A Berry Home Catastrophe

by A. R. Winters

  “But she will rent it to you,” Zoey said, “but only the banquet hall. Not the café.”

  “Huh? I will?” I asked, my full attention on Zoey.

  She nodded her head and waved her phone at me. I moved to stand beside her and looked at what she had pulled up on her phone. My eyes bugged out, and Zoey nodded at me, smiling. Zoey had pulled up an estimate calculator for what I should charge to rent out a banquet hall of this size.

  It was my turn to smile, right at Roberto. “I will rent it to you, Roberto, for the low, low price of eighteen hundred dollars, per event.”

  “What?” Roberto yelled.

  “And if you want exclusive catering rights to this space for the next six months, then the rental fee is three thousand. Otherwise, I will give preferential treatment to every other caterer out there who wants to rent it. You’ll be lucky if you ever set foot in this place again.”

  “That’s extortion!”

  “And you’re a thief. You kept the keys to a location that you didn’t own and had plans to utilize it for a paying function… illegally.”

  Zoey gave Roberto a Cheshire cat grin. “I bet this is the best banquet venue in town.”

  Roberto said a string of words that had Zoey and I both smiling like Cheshire cats. The angrier he got, the more I knew we had him.

  “Exclusive rights!” he yelled. “No one else.”

  “For six months.” After that, maybe I’d be doing well enough to be able to cater the events myself. Roberto would get squeezed out. He’d tried to sabotage my success at the café more than once. He and Dorothy had done their best to ruin my chances here, and it was the only chance I had left. Whatever life he felt cheated out of, I considered us now square.

  I wouldn’t call the cops on him, and he… well, I guess he’d still be him.

  “Do we have a deal or not?” I asked.

  “We have a deal,” he said, and stepped forward to shake my hand.

  It was the first business deal I’d negotiated since coming to Camden Falls, and it felt good. It felt empowering. I had negotiated multi-million-dollar contracts on behalf of my ex-husband’s HVAC company in Chicago. While this banquet hall wasn’t in that same stratosphere, it was mine, and it was fun to flex those muscles again.

  And I now had an extra revenue stream that would require next to no additional work by me.

  Today was a good day.

  “Now about Hank being beaten to death…” Zoey said.

  My good mood plummeted, and I looked over at the window through which Hank’s future—along with all the rest of him—had done the very same.

  “I told you! Nobody hit him,” Roberto said.

  “Run us through what happened,” I instructed.

  “We came up the stairs, and by the time we got up here, Hank was breathing kind of funny.”

  “Funny how?” I asked.

  “Shallow, like he couldn’t take a deep breath. But he was breathing faster, heavier. He didn’t look good, and I thought he was coming down with the flu or had a stomach bug or something. He looked kind of clammy.”

  “Clammy how?”

  “Pale. Washed out but sweaty too. Like when a person’s got food poisoning. And he started pressing a hand against his stomach.”

  “Pressing it or holding it?” Zoey asked.

  “Pressing, with pressure. Like he had to hold his guts in. I was about to tell him that the bathroom’s at the other end of the hall, but he said he needed some air before I could. I told him the windows opened, and he went over and opened that one.” He pointed at the window that was nearest the wall of the galley kitchen and my apartment. The window was very tall and very wide, so much that the windowsill was below my knees. “He leaned forward with his hands on the windowsill, and I turned away to look at something on my phone. When I looked back, all I could see were his feet disappearing through the window.” Roberto shook his head. “I’d thought he’d jumped.”

  “If he came up here to rent out this space and hire you as a caterer, then why would he jump?”

  “I don’t know! Do I look like a shrink? Who knows why anybody does what they do?”

  “What was the event he wanted to host here?” Zoey asked.

  “Schmoozing investors, I think.”

  “Investors in what?”

  “Nutritional powders. Different stuff. He wanted me to develop a menu using them, develop a cookbook and everything, and he wanted to do a product launch to pull in investors and showcase whatever dishes I came up with.”

  I glanced at Zoey to see if any of this was registering with her. She probably knew his teacher’s name from kindergarten. “Any of this adding up for you?”

  She gave a sideways nod that let me think that it might be. “He sold exercise equipment online. None of it was his brand. They were all established brands, and he just provided the online store. Makes sense that he’d want to expand with a product that was all his own.”

  “Any idea of anyone who might have been upset with that expansion?”

  “Mmm, maybe his partner? His Facebook wall mentioned a partner but I didn’t get a name.”

  I looked at Roberto. “Was anyone else ever involved in any of these talks about launching his nutrition products?”

  “No, only him.”

  “And you’d already started creating dishes using his products?”

  “Yeah, they’ve been in the works for months now.”

  So Hank was possibly squeezing out his business partner from new growth opportunities.

  I walked to the window through which Hank had fallen. I opened it by sliding it up. It was well made and slid easily and didn’t offer to slide back down.

  Doing as I imagined Hank had done, I leaned forward and rested my weight against my hands on the windowsill. It caused me to have to stand with my head lower than my hips. If my hand slipped off the window’s edge, I’d be at risk of falling out just the way Hank had done.

  But was Hank even alive when he fell? Brad had said that the coroner had thought that Hank was already dead by the time he hit the ground.

  I stood and turned toward Roberto. “Was he going to pay you well for developing a cookbook featuring his products and hosting the event here?”

  Roberto gave a small nod of his head. His expression was pained, and he looked like a man who had lost something.

  It wasn’t the reaction of a man who was happy to be rid of a potential client.

  Roberto didn’t have a motive to kill Hank; he had a motive for trying to keep Hank alive.

  Roberto didn’t kill him, and we no longer had a reason to be up here. No reason except for one.

  “Roberto, this deal we have with this banquet hall, it all goes away if you can’t keep your yappy terrier off my heels.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Dorothy, Roberto. Get her to quit terrorizing my customers… and telling lies about me.”

  “No, I’m not a miracle worker.”

  “Zoey, you got the police on speed dial?”

  “They’re just three little numbers away.”

  “Maybe it’s time to give the cops a chance to interview Roberto… last person to have seen Hank alive and all that.”

  Zoey’s phone beeped as she began to dial.

  “You’re nuts if you think I can control that woman,” Roberto said.

  “Hello? Yes, I have an emergency to report,” Zoey said with the phone pressed to her ear.

  “Okay! Okay… I’ll talk to Dorothy. I’ll try.”

  Zoey hung up the phone.

  Roberto threw his hands up in the air and stormed off through the door that led to the stairs that would take him back outside.

  “Who’d you call?” I asked.

  “National weather service. Another Nor’easter’s gonna slam into Maine.”

  “What do you think? Is Roberto innocent?”

  “What if Hank put the moves on Dorothy?”

  I tried to picture it but couldn’t see it. However, the limitations to imagin
ation couldn’t be used as a defense for Roberto. “If that were the case, why kill Hank here?”

  “Opportunity?”

  I looked at the window. “That wouldn’t explain the bruises.”

  “But if Hank had been poisoned, maybe Roberto did it through some of the sample dishes he’d come up with so far.”

  So, Roberto wasn’t off the hook yet after all.

  He really could be the killer.

  11

  “You didn’t know about the banquet hall?” Joel threw his head back and laughed.

  I scowled. Joel’s laughter died away when I pushed his plate of food across the counter to him, and it was my turn to smile. I didn’t botch his order of French toast on purpose. Despite it being late afternoon, he’d said he had a wild craving for some, and I’d told him I’d do my best.

  Apparently my best was a hill shaped blob of mushy, disintegrated, eggy bread that was burnt at its tip and edges. I’d tried to salvage the whole thing by putting it in a super hot oven. Eventually I took the cover-up route and slathered the whole thing in a river of maple syrup.

  Joel picked up his fork, dug out a hole from the blob’s side, and put it in his mouth. His brows shot up.

  “Kylie, this is good!”

  I frowned. “There’s no way.” Yes, I’d tried to put together a good dish, but I wasn’t blind to how that effort had gone.

  “No, really. Taste it,” Joel encouraged. His handsome face full of boyish charm looked sincere.

  I grabbed a spoon, eyed Joel with distrust, and scooped out a bite. Certain that what I was about to eat was going to be awful, I popped it in my mouth.

  It was my turn for my brows to shoot up.

  “There’s no way,” I said after swallowing. I took another bite. While it was mushy in spots, putting it in a super hot oven had given it body and crunch in others spots. As for flavor, I’d nailed it! It was delicious. “How does that even work?” It looked like such a mess. “Should I put it on the menu?”

  Joel paused with his fork halfway to his mouth. “Maybe give it a few more practice runs.”

  I knew he was right. People did eat with their eyes before they ate with their mouths. While surprisingly yummy to eat, it was downright disturbing to look at.

  “Did you really just come in for French toast?” I asked. Joel and I had been dancing around dating but without a whole lot of progress. I knew he liked me, but I wasn’t sure he liked me enough to deal with the dead bodies that seemed to accumulate around me.

  “I was able to dig up some dirt on Hank. Thought you might be interested.”

  Then again, maybe Joel didn’t mind the dead bodies after all…

  “What makes you think I’m investigating?”

  “Hey, if you’re sitting this one out, I can keep what I learned to myself.”

  I knew he was teasing me, but it worked.

  I leaned forward with my elbows on the counter. “If you tell me I’ll—”

  “Go away with me for a weekend?” he finished for me.

  My face turned hot, and I knew that it had to be scarlet red. “Joel…”

  “To Maine. There’s a bed and breakfast I like. They make lobster twenty-five different ways. I’ll take you out on a sailboat.”

  I was flustered. There was no doubt about it. On top of that, I was sure that Joel was not kidding around. He really did want to take me away for a weekend together.

  “Well, I-I,” I stammered, “I can’t be sure your information is worthy of a weekend away together.”

  His eyes darkened. “Breakfast in bed. Full body massages. Late night walks on the shore.”

  Wow. The man moved from zero to sixty miles per hour in a heartbeat.

  He reached across the counter and laced the fingers of his hand with mine. “And best of all,” he said, “no Brad.”

  I laughed. It was a half nervous giggle. “So that’s your master plan? Put distance between me and Brad and make me your own?”

  “With all these murders, Brad has me at a disadvantage,” he said. “As a cop, he gets to spend more time with you. I’m just leveling the playing field.”

  “Take me out of Camden Falls and take me away from people getting murdered?”

  “No, no… I’ve got no delusions about that. We get to Maine and somebody’s gonna die.”

  I wanted to laugh because the thought that others would die if we went to Maine felt ridiculous, yet I had my doubts. “If people were still going to die around me, then how would anything change?” I asked.

  “No Brad on the police force.” His smile was big and infectious.

  “You’re demented,” I said with a laugh as I pulled my hand away from his. “You promised me information on Hank.” It was an attempt at sidestepping his invitation to go away with him. I didn’t want to say yes… but I wasn’t ready to say no.

  Thankfully Joel went along with the sudden topic change. “I heard that Hank was a womanizer. He was dating Brad’s sister for a while, but on the side, he’d hook up with anyone interested.”

  Unfortunately, that wasn’t new news. Agatha had already told us that Hank liked the ladies and played around. “I think that tidbit might be common knowledge,” I told him.

  “Hmmm, gotta step up my game. Okay. How about that his business was in trouble?”

  My ears perked. “In what way?” Roberto had told Zoey and me that Hank had been working toward launching his own line of nutritional powders. Roberto had also said that no one else had been involved in any of the planning or talks. Hank had excluded his partner from that venture.

  “I think that sales had fallen off. He sold exercise equipment online, but I think that competition had started edging them out.”

  Suddenly Hank wanting to expand his business model made a lot of sense. But there was still nothing to explain why he left his business partner out of the expansion.

  “Hmmm, what else you got?”

  “Oh, not impressed with that last nugget?”

  I smiled. “It helps! It does. It adds to the picture of what we already know.”

  “Already know, huh? How about this? Hank had body dysmorphia.”

  “Body dysmorphia?” I was pretty sure I knew what he meant, but I wasn’t absolutely certain. “Is that where you think you have a giant nose when you really have a tiny nose?”

  “Yeah, that’d be one example. Hank though, he thought that he was physically on the wimpy side. Underdeveloped muscles, that kind of thing.”

  “Wow!” I recalled what Hank had looked like when he walked into my café. The man had had no shortage of muscles. He’d been ripped. “How do you know?”

  “Steroids. Word is that Hank used them pretty heavily.”

  “Well, who is it that’s dropping those kinds of words?”

  “Yeah, that’s the thing,” Joel said with a nod. “Everything I’ve been hearing, it’s stuff where so-and-so heard from so-and-so that yadda yadda yadda happened.”

  I stood up straight from where I’d been leaning on the counter. “So everything we’re hearing—the womanizing, the business problems, the steroid use—rumors, all of them? Nobody knows anything for sure?”

  “Yep, that’s what I’m saying.”

  “Joel Mullen, you do know how to save the best for last!”

  Joel’s grin turned something between sexy and lecherous. “That mean we’re on for our weekend trip to Maine?”

  My mouth opened and I took a breath, but no words came out. I didn’t know what to say. Moving our relationship from casual flirting to a serious weekend away was moving far too fast. But I was standing there in front of him with my mouth open, and he was waiting for me to say something. So… “Um—”

  “You are a jezebel heathen on the fast train to hell!” The words accompanied the bashing in of the café’s front door. Standing with her fists on her hips and her feet planted wide, I couldn’t decide if Dorothy looked like a superhero or a supervillain. She had saved me from having to answer Joel, so for today I was going to go wit
h hero.

  “Dorothy!” I exclaimed. I’d never been so happy to see her in my life.

  “It was a bad enough when you corrupted my precious Dan, but I will not have you putting your dirty moves on Roberto!”

  “Uh…” It was the most eloquent comeback I could think of within the moment.

  “You’re dating Roberto?” Joel asked, his voice full of incredulity and a touch of admonition. “Now I have to beat out two guys?”

  I looked at Joel. My mind was reeling, and I couldn’t imagine what my expression must have looked like.

  Joel threw up his palms. “Hey, not saying you’re not worth it. I’ll go up against as many guys as you’ve got. Wanna throw your ex, Dan, into the mix? Bring him on. I will out woo them all.”

  I really needed to talk to Joel about thinking of me as a prize to be won by playing a game better than anybody else.

  “Joel,” I said, “mind if I have a few minutes alone with Dorothy?” The café only had a few customers scattered along the back wall. Two were throwing worried glances because of Dorothy’s raised voice, but a third had decided we were more interesting than the book she’d been reading and was eagerly taking in the show.

  “Take your time. No judgment here,” he said as he got up from his bar stool. “But I’m taking this with me.” He picked up the plate with the mountain of French toast on it and headed for the kitchen. It was a shorter walk back to his office out the café’s back door.

  With Joel gone, I turned my attention to my ex-aunt-in-law. “Dorothy, there is nothing between Roberto and me other than a business deal. He tried to rent out a space that was not his to rent out—which is illegal—and you were his accomplice.”

  “I am no such thing,” Dorothy fumed, outraged. “Stop trying to turn this around on me. You are trying to trick Roberto into becoming one of your little boy toys, and I’m here to tell you that I won’t stand for it. You will stay away from him or else!”

  “Or else what, Dorothy? You’ll spread rumors about me? Tell people lies and bully people to keep them away from eating here?”

  “I never.”