“You’d better hurry.” Lidia gave me a little push. “It looks as if he’s leaving.”
Lidia’s push got my feet moving. And since they were moving toward Fletcher, the rest of my body decided to go along with it.
I told myself that I was simply going to talk to Fletcher, not grill him like an angry police officer. I also told myself that I shouldn’t ever let Stella’s growls deter me. She’d done more than growl at Harley. She’d bitten him, and he was one of the good guys.
With a renewed sense of determination, I called out, “Fletcher!” and waved my hand in the air to catch his attention.
He stopped, turned, and scowled. “W-w-what do you w-w-want?”
“I’m Penn, the owner of the Chocolate Box. I heard you used to be manager at Bailey’s new restaurant, Grilled to Perfection.”
“I-I-I—” he stammered. He smacked his lips and then took a deep breath. “I was,” he said with a slight lisp. He took another breath. “Excuse me.” He started to walk around me.
“It’s good to meet you.” I stepped in front of him and thrust out my hand. He stared at it. When it became awkwardly obvious that he wasn’t going to accept my handshake, I lowered my arm and clasped my fingers behind my back.
“Well, yes.” This wasn’t going anywhere. “I heard you knew Cassidy Jones.”
He growled.
“You sounded just like my dog, Stella, just then.” I forced a laugh. “Do you do any other imitations?”
He growled again and nudged me out of the way and hurried down the pier toward the street.
That was a bust. But I couldn’t simply let him run off, not if I wanted to get Jody out of jail before Thursday.
“I want to offer you a job,” I called to his retreating back.
He stopped. After a several long moments, he turned back toward me. His scowl suddenly loosened its grip on his face. “A job?”
A job? my inner voice screamed. You’re going to let a man who might have shot Cassidy Jones in the heart work in the shop with you? This isn’t better than asking him questions about Cassidy directly. It’s actually kind of worse. Far worse.
“You’re off-f-f-ering me a j-j-job?” he demanded, speaking slowly and carefully as if it took mountains of effort to form each word in his mouth. He jammed his hand in his pocket as if searching for something, but came up empty. “W-w-what kind of job?”
I cleared my throat several times before stumbling over my own words, “Well … um … yes … well, I heard you were a restaurant manager.”
“So you already said,” he answered in his slow, lumbering way. His eyes remained hard and unforgiving.
“I … um … also heard you’re not working at Grilled to Perfection anymore. The Chocolate Box has been slammed with the summer crowds. What with managing the shop, working the front counter, and making the chocolates, my partner Bertie and I barely have time to sleep. We could use someone with your experience.”
“Really?” He took a step toward me. He thrust his hand in his pants pocket again, searching.
I took a step back. “It wouldn’t be a fulltime position, at least not at first.”
He took another step toward me. “Y-you’re that C-Charity Penn woman.” He smacked his lips and drew another deep breath. “I’ve heard all about you.”
I took another step back and bumped up against the pier’s railing. “Good things, I hope.”
“You’re the one who’d inherited Mabel Maybank’s shop under some q-q-questionable circumstances.” His stutter was beginning to disappear as he turned from flight to fight, but the lisp remained as strong as ever.
“That pesky rumor? Oh, it’s not true.” I don’t know why I let him make me feel intimidated. I had at least a foot on him in height. My self-defense skills were top-notch. Stella’s growling must have spooked me. Or perhaps it was the way he kept flexing both his arm and jaw muscles that was making me nervous. Or perhaps I was simply a wimp.
Whatever the cause, my insides felt like jelly and my feet trembled with the desire to run away.
“I’ve heard some other things about you too. I’ve heard you’re just like him.” He spat those words in my face.
“Him? Who?”
“Cassidy Jones.” He puckered his lips as if the name had a sour taste.
I wanted to scream, “No!” But I kept my cool. Instead I held up my hands in silent protest and asked as calmly as possible, “How am I like him? I didn’t even know the guy, but from what I’ve heard he wasn’t a nice guy. I’m—”
“Y-you’re a meddler. You stick your nose where it don’t belong. And I’ve got troubles aplenty thanks to Cassidy.” He smacked his lips again. “I don’t need no Nosey Nelly going and making more troubles for me.”
“I’m not—” I protested.
“This is a small town.” Both his stutter and lisp seemed to disappear for a moment as he continued to attack my character. “I know all about how you’re trying to find someone else to pin the murder to so that l-l-little Dalton boy can g-g-get his mother back. Well, let me tell you something. I’m not the only person in town who had a beef with that man.”
“I’m not saying—” I protested.
“I’m not the only one that man put in hot water in the last couple of weeks.” Gracious, the man wouldn’t let me talk. “Ask your painter Johnny Pane or your friend Harriett Daschle. O-o-or better yet, you should ask sweet old Ethel Crump. She stood to lose everything, her house, her independence because of evil m-man.”
“Ethel? Because of that crazy lawsuit?” I still found it hard to believe Cassidy would sue a sweet old lady like Ethel after nearly killing her cat with his car.
“Not c-c-crazy. Evil. He knew s-she wouldn’t be able to afford to pay a lawyer. He knew the l-lawsuit would ruin her.”
“But Ethel? She’s got to be pushing one hundred. You can’t honestly believe she shot Cassidy.”
“‘Crack-shot Ethel’ has won the annual Halloween turkey shoot for as l-long as anyone around here can remember.” He stumbled over some of his words. “I-I should know. I’ve lived here my entire life.”
“Camellia Beach hosts a contest for people to shoot turkeys at Halloween?” That was barbaric. But I suppose I should have expected some kind of blood sport like that from a town where everyone owned a gun.
“Where are you from, girly? The moon? We don’t shoot turkeys. It’s a target shooting contest,” Fletcher explained. “A frozen turkey is the prize.”
“Oh! And Ethel—?”
“Wins every year. So yeah, she could have shot Cassidy and no one would ever suspect sweet, frail Ethel.”
“Ethel?” I still couldn’t believe it. “Are you sure?”
Fletcher didn’t answer. He was walking away. I supposed he’d said all he’d planned to say about Cassidy Jones. For such a short man, he walked with a long stride.
“I’ll s-s-see you tomorrow at eight,” he called over his shoulder as he went. “I expect f-f-fifteen an hour.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“You did what?” Harley marched across the shop and then back to me.
“I think I hired him.” I wrinkled my nose as I said it. I’m not even sure why I was telling Harley this. I hadn’t even told Bertie about Fletcher. Perhaps the words came pouring out of my mouth as a way to keep Harley from saying why he’d come looking for me. I wasn’t in a mood to talk about my family and their latest attempts to take my shop away from me.
He’d come to the Chocolate Box a few minutes before closing time. His brows were drawn. His lips were pulled into a deep frown. Clearly, he’d come to share some sort of unhappy news.
“You think you hired a man who might be a murderer to work with you in your shop?” He marched across the shop again. This time he was muttering to himself like a madman. That’s what I did to those closest to me, apparently. I turned them into lunatics.
“Bertie won’t complain,” I explained. “She never complains. But she’s been limping on that leg she broke. She’s hu
rting and it’s killing me to see her pretend she’s not. The shop is busier than ever. And the milkshakes keep us running at full speed to serve them. We need the help.”
Harley grunted.
“Fletcher said he’s lived on the island his entire life. Do you know him well? What do you think about his character?”
“He’s about ten years younger than me.” Harley stopped at the coffee bar and poured himself a cup. “I only know him in passing. Always thought of him as a nervous fellow with a mighty big chip on his shoulder. He’s struggled with a speech impediment for as long as I can remember. And he’s always been self-conscious about his height.”
“He isn’t very tall,” I said. “And he did seem angry, but then again I did surprise him at the pier.”
He took a sip of his coffee—no cream, no sugar. “Didn’t you say you weren’t going to ask questions about Cassidy’s death and his secrets anymore?”
“I did. And I’m not asking questions anymore. That’s why I ended up hiring Fletcher. I wanted to find out what he knew or if he was capable of premeditated murder, and I needed to do it without questioning him about Cassidy. Things came out of my mouth.”
“I suppose I shouldn’t worry too much. Every piece of evidence Detective Gibbons has uncovered so far points a finger of guilt toward Jody, not at Fletcher or anyone else,” he said after finally returning to where I was working the front counter. “As horrible as it seems, I’m afraid Jody killed Cassidy.” He dredged his fingers through his short hair. “I’ve been talking with the lawyer she hired to see if he can get the murder charge against her changed to manslaughter. But without a plea deal, which Jody is adamant against, her lawyer doesn’t think he can get the solicitor’s office to agree to anything.”
That wasn’t what I’d wanted to hear. I’d been hoping all day that Detective Gibbons would come through for me, locate Muumuu Woman, and get enough information from her to clear Jody’s name. Obviously, the opposite had happened.
I closed my eyes and suddenly pictured Gavin’s tearful face as clearly as if he were standing as close to me as his father was at that moment. I couldn’t let that sweet boy lose his mother. I simply couldn’t.
I no longer regretted hiring Fletcher. He might or might not be a killer. If he was a killer, I had him exactly where I needed him—close by so I could watch him and catch him if he slipped up.
“Thanks,” I said to Harley.
He looked confused. “For what?”
“You’ve convinced me that I did the right thing after all. I was doubting myself left and right until you walked into the shop. And now there’s no longer even a shred of doubt left. I need any piece of information I can get from Fletcher. And after what Cassidy did to him, Fletcher needs this job.”
Harley moved closer to me. “You’re crazy.”
“And yet you still want to kiss me.” I flashed him a smile. It felt good. We were becoming friends again. More than friends. All that awkwardness between us the other day after our first kiss was gone, hopefully for good.
Gone until you sabotage things again, a vicious voice in my head chided.
I’m working on that. So stop trying to scare me, I told myself rather firmly.
“I know you didn’t come in here to lecture me. You’re smart enough to know that would be a waste of everyone’s time. So tell me. What was in those legal papers my loving family had filed against me this morning?”
“I’d rather kiss you and eat chocolate.” He looked longingly at the shiny and colorful bonbons and truffles lined up like soldiers in the display case. “But unfortunately, I am here about the contested will. I read through the papers.”
I held up my hand. “Don’t tell me. The petition they filed today claims I’m not related to them.”
His green eyes widened with surprise. “How did you know?”
“Half the town already knows, that’s how.”
Harley groaned. “Small towns can be a pain sometimes. No one ever minds their own business.”
“Thanks to our town’s intrepid gossips, though, I wasn’t blindsided by this. The Maybanks don’t think I’m related. They’re telling everyone that because there weren’t any witnesses when Florence confessed that she was my mother that it’s my word against hers.”
“Well, we already know that’s absolutely ridiculous. I was there. And I’ve already filed a counter brief that includes the sworn and dated affidavit we’d written up right after the conversation with Florence detailing everything that was said.”
“In light of that, can the court force a DNA test?” I asked.
“The judge won’t have to. Mabel’s children have already requested one.”
“Finally.” I breathed a long sigh of relief. “At least something is going my way.”
“I wouldn’t be so quick to celebrate. Something smells fishy about this whole thing. Edward, Florence, and Peach must think they’re going to prove that you’re not Mabel’s kin. They’d been resisting our calls for DNA testing for months now. Why suddenly flip and demand you take one? I think you need to set up a meeting with Florence.”
A face-to-face with Mommy Dearest? “How about I get a few teeth pulled without pain killers instead?”
“You need to talk to her. Find out what she’s thinking.” He put his hand on my arm. His touch felt like someone had flipped a switch and caused half my body to suddenly turn all tingly and happy. “I know it’s difficult, but it’s something you need to do.”
“I know. I already had that same idea. I left a message for her to call me yesterday. I’ll try her number again. We do need to talk.” Not only did I need to talk with her about why she was going along with her brother and sister in contesting their mother’s will, I also needed to find out what Florence had been doing with Cassidy and if she’d ever seen a woman wearing a muumuu hanging around his house.
Like before, my call went through to her voicemail. I started to leave another message for her to give me a call when a sharp pop, pop, pop had me throwing my phone aside and diving to the floor.
Sweet heaven, someone was shooting at us!
Chapter Twenty-Three
Harley landed on top of me, sending a jolt of pain through my already sore shoulder. He used the full weight of his body to shield me from the bullets.
Pop. Pop. Pop. Three more shots.
We lay on the ground, not moving, as I strained to hear something, anything in the thrumming silence that had followed the brittle sound of gunshots. Harley’s heart hammered against my back. His measured breath felt warm on my neck.
“Thank God no one was in the shop,” I whispered.
“We were in the shop,” Harley’s rumbling voice corrected.
“Yes, we were.” It felt like the last gunshot had happened hours ago even though I was sure only a few minutes had passed. I wiggled out from under him. “Are you okay?”
He rolled off me and started to brush glass cubes that had fallen from the shattered tempered glass window onto his clothes and hair. “Yeah, I’m okay. Are you?”
Was I okay? I climbed to my feet and propped my hands on my hips as I surveyed the damage. The front window had shattered. So had the glass in the display case. The chocolates were coated with slivers of tempered glass. My ruined delicacies sparkled as if they’d been sprinkled with stardust. A bullet had blasted through the heart of several of the chocolate covered cherries as it traveled through the case. Their bright red juices dripped as if the delicate treats were bleeding.
All of this destruction had happened in a matter of seconds. It’d happened because I’d promised Gavin to get his mother back to him. Was I okay?
“No, I’m not,” I said. “This is not okay.” Tears sprang to my eyes as I suddenly realized the mountain of cash I was going to need in order to repair the shop and replace nearly my entire inventory of chocolates. My jaw tightened as I blinked those stupid tears away. “It’s not okay at all. But it could have been worse.”
If the bullets had come tearing thr
ough the shop an hour earlier when the shop had been packed with the afternoon beach crowd, someone would have gotten hurt or even killed. I said a silent little prayer, giving thanks that this had happened on a Monday—one of our slowest days of the week—and everyone had cleared out before closing time. Even Johnny Pane had already packed up his painting supplies and had gone home.
I would have never forgiven myself if an innocent bystander had gotten hurt because I’d stuck my nose, which wasn’t at all pointy, into Cassidy’s dirty business. I cursed Cassidy Jones for being such a creep. He had no right to dig up everyone’s secrets. And if he hadn’t waved those secrets around like a red flag at a bullfight, he’d still be alive. Jody would still be free to harass me to her heart’s content. And no one would be taking potshots at me or my chocolates.
I retrieved my phone from where I’d thrown it to the floor. The screen had cracked, but it was still working. The entire shooting had been recorded onto Florence’s voicemail, which was still recording. I pressed the phone to my ear and said, “We need to talk,” and hung up.
My first order of business was to call Detective Gibbons. He needed to know that someone was feeling all crazy and homicidal because of something I’d done or said today.
Harley already had his phone out. From what I could hear from his end of the conversation, he was reporting the shooting to Camellia Beach’s police chief.
“What in the world has happened here?” Bailey Grassi, dressed in his white chef’s uniform, ran into the shop and came to an abrupt stop right in front of the ruined display case. He whimpered. “Is the Amar chocolate”—he turned a pleading look in my direction—“Is it ruined? Is it all gone?”
“Not all of it,” I said after I’d ended my brief conversation with Gibbons. After a couple of swearwords on his part, the detective had promised to drive right out to the shop. “Because the crop is so small, we use the Amar bean sparingly in our recipes,” I explained to Bailey. Talking about creating luscious chocolates from the cacao bean helped calm my jumpy nerves. I drew a deep breath and actually felt the tension in my shoulders fall away. “I’ve been making a new batch of the chocolate from the beans this week. It should reach its peak of flavor and be ready for use in about ten days.”
In Cold Chocolate Page 17