“And there’s more. If it proved that your uncle is the murderer, the surviving members of his family can file a civil lawsuit to sue the estate of your uncle.” He watched Amanda’s face carefully and continued. “That means they can go after whatever property was his at the time of his death. And that includes the Ravenwood Inn.”
Amanda’s heart stood still, time suspended in the office while the lawyer’s words resounded again and again in her ears.
Includes the Ravenwood Inn.
All that work, all that hope, gone, along with every last bit of money she had. Any hope she’d had of a future suddenly felt like a distant dream.
“I checked the zoning, Charles. The assessor’s office shows that the mayor rezoned the inn the day she met me, so now it’s strictly residential.” Her words were flat and emotionless.
“Are you sure?” At Amanda’s resigned nod, Charles began to bristle.
“That’s horrible. She may have the authority to do it but that doesn’t give her the right. Maybe I can figure a way around it legally. If you’re going to make that inn back into a business it’s got to have business zoning.”
Amanda blinked back the tears threatening to gather behind her eyes, and Charles leaned over to pull some tissues out of a box on the desktop, handing them to Amanda.
She tried to keep her voice steady. “I’m sorry, Charles. I’m not usually this emotional but I think everything is catching up to me. The lack of sleep, the hard work, all the problems here in town.”
The lawyer’s voice was soothing. “I’m on your side, Amanda. You can always come talk to me about anything, even if it’s just to let off some steam. Look, just send the documents you have about your uncle’s last wishes and I’ll see what I can do. As of today I am officially on retainer.”
“I’m not sure how I’m going to be able to pay you, Charles.”
He smiled warmly. “Got a dollar?” She was confused but he waited patiently while she dug into her purse and produced a single dollar bill. He took it and laid it on his desk.
“There. It’s official. You’ve paid me a retainer and now I’m your advocate. Care for a mint?” He offered Amanda an open tin of peppermints, but she smiled and shook her head no, understanding that he was trying to give her a chance to calm down a bit. Charles popped one in his mouth, then set the tin down and stood up, digging into the top drawer of his tall file cabinet. After a few seconds of flipping through the folders, he pulled out a sheet of paper, looked it over carefully, and handed it to her.
“Here’s a list of your rights while your property is under investigation. The main thing is to remember that you have a lawyer on your side, and that you don’t let anyone search without a warrant.”
“Too late,” Amanda commented dryly, but Charles shook his head, obviously disagreeing.
“No, not too late. They may be back later with other requests to search the inn. Just always ask to see their ID and their paperwork and call me if you have any questions, okay? It’ll also help if you send over copies of any legal papers you have about the inn. I don’t want you to have to handle this all alone. Murder investigations can be grueling, especially for the families involved.”
Amanda’s mind flashed back to the early morning visit from James Landon, and how he hadn’t had a warrant when he arrived. She quickly decided not to share that gaffe with Charles, but she certainly wasn’t going to let a mistake like that happen again.
No matter how good the cop looked in new jeans and a bomber jacket.
Chapter 9
Amanda wearily pushed open the coffeehouse door, ignoring the cheerful jingle of the bell over her head. The small shop was empty of people, and she shuffled to the counter. She was slowly reading the chalkboard menu when a short woman with blonde curls and a bright smile came out of the back room, wiping her hands on her apron.
“Good morning! What can I get for you?”
“Got anything with booze in it?”
The girl eyeballed Amanda and drew the right conclusion instantly. “Rough day?”
A deep sigh. “The cops think they’ve identified the dead guy in my garden.”
The barista’s mouth formed a surprised O, then snapped shut. “Well, I don’t have booze, but how about a mocha? I could make you a double.”
Amanda nodded at the suggestion and plopped down bonelessly into one of the overstuffed armchairs. Through the smear of raindrops tracking across the window she could see the hill sloping downward toward the quiet town. It looked deceptively peaceful, as if everyone always got along and just brought each other cake and loaned out their lawn mowers to their neighbors and had charity spaghetti feeds, but Amanda was starting to see a much different side of this little village. It was full of real people, with real lives and real problems, failings, and secrets.
It also once housed a murderer.
And that murderer may still be here. They could even be as close as her own family.
The blonde lady brought over a big mug of steaming coffee topped with whipped cream and a dusting of cocoa, and handed it to her. She sat down on the nearby sofa, expectant.
“Look, you don’t have to talk if you don’t want to, but I know I haven’t seen you around here before, and it’s not every day someone comes in and tells me there’s a dead guy in their yard.”
“Garden,” Amanda corrected her. She sighed again, knowing that she’d just have to tell the whole story, and wishing she was back in Los Angeles.
“Sorry; garden.” The blonde woman leaned forward, her blue eyes full of kindness. “Yeah, I read about the whole thing. My name’s Meg. Is there anything I can do for you?”
This was unexpected, and Amanda looked at the young woman carefully, sizing her up. There was a kindness and intelligence in her face that appealed to her, and she could feel her body relaxing into the comfy chair as she took the first sip of her coffee.
She’d been wound tight as a spring since that night they’d discovered Emmett, and the lack of sleep was definitely taking its toll. Almost without meaning to, Amanda started telling Meg about the grim discovery at the inn, the mortician and cops, and the mayor’s comments. She could feel the pinpricks of tears at the edge of her eyes as she went over what had been said about her family’s possible involvement. Watching for Meg’s reaction, she only saw kindness in her eyes and decided to keep talking. By the time she’d spun out the whole sordid tale, her new friend was nodding sympathetically.
“How horrible. I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t know what to do next. I do feel sorry for the dead man, but if he’s Emmett Johnson like they think he is, he’s been buried under that scarecrow for years. How do I find out who did it, and how do I find out…”
She couldn’t say the words.
“If your uncle did it?” Meg’s voice was carefully neutral.
Amanda couldn’t think of anything to say, but her new friend went on.
“Look, I know you don’t know me, but this coffee shop has two rules: serve delicious stuff, and what happens at Cuppa stays at Cuppa.” She got up and pulled two fat cinnamon rolls out of the glass display case, put each of them on a plate, and handed one to Amanda.
“On the house. Tory – that’s the owner - probably should’ve named this place The Confessional, because we’re used to people coming in and talking about all sorts of stuff and we always keep it to ourselves.” She sat down and pulled a chunk off her cinnamon roll, obviously thinking.
Amanda stared into her mug. “It just seems like I can’t get a break, and like everyone’s in my business. I don’t think I can take much more of this.”
“Then don’t.”
Amanda looked up, to see Meg looking at her with a serious expression on her face. “Don’t take it anymore,” she said. “You’ve got rights just like everyone else, and you live in this town, too. Just because your family may or may not have been involved doesn’t mean you’re guilty as well.”
Amanda paused, thinking, then nodded. “At this point, I�
��ve got nothing to lose by digging my heels in, because I’ve got nowhere to go and no family except the memories I have of a handful of people I once knew.” She looked into her nearly empty coffee cup. “Or thought I knew. I just feel like my back’s against the wall, and it’s time for me to really fight. If I’m going to build a life anywhere, then I need to start right now.”
“No time like the present. And you’ll want to eat that roll while it’s still warm. They’re best that way.”
Amanda smiled and took a bite. Delicious, warm and buttery with loads of icing and cinnamon. Amazing!
Meg was obviously still thinking over their conversation. “If I were you I’d see what I could discover myself. Nobody has as much to lose as you do.” Her eyes brightened and she clapped her hands together softly, obviously having hatched a brand new idea. “I think you need to talk to Mrs. Granger. She knows just about everything that’s happened in this town for the last fifty years. Look, she may not know all the details, but I’d bet she’d point you in the right direction to find some answers.”
“Who’s Mrs. Granger?”
Meg chuckled a bit. “Think of her as kind of like Yoda, but with knowledge of the gossip on every single person in this town, probably. Picture the most ancient person you’ve ever met. She’s so old she’s got nothing to lose, and absolutely no filters on anything she says. She’ll tell you anything she knows, whether you want to hear it or not, and she probably has some old photos of the inn, from when it was in its heyday. She helps out the local historical society sometimes.”
Amanda set down her plate, intrigued. “Do you think she’d mind if I visited so I could talk with her?”
Meg grinned. “She’d love it, but you don’t need to visit her at home. I dropped her off at Petrie’s general store this morning. Most days she spends her time on the bench by the woodstove, knitting and eavesdropping.” Meg took another sip of coffee and then explained, “You’d be amazed at the stuff she hears in that place. Lots of people think because she’s really old her hearing’s bad or she’s not very sharp, but they couldn’t be more wrong. If they had any idea what she actually knew they’d never open their mouths around her again.”
Amanda laughed and for the first time in hours she started to feel hopeful. Maybe it was the mocha or maybe it was the cinnamon roll, but she was pretty sure it was the feeling that someone was interested in her troubles enough to get her pointed in the right direction. Apparently, that direction was toward Mrs. Granger.
Meg got up and brushed the crumbs off her apron. “Let me wrap up a cinnamon roll for you to take to her. She normally just eats the bologna and pickle sandwiches that Brian makes for her at noon, but she loves the pastries I bake.”
Amanda picked up her empty plate and cup, and brought them to the counter while Meg boxed up a huge roll.
“Just make sure she has her teeth in securely, okay?” Meg added, as she handed the box carefully across the display case. Amanda took it, with the feeling like it was meant to be an offering to some wise hermit.
“You know this much about everybody in this town, Meg?”
Her new friend shook her head, grinning. “Only when they’re my grandmother.”
Chapter 10
It was easy to find Mrs. Granger inside the general store, and Meg had been spot on when she described her as Yoda. She was a little cotton-haired lady of indeterminate age and shape, sitting on a padded wooden bench near an antique stove, her four-wheeled walker parked close by. Quietly knitting fingerless gloves by the light of the large window next to her, she was obviously eavesdropping on a lively conversation at the checkout register ten feet away.
“Mrs. Granger?” Amanda asked. She held the pink cinnamon roll box in her hands, waiting.
“Shhhhh! Just a minute…”
Amanda shifted foot to foot while the checker wrapped up her conversation with the chatty customer, and thanked her as she headed out the door.
With a satisfied sigh, the old lady settled back on the bench. “Now, what can I do for you, dear?”
Amanda held out the box. “Meg said I should come talk to you, and she sent over some pastries.”
The toady little woman’s eyes lit up, and she made excited “ooo” sounds as she grabbed the box.
“Have a seat!” She gestured vaguely at the wooden bench next to her as she pried open the lid and dug into the fat cinnamon roll.
“Sorry to shush you, but I was listening to Mary Anne Bates tell Myrna about her new Chrysler.” Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “You know, she’s not a bad person, except she forgets to vote and she does grow the marijuana down in her chicken shed.” Mrs. Granger pulled a huge piece of icing off the top of the roll and waved it at Amanda. “I don’t like that. It’s not healthy,” she said, as she expertly crammed the chunk of frosting into her mouth.
After a couple minutes of enthusiastic chewing, she came up for air and smiled at Amanda. “You’re the lady with the problem buried under her scarecrow, or rather, the problem that was buried under your scarecrow.”
“You know about that?”
“Oh honey, I read the paper like a good taxpayer should. I’m figurin’ you probably came to ask me about how Emmett wound up in your garden, six feet under.”
“Um, it was more like three.”
“Whatever.”
Amanda shifted, uncomfortable. “Meg said you knew everything that had happened in this town for years, and I was hoping you had some ideas about who I should talk to.”
Mrs. Granger kept her eyes on the next hunk of cinnamon roll, but she was obviously thinking. “You’re wanting to know if your uncle killed Emmett, that’s what you were hopin’ to find out.”
It was the truth but it still stung. “Mrs. Granger, do you know why my uncle and aunt left Ravenwood overnight? No one seems to know the details and after talking to the cops, it sounds like my family is the number one suspect.”
The old lady’s eyebrows went up. “I’m not surprised. Talk around town was that Emmett had a thing for your aunt, and he wasn’t exactly the sorta guy who took rejection very well. He put his own sister in the hospital after smacking her around when she turned him down for a loan once, or so the story goes.”
“Is there anyone one else who would’ve wanted him dead?”
Mrs. Granger snorted. “Who wouldn’t want that boy dead? He’d had bad business dealings with all sorts of people and chased anything that wore a skirt. Do you know he once tried to run over Owen Winter’s cat down by the oyster-processing plant? On purpose?” She waved her chunk of cinnamon roll for emphasis, heedless of the bits of frosting flying everywhere. “What sort of jackass tries to run over someone’s poor cat?”
The old lady took a big bite, chewed a moment, then added, “No one in town liked him, and I’m on that list, too. Sounds like someone finally gave him a major attitude adjustment. Want some hot apple cider? Brian put a kettleful on the stove for me today.”
Amanda shook her head and sighed, sensing defeat. “Do you know anyone else I should talk to about this, to try to clear my uncle’s name?”
Mrs. Granger paused and cleared her throat, hesitating for a moment. “Maybe it wasn’t your uncle. Maybe it was your aunt.”
Amanda felt a flash of anger, but it was hard to be mad at the little old lady, especially when she might be right.
“Maybe.” It was an admission, and it hurt. “The police haven’t said what the cause of death is yet.”
Mrs. Granger brushed crumbs off her velour tracksuit. “Well, we can be sure of one thing. No one with a head cold or appendicitis winds up down a three-foot deep hole by accident.”
Amanda could feel the headache gathering between her eyes. “True. I talked to the detective on the case and he says I can’t do any work on certain parts of the inn until they complete their investigation, and I don’t know what I’m going to do. I can’t afford to just live in that place. I need it to be a business.”
“Detective? Was it James Landon?�
� At Amanda’s confirming nod, Mrs. Granger continued. “He was a wild one, that boy was. He’s got three of the biggest, craziest brothers you’d ever meet and I guess he had to keep up with ‘em. Got a sweet sister, though. You know James once got caught putting the principal’s VW on top of the high school and just about didn’t graduate? Would’ve been a shame. That boy read almost every book in the library.” Her eyes sparkled a bit as she leaned over. “Not bad on the eyes either, doncha know.”
Trying not to grin, Amanda didn’t rise to the bait. “I didn’t notice.” What a liar she was.
Mrs. Granger scoffed. “Oh, I doubt that statement. I may be old, but I ain’t dead, and I still notice.”
Amanda decided to change the subject, even if it hurt to say the words.
“I met with Charles Timmins this morning and he seemed to imply that Emmett was having an affair, or wanted to have an affair, with my aunt.”
“Hah! That boy wouldn’t know crap from Crisco. You know he had to cheat at his classes just so he could pass law school?” She shook her finger at Amanda. “Used to date any girl who’d look at him, too, and take them up to his family’s flour mill at nighttime and do God only knows what to them up there.”
“Mrs. Granger, do you know if that’s true?”
“And he leaves his dog’s business in his neighbor’s yard, when he should be using a baggie.”
Amanda waited, and finally the old lady sighed, defeated. She closed the pink pastry box, carefully choosing her words.
“There were rumors, but truthfully I just don’t know. I liked your Aunt Judy, and I never saw her do anything but work hard and keep her head down around here. She never spoke an ill word about anyone. She didn’t let people know much about her personal life, and maybe she had reasons to not talk about it, but I just don’t know.”
Amanda thought back on her own past and her own private life. She could understand why her aunt may have wanted to keep things to herself, especially if she knew how quickly gossip could spread in a small town.
Ravenwood Cove Cozy Mysteries Books 1-3 Page 5