I’d gotten used to carrying the bulk of the conversation with him since he did tend to be on the quiet side, but this morning he looked upset. Had I said something to offend him?
“Is something wrong, Gerald?”
Sheepishly, he said, “I don’t know how you take your French Roast, Poppy.”
I chuckled, realizing that he likely wouldn’t know since I didn’t think he’d ever waited on me without his wife or one of the girls around. “Oh, I’m sorry. Four creams and four sugars.”
He got to work making the coffees and getting my danish order together, and in just a minute, he handed me the cardboard cup carrier and a small bag with my breakfast. Strangely, though, he didn’t let go of the bag and leaned in to speak to me.
“I heard what Jared said to you the other day when you two were sitting down at the table over there. He’s trouble, Poppy. Stay away from him.”
Looking around to see if anyone was nearby, I saw the coffee shop was still empty, so I asked, “Why?”
Not that I needed any excuse to stay away from my ex. Everything he’d done and said to me since that day he announced he’d changed his mind about marrying me and then ran off with another woman pretty much made me want to stay as far away as possible from Jared.
But the fact that Gerald had made the effort to say something to me about it made me curious.
“A few of the business owners in town have told me that he’s trouble. He was working for Nate at the shoe store a while back and then just stopped showing up one day. Nate’s too nice to say anything to him, so he’s all nice in public, but privately, he’s told me and a few other people who own businesses that Jared isn’t someone we want to hire.”
I didn’t doubt a word Gerald said about my ex. It sounded like Jared through and through.
“Well, you guys don’t have to worry about hiring him because Howard gave him a job at the newspaper. He’s the new society page writer, and I suspect he’ll soon be the writer handling the crime page and police blotter too,” I said with more than a hint of disgust.
For one of the first times since I’d known Gerald Branch, he raised his voice and said, “That’s what you did at the paper! Did they fire you? I’m telling you if they did, I’m going to cancel my subscription to The Eagle.”
Startled by his outburst, which was so uncharacteristic of him, I immediately moved to calm him. “It’s okay. I actually quit that job, so Jared can have it all. I hope he and Howard are very happy together.”
Still upset, Gerald shook his head and frowned. “That Howard is a piece of work. Well, I have a feeling he’s going to find out his new star reporter isn’t very reliable. I expect to see blank spaces where your wonderful words used to be in the paper. They’re going to sorely miss you, Poppy.”
“Thanks, Gerald. I appreciate that. Have a good one, and tell Pam I said hi.”
He smiled. “I will. She and I decided to switch jobs today, so she’s in the back making the baked goods while I take care of customers. You’re just my second, but I think I’m doing pretty good, if I do say so myself.”
I nodded in agreement and lifted what I’d bought as I said, “Coffee and danishes in hand and I’m leaving with a smile on my face. I’d say you’re a hit!”
“Thanks, Poppy. Tell Alex we said hi and we can’t wait until the wedding. Pam told me she saw him the other day and nearly talked his ear off about the whole thing. You know her. Have a good one!”
“You too!”
As I walked back across the street, I thought about how much Alex must have hated having to talk to Pam about the wedding. Everywhere we went, people in town wanted to discuss the details of our big day. At least when I was around, they could talk to me, but alone, Alex likely would have preferred to have every tooth in his head drilled without Novocain rather than chat about the wedding plans with anyone but me.
And the fact that he hadn’t mentioned a word about it to me meant he’d hated it even more than I could imagine.
I opened the door to the police station, barely juggling the coffee carrier and the bag of danishes, and when I walked in I saw Alex, Derek, and Jared standing in the chief’s office. As I drew closer to where they stood, I heard Derek tell him in no uncertain terms that he wanted to know how he knew about my ring being the only thing taken that day Samuel Morrow was murdered.
“This is unlawful persecution, Derek!” Jared screeched. “You can’t do this.”
“Do what? Ask someone questions? Yeah, I can, dude. It’s a big part of being a cop. I ask questions to find out the truth of who did what. Now I’m going to ask you again. How did you know that we found Poppy’s ring missing from Samuel Morrow’s shop the day of the murder?”
I stepped into the doorway of Derek’s office and waited to hear Jared’s answer.
But true to his nature, he acted like a mealy-mouthed worm and pointed at me standing there. “You’re going to believe her word over mine? She has every reason to implicate me in this…in any crime! She still hates me for what I did to her! She told me just the other day.”
Derek and Alex turned to look at me, and I saw in Alex’s eyes that he’d had enough of Jared’s nonsense. Slowly, he spun around to face him and said in a low voice full of contempt, “Whatever she feels about what you did has nothing to do with this case. The chief of police of this town asked you a question. Answer it. Now.”
Jared’s eyes grew wide with fear. He had every reason to be afraid. Alex had not a shred of respect for my ex, and nothing would make him happier than to arrest him on any charge he could and throw him into the Sunset Ridge jail for as long as legally possible. Actually, I had a feeling Alex would have preferred to simply smack him around, but since he was a police officer, better to take out his aggression lawfully and by the book.
Trembling in terror, Jared looked over at his friend. “Are you going to let them do this to me? We’ve been best buddies for years, for God’s sake! You barely know him for like a fraction of that time.”
And then he looked over at me and said, “And she’s not even a cop. She’s no one here.”
I saw Alex’s hand clench into a fist, but instead of cocking his arm back to hit Jared, he shot it out toward his neck and grabbed the collar of his shirt. Yanking him toward him so he wasn’t even an inch away from my ex’s face, he barked, “The only no one here is you! I’ve had just about all I’m going to take of you insulting my fiancée, so answer your friend’s question before I start asking the questions and you end up spending the night in jail!”
Derek half-heartedly pulled him off Jared and pushed his friend down into a chair. “Stay there and don’t open your mouth again until I speak to you.”
Then he pushed Alex back toward where I stood in the doorway and said, “Let me handle this. I think you might be a little too close to taking his head off.”
“For damn good reason, Derek. The guy’s an ass and he thinks he can just insult Poppy wearing that smug look on his face. He’s lucky I didn’t deck him,” Alex said, practically growling his anger.
Nodding, Derek couldn’t do anything but admit his longtime friend was exactly that. An ass.
“I know. Why don’t you two go down to your office and I’ll find out what he knows. I’ll come down in a few minutes.”
Alex stood frozen to the spot, like he still wanted to let himself go and beat the snot out of Jared, so I tapped him on the arm and said sweetly, “Let’s go to your office like Derek said.”
He turned to look at me, and I saw the anger melt away from his expression. “Okay. Let’s go.”
I slid my hand down his arm to weave my fingers through his, and he responded by squeezing them tightly. I had a feeling all that stood between my ex and Alex tattooing his face with his fist was the hold I had on him as we walked down the hall to his office.
Closing the door behind us, I placed Alex’s coffee on his desk along with the bag of pastries. As he sat down, I said, “The Grounds had raspberry danishes, so I got us each one. Why don
’t we have a nice breakfast and enjoy a few moments of quiet together?”
Alex looked across the desk at me and gave me a tiny smile. “You don’t have to talk to me like I’m some kind of crazy person, Poppy. I knew exactly what I was doing back there.”
I took a sip of coffee while it dawned on me that Alex and Derek may have been playacting in his office. “Was that all pretend in there? Were you guys doing the good cop-bad cop routine to get Jared to tell you the truth?”
He shook his head and slid out a danish to hand to me. “No. That was real. If Derek wasn’t there and I wasn’t in uniform, I would have knocked him out.”
“Oh. I thought for a moment there that it was all for show.”
Taking a bite of raspberry danish, he remained silent while he enjoyed his breakfast. After he swallowed that piece, he seemed to have calmed down a bit more, thankfully.
“I hate how he goes around disrespecting you, Poppy. He knows if I do anything while I’m in uniform, I’ll be suspended, and he knows that when I’m out of uniform I’m always with you, and you’ll stop me from pounding him into the ground. But I want to.”
I held up my hand and shook my head. “Oh, no. I won’t stop you. I’d just stand by and let you go at it. Maybe I’d grab some popcorn and watch.”
A slow smile lit up his face, and he rolled his eyes. “You’re too funny. I think that’s one of the reasons why I love you. Most women would have a problem with me wanting to beat the hell out of him.”
“I like that you’re in touch with your Cro-Magnon self. Plus, and let’s be honest here, it would be pretty hypocritical of me to say your wanting to smack him around is bad since I’d love to do it myself. The guy practically left me at the altar, and every chance he gets, he reminds me of it. He’s got at least a good beating coming from someone someday.”
Alex took another bite from his danish and hummed. “Maybe instead of wanting to punch him I should thank him. If he hadn’t been stupid and called off the wedding, you and I might not be together today.”
“Let’s not go overboard. I don’t deny that good things happened after he and I broke up, but I wouldn’t wish what he did to me on my worst enemy.”
With a smile, my current fiancé said, “Okay. Beating him it is. I don’t want to talk about him anymore, though. That guy irritates me.”
“I’m all for that. Let’s just enjoy the peace and quiet before Derek finds us and have our raspberry danishes courtesy of The Grounds. By the way, I heard that Pam caught you off guard and trapped you in a conversation about the wedding. Sorry I wasn’t there to save you.”
He grimaced at first but then shrugged. “It wasn’t that bad. I think I’m sort of getting used to everyone in town feeling like they should know every detail about the wedding. I guess it’s a testament to how close they feel to you.”
I lifted my coffee cup to toast his newfound acceptance of our neighbors in Sunset Ridge. “Life in a small town. You can’t beat it!”
While he had become better at tolerating the idiosyncrasies of the people around us, I wasn’t sure Alex would ever really be a small town guy. That was okay, though. He had me, a small town girl, to show him the way.
Derek came in and sat down a few minutes later looking altogether too pleased with himself. I wasn’t sure what he’d done, but if it involved roughing up his old friend, I wouldn’t be objecting.
“Well, I asked him every different way I could and all he kept saying was he heard it somewhere but he doesn’t know where.”
“Then why do you look downright happy?” I asked, confused by the apparent discrepancy between his words and his expression.
“Because I finally let him know what I really think about everything he done. What he’s pulled on you, how he’s acted since he came back to town. Everything. And it felt damn good to tell him all that.”
“Good for you! But that still doesn’t get us any closer to figuring out who told him my ring was taken.”
Derek’s cheery mood seemed to dissipate before our eyes. Sagging in his chair, he gritted his teeth. “That’s true. I guess I could go at him once more.”
Alex shook his head and waved away the suggestion of interrogating Jared again. “I don’t think he’s our killer. I’m not even sure he’s someone who knows anything. My guess is someone on the force told him in passing, not thinking it was a big deal. I’m going to go over that list the private eye gave us once more to see if there’s anything I missed.”
Derek stood and headed toward the door. “Then I have some officers to question because I don’t want leaks on my police force. I’ll let you know what I find.”
My partners may have wanted to drop the Jared angle to this case, but I wasn’t ready to just yet. He’d worked for a bunch of people in town who I suspected still spoke to him, so maybe one of them had heard something from him about where he heard about my ring.
“I think I’m going to talk to a few business owners in town, Alex. I still want to know how my ring fits into Samuel’s murder. I’ll be back in a little while.”
He pushed back from his desk and stood up to leave. “Not alone you aren’t. I’ll check those names out later.”
I stood up and stopped him with my hand against his chest. “Alex, I’m going to be right outside on Main Street, for God’s sake. Nobody’s going to do anything to me in broad daylight as I’m walking up the road. We just went through this the other day and I was fine. Sit down and do your checking. I’ll be back in a couple minutes.”
He looked down at me with concern in his dark eyes. “Poppy, Samuel Morrow was murdered in broad daylight. I don’t want you in any danger because I didn’t go with you. Plus, it’s police business, so I should be there.”
“Ah, but you forget that Derek made me a deputy on this case, so I am technically part of the police force. There you go. Now sit down and do your work. I’ll be back before you know it.”
Alex cupped my face in his hands and looked deeply into my eyes. “I’d never forgive myself if you got hurt, Poppy. You mean the world to me, and not just because the wedding can’t happen if you’re not there. I love you. Don’t fight me on this.”
I covered his hands with mine and shook my head. “Nobody’s fighting you on anything, Alex. I’ll be fine. I’m not going to get hurt walking up the street. I’m tougher than that, at least. You run down those names and check them out. I’ll probably be back before you get done.”
But nothing I said made him change his mind, so I brought out the big guns. The trust guns.
“Alex Montero, I’m going to be your wife in less than a month and you don’t trust me enough to walk up the street and talk to a pharmacist, a shoe store owner, and a the man who’s run the same hardware store for all my life and knows me since I was a little girl? You were fine with me walking up to Martin’s Pharmacy the other day. What’s different about today?”
Drawing his dark eyebrows in, he frowned and thought about my questions before answering, “You know I trust you. Don’t say that. Of course I do. I just don’t want to see you get hurt. What if the person who murdered Samuel took your ring on purpose because they wanted to get closer to you?”
I pulled back away and his hands slipped from my face. “I thought you didn’t think that’s what happened. Now you do?”
Alex took my hands in his and held them tightly. “I don’t know. I thought we had a case against Eliza or Bruno or both, but their alibis check out and are air tight. Maybe Samuel sent the ring someplace for some reason we don’t know, but so far we haven’t been able to find that reason or where he sent it. Craig’s called every jeweler in a hundred mile radius. He’s even called pawn shops and nothing.”
I tried to reassure him. “See? My ring being missing is probably just a coincidence.”
“Fine. So maybe the ring has nothing to do with this case at all and someone killed him for some reason we haven’t been able to figure out yet. He was wealthy, but so far, his wife and her son don’t seem to be able to have done
it. So maybe they hired someone. Or maybe one of those people on that list I have found out he was trying to dig up dirt on them and decided to put an end to it. I don’t know, Poppy. All I do know is I don’t want you to get hurt.”
I brought his hands to my lips and kissed them, placing a kiss on the back of his left hand and then the right. “I’ll be fine, Alex. I’ve never seen you so worried about me. Is this because of what happened with Jared back there in Derek’s office?”
Alex hung his head and sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe. I just can’t bear to think of you getting hurt because I didn’t go with you.”
Unsure what had made him so worried about me, I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him close as I explained again I would be just blocks away on the same street he was on. “I promise I’ll only go to a few stores and ask some questions. That’s it. I just want to find out if Jared told any of them what he knew about my ring. I’ll be back in mere minutes. I promise.”
He lifted his head and looked down at me with that same concern in his eyes that hadn’t left since I announced my plans to go do some investigating on my own. “If you’re not back in fifteen minutes, I’m coming to find you.”
“Fifteen minutes is fine. Just give me fifteen minutes plus the five it will take to walk there.”
“Stop bargaining. Fifteen is it.”
I smiled and kissed him softly on the lips. “It means the world to me that you trust me, Alex.”
Cradling my face in his hands again, he pressed his forehead to mine and whispered, “You mean the world to me, Poppy. It isn’t about trusting you. It’s about not wanting you to be hurt.”
“I won’t be. See you in fifteen.”
Hurrying out of the police station before Alex decided to change his mind and tag along with me, I began walking up Main Street first to speak to Mr. French at his hardware store. He’d been Jared’s last employer, so perhaps he’d seen him and knew how he’d found out about my ring being missing.
The Finest Hour Page 18