Dying for Cupcakes Read online

  The cook shook his head.

  “What if it wasn’t the cupcake?” Sammy asked out loud. “That was the last thing that anyone saw him eat, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t something else he had in the meantime.”

  “What are you saying?” Helen asked, and Johnny raised an eyebrow.

  “Just that there could be more to the story than what we’re being told. I wonder if anyone else saw Jones around town later that afternoon, because it sounds like there might have been a little bit of time between when he left here and when he actually went to the hospital. It’s at least worth checking into.”

  “Sammy.” Helen’s voice had a warning tone to it. “I don’t want to hear that you’ve dressed in scrubs and snuck into the hospital to check their records, or that you’re some computer genius and you’ve hacked into the computer system at the sheriff’s department.”

  “Well, I don’t think I’m that talented,” she replied, her face flushing. “But the scrubs…and a surgical mask…that might work.”

  Now even Johnny was shaking his head emphatically.

  “Okay, no, I won’t do that. But I’m not going to leave this alone until my name is cleared.” She knew she couldn’t. She owed it to herself and to her father.

  “I know you won’t, dear. And I’ll do everything I can to help you. But you have to be sure you don’t incriminate yourself for something else in the process. God willing, it will all work out.”

  Sammy took a deep breath. “I hope you’re right.”

  Chapter Six

  It was difficult to stay in the back when Sammy knew how busy Helen was out front. She had stayed up half the night trying to come up with a plan for this new “investigation” she had unofficially launched, but she hadn’t been able to come up with much. A computer search of recent newspaper articles showed that Helen had been right about Jones. He had done his job as sheriff, but he had never made any big drug busts or hunted down a psychopathic genius. In a place like Sunny Cove, crimes were usually restricted to fender benders or the occasional break-in.

  After putting in another batch of dinner rolls—which had become such a hit that they were practically a staple at Just Like Grandma’s—and pouring herself another cup of coffee, Sammy grabbed the trash and took it outside.

  The sun was too bright, even in the alley behind the building. It shone down on Sammy’s Toyota, reminding her of just how far she had driven only to land in this mess. She wasn’t sure how much of a friend Heather really was these days, but she had been right about getting her name cleared. Sammy couldn’t hire a private investigator, but she could become an amateur one if need be. Unfortunately, she didn’t seem to be a very good one yet.

  The trash bag was heavy, and she shuffled across the gravel to the dumpster. She stopped when she heard something inside it, her heart thumping in her chest. When she had lived in the city, there had been rats galore in places like this. But this was a small town in the middle of nowhere. It was just as likely that she would find a raccoon digging through yesterday’s scraps. When Sammy tentatively peered into the receptacle, two wild green eyes stared back at her.

  She leaped back, letting out a little yelp of fear, but she decided she didn’t feel nearly as scared as Austin looked as he peeked up over the edge of the dumpster. His dark hair stuck up in all directions and he wore a bright blue scarf around his neck.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Americans throw away over $165 billion dollars worth of food annually,” he replied quietly.

  “Are you hungry?” She took a step forward, horrified that this poor man might actually be digging around in the trash for his next meal.

  This time, Austin didn’t respond with a fact but simply nodded.

  “Why don’t you come inside? I’ll buy you a meal. Even a coffee, if you’d like,” she added, remembering how excited Austin had been to have coffee with Sheriff Jones.

  But the man shook his head emphatically. “People don’t like me in there.”

  It was the first thing she had heard him say that wasn’t a random fact, and it caught her attention. “What do you mean?”

  “People don’t like me in anywhere.”

  “Austin, I’m sure that can’t be true. Maybe they just don’t understand you.” She paused for a moment, her heart aching for this poor man. “And I heard that you’re usually stealing food. If you’re hungry, and I’m buying you a meal, then you won’t need to steal anything. It’ll be okay.”

  But Austin shook his head once again.

  “Okay.” She wasn’t going to push him. Sammy had done her share of volunteer work, but she was no professional when it came to someone like Austin. Still, she wanted to help. “What if I brought some food out here? You could eat it here, where there aren’t any people, and maybe you and I could talk.”

  He stared at her for a moment before he finally nodded.

  She couldn’t stop the smile that spread over her face. “You come on out of there, sit here on the step, and I’ll be right back with a big plate of food for you, okay?”

  “Promise?” He stood up a little inside the dumpster, looking hopeful.

  “Cross my heart.” She slipped inside, eager to help the poor soul in the alley. The timer went off on her dinner rolls, so she pulled them out of the oven. Grabbing a large plate, Sammy loaded it down with chicken casserole, green beans, and two of the rolls slathered in butter. As she poured a to-go cup of coffee, she noticed Johnny watching her curiously. “Don’t worry. I’m paying for it. This is for a friend of mine.”

  He nodded and went back to his work, looking unconcerned. It didn’t seem that there was much that rattled Johnny.

  Returning to the alley, Sammy found that Austin had climbed out of the trash bin as she requested. But instead of sitting on the back step, he was standing in front of her car. His eyes were intense as he looked over the blue SUV.

  “I’ve got your food.”

  Austin turned, looking startled again until he realized it was her. He immediately trotted over, yanked the plate out of her hand, and immediately began eating.

  “You really were hungry,” Sammy mumbled to herself. She sat down next to him, setting the coffee on the concrete step for whenever he was ready.

  In between bites of casserole, Austin suddenly pointed at the nametag on her apron. “Sammy.”

  “That’s right.”

  His finger swiveled to point at her car. “Sammy from New York, SRB 811.”

  “I see you’ve memorized my license plate.” The idea might have unsettled her if she hadn’t already come to know a little bit about him. “Is it fun for you to do that?”

  Austin didn’t answer her question, instead asking, “Sammy where?”

  “I’m right here.”

  He shook his head so hard she thought he might make himself dizzy. “Where?”

  Sammy suddenly remembered what Austin had said to Sheriff Jones on that fateful evening. “You want to know where I live? I live here. There’s an apartment upstairs, over the café.” She pointed up and behind her, toward the second-story windows of the brick building.

  He stared up for a moment. “Sammy from New York, SRB 811, 1214 Main Street.”

  “That’s correct.” When she had lived in the city, she never would have told a stranger her address. But Austin seemed harmless, and this definitely wasn’t the city. “You know just about everyone around here, don’t you?”

  His mouth full of green beans while he scooped up more with his fork, Austin nodded.

  “I wonder if you can help me with something. You know Sheriff Jones?”

  He gave that insistent nod again.

  “Well, someone tried to hurt him. No, it’s okay. He’s in the hospital, and he’s being taken care of by some very good doctors. But I want to find out who did that so they can’t do it again.” Sammy hoped she was putting this in simple enough terms for him. She wasn’t sure just what Austin was capable of understanding. “Do you know of anybody who might want
to harm Sheriff Jones? Or make him go away?”

  Austin swallowed and set down his fork, staring off into the distance for a moment before he turned those viridescent eyes on Sammy. “The bad man with the big wheel.”

  Considering the way Austin usually spoke, something this vague was unusual. “Do you know the bad man’s name?”

  “No. Big wheel.” He spun his finger in the air and made a ticking noise.

  “Like on a game show? On TV?”

  Austin shook his head.

  Sammy was just about to ask him if he knew an address when an old truck came down the alley. Austin instantly froze, watching as the tan vehicle crept down the narrow gravel lane. He set down the plate, grabbing the two remaining rolls and stuffing them in his pocket. Every muscle in his body was tense, like he was ready to run.

  The truck came to a stop right behind Just Like Grandma’s. The grizzled man behind the wheel looked at them with tired eyes. “There you are, Austin! Get in this truck right now. I’m sorry if he was bothering you, ma’am. Please don’t call the police on him this time. I’ll find a way to pay you for whatever he stole.”

  “Oh, no. He didn’t steal a thing.” Sammy rose to her feet, hoping she could talk to the driver about Austin’s situation, but Austin was instantly bolting toward the truck. “Austin, wait! At least take your coffee with you.” She picked up the mug and handed it to him.

  The driver, a man whom Sammy had to assume was his caregiver, watched the exchange with surprise. “How much do I owe you?”

  “Nothing,” Sammy assured him. “It’s on me. Austin was helping me out with a problem.”

  The man looked skeptical. “Well, I’m sorry he bothered you.” The truck sped off down the alley, kicking up a small cloud of dust in its wake. Austin waved at her from the rear windshield.

  Sammy waved back, feeling sorry for the man. He was so misunderstood; that much she knew for sure. When she turned back to the restaurant, she saw Helen waiting for her on the back step.

  “Feeding the strays, are you?” she asked.

  “I’m sorry. I’ll pay for his meal myself. But he was so hungry he was looking for food in the dumpster.” Even though she knew he had a full belly now, she felt tears at the backs of her eyes to think that anybody had to do such a thing just for food.

  “You’ll do no such thing,” Helen assured her, a warm smile creasing her cheeks. “I knew you were a good girl as soon as I met you. But I’ll give you a word of warning. If you feed him now, he’s just going to keep coming back. I used to let him come in, and I’d give him a peanut butter sandwich and a cup of milk every day, no charge. But he was scaring all the customers away, and I have to make a living.”

  “I’ll make sure he stays out of sight,” Sammy promised. It didn’t seem fair, but she understood that this was Helen’s business. And she also hoped Ms. Honeycutt was right and that Austin would come back. She wanted to know more about the bad man with the big wheel.

  Chapter Seven

  Later that evening, Sammy sat upstairs in her apartment. She had been so busy with the restaurant that she hadn’t had much time or energy for getting settled in, but she couldn’t live out of cardboard boxes and garbage bags forever. She had always sworn that the next time she moved—which was supposed to be when she and Greg got a house in the suburbs—she would have everything organized and labeled in plastic totes, so the unpacking would be nice and smooth.

  Instead, she had driven down to the local supermarket to load her car up with any cardboard boxes they had available. As soon as she had gotten them back home, Sammy had stormed through the house, chucking her things into any box she had on hand. There was no organization, no one certain box for clothes and another for books. She had been so desperate to get out and get away from the man who had hurt her so much that she had only grabbed the most important things and left everything else behind.

  Fortunately, the apartment over Grandma’s came fully furnished, and Helen had even left a bucket of cleaning supplies under the sink. Though it wasn’t very big, it was a nice little place that she was quickly coming to enjoy. The living room and kitchen were one large space, with a counter and the cabinets on the left and a couch and chair on the right. There was room on the short wall to hang a television once she got one. Just past the big set of built-in bookshelves was the door to the bathroom on the right. A small space with tiny tiles on the floor and a cast iron tub, it was nothing like the modern baths she had seen on television. Still, Sammy thought it had an old-fashioned charm and great lighting for the days when she actually felt like putting on makeup. Past the bathroom was the bedroom, where a big quilt covered the queen-sized bed.

  Except for the wooden floors, everything in the apartment was light and airy in color. The tall, flat ceilings were painted white, as was all the trim work. The walls were an incredibly pale shade of green, like the eggshell of a wild songbird, and it went nicely with the dark wood of the floors. Someone had put down a shabby rug in the middle of the living space, and the bright blue of it gave just the right pop of color to the apartment.

  Sammy knew she could be happy here, but she still didn’t enjoy the idea of unpacking. She hadn’t even taken the time to label her boxes, and there hadn’t been much point since their contents were in such disarray. With a sigh, she hoisted a big box with pictures of bananas on the outside onto her kitchen table and opened the lid, finding a few books, a yoga DVD, and a New York Yankees sweatshirt. Underneath that was a notebook that she must have thought was important as she was packing, the extra charging cable to her phone, and a framed picture of her parents.

  “This is going to take forever,” she said to them as she set the frame on the bookshelf. “I’ll be running all over the apartment with every box.”

  As she picked up a carton that had formerly held eggs, she remembered Heather’s words as she suggested Sammy not unpack too much in case she ended up in jail. She shook her head, trying to knock the thoughts away. She hadn’t done anything wrong, and somehow she would find a way to prove it. She just wasn’t sure how yet.

  The next box was one she wished she hadn’t opened. Right on top were her old scrapbooks. Sammy had kept them because it seemed appropriate, even though she rarely ever looked through them. They simply moved around with her from place to place, often stuffed under her bed or in a cabinet where they wouldn’t be noticed and nobody would ask her about them.

  Now, she lifted the old blue binder out of the box and carried it to the couch. Even though it had been years since she had flipped through the pages, she knew exactly what would be on each one. Lifting the cover, she saw the newspaper clipping that showed her father’s arrest. Sammy couldn’t even say now why she had saved it, considering that the night the police had come to their house had been such a horrible one. But she had continued to do so, keeping anything that was even slightly related to the case. If she had been older at the time, if she had been an adult, maybe she would have tried to discover the truth behind what happened.

  “Bernie Philpot Testifies against Rick Beaumont,” said one headline. It was accompanied by a picture of a man as he walked down the steps of the courthouse, covering his face with his hand against the flash of the cameras. A young girl walked next to him, but she wasn’t as reserved at the attention. Her big eyes, tipped up slightly at the outer corners, stared boldly into the camera, and her face was carefully framed with thick, dark hair. “Beaumont Takes the Stand,” said another. Sammy didn’t need the big bold letters to remind her of exactly what happened, but “Beaumont Sentenced” still put a knife in her heart.

  Rick Beaumont had taken a job in the next town at a bank. It was a good job with good hours and even better benefits. Every day, Sammy had gotten up at the same time as her father. He would get ready for work while she got ready for school. It had been just the two of them since her mother had passed away when she was three, and they had a companionable relationship that Sammy had never thought would change. She got home from school about an hour
before he got home from work, and they would make dinner together every evening, usually eating in front of the television. Samantha had often wished she still had her mother with her, but she was always grateful for her father.

  But then one day, he didn’t come home from work. She waited and waited, calling his office several times to see what was keeping him. Sammy made dinner by herself, wondering if her father had gotten into a car accident or if he had just been stuck in a late meeting. A police officer had finally showed up, explaining that her father had been arrested and that Sammy was to stay with her aunt across town.

  He’d been charged with fraud and money laundering. The bank accused him of loaning money to those who didn’t qualify in order to fund illegal business that he had a share in. The money that those businesses made from selling illegal goods was accepted back into the bank under Rick’s approval. Sammy hadn’t understood all of it as a kid, and she had never been interested in knowing the details as an adult. Even now, she preferred to do all of her banking online just to keep as much distance from it all as possible.

  Though things had eventually worked out five years later, when the judge who had sentenced Rick to jail confessed on his death bed that he had been forced to do so in fear of his son being harmed, the damage had already been done.

  A soft knock on the door brought Sammy back to the present. She set the scrapbook aside and crossed the room, looking through the peephole. She opened the door. “Hi, Helen. What brings you by? I thought you went home hours ago.”

  The older woman was breathless from climbing the stairs. “I did, but I’ve been thinking about you.”

  Sammy held the door open and stood aside to let her in. “How come?”

  “I don’t really know,” she puffed. “God just put you in my heart, and I thought at least I would come by and see how you were coming along with unpacking.”

  “It’s a slow process,” Sammy confessed, choosing not to explain that she had just been reminiscing over one of the worst times in her life instead of actively doing anything. “You’d think I would have better things to do with my free time, considering I’m not allowed to put a toe over the city limits. But somehow that has only made things harder. Have a seat. I’ll make you a cup of tea. It’s one of the few things I’ve been able to find among my stuff.”