Willow nodded, but she was deep in thought. The coffee itself was poisoned and not the grounds? That would make this murder more difficult to execute. However, it certainly didn’t sound like Linda Grego minded extra steps when making a complaint. Maybe it was the same with murder?
Willow would just have to check and see if she could prove that Linda had snuck over to the B&B in the morning.
“Do you want dessert?” Frank asked, taking out a batch of chocolate chip cookies.
Willow nodded. She deserved a cookie after making a potential break in the case.
14
Back home and dressed in her most comfortable pajamas, a matching top and bottom with a pattern of sleeping puppies curled up into balls, Willow wandered into her living room. She had a glass of wine in one hand and was trying to decompress. She took a sip and decided that her ten-dollar bottle was actually much better than the stuff that Benny had ordered on their date. Or was that just sour grapes?
She swirled her drink and sighed. It wasn’t just finding out that Benny wasn’t the perfect date that bothered her, (though his lying could have ramifications for him as a suspect.) No, it was that she hadn’t seen through his act. After everything that she had been through with her ex, she thought she was smarter. She thought she was better at seeing others’ ulterior motives and knew what she wanted out of a relationship now. However, she had been misled again. Maybe she really wasn’t ready to date.
She looked at the one male who had never let her down to see if he had any words of advice, but Telescope was snoozing on the couch, looking like the cuddly design on her PJs.
Getting no response but puppy snores, Willow turned her attention to the rest of the room. She placed a hand on the wall and then tried to imagine what it would look like if it were cut in half. Griffin was right; she would be losing a lot of personal space.
She felt doubts about the dog spa creeping into her head. It would mean more business, but that would also mean more work. Griffin was also right when he said that he thought she preferred training to grooming. She did like seeing a dog reach his potential athletically and with understanding what a trainer was communicating. She much preferred that to covering a canine in suds and getting herself soaked in the process. To compensate, would she have to cut back on the part of her job that she loved?
She took another sip of wine and tried to quell these concerns. She had already hired some employees. She could hire more if she expanded as well. With the other grooming place in town closing, opening her own made business sense.
And yet she was having nagging concerns about losing this room. She would be sacrificing her personal space for her business. It wasn’t a big deal right now, but could it be down the line? She was thinking of Pineview as her forever home and was planning on staying in this house. What if she wanted to start a family someday? She would want the downstairs bathroom and the extra living room space then.
She realized she was pacing and then tried to imagine this movement in the smaller living room. She groaned as she considered that Griffin could be right again. Was she trying to force this build because it looked good on paper? Was she not considering the other consequences?
Of course, if she did stop these renovations, Griffin wouldn’t be a part of her life like he had been. Their morning coffee meetings where they joked and talked about life under the guise of construction plans would be a thing of the past. She hated to admit it but seeing Griffin for those talks made her not hate the mornings. Sometimes she even enjoyed waking up early.
However, she couldn’t be doing all this for a cup of coffee in the morning, could she? Would she really miss seeing Griffin that much?
She hit the wall with her palm and heard a slight thud.
If that were the case, she might as well date Griffin like he suggested. Of course, that was terrifying. She wanted to start dating – not to jump into a relationship that could lead to commitment. That wasn’t what she wanted.
“What I need,” Willow said aloud, “is more wine.”
She followed her own advice and refilled her glass. Then, she cuddled up next to Telescope on the couch and turned on the television. She wanted to turn off her brain, but she couldn’t help noticing that her TV was partially in the area that would have to be given up for the dog spa.
She drank a little more and flipped through the channels.
“What do you feel like watching?” she asked the dog. Telescope had opened his eyes but seemed to shrug in reply.
She settled on a Lifetime thriller and eventually found herself focusing on the characters’ troubles instead of her own. She could usually figure out the ending of this type of movie pretty early on, but they were fun to watch.
“Aha!” Willow said, struggling not to spill her drink in her enthusiasm to solve the movie’s mystery. “They want us to think it’s the football player, but it’s really his little brother. He’s the one who had access to the jacket the witness saw.”
Telescope wagged his tail. Willow leaned back to see if she was right.
“If only I could figure out what happened to Kaitlin so easily,” she muttered.
Tele moved closer, and she petted him as she thought about the murder. Her father told her that the coffee was poisoned but not the grounds. Who would have been able to poison what was in Kaitlin’s mug between when she poured it and when she finished drinking it? And who could have done this daily until she died?
Because of their former relationship, Kaitlin would probably have admitted Jack into her house. Would she have let Benny or Linda inside her apartment? Would they be able to sneak inside and add the poison if she didn’t let them in? Linda had been making complaints about the B&B, and Benny wanted to buy it. Would that have given them insider information on how to break into her house unobserved?
It became clear that she was right about the thriller on TV, but she still didn’t have any more answers about her mystery.
She picked up the phone, looking for something else to distract her. She hadn’t checked on Wednesday’s posts for the day yet and decided to scroll through them. It would be nice to see what her sister was up to when she wasn’t including Willow’s dating life.
At first, Willow enjoyed looking at the pictures. They were fun and got lots of likes. There were pictures of Wednesday curling her hair while her cat watched, grilling paninis, and climbing the trees in the park. There were also some shots of her riding go-carts and then volunteering at a soup kitchen.
When she reached the pictures of the picnic, Willow frowned. By the amount of posts and locations she saw, it looked as if Wednesday was never at work. No wonder her father was worried. How much paperwork could Wednesday get done while she was roller skating?
She sent her sister a text reminding her that their dad was anxious about the bio she was supposed to write but didn’t get a response right away. Willow hoped that Wednesday was doing some work for her job, or she might not have it to come back to once this week was done.
After receiving no reply and not wanting to add any more “likes,” Willow looked for something else to play with on her phone. Another thriller was beginning on TV, (this time Willow suspected the mother) and she found herself clicking on Tinder.
She sipped her wine and started swiping through potential matches. No one was jumping out at her. Was she being too picky? Was she being a chicken? Was she being smart? She answered herself with a big gulp of rosé and kept swiping.
Then, she saw a picture that made her pause. Griffin’s face was staring at her from her screen. He looked just as he did in person. She could make out the shadow of his muscular arms and the unique shade of his piercing blue eyes.
She gulped. Which way should she swipe for Griffin? She had to admit an attraction, and she did love their morning coffee chats. However, they were still working together.
She felt silly as she noticed her hand was trembling.
“Too much wine,” she muttered instead of acknowledging that being forced to mak
e a decision was frightening.
Telescope nudged her hand. Willow nodded. She was going to make a choice. Any minute now she was going to make a choice. She just needed to move her thumb. She just needed to swipe the picture. But which way? Left or right?
Heart in her throat and wine in her hand, she swiped right. She exhaled a deep breath.
The answer was immediate. They were a match!
15
“Where is it?” Willow muttered as she scoured her house looking for the shade of lipstick that was hiding on her. She knew that Griffin had seen her during her awkward high school days and when she was only half-awake before the coffee was brewed while they started working together. However, if she was going to do this dating thing, she was going to do it right. That included throwing some lipstick on.
After checking the normal hiding spots, she started searching in some more unusual ones. However, when she started digging through Telescope’s treat bag, she realized that she was becoming desperate.
Telescope bounded into the room when he heard the crinkle of the bag.
She turned to him with hands on her hips. “Did you hide it on me?”
He barked, and she gave him a snack so it wouldn’t seem like she was teasing him. After he finished eating, he headed back to the front door. He seemed to know that someone was about to arrive.
Willow sighed. She couldn’t think where else to look and searching for her missing tube was the one thing that had been distracting her from overanalyzing her decision to go on this date. She felt a different sort of nervousness from when she went on her other Tinder date. With Benny, she hadn’t been expecting much because her main reason to chat with him was to determine if was a killer. (The jury was still out on that call.) It had also seemed safe because Benny was based in New York City and only traveled here for business. A relationship like that could be casual and comfortable. She didn’t want a booty call, but she also wasn’t ready to jump right into a major commitment.
She checked the time. She knew Griffin liked to arrive early for appointments. Would it be the same for dates? If so, then she only had a few more minutes to push off her panic attack and decide on an alternate shade of gloss.
She double-checked that she hadn’t left her lipstick in the bathroom and reminded herself, “Just stick to the plan.”
The plan was to keep the prospect of a first date from becoming too terrifying. To do that, she would do the same thing that she did on her last date. She would try and interview a suspect at the same time. This time her target was Linda. And she had an idea on how to run into her.
She chuckled to herself as she realized that she found talking to a murder suspect less intimidating than a date with a handsome and kind man. The doorbell rang, accompanied by Telescope’s cheerful barks. Her date had arrived.
She opened the door to see Griffin in a blue button-down shirt that complemented his eyes and found herself saying, “You clean up good, kid.”
Out of construction boots, it was certainly true. However, she couldn’t help cringing that those were the first words out of her mouth on their date. Why did she call him kid?
“I guess most of the time you see me I’m sweaty, and my clothes are covered in paint and dust,” he said with a laugh.
Willow refrained from commenting on how attractive he could be then too, with his sleeves rolled up to show his firm arm muscles. Instead, she focused on the flowers in his hand.
“Are those for me?”
“Nah. They’re for Tele,” he teased before handing them over.
“They’re beautiful,” she said, looking at them. “But, am I – was I supposed to get you something too? I might be rusty at this.”
“Will, relax. Just be yourself,” Griffin said. “And besides, I’m a contractor. I know how to deal with rust.”
She groaned at the joke and headed further into her house. She quickly placed the flowers in a vase and grabbed her purse. She returned to see Griffin petting Tele. He stood up and smiled when he saw her.
“I’m all ready,” she said, digging into her purse for her keys and finding her missing lipstick. How could she have forgotten to check there? It was right under her nose the whole time. “Actually, give me five seconds.”
She used the hall mirror to apply the lipstick and then walked to the door.
“Have I told you yet that you look beautiful?” Griffin asked.
Telescope barked and they both looked at him.
Willow smiled. “He said I better be home by curfew or else.”
“Don’t worry,” Griffin said to the pup. “I’ll take good care of her.”
Telescope seemed appeased, and the two humans left and headed for Griffin’s truck.
“I’m really excited about the bar we chose to eat at,” he said. “Having so many craft beers on tap sounds amazing. I looked it up after you told me about it. They have over a hundred.”
“I know. It’s like a unicorn in wine country,” Willow agreed. “But, you know, I’m not quite hungry yet. Would you mind if we took a detour before dinner?”
“Not at all. What did you have in mind?”
“There’s a farmers’ market in town,” Willow suggested. “They have a lot of local stands, and we can see what they have to offer.”
Griffin agreed, saying it was perfect weather to wander around the tables.
Willow smiled. It was easier to convince him to go there than she thought it would be. She did love visiting the farmers’ market for fresh fruits and vegetables. However, it wasn’t tomatoes or watermelon that Willow was looking for today. It was Linda Grego.
Linda was involved in many town activities, and Willow was pretty sure she had heard her mention that she had a stand at the farmers’ market while she was at the dog gym. She remembered Linda trying to convince Shelly to come buy her homemade candles.
They parked outside the market and headed in together. Some of the vendors were beginning to closeup shop, but others were staying late to catch people when they got off work.
She hoped that Linda would still be there. She knew that her father had dismissed Linda as a suspect, but Willow felt like she needed to get her own read on her. Terry had been told not to leave town, and it was sounding like the case against her was gathering steam.
Despite the secrets that Terry had kept from her at first, Willow didn’t think that she was the killer. She couldn’t believe that Terry would poison somebody. Also, why would Terry have suggested that Willow look into Jack as a potential killer before the death was ruled a murder? Surely, the killer wanted this to be ruled a natural death, so they could get away with the crime. It didn’t make sense for the killer to accuse someone when it looked like an illness.
Someone else had killed Kaitlin and was allowing Terry to take the blame. Willow was going to find out who it was. She didn’t want her friend to go down for a crime she didn’t commit.
Plus, once all the chaos had died down, they would be able to focus on training for the dog competition again. She knew that all three of them (dog included) could really use a win.
Willow wandered ahead, trying to find Linda’s table.
“I only have eyes for you,” Griffin said.
That made Willow stop abruptly. It was certainly a forward thing to say on a first date even if they were friends. She turned towards him, ready to tell him to cool his jets but ended up bursting out laughing. He was holding up two potatoes and grinning.
“If you keep making those jokes, you’re going to get an earful,” Willow challenged, picking up an ear of corn and jabbing it towards him.
“That’s pretty corny,” he countered.
“If you think that’s bad…” Willow trailed off as she saw the stand she was looking for. “Candles.”
She set the corn down and headed off towards the table.
“Hey,” Griffin said, following. “Where are you stalking off to?”
He was soon at her side. They approached the table, but Willow was unhappy to see that there
was no one there. She picked up a candle and peered around. Griffin started sniffing the candles.
“This one’s nice,” he said, offering it to her to smell.
Willow nodded in agreement.
“That’s my pomegranate honey candle. Very popular,” Linda said, running up to the table. “In fact, I just had to get another box of them.”
“It’s a crowd favorite?” Griffin asked.
She nodded. Then, she recognized Willow. “Hello there. Looking for something sweet to cover up the smell of your dogs? I love to use these around my house if Pattie ever has wet fur.”
“That’s a good idea,” Willow said, picking up another candle and twirling it in her hands. “There are lots of times that you might want to cover up the scent of a dirty dog. Did they use these at the dog-friendly B&B in town?”
“This is just a hobby for me right now because of the time constraints from my job, so I only sell them at the farmers’ market. I am trying to expand but haven’t yet. I don’t think Kaitlin ever came to my table,” she said with a shrug.
Griffin raised an eyebrow at the mention of the victim’s name.
“And I suppose now she can’t. I wasn’t thinking,” Willow said, frowning. “It’s a shame what happened to her.”
“It is. But it’s not all that surprising,” Linda said. “Maybe if the city had responded to my complaints, this might not have happened. They could have cited her for not storing the rat poison properly. Though, I’m not one to gossip.”
Another customer came up to the table, inquiring, “Did you get that other box of candles?”
Linda turned her attention to the eager woman who wanted to buy her wares. It looked like she might take a while. Griffin gestured with his head, and Willow followed him away from the table.
“Sorry,” she said.
“Don’t be,” he said with a smile. “We became close again when you were investigating Lee Hunter’s murder. I should have expected there would be some carryover.”
Bark Up and Smell the Coffee Page 11