A Berry Murderous Kitten_A Laugh-Out-Loud Kylie Berry Mystery

by A. R. Winters

  Zoey seemed to deflate as relief and fatigue flooded her features. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. I’m not going all Thelma and Louise with you. No driving off cliffs.”

  “Well, not with us in the car anyway.” Zoey grinned, and I couldn’t help but grin back, but the disturbing thought was that I wasn’t sure how much she was joking. Even more disturbing was that I was starting not to mind.

  “So what’s next?” I asked. “Were you able to see who went into that alleyway before Cam got there? Is it a dead end alley?”

  Zoey swiveled back to face the monitors. “I don’t think so. Look at this.” She brought up footage of a dark sedan turning into the alley. There was the glow of red taillights after the car disappeared from view, but then the glow stopped suddenly. They didn’t fade away. The car would have had to turn off its lights for the glow to have disappeared so suddenly.

  A moment later, there was movement near the wall. A shadow. The shadow was large for the blink of an eye, then it seemed to collapse in on itself as it neared the edge of the alleyway’s entrance.

  “That’s the killer,” Zoey said, and I got goosebumps. “This was six minutes before Cam showed up.”

  “Any way to track the car?”

  “No, I tried. I couldn’t see the license plate, and the car doesn’t come back out of the alley. It must have driven out the other end, and there aren’t any surveillance camera sources on that side. I did find video of the car pulling up outside your café, though. But I didn’t want to show it to you. It gave even me the creeps.”

  “Why?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, but I was sure that my imagination could produce images far worse than the truth.

  “It all happened so fast. Twenty seconds. Middle of the night. The car pulled up in front of the café. Pulled right up onto the sidewalk. It’s hard to see anything from the camera’s angle, but when the car drove away, Cam was lying in front of the café’s door.”

  Twenty seconds. What she was describing could have happened in broad daylight and still have gone unseen. Twenty seconds was tying a shoelace or answering a phone call. It was hardly any distraction whatsoever.

  She clicked out of the video of the car driving into the alleyway and brought up another. “You need to see these, too. I hacked into the Bouche’s deleted surveillance logs. That’s the restaurant where Cam worked.”

  “They deleted them?”

  “It’s common practice to delete logs older than a certain date, like six months.”

  “Oh.”

  “This is from eight months ago.” Video of Cam filled the screens. There wasn’t any audio. Cam was waiting on tables. The customers were smiling, and it looked as though Cam was doing a good job. “Now watch this video from a couple of months ago.”

  It was Cam again, but this time everything was different. His clothes looked messy. He didn’t smile at the customers and they didn’t smile back. When he delivered a plate, he all but tossed it on the table.

  “Wow,” I said. “Was he having a bad day?”

  “Not so as I can tell. All the days are like this. I was able to find ten different instances where it looked as though customers were complaining directly to the manager.”

  “I guess that’s what it looks like when somebody gets job burnout.”

  “I don’t think that was it,” Zoey said. “Burnout happens gradually. This shift happened fast. Just over six months ago he was a good waiter, then boom. He’s terrible. No transition. The difference is drastic from one day to the next.”

  She brought up video showing what she was talking about. She was right. The change happened overnight.

  “And check this out,” Zoey said. She brought up video of Cam getting into a blow out argument with a short, pudgy, balding man with thick glasses. Food was thrown. Cam flipped the man’s plate off the table and upside down onto the floor. Even without audio, it was clear that both men were yelling.

  I shook my head. “Where’s the manager? Why aren’t they intervening?”

  “I don’t know, but here’s this.” She brought up more video. “This is the first day that Cam’s service was terrible. Look, right here.” She pointed at a woman with dark brown hair and flared hips. “That’s Steph. She’s the manager.”

  I watched as Steph intercepted Cam on his way back from badly serving a customer. Everything about Steph’s body language said she was mad. She took him to a secluded corner of the restaurant and spoke to him with her hands on her hips, leaning forward. As for Cam, he looked bored. He was intermittently looking at and chewing his nails. When he looked as though he’d bitten off some nail and spit it, Steph seemed to have gone from anger to rage. Then Cam smiled at her, a full Cheshire cat smile. He started talking, and it didn’t take long for everything about Steph’s body language to change. Her hands dropped and she leaned away from Cam.

  “Is he threatening her?” I asked. I kept watching.

  In the video, Steph shook her head and then reached out to Cam with both hands, as if pleading or imploring, but he shook her off. When Cam walked away, still grinning like a loon, Steph had her face buried in her hands. The video ended.

  “Wow, she was upset with him,” I said, wondering if she was upset enough to kill Cam or have him killed. “That heavy-set guy with the thick glasses was really mad, too.”

  “I say we start with Steph. Maybe she can tell us what made Cam change so much,” Zoey said.

  “What about Cam? What do we know about him?” I asked.

  “Not much. He wasn’t very active on social media, and over the last several months he hasn’t been active at all.”

  “I heard some customers talking. They mentioned a woman’s name, said that they’d broken up. An ex-girlfriend?” I thought for a moment, trying to rehear the words in my head. “Patty. I think they said her name was Patty.”

  “I didn't find anything online, but some people are private about that stuff.”

  My gut churned at what I wanted to ask next. Max had been coming to the café for the last couple of days, and I got the feeling that he was going to continue coming until he got the chance to sort things out with Zoey. I didn’t mind him showing up every day. He was another customer. His patronage could help keep the lights on. And if he made a habit of bringing clients there, that would help keep the café afloat that much longer. But I needed to know if Max was friend or foe, and Zoey was the deciding factor.

  “Zoey, about Max—”

  “He looks good, doesn’t he?” Zoey slumped in her chair. “I want to run my fingers through his hair, and I love the way he looks at me.”

  “But…” I prompted, needing to know the other side of the coin.

  “But I don’t trust him. He left. He cut me off like I didn’t exist. I was planning our wedding! And he treated me like I’d died or he’d died—and I really had thought he might have died! He’s got this titanium screw in his neck, from an old football injury, holding the thing together.” She shook her head. Her eyes held a vacant stare of abject disbelief. “He didn’t even have the courtesy to tell me goodbye or that he hated me or that he’d found someone else. Nothing. How can someone who cares about you do that?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t know. Dan had been a lot of things to me, but ambivalent had never been one of them. I couldn’t imagine the pain of being done that way. To be told one second that you were a person’s moon and stars, to being treated as if you didn’t matter at all—it was too much. “Want me to tell him not to come around anymore?” I missed Zoey visiting the café. If Max was there, Zoey wouldn’t be.

  “No, it’s okay. I’ll talk to him eventually.” She rolled her eyes skyward. “I still want him, and I hate that. I see him and I get all happy inside. I remember all our good times. He smiles and I want to throw my arms around him and kiss him. A part of me—the part that’s happy being with him—doesn’t connect with how terribly he’s treated me. It was his absence that hurt. Now that he’s not absent, I’m left with all this j
oy. It’s so confusing.”

  I was confused, too. I wanted to help Zoey, but I didn’t know how. There was really only one thing I could do. I could give her my unconditional support. “Whatever you decide to do, I’m on your side. Hate him, love him, bury him out in the woods,”—I really, really hoped it wouldn’t be that last one—“I’m with you.”

  I nearly fell back in my chair when Zoey threw her arms around me for a hug. I guessed I managed to say the right thing after all.

  Chapter 11

  Ready?” I asked with my hand on the handle of Zoey’s apartment door.

  “Yeah,” she said, putting on her jacket.

  I opened the door and we barged out into the hallway, ready to do battle with the latest whodunit question of the season: who killed Cam? But my full steam ahead charge came to an abrupt halt, and Zoey slammed into my back.

  In front of me stood Max. He was leaning with his back against the wall and his thickly muscled arms crossed over his equally thickly muscled chest.

  “Figured I might run into you two,” Max said.

  “What do you want, Max?” Zoey demanded to know, mimicking his crossed-arm stance as she stepped up beside me.

  “I thought I’d made that clear,” Max said. “I want you, and I want your forgiveness. I need it, Zoe.” This last was said in the voice of a bedroom confession, and I felt suddenly very out of place.

  Zoey was quiet next to me, so I filled in the gap. Nothing positive or negative, just a redirection. Given his own manipulative ways, I was sure he’d understand. “We’re busy right now, Max. We have some place we need to be.”

  His eyes went from me to Zoey. “That true, Zoe? You don’t have time for me?”

  I felt Zoey stiffen. “You can’t waltz back into town and expect me to put my whole life on hold for you, Max. You didn’t put your life on hold for me, even before you decided I wasn’t worth a second of your time.” Bitterness—lots of bitterness.

  Max’s arms fell to his sides, and he stuffed his hands into his jeans pockets. The jeans fit him well. Really well. Baseball-player-uniform well. It made me feel all the worse for Zoey. A gorgeous man was asking her to give him a second chance, and she was having to tell him no. The girl was strong.

  “You’re right, Zoe. I’ve got a lot to make up for, both from before and after…” He avoided saying after what. “I was thinking I could make you dinner and we could talk—just talk. You talk, I’ll listen. Or if you want me to talk, I’ll tell you about everything, about every moment that we’ve been apart. I won’t hold anything back. I promise.”

  “My life is bigger than you,” Zoey said, standing her ground. “I have bigger worries than you.”

  “I know. Cam. I heard that the cops are looking into things and that… well, that you beat Cam up, you beat him up bad, so they’re looking at you.”

  Wow, talk about pouring salt in the wound. I wanted to throttle Max. It was time for me to jump in. “So you understand if we’ve got to go. Things to do. Prison to stay out of and all that.” I started moving and was relieved when Zoey fell into step beside me.

  Max stepped after us. “I could be your alibi, Zoe,” he blurted.

  As one, we stopped, turned and stared at him.

  “You and me, Zoe. We’ve always been a good team. I could tell the police that you were with me. You wouldn’t be a suspect anymore.” But she’d be indebted to him, locked into a relationship with nowhere to go in case he decided to tell the police the truth. The manipulator had struck again.

  I stepped forward. “I seem to recall Zoey being with me that night. Or maybe if she wasn’t with me, she was with Agatha or Joel. Maybe she was having dinner with Jack and his whole family. If we asked, I’m sure they’d remember the night quite clearly. ‘Zoe’ doesn’t need your get-out-of-jail-free card. She has me. She has her friends. Friends that will be here tomorrow and the day after. Get my meaning?”

  Max’s pale eyes turned the color of sludgy ice. A dirty cold. He took a step closer, his focus completely on me. “I get your meaning.”

  My fists were bunched, and I was ready to fight. I didn’t care that the man could body slam me with the same effort that it took him to sneeze.

  “Kylie, we gotta go.” Zoey’s voice broke through my haze of protective anger. So much for me being a rock solid companion of neutral support.

  We left. Max stayed behind, once more relegated to that of a discarded fragment from Zoey’s past. Over, done with, and ignored. Even if only temporarily.

  Chapter 12

  Bouche, the restaurant where Cam had worked, was a steakhouse with French-style cuisine. It was a lot nicer than what I’d been expecting. It didn’t matter that I had seen it on the videos that Zoey had shown me. Those videos hadn’t truly captured its essence. The decor was somewhere between classic and trendy, and I was both intimidated and envious when we walked in. When the smells from the kitchen hit me, I was downright embarrassed and, yes, even ashamed about my little café and the food I offered my patrons. The things I did to food suddenly seemed like crimes against livestock and plant life everywhere.

  Zoey snagged the attention of a smartly dressed thirty-something waitress. “We’d like to see the manager.”

  “Is there a problem? I would love to help you if possible,” she said. Her name tag read “Jenny.” She was attentive, and even though she had been walking with a purposeful, fast pace before Zoey stopped her, she gave no appearance of impatience or the need to hurry off. She seemed interested in helping us, and if it was a problem the staff could address, it lightened the burden put on the manager. All of this was a sign that the staff had been well-trained. On top of that, it indicated that the management had expectations regarding their employee’s performance—expectations that the staff understood. If this woman was well-trained, then that meant Cam had most likely been well-trained and he would have understood just how woefully bad he’d been doing his job.

  “It’s something that we need to talk to Steph about directly,” Zoey said.

  “Oh!” Jenny said. Hearing the manager called by her first name seemed to fast-track the negotiations of speaking to her. “You ladies help yourself to a seat over there, and I’ll let Steph know that you're here to see her. Could I get your names?” We gave them. “And would you care for something to drink while you wait?” Zoey asked for a lemonade and I asked for a raspberry lemonade.

  We sat down in a booth tucked against the wall at a window. Jenny brought us our drinks, and Steph showed up a few minutes later. I moved to sit on the same side of the booth as Zoey so that Steph could sit opposite us.

  Before sitting down, Steph shook our hands with a strong, firm grip and introduced herself. “Hi, I’m Stephanie Montgomery, manager of Bouche.” She sat down. She had ruddy cheeks, wavy hair that was pulled into a bun at the nape of her neck, and a friendly smile. She was dressed in dark blue slacks and a light pink blouse. “What can I help you ladies with?”

  I jumped in. “We understand that Cam worked here before his death.”

  Steph’s smile faltered. “That’s correct.”

  “We were hoping to ask you some questions,” I said.

  “I’m sorry, who are you with?” She looked back and forth between us. When she didn’t get an immediate answer, she clarified her question. “Are you with the police?”

  “No,” Zoey answered.

  “Then you were friends with Cam,” Steph said, suddenly looking wary.

  “No,” Zoey answered again.

  “The newspaper?”

  “No.”

  Steph’s brows went up. “Then why are you here? I’ve already talked with the police, I have nothing to offer the paper, and I’m not interested in talking with his friends.”

  “But we’re none of those,” I said.

  “Which leads me back to the question, who are you and why are you here?”

  “Were you afraid of Cam?” Zoey blurted out, and Steph’s face paled.

  “I-I wasn’t.” She’d said it,
but with a stutter.

  Zoey leaned forward and spoke more slowly, putting her hands on the edge of the table. “Why. Were. You. Afraid. Of. Cam?”

  Anger from Steph this time. “I wasn’t.”

  It was time to play bad cop, scary cop. Of course, Zoey was scary cop. “Then why didn’t you fire him?”

  “How I run my restaurant is no business of yours,” Steph declared, indignant.

  “Isn’t it?” Zoey asked. “We’re customers.” She took a sip of her lemonade, emphasizing the statement. “You had a waiter here who ticked off customers right and left. We want to know why you kept him on.”

  “Did he threaten you? Because we saw video of you getting mad at him… and then you got scared.”

  “I’d say desperate,” Zoey said, talking to me.

  “Desperately terrified?” I offered.

  “Yeah, that works.”

  We both returned our attention to Steph, and I asked, “Why were you desperately terrified of Cam?”

  “Well, I never!” Steph said, upping her indignation.

  “Oh, I think you did,” I said. “I think you did a lot. You run a tight place here. It’s clean. The food smells good. Your staff is well-trained and they do their jobs well. But Cam didn’t. And you didn’t fire him. I don’t see anyone else here acting the way Cam did, and that means they know that they would get fired if they pulled the stunts he did. That means they’re afraid of you and the power you have over them… So why were you afraid of Cam, and why wasn’t he afraid of you? What power was it that he had over you?”

  Steph opened and closed her mouth several times before closing her eyes and drooping her head. But when she opened her eyes again and lifted her head, she didn’t have the look of someone defeated. “Where are you getting your information? Because it’s not right.”

  “What’s wrong about it?” Zoey asked. “Was Cam a good waiter?”