Wedding Bell Blunders: A Freshly Baked Cozy Mystery, Kathleen Suzette [classic books to read .txt] 📗

we’re expecting a big shipment of outdoor items, and I’m sure there are going to be some fountains in it. This was left over from last year, but it is kind of nice.”

“I just moved into a new house a few weeks ago, and I’m thinking about planting a big flower garden. An English flower garden.” I smiled.

He nodded appreciatively. “That sounds great. We’ll have some more seedlings coming in soon, too. It’s a little early yet, but the ground will start to warm up in a few weeks, and you can get started planting.”

“That’s what I was thinking. I’ve never done a lot of gardening, so I’m going to have to get online and find out what grows well here in Maine.”

“Fortunately, summers are mild, so you can grow a whole assortment of plants. This fountain would be nice in the middle of a garden.”

I nodded. I liked it a lot, but I wanted to wait and see what else they got in. “Skip, I heard about Richard. I’m so sorry.”

He nodded sadly. “I still can’t get over it. I took a few days off from work when I heard, but that was just depressing, sitting around at home, so I decided to come to work.”

“We had hired the catering company where he worked for my wedding. I don’t know if you knew that. Alec and I got married last weekend, and Richard was there catering the reception.”

His eyes got big. “Oh, no. I heard that he got sick while working a wedding reception. I had no idea it was yours.”

I nodded sadly. “I was just so sorry this happened to him. We did everything we could until the ambulance arrived, and I was hopeful that once he got to the hospital that he would recover.”

He looked off into the distance for a moment, and then he looked at me again. “It’s crazy. A diabetic drug? I don’t understand it.”

“Your mother said that he wasn’t diabetic.”

He shook his head. “No, he wasn’t diabetic. He didn’t have any health issues that I was aware of, so there was no reason for him to be taking any prescription drugs. And if he was taking some kind of prescription drugs, why a diabetic drug? I mean, a lot of people abuse prescription drugs, but a diabetic drug?” he shook his head again. “It makes no sense.”

“No, it doesn’t make any sense, does it?” I hesitated, hoping he would continue talking.

After a moment he said, “you know, when he was in high school, he got into trouble messing around with drugs. He went to the juvenile detention facility for a while, but when he got out, he was clean. He was the happiest I’d ever seen him, and we were all hopeful that he was getting his life back on track.”

“But he didn’t?” I asked gently.

He shook his head. “Apparently not. I suspected he was getting into trouble a couple of years ago because I knew that he was drinking heavily. There’s not much difference between abusing drugs and abusing alcohol, and I asked him about it, but he got mad. He didn’t want to talk about it. He told me that I was just trying to make trouble for him. I guess I can understand why he thought I was making trouble for him. When we were kids, we didn’t get along very well. But after he got out of the detention facility, our relationship improved, and as far as I was concerned, I put all of our issues behind us. I was surprised when he brought it up like that.”

I nodded. “If he was abusing alcohol, then he may not have been thinking very clearly.”

He picked up a small clay pot that someone had left inside the fountain. “Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure he moved on from alcohol back to drugs pretty quickly. You want to know what the worst part of it is?”

I shook my head slowly. “What?”

“It was our cousin that got him back on drugs. I know it was.”

I tried to look surprised. “Your cousin? Why would he do that?”

“Our cousin is Jared Thomas, and everyone knows he’s a drug dealer.” He looked at me meaningfully. “I’m pretty sure that he strong-armed Richard into selling them, too.”

“Oh, no,” I said. “Why do you think he did that?”

He shook his head and looked off into the distance again. “It’s just something that I have a feeling about. There were rumors, and his behavior became more erratic. When my mother got him a job at the catering company, I was surprised. I didn’t think my mother should stick her neck out there for him like that. But then he really seemed to enjoy the work, and he was doing really well for a while. And then the rumors started up again. He was selling drugs behind the catering company. I confronted him about it and he denied it.”

“That’s a shame that he couldn’t get his life together,” I said. “I’m sure it’s difficult getting off of drugs, but it sounds like he was given at least a couple of opportunities, and he just wasn’t able to do it.”

He nodded. “Exactly. He was given plenty of opportunities to turn his life around.”

“So where do you think he got the diabetic medication? Do you think that your cousin gave it to him under the guise of it being something else?”

He looked at me, one eyebrow raised. “I suppose it’s possible. To be honest, I really didn’t even think about that. He probably told him it was speed or something and gave it to him.” He snorted, shaking his head sadly. “That figures. Jared is even more unstable than Richard ever was. Honestly, I don’t know how he hangs onto the job at the grocery store. It seems like they would notice his behavior and