Murder Over Mochas

by Caroline Fardig

  “Not when we’re the prime suspects in my ex-fiancé’s murder.”

  Trevor’s eyes bugged out.

  Ryan snapped his head in our direction. “Scott O’Malley’s dead?”

  Pete nodded. “And it happened at Java Jive.”

  Ryan blew out a breath. “That sucks. Sorry, guys. What happened?”

  “The police think he may have been poisoned,” I replied. “Have you been on radio silence or something? We heard it’s all over the news and social media.”

  Trevor pointed to a stack of cellphones on his counter. “Actually, we have. No outside communication during the tournament ensures no cheating.” He turned to one of the other boys and added, “Not that cheating would be a problem, Tyler.”

  Tyler raised his hands in defense. “You can’t prove anything.”

  Trevor shook his head. “Anyway, I assume these belonged to the dead guy?”

  “Yeah,” Pete replied. “Both password protected. We obtained them marginally legally—”

  “Totally illegally,” I corrected him.

  “And we need to get into them to get some information off them.”

  “Give me a minute,” Trevor said, taking the devices back to his bedroom.

  Ryan abandoned his post on the couch and came over to us. “I knew Scott, kind of. He was in college when his family moved to town, I think, so he wasn’t around much. His younger brother graduated with me.”

  “Aaron. Right.” I hadn’t even thought about how Scott’s family would be taking his death. They’d turned their backs on me after Scott left me, but I still would hate to see them hurting.

  “So I take it if you two are suspects, the police don’t believe this was an accidental poisoning. Why do you think someone would want to kill him?” Ryan asked.

  Pete shrugged. “He came down here spouting some story about his wife being kidnapped and saying that he was in trouble.”

  “Kidnapped? This story keeps getting crazier and crazier.”

  I replied, “You’re right about that. We’re going to take a day trip to Liberty once we get done here and see if we can glean anything from the locals.”

  “Liberty, huh? I haven’t been there since this summer.” Ryan gave us a hopeful smile. “I don’t suppose you’d consider taking a hitchhiker, would you? My sister found out not too long ago that she’s pregnant, so I’ve been meaning to drive up for weeks and tell her congratulations in person. Unfortunately, my junker can’t handle the trip until I have some significant work done on it.”

  “Sure. The more the merrier. Right, Pete?” I asked.

  Something flashed in his eyes for a moment, but then he smiled. “Absolutely.”

  —

  Ryan kept up a running commentary on the two-hour drive to Liberty, telling us who we should speak to about Scott and who might have the juiciest gossip on him. I’d lived in Liberty all my life except for my brief stint in Nashville during college and the couple of years after when I tried (and failed) to get my singing career off the ground, and then of course when I’d moved back this past year. I knew all the town gossips and busybodies already. However, I let him ramble on because I had some work to do sifting through the files on Scott’s electronics and didn’t have time for chitchat.

  Scott’s tablet seemed to be all business-related. His calendar showed his travel schedule of doctors’ offices he visited. His contacts app was overflowing with names, so I didn’t even know where to start with it. Other than that, he had a bunch of presentations on various drugs, a spreadsheet of doctors’ names broken down by geographic region and assigned Silver Spruce rep, business-related emails in his email folder, and not much else.

  His phone, on the other hand, was the total opposite. He had at least one active profile on every social media app known to man. On some of them, he had more than one profile, under different names but with his photo, which was super creepy. And worse, he seemed to use these profiles for sexting women through private messaging. Disgusting, but not illegal.

  He’d downloaded every currently popular gaming app in existence. He also had numerous paid entertainment apps—who needed Netflix and Hulu and Crackle? And then there was the porn. Oh, the porn. He had a whole page dedicated to porn apps. How had I ever managed to love this loser? And because I couldn’t stop myself from continuing to study this train wreck, I pulled up his photos.

  “Oh, gross,” I groaned, quickly punching the home button to rid the screen of a close-up of Scott’s junk.

  “What now?” Pete asked, having heard me grumble under my breath for the better part of an hour.

  “A dick pic. I officially need a break from delving into Scott’s personal life.”

  “That’s kinda what today is all about, Jules.”

  “I don’t think we need to get that personal.”

  Ryan asked, “What’s up with Scott becoming such a shit show all of a sudden?”

  I replied, “I don’t know, but I’m afraid we’re going to have to find out. I don’t think I can take many more surprises.”

  Pete chuckled. “Well, look on the bright side. At least you dodged the bullet of becoming Mrs. Shit Show.”

  I shot him a look while Ryan dissolved into a laughing fit.

  Changing the subject, Pete said, “We’re about five minutes out. Ryan, where are we dropping you?”

  Ryan sobered up and gave him directions, and after about ten minutes we pulled up to a mansion of a house out in the country.

  “Whoa,” Pete said. “Nice digs.”

  Ryan replied, “Yeah, Lizzie’s husband, Blake, is old money. Good guy, though.”

  I snorted, inadvertently aloud.

  Ryan said, “You know, the two of them have actually solved a few murders themselves. They kind of remind me of you guys a little. I bet they could help.”

  I waved away his offer. “No, we don’t want to bother them with our problem, especially if your sister is pregnant. Go have a nice afternoon visiting them. We’ll text you when we’re ready to pick you up.”

  As we pulled away, Pete asked, “What’s your beef with this Blake guy?”

  “How much time do you have?”

  Chapter 6

  “That bad?” Pete asked.

  I wrinkled my nose. “I guess it’s not a long story, just a pitiful one. He’s the writer whose article in the Liberty Chronicle put the final nail in my café’s coffin. You remember me showing you the review?”

  “Yeah. It was a pretty bad one as I recall.”

  “Right, and since people around here believe everything they read in the town newspaper, after the story came out, I essentially had no more business.”

  Pete reached over and gave my hand a squeeze, but said nothing.

  I shrugged. “It’s not like his review was inaccurate. But it still hurt.”

  When the review was published, I was running the place practically by myself because my employees began to quit once their paychecks started bouncing. So, the service was terrible and the food quality went down the drain because I was trying to cover the kitchen and the front of the house all at the same time. To make things even worse, we were always running out of food to serve because I didn’t have money to buy ingredients. Just another thing that was all Scott’s fault.

  I really did in fact have a crap ton of motive to kill the guy. To be fair, Detective Delaney’s theory about me wasn’t that far-fetched. If I were the investigator on the case, I would focus all my energy on finding evidence against the victim’s über-jilted ex. Inept or not, Delaney would be coming after me (and Pete by association) with both barrels. Which was why Pete and I had a lot of work to do, and fast.

  We’d decided to start with Scott’s house. We had his keys, plus after stealing his satchel from the crime scene and ransacking his motel room, what was one more breaking and entering to add to our list of sins?

  Pete let out a low whistle as he turned into the entrance of Freedom Hills, a fancy golf community and the place to live in Liberty. The homes were
all McMansions that overwhelmed the small lots they sat on. Try as I might, I couldn’t picture Scott living here. He’d always made fun of this subdivision—he’d called it Stepford Hills.

  Pete pulled his car to a stop in front of Scott’s house. “Are you going to be okay with this? Going through the guy’s man bag and his suitcase wasn’t terribly personal, but this is his home.”

  I nodded my head. “I’m sure it’ll be fine. I’m more at an angry stage than a sad stage at the moment. I can work with that.”

  We donned our gloves (Pete had brought some more manly ones from home this time) and marched up to the front door like we had all the permission in the world to enter the house. After letting ourselves in, I had to take a moment to battle the rage that bubbled up and threatened to overtake me. This place was furnished with my stuff. Sure, there was new furniture here and there and new knickknacks that seemed to have been chosen specifically for this house, but sprinkled throughout were things I’d bought, things that had been given to me, and things I’d inherited from my family. I felt ill.

  “Jules, you’re not blinking,” Pete said uneasily.

  “I know,” I ground out through gritted teeth.

  “Uh…So I’ll start looking around, and when you’re ready to join me, you can.” He hurried away, knowing from experience it was best not to try to talk to me when I was like this.

  I let out a pent-up breath. I had to remind myself it was not productive to have murderous thoughts about Scott, especially since he was already dead. Once I focused myself on looking for information rather than giving my attention to items in the house, I was able to join Pete in the kitchen. He was looking through a junk drawer. I found a bunch of notepads by the house phone and began perusing them. He gave me a faint smile, but didn’t try to start a conversation.

  Finally after several minutes, I was able to say, “There’s a lot of my stuff in here.”

  He came over and put his hands on my shoulders. “I know. I recognized a couple things in here that I gave you. But we’ve got to keep our heads in the game. Our mission is to find out what really happened to Scott—not to get justice for that dillhole, but to cover our own asses.”

  I smiled. Leave it to Pete to point out what was really important here. “Thanks for the pep talk.”

  “The quicker we can get this done, the quicker we can get you out of here.”

  We found Scott’s home office, but there wasn’t a lot in it. The computer was password protected, so there was no way Pete and I were getting into it. We both rifled through his desk drawers, but it was mostly personal stuff like home and vehicle insurance policies, warranty papers, credit card statements, bank statements, and bills.

  Pete looked through a couple of the credit card statements and whistled. “This guy was a shopaholic. Or maybe his wife’s the shopper. Lots of big purchases on here from stores that sell expensive toys…and a couple of big payments to doctors. What do you want to bet someone had work done?”

  I was busy going through a stack of bank statements, but found nothing out of the ordinary with Scott’s and Mandi’s deposits or withdrawals. I did happen to find it interesting that they had separate bank accounts. After Mandi saw what Scott did to me, maybe she was smart enough to keep her money separate from his just in case he got the itch to trade her in for a newer model.

  “Speaking of his wife, I wonder if the police have any leads on her disappearance.” I let out a chuckle. “If I know Mandi, she’s giving whoever kidnapped her a run for their money.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, if there’s more than one kidnapper, she’s probably found a way to pit them against each other and get them fighting among themselves. That’s what she did to the other staff members at the café when she got bored. Other than that, she was a fantastic waitress. She could wrap even the crankiest customer around her little finger.”

  “Yeah, I remember her being pretty charming the couple of times I met her at your café. And it didn’t hurt that she looks like a supermodel.”

  Frowning, I replied, “Yeah, that too.”

  My phone rang, and it was Ryan. “Hey,” I said, putting it on speaker and setting down the phone on the desk so I could continue my search.

  “Hey…I know you don’t love talking to reporters, but would you be willing to give my brother-in-law an exclusive on what happened to Scott?” asked Ryan.

  I looked at Pete and made a face. Ryan was a friend, but Blake certainly was not. I wasn’t doing him any favors. “I’m going to have to say no, mainly because I’m a prime suspect.”

  “Can I tell him that?”

  “No!” I cried. There was no telling how that statement could get twisted around by the people of this town. My parents would be fielding questions about their “killer daughter” for months.

  Pete picked up my phone and took it off speaker. He said quietly to me, “Let me handle this.” Then he wandered into the next room to talk to Ryan, leaving me to finish up in the office.

  After Pete ended the call, he told me that he’d taken care of the situation and that I didn’t need to worry, which set me at ease. We moved on through the house, finding nothing (except a bunch of my stuff, which I was trying really hard not to get upset about). The last room to tackle was Scott and Mandi’s bedroom. I did not want to know what kind of paraphernalia was in their bedside drawers, but we had to leave no stone unturned. I started with the dresser, and Pete, bless him, went straight for the nightstand, I assumed so I wouldn’t have to. He was sweet like that.

  But before either of us could do much digging, we heard a door slam shut. Pete drew in an audible breath, and I winced and put my finger over my lips to shush him. Whoever was in here could have heard that. Having no means of escape from the room, I quickly swung the bedroom door nearly shut, grabbed Pete by the arm, and shoved him into the walk-in closet ahead of me. I closed the door behind us as silently as I could, but the knob still made a slight clicking sound. My heart hammering, I listened with my ear against the door for sound of footsteps coming this way. With the two owners of the home being indisposed at this particular time, the person who just entered was—like us—not someone who was supposed to be here.

  Pete was freaked, breathing hard beside me. I put my hand on his shoulder and gave him an encouraging smile. His brown eyes stared back at me, wide and fearful.

  With my mouth close to his ear, I whispered, “It’s going to be okay, Pete.”

  He nodded, not believing a word of it. Truth be told, I didn’t believe it myself. We were so getting caught. I hoped it wouldn’t be by the police, even if it meant we had to deal with some delinquents. Either way, we removed our gloves so we didn’t come off looking like cat burglars.

  After an agonizing minute of listening to our fellow intruder walk around the house, opening and closing doors, I couldn’t just stand here and wait to be found. The closet was so fancy, it had a skylight, which illuminated everything in here, including the big wheeled duffel I’d stubbed my toe against when I’d rushed in here. I decided to use our hiding time wisely.

  Donning my gloves again, I whispered to Pete, “Watch the door while I poke around.”

  He did, and I unzipped the duffel as quietly as I could. It looked just like the one we’d seen in Scott’s hotel room, and sure enough, it was stocked with samples of drugs, like the other one had been. But when I dug down past the promo materials, it got interesting. No cheap giveaway pens here. This was full-on swag. There were boxes of designer Burberry, Ferragamo, and Armani scarves and neckties, all made of gorgeous brightly colored silk. Under those were several boxes of sparkly earrings and shiny cuff links, by designers like Cartier and Montblanc.

  Engrossed in my digging, I hadn’t realized it had become quiet outside the door—no more footsteps or slamming doors.

  Pete whispered, “Do you think they’re gone?”

  I shrugged, peeled off my gloves, and went over to listen at the door. There was no sound outside, but I was not giving up our
hiding spot on the off chance that someone had been here and gone in this short a time. Then, I began to hear faint footfalls, as if on thick carpet—like the plushy, white carpet in the bedroom we were in. Pete must have heard them, too, because he grabbed my hand and held tight. This was it.

  Suddenly the door wrenched open, and a black handgun appeared in our faces. A female voice demanded, “What are you doing in my house?”

  When I focused on the owner of the voice, my jaw dropped. “Mandi? I thought you were kidnapped.”

  Damned if Mandi wasn’t even more beautiful than she’d been before, her long mane of once dark hair now a perfectly blended multi-tonal shade of blond. And from the looks of it, Scott’s spending spree had included a boob job for his previously flat-chested wife.

  Mandi stared at me for a moment, then dropped the gun to her side. “Juliet? What the…” She shook her head as if to clear it, then again pointed the gun in our faces. “For real, you shouldn’t be here. What are you doing in my house?”

  Pete and I put our hands up slowly. Mandi, not being the brightest woman I’d ever met, had her gun close enough to me that my hands were only inches away. She also held it with only one hand, which told me she had no real intention of using it on us, or at least had no real interest in accuracy. And little did she know that after I’d been held at gunpoint a few months ago, Ryder had made it his mission in life to teach me a few tactics to fight back in those types of situations.

  “Out of the closet, bitches,” she sniped, taking her eyes off us for a moment when she took a step backward.

  In that instant, I grabbed the side of the barrel of her handgun with my left hand and smashed my right palm into the underside of her wrist. Her wrist buckled, causing her grip on the gun to loosen. I ripped the gun from her hand and turned it on her. Wide-eyed and mouth hanging open, she backed away from me with her hands up.

  I smirked at her. “Who’s the bitch now?”

  Pete whispered in my ear, “Jules, that was so badass!”

  Her voice trembling, Mandi said, “You’ll fry for breaking into my house and shooting me.”