Willow frowned at the screen, then tossed the phone back into its spot on the sofa. It was the same message her waitress had sent her the day before, but yesterday she’d put it down to a severe case of Monday-itis. Today it raised the first small voice of concern.
Anyone could have a bad day occasionally, but two in a row meant true illness. Tiffany was young enough to fight off a bout of flu or a late summer cold, but Willow’s reserves seemed to run lower with each passing year. If Tiffany had passed on a bug to her, it might knock Willow out for a week or more. Then where would she be?
Exactly where you were before, Willow chided herself. So long as Wendy and Tiffany were available to run the tea rooms, Harmony was always happy to lend a hand as needed. Willow had spent short periods of time out of the business before with no one noticing her absence, and she could do the same again. Still, that thought didn’t sit right with her either.
“Come on in,” Willow whispered to Mavis, who’d stuck her silky striped head around the corner. “I see you there, waiting for your breakfast.”
The kitten trotted up to her bowl, then sat back on her haunches waiting.
“Coming right up, Your Majesty. Today it’s your favorite, chicken and ham.”
Of course, every day started with Mavis’s favorite. Once Willow had established which flavor that was, it seemed far more comfortable than providing an assortment. As she flicked the kettle on for her morning cuppa, Willow wished she could enjoy her favorite food every morning, right on the dot. Alas, her doctor wouldn’t approve of sugared donuts daily and neither would her waistline.
Willow showered, changed, and stood ready to face the day when her best friend Harmony knocked on the front door.
“I’m here again as the backup troops,” she announced, sweeping inside and looking at least a hundred times more awake than Willow felt. “Tiffany told me she’s taking another day off.”
“Are you sure you’re okay filling in?” Willow asked. She’d asked her friend the exact same question at least twenty times the day before and been told yes, but it never hurt to check. “I can always ring around the temp agency and ask for someone to fill in for the next few days.”
“Don’t be silly.” Harmony gave Willow a kiss on the cheek before sweeping through to the tea rooms and turning on all the Zip water heaters, getting them ready for service.
“At least let me pay you since it’s not just the one day.”
At that, Harmony turned and laughed. “Considering how many freebies I’ve had off you since you opened, I think if we tried to square up with what we owe each other, I’d be well into the red. Don’t worry about it.”
Wendy arrived a few minutes later, smiling as she saw Harmony laying out the tables. “I’m so glad you’re here again. You can finish telling me all about the tectonic plates.”
Willow caught that just as she walked in with a few fresh sprigs of herbs from the garden. She smiled to herself as Harmony launched into a lengthy explanation. Her friend seemingly absorbed the entire wealth of knowledge stored in the library—Harmony’s favorite place to hang out beside the tea room—and was always keen to share. Her interests were strange and eclectic but always entertaining.
“Let me give you a brush down before customers arrive,” Willow told Mavis, grabbing her special molting gloves off the counter in the laundry where she’d hung them to dry. In the past few weeks, Mavis had left a trail of discarded hairs in her wake wherever she moved, shedding her light summer coat to prepare for the oncoming winter.
Even with her allergy shots up to date and keeping her bedroom Mavis free for the past month, Willow still fought a battle with her allergies. She hoped the change from winter to spring wouldn’t be nearly so eye-reddening, but ruefully admitted to herself that it might be far worse.
“We might have to introduce you to outside living,” Willow told her kitten, who struggled to catch her mittens with each stroke, thinking it was a game. “I’m sure the grass and bushes outside don’t mind if you shed hairs on them.”
Despite her ever-increasing size, Mavis seemed determined to be an indoor cat. In moments of self-reflection, Willow wondered if it was the shock of seeing a dead body or two lying outside that caused it. Much as she’d tried to shield her kitten from such terrible sights, Mavis was on hand for a lot of unpleasantness.
Still, hopefully, all those dreadful incidents were now well behind them, and they could both concentrate on all the good things the world had coming their way.
“Looks like someone’s in trouble,” Wendy crowed as a car pulled up outside.
Willow let Mavis escape her clutches for the safety of the floor as she pulled the grooming gloves off. The sheriff’s car sat right by her front door, and she frowned while walking over to open up.
“Jacob, if you insist on coming around here at the crack of dawn, could you at least park the car somewhere unobtrusive?” Willow called out in greeting to Sheriff Wender. “I’ll have customers coming along any minute, and they don’t need to speculate that I’m in trouble with the law.”
The sheriff, who’d only just stepped out of the vehicle when Willow opened the door, looked around him. “There’s nobody here.”
“Yet.” She crossed her arms. “What is it you’ve come for?”
“Can I at least come inside, so we don’t have to shout at each other out on the street?”
Willow stepped to one side, waving him through, and the sheriff sat down on the sofa, right on top of her phone.
“Careful.” She picked it out of Sheriff Wender’s fingertips as he looked about for where to put it. “Now, what brings you here this morning?”
He waited for a moment for her to sit, then when she didn’t, gave a short nod. “I’m here to see about one of your waitresses. Tiffany Woodcock? Her husband Clay has reported her missing.”
“What?” Willow frowned down at the man, then scrolled through her phone to the messages. “She just sent this text to me this morning.”
The sheriff read it through and nodded. “Have you actually seen her or talked to her recently? I’m interested in her movements since late on Saturday night.”
Harmony poked her head through the connecting door from the tea rooms. “Everything all right in here? Morning, sheriff.”
“Have you spoken with Tiffany since Saturday?” Willow asked. “Her husband’s reported her missing.”
“Sure, I have.” Harmony frowned as she looked down at the floor, apparently deep in thought. “I’ve spoken with her a few times. She hasn’t been able to work the last few days so asked me to cover for her.”
“And you talked to her?”
Willow walked through to the tea room as she saw a couple walking up the side path. “Excuse me.” She left Harmony and the sheriff talking as two regulars—Larry and Tanya McDaniel—who ran the Aniseed Valley horticultural society, walked inside.
“I’m so glad to see you both,” Willow said as she seated them at the table with the best view of her garden. “My chrysanthemums and heliotrope have just come into bloom, and I wondered if you had any secrets on how to keep them blossoming longer. They pick up the garden so brightly now the main blooms of summer are past.”
The pair looked delighted at the request and launched into a lengthy explanation as Wendy fetched their order.
“That was a bit weird, wasn’t it?” Willow asked Harmony a few minutes later. “Do you think Tiffany’s staying at her parents’ place for a few nights, or something?”
Harmony just shook her head. “I don’t know what’s going on,” she said, pulling the scones out of the oven when the timer dinged. “I’m sure he’s just got the wrong end of the stick somehow.”
Willow pursed her lips but said nothing more, even though she was sure her friend had just told her a lie.
Chapter Two
Wendy hung about for a few minutes past her shift, until Harmony excused herself to head off home.
“Do you think Tiffany’s okay?” she whispered as soon as Harm
ony was out of earshot. “I don’t think the sheriff would get involved over nothing.”
“I’m sure she’s fine,” Willow said in as reassuring a tone as she could manage given her own doubts. They were silly and insubstantial. Even if Harmony were somehow involved in Tiffany going AWOL, Willow didn’t believe for a moment the woman would come to any harm.
“I’ve tried phoning her number, and she doesn’t answer,” Wendy continued, cupping her elbows and leaning forward. “Even though I’ve left her a boatload of messages and that’s just not like her.”
Willow fetched her phone and passed it over to Wendy. “There’s the text she sent me this morning. I don’t think she’d bother to send that if she were in some kind of trouble.”
Wendy peered at it, her face still registering worry. “That’s strange. It’s not her normal phone number. I wonder if she had to replace her old one?”
Willow nodded, feeling a small wash of relief. “I’m sure that’s it. Maybe it broke, and she just picked up one of the cheap ones from the supermarket. If that happened, then she won’t even have seen you called.”
She waved goodbye to Wendy, then shut her front door and leaned her forehead against it. Only Tuesday, but Willow felt as tired as if it was the end of the week.
“I know, kitty,” she told Mavis as the kitten demanded a snack. “I’m hungry too.”
Willow had just put the finishing touches on her meal of chicken and salad when a knock sounded on the door. A moment later, it opened, and Charley stuck his head inside. “Yoo-hoo.”
“Come on in,” Willow responded, feeling her spirits pick right up. “I was just about to have something to eat if you want to join me.”
Charley gazed for a few seconds at the amount of greenery on her plate, then chewed his lip. “It doesn’t look like you’ve got enough for one, let alone two!”
“There’s more chicken in the fridge and a few slices of fresh bread left over in the kitchen if you’d prefer a sandwich.”
“Right you are.” He walked through and picked up the remains of a loaf, freshly baked that morning. From out of some secret corner, he also found an open packet of cookies. Willow shook her head as he offered her one before demolishing the rest of the pack in a few minutes flat. He really did seem to be the cookie-whisperer, finding stray biscuits where others couldn’t.
“Did you hear one of my waitresses has gone missing?”
Charley nodded, putting a hand up to his mouth as he swallowed an enormous bite of his chicken sandwich. “I heard a few rumors about that. Did she turn up okay in the end?”
“I still don’t know where she’s taken herself off to, but since she keeps texting me every morning, I presume Tiffany’s okay.” Willow paused for a second, unsure if she should add her own suspicions to the truth. Charley’s rapt gaze decided her. If she told him, it wasn’t like spreading gossip, after all. He’d be quite happy to keep her secrets.
“I think Harmony might know where she’s got to, although she won’t say.”
Willow expected a few questions or an exclamation, but Charley’s furrowed brow took her by surprise. “Is Tiffany’s husband a bit handsy?”
For a second, Willow couldn’t think what he meant. Her mind flashed up a meal out she’d arranged for her staff and their partners. At one point, between the mains and dessert, Clay—Tiffany’s husband—had quite openly slid a hand up her thigh. Then Willow connected the phrase with the concerned expression on Charley’s face and flushed red. “You mean, does he hit her?”
Charley nodded, and Willow stared down at the floor, sorting through her memories. “I’ve seen no evidence of it if he does. And it might seem harsh, but I wouldn’t think Clay had enough smarts to keep something like that hidden.”
“Tiffany’s a bright girl, though,” Charley pointed out. “She might be adept at covering that kind of evidence up.”
Willow shook her head, then shrugged. “If she is, then she’s done a fantastic job. I haven’t noticed anything amiss, and she’s been working here close on four months now.”
Charley nodded and attacked his sandwich with renewed vigor. Willow stared at him with a smile on her face for a second, which soon fell away again. “Why did you ask?”
Charley took his time swallowing. “It’s just because you mentioned Harmony might know something she’s not letting on.”
Willow waited for him to make his point, but when Charley finished up the last few bites of his crust in silence, she tapped him on the leg. “I don’t know what that means. Why would Harmony being involved make you think Tiffany’s husband hit her?”
Charley’s brow creased deeper, and he sat back further in the sofa. “I’m just guessing, but I thought she worked with battered women. Arranging housing for them and that sort of thing.”
“But why on earth would you believe that? Has she said something?” Willow felt as though a giant chasm had opened in front of her. One wrong step, and everything she thought she knew would fall in and be swallowed whole.
“She hasn’t said anything.” Charley sat in thought for a second, then chuckled. “Well, Harmony wouldn’t be very good at what she did if she’d spilled the beans to everybody.” He sat for another moment, his eyes fixed in the middle distance, then he snapped his fingers. “It was that Mrs. Warren. That’s why I thought Harmony must do something along those lines. The woman who left her husband last year?”
Willow felt a small bell ringing far back in her memory. “The one whose husband is now in prison for assault?”
“That’s her. I saw Mrs. Warren going into Harmony’s one night, then nobody saw her again until the trial. I guessed your friend had helped to spirit her away to a place of safety.”
Willow nodded, then shook her head again. “I feel completely left out of the loop on this.”
“Well, sometimes it’s better not to be involved, isn’t it? So long as you know your girl is safe, does it matter who else helped her get to that position?”
“I suppose not.” Willow brightened up after a few minutes. “And I guess if Harmony is sworn to secrecy in these dealings, then it’s no surprise she didn’t tell me.”
“No, it isn’t. What surprises me is that you didn’t fathom it out on your own.” Charley slung his arm around Willow’s shoulders. “With your nose for the truth, I’d expect you to have a bead on the secrets of everyone in town.”
“Hush. You make me sound like a gossip.” Willow settled into the crook of Charley’s arm and pulled Mavis into her lap. “I suppose the only thing I really want to know now is, when is Tiffany coming back to work? These texts every morning are far too early and too loud for my liking.”
* * *
She got her answer the next morning, with another text from Tiffany and Harmony turning up on the dot of nine.
“I can’t say for sure,” Harmony explained. “I’m as much in the dark as you are.”
Given the revelations from Charley the previous night, Willow doubted that, but she held her own counsel. “I suppose I’ll have to make do with you for the time being,” she said with a grin, following it up with an exaggerated sigh.
“Any more nonsense like that, and you’ll be making do without either of us,” Harmony said, giving Willow a poke in the ribcage. “Now, where did you leave the chrysanthemum tea last night? I can’t find it to save myself.”
Willow pointed out the new location. Charley must have moved it aside in his cookie hunt. “It looks like it’ll be a gray day out there.” Willow leaned over the bench to get a better view of the sky overhead. “I just hope it doesn’t rain. We’re already skating close to the bone in our takings this month. A few day’s with it pouring will keeping the customers away and I’ll regret ever having opened!”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine. If it gets too bad, we can take a mobile tea cart down to the community center and sell it directly to our needy public. There’s always a good crowd indoors there on overcast days.”
Willow cast a sidelong glance at her friend as s
he turned on the appliances, ready for the coming day. Harmony had always been full of good ideas, thanks in part to the wealth of facts and figures jostling around in her head.
Now, with Charley’s observations adding into the mix, it appeared Harmony held hidden depths. Such intrigue was worthy of an episode of Miss Walsham Investigates, and that was the highest praise at Willow’s disposal.
A knock came at the front door, and Willow hurried through the house to answer it, fearing the sheriff would once again have parked right outside her door. Instead, a young woman dressed in torn jeans and a grubby T-shirt stood there, chewing on a thumbnail.
“Can I help you?” Willow asked politely. She was used to the occasional customer missing the large sign propped to the side of the house, pointing to the path down to the tea rooms. At least once a week, Willow found a stay standing at her front door.
“I wondered if you had need of a waitress for the week?” the young woman said, pulling her thumb out of her mouth. “Only, I heard one of your regulars keeps calling in sick. I’ve got good references if you need to check.”
“Goodness,” Willow said, taken aback. She moved her weight from one leg to the other, trying to think of what to say. “How did you know about that?”
“My name’s Jasmin Coleman.” The young woman extended her hand and Willow shook it briefly, mindful that some of it had just been in Jasmin’s mouth.
The woman frowned as if waiting for a sign of recognition, but on hearing her name, Willow was no more the wiser.
“I’m an ex-girlfriend of Clay Woodcock, and I’ve moved in to keep him company until his wife gets back. He’s the one told me she usually works here but since she’s missing—” Jasmin shrugged.
“I’ve got it covered but thanks for the inquiry.” Willow tried to shut the door, then realized Jasmin had stuck one of her tattered sneakers in the way.
“I don’t want you to think I’m a vulture or nothing,” the young woman said. “Just, the money could come in useful, and with Tiffany leaving you in the lurch, I thought we could help each other out.”
Tea Shop Cozy Mysteries - Books 1-6 Page 34