Free A Frothy Fiasco: A Cozy Mystery (Sweet Home Mystery Series Book 3) by Constance Barker Page A

around for most of these thefts, and he was right there when his father’s phone was stolen.”
    “True,” I said, “but he lives here in Sweet Home, so he doesn’t go to the theme parks during peak season like all of the visiting grandkids. Mike usually takes him in January. That’s why he’s always around. So are we, for that matter. Why Clarence?”
    “I talked to Clyde Jackson at the hardware store the other day, just casually, you know. Clarence is his great-nephew and staying with him this summer, and he says the boy was there at the time when his bank deposit was stolen. Clarence tried to pass off the blame to some woman who he says was getting ready to buy something. There was a little pry bar and a screwdriver left on the counter, price tags still on them, when the bank deposit was nabbed. Somebody must have been planning to buy them, but no one else remembers seeing a woman. Clyde says he would’ve seen somebody in the aisles because the shelves aren’t that high, so maybe Clarence put those items there so he could blame someone else. And Clarence is good friends with Trevor too.”
    Pretty thin, I thought. But, Clarence was one of the few people there. “But Moira Baumgardner? She’s a sweetheart.”
    Hildie nodded. “Yes she is. But it’s always the sweet ones.”
    “You’re the sweet one, Aunt Hildie.”
    Essie gave me a look, but she could hardly deny the truth.
    “And Moira’s in here every day after the morning coffee rush.” I just couldn’t wrap my head around Moira as a suspect. “Nothing’s been missing.”
    “That’s because she’s smart. She could have run down to the gas station for a candy bar and grabbed Harvey’s iPad. And, since she’s right across the street it would have been easy enough for her to slip it into Toe’s truck out front to cast suspicion on him. And she was at the Tastee Freeze when Junie’s money was snatched. She was the one who told Eli that she had seen Toe’s truck nearby. And she’s sweet on Trevor too, and always on her phone texting, plotting.”
    I don’t know. It would take time for me to work through Hildie’s theory.
    Jules just made a few notes and then turned to my other aunt. “Essie, what’s your theory?”
    She sat still for a moment and then turned to Jules. “Everything points to Toe Thompson. The pen, Harvey’s little computer thing, his truck near the ice cream cone place.”
    Those facts were all painfully true. Essie explained more deeply.
    “He left here before we did on Sunday. He didn’t have a pen to write our painting job on his calendar. He went right to our place, put on gloves to commit the crime, then saw his boxful of pens and remembered to put a new pen into his pocket, so no fingerprints. He’s a handyman, so he’s got those paper booties to cover his shoes. That’s why there was no evidence of him being in the living room. The pen fell out when he looked at the paint. They knew he was in the kitchen because of the broken glass and the bedrooms because of the jewelry boxes. He thought we would leave the shop at our usual time an hour later, but we just did a couple chores here and then went home. So, he was surprised to hear us coming and ran out the back and left the door open.”
    She is a clever old girl. “Anything else, Essie?”
    “I heard him asking Harvey to borrow money a couple weeks ago. He had just done some repairs to his truck, and his business was slow too. He needed money. It’s Toe alright.”
    “That’s quite convincing, Essie,” Hildie said with a nod. “And just the other day—Thursday, I think—Toe’s truck was right across the street when someone broke into Carmen and Albert’s home and stole all of that day’s coffee money for the Campfire Girls. Three hundred dollars. I figured that pointed to Moira too, but it could also point to Toe.”
    I hadn’t heard about that. No wonder Moira looked so distressed on Friday morning.
    “It was Toe,” Essie said. “He claimed that