by J. R. Ripley
‘Are you OK, Ms Miller?’
I gulped and collected my wits, which seemed to have spilled across the steps along with my dignity. ‘I think so.’ I dusted myself off.
Cody pulled me closer as the crowd passed. ‘You really should be more careful, Ms Miller.’ His eyes dug into mine. Then he smiled. ‘Well, gotta get back to Paula.’
I hobbled down the steps. I wasn’t built for this detective stuff. I stuck the key in the ignition and headed back to the café, glad that I had a motor vehicle rather than a Schwinn. Between having a drink splashed all over me and falling down half a flight of stairs, it had been one lousy afternoon.
One thought raced through my mind as I pulled into the slow-moving traffic as the light ahead turned yellow. Had Cody tripped me? Had he done so on purpose? Why would he want to hurt me? Certainly not because he was afraid I might spoil the surprise about his getting Sabrina a car as a wedding gift. If he had tripped me and it had been intentional, could it be about Lisa Willoughby? Was he a murderer?
Was that why he’d warned me to be careful? Or was my imagination getting the better of me? Note to self: check Cody Ryan’s whereabouts at the time of the murder. Did he have an alibi or did I now have a new suspect?
The sun was in my eyes as I neared the intersection. I reached for the visor and felt a crash. The visor smacked me in the face as I slammed on the brakes and killed the engine. The traffic signal was red and so was the color of the car I had just knocked into. Oops.
The driver’s-side door opened. The car bounced as a familiar shape stepped out into the road. Of all the cars I could collide with, I had to collide with Detective Highsmith’s testosterone-fueled tribute to his youth, his Trans Am.
Oops again.
He folded his arms and motioned with his right hand for me to roll down my window. I obliged. ‘What’d you do,’ he scowled, ‘steal another car?’
I groaned and waved him away from the car door so I could open it. I stood. My nose pulsed. I felt a drip of blood and squelched it with a crumpled tissue.
‘You’re a menace, Miller.’
‘I know.’ I felt woozy. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten or had a drink – besides the one that had splattered all over my legs. And while the thought of going on the offense had flashed through my brain, I wasn’t fool enough to try it on a cop with a loaded gun. ‘I am so sorry. I don’t know what happened. One minute I was—’ The hot afternoon sun seemed to slam into my face. I felt the world go sideways.
Highsmith’s jaw slackened. Or maybe it had simply melted against the power of the sun. ‘Are you OK?’
My knees crumpled. Highsmith caught me. I heard him holler for the traffic to go around. ‘You’d better sit,’ he said.
I nodded speechlessly. My hands were locked around his neck. I smelled leather and soap. His strong arms were under my knees. He eased me back behind the wheel of the BMW and his finger went to my cheek. My heart skipped a beat. Those big brown M&M eyes of his dug right into me. I squeezed my eyes shut before they sucked me in completely. I felt the warmth of his lips on my forehead.
He cleared his throat. ‘I’d better check out the damage.’
I nodded, still unable to speak. Tears spilled from my eyes.
A moment later, he reappeared. ‘Not too bad.’ He smiled. ‘Matching dents. Nothing major.’
‘That’s good,’ I managed to say. Nothing major. Sure, try telling that to Johnny Wolfe. And what about that little kiss on the forehead? Was that nothing major, too?
‘You’ve got some scrapes, though.’
I followed his eyes. ‘Oh, I got them before.’
His brow shot up.
‘I sort of fell down the stairs.’
His eyes narrowed.
‘It was nothing. I’m fine. Really.’
He waved another car around us. ‘I suggest we get these cars out of the middle of the road and swap insurance information. I’ll come by your place later. I’ve got someplace to be now.’
‘OK.’ I spotted Brad Smith watching us from the sidewalk. I knew the Table Rock Reader offices were nearby. His arms were locked across his chest. Had he seen the accident? Had he seen the way Highsmith kissed me?
Highsmith’s hand fell on my left shoulder. ‘Are you sure you’re OK to drive?’
I nodded curtly. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll manage.’
He tapped his hand against the door. ‘Good. Keep your eyes on the road. And if you’re going to take them off the road,’ he said with a gleam in his eye, ‘don’t do it when you’re driving behind me.’
I watched the Trans Am speed off then slowly turned the key in the ignition and pulled over to the side of the street. Brad was still there, waiting. Watching.
I knew I had to speak to him. I’d been avoiding him and his phone calls. A girl couldn’t hide forever.
Could she?
I thought about it for a moment.
No, she couldn’t. At least not in a town the size of Table Rock.
I waited for the traffic to clear then stepped onto the sidewalk.
‘Are you OK?’ Brad asked.
I nodded. ‘More embarrassed than injured.’
He nodded once. ‘I’m glad to hear it.’
‘Listen, Brad,’ my hand went to his arm, ‘I’ve been really busy and I – we – haven’t had a chance to talk—’
He cut me off with a wave of his hand. ‘What’s to talk about?’
What’s to talk about? Was he kidding? Why are all men so difficult? ‘For starters, we could talk about what happened the other night on my front porch.’
He forced a smile. ‘Sorry, can’t talk now. I’ve got a date.’
My stomach soured. ‘A date?’
He shrugged. ‘The editor wants me to interview Veronica Vargas about the Lisa Willoughby murder investigation.’
I flushed. ‘VV?’ Veronica ‘VV’ Vargas was Table Rock’s very own femme fatale and pain in the buttocks. She was the doted on daughter of the mayor. And the girlfriend of one Detective Mark Highsmith.
Brad nodded. ‘Shall I give her your regards?’
TWENTY-SIX
There were no parking spots out on the street so I parked Johnny’s BMW behind our shops and went in the back way. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was going to tell Johnny – or when. I had promised him there wouldn’t be a scratch on his precious BMW – but I hadn’t said anything about dents.
Mom was inside.
‘Mom! What are you doing here?’
‘I called her,’ Aubrey answered.
Mom nodded. ‘That’s right.’ She held up the bag from Robinsons’ Nest. ‘I came to get these. What happened to your face, Maggie? Have you been bleeding?’
‘It’s nothing, Mom. I must have bumped into something. Enjoy your suet.’
‘No offense,’ said Aubrey with a smile, ‘but that stuff was truly, truly stinking up the place.’
Mom set the bag on the nearest table and looked down her nose at me. ‘Is there something you want to tell me, Maggie?’
I twisted my jaw. ‘I don’t think so.’ I glanced at Aubrey, who had suddenly frozen behind the register.
‘Nothing at all?’ There was an ominous undertone to Mom’s voice. I hadn’t seen her looking this upset since the night she’d caught me sneaking out of my room to meet up with my boyfriend, Artie Culpepper, the night of my sixteenth birthday.
‘Well—’ I angled my eyes up at Aubrey. She was mouthing something over and over but I couldn’t make out what. I stood there helplessly, my mouth half-open.
Mom looked down her nose at me. ‘What Aubrey’s trying to say is “she knows.”’
Aubrey blushed. ‘Sorry.’
‘Knows what?’
Mom pointed outside. ‘About my car. Tell me, Maggie, when were you planning on telling me that you’d smashed my car?’
It was my turn to blush. ‘Oh, I, uh …’ I grabbed my apron and tied it round my waist as some customers came bustling in. ‘Can’t talk now, Mom. Gotta w
ork. Besides,’ I said nervously, ‘it’s only a scratch.’
‘Only a scratch!’ gasped my mother. ‘Maggie Miller, I’ve been to the body shop.’ She fished in her handbook and pulled out a printed sheet. ‘I received a quote for nearly two thousand dollars.’
My eyes darted up and down the paper. ‘Surely there must be some mistake.’ A decimal point in the wrong place. Too many zeroes. ‘I barely touched that boulder.’
‘Boulder!’ There went another gasp.
‘Well,’ I molded a small shape with my hands, ‘it was really more of a tiny rock.’ I smiled weakly. ‘Just a pebble, really.’ I pressed my thumb and index finger close together.
Mom frowned. ‘Some pebble, young lady. I don’t understand, Maggie, dear. When you had your own car there was never a scratch on it.’
I opened my mouth but nothing came out. She was right.
Mom wrung her hands. ‘It’s going to cost a bundle to fix it. You know I’m on a limited income. Not to mention the car will need to be in the shop for days. I’ll have to have a rental. I can’t exactly walk everywhere.’
I was going to suggest she ride a Schwinn like me but didn’t have the nerve. Something told me Mom wasn’t going to take that suggestion well. Maybe when she calmed down. Hey, we could rent a bicycle built for two. I’d seen some cute ones parked outside the bike shop on Main.
‘Be right with you,’ I said to Aubrey, who’d just taken five orders for beignets and needed me to get frying. I slid behind the counter. ‘And I’m sorry, Mom.’ I grabbed some pre-prepped dough and began rolling it out.
‘How am I going to pay for this?’ Mom waved the quote in front of my nose.
‘Insurance?’ I took the thin sheet of dough and began cutting strips.
‘There’s still a deductible, Maggie Miller. Five hundred dollars. And if I report the accident my insurance rates will go up. You know they always do.’
Man, she really wasn’t letting go of this. ‘Sorry,’ I said again. ‘I – I’ll make it up to you.’
Mom squinted suspiciously at me. ‘How?’
I smiled weakly. ‘Free beignets?’
Mom didn’t look convinced.
‘For life?’ Hey, why not sweeten the pot. Laura had gone for it. And unless business picked up life may not be all that long. I could have to shut the place in a year.
Mom only scowled. ‘You aren’t charging me now.’
I chewed on my lower lip. That was true. I could start. Maybe earn back enough money to pay her deductible. Nah, she’d probably never go for it.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Mom. Was that an evil gleam I spotted in her eyes? She carefully folded up the quote from Carl’s Paint & Body and placed it back in her purse. ‘I’ve given this a lot of thought.’
‘You have?’ My toes tingled a warning. I didn’t like where this conversation was going. I hadn’t even liked where it had started. But I didn’t see any way off this particular trail now.
She nodded. ‘I have the solution.’
I dropped in the first batch of beignets and listened to the pleasant sizzle. I daren’t look up. ‘You do?’
Mom nodded. ‘I’m going to work here.’
‘Here?’ I looked up. ‘At the café?’
Mom nodded again. ‘And you’re going to pay me.’
‘Isn’t it wonderful, Maggie?’ Aubrey’s smile melted off her face as I lasered her with my eyes.
I pulled the beignets from the fryer, placed them on the drip tray then dropped in another load. ‘Mom,’ I said, shaking my head, ‘I’d love to have you work here, believe me, just love to,’ I said, adding a few ounces of sadness to the mix, ‘but I am in no position to hire you.’
Mom grinned – it was practically a smirk. ‘You can’t afford not to, Maggie. This poor girl,’ she pointed to Aubrey, ‘is working herself to death ten to twelve hours a day—’
Ten to twelve hours a day? Was she really putting in those kinds of hours?
‘Kelly Herman works twenty hours a week for your sister and twenty for you. So she can’t help out any more than she is now.’ Mom folded her arms smugly across her chest. ‘You need me, Maggie. Let’s face it, you’re gone half the time.’
My face went deep red, and it wasn’t because I was standing over the hot fryer and taking all the heat. Well, I was taking all the heat but most of it was coming from my mom.
I love my mom, but working with her side by side? That couldn’t be a good thing. She’d drive me crazy. ‘What about your yoga classes?’
Mom tsk-tsked. ‘You know I only teach at the spa part-time.’ She planted her hands on her hips. ‘I can handle both.’
Yeah, but could I handle Mom working in the café? I slowly lifted the last batch of beignets from the fryer and laid them on the drip tray. I picked up the powdered sugar container and sprinkled it liberally over the warm beignets. I placed three on each plate and handed them one by one to Aubrey, who passed them to our customers.
The woman at the register lifted a plate up to her nose and inhaled. She sneezed and a cloud of sugar filled the air between her and Aubrey. Powdered sugar has a way of finding its way into places you’d rather it didn’t. ‘Smells wonderful,’ the customer said between sniffs. ‘And you really should give your mother a job. After all,’ she patted the arm of the stodgy man beside her while looking at me, ‘that’s what family is all about, isn’t it?’
I looked hard at my mom for a moment. ‘OK,’ I said, waving my finger at her. ‘But I don’t want you doing any of that yoga stuff in front of the customers.’ What would passers-by think if they caught Mom stretched out in a leotard in the window with her butt in the air and her ankles wrapped behind her neck? Probably that I was running a circus school, not a beignet café.
Mom smiled. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it, dear.’
Wiped out, I returned home. Mom and I were too tired to cook so we ordered a large pizza. Mom tipped the delivery man and I ran the pizza box to the table and popped the lid. ‘What did you order?’
‘Large cheese with all the works.’ Mom pulled up a chair across from me at the kitchen table.
I studied the pizza. It certainly looked good. A pizza of many colors: yellows, greens, reds, purples. I picked up my fork and stabbed at some yellow chunks. ‘What’s this?’
‘Mango,’ Mom replied.
‘Ooo-kay …’
She ran the spatula under a large slice and dropped it onto her plate.
‘And this?’ The tines of my fork prodded something that looked sort of like pepperoni but not quite.
‘Ostrich.’
‘Ostrich.’ I glanced across the table at my mother. My fork hung in the air. ‘Did you say ostrich? Like the bird?’
‘Yes, dear.’
I lifted my hand overhead. ‘Big guy, likes to stick his head in the sand kind of bird?’ Would I be coughing up feathers later?
Mom nodded. ‘It’s quite good.’ She scooped up another slice, dropped it onto a plate and slid it toward me. Two pieces of sliced ostrich pepperoni stared up at me. It was like looking into dead ostrich eyes. ‘Better start eating before your dinner gets cold.’
My mouth hung open. I slowly lowered my arm. The thick slices of ostrich pepperoni were a hideous reddish-purple, looking more like the fresh hematomas lining my right leg and elbow from the tumble I’d taken earlier than something I’d want to stick in my mouth.
I pushed back my chair and rose. This meal called for reinforcements. ‘Can I get you something to drink, Mom?’
‘Water for me, please.’
I ignored her and brought two filled drink glasses to the table.
Mom turned the glass around in her hand. ‘I asked for water.’
I sat and took a swig from my wide-rimmed glass. ‘Margaritas are the new water,’ I quipped. ‘Bottoms up!’ I downed another swig. Delicious. My drink could have used ice but Mom, against my protests, had placed her suet packets in the freezer – to keep them fresh, she said. At least the apartment didn’t stink now. Only my fr
eezer did. I vowed to stay clear of it until Mom and her suet returned to her own place.
I could only pray I didn’t wake in the middle of the night – due to coughing up those full-bodied ostrich feathers – with a craving for chocolate mocha-mint ice cream and discover I was spooning lard-laced bird suet instead.
Sated on ostrich pizza and soothed on margaritas, I rested my chin on my elbows. ‘This whole murder thing is making me crazy, Mom,’ I confessed.
Mom took a dainty sip of her second margarita. ‘I know. Are the police any closer to finding Ms Willoughby’s killer?’
‘I ran into Detective Highsmith earlier today’ – literally – ‘and he didn’t mention anything. I’m pretty sure he still figures that Johnny’s his man and that Clive was trying to cover up for him.’
Mom nodded. ‘I don’t believe that for a second.’
‘And then there’s Houston Willoughby.’
‘Who’s he?’
‘Lisa’s brother.’ I yawned. ‘He says he got into town the day of the murder. He came into the café that morning saying he had just arrived to see her. He acted like he didn’t know she was dead.’
Mom’s brow arched. ‘What makes you think it was merely an act?’
I hesitated. Mom didn’t know Johnny and I had broken into Lisa’s condo. I couldn’t tell her. That would make her an accessory after the fact. Not to mention she’d kill me. Worse, she’d ground me for life. She’d probably force me to eat ostrich and mango pizza seven days a week. And do yoga with her. ‘I happen to know he was staying in Prescott for two days prior to her murder.’
‘That doesn’t make him a killer,’ Mom countered.
‘No, but the fact that he was nearby gives him means. And,’ I added, ‘the fact that he and his sister’s Aunt Willow Willoughby recently passed away and left the two of them her entire estate is certainly motive.’
Mom whistled softly. ‘I’ll say.’ Mom stroked the cat. ‘Have you confronted Houston about his story yet?’
‘No, I keep meaning to.’ I yawned again. ‘I’ll try tomorrow. That reminds me,’ I glanced morosely at my empty glass, ‘I still need to talk to Reva Reynolds from Markie’s Masterpieces. I get the feeling she’s holding something back. I mean, it’s odd. Markie, this guy Ben and Reva were all in the bakery the morning Lisa was killed.’
