by Tara Lush
Taking the phone, he paused to examine the screen. “Send that to me, please.”
He returned my phone and clicked a pen, then wrote on a card. Our fingers touched when he handed it to me, and I fought back a grin.
Noah’s expression was like a stone: flat and hard. He sure was a by-the-book cop when he wanted to be. No cookie or Netflix jokes today. “Thank you for your information, Ms. Lewis. I appreciate it.”
“Ooh, now we’re all formal, Chief Garcia?”
The corners of his mouth quirked up. “A couple more question. Do you know anyone who wanted Fab dead?”
I shook my head. “I’ve been asking myself that question for twenty-four hours. And hey, I thought it was a suicide. That’s what you said.”
“Everything’s still on the table. Did you see Fab talk with anyone during your last week together? Rather, who did Fab talk with?”
I rubbed my temples with my index fingers. “Lots of customers. We were super busy, and he always treated people as if he knew them, even if he didn’t. I think the mayor came in. And Mike, the editor of the paper. He always comes in. You came in, too.”
“Anyone stand out?”
“He greeted a guy by name. A tall guy, looked like a surfer. Len? Lex? He was with a pretty woman. She was older. Fab kissed her cheek and seemed to know them well. I vaguely recall Fab talking about going out on a boat with Lex.”
Noah scowled while making a note. “Nobody else that you recall? Was he angry with anyone? Annoyed? Anyone angry with him?”
I squinted. “My new barista came in. Her name’s Erica Penmark. They met that last day and Fab seemed annoyed when I said I’d hire her.”
“Why’s that?”
“Dunno. Maybe because he was threatened that I was about to hire a woman who was better than him?”
Noah nodded slowly. “That’s all I need from you today.”
“Am I free to go?”
He gave a curt nod and stood up, which was my cue to leave. I walked out, confident I was no longer a suspect in the investigation. As I strolled through downtown, I replayed my conversation with Noah.
Instead of heading immediately back to the café, I took a turn and wandered two blocks down to the beach. I plopped down on one of the benches overlooking the Gulf. An invisible cloud of suntan lotion wafted in my direction, and I closed my eyes and inhaled the sun and coconut-scented air.
Why had Fab been so annoyed by Erica? Had there been something more between them, a relationship I was unaware of? She seemed to be unimpressed by Fab, but I wouldn’t put it past him to try to get her in the sack.
I opened my eyes and reached into my purse, where I still had her resume and references. I pulled out the papers and my cell, and began to call. The two people I reached—managers of independently owned coffee shops in Boston and Chicago—both gushed about her.
“Best barista I’ve ever had,” one said.
“A bit quirky but super sharp,” said another.
A bit quirky. Now that I think about it, the events of the past few days were unusual. Erica showed up; Fab quit abruptly; Fab ended up dead. Where had she been the night he died? Oh, right. The Dirty Dolphin.
I searched for the bar’s number from my smartphone, then dialed.
A gruff male voice answered. “Thanks for calling the Dirty Dolphin, where every hour is happy. And dirty.”
“Bill, is that you?” I’d gone to school with Bill Alvarado. Not like we were friends—he was a couple years ahead of me and on the football team. Hung out with Paige and her clique. I rolled my eyes, realizing that I hadn’t thought about high school cliques in over a decade, not until I returned home.
“Yeah. Who’s this?”
“Hey. It’s Lana Lewis from Perkatory. How are you?” I steeled myself for him to say something snarky about my high school geek days.
“Hey, Lana. I’m pretty good. Tired. The real question is, how are you? I read about your barista in the paper. I’m real sorry. It’s a shame.” His tone was warm and genuine.
I relaxed. “Yes. It’s terrible, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, I heard you and him had a real blowout right before he died.”
“Well, I wouldn’t call it that, exactly. He quit abruptly and left me in the lurch. I blew up a little, which was uncool.”
“He quit without giving notice? Well, that sucks. I hate when waitstaff does that. He obviously had some troubles. What’s up?” The sounds of a bustling bar almost drowned out his voice.
“I was wondering.” I paused for dramatic effect. “On Thursday night, did you happen to see a woman with black hair at your bar? Dark blue streaks, sharp cheekbones, pretty in an unusual way?”
“Oh, you talkin’ about Erica?”
“I am, yes.” I sat up straighter. Bill knew Erica?
He laughed. “Man, that chick is crazy. She stayed until closing, doing shots. Then a bunch of us went out on my boat.” His voice dropped. “She and I went swimming in the Gulf. We must have been out until, gawd, five in the morning, all of us. I was so freakin’ hungover. Still feeling the effects today. You know how that goes. We just can’t drink like we used to.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
Hunh. She’d also mentioned a hangover. His version of the story seemed to match hers. So, Erica couldn’t have been with Fab the night he died. I exhaled and listened to Bill talk. He had an excited tone to his voice, and I wondered if he and Erica had done more than swim.
“Wait, no. It was later than five because we watched the sun come up together. Real fun, that Erica. Why? You going to hire her? She mentioned something about maybe working for you …”
I stood up and started to walk back to the café. “I’ve already brought her on board, so come on by and say hello some morning.”
Bill promised he would, and we hung up. I spent the rest of the way back to the café thinking about Fab. A single, burning question lingered.
How did he really die?
* * *
At eight that night, hours after I’d discovered Erica and Dad playing air guitar to the Grateful Dead in the café, I closed up shop. I walked the short distance home to my family’s bungalow. Well, my bungalow.
When I moved back to Devil’s Beach, I’d considered living with Dad. Certainly, his home was more spacious and nicer, it being on the waterfront and all. Mom had amazing taste, and had decorated the entire place in British Colonial beach chic. But Dad had insisted that I stay on my own, which made me wonder if he had a girlfriend. (He didn’t, as least as far as I could tell). He’d said I needed to “sit with my grief” regarding my ex and my job.
So, I’d had the option of either paying to rent a place, staying in one of the apartments above the café, or living in my childhood home. Since I’d been living on a reporter’s salary for the past ten years and hadn’t saved much, thanks to my ex’s love for the finer things in life, I thought it wise to choose one of the latter two options. The apartment above the café was a bit run-down, and, frankly, Fab had made me uncomfortable enough with his never-ending seduction schtick that I didn’t want to be under the same roof alone with him.
Also, something about the family bungalow felt safe. Stifling at times, but homey and snug. It was two blocks off the main drag, in a neighborhood filled with colorful, old wooden homes.
Ours was pink on the outside. Inside, it was filled with art and knickknacks from my mom’s travels as a coffee buyer, with paintings from almost every Caribbean island on the walls. I’d also been slowly trying to make it my own, and had taken on a few reupholstering projects with varying degrees of success.
Now, though, I had someone else to think about: a puppy. Stanley seemed to fit right into the three-bedroom, one-bath home, and when I arrived home from work, he was snoozing on a makeshift bed I’d made for him in the kitchen.
Earlier, I’d instructed Dad to bring him to the house and barricade him in the kitchen because of the tile floor. When I saw he hadn’t had an accident, I praised him mightily, then led him
to the backyard where he did his business. We romped for a solid twenty minutes, chasing each other and playing with a tennis ball. The best twenty minutes of my day. The week, actually. Possibly even the year.
Then I scooped him up and brought him back inside.
I’d searched online for a homemade dog food recipe, and got to work on it straight away. I had all the ingredients—eggs, hamburger, oatmeal, brown rice, sweet potatoes—and for the next hour, I simmered and sautéed until I had something that resembled a fine pâté.
While I cooked, I reminisced about Fab. Although we’d technically been semi-neighbors for a few months—I could see the top of the café building and his apartment windows from my street, I was that close to downtown—we rarely saw each other outside of work. I had a separate stairway entrance to the second-floor office; he used a back staircase.
Had Fab been on the roof long the night he died? I knew he went there to drink wine and entertain. He’d invited me up several times, and I always said no, not wanting to reveal my fear of heights. Or be the target of his interest. He made a pass at me that first week I was in charge, his voice as smooth as a generic cup of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee.
“Lana, with that curly dark hair of yours and those beautiful espresso-colored eyes, you’re so pretty I forgot what I was going to say,” he’d murmured when we were both in the stockroom. “I think we should have dinner tonight at my place and get to know each other better.”
I’d curled my lip. “Does that work with most women?” I’d snorted.
“Actually, yes.” He grinned sheepishly.
“Save it for someone else.” The ink on my divorce papers had been dry a year, and yet I was repelled by men who thought they were God’s gift to womankind.
I never imagined that he’d kill himself, though. Or that an argument with me would push him over the edge. Just another reason that suicide didn’t seem right. While pondering this, I scooped a teaspoonful of Stanley’s pâté onto a paper plate. He wolfed it down and looked up with his chocolate-colored, button-like eyes.
“Ah, you liked that, didn’t you?” I scooped about a quarter cup onto the plate and he tucked in.
I made a mental note to buy him cute dog bowls from that new pet store down the street, but paused before indulging him with another spoonful. Surely Fab had dog bowls. I could run over to the café and up the stairs to Fab’s and grab them. Maybe he had other dog-related things. Leashes, little jackets, vaccine records.
Oh, who was I kidding? Once a reporter, always a reporter. I was being nosy and wanted to poke around. It wasn’t a crime, was it? After all, I was the owner of the building. Well, sort of. The daughter of the owner. What if I happened upon something the police had overlooked? And Fab’s own uncle had said I could do whatever I liked with his things.
Leaving Stanley with one last spoonful of homemade dog chow, I slipped my phone and the building’s master key in a canvas satchel, printed with a peace sign (a gift from Dad), and slung the strap across my body.
I walked briskly down the live-oak-tree-lined streets, and it didn’t take long to arrive at the café’s back door, the one that led down a corridor and to the stairs. Unlike the other day when Noah and I tore upstairs, I took my time. When I opened the hallway door to the fourth floor, I heard the jangle of keys.
The noise didn’t come from my key ring. I froze. Then poked my head into the hall. Because it was formerly a hotel, the stairs were at the far end of a long corridor, and it was illuminated by a wan yellow light, like something out of a flophouse, or a horror movie. My heart pounded insistently against my ribs, and common sense urged me to run back down the stairs.
But I pressed on, curiosity overcoming all logic. Fab’s apartment was all the way on the other end of the narrow corridor.
And there was a woman at his door.
Chapter Ten
Eek.
I froze, wondering what to do. Then I came to my senses and remembered that I was the owner here. Sort of. I barreled down the hall.
“Hey,” I called out in a sharp voice.
The closer I got, I realized who it was: Paige Dotson, Fab’s on-again, off-again girlfriend. The person who’d teased me mercilessly in high school for being a geek. A flashback came to mind, of walking into Beach High’s girls’ bathroom in the sophomore year and finding her scrawling my name in Sharpie on the bathroom wall along with the word nerd and another, less pleasant, adjective.
She greeted me with a sneer and a flick of her blonde hair, perfectly tousled with beachy waves. She was clad in a gray sweatshirt and black yoga pants, and I recall once how Fab said that yoga pants were God’s gift to men. I’d silently gagged at his declaration.
“What are you doing here?” she asked in a snotty tone.
Since coming back to Devil’s Beach, I hadn’t had much contact with Paige, save for some pitying stares when she’d come into the café and harangue Fab. Which wasn’t often. Clearly, she was still the same nasty person she’d been as a teenager.
I stopped about three feet from her. “I live here and my family owns this building. The real question is: what are you doing here?”
She sniffled. Her eyes practically glowed they were so red, and her nose was also an angry shade of pink. I willed my shoulder muscles to relax. There was no need to get in a fight with someone who was obviously upset. I genuinely felt bad for her.
A black duffel bag was slung over her shoulder and she waved a key in her left hand. “I’m here to pick up some things. Fab had given me a key, and I was about to go in and collect my belongings.”
I wondered if the panties I’d seen with Noah were hers. “Okay. You could’ve called to tell me you were coming. And did you inform the police you were going to take stuff out of his apartment?”
“Why would I tell you or anyone? They’re my things, and I don’t see any crime scene tape on the door.” She scratched the side of her scalp with the key.
“I dunno, you could be stealing, er, moving evidence.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You could be doing the same. In fact, I’d say you have a bigger reason to steal evidence than I do. You already have his dog.”
“What? Why on earth would you say that?” I blinked. “Someone had to care for Stanley. Did you want to?”
Please say no. Please say no. Please say no.
“Pfft. I hate dogs. I didn’t want Fab to keep that little rat in the first place.”
Relieved, I pushed out a sigh.
“You’re the one who should be questioned for his death.”
A surge of indignancy went through me. “Excuse me? Why is that?”
“You pushed him over the edge. Hurt his feelings. Isn’t there some kind of bullying law?”
“Bullying law?” I crossed my arms over my chest and snorted. “Too bad it wasn’t on the books when we were in high school. And no. I didn’t bully him. I explained why I was so upset. Sure, maybe I could’ve used some different words and phrases, but I felt betrayed. Fab had convinced me to enter the barista contest. We had been spending hours together on our coffee presentation.”
“You metaphorically pushed him over the edge.” She glared at me with cold, blue eyes. “You were so harsh to him that day in the café. You don’t know the stress he was under.”
I leaned against the wall. “Not to speak ill of the dead or anything, but we’re all under stress. Him leaving without giving notice caused me a lot of stress. I figured a guy in his mid-twenties could handle a mild reprimand.”
“Whatever. I’m sure you were just jealous.”
I squinted. She wasn’t making sense. “Jealous? Of what?”
“I know he was with a lot of other women, and probably you, too. That’s why you spent so much time together.”
I grimaced. “No. He was teaching me to make latte art.”
“Whatever. He loved me. Me. That’s why he came to work for my dad, and that’s why you were so unhinged.” She slapped her chest with her palm.
Goodness. The onl
y unhinged person was her. But maybe now wasn’t the time or place to point that out. What if she attacked me? She was still in great shape, muscular and fit. I, on the other hand, had spent the last eight years eating dinners out of the Miami Tribune vending machine.
“I never hooked up with him. Wouldn’t have been with him had he been the last man on earth.” Oof. I should probably be a little kinder, under the circumstances. I took a deep breath and steeled myself. Then I allowed a little smile to lift the corners of my mouth.
“Let’s start this again. I’m sorry for your loss, Paige. Truly. And I’m sorry for the attitude when I first saw you. I was a little startled, honestly. I didn’t recognize you, or expect anyone to be here. I came by to get Stanley’s vaccination records.”
While hitching the duffel bag higher on her shoulder, she narrowed her eyes. “Stupid dog,” she muttered.
Yeah, she was going to be a tough one to win over. Her crack about Stanley didn’t sit well, either.
“Paige, I know you loved Fab. And he cared for you so much. He talked about you all the time.” Okay, that was a lie. Fab didn’t mention her at all, and instead talked about himself. “Want to come downstairs for a coffee? Talk it out? Then we can go inside his apartment together?”
“With you? No. Fake-ass geek. I’ll come back with an officer to get my things. And I’ll make sure to tell the police you were snooping around, too.”
Crap. Now I wouldn’t be able to go in because my fingerprints would be all over the place. Or could I? My face crumpled into a scowl.
“I’ll never forgive you for what you did to him. How you made his life a living hell.” She brushed past me, letting out a huff. “Maybe you did actually push him over the edge of that roof. The way you acted that day at Island Brewnette, you’re crazy enough to do anything.”
She shuffled down the hall in her flip-flops.
“Well, where were you the night he died?” I yelled.
She didn’t answer and slammed the door at the end of the hall. I slumped against the wall, and once I was alone, was too creeped out by the silence and the weak yellow hall light. I didn’t feel like going through a dead man’s belongings, so I left.
