What on earth? How strange.
The man seated across from her was tan with an aquiline nose and sharp green eyes. They flashed as he spoke, seemingly under his breath, leaning toward Millie. She sat deathly still, staring at him, unspeaking.
What is that about?
Millie was usually such a light, friendly person. She’d always had time to chat with us. She’d helped us with our—
“Excuse me,” a woman said, loudly.
I jumped and threw my phone upward. It turned end-over-end and careened toward the floor. I stuck out my hand and caught it, but it slipped and fell into the other, and I proceeded to juggle it on the spot and force it toward my chest. I pinned it against my shirt with my forearm.
Everyone in the Corner Café turned their heads.
“Sorry,” I said.
But it was too late. Millie had spotted me. She paled and leaned in, hurriedly. She whispered something, and both she and the mystery man got up and exited the establishment.
“Excuse me.” The woman behind me in the line pursed her lips. “Like, some of us need our coffee fix. Can you move it along?”
In my quest to spy on Millie, I’d failed to notice that the line had shifted forward. “Right, sorry.” I scurried up to the counter. “Hi,” I said, to the barista, barely keeping track of my words. “Um, can I get two pumpkin spice cappuccinos please?”
“Sure.”
Bee joined me and nudged me in the ribs. “You should take up a job in the FBI,” she said. “You’d be great at blending in.”
“It was an accident.”
“Is that what that was? It looked like you’d decided to take up juggling and missed all your practice sessions.”
“Now, who should be a comedian?” I asked.
We got our cappuccinos and proceeded back to our spot in front of the window. I sat down and inhaled the delicious scent of the coffee, the aroma invigorating me. “Shoot. I forgot to ask the barista about Shawn and Jones.”
“Forget them,” Bee said, waving a hand. “What about Millie? Did you see how she jumped? The minute she saw you, she went pale as flour and ran out of here.”
“I saw.”
“She’s avoiding us,” Bee declared. “But why? What could she be up to? And who was that guy?”
“I don’t know. And I’m not sure how comfortable I feel about prying into her life. It seems wrong. Millie’s been nothing but kind to us, and I just don’t see her being the murdering type.” I’d said “murdering” a little too loud, and the lady at the table behind us gasped. “Sorry,” I said. “Just, um, gossiping about the news.”
The woman exhaled and nodded in apparent relief. Because gossiping about murder was normal, apparently.
“Sure, Millie doesn’t seem like the murdering type,” Bee said, measuring her tone better than I’d done. “But what about the guy that was with her? He looked like… like… Al Capone.”
“But thinner. And with a sharper nose.”
“Exactly.” Bee mixed sugar into her coffee with a stirring stick. “Point is, he looked more than capable of, you know, offing a fool.”
“Since when do you speak mafia?”
Bee rolled her eyes. “Come on, we’ve got to find out who he is. Somebody has to know something.”
“Bee, we’ve taken more than enough time off today. We need to get out on the truck and focus on our real jobs. Baking and making people happy. Not investigating our friend,” I said.
“Bah, humbug.” Bee knew I was right, though.
We finished our delicious cappuccinos in silence, both transfixed by the passing cars and people. My thoughts were on Millie and the strange man. He’d definitely looked … like he was from out-of-town. Rich coming from me, sure, but true.
Why was Millie spending time with him?
And what business did he have in Carmel Springs?
Not my business. Not my business at all.
8
Business on the food truck was better than ever. Folks lined up in front of it, hungry for the special lemon meringue cupcakes and a new number Bee had whipped up: the pumpkin spice cookie to be served with our pumpkin spice lattes. Thanksgiving was on the horizon, and people were ready to celebrate it.
“These are delicious,” a customer said, lifting a cookie. “I can’t get enough of them. Can I get ten to go? My kids will love them too.”
“Of course,” I said and busied myself preparing the order and ringing it up on the cash register.
Usually, the days on the truck were punctuated by chatter, laughter, and the view of the ocean, the sunlight glimmering on the waves. But today was different—storm clouds gathered in the distance, and I couldn’t help but think they were an omen of sorts.
What had Millie been doing with that strange man?
I’d insisted on ignoring her meeting with him and focusing on the food truck, instead, but now that I was here, I couldn’t stop myself from pondering the possibilities. What if he was some kind of Mafioso? Could Millie really be involved in Detective Jones’s death?
Ooh, what if Millie was being blackmailed by the mafia man? She might have seen something, and now he was after her to shut her trap. She could be in danger!
Ridiculous, you don’t even know who the guy is. He’s probably not a mafia guy.
“Good afternoon, Kayla,” Bee said.
Our co-guest in the Oceanside stepped up, looking beefier than usual. That might’ve been because she’d spent the last few mornings shoveling back donuts, cupcakes, and treats.
“Hello,” she said and offered both of us a smile. “I’ve come for sustenance. I’ve got to eat if I want to stay big for the competition.”
I tucked hands into the front pocket of my apron. “Of course! When is it? And are you supposed to be eating so many sweet treats before it starts?”
“I look good no matter what I eat,” Kayla said, lifting her chin. “I work out all day, apart from when I’m eating, so yeah, why not treat myself? And the competition’s next week. I’m really nervous about it, but shoot, I know I’ll win. No amount of sweet treats will stop me. Besides, it’s sustenance, and there are loads of good fats in here.”
Was there much competition for bodybuilding females in Maine? Regardless, she had a goal, and I was all for a woman who took control of her own destiny. “We’ll be rooting for you. We could come by and give a few cheers, you know.”
“No, that’s fine. You don’t have to come. It will just be a whole bunch of us posing for judges,” Kayla said, quickly.
“What can we get for you today, Kayla?” Bee asked, clearly as eager to return to her own thoughts and ponderings as I was. Maybe, she’d developed a few more theories about who the stranger had been. Or she’d suggest we go find out by confronting him. Definitely not a wise idea.
“Give me a dozen of those pumpkin spice cookies, please. And a soda. I want something cold to wash the goodness down. Oh, but make it a diet soda, please.”
“Will do,” Bee said and set to work packaging and pouring.
“Coming to this food truck is a highlight of my day,” Kayla said, while she waited. “And the bonus is I get to leave the guesthouse.”
“You don’t like it there?” I asked. “Did the murder creep you out?” It had bothered all of us.
“Well, kinda, but that’s not why I don’t like being there. I don’t’ want to run into…” she trailed off, glancing over her shoulder to check no one was within earshot. She licked her lips. “Can you guys keep a secret?”
“Sure can,” I said.
Bee snorted.
“I mean, it’s not that big of a deal. It’s just a rumor I heard. And it’s put me on edge. Like … why would she have done that?”
“Done what?” I asked, leaning my hands on the countertop.
Bee had stopped feeding cookies into a candy-striped box, her focus on Kayla, as well.
The bodybuilder ruffled her short black hair and drew closer. “Well, I was talking to Mrs. Carlington yesterday after
noon at lunchtime, and apparently, she and Mr. Carlington saw Sam snooping around Detective Jones’s house the night before the murder.”
The information didn’t compute for a moment. “Sam? Snooping?” It didn’t seem plausible. Why would Sam have been snooping around the detective’s house?
I think you know why.
But no, I couldn’t believe that Sam had darkness in her heart. Surely not.
“She was snooping?” Bee asked.
“Yeah. Apparently, the Carlingtons were on their way home from a restaurant, and they saw her. In the front garden. Peering through the windows.”
That didn’t’ sound good.
“Wow,” I said. “Are you sure?”
“You can ask them if you’d like. I wasn’t the one who saw it. Can I get my cookies now?”
“Right.” Bee finished up and handed the box over then the soda too. She rang up the order and tendered the change. “Enjoy them.”
“Thanks. You guys be safe. I don’t know how I feel about being in the guesthouse at the moment. What if Sam was the one who … you know. Did it. Like, she seems so nice, but you can never tell, can you? It’s often the nice ones who are mean deep down.” And she marched off and took a place at one of the benches. She popped the box open and set to work, shoving cookies into her mouth.
“This can’t be true,” I said.
“Like she said, we can ask the Carlingtons. They have no reason to lie.”
“Unless they were the ones who did it.”
Bee raised a silver eyebrow at me. “Come on, Rubes, you and I both know those two aren’t energetic enough to drag a body around in a guesthouse. They’re ancient.”
“They’re only five years older than you.”
“Age is just a number. But fitness is underrated. I go jogging. I doubt either of them is into anything particularly strenuous.”
“It’s ironic that you’re an ageist,” I said.
“Fitness snob, more like.”
I brought out a dish towel and cleaned off the counter, even though there was nothing on it that needed cleaning. “Do you believe it?” I asked. “That Sam was snooping around in Jones’s front garden?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. But there’s only one way we can know for sure, and that’s by asking her.”
My belly flipped, flopped, and wiggled like a fish out of water. I was used to talking to people, confronting them even, but doing it to Sam would be so weird. She was such a good friend now, and if she thought that we were accusing he,r it would ruin what we’d built up.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Bee said, “but we can easily phrase it as us trying to clear her name, rather than thinking she’d done something wrong.”
“I just don’t want this to ruin Thanksgiving. Or Christmas. I don’t want Sam to get in trouble either.”
“She won’t get into trouble if she hasn’t done anything wrong,” Bee said.
She had a point there. And as far as I was concerned, there wasn’t a chance that Sam had actually murdered Detective Jones. In fact, there was more chance of the sky turning purple and Santa Claus descending on the food truck with a bag full of coal.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s talk to her.”
9
The guesthouse’s dining area was empty, the clock on the wall ticking gently and displaying the time as six pm. It was just past dinnertime, and the meals had all been cleared away. The other guests had returned to their rooms, all except for Bee and me.
My stomach ached. I’d hardly eaten a bite of the sumptuous lobster mac and cheese that Shawn had prepared for us because I’d been too nervous. It was time to talk to her about the rumors floating around in town.
It wasn’t that I thought she’d actually done it. No, that simply couldn’t be true. I just didn’t want to lose her as a friend for asking. And it was necessary to clear every possible suspect so we could find the real killer.
Bee sat near the fire, logs crackling merrily in the grate, and I held Trouble in my lap, stroking his fluffy ears.
The kitchen doors opened, and Sam came out into the living room, brushing off her shirt. She spotted us and jerked as if she’d been electrified. “Oh! Sorry, I thought everyone had already gone up to bed.”
“Not everyone,” Bee said and folded her newspaper. “Good evening, Samantha.”
I frowned at Bee. She’d sounded a little too interrogatory, even in her greeting. “Could we talk to you for a second, Sam?” I asked.
She chewed on her lip, her shoulders rising.
“Sam?”
“So you heard,” she said.
“Heard what?” I asked.
Sam stood silent then came forward and lowered herself into one of the armchairs near the fire, the light casting flickering shadows along the side of her pale face. “About Detective Martin coming around to ask me questions. I’ve been so stressed about it. Terrified that everyone in town will hear about i, and think that I was involved somehow, and then the guesthouse…” She hung her head. “I’ve worked for years to try make this place better. I just … I want everything to work out. And now Detective Jones has been murdered, and right here. Right here.”
“It’s OK, Sam,” I said.
“Not really,” said Bee.
Sam’s head came up, and I swiveled toward Bee. “Is it necessary to be like that?” I asked.
“Yes,” Bee said, firmly. “Now, Sam, we love you to pieces. We think you’re an amazing person, but if you want us to help you prove that it wasn’t you who killed Detective Jones, you’re going to have to hold your head up higher and act a little stronger.”
Tears glistened on Sam’s eyelashes. “What do you mean?”
“She means that we need you to help us help you.”
“But how?” Sam asked. Trouble meowed and hopped from my lap to hers, turning in a quick circle and kneading her jeans.
“By telling us the truth,” Bee said. “We heard that you were snooping around Detective Jones’s house a few days before he was murdered. We want to know why.”
Sam’s bottom lip trembled. Trouble lifted his kitty head and meowed at her. It was amazing how animals could pick up on distress, and even more amazing how terrible I felt about the questions we had to ask. This was why I could never be a police officer. Separating my emotions from a case seemed nearly impossible.
Luckily, Bee was stone-cold. She was the one who did most of the unemotional, logical reasoning.
“Sam?” Bee asked.
She let out a long, low breath. “That’s what everyone thinks?” she asked. “That I was snooping around because I wanted to kill Jones?”
“Not necessarily,” I said. “But you can see how it’s suspicious. Maybe if you just told us why…”
“I feel like I can’t,” Sam whispered. “It’s not my place to say anything.”
“Sam, you realize that this is looking pretty bad for you. Better you break someone’s trust than wind up in prison for a crime you didn’t commit,” Bee said, sharply.
Again, Sam went all wobbly-lipped. “I was there looking for Martha.”
“Martha? Jones’s wife?”
“That’s right,” she said. “I’ve been friends with her for a while, and she needed my help.”
“With what?” Bee asked. “And why would she need your help so late at night?”
“Because she was looking to divorce Jones, and she didn’t want anyone to know, and she wanted to try a trial separation, and—”
“Whoa.” I raised my hand. “Slow down, Sam. Can you start from the beginning?”
Samantha nodded. “Right, well, Martha came to me a few weeks ago and told me that she wasn’t happy in her marriage. She was my mother’s friend, and that sort of transferred onto me. The friendship, I mean. She wanted to try a separation because she couldn’t stand Jones a second longer.”
“Did she say why?” Bee asked.
“He was a tyrant at home. Always grumpy and critical. Basically, the same way he acts around town,�
�� Sam said. “Or acted. Oh heavens, I can’t believe he’s dead.”
“Back to Martha,” Bee prompted.
“Right, well, she wanted my help. She asked if she could come stay at the guesthouse for a while. She wanted to hide out before leaving Carmel Springs. And she needed help moving her things into storage too,” Sam said.
“But that doesn’t quite explain why you’d be snooping outside her house.” Bee’s tone remained sharp. I shot a look her way, but she ignored it.
“I hadn’t heard from her in two days. She was supposed to be coming to the guesthouse that night, but she hadn’t turned up, and she wasn’t answering her phone. I was worried, so I went over there to check she was doing all right. I swear that was it. There was nothing sinister about it.”
“And did you manage to get hold of her?” Bee asked.
“Yeah. She told me not to worry and that she needed a few more days to get her affairs in order.” Sam stroked Trouble, her fingers worrying his fur until he caught them with his little claws and got her to stop. “I don’t want to cause any trouble. For Martha or for me.”
I chewed on the inside of my cheek, drawn to the flickering flames in the fireplace. Sam was stressed, clearly, and it would be easy enough to check if what she’d told us was true. We had to talk to Martha again.
And find out why she’d lied to us about her “vacation.” Now that Jones was dead, why would she lie about their separation?
Because she has something else to hide.
10
“We should have seen this coming.” Bee led the charge down the sidewalk on Syrup Street. “The spouse is always the first suspect in a murder case. People are often motivated by anger or love or lust or revenge, especially when it comes to their significant others.”
“But that might just be us jumping to conclusions,” I said. “There might be another reason that Martha lied.”
“Like what?” Bee asked. “Why would she hide what her true intentions were? She’s scared of being found out, and that means she has a secret. Probably a dark one.”
I sighed. It was troublesome to get Bee to relax once she was on a roll, and she was surely on one now. Still, it was a nice thought, believing that we could solve the case as easy as that. But I doubted it—wouldn’t Detective Martin have investigated this avenue already?
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