Several customers watched with interest—way too much interest—as Oscar slid the packets into a bag and headed out. Two women shot me glances as they murmured to each other. Just what I didn’t need, gossip about one of my food products being carried away by a law enforcement officer.
I wanted to stomp my foot in frustration, but restrained myself. The packets had been a great draw into the retail part of the store, especially for customers who’d had the hot version with their breakfast. Phil had even drawn a custom logo for me that I’d had printed on the wrapping. Instead of my usual store logo, this one had the grinning stack of pancakes wearing a Mexican sombrero. Instead of a skillet, the pancake person held a steaming mug topped with whipped cream. I could just picture Oscar’s team ripping my carefully assembled mix open and subjecting it to whatever kinds of tests they would do. My whole enterprise could go down the drain if they found something. If they could pin it on Howard, his life would, too.
Chapter Eight
My hand was reaching to turn the OPEN sign on the door to CLOSED at two-thirty when the door pushed in toward me. I stepped back.
“I’m sorry, we’re—” I halted midsentence when I saw Freddy was the latecomer. With everything going on, she was welcome.
“Robbie, I know you’re closing,” she said. “I’m not here to eat, but I have to talk with you.” Strands of hair crept out of her topknot onto her black wool peacoat, and she blinked watery eyes.
I flipped the sign and held out my arms for a hug. “I heard about Howard,” I murmured.
“That’s why I’m here.” She hugged me, then stepped back and gazed around the restaurant.
The only remaining customers were two men playing chess at the table I’d painted with a chessboard, plus one four-top with two young moms and two babies. Both little ones slept in their strollers and the women were catching up on girl talk while they could, from the looks of it. Danna scrubbed the grill.
“Come, sit down.” I headed for my little office corner and plopped into the wheeled chair at the desk, rotating to face out. “I’ll have to finish up with those folks when they’re ready to leave, but it looks like we have a little while.” I caught Danna’s eye and pointed to Freddy and myself. My assistant nodded her understanding.
Freddy took the armchair opposite me, shrugging out of her coat. She wore a blue Indianapolis Symphony fleece sweatshirt with faded jeans.
“Are they still questioning him?” I asked.
“Yes.” She swore softly. “Robbie, Howard thought he was doing the right thing. We’ve been waiting for the auditor for months. Naturally, it had to be this morning that he finally sent the report. There were all kinds of discrepancies, and he was able to trace some of the missing money to Jed. Of course Howard thought he should tell the police. And now they’re making like he killed Jed!”
“So it wasn’t just an accident on the ice?”
She threw up her hands. “I don’t think they know. If it was an accident, why are they keeping my husband there all day?”
“But questioning Howard doesn’t make sense.” I rubbed my forehead. “If you only got the report this morning, well, Jed was already dead. Right?”
“Tell me about it. But listen, will you help me figure out what really happened to Jed? I know you’ve looked into murders in the past.” Freddy sat forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped. “I have to get my husband home. It’s Christmastime, Robbie. Time for family to be together, not to be stuck in a police interrogation room.”
“I guess I can try to help, but I’m not sure how. I will tell you that Oscar Thompson, the state police detective, came in earlier and confiscated all my Mexican hot chocolate packets.”
She nodded slowly. “They showed up at the house and took the rest of the ones How had bought from you, too.”
“Ugh. We all drank some last night after dinner, too. All except Willa Mae. I bet they were interested in that.”
“Yep. They wanted the cup in which Howard had served Jed’s hot chocolate, but it had already gone through the dishwasher.” She shook her head. “It’s nuts. I mean, I admit nobody was in the kitchen while my husband prepared the hot drinks, but it would be supremely stupid for him to add poison to Jed’s hot chocolate right there in our kitchen. And Howard is not a stupid man.”
I drummed my fingers on my knee, thinking. “Freddy, did you notice how Jed seemed rude to Willa Mae? It seemed like he put her down more than once.”
“You think maybe he’d been abusive and she poisoned him?”
“It’s a stretch, I know. But if they find a toxin in the autopsy, somebody put it there, right? And she said she works with botanical toxins or something like that.” I tapped my fingers some more. “Except Jed couldn’t have been very sick. He took the dog out for an early-morning walk while it was still dark, after all.”
“I know.” She blew out a breath.
“What was in that bag you gave Willa Mae as we were all leaving? I just thought of it.”
“Just some dried wisteria pods. She’d seen a few still hanging from the vine outside and she wanted to spray them gold and silver as seasonal decorations. I had collected and dried a bunch in the fall, but I never got around to doing anything with them. I like decorating for Christmas, but my patience doesn’t extend to making the actual decorations. I’m no Martha Stewart.”
“Something about what Buck told me has been bugging me,” I said slowly. “He said Jed slipped on a patch of ice. But it hasn’t rained or snowed in a while, a couple of weeks at least. Why was there ice on the sidewalk?”
Her eyebrows zoomed up. “You’re right.” She scrunched up her nose. “Unless it was a patch of snow nearby that melted and ran onto the sidewalk?”
“I’ll go by and check it out when I get a chance.”
The moms stood and looked like they were getting ready to leave.
One of the chess players announced, “And mate.” The two men shook hands and scooped the pieces into the wooden box.
“I have to get back to work.” I stood. “Listen, let’s talk later. You learn anything, call or text me. I’ll do the same. All right?”
She stood, too. “Yes.”
“And don’t worry. Howard will be home for dinner, I’m sure.”
“Good thing we have lots of leftovers. I have my concert tonight on top of all this.” She pulled a wan smile. “Thank you for listening.”
“Any time.” I headed back to the work of being a restaurateur and business owner, but my thoughts were on an unpleasant man’s death. If it hadn’t been an accident, who might have killed him?
Chapter Nine
At a little after three-thirty, I stashed the day’s considerable cash in the safe I kept in the bedroom of my apartment behind the store. I started a load of store laundry—aprons, cloth napkins, and dish towels, all by design the same shade of blue. After I poured myself an IPA and flopped into a chair, my little tuxedo cat, Birdy, promptly jumped into my lap. I stroked his long smooth coat with one hand and lifted my glass with the other. It had been a long day and it wasn’t over yet. The cool beer went down just right, and the warm air coming up through the register warmed my feet. I set down the beer, running my hand over the beautiful table my late mother had made. All I had left of her were pieces of her handmade fine furniture, a few photographs, and a quarter century of memories of the best mom, ever.
I let out a sigh. “Birdy, I thought we were going to have a nice restful holiday.” A holiday week that now included the confiscation of my hot chocolate packets. I’d paid good money for the custom order, and nobody had blinked at the markup. Money now down the drain. Several customers had asked about them after Oscar had left. I’d merely replied that I had sold out and directed them to other gifts in the store, like the colorful hats my aunt knitted from her own sheep’s wool, as well as the array of cookware ornaments I’d stocked. “It’s gone all wacko out there,” I told my cat.
He replied with a happy purr, closing his eyes in a Sphinx pose, but stay
ing alert in case a snack might be in the offing.
As soon as those last few customers had paid and left earlier, I’d remembered to put in an order for all kinds of things we’d nearly gone eighty-six on—more diner jargon for running out of a dish or ingredient. Danna and I had come up with a green-and-red breakfast special for tomorrow—an asparagus, cherry tomato, and sharp cheddar omelet—and a Ho-Ho-Ho-Hoagie for lunch, with provolone, Genoa salami, and thin slices of tomato and green pepper on toasted sub rolls. Hot chocolate, Mexican or otherwise, was not going to be on the menu, though. Luckily, the supply company had given me a delivery time of later this afternoon. Otherwise, the breakfast special would have had to wait until Wednesday—Christmas Eve.
Checking my phone yielded nothing new from Freddy or Abe. I poked around for news about Jed’s death, but found only one item in the local online paper, which said a South Lick man was found dead this morning behind the library.
The library. Buck had said Georgia was the one who’d encountered Jed’s dead body. I’d agreed to help Freddy if I could. I could go talk with the library aide now, see if she would tell me any details about her grisly discovery. I yawned out loud as I looked up the library’s number and tapped it into my phone. A minute later, I disconnected. They’d told me Georgia had only worked until two o’clock and had gone home, but that she’d be in again the next morning. With any luck, I could pop over there tomorrow. What else could I learn without leaving the comfort of my own home?
I set Birdy down and shifted myself and the beer glass over to my laptop at the desk in the living room. For more in-depth searches, I preferred a real keyboard and a bigger screen than what the phone provided. As the system started up, I gazed out the window at the pale skim-milk light filtering through the trees beyond my driveway. I’d been too busy today to even be aware of what was going on outside except for the cold air that blew in every time the door opened. At least it wasn’t snowing.
I started to search for readily available poisons that acted quickly and were undetectable in a cup of cocoa. If the NSA ever monitored my Googling, I’d be in big trouble. Gah. There were so many botanical toxins. The poison in castor beans and rosary peas. All parts of the lily of the valley plant. Datura in trumpet vines. Who knew?
One entry caught my eye and chilled my blood. Saponin had a bitter taste and could cause plenty of damage to a person’s health, including death. And it was found in wisteria seedpods. Was it too bitter to be disguised by Mexican chocolate? My mix included dark cocoa, sugar, cinnamon, and a dash of hot pepper, so maybe it wasn’t. Had anybody told Oscar that Freddy had a supply of wisteria pods and had given some to Willa Mae, plant toxicologist? Probably not, or both of them would be at the station being questioned, too.
I pulled up Oscar’s number to text him, but hesitated. I hated to implicate Abe’s mom in this.
“Birdy, what should I do?”
He gave me the slitty eye, but not a word of advice. I blew out a breath and tapped out a text.
Willa Mae has dried wisteria pods. Check out their toxin saponin.
There. Mostly the truth. It was his job to find out where she’d gotten the pods. I flashed on the dirty look Karinde had given Jed in the restaurant. Had she said something about him later? No, but she’d mentioned that Cocoa had been rescued from a filthy puppy mill and had glared at Jed in the same breath. She surely wouldn’t have left Cocoa if she’d known Jed and Willa Mae were going to keep him for a few days. And Freddy wouldn’t have asked them to take the dog if there was something to the story, so maybe there wasn’t. Howard had been in business with Jed, after all. Danna had mentioned something about a puppy mill, too. I could ask her in the morning if she knew the name of the place.
Maybe it was time to create a crossword puzzle. Doing so had helped me in the past to lay out everything I knew about a case: clues and suspects and motives. My brain liked putting together the pieces, and seeing the elements of the investigation on a piece of graph paper often clarified the issues.
My phone dinged with an incoming text at the same time as the washer dinged that the cycle was finished. Oh. The delivery was already here, which set a record for them even though they’d promised it today. They must have added extra drivers for the holiday cooking season. Fine with me. I probably should have hired on a temp cook to replace Turner. Too late now.
I abandoned my Googling in favor of letting in the delivery person. By the time I’d stashed all the veggies and perishables in the walk-in cooler, it was five o’clock. I stood in the refrigerated compartment with my gaze on the two gallons of split pea soup I’d put away after lunch. Willa Mae had just lost her husband. I could bring her a pint of soup and condolences. And maybe learn something while I was there.
Chapter Ten
After texting Freddy for Willa Mae’s address, I headed out. On the seat next to me, I stowed a cloth bag containing a plastic container of soup and a half dozen fresh biscuits I just whipped up. My ancient Ford Econoline minivan had finally taken its last rattling, dysfunctional ride in October. The store was doing so well, I’d treated myself to a frankly adorable brand-new Prius C in a bright blue. It drove like a dream, included Bluetooth technology and heated leather seats, and the moon roof was a fun touch. The miles per gallon were awesome, too, averaging over 50 MPG even on Brown County’s hilly byways. I would add a bike rack on the back when the weather warmed up.
The Greenbergs’ home was a few blocks beyond the center of town. I could have walked, but the curtain of night was already falling, and the icy wind had chilled me simply walking out to the barn to get my car. During the short drive, I realized I had no idea if the Greenbergs had adult children. If they did, with any luck, at least one would have been summoned to grieve alongside Willa Mae and provide support, or perhaps other relatives were with her. Either way, it was always nice to bring condolence food. It was what folks did around here, and being a food-centric person, I approved of the custom.
I cruised by the library on my way. Turning into the parking lot behind it, I pulled to a stop. The after-hours box abutted the walkway, and a black iron fence stood three feet tall outlining the parking lot. Maybe movie lover Jed had walked by here because he often dropped a loaner DVD in the box.
Yellow police tape was strung in a wide circle around where Jed must have died. It included the box and blocked the walkway in two places about ten feet apart. I didn’t see any obvious piles of snow nearby. But the twilight didn’t give me a good glimpse of the ice, so I drove on. How the walkway got icy was still a puzzle.
At the Greenberg ranch house, it looked like every light inside was turned on, including the one over the front porch. I rang the bell and waited. When Willa Mae pulled open the door and saw me, she blinked.
I proffered the bag. “Hi, Willa Mae. I was so sorry to hear about Jed. I brought you some soup and biscuits.”
She peered at me. “Oh, it’s you, Robbie. Do you want to come in?”
“Sure. Just for a minute, if I’m not interrupting anything.” She hadn’t taken the bag, so I kept hold of it.
She stepped back and I followed her into the living room. The temperature felt like it was set at eighty degrees. She shut the door and pointed to the couch. “Please sit down.”
I set the bag on a coffee table full of newspapers and New Yorker magazines and sat. In the light, I looked more closely at Willa Mae. Last night, her hair had been fluffy and neatly arranged. Now it lay limp and mussed, like she hadn’t bothered to brush it all day. She wore a black turtleneck under an old IU sweatshirt with black yoga pants. Her face was bare of makeup, but her eyes weren’t red or watery and her gaze was sharp. Her feet were bare, too.
“Thank you for bringing food.” She perched on the edge of an armchair at right angles to the couch. “I haven’t been very hungry, but I know I should eat something.”
“You’re welcome, of course. Do you have children with you, or other family?”
She shook her head once to each side. “We never had k
ids. Just as well, really. And my family is in Illinois and Iowa. I called my sister and she’s on her way, but she’s driving from the western side of Iowa. It’s going to take her a day, at least.”
“It must have been such a shock to hear the news. Did Buck Bird come and tell you?”
“The tall goofy one?”
“He’s definitely tall.” Goofy? I guess some of his colorful phrases could prompt a person to think he was goofy, but he really wasn’t.
“I’d barely woken up when Lieutenant Bird arrived. When he told me the news, I couldn’t believe it. I almost didn’t answer the door.” She gave a shudder and rubbed her thumb against her first two fingers in a fast motion that looked like a nervous tic. “I don’t like policemen.”
“I can vouch for Buck, Willa Mae. He’s a good man. He talks kind of like a yokel, but he’s smart and an excellent officer.”
She shrugged. “Anyway, Jed must have gone out for his walk at six in the morning like he always does. The man is—or, was, I guess—a total creature of habit. This morning, he must have taken Cocoa, too. Last night, he’d said he would. I guess that was the last thing he ever said to me.”
“You didn’t see him this morning?”
“No. We have very different schedules and biorhythms. He goes to bed early and gets up early, and I’m the complete opposite. Plus, I apparently snore like a foghorn.” She gave a little laugh. “We’ve slept separately for years.”
I ran my finger around the neck of my sweater. I was getting overheated in here. “Buck told me Jed fell and hit his head. How sad.”
“That’s what the officer told me, too, and that Cocoa’s leash was tangled in Jed’s legs. My husband had been having an issue with balance recently. His doctor hadn’t figured out what caused it yet. He probably shouldn’t have been walking a puppy at all.”
I glanced around. The kitchen and dining room at the back of the house were open to the room where we sat. In the dining area, the table was covered with newspapers and an array of irregularly shaped seedpods, some shining with silver paint. The wisteria, no doubt, but no sign of Cocoa. “Where’s the puppy?”
Christmas Cocoa Murder Page 15
