Expresso Messo: A Cozy Mystery (Sweet Home Mystery Series Book 6)

by Constance Barker

  “I don’t think she would get involved with someone yet,” I said.

  Essie huffed. “She’ll date anyone apparently.”

  I gasped at her comment and glanced at Toe. The comment obviously went over his head because he just nodded in agreement. He hadn’t dated Mildred for long but I had the feeling Essie would never forgive either of them. Toe was the consummate bachelor of our little town. Essie still couldn’t get past that even though he took her out more frequently than any of the other ladies in Sweet Home.

  “Without Mildred to ask we have one other option. We could go to Reva’s and ask her if Mildred was there with anyone,” I said.

  If that didn’t pan out we’d have to go in search of her friends and ask them if they’d seen her. The more I thought about how Toe described her kitchen the more worried I got about Mildred’s well-being. If Reva’s proved to be a dead end we would have to make a time line of Mildred’s movements starting with the last time Toe had seen her. I saw her a few days ago when she’d come in for her usual coffee. Come to think of it I hadn’t seen her yesterday or this morning.

  I looked at my aunts. “Could you two take care of things here while Jules and I investigate at Reva’s?”

  They both nodded. Hildie got up and took Toe’s now empty mug back behind the counter. It wouldn’t be too hard for them to hold the fort. We weren’t expecting another rush until just after lunch. Even then, they’d managed crowds of customers before without killing each other. They would survive for an hour.

  “Jules, how about some lunch?”

  We grabbed our purses and dashed out the door before my aunts could change their minds.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I loved walking into Reva’s. The nostalgia of the movie posters reminded me of fun nights spent with my aunts. The long row of booths along one wall looked packed. We might have to wait for someone to leave but I didn’t mind. The scent of freshly baked bread and pies made my stomach grumble. If I left enough room after eating my lunch I could have a slice of peanut butter pie.

  We waited at the door surveying the place and spotted an empty booth and a table. I was happy that Reva’s had a booth for us despite how busy they were. We walked to the booth near the back which worked for me since I wanted to talk to Reva after we finished eating. I was starved. The coffee and waffle cookies I had this morning wasn’t much of a breakfast but I didn’t have time for a proper breakfast before the morning rush started.

  A waitress approached the booth and poured glasses of water. We perused the menu, even though I didn’t need to look at it. I knew what I was going to get, what I usually got when I ate at Reva’s. It was interesting to see the new items on the menu though. I knew the cafe was doing something for Valentine’s Day but I wasn’t brave enough to stray from my usual.

  Jules was adventurous and ordered the “starry-eyed” pancakes and I ordered the meatloaf with my usual sides. The waitress dashed away to put in our order.

  “Breakfast for lunch?” I teased.

  “I’ve been hearing about the pancakes for days. People are raving about the syrup.”

  “I heard people are blurting out things they wouldn’t normally confess,” I said.

  Not that I had anything to hide. I’m pretty much an open book. I don’t think I’d want to eat the “starry-eyed” breakfast just in case. Others seemed to be enjoying them immensely though and Jules rarely treated herself.

  From various tables around the room I heard people telling the person they were with that they loved them. Not unusual of course but so many of them professing their love made something on the back of my neck tingle. I doubt it had anything to do with Valentine’s Day approaching either.

  A quick glance around the place revealed about half of the customers chowing down on the fluffy pancakes drenched in dark, rich syrup. I did have a bit of a sweet tooth. Maybe I should have been adventurous and tried something from the new menu. Too late to change my mind now. I couldn’t convince my stomach to have something so sweet for lunch. If Jules liked them as much as everyone else seemed to I might come back for breakfast. The confessions could just be a coincidence.

  “I wonder if anyone here right now knows when Mildred last visited the place,” Jules said.

  I shrugged. I didn’t come in often enough to know who the regulars were. And the note didn’t say what time of day Mildred, if it was Mildred, was here. We could have interpreted the note all wrong and it was someone else who met a man here.

  “We’ll talk to Reva first and see what she says. She might know who was here at the same time. If she remembers Mildred being here at all.”

  The waitress arrived with our food and I inhaled deeply. My stomach grumbled again. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until the meatloaf was placed in front of me. Jules’ pancakes looked light and fluffy and golden brown. The waitress plunked down a bottle of syrup then hurried away when a customer waved to get her attention.

  After she drizzled some syrup on her pancakes Jules dug into them, popping a forkful into her mouth. She closed her eyes with a flutter and grinned.

  “These are so good,” she said.

  I took a bite of my own meal. It was good as always but I kind of envied Jules’ delectable pancakes. She made little yummy noises every time she ate another forkful.

  “Mine is good too.”

  Jules grabbed the syrup again and poured a generous amount onto of her stack. The sticky, thick liquid flowed over the sides and pooled on the plate around her pancakes. The bottom one soaked up the syrup making it darker and full of sugar.

  She gobbled her meal like she hadn’t eaten all day. Each time she popped a forkful in her mouth her eyes closed and she shimmied back and forth on her seat in a little dance.

  I looked around the cafe at the others eating pancakes. Most of them were displaying a similar reaction to the food. Reva’s food was good but the reaction of customers to the pancakes had my spidey sense on alert. For now I pushed it out of my mind and concentrated on finishing my lunch. The sooner we ate the sooner we could talk to Reva. As much as I knew my aunts could handle the Coffee Cabana without me I didn’t want to desert them for too long.

  I also wanted to get to the bottom of Mildred’s disappearance. If that’s what it was. I still wasn’t convinced that anything was actually wrong but it was odd that she wasn’t home when she was expecting someone at the house. Odder that her door was unlocked when she wasn’t home.

  “So you’re liking those pancakes?” I asked when Jules did another little shimmy in her seat.

  “You must get them the next time you’re here.”

  “Guess I should come back before Valentine’s Day.”

  “That’s right! They’re temporary.” Jules pouted.

  It was a little out of character for her but she liked them a lot so I let it pass. “The pancakes will still be on the menu but the syrup was for the holiday I believe.”

  With half a stack left Jules poured even more syrup on them. They looked soaked through, no longer a golden brown but a hazelnut color. She ate the rest of the pancakes slowly, savoring every bite, pouring more syrup after three bites. The once full bottle of syrup was now almost empty.

  “I need to come back before the syrup is gone then!”

  Once the stack of pancakes was gone she started running her finger through the syrup left on the plate then stuck the finger in her mouth.

  “Jules, are you okay?”

  “Why do you ask?” she asked around her finger. She pulled it out of her mouth with a soft pop.

  I stared wide eyed at her. “No reason.”

  I took another gander around the cafe focusing on the customers eating pancakes. A few were giggling. Some looked zoned out. Others appeared overly mellow with silly smiles on their faces. I didn’t have time to worry about the other customers. Now that the lunch rush was settling a bit Reva might have some time to talk to us. I didn’t want to leave my aunts to handle the shop longer than I had to.

  “Let�
�s go talk to Reva,” I said.

  Jules nodded and stood, grabbing the edge of the table when she wobbled slightly. “Head rush.”

  She giggled.

  “Are you sure you’re okay” I asked.

  Jules didn’t giggle or lick her plate clean even for her favorite dishes. Something was definitely off.

  “I’m A O-kay,” she said forming her fingers into an O.

  I shrugged. “All right then, let’s find Reva.”

  We walked to the door to the kitchen. I looked through the right side of the door to make sure I wouldn’t knock anyone over when I pushed it open. I took Jules’ hand and pulled her through with me. She had a silly grin on her face as she looked at everything around her as if seeing it for the first time.

  “Has it always been this bright in here?” she asked.

  “Always.”

  I spotted the office door at the back of the kitchen. Sous chefs, wait staff and Derek the chef ran about the kitchen in a frenzy to fill the lunch orders.

  “Derek, is Reva in the office?”

  The chef jerked in surprise and yanked his hand back from a silver container he was reaching for.

  “Yes, just go ahead and knock.”

  I watched him carefully, pulling Jules along behind me on the way to the office. The door was closed and I hated to interrupt Reva but the longer Mildred was missing the more worried I got. There was probably a reasonable explanation but until we had one my mind went to foul play of some kind.

  I rapped on the door. I heard the scrape of chair legs against the floor. For some reason I thought it odd that she didn’t have a rolling chair. If I had a proper office I would have a chair with wheels so I could push myself around the room.

  The door whooshed open. Reva smiled when she saw us.

  “Lily, Jules! So nice to see you. Is something wrong? Was something wrong with your order? I don’t know how many times I have to yell at Derek to get things right.”

  Jules leaned into me and shook her head.

  “Well, nothing wrong with the food. The new syrup is delicious apparently.”

  I wondered how often she did yell at Derek. The man’s face was haggard and he had the slouch of a person who wanted to make themselves as small as possible so as not to get screeched at again.

  Jules nodded her head so fast I got dizzy.

  “Then what can I do for you?”

  Reva motioned to her office. It was a small room with no windows, a large desk, three chairs and a bookcase against the back wall full of cookbooks and business books. The walls were painted a light cream color that prevented the room for feeling overly cramped.

  We followed her in and I helped Jules sit in one of the three chairs. One behind the desk, obviously Reva’s, and two on the other side of the desk for employees or guests.

  “Mildred has gone missing,” I said. “We have reason to believe she was here a few days ago. Possibly with a man. Do you remember seeing her?”

  Reva’s face transformed from light and jovial to concern. “Missing? That’s horrible. Are you sure?”

  I told her everything we knew including the state of her house and the cryptic message sent to Jules’ newspaper. “We thought the note meant she’d been here.”

  “I haven’t noticed her but it’s been very busy lately. The new menu items seem to be a hit. Plus Derek has been as cantankerous as ever.”

  “It was probably three days ago. You can’t remember anything?”

  A crash from the kitchen made us all turn around. Pots and pans littered the floor in front of one of the prep tables. Two wait staff hurried to clean it up and toss the dishes into the dishwasher. Derek reached for that silver container again. He surreptitiously looked around, grabbed the container and poured a generous amount of clear liquid into a pot on the back burner of the stove. He stirred it enough to incorporate whatever he’d added then took the pot off the burner and put it onto the counter to cool.

  I turned back to Reva who was shaking her head. “That’s been happening a lot lately. The staff has become so clumsy these last few days.”

  “That is odd but back to Mildred. Are you sure you don’t remember seeing her?”

  Reva looked up at the ceiling in thought. “She might have been here but I thought she usually came in with a female friend. I don’t remember seeing her here with a man though.”

  Mildred wouldn’t have written to the secret admirer column about a friend and we couldn’t confirm she’d been here with a man. So there was still a mystery about what the note meant.

  “Can I buy some of that syrup to take home?” Jules asked. She nodded her head at Derek who was pouring the liquid from the cooled pot into a syrup jar.

  “What is he putting in the syrup?” I asked Reva.

  “Don’t know. He said it was a special ingredient.”

  “Have the staff been having the pancakes?”

  Reva nodded. “They love the syrup. Most of the staff have been eating them every day.”

  Based on Jules’ behavior and the clumsiness of the staff I had a suspicion about what he was adding to the syrup. As we watched he started another pot, pouring in a bottle of store bought syrup. Before it had time to heat through he poured in liquid from his silver container. He stirred a few times to incorporate then took the pot off the stove. Shocked I got out of my chair and stormed through the kitchen.

  Reva and Jules hurried behind me. A rattling of pots caught my attention. I turned to see Jules steadying herself again, holding out her hands to stop the pans from falling on the floor. A waitress rushed over to push the dishes to the center of the counter.

  “Derek what is in that container?”

  I held out my hand but he pulled the container away from me.

  A red flush rose up his neck and settled on his face. “It’s a secret ingredient.”

  Reva raised an eyebrow at him. “That’s what you said before.”

  He moved to stand in front of the container to block it from view. “There’s nothing wrong with a secret ingredient,” he said.

  “There is something wrong if it’s what I think it is,” I said.

  Reva nodded at him indicating he should hand over the silver container. His shoulders dropped, he hung his head and handed it over. I sniffed and immediately started to cough the smell was so powerful.

  Reva looked at me with a questioning look. “What is it?”

  Derek’s shoulders sagged forward. “It’s homemade moonshine.”

  “Moonshine!” Reva said.

  Everyone in the kitchen turned around at the commotion. After a moment of scrutiny they went back to work. My mouth dropped open. I had suspected alcohol but moonshine was worse.

  “Do you at least cook off the alcohol?”

  He shook his head sheepishly. “I mix it in and take it off the heat.”

  “Why would you add alcohol to the syrup?” Reva asked.

  “To keep the customers mellow. They’ve been complaining a lot lately and I didn’t want to get yelled at again.”

  “Throw that out and pour un-tampered syrup into the bottles,” Reva said. “Then I’ll see you in my office.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Reva, could we talk in your office?”

  I put my arm around Jules and we walked back to the office leaving Derek staring at the floor. I didn’t wait for Reva to walk in first; I opened the door, helped Jules into a chair again then sat beside her.

  “Does this mean I won’t be getting my syrup?” Jules asked.

  Reva sat on the other side, a frown marring her usually happy face.

  “I had no idea he was adding moonshine.”

  Anger bubbled under the surface so I mentally counted to ten. I didn’t want to take out my disbelief on Reva when she clearly had no idea her chef was dosing customers with strong alcohol. But I couldn’t let it go either. Right now I was thankful I couldn’t reach Eli. At moments like this I would immediately call him to talk things out.

  Soft giggling beside me was b
ecoming infectious. As angry as I was Jules’ laughing always cheered me up. Then I remembered that she was dosed without her knowledge. She didn’t drink much and certainly not at mid-day. My ire back up to fighting level I focused on Reva.

  The woman wasn’t a pushover and she didn’t cower even though I know my angry face can be scary. It was known to scare small children and a few varmits. But she still wore the frown and her eyes showed genuine dismay. A betrayal like that from an employee would hurt. I wondered if she’d be able to trust Derek again but right now I was more concerned that he not keep dosing people.