Dessert, Diamonds and Deadly Secrets

by A. R. Winters

  The chief nodded curtly. “I’m afraid Macaulay’s right about this. The SVPD hopes to hire you two as consultants in the future—but not this time. This case isn’t for you.”

  She walked off, and behind me, I could feel Ethan smirking with satisfaction.

  “See you around, Beth,” Matt said.

  Beth murmured her goodbyes, but I didn’t turn around. I couldn’t face Ethan’s smug grin, and I waited until the three men walked off and their footsteps had died away.

  Chapter Two

  Beth and I gave our statements about the Rodriguez case and headed out to the expansive lawn in front of the building, where we joined dozens of picnicking tourists. The lawn extended outwards like a football field, with the historic police station surrounding us on three sides.

  Beth and I half-lay on the grass and munched on the sandwiches we’d purchased at the station cafeteria.

  “Are you sure this’ll work?” Beth asked between bites.

  I shrugged. “I’d like to pay this month’s rent, and if Mike can help me do that, then we can take a risk on it. How well did you know Mike?”

  “Not at all,” Beth said. “I was telling the truth when I said he was too cool for me.” Her gaze drifted off. “He was such a dreamy quarterback. I always thought he’d grow up to be famous. He was so good-looking, and everyone had a crush on him.”

  “Including you.”

  Beth looked at me and frowned. “Why do you say it like that?”

  I smiled, and tried to be gentle. “Honey, you haven’t always been the best judge of character.”

  “I know, I know. But like I said—I didn’t even know Mike. He seemed like a nice guy.”

  “Because he was a popular quarterback?”

  “Maybe. Anyway, he was dating that airheaded cheerleader Veronica, until he found out she was cheating on him in sophomore year.”

  “And then, six months later, you left for college.”

  “Exactly.” Beth’s massive brain and incredible SAT scores meant she had gone off to college before the rest of her class. Of course, she’d dropped out of college after two years, just like I had. But while I’d headed off to Hollywood on a shoestring and a dream, Beth had worked for various well-remunerating biochemistry labs, and then come back to Santa Verona to “take a break” from the rat race. Which, for her, meant creating her own race—these days she ran her own online baked goods catering service, “A Piece of Cake,” and monitored her various stock market investments. “I never quite caught up with the high school crowd when I came back.”

  “Except me.”

  “Except you. The kids were horrible back then.”

  “We were an insecure bunch. And if you’d been popular, the two of us would never have become best friends.”

  “That’s true.” Beth sounded thoughtful as she munched on her tuna-rye. “How long are we gonna wait here?”

  “Until Mike’s lawyer bonds him out. Why?” I teased. “Got somewhere better to be?”

  Beth groaned. “I promised to deliver a chocolate mud cake to a client by eleven tonight. It’s her husband’s birthday and she wants to surprise him.”

  “Hmm.” This was serious business. “And you’ll bake two of these cakes, of course? Because we need one for taste-testing purposes.”

  “Of course. You know the drill.”

  I took a deep breath. “We’ve been waiting ages. Mike’s lawyer better hurry up. I don’t want to miss out on the chocolate mud cake—I mean, I don’t want your client to miss out.”

  Beth rolled her eyes skywards. “Weren’t you complaining that your jeans felt tighter the other day?”

  “Only because I don’t spend three hours at the gym.” Those kinds of fitness levels were de rigueur in Hollywood, yet another reason why I never quite fit in over there. That and the constant diet of soups and salads.

  “Well, maybe you could run along the beach in the morning,” Beth suggested. “It’s what I do. We can go together.”

  I murmured noncommittally, not particularly keen on the idea. “Tell me more about Mike. Are you sure he couldn’t have killed Grumpy McGrumperson?”

  Beth shook her head. “Grumpy knew lots of people who were mad at him. It was probably one of them. And Mike sounded innocent enough—why would he ask us to look into this if he’d really killed Grumpy himself? And he looked really relaxed, too. Really good.”

  Beth’s voice was drifting off, and I eyed her suspiciously. “You just want to spend some time with Mike, don’t you?”

  Beth shrugged. “It would be nice to see what he’s been up to. It’s been a while since I moved back to Santa Verona, and I’ve been so busy with my online bakery and my investments I haven’t had time to catch up with old friends.”

  “I thought you said Mike wasn’t a friend.”

  “He’s not,” Beth said, sounding defensive. “I mean, he’s never been a friend.”

  “Aw, c’mon now,” said a familiar drawl from behind us. “We can always change that.”

  Beth and I sat up straighter and swiveled around.

  “Mike!” I exclaimed. “We didn’t see you come out.” Beth and I had been so engrossed in our food and conversation that my potential meal ticket had almost wandered off.

  I glanced at the tall gray-haired man standing beside Mike. He was dressed in a dark suit and carried a leather attaché case.

  “This is my lawyer, Leo,” Mike said. “He got me all bonded out.”

  Beth and I stood up slowly, making sure our legs hadn’t gone to sleep and brushing grass off our behinds. Introductions were made all around, and Mike said, “How lucky am I, running into Santa Verona’s celebrity investigator like this? And Beth—I haven’t seen you for so long. You look great. Just like you did in high school.”

  My eyes narrowed involuntarily. Mike was far too slick for his own good, and beside me, Beth stammered. Chitchat had never been her forte, but she managed to stutter, “Th-thanks. You look great, too.”

  Mike smiled broadly, as though he knew that for a fact already. “Thanks. What’re you guys up to?” He glanced around at all the tourists lying on the grass and the half-eaten sandwiches in our hands. “Great day for a picnic.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Since we’re here anyway. How’d it go at the station?”

  Leo gave Mike a warning glance, but the ex-quarterback chose to ignore it. “Not great, you know. They think I did it. But I didn’t.”

  “Do you have proof of that?”

  “It was nice to meet you all, but it’s time to get going, Mike,” Leo said, trying to maintain a veneer of politeness. “You can’t talk about this.”

  “Hang on,” said Mike. “Mindy here’s a PI.”

  Leo looked at me questioningly, and I shrugged. “I’ve solved a few homicides,” I said, evading the question of whether or not I was registered.

  “And maybe they can help me.” Mike flashed Beth a dazzling smile. “Seeing as we had homeroom together.”

  Irritation bubbled up inside me, threatening to spill over. I was protective of Beth, and Mike was probably using her the way the high schoolers used to, trying to get her to do their homework. It would be nice to pay my bills on time, but not at the cost of pushing Beth into an emotional alphabet soup.

  “We don’t—”

  “Of course,” Beth interrupted me before I could say anything else. “We’d love to hear your story.”

  Leo and I exchanged a dubious look, and then the lawyer said, “You’d need to sign nondisclosure agreements, of course. And I’m not sure that everything you’ll find out could be used in court.”

  “The NDA isn’t a problem,” Beth said smoothly.

  “And, hey, we can trust them.” Mike continued with his charming façade. “Beth and I share a history, and now we can catch up on the present.” He winked at her insalubriously. “Of course, it would’ve been nice to have met when things were going better.”

  “Well, you had a chance,” I muttered, half under my breath. “Beth’s been
back in Santa Verona for over a year now.”

  Mike looked at her with wide eyes. “Really? I thought you came back four months ago?”

  The guy wasn’t impressing me with his faux charm, but it certainly seemed to work on Beth, who shook her head no. “That’s Mindy. I’ve been back since…well, it’s actually almost two years now. I run an online bakery—A Piece of Cake. Maybe you’ve heard of it?”

  Mike shook his head. “Not really. But we can definitely catch up on everything now. Let’s head back to my apartment.”

  I pressed my lips together till they formed a thin, straight line.

  This was what I’d been hoping for, to get hired by Mike to help clear his name. But I didn’t like the turn of events. Mike wasn’t what I’d been expecting, and I wasn’t sure where this case would lead.

  Chapter Three

  Leo insisted on accompanying us to Mike’s apartment, and I couldn’t say I blamed him. He was doing what any lawyer worth his salt would do, and it wasn’t entirely his fault that death rays of disapproval kept escaping his eyes.

  We drove over to Mike’s apartment, which was a couple of miles north of the city center, on a street bordered with ugly, boxy apartment buildings and older, dilapidated houses. Mike’s street, like every street in the city, had wide, grassy strips between the sidewalk and the road, lined with palms and big green deciduous trees.

  Once the four of us were inside, Leo whipped out some NDA contracts, which Beth and I signed.

  “Good luck with your investigation,” Leo said, glancing at the three of us critically before heading out to his next appointment.

  He didn’t sound particularly enthusiastic, and I wondered if he was cynical enough to believe that his client was a murderer.

  Mike’s studio apartment was cramped, with a sofa bed and two chairs arranged around a wall-hung plasma TV. A low coffee table did double duty as a dining table, and was covered with empty pizza boxes, which Mike hurried to move to the kitchenette on the other side of the room. The kitchenette stovetop and sink looked clean and hardly used. A door led off to the bathroom, and a large window over the kitchen sink let natural light flood in from the courtyard.

  Mike’s place looked like the quintessential bachelor pad, other than a small birdcage in one corner. A solitary green bird sat in the cage, watching us quietly.

  “Cozy,” I remarked, trying to be polite.

  Mike shrugged. “It’s just me now, so it’s been enough.”

  “Lived here a while?” I couldn’t help but wonder if his high school fame lived on, and if it helped him bring girls over to the place regularly.

  “A year now,” Mike said. Beth and I crowded onto the sofa bed, and Mike sat on one of the chairs. “I shared a place with three guys before this. Sure is a change from being married.”

  “You’re married?” Beth sounded shocked.

  Mike shook his head. “No, divorced.” A flicker of sadness washed over his handsome face for a second, and then he shook it off. “What’s meant to be, right?” He smiled and gave Beth a raised eyebrow, but his attempt at flirting felt forced and awkward.

  “Why’d you get divorced?” I asked, not bothering with social niceties. The man wanted to hire us to investigate a murder he might’ve committed. If he could flirt with Beth outrageously, I could be as forthright as I needed.

  Mike looked at me and gulped. “She was always complaining about me not doing enough around the house, not being an adult. She got a sommelier’s degree and moved out to Palo Alto with my daughter.”

  “You have a daughter?” Beth eyed at him warily. I could read her mind—she wasn’t thinking about having kids for a long, long time.

  “She’s three now,” said Mike. “I see her on holidays.”

  Beth said, “You must miss her.”

  Mike shrugged. “A bit. But it’s not like I can leave my life here and move to Palo Alto.”

  I said, “What do you do?”

  “I’m a barista. I’ve been working at my uncle’s café for the last few months, after I got laid off.”

  Clearly he couldn’t uproot his wonderful career to move to a different city. I wondered if it was too late to back out of working for Mike. “Do you know about our fee schedule?” I asked. “Beth and I don’t work for cheap.”

  Mike shrugged. “I guess I’m just going to have to find the money and try to exonerate myself. What’s the schedule?”

  I explained the costs to him, expecting him to back out, but he just listened carefully and nodded.

  “That’s fine,” he said at the end of it all. “As long as you also take Pixie with you.”

  “Who’s Pixie?”

  He pointed to the green bird, sitting in its cage. “She’s really good. And you can give her away if you don’t want to keep her.”

  I felt annoyance bristling up the back of my spine. “Why don’t you give her away?”

  “I don’t know how to,” he said. “And I don’t have time.”

  What he meant was, he was too wimpy to bite the bullet, post ads, and screen applicants. I said, “Because you’re so busy.” What with being currently unemployed and all.

  “Exactly. She comes with the cage, and there’s food as well. Here, I’ll take her out for you.”

  I wasn’t so sure about this. Pixie let Mike open the door and stepped onto his hand calmly.

  “She’s a Hahn’s macaw,” Mike went on. “They’re really smart. Really loyal.”

  “Then why don’t you keep her?”

  I watched Pixie out of the corner of my eye, and suddenly she flew onto my arm. I flinched, surprised. Pixie’s claws were pointy, and she walked slowly down my arm, licking my skin with her funny, sausage-shaped tongue. The sensation made me laugh, and I stroked her tiny head with two fingers. She was about two-thirds as long as my arm, and her head was half as long as my forefinger. Pixie tilted her head to one side and laid it against my arm.

  “See?” said Mike. “She likes you already.”

  I frowned, feeling like I was being played for a sucker. Pixie had closed her eyes, her tiny white eyelids squeezed together with joy as I stroked her head.

  “I don’t have time for pets,” I said. Beth coughed pointedly, so I glanced up at her. “What? I’m always out working.”

  “Then give her away,” said Mike drily. “You could probably even sell her for a hundred bucks on Craigslist.”

  I shuddered. “You mean, sell her to some pervert who probably wants to kill her?” I looked down at the tiny creature again. If I left her with Mike, he’d probably just dump her on a curb, cage and all. That seemed to be about his level of responsibility. “How do you put her back in her cage?”

  “Here.” Mike picked her up again and showed me how he placed her back in the cage. “She’s really well-trained. Comes out on command, and goes back in again. She’s happy to hang out on her play stand, too.”

  I sighed. I had just enough room in my one-bedroom place to keep her.

  “C’mon, Mindy,” said Beth. “You were just saying the other day how lucky I am to have Molly.”

  Molly was Beth’s three-year-old tabby, and I wished I could take back that statement.

  “Step up,” said Pixie from her cage. “Hellohello. Step up. Stepup.”

  Pixie had a baby girl’s voice, and she was eying me beseechingly. It was obvious that she’d already discovered I was an easy-to-manipulate loser.

  “She wants to come out again,” Mike said, looking at me. “She likes hanging out with you.”

  I groaned. What could I do? Mike took her out again, and once again, Pixie flew over to my arm. I scratched her tiny green head gently. I’d fallen for her birdbrained trap, and now she was mine. Or I was hers. Whichever way it worked with these birdy relationships.

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll take her.”

  Mike wasted no time in signing our contract, and then Beth said, “Tell us about Grump—I mean, Timothy Broker. What was going on? Why’d they arrest you?”

  Mike to
ok a deep breath. “After I lost my job at Starbucks, Uncle Tim hired me to work at his café. He wasn’t paying me very well. He didn’t pay any of his staff very well, actually, and he was the world’s worst boss. Always yelling at me, telling me off for no good reason.”

  “Wow,” I said dryly. “You’re making a great case for being innocent.”

  “No, no.” Mike shook his head rapidly. “You’re getting it all wrong. Sure, I didn’t get along with Uncle Tim, but nobody did. Not even his wife.”

  “Then why’d the cops arrest you?”

  Mike shrugged. “Because it was easy? Uncle Tim willed the café over to me, which was a huge surprise.”

  “Hmm. But that can’t be enough reason.” Mike stayed suspiciously silent, so I prodded a bit more. “What else happened between you and Tim?”

  “Well,” said Mike hesitantly. “The day he was killed, we had a big fight. Uncle Tim said that he should just fire me, and leave me to my own devices. I said that it must be great being him, owning a popular café and all.”

  “That doesn’t sound so bad.”

  “I said, ‘Too bad you can’t take the café with you when you’re dead.’”

  “Ouch.” I winced, and Mike had the graciousness to look sheepish. “How many people heard you say that?”

  “About half the people in the place.”

  “Great. So now it sounds like you know he was going to leave you the place, and you didn’t want him to stay alive for long. Good going.”

  “Hey,” said Mike. “If I wasn’t in trouble, I wouldn’t have hired you guys.”

  I sighed and looked at Beth. She was eyeing Mike warily, as though she wasn’t sure what she’d ever seen in him in the first place.

  Beth said, “How’d he die?”

  “There’s security footage, hang on.” Mike found a laptop, fired it up, and copied something over to a flash drive, which he handed over to Beth. “It’s all on there.”

  I stopped giving Pixie scratches and looked at Mike carefully. Pixie yelped and poked the top of her beak against my fingers. “Sorry,” I said to her, scratching her head again. “I won’t slack off again.”