“He’s the one wasting time now.” Alice walked over and sat down beside her friend. “The tech guys will take an hour to get out here and ten minutes to tell them with authority that it’s not what they think it is.”
“I’ve got some more of the chocolate milk in the fridge.” Sally looked up with a hopeful expression on her face. “If we spill it on the floor next to the existing stain—”
“We’ll be tackled to the ground before we even get close.” Alice thought about it for a minute, then smiled. “Wouldn’t that be fun?”
“About as much fun as the rest of today.” Sally glanced at the clock, thrust her lower lip out and shook her head. “I wish Gloria would phone again. I’ve thought of some great questions to ask her.”
“She won’t and that’s a good thing.” Alice tapped her fingers against the bone in her wrist. “If she did, it would be to tell us something went horribly wrong. The years might have passed but Jason only has two modes.”
“Yeah.” Sally puffed out her lips in disgust. “How can the years flash past so quickly while the minutes drag on and on?”
“Here they come.” Alice pointed out the obvious in case Sally had somehow missed the four white-suited scenes of crimes officers as they walked around the outside of the house. “They’re not even coming inside to say hello.”
“Rude!” Sally giggled. “I guess Willington told them we were a couple of dangerous murderers and to stay well clear.”
“If we were going to murder anyone, we could have killed the DS and DC stone dead by now.”
“I’m just amazed the DC hasn’t managed to kill himself. Did you see that tumble?” Sally laughed, only a slight note of hysteria slicing out of her throat.
“Plus the number of times he tripped over something out the back.” Alice shook her head. “I hope you weren’t saving those empty beer crates for something special.”
“I hope he crushed them into bits. I’ve told Jason a dozen times to clear that rubbish out from around the garage.”
“Nice to see he listens to you.”
They smiled at each other, Alice feeling a sense of warmth in her chest. She’d been so close to losing her friendship with Sally that it was a blessing to find it still intact.
The morning after she reported Jason to the police for trespass on a restraining order, for instance. That day, Alice had been certain she’d gone too far.
“Just sit down and act like a customer or something,” Harriet said as Alice paced from the kitchen of the café, past the serving counter, weaved through the mess of customer tables to reach the front glass, then retraced her steps. “If our clients see you working yourself into a tizzy like this, they’ll skip it and move along to the next place.”
“The next shop along is a disaster,” Alice said as though it was an indisputable fact. In her mind, it was. They didn’t sell any honey and their coffee beans weren’t roasted so much as burned. “If they do that, they’ll regret it.”
“No, I’ll regret it because I’ll be the first one out of here when all your paying customers dry up.” Harriet pointed to a table and scowled. “Now, sit.”
“Fine. Just for a minute.” Alice followed Harriet’s direction, then tapped on her wrist. It wasn’t enough. It hadn’t been enough all night long or earlier this morning. She pulled a fidget spinner from her pocket—a tool she saved for dire emergencies.
“I’m sure she’ll forgive you,” Harriet said, using the volume of her voice to feign confidence. “It’s not like Sally to hold a grudge.”
“There’s not much chance overnight is long enough for even a small grudge to dissipate. It’s far too soon to forgive me just like that.” Alice snapped her fingers, then returned to spinning. Even the brightly flashing colors weren’t soothing enough to calm her nerves.
“Her ex had it coming.” Harriet went to pat Alice on the shoulder, then reconsidered, letting her hand fall limply back to her side. “Sally just hasn’t been the same since Jason came back into her life.”
“No.” Alice bent forward, closing her eyes and pressing her forehead to her knees. “She hasn’t. That doesn’t give me the right to do what I did.”
“Morning.” Sally strode in through the front door, a grimace on her face as she saw the two of them waiting there for her. “What are you doing here, Alice? Apart from driving all the customers away by the looks of it.”
“I wanted to say—”
“She wasn’t sure you’d turn up,” Harriet hastened to interject. “After the last weeks, it’s a gamble what time you get in here if you arrive at all.”
Sally’s face turned into a mask of fury. “It might do you good to remember who pays your wages, Harriet.”
“Alice does. At least, she has for the past month. You’ve forgotten, haven’t you?”
“How about we go through to the kitchen?” Alice said, standing between the two women before they came to blows. As she led Sally through, she tossed a grateful look to Harriet. With Sally focused on the waitress, she appeared to be completely unaware of what Alice had done last night.
“That woman is getting more bolshie by the day,” Sally complained. “You’d think she was the one in charge with her attitude.”
“She’s in charge a lot more than she should be.” Alice leaned against the bench, feeling her heart doing somersaults. “And it’s not Harriet’s fault.”
“What are you saying?” Sally folded her arms across her chest and glared. “Spit it out.”
“I called the police on Jason Raleigh last night. I saw him going into your house and I know you have a restraining order against him.”
Alice immediately chewed on her thumbnail, waiting for the fireworks to begin. Sally just stared at her, bewildered. After a wait that felt like hours, she shook her head. “Why?”
“It’s against the law for him to be there.”
“You realize now I have to go down to the police station to have the order overturned? It could take days. Weeks, even.”
“No, I don’t realize that. It seems he was dangerous enough at the time to get the restraining order in the first place. Given the way you’re acting lately, it doesn’t appear anything’s changed.”
Sally stared at her, then shoved away from the bench to grab a glass of water. “You don’t understand.”
“And I never will if you won’t make the effort to explain it to me.” Alice pulled at her nail, feeling the sharp sting as it tore away beneath the level of her nail-bed. The metallic taste of blood hit her tongue.
“We have some unfinished business.”
Alice’s throat closed up. The lower part of her jaw no longer seemed to fit, and her nostrils were prickling as though with the start of a cold. “I want to help but I don’t know how to.”
“First, take your nose out of my business.”
“I can’t.” Alice leaned forward, trying to ease the sudden tension in her shoulders. It made the press of tears against the back of her eyes worse. “You’re falling apart and what sort of friend would I be if I stood back and just let that happen?”
“I don’t need your help. Everything’s under control.”
“You’re drinking again.” Alice swallowed and licked her lips. “I doubt you have any control left at all. Our contract—”
“What?” Sally stared at her with a shocked expression. “What are you talking about?”
“Our contract allows me to outvote you if you surrender your sobriety.”
Sally’s lips tightened until they were pale and tight. Their thin line a sign of fury. “That’s not what it says. I should know since I was the one who drew it up.”
“You wrote it in there.” Alice tapped against the side of her wrist again, though she’d been doing it for so long a purple bruise was sprouting. “I checked with a lawyer—”
“You went to a lawyer to see if you could force me out?”
“I went to ask whether I could buy you out rather than losing the entire business. This is the only income I have. You
know that. You know I don’t have the same options available to me as you do.”
Sally’s whole body shook, her face pale and her right eyebrow jerking in rhythm with a muscle twitch.
Alice spoked in a lower voice. “You put an escape clause in there to protect me, but it was also to help you, wasn’t it? So someone would talk sense to you before you let it get too far.”
“I shouldn’t have to listen to this.”
“Then don’t listen. Talk.”
Alice stared at Sally, holding her breath for fear of what would happen next.
Chapter Nine
When DS Hogarth walked back into the room an hour later, the expression on his face said it all. “Chocolate milkshake,” he said with a shake of his head. “What? Were you trying to bring all the boys to the yard?”
Alice smiled but didn’t understand. The small aside didn’t really matter, though, considering it was the larger picture she was concerned with. “We did try to tell you.”
“How about we cut out all the long-winded conversations short and just get to the point? I’m tired and your friend should be arriving any minute now.”
With a start, Alice checked the clock and saw to her relief the guesstimate wasn’t true. They still had at least an hour to get everybody on the same page. “I guess I’ll take the next turn,” she said. “Since it’s the bit that’s connected with my theft.”
“Before you start, can I check which time period you’re aiming for here? Something this year would be great.”
DC Willington came to the back door and walked in, a relieved smile on his face. “That was a nasty shock out in the garage, I must say. When I moved the piece of carpet and saw the stain…”
“Why did you hide it?” Hogarth turned to Sally since it was her house. “If it had such an innocent explanation, then why bother to cover it over at all?”
“I didn’t. Jason spilled his drink out there and he’s the one covered it over. It wasn’t until this morning I noticed the carpet wasn’t in the right place to soak up the oil spills any longer, so I don’t even know when the stain got there.” She looked up at the sergeant. “The carpet’s only out there because my car’s old and it occasionally leaks a few oily tears.”
“Mine does that,” Willington cheerfully added, smiling until the DS threw him a clouded look.
“When he gets here, you can ask him why he covered it over rather than just getting the hose out and spraying it off. I’m not sure you’ll get a coherent answer but it’s the closest you’ll get to the truth.”
“Well, I’m happy it wasn’t blood.” The DC sat down on the sofa right next to Alice and Sally, giving them a friendly glance. “It’s not nearly as exciting to find a spilled drink but it certainly will make it easier to sleep tonight.”
“Isn’t there something more you should be doing outside?” Hogarth asked the young constable. “I’m sure the crime scene techs could use a hand packing all their equipment away in the van.”
“Already done.” The DC shot another smile at Hogarth, then seemed to register the point behind the command. “But now that you mention it, I did get sidetracked out there. I’ll go out now and finish examining the yard in detail.”
He stood up and moved outside, waving to the white-suited men as they walked around the house again to reach their ride home. The sergeant seemed to relax a bit as soon as the younger officer was out of earshot.
“Now, where were we?”
Alice pointed into the adjoining room. “We were sitting at the dining table, just over there, and we were doing it about a week ago.” She gave a nervous glance to Sally, who nodded for her to continue. “After our discussion in the café, I agreed to sit with Sally while she told Jason all about his son. Or non-son, if you want to be completely correct. It was partly to protect her if he went nuts but also to ensure the explanation actually happened.”
“I’d already put it off for seven weeks by that stage,” Sally interrupted. “And my whole life was spiraling downhill because of it. I needed to tell him and get it done, then I could move him out of my house, out of my life, and get everything back on the track it was meant to run on.”
“That was why you had him in the house? Because you were waiting to inform Jason about the kid not being his?” The sergeant gave her such a disbelieving glance that Alice giggled. She didn’t understand her friend on that point, either.
“I don’t know another way to explain it, but that’s what I was telling myself, at any rate. Jason didn’t have anywhere else to go, and he thought I owed him because of his estrangement from Steve. Until I told him the truth, he wasn’t about to move on.”
“It doesn’t matter why or why not, anyhow.” Alice shifted on the seat, trying to find a position to support her back while she gave her talk. Sally wrinkled her nose, and she mimicked the gesture. “Here’s what happened.”
Jason rolled his eyes as Alice tried to work out the right words to start the conversation. “First you insist I sit down with you, now you can’t even remember what you wanted to say.”
He had immediately clocked there was something strange about Alice when she arrived at the door. Jason had scowled at Sally—who to Alice’s relief was stone-cold sober for a change—then let her in, walking a distance away as though a plague circle was drawn around her feet.
“It’s not the easiest subject,” Alice said, her words halting. “But do you remember—?”
The doorbell rang, cutting her off, and she tried to ignore the sense of relief that flooded through her as she sat back, waiting to see who was responsible for the intrusion. Although he’d only been living back with Sally for a few months, if that, Jason sprang up and ran to the door. “Ant!”
Sally gave a groan, the sound cutting off as Jason cast a foul expression in her direction. “What are you doing here, Antony?” she called out. Her tone clearly expressed the hope he would say he couldn’t stop in for long.
“I’m at a loose end, that’s what.” Ant walked inside and threw himself into a chair at the dinner table. He tapped his fingers on the table as though already bored and stared openly at Alice. “I thought you might have something entertaining on the cards.”
“Got the new streaming service set up, if you want to try some gaming.” Jason sat down next to the new arrival and fist-bumped his right hand. “They finally dug all the right channels and stuff to connect up the fiber.”
“Fancy.” Ant jiggled his eyebrows. “But no can do.” He held up his left hand, the knuckles swollen and bruised. “The doc says to keep off this as much as possible for the next week. Got me out of work and all.”
“Look, Alice came over here to—”
“Yes, why did she come?” Jason turned and glared at both of them. “I’ve been sat here waiting for an explanation for twenty minutes while you two have been talking about the weather.”
“It’s nice,” Ant said, slumping farther down in his chair.
“What?”
“The weather. Good for growing and stuff.”
Jason frowned as though his friend had suddenly turned into a lemur. “You what? Since when have you been into gardening?”
“It’s good for the environment, init?”
“And?”
“It’s the only planet we’ve got.”
Sally ducked her head down and Alice peered with suspicion at her friend’s shaking shoulders. It appeared the world had moved onto different concerns during the period Jason had been incarcerated. In a way, she felt a great deal of empathy for his current bewildered expression. She was often out of step in the same way.
“What d'you do, Alice?”
“I’m a beekeeper.” She turned to look at Ant, carefully examining his face in small snippets before putting them together and deciding he wasn’t making fun of her. Yet. “I keep bees on a property just out of the city.” She nodded at Sally. “We also operate a café together where I sell a lot of my honey.”
“Cool stuff.” He sat back and patted his belly. “
I ate far too much honey when I was a kid. My mom was always yelling at me because of my sweet tooth.” He smiled, revealing a few gaps near the front. Alice presumed the missing teeth had more in common with his grazed knuckles that his passion for sweets. “D’you make that Manuka stuff? I hear that’s good.”
Alice gave a small laugh. “I don’t make any of it, my bees do all the work. But, yeah, I have a few hectares given over to Manuka, and it’s one of our more popular varieties.”
“Money in it, isn’t there?”
“There’s money in everything if you do it right.” Sally reached her hand out to place it on top of Jason’s. “We really do need to have a serious discussion with you and I can’t do that with Ant here.”
“Way to make my friends feel welcome.” Jason jerked his hand back, his eyebrows pulling together to throw a shadow over his eyes. “How d'you feel if I told Alice to get out of the house because we’ve got something important to discuss?”
“My house.”
“Whereabouts is your farm, then?” Ant asked, leaning forward and snapping his fingers to gain Alice’s attention. “You up north or down south.”
Alice kept her gaze fixed on Jason and Sally as she fished a business card out of her pocket. “That’s the address for the farm. We sometimes sell direct to the public, but not at this time of year.”
“I’ll have to come by when you’re doing that.” Ant flicked the edge of the card with his thumbnail. “Those Manuka bees, they’re worth—what? Thousands, tens of thousands per hive?”
“They’re not Manuka bees, they’re honey bees. It’s just their home happens to be smack bang in the middle of hectares of Manuka we planted.” Alice turned, confused why the man seemed so interested. Apart from the school children at a talk she’d once given, nobody usually showed any longing to hear more about her bees. Usually, it was the opposite.
“I don’t care who you have over most of the time, but I did ask if you’d stay home especially to talk something through with you today,” Sally said, clenching her hands together on the table in front of her. “Now, I’m not saying you deliberately invited Ant over to disrupt this conversation, but I do need to speak with you. Right now.”
The Double Dip (A Honeybee Cozy Mystery Book 3) Page 5
