Death by French Roast

by Alex Erickson

  An idea formed. Checking the clock to make sure I still had plenty of time, I went online in search of a number. It didn’t take me long to find it. I memorized the number, then closed the tab, but before I could dial, there was a knock at my door.

  My heart fluttered. Could Paul have shown up early? If so, why?

  A new thought hit before I could make a move toward the door. What if it’s someone who doesn’t like me looking into Wade’s murder?

  Misfit was standing in the living room, his fur standing on end, eyes wide. The knock had spooked him, just as much as it had me.

  All the talk of murder had me paranoid, so I slipped into the kitchen and grabbed a knife before I made my way to the door. The knock came again, this time louder. It was followed by a voice calling my name.

  The tension bled from me and was replaced by annoyance as I opened the door to Robert Dunhill, my ex from California who’d followed me all the way to Ohio in an ill-fated attempt to win me back. He’d failed in that regard, but had decided he liked it in Pine Hills well enough that he’d stayed.

  Robert was grinning from ear to ear and dancing from foot to foot. His gaze flickered to the knife in my hand, but it didn’t faze him. The guy not only thought he was God’s gift to women, but he also believed he was near invincible.

  “Hey, Kris,” he said. “Mind if I come in? I have something I’d like to ask you.”

  I cringed at the shortened name, but stepped aside. “Make it quick,” I said. “I’ve got somewhere to be.” I hoped. Time was quickly ticking away, and I didn’t plan on being late for my date with Paul.

  Robert slid past me and into my house. The last time he was there, he’d come begging me to help him beat a murder charge. He’d been half frozen from the snow and miserable, and despite how unhappy I was with him—he’d cheated on me before I’d moved to Pine Hills—I’d decided to help.

  He waltzed into the living room and was nosing around when I joined him. Misfit was long gone, likely hiding in my bedroom.

  “Robert,” I said, hand finding my hips. “Why are you here?” It was then I realized he was alone. “Where’s Trisha?”

  “She’s at work,” he said. Trisha was his latest girlfriend, and somehow, against all odds, she’d stuck with him. Even though it was hard for me to believe, it appeared as if Robert had changed and his cheating ways were over.

  “So, why are you here?”

  Robert turned to face me. He had a small black box in his hand.

  “What is that?” I asked in a squeak. I knew exactly what was in the velvety little black box and my throat constricted, fear of what he might say making me near panic.

  He opened the box to reveal a diamond ring. It wasn’t big by anyone’s standards, but it was still beautiful.

  I stared at it, openmouthed, completely at a loss as to what to say. He couldn’t be thinking what I thought he was thinking. I mean, we were over, had been for a long time. And I was almost positive he’d come to terms with that fact.

  “Well?” he asked, holding the box, and the ring inside it, out to me.

  “Well what?” I asked, making no move to take it.

  “What do you think?”

  “It’s a lovely ring.” I met his eye. “Why are you showing me a ring?”

  “Because I want to marry Trisha.”

  I practically sagged to the floor in relief. I wouldn’t have put it past Robert to come begging me to take him back, despite how our lives had diverged. He’d stopped asking me to give him another chance a long time ago, but it was hard to reconcile the new Robert with the old in my mind.

  “I haven’t asked her yet,” he said. “I’ve been saving up for like a year now, and decided it was time to take the plunge. I know it’s not much . . .”

  “It’s perfect,” I said, and I meant it.

  He grinned. “Well, I wanted to come here and ask you if it was okay with you if I ask her.”

  My brow furrowed. “Ask me? Why?”

  He snapped the box shut and shoved the ring into his pocket. “We’ve got a history, right? I mean, we can’t just ignore that.”

  “Our history is history,” I said. “You don’t need my permission for anything.”

  He shrugged. “I know that, I guess. But it didn’t feel right. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be here to ask her now. I thought it best if I stopped by to check to make sure you’d be okay with me marrying Trisha.”

  “It’s okay, Robert,” I said. And then I did something I thought I’d never do again; I reached out and rested a hand on his shoulder. “It’s more than okay—it’s a fantastic idea. Ask her.”

  He met my eye for a heartbeat and then rushed forward to wrap me in a hug. “Thank you, Krissy. You don’t know how much your acceptance means to me.”

  I hugged him back, genuinely happy for him. Robert had made mistakes. A lot of mistakes. But he was working to make himself a better person. I had to respect that.

  We parted and I hurriedly wiped away a tear that had somehow gotten into my eye.

  “When are you going to ask her?” I asked.

  “Tonight, after she’s off. I’m taking her out, going big, you know?”

  My heart did a hiccup. “Taking her out? Where?” Please don’t say Geraldo’s.

  “Place in Levington called Le Petit. It’s French.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “It sounds lovely.” I took him by the arm and guided him to the door. I still had one more thing I wanted to do before Paul arrived, and the minutes were quickly draining away. “Good luck tonight, Robert. You’ll have to let me know what she says.”

  “You’ll be the first to know,” he said.

  Robert practically skipped to his car. He waved at me, and then grinned when I gave him two thumbs-up. As soon as he backed out of my driveway, I had my phone in hand and was dialing. I still had two hours and I planned on using them to the fullest.

  “Hi,” I said as soon as the call was answered. “It’s Krissy Hancock. I was hoping we could talk about Wade Fink and his murder.”

  There was a pause before a timid, “When?”

  “Tonight,” I said. “Now?”

  Another long pause. I waited it out, knowing that if I pressed, he very well might balk.

  “Okay,” came the reply. “Meet me in the parking lot of the Banyon Tree in fifteen minutes.” The line went dead.

  As I snatched up my purse and keys, Misfit sauntered back into the room, head on a swivel.

  “He’s gone,” I told him. “And I’ve got to go.”

  He swished his tail, headed into the kitchen to check to make sure I was leaving him some food. He turned to face me once he verified I wasn’t going to try to starve him.

  “I’ll be back in an hour. If Paul shows up, let him in.”

  Misfit did what any cat would do when confronted with an ounce of responsibility: He sat down to wash his back end.

  “Thanks for the help,” I muttered. I left my cat to his bath and then was on my way to talk to a man about a murder.

  14

  Only a few cars sat in J&E’s parking lot. There was still quite a bit of light, so my clandestine meeting wasn’t quite as thrilling as it might have been deeper into the evening. I was parked in the shadiest corner of the lot, beneath an old tree that was slowly drooping toward the pavement. Within the next year or so, no one would be able to park in that space, not unless someone removed the tree or cut it back.

  The door to the diner opened and I sat up straighter, expecting Eddie Banyon, but it was only an older couple, walking arm and arm after their meal. They looked content, happy. It made me think of Paul and our dinner in a little over an hour, and I hoped that when we left, we looked as happy as the two of them.

  I sank back down in my seat and tried to look inconspicuous while I continued to wait for Eddie. With every second that passed, Judith Banyon could happen upon me. I doubted she’d take kindly to me lurking in her parking lot, even if I had a good reason to be there.

  Ano
ther five minutes passed and I started to wonder if something had come up and Eddie wasn’t going to be able to meet with me. It took fifteen minutes to get here, and it would take another fifteen to get home. That gave me an hour for Eddie to join me, for us to have our conversation, and then to finish readying myself for my date with Paul.

  Normally, that was more than enough time, but tonight, I wanted the date to go perfectly, and didn’t want to look—or feel—rushed.

  Staring at the door to the diner was getting me nowhere, so I pulled out my phone and did a quick search for Jay Miller.

  Unfortunately, there were about a million Jay Millers on Facebook, and while there were tons of articles mentioning the name, none of them were what I was looking for. And then, when I added Pine Hills to the search criteria, all I got back were the articles I’d already read.

  “Who are you?” I muttered, flipping through pages of useless information. Jay was an older man, sure, and he was a former cop, but to have zero online presence? You’d think there’d be something more about him, even if it was a retirement announcement, but as far as I could tell, there was nothing.

  The passenger door opened, startling a yelp from me, and I dropped my phone. It hit my thigh, and then somehow managed to turn sideways so it slid right between the seat and the cupholders.

  Eddie Banyon looked frazzled as he closed the door and hunkered down next to me. “Couldn’t you have faced the car the other way?” he asked, eyes focused on the front of his diner as if he feared who might come out of it next.

  “Sorry.” I tried to slide my hand into the gap so I could reach my phone, but all I could manage was to get my fingers in. The tip of my middle finger brushed my phone, but I couldn’t get hold of it, not sitting as I was. I gave up. “I wasn’t sure how you’d arrive.”

  “I work for a living, Ms. Hancock,” he said. “I should be working now. If Judith knew I was talking to you, she’d kill me.”

  “Well, thank you for taking the time to talk to me.” Considering his wife’s intense dislike of me, I was actually surprised he’d been willing to talk to me at all. Eddie had always struck me as something of a victim. He often bowed down to whatever Judith wanted, refusing to stand up for himself.

  But he was here with me now, telling me there was some fight within him. Hopefully, that meant whatever he had to say was important to my investigation.

  “I don’t know what you expect from me,” he said. “I had nothing to do with Wade’s death.”

  “He was a customer of yours.”

  “So?” Eddie wrung his hands together. I couldn’t tell if it was because of the topic of our conversation, or out of fear of his wife. It was probably a little of both.

  “So, I know how it is. I own a café. People talk and you can’t help but overhear things. You see how they are together, can determine who are friends and who might be on the outs. Their lives, in some ways, become your life. The regulars become almost like family, and Wade Fink was a regular, was he not?”

  “He was,” Eddie said. “He was peculiar, but was a good man. Don’t get me wrong, he made mistakes. Some of them big ones, but that doesn’t mean he deserved what happened to him. I suppose some people couldn’t handle his eccentricities.”

  “He liked French roast coffee,” I said, remembering what I’d been told by the Coffee Drinkers.

  “He did.” Eddie seemed to relax a little. “It was one of his oddities. I had no problem making sure we always had some in stock, though, back then, it was strange that anyone cared what kind of roast we used. It wasn’t like today with all these new fancy flavors.” He sighed. “He had some of my coffee on him when he died.”

  “Was there anything else about him that stood out?” I asked. “Anything that might have led to his death?”

  Eddie shrugged, looked down at his hands. “He was flashy. He liked to show off, make himself seem more important than others around him. I don’t mean it like I thought he was conceited. I honestly think it had more to do with the fact he had money and was always in the public eye. Either way, people didn’t like how he held himself. They thought he was an arrogant jerk, when in reality, he just didn’t know how to act around others without making himself stand out.”

  “Were there ever any fights at the diner involving Wade?” I asked. “With his friends or other customers?”

  Eddie’s lips pressed together, going almost white, while he stared toward the Banyon Tree.

  I felt for him; I really did. It wasn’t easy talking about something that might have happened at your place of business. I still hated it any time anyone brought up the deaths that had taken place near Death by Coffee, let alone the one that had happened inside.

  But I needed to know, especially if whatever had happened led to Wade’s death.

  “Please, Eddie,” I said. “I’m trying to help. I don’t want to get innocent people into trouble, but I do want to find Wade’s killer. If you know who it is, or who it might be, you should tell me. He deserves justice, even after all this time.”

  “That’s just the thing—I don’t know anything. There were arguments, sure, but that happens everywhere. Wade was involved in some, wasn’t around for others. And back then, people were pretty hot about his choice in women.”

  “You mean Rita?”

  He nodded. “She didn’t come around much—still doesn’t—but her presence could be felt even when she wasn’t there.” His soft voice flowed through the car, almost soothingly. He plucked at his old sweater, refused to meet my eye.

  “It caused tension among the group, didn’t it?”

  “It did. There were times Wade left them steaming. Other times, he left in a huff and they laughed it up afterward. I sometimes wondered if their disapproval was all for show, that because of her age, they felt the need to pretend to be angry with him, but were only just teasing. I never got the impression there was any real malice in the fights.”

  There was a long stretch of silence where Eddie continued to work at his hands. Then, he turned in his seat so he could look at me in the eye when he spoke. “And then he was murdered.”

  I was shocked to see tears in his eyes.

  I reached across the seat and took one of his old, weathered hands. He squeezed my fingers, closed his eyes briefly, and then went on.

  “I overheard you talking to Wade’s old friends this morning,” Eddie said. “I heard what they told you.” He released my hand, resumed picking at his sweater. “My memory isn’t what it once was, but I’m pretty sure one of them wasn’t completely honest with you.”

  “Who?” Arthur’s name was on my lips, but I refrained from speaking it. I didn’t want to lead Eddie on, or distract him.

  “Cliff Watson. He left when he said he did, but he wasn’t home all day like he claimed.”

  “You saw him afterward?” I asked.

  “He came back to the diner about an hour, hour and a half later. He looked sick, just like he claimed he was, but he also appeared shaken, like something had really upset him. He drank a coffee, ate half a sandwich, and then left again. He didn’t even pay until the next day. He was all apologies, yet I could tell something was still bothering him.”

  My mind was racing. “Did anyone else see him?”

  Eddie shrugged. “Anyone else who was there, I’m sure. His friends were all gone, though. I didn’t think much of it at the time. He said he wasn’t feeling too good, and he didn’t look it, so I left it at that.”

  There was something in his voice that made me ask, “But now?”

  “He was upset,” Eddie said. “And as the years passed and I’d think of Wade, those images of Cliff sitting there, staring at his sandwich like it was made of worms and dirt, kept coming back to me. The more I thought about it, the more I realized it was the look a man might get if he was feeling guilty about something.”

  “Do you think Cliff Watson killed Wade Fink?” I asked.

  Eddie faced me, lower lip quivering ever so slightly. “If he didn’t, then I’m alm
ost positive he knows who did.”

  * * *

  Eddie didn’t have much else to say after that, so I left him at the diner and returned home. I couldn’t quite make myself believe shy Cliff Watson was capable of murder, but what did I really know of the man? He might have lost his cool and killed Wade in a fit, or he might have become shy and reserved after killing his friend. I needed to talk to him soon to get his side of the story before I made my mind up about him.

  I parked and was halfway to my front door when a small white streak made straight for me as if intent to knock me flat on my back.

  I jerked back, but instead of knocking me down, the little dog put its front paws on my knees, thankfully just below the hem of my dress.

  “Maestro!” Jules clapped his hands as his Maltese started to lick at my hands as if I’d dipped them in steak juice. I ruffled the little dog’s ears, which only caused his tail to wag at a rate that was liable to take him airborne if he kept it up.

  “I’m so sorry about that,” Jules said, hurrying over and picking up his wayward pet. “He saw you coming and got excited.”

  “Well, I’m happy to see him too,” I said. Maestro barked his affirmative.

  Jules looked me up and down and a smile spread across his face. “Why, you look rather nice tonight, Krissy. Do you have something planned?”

  Me being me, I blushed at the compliment. “Thank you,” I said. “I’m going out tonight. It’s not too much, is it?”

  “Too much?” He chuckled. “Of course it isn’t. Not unless you’re going to a rodeo or tractor pull.”

  “They have those around here?”

  “Probably. Though if they do, I can’t say I’ve been to one.” The thought of Jules at a tractor pull was as ridiculous as it sounded. “So, you’re going out tonight? Is there a special occasion that calls for such extravagance?” It was obvious he already suspected my reasons for getting dressed up.

  “I have a date,” I said, unable to stop my schoolgirl grin.

  “A date.” His hand fluttered to his chest. “Have you finally found the one?”

  “It’s with Paul,” I said, as if that somehow changed things.