Pint of No Return

by Dana Mentink

  She made the introductions, and Quinn knelt to massage Noodles behind the ears. Doug snuck quick peeks at the dog as he continued his meticulous work of heaping the hazelnuts onto the scale.

  “I probably should have called and told you to come later. We got a little behind this morning. It’s going to take Doug a while to package your order,” Quinn said. “He values precision, and he doesn’t like me to help.”

  She smiled at the bespectacled man, but Doug still did not return the smile, his attention fixed on the scale.

  “He’s not big on social interaction,” Quinn said. “But he’s an amazing worker, and, like I said, he’s passionate about his ice cream.”

  “No problem. I will make sure we’ve got plenty of fresh-churned vanilla on hand.”

  “Fantastic. Can I get you a cold soda while Doug finishes up? I keep some in a cooler.”

  “That would really hit the spot.”

  He handed her a can, opened one for himself, and slid a bottle of apple juice on the counter next to Doug. Without a word, he poured a bottle of water into a plastic container and set it down for Noodles to have a drink. “How are you two liking Upper Sprocket?”

  “So far, so good. It’s quiet here—quieter than Portland, anyway.”

  “That’s what Doug and I like about it. Things get hopping during Alpenfest and for the summer visitors. We’ll be happy after the Fourth of July comes and things slow down, though it’s been fun to give tours to a few nut lovers who’ve stopped by. Met many of the locals yet?”

  “Not many so far. Though I did finally run into Juliette, at the Store Some More just today,” she said.

  “Ah.” He didn’t seem inclined to fish about her colorful past with the hometown boy or his trail of ex-wives. She exhaled in relief as he changed the subject back toward where they were both comfortable—their businesses.

  They sipped their sodas. She learned that Quinn was a veteran of the Army, and the land he worked had been in his family since his grandfather’s day. “We’re kind of an anomaly. Most hazelnuts are grown in the Willamette Valley, but we’ve got a funky microclimate going on here, thanks to the shelter of the Wallowas. It’s not easy. Things went south because of the filbert blight, but we’re regaining momentum now that the resistant cultivars are producing.” He kept up an amiable chatter. “So, tell me how things are going at the ice cream shop.”

  He was easy to talk to, eager to listen, and she was dazzled by his boisterous laugh. By the time they finished their visit, she was startled to see that a half hour had whizzed by. When was the last time she had enjoyed such a genial chat…with a man? The nuts were weighed and ready to be paid for. Quinn insisted on carrying the buckets to her car, which both thrilled and embarrassed her, though she couldn’t say why.

  “We’ll see you in town soon, then?” Quinn said.

  She nodded. “Bring all your ice cream–loving friends and neighbors.”

  He laughed, eyes flashing a breathtaking blue. The hue seemed to her to be the exact shade of the lush hydrangeas Papa Luis grew in his greenhouse. “You bet we will.”

  She thanked him, returning his cheerful wave out the window as she drove away.

  ***

  Back in town nearly three hours after she’d started her nut errand, the tantalizing scent of caramel and kettle corn wafting from Kevin’s Popcorn Palace tickled her nose. Caramel. Maybe she would concoct a caramel and vanilla crème shake, since she’d already decided to crank out a batch of her special french vanilla for Doug. One masterpiece at a time, she told herself. She couldn’t wait to get started on the brownies, which would be the crowning glory of the Fourth of July Freakshake. She recalled the days she’d spent with Papa Luis hand-cranking a mound of vanilla, which they’d eat straight from the dented churn before it had even set. He was the one who had always inspired her ice cream dreams.

  “This is happiness,” Papa Luis always said with a wave of his spoon, and she’d agreed. Childhood, the love of her darling grandfather, and spoonfuls of creamy bliss. Happiness indeed. But Papa had seen plenty of bitterness, too, including the death of his son, her father, two years prior. Blinking back tears, she decided she would take some pictures of the shop to send to her mother, brother, and Papa Luis.

  Her shop. Delicious and unaccustomed excitement buzzed in her belly. Never in a gazillion years would she have imagined herself as an entrepreneur, but then again she’d not pictured herself being divorced, either. It was as if she were a small child, standing for the first time on shaky legs. Fresh doubts assailed her. What if there weren’t enough people willing to pay for her amazing shakes? Who would keep the heat on in the winter and kibble in Noodles’s bowl? She held onto Quinn’s encouragement. It’ll be a huge hit; don’t you worry.

  Swallowing hard, she got out of the car and hauled out the buckets.

  Across the street, a man pulled up in a green van with VINTAGE THEATER COMPANY stenciled in peeling paint on the side. He chewed a string of black licorice clamped between his teeth.

  “Help you with that?” he said.

  The man was familiar, the genial smile almost swallowed up by his wide, fleshy cheeks. She’d seen him at the grocery store, she recalled, chatting with the employees about fishing. “Oh no, thank you. That’s kind of you to offer.” She was still getting used to the helpful Sprocketerian spirit. Nut farmers offered sodas and water for dogs. Van drivers stopped at a moment’s notice to help schlep buckets. What a place.

  He chomped the rest of his licorice twist and extracted his portly form from the van. “No prob. I got to let my engine cool down anyway. Darn van overheats at the drop of a hat, and the way back from the printer’s seems like it’s all uphill.” He approached her. “Name’s Warren Wheaton.” Warren wiped his palms on his pants before he extended a beefy hand. Everything about him was beefy, his stomach pushing against the confines of a T-shirt and overlapping the belt of his jeans. The top of his head shone white and slick as a fish belly with a fringe of wispy hair clinging to the circumference.

  “Trinidad Jones,” she said, giving his palm a shake. “I’m opening a shop here in town.” She floundered around for something else to say before she gestured to the dog. “This is Noodles.”

  Warren cocked his head. “Hang on. Are you the woman working on the ice cream joint? But that was Gabe Bigley’s storefront. I heard he turned it over before he went to jail. Seems like Sprocket gets a new business for every one of Gabe’s exes.” His cheeks went red. “Oh, wait. You’re not…”

  “One of the bunch,” she said, feeling the flush creep up her neck. “I moved to town six weeks ago and started my own business.”

  He looked from his scuffed boots, to the dog, to the van, and finally settled on her kneecaps. “Oh, well. Welcome to Sprocket.”

  “Thank you,” she said brightly, wondering if her decision to stay in Sprocket meant that she would be perpetual fodder for the rumor mill. Would she forever be known as a Bigley ex-wife?

  “Real interesting name you got, Trinidad. Family thing?”

  “I’m named after a town,” she said.

  “Let me guess…a town in Trinidad?”

  “No, the town of Trinidad in Cuba.”

  He blinked. “That right? I’m named after my no-good uncle Warren. He pickled himself with too much drinking, but he sure was entertaining at family parties.” He laughed. “I’m a landscape guy, but I help out the theater company. Right now, I got a cargo area full of flyers. Hot off the presses, or at least the copy machine. Haven’t even looked at ’em, but I sure hope this batch doesn’t have a typo. Last time, they said our production was called Our Floundering Fathers.” He chuckled. “We’re doing a big patriotic show starting mid-July, and hopefully there will be no floundering involved. You should check it out.” He winked. “I’m playing Benjamin Franklin. I got just the hairline for it, don’t I?”

  She laughed. “Perfec
t.”

  “Anyway, since you don’t need my help, I’d better scoot,” he said, with a chagrined smile. “Welcome. Hope to see you around.” He gave Noodles a pat before he returned to his vehicle.

  She hauled the first bucket to the closed door of the Popcorn Palace, Noodles following. The structure was a boxy cinder block building painted brilliant white with black trim, nestled alongside a wide graveled drive. The hours on the place said, 11:00 A.M.–7:00 P.M., MONDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, MAY THROUGH NOVEMBER. The sign included a color picture of Kevin Heartly wearing a goofy grin and sporting a hat that resembled a giant, fluffy popcorn kernel. The monthly special was a festive Fourth of July kettle corn that looked to be streaked with drizzles of red- and blue-tinted white chocolate.

  Kevin had told her when they first met that the Popcorn Palace had been in his family for fifty years. The caramel corn hazelnut combo was a favorite all across the state with some people driving hours to stock up when the Palace opened after the spring thaw. Demand for the sweet, salty delicacy would be high during the upcoming Fourth of July holiday weekend. And, after they’d tried the Popcorn Palace’s offerings, they’d be sure to stop for a Freakshake, she assured herself.

  Trinidad rapped a knuckle on the door, which she realized was not quite closed. It swung open a few inches. “Kevin? It’s Trinidad. I’ve got your nut delivery.”

  The interior was quiet and dark. Cool air whispered through the front door. Kevin must have had the air conditioner running to combat the summer heat. The sun blazed down on her back, dampening her T-shirt. Noodles oozed into a puddle in the shade of the ivy that grew nearly to the height of the shop’s low roof. A neatly packaged rosebush with a spray of pink blooms leaned against the porch step, ready to be potted or planted. The label said, “Pink Princess.” Trinidad didn’t know a thing about roses, but the Pink Princess variety puffed a lovely fragrance into the air, which mingled nicely with the sugary caramel corn smell. A person didn’t get this kind of olfactory bonanza in the big city, she thought. “Kevin?” she called again, louder.

  Still receiving no answer, she decided to stall, going to her car and lugging over the second bucket of hazelnuts, marveling at how easily Quinn had carried them. This time she rapped so hard on the door it flew wide, opening the shop to her.

  She debated. Should she load the nuts back into the car and return later? But she’d hoped to have the delivery done by two and it was already approaching three thirty. He would want it before closing up, wouldn’t he? She could leave them on the doorstep. The crime rate in Upper Sprocket was probably close to nil, so nut theft wasn’t on the radar. Still, she was hoping to collect his half of the payment.

  “Maybe I’d better put them inside at least and close the door,” she said to Noodles. Since he did not detect the words “walk,” “treat,” or “vet” in the comment, he apparently felt no need to weigh in. “Okay, it’s nuts or never.” She half-lugged, half-rolled the buckets into the store. The dog followed.

  Inside was a small counter set up near the window where Kevin or his helpers could take orders without leaving the building. A second window was for product pickup. Big roll-down shutters would allow Kevin to whip up his kettle corn delicacy with sufficient ventilation. Behind the counter was a pristine tiled floor. A stove hugged the wall topped with small copper pots. Caramel fragrance hung heavy in the air.

  An enormous iron kettle stood centered on the tile, which must be where Kevin worked his corny magic. She thought she heard a noise, a scrape from the rear of the building. Perhaps Kevin was working in the lot behind the store. Her mood improved at the thought of picking up his half of the $200 payment.

  She slid the buckets toward the wall to keep them out of the way and headed behind the counter. As she went to the back door to find him, she stumbled on something. A wooden device with a long handle like an oar for a rowboat, lay at her feet. She realized it must be the tool he used to stir the kernels in the kettle.

  Weird, she thought, for Kevin to leave the tool lying on the floor, even though at first glance, the floor looked fairly clean. Except for a few drips on the tile dark against the white, glossy in the unlit space. Caramel perhaps?

  She followed the drips with her eyes, tracing their path, which seemed to extend from the wooden paddle across the tile floor and up the side of the massive iron kettle where the droplets had morphed into dribbles that ran down the rounded metal sides. Something cinched tight in her stomach.

  This is Upper Sprocket, she told herself, not a bustling city, and she was in a popcorn shop, not a seedy back alley. Still, her body whispered some nonverbal alarm that sent the hairs along her arms standing at attention.

  “Noodles,” she whispered as she drew near the kettle. “We should go.”

  But, inexorably, she moved close and closer until she fingered the rim, solid and smooth. When she peered over, she nearly touched her nose to a shoulder. The shoulder was attached to a body, curled up in the fetal position inside the kettle. The body was bloody and still.

  When she shot backward, she overturned the nearest bucket, which sent hazelnuts rolling all over the floor. Scrambling over the nuts and Noodles, Trinidad stumbled to the front porch, nausea almost making her retch.

  Kevin Heartly had popped his last batch of corn.

  Her scream exploded like an erupting kernel in his iron kettle.

  Chapter Three

  “She came out screaming and keeled over like a felled pine,” Warren Wheaton said as Trinidad achieved a sitting position.

  She wasn’t sure who he was speaking to. Her head spun and her skin prickled with goosebumps, though the temperature was still in the lower nineties. A leaf dangled in her frame of vision, stuck in her frizzy bangs. Warren was kneeling next to her. “I figured something was up when you screamed, so I went in and…uh…well, you already know what’s in the kettle.”

  The kettle. A chill swept through her nerves.

  “Yes,” said a calm voice. “We do. Miss Jones, do you need an ambulance?”

  She looked up to see a tall, uniformed woman with brown eyes staring down at her. Something about the thin nose and the fringe of dark lashes was familiar. “No, no, I’m okay. I just got lightheaded for a minute and tripped over my feet, Officer…uh…”

  “I’m Chief Cynthia Bigley of the Sprocket Police Department.”

  Bigley? Trinidad blinked and swallowed, throat dry as dust. “You aren’t another ex-wife of Gabe’s, are you?” Had she actually said that aloud?

  The chief cleared her throat. “No, ma’am,” she said slowly. “As far as I know, he only married three. He’s my baby brother.”

  Trinidad gaped. This woman couldn’t be Gabe’s sibling. She must have heard wrong. “The sister who stole cars?” she squeaked, overriding her brain’s warning Klaxon.

  Warren’s mouth fell open with an audible plop. She wished feverishly to cram the words back in her gullet. Why, oh, why hadn’t Juliette mentioned that the chief of police was their former sister-in-law? Noodles, picking up on her tension, applied his wet nose to her chin with a plaintive whine.

  “People change, ma’am,” the chief said after a beat. “I don’t steal cars anymore. The Army set me on the straight and narrow. They’re pretty good at helping a person reconfigure their priorities.” She cocked her chin. “I’ve met Juliette and Bonnie. I didn’t plan on getting to know the remaining ex-wife at a murder scene.”

  Through her spinning senses, Trinidad made note of the slightly sarcastic delivery of “the remaining ex-wife.”

  “Juliette has plenty of mud to sling around about Gabe. You, too?” said the chief.

  Trinidad started to reply when the chief waved her off. “Never mind. Not the time. Are you sure you don’t need an ambulance?”

  Trinidad felt like she needed a sweat sock to stuff in her mouth instead. She shook her head and gave the dog a reassuring pat. Noodles trotted off and re
turned a moment later carrying a warm bottle of water he’d retrieved from the Pinto. It had taken him a while to master how to open the front door, but now he was a pro. He dropped the bottle in her lap, this time swiping his tongue across her forehead. She leaned her cheek against his furry side to steady herself.

  “Well, would you look at that,” Warren said. “Dog’s smarter than some of my kinfolk. He opened up that car door slick as a whistle.”

  She didn’t have the strength to explain that Noodles was a service dog flunk-out in his younger days, according to the shelter where he’d been dumped in favor of a new puppy. After a steadying breath, she said, “Chief, I am sorry about the car theft crack. Um…Gabe said a lot of nice things about you, too.” In truth, he’d gushed with pride to speak of how she was turning her life around, his darling big sis, how close they were. Never once had she heard him mention his sister had gone into law enforcement in Sprocket, of all places.

  “Apology accepted,” the chief said. “I adore my little brother, but he can talk the paint off the walls, and nothing is out of bounds. Let’s get you into the shade. We can stroll down memory lane when we don’t have a dead body to process.”

  Warren gripped her elbow as he and the chief led her to a tree, which screened the sun. Noodles crowded along, too.

  “Stay here,” Chief Bigley commanded. Warren, Trinidad, and Noodles followed directions while the chief reentered the Popcorn Palace.

  “I’ve never fainted before.” Trinidad lifted her mass of curly hair away from her perspiring neck.

  Warren quirked a smile. “You probably never saw a murdered guy before.”

  Her stomach turned over. Murdered. Though she’d efficiently recorded the details of many murder trials in her stenography work, it felt unreal that a human life could be violently ended in picture-perfect Sprocket.

  “Must have been a stranger passing through. I mean, Kevin was a real stand-up guy, ran a tight ship in the way of business matters. No one had beef with him.” Warren paused. “Well, except maybe the fella who clobbered him.”