Fudgy Fatality: A Pumpkin Hollow Mystery, book 10 by Kathleen Suzette (good books for high schoolers .txt) 📗

He looked at one and then the other. “They need to learn to get along better.”

“At least they aren’t hissing and spitting at each other. We’ve made progress.” The two cats were slowly learning to get along, but some days it was hard to see the progress they’d made. Boo wanted to run everything, and Licorice resented it.

“True,” he said and took another sip of lemonade. “So, what’s the word on the street?”

I laughed. “The word on the street? Well, Olivia’s sister thinks Aaron Cox, her ex-boyfriend murdered her, and John thinks it’s Bryce Jenkins.”

He looked at me. “John? John who?”

“John Green. Christy’s ex-husband.” I tilted my head, waiting for his reaction.

“What? Wait. He’s in town? He and Christy aren’t back together, are they? What happened to Devon?”

“I haven’t seen Devon for a while, and she hasn’t mentioned him, other than to smile when I brought up his name. John lost his job, and he’s moving back to town. It’s funny, but I pointed out he was coming back at an opportune moment—a job has just opened up where he used to work, at Storage Inc because of Olivia’s death. Christy acted kind of weird when I said it. I asked her about it, but she denied anything was up.”

He eyed me. “You don’t seriously think he had something to do with Olivia’s murder, do you?”

I thought about it a moment. “No. I don’t. I was just giving him a hard time. Did you interview anyone at Olivia’s place of business?”

“Yes, everyone. They were all surprised and couldn’t imagine what had happened to her.”

“So, since she was strangled, the killer has to be strong, right?”

“Like I said, there were ligature marks along with the bruising. The killer probably wouldn't need to be as strong as they would if they strangled her with their bare hands.” He ran a hand across Licorice’s back, and she began purring and gave him a head butt.

“Olivia was petite. I bet she didn’t weigh over a hundred pounds. It wouldn’t have taken a lot to kill her, I guess.”

“Yes, and she had some skin beneath her fingernails that we’re running for DNA. Other than that, there isn’t much to go on right now. We checked in the alley and street near where she was found, but there wasn’t much there, either.”

“How long does a DNA test take?” I asked, slouching down in the chair. We had ordered a pizza, and we were waiting for the delivery.

“A few weeks. Hopefully, it will give us something to go on. Otherwise, we’ve got to come up with something else. Did her sister say she knew anything specific about Aaron, or why she thought he might have killed her?” he asked as Licorice crawled into his lap. Boo narrowed his eyes at her. He wasn’t excited by the newcomer taking over his territory.

“She said they had a fight, and he grabbed her by her upper arm, leaving a bruise behind. Who all works at her office?”

He looked at me, one eyebrow raised and gave me a rundown on the employees at Storage Inc, but none of them seemed like killers to me. I knew all of them to one degree or another. There wasn’t a suspicious one in the bunch.

“Had she been dead long when she was found?” I asked him.

“Nope. Rigor mortis hadn’t set in. The medical examiner thought she’d been dead less than two hours, based on her body temperature.”

“So it might have happened during the parade, or at least, while we were all lining up for it, and then someone dumped her body off? That makes me sick. She could have still been alive while we were out there enjoying the day.” I groaned. “If only we’d seen something that might have made us take a closer look.”

“I’ve been thinking the same thing. I didn’t notice anything that was amiss though, and you can’t blame yourself for something you were unaware of.”

The doorbell rang, and I got up to answer it. Jenna Adams stood at the door with the pizza. She smiled when she saw me. “Hey, Mia, how are you?”

I smiled back. “I’m great. How are you doing, Jenna? I thought you worked at the bank?” Ethan and I had gone to school with Jenna and I was surprised to see her delivering our pizza.

She chuckled. “I do. But I’m moonlighting to make some extra money to put down on a new car. Mine is sputtering and making all kinds of weird noises and I decided I had better get a jump on it and replace it before I end up on foot. I’m using my husband’s car to deliver pizzas. There’s no money in the budget for a new car without this side job.”

“I hear you,” I said, taking the pizza from her and handing her a tip. “It’s good you could get this job.”

She nodded and looked past me at Ethan. “Hey, Ethan.” She lifted one hand and waved her fingers at him.

“Hey, Jenna,” he said and came to the door. “How are you?”

“Great. I heard about Olivia Summers. What a shame. I just talked to her a few days ago over at the gym. I can’t believe it.”

He nodded. “It is a real shame. Did she seem okay when you saw her? Did you notice anything unusual about her?”

“Well,” she said, thinking it over. “Seems like she was distracted. Or, I don’t know, worried about something. I asked if she was okay and she said yes, but it seemed like there was something on her mind.”

“Did she give you any indication of what it might be?” he asked, leaning on the doorframe. The two cats joined us at the door and sat down so they wouldn’t be left out.

“Not really. She just said she had some work struggles.”