A Game of Cones

  I laughed. “We do.” I bit my bottom lip and glanced around the shop. The afternoon crowd wouldn’t start til after four. I knew the two of them could handle it. “Okay,” I said. I reached back to untie my apron. “Who should we start with?”

  “The Dixby sisters,” Maisie said without hesitation.

  “You think?” Riya said. “I was thinking we should talk to Veronica first.” She was back to that.

  “We already did,” Maisie said.

  “I know.” A pout puckered up Riya’s lips. “I missed it.”

  “The Dixby sisters are the holdouts and have a good motive,” Maisie said. “That makes them a good place to start.”

  “They’d try death by coffee,” Rory said. “Not a gun.”

  “They have a gun collection.” Maisie didn’t agree with Rory on that point. “They’re expert marksmen—”

  “Wait. Wait. Wait. They’re expert marksmen?” I asked.

  “They couldn’t be the star attraction as sharpshooters in a carnival if they weren’t,” she said.

  “I never said they were the star attraction,” Riya said. “But I guess they probably are. Expert marksmen. Isn’t that what a sharpshooter is?”

  “Without them, the whole vertical mini mall deal would be a bust,” Maisie said, a curt nod in affirmation.

  “They were already holding out,” I said. “They didn’t have to kill him to stop it. They just had to keep up with what they were doing.”

  “You think that those two old ladies are the ones that did that whole wrestle Zeke down thing, take the gun and shoot him?” Rory asked. “The way you enacted it in Riya’s kitchen?”

  “Maybe so.” Maisie shrugged.

  I didn’t want to mention that I had put my food truck guy on the list. No way we could go all the way to North Olmsted and get back on our “lunch break.”

  “Okay. The sisters it is,” Riya said. “I guess if we find they did it, no need to go back and talk to Veronica. They seem like good suspects.”

  “And why now do you think that?” I asked.

  “Well, because Zeke Reynolds might have been harassing them. Trying to wear them down. Make them sell. That would have been stressful for them, I’m sure. In my medical opinion, it is possible for stress to cause a person to act irrationally.”

  “And kill someone.” Maisie finished the thought as if she had enough medical knowledge to concur.

  “So what are we waiting for?” Rory asked. “Let’s go get ’em.”

  chapter

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  What are we looking at?” Riya asked.

  Maisie and I had stopped dead in our tracks when we got to the large window in front of the Juniper Tree.

  “A conspiracy,” Maisie said.

  “What kind of conspiracy?” Riya stared into the window to try to see what we were seeing.

  “I think she means Amelia and Veronica,” I said.

  “Strange they’re sitting there together,” Maisie said. “Very strange.”

  “Isn’t Amelia the one who’s dating the mayor?” Rory asked.

  “I think so.” I shrugged. “My PopPop doesn’t think so.”

  “He just said that the mayor was married,” Rory said. “I never heard him deny he was having an affair.”

  I hadn’t thought about it that way.

  “And didn’t Veronica go and talk to the mayor the other day?” Riya asked.

  “Yep,” Maisie and I said at the same time.

  “They’re probably planning on how they’ll spend the kickback Riya’s uncle Garud was talking about,” Maisie said. “And how not to go to jail.”

  “He’s not my uncle,” Riya said. “And I thought we came to question the Dixby sisters. Shouldn’t we concentrate on one suspect at a time?”

  “We have to take whatever opportunity presents itself in solving this,” Maisie said, as if she’d been doing this for years. “Follow the clues.”

  I’d heard that from her before.

  Maisie tapped her finger on the glass. “They could, right over a cup of coffee—”

  “Bad coffee,” Rory chimed in.

  “—be figuring out right now, how to push the mayor out of the deal.” She narrowed her eyes. “Maybe even how to push him out of a fourth-floor window. Splat!” She gave the nonpresent mayor a push. “Kill him dead.”

  “That’s redundant,” Riya said.

  “What if it’s a bigger conspiracy than that?” Rory said, adding to Maisie’s story.

  “How?” Maisie asked. She was all ears.

  “They’re in the coffee shop.” Rory waggled her eyebrows.

  “And?” Maisie’s ears perked up.

  “With the Dixby sisters . . .” Rory’s brows waggled some more as she pulled Maisie in.

  “All of them were in it together!” Maisie bought right into Rory’s speculation. Excited, her eyes got wide.

  I rolled mine. “They wanted different things,” I said.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Maisie stepped up on the stoop, ready to go in the door and confront them all. “Two of them wanted Zeke dead for love. Veronica,” Maisie recalled, “said she wished Zeke was dead because of a lovers’ quarrel.” Maisie held one hand out, palm up, like she was weighing the option. “And Amelia”—she lowered her hand like it was getting heavier—“was willing to sell her business, did sell, possibly for the love of a paramour. But it seems it was because of some kind of deal with Rhys so she could get a kickback to help her lover.”

  We listened to her deduction.

  Still holding out the one hand, she stuck out the other. “The Dixby sisters wanted Zeke dead to stop him from buying up their property.” She smacked her hands together. “Either way,” she said, clasping them and giving them a shake, “they all wanted him dead. Conspiracy.” She nodded. “Conspiracy of the fourth degree.”

  Whatever that meant . . .

  “Excuse me.” It was Ivan Rynok, part owner of the art gallery. He came out of the coffee shop, holding his cup up in the air to keep from spilling its contents all over Maisie. She’d been blocking the door and he ran right into her.

  “Sorry!” Maisie said.

  “It is okay,” he said, his accent barely there. “And hi to you.” He directed his greeting to Rory. “Thought you were coming back to the gallery to buy a painting.”

  “I did come back,” Rory said. “You were closed.”

  “Oh.” He nodded. “We have a lot of packing up to do and are getting ready for the sale.”

  Maisie had been wiggling ever since he’d bumped into her. He and his wife were also on our list, and I could tell curiosity had her itching and there were questions inside of her that were bouncing around trying to get out.

  “You sold your store?” Maisie’s first, I’m sure, of many questions came bursting out.

  “Da. We did.” Ivan took a sip out of his cup. “Time we got out.” He coughed into his hand. “Time to be moving to bigger and better things. We have big plans. My wife and I.”

  And seeing Veronica made me think of something she said. “I heard Zeke Reynolds came to the gallery,” I said. I might as well get my questions in, too.

  “He was an art lover.” He waved his hand. A shiny diamond-encrusted pinky ring glittered in the sunlight.

  “And a tough businessman,” Riya added.

  “He was. Da. At first. When he went against his company to complete the mall deal. But then—”

  “Wait.” Maisie frowned. “He went against his company? You mean Rhys Enterprises?”

  “Da. He pushed for that mall. At first. Thought he’d get in on the ground floor. Turning the village around.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with the village,” Riya said. “It’s the best place around Cleveland to live.”

  “He thought it would be better with a mall.” Ivan d
rank from his cup. “Me and my wife didn’t care. We are leaving anyway.”

  “If he wanted the mall—”

  “At first,” Ivan corrected.

  “At first.” Maisie went along with the correction. “If Zeke Reynolds wanted the mall at first and that was going against his company, then that would mean they didn’t want the mall?”

  “They did. They changed their mind.” Ivan waved his ring-clad hand back and forth, aiding in the confusion he was sprouting. “But now, another company will take over.”

  “Take over to build the mall?” Maisie said.

  “Da!” He seemed to like the idea.

  “How do you know that?” I asked. “How could you know?”

  “Because they sent me a check!” he said. “And a letter.”

  “A letter saying they are building a mall?” Maisie asked.

  “Of course not. It said that they had taken over the account from Rhys Enterprises.” He held up his cup in salute. “You come to the gallery, we’ll see if we can’t get you a good deal, no?” And with that he left.

  “I don’t believe him,” Maisie said. “Do you believe him, Win?”

  “Why wouldn’t you believe him?” Riya asked.

  “Because that would mean that Veronica was lying when she said that someone from Rhys was coming to take over for Zeke.”

  “And so was Uncle Garud,” Riya said. We all looked at her. “But why would they lie?”

  “Murderers always lie,” Maisie said.

  chapter

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  So if we’re going in, who are we going to talk to?” Riya asked. “The Dixby sisters or Amelia and lying Veronica?”

  We had yet to go inside, our plans for questioning the twin baristas thwarted when Ivan came out.

  “I vote for the Dixby sisters,” Rory said. “I’ve seen their temper firsthand. They get angry and fight back.”

  “And they own guns,” Maisie said.

  “You’re obsessed with them and their guns,” I said.

  “Because Zeke Reynolds was killed with one,” Maisie said.

  “Did Lin or your grandmother find the gun from the restaurant?” Riya asked.

  Maisie shrugged. “I don’t think so.”

  “Then maybe we should talk to Veronica,” Riya said.

  “My mother said everyone around here owns guns. They bought them from the Dixby sisters.”

  “Aaannndddd we’re back to them,” Rory said.

  “Doesn’t look like we have time to debate anymore,” I said. “Look!”

  Veronica and Amelia had stood up, ready to go.

  “We should hide,” I said.

  “We should question them,” Maisie said.

  “Not both together,” Riya said. “We won’t get a straight answer.”

  “Here comes Veronica!” I called out. And we made a run for it. We ran past the Juniper Tree and toward the corner. We needed to duck out of sight.

  “C’mon,” Maisie said. “Let’s go in here.”

  We all looked up at the sign and then over at Maisie.

  “We have to get out of sight,” she said. “There’s nothing like hiding in plain sight.”

  So we entered the Around the Corner Bookshop, owned by the soon-to-be-present Amelia Hargrove, and tried to hide among the rows of books.

  “Just act nonchalant,” I said as we rushed in the door. The bell jangling announced our arrival. Luckily no one paid any attention to us.

  “Now what?” Riya asked.

  “After Amelia comes in, we’ll sneak out,” I said, my voice low. The rows of books were parallel to the door and we could peek through the shelves and watch as she came in.

  “Maybe we question her while we’re here,” Maisie said, wandering out into an open area.

  “Shhh!” we all told her and I grabbed her arm and pulled her back. Just in time, it seemed.

  “I can’t believe it.” Amelia walked in the door, her cell phone up to her ear. “Yes. I just talked to her. And it seems like stopping Zeke Reynolds is not stopping the deal.”

  Her voice was shaky and it sounded as if she may have been crying.

  We looked at each other, eyes wide.

  “I don’t want to give up my shop. I don’t want a stupid food truck with books. This place has always been . . .”

  Her voice trailed off as she went toward the back of the store. I presumed to her office.

  “Oh wow,” I said. “Did you guys hear that?”

  “Maybe I’m beginning to agree with Maisie,” Riya said. “Maybe there was a conspiracy.”

  * * *

  MAISIE LAGGED BEHIND us all the way back to the ice cream shop.

  She still wanted to go back and talk to the Dixby sisters. I told her we needed to get back to the store.

  Maisie was right, though. At some point we were going to have to question the Dixby sisters. Things kept coming up about them and they were the only ones we hadn’t talked to. They hadn’t been at the SOOCFA meeting, but they met other criteria Maisie had set forth. They didn’t want to sell and they knew how to handle a gun.

  But that was going to have to wait for another time.

  As we neared the ice cream shop, I noticed someone sitting on my Grandma Kay’s bench. He waved when I got close enough to be recognized.

  “Hi, Mr. Mason,” I said. “I was getting worried about you. Did you come by to get some ice cream?”

  “Oh, I forgot,” he said.

  “C’mon,” I said, walking past him and holding the door open. “Let’s get you a scoop.”

  “I came for you to help me,” he said. “Can you help me?” He followed me into the store.

  “Sure, Mr. Mason,” I said, thinking I already had plans to do that. I should have mentioned it to Bobby at Family Chef Night the night before. It had slipped my mind. “What do you want me to do?”

  “There’s a big black hole.”

  “A black hole?” I asked. “What is that?”

  “I want them back.”

  “You want what back?”

  Riya came over and smiled at him. “Here, sit down,” she said, and took his hand. “Let me take a look at you.”

  He grinned so wide all three of his teeth were showing.

  “You feeling okay?” she asked.

  “Just worried about that black hole. I think that’s where everything is,” he said.

  “Does his speech seem a little slurred to you?” Riya asked me.

  “I don’t think so,” I said. I knew she asked me because I knew him better than she did, and knew what was normal for him. “He sometimes talks like that. But I did notice he wasn’t using his right side the other day when I saw him. Kind of dragging his leg.”

  “I didn’t notice that when he walked in just now.” She stuck out two fingers. “Can you give my fingers a squeeze, Mr. Mason?” she asked. “Squeeze as hard as you can.”

  He did as she asked, all the while grinning.

  “Can you push my fingers away?” she asked and he did. “Seems like he’s okay now,” she said. She looked at me then glanced up at the clock. “Maybe I should take him over to the clinic and check him out.”

  “Good idea,” I said. “You think it’ll be okay, though, if I give him some ice cream first?”

  Riya looked at Mr. Mason and nodded. “I don’t think it’ll hurt. Might do him some good. Bring his blood glucose up. Can you give him some water, too? All this heat, he might be a little dehydrated.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’d meant to tell Bobby I wanted to get him to the clinic. I’m glad you’re taking a look at him.”

  “No problem,” she said.

  I went in the back to get Mr. Mason some ice cream and a bottle of water. I noticed that Aunt Jack had been eyeing me the whole time. She followed me into the back.

>   “You were gone longer than an hour,” she said.

  “Did I say I’d only be gone an hour?” I asked. I didn’t remember saying that, but maybe I had.

  “If you’re back,” she said, “I’m leaving.”

  I glanced at her as I pulled a bottle of water from a case I kept stored in the pantry. “Okay,” I said. “I had thought about doing some kind of special to draw people in during the sidewalk sale. But I’ve been so busy running around.”

  “The what?” she said.

  “The flyer in the window,” I said. “The bookstore and a couple of other shops are having a fire sale.”

  “I didn’t hear about a fire.”

  “Me either, Aunt Jack, it’s just what they’re calling it.”

  “You don’t expect me to stay, do you?”

  “No,” I said.

  “And you do plan on paying me for the time I’ve spent here, right?”

  I hadn’t thought about that.

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Good,” she said, then looked as if she wanted to say something more but Maisie walked in.

  “The protest is tonight,” Maisie said. “I almost forgot all about it. Bobby just texted me.” She held up her phone.

  “I was thinking about participating tonight.” I repeated what I’d just told Aunt Jack.

  “I thought we might go to . . . you know.” She looked at me and then Aunt Jack.

  Aunt Jack looked at us, and it took her a minute to realize that Maisie didn’t want to say whatever she had to say in front of her.

  Aunt Jack put up her hands. “I’m out of here. I don’t want to know anything about what you two are up to.” She grabbed her purse off the back wall rack and left, going through the store to leave by the front door.

  “She probably already knows,” I said. We both chuckled. “So what were you trying to say?”

  “I was saying that we should go to the Juniper Tree.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” I said.

  “You were?”

  “Yeah, I don’t want to overlook them, even though I don’t know how much I agree with them being the killers.”