Heather and Amy thanked them but weren't sure that they heard them over the bickering.

  “Something funny is going on,” Amy said.

  Heather nodded. “There’s no way someone could confuse the name Mo with Fitzwilliam. But it sounds like they are all talking about the same delivery boy – person.”

  They spoke to one more neighbor, Brogan from the Hammock Hut, who added another name to the mix.

  "Yeah, man, I remember him," Brogan said. "He made deliveries before. Cool kid. His name was Terry."

  “Do you know anything else about him?” Heather asked. “Something that might help us track him down.”

  “Not really,” Brogan said. “He didn’t talk much about himself. We talked more about surfing. Though he did mention graduating from the high school here a year ago. It was a bit longer than that for me. That’s all I really know. Sorry, man.”