Marvels, Mochas, and Murder

by Christine Zane Thomas

  My heartbeat only grew faster as I walked up to Jill’s front door. The house was nice but smaller than most in the area. Like the others, the house was on stilts. The first floor served as a makeshift carport. It was mildly disconcerting that there was no car parked there.

  The siding was shiplap, canary yellow. Both were common enough—there was an almost identical home merely three doors down.

  I’d asked Neil to wait at the end of the driveway. I couldn’t hear his car engine running. Damn Prius. I had to check to ensure he was still parked. This definitely seemed like it was going to be a short trip.

  I knocked. I rang the doorbell.

  Nothing. No sounds came from inside.

  “Jill,” I called, banging on the door a little harder this time. I tried calling her, fully expecting to hear her ringer on the other side.

  But, nothing.

  Sighing, I readied to leave. Maybe Jill had popped out to get something, or more likely, she’d left town. She knew something—I’d convinced myself of that. And I was desperate to know what that was.

  I took the stairs down by two, but stopped when I heard it. The sound of cars driving fast into the neighborhood. When the first took the turn in on Jill’s street, my heart skipped a beat—it was having a rough day.

  Felicia’s green Impala skidded to a stop behind Neil’s Prius.

  Felicia jumped out, and my hands instinctively went up. “She’s not here,” I announced.

  Detective Ross slung the passenger side door out, and he exited the vehicle slowly, stretching, allowing Felicia enough time to put herself between us.

  Then Felicia whispered soft enough that only I could hear, “I know she’s not here, Kirby. Her body just washed up by Mattonie Point.”

  12

  Detective Ross tapped the top of Neil’s Prius. A satisfied grin washed over the detective’s already smug face.

  “Have a good day, kid,” he told the driver. “We’ll take good care of Mr. Jackson from here. I promise.”

  Again, I sat in the back of Felicia’s unmarked car, when only this morning I’d sat in the front seat with the ability to open my own door.

  “Come on. You know I had nothing to do with this.”

  Jill adjusted the rearview mirror to look at me. “I briefed Alex on the way over,” she said. “Kirby, he knows that I sort of steered you in this direction. It’s not that you were here, per se, but from what we’ve gathered, you were one of the last people to see Mrs. Adams alive.”

  Mrs. Adams? It flustered me how easy Felicia switched into cop mode. We knew Jill. We grew up with Jill. That wasn’t even her maiden name. Labeling her Mrs. Adams, or the deceased—like they did with Ryan—it felt wrong.

  “I might be one of the last,” I said. “But I wasn’t the last. Remember, Marc said she went into Sky Bar and did shots. And then she texted me, right before Corey Ottley forced me off the road.”

  “Speaking of,” Detective Ross lowered himself into the passenger seat, “I’m going need your phone for a bit.”

  “Don’t you need like a warrant for that?”

  “I could probably get one.” Ross smiled.

  “Fine, you can have it,” I said through gritted teeth.

  Pleasing Detective Ross was all but impossible. He wasn’t friendly. And for whatever reason, he didn’t like me. At the station though, he did eventually relent, at least treating me like an actual person, knowing there was no way I had anything to do with Jill’s or Ryan’s death.

  But I really had no other information to give the detectives. I told them what Jill had said on the dock, then about her text that night, which Ross saw while perusing my phone. Jill hadn’t shown the next day to divulge anything further.

  “If you think of anything else, you call us.” Ross handed me back the phone. “No more of this investigation. I don’t care that Detective Strong led you into that direction. If I see you at a crime scene again, I’m charging you with obstruction.”

  Felicia just sat there tightlipped, allowing Ross to speak. She put her hand on my shoulder as we exited the room, but just as quickly the hand was gone. A momentary lapse in judgment? Maybe. But the notions Marc had placed in my head were still nagging on me. Felicia had liked me in high school. Liked me, liked me. God, even my innermost thoughts sounded like a teenage girl.

  It was just that after everything with Gwen, I wasn’t eager to find someone new. All the dates I’d been on were set up by Ryan, or one time, Memaw. Those women were nice. But the thought of starting over, of learning someone new, was daunting.

  Felicia wasn’t someone new. Sure, she’d changed in the past ten years. But only enough for me to take notice. She was everything I wanted.

  I exited the police station for the second time in a week. The feeling of freedom washed over me—along with the humid air. I didn’t want this to become a habit.

  Once outside, I realized I didn’t have a ride back. And I did have a date that night. I texted Felicia, this time on her personal cell.

  Felicia came out of the police station shaking her head, and thankfully, without Detective Ross. She was going to drive me over to Memaw’s for dinner.

  “Would you mind if we, uh, picked up Gambit?” I asked hesitantly. The day hadn’t gone to plan. I was supposed to be back at the shop a whole lot sooner. But I’d texted Sarah, explaining. Well, explaining the best I could. The text had read like this: I’m at the police station. Yes, again. But I’m just helping out. I’ll be back tonight.

  “What am I? Your chauffeur now?” Felicia joked. “And when is it you get your car back, again?”

  “Sometime in the next day or so.” I shrugged. “I’ll just use that HytchHiker app to get around town if I need to.”

  “That’s the silly one, right? The less reputable Uber.”

  “Right. Anyone can be a driver or a passenger. They don’t keep records. It’s a flat rate per ride. Then the actual cost is purely agreed upon between the driver and rider.”

  “How much was your drive this morning, over to the island?”

  “More than I wanted to pay,” I admitted. “But that kid was nice enough.” My memory was jogged. “Hey… So, he did tell me something interesting—the driver, that is.”

  “Interesting? Interesting how?”

  “Something pertaining to the case. To Ryan’s murder.” I hesitated before saying anymore. I was already getting used to Felicia shooting each and every one of my crime solving ideas down. But she encouraged me to go on. “He said he had a hiker that night. Late, late enough it could be our killer. He picked the guy up close to the shop.”

  I waited for the inevitable response. Kirby, you’re reading too much into this. So I was surprised when she said, “Could be…”

  “Listen. I know what you’re going to say,” I said. “It could just be someone who needed a ride…”

  “No.” Felicia shook her head. “I think you might be onto something—I really do. This is Niilhaasi after all. Who’d be needing a ride from Main Street at that time of night? Everything’s buttoned up.”

  I let her sit with the information, to stew with it while I ran inside to pick up Gambit.

  Sarah was closing the shop. She gave me a death stare. “You owe me.”

  “I do. I’m sorry.” I knew she meant more than money. But I owed her a raise. “We’ll talk tomorrow, okay?”

  She nodded.

  I ran back out to the waiting car, Gambit in hand. The dachshund scurried across the seat and greeted Felicia. It seemed his one night with her had been enough to bond them for life. His tongue somehow found the inside of her nostrils.

  She giggled and pushed him away.

  It was a short drive from the shop. We mostly sat in silence, no radio, just the occasional police chatter across the CB.

  “I’m missing something,” she finally said. “I just don’t know what.”

  She exhaled hard as she threw the car into park on Memaw’s dirt track of a driveway. And for the first time, I saw through her
facade—perhaps because she was allowing me to. At first, I thought Felicia was just struggling through the problem. Then a tear rolled down Felicia’s cheek. Then another. The case had spun into something more than either of us could handle emotionally.

  “Jill,” she sobbed. “I can’t believe it was Jill this morning.”

  I unbuckled and went in for one of the more awkward hugs of my life across the front seat of a police car. While it was an Impala, it still had all the additional accoutrements of any standard police car. She cried into my shoulder for a minute. Then, like a switch, cop mode was turned back on. Drying her tears with a crisply starched sleeve, she turned to me, red eyes and all. “Kirby,” she said, “I can’t tell you exactly what happened, but it wasn’t suicide. She didn’t do this to herself.”

  I’d already gathered this, but I nodded anyway. I thought of Corey. In my head, I’d already pinned this on him as well.

  But every time I put it together, things didn’t add up. Corey would’ve needed to be in two places at once, or so it seemed. He tailed me from the parking lot and sped off toward the island… Unless he went back, which Marc never indicated, Corey wasn’t Jill’s killer. He might not be Ryan’s either…

  And if he wasn’t? Then who was?

  My fingertips rested on the handle of the door. I gave Felicia my best halfhearted smile, pushing it open gingerly.

  “Kirby… We’re gonna find this guy.”

  The word guy sounded strangely off. I cocked my head in contemplation.

  “That’s it!” I roared, unable to hold back the excitement of piecing together the clues. “There’s something else I forgot to tell you. Marc said Robin Snider was at the wake. It was her—I’d bet anything.”

  13

  “I don’t buy it. Did Felicia say what this Robin girl’s alibi is?” Memaw asked.

  She looked up at me, micromanaging my replacement of her bathroom lightbulbs. I twisted another from the fixture above my head.

  Gambit must’ve also thought I needed an extra pair of paws. That or he was truly starting to take a liking to me. He’d followed us both into the cramped room after sniffing around the house.

  “You know she didn’t.” I gave Memaw a look.

  And she gave me one right back. “I’m hoping she’ll open up. She’s your friend after all. It’s not like you’ll tell anyone.”

  “Yeah. Sure. Not like I’ll tell anyone. Well, except you. And not like you’d tell anyone…”

  I let that sit with her. Memaw wasn’t the town gossip. But she was a town gossip. I handed her the spent bulb and she handed me the replacement.

  “How long have some of these been out?” I asked her.

  “Well… A few have been out a while. And the last one went out the other day. You know I don’t like heights.”

  “The other day? Memaw! This stepladder is two feet high. How’ve you been showering?” Memaw’s house only had one and a half baths.

  “Oh, I don’t smell that bad, do I?”

  “Memaw!” I said again. “You should’ve called me.”

  “Oh, I know you’re busy. But this is part of the reason I asked you over for dinner.” She sniffed at her armpit self-consciously.

  I almost didn’t notice it, a mischievous gleam in her eye, a look Memaw reserved for being coy. I’d hardly seen her use it since Pawpaw’s passing. And usually it had been reserved for when she’d spent his money on something he wouldn’t approve of.

  Yet there it was.

  “Part of the reason?” I asked skeptically in an ode to Pawpaw voice.

  “Now, don’t be mad with me,” she started. What she didn’t know was it was impossible for me to be mad with her. She was Memaw and that meant something—that is, everything.

  “I invited Barbara over,” she said. “Her niece just moved here. And she doesn’t know anyone. I thought maybe…”

  “You thought maybe you’d introduce us?”

  “Right. Exactly.” Memaw nodded. A curl of an unashamed wanna-be-cupid meddling found its way to her lips.

  No, I wasn’t mad with Memaw. I was mad at the situation. The one she’d put me in.

  Memaw showered while I went around the rest of the house replacing more lightbulbs. Then I set the table for four. It’d been a long time since the table had seen that number. I was reminded to call my mom and dad. Last week’s excitement had of course found its way to Facebook, and I’d already “missed” several calls.

  The smell of pot roast simmering in the crock pot wafted throughout the house. Gambit wasn’t the only one with his mouth watering. I set a bowl of water down for him and found him a snack of baby carrots.

  Ryan used to keep treats in his pockets the way my Pawpaw had kept change in his. I needed to work out a similar system.

  Half an hour later, the doorbell rang. Mrs. Simone, Barb to her friends, looked as she always did—like she was just coming from church. She wore a dress. Her short dyed-black hair was straightened and perfect. Oval wire-framed spectacles sat at the tip of her button nose. She was displeased when Gambit bounded over for a sniff at her ankles.

  “Does he bite?” she asked.

  “I, uh, I don’t think so…”

  “No, I think he bit me.” She rubbed at her ankle.

  “It’s just his nose,” I said, pulling the dog back. There might have been a nip in there. But I couldn’t let Barbara Simone think that or Gambit would be touted as the town mongrel who’d almost bit off her leg.

  Mrs. Simone ushered herself inside about as far away from the dachshund as she could manage. Then her niece inched forward shyly. She squatted down, just inside the doorframe, and put her hand out for Gambit to sniff.

  But the dog felt no need to sniff. He nuzzled his head beneath her hand in an attempt to get a scratch on the ears. He was rewarded handsomely.

  Barb Simone’s niece was one of the most beautiful girls I’d seen in my life. And I just stood there, awkwardly staring with my mouth open.

  She was brunette, which I’d come to understand as my type. Her eyes were the same honey brown as her hair. Like me, she wasn’t aware of the occasion. That is, she wasn’t aware we were being set up. She wore shorts and flip-flops. She wasn’t wearing noticeable makeup, and her hair was tied back lazily in a ponytail.

  “I’m Avett,” she introduced herself. She stuck out her hand for me to shake but maneuvered the other one to take its place behind Gambit’s ear.

  “Kirby,” I said. Her hands were soft.

  “Kirby is Martha’s grandson. He runs the little coffee shop on Main Street.”

  “The comic book one?” Avett smiled with the question.

  “Yeah… The comic book one.”

  “That’s so cute,” she said. And she scooped Gambit from the floor, cradling him. His tail wagged furiously.

  I couldn’t say why I didn’t want my coffee shop to be labeled cute. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. But something about it didn’t sit well. I immediately wanted Avett to like me. And cute, I knew all too well, led straight to the friend zone.

  Mrs. Simone quickly got me out of this quandary. “It wasn’t so cute last week with a dead body lying cold on the floor.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” Avett said. “That was your friend, right? I was sorry to hear about that. Did they find who was responsible?”

  “Not yet.” I shook my head.

  “But Kirby thinks he knows who did it.” Memaw graced us with her presence. Her hair was still damp. She found a middle-ground between Barb Simone’s attire and the casual apparel worn by myself and Avett.

  Given the opportunity, they might’ve called us the younger crowd, but Avett wasn’t all that young. She was probably my age, thirty-ish. I wondered if there was a story behind why she moved here. Then, of course, I knew there was—everyone has a story. But was Avett’s the cliché? Was she recently divorced and looking for a fresh start in a new place? Or maybe she just graduated from some long grad school program. Maybe she was a doctor or a lawyer.

 
; There was only one way to find out…

  14

  “Does your grandmother set up all your dates?” Avett asked. We’d just dropped off Barb, and Avett was driving Gambit and me back to the store.

  “No. Not all of them,” I answered. “Wait… Was this a date?”

  Avett smiled—something she did often enough for me to notice the small dimple on the right side of her cheek. She gave me a quick knowing glance before returning her eyes to the road. She knew I liked her. And this was a game. One she played well.

  “Maybe not a date exactly,” she said. “But if we do go on a date, it wouldn’t be a blind one. Which, trust me, I’ve gone on enough blind dates this past year to last a lifetime.”

  “Really?”

  “Well,” she clucked her tongue on the roof of her mouth, “some were blind dates—set up by my girlfriends in Atlanta. Others, uh, they were from using an app. I don’t care what app it is, the one with the fire, the matchmaker one, whatever—those are blind dates. Not a single guy looked like his profile photo.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “The worst.” She smiled again. I could definitely get used to it. “So, Kirby, tell me how a guy like you is still single. You are single, right? Aunt Barb said you were, but I did have a friend back in Atlanta try to set me up with a married man. Granted, she didn’t know he was married.”

  “I’m single,” I said. “As single as they come, really. So, I was engaged. It’s been just over a year, I guess. It feels like longer, ya know?”

  “Yeah. I know exactly what you mean. I’m guessing you’re not the one who called it off?”

  “No,” I answered. “I am. But it was after I came home and found her with someone else. This guy she was supposedly studying with—I don’t know if they ever studied.”

  “Well, they did study something,” she said sardonically.

  “Yeah. Each other.” I smiled despite myself. A trace of something painful flashed in my chest but disappeared almost as quickly as it came.