Christmas Cocoa Murder

by Carlene O'Connor

  “No, darn it. He said the guy got called away to something more urgent, but Jed’s autopsy was still on today’s schedule.”

  Her posture slumped.

  “I know, it’s frustrating,” I said. “Hey, I was going to have a beer. Can I get you one?”

  “Sure. That sounds perfect right now.”

  “Why don’t you come back to my apartment and we can let Cocoa out of his cage.”

  “It’s called a crate, Robbie.”

  I laughed. “I know, but it sure looks like a cage, doesn’t it? Actually, let me grab my cash and walk the laundry back, too.” I emptied the day’s take into a bank bag. I left only tomorrow’s starting cash in the ornate old-fashioned cash register. I laid the bag on top of the laundry. “Can you get the door?”

  Cocoa started yipping as soon as we walked in. Freddy opened the crate and was beset by a wriggling licking puppy.

  “I’ll take him out back for a minute before I take off my coat.” Freddy clipped the leash to Cocoa’s harness and led him out.

  I bustled around my house. I gave Birdy a couple of good pets and a treat in the kitchen, having closed the door to the living room. I started the laundry and locked the cash in the safe. I’d take the week’s till to the bank after we closed tomorrow. Finally I grabbed two beers and two glasses and made it back into the living room, where Freddy and Cocoa had just returned.

  “Cheers.” I handed Freddy a glass and lifted mine.

  She clinked it, but said, “Not much cheery about this week. Except for this little guy, of course.” Cocoa was busy sniffing every corner of the room.

  “I guess. So, what’s up with Howard?”

  “It’s not the police, thank goodness. But How has to see if he can salvage any of the accounts where Jed deposited the money he stole from their partnership. He’s been meeting with a financial lawyer.”

  “How well did Howard know Jed before they went in on the investment together?”

  She pulled a wry look. “Not well enough, clearly. They’d met back in college. When Jed moved to this area a few years ago, he contacted Howard. Sometimes they played tennis together and went for a beer afterward. Frankly, I don’t think Howard did his due diligence checking out finances when Jed proposed the deal.”

  “Has Detective Thompson cleared Howard yet?”

  “I don’t think so. Everybody must be waiting for the autopsy and lab results. They still think he might have poisoned the packets he gave Jed. The detective claimed Howard could have known about the embezzlement before we got the auditor’s report. I ask you, would we have invited Jed to dinner if we’d known he’d stolen money? Jeez, Louise.” She tapped her glass. “And now people are looking at How like he has three heads or something. He was looking into a different investment opportunity, but the other guy pulled out just today. He made some lame excuse, but I know it’s because of Jed’s death.”

  “That’s no good. I actually heard a bit of gossip like that in the restaurant this morning.”

  Freddy blew out a breath and sipped her beer. She didn’t ask for details.

  “I saw my friend at the library earlier,” I said. “She said that spot of pavement had no reason to be icy.” I took a sip and savored the cold hoppy bubbles. “Freddy, how well do you know Karinde Nilsson?”

  “Karinde?” Freddy peered at me. “Why are you asking about her?”

  “She alluded to Jed having abused animals in the past, and she’s really passionate about rescues. If the autopsy shows Jed was murdered, I’ve been wondering if she killed him.”

  “Isn’t that kind of a stretch, Robbie?”

  “I guess.”

  “Anyway, I don’t know her well at all. We met first when we visited the shelter at her house. Then we saw her when she came to the house to approve us for the puppy adoption, and the only other time was when she delivered Cocoa.” Freddy patted her leg and Cocoa trotted over to her. “But she never got close enough to Jed to poison what he ate or drank.”

  “Good point. But she could have iced the walkway. Buck did say she didn’t have an alibi for that night or early morning because she lives alone.”

  Freddy took a long drink of beer, then set down the glass. “How would she know he was going to walk there?”

  “True. And why would she kill him now the puppy mill is shut down? Unless Jed got involved in another one.”

  “How will we know if we don’t ask her? I know where she lives, out beyond Nashville.”

  “I like how you think, Freddy. And I have to drop off the box of donations at the charity in Nashville, anyway. I almost forgot.” I tilted my head, thinking. “Karinde living out there means she’d have had to come all the way into South Lick in the middle of the night to ice the sidewalk.” My phone pinged with a text.

  Abe had written, Dinner tonight? I can bring takeout. I miss you.

  He’d finished with a kissing happy face.

  I tapped back, Perfect. Romantic evening of folding laundry and baking! 6:30?

  I hit Send.

  “Why do I get the feeling that was from my son?” Freddy asked with a smile in her voice.

  I looked up at her, my cheeks warm. “You have remarkable powers of intuition. Now, about that field trip. I happen to be free as soon as I finish this beer.”

  “You and me both. We can say we know someone who likes Cocoa so much they’re wondering what other puppies might be up for adoption. We’ll bring this little guy to say hi, too.”

  “We’ll have to be careful in what we ask her,” I cautioned. “And how we phrase it.”

  “Because if she is a murderer, we don’t want her to know we think so?”

  “Exactly.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  By four-fifteen, we were in Freddy’s Subaru wagon heading out Route 45, east of Nashville, having just dropped off the box of donated gifts. Freddy had a car harness for Cocoa that attached to the seat belt.

  “That’s a cool thing,” I said.

  “We had it for our previous dog.”

  “I’ve never thought about keeping dogs safe in cars. Of course they’d be damaged worse than humans would by flying through the air in an accident.”

  After ten minutes, we skirted Nashville and kept going past Gnaw Bone BBQ & Original Gnaw Bone Tenderloin, a place that made the best breaded tenderloin in the known universe.

  “So Karinde operates a shelter at her house?” I asked. “How did you learn about her?”

  “A friend in the symphony got a dog from her last year. Karinde comes highly recommended.”

  “I only met her once in the restaurant last winter when she came in with a girlfriend.”

  “And, yes, she has a kind of shelter at her home,” Freddy said. “When she hears of animals that need to be rescued, she and a team of volunteers go get them. Karinde houses them until they can be fostered out. She gets donations of food and has volunteer vets who treat them. She set up a whole system of bathing and cleaning the dogs’ coats, which they all need.” She shuddered. “They come in with fleas, lice, ticks, you name it.”

  “Does she rescue cats, too?”

  “Not at her place, but somebody else takes them in.” Freddy slowed, peering at the side of the road. When a green sign for CROOKED HILL RD loomed, she turned right onto the road, which wound up a hill. She pulled up at the very last house before the road ended in a patch of woods. The nearest neighbor had been back a few hundred yards and wasn’t visible around the bend.

  “She is out here all by herself,” I observed.

  “Maybe it’s so neighbors don’t complain about dogs barking around the clock.”

  I glanced into the back seat. Cocoa sat up alert and gazing out the window as if he recognized his prior home. “We didn’t exactly finish planning our story.”

  “We can wing it. Leave it to me, Robbie. I’ve always been good at making stuff up.”

  I sure hadn’t. I didn’t have an imaginative mind. Freddy could take the lead.

  She unhooked Cocoa from
the car harness and made sure she had a good grasp of his leash before letting him out. Stretching out to the left of the nondescript cottage was a long plain structure with several doors set into the wall facing us. In front of the length of the building ran a covered walkway enclosed with a six-foot chain-link fence, like an open-air hall.

  We made our way up a flagstone walk and rang the doorbell. Cocoa barked when he heard it chime within.

  Karinde pulled open the door. Her eyes widened. “Cocoa? You okay, buddy?” She knelt and rubbed his head with both hands, which were remarkably big. I hadn’t noticed them at the O’Neills’. She glanced up at Freddy. “What’s going on?”

  “Cocoa’s fine. We were in the area and decided on the spur of the moment to bring him by so he could say hello.” Freddy beamed.

  Karinde stood, her head cocked like she didn’t believe her. “Ohhh-kay. Come on in.” She stepped back.

  The living room held half a dozen dogs. Two puppies in a big crate looked a lot like Cocoa. A small white dog slept on a sheet-covered couch, and a skinny greyhound lay on a braided rug. An old brindle mutt, with rheumy eyes, stalked up to sniff us. A ten-inch tall Buddha statue sat in the center of the mantel, but the rest of the dog-centric room was filled with chew toys and dog beds everywhere, plus a rack of leashes was mounted on the wall near the door. The air smelled of canines, too, but the scent wasn’t overpowering.

  A big black dog rushed in from another room and barked at us, loud and accusing. Karinde grabbed it firmly by the collar. If a dog could glare, this one was glaring. I took a step back. She’d better have control over it, or I’d be sprinting for the car.

  “Let me put this one in the back.” She didn’t ask us to sit and disappeared with the black dog through a door that clicked shut after her. She was back in a moment, sans dog. “Let Cocoa loose. These girls are his sisters.” She pointed to the crate.

  After Freddy released his leash, Cocoa ran up to the crate and rubbed noses through a gap with one of his littermates. The other one pushed in front and got her kiss, too.

  “So?” Karinde folded her arms.

  “My cousin heard about Cocoa,” Freddy began in a bright tone. “And she wants one, too. I told her I’d come by and see what other puppies are available.”

  “You know they’re all on the Web site.” Karinde narrowed her eyes. “Where does she live?”

  “She’s out in the country and the Internet reception is just awful.” Freddy lifted a shoulder in a what can you do gesture.

  “Yes, but yours isn’t,” Karinde said. “I don’t get this visit, ladies.”

  I swallowed. “When you dropped off Cocoa, you said you’d found him at a filthy puppy mill. Where was it, and how did you learn about it?”

  Her nostrils flared. “It was up in Morgantown. I got a tip from somebody who drives by the place. She was suspicious, and I was, too. I took some volunteers, a truck full of crates and carriers, and the animal control officer for that county. We shut the place down. And guess who had a financial stake in that disgusting business?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “That despicable dinner guest of yours, Freddy. Jed Greenberg had no heart, no conscience. I can’t believe you invited him to your home.”

  “I had no idea he was involved in such an enterprise,” Freddy said, “or we never would have invited him and his wife.”

  Or sent Cocoa home with them, either.

  “I heard he died the next day. I say good effing riddance.” Karinde dusted off her hands.

  I had the feeling if we were outdoors she would have spat on the ground.

  “It turns out he was also stealing from my husband over the course of several years,” Freddy said. “I personally wouldn’t have wished him dead, but he was an unscrupulous man, no doubt about it.”

  “Unscrupulous doesn’t even begin to describe his evil,” Karinde said. Cocoa came over and sniffed her leg, then rubbed up against it. She scooped him into her arms and kissed his head. She lifted her chin. “I wish I’d killed him myself.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  After Abe and I finished our pad Thai and fish curry with rice, we put Cocoa in his crate and headed into the restaurant. Abe carried the basket of clean laundry. “I’ll fold while you work.”

  He folded the napkins, aprons, and dish towels at a table as I prepped cut butter into flour for biscuit dough.

  “Your mom and I paid a visit to the dog rescuer this afternoon. Cocoa got to see his sisters.”

  Abe squinted one eye shut. “Lemme guess, you were trying to worm information out of Karinde Nilsson.”

  “Pretty much. But the only thing she told us was that she wished she’d killed Jed herself.”

  He whistled. “That’s pretty out there.”

  “I know. I think you’re about the same age as Karinde. Did she grow up in South Lick or in the county, do you know?” I wrapped the biscuit dough and turned my attention to peppermint brownies.

  “I guess she is in her early thirties, come to think of it. But I believe she didn’t grow up around here, unless she went to a private school. She wasn’t at South Lick High with me, anyway.”

  I added peppermint extract instead of vanilla to the brownie batter and slid two big pans into the oven.

  “I’m done with the laundry, darlin’,” Abe said. “Can I help with prep?”

  “Sure, thanks. How about washing and trimming that asparagus and then cutting it into half-inch pieces?”

  “I’m on it.” He washed his hands and got busy with a knife across the counter from me.

  We worked in companionable silence for a few minutes.

  “I have to say, this investigation has really hit Dad hard.” Abe shook his head.

  “I can imagine. I heard some unpleasant gossip about him this morning. I didn’t tell you when you came in.”

  “You can tell me now.”

  “It was guilt by association, tying him to Jed and his un-scrupulosity. I just made up that word, but it’s true.” I spread candy canes between two layers of waxed paper and took a mallet to them. Bam. “Take that, nasty men.” Bam-bam-bam.

  Abe laughed. “Easy, now.”

  “Well, it’s not right. Your father is a good man. I hate it that people are saying otherwise.” When the timer dinged, I drew out the brownies.

  “You and me both. I heard a bit of gossip, too. A couple whose line I fixed asked me if I knew anything about poison in your restaurant.”

  “Of course they did.” I groaned as I sprinkled the warm brownies with crushed candy canes. “When a state police detective arrives in the middle of the rush and confiscates my special hot chocolate packets, why wouldn’t folks be talking?”

  He set down his knife and came around to my side of the counter, wrapping his arms around me from the back and laying his chin on my shoulder. “It’s all going to be fine, Robbie. You wait and see.”

  I leaned back into his comfort. “I guess I’m going to have to.”

  He sniffed. “Those brownies smell like heaven. Need a taste tester?”

  I laughed. “Of course.” I cut us each a square.

  “Ten thumbs-up.” Abe reached for the brownie knife after he’d swallowed.

  I gently swatted his hand away. “Hey, those are for tomorrow.” I offered him a kiss, instead.

  Abe took Cocoa out before we went to bed, and I made sure the doors were securely locked, just in case. We blessedly retired early enough to have some sweet time together before we slept.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The next morning found Danna and me doing our cook-and-serve dance as we always did, except we both wore Santa hats, instead of her usual scarf and my usual ball cap. Supplies were dwindling, but that was fine, since we were going to be closed for the next eight days. We ran out of sausages at a few minutes before nine. Danna wrote it on the Specials board and then drew a big red X through the word. I did make up a fresh double batch of biscuits when those ran low. Flour, eggs, and butter didn’t go bad, and I
always had a ton on hand.

  Now at nine-thirty, I watched Buck come in at his usual slow pace. Was this finally going to be the verdict on whether Jed was poisoned or not? Did he have lab and autopsy results in hand, at last? He gave a little wave and headed back to his favorite two-top, available because we were only moderately subscribed at the moment.

  The next time Danna approached the kitchen, I said, “Swap out? I need to talk with Buck.”

  “Sure.”

  “By the way, did you learn anything from your grandmother?” I asked her. I’d forgotten to earlier.

  “No, she was busy. But Josie said she would come in for lunch and you can ask her whatever you want.” Danna grinned. “She’s a hoot. You’ll like her.”

  “I love the name.” When I had a daughter, Josie was definitely high on the list of names I would consider. I smiled to myself, picturing being married to Abe and starting a family.

  I changed out of my grease-splattered cooking apron into a fresh one and grabbed an order pad. It took me a while to get to Buck, though. A gentleman over here hailed me for more coffee. That lady asked for her scrambled eggs to be drier. A mom needed another milk for the one her toddler had spilled, despite my serving it in a cup with a tight lid and a paper straw. I also brought a wet rag and several dry ones to clean up the mess. I finally arrived at Buck’s table, where he sat frowning and poking at his phone with an index finger nearly long and skinny enough to double as a chopstick.

  “Good morning, Buck. Dare I ask?”

  “We got some results, but it’s kind of a crazy mixed-up bag, Robbie.” He set the phone down with a frown.

  “What do you mean? Was Jed poisoned or not?”

  “Welp, didn’t find no evidence of toxins in Greenberg’s body. So, no, he apparently wasn’t poisoned.”

  Huh. “At least that’s information, right?”

  He bobbed his head once “But the lab ain’t done with the chocolate mixes yet. Turns out, some of them tests take a while to react or some such thing. I don’t know laboratory science from Adam’s off ox, ’course, so I just gotta believe the experts.”