“Too?” I stiffened. “What on earth are you suggesting?”
“That you don’t leave town,” he replied. “Not until this investigation is over.”
I hadn’t planned on leaving for another few weeks, but the fact that I couldn’t, now, sat in the back of my mind. What if the customers here didn’t buy? What if we needed to move on? Just how long did a murder investigation usually take to—?
“Ruby!” A shout traveled along the pier.
Both the crotchety detective and I looked up.
Bee came scuttling along the wooden boards toward me, still wearing her Bite-sized Bakery apron from the truck. “I heard the sirens,” she said. “And then some old guy came by and told me that there’d been a murder at the restaurant.”
“Which old guy?” Detective Jones and I asked, in unison. We exchanged a glance, one that was fraught with dislike and tension.
“You let me handle the questions, young lady,” he said.
He was probably five years older than me and a few inches shorter. Not that there was anything wrong with short, but still … ‘young lady?’
“Who are you?” Bee asked, eying the detective. “A rent-a-cop?”
“No, Bee, he’s a real detective. Investigating the case.”
Jones had drawn himself up straight at the phrase ‘rent-a-cop.’
“Who died?” Bee asked, looking back over her shoulder at the restaurant.
“I’ll fill you in later,” I said. “Detective, are we done here? Am I allowed to leave?”
“No,” Jones said, his beady brown eyes narrowing. “I still have a few questions about your involvement.”
“What involvement?” Bee raised a gray eyebrow.
“Ma’am, I’m going to need you to back up. This is an ongoing police investigation, and I need to question Miss Holmes as a person of interest in the case.”
Bee pursed her lips at the detective, but retreated after a few moments, hanging back near the railing at the touristy stall nearest to the restaurant. She peered out over the ocean, but cast surreptitious looks our way, as if checking whether I needed her help.
I took a deep breath and focused. “Wait, I’m a person of interest?” This can’t be happening.
He couldn’t seriously think I had anything to do with this. But then, his whole ‘leaf peeper’ speech had pretty much insinuated that. “Look,” I said. “I didn’t do anything wrong. Owen asked me out on a date this morning. All I did was turn up here at the right time and—”
“You expect me to believe that he invited you to have dinner at a restaurant that’s always closed on a Monday?”
“I didn’t know that. I was asked out on a date. I spent all day working, I didn’t even have time to—”
“Why would he ask you to this place if it was closed?”
“I have no idea,” I said. “I wasn’t the one doing the asking.” Prickles danced over my skin—this always happened when I got frustrated. The prickles and then I’d get hot, and then I’d say something I’d regret. “This is ridiculous. I’ve cooperated with you fully, and I’ve done absolutely nothing wrong except get the shock of my life.” I swallowed, trying to calm myself down. “Look, I’m staying at the Oceanside Guesthouse. If you need to talk to me again, I’ll be there. And I park my food truck down at the beach every day too.”
Detective Jones tapped his pen on his pad one last time. “Fine,” he said, at last. “You can go. But I’ll be in touch, Miss Holmes. Don’t go anywhere.”
“I wasn’t planning on it.” I rose from the bench.
I wobbled slightly and steadied myself on the wrought-iron arm. It was the murder. It had me woozy. That or the detective’s line of questioning had sent me into a dizzy state. Either way, I had to get off this pier.
I met Bee in front of the stall, and she looped an arm around my shoulders. “Are you all right? You look like you’ve seen… well, exactly what you just saw.”
“A corpse,” I said.
“Now, there’s something that will keep you up all night.”
“I hope not. We’re supposed to open the truck early tomorrow.” But Bee was right. If I closed my eyes now, I’d wind up running the whole event through my head again.
“Come on,” my friend said. “Let’s get you back to the guesthouse. We can have some hot cocoa before bed and talk about what happened.”
“Do you really think talking will help?”
“It’s better than lying awake, staring at the ceiling,” Bee replied, and patted me on the back.
I cast a last glance at the Lobster Shack. Detective Jones was out front, but he stared at me as we walked away, his mouth set in a thin line.
4
The guestrooms we’d hired out in the Oceanside Guesthouse were small but quaint and linked through a shared bathroom. We’d opted to leave the doors open for now, which I greatly preferred since I was a little spooked out after the whole ‘dead body in the restaurant’ incident.
I sat on the armchair at the end of Bee’s bed in her suite and curled my legs underneath myself. The guesthouse was mostly self-service, with set meals for dinner, breakfast and lunch if one booked to eat.
Unfortunately, it was way too late for us to attend the dinner, and the guesthouse didn’t have room service. However, there was a station for coffee, hot cocoa and tea in the corner of every room, and it was there where Bee stood now, humming under her breath as she fixed us two mugs of hot cocoa and plopped mini-marshmallows into the frothy chocolatey liquid.
She brought the mugs over to the tiny seating area and handed one to me before settling into her armchair and propping her feet up on the coffee table. “I’ve got an ache in my toes,” she said. “And in my neck. And one in my brain from all the customers this morning.”
Bee was friendly to me, but she was definitely a ‘behind-the-scenes’ type of person. She preferred baking to talking to folks. Whereas I enjoyed discovering the strange personalities in this small town.
“The toes and the neck might need a soak in the tub,” I said. “I’m afraid I don’t know what to do about the brain pain.”
“I’m thinking a good set of earplugs might do the trick,” she replied, smiling. But her mirth faded. “How are you? You were so pale when I arrived on the pier, you looked like a ghost.”
“I know I need a tan,” I said, tugging my warm fluffy robe toward my body, “but that’s a bit harsh.”
Bee chuckled.
I took a sip of my hot cocoa to bolster myself and nearly burned my top lip on a marshmallow. I scooped it out with a greedy finger and deposited it into my mouth, relishing the sweetness as it spread over my tongue and warmed me.
The sugar helped, that was for sure. I no longer felt as if I was about to keel over or faint or worse.
“All right, so what do you think happened?” Bee set her mug down on her lap, grasping it between her palms.
“I know what happened,” I said. “Someone murdered Owen with a lobster mallet.”
Bee, who had lifted her mug to take another sip of cocoa, snorted and nearly did a spit take. “I’m sorry, what?”
“A lobster mallet.”
“As in the tool? The tool used to crack open the lobster shell and get to the succulent meat inside?”
“I wasn’t aware there was another kind of lobster mallet,” I replied.
“No, no, there isn’t. I think. I just wanted to be sure we’re on the same page,” she replied. “A lobster mallet. Now, that is unique. What kind of murderer walks around with a lobster mallet?”
“I have no idea,” I said, and I didn’t shudder this time. It was much easier to discuss this when I wasn’t in the shadow of a murder scene.
“Perhaps a roving diner, angry about the fact that they hadn’t yet sated their hunger?”
“Bee…”
“I know, I know, not an appropriate joke, but still. It’s a very strange weapon choice,” she said. “As murder weapons go, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a lobster mallet killi
ng.”
“Haven’t spent much time in Florida?”
“I thought that was the chainsaw massacre state? Or was it shotguns? Shovels?”
“Are you trying to make me dizzy?” I asked. “You know how I am with blood. And I just saw a whole mallet coated in the stuff.”
“Yuck. Sorry. And I’m sorry about your date too. This Owen guy sounded nice. Albeit strange.”
I nodded and took another sip of cocoa. “I wonder who did it.”
Bee met my gaze and held it for a moment. “Me too.”
I didn’t really know what Bee had done in her past. Her resume had been sparse, apart from a year-long stint at a patisserie in SoHo, and a certificate proving that she’d taken a two-year baking course. Before that, there was nothing. I hadn’t asked, even though I’d been sufficiently curious to do a quick online search that hadn’t turned up much.
But I trusted her implicitly. Bee was one of those people who had an open smile and said exactly what they meant. I liked that, particularly since I’d spent so much time interviewing people for articles on topics they didn’t want to talk about.
“You know,” Bee said, scooping one of her marshmallows out of her cocoa and slurping it down, “motive is important. And the question is valid. Who would be walking around with a lobster mallet? Was running into Owen accidental or intentional? And how on earth did they know he would be in that restaurant?”
“Well, the place was called the Lobster Shack. Maybe the killer grabbed the mallet from the kitchen or the bar or something?”
“Maybe.”
“An even better question would be, why on earth Owen asked me to go out to eat at a restaurant that was known for being closed on a Monday evening. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Hmmm. That is strange.” Bee sank into a quiet.
It was broken by the gentle creak of the bathroom door.
Bee and I tensed, immediately. I set my cocoa down, trembling, and peered at the darkened crack between the edge of the bathroom door and the jamb.
“Who’s there?” I called out.
Bee rose from her chair, stamping her feet down on the hardwood floor. “Come out, right now,” she said. “We know you’re in there.”
The door creaked again, and my heart pitter-pattered like crazy.
A calico cat paw reached around the bottom of the door and hooked claws into the wood. Another creak, and a kitty cat leaped into view with a meow and a purr.
Bee burst out laughing. “It’s a cat. Of course, it’s a cat.”
For a moment, I’d thought a lobster mallet wielding psychopath had been hiding in the bathroom. I giggled, and the kitty cat meowed and darted over to me. It rubbed its cute fact against my legs, purring loudly.
“Who are you?” I asked, and scratched behind its ears.
“I think that’s Samantha’s cat,” Bee said. “She mentioned it this morning at breakfast. It’s a tom.”
The cat’s collar jingled, and I caught the name tag dangling from it between my fingers. “Trouble,” I said. “His name is Trouble.”
“Fitting, given that he nearly just scared the cocoa out of my hands.”
I grinned and kept on stroking Trouble. “I’ve always wanted a cat.”
“Why didn’t you ever get one?”
I paused, thinking over how to word the answer. “Well, I’ve never had the chance. My ex was allergic, and now that we’re on the road…”
Bee nodded. “Seems like you’ll have Trouble’s company while we’re in Carmel Springs.” She paused then broke out in peals of laughter. “I just realized how that sounds.”
“You’re not wrong. Trouble has certainly found me.”
Hopefully, the only type that would accompany me through my day tomorrow would be the furry, clawed kind.
5
I stifled a yawn as I took another order for the ever-delicious Mudslide Chocolate Cake and handed out change. It was last night—I hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep after the whole ‘lobster mallet murder’ thing, and Trouble had spent the night on the end of my bed, purring and massaging my comforter.
“Careful,” Bee said, as I yawned a second time. “Keep doing that and you’ll swallow someone whole.”
I managed a watery-eyed smile as I dished a delectable, mudslide chocolate mini-cake into one of our branded boxes. Bee was a master at making these. They were ever-so-chocolatey, with a chocolate fudge frosting on the outside, moist cake beneath it, and then a runny, oozy chocolate filled center.
“These are delicious,” the customer said, as she accepted the box. “I had one yesterday morning.”
I vaguely remembered her from my early morning stint in the truck. She’d definitely introduced herself to me, and though I usually had a knack for placing names with faces, I pulled a blank now.
The woman, a blonde, slim, petite and in her twenties from what I could tell, offered me a smile. “It’s Grace,” she said. “Grace Allen. We met yesterday morning?”
“I remember. Sorry, I’m exhausted and forgetful this morning. How are you, Grace?”
“Oh, doing fine. Just fine. Well, fine given the circumstances.” She rounded her words, nicely. “You heard about what happened at the Lobster Shack?”
“Yes. Regrettably,” I said.
Bee took over the register, and I stepped to one side in the truck, Grace following me to continue the conversation.
It was always good to get to know locals, and I had come to soak up the atmosphere in the small town. Granted, I hadn’t planned on soaking up a murder while I was at it.
“Terrible way to go,” Grace said, softly, her fingers clutching the cake box.
“I think so.” I shook my head. “I suppose the folks around here are shaken up about it.”
Grace shrugged. “I guess.”
“No?”
“Some of them are,” she said. “But most are carrying on. It’s the New England way. That and … no, I shouldn’t say.”
“Please do,” I replied. “This gossip session is helping to wake me right up.”
Grace’s lips, crimson with lipstick, parted. “Between you and me, Owen wasn’t exactly the most popular guy around here. You know, he got under a lot of people’s skin. I should know. I work at the Lobster Shack. He was always around. And he—”
The whoop of a police siren cut across Grace’s words.
The car had parked right next to the truck. The long line of customers turned their heads to watch as Detective Jones emerged from the cruiser.
“Uh oh,” Bee muttered. “Looks like Danny DeVito is back to question us again.”
“Bee.”
“You’re right, Danny DeVito is a talented man. A treasure.” Bee nodded to the detective. “Can’t say the same for him.”
“Bee.”
“Don’t expect me to be civil,” she hissed. “Terrible excuse for an officer. The way he treated you last night…”
Grace had already backed away from the window, and the other customers did the same, making way for the detective as he strode importantly through the crowd, casting glances left and right and readjusting his belt.
“All right,” Jones called out. “Everyone back up. Back away from the food truck.”
“Excuse me,” I said. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“You can’t chase our customers away,” Bee put in.
I exited the truck, clattered down the side steps and came face-to-face with the detective. The fall morning was chill, but the Jones wore a thin veneer of sweat on his ruddy cheeks.
“You can’t chase off—”
“Everyone clear out. This truck is being confiscated,” Detective Jones said, “by order of a judge.” He flashed a piece of paper at me, and I grabbed it, scanning the document.
“Let me see that,” Bee said, trundling down the stairs behind me. She held up the paper, close to her nose since she didn’t have her reading glasses, and frowned. “Shoot. It’s a warrant.”
“A warrant?” I said it too loudly,
and a murmur spread through the crowd of onlookers.
Over near the benches that looked out on the beach, Grace set down the box of cake she’d just paid for and backed away from it.
“Why? Why are you doing this?” I asked.
The eager crowd hadn’t left, and Detective Jones scowled at the question. “Come with me, ma’am.”
We walked around to the back of the truck, out of earshot of the onlookers and listeners. Bee came too, marching instead of walking, and glaring at the back of the detective’s head.
Detective Jones turned on us. “I’m confiscating this truck because it is now an active part of a murder investigation.”
“What?”
“That’s impossible,” Bee said. “The truck was nowhere near the pier yesterday.”
“Owen Pelletier wasn’t just hit over the head. Preliminary reports indicate that he was poisoned as well, and since the last thing Owen was seen eating was a slice of your cake…”
My eyes widened. “That’s not… No. You can’t do this. There’s no poison on my truck, and there’s no way that he died because of one of our cakes.”
“If that’s true,” Jones said, and his lips curled downward at the corners, “you won’t have anything to worry about. You’ll have your truck back before the end of the week. But for now, it’s being confiscated. An officer will escort you into the truck to remove any personal affects you might have left inside. After that, you’re done.”
“But there’s a tray of mudslide minis in the oven,” I said.
Bee’s hand settled on my forearm. “I don’t think they care about the minis, Ruby.”
We were guided back into the truck by another officer, younger and less mean, and allowed to collect our handbags and phones. Detective Jones grabbed the keys for the truck himself, all while our would-be customers looked on.
Shame curled through my belly. This was exactly what I hadn’t wanted when I’d decided to go on this trip—too much negative attention. It was the reason I’d chosen a food truck and not a restaurant. We could easily move on from one town to the next, and I would never have to settle down in a place where embarrassment could catch up with me. And the past.
Murder by Chocolate Page 2