A Cauldron of Hot Coffee: Enchanted Enclave Mysteries Books 1-3

by Samantha Silver

  The florist raised her eyebrows. “You’re giving these flowers to Karen, aren’t you?”

  Leanne groaned. “Great. So word has gotten around town that I’m the one who hit her, hasn’t it?”

  “I’m afraid so,” the florist replied with an apologetic look. “Although, if it’s any consolation, I’ve also heard that it was thanks to you that she’s still alive. And I am glad Karen is ok.”

  “Did you know her well?” I asked, and the florist shrugged.

  “I wouldn’t say well, but I did know her. I work as a substitute teacher sometimes when the florist shop is closed, and my brother Gary is the principal at the school. Still, I saw her as a coworker more than I did as a florist.”

  “Did she ever talk to you about her husband?” Leanne asked, and the woman’s eyes widened.

  “Kyle? You can’t possibly think he would have done it, do you? Well, I suppose anything is possible. You never really do know people, do you? I always thought they were a loving couple. In fact, I still do.”

  “That may very well be true, we’re not really looking into it or anything,” I said hurriedly.

  “Oh no, of course not,” the woman said. “I can’t say I really did hear Karen speak about her husband very much. She’d mention his work from time to time, but she really preferred to speak about her little boys. She’s very dedicated to them, you know. And they’re such little darlings. Of course, they can be a handful. But then, that’s what children are, aren’t they? And Karen was so good with them. She would work a full day at school and then still take them to soccer practice and have oranges sliced up for all the kids when they were finished. I honestly don’t know how she does it. I don’t have kids and I always end up completely wiped after I do a day of teaching.”

  “I just can’t imagine who would have done this to her,” Leanne said, shaking her head.

  “Neither can I,” the woman replied. “She was just so nice to everyone. The last person you’d ever think would be murdered. Anyway, to answer your question, I think thirty dollars would be a fine budget for someone in your situation.”

  “Alright, well, let’s round it up and make it forty then,” Leanne said. “I really do feel bad for not getting out of the way in time.”

  The florist gave Leanne a sympathetic look. “I’m sure Karen will understand. The universe obviously willed for everything to happen as it did, and as a result Karen is still with us and alive. I was thrilled to hear she’s coming back to recuperate here. You know, I know a lot of people consider it to be pseudo-science, but I really believe there is something to the notion that you recover better in the place you call home.”

  “I can believe that,” Leanne said. “After all, when you’re really, truly home there’s a sense of belonging, a relaxation that you don’t get when you’re elsewhere. Even Seattle is close to here, but it’s not Enchanted Enclave. It’s not home for Karen. I imagine she will have an easier time being able to relax and recover when she knows she’s here.”

  “I do hope so,” I chimed in. “Her parents will be there too, at least. They’re helping with the boys, I assume.”

  “Yes, it can’t have been easy for Karen, taking care of her home and of her children,” the florist said. “She handled her responsibilities so well, but there is a saying that just because someone bears a weight well doesn’t mean it’s not heavy. I admire Karen for how she carried the weight she bore. She did not deserve this.”

  As she spoke, the florist put together a small bouquet of flowers, which she then handed to Leanne. “I’m sure she will speak with you.”

  “Thanks,” Leanne replied. “I hope so.”

  We left the florist and made our way to the small hospital. Leanne clutched the flowers to her chest, and the color drained from her face as we approached.

  “It’s going to be fine,” I told her, but my cousin just nodded in reply.

  The few times I had been to a hospital in my life, it had been fairly chaotic. The emergency room had been full of people with various ailments, from a little boy yelling that his ear hurt, to a teenager curled up into a ball on the chair and rocking herself back and forth, and an old woman yelling at the nurses that she’d been waiting two hours and needed to be seen now.

  Enchanted Enclave’s hospital was a different situation entirely. The waiting room consisted of about five chairs lined up against the wall near the reception desk, where a nurse was comfortably tapping away at a computer. Only one of the chairs was occupied, by an older man casually drinking a coffee who I suspected was simply visiting someone and not actually waiting to be seen.

  Standing to one side, near a rack of brochures offering information about a number of common diseases was Detective Ross Andrews. He was flipping through his notebook, but as soon as he glanced up and saw us he strode over to where Leanne and I were standing as we waited for the nurse at the reception area.

  “Hello, Eliza. Leanne.”

  “Hi, Detective,” I said. “So it’s true that Karen is here again?”

  “That’s her father there,” he replied, motioning his head towards the man with the cup of coffee. “They moved her over here an hour ago and the rest of the family has just gone home to get some rest. Her father insisted that someone should stay here at the hospital just in case.”

  Just then Detective Andrews’ phone rang, and he motioned for us to hold on as he took a few steps away from us to answer it. His face immediately went dark; the family must have gotten home and found out about the break in.

  “Alright, I’ll be right there,” he said, hanging up the phone, and turned to us. “I wanted to speak with the two of you, but it’s going to have to wait. Excuse me.” With that, he strode out of the hospital.

  “I guess we can’t tell him we know it was Andrew who broke in,” I muttered to Leanne, who shook her head.

  “Nope. Far too many questions we don’t want to answer if we do. That one’s going to be up to him to solve. On the bright side, Detective Andrews isn’t a total idiot like our chief of police, so there’s a chance he might actually find the culprit on his own.”

  We could always hope, especially since I was fairly certain Andrew was the killer.

  Chapter 18

  The nurse at the reception counter was initially a little bit frosty with her reception, until she learned that Leanne was the one who had found Karen and that she wanted to make sure she was alright. Eventually, the nurse relented, and told us that as long as she came with us and asked Karen if she wanted to speak with us first, it would be fine for us to see her.

  Leanne didn’t say a word as we followed the nurse down the hallway. She eventually stopped in front of a private room and motioned for us to wait outside, which we did. A moment later, the nurse came back out, smiling. “She’s more than happy to have you come in and see her,” the nurse replied. “However, I will ask that you not spend more than five minutes in the room with Karen, as the most important thing for her to do right now is to rest.”

  “Got it,” Leanne said, nodding. “Thank you so much.”

  The nurse nodded and made her way back down towards reception while Leanne and I opened the door and stepped into the room. As soon as she saw us, Karen’s face broke into a huge smile. She looked almost nothing like the half-dead creature I had held in the middle of the road. Her brown hair, rather than being plastered across her face, now draped gracefully over her shoulders. Her face, which had been pale and bloodless when I saw her last, was now warm and inviting, her cheeks red. She had dimples when she smiled, and her eyes twinkled as she took us in.

  “Leanne and Eliza,” she said. “You’re the two women who saved me. I’m so glad you came, I cannot begin to thank you enough.”

  “These are for you,” Leanne said, handing her the flowers. “I wanted to come and apologize for, you know, hitting you. I swear, I tried to swerve. I did my best.”

  “You’re too kind,” Karen replied, reaching over to take the bouquet and inhaling deeply into the flowers. “P
lease, do not worry about me one bit. It’s thanks to the two of you that I’m alive at all. So you must be Leanne.”

  My cousin nodded. “That’s right, I am. And this is Eliza.”

  “Do you remember us hitting you?” I asked, and Karen shook her head.

  “I’m afraid not. I only know what the police have told me. They said I was stabbed, and that I ran out into the road in front of you, and you’re the ones who called the ambulance. I don’t remember anything that happened after school ended that day. I remember the bell going off, and then waking up in the hospital bed. Everything else is a blank.”

  “Do you know if the police know who did this to you?”

  Karen shook her head. “I don’t think they do. Chief Jones himself came down to Seattle, asking me all sorts of questions. Had I been fighting with anyone, did I know anyone who might want to hurt me, that sort of thing.”

  “Do you?” Leanne asked. “We were just wondering ourselves who might have done it.”

  Karen shook her head. “Frankly, no. I’ve had a few disagreements with people in my life, but nothing worth killing over. I’m quite sure of that.”

  “What about Andrew, who runs the recreation center?” I asked. “We heard you had an argument with him a few days before you were stabbed.”

  Karen frowned slightly. “Now, I wonder who’s been running their mouth in town. Yes, Andrew and I had a disagreement. It was very much a private matter, however, and I’m sure it wasn’t something he would have killed me over. You know, I still can’t even believe this is a conversation I’m having. I just can’t think of anything I’ve ever done that would make someone want to kill me. I just can’t believe it.”

  She was getting a little bit worked up, and obviously wasn’t going to help us all that much, so I decided to try and make her feel a bit better, instead.

  “It must be nice to have this community support, at least. I work with Leanne at the coffee shop and everyone I’ve spoken to was hoping you would pull through.”

  “Oh, that’s just wonderful,” Karen said with an appreciative smile. “I really can’t believe the outpouring of support I’ve received from everyone here on Enchanted Enclave. Sasha came over to see me, and she made enough food to feed Kyle, the boys and my parents for weeks. A few of my coworkers came by as well and offered to take the boys out for a while so the adults could get some rest. I just can’t thank everyone enough. And now these lovely flowers, when I should be the one thanking you, not the other way around.”

  “We’ll let you rest now,” I said. “Thanks for seeing us.”

  “Oh, thank you for coming. It’s so nice to see some friendly faces from home. I’m really glad to be back here, even if it is just in the hospital.”

  “We were just talking about that today with Gary’s sister, the florist,” Leanne said.

  “Janet is lovely, isn’t she? She works so hard to keep that florist going while working part time at the school. Honestly, I don’t know how she does it.”

  “A lot of people have been saying that about you, too,” I said. “After all, you’ve got the two little boys at home, and we know how most of the childcare falls onto the woman’s shoulders.”

  Karen gave us a smile. “Ah, yes. Well, Kyle does do his bit sometimes. I always wish he did more, but then, what mother doesn’t? The boys are really wonderful, though. My parents say they’ve been taking this like champions, which is what I’d expect all the way. They’re so young to have their mother being hurt like this, so I try to put on the bravest face I can when they’re here. They’re too young to know what suffering is, and I don’t want them to know about it yet, either.”

  “Yeah,” Leanne said, nodding. “I agree. I’m really glad for their sake as well as yours that you’re going to be alright.”

  “Me too,” Karen said. “I love them so much.”

  We spoke for a few more minutes and then left the hospital. I was really glad Karen was alright, and it was nice to meet her when she wasn’t just about to die of blood loss, but I had hoped she would have been able to give us a bit more of an indication as to who her killer was.

  “Do you believe what she says about Andrew and the argument not being important?” Leanne asked, obviously thinking the same way I was.

  “No,” I replied. “If it hadn’t been important, he wouldn’t have broken into her home.”

  “Exactly,” Leanne replied, nodding. “I agree completely. There’s something there, we just have to find out what.”

  The problem was, I was completely out of ideas, and it seemed Leanne was as well.

  The next morning at the coffee shop, Karen’s return to town was the talk of everyone who came in to get a coffee.

  “I missed you at yoga last night,” Janice said to us when she came in first thing.

  “Sorry,” Leanne replied. “We got distracted by other things. I promise we’ll be back on Wednesday.”

  “Speak for yourself,” I muttered under my breath, and Janice gave me a knowing smile.

  “It is difficult to start the practice,” she told me. “However, I ask that you give it a little bit of time. No one is an expert straight away, and after you’ve gone to a few classes and your body has adapted to the movements you may find you feel differently.”

  Wow. She had to have the hearing of a bat.

  “I’ll be there on Wednesday,” I said, the people-pleasing part of me taking over while inside my brain began sobbing at the thought.

  “Good,” Janice said. “I promise, it won’t feel as bad the second time.”

  “It better not, or I might actually die right there in the yoga studio,” I said after Janice left, and Leanne laughed.

  “You’re so dramatic. You did not almost die.”

  “You don’t know what I felt. People have been known to die from exercising. It’s happened.”

  “I’m pretty sure those people did more than a single hour of yoga,” Leanne replied, rolling her eyes.

  “You don’t know that,” I said, just as another customer walked in through the door, interrupting our discussion. It was Jack, looking chipper.

  “Good morning,” I said to him, and he smiled back at me.

  “Morning. Some good news today. Karen is back at the hospital. I went and saw her late last night and I’m thrilled to report she’s looking in good spirits and is on the mend.”

  “Yes, isn’t that great?” I replied. “We went and saw her as well. She was so gracious. I’m glad she’s pulled through.”

  “You couldn’t be more right. I met her parents at the hospital. They’re quite nice people, although understandably stressed. But did you hear someone broke into the family home while they were gone?”

  “No!” I said, my mouth dropping open, doing my best to feign surprise. “You’re kidding.”

  “Unfortunately not,” Jack said, his mouth a grim line. “I had no idea when I saw Karen, but I heard about it later; my wife found out about it at the bakery and told me that night.”

  “Is anything missing?” Leanne asked.

  “That’s the funny thing. Apparently, their place was ransacked a little bit, but no, nothing was gone. And there was cash and jewelry not well hidden from what I’ve heard. That’s the worrying thing – my bet is whoever tried to kill Karen snuck into her house to try and find some incriminating evidence and get rid of it.”

  “Well, by all accounts it wasn’t Gary,” I replied.

  “I heard he was in Seattle at a conference when it happened,” Jack replied, frowning. “I guess that means it wasn’t him after all.”

  “It certainly looks that way,” Leanne said. “He’s dropped to the bottom of our list of suspects. On the other hand, we know that Karen and Andrew had an argument about something. She won’t tell us about what, and says that it wasn’t important enough for him to kill her over, but we don’t have any answers on that front.”

  “Well, hopefully the police will figure it out,” Jack replied.

  “Agreed,” I said, handin
g Jack his muffin. He said goodbye to the two of us and headed off. Frankly, it didn’t look like we were going to solve this crime anytime soon, so hopefully the police would manage it sooner rather than later.

  Chapter 19

  “Alright, time for you to take over the coffee making for a little bit,” Leanne said, motioning for me to make my way to the machine. We can swap if we get a crowd, but you need to get a bit more experience.”

  “Sure,” I said, swallowing hard and trying to hide my nerves. I was still worried that I was going to completely mess things up for customers and that they were going to hate coming to the coffee shop, but at least I had already done this once without messing things up too badly.

  Our next customer was a young woman who I had seen a few times, but whose name I didn’t know yet. She ordered a twelve ounce latte to go. Perfect – that was the easiest thing to make. I took a deep breath and made the coffee, carefully tamping the beans and watching as the machine extracted the espresso, the creamy brown fluid exuding that wonderful aroma that made me involuntarily inhale deeply.

  Carefully steaming the milk, I added it to the coffee and handed it to the woman. “If this isn’t up to our normal standard, please come back and Leanne will remake this for you,” I said to her. “This is only the third coffee I’ve ever made, so I won’t be insulted if you tell me it’s terrible.”

  The woman laughed. “Thanks, but I’m sure it’s fine. I’ve never had a bad coffee from here yet, and besides, as long as it’s got caffeine in it, I’ll drink basically anything.”

  “Finally, someone with low enough standards I might be able to meet them,” I said with a smile, and the woman gave me a friendly smile as she took a sip.

  “I don’t know what you’re worried about. This tastes fine. You’re doing great. Thanks again, have a great day.”

  “You too, thank you,” I said, my heart swelling happily as I realized I had just served my first ever paying customer. And she hadn’t asked for a refund! Maybe I was eventually going to be good at this barista gig after all.