Murder at the Tremont House (A Blue Plate Cafe Mystery)

by Alter, Judy

  I called Tom and asked if he and the kids could take care of Huggles, and he asked, “Will we have to spend the night? Might as well for all the attention we get at home.”

  I ignored the bitter part of his question. “No, but Huggles would love it if the kids would play with him. He could stay outside in the afternoon, unless it was raining. I’ll take Wynona with me in her cat carrier just because she’s such a spoiled pain.”

  Tom of course agreed to help. Then I talked to Marj, who agreed to do double duty in exchange for vacation time the next week. I checked the supplies and placed a few orders, alerting Marj as to what to expect when, and I checked the wait staff schedule to make sure we were covered. Marj would be the main “go-to” person, but Tom would be backup and would, in an extreme situation, even wait tables—he’s a good guy. I didn’t want to ask Donna. Somehow I didn’t think it would be good for business to have her at the cash register or waiting tables, let alone in the kitchen.

  Donna called the minute Tom told her I was leaving town, however briefly. “I knew this town would get to you sooner or later,” she said.

  “No, it’s not that. I have some business to take care of in Dallas,” I said, an outright white lie which I hoped Gram would forgive.

  “Well, I know you wouldn’t expect me to take care of Huggles.” She disliked animals of all kinds, especially in the house, while her kids adored Huggles. “But I do think you could have asked me to watch the café. Tom doesn’t know a thing about it, and I know the place inside out.”

  Not quite, sister dear. “I doubt Tom will have to do anything. Marj can run the place just fine, unless there’s an extreme emergency.” And then everyone will call me.

  “Marj acts like she owns the place. But I’ll watch things,” she said.

  That meant she and her family would eat free at the café every night I was gone, and Marj would lose her mind.

  “How’s Sara Jo Cavanaugh?” I asked, mostly to change the subject.

  “She’s the most interesting person,” Donna said. “I can’t wait to read her final article. But she’s got a lot of work to do, and we sometimes sit and talk so long that I’m really late getting home. I’m really enjoying her company.”

  How about your family? Boy, I was tired of keeping my mouth shut these days.

  Donna didn’t miss a beat. “She has some wonderful ideas for the B&B, but I’ll talk to you about them when you come back. I’ll need your help.”

  Of course you will. I lied again, saying I was anxious to hear, and said good night.

  Gram spoke right up. “Kate, be charitable with your sister. She’s not as grounded as you are. If she needs your help, give it to her. What will it cost you?”

  That’s just the part I don’t know, Gram! It struck me that Gram had been unusually silent about Sara Jo Cavanaugh, so I asked what she thought. But as usual, Gram had faded away. I was left to conjecture that she wouldn’t like what Sara Jo was doing to Wheeler.

  Next I called David Clinkscales. He’d given me the number of the bachelor pad he’d settled into after his divorce. “Kate! What good news. Of course, I’ll want to see you. How about lunch on Wednesday? And maybe Thursday?”

  I laughed. “David, you don’t have to do that, but I would like a visit. Just to bring you up to date on things in Wheeler and check on you. Huggles misses you, so I’ll have to give him a report.” David had gone with the children and me to get Huggles.

  “I’ll have to come visit. I’ve been to my cottage a couple of times, and, well, I guess I just holed up and ate out of a can. I should have come to the café for chicken-fried steak.” He’d bought a cottage on a small lake near Wheeler within the last year, after his divorce. David loved East Texas; his now-ex-wife, not so much.

  “Yes, you should,” I admonished him. “But I’ll give you a rain check. And I’ll come by your office about eleven-thirty Wednesday morning. If it turns out that doesn’t work for you, you have my cell phone.”

  “It will work,” he said. “I’m looking forward to it.”

  Suddenly I wanted to tell David Clinkscales all about Sara Jo Cavanaugh.

  I had some detecting I wanted to do in Dallas, but I’d put it off until I got there.

  I went back to the café. That evening a group of four high-school boys came in for hamburgers. They’d just been to baseball practice, they said. They sat and laughed and punched one another in the arm, having a good time but basically well behaved. Or so I thought until I was clearing the table next to theirs and overheard their conversation.

  “Hey, man, I bet she’s hot, that Miss Cavanaugh who’s been nosing around school.”

  “Yeah,” chimed in another one, “I think she’s sweet on Cary. She spends a lot of time supposedly interviewing him.”

  And yet another voice chimed in. “I bet she could show us some tricks. Come on, Cary, give. What do you really talk about?”

  Cary Smith, blushing to the roots of his reddish-blond hair, nodded his head in my direction, and the boys grew respectfully silent.

  Then one asked, “Miss Kate, what do you think of that reporter? She’s around the high school a lot, and some of us think it’s kind of funny. ’Course, I haven’t got to talk to her at all. But Cary has—a lot. He just won’t tell us about it.”

  “Nothin’ to tell,” Cary muttered.

  He was, as far as I knew, a shy but good boy, an only child. His family moved to Wheeler from Dallas some five years ago, if what Marj had told me one day was correct. The father worked in Tyler doing I don’t know what, and the mother stayed at home. They almost never came into the café, though Cary came often with his buddies. The family apparently didn’t go to church and didn’t socialize much, so no one knew anything about them.

  “Miss Kate, what do you think?” the questioner persisted.

  I wasn’t about to give them an earful of what I really thought about Sara Jo Cavanaugh, so I just said, “I think it’s interesting that she chose Wheeler. I’d kind of like to know why. And I hope she doesn’t turn up any skeletons in anybody’s closets.”

  They boys tittered nervously, if titter is the right word for nervous laughter from young boys.

  “I bet you boys should be worrying about some pretty high school girls and not Sara Jo Cavanaugh.” I gave them a smile and moved on. After that, their conversations were quieter.

  ****

  When Rick came in the next morning, I realized I hadn’t told him I was leaving town. Not sure how I felt about the sense of obligation, I greeted him with his cup of black coffee. He barely glanced at me, took a sip without saying thanks or anything, finally lifted his head and looked at me. “Long night,” he said.

  I saw dark circles under his eyes and a droop about his whole body. “What happened?”

  “Two hours of sleep, that’s what happened. Domestic disturbance.”

  “In Wheeler?” I was incredulous.

  “Let’s just say it was within my jurisdiction. Actually a hostage situation for a while. And I didn’t have any backup. All I had was a megaphone. And, by the way, it was damn cold out at two in the morning.”

  “Sorry. Did it come out all right?” I knew he wouldn’t give details, and yet I was about to jump out of my skin with curiosity.

  “Got a guest in my pokey until I can get him to Canton. Charges will be disorderly conduct, threatening an officer, resisting arrest. Can’t get the wife to press charges, but I sure as hell can.”

  “What started it, or can’t you say?”

  “If he’s indicted, it will be public. Until then I can’t say much, sure can’t identify the family. But it had to do with alcohol and suspicions of infidelity. And there was a child there, a young child. She saw it all.”

  An unpleasant thought jumped into my mind. “Wait till Sara Jo gets hold of this. It’ll be a big part of her article. We’ll look like, oh, I don’t know—poor white trash.”

  “That’s the least of my worries,” he said rather curtly. “I’m worried about that child,
and the mother who won’t press charges, and the jerk who’s in my jail. I don’t want this happening in my town. Maybe our lady reporter won’t find out about it. I’m certainly not going to tell her.” His look challenged me, as though to say, “Are you?”

  I just shook my head. “She’ll find out, mark my words.” I had that sense of foreboding again. I guess I would have been distressed at this incident, common in Dallas but not Wheeler, no matter what. But once again, Sara Jo’s presence complicated it. All I said was, “Ready for your sticky bun?”

  Pushing away from the stool, he said, “Naw, not now. Maybe later.”

  “Wait. I have to talk to you about something else. I’m leaving town.”

  His startled look for a moment was like a deer caught in the headlights. Then he repeated, ever so carefully, “Leaving town?”

  “Oh, not for long. Just for a couple of days. I want to see some friends in Dallas, take care of some business”—no need to tell him I’d be looking for both Sara Jo Cavanaugh and Joanie Millican, because he’d just tell me to keep my nose out of business that didn’t involve me. Well, maybe Joanie didn’t involve me. My interest was compassionate, but Sara Jo surely did involve me and my town. “I’ll be back Friday morning. Leaving today.”

  He looked long and hard at me. “Friends like David Clinkscales? Tell him hello for me. We may need his expertise with Sara Jo sometime.”

  I gave him his level look back and smiled. “Our thoughts run alike. I plan to tell him all about her. Plus let him by me a fancy lunch.”

  He smiled, finally. “What is it they say? ‘You go, girl.’ Have a good time, Kate. I think probably leaving town for a short time will be good for you. Anything I can do?”

  “Nope. Marj will handle the café, and Tom and the kids will take care of Huggles. I’m taking the cat with me. I think I’ve got it all covered. And you know how to reach me.”

  “I do. Drive safe. Be careful in the big city.” And then, right there in the café he leaned over and brushed his lips gently across mine. “I’ll miss you, so hurry back.”

  Chapter Four

  Other than Rick’s words, “I’ll miss you,” and the gentle touch of his lips echoing through my mind, I drove out of Wheeler in good spirits. Wynona was not in nearly as good a frame of mind. She yowled and cried piteously before finally resigning herself to this ordeal and taking a nap. It was mid-afternoon when I arrived in Dallas, and I went straight to Cindy’s apartment, to which I had long had a key. I was at home enough to dump my things in the guest room, get Wynona situated, and settle down with a glass of nice chardonnay she’d left chilling. I sat in front of the computer and did a search for southwestern boutiques in Dallas. A decade ago that would have called up two-dozen responses, but now there were only three. I copied down the names, phone numbers, and addresses, and then I searched on Google for Sara Jo Cavanaugh. Came up empty-handed, but I wasn’t surprised. Searched for national magazines based in Dallas and did no better. Cindy came home about that time, and we got lost in hugs and catching up.

  Over dinner at Patrizio’s in Highland Park Village, we continued to catch up. Cindy told me about the latest man in her life—the second since I’d left, almost a year ago. He was a lawyer, good prospects, etc., but she wasn’t sure how crazy she was about him. It sounded to me like an affair of convenience. In turn, I told her the complicated story of all that happened last spring, with William Overton turning out to have murdered both Gram and Irv Litman. I guess I was back to small-town, button-the-lip ways because I didn’t mention Donna’s involvement at all, and when she asked about Donna, I just said she was running a B&B. Boy, did I leave a lot out of that story.

  In the end, it was one o’clock in the morning before we went to bed, but I found my new habits die hard. I was up at six, fixing coffee, reading the paper, watching the news on TV. Cindy appeared at seven-thirty, in a flurry to get dressed for work.

  “You have plans for the day?” she asked.

  “My old boss is going to take me to lunch.”

  “Hmm. I remember he isn’t so old…but isn’t he married? Don’t go there again, Kate.”

  Why does she put a relationship—or sexual—tinge on every friendship? I guess I’ve been away too long. “He’s divorced now, but that’s not why we’re going to lunch. He’s a good friend, helped us out with that legal mess over the dishonest accountant, and I just want to catch up with him.” I decided not to mention Sara Jo, at least not yet.

  I appeared at David’s office promptly at eleven-thirty. The receptionist announced me, he introduced me to my replacement—my age, but a bit dowdy I thought, though David said she was almost as efficient as me. And then we went to lunch at Stephan Pyles’ restaurant, fairly new and one I’d never been to. As usual in places with Pyles’ name on them, the dining was gracious, the service impeccable. I had a chef’s salad—over David’s protests that I should get something fancier. Made with wood-roasted chicken, smoked cheddar, manchego, heirloom tomatoes, and Kalamata olives—which I asked them to leave out. It was tossed with a balsamic dressing. I reveled in flavors I couldn’t get in Wheeler and couldn’t sell if I did. David had the pan-roasted Gulf snapper with shrimp and homestead grits and said he was sure my grits were better. Pyles even came by the table, toque and all, to inquire if we were enjoying our meal.

  “This,” I said later to David, “is what I miss about Dallas.”

  “Enough to want to come back? Your job is always yours.”

  I shook my head.

  Over lunch I poured out the whole Sara Jo story to him, but I didn’t get the magic kind of advice I wanted.

  “Never heard of her, don’t know how you can track her down. She could be freelancing for one of hundreds of magazines. I’d ask her if she has a business card, a portfolio, something to establish her credibility.”

  I’d tried that but not gotten very far. Maybe I’d press the matter a little more severely. “I will. She actually doesn’t come into the café much. Stays at Donna’s B&B, fixes her own meals since Donna gave her kitchen privileges—and charged her more for that.”

  He grinned. “Sounds like Donna. I’ll come to Wheeler for a day sometime, see if I can get her to interview me, and give you my opinion, but beyond that, I just don’t know. You seem to think she’s there to stir up trouble.”

  “Oh, I don’t know if that’s why she’s there, but I think it will be the end result of her so-called investigative reporting. You should already hear the complaints I’m getting—from the minister’s wife, among others, who thought her questions way too personal.”

  He laughed aloud. “Guess I better come to Wheeler. Buy me lunch?”

  “Of course, and you’re overdue a visit. I thought once you had the cottage, we’d see more of you.” I was making light of it, but David wasn’t.

  He reached across the table and put his hand over mine. “I would have come, but I thought you shut me out. I decided you and that police chief were an item, and there was no room in your life for me.”

  I lowered my eyes and didn’t answer for a long time. Finally, I dragged out the words. “I honestly don’t know if we’re an item or not, and I guess not knowing tells you something. But I like him a lot. He sends his regards, by the way.”

  He gave me a wry smile. “Oh, good.” And then he waited for me to go on.

  “I don’t think I’m ready to be an item with anyone, David. I’m settling in to a new life, so different from my life in Dallas. You didn’t know me outside the office.”

  “No. Do I want to?”

  “I don’t know. I was a party girl, always ready to meet an eligible man—and a few that weren’t eligible. When I look back, it’s not a life I’m proud of. And I guess I’m sort of finding myself now, and I like it. I don’t want to do what I did before and rush into something, one thing after another.”

  He looked at me so long I began to squirm. The waiter brought us another round of wine, and I thought I’d for sure have to have an afternoon nap.


  Finally, David spoke. “You’re almost a stereotype. I’m so sorry to disappoint you, if you thought you were unique. But you were, as they say, sewing your wild oats. Probably means you won’t end up perpetually dissatisfied, like Donna.” He took my hand again. “Sorry, Kate. You didn’t shock me or tell me anything I haven’t heard. Probably even suspected about you. It’s no reason to keep me at arm’s length.”

  “You’re welcome at the Blue Plate Café any time. Please come. Stop staying away. Even Rick would be glad to see you.”

  “I doubt that,” he said wryly, “but I’ll be there soon.”

  At the parking lot of his office, he put his arm around me and said, “Kate, I’m proud of you. I worried about you in Wheeler, but you’re making it work. And I’ll help you figure out this Sara Jo Cavanaugh thing.”

  As I turned away, he said, “Oh, and I’ve got our lunch tomorrow all planned. I’ll pick you up at Cindy’s at eleven-thirty. Give me the address.”

  His tone left no room for disagreement, so I jotted the address on a slip of paper and said, “I’ll be waiting.”

  I did go back to Cindy’s and take that nap.

  That night, Cindy had five of my girlfriends over for pizza and wine. I loved seeing them, catching up on what they were doing, hearing about their lives. But after two glasses of wine, I wearied of the talk of men and unhappy jobs and dead-end lives. I heard nothing about anything outside their small world, and I was bored. Did they ever look beyond their own horizon? It was nearly midnight before they left, with a flurry of hugs and promises to visit Wheeler. I knew they wouldn’t, and I wasn’t really sorry.

  I thanked Cindy for arranging the evening, but she was savvy. “You don’t have much in common with them anymore, do you?”