by Ginny Gold
It took four rings before she heard his voice, but it was only his voicemail. Instead of thinking for a few seconds and realizing that he was probably busy talking to Kyle, she’d completely forgotten that he had a job to do.
Kori hung up and called the direct line to the police department. She knew 911 would take her to a switch board and she wanted to talk to someone at the station rather than having them send someone out to meet her.
“Hermit Cove Police Department,” a voice said to Kori, who had finally managed to slow her breathing enough to answer somewhat coherently.
“Hi,” she stammered. “Is Zach Gulch available?”
“Not at the moment. What can I help you with?”
“Is this Lani?” Kori asked.
“Nope. But I can get her.”
Kori waited while whoever had answered left to find Lani. At least she’d be talking to someone who knew her and might take her seriously.
“Hello?” a man’s voice said, breaking through Kori’s thoughts.
“Zach?” she asked. The previous voice must have found Zach free instead of Lani.
“Kori?”
“Yeah.”
“Where are you? Why are you calling here? Are you okay?” He asked each question slightly faster than the previous one, letting Kori know that he was worried about her.
“I’m fine. I think I found something you’ll want to see,” she told him.
“Can it wait?” he asked. “I’m talking to someone with a possible lead.”
“Kyle?”
Zach paused on the other end of the line. “How’d you know?”
“I was with him at the Bells’ house.”
“Is what you found related to this case?” he asked carefully.
“Yes.”
“Where are you? I’m on my way.”
“I’ll meet you at the beach.”
Zach hung up before Kori could tell him anything else. She held the phone out in front of her, looking at the screen to make sure the line was really dead. The police department’s contact information was flashing so she knew there was no longer anyone on the other end.
Ibis had finally lost interest in the branch, probably because Kori had stopped pulling on the other end of it. “Come on Ibis,” Kori said, gently pulling on the leash to bring her back to the beach.
But Ibis wasn’t interested in following Kori. There was another scent she’d picked up and Kori had to use all of her strength to get her to turn her body around and follow her back the way they’d come.
“We’ll come back, I promise. But you have to behave yourself,” Kori said, pulling a treat from her pocket and making Ibis all but forget about whatever she’d smelled.
Back at the beach, the family with matching coats had disappeared, leaving it completely deserted. Kori considered letting Ibis off the leash to really get out some of her pent up energy but thought better of it when Ibis tried to pull Kori back to Jenna and Kyle’s property.
Only five minutes after Kori and Ibis had returned to the beach, a police car drove up, no siren wailing. Zach got out of the driver’s seat and sprinted to where Kori was keeping Ibis as calm as possible.
“What’d you find?” he asked, kissing her cheek.
“I don’t know if it’ll end up being useful because I touched it and Ibis picked it up in her mouth, but I realized I might have picked up the murder weapon used to kill Lou McKay when my hand came away with blood on it.”
Zach looked at her with questions in his eyes that he wasn’t asking. “What is it?”
“A big stick.”
Zach nodded. “Show me where it is.”
Kori silently led Zach down the path toward Jenna’s property, Ibis pulling on the leash the whole way. She seemed to know they were going back to where she wanted to be because she stopped right at the same branch on the ground.
“This?” Zach asked, crouching down to examine it.
“Yeah. Ibis picked it up and wanted to play with it.” Kori pointed to the end she’d held on to and added, “I grabbed that end to play tug-of-war and my hand came away bloody but I didn’t find any cuts.”
Zach pulled a pair of latex gloves from his back pocket and slipped them on. Then he carefully picked up the branch and looked closer at the area Kori had pointed out. “There’s definitely blood. But I’ll have to take it in to test it to make sure it’s a match for Lou. And it’s in the right location to be the murder weapon.” Zach looked up and away from the lake and Kori followed his gaze. She could just make out the yellow of the police tape through the tall grass.
“Will you be able to find any prints on it?” Kori asked hopefully. She really wanted Jenna to be released.
“I hope so. We’ll have to ignore yours. But we’ll see what we can find. Plenty of it doesn’t have any bark so we should be able to get clear prints there.”
“You think you can get that done today?”
Zach chuckled. “The day before Thanksgiving?” He glanced at his watch. “At three in the afternoon? I’ll get going now so Jenna has a good chance of being home tonight.”
Kori smiled. She knew he’d understood her question without having to explain her thought process. “And then you won’t have to think about the case tomorrow when you’re helping in the café.” Kori gave him her best enticing smile.
“I’m always thinking about work but I’ll do my best to keep it under control. I’m gonna get going. And I suggest you get out of here too.”
Kori followed his advice and led Ibis, against her will again, back to her car. She kissed Zach before he left and then headed back to the café. She had plenty of work to do for tomorrow, and now she could fully concentrate on it with this investigation going down a better path.
When Kori opened the door to The Early Bird Café, she felt a huge weight come down off her shoulders. Life would be returning to normal. Victor McKay had motive to kill his brother, had opportunity—he was in town—and now it looked like the murder weapon had been found. Kori was feeling much more relaxed and was ready to fully enjoy the holiday tomorrow.
Before getting back to work on tomorrow’s menu, she let herself take a quick ten minute break to do nothing. She pulled out her phone and got on Facebook, a good activity that didn’t involve thinking and allowed her to space out.
She was surprised to have three new friend requests—all family members of Jenna’s. Apparently she hadn’t been online since before the baby shower on Monday and was just seeing them for the first time.
Jenna’s mother, Darla, her sister Judy and even her cousin, Dani, had all requested to be her friends on Facebook. She accepted each one and spent a few minutes browsing each of their profiles. They’d already posted photos from the baby shower that Kori hadn’t even seen get taken, probably because she’d been so busy making sure everyone was happily eating.
Kori thought the best photo was of Jenna with her sister and mom, smiles across each of their faces, and holding onesies up in front of each of them. Each one had a different vegetable and a play on words saying. Jenna’s had an onion and the words ‘cry baby’ on the front. Kori couldn’t help but laugh.
In the background of several of the photos, she could see Dani happily gesturing away as she told stories to people Kori barely recognized from the shower. She thought she must have been much more comfortable in that crowd because whenever Kori had talked to her, she’d stuttered and barely moved her hands at all.
Kori finally put her phone away and went into the kitchen. Ibis followed, looking around for her bed in the office, and Kori moved it back there from where she’d left it by the front door. “You only like it out front when there are people around?” she asked her dog, who happily lay down and curled up.
Then Kori was ready for work again. The cranberry sauce that she’d started in the morning was a simmering pot of sweet and sour smells. She grabbed her potato masher and started mashing the cranberries into a sticky pulp, letting it cook even longer.
There were already six p
ies assembled in the fridge and ready for the oven, but she needed twice as many so she set to work on more pumpkin and apple pies. She loved playing around with the tops of the apple pies, making some into lattices and others into designs or even writing things on them. She used cookie cutters and made stars, hearts and birds that she lay on top of the lattices. On one, she wrote ‘Happy Thanksgiving’ but the letter g came out looking more like the number nine. Oh well, she thought, no one else will see them.
There was still cornbread leftover from the morning, but she’d need another batch to make one of her stuffings—cornbread stuffing. So she got that baking and then moved on to peeling butternut squashes. She didn’t want to leave that time consuming task for the morning and had almost all eight squashes finished when her phone rang.
She wiped her hands on a towel and looked at the screen before answering. Kyle. Great.
“Hey Kyle, how’s it going?” she asked, hopeful that he would have good news.
“Kori, it’s Jenna. I’m home. Thank you so much.”
Kori almost squealed with excitement. If Jenna had been released, did that mean that Zach had arrested Victor? “I’m so happy to hear that,” Kori said.
Before she could go on, Jenna started talking again. “But Vera’s being questioned.”
CHAPTER 13
Kori stood in her kitchen with her mouth hanging open. She was glad she didn’t have customers to worry about right now because she wasn’t sure how long it would take for her to recover.
“What? Why?” Kori finally asked, sitting on a stool.
“I think they found her fingerprints on the murder weapon,” Jenna explained. “That branch you found had Lou’s blood on it and Vera’s prints.”
Kori was speechless again, her breath even almost gone. “Did she kill Lou?”
“I don’t know,” Jenna said. “I doubt it.”
Kori thought back to Monday morning. There had been plenty of things going on that were out of the ordinary, and Vera’s bloodied hands was one of them. She was never in that early. Why was she there that day?
“I’ve gotta go,” Jenna said, bringing Kori back to the present. “I have to go help my mom with tomorrow’s meal.”
Kori could hear the relief in Jenna’s voice now that she was home. She couldn’t imagine having to go through a night in jail for a crime she hadn’t done. All while very pregnant.
“Yeah. Thanks for calling. I’m glad you’re out. I’ll call Vera later to see if everything’s okay,” Kori said before hanging up. “Happy Thanksgiving. I guess you have plenty to be thankful for now.”
“Yeah.” Jenna chuckled. “I do. Happy Thanksgiving to you, too.”
Kori put her phone down on the counter behind her and dropped her hands into her lap. She didn’t know what to do or what to think. She’d been so sure Victor had been involved, and now Vera was on the suspect list?
But there was nothing she could do right now. The oven beeped and Kori had to get back to work. She took the cornbread out of the oven and set the pan on a cooling rack. She’d let it cool overnight and make the stuffing in the morning.
Tonight she’d make only one more thing—mashed potatoes. She put water on to boil and started peeling potatoes. She had enough for forty people, so it took her quite a while to get through them all.
While she peeled, Kori hummer to herself, trying to distract her brain from continuing to wonder what had happened to Lou and why so many of her friends were turning up as suspects. Did Vera even know Lou? Why would she have been on Jenna’s property? Especially that early in the morning. Had she just been in the wrong place at the wrong time? Could she have dumped the body there in an attempt to hide it? And why had Jenna been out there? She’d forgotten to ask when they were on the phone. Now she’d have to wait. She supposed she didn’t need a reason, but it still didn’t seem to all add up.
Before Kori knew it, the potatoes were all peeled and in a big pot of boiling water. Now she had about a half hour to wait until she could start mashing them. But she could get the rest of the ingredients ready—butter, cream, chives and garlic. She liked to make her mashed potatoes with a little more excitement than just leaving them plain.
Finally, with nearly half of tomorrow’s meal ready, Kori took Ibis out for a quick walk—noticing that Furry Friends was empty and dark—and then went home to her apartment above the café. She had no evening plans and wasn’t hungry for dinner yet so decided on a glass of wine to fully relax. The week had been incredibly busy so far, and tomorrow didn’t look like it would be slowing down.
With her wine poured and her feet up on the coffee table, Kori leaned back into the couch and sighed, letting the worries from the day leave her body. When she had taken the first sip, she looked at the time and thought that if Vera had been released, she’d be home by now and Kori wanted to know what had happened.
She dialed Vera’s number and waited.
And waited.
Just when Kori thought her voicemail would pickup, she heard Vera answer. “Kori?”
“Hi Vera,” Kori said as calmly as she could. After a moment of awkward silence, Kori continued. “I talked to Jenna and she said you were being questioned in the Lou McKay murder. What happened?”
“Oh, that was a big misunderstanding. It sounds like Ibis picked the same stick to play with that some of the shelter dogs had also been enjoying. My fingerprints were all over it, but I was nowhere near the scene of the crime when it happened.”
Kori thought back to the blood she’d seen on Vera’s hands. If that wasn’t Lou’s blood, then whose was it?
“Where were you when it happened?” Kori asked, needing to hear it from the source to know Vera was innocent.
“I actually saw you right around when he was killed on Monday morning. Remember? You knocked on the door. You probably thought it was strange that I was in so early so you were checking if I was okay.”
Wow, Kori thought, that was exactly what I was doing. Instead she said, “Yeah. I had noticed a light on in the shelter and Ibis was really interested about going in there. I think she was looking out for you too. You’re never there that early so I was worried. Was everything okay?” She decided to leave out the detail about the blood on her hands.
“It turned out okay. But I was worried there for a while. A dog went into shock after her first night in the shelter and did some pretty serious damage to herself. I always have someone there overnight and I got the call about three in the morning. You walked by around four thirty, right?”
Kori nodded but realized Vera couldn’t see her. “Yeah.”
“The dog’s okay now. But she’ll have to find a home soon. The shelter environment doesn’t really mix well with her.”
“I’m glad to hear things are okay and you’re home tonight. I was worried you might be in jail for Thanksgiving.”
“Nope. I’ll be at the café tomorrow afternoon for the first Thanksgiving dinner. I’m coming with Mel and Jackie. I’ll see you then.”
Kori hung up and returned to her wine. She was glad that Vera was home, and especially happy that she was innocent, but that still left the killer out there. Kori kept her phone in her hand and started looking up anything she could find about Lou McKay. If Victor hadn’t been arrested, the police must have a good reason why. But that left Kori without any suspects, and far too close to the crime now to leave it alone.
Searches for Lou’s name brought up plenty of hits about his company, and now his death. McKay Realty had been started in Michigan by his dad twenty years ago. They made a killing in the nineties when everyone was building, but since then business had been slow. Lou had hoped to expand into New England—why he picked Hermit Cove was beyond Kori—but he moved out here to try a new target: second homes and vacation properties. The economic downturn had probably added to why Lou had been pestering Jenna for her land. He knew that could turn his business around.
Also, Kori learned, early on in the company’s life, Victor had been involved. A lawsuit ag
ainst Gordon Wood Supply had given them a leg up as they were growing their company when they won millions. From the timeline Kori could piece together, Victor left the company just after that, taking his share of the millions with him.
So if Victor didn’t need the money, why would he be after the inheritance his dad hadn’t left him?
CHAPTER 14
Kori went to bed that night and made sure her alarm clock was off and she’d taken Ibis outside as late as possible so she could sleep in the next morning. Thanksgiving Day. The café wouldn’t be open for breakfast but she’d still have to get in relatively early to make sure the Thanksgiving meal for forty people was ready by one when the first group of twenty was coming. She and Zach were planning to meet at seven to get things going.
So when she rolled over and saw that it was already six o’clock, two hours later than she usually woke up, she worried for half a second that she was late. After sitting bolt upright, and fully waking herself and Ibis up in the process, Kori relaxed and slowly got out of bed. She still had time to shower and look a little bit more put together than on a regular working day.
Before doing that, she took Ibis for a quick walk so she wouldn’t have to rush. It was much shorter than usual and she thought that she’d have to take her to Nora’s after the meals if she had any energy left so she could get some real exercise.
Fifteen minutes later, Kori was in the shower, completely relaxed which was unusual for any morning. She let the water wash over her long blonde hair and take away any worries she was still holding on to. Today was a day for giving thanks, and one thing Kori was thankful for was her relatively stress free life.
Sure, she had the normal stresses of work, relationships and family. But she wasn’t directly involved in Lou’s murder, didn’t have any big health problems and had as much freedom as working for herself allowed.
By the time she turned the water off, her fingers and toes had turned to prunes and her arms were beet red from the hot water. She toweled off and pulled her hair into a ponytail that she let fall down her back.
