Matcha Do About Murder

by Eryn Scott

  I fidgeted my feet in the damp grass of my garden. The scent of charred wood still hung in the air, stinging my nostrils. I crossed my arms, wondering how this would end for me and for Geoff.

  The chief must’ve noticed my impatience because he hurriedly added, “Over the years, Murray and Geoff’s feud grew and grew. They stole jobs from one another, slashed tires, and accused each other of the worst. But it all came to a head one night when Geoff took it too far. He set Murray’s boat on fire.”

  I gasped, having heard about this. “He was the one who killed Murray’s partner, Tabby’s husband.” The one Asher couldn’t remember the name of the other day when he’d told me the story. I checked with Carl.

  Carl nodded. “The judge ruled it involuntary manslaughter. Along with the arson charges, he went to jail for what we assumed would be forever.”

  “Forever went by too quick,” Daphne said, fluffing her hair unnecessarily as it barely moved. “I remember all of that happening.” She shook her head. “I think the judge was too lenient on him.”

  The chief swiped away beads of sweat gathering on his forehead. “Geoff never admitted to any of it, not even the fire. They figured he set the fire but didn’t expect anyone to be on board. Not admitting to either crime was the only way he could cope with what he’d done.”

  My chest ached as I took in the story. “How’d they convict him, then? If he denied it, and the evidence was charred and at the bottom of the ocean?”

  The chief glanced over at my shed. “Geoff had gone through a bit of a pyromaniac phase in his teens, did some community service because of it. The arsons all had one thing in common,” he said. “A calling card of sorts.”

  Carl studied his rough hands. “They were all green flames.”

  “Adding Borax to the fire turns it that color. And the color was as bright as could be on the boat that night. When we searched Geoff’s house, we found enough of the stuff to do laundry for the entire town for a year. And by the sounds of your fire tonight, it had the additive too. Any chance your grandmother kept any cleaning products in that shed?” Chief Clemenson asked.

  “No, I was in there the other day. Just tea leaves and mason jars.” I waved toward the broken glass and charred wood.

  My brain sorted through everything I’d learned.

  “So he hated Murray enough to come back and kill him just when he’d gotten out of jail for killing someone else? That’s quite the feud,” I said.

  Carl cringed. “It wasn’t only their feud. Murray’s testimony, the fact that he said he’d seen Geoff’s dingy missing that night when he’d gone down to the marina, was one of the big things that put Geoff away.”

  “Okay … but that still doesn’t explain why he would want to burn my shed,” I said, even more confused.

  The three of them glanced at each other uneasily. Chief Clemenson looked like he might take a step toward me but thought better of it.

  “The other person whose testimony put him away was your grandmother.”

  10

  The sunset seemed like it had lasted hours; the sun suspended in the sky above the watery horizon. But suddenly it was dark out and it appeared night had officially fallen.

  “Looks like the fire’s out, Chief,” one firefighter said as he passed by our group.

  They’d put crime scene tape around the shed, quartering it off from the rest of the backyard.

  “We’ll be back tomorrow to investigate more in the light of day,” the other firefighter added before they walked away.

  The chief moved to follow them. “I’ll be back tomorrow too. You look like you could use some time to process this all. In the meantime, I’ll post Officer Gerard outside your place tonight to make sure whoever did this doesn’t come back to finish the job.” He gestured to the shed. “If this wasn’t the job.”

  Daphne shook her head. “I have to get to bed too. I’ll come check on you in the morning, Rosie.” She squeezed my hand and then picked her way through the wet grass over to her house.

  Sleep. It sounded heavenly, but I feared it would be scarce tonight.

  Carl glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, like he was waiting for a sign. He cleared his throat. “Want to come over for some tea?” he asked.

  I smiled in appreciation. “I’m okay, but thank you. I want to stay with the house just in case.”

  And I want to be here in the unlikely occurrence that Asher comes back, I thought. Even though I knew in my bones it was too quick, I couldn’t help hoping.

  “Plus,” I added, seeing Carl still watched me, “I need to call my mom anyway, so I’ll have her to talk to.”

  Carl ruffled his white hair. “I’m right next door if you need anything.”

  Once both of my neighbors had broken off to their respective houses and the police and firefighters were back in their vehicles, I went inside. My house was stuffy and smelled like a mixture of bonfire and burnt scones. Even with the heat trapped inside, I didn’t open a bunch of windows. After the fire, a shiver sat on my shoulders, and the warmth was comforting. I slid onto the leather couch, letting it hug me and support the weight of the day in its cozy cushions.

  Picking up my phone, I dialed my mother.

  “Hey, honey. What’s up.” Her familiar voice made me sink lower into the couch.

  “Hi, Mom. How are you?”

  She exhaled. “Great. It’s been a busy week, but tomorrow should be sleepy enough to make it all seem normal again.”

  The library where she worked, where I used to check in books and reshelve them, was a bustling place that serviced a major portion of Portland. It was a grand marbled building, and I missed it sometimes. Sometimes. Until I set foot in the Pebble Cove Public Library again and cuddled into the loft looking out on the lazy cove, and then I realized I was right where I was supposed to be.

  “How’s the business going?” she asked.

  “Okay. A little slow, but I’ve got some ideas of how to pull in more customers.” I tried to end on a high note, not wanting her to worry about me. She’d done enough of that for a lifetime before I’d even learned to drive. But I also couldn’t bear to lie to her, already keeping a secret that felt way too huge.

  Asher and my ability to see spirits seemed just too odd to bring up in conversation, however. Admitting that I saw ghosts, like Grandma had before she’d gone off the deep end, would’ve been too upsetting for my mom.

  “Is everything okay, Rosemary? You sound stressed.” Mom was astute. She also knew me better than I knew myself sometimes.

  I let out a slow breath. “We had a fire here, and I’m a little freaked out.”

  “A fire? In the house? Do you need me to come down there? Are you okay?” Mom’s pitch rose with each additional question.

  Unable to answer when she kept adding new queries, I exhaled and waited. “I’m okay. It wasn’t in the house. It was Grandma’s tea shed out back. No one was hurt. I’m just a little shaken.”

  In keeping with my relationship with my mother these days, I left off the part about it being suspected arson. If I told her that much, she’d be here in two hours even though the drive took three. Realizing I needed to get her talking about something else, I changed the subject.

  “That’s not why I’m calling … necessarily. I wanted to ask if you’d do me a favor.” I traced my finger along the back of the couch as I spoke, laying my head to one side.

  “Anything.” Mom’s answer was like a hug—warm, supportive, sure.

  “I’ve been doing some research on”—I paused, thinking of how to word the next part—“on this house. I found some old photos and wondered about the people who used to live here. I’m looking into a man who lived here in the nineteen hundreds, and I found him on a World War I deserter list. How accurate are those records in your experience?”

  She took the bait, her tone rising into her excited register. “Well, fairly accurate, but there are a lot of variables, as always. Did you verify with at least three other sources?” she asked, g
iving her standard first question out of the way.

  I chuckled and feigned a gasp. “How can you even ask me that?”

  My answer served as yet another reminder I’d lied to Asher when I’d said I needed to verify the information. I’d done my due diligence. I still couldn’t get past my gut instinct that these multiple sources had it wrong.

  “I’m missing something. I can feel it. Could you put your superpowers to work and do a little digging for me?” I held my breath as the question hung in silence.

  Mom used to be a research librarian at a major university in Portland but quit the job to be a regular librarian at the Multnomah County branch because the hours were better. She needed the ability to be closer to my school after my dad died and I was diagnosed with leukemia. Research was still her love, and she got to do a fair amount of it in her current position, though it was less about locating important historical documents and more about finding a person’s long-lost grandmother in genealogy records.

  “Of course, honey. I’d be happy to help. Let me get a piece of paper.” A shuffling sound filled the background before she said, “Okay, shoot.”

  “His name was Asher Benson,” I said, concentrating really hard on saying was instead of is. It probably wouldn’t be a red flag for her, but I’d made so many mistakes in the past months with forgetting people couldn’t also see Asher, that I overcompensated. “He lived in Grandma’s house—”

  “Your house now,” Mom interrupted, knowing I struggled with seeing this place as mine.

  As much as I loved it here, it still hadn’t really sunk in.

  “Right, he lived in my house in the late eighteen hundreds, early nineteen hundreds. Went to university and then was recruited as an officer in the army during World War I. They show him going through all the training, and then during their last bout of leave, he never came back for their deployment. It’s just … with everything else I’ve read about him, it doesn’t make sense.”

  “Interesting. Though I have to feel sorry for the guy. So young to be in charge of all of those other young men’s lives.”

  I agreed. Asher had told me as much. But the fact that he’d also talked at length about the sense of duty and honor he’d felt as he prepared for battle made the deserter possibility seem, well, impossible.

  “Thank you, Mom. I appreciate it. I should probably get to sleep,” I said, glancing at the clock and realizing it was almost midnight.

  “Okay, honey. You take care, and let me know if you need anything else,” Mom said before hanging up.

  I clutched my phone, wishing my mom could be here by my side. Being here without Asher was so weird. But if I ever succeeded in helping him fix his unfinished business, I would to have to get used to life without him.

  As predicted, it was hard to sleep that night. Even after the calming talk with my mother and the security of knowing Officer Gerard sat stationed outside my house, my dreams were filled with green flames and poisoned matcha. I woke up more than once covered in sweat, breathing heavily, fear wrapping itself tightly around my neck.

  The next day, the teahouse was busy because, of course, it was. The one time I really could’ve used a laid-back day full of puzzling and staring out at the waves, everyone came in to try my iced tea blends they’d read about on the billboards in town.

  Well, that was what they all said. But I had a sneaking suspicion it had a lot more to do with them wanting to get a peek at my burnt shed. Each local had their own story about Geoff that they wanted to tell me.

  After the initial shock at having customers wore off, it was nice to see the tearoom filled again. I opened all the windows, and even though it was scorching outside, the wind whipping up off the jewel-like blue waves kept us all cool and happy. The iced tea ice cubes were a big hit too, something I wanted to remember to report to Asher when he came back.

  Whenever that would be.

  Last time he’d used this much energy, he’d been gone a few weeks. There had been extenuating circumstances during that time, though. Like how he’d been mad at me just before disappearing, and how he’d transferred his energy to my grandmother’s spirit so she could come back and save my life. So, really, I had no idea how long he would be gone this time around. All I knew was that he would be back. My shoulders settled a few millimeters with that knowledge.

  I spent the rest of the day chatting with locals, retelling the story about the fire, and serving up iced tea. One would expect the more times I retold the story, the better I would get at lying about the part where I lifted the rain barrel and extinguished the flames.

  But no.

  Each time my voice would crack more or my eyes shifted farther from one side to another, and I could tell that if there weren’t the charred remains of a shed sitting right outside the window, some of the townspeople wouldn’t have believed me it had happened.

  By the time late afternoon rolled around, and I closed the shop, the wind had all but stopped and the tea shop grew stifling.

  Now that I lived in Pebble Cove, memories of my childhood summers spent here with Grandma and my parents would surface every once in a while. At that moment, sitting and sweating in the heat, I recalled going with my dad to Wallace’s grocery store and picking out a flavor of locally made ice cream to help take the edge off the heat.

  In my shiny, pristine memories of life before my father died, I remember it being the best ice cream I’d ever tasted. I grabbed my purse and decided to test that theory, to see if it still held up all these years later.

  For a brief moment I considered leaving the windows wide open, hating the idea of coming back to an oven-like tearoom again. But the knowledge that someone—Geoff, it sounded like—had been here yesterday, bent on setting part or all of my house on fire, talked me out of it.

  Shivering, I closed the windows until they locked, knowing the place would be an oven when I returned, but preferring the peace of mind. With the fire on my mind once more, I headed toward relief in the form of ice cream.

  It wasn’t until I’d driven most of the way there that I realized locking my windows wouldn’t do a single thing to stop an arsonist. I sighed, laughed at myself, and figured I needed an ice cream break more now than ever.

  11

  The sky was that light baby blue that makes you stare and wonder how it’s all real. It’s that color that makes you believe in The Truman Show and wonder if you might be stuck in a similar experiment. Seagulls cawed and circled above the marina as I turned onto Cove Drive.

  I parked in the free lot and waved to Vicki as I passed by the Marina Mug. My wave slowed when I recognized Jolene sitting in one of the window seats. Fingers curling in on themselves, I lowered my hand and averted my eyes. But it didn’t stop me from noticing the way the other tea shop owner rested her head on the heels of her hands or how her entire body seemed to sag with the weight of some unseen burden.

  Could that burden be the guilt of trying to off her ex’s new wife and accidentally killing her ex instead? No, I remembered, having heard from the Rickster that both of the drinks had been poisoned. Maybe it was simply just guilt at succeeding in a plan she’d made out of anger and passion.

  I felt bad thinking this way about Jolene. In my mind, Tabby was still the primary suspect here. Even if the chief was too blinded by his feelings to see the same. But Jolene’s involvement seemed too easily explained to discount either.

  Sweat beaded on my forehead, and I swiped it away. Ice cream. Right. I crossed the street and started toward that ice cream. Inside the grocery store, I joined a line five customers deep and hoped it would be worth it. It looked like I wasn’t the only one with the idea.

  As I contemplated the flavor choices listed on the menu, I tried to remember what my favorite had been growing up. Normally, if I bought a pint at the grocery store for an after-work treat, I would go for something chocolate. Pecans were always good. A caramel or marshmallow swirl only sweetened the deal.

  But as my eyes slid down the handwritten list of flavor
s a local company had been making for the past two decades—only the seasonal flavor changed each month—I stopped on the coastal blackberry.

  That was it, my favorite flavor from childhood.

  Chocolate would always be good, but there was something completely indescribable about the fresh, sweet taste of their homemade blackberry.

  When it was my turn to order, I went all in with nostalgia and got myself two scoops of the blackberry in a waffle cone.

  I waited until I was outside in the breeze and the sunshine to take my first lick. The icy treat clung to my tongue in a burst of sweetness and cold. It was heaven. Exactly as I’d remembered it, maybe even better. Knowing this was a cone that needed to be savored, I spotted a bench overlooking the cove across the street on the boardwalk and walked in that direction.

  I wasn’t two minutes or half a dozen licks into my ice cream before I got company in the shape of the former mayor.

  The ghost cat was a tabby larger than most I’d seen living, but despite his huge body and overlong ear hair, he appeared fluffy and inviting. I had to stop myself from reaching out and trying to pet him. The streets of Pebble Cove being where he’d spent most of his life meant he was as vivid as any other cat.

  He settled onto the bench next to me, glancing at my ice cream as if he might want to try. Having witnessed locals giving the current mayor, Whiskers, bites of their food and a chance to lap at their drinks, I didn’t doubt Meow had been used to the same treatment.

  Checking around me to make sure no one was coming on either side down the boardwalk, I turned to the cat.

  “Don’t suppose you know who killed Murray?” I asked.

  The cat blinked again in response.

  While Asher and I had quite a bit of anecdotal proof that the cat understood what we said, he couldn’t communicate back in anything other than blinks, meows, and flicks of his tail.