Cadbury Creme Murder Read online

  It was simple, homey, and relaxing. Heather supposed that was a good thing in Claudia’s line of work, for people to feel at rest in her office. “You have a lovely office,” she said. “Very relaxing.”

  “Thank you,” Claudia said. “That’s my intention. When most people come here, they’re coming to discuss putting their loved one under our care. They’re stressed. It’s a traumatic and difficult time in their lives. Anything I can do to put them at ease, I want to do.”

  “Makes sense,” Heather said.

  Claudia sat down in the chair behind her desk and folded her hands loosely together. “You wanted to talk about Verna Dixon,” she said. “What did you want to know?”

  “I want to know what she was like,” Heather said. “Did she get along well with you? With the other volunteers? With her clients?”

  “But you’re not a detective. Just a friend of the family.”

  “Well, a friend of one of Verna’s friends,” Heather said. “We have a mutual friend who asked me to kind of look into things.”

  “I can at least listen to your questions,” Claudia said. “If I can help you, I will.”

  “Thank you. I won’t ask anything that would require you to break any kind of confidentiality.”

  “I appreciate your sensitivity to those issues.”

  “Did you know Verna pretty well?” Heather asked.

  “As well as anybody here. I have to know the volunteers pretty well if I’m going to send them into somebody’s home when that person is nearing the end of his or her life. Most people aren’t in hospice for very long, you know. Less than a month.”

  “Really? I thought people were in hospice for a long time.”

  “Some are. The average length of stay is about 72 days. There are a few people who are under hospice care much longer than that. But most aren’t. That’s why I want to be very confident in the volunteers I send into people’s homes when they may only have a week or two to live. It’s a very stressful, yet very important and meaningful time for them and their family.”

  “From what I’ve heard, Verna was exactly the kind of person you would want to send to someone whose death was approaching.”

  Claudia nodded. “She was. So caring. So loving. So unflappable. She wasn’t fazed by anything—not the medical treatments, not the smells, or the sounds, or the patient’s pain, or the family dynamics.”

  “She was used to dealing with all of those things?”

  “She was.”

  “I talked to a nurse whose unit Verna volunteered on at Hillside Regional. She said Verna would sometimes just sit with patients who didn’t have anybody, just because she wanted them to know they at least had her. Does that sound like the Verna you knew?”

  “Mm-hmm, that sounds like Verna,” Claudia said. “Let me ask you something: Did you know her personally?”

  “I had met her a few times. She was always gracious. But other than that, I didn’t really know her very well.”

  “Then you missed out,” Claudia said. “Verna was a wonderful woman and a great volunteer.”

  “Can you think of any reason why anyone would want to kill her?”

  “No, I can’t,” she said. “That’s the first thought that hit me when I heard the news: Who in the world would want to kill Verna? What could anyone have had against her?”

  “So she never had any trouble while she was volunteering with Caring Hearts?”

  “Not a bit.”

  “No calls from patients or their families about her? No complaints, even unfounded ones?”

  “Not a one. Although I did sometimes have families call after their loved one had passed and express how much Verna meant to them.”

  “So everybody loved Verna.”

  “Wellllll…” Claudia drew out the word. “There was one person who didn’t get along with Verna,” she said. “Another volunteer. Of course, that volunteer didn’t get along with anyone.”

  “Why didn’t she get along with Verna?”

  “Part of it was that it was just the way she was. But part of it was that I had to inform that particular volunteer that she was no longer welcome to volunteer with us. She was found to have been stealing things from our offices. Small items, really, such as money from the petty cash, or supplies that were supposed to go to patients and families.”

  “What did that have to do with her not getting along with Verna?”

  “Verna caught her with her hand in the petty cash drawer,” Claudia said. “There was no reason at all for her to be in there. Verna told me, I investigated, and it turned out that a lot of things had gone missing when she had opportunity to take them.”

  “But you weren’t sure she took them.”

  “We couldn’t prove it. But to me, Verna’s finding her with her hand in the drawer was enough proof. She, of course, blamed Verna. She said Verna was lying.”

  “But you believed Verna.”

  “Yes, I did. We didn’t have any cameras or anything set up to monitor the petty cash area. But I had to let one of the two of them go. One of them was lying.” She shrugged. “I believed Verna.”

  “Sounds like Verna had built up a history that showed she was worthy of trust.”

  “Yes, she had. And there were some other problems with the other woman that had caused me to have suspicions about her already. So when Verna came to me and told me what she had seen, I made an executive decision and chose to let the other volunteer go.”

  “Was she angry?”

  “You could say that,” Claudia replied. “But would she have been willing to kill Verna over a volunteer position?” She shook her head. “I just don’t know.”

  “Claudia, thanks so much for your time. I really appreciate your being willing to speak with me.”

  “You’re welcome. And if there’s anything else you need, or any other questions you come up with, just let me know. Verna didn’t deserve to die. Whoever killed her should be brought to justice.”

  ***

  That night for supper, Heather ordered Chinese take-out. Orange chicken, mushroom chicken, and fried rice for her, and a small portion of Mongolian beef for Dave. She stood at the kitchen counter, picking the vegetables out of Dave’s supper with a fork and placing them on a plate for herself, as he waited expectantly. When she had finished, she set the Styrofoam container on the floor next to Dave’s doggie bowl and let him go to town.

  “You’re lucky, Dave,” she said, sitting down at the kitchen table with her own food. “Most people wouldn’t order Chinese food for their dog.”

  Dave ignored her. He was busy eating.

  Heather had just forked a mouthful of orange chicken into her mouth when her cell phone rang, displaying Amy’s number. “Hello?” she mumbled through her food.

  “Heather!” Amy shrieked, causing Heather to hold the phone away from her ear. “Guess what?”

  “What?” she said, trying to chew and swallow.

  “Are you eating? Oh, I’m sorry. I can call you back later.”

  “That’s okay. What’s up?”

  “Kevin asked me out!” Amy shrieked. “We have a date for this weekend!”

  “That’s great! Is he the guy you met at your last art show?”

  “No, that was Keith. This is Kevin. We’re going out this Saturday.”

  “Tell me about him,” Heather said, reaching for another bite of orange chicken.

  “He’s hot—of course—and a great dresser.”

  “Where’d you meet him?”

  “Oh, you know…around.”

  “Where, Amy?” she demanded teasingly.

  “Oh, all right. If you must know, I met him online.” Amy’s voice got even smaller. “On a dating site.”

  “You’re on a dating site?”

  “I figured it couldn’t hurt. It’s not like there are a ton of eligible men in Hillside.”

  “Well, true. But it’s not like you’ve ever had trouble getting a date.”

  “Also true.”

  Heather decided t
o let her off the hook. “So where’s Kevin from?”

  “Kentwood. Only twenty minutes away, so it wouldn’t be a long-distance relationship or anything. Anyway, he asked me out and told me he would meet me anywhere I chose. So that I could feel comfortable.”

  “Is he paying for the date?”

  “Duh. Would I go out with someone who wouldn’t pay?”

  “Probably not,” she said, glancing at Dave, who was almost done with his entrée.

  “Definitely not. Anyway, since you have Ryan, and now I have Kevin—well, maybe I have Kevin—now we can talk about men together, instead of me being jealous of you all the time.”

  “You’re jealous of me? What for?”

  “Because you have Ryan.”

  But did she have Ryan? Heather wondered. Were they still together, or was he losing interest? Worry twisted itself into a knot in her stomach, followed closely by anger at herself. She could do just fine without a boyfriend. After all, hadn’t she done just fine when she and Don divorced? Hadn’t she moved back across the country to her hometown and started her own business?

  She could do fine. She would do fine. She was fine.

  Wasn’t she?

  Amy didn’t seem to notice her silence. “Anyway, I’ll let you eat your dinner, or whatever you’re eating. I just wanted to tell you the good news.”

  “I’m happy for you,” Heather said, the proper words coming automatically. “Just be careful. I mean, you don’t really know this guy. Yet.”

  “I will,” Amy said. “I’ll have him meet me at Chez Mac. Very public. Or maybe you and Ryan can sit at a nearby table in case I need Ryan to rescue me. Okay, so I said I would let you go, but this time, I mean it. Talk to you later.”

  “Bye,” she said. She hung up, laid the phone beside the divided Styrofoam container with her dinner in it, and realized she wasn’t hungry. The knot in her stomach had grown until it was the size of a boulder.

  Swiftly, she stood up, grabbed the Styrofoam container with the rest of her meal, and placed it on the floor in front of Dave. “Here, Dave,” she said. “You eat it. I’ve got things to do.”

  She grabbed her purse, keys, and cell phone, and got into her car. Backing out of her driveway, she turned and headed for Albertson’s. It was always good to be stocked up on groceries. Might as well seize the opportunity and go get some.

  Chapter 5

  “Okay,” Heather said, “are you guys ready for this?”

  She stood at one of the long, stainless steel prep tables in the kitchen of Donut Delights. Jung, Maricela, and Angelica all stood in an expectant semicircle around her.

  “We’re ready,” Jung said.

  “Then taste these,” Heather said, whipping the cover off a small tray that contained three donuts. Each donut was topped with an obviously sugary white icing and crumbles of rich-looking chocolate. “Behold…the Cadbury Crème donut.”

  She grinned as she saw her employees’ mouths drop open. Angelica was the first one to recover and reach for a donut. “I try one,” she said. She took a huge bite, chewed for a couple seconds, then rolled her eyes heavenward in delight. “You make this Cadbury Crème? Or you have to buy?”

  “I made it. Go on, Maricela, Jung. See what you think.”

  As they reached for the remaining donuts, Angelica asked, “We make these for Easter?”

  “Yes. They’re this year’s Easter donut.”

  “When we get started?”

  “Right now.” Heather gestured to the prep table, on which she had arranged a large box of pure cane sugar, some Karo syrup, vanilla flavoring, and a bit of salt. “Those are the only ingredients we need. Making the crème is so easy. And addictive. I may or may not have eaten a couple of the finished donuts. Just for quality control purposes, of course.”

  ***

  Once she had provided them with the recipe so they could begin, Heather ensconced herself in her office to take care of some administrative tasks that needed doing. She much preferred interacting with her customers rather than sitting at the computer. But if she didn’t take care of the less desirable aspects of running a business, soon there wouldn’t be any business to run.

  Deciding which ingredients to order from her various suppliers was actually kind of fun. She thought of it as a game, in a way. On the one hand, she didn’t want to order too much of a certain ingredient and either have it expire or have to store it and let it take up space even when it wasn’t being used. But on the other hand, she didn’t want to order too little of an ingredient and find herself unable to make her customers’ favorite donuts. So placing orders with suppliers was fine.

  It was paying bills that she found annoying. That, and keeping records for tax purposes. Those two tasks, she didn’t find fun at all.

  But all of it was part and parcel of owning her own shop, and she wouldn’t trade that privilege for anything in the world. There was something incredibly freeing about being her own boss. She could make her own decisions. She could stand or fall on her own merits. She was free to be creative in any way she wished without having to seek someone else’s approval. Best of all, she could indulge her passion of turning eggs and sugar and syrup into gourmet creations that provided a luxurious experience for her customers.

  I wonder what Ryan likes most about his job, she thought. Solving mysteries? Never knowing what to expect next? The challenge?

  She shook her head to put Ryan out of her mind just as someone knocked on her closed door. “Someone to see you,” came Angelica’s voice.

  Heather left her office and glanced toward the front of the shop. Eva stood to one side of the glass display cases, waiting for her. “Hi, Eva,” she said, walking over to her. “What can I help you with? Donuts?”

  “No, I have a favor to ask,” Eva said. “But I think you might actually be quite interested in doing me this favor.”

  “Now that’s the kind of favor I like. What’s up?”

  “I’m on my way over to Verna’s house. I would have asked you before, but I just got the call myself. Wait. Let me start over.” Eva paused, gathering her thoughts. “Verna’s son William called me this morning,” she continued. “He asked me if I would be willing to meet him at Verna’s house. He wants me to go through her home and pick out something I would like to have. Something that would remind me of her.” Verna sniffled and smiled.

  “So how can I help you?”

  “Would you go with me? I know it’s quite an imposition on your time, but I don’t want to go alone. And I thought you might like to see where Verna lived. To see where she…well, you know.”

  “You’re going right now?” Heather asked, with a glance back toward the kitchen.

  “Yes. This was the time that worked out best for both William and me.”

  “I’d love to go with you,” she said suddenly. “Let me grab my purse. Do you want to take your car or mine?”

  “Oh, we’ll take mine,” Eva said. “It’s ready and waiting.”

  “Okay. I’ll just be a sec.” Heather hurried toward her office to grab her purse, hoping it was a wise decision to take Eva’s car. Eva was, what, pushing 80? Could she still drive? Safely?

  Heather needn’t have worried. Eva drove as well as Heather herself did. Fifteen minutes after getting into the car, they pulled into the driveway of Verna’s house, right behind a black Ford F-150 pickup.

  “That must be William’s truck,” Eva said.

  Sure enough, as they got out of the car, a man approximately Heather’s age came out the back door and approached them. He was dressed in a short-sleeved shirt and khakis. His eyes were red-rimmed.

  Eva held her arms open wide, and the two embraced. “I’m so sorry about your mother,” Eva said after a few moments.

  “Thank you,” William said, drawing back and sniffling. He glanced at Heather.

  “This is Heather Janke,” Eva said. “She’s the friend I told you about.”

  “Hi,” Heather said, reaching out to shake his hand. “I’m glad to meet you
, but sorry it has to be under such sad circumstances.”

  William nodded to her, attempting a small smile. “Thank you for being here to support Mrs. Schneider,” he said. “Are you ladies ready to go in?”