Meredith Potts Fourteen Book Cozy Mystery Set

by Meredith Potts

  Carl burned through one job after another, his monstrous ego outsizing his level of talent. A lot of people were willing to put up with arrogance as long as someone had the skills to back it up. Only, Carl’s ego never ratcheted down, despite the erosion of his cooking skill. Finally, after burning every bridge he crossed, the only restaurant owner in town willing to take a chance on him was Derek Dalton.

  That’s how Carl ended up working at a hot dog stand. Ironically, for someone who spent his days in a customer service position, Carl was sorely lacking in customer service skills.

  He was a grumpy, beer-bellied, forty-five-year-old man with cold bloodshot eyes and a hangdog face weighed down by the sorrow of his broken dreams.

  “What can I get for you?” Carl grumbled.

  Joe flashed his police badge. “A few minutes of your time.”

  Carl immediately tensed up. “What’s this about?”

  “Why don’t we talk about it on that bench over there? Or, would you rather we talk about this in front of your boss?” Joe asked.

  “Yeah. All right. I have a ten-minute break coming up anyway.”

  Carl turned to his boss, Derek, who was running the register at the stand, told him he was taking his break, then met us at the bench that Joe had referenced.

  Now that he was out of earshot of his boss, Carl’s attitude changed significantly. Unfortunately, it was for the worse.

  He snapped at us. “What’s the big deal coming to my work and looking to start trouble?”

  If there was one thing I knew about my brother, it was that he hated taking lip from suspects. This time was no different.

  Joe stared him down. “Don’t take that tone with a police detective. You hear me?”

  Carl saw the fire in Joe’s eyes and let up on his sour attitude. He was still annoyed but tried to restrain himself.

  “Look, what do you want?” Carl asked.

  “We’re here about the murder of Claude Giraud,” Joe said.

  Carl scoffed. “Then you’re in the wrong place.”

  “Really? What makes you say that?”

  “So, that’s what this is about? You’re here to accuse me of murder?” Carl replied.

  “We’ve been going through some of Claude’s old reviews. The one he left about your café was pretty eye-opening stuff,” Joe said.

  Carl tried to shrug my brother’s comment off. “The key word there is ‘old.’ That review was from two years ago.”

  “Are you saying you’re over it then? That having your café be called an embarrassment to good taste doesn’t sting anymore?”

  “Yes.”

  Carl’s mouth said one thing, but his eyes said another. There was an undeniable anger inside him that he was trying to keep bottled up. He may not have thought that I caught it, but I did.

  I made my skepticism quite clear. “Carl, I find that hard to believe. I mean, here you are, working at a hot dog stand—”

  He didn’t let me finish my sentence. “Everyone has to make a living.”

  That argument didn’t fly in this case. “Really? You used to own your own restaurant. Now you’re serving hot dogs on a stick. All of this started with Claude’s bad review.”

  Carl kept trying to throw me off the scent. “First of all, we serve thirty-five different kinds of hot dogs. Second, as I told you, Claude left that review a long time ago.”

  I fixated on his eyes again. Before, I had focused on the cold look he’d given me. This time, the bloodshot look in his eyes was what caught my attention.

  “Carl, are you okay?” I asked.

  He was dismissive of my question. “What are you talking about?”

  “Your eyes—”

  Once again, he was quick to interrupt me. “Oh. That. I’ve been working a lot of hours and haven’t been getting much sleep.”

  I pressed further. “Is that all?”

  He got testy with me. “That’s what I just said.”

  I didn’t believe he was telling us the whole story, but he clearly had no intention of elaborating.

  Joe was ready to move on to a new topic. “Mr. Dempster, where were you last night between nine and nine thirty?”

  Carl hesitated far too much for the answer he gave. “I was just finishing up work.”

  “Really? So, if we ask Derek right now if you were still here at nine thirty, he’ll be able to confirm that?” Joe replied.

  Carl quickly revised his story. “I mean, I was driving home from work.”

  “Alone?” Joe asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you happen to stop at Claude Giraud’s place on the way?”

  Carl’s temper got the best of him. “No.”

  Carl didn’t seem to realize that the more a person lost control of their emotions, the more it made them look like they were lying. I had found that the best way to counteract a fiery temper was by keeping an even keel. The calmer I remained, the more it seemed to set a suspect off. And, when a suspect flew off the handle, they often unwittingly revealed useful information.

  “It’s a shame you have no way of proving that,” I said.

  He fired back at me. “Neither do you. In fact, you have no way of proving anything. Now, if you’ll excuse, I have to get back to work.”

  Carl then scuttled away. It was crazy. I had never seen someone in such a hurry to get back to a hot dog stand in my entire life.

  Chapter Twelve

  Carl’s haste to get away from us and our probing questions aroused enough suspicion in Joe that he decided to assign a patrol car to keep tabs on him. If Carl did so much as look the wrong way, we’d hear about it.

  With Carl under surveillance, Joe and I headed over to question the other restaurateur who had been lacerated by one of Claude’s reviews. Zell’s Bistro was a restaurant on Hollywood Boulevard specializing in American cuisine. Due to its prime location in the shopping district, I had always known the place to be busy.

  Of course, as it was on the other side of town from where I lived, I rarely went there. In fact, I hadn’t been there once since Claude’s review had been published nine months ago.

  Oh, how things had changed. When Joe and I entered the bistro, the place was a ghost town. There were more employees inside than customers. One thing the bistro didn’t have a shortage of, was specials. Everywhere I turned in the restaurant, there were signs indicating deals.

  The bistro was offering an all-day happy hour, half-off appetizers, and entrees that were almost too cheap to be believed. All the stops were being pulled out. Yet, they had little business to show for their efforts.

  Typically, when I went into a restaurant, a host or hostess was there to greet me. This time, the owner, Steven Zell, was acting as the host. That seemed very curious. Was he understaffed, or did he just not have enough business to make paying a host worthwhile?

  He was a diminutive man, barely over five feet tall, with circular-framed glasses, short brown hair, and the figure of a man who had eaten a lot of bacon double cheeseburgers in his life. Coincidentally, that also happened to be one of the specials today. Had we been here for a meal instead of to question a murder suspect, I could have gotten the burger with a bottomless basket of steak fries for less than seven dollars.

  Steven greeted us with a tone that reeked of car salesman-style desperation. “Welcome to Zell’s. I hope you two are hungry because we have some sweet deals for you today.”

  “Actually, we’re not here to eat,” Joe said.

  Steven furrowed his brow. “Then why are you here?”

  Joe pulled out his police badge. “We have to ask you some questions about the murder of Claude Giraud.”

  I watched Steven’s face closely to see how much the look on his face changed. Surprisingly, he didn’t panic. Sure, his enthusiasm evaporated, but he remained very calm and businesslike.

  “Sure. Why don’t we go back to my office?”

  Steven led Joe and me through the kitchen to his office. Now that we were away from the public and behind clo
sed doors, I expected to see some sort of shift in his mood. If he was under any emotional duress, it wasn’t showing.

  “I’m not quite sure why you’ve come to talk to me,” Steven said.

  “Like I told you, we need to ask you some questions about the murder of Claude Giraud,” Joe replied.

  “Yeah, you said that, but I don’t know why you think I had anything to do with that.”

  “We’ve read the review he left for your restaurant.”

  “So, because he wrote a bad review of my restaurant nine months ago, you think I killed him?”

  It was amazing how calm he was being, almost like we were talking about the weather rather than a possible motive for murder.

  “The review seems to have killed your business,” Joe said.

  “Well, you guys are here during an off time in the day. Come back at dinner and you might see a different story,” Steven reasoned.

  “Come back at dinner. You mean when every item on your menu seems to be on sale for fifty percent off? The last time I saw this many things on sale, the place was going out of business, and they were desperate to even sell the wall fixtures. Now, are you seriously going to sit here and pretend that Claude’s review hasn’t hurt your business?”

  “It certainly didn’t help. Still, that’s no reason to kill the guy.”

  “Isn’t it? Do you have some other source of income we don’t know about? Some stash of cash somewhere?”

  “No.”

  Joe was growing tired of listening to Steven pretend like the idea of potentially shuttering his restaurant wasn’t a motive for murder.

  “Mr. Zell, you can downplay the motive all you want, but I’ve seen people murdered over far less. This business is your livelihood, and without it, how would you pay your bills?” Joe asked.

  “If I did have to close this place up for good, I’d find something else. Losing this place wouldn’t be the end of the world,” Steven replied.

  At first, I thought Steven was just being cool, calm, and collected. Now, he was so emotionless and robotic that it came across as completely calculated. As if he was expecting us to arrive at some point and had planned accordingly.

  Steven continued. “Face it, you guys are barking up the wrong tree.”

  Joe did not give up that easily. “You say that, but the fact is, murder is often a crime of passion. People get blinded by rage. They seek revenge at all costs.”

  “Look at me. Do I look like I’m blinded by rage?” Steven replied.

  “You say that, but when we walked in the bistro, your mood was completely different. You reeked of desperation and craved our business. Now that you’ve found out we’re investigating Claude’s murder, you’ve started acting like a robot. Those are two distinctly different moods that you managed to flip between in the blink of an eye. Who is to say this nonchalance of yours isn’t just an act you’re putting on?” Joe asked.

  “You’re really reaching.”

  Usually, it was the suspect who snapped. This time, it was Joe. He’d grown tired of dissecting Steven’s possible motive. To him, it was time to cut to the meat of the matter.

  “There’s one way to know for sure. Where were you last night between nine and nine thirty?” Joe asked.

  “I was here,” Steven replied.

  That answer rang false to me, especially in light of what I’d seen when we first entered the restaurant. “But, your sign on the door says you close at eight during the offseason.”

  “To the public. A lot goes on behind the scenes. There are closing duties, final paperwork to add up, bank deposits to get ready. A restaurateur’s job is never done,” Steven said.

  “Were any of your employees still around between nine and nine thirty to verify that you were still here?” I said.

  He shook his head. “They had all gone home.”

  “So much for your alibi,” Joe said.

  I piggybacked on my brother’s point. “I also didn’t notice any security cameras around here, which means it’s just your word against ours.”

  “I’ve told you the truth. If you’re not willing to accept it, that’s your problem,” Steven said.

  As Joe was about to press him further, there was a knock on the door.

  “Yes,” Steven said.

  The door opened, revealing a clean-shaven employee wearing a waterproof apron. “I’m sorry, boss. It’s just that the dishwasher seems to be broken, and the plates are really stacking up.”

  “I’ll call the repairman,” Steven said.

  The clean-shaven employee nodded, then left the office.

  Steven turned back to us. “I’m afraid I have a little fire to put out. So, unless you can produce any evidence of wrongdoing, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  With so many suspects so eager to show us the door, it was nice to be genuinely welcomed somewhere. Joe and I always got a warm greeting when we entered Home Sweet Home Cooking. The biggest smile came from the owner of the place who also happened to be my boyfriend. Daniel gave me a kiss as he seated us at our favorite booth.

  “How are things going?” Daniel asked.

  My boyfriend didn’t know the half of it. Until I had food in my stomach, I didn’t want to get into the details. It was funny, my brother and I had spent a large part of the day traveling to various eateries, but hadn’t grabbed a bite at any of them. Then again, it seemed a little foolish to let a murder suspect serve us food.

  Stopping at my boyfriend’s restaurant served three goals—getting to see Daniel’s smile, satiating our hunger, and allowing us to rest and regroup before heading out to investigate again.

  Joe and I both sighed at the same time, almost as if we’d choreographed it ahead of time.

  “That good, huh?” Daniel joked.

  “Don’t ask,” Joe replied.

  “You look like you two could both use a grilled cheese sandwich with a basket of fries,” Daniel said.

  My boyfriend knew me so well. It was such a simple meal, but the best things in life were rarely complicated.

  “That would hit the spot,” I replied.

  “Coming right up,” Daniel said.

  Daniel left the booth to put our orders into the computer while my cravings for melted cheese intensified.

  ***

  Daniel’s grilled cheese did not disappoint. When he returned with our meals fifteen minutes later, my taste buds immediately thanked him. As I took my first bite of the sandwich, I was in comfort food heaven.

  So, naturally, just when my brother and I were beginning to enjoy our meals, Joe got a call over his police radio.

  “Detective Hadley,” the dispatcher said.

  Joe picked up the radio and answered. “Hadley here.”

  “There’s a development with that patrol car you put on Carl Dempster.”

  “What is it?” Joe asked.

  “According to Deputy Tolliver, it seems that Carl Dempster is trying to make a break for it.”

  “Where is he right now?”

  “Deputy Tolliver tried to pull him over before he got onto Interstate 595. Instead, Dempster sped up and dashed away. Tolliver is in pursuit now,” the dispatcher explained.

  There was no doubt in Joe’s mind what needed to happen now.

  “We’re on our way,” Joe said.

  Chapter Fourteen

  So much for a relaxing meal. When my brother got the call over his police radio about Carl Dempster heading out of town, I had no idea we’d be driving at eighty miles per hour to catch up with him. Yet, twenty minutes later, there I was, sitting in the passenger seat of Joe’s car, in the thick of a high-speed pursuit, with my heart beating out of my chest.

  We’d finally managed to catch up with Carl’s sedan and were tailing him on the highway when he had made a sudden turn off of the highway. If there was one bright spot in all this, it was that we had avoided Carl smashing into any other cars on the highway. As an added benefit, now that we were off the main road, the parti
cular exit Carl had taken was in a sparsely populated area.

  There were more trees out here than people. Carl had clearly viewed taking this exit as a good escape route. Joe meanwhile, breathed a sigh of relief. On the backroads, the chance of innocent bystanders becoming casualties was nil. Joe could also afford to get more aggressive in his pursuit. That’s just what he did. He put the pedal to the metal and started gaining ground on Carl.

  I had a bad feeling about what my brother was going to do next. My creeping suspicion was that Joe would attempt to ram the back of Carl’s car to force him off the road. While Joe’s police car was designed for such measures, that knowledge did little to alleviate my fears.

  Unfortunately, Joe didn’t ask for my opinion.

  My brother looked over and gave me a warning. “Brace yourself.”

  I held on as tight as I could, knowing that impact would be coming sooner rather than later. Joe accelerated to full speed and rammed the back of Carl’s sedan. I had never been happier about the invention of seat belts in my entire life. Thankfully, the ramming didn’t hurt me at all, although, it did manage to fray my nerves. I was hoping that would be enough to get Carl to pull over, but he kept driving.

  Joe groaned. “I can’t believe it. What’s it going to take to stop this guy?”

  Any answer other than ramming him again would have suited me just fine. Instead, Joe sped up again, ready to plow into Carl’s bumper once more. Only, this time, Carl saw it coming and devised a plan.

  There was a sharp turn coming up that Carl looked determined to take. It seemed far too dangerous of a maneuver to pull off. Then again, if Carl was able to successfully make the turn, he might be able to shake us. Despite the risks associated with, Carl decided to gamble and take the turn anyway. He waited until the last possible moment and spun the wheel. Unfortunately for him, he’d taken the turn just a little too late and ended up sideswiping a nearby tree.