Murder Over Easy (A Sunny Side Up Cozy Mystery Book 1)

by Rosie A. Point

“What do you mean?” Didi asked, readjusting her purse strap on her shoulder. “Am I sure what’s safe?”

  “Just walking home like this. At night. Just two women on the street.”

  “Of course,” Didi laughed. “Why wouldn’t it be safe?”

  “Just not something I’d do in the city, is all.”

  “Well, you’re safe in Parfait. We have minor crimes here, theft occasionally, but nothing serious. Nothing like what happened to Trisha.” Didi shivered, even though it was a balmy evening. “But we don’t even know if Trisha was murdered. They haven’t told us outright. Even the Parfait Platter hasn’t released any information yet.”

  I didn’t have the heart to break it to her that Detective Garcia had all but told me that this was a murder case.

  “If you say so,” I said.

  “You’ll get used to the slower pace of things around here. We go to bed whenever we want, we spend time eating and laughing and kidding around with our friends and family,” Didi said. “There’s a real sense of community.”

  “Is that why you stayed in town?”

  “Kind of. I love it here, but I want to go to college and study to be a chef. I just can’t afford it, and my mom can’t either. So, I’m trying to work extra shifts and save up enough money to go.”

  Another wave of guilt assaulted me. Yet more evidence that the Sunny Side Up Café was important to the local people. Didi relied on it for her income and for her future life goals.

  “What’s wrong?” Didi asked.

  I hadn’t realized I’d stopped walking. “Nothing,” I said. “I just hope that everything works itself out soon because I—” I cut off.

  A strange creeping sensation prickled down my spine, and I turned to peer back down the street. We’d left the ocean and boardwalk behind and were on a side-road that wound back toward my aunt’s seaside cottage.

  “What is it?” Didi asked, following my gaze.

  “I could swear I—no, it’s nothing. I’m just being paranoid.” But I’d heard something. The faint whisper of footsteps following us in the dark. It had to be my imagination. Was I so stressed that I was now hearing things? “Let’s go.”

  We set off again, and Didi hummed under her breath, completely unfazed by my tense stride. I listened hard.

  Sure enough, the soft scuffle of steps started up, and I spun around, glaring back down the street. A shadowy figure disappeared down an alleyway, stepping out of sight a second too late.

  “Someone’s following us,” I said. “They just went down there.”

  “Between the baker and the candlestick maker?”

  “Uh…”

  “I’m serious,” Didi said. “That’s Rob’s Bakery, and Kara’s Candles is right next door.”

  I tried not to get distracted by the extraneous information. “Someone is following us.”

  “Are you sure?” Didi was skeptical. She popped a hip and placed a hand on it.

  “I’m sure,” I said.

  “Well, then, let’s go see who it is.” Didi took a few steps forward, but I grabbed her arm and stopped her. “What? Come on, it’s probably a local walking home like us. Or a busybody who wants to find out more about you.”

  “No, Didi. Let’s go. I don’t like this.”

  “It’s OK,” the young woman said.

  “Please.”

  “Hey, whoever’s down there, come out right now!” Didi yelled. “Let us see your face!”

  Silence answered her call, and the rush of blood in my ears was the only sound.

  “See?” Didi shrugged. “No one.”

  Reluctantly, I started walking again, and we wound back around toward the coast, finding the dirt road that led to my aunt’s cottage. Thankfully, Didi lived nearby with her mother, so she wouldn’t have to walk much further after we’d reached my place. The follower, whoever they were, didn’t chase after us, and the whispering of footsteps stopped after Didi’s shouting.

  “Are you sure I can’t walk you home?” I asked.

  “I live just down the road,” Didi laughed. “Seriously. It’s totally chilled around here. You don’t have to worry about anything other than Rita’s cat. Good luck.”

  I stood on the porch and watched until she reached the house on the far corner. She disappeared inside, and only then did I enter my aunt’s house. I double-checked the door was locked, just in case.

  10

  Dawn came too early for my liking, but the bright sunlight and morning humidity wiped away my fears from last night. I took a cup of coffee out onto my aunt’s small front porch and sat on the swinging seat. In the daylight, my fears seemed silly. Of course, Parfait was safe. Of course, I was fine.

  It was just Detective Garcia’s talk about Damon and my past that had gotten me worried. No one would find me here, and the FBI had done their job in taking care of the last stragglers who had had dealings with my husband.

  I was perfectly safe. And perfectly ridiculous for turning what was the start to my new life into something sinister and scary.

  The ocean view from my aunt’s cottage was only partially blocked by coastal scrub, and I smiled to myself, listening to the distant waves, tilting my head back to accept the mingled scents of coffee and salty air.

  A door slammed nearby, and a young man with long dark hair tied back in a ponytail appeared in the yard next door.

  “Hello,” I called. “You’re up early.”

  “So are you,” he said with a smile. “You must be Rita’s niece. She mentioned you’d be coming to stay for a while.”

  I got up, brushing off my shorts and straightening them, then walked down to the quaint picket fence that separated my aunt’s yard from his.

  He stuck out a hand. “Pleasure to meet you,” he said. “Jonas Hodges.”

  “Sunday Charles, but you can call me Sunny.”

  “Great,” he said. “I was about to do some gardening. Want me to water your flowers? Rita’s not the best at looking after her garden, and she relies on me to make sure everything stays alive and well. I get a few free drinks at the café for it.”

  “Oh, sure, if you’d like to,” I replied. “But I don’t think you’ll be getting any free drinks this week.”

  “Heard about that,” Jonas said, with a regretful shake of his head. “But look, I’m sure everything will work itself out. That new detective has a keen look about it. Heard a rumor that he worked at one of those big homicide departments in Miami.”

  The door opened a second time, and a young woman in a pink dress came out, also with dark hair tied back in a ponytail. “Oh hello!” She grinned. “You must be Rita’s niece.”

  “This is Sunny,” Jonas said. “Sunny, this is my wife, Emilia.”

  “Nice to meet you.” I waved. “Are you—?” My phone rang, and I winced. “Excuse me.” I trudged back to my aunt’s porch for some relative privacy and answered the incoming call.

  “This is Sunny,” I said, nerves welling in the pit of my stomach. I had no idea why. They were just there, and I couldn’t rid myself of them. How annoying.

  “Good morning, Miss Charles. It’s Detective Garcia.”

  OK, so apparently my nerves had been well-placed.

  “How are you, detective?”

  “As well as I can be,” he said. “I’ve got some news about your café.”

  “Oh?” Please be good news. Please be good news. Please be good news.

  “We’ve found traces of poison in your kitchen and on the plate that served Trisha Williams,” he said.

  I nearly lost my balance and sat down heavily on my aunt’s swing seat. “You… you what?”

  “Yes. But we believe the poison was placed there before your employment. By someone who worked in the café.”

  “That’s… why?”

  “I’m only telling you this to let you know I don’t need you to come down, and that you’re not under suspicion at the moment,” he said.

  I didn’t like the ‘at the moment’ part of that sentence.

 
“And that you’re permitted to go in, clean up, and open your café again. I’ll be in touch soon.”

  “Why?” I blurted it out.

  “This case is far from closed, Miss Charles. Stay safe and stay in town.”

  “Wait!” I yelped before he could hang up.

  “Miss Charles?”

  “I—can you at least tell me who you think might’ve done this? I need to know if I’m going to be working in the café. I don’t want to worry about what might happen tomorrow or the next day or—”

  An awkward quiet followed.

  “Please?”

  “We’re investigating a few leads,” Detective Garcia said. “And I’m not at liberty to disclose that information just yet.”

  “It’s not Nick,” I said, because that was my hunch. It had been Nick and me in that kitchen, and he’d spent the most time there. There was just no way. He was a nice guy, right? And he’d been so helpful.

  You don’t know him, though.

  But Aunt Rita did, and she would never have trusted him to help me if she’d thought for a second that he might be a murderer. Or a bad guy.

  “—a good day, Miss Charles.” And then the detective was gone, and I was left with a churning stomach.

  Jonas and Emilia were still out in the yard—Jonas watering the flowers, and Emilia chasing their toddler around in the front yard. The chubby little boy let out wild whoops of joy, giggling madly while his mother chanted, “Here comes the kissy monster!”

  It was such a sweet image that it made my predicament starker.

  Quickly, I dialed Nick and pressed my cellphone to my ear.

  The phone rang and rang, eventually clicking over to his pre-recorded message.

  “This is Nick. Leave a message after the beep. Beep!” He’d said the beep and everything, his voice tinged with a smile.

  “Hi Nick, it’s Sunny. From the café? I mean, from Aunt Rita’s café. I just got news from the detective that we can open up again. We need to clean up. I’m thinking we’ll be ready by the weekend. Uh, just call me when you have the chance.”

  I nudged myself back and forth on the swinging seat, trying to rock myself to calm. It didn’t work.

  11

  There was nothing left to do that afternoon but clean up the café and prepare it for the reopening. The police tape was gone when I arrived, but the interior of the café was messy. Everything had been left as it was, and there were coatings of powder that I assumed was for fingerprinting on the table where Trisha had died.

  Eugh.

  Someone had died in the café. Would that put people off? It put me off.

  I’d joined the group chat that comprised the Sunny Side Up’s employees and broadcast a message that we were free to clean up for reopening, and that I could use a little help. I’d noted that it wasn’t mandatory or anything.

  There had been a responding barrage of questions about shift times and changes, and I’d promised that I’d look into it once I got to the café. I had no idea how they organized their shifts, and my guts twisted into knots at the thought of figuring it out on my own.

  Nick still hadn’t answered my message.

  “You can do this,” I whispered, wiping sweat from my brow as I walked through the interior of the café, noting the mess, the cleaning we’d have to do to make this place ship-shape.

  I entered the kitchen, and my jaw dropped.

  They’d taken just about everything. They’d cleared out the pots and pans, the food… It had obviously been contaminated. That, or they’d taken the stuff into evidence. Which meant I’d have to contact Rita’s suppliers and request more, and buy a whole new set of cutlery, crockery, and cookware.

  That was probably for the best.

  “Nick, where are you?” I whispered, bringing my phone out of my pocket.

  “Hello?” Didi’s voice echoed from the café’s interior, and I walked out to meet her.

  “Didi,” I said, and hugged her. “I’m so glad you came.”

  “Of course,” she said, practically bouncing with excitement in a cute pink dress that stressed the streaks in her hair. She’d tied her locks up in pigtails. “The sooner we get the café up and running again, the happier I’ll be. But we’ve got to leave the door open while we clean. It’s too hot in here.” She fanned herself, pulling a face.

  I wedged the door open with the doorstop—a little man with an egg for a body. “I have no idea where to begin. They took everything in the kitchen. The place is a mess. I just—it’s so overwhelming.”

  “Don’t worry,” Didi said. “I know where Rita keeps the contact info for her suppliers. And she orders her plates special from a guy the town over.” She strutted into the café, clearly at home. “Wait a sec. Where’s Nick?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I can’t get hold of him.”

  “That’s weird.” But Didi brushed it off, ever the optimist as I had learned. “I think we should clean out here first. We can work our way backward. That way, we don’t have to worry about contaminating the dining area. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “We’ll fill the buckets from the bathroom faucets. And there’s a cleaning supply closet next to the office so…”

  We set to work, Didi showing me where everything was, the sun baking us as we worked. We cleaned tables, the floor, and even the walls, taking down the pictures to wipe them down, both growing clammy.

  At around 2pm, a silver Honda pulled into a parking space in front of the café, and a woman with plum-colored hair emerged. It was Frances, the supposedly crotchety customer who’d been sweet to me on my first day in the café.

  She held a cardboard cupholder with four paper cups propped inside it and knocked on the café’s glass front door before entering.

  “Good morning,” she said. “How are you ladies today?”

  “Hello, Frances,” I replied. “We’re doing the best we can. How are you?”

  Didi had colored pink and merely bowed her head deferentially to the older woman.

  “Oh, I’m fine. I thought you hard worker bees might want some refreshments. I heard through the grapevine that you’ve got some cleaning to do before you can open the café.”

  “We do,” I said, “and thank you for this. What are they?”

  “Oh, just lemonade,” she replied, and set down the cups on one of the clean tables near the front of the café’s dining area. “Is it just you two here today?”

  “Yes. But we’re due a break.”

  “I think I’m going to clean the kitchen,” Didi squeaked, and motored off without taking one of the paper cups.

  “Strange child,” Frances said, shaking her head, her plum-colored do wiggling. She sat down at the table where she’d placed the cups and helped herself to one. “Care to join me, Sunny?”

  “Yes, please.” I sat down and took a cup. The lemonade was sweet, tangy, and cool and exactly the type of refreshment that provided solace on a hot day like this. “Thank you for this, Frances. This is heavenly.”

  “Oh, it was nothing,” Frances said. “I figured you had so much on your plate after that idiot Trisha went and got herself killed that you might need a little help. Besides, Rita’s been so kind to me over the years, I owed her one.”

  Goodness. That idiot Trisha? That was quite a thing to say about a murder victim, especially when Trisha and Frances had argued on the morning of the murder.

  “We’ll get all of this cleaned up in no time,” I said, feigning confidence. “And then we’ll be back in business.”

  “I hope so.” Frances pursed her lips. “There are plenty of other restaurants in town, but the Sunny Side Up is the beating heart of Parfait.”

  A strange sentence if I ever I’d heard one.

  “And it would be such a shame if that stupid girl ruined it for you.”

  “Who, Trisha?”

  “Yes, Trisha.”

  “It’s not her fault,” I replied. “She was the victim in the scenario here.”

  Frances rol
led her eyes, her eyelashes fluttering. “Oh please, don’t be so polite. That woman was a scourge. A vlogger. Pah! She did nothing but flit around town taking inappropriate photos at inopportune times, annoying people. It’s no wonder she got herself killed.”

  I was speechless.

  “I’d say good riddance to trash like her, but… well, that wouldn’t be diplomatic, would it?”

  “No, it wouldn’t,” I said, at last.

  “But since I’m with a friend,” Frances continued, “I feel comfortable enough to say it. Parfait is better off without Trisha Williams. In fact, whoever killed her did us all a favor.”

  “Why? What did she do?”

  “Her foibles go way back,” Frances said, sipping her lemonade sagely. “It all started when she was in high school. She nearly burned down her friend’s house, but she escaped arrest because her father was rich enough to grease a few palms. From there, things got worse. She was a gossip and a thief, and when she finally left Parfait for college, everyone was relieved.” Frances wriggled her nose. “And upset when she came back a few weeks ago. Apparently, she wanted to expand her career as a food vlogger. Whatever that is. Sounds like a waste of a profession if you ask me.”

  “Oh dear,” I said, because while I didn’t agree with Frances, she was telling me a lot of stuff I hadn’t known.

  And so what? What are you going to do with that information?

  “Have you told Detective Garcia all of this?” I asked.

  Frances sipped her drink and gazed out of the front doors at the shimmering ocean and the activity on the boardwalk. “You know, a town like this deserves better than people like that. Anyway, dear, I’d better leave. I wanted to check that you were doing all right out here.”

  “Thank you. Take care.”

  “You too, dear,” Frances said, pausing in the doorway and raising a gray eyebrow. “You too.” And then she was off in her silver car.

  The kitchen doors swung open. “Is she gone?” Didi asked.

  “Yes. Why? What was so urgent about the kitchen that you had to clean it right away?”

  “Nothing,” Didi said. “I didn’t want to be around her. She’s horrible on her good days, and also… oh my word, Sunny, did you drink that lemonade she brought with her?”