Hot Cider and a Murder

by Kathleen Suzette

  I nodded slowly. My mother had a wonderful flower shop, and I wasn’t afraid for her or her business. At least, I was pretty sure I wasn’t. But I’ll admit that the more I thought about it, the more it bugged me that Gina was opening this shop.

  “That sounds like fun,” I said noncommittally. “Let me get you a form, and you can fill out what you want the ad to say.” We had a form where the advertiser could choose the size of the ad and what they wanted it to say. I slid it across the desk to her.

  She picked it up, looked it over, and then picked up a pen lying on the counter. “I want something big.” She checked the box for a quarter-page ad. It surprised me. It was expensive to put an ad that size in the paper. Then she began filling out exactly what she wanted the ad to say.

  “So, how are Tim and the family doing?” I asked as she filled out the form.

  She continued writing without answering right away. Then she looked up at me and grinned. “They’ll make it.” She went back to filling out the form.

  I was taken aback. “I’m sure losing a daughter and a sister has got to be a terribly traumatic experience.”

  She shrugged without looking at me. “I guess so,” she said.

  I gritted my teeth. I couldn’t stand her attitude about Daphne’s death. Sure, they had issues, but a lot of people have issues and can still manage to feel bad if someone dies.

  “I feel terrible for Daphne’s parents,” I said. I probably should have left things alone, but I just couldn’t. “Losing a daughter is terrible. Losing a sister is terrible too. Devastating.”

  She finished filling out the paper for the ad and slid it across to me. I glanced at it. It was very simple. Like she said, just a tease about a new business opening up. These would probably be very effective if she intended to do a lot of them prior to opening. That possibility disappointed me for some reason.

  “Rainey, I know a lot of people feel that Daphne’s death is a terrible thing. But I don’t think there’s any way I’m ever going to feel like that.”

  I looked at her and nodded slowly. “I guess some people have no heart where others are concerned.”

  She narrowed her eyes, and her jaw tensed visibly. “I don’t care what you think about me, Rainey. But if you have any ideas that I had something to do with Daphne’s death, you’re insane. I don’t hate anyone that much. But I sure don’t feel sorry that she died.”

  “Fair enough. I guess no one can make you have feelings when there just aren’t any available to have,” I said, looking her in the eye. There was a little voice in my head telling me to shut up, but my mouth wasn’t listening.

  “If you want to take a look at someone—and I know that’s what you’re doing, by the way. It’s not like anyone in Sparrow doesn’t know that you’re dating the detective on the case and that you’re one of the nosiest people in town. You can take a look at Alex Stedman.”

  I felt my own jaw go tight now. There was so much I wanted to say, but I knew Cade would be angry if I completely let loose and said what I was thinking. “And why do you say that?”

  She gave me a smirky little smile. “Because he didn’t fire Daphne like he’s been telling people. He sexually harassed her, and when she refused to give in to him, he threatened to fire her. But she turned the tables on him and blackmailed him, telling him she would expose him if he didn’t pay her off.” She tilted her head back and laughed. “Daphne told people she got fired so they would feel sorry for her, and everyone stupidly believed her.”

  I tried to keep the surprise off my face, but I’m pretty sure I failed at it. “And did he do it? Did he sexually harass her?” I knew what Jack had said, but I wasn’t sure I believed it. Gina made the third person that brought this up, when you counted what Karen said.

  “I have no idea if he actually sexually harassed her. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if she lied about it,” she said, still with that smirky smile. “But Daphne said he paid her ten thousand dollars to keep her mouth shut.”

  “That’s a lot of hush money if he didn’t do anything wrong. How do you know he actually paid her the money?” I wasn’t sure that I believed her. It was a lot of money for anyone to pay out to keep someone quiet if they were innocent.

  “Oh he paid it all right,” she said. “Daphne used it as a down payment on her new BMW. He didn’t want it to get out about the possibility he had sexually harassed Daphne because his company was already struggling financially. And if Daphne started talking—and I know that she would have done that—it would have destroyed his company.”

  A picture of the new BMW we had seen parked at the lodge the night of the party flashed across my mind. What Gina was saying was breathtaking. I wouldn’t have thought something like this of Alex, but when three people brought up similar stories, it was hard to say it couldn’t have happened. And something inside me said it was true. “Well, that’s interesting news.” I wanted to keep things neutral. I didn’t want Gina thinking she had gotten the better of me by knowing something this important about the case. And suddenly I realized why Daphne had so much trouble with Gina. Daphne had always had all the attention in the family. When Gina came along, she was arrogant and demanding of the attention that Daphne had always commanded. They were jealous of one another.

  “So you see, Rainey,” she said. “Just because someone acts like they’re innocent doesn’t mean they are. As far as I’m concerned, my money’s on Alex Stedman as the killer. And if you had any smarts, you’d put your money on him too and let that detective know what I just told you.”

  She tossed a credit card on the front counter to pay for her ad. I had to force my hand to come out of the tightly gripped fist it had become, pick it up, and run it through the card reader to pay for the ad. “Well, Gina, it’s certainly interesting. But I know the detective is looking into all of these things. And whoever that killer is,” I said, looking her in the eye now. “I’m sure he’ll figure it out soon, and they’ll wish they had never done what they did. Spending the rest of one’s life in jail isn’t going to be much fun.”

  The smile slipped from her face as she glared at me. “Just you remember what I told you. Alex Stedman killed Daphne.” She took the credit card back from me and stormed out of the newspaper office.

  I watched her go, wishing I could keep that smirk off her face forever. Alex Stedman certainly had good reason to murder Daphne, even if he was innocent of sexual harassment. With Daphne threatening to sue him and his business already suffering, he might have felt trapped. Had she gotten the upper hand on him and forced him to pay her hush money?

  Chapter Seventeen

  I turned the corner, my arms filled with plates of burgers, cold sandwiches, and a steak, when I almost ran right into Alex Stedman. I stopped on my heels, my eyes going to the plates in my arms, saying a silent prayer that I didn’t spill anything.

  “Oh, Rainey,” Alex said, taking a step back. “I almost ran right into you. I’m sorry, I was just headed back to my table.”

  I looked up at him and frowned. The conversation I’d had with Gina Richards from two days earlier went through my mind. I thought I knew Alex, and now I wasn’t so sure.

  “That’s okay. Things like that happen,” I said brightly and went around him, heading to my table without another word. I hadn’t seen him come in, but it had been busy and I hadn’t had time to do anything other than attend to my tables.

  “Here we are.” I set the plates down in front of the hungry diners, hoping I had gotten the right plates in front of the right customers.

  “This looks so good,” the older woman said, looking over the Hawaiian burger I had set in front of her.

  “Sam’s serves the best burgers around,” I promised her. “Can I get you all anything else?”

  No one needed anything else, so I headed to my next table. I stopped in my tracks when I realized that Alex was sitting at one of my tables. One of the other girls must have shown him to the table. Sam’s wasn’t fancy enough to have a hostess, so sometimes pe
ople took whatever table was available, or one of us waitresses would seat them.

  I pulled my order book out of my apron pocket and pasted a smile on my face. “Well, Alex, do you know what you want?”

  He looked up from the menu in front of him. “I think I’m going to go with the clam chowder. I haven’t had it in ages, and I know it’s always great here.”

  “And to drink?” I didn’t want to be rude, but I didn’t want to make small talk either.

  “Iced tea would be great.”

  I jotted down his order, nodded at him, and reached for the menu. “I’ll be right back with that.”

  I turned and left before he could say anything else, my nerves suddenly on edge. I had gone over and over what Gina had said about him and had convinced myself that it must be true. Daphne had that shiny new BMW parked in front of the lodge on the night of the party. Where else would she have gotten the money? Her parents could have given it to her, but with her history of DUIs, I couldn’t see them doing that. I stopped off at the soft drink fountain and made a glass of iced tea, then went into the kitchen and ladled up a bowl of clam chowder and got some crackers.

  “Rainey, it seems like it’s been forever since you made anything for us. I bet you still need us to try out the recipes for that new cookbook and I hope that job at the newspaper isn’t keeping you too occupied,” Sam said from his place next to the grill. He gave me a grin.

  “I seem to remember a cinnamon crumb cake the other day,” I pointed out.

  “That seems like it was a while ago,” he said, sounding disappointed.

  “Oh, Sam, I guess I’ve been busier than usual. I’ve had lamb chops on my mind. How about you buy the meat, and I’ll bring in the rest of the ingredients and cook them here? Maybe you can make them a lunch special?”

  “That sounds great,” he said. “And now that the holidays are almost here, we’re going to get to taste some wonderful holiday treats, aren’t we?”

  “I’m sure we will,” I answered. I headed back out to Alex’s table, picked up the glass of iced tea on the way, and brought the clam chowder and crackers to him. Thankfully he had ordered something easy, so I didn’t have to hang around his table.

  “I saw you at Daphne’s funeral,” he said as I set the clam chowder in front of him.

  I set the tea down. “I saw you too. I was a little surprised at that if you want to know the truth.” It was out of my mouth before I thought it through.

  He looked at me, eyebrows raised. “Surprised? Daphne worked for me for three years. I felt bad about what happened to her, and I wanted to pay my respects.”

  I folded my arms across my chest, feeling defensive. “Did you really?”

  He looked at me for a moment before answering. “I did. Why? Why do you say it like that?”

  I shrugged. “Can I ask you a personal question?” I hated to do this at the diner, but he was here and my attitude toward him was showing anyway.

  His mouth made a straight line. “Sure, go ahead and ask.”

  “Was Daphne going to sue you for sexual harassment?” It was a blunt question, but I thought I might as well give it to him straight.

  His eyes went big, his mouth forming a hard line. “She threatened me with a lawsuit, but I can tell you with all honesty that I never laid a hand on her.”

  “Sexual harassment isn’t just about laying a hand on someone,” I said. “There are a lot of other things that fall under the category of sexual harassment.”

  He shook his head. “Rainey, I don’t know what you’ve heard, but it’s not true. I would never do something like that. Not to Daphne, not to anybody. Who told you this?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know that it makes any difference. But I heard that you settled out of court because you were afraid of the attention it would draw to your business and that your business was already suffering financially.”

  He looked at a spot on the table in front of him and then looked back up at me. “You want to know the truth? I’ll tell you the truth. Daphne lied. Her drinking had gotten so bad she was coming in to work under the influence and she would come on to me. But I told her I wasn’t interested. I mean, what interest would I have in somebody who was drunk all the time? It made her mad, and she threatened me with a sexual harassment lawsuit to get back at me.”

  I considered this. Daphne was drunk a lot, and it wouldn’t surprise me if she went to work drunk. But had she come on to him? I didn’t think anybody was going to know the answer to that except him since Daphne was gone. “But why pay her off like that? It makes you look guilty. And ten thousand dollars? That’s an awful lot of money if you were innocent. You did pay her ten thousand dollars, didn’t you?”

  He nodded his head. “It is a lot of money. And I refused to do it at first. But you know about the Richards family. You know how much money they have. She threatened to get the best lawyer money could afford and drag my name through the mud. I felt like I had no choice, and I thought it would be cheaper to just to pay the money rather than try to defend myself in the public eye.” He narrowed his eyes and looked me up and down, considering me. It made me uncomfortable. Had I just made a killer angry?

  “Do you really think that would have happened? I mean, if it did go public, do you really think it would have hurt your business so much that you couldn’t have recovered from it?” I asked him. “It seems to me that having people find out you paid hush money would hurt your business a lot more than a sexual harassment lawsuit.”

  His mouth formed a hard line, and he gritted his teeth for a moment before answering. “It was more than just my business. It was my reputation. I don’t want to go through life with the stigma of sexual predator hanging over my head. Would you? I mean come on, I’m still young and I have other aspirations. I might run for public office further down the road.”

  I took this in. Alex had always been active in speech and drama in school, and it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if he decided to go into politics at some point in time. And it would have made things difficult with a sexual harassment lawsuit in his past. I still didn’t know if he was telling me the truth or if Gina was. Daphne could have lied to everyone about the sexual harassment. I relaxed my stance. “Well then, I’m sorry to hear that Daphne would do something like that to you.” It seemed like staying neutral for now was the best move.

  “You don’t know the half of what that woman was capable of. If you want to know who I think killed her, I think it was Jack Farrell or maybe even the queen bee herself, Gina Richards.” He smirked when he said the last part.

  “Why? Why do you say it like that?”

  “Why do you think Daphne and Jack broke up?” he asked, leaning back in his seat. “It was because Gina and Jack were having an affair.” He grinned at me, allowing me to take this in.

  I took a deep breath. As much as I hated to admit it, it was a possibility. Maybe that was why Gina and Daphne hated each other as much as they did. “Do you know this for a fact?”

  He nodded. “The day Daphne found out about it, she came to work drunk. I couldn’t believe she had driven all the way over to Boise in that state. She sat at her desk crying and sobbing about Jack cheating on her with Gina and she was going to let her brother Tim know about it, but she never did. Apparently, Gina had something on her.”

  “And what was that?”

  He shrugged. “She wouldn’t say, but a few days later when I told her she needed to tell her brother, she freaked out. She said there was no way she could do that to him. She started to say something about Gina knowing something and then she caught herself and said her reason for not telling him was that she didn’t want to hurt her brother.”

  I sighed. Things were getting more complicated by the minute. The more I asked around, the more one thing led to another. But it seemed that everything always led back to Gina. If what Alex said was true, and he wasn’t the one who killed Daphne, then Gina had the most reason to do it.

  Chapter Eighteen

  By the time I got
done working at Sam’s for the afternoon, I was exhausted. The weather had turned cold with the wind blowing and the sky overcast and threatening rain. I decided I needed a nice hot coffee to help me regain my energy.

  I walked into the British Tea and Coffee Company and spotted Cade at a table with Agatha. I headed to him and leaned over and gave him a quick kiss, then sat down. “Hi, Agatha,” I said to her. “My feet are aching.”

  “Hello yourself, lovely,” she said. “Can I get you a coffee?”

  “A pumpkin spice latte would be wonderful, but you don’t need to get up and get it. Let me put my purse down and rest my feet for a minute and then I’ll go and get one from the front.”

  “Nonsense,” she said, getting to her feet. “I’ll get you a nice hot coffee, and you relax here with your lovely man.”

  Cade grinned at her words and took a sip of his coffee. “So, how is my little detective’s assistant doing today?”

  I looked at him, one eyebrow raised. “So now I’m a detective’s assistant?”

  “You are if you’ve got any new information for me,” he said with a grin.

  “Just that Daphne led a rather wild life. Her drinking really was out of control and she ran around a lot, but I guess that isn’t new. I also learned that she threatened to bring a sexual harassment lawsuit against her former employer, Alex Stedman. He, of course, denies the wrongdoing, but not the threat.”

  He took this in. “Do you believe him?”

  I shrugged. “I really thought he was a nice guy in school, but I do have my doubts now. Of course, Gina Richards is the one who told me about it, to begin with, and Alex says that she and Daphne’s boyfriend Jack Farrell had an affair. Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me if everybody was lying.”

  He nodded. “It seems that in the case of murder, people are going to do that. You have no idea the stories I’ve heard over the years.”

  “I bet,” I said. “I don’t know how you do it. Wouldn’t you rather be a veterinarian? At least animals wouldn’t lie to you about what was wrong with them.”