A Whole Latte Murder

by Caroline Fardig

  I said, “I’m happy to help. Now, if we’re done talking about you, let me tell you what happened to me last night….”

  Chapter 5

  Stan dropped me off at Java Jive. A fun, carefree lunch with him was just what I’d needed, because I returned relaxed and much less stressed. It could’ve also had to do with the bottle of wine we’d shared. Now I was really sleepy.

  When I walked in the door, Rhonda barked, “Hey, Juliet.”

  I went behind the counter to meet her. “What’s up?”

  “Kira called. She’s not coming in, for obvious reasons.”

  Damn. I’d missed her, and unfortunately the poor girl had had to talk to gruff Rhonda. “And were you kind to her on the phone, Rhonda?”

  She let out an indignant snort. “Of course.”

  I doubted that, but chose to let it go. “Thanks for letting me know.”

  Before I could head to the office to try to call Kira again, I got an urgent-sounding text from Trevor: Can you meet me at my apartment now? I need your help.

  I jogged over to the apartment complex, noting that all the law enforcement vehicles from last night were gone except one. When I got to the top of the steps, I realized why—there was only one lone uniformed officer standing guard in front of Chelsea’s apartment.

  I knocked on Trevor’s door, and he threw it open immediately, grabbing my arm and pulling me inside. He looked rough, as did his apartment. I tripped over a pizza box on the way in.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked. Once my eyes got accustomed to the darkness inside Trevor’s apartment, I noticed that his friend Ryan Hart was sitting on the couch across the room. “Oh, hi, Ryan.”

  “Hey, Juliet. How’s it going?”

  “It’s been better, obviously.”

  “Oh, yeah. Sorry.”

  Trevor was itching for us to quit gabbing. He blurted out, “I need your help.” Evidently nearly everyone needed my help today.

  “What’s going on? Are you in trouble?” I asked.

  “Yeah, probably. Those detective guys kept me at the station practically all night!”

  “Why? I didn’t know they even took you there.”

  I was getting a bad feeling about this. The police wouldn’t have wasted time taking him to the station unless they wanted to put the screws to him. Cromwell did ask me if I thought Trevor had killed Chelsea.

  “They interrogated the shit out of me! I thought they were going to throw me in jail!” He collapsed next to Ryan on the couch. “They told me not to leave town.”

  Ryan said, “Ouch, man. That’s never good.”

  I tried to keep my hands from shaking. This scenario hit way too close to home for me. “I know you’re scared, believe me. What did they say they had on you?”

  “My name is on the murder weapon,” he wailed.

  I wasn’t ready to call it a murder. I didn’t want to believe someone had been killed a few doors down from me. “Your name is on a power cord connected to a possible murder weapon. Come on, Trevor. Step back and think about this analytically. If that’s all they’ve got, there’s no way they can pin anything on you.”

  He fidgeted in his seat. I noticed he wouldn’t look at Ryan or me.

  “There’s something else, isn’t there?”

  Blowing out a pent-up breath, he said, “Yeah, that’s where you guys come in.”

  I rubbed my eyes. “I don’t like where this is going, Trevor.”

  “You don’t even know what I’m going to ask yet!”

  “I can guess, and it’s certainly not going to win me any points with Ryder.”

  “I just need you to help me get into Chelsea’s apartment.”

  My jaw dropped. “Hell no!”

  “You’ve broken into places before.”

  I flung my arms in the air. “I’m not proud of it.”

  “Come on, Juliet! How many databases have I hacked into for you?”

  After hesitating for a moment, I replied, “Two.”

  “And how many times have I got Ryan to stitch up your friends off the record?”

  I sighed. “Two.” He had me over a barrel here. I owed him some help. I turned to Ryan. “Are you on board with this?” Ryan was a med student at Vanderbilt, originally from my same hometown. He had a good head on his shoulders.

  Ryan nodded. “Yeah, I’m down with it. Trev’s plan is pretty solid. Plus I could use something to take my mind off studying for a while. My poor brain is overloaded.”

  I needed a little more convincing. “At least tell me why you need to break into Chelsea’s apartment before I agree to anything so stupid.”

  Trevor said, “I need to return her phone. The cops are going to be looking for it.”

  Why, oh why did Trevor have a dead girl’s phone? “What did you do?” I groaned.

  “Relax. I didn’t steal it from the crime scene or anything. She gave it to me last night to jailbreak it for her.”

  I slapped my forehead in frustration. “Then why didn’t you give it to the cops last night?”

  “And tell them what, exactly? My name is on the murder weapon.”

  “Possible murder weapon,” I corrected him.

  “I was the last person, besides the murderer, to see her alive.”

  “If there indeed is a murderer at all.”

  He ignored my interjections. “I was the first person to find her dead. Everybody knows I’m in love with her. And now I’ve got her phone? Come on. I would lock me up for that!”

  I frowned. “I see your point. And it would be good for the cops to have the phone back to examine. It might give them some kind of clue as to what happened.”

  Ryan said, “It’s not going to help. He’s already been through it.”

  “Of course he has.” I started pacing around the room. “Is there a better way to get her phone to the cops, though? I mean, even if you return it to her apartment, will they go back in there and find it? What if they’re finished processing her place and they don’t make another sweep?”

  Ryan said, “At some point they’re going to have to let Kira back in there. We could put it somewhere she would stumble onto it.”

  “I don’t like this.”

  Trevor sighed. “I don’t, either. But I don’t see another way around it.”

  “Let’s hear your plan,” I said.

  —

  “This is a stupid plan,” I huffed, staggering under the weight of Trevor’s icky, enormous mattress I was helping him carry from his bedroom to the door. What college boy needed a king bed?

  “It’s not stupid—it’s simple. And that’s why it’s going to work.” He set his end of the mattress against the wall and opened the window a crack, peering out between his window blinds. “Ryan needs a few minutes to get over to his friend’s apartment building across the parking lot.”

  “So Ryan is going to leave this apartment—the one that belongs to you, a person of interest in a murder—in full view of a cop who’s guarding the scene of said murder. Then a few minutes later Ryan is going to have an emergency and yell for the cop’s help. And you think the cop won’t smell something fishy going on?”

  “Would you quit being so negative?”

  “Maybe when you pull your head out of your ass I will.”

  Trevor turned around to glare at me.

  “I’d prefer not to go to jail,” I said.

  He turned back to the window, watching out again. “Shh, here goes.”

  I heard yelling outside, and it was coming closer and closer to us. Too interested not to watch, I propped my end of the mattress against the wall as well and went to stand next to Trevor at the window. I could see Ryan, who had changed clothes and put on a hat (smart, so the cop wouldn’t recognize him), running toward our building, waving his arms wildly.

  “Officer! Help me! Some guy just punched me and took my backpack! He ran off down the street!” Ryan yelled.

  From our vantage point we couldn’t see the cop at his post at the end of the hall, but we cou
ld hear him call, “I’ll be right down.” Then we saw him hurry down the stairs, speaking into the radio on his shoulder.

  “Now!” Trevor said.

  We heaved the mattress up and out the door, heading for the end of the hall. The cop was running through the parking lot behind Ryan, in the direction of the street. Trevor and I hustled across the balcony with the heavy king-sized mattress, finally coming to a stop in front of apartment 29.

  Trevor got between the mattress and the door, completely shielded from view as per his plan, while he unlocked the door and entered the apartment. Luckily, Chelsea had given him her extra apartment key for safekeeping should she ever get locked out. At least we didn’t have to do the “breaking” part of breaking and entering.

  To my dismay, apartment 28’s door opened, and the same guy from last night came out to gawk again. He was still shirtless. And skeevy. “Hey there,” he drawled, leaning against the doorframe. “What’s up with the mattress? Do you bring your own equipment when you make house calls?” He chuckled at his own stupid joke.

  I had to think fast. I laughed. “Something like that. Hey, have you got something to drink? I’ve been helping a friend move today, and I’m thirsty.”

  He looked me up and down. “For you, mama? Anything. Come on in.”

  I shuddered to myself as I entered his apartment. It reeked, unsurprisingly, of cheap man perfume and pot. Trevor owed me big-time for this one.

  He went to his refrigerator and came back with two cans of PBR. If I didn’t think the guy was a douchebag before, this clinched it for me. I didn’t know if I could even manage to swallow the stuff, but I needed to buy Trevor some time. Since I could still see the mattress covering this apartment’s window, I assumed he hadn’t made it out of Chelsea’s apartment yet. I cracked open the top of the can my new “friend” had handed me and took a swig.

  Yep. Just as bad as it tasted in college.

  He said, “I’m Jasper.”

  And a douchey name to match. “I’m Juliet.”

  Thankfully, I saw the mattress jiggle and slowly start sliding back in the direction of Trevor’s and my apartments. My work here was done.

  Jasper squinted at me. “Are you a student? You’re…um…”

  “Old?” I supplied for him. “No. I’m not a student.”

  “Why do you live here, then? Have a fetish for younger men?” He gave me what was probably supposed to be a sexy smile, but I thought he looked constipated.

  I gestured to the window. “Um, looks like the mattress left without me. Gotta run. Thanks for the beer.” I made a move toward the door, but he stopped me by grabbing my arm.

  “Aw, I thought maybe you’d want to stay for a while.”

  In wrenching my arm away from him, somehow I managed to fumble my beer can and empty most of its contents onto the front of my shirt. I was about ninety-nine percent sure Jasper had helped tip the can into the perfect position.

  “Really?” I griped.

  “Hey, that wasn’t my fault.” Leering at my drenched chest, he added, “But I don’t mind my own private wet T-shirt contest.”

  “You’re a pig.”

  “You invited yourself in, sweet cheeks.”

  “Goodbye, Jasper,” I snapped, slamming the door on my way out.

  I hurried to my apartment, needing to get out of my wet shirt, but when I went past Trevor’s door, he stuck his arm out and pulled me inside once again.

  “What happened to you? You were supposed to have my back.”

  I glared at him. “I did. That assclown in apartment 28 came out the minute you went into Chelsea’s apartment. The only way to keep him from finding out what you were doing was to distract him. I had to go into his apartment and have a beer with him. Blech.”

  Trevor looked down at my shirt. “Looks like your shirt had a beer with him instead.”

  “True. And now I’m going to change and go back to work. I take it your B and E was successful?”

  He smiled. “Worked like a charm.”

  “Good.” I headed for the door. “Now no more breaking the law, okay?”

  He nodded.

  This little illegal task took longer than I’d planned, and having already taken an extended lunch, I’d been away from Java Jive for more time than I probably should have. I didn’t worry much about taking time off here and there since I worked every day from open until close, but this was a pretty big chunk of time out of the day. Plus with Kira not coming in this afternoon, we’d be a barista short.

  I flew through the door of my apartment and headed for my closet, stripping my wet shirt off as I went. The beer had soaked through my bra, too, so I flung it off, stopping in my bathroom to wash the PBR stink off my torso. I went to my bedroom to find a new bra, but there were none in my drawer. I had neglected to put my clean laundry away, and all of it was still sitting in a basket on my living room floor. Hurrying back down the hall, I was just about to reach down to pluck a clean bra from the laundry basket when the unthinkable happened.

  I screamed at the top of my lungs. There was a man standing in the middle of my living room.

  Chapter 6

  His mouth dropped open as his face turned scarlet.

  I clamped my hands over my bare breasts, screaming, “Turn around!”

  Spinning around quickly, he said, “I wasn’t looking. I swear.”

  Yeah, right. I turned away from him and quickly put on a bra and a clean shirt from the pile. I was more pissed than frightened, since I knew the guy. He was a cop I’d met a while back.

  “Why in the hell are you in my apartment, Stafford?”

  Detective John Stafford hadn’t turned back around yet, probably because he was still blushing. The back of his neck was bright red. With his fair skin, the slightest blush was noticeable, even with the neatly trimmed beard that covered his jaw. I could definitely sympathize, given my equally pasty skin tone.

  “I went to Java Jive to talk to you, but your staff told me you’d run home. So, I came over here, and your door was open. You know, with a murder down the hall you really should lock your door, or at least close it.”

  “Oh, so the police are officially calling it a murder now?” I’d kept telling myself it wasn’t a murder, but deep down I wasn’t surprised to hear that it was.

  “Forget I said that.”

  “Still, you didn’t have to barge in without knocking or saying something.”

  “I did knock, and I called your name. You evidently didn’t hear me.”

  I’d had the water running for a minute or two, but still. “Oh. You can turn back around, by the way.”

  Stafford turned around, but he couldn’t quite look me in the eye. He chuckled nervously and ran a hand through his dark blond hair. “While this might make a funny story someday, maybe we shouldn’t tell Hamilton. He might kick my ass.”

  “Agreed. So what did you come to talk to me about? You’re not working the Chelsea Stone case, too, are you?”

  “Not directly, but I think it might tie into another case I’m working on. I’m with the Cold Case Unit now, and we’re the ones who also handle missing persons. I’m helping with trying to find the young woman who disappeared Sunday, Amelia Zhou.”

  “What kind of connection does she have with Chelsea?”

  He smiled. “I’m going to be the one asking the questions here, Ms. Langley.”

  “Right. Sorry. And you can call me Juliet. When you call me Ms. Langley, I feel like I’m talking to Cromwell.”

  “I certainly wouldn’t want to be confused with him.” Like that could ever happen. Detective Stafford was young, good-looking, had a decent sense of humor, and didn’t seem to get irritated easily. He continued, “You said in your statement that Chelsea Stone was concerned about you walking home alone last night. What did she say to you exactly?”

  “She wanted me to walk home with her and Trevor Wells, but I didn’t because I had to close up at Java Jive. She made a point to warn me to be careful.”

  “Did she g
ive you a reason why she felt that way?”

  “She mentioned the girl who’d gone missing. She seemed bothered by it.”

  He frowned. “So do you think she was worried about her own safety as well?”

  “I would assume so.”

  “Did she ever say anything about a specific occurrence that frightened her?”

  I shook my head. “No, we never really talked about things like that. Trevor was fairly close to her, though. You might ask him if she confided anything in him.”

  “He lives next door, right?”

  “Yes. Um, Detective Stafford?”

  He smiled. “You can call me John.”

  “Okay. John, if you talk to Trevor, please be gentle with him. Chelsea’s death is absolutely eating him up inside. And I think Ryder and Cromwell really got in his face about it. He’s had more interrogating than he can stand.”

  A look of annoyance crossed his face. “Those two don’t exactly complement each other as a team, do they? You need at least one guy who’ll play good cop. I promise to go easy on him.”

  “Thanks.” I chuckled. “And I promise to be wearing a shirt the next time I see you.”

  Stafford blushed again, but not as violently this time. “See that you do, Juliet.”

  —

  I raced back over to Java Jive. Luckily, it wasn’t crazy busy in there, but my baristas Cole and Tiffany looked like they could use some help. I donned an apron and took over working the pastry case so Tiffany wouldn’t have to collect money and get food out. I also began filling drinks and taking orders for the couple of people sitting at the counter, because no one liked that job.

  During a lull in the fairly steady stream of customers, Cole asked me, “Did you seriously find Kira’s roommate dead last night? That chick who left her scarf here?”

  “Yes.” I was hoping some mindless work would take my mind off Chelsea, but it didn’t look like that was going to happen.