A Tiny Bite of Murder

by Constance Barker

  I nodded. “I get where you're going.”

  “I checked on them, and only two seem a little odd. I searched for social media connections between all of the diners on the list and Gabriel or Ross, but that came up empty.”

  “Wow, impressive. So there is no obvious accomplices. What time did you get to bed last night? You did a lot of computer work.”

  Jaxon shrugged. “It wasn’t that bad. If I’m not interrupted, I can get a lot done with an internet connection.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  “Don’t be. I missed a few things yesterday and we need to follow-up on a lot today. Including stopping by the restaurant. I heard they reopened and I want to chat with Matt again, see if he learned of anything else from the police after going back to work.”

  “I think we did pretty good. So what’s first today?”

  “Well, let’s see if you learned anything. What would you do next?”

  “You know, something has been troubling me. We have this Gabriel Dubois on our list because Mr. Twain told us about him. How did Twain find out about the rival food critic?”

  “That’s a good question. We should ask him. Sounds like a good thing to get off our plate right now. Let’s go.”

  We waved goodbye to Grandma and Aunt Mabel, then headed out on foot. Mr. Twain worked from the nearby visitor's center, giving tours of the town and working with special events like the annual river festival. And once a week, he guided a ghost tour that was always sold out. We discovered him in the office, sitting at an old-fashioned desk with an antique typewriter off to one side.

  “Good day and welcome to my humble workspace.” Mr. Twain spread his arms over the large desktop.

  Jaxon laughed. “Do you ever break character?”

  “But what do you mean? I am who I am, nothing to break.” Mr. Twain scrunched-up his face and his voice sounded pinched.

  I smiled. “Jaxon means nothing by it. In fact, it is a compliment. But we are here for...”

  Mr. Twain interrupted. “I know you are investigating the unfortunate accident with Jaxon here. And it is the only reason you would show up here so early.”

  Jaxon nodded. “Well deduced. We are here to ask you a question. Who told you about Gabriel Dubois and his feud with Emery Rumbold?”

  Mr. Twain cocked his head. “Why isn’t it obvious?”

  Jaxon shrugged. No, not really.”

  “Emery Rumbold!. He stopped by the visitor center and asked about the ghost tour. He wanted to know when it was this week in order to see if he could attend.”

  Jaxon pinched his eyebrows. “That makes sense, but how did the subject of Gabriel Dubois come up in a conversation about the ghost tour?”

  Mr. Twain snorted. “I hadn’t thought about it, but you are right, my good man. He volunteered it during our exchange. In hindsight, it does seem a little out of place.”

  Jaxon sighed and glanced over at me. “Seems we have some more work to do.”

  Chapter Nine

  We thanked Mr. Twain and left the visitor's center, then walked to Jaxon’s car. He said, “Seems Emery wanted someone in town to know about Gabriel Dubois, and who better to tell than a chatty man who talks to lots of people.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “When someone commits a crime, it’s common for them to create a smokescreen to throw the police off. Emery dropping this little tidbit on Twain smells like a smokescreen to me.”

  I chuckled, “Do you smell a smokescreen or see it?”

  “Smarty pants. Now you sound like Mr. Twain.”

  “Sorry, couldn’t resist. So you honestly think we need to look at Emery now?”

  Jaxon paused, then shook his head yes. “Yeah, I do. I guess it could have come up in conversation, but it just doesn’t feel right to me. It’s unusual given what happened with Holly. So we should have a discussion with Mr. Emery Rumbold. I somehow overlooked him when I checked into things last night.”

  “I didn’t think of him at all!” I could not hide the surprise in my voice.

  “Well, let’s be honest, the motive is not obvious. Seems Holly was pretty important to running his daily business and I haven’t heard anyone say they didn’t get along. But we weren’t asking those questions either, so we may have to backtrack a little.”

  I gasped. “Emery knew Holly well, and he obviously knew about her allergy. I could tell the way he went for the Epipen. So he had the means, the know-how. And he was sitting right next her! Opportunity! The motive is missing, like you said, but he fits opportunity and means better than anyone else.”

  Jaxon grinned. “You learn fast. I noticed that when we made the list but motive just wasn’t there. So I moved on to others on the list. But after hearing what Mr. Twain had to say, my spidey sense is tingling.”

  I leaned my head a touch to one side. “What did you have in mind?”

  “I cut our chat with Oliver Reed short because I could tell he didn’t do it. But he might know a little about what was going on between Holly and Emery. And Holly’s old boyfriend, Ross, might have something to add as well.”

  I sighed. “That sounds like we’re going in circles.”

  Jaxon chuckled. “Welcome to the world of private investigations.”

  I cringed as the thought ran through my consciousness. “Um, don’t forget, we need to go see Matt, too, at the restaurant.”

  Jaxon laughed. “You’re getting better at this. I was trying to ignore our pending talk with ‘Angry Chef.’ But seems you’re a better person than me.”

  “This is going to be a long day, isn’t it?”

  “Yep, ready to convert from tea to coffee yet?”

  “Nope. Not till you find a coffee house with a monkey!”

  Jaxon laughed. “Touche. Now let’s go talk to Oliver. I think that’s a good place to start.”

  We were almost to the car when I said, “So Emery, Ross, Oliver, Gabriel, and who else? Oh yeah, maybe a rival business, and don’t forget, all the other diners that were there. This is getting overwhelming.”

  “What was the first thing I told you, Raine?”

  I squinted my eyes at him. “What?”

  Jaxon tugged his ear. “What was the first thing I told you?”

  I replied, “To keep an open mind, make no assumptions.”

  “Precisely. So if you started with an open mind, and no assumptions, that would have been your list from the start. It was for me.”

  My feet stopped moving and I stood still on the sidewalk. “Well don’t you sound confident.”

  “Not really. I’m actually more upset with myself. I feel like I got lazy about Emery and missed the chance to ask some good questions yesterday.”

  “Jaxon, you’re doing this as a friend and it isn’t a real case for you. You’re doing me a favor. I know that, and so do you. So don’t be so hard on yourself.”

  Jaxon had stopped a few paces in front of me and came back one step to stare at me like a puppy who just lost his squeak toy. “One of my clients hired me to follow his wife and see if she is cheating. Another active case I have right now is doing a background check on the most boring man in the world who is marrying into a rich family. The third, and last, open job I have is to find a daughter who inherited a few thousand dollars from her estranged mother. Important, maybe, but not real high profile stuff. This could be a murder, and I should have been more focused.”

  “Jaxon, I appreciate your help. Thank you. And don’t be so demanding of yourself. You are good at this, so let’s go figure this out.”

  “Thanks for the pep talk. But I work better mad.” He grinned and we resumed walking.

  At the car, he put his key in the car door lock, and I got in the passenger side after he popped the locks.

  Jaxon buckled in and looked over to me with a more confident aura. “Change of plans. Who is our best person of interest?”

  I slumped in my seat. “I don’t know. I guess I would say it would be...that it was an accident.”

  Jaxon sm
iled. “I agree. If you look at our list of suspects along with their motive, means and opportunity, no one nails all three. So the accident scenario becomes viable.”

  “But why didn’t anyone else taste sesame then?”

  “Good question, and that is the biggest hole in that theory. So it would be better to ask the other people who ate there that night.”

  “So who do we go and see first?”

  “Who was sitting next to Emery and Holly?”

  “Why?”

  “If it was an accident, the food was likely prepared in batches, and it is probable that the batch served to Holly was served to others who got their salads at the same time.”

  “The surrounding tables!”

  “Exactly. So who sat next to Emery and Holly?”

  “Let me think. A couple I didn’t recognize on one side and, oh my goodness, Mrs. Lewis and her husband on the other.”

  “Do you know her?”

  “Not really, at least not well.”

  “So does your grandmother?”

  “No, but Andrew does. He just did some work for her.”

  “The wrench head?”

  I grimaced. “Yes.”

  Jaxon sighed, “Maybe it’s better if we just pull a cold call on her.”

  “I don’t know. She likes Andrew. I think she would be more likely to talk to him.”

  “Fine. But all three of us go.” He paused and gestured at my pants pocket. “Go ahead give him a call.”

  I took out my phone and placed the call. “Hello, Andrew? Are you busy?”

  Andrew replied, “Hey Raine! Nice to hear from you. I have to finish the painting job I am in the middle of, but I will be done in few hours. I can meet you around one o’clock. What do you need?”

  “Great. I was hoping you could go with us to talk with Mrs. Lewis. She sat next to Emery and Holly at dinner and we need to talk to her.”

  Andrew groaned. “What do you mean we?”

  “You, me, and Jaxon.”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure I want to help that flatfoot.”

  “He is helping me, and now I am asking for your help, too.”

  “Okay. I’ll meet you at the tea room at one o’clock. We can go over from there.”

  “Thanks. I really appreciate it. I really do. Bye.”

  “Bye.” Andrew’s voice tapered off and he clicked off rather fast.

  “Well, he wasn’t excited about working with you, either. So you have something in common, you both don’t want to work together. We need to meet him at the tea room at one o’clock.” I smiled and tried to assume my cute face.

  “I’m not amused, but if it’s what we need to do to get some answers, so be it. Now, I guess we’re back to visiting Oliver, since we have some time before we have to meet the wrench head. And also, we need to figure out who that couple is you didn’t recognize on the other side of Holly.”

  “His name is Andrew, not wrench head.”

  “I know.” He smirked at me.

  I scrunched up my face. “You’re not funny, stubborn yes, but not as funny as you think.”

  “What do you mean? I’m hilarious.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Maybe we should stop by and see how Matt is doing, too. If the police found anything since yesterday.”

  “Sure, might as well get it over with and not let a pending conversation with a border line psycho ruin our day. Let’s move.”

  Chapter Ten

  We made our way over to The Gilded Nickle and surprisingly the place was busy. Matt was not happy about being interrupted, but it was obvious that he had something to tell us. “Well, well, it’s the wise guy. But I’m glad you came by, Raine. One of my servers told me something interesting.”

  I smiled at Matt. “Well, it’s good to see you back at work. And we want to hear what you have to say.”

  Matt tried to smile back at me for a moment, but the muscles in his face didn’t know how to respond and instead he shot a sinister look at Jaxon. “Raine, such a pretty girl. You can do so much better than an overconfident P.I.”

  Jaxon shrugged. “I’m going to ignore that. So what did your guy have to say?”

  Matt glared back. “Not real smart to assume, wise guy. It was a gal, and she had plenty to say.”

  I intervened. “We would love to know what that was.”

  Matt's eyes never left Jaxon. He stared at my friend like he was studying someone who just scratched his brand new car. “It seems this Emery character was having a few words with his assistant. Something about meeting deadlines.”

  Jaxon raised one eyebrow a half inch. “So your big news is they were talking shop?”

  “The big time detective here can’t see a clue right in front of him.”

  “I see a big fat...”

  I cut Jaxon off. “Boys, behave. So Matt why did you think that was important.”

  “Because it sounded like Emery wasn’t doing his job and Holly was mad. Flo has been a server for twenty years and knows how to listen to people. She said it was clear to her that Holly was the brains, did all work, and the food critic was a bit of a blow hard.”

  I smiled. “We saw that too when they visited the tea room.”

  Matt nodded. “Yeah. That is what Flo thought, for sure.”

  I asked, “Do you know anything more about Holly and Emery’s relationship? Was it strained or were there any other problems?”

  Matt shrugged. “No. I don’t know. But they have worked together for a long time and are well known because they've reviewed so many restaurants. And most people consider their reviews accurate and reliable, for the most part.”

  Jaxon waved his hand like he was turning a page. “On another note, did the police talk to you this morning? Tell you anything else?”

  “Nope. Just what we already knew. Gave us a clean bill of health. No sesame oil.”

  Jaxon reached out his hand to shake. “Thank you for telling us. That is very helpful and kind of you.”

  Matt grunted and appeared to take a punch to the gut. He shook Jaxon’s hand. “Are you pulling my chain or are you serious?”

  Jaxon stood straight. “I’m serious, we should have asked you some of this last night, but things are slowly evolving. Thank you.”

  I said, “Thanks for talking with us. We’ll let you get back to work.”

  Matt froze and confusion dominated the expression on his face. He said nothing as Jaxon and I waved goodbye. We had other people to see.

  After we climbed in Jaxon’s car, he said, “So there is some conflict in Holly and Emery’s world. Matt said they were arguing about deadlines. That is interesting since I was debating whether we should pull all of Emery’s articles and study them. But that is time consuming and I put it on the back shelf.”

  I twisted so I could look Jaxon square in the eye. “You cut Matt off when he was telling us a little more about Emery and Holly.”

  “He was giving us something to sound smart. But it was common knowledge and I don’t want to waste time today on what we already know. Especially around a sociopath who has knife skills.”

  I nodded, “Yeah, I get it.”

  “So back to Emery’s articles. Is there someone who can help us with the task of obtaining and studying them?”

  I laughed. “As it happens, there is. Jessica wanted to get involved in this, so let’s bring her in. And she is smart, more than capable of doing it.”

  “Good, so we need to stop by and talk to her, too. But first, let’s head over to the inn and see if Oliver is there. I want to hear if he knows about Emery missing deadlines.” He started the car.

  After only a few minutes, the inn was in sight and we parked out front. We made our way to the front desk and used the house phone to call Oliver Reid.

  Jaxon said, “Hello, Oliver?” Then he went quiet for a moment. “It’s Jaxon Taylor. Raine’s friend. We talked to you yesterday afternoon and I would like to ask you a couple of quick followup questions. Do you have a minute?...Great, see you in a few minutes.
” He put the old-fashioned handset back in its cradle.

  I snorted. “Well, I’m surprised he is here.”

  “Why, there are only so many places to hang out and kill time in Sinking Springs.”

  “He likes the tea room. I actually anticipated he would be there.”

  “Well, he...Mr. Reid, thanks for coming down.”

  Oliver smiled and shook hands with both of us. “Still at it I see. You must not have solved it yet if you want to ask me a couple of questions.”

  Jaxon smiled back. “No, but we are making progress. And I would like to know if Holly and Emery had a good relationship, and if not, what were the problems they faced.”

  Oliver sighed. “Let’s sit over here.” He pointed to a group of arm chairs in the lobby. So we sat, and he continued. “It was only rumors. But the food service world gossips all the time and I heard that he and Holly missed a few deadlines.”

  Jaxon leaned back in his chair. “Everyone misses a deadline every now and then. So what?”

  “Well, that’s funny because I thought that the first time I heard the rumor. But then I heard another rumor that Emery may have plagiarized some articles, too, to speed things up.”

  I gasped. “Isn’t that illegal?”

  Jaxon said, “A published article would be copyrighted for sure. So it is if you copied a published piece.” He turned to face Oliver. “Do you remember where you heard that rumor?”

  Oliver shook his head no. “Not really. Like I said, you hear things all the time in this business.”

  Jaxon patted his forearm. “That is very interesting and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the information. Oh wait, maybe Raine can comp you a lunch with tea?” He spun to look at me.

  I glared back at him. “You are getting awful comfortable with my Grandmother’s money.”

  Oliver chuckled. “That’s not necessary. I told the police the same thing and the prices are good over at the tea room. I’m not looking for a freebie from a sweet old lady with a monkey.”