“Manslaughter?” Willow sat for a moment, her lips pursed. “I could understand if Jasmin had just rammed the car into him on the spur of the moment, but she dropped Trace off and returned to find Clay walking home.”
“And she reversed over him to make sure once the initial deed was done.” Sheriff Wender nodded. “The evidence is certainly there if they want to go after the higher charge.”
He seemed to realize for the first time he was speaking to a layperson rather than a colleague and straightened up in his chair. “If there’s nothing else, I should get back to things here.”
Willow took the hint and stood up. “No. That’s all from me. Thanks for letting me chinwag here for so long.”
She waved goodbye to Mary-Jo as she left the sheriff’s office and plodded back home. On the way, Willow crossed paths with Reg who hooked his arm through hers with a smile.
“I was just on my way to see you, actually.”
Willow had assumed as much, considering she was the only person he knew well out on her stretch of road. “What about?”
“I came up with a business proposal while I was talking with Jeremy and Rachel the other day. They seemed engrossed in my explanations of the variety of recorded alien activity around town, and that got me thinking other folks might like to learn about that stuff too.”
“I’m sure they would,” Willow said, and meant it. Although Reg could get strident if someone attacked his beliefs, she could always count on him for a good story when it involved his favorite subjects. “What kind of business were you thinking?”
“A walking tour. I could just start out by taking donations as people saw fit and then set a price once I knew visitors appreciated the value.”
“That seems like a marvelous idea!”
“Do you really think so?” Reg frowned and looked so concerned Willow laughed and shook his arm.
“Yes, I really think so. You’ve always had the gift of weaving a story, and I’m sure people both in town and just dropping by would appreciate viewing Aniseed Valley through your eyes.”
“That’s good.” Reg straightened up, and his face brightened. “I thought the best idea would be to run it mid-morning, and if I carve the right path out, we’ll end up on the doorstep of your tea room right in time for high tea.”
“If you’re happy to bring business my way, I’m happy to pay you a commission for each customer you recommend.”
“Really?”
“Of course. If you’re setting up a business and it helps me out, then you deserve the bonus. Once we get an idea of the numbers, I could even offer your customers a discounted service from a set menu.” Willow’s mind flooded with the possibilities.
“It probably won’t be very many to start with,” Reg warned.
“I wouldn’t count on that,” Willow told him with a broad smile. “I think you’ll be very successful indeed!”
Chapter One
Willow gave Mr. and Mrs. Phillips a smile as she served up their order. They now dropped by her tea room every Wednesday morning like clockwork, and it made her heart swell to watch the two of them together. After three decades of marriage, the couple interacted with the excitement of a first date.
If Charley and she could hold on to the same spark, it would be a wonderful thing.
The smile dropped from her lips as Willow moved across to the window to look out on the side path. Reg and his tour group should have been walking up there fifteen minutes ago, but she hadn’t seen hide nor hair of them. If they didn’t turn up soon, she might be tempted to send out a search party.
Reg didn’t like to keep people waiting or miss appointments. No matter how distracted he sometimes became midway during a conversation, punctuality was always a trait Willow could count on. Especially with a tour group in tow.
Perhaps there’d been a holdup along the tour path?
She moved into the kitchen and set out the dried herbs in preparation for the mid-morning influx of foot traffic. Even without Reg’s group, the tea room could quickly fill up with patrons. As the winter took a bigger nip each day, the thought of a hot drink seemed more appealing to the townsfolk.
“Should I keep holding onto the tables?” Tiffany asked from the doorway.
Willow turned with a small frown, fishing her mobile phone out of her pocket. “I’ll just see if I can find out how far away he is.”
But the phone call went straight to voicemail.
Willow sighed and rubbed at her left eyebrow, which had twitched. This just wasn’t like her friend and even though Reg was only twenty minutes overdue, she worried. When another dialing attempt landed her in his message in-box again, she called through to Harmony instead.
“Have you seen Reg about town this morning?” Willow asked with barely a second spent on pleasantries. “Only he’s not turned up with his group today.”
“I haven’t been in town this morning,” Harmony answered, dashing Willow’s hope of a quick fix. “I’m out at the Big Bookorama.”
Willow smiled. If there was one thing guaranteed to hold her friend’s attention, it was a pile of books. Even if Harmony had read her way through most of the town library, she could always be counted on to want more.
“Why don’t you give the Mayberry Apartments a call?” Harmony continued. “They’d have a good idea of whether Reg’s tour started on time this morning.”
Reg didn’t operate from the short-term rental apartment complex, but he camped outside their door every morning, along with his distinctive sign.
“Great thinking. If you see any detective fiction, grab me a few books, would you? I’m just about through the last pile I bought.”
Harmony laughed and agreed, signing off on the call in her usual abrupt manner. Willow tapped the phone against her bottom lip for a second, staring out the kitchen window at the side path in case her concerns had been answered while she was on the phone. Nope. No sign of Reg’s tour group but there were a few customers winding their way up to the tea room entrance.
Willow hastily dialed the number for the Mayberry and tapped her foot while waiting for an answer. The woman on reception couldn’t help with her query. Even though she recognized Reg, she couldn’t recall when the tour had left that morning or even if it had operated at all.
As the room continued to fill up, Willow told Tiffany to free up the reserved tables. Hopefully, if Reg turned up, his group wouldn’t mind waiting. If they were very late, they might even luck into the lull between the morning and midday rushes and score a table straight away.
* * *
By eleven-thirty, Willow had flipped most of the tables in the tea room, and the patrons were starting to thin out again. With her nerves continuing to ratchet up as each minute passed with no sign of her friend, Willow decided she could take a break and go on the hunt. Once she found out what was happening, work would go much more smoothly.
“Don’t worry about us,” Tiffany said with a grin, speaking on Wendy’s behalf without even glancing her fellow waitress’s way. “Go find out whether everyone on the tour got abducted by aliens. If they have been, my kids will be ecstatic.”
Reg had entertained Tiffany’s children a few months ago, and from all accounts, the experience had formed a lasting impression on the middle graders.
“You know, if aliens did abduct someone, they probably wouldn’t leave any traces behind.” Willow untied her apron and folded it up neatly. “But I hope he’s just held up somewhere along the way.”
Considering the tour party was now a full ninety minutes overdue, that didn’t appear very likely, but Willow still held out some hope.
“Either that or he could’ve caught that nasty cold that’s going around town,” Wendy suggested. “I know it hit the retirement home hard.”
“If Reg finds out you associate him with an old-people’s home, I don’t think he’d be best pleased.”
“In that case, you can tell him the bug has done some damage at the school, too.” Tiffany shook her head. “I’m just wai
ting for one of mine to bring it home with them and then we can look forward to a week spent coughing and hacking.”
Willow pulled her mouth down. “If that happens, don’t bring it along here, okay? My voice still hasn’t come right from the last bug I caught, and I don’t think the customers would appreciate the added ingredient along with their cups of tea or slices of cake.”
Tiffany performed a quick girl scouts signal before ushering Willow out of the door. Even though it was a quiet patch, she still felt a stab of guilt about running out in the middle of the day. Before setting up the small business, she’d envisioned spending every waking minute keeping her shop on the straight and narrow while feeling a sense of accomplishment blossom.
In reality, Willow sometimes popped out so often that it felt like she was the world’s least reliable employee. Even though Harmony kept pointing out it was the benefit of owning your own place, it still tugged at her pride.
But today that didn’t matter. This was an emergency, not a stroll in the park to enjoy the weather. A good thing, too, Willow decided as she briskly walked along the street. There was precious little in the outlook for her to appreciate.
The gray skies above her were so ominous she could feel the weight of them pressing down on her shoulders. Add to that, the usual nip of a winter breeze had turned into great bites of cold, and her lungs weren’t at all happy about breathing in the fresh air.
For all that winter was a great time for curling up with a nice cup of herbal tea and relaxing on the sofa, at that moment Willow would have gladly swapped it for the oppressive heat of the summer just gone.
“I haven’t seen him,” the butcher across the street from Reg’s tour group meeting place said. “Usually, he stops by if I’m opening up early, for a chat, but not today. A small group of tourists hung about for a while, all of them looking grumpy, but they headed off quite a while back.”
“Headed off where?”
The man shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably to a warm cafe if they had any sense.”
“But did they get a phone call or something to tell them to leave?” As soon as the question was out of Willow’s mouth, she could read the man’s expression for her answer. He had his own shop to mind, he didn’t have much attention free for anybody else’s. “Thanks for that,” Willow said, ordering a pound of lamb chops as a payment in kind. Mavis would be happy with the decision—even stretching the meat over three meals, the kitten would likely end up eating half.
The receptionist inside the Mayberry Apartments hadn’t any more to offer than she’d already told her over the phone. Willow was left staring at the meeting point, wondering if there was someone else she could ask, when Harmony tapped her on the shoulder.
“What are you doing out here?” Harmony asked, snuggling her chin down into the neck of her wool coat. “I was just about to head for the shop for a cup of something to warm me up.”
“Reg didn’t take his tour this morning,” Willow said, twisting her hands together as though she were washing them under a tap. “And it wasn’t by prior arrangement. The butcher over the road said it looked like he just never turned up. He’s not answering his phone, either.”
Harmony’s calm manner took over, and she hooked her arm through Willow’s. “We’d better go and check at his home, then. All these nights he’s spent out spotting despite the cold might’ve caught up with him.”
“You waiting for the tours, love?” a male voice called out. The two of them turned to see a burly man approaching them. “If I were you, I wouldn’t bother. The guy running them didn’t show up this morning and didn’t even have the common decency to let anybody know. Me and my pals waited out here for an hour in the bitter cold, with nobody to tell us what was going on.”
Willow opened her mouth to apologize on behalf of her friend, but Harmony tugged her away. “Sorry to hear that,” she called back over her shoulder. “I hope the tour goes out as usual tomorrow.”
“That’ll be too late,” the man grumbled, putting his hands on his hips and staring at disgust at Reg’s tour sign. “I’m only in town for the one day as part of an antique sales group. We’re moving upstate this evening. We booked this tour special as a bit of a laugh.”
As Harmony jerked her along the path, admonishments about speaking to strangers clear on her face, Willow gave the tourist a conciliatory wave.
“I don’t like the sound of this,” Harmony admitted as they turned off the main street and headed toward their friend’s house. “Even if Reg was at death’s door, he’s not one to leave a booked group stranded without a word.”
Willow swallowed hard as she considered what might be waiting for them at Reg’s home. A friend with a bad cold seemed the least of her worries.
Chapter Two
Willow started by knocking politely on Reg’s front door. After a minute with no response, she banged and, when that didn’t bear fruit, she slammed her palm against it as hard as she could. It hurt, but not enough to cloud out the fear engulfing her.
“Don’t start again,” Harmony said, covering her ears as Willow raised her hand to repeat her thumps. “If he didn’t hear you the first time, he’s not going to the second. Meanwhile, I’ll go deaf.”
She scanned the concrete landing, then stepped back to peer farther afield.
“What are you looking for?” Willow asked, glancing around as well and seeing nothing of interest. The front door mat was the only decoration on view.
“Try above the door,” Harmony said, pointing as though Willow mightn’t understand what a door was.
“Try for what?” Willow stepped away, her face crumpling into a frown. “What am I meant to be doing?”
“He must have a key hidden about somewhere.” Harmony stood on her tiptoes, but her fingers were still short of the upper frame. “You’ve got a good four inches on me, can you try?”
Willow pushed the thoughts of cobwebs, spiders, and dead bugs out of her mind and wiped her fingertips across the top of the door. She rubbed them off against her skirt without looking to see what they’d encountered. “Nothing there. What makes you think he’d have a key hidden out here?”
“Because I don’t have a spare and I’m guessing you don’t either. Otherwise, you would’ve brought it along.”
The hopeful expression on Harmony’s face was enough to drive the fear out of Willow’s tight chest, temporarily at least. “Nope. No spare key. But Reg is a tiny bit paranoid about stuff like that…”
She trailed off as she realized there were many more things Reg was ‘a bit’ paranoid about. Usually, thoughts of her friend’s eccentric beliefs were far from her mind but Tiffany’s joke about alien abduction recurred to her. She shook her head to clear the thought away and turned, hands on hips.
“The doormat!” Harmony sounded exasperated but only with herself. She lifted the corner of the mat, then the entire thing, dropping a month’s worth of dust and debris onto the landing. “Nada.”
“Let’s try the back. Reg might’ve hidden something there instead.”
They walked around the edge of the house, Willow pressing her face up against the glass of each window they passed with her hands cupped to cut out the glare. She couldn’t make out much through the net curtains on the inside. Part of her felt relieved.
“Flowerpot!” Harmony lifted the empty stack of green plastic waiting for spring to begin. Her face told Willow she’d found nothing before she announced it.
Again, Willow stood on tiptoes and let her fingers walk along the top of the door frame. She thought for a second she’d found something, but it was just a nail perched on the edge.
Even though Harmony had been right about the noise, Willow thumped on the back door for a minute. It helped to relieve the tension building in her shoulders even if it didn’t rouse the occupant.
“Do you think Reg’d mind if we broke a window?” Harmony walked back to the side of the house and squinted her eyes, trying to peer into the room.
“I think he’d mind
very much indeed if he’s out and about somewhere,” Willow said. “Perhaps we should give the hospital a ring to see if he’s there before we start breaking and entering.”
As she walked backward, staring up at the attic window for any signs of movement, her foot kicked a stone. She turned, frowning at the weird sound it made. Not the heavy scrape of a solid object but the lightweight skid of an empty canister.
“Bingo!” Willow twisted the rock to reveal a secret hiding place inside. She held the key aloft with a triumphant flourish, then stuck it into the door. The keyhole was stiff—Reg must only use the front exit—but with an extra hard twist, she got it to work. With a nervous glance at Harmony, she pushed open the back door.
“Anybody home?”
Harmony shoved past Willow as she stood in the hallway, impatient to see what she could find indoors. “If he didn’t answer the knock, he won’t answer your call,” she said with a hint of impatience. Willow bit back a retort, understanding it was just fear that prompted the unusual response from her friend.
The laundry and the spare room were empty as was the lounge and the kitchen. Willow felt the side of the coffee pot on the bench, her nerves giving an extra strong twang at the cold container. With all his late nights out and about the town, Reg always started his day with a strong cup of coffee.
It took all of Willow’s courage to push open the bedroom door. Even though Harmony raised her eyebrows, she gave a light tap on the door first, an old impulse of politeness shoving itself past her anxiety.
For a second, the bed looked occupied, the blankets crumpled up around the shape of a body, then Willow blinked and saw it was just Reg’s wife’s old collection of stuffed toys. The bed was made. Either nobody had slept here last night or they’d been well enough to tidy it this morning.
On her second pass through the hallway, Willow stopped and stared at the manhole leading up into the attic. “Give me a hand here?”
Harmony moved to her side in a hot second, craning her neck to stare up at the rope pull. “Are you sure? I can’t think of any reason Reg would have to go up there.”
Tea Shop Cozy Mysteries - Books 1-6 Page 42