by Meri Allen
Flo hummed as she sliced fresh strawberries. “You won’t believe what happened last night, Riley! I should’ve called you but I was too … entranced, too…”
“High on your rodeo Romeo?” Gerri gave her sister an indulgent smile, put on a purple apron over an orange tunic with matching scarves and necklaces, and started a batch of caramel sauce. The apron was printed with a cow wearing a beret and the word “cone-oisseur.”
“Oh, I’m not going to lie, I was. And I think I still am,” Flo said. “Riley, Cadillac Ranch brought his guitar and he serenaded us as we cleaned up.”
“Cadillac Ranch?” Did Flo have a nickname for everyone? “The good looking guy with the cowboy hat?”
“Handsome and so talented,” Flo sighed.
“So he comes in here and flirts with you, serenades you, and doesn’t tell you his name?” I said.
Flo’s cheeks pinked. “His name’s Jasper Yeaton. Isn’t that perfect? He’s a painter, staying at the artists’ colony at Moy Mull for some classes. He’s getting away from it all in order to recharge his artistic batteries.”
A musician and artist. I didn’t think it possible, but now the man was even more attractive.
I looked at the schedule. Buzzy had been pretty relaxed about scheduling. It looked like she let people sign up for whatever shift fit their schedules. No one had set hours. I sighed. Somehow it had worked for her, but I really liked schedules.
Flo and Gerri were scheduled for the morning. Pru and Caroline were coming in the afternoon. The repairman was supposed to arrive sometime between nine and five. I’d have to wait for a quiet spell to visit Angelica.
Words Detective Voelker had spoken surfaced in my mind. “The only people who went down to the house where Angelica had been found were partying kids and prospective buyers.” Real estate. Was the house where I’d found Angelica a clue to who murdered Mike? Though it didn’t fit into my scenario for what had happened with Angelica the night of Mike’s murder, a quick bit of internet sleuthing wouldn’t hurt.
“Ladies,” I said, “I’ll be in the office for a few minutes.”
I opened Buzzy’s practically brand-new laptop and did a search of Penniman real estate listings. The house near the lake was listed with Evergreen Realty, not Penniman Properties. Putting on my researcher hat, I dove into tax records. The house had been owned by the same family since 1900—the Larkins. I closed the laptop and went back into the kitchen.
“Do either of you know the Larkin family?”
“You mean the people who own the house where Angelica was found?” Flo said.
Inwardly, I laughed. I should’ve just asked Gerri and Flo. They knew everything about everyone in Penniman.
“Good people,” Gerri said. “House has been empty since Ruth Larkin died five years ago, wouldn’t you say, Flo?”
“Yes, I think that’s right.”
“There was only one distant relative, a nephew,” Gerri said. “He’s listed the property at an ungodly price and he’s letting it sit there and crumble until someone pays his princely sum.”
“Did the family have any connection to Mike, Angelica, or the farm?” I asked.
Gerri shook her head and Flo said, “I don’t think so.”
A dead end.
Gerri poured the fragrant caramel sauce, the color of a bright copper penny, into a stainless steel warmer, then we went to the front of the shop. Flo unlocked the front door as a red sedan pulled into the lot. She held the door wide and greeted the driver, a slim Black guy in a preppy plaid button-down shirt and dark-wash jeans.
“Good morning,” he said. “I’m looking for Riley Rhodes.”
“Hi, I’m Riley.”
“I’m Jay Cannon, one of Angelica Miguel’s assistants,” he said. “She’d like to speak with you, if possible. Would you have an hour to go see her? I’m here to drive you.”
Flo and Gerri didn’t even pretend to not listen. They looked from the preppy guy to me.
Did I want to talk to Angelica? Absolutely. I turned to the sisters.
“Go, go.” Their eyes were avid as I read their minds: Come back and tell us everything.
“Would you like some ice cream, Jay?” Flo said.
Jay smiled and shook his head. “Not now, thank you.”
“Take some for Angelica! When she was here she told me her favorite was Rocky Road.” Flo packed a large cup as Gerri pursed her magenta lips with disapproval—another vote for Angelica’s guilt.
I assessed the situation. Was this too good to be true? Really, what were the chances I’d be kidnapped by a handsome guy who claimed to work for Angelica Miguel, and offering to take me exactly where I wanted to go?
I removed my apron and handed it to Gerri, took the packed ice cream from Flo, and followed Jay.
As Jay opened the door of the red compact car, he read my mind. “Unfortunately, Angelica’s Porsche was totaled in the accident.”
“How is she?” I said as I settled in the passenger seat.
Jay closed my door then got in and pulled onto Fairweather Road. To my surprise he headed away from Penniman, away from the hospital. My guard flew up. Riley, you got into a car with a total stranger! This was too good to be true! I readied myself to open the door and roll out at the next stop sign. I took a breath to steady my voice. “We’re not going to the hospital?”
“Angelica’s not at the hospital anymore,” Jay said. “She’s out of ICU. Too many reporters were trying to sneak in and get photos. She’s at Farrow.”
I leaned back in my seat and observed Jay. He held the wheel lightly and looked like he was enjoying the scenery. Relax, Riley. Sometimes people are exactly what they claim to be.
I’d heard of Farrow, a pricey private rehabilitation institute, but had never been there. The place had its own helicopter pad. Occasionally, there would a celebrity sighting of one of its clients in Penniman village, at my dad’s bookshop, or one of the more upscale restaurants and boutiques.
“Angelica’s in a private cottage,” Jay said. “The security at Farrow’s much better than at the hospital.”
Jay drove through ivy-covered stone pillars topped with lanterns into a narrow driveway—there was no sign. We stopped in front of a crossbar at an imposing gatehouse. Jay waved and the guard let us through. As we passed, I could see that the gatehouse bristled with high-tech cameras, screens, and communications equipment. We went up a steep drive that opened onto a manicured lawn and parked in front of an ivy-covered gray stone building with two wings. The building would’ve been at home on the campus of any classic New England college.
Jay jumped out and opened my door. “This way please.” I followed him along a paved path behind the building into the woods to a brown, cedar-shingled cottage. Angelica sat on its patio in a wheelchair, one leg extended in a cast. She looked up from a magazine as we approached.
“Riley. Thanks for coming.” Angelica’s words were slurred as she reached out her hands and took them in mine. “Sorry if I’m hard to understand. My jaw was pretty banged up in the accident.”
I didn’t know if this woman was a killer or not, but her battered face shocked me. The left side was mottled with bruises from her collarbone to her forehead and both eyes were circled with purple. I tried to keep my expression neutral as Jay held a chair for me at her side.
“I know, I’m a mess.” Angelica winced as she settled herself. “It’ll be a long road back, but I lived through an accident the docs said should’ve killed me.” Her lashes lowered and her voice trembled. “Riley, if you hadn’t found me when you did, they said I wouldn’t have made it. Thank you.”
Jay set a tray with a crystal carafe of lemonade on the table between us.
I didn’t know what to say. I squeezed her hand again. The words “Did you kill Mike Spooner” were stuck in my throat. Instead of speaking, I handed her the cup of ice cream.
She laughed. “Flo remembered! Have some with me, Riley.” She waved for Jay. “You have to try this, Jay. It beats anything in
the city.”
Jay took the ice cream into the cottage and returned with two bowls. He set them on the table and then faded back to a chair on the edge of the patio.
Angelica took a bite. “Oh, this is so good. The hospital food was awful.”
I took a bite of ice cream, taking stock of her injuries. “What do the doctors say?”
Her shoulders sagged and she winced again. “Cracked ribs, my leg’s a mess, but I’ll mend.” Her jaw tightened and I saw a flash of the will that had made her a champion. “I hit my head, so my memory’s fuzzy. Riley, how did you find me? How did you know where I’d crashed my car?”
I didn’t tell her I was imagining where a scared or unhinged killer had gone. “I was out jogging. It’s not far from the farm.” I told her about skating on the pond when I was a child. “I went there with Caroline and Mike,” I lied. Mike hadn’t ever gone with us, but I wanted to turn the conversation to him.
Her eyes shimmered with tears. “You have to believe me. I really cared for Mike. I still can’t believe this happened. What does Caroline think? Does she blame me? Does she hate me because Mike died and not me?”
“No! She doesn’t know what to think.” I had to be direct. “What happened that night, Angelica?”
* * *
Angelica called to Jay. “Jay, please go inside. I’ll be fine with Riley.”
Jay hesitated for a moment, then headed inside, giving the woods around the patio a quick scan before he shut the door.
“Jay’s part assistant, part bodyguard. He’s a great guy.” Angelica’s voice softened. “So was Mike.”
I kept my expression neutral. My opinion of Mike was more mixed.
“Mike and I met a few months ago. I was doing an appearance at a resort Mike’s company built in upstate New York. We clicked right away. Usually I don’t move that fast, but I went sailing with him the following weekend. It was Memorial Day and he took me to Block Island, showed me all the funny little lighthouses on the way there. On the way, the weather was rough. I got very seasick, and he took care of me.”
She took a shallow breath. “This is going to sound odd, but I had so much fun with Mike the day of the funeral. I loved working in the ice cream shop and he told me so much about Buzzy, and Caroline, and you, Riley, how you’re Caroline’s best friend and how you travel all over the world. He was so proud of you and Caroline.”
Hearing this was unbearable. I shifted in my seat. Mike sounded like a nice guy. It hurt that he was nice only to people far from Penniman.
Angelica rubbed her forehead. “But I knew something was going on with the farmer.”
“Darwin.”
She nodded. “Mike had big plans for the farm. He knew that Buzzy couldn’t run it anymore. He wanted to be sure she was financially secure.” This chipped away at my frozen heart, but I knew Buzzy would rather be penniless and keep her farm than have money and lose it.
“The financials weren’t good for the farm,” Angelica continued. “Mike said that Buzzy was disorganized and was making bad decisions.”
I shifted uncomfortably. Hadn’t I heard this from Wilmer and Kyle? Why hadn’t Caroline known? Because Buzzy told her everything was fine. Mike and Kyle dug into Buzzy’s financial situation without including Caroline.
Angelica reached for her glass of lemonade. I held it out to her and she took a sip. “Thanks.”
She fell back against the cushions. She was tiring but I kept her talking. Fatigue makes it harder for liars to keep their stories straight. “So that night…” I prompted.
“I went back to the Love Nest before Mike but didn’t go in until he got there. It was a nice night and I sat on the porch catching up on phone messages. When he came back we went inside.
“This is where it gets fuzzy.” Her brow furrowed. “We drank some wine. I started getting a headache. I saw a paper crumpled on the floor by the trash. I looked at it when I picked it up to throw it away and Mike, I don’t think he wanted me to see it. It said something about meeting him at midnight.
“I knew he’d played the field in the past. He’d been honest with me about that. But I thought we had something. I was furious but also—disconnected. So angry, but tired…” Her voice trailed off. “He’d really let me in, introduced me to his family, and then it turned out he was meeting another woman.”
Angelica pulled the collar of her robe tight, and I noticed her knuckles were bruised. “He told me the note was nothing. It was from a long time ago, before he knew me.” Her eyelids fluttered. “No, that’s not right, sorry, that wine really hit me—I know I shouldn’t have gotten in the car. But I got in the car and drove and then everything turned black.”
My skin prickled. Leaves rustled in the woods behind me, then a branch snapped. I rose to my feet as the cottage door burst open and Jay ran out full speed, another man close behind him. They dashed into the woods.
A woman in a nurse’s uniform hurried from the house. “Let me take you inside, Ms. Miguel.” She undid the brake on Angelica’s wheelchair and rolled her into the cottage.
“What’s going on?” I scanned the woods where the two bodyguards had run. I could hear shouting and just make out two figures cutting through the trees ahead of Jay.
“More vultures with cameras,” the nurse said. “Let’s get some rest, Ms. Miguel.”
“Riley, come back later,” Angelica whispered.
I followed them into a combination dining room/kitchenette.
“Please wait here,” the nurse said. She wheeled Angelica down the hallway and I turned to the window.
More shouts came from the woods, but I couldn’t see anyone. The nurse returned and said, “I’ve called a driver to take you home.”
Ten minutes later, a driver pulled up in a white sedan and I got in. As we pulled between the stone gates, I saw a News Now SUV parked in the trees off the road. Jay and the other bodyguard were escorting two men, one with a camera, to the vehicle.
Reporters had bushwhacked into the woods to find Angelica. I hoped they hadn’t overheard any of our conversation or taken any pictures.
I let my head fall back against the padded headrest and closed my eyes. It had been so much easier to see Mike as the self-centered jock he’d been in high school. Was it my loyalty to Caroline that was blinding me to Mike’s good qualities? Angelica had seen a different side of him. Of course, all of Mike’s girlfriends did. He was charming, attractive, caring too, if her story about her seasickness was true. Maybe he’d grown up.
But her story about the night he died.… Was any of that true?
The part about the note—that was true—I’d seen it myself. But had Angelica really run away before Mike was killed? Or had she and Mike had a fight that took them into the barn and then escalated into murder?
Chapter 21
When the driver dropped me back at Udderly, I was more confused than ever but I had no time to think about what Angelica had said. A line stretched from the door into the parking lot.
I ran in, washed my hands, and threw on an apron. For the next few hours I scooped ice cream, built sundaes and banana splits, and made milkshakes nonstop. Flo heard my stomach rumble and mixed me a chocolate milkshake that I sipped when I could. I could tell Flo and Gerri were dying to hear what Angelica told me, but we didn’t have a spare minute. It was all hands on deck.
With every swipe of the eraser on the flavors board, my anxiety rose. I had gallons of ice cream to make. When would that repairman get here? It was almost two o’clock. I vowed to learn how to fix an ice-cream chiller.
“We’re out of cookies and cream. There may be a riot,” Flo said.
The shop’s old wall air conditioner droned, but still I wiped sweat from my brow as I baked the chocolate chip cookies for the cookies-and-cream recipe. On one side of the room was the dormant ice-cream chiller and a worktable, on the other was a stove, a double wall oven, a regular refrigerator, and a prep sink. Pantry shelves ran along the hall facing the large walk-in freezers where we stored the ice
cream as it hardened to the right consistency. Ice cream was all about keeping the product cold, and Buzzy’s electric bills proved it.
A half hour later, a cheer burst from the shop. Flo led the repairman into the kitchen and struck a Vanna White pose. “He’s here!”
His cheeks reddened behind his bushy black beard as he blushed at the welcome. He was slight with tattooed arms, a keychain swinging from the pocket of his jeans, and Tony embroidered on the pocket of his shirt.
“Thank goodness you’re here.” I showed him the problem and he set to work. As I pulled a tray of cookies out of the oven, he sniffed appreciatively and I set aside a plate for him.
“Thank you,” he said. “I need a part, but luckily I have one in the truck.”
A few moments later he was back, fitting the new part and running the machine. “Should be fine now. Here’s the invoice.”
The cost made me gulp. “It wasn’t under warranty?” I said.
“Just expired.”
“Thanks,” I squeaked. “Can I pay later?”
“We’ll bill you. Thanks for the cookies.” He waved as he left.
Caroline came into the kitchen balancing a tinfoil covered tray. “I brought you some leftover pizza. Sorry my meeting went over.”
I grabbed a slice. I was dying to tell Caroline about my interview with Angelica.
Pru joined us and gave me a tired smile as she switched places with Flo. Flo took a piece of pizza and said, “I heard you want to return your rental car. I’ll take you as soon as I finish this.”
“Thank you, Flo.” I pulled Pru aside. “Are you okay?”
She shrugged and forced a smile. “The police have been interviewing us since, you know. Everyone. All the interns. They’re digging.” She bit her lip. She didn’t have to tell me what they were digging for—evidence against Darwin.
Caroline gave me the key to Sadie then Flo followed me to the airport in Hartford in her cute yellow compact car. At the car rental, I bid the Mustang a wistful goodbye. With longing, I watched a plane roar into the sky. How permanent would my move be? I’d cut ties with work. So many changes, so fast. Get through the summer; heck, Riley, just get through the Sunflower Festival.
