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

the county lockup rehab. He went to the county juvenile detention center for three years and then was released.”

“But what do you know, Mr. Winters?” Lucy asked, leaning forward. “That’s what we want to know. What do you know about what happened?”

He smiled. “From what I hear, he was selling drugs behind that catering business. I believe that he got himself into some trouble that he couldn’t get himself out of. You might want to talk to Jared Thomas. That was his supplier.”

“Jared Thomas?” I asked.

He nodded. “He’s Richard’s cousin. I bet his mother doesn’t know that though. That he was her son’s supplier, I mean.”

I gasped. “His cousin was his supplier? And you think that he killed him?”

He nodded. “Indeed, I do. I think things went wrong between them, and his cousin killed him.”

Lucy shook her head. “What a shame. That would be a terrible thing to have happened. His mother will be crushed when she finds out. More so than she already is from the death of her son, I mean.”

I nodded. This didn’t look good for Richard’s mother. She was in for even more pain than she was dealing with right now. “Where can we find Jared?”

“Try the little ramshackle house at the end of Mossbury Lane. The one that’s just about to fall down.”

Mossbury Lane? That was a bad area of town. I wasn’t sure what to do about this. I couldn’t just wander up to a stranger’s house and knock on the door, could I? No, I couldn’t. Especially not when that stranger is a drug dealer. It would probably get me into more trouble than I have ever been in before.

I took a sip of my coffee. “Does he work anywhere?”

He nodded. “Sure, he works at the grocery store. Frozen foods department.”

I nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Winters. We’ll have to look into this.”

He picked up his cup of coffee, took a sip, and set it down again. “You girls are going to get yourself into trouble one of these days. Drug dealers don’t take kindly to strange women showing up on their door and asking questions.”

I shook my head. “I’ll think about how to handle this. Maybe I’ll see if I can run into him at the grocery store. It’s a little safer with other people around.”

“That’s a good idea. So how was your honeymoon? Where did you go?”

“I’ll tell you as soon as I get to go on it. Alec’s been working on this case, so we’ve put the honeymoon off for the time being.” I hoped it wouldn’t be long, but I had an idea that Alec wasn’t going to want to leave in the middle of the case.

He made a clucking sound. “That’s a shame. And it’s a shame that you had someone die at your wedding, too.”

“It’s a shame he died at all,” Lucy said and took a sip of her coffee. “Mr. Winters, how do you come by your information?”

It was a question that I had wondered myself. Mr. Winters didn’t appear to be the sort of person that would be spreading rumors around town, but he sure did collect them quite handily.

He shrugged. “I can’t give away my sources.”

“I don’t blame you,” I said and took another sip of my coffee.

“Now, what do you girls have for me? I gave you some information. You give me some information. What have you found out about this case?” He leaned forward in anticipation.

It was only fair that he should ask us for some information, but I didn’t like giving out the information that I knew. Alec wouldn’t like it, either. “Honestly, we don’t know much of anything. We know that he died after taking some diabetic medicine, and he wasn’t diabetic.”

He thought about this, then nodded. “That’s what I heard. Seems odd if you ask me. Somebody did it on purpose, though. I think it was his cousin. You tell Alec that he needs to have a long talk with him.”

“I will definitely do that,” I said.

He nodded and folded his newspaper over. “If you ladies will excuse me, I’ve got to get home and get some laundry done. I don’t know why laundry doesn’t do itself, but it doesn’t.”

I nodded. “That it doesn’t. That it doesn’t.”

“Goodbye, Mr. Winters,” Lucy said as he got up.

He nodded without a word and headed out.

I looked at Lucy. “So Richard had a dirty cousin. I wonder if he got him back into drugs after he’d gotten off of them?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me. Some people are just bad seeds, and that bad seed might be his cousin.”

I didn’t know if that was true or not, but I certainly didn’t want to believe that Richard had been the bad seed. His mother was so sweet that I couldn’t stand the thought.

Chapter Eleven

Before we left the Cup and Bean, Lucy and I picked up a large raspberry mocha and an orange cranberry muffin for Alec. He’d been spending so much time down at the office, I knew he would enjoy a break and a treat. Alec’s office was above a doctor’s office, and as we climbed the stairs, I came face-to-face with Bob Payne near the top as he was on his way down. Bob was the town’s mayor. He narrowed his eyes at me.

“Allie.”

I grinned. “Well, Bob, good morning. How are you doing today?” I was blocking the narrow stairway with Lucy on the steps behind me. I made no effort to move. Bob didn’t like me much.

“I’m doing great. I’m kind of in a hurry.” The words oozed his loathing of me.

I paused and took a sip of my coffee. I held a bag with the muffin and Alec’s coffee in my other hand. “Are you? What’s going on? Is there a fire somewhere