A Game of Cones

by Abby Collette

  “That’s questionable,” Maisie mumbled.

  “What business do they have with her?” Riya’s uncle Garud wiggled his fingers at us.

  “How do you know we did that?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him. He may be Riya’s uncle, but he was sounding more like Big Brother. How could he know we’d followed Veronica, unless he was following her, too?

  “Be gone with you,” Riya said, leaning in to him. “I will tell Auntie Neera I saw you leering after women.” She gave him a once-over and stood waiting for him to leave.

  He kept his smile and nodded, not one bit flustered by Riya’s threat. “I’ll see you ladies again.”

  “What is your uncle, some kind of detective or something?” I asked.

  “No,” Riya said. “And he is not really my uncle.”

  “Who is he, then?” Maisie asked.

  “Didn’t you hear? He’s Neera’s husband,” Riya said, as if she knew them.

  “And . . . ?” I drew out the word, showing my confusion.

  “She’s a friend of my mother’s.” Riya shook her head. “Indians claim lots of random people as auntie and uncle.”

  “What does he do—why was he watching us?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Riya said. “What were you two doing?”

  “Trying to investigate the murder of that guy that was at the SOOCFA meeting.”

  “Zeke Reynolds?” Riya said.

  “You remembered,” I said.

  “Of course I do.” Riya pressed her lips together. “I try to keep track of the people I throw shoes at.”

  Maisie shook her head. “What? Was there more than the one?”

  chapter

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  When we walked into the ice cream store, before I could comment that Rory hadn’t gotten back, my mother came from around the counter and grabbed my arm. I glanced over at PopPop sitting calmly on his bench and Candy, my other official employee, was sitting across from him. Young, lots of energy and dependability, she must’ve come in early for her shift. Probably a good thing, because Aunt Jack was nowhere in sight.

  My mother pulled me to the back and into a corner. First thing I saw was Aunt Jack. She’d dragged one of the ice cream parlor chairs in the back and was slumped down, legs spread-eagled. Her head limp and resting on the back of the chair. Her wig sat precariously, appearing as if it might fall off at any minute. She looked like she’d gone through ten rounds with Floyd Mayweather.

  “Mom,” I said before she could talk. “What’s wrong with Aunt Jack?”

  She turned and took a gander at Aunt Jack, and waved a hand in dismissal. “I don’t think she’s ever worked this hard in the store before. At least not since your Grandma Kay and PopPop ran it.” She leaned in and whispered conspiratorially, “She never had as much business as you. We had a steady stream of customers come in from the time you left.”

  “Candy’s here and we’re back.” I glanced at Aunt Jack. “So she can go home now.”

  “She’s just taking a breather.” My mother glanced over at her. “Let her keep working,” she said. “Make her too tired to come to Family Chef Night tomorrow night.”

  “Mom!” I said.

  She waved a hand. “You want to deal with her all night?” I kept a straight face. “Now back to you,” she said. “Don’t try to change the subject.”

  “I’m not.”

  “I sent Riya to find you.” She bumped her body into mine showing me she was concerned. “You were gone so long.”

  “You did?” I glanced toward the front where Riya was waiting on a customer. She hadn’t mentioned that. I shrugged. “She found us, I guess. What’s wrong?”

  “You tell me,” my mother said.

  “Uhm . . .” I made my eyes wide. I wasn’t sure what she meant. “I don’t know?” It came out a question.

  “I can see you don’t,” she said. “I also see that you don’t have Rory with you. Why is that?”

  “Because we ended up at the police station—”

  “The police station!” my mother squawked before I could finish explaining. “Oh my God. What has happened now? Is everything okay?”

  “Everything is fine. We just went there to—”

  “You went there!” She stomped her foot and let her head roll back on her neck. “Why would you take Rory there? Do you want to traumatize her more?”

  “No, Mom. And I didn’t take her there. I knew that wouldn’t be a good idea.”

  “No, it wouldn’t.”

  “And I knew she wouldn’t want to be there either. So I told her to wait for me.”

  “Why were you there?” she asked, hand on hip.

  “We were following Veronica Russell and that’s where we ended up. Well, where she ended up.”

  “Zeke’s girlfriend?” Confusion threaded through her face.

  “Alleged girlfriend,” I said, remembering that you couldn’t always take what Maisie said at face value.

  “I can start early, if you need me.” It was Candy. She appeared next to us, pushed her glasses up on her nose and had a look on her face that said she didn’t mean to interrupt. “Your aunt looks tired.”

  I swung a look at Aunt Jack, it seemed she was out cold. I heard a soft snoring coming from her. “Is it getting crowded out?” I asked, peeking out toward the front.

  “It usually gets busy around now.” Candy looked at the watch on her wrist. “Just thought I’d go ahead and clock in if it was okay with you.”

  I didn’t actually have a time clock. I scheduled Wilhelmina and Candy, and they signed a sheet I’d made on Excel. But they both had turned out to be such good employees, I didn’t need to monitor much. Even like now, Candy volunteering to get started early.

  I smiled. “Thank you, Candy. No problem. Go ahead and sign in.”

  My mother watched as Candy put on an apron and tied it around her waist. I knew her. She was biding her time. She wanted to get more information out of me, and she wouldn’t rest until she did.

  Without missing a beat. “So you’ve been looking for a murderer. What did you find out?” she asked after Candy ambled back to the front.

  “We didn’t find out much,” I confessed. “We found out that Rivkah has a missing gun.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, so we thought maybe Veronica took it to kill Zeke.”

  “Why would you think that?” Then she nodded. She got it. “Oh. Because Zeke and Veronica had been in the restaurant that night?”

  “Yes, and she may—and I emphasize the word may.—have left by way of the kitchen.”

  “Is that where Rivkah kept her gun, in the kitchen?”

  “That’s how it sounded when she and Lin were discussing its whereabouts.” I tilted my head and looked at my mother. “Why did you say it like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “‘Is that where she keeps her gun,’ like everyone has one and you wondered where hers was.”

  “Because everyone does,” my mother said.

  “We don’t,” I said.

  “We do,” my mother said. “We kept it in the shop. Your grandfather took it out when you remodeled.” She looked around. “He may have brought it back by now, though.”

  “Why didn’t I know that?”

  “Why would you want to know that?”

  “Because if we did have one, I’m guessing it would be for me to use.” I thought about that and put my hand on my forehead. “Why do we have a gun? And why does everyone, so you say, have one?”

  “To protect ourselves.” She thought about it, and she sounded like she wasn’t sure why. “So you probably should know if it’s here.” She looked around. “I’ll have to ask your grandfather about that,” she said absently.

  The thought of a gun in all the establishments down North Main nearly bowled me over. Chagrin was
one of the safest cities in North America, at least according to Wikipedia. At least until we started having a murder every six months.

  “I don’t know if everyone has a gun now, though.” My mother was still talking. “Probably not the newer businesses around. We all got ours when the Dixby sisters sponsored a gun show.”

  “They sponsored a gun show?” I almost wanted to laugh, picturing them, two old ladies, with gnarled fingers, handling a six-shooter. Then I remembered what they said earlier about how they had no qualms about “taking out” their competition.

  “Yes,” my mother said. “You know they are gun collectors, right?”

  “The Dixby sisters? No. I didn’t know.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

  “Yes. Delilah and Daubie,” my mother said. “They have a whole room full of guns. Fascinating.” She wiggled like a shiver had gone down her spine. “Scary.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  My mother frowned up at me. “Why would I tell you? What does it have to do with anything?”

  “Zeke Reynolds was shot with a gun,” I said. I couldn’t understand how she didn’t see the connection.

  “You really do need help with this snooping—”

  “Sleuthing,” I corrected.

  “Sleuthing stuff,” she finished. “Just because someone gets shot, it doesn’t mean that everyone with a gun is a suspect. Especially when everyone has a gun.”

  “Yeah, I see that. I guess that’s true.”

  “But Veronica with a gun would be different.” My mother went back to talking low. “She was angry with him and there was no reason for her to have a gun.”

  Just like there is no reason for anyone along Main Street to have a gun either.

  “Truth be told, Mommy,” I said, skipping over that tidbit of information, “we really didn’t come up with anything on Veronica.”

  “You didn’t talk to her, did you?” She grabbed my arm and shook it. “She’s the murderer. Oh my God.” She put her hand over her chest. “If you got yourself in another predicament like the last time.”

  “Calm down, Mommy. She was fine. Sad. But fine. We just ‘questioned’ her.” I used air quotes. “But we got nothing.”

  “And she didn’t try to go for the gun or anything?”

  “No.”

  “Did you see one?”

  “No. She was kind of moody, but didn’t say or act like she was guilty of anything.”

  “They never do.”

  Now she was a killer profiler . . .

  “Then we followed her—”

  “You followed her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why? Where?”

  “We followed her to the police station. And nothing happened.”

  “It could have, unless she was there turning herself in,” my mother ventured.

  “She didn’t. And we’re safe.” I patted myself all over. “I’m fine.”

  She sighed and seemed to relax some. “You did find out that she’d gone through Rivkah’s kitchen and took the gun, though, right?”

  “We aren’t sure if that’s how it went,” I said. “Savta said she couldn’t be sure Veronica left by way of the kitchen.”

  “Uh-huh,” my mother said, nodding her head. “That’s what Maisie told me Rivkah said.”

  “She changed her story when we talked to her,” I said.

  My mother sucked her tongue. “Back to square one?”

  “It looks that way. Maisie did think the real killer was probably one of the owners whose shop was on the land Rhys Enterprises wanted and who didn’t want to sell.”

  “I don’t think it could be one of the shop owners,” my mother said.

  “I used to agree with that,” I said. “And that’s what I told Maisie, too. But now we know they all have guns.”

  “Who all has guns?” Maisie came in back and went to the storage.

  “It seems all of Chagrin Falls,” I said.

  “Oh,” she said. Eyebrows raised, she left her mouth in the shape of the word.

  “Maisie,” my mother said. “I don’t think that any of the shop owners would kill that Zeke guy.”

  “Oh! Are we talking about the case?” Her voice conspiratorial, she came over with a package of napkins in her hands.

  “Mrs. Crewse, the man was in Chagrin Falls for the sole purpose of buying up our shops and land. Who else would be upset with him?”

  “Right,” I said. “And now that I know everyone around here has a gun.”

  “Just anybody wouldn’t do something like that,” my mother said. “At least not the citizens of Chagrin Falls.

  “And,” she continued, “if one of the shop owners did kill him, that wouldn’t stop Zeke’s company. They’d just send someone else to do his work.”

  “Veronica said that was what was happening,” I said, impressed with my mother’s reasoning. “She said she was waiting for Zeke’s replacement to come from Dallas.”

  “See,” she said in her motherly I-know-everything way. “It wouldn’t work. They’d have to shoot everyone that came up here from that company to stop that mall from being built.”

  That sent a shiver through my spine. “Don’t say things like that, Mommy.”

  “People will treat their business like it’s their baby,” she said. “They nurture it, want it to grow healthy and strong, and will do just about anything to keep it that way, even defending it from harm that others try to inflict on it. But not many will resort to murder. Especially not here.” Then in an afterthought: “Who owns the buildings and land that that company was trying to buy?”

  Maisie looked at me. It was what she’d been saying earlier. I hunched my shoulders. “We don’t know.”

  “We could find out,” Maisie said.

  “That’s a good idea,” my mother said. “And a safe idea. Find out. But remember, don’t go talking to people who are potential murderers with guns.”

  “So let’s plan on doing that,” Maisie said, then she held up the package of napkins. “These are needed up front. Gotta go.”

  “We all should get back to work.” My mother glanced down at her watch. “Don’t you have a meeting about the ice cream truck today?”

  Every time my mother referred to my refrigerated truck like that, I had visions of the slow-moving, painted-advertisement-splattered, “Turkey in the Straw”–playing vans of my childhood.

  That wasn’t what my truck was going to be.

  “It’s a food truck that sells ice cream.” I tried to say it without too much defiance in my voice. “And no, that’s tomorrow,” I said and looked at my watch. “I have to approve the final design. And he found the cutest mini blast freezer.” Excitement from that made my mother’s misnomer sink to the back of my mind. “That would mean I could make ice cream on the truck and bring it back to sell in the store if there’s some left.”

  “Sounds good. You taking Rory with you?”

  “Rory,” I said wistfully.

  “Where is she?”

  I remembered O had warned us that she might be in danger if the killer thought she’d seen something. And now I hadn’t seen her in a while. Certainly she had had enough time to look at a painting and come find me. Panic set in. “I don’t know,” I said.

  “You should go and find her.”

  “I know,” I said. I didn’t want her tripping over any more dead bodies. Or for that matter, anyone tripping over hers.

  chapter

  TWENTY-NINE

  I left my mother in the back trying to resuscitate Aunt Jack. Her snoring had gotten louder by the time my mother and I had finished our conversation, and I was afraid she was going to swallow her tonsils.

  “I need to go find Rory.” I spoke to no one in particular, still they all turned and looked at me.

  “Why?” Riya
spoke first. “Isn’t that her right there?” She pointed to the window seat.

  Rory was sitting in the window, holding Felice, stroking her fur. Rory’s face was puffy, her eyes slack and her shoulders slumped. You could just see the stress balled up in her. It seemed even that snobby cat knew that she needed comfort. And I was sure Her Royal Highness was enjoying all the attention she was getting, too.

  “Oh.” I let out a relieved chuckle. “Yeah. I didn’t know she’d gotten back.”

  “She’s been back,” Maisie said as she passed us on the way to the cash register. “When do you want to talk? We have to get a plan of action together.”

  “Tonight. After we close up,” I said.

  “What about Veronica?” Maisie asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But I think you’re right about pursuing other avenues.”

  “She stays on the list.”

  “Yes.” I nodded in agreement. “She stays on the list. But now we check out shop owners,” I said. “The other people on your list.”

  “I want in,” Riya said, as she came over to us. “I’ve been missing out on everything. Again.”

  “Is that why you’ve been hanging around here?” Maisie asked. “I wondered why a doctor wanted to moonlight as an ice cream server.”

  “I hang around because I like this place and my best friends are here.”

  “Aww,” I said. “We love you, too.”

  “And,” Riya said, pointing a finger, “if I’d been included in you two’s shenanigans in the first place last time, you might not have gotten yourself in that pickle.”

  “What pickle?” Maisie asked.

  “She means the Althea Quigley pickle,” I said. Although, I wouldn’t call being locked in a corridor with a knife-wielding killer a pickle, but I knew what she meant.

  “Just fill me in and include me, will you?” Riya said.

  I smiled. “Just as long as you don’t get too supportive.” I pictured shoes flying everywhere.