by Lynn Cahoon
“So what happens if you can’t figure it out?” I was afraid I already knew the answer.
Greg stood and paced. “Unless Tiny’s past turns out to be a problem, Matt’s the one who has the most to lose in that case. He has a serious record. He was the one who found the body. The other guys hadn’t gone inside yet. I doubt that there’s enough evidence to convict Matt, but the DA might just want to make his life miserable until they have to back off. You know how small towns are. Even if he doesn’t go to trial, if the gossip starts, he’ll be considered guilty.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that.”
Monday morning, I stopped into City Hall on my way home. Amy sat at the desk, a copy of Surfer Dude open in front of her. She didn’t even look up when I came into the lobby. Leave it to Amy to buy a magazine with a lot of pictures of hot dudes riding crazy waves and then actually read the articles. “When’s your next trip?” I asked her.
“Right after the Fourth of July festival. A group of us are going down to Mexico for a few days. Want to tag along?” Amy turned her magazine over.
“Sun, waves, and hot guys? So not my scene.” I plopped down in her visitor’s chair. “Did you ever find anything on the changes to the fire regulations?”
“Actually, I was going to stop by this morning, but it got a little crazy here.” Amy pulled out a folder with about a three-inch stack of paper inside.
“Yeah, I can tell you’ve been overrun.” I glanced around the empty lobby. “How do you handle the pressure?”
“Stop being a jerk.” Amy grinned. “You know I can’t leave if there isn’t anyone to answer phones, and Esmeralda had an appointment this a.m. so I’m the temporary police dispatcher.”
“A doctor’s appointment?” I didn’t really care, but Amy would know.
She leaned closer. “That’s what she told Greg, but she told me she had a client insisting on coming in first thing this morning so she had to see them. I guess she had a bad dream and needed it interpreted.”
Dreams appeared to be Esmeralda’s specialty lately. “Well, thanks anyway for the regulations. I guess I’ll take this home to read instead of that new thriller I got this morning.”
“No problem. The weird thing is there weren’t any new duties or powers given to the fire chief that had been passed through the council. Bill came in a few days ago asking the same questions. I do the notes for the council meetings and went back to check. And Barry asked for more power a few times, but he didn’t have the ability to shut a business down unless it was an emergency.”
“So he lied to me.” Now I really hated the guy, dead or not.
Amy flipped her hair back out of her face. “You and a ton of other businesses. Mayor Baylor was getting a lot of complaints from the community. Darla even came in and sat in his office until he promised to fix the problem.”
As I left City Hall, I thought about Mayor Baylor and his promise to correct Barry. Would he have dirtied his own hands to get the fire chief out of his hair and get the complaints to stop? I didn’t think so. Besides, it didn’t change the fact that there were only three possible killers. Sweet Bill, reformed Matt, and reimagined Tiny. There had to be another person who no one had seen.
My phone rang with the theme song from the Andy Griffith Show. I smiled and picked up the call. “Hey, Aunt Jackie, what’s going on?”
“You’re late for the staff meeting. I know you excused Toby to play policeman, but I expected you as the owner and manager of the place to show up.” My aunt’s sense of humor was pretty acidic.
“Sorry, I forgot. I’m just down the street. I’ll be right there.” I turned away from home and power walked to Coffee, Books, and More. Why my aunt couldn’t have reminded me before I left the shop this morning, I didn’t know. Then I stopped in the middle of the empty sidewalk and took a deep breath. It wasn’t my aunt’s job to handhold me on this business thing. I needed to do my part. It was, after all, my business. No matter what my aunt thought.
I strolled into the coffee shop and grabbed a cup of coffee before I sat at the table with my aunt, Sasha, and Nick. When I finally sat, I turned toward my aunt. “Did you have an agenda you wanted to cover?”
Eyeing me suspiciously, she handed out a schedule to the three of us. “I want us to get on the same page for next week’s festival.”
“It’s color coordinated. What does yellow mean?” Sasha grinned at the page. “I color coordinate my planner at home. Family time, work time, study time, they all have their own colors.”
“Well, this is kind of like that, but yellow means the shop and pink is the annex down by the bicycle shop.” My aunt used her copy to indicate the two different schedules.
“Why did you use pink? You could have had a more gender-neutral color, like lime.” Nick squirmed in his chair a bit. “I have to hang this up in my room so I can see it while I’m working on my summer projects. And it’s pink.”
“The color doesn’t matter. Anyway, you can see that there are two columns for each day. The yellow is for who will be at the shop and the pink is who is at the annex. Nick, you’ll do most of your time at the annex with either Jill or Sasha helping. I’ll be stationed here with Amy and Sasha. Jill, you’ll fill in where we have holes or where the most business is.”
My aunt laid out a set of walkie-talkies. “And we’ll keep in touch with these.”
Nick picked one up. “Whoa, are these antiques?”
“No. They aren’t antiques. They are walkie-talkies. Haven’t you ever seen one before?” Aunt Jackie looked between Nick and Sasha, who were both looking at the items like they were an ancient set of drums they were supposed to use to communicate.
“I don’t understand. Why don’t we just use our cell phones to call when we need help?” Sasha looked at Aunt Jackie like she’d been asked to wash clothes in the river using rocks.
“Well, what if you don’t have your phone …”
Sasha and Nick both shook their head.
“I would always have my phone.” Nick looked at Aunt Jackie like she was speaking a foreign language.
“Well, what if the battery ran out?” My aunt was still trying to sell the advantage of using the radios.
Nick dug in his backpack. He held up a slim metal rectangle. “Then I’ll plug it into this and recharge it.”
“Ooh, can I see that? I’ve been meaning to get one, but they’re so pricy.” Sasha reached for the item and Nick handed it to her.
“Actually, these are cheap at school. I can get you one when I go up next month to sign up for classes. They should have one at your bookstore though.”
“That’s where I looked. They were over thirty dollars. I figured I’d just be good at keeping the phone charged at night and when I’m driving.” Sasha handed the battery charger back.
“I got this for ten bucks. I’ll pick you up one. It’s always nice to have a backup, just in case.” Nick tucked it into his backpack and turned back to the table. Noticing my aunt staring at the two of them, he blushed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to hijack the meeting.”
“Getting back to next week. If you start to get slammed, reach out to the other location. You can use the walkie-talkies or call. I don’t care.” Aunt Jackie paused and looked at each one of us before continuing. By the time she was finished with her meeting, I was worn out.
Nick was the first to leave. “Mom’s been in the bakery for days now, getting ready for the festival. I told her I’d help her do some deliveries this afternoon.”
It was way past my lunch time and my stomach was growling. I watched Nick leave and Sasha head back to the coffee bar with our cups. I turned to my aunt. “I’m heading to Lille’s to grab a bite. You want to come along?”
“No, I’ve had my share of eating out this week.” My aunt picked up a walkie-talkie. “Am I as obsolete as these seem to be?”
“You are not obsolete. You’re a classic.” I got a smile out of her with that description. “These were from another time when telephones were all
landlines. Now, everyone carries a mini computer around with them that also takes phone calls and pictures.”
“The world’s changing fast. And I’m not ready to get on that moving sidewalk, not just yet.” My aunt took the walkie-talkies and put them behind the counter. “You go on and have a nice lunch. We’ll talk later.”
I left, but my aunt’s sadness seemed to follow me to Diamond Lille’s. As Carrie brought my tea, she whistled. “What has your goat, missy?”
“My goat?” I glanced up from the menu I knew from heart but didn’t know what I wanted yet.
Carrie took the menu from me. “You’re in a funk. I know just the meal to get you out of it.”
“I don’t know …”
But Carrie didn’t listen to my half-hearted objection, walking away and greeting another table while she ignored me.
I grabbed a book out of my tote and pushed aside the fire regulation file. I could read that later. Like tomorrow later. Or next month later. Or at least before my aunt hired her electrician to fix the problems at the shop that may or may not even be problems. I made a promise to start reading as soon as I got home. I opened the thriller and got lost on the narrow streets of Italy.
Carrie dropped my food off and I nibbled on fish and chips while I read. When I realized the basket was empty, I glanced at my watch. It was close to two and the diner was nearly empty.
When I put the bookmark into the novel and sighed, I knew I’d open it back up as soon as I got home. Fire regulation study would have to come tomorrow. I smiled as Carrie came back with my check. “How do you know exactly what I need?”
“You’re easy. You get this small smile when you’re eating certain foods. Your pal Amy is the same way. But some folks, like that Josh Thomas, I can’t tell if he likes or hates his meal. He pays me the same tip every time, exactly twelve point five percent.” Carrie lowered her voice. “Of course that Barry guy made me rethink everything I knew about him when he came in last week. He left me a one hundred dollar tip. For a fifteen dollar lunch! I told him it was too much, and he just shook his head and said it was mine now. Then he walked out. Can you believe that?”
“Weird. Was he always a good tipper?” Maybe I needed to study the victim more and forget about the suspects, who I didn’t think could actually be real suspects.
Carrie barked out a laugh. “Not on your life. I can list off a ton of times he stiffed me out of any tip at all. Now, with the kids sometimes I expect that since some of them aren’t raised right. But he knew better. I guess maybe that hundred dollars was his way of making up for all the times he left me nothing.”
“Maybe.” I wondered if Barry was in an atoning mind-set last week and, if so, why. I glanced toward the kitchen. “Hey, could I talk to Tiny for a second?”
Carrie glanced around the empty dining room. “Lille ran to the bank so I think you have about ten minutes before she gets back. Get in and out because if she finds you in there, I’m not saying I let you go back.”
Smiling, I grabbed my tote and dropped a few bills on the table for my meal. “I’ll be quick. Thanks, Carrie.”
“I don’t know what you’re thanking me for. Time’s wasting, tick tock.” She started to clean the table and pocketed the bill and the cash to take to the register.
I made my way through the empty tables and, glancing at the door, circled around the counter and right into the kitchen. No one was there, but a door was open to the back. I went out the doorway and there sat Tiny on a folding chair in the alleyway, smoking a cigarette. I sat on the steps going down to the alley and smiled. “Mind if we talk for a minute?”
“Your boyfriend’s been trying to corner me for days. Might as well talk to you.” He grinned and I realized he had a gold tooth. “What do you want to know besides I didn’t kill Barry?”
“Tell me about that morning. Was there anyone else there in the building when you guys showed up at the site?”
Tiny shook his head. “Not that I saw, but I was the last one to get there. I live in Bakerstown so it takes me a while to get here. Barry called this stupid training exercise at six that same morning. I had to be in South Cove by ten. And I’m not much of a morning person.”
“So you arrived at ten and the other men were already there?”
“Ten thirty. Man, Barry was hot. He looked like he was already sweating from the heat. And he looked tired. If he hadn’t got up at the crack of dawn to call us all, he could have gotten more sleep. Anyway, Barry gave me a good dressing down for being late, and then he told us about the exercise. He’d already set up the burn spots, so he was going into the building to light the accelerant. We were supposed to wait thirty minutes, then go in, put out the fire, then tell him what actually caused the fire.”
I waited as he put out his cigarette and lit another one.
He laughed as he looked at it. “I wondered if he was going to use a cigarette fire since he was always on my butt about smoking. He said I got enough smoke in my lungs from the work we did and I shouldn’t press fate.”
“So what did you do while you waited?”
He rubbed his free hand over his bald head. “Bill set a timer on his watch. He has a set process for everything. I teased him that he was being a little OCD, but he just grinned and said, ‘Barry told us thirty minutes. I don’t want to be late.’”
He paused, flicking an ash into a soda can.
“I guess then we bull …” He paused and changed his word. “We talked until the watch went off, grabbed our gear, and put out the fire. It wasn’t easy. That building was old and the wood dry like a summer day. We got it out, went inside to find the starting point, then Matt found Barry.”
“Matt found him?” I prompted.
“Came running out of the building, ripped his mask off, and then threw up by the tree. I don’t think that boy has ever seen a dead body before.” Tiny shook his head. “He’ll never forget this one.”
“Then what?”
“After we got Matt calmed down, he told us Barry was in the building, dead and half burned up. Bill called the police station and I went inside to see if Barry was really dead or if this was just part of the exercise. The boy wasn’t exaggerating.” He shook his head and put out the half-smoked cigarette. “I’ll never forget that sight either.”
Chapter 6
“Seriously Jill? What are you doing here?” Greg’s voice came from behind me. I glanced up and saw him standing at the doorway.
“Now, mister, don’t be getting the wrong ideas. The girl and I were just comparing recipes.” Tiny Colsen stood and stared at Greg. “No need for you to get your panties in an uproar.”
“And there’s no need for you to lie for her. I know you were talking about Barry’s murder.” He stepped around me and pulled me to my feet. “You go home. I’ll interview Tiny because that’s my job.”
I started up the steps, then glanced at Tiny. “Can I get through the alley to the street?”
“Of course.” He turned and pointed behind him. “Main Street’s right out there. You avoiding Lille?”
“I’m always avoiding Lille.” I smiled at Greg. “Come by the house when you have time. I have a cheesecake.”
“You’re in enough trouble that it better be chocolate.” He squeezed my arm and nodded toward the street. He lowered his voice. “I’ll stop by later.”
“Thanks for the recipes, Tiny.” I grinned as I walked by. “It was nice to talk to you.”
“I’ll come by that shop of yours soon. I guess I better start buying my reading material there as I’m part of South Cove now.” Tiny grinned at me as I walked by.
There was no way this guy was a killer. Which just took all the suspects off my list. And probably Greg’s list in the next ten minutes. I wondered if Greg was right. Would the DA push to run a case against Matt just because of his history? The thought troubled me long after I arrived at home.
I put the folder of fire regulations on the coffee table, grabbed a soda, and curled up with the novel I’d started
in the diner. I might as well finish it now. I’d do the other reading tomorrow morning when I was really at work. Of course, as a small-business owner, I was always on the clock because I was always thinking about the business.
Right.
I opened the book and got lost in the story.
Since Greg hadn’t shown up last night, I’d been able to finish the book before I’d crawled into bed late. When I arrived at the store the next morning, I pulled the stack of papers out of my tote. Now I had no excuse not to dig into the fire code. I’d made my way through half of the regulations, highlighting the ones that actually pertained to my store and trying to match those up against Barry’s list. I had better luck when I looked at the list that Aunt Jackie’s electrician had made. It looked like we were going to have to invest in some upgrades for the building. I poured a cup of coffee and stood staring at the pile of papers.
A woman came into the store and beelined to the coffee bar. “Can I get a double shot mocha with whipped cream? I’ll be looking at books too, but right now, I need a jolt.”
“Sure. If you want, I can just wait and charge you for all of it together.” I moved toward the coffee machine and grabbed a to-go cup. “You want a large in one of these? Or our more upscale in-store china cups?”
“Paper is fine, and yes, as large as you have.” The woman sat down at the counter and pulled out a tissue. She wiped her eyes and then blew her nose. “Sorry, I’m dealing with something.”
“No worries. It’s just you and me here.” I handed her the mocha. “I’ve been going over some upgrades we’re thinking about for the store so I needed a break too. What do you like to read? Maybe I can make some suggestions.”
The woman picked up one of the sheets of paper on the counter. “Ugh, fire safety codes. My ex-husband used to work in that field.” She closed her eyes and I could see she was trying to hold back the tears. “Stupid jerk. I thought I was done crying about him when the divorce was final. Now I’m back to blubbering.”
