Whispering Bay Cozy Mysteries Box Set

by Maria Geraci

“You know, Lucy, I’ve been meaning to ask, have you ever thought of expanding into other cities? Catfish Cove sure could use a place like this.”

  Expand into other cities? I can’t help but feel both flattered and exhausted at the same time. I should mention it to Sarah, but I can’t imagine she’d be any more eager to take him up on it than I am. Not unless we hired someone to run the place, and I don’t see that happening. Part of The Bistro’s charm is the personal touch that only we can provide.

  “Thanks, but I think Sarah and I have our hands full with just one restaurant.”

  “I get it, but if you ever get to that point, I could really help you.” He fishes out a business card from the inner pocket of his suit jacket and hands it to me. “I could arrange for free rent for a prime locale on Main Street. It’s not near the water, but you’d get lots of exposure.”

  “Is this the same Main Street that has the broken sewer pipe? Sounds like we’d be awful close to the water,” I tease.

  He chuckles. “That’s all been fixed now. We don’t have any place in Catfish Cove that makes muffins of your caliber. Trust me, you’d make a killing over there.”

  “Thanks. If Sarah and I ever think of expanding, we’ll definitely consider your offer.”

  His cell phone pings. “Oops,” he says, glancing at his screen, “that’s Brittany. I’m wanted back at the office.”

  I hand him his bag of food. “Enjoy.”

  He waves goodbye on his way out the door.

  The last customer walks out at two thirty. I quickly snap on the Closed sign.

  “I’ll do cleanup,” Sarah offers. She hesitates on her way back to the kitchen. “Lucy, what’s going on? You seem kind of excited about something.”

  When I was ten and just starting to get really good at my human lie-detecting skills, I vowed I was only going to tell people about my gift on an absolutely strictly positively need to know basis. And with the exception of Travis’s dad, I’ve done exactly that for sixteen years. I only told Travis because he’s a cop and, just like I thought, he didn’t believe me. But now I have to tell Sarah. It’s not fair to her otherwise.

  I spill my guts to Sarah about everything, including how Paco is a ghost whisperer and I’m a human lie detector. I end it all with my big plan to catch Tara’s killer. She sits on a stool in the kitchen quietly absorbing it all.

  “What do you think?” I ask nervously. “Still want to be business partners?”

  “And friends,” she adds with a smile.

  “So you believe me?”

  “I’ll be honest, I was beginning to wonder how you were able to solve all those other murders. It all makes sense now.”

  “And you don’t think I’m … odd?”

  “Only in the best of ways.” She reaches out and hugs me. I heave a huge sigh of relief. Truth be told, I’d expected this because Sarah is completely awesome, but a tiny part of me was still afraid it all might be too much for her. “So how does it work?” she asks.

  “I’m not really sure. Generally, there’s some kind of physical sensation when I catch someone in a lie. Mostly tingling in the back of my neck, that kind of thing. The bigger the lie, the more intense the reaction.”

  “Wow. That’s really fascinating.” She becomes pensive.

  I know what she wants to ask me, so I’ll beat her to the punch. “No worries. I pretty much tune out all the little stuff and only concentrate on the really big lies.”

  “Little stuff?”

  “Yeah, you know, like, ‘Wow, Lucy, that’s the best blueberry muffin I’ve ever eaten!’”

  We both laugh because Sarah knows exactly how I feel about blueberry muffins. They’re my weakest link, because my heart just isn’t in it.

  “And Paco? How does it work with him?”

  “That I’m not sure of. I just know that he can sense when there’s a dead person around.”

  “Like the kid in The Sixth Sense?”

  “I don’t think so, at least, I haven’t seen anything in his behavior that makes me believe that. It’s more like recently dead people.” I go on to explain how it works with the barking and how he leads me to their bodies. “Maybe there’s a window of time where he can sense that they’ve died. I don’t know. The Sunshine Ghost Society wants to borrow him for a séance, but they can forget it.”

  “And your family and Will and Travis and his dad are the only ones who know about this?”

  “And now you. Travis knows, but he doesn’t believe it.”

  “I’m really honored, Lucy. And I promise, I won’t tell a soul. Except … ” She frowns. “If Luke should somehow figure out something … ”

  Yikes. I hadn’t thought about that. Asking Sarah to keep a secret like this from her husband is kind of a big deal. “I don’t want you to have to lie to your husband. If you ever think it’s appropriate for Luke to know, then you have my permission to tell him.”

  “Thanks, Lucy.”

  “One more thing. Darren Winters offered us free space on Main Street in Catfish Cove if we ever want to expand the café. I turned him down but—”

  “Two restaurants?” Her shoulders droop. “I hope you told him thanks, but no thanks. At least, not for a long time.”

  I grin. “That’s exactly what I said.”

  Now that Sarah knows my secret, a load has been lifted from my shoulders and I can concentrate on the matter at hand: finding Tara’s killer.

  I put on a fresh pot of coffee as well as refreshments (muffins of course) because I’m not about to let Heidi show me up again. Will gets here fifteen minutes early, just like I asked him to.

  “Do you think this will work?” he asks. “What if everyone figures out what you’re doing?”

  “You mean, what if they figure out I’m a human lie detector? Why would anyone think that? Even the people I tell don’t believe me.”

  “That’s because Fontaine is an idiot.”

  “Trust me. I’ve been doing this awhile. Half the time when people lie, they out themselves.”

  Will raises a skeptical brow. “And you’re sure they’re coming? What exactly did you say in your text that has you convinced everyone will show up?”

  “That was easy. I told them that Tara was murdered by one of the contestants on the show and that if they want to find out who it was, then they needed to come to The Bistro at precisely 3 p.m.”

  “You didn’t.” Will moans. “Lucy, you shouldn’t have said that. What do you think is going to happen if none of these people were involved? This isn’t some mystery novel where the detective gathers all the suspects in one room until someone confesses and everything wraps up neat as a pin. That’s not how it works in real life.”

  Before I can dispute this, the door to The Bistro opens. The three of us, Will, Paco and I, all turn to see who our first “guest” is. It’s Mark Dalton, and he doesn’t look happy to be here. “As Sherlock Holmes would say, the game is afoot,” I mutter.

  “Actually,” says Will, “it was Shakespeare who said it first. Henry IV.”

  “Show-off.”

  18

  Within five minutes, all the suspects have arrived. Besides Mark, Gilly and the other contestants, I’ve invited Juanita Torres’s two sons, Luis and Miguel. Will can scoff at my methods all he wants, but I have a pretty good feeling that this is going to work. I can’t wait to see the look on Travis’s face when I practically hand him the killer on a silver platter. The Whispering Bay police department should put me on the payroll.

  Everyone sits at a large rectangular table that I’ve arranged in the middle of the café, with Paco on the floor next to my right. I make sure everyone, especially Heidi, is offered a muffin.

  Mark Dalton isn’t just the first to arrive, he’s also the first to speak up. “What did you mean by sending that cryptic text? Who killed Tara?”

  Like a dam that’s broken loose, everyone starts talking at once.

  “What are we doing here, Lucy?”

  “Are you saying one of us killed Tara?�
�

  “What are the police doing about this?”

  I raise my hand to silence them. “Order, please! Now, let’s start with—”

  “This is ridiculous,” says Gilly. “Lucy should be in jail, not holding meetings in her café.”

  “Why should Lucy be in jail?” Juanita looks around in confusion. “I don’t understand what’s going on.”

  “Someone in this room poisoned Tara, and I can prove it.” The table goes silent. Now that I have their complete and utter attention, I drop the rest of my little bomb. “The night before Tara showed up dead, I went to see her to apologize for the spat we had earlier. I brought her a half dozen of my apple walnut cream cheese muffins.”

  “Oh! Those are my favorite,” says Wendy.

  “They’re everyone’s favorite,” says Carlos.

  “It’s the fresh apple cream cheese mixture,” I say. “No one else makes them quite like I do.” Will catches my gaze and raises a brow. Right. Not here to brag about my muffins.

  “I wasn’t the only one from the show who went to see Tara that night,” I continue. “Someone else came to see her as well. Possibly to quit the show—I’m not sure. The one thing I am sure of is that someone in this room killed Tara, and it wasn’t me. That same someone sprinkled cyanide on my muffins to frame me for the crime.”

  “So … that’s why we’re all here?” asks Wendy.

  “Yep. We’re here to get to the truth.”

  Heidi snickers. “How exactly are you going to do that?”

  “Remember all those notes Tara insisted that Gilly write down during all those meetings we had? Well, Gilly put those notes together in a very interesting way.”

  “Lucy broke into my beach house and stole those notes,” says Gilly. “The last time I looked, breaking and entering was a crime.”

  “This is ridiculous.” Mark checks his watch. “I have a business to run.” He gets up to leave.

  “Hold on,” says Carlos. “I’d like to hear what Lucy has to say. I think we all would,” he adds meaningfully, causing Mark to sit back in his chair.

  “It’s true. I did take Gilly’s notes, but I didn’t break into the beach house, as Gilly is fully aware. I was given permission to enter by the cleaning crew.”

  “More like you tricked your way inside,” Gilly counters.

  I pull out a small notebook. “Should I tell the rest of the room what’s in these notes? Or would you like to do the honors?”

  “That,” she says, pointing triumphantly to the notebook in my hand, “isn’t mine. Officer Fontaine returned the notes you stole. Whatever is in that notebook wasn’t written by me.”

  “Oh, but it was. I memorized the notes, but I also took the liberty of copying them for easier reference. Don’t worry, I didn’t paraphrase. I wrote it all down word for word.”

  Gilly turns pale. “Those notes are private property.”

  “Not when they were used to blackmail the contestants of the show.”

  Mark scowls. “What are you talking about?”

  “Tara was fabricating an arc for all of us. A storyline that would create, as she liked to put it, drama and conflict. No one was coming out of this show looking good. It’s all here in black and white. And it’s not pretty. Like I said, I think someone here killed Tara. You can leave if you want,” I say, letting my gaze float from Mark to the rest of the contestants, “or you can stay here and help me expose a killer. It’s up to you.”

  The expressions around the table range from surprised to guilty as sin. I’ll start with surprised and work my way up.

  “Juanita, did you go to see Tara at the beach house the night before her body was discovered in my kitchen?”

  Juanita clutches both her sons’ hands. I feel terrible doing this to her, but I have to get to the bottom of this. “How … how did you know that, Lucy?”

  “I know what Tara was planning. It’s all right here in the notebook. She was even going to do an interview with a psychologist who was going to go over signs and symptoms of dementia on the show.”

  “Tara was a horrible person! And so are you,” Juanita says, pointing a shaky finger at Gilly, “for going along with her evil plan.”

  “Mami, what are you talking about?” asks Luis.

  “What was Tara planning to do to our mother?” demands Miguel.

  “She was going to exploit her age and imply that Juanita was having bouts of forgetfulness. And that you two were going to take advantage of it and take over La Cantina.”

  “That’s not true!” Luis roars. “Yes, Mami likes things her way, and she doesn’t always like the changes Miguel and I want to make, but we would never take away her restaurant. My mother is the heart and soul of La Cantina! Without her, it would just be a glorified Taco Bell.”

  Miguel looks stunned. “Why would Tara do that?”

  “To up the ratings,” I say. “The better the ratings, the more the network can charge for advertising, the more successful the show. It’s that simple.” Gilly slinks down in her chair like she’s ashamed. Which she should be. I gentle my voice. “Juanita, that night you went to see Tara and you told her that you wanted to quit the show, but she wouldn’t let you. Isn’t that right?”

  “She told me I signed a contract and that she could depict me any way she wanted to. Including making it look as if I had the Alzheimer’s.”

  “That witch,” Luis mutters. “If she wasn’t already dead, I’d kill her.”

  “Mami, you don’t have Alzheimer’s,” Miguel says firmly.

  “What about the time I ordered too many onions and not enough bell peppers? I would have never done that ten years ago. Maybe Tara was right.”

  Luis shakes his head. “What about the catering order I messed up last week? I made a mistake. We all do. Miguel and I work by your side every day, and believe me, your mind is just as sharp as ever.”

  Juanita looks tearfully at her sons. “It is?”

  Miguel puts a protective arm around her shoulder. “Yes. It is. You run circles around Luis and I.”

  Juanita wilts in relief against her sons, and the three of them melt into a group hug. At least some good has come from exposing Tara’s horrible plan.

  “Juanita, did you poison Tara?”

  “Of course not!”

  “I believe you.” Not that I ever suspected her. Juanita is a cinnamon swirl muffin. Sweet and easily rattled, but never duplicitous.

  I focus my energy on Carlos now. I’ve been dreading this all day, but unfortunately, no one gets a free pass here, no matter how much I might personally like them.

  “Carlos, did you go see Tara that night too?” I ask.

  He sighs like he knows what’s coming. “Yes. And yes, I told her I wanted to quit the show.”

  The room goes so quiet, you could hear a pin drop.

  I swallow hard. “She was going to expose your gambling habit, wasn’t she?”

  “I haven’t gambled in years, but it’s still a daily struggle.” He looks around the table. “Ten years ago, I had to declare bankruptcy. My life was in shambles because I couldn’t stay away from the horses. But then I found Gamblers Anonymous. I got married, had a couple of kids and worked my way up to manager at The Burger Barn. The owners know about my disease, and they’ve been terrific.”

  “Then what was the problem?” asks Heidi.

  “The problem,” I say, “is that Tara was going to create a story line in which Carlos was accused of embezzling money from the restaurant because he’d started gambling again. In the end it would come out that there was no missing money and he would have been exonerated, but the damage to his reputation would be done.”

  Everyone turns to glare at Gilly. “I never liked that story line,” she says, trying to defend herself. “I tried to dissuade Tara from it. I really did.”

  “Not hard enough,” accuses Carlos.

  “Carlos, did you poison Tara?” I ask.

  “I wish I had, but no. I didn’t.”

  “Good enough for me.”<
br />
  Two down, four to go.

  I look down the table to catch Heidi’s gaze. “What?” she asks in a bristly tone.

  “You also went to see Tara that night, didn’t you?”

  “I think it’s silly to have a show where we all compete against one another.”

  “You didn’t feel that way the other day when Will and I went to have breakfast at your bakery. As a matter of fact, you told us you thought you’d win the show hands down. Isn’t that what you said?”

  “Well—”

  “Ha!” cries Wendy. “Everyone knows you’re nothing but a big show-off.”

  Heidi begins wringing her hands. Am I a bad person because a tiny part of me is enjoying watching Heidi squirm? “Okay, I admit it,” she says. “I did go see Tara that night.”

  “Because you wanted to quit the show?” Juanita gazes up to the heavens. “Dios mio, it was an epidemic!”

  Heidi nods demurely. “Yes, I wanted to quit the show too.”

  Mark Dalton crosses his arms over his chest like he’s posing. He’d make a great TV prosecutor. “If you were so confident you’d win, why did you want to quit?”

  I pick up the notebook and raise a brow at Heidi. Either she tells them or I will, and she knows it.

  “Tara was going to make this big deal about the fact that I don’t have nutritional values on my menu.”

  “What’s so damaging about that?” asks Juanita.

  “Do you know how many calories and fat grams are in one of Heidi’s donuts?” I skim through the notebook to find the information. “Her chocolate Bavarian crème donut has five hundred calories and over twenty-five grams of fat. Almost twice the amount found in a similar donut from a national chain.”

  Wendy gasps. “No wonder they taste so good!”

  Heidi’s eyes fill with tears. “That kind of information could kill my business.”

  “That kind of donut could kill your customers,” mutters Carlos.

  My thoughts exactly. Muffins are so much healthier for you than donuts, but this probably isn’t the best time to bring that up. It would feel too much like gloating.

  “I’m working on reducing the fat content on my donuts,” she says. “I really am. But Tara was going to be so horrible about the whole thing! She said my bakery was like from another century! I inherited that bakery from my mother. I wasn’t about to let Tara trash my business.”