Cremas, Christmas Cookies, and Crooks

by Harper Lin

“He’ll probably be back in an hour to get another cup of coffee.”

  I looked down at the full cup of coffee in my hand. I wasn’t sure Ryan was right.

  Ryan must have run out of things to say, or else my continued silence finally put him off. Not that I was trying to, but I really couldn’t muster up anything to say that wouldn’t make me sound like a reprimanded child. He looked at Sammy helplessly.

  She patted his arm and smiled over at me. “Have you placed that napkin order yet?”

  I wrinkled my forehead in confusion. We’d gotten two boxes of napkins in the day before. She’d unpacked them herself.

  “Rhonda and I will be fine out here if you need to go in the back for a few minutes. To work on the order.”

  I realized what she was doing. She was giving me an excuse to go hide for a few more minutes until I could get over my combined embarrassment and dismay. I nodded. “Good idea.” I put Mike’s abandoned coffee down on the counter and turned to go to the back room to be alone for a few minutes while I regained my composure.

  “You forgot your coffee,” Ryan said.

  For a second, Sammy and I locked eyes. I could see her silent question—did I want her to correct Ryan? I didn’t. I picked the cup back up. “Thanks,” I said to him. I headed for the back room but was stopped short again by Ryan’s voice, this time coming harshly behind me.

  “What are you doing here?” He sounded angry.

  I turned around to see who he was talking to. He was glaring into the back corner of the café. I looked over and saw the strange bleached blonde from the day before sitting there.

  Instead of looking scared or trying to shrink into the background, as a normal person would when a uniformed police officer was practically yelling at them in a public place, she smiled, stood, and sauntered—yes, sauntered—over to Ryan.

  “Well, that’s not a very nice way to greet a friend,” she said. She actually reached out a hand and trailed her fingers down Ryan’s uniform sleeve.

  I looked at Sammy. Her normally pleasant demeanor had been replaced by what was very nearly a scowl. As near as Sammy could get to one, anyway.

  Ryan pulled away from the woman. “We’re not friends, Cheryl. And what did you do to your hair?”

  She beamed and patted it. “Oh, you noticed? I thought you’d like it. I know how you feel about blondes.” She looked directly at Sammy as she said it.

  Sammy stepped closer to Ryan. Her blond ponytail swung with her movement. “Ryan?”

  “Ignore her,” Ryan said over his shoulder. He held an arm protectively back toward her. “She’s leaving.”

  “I am?” Cheryl blinked innocently.

  “Yes, you are,” Ryan said firmly.

  “You don’t want to introduce us?” She pouted.

  Before Ryan could say anything, I intervened. Whatever the woman’s deal was, she was clearly trying to mess with Sammy, and I wasn’t having it. “You’ve already met,” I said, striding across the café toward her. I dropped Mike’s coffee cup back on the counter—hopefully for good this time—as I approached her. “It’s time for you to go.” I put my hands on her shoulders and guided her toward the door.

  “Ryan!” She twisted to try to get away from me, but I kept moving her forward. “She’s putting her hands on me, Ryan!”

  Ryan ignored her.

  “This is assault! She’s assaulting me!”

  I smiled at the book clubbers who were gawking at us as I hustled her by them.

  “Ryan, arrest this woman! I want to press charges!”

  “You can go down to the police station and swear out a warrant,” Ryan said.

  She stopped at the door, so I reached around her and pushed it open then nudged her shoulder until she walked through it. When the door closed behind her, she turned around and stared in. I crossed my arms over my chest and stared back for an uncomfortably long time. My confidence was starting to waver, when she finally walked away. I exhaled and dropped my arms. I would have leaned against the door, but I still had my wits about me enough to remember that it opened out. Instead, I just stood there for a few seconds, taking deep breaths until I calmed down.

  When I turned around, the book clubbers were still staring. I smiled. “Is there anything I can get for you ladies? Refills? Some more cookies?” They’d made a dent in the mountain of cookies in the middle of the table but still had probably a couple dozen left. They shook their heads almost in unison, probably afraid I’d escort them out next. But they were all good, paying customers who didn’t seem to have some sort of odd obsession with my café manager, so I was more than happy to let them stay.

  I walked back over to Sammy and Ryan. I said nothing but raised my eyebrows at Ryan, assuming that he was smart enough to know that I was looking for an explanation. He wasn’t.

  “Who is she?” Sammy asked after it became clear that he wasn’t going to volunteer it. If it had been me asking, it would have almost unavoidably come out sounding angry and biting. Sammy, though, in her Sammy way, somehow managed to make it sound gentle, innocent, and maybe a little wounded.

  Despite that, Ryan still managed to look immensely uncomfortable. “My ex-girlfriend,” he muttered.

  I looked at Sammy. She appeared to be okay with his answer. I wasn’t, though.

  “If she’s your ex, why is she here? And why was she here yesterday?”

  “She was here yesterday?” Ryan looked from me to Sammy. We both nodded. “Oh geez.” Ryan raked a hand through his dark hair.

  “Well?” I wasn’t sure if he was actually distracted by the news that it was the second day in a row his ex had been in to Antonia’s or if he was dodging the question, but either way, I wasn’t going to let him get away with it.

  “Cheryl has—” He paused and looked between the two of us. “She has boundary issues.”

  “Boundary issues?” I repeated. “What kind of boundary issues?”

  Ryan shifted his weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “She just—she just has trouble believing that it’s over,” he stammered.

  “And how long has it been over?” I asked. It probably wasn’t any of my business, but I felt as if I had to stand up for Sammy. It wasn’t in her temperament to do it for herself.

  “Like ten years.”

  “Ten years?” I was sure I’d heard him wrong. Ten years ago, Ryan would have been in high school. Even Sammy looked shocked.

  Ryan rubbed the back of his neck and nodded. “We broke up right after we graduated high school. I was going away to school and wanted to be able to date other people, and I guess somehow she thought I meant that I was coming back to her someday.”

  “Because that’s what you told her?”

  “No! I told her we were done. She just doesn’t give up!”

  I looked at Sammy. She looked as if she was deep in thought, possibly trying to decide if she believed him. I sure didn’t.

  “So what you’re trying to tell us is that you broke up with her ten years ago and went away to college, and she just somehow magically knew that you live here now and are dating Sammy? And knew Sammy’s name?” For the first time, neither of them reacted to me saying that the two of them were dating. Either they’d given up on pretending to hide it, or they were completely thrown off by Cheryl’s visit.

  “You have to believe me,” Ryan said. “I haven’t talked to her for years! I don’t know how she finds this stuff out, but she does!”

  “She’s done this before?” I was really mad now, and it was clearly showing, because Sammy reached out and touched my arm.

  “It’s okay, Fran. She’s gone. And after you escorting her out like that, I’m sure she won’t be back.”

  I wished I had the confidence that she did, but I didn’t. And from the look on his face, I didn’t think Ryan did either.

  Chapter 16

  BY THE TIME Sammy poked her head into the back room later that afternoon to tell me that Mrs. Bayless and Mrs. Crawford—the school secretaries—were there looking for me,
I had completely forgotten that they were coming, and I wasn’t sure I was excited about it. Mike’s revelation that there was video of the murder had pretty much doomed my investigation. And if it hadn’t, his tirade about how I was messing with his case as well as a kid’s life would have taken the wind out of its sails. But it would have been rude to back out when they were already there, and they didn’t know I had invited them to try to get dirt on Veronica Underwood, so I decided to just go out there and have a nice cup of coffee and a chat about our holiday plans or some other innocuous topic.

  My plan was clearly not their plan, however.

  “So I assume you want to know more about Veronica,” Mrs. Bayless said within seconds of us all sitting down.

  I stared at her, completely dumbfounded. How had she known?

  Mrs. Bayless chuckled and shared a glance with Mrs. Crawford. “We may be old, dear, but we’re not dumb!”

  “You can’t let your mind get slow when you’re dealing with teenagers all day!” Mrs. Crawford added.

  “Oh, heavens no! They look for any chance to pull one over on you! Turning in notes ‘from their parents’”—Mrs. Bayless made dramatic air quotes as she said it—“that are written in text speak.”

  “Claiming their teacher sent them to the office as a reward for good behavior,” Mrs. Crawford said.

  “Coming to us instead of the nurse because they’re too ill to go to her office and they need to go home now.”

  “They always want to drive themselves home in that case. They’re too sick to sit in a classroom, but they’re completely fine to drive.”

  Mrs. Bayless nodded seriously, as if it were the truest statement she’d ever heard.

  “Oh, Marian, do you remember the boy who tried to tell us we couldn’t call his parents to pick him up when he got sent home for fighting because they were out of the country?”

  “And then his father came walking down the hall? Of course!”

  “Who was that?” Mrs. Crawford asked.

  “You don’t remember? It was Mike Stanton! That’s why it was so remarkable! He was the straightest-laced boy we’ve probably ever had, so it was a shock that he was getting sent home, and then his father was the police chief coming in to give a career day talk that day!”

  “Oh, that’s right!” Mrs. Crawford laughed. “You know Mike Stanton, don’t you, Franny? You’re about the same age, aren’t you?”

  Mrs. Bayless interrupted before I could say anything, which was good because I was too busy being shocked by Mike getting in trouble back in high school. “Of course she knows Mike! They’re friends! She’s worked with him on all the murder cases!”

  That snapped me out of my shock. “Whoa! I don’t think you could call what I’ve done ‘working with him.’ I know he sure wouldn’t call it that.” I wasn’t sure he would call me his friend anymore either, but I didn’t think it was necessary to bring that up.

  “You’re the one who’s solved all the murders, aren’t you?” Mrs. Bayless asked indignantly.

  “Well, I—I mean, I—” I tried to stammer out a protest, but Mrs. Crawford cut me off.

  “Now, Marian, you know Franny’s far too polite to take all the credit.” Mrs. Crawford reached out and patted my hand then left hers there. “We know the truth, and that’s all that matters. Besides, we’re not here to talk about the murders she’s already solved! We’re here to talk about the one she still has to!”

  “But it’s already solved,” I protested. Whether I thought they had the right person or not, Mike had scared me off of pursuing it any further.

  “Oh, nonsense!” Mrs. Crawford said. “That murder’s no more solved than we’re retiring this year.”

  I looked from one of them to the other.

  Mrs. Bayless patted my hand, so now I was practically holding hands with the two ladies. “What she means, dear, is that every year we say we’re going to retire at the end of the year, but we never do, do we, Alice?”

  “No, we don’t, Marian!” Mrs. Crawford looked at me meaningfully. “It’s the kids that keep us coming back, you know.”

  I nodded as sympathetically as I could.

  “Now, about Veronica’s murder!” Mrs. Crawford thankfully let go of my hand as she reached for one of the cookies I’d placed in the middle of the table. “What theories do you have so far?”

  “Theories? I don’t really have any. And from what I understand, even if I did, it wouldn’t matter, because the police have the murder on videotape.”

  The ladies looked at each other. I could tell this was news to them.

  “They most certainly do not!” Mrs. Bayless said, to my surprise. She, too, released my hand and went for a cookie.

  “They do. Mike told me,” I said, folding my hands in front of me to discourage any future hand-holding.

  “They don’t! The camera that points to that part of the parking lot is broken, and it has been for weeks!”

  “But Mike—”

  “I don’t know what Mike told you, but I look at those cameras every day, and the camera that points to that part of the parking lot is broken,” Mrs. Crawford said.

  “Maybe there was another camera somewhere? Off school property somewhere?” It sounded weak even to me, but Mike said there was video evidence.

  “I don’t think so! Not with all the trees between the school and the road!”

  “But it’s December.”

  “They’re pine trees!”

  I realized she was right. But even if she was right and Mike, despite being in charge of the case, was somehow wrong, I still wasn’t sure I wanted to pursue the investigation any further. I was still feeling stunned from Mike’s visit.

  The three of us sat there for several moments, the two of them munching away on their cookies and me simultaneously trying to reconcile the fact that there couldn’t be video of the murder with Mike’s assertion that there was, all while trying to fight my returning impulse to get back into the investigation.

  “So now that that’s sorted out, who are your suspects?” Mrs. Bayless asked.

  “I don’t have any,” I said, still determined to not get myself any more involved.

  “No need to be humble around us, dear. Just tell us what you think, and we’ll tell you our opinion,” Mrs. Bayless said.

  “I—I really don’t know,” I said, though what I meant was that I really didn’t want to talk about it.

  The ladies looked at me and then at each other.

  “Maybe she’s run into a dead end and needs some help,” Mrs. Crawford said to Mrs. Bayless, as though I weren’t even there.

  “Good point, Alice,” Mrs. Bayless replied before turning back to me. “How about we tell you what we think, and you can go from there? Sound good? Good.”

  I hadn’t had a chance to say anything, and it didn’t look as if she was planning on giving me one.

  “To start, it’s obvious that Ann didn’t kill her,” Mrs. Bayless said.

  “Obvious,” Mrs. Crawford echoed.

  “She’s far too kind to even think about such a thing.”

  Mrs. Crawford nodded.

  “The poor thing would have been justified in it if she had, what with all the abuse she put up with during that play.”

  “If you ask me, Marcus was cruel to have Ann as the co-director. Gwen would have at least been able to fight back!”

  “Veronica wouldn’t have made it as long as she did if Gwen had been her co-director.”

  Despite my decision not to talk about it, they’d piqued my curiosity. “Wait, Marcus—Marcus Varros? The principal?”

  They nodded in unison.

  “And Gwen is—”

  “Gwen Blarney,” Mrs. Bayless said. “She was the drama teacher before Veronica came. She and Ann directed the plays together, but Ann was really just there to assist. Gwen did most of the work. She was so upset when Marcus told her she wouldn’t be involved anymore!”

  “Well, of course she was. She worked for years to get the rights to the play!” M
rs. Crawford looked pointedly at me. “You have to get the rights, you know. You can’t just go putting on any play you feel like!”

  “Gwen had wanted to put on this play for years. They didn’t want to let a high school put it on, but Gwen kept at it, and she finally got them to agree! She was so excited. I remember the day last year she came in to tell Marcus.”

  “And then over the summer, he tells us not just that she’s not directing, but she’s not even teaching the drama classes anymore!”

  Mrs. Bayless shook her head mournfully. “It was completely out of the blue.”

  “She didn’t know he was hiring a new drama teacher?” I asked.

  They shook their heads.

  “None of us did,” Mrs. Bayless said.

  “We were all very surprised. He just came in one day and said he had hired a new drama teacher and she would be directing the play with Ann.”

  “Gwen was devastated.”

  “And angry!”

  “She was angry?” I asked.

  They both nodded.

  “She deserved to be!” Mrs. Crawford said.

  I nodded. “It sounds like it.” I looked down at my fingers before starting to speak cautiously. “You don’t think—”

  They looked at each other, seeming to silently communicate something or other. After as many years as they’d worked together, I didn’t doubt they were capable of it.

  Finally, Mrs. Bayless spoke. “You have to know that Gwen is really a lovely young woman.”

  “Lovely,” Mrs. Crawford echoed.

  “But with getting pushed out of her job and getting the play taken from her so suddenly by such an ill-tempered woman, well…” She trailed off with a shrug and glanced at Mrs. Crawford.

  “You can see how she could be driven to murder,” Mrs. Crawford finished for her.

  I was briefly taken aback by her bluntness, but then I realized that they were telling me exactly what I had wanted to know—who other than Ann Crowsdale might have had a motive to murder Veronica Underwood. And as much as I knew that, for the sake of whatever threads of friendship still existed between Mike and me, I should stay out of it, they were handing me a suspect and motive. If I left Brett alone and went about my investigation quietly and discreetly, maybe I could keep it up. At least, just enough to see if there was anything to this Gwen Blarney angle.