Foodie Files Cozy Mysteries Box Set

by Christine Zane Thomas

  “I’m sorry it has to end this way,” I said meekly.

  His eyes looked down at the table, and he nodded.

  “Marcus and I will drive you home,” Kate offered.

  “No, no. It’s fine,” Luke said. “We’re not having it out like those weirdos.” He pointed in the direction of Clara and Javier’s former table. “I’ll drop her off.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “You’re sure?” Kate asked.

  “I’m sure.” Luke was still a really nice guy.

  Our breakup put a huge damper on the whole evening. I felt bad. But Kate and Marcus were both equally enamored with one another. They’d bounce back.

  Everyone deserved that kind of happiness. The kind of love that I just hadn’t found it yet.

  17

  The next day, Sunday, meant the weekly after church meal with the whole family—a meal Luke had attended over the past month. I had to dodge a bazillion pointed questions, not only about Luke, but about dinner and Valentine’s Day in general.

  It seemed that Uncle Billy hadn’t read my article, but Aunt Denise had. She was a little put out with him when they made the drive out to Piggies, our local and best BBQ joint. She claimed to have forgiven him, but I could see in her eyes that he owed her flowers or chocolates, or more aptly, both.

  My cousin, Melanie, had faired a lot better. Jack hadn’t been able to get a reservation at Sadie’s Porch, but he was able to book a table at Casa di Pasta. They had never dined there before and were both impressed by everything the restaurant had to offer.

  But as a barrage of more questions were shot my way, these from my mother, I was ready to run for the hills.

  “Where’d you say Luke is again?” Mom asked.

  “I said he couldn’t make it.”

  “I know,” Mom said. “But where is he?”

  “You know,” Grandmother said. “I think I’m ready to hit the road. Allie, do you mind driving me up to Mossy Oaks?”

  “Not at all.” Saved by the octogenarian.

  “But Mother,” Aunt Denise put in, “what about dessert?”

  “I’ve had enough of your cooking this week,” Grandmother said, patting her midsection.

  “What about you, Allie?” Aunt Denise asked. “Do you want dessert?”

  “I had bananas foster crème brûlée last night. I think I’m good for a while.”

  “Finally,” Mom said, “she tells us one little tidbit about last night. I was beginning to think Luke stood you up.”

  I sighed, flustered. “I’ll go get your bag,” I told Grandmother.

  We were in the car when she told me her theory. “You and that Luke boy broke up last night,” she said flatly.

  She was lucky I didn’t swerve off the road.

  “Is it that easy to tell?”

  “Yes,” Grandmother said. “And no. Allie, I’ve known you since the day you were born. I’ve never known another girl who can’t tell a lie. The way you skirted your mother’s questions—you only do that when you have to. And I’d say a breakup on Valentine’s Day counts as something you have to avoid—at least for a few days.”

  I blew out a breath I didn’t know I was holding in. How lucky was I to have this woman in my life?

  I pulled the car toward the resident gate, but Grandmother waved me off. “Can we go through the clubhouse? I want to see if anyone’s around. I feel so out of the loop. I haven’t seen anyone in ages.”

  “More like a couple of days,” I said, laughing. But I humored her. This place was like a high school for the elderly, complete with cliques and after school activities.

  We waved to the concierge desk in passing. “Afternoon, Vic,” I said

  “Afternoon,” he said. “And it’s good to see you, Miss Evelyn. You just missed your gal pals. They were knitting in the sun room.”

  “Shoot,” Grandmother said. “I was hoping to catch them.”

  “You were?” I asked.

  “Well, you know I don’t knit. Not with my arthritis. But I’ve been missing a good gab. Your Aunt Denise only has so many stories she can tell.”

  “Let’s drop your bag off, then go and find them,” I said. “Where else do they congregate?”

  Grandmother thought a moment. “If they’re anywhere, they’re at Dot’s. You know she loves to be the center of attention.”

  That did seem accurate. We dropped off Grandmother’s things and headed that way. It only took a single knock for Dot to open the door. She looked flustered, her purse on her shoulder. It was as if she was looking past us, hardly able to grasp that we were there blocking her way.

  “Is everything all right?” Grandmother asked.

  “Evelyn,” she gasped, “what are you doing here?”

  “Coming to visit with you. What are you doing?”

  “I’m headed to see Bitsie,” she said. “Follow me.”

  We followed her back to Grandmother’s building where Bitsie lived in the apartment next door.

  “What is this about?” Grandmother tried to ask. But Dot was singularly focused. She rapped on Bitsie’s door hard and fast.

  Bitsie asked the same question when she answered the door.

  “It’s about Cleo,” Dot said hurriedly. “That policeman—the handsome one, your friend. He took her away. We were just sitting down to drink a cup of coffee. And he found her at my place.”

  “Why though?” Bitsie asked.

  Dot cleared her throat. “She told him he could just ask her whatever he needed there, but he said they may need to record her statement and asked would she go down to the station. Then she asked me to ask you to call your grandson, Sean Ryan.”

  “I’m sure they’ll let her call him once they’re at the station,” Bitsie said smartly.

  “You’re probably right,” Dot agreed. “But you know Cleo. She’s hardly able to keep her head on straight.”

  “Now, now,” Grandmother scolded. “Is that how you talk about me when I’m not in the room?”

  “Never,” Dot said. But I wasn’t sure she was telling the truth.

  “You gals come on in,” Bitsie offered. “I’ll make you that coffee, and I’ll call Sean. He’ll get this mess sorted out.”

  We followed Bitsie inside. It was like the mirror version of Grandmother’s apartment. Everything was the opposite but the same. It also looked like all of Miss Jeanie’s trinkets were cloned, put in a box, and that box exploded onto Bitsie’s walls. And her floors weren’t much better. There were potted plants everywhere. I remembered that Bitsie had also been one of Melvin’s girlfriends. Maybe he had a type.

  We sat in the living room while she made the call from the kitchen. It wasn’t exactly eavesdropping. Bitsie basically yelled into the phone, and she had the speaker up full volume. Her grandson voice was garbled but intelligible. He was headed up to the station to meet with Cleo and the detectives.

  This news seemed to calm Dot’s nerves. She stopped fidgeting with her medical alert bracelet. I remembered when she’d done the same thing in my Grandmother’s living room. I’d been scared she was going to accidentally call the authorities.

  It also jarred another memory.

  “Dot,” I said softly. “How’d you know Melvin left his door open again?”

  Dot shrugged, puzzled with my question. “Bitsie told me,” she said. “I told you they were once friendly. Bitsie knows a lot about Melvin.”

  “And Melvin told Bitsie he wanted to go for that walk?”

  “That’s right,” Dot said.

  “So, you never heard it from his lips?” I asked.

  “Well, yes,” Dot said. “What’s this about?”

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “A fresh pot of coffee is on its way,” Bitsie called from the kitchen.

  Something wasn’t quite adding up. I wanted to be alone with my thoughts for a second. “I’ll be right back,” I told Grandmother and Dot. “I just need to use the little girl’s room.”

  I easily found the reversed hall bathroom. It w
as the only bathroom in these small units. Bitsie had handrails around the toilet and inside the shower. I sat alone contemplating. Was Cleo the killer? Sure, Miss Jeanie thought so. And there was that outburst when she’d been questioned at pinochle.

  And if she wasn’t the killer, then why did Javier take her in for questioning? But the thought that kept spinning around my mind was this, if Cleo isn’t the killer, then I think I know who might be.

  I got up from the toilet, and out of habit, I went to wash my hands. That was when a pill case at the edge of the sink caught my eye. I froze. It was just like Melvin’s, every day with a three-letter abbreviation—except Thursday’s was wrong. TUR.

  Strike that. I know exactly who the killer is.

  Bitsie set it all up. Melvin never wanted to go walk with them. She used Dot as her alibi. And he hadn’t left the door unlocked. I wondered how she got into Melvin’s apartment. She used the switch of a pill case to overdose Melvin. And then she smothered him. Or at least that’s what I thought must’ve happened.

  I snapped a photo and sent it straight to Javier. No need for heroics. I just had to get him the evidence he needed to solve the case.

  There was no immediate response. It’s fine, I told myself. You just brought yourself and your grandmother over to the killer’s next door apartment. But she doesn’t know you know. Play it cool, and everything will be fine.

  I returned to the living room, a false smile etched on my face. The three ladies smiled up at me. But, of course, Grandmother saw through me. “Allie,” she said, “is everything all right? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “No. I’m fine.” I needed to quickly think of a lie. But actually, today, the truth was better. “It’s just Luke,” I said.

  “Oh, right, sorry dear,” Grandmother said to me. Then to the group, “Allie’s just going through a breakup.”

  “Probably so she can date that handsome detective,” Dot put in. “Your grandmother thinks you fancy him. And we all think he fancies you.”

  “No, he doesn’t,” I said, blushing.

  Bitsie nodded stiffly. “If you’ll excuse me,” she said. “I think the coffee’s ready.”

  She returned a minute later with the pot, three mugs, and two different flavored creamers—the artificial stuff that tasted like sugar mixed with plastic mixed with vanilla or hazelnut. She went back and retrieved her own cup, already filled with coffee.

  Grandmother poured me a cup, then one for herself. “Creamer, dear?”

  “No thank you,” I said.

  After tasting the coffee, Grandmother went in for a second helping of the stuff. After I tasted the coffee, I thought I knew why. Either I’d been drinking too many caramel macchiatos at The Java Hutt and forgotten what black coffee should taste like, or this coffee was extremely bitter.

  “Sean is headed to the police station now,” Bitsie recapped the conversation we’d already heard. They each sipped their coffee while I didn’t touch mine. I noticed Bitsie kept looking at it as if maybe she was offended. When her attention was on Dot, I took my opportunity to pour it out in the closest potted plant.

  The next time Bitsie’s eyes roved in my direction, she seemed pleased.

  “I’m going to need your phone now, little miss,” she said.

  “My phone?”

  “Yes. I don’t know what you found in there. But it had nothing to do with your love life.”

  “You’re right. It didn’t.” If she was going to be bold, so could I. “It had everything to do with how you murdered Melvin Fleming.”

  She smiled curtly. “I said hand it over, little miss.”

  “You can’t drug everyone,” I said.

  I couldn’t believe the audacity of this woman. Did she really think it was going to be so easy? As if taking away my phone would take care of things. And I also couldn’t believe that she wasn’t even denying it, after I’d come flat-out and told the whole room she was the murderer.

  Then I noticed something else. Dot and my grandmother weren’t saying a word. I looked at them. Their heads were slumped over. They were both asleep.

  “On the contrary,” Bitsie said. “I think I can. You’ll fall asleep any second now, and I’ll take your phone and whatever’s on it.”

  “Wrong,” I told her. “I won’t be asleep because I didn’t drink that horrid coffee. And you won’t have what’s on it, because it’s a text, one I sent to my friend, Detective Javier Portillo.”

  For good measure, I reached over, and I pressed the button on Dot’s medical alert bracelet.

  18

  Every television show I’d ever watched didn’t prepare me for what happened next. I expected Bitsie to come after me with her cane or have a gun hidden somewhere in the folds of her sweater. Or at least she’d have to tackle me—someone always tackles the main character. But none of those things happened.

  She just frowned. She sat there stone cold silent as the emergency operator on the other end of Dot’s bracelet listened to what I had to say. Help was on the way.

  The police were first to the scene. Officer Clarke—Kieran as he wanted me to call him—stayed with Bitsie. I guess he didn’t feel right handcuffing her. He waited for Javier and Detective Burley to arrive.

  It felt awful watching Marcus load Grandmother up on a gurney. They tried to wake her up, but she wouldn’t open her eyes. The same happened for Dot, except Dot started talking incoherently in her sleep.

  Finally, after talking with several other people, it was Javier’s turn to take my statement. He shook his head, sighing. “I told you not to go to any old ladies’ apartments,” he said.

  He led us outside, past my grandmother’s apartment. Then he stopped when it was just us, standing there alone.

  “I thought you meant not to go there by myself,” I said in my defense.

  “That is kind of what I meant,” he confided. “But a whole heck of a lot of good they did for you.” He pointed toward the ambulance. It left without its sirens going. From what Marcus told me, Grandmother was going to be fine. She just needed to sleep off the effects of the Somnolance that Bitsie had drugged the coffee with.

  “What was she going to do with us?” I asked Javier. “How would little old her get three bodies out of her apartment?”

  “She isn’t talking,” Javier said. “Hasn’t even asked for her grandson. I doubt she’ll offer us any information.”

  “But you’ll have enough to convict her, right? She did kill Melvin.”

  “We know she did. It just took us a minute to get there.”

  “Me too.”

  He laughed. “Except that you don’t have all the facts.”

  “Like?” I asked.

  “Like we know that Melvin was a serial monogamist. We think she expected them to get back together after Millie died. That didn’t happen. He and your neighbor had hit it off. In fact, we had to check some phone records. Jeanie had thought Cleo was calling her, being rude. Cleo said she never did such a thing. It turns out our Bitsie was pretending to be Cleo over the phone.”

  That explained a lot. “But what about Melvin’s apartment?” I asked. “How did Bitsie get in?”

  He shook his head. “I shouldn’t tell you this. But I have a feeling I can trust you. Vic said he lost his keys the day before the murder. The same day Bitsie came by with muffins for him. They reappeared the next day. No harm. No foul. Or so he thought.”

  “That’s terrible,” I said.

  “It is,” Javier agreed.

  “Even worse than getting broken up with on Valentine’s Day?” He smiled a dimpled Javier smile. “I’m sorry you had to see that last night. That’s when we found out about Vic’s keys.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I might’ve had my own breakup last night too.”

  “You did?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “I know. Maybe Sadie’s Porch shouldn’t be on my next list of romantic places.”

  “Nah. I don’t think it was Sadie’s fault. I think we just have to find the rig
ht people.”

  “Sure,” I said, avoiding eye contact as I thought maybe it’s not people in the plural we need.

  “Actually,” he said, then he stumbled. “Nah. Never mind.”

  “Never mind what?”

  “I was just thinking,” he said. “I owe you a coffee.”

  “And I owe you a coffee,” I told him.

  “What do you say we meet this week and grab those coffees? I’m off on Tuesday.”

  “Tuesday is good for me.”

  “Then it’s a date. No,” he corrected, “that’s not what I mean. It’s a friends buying each other coffee thing.”

  “I’ll see you on Tuesday,” I said, laughing. “For our thing.”

  19

  The door jingled above me as I walked into The Java Hutt.

  It had been far too long since I had gotten in a good run. My morning jog had been good for the soul. The entire week, and especially the weekend, had weighed heavily on me. I felt the urge to pound that pavement.

  I showered and made it five minutes ahead of time. I was hoping to buy both of our drinks.

  But Javier smiled at me from his usual table. “I ordered for you,” he said. “What Gertie said is your usual.”

  “Morning.” Gertie grinned as I approached the register. “Are you and,” she whispered, her eyes darting Javier’s direction, “an item?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “But I will take his usual. We owe each other coffee.” I tried to play it off as if my insides weren’t screaming what Gertie had suggested.

  “Half sweet café con leche,” Gertie said. “I already have it ready.”

  I paid for his drink and sat down across from him. His smile grew broader.

  “Hi,” he said cheekily.

  “Hi,” I said back.

  “Jallie,” Tenley placed two coffees on the counter.

  Javier and I looked around the coffee shop.

  Gertie laughed. “That means you two.”

  Javier laughed too. “Clever,” he said, getting up to grab our drinks.