Murder Over Mochas

by Caroline Fardig

  “Are you queasy from finding Mandi?” Ryder asked, gesturing to the diminishing basket of chips and my untouched bowl of salsa. “If you don’t start eating some of these chips, I’m going to finish them off, and then you’ll be out of luck.”

  “No, I’m too scattered to focus on anything, including lunch.”

  “I could drive you to your parents’ house so you can take a nap.”

  I smiled. “Thanks, but don’t we need to continue our investigation?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe not. LPD is treating this as a homicide. They don’t buy the timeline any more than I do. Mandi was already dead or at least well on her way before that text was ever sent to you.”

  “I was kind of hoping you were wrong and that they’d decide it was in fact a suicide. Does this mean they think I had something to do with it?”

  “No, I don’t think they think that. And I have more information that I didn’t want to share with your newspaper friends.” He lowered his voice, even though the restaurant had emptied out after the lunch rush. “Harrison let me read a note that was found in Mandi’s pocket. It was a suicide note, but it seems bogus. They won’t know for sure until they can send it to the state police lab in Indianapolis for the questioned documents expert to have a look. It said that she was guilt-ridden over killing Scott. That he’d found out about her affair and become insufferable, especially at work when Jared was around. She came up with a plan to get him fired, and in the meantime she was going to work on divorcing him so she could be with Jared. She admitted to feeding Scott a steady stream of levodopa in order to alter his personality and make him seem aggressive and paranoid.”

  My jaw dropped. “Whoa. That’s evil.”

  “Yeah, it is. Once their coworkers started noticing his odd behavior, she started stealing samples and blaming him.”

  “Oh, right. She gave Daniel a sob story about Scott stealing drugs and using them, then Daniel turned around and narced on Scott for her. Perfect plan.”

  Ryder nodded. “The note also said that when she found out he’d been retaliating by trying to blackmail her clients with some made-up information, it was the last straw. She lured him down to Nashville and gave him a killer cocktail.”

  Frowning, I said, “Only the blackmail information wasn’t made up. Dr. Grantham verified it.”

  “Exactly. Whoever wrote that note was covering his own ass. There was no mention of kickbacks or of the stolen sodium oxybate, which mixed with levodopa would have made the perfect killer cocktail. What do you want to bet the note was written by Jared with the intent to pin the crimes he and Mandi committed together all on her?”

  “Makes perfect sense to me.”

  “It makes perfect sense to the LPD, also. Finding Jared Fisher is their number-one priority.”

  “So does that mean we can go home?” I asked.

  He smiled. “We can go home.”

  —

  I was so elated by Ryder’s good news that I scarfed down the rest of the chips plus my entire lunch. As we were heading to his car, he realized he’d left his phone at the table, so he ran back in to get it. While I was waiting outside, I got ambushed by none other than Detective Delaney, who was about the last person I expected to see here.

  He got in my face and barked, “I was under the impression you were told not to leave town.”

  I shook my head. “I was not under that impression.”

  A vein popped out on his forehead. “Get in your car and go back to Nashville!”

  Even though that was my plan, I wasn’t going to make him think I was doing it because he said so. “No.”

  “Don’t think I won’t arrest you right here.”

  “I know you won’t. You’re out of your jurisdiction. Besides, you can’t arrest me for coming to my hometown to visit my parents.”

  “You’re not visiting your parents. You and Hamilton are here poking into my investigation.” As Ryder came out the door of the restaurant, Delaney yelled at him, “The captain is going to hear about this.”

  Ryder rolled his eyes at Delaney and ambled toward us in no particular hurry. “Don’t you have anything better to do than drive all the way from Tennessee to harass us, Delaney?”

  The older detective glared at us. “I hear you two knuckleheads found my vic’s dead wife.” Smirking at me, he added, “You can imagine my surprise that you of all people were around when the woman your ex traded you in for kicked it.”

  I frowned. “Oh, so now I’m on the hook for two murders I didn’t commit. Do you ever do any actual investigating, or do you pick your suspects’ names out of a hat?”

  Ryder let out a snort of laughter, which made Delaney’s face turn purple.

  He exploded, “That’s it. You either go with me to the local station right now and turn over all the information you’ve gathered from your little sleuthing adventure, or the next time either of you sets foot inside the city of Nashville, I will have you arrested for obstruction. I’m not screwing around.”

  Ryder said, “Give us a minute,” and pulled me aside. “I promised the local boys that we’d stop by the station on our way out of town and drop off a flash drive with our findings and case notes. We might as well let Delaney think it was his idea and play along, otherwise he’s going to cause trouble for you until he closes his case. Which may be never, considering he’s such a bumbling idiot. What do you say?”

  “Anything to get that guy off my back.”

  —

  Delaney followed us to my parents’ house, thankfully staying in his car while Ryder and I packed up our stuff and said our goodbyes. Then he stuck to our back bumper like glue all the way to the police station.

  We headed into the station, Delaney still on our heels, and waited for Jack or William to be available to collect our information.

  William appeared and said, “Hey, guys. Thanks for coming back over. While I have you here, I’d like to take a look at the files you brought and make sure I don’t have any questions before you—”

  Delaney hijacked the conversation. “You Johnson?”

  “Yeah, and you are?”

  Delaney stuck out a meaty paw, and the two of them shook hands. “Detective Tom Delaney, MNPD Homicide. We spoke on the phone. I’ll be sitting in on this meeting, too.”

  William’s eyebrows shot up. “Detective Delaney. I didn’t expect you to drop everything and drive up here after I’d already brought you up to speed on my case.”

  Delaney grunted and glared at me. “That’s not the only reason I’m here.”

  William fought the smile pulling at the corner of his mouth as he glanced from Delaney to me. “Okay, then. I guess you can all follow me.”

  He brought us to the cops’ breakroom on the main floor. I guessed now that I’d been ruled out as a suspect (at least in the LPD detectives’ eyes), I no longer had to be treated like a delinquent.

  Once we were all seated around the large table in the center of the room, Ryder took a flash drive out of his pocket and slid it across the table to William. “That’s everything we’ve found on the O’Malleys and their acquaintances, Silver Spruce Pharmaceuticals and its employees, and a few doctors who were being blackmailed by Scott O’Malley.”

  William plugged the flash drive into the laptop in front of him. “Again, we appreciate your help and cooperation, Detective Hamilton and Ms. Langley.” He took a few minutes to peruse the files, which settled us into an uncomfortable quasi-silence, the only thing audible being Delaney’s mouth breathing.

  “This is great. Thanks.” He turned the laptop around so we could see it and pointed to the screen. “The only issue I have is that this third audio file isn’t named.”

  Ryder peered at it. “Sorry. It’s of my first conversation with Dr. Grantham. Pretty useless, but we included it anyway.”

  “No problem.”

  I said, “Oh, one other thing. If you haven’t talked to Lizzie and Blake Morgan yet, you might want to. After we left here earlier, they showed us a video of Mandi O�
��Malley stealing drugs out of a coworker’s bag.”

  William nodded. “I’ll be sure to meet with them. Every little bit helps. If you don’t have anything more to add, I think—”

  “Slow your roll there, son,” Delaney cut in. “I want to hear the whole story about everything these two have supposedly uncovered. Right now.”

  William didn’t flinch at Delaney’s verbal abuse. “I’m afraid I can’t help you there, Detective. I have work to do, and these fine folks are ready to go home. I’ll email you electronic files of the information they’ve given me that’s pertinent to your case.”

  Delaney began sputtering, but William paid him no attention as he got up and herded us out of the breakroom. I had a new appreciation for the young detective. As we neared the front of the station, I was shocked to see a familiar face at the reception desk.

  “Pete? What are you doing here?”

  Pete turned to me, eyes wide. “Jules, are you okay? Did you get arrested?”

  “No, but I was threatened,” I replied, giving Delaney the stink eye.

  Relief washed over his face. “So you aren’t being held here for Mandi’s murder?”

  “No.”

  William held out his hands. “To be clear, we haven’t officially classified it as a homicide yet.”

  Pete ignored him and turned on Delaney. “Delaney, you lying sack of shit.”

  “Piss off, Bennett. I don’t have to answer to you,” was Delaney’s response.

  William jumped in between Pete and Delaney. “Whoa, now. Let’s calm down, gentlemen.”

  Pete said to me, “He told me you and Ryder had been taken into police custody.”

  Ryder glared at Delaney. “We weren’t in custody. We were only being interviewed. You should know the difference.” He turned to Pete. “Why didn’t you call us before you drove up here?”

  “I thought you were incarcerated, and I wasn’t exactly thinking straight. Delaney barged into my work a few hours ago, interrupting a recording session, and proceeded to tell everyone who’d listen that he’s still got his eye on me for Scott’s murder and that you guys were being held for Mandi’s. I didn’t know what else to do, so I got in my car and drove straight here to bust you out of jail.”

  Poor Pete. He’d had as rough a day as I’d had. I took his hand. “I appreciate you coming to our rescue.”

  “Anytime.” He smiled down at me and squeezed my hand.

  Ryder got in Delaney’s face and growled, “I’ll make sure the entire department hears all about you harassing an innocent citizen at his workplace and purposely giving him misinformation to cause him grief, Delaney. Hope you enjoy your new position in traffic.”

  Spewing expletives, Delaney pushed past all of us and left the station, undoubtedly to go bother some other unwitting soul.

  Seeming shocked but amused, William said, “Well, I guess this is goodbye. Drive safe.”

  We gave him a wave as he walked away. Then we headed outside into the warm fall afternoon.

  Pete asked, “What now? Are you still investigating?”

  Ryder shook his head. “All done. This was our last stop before heading home.”

  “So did you figure out who killed Scott?” Pete asked.

  “Not exactly, but close enough,” I replied. “It was either Mandi, Jared, or the two of them together. Mandi’s dead. LPD is looking for Jared. There’s nothing left for us to do.”

  “Does that mean Delaney is out of our hair for good?” he asked hopefully.

  Ryder said, “It should mean that. I’m hoping now that the case has gotten more complex, the captain will assign an additional detective to help Delaney. He can use all the help he can get.”

  “No kidding.” Pete nudged my shoulder with his. “Since I drove all the way up here like an idiot, can I at least drive you home so the trip doesn’t feel like a total waste?”

  I raised a questioning eyebrow at Ryder. “Do you mind if I ditch you after everything you’ve done for us?”

  Smiling, he replied, “Not at all. You two kids have fun.”

  I gave him a hug. “Seriously, though. Thank you. For everything.”

  “Ditto. I appreciate it.” Pete stuck his hand out to Ryder.

  “You’re welcome.” After they shook hands, Ryder got in his car and pulled out of the parking lot.

  Pete turned to me. “Well, since we’re not public enemy number one and number two anymore, what do you want to do to celebrate?”

  In the time we’d been apart, which hadn’t been long but felt like a lifetime, a lot had happened. I’d gotten another gruesome reminder that life is short. It made me realize that when you found someone you loved and trusted, there was no reason to wait until your life was no longer a mess to be with that person. My life would probably never be perfect by the world’s standards, but I knew it would never be perfect for me without Pete by my side.

  I put my arms around his neck and stood on tiptoe to give him a quick kiss. “I want to move in with my best friend.”

  Breaking into the biggest grin I’d ever seen on him, he placed his arms around my waist. “About that, I don’t think I want to be friends with you anymore.” He leaned down and gave me a thorough kiss.

  After we broke apart, I replied, “Me, either.”

  Chapter 25

  On the drive home, I started at the beginning of Ryder’s and my investigation and told Pete the whole story. He only had to pull the car over one time, to flip out over the fact that we’d been purposely trapped in the same cellar where we’d found Mandi dead. He wasn’t thrilled that I’d kept it from him until now, but admitted he’d have driven up sooner had he known, which was exactly why I hadn’t told him. His boss was already none too pleased about him leaving work early today.

  Once we got back to Nashville, Pete said, “What do you want to do tonight? Name it.”

  “We should probably drop by Java Jive and make sure—”

  “Nope. Rhonda has the place well under control. As lazy as she is, she runs a surprisingly tight ship. Maybe all she ever needed was some extra responsibility to make her care about her job.”

  I smiled. “Okay, so if we’re not going to hang out at the coffeehouse like we do every night, what are we going to do?”

  “Move you into my house.”

  “Tonight?” I was kind of tired.

  “No time like the present. Besides, after a whole year of me begging, you’ve finally accepted my offer to move in with me. I’m not giving you time to overthink it and change your mind.”

  —

  When we got to my apartment, it was still a gigantic mess. Not that I’d expected it not to be, but I was certainly wishing a magical cleaning fairy would take pity on me and tidy up while I was away fighting crime.

  Pete surveyed the disaster zone that was my living room. “Look on the bright side, Jules. Someone already emptied all the drawers for us. All we have to do is box everything up.”

  I laughed. Leave it to my sweet Pete to find the one positive in an otherwise horrendous situation.

  We worked for only a couple of hours and, to my surprise, had nearly everything packed and ready to go. It made me rather sad that I didn’t have enough stuff to warrant it taking a longer time to pack. Oh, well. It didn’t matter. Pete already had everything we’d need, so it was probably better I wasn’t bringing a ton of duplicate kitchen appliances or dishes or furniture or whatever.

  Pete looked at his watch. “Hey, you want to go grab some dinner? There’s a band playing downtown I think you’ll like.”

  I was sprawled out on my couch, hoping the most taxing thing I’d have to do in the next hour would be calling for pizza delivery. “Dude, where are you getting all of this energy?”

  He pulled me up into a standing position. “Come on. Don’t be an old grandma.”

  Smiling, I replied, “Life with you is never going to be dull, is it?”

  After giving me a kiss, he said, “Not even for a minute.”

  —

 
; We went to Big Shotz, our favorite downtown bar, but by the time we got there, the act he wanted me to see was already halfway through their set.

  “What do you think of their sound?” he asked, handing me a shot of our favorite drink from there—a Dirty Pirate Hooker.

  The band, the Maguire Girls, was an all-female acoustic band who could play anything from jazz standards to rock covers. They were quickly gaining popularity, already having an album released by one of the smaller labels on Music Row. In a town overrun with hungry and talented musicians, that was a major accomplishment.

  I took a sip and nodded. “I think they’re fantastic. We’ve heard them play several times before, though. Why the rush to come and see them tonight?”

  He shrugged, a smile playing at his lips. “You’ll see.”

  Our food arrived, and I suddenly realized how hungry I was. Badgering him for more information would have to wait. As we were finishing our dinner, the band played their final song.

  Wasting no time, Pete said, “Ready to go? I think we can move your stuff, minus the furniture, to my place in two trips if we use both our cars.”

  “As soon as you tell me why you insisted we come downtown to hear this band tonight.”

  He hopped up from our table and pulled me along with him. “Let’s talk where it’s a little quieter.”

  Once we were outside, I said, “It’s quieter. Spill it.”

  Seeming slightly apprehensive, he said, “Okay, here it is. The Maguire Girls’ manager was at the studio last week with another client. We got to talking, and he started telling me that the opening act for their upcoming tour had bailed on them at the last minute. The tour rolls out next month, so he only has a couple of weeks to secure a new act. I told him I might know of someone who’d be interested.”

  I had no idea where he was going with this lengthy story about people I didn’t know, but I didn’t interrupt.