by Dana Moss
For what? Taffy wondered, but his phone rang before she could ask.
He looked down at the screen. “I’ll take this inside.” He grabbed his shirt off the back of the chair and stepped off the patio and through the partially-sanded-and-in-need-of-fresh-paint French doors.
Taffy then heard the Blue Bear, Ethan’s pickup truck, pull to a growly halt in the driveway. He walked in carrying a bag of groceries and a large bag of cat food.
“But I told you I’d bring cat food.” She pointed to the smaller bag she’d finally delivered.
“Well, hello to you too.” He set his bag on the patio table. “Just seems you’ve been so preoccupied lately. But no big deal. Midnight can feast to his delight.” He retrieved a six pack of beer from the grocery bag. “Did you meet Mitch?”
She nodded. “Charming fellow.”
Ethan didn’t seem to pick up on the sarcasm. Midnight prowled out onto the patio and wove through Ethan’s legs.
“He’s a good friend.” Ethan bent down to scratch Midnight under the chin.
“You think of cousins as friends? Being a single child with two single children parents, I guess I have no idea what it feels like to have a cousin.”
Midnight didn’t pad over to greet Taffy. He settled onto a chair near Ethan.
“Yeah, right. He’s more like a friend, I guess. Do you like him?”
She shrugged. “I don’t think he likes me.”
Ethan laughed. “How could he not?”
“I don’t know. He seems sort of suspicious of me or something.”
He threw his head back and laughed again. “That’s just the way Mitch is. Don’t take it personally.”
She walked over to pet Midnight, but he hopped off the chair and wandered off with his tail in the air. “He doesn’t seem to approve of us. My sense is he thought you’d end up with someone… oh, I don’t know, a little different.”
“What a relief to know that I don’t care what other people think.” He pulled her into an embrace, but Taffy felt a little stiff. Ethan gave her a questioning look.
“Sorry, it’s the murder case. And this situation with Macy and Cher has got me pretty stressed. They’re not making things easy.”
He loosened his grip and then repositioned himself so he could rub her shoulders. “Sit down. Let me help release some of the stress.”
“Won’t your beer get warm?”
“It can wait.”
She let his strong hands work their magic.
“I didn’t think it would be this hard,” she said, bending her head forward, trying to relax more.
“Having them around or trying to sort out the details of what happened on that boat?”
“Both, I guess.”
He may have been nodding, but Taffy couldn’t see him. Her eyes were closed now, and she was reveling in his touch. “I wish we could spend the night together. I like our kind of sleepovers better.”
“We could always send Mitch over to stay with Macy and Cher.”
Taffy chuckled. “I can’t imagine what mischief they’d all get up to.”
“To be safe, we’d better not find out.”
“Does he have a girlfriend?”
“Mitch? I don’t think so.”
“Why don’t you know? Don’t guys talk about that sort of thing?”
“Not often.”
Taffy sighed. “Girls do. All the time. Macy and Cher just won’t let up about—”
She caught herself. She’d relaxed too much. She’d almost let slip their pressure on her to get back together with Luke.
“About what?” prompted Ethan.
Thankfully, Taffy was saved from answering when Mitch returned.
Snickering, he said, “Should I get the baby oil and scented candles?”
Taffy groaned. “You’re as bad as my friends.” When she looked up at Mitch, he was grinning cheekily.
“You have friends that like baby oil and scented candles? Like, more than one friend? I’m liking the sound of this.”
“Ugh, you men are all the same.”
He reached for the six pack of beer on the table and removed one.
“Nah,” Mitch said. “I know from the locker room that we’re all different. Ain’t that right, McCoy?”
Taffy slipped out from under Ethan’s hands and stood up. “I should leave you to your male-bonding time.”
Ethan said, “Don’t go yet.”
Mitch added. “Unless you’re going to get your friends and coming straight back.” He winked at her and tipped back the bottle to take a sip.
“Most definitely not.” She turned to Ethan. “I’ve got to meet Maria at Ted’s Bar soon, and then I’ll go pick up the girls from Ellie’s. She’s keeping them entertained for me so I can have a break.”
“Maybe Mitch is right,” Ethan mused.
Mitch raised an eyebrow, intrigued.
Ethan saw his look. “Down, boy. Not about the baby oil. I was thinking more along the lines of getting everyone together for a barbeque or something.” He looked at Taffy. “We could invite Maria and Finn too.”
“She won’t fraternize with the suspects.”
“Then Ellie and Pete. Or whoever.”
“You mean tonight?”
“Why not?”
Mitch smiled broadly. “Tell everyone to come here. We’ll run back to the store and pick up fixings for burgers. It’ll be fun.”
Taffy wondered just what kind of fun Mitch had in mind.
He added, “Consider it a welcoming-the-cousin kind of party.”
Ethan smiled. “Sounds good to me.”
“All right.” Taffy agreed. “I’ll pick up some extra beer from Ted’s.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Taffy arrived at Ted’s before Maria had finished work, so she ordered the keg first and Ted helped her load it into her car. Thanking him, she invited him to stop by Ethan’s later if he could. “You might enjoy meeting his cousin.”
“Didn’t know he had a cousin.”
“Me neither.”
“Maybe I’ll stop by for a nightcap since Ronald will be working the later shift.”
Ronald Sugar, who was nicknamed “Sugarman,” also worked at the car rental counter at the airport and was one of the first people Taffy had met when she’d arrived in Abandon more than a year ago. Ellie was always trying to convince him to apply to work at the candy factory, because of his name, but he was actually allergic to sweets.
By the time Taffy had gone back inside the bar, a few more customers had come in. To her surprise, one of them was Einer. He sat at the long bar. Next to him was a bottle that looked similar to the one from the first night she’d met him.
She took the stool on his left. “What brings you here?”
He turned. His eyes crinkled in recognition, and he smiled. “Ah, Miss Newton, the sleuth in training.” He raised his glass to her. The amber contents swirled. “I hear we might soon be free to leave town. Perhaps we have your snooping to thank for that?”
“I don’t think so, but that’ll be up to Maria, I guess. Nothing to do with me.”
“I see. I thought perhaps you’d asked Lorne about his videos and that had cleared up the confusion surrounding your friend’s motivation.”
“That footage showing Macy cutting up a watermelon doesn’t make her look good, but it doesn’t prove much either.”
“He didn’t hand over everything?”
“He said nothing else he had was pertinent to the case.”
Einer lifted a bushy eyebrow. “Did he now?”
“He’s lying?” She knew it. She could tell Lorne had been lying about something.
“It’s not my place to say exactly. If the police think there’s nothing more to look at…” Einer shrugged.
“I suspected Lorne was hiding something. But what does it have to do with Macy’s motivation?”
Einer shook his head and whistled through his teeth. “Now, I can’t help you with your powers of observation and deduction. That woul
dn’t be fair to a new sleuth. You’ll have to figure that out for yourself. I’ve said too much already.”
She put her hand on his arm. “If you have some useful information, tell the police. Or tell me. If you want justice to be served.”
He looked down at the hand on his arm, and she removed it.
“Now, why would I care about justice?”
Taffy blinked. Didn’t everybody?
Einer poured himself another shot from the bottle and slid it back toward the bartender. “Tab please.”
“What?” She smiled. “You’re not staying for karaoke?”
He shook his head. “I have my own private tunes to sing tonight.” He smiled shrewdly. “A moment ago you asked me what I was doing here. Well, I’m warming up for an impending engagement with my lovely friend Mimi—you already know about her—and seeing as it could be my last visit, I don’t want to miss a moment.” He swallowed the remaining contents of his glass and sighed. “Ah, now my inner fire is burning brightly.”
When Ronald brought over a receipt, Einer laid out some cash on the table and asked for a cab to be called.
“Listen, Miss Newton, I do my best to mind my business and not get involved in others’, but that captain of ours had gotten himself into some massive debt and was trying to dig himself out.”
“Who’s he in debt to?”
“Some pretty nefarious contacts, I’d say. We addicts get into ruts like that from time to time.”
“Are you saying he could have had reason killed Blake?”
He shook his scruffy head. “Not my place to make such deductions.” Reaching for the seat on his right, he withdrew his ball cap and covered his unruly hair. The cap’s brim put his eyes in shadow.
“Follow the debt. Find the videos.”
From behind the bar, Ronald gave Einer a nod. He slipped from his stool and said, “I think my cab is here. Good luck now.” He tipped his hat to her and sauntered to the door.
Taffy stood at the bar for a few moments longer, her brow scrunched in concentration. Was Einer trying to help, or was he making all this more difficult for her just to entertain himself? Lorne’s debt was useful information. Especially if he’d also been mentioned in Blake’s new will. Would he have been motivated enough to kill him? It seemed far-fetched, but he’d been drunk that night. Maybe if he thought he’d win Macy? He’d been flirting with her that night too. But this morning he’d told Taffy she’d been barking up the wrong tree with that theory. Still, he could be lying. That’s what murderers did. And she knew he’d been keeping something from her this morning.
Taffy drummed her fingers on the bar and assessed her situation: Little Miss New Sleuth Newton had been hit on the head with a bushel of puzzle pieces that she couldn’t yet fit together. Sighing with frustration, she glanced at the time. Maria should be here any minute. She waved over Ronald and ordered two soda waters with lime.
* * *
A few minutes later, Maria walked through the doors of Ted’s bar and motioned for Taffy to meet her at a back booth.
Taffy carried over the two drinks as Maria, looking tired, sank onto the cushioned seat.
Taffy handed her a soda and sat down across from her. “I can’t believe you made me wait all day to find out what’s going on.”
“It’s been a busy afternoon.”
Maria seemed preoccupied. She didn’t say much right away, so Taffy launched in.
“Macy didn’t know anything about the will, by the way. But I’ve been wondering, was Lorne mentioned in the will?”
Maria sipped her drink and then nodded. “He gets the boat. Plus a few other things.”
“Enough to get him out of some significant debt?”
“No doubt.” Maria took another sip and seemed to be slowly reviving.
“Did you notice a cab leaving as you arrived?” Taffy asked. “Einer was in it. I just had the strangest conversation with him. He told me to look at more of Lorne’s videos. That they would help clear up Macy’s motivation.”
Maria made a note on her pad. “I’ll look into it. But it may be a moot point now.” She sighed heavily.
“Something to do with Veronica’s visit, right?”
Maria tapped her notepad with the end of her pencil. She still didn’t seem to want to say much.
“What’s wrong?” Taffy asked.
Maria set her pencil down and rubbed her temples. “There’ve been some complaints down at the station.”
“About what?”
Maria fiddled with her straw. “About you.”
Taffy’s eyes widened. “Me? Why?”
“Getting nosy with witnesses.”
“But—”
“There were calls, Taffy. To the chief. He’s upset.”
“With me?”
“With me.”
Maria leaned forward. “I shouldn’t be talking to you about the case anymore.”
“But… but we’re friends. We’re in this together. I help you sometimes. We work well together.” Taffy felt her frown turning into a pout. What would she do if Maria stopped talking to her about cases? Especially this one. “And my other friends are involved. You have to talk to me. You have to at least tell me what Veronica said.”
“You have to promise me not to go off investigating on your own.”
“Einer just volunteered information to me. I wasn’t being nosy. At least not this time. And I don’t do it intentionally. Something just occurs to me, and I act on it, or I stumble across something new. It just happens.”
“I can’t talk to you unless you promise.”
Taffy frowned. She leaned back against the booth. “Fine. I promise.” She squeezed her lime into her soda. “Who complained about me?”
“Chief Green didn’t say specifically, only that he got two calls.”
She’d really only spoken to Lorne and Anya. Would either of them have tried to get her into trouble? Lorne maybe. He seemed most irritated by her nosing around. And that made her more certain he was hiding something.
“Can you at least tell me what happened in your meeting with Veronica?”
Maria nodded. “Yeah. I guess I do need to talk this out with someone but just as a friend. Don’t go getting any ideas, okay?”
Taffy nodded.
“Apparently Veronica and Blake had been in the midst of getting a divorce—Blake had served her the papers—but she’d told him she still loved him and wanted to reconcile.”
“Did she know about Macy?”
“She claimed she knew about ‘some young bimbo’ he’d been dating, but nothing more than that. She didn’t think it was serious. He’d strayed before.”
“But he was serious about Macy,” Taffy said. “He drew up a new will. And he was going to propose. Lorne said he’d already bought the ring. Did it turn up in the boat search yet?”
Maria shook her head.
Taffy tapped her glass. “They’d already been separated for two years, right? That was around the time Blake purchased the boat.”
“I take it you found that out from Lorne or Anya?”
Taffy shrugged. “It came up in conversation. Lorne said Veronica didn’t come around much after Blake bought the boat. It seems like a long time to want to reconcile is all.”
Maria nodded. “She said Blake’s hard living—the parties, the drugs, the affairs—it all got to her, so she left, hoping he’d clean up his game. For his own sake, because apparently he wasn’t very healthy. And this is the clincher—the information she’d wanted to share—Blake had a preexisting heart condition. And Veronica is convinced that’s what really killed him.”
Taffy was confused. “But the injuries? The knife—”
“I’m not done yet.”
“Sorry.” Taffy kept her mouth shut.
“Veronica said that his heart was weak and anything might have triggered a heart attack. Normally, I’d just add her opinion to my notes, but this afternoon, the first part of Eve’s medical report came through. She confirmed that it was his h
eart stopping and not blood loss that killed him.”
“A heart condition? After all this drama?” Taffy didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“Veronica provided a fairly recent medical report. Blake had gone in for tests just a few months ago.”
“So he knew he wasn’t healthy? And he still took cocaine and drank like a fish and still wanted to marry Macy?” Taffy was dumbfounded.
“When I told Veronica that Blake had been serious about Macy, that we had witnesses who said he was planning to propose, she admitted that when they were married she couldn’t get pregnant. They talked about adoption, but Blake didn’t want to do that. She still thought they had a chance at reconciliation, but she thinks it’s possible Blake had taken up with Macy because he wanted to have a child, that he knew he might not live a long time, and he wanted to leave his genes behind.”
Taffy grimaced and tapped the base of her glass. “Why doesn’t Macy know any of this?”
“Maybe he didn’t want her to know.”
Taffy pondered. “If Eve says officially his heart gave out, and that was the real cause of death, then won’t that mean any potential charges against Macy will be dropped?”
“Probably. That’s what Veronica wants too. She said she just wants to bury her husband and move on. She doesn’t feel a need for anyone to be punished.”
It would be an anticlimactic ending to a case, but everyone could get what they wanted… If the death was no longer suspected to be homicide, Macy and Cher could go home. Taffy and Maria could focus on the upcoming wedding. Anya and Lorne could carry on with their lives. This could be a good thing.
Taffy was smiling, but Maria wasn’t.
“Why don’t you look happy about this?”
“Because it’s not so simple. Eve may have ruled out death by laceration and established the cause of death was a heart attack, but she hasn’t concluded what actually triggered the heart attack. Was it cocaine use or the violence?” Maria shook her head. “We’re not sure yet, but if there’s a direct connection, manslaughter might still be considered.”
Taffy leaned forward. “Are you saying that Macy might still be charged?”
Maria hesitated and then nodded. “If her actions or anyone else’s had anything to do with the onset of heart failure, then yes, there could be a charge of manslaughter.”