Peppermint Fudge Killer: A Pumpkin Hollow Mystery, book 13 by Kathleen Suzette (reading list txt) 📕

“Nonsense, I bet you’re every bit as good as she is,” she said and set three of the white chocolate reindeer next to the pumpkin. “You know, the more I think about it, the more I have to think that Sam Connor killed Suzanne.”

I looked up at her. “Do you really think so? Why do you say that?”

She nodded. “I’ve been working on cleaning out Suzanne’s apartment, and I found a journal entry where she talked about him. She was head over heels in love with him. Can you believe it?” She laughed. “Sam is older than she was, and I don’t think he had any interest in her. I told you she had a crush on him.”

“Oh? If he never didn’t have any interest in her, why would he kill her?”

She bit her lower lip in thought before answering. “To be honest, she seemed obsessed with him. And of course, it’s hard to know what he thought about her, just from her journal entries, but I have to wonder if she really pestered him. That kind of thing could get old, you know. Plus, everyone saw her with him the night of the bazaar. She was hanging around him while he operated the carousel.”

“I didn’t realize she hung around him that night. It’s odd that she was found murdered on the carousel,” I admitted. “But murder is such a terrible crime. He had to have some kind of reason for killing her.” I looked at her and waited. The one thing that kept nagging at me was why was Suzanne killed on the carousel? Out in the open where someone might have seen what was happening? Why wasn’t she killed some place that was more private?

She thought about it a moment. “From what I found in her journals, it sounds like he was very aware of her. Because she wrote that he suddenly started ignoring her. And if I know my cousin, she wasn’t going to put up with that. She made mention of driving past his house a few times and watching to see who he was with.”

“She was stalking him?”

She nodded. “I think that’s what was going on. I hate to think that about my cousin, but that’s what it sounds like to me. And I really think Sam just got tired of it and the only way to keep her away from him was to kill her.”

“Did you give this journal to Ethan? He needs to know everything he can about what was happening in Suzanne’s life before she died.”

She nodded. “I was going to take it over to him as soon as I was done shopping. I’ve still got to finish cleaning out her apartment, too.”

“You definitely should give him the diary,” I said. “Brittany, how was your relationship with Suzanne?”

Her eyes went wide. “My relationship? It was fine. When we were kids, we fought a lot, but we put our differences behind us after losing so much of our family in recent years. Loss does that to you. You suddenly realize what’s important and you make sure the people in your life know that. Why do you ask?”

I nodded. “I just wondered.”

“I bet you’ve heard that we fought, right? Let me assure you that that wasn’t anything that happened recently. We had gotten very close in the past couple of years. I’m crushed that she died like she did.”

There were tears in her eyes when she said it and she seemed sincere.

“I know this has been hard for you.” I rang up her candy, and she paid for it and left.

She might have been sincere, but if I had found a journal that my murdered cousin had written in, and I thought there was something important there, I would have taken it to the police immediately. But Brittany had taken the time to go shopping first. It didn’t make sense to me and I was going to text Ethan about it to make sure he got that journal from Brittany.

Chapter Eighteen

“Who is that coming toward us?” I asked Christy as we walked down the sidewalk toward the Ghostly Grins Café.

Christy squinted her eyes. “If I’m not mistaken, it’s Sam Connor.” She turned and glanced at me, one eyebrow raised.

“That’s what I thought,” I said. We walked faster, the snow crunching beneath our boots. It was an overcast, blustery day, and I pulled my coat tighter around myself.

“Do you really think he could have done it?” she whispered.

“It’s a possibility,” I said thinking about what Brittany had said to me about the journal.

When we got closer to Sam, he smiled at us. “Hi Mia, hi Christy. How are you two on this cold and windy day?”

I smiled. “We’re doing just fine. We’re on our lunch break and we’re going to go get something to eat. How are you doing?”

He shrugged. “I’m doing all right. I’ve been doing lots of business with the carousel, and that certainly makes me happy.”

“You did a beautiful job restoring it,” Christy said. “I’m envious of your talent.”

He grinned. “Thanks. That’s really nice to hear.”

Sam had blond hair that was cut short, and a neatly trimmed beard. He was at least six feet tall and I thought he was more than capable of killing someone if you looked at it from a physical standpoint. But from an emotional standpoint, could he kill someone? Really kill someone? I had no idea.

“Sam, can I ask you a question?” I asked.

He nodded. “Sure, what is it?”

“What time did you leave the plaza the opening night of the Christmas bazaar?”

His eyebrows rose at the question. “It was just a little after eleven that night. Why?”

I shrugged. “I just wondered,” I said. “Were most people gone by then?”

He nodded. “Yeah,