Flipped For Murder

by Maddie Day

  Roy shook Don’s hand without really putting himself into it. “Thanks, Don.”

  Whoa. The guy I’d heard on the other side of the partition earlier. He looked over at me and squinted, running his left hand through hair so greasy it made him wipe his hand on his dark blue work pants.

  “This the girl who robbed me of my store?” Roy asked Don.

  Don held up both hands facing Roy. “Hold on a chicken-picking minute, Roy. She didn’t rob nobody.” He beckoned me over. “Kinda funny, that. Robbie here didn’t rob nobody.” He gave a grim little chuckle that neither Roy nor I joined him in. “Robbie Jordan, Roy Rogers. The late Stella’s only son.”

  I took a deep breath. “Nice to meet you, Roy. And I’m so sorry about your mother’s passing.”

  Roy snorted. “As if.”

  Don gave Roy a look. “Now, Roy, Robbie there lost her very own mother only last year. Haven’t we talked about being nice?” He took Roy by the elbow and steered him away.

  I watched them head toward Don’s office. What was with the “haven’t we talked about being nice?” Don’s tone was that of an adult to a child. Curious. I approached the cash register and paid Barb for my purchases.

  “How’s the store going, now’s you’re open?” she asked with a big smile.

  “Good, so far, thanks.”

  She leaned toward me. “Heared the sad news about Stella, may she rest in peace.” She shook her head. “She was a tough customer, bless her heart. Hope they catch whoever did it, though. Don’t much like a killer running around loose.”

  “I’m with you on that. Say, Barb, you don’t know if anyone has reported a lost cat, do you?” I figured if anyone knew about Birdy, Barb would. She had a finger on everything that happened in town. “Little black-and-white guy?”

  “Not as I’ve heared. Nobody’s put up a poster here, anywho.” She gestured with her head to the large community bulletin board near the door. “Let you know if I hear tell anything.”

  I approached Kowalski’s Country Store on my bike an hour later. It was such a beautiful fall day, sunny and crisp, that I’d decided to ride to Nashville and take myself out to a second breakfast, one I didn’t have to cook. Spying on the competition wasn’t a bad idea, either. I’d looped up through Beanblossom on my way, and smiled as always when I passed the Mennonite church, which featured a prominent sign that read STRANGERS EXPECTED. I’d never gotten around to asking anyone what it really meant, but the words brought to mind science fiction or the magical realism I’d read in Gabriel García Márquez’s works in college.

  Stopping a couple doors down from Kowalski’s, which sat just outside the artsy, touristy county seat, I put my foot on the ground and examined the storefront. It featured a porch overhang like mine, but so much kitsch clogged the porch there wasn’t space for even one chair. I loved the refurbished rocking chairs in front of Pans ‘N Pancakes, and folks had occupied them now and then over the weekend. Here an old wooden plow vied for space with an oak barrel short a few staves, a rusty hay rake, a low wrought-iron table that could use refinishing, or at least a paint job, and a boatload of other antiques, sort of. I squinted. There was actually a rocking chair amidst the junk, but no way to get close enough to sit in it. The paint peeled off the porch railing, and the middle of each stair tread swayed like the back of an old mare.

  I rode the last few yards, locked my cycle in front of the store, and unclipped my helmet. A bell dinged as I pushed the door open. Not an actual bell on the door, though, but an automatic alert someone had entered or left. A long counter lined with round-seated diner stools faced the left wall, with the kitchen visible through a wide order window. Several dozen tired aluminum tables were arrayed in the middle of the space with chairs surrounding them; the restaurant could probably accommodate twice as many customers as mine. Most of the chairs were occupied by folks who looked like they often indulged in big starchy, greasy breakfasts. And since it was a Monday morning, they were either tourists, retirees, or both.

  An older waitress dressed in black breezed by, saying, “Sit anywhere you want, dear.”

  First I scanned the room and located the restroom. I needed to wash up after my ride. A few minutes later I emerged with clean hands. I’d splashed water on my face, too. The restroom was dingy but clean. Whoever the decorator was, he or she must be long dead—the decor looked that exhausted. The walls of the hall where I stood were lined with framed pictures. I examined them, one by one, as I strolled by holding my helmet. They were mostly of Ed with various groups of townspeople: Ed with the current state representative; Ed receiving a Rotary Club award; Ed with four other men on the golf course; Ed with a cluster of Boy Scouts.

  I stopped at one of them and peered more closely. It was of Ed in younger days, with his arm slung over Stella’s shoulders. And Stella was actually smiling. I made my way to the counter and took a seat on one of the red vinyl stools.

  The same waitress I’d seen earlier slapped a paper place mat doubling as a menu in front of me. “Coffee?”

  “Please.” I studied the menu.

  She returned in a minute with a thick mug and a pot of coffee. “Was you wanting to order?”

  “I’ll take the blueberry pancakes with sausage, and a side of biscuits and gravy.” If I was here to assess the competition, I might as well go whole hog. So far, my place was cleaner, brighter, and more interesting. But it was also in a much smaller town. Nashville brought tourists literally by the busload, especially at this time of year.

  It didn’t take more than a couple of minutes for a steaming platter of food to be set in front of me. I thanked the waitress and tucked into it. First I took a bite of pancake. It was of the white-flour variety that I didn’t care for. These were particularly pasty and the blueberries tasted cooked, not fresh. When I threw berries into pancakes, I either used fresh or flash frozen, depending on the season.

  My first bite of sausage was crispy on the outside and moist on the inside. Can’t go wrong with links unless you let them dry out. I cut a biscuit in half and took a bite. Not bad. Warm and homemade, at least. No cheese in it, of course. That was my idea. Mom had baked cheesy biscuits since before I could remember, and I hadn’t found any offered in other restaurants in the county. I poured the warm gravy over the other half biscuit, this time using my knife and fork to lift a bite, but the gravy was salty, lumpy, with little dots of pork, and it tasted like it came out of a can. A can some machine filled a long, long time ago.

  I looked around at the other diners. Nobody seemed upset about their meals. People were sopping up egg yolks with white toast, demolishing stacks of pancakes, and crunching down pieces of bacon like there was no tomorrow. I glanced at the rest of the store as I ate the palatable parts of my breakfast.

  Vintage shelves, like the ones in my store, lined one wall. I saw a collection of rusty tools and a section with what looked like antique dishes and pottery. But Ed also stocked new fishing supplies, snacks, and other supplies, and had a kind of beach corner set up, with flip-flops, sunscreen, hats, and beach towels. Somebody ought to tell him it was nearly mid-October.

  Ed appeared out of nowhere at my elbow. “Taking a day off to slum with the competition?” His face was as ruddy as it’d looked on Saturday and his crooked-tooth smile bordered on a leer as he leaned in a bit too close. With a green tie knotted over a blue dress shirt, he sure as heck wasn’t dressed for kitchen work.

  “I decided to close on Mondays, since we’re open all weekend.” I moved as far away as I could from him without falling off my stool. “I was out for a ride and got hungry.”

  “How’d you like the breakfast?” He pointed at my plate. “Looks like you weren’t hungry. Everybody loves those blueberry pancakes.”

  I mustered a smile. “The sausages were so good I just filled up on them.”

  “I can give you the pancake recipe if you want.” He pulled out a pen and held it above my menu with his left hand.

  Another leftie. “No, thanks, I have my own rec
ipe I like.” I sipped my now-cold coffee. “Looks like you’re doing a good business.”

  “The place is always crowded in the fall. Plenty of hungry tourists who also need to pick up batteries or a new lure.”

  “By the way, I hired one of your former employees yesterday. Danna Beedle. Said she wanted to be able to walk to work. Can you recommend her?”

  He frowned and squinted so hard his small eyes almost disappeared. “We had a difference of opinion. She can be pretty standoffish.” He relaxed his eyes. “But she’s a good worker, that Danna, and was shaping up to know what she was doing in the kitchen.”

  “Great, thanks. Terrible news about Stella, isn’t it? Looks like the two of you were friends.” I watched him. He hadn’t greeted Stella at my place Saturday. Not that I’d seen, anyway.

  Ed’s gaze darted about the room and back at a spot just beyond my right ear. “No. No, we weren’t.” He shook his head and cleared his throat.

  “Isn’t that a picture of you two in the hall by the restrooms?” I gestured with my fork. “You look pretty friendly, although it was a few years ago.”

  “Many years ago. Many, many years ago. We were . . . I was . . .” He swallowed and glanced at his big gold watch. “Would you look at the time? I’m late for a Chamber meeting.” He looked past me again. “Nice seeing you, Robbie. Don’t worry about the bill. Your meal is on the house.” He rushed off before I could even thank him, and muttered something to my waitress on his way to the door.

  Somebody was nervous about Stella.

  Chapter 9

  Rolling slowly up Van Buren Street, I tried to avoid tourists wandering diagonally across the main drag without looking. Tourists had much to be distracted by: dozens of shops featuring quirky lawn ornaments out front, advertising fudge and salt water taffy, or offering hand crafts from purses to pillows to picnic baskets. I passed the Hobnob Corner Restaurant, which I knew served decent food all day long. The building had formerly housed a general store, and then a pharmacy. I glanced at the delightful Melchior Marionette Theatre, a brightly painted space open to the sidewalk. It advertised free popcorn and delightful entertainment. I’d wandered in one time and read a sign painted on an old board: AN ACT TO PREVENT CERTAIN IMMORAL PRACTICES. It referenced a law enacted by the second session of the state general assembly in 1817. Section 7 prohibited staging puppet shows for money, with every person so offending to be fined three dollars for each offense.

  After I reached the Nashville Inn, I parked my bike and knocked on the service door around the back. The big kitchen exhaust fan thrummed as loudly as usual, so I finally just pulled the screen door open and entered my former workplace. While I loved my new gig, I kind of missed the inn.

  “Christina?” I called. I turned from the hall into the kitchen. “Anybody home?” Christina had been my assistant, and she snagged the job of chef when I left.

  Nobody occupied the big industrial kitchen, but lunch prep was clearly under way. Stock simmered on the stove, and squash and carrots in the process of being chopped lay on the wide stainless-steel worktable.

  Christina emerged from the front, a big smile erupting when she saw me. “Robert! You’re back.” She always played with my name.

  “I was in town, thought I’d stop by.” We exchanged a hug, and I watched as she washed her hands. “How’s being head honcho treating you?”

  She rolled her eyes and resumed chopping carrots. “You know. It’s crazy. But I love it. How about you? You’re both head honcho and owner now. Is it good? I hear you opened on the weekend.” A straight blond ponytail hung down her back from a white baseball cap with the inn’s logo on the front. Her slender hands were like machines with the knife, the carrots rapidly transformed into tiny cubes. “Sorry I couldn’t make it over. Things were nuts here with the foliage fanatics.”

  “No worries. If you ever get a Monday off, come by and we can hang out.” I plopped onto a metal stool.

  “I’ll do that.”

  “The opening weekend was pretty good. Nothing burned up, and it was solid customers the whole time. Which reminds me . . . I have to get to the bank sometime today.”

  “Money to put in the bank’s always a good thing. But what about this murder over in South Lick?”

  I grimaced. “Stella Rogers. She came into my place for breakfast. The bad thing is, she was found with one of my special biscuits stuffed in her mouth. So the police think I might have done it.”

  “You kidding me? One of your signature cheesy biscuits?” She paused and looked up. “But you wouldn’t hurt a soul.”

  “Of course not.” I tapped my finger on the counter. “I have a question for you. Do you ever hear anything about Ed Kowalski’s restaurant?”

  “Other than that it’s a plain-wrap, low-quality breakfast-and-lunch joint? Not really. Although people seem to love it. I’m only glad we don’t do breakfast, other than the continental spread we put out for paying guests. Why do you ask?”

  “I hired a local teenager yesterday to help out. She was working for Ed, but she didn’t seem too happy about him. When I asked Ed how she was as a worker, he put on a big old frown and said she was standoffish.”

  Christina laughed. “That lech? He’ll feel up anything with boobs. It doesn’t matter how old or how young. He has a hard time keeping female employees.”

  “That must be it. How disgusting. Danna isn’t even twenty and he’s gotta be fifty.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Way of the world, kiddo. Way of the world.”

  “Is he married?”

  “Not sure. Betsy told me he grew up in South Lick, though.”

  “I saw a picture of him from a few years back with Stella, the woman who was killed,” I said. “In the photo they were both smiling, but he claimed they weren’t friends.”

  “He probably went to kindergarten with her or something.”

  “So maybe Ed grew up in South Lick. He came into the store Saturday with Don, the guy who owns the hardware store.”

  “Well, married or not, Ed’s sure not my type.”

  I laughed. “Well, duh.” I knew Christina’s type was Betsy, a lean welder.

  “Speaking of type, you found anybody your type lately?” She waggled her eyebrows. “It’s time to get over Will, you know.”

  I nodded slowly. Even though I’d left Will behind in California, I’d poured out the whole story to Christina when we worked together. “Funny you should ask.” I told her about my date with Jim. “I’m making him dinner tonight, actually.”

  “That’s what I like to hear. Get out of here, now. I have work to do.”

  “Same here.” We exchanged another hug and promised to see each other soon, somehow.

  I checked the wall clock in my store and then my list. Three o’clock and many of my errands and chores were checked off. I was such a list person—if I forgot to add a task, but I’d already done it, I wrote it down simply to have the satisfaction of crossing it off.

  I’d deposited the weekend’s cash at the bank, picked up frozen shrimp at the market and local produce from the farm stand for dinner, bought a litter box and litter, and cleaned the kitchen and living room. Working in the restaurant, I’d made tomorrow’s miso gravy, prepped the biscuit dough, and cut up pineapple, melon, and grapes for a fruit salad I’d add to the Specials menu on the chalkboard. I was pretty sure business on weekdays would be slower, but I still wanted to be ready. As I was washing up, someone knocked on the store’s front door. Walking over as I dried my hands on a towel, I spied Phil.

  “Hey, feeling better?” I opened the door and stood back. He wore an old red IU sweatshirt with ratty jeans, and he held two wide trays stacked on top of each other.

  “I am, thank the blessed Lord.” He handed me the trays, which were sealed with plastic wrap. “Take these. Be right back.” He turned, leaned into the back of his old Volvo station wagon, and drew out two more, then followed me into the store, setting them on the counter next to where I’d put the first two.

  �
��Sit down for a minute?” I asked. “You must have taken a sick day.”

  “I did. Whew,” he said, shaking his head as he sat. “I don’t recommend the twenty-four-hour stomach bug to anyone.” Somehow his dark skin looked pale and his eyes watered.

  “Thanks for baking. Are you sure—”

  “That I didn’t infect the brownies?” At least his wicked grin was his usual. “Yes, ma’am. I was over it by this morning. I wiped down my kitchen with disinfectant just in case, and I washed my hands about every two minutes as I was cooking.”

  “Well, I appreciate it. We missed you Sunday, but by some miracle a competent young woman answered my ad and I hired her on the spot. Madam Mayor’s teenaged daughter, Danna.”

  Phil laughed. “I used to babysit her, even though I’m only a few years older. She was a handful. Smart, but a bit too adventurous sometimes.”

  “That’s funny.” Then reality dawned and I felt the smile drain off my face. “You heard about the murder, I assume. Hard to believe.”

  “Stella. She never seemed happy, anytime I saw her.”

  “You seem about the same age as her son, Roy. Did you go to school with him?”

  He nodded. “That one donated his brain to science before he was done with it. He’d lose a debate with a doorknob.”

  “That’s not very nice, Phil. But Roy’s odd, for sure. I ran into him in the hardware store this morning. What was it Don said to him? Something about being nice, like Don had tried to help him before.”

  “Don coached his Little League team and he’s kind of looked after Roy ever since.”

  “Roy didn’t seem too broken up about his mother being killed.”

  “I don’t know if he’s got Asperger’s or if he simply has different reactions than most people.” Phil shook his head. “His dad died when he was a kid, and that was tough on him.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “I never even thought about Stella having a husband. What did he die of?”

  “I don’t remember. I was a kid, too.” He raised his eyebrows and stood. “I’m off. Rehearsal tonight.”