Stirring the Plot (A Cookbook Nook Mystery) by Daryl Wood Gerber

alibi?”
    Cinnamon cocked her head.
    “C’mon,” I said. “Dr. Thornton—Pearl—was my therapist.”
    “Why do you go to a therapist?”
    “I’ll give you a dozen reasons, starting with my husband’s suicide and financial duplicity.”
    “I’m sorry. That was thoughtless of me.”
    “Lots of people see therapists. It’s almost chic to go. Why, I’ll bet some cops, er, policemen, see shrinks.” I winked. “But back to Trisha. Her alibi seemed weak.”
    “It turns out it was stronger than imagined. She went to her boyfriend’s place, and then she went to UC Santa Cruz. She was at school, from ten P.M. until one A.M. , conducting a laboratory experiment on rats looking for the effects of diabetes.”
    “She can do that?”
    “She’s a chemist.”
    “Why wouldn’t she have told you where she was at the start?”
    “She was alone at the lab. No witnesses.” Cinnamon drew in a breath and exhaled. “To make things worse, she’s on probation. Revealing her indiscretion—”
    “You mean trespassing.”
    “Revealing her
whereabouts
could get her expelled for good.”
    I shifted feet. “I heard she was taking a year off between college and grad school.”
    “Nope. She started graduate school, but she’s on probation for cheating on a test.”
    “So she’s a cheater.”
    Cinnamon gave me a wry look.
    I ignored it. “Can you tell me what the time of death was?”
    “The coroner figures between ten and midnight.”
    At the exact time Trisha claimed to be at the lab. How convenient.
    “Does Trisha inherit her mother’s estate?” I asked.
    “She does.”
    “Including her father’s rock collection?”
    “Yes.”
    “Wow! That has to be worth millions upon millions. Isn’t that a huge motive for murder?”
    “It would be, except the lawyer for the estate assures me Trisha will have to rely on a modest allowance until she’s thirty-five. She won’t be able to touch the bulk of the estate because of a stipulation in the trust. That’s years away.”
    “If you rule her out, who else is there?” I asked. “Emma Wright? According to Trisha, Emma was the last to see Pearl alive. Did you track her down?”
    “That’s why I’m here. I went looking for her but couldn’t find her.”
    “She’s missing?”
    “Not exactly. I got in touch with her husband, Edward. He was frantic. He hadn’t seen or heard from her since Tuesday night.”
    “Not since the murder?”
    “Right. He called everyone he knew. No one had seen her. But then I got a tip. Emma is here dining in the café.”
    “Here? Who told you?”
    Cinnamon raised an eyebrow.
As if
, her gaze said. I wasn’t dense. I could figure it out. Her mother, Pepper, must have caught sight of Emma and contacted Cinnamon, hence the two riding into Fisherman’s Village on bicycles at the same time. Cinnamon pressed past me.
    “Wait,” I said. “You don’t want to question her in public, do you? I mean, wouldn’t someplace like my office be a better choice?” Okay, it wasn’t much of an office. It shared space with the stockroom. A desk, chair, file cabinet, and computer. What more did we need? “It’s cramped, but it serves its purpose.”
    “Good idea.”
    I’m not typically an eavesdropper, but after showing Cinnamon and Emma to the stockroom—Emma came willingly, though she looked nervous—I hovered halfway between the sales counter and the archway leading to the stockroom.
    Bailey sneaked up and said, “What’re you doing?”
    I hushed her and motioned for her to tend to customers. Three were perusing the Halloween section.
    “Bossy,” she muttered.
    “Curious.” I waved her away and craned an ear toward the stockroom. Luckily, Cinnamon wasn’t whispering. Neither was Emma. She sobbed when she heard that Pearl was dead. She sobbed harder when she was informed that someone had seen her having a private conversation with the doctor.
    After calming Emma down, Cinnamon said, “Where have you been since you left the