Greg looked from Winnie to Mr. Nelson and back again. “‘Unexpected inquisitions’?”
She cleared her throat, her focus never leaving her neighbor’s face. “Yeah, I just have a few questions for the comedian during the Q and A the Beans’ folks usually have at events like this one.”
“What kind of questions?” Greg asked.
“You know, if he killed Sally Dearfield and all.” Mr. Nelson rotated his head to catch a glimpse of the chalkboard menu hanging behind the register. “So what’s good here besides coffee? ’Cause if I drink a cup now, I’ll be pacing around all night.”
Winnie stifled the urge to laugh and the even bigger urge to point out her friend’s ability to sleep anywhere, anytime, and instead, rewound the conversation back to the pre-coffee stuff. “I have no intention of asking Mr. Masterson if he killed Sally. I’m simply going to see if I can hit on something regarding his relationship with the woman.”
Pressing his lips together, Mr. Nelson nodded slowly. “By asking that question outright?”
“I’ll disguise it. Like you did today.”
Mr. Nelson’s eyes shifted downward for less than a second before lifting to pin Winnie’s. “Like I did today?”
“Greg told me about your sudden interest in taking a magic lesson.”
Mr. Nelson slipped his hand into the front pocket of his trousers, pulled out a small red cup with a lid, and set it on the table. Then, with much pomp and circumstance, he retracted the lid long enough to show the cup’s empty interior. “See? There’s nothing there . . .”
“I see that.”
He replaced the lid and slowly waved his trembling hand across it. “One. Two. And threeee!”
Following his eyes down to the cup as he removed the lid once again, she took in the still-empty interior while Greg leaned over and whispered something in the man’s ear.
Clearly frustrated, Mr. Nelson tried the trick again. Still nothing.
“Mr. Nelson, it’s okay, you’ll get the hang of it at some point and then you can show me.”
“I can do this, Winnie!”
She drew back at the unfamiliar agitation in his voice, but before she could recover enough to speak, Greg tapped Mr. Nelson on the shoulder and then made a twisting motion with his hand.
Again, Mr. Nelson replaced the lid. Then, mimicking Greg’s not so subtle motions, he twisted the cup to the right. “One. Two. And threeee!”
Sure enough, a small white ball appeared in the once-empty cup.
“Ta-da!”
She clapped softly and then leaned across the table to squeeze her friend’s age-spotted hands. “You did it, Mr. Nelson. Very nice!”
Slowly, he lifted his gaze to Winnie’s. “You’d be surprised what I can do if I’m given a chance, Winnie Girl.”
“Mr. Nelson, that’s not fair,” she protested. “I believe in you—always. You know that. I just don’t want you worrying about this whole Sally Dearfield thing. It’s really nothing for you to worry about.”
“Is it something that’s weighing on you?”
She shrugged a yes.
“It’s keeping you up at night, ain’t it?”
“I—I don’t know . . . maybe a little.”
He returned his magic trick to his pocket and positioned his hand atop his cane. “If I was having trouble sleeping because of something, you’d want to help me, wouldn’t you?”
Touché.
“Mr. Nelson, I’ve got this covered.”
“Bridget is helping you, isn’t she?”
Reality dawned mid-nod and she threw herself against the back of her chair. “I’m sorry, Mr. Nelson, I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”
“I know that, Winnie Girl.” Placing his weight atop the cane, he rose to his feet, tapped Greg on the shoulder, and then nudged his chin in the direction of the counter. “C’mon, young fella, let’s get some snacks for the table before the show gets started.”
She watched Greg stand and follow the man up to the counter, buying her time to breathe and collect her thoughts. She hadn’t meant to slight Mr. Nelson, she really hadn’t. She just hated taking him away from the things that made him happy—his one-man chess games, his ogling of Renee, his unofficial job as her lead (don’t tell Renee) taste tester, and his bingo games. Yet even as she tried to rationalize her actions in that way, she realized she’d been selfish. In addition to wanting what was best for Mr. Nelson, she also liked his happy and unstressed self because of its contagious effect on her own life . . .
A flash of movement to the right of her outside elbow brought her self-reflection to an end just as Bridget’s finger darted past her nose to point at the empty seat next to Winnie’s. “Would you put my purse on that seat, dear, before someone decides to make their two-person table a three-person table with my chair?”
“Of course.” She claimed the voluminous bag from her next-door neighbor and tucked it on top of the chair. “Have you eaten anything yet?”
Bridget rested her hand on her abdomen and made a face. “My stomach has been swirling all day. I tried soup. I tried warm milk. I tried a few of those cookies you brought me the other night. But nothing has worked.” A quick look to her left and her right was followed by a lowering of her voice to a whisper. “I looked up my symptoms online, dear, and I’m afraid I have a stomach tumor.”
“Oh, Bridget, I’m sure it’s not a tumor.”
“Just because you deliver your desserts out of an ambulance, dear, doesn’t mean you have a medical degree.” Bridget took a moment to peruse the glass-fronted cabinet containing an assortment of cakes and cookies and then gestured toward their seatmates, who were now next in line to order. “I’ll be right back, dear, that cinnamon coffee cake looks divine.”
“But what about your stomach . . . ?” Winnie’s question fell away as its intended recipient made a beeline for the counter and the cinnamon coffee cake that had made her forget all about her latest purported dalliance with death.
Winnie savored her ensuing chuckle and took a moment to really take stock of all that was good in her life. Sure, the whole Caroline situation was putting a cloud over her budding relationship with Jay, but other than that, she couldn’t really ask for her life to be any better than it was at that moment.
The Emergency Dessert Squad was gaining more momentum with each passing week thanks to their growing list of satisfied customers. Renee, of course, was just as invaluable behind the scenes of the Dessert Squad as she’d been behind the counter at Delectable Delights. Mr. Nelson and Bridget (despite her often amusing but always insistent argument to the contrary) were in good enough health. And Winnie was able to keep up on her bills even if there was nothing left over after the last one was paid.
“So how’s things going with Lovey?” Greg asked as he reappeared beside the table with four lidded cups balanced in his arms. “Any improvement?”
So much for focusing on the positive aspects . . .
She freed him of two of the cups and set them down in the spots he indicated while he set the remaining cups in front of his spot and Mr. Nelson’s. “Same old, same old.”
He turned, grabbed two plates off the counter, and positioned them in the center of the table. “I got a plate of brownies and a plate of cookies. Mr. Nelson and Ms. O’Keefe are still at the register arguing over whether the third shared plate should have cinnamon coffee cake or lemon squares.”
Following his words to the counter, she considered rescuing the barista from the ensuing verbal war, but opted to remain right where she was, with Greg. “Every once in a while, I catch Lovey looking at me with something other than pure hatred, but it never lasts long.”
“Would you stop with that?” His rich laugh accompanied him into his seat. “I really don’t think Lovey hates you, Winnie. She’s just . . . I don’t know . . . playing a little hard to get, is all.”
�
��Then why doesn’t she play hard to get with everyone else?”
“Like . . .”
“Like Mr. Nelson, Bridget, Renee, you, the postman, the garbage collector . . . Shall I go on?” Then, scrunching her face, she answered her own question. “No. I shouldn’t. The list of people Lovey adores is endless. The list of people she detests is rather small—if you can call one name a list.”
He looked at her over the lid of his cup. “Do you want me to talk to her?”
It was her turn to laugh and laugh she did. “Do I want you to talk to her?”
“Go ahead, laugh. But I’ve always had a way with animals. Heck, I actually was the only one in my entire platoon who was never spit on by a camel when we were in the desert. In fact, the camels actually liked me.”
She took a sip of her own drink—a hot chocolate—and eyed him with open curiosity. “Okay . . .”
“It’s like you with anyone over seventy years of age,” he said, lowering his cup back to the table. “Animals just respond to me. Especially the female ones, oddly enough.”
It was too late to rescind her sip as evidenced by the spray of hot chocolate that flew out of her mouth. But at least Bridget was on her way back to the table and therefore able to help quell the choke-cough combination that followed.
When the back slapping stopped, Winnie wiped up all visual effects of Greg’s confession and shrugged. “Go ahead, talk to her if you want. It certainly can’t hurt at this point.”
“Talk to whom?” Bridget added the agreed upon (with agreed upon being a rather loose description) cinnamon cake to the center of the table and claimed the seat next to Winnie.
“Lovey.”
Bridget narrowed her eyes on Greg. “You’re going to talk to Lovey?” At his nod, she expanded her line of questions. “Why? About what?”
“He thinks maybe he can sweet-talk her into liking me.” Winnie swapped her cup for a cookie and took a bite, her taste buds snapping to attention while the baking side of her brain began noting all the pluses and the negatives.
“Save your breath, young man. Some things simply can’t be changed.” Bridget sent an annoyed look in the direction of the man caning his way back to the table with a plate of lemon squares in his free hand. “Like Parker, for instance. He was, is, and always will be a pigheaded fool.”
They were still laughing when the manager of the coffee shop took the makeshift stage and welcomed the small but lively crowd to the latest installment of what had been coined “Thursday Night at Beans.” The earnest twenty-something listed a few of the week’s coffee specials and then rocked back on his heels. “Okay, now that that’s out of the way, let’s get on with the evening. All of us here at Beans are beyond excited to introduce, to the stage, a comedian you will no doubt be seeing on The Late Show in the not-too-distant future. For now, though, he’s agreed to be here at Beans with all of us and I know he’ll have you rolling on the floor before you’ve finished your first coffee. Let’s give it up, everyone, for Ned Masterson. Ned, come on out here.”
The applause built to a crescendo and then stopped as the man Winnie judged to be about forty lifted his hands into the air for quiet. “Thanks for the intro there, guy, but I’ve gotta correct you on the part about agreeing to be here. You see, the only reason I’m here is because I can’t leave.”
Pockets of laughter rose up around the room before Ned silenced the crowd with his hands once again. “No, no, seriously, folks. The past few days here have been everything I envisioned hell to be right down to the endless text messages from my ex-wife.”
Mr. Nelson leaned across the table toward Winnie. “What’s he saying about a knife?”
Shaking her head, she tapped her finger to her ear and waited as he adjusted the volume on his hearing aids. When he was done, Winnie rushed to repeat the joke before its answering laughter had subsided completely.
“But, hey, there was one thing I didn’t expect to find here in hell,” Ned said, egging on the crowd once again.
A male seated toward the back took the bait. “And what was that?”
“That the desserts would be so, so, sooo good.”
Chapter 18
“Okay, so that didn’t go exactly as I’d planned.” Winnie consulted her rearview mirror and then pulled into the flow of traffic behind Bridget’s no-frills four-door economy car.
Mr. Nelson stopped fidgeting with the top of his cane and wedged it between his seat and the passenger side door. “Life rarely does, Winnie Girl. That’s what keeps things interesting.”
“That’s one word for what happened back there.”
His soft chuckle filled the cabin only to disappear as Bridget slowed to a crawl for no apparent reason. “One of these days, that crazy woman is gonna kill someone with her driving.”
“There’s a raccoon, see?” Winnie pulled her hand off the steering wheel and pointed at the wild animal scampering across the road in front of Bridget’s car. “If you ask me, Mr. Nelson, I think Bridget’s eyesight and reflexes are still pretty good.”
“Let’s not go overboard, Winnie Girl.” Leaning forward, he ran his hand along the Dessert Squad’s dashboard. “So old Gertie’s ambulance is still going strong, eh?”
“No issues so far.” At the four-way stop, Winnie allowed Bridget to clear the empty intersection before she, too, turned right. “So what did you think of Ned’s comment about being lured to Silver Lake under false pretenses?”
“It wasn’t a news flash, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Mr. Nelson was right. From her Lovey-elongated encounter with Colin Norton the day after Sally’s murder, she already knew about the bogus auditions for Do You Have What It Takes? All the question and answer session really did was verify that Ned had fallen for the same ruse. So really, she’d learned nothing from the comedian that she hadn’t already known.
“I wish the Beans guy hadn’t wrapped up the session before I had a chance to ask when, in relation to Sally’s death, he learned the auditions weren’t going to happen. Because if he found that out before her death, I can’t figure out why he stayed. Why any of them stayed.”
“Sure you can, Winnie Girl.”
She glanced at her companion as they approached the next stop sign. “Sure I can, what?”
“Figure out why they stayed.”
“What are you talking about, Mr. Nelson?”
“Think about it, Winnie Girl. When Bridget is hungry, what does she do?”
She didn’t understand the shift in topic, but she played along, anyway. “She eats?”
“I mean when she’s sitting on the porch with us and there’s no food around.”
“Oh. Okay. She drops little hints.”
“Little hints?” he challenged.
She laughed. “You know what I mean.”
“And when she doesn’t feel as if we’re paying attention to her?”
“She talks about her health issues.” She turned left at the next stop sign and then right onto Serenity Lane. “But I don’t get what any of this has to do with wanting to figure out why Ned, Colin, and the rest of the artists stayed.”
“Think about his stand-up routine—the one topic he kept coming back to again and again.”
Bridget’s car continued to the driveway beyond theirs, while Winnie turned left. “I know he was really funny, but I don’t remember any sort of theme running through his jokes.”
“Remember the joke about his ex-wife and the hit man?” At her nod, he continued. “And the one about the bank manager and the influx of cash in his account?”
She nodded again.
“Don’t forget the dirty one about the video camera and the coed . . .”
“That one was a little much.” She pulled the key from the ignition and gestured toward the house. “Shall we continue this inside? I’m pretty sure I have a rhubarb pie with your name written
all over it.”
“Blackmail.”
She pulled her feet back into the Dessert Squad and turned back to her friend. “Excuse me?”
“His routine followed themes—his ex-wife, his kids, his own childhood, dating, and the jokes he told stayed within those themes. Except for one notable exception.”
“And that is?”
“The blackmail jokes. He tossed those in like Bridget tosses in food references when she’s hungry.”
“He didn’t do that, did . . .” The rest of her sentence fell away as the truth behind Mr. Nelson’s observation took root. “Wait a minute. You’re right. I—I guess I sort of forgot about those jokes because they weren’t as smooth as the others.”
Mr. Nelson opened his door, planted the end of his cane on the driveway, and leveraged himself up and out of the car.
“Wait!” When he lowered his head back into eye contact range, she continued. “Do you really think that’s the key to all of this? That Sally was blackmailing him?”
“I think she was blackmailing all of them.”
It made sense. It really did. But . . .
She swiveled her feet back onto the pavement and met Mr. Nelson on the walkway up to their shared front porch. “If you’re right, what on earth could she have had on five very different people that would have kept them here even after they knew the whole reality TV show thing was a lie?”
“I suspect the answer to that question isn’t in their differences.”
She froze her left foot on the bottom porch step and stared up at her friend. “You think it has something to do with the school where she worked?”
“I do, and so do you. Think about it, Winnie, you started talking about a connection between them from the very start.”
“I did. But aside from having gone to a school where Sally worked, I haven’t found any real connection between the artists themselves beyond a shared alma mater.”
Dial M for Mousse Page 14
