by Rae Davies
My news of what I’d learned about Phyllis and the WILers and most definitely the extra car at the kiosk the night Missy was killed was bubbling inside me like a volcano cake that was about to blow, and I really wanted to know if he knew too. And I really wanted to know what else he knew.
I glanced at Peter. He gave me his “don’t do it” look.
I weighed my options. If I told him, and he didn’t know what I knew, he wouldn’t be able to sit by and nod and give me sage advice that made me feel better. He’d have to take note, make some calls, haul me in, haul my friends in, and in general make life difficult for all of us. I was including Laura and Phoebe in the friends category, because while I didn’t embrace their crusade, I had come to like them. And if Peter did already know what I knew, he wouldn’t share any new tantalizing details. He’d lecture me about minding my own business, how there was a murderer on the loose, and how I was already more involved than I should be, what with having found the body and everything Phyllis had done.
After a couple more minutes of silence, he sighed. “Do you know anything Detective Klein should know?”
I twisted my lips some more. Did I? My guess was Klein would be very interested in knowing about Missy’s early morning visitors the day she died. My mouth parted.
Peter held up one hand.
“So... I should call Klein?” I asked.
He paused, and his jaw tightened.
I could see the struggle inside him. The police in him wanted to say yes, but the boyfriend in him was afraid of what I would say, afraid it would wind up getting me into more trouble.
That had certainly happened before.
“Or I could call Gregor,” I suggested.
His jaw relaxed, just a little. “As a police officer, I could never advise you against consulting with your attorney.”
“And as a boyfriend?”
He walked toward me, not stopping until the tips of his cowboy boots touched the tips of my sneakers. He reached down, wrapped his hands around my upper arms and pulled me to a stand. “Did anyone confess?”
I shook my head.
“Did you find the murder weapon, or pictures, or any hard evidence that should be turned over?”
I shook my head again. Just hearsay. Sweet beautiful hearsay.
His lips softened and curved into a smile. He leaned down and brushed them against mine. “Then, as your boyfriend, I’d say we need to get these burgers off the grill and get inside...”
I couldn’t have agreed more... except... the pills. I knew Laura had given them to Missy. That was a big thing. Not hard evidence. I hadn’t seen her give them to her and I didn’t have video of it happening or anything. But it was still big.
My conscience struggled with my libido. He kissed me and my toes melted, and all thoughts of Caffeine Cuties started to drift away.
And then, with intense relief, I realized something. Murder weapon. He’d asked if I’d found one. Which meant Missy hadn’t been poisoned, at least not by Phyllis’ pills. She’d been killed some other way and the weapon was still out there somewhere, waiting to be found.
His kiss deepened and he pulled me closer against his form.
Tomorrow. Waiting to be found tomorrow.
o0o
Tomorrow came a lot earlier than I would have liked. Not just because it meant Peter rolled out of bed while owls, raccoons, and other nighttime critters were still rollicking through the forest, but also because it meant I had to make good on the commitment that I’d made to myself the night before. I had to find the weapon that had been used to kill Missy.
Having not clue one what that weapon might even be, I was going to have get creative.
In preparation for that, I told Peter I was going to be busy the next couple of days going through the Deere items for my display and hunting down a few non–Deere things to round things out. At least Darrell had said the rest of the items would be delivered today.
“Darrell’s helping you?” he asked, looking less than trusting.
I sat up in the bed, as primly as a girl could with morning breath and the remnants of a late night snack – corn chips – clinging to her cheek. “Yes.”
“Did you threaten him with something?”
I snorted. “With what? You know my power level.” Minus 30 on a 100 point scale.
He stared at me for a second or two longer, but finally either decided I was on the level or that he couldn’t waste any more time waiting for me to come clean. After a quick peck on the cheek, he pulled on his boots and left.
After waiting to hear his key turn in the lock, I leaned against my pillows, scraped a chip off my cheek and plopped it into my mouth.
Kiska watched with interest. With a grunt, I retrieved the almost empty chip bag from between my mattress and night stand and held it out to him. While he licked it clean, I reviewed my options.
1.) Stomp into the police station and demand to be told, as a tax–paying citizen of this county, how Missy had been killed.
The simplicity of this held a lot of appeal. But even my corn–chip fueled brain knew the reality would be a lot more complicated.
2.) Find Missy’s killer and ask him/her.
The obvious flaw here was that I needed to find the weapon so I could eliminate my friends and myself as her killer. If I knew the killer... well, then I wouldn’t need to find the murder weapon to find the killer...
3.) Suck up to, confuse, trick... rob... some person who was in the know of the needed information.
This, of course, was the answer. But which person in the know?
I made another mental list.
Peter. I laughed out loud. I couldn’t help it.
Moving on...
George? Most likely to be in the know, aside from Peter of course, but also most likely to get in hot water for sharing such a tempting tidbit with me.
And George was my friend. I really didn’t want him losing his job for me.
For similar reasons, all other police types were out. Since I’d given up reporting and lost the power of “protecting my source,” my ability to get anything good out of any of them had dissipated. Dating a detective hadn’t helped my cause much either.
Which left those still with the power of a “protected source.”
Two such people came to mind: Daniel and Bev.
I knew both would be more than happy to sit down and chat with me, but which would be most likely to share something with me in return, without me wanting to shove a pencil in my eye?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Bev agreed to meet me for lunch. I picked a cafe with greasy patty melts and greasier fries. It wasn’t a place my usual lunch date, Rhonda, would let me frequent too often. Plus, the place had out–of–control shrubs that shielded its parking lot from the main road.
Free from prying eyes, I placed my order and waited for Bev.
She arrived, looking like she’d taken a page from Phyllis and Kristi’s fashion book: pencil skirt and pumps. I smoothed the collar on my “Woo To You” t–shirt and took a sip of my Diet Pepsi.
“This is interesting.” She glanced around, picked up her water glass to take a sip, set it back down without taking a drink and then slid it across the table away from her.
A dark hair, considerably shorter than any on my head, bobbed up and down with the ice.
So maybe the greasy food wasn’t the only reason Rhonda quit coming here with me.
I took another drink from my glass and waited for Bev to relax.
After she’d settled herself a bit, she pulled two paper napkins out of the dispenser and placed them on the table in front of her. After placing her elbows on top of them, she leaned forward.
“So, you’ve decided to talk.”
I didn’t like how she was looking at me. Like I was the last hot dog on the roller.
“I’m happy you chose me instead of Daniel. Sometimes it’s easier to talk to someone you don’t know, don’t you think?” She pulled her phone out of her pocket, punched aroun
d on it a bit and then set it on the table between us. “Now where did you want to start? Maybe with why you killed Missy?”
Her eyes were big and brown and hungry.
Just like a wolf’s.
I shoved her phone off the table and into her lap. “I did not kill Missy, and I did not ask you here to confess—to anything.”
“Oh.”
Her disappointment was palpable. “But Kristi said...” Shaking her head, she put her phone back into her bag.
“What did Kristi say?”
“She just thought maybe you’d decided to come clean.”
“You told her that I’d called?”
One of her napkins slipped off the table and onto the floor. She plucked another one from the dispenser and pulled it through one hand. “We have an agreement of sorts.”
An agreement. I wondered if that agreement included telling the reporter about the WILers’ late night visit to the kiosk.
As if reading my mind, Bev leaned forward and admitted, “I know that Phoebe and Laura talked to Missy that night, and I know your friend Phyllis was there too. Do you have information on one of them?”
“What about Kristi?”
She blinked. “Kristi?”
So the good lady had carefully kept herself safely in a seat as she tossed her friends under the reporter’s bus.
“She was there.”
“Really?”
While Bev computed that tidbit, my hamburger and fries arrived. Earlier, I’d thought I might be too stressed to eat them, but suddenly I was ravenous. I dug in.
I took a bite. “Yep.”
Bev frowned. “She hadn’t mentioned that.”
“She stayed in the car,” I mumbled around a mouthful. “But she was there. She could easily have come back after the others left.”
“So you think she did it?”
I paused mid–chew. Did I think the sanctimonious Kristi had killed Missy? After a second, I shook my head. Who was I kidding? I had absolutely no reason to think that she had.
It was a disappointing admission. At least to me. Bev looked relieved.
As an ex–reporter, I understood. It wouldn’t have looked good for her if her source had actually been the killer and playing her all along.
I dabbed a fry in some ketchup and considered my next move. “Actually, I was hoping we could form an agreement of sorts.”
Busy brushing something off her palm, Bev looked up. Her eyes rounded in surprise and interest, I hoped. “Really? What kind of agreement?”
“Well, as you know, I found the body and I haven’t told anyone everything that happened.”
She nodded, but her eyes were narrow, appraising.
“And, well, because I found Missy, the police are, of course, watching me, and then there’s Phyllis and her bizarre need to take a break right in the middle of all of this and...” I could feel myself rambling. I shut my mouth and took a breath. “Anyway, I’d like to get Missy’s murder solved as quickly as possible, and I thought we might have information that would complement each other’s efforts.”
“Complement, eh?”
I gave her a minute to let my oh–so–generous offer sink in.
She squinted one eye and then sighed the sigh of a reporter in need of a break. “Okay. You tell me your story, and then I can fill in with what I know.”
This was not the deal I’d hoped for. Showing your cards first was seldom the best idea, unless you were holding something so big and intimidating it would force the other player to fold.
I wasn’t. In fact, I was a tad concerned that my hand was so weak, she’d just get up from the table and leave. But I could tell by the set of her chin that this was the only deal I was going to be offered.
With a sigh of my own, I told her what I knew. Little that it was.
She tapped a fingernail against the scarred tabletop. “So, you didn’t even see the body.”
Her voice dripped with disappointment and a bit of annoyance.
Which, considering that so far I’d been the only one to share, was completely unfair.
“Well, there was one other thing.” I had planned to pump her for information on the possible murder weapon without revealing what I knew, but I couldn’t take the pressure of her superior gaze at how little information I had. I knew more. A lot more.
I spilled the beans.
She raised one brow. “A missing murder weapon...”
I cocked a brow in response. I had, after all, just bled helpful information.
She relented a little. “The police have been very closed–mouthed about how Missy died. I knew from talking to the EMTs that it wasn’t anything gory.”
She looked a bit disappointed by this fact.
“But they wouldn’t or couldn’t give me any more than that.” She tapped her finger again. “A weapon, but no blood. Not a gun or a knife.”
“Unless the killer hit her in the head with it,” I offered.
She glanced at me as if surprised to see I was still there. “I suppose.”
Her tone said she didn’t.
She sat silent for another minute. I could see the wheels turning, but they didn’t churn out any words. I took a loud drink of my soda and cleared my throat.
“So, anything else?”
She glanced back toward me. “Hmm? No, but there is one other thing you could do for me.”
Feeling like so far I’d been the only one to do anything, I nodded, but reluctantly.
“It’s about Joe, the coffee guy. What do you think about him? I’ve heard he’s lost a lot of business.”
“Joe? He’s a great guy. He has lost business, but things happen. Businesses go up and down. It’s expected, and he’s taken it completely in stride.” Another slurp. This one extra loud.
“Really?” For some reason she didn’t look as if she believed me.
“He has.”
“Hmm.” She watched me for a second.
“Have you talked to him? You should talk to him. You’ll see.”
Her face brightened. “Could you arrange that? I’d love to talk to him. Just to get his perspective, of course. Being a fellow coffee shop owner, he’d have a unique view of what might have happened.”
Unique view. That didn’t sound bad. In fact, it sounded like the kind of promotional opportunity that Phyllis was always lecturing me about finding for myself.
Double score if I could secure it for Joe, doing a good turn for a friend and proving that I could get publicity on my own, even if it wasn’t for me.
“He should be around this afternoon. I’d be happy to introduce you. I’ll talk to him and then give you a call.”
With that settled, she checked her phone, exclaimed that she was late for some meeting, and after a quick good–bye, hurried out the door.
The napkins she’d been using as elbow rests poofed up in the resulting breeze and drifted back down, landing perfectly on the layer of ketchup that topped my fries. I picked them off and kept eating.
o0o
After finishing my fries, I pointed my Jeep toward home where I’d left Kiska that morning.
I was feeling pretty pleased with myself. True I hadn’t gained any new information from Bev, but I had lined up an interview for Joe. It was exactly what he needed, both to remind everyone that Cuppa Joe’s was still here, and deserving of business, and to squash any suspicions Bev and anyone else had that Joe was anything except the outstanding guy that he was.
At my house, I found Kiska lounging on the cool bathroom tile. I convinced him to leave it by waving a malamute–sized cookie under his nose and quickly stepping backward. Once he was on his feet and done munching, he was happy enough to follow me down to the Jeep.
I loaded him up, and we headed into the shop to do what I’d told Peter I was going to be doing, going through my Deere finds, and to share with Joe the good news of his upcoming media appearance.
I got to the shop to find three boxes sitting next to the back door. I was surprised to find them there.
Being what Darrell deemed the more valuable items, I thought he surely would have wanted them delivered during store hours.
Then I saw the note. It was from Joe. The boxes had been delivered to his place by mistake. He’d loaded them onto a handcart and brought them to me himself.
Probably during his morning rush. Or not, I realized, what with how his business had been going lately.
Feeling a bit down, I tugged the boxes inside and got to work.
Kiska and I were elbow deep in old newspapers that I did not remember requesting, or think were anything near valuable, when Betty whirled in through the back door and raced toward the front.
“Quick! Lock up! That—”
A rap on the back cut off whatever she’d been about to say.
I glanced at my overly worked up employee.
“Klein,” she finished. “He’s headed our way.” Her eyes shifted back and forth in her face.
“How do you—”
The rap turned to more of a pound. This time Peter’s voice called out. “We saw Betty come in.”
Betty twisted her boa in disgust. “I didn’t think they saw me.”
Dressed in her yellow–feathered number that always made me think of Big Bird, I didn’t know how she could think anyone could miss her. I shook my head and took a step toward the back.
She stopped me with a hand on my arm. “Klein is with him. He got a call. I don’t know from whom, but it was something that made him come here.”
“Lucy?”
I recognized the tone. Peter was losing patience.
I wanted to hear the rest of Betty’s story, especially the answer to my question that had been cut off, but I knew not answering the door was only going to make whatever this current situation was worse.
I told Betty to put Kiska in my office and went to unlock the door that Betty had locked behind her when she’d snuck inside so stealthily.
Peter frowned at me from the alley. Klein stood behind him looking only mildly interested in our conversation.
“When did you start locking the back door?”
I looked over my shoulder at Betty. “Today.”
