by Lyndsey Cole
Mia opened the door. She reached for Annie’s arm. “Leona said you sprained your ankle. Come in and I’ll get you some ice.”
Annie’s eyes teared up when she heard the concern in her mom’s voice. She silently thanked Leona for refusing to bring her home. Instead, she could now bask in her mother’s care while she made a plan with Camilla.
Leona bustled around her café, organizing, mumbling, cursing, and washing counters. Everyone else worked around her and tried to be helpful while staying out of her way. Leona was in a zone and no one wanted to cross her.
Martha, always the hovering grandmotherly type, pulled a chair close to Annie for her swollen ankle. She patted her shoulder before she got back to sweeping.
Camilla pulled up a chair and sat. “Anything I can do to help?”
“Yes. Can you visit your new best friend at the police station and follow up on his invite for a date? Suggest meeting him out for a drink tonight. Jason and I will accidentally bump into you around seven thirty at the Catfish Cove Pub. Think you can pull it off?”
Camilla straightened, poofed her bottom lip out, and raised a perfectly plucked brow. She placed both hands on her hips. “Do you doubt my abilities?”
That brought laughter from everyone in the café. Even a chuckle slipped through Leona’s gloomy face.
The tension was broken.
Leona turned on the radio to her favorite oldies station and even bobbed a little to Bob Dylan’s voice as she put away her newly purchased, with Jason’s money, baking supplies.
Annie sent Jason a text. Please pick me up @ cafe when you can - xxo
Then she decided to do a bit more research on her phone about poisonous plants. If she had the right information she might be able to lead Officer Reynolds to give her answers without him even realizing what he was doing.
She was surprised how much information there was specific to holiday plants that could make you sick to being potentially deadly, never mind other poisonous plants that grew wild. Well, those wouldn’t be available in December but it was still interesting—aconitum with its royal blue flowers, mushrooms, larkspur, foxglove, iris, and even rhubarb leaves. Annie was surprised at the long list of plants that should be avoided.
She heard someone clear his throat.
Annie looked up at Paul Ames’s smiling face. “You certainly are engrossed in whatever is on your phone.”
The background conversation that had filled the café disappeared like a puff of smoke. Only the music from the radio station filled the room with something besides dead air. Leona glared at Paul but she kept her mouth closed. She, obviously, wasn’t a fan of his but Annie wasn’t sure why. Her mother’s mouth was also pressed in a tight line. Note to Annie: find out more about Paul Ames besides what Jason told her.
“Hello ladies.” Paul smiled at everyone but the ice barely thawed. “I’m having a small gathering and I’m hoping to hire you to provide the desserts.”
“When, where, and how big?” Leona asked, her voice neither friendly nor unfriendly but Annie didn’t miss the spark that flashed in her eyes. She might have to compromise her feelings if she accepted a job offer from Paul.
Paul walked to the counter and sat at a stool opposite Leona. “Sorry to hear about what happened here on Saturday night. I’m thinking it could affect your business and I’d like to give you a boost.”
“Tell me more about your plans.” She leaned both elbows on the counter and waited for Paul to explain his needs. Martha, Camilla, and Mia moved close and circled around Paul. If nothing else, they would be there for moral support for Leona.
Paul surveyed the women. “I’m hosting a Christmas party for a few friends and their families next weekend. Nothing too big, probably twenty people, and I’d like a variety of Christmas cookies to accompany a champagne punch. At my house.”
“Let me check my calendar.” Under her breath Leona mumbled something about not knowing he had any friends.
“Don’t believe everything you hear around town from disgruntled divorcees. I’m very good at what I do. As a matter of fact, your friend Charlene hired me and she’s the person who suggested I get my desserts from you. She highly recommended your talent.”
“Charlene? I didn’t know you and Charlene were friends.” Leona’s voice held a suspicious quality.
Paul gave his shoulders a slight shrug. “Not friends exactly. Between dressing up as Santa for the annual Christmas party and gardening on her land, we bump into each other here and there throughout the year. Also, she hired me to draw up divorce papers which, obviously, she doesn’t need any more.”
“Have you considered that maybe you were the target Saturday night from one of those, as you call them, disgruntled divorcees? Cookie Snow and Daryl Hansen come to mind as they’ve both been divorced and they were both at the Christmas party. You’ve been the Santa most years; maybe someone thought you were under that Santa Claus outfit and killed the wrong person.” Annie didn’t think Leona did a very good job of hiding her dislike for Paul.
“Huh. Mistaken identity. No, I never thought of that but it’s an intriguing idea, especially being presented by the person who made the cookies in question. Should I be worried that you might poison the cookies I’ve just ordered?”
Leona’s hands slapped the counter and she lunged toward Paul. “Is that why you came here? To accuse me of murdering Nelson to help Charlene get off the hook?”
Paul leaned backward away from Leona and almost slipped off the stool. “Of course not. I was only joking. And what do you mean, get Charlene off the hook?”
“Killing Nelson would be a lot quicker than a divorce. And cheaper, too,” Leona added as a dig to Paul’s rates.
“That sounds farfetched to me.”
Annie hopped to the counter on her good foot and leaned on the stool next to Paul. “What about the deal Nelson made with Cookie to sell the land next to you? You know, where your garden is? Is Charlene going forward with that?”
Paul rubbed his chin. “Nothing was finalized. I don’t know what Charlene’s intentions will be but it will be her decision now.”
“Exactly my point.” Annie glared at Paul. She kicked herself for being taken in by his elegant breakfast.
Leona took her time scrolling through something on her phone which Annie assumed was recipes or photos of Leona’s new car since they all knew her calendar was empty and she was dying for business. “It’s kind of last minute.”
Paul ignored Annie’s accusation and responded only to the timing of his request for cookies. “Yeah. I can ask Cookie Snow if you can’t fit me in. I hear she makes a fantastic cupcake.”
“Now she’s the one that might poison you, just like she put those chopped up red berries on my cookies the other night,” Leona blurted out while she waved her arms in the air. “Cookie’s out to destroy me.”
Paul’s eyebrows shot up. “Cookie poisoned Nelson?”
“I’m positive she sprinkled those berries on the cookies he ate but the police haven’t confirmed exactly what killed him yet.”
Paul gave her a half grin. “Well, I guess it’s settled then. I don’t want to hire Cookie Snow. She’s never been on my favorite person list anyway. I’ll need six dozen of your assorted Christmas cookies. I have two punch bowls. One for the champagne punch and one for fruit punch for the kids. I’ll expect everything to be delivered by six on Saturday.”
Leona jotted down the details in her order notebook and nodded.
“Also, add about ten packages of cookies, maybe a half dozen in each package, nicely wrapped with ribbons for the guests to bring home. So eleven dozen cookies all together. Okay?”
“Perfect.” Leona noted the addition and read the order back to Paul. “Eleven dozen assorted Christmas cookies, champagne punch, and fruit punch, delivered to your house at six next Saturday.”
He gave her his address and phone number and a deposit for the order.
Paul twirled the counter stool around and stood. “I almost forgot the ot
her reason I came here.” He looked at Annie. “When I told Jason I was stopping here to talk to Leona, he asked me to give you a ride home. Are you ready to go?”
Annie hesitated. She felt guilty leaving but she knew she couldn’t help clean the café with her throbbing ankle. She slid her arms into the sleeves of her coat. “All set.”
Paul offered Annie his arm to lean on and she limped to his car. He opened the door for her and waited for her to get comfortable on the passenger seat. He really was a gentleman. Most of the time, at least. She supposed, in his line of work as a divorce lawyer, his job was to get the best deal for his client. She wouldn’t be able to do a job where she knew one person was getting everything and all the other person got was a pile of crumbs.
“I’m glad I could help Leona with some work. It sounds like she got a bum rap being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Paul said as he pulled out of the parking lot toward Cobblestone Cottage. “Did Cookie really poison Leona’s cookies?”
Annie twisted her mouth in a grimace. “We all think so but nothing’s been confirmed at this point and Cookie has a knack for twisting her story to make Leona look bad.”
“What do you mean?”
Annie let a deep breath of air out. “Cookie had holly berries in a big tote that she brought to the party and Leona took them out to show Detective Crank. Of course, since Detective Crank didn’t actually see the holly in Cookie’s bag, she didn’t put much weight on it and Leona had plenty of holly decorating the café.” Annie waved her hands to the side. “It’s frustrating. Every time Leona turns around, she seems to dig a deeper hole to bury herself in.”
“What else?”
“Apparently, Charlene asked Leona to buy a bottle of gin for her before the party and Nelson got ahold of some liquor that he was sipping on all night. He was groping any woman who happened to come close enough. It was awful.”
“So Charlene gave him the gin? Why would she do that when he’s a recovering alcoholic?” Paul turned into Annie’s driveway.
“What do you think? She wanted a divorce. Was she going to get everything she wanted or was Nelson going to give a good fight?”
“Hmmm. I see where you’re going with that line of thinking. We never got to that point of knowing how Nelson would react. He died before he was served with the divorce papers.”
“Don’t the police look at the spouse closely? Or is that only in the movies?”
“You’re right. Charlene will be on the police radar and she’s very worried about it. She told me some of her concerns yesterday morning when she barged in, but she never mentioned the gin. That could be a big problem, especially if it turns out to be a factor in his death.”
“But that’s a problem, too, for Leona if Charlene tells Detective Crank that Leona bought the gin.”
“You have quite the analytical mind, Annie. You do realize that by poking around in this mess you could be putting yourself in danger. I know what it’s like to be on the wrong side of love gone astray. Jilted spouses can be unpredictable.”
“Are you saying that you think Charlene killed her husband in a fit of jealousy or rage?”
“All I’m saying is that it’s possible and you need to be careful. Nelson had a tendency to, ah, wander, and maybe Charlene had enough.” He shrugged. “Why do you work so hard on this and not just leave it to the police?”
Annie twisted one of her strawberry blond curls around her finger and stretched it straight until it coiled back into place. “I have the feeling that Detective Crank has Leona in her crosshairs and I plan to keep digging until I find something to slam that trouble door shut for good.” She opened the car door. “Thanks for the ride, Paul. And thanks for believing in Leona. Not many people want to eat her cookies after what happened to Nelson.”
Chapter 16
Annie half hopped, half limped into the house. Roxy danced around her before she ran to the door. “You need to go out?”
The house was quiet. A note fluttered on the table, catching Annie’s attention. Jason let Annie know that he would be back in about an hour.
She pulled her boot off and checked her ankle. It was swollen and black and blue, but with some extra support and a stiff boot, she decided she could manage a short walk with Roxy. An ace bandage in the medicine cabinet was exactly what she needed and, after she dug it out, she wound it snuggly around her injured ankle like a pro.
Holding both legs out straight in front of her, Annie admired her thick ankle. “Now I’ll need a bigger boot to fit this extra bulk in.”
Fortunately, as she rummaged around in the closet on her hands and knees, she found an old pair of Jason’s boots that turned out to be just the right size. She slipped one foot in the bigger boot and the other in her normal boot. With her coat back on, along with her hat and mittens, she opened the door and let Roxy out into the brisk December day. A ski pole leaned next to the door and she decided to take it along for extra stability.
Clouds skittered across the bright blue sky but at least the wind was milder than the day before. It was refreshing and energized Annie after the difficult morning.
Roxy darted to the Lake Trail with her nose to the ground. Annie enjoyed watching her terrier mix pick up a scent and follow it on the trail, into the deeper snow, or to the base of a tree with an angry squirrel chattering at her.
Annie moved along the trail slowly while Roxy burned off her pent up energy.
Thelma Dodd waved to Annie from her sunroom and she returned the wave but she didn’t want to stop in at the moment. Smoke drifted from Paul Ames’s chimney like usual. She had mixed feelings about Paul and decided, since he was Jason’s friend, she would try to ignore the negative comments that followed him around.
Just past Jason’s house, Roxy leaped over the edge of the trail in hot pursuit of a gray squirrel. The squirrel steaked up a big oak tree and jumped from limb to limb, leaving Roxy barking far below. Annie thought the squirrel was taunting her dog the way he sat on a high branch with his tail curled in a hook shape and chattered from his safe distance.
With her nose in the air, Roxy caught a new scent and ran farther away from the trail.
Annie used her ski pole to help keep her balance as she stepped from one deep footprint to the next, following Roxy. It was a difficult walk-hop combination with her extra-large boot but, with care and concentration, she plodded through the snow.
“My name’s John.”
The voice startled Annie. She had been so focused on where to place her foot, her eyes had been glued to the ground. She looked up. “John Elmwood? What are you doing out here in the woods at this time of year?”
“My name’s John. John likes it here. Sometimes John climbs the trees to hide.”
Annie saw that John was bundled up for a winter day, plus he carried a small backpack. She heard that even though he was almost 40, he still lived with his mother, worked part time packing groceries at the Food Mart, and popped up in random places around town on a regular basis. Everyone said he was harmless, but it still felt sort of weird to bump into him on the deserted piece of land.
John crouched down and patted Roxy. “My name’s John. John likes dogs.”
“My name’s Annie.” She had run into John before but wasn’t sure if he remembered who she was and, obviously, names were important to him. “That’s my dog, Roxy.”
He straightened but didn’t look at Annie. Instead, he focused on something over her head. “Annie and Roxy. John has seen you here before.”
“So you come here often, John?”
He nodded, still staring off into space. “John sees other people here, too, but they never see John. John is quiet and usually hides, but John likes dogs.”
Annie smiled. Roxy seemed to be fond of John, too. She leaned against his leg and looked like she was about to start moaning with delight from the ear rubs. “How did you get here? Did you walk from your mother’s house? That’s kind of far.”
“John rode his bike. John’s bike is parked on the
road.”
Annie had seen John riding his bike around town in all kinds of weather, and today wasn’t bitter cold but it wouldn’t have been her choice for transportation. “Who else do you see here? This is private land.” Annie leaned on her ski pole to take the weight off her bad ankle.
“John sees lots of people. Charlene, Cookie, Daryl, Paul, and Annie. John doesn’t see Nelson anymore. He’s dead.” John took one of his mittens off and scratched his neck.
“Did you see those other people recently?”
John nodded and blinked several times. “Especially Cookie and Nelson.”
“What were they doing?”
“Nelson liked to hug Cookie. She didn’t like it. They argued. The others came to pick holly, except you didn’t. You talked to Daryl. He was rude to you. John doesn’t like Daryl. He’s mean to John at the Food Mart.” John suddenly turned around. “John has to go now. You shouldn’t come here. Those other people aren’t nice.”
Annie watched John walk in the direction he said he’d parked his bike. He disappeared into the deep brush. For a big guy he barely made a sound.
His behavior and warning gave her a chill. Why shouldn’t she come to this piece of land, she wondered? Was he dangerous, or was he referring to someone else? What did John Elmwood know?
Roxy leaped from one footprint to the next like a jackrabbit. Once on the Lake Trail she hightailed it toward Cobblestone Cottage, leaving Annie to hobble along home at her slower pace.
As Annie approached the house, Jason was hurrying toward her. “What happened? Roxy came home without you and I was afraid you fell or something.”
“No. I just couldn’t keep up with her.”
Jason wrapped his arm around Annie’s waist taking most of her weight off her bad ankle. “Should I even ask what you were doing out here instead of resting by the fire with your leg up?”
“Roxy needed a walk and it turned into a bit more than I anticipated.”
Jason opened the door. Annie shrugged her coat off and let it fall in a heap on the floor. She sank onto the recliner and put the footrest up. “Ahh. This does feel good.”
