A Berry Baffling Businessman

by A. R. Winters

  Eager to hear whatever was said, I settled in on the other side.

  “Tonight’s cooking lesson will be covering an incredibly simple dish, one that can be made when you are happy, when you are tired, or when you simply want a nice meal. It is simple, it is fresh. It is delicious. And, it is a household staple in Italy. You will wonder why you haven’t been eating it every week of your life so far. Tonight, we are making aglio e olio!”

  “Ohhhh!” I groaned. No no no no no! That dish was my arch nemesis! I would end up burning down my entire kitchen.

  Desperate, I raised my hand to my shoulder. I was determined to ask Chef John to choose something else. Anything else!

  “I’m so excited,” the woman next to me whispered. I looked up into her face and saw only genuine interest there. “I had it in Italy last summer, and I’ve been dreaming about it ever since.” Despite the designer clothes and the dangling pearl solitaire which had its home in the mountainous valley of her designer chest, all of my senses told me she was being sweet for the sake of—gasp—being sweet.

  “It is really good… when made right,” I offered. She’d spoken to me first, and I didn’t want her to feel ignored by not saying anything in return.

  “Have you made it? Oh…” She rolled her eyes, but it was made cute by the lovely smile she wore. “What am I saying? Duh. You own this place! I’m so jealous! I’ve only been in town for a couple of days, but I love it here. Everyone’s so nice! They smile and wave! Bobby got a flat tire on the side of the road and had to change it. Three different cars pulled over to ask if he needed any help. Three!” She stared at me, then clucked. “Where are my manners? I’m Stella Rockston.”

  It was official. Stella was smitten… with Camden Falls. I had to admit: she was right. The people here were nice. They talked slower, moved slower, and dressed simpler than the people I’d known in Chicago, but the people of Camden Falls were complex and interesting. They had rich lives full of intrigue, dreams, and… okay, the occasional murder.

  I guessed no place was perfect.

  The class got started, and to my utter amazement, I was able to follow along without messing anything up. Watching and listening to Chef John was like watching a master at work. Everything was effortless perfection for him, but more amazing than that was his ability to transfer his skill into our novice hands.

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  I left my station and got the door. I opened it to a round man who had waved goodbye to middle-age some time ago. He was barely taller than me, and his bulbous nose had the same craterous cragginess as the moon. His suit was cream-colored linen, tailor cut. His shoes were Italian leather loafers—Dan’s favorite kind—and he wore a diamond-encrusted Cartier watch.

  “Ollie!” a woman’s voice cried out from some distance behind me. I turned around just in time to see Lara running on teeter-totter spiked heels. She threw herself into the much shorter man’s arms, then clutched his chubby cheeks between her hands and kissed him. “You made it!”

  I had to give her credit. If she was faking her affection for the ol’ guy, she was very good. Even knowing what I knew about her past with Dan—a quick swallow to get the bile back down—everything about her in that moment told me she was over the moon for the man before her.

  Turning to me with her arms still draped over the newcomer’s shoulders, she said, “Kylie, let me introduce you to my fiancée.” There was a hint of worry in her eyes. She was afraid I’d say something to ruin her relationship with her much older, very wealthy, and much, much less attractive husband-to-be.

  This was it. I could strike down her future like a bolt of lightning! I could destroy everything she hoped to achieve! I could steal away her attempt at happiness!

  “Very nice to meet you,” were the words that came out of my mouth instead as I extended my hand to him. “I’m Kylie Berry, owner and operator of this café.”

  “Beautiful place!” he said, taking my hand. “I’m Oliver Drysdale, but please call me Ollie. We’re in town for that dreadfully boring packaging conference next door. Is the banquet hall yours?”

  I almost didn’t hear his question. My brain was churning so loudly between my ears. This was the father of the guy Zoey was smitten over!

  A cold, prickly sweat washed over me.

  If Lara actually did manage to marry her tycoon husband and if Zoey did achieve happily-ever-after status with Sebastian, that meant Lara would be Zoey’s mother-in-law.

  A manic, nervous laugh escaped me. I wasn’t sure whether to wish against such a happening for Zoey’s sake or to pray that it all went through. I could only dream of the hellish tortures that would await Lara with Zoey as her daughter-in-law!

  “Are you all right?” Ollie asked, concern in his voice. Lara looked worried as well—for me. She didn’t seem at all concerned about me blowing up her new love. She felt secure.

  Maybe theirs was the real deal.

  I had to give it the benefit of the doubt… right after I texted Zoey to let her know I’d met her future mother-in-law.

  Sometimes it just felt too good to be evil.

  Chapter 4

  “You have to stay up here today, sweetie,” I told Sage at the door of my apartment.

  She was so used to coming down to the kitchen with me, but today the whole place would be bustling with people going in and out. I couldn’t risk Sage getting lost in the shuffle.

  Sage mewed and rubbed her cheek against my ankle, then rolled all the way over onto her back and kneaded the air with her paws. Her smoky tortoiseshell coat moved and shifted, making me think of clouds in a stormy sky. But as always, her golden-green eyes held the promise of brighter times ahead.

  “I’m really sorry, sweetie. I have to go.” It was already pushing 9 AM. I’d stayed with her as long as I could. We’d spent a lazy Saturday morning together eating breakfast, playing with string, reading a sappy romance novel, and even taking a good long soak in the bathtub.

  Okay, so it was me who read the novel and took the long soak and Sage who played with a string I’d tied to my big toe and dangled over the edge of the tub. Two birds with one stone and all that.

  “Two more days and everything will be back to normal. I promise.”

  Sage walked away, sat down and started licking her paw. As far as she was concerned, I’d already gone. Ahhh, the fickle love of a cat.

  I headed downstairs with a lighter heart.

  At the bottom of the stairwell, I opened the door to the café’s kitchen. As I’d suspected, twenty people I’d never met before were hurrying around, jumping at every order Chef John barked. He was the captain at the helm of a large ship. His helpers were all dressed in black slacks, sneakers, and vests with a white button-up shirt underneath.

  Every inch of counter space was covered with finger foods of all different sorts. Some were like salad on a stick while others could have doubled for an entree of shaved filet mignon, roasted tomato, and caramelized onion on a crostini.

  Someone bumped into me as I stood in the doorway checking my phone. I’d gotten the late-night text from Jonathan saying he’d be in and could manage the grill on his own, but I’d never heard back from Zoey, which was odd.

  She normally texted back with clairvoyant speed, as if she knew the message was coming before I’d even sent it. It was either that or she’d hacked my phone so she could see all my messages as I typed them out. I was betting on the latter.

  Not hearing from her was making me feel bad for my snark about meeting her future mother-in-law. Maybe I’d gone too far. The part of Zoey’s heart that dealt with love and relationships was still a bundle of raw nerves. I should have known better than to poke fun.

  After meeting Ollie Drysdale, I’d figured his son, Sebastian, would have made it to town as well. I’d mostly just wanted Zoey to know he was probably around.

  “Charlotte! What are you doing?” Chef John barked. I looked up from my phone to see a young woman walking past me with a bag of trash. “Wash your hands! Grab a tray!�
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  “Yes, Chef! Sorry, Chef!” the woman cried out.

  “It’s okay,” I said, taking the bag of trash from her before she could dash away. “I’ll take this out.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” she said breathlessly before rushing off.

  Truth was, I was glad to have an excuse to get out of the kitchen. I hadn’t felt like such a foreigner in the space since the day I’d taken over as owner. Chef John looked completely in his element. Actually, he looked like someone who only truly existed as himself when he was in a kitchen.

  I sighed. I could never be him.

  I slipped out the kitchen’s back door and then held it open as fifteen servers carried trays of food poised on their hands and shoulders. They marched wordlessly, single-file to the door leading to the stairwell which would take them to the banquet hall. There, they disappeared without a sound.

  So shipshape. So perfect in performance and execution.

  I let my feelings of inadequacy sink in a little deeper as the kitchen door swung shut. Though it was still early summer, the day was heating up. The sun was working its way up into the sky, and there wasn’t a cloud in sight.

  I headed over to the dumpster. It was in the opposite direction of the banquet hall. It usually stood out from the wall by four or five feet, but today it was backed up less than a foot away from the building’s brick wall. Its sides were taller than my head, and because the lids were shut, I had to climb the rungs welded into the dumpster’s side to throw them open. I tossed the bag inside and carefully climbed down the rungs only to step on something soft and malleable when my foot touched the ground.

  The toe of an expensive leather loafer was sticking out from beneath the dumpster.

  It was the same kind of shoe worn by my ex-husband. It was also the same type of shoe I’d seen Ollie Drysdale wearing last night.

  My heart skipped a beat and a panic started to rise within me, but I ignored them both. Absolutely nothing was amiss.

  “It’s just a shoe,” I said to no one.

  I swept the ground beneath the dumpster with my sneakered foot in an effort to brush the shoe out from under the hulking metal box. But instead of getting the shoe to come out from under the thing, the shoe pivoted and disappeared altogether.

  I bent my knees, held onto one of the welded rungs on the dumpster’s side, and swept my foot again at an angle that let me reach further underneath. Nothing came out.

  “Come on…”

  I stared at the ground in front of the dumpster and wondered when it had last rained. Nothing icky or sticky marked the area in front of the enormous trash collector, but I still didn’t want to get down on my hands and knees to retrieve the shoe.

  Quickly, I popped back inside the kitchen, grabbed the broom, and popped back out. Using the end of the broom handle, I did a wide-arching sweep beneath the dumpster. I was determined to get that shoe.

  Instead, I got a hand.

  “No no no no no no no. No.” I stood up, stomped around in a circle looking for somebody, anybody, but nobody was there. I looked at the hand again. At least it was attached to an arm, and I was fairly certain that the arm was attached to a body. “Nooooo.”

  I stomped my foot like a teenager throwing a tantrum. Then I jumped up and down, beat my fists in the air, and shook my head like a two-year-old. The only thing left was to throw myself on the ground and hold my breath, but I decided to skip that part.

  I looked again at the hand sticking out from under the dumpster. It was pudgy. Last night, Ollie Drysdale had been a lot of man in a pudgy sort of way, and he’d had on those expensive shoes.

  I gulped. There was nothing left to do. No more stalling I could think of.

  I got down on all fours and leaned my shoulders down toward the ground. I peered underneath… and Ollie Drysdale’s unblinking eyes peered back.

  Chapter 5

  I didn’t know how the poor man had managed to get smushed under there. The base of the dumpster was pressing down on him, but there was no blood and no damage that I could see. There was just Ollie. Pinned.

  I held my breath and listened, wondering if the man was hanging on to life by the skin of his teeth. I stared at him as hard as he was staring at me.

  “Ollie?” I finally said, calling out to him. He didn’t reply, but I decided to be optimistic. “Hang on! I’ll get you help!”

  I yanked my phone out of my back pocket so fast that it did a tumbling act in midair. My hands went everywhere trying to catch it, and it went everywhere my hands weren’t. It hit the ground and did a rolling bounce from corner to corner until it flopped on its face a couple of feet away.

  I snatched the phone up and hit 911. “Hang on, Ollie! I’ll get you help!”

  A muffled noise reached my ears. Then something else reached me. My nose crinkled and my face contorted in an effort to escape the smell.

  “Oh, Ollie…” I was mortified that I could get hung up about such a trivial thing at a moment like this. I glanced his way with words of reassurance on my lips. My mouth opened to speak, then the noise again, then the smell.

  My heart sank. “Ohhhh, Ollie.” His eyes hadn't moved. His hand hadn’t twitched. Nothing about him had changed. His body was simply doing what a body does, but the man inside was gone. “I’m so sorry, Ollie,” I whispered, and then I hit dial on my phone.

  First the ambulance came, then a fire truck, and then the coroner. They all arrived within a minute of each other. The police arrived a few minutes later.

  The paramedics and the firemen jumped out of their vehicles and rushed into action, throwing doors open and grabbing equipment, and then they stopped. They stayed within an arm’s reach of their vehicles, ready to jump into action.

  In contrast to the big ambulance and enormous fire truck, the coroner pulled up in an ancient Ford LTD Wagon. It was painted black and on its side was “CORONER” painted in big white block letters. The door opened and a lanky kid with thick black hair and a face full of pimples got out from behind the steering wheel. The odd thing was that he was wearing a white lab coat and nobody got in his way as he walked over to the dumpster. His mere presence held everybody’s rapt attention.

  There was no hesitation when he reached the dumpster. He dropped down onto his belly and stared underneath. Then with easy agility, he jumped back up to his feet and went to the back of the dumpster. I shifted my position so I could watch. There wasn’t a lot of space between the dumpster and the building’s back wall, but there was enough space for him.

  He dropped down onto his belly again and then sort of did a sideways crab walk underneath the low-lying dumpster. He was under there for all of sixty seconds before he was out and back on his feet.

  He headed back to his car. As he passed the paramedics and the fire department’s first responders, their eyes were all on him. They seemed to lean into the silence of the nothing that had been said. Then, without missing a step or even looking at the people waiting to jump into action, the kid said, “He’s dead.”

  A dozen shoulders sagged, people put their gear away, and the ambulance and the fire truck left.

  A detective I recognized well—and dreaded seeing—was waiting at the coroner’s car. They had a quick exchange of words with foreheads bent close together, then the kid got back in his hearse-like car and drove away.

  When the detective’s gaze locked on me, a flash of fear started at my toes and flooded up through my body to crash into the top of my head. I wanted to run. I wanted to hide. But instead of doing any of that, I flipped my red hair over my shoulder, propped my hand on my hip, and lifted my chin haughtily in the air.

  I could see the man making his way over to me out of the corner of my eye. He had on his tan trench coat, but he stripped it off his shoulders as he walked and folded it over his arm.

  “Ms. Berry,” he said when he reached me.

  I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye before turning to look at him. But I stayed alert. I stayed ready to run. I knew how this conversa
tion would end. I’d be eating asphalt and he’d have my arms pulled up so far behind my back that my shoulders would ache for a week, not to mention the bruises on my wrists from the too-tight handcuffs.

  When he didn’t leap into action, hurl insults, or otherwise berate me, I finally said, “Detective Gregson.”

  He seemed like a different man than I’d met before. He still had a five o’clock shadow, although it was at best nine-thirty in the morning. His hair still looked as though he’d rolled out of bed five minutes ago, and his mouth still pulled down at the corners in a perpetual frown. He looked the same as he ever did, but possibly… less enraged.

  “I didn’t do this,” I said, pointing a shaking finger toward the base of the dumpster.

  “This is your establishment?”

  “It is…”

  “This dumpster is registered for your use?”

  I gulped, then found it hard to breathe. He was going to arrest me for murder. I knew it. He had everything he needed. On top of that, we were next to a dumpster. Dumpsters were a trigger for Detective Gregson. I knew through Brad that Detective Gregson had a life-altering experience standing in such a spot once before. He’d be eager to destroy me all the more because of it.

  “Ms. Berry?” Detective Gregson prompted when I’d stayed frozen too long.

  “I-uh-I…” The world spun, and I couldn’t catch my breath no matter how hard or fast I sucked in air. I teetered, and Detective Gregson’s arm shot out to steady me.

  “Hold your breath,” he ordered.

  I glared at him. He was mad. Crazy! There was more than enough air in the whole outdoors but he wanted me to hold my breath so I could leave more of the air for him.

  I shook my head vehemently. No.

  The world was turning black at the edges. The darkness was coming for me!

  Detective Gregson stepped closer. His arm went around my waist and held me snug against him, and his other hand lifted to my face. He pinched my nose shut and put his palm over my mouth, cutting off all my air.