Chocolate Heart Killer: A Pumpkin Hollow Mystery, book 14 by Kathleen Suzette (guided reading books .TXT) 📗

Connie how sorely missed Logan will be by the community. Both personally, and also with his business. The barbershop was a popular place in town,” I said.

He nodded. “I was so proud when he told me he wanted to be a barber just like me and his grandfather. I guess it’s not a traditional job anymore, but it was so nice that he decided to follow in our footsteps. I hated to retire, we had so much fun working together there.”

“How long have you been retired?” Christy asked.

“Just over a year,” he said. “I wish I hadn’t retired. I would have had that much longer to spend with my son. When I made the decision to retire, I told Connie I wasn’t sure it was the right move. I didn’t know why then, but maybe somewhere deep inside I knew that Logan wouldn’t be with us much longer.”

“That’s so sad,” Christy said. “Sometimes I guess maybe people know things without understanding how.”

He nodded. “I think that’s what it was. I had no way of knowing it, yet I did. I’m not sure what we’re going to do without him.”

“Are you going to close down the barbershop?” I asked him.

He was quiet a moment. “I have to confess that the thought that I could go back to work has come to me, but I don’t know if I can do it. All the memories of working there with my son might be more than I can handle. Of course, I have great memories working alongside my dad as well, but I’m not sure I can handle the memories of working with my son now that he’s gone.”

I nodded. “I can totally understand that. It has to be hard.”

Connie put her hand on his and he blinked away the tears and smiled again. “But then, the thought of selling the place is more than I can stand, too. My dad opened that shop up back in the 1940s. My family are the only people that have ever worked there. I don’t know if I could stand seeing a stranger working there.” He sighed.

“Was Logan an only child?” I asked. It suddenly occurred to me that I couldn’t remember if Logan had any siblings.

“We have a daughter,” Connie said. “Melinda lives in Ohio these days. She got married right after high school and they moved away. I miss her. She’ll be here for the funeral, of course. I told Bradley that it might be better if we sell the barber shop and the house and move to Ohio to be near her.”

“I wouldn’t blame you for doing that. You’d be missed, but it’s understandable. Is Melinda younger or older than Logan?” I asked.

“Melinda is two years older than Logan,” she said. “She’s devastated that her little brother is gone.”

“I can only imagine,” I said.

“I know Ethan is looking for the killer,” Bradley Michaels said. “I know he’ll have the person responsible behind bars soon.”

I sat up in my seat. “Killer? What do you mean killer?”

He looked from me to Christy. “Didn’t Ethan tell you? That wasn’t an accident that killed Logan. The police discovered the brake lines had been cut. They think when Logan went around the curve on the highway that he may have hit some black ice or he could have just been going too fast, and when he tried to hit the brakes, they didn’t work and he went off the road and hit the tree.”

Ethan hadn’t told me this. I was shocked and saddened by it. “I didn’t know that. Ethan never mentioned it.”

He nodded. “I don’t think he knew right off. He stopped by earlier this morning and told us about it.”

I sat back on the couch and glanced at Christy. “I’m so sorry. What an awful thing to have happen.” Ethan probably hadn’t had a chance to talk to me. I felt sick over someone killing Logan.

“I bet the police didn’t know it was an accident until they towed the vehicle in to be inspected,” Christy said.

Connie nodded. “That’s exactly what happened. They thought it was an accident until they moved the car. Ethan said they saw some fluid in the snow, so they took his car to a repair shop to be inspected. I guess it took a couple of days for them to determine the brake lines were cut.”

Bradley sat back on the couch. “He probably had enough brake fluid to drive through town and as he was driving, the rest of it leaked out.”

I nodded, taking this in. “Where was Logan going?”

“He was driving to Truckee,” Connie said. “He left late the night before the morning his car was found. He was going to visit some friends.”

The news that Logan had been murdered was shocking. I didn’t know Logan nearly as well as Ethan had, but from what I knew, he was a nice guy. I wondered who wanted to kill our local barber.

“Do you have any idea who might have done this?” I asked gently. I hated to stir things up, they were grieving so. But I had to ask the question.

Connie and Bradley looked at one another and then turned back to me. “If we had to guess, we would say that Mel Tillman might have had something to do with his death.”

I knew Mel. “Doesn’t he work at the Pumpkin Hollow garage?”

She nodded. “They’ve been friends since junior high school, and we never did like him. He was a little on the wild side.”

“I told Logan back when he was in the seventh grade and started running around with Mel that he was trouble. He wouldn’t listen of course, because at that age kids think they know everything,” his father said. “It’s crazy to think that the warning I gave him so many years ago would suddenly come back to