by Harper Lin
Fitz stared at me, his lips tight and a cold look in his eye.
“In fact, I’d be willing to bet he borrowed money from you too. Maybe a lot of it.”
The stone-faced glare continued.
“Maybe he borrowed so much that it was starting to be a problem for you. Maybe it was making you angry.”
“This is inappropriate.”
“Maybe you decided it had gone too far and you needed to do something about it.” I put my hand on my phone. What I was about to do was dangerous, and I needed to be ready to call 911 at a moment’s notice.
“Pablo died of a stroke,” he said through gritted teeth.
“A stroke that can be caused by the kind of drugs you sell.”
“Stop it, Fran. You don’t know what you’re doing.”
I sat up straighter. “Oh, don’t I? Because I’m pretty sure that I do.”
“You don’t. You have no idea.”
I was tired of being told that I was wrong about this. Pablo’s death wasn’t natural, and I knew it. I couldn’t help it. I started yelling. “I do! I know exactly what I’m doing. I’m trying to prove that Pablo’s stroke wasn’t natural. I’m trying to prove that he was murdered! I’m trying to stop his murderer from getting away with it.”
“You need to stop. People are going to get hurt if you don’t stop.” Fitz kept his voice under control but only just barely.
“Oh, people? People are going to get hurt if I don’t stop? Don’t you mean me? Don’t you mean I’ll get hurt? Don’t you mean you’ll hurt me just like you hurt Pablo?”
I was perched on the very edge of the couch, ready to spring up and run for the door as soon as Fitz made a move for me.
But he didn’t make a move for me. And he didn’t yell. Or argue.
He cried.
He covered his face with his hands as his breath became ragged and his shoulders began shaking.
I stared, not knowing what to do, not sure if it was some kind of ploy to get me to let my guard down so he could attack.
“Please,” he gasped between sobs. “Please, you can’t—you can’t tell. You can’t tell anyone.”
Instinctively, I wanted to comfort him, but to do that would be to betray Pablo. “Why? Because you don’t want to go to jail?”
“Because they’ll be devastated. Pablo’s family—Isabel, his kids. You can’t tell them. They can’t know.”
“Don’t you think they deserve to know what really happened to their father?”
He shook his head, and the anger rose up inside me again. But before I could say anything else, he cut me off.
“No! That’s why it had to be this way. So they would never know. Whatever else happens, they can’t know! Pablo never wanted them to know. If they ever find out, it will all have been for nothing!”
It took me several seconds to process what he was saying. Or not saying, really, because now I was confused. “What do you mean? What will have been for nothing?”
“This whole thing! The whole plan to make it look like a stroke. If the kids find out he killed himself, the whole thing was for nothing. I helped my friend kill himself for nothing!”
I stared. My jaw actually fell open, and I covered my mouth with my hand. He couldn’t possibly have said what I thought he said.
“I tried—I tried to talk him out of it,” he sobbed. “I tried everything. I told him I’d give him more money, another loan. But it wasn’t—there wasn’t enough. I couldn’t come up with enough money. Not to cover Isabel and Eduardo and the bookie and the house too.”
“The house?” I gasped.
He looked up at me finally, his eyes swollen and red, tears streaming down his face. “It was the only reason I did it. He took out another loan on the house, and he couldn’t pay either one. They were about to foreclose. Isabel and the kids—they were going to lose the house. What could I do? I didn’t want to do it. But he was talking about hiring a hit man.”
“For himself?”
He nodded. “He didn’t want the kids to ever know that their dad—that their dad—” He hung his head and broke out in fresh sobs.
“But why?” I asked when his sobs started to subside. At that point, his sorrow was so palpable that I was fighting back tears of my own. “What good did it do to leave them with all that debt?”
He looked at me like I was clueless. “For the life insurance. He had a two-million-dollar policy. Enough to pay off both loans on the house and send the kids to college.”
“But that doesn’t make up for them not having their dad.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. They sounded insensitive even to my ears, although they were true.
“You think I don’t know that?” Fitz looked hurt. “I tried to tell him that. I tried so many times. But he was convinced it was the only way. I was afraid he was going to do something worse, something stupid or dangerous that could hurt other people. That’s the only reason I agreed to let him have the medicine. That stuff is supposed to help people, not hurt them. And I let him use it when I knew it would hurt him. I got him to agree to wait until after the lottery drawing, just in case… just in case. I refused to hand him the drugs. I couldn’t do it. But I left my sample case on the table and went to the bathroom. I knew what he was going to do, and I let him. I will never forgive myself. Never.”
The room felt like it was swirling around me. I was stunned that I was right about Pablo’s death not being natural but in a completely different way than what I had thought. I didn’t know what to do.
There was a quick knock at the front door before it opened. “Hey, gorgeous, how—” Matt stopped midsentence as he looked from me to Fitz. “What’s going on?”
I stood up. “Matt, this is—”
“Pablo’s friend. From the funeral,” he finished. He always had a good memory for faces. He reached out his hand to shake Fitz’s. “Is that what you guys were talking about? Pablo?” he asked, taking in Fitz’s tear-streaked face and my own red eyes.
Fitz looked at me.
“Yes. We were just talking about that night. Fitz was there too.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, man,” Matt said. “That must have been rough, seeing your friend go down like that. We did our best to save him. I’m sorry it didn’t work.”
“Thanks,” Fitz murmured. He looked at me. “Are we done here?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Thank you for coming over.”
Fitz nodded at Matt. “Nice to meet you.”
I followed him to the door.
On the front step, he turned back and looked at me. “If you feel like you need to turn me in, I get it. I wouldn’t blame you. But Pablo—Pablo’s kids—” He shook his head. “Do what you need to do.” Then he turned and walked down the sidewalk.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
A week later, I hadn’t said a word about it to anyone but Matt. It was agonizing, and I was heartbroken over it, but I had come to the conclusion that it was the right thing to do. Or at least it wasn’t wrong. Or maybe it was. It seemed like there was no right and wrong in the situation. If I told, Pablo’s family—the very people I was trying to protect—would be hurt even more than they already were. If I kept quiet, a man who helped kill someone would face no punishment except from his own conscience.
Neither choice was good. I reminded myself that there was no statute of limitations on murder. If what Fitz had done was even a crime, since he hadn’t physically handed the drugs to Pablo. It was morally wrong, of course, but legally, I wasn’t sure. And I didn’t know how to find out without tipping someone off about what had happened, and that was the whole conundrum.
Matt came down on the side of not telling. We had a long, long conversation about it, during which I cried more than a little bit.
“I feel like…” He paused and sighed heavily. “I’m not a family man—yet.” He stopped again, this time to give me a look that made my heart flutter. “But, I feel like…” Another deep breath. “I feel like when I have a wife and kids”—another loo
k that made me melt—“if I made a major life-and-death decision for the welfare of my family… I would want that to be honored.”
I wiped at the hot tears rolling down my cheeks. “But what about if it was your dad? If you were in Alberto’s shoes? What about then?”
He raked his fingers through his thick dark hair with another sigh. “You know what? I wouldn’t want to know. I would want to think that it was natural causes. I wouldn’t want to have to think about the kind of mental pain he must have been in before he died.”
So, that was Matt’s opinion, whether I liked it or not. Of course, I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not. It made me nauseous to think about.
I almost asked Mike about it one day when he came into the café, but I stopped short. I did tell him about the gambling ring though. His response was a grimace.
“How did you find out about that?” he asked.
“You already know about it?” I was shocked. Mike wasn’t involved in it, too, was he?
He sighed. “Yeah, we know. Been on it awhile. They’re good though. They’ve got a complex system going that we haven’t quite cracked yet.”
“Do you know about Don? Out in the bar? Who gives the password?”
“How do you know about this again?”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said, waving my hand at him. “Do you know about Don?”
He raised an eyebrow but let it go, apparently not quite up to dealing with my shenanigans today. “Yeah, we know about him. But there’s a guy you have to go through to get to Don.”
“It’s not Dave, is it? The bartender?” Maybe that’s why, when I asked him about gambling, he turned me down right away. His job was to rule people out.
“What? No. Dave’s helping us out.” He looked around suddenly, as if to see if anyone was close enough to overhear us. He lowered his voice. “Don’t tell anyone that though.”
I made a motion of zipping my lips closed and throwing away the key. Then I immediately started talking again. “So, how was your dinner with Sandra?”
Mike’s face lit up like I’d never seen. “It was great! She made my favorite pot roast. I got to help put the kids to bed.” He chuckled. “Never thought I’d be so happy about wrangling them at bedtime, but…” He shrugged. “It was really good.”
I smiled. I knew Mike and Sandra loved each other, and I really hoped this was just a bump in the road for them. “So, you’re going to do it again?”
“Yeah. Every week. And, uh, we’re going to try to go out to dinner one night, just the two of us. Talk about some things.” By the way he blushed, I knew he was hopeful for a reconciliation too.
We talked for a few more minutes, and I refilled his coffee.
Just before he left, he stopped. “So, you gave up on the Pablo thing, huh?”
I just nodded.
He did too. “Good. Guess you’re finally learning to leave the police work to the police, huh?”
“I guess so.”
He chuckled and said, “Good. It’s about time,” then left.
I knew he was right. If nothing else, leaving the police work to the police would have saved me a lot of heartache and mental anguish. I was even tempted to say that I would never involve myself in any police investigation ever again, but I wasn’t sure that it was true. In fact, knowing myself, it probably wasn’t true at all.
It was a few days later that Mrs. D’Angelo, Cape Bay’s resident busybody, was in the café, chattering my ear off about something or other while clutching my arm with her bloodred talon-like fingernails. As she gushed, not leaving me a chance to get a word in edgewise, Isabel and her kids walked in.
Mrs. D’Angelo dropped me and swooped in on them like a hawk spotting prey. “Oh, Isabel! You poor dear!” She grasped onto Isabel’s arm the way she had mine. “I was so, so sorry to hear about Pablo. All of us at the Ladies’ Auxiliary were! It was tragic. Just tragic!”
Isabel tried to answer her, but Mrs. D’Angelo didn’t pause long enough. I’m not even sure she stopped for breath.
Mrs. D’Angelo looked at Alberto and Adriana, who were wise enough to keep a good distance. “And you poor things! So horrible to lose your father at such a young age. So, so horrible. We all feel so bad for you. Really, we do!”
She turned back to Isabel and ostensibly lowered her voice, which only succeeded in making her volume loud instead of downright ear rattling. “But I heard he left a hefty insurance policy, so it’s not all bad, is it?”
The café went quiet. Both the kids looked sick.
Isabel looked at her coldly. “I don’t care about money. I would give every penny I have to have my children’s father back. I would live in a hole in the ground if it means Pablo is still with us. Money is nothing. Family is all there is.” She yanked her arm out of Mrs. D’Angelo’s talons as the older woman stood there, looking aghast.
I rushed forward and grabbed Mrs. D’Angelo by the arms. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?” I asked, guiding her rapidly toward the door. “A genealogy society meeting or something?”
“In fact I do—”
“Well, you should get there.” I pushed the door open and her out it then walked back to Isabel and the kids. “Isabel, I am so, so sorry she said that. It was completely inappropriate, and I cannot express enough how sorry I am that it happened in my café. Please accept my apologies. Whatever you came in for today is on the house.”
“I can pay. Money is nothing to me.”
“It’s not about the money,” I said, looking into her eyes. “It’s about doing the right thing and taking care of people, whether that’s blood relations or the people in our community.”
She nodded. “Thank you.”
I motioned the three of them up to order. Isabel ordered an espresso, and both the kids got a mocha latte, Adriana’s frozen and blended with ice, much like a popular drink offered at a certain chain coffee shop.
“I thought you didn’t drink coffee,” I said, remembering her mom mentioning that when I was at their house.
She shrugged in the apathetic way only teenagers can. “I thought I’d try it.”
I caught Isabel’s eye as I nodded, and I knew we were both thinking of Pablo’s favorite drink being a mocha latte.
“Speaking of mocha,” I said, turning behind me to where the donuts I’d already prepared for the next day were sitting. “We have a new kind of donut we’re going to start selling. Two, actually.” I grabbed three of each and wrapped them up. “One’s mocha and the other is cinnamon sugar. Both of them in memory of Pablo.”
Isabel’s eyes teared up as she took the bag from me. “Thank you, Fran. That is very kind.”
“It’s the least I can do,” I said. “Everyone loved him, and these are just a small way for me to honor his memory.”
She thanked me again, and I watched as they turned to go.
I had to admit, this was one case I wished I hadn’t gotten myself into. Or if I had to, that I’d done it earlier and found some way to stop Pablo to save his family the pain and grief that no amount of money could fix. I’d have to be more careful with what I got myself into next time. Because, let’s face it, no matter how much Mike tried to get me to stay out of his cases, there was going to be a next time.
Catch up on all the books in The Cape Bay Cafe Mysteries series here.
As you wait for book 9 in the series, check out The Patisserie Mysteries. An heiress to a famous French patisserie chain takes over the family business, while using her status as a Parisian socialite to solve murders in high society. Each book includes French dessert and pastry recipes.
Macaron Murder is the first novella in this 9-book series. Buy it here or read an excerpt at the end of this book.
Be the first to hear about 99¢ new book release sales by signing up for Harper's Newsletter.
Recipe 1: Mocha Donuts
Makes 6
* * *
Ingredients:
• 1 cup flour
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup coffee
• 3 Tbsp butter, melted
• 3 Tbsp greek yogurt
• 1 Tbsp milk
• 1 tsp cocoa
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• pinch of salt
* * *
For glaze:
1/4 cup whipped cream
2 Tbsp cream cheese
1 Tbsp icing sugar
* * *
Preheat oven to 350°. Grease donut pans.
Whisk flour, baking soda, baking powder, sugar, cocoa, and salt in one bowl.
In a saucepan over low heat, melt butter, and let cool.
In another bowl, whisk egg, coffee, milk, yogurt, vanilla, and melted butter. Add wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Mix until smooth.
Fill pans until almost full. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool.
For glaze: beat whipping cream, cream cheese, and sugar together. Drizzle over donuts.
Recipe 2: Cinnamon Sugar Donuts
Makes 8
* * *
Ingredients:
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 extra-large egg, lightly beaten
• 1 1/4 cups whole milk
• 2 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
* * *
Topping:
• 8 Tbsp unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* * *
Preheat oven to 350°. Grease donut tins. In one bowl, sift flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. In another bowl, whisk egg, milk, butter, and vanilla. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients. Whisk until combined.