Murder on the 4th of July

by P. Creeden

  Emma nodded. “I understand.”

  They both headed out of the break room and back into the main dining area. The line of people who’d been waiting to give contact information had disappeared entirely as it seemed everyone had been taking care of. Two uniformed New York Police officers stood next to Colby and Mr. North. Sheriff Wright patted Emma on the shoulder. “Start with the kitchens and then search the interior. If you can’t find anything, head to the dumpsters outside. I’m going to get the lead officer on this case up to speed and see if he’ll allow this to be a joint investigation since we’re not in this district.”

  Emma slowed her pace while her father kept walking toward the others. She shot a glance in the direction of Kayla and Donna and found them both peering over toward the newly arrived officers. Then Emma looked out the window and saw Macy still taking Molly for a walk. The dog was dragging Macy over toward the same homeless woman with the shopping cart that they’d met earlier. Emma couldn’t help but smile. Once Molly found someone she considered a friend, they were friends for life as far as the Saint Bernard puppy was concerned.

  Then Emma turned around and headed toward the kitchen. The sooner she found the murder weapon, the sooner this case would be over and the victim could find justice. When she stepped into the back area, she found three chefs sitting together and eating at a table near the back. She peered into a trash can she found on her way over toward them, but it was empty with a new bag inside. One of the men at the table lifted a brow at her and then stood as she approached. She gestured for him to sit back down. “Hi, there. I’m working with the police on the investigation of the incident that occurred in the wait staff’s break room. Do you know what’s happened?”

  The same one who’d stood nodded as he settled back down and placed his silverware next to his plate. “Susan’s been killed, I heard.”

  Emma nodded. “Has anyone been in the kitchen besides the kitchen staff or wait staff?”

  He shook his head. “No one’s been in the kitchen except for Mr. North and Susan. The rest of the wait staff isn’t allowed in our space. They only come to the window to ask for things or pick up.” He pointed with his chin toward the flat station that allowed them to push dishes out toward the dining area. Through the window, Emma caught a glimpse of Colby as he followed her dad and the two police officers wherever Mr. North was leading them.

  She swallowed down the lump forming in her throat. “Is it all right if I check your trash cans?”

  The man stood once more and wiped his hands on his apron. “You can, but other than this one, they are all empty. Jack already took out the others to the dumpster.”

  She peered into the one trash can that hadn’t been changed yet but had a new bag tied to the top for changing soon. Emma frowned. “Do you often change the bags between lunch and dinner?”

  The man shook his head. “No, ma’am. But today is a holiday. We’re only serving lunch.”

  Emma blinked. She’d forgotten about the holiday. Then she nodded as she found only food products and regular kitchen waste in the trash can. “Who is in charge of changing the trash bags in the dining area and bathrooms?”

  “The wait staff or Mr. North take care of those things. Our domain is the kitchen. We ask the wait staff to stay out and we stay out of the dining room. We each have our own territories. Only Mr. North and Susan were allowed in both.”

  Slowly, Emma nodded. “Okay, but why was Susan allowed back here if the rest of the wait staff wasn’t?”

  The man’s gaze darted toward his companions, and he said something to them in another language. Then he nodded and blushed a bit while he rubbed the back of his neck. “Susan and Mr. North seemed to be extra friendly with each other. They would often cut through the kitchen to head out to the back of the restaurant, where the dumpsters are. Sometimes it was to get packages from the delivery people, but other times they had no reason to be back there.”

  Emma swallowed hard. “Are you insinuating that Mr. North and Susan were having an affair?”

  He shrugged while one of the other men at the table nodded. Then the chef who’d been in charge of doing all the talking said, “I can’t be certain, but it seemed like it. Mr. North is a married man, and in our culture, a married man having an affair is dirt and not worthy of respect. To keep my job here, I turned a blind eye. I never saw them doing anything that would suggest that they were having an affair, only that they would head out to the back of the restaurant when there were no deliveries and come back again a while later. They often cut through the kitchen.”

  “And you said that Susan came through the kitchen earlier today. Does that mean that she was with Mr. North at the time having one of those meetings in the back of the restaurant?”

  Again, the man’s gaze darted toward the other men seated at the table. Then he met eyes with Emma again. “I don’t want to say anything that might get Mr. North into trouble, but it seemed that we might have heard a bit of yelling when they were outside. Then Susan stomped back through here, looking angry, and it was a few minutes before Mr. North came through the door and stomped after her. I don’t know what happened outside, and I can’t even say what was said, as I was turning a blind eye and a deaf ear.”

  Emma frowned. Willful ignorance of a situation didn’t help anyone, especially not Susan in this case. She let out a mournful sigh. Then she asked, “Is there any chance one of you can show me the dumpster where you took the trash out today?”

  Chapter 6

  The chef who had been speaking to Emma all this time introduced himself. “I’m Carlos, and this is Jack, my sous chef. He is the one who took out the trash today. Unfortunately, he doesn’t speak English well, so I’ll come with you both while he takes you to the dumpster.”

  Emma nodded and followed them out the back, screen door of the kitchen. The narrow alleyway outside was just wide enough for a car or large truck to fit through, but not wide enough for two cars to pass one another. Gravel crunched under her feet as they stepped toward the only item out back, the single dumpster. A chain-link fence covered in vines and bushes separated the small driveway and restaurant area from the park on the other side. Between the branches of the bushes, Emma could catch a glimpse of a slight downhill grade toward a pathway that looked familiar. She’d been walking Molly on the same path the last few days. She’d never once been tempted to look up this way, since the bushes hid both the fence and the restaurant, making it almost look like it was a part of the natural forest surrounding the park.

  When they got to the dumpster, Jack lifted the black plastic lid, bending it over the back of the metal dumpster. Inside, four black plastic trash bags sat.

  Emma frowned. “Did the trash get dumped today?”

  Carlos shook his head. “Yesterday in the evening, after we closed. The trash truck usually comes today, but they doubled up their routes the past couple days, probably, due to the holiday.”

  That made sense. It actually helped their case. There were only four bags of trash for her to search before she’d head inside and see if there were more. It seemed that the wait staff hadn’t yet brought out their trash for the day. Emma nodded in. “Is there any chance I can ask Jack to grab those and set them out here for me? It’s best if he unties them, too, so we don’t get any extra fingerprints on the bags.”

  Carlos translated, and the Jack shrugged and hopped into the dumpster. Luckily, because it was empty, the dumpster didn’t have the foul odor that they sometimes got when the trash had been sitting and stewing in the summer heat for days. He pulled out the three trash bags.

  Emma peered at them and noticed something right away. One of the trash bags had punctures in it. “These holes here, do you know what they were caused by?”

  Carlos asked Jack in their language. Jack answered and then Carlos shrugged and translated for Emma. “He says there was something a bit sharp sticking out of the bag when he’d tied it off. It must have caused these holes.”

  “Does he know what the object wa
s?”

  Carlos nodded and didn’t even need to translate. “A wire coat hanger.”

  Emma’s heart skipped a beat. It was one thing to suspect what the murder weapon might be and where it might be; it was another to get confirmation. She nodded and swallowed the lump forming in her throat. “What happened to it? Can you open the bag and see if it’s still there?”

  Jack opened the bag and fished around a bit in the trash. Then he shook his head when he came up empty-handed and said something to Carlos. Carlos nodded and then met eyes with Emma. “He says that the coat hanger was there in the trash, but now it’s missing. He didn’t remove it. What I don’t understand is why there was a coat hanger in the kitchen trashcan in the first place.”

  “Are you saying that you don’t get your uniforms dry cleaned? They don’t come back on hangers?” Emma asked.

  Carlos shook his head. “No. Our uniforms come in through a laundry service. We put them in the hamper when they need washed. Each of us has three or four uniforms each, and the laundry comes on Tuesdays and Fridays. It comes folded, not on hangers.”

  She stepped closer to the dumpster and peered in, trying to make sure that the hanger wasn’t just sitting in the dumpster already. Nothing. She frowned. What could have happened to the wire? Had the culprit moved it from the dumpster once the body had been found? She nodded to both the men. “Thank you for taking the time to help me. I’m sorry if I disturbed your meal.”

  “No problem. If we can help find out who killed Susan, we’ll be happy for it. I don’t want to tell you how the police should do their job, but I would look into Mr. North. He seemed awfully angry with Susan lately.” Carlos frowned and opened the door for her to enter back in through the kitchen.

  Colby’s worried gaze shot to her as he stood in the kitchen with the remaining worker who only spoke broken English. Colby’s tense shoulders relaxed a bit when he met eyes with her. “There you are. I’ve been worried sick. What are you doing outside?”

  Emma nodded her thanks again to the chefs who’d helped her and then came up next to Colby. She filled him in on everything that had happened. “I think we know who the culprit is in this situation, Colby, but we don’t have enough evidence for an arrest. It seems that he’s removed the weapon from the trash and hidden it somewhere else. We may need to ask the local police to get a K9 officer. It’s possible that he just tossed the weapon over the chainlink fence.”

  “I really hope he didn’t,” Colby said with a frown. “That will make this a lot harder. If there are fallen pine needles on the other side of the fence, it will literally be like finding a needle in a haystack. Both are brown.”

  Emma chewed her bottom lip. Colby’s eyes followed the movement for a moment before his cheeks reddened a bit and he turned away. Emma lifted a brow at him. What was that about? Together, they headed back into the main dining area, where all the other customers had left, so that only Emma’s father, the two police officers, and the staff remained.

  There were two waiters and a waitress sitting at the table waiting for their turn to be questioned. Both the hostesses still sat where Emma had left them. She walked over toward them. “Have you been officially questioned yet?”

  They both shook their heads.

  “Don’t worry too much about it,” Emma said with a soft smile. “Just answer the questions as honestly as you can. We have a suspect or two, but we need evidence to prove that he or she is guilty.”

  They blinked up at her and then Donna whispered, “It’s Ralph, isn’t it?”

  Emma’s eyes widened. “Why do you say that?”

  She leaned in closer. “They were having an affair, but broke it off, apparently. Then Ralph confessed to his wife, and she left him, moving back to New Jersey, I hear. So Ralph has been trying to get Susan back. I overheard them arguing about it yesterday. Then I saw Susan go into the break room earlier. I think I saw Mr. North follow her back there, but I can’t be sure, since I was also dealing with customers.”

  “Be sure to tell the police officers that. It might be useful to them later. Okay?” Emma said as she peered again out the french double doors.

  Macy had walked closer with the homeless woman and shopping cart. Molly sat at attention, right at Macy’s feet, like a well trained working dog. It made Emma proud.

  A hand landed on Emma’s shoulder. Her father looked down on her. “Colby filled me in on the fact that you found traces of the murder weapon, but not the actual hanger. We talked to the local police officers, and they are working on getting a K9 officer out here as we speak.” He peered in the direction Emma had been looking. “The park is already getting more crowded. I hope that we can find this thing before the number of people becomes unmanageable, especially with a working dog trying to do its job.”

  “I wish I’d found the weapon in the trash where it seems to have been until just a short while ago,” Emma frowned, feeling a bit down on herself.

  Her father squeezed her shoulder. “I know. It would be nice if this was an open-and-shut case. There are lots of circumstantial things, testimonies that suggest that we know who the culprit likely is, but without more solid evidence, we won’t be able to arrest him. They’ve called in a Crime Scene Investigation Unit as well. Maybe there will be physical evidence on the body.”

  “Right,” Emma said with a sigh. “I’ll go see how Macy and Molly are doing. I’ll be right back.”

  Her father patted her shoulder and then turned back toward the restaurant while Emma stepped out onto the concrete patio. Macy smiled at her while she approached, and the homeless woman did as well. The woman said, “I remember you! You’re the nice lady who helped me with my wheel. I fixed that, by the way.”

  Emma lifted a brow and peered down at the wheel on the cart. She blinked. Brown wire went through the hole and wrapped several times around both the wheel and the leg of the cart. Emma’s eyes went wide. “Where did you get that wire?”

  Chapter 7

  The woman’s brow furrowed. She looked down a bit like she was ashamed. “The restaurant here sometimes leaves good food in their dumpster, so me and several of the others will go back there when we see them take out the trash. I found the hanger in one of the trash bags.”

  Emma swallowed hard. And then she looked at the woman’s hands which were still covered in knit garden gloves, even though it was hot out. “Do you always wear the gloves, ma’am? Even though it’s hot out? Were you wearing them when you worked with the wire?”

  The woman nodded. “The name’s Grace, by the way. No need to follow pretense, calling me ma’am and all that. I always wear the gloves, it keeps my problem from spreading. I’ve got Herpetic Whitlow.”

  After swallowing hard, Emma gestured toward the woman. “Please. Just stay right here.” Then she met eyes with Macy. “Don’t let her go anywhere or touch anything, please. We may need her gloves.”

  Then Emma rushed back into the restaurant and found her father. Colby followed as she pulled her dad to the side and told him everything that she’d just found. “It’s possible that the CSI unit will find DNA or fingerprints still on the wire, but definitely on the gloves if not the wire.”

  Colby blinked. “That’s amazing.”

  Emma’s father nodded and then announced to the group of restaurant workers and the police officers standing there, “We’ve found the murder weapon.”

  Some of the workers gasped.

  “It shouldn’t be too hard to get DNA and fingerprints off the weapon. Soon we’ll know exactly who the culprit in this situation is.” Then her father stepped closer to Mr. North. “Or you can just confess and make things easier on yourself.”

  The owner/manager frowned, but his lips stayed closed. He continued to use his thumb to play with where his wedding ring had been. Emma shook her head, and finally said, “You cheated on your wife.”

  More gasps behind her, but Emma fixed her attention to the man she’d been talking to and continued, “You and Susan had a relationship until recently, but broke
it off. Your wife found out and left you. That’s why you’re not wearing your wedding ring. You wanted to try to repair the relationship you had with Susan. But she wasn’t interested. She insisted that she was leaving both you and the restaurant. We all witnessed that personally today, when she’d dropped a tray earlier and the two of you argued. The kitchen staff can testify to the fact that not only did you both have an affair here at work, but you had an argument again outside by the dumpsters today.”

  The wrinkles in his brow deepened, and sweat dotted his forehead, but he remained silent.

  “We have a witness who saw Susan go into the break room and you following her. Then only you leaving a little while later. Did she reject you Mr. North? Were you about to lose your wife and your mistress? Possibly even your restaurant in an ugly divorce?”

  He gaped for half a moment before his hands became fists. “Shut up!” he yelled, his face reddening. “I had things under control.”

  Colby stepped in front of Emma, as though protecting her from the man’s menacing glare. “You call killing a woman under control?”

  Mr. North shook his head vigorously. “It was an accident. I didn’t mean to kill her.” Then he pointed at Emma. “She was a stupid wench who wouldn’t shut up, just like this one.”

  Colby growled, grabbed hold of the man’s pointing finger and wrenched his arm behind his back. Then he nodded toward the local police officers. “Is that enough information to arrest this guy?”

  They blinked and nodded, stepping forward to take control. The lead officer said, “Mr. Ralph North, you’re under arrest.”

  The sun had begun to set on the horizon, but the city barely got any quieter. Even with the natural buffer of the trees in the park, the noise from the traffic and swelling crowds filled the air. Emma bought corn dogs from one of the vendors and then passed them out to everyone, including Grace, who pushed along her shopping cart beside them. Grace shook her head to deny the corn dog. “Oh no, you don’t have to do that.”