Killer Acorn Pie Read online

  Surely Harry and the cops knew about the app Dale had used to run the escape room. They had, after all, spent significant time questioning the young man. That meant Harry knew the door hadn’t been opened.

  Or, at least, Dale claimed it hadn’t been opened. Bert couldn’t help but wonder if there was some way that a trained person could go into the application on his phone, go through the coding of the program, and see if the door really had been opened or not.

  However, even as Bert was questioning herself about all this, she knew that it couldn’t have been Dale. While it would have been easy for him to simply turn off the app, go in and poison his girlfriend, and lock the room again, he’d said he was with his student advisor the entire time. Knowing Harry’s knack for details, he would have already talked to the advisor in question and gotten the verification about the alibi.

  That would put Dale in the clear, at least temporarily. It would also explain why Harry hadn’t arrested or at least held the young man on suspicion of murder.

  However, it only made everything more troublesome and complicated. How could the young woman have been poisoned if no one had gone in or out? Could Dale, or someone else, have planted a trap in the escape room that would prick her with the poison?

  No, that didn’t make sense either. If something like that had been planted, the cops would have found it for sure. According to Harry, and to Dale for that matter, they’d gone over every single item that had left the room—twice, in fact.

  The twinge of a headache echoed in Bert’s brain as she tried to assemble the facts.

  Nothing was making sense. Nothing was adding up.

  Sighing, she stopped and leaned against the brick wall near the glass doors of the building, right over one of the oversized floor heater vents you often saw in these older buildings. Large gusts of inviting warm air blew up on her and she smiled. She wondered if students ever laid over the heaters and slept when they were cramming for tests.

  Her phone buzzed. A text from Shiv. She was done at the station with Harry and was asking to be picked up.

  “I guess she didn’t want to get a ride with a cop,” Bert noted, not blaming her young friend in the least bit. Between the rude police officer named Flannigan and the overbearing campus security guard, it just left a bad taste in the mouth.

  She’d wanted to run over to the administration building and try to talk to the dean about who had keys to the room, but it seemed pointless now anyway. She would pick up Shiv and call it a day.

  Maybe she’d invite her employee to stay the night and they could watch old movies, drink wine, and eat pizza. That always cheered Bert up.

  Once she felt she’d heated herself up enough over the vent to brave the frosty day outside, she went through the doors into the snowfall.

  Crossing the quad toward the visitor parking, she froze when she saw a golf cart marked as campus security on the sidewalk near her car. As she got closer, she noticed the same man from earlier bent over it, looking in the windows while he scribbled out another violation.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” she barked at him.

  He glanced up and then a second later smirked wryly. “Ah, I thought I recognized this car. The trauma lady is back again.”

  His tact was nonexistent. Who uses a difficult situation like death and murder to mock someone?

  “I’m in the visitor parking lot this time. You can’t write me another violation.”

  “I can, and I will,” he declared, one nostril twitching. He used his pen to point up at the sign. “You see, this is fifteen-minute visitor parking.”

  Bert’s jaw dropped. This guy was completely right. She’d been on the campus longer than fifteen minutes as well.

  The guy had a big I win grin on his face.

  “Fine. Hurry it up so I can get out of here,” she glowered.

  “You sure have been spending a lot of time nosing about on campus this weekend,” he pointed out, putting his hands on his hips. “What are you up to?”

  “Huh? Nothing. My employee goes to school here.”

  “Your employee? That’s a stretch. Why are you really here?”

  “None of your business.”

  “It is my business if you’re trespassing. Going to classes you don’t belong in. Sticking your nose into other people’s business.”

  She didn’t like the way he said that.

  “I’m not doing anything like that.”

  “It is my duty to keep this campus secure and safe from outsiders. Don’t overstep your bounds.”

  Bert set her teeth, pushing them together so hard her headache got worse.

  “To deter you from trying anything funny, just keep this in mind. One more violation and your car gets booted instead,” he sing-songed as happy as a lark. He ripped off the violation slip and shoved it on the windshield, once again not bothering to hand it to her.

  As she bumped past him, she glanced at his name tag, determined to make a mental note to complain about his behavior to the dean if she ever got around to talking to him. Grey Flannigan.

  Instantly, she felt as if two atoms had crashed together in her brain. “Flannigan.”

  “That’s my name, lady. Don’t forget it,” he announced, hopping in his patrol cart and driving off.

  Flannigan was the same name as the obnoxious cop at the police department. They had to be related, brothers or something.

  It would explain why they both acted so similarly.

  The warmth Bert had tried to collect from the heating vent in the theater building was completely gone by the time she climbed in the car. As a result, she cranked the heat to full blast as she drove to the police station to get her friend.

  Shiv was standing outside on the stone steps of the building when Bert pulled up along the sidewalk. She had her hood up and snow had begun to collect atop her head. She quickly jogged down and jumped in the passenger door. “Thanks for coming to get me, Bert.”

  “It’s freezing out. Why were you standing outside?” she inquired of her young friend.

  “I just couldn’t stay in there anymore,” she groaned, grabbing a pack of tissues from her purse and wiping her cold runny nose.

  Bert sighed, easing out onto the road again to head back to the shop. “Was it that bad?”

  “He thinks I had something to do with it,” she stated flatly, folding her arms.

  “Who? Harry?”

  “Of course,” she admitted, sniffing.

  Bert couldn’t tell if she was trying not to cry or if it was just the from standing out in the snow.

  “Did he actually say anything to you like that?”

  She shook her head, bits of snow flying off around the car. “No, but I just know it. He said that Dale had an alibi.”

  Bert pursed her lips. “Well, that’s true. I actually just talked to him myself.”

  Shiv turned in her seat, eyes big as dinner plates. “You did?”

  “I caught up with him at the theater building where he is resetting the escape room.”

  “He’s just going along like nothing happened?” she gasped.

  Bert tilted her head to one side. “No, no. Nothing like that. He seemed pretty upset when the topic of Ronnie came up.”

  Shiv let out a long and anguished sigh, sliding down in her seat. “He isn’t even being considered as a suspect anymore. At least, it doesn’t seem like it.”

  “Do you think he could have hurt Ronnie?” Bert wondered, amazed at Shiv’s seeming distaste for Dale all of a sudden.

  “I don’t know, but the implication is that if he had an alibi then obviously, I had something to do with it,” she expelled, throwing up her hands.

  Bert heisted to argue, knowing that Shiv was probably just overly stressed. After all, she’d lost a friend that morning and now she was being questioned about the death by a homicide detective. Instead, she tried to figure out a more roundabout way to calm her. “I don’t see how Harry can suspect you.”

  “I was one of the only people with a key
to the room, besides Dale.”

  “True, but what about Dale’s app? What about other keys that the administrators had? What about a skeleton key? Or what if the key inside the escape room was stolen? You just don’t know all the facts,” Bert said in an attempt to put her mind at ease.

  “Neither do the police, but it doesn’t stop them from pointing the finger.”

  Bert was positive that Shiv was reacting under duress. Harry might be asking questions, but he would never hastily jump to a conclusion without solid evidence. “My point is, no one could have gone in or out of that room without setting off Dale’s app. He would know if someone had gone in and would have an exact time of when the door was opened.”

  “Unless someone tampered with it,” Shiv pointed out.

  Bert paused, watching the snow swirl on the road. She hadn’t thought of that. “Who could have tampered with it?”

  “Only Ronnie and I knew about the app and how it worked.”

  She looked over at her friend in the passenger seat. “I didn’t know you were tech-savvy.”

  “I’m not. I’m just saying I understood how it worked in the basic sense. I don’t know how it syncs up with his phone or anything.”

  “See? There you go. You couldn’t have tampered with it.”

  Shiv closed her eyes for a moment, taking deep breaths. “I’m just overwhelmed with this whole thing,” she finally admitted, dropping some of her defensiveness.

  “Understandably so,” Bert agreed. “And, I wasn’t going to argue with you, but I really think Harry is just trying to get all the facts. He’s not one to try and close a case by pinning it on the easiest culprit.”

  “I guess not,” Shiv agreed, having been on friendly terms with the detective for nearly a year.

  Bert smiled, reaching over and patting her friend on the hand. “How about we have a night in? You can stay at my place and watch old movies.”

  “I’d love to, but even with all that’s going on I still have some homework to do. Finals are coming, you know?”

  Bert nodded. “I understand.”

  They drove in silence for a few moments before finally pulling into the alleyway behind the shop. That was when Bert remembered the young woman with the tuba. Her reactions about Dale seemed odd and Bert wondered if Shiv knew the girl. “You know, I ran into a strange woman at the theater building on campus.”

  “Oh?” Shiv wondered, unable to see where this sudden random comment was going.

  “Yes. She nearly ran me over with a tuba case.”

  Shiv’s eyebrows shot up. “Diana?”

  Bert shrugged. “I don’t know, but she said she knew Dale.” She twisted her lips in thought. “You know, I got the impression they weren’t on great terms.”

  Shiv sighed. “You could say that. Diana is the main reason Dale and Ronnie’s relationship was on the rocks.”

  “Really?” Bert turned in her seat to face Shiv and get all the juicy details. Any tiny little clue could help with the case.

  “Yeah. They were in an art class together and ended spending too much time with one another.”

  “Ah, so Ronnie suspected Dale of cheating on her.”

  “Which was really surprising considering how possessive he was.”

  Based on her short interaction with the man, he hardly seemed like the jealous type. However, you could never tell with men. “How was he possessive?”

  “Oh, for one thing, that stupid security guard was always harassing Ronnie, trying to get her to go on a date.”

  Bert’s jaw dropped. “You’re kidding. Why didn’t you say so earlier?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see it as important.”

  “It might not be, but it also may be.” She tapped her chin, trying to piece everything together. This case simply had too many odds and ends for Bert to grasp and try to connect. All this relationship drama could potentially have nothing to do with the murder.

  “So, that security guard had an interest in her, huh? He certainly hasn’t shown any sadness or remorse over her death.”

  “Of course not. It was just another power play for him.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Bert said.

  “Anyway, there was a question of them breaking things off which is one reason Ronnie threw herself into accounting. It meant she had to spend the least amount of time with him.”

  “Ah, yes. I’m getting a clearer picture.”

  “Dale picked a Thanksgiving theme for the room because he knew it was Ronnie’s favorite holiday.”

  “Makes sense, considering he isn’t from America and wouldn’t care about those sorts of things.”

  Shiv leaned forward. “You don’t think any of this is connected to the case, do you?”

  “I don’t know right now, but it’s certainly worth looking at.”

  Chapter Nine

  After finishing off the final hours at the pie shop with Wyn and Shiv, Bert quickly cleaned up and got ready for bed. Not only was she exhausted from running around in the snow all day but worrying about getting all the pies done for Thanksgiving was overwhelming.

  At the very least, she had the notion that the escape room would still be opening and her patrons who’d gotten tickets could still go.

  Unfortunately, she hardly slept a wink, tossing and turning as she thought of the murder case—of Shiv. Could it really be true that Harry considered Shiv the main suspect in the case? Surely not. What possible motive could there be?

  As far as Bert could see, none.

  More importantly, how had the poison been administered? So far, it seemed no one had gone in or out of the room during that time. So how had she been poisoned?

  Getting up, she checked her phone and saw she had a text from Shiv asking if Bert wanted to come down and test the escape room. They still hadn’t put it through a test run and needed to do it at least once before opening for business on Monday. Sundays the shop was closed, but Bert had a ton of catching up to do to get ready for Thanksgiving the coming Thursday.

  Still, Shiv needed to feel supported and it would give Bert an excuse to stop by and talk to the dean.

  After tossing and turning most of the night, she was developing a theory on the murder. It all depended on who else on campus had a key to the room. The janitors, administrators . . . even the campus security?

  She was still playing with the idea that someone else knew about the door sensor and figured out how to tamper with it or disable it to get into the room.

  She quickly showered, got dressed, and then told Shiv she was on her way. She was honestly interested to see how one of these escape rooms worked.

  The snow had stopped falling, but the storm had left a beautiful coating of white over the city. Bert preferred the colors and scenes of autumn for her Thanksgiving, but she decided she enjoyed the sparkling sight of the snow as well.

  She even felt herself starting to get in a holiday mood and stopped by the local coffee shop for a steaming cup of candy cane mocha and a tasty white frosted donut with red and green sprinkles. She savored both as she drove the rest of the way to the campus—this time taking extra care to park in the three-hour visitor parking spots.

  She was not going to let that little man get the better of her again, especially not if what she was guessing was true. Still, she was holding off on making any official judgments or accusations until she talked to the dean of students.

  She only hoped he would be on campus on a Sunday. She knew the chances were slim, but she wanted this mystery solved before Thanksgiving Day.

  Finishing off the last bite of donut, she grabbed her coffee cup and headed across the quad toward the theater arts building. She was halfway there when she heard a whirring sound in the distance.

  Turning, she didn’t see anything at first. However, a second later she spotted it. The same campus security cart was coming down the sloped sidewalk toward the quad.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she groaned.

  It was only a second later that she
realized he wasn’t coming at a leisurely pace. The whirring of the engine grew more hectic the closer it got. The thing was rolling forward at a near breakneck speed, hitting the concrete of the quad with a squeal and shooting right toward Bert. Behind the wheel, she could see the campus security officer, his eyes so wide you could see the veins popping out. His mouth hung open in a wild scream.

  “Oh, my gosh,” Bert shouted, rushing for cover just as the thing ripped through the spot she was standing in. She flopped down into a huge drift of snow with a plop, the freezing cold temperatures enveloping her.