Cozy Creek

by K M Morgan

  Finally, a minute after knocking on the door, Deanna and Tyler got a response. As Fiona opened the door wearing a poufy, sparkling gold headdress and matching gold robe, Deanna knew things could get weird in a hurry. The dulcet-toned sitar music playing in the background only added to Deanna’s feeling that she was about to step into a completely foreign world.

  “Can I help you?” Fiona asked.

  “Ms. O’Dell, I’m Detective Goodman with the Desert Palms Police Department. I’d like to ask you a few questions,” Tyler said.

  Fiona’s eyes got as wide as saucers. “I’m not sure why you’d want to talk to me.”

  “We’re investigating the murder of your boss, Kenneth Gibson,” Tyler said.

  Fiona clutched her chest. “Ken was…murdered?”

  “Are you saying you didn’t know that?” Tyler asked.

  “No, not at all.” Fiona was all choked up. She started taking deep breaths to calm herself. “I need a moment.”

  Judging by the look on Tyler’s face, he clearly thought this was nothing but theatrics on Fiona’s part.

  “Can we come in?” Tyler continued.

  The desert was known for its left-of-center residents, but Fiona managed to be kookier than almost all of them. Deanna could only imagine what curiosities awaited on the inside of Fiona’s townhome.

  If it were up to Fiona, Deanna and Tyler wouldn’t get a chance to find out.

  “I’m, uh, doing a cleansing ritual. We can just talk out here,” Fiona said.

  “Are you trying to hide something?” Tyler wondered.

  “No. If you want to come in, you can, but I’ve already warned you—”

  Tyler took a step inside Fiona’s place then stopped dead in his tracks. He pinched his nose and took a step back onto the front porch.

  “What’s that smell?” Tyler asked.

  “I told you, I’m doing a cleansing ritual,” Fiona repeated.

  “If you’re cleaning the place, shouldn’t it smell good, not bad?” Tyler wondered.

  “What can I say? Getting things clean is a dirty job,” Fiona revealed.

  “A smelly one, too. All right, we’ll do the questioning out here,” Tyler said.

  “So, what do you want to know?” Fiona asked.

  Deanna stepped in. “Where were you between the hours of eleven and midnight yesterday?”

  “I was getting a reading done,” Fiona replied.

  Deanna was critical of that answer. “Really?”

  “Why is that so hard to believe?” Fiona wondered.

  “You worked until ten o’clock last night. That’s a long day of work, especially given all that happened at the bookstore yesterday. So you expect me to believe that instead of going home and crashing, you met with a psychic advisor?”

  “After all that happened at the store yesterday, I couldn’t wait to see a psychic advisor. When I left work, everything in my life was all turned around. I needed some clarity. Who is better to give me that clarity than a psychic?”

  Deanna rolled her eyes. “Uh-huh. So this reading, did it happen to be done at Mystic Enchantments?”

  Fiona furrowed her brow. “How did you know that?”

  Deanna pulled out the Mystic Enchantments business card that she’d found under the dumpster earlier.

  “This was found at the scene of the crime,” Deanna explained.

  “Oh my. I wonder how that got there,” Fiona replied.

  Tyler jumped in again. “We were hoping you’d know.”

  “I can’t help you there,” Fiona said.

  Deanna found that hard to believe. “Really?”

  “Mystic Enchantments is open to the public. Anyone can go there,” Fiona replied.

  “True, but according to your own words, you were there last night. In my eyes, that makes you a prime suspect in this case,” Deanna said.

  Fiona looked offended. “Wait. You think I’m a suspect?”

  “As Kenneth’s mistress, you were already a suspect in his murder. Finding this business card at the scene just propels you to the top of the list,” Deanna said.

  Fiona became very dismissive. “You can’t really think I’d kill him.”

  “Why not? You had a motive.”

  Fiona shook her head. “No. I would never kill anyone. Committing murder is bad karma.”

  Deanna fired back. “So is sleeping with someone else’s husband.”

  Fiona deflected. “That’s a different issue entirely.”

  Tyler jumped back in. “It doesn’t seem like it to me.”

  Deanna piled on. “You still haven’t explained how the business card got to the scene.”

  “That dumpster is right next to the employee exit. I must have dropped it after leaving work last night,” Fiona explained.

  “Isn’t that a convenient explanation,” Tyler said.

  “For the last time, I was getting a reading done at the time of the murder. Now, I have to be getting back to my cleanse,” Fiona replied.

  Just like that, Fiona scuttled back into her townhome.

  Deanna and Tyler could keep pressing her, but it wouldn’t do any good. Besides, Fiona’s alibi would be easy enough to verify. They decided to set out and do just that.

  ***

  Deanna and Tyler didn’t know what to expect from their trip to Mystic Enchantments tarot reading and spiritual advising. Oddly enough, there wasn’t much of a difference in the décor inside Fiona’s apartment as there was inside Mystical Enchantments.

  Apparently, the psychic couldn’t sense that Deanna and Tyler were coming, because they were stuck waiting for a good half hour. Just as Tyler had nearly lost his patience, a sheepish female client came out from behind the curtain. The woman became very self-conscious when she saw Deanna and Tyler in the waiting area and quickly scuttled away.

  Tyler turned to Deanna.

  “What was that about?” Tyler asked.

  Deanna shrugged. “It couldn’t have been something we said.”

  Shortly after, the curtain opened again, this time revealing Madame Yvonne. She looked just like Deanna pictured she would…completely far out. Madame Yvonne was wearing a bejeweled turban and long, flowing glittery robe that matched her jangly, garish earrings.

  “Madame Yvonne, I presume,” Tyler said.

  Yvonne smiled wide. “The one and only. And you, sir, have arrived just in time.”

  Tyler furrowed his brow. “For what?”

  “A reading that will change your life,” Yvonne declared.

  Tyler sighed. “So much for your psychic abilities.”

  Yvonne furrowed her brow. “What do you mean?”

  “If you were really psychic, you’d know that I didn’t come here to get a reading,” Tyler said.

  “I knew that,” Madame Yvonne insisted.

  Tyler didn’t buy that for a second. “Sure you did.”

  “Okay, okay, so the ethereal plane misled me on that last one. I do know the real reason you came here, though,” Yvonne said.

  “Why?” he deadpanned.

  Yvonne closed her eyes and touched the jewel on her turban. After a moment, her eyes opened wide. “To make contact with a recently deceased relative.”

  Tyler was done indulging her. He got to back to business. “Nice try, but no.” He flashed his badge. “I have a few questions for you.”

  Madame Yvonne took a couple steps back as panic came to her voice. “Look, my business license is up to date now. I’ve paid all my back taxes. I’m back on the up and up, I promise.”

  “I’m not here for that,” Tyler said.

  “You’re not?”

  Tyler sighed. “Your psychic abilities aren’t up to snuff today.”

  Madame Yvonne took a deep breath. “What do you want then?”

  “I need to know if a woman named Fiona O’Dell was here last night. This is her picture,” Tyler said, pulling out a photo of Fiona.

  Madame Yvonne looked at the picture. “She was here.”

  After letting Tyler handle
all the mystic nonsense earlier, Deanna jumped in finally. “When?”

  “About ten,” Madame Yvonne replied.

  “When did she leave?” Deanna asked.

  “A little before eleven,” Madame Yvonne revealed.

  “Are you sure?” Deanna wondered.

  Madame Yvonne nodded. “Oh yeah.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Tyler asked.

  “Because I started the Thompson family séance at eleven sharp. You never mess around with a séance. The dead hate waiting,” Madame Yvonne revealed.

  This opened up all kinds of possibilities. On one hand, Fiona was telling the truth about coming to Mystic Enchantments. On the other, she had gotten the timing wrong. The question became, was it because her spacey brain had difficulty remembering the exact time she left Madame Yvonne’s, or was it because she was intentionally lying for the sake of her alibi?

  Even more intriguing was the fact that Mystic Enchantments was only a few blocks away from the bookstore. It was less than a minute’s drive. Suddenly, both Deanna and Tyler had more questions for Fiona.

  Unfortunately, they wouldn’t be able to get them answered right away.

  As Deanna and Tyler returned to Fiona’s house, they discovered that she was gone. In addition, her car was nowhere to be found. That led Tyler to think of one thing—either she was just out on the town somewhere, or she was trying to make a break for it.

  Tyler put out an all-points bulletin in case Fiona had decided to flee the city.

  As far as Fiona was concerned, they couldn’t do much now but wait. At the same time, there were more suspects to question.

  When both Deanna and Tyler’s stomachs began rumbling at the same, they realized there was something else that needed tending to first.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Deanna and Tyler suddenly found themselves at the crossroads of crashing blood sugar levels and growing frustrations when trying to crack this case. Either one was hard enough to wrestle with individually. Having to tackle them both at once was a recipe for trouble.

  During times like that, a breather was in order. Of course, grabbing some food didn’t hurt. That was where a trip to Joe’s Greasy Spoon Diner came in handy. At least for Deanna. Tyler had never been there.

  As a local, it was also unbelievable to Deanna that Tyler wasn’t already a regular at the diner. Sure, he’d only been in town for six months, but that was plenty of time to have been introduced to the simple delights of a meal from Joe’s. Yet somehow, that experience had eluded him. This would no doubt be a huge treat for Tyler.

  Deanna had been coming to the diner for years, as had all of her friends and family. It was a local hangout. That was true of a number of places in town. What made Joe’s unique was that unlike so many of the other popular places in town, the diner managed to have an almost exclusively locals-only client base.

  That wasn’t by design, but rather by happenstance. Joe’s certainly wasn’t trying to shoo business from the tourists away. Out-of-towners just never seemed to find their way inside.

  Deanna had a theory why. The exterior of the building wasn’t doing Joe any favors. From the outside, the place looked run down. Joe hadn’t painted or restored the diner one iota the entire time Deanna had been coming here. Joe said that he preferred to let his food speak for itself, which it did.

  The stubbornness to do any physical upkeep definitely cost Joe customers. After all, the diner was on Cactus Road, the third most frequented road in town. Plenty of cars drove by every day. Yet the diner’s run-down exterior ensured that the place remained a jewel hiding in plain sight.

  Tyler was a great example of this. When Deanna was directing Tyler to turn into the parking lot, he nearly did a double take. The detective could hardly believe that Deanna wanted to go into such a dumpy-looking place.

  Once inside, the décor was no better. It was no-frills, in every sense of the word. Almost like stepping into a time machine back to the late 1950s, complete with the original booths and now-creaky stools from when he first opened decades before.

  Tyler was focused on the various rips in the booths and the wobbliness of a few of the stools. Deanna only cared about one thing: bringing joy to her taste buds. The food, much like the diner itself, was simple. The menu was comfort-food heavy. Dieters beware—the menu was unkind to calorie counters. That was actually the only thing that kept Deanna from eating here more often.

  Deanna ordered her usual grilled cheese sandwich with fries, while Tyler opted for a double cheeseburger. When the food arrived, Deanna couldn’t wait to see what her boyfriend thought of his meal. She wouldn’t have to wait long to get an answer.

  Tyler’s eyes opened wide as he took a bite of the burger.

  “So, what do you think?” Deanna asked.

  “Wow,” was all Tyler was able to muster.

  “Wow, as in good, or wow, as in bad?”

  “Wow, as in amazing.”

  Deanna smiled. “You’re welcome.”

  “I can’t believe this place has been here all along, and I drove by it without giving it a second thought.”

  “I’ll bet you won’t make that mistake again.”

  “I sure won’t. This is my new favorite burger,” Tyler said.

  “I had a feeling it would be,” Deanna replied.

  “I have a confession to make.”

  “Let me guess, you had no idea the food would be this good?”

  “I actually thought you were playing a trick on me by bringing me here. I mean, this place looks so run down from the outside. I figured you just wanted to get a reaction out of me.”

  “I did get a reaction out of you. It was just one you never expected coming,” Deanna said.

  “To be fair, who would expect food this good from a place that looks like this?” he asked.

  “It just goes to show how deceiving appearances can be.”

  “So true.” He then looked around, still in disbelief. “Well, I’m not afraid to eat crow.”

  Deanna was not about to gloat. Instead, she decided to joke. “Why eat crow when you can have French fries?”

  He laughed. “I have to tell you, I didn’t know places like this still existed.”

  “Maybe they don’t in Los Angeles. Things are different out here in the desert.”

  Tyler couldn’t help but laugh at that statement. “I’ve noticed.”

  “Okay, sometimes things are very different in the desert.”

  “What I don’t get is why Joe doesn’t just spend a few bucks to restore this place a little. He’s leaving money on the table.”

  “Some people are fine with things just the way they are and hate the idea of change, however slight. For example, do you know the menu here hasn’t changed in forty-seven years?”

  “I can believe it.”

  “That’s part of the allure. I’ll bet that in LA, a place like this would have three different kinds of grilled cheese sandwiches with a potpourri of artisan cheeses and five choices of bread,” Deanna said.

  Tyler laughed. “It’s funny that you mention that. In LA, they have a food truck that serves thirty-five different types of grilled cheese sandwiches.”

  Deanna shook her head. “That’s crazy.”

  “You knock it, but you don’t know if you’ll like something until you try it. Take the desert—I could have dismissed this place without even coming here. But I gave it a chance, and I’m really getting to like my new hometown. Not to mention a particular reporter-sleuth.”

  Tyler gazed deep into Deanna’s eyes.

  Deanna thought he was getting a little too far afield. “I thought we were talking about grilled cheese sandwiches here.”

  Tyler kept gazing. “I got a little side-tracked. After all, there are more important things in life than grilled cheese sandwiches.”

  She corrected him. “Speak for yourself.”

  Tyler laughed.

  Deanna gazed back at him. “I’m a firm believer that you should never mess with a good thing. Whe
n you find something you like, there’s nothing wrong with sticking to it.”

  “Wait, are you still talking about grilled cheese sandwiches?” he asked.

  “You’re the detective. You tell me.”

  Tyler leaned in and gave her a kiss. “I think we have a good thing going here.”

  “I can’t disagree with that.”

  Deanna was about to give Tyler a kiss when he got a message over his police radio.

  “Detective Goodman,” a voice said.

  Tyler grabbed his radio and replied. “Yes?”

  “Sir, we weren’t able to pull any prints off the murder weapon. The killer must have wiped it clean,” the voice continued.

  Tyler spoke into the radio. “Have you managed to get any prints from the scene at all?”

  “Not yet.”

  Tyler sighed. “Keep working.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Tyler then put his radio away.

  Deanna was discouraged as well. “I guess it is back to doing things the hard way.”

  Tyler nodded. “Yup. It’s confession or bust.”

  “I guess I’ll have to save that kiss for later.”

  “Unfortunately. It’s time to get back to work. We have a killer to catch.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Victor Wright was next on the list of suspects to question. Just as Tyler pulled in front of Victor’s office building, he turned to Deanna.

  “All right, let’s do this,” Tyler said with his game face on.

  Just then, Deanna’s phone rang.

  She checked the caller ID. The call was from her grandma.

  Deanna turned back to her boyfriend. “I should take this. Grandma could have gotten a lead in the case.”

  Ironically, just as Deanna picked up her phone, Tyler’s police radio started going off.

  “Detective Goodman,” a voice said over the radio.

  Deanna excused herself for a moment. “I’ll take my call outside.”

  ***