Lattes, Ladyfingers, and Lies

by Harper Lin

  “So they’re nice people?”

  I scoffed. “They do the state proud.”

  Matt laughed. He knew what I meant.

  “They’re both really abrasive. He doesn’t actually seem like he cares if they ever get married. They live together, so I think it’s kind of a why-buy-the-cow situation for him.”

  “I’m sorry, a what?” Matt sounded utterly baffled. “Where did cows come from? Is that another word for an engagement ring?”

  I laughed. “You’ve never heard that? ‘Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?’”

  Matt shook his head, still looking confused.

  “It’s what people say about not living together before you get married. Why would a guy marry you when you’re already living there?”

  “Hold on. Are you the cow in this scenario?”

  I laughed as I nodded. I’d heard the saying so many times growing up that I’d never stopped to think about how bizarre it would sound if you were hearing it for the first time.

  “Wow, and I’m the—?”

  “The farmer?” I suggested, still laughing.

  “And where did you hear this? Is this a New York thing?”

  I cracked up. “No! It’s a—I don’t know. It’s just a thing. My mom and my grandmother used to say it to me all the time growing up. A behave-yourself-if-you-want to-ever-get-married kind of thing. I guess nobody says it to boys?”

  “Wow.” Matt leaned back on the couch. “That does not speak highly of men.”

  “I thought it was bad enough that it was calling women cows, but I guess you’re right. It doesn’t really make men look good either.”

  “Just wow.” Matt shook his head.

  “Anyway, it really didn’t seem like Sean cared that much about marrying Sabine.”

  “So that lead didn’t really pan out, huh?”

  “Nope.”

  “What else do you have?”

  “I think that’s about it. I want to go track Alex down tomorrow, but…” I flopped my hands in the air.

  “But what?”

  “I don’t know. That’s it. That’s all I have. I’m going to go talk to Alex tomorrow, and Dean seems like he’s hiding something. That’s it.” I looked up at the clock. Five to ten. “It’s been forty-eight hours, and I have nothing. Supposedly, if there’s not a suspect in the first forty-eight hours, the case is unlikely to be solved.” I crossed my arms across my chest. I was pouting a little, but I was frustrated.

  “Franny.” Matt tucked his hand under my chin and tipped it up toward him.

  “What?”

  “This is, what, the fourth murder we’ve had?”

  I nodded.

  “And you’ve investigated them all.”

  I nodded again.

  “In any one of those, did you figure out who did it within the first forty-eight hours?”

  I shook my head.

  “So why should this time be any different?”

  I shrugged.

  “Because you know about the forty-eight-hour thing now?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Besides, I think that’s for cops. You’re not a cop.”

  “You sound like Mike.”

  “Was that the lecture you got today?”

  “More or less.”

  “You know he just wants to make sure you’re not getting in over your head.”

  “He wants to make sure I’m not screwing up his case.”

  “Whatever. It’s nothing personal.”

  I grunted. “I’m not so sure about that.”

  “No, he likes you. He wouldn’t let you get away with so much if he didn’t.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I say so.”

  “Can we watch something else? I don’t even understand what they’re talking about.” I was done talking about the case. I wanted to think about something else, and whatever the angry bald men were arguing about wasn’t doing it for me.

  “Franchise tags,” Matt non-explained.

  I stared at him blankly.

  “The Nineteen Eighty-Two World Series is on ESPN Classic.”

  “Was that the one where the ball rolled through the guy’s legs?” It was the only World Series moment I knew of.

  “No, that was eighty-six.”

  “I wouldn’t want to watch that anyway.”

  Matt chuckled and hit the Guide button on the remote then tossed it to me. I found a movie I’d watched at least twenty times and put it on.

  “This is really what you want to watch? Isn’t this the one you can put on mute and still quote all the dialog?”

  “Yes and yes.” I snuggled into him. I could smell the warm, spicy fragrance of his cologne when I was this close.

  “Then let’s watch it,” he said, even though I knew he wasn’t really excited about it.

  I tipped my head up to look at him. I didn’t know how I hadn’t seen growing up how handsome he was with his dark brown eyes, his thick dark hair that was getting just a little long, and the five o’clock shadow dusting his cheeks. He glanced down at me and smiled. I almost told him I loved him, but instead, I bit my lip and turned back to the movie.

  Chapter 15

  The next day, I had plans to meet with my whole staff at the café in the afternoon to go over the plan for while I was in Italy. It was mostly basic stuff—making sure everyone knew when they were scheduled to work, going over everything to do at open and close, confirming all the daily procedures, including who was covering each of the tasks I usually did.

  I’d arranged for Monica to bring extras of her desserts in case we ran out. Sammy and Rhonda had the recipes for the ones I usually made and the numbers for the people we bought the rest of them from. I’d gone ahead and placed a larger-than-usual supply order to make sure they didn’t run out of napkins while I was gone, and we’d already gone over how the orders were placed in case they needed anything else. I knew I was leaving Antonia’s in capable hands, but the fact that I couldn’t think of the last time a member of the Amaro family hadn’t been there to take care of things made me a little bit nervous.

  But that was in the afternoon. My morning was wide open. My talk with Matt the night before had encouraged me about my investigation into Georgina’s murder, and I felt confident about tracking down Alex to talk to him about Georgina. I’d found out the name of Alex’s company from Sammy and where it was in town. I’d also gotten from her the address where he and Georgina had lived together. Alex actually still lived there, but I would talk to him at his office. I wanted the address to talk to the neighbors about Alex and Georgina’s fighting.

  I went ahead and put on my work clothes since I was planning to visit Alex’s office last, and it was just down the street from the café. I pulled a black long sleeve T-shirt on over my head and paired it with black jeans. My mother’s sensible-but-stylish black Italian leather loafers went on my feet. I briefly considered leaving my hair down for the day, but as soon as I thought about standing over the steaming espresso machine with my thick mop of black hair hanging down around my shoulders, I pulled it up into a high ponytail.

  Once I got Latte all squared away for the morning, I headed out in the direction of Alex’s neighborhood. It was farther inland than mine by about a half mile. It was always remarkable to me how you could go such a short distance away and have the smell of the ocean be so much harder to detect. I was glad I could open the windows in my house and let the tangy, salty smell in. It smelled like Cape Bay, and I wouldn’t feel at home without it.

  Alex’s house was about halfway down his street. It was simple, modest, and much newer than mine, a generic ranch with no real style, but the lawn was mowed, and there were a few bushes in the garden that looked like they had recently been trimmed. It looked as if he at least put some effort into taking care of it. I didn’t knock on his door.

  Instead, I went next door. The woman who answered looked like she was about fifty. Her hair was graying, but her makeup was neatly done and her T-shirt a
nd jeans looked new, or at least well taken care of. I didn’t recognize her, but there were a lot of people I didn’t recognize in Cape Bay since I came back to town. She had a pleasant enough look on her face, which I took as a good sign.

  “Hi! My name is Francesca Amaro and—”

  “Sorry, I’m not interested.” She started closing the door.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I’m not interested. Whatever you’re selling, I’m not interested.” She pushed the door farther closed.

  “No, no, I’m not selling anything!”

  She paused her closing, but looked at me warily.

  “I’m—I wanted to ask you about Alex and Georgina, your neighbors.”

  “Georgina doesn’t live there anymore.” She got the door almost closed before I put my hand out to stop it.

  “I know. She’s dead. I’m trying to help figure out who killed her!”

  The woman let up her pressure on the door a little bit. “You’re with the police?”

  “No. I was a friend of hers. Her boss, Dean, the store owner, asked me if I would see if I could find out anything about who might have killed her.”

  “Why are you asking about her and Alex?” She seemed to warm up to me a little.

  “I understand they fought a lot?”

  “I thought you said you were her friend. Her friends would know if she and Alex fought.”

  I was losing her. I was going to have to stretch the truth a little. “I know they fought. But you know how people are. What she said happened and what other people saw aren’t necessarily the same thing.”

  “Well, you’re right about that, but I don’t see what that has to do with her getting killed like that. It was a robbery, wasn’t it? Unless—unless you think it wasn’t. Unless you think Alex had something to do with it. Are you saying you think Alex killed her?”

  “Do you think he could have? Did you ever see him get violent with her? Or hear anything that sounded like it?”

  She took a deep breath and studied me through narrowed eyes. It took her a minute, but she finally answered. “Georgina gave just as good as she got.”

  “Was she violent with him?”

  “I wasn’t in their house, but as far as I know, nobody hit anybody. That doesn’t mean they didn’t rough each other up a little, only that I never heard anything that made me think they did. They’d scream and slam doors and call each other every name in the book and out of it, but that’s all I know.”

  “Okay, thank you. I appreciate you talking to me.”

  “Even if she could cuss like a sailor, she didn’t deserve to die like that. She was a real nice girl, that Georgina, to everyone but him. She didn’t deserve that.”

  It was more or less the same thing the other couple of people I managed to talk to said. No one answered at most of the doors I tried. One person had only moved in after Georgina moved out. But the neighbor on the other side and the one across the street both answered and remembered Alex and Georgina’s fights. From what they said, they were hard to forget—yelling and screaming, swearing and insulting, sometimes late into the night. No one ever saw either of them raise a hand to the other. No one ever saw any suspicious bruises. No one ever saw or heard anything to make them think that anything was going on but some vigorous screaming. It was time to go see Alex.

  I turned to walk toward downtown, but as I passed Alex’s house, I stopped and looked at it. On a whim, I walked up and knocked on the door. I was about to give up and go find Alex’s office when the door opened. A man who resembled the creepy guy at the café who Sammy had identified as Alex stood there. That man, though, had been clean-shaven, neatly groomed, and well dressed. This guy wore a dirty-looking holey old T-shirt with sweatpants. His hair stuck out from his head in clumps that pointed off in different directions, and he had about three days of stubble on his chin.

  “Alex?” I asked cautiously.

  He nodded or at least made a movement with his head that I could interpret as a nod. “You’re Fran from the coffee shop. That was a good latte.”

  “Thank you. Um…” I paused and looked at his red-rimmed eyes. “Are you okay?”

  He rubbed his hand over his chin and then over his head, shifting his hair into a new indefinable shape. “Yeah, um, my girlfriend—my ex-girlfriend, I mean—”

  “Georgina?”

  “Yeah. You know?”

  I nodded. “Everyone knows.”

  Alex slumped against the door. “I can’t believe it. I mean, Georgie—” If it was possible, he leaned even harder against the door. I was worried he would slip to the ground if he didn’t sit down.

  “Can I come in? Could we maybe talk for a minute?”

  He pushed himself up into a nearly vertical position. “Yeah. It’s kind of a mess, but—”

  Kind of didn’t quite cover it. There were three open pizza boxes on the coffee table, two completely empty and one with one slice left in it. Empty beer and energy drink cans were scattered across the floor. A pillow and a blanket were balled up on the couch, and the TV was on a sports channel with the sound muted. Alex practically fell down onto the couch.

  “I haven’t really felt like cooking since I found out about Georgie,” he said by way of explanation. From what I could see of the other rooms in the house, they didn’t look like a bachelor pad exploded, so I was inclined to believe him. “You can sit down if you want.”

  I picked a couple of beer cans up off a chair and set them on the coffee table next to one of the pizza boxes. I perched myself on the edge of the chair. I wasn’t sure if any of the contents of the cans had spilled, and I didn’t exactly want my butt soaked in beer, so I figured it was safest that way.

  “So, um, when did you find out about Georgina’s death?” I asked, not sure how else to start the conversation.

  “Late Tuesday afternoon just before I left work. One of the girls in the office had run an errand and saw the police tape around the jewelry store. When she came back in, she told me about it since she knew Georgie worked there. I tried to call Georgie’s cell phone, but no one answered. A couple minutes later, some cop showed up at the office and told me Georgie was—Georgie was—” He closed his eyes and shook his head from side to side. A tear slipped down one cheek and got buried in the stubble. He was either an incredible actor or he was genuinely devastated by Georgina’s death. I was pretty sure it was the latter.

  “Alex,” I said softly after giving him a minute to regain his composure.

  He looked at me with eyes that looked as though the light had gone out of them. It was the same look Matt’s eyes had right after his dad died.

  “Alex,” I took a deep breath to get the next part out. “Did you kill Georgina?” It was more direct than I’d ever planned to be, but Alex seemed so broken and empty I couldn’t stand to draw it out.

  He looked like someone had punched him in the gut. I supposed it wasn’t far from the truth. “You think I could have killed her?”

  “You were seen arguing with her. Loudly. A lot.”

  “We weren’t getting along anymore. That’s why we broke up.”

  “You were seen arguing with her after you broke up too.”

  “I was just worried about her. She moved out. She didn’t have anywhere to go. I offered to let her stay here, and I’d go stay with my parents or something, but she wouldn’t do it. She said she didn’t want to spend another second in the house she’d lived in with me.” He looked up at me with grief-stricken eyes. “Can you believe she hated me that much? She’d rather be homeless than live in the house she’d lived in with me.” He closed his eyes again and dropped his chin to his chest. “I even tried renting her an apartment a couple months ago—one of those above the shops on Main Street. I told her it would be just for her. I wouldn’t even have a key. But she wouldn’t go near it. I eventually gave up and moved my business in there. We’d been working out of here, but I signed a year-long lease on the place, and if Georgie wasn’t going to move in, I didn’t think it made s
ense to let it sit there empty. I told her that if she ever changed her mind, we’d move the business back in here, but—I guess that will never happen now.”

  Well, that certainly seemed like a plausible explanation for why Alex had moved his company onto Main Street. Maybe he hadn’t done it to spy on Georgina the way Dean thought he was doing—unless he was lying, of course. I looked over at him again. For the first time, I noticed he had a picture of himself and Georgina on the coffee table. That’s what he kept looking at with that heartbreaking expression. I couldn’t believe he was lying.

  “Where was Georgina staying? Do you know?”

  “Different places. She’d crash at a friend’s place for a night or two and then move on. She stayed at the jewelry store a lot of times.”

  “She what?” I asked, not believing my ears.

  “She slept at the jewelry store. On a little couch in the back.”

  I remembered the pillow and blanket that had been on the couch in Dean’s back room. That was where Georgina was sleeping? “Did Dean know?”

  “Of course he did. She set the motion detector off a bunch of times at night, and the cops came out. Dean had to have the alarm company stop calling the police and call him instead.”

  “I have to go.” I stood up.

  “Okay,” Alex said without moving.

  I was halfway to the door when I stopped and turned around. “Alex?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Where were you Sunday night?”

  He looked like he was going to be sick. “Speed dating. I was trying to get out there. I can find the address of the place if you want.”

  “No thanks. I won’t need it.” Alex was off my suspect list.

  Chapter 16

  I was at Howard Jewelers so quickly I might as well have run there. I went straight around the back and punched the buzzer by the door. Banging my fist on the door, I looked straight into the camera. “Dean! Dean! Open the door, Dean! Dean! Open! The! Door! Dean! Now! Dean!” I almost punched him in the face when he finally opened it.

  “Fran! What is it? Is something wrong?”

  I pushed past him into the back room. “You’d better believe there is! That’s what’s wrong!” I pointed at the pillow and blanket still piled on one end of the couch.