by Cat Chandler
“I’ll think on it,” the chief said. “Are you going to return your editor’s phone calls and save me from having to deal with him?”
She gave him a cheeky smile. “I’ll think on it.”
He laughed. “Get in. I’ll wait to be sure your car starts up.”
Slightly embarrassed that everyone knew about her chronic car problems, Nicki got behind the wheel and inserted the key into the ignition. Saying a silent prayer, she let out a sigh of relief when the engine immediately turned over. The chief closed the door and leaned over to peer through the open window. Nicki usually forgot to roll it up or lock her car since there was a zero chance anyone would try to steal it.
“How’s Jenna doing? And Maxie?”
“They could be better, Chief, but they’re holding up okay. I’m heading home to check on them both.”
He nodded and straightened up. “You do that. And call that wanna-be boyfriend of yours.” He was back to his fatherly smile. “He worries about you. And then get a good night’s sleep. It’s been a hard day for everyone.”
Nicki knew that was true and had a flash of guilt over putting off talking to her editor. While the chief headed for his cruiser, she dug out her cell phone. Her little guilt trip only got longer when she saw she’d missed another call from Matt. Deciding her life had suddenly gotten very complicated trying to keep all of her friends happy, Nicki punched in his private number and waited. After seven rings, which she’d silently counted off, Matt’s voice mail clicked on. She left a message, apologizing for not getting back to him sooner, and that she’d run into a few distractions but would get to work on her latest assignment right away. After hanging up, she felt a little better that at least she’d tried, and a little disappointed that he hadn’t answered his phone.
Refusing to dwell on what that meant, she put her car into gear and steered it carefully out of the overgrown parking lot toward the highway.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Nicki walked into her townhouse, looking forward to a shower after her morning run. The chief had been right about feeling better after a good night’s sleep, and the exercise this morning had really helped to clear her head. She’d gotten a late start, so it was already midmorning and there was quite a bit she wanted to do today.
Including tracking down Matt. She’d tried calling him before her run, but once again had been sent straight to his voice mail.
She’d barely set foot inside her house when she heard voices coming from her office. Nicki set her house keys on the hallway table on her way to investigate, although she had a pretty good idea who’d invaded her home. She smiled when she saw the three women huddled in front of the murder board.
“Hi!” Nicki grinned when they all turned as if they were glued together.
Jenna pushed her glasses further up her nose and shook her head at her friend. “Hey! Hope you don’t mind us just letting ourselves in. And I have a bone to pick with you.”
“I talked to the bookkeeper last night,” Maxie said at the same time. “And it wasn’t great news. Did you find anything at the apartment?”
“We came up with the most marvelous idea! Wait until you hear it,” Suzanne chimed in.
Nicki laughed and held up her hands. “Wait. I can’t answer everyone at the same time, and I need a shower. Give me a half hour and we can all compare notes.”
She sprinted off, taking the stairs two at a time as she headed for the bathroom. Fortunately, she’d never been one to fuss with her appearance, so it wasn’t a problem for her to be showered and in clean clothes in record time.
Her hair was still slightly damp when she walked into her office a half hour later and pointed at Jenna.
“You start. What bone?”
Jenna crossed her arms and tapped her foot against the hardwood floor. “Did you call Alex and tell her she had to come out here with a straightjacket?”
“I did not,” Nicki declared, but had to raise a hand to hide her smile. “I mean, I did call her, but I didn’t say a word about bringing men in white coats. Is that what she said?”
“Not exactly,” Jenna groused. “But she kept asking me these touchy-feely, how-are-you-doing, what-are-you-thinking kind of questions. So I figured you’d called her and told her I was taking a long walk off a short pier.”
Nicki tilted her head to one side and studied the tall brunette. “Well if you were, you seem to have made a full recovery.”
“We both have,” Maxie declared. “It’s because we’re sure that we’re going to solve this case.” She smiled at Jenna. “Which will help Jenna put it behind her and prove my Mason is innocent.”
Nicki laughed as she crossed the room and pulled out her desk chair. Taking a seat, she swiveled it around to face the murder board and the three women standing in front of it. She looked at Jenna.
“You were acting, well, wonky,” Nicki said, borrowing a word from the chief. “And don’t tell me that talking to Alex didn’t help at all.”
Jenna’s forehead scrunched up. “It did. And so will seeing her. She’ll be on her way here after her shift. Ty’s coming with her and they’ll be staying at my place, although I could hear him yelling in the background that he expected you to do all the cooking.”
“Well, Nicki is a gourmet chef, and you only do takeout,” Suzanne said.
Jenna laughed. “True words. And most of my takeout comes from Nicki’s kitchen.” She grinned at her friend. “It’s the least you can do since you made the call in the first place.”
Because she never minded spending time with any of her friends, and especially Alex and Jenna, Nicki didn’t bother to put out even a token protest. “Nothing I love to do more than cook for an appreciative crowd.”
“Especially when we’re investigating a murder,” Jenna said. “Which brings us to Maxie’s news.”
Nicki turned her attention to her landlady. “Is this about the elusive bookkeeper?”
“Gordon Twill,” Maxie supplied, “A most unfortunate circumstance for a name.”
Nicki silently agreed with her there. She searched her memory. But even though Soldoff was a small town, she couldn’t recall ever meeting a Gordon Twill.
“Anyway,” Maxie continued. “Gordon is a very nice man. He’s lived in Soldoff almost his entire life. I believe his parents moved here when Gordon was eight or nine. He and Eddie had been friends from grade school. At least that’s what he told me when I spoke with him last night. He has several clients here in town. We use him for our Ladies in Writing Society.”
“Maxie,” Nicki said patiently. “What did he tell you about Eddie?”
“Oh, yes. Of course, dear.” Maxie walked over and settled onto the small two-person sofa across from Nicki’s desk. “He said that the diner has been barely scraping by for the last six months. It seems Eddie was taking out a lot more cash than he usually did. And there are outstanding bills that still need to be paid, not to mention wages for the staff. Gordon said that if the diner isn’t bringing in any income, there won’t be enough cash in its bank account to cover everything.” Maxie exhaled a long, drawn-out breath. “He doesn’t think the diner can survive if it stays closed for long. And since it was mostly known for its hamburgers, which were made from a secret mix only Eddie had the recipe for, he doesn’t know how the place can reopen again.”
Jenna gave Maxie a sympathetic look. “Which means your husband will lose out on his loan, and me on being paid for the website.”
Nicki felt a fissure of alarm when Maxie didn’t agree with Jenna. Instead, her landlady turned a smile in the computer geek’s direction. And when Nicki looked over at Suzanne, she was smiling too. Uh oh. This can’t be good.
Knowing she’d probably regret asking, she gave Maxie a cautious look. “And I take it the three of you have a plan to get everyone properly paid?” Nicki sincerely hoped it didn’t involve something like buying the diner and opening up a cooking school.
“Suzanne came up with it.”
Maxie’s enthusiasm didn’
t do a thing to reassure Nicki, who turned slowly toward the woman who was bouncing up and down on her toes, a wide smile still on her face.
“I don’t know why the diner can’t reopen,” Suzanne gushed. “Jake’s been the assistant manager and cook there for years, so he could keep doing that. And I’m sure Roberta would stay on. But even if neither of them did, how hard can it be? Even I can flip a burger or write down a food order. And I already know how to work a cash register. You just tap in some numbers or swipe a card down the side.”
“It won’t be quite that easy,” Jenna warned. “He’s got an old-fashioned cash register, and one of those credit card machines.”
“I can learn it,” Suzanne stated, all confidence now.
“And what about this secret hamburger mixture that made an Eddie’s Diner burger so special?” Nicki looked over at Jenna. “Isn’t that why you liked them so much?”
“True,” Jenna nodded. “But that can’t be such a big deal.”
“Not a big deal? The taste of the food is what any eating establishment is about. Otherwise, you would have gone to McDonalds. There’s one just down the street from Eddie’s.”
Maxie shifted her position on the sofa and crossed her ankles, her sandals throwing off a sparkle from the rhinestones along the straps. “Of course we should help support our local economy. Which naturally includes the diner. I’m sure we can come close to replicating an Eddie’s hamburger. That is, with your help, dear.”
“My help?” Nicki echoed.
“I’m sure Eddie kept some of that mix stashed in his refrigerator. All you have to do is figure out how to duplicate it. With your skill that shouldn’t be hard.” Suzanne’s eyes fairly glowed at the prospect.
“Uh huh.” Nicki kept her voice neutral. She didn’t know if she could or couldn’t duplicate the meat mixture. She was inclined to think not, but didn’t want to rain on everyone’s parade. Not when they were so much more upbeat than they had been just hours before.
Jenna gave Suzanne a light friendly swat on the arm. “Nicki’s burger mix is the ult. It would put Eddie’s to shame.”
“I’m sure the price of it would too,” Nicki quickly spoke up. “If we can find a sample of Eddie’s, I’ll do my best to duplicate it. Provided,” she hastily added, “I don’t also have to do the cooking. I really don’t have the time, between writing for Matt’s magazine, keeping up with my own blog and trying to get the next Tyrone Blackstone novel done.” She nodded at Suzanne. “Not to mention the cooking classes you want to do.”
“And of course solving our latest case,” Maxie said. “Which is a primary concern for all of us.”
Suzanne waved a hand at the murder board. “You concentrate on this. I’ll take care of everything with the diner and the cooking class. You won’t have to put in hardly any time at all.”
Nicki doubted that, but she was happy to get off the subject of hamburger mixtures and back to murder.
“Could we get Gordon Twill to meet us at the diner once the chief allows us back in there? And Jake, too? We’ll start on that hamburger mix, and I’ll ask Gordon if he knew who Eddie was supposed to meet that night at the diner.” While Suzanne wrote “set up meeting with Gordon” under the To-Do section of the board, Nicki looked over at Jenna. “You did say the reason you had to meet with Eddie early in the morning was because he already had a meeting set up for the night he was killed?”
Jenna nodded. “That’s right. And who would know the person Eddie was meeting with better than his accountant?”
“Bookkeeper, dear,” Maxie corrected, looking up from the cell phone she was holding in one hand. “Accountants are much more expensive.” She went back to tapping on her phone.
“Okay. Bookkeeper,” Jenna repeated. “Jake might know too, since he’s worked with Eddie forever. We can talk to him at the same time.” She inclined her head at Nicki. “Is there anyone else we should talk to?”
Nicki leaned back in her chair. “Do any of you know about a stamp collection Eddie had?”
“He didn’t make any secret that he had a stamp collection, dear. Why do you ask?” Maxie set her phone on the sofa cushion and kept her questioning gaze on Nicki.
“It was something Roberta mentioned when I was at Eddie’s apartment with Chief Turnlow.
“How’d that go?” Jenna pounced on Nicki’s comment. “Did you find anything that could help identify the killer?”
“No, we didn’t. But that would have been difficult to do since it had been trashed worse than his office was.” Nicki nodded at the gasps from the three of them. “And Roberta said he had some kind of valuable stamp, and we should be talking to his two stamp-collecting friends.”
“That would be Ben Caulkin and Sam Moore.” Maxie tapped one perfectly manicured finger against her chin. “But I’ve never heard about a rare stamp.” When her phone pinged, she picked it up and stared at the small screen. “Excellent.”
Maxie looked up and beamed at Suzanne. “Fran checked with the chief, and he said he’d release the diner as a crime scene in two days. All we have to do is get everyone in there once it's released and get started.”
Suzanne’s head bobbed up and down, along with the rest of her body. “I’ll just step into the living room and make a few calls. See who I can get to come in.”
Nicki smiled and shook her head as the short blond bounced her way out of the room. “She certainly seems excited about keeping the diner open.”
“I think she’s excited about finding a life for herself instead of imitating yours, or following along after Catherine,” Maxie commented before her smile deflated. “My Mason will be home in two days. I don’t know how I’m going to explain this to him.”
Nicki rose and went to join her landlady on the small sofa. She put an arm around Maxie’s shoulders and gave them a comforting squeeze. “I wish you wouldn’t worry. No one within fifty miles of here would think Chief Edwards had anything to do with a murder, and certainly not Eddie’s.” She glanced over to Jenna for support.
“That really is a ridiculous idea,” her friend instantly chimed in. “I think this whole stamp thing is a great lead. I mean, his office is trashed and then his apartment? Or who knows, it might have been the other way around. Someone couldn’t find the stamp in Eddie’s apartment and then went looking for it in his office, and Eddie surprised him.” She nodded. “Sounds like the perfect scenario to me.”
Maxie’s whole expression brightened. “It does, doesn’t it? Why, anyone could have known about that stamp. I’ll be sure to have my Mason mention that to Chief Turnlow.”
Since Jenna’s theory had obviously made Maxie feel better about the current chief of police wanting to question her husband, Nicki didn’t bother to remind either of them that the chief had been standing right there beside her when Roberta mentioned this unknown, and as yet not seen or verified, stamp.
With a last gentle pat on Maxie’s back, Nicki stood and walked over to look at the murder board. “We have quite a few people we need to talk to. And I still have to write something for my blog today, and finish an article for Matt.”
“Right.” Jenna stretched her arms over her head. “And I need to get some work done for my newest client. Trident Industries will more than make up for any loss I take from Eddie’s account.”
“And money is only money.” Maxie nodded, getting into the spirit of the discussion. “Not having that loan paid back isn’t going to affect us in the long run. Losing a friend is the much bigger issue. Which reminds me. I don’t know if Eddie has any family who will be making final arrangements for him.”
Nicki frowned. “According to Roberta, he only has a nephew, whom he hasn’t seen in a long time.”
“Then it’s up to his friends to be sure he is properly laid to rest,” Maxie declared. “I’ll be on hand to talk to Gordon and find out if he knows about any wishes Eddie might have left, and of course make sure everything is taken care of.”
Nicki smiled her approval. It did feel good to be doing
something instead of sitting around wallowing in an ocean of unanswered questions. When the doorbell rang, she looked at her watch. She hadn’t expected Alex this early, but maybe the emergency room hadn’t been busy today and the doctor didn’t have to work her full shift after all. When Suzanne’s voice rang out with a cheery, “I’ll get it”, Nicki went back to studying the murder board.
A few seconds later, Suzanne appeared in the doorway to the office. “Um, Nicki? You have a visitor.”
Not bothering to turn around, Nicki waved a hand out to one side. “Just have Ty drop your bags anywhere, Alex.”
“I’ll be happy to convey that message when he gets here.”
Nicki froze for a long second before she caught Jenna’s grin from the corner of her eye. Slowly turning around, she stared at her visitor. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. Not even the mental groan that was echoing in her head.
“Oh.” Maxie stopped and cleared her throat. “I’m sorry, dear. Did I forget to mention that Matt called last night and told me that he was on his way here? He asked if he could stay with us, and of course I’m happy to have him as our guest for as long as he would like to stay.”
Nicki closed her eyes. “Of course you are.”
Chapter Fifty-Nine
“Hi, Nicki.” Matt’s six-foot frame took up most of the doorway’s height, and the intense gaze behind his glasses with their thick black frame was glued to Nicki.
Nicki raised her eyebrows in a silent question, fighting not to smile when her editor adjusted his glasses and shoved an unruly lock of dark hair out of his eyes. It was such a Matt thing to do. A dimple in his cheek peeked through when he did a perfect imitation of raising an eyebrow of his own.
“What are you doing here, Matt?”
“I wanted to ask you why you haven’t returned any of my calls.” He paused and adjusted his glasses again, a sure sign he was either irritated or embarrassed. Nicki wondered which one it was, but had a feeling she wouldn’t have to wait long to find out.