Read Online Strawberry Cream Murder: A Donut Hole Cozy Mystery - Book 1 by Susan Gillard - Free Book Online Page A

that was found next to Christa’s body!”
    “What do you mean?”
     
    “I have to call Detective Shepherd,” Heather said, her heart pounding in her chest.  She grabbed her phone from where it lay next to the computer monitor on the desk and punched in Shepherd’s number.  Waited for the phone to ring.  Groaned as his voice mail picked up.
    “Detective Shepherd, this is Heather Janke,” she said breathlessly, and wondered why she seemed to be having trouble breathing.  “Please call me back as soon as you can.  I’m at home, so call on my cell, not at the shop.  Thanks.  Bye.”
     
    She ended the call and placed the phone back on the desk.  As she did, her eyes fell on Michelle’s napkin, where Michelle had carefully placed half of her donut.  And suddenly, with the speed of a tower of blocks crashing down, all the pieces came together.
     
    The killer must not only have saved half a perfectly good donut and planted it beside Christa’s body, he—or she —would have had to have made a strawberry cream donut and mixed the cyanide in with the cream.  Otherwise, it would have been obvious the donut was tampered with.    That was what had to have happened.  And there was only one person who could have done it.
     
    “It was you !” she gasped.  “It was—”
     
    But as she looked up at Michelle and saw the gun pointing squarely at her chest, the words died before they could be spoken.
     
    “You should have finished your donut,” Michelle said calmly.  “Then I wouldn’t have had to shoot you.”
     
     

Chapter 9
     
    Heather forced the words out from between numb lips.  “Shoot me?  Why?”
     
    “You just couldn’t leave it alone, could you?” Michelle said.  “I never planned to kill you.  I don’t want to kill you.  But you just couldn’t accept that Christa was out of your way and leave it alone.  You had to start your own investigation.  You couldn’t leave it to the police.”
     
    “But I—”  Heather tried to take a deep breath and couldn’t.
     
    A small smile played at the corners of Michelle’s mouth.  “You should be feeling the effects now,” she said.  “Just like Christa.  Only she had taken a lot more cyanide than you.  She ate her whole donut.  Just like you should have eaten yours.”
     
    Heather glanced at the mostly uneaten donut that sat on her napkin.  Thank God she’d only taken two bites!
     
    “But since you wouldn’t eat the whole thing, I’m going to have to shoot you,” Michelle said in a matter-of-fact voice.  “I have to make it look like an accident.  No, not like an accident.  Like a robbery gone wrong.  Stand up.”
    “Where are you—”
     
    “Just stand up!” Michelle commanded, her eyes suddenly hard and glittering.
     
    Heather stood.  Michelle waved the gun in the direction of the door.  “In the kitchen,” she said.  “It’ll look like somebody tried to break in, you surprised them, and they shot you.”
    As she walked slowly down the hallway ahead of Michelle, Heather tried to think.  But it was getting harder to breathe, and her stomach felt like it was on fire.  Got to think! she commanded herself.
     
    Heather stopped next to the kitchen table, leaning on it with one hand.  “Good,” Michelle said.  “Right there.”
     
    “Why did you kill Christa?” Heather gasped, desperate to keep Michelle talking until she could think of something, anything, that would save herself.
     
    “You really never knew, did you?” Michelle asked in a high, childish voice.  “Never knew that I was helping Christa steal your recipes.  She didn’t have the brains to do it herself.  I helped.”
     
    “But why did you kill her?”
     
    “She was supposed to make me a partner in her shop,” Michelle said.  “I get the recipes for her, she puts up all the capital and makes me a partner.  As much money as she had, that wasn’t too much for me to ask for.  But then she got greedy.”  Michelle’s