by Cat Chandler
Nicki was not only grateful to have such a fabulous place to live for much less than the going rent in the area, but that Maxie had generously offered the townhouse that shared a wall with Nicki’s to her friend Jenna. And her silver-haired eccentric landlady had been thrilled to get free help with her genealogy website.
“Is Jenna all right?” Maxie’s stare was fixed on the phone in Nicki’s hand.
“Did she just say someone was dead?” Suzanne’s jaw had dropped down to her chest and her question ended on a squeak. Like Nicki, Suzanne was a member of Maxie’s club called The Ladies in Writing Society, and always went along with whatever it was that Maxie dreamed up for the club members to do. Which included gourmet cooking classes.
“I mean, she was talking pretty loud, so I could kind of hear her. But I don’t think I got it right.” Suzanne’s voice went even higher. “Did I?”
Nicki’s hazel-eyed gaze returned to her phone. “I’m not sure what Jenna was saying.”
She looked over at Maxie. Her unflappable landlady, with her perfectly coiffed hair, was dressed in one of her signature flowing caftans in a variety of soft greens, and cream-colored capri pants paired with matching sandals. She was sitting next to Suzanne, on a tall stool at the kitchen counter. A complete silence fell over Nicki’s newly renovated kitchen, which made the next high-pitched squeal out of Suzanne that much more jarring.
“I can’t deal with another dead person,” the blonde middle-aged woman declared. “Not after what happened to Catherine. That was only six months ago. I can’t go through that again.”
Catherine had been Suzanne’s best friend. Nicki had had the bad luck to find her face down in a plate of pasta at her own dining room table. Like Suzanne, Nicki was having a hard time adjusting to Jenna declaring that another body had turned up.
She cleared her throat and nodded. “That’s what Jenna said.” Nicki winced at the even more shrill screech from Suzanne.
Maxie slapped her palms on the counter’s quartz top. “Oh do stop that silly noise, Suzanne. Now isn’t the time for theatrics.” She folded her hands on the smooth surface in front of her. “Exactly what did our Jenna say, dear?”
Nicki let out a long slow breath. “She said we needed to get our little club together, that the police were at Eddie’s Diner, and that Eddie is dead.”
“Eddie?” Maxie’s eyebrows winged upward. “Eddie Parker? Why is Jenna at the diner?” Maxie glanced at the oversized clock hanging on the wall. “Even for Jenna this is a bit early for a hamburger, isn’t it?”
“I have no idea, but I’m sure going to find out.” Nicki quickly untied her apron. Throwing it on the counter, she looked around for her purse.
Suzanne’s head snapped back and forth between the two women. “Your little club? Is that you and your friends who work on the murder board in your office whenever someone’s been killed?” At Nicki’s frown, Suzanne’s shoulders hunched forward. “Maxie told me about it.”
“Because you asked what it was, dear, after you poked your head into Nicki’s office.” Maxie reached over and patted Suzanne’s hand. “You’ve met Jenna. She has a bit of a dry wit. I’m sure she didn’t mean anything about a club.”
Nicki rolled her eyes when Suzanne looked disappointed. What happened to being upset over her best friend turning up dead? Deciding she must have left her purse and car keys on the hallway table, Nicki stepped around the large kitchen island and headed for the front door. Both Maxie and Suzanne trailed after her.
“So you don’t think Eddie was murdered?”
Nicki ignored the bottle blond, leaving it to Maxie to deal with Suzanne. She frowned at the empty hallway table and made a detour into her home office.
“Eddie spent his life eating hamburgers, dear. While he does make the best ones in town, they aren’t very good for your arteries. He likely had a heart attack, or stroke, or something else along those lines,” Maxie said.
Spotting her purse lying on her desk, Nicki sprinted over to it then turned and headed back toward the front door. Maxie and Suzanne could debate what caused Eddie Parker’s demise as much as they liked. Her biggest concern was getting to Jenna and making sure her good friend was all right.
She and Jenna had moved out to California together, leaving Nicki’s hometown of New York City behind. There were too many memories of her mother there. The good ones of the wonderful times they’d had together, were overlaid by the final one of finding her only parent dead on her doorstep. She’d been robbed of her valuables and left in a crumpled heap for her daughter to find.
Jenna and Nicki, along with doctor Alex, were more family than simply friends, and when Alex had taken a residency at a hospital in the wine country of Northern California, her two “besties” had been happy to follow along. Now Alex was living in Santa Rosa with her fireman fiancé, Tyler, while Jenna and Nicki had adjoining townhouses in Maxie’s “artists’ colony”. Their rent was a bargain, thanks to the fact that Maxie Edwards was their landlady.
Nicki stepped out the townhouse door, waving a hand over her head.
“One of you please lock up when you leave.”
“That will be you, Suzanne,” Maxie said, following close on her tenant’s heels. “I’m going with Nicki.”
Suzanne stood on the doorstep, sputtering. “But what about planning for the new cooking class? It’s in three weeks, and the flyers have already been distributed all over town.”
Nicki turned and walked backwards as she continued toward her car. “You pick out the first menu. My cookbooks are in the cupboard next to the refrigerator.”
“I’m driving. My car is faster and more reliable than yours,” Maxie declared, heading for the sky-blue Mercedes. It was parked right behind Nicki’s sad little Toyota that had definitely seen better days. “And I doubt anyone would give me a ticket for speeding, dear. It’s almost expected of me.”
Not wanting to waste any time arguing with her landlady, Nicki switched directions. “Who’s left to give you one? I’ll bet the entire Soldoff Police Department is at Eddie’s Diner.”
Nicki quickly got into the car and snapped on her seat belt. It had barely made a “click” before Maxie pulled away from the curb and took off down the long curving drive, heading for the main road and the ten-minute trip into town.
When they pulled into the parking lot, Nicki spotted Jenna leaning against the hood of her little car. The minute Maxie stopped the Mercedes next to it, Nicki had the door open and was out in a flash, rushing toward her friend. The two women met in a hug, with Jenna bending over to completely engulf Nicki’s petite five-foot two frame.
Once she was sure her friend was fine and in one piece, Nicki stepped back and held her at arm’s length. “Why are you here at this hour of the morning? And what happened?”
Jenna drew in a deep breath, smiling as Maxie came up and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’m here because I had a meeting scheduled with Eddie.”
“You never have meetings in the morning.” Nicki frowned. “But it doesn’t matter. What happened?”
“Well, I pulled into the parking lot, which was empty. And then I found that the front door to the diner was unlocked.” Jenna related everything that had happened since she’d arrived. When she was finished, she pointed toward the diner. “So Danny’s inside securing the crime scene. At least I assume that’s what he’s doing in there. And I’m out here, not sitting in my car the way he ordered me to. I don’t take orders from kids. Not even deputized kids.” Jenna crossed her arms and nodded, making another long strand of kinky brown hair slide out of the rubber band on top of her head.
“He may not look it, dear, but Danny’s twenty-six,” Maxie said. The strained note in her voice had Nicki glancing over at her.
“Is something bothering you?”
“Aside from the dead guy?” Jenna added, her tone dry as she went back to leaning against the hood of her car.
The older woman bit her lower lip as she cast a glance at the diner. “Are you sure E
ddie was murdered?”
Nicki put an arm around Maxie’s shoulders. “As Dr. Alex would say, that’s for the coroner to decide. But if he was bleeding from the back of his head and left in a freezer the way Jenna said, he probably was.”
“Maybe he slipped on some ice and fell and hit his head.”
Jenna and Nicki exchanged a look before Nicki gave Maxie’s shoulders a gentle squeeze. “That’s possible too.”
“My Mason is not going to be happy about this at all,” Maxie said, referring to her husband who was the former police chief of Soldoff, and now spent his retirement looking after the gardening in the square that was the centerpiece of the town.
“Why would Eddie’s death upset myMason?” Nicki asked. Since her landlady always referred to her husband as “my Mason”, the entire town had adopted that as his nickname, rolling it together to make one word.
Maxie leaned in closer to Nicki and lowered her voice to a whisper. “My Mason loaned money to Eddie several years ago to help keep this place afloat during the recession. The tourist industry fell off, and people weren’t eating out as much, not even fast food. Eddie was struggling to keep his doors open.”
“Oh.” Nicki blinked several times, wondering if Maxie was worried about losing the money, or her husband coming under suspicion for the diner owner’s murder because of something having to do with the loan. And if Jenna’s description of what she’d seen was accurate, the coroner would definitely be recording Eddie’s death as a homicide.
Her thoughts were interrupted when a second police cruiser pulled into the parking lot. From the large build and thinning hair sprinkled with gray, Nicki knew that Chief Turnlow had arrived.
She dropped her arms to her side since she was positive he wouldn’t appreciate a friendly wave under the circumstances. And especially not from the person he considered the town’s biggest snoop, although he usually accompanied that assessment with a fatherly shake of his head. Even so, Nicki had a feeling he was going to be less than thrilled to see her standing there, just several hundred feet from his crime scene.
“I guess Fran was successful in getting hold of the chief.” Jenna shrugged at Nicki’s questioning look. “Danny said he was out on a domestic dispute.”
“Probably the Tipple house again,” Maxie said. “My Mason must have made a trip there at least a dozen times in the last year he was chief. Their fights usually started over their dog.”
Nicki sighed. “Well that isn’t going to put him in the best of moods.” Accepting the inevitable lecture, she pasted a smile on her face and nodded as the head of the two-man, one-woman police department in Soldoff got out of the car and looked over at their little group.
He started across the parking lot and was already frowning before he reached them.
“Maxie, how are you?”
“I was fine, Chief, until I heard this sorry news.” Maxie pointed a finger, with its nail polished in a pink coral, toward the diner. “This is very upsetting.”
Chief Turnlow nodded his agreement as he shifted his gaze to Nicki. “Why am I not surprised to see you here, Ms. Connors?”.
“Because you knew one of my best friends found the body?” Nicki’s voice was pleasantly sweet as she lifted one eyebrow.
The chief snorted and shook his head again as he turned to Jenna. “Is that right, Jenna?”
“Sort of.” The tall brunette pushed her eyeglasses higher on her nose and squinted at the chief through the lenses. “I thought it was just a break-in when I called Fran. It was your deputy who followed the blood trail to the freezer.”
Turnlow’s mouth thinned out into a straight line. “Blood trail?” He looked over at Nicki. “You don’t look surprised, so I’m assuming you’ve already heard all about it?” He blew out a deep breath when Nicki nodded. “Well, everyone might as well come in and wait your turn to be interviewed.” He smiled at Nicki. “And against my better judgment, I’m going to put your observation skills to use. We’ll see how accurate your friend’s account was.”
He inclined his head toward the diner and strode off in that direction. Nicki linked one arm through Jenna’s and the other through Maxie’s as they walked along after the chief.
“I hope this won’t take too much longer,” Jenna said. “I can’t say I’m fond of spending time close to a dead person.” She gave Nicki a sideways glance. “Now I know how you felt when you found Catherine.”
“And that winemaker,” Maxie added, grabbing Nicki’s arm a little tighter when her sandal slid across the loose gravel.
Not to mention my mom, Nicki thought, but she only gave a small shrug. “Someone would have found them eventually. I’m just the one who happened to come along first.” She gave Jenna a nudge in the side. “Just like this time when you happened to be the one who came along first. But better you than one of the teenagers Eddie hired.”
“I guess so,” Jenna reluctantly agreed.
Nicki kept urging her forward. The closer they got to the diner, the slower Jenna’s feet were moving. Worried that her friend was affected by the shock of what she’d seen more than she was letting on, Nicki stopped at the painted green door that was propped open.
“You know, we could just go down to the station and wait for the chief there. We don’t have to sit around here.”
When Jenna turned wide eyes on her, Nicki gave her an encouraging smile.
“Should I call a lawyer?” Jenna asked in a small voice.
“What? Why?”
“Because I was the one at the scene of the crime all by herself. Maybe the chief thinks I killed Eddie.” Jenna looked at the ground. “He did owe me money.”
“How much money, dear?” Maxie asked calmly.
Jenna shrugged. “About eight-hundred dollars and some change.”
“I don’t think the chief believes you’re a suspect at all,” Nicki firmly stated. “And if he does, I’ll certainly set him straight on that.”
“If Eddie was killed over owing someone money, there might have been a long line waiting to do him in.” Maxie sighed. “Including my Mason, and for a great deal more than eight-hundred dollars, dear. I don’t think you have a thing to worry about.”
“Right.” Jenna straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. “I didn’t have anything to do with this, so let’s go in and get this over with.”
Thinking she’d have a private chat with Chief Turnlow and let him know he needed to reassure Jenna that she wasn’t a suspect, Nicki grabbed Jenna’s hand and pulled her through the doorway and into the seating area of the diner. Nobody else was visible, although she could hear voices coming from the kitchen.
Nicki walked over to the only table with a chair next to it, instead of on top, and pointed to the empty seat. “Jenna, why don’t you sit here, and I’ll get another chair down for Maxie.”
As she lifted a second chair off the table, Jenna sat in the vacant one and stared at the tabletop. Nicki shot Maxie a worried look. The landlady returned a slight nod before sitting next to Jenna and putting a hand on her shoulder. “As long as we’re here, maybe Nicki can figure out how to work those machines and make us all a cup of coffee.”
“I’d like that,” Jenna said quietly.
With concern for her friend riding high in her mind, Nicki looked over at the back counter. Calling out a “coming right up”, she moved toward the drip coffee machine. She opened a few drawers until she found the filters and the coffee. Working quickly and efficiently, she measured out coffee, filled the pot with water and poured it into the machine. As it started heating up to brew, Nicki leaned over the counter. The pass-through window gave her a good view of the kitchen, including the back corner where the freezer was located. Danny was standing by the door talking on his cell phone. Since the chief was nowhere in sight, Nicki assumed he was in the freezer with Eddie Parker’s body.
Just then Chief Turnlow stepped into the main kitchen. He shook his chest and shoulders as his hand rubbed up and down along one of his arms while he listened to wha
tever Danny was telling him. Nicki held her breath trying to hear what they were saying but couldn’t make out the words. When the chief started to walk across the kitchen, Nicki faded back to the coffee pot and poured two cups. Carrying them over to the table where Maxie and Jenna were sitting silently, she set a steaming mug in front of her longtime friend.
“Here you go. It’s not perfect, but it’s hot.”
“I’m sure it’s fine, Nicki.” Maxie looked past her and smiled. “Hello again, Chief. Jenna’s worried that you think she might have killed Eddie. Do you?”
Nicki coughed loudly. Leave it to Maxie to throw a direct question out at the chief.
“I suppose I should,” the chief said, ignoring the glare Nicki shot at him. “And just might do that, as soon as I eliminate every other person in the county.”
Jenna’s eyes went wide behind her lenses. “What?”
The chief smiled at the tall brunette who was sitting with her hands clasped together so tightly her knuckles had turned white.
Nicki’s shoulders relaxed, and she winked at Jenna. “See? I told you he didn’t think that.”
The chief’s gaze shifted over to her. “Your friend here would be more likely to turn off someone’s website, or hack into their personal email, than whack someone over the head.” He studied Nicki for a moment. “And you’d probably make them into a villain and kill them off in a very creative way in one of those spy novels you write. A knock on the head just wouldn’t do it.”
“Gee. Thanks, Chief. I think.”
The former Los Angeles homicide detective turned small-town police chief, looked back at Jenna. “Danny’s going to come out and take your statements then you’ll be free to go.” He stared at Jenna for a moment, frowning. “Why don’t you give your car keys to Nicki and she can take it back to your place after she’s wheedled a look at the crime scene. I’m sure Maxie won’t mind driving you home.”