Mrs. Fix It Mysteries, Season 2 (5 Cozy Mystery Books Collection)

by Belle Knudson

  “How’s Carly doing?” she asked.

  “Better now,” he said. “But she was really shaken up. Do you know if Scott has any leads?”

  “He didn’t mention it.”

  “I doubt she’ll really relax until he has the culprit in custody. That’s what she’s worried most about, that she’ll be arrested.”

  “She won’t,” said Kate, reassuringly. “Scott knows what he’s doing, and he’s not going to arrest the wrong person.”

  Larry narrowed his eyes on her. “Kate,” he said in a kind tone that also conveyed he begged to differ, “Scott has a long history of arresting the wrong people. I was one of them, remember? If people in this town have any faith in him, it’s because marrying you showed excellent judgment. I think the residents around here are counting on you to set him straight when he veers off the mark.” Larry paused to take a deep breath. “But I’ve got to tell you... people are getting really worried.”

  She grimaced, having an idea of where he was going with this.

  “At this point, he’s investigating Jason for Becky’s disappearance?” He had phrased it like a question, but it sounded like a statement. “If he can think such a thing about his own family, about his wife’s son, then what hope does Carly have of not being falsely accused?”

  She didn’t know what she could say to set his mind at ease.

  “You have to keep your eye on him.” She told him she would and was about to climb into her truck, when he stopped her, saying, “I did some asking around about Clifford. I don’t know who might have killed him, but I found out that Dean had hired him to work at the amusement park. Dean’s hiring a lot of ex-cons, cheap labor and all. It sounds to me that with Clifford’s history, there could be a long list of people who wanted him dead.”

  “You’re probably right,” she said, making a mental note that she ought to drive by the site and check it out. “Give Carly my best.”

  She hopped up behind the wheel and started off for Meredith’s house.

  To Kate’s surprise, when she pulled up to the curb, she saw that Meredith’s car was in the driveway and the front door was wide open. After locking her truck and starting up the walkway, she heard Meredith speaking to someone. She gradually recognized the voice as Justina’s, the head agent at Carnegie Real Estate.

  “Kate,” Justina exclaimed, as soon as she stepped through the door. “Just who we were talking about.”

  “Yes?”

  “As you know, we’re getting this house ready to put on the market. Are you available to stage it?”

  “I can make myself available,” she said. “But as I mentioned to Meredith, the furniture looks great. I’m not sure what I might add.”

  “The movers are coming tonight,” Justina explained. “It should be empty by tomorrow, and I’d like to start showing it this weekend.”

  Taken aback, Kate scrambled to mentally view her calendar. “I have a job at the mayor’s office,” she explained, as soon as she’d wrapped her head around it, “but I can pick up furniture after hours. Most of the stores are open until nine anyway.”

  “Great,” said Justina, clapping her hands together as if to conclude the conversation. “You can stop by Carnegie to pick up your budget. We’ve upgraded our system and have a credit card for you. Once you give us a breakdown of proposed expenditures, we’ll approve them and give you the card.”

  All Kate heard was that she’d have to do a hell of a lot of pricing research before she would actually be able to get down to business, but she agreed, and Meredith saw her off.

  Kate smelled fresh coffee in the kitchen, so she helped herself to a mug and then padded through the living room and let herself out onto the patio.

  After gulping down more than half the mug, she set it on the ground and began laying out the remaining tiles.

  Meredith widened the doorway and stepped out with her own mug of coffee.

  “Looks good,” she said. “You’ll be finished tomorrow?”

  “I’ll certainly do my best,” she said, sitting back on her heels to look up at Meredith. “So you’re thinking of moving out of Rock Ridge?”

  Meredith’s face went slack, and then she threw her head back, laughing and then shaking it with a sly smile on her face. “This town,” she mused. “There’s no sense of privacy, is there?”

  “Not really,” said Kate, who had worked hard to keep to herself so she could avoid being the center of the rumor mill.

  “Yes, I won’t be staying in town.”

  “What if it takes more time to sell the house?” she asked, remembering the difficulty Meredith had when she attempted to sell years prior. As beautiful as the art deco design was, it wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and Justina had made virtually no headway getting anyone to buy it.

  “This time it’s different,” she said, taking a sip of her coffee. “I’m taking the plunge.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning…I’ve already found a cute little condo in Tampa.”

  “Florida?”

  “I can’t do another Rock Ridge winter,” she explained. “And the condo I found is quite reasonable. If worse comes to worse, I have ways of managing the rent down there and keeping up with the mortgage on this house. But I have faith Justina will work some magic and sell the place.” Meredith’s gaze wandered over the compacted dirt area where Kate had yet to lay tiles. “Well, I’ll leave you to it.”

  And she did.

  Kate fell into deep concentration, laying down tiles and carving putty between the cracks. But when she reached the far edge of the compacted dirt an hour later, she noticed that the soil looked loose.

  She pressed her fingertips into it, realizing the loose soil was a circular area about eight inches in diameter. She hadn’t noticed it before, but then again she hadn’t scrutinized the edge of the area over here. However, it wouldn’t do. If the soil wasn’t compacted enough, then the tile over it was at risk for cracking if someone stood on it, so she grabbed her trowel and began pressing the dirt down, adding putty as she went, until the area was just as firm as the rest. As soon as it was, she laid down a tile and continued on, as the sun set on the horizon.

  She was two tiles away from finishing, when her cell phone vibrated in her overalls. It was Scott, so she quickly answered the call.

  “What’s up?”

  “I wanted you to hear it from me,” he began. His tone was solemn, and it sent her heart plummeting into her stomach.

  “Becky?”

  “No,” he said quickly to put her mind at ease. “Carly.”

  Stunned to hear her friend’s name, she asked, “What about Carly?”

  “She lied. She didn’t go to Daisy’s Luncheonette that morning to pick up pancakes. There was no pancake order.”

  “Scott, she didn’t do it. You can’t arrest her,” she warned.

  “I don’t have enough to arrest her and I don’t know that I will. But she lied. And I take lying as a sign of guilt.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to take her in for questioning. I’m telling you this so you don’t find out from her and go off half-cocked.”

  Stoically, Kate listened to what he had to say, but in the back of her mind, she had no intention of minding her own business when it came to Carly. Quite the opposite in fact.

  Chapter Four

  Immediately after leaving Meredith Joste’s house, Kate drove into the center of town where Daisy’s Luncheonette was aglow. Night had fallen, but it wasn’t late by the time she stepped inside the diner and had a quick look around. There were a fair amount of customers, but the restaurant wasn’t crowded. Daisy’s Luncheonette was still very much considered a breakfast and lunch place, and though everyone in town knew Daisy had opened her doors for dinner service a few months back, few of them had caught on.

  She saw Celia and Alex Demblowski, one of Rock Ridge’s reporters, who had moved to town a few years back and got swept into a whirlwind affair with the town gossip around the
same time her husband, Ken Johnson, was murdered. Celia waved at her and Kate did the same before noting who else was in the diner. Hazel Millhouse was seated with her book club in the far corner, Marla Zook and her two teenaged daughters were in throws of some kind of hormone-induced argument near the windows, and Detectives Garrison and Masey were hunched over their dinner plates at the bar.

  If Scott was planning on interrogating Carly simply because she’d said she’d ordered pancakes, then Kate needed to find out for herself whether or not her friend had lied. Kate knew that in Scott’s line of work, a single lie could unravel a whole new story, but in Carly’s case, she doubted it would turn into such a thing. Maybe Carly had been mistaken. Maybe she had told the truth, but Scott spoke with the wrong person at the restaurant, who knew? All Kate wanted was to give Scott a reason to spare Carly a nerve-wracking interview. Her friend had been high strung enough.

  She made her way through the diner and rounded the far side of the bar where the hostess and waitresses often gathered, waiting for the hot plates that the cooks made in the back. She didn’t notice Daisy around, which made sense. As the owner, Daisy had the luxury of working normal hours and leaving the manager, Blair Courser in charge of the night service.

  Kate didn’t know Blair behind his face and name, but she greeted him in a friendly manner anyway.

  “Did you need a table?” he asked then glared at the hostess, who looked young enough to still be in high school. “Please stay at the hostess stand, Emily.”

  The young woman rushed off, as Kate said, “Oh no, I was hoping to ask you about something.”

  “Yes?”

  The other waitresses grabbed a few plates that the cooks in the back had just set out on the ledge, and then they padded off to their respective tables.

  “I wanted to ask you about a pancake order my friend Carly put in the other morning. I believe she’s in the system as Sunshine Florist.”

  Blair looked momentarily confused, but asked, “Okay?”

  “Could you look it up?”

  “Come with me,” he said, leading her through the kitchen and into the office in the back. When he sat, he tapped on the space bar of his computer keyboard. “Carly...”

  “Yes.”

  “That was a crazy morning,” he commented. “That poor man.”

  “I was concerned that in the commotion Carly’s order was overlooked.”

  He stared at her then blinked. “You’re not here to pick up her pancakes, are you?”

  “No,” she smiled.

  “If something like that occurred, an error on our end, we’ll certainly reimburse her.”

  “That’s not really the point of this visit.”

  Blair went back to scrolling through the orders from a few mornings ago. “No,” he said. “No order was placed.”

  Carly wouldn’t lie, but Kate didn’t point that out. Rather she asked, “Do you know who was working that morning?”

  “Let me see,” he said, pulling the lap drawer of the desk open and grabbing a tattered schedule. “Daisy, for one,” he told her right off the bat.

  Daisy had been highly accusatory that Carly had something to do with Clifford’s murder, so speaking with her would get Kate virtually nowhere.

  “That early in the morning, we only have two waitresses and one cook working. It looks like it was Janet and Kendra waiting tables and Grady McMullen in the kitchen.”

  “Are any of them here right now?”

  “Janet and Grady are.”

  “You don’t mind if I speak with them, do you?”

  Blair seemed to be holding his breath, as he rose from the desk. “Try to catch them when they aren’t rushing around, okay? Dinner service hasn’t exactly caught on, and if people around town hear that the service is slow.... Well, then it doesn’t help our chances.”

  “Right,” she said. “No problem.”

  As she passed through the kitchen, she saw a number of cooks, but had no way of knowing who was Grady McMullen.

  When one of the cooks, a young man with heavily tattooed forearms, neared her to get a bottle of olive oil, Kate asked, “Could you tell me who Grady is?”

  “Yeah,” he said then glanced over his shoulder to indicate the man Kate was looking for. “Big guy near the grill.”

  The kitchen wasn’t especially big, and she couldn’t see herself squeezing through to get his attention. “Would it be possible for you to have him come over here?”

  The young cook looked at her quizzically, but obliged, crossing through to Grady and whispering something in his ear that Kate couldn’t hear. A moment later, Grady stalked towards her. He was big to say the least. Kate guessed that he had to be at least six foot four, and he was overweight to the effect that he looked more than a grizzly bear than a human being.

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m Kate Flaherty, the local handy woman. Mrs. Fix It? You might have heard of my small business?”

  He didn’t look impressed. “So?”

  “I just wanted to find out if you recall a pancake order two mornings ago?”

  He snorted a laugh. “Look, lady, this is a diner. All we make is pancakes. I made a ton of pancakes that morning.”

  “A ton?” she challenged, her eyes glazing over to show him that she wasn’t impressed.

  “We weren’t that busy,” he admitted. “But sure, I made some pancakes.”

  “Do you know the names of the customers?”

  “It’s noted on the slips, but I don’t read all that, because I don’t need to know. I just get the food order and get on with it.”

  “Do you recall an order that was made but never picked up?”

  Perhaps sensing that she wouldn’t let the matter drop until he supplied concrete answers, Grady took a moment to wrack his brain. Then his eyes lit up, but what he said next wasn’t at all what she was expecting.

  “I can’t afford to lose my job.”

  “Why would you lose your job?”

  He sighed. “Daisy has a zero tolerance policy when it comes to skimming.”

  “You mean taking food?”

  “Which happens all the time. Customers send plates back because they think something is wrong with it, and we’re just supposed to throw it away.”

  “Did you eat pancakes that were never picked up?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Were they for a woman named Carly?”

  “I have no idea, but Daisy almost caught me. When I walked away from the box, which I’d only had a bite of, she threw it away in the dumpster out back and told everyone not to mention it.”

  “Did she do anything else that seemed strange that morning?”

  “Yeah, but who could act normal? As soon as she dumped the pancakes, we all got word that some guy had been murdered in the parking lot.” Grady took a moment to think things through then said, “The strangest thing was that ordinarily the hostess arrives first and lets the cooks in. Usually, Daisy doesn’t show up for about an hour. Yet, that morning, she was the first one here.”

  “Interesting...”

  As soon as Kate had begun to contemplate the possible reasons Daisy might have shown up so early, she was startled at the sound of the woman’s barked tone.

  “What are you doing back here?”

  When Kate turned, she found Daisy staring at her with wide eyes and looking appalled.

  “Just checking on the shelves I put in,” she said.

  “The shelves you put in two years ago?” she challenged.

  “That’s right.”

  “The shelves that are on the other side of the kitchen?”

  “Just being friendly,” she supplied, padding through the kitchen and into the restaurant with Daisy at her heels.

  “You can’t believe a word he says.”

  Kate turned to face her. “Why?”

  “If you can keep it to yourself, I’ll tell you.”

  Kate was the last person to gossip, and Daisy knew that, so simply holding the woman’s gaze was confirmatio
n enough.

  “The most affordable labor comes with hiring...men of questionable repute.”

  It sounded familiar.

  “Ex-cons?” she asked.

  “I really can’t have the customers finding out,” said Daisy.

  “Did you tell Scott?”

  “Why would I?”

  Kate had to stop her jaw from dropping. “Because Clifford Green had been released from prison recently. If you have ex-convicts working here, they could’ve known Clifford. One of them could’ve had a reason to kill him. Scott is wasting his time investigating Carly for goodness sake.”

  “Please stay out of it, Kate.”

  She held Daisy’s gaze for a beat then started through the restaurant for her truck.

  When she reached it, she dialed Scott.

  “Yeah?” he said as soon as the line opened up.

  “Carly didn’t lie. Daisy did,” she blurted out.

  “Can we discuss this tonight when we’re both home?”

  “I don’t want you interrogating Carly,” she asserted.

  “It’s not going to be an interrogation. It’ll be a conversation, and one I have to have with her.”

  “Why?” she demanded.

  “Because Carly knew Clifford Green.”

  Taken aback, she felt her breath hitch in her throat. “How?”

  “Let’s just say Carly was the reason Clifford got locked up in the first place.”

  Chapter Five

  Kate had every intention of speaking to Scott about his intriguing comment to her over the phone, but he never made it home that night. She sat up awake in bed for hours pondering how Carly, her best friend for the past three decades, could’ve kept something from her as huge as having been the sole reason a man was sent to prison.

  The only reason she was able to eventually fall asleep was because Scott texted her that it was going to be another long night and that she shouldn’t wait up. Tacked on to his first text message was a second, which stated he hadn’t spoken with Carly yet.