by Sage Parker
“Are you still planning to testify, Mom?” Cheyenne asked.
Jaymee nodded. “Yes, of course. I have to. I was sent a subpoena.”
“What are you going to tell them, do you know?”
“I’ve been briefed on the questions by the prosecutors and went in for a mock trial yesterday. The prosecutor’s name, the main one, is Brandon Persinger. He asked me questions he thought the defendant’s lawyers were going to ask. It’s mostly about the work Cameron and I did to find out what happened to Doug. I’ll tell them about the vials we found, going to find Carmine, talking to all the suspects. My testimony isn’t all that important really. I’m just doing it because it was Doug who was blackmailing them. That’s really the only way I’m involved in this. Other than launching the investigation after he disappeared.”
“I’m sure they need you there, Mom.” Cheyenne sounded sympathetic. Jaymee gave her a big smile.
“I’m not putting myself down, honey. I just know that there’s not a lot I can answer to in this situation. It was all Doug. We didn’t know what he was doing. We’ve been cleared of any involvement with that. And since they can’t prosecute Doug, they aren’t paying attention to what happened to the money.”
“And that’s why we get it,” Cheyenne concluded for her.
Her mother nodded. “Exactly. So I don’t really want to be any more involved in the trial than I have to be. I don’t want them thinking anything about me or you being involved in this in any way. We are victims, too. In fact, that money we’ll get is ours by default because of our victimhood.”
Jaymee was glad when her companions chuckled. There was no way she or Cheyenne would ever claim to be “victims”. They were the first to stand up and fight if need be. There was no “fight or flight” for them. It was just fight or fight.
“Yes, we are such victims.” Cheyenne folded her arms on the table in front of her, winking at her mother.
“You shouldn’t make fun of your mother,” Jaymee teased. “Now you are making me a victim.”
They all laughed louder this time.
“Do you think Amanda is going to get life for the murder, Mom?” Cheyenne asked, reaching out to pour herself more wine.
“Well, capital punishment is legal here in California. So they might give her that.”
“I doubt it,” Cameron said, shaking his head and shifting in his seat. They all looked at him.
“What makes you say that?” Jaymee asked, curiously.
Cameron cleared his throat. “Well, to begin with she was Doug’s victim. It wasn’t really self-defense but that’s probably how she’s going to try to portray it. He was blackmailing her, after all. Her secrets would have been exposed and she was driven to think her only way out, the only way out for her and the rest of them, was to kill him.”
Jaymee pulled her eyebrows together. “It sounds like you think she isn’t guilty of Murder One.”
“I don’t know if the courts will decide that. I don’t know all the facts of the case. As much as I’ve kept in touch with the detectives, I don’t know all the evidence they have. I only know what evidence we came up with. Does that make sense? After getting Carmine down, if it was up to me, she would get death. I just don’t think they will give that to her. I think it’s more likely it will be life.”
“I have to agree with that,” Alex said, taking a similar stance to Cheyenne with his arms folded on the table in front of him. “Especially because women are more emotional than men and the truly evil ones, like our dear Amanda, are more psychopathic than men who are being blackmailed. Look what happened to Carmine. You didn’t see him finding a way to kill Doug. He didn’t even try to get back at him.”
“Amanda isn’t-”
Jaymee’s words were cut off by the sound of her phone vibrating violently on the table next to her plate.
“Mom, I thought no phones allowed at the table.”
Jaymee grinned at her daughter. “That was when you were a baby. Now I have a business to run and I don’t like to be out of the loop if I’m needed.” She looked down at her phone. “And it’s Russo. Just a text. That’s why I keep it on vibrate, though.”
She tapped the buttons on her screen until his message came up. It was without punctuation and was only two sentences.
Trouble at the café. Come immediately.
Jaymee shot to her feet, knocking her chair backwards.
“What is it?” Cameron asked in alarm.
“We have to get to the café. Now!”
EIGHT
Jaymee’s heart slammed in her chest on the drive over to the café. It wasn’t too far but it felt like a million miles. She jumped out of the car before it came to a full stop, much to Cameron’s dismay.
Despite the text, the outside of the café looked peaceful. She heard music coming from the veranda but couldn’t see it from the front parking lot.
Jaymee dashed to the entrance, stopped a moment to compose herself for what she might see and glanced over her shoulder to see where Cameron was. He was almost to her, so she turned back and pulled the door open.
That was when she saw the trouble Carmine was talking about. There were a dozen people all standing around. Several of them were police. Tables had been knocked over. It reminded Jaymee of a knock-down, drag-out fight at a saloon in the Wild West.
Some of the people were yelling at each other. Some were pointing. They all had horrible looks on their faces.
At the very moment they entered, it seemed all Hell broke loose. People began scuffling with one another, even with the police, who were calling out orders for people to get themselves in check.
“What’s going on?” she heard Cameron say in a low voice directly into her ear.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “But it doesn’t look good.” She was about to shout as loud as she could when someone in the group screamed.
Jaymee and the others became aware that a gun had been spotted. Jaymee thought about the pistol she kept under the register behind the counter. It wouldn’t do her any good, even if she had it. She didn’t know who had a gun or even who had originally seen it.
The scuffling and wrestling continued until the terrifying sound of a gunshot rang out and the crowd in front of her scattered. When they separated, Jaymee was able to see clearly what was going on.
The young man who had pulled the gun was struggling with Carmine. The old Italian man had the man in a death grip, his arms linked from behind around the man’s arms.
Jaymee watched the gun drop from the perpetrator’s hands and clatter to the floor. One of the police officers immediately scooped it up and was beside Carmine less than a second later. He was cuffing the suspect, who was shrieking and crying as if the police were hurting him by taking him into custody.
The entire crowd now gathered around Russo, who had dropped himself into a chair. He had one arm up on the edge of the table next to him with his hand hanging over. He kept raising the other one and shaking his head, waving off the accolades he was hearing from everyone around him.
“You saved him, Carmine. You saved him!”
As Jaymee went to her employee and friend, she watched as another man approached Carmine, his face filled with emotion. He held out his hand and Carmine took it. As they shook the man said, “My name is Mike. I know yours. I’ve talked to you a lot in here. Drinking my Vanilla Cappuccino like I always do. I appreciate you saving my life. I can tell you you made a lifelong customer out of me. I can come here and my life is saved. Amazing work. I can’t thank you enough.”
“You’re welcome, young man. Mike. You’re welcome.”
“You could have been shot. I can’t believe that bullet didn’t graze you at least.”
“You’re welcome. I’m glad I was there to help.”
The man continued to lob praise on Carmine and Jaymee went to stand on his other side. She patted him on the shoulder. “What an incredibly brave thing for you to do. I am glad I hired you. Not that I wasn’t before. But, wow, what a bra
ve thing for you to do. You’ll be in the paper for this one.”
“All over the web, too,” Cheyenne said. Jaymee had forgotten her daughter had come along until that moment. “You’re gonna be famous!”
Carmine blushed.
“And we’ve got some other good news for you, too, Mr. Heropants,” Cheyenne added, her grin mischievous. Carmine gave her a curious look, moving his eyes from her to Jaymee to the others one by one.
“Good news?” he repeated. “What good news do you have?”
Cheyenne looked at her mother. “You tell him, Mom.”
Jaymee chuckled, pulled out the chair beside Carmine and sat down. She leaned toward him. “I’m glad you’re sitting down, Carmine.”
She hesitated a moment, just to build the suspense. She really thought that was more for herself and her friends because Carmine had no idea how big this news was going to be.
“The money that Doug took from you and his other victims has been found. They are holding it for us. We are taking it. We want you to have some of it back.”
It almost seemed like Carmine grew an inch taller. His face brightened and a smile cracked his face, making wrinkles appear. “I will get my money back? From being blackmailed? That is amazing! You have gone through the records to see how much I paid, have you?”
Jaymee shook her head. “No. We’ve decided to give you a cool million. How’s that sound?”
The blood drained from Carmine’s face. “That’s… not right. I couldn’t have given him more than a couple hundred thousand at the most.”
“It doesn’t matter how much you gave him, Carmine. You’re getting a million for your pain and suffering.”
Carmine stared at them. “Well, I must say thank you very much for this. What a wonderful thing to hear. Especially after you risked your life to save a stranger’s. I feel like I’ve been given an instant reward.”
The rest of them gathered at the table around him, pulling up chairs to sit in front of him. Cameron turned his backwards before sitting down.
“You went through plenty,” he said. “You deserve the money. You’ll have a nice nest egg to fall back on.” He glanced at Jaymee when she said that. She snorted with laughter, which made the others laugh, too, while Carmine just gave them all an amused and confused look.
“I never expected Doug to do something like that, you know,” he said, his voice carrying a sudden interest in it. “He was always good to me when we were working together. I think he had a good working relationship with everyone he ended up blackmailing.”
“That’s probably how he managed to get the information he needed to blackmail them.” Jaymee saw looks of agreement on the faces of those around her.
“Amanda had to think he would cave to her feminine wiles,” Cameron put in. “I can’t see her attempting anything like what she did if she didn’t think he’d give in. The resulting tape would have been all they needed to blackmail Doug in return. Instead of a truce, they decided to get rid of him. The recording that Lianetti made of the whole incident with her poisoning Doug and getting rid of his body.”
“I can’t believe Granger was involved after all,” Jaymee murmured.
“Me either.” Cameron shook his head. “He seemed so harmless. We took him off our suspect list first and he was directly involved in the murder.”
Jaymee raised her eyebrows. “Maybe we should reconsider me joining you in the PI firm. It doesn’t seem like I’m all that good at it.”
Cameron snorted. “You’re fine. It was our first case together, you were emotionally involved in it, and you weren’t prepared to see a suspect in absolutely everyone. It’s always good to hold everyone else in some suspect, mostly to protect yourself from getting hurt by them in one way or another. But to remember to give them the benefit of the doubt, too. You have to weigh it carefully. I think you did an amazing job under the circumstances.”
Jaymee gave him a loving smile. “Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you? You love me and all.”
Cameron joined the rest of them as light laughter went around the group. “I do love you. But I also know good business and have been a PI for enough years to know when I see somebody who would be good at it, too. If I didn’t think you were good, I wouldn’t have offered you the partnership. I’m not trying to lose money. I would consider you an asset. I mean, I will and do consider you an asset, because you’ve already said you will join the firm. Just you and me, figuring out what everyone else is up to and making sure they tow the line.”
Again, everyone in the group laughed softly.
Jaymee was happy, looking around her at her friends and family. What good had come from such tragedy. She couldn’t wait to see what her future would hold.
NINE
The grand celebration for the hometown hero was in full swing when Cameron came through the door to the kitchen into the lobby carrying a large rectangular cake. In blue icing on top were written the words “Grand Bay Hero of the Day Carmine Russo”.
Everyone sang “He’s a jolly good fellow” and Carmine took it with his usual humility, grinning so big, his face was filled with wrinkles.
Jaymee had gotten used to the old man and was glad she’d brought him on board. She was glad she was able to do something for him, after all he’d gone through. Saving the young man from being shot was the second time he himself had escaped death. It gave her pleasure to see him looking so happy and content.
The cake was distributed and they all sampled it first, expressing their delight in the taste to each other.
Jaymee had the lobby of the restaurant set up so that there was a table of honor. Carmine sat in the very middle and was surrounded by herself, Cameron, Alex and Cheyenne. Also, to everyone’s surprise, Carmine’s niece, Isabelle, had shown up after seeing her uncle’s face in the newspaper. She was beaming with pride, telling everyone she didn’t know about her uncle and when she was told about him and she’d seen what he’d done, she had to come meet him.
Cameron stood up when everyone was about halfway done with their slice of celebration cake. He was holding the newspaper dated the day before.
“Can I have your attention please?” he said, loudly. Everyone stopped talking and gave him what he asked for. “I’m holding here our local Grand Bay Times.” He held it up and waited a second or two for those in the audience who were prematurely cheering. He grinned at them before continuing, “There is an article in here about a friend of mine and something he did that took a lot of guts and bravery. Yes, we all know it’s our own Carmine Russo, the man who can do anything here in Saltwater Café, from bartending and making the best drinks possible, to cooking and cleaning like no other. We’re proud to have you in our fold, Carmine. Just so you know, you are very appreciated.”
Carmine grinned up at Cameron. Jaymee watched her fiancé praise the older Italian man, biting her bottom lip through her radiant smile.
“Thank you, Cam-”
Cameron held up his hand to stop Carmine. “I’m not done. I’ve got to read this article for everyone here, just in case they missed it. Then you can thank us if you want. But we don’t need it. We are simply recognizing a man who had the courage to do what many didn’t.”
Cameron dramatically opened the paper and shook it a few times, clearing his throat loudly. When he spoke, his voice boomed through the room.
“Local hero, Carmine Russo, stopped a near murder at Saltwater Café, where he works as a bartender and all-around helper. It has been told to this reporter that Mr. Russo is a man to be respected. Just a few short years ago, he was working in research science, alongside some of the most prestigious minds our California coast has to offer. Mr. Russo since left that job and is now employed by Jaymee Mason…” He stopped and grinned at Jaymee, who flushed. She knew she’d been mentioned in the paper but didn’t know Cameron planned to read it aloud to everyone.
Several guests turned to her, clapping softly and nodding at her as if she’d somehow assisted Carmine in saving the young man’s life
by tackling the suspect and making him drop his gun.
“…at Saltwater Café, located on the South side of Angel, near the corner of Broadway. Ms. Mason has reportedly said that Mr. Russo came to her as a surprise and she has reaped the benefits of his employment ever since. He is highly respected and well-liked by all who meet him and this reporter can see why. He is a smart man with plenty to say, and apparently all the bravery needed to be an action hero or maybe a super hero. The jury is still out on which one.”
Cameron closed the paper and shook it in Carmine’s direction. “She’s right, you know. You are both of those things. For a man of your age to make the kind of decision you did and succeed… the odds were against you, you must admit.”
Carmine stood up and shook Cameron’s hand. “Again, thank you for this. I do appreciate it. I don’t know if I feel like a hero or not. I’ve never had a chance to feel like one before. I am proud of myself, though. I can admit that. I don’t know about hero status though. Either of those.”
“Well, you should,” Cameron said in a teasing voice. “You look like an old, frail man but you’re actually Thor under there somewhere.”
Carmine laughed delightedly. “I’m not going to stop you if you want to keep talking like that. It’s kind of nice.”
The audience laughed with him.
Cameron turned to the rest of the guests again. “We are planning on expanding the café and buying up another property. This will be a restaurant that Carmine has agreed to man himself. He will make the decisions for the restaurant, with Jaymee’s approval, of course…” He gestured to Jaymee, bowing slightly at the waist. She grinned at him, “including the hiring and firing. So if you know anyone who is really good in the food industry, send them our way. We expect the construction of the business to be finished in the next four months. Due to a sudden influx of money, we don’t see it taking nearly as long as setting up this café. Also, we aren’t making a brand-new building, not constructing on an empty lot. We’ve found a nice building that we think we can remodel to suit our needs. So we’ll need those kind of workers first and then people who can work inside with Carmine. Tell your friends they can get an application for that here or online.”
