Murder to the Max

by Tegan Maher

  "So," Max said, licking sauce off his whiskers, "I heard my name repeatedly earlier. What did I do to deserve so much table time?" He narrowed his eyes and looked at me. "You're not bringing home another of those deplorable dogs are you?"

  "No. But you’ve made me wonder if I should reconsider it. Dogs are wonderful."

  "Yes, lovely until one of them wants to curl up with you after it's just rolled in something either filthy or dead. I swear, I shall start a barnyard revolution, especially if work doesn’t proceed post-haste with that giant mudhole you’ve sworn is going to be a pool, with my own private lounging area."

  I rolled my eyes. "It's called a wading pool, and it's going to be for everybody, not just you. And now that you mention it, what we were just discussing has bearing on it. We were talking about Max Wheeler of Wheeler Construction, the company we’re working with. His ghost showed up when we were coming home from the cabin. He was murdered."

  "Fabulous,” he said, lowering his eyebrows and wringing his tail. “Now I'm never going to get my lounging area."

  I would have corrected him, but I wasn’t in a position to judge, considering that was my knee-jerk reaction too.

  "We were talking about possible suspects."

  "Will the recreational facilities still be constructed?"

  I sighed. "Of course. I'm sure after they get the details ironed out, they'll finish it up." God, I hoped they finished it up. We were planning an end-of-summer pool party and barbecue on the new deck, which would be tough without the pool or deck.

  Guilt flushed through me again and I turned the conversation back to Max. The cranky dead guy, not the scotch-swilling donkey.

  "Okay, we were talking about Chet Malcomb," I said and took a big bite of pizza.

  I thought about what little I knew about Max just from the couple of interactions we'd had with his ghostly self. He didn't seem like the kind to take any guff, especially from a punk like Chet. "So how did Max react when Chet bowed up at him?" I asked after I swallowed.

  "Weirdly enough, he didn't really respond at all,” Cody said. “I mean, he didn't back down, but he didn't say anything either. He just crossed his arms, widened his stance, and stared Chet down while he raged."

  Cody reached for the last slice of pepperoni but Raeann snatched it up. He scowled and looked at the mushroom and pineapple box like it was full of fungus—which I guess it was—but after a few seconds, his teenage stomach won out and he grabbed a slice.

  Hunter polished off the last of his crust and brushed his hands. "That seems odd. From everything I've seen and heard so far, he wouldn't have been so diplomatic."

  Adelaide cleared her throat. "I know exactly why he didn't bust him in the mouth—he would have never set such a piss-poor example for the kids. I used to talk to his wife Emily at the socials, and he loved coaching. Started thirty-some years ago when his son was in little league and never quit."

  That surprised me. I wouldn't take the old geezer who called Hunter Numbnuts for the kid-loving type, but stranger things have happened. Like, for instance, Hunter reaching over to grab the last slice of my pizza after he'd been ragging on me about how weird it was for two months. Desperate times, I reckon.

  I watched as he took a tentative bite, then another more enthusiastic one. I gave him a knowing grin and nodded. "Welcome to the dark side, baby."

  He rolled his eyes but took another big bite, swallowing before he continued. "So we have a crotchety old b—... man who wasn't actually crotchety, who pissed off some entitled rich boy who thinks the sun rises and sets on his spoiled-rotten son. Is that it?"

  Raeann shook her head. "No, he really was crotchety. But you got the rest of it right. Plus, there's the fishing-boat guy."

  "Yeah, but Max is dead-set against him being the killer. Says there's no way," I said as I tossed the pizza boxes in the recycle bin.

  "Who's the fishing-boat guy?" Raeann asked as she opened a box of my pastries she’d apparently scavenged from the freezer at some point.

  "Joe Sneed," Hunter answered. "He sold Max a leaky fishing boat and they had a yelling match while they were playing poker. Apparently, Joe threated to beat him to death.”

  Adelaide shook her head. "Nope. No way. Max and Joe go all the way back to kindergarten. Cross him off the list. ’Sides that, Joe threatens to beat everyone to death. It's his go-to line.”

  Hunter looked thoughtful. "I don't know, guys. I've seen a lot of nice, normal people do some crazy things in the heat of the moment."

  I poured myself a glass of milk and snagged a strawberry-cream-cheese strudel. I sank my teeth into it and groaned as the sweetness of the fruit, the flakiness of the pastry, and the tartness of the cream cheese had a party in my mouth.

  You'd think the fact that I make them all the time would sour me on them, but it's just the opposite; I'm an addict. Fortunately, I have a crazy-high metabolism because if I didn't, I'd be as big as a house.

  Hunter raised a brow at me. "Need a minute?"

  "Nah, I'm good," I said around a mouthful of deliciousness.

  "So are you at least going to talk to this Joe guy?" Shelby asked, grabbing a pastry of her own.

  "Of course I'm going to talk to him. Everybody says he isn't capable of it, but I'm not convinced. Maybe I just don't have as much faith in people as you all do."

  "I don't think that's it," Cody said, shaking his head. "I think it's because we weren't raised here. We aren't used to the way everybody knows everybody else. Where we're from, there's a certain anonymity that's just not possible here. It's good and bad."

  "That's true," Hunter replied. "I guess it's going to take some getting used to. But I'm still talking to Joe Sneed."

  "I think that's a good idea," I said. "You're right in that you never can tell. Look at Cheri Lynn, for example."

  At the mention of her name, the pretty brunette ghost popped in right beside me, wearing a bikini with a sarong twisted around her waist.

  Cheri Lynn had a crappy life when she was alive and ended up getting herself murdered a couple months back. She swears her afterlife is ten times better and she's having a ball. "Did I hear my name?" her voice was the epitome of the southern drawl. She'd never been out of Keyhole Lake except to go to Atlanta a few times, so her accent wasn't diluted by outside influence. Her voice was smooth as honey, and her "I"s were as long as a country mile. She had sass and a sweetness that made me wish I'd taken the time to know her when she was alive.

  I glanced at her, then at Hunter. Since he was munching away rather than looking at her, I assumed she was hiding herself from him. I told her we'd filled him in.

  "Well thank heavens. I was gettin' mighty sick of tryin' to talk to you while you pretended I wasn't here." She shut one eye and concentrated for a second, then smiled right as my ears popped. "There. That's better."

  Hunter jumped a bit when she popped in, but then a look of understanding crept over his face when he recognized her. "So that's how you knew about her being murdered,” he said to me, “and about the other stuff. Geez, that whole mess would have been so much easier had I known about her back then."

  "You know it, sugar," she said to him, rolling her eyes. "That was one of the most frustratin’ experiences of my life. At the time, I didn’t even know how to make you see me, else believe you me, I woulda. Now, I heard my name. What's goin' on?"

  "We were saying that you don't really know people. We've had another murder." I gave her a quick rundown of the situation. "So, Hunter thinks that we should probably look closer at Joe just in case."

  She puckered her lips and pushed them to one side, thinking. "I'm with y'all. I don't think Joe's got it in him to up and kill nobody, let alone Max Wheeler. Chet, on the other hand, is a piece of work. He was in Tassels every Friday and Saturday even though he has a sweetheart of a wife at home. Bless her heart, I don't know why she puts up with it, but I guess she has her reasons." Tassels was a sleazy strip club where she’d worked as a dancer pre-mortem. She tapped her finger on her chin a
nd furrowed her brow.

  "He has a wicked temper, too. Once, the girl he asked for was with another guest and he walked right up like he owned her and snatched her by the arm mid-dance. The gentleman she was with took exception and busted Chet in the mouth when he got in his face. Jim tossed him out on his behind, but he was back the next weekend just as handsy and rude as ever, though he did mind his manners enough to wait his turn from then on."

  "Yeah, that about fits with what I learned about him, too." I told her about Bobbie Sue giving him the heave-ho and she laughed.

  "Man, that little woman's nobody to mess with. I woulda loved to see that." She turned to Raeann. "You doin’ okay, sugar?"

  Raeann's then-boyfriend had been in on a plot to kill us several months ago and, needless to say, it had hit her ego pretty hard. She'd tried to shake it off on the cruise, but it was there, right under the surface. You just don't recover from being duped like that overnight.

  She quirked one side of her mouth. "I'm gettin’ by, Cheri Lynn. Thanks for askin’." She turned her attention to the rest of us. "I hate to be a party pooper, but I've been up since five and I've gotta do it again tomorrow."

  "I'll be in to help you open," I said.

  "No, you won't. Not unless you're planning on staying up all night baking. We're completely out of pastries. We just ate the last of them and if we don't have blueberry muffins, Mr. Stockton will be heartbroken. And unveiling the ghosts cut into the time I’d allotted to help you."

  "You went through all of the ones I left?" I'd tripled up on what we'd normally use before Hunter and I had left for the cabin.

  "Yeah. Did you forget about the fishing tournament?"

  "Ugh. I guess I did." I looked at my watch and was surprised to find that it was after eleven. "I'll bake enough tonight to get us through and still try to be there to help you open."

  She finished the last of her tea and pulled her purse onto her shoulder. "If you can, that would be great. If not, that's fine. Just for the love of god, don't come without pastries!"

  I grinned and gave her a hug. "I wouldn't dare. See you in the morning."

  Cody stood up, too. "I told Uncle Will I'd help him with rounds in the morning and we have to be at the Williams farm at seven, so I'd better go, too. Thanks for the pizza." His uncle, Will Newsome, was the county vet.

  Shelby followed them out and it wasn't long before I heard Cody's motorcycle fire up.

  I turned to the kitchen and started pulling things out for muffins and turnovers, our staples. It was going to be a long night.

  Chapter Six

  A few hours later, before the sun had even started to peek over the horizon, I propped four big boxes of fresh pastries between my hip and the brick wall beside the door to Brew4U so I could dig through my purse for my keys. I should have had them out before I got out of the car, but it was five thirty. In the morning.

  The lights weren't on yet but that wasn't unusual; Rae often avoided turning the lights on first thing in the morning while she was working in her office. It was partially for security, but mostly because if somebody sees the lights on, they'd want to come in. While it would be rude to say no, there are some things we needed to do before we opened the doors. Like have a couple of double-shot lattes. So we just kept the lights off until we opened to avoid the hassle.

  It was also kind of nice sitting in the dark with just the glow of the coolers while we had breakfast and shot the bull before crashing headlong into our days.

  I finally managed to pull the front door open and shivered as the smell of coffee beans, confections, and camaraderie enveloped me. I called out to Raeann and slid the pastries onto the gleaming black faux-marble counter, plopping my purse down beside them.

  I flicked a wrist to turn on the espresso machine, then used the bluish light from the upright coolers to make my way back to the door. I’d made so many pastries that I had to make a second trip to my new-to-me F150 to get the rest of boxes.

  Once I was back inside, I locked the door behind me then called to Rae again, getting a little worried because she hadn't already surfaced from the paperwork to have coffee with me. I made my way around the end of the bar, careful not to trip over the stools or bump into the funky little cafe tables.

  There was light spilling out of her office and I pushed the door open. "Hey! The least you could do is come out and make a girl a Lively Latte. My butt was up ’til three baking but—"

  The door swung open to an empty room. Her chair was tipped over backwards and her files had been pushed off of her desk and spilled across the floor. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I flipped off her office light.

  I'm not one of those stupid horror-movie bimbos that stand there waiting to be murdered, and frankly, it pissed me off that somebody may have harmed my bestie.

  I ducked back around the counter in order to stay out of the light spilling from the coolers, then reached up and quietly pulled my purse down. Still squatting under the counter, I fumbled through it for Faith, my nine millimeter.

  Yes, I'm a witch, but I'm a southern witch. There are just some traditions that are ingrained. Plus, shooting an intruder in the leg is a whole lot less risky than trying to find a logical explanation for something more magical. The last thing I needed was to draw more attention to myself from the council.

  My fingers closed around the cool grip and I pulled it free of my purse, careful not to snag the site on the lining. The hum of the cooler and the ticking of the espresso machine as it heated up were deafening in the quiet.

  I'd just made my way back around the counter when I heard the soft sound of fabric brushing against the wall near her office, about ten feet in front of me. I stopped in my tracks, trying to decide what to do.

  In a blinding flash, the track lights over the bar flipped on and Rae barked, "Freeze, or I’ll shoot your eye out!" When she saw it was me, she let out a huge breath and lowered the gun that was a twin to mine.

  "Holy crap, Noe, you scared the bejeezus out of me when I came up from the basement and saw that somebody'd shut the light off in my office."

  "Me? You!” My hand was shaking as I pulled it away from my chest. “I walk into your office and the chair is tipped over, and all your crap is all over the floor—I thought for sure somebody'd nabbed you! Then you come out here and go all Dirty Harriet.”

  She looked at me for a few seconds and burst into laughter. "I ... I had a mouse run across my desk and ... and ... about came outta my skin. I knocked over my chair and files ..." She was bent double laughing, grasping her side, and slapping her hand on the counter. She pointed at me, "The hat ...," she crowed and stomped her feet, tears running down her face.

  The hilarity of the situation hit me, and soon I was laughing as hard as she was. The picture of her standing there in her shooter’s stance, eyes wide and darting back and forth, about killed me.

  Then I remembered what she’d said. “You’ll shoot my eye out? Really? No more Christmas in July movies for you,” I wheezed, holding my side. After a minute, I could finally catch my breath and stood upright, wiping the tears from my eyes.

  "So where were you?" I gasped, handing her a napkin to wipe her eyes. "You didn't answer when I hollered for you."

  She'd gained control of herself but was still chuckling as she took it from me. "I couldn't find the broom up here, so I went to basement to see if I'd carried it down with me yesterday when I went down to get the step ladder. I knew the mouse was gone, but we're going to need it anyway."

  She flicked the brim of my ball cap. "That hat about got you blown to smithereens. I thought you were some dude here to rob me." She looked at my pistol I’d laid on the counter. "It's a good thing we were taught to make sure of the target before we pull the trigger!"

  Aunt Adelaide and Uncle Calvin had taught us both how to shoot when we were twelve, and we target practiced just for fun at least a couple of times a month, competing to see who could shoot the most cans from the longest distance. They'd gotten us matching p
istols when we'd turned sixteen, to be kept at the farm under lock and key when we weren't using them.

  I nodded my agreement as we moved around the counter and started to work in tandem to get the coffee area ready. "So where's the broom?"

  "No idea. It wasn't down there, either. I would have sworn I put it in the storage room, but apparently I didn't. We'll have to run down to Bob and Marge's and grab one when they open. ’Til then, don't be a klutz and spill anything."

  I hip-checked her. "Then make me a Lively Latte. I was up all night baking."

  She elbowed me back. "I suppose I could do that, considering you stuck around to save me instead of hightailing it out of here to save your own hide." She shoved my latte into my hand and pushed me to the end of the bar, where we sat down to relax for the last fifteen minutes before the fishermen and the early-bird regulars started filing in.

  The light was still off in the front, so I waved a hand to open the pastry case and pulled a couple of bear claws our direction. I held my coffee cup up for a toast as they settled in front of us. "To the magic of sugar and caffeine."

  "Hear, hear."

  After we finished our breakfast, Rae flipped her wrist to unlock the door and I did the same to turn on the open signs and the rest of the lights. Like moths to a flame, people started fluttering in almost instantly.

  Max's murder was the subject du jour and as usual, conjectures and theories began to fly. By the time the morning rush was over, even my Lively Latte wasn't enough to keep me from dragging.

  When Bob Newsome, the owner of the hardware store, had come in, we'd mentioned that we needed a broom because the other one apparently sprouted legs and walked off. He'd sent one over to us so that we didn't have to leave the shop. Bless his heart, because there was no way I'd have been able to drag myself all the way down there to get one.

  I wiped down the tables and started to sweep but Rae took the new broom from my hands and shoved my purse into my hands. "Go. Home. You look like you're about to fall over."