Wedding Bell Blunders: A Freshly Baked Cozy Mystery - Kathleen Suzette (parable of the sower read online TXT) 📗

the police and let them handle it,” I said. The idea of having someone who works for you using your place of business to do his own business was terrifying.

Lucy nodded. “Me too. I don’t want to deal with people like that.”

The food was just as good as it had been the day before. I was glad we had a lot of it leftover so we could spend some time together enjoying dinner. I looked around at my family, and I suddenly teared up. I was so happy that they had made it to the wedding. I didn’t think I could have gone through with it if they couldn’t have made it.

We sat up until late that night talking and visiting with one another, and it made me homesick for Alabama. Everyone from out of town was going to catch an early flight in the morning, and I wasn’t going to see them again until the summer.

Alec would be busy for the next several days working on the case, so I knew I might not get to see him as much as I would like. Putting off my honeymoon didn’t make me happy, but at least now I could plan for it better.

Chapter Seven

“Where are we going?” Lucy asked when she got into my car.

I glanced over at her. “We need to stop by the catering company. I want to express my condolences for Richard’s death as well as tell Della how good the food was and thank her for doing such great work on such short notice.”

She nodded. “She did a great job. All the food was so good. And we need to see if we can find out any information about Richard.”

“You read my mind,” I said and started the car. “There has to be a hint somewhere about what happened to him. I was thinking that his drug dealer could have slipped him those pills instead of something he had planned on buying from him. But in that case, the drug dealer probably didn’t want to kill him. It might have been an accident.”

She fastened her seatbelt. “It would still be murder, though.”

“Manslaughter. I would think the drug dealer was just trying to substitute those pills for something Richard wanted because he didn’t have the real drugs.”

“Unless Richard had double-crossed him and he wanted to get rid of him,” she pointed out.

“You’ve got a point.”

The last people that were around Richard Thomas were his coworkers if you didn’t count everyone at the wedding. And since everyone at the wedding had been in the ballroom except for his two coworkers, I felt like they had to know something.

***

Della ran her catering business from a storefront. You could make an appointment to taste the food that you wanted them to make for your party and decide on different dishes. Since we hadn’t given her much time to plan, Alec and I had only been able to taste a couple of the dishes that she made for our reception, but I had been to other events she had catered, and I knew that whatever she made was going to be wonderful.

The bell over the door jingled when we walked into the shop, and Della came out from the kitchen. She smiled when she saw us. “Hello, Allie. Hello, Lucy. How are you ladies today? And how was the food for your reception, Allie?”

We went up to the front counter. “We’re doing great. And the food was wonderful. I can’t thank you enough for doing such fabulous work on such short notice. We wanted to stop by and tell you how sorry we were to hear about Richard. I feel so bad for his family and everyone here. I know you’re going to miss him.”

She smiled sadly. “Thank you for your kind words. I’m glad we could squeeze you in. And we will all miss Richard.”

I put my hands on the front counter. “You have no idea how much we appreciated your being able to help us out. I hated to put you in a tight spot like that.”

“It was no problem. We had a cancellation, and I was happy to do it.”

“I’m so sorry about Richard,” Lucy said, bringing her back to the subject of Richard’s death.

She frowned. “Thank you, Lucy. It’s still such a shock. I can’t get over it. And Allie, I’m so sorry it happened at your reception. I feel so bad about that.”

I shook my head. “Don’t you worry about that. It wasn’t anything that anyone could help. I feel terrible that he didn’t make it.”

She nodded. “His poor mother was in here earlier. She’s broken up over it, as you can imagine.”

I sighed. “I feel so bad for her. Was he feeling sick earlier?” I asked her. I didn’t know what she was told by the police, but I wanted to see what she had to say about this.

She shrugged. “He and Jodi and Lisa came here to the shop early to help with the cooking, and he seemed fine. He was tired, but he’s always tired. I don’t understand what happened.”

“Jodi told us that he said he thought he had low blood sugar, but that he wasn’t diabetic. He ate some cake frosting I had left from decorating the cake to try to bring his blood sugar up, but that didn’t work.” I shook my head. “I had hoped they could stabilize him at the hospital.”

She nodded. “That’s what she told me. It’s so strange that he would die of a diabetic coma like that.”

I looked at her, tilting my head. “A diabetic coma?”

She looked at me, surprised, and nodded. “Yes, that’s what I heard he died from. Didn’t he die of a diabetic coma?”

I glanced at Lucy. I didn’t want to be the one who told her that