by Maddie Day
I peered at the results. There was the law firm. There was him announced as Jon’s best man at the wedding. There was . . . what? I tapped the link. Vince had attended Brown County High School, only five miles from here, and had been president of the math club. So he wasn’t from Chicago, after all. And might well have known Erica, since South Lick High and Brown County played each other in sports and often combined other activities like dances and projects. Now wasn’t that interesting? Ms. Detective Octavia Slade might want to know this particular piece of information.
* * *
I headed back into the restaurant to bake the gingerbread walls. I’d read they needed to dry out for a couple of days before being assembled and decorated. I preheated the oven and rolled out the dough, then placed Phil’s templates on top, carefully cutting around them. After setting the timer for eight minutes, I wandered around the store tidying up the shelves, humming “The First Noel,” doing my best to simply be present in the moment.
Twenty minutes later, the gingerbread sat cooling on a rack under a light dishtowel, and I sat curled up on the couch in my apartment with a book of Sudoku puzzles, Birdy purring at my feet. I usually whizzed through Sudoku, except right now my focus was shot. I’d called Octavia and left a message, telling her what I knew about Vince. I told her I didn’t know if he was staying with the Berrys or not, and I spelled his name in the message. He was an odd dude. I didn’t know why he would have murdered Erica, but anything was possible.
The little light in the corner of the phone pulsed at me: the call that had come in while I was making coleslaw. After I checked and saw it’d been Jim, I called him back.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey, yourself. Called you earlier.”
“I know, I’m sorry. I was literally up to my elbows mixing up coleslaw, and then I forgot to check my phone until right now. What’s up?”
“I was going to ask you over for a fancy omelet dinner. But I got too hungry and ate alone.”
I laughed. “I had exactly the same dinner. Also alone.”
“How was your day?”
“Pretty interesting.” I yawned. “And full.” I told him what I’d learned about Erica. “But you must have known all those details already. That she was difficult?”
“Some of it. I didn’t know about when she was a teenager, though. I always say I grew up here, but we moved to Chicago before I started high school. As I told you, I didn’t make the trip up to spend much time with Jon and Erica after I moved back here five years ago. I was too busy getting my practice going.” His voice grew soft. “Now I can’t spend time with either of them.”
“I know what you mean. After my mom died with no warning while I was already living in Indiana, I wished I’d gone back to visit more often. But we can’t change the past.”
He fell silent. Finally he said, “What’s the rest of your week look like?”
“The usual. Breakfast and lunch for the town. At least I hope customers will show up and not stay away because they’re freaked out I found a dead body on the floor.”
“I’ll see what I can do to talk it up. I’ll be in Nashville all day tomorrow, though, and I have a closing at six. Hey, did the Berrys say anything about a service for Erica?”
“No, they didn’t. Jim, remember you mentioned meeting a friend of Jon’s at the wedding, the pale nervous one? Was his name Vincent?”
“Right. How did you know?”
“He came down today to pay his respects, or at least that’s what Sue said. He was there at the house this afternoon.”
“Good of him,” Jim said.
“I keep thinking about him. He acts really odd. Anyway, I Googled him. One article said he went to Brown County High School. He might have known Erica here.”
“He never mentioned it at the wedding. But I didn’t spend much time talking with him.”
“I left a message about him for Octavia. In case she wants to check him out.” There, an opening for him to tell me the rest of the story of how he knew Octavia.
“You’re thinking this Vincent might have killed Erica?” Jim asked.
Opening ignored. “I don’t know. What if Erica wronged him and he held a grudge all these years? Who knows if he arrived today like he said—”
“Or came down Saturday? It seems a little far-fetched, Robbie.”
“Not as far-fetched as Paula accusing me of murdering Erica.”
“That’s crazy. She did, really?” he asked.
“Yep.” I yawned again. “Listen, I have an early day tomorrow. Let’s have dinner later in the week, okay?”
“I’d like that.” His voice lowered to a sexy rasp. “I think about you all the time, you know.”
“Same here, Jim. Same here.” I laughed. But did I think about him all the time? Not really.
“Good night, then.”
I said good night and disconnected. Jim was a really great guy. He was smart, fun to be with, sexy. And he cared about me. A lot. I liked him, too, also a lot. But I didn’t think about him all the time. Sometimes, sure. Was that going to be enough? I frowned and blew out a breath. Was I getting cold feet? I supposed I was still protecting myself from being dropped. When my mistake of a husband, Will, had abruptly left me for a hot California fighter pilot, I’d felt burned by more than jet fuel. My heart had a big sear mark on it and the scar was still tender. And yet I yearned for love, and Jim was a perfect candidate. Intelligent, attractive, healthy, successful—and interested in me.
Why did life have to be so complicated?
Chapter 13
I glanced at Danna at eight the next morning. “This is not good,” I whispered. Despite the air smelling delectably of bacon and maple syrup, despite the festive lights and decorations adding sparkling cheer to the place, only two tables were occupied. Business in the hour since we’d opened had been lighter than it ever had since the restaurant’s grand opening in early October. A couple of the regulars had come in for coffee and breakfast, but we hadn’t experienced the usual bustle of a weekday morning. The two women who stopped in almost every day for biscuits and a game of chess hadn’t even shown up.
“For sure. It’s totally too dead.” Danna stared at the big bowl of fruit salad. Today her head was wrapped in a brilliant turquoise scarf, keeping her reddish-gold dreadlocks off her face and out of the food. “I shouldn’t have made so much.”
“I’ve only baked one pan of biscuits, and half of those are still in the warmer.” My bottom line was really going to suffer if this kept up. I walked over and peered out the front window at a dark sky that had let loose a deluge in the last half hour, then rejoined her. “It might be the rain, or because we’re just past Thanksgiving, but I bet it’s the murder.”
“And I cut up all those mangoes for omelets. Hope they don’t go to waste.” She pointed at the pile of minced green bits.
I always did a double take when she referred to green peppers as mangoes, like so many others did in this area. We sure didn’t call them that in California, but when in Rome.... A man sitting with a friend waved at me, holding up his coffee cup and smiling. I hurried over with the full pot and refilled the mug.
“Can I get you gentlemen anything else this morning?” I asked. I wasn’t sure I’d seen them here before, and was grateful for their coming in today, of all days.
“We’re all set, thank you, Miz Jordan.”
I handed him their check.
“Pretty quiet in here, isn’t it?” he said.
I smiled. “Sure is.”
His companion pursed his lips. “We got a few friends said they weren’t coming in here where a dead body was found. Said it might be bad luck. I told them that was crazy talk, but they were set on it.”
“I hope that’s not a widely held view,” I said.
The first man batted away the thought. “We’ll go back and tell ’em we survived just fine.”
“I’d appreciate it.” After they thanked me and left, I cleared their table and counted the money they’d le
ft. “Wait,” I called out, but they were gone. There was an extra twenty in the pile of bills.
I carried it over to Danna. “Think this was a mistake or simply a whopping big tip?”
She lifted a shoulder. “Take it as a tip. Why not?”
I’d just slid the bill into the Tips jar on the counter when the door jangled. In walked Adele and five women, all carrying puffy cloth bags stuffed with bulky shapes. Long knitting needles stuck out of Adele’s. Right behind the women came Samuel MacDonald and a collection of men. I smiled and walked toward Adele and her ladies, who were shaking rain off their jackets and furling umbrellas.
“Good morning and welcome,” I said. “Sit anywhere you’d like, please.”
“Told Purl Jam we should oughta come on over here for our meeting,” Adele said.
“Pearl Jam? Isn’t that an oldies rock band?” I asked.
“P-U-R-L,” Adele spelled out. “Like in knit and purl. We’re a knitting club, and most everybody uses the yarn from my own sheep.”
“Aha. I love the name.” I distributed my two-sided laminated menus to the six of them, who’d taken the biggest table in the room, the one which seated eight. One woman had already pulled a half-finished something or other out of her bag. Her needles clicked quietly, industriously.
I called over to Samuel’s group. “Aren’t you part of the men’s Bible breakfast group? But you usually come on Fridays, don’t you?” I grabbed another stack of menus and took them to the table where the men had settled in, four Bibles in front of them.
“Little extra study doesn’t harm anybody. Especially when we can get such a tasty breakfast.” Samuel, dressed as usual in a button-down shirt with a colorful silk tie, glanced at the other men, two of whom nodded, but one frowned.
“Where’d the Berry girl die?” he asked, craning his neck to look all around.
“Billy, you don’t need to be asking a question like that,” Samuel said. He rubbed his wiry, grizzled hair, which he wore cut short all over, and his hooded eyes studied his friend.
“It’s okay,” I said, taking a deep breath and blowing it out. “I found her across the room over there. Don’t worry; it’s all been scrubbed down. Now, can I start you gentlemen off with some coffee this morning? And are you ready to order?”
And that opened the floodgates. Townspeople streamed in, despite the weather, despite having just come off a big holiday. Despite the murder. By nine o’clock all the tables were full and a party of three women browsed the cookware shelves while they waited for seats to open up. Danna worked the griddle and I bustled around taking orders, clearing tables, refilling mugs, and answering the ever-present question: I had no idea who’d killed Erica. In my spare moments I rolled out, cut, and baked two more batches of biscuits, grateful I’d prepped the dough the day before.
Samuel waved me over. “Do you want us to vacate this table?” he asked.
“Are you kidding?” I asked. “You and Adele are the magic that drew everybody else in. You stay put.”
He laughed, and returned to reading aloud to his friends from his well-thumbed Bible. “‘For behold, the Lord is coming forth out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity, and the earth will disclose the blood shed upon her, and will no more cover her slain.’”
* * *
By ten thirty the rush had ebbed enough for me to sit down with Adele for a minute with a mug of coffee and a plate holding a couple of sausages and a broken biscuit. The rest of the knitters had left, but Adele had stayed on and helped bus dishes. In between loading up the dishwasher and wiping down tables, she made sure to tell every single customer they were welcome and to bring in a friend tomorrow. Samuel’s gang had ended their session with a hand-holding prayer before they’d left. They also left a generous tip. My heart was swelling up with all this support.
“You can’t believe how much it meant to me this morning, Adele.” I took a sip of coffee. “For you and Samuel both to bring in a big group, well, it was magic. Or magnetic or something. Look how busy we’ve been.” I chewed a sausage, savoring the peppery, salty, juicy meat. I’d be hopeless as a vegetarian.
“It wasn’t anything. We all want you to succeed, and you can’t help it if somebody unloaded a dead woman in here.”
“True. Did your knitting ladies enjoy themselves?” I slathered butter on the biscuit. It didn’t matter it wasn’t warm. I’d earned my breakfast today.
“We always enjoy ourselves.” Adele let out her signature deep, rolling laugh. “Criminy, all we do is gossip. It’s just a bonus we can produce something while we do it. And say, I took and brought you those skeins you wanted. Let me get them out of the car.” She hoisted herself up and headed for the door.
I stood, too. “Danna, sit down for a while, why don’t you?” I smoothed down my apron. As I did, I felt a shape in my pocket, the object I’d picked up from the floor near the cookware. I’d worn the same jeans this morning as I’d put on yesterday after my shower. Funny that Octavia hadn’t gotten back to me about it. I pulled it out and flattened my palm when Danna approached. “Any idea what this is?”
“No, not really.” She lowered herself into a chair. “Where’d you find it?”
“Near the cookware yesterday. What do you think it is?”
Danna shook her head. “No clue. You could ask Don over at Shamrock.”
“Good idea.”
“Ask Don what?” Adele walked up, both hands holding a couple of big paper bags with handles.
I showed her the device. “I found this under the cookware shelves yesterday. I’m trying to figure out what it is, and who left it there.”
Adele pursed her lips. “Maybe somebody at the party? Or one of your customers. You got lots of folks coming through here, hon.” She joined Danna at the table.
The bell at the service door sounded. At last—the delivery guy.
“Man, just in time.” When both Adele and Danna looked confused, I went on. “I forgot to order more meat after I used it all up for the party sliders. Last night I asked for a rush delivery, and we got so busy this morning I forgot all about it.”
“Wait, Robbie.” Danna laid her hand on my arm. “How do you know who it is?” Her light eyebrows were drawn into a furrow. “You don’t have a window in the door, or a camera out there, right?”
I stared at her. “What do you mean?” It wasn’t like Danna to be frightened of anything.
“Well, what if it’s Erica’s killer at the door with a gun or something?” she whispered.
I set both hands on the table and leaned down. “Danna. It’s mid-morning on a Tuesday. The restaurant is open, there are lots of people around. I’m pretty sure we’re safe.”
She relaxed her forehead and gazed at me, blinking a few times. “Maybe I’m extra worried because I’m staying by myself.”
When I widened my eyes, she added, “Mom’s up in Indy at a meeting with all the other mayors in the state. Last night I heard a noise outside and totally freaked out. I hauled the dog under the covers with me. Later I realized it was probably only the wind, but . . . ”
“Hey, hon.” Adele slid her arm around Danna’s shoulders. “You don’t have to worry. Everything’s going to be just ducky. I never heard of a killer ringing a doorbell.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
The bell rang again. “We’re safe, Danna,” I said. She was only nineteen, after all. I headed for the door and pulled it open with only a hint of nervousness. When I saw our regular delivery guy, I could have hugged him, but I restrained myself. He handed me the slip to sign, and then unloaded a big, cold, waxed cardboard box into my arms.
“Thanks. Hang on a minute, would you?” I asked him. I set the box down, then showed him the object. “Did you drop this last time you were here?”
He looked at me like I was nuts. “No, ma’am, I did not. I got to get to my deliveries, now.” As the door clicked shut behind him, I slid the thing back into my pocket. Really, anyone could have dropped it.
I stashed the meat in the walk-in and headed back to the table. “Let’s see the yarn, Adele.” I watched as she drew out skein after skein of soft wool dyed in gorgeous shades of the rainbow. Some were purples and pinks combined, others greens and blues.
“Makes me want to take up knitting,” Danna said, fingering them. “Would you teach me sometime, Adele?”
Adele grinned. “Why, surely. Always like to pass along crafts to the young.”
“I could make an awesome Rasta hat with this yarn, and a scarf and socks to match.”
Danna always dressed with a creative and unconventional touch. Today, besides the turquoise scarf, she was wearing hot pink overall shorts over turquoise tights and black polka-dotted hi-tops, with a black knit shirt under the overalls. I could totally picture her in a rainbow-hued floppy beret.
I stood. “Let’s figure out where to display the yarn, and then I’ve got to start lunch prep.”
Adele handed me a big envelope and a couple of clear acrylic sign holders. “I printed up signs and prices.” She slid the yarn back into the bags and stood, as well.
“Great. How about over there?” I strode to a set of sparsely populated shelves. I consolidated the cookware and cleared a space for her. “Maybe I should bring in some other local products for sale, especially now for the holidays. I’m sure I could find honey and maple syrup. What else?”
“There’s an Amish farmer around here makes real nice soaps,” Adele said, laying out the yarn. “I’ll text you his info when I get home.”
“Thanks.” I stroked one of the soft skeins.
“I’m heading out now, hon. You set up the signs as you like them.”
“Will do.”
“You both have a good day, you hear?”
Danna waved from the griddle, where she’d resumed scrubbing. I hugged Adele and watched her go.
“Yoo-hoo.” One of the last two customers waved her hand. “Can we get the check, please?”
“Of course.” I hurried over and pulled it out of my apron pocket, handing it to her. “Was everything all right?”
“De-super delicious,” the man at the table said, beaming. “You think you might ever put fried biscuits on the menu? They’re real tasty, especially with some of your apple butter.”
