Valleys, Vehicles & Victims: A Camper & Criminals Cozy Mystery Series

by Tonya Kappes

  “Excuse me.” Shay dug around in her handbag. “I’ve got to call Daddy!”

  She stormed out of the coffee shop with the phone pressed up against her ear, leaving Gert and me in a very uncomfortable position.

  “Gert, I told you about the ideas Shay had for the wedding, and you said anything was fine.” I was very taken aback by Gert’s sudden actions. “There’s obviously some history between you and Tom. And it’s not good.”

  “How do you know?” she bit back at me.

  “It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure it out after you dropped a ceramic mug on a glass counter, shattering it to pieces when you saw him at the Chicken Fest.” I watched as she tried not to hide her heavy breathing from me. “Right now you’re getting all worked up over me even mentioning his name.”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t help you, Mae.” Gert’s nostrils flared.

  “Listen, I don’t know what your relationship with him is, and trust me, I have a past with him too. He was in Paul’s circle of friends. Though it was a large circle and I didn’t know him that well, he was still around. But don’t take it out on his daughter. He even told her he’d like Trails to be featured in the big fancy article Pierce is doing.” I thought that might make her come around.

  “Is that going to pay me back for the millions of dollars he stole from me by stealing my recipe for what you know as Moonbucks Original Blend?” she asked.

  My jaw hit the floor.

  It literally took me five minutes to compose myself enough to sit, let alone process the big bomb Gert Hobson had just thrown on me or even take a sip of the hot coffee she’d set down in front of me. Who hadn’t had the caramel delicious hot coffee treat?

  “You’re telling me that you came up with the Moonbucks coffee?” I had to clarify what I’d heard from her because it sure did sound like Tom Moon had stolen her recipe.

  “Yes.” Gert had gotten herself a cup of coffee and told one of her baristas to take over while she sat down with me.

  In the meantime, Shay had perched herself up on a picnic table in the middle of the downtown, still talking on her phone.

  “Tom Moon is a thief. We were two college kids working at a little pastry shop near our school. We spent many hours working together. I told him of my dreams of owning a coffee shop of my own. He had dreams of becoming a big businessman.” Her jaw tensed. She took a drink of her coffee. Her jaw relaxed.

  “Were you two an item?” I asked.

  “No.” She made that quite clear in her tone. “At the time, there was only regular and decaffeinated coffee to pick from. I started to create little blends of ground coffee by adding hazelnuts or even something as simple as cinnamon.”

  She must’ve had some good memories because she did smile at something she recalled.

  “Customers started asking for the Gert special.” There was a glow of pride all over her face. “Customers would take one sip and just have a happy sigh. It felt so good they enjoyed something I loved.”

  She looked down. I could feel the big “but” in the story coming.

  “One day Tom had asked me to write down the Gert special because everyone asked for it when I wasn’t there.” Her cold eyes drew up from her mug, and she stared at me. “I wrote it down. The next thing I knew, Tom had vanished. No notice at the pastry shop. Withdrew from college. Left.” She circled the rim of the mug with the pad of her pointer finger. “A few months later I saw an article about this young man who started a coffee business and people from all over the world were buying it from him. He was about to open his first coffee shop. It wasn’t like anyone in the world had ever seen.”

  “Moonbucks,” I gasped and drew my hand up to my mouth. I quickly remembered how I’d overheard saying something about secrets coming out from under the rug. Was she talking about this?

  Could Gert Hobson’s creation really be the mastermind behind the entire ground Moonbucks was built upon?

  “Tom Moon stole your recipe and took it for his own. That was illegal.” I leaned over the table so her customers wouldn’t hear me, just so I could clarify what I was formulating inside my head. “You need to sue him.”

  “After I saw it was him, I had to take off work, miss my classes, and sell my couch just to have enough money for a bus pass so I could confront him.” Her story had pulled me in so much that I didn’t realize we were no longer alone in our conversation. “Tom Moon had his lawyers ask me for a patent on the recipe and to prove it was mine.”

  “Gertrude Hobson!” Carl and Amy hurried into the coffee shop with Shay by their side. “We’ve been through this. Years ago and you still can’t let it go.” Carl sounded so condescending that I wanted to throw my hot cup of coffee on him. “The only thing Tom did before you and he admitted your idea of opening a specialty coffee shop would be great. That’s what my client did. He opened your dream. Something you couldn’t do. It’s ridiculous to claim that he stole your coffee recipe.”

  “It wasn’t opening a coffee shop. He knows it.” Gert jumped up from the chair, knocking it backward with a smack. “He did steal the recipe.”

  All the customers in Trails Coffee stopped and looked at the commotion.

  “He stole my coffee recipe and called it Moonbucks Original Blend!” Gert had lost her ever-loving mind.

  It was like she’d taken my thoughts out of my head and performed the actions. She took her hot cup of coffee and flung it at him, causing the steaming liquid to splatter all over the front of Carl’s suit coat.

  “You’re crazy!” Carl pointed at her and looked down at the wet coffee on his coat. He looked around and headed straight to the bathroom.

  “I’m crazy?” Gert asked him and got up in his face. “Yes! I’m crazy enough to kill your sorry boss and you if you don’t get out of my shop!”

  Just as I looked up to find some sort of towel to give Carl, I was faced with about a dozen cell phones pointing in our direction from customers recording the entire event.

  EIGHT

  Needless to say, Shay didn’t make it to her nail appointment, and the girls who were in Helen Pyle’s new manicure stations were yanked from their seats after Shay had made a big scene about Gert threatening her daddy and Shay had to go lie down. Betts took them back to the campground while I stayed at the Trails Coffee to make sure Gert was okay.

  She was not. I had suggested we grab a coffee and head over to the grassy median to talk.

  “The nice fall breeze will make you feel better.” If the breeze didn’t make her feel good, the beautiful unfurling hues of yellow, brown, and red leaves would give her a visual treat. All the colors of autumn had decided to show off today with the sun as the spotlight.

  “I’m sorry.” Gert put both hands around the to-go cup. “I really should’ve kept my cool about it.”

  “Why didn’t you stop him when all of this happened?” I asked her.

  “Oh, I tried. I took my loan money and tried to follow him but always turned up a day late. By the time I did find him, he’d already made the big coffee deal. He had so many lawyers, and he told me he didn’t steal my recipe and if I could produce a legitimate patent, then they’d take me to court over it.” The look of defeat sat in her eyes.

  “There has to be a way around this.” I wondered if it was time to call in Ava Cox. She wouldn’t be happy hearing from me since it was Paul West’s fault what’d happened to her family and that she was tied to the murder of my ex-husband.

  “I’d love to say that we have a shot, but we don’t.” She shook her head and lifted the cup to her mouth. Taking a sip, she looked over the top. “You’re a good friend, but I don’t want him to take advantage of you. You need to do the wedding and stick it to him. Get him where it hurts. That’s money.”

  “I’m just so sorry this happened.” I held the cup in my hands. “I’m so sorry I let him taste your new blend.”

  “That’s one reason I didn’t have the Christmas blend at the Chicken Fest. I was going to.” A group of hikers walked in the grass
behind us, and she leaned on the picnic table on her elbows as if they were listening to us.

  “What?” I asked, glancing over her shoulder at the group as they passed.

  “Tom Moon has eyes and ears everywhere.” Her eyes shifted from right to left. “For all I know, he’s hired actors to act like hikers.”

  Some of her paranoia was showing through, and I didn’t feel there was any way I could make her feel better at this moment, so I let her go with it.

  When they passed, she opened back up.

  “I’d seen Tom at the coffee convention and overheard a conversation his soon-to-be father in law was having with another coffee king, Wes Millford. Awakenings Coffee.” I nodded because I recognized the name. “The father-in-law said they were going to be in town for a few days because his son was marrying Tom’s daughter at some hillbilly campground in Normal.”

  “Hillbilly?” I snarled.

  “That’s how I knew he was coming to town. Immediately I called my employees and told them to stop churning the beans and stop grinding them because we weren’t going to showcase it at the fest.” Gert stopped and looked off into the distance. Her eyes were filled with tears. “I was counting on the few dollars that selling bags of the new blend to all the tourists at the Chicken Fest to help get me through the winter months.”

  I moved my hands from my cup, reached across the table, and placed them on hers.

  “We all pitch in around here. We will all be fine this winter.” Still, my mind was still reeling about how Tom Moon just took whatever he wanted in life and it all started with Gert Hobson.

  “If I’d only kept my piece of paper with my recipe on it.” She shook her head. “Or if I could break into his house and get it, my whole life would be different.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to reach out to Ava?” I asked.

  “No.” She pinched her lips together.

  “Hey, you two,” Christine Watson said to us when she walked up. “Where’s the bride?”

  “I’m afraid we won’t be there to taste the groom’s cake.” I tried to avoid looking at Gert. “Shay needed to lie down. But I’m sure it’s all good.”

  “Oh.” Christine’s brows knitted. “I guess I can take some samples to him and to her dad.”

  “Can you add some cyanide to it?” Gert didn’t laugh. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought she was serious.

  “I think they’d order it minus the cyanide.” Christine joked and looked at Gert with a wry smile.

  “Do you think I could grab a ride to the campground with you?” I asked Christine. “The bus with all Shay and her bridesmaids left without me. But only if Gert is okay.”

  “I’m fine.” Gert shook her head and stood up. “Like I said, charge Tom Moon extra. He’s got the money.” She winked, her way of telling me her secret was just between us. “Besides, I’ve got to make a few stops of my own this morning before time gets away from me.” She looked at her watch. “I’ve got to be somewhere by nine thirty.”

  If not for Paul West and his web of lies and crimes, I might’ve charged someone like Tom Moon a little more, but I just couldn’t do it.

  “Whatever. He deserves all the bad things coming to him,” she muttered and turned to go back to her shop, leaving Christine Watson and me standing there.

  “You want to tell me what that was about?” Christine asked.

  “Not really. What do you say I help you get those samples to the men?” I asked, hoping she’d not continue to ask me about Gert’s odd behavior. “Where’d you park?”

  The Cookie Crumble wasn’t located downtown. There was no open shop space, so Christine and her sister’s bakery was a little out of downtown, toward the police station and coroner’s office.

  “In front of Smelly Dog.” She referred to the dog groomer opposite the side of Trails Coffee Shop. “Do you mind if we stop by the Old Train Station first? That’s where the groom’s family is staying.”

  “Hey!”

  Both Christine and I turned around. “Where are you going?” Violet Rhinehammer was hightailing it toward us, coming from the direction of the Laundry Club.

  “I’m hitching a ride to the campground with Christine. I figured you were going to get the scoop with Shay and ride back with them.” I shrugged.

  “No. I’m doing the story on you. Shay just happens to be the extra.” She rested her hands on her camera, which was strapped around her neck and lay flat against her stomach. “Let’s go.”

  Christine looked puzzled.

  “I’ve agreed to let Violet Rhinehammer do an exclusive on my life because Pierce is in town for Shay’s wedding. He has a little past history, and he is going to do a little piece on me being here.” Gosh, I realized the Moons brought a lot of stress with them everywhere they went, including to me.

  “She wants to the truth to be told, and I’m doing the telling.” Violet looked at both of us with a smile.

  “I was just telling Mae that I was going to stop by the Old Train Station and a couple of places first.” Christine was obviously giving Violet a way out, but Violet walked across the grass with us.

  “That’s fine. I can chat with Coke while you talk with Lewis and Dan. Or let Violet pepper me with questions.” I waited by the passenger side of the car for her to unlock the door and get inside. Violet got into the back. “Did you stick with the red velvet?”

  “Yes.” She started up the car and pulled out of the space, making a U-turn at the end of the grassy median so she could head toward the Old Train Station, which was north of downtown. “I also made the middle cake of the five-tiered wedding cake red velvet. Shay had called me last night and told me that her father wanted red velvet, but there were some issues between the fathers. Apparently, Mr. Moon won’t eat anything made for the groom’s side.”

  “Really?” I asked. “Who are the adults here?”

  “No kidding.” She smacked her hand on the wheel. “Shoot. I forgot to ask Gert what blend of coffee she was serving because I like to have little treats that’d pair well.”

  “I don’t think she’d going to be doing the wedding.” I didn’t want to get into the gossip, but since I was the wedding coordinator for Shay, I guessed it was okay to discuss some of the details, just not the big secret. “Tom and Gert know each other from different coffee events, and she doesn’t have a lot of respect for him, which makes her not want to do any sort of events for him.”

  “We will get to how you know the Moons later,” Violet chirped from the back seat. “Tell me about the night of the fire.”

  Christine looked over at me with wide eyes.

  “It’s fine. I don’t mind answering,” I said.

  It was hard to talk about and I rarely spoke of it, but I’d rather tell the truth than have Pierce continue to call me an orphan. While Christine made a few stops to various houses and other places to drop off custom orders, I recalled that awful night.

  “Dad had come back from the picket line at the coal mine. Mom had brown beans and cornbread on the table because it was a cheap meal to make. Dad had been laid off and was really leading the protest to get back into the mine the government had shut down. Dad was tired, but I remember he didn’t eat.” I could vividly see my dad standing near the fireplace with his hands behind his back. His dark eyes watched as my siblings and I filled our bellies. I was a teen, so my focus wasn’t on them. It was all about me, when looking back, Dad didn’t eat because of us. He wanted to make sure we had enough.

  “After supper, I went into my room and listened to the radio. I didn’t have a cell phone. There was a mobile doctor who came to town every few months, and she gave me old copies of magazines. I had looked at them a million times. The fashion, the makeup.”

  “So you grew up in Appalachia?” Violet asked.

  “Yes. Until the fire that night.” I swallowed hard. “I woke up to a room filled of smoke. I had my own room, but my brother and sister shared. I’d just moved into it because my mom insisted a girl of my age needed
her own space.” I smiled, remembering how we’d worked so hard on fixing the broken furniture to make me a nice room.

  It wasn’t much, but it was my own space, and I loved how my parents tried so hard to give me that space.

  “I fell on the ground and crawled to the door. When I opened it, the entire guts of the house was burning. I guess I wasn’t supposed to die, because my room was the only room that didn’t burn down.” I blinked a few times to get me out of my head. “It was then that I figured everyone got out and couldn’t get to me. That’s when I grabbed my little radio and threw it through my glass window.”

  I pulled up the sleeve of my shirt and showed Violet the scar on my elbow that was an eternal reminder of where I’d come from.

  “That’s from the jagged glass from the window.” I ran the pad of my finger over it. It was still tender to a touch under pressure. “I could hear the sirens of the fire truck. We didn’t have close neighbors, but someone had called the fire department. I stood outside by myself, yelling and looking for my family. Then I wondered if they’d gone to the neighbors but couldn’t understand why they didn’t wait for me outside.”

  I was never so glad to see the street sign for Fawn Road because I knew we were seconds away from the Old Train Station Motel, giving me some time to stop talking about the event that forever changed my life.

  “We can pick up this later.” Violet had jotted a few things down, and I heard her unclick her seat belt. “Christine, can I get a couple of photos of the groom trying the cake?”

  “I’m sure that’d be fine.” Christine had pulled up in front of the motel and parked in the middle. “We will ask them first, though.”

  I was glad Christine told Violet that they’d ask permission because Violet was great at turning words around.

  When we got out of the car, I could see Coke in the field on the right where she was working in her garden.

  “Let’s go say hi to Coke and get the room number,” I suggested since we didn’t know which one of the ten rooms they were staying in.