by Jessica Beck
“Understood,” the sheriff said. “Thanks for the tip, Victoria.”
“You’re welcome.” I was about to ask him if he’d made any real progress on the case, but he hung up before I had the chance. Maybe he’d done that on purpose, just to stall my inevitable questions that were sure to follow.
After I hung up my phone and started to put it away, Greg asked, “Aren’t you going to call Moose and tell him what just happened?”
“I suppose I’d better, but he’s not going to be too pleased with me.”
“Why not?” Greg asked. “You did everything you could.”
“You and I both know that, but I’m sure that in Moose’s mind, he’s going to be disappointed that I didn’t lock Loretta in the bathroom until he could get here so he could grill her himself.”
Greg smiled at that reference. “You still need to call him.”
I did as my husband suggested, and as predicted, Moose was unhappy that I hadn’t been able to get more out of Loretta, but mostly he took it in stride.
“At the very least, we have another motivated suspect to add to our list,” Moose said. “If she was telling you the truth, greed might be a factor in her committing murder.”
“But why now?” I asked. “Wouldn’t she want to take the opportunity to meet the man who was her father before she killed him?”
“He might have been the biological contributor, but from the sound of things, he did nothing to help raise her, emotionally or financially. From the sound of this woman, she must be pretty cold.”
“Icy,” I agreed.
“Don’t worry about a thing, Victoria. You did the right thing calling the sheriff.”
“Even despite her warning not to say anything?” I asked.
“Our family never lets threats keep us from doing what we think is right,” Moose said. “We never have, and we’re not about to start now.”
“No matter what might happen because of this?” I asked. For some reason, this petite woman’s threat had unnerved me more than if it had been uttered by a two-hundred pound madman.
“No matter what,” Moose replied.
The rest of the evening was fairly quiet, and though we weren’t anywhere near our usual number of diners throughout the remainder of our time open, the drop-off wasn’t so large that a casual observer would notice it.
I knew, though.
We wouldn’t feel the losses much at the cash register, but if this trend continued, The Charming Moose could be in some serious trouble.
“Are you ready to head home?” Greg asked me as he came up front from the kitchen area. “Everything’s set back in the back.”
“Almost; I need one more second,” I said. Since Martha had spent some time working the cash register, I was running into a few discrepancies, nothing too large to worry about too much, but enough to make me scratch my head and wonder how she’d managed to come up with four dollars and twenty seven cents more than the report showed we should have. I balanced out the tape with the irregular entry, and then I did my best not to think about it.
After zipping the money, credit card receipts, and our deposit slip into a bank bag, I turned to Greg and said, “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”
“How bad was it?” he asked with a grin as he pointed to the night-deposit bag.
“All I can say is that it could have been worse,” I replied.
“In the end, that’s the best we can hope for, isn’t it?”
“I suppose so,” I said. “I just wish that it wasn’t necessary for Martha to pitch in so much around here. She’s earned her retirement, and she should be able to enjoy it.”
“You don’t see her when she’s working,” Greg said. “I wouldn’t worry about your grandmother at all. She might not be great with the register, but folks absolutely love her, and it’s clear that the feeling is mutual.”
I nodded absently, and Greg pressed me a bit. “Victoria, you seem down. Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Not unless you know the identity of who killed Roy Thompson,” I said.
Greg shrugged a little. “Sorry, but that’s one area where I can’t help you out.”
I nodded. “I know. Don’t get me wrong; it would have been bad enough if Roy had been killed with something else today, but the fact that it was your dessert makes it a thousand times worse. Greg, why aren’t you more upset about it than you seem to be? After all, you’re the one who made that cake.”
“I don’t deny it, but whoever put poison in that slice killed Roy, not me. I can’t change what happened. You and Moose are trying to find out who did it, so what’s left for me to do? Worrying won’t solve a thing, so I refuse to let it steal a single minute of my life that it doesn’t have to.”
“I just wish that I felt the way you do,” I admitted. “Sometimes I really envy your happy disposition.”
He took me in his arms and hugged me. “Well, we’re even. I admire your willingness to put yourself in harm’s way just to be sure that justice is done. You don’t give yourself enough credit for the things you do, and more important than that, the things you are.”
“How did I get so lucky finding you?” I asked as I stared into my husband’s eyes.
“I like to think that we’re both lucky,” Greg said.
I was about to reply when I saw the hint of a frown forming on his lips. “What’s wrong? Did you change your mind about being lucky that fast?”
“No, it’s not that. To be honest with you, I planned a surprise for you for tonight, but I’m not sure it’s the best time to spring it on you now.”
That was so sweet of him. “If it’s a happy surprise, it’s always welcome,” I said. “You should know that by now.”
“That’s good, because I can’t wait.”
I hesitated a few seconds, and then I asked him, “What are you waiting for? Let’s have it,” I said as I stuck my hands out greedily.
“I don’t have it on me,” Greg said with a laugh. “You’ll have to wait until we get home to get it.”
“Exactly what kind of surprise are we talking about here, Greg?”
He laughed as I raised one eyebrow. “Victoria, I can give you two hints. It stays outside all of the time, and I had to have help to make it happen.”
I bit my lower lip as I considered the possibilities. “Those have to be two of the worst hints ever in the history of the Guessing Game.”
“That’s because you’re not supposed to guess. I’m afraid that you’re just going to have to wait until we get home.”
“Then, what are we standing around here for?” I asked him. “Let’s go.”
“Yes, Ma’am, but we’re still stopping by the bank first.”
“You’re no fun at all,” I said with a laugh as we turned off the last few lights. Once that was accomplished, we locked the diner up for the night, got into our separate cars, and then Greg and I drove home together in single file. Since we worked such divergent shifts during the course of the day, it was a rare closing that found us both in the same vehicle at the end of the working day.
When we got home, I parked first as I looked wildly around the front yard, but I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. “I thought you said that it was outside,” I said as I met Greg when he opened his door.
“Have a little patience. It’s supposed to be in back,” he said as he took my hand and led me through the side yard. It was growing chilly out, and I instinctively walked a little closer to my husband, as though I was trying to draw some warmth from his presence. I didn’t care what was waiting for me in the back, no matter how sweet the gesture was. I promised myself that I’d spend at least thirty seconds admiring it after the unveiling, but then I was going to head straight inside, make some hot cocoa, and settle in for the night. It had been a long and trying day, and I for one was ready to see the end of it.
However, my husband clearly had other plans.
Chapter 7
“What is it?” I asked my husband as we stumbled arou
nd in the dark. “Can’t we have some kind of light back here?”
“We could, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise,” Greg said.
“If I’m in the hospital because I tripped and fell, there won’t be any surprise at all. I can always close my eyes, if that would help.”
I heard him laugh. “Victoria, if you close your eyes, how will that be any different from the way things are right now?”
“Well, at least, then, one of us will be able to see,” I said with a smile.
“Too late. We’re already here.” Greg flipped the switch to our outdoor lights in back, and I saw the new addition instantly.
“It’s the gas fire-pit I’ve had my eye on for months,” I said as I raced to it. “How did you manage to do this?”
“Jack Kiley at the hardware store owed me a favor, so he came over and set this up on his lunch break. There should already be propane in it,” he said as he knelt down to check. “I told him to leave some spare one-pound tanks. Look at that. They fit in your hand. Here are some matches, too,” Greg said happily. “Jack’s really on the ball. So, should I go ahead and light it?”
“I can’t wait,” I said as I pulled two chairs over to where the new pit was stationed. The propane went up with a satisfying whoosh, and in an instant, we had fire. “Wow, that’s a lot faster than getting a fire started in our old pit.” I looked over six yards to our original wood burning fire pit. Greg and I had enjoyed a lot of roasted marshmallows around that pit in the past. “We don’t have to get rid of Old Smokey just because we have this one now, do we?”
“No, Jack told me that this one doesn’t put out a lot of heat. It’s more here for the dancing flames, and the fact that we can have a ten minute fire whenever we want one. If we want some real heat, we’ll still have to fire up the wood-burning pit.”
“I feel so rich having both of them,” I said with a laugh. “Are you sure we can afford such decadence?”
“I think we’ve earned it,” he said. “Besides, it wasn’t that much. So, what do you say? Would you like to hang out around here a little, or should we shut it off and go inside?”
I shivered a little and warmed my hands near the fire. While it was true that the heat it put off couldn’t touch its wood-burning brother, it still managed to toast them nicely. “I can stay out a little if you can.”
“Tell you what,” Greg said. “Why don’t we wait until it warms up a little? I just wanted you to have this now whenever you wanted a little fire.”
“It’s wonderful,” I said, and then I kissed my husband soundly.
“Do you really like it?”
“How could I not love it? After all, you got it for me.”
Greg laughed. “Don’t forget, I got you those red and green socks one year for Christmas, too, and you haven’t worn them since.”
I smiled back at him, happy yet again that he was all mine. “That’s because I’m saving them for a special occasion. It wouldn’t do to wear them out.”
“No, by all means, save them,” he replied. I loved to hear the happiness in his voice. He’d surprised me—something I admitted was not that easy to do—with something I’d truly wanted. I knew all about that particular sense of elation, because it was the same feeling I got when I managed to reverse roles and do it for him.
As Greg leaned over to turn off the propane feed to the flames, I said, “Leave it on for another few minutes. I love watching the flames dance in the wind.”
“That’s something we can’t do with our old fire-pit,” Greg said. “It would be too dangerous.”
“Shh, not so loud; she might hear you,” I said.
Greg didn’t comment, other than to shake his head and smile.
Things were good, at least they were at home between us. It was a shame that murder had to intrude on our lives. Without that, I just might be able to say that my life was perfect exactly the way it was. Sure, we could have used more money, and even more important, more time together, but what we had was pretty excellent, and I wasn’t about to take one second of it for granted.
“Mom, what happened here?” I asked my mother in dismay the next morning as I neared the diner. It was still dark out, but there was enough light coming from the street so I could see the glass window at the front of the diner. Someone had painted a giant X through the lettering in bright red paint, Mom had brought out a bucket and rag with her from inside.
“My guess is that vandals were having a little fun at our expense,” she said as she started to wipe the wet rag through the paint.
“That’s not going to work,” I said just as the paint started to smear. How odd. “That shouldn’t happen, should it?”
“It’s not real paint,” Mom said as she dunked her rag back into the bucket, and then she cleaned away the smeared edge she’d just made.
“It looks real enough to me,” I said.
“Somebody must have bought some of that special paint folks use to decorate their windows for Christmas. It washes off easily enough. I suppose it could have been a lot worse. I swear, sometimes I wonder what teenagers do with themselves these days.”
“What makes you think that teenagers did it?” I asked as I took the rag from her and reached a few areas she couldn’t get to. She was right about one thing; the paint came off easily enough when it got wet.
“Well, if they’d meant any real harm, they wouldn’t have bothered with the paint, now would they? If someone wanted to send us a message, a rock through the window would have been quite a bit more effective, don’t you think?”
I didn’t even want to consider the possibility of how bad a mess broken glass would have made, but I still couldn’t accept the fact that this was just a random act of mischief.
We had just about finished cleaning the window when a squad car drove up, and the driver parked in such a way that his headlights reflected off our glass.
Sheriff Croft got out, and then he nodded in our direction. “Melinda, Victoria. It’s awfully early to be Spring cleaning, isn’t it?”
“Someone spray-painted a big red X on our window,” I told him.
“So, they got you, too?”
“What do you mean, too? Who else got tagged with paint?”
The sheriff pointed toward the square. “I’ve seen four other businesses so far myself, and I just got started.” He studied our window, and then he asked, “How’d you get it so clean? Is that just soap and water in your bucket?”
Mom explained, “It’s just temporary paint, Sheriff. I keep telling Victoria that it’s random mischief, but she doesn’t believe me.”
The sheriff turned to me. “You haven’t been interviewing my suspects behind my back, have you?”
“We haven’t talked to anyone on your list,” I said, happy that I could tell him the absolute truth.
“That means that you’ve started a list of your own, then, doesn’t it?” he asked.
“How could you possibly know that?” Mom asked.
“It just figures, Melinda. If your daughter truly believes that someone is warning her off of her investigation, that means that she had to have spoken to at least one person she believes is a suspect, and most likely it’s more than one.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked. He was right, but I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of acknowledging anything he said at the moment.
“If there was just one suspect, you’d have mentioned them by name. Now, why don’t we all go inside, have some coffee, and you can tell me all about it? There is coffee, isn’t there?”
“I just brewed a fresh batch,” Mom said with a smile. “Come on in, and I’ll pour you some.”
Sheriff Croft rubbed his hands together to ward off the chill, and then he smiled. “I don’t mind if I do.”
We went inside, and Mom started flipping on all of the overhead lights. I wondered when she’d had time to make coffee, but then I realized that she’d had to come back outside once she got the soap, water, and the rag, so she must have flipped the coffee
pot on as she’d walked past it. I grabbed three cups, but Mom shook her head. “None for me. I get jumpy when I start drinking caffeine this early. I’m going to go into the kitchen and get things started. Cleaning off all of that paint put me a little behind.”
“That’s fine,” I said, and then I returned one of the cups to the stack. I grabbed the pot, topped off two cups, and then delivered them to the counter where the sheriff was sitting.
He took a sip, and then smiled. “That’s awfully good.”
“Have you been up all night?” I asked.
“Do I look that rough?” he responded. “I got up an hour ago, but it’s true that I was up late last night. The work of a county sheriff never seems to get finished, and the lines between days and nights sometimes blur together more than I’d like.”
I decided to cut the man a little slack. I had an inkling of how hard he worked, but I was certain that, overall, I didn’t have any idea what the entire scope of his responsibilities were.
“So, who have you and your grandfather been speaking to about Roy Thompson?” he asked after another sip.
“Well, we did have a little luck,” I admitted. “But first, tell me what happened when you spoke with Loretta Jenkins. Do you think she’s telling the truth about Roy being her father?”
“As a matter of fact, I couldn’t find her, though it wasn’t from lack of trying. She wasn’t at her apartment, and I didn’t have any luck tracking that cell phone number down, either. Are you sure that she gave you the right number?”
“I’m positive,” I said. “Honest, I didn’t just make her up. Greg and Martha saw her, too.”
“I’m not doubting that someone came in here claiming to be Roy’s daughter, but I can’t do anything about her until I actually see the woman myself. If she comes back here today, give me a call, would you?”
“Of course,” I said. That was odd. Where was Loretta all of a sudden?
“So, who’s the next name on your list?” he asked after he took another sip.