A Gift for Murder

by Capri Montgomery

  “They should have solved the crime by now. Holmes is cute but he’s slow at solving. Right?”

  Megan snorted. “Sure. Cops always solve crimes by the end of the show.”

  Willa blew out a breath of air. “What?” She blurted out in a soprano pitch.

  “In the real world, it takes time. Murders, crimes of any type, don’t get solved in a blink of an eye outside the fictional world.” She shook her head. “Some of them never get solved.” She didn’t think they would not be able to eventually solve it but she wasn’t banking on the cliché quick, fast and in a hurry statement either.

  Willa snorted, uttered off more of the Forest Springs historic insults to her before scattering off down Whitten Lane for her exit to the Granger Hospital Clinic ward.

  Megan rolled her eyes. She was frustrated. Bullies never grow up and mature; they grow up and get wrinkly but they stay the same as they always were. Age did not bring with it maturity. Willa’s grandmother was the one who told her about the past of the Greek, like they dubbed her, and Megan was sure Willa’s mother told her, too.

  “Why did I come back here?” She shook her head at herself. What gave her the idea to set up her café in Forest Springs? Maybe the fact that it was a beautiful place to skirt around and she knew that. But the memories that sent her running from here were still here.

  “I think you came here to take control of your life, myself.” Merck sauntered up beside her. She hadn’t even known he was behind her.

  “Murder suspects find you often, huh?”

  Megan shrugged. “Seems that way sometimes.” She was like a magnet for murderers, it would seem. Murder suspects anyway. “According to she who stalked me from the park, you and the other officers need to arrest somebody and solve the murder already.”

  Merck snorted. “It’s only been fifty eight hours.”

  Megan shrugged her free shoulder. “Yep. But you, Detective of the Saints, need to solve it already. Like a wham, bam, case solved ma’am thing.” She tipped her head to her left shoulder. “Good luck with that, Holmes.” She knew it was not bloody likely to get done with a snap of a finger and that Merck was too skilled to try to rush perfection.

  “I can just haul all of them in.”

  She laughed at the smirk in his tone. “No you can’t, but thanks for the laugh. I needed that.”

  Merck nodded and walked beside her in relative silence. When they made it to her tricycle without her going to another store to find café art he helped her load her bags into her back cart and then offered to pull the rolling cart back to one of the docking points for it. She thanked him as she unlocked the Ulock holding her tricycle safely in place, mounted and paddled off. Home seemed like a good place to be right now, and the café could use another cleaning in the cookery.

  She was so happy she didn’t have to have a bathroom installed since the men, women and family restroom were two shops down from her shop on the other side of the street. The water room for employees was a single lavatory and far back in the back in the employee area so it wouldn’t get a hundred flushes a day type of use.

  Cleaning was something she always did to bring her a sanitary, livable and workable space but also to take her mind off things she really didn’t want to think about. Murder was simply not something she wanted to think about.

  With doors locked and all the blinds closed she set about working. The front door didn’t have a blind on it so there was enough light coming in from that angle.

  She smiled at herself. “Some of the buying options made sense. Technically, they would fit with the café since she had always said she wanted a café with class and style. While the employees wouldn’t have to wear a uniform with names sprinkled all over it they would still need to dress with decorum and class even if they were in relaxed pants and sweaters. She did not want guys with pants falling down their thighs, women with skirts up their behind or any trash style. The dresses she bought were like dresses and styles she already had. Being dressed appropriately herself might look like an episode of Leave it to Beaver to some but she cleaned, cooked and mopped floors in a skirt or dress often. She had the perfect butterfly apron to wear over whatever she wore to work that day so it would help keep it clean.

  Romero had sent her an email advising her to hire a chef to handle most of the work in the kitchen so she could manage the café more when the doors opened in the morning. She even looked into the man he suggested. The guy, Alasandro Gustavo, was one of his cousins who married an American in Rome, came to America with her and wanted to insure he got a chance to keep his ability to stay while he waited to get his citizenship. “It’s not as easy to get that, you know.” He had written. Since Alasandro had rave reviews and could get to her café in a little under an hour she thought hiring him would take some of the load off her feet. When she called Alasandro to make him the offer he instantly said yes. He even said that he and his girl would be moving to Forest Springs because she wanted away from her family and he did, too. They would land in the average district leasing a two bedroom condo so they’d have room for any babies. His commute would be lighter and his wife, an artist, would work from the garage that came with their condo.

  Megan thought having another chef would be great. She could bake the early morning sweets and he could take it over when he came in mid morning. She would still handle her staple treats but the daily special could be a two part deal. It meant she could at least sit down for an hour if nothing more. Of course, she’d have to get used to him to see if she could make it really work. With his wife being an artist maybe if the mini art display took off she could see if his wife wanted to submit some pieces for review that she might be able to put on the other side of the café for people to see and plan to buy from her.

  Megan knew what she had in mind, and what she had been working toward but she had to finish getting it all sorted out.

  Fortunately for her, the other chef didn’t want to work full time so he would be a late morning through early afternoon addition and gone by three o’clock three days a week so she didn’t really have to think of him stealing her business from her. He wanted to do Italian food and pizza. While his mother drilled pastries into his skull. Growing up his father gave him the gift of Italian food making.

  “I think if things work out for me here I’ll put a pizza and Rotini restaurant out there in Forest Springs.”

  She had laughed. “That’s fabulous. There is a space down the block from me that the owners are talking about selling in a couple years. Maybe you can buy it. Then we can spot each other, telling our customers of the food at both places.” That would be like friends helping friends. The more customers, the better the checkbook.

  She hadn’t really seen all the changes to her dream café that were coming together but at least all the changes seemed like a good thing. Megan could use some good in her life right now. Or more like more goods in her life. She just had to look at the bright side of things for a while. She had a flat, a home, of her own with a café right below her. She had good in her life. Maybe not perfect in her life, but nobody had that. Perfect just didn’t exist on this planet.

  Chapter Eight

  Two Murders and a Spa

  Megan arrived at the spa when the owner, Heather Bishop, arrived. The sweetest smile greeted her warmly as Heather invited her inside. She also turned into a chatterbox spilling each of the spa patron’s business in chopped up snippets.

  “I tell you, Meg, Symphony is an evil broad. All she does is try to hurt people. She says she was dating Sterling, but I don’t believe her. Sterling rarely even looked at her not even when she covalently kicked her seaweed spa treatment off the table before the tech got back with the warm towel she ordered her to go get. Sterling had to clean that mess up. Pepper, the full body spa mask tech, told me Sterling didn’t even look at her once.” She shook her head as she closed and turned the lock on the door after shutting the alarm code off. “Sterling needed a classy dame, not a wicked witch broad. So many women come to
the spa to try to get him, but none of them get him.”

  “Really?” that was not how she heard it.

  “Yeah, but their coming back gives me spa clients at least. I mean I get the lust. He had a fairly good look. Strong jaw, Irish onyx eyes and strong hands. Not to mention a great butt and strong set of fix it up hands. Women gabbed about his looks all the time. Especially when he had to take his shirt off to get one of the woman’s diamond earrings out the gold fish crate she dropped it in even after she was supposed to put the jewelry in the locker and not in her spa coat pocket.” She shook her head. “Brains were not gifted to some of these women but the man’s shirt and pants came off. He left his boxer briefs on but the women being nosy enjoyed the view.” She walked deeper into the next room gabbing about how the other women felt, but never much about how she felt about Sterling. Megan didn’t get to see the body so she could not say the chatter about Sterling’s looks was close to accurate. But attractive was relative. Opinion was not fact but all of these women saw something in him at least. Something worth doing almost every day of every week at the spa for.

  She knew she didn’t need the juicy details on anybody and their jarred relationships but knowing the details from a woman who always saw the inside could help her process events.

  “Oh I know it had to be one of those ladies. I cannot complain About a few of them turning up two days that week for the same treatments since I made money off that, but having a murder at my spa is not okay with me. Those women liked Sterling’s swag.” She shook her head. “Everybody liked his swag. Had you met him you would have fallen captive too.” She nodded at her own words as if she were a prediction ball with facts.

  Not likely. Megan wasn’t searching for swag like everybody else was.

  “Does everybody include you, too?” She had mentioned Miss Symphony, Linda Grant and Pepper Solstice right off but she failed to mention herself.

  “Oh no. Not me.” She opened the blue door and they both opened their eyes to another dead body, a female dead body, and a short beer bellied brunette standing over her with a bloody knife. Heather screamed and Megan hadn’t had a chance to do it before the bulky sand dust haired man plowed into both of them, knocked them into the rot iron cabinet and caused a loud pounding of pots and suppliers hitting the floor when the cabinet fell open as it spiraled down over them. Megan held her hands over head thankful it was just the inner workings of the cabinet falling down on them instead of the nearly two hundred pound cabinet itself. Heather was still squelching in a sharp soprano volume before the next sound was a door busting in from the other side of the room.

  Officer Montego and Officer Fresco pulled the cabinet up while two other officers pulled them from under it. When Megan was able to stand straight without support her eyes lifted upward to find the one man with an angry glare she did not want to see. Regal Detective Holmes looked far from happy with her being there.

  “What are you doing here, Megan?”

  So what if she was sleuthing? Kind of anyway. She could put it on her free day at the spa that she had won still being open since she hadn’t used her gift due to the murder. Of course, she still couldn’t use it because the place hadn’t been reopened for that yet.

  “What are you doing here?” His eyes narrowed at her sense she replied to his question with a question of her own.

  “An emergency call came in for help. Given recent events here we all came forthwith. I was close like the other officers.”

  That made some sense. She could only assume the woman on the floor made the call—maybe, maybe not.

  “Did you all catch the guy who ran out of here?”

  “He must have gone out the front. We came in through the back sense the caller said they were at the back of the place and there was a burglar there with a gun. We will need your account of what happened here.”

  She shrugged her shoulders knowing she would have to tell him what happened to them. “He didn’t have a gun but he did have a butcher knife. I know knives since I have to use different ones when cooking and baking.” She knew he would have other questions but she also knew he would take his sweet time getting to her since he handed her off to one of the other officers and then trekked over to Heather to speak with her first.

  If only she had made it her mission to avoid this place she would not have found herself wrapped up in yet another murder in the spa. First came man, then came woman brought an entirely new meaning to that frequently quoted statement.

  What Megan had to admit something did not quite seem right on this. It was more of a question of why was the one man in the spa. She had on a blazer Valentine pink from a high fashion line of clothing back a cost more than two hundred dollars for just a blazer. She knew fashion; she just never meant to spend a whole lot of money on blazers herself. Of course everyone has something that she liked and one in and if she had seen something that just made her want to spend a couple hundred dollars on that she would do it, but this woman diffidently had done it. Why was she in the spa when it was not open yet? The murder had obviously not been hours old because the blood was still pretty fresh. The problem was, however, who killed this woman? Could it have been the man that literally knocked them over to get out of the room? Or can it have been somebody else and he, like the typical and educated person, stooped down to pick up the knife that was covered in blood as he looked at the dead body there? It is possible that he didn’t do it and that he was the one that everybody would ask what did he pick up the weapon for. But he could have actually been someone who did kill the woman and just got caught after doing it. She would have to get more information on whoever that guy was and find out why he was in there. Seeing as though the place was closed he shouldn’t have been there.

  Megan was aware the owner had the key and actually did have to unlock the door and turn off the alarm to get through the door without setting it off to a piercing pitch of protection mode.

  “I had it right, but I got it wrong.” Heather shook her head as Detective Holmes asked her questions on why she picked Aaron Holden Security to protect her spa when that company had been out right shown to be the worst possible protection and security company for anybody to buy. He had a point. But she was also a new business owner when she did go ahead and have them install her security system and she had to worry more about money then. The spa had taken off but she still had to deal with paying for things and buying things. She was reluctant to tell him that those things were new shoes, new blouses, and new hair products. Yes her mind was not on the what would be needed because who robbed a spa? It was clear she was thinking more of the fact that nobody would rob a spa. But she never thought of anybody murdering somebody at her spa, or breaking into it to murder somebody else. It was clear that he probably thought she was a complete idiot but she could clean that up and let him know that she was a wonderful woman. Of course, right now, he seemed to be paying more attention to Megan than to her. What exactly did Megan have that she didn’t have?

  “I would advise you to update your security in order to provide more protection to the spa. Now I need to ask you some questions about the woman that was murdered in your spa. Did you know her very well?”

  Unfortunately for her, she did know her very well. She only knew what she looked like because they had brought the picture of the woman that was lying face down on her floor in her spa. “She has come in here a few times for her spa treatments. That woman was a pain in triplicates because she always wanted but she never wanted to pay for what she wanted. While all of her masseuse team and facial team were paid well they still deserved a tip. She wasn’t sad that the penny pinching block of ice was dead but she wouldn’t tell the detective that.

  “I don’t know why she was in here before I even opened but I do know I see her getting facials for wrinkle reduction often.” She watched as the detective jotted down more notes. The far too handsome detective was perfectly comfortable with the situation right now. Of course, he appeared to look comfortable because this was
his job to investigate, not just who murdered somebody, he had to investigate everything else. Like the lack of security.

  He was a homicide detective and not just any crime detective. She barely did know that much about the man, but what she did know was that his ease of standing there was going to work her nerves. He was comfortable and she wasn’t. Of course his job depended on solving crimes and her job depended on keeping her spa alive and beautiful and two murders in under a week at her spa wasn’t helpful.

  “She did like the Red Light room when she came. It’s not what some think. There is absolutely no prostitution in my spa. You know about that district. The red light is a….”

  “I know what the Red Light District is. I have worked all over the world solving crimes so I don’t need an education from you on the district.” His voice lacked humor and the tense pull of his jaw screamed angry yet she was not ready to give up.

  “Yes. I know. Um…the red light room is the room with the pink door. I could take you in there to show you what I do in there. It will satisfy you.”

  His jaw twitched in anger. “I have seen the room with the queen bed in it while we were investigating the first murder here. Stop trying to seduce me. You are still as much a suspect on the first murder here as you are right now. I am going to have Officer Roust over there take your statement. Roust is a female so maybe she can help you stop being a bitch in heat.”

  Had he just compared her to a female dog? Yes he had. He had uttered those words, flagged over the female officer, told her to take a statement and uttered something in cop lingo to the female officer while padding away from her and back over to Megan.