A Berry Clever Corpse

by WINTERS, A. R.

  I tried not to take offense to his incredulous tone. I could have made the cookies—if I’d had the recipe, maybe some help, half a day, and enough ingredients to work through five or six trial runs.

  Trying to bluff, I crossed arms and asked, “What do you think?” The intention had been to shame him into conceding that I could have made the cookies, but his lopsided grin and knowing smile told me that my attempt at subterfuge wasn’t working.

  “I think somebody took pity on you and brought these in.” Well, he was partially right. “What are you going to do when somebody wants to special order a bunch of them but you don’t know how to make them?”

  His level of presumption was reaching arrogant levels. “Sometimes I really hate you,” I said.

  Instead of getting upset at that, Brad just laughed. “Breakfast ready?”

  I nodded.

  “I’ll make coffee while you get me a plate.”

  Five minutes later, Brad had gotten two pots of coffee brewed and was two bites into his breakfast. “Oh my gosh. How much are you charging for this?”

  I told him.

  “Add a dollar. This is excellent.”

  I nearly tripped over my own feet. “Come again?”

  Brad’s smile was as cocky as ever. “Don’t get too full of yourself, Berry.”

  “No, no… I heard you. You said ‘excellent.’ You called something I cooked ‘excellent.’”

  Brad narrowed his eyes, then called out, “How you doin’ this morning, Brenda?” The woman hadn’t made a peep and hadn’t shown her face. There was no way for him to have known that she was there. Except, that is, for the excellence of my food.

  “Doin’ good!” Brenda called back, and Brad’s grin went from cocky to downright smug.

  “You know that price I quoted you?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You can add two dollars to it.” And with that, I abandoned him to eat his breakfast alone.

  Mid-morning, Brenda left and my waiter Sam made his way in. Together we tackled the lunch crowd, and it was close to qualifying as an actual crowd. I kept making small batches of fresh cookies all throughout the morning and into the afternoon. I’d see their effect as people walked by the front of the café. They’d be going past, focused on their day, then their fast, purposeful gait would falter only to leave them stopping and staring. At least half of those people took the extra steps of walking through the door. One woman even ordered two dozen cookies to go. They were a huge hit and really did a lot to bring in new customers throughout the day, not to mention extra money.

  As for lunch itself, I made more of the same steak hoagies that I’d made last night. At the start of serving lunch, I listed them on the Oops board at a hefty discount. By the end of the lunch service, I’d erased them off the Oops board and was charging a price that had the café operating in the black—at least for those hours.

  We stayed so busy that poor Sam didn’t even have a chance to crack open a single textbook and get in some extra studying. But he didn’t seem to mind. I’d gotten a glance at some of the tips that were being left behind, and he was doing well. I was happy to see it.

  The lunch rush slowed to a trickle around two, and the café only had three customers in it when Zoey showed up at three. She took one look around at how empty the café was, stole an oatmeal and raisin cookie, and said, “Let’s go. Sam’s got this. I wanna talk to Clara.”

  “Why Clara?” She was one of Mike’s renters. She had a little hole in the wall coffee shop right next to Susie’s hair salon. In fact, she called it, Little Java Hole.

  “With her shop right next to Susie’s, she might be able to drop some piece of information that either pins it on Susie or clears her name.”

  That made sense, but for some reason I wasn’t eager to go talk to Clara.

  My hesitation had me doing a quick self-check as to why, and I realized that if Susie was guilty that I didn’t want to know. Not really know. Not know without a shadow of a doubt.

  “Maybe we could go hit up the County Clerk’s Office and learn more about the properties Mike owned,” I offered as a counter option.

  Zoey pointed at herself. “Severe allergy. To all places suffering a bureaucratic infestation.”

  I was going to take that as a no.

  Clara’s it was. After that, I wanted to track down whoever it was that made these cookies!

  Chapter 17

  Zoey parked the car in front of Clara’s coffee shop, Little Java Hole, and I felt instantly guilty. Right next door to the coffee shop was Susie’s hair salon, Susie’s Clip & Dye. But we weren’t going in there. No, we were headed into the coffee shop to talk to Clara about Susie, to see if Clara had any dirt to sling in Susie’s direction. It made me feel like one of the mean girls, like I was going behind a friend’s back to trash talk her.

  “This place has the best coffee,” Zoey said as we got out of the car.

  A squeak of jealous complaint escaped me, but other than that, I managed to hold my feelings in. Where they could fester and rot.

  Screw it.

  “What do you mean she’s got the best coffee?” I had been busting my butt to do everything I knew to do to become known as a place where people could get great coffee. After all, Clara’s little coffee shop was right next door to Susie’s shop, but she had promoted my café to her customers and had even gone out of her way to buy coffee from me.

  Zoey didn’t bother to placate me. Instead she merely shrugged and smiled. No apology in her expression whatsoever.

  We headed into Clara’s shop. The second the door opened and I stepped inside, I was enveloped in an aroma I could only describe as warm vanilla drinking espresso in Italy. I know it didn’t make sense, but that was how her shop made me feel. The inner atmosphere of the shop was dim, and there was an eclectic collection of comfortable chairs placed throughout her shop with a variety of small, unobtrusive tables. Every chair had at least one small surface available within arm’s reach on which to put their drink.

  Her clientele had a slightly preppy college look with some professionals tucked into the mix. Of the twenty-five possible seats, over half of them were full. I counted four wait staff. Four. On a late Saturday afternoon. My café was at least triple the size of her small, intimate space, yet I could only afford one wait staff at a time. Even then, I was usually operating in the red.

  I glanced at her prices and squeaked again. A simple cup of coffee cost almost four times what I charged. And she had lots of customers. It wasn’t fair.

  “Can I help you?” a slender woman of indeterminate age in a cream-colored peasant blouse asked from behind the serving counter. She was slowly turning a crank handle on top of a small wooden box, and her effortless beauty and high cheekbones made me think of Michelle Pfeiffer.

  “Hi, Clara,” Zoey said, and we made our way over to the counter. “What flavor are you grinding?” she asked, and it was then that I realized what the small box was. It was a manual coffee grinder.

  “The house special of the day. A luscious hazelnut dark roast. Would you like a cup? I’ll have the grind done in another twenty minutes.”

  Twenty minutes! I wanted to hit my head against the wall. I used a mechanical grinder for mine. It took it twenty seconds, and I’d thought that that was too long. How did she stay in business? Why were people willing to pay so much for her coffee?

  “Do you have any of that Mexican spiced hot chocolate in?”

  “I sure do. Want a cup?”

  “Make it two,” she said. “Then if you don’t mind sitting with us for a few minutes, we’d like to ask you some questions.

  Clara made a surprised “oh” face but recovered quickly. “You two grab a seat. I’ll bring your drinks and we’ll sit and talk.” She had a confidante’s voice, the type of person you felt safe telling your deepest, darkest secrets to.

  I followed Zoey to a corner nook that didn’t have anyone sitting immediately nearby. I sat in a chair that was so big and so comfortable that I coul
d have curled up and gone to sleep in it. Zoey sat in a wing backed chair that looked less sleep-inducing but had a grandiose quality that still looking very comfortable.

  Clara joined us about five minutes later with delicate china coffee cups in hand. She passed one to each of us.

  I sniffed at the dark, rich brew inside the cup and was surprised. The aroma was complex with layered notes. Chocolate. Chilies. Cinnamon. And those were only the notes that I could name.

  I took a sip and moaned, sinking deeper into my chair. The spiced Mexican hot chocolate was very, very good. I hated to think of how much it cost and was glad that Zoey was treating.

  “What can I help you ladies with?” Clara asked, ready to get to business. I could respect that. She was running her shop and it was the middle of the day. She had better things to do than to sit with us.

  “Did you kill Mike?” Zoey asked.

  Clara’s head jerked back as if slapped, but then she broke out in laughter and covered her heart with her hand. The laughter went on for so long that she was having to wipe tears from the corners of her eyes by the time she stopped.

  “That man was a terrible man,” Clara said. “I don’t blame Susie for what she did. Not one little bit.”

  “What did Susie do?” I asked.

  “Well, kill Mike, of course!”

  Zoey and I looked at each other. Then I asked Clara, “Did you see Susie kill Mike?”

  “Well, I’m still alive, aren’t I?” she answered with the flip of her hand. I didn’t understand her response and stayed quiet, hoping for more. Finally, looking a little annoyed for having to spell it out, she said, “If I’d seen Susie kill Mike, well I’d already be dead, wouldn’t I?”

  “So you’re saying that Susie killed Mike,” I said, “and that if Susie thought you had any evidence against her that she’d kill you, too.”

  “That is the way these things work, isn’t it? You murder someone and then tie up all the loose ends? I am not a loose end.”

  “But you know that Susie did it, that she killed Mike,” I pressed.

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know it?”

  Clara looked at me like I was dumb. “Well who else could have done it? Susie was at his house that very morning. And I saw her come back. I said it right then when I saw her, too. I said to myself, that girl’s out for blood. And I. Was. Right.”

  “What time was it when you saw Susie?” Zoey asked.

  “Just before eleven.”

  According to what we’d previously learned from Susie, that would have been before Mike had died. It would have been after she’d gone to see him the first of two times that morning.

  “And how did Susie look? Zoey asked.

  “I’ve already told you. She was mad. She had steam rolling right out of her ears.” Clara pantomimed the description by rolling her hands next to her ears.

  “How were her clothes and her hair?” I asked. If Susie had gotten into a physical fight with Mike, it was likely that her clothes and hair might have been disheveled afterward.

  “Her clothes and hair? The woman is a professional stylist. Her hair was the same it ever was. Perfect. I didn’t notice anything about her clothes. Couldn’t even tell you what she’d been wearing.”

  “Did you see Susie leave a little later that day, at about noon?”

  “Nooo, no. I left and went home shortly after I saw her walk by my shop all mad.”

  “You went home?” I asked, surprised.

  “Had a splitting headache. It felt like someone was taking an ice pick and jabbing it through my temple to right behind my eyes. Terrible. I had to go.”

  “Did you go alone?”

  “Well, of course. I couldn’t burden any of my employees with my personal problems. I needed them here to run the shop.”

  “Was there anyone at home?”

  “Not a soul. Just quiet solitude. Exactly what my headache needed.”

  “So,” I said, “after you saw Susie come back mad, you left. But nobody went with you, and nobody saw you at home.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  A light went on in my head. Clara didn’t have an alibi.

  “Had you known who Susie was going to see that morning?” Zoey asked.

  “Oh, yeah. She’d been over here half the morning before that, fussing and fuming about Mike, about what a lowlife he was and how he was killing her.”

  “Killing her?” If that had really been how Susie had felt—that Mike had been killing her—then she might have felt like she was acting in self-defense by killing Mike. “She used that word?”

  “Ohhhh, she used that word plus a whole lot more!” Clara laughed. “Why I’d never seen the woman so mad.” She laughed some more. “Better warn Betty. Susie might be coming after her next.”

  My head was spinning with the information that was coming out of Clara’s mouth.

  “Betty?” I asked.

  “Yes?” Clara responded. Her expression was completely innocent, but I was starting to feel like it was all a guise. A foul ruse. Suddenly her hot cocoa wasn’t tasting quite as good.

  When Clara didn’t offer up any clarification about Betty from my gentle prompting, I tried again. I was sure that Clara was playing dumb about what I’d been asking just to be annoying.

  “What does Betty need to be warned about?” I asked.

  “Well, that she’ll be next!” Clara answered, again looking at me like I was a simpleton. As for me, I wanted to simultaneously hit my head against the wall and retrieve a pair of pliers so that I could yank Clara’s teeth from her head, one by one. That’s what it felt like I was needing to do to get the information I needed out of her.

  “Why would Betty be next?” I asked, doing my best to keep my voice casual and easygoing. I only marginally succeeded, and I saw Clara’s eyes narrow venomously in response.

  “Susie hates Betty.”

  “Why?” Where were those pliers?

  “Well, Betty runs a beauty parlor just like Susie, and Susie’s convinced that Betty is stealing her clients. Offering them discounts. Telling them made-up stories about Susie botching jobs and people losing their hair.”

  “Does Betty do those things?” I asked.

  “Oh, yeah. Definitely. Betty would do anything to make Susie look bad. Hates her.”

  “So not only does Susie hate Betty, but Betty hates Susie, too?”

  “You’re on the money now,” Clara answered, answering slowly with no small amount of patronization in her voice.

  I leaned to the side and looked out the glass front of Clara’s shop. Even from where I sat, I could see Betty’s storefront across the street. If I could see it from where I was sitting, that meant that Betty could definitely see Susie when Susie came back mad from having talked to Mike.

  Clara excused herself and returned to running her disgustingly successful coffee shop, while Zoey and I finished our cups of cocoa and mulled over what we’d learned. When we’d walked into Clara’s shop that morning, we’d had one strong possible culprit in mind: Susie. Now, leaving, we had three.

  Susie, Clara and Betty.

  Chapter 18

  I stopped on the way out to Zoey’s car.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  “Don’t you think we should stop in and check on Susie?” I felt guilty coming over to her stomping grounds to dig up dirt about her without even checking in to see how she was doing. Before all of this had happened, I had considered her a friend—a very recent addition to a very limited number of people, but still a friend.

  “We could,” Zoey said, and we detoured the fifteen feet necessary to take us to Susie’s Clip & Dye’s front door.

  Inside the shop, easy listening music played but there wasn’t any light-hearted banter to accompany it, as was often the case when a beautician had a client in the chair. Instead, there was only Susie sitting in her chair, with her legs crossed and an open magazine on her lap. Her eyes were puffy like she’d been crying, but not recently.
/>   There was no smell of hairspray or any other chemicals common to such a shop, and the place looked immaculate.

  “Hi, you two!” Susie said, getting up from her chair. Her smile was huge and her face was bright with happiness. She got up from the chair, put the magazine aside, and gave us both warm hugs. I hugged Susie back, but I saw Zoey go stiff. Exuberant expressions of affection weren’t really her thing. “Who’s first?” Susie asked, stepping away and giving her chair a pat.

  “Oh, no, it’s nothing like that,” I said, and Susie’s expression instantly fell. Her lit face literally dimmed, as if a dreary winter storm cloud had passed overhead. Not wanting her to feel snubbed, I quickly continued. “We just came from next door, Clara’s Little Java Hole.” I had not imagined that Susie’s face could grow any more downtrodden, but it did. There was a hint of dourness as well as her eyes cut to the side to glare through the wall at Clara’s shop.

  Susie plopped back down into her chair, crossed her legs, and flipped her magazine open once more on her lap. “And what did the queen of coffee have to say?”

  Definitely no love lost between them, I mused. “She told us that you killed Mike.”

  Surprise was completely absent from Susie’s face, but annoyance was in abundance. She rolled her eyes and then flipped through her magazine.

  “You’re not surprised?” I gently probed. I needed to understand what was going on here.

  “Nooo,” Susie said, sounding like a petulant fourteen-year-old girl.

  It was Zoey’s turn. “She said you’d kill Betty next.”

  “That witch!” Susie slammed her magazine shut. “She tries to make like she’s all sweet and nice, but she’s a slithering snake, wiggling around on her belly in the grass.” She did a curvy wave with her arm to demonstrate. “I once saw her put a laxative in a woman’s coffee, but first she put an out of order sign on her bathroom and locked the doors.”

  “Wow.” That really was a mean thing to do. I couldn’t imagine ever doing that to a customer of mine.