The Complete Death Du Jour Mystery Collection

by Hillary Avis

  “No worries there,” Charley muttered. “Especially now that you’ve cleaned off any fingerprints.”

  “The purse does have some evidentiary value, though,” Bethany said thoughtfully. “It proves one thing—the killer was inside the train station after the murder. It wasn’t a random person who ran off before the police locked down the station. It was someone who needed to get rid of that purse to avoid being caught.”

  Charley nodded. “Good point. Which garbage can did you find it in?”

  Trevor hemmed and hawed for a few seconds. “Er...I don’t remember,” he said. “There are a lot of cans. It was definitely on the concourse. Maybe the one by the ticket booth?”

  “Maybe?”

  Trevor shrugged. “That’s my best guess. If I had to bet money on it, that’s what I’d say.”

  Trevor’s mention of betting reminded Bethany of something Ben had said. “Did you really owe Marigold a thousand dollars?”

  “What?” Charley said. “Why haven’t I heard anything about this? Is it true?”

  Trevor took off the stationmaster’s cap and crumpled it in his hands. “It was more like twelve hundred dollars, to be honest. We play poker every week, and it adds up.”

  Charley shook her head. “Your three minutes are definitely up, and you’ve told me that you have the purse stolen by Marigold’s killer, you owed her money, and you hid both these facts from police. I have to say, not very convincing when it comes to your innocence. I think you better come downtown with me.”

  “Are you arresting me?” Trevor put the cap back on and crossed his arms. “Because if you’re not, I have to get back to work.”

  Bethany turned to Charley and spoke under her breath. “Can you arrest him? I mean, if you still have Ben in custody for the same crime?”

  “Yeah, it’s legal, but not something we want to be doing. It doesn’t exactly promote trust with the public if we just arrest everyone involved and sort it out later. I could charge him because he destroyed evidence by cleaning the purse, but it probably wouldn’t stick unless he was trying to remove the fingerprints. He says he was just cleaning off the soup from the trash, and that’s plausible.”

  “Pretty sure his wife will testify against him if she finds out about the trash purse.” Bethany snickered, but Charley didn’t laugh at the joke. Instead, she turned back to Trevor.

  “Did Marigold ever try to collect on the debt? I mean get the twelve hundred bucks you owed her?”

  “Kind of.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I mean, she told me she’d clear the debt if I gave her my keys so she could get her purse out of Ben’s office.”

  “So that’s why you loaned her your keys!” Bethany cried. “I couldn’t figure out why you’d do that—it was so out of character! I thought maybe it was the stress of the new baby, or all the extra work Ben was having you do.”

  “You believe him?” From Charley’s tone, it was clear she didn’t.

  “I mean, it makes sense. Marigold would forfeit twelve hundred dollars if it meant she could steal a check worth fifty thousand dollars.”

  “But this guy!” Charley said. “He had motive, means, and opportunity, just like Ben Kovac, but he has evidence of the crime, too! And he tried to hide it, like an idiot.”

  “Hey!” Trevor said, waving his hand from the doorway. “Still here—I can hear you.”

  “Well, really, the trash can? You know every inch of this place. You could have put it behind a heating grate or something.”

  “I was in a hurry,” Trevor mumbled.

  Bethany grabbed Charley’s arm. Charley shook her off. “I told you not to grab—”

  Bethany interrupted her. “Do you trust me?”

  “I mean, most of the time.”

  “Hold off on arresting Trevor. His first child will be born today—he’s not going anywhere.” She leaned in and murmured in Charley’s ear, “I know how to figure out who killed Marigold.”

  Charley stared into Bethany’s eyes like she was searching for something. “Fine,” she said. Trevor whooped, and she shot him a cold glare. “Against my better judgment, I’ll wait to make an arrest until after his baby is born. But you better be local when I come looking for you, Mr. MacDonald.”

  “I promise!” he said. “On my baby’s life. Thank you, Officer Perez. You won’t regret this.”

  “You better have a plan,” Charley said to Bethany as they walked back to the Souperb kiosk.

  “I do, I swear. By the end of the day tomorrow, whether it’s Ben or someone else, we’ll remove any doubt about who killed Marigold. At the memorial—”

  Before Bethany could finish her sentence, Olive walked over from the bakery and interrupted. “Speaking of the memorial, have you decided what soup you’re making? I want to coordinate the menu.”

  Charley tapped the brown paper bag. “I can’t wait around—I need to get this into evidence.”

  “Go,” Bethany said. “We can talk about it tonight.”

  “Talk about what?” Olive asked after Charley headed out.

  Bethany opened her mouth to say how to catch Marigold’s murderer, but thought better of it. The fewer people who were in on it, the better. “Just our weekend plans,” she said breezily.

  Olive nodded. “After the memorial, I presume. I need all hands on deck to pull it off.”

  “Of course, Kimmy and Charley and I will be there.”

  “Did you decide on a soup to serve?” Olive asked. “Were Jen and Aaron any help with ideas of what Marigold would have wanted? I was thinking it should probably be vegetarian, since you never know who will be there. Or maybe two soups, one vegetarian? Or maybe that’s too complicated. One soup, no meat. But what about dairy? If someone is lactose intolerant, we still want them to be able to eat it, don’t we?”

  Bethany grinned at Olive’s brimming enthusiasm. “Slow down! I haven’t picked a recipe yet, but let’s talk about it. Jen said Marigold wouldn’t care one way or another. And we know she liked my soups, so we can assume she’d approve of whatever we pick.”

  Olive sighed. “I just want it to be perfect. I want the family to feel comforted, like Marigold was loved and supported here.”

  Bethany choked. “Olive, you kinda hated her.”

  “Well, she was hateful! But I really needed that comfort when my sister died. It was so helpful to have friends, good food, and good memories around me. That’s what gave me closure. Plus, it’ll make all of us here at the station feel more settled.”

  I’ll feel more settled when I’m sure the murderer is behind bars, Bethany thought, but she just nodded. “You’re a good friend, Olive, even to your enemies. What about split pea soup, like she made the day she died, except jazzed up a little so it’s more like her? You know, brighter, more fun, less old-fashioned and stodgy.” Her mind was buzzing with ideas. “Sort of an end-of-winter, beginning-of-spring taste.”

  “Hon, you’re making my stomach growl. I’ll do an herbed bread stick to go with it. And a gluten-free version, of course.” Olive sniffed and dabbed her eyes with her sleeve. “For Marigold. I’m getting a little choked up just thinking about it.”

  Hard to tell whether Olive was serious or joking. Bethany patted her on the arm. “We’ll do right by her.”

  Olive beamed. “Come early to help set up! And bring as many extra hands as you can. Hm, maybe we could ask Ryan to help set up chairs.”

  Bethany died a little inside. It felt weird—exploitative, maybe—asking him to work for free just because he was living at the shelter. “I’m sure he has better things to do. Seems like Sister Bernadette keeps him pretty busy.”

  “Nonsense, I think he’d be interested to attend.”

  “A memorial for someone he’s never met?”

  “Maybe there’s someone here he’d like to see.” Olive winked at her. “And you know he’d look good in a suit and tie.”

  Bethany blushed in spite of herself. “You and Kimmy have to stop trying to find me dates. Any
way, there’s someone else I’m kind of interested in...”

  “Ooh, young love!” Olive clasped her hands eagerly. “Tell me more! What’s he like? What does he do for a living? Short or tall?”

  “I’m not saying a word. It’s not even a thing yet, just an idea of a thing. If I talk about it, I’ll jinx it. Plus, I don’t want you inviting him to a funeral! There’s low potential for romance, especially when I’ll be running the food services table!”

  “Fine.” Olive shrugged. “Have it your way. Soup du boring.”

  Bethany giggled. “You’d prefer ‘soup dude bro’?”

  “I’d prefer to see all you girls married and settled before—” Olive broke off. “Well, sooner rather than later.”

  Bethany looked at her friend with concern. Was this about Garrett’s health complaints, or was something else weighing on Olive? “Is everything OK? You can tell me if it’s not. You know I’m always on your side.” Like if you pushed Marigold onto the tracks...

  Olive shook her head, silver hair flying around her head like a halo. “It’s nothing. Don’t you worry about a thing.”

  BETHANY BIKED HOME in the chilly February rain. What was merely a sprinkle at Newbridge Station transformed into a downpour as she rode through Newbridge’s charming brick-fronted streets. The weather got so bad that Bethany could hardly see the road in front of her, so she ducked under the awning of the public library to wait it out.

  When she peeled back the dripping hood of her jacket, she saw someone else was sheltering there with her. Of course, she had to run into the guy she had a crush on when she looked like a drowned rat.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, trying fruitlessly to dry her dripping face by waving her hands in front of it.

  Milo pointed up at the sign above the door. “Last time I checked, this was a public place.”

  “Checking out some weekend reading?” Bethany wondered what kind of books Milo read. She secretly hoped it was cookbooks and travel guides like she preferred, but it was probably the usual guy stuff: thrillers or fantasy novels with swords or something.

  “Background research for Marigold Wonder’s profile, actually. Just waiting for the rain to chill out before I walk back to the office to write it up.”

  “I thought the library only had biographies of, you know, famous people.”

  Milo grinned. “Well, they don’t have a biography of Marigold, but they have all kinds of stuff on microfiche that has never been digitized. Plus, there is a global conspiracy of librarians that will work together to hunt down the tiniest little thing. Librarians are my secret weapon when it comes to good reporting.”

  “Find anything interesting?” Bethany smoothed the wet hair out of her face and tried to look less like a sodden Irish setter and more like Singing in the Rain.

  “Maybe. I found an article in a Santa Cruz paper about her smoothie shop. Looks like it’s still open. The article even has a recent quote from her—did she travel back and forth often?”

  “Not that I know of. Maybe she did the interview by video chat or something. I’m sure if you call the shop, the staff will tell you what her habits were.”

  Milo nodded. “I called them as soon as I read the article. It was obvious the manager didn’t know she’d passed away, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him. He said she was very involved in the business.”

  “Huh. I guess that explains how she was able to live on almost no income here in Newbridge,” Bethany said. “I wonder why she never mentioned that she still had her old shop. She always talked about her life in California like it was something in the past.”

  “It’s strange. I’ve done a ton of research for this piece, maybe more than I’ve ever done before, but I still don’t really have a sense who Marigold was. Nobody I’ve talked to seems to have a very full picture of her life, even though she’s always described as outgoing and chatty.”

  That’s putting it mildly. I’d say more like overbearing and bossy. Bethany rolled her eyes. “Wish I could help. All I know about Marigold is that she had sticky fingers.”

  “What do you mean?” Milo took out his notebook.

  “Off the record,” she said firmly, flipping the cover of the notebook closed. He grudgingly put it away. “The police think the motive for her murder was because she stole fifty thousand dollars.”

  “From Ben Kovac? I heard he was arrested this morning.”

  Bethany shook her head. “Well, sort of. From Newbridge Station’s historic restoration fund. Ben administers it, and she stole it from his office, but it wasn’t his money, per se.”

  “What’d she need the money for?”

  “That’s the fifty thousand dollar question.”

  The rain slowed to a steady light drizzle, and Milo put his hand out to test it. “Looks like my cue to get back to work. I’ll see you at the memorial tomorrow?”

  Bethany gave a nod. “Yep. I’m catering. Well, Olive and I are working together on it.”

  “Soup?”

  “Of course.”

  “What kind, if I may ask?”

  Bethany laughed. “I thought you needed to get to work.”

  “This is work. I’m talking to a chef who I’m going to write about in the Sunday food feature.”

  Bethany gasped. “You are? Oh no, I have to totally rethink the menu!”

  “Why, are you making something spicy?”

  “No, it’s pea soup again!”

  Milo put his hand to his chest in mock horror. “Not soup of the yesterday!”

  She made a face at him. “Never. This is a different pea soup. Lighter, brighter.”

  “Then you have nothing to fear. I will be there to taste it with an open mind.” He smiled at her, his eyes twinkling underneath the brim of his baseball cap.

  “I’ve heard that one before.” Bethany crossed her arms. “You’re five and zero with the soup tasting, buddy, so I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  “Fair enough.” Milo tipped his baseball cap and stepped out onto the sidewalk. “Ms. Bradstreet.”

  “Mr. Armstrong,” Bethany said primly. She swung her leg over Daisy’s seat and pushed off into the rain. She hardly felt the cold drops against her face on the way home. She was too busy thinking about what Milo Armstrong would say when he tried her soup tomorrow.

  “WHAT IN JACQUES PEPIN’S name are you doing?” Kimmy stood in the middle of the kitchen gaping at the mess, still wearing her Café Sabine chef’s jacket.

  Bethany looked around. Dozens of crumpled pieces of yellow paper were strewn around the main room of their apartment. Dirty dishes filled the sink and covered the counters, and the wastebasket at her feet was overflowing with even more pieces of paper. “Recipe testing. And also solving a murder.” She put her head down and continued scribbling on the legal pad.

  “I hope you’re going to wash these pots and pans before you go on ahead with your crime-solving.”

  Bethany grinned wickedly. “Oh yeah, dishes are way more important than murdered people. I’ll get right on that.”

  “What if Charley said that? ‘Oh no, can’t brush my teeth because I gotta solve crimes. Can’t sweep the floor because I gotta solve crimes’? She’d never get anything done.”

  “Speaking of, she’ll be here in a few minutes.”

  “To do the dishes?”

  Bethany cackled. “Nope. To solve crimes.”

  Kimmy sighed and stomped off to take a shower. When she came back out in her bathrobe and hair wrap, she was in a better mood—probably because Bethany had scrubbed the biggest pots and picked up the paper on the floor. “Better,” she said.

  Bethany curtsied. “Sorry you had to come home to a mess after you just finished cleaning up a mess at work.”

  Kimmy raised her head haughtily. “You are forgiven! Arise, fair subject, and avenge our fallen friend—er, something like that.”

  “Our fallen non-friend, but it doesn’t matter if we liked her, does it? It matters that people don’t push other people in fron
t of trains for money. Don’t get me wrong, I would do a lot of things for fifty K. That’s enough money to open a restaurant.”

  “A very small one,” Kimmy said wryly. “I’d say 250 K would give you a better start.”

  “Well, it’d cover one that had, you know, doors?”

  “I know, sorry.”

  “But I wouldn’t kill for it, not even someone I didn’t like.” Bethany stabbed the legal pad with her pencil for emphasis. “The question is, who would?”

  A knock came at the door, and Kimmy went to answer it. When Charley entered the living room, Bethany was shocked at the dark circles under her friend’s eyes.

  “You look exhausted! Are you sick or something?”

  Charley sprawled on the couch. “Just a long day. The chief was putting pressure on me to arrest Trevor at the hospital. I had to convince her that he’s not a flight risk. Basically, I am going to lose my job if Trevor skips town.”

  “He won’t,” Bethany said, only seventy-five percent sure but putting one-hundred-percent certainty into her voice. “He loves his family too much.”

  “So lay this genius plan of yours on me. I swear, Bethany, if this is something stupid, I am firing you as Kimmy’s roommate.” Charley grabbed one of the throw pillows and put it over her face. “I’m just resting this here while I listen.”

  Bethany cleared her throat and organized the papers in front of her. “Part one of the plan is...let Ben out of jail.”

  “What?” Charley sat up so fast that the throw pillow flew across the room. Even Kimmy looked rattled. “I can’t let someone charged with murder out of jail. That is not a thing, Bethany. He’s being held without bail.”

  “OK, you don’t like part one. I will just put a question mark by it, and we can come back to it.”

  “Fine.” Charley lay back down, and Kimmy retrieved the throw pillow and gently put it back over Charley’s face.

  “Part two. Since we know the murderer killed Marigold because of the money—”

  Charley sat up again, the pillow falling into her lap this time. “Do we know that, Bethany? Do we?”