I breathed out a sigh of relief as we found a little table on the edge of the dance floor. A waitress with a glittery lavender halter dress came over to take our orders. The fake orchid above one of her ears moved as she charismatically took our order.
Daisy had already made up her mind. “We’ll have guava-passion fruit margaritas to start. And I’ll have a shot of vodka on the side. This one can’t handle it.” She pointed to me, and I shrugged. My best friend wasn’t wrong. Me and vodka were not best friends with the exception of the addition to my pie crust.
“Coming up.”
She whisked away and a new song blasted over the speakers. Daisy began to dance in her chair.
“Hey, I thought you said there was a live band?” I had to almost yell to get her to hear me.
“They start in about an hour. Gives us time to get some tequila in us before it starts. My hips have a mind of their own once the Patron hits.”
I laughed at her. She was a liar. That girl could dance to the rain dripping before her morning coffee.
The rest of the night was spent on our feet after two margaritas and four shots for Daisy. The place soon became the one that I’d imagined before getting here. Sweat began to bead up along my hairline as we danced, laughing and simply having a good time.
It was exactly what I needed.
Chapter Eleven
I couldn’t believe it. To stumble upon a clue like this while dancing, or my kind of dancing, at the Kalimbo of all places—well, it was like the universe wanted me to solve this mystery. At least, that’s what I was taking from the whole ordeal.
I had to tell Detective Aguirre.
Pushing up my glasses, I excused myself from Daisy, using the time-honored reason of needing fresh air. The thing about Pacific Heights was that fresh air was in great abundance, so the excuse made sense and got me out of the loud club made even louder now that the live band was about to begin playing.
Several patrons fussed and kicked up fits about me pushing out of the club, especially since I was going the wrong way. I was cussed in both Spanish and English, but I had to make this phone call.
“Aguirre here,” the Detective answered, sounding sleepy and if I wasn’t mistaken, a little grumpy. I heard the squeak of a chair in the background and imagined he was one of those typical officers who leaned back in their chairs and rested their feet on the desk like on TV.
“Hello, Detective. This is Chloe Cotton.” I found a space on the street where the line hadn’t extended to and leaned against the brick building. The sharp edges dug into my back, but it was the only place to make a phone call like this. I mean, clues were important!
“Chloe Cotton. I finally found you.”
“Huh?” I answered and then cleared my throat, realizing I sounded like a sullen teenager. “I mean, I haven’t gotten any calls from you.”
He chuckled, and the sound made me shiver. The night wind coming off the ocean was rather chilly. “Is that so? Have you had your phone on? Every time I call, it goes straight to voice mail.”
Oops. “Oh, um, I’m out with a friend, so I had it on airplane mode. It wasn’t like I could hear anything in the club anyway.”
He made a noise, a huff of some sort.
“Detective?” I asked, making sure he was still on the line.
“Yes. I’m here. Didn’t take you for a clubbing sort of gal, Chloe. It’s interesting to say the least.”
I scoffed. As though this gentleman knew anything about me other than the fact that I’d stumbled onto a dead body in a warehouse and ran a hand pie cart on the beach.
Oh, and he knew about Tippy.
This detective could be a little snotty when he wanted to. I was right. He was grumpy.
“Well, just because I’m at a club as a favor to a friend doesn’t categorize me, Detective. Anyway, it’s been a long time since I went dancing. I deserved it. A girl needs a night out.”
“Did you? How long has it been?” There was a smoothness to his voice that calmed me somehow even though his snooty questions were irritating me at the same time.
“Since my husband. No, before that. Gosh, maybe since college. I don’t even remember—it’s been that long.”
He made another sound. “Well, is that what you called me for?”
Aha! He revealed the irritating part again. “No, I have some clues. I was talking to…”
He cleared his throat and interrupted me. “That’s the exact reason I have been calling you all afternoon, Ms. Cotton. There’s been a few nuisance reports about you from your neighbors.”
I gasped. After I gave them free hand pies. The nerve. The gumption. The…truth.
“I was simply being neighborly. That’s not being a nuisance. And I brought them free hand pies. What’s the harm in that?”
He and I both knew I wasn’t just visiting and handing out samples. I had an agenda. It wasn’t a secret. He would, too, if he was basically being accused of a crime he didn’t commit.
“Look, Ms. Cotton, no more asking questions of your neighbors. They have made written complaints and if they call me telling me that you are doing it again, I will have to bring you in. You can’t very well make hand pies while wearing handcuffs, can you?”
He had a point, but I, never in a million years, would admit that to him.
“I was just calling you to tell you about a clue, but I guess you don’t want to know.”
Now I heard footsteps over the line. He was pacing. I’d gotten under his skin. I tried not to be proud of that fact and failed miserably. While I talked I received several looks from passersby. Some were smiling but others looked like they’d never seen a redhead before.
“I don’t care about your clues because you’re not a detective on this case, Chloe. Listen to me well, ma’am. I am in charge on this case and that is final. No more visiting. No more interviews or questioning strangers. No more searching for clues at clubs either. None of it. Keep your distance Chloe, or I will have to distance you myself. You have a good night, now.”
He’d said ma’am. Ouch.
He hung up on me without another word. The clues I’d found were still hanging on the tip of my tongue but they would have to stay there.
Roger was uninterested. Not only that but he was not miffed at me.
Great.
I turned off the phone and stuffed it back in my bra for safe keeping.
Now to try and enjoy the rest of the night and not sleuth.
Oh, who was I kidding. I was so a sleuth and what Roger didn’t know wouldn't hurt him.
Chapter Twelve
The rest of the night was a blur of guava and passion fruit and trumpets and singing in Spanish. My hips took on a rhythm of their own after a while and only two drinks in, my best friend insisted that my drinks be virgin from then on.
I wasn’t much of a drinker, and it showed.
By the time Daisy finally stopped dancing, I was a sweaty mess from head to toe. I’d lost my cardigan somewhere between the salsa number and the cumbia one and I was sure my pinkie toe was throbbing to the beat.
This girl needed to go home like an hour ago.
“I’m spent. Let’s go.” When Daisy said those words it was like music to my ears. My body barely made it to her car. As she drove me the short way home, I leaned my head against the glass of the window and tried not to puke as the flurry of buildings and bright lights sped by.
I vowed right then and there never to have a margarita again—at least, not one that contained alcohol.
Chloe Cotton and liquor didn’t mix well.
“Come on, girl. Up to bed with you.” Didn’t all widows talk to themselves?
Getting out of my dress and getting into a pair of pink buffalo-plaid pajamas was a blur. The only reason I knew the pattern and color was because they were nearly threadbare. Eric had given them to me one year for Valentine’s Day, and I didn’t have the strength to throw them away. They weren’t even warm anymore.
Still, even with the tipsiness and the
warm blankets on top of me, my mind wouldn’t quiet. It cycled through the thoughts of the mystery of Richard over and over. Something outside or the purring of Tippy would get my attention only to start the tornado of rumination all over again.
I had to solve this case if for nothing else, for my sanity.
Clearly.
Tippy meowed and that was the last thing I remembered. Well, that and the sound of Roger Aguirre’s accusing tone.
The next morning I woke with not only a headache but a niggling need to solve a murder.
After coffee, two cups actually, with extra cinnamon-vanilla creamer and a simple breakfast of toast and over-easy eggs, I put on my cutest dress, courtesy of the sewing skills of my mother. At first, when I started to sell hand pies, she thought that I was selling regular pies and so, made me a dress with fabric dotted with cute pastel pies both whole and slices.
I appreciated the sentiment.
Purse in hand and Tippy’s bowl filled, I began to walk outside only to gasp and nearly pee my pants. A white plate was sitting on my welcome mat and in chocolate cream was written, Mind Your Business.
What in the world?
I mean, it was eloquent and classy by warning note standards, but why in the heck would someone leave this at my door?
In a tizzy, I looked around, left and right, before going through my house and peeking into closets and under beds.
My heart was racing by the time I was done, and even Tippy noticed the change in me. She swished her tail against my legs as I sat, trembling and wringing my hands.
I should’ve told Roger, but it was clear from the night before that he’d had enough of me already. But still, I had to tell someone.
Anyone who would listen, actually.
After controlling my breaths and making sure I wasn’t going to pass out from hyperventilation, I got up and returned to what I’d set out to do that morning. Solve a murder. But after checking the mailbox that sat next to my front door—ignoring and stepping over the white plate warning—I suddenly had a change of plans.
“Look, Tippy! I can go get my cart. Things are looking up again!” I waved the notice from the county police department in front of the petulant cat, but she turned her nose up and went back to her fluffy bed, not impressed at all.
As I walked down the street, I gave one last look at the plate in front of the door. Maybe it was simply a kid playing a trick and I was getting bent all out of shape over nothing.
That could be it.
I had murder on the mind and so everything seemed like a threat. Silly Chloe.
Checking my watch, I saw the date and cringed. It was less than a week before the season would open and I was behind, not only on recipes but on cleaning out my cart.
I vowed right then and there to put the whole murder thing behind me and focus on my business. Yes, that was the answer. Clean out my cart, bake and fry hand pies like crazy and let Roger be in charge of the murder of Richard.
I sighed, hating this predicament. Roger thought I was guilty. The only hope I had was that truth would set me free.
In the meantime, I had ginger peach hand pies on my mind.
Chapter Thirteen
Having decided to let the good detective do his job while I did mine changed my whole outlook. Why did I think I was a sleuth anyway? Nothing in my past had taught me those skills. Just look at Eric’s death. It was declared an accident by the medical examiner and the police all agreed. Yet I’d been convinced it was something else…
I shook my head hard and shoved memories of that day far back. The call from the school, the —
No! It never paid to go there. The therapist I’d spent a year and a good bit of money visiting had insisted that until I accepted the facts I’d never be able to move forward, I’d be emotionally stuck, but look at me. I’d made a whole new life in the town ‘d always dreamed of living in. New friends. A business based on a former hobby, yet another dream come true. How was that for moving forward?
Stupid therapist.
Richard had been an obnoxious narcissist who sought to make money by transforming our town into something soulless and modern. Why should I open myself up to all this worry and fear for his sake? The police were trained to solve crimes; they did it all day. They would find the true criminal and clear my name.
I baked pies. Sometimes I fried them.
Pies.
My job was pies.
Not murders.
If I didn’t back off, all I’d do was manage to incriminate myself somehow. Didn’t the criminal always return to the scene of the crime and stuff like that in books? Speaking of which—I needed my damn cart!
But not a thing I could do about that for now.
Instead of sashaying into town to try to find out who killed Richard, rather to try to since odds were against my ever having any luck with it, I marched back into the kitchen to test one more batch of ginger-peach hand pies. A recipe I’d developed the summer before, I’d never quite been happy enough with it to add it to the rotation. It was either too sweet or not sweet enough, the peaches either a bit too soft or too firm. The spice palette not quite what I’d dreamed of. Then, in the cold of winter, I wanted to try one more time before giving up on the recipe entirely.
I couldn’t access my supplier for fresh local fruit in January, but I had frozen a whole ten-pound box of blanched and peeled slices in July. Of course, I assumed the pies would taste better when made from fresh fruit, but in fact, the pies were vastly improved!
Since then I’d made them several times, each with the same result. I’d adjusted the spices until they were mouth-awakening, but finally had reached what I hoped was ideal. That eighth of a teaspoon of cloves lit up the whole thing. And made my kitchen smell so good, I nearly swooned. If freezing the peaches made the difference perhaps I could do the counterintuitive thing and, as soon as the local crop ripened, fill my garage freezer with fruit. Weird, but if it worked? Might be genius.
I peeked in the oven, releasing even more of the peachy, spicy scent. Another few minutes, and they’d be perfect. I moved to stand by the window overlooking the sandy beach below and the blue-green ocean beyond. The fog bank stood offshore, waiting to move in later. Some considered it menacing, but I kind of liked it. Not good for business, though, so I was glad we had less fog in the height of summer and into the fall when most tourists came. But sitting by my wood stove with a cup of tea and a book, the absolute silence of a foggy day held a peace I rarely found anymore. As if there were nothing beyond the walls of my home, nothing and nobody to hurt me.
Just as I took the batch out of the oven, my phone buzzed with a message. It hadn’t even rung, but sometimes phone service could be sketchy here. I brought up voice mail.
“Ms. Cotton, the crime scene has been opened, and you may re-enter your storage at your convenience. We may contact you for another interview soon.”
Wow. Nothing more. He didn’t need to say his name because Roger’s voice came through loud and clear. And Ms. Cotton? Didn’t that make it clear how things stood between us.
As they should.
Police detective and “person of interest.”
Lucky I was good at stuffing my emotions because a whole bunch of them were trying to make their presence known right now. Fear among them. All my good intentions of letting the police do their job were flitting away at the reminder I was their number one suspect.
I changed into shorts and a tank top, slid my feet into my favorite Sketchers and then came back to the kitchen. One bite of a pie told me everything I needed to know about their viability as an item on my menu. I took a few moments to enter notes in my laptop lest I forget just what made them so good. The crust was flaky and perfect, but it was one of my standard recipes. The peaches…just enough toothsome bite to add interest to the spicy, fragrant juices. Before I gobbled them all, I boxed them up to take to Daisy’s. She would sell them to her customers, her profits payment for the feedback she would gather for me. Also, she’d probably sli
de me a burrito so I wouldn’t have to make lunch. Time was flying by, and I needed to get home after freeing my cart and make the custom-orders my neighbors had placed.
I stepped outside, trying not to look at the plate with its warning I hadn’t been able to bring myself to touch. If Roger’s call had come through, I might have told him about it, or maybe not. Since the chocolate cream was very likely mine, he might think I had done it myself.
Trailer hooked to the car, I drove down the hill. Often I walked, of course, but I didn’t want to push the cart up the hill to the house. One reason the storage unit was so convenient, something I was beginning to rethink. Maybe I needed to keep my possessions at home. I would need to empty the garage where my aunt had created a credible version of hoarders. Not a project I would have time for now that summer was kicking in. Darn. I’d let the off-season get away from me.
Daisy was slammed with customers, so I just set the box on the counter and caught the wrapped burrito she tossed me. Back in the car I peeled the paper back to take a bite and my eyes rolled back in pleasure. Chili relleno with rice and beans…a specialty she didn’t have every day since making her version was a lot of work. The chilis were stuffed with cheese then egg battered and fried in lard. A secret she didn’t tell everyone, but which made them taste extraordinary. Traditional. Perfect. So good! Her zucchini blossoms were treated similarly but never put in a burrito, only sold in a little tray with a dipping sauce.
And she made those even less frequently, but when she did they sold out instantly.
But even my delicious lunch couldn’t put off what I had to do next. The storage unit awaited. I parked in front, grateful to get the spot. The trailer took up quite a bit of space.
I hadn’t anticipated the anxiety rocketing through me as I faced the door to the storage building. The desire to turn and run away as far and fast as possible. Stop paying the bill and let the cart be auctioned off to the highest bidder. But where would that leave me? It wasn’t as if I had the money to buy another. Not comfortably. I’d have to close my business and get a job of some kind. And was I willing to do that just because of cowardice?
A Pie in the Hand (Pacific Pies Cozy Mysteries Book 1) Page 5