The Queen of Hearts (Mountain Springs Mysteries, #1)

by J. E. Mann

“We can consider the place closed really, it’s unlikely that the business will ever reopen after this.” James’ face didn’t appear to be too upset about his family’s business troubles as major as they were. Did I maybe even see a hint of a smile? Physical feedback was sometimes hard to determine with new people.

  The food arrived and the waiter had pulled us from our questioning, I was relieved. James had been asked enough questions about his own problems, maybe later in the night I could come back to it.

  “So is this going to be enjoyable? I’ve never eaten here before.” A playful smirk spread across my face.

  JAKE

  I listened to Rach as she finished talking about the date the next day in the office. She had brought up the subject two more times during the night, but James had been elusive. I also got the impression that my fair boss had really enjoyed herself.

  “Could he have done it Rach? That’s what it all boils down to.”

  She thought for a moment. “He wasn’t exactly broken up about the possibility that his family’s restaurant might be shut down forever. He didn’t show me a hunting knife or anything. For spending about three hours with him, I would lean towards…maybe, if he was properly motivated.”

  I thought about this for a moment. Some other people might have questioned if Rach was letting her personal feelings get in the way of her judgment, but I had known her for too long to make that assumption. She wanted to solve this; the puzzle was the main factor.

  “Can you look in the computer and see what Steve’s height and weight were?”

  She typed on the computer for a few minutes. “Steve was 5’10 and weighed 256 pounds.”

  I stood up and faced an invisible Steve. “Jason was about 5’9 and about 195, agreed?”

  “Agreed.”

  I slowly drifted from side to side; try to find a way to subdue the taller and heavy. I came from the left, Steve blocked me. From the right, he blocked me again. I could take him from the back, but that caused a whole new set of problems. Could I lift Steve after I had knocked him out? I slowly lowered my hands.

  “I don’t see it Rach. Maybe the gun would make Steve do what he wanted.”

  It was Rach’s turn to shake her head.

  “The gun would allow control for a little while. Get him into the car; maybe force him out, but how exactly to get Steve into the restaurant? It would require time where Steve should have been able to escape. The restraint was too tidy, no sign of struggle.”

  “Gloria has the same problems. No way could she have controlled Steve for that amount of time. “

  “She could have controlled him another way. Maybe the same way you suggested I control James last night.”

  I smiled. “That old feminine charm? But then how did she gain access to the restaurant? Two suspects, both have their strong points. Jason had motive and access, but couldn’t get him into the restaurant. Gloria had motive and could control him, but didn’t have access.”

  “They could be working together.”

  I plopped down in the chair across from her. “If you see a connection between those two, you are smarter then I. I’m leaning toward a third party.”

  “How do we find out?”

  I thought for a moment. It was a long shot, but one that I needed to take. I glanced at the drawer where we kept the petty cash.

  “How much do we have in petty cash?”

  She opened the drawer and put a large wooden box on her desk. She opened it and started counting the cash.

  “One hundred and seventy-seven dollars.”

  “Give me all the ones and fives.”

  She counted them out and laid the money in front of me.

  “Forty in ones and twenty-five in fives,” she said.

  I collected the money and put it in my pocket. I stood, stretched.

  “Try and find out if Jason and Gloria ever crossed paths. If they did, what kind of connection did they make? Gloria seems to be broken up, but that could just be buyer’s remorse. I’m going to find out if there are any new guns in town. Somebody who just got paid and is spreading it around.

  I walked toward the door.

  “Sixty five dollars seems small in order to pay people for information,” she remarked. I turned back to her.

  “I’m not using it to pay people for info.” She raised her eyebrows.

  “Where are you going then?”

  I smiled. “Where any red blooded American boy with ones and fives in his pocket would go. I’m headed to the strip club.”

  I picked up a hint of disgust in her expression but I knew Rach trusted me. As I put my hand on the door handle, Rach stopped me with one final question. “Hey Jake, does everything really boil down to James possibly being the killer?”

  Apparently she was concerned, but again, Rach was always concerned. Dammit I hated questions like this. She had internalized my question from earlier and I didn’t care either way how she felt about James. For as long as we had worked together I knew she wouldn’t let me go without some type of answer, “Rach… if he isn’t ripping out hearts I don’t care what he is. Besides, not all killers are bad people.”

  I closed the door leaving Rach to her silence.

  RACHEL

  I wandered through my morning thinking about the date with James. He was a very sweet guy, and the fact that he bought me a flower before the date was over worked in his favor too. I didn’t normally meet people like that. I didn’t want to admit to Jake that my date had ended on good terms because he wouldn’t understand. I couldn’t be completely in the moment for this case, as much as I had wanted to turn my focus that way; James had gotten under my skin. There was no longer a need to tell him I wasn’t interested, at least I didn’t think so.

  When my mind had returned to me I was making breakfast sashaying around the kitchen. I was sure my feet were barely on the floor as I made a muffin. Normally I wasn’t an early person but today something was different. I didn’t even bother to get dressed so I was still in my bathrobe and pajamas( that were incredibly hard to keep out of food I noticed.) After an hour or so I got a text from Karen, apparently she too was awake early, probably working on another case.

  ‘Hey! How’d it go?! Call me.’ Was all the text said and I laughed in disbelief that she already wanted the intel. I messaged her back and told her I would call as soon as I had started my day and was sure she would blow up my phone with more messages before I could calm her.

  My computer chimed, another email, probably an update for the case, at least I had hoped so. Jake and I were stuck in this case. We had made some great discoveries but things weren’t progressing as fast as I thought they should. Most detectives would have had the case almost solved by now. As I sat down to check the computer I decided that we weren’t most detectives and we would be done when we were done. I just felt that there was a deadline on the case, like something in the distance was pushing us. Something was nagging me and I didn’t know what.

  “Yes Karen, he was very nice. He was a real gentleman, he bought me a rose, and the food was good too…” She laughed and kept bombarding me with questions. “Did you guys kiss? Come on, give me the goods!”

  “Karen please, there are just some things that I don’t want to talk about!” My face was red behind the phone; at least she couldn’t see me. Do you have anything else on the case?” I insisted that she tell me anything new that I could have just opened my email for.

  “Oh you want info on the case now huh? Sure you don’t just want more information on James so you can romance him?” She was baiting me and didn’t even know it; more information wouldn’t hurt on James since he was a suspect after all.

  “Maybe we can talk romance after the case,” I said forwardly and I heard a shriek on the other end, Karen was obviously pleased with my response.

  “Well you won’t like this much but I will!” Karen said after a moment of paper diving. I heard a thud where she tossed something on the other side of the phone, “Why not?”

  “Can
we just talk about your date now? I have nothing new for you, Steve is still dead in the same way. No new changes, sorry hun.” “That’s ok… was just hoping the email that came in was a new development, sorry Karen.” I felt so stupid about calling her for nothing but at least it gave us an open line of communication to talk about James.

  “So…” I started unsure of how to approach the subject, “What all can you tell me about James?”

  “Oh he’s a great guy! He went to school in Ohio, I’m unsure what school but he did a great job on his grades and graduated with honors. He likes to go out and get in to stuff, mostly going to the clubs or hiking, he’s really just all over the place living it up!”

  “Wow, that’s a lot, I’m not sure I could keep up with that Karen. You know I’m more of a homebody. Wouldn’t that cramp his style?” As much as I already liked James, if I couldn’t make a relationship work then there was no point in going any further. My heart sank a little.

  “Don’t worry about that Rach! If you like him pursue it, he sure does like you! Things will either work or they won’t. At least … try for me? I just want to see you happy and it sounds like you are!” Karen must have sensed my faltering. She was often a very deep person even though she worked with dead people all day that didn’t speak a word.

  “How do you know he likes me? Has he already talked to you? Are you seriously keeping a log on us!?” I was baffled by everything she knew between us already but my tone was light and joking.

  “Yea… he texted me after he dropped you off last night. Everything was good I promise! He just wanted to tell me how happy he was to have met you.” I was so relieved. How much sweeter could James be? His manners were amazing.

  “Ok Karen I believe you, no big deal. Well I’ll give you a call later if anything else develops with us, I promise, but now I need to really start working some more.” She understood and we hung up quickly, the butterflies were still dancing in my stomach.

  I messed around on the computer realizing my chime wasn’t a work email but some junk. That left me with no real new information. The office needed to be opened for the day even if Jake wasn’t returning after his late night at the club. I started to journey out of my townhouse and decided I would walk to work today. I wasn’t quite ready to give up my daydreams of James yet and walking would be the safest.

  Passing local shops with the streets abandoned at the time was invigorating. Some people were already inside hiding in the darkness getting ready to open their businesses and trying to wake up. Other places like coffee shops were swarming in people, everyone trying to get their daily fix of caffeine before doing their own jobs and I just walked around them. The weather was great, not too hot and not too cold. I could carry my stuff with me without my gloves and my hands thanked me for it because I had a lot.

  I turned down Eve Street, the corner where my office was and there wasn’t much of a shift in the population of people there either. I was staring down at the sidewalk probably grinning to myself looking either extremely happy as a morning person or looking like a complete fool. I didn’t want to see my reflection to find out but I looked up anyhow, an unconscious habit that most people had and at that moment something flew past me with a jolt.

  My books were knocked out of my hand and scattered across the sidewalk. I was instantly frustrated but bent down to pick everything up anyway. My arm stung from the impact but it was nothing compared to what I had found. Mixed in with the pile of papers was a man’s wallet. The photo strip was opened and the two faces looking back at me were none other than Gloria, our dead guy’s wife and James, my new interest. Apparently I wasn’t the only one that had taken the impact from the crash.

  “Hey watch where you are going you airhead!” I heard someone above me say; I stood up and held out the newly found wallet. “Care to try that again James?” I had no respect for someone that insulted me, accident or not.

  “Rachel hi! I am so sorry, everything happened so fast and then there were things everywhere in the air…,” he hesitated, “You’re not an airhead, I shouldn’t have said that.” The look upon his face said he was embarrassed and already beating himself up for it.

  “Having a rough morning? So am I. That picture in your wallet is cute though. Was that an old girlfriend you graduated with?” I ignored his bashfulness completely and quickly made up some crap question after seeing Gloria’s face. We both were not in our right minds when we smacked in to each other.

  “Oh no!” He laughed, “That was a friend of mine that came to the ceremony. Her name is Gloria. She was the only one I could get to go and I decided to save my only fan in my wallet apparently.” The sentence sounded incredibly narcissistic but I didn’t know much about James so I had no scope of his personality. I just wanted to know why Gloria was there. Was she a friend? What didn’t I know about this connection? How did they get there?

  “Hey, you ok?” James brought me back to the moment, “Look you should be more careful next time. Who knows what would have happened if you were someone else that wanted to fight about our little accident.” What was that supposed to mean? My fight or flight senses kicked in and my hands started to shake. The way he emphasized that last word really had bothered me. I didn’t know what he was capable of and I didn’t want to find out.

  “Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention,” I hung my head avoiding him, “I was just thinking about our date last night… and I guess… I guess I got caught up in the moment.” Trying to suck up while flirting, ridiculous, I thought! I tried desperately to not look up but I was hard wired to look people in the face, my own had heated up and turned red from my brutal honesty. My emotions were just everywhere today. Normally I could hold my head high and not give a damn what people wanted from me and who was he to insert his dominance over me?Something was definitely changing.

  Ben closed the door to his office and took his seat across from me. This type of meeting was not uncommon. After I had helped Ben with what turned out to be my first case, the chief of police had instituted protocols in order to make sure that everything was done legally. There would be no point in my helping if a defensive attorney could have everything that I had uncovered thrown out. My official title was special consultant, but I was a private investigator. Ben used me most often, but occasionally another detective would ask for my help.

  “Thanks for coming in Rachel,” Ben said, “I hope you weren’t doing anything.”

  “I was just looking at this case,” I replied. And wondering if I had dinner with the killer a few nights ago I thought. Ben nodded and pulled a few pieces of paper out of a brown folder. My heart sank a little as I counted three sheets. Anything less than ten meant the police had almost nothing to go on. Ben looked at the papers and then up at me.

  “Steve Calloway should have been at the bottom on anybody’s hit list. No outstanding debts, no real arrest record to speak of. He was not a witness for anyone’s case or in a civil manner. If someone had killed him, it should have been a random home invasion or a hit and run. Nothing in this man’s past suggests the kind of hate that led to him ending up on that stove.”

  I nodded. “That’s what we think as well. We are working under the assumption that it might not have been Steve the killer was going after. Perhaps Steve was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  Ben nodded. “We are working on that as well. Joshua Buckstone made some enemies in the restaurant world. There is a question if he got a permit for one of his places illegally, there is a case pending about the unfair firing of some workers…”

  “Colorado is a right to work state. Anyone can be terminated at any time for no cause at all.” I didn’t mean to interrupt Ben, but this line of reasoning seemed to me to be a dead end. Ben smiled, taking no offensive at my interruption.

  “This is also America Rachel. Anyone can sue anyone for no cause at all.” He flipped his very short stack of papers face down. “There is a question about the son, a James Buckstone.” On the surface, my face remained impress
ive. But inside, my heart began to beat faster. “Any reason to suspect him?”

  Ben shook his head. “Not really. Apparently father and son had a huge falling out. Might be nothing at all, but it does tie in to your theory that the murder was more about the location then the actually killing.”

  James might have been a little short tempered, but did he have the capacity to kill? I did not know for sure. One of the things Jake always kidded me about was that I could never let something go unless I was one hundred percent sure. With James, I was at about eight –five percent sure. Maybe ninety.

  The sound of raised voices caused me to turn my head. After a few seconds, the door flew open and Joshua was standing before us. His face had turned a deep shade of red and he looked a little out of control. He pointed a finger at Ben.

  “My restaurant is still closed. When will it be allowed to reopen?”

  Ben stood. He was not happy about this interruption, but he remained calm. “Mr. Buckstone, as I told you six times over the phone. Until we process the restaurant, it is a crime scene and we cannot…”

  “What about all the money I am losing Detective? Is your department ready to reimburse me for my lost revenue?” Ben held his hands out. “If you want to speak to someone higher up, I’m sure I could arrange that.”

  “My restaurant is going to need a top to bottom cleaning. Two days max it will take..” He trailed off as he finally noticed me sitting in front of him. His eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here?”

  What came out of my mouth next was unexpected, but not uncommon. I had found that after working with Jake for so long, sometimes it was his words that came out of my mouth.

  “Still waiting for you to answer all of my questions.” Joshua gapped at me. Without another word, he turned and left the office. Ben sat back down. “Why the hell did you say that to him?”

  I shrugged. “Sometimes, Jake speaks for me.” Ben frowned. I knew almost immediately it was the wrong thing to say. “And what would we do if we were deprived of Jake Morningstar?”