by Gayle Leeson
“Good.”
Something was off with Roger. Rather than asking him if everything was okay, I simply suggested he look over the menu while I get him a cup of coffee.
“I don’t need to look over the menu,” he said. “Just get me a couple of eggs, scrambled, with a side of hash browns.”
“You got it.” As I turned to head into the kitchen, Jackie came out with the pie box. She and Roger exchanged a tense gaze. Uh-oh. They’d been getting along so well. I didn’t want there to be trouble between them already. I reminded myself that whether the couple’s relationship was suffering or not, it was none of my business. Still, it was tough to see two people you loved glaring at each other.
I went into the kitchen and started on Roger’s breakfast. At the same time, Shelly brought me an order for a short stack of buckwheat pancakes.
I broke Roger’s eggs into a bowl, whisked them, and poured them into a frying pan. I put the frozen hash browns in the fryer, and poured pancake batter onto the grill. I managed to get both orders up and rang the bell for Shelly and Jackie to come get them. Shelly got her pancakes, and since Jackie didn’t show, I took the eggs and hash browns out to Roger.
Jackie and Roger were whispering to each other, although it sounded more like two angry radiators hissing. I hated to interrupt, but I needed to give my customer his breakfast.
“Excuse me.” I sat the plate in front of Roger. “If you need anything else, please let me know.”
“Excuse me,” Jackie said. “I’m going outside for a smoke break.”
I frowned. “You don’t smoke.”
“See the steam coming out of my ears? Trust me. You want me to go smoke outside.”
I glanced at Roger. He had his head lowered over his plate and was attacking his eggs as if they’d assaulted his momma. I eased on back to the kitchen.
• • •
Once the Independence Day Festival parade started and the café was empty—except for Shelly and Luis, who were standing by the window watching the parade—I pulled Jackie aside.
“Wanna talk about it?”
“Nope.” Her eyes filled with tears—totally out of character for Jackie—and she quickly tilted her head up in an effort to make them go away.
I handed her a paper napkin.
Out in the street, the high school band played “It’s a Grand Old Flag” as they marched by. We didn’t have a high school here in Winter Garden, but the local kids attended the one in neighboring Meadowview. Especially for such a small school, the band was exceptional.
Jackie dabbed at the corners of her eyes and then checked to make sure Shelly and Luis were still enchanted by the parade. “It’s just that Roger ran into Renee yesterday at the pizza parlor. Apparently, she’d talked Granny and Aunt Jenna into letting her buy them dinner.” She rolled her eyes. “Naturally, my mother couldn’t take them out somewhere nice to celebrate her coming home for a visit after . . . I’ve lost count of how many months. She had to get the quickest thing possible.”
I patted her back. “I’m sorry. Did she say something rude to him?”
“No. She asked him if he was seeing anyone.” She affected her mother’s voice. “‘Cutie pie like you ought to at least be engaged by now!’ Ugh. I can just hear her.”
“Did he tell her the two of you are dating?”
Jackie shook her head. “No. He thought I’d want to tell her myself, so he gave her some vague answer about eluding capture so far. And then Renee dropped the bombshell. ‘Jackie ain’t seeing anybody. I always did think ya’ll would make a sweet couple. You should ask her out.’”
“Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes. So Roger brought our pizza on to my apartment and we fought the rest of the night about why I didn’t want my mom to know about the two of us,” she said. “He thinks I’m ashamed of him or something. I’ve tried to tell him it’s my mom I’m ashamed of, but he doesn’t believe me. He keeps asking why that would keep me from telling her about him.”
“But Roger knows you and your mom aren’t close and that you haven’t been since she left.”
“Precisely! I don’t tell that woman anything! But he thinks my not telling her about the two of us means I have reservations about our relationship.”
“You want me to talk with him? Explain how Aunt Renee always put on a sweet public face to our friends but that living with her was a different story?”
“No. We’ll work it out.” She shrugged. “Or we won’t. No big deal.”
But it was a big deal. She couldn’t hide that fact from me.
• • •
Toward the end of the parade, George Lincoln’s secretary slipped into the café. The slim woman with short, spiky brown hair looked a little worse for wear.
“Oh, my goodness. I forgot that confounded parade was going on and I accidentally got right behind a group of horses.” She huffed. “My next stop will be the car wash.”
“I’m sorry about your . . . misfortune,” I said. “And I’m so sorry about Mr. Lincoln. In fact, I was going to bring you a pie on Monday, but since you’re here, I can go ahead and give it to you.”
“Well, aren’t you the sweetest thing? I remember you from when you came in to join the Chamber of Commerce before you even got the café up and running, but I can’t for the life of me recall your name.”
“I’m Amy Flowers.” I held out my hand.
She gave my hand a firm shake. “Nice to meet you . . . again, Amy. I’m Joyce Kaye.”
“Joyce, which flavor pie would you like? We have apple, peach, lemon, and chocolate today.”
“I’d love chocolate, please.” She hesitated. “But I’d be willing to pay you for it. That’s what I came in for, after all—a pie, some coleslaw, and some potato salad. Ms. Peggy from the newspaper office said she bought some of your side dishes and they’re out of this world.”
“That’s awfully nice of her. I’ll have to remember to stop by and thank her for her word-of-mouth advertising.”
“She’s a terrific person to have on your side,” said Joyce. “She knows everybody, and she loves to express her opinions.” She lowered her eyes. “She didn’t have a high opinion of Mr. Lincoln, and I had to hear about it every time the paper came out after a Chamber meeting.”
“You had to hear about it?”
She nodded. “Ms. Peggy would rake Mr. Lincoln over the coals in her article about the meeting, and he’d rant to me about it off and on all day.”
“You and Mr. Lincoln must’ve been close.”
“I wouldn’t say that exactly. We’d worked together for five years, but we never socialized outside of business. Well, other than his wife’s annual Christmas party. I always went to that. It was a cordial affair—very fancy.”
“I met Mrs. Lincoln yesterday evening,” I said. “She seemed likable.”
“She can be, I suppose. I don’t know how she and Mr. Lincoln wound up together.” She slowly shook her head. “They do say opposites attract, though.”
I remembered that Mr. Lincoln hadn’t seemed solicitous of his secretary the day I went to sign up for the Chamber of Commerce. “Maybe Mr. Lincoln wasn’t as”—I struggled to find an acceptable word—“forceful in his home life as he was in business.”
“Maybe not.” Joyce grinned slightly. “I always had to stifle a giggle when Mrs. Lincoln would come into the office and address Mr. Lincoln as Georgie. It was the most outrageous thing to hear her addressing that overbearing bully as Georgie.” Her smile quickly faded. “I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to say that. You’ll think I’m terrible.”
“Not at all,” I assured her. “I saw Mr. Lincoln’s overbearing bully side on more than one occasion.”
“That’s true. He hated that you wouldn’t sell him this place.”
I leaned forward. “I took Mrs. Lincoln dinner last night, and she was there at the house alone
. I thought that was awfully sad. Of course, she might have had friends in and out all day.”
Joyce glanced around to make sure we weren’t being overheard. “She’d left Mr. Lincoln nearly a week ago, but she hightailed it back to the house after learning of his death. I suppose she did that to keep up appearances. Both the Lincolns were always concerned about appearances.”
“Did Mr. Lincoln confide in you about when and why she left?”
“No. The morning after she’d left, he came in looking disheveled. He didn’t even say hello before going into his office, calling her, and pleading with her to come back home. I wasn’t eavesdropping, but he was so loud that I’d have had to have left the office to keep from hearing his side of the conversation.”
So their situation had been more serious than Mrs. Lincoln had let on.
A little voice inside my brain reminded me of Homer’s warning that Joyce was in an excellent position to manipulate evidence. I argued with the little voice that we didn’t even know that Mr. Lincoln had been murdered. He might’ve died of natural causes. But the little voice was persistent. Do you truly believe that?
“How long do you think it will be before the Chamber fills Mr. Lincoln’s position?” I asked.
“Well, in Winter Garden, the Chamber of Commerce director is an elected position, so they’ll have to hold a special election.”
“Are you planning to run?”
“Me?” She placed her hand on her chest. “You can’t be serious.”
“Why not? You know better than anyone how to run that office. I’m guessing you did a lot of the day-to-day operations, and you know where Mr. Lincoln kept his files.”
“Oh, I’d get rid of those first thing,” she said.
I frowned. “You’d get rid of the files?”
She pressed her lips together. “I shouldn’t have said that. I mean, I’d get rid of Mr. Lincoln’s personal files.” Her eyes flitted back and forth.
“What sort of personal files?”
“Mr. Lincoln kept a file on several people in Winter Garden.”
My eyes widened. “And these files had nothing to do with Chamber business?”
“No. They were for Mr. Lincoln’s private use.”
“What was in the files?”
“Tidbits of information about the individuals . . . things Mr. Lincoln thought might come in handy for one reason or another.” She shrugged.
“You mean . . . like . . . blackmail?” I asked.
She inclined her head. “I didn’t say that. I can’t speak as to what Mr. Lincoln did with the information he gathered about the residents of Winter Garden.” She gave me a pointed stare. “But I am glad he didn’t have anything to keep you from turning this café into such a charming establishment.”
I gulped. “Thank you.”
Joyce looked at her watch. “I should really get going.”
“Sure. I’ll get your pie and sides.”
• • •
Ryan called as I was closing for the day.
“Hey, beautiful! How’s everything going?”
“It’s going great,” I said. “I’ve had a busy day, but mostly, it’s been people coming in and buying things out of the case.”
“That’s good. I do have a little bad news. The toxicology report came back on George Lincoln, and there was . . . a toxin . . . in his system. The medical examiner will be doing further tests, but it does make Mr. Lincoln’s death look suspicious.”
My heart sank. I’d been afraid of that . . . and Homer had seemed to know it all along. “I’m so sorry. I’d really been hoping it was only an accident or, you know, natural causes.”
“Fortunately for you and the sheriff, Homer has already been doing some investigating,” I continued.
“Amy—”
“I’m joking . . . pretty much. I mean, the man is a wealth of information, and he’s been asking around about what was going on in Mr. Lincoln’s life.”
“You need to stay out of this investigation,” Ryan warned.
“I am,” I said. And I was . . . for the most part. “But if you hit any brick walls with people not wanting to talk with you and tell you about Mr. Lincoln’s arguments with his wife, his brother, and a shop owner, as well as the fact that Mr. Lincoln kept personal information on people, then you might want to talk with Homer. That’s all I’m sayin’.”
“And all I’m saying is that you need to keep your pert little nose as clean as possible while this case is being investigated. It is, after all, the second death to occur in that café in as many months.”
“Will I be a suspect again?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Just stay out of it . . . please.”
“All right. I’ll do my best.” I decided a change of subject was in order. “So, are you ready to dance the night away?”
“I am. I’m looking forward to seeing you tonight.”
Chapter 6
I put the pink sundress and the blue jean skirt and white peasant blouse on the bed to compare them side by side. Rory sat on my floor looking up at me.
“So which outfit conveys the vibe I’m trying to give off this evening?” I asked.
Rory cocked his little head and wagged his tail.
“You don’t know what vibe I’m going for?”
He tilted his head in the other direction.
I sat beside him. “Neither do I.” I pulled the dog onto my lap. “I want Ryan to think I look nice and that I put some effort into my clothes, but I don’t want him to think I’m trying too hard. Does the sundress make it look like I’m trying too hard?”
He licked my nose, and I kissed the top of his head.
“I know you love me, but you’re easy. All you need is a cuddle and some kibble, and I have your undying devotion. You couldn’t care less what I wear.” I reached up onto the nightstand for my phone. “Let’s see what your Aunt Jackie thinks.”
When Jackie answered, I could tell her mood hadn’t lifted much since she’d left the café. Still, I pretended not to notice.
“Hey, there! Rory and I need your unbiased opinion about what I should wear to the dance this evening—my pink sundress with wedge sandals or my blue jean skirt, white peasant blouse, and white canvas sneakers.”
“Go with the skirt, blouse, and sneakers,” she said. “You’ll be more comfortable. I’m surprised Rory didn’t tell you that.”
“Well, you know Rory. He lays out the pros and cons and tries to encourage me to make my own decisions.” I chuckled. “Would you like to talk with him? You know, about your outfit for the dance? Or . . . whatever?”
“If you’re asking if I’d like to discuss my conflict with Roger with your dog, I might take you up on it . . . but not while you’re around.”
“Ouch.”
“Aw, Amy, I didn’t mean it like that,” she said. “You know I love you, and if I planned on confiding in anyone, it would be you. But—”
“You know I won’t talk with Roger. Not if you don’t want me to. I barely talked to him at all when he came in for breakfast this morning.”
“I appreciate that—your not talking with him about our argument, I mean. But I don’t want to put you in the middle. Besides, I think everything will be fine once Renee leaves town.”
“I hope you’re right. Are you coming to the dance?” I asked.
“Maybe. If so, I’ll see you there.”
“Oh, hey, before we hang up, Ryan called earlier and said there was some sort of toxin in George Lincoln’s system.”
“Does the sheriff think someone killed Mr. Lincoln?” Jackie asked.
“The way Ryan put it was that this makes his death suspicious. So, yeah, I’m taking it that they’ll be investigating it as a homicide.”
She sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. Me too. But, hey, we have several w
itnesses that can vouch that I didn’t do anything to the man.” Nothing but prepare the food he was eating, that is. “Right?”
“Yeah, honey, sure.”
I wished she sounded more convincing.
• • •
Ryan came to my door wearing khakis and a light blue polo. He looked gorgeous. And he brought me a bouquet of stargazer lilies. Swoon! Well, I didn’t actually swoon, but I couldn’t keep from laughing with delight just a tiny little bit.
“Thank you! You’re so thoughtful!”
“It’s my pleasure. You look beautiful . . . as always.”
“Thanks. Let me put these in a vase before we go.” I hurried into the kitchen. I heard him talking to Rory as I found a vase.
“Want me to put the top on the car?” he called.
Ryan drove a red convertible sports car.
“No. I think the breeze will feel nice.” I made a mental note to pick up a ponytail holder from the bedroom so my hair wouldn’t look all Bride of Frankenstein when we got to the dance.
I filled the vase with water and carefully arranged the flowers inside. Knowing Princess Eloise’s penchant for knocking over anything left on the kitchen table, I put a large square of aluminum foil beneath the vase to discourage her from breaching its perimeter.
I hurried to the bedroom to get a hair band and then returned to the living room to see that Princess Eloise had come to steal Rory’s spotlight. It was fine when I was coddling the dog, but it simply would not do to have Ryan lavishing attention on him instead of her.
“Oh, goodness, she’ll have hair all over you.” I looked around for the lint brush.
“Don’t worry about it.” Ryan plucked a few long white hairs off his shirt. “There. Good as new.”
The Independence Day dance was held in Clover Field Barn. The barn had once been part of a working dairy farm. But when the farmer had died, the barn had been renovated into Winter Garden’s premiere event venue by one of his daughters. It had been the place to be for graduation parties, wedding receptions, reunions, birthday parties, and the town’s annual festivals for the past two decades.
