Nora promptly hopped down from the table.
“Good,” Sam praised her. “What do you say I buy you a coffee and we go sit in the park?”
“And brownies,” Nora told him. “I want three of them.”
Clarissa had to hide her grin. Nora sounded just like Cat!
“Fine,” Sam sighed, reaching into his pocket to count his change. “Come on,” he told Sugarcomb Lake’s quirkiest resident. “Let’s go get your brownies and get out of here so these fine folks can enjoy their coffee in peace.”
Suddenly Nora turned and pointed at the couple seated in the booth at the back.
“A curse!” she screeched as she ran over to them. She waggled one long bony finger in the surprised looking man’s face. “A curse is looming over you! Oh, I can see it now! A curse! A curse! A curse!” she began to chant, sounding almost giddy.
“Nora!” Sam barked. “Enough!” Patience wasn’t the stoic police officer’s strong point.
“You’re going to die!” Nora cackled, spinning in a circle with glee. “Die! Die! Die!”
“Here, the brownies are on the house!” Liana whispered, thrusting a bag toward Sam. “Just get her out of here, please! She’s going to scare my customers away!”
“Come on Nora,” Sam said, handing her the bag of brownies. “Let’s go enjoy the sunshine.”
“Wow, that was intense,” Clarissa remarked once the commotion had died down.
“Do you think she’s legitimately crazy or just really, really eccentric?” Liana asked.
“I don’t know,” Clarissa replied. “She can occasionally be pretty lucid…alarmingly lucid, really. The rest of the time she just screams gibberish or dances around in the street. It’s the strangest thing! I guess she’s part of the town’s charm, huh?”
“I just wish she’d keep her so-called charm outside of my business!” Liana grumbled.
“Well she’s gone now,” Clarissa said soothingly. “And on the bright side, she gave everybody something to talk about! Now all your customers are going to hang around longer, talk more and buy more treats to munch on! Oh, that reminds me…”
As Liana looked on, Clarissa grabbed the lemon cookie she had purchased for Morris Norman. He had gone home, so she couldn’t give it to him. And there was no point in letting it go to waste. So Clarissa promptly stuffed it in her mouth.
“Mmm,” she murmured in approval. “It’s so good!”
Suddenly there was a scream at the back of the coffee shop.
Clarissa whirled around to see what was going on. So did everyone else in the shop. All eyes were on the young couple who had entered the establishment only moments earlier. It was clear something was very, very wrong.
The tattooed woman seated at the booth let out a second scream.
The man sitting across the table from her appeared to be in some kind of distress. He was clutching at his throat, his eyes wide. His face was turning an alarming shade of red. Then he fell from his seat, landing hard on the floor.
The woman with him seemed to be panicked. She scrambled over to him, falling to her knees.
“He’s not breathing!” she screeched. “I think he’s dead!”
Chapter 04
The next morning when Clarissa entered Just Desserts, the atmosphere was somber.
It was no wonder, considering what had happened there only one day earlier. Everyone was still shocked by what had happened, Clarissa figured. She knew she still was. The whole thing seemed completely surreal, like something out of a bad dream.
She made a beeline for Liana, who was standing behind the counter looking lost. Clarissa knew her best friend had to be distraught over what had taken place in her newly purchased coffee shop the previous day. Anyone would be.
“How are you holding up?” Clarissa asked sympathetically.
“It still feels like a bad dream,” Liana replied in a wavering voice, echoing Clarissa’s own sentiments. “I can’t believe a customer died right over there,” she added, sneaking a glance at the booth at the very back. Her lower lip began to tremble.
“How can I help? Why don’t you go take a break? You look exhausted,” Clarissa remarked.
“The police were here half the night,” Liana replied, stifling a yawn. “I didn’t lock up until nearly four o’clock on the morning. And when I got home, I couldn’t sleep. I just sat in my kitchen drinking coffee until the sun came up. Then I came back here because I didn’t know what else to do.”
“You need to get some rest.”
“Do you think it’s tacky that I opened for business the very next day?” Liana asked fretfully. “I wasn’t trying to be insensitive. I just thought that, you know, people in town would want to have someplace to congregate.” She wrung her hands in despair, looking rather pitiful.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m sure people appreciate being able to come here and work through what happened. I’ll take over coffee duty,” Clarissa announced, struggling to fight back a yawn of her own.
She hadn’t slept very well either.
Witnessing a stranger take his final breath had been upsetting.
“You’re the best,” Liana said gratefully. She untied her white apron and handed it to Clarissa. “I just need to shut my eyes for a few minutes. Then I’ll come back out and get back to work. Thank you! I’ll be in the back if you need me.”
Clarissa put on the apron and grabbed the coffee pot. Then she began making rounds.
Seated at the first table were Patricia Porter and Barbara Norman. Their husbands were at the coffee shop too, but they were seated at the far end. It was almost as though they were trying to get as far away from their nagging, insufferable wives as possible!
Clarissa couldn’t fault them for that. She always preferred to steer clear of the two gossipy old biddies, too! Unfortunately, today she couldn’t do that. Today she was Helping Her Best Friend. That meant she had coffee to pour.
Thankfully, the two women were so deep in conversation that they barely paid any attention to Clarissa whatsoever. That was a rather welcome change. Usually she could hardly get away from them!
“Did you know the fellow who died?” Barbara asked Patricia.
“No. He rented an apartment here in town, but he used to live out in the country somewhere,” Patricia replied, pausing to take a bite of her raspberry croissant. “Alice Trembley’s daughter knew him,” she said through a mouthful of crumbs. “His name was Donnie Davis.”
Clarissa took her time pouring the coffee. As tempting as it was to avoid the two biggest gossips in town, sometimes their nosiness proved to be useful. She pretended to wipe down an already clean table so that she could continue eavesdropping.
“What happened?” Barbara stage whispered. “Did he choke on something he was eating?”
“No, no. He had a nut allergy,” Patricia said authoritatively. It was clear that she loved being in the know. “Alice told me that Donnie was deathly allergic to peanuts. Apparently everyone close to him knew it. I guess he ate a peanut. Then he died of a phallic shock.”
Clarissa nearly burst out laughing. In fact, she began to cough and sputter just to try to hide the fact that she was cracking up. She was pretty sure Patricia had meant to say “anaphylactic shock” – but her mispronunciation was pretty amusing!
The two women seemed to sense they were being laughed at. They both shot Clarissa dirty looks. She quickly averted her eyes and began to smooth imaginary wrinkles from the crisp white tablecloth. All the while, she continued to quietly chuckle to herself.
“Anyway,” Patricia said with a snide sideways glance at Clarissa, “I can’t believe the poor guy’s bad luck. He apparently left home without his pen thingy. You know…those needles people with peanut allergies carry around? He didn’t have his on him.”
“Such a tragedy,” Barbara clucked. “What an awful accident.”
Patricia leaned in close, her ample bosom resting on the tabletop. “I heard it might not have been an accident,” she confided, a little
bit too loudly. It was apparent she enjoyed the attention that came with making such a scandalous declaration.
Several people seated at nearby tables turned to stare.
Clarissa, too, couldn’t help but gawk.
“It’s true!” Patricia announced loudly. “The police were here investigating half the night!”
“That’s normal police procedure,” Irene Meddler piped up from the next table. The aging old woman scowled at Patricia and Barbara. “You two ought to stop spreading rumors,” she said disapprovingly. “It makes you sound pathetic.”
“Well I never!” Patricia sputtered, her face turning bright red.
Barbara was too busy picking her jaw up off the ground to say anything at all. Instead she huffed and puffed in indignation. Maybe she was too scared to stand up to Sugarcomb Lake’s grouchiest senior citizen…
Clarissa giggled to herself. Mrs. Meddler was incredibly cranky at the best of times. Usually she was very tiresome to be around. But the way she had directed her grouchiness at the two town busybodies was pretty funny.
“What did I miss?” Liana asked, reappearing behind Clarissa.
“Mrs. Meddler put The Local Pearl Clutchers in their place,” Clarissa whispered.
Liana smirked at the nickname Clarissa had for Barbara and Patricia. Then she began to laugh. “A battle between The Local Pearl Clutchers and Mrs. Meddler – I don’t even know who I would cheer for!” she chortled.
“Same here,” Clarissa grinned. Then she raised an eyebrow. “That was a short rest.”
“I didn’t rest,” Liana admitted. “I whipped up another batch of brownies.”
“You’re hopeless,” Clarissa said with a shake of her head. “But since you made brownies, can I have one?” she asked with a twinkle in her eye. She was never one to pass up on freshly baked goods – especially not ones made by her very talented best friend!
“Yeah, sure,” Liana began to reply.
Then the bell above the door to the coffee shop jingled.
Liana glanced over to see who had come in and her face immediately darkened. “Hey!” she called out to Justin Brown as he rolled through the doorway. “I thought I made myself clear the other day – no skateboarding in here!”
The scraggly-haired teenager muttered something under his breath – something rude, no doubt. Then he and his skateboard made a hasty retreat.
“He’s such a brat,” Clarissa muttered.
“Yeah, tell me about it,” Liana sighed. “I’m this close to banning him from the coffee shop. He and his hooligan friends are always in here causing trouble. They make a bunch of a noise and disrupt other customers. And lately they’ve taken to skateboarding in here!”
“Ugh,” Clarissa murmured sympathetically.
“Justin is the worst one out of all of them,” Liana continued. “He’s the loudest, the rudest and the most disrespectful. He’s always trying to show off for his buddies. Last week he nearly made me spill a pot of hot coffee all over myself because he was doing tricks on his skateboard.”
“You should ban him,” Clarissa said in disgust.
“Maybe, but I don’t want to burn any bridges,” Liana said uncertainly.
“Best to do it now before somebody gets hurt,” Clarissa insisted.
“I’m banning skateboards for sure,” Liana vowed. “And I’ll think about banning Justin.”
The phone behind the counter began to ring.
“Hang on,” Liana said. Then she hurried off to take the call.
Clarissa walked over to the window and looked out at Main Street.
It was a beautiful, unseasonably warm day and Sugarcomb Lake was bustling – well, as much as a tiny town could bustle, anyway.
There were so many vehicles parked out front that poor Hank Hanson found himself having to parallel park his car. Unfortunately, it appeared he hadn’t done so in quite some time. It wasn’t going well for him. After he hit the curb for the third time, Clarissa deliberately turned her attention elsewhere.
Several young moms were power walking down the street together, pushing their babies’ strollers along like they meant business. Off in the distance, Clarissa could see a yoga class being held in the park…well, either that or a large group of people had lost their minds and simultaneously struck funny poses.
“Clarissa.”
Liana’s voice was dripping with anxiety as she rushed over.
“What is it?” Clarissa asked, alarmed by the urgency in her best friend’s tone.
“That was the health inspector on the phone,” she said. “I’m being shut down.”
“What?” Clarissa exclaimed in disbelief. “Why?”
“Donnie Davis had a peanut allergy. And he died from exposure to peanuts. Since he was in my coffee shop at the time, the health inspector needs to make sure I didn’t accidentally serve him something with nuts in it,” Liana explained, wide-eyed.
“Do you think you could have?” Clarissa asked, hating to even pose the question.
“No,” Liana said, shaking her head emphatically. “I’m very careful about that sort of thing. There was no cross-contamination. I’m sure of it! But the health inspector doesn’t care. Policy is policy. So my shop is closed until further notice.”
Clarissa winced. “I’m so sorry to hear that.”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Liana said tearfully. “This is my livelihood!”
“I’ll do whatever I can to help,” Clarissa promised.
With that, she turned on her heel and walked out of the coffee shop. She was on a mission.
Chapter 05
“Stop the car!” Clarissa gasped.
“Another date night, another investigation,” her boyfriend remarked with an amused grin. Then, displaying the patience of a saint, he obediently stopped the car. “Do you see the house you’re looking for?” he asked.
“Yep, that’s it right over there,” Clarissa replied, pointing to a small bungalow with an overgrown lawn and peeling paint. It was the house where Donnie Davis’s girlfriend lived.
“Alright, let’s do this,” Parker said dutifully, unbuckling his seatbelt.
The couple walked up the front drive. The cement was cracked and weeds were sprouting up from the soil below. Everything looked overgrown, and Clarissa noticed a couple beer bottles lying in the tall grass. She raised an eyebrow, caught Parker’s eye and pointed to them.
“This place reminds me of a frat house – or maybe a drug house!” he whispered quietly. “I thought you said we’re paying a visit to a grown woman in her twenties.”
“Yeah, we are,” Clarissa confirmed. She looked at the house before them. She had driven past it before. She remembered because she had noticed it was in a state of disrepair, especially compared to all the other well-kept homes on the street. She had no idea who lived there.
“Are you sure we’re at the right place?” Parker asked.
“I think so,” Clarissa replied, beginning to feel a bit uncertain. “Well, there’s one way to find out,” she shrugged. “Let’s hope it isn’t a booby trapped meth lab!” she added, partly to be funny and partly to try to hide how nervous she was.
Then she walked up the front steps and rang the doorbell.
Immediately, a dog started barking its head off from inside the small, run-down home. A male voice bellowed for it to shut up. Then a stocky shirtless guy with long, scraggly hair stumbled to the front door and flung it open.
“Yeah?” he asked, squinting at Clarissa and Parker through bloodshot eyes. Either he didn’t realize he was only wearing a pair of rumpled smiley face boxers or he didn’t care. Either way, it wasn’t a very good sign. Neither were the potato chip crumbs stuck to his belly.
“Hi,” Clarissa said, flashing her most charming smile. “Does Georgia Prescott live here?”
“Huh?” the guy asked, scratching his hairy beer belly. He found a potato chip stuck to him and picked it up. He examined it thoughtfully for a moment before popping it into his mouth. “Nah, I do
n’t know anyone named Georgia.”
Parker and Clarissa exchanged a puzzled look.
“We must have the wrong house,” Clarissa said. “Sorry for bothering you.”
Parker, however, wasn’t ready to give up so quickly. He stepped forward and extended his hand. “I’m Parker Tweed and this is Clarissa Spencer. We’re journalists. We’re investigating a suspicious death in Sugarcomb Lake.”
“What? Are you serious? That’s so weird!” the guy exclaimed, looking all kinds of bewildered. “My roommate’s boyfriend just died in Sugarcomb Lake! What are the odds of that? Is this town cursed or something?”
“Uh…is your roommate Georgia Prescott?” Parker tried again.
“Nah,” the guy grunted, shaking his head. “Her name is Gigi.”
“Is her name Gigi Prescott by any chance?” Parker pressed.
The man at the door thought about it for a moment. “I dunno, I just met her through Craigslist. But yeah, I think that does ring a bell,” he said slowly. He scratched his head. “You know what? Yeah. I think Gigi’s last name is Prescott. Hey, how did you know that?”
“Just a lucky guess,” Parker said as Clarissa tried not to smirk.
“Whoa dude, you must be like, a psychic or something!” the big, beer bellied man exclaimed in awe. “That’s so crazy, man! You know what else is crazy? Radio waves! Isn’t it just insane to think they’re in like, our atmosphere right this second?”
He stared at Clarissa and Parker expectantly, as though he expected their minds to be blown.
“Uh…is Georgia – I mean Gigi – home?” Clarissa asked hopefully.
“I dunno,” the guy shrugged. “We don’t really hang out much. Come in and look for her if you want,” he said. “I’ve gotta take my dog for a walk.” Then he turned around and disappeared into the house, leaving the front door wide open.
Clarissa looked at Parker. “Do you think it’s safe?”
He shrugged. “The guy doesn’t exactly seem cunning,” he pointed out.
“True,” she agreed.
Then they walked into the house.
A Whisper of Magic (A Sugarcomb Lake Cozy Mystery Book 5) Page 3
