A Berry Cunning Conman_A Laugh-Out-Loud Cozy Mystery

by A. R. Winters

  Grabbing some of Patty’s multi-purpose napkins, I scribbled down my plans. Since I was making Patty’s sweet muffins this morning, I decided to go all in. I’d make savory cheddar cheese egg muffins, using the left over potato, onion and bacon hash as a filler. From what I could tell from the recipes I looked over, it was a lot like making a frittata except instead of baking it in a pie plate, the mixture was baked in a muffin mold. And I’d make a sweet potato, onion and mushroom hash to serve with them.

  I loved the idea of the egg muffins because it was a dish that I could make in advance. I could bake up a good-sized batch and then have them on hand to serve all the way up to lunch.

  Which took me to lunch…

  I searched the web some more.

  “Chicken breasts…” I knew I had some in the cooler, and they needed to be used soon. If I baked chicken breasts this morning, I could serve them sliced over an easy-peasy salad later. I could get all the ingredients ready to go and then just pull it all together as lunch orders came in.

  And that left dinner…

  “Hmmm… Sage, what do you think? Continue with the chicken theme?”

  She responded with a big, toothy yawn, and I took it as a yes.

  I scrolled through a hundred pictures before I saw something that caught my eye. “Oooooh! Bacon!” Bacon-wrapped chicken breasts, to be exact. I looked at several recipes. I had all of the ingredients. Just like lunch, I’d be able to prep them in advance in advance and then cook them at dinner, per order. All my offerings today would be fresh and there’d be less waste.

  Most the recipes looked pretty simple. I picked one that included stuffing the chicken breasts with feta cheese and spinach after reading a rave review for the recipe. Then I settled on a side dish: sautéed green beans and mushrooms with a baked potato. Again, I could prep a big bowl of them and then cook a serving for every dinner order. As for the potatoes, I could pre-salt them and wrap them in tinfoil so that they’d be ready to be put into the oven to bake this evening.

  I had a plan. Now I just had to do it all.

  I looked around the very empty kitchen in which absolutely nothing had been done yet.

  “Sage,” I said, “I could get you an apron. A small one. We’d make it fit. You game?”

  Sage rolled on her side and stretched out.

  She wasn’t game.

  Chapter 7

  I heard the bell to the café’s front door ring. I was sitting on the customer side of the grill bar with my head down, and I opened one eye to see who had come in. “Oh, it’s you,” I said, closing my eye again.

  “How come you look so terrible?” Brad asked. I was too tired to be offended. “Somebody didn’t try to break in again, did they? ‘Cause, you know, we trade out Sage for a great big mastiff and all them shenanigans stop. You have enough people break in, you wouldn’t even have to feed the beast so much. All the hoodlums could supplement his diet.”

  “Mmmm.” It was all the response I could muster.

  Brad walked around to what would normally be my side of the bar and started making coffee. His coffee was way better than mine, and his superior coffee-making skills were why I hadn’t already made it. That I was tired and didn’t want to make it didn’t factor into my decision at all. Promise.

  I must have dozed off because before it was even physically possible, Brad had a cup of hot coffee sitting in front of me. I managed to lift my head, and he topped the cup off with some cream and sugar, just the way I liked it.

  I loved that he knew how I liked to take my coffee. It was such an intimate thing to know.

  “So I smell breakfast, but I don’t see breakfast,” he said.

  “Mmmm,” I said, holding the coffee cup up in front of my face with both hands as I steadied my arms with my elbows on the counter. “I’ll go get it.”

  “No, you stay. I’ll get it.”

  He was back a few minutes later with two plates, each with a couple of egg muffins on them. He balanced a third plate on his arm. It was full of sweet potato hash.

  “We can share the hash,” Brad said, setting the plate down between us.

  “It’s not any good. Nothing caramelized like I saw in the pictures.” And the sweet potato was still crunchy, even though I’d cooked it for what had seemed like forever.

  “You probably overloaded the skillet. Overload the skillet and stuff steams instead of browns.”

  “Which platter did you get the egg muffins from?” I asked.

  “The first one. The one on the right.”

  “Good,” I said as he sat down on the stool next to me. “The other platter is the Oops platter. Those are a little soggy in the center, but these are good.”

  We ate in silence, and by the time I’d gotten my cup of coffee drunk and the egg muffins inside of me, I felt renewed.

  “You need help,” Brad said when I’d perked up enough to hold a conversation.

  “I do. I hadn’t realized how much of this place Brenda was carrying. Without her, I’m all used up.”

  “She not coming back?”

  “She wants to,” I said. We’d text chatted the other day. “She just doesn’t know when she’ll be able to come back. Her grandma’s sick… in a not getting better but not gonna die kind of way.”

  “Oooph,” Brad said. “That’s a hard way.”

  “Mmhmm.”

  When Brad left, I sent him off with a couple of the orange poppy seed muffins and a couple of the blueberry as well. I’d done really well with the blueberry muffins, and they were almost all non-Oops Board worthy. The orange poppy seed ones didn’t fare as well, though, but I gave Brad some of the good ones.

  Not long after Brad left, Zoey came in. I couldn’t help but wonder if she’d used some of her surveillance skills to time showing up after he’d left.

  She sat down at the counter, and this time I was behind it instead of dozing in front of it.

  Her eyes channeled Cleopatra today, and her thick black hair was pulled into a messy up-do. She was wearing tapered jeans that resembled leggings, a tucked-in gauzy flowered blouse, and open-toed flat sandals, which cut her height so much in comparison to how I was used to seeing her that the difference was shocking.

  “You got any of those bacon PB&Js?” she asked. “I like those.”

  Hey, bacon. What’s not to like?

  “No, not this morning. I’ve got some egg muffins with some bacon in them, though,” I said as I poured her a steaming cup of coffee.

  “Brad make this?”

  “Mmhmm.”

  “Good. And hook me up with that muffin.”

  I brought it out for her a minute later with an orange poppy seed muffin on the side.

  She looked from the muffin to the Oops Board where I’d already listed it at a discount. The blueberry were on the full price menu board.

  “Oh! Sorry. Want me to go get you a blueberry?”

  “Nope. Too boring. I like the Oops Board items. They keep life interesting.” She gave me smile and a wink.

  Joel walked in and I repeated the process, although he wanted to try a blueberry and an orange poppy seed, with ketchup on the side for his two egg muffins. He also got the hash, even though I warned him about its underdone crunchiness.

  Once they’d settled into eating, I pulled one of the kitchen stools out to behind the grill’s counter and sat. It was best to conserve energy where I could.

  Joel was looking a touch haggard himself today. He had dark circles under his eyes, and there was a short growth of scratchy stubble all along his jawline and chin. He was wearing jeans and a long blue button up shirt overtop a T that stretched tight over what seemed like miles of hard muscle. His dark brown hair was a lighter shade of brown than Brad’s, and it was a little longer with a slight touch of natural wave.

  “You doing okay?” I asked, not even bothering to try to keep the concern out of my voice.

  He rubbed his face with his huge hands. “Had trouble sleeping.” He squirted ketchup all over his egg muffin. It loo
ked like a bloody mess.

  I sipped my coffee, determined to let them eat in peace without me forcing idle chitchat on them.

  Joel cut himself a huge bite and devoured a third of the egg muffin in one go. His brows lifted. “Mmm, good. You wanna investigate Morgan Bleur’s murder with me?”

  I choked on my coffee. “What?” Then I said, “No,” at the same time that Zoey said, “Yes!”

  I put down my coffee cup. “Why are you wanting to investigate? You’ve never gotten involved with any of the other murders.” I hated that that was even something I could say: the other murders. It was insane how much my life had changed since I’d left Chicago, and only a small part of it had to do with the change in location and becoming a business owner.

  “You didn’t ask! And I didn’t want to intrude… You and Zoey, you’ve got a rhythm. You zig and she zags. Let’s face it, you two are like the Scooby gang on steroids. I figured I’d just get in the way.” His expression turned sheepish. “But I have to admit, I do have an ulterior motive for wanting to be involved this time. I’m under investigation for murder.” His smile returned. “Plus, I want the scoop on the story for my paper.”

  “A suspect? Why?” I asked, unsure if I could believe my ears.

  Joel’s good humor fell away, and he shrugged as he dropped his eyes to his food. He focused on cutting himself another bite. It was evasive body language. He didn’t want to answer my question, so it surprised me when he did.

  “Morgan was blackmailing me… well, trying to blackmail me. I told him to shove it and things got physical.”

  My desire to ask why Morgan was blackmailing him was so strong that it had me on the edge of my stool, yet my desire to leave Joel his privacy had me desperate to keep my mouth shut.

  “What’d he have on you?” Zoey asked, clearly not held back by the same concerns as me.

  Joel shook his head. “He didn’t have anything on me. He made something up and threatened to tell lies if I didn’t pay him.”

  He glanced at his food again, and I could again see his desire to evade the question, but he went on anyway.

  “He must have found out that I’m sweet on you, Kylie. He told me to either pay him or that he was going to tell you I’d paid him for sex.”

  I guess I’d been sitting just a little too much on the edge of my stool because I fell plum off. Jumping up, I sat back down and quietly pretended it had never happened.

  “Did you do it?” Zoey asked, and then added, “No judgments.”

  “No, I didn’t do it.” He flicked another glance at me. “Morgan wasn’t my type.”

  My cheeks heated at the implication that I was his type, and I took a sip of my coffee in an effort to hide my smile.

  “The cops consider you a serious suspect?”

  “Mmm, I don’t know. Maybe. But if they don’t right now, I think that they will soon.”

  “Why’s that?” Zoey asked.

  “Turns out that dead hand you found, Kylie, had a scrap of cloth wedge in under the death-claw of his fingers. I’m pretty sure that it’s from a shirt of mine. As soon as I learned about it, I turned the shirt over to the police. It’s the one I’d been wearing when he and I fought.”

  “Wait,” Zoey said, wearing a huge grin. “So this guy gets dragged down the road with his hand crushed in the door of a car, and the piece of cloth that they find in that hand is from a piece of your clothing? That’s cold, man,” she said, chuckling. “Total props.”

  “Zoey!” I exclaimed.

  “Hey,” Zoey said, “Joel’s a good guy. If he felt like somebody needed killin’, then they probably needed killing.” She turned to Joel. “So how ‘bout it? Did the guy need killing?”

  Joel shook his head. “Zoey, you are one scary lady.”

  Zoey grinned from ear to ear. “Thank you, Joel. That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

  Joel glanced at his watch. “I don’t have much more time before I have to go. You guys in?”

  “I’m in,” Zoey said, and then the both of them turned and looked at me.

  I saw Brad’s crossed-arm glare in my head. He would hate it if I got involved with yet another murder investigation.

  Of course, it was better that I live true to my desires rather than try to be who I thought Brad wanted me to be. If there was ever going to be anything between me and Brad—or me and Joel, for that matter—he would have to accept me as I truly was… a snooping busybody who loved to solve a good puzzle.

  “I’m in.”

  Chapter 8

  “This is what I know,” Joel said. He pulled a small flip notebook out of his back jeans pocket. He thumbed through its pages, then stopped, apparently having found what he was looking for.

  For the first time I realized—really realized—that Joel was a reporter. I’d known he owned the Camden Falls Herald, but I hadn’t realized that finding-the-story was who the man was. Yet sitting before me was exactly that.

  I blinked, and Joel looked less boyish. I blinked again, and he looked shrewd and observant. I blinked a third time, and I saw a man and not just someone with a star-athlete’s body.

  “What?” Joel asked, and I realized I’d been staring.

  I grinned, looked down, and felt my cheeks heat. “Nothing.”

  “What?” Joel asked again, this time with laughter in his voice.

  I met his eyes. “I just never realized, you know…?”

  “Realized what?”

  “That you were a reporter, that it wasn’t just a job to you but that it was who you were. I mean, I knew you inherited the paper from your uncle…”

  “And you thought it was just some random inheritance? My uncle’s favorite nephew?” His smile was kind and his bright.

  “Yeah, something like that.”

  Joel laughed. “If Uncle Nick could hear you, he’d fly into the biggest lecture. Naw, I worked for Uncle Nick at the paper since I was thirteen. Then after I left for college, I’d come home during the summers and work with him.” He chuckled, clearly lost in memory. “The man was a beast. A tyrant at times even, but he was always right. I rarely saw it at the time, but he was always right.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He passed away from a heart attack, at work, working late. After college football, I went pro for a year and a half. But when I got the call about Uncle Nick, I knew I had to come home. It’s what he’d wanted. It’s what I’d wanted. So I negotiated myself out of my contract and the rest is history.”

  Hearing that Joel had been a pro football player was like someone dragging a needle across a vinyl record. The world stopped. It broke itself apart and then remade itself. Everything was the same… yet slightly different.

  “You played pro?” An ex-pro football player was sweet on me. On me!

  “I gotta go,” Zoey said, standing up, breaking the spell of shock and awe that had come over me. “Kylie, catch me up later. And I’m taking some more of those orange poppy seed muffins with me. I like ‘em. They’re not as bad as you think. You should move ‘em off the Oops Board.”

  She took off with another three muffins in tow. My waiter, Sam, had made it in, and I knew he had everything covered for now. I’d need to jump back into action when the lunch crowd started rolling in.

  Joel and I got settled at a table, and my cell phone buzzed with a text. It was from Zoey. It said, Three’s a crowd. Have fun. ;)

  I kept my smile to the tiniest curl of the corners of my mouth and didn’t let on to Joel that anything of interest had been said. Truthfully, I was glad Zoey had taken off. This was the most personal conversation I’d had with Joel to date. That we were about to discuss the events leading up to a man’s murder didn’t dispel my joy one bit.

  Ohhh… I think there might something wrong with me. I pushed the niggling thought to the back of my head.

  The long-legged Sam topped off our coffee and brought a couple more muffins that he’d heated up in the toaster oven. He included a few pats of butter on a chilled
dish on the side, and I marveled at what an amazing job my cousin Sarah had done training him. “Thank you, Sam.”

  “Sure thing, boss,” he said, and was gone in a flash to take care of another customer.

  “He’s a good kid,” Joel said, watching him go.

  “You can’t have him,” I joked. “Keep your mitts off.” I imagined Joel putting Sam to work at the Herald the way Joel’s uncle had trained him.

  “I don’t think there’s any risk of that. The kid’s happy here.” Joel turned his gaze on me, and I felt very… seen. “Him being happy says a lot about you.”

  My mouth fell open. “Joel Mullen, you are one smooth talking man!” This was starting to feel like a date, but I didn’t want this to be our date. I wanted a real date with Joel, one that couldn’t be mistaken as anything else. When a person went on an official date with another person, intentions were often declared. I liked Joel, and I was liking him more by the minute, but if his interest in me was purely casual and fun-only… well, my heart couldn’t take liking someone more than they liked me. Not yet, anyway.

  I tapped the table near Joel’s notebook. “So what little tidbits of wisdom do you have squirreled away in there?”

  One of Joel’s brows arched. “Just the facts, ma’am,” he teased. He flipped the notebook back open to a page filled with scrawled notes and laid it on the table. Then with his hands free but his eyes studying the notepad, he pulled open a blueberry muffin and spread a pat of butter on its steaming goodness. Everything he was doing was normal, it was common, but as he studied his little notebook, his demeanor changed. There was the slightest of shifts about him. The sweet goofball fell away, and the person left in his place was a focused, keen professional.

  “Remember that day I was showing you how to make aglio e olio and I had to leave?” Joel asked.

  I nodded. I remembered that day very well. Joel had guided me out onto a limb and then abandoned me, leaving me dangling with my culinary life in the balance.