“Tough day?” Maggie asked.
“Long.” I leaned against the counter, suddenly feeling very tired. “It’s been a while since I worked, and I had some extracurricular stuff tacked on at the end.”
“Oh?” Brenda asked.
“Yeah.” I wasn’t about to go into detail about where I’d been or who I’d talked to. Instead, I took another long pull on my beer.
Brenda and Maggie were on different frequencies, but the feelings they transmitted were pretty much the same: smothering.
I took a couple of deep breaths, which made my ribs scream in protest, worsening the tightness in my chest. Brenda wanted Maggie to take care of me—presumably while she and Richard were on their honeymoon—while Maggie’s hunger for sexual release loomed like a dark gray cloud.
“Is it hot in here?” I asked and took another gulp of beer.
Richard swirled the ice in his glass. “Not that I noticed.”
My breaths were coming short and fast, and the throbbing had already started behind my eyes. I had to get away from Brenda and Maggie before I went through a painful repeat of two days before.
“You grilling tonight?” I asked Richard.
“Yeah.”
“Maybe we should get it going?” I hoped Maggie wouldn’t detect the desperation in my voice.
Richard shot a look at Brenda. “Sure,” she said, resigned, and rose from the table.
Maggie’s lips pursed, but she said nothing as Brenda retrieved a plastic-wrapped plate of steaks from the fridge. She grabbed a long-handled fork from the counter and passed them to Richard. “Don’t burn mine,” she said, but her humor sounded strained.
“They’ll be perfect.” Richard retrieved his glass and made for the door. I gave Maggie a smile and a wave, but I was so close on Richard’s heel I nearly stepped on him.
The screen door slammed on my back and Richard turned on me. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
I was nearly hyperventilating and collapsed in a sit on the back steps with a jolt that reawakened all my other aches and pains. Hunched over, I set my beer down and covered my eyes, not sure if I was about to puke in the geraniums. “I thought I was gonna die in there.”
Richard’s pique instantly turned to concern. “What’s wrong?”
I hauled in a few good breaths, my head still muddled, my stomach still threatening to erupt. “That kitchen was like a tornado of emotion. Between the two of them I felt like I was about to be squashed.”
Richard studied me with his physician eyes—and yet there was puzzlement behind them as well. “I don’t get it. I thought you liked Maggie.”
“I do. But she wants . . .” Christ, she was practically vibrating with desire, not that I was going to tell him. “I’m not sure what she wants. And Brenda, she’s definitely in matchmaker mode.”
“Tell me about it.”
I rubbed my eyes, grateful the anxiety was starting to ebb.
Richard juggled his glass and the plate of steaks, grasped my left arm under the bicep and pulled me to my feet. “Come on. Get past it.”
Easy for him to say.
I shuffled after him back to the deck and the gas grill. He lit it and shifted the steaks onto the rack. He seemed preoccupied. I dropped down on the top step and held my beer between my hands, trying to absorb the chill into myself, accepting it as a balm for my ragged psyche.
“When are you going to tell me what’s going on with you?” Richard said at last.
I squinted up at him. “What?”
“You’re chasing around, talking to all sorts of people. Kaplan’s death is connected to custom-made shoes, but you haven’t told me even half of it. Why?”
I took another couple of breaths, stalling for time. Should I level with him—tell him how I was scared to death that the next time he helped me out I might get him killed—or lie with some cock-and-bull story, especially since I suspected his former girlfriend of murder?
“I haven’t put enough of it together yet.”
“Maybe I could help.”
Yeah, and this time would someone come after him with a knife or a claw hammer or a 2001 Buick, and again I wouldn’t see it coming or be able to protect him?
“I need to think about it some more.”
Richard poked at the steaks with the fork. “I’m praying you wrap this up before we head for Europe, or that I can talk you out of pursuing it. Brenda will be heartbroken if we have to cancel our flight.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I can’t leave you here to figure this out alone. If I hadn’t pushed you out of the way back in March—” He stopped himself.
He was talking about the gunshot that nearly killed him. “Don’t go there, Rich. It was my fault you got hurt. If I hadn’t gotten you involved—”
“So this time you want to go it alone—no backup—and get killed.”
Pain seared through my head as I flashed again on the dripping, bloody hands. “That isn’t going to happen.”
“You dig too deep and whoever killed Walt Kaplan is going to come after you.”
“It won’t go that far. I won’t let it.”
“Yeah, like you have any control over other people and how they react.” He snatched up his glass, slopped scotch on the deck. “Why don’t you just let the police handle it?”
“Because they arrested the wrong person.”
“Just because you have some kind of insight doesn’t mean you have all the answers.”
“I never claimed to. Look, why are you so angry?”
“Because, goddamnit, I don’t want to lose you.” He forked a steak with unnecessary force and flipped it. It sizzled as it hit the grill. “The thing is, you like all this intrigue. You revel in it.”
“I do not. Tom asked me to look into Walt’s death. The insight kicked in and now I’m trapped. It’ll keep happening—”
“Until it stops,“ he finished.
“Yeah.”
He turned the steaks again. They weren’t ever going to cook at this rate. “Will you be able to eat dinner?” It sounded like an accusation.
“No. I can’t be around those women with what they’re feeling.”
“Maggie will be disappointed.”
“For months she wouldn’t give me the time of day. Now suddenly I’m a hot commodity.”
Richard eyed me, his anger dissolving as his mustache quirked upward. “In more ways than one, apparently.”
I glared at him, but that jibe was what was needed to soothe his ire.
“Please ask Brenda to back off. I can’t take being double-teamed. If anything’s going to happen between Maggie and me, it has to develop naturally.”
He nodded, poking at the steaks once more. “Sure you can’t make an effort to sit through dinner?”
I closed my eyes to assess how I felt: marginal. “No. Will you make my apologies?”
“Yeah. You going up to the apartment for a while?”
“No. Think I’ll hit the rack.” I had somewhere to be in the middle of the night, and I wanted to feel, if not rested, at least better than marginal.
* * *
I wrapped my arms tighter around my chest and winced. Thirty-two hours down and my ribs still hurt, and though I was cold, at way-too-much a gallon I didn’t want to waste gas by running the engine for the heater. Besides, cold I stayed awake; warm, I’d probably fall asleep. I hadn’t wanted to miss Dana Watkins, so I’d been parked a short distance from the mill since three a.m., cursing myself for not stopping for coffee first. And why hadn’t I worn a heavier jacket?
Headlights broke the darkness and a car pulled up in front of the mill’s front door. Seconds later, a figure exited the car. I yanked open my car door and made to follow. “Dana Watkins?”
The person at the door turned. A flashlight’s beam caught me straight in the eyes. “Hey.” I held an arm up to block the light.
“I’ve got a gun,” the woman warned, “And I’m not afraid to use it.”
I tried
to peek around my fingers. “I hope you’ve got a permit.”
“A permit?”
“Yeah. I wouldn’t want to be shot illegally.”
The light dipped. “Are you that Resnick guy?” She sounded annoyed.
“Would you rather I be a robber?”
No answer.
“Look, I only want to ask you a few questions.”
“Cyn told me not to talk to you.”
“It’s a free country—you can talk to anybody you want.” I still couldn’t see behind the ice white light.
“Let’s see some ID, buddy.”
I reached behind me.
“Ah-ah-ah!” she warned.
“It’s in my pocket.” I turned my back to her and slowly retrieved my wallet, took out my driver’s license, and handed it to her.
She scrutinized the photo and winced. “Oh! Bad hair day.”
“I wasn’t at my best,” I admitted. My head had been partially shaved at the hospital after I was mugged. The picture was taken three weeks later.
She kept looking at the photo and back at me. “Well, I guess it looks a little like you.” She handed it back and I put it away.
“Come on in,” she said and turned for the door.
I had to blink until I could make out her silhouette on the little porch. I stumbled up the stairs. She had keys, not a gun, in her other hand, and used the flashlight to find the keyhole. “Cyn said you’d probably ambush me when I left work. I wasn’t expecting anyone to be here now.”
“I didn’t want to run into Cyn. She doesn’t seem to like me.”
Dana reached inside and flipped a light switch. “And why should I?”
“I’m a nice person.” She stepped inside, and rounded on me. “Once you get to know me.”
“Uh-huh.”
I shrugged. She did an about face and crossed the overly bright café and made for the espresso machine. Maybe I’d get offered a cup. “Gotta get this thing going first thing,” she said. “That way it builds a good head of steam so I can have one before I leave.”
That would be hours away. Scratch one free espresso.
She breezed through white swinging doors and flicked on the lights. I followed her into the kitchen where she tossed her purse on a counter to the left. Her next stop was the professional coffeemaker on the back wall. “Want some?”
“You bet. This is a bit earlier than I usually get up.”
She dumped beans into a grinder before retrieving water from the triple sink’s faucet, and filled the reservoir. With the coffee brewing, she fired up the ovens before heading for the industrial sized fridge, where she extracted trays of what looked like bread dough, croissants, and cinnamon rolls. Next she scrubbed her hands like a surgeon before donning gloves to work with the food. She worked with such efficiency that I was mesmerized.
“You’ve been here almost five minutes and haven’t asked one question. You a bakery spy or something, trying to steal my pastry secrets?”
I laughed. “Sorry. I don’t even like the stuff, but it’s fascinating to watch.” I cleared my throat. “I assume you never saw the dead guy.”
She shook her head. “Only after Ted called the police. I suppose he was there when I came in early that morning.” She shuddered. “But like I told the cops, I didn’t see anything or anybody. No familiar cars—no strange ones either. Coffee’s ready. Pour me a large black and get whatever you want out of the fridge. Sugar’s on the counter if you need it.”
“Would Cyn approve?”
“Course not. Why do you think I invited you in?”
A smile creased my lips. I might just get some good gossip out of Dana.
I poured the steaming coffee and doctored mine before setting hers on the counter beside her. She grabbed it with flour-dusted fingers and took a huge gulp. I wondered about the state of her esophagus as I sipped mine more carefully.
“I take it you and Cyn don’t get along all that well.”
“That’s not true,” she said, spreading apple filling over the bottom of a dough-filled pan. “We just don’t see eye to eye on certain aspects of the business. Like her staying out of my kitchen. She hired me to bake, but she thinks she’s got to have her sticky fingers in everything.”
“So delegation isn’t her specialty?”
“Control freak might be a more accurate term. My first day here I churned out half a dozen strudels, three dozen scones, two dozen cinnamon buns, and a couple dozen doughnuts. Since then she’s expected that on a daily basis—and then some. Don’t get me started about the biscotti fiasco back in March.”
I smiled as she obviously wanted me to. “Ted Hanson said Cyn’s already making a profit on the café.”
Dana shook her head. “Nah, it’s the outside orders that put us in the black. But people first try our pastries as customers in the café, then make special orders. We’re a little too successful for a three-person operation. I’ve been trying to get Cyn to hire me help, but she’s resisting. Gene helps out now in the afternoons. He’s the one who got all this dough ready for me. He comes in around eight and gets the café set up, too. Restocking bags, taking phone orders, and polishing the display cases. We should be paying someone for that, too.”
“How does Cyn get so much work out of Gene?”
“He’s her nephew. I think she promised him a percentage of the profits. He works too hard for just a straight salary.”
So, nepotism was alive and well at the Old Red Mill. “His name Taggert?”
“No, Higgins. I think he’s her younger sister’s kid.”
“You and Cyn aren’t related, are you?”
Dana looked up from her work, her eyes ablaze. “Hell no!”
“The two of you ever socialize?”
“Cyn rub elbows with the hired help? Please.” She gulped more coffee.
“So you wouldn’t know if she ever lets her hair down.”
“Cyn? I can’t imagine. Then again, I sometimes think she’s a frustrated actress.”
“How so?”
Dana folded the dough over the filling, sealed the ends and cut steam holes, then went to work on another. “Those costumes she wears. She’s been a cowgirl for weeks now. I guess she wore that stuff out West, but it looks kind of silly here in Williamsville, don’t you think?”
“Oh, I dunno. They do call this the Niagara Frontier.”
Dana laughed, from deep down in her belly. “No wonder Cyn hates you. You’ve got a sense of humor.”
I’d rarely been accused of that. “What other kinds of costumes does she wear?”
“Accessories mostly. Shawls, lots of rhinestones, big earrings. And she usually manages to carry it off.”
“Think she’d ever stoop to red-sequined stiletto heels?”
Dana looked thoughtful. “Maybe.” Then she giggled.
“What?”
“I’m trying to imagine her in heels, pasties and a G-string. That would be too funny.”
Dana finished with the strudel, popped them in the oven, and began working on the cinnamon buns.
“Tell me more about Gene,” I said.
“I get the feeling he’s the son Cyn never had. He worked for her in Santa Fe, too.”
“Did he want to come back east?”
She shrugged. “I guess. He’s here. I really don’t know much about him. Our conversations usually revolve around orders and supplies. He seems nice enough. Very protective of Cyn.”
I remembered him scoping out the street the afternoon before. “So I noticed. What do you know about Cyn’s place up in Holiday Valley?”
Dana frowned. “I didn’t know she had one. She never talks to me about personal stuff—like, ‘How was your weekend, Dana?’ It’s more, ‘Can you come in early tomorrow to fill the Henderson order?’” This last she whined.
“Why do you stay?”
Dana laughed. “Because I love it. I love the work; I love the place—and I don’t mind working with Gene. I only have to put up with Cyn for half an hour every day befor
e I’m outta here. If I get some help, I could be happy working here for years.” She smiled at me and I hoped I gave her one of equal wattage. But as I looked around the spotless kitchen, the racks of product and the shining equipment, I knew the place would soon be closed and Dana would be baking elsewhere.
That at least cheered me. Dana would go on, find work somewhere else and be happy doing it.
The future didn’t look so bright for Cyn and Gene. I only wished my insight gave me more hints as to what that would be.
* * *
I made it home before six a.m. Brenda and Richard were still in bed and I figured there was no reason to even let them know I’d been out. I crashed for a few more hours sleep and found my way back to the kitchen and the aroma of fresh-brewed coffee at a little after ten.
No one was in sight, but a flower arrangement bright with pink carnations and white daisies sat on the kitchen table. I stopped cold. Had I missed Brenda’s birthday? No—that was in the fall. A glance at the wall calendar told me nothing had been penciled in on this day. So was there an occasion I wasn’t aware of, or had the flowers arrived from one of Brenda’s cross-country friends in advance of the wedding? Maybe the corsage florist they’d visited days before was desperate for business and . . .
I abandoned the thought, grabbed a mug from the cabinet and poured myself some coffee. Footsteps echoed in the hall—too heavy for Brenda—and Richard entered the kitchen.
“Finally up, I see.”
I blew on my coffee to cool it. “I gotta be at the bar by eleven.”
He nodded and parked his ass against the counter. “Your car got moved since last evening.”
Gee, and I thought he wouldn’t notice. “Uh, yeah.”
Richard crossed his arms over his chest, waiting.
“I got up way too early. Figured I’d go out for a cup of coffee.”
“We didn’t run out.”
“Uh, yeah. But I guess I felt kind of restless.”
“Uh-huh.
“Yeah.” I sipped my coffee and then changed the subject, hoisting my cup toward the flowers on the table. “Pretty. They make Brenda happy?”
Dead In Red Page 9
