Death by French Roast

by Alex Erickson

  “Embarrassed? Why?”

  “Her dad was there, watching her like a hawk.”

  It was like a comet had come hurtling out of the sky and struck me upside my head.

  “Candace’s dad was one of Wade’s friends?”

  “Of course he was, dear.” She rolled her eyes like she was talking to the dumbest person alive. Maybe she was right. “She was Candace Ross before she became Candace Miller.”

  The photograph of the girl I’d seen with Zachary and Vera Ross came instantly to mind. I was pretty sure neither of them had mentioned her name, and I know I hadn’t seen it written down in the house somewhere, so how had I heard it?

  “If Candace wasn’t with Jay when he was attacked,” I said, “where would she have been?”

  “At work, probably,” Rita said.

  I stared at her. She huffed and gave me another eye roll.

  “At Geraldo’s. She’s a waitress there.”

  Holes in the puzzle of Cliff’s death filled in at a rapid pace. Those holes, in turn, completed a picture of what had happened to Wade Fink. It all tied back to one embarrassed woman.

  “What?” Rita asked, rising. “Did I say something wrong?”

  “Candace was our waitress,” I said, slowly standing. “When Paul and I went on our date, she served us.”

  “She is a waitress, dear,” Rita said. “Though, honestly, I don’t know why she doesn’t make Jay work instead. She’s been waitressing for years, and deserves a break. I don’t think he’s doing much of anything these days, now that he retired from the force.”

  “No, that’s not what I mean. She was there, when Cliff called me. She was standing beside the table when I told Paul Cliff was going to talk to me about Wade’s death.”

  “And? I don’t see what you’re getting at.”

  “She was there!” I grabbed Rita by the arms, willed her to understand. “Someone killed Cliff after he talked to me. I couldn’t figure out how anyone could have known about our conversation. Cliff wouldn’t have told anyone he was about to reveal information on Wade’s killer, so how did they know?”

  “But Candace wouldn’t have hurt him. She’s not that type of woman.”

  I opened my mouth to object, but she was right. Candace was at Geraldo’s at the same time Paul and I were there. Even if she’d left almost as soon as she heard me tell Paul about my conversation with Cliff, she wouldn’t have had time to get to his house, kill him, and escape before Paul and I arrived.

  “She called someone,” I said. “She told someone that Cliff was going to tell. She knows who killed Wade!”

  I released Rita from my grip and scrambled for my phone. Rita was babbling behind me, but I didn’t hear her. I dialed Paul’s number, got voicemail, and then, frustrated, ran out the door.

  “Krissy? What’s going on?” Rita followed me into the driveway.

  “I’ll tell you later,” I said as I climbed behind the wheel of my car. This time, when I turned the key, it started up beautifully.

  Rita was waving her hands at me. I rolled down my window and leaned out as she asked, “What about Arthur?”

  “Forget about him.” There was a chance he was still tied to the murders, but I was truly beginning to doubt it. “I’ll call you and tell you what Candace says.”

  Rita leaned against her doorframe, hand going to her forehead, as if she felt faint, before she waved for me to go ahead and leave.

  I didn’t need to be told twice. I put my car in gear, backed out of Rita’s driveway, and with a grinding of gears, went in search of Candace Miller.

  26

  I tried Paul again as I pulled up in front of the Miller home, but once more got voicemail. A car sat in the driveway this time, an old beat-up Beetle. I didn’t know if the car belonged to Jay or his wife, Candace. I was hoping for the latter.

  I left Paul a quick message, telling him where I was and why, and then got out of my car.

  Something thunked inside the house. It was followed by a loud, feminine curse, and then another thump.

  I waited to see if anyone else spoke up. As far as I knew, Jay was still in the hospital, but it was possible he’d been released. I had a feeling he wouldn’t be happy about me showing up on his front doorstep, not after warning me off the investigation.

  When no other voices joined the woman’s, I approached the front door and knocked.

  Everything went silent. I waited a handful of heartbeats, and then knocked again.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Candace?” I called through the door. “My name is Krissy Hancock. You served me at Geraldo’s the other night.”

  “Why are you here?” Her voice was closer to the door now. “I don’t put up with stalkers. I’ll call the cops.”

  “They know I’m here.” Or would, once Paul checked his voicemail. “I want to talk to you about what happened to Jay.”

  There was another long stretch of silence. I wondered if Candace had wandered away from the door, intent on ignoring me. She had no reason to talk to me. To her, I was just a nosy woman who’d shown up on her front doorstep.

  “Candace?” I pressed a hand to the door. “Please. I just want to talk.”

  “Go away. I’ve got cleaning to do.” Something thumped. It sounded like she was breaking more than she was cleaning.

  I didn’t want to stand outside, yelling through a door, but I didn’t want to walk away, either. If Arthur didn’t confess to the murders, and if they didn’t find evidence in his home, then the police wouldn’t have him on anything but Jay’s assault. Candace might know more, and I intended to find out what it was.

  “You called someone that night, didn’t you?” I asked. “After Cliff Watson called me, you overheard me talking to my date about it and you made a call. A few minutes later, Cliff was dead. That can’t be a coincidence.”

  All sounds ceased. Even the birds fell silent, as if they’d been listening in and were shocked by what I was insinuating.

  I waited and wondered what could be going through Candace’s mind. She might not have intended for her call to get Cliff murdered, but I was almost positive it had. The only question was: Would she tell me who she called?

  The sound of a dead bolt being unlocked was followed by the door opening.

  Candace Miller looked disheveled and exhausted. She wasn’t wearing her waitress uniform, but rather, a pair of worn pajama bottoms and a ratty T-shirt with a faded Aerosmith logo on it. Her feet were bare and her hair was pulled into a messy bun atop her head.

  She stared at me with red-rimmed eyes for a good couple of seconds before turning and walking into the house. She left the door open for me to follow.

  With some trepidation, I did.

  The house was still a mess, but the floor had been swept of most of the debris. A new lamp sat where the old had been broken. The television was on the floor, a few more cracks in it as if she’d tossed it to the ground in disgust.

  “Came home to this and thought that it was over,” she said, plopping wearily down onto the couch. “Took Jay half the night to call me and tell me what happened. Guess I didn’t rate too high on his list of priorities.”

  She didn’t sound surprised about coming home to a wrecked house. It made me wonder if it happened often. I scanned her arms and neck for bruises, but there were none. Of course, that meant little, since a lot of abusers made sure the marks they left were hidden beneath clothing.

  “I didn’t recognize your voice when you knocked,” Candace went on. “But after you mentioned the call, I realized who you were.”

  “You called someone that night, after my call, didn’t you?”

  She looked down at her hands. She wore fingernail polish, but it was badly chipped and one of her knuckles was bleeding. I couldn’t tell if she’d punched something, or if she’d caught her finger on something sharp. With the mess Jay had left, it could have been anything.

  “Candace, a man is dead.” Two, actually, but I didn’t want to lump Wade’s death on top of
Cliff’s quite yet. “Your call might have caused it. Who did you call?”

  “You were talking about people I knew,” she said, glancing at me with one eye before returning her gaze to her hands. “It freaked me out a little.”

  That wasn’t an answer, so I pressed. “Did you call Jay? Could he have killed Cliff? Or maybe he passed word on to Arthur Cantrell, who then killed him.” And then, later, realized he needed to silence Jay to tie up loose ends. Could Arthur have made plans to come after Candace next?

  “Arthur did this.” She gestured around the room. “What do you think happened?”

  “I think you made a mistake,” I said. “No one will blame you for worrying about your friends and family. If you made the call just to warn someone about what was happening and then they took it too far, it’s not on you. But if that person did kill Cliff, then they do need to face justice.”

  Candace picked up a piece of ceramic that was lying next to her. I couldn’t tell what it once was. She turned it over in her hand once, fingers flexing on it.

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Are you saying you didn’t make a call?”

  She shot another glance at me out of the corner of her eye, and then abruptly stood, dropping the ceramic piece onto the floor, where it broke in half.

  “Excuse me a moment.” She spun and headed for the bathroom.

  I let her go. If she needed a moment to calm her nerves, then I’d let her have it. Whether she intended for Cliff to die or not, this had to be hard on her.

  I took the time to wander the room. There were a pair of photographs on the floor beside a chair, tossed among broken glass and plastic. I picked up the photos and looked at each in turn.

  The first was of Candace and Jay on their wedding day. She looked happy, though Jay’s smile looked a little forced. I wondered if the man knew how to smile correctly, or if he was always scowling and sneering. There was a crease along the middle of the photo, one that had been added before it was framed, as if it had been bent in two and kept that way for a time. Marital troubles? I wondered, before setting it aside.

  The other photograph was of Candace with her parents. It was a recent picture, not like the one I’d seen in the Ross home. It couldn’t have been more than a year old. The family was sitting at a picnic table somewhere, enjoying the outdoors.

  Yet something about it bothered me. Candace was sitting beside her mother, with Zachary sitting somewhat apart from the both of them. He was smiling, but his eyes looked sad, as did Candace’s. It was as if they shared something between them, something they both were struggling with.

  I returned the photograph to the floor just as Candace returned. Her face was damp, telling me she’d likely splashed it with water from the sink, either to mask her tears, or to merely wake herself up.

  “I don’t have anything to say to you,” she said, voice stronger than it had been before she’d retreated to the bathroom.

  “Arthur Cantrell attacked your husband,” I said. “Are you protecting him?”

  “I didn’t call Arthur. I didn’t call Jay. Cliff’s death had nothing to do with me.”

  “But you told someone, didn’t you?” I asked. “He was dead shortly after he called me. You overheard it, and since you knew everyone involved, it’s not too big of a leap to think you called someone about it. It’s too much of a coincidence to not be connected.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you.” She started straightening up again as if I wasn’t still standing in the middle of her living room.

  I watched her for a minute, wondering what I could possibly say to make her talk. She seemed perfectly content to ignore me, though there was a tension in her shoulders that told me she was painfully aware of my presence.

  She’s waiting for something. It might simply be for me to leave, but I had a feeling it was something else.

  I considered what I knew of the murders, and what role Candace might have played in them. She was the daughter of one of the Coffee Drinkers, was once Rita’s friend. She knew Wade, knew Cliff, but she wasn’t friends with them.

  But someone she loved was.

  “You called your dad, didn’t you?”

  She froze, halfway to picking up the ceramic piece she’d recently dropped.

  “That’s it, isn’t it?” Of course she’d call her dad. He was Cliff’s friend, had been Wade’s. “You heard me talking to Paul, so you called Zachary to tell him what was happening, and then he . . .”

  He what? Killed Cliff? That seemed unlikely considering his physical state. But I could see him calling Arthur.

  Candace opened her mouth to speak, but the sound of gravel caused her to snap it closed again. A car door slammed and a moment later, the door banged open, revealing Zachary Ross. He leaned heavily on a cane and was breathing hard, as if he’d pushed himself to the limits to get there. His face was awash with sweat, but there was a determination in his eye.

  “Don’t say a word, Candace.”

  “Your friend died, Zachary,” I said. “I’m just trying to figure out why.”

  “He died because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut.” He didn’t look at me when he said it. Instead, he kept his gaze on his daughter.

  She must have called him when she’d gone into the bathroom, I realized. I should have expected as much, considering her history.

  “Candace called someone on the day of Cliff’s death,” I said, turning my focus on Zachary. “I know she did. The policeman I was with at the time knows it.” Or he will. Come on, Paul. Call me back already. “He found Jay here. He has Arthur in custody. It’s only a matter of time until he puts it all together.”

  “Dad—”

  “No!” Zachary wobbled as he took a step toward me. He stopped, leaned against the wall, and then poked me in the shoulder with his cane. “Leave my daughter alone.”

  I took a step back, out of cane reach. “She called you that night, didn’t she?” I asked. “Did you call Arthur afterward? Or was he already there with you?” And then, because I wanted to gauge his reaction: “Did he also kill Wade Fink?”

  Zachary flinched, and his leg buckled briefly. He looked like he might collapse, so I took a step toward him to steady him, but all I got for my efforts was another jab in the shoulder with his cane. He was so weak, I barely felt it.

  “Arthur killed no one,” he said, resting the butt of his cane onto the floor before he fell. Candace hurried around me and took his arm to guide him over to the couch.

  “Dad, you don’t have to say anything to her. She doesn’t know anything.”

  “I know, honey.” He sucked in a pained breath as he was lowered down. “But it’s time. I’m not going to let another of my friends down on my account.”

  Candace sat next to her father, took his hand. Her eyes filled with tears as she stared hard at the floor between us.

  “Candace called me.” Zachary spoke slowly, carefully. His face was crimson, and yet, there was a paleness to his features that worried me. “She told me Cliff was going to talk about Wade’s death. I couldn’t let that happen.”

  “So, you called Arthur,” I said, even though he’d just said Arthur was innocent.

  “I did no such thing,” he snapped, clearly annoyed by my insistence. “Arthur wouldn’t have known what to do. He wouldn’t know why Cliff’s confession would be so damning.”

  “Dad, please—”

  “Let me speak,” he said, with some force. “This is my story to tell, not yours.”

  Candace let her head fall.

  Zachary, on the other hand, looked up so he could look me square in the eye. “I killed Wade Fink. Cliff Watson knew all about it, kept it a secret all these years. When he threatened to tell, I did what I had to do and killed him as well.”

  I stood there, stunned. He just confessed. He actually confessed to both murders! I could only manage one word. “Why?”

  Zachary laughed. It was a tired, bitter sound. “Wade threw away his friendships to be with that w
oman. I took it badly. That’s all there is to it.”

  I looked from Zachary to Candace. “You knew?” I asked her.

  She didn’t react. She just sat there, head down, hands clutching at her father’s own as if she could somehow keep him from leaving her by sheer force of will.

  “She knew enough to call me,” Zachary said. “That’s all.” He struggled his way to his feet, forcing Candace to release him. By the time he was upright, he was sweating profusely again and was short of breath. His daughter remained seated, her face a mask of misery.

  “So,” he said. “Are you going to call the police? Or shall I?”

  27

  It was almost disappointing, how easy it was. Normally, when a killer confessed to me, they tried to take me down with them, usually physically. I’ve been chased, assaulted, held at gunpoint, and even have chased killers down myself.

  Zachary did none of that. He calmly waited for me to call Paul, who answered this time, and then went outside to sit on the stoop to wait for him. He practically put himself into the back seat of the police cruiser.

  And then, with nothing further to do, I went home.

  Rita deserved to know what happened, as did Jane Winthrow, but right then, I just wanted to sit with my cat. I think I was in shock. Zachary Ross’s explanation fit with both murders—what little explanation he’d given—yet looking at him, I couldn’t make it work in my mind.

  Sure, I knew he was healthier when he was younger, so killing Wade Fink wouldn’t have been difficult.

  But now? Cliff would almost have had to help Zachary kill him or sit passively by while he’d done it. I supposed it was possible he’d realized at the last minute he couldn’t live with putting a longtime friend behind bars, so he allowed himself to be murdered by the man who’d killed one of his friends so long ago.

  And yet . . .

  I sighed as I stroked Misfit’s fur. Paul would fill me in on the details once he got Zachary’s statement. Hopefully, he’d be able to explain how Arthur Cantrell and Jay Miller fit into all of this, because I was having a hard time making those pieces fit.