Plot Boiler

by Ali Brandon

  Obviously irritated that she’d dared block his view, Hamlet gave a muttered yow and leaped over to the sofa arm, where his sight line of the television was no longer impeded. He did, however, shoot her a look that said, You’re on your own, human . . . I’ve done my part.

  “Fine,” she muttered back at him. “You started it, I’ll finish it. Tomorrow, I’m going to have another little chat with the King of Coffee, and we’re going to talk murder.”

  NINETEEN

  Yep, definitely oleander, Darla thought in grim satisfaction the next morning as she gave the two potted bushes on the Perky’s landing a closer examination.

  Now that she knew what to look for, she could see that the long, narrow leaves and five-petaled pink flowers were textbook examples of the genus. An attractive little shrub, she told herself as she gave one fragrant bloom a sniff. One would never suspect it had a more sinister side. Remembering that Hamlet had been sitting out there under the bistro table the day she’d bought the “coffee” from Livvy, she gave a quick thanks that the usually nosy feline hadn’t munched on any of the fallen leaves there.

  Reviewing her mental clipboard with its “to-investigate” checklist, she thought, Oleander confirmed, one item down . . .

  Then she glanced at her watch. Next up would be confronting George. The problem was that, last she knew, he was staying with Doug. (Unless, of course, he’d stormed out of his rival’s place as soon as he’d sobered up . . . certainly, an outcome well within the realm of possibility.) Since Doug hadn’t picked up his phone when she’d tried calling him earlier to confirm George’s whereabouts, she had decided to gamble that the King of Coffee might’ve decided to return to his own domain.

  It was a little after ten thirty, well past time that the coffeehouse would have been open on a normal day. Since the wrought iron gate to the steps was open, she assumed she’d been right about George being there; the sign on the locked door, however, insisted that Perky’s was closed.

  She peered in the window glass to see if George was inside. As far as she could tell, the front room was empty of people, though a light or two appeared to be on within. Maybe he was in the back room puttering away at something, or maybe he always left a light on for security purposes. Either way, she was there, so might as well give it a shot. Steeling herself, she stepped to the door—to the spot where Livvy had lain dead—and firmly knocked.

  Somewhat to her surprise, she heard George’s raspy voice beyond the door call out, “Whaddaya want? We’re closed.”

  “George, it’s me, Darla. I wanted to see how you were.”

  When he made no reply, she knocked again. “George, we’re all concerned about you,” she went on, lying just a little. “Do you want to come over to the bookstore for another—?”

  The door abruptly pulled open before she could finish her question. George stuck his big head out and squinted bloodshot eyes at her.

  “Darla? Whaddaya doing here? The coffee so bad at your place you need to go running to the competition?”

  If anything, he looked worse than he had the day before, still unshaven and with his snowy hair sticking out at all angles, the dark bags under his eyes almost large enough to take on vacation. At least he was wearing a different Perky’s shirt today—this one a soothing mint shade that would have gone nicely with Darla’s red hair, but only accentuated George’s pallor.

  “Hi, George,” she replied, ignoring the insult even as she began to regret her decision to confront him.

  The King of Coffee might be doughy looking, but she suspected there still was some muscle beneath the fat. She knew that wholesale sacks of raw coffee beans easily weighed a hundred pounds each, and he doubtless wrestled those around on a regular basis. If her questions made him feel threatened enough that he wanted to keep her from leaving, she might well have difficulty escaping his grasp.

  “Look, I know you’re probably not in the mood for company,” she began, suddenly hoping he’d agree and send her on her way, “but I wanted to check on you. Last I saw you was when Doug was taking you over to his place. Are you still staying there?”

  “Stay with that lying, cheating skunk of an SOB?” he replied with an angry snort. “I’d rather sleep in the gutter. Besides, I figured I needed to come back here. You stay away too long, you get the riffraff trying to break in and steal you blind.”

  Then, jerking a thumb over his shoulder, he asked, “You wanna come in? I can brew you up a cup.”

  So much for being sent on her way. Darla hesitated. If she begged off now, only to come checking up on him later when she was feeling a little braver, he might get suspicious. This would likely be her only real chance to question him.

  “Uh, okay . . . that is, if you’re sure you don’t want to come over to the bookstore, instead?”

  “Nah, I got some ground coffee I need to use up, so we might as well drink here.”

  He opened the door wider, and Darla went on in, putting a reflexive hand to her jeans pocket to make sure her cell phone was there. Of course, she had been sure to let James know where she was headed when she left the store—If I’m not back in an hour, send the cops, she’d only half jokingly told him—but she felt safer knowing her phone was in quick reach.

  The place had a stale smell to it from having been closed up for a few days, but at least the air conditioner was working. George flipped on the lights, dispelling the shadows if not the mustiness. He lumbered around the counter while Darla took a seat on one of the tall barstools.

  “Whatcha want? Espresso, latte, or just a plain old cup of joe?”

  “Plain old joe is fine. With cream, if you have any fresh,” she clarified. Then, casually, she asked, “I know it’s soon to be making plans, but have you given any thought to what you want to do going forward?”

  George shrugged as he opened a sealed bag of coffee, the enticing smell promptly dispelling much of the staleness in the air. “I dunno,” he said as he measured out the ground beans and put them in the brewer. “It’s hard to run a place like this alone. I guess I could hire a kid to help out.”

  “Steve’s son and daughter both work part-time for him, and that seems to work out okay,” she said before recalling that George had had his own interaction with the Mookjai siblings and not come out looking particularly good.

  But to her surprise, he said, “Well, that Steve might be okay, but you oughta watch out for his kids. They were in here the other week, an’ I finally figured out his boy was the same one who got Livvy started on that whole stupid Kona Blue Party nonsense. The pair of ’em was acting all smart-ass like, like they thought they was some kinda gang.”

  “Wait, what?”

  George snorted as he reached beneath the counter for a couple of Perky’s mugs.

  “Yeah, they started threatening Livvy, telling her she had to give them a cut of the action, or she’d be sorry. I was in the back unpacking stuff, but I heard the whole thing. I ran their sorry butts off and told them never to come back again, or I was gonna tell their dad what they was up to. Livvy was scared they’d try something, but they never came back. You just gotta know how to call someone’s bluff,” he finished, puffing out his chest.

  “Wow,” was the only response Darla could summon.

  According to Steve, Jason and Kayla had claimed that George had refused to wait on them and called them racist names. But maybe that had been a little CYA action on their part, in case George made good on his threat to tell their dad. Maybe the coffee shop owner wasn’t the bigot they’d made him out to be. She’d have to let Steve know about this conversation and let him take it from there.

  “Yeah, well, not all kids are like that,” George was saying with a shrug as he went to check the coffee’s progress. “That one that works for you—”

  “Robert?” she supplied.

  He nodded. “Yeah, he seems like a good worker even with all that dumb makeup. You tell him
he ever gets tired of working for you, he can come work at a real coffee shop with me.”

  “I’ll do that,” she said with a wry smile. Then, as a thought occurred to her, she added, “Actually, I know someone who might need a job—Emma, the girl who works for Doug at the doughnut shop. Doug said he might have to lay her off if his business doesn’t come back.”

  George had been reaching for the coffeepot, which was almost full. He paused and gave Darla an unreadable look.

  “You’re talking about the girl who’s a student of Penelope’s.” At her nod, he went on, “I dunno if you heard by now, but Penny and me, we go back. We dated awhile before I hooked up with Livvy. I was good with staying friends, but she wasn’t so much. You know how broads are. They get funny about stuff like that.”

  Darla mentally rolled her eyes as she heard echoes of her conversation with Reese. On the other hand, did that portend that she and Connie would spend the next twenty years secretly plotting each other’s downfall?

  “Actually, Jake figured out the Penelope situation already, but I have to admit we were surprised. I mean, since Livvy was so quiet and polite. Usually, divorced men marry the same type of woman again. Except for being dancers, she and Penelope didn’t seem much alike.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s what you think.”

  Pouring out two cups of coffee, he set one in front of her and turned to open a small refrigerator built into the counter behind him. Pulling out a carton of cream, he placed it beside her coffee.

  “You wouldn’t think it to listen to her,” he went on with a snort, “but Livvy can—could—be a real piece of work. You think what’s coming out of her mouth is all sweetness and light, and then you figure out a minute later she just ripped you a new one.”

  Then his expression softened. “But Penny, she had this nice side. Soft, you know. I met her at a ballet party, believe it or not. The lady I was dating at the time, she drug me to see The Nutcracker, of all things. But it was Christmas, so I decided to be a good sport.”

  He waited for Darla to finish with the cream, and then poured a good dollop for himself and took a swig from his mug.

  “That’s a cuppa coffee,” he said with pride. “Now, where was I?”

  “At The Nutcracker,” she reminded him, intrigued despite herself.

  “Oh, yeah. Anyhow, my date, she knew the director, so we got to go backstage,” he went on and swirled his forefinger in a “whoopee” gesture. “While she was hobnobbing with the dancers, I snuck out to the alley to grab a quick smoke. Who do you think was out there already, dressed up like the Sugar Plum Fairy in her pink and white tutu, and dragging on a cigarette? I tell you, she got me going,” he went on, hand lightly slapping back and forth over his burly chest as he pantomimed a heartbeat.

  Darla took a sip of her coffee and then asked, “Don’t tell me, that was the last date you ever had with the other woman?”

  “Yeah, it was,” he admitted with an odd little smile that made her draw back a bit. “I got Penelope’s phone number, and that was all she wrote. We was happy as clams for about five years, even talked about getting married. I was making good bucks back then—did I tell ya, I used to be a stockbroker?—so I kept her in real good style. But then she started losing out on roles to the younger dancers, and things started to go downhill for us, too. I guess I didn’t understand what that meant to her . . . I mean, I was just some schlub who liked pretty ladies. We was fighting all the time.”

  He paused and took another drink from his mug, as well.

  “Turns out there was this one dancer in particular that she was butting heads with . . . some new girl in the company. Anyhow, I was curious, so I went to the theater one night to pick her up. And there was this young broad dressed in that same pink and white tutu. She was only eighteen, but she knew where she was going . . .”

  George trailed off, staring into his coffee cup, and Darla didn’t have to ask who the young dancer was. She could pretty well fill in the blanks of how it all went down over the next few months, as well.

  Then he snorted again. “I don’t want you to think I’m some kinda pervert or nothing. I mean, Livvy was just a kid then. I was just looking, know what I mean? But things got worse between me and Penny, and a couple of years later we broke it off for good. And then one night, I was at this bar uptown, and who do you think I run into? And, like I said, I had the bucks, so that was good enough for her.”

  To Darla’s relief, he didn’t do the pitty-pat heart routine again. Curious, though, she ventured, “If you were a stockbroker, how did you end up in the coffee business?”

  “It was after we got married. I had a streak of bad luck, lost some big accounts . . . you know the drill. So I decided to cut my losses and get outta the rat race. One of my clients had this coffee bar that he wanted to unload. I always liked coffee, so I figured, why the heck not?”

  He frowned a little. “Livvy, she wasn’t too happy when the big money train rolled off the tracks, but she stuck with me, I guess ’cause she knew I’d take care of her no matter what. So we ended up here, in this fine establishment.”

  Darla smiled a little at the posh accent he gave to that last word. Still, she had one more question. “But what about Penelope? How coincidental was it that you bought a place in the same neighborhood as her dance studio?”

  George shook his head. “It wasn’t no coincidence. That space where her studio is was empty when Livvy and I got here. A few months later, I seen a sign go up. I didn’t think nothing about it until I turned around one day and, bam, there she was ordering a cuppa coffee like nothing ever happened. Livvy said she was stalking me, but Penny never came back after that.”

  His expression grew pensive . . . pensive, that was, for George. “It was just that one time to let me know she was nearby . . . I guess kinda like a dog peeing to mark its territory, or something.”

  Darla did roll her eyes at that last, but all she said was, “I guess Livvy was still jealous, though, wasn’t she?”

  “Well, she didn’t hafta be. Me, I’m the one that had to worry. After Livvy got sick, she kind of put a halt to things between us in the bedroom, if you know what I mean.”

  He paused at that and frowned, as if a thought had just occurred to him. “I dunno, maybe being sick was just an excuse. You know how women fake it the other way.”

  Trying not to wince at his caveman stereotypes, Darla gave him an encouraging nod to continue.

  “Anyhow, it wasn’t that long ago I tell her I’m thinking about finding myself wife number two so I can start getting some action again. I was pretty much joking, but she goes ballistic and tells me I’m stuck with her until she dies, because no judge is gonna let me divorce a sick wife. Next thing I know, she goes off for a good time with old Doug the baker.”

  His beefy fingers abruptly tightened on the mug, like he had Doug—or Livvy—in his grasp. “I found a copy of the hotel receipt stuck behind a mug on the counter. Not much of a hiding place, huh? Anyhow, I had it out with her. So Livvy acts all sad and says she’s sorry, and I tell her I forgive her. Except I guess I really didn’t.”

  He looked up at Darla then, the pensive look hardening into a sneer as he added, “You know, I had the sneaking suspicion that Penelope put her up to it somehow. You know, to get back at me. Well, no one outsmarts old Georgie King.”

  He did it, Darla thought with a sudden shiver of dread realization that she prayed he didn’t notice. He killed them both, and made it look like Penelope did it. The only thing that seemed out of place was the suicide note, which, as far as Darla knew, had only Doug’s confirmation that it was Penelope’s handwriting. But an ex might have enough old samples of her handwriting stashed away somewhere to be able to forge a believable note . . .

  Carefully, she set down her mug and stood, casually slipping her hand into her pocket to palm her cell phone.

  “Thanks for the coffee, George, but I
’ve got to get back to the bookstore. I told James I wouldn’t be gone long.”

  For a fleeting moment, she feared he was going to protest. The image flashed through her mind of him holding her down and shoving oleander leaves into her mouth, holding his beefy hand over her lips until she was forced to swallow. Deliberately, she squelched that image and managed a smile.

  To her relief, he nodded. “Yeah, well, go ahead and go,” he said, making an impatient shooing gesture toward the door. “You got better things to do than hang around Georgie King.”

  She managed to walk unconcernedly to the door, but once she reached the door she fairly flew up the steps and was halfway down the block before she slowed again to a walk. By then, she had her cell phone in hand and was dialing Jake’s number.

  “Hey, kid, what’s up?” she heard the PI’s voice on the second ring.

  Trying not to gasp for breath, Darla said, “Can you come by the bookstore later? I really need to talk to you.”

  “Sure. What’s wrong? You sound like you just ran a marathon.”

  “I’m on my way back from Perky’s,” she managed. “Jake, I talked to George about Livvy and Penelope. I think Reese was wrong about what happened. I-I’m pretty sure George was the one who killed them both.”

  TWENTY

  Hamlet lay with his fuzzy head propped on a short stack of mass-market paperbacks, paws dangling off the counter, apparently asleep. His twitching tail, however, told another story. His eyes might be closed, but he was definitely keeping a feline ear out for anything out of the ordinary around the shop.

  Darla gave him a grateful scratch behind the ears as she passed him on the way to the register. After her unsettling conversation with George that morning, she appreciated the cat having her back. She rang up the celebrity bio for an elderly gentleman and then turned, only to give a little start as she found James behind her, a packaged special order in hand.