On the woman's cardigan was a name tag. We'd found Chloe.
I had heard Veronica's account of what had happened between Rachel and Chloe. Now I needed to verify that information by hearing it from Chloe as well. Chloe was a murder suspect, pure and simple. Veronica was a murder suspect, too. Okay, sure, as far as I knew they weren't considered murder suspects by the police, but this was where my investigation had taken me, and I had to follow through with questioning my new suspect.
I swallowed. Hard. I was no longer feeling cold. I was burning hot. The pressure of asking all the right questions what were needed to clear my name weighed on me.
"Y'all let me know if you need anything," Chloe said with a bright smile before returning her attention to a stack of color swatches. She was thumbing through them and taking notes.
I wondered if we should shop first and then try to chat Chloe up as we checked out or if we should try talking to her now. I glanced around the store. It was empty, but the longer we were inside, the more likely another customer would come in and we would lose our opportunity for Chloe to candidly speak her mind... and hopefully tell the truth.
Giving Zoey a little nudge to alert her of my intentions, I approached the counter behind which Chloe stood.
"Hi!" I said with more enthusiasm than I'd intended. I inwardly cringed but kept a smile plastered on my face. "We were hoping we could have a few minutes of your time."
Chloe looked up from her work and her face fell. "Ohhh, I'm so sorry. The owner doesn't allow proselytizing in the store, but if you have a pamphlet I'd be happy to take it and look it over later after I get off work." She gave a sympathetic but encouraging smile, and my heart melted. She was beyond nice! Back in Chicago, if people had come into our place of business to sell their brand of religion, I would have marched them right back outside and told them in no uncertain terms that if they ever came back that I'd call the cops.
There was no way she could have killed Rachel, because nice people didn't kill other people, right?
I had to give myself a mental slap. That way of thinking was full of bias and had absolutely no substance. Of course nice people could kill other people. If a nice person was pushed far enough, they could do just about anything, and that included hurting another person.
Zoey chimed in. "We actually wanted to talk to you about Ned."
Chloe's back stiffened and her expression turned placid. She would have made a great poker player. She wasn't giving anything away. "What about Ned?" Her voice was just as neutral as her face.
"It's a small town," I said apologetically. "I knew Rachel very briefly before she died, and her death has made something of an impression on me. I was hoping that by talking to the people who knew her that maybe I could understand what happened better." Okay, that wasn't exactly a fib.
Chloe's lips thinned. "Well, I can save you some time, because I didn't know her."
Zoey leaned forward with both hands on the counter, getting into Chloe's personal space. "But didn't you come to her house and scream at her in the middle of the night?"
This time Chloe's eyes narrowed. "What do you know about that?" Her words were clipped with barely concealed anger.
The change in her demeanor made me want to cheer. It meant we were getting somewhere.
"We spoke to Veronica, Rachel's sister," I said with calm slowness. I didn't want Chloe to get so upset that she refused to talk to us altogether. "She was next door the night that you went to Rachel's and warned her to stay away from your fiancé."
"Well if you know all that already, what do you need to talk to me for?" Chloe all but spat the words.
Zoey's shoulders went back and her chin lifted, going into fight mode. "Because we want to know if that's why you killed her."
"You what!" Chloe screeched.
“We just need to know enough to rule you out as a suspect," I rushed the words, getting them out as fast as I could before Chloe demanded that we leave the store. "And I didn't kill her either, but the police think I did... so that's why I'm here to talk to you. I'm trying to figure out who did kill her."
Chloe's brows were halfway up to her hairline, and she was looking at me as if I'd just sprouted a second head. Then to my shock and utter dismay, she slapped the counter and broke out in a bout of laughter that filled the store.
Zoey and I looked at each other, and Zoey shrugged her shoulders. Neither of us had a clue about Chloe's sudden change. Together, we returned our attention to Chloe.
"Ohhh," Chloe sighed, wiping laughter tears from the corners of her eyes. "That... that... that Jezebel did me the biggest favor of my life. She saved me from marrying Ned Mayes. I didn't want to see it at first, but he was mean. See, that's not how he started out. He was sweet to me early on when we first got together. I figured he'd be sweet again just as soon as we got past our wedding and were actually married, but he weren't ever gonna be sweet to me again. I was finally seeing the real him. The person he was when we first met, that was the fake him. I'd been convinced that it was the other way around, but after realizing he'd been carrying on with that hateful woman, I was finally able to see the truth." She looked us both right the in the eyes. "I know she weren't trying to do me any favors by sleepin' around with my fiancé, but she did. She saved me from a lifetime of regret. Whoever killed her, I'm sure they had their reasons, but it wasn't me."
Chapter 19
We were doing way more walking than I'd ever expected today, and my poor toes were frozen by the time we reached the mechanic's garage on the far end of Main Street. Chloe had said that she'd gladly dumped Ned after his affair with Rachel, but I couldn't take her word for it. We had to hear what Ned said about the situation. While Chloe had seemed nice, it was possible she could actually be a femme fatale determined to destroy anyone who slipped out of her grasp.
"Hello?" I called out as I peeked around the edge of the white-painted cinderblock wall that made up the outer façade of the garage. The sound of metal clanking on metal stopped. I dared to step further into the garage, but as soon as I saw the man within, I was glad to have Zoey by my side.
Dressed in a grease-stained light blue mechanic’s shirt overtop navy blue workman's slacks, a man who was almost as round as he was tall stepped out from behind the open hood of a car. "What can I do you for?" he asked, wiping his thick hands on a very dirty rag. While his voice sounded welcoming, his gray eyes were small and cold. As they scanned me from the top of my head to my feet and back up again, all I could think was that I would not want him to escort me home after a party on a late night. He gave me the creeps.
"Are you Ned?" I asked.
"Depends who's asking," he said with a smile that looked as greasy as his clothes. His teeth were stained an ugly yellow from what I assumed was a heavy smoker's habit.
Chloe was such a well put-together lady. I couldn't picture her with him, and I felt very sure that she was in fact better off without him. Her claim of having an epiphany that Ned was not a suitable match was so far holding up.
"We were hoping to talk to people who knew Rachel Summers," Zoey said. "We've been asked to speak at her funeral, so we're going around talking with her friends to get some ideas of what to say."
Some of the smarminess of Ned's expression fell away. "Oh, yeah. Okay."
"And we were looking for Ned because we heard that they knew each other," I said. I was sure that this was Ned, but we needed the confirmation.
"Yeah, well, you found ‘im," he said, tapping a name patch sewn into his shirt. It was blackened with so much grease I hadn't even noticed it. "Yeah, Rachel was a fine, upstanding woman in the community. She was always doing kind things and thinking of others. Never met a more generous person in my life. A lot of people are going to miss her."
So... Ned was a liar.
Zoey shoved her hands deep into her jacket’s pockets. ”We'd heard that you and Rachel were particularly close.”
Ned's eyes darted back and forth between us, and then his smarmy smile returned. "Rach
el was a very beautiful woman, and it's true that she enjoyed a man's company." His chest puffed up like a peacock's, but he wasn't anything near as pretty.
"Was it true that she enjoyed your 'company' while you were engaged to Chloe?” I asked.
His expression sobered. "That was a mistake, I admit it. I shouldn't have done that to Chloe, but Rachel made me see the light. I was about to marry down. Chloe's a nice girl and all, but I had to cut her loose. I've got a lot to offer a woman, if you know what I mean, and she fell short of the type of woman I deserve.” He leered at me while he said it, looking me up and down with a smirk that pulled his mouth crooked.
I did my best to suppress an involuntary shiver of revulsion.
"So you dumped Chloe?" Zoey asked.
"Like a great big steaming turd," he said with pride and not an ounce of shame.
"She said she dumped you," I said.
Ned scowled. "This don't sound like stuff a person would say at a funeral." The statement was full of accusation.
"So, she did dump you?" I asked again, determined to stay on topic.
"No! I dumped her! Chloe's a hag. After Rachel, I knew I could do better than Chloe. I deserve someone like you, Red,” he said, looking at me up and down again. “I could show you a real good time."
I momentarily choked on vomit, but Ned didn't seem to notice my distress. Instead, he kept on talking.
"I'd take you somewhere real nice for dinner, somewhere with waiters and waitresses and shit. By the end of the night, I'd make you happy to be a woman."
"Okay!" I held up my hands, palms out, hoping that would make him stop. "Chloe, did she try to get back together with you? Did she get mad or anything?"
Ned's eyes widened. "Oh yeah! She begged. Cried like a baby. Said she'd do anything just as long as I didn't leave her 'cause she knew she'd never do better than me." He was smiling and his chest was pumped up big again.
We'd already established that Ned was a liar when he'd said that Rachel was well regarded within the community. It didn't take too far of a stretch in reasoning to conclude that he was lying about Chloe, too. At the very least, I figured that Chloe and Ned's break up was mutual.
"I wasn't kidding about taking you out," Ned said, sidling up closer to me. He smelled so strongly of oil and gasoline that I would have been concerned for his safety if someone were nearby smoking.
"Thank you for the invitation, but—"
"Now, come on, give a fella a chance." He winked. "Tell you what. I'm part of a walking group that's been put together by Joel Mullen."
"Joel... the guy at the newspaper?"
"Joel, the guy who owns the newspaper," Ned corrected with a twinkle in his eye, and I got the impression that he was trying to name drop in hopes that it would add to his personal clout. "Me and him, we're real tight. Why don't you come along? We walk every Saturday. We used to stop for coffee and cake at Sarah's Eatery afterward, but since it got bought out, it's turned into a dump and we don't stop there no more."
My mouth gaped at him.
"Wha? What I say?" Ned looked from me to Zoey and back again.
"I'm the new owner of Sarah's Eatery!"
"You're that dumb northerner who keeps givin' everybody food poisoning?"
I could feel my blood pressure rising. “No, I haven't given anyone food poisoning. Ever!"
Ned didn't look convinced. "Well, that don't mean the food’s any good. I heard it's all cookies from the grocery store. If I want cookies from the grocery store, I can go buy them from the grocery store!"
My cheeks flamed. It was one thing to be told the truth about yourself by someone you thought well of, but it was completely something else to be told the truth about yourself by someone you equated to a slug living under a rock a few feet off of a cesspool.
"Well... well..." I spluttered, so upset and embarrassed that I was having trouble putting words together. “I’m going to talk to Joel. The walking group will come to the café after your walk, and you will have coffee and dessert. On the house!"
"I don't know.” I saw fear flash in his eyes. “Dorothy's not gonna like that."
That was it. There was going to be another murder in this town, and it would be one that I actually committed. I was going to bake a cake and shove it down Dorothy's throat until she choked on it.
Chapter 20
With the adventure of the day complete, Sage and I retired to the empty apartment upstairs and I lay on my floor mattress and wondered what to do to turn things around for the café. If it weren't for the rent I'd gotten from the other businesses on my block, I wouldn't have even been able to afford the cookies I'd been getting from the grocery store.
Life felt bleak. It felt awful. The café was failing, and I couldn't do very much about it until after I cleared my name. It sort of put a damper on people's appetites when they thought that what you were serving them might come with a side of strychnine.
I scowled into the darkness, angry at everything, but then a little fur ball of love snuggled up against me and started purring.
"You're the best, Sage." I gave her a little tickle behind her ear. She sneezed and I remembered that I still hadn't taken her to the vet. "I'm sorry, little girl. I'm going to get on that real soon. We'll get you all doctored up so that you can be my buddy for a long, long time."
I drifted off to sleep with a smile on my face and feeling much less alone in the world.
THE NEXT MORNING Joel walked into the café for the first time since Sarah had left. It should have made me want to do a happy dance, but instead I had to resist the urge to climb on top of the counter so that I could reach his too-tall neck and strangle him.
"Hey!" Jack said, flipping his ever-present newspaper to the side so that he could see what I was doing. What I was doing was overflowing his coffee cup. Thankfully, the saucer below had caught all of the overflow and none of it had dribbled off the side of the counter and onto Jack's fancy suit.
As quick as lightning, I got a clean, dry saucer to replace the coffee-filled one and poured some of his filled-to-the-brim coffee out of his cup into an empty cup.
The mistake took some of the vinegar out of me, so I only mildly glared at Joel instead of having an all-consuming desire to tear his head off.
"I'll have an order of biscuits and gravy," Joel said as he sat down on the stool next to Jack. His shoulders took up all of his space and some of Jack's personal space, too.
Jack flipped one corner of his newspaper down so that he could peer speculatively at Joel. Jack and I both knew that Joel wouldn't be getting biscuits and gravy, and if Joel had bothered to be around since I'd taken over the café, he'd have known it too. With arched brows and a twinkle of amusement in Jack's eye, he quietly went back to reading.
"Sure! I'll be right back." My tone and smile was all saccharine as I headed into the back kitchen. I reappeared a few minutes later with a bowl of Brenda's spaghetti and meatballs that I'd heated up in a microwave. "Here you go," I said, putting the large bowl down in front of Joel. "Biscuits and gravy."
Jack chuckled, but his newspaper stayed in place.
Joel looked at the bowl in front of him and then up at me. "No chef yet?"
"You know how it is. With the loss of support from your Saturday walking group, hiring a chef had to be pushed down the list." I was so mad. He'd been one of Sarah's regulars. He'd supported her, and all of her other regulars had been incredibly supportive of me. Everyone but him. I'd thought that he was a nice guy, but now I wasn't so sure.
"Oh, sorry. I got outvoted." He twirled spaghetti around his fork and took a bite.
He'd gotten outvoted... If the walking club hadn't been coming for their after-walk coffee and cake and he'd been outvoted, that meant that he had wanted the group to continue to come to the café after their walks.
That did make me feel better. A little.
"So you're not against the group coming here after the walk?"
"Nope." He took another bite.
"Then how do I ge
t them to come?"
"Come on the walk." He said it like it was the most obvious answer in the world.
I rolled my eyes. Joel was the second man to try to talk me into joining the walking group, but I had better things to do. I had a killer to catch!
Joel put down his fork. "Community is important in small towns. Who you know and who said what is also important. Come on the walk and be a part of the community. Show everyone firsthand how great you are. Don't give them the chance to only take Dorothy's word about what you're like."
Conflicting emotions surged through me. He’d said I was great, but in the same breath he'd also mentioned my arch nemesis, my ex-aunt-in-law Dorothy. Both elation and rage surged through me at the same time. I did my best to fuel the happiness and put out the rampant fire of my rage.
But Joel wasn't done. He had one more carrot to hang in front of me.
"Rachel used to come on the walks." The spark in his eye told me that he knew how relevant that was. "You could talk to the people who knew her."
I felt like palming my forehead. Of course Rachel was connected to the walking group! She had been having an affair with Ned, and Ned was a member of the group. I couldn't believe I hadn't picked up on that possibility. If I went on the walk with the group, that would be that many more people who knew Rachel. It would be that many more people who Rachel could have screwed over. If nothing else, one of them could provide me with a clue I needed to figure out who to investigate next.
"I'll do it." Today was Thursday. That gave me two days to figure out what to serve the walking group when I forced them to reinstate their routine of finishing the walk at my café.
Chapter 21
Thursday had come and gone in a blur. I still didn’t know what I was going to serve the walking group, but I had managed to make a vet appointment for little Miss Sage for Friday morning, which it now was.
"Thanks, Zoey," I said as I stepped out of the café's front door while Zoey held it open for me. She was on her way in, and her honey-tinted skin absolutely glowed in the soft morning light. Today she had Cleopatra eyes instead of cat eyes, and the double-winged flare at the corner of her almond-shaped eyes looked amazing.
A Berry Deadly Welcome_A Laugh-Out-Loud Kylie Berry Mystery Page 8
