Pancakes & Pandemonium - Culinary Competition Mystery #6

Chapter 26

(Amy)

"We need to let the police know about Star," Amy said as she pulled up the contact list on her phone. She actually had the police department's phone number saved since she'd had to call it so many times over the years. But was it under K for Kellerton or P for police department?

The front door of the house exploded open.

"I knew you were cheating on me again," Kim screamed as she rushed into the living room. A chef's knife that could double as a jungle foliage chopping machete was in her hand.

"What are you talking about?" Milo asked as he scrambled to his feet then retreated behind the chair he had been sitting in. His voice was calm and even—a seriously impressive vocal feat considering he was being threatened with a gigantic knife by his pissed-off, crazy ex-girlfriend.

Amy tried to inconspicuously slip off the couch, but her jeans were sticking to the upholstery.

Kim noticed the movement. "Drop the phone, Amy. And stop moving. You, my man-stealing friend, aren't going anywhere."

Getting busted for trying to call the cops on a cold-blooded killer was one thing. Being accused of having an affair was something completely different. Amy leaped to her feet and didn't drop the phone. She wasn't into taking orders from homicidal maniacs. "Are you insinuating that I'm cheating on my husband with Milo?"

"I'm not insinuating. I know you are."

"No. You're wrong."

The rebuttal seemed to fluster Kim for a few seconds. Then a scarlet flush crept up her neck and onto her face. It was the classic "ready to blow" look.

Amy didn't want to be as close as she was to Kim if she snapped and turned into an angry slasher with the knife. She scrambled behind the minimal cover provided by the low couch that she had been sitting on. Milo's furniture was gorgeous but wasn't very functional as protection in a knife fight.

Kim seemed to have forgotten that Amy hadn't dropped her phone as instructed. Or stayed on the couch. The murderess was completely focused on her former lover. It looked as though she was charging up to shoot death rays out of her eyes. Amy lowered the phone out of sight behind the back of the couch and quickly opened a voice-memo app so there would be a recording of the murder confession she intended to get. At the moment though, they were in the middle of a silent standoff.

"So, Kim, there's something I don't understand," she said. "How did you manage to stab Catherine when there were so many people at the bazaar?"

She turned her head to look at Amy while keeping the tip of the knife pointed at Milo. The movement was strange, rather like one of the dolls in a Chuckie horror movie. "Everybody was running into the building to take cover from the storm. Lucky for me, Catherine needed something out of her car. She left the door open and was rummaging around in the glove box. Never even noticed me. Until it was too late."

"But you said a guy followed her through the parking. It was her ex-husband, wasn't it? How did you kill her if he was talking with...or maybe stalking her?"

"There wasn't a guy. I lied." She rolled her eyes. "I have no idea why you think the guy I made up is her ex-husband. I know you're messing around with Milo, even though you say you aren't. So you're a liar too. Isn't that great? We're like two peas in a pod."

Except she wasn't a mentally unstable killer. "He was at the bazaar. One of Catherine's friends saw him."

"I didn't know that. I don't even know who her ex is. Although if I did, I would've described him, instead of a generic dude dressed in black."