Nessa hemmed and hawed, still not happy about it. “Fine, but the minute I find someone to fix the sink, I’m coming in. I have to work on something besides a plain berry cheesecake. That’s so boring.”
“I beg to differ. All the ones you made yesterday have sold out, and I’ve already made more this morning. I refilled the case, and if I’m counting properly, there are only a few left. I’d say they were a raging success.”
“Oh.” Nessa had felt like everything her grandfather or Faye made was so much better and more creative. It hadn’t occurred to her that something new, no matter how plain or boring she thought it was, might be exciting for someone who had been coming into the bakery for years and getting what they were used to. The same was good. Familiar was good. But a little change wasn’t so bad, either.
“Take care of your house and come in when you’re done. Really, it’s okay. We don’t mind. So long as you aren’t skipping work to have another sleepover with your new best friend, of course.” Lex laughed at his own joke, and Nessa heard Faye cackling too.
“Real nice, you two. Real nice.” She was not going to willingly have Bizzie over again, but she did need to take care of her house. She ended the call with her grandfather, thanking both him and Faye before trying Clint’s number again.
This time, he answered and said he happened to be right around the corner and could stop over within the hour. He instructed her to turn the water off and remove anything that she could that might have gotten damaged. For once in her life, Nessa was glad for her procrastination. She’d unpacked next to nothing, so there was nothing there to be damaged in the first place.
While she waited for Clint to arrive, she worked on the bakery’s website and answered some questions people had asked on their various social media pages. She scrolled the Internet for no-bake recipe ideas and even went through a few of the applications for a part-time employee. Feeling like she’d accomplished at least a little something, Nessa jumped up when she heard a vehicle pull into her driveway. She opened the door, eager for Clint to come inside. She planned on showing him a few more things she wanted to get done around the house while he was there.
“Hey, Clint! Thanks so much for coming on such short notice,” Nessa said, following him into the house.
Clint went straight for the kitchen, having remembered where it was from the first time he’d been there, and dropped his tools on the floor.
“No trouble. I had an estimate a few streets over, so it was good timing on your part.” He got down on the floor and stuck his head under the sink. “Looks like you’ve got a low leak in this pipe. I can take care of it pretty easily.”
“Do you have time now?” she asked.
“Sure do.” Clint nodded and got to work.
Nessa laughed at herself, wondering how awkward she looked. Every time she had work done around the house and a service provider came in, she stood around like a weirdo. Was she supposed to sit and watch? Should she talk to them while they worked? Both of those options felt wrong, but leaving the worker to their own devices didn’t feel right, either.
After a bit of Nessa pacing around the house and unpacking a box or two, Clint was finished.
“Thank you so much! You’re a lifesaver,” Nessa told him. She didn’t know him well, or at all, but felt comfortable enough to ask him about the other work she wanted to have done in her new house. She told him about the squeaky closet doors, that she wanted to replace the ceiling fans and light fixtures, and have the carpeting taken out on the stairs.
“I have time now to look around and get you an estimate,” Clint offered. “Would that be alright?”
Nessa agreed. “Definitely. And if you see anything else while you look around that needs some work, feel free to let me know.”
Clint inspected everything Nessa had mentioned and wrote her up an estimate. “I gave you the friends and family discount, too. I know you and Mavery are friends and she’s been really good to me.”
“You didn’t need to do that!” Nessa exclaimed. She appreciated it, of course, but she and Mavery were barely friends. She followed Clint outside and to his truck.
“I know, but it’s the least I can do. I’ll admit that it’s a little like an I scratch your back, you scratch mine sort of thing. You’re a business owner, and I know a lot of people in this town like you. I figure that if I do the work, and you think I did a good job, then you may mention me to others. I’m betting on myself here,” Clint said. “I think you’ll be happy, so I offered the discount.”
Nessa liked Clint. She thought it was honest of him to say it that way. He wasn’t trying to scam her or trick her into giving him the job. And he was right. She’d absolutely tell others about his work if he did a good job.
She leaned against the bed of his truck with her phone in her hand. When he dropped his bags in the back, it jolted her hand, and she dropped her phone. She stood on her tiptoes and tried to reach down to pick it up. She was tall but couldn’t quite reach it.
“I’ll get it,” Clint said, moving a blue tarp around to look for Nessa’s phone.
As he did so, Nessa saw a pile of shattered glass under the tarp. She only got a quick look as Clint had found her phone.
“Thanks,” she said when he handed it to her. “Give me a call if you want to work together.”
“Will do,” Nessa said, feeling a pit in her stomach. Clint worked in construction and did a lot of projects, but she couldn’t help but wonder about the shattered glass. It seemed like a strange thing to keep in your truck, or at least to not clean up. She thought about the glass box of missing money from the radio station and let her mind wander to thoughts about how she’d just had a thief or a killer in her home, or maybe both.
Chapter Nine
Nessa planned on going to the bakery as soon as Clint left, but she looked at the time and remembered that Mavery ate lunch at The Shack every day. It was just about the time she was normally there, and after seeing that glass, Nessa knew she had to talk to her before doing anything else.
She called the bakery to let them know she was stopping for lunch and asked what they wanted. It was the least she could do. In The Shack’s parking lot, she immediately recognized Mavery’s car. Nessa ran inside to place the order, then went to the outdoor area to find her newest friend. She’d kept saying that they weren’t friends, but Mavery had never been anything but kind to her.
The moment Mavery saw her, she hopped up from the bench she was sitting on. “Nessa! You are the sweetest person ever. I just got off the phone with Clint, and he says he’s feeling good about your meeting. Are you going to hire him? I won’t tell him your answer, but I just have to know!”
Every time Nessa saw Mavery, she remembered how excitable she was. The woman had some serious energy.
“Hey, Mavery. I actually wanted to talk to you about Clint if you have a second.”
The look on Mavery’s face fell. “Oh, no. Did he do something wrong? Sometimes he can be a little snippy. Please tell me he wasn’t rude to you.”
“Not at all,” Nessa told her, thinking of Clint in the exact opposite way, but noted Mavery’s comment. “He was very professional and efficient.”
“Oh, good.” She breathed a sigh of relief. “What is it, then? Want a fry?” she asked, pointing to her tray of food.
“No, thanks.” Nessa shook her head at the woman’s desire to share food. “How long have you and Clint been seeing each other? You two seem to have a good relationship.”
She hated to turn this into what it wasn’t, but if pretending to ask for relationship advice was what she needed to do, then she would.
“What makes you think that?” Mavery asked.
“Well, you said he called you about working with me, and he’d just left my house. He must think pretty highly of you to call you right away like that.”
“Oh, well, yeah, I guess we are kinda close. We’ve been dating a couple of weeks, I guess. Not very long. I like him a lot, though.”
“Do
you have any tips for me? I mean, like how I might be able to get close to Daniel like that?” Nessa asked, trying hard to hide the cringey feel of her question. She and Daniel were just fine, and she hoped that her questions didn’t get back to him. She didn’t want or need to look desperate for his attention.
“Ohhhh,” Mavery fawned. “This is so much fun. Relationship advice is like, my favorite thing to give!”
Nessa forced a smile and did her best to sound giddy. “Awesome!”
“Okay, so,” Mavery settled back onto the bench and made room for Nessa to join her. “We talk a ton. I leave him little notes in his truck so he can find them and think of me. He comes to see me when I’m at work sometimes, which is super great if the job is a boring one or a big one that I’m on my own with.”
Nessa knew she wasn’t actually looking for advice, but she couldn’t imagine leaving notes for Daniel to find. She also had to consider that if Mavery was in and out of Clint’s truck, that maybe she had a reason to steal the money even if she didn’t have access to the radio station.
“Are you on your own a lot at work?” she asked. If she could get double the information on this trip, she’d be thrilled. She still wanted to know what Ranger’s deal was with her and why he’d suddenly started believing that she was a bad guy.
“Well, it’s just Ranger and me right now. His other employees are all in the same family, and they went on a family vacation. It’s not always like that, but we’ve been pretty busy and had had to change around our schedules a bunch to make it work. He’s had me working more commercial cleanings rather than residential, which is kinda strange. I’m not sure why he’s wanted to be in the residential areas more often lately, but I guess I can’t complain too much. He gave me a raise and a bonus.” Mavery shrugged.
Nessa bet that the reason Ranger wanted to do more residential work was because he wanted to get some attention on his Rangerhood Watch committee. She didn’t actually know if there were other members on the committee with him, but if he spent more time around the actual neighborhood, then maybe he’d get some. However, he seemed to think that there was something going on with the small businesses in town, which led Nessa to believe that he’d have wanted to work around them more often.
“Who worked at the radio station?” Nessa asked, deciding she may as well go big or go home.
“Normally Ranger and Lloyd, but with Lloyd gone and all the switching, I’ve been going there for the last two weeks. We clean the building twice a week, too. Don’t ask me why because it’s not even very dirty.” Mavery started rambling about the size of the trash cans and how she was too short to reach the top shelf of the supply closet.
If Mavery liked to have Clint visit her at work, and she’d been working at the radio station, then there was at least a small chance that the glass Nessa had seen in Clint’s truck was from the box the missing money had been in. Now, she just needed to figure out if there was a reason for Clint to steal the money. She knew he needed work, which meant he needed money, but that might also mean she’d just had a killer fix her kitchen sink. Assuming the missing money had anything to do with Liam’s death at all.
Nessa joked about how tall she was and always had to reach things for people so she could carry on the conversation and not make it all about interrogating the poor woman. Mavery seemed like a perfectly nice person, who Nessa could be friends with under normal circumstances, but this was far from normal.
“You haven’t been able to go back to the radio station, have you? After what happened with Liam, I mean.”
“Nope,” Mavery answered. “That place is locked up tighter than Fort Knox. It’s funny, too, because I’m almost positive that the police have cleared it. The crime scene tape is gone, and I don’t see any police presence when I drive by. From what I can tell, it’s that new owner guy who hasn’t reopened. He’s been running the show from his setup at home. Barely anyone listens anymore, anyway, so I’m not sure what’s going on with him, the radio station, or the building.”
“Oh, wow. I had no idea. Between losing his assistant and all that money, I bet he’s not having a very easy time with things.”
“No kidding,” Mavery agreed. “I don’t think I’ve ever had that much money at one time, let alone being comfortable enough to leave it on my desk 24/7. I feel sorry for him that someone stole his money, but you have to admit that leaving it around like that wasn’t very smart.”
“I’ve never seen a contest with that amount of money before, and as a former financial advisor, I’d never recommend leaving money lying around, but if his ratings were low, I guess I see why he thought the contest was a good idea.”
Mavery chuckled. “I feel just as bad for Levi and Martina. Levi sells the place, and Robby runs it into the ground in just a few months. I know how hard he and Martina worked to make that place what it was. They had local guests on the radio all the time. I even got to sing once. Don’t tell anyone, though. No one knew it was me, just a surprise secret guest.” She held her finger to her lips.
“Well, it’s very cool you got to sing, but I agree that it’s got to be tough to know your business is no longer successful, even if it’s not yours anymore. You don’t think either one of them might have been upset and maybe made a bad decision, do you?” Nessa asked.
“What, you mean Levi or Martina killing Liam?”
“Or maybe taking the money,” Nessa added.
“The thought never occurred to me. I guess it’s possible. Levi is pretty old, though. I mean, he walks with a cane and isn’t too steady on his feet. I don’t think he’d be able to make a run for it.” Mavery laughed awkwardly.
“I guess I’m just getting ahead of myself. I don’t think I ever met either of them unless it was in passing. Anyway, thanks for chatting with me. I’ve got to go pick up our lunch and get it back to the bakery.”
Nessa hadn’t really learned too much other than Clint had the chance to steal the money if Mavery let him in. She didn’t think it was the time to ask her about that, though, because she didn’t want to throw any accusations around quite yet. However, she’d successfully gotten away without having to answer Mavery’s question about if she was going to hire Clint to do the work on her house. After today, she didn’t know what to do.
Chapter Ten
“What took you so long?” Faye asked, putting her hand on her forehead and feigning starvation.
“I ran into Mavery at The Shack,” Nessa said, opening the bag and handing Faye her order. “How was this morning?”
“Busy but good,” she replied, taking her turkey sandwich. “How was Mavery?”
“Energetic but good,” Nessa teased. “I like her.”
“Did she have anything interesting to say?” Faye asked after running into the office to give Lex his lunch. He was dealing with paperwork and didn’t want to lose focus.
Nessa laughed, knowing just what Faye meant. “She’d been working at the radio station and would have her boyfriend visit while she was there.”
“The same guy doing your renovations, right?”
“Maybe not anymore. I saw a bunch of broken glass in the bed of his truck, and I know the money from the station was in a glass box. If he visited Mavery at work when she was there, he could have stolen the money pretty easily.” Nessa took her meatball grinder from the box and covered herself in napkins, afraid to spill.
“Oh.”
“I know. I felt the same way. I don’t know why he would have done it, but I know he was looking for work. But because of his work, it’s possible that he’d been repairing a broken window or something. Maybe he removed the old one and took it away for his customer, and some shattered glass got left behind.” Nessa tried to justify what she saw.
“Are you thinking the missing money and the murder go hand in hand?” Faye asked. “I don’t know all that much, but I’m almost certain Clint didn’t know Liam.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Rose said that she and Judson ran into each othe
r at the market, and they saw Mavery talking to Bizzie. Since Rose knows that Bizzie likes Judson, she called Bizzie over, but Bizzie was waiting for Liam, who had run to the dairy department, and Clint had just come out of the bathroom, which is why Mavery was talking to Bizzie in the first place. Rose said that Mavery introduced Liam and Clint to one another right in front of her. To me, that means they didn’t know each other.”
“That’s a whole lot of information,” Nessa said, feeling like she was back in high school with all the he said she said stuff.
“Maybe so.” Faye nodded. “But it also tells you that Clint didn’t even know Liam, or at least not very well. Rose said this happened only days before the money went missing. So, if Clint did take it, the only real reason he’d have to kill Liam is if Liam saw him do it. But if what you said is true, then Clint stole the money at night when Mavery was cleaning, and usually, there aren’t any employees there at that time.”
Nessa took a minute to go over everything and realized Faye was probably right. Liam wouldn’t have been there after hours, and if Clint didn’t know him for more than a day or two, there’d be no reason to dislike him enough to kill him.
“So, now, I have to find out if Clint stole the money. If he did, then chances are, Liam’s death is unrelated.”
“And if he didn’t?” Faye asked.
“Then I’m back where I started. Mavery did tell me that Levi and Martina might be mad about how things have gone downhill at the radio station.”
“True, but would they have a reason to steal the money or kill Liam? Levi chose to sell the place. He doesn’t really have room to be upset about what happens after the fact.”
“And Martina?”
“She worked hard to make the station successful. When Levi sold, she lost her job, but I believe she found something better. She’s running the Wilawalo Weekly now. I think it’s better, anyway. I don’t know much about media.”
Cheesecake and Chills Page 4