“Then don’t. Or try not to at least. Can you apologize to the Langleys for me?”
“Of course,” she said. “When will you be back?”
“There’s no telling. If I’m really late, I’ll sleep on the couch so I don’t wake you up.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” she said, brushing him off. He had made that offer several times when he anticipated his paperwork at the precinct would turn into an around the clock nightmare, but she was a heavy sleeper. “I’ll be fine.”
Scott kissed her goodbye then started for the front door, as Kate stared down at the bottle of Merlot in her hands and wondered who would have it in for Cookie Halpert.
Chapter Three
If Scott had come home, slept on the couch, and left again before Kate had a chance to get up, or if he’d never come home at all, having worked all night, she couldn’t tell, as she started from her bedroom for the kitchen where a fresh pot of coffee was waiting for her.
She poured a mug and let the aromatic steam waft up. She blew on it then began drinking it, as she gazed through the kitchen window at her driveway. It was bright out, which meant it would be a hot day, and since Hazel had scheduled her to paint the outside of her house for the greater part of the afternoon, Kate knew she would have to dress light so as not to overheat.
She did just that after taking a quick shower, and then filled her thermos with the rest of the coffee she’d made, and headed out to her truck.
Grayson’s Hardware would be open in ten minutes or so, giving her just enough time to drive over and pick up the materials she would need for Marla Zook’s sink.
She kept the windows down as she drove into town and pulled to a stop in front of the hardware store just as Larry was unlocking the entrance door and flipping the sign from closed to open.
“Morning, Kate!” he said cheerfully, as he held the door open for her.
“Good morning,” she said, starting up the plumbing aisle.
“Let me know if you need anything!” he called after her.
Larry had been dating Kate’s best friend, Carly, and they were now happily married. It had been one of the few positive things to come out of the strange summer two years back where bodies had piled up week after week. Larry himself had been arrested for one of those murders, which he hadn’t been guilty of—and thank God Scott quickly realized that. Larry’s father hadn’t been so innocent unfortunately, but after years of Larry hoping the residents of Rock Ridge would gradually disassociate him from his father, the town had naturally done just that. And it seemed Larry could now live without the curious, sideways glares from people who were skeptical of him.
She collected the materials she had come for, crossed up the aisle, and set them on the counter, which Larry was behind, organizing a bin of impulse-buy items—measuring tape, duct tape, and painter’s tape. She guessed contractors bought tape willy-nilly.
“Should I put it on your tab?”
“Oh,” she said, debating. Kate used to have a high tab that kept climbing, but recently she had cleared it and always bought her materials out-right if she could swing it. She no longer had to help pay for her sons’ education since they had graduated. And she had even started a savings account. “That’s okay, I can get it all now. What’s the damage?”
He told her, and she forked over the cash, thanking him as he put her materials into a bag.
“Did you hear about Dean’s plans for the old campground out east?”
“No, I hadn’t,” she said, suddenly curious.
She hadn’t set foot on the old campsite since the night Greg was shot. All she knew about it was that the town council had leveled the structures built by the Anarchist Freedom Network, and that the area was considered a vacant lot.
“You should come to the town meeting tomorrow. He’s going to announce his idea to get a read on how residents might feel about it.”
“So he hasn’t officially told anyone what his actual plans are?” she asked.
“Not yet.”
“Thanks for letting me know,” she said, taking the bag from the counter. “I’ll swing by.”
During the drive to Grayson’s, Kate had downed her entire thermos of coffee, so she decided to stop off at Bean There for a fresh cup before heading over to the flower store that was owned by her best friend Carly—Sunshine Florist. Carly usually made her a fresh pot whenever she came by to fix a shelf or assemble a new table, but considering business picked up for Carly during the summer, she couldn’t assume her friend would hang around while she worked. She could be in and out, and if that were the case, Kate would need a tall cup to get her through the morning.
Bean There was located on Main Street in the center of Rock Ridge. Kate pulled her truck up to the curb and locked it, then headed inside where the morning rush of customers had formed a long line.
She touched eyes with Clara briefly, who was rushing about behind the counter. The barista was also the owner of Bean There, and Kate couldn’t imagine how she was holding up having learned her business partner, Cookie, had died the night before. That was, if she knew at all.
Clara quickly rolled her sleeves up, revealing the flower tattoos that covered her arms, and then tied her hair back into a ponytail, gathering all the funky colors with an elastic band, as she listened to her next customer’s order.
Gradually, the line shortened, and soon Kate was stepping up to the counter.
“The usual?” Clara asked, but then quickly grimaced, anticipating Kate’s response. Kate’s usual morning order involved at least one of Cookie’s pastries, which had dwindled. What little was set out under the glass counter had to be left over from yesterday since Cookie had been in the habit of baking fresh goods each morning.
“Just a coffee,” said Kate, before leaning over the counter so that she could speak quietly without being overheard. “Do you have any idea how this could’ve happened?”
Clara’s eyes grew wide and her mouth drifted open. “So it wasn’t merely an accident?”
“I’m afraid not, but Scott didn’t come home last night, so the last I heard, the blow to Cookie’s chest was what killed her.”
“I thought this town would never have to see another murder.” Riding the swell of the terrible notion, Clara turned to the coffee carafe behind her and lifted the spout. A dark stream of coffee poured into a large to-go cup, and once it was full, she set it on the counter and put a plastic lid on it. “She was doing so well,” she remarked, taking Kate’s cash and making change for her. “She’d gotten back together with her old boyfriend. She had started her online store and was in full swing, shipping cookies out to customers. When I saw her yesterday, she was on top of the world.”
Kate both was and wasn’t surprised by this. Cookie had always been a cheerful woman. It was inconceivable that anyone would have it in for her, and yet everyone had secrets. Maybe Cookie’s had finally caught up to her.
“If you think of anything, you’ll let Scott know?” she asked, figuring that often people closest with the victim could remember critical information long after the fact.
“Will I tell Scott?” she challenged with a wry smirk. “I’ll tell you.” In response to Kate’s look of confusion, Clara said, “Everyone around town knows you’re the one who solved most of those murders years back. And if it wasn’t for you keeping an eye on those terrorists over in the campground, their group would’ve never been run out of town.”
“Thanks,” she said sheepishly. She had never been good at taking a compliment. “But Scott is who you should contact if you remember anything.”
“Right, right, of course,” she said obligingly. “I’ll call Scott. And then you.”
“Thanks for the coffee,” said Kate, as she turned from the counter, after giving Clara a parting smirk.
After climbing into her truck, she set off for Sunshine Florist, noting the time as she went. It was just after eight in the morning, which meant Carly had been arranging flowers at Sunshine for a good hour.
Most of the residents of Rock Ridge kept normal hours. They worked their nine to five jobs and—if anything—were apt to stay up a little too late watching TV. But those people around town who ran their own businesses, like Kate and Clara and Carly, tended to get up at the crack of dawn to get a jump on their day, and Carly was one of them.
When Kate stepped through the door, she found Carly where she thought she would. Her long-time friend was pitched over an industrial sink in the back of the store, as she washed dirt off of long-stem roses. Most of the flowers Carly worked with were actually grown out back during the summer time, which kept her costs down. However, it meant she had to wash and sheer the thorns off the stems herself.
“Hey,” said Kate as she approached. “Where’s that shelving unit you’d like installed?”
“Oh hey,” said Carly over her shoulder. “It’s around the corner. If you could set it up where the last one was...?”
“Sure. Where are the old shelves?”
“They completely gave way. The top one collapsed and pulled the others down with it like a stack of dominos.”
As soon as Carly mentioned it, Kate saw a pile of broken shelves near the backdoor.
“I can clear those out for you as well.”
“Thanks, that would be great. I didn’t want to have to drive them to the dump, and there’s not enough wood to schedule a dumpster drop.”
“No, of course not. I’ll put it in my truck bed.”
In fact, once Kate put on her work gloves, she did just that, loading up as many broken pieces into her arms as she could and running them out the front door to her truck. It took five trips, but she placed the entire old shelving unit into her truck bed then started for the brand new unit that was propped and still in its box at the back of the store.
“Where did you pick this up?” Kate asked, as she used a box cutter to free the pieces before she began assembling them.
“I ordered it online actually,” said Carly.
It didn’t surprise Kate. Rock Ridge didn’t have a decent furniture store, other than a fancy-shmancy one that residents used to furnish their homes, but the items there were much too nice for any of the businesses around town to use for the back of their stores. If anything, Rock Ridge needed a decent office supply store. The nearest one was two towns away.
As she got to work, piecing together the shelving unit and wondering how Sunshine Florist was really doing since Carly hadn’t hired her to build a unit from scratch, Kate drank her coffee and more or less got lost in her work.
“Hey,” said Carly, as she set a fifth bouquet on a worktable behind Kate. The bouquet looked just like the first four and reminded Kate of her wedding to Scott, because they had the same white lilies and baby’s breath. She wondered what flowers Becky would pick out for her wedding to Jason. “Did you hear about Dean’s plans for the old campsite?”
“You’re the second person to ask me today, and no,” she said. “But Larry told me about the town meeting, and I’m going to make it if I can.”
“Dean wants to build an amusement park.”
That took Kate aback. “An amusement park?”
“That’s what I hear.”
“I thought he hadn’t told anyone his plan. That’s why he was holding a meeting.”
“Come on, Kate. It’s a small town and you know how quickly word travels. I’m sure he told his assistant and she told one person and there you go, news spreading like wild fire.”
Carly had a point. News did travel fast in Rock Ridge, so fast that word of mouth here could rival the speed of the Internet in any other town.
“Why an amusement park? This is a hard-working town. No one has money to blow on a roller coaster—even if they do get a day off.”
“It’s not for us,” said Carly. “Well, not directly anyway. Dean’s been trying to come up with ways to boost the economy, and he thinks building a tourist attraction at that campground will solve all our problems.”
“I can’t believe this,” said Kate, outraged. “People live in Rock Ridge because they like that it’s a quiet town, untouched by tourism and all the crowds and nonsense that come with it. Our economy is doing just fine. We don’t need an amusement park.”
“I agree. But Dean has other ideas.”
Kate was disheartened by this news. She had always liked Dean and came to truly respect him, but this idea of his was all wrong. She guessed the bottom line was that—even though Dean had lived here for a little over two years—he wasn’t from here and maybe he didn’t understand all that Rock Ridge meant to its residents. Maybe deep down Dean missed the hustle and bustle of bigger cities, and he wanted to bring a slice of that kind of lifestyle to her quiet neck of the woods. She really didn’t want a big, flashy amusement park coming to Rock Ridge and decided—no matter what—she would make an appearance at that town meeting and try to talk some sense into her good friend.
“Amusement park?” she grumbled to herself, as she pushed in the last shelf. Carly was smiling at her, but Kate wasn’t sure if it was in response to the shelving unit or because Kate was getting worked up over Dean’s plan.
“Looks good,” she said, planting her fists on her hips. “What do I owe you?”
Kate took a moment to write out an invoice, and when she handed it to Carly, she said, “No rush on that.” The bill was negligible, and if Carly didn’t have the funds to build a unit from scratch, then there would be no sense pressuring her for pocket change on her labor costs.
“Thanks, if you’re at the town meeting tomorrow, I’ll have a check ready.”
“Sounds good,” she said, as she packed up her tool kit.
As she straightened up, with her tool kit in her hand, her cell phone started buzzing from the front pocket of her overalls and Cookie immediately sprang to mind.
Figuring it was Scott giving her a call to let her know why he hadn’t come home last night or to make sure she still slept well, she swiped the screen without even looking at it to see who was calling.
“Mom?” said Jason in a worried tone the second her voice came through the line. “It’s Jason.”
“Hey, honey, what’s going on?”
Panicked, Jason cut in with, “Can you come to the house?”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
Upon hearing her shrill response, Carly neared her, growing worried.
“It’s Becky. Please, just come.”
“I will. I’m on my way, but if this is an emergency, Jason, then you have to call the police.”
“Trust me, I have. But something tells me Scott’s not going to know how to handle this. Come quick.”
Before she could ask one more question, he hung up, leaving Kate in utter confusion.
“What’s going on?” asked Carly, concerned.
“I have no idea, but I have to get going.”
The drive across town was a blur. Jason and Becky had moved into a quaint, one-story house on the east side of town where a small village of similar houses had been built a number of years ago. Affordable, the homes were occupied by mostly young couples and the elderly who were healthy enough to live without hospice care.
Kate pulled up to the cul-de-sac where Jason and Becky’s blue house sat between two identical ones, which were white, and as she did, she immediately noticed two police cruisers and an ambulance.
Scanning for Scott’s truck, she nearly overlooked it, distracted by the twirl of emergency lights, but then spotted it parked in front of the second police cruiser.
What in God’s name happened?
She rushed to the front door, which was open and then barreled into the living room where Jason was seated between two medics who were taking his blood pressure and fastening butterfly bandages over the bridge of his nose and cheek.
“What happened?” she asked urgently, as she made her way deeper into the room.
Scott was standing off to the side with his gaze fixed on Jason, as if he were patiently waiting for his turn with the young man.
“Mom,” said Jason, urging the medics off of him. “The house got broken into.”
“Oh my God,” she exclaimed, finally seeing the living room window that was completely shattered into oblivion. “Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”
“It was only one guy, and no he didn’t hurt me...” he trailed off and his eyes widened with terror. “But he took Becky.”
Chapter Four
The medics cleared out, and Scott took Jason behind the house outside so his police officers could comb the house for evidence. Kate followed, closing the door behind her and sensing Scott would prefer to speak to Jason alone. But this time Scott wouldn’t be able to push Kate out for any reason. This was her son, her family, a part of her life that had become so important; she might lose sense of who she was without it intact.
“We have plenty of time, Jason,” he said, indicating the young man could have a seat at the patio table. “Go slow, and tell me everything.”
Jason looked worried and exhausted, as he lowered into one of the patio chairs. He planted his elbows on the table and plowed his fingers through his hair, hanging his head for a moment. Scott sat in an adjacent chair, and Kate slid into one at the opposite side of the table from her son.
When Jason looked up, he locked eyes with Kate, asking, “Her parents. They don’t know. What am I going to tell them?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” said Scott, speaking for her. “Right now, let’s focus on the event as it occurred. The more I know, the more effective I can be at finding her and bringing her home.”
Kate knew if it were anyone else seated at the table, Scott would have mentioned that the first seventy-two hours of an abduction investigation were the most critical and that time was of the essence. But doing so would only rile Jason up into a panic that would work against his effort to explain what had happened. She appreciated Scott holding his tongue to that effect.
Prompting him, he said, “Start from the beginning. You woke up this morning to the sound of someone breaking in?”
Mrs. Fix It Mysteries: The Complete 15-Books Cozy Mystery Series Page 49
