A Berry Cunning Conman_A Laugh-Out-Loud Cozy Mystery

by A. R. Winters

  We got in Zoey’s car, and she was driving by the time I clicked my seatbelt into place. “I’m more interested in knowing what it was that Morgan said to diffuse him. Looked like he wanted to fire Morgan one second and give him a promotion the next.”

  It was a nice trip to the shopping center. The traffic was lazy and yellow spring flowers were popping up all around despite the random bouts of nosediving temps that seemed to slide into the area every other night. But if winter wasn’t completely out the door, you couldn’t tell it from today. The sun was bright, and there were plenty of walkers out on the neighborhood sidewalks.

  When we got to Sole Support, the shop was empty of both customers and service providers, yet the door was unlocked. Inside, the walls were lined with every type of shoe imaginable. I didn’t know how a three-inch pump could be considered an orthopedic shoe, but there they were, shiny, red, and ready to be taken out to the dance floor.

  Zoey picked up a low-heeled mule that managed to be stylish and looked comfortable. They were a stark contrast to her go-go boots.

  “People will fall over if they see you walking around in those,” I teased.

  “What size do you wear?”

  “Huh?” I refocused on the shoe. She was considering them for me, not her.

  She shrugged. “Gotta have some excuse to be here.”

  As if on cue, an out-of-sight back door in the shop opened. A young twenty-something man with black hair and pale skin appeared a moment later. He still had the slender build of a teenager, and there was the merest shadow on his chin where his beard would grow in if he didn’t shave. He was wearing a burgundy knit polo short-sleeve shirt and light tan khakis. I recognized him from Zoey’s tap into the store’s video surveillance. He’d been Morgan’s co-worker, and the name tag on his shirt read, “Aaron.”

  “What can I do for you ladies?” Aaron asked with a smile.

  Zoey teeter-tottered the shoe in the air as she looked at me. “What size?”

  I couldn’t believe she was pressing forward with the shoe ruse. We were there to learn more about Morgan’s life, not try on footwear. But I answered anyway. “Size six and a half.”

  Aaron left to retrieve the shoe in the proper size, and I whisper-hissed, “What are you doing?”

  “Getting you shoes,” Zoey whisper-hissed back.

  Aaron reappeared a moment later, a shoe box in hand. “Here we go,” he said as he led us to a line of chairs that backed against the wall. Zoey and I sat down, and Aaron slid a short stool and sat down right in front of me. Without asking, he went to work untying my sneaker and then expertly slipping it off my foot. After he put the tan mule sandal on my foot, he pressed the tip to find the ends of my toes.

  “Looks like it’s a good fit. Stand up and see how it feels,” he said.

  I did and was amazed at how comfortable the shoe was. But it was time to get down to business. We sort of had Aaron as our captive audience. “Another man waited on us the last time we were in. A guy about your age but a little heavier built.”

  Aaron’s lips tightened and their corners pulled down. “He doesn’t work here anymore,” he informed before directing, “Take a few steps. You can’t tell if a shoe fits unless you walk in it.”

  “Did he quit?” Zoey asked.

  Aaron hesitated. He glanced to his side in the direction of the store’s back door, leading to what I assumed was the stock room. When he looked back at us, some of Aaron’s formalness fell away. His shoulders relaxed, and his voice took on more of a country twang. “You hear about that guy they found in pieces? That was the guy who waited on you. Morgan Bleur.”

  I sat back down in my chair so that Aaron and I could be at eye level. “Noooo,” I said. “Who killed him?”

  Aaron glanced toward the back again before answering. “I think it was somebody’s jealous husband. He was always flirting. No offense, ma’am, you woulda been a bit young for him. He, uh, liked the older ladies. He’d keep ‘em out here flirting for as long as he could, and he never said nothing about it to me, but I’d seen him get phone numbers. I think he was dating some of them. I, uh—excuse me ma’am, I don’t mean no offense—I think he was a gigolo, and I think he slept with the wrong man’s wife.”

  If he thought that Morgan had been a gigolo and that Morgan had gotten killed by a jealous husband, then that was a pretty good indicator that Aaron didn’t know anything about drugs, Morgan snitching on a dirty cop, or Morgan romancing women out of their retirements, not to mention the blackmail he’d tried to pull on Joel. And I doubted that it had been his first time.

  The more we investigated Morgan, the longer the list of people who might have wanted him dead grew. He’d given so many people so many reasons to kill him.

  Zoey leaned forward. “Any angry husbands ever come in here?”

  Aaron gave a non-committal side nod. “Nooo, but he was weird the way he’d pick up all the old women. He had a real thing for ‘em.”

  “Do you ever have any police come by the shop?” I asked.

  Aaron shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Anybody specific come to mind?”

  “Naw.”

  “You know an Officer Dill?” Zoey asked.

  “Who’s that?” Aaron asked.

  Zoey and I looked at each other, then Zoey pulled up a picture of Officer Dill on her cell phone and held it up so that Aaron could see.

  Aaron leaned in, really studying the picture. Then he shook his head. “I don’t know that guy. Am I supposed to?”

  Zoey didn’t bother to answer his question before asking another one of her own. “Did Morgan ever come into work acting weird, like he was on something?”

  Aaron leaned away from us, he sat up straighter, and his brows knitted together. “You guys are asking a lot of questions. If you’re cops, you gotta tell me. Are you cops?”

  “No, Aaron,” I said. “I promise. We’re not cops, but a friend of ours is in hot water over Morgan’s death. The cops are really unhappy with him, and we’re trying to figure out what happened to Morgan so that the cops won’t think it’s our friend anymore.”

  “Oh…” Aaron slumped, relaxed again. “Hey, sorry about your friend, but I can’t help ya. I never seen Aaron come in messed up like drunk or anything. Other than the flirting and taking forever with customers, he did a good job. Weren’t lazy or nothin’. It was just when women came in. He’d flirt and carry on for as long as they’d let him. Didn’t matter how busy the rest of the store got. He’d ignore everybody else and stand there an hour chatting some old lady up.” He frowned. “Like I said, I think it was somebody’s husband.”

  “Any idea whose?” Zoey asked.

  “Naw, sorry.”

  “Mind if we talk to your manager?” I asked.

  Aaron went from relaxed to stressed in a heartbeat. “Why? I can ring you up, get you another size. Want to try a different shoe?”

  “You’ve been great, Aaron,” I said. “You’ve helped us a lot, and we’re hoping that your boss might be some help to us too. Just covering our bases. It’ll help our friend a lot if we get the chance to talk to your boss.”

  “Uh… Yeah, sure.” Aaron got up and disappeared into the store room. At first we heard nothing, then we heard the distant murmur of a raised voice, then nothing again.

  A moment later Morgan’s manager appeared. He looked to be in his early forties. He had blondish-red hair and thick shoulders. He wore dark khaki slacks and a long-sleeve shirt. His shirt also had a name tag. It read, “Owen.”

  “Ladies,” he said with a bright smile as he rubbed his hands together, “what can I do for you?”

  “We had some questions about Morgan,” Zoey said, standing up. I took her cue, and stood up as well.

  Owen’s cheerful expression fell into one of sadness. “Oh, ladies. I’m sorry. Morgan no longer works here. He… well, how should I say this? He was taken from us.”

  “What happened?” Zoey asked.

  “I’m afraid I’m not at libe
rty to say,” he said. “The police are still investigating, and I feel confident that they will find out the truth and will bring justice for poor Morgan.”

  “Were the two of you close?” I asked.

  “No, not at all,” Owen said, “but Morgan was a fine employee. He’ll be missed.”

  A fine employee? I’m not sure that would be the way I would describe an employee who would ignore customers so that he could flirt endlessly with other customers. If Melanie or Sam did that, I’d have to let them go.

  “Did you ever consider firing Morgan?” I asked.

  Owen jerked his head back, surprised. “Fire him? No, of course not. He was my top salesman.”

  “But didn’t you get into a heated argument with Morgan?” I pressed.

  “Didn’t you take a dump this morning?” Owen asked without missing a beat.

  It was my turn to jerk my head back, surprised. “Excuse me?”

  Owen’s entire demeanor had shifted from friendly to threatening without any transition in-between. The change was instant.

  “Exactly. Excuse you.” Owen was getting hot around the collar. Literally. His neck was beet red. “You come into my store and question me about matters you know nothing about. Digging for worms. What are you two?” he looked back and forth between us. “You two murder-hags or something? Got some weird itch to scratch?”

  My mouth fell open and my eyes went wide.

  “I haven’t got time for this,” he muttered and stormed off the way he’d come. “Sicko death tourists.”

  Aaron reappeared a moment later, looking shaken.

  “Is there anything more I can help you with?” he asked, a quiver in his voice.

  “Aaron,” I said, “are you going to be okay after we leave?”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’ve never heard him talk to a customer like he just did to you. I’d have quit already if he went around talkin’ to women like he did you.”

  We all sat and Aaron exchanged the tan mule sandal for the sneaker I’d worn into the store. When we stood, Zoey gathered the mules’ shoebox into her arms and said, “We’ll take ‘em.”

  A flash of worry went through me. The sandals had looked simple enough, but they had a price tag of well over a hundred dollars. They were out of my price range. I couldn’t afford to splurge on myself. Everything the café made went back into keeping the place operational.

  “I got this,” Zoey said when we reached the cash register. I opened my mouth to object, but a wink from Zoey had me closing it again. When we got out the shop’s door, Zoey added, “A boy’s gotta eat. He probably works partly on commission.” She followed up the comment with a hip bump before handing the bag over to me.

  “So my poor aching feet have nothing to do with it?” I asked, teasing.

  She held her hand up with her thumb and index finger infinitesimally apart. “You might have had a little bit to do with it.” She gave me another wink.

  Back in the car, I sent Joel a text saying that Zoey and I were heading to the Bird’s Nest next. Morgan had taken more than one woman there on a date, and Zoey had found surveillance video showing Morgan getting attacked on one of those dates.

  Joel texted back that he’d meet us there. Said he knew the hostess. But as soon as Zoey and I pulled into the Bird’s Nest parking lot, her phone blew up with chimes from at least a dozen text messages.

  Once parked, Zoey checked her phone. “I have to go.”

  “Oh, uh, okay,” I said, refastening my seatbelt.

  “No, you stay. There’s Joel.” She pointed out my passenger-side window. I turned to look, and saw Joel striding towards us, still twenty feet away.

  The man looked good, movie-star good, and I was surprised when his long, lean form didn’t slip into slow motion. He was that nice to look at and every bit as mesmerizing.

  I sighed, then heard my sigh with my own ears and covered my mouth with the tips of my fingers. With eyes wide, I looked at Zoey. She was grinning like a Cheshire cat.

  “Not a word,” I warned her. “Not one word.”

  “Go on. Get out of here,” she said, laughing. “Just don’t ask me to be a bridesmaid.”

  I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at that one. I was not ready to get married again anytime soon, even if the man asking looked like Chris Pratt’s more handsome brother.

  I got out of Zoey’s car, and she drove off, leaving Joel with a questioning look on his face.

  “Tech emergency,” I explained, hooking my thumb over my shoulder at Zoey’s retreating car.

  Joel smiled, and his eyes got a dreamy twinkle I could stare at for days. “Glad it wasn’t the impending company.”

  “Not hardly,” I said, laughing. “Zoey adores you.”

  Joel raised one speculative brow.

  I laughed again. “Okay, she likes you.”

  His other brow went up, disbelief written all over his face.

  This time I laughed so hard I snorted. “All right, she doesn’t think you’re a mass strangler,” I amended.

  “There ya go,” he said, giving me a toothy grin.

  He gave me his elbow and we walked together across the parking lot toward the Bird’s Nest’s front door. The weight of parked cars had left dimples in the pavement just in front of the restaurant’s sidewalk and water had collected there.

  Without missing a beat in his stride, Joel stepped wide so that he had a foot on either side of the puddle, then put his hands around my waist and lifted me across. It was effortless for him. Nothing. Once done, he was on the sidewalk with me and once again offering me his elbow.

  I caught myself with a sigh in my throat as I looked up at him but covered it by pointing at some tulips that dotted the front of the restaurant. Their yellow was bright against the covering of dark mulch that they’d pushed their way up through. “So pretty,” I said.

  “I think so,” Joel said, his voice low. It sent shivers through me.

  I looked up at him and then just as quickly had to look away. He was looking at me, and there was a heat in his eyes that I wasn’t ready for.

  We reached the restaurant’s large, heavy and ornate wooden door, and Joel opened it. I stepped ahead of him into the softly lit interior and then waited for him to catch up. A moment later we were standing in front of a slender podium at which stood a very pretty girl with brown hair that cascaded over her shoulders. She was tiny. Maybe five foot, but didn’t look scrawny. She would have blended right into a picture of who’s who of jockeys. Her skin was pale, her mouth was small but plump, and her lipstick was a vibrant, bold red. She wore a black flared skirt that had slits in front of both her thighs and a gauzy peach-colored blouse.

  I knew that I had seen her before, and then it came to me. It was Marla. I’d met her when investigating the death of her ex-boyfriend. She’d been working at a gas station then, but she had mentioned she had more than one job. She’d been ambitious and tenacious, and I’d liked her.

  “Well hey there, sunshine,” Marla said, her eyes traveling up the tall beanstalk that was Joel. Her half-lidded eyes were come-hither, and her tone held a note of familiarity.

  Suddenly I didn’t like Marla so much. In fact, I didn’t like her much at all.

  “Well hey there yourself,” Joel said, and I did a double take looking over at him because of his tone. Familiarity didn’t even begin to describe what I was hearing in his voice.

  Marla’s smile was a sexy, sultry Mona Lisa smile, barely there, yet when her gaze shifted to me and recognition hit, her barely-there smile shifted imperceptibly into a flat line. “Oh, it’s you.” Then, as if another thought hit her, her gaze shot accusingly at Joel and then back to me again. “This is about some dead person, ain’t it.” It was more a declaration than a question. “You need help, you know that?”

  “Marla…” Joel said, placatingly.

  “Don’t Marla me. This your doin’? You bring her here?”

  “Marla,” I said, “we are here because of a dead person. The fellow who was found partially dismem
bered out in a field. He had dinner here.”

  “Yeah, so. Lots of people have dinner here.”

  Joel spoke again, his tone once more low and inviting. “We were hoping you could help us. We’re trying to learn anything we can about his last days.”

  “Why?” she said.

  Joel shifted uneasily before answering. “The police have me at the top of their list of suspects.”

  Marla gasped and crossed her hands over her heart. “You poor dear!” She gave Joel a big hug, and I didn’t like how his arms completely enveloped her. Pulling away, she said, “Sweetheart, of course I’ll help you.” She returned to her original position next to the podium, and her expression turned all business as she looked back and forth between us. “Now, what can you tell me about him? Do you know when he was here?”

  “We know that he had more than one date here,” I said, “and the women he was with would have been significantly older than him.”

  “Ohhh, ohhhh, yeah…” Marla wagged a finger at me. “Yeah, like weird older. Yeah. And he’d be all into them. Wouldn’t have eyes for nobody else. I do remember him.” She turned around and scanned the floor of the restaurant, mumbling, “Let me see…” A second later she was doing a big, arching arm wave. A waitress halfway across the restaurant spotted her and gave a nod. Turning back around, Marla said, “That’s Tammy. That guy you were asking about always liked to get sat in the same section. Kind of out of sight over there, and it’s Tammy’s section.”

  It didn’t take long for Tammy to make her way over to us. She was plump with an exaggerated hourglass figure. She wore black slacks, a long-sleeve white button-up shirt, black sneakers, and her sandy blonde hair was slicked back into a severe bun. She had an empty serving tray in her hand.

  “You remember that guy who came in with the old ladies?” Marla asked her.

  “Yeah…?”

  “He got himself killed, and these people want to know if you remember anything about him.”

  “Oh…” She turned her attention to Joel and me. “Um, he made the women laugh a lot. He was real expressive, telling stories. The women, they kinda seemed in awe of him. Looked like they were having the best night they’d had in years.”