by Mary Maxwell
He shook his head and ate more onion-flavored curls.
“Do you really like those things?” I asked.
“What’s not to like?” he said, licking his fingertips. “They’re crunchy. They’re salty. And they’re a good way to eat at least one vegetable a day.”
I smiled. “Look at you,” I teased. “Mr. Nutritious!”
“Well, it’s true. Onions are vegetables.” He quickly scanned the back of the wrapper. “Did you know they were first cultivated, like, five thousand years ago?”
“Is that on the package?” I leaned forward in my chair to get a better look. “I didn’t know eating that junk could be educational, too.”
Trent grumbled again, crunched through a few more calories and then asked why I was in his office pestering him.
“I’m not pestering you,” I explained. “I’m conversing with you.”
“Six of one,” he joked. “Now, what’s the deal with Mae Boyd? What’s the real reason she didn’t tell us about the skeleton?”
“I already told you, big guy. It was because of the threatening message someone left on her car.”
He nodded, brushed some crumbs from the front of his shirt and leaned back in his chair.
“Where is it now?”
“I guess it’s at her place,” I answered. “Or maybe in the trash. I thought about offering to bring it to you, but she probably would’ve declined. The poor thing was pretty rattled, but who can blame her?”
He scoffed. “Don’t get me started on that, Katie. You know how I feel about witnesses withholding information.”
I took a breath and counted to ten. I was very familiar with how he felt, but I also knew what I believed. In this case, Mae Boyd was both witness and victim. The perpetrators hadn’t done anything yet, but they’d terrorized her with the plastic bones and an unsettling warning of impending harm.
“I’ll send Tyler over to talk to Mae,” Trent said.
“What about Dina?” I asked. “Mae might be more comfortable talking to a female detective.”
His eyebrows went up. “Thanks for the suggestion, but Dina still has her hands full at the moment with that other matter. Besides, Tyler’s a very capable guy. He’ll stop by and visit with Mae, take her statement about the threat and get her to turn over the evidence if she didn’t throw it away.”
I offered to join them for the conversation, but the simpering grin on Trent’s face told me how he felt about the idea.
“Okay, then,” I said. “I should get out of your hair so you can get some work done.”
He laughed. “I do appreciate the offer, okay?”
I held his gaze and got up from the chair. Then I told him that I planned to have another conversation with Maureen Dixon.
“About what?”
“This and that,” I said. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll ask her to hold a séance so I can get in touch with Elvis and ask a few questions about the Fool’s Gold Loaf.”
Trent frowned. “Am I supposed to know what that is?”
“If you don’t, you should,” I said. “I think you’d like it a lot. It’s a hollowed-out loaf of warm Italian bread with a jar of creamy peanut butter, a jar of grape jelly and a pound of bacon.”
“Are you kidding me?”
I smiled. “Sounds like something you’d like, right?”
“Well, for sure,” Trent said. “But I’ve been eating that for years already, Katie. I just had no idea there was a name for it.”
CHAPTER 34
It was dark by the time Zack drove into the back parking lot at Sky High Pies. I’d stayed in the kitchen after Julia and Harper left for the day. The prep list was a mile long, but I decided to focus on organizing the three utensil drawers.
When I was a little girl, standing beside Nana Reed on my tippy-toes atop a bright blue metal step ladder, I spent countless hours watching as she cleaned and sorted the tools of her trade: straight and angled spatulas, decorating tips in dozens of sizes and shapes, rolling pins and spoons. Since I’d taken over the helm of our family’s bakery café, I’d discovered that there was something deeply therapeutic about the practice of removing all of the utensils, washing them in hot, sudsy water and then leaving them on the counter to dry while I used the attachments from my grandmother’s ancient Hoover to clean any stray crumbs and morsels from the drawers.
If Julia caught me doing it more than once a week, she’d know something was on my mind and start her amateur psychologist routine. “What’s bothering you, Kate?” she’d ask. Following my reply, usually a vague remark about feeling anxious, she would deliver her standard retort: “And how does that make you feel?”
When I saw the headlights of Zack’s car slice through the gathering gloom, I finished with the vacuum and closed the drawers. Then I draped a large tea towel over the drying spatulas and spoons before crossing the room and opening the backdoor.
“Hey, gorgeous!” Zack called as he climbed the steps to the porch. “How are you?”
“Better now,” I said, feeling the tender warmth of his hands on my face as we kissed.
He gently guided me inside and closed the door.
“I heard something interesting at the newspaper as I was leaving,” he said as we settled onto the stools beside the back counter. “It’s about that psychic you mentioned.”
“Maureen Dixon,” I said.
Zack nodded. “Right. Gretchen and one of the reporters were talking about her. I’m not sure where they got the info, but it sounded like she’s been telling people that she contacted the ghost of a dead bank robber to find out where he allegedly buried a pretty sizable chunk of cash.”
I thought about the disclosure while Zack went to the walk-in. He returned with two cans of Blood Orange Saison from his favorite craft brewery.
“Where’d those come from?” I asked.
He smiled, raising one can. “I stopped by earlier, but you were busy on the phone. Ansel Pratt was up in Boulder yesterday conducting interviews for a story he’s writing about the university. He knows how much I like the ale from that Upslope place, so he brought some back.”
I took a sip, relishing the blend of citrus, hops and spices.
“You like?” asked Zack.
“Like what?” I joked. “You or the pale ale?”
“All of the above, I suppose.”
I drank more while he opened his can and savored the first sip.
“Okay, handsome,” I said when he finished. “What else did you hear about Maureen’s claim?”
“That was pretty much it,” he answered. “She’s been telling folks that she knows where the dead bank robber hid the cash.” He drank more from the can of saison. Then he said, “Um, Katie?”
“Yeah?”
“Why do you have that look on your face?”
I waited for more.
“It’s that ‘I’m trying to understand how the puzzle fits together’ look you always get whenever you’re bewildered about something or trying to solve a mystery.”
“I know,” I said. “But there’s one thing that I’m not perplexed about.”
“How much you love me?”
I got up from the stool and closed my arms around his neck. After we kissed, I confirmed his deduction.
“That’s it,” I said. “I’m not confused at all about how much I love you or where I want to go for dinner tonight.”
“Chez Katie?” He smiled and tickled my side. “Or are we going back to my place?”
I shook my head. “Neither, actually. I’m in the mood for Niko’s.”
“Yeah? Does my beautiful girlfriend need some Greek food?”
“I don’t know what it is,” I said. “But I’ve had dolmades and pastitsio on my brain since early this morning.”
Zack drank more of his saison and asked if I’d be willing to drive.
“No way, José! Niko just added delivery service, so we’re dialing and dining tonight. Plus, I borrowed Julia’s copy of My Big Fat Greek Wedding to watch.”
&
nbsp; Zack made a face. “How about the Rockies first?”
I pressed my lips to his cheek, feeling the flick of dark stubble.
“Deal,” I said. “Although I may be asleep by the seventh inning stretch.”
With a laugh and a final swig of his ale, Zack pulled out his phone.
“So?” he said. “Dolmades and pastitsio?”
“And baklava,” I added. “Niko’s grandmother is in town for a couple of months, so I want to make sure we taste the real deal while she’s here making it.”
CHAPTER 35
The doors had barely opened the next morning when Harper called to me across the dining room. After greeting our first customers of the day, a pair of school teachers named Bryce and Odette Tucker, I was still standing beside their table listening while they discussed remodeling plans for their kitchen.
“Katie?” Harper said. “There’s a call.”
Odette smiled and stopped reeling off the virtues of Carrara marble countertops.
“Sorry, guys,” I said. “Will you please excuse me?”
“No problem,” Bryce said. “We just thought you might have some ideas.”
“Since you spend most of your days in a kitchen,” Odette added.
“Well, I can assure you,” I said, flashing a silly grin. “The only marble in the Sky High kitchen is the loose round thing rattling around in my head.”
As they laughed and went back to studying the daily specials, I walked to where Harper stood behind the counter. She held out the Sky High phone and told me someone named Caldwell in Denver was on the line.
“Detective!” I said to Adam after thanking Harper. “You’re among the early birds today, huh?”
His honey-coated laugh came through loud and clear. Then he informed me that he’d been up all night with a cranky baby.
“Oh, sorry to hear that,” I said. “I didn’t know that you were a dad.”
I heard another chuckle. “Actually, it’s my sister’s son. Her husband’s out of town, so she asked me to stay over at their place.”
“Oh, got it. Like an extra layer of security?”
“Or someone to do the dishes,” he said. “And run the vacuum. But I don’t mind; this is their third, so she’s got her hands full when Brent travels for work.”
“Well, I hope you get some sleep tonight.”
“Same here,” he agreed. “Um, so anyway…Maureen Dixon?”
“Yes?”
“I did some digging into that embezzlement situation at the heating and cooling company,” Adam said. “I don’t know how familiar you are with the case, but I don’t think your friend Maureen is as squeaky clean as she claims to be.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, I mean, as far as the embezzlement charges. I do believe that her coworkers were skimming. But I also suspect that she was involved. The catch was, she was much more clever than the other three clowns. She did a great job of covering her tracks. In the end, it was essentially the pot accusing the kettle, but the majority of the evidence pointed at the three men who were involved.”
“And who was the pot in this instance?”
“All of the above,” he said. “Maureen, Harley Skinner, Harris Dixon and Roger Kovac.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “If she was involved, how’d she get away with it?”
“I think being in the office made all the difference,” Adam explained. “In the end, the Denver PD couldn’t get anything concrete enough on her to file charges. I’d guess that while the guys were out actually installing and servicing air conditioners, Maureen was able to cover her tracks by keeping two sets of books that had Harley’s name on them.”
“Harley, but not Harris or Roger?”
“She implicated them with a series of provocative emails. Again, being in the office gave her access to all employee records, including passwords on their company email accounts. So, while the three amigos were falsifying bids, estimates and customer payment information, Maureen was staying one step ahead of them by burying incriminating messages on the email server between Harley, Roger and Harris.”
“In which they discussed stealing from the company?”
Adam laughed. “Not in so many words. More like, coded fragments and cash amounts and snarky gossip about their boss. When the theft was eventually discovered, Maureen looked like an innocent lamb surrounded by wolves. The Denver PD found all of the shady emails between the three guys, but not a shred of evidence that Mrs. Dixon had any knowledge or involvement.”
I could hear something in his voice, like the windup to a fastball pitch that would rocket over home plate.
“Okay,” I said. “Maureen got away with the embezzlement, but there’s more, right?”
He chuckled again. “She got sloppy,” he said. “About six weeks ago.”
“Go on,” I prompted. “What did she do?”
“She bought a bottle of tequila,” Adam answered. “With a twenty that was taken during the robbery of the Crescent Creek Bank.”
I gasped at the revelation. I hadn’t been expecting such a direct connection between Maureen Dixon and the bank job.
“Wait a sec,” I said quickly. “You’re telling me that Maureen spent some of the loot from the heist?”
“Yep,” Adam said. “The Feds have been tailing her, too. I’m not surprised they didn’t let you know since it’s an ongoing case.”
“The Federal Bureau of Investigation?”
“Yes, Katie. Those Feds. The serial numbers from every last bill included in the sixty grand taken during the bank robbery is in a database. It took a couple of clicks to connect the dots, because the first bills from the heist were used about three months ago at the Franklin Hotel in Philadelphia.”
“By Maureen?”
“Yes, but she wasn’t alone. Care to guess who was with her when she checked into the hotel?”
“Roger Kovac?”
He laughed. “You got it. After you called me the other day, I did some digging. The Helmsdale embezzlement case was before my time here with the Denver PD, but a buddy of mine remembered it. He gave me the background and also told me that the Feds have been in touch lately because some of the bills have started turning up.”
“In Philadelphia?”
“Yes, at the hotel and a couple of restaurants,” Adam said. “As well as a strip club in Atlanta and another one in Nebraska.”
“That all seems pretty random,” I commented.
“Sure thing,” Adam said. “But when you look at the corresponding dates and check the video footage from the strip clubs, you see the same happy smiling face: Roger Kovac.”
“But everyone thought he was dead,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s an unresolved part of the puzzle at this point,” Adam said. “After the robbery, he and his conspirators got away. A van was used as the getaway vehicle, but it was never located. And when the Colorado State Police found Kovac’s pickup a few days later, it had been torched.”
“How did they know it was his truck?” I asked.
“Well, Roger’s a typical con, Katie. He’s not the brightest bulb. The truck was burnt to a crispy metal hulk, but the license plate was still on the back.”
I laughed at the mistake. “And he was in the wind after that until rumors started floating down from the mountains that he’d been spotted dead by high country hikers.”
“Rumors,” Adam said. “Never substantiated and a body was never found.”
“Until Philadelphia?”
“Yep. Until then. But now that Roger and Maureen have spent a few of the bills from the robbery, the Feds are quietly keeping track of her whereabouts. They figure Roger will show up at some point in Crescent Creek.”
“Or couldn’t he just as easily visit his brother and sister in Como?” I suggested.
“I suppose. They’ve got eyes on those guys, too. In fact, I saw some surveillance photos from the other day when you visited with Riley.”
I blurted out a laugh. “Are you kidding
me?”
“Not in the least,” he said. “Telephoto lens from another cabin down the road. You look good in red, Katie. Kind of fiery and spicy.”
I blushed. “That’s all we need to hear about my outfits, thank you very much.”
CHAPTER 36
I watched silently as Julia guided a trio of pastry bags across the top of a cake she was decorating. Changing from one to the next with deft precision, she slowly transformed the plain white fondant surface into an elegant bouquet of pink and white roses with delicate green leaves. When she finished, I waited until she’d stepped back to scrutinize her work.
“What do you think?” she asked, barely glancing at me across the Sky High kitchen. “It’s for my mom and dad’s anniversary.”
I moved closer for a better view. “It’s flawless, Jules. You’ve done it again!”
She curled her upper lip. “I don’t know…” One hand fluttered up and pointed at two roses in the center of the cake. “Do you think those are okay? From this angle, they almost look like lumps of mashed potato rather than flowers.”
I walked over and tapped her shoulder.
“Cut yourself some slack,” I suggested when she turned around. “That cake is perfect! We’re always our own harshest critics, don’t you think?”
She nodded. “Yeah, I’m pretty hard on myself. But I also know that my parents are going to really study this cake before they cut into it.”
“More than usual?”
“Yes,” she said after another moment examining the final two roses. “Since I’m making a living in the kitchen, I think my dad especially is going to really give me a tough time.”
“But you’ve been here for several years, Jules. Why would he start doing that now?”
She laughed, a fluffy sound that made me smile. “I’m afraid he’ll do it now because my brother just quit his job as a CPA to try his hand at sculpting.”
“Oh, I see. Your parents think you might’ve influenced your brother’s career change?”
“Yeah, that’s my best guess.” She shrugged. “My dad said something really weird on the phone last night about how I’ve started a trend. He thinks I’m encouraging all the kids in the family to abandon the professions that they went to college for.”
