Dessert, Diamonds and Deadly Secrets

by A. R. Winters

  “Sounds like you two were good friends.”

  Rex smiled and laced his short, chubby fingers together. “I wouldn’t say that, but there was a time when we were. And, yes, I know what you want to ask me—all the same things the cops asked, right? Yes, I fought with Rex a month ago. I said he owed me more money from the café. I said I’d sic my lawyer on him. Yes, that’s all true.”

  “And?” There had to be something more to it.

  Rex shrugged. “And that’s it. I threatened legal action. I can’t do legal stuff if the man’s dead. Tim said it was business, not personal. Everyone quotes that line from The Godfather, right? Well, I’d show him business. It wasn’t personal for me either. Or for my lawyer.”

  “And what about Mike?” I said. “Can’t you get the money from him?”

  “It’s more complicated to do that,” Rex said. “In this case, I’d have to recover money from a dead man’s estate. And, yes, there would’ve been some satisfaction if I could’ve taken Tim to court and dressed him down there. No fun going after his estate.”

  Beth said, “When was the last time you went down to the café?”

  “About a month ago. Why?”

  “And how’s your work going?”

  Rex shrugged. “It’s not bad. I’m in talks with some big clothing retailers to supply them with shirts, and I’ve got a Chinese supplier all lined up. Lots of running around, convincing people. Looking for new clients, new suppliers. It’s not bad. People need clothes all the time, right?”

  He looked from me to Beth, and I nodded in agreement. “Sure, we need clothes.”

  “Nah.” He flicked a hand dismissively at me. “You don’t understand. You’ve just come back from Hollywood, right?” When I nodded, he went on, “I’m sure you shop at the fancy la-di-dah boutiques, with your kind of lifestyle.” Actually, that was wrong. I shopped online and at Target, and maybe Macy’s once in a while. A screenwriter’s salary isn’t that high. “But regular people,” Rex went on, “they need regular clothes. All sizes, all colors. And they need a lot of them.” He turned to Beth and said, “Do you shop a lot?”

  Beth shook her head. I knew her wardrobe. A couple pairs of skinny jeans, some black pencil skirts. A few slinky tanks, faux-silk blouses and cardigans. She’d once explained to me something about a “capsule wardrobe,” but all that really meant was that most days, she was dressed in skinny jeans and a silky top and cardigan. She didn’t like thinking about clothes—she’d rather think about the ingredients for her next cake. Which worked out well for me, since I got to “help” with her baking.

  “Anyway,” Rex went on, before either Beth or I could get a word in, “most people like to shop a lot. Someday, I’ll start my own online clothing store. Online’s the way to go now, isn’t it? Yeah. But in the meantime, if I can just snag a few big clients…I’m setting up the website, of course. Everyone needs a website, these days.”

  “And a Facebook page,” Beth interjected. “Everyone needs a Facebook page.” She turned to me. “Maybe you could set up a Facebook page for Pixie? It would be www.facebook.com/pixieparrot. Everyone likes looking at cute pet photos.”

  Rex frowned. “Who’s Pixie?”

  “She’s my new Hahn’s macaw,” I told him. “She’s adorable.”

  Rex nodded. “Sounds like a plan. Set up her page, and I’ll go visit it.”

  “You sound really busy with your work,” Beth said.

  Rex sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Well, that’s how it is. If you’re gonna do well in the business world, you gotta hustle.”

  Beth and I exchanged a telepathic glance. The man was clearly busy chasing up business contacts all day. There was no way he could be the one following Kandy to and from the café.

  “When do you get off work?” Beth asked.

  Rex shrugged. “Sometimes late, sometimes early. Some days I take a long lunch break, and then I work late. Why? Did you mean to ask me where I was when Tim was killed? Because I can answer that. I was at home, catching up on the new TV shows and enjoying an incredible pizza. No alibi, as the cops would say.”

  I bit my lip to keep from smiling. Rex was friendly and talkative. Which didn’t mean he couldn’t have killed Tim, but it did mean that it was easy to get information from him.

  Beth said, “Who do you think might’ve wanted Tim gone?”

  Rex shrugged. “They got the nephew, right? Because he was always arguing with Tim, and then he got the café, right before Tim could sell it off. So maybe he did it.”

  “And if he didn’t?”

  Rex twisted his mouth from one side to another. Finally he said, “Well, they say the spouse usually does it. So, I guess, Wendy?”

  “How well do you know Wendy?”

  He shrugged. “How well do you know anybody, really? She was Tim’s wife. Gosh darn it, if I knew how that grumpy fella got such a beautiful and intelligent wife—but he told me the secret was to make them feel spoiled, like princesses.”

  “You said ‘them’?”

  “Did I?” Rex looked from Beth to me, and then back at Beth. “Well, that’s how it is. You probably heard already, the man had wandering hands. Had some kind of strange charm or something that kept getting him the ladies. Don’t know how he did it, but good for him.”

  “Was there anyone else who might’ve wanted to hurt him?” I said.

  Rex shrugged. “Beats me. You know, it’s not like you go around thinking of these things.”

  “You don’t seem all that angry at Tim,” Beth said.

  “Why should I be? No point holding grudges, and the man’s dead now.”

  “Kandy suggested you’d be real angry.”

  “Kandy?” Rex laughed shortly. “Now that’s a hoot. Have you considered she might be out to save her own skin? The gal worked for Tim about two years now, lives in that massive apartment right near the beach—”

  “I think she shares the place with three other people,” Beth interrupted.

  “Share, shmare,” said Rex. “That girl seemed to be rolling in the dough. If you ask me, she was probably skimming from the till when Tim was looking the other way.”

  I cocked one eyebrow skeptically. “Kandy doesn’t seem the type.”

  “Not if you ask me,” Rex said. “She seems like one of those silly young people. Impulsive. Not thinking things through. Just doing whatever she feels like. Not like us oldies. We’ve seen things. We plan things through. We work things out.” There was an unexpected silence as Rex seemed, for once, to prefer to think about things rather than talk about them. Beth and I found ourselves immersed in thought as well.

  Weren’t all young people like that? I wondered. I’d been like that—dropping out of college, struggling until I got a screenwriting job, and then leaving Hollywood on an impulse, when I felt it was too much for me. Beth had done the same—she’d quit college, gotten some biochem work, and then dropped out of the race to run an online bakery. And when I’d asked her to help with my investigations, she’d impulsively said yes. Beth and I weren’t that young anymore, but the world was full of stories of people walking away from their former lives, doing things on a whim. Sometimes it worked out, sometimes it didn’t.

  Finally, Beth said, “I suppose we should look into Kandy a bit more. Who’d know about any cash-fingering?”

  Rex said, “Best person to talk to would be that bookkeeper Tim hired. Brenda. Tim never bothered to keep proper accounts, but if he was going to sell the place, he’d need them. Brenda was supposed to go through expenses and inflows and draw things up all proper. She’d know if there had been money missing from the till.”

  All this time, Beth and I had been going on the premise that if Mike hadn’t killed Tim, maybe the murder had had something to do with Tim’s love life. But the upcoming café sale, and the investigation of Tim’s accounts, might mean that the crime had a financial motive and not a romantic one.

  Rex told us that Mike would be able to give us Brenda’s number, and we thanked him and were
getting ready to set out when Neve walked in.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “We can’t get rid of her,” I muttered under my breath, but Neve ignored us and gave Rex a dazzling smile.

  He blinked slowly at her, confused.

  “I’m Neve,” she said, extending a hand out to him. “I’d like to ask you a few questions about Timothy Broker’s death.”

  Rex blinked again and shook his head. “But I just talked to these ladies here.”

  “I’m not with them.” Neve smiled sweetly. “I’m working as a registered private investigator—”

  “In training,” interrupted Beth loudly.

  Neve shot her a death stare and said, “You two have no training at all.”

  “I’m confused,” said Rex. He turned to us and said, “Should I talk to her or not?”

  “Oh, don’t ask them,” said Neve. “They don’t know how to run an investigation, which is why my client hired me. He doesn’t trust them to do a good job.”

  “I’ve just told these ladies everything once,” said Rex weakly. “Can’t you just hear it from them?”

  Beth and I smirked. Neve hadn’t bothered to make an appointment, and for once, we seemed to be on better footing.

  “We’d love to fill you in,” I said dryly. It’s not like I would leave anything out when we chatted.

  Neve ignored me and placed one hand on Rex’s table. She leaned down, and her blouse drifted a bit lower. I saw Rex’s eyes follow the neckline of Neve’s pink top, and then he looked back into Neve’s blue eyes.

  “I’ll just take a minute of your time,” Neve said smoothly. “This won’t interrupt your day at all, and I’d really appreciate it. Don’t you want to bring the killer to justice?”

  “Sure, sure,” said Rex. I was pretty sure I could see beadlets of sweat forming on his brow. He gulped. “I guess a minute couldn’t hurt.”

  Neve turned and looked at me, her eyes gloating silently.

  I took a deep breath and willed myself not to say anything unkind. Neve’s assets had won her this round, and I couldn’t help but imagine a lifetime of having to deal with Neve flirting her way through every case I landed.

  ***

  Beth drove like a mad person till we got to Mike’s apartment, and then we raced up the stairs and banged on his door until he opened up. It was a matter of minutes until Neve found out about Rex’s suspicions that Kandy was dipping her fingers into the pot, and although I didn’t quite respect Neve’s intelligence, anyone with half a brain would make the connection between Tim’s financials being recorded properly and his death.

  We grabbed Brenda’s number from Mike, and I dialed it as fast as my eager fingers could. The call rang and rang and rang, and then finally, Brenda answered on the ninth ring.

  “This is Mindy,” I said, quickly introducing myself and explaining why I was calling. “Could we talk to you about Tim’s financials?”

  “Well, I don’t have them with me,” said Brenda.

  “That’s okay,” I said. “We can come over and talk to you about them.”

  “No, you don’t understand,” said Brenda. “I’m vacationing in Mexico.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’ll be back in a few days,” Brenda said. “Why don’t we talk then?”

  “When are you back?”

  “Saturday night. We could meet up on Sunday, if you’d like.”

  That was five days from now, but it didn’t seem like I had a choice. We set up a time and place, and I hung up and looked at Mike. “You wouldn’t arrange for Beth and me to fly to Mexico, would you?”

  He shook his head. “Besides, don’t you have people to talk to over here?”

  “Yeah.” I leaned back, feeling bummed out. I looked at Beth, whose eyes were somber and dark. “D’you think Neve will fly out to Mexico?”

  She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what Neve does. She might think it’s a race, but it’s really not. And I’ve got clients I need to bake for; you’ve got Pixie. We can’t just up and go to Mexico.”

  “Yeah, yeah, you’re right,” I grumbled.

  “Cheer up,” said Beth. “If we’ve got any spare time today, I’ll help you to set up Pixie’s Facebook page.”

  Thinking of Pixie did cheer me up a little. The bird had slept soundly last night, and this morning she’d snuggled on my shoulder as I’d quickly washed out her water bowl and replaced her pellets with new ones and a slice of orange. When we’d left her, she’d been happily chewing on the citrus treat.

  “Speaking of Pixie,” I said, turning to Mike. “Birds are expensive. Pixie needs new toys.”

  Mike frowned. “What’re you talking about? Uncle Tim had a whole stash of toys for her stored in the kitchen cabinets.”

  “We didn’t see any.”

  “Did you look in the cabinet on the top left side of the kitchen?”

  Beth and I shook our heads. The empty café had been spooky, and we’d left in a rush.

  “I guess we should go over,” I said. “I’d like to grab any parrot toys Tim might’ve gotten her.”

  Mike handed us a key. “You guys can get the stuff and lock up.”

  “You’re not coming?”

  “I’m going to watch the first season of Prison Break,” he said. “I need to learn how to survive in prison.”

  “You’re not going to prison,” I said, sounding more confident than I felt. “We’ll find out something. Soon.”

  Beth and I headed over to the café, and I wondered if there was anything else in there, apart from Pixie’s toys, that we’d missed the first time around.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The empty café was like something out of a ghost town. I saw all the silent tables and chairs and imagined that this was what cafés looked like in those ancient cities that were covered with volcanic ash or sank underneath the sea. Of course, cafés were probably not around in those days, and they were probably more watering holes for the powerful senators and their companions, but I wasn’t too hung up on reality.

  “Maybe some music will help,” Beth said.

  “So we won’t hear if someone creeps in?” I looked around, as though I expected someone to slither out of the walls or slide through the large street-facing windows. “No, thanks.”

  “We can talk,” Beth said. “Or sing as we work.”

  “Like the seven dwarves,” I grumbled. “Let’s do this fast.”

  We started off in the kitchen, where the smells of Breakfasts Past lingered in the air: I could imagine sausages being grilled in here, eggs being fried. The visions were making me hungry.

  Beth and I rummaged through the cabinets and found knives, cooking utensils, a stand mixer, and lots of flatware.

  “I wonder if Mike’ll let me take this mixer,” Beth wondered out loud. “I’ve only got that six-year-old KitchenAid, and if it dies on me, I’ll be in trouble.”

  “We’ll ask him when we see him next,” I promised and stumbled upon a trove of parrot toys. There was slim black bird harness and at least a dozen plastic and leather chew toys. “This is great,” I said, looking through all the toys. “It’ll last Pixie at least a month.”

  I grabbed the box of Pixie’s things, and Beth and I headed over to the counter. The shelves behind the counter were empty, as was the cash register. There was nothing much in the drawers underneath—a few old receipts, and a book on new age philosophies.

  “I guess this was a bust,” Beth said. “Other than the parrot toys.”

  “And you might get a new mixer,” I reminded her. “And all that looking through the kitchen has made me hungry. Let’s grab an early lunch.”

  Beth agreed with me, and we headed to the steakhouse next door.

  Sara’s Steakhouse was popular with the locals, and even though it was early on a Tuesday, the place was half-full. The crowd was mostly office peons from the commercial district a few minutes north of there, and then I saw a familiar face.

  “Simon!” I smiled, heading over to him. “What a surprise.”


  He swallowed his mouthful, dabbed at his lips, and smiled at me and Beth. “Great seeing you. You girls work nearby?”

  I shook my head. “We came over to pick up some parrot toys.” I indicated the box we were holding. “What about you?”

  “It’s my day off.” There was a little bit of steak left on his plate, and a whole heap of untouched salad. Simon sawed at the steak as he spoke to us. “I really like this place. The meat’s delicious and the margaritas—mmm!”

  “Whereabouts do you work?” asked Beth.

  “In Yarraville,” said Simon, between bites. “For a construction company.”

  I nodded. Yarraville was up north, just over an hour’s drive from the Santa Verona beach. A lot of former Santa Verona locals were moving up there. Rents were cheaper, and the commute into town, where most of the jobs were, wasn’t too bad. It was a pleasant community of hard-working middle-class families. “Lots of construction going on there,” I said. “Lots of people wanting to live there.”

  Simon nodded. “Exactly. Live there myself. Hey, you know, I thought I had Mike’s number, but I guess I lost it. I’ve been meaning to call him, follow up on the sale. You wouldn’t happen to have it on you, wouldya?”

  “I do.” I rummaged through my handbag till I found my phone, and then I reeled off Mike’s number for him.

  “Thanks,” he said after he entered it into his phone. “I’ll make sure to give him a call. I might end up getting another place, but I figure I should have a chat with him first.”

  “Right,” I said. “So you’re thinking of moving out of the construction business and into cafés?”

  “Cafés seem like a good investment,” Simon said. “Everyone loves waffles.”

  “That’s true.”

  “You know,” said Beth, “we can pass your number on to Mike as well. Just in case you can’t reach him.”

  “That’s real helpful of you,” Simon said. He rattled off a list of digits for us to take down and said, “My last name’s Macchio. Simon Macchio. Thanks for this.”