“Hello?” I called out. “Is anyone in there? Owen?”
I wasn’t about to waltz into a restaurant so clearly devoid of life. But my curiosity was piqued for the second time today. Why would the lobsterman have invited me to a closed restaurant?
I positioned myself in front of the door and opened it, slowly. The light from the lampposts on the pier splashed across the wooden boards.
I didn’t have to take a step inside to make out the shape on the floor.
A man, lying supine, a smear of something dark across his cheek. A lobster mallet lay a few feet from him, its end coated in something red. Something I was sure was blood.
It was my date, Owen.
And he was dead.
3
“And you just happened to be here to find the body?” The detective, a squat little man who wore a scowl that transformed him into a caricature of a villain, sat with his notepad and pen on his lap and glared at me.
“I didn’t just happen to be here,” I said, shifting on the bench at the end of the pier. “I was here for a date.”
“With the deceased.”
“Yes.” I’d already told him this about five times, but Detective Jones, the incarnation of every small town mean police officer cliché, hadn’t taken any of it in. That or he just wanted to question me until we were both blue in the face.
And given that it was fall, and the chill wind off the ocean had dropped another few degrees in the past half an hour, it was likely we’d both change color or freeze at this rate.
I shifted on the bench, my gaze darting toward the restaurant and away again. Each time I looked over at it—now with its crime scene tape out front and police officers moving around the entrance, talking softly—my stomach did a turn, flip and a plunge.
Owen was dead.
I had never seen a dead body before. No, that wasn’t right. I’d never seen a ‘murdered’ body. The only time I’d experienced anything similar had been at my Great Aunt Tiana’s funeral where there’d been an open casket. I’d been fifteen-years-old at the time, and I’d passed out right in front of the coffin. Twenty years had passed, but I wasn’t any less squeamish.
It was much easier to write articles about war or famine or death than it was to confront it face-to-face.
I squeezed my eyes shut and caught my breath.
“Tell me what you saw again,” Detective Jones said, in that commanding tone.
I faced him. “I didn’t see anything except… except for poor Owen on the floor. He had a smudge of something on his cheek, and there was a lobster mallet next to him. I—I didn’t see anything else. Or anyone else.”
“A lobster mallet,” Jones said. “Interesting that you remember that detail.”
“It was fairly obvious, given that it was covered in blood.” I shuddered. “Look, what’s your point?”
Detective Jones took his time writing something down on his notepad then underlining it three times, viciously.
“Detective, may I go? I’ve given you my statement and answered all your questions. I don’t see how—”
“You know when we last had a murder in Carmel Springs?” he asked.
“No. I’m new to town.”
“That’s what I thought.” He snapped his notepad closed. “The last time we had a murder was last fall. During tourist season. All these leaf peepers come down here, thinking they belong. They bring trouble with them. The guy whodunit the last time? He was a tourist too.”
“Too?” I stiffened. “What on earth are you suggesting?”
“That you don’t leave town,” he replied. “Not until this investigation is over.”
I hadn’t planned on leaving for another few weeks, but the fact that I couldn’t, now, sat in the back of my mind. What if the customers here didn’t buy? What if we needed to move on? Just how long did a murder investigation usually take to—?
“Ruby!” A shout traveled along the pier.
Both the crotchety detective and I looked up.
Bee came scuttling toward me, still wearing her Bite-sized Bakery apron from the truck. “I heard the sirens,” she said. “And then some old guy came by and told me that there’d been a murder at the restaurant.”
“Which old guy?” Detective Jones and I asked, in unison. We exchanged a glance, one that was fraught with dislike and tension.
“You let me handle the questions, young lady,” he said.
He was probably five years older than me and a few inches shorter. Not that there was anything wrong with short, but still … ‘young lady?’
“Who are you?” Bee asked, eying the detective. “A rent-a-cop?”
“No, Bee, he’s a real detective. Investigating the case.”
Jones had drawn himself up straight at the phrase ‘rent-a-cop.’
“Who died?” Bee asked, looking back over her shoulder at the restaurant.
“I’ll fill you in later,” I said. “Detective, are we done here? Am I allowed to leave?”
“No,” Jones said, his beady brown eyes narrowing. “I still have a few questions about your involvement.”
“What involvement?” Bee asked.
“Ma’am, I’m going to need you to back up. This is an ongoing police investigation, and I need to question Miss Holmes as a person of interest in the case.”
Bee pursed her lips at the detective, but retreated after a few moments, hanging back near the railing at the touristy stall nearest to the restaurant. She peered out over the ocean but cast surreptitious looks our way as if checking whether I needed her help.
I took a deep breath and focused. “Wait, I’m a person of interest?” This can’t be happening.
He couldn’t seriously think I had anything to do with this. But then, his whole ‘leaf peeper’ speech had pretty much insinuated that. “Look,” I said. “I didn’t do anything wrong. Owen asked me out on a date this morning. All I did was turn up here at the right time and—”
“You expect me to believe that he invited you to have dinner at a restaurant that’s always closed on a Monday?”
“I didn’t know that. I was asked out on a date. I spent all day working, I didn’t even have time to—”
“Why would he ask you to this place if it was closed?”
“I have no idea,” I said. “I wasn’t the one doing the asking.” Prickles danced over my skin—this always happened when I got frustrated. The prickles and then I’d get hot, and then I’d say something I’d regret. “This is ridiculous. I’ve cooperated with you fully, and I’ve done absolutely nothing wrong except getting the shock of my life.” I swallowed, trying to calm myself down. “Look, I’m staying at the Oceanside Guesthouse. If you need to talk to me again, I’ll be there. And I park my food truck down at the beach every day too.”
Detective Jones tapped his pen on his pad one last time. “Fine,” he said, at last. “You can go. But I’ll be in touch, Miss Holmes. Don’t go anywhere.”
“I wasn’t planning on it.” I rose from the bench.
I wobbled slightly and steadied myself on the wrought-iron arm. It was the murder. It had me woozy. That or the detective’s line of questioning had sent me into a dizzy state. Either way, I had to get off this pier.
I met Bee in front of the stall, and she looped an arm around my shoulders. “Are you all right? You look like you’ve seen, well, exactly what you just saw.”
“A corpse,” I said.
“Now, there’s something that will keep you up all night.”
“I hope not. We’re supposed to open the truck early tomorrow.” But Bee was right. If I closed my eyes now, I’d wind up running the whole event through my head again.
“Come on,” my friend said. “Let’s get you back to the guesthouse. We can have some hot cocoa before bed and talk about what happened.”
“Do you really think talking will help?”
“It’s better than lying awake, staring at the ceiling,” Bee replied, and patted me on the back.
I cast a last glance at t
he Lobster Shack. Detective Jones was out front, and he stared at me as we walked away, his mouth set in a thin line.
4
The guestrooms we’d hired out in the Oceanside Guesthouse were small but quaint and linked through a shared bathroom. We’d opted to leave the doors open for now, which I greatly preferred since I was spooked out after the whole ‘dead body in the restaurant’ incident.
I sat on the armchair at the end of Bee’s bed in her suite and curled my legs underneath myself. The guesthouse was mostly self-service, with set meals for dinner, breakfast, and lunch if one booked to eat.
Unfortunately, it was way too late for us to attend the dinner, and the guesthouse didn’t have room service. However, there was a station for coffee, hot cocoa and tea in the corner of every room, and it was there where Bee stood now, humming under her breath as she fixed us two mugs of hot cocoa and plopped mini-marshmallows into the frothy chocolatey liquid.
She brought the mugs over to the tiny seating area and handed one to me before settling into her armchair and propping her feet up on the coffee table. “I’ve got an ache in my toes,” she said. “And in my neck. And one in my brain from all the customers this morning.”
Bee was friendly to me, but she was definitely a ‘behind-the-scenes’ type of person. She preferred baking to talking to folks. Whereas I enjoyed discovering the strange personalities in this small town.
“The toes and the neck might need a soak in the tub,” I said. “I’m afraid I don’t know what to do about the brain pain.”
“I’m thinking a good set of earplugs might do the trick,” she replied, smiling. But her mirth faded. “How are you? You were so pale when I arrived on the pier, you looked like a ghost.”
“I know I need a tan,” I said, tugging my warm fluffy robe toward my body, “but that’s a bit harsh.”
Bee chuckled.
I took a sip of my hot cocoa to bolster myself and nearly burned my top lip on a marshmallow. I scooped it out with a greedy finger and deposited it into my mouth, relishing the sweetness as it spread over my tongue and warmed me.
The sugar helped, that was for sure. I no longer felt as if I was about to keel over or faint or worse.
“All right, so what do you think happened?” Bee set her mug down on her lap, grasping it between her palms.
“I know what happened,” I said. “Someone murdered Owen with a lobster mallet.”
Bee, who had lifted her mug to take another sip of cocoa, snorted and nearly did a spit take. “I’m sorry, what?”
“A lobster mallet.”
“As in the tool? The tool used to crack open the lobster shell and get to the succulent meat inside?”
“I wasn’t aware there was another kind of lobster mallet,” I replied.
“No, no, there isn’t. I think. I just wanted to be sure we’re on the same page,” she replied. “A lobster mallet. Now, that is unique. What kind of murderer walks around with a lobster mallet?”
“I have no idea,” I said, and I didn’t shudder this time. It was much easier to discuss this when I wasn’t in the shadow of a murder scene.
“Perhaps a roving diner, angry about the fact that they hadn’t yet sated their hunger?”
“Bee…”
“I know, I know, not an appropriate joke, but still. It’s a strange weapon choice,” she said. “As murder weapons go, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a lobster mallet killing.”
“Haven’t spent much time in Florida?”
“I thought that was the chainsaw massacre state? Or was it shotguns? Shovels?”
“Are you trying to make me dizzy?” I asked. “You know how I am with blood. And I just saw a whole mallet coated in the stuff.”
“Yuck. Sorry. And I’m sorry about your date too. This Owen guy sounded nice. Albeit strange.”
I took another sip of cocoa. “I wonder who did it.”
Bee met my gaze and held it for a moment. “Me too.”
I didn’t know what Bee had done in her past. Her resume had been sparse, apart from a year-long stint at a patisserie in SoHo, and a certificate proving that she’d taken a two-year baking course. Before that, there was nothing. I hadn’t asked, even though I’d been sufficiently curious to do a quick online search that hadn’t turned up much.
But I trusted her implicitly. Bee was one of those people who had an open smile and said exactly what they meant. I liked that, particularly since I’d spent so much time interviewing people for articles on topics they didn’t want to talk about.
“You know,” Bee said, scooping one of her marshmallows out of her cocoa and slurping it down, “motive is important. And the question is valid. Who would be walking around with a lobster mallet? Was running into Owen accidental or intentional? And how on earth did they know he would be in that restaurant?”
“Well, the place was called the Lobster Shack. Maybe the killer grabbed the mallet from the kitchen or the bar or something?”
“Maybe.”
“An even better question would be why on earth Owen asked me to go out to eat at a restaurant that was known for being closed on a Monday evening. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Hmm. That is strange.” Bee sank into a quiet.
It was broken by the gentle creak of the bathroom door.
Bee and I tensed, immediately. I set my cocoa down, trembling, and peered at the darkened crack between the edge of the bathroom door and the jamb.
“Who’s there?” I called out.
Bee rose from her chair. “Come out, right now,” she said. “We know you’re in there.”
The door creaked again, and my heart pitter-pattered like crazy.
A calico cat paw reached around the bottom of the door and hooked claws into the wood. Another creak and a kitty cat leaped into view with a meow and a purr.
Bee burst out laughing. “It’s a cat. Of course, it’s a cat.”
For a moment, I’d thought a lobster mallet wielding psychopath had been hiding in the bathroom. I giggled, and the kitty cat meowed and darted over to me. It rubbed its cute face against my legs, purring loudly.
“Who are you?” I asked, and scratched behind its ears.
“I think that’s Samantha’s cat,” Bee said. “She mentioned it this morning at breakfast. It’s a tom.”
The cat’s collar jingled, and I caught the name tag between my fingers. “Trouble,” I said. “His name is Trouble.”
“Fitting, given that he nearly scared the cocoa out of my hands.”
I grinned and kept on stroking Trouble. “I’ve always wanted a cat.”
“Why didn’t you ever get one?”
I paused, thinking over how to word the answer. “Well, I’ve never had the chance. My ex was allergic, and now that we’re on the road…”
Bee nodded. “Seems like you’ll have Trouble’s company while we’re in Carmel Springs.” She paused then broke out in peals of laughter. “I just realized how that sounds.”
“You’re not wrong. Trouble has certainly found me.”
Hopefully, the only type that would accompany me through my day tomorrow would be the furry, clawed kind.
5
I stifled a yawn as I took another order for a Mudslide Chocolate Cake and handed out change. I hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep after the whole ‘lobster mallet murder’ thing, and Trouble had spent the night on the end of my bed, purring and massaging my comforter.
“Careful,” Bee said, as I yawned a second time. “Keep doing that and you’ll swallow someone whole.”
I managed a watery-eyed smile as I dished a delectable, mudslide chocolate mini-cake into one of our branded boxes. Bee was a master at making these. They were ever-so-chocolatey, with a fudge frosting on the outside, moist cake beneath it, and then a runny, oozy chocolate filled center.
“These are delicious,” the customer said, as she accepted the box. “I had one yesterday morning.”
I vaguely remembered her from my early morning stint in the truck. She’d definitely introdu
ced herself to me, and though I usually had a knack for placing names with faces, I pulled a blank now.
The woman, a blonde, slim, petite and in her twenties from what I could tell, offered me a smile. “It’s Grace,” she said. “Grace Allen. We met yesterday morning?”
“I remember. Sorry, I’m exhausted and forgetful this morning. How are you, Grace?”
“Oh, doing fine. Just fine. Well, fine given the circumstances.” She rounded her words, nicely. “You heard about what happened at the Lobster Shack?”
“Yes. Regrettably,” I said.
Bee took over the register, and I stepped to one side in the truck, Grace following me to continue the conversation.
It was always good to get to know the locals, and I had come to soak up the atmosphere in the small town. Granted, I hadn’t planned on soaking up a murder while I was at it.
“Terrible way to go,” Grace said, softly, her fingers clutching the cake box.
“Terrible.” I agreed. “I suppose folks around here are shaken up about it.”
Grace shrugged. “I guess.”
“No?”
“Some of them are,” she said. “But most are carrying on. It’s the New England way. That and… no, I shouldn’t say.”
“Please do,” I replied. “This gossip session is helping to wake me right up.”
Grace’s lips, crimson with lipstick, parted. “Between you and me, Owen wasn’t exactly the most popular guy around here. You know, he got under a lot of people’s skin. I should know. I work at the Lobster Shack. He was always around. And he—”
The whoop of a police siren cut across Grace’s words.
The car had parked right next to the truck. The long line of customers turned their heads as Detective Jones emerged from the cruiser.
“Uh oh,” Bee muttered. “Looks like Danny DeVito is back to question us again.”
“Bee.”
“You’re right, Danny DeVito is a talented man. A treasure.” Bee nodded to the detective. “Can’t say the same for him.”
Bite-Sized Bakery Cozy Mysteries Box Set Page 2
