by Lynn Cahoon
“The council wants to issue Miss Emily another letter about her yard. I’ve held them off for a while and told them I’d talk to you. But I can’t hold them off forever. She’s got a week before they meet again.”
“Crap. I’ve been meaning to find someone to mow. It’s not easy. She’s gone through all of the teenagers who live in the area; none of them will even walk by her house now.”
“It’s not just mowing. They want her to replace that fence in the front.” Amy dug into her burger, ketchup running out of the side of her mouth.
“Wait—what? You said they want to issue a letter? According to the call I got from Miss Emily this morning, they already have issued her a letter. And they threatened to condemn her house.”
“Not possible. They just met last night, and I was stuck sitting through their discussion until nine. The only good thing about last night was they ordered Lille’s fettuccine Alfredo for dinner.” Amy took another big bite out of her burger, juices dripping down the sides of her mouth.
I handed her a napkin as I searched for more mandarin oranges in my salad. “You sure they just talked about her yard and fence?”
“Positive. I typed up the minutes from the most boring meeting in the world when I got in this morning. I planned on calling you to give you a heads-up tonight.” Amy wiped her mouth, then waved a French fry at me. “I tried to call last night but all I got was your voice mail. You let your cell die again?”
Busted. I was horrible at remembering to plug the thing in. Amy and my aunt were the only two people who called me, and they both knew to try the shop first. The odds were better I’d pick up the land line. Trying to change the subject, I ducked my head and asked, “They want her to replace a perfectly good fence?”
“You have to admit, it looks pretty bad, especially compared to the rest of the houses on Main Street.” Now Amy attacked her steak-cut fries, dipping two at a time into Lille’s famous ketchup/horseradish sauce.
I’d run out of mandarin oranges so I started eating lettuce. Yay. The way this conversation was going I should have ordered the fish and chips. “The council does realize she’s the only real home left on Main Street. The rest of those houses are converted businesses.”
“That’s their point. They want her to sell out to someone who will turn the house into retail.” She scrutinized the regulars in the café before she whispered, “I think they’re tired of waiting for her to die.”
“I wonder what letter she’s talking about, then. She was hot when she called. You don’t think she’s reading an old letter, do you? She’s not that old to become confused.” I’d first met Miss Emily on a visit six years ago when I was playing tourist here. The first vacation I’d taken after the divorce and six months of seventy billable hours a week at my law firm.
Visiting South Cove had been a weekend diversion after a week from hell. I walked down the street with my ice cream cone from Lille’s and realized I’d arrived at the end of town, my bed-and-breakfast nowhere in sight. Miss Emily sat on her porch, watching me.
“Lost?” she called out.
“Kind of,” I called back. “Do you know where Beal Street is?”
“I do.” Then she just sat there in her rocker knitting, her gray hair twisted up in a bun and a small smile on her face.
“So, can you tell me?” I felt hot and tired. Playing games with this little old lady was not restful. And I wanted restful. I came here for restful.
“Don’t get your knickers in a bunch. Come on up on the porch and have a sit. You look all red from the heat.” The old lady didn’t even look up from her knitting. “I’ve got a glass of iced tea waiting for you.”
Waiting for me? How could it be waiting for me?
I pulled open the wood gate, latched closed with a circle of barbed wire over the post, and headed up to the porch, walking gingerly through the tall grass on a stepping-stone path.
“Sit down, child. Tell me what brings you to South Cove.” Two hours later I’d laid down the misery composing my life and had made a decision to move to the small town that already felt like home.
I’d be damned if the city council would railroad my friend out of her own house just because she was taking too long to die. They’d have to go through me first.
Chapter 2
The weeds Miss Emily called a lawn were ankle-high Sunday morning when I pushed through that same gate, off-kilter and rusted with age. The gray weather-stained boards didn’t match up with the fence that went past the lawn and down the side of the house. The fence at that point changed to barbed wire circling around a pasture that had many years ago held in a few black and white cows and a horse or two. Now the city council called the old pasture a fire hazard. At the end of town, Miss Emily’s house was the first thing people saw driving into the small community.
The town of South Cove made its living off the tourists who found their way off Highway 1. The road meanders north up the coastline from Los Angeles toward San Simeon and The Castle. On weekends, tourists flock into town for lunch and to shop in the craftsmen’s art studios that fill the block.
After an hour of calls yesterday, I still hadn’t found a kid to mow her yard. I would have to do it myself. The last kid I hired had mowed down her fairy circle, a natural ring of mushrooms in the middle of the yard. Miss Emily had run out of the house brandishing her cane wildly above her head, her long gray hair down to her shoulders, and started swinging at the fifteen-year-old. He stopped the lawn mower where it stood and ran out of the backyard.
His dad called that evening and told me he had to go and get the mower because his son refused to ever go back to that “crazy old woman’s house.” I had to pull my mower out of the garage and go over to finish the job. Maybe I could put a wire fence up around the fairy circle.
I walked up the steps, grabbing her newspaper from the porch. It was already past ten. Miss Emily always got an early start, reading her paper while she drank her coffee on the front porch. Today she wasn’t there. Her rocker sat empty.
“Miss Emily,” I called as I opened the door. Setting the paper on her foyer table, I called out again, “Are you in the kitchen?”
Walking through the living room, I headed to her kitchen and the heart of the house. She wasn’t there. The back door stood ajar and I stepped out on the porch, scanning the yard, hoping she hadn’t fallen and broken a hip. You always heard about old people breaking hips.
She wasn’t in the backyard. I sighed, looking at long grass waving in the slight wind. I couldn’t wait to find a new kid to mow. I’d be mowing the lawn this afternoon, instead of finishing that mystery. I slipped back into the house.
Where could Miss Emily be? She knew I planned on coming over. She would have called me if she’d gone to town.
I walked through the back of the house toward her bedroom. Fear gripped my stomach, and I took a deep breath, trying to calm down. Pushing away the bad feeling that had settled in my gut, I lightly knocked at her door and called out again. No answer.
I pushed the door open and saw her, lying on her bed. She appeared to be asleep. I walked over and touched her wrist, using the techniques I’d been taught when I worked my way through college at the local nursing home. Nothing.
“Oh, Miss Emily.” I brushed the hair out of her eyes. On the pale skin of her neck, slight dark smudges showed. Her body looked peaceful, younger somehow, like all the pain had left her face.
Sitting down on the bed, I felt energy drain from my body. I’d been complaining that I wanted to spend my Sunday relaxing, not mowing a lawn that didn’t even belong to me. All the time I groused—my friend had been dead.
I held her hand for a few minutes, trying to understand what I was seeing. Looking around her room, nothing appeared out of place. A teacup sat on the nightstand. I picked up the book lying next to the cup. She’d been reading her favorite author, a woman who wrote historical romance set in Regency England. A happily-ever-after Miss Emily wouldn’t ever know.
I walked out of t
he bedroom and dialed 911 on my cell phone. The bastards didn’t have to wait for her to die now.
Toby Killian, South Cove’s part-time officer and local heartthrob, arrived first. The man could be a model for the romance novels I sold. He plastered yellow police tape all over the front yard like there were tons of people waiting to storm the scene. After he’d completed that, he stood in the kitchen watching me and waiting for his boss, Detective King.
I sat at the kitchen table, drinking a cup of coffee I’d made while I waited. Coffee I couldn’t taste even though it was the best blend my shop sold. At least the warmth of the brew warmed my chilled hands wrapped around the cup.
I willed myself not to cry. Not here where Toby could watch as I fell apart. Miss Emily had been more than just the crazy old lady who lived down the street. She’d replaced the mother I’d never had. All the memories of my mother centered around her glasses of Fresca and vodka on ice that started daily at noon.
Miss Emily listened when I talked about my days at the coffee shop and the regulars who came in for their light sugar-free hazelnut mochas over ice. I’d tell her about the tourists who always asked how a smart girl wound up owning a coffee shop in this tiny town, asking whether I missed all the bustle of the big city.
Miss the traffic, the hour-long commute to my job, the working through a pile of family court paperwork, and representing women who were either angry at life or totally bewildered that their lives had changed in the middle of a conversation at dinner? Divorce court wasn’t fun, even on the easy cases.
No, I didn’t miss my old life.
I watched as the stretcher carrying Miss Emily was wheeled out of the bedroom, on the way to Flannigan’s Funeral Home in nearby Bakerstown. South Cove didn’t have its own funeral home. Tourists didn’t like to be reminded of death on vacations. I stopped the EMT guys. Pulling back the sheet, I bent down and kissed her gently on her cheek. “I’ll miss you.”
Detective Greg King had finally arrived and followed me back into the kitchen where he poured himself a cup of coffee. His sandy blond hair hung in his eyes, and in shorts and a sleeveless shirt, he was dressed for a run on the beach rather than a crime scene. He sat down beside me, his large frame squeezed onto the small wooden chair. “It’s hard to see them go.”
“She was so sweet. Who would do this?” I didn’t know Detective King well. He’d moved to South Cove last year. I celebrated the loss of my new resident status until I found out the new guy with a six-foot frame filled with muscles had grown up here. He’d been married at the Methodist church down the street. He was one of them.
I’d be celebrating my fiftieth anniversary of opening Coffee, Books, and More and townspeople would still call me the new kid.
“People die, especially people Miss Emily’s age.” He put his hand over mine in a practiced motion of comfort for the overwrought. Although the touch both warmed and tingled on my skin, his words left me feeling frustrated.
“Are you sure she just died? Did you know the council wanted her property?” I stood, sweeping my hand out from under his. “You’ll run tests, do an autopsy, right? She wasn’t sick, I just saw her last weekend. Hell, I talked to her Wednesday, and she was fine.”
“Now relax. This is a small town, not San Francisco or Los Angeles. Sometimes people just die. I’ll have Doc Ames do an autopsy. Going quietly in the night isn’t the worst thing that could happen.” Detective King took a last swig of his coffee and dumped the leftovers into the sink. He pulled out a wallet and handed me his card. “Call me. I should have the results by the end of the week.”
I took his card. I felt like he wasn’t too happy about having to look at this as more than just an old lady passing. I bet the coroner would agree with him. I followed Detective King out of the house, locked the front door, and pocketed the key. I’d come back later and try to find a number for her son. Miss Emily hadn’t talked about him often, but I knew his name was Bob.
“Miss Gardner, please try to leave the investigation to us,” Detective King called to me as he got into his car. “I promise, if there’s something there, we’ll find it.”
Fat chance.
The town might be smaller than San Francisco, but this cop’s attitude reminded me of some police officers in the city. They didn’t want to see anything that would cause them work. Years of reading through police reports that barely listed the abusive husband’s name or the wife’s injury had taught me to be cynical. Just because Detective King’s eyes were so blue you could swim in them didn’t mean he wasn’t trying to keep the paperwork down.
I didn’t have to open the coffee shop until Tuesday, so I had an entire day to figure out who killed my friend. Or at least find some evidence so Detective King would believe she was murdered. As soon as I woke on Monday, I went into my galley kitchen and started making a list. If there was no next-of-kin, I guessed I would handle the arrangements. Doc Ames had called last night and asked me to come for some kind of meeting today. He served as both funeral home director and the county coroner. He assured me a full autopsy had been scheduled for today on Detective King’s orders. On the other hand, the funeral still had to be planned, murder or not.
I wrote meet with Doc Ames as my first task on the sunny “I’d Rather Be Surfing” pad Amy had given me on my birthday. The last funeral I had attended had been my dad’s. I’d been five. I wondered if the yellow police tape was down or if I was even allowed back in Miss Emily’s house. I needed to go through her files and find her son’s address and phone number. That conversation should go well. “Hi, I’m Jill from South Cove. Your mom’s dead. Can you come and plan the funeral?” Maybe Detective King had already found the son.
Another reason I should call the town’s detective that had nothing to do with the way I felt when I thought about him.
I wrote my second task: Call Detective King. I poured myself a cup of coffee. Then, I wrote down the names of everyone from the mayor to Bambi’s developer boyfriend as my list of suspects. I went back over the list. Did King know all these people had motive? I didn’t know how seriously he’d take a list that had his boss and the entire city council listed as possible murderers, but it was time to find out. I went to find my cell phone.
I punched in the number for the police station, with a separate entrance but in the same building as City Hall. There were three members of the police staff. Esmeralda was a part-time clerk who handled all the paperwork and the phones during the day. Detective King ran the office. And Toby was responsible for handling night and weekend calls. Toby got to do all the DUI arrests. Five last year. Having a winery right outside of town brought in the tourist crowd who either bunked in one of the town’s three bed-and-breakfasts, or took a chance driving home and being spotted by Toby.
“South Cove Police Department, this is Esmeralda.” The voice sounded low and menacing.
“Is Detective King in yet? This is Jill Gardner.” I knew Esmeralda from her visits to the shop for coffee and coffee cake for the police department’s Monday meetings. Lille might cater all the City Council meetings, but at least I got the breakfast business from City Hall.
“Sorry to hear about Miss Emily. When I saw her name on the weekend report, I was shocked.” Esmeralda’s voice flowed over the phone, now warm and concerned. “Are you okay? I know the two of you were close.”
“I still can’t believe she’s gone.” My voice choked up. I still hadn’t cried. Crying made it real, and I didn’t want this to be real. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
“Maybe we should do a session. See if she’s hanging around, looking for vengeance or something. The earlier we reach out, the clearer the signal.” Esmeralda sighed. “I’m stuck here answering phones until three, but I could stop by your apartment if you want.”
After Esmeralda got off her part-time shift at the sheriff’s office, she ran what appeared to be a successful fortune-telling business. Her house, just down the street from Miss Emily’s, felt dark and foreboding, paint peeling off the shingles and a herd
of cats that came and went at will. Apparently she’d never been approached by the council about upholding community standards. Having the mayor as one of her clients had served her well.
“I’m sorry, I’ve already committed to running up to Bakerstown to take Doc Ames some clothes.” Now, I felt glad I had an actual excuse. Having to tell Esmeralda no sometimes didn’t work in your favor.
“Well, we’ll just have to wait then. Call me if you need anything. I know Miss Emily wasn’t a regular churchgoer, but I’ve already called Pastor Bill from the Oak Street United Methodist. He’s getting the women’s group to put together a little something for after the funeral.” Esmeralda paused. “Unless you already had something set up?”
When Esmeralda had joined the Methodist choir a few years ago, several of the deacons had complained, uncomfortable with her profession. I hadn’t been at the church meeting when Pastor Bill flat-out challenged anyone to prove Esmeralda a witch or that she’d committed an evil act. And since no one could find fault with one of the nicest women in South Cove, the pastor had held up his arms and said, “He who is without sin, cast the first stone.”
After that, the matter had been settled, and Esmeralda’s smooth soprano wafted through the halls of the church every Sunday. I tend to think that if she’d been tone-deaf, the pastor might not have fought so hard to keep her in the fold.
I had to get over to the house and find this long-lost son before I screwed up something big. Everyone was counting on me, and I didn’t know the first thing about how to honor my friend. “No, that’s fine, I mean, I haven’t planned anything.”
“You poor thing, you must be overwhelmed. Pastor Bill said he’d meet you at the funeral home.” Esmeralda was talking to someone in the background. “Greg just got in. I’m going to put you on hold, and he’ll be right with you. You call me if you need anything, even just to talk.”
“I will.” I realized she hadn’t waited for my response. I’d been talking to the prerecorded Lawrence Welk–era hold music.
