Christmas Cocoa Murder

by Carlene O'Connor

  Along the way, Cocoa stopped and did some serious business in front of the octagonal gazebo. I scooped up the poop with a plastic bag, which I plucked off a little roll attached to the leash, a handy invention. The gazebo, the site of the former Jupiter hot spring South Lick was named for, had had a giant menorah set up in the middle of it for the week of Hanukkah, with a ceremonial lighting every evening at sunset. The town was an equal-opportunity holiday celebrator, at least for Christians and Jews.

  As we continued toward the library, a tall, slender woman came toward us and smiled.

  “What a cute puppy.” She stooped to pet Cocoa. She looked somewhere around seventy. Her nails were painted a brilliant scarlet red that matched a stylish short leather jacket over black stretch pants. “How old is he?”

  “I’m not sure. A few months, I think.”

  The woman raised an impeccably shaped eyebrow as she straightened. “You’re not sure?”

  Something about her seemed familiar to me, but I couldn’t place it, and I didn’t think I’d seen her in the store before. I smiled. “He’s not mine. I’m just keeping him for friends for a couple of days.”

  “Well, he seems like a sweet one. Your friends are lucky. You have a lovely holiday, now.” She gave Cocoa one more pet and moved on.

  I dropped the bagged poop in a municipal trash can in front of the library, and we trotted up the steps. I hoped it was okay to bring him in for a few minutes. If not, maybe Georgia could step outside while we talked.

  She stood behind the front desk, scanning the bar codes of a stack of books. When the man checking them out left, I picked up Cocoa and stepped forward.

  “Is it okay to bring him in for a minute?”

  “Sure, Robbie, it’s cold out. What a sweet dog. I didn’t know you had one.” Georgia was a well-padded woman on the far side of forty, with bottle-blond hair and a huge warm smile.

  I laughed. “I don’t. I’m dog sitting for a couple of days.”

  “Hey there, sweetie.” She reached across and petted Cocoa’s head. “How have you been, hon? I haven’t made it into the restaurant in a while.”

  “I’m fine.” I glanced around, but no patrons were within earshot. “I heard you found Jed Greenberg yesterday. That must have been really hard.”

  She brought her thin eyebrows together. “It was, for sure.” She looked more closely at Cocoa. “Oh. That’s the same doggy, isn’t it? His name is Cocoa.”

  “Yes, that’s right, you already met him. I forgot about that.” Which was pretty dumb of me, come to think of it. He wriggled in my arms, so I set him down, but kept the leash tight so he didn’t roam.

  “I was so glad he had a tag with his name and his owner’s. But, Robbie, the strangest thing was the ice.”

  “Because we haven’t had snow or rain lately?”

  “Exactly.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I empty that bin every morning we’re open. That pavement has been as dry as my hometown in northern Kentucky. Where on earth did the ice take and come from? I think somebody must have poured water on that there spot overnight. I told the detective, but he didn’t seem to pay me much mind.” She shook her head. “Now the why of it has me stumped. What do you think?”

  “I’m not sure, unless somebody dumped their soda or emptied their water bottle. You don’t have any enemies, do you?”

  Georgia laughed. “Little old me? I get alone with purt’ near everybody. Why? You think somebody knew my routine with the returns box and wanted me to slip and get myself bonked upside the head?”

  I flipped open my hands. “It was just a thought.”

  “Nah, I don’t have no enemies.” She sobered. “But that Mr. Greenberg sure might could have had himself some. He was as unpleasant as they come.”

  “Did Jed come into the library a lot?”

  “From time to time. Mostly for movies, not for books, though.”

  “I heard him talk about how he loved classic movies. Was that what he checked out?” I asked.

  “Yes. Well, all kinds of movies, really. Sometimes it would be our newest releases. You know we don’t have a theater here in town, and the Brown County Playhouse in Nashville only has showings four or five times a month. Sometimes people don’t want to go all the way to Bloomington to watch a flick on a big screen. Mr. Greenberg said he actually had a screening room in his basement at home, with a big screen and surround sound and all whatnot.”

  “That makes sense for a movie buff. You said Jed was unpleasant. What did you mean?”

  She looked down at the counter, straightening a pile of already-tidy papers. She met my gaze. “I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but I found him demanding and rude, and that’s a fact. Why, he came in with his wife once and lost his temper even with her. She backed away from him like she was frightened. Of her own husband!”

  “Jed didn’t win any charm awards, that’s for sure.”

  The antique tall-case clock rang once. Ouch. It was already ten-thirty. My phone dinged with a text from Danna.

  Where are you? We’re slammed.

  I had to get back. I thanked Georgia and hurried out with the puppy and my new piece of information. Where had the ice come from, and how could I find out?

  Chapter Fourteen

  Business had really picked up in my absence. I was pretty sure the full-sized tour bus sporting a red maple leaf that was parked across the road had something to do with it. I rushed to give Cocoa a drink of water in my apartment and stow him safely in his crate. Back in the store, I donned an apron and scrubbed my hands. It was only ten-fifty and every table was full. We’d never had a full house at this time of day.

  Danna, wild-eyed and cooking at high speed, gave me a pair of raised eyebrows worthy of a scolding mom. “Your people want you.” She gestured at the room with a spatula.

  “Sorry. I owe you.”

  “Yes, ma’am, you do. Now go.”

  I went. I smiled, greeted people, took orders for food and drink. I calmed impatient diners and directed cookware fans to the for-sale shelves when they asked. Even customers short on patience were polite, though, and the accents I heard were clearly not local to this part of the country.

  One white-haired lady stopped me. “Miss Jordan, we’ve heard of your restaurant all the way up in London. Canada, that is.”

  “Please call me Robbie. That’s amazing. You’re all Canadian, then?”

  “Yes, indeed. Can’t you tell?”

  I could. Her vowels were clipped in a way that made me think of a Scottish accent. “How far is London from here?”

  “Nearly eight hundred kilometers.”

  I scrunched up my nose, trying to do the math.

  She laughed. “It’s about five hundred miles, but we stayed in Indianapolis last night. Now, that’s a city with hidden treasures.” She paused. “I read on Facebook a man was murdered near here yesterday. You must be terribly frightened. I assumed he was shot dead?” She widened her eyes, awaiting my response.

  She’s getting her local news from Facebook? Yikes. “Uh, no, that’s incorrect, ma’am. A man tragically did die behind the library Monday morning, but the police say it was an accident. And no firearms were involved.”

  “I’m glad to hear that. You know, we hear so many stories about the epidemic of gun violence down here in the States.”

  I sighed, but silently. Unhappily, so did we. “I’m sure you do.” Three of her bus mates were waving menus in the air and Danna had dinged the Ready bell twice. “You’ll have to excuse me. Did you already give Danna your order?”

  “I did, thank you.”

  “Let me go see if it’s ready, then.” I sped away and spent the next hour doing nothing but fetching and serving. Delivering orders to Danna and the finished products to diners. Making change and answering questions. My meager breakfast seemed like ancient history, but I felt guilty about taking the time to even snag and wolf down one sausage. I did it, anyway, and encouraged Danna to eat a bite, too.

  And then, presto. At
eleven-thirty, the tour guide stood in front of the door and blew her whistle. “Five minutes to board. Five minutes, people. We have a tour in French Lick next and we need to arrive promptly.”

  They were making a tour of the Licks, apparently. Luckily, everyone was finished eating by then and most had already paid. I scurried around to those who hadn’t, and collected money hand over fist from shoppers, too. I sure wished I still had the hot chocolate packets, but that was water under the Beanblossom Covered Bridge. The hot chocolate ship had sailed yesterday, through no fault of my own, and there wasn’t a lick—South or otherwise—I could do about it.

  “Wow.” Danna sank into a chair after the door closed behind the last tour participant and she’d paid a visit to the all-important facilities. “What do you think about posting a sign saying, ‘No Tour Buses’?”

  I sat opposite her. “Sounds appealing, but it would be ever so bad for business. Come on, you know if Turner had been here, we’d have managed just fine.” Or mostly fine. Even with three of us, we’d have been run ragged. I breathed deeply and resolved then and there to pay out a Christmas bonus. And hire emergency help next time.

  “You took a long time walking Cocoa,” Danna said. “I bet everybody wanted to stop you and pet him.”

  “A few did. But what I did was pop by the library and have a little chat with Georgia, the library aide who found Jed Greenberg’s body.”

  Danna pulled a face. “Poor lady. Is she okay?”

  “She is. Jed had been a library patron, she said.” I frowned. “But what’s worrisome is the patch of ice he slipped on. Georgia says she walks on that pavement every day and it hasn’t been icy for weeks. Neither of us can figure out how it got that way.”

  “Yeah. That’s funny, huh? It’s been cold, but super dry. Somebody must have dumped out their water. I know if I leave water too long in my bottle, it gets stale.”

  “That could be.”

  “Or maybe a dog peed on the grass and it ran onto the pavement?” Danna snapped her fingers. “My grandmother, my mom’s mother, lives in the building next to the library. You know that old school that’s been made into condos? Her place looks out directly onto that walkway where the returns box is. Plus, she’s a total insomniac. She posts on Facebook at, like, two in the morning about convening the Insomniacs Club, and then all her sleepless old lady friends chime in. It’d be kind of funny if she didn’t hate being awake in the middle of the night so much.”

  “So you’ll ask her if she saw anything?” I tapped the table between us. “Or maybe she even saw Jed fall.” I wondered if the police had done a door-to-door search. People would have been up by then. Maybe somebody else saw the accident.

  “She might have. I’ll ask her as soon as I leave here. Josie’s a fun lady, Robbie. Josephine Dunn, but she insists on being called Josie, even by me. She reminds me of your aunt Adele. I go over and play Farkle with her sometimes. She’s a genius with dice and she beats me nine times out of ten.” Danna didn’t look like she minded losing in the least. “I bet she saw something.”

  “Thanks. Text me or call if she saw anything, will you?”

  She made a clicking noise and gave me a thumbs-up even as the cowbell rang and five hungry locals pushed through the door. The lunch hour had arrived.

  Chapter Fifteen

  By one-thirty, I was frankly irked. Last evening, Howard had said he would return to walk Cocoa this morning. Except I hadn’t cast eyes on Howard, nor had he called or texted—and neither had Freddy. Twenty minutes ago, I’d sent Freddy a quick text, telling her we needed puppy relief, and fast. Danna and I hadn’t had time to take the dog out since I’d come back from the library. I really hoped he hadn’t peed in the crate. It couldn’t be good for a puppy to be cooped up like that.

  Contributing to my dark mood was Buck’s apparently false promise to share Jed’s autopsy results. The tall lieutenant was also in absentia, and he’d missed his daily midday meal. Something big must be up for that to happen. Plus, the lunch service had slammed us as intensely as the tour bus had. The fresh-baked cookies were gone and we’d resorted to offering fruit salad with a spray of canned whip cream for dessert. We’d eighty-sixed turkey burgers and split pea soup, making me almost rue my delivery to Willa Mae yesterday. Nearly every table in the restaurant was full. The one small blessing was that nobody was waiting to be seated, and most of the seated parties had been served.

  Freddy rushed in, cheeks matching her pink hand-knitted cat hat, and hurried up to me where I was flipping burgers at the grill. “I’m so sorry, Robbie. Howard only now told me he’d promised to help with the puppy, but then he wasn’t able to. Is Cocoa okay?”

  “I don’t know. I took him for a walk earlier, but it’s been a couple of hours. Go on into my apartment there in the back.” I pointed to the adjoining door, marked PRIVATE, DO NOT ENTER. “It’s unlocked. We’ve had so much business we couldn’t spare a minute to check on Cocoa. He’s in the crate.” Or I hoped he was. I’d stuck him in there so hastily earlier, I might not have latched the door securely. If so, my apartment could be in shambles.

  “Got it.” She zoomed toward the door.

  I turned four hot dogs and gently folded over a Christmas omelet. I buttered two hot pieces of toast, scooped out slaw for the hot dog orders, and dished out three servings of fruit salad. Another order wanted a heart attack on a rack, with two pigs in a poke, so I laid out two more wieners and topped a split buttered biscuit with sausage gravy.

  Ten minutes later, Freddy reemerged from the back. “I took him out, and he’ll be good for a while. Sorry about that. Listen, I have an errand to run and you’re clearly busy. But if I come back at about four, will you have time for us to catch up on . . .” She glanced around. “You know, on what’s happening?”

  “Yes, I think so,” I said. “Howard’s not back at, uh, headquarters, I hope?”

  “No, but it’s not all smooth sailing. I can’t talk about it right now.” She set her lips in a grim line and hurried out.

  At least Cocoa should be set for another couple of hours. I focused on orders again. I poured, I turned, I scooped, I dinged the bell, and started over. Danna performed all the corresponding actions: delivering food, clearing and resetting tables, jotting down orders and running them over to me, taking people’s money. My bank account was going to bask in fullness after this week.

  The charity donation box was filling up, too. A thirty-something woman came in with three children, each of their arms full of wrapped packages.

  “We heard we could drop these off here,” the mom said.

  “We got pwesents for the kids who don’t have vewy much,” the youngest lisped, a little girl whose curly black hair matched my own.

  “That’s very nice of all of you. The box is behind the tree.” I pointed. “Can they have candy canes?” I murmured to the mother.

  “Of course.”

  I handed each a small candy cane from the box I’d stuck near the cash register. “Merry Christmas.”

  Polite to a one, the children thanked me and returned the greeting before Mom shepherded them out. I smiled after them, my mood lightened by their generosity.

  It was a few minutes before two o’clock when Buck finally made his entrance. Had he brought conclusive news about the way Jed died? I sure hoped so. I waved, flipped two beef patties just in time, and grabbed a sub roll from the toaster for a Ho-Ho-Ho-Hoagie. They’d been a popular order today. So far, we hadn’t run out of any of the ingredients.

  Buck ambled over, hat in hand. “Boy, howdy, Robbie. That samwich sure looks good. Can I get one of them with double the stuffing? And maybe a hot dog on the side, too.”

  “Of course.” The anticipation was killing me. “So do you—”

  He held up a hand. “No, I do not, I’m sorry to say.”

  “What? But you said they were going to do a rush job early this morning.” I sniffed and swore under my breath, scooping up the burgers just in time for them to be still edible.

 
“Guy got called out on an emergency,” Buck went on. “Don’t worry, Greenberg’s still on today’s schedule. Autopsy just ain’t happened yet.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Okay to leave?” Danna asked at three-thirty.

  I surveyed the restaurant. Even though I’d turned the sign to CLOSED an hour ago, we’d had customers linger until three o’clock. But now the place was clean, swept, and quiet. The dishwasher hummed and the tables were all reset.

  “Sure.” I smiled. “One more day, then we get a week.” I deposited my apron in the dirty-laundry box.

  “What about dessert for tomorrow?”

  “I’ll have time to bake tonight. Brownies with green and red sugars? Or wouldn’t that go? I want something I can bake pans of and not have to make individual cookies or whatever.”

  “The brownies sound fine, but how about with crushed candy canes on top? You can harvest all the ones on the tree.” She gestured with her chin.

  “I like that idea. I’ll add peppermint flavoring in the batter, too.”

  “Have a good night, Robbie. I’m off to go ice-skating with Isaac. He said the ice at the outdoor rink is perfect.”

  “Sounds fun. See you in the a.m.”

  Danna pulled open the door, only to reveal Freddy. They greeted each other before Danna slipped out.

  “I’m glad you’re back.” I strolled to the door. “Come on in and have a seat.” I locked the door behind her.

  She sat on the edge of a chair. “Did you get news from Lieutenant Bird?” Her eyes were bright.