A Killer Latte

by Tonya Kappes

  Her questions would take too long to answer, and I wasn’t sure what Spencer wanted people to know or not know.

  “You can ask him about your jewelry.” I found it best to get the heat off me and put it right on him since he might have some inside information.

  “Let me get those keys,” I said after I unlocked the door and swung it open.

  He’d barely made it through when Bunny pushed past me.

  “What’s going on here?” Bunny nervously asked.

  It caught my attention, but the others didn’t seem to notice. I stopped, swung my head toward her, lowered my eyes, and searched her face for the reason for her tone.

  “Your face is gonna freeze like that.” She pointed and sashayed by me with a little secret up her sleeve.

  “What are you doing here so early, Bunny?” I asked, knowing she wasn’t due for another hour.

  “Couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d come help you.” Her eyes shifted around the room. “What is going on?” she whispered under the pillbox hat that was perched on top of her head. She swung the shawl off from around her shoulders and folded it over her arm.

  We stood in the middle of the coffeehouse in a standoff, one waiting for the other to answer the questions we posed to one another. In the meantime, Loretta was giving Spencer all sorts of hell about her jewelry.

  “You tell me what’s going on,” I told Bunny.

  “Later, toots,” she said through gritted teeth, which meant for me to get rid of Loretta and Spencer.

  “Let me get those keys for you.” I hurried around Bunny over to the coat tree, where I dug down in my bag and got them out. “You can leave them on the wheel of the car. I’m going to be leaving soon to go see Aunt Maxi.”

  “Loretta, I’m sure you can walk with Spencer down the boardwalk to keep him company. Bunny and I have to get this coffeehouse open. Kidnapper, murderer, or not, business is business, and it just doesn’t stop.” The words coming out of my mouth shocked me as much as they shocked them.

  At least their faces looked like it. So much so, Spencer didn’t quite know what to say. He simply took the keys and walked out of the coffeehouse with Loretta still chirping in his ear like a little bird.

  “Now”—I locked the door behind them and turned on the balls of my feet to face Bunny— “what is it that you are hiding?”

  “Maxine called me last night looking for you.” Bunny’s jaw tensed. “She said she’d found Daisy, and Daisy was more than happy to do her interview only if she left her at the cabin and didn’t say a word for a couple of days.”

  “Couple of days? It was online this morning.” There was a big discrepancy from what Aunt Maxi had told her.

  “This morning?” Bunny had no idea what had happened.

  “You don’t know, do you?” I asked.

  “Know what? That Maxi had Daisy?” she asked. “I told her not to get in trouble. I told her not to take a knife to a gunfight because she’d be accused of kidnapping without even telling her side.”

  “Patrick and I went to Rodney Crenshaw’s hunting cabin, where we found Daisy dead and Aunt Maxi shot.” These words still didn’t seem real as they spewed out of my mouth. I gulped.

  “What?” Bunny’s jaw dropped. “Is she…” She couldn’t bring herself to ask Aunt Maxi’s fate.

  “No. She was flown to the Lexington hospital, where they did emergency surgery. When Patrick and I left, she was in stable condition. They promised me they’d call if anything changes, but I’ve not heard anything.” I watched Bunny ease herself down into one of the café table chairs as the shock washed over her.

  “I tried to talk her out of the interview and into immediately going to the police.” Bunny shook her head and stared down at the ground. “Did Maxine do it?”

  “No. Apparently, someone else did.”

  “Rodney Crenshaw?” she asked, her brows dipped.

  “They don’t think so. But do you think you’ll be all right if I go to the hospital and leave you here? I can call Mom.” I wondered what Mom had heard, if anything.

  I was sure that as soon as the sun popped over the trees, the word about Daisy and Aunt Maxi would have spread like warm butter on a biscuit. I had little time to figure anything out.

  “You go on right now. I’ll be fine.” She stood up, sucked in a deep breath, and became the solid woman I knew her to be, even though Aunt Maxi wasn’t her best friend.

  It was times like these that reminded me of how wonderful it was to live in a small Southern town. It was also a shame that it took something so drastic for all of us to come together and see eye to eye.

  “Why did Aunt Maxi call you?” I asked Bunny, thinking Bunny would be the last person she would call. Why hadn’t she called me? She probably knew I would talk her out of it, though she did leave here pretty determined yesterday after she’d recognized Rodney’s truck.

  “Beats me?” She shrugged. “You git on out of here.”

  “You can feed the cat? Don’t forget to put the freezer items in the oven.” I looked up over her shoulder at the clock. It was just a little after five a.m. There was still a lot of time before the sun came up.

  “I’ve opened for you plenty of times.” She grabbed her apron and tied it around her waist “Go!”

  I knew I had three places to go—the Cocoon Hotel to question Stephen, Aunt Maxi’s house to find any clues about what her plan was once she did the interview, and the hospital to see how she was doing.

  FOURTEEN

  There was no getting around the media. They must’ve seen Spencer getting into my car, because they were all over the parking lot, doing live feeds. Their spotlights lit up the dark better than the sun would. They stared into the cameras with their mouths up against the microphones, speaking directly to their viewing audience.

  “It’s rumored Daisy Lemon has been killed by her kidnapper and someone is in custody,” I overheard one of them saying when I hid behind one of the trees on the hotel lawn.

  Even though they were all awake and on air, I still didn’t want to be seen.

  “The killer is in custody. We are going to be switching locations to the Honey Springs police station, so stay tuned,” another said.

  Like a movie scene, the cameramen and the crews grabbed up the equipment and had it packed in all their vans before they headed out in a caravan.

  “Where’s the coffee?” Camey looked down at my empty hands.

  “Bunny will be bringing it. Did you get your phone books?” I asked.

  “Can you believe it?” She grunted with disgust. “Stephen Lemon, of all people, took my phone books to aid in his wife’s disappearance, then claims he didn’t have her killed?” Camey stuck her hands on her hips. “I told him and that fancy lawyer of his to get his stuff and get out of here.”

  “Did they leave?” I asked in a panic.

  “They are getting their stuff together right now.” She shifted her gaze to the top of the stairs.

  I bolted up them two by two and ran down the hall, giving a couple of hard knocks to his guest door.

  “What do you want?” Stephen asked after he flung open the door. He had dark circles under his eyes.

  “We have some business to discuss.” I walked past him into his room. “Where’s your lawyer?”

  “He is gone. He was only here to get me off those charges.” There was a smug tone to his voice that I didn’t like. “Something you couldn’t do.”

  “Why would I try to get a killer off the hook?” I didn’t back down to his bullying.

  “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you people that I didn’t kill my wife.” He stomped around his room, throwing clothes into his bag. “I had her kidnapped to get money. Now that money is gone. It’s missing, and I have no idea what the corrupt police did with it.”

  “Missing?” I asked sarcastically. “Corrupt police?” I asked in disbelief. “You’ve lost your mind. Or made something up to go along with your creative Hollywood mind.”

  “Honey, ha
ven’t you heard?” he snarled. “Truth is stranger than fiction. I’d never have been able to make this up. Now my beloved Daisy is dead.”

  It dawned on me what Aunt Maxi had always said—“You can’t catch flies with vinegar, but you sure can catch them with honey.”

  Right now, Stephen Lemon was my fly, and I needed to hear everything he had to say, whether I liked it or not.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine what you are going through. I believe you when you say that you didn’t kill her.” I put my hand on my chest for effect, though I was lying through my teeth. “Why didn’t you let Rodney take her chemo pills so she could have them?”

  “Chemo pills?” Stephen’s uncertainty made his voice harsh and demanding. “What on earth are you babbling about?”

  “You didn’t know, did you?” A light bulb went off in my head as I watched his face go from a little red to pale white, like a ghost. “Daisy had cancer. She was taking chemo pills.”

  “She did not.” He searched my face for a plausible explanation for my claim. When I didn’t move, he slowly sat down on the bed next to his suitcase. “That explains a lot of her behavior.”

  “What do you mean?” I sat down next to him. I was starting to really feel sorry for him, because I could tell by his posture that he truly didn’t know.

  “She insisted I get her no chemical hair dyes, even though I told her the color didn’t convert well to the big screen. She started eating meat and sweets like she knew they couldn’t hurt her. That’s when I made her go on a diet and work out each day. When she went to the doctor for her checkup and weigh-in, the doctor wouldn’t let me come in. I’d bet Daisy would let the doctor tell me. I only wanted what was best for her. She loved acting. I thought she was on a downward spiral.” He palmed his hand to his head. “How could I have been so stupid? How did you find this out?”

  His emotions shifted from disbelief back to being mad.

  “She left her purse at the coffeehouse. I found it yesterday. When I opened it, there was a bottle in there. It doesn’t take much but Googling to look it up. Then my friend Crissy told me about the nonchemical hair dye. And after Daisy had gotten a phone call, her attitude shifted and she wanted Crissy to use real dye on her hair.” I reached over and rubbed Stephen on the back. Though I didn’t agree with him having her kidnapped, I certainly wasn’t an evil person and not able to give comfort where it was so greatly needed.

  What was Daisy thinking? I wondered as I sat there with Stephen.

  Did Aunt Maxi know? Had Daisy confided in her? But if Stephen didn’t kill her, who did?

  “Daisy begged me to put more sugar in her latte. Then the whole meat in the quiche. It all started to add up to me.” I sighed.

  “What added up?” Stephen looked at me.

  “I bet Daisy didn’t have long to live, and she was just living it up for a day. Then you had her kidnapped. Rodney insisted she didn’t want to go back to you.” He jerked at my words, his hands fisted in his lap. “I didn’t mean it like that.” I began to explain myself. “What if Daisy knew she was dying? When Rodney told her your scheme to get her kidnapped, maybe it was her way of not coming back and putting you through the agony of seeing her die.”

  “She’d never leave me.” He interrupted me vehemently and jumped to his feet. He ran his hand through his hair as he paced. He pushed over to the window curtain.

  There was a hint of the sunrise glowing through the crack of the trees along the shore of Lake Honey Springs.

  “I don’t know about your accusation, but mark my word, I’ll have my lawyer get in touch with that doctor, and there will be action against him if what you say is true,” he threatened through gritted teeth. “You have to go,” he ordered me with a bleak, tight-lipped look.

  All of my questions had been answered enough for me to leave and not poke the bear any more than I already had. Still, I felt like he was hiding something, but I didn’t know what it was.

  “Roxy! Where are you going? Is he leaving?” Camey screamed after me after I darted down the steps.

  “I don’t know. I’ll be back,” I assured her, leaving no more room for questions. I had to get to Aunt Maxi’s house to see exactly what her motives were and why she’d not called the police to tell them she’d found Daisy.

  Why on earth had she called Bunny Bowowski of all people? That would be the last person I knew Aunt Maxi would call … without a motive.

  FIFTEEN

  Aunt Maxi lived in a little neighborhood in downtown Honey Springs in one of her many rental properties. She was like the shift of the breeze in the wind. Since she’d sold her dream home to Patrick years ago, she’d become much more of a free spirit.

  Downtown was pretty much the typical small Southern town. Central Park was smack-dab in the middle, with a sidewalk going around it and different sidewalks leading to the middle of the park, where a big white gazebo stood.

  I glanced over, and in the faint morning sunrise, I could see where the bust Lemon Productions was going to unveil was still covered. Now that Daisy was dead, I wondered if the mayor was going to insist on doing the ceremony before Stephen left town.

  The dimly lit carriage lights dotting all of the downtown sidewalks normally had seasonal flags dangling off the dowel rods, but the beautification committee had new ones made with spotlights and “Honey Springs” to signify that the movie was being filmed here.

  Popping out of the soil around the park were daffodils in all sorts of colors, showing just how pretty nature was with the help of the limestone in our Kentucky bluegrass.

  The courthouse was located in the middle of Main Street with a beautiful view of the park. And Mom’s Realtor office was next to that.

  There was a medical building with the dentist, optometrist, podiatrist, and good old-fashioned medical doctors located on the opposite side of the courthouse.

  I took a left at the first stoplight that led around the side of the courthouse and took the third right before pulling into Aunt Maxi’s house. All the questions popped into my head. Why hadn’t she called me about finding Daisy when she knew I was looking for her? Why did she send the photos to People magazine early? Who was her contact there?

  I picked up my phone to see if I’d missed a call from the hospital. All the answers that Aunt Maxi could possibly tell me tore at my insides. There weren’t any missed calls. I put my phone in my bag and took out the keys from the ignition and searched through my key chain for Aunt Maxi’s extra key she’d given me.

  The small ranch was three bedrooms with two baths. It was a cute layout with a Jack-and-Jill bathroom between two of the bedrooms, and the master had its own. There was a family room and kitchen combination with a dining room.

  Most of her furniture, she’d gotten from Goodwill or the side of the road. She said that living like a nomad made her happy, when in reality, she had enough money to buy back her dream house from Patrick and more, but she didn’t want to do that.

  Aunt Maxi was very neat and tidy when it came to her house. Her words rang in my head. She would say, “Always leave your house clean in case you die.”

  According to her words of wisdom, she wasn’t planning on dying anytime soon. Her house was a mess. There were files and papers all over the table in her dining room, which she’d been using for a home office for the Sticky Situations gossip column.

  When I bent down to pick up a couple of the files to see what they were, my back end bumped the table, bringing the laptop screen to life. With a quick glance, I saw there wasn’t a pass code.

  I left the files on the ground and sat down in the dining room chair, ready to explore her history settings and find out exactly what she’d been up to.

  The first place I looked was her email box. There was an email from an editor at People magazine. Immediately, I clicked on it in hopes of finding out more about Aunt Maxi’s photo shoot she and Daisy had had.

  The email read: “Maxine! These photos are to die for. We especially love the one with Daisy in all the je
welry. We will be running those in the morning along with your interview. I noticed it’s not attached, and the email says you sent this from your phone. Will I be getting the interview soon?”

  “You sent them from your phone?” I clicked to the sent emails and noticed a send receipt from her phone. “You had to be at the cabin.” I talked to the laptop like it was her sitting in front of me. “It was shortly thereafter that I found you.”

  The chills spread across my body when I recalled what the nurse had told me. “If you’d been about ten minutes longer, she’d never have made it.” I closed my eyes and gave a little thankful prayer for getting there on time.

  I clicked back over to the in-box to see if there was any more correspondence.

  The same editor had sent another email around four a.m., saying that they’d not received the interview, so they would run the photos in their Star Tracks section of the online edition and wait for the interview for their print copy coming out next week.

  When I went back through all the emails in the thread, I read the one from Aunt Maxi to this editor. It said that she knew where Daisy was, and the police hadn’t told the media she’d been found. She already had Daisy on board to do the interview and pose for some photos.

  The time stamp on that email was hours earlier and about the time Rodney had said he’d left to take the CD to the radio station for Daisy. Rodney and Aunt Maxi must’ve just missed each other.

  “Aunt Maxi sent the photos from her phone when she knew she was shot.” I continued to toggle back and forth between the emails. “She wouldn’t have sent in the photos without that interview unless…”

  I knew Aunt Maxi’s ego was too big not to send in the article and the photos to go into the print edition. Getting a big article like People was a dream of hers, and no one, not even a kidnapper, was going to take that from her. “It’s a clue,” I said out loud and looked at each email’s time carefully.

  There was a calendar on her table with the days I opened the shop and the days Bunny opened the shop. It was her way of knowing when to come and when to stay away, but she knew that Bunny loved People magazine and looked at it every day. She also called Bunny.