by Rae Davies
Remembering the pecan pie latte, I glanced back over my shoulder to see if there was a calorie count listed.
“My reputation.” His gaze followed mine. Then he looked back at the cupcake box. As he slid his thumb under the tape, I realized what I’d done.
Not the red velvets.
I dove forward, but it was too late, he’d already lifted the lid.
Poop. Poop on a cupcake. With flies.
I stepped back, ready for the anger, outrage, something. Instead, he just blinked again, looked from the box to the kiosk and finally back to me.
“Message received.” He tossed the pastry box into the back seat of his sedan. “Send a list of your demands to my office.” Then he wrenched his steering wheel away from me and sped off.
Peeled out actually. Not something you saw a full–sized luxury sedan do too often.
I stood behind in the semi–dark parking lot feeling ashamed and lost. I was not a fan of Darrell’s, but I’d never intended to insinuate that he was... poop. Or should eat it, or whatever horrid message he’d taken from those cupcakes.
I should call and explain. Call and apologize.
But for what? Cupcakes? They were tasty. I’d already eaten three, sugar fly and all.
He was over–reacting. I was over–reacting. And if the cupcakes got me my window display...
I shook my head and wandered back to the Jeep. It was late, I was tired and not in a state of mind to delve too deeply into such a moral dilemma.
I wouldn’t give away any more of the cupcakes though. I’d just have to eat them myself.
Hard job, but someone had to... I opened the door to the Jeep. The smell of sugar and butter smacked me in the face; a glob of frosting did too.
Kiska leaned low over a half–eaten box of cupcakes. Literally, the box itself was half eaten. I’d left the cupcakes in the back; he hadn’t seemed to realize they were there, but obviously, I’d chummed the waters with the two that I’d dropped.
As I stared, stunned at my own stupidity, he grabbed what was left of the cardboard and swung it back and forth in his jaws, chewing and gulping as if the survival of the entire malamute breed depended on him downing the thing before I came to my senses and jerked it away.
I didn’t... come to my senses or try to jerk the box away, at least not until the last bit of white pastry board had disappeared down his furry gullet.
CHAPTER THREE
At 3 a.m., I awoke to a scene and smell I only hoped at some point in the future I’d be able to scrub from my mind. Hopefully more thoroughly than I was able to scrub Kiska’s post–cupcake feast from my floors and couch.
With only the worst cleaned up, I shoved him outside and opened every window in the place. I even managed to force open a couple that had been sealed by paint a good two decades before my occupancy.
Two hours later, I was out of anything and everything resembling a disinfectant. I’d even broken open a bottle of gin that I’d bought with ideas of becoming more highbrow in my alcohol tastes – shaken, not stirred and all that – and poured twenty martini’s worth on one particularly disturbing stain on a couch cushion.
The cushion was now sitting outside, airing out and awaiting a squirt with the hose and a hit of something more conventional in the way of cleaning products.
The cupcake massacrer and I got into the Jeep and went in search of more weaponry.
The closest store that I had a shot at being open was the grocery store in the same shopping center as the Caffeine Cartel.
That’s why I went there... in hopes of a steam cleaner, not because I’d heard the owner of the coffee kiosk say she’d be open by then and all thoughts of loyalty to Joe had been thrown out the window an hour into that morning’s activities.
Not because of those things at all.
However, a latte, if available would not be unappreciated, and maybe a brownie or three. Seeing as how Kiska had killed my cupcake supply and all.
There was one car in the parking lot. The same one that I’d seen at Frosted. Making me think the Cutie I’d seen there was inside the kiosk brewing up something dark and delicious and brain cell stimulating. However, the sales window was closed up tight, and there were no customers in sight.
To my chagrin, the grocery store was closed just as tightly. The sign stuck to the inside of the sliding door, however, said it should have been open ten minutes earlier.
I checked the time on my phone just to confirm that I had every right to be annoyed and then walked back to my Jeep, where I stood, staring at the Caffeine Cartel.
Coffee would be good right now. Very, very good.
I could drive to Joe’s. That would be the right thing to do, but...
I stared in the window at Kiska. He stared back, obviously wondering why I was standing there when baked goods were so close.
Never one to ignore the wisdom of my malamute, I walked over to the kiosk. The front was closed up, but that didn’t mean someone wasn’t inside. The Cutie’s car was here.
They had to be opening soon, and a nudge from an eager customer wouldn’t be a bad thing, right? And the Cutie had given Kiska a cookie. She couldn’t be all bad.
With that in mind, I knocked on the door. No answer.
I sighed and walked around it again. The kiosk wasn’t huge, but it wasn’t tiny either. Maybe eight feet by sixteen. Small enough that if someone was inside, they couldn’t have missed my knock.
I glanced at the grocery store. Still closed.
Annoying.
With a sigh, I circled back around and knocked on the door again. This time I noticed that the door moved, in and out, like it was closed, but not locked tight. I placed my hand flat on the cool metal and pushed. The door edged in a little and then swung back my direction, smacking against the side of the kiosk and making me jump.
To my left, behind my Jeep, the main lights in the grocery store flashed to life. A kid dressed in jeans and a cotton shirt unlocked the front door and then stepped out, looking around.
Feeling guilty for no good reason, I jumped inside the kiosk and jerked the door closed behind me. As my heart thumped against my chest, I realized how silly my leap had been. Of course, now I was stuck. I couldn’t just hop back out, advertising what I’d done. I’d have to wait for the grocery employee to go back inside and then slide my body back to its proper side of the door.
I sucked in a breath and counted to ten. The place reeked of coffee. Not shocking, but standing there in the dark, it was a bit overpowering. I liked coffee, but being trapped in there for eight hours a day, like I guessed the Caffeine Cuties were, might cure even me of my addiction.
Trying not to inhale, I slowly pushed open the door, planning to check for the grocery boy, then hit the store and leave with no one being the wiser to my little trip inside the Cartel.
The door jerked from my hand and a girl wearing a Cartel Cutie shirt and a horrified expression screamed so loudly I jumped backward, falling over something that lay on the floor behind me.
The Cutie clutched the doorframe and leaned inside. Her face pale and her eyes anime huge, she screamed, “Oh, my God, Missy! Is she dead? She is! She’s dead. Oh my God, you killed her!” Then she turned and ran, screaming every step of the way.
Stunned, I sat there, wondering who Missy was and who exactly the “you” was who had killed her.
Then I looked down.
Under my legs was, I presumed, Missy. And based on the cold clammy feel of her skin, she was most definitely dead.
o0o
Twenty minutes later, I was once again leaning against my Jeep. This time, however, I was far from the only person in the parking lot.
Police, paramedics, and newsy types crawled around the space, eyeing each other in challenge before going on with whatever their own personal role in the unfolding drama might be.
Arms folded over my chest, I stared across the lot to where the Cutie who had found me in the kiosk with the unfortunately dead Missy stood shivering in a blanket that
looked suspiciously like one my boyfriend kept in his truck. She was also talking to him.
The conversation was, I knew, of an official type, what with him being a police detective and her having just opened the door on a dead body and, in her mind, a killer. Still, I couldn’t help but grimace as she leaned a little too close to his strong form and stared up at him with an annoying little–girl expression.
She was shaken. I got that. Finding a dead body did that to you, the first couple of times at least. By the fifth, a kind of morbid resolve apparently set in.
At least that’s what I was feeling. Or maybe it was some new form of shock.
I didn’t know, but at the moment, I just felt a little dead myself.
After discovering that the screaming Cutie had been right, and Missy was both in the kiosk and dead, I’d scrambled out with very little thought of any kind except panic. Blind panic.
The Cutie, whose name I still didn’t know, had disappeared, but before I’d been able to punch 911 into my phone, she was back with the grocery store employee I’d seen earlier, screaming and pointing and in general acting as if she’d seen me chortling over Missy’s body with a bloody knife in my hand.
Not that Missy had been stabbed.
At least I didn’t think she had. I didn’t have any blood on me, and I had been sitting... a shiver of my own passed over my body. I shook it off and ran my hands up and down my arms.
The Cutie, still talking to Peter, pointed at me again and pulled her shock–repelling blanket tighter.
I shivered again and tried not to look uncomfortable. A near impossible feat with reporters from both of the local TV stations and the Helena Daily News circling my Jeep like starved sharks watching a wounded seal.
So far the uniformed police officers standing at the four corners of my parking spot had kept them at bay, but as Peter signaled for two of the officers to take over Cutie duty, Daniel from the News moved in.
I glared at him and did the unheard of. I walked toward the closest TV reporter and started talking.
Her name, it turned out was Bev. Bev was new and young and seemed shaken when I stopped in front of her. Maybe she’d heard the Cutie’s claims. I didn’t care. I just didn’t want to get stuck talking to Daniel, and I did want to get my story out, or at least part of it.
“Have you had their coffee?” I asked, perky.
Shaking her head, she glanced at her cameraman and then took a backward step toward him.
I squinted at him, but kept going. “Me neither. I never stop here. Everyone knows Cuppa Joe’s has the best coffee in town and the best ambiance. I mean this...” I waved my hand in a dismissive manner toward the kiosk.
She shoved her microphone toward my face. “We heard someone is dead. Is that true? Did you know this person? Are you a suspect? Did you kill them?”
Uh... my mind stuttered.
“We heard you were found inside the kiosk with the victim. What were you doing in there? Do you have a record? What’s your name? What’s your connection to the victim if you weren’t here for coffee? Was it one of the girls who works there? Did you follow her there, or drag her inside after you killed her?”
For a little thing, this one had balls.
I wasn’t all that fond of them.
“Uh...” This time I managed to say it out loud. I wasn’t sure it was an improvement. She shoved the mic closer.
“Lucy can’t talk right now.”
I turned my head to see Daniel smirking at me from behind a blue Toyota. He, however, wasn’t who had spoken. I swiveled, this time moving my entire body.
George, police officer and friend, waved at me in a highly official looking manner. “Ms. Mathews, the detective is ready to speak to you now.”
Nodding and bobbing, I scurried away from Bev the Bold and past Daniel. He was grinning, the little...
Shaking his head, George chided me, “You should know better than to talk to the press before us.”
I did, but knowing better and doing better were not all that related in my world, and George knew me well enough to know that too.
He lifted an arm and pointed toward the kiosk. Expecting to see Peter there, waiting for me, I let out a sigh of relief.
But Peter had moved on. He was in his truck, watching me from under the brim of his cowboy hat. I couldn’t see his face, not well enough to read his expression. Not that that would have told me anything. When he was in detective mode, he was annoyingly deadpan.
With a grunt, I looked to see who was waiting for me instead.
Stone. “I thought he’d left,” I muttered. Detective Stone and I were not close.
George chuckled. “Lucky you, it’s his last week. He’s breaking in the new guy.”
The “new guy” was older than either Peter or Stone. In fact, with his gray hair and loose skin, I’d have guessed he was retirement age. Based on his blue suit, I’d have also guessed he wasn’t from Helena.
“Who is he?” I asked. Best to get any inside knowledge I could, especially since I was sure Detective Stone wasn’t going to be painting my character in any shade close to rosy.
“Ken Klein. From Chicago. Retiring here, but working for us a bit until we find a full–time replacement for Stone.”
“You have Peter.”
“And Peter has you and you keep finding dead bodies. Kind of a conflict of interest, don’t cha think?”
I didn’t, but obviously the Helena P.D. hadn’t bothered consulting me.
More than a little wary, I put on my best, most innocent face and followed George to where Stone and the new detective waited.
While Stone introduced us, Detective Klein, as I was told I could call him, stood silently taking in my appearance or aura or something that I couldn’t quite define.
I shifted from one foot to the other, like a guilty schoolgirl.
Klein stared at me from beneath bushy gray eyebrows. “I understand you were inside the kiosk when Ms. Sanders opened the door.”
My gaze darted from him to Detective Stone. I didn’t know why, but the guy made me nervous. “I was.” There was really no point in denying it.
“You work there?”
“No.”
His brows didn’t even twitch. “Have some other connection?”
“No.”
“Think it was self–serve?”
“Uh...” That was a tougher one. I didn’t want word to get back to Joe that I’d been frequenting his competition, but then again, what other plausible reason did I have for going inside the kiosk?
One lone eyebrow hair stirred. I stared at it, fascinated. I’d never known anyone with that kind of control, not even Peter.
Another hair twitched. His gaze, blue and a little watery, washed over me, bored.
Bored because I was so easy. Bored because he knew he had me.
I panicked.
“The grocery store was closed,” I blurted.
“Closed?”
“Yeah, they were supposed to open at six, but it was ten after and they weren’t open. My malamute ate cupcakes and I needed a steam cleaner. I used the gin, but it wasn’t enough. And now my house smells and I couldn’t take it. I just couldn’t.” I let out the last in a burst of exasperation that I knew would glean me at least some sympathy. I looked at him, expectant.
“So you went inside the kiosk?”
I nodded, relieved. He did understand.
“And you killed the owner.”
I nodded again... and stopped, switching the nod to a shake as quickly as I could. “No, no, no. I didn’t kill her. I didn’t even know she was in there.”
He nodded, understanding.
I sighed. He was much more reasonable than Stone. I glanced at the soon–to–be–out–of–my–life detective and tried not to gloat.
“Do you own any weapons, Ms. Mathews?”
Startled, I twisted my attention back to Klein. “Weapons? No...” I glanced at the kiosk. I hadn’t noticed any blood. “Was she... did someone shoot her or stab h
er? What kind of weapon are you looking for?”
He nodded again, slow and understanding.
Understanding of what? A lump formed in my throat and threatened to leap out. His calm was beyond disconcerting. I felt like a sheep, being watched by a benevolent shepherd who knew today was the day I became mutton.
“Can I see your hands?”
I held them out.
“Palms up.”
I flipped them over.
He leaned close, studied my open palms. After a moment, he pulled back.
“You like coffee?”
Yes, I liked coffee. What kind of psychopath didn’t? I clamped my jaws together, keeping the response in my mind and tore a page from his unmarked notebook. I nodded.
“Brownies?”
Again, did he have to ask? I nodded.
He responded with one of his own, this one smaller and more pensive.
“How about money? Do you like it?”
“I—” It was a trap. I could feel it closing in around me, but I couldn’t see an escape. “I... do, but—”
He held up a hand, cutting me off. “That’s all I have for now. I’m assuming we have your contact information?”
I nodded again, this time dumbstruck.
“We’ll be in touch.” He spun, his trench coat flapping against his legs as he went. Stone stayed behind for a minute, grinning.
I dropped my gaze and shuffled off, moving as fast as I could past the reporters and into my Jeep.
CHAPTER FOUR
When I got back to my Jeep, Kiska was passed out in the back. The cupcakes taking their second toll, I guessed.
I drove to my shop and led a somewhat resistant malamute inside. Once there, I huddled with him under an old Indian blanket on the loveseat and waited for the numbness to pass.
The phone rang a few times, and there was a rap on the door, followed by Daniel’s face peering in through the front window. I’d kept the lights off in the shop, meaning I could see him, but he couldn’t see me.
I pulled the blanket up over my head and waited. After two more loud pounds and a few tries at yelling my name, he gave up and went on his way, probably to terrorize some other poor innocent sap.
