by Tonya Kappes
The three of us walked over to the fence gate, and when Coke looked up, she waved at us.
“I’ll be right there.” She put her gardening tool down and used the sleeve of her forearm to wipe off the dirt on her forehead.
“What are you doing in that garden?” I asked, wondering what vegetable she was working on.
“I’m getting it ready for the winter months. Next year I’d like to have the farm-to-table vegetables for the Caboose Café next year.” She really was using her land and investment to all the potential she could.
“That’s great. I’d love to do a story on it for the National Parks magazine.” Violet was intrigued.
“That’d be great. Thanks, Violet.” Coke smiled. “What can I do for y’all?”
“I’m here for the Malone men.” Christine made “Malone men” sound so scathing. We all laughed. “They need to sample the different frosting for the groom’s cakes.”
“What a mess that wedding is going to be.” Coke rolled her eyes. She didn’t have to give details to show she felt exactly the way the rest of us did. “They are in rooms eight and nine. I’m not sure which room the groom or the parents are staying in.”
“We’ll knock. You should come to taste.” Christine patted her stomach. “Delicious.”
“I bet. I did taste some of the cake that you left when they came to tour the wedding barn yesterday. So moist.” Coke licked her lips and brought her shoulders up to her ears at the same time, looking delighted. “Y’all have fun. I’m going to dig up the rest of the potatoes and get them in hibernation.”
She waved us off and headed back to the garden, and we walked back to the motel. Briefly, we stopped at Christine’s car to get the boxes with all the samples from the trunk. Each of us took a box.
“There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of faith in this marriage,” Violet said.
“They are doomed from the get-go. Just as long as I get paid.” Christine stopped in front of door eight since it was the first one we came to. She gave a hard knock.
“I guess Lewis knows what he’s doing because no one in their right mind would put up with that kind of woman.” I had to make that comment about Shay. “She’s such a princess. I hope he has the financial wealth to keep her in makeup, let alone the lifestyle she’s been used to.”
Christine knocked even harder, but no one answered, so we walked down to the next door.
She knocked again. This time, the door unlatched and crept open about an inch.
“Hello, Lewis. It’s Christine from the Cookie Crumble. I’m here to have you and your father sample the groom’s cakes with the various frostings.” She looked at us and let out a long sigh.
“Knock again,” I encouraged her. “Maybe someone is in the bathroom.”
“Fine.” She knocked. The motel door opened even more, letting the sunlight spill into the room. “Lewis? Dan?” she called into the room.
“I’ll go look.” I put my box on top of Violet’s and walked past Christine.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Christine turned. “Let’s go see if they are in the café?”
“It’ll just take a second to see if someone is in the bathroom. I know my way around these rooms.” I ran my hand along the inside wall and stood at the doorway. “I helped Betts clean them before Coke opened for business.”
The light turned on.
I turned to get the box back from Violet and couldn’t catch it when she dropped it, bringing her hands up to her mouth.
“What?” I asked just as Christine screamed.
When I looked back into the room, I saw a dead man with a knife sticking out of his back. He lay face down in a pool of blood.
“Oh my God! Oh my God!” was all Christine could say as she paced back and forth in front of the door on the sidewalk outside.
Voilet Rhinehammer’s reporter side had kicked in, and she started to take photos from the door between Christine’s stepping in and out of her frame.
“Don’t touch anything.” Violet told me like I didn’t know better.
I dragged my phone out of my back pocket and dialed 911. While I was on the phone with Agnes Swift, dispatcher, Coke had come over to see why Christine had screamed.
“Take them to the café and I’ll wait for the police,” I told her after Agnes had put me on hold to call Jerry Truman, one of the Normal police officers.
“Good gravy,” Agnes groaned from the other end of the phone. “I guess I better call Hank home. He ain’t gonna like hearing you found you ’nother dead body.”
“Don’t bother Hank,” I told her. “He’s got the other case on his hands, and let’s see what Jerry says.”
Not that I had the utmost confidence in Jerry, but it would probably take a couple of days to clean up the crime scene and talk to all the wedding party. Hank would be back in town by then. When it came to Hank, Agnes and I generally agreed, since she was his granny and only wanted what was best for him.
We got off the phone.
I didn’t have much time to look around myself until the police got there and took over. Not that I wanted to overstep or brag, but I’d been successful in helping solve a few murder cases in the past, and from what I could see, Lewis Malone was definitely murdered.
The sound of screeching tires came from the parking lot, and I looked out the door. It was Dottie Swaggert’s car and she threw it in gear before she jumped out.
“I heard over the police scanner there’s a body with a knife sticking out of it.” She hurried over to the room. “Is it the father-in-law?”
“The groom.” I wondered what made her think it was Dan Malone. “His shoes.” I recognized Lewis’s wing-tipped shoes from yesterday, and the knife looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it.
“And to think I thought a little weight gain from fried chicken was going to be the bride’s problem.” Dottie leaned over and looked around my body, interrupting my thoughts. “I figured you were here when I heard Agnes come over the dispatch. Betts said you stayed behind. I put two and two together, you being the wedding planner and all, figuring on you checking off all the to-dos.”
“I was going to take a quick look around. It seems like someone stabbed him from behind.” I took a couple of sidesteps to show her his body. “He’s facing the back of the room, so it makes me think he either didn’t see his attacker coming or he didn’t fear the attacker, since he wasn’t facing them.”
The sirens in the background grew closer and closer. The more the guests in the motel heard them, the more they started to come out of their guest rooms to see what was going on.
“Lewis?” I heard Lena Malone call out. Our eyes caught. For a split second, I could see the question in her eyes before it turned to sheer fright. “Lewis!”
Before Jerry Truman, the police officer I recognized from the station, could get out of his car to try to stop Lena from entering the motel room, she grabbed Lewis and flipped him over.
“Tom!” She gasped, letting go of his arms and dropping the corpse to the floor.
NINE
Tom Moon? What was Tom Moon doing in Lewis Malone’s room? I blinked a few times to make sure I was seeing exactly that. That I was.
When I heard sirens in the distance, I told Dottie to drive back to the campground. I needed her to be there when the police showed up to tell Shay and Misty what had happened to Tom. I also told her not to say a word until the police came.
“Please don’t be going and picking up the body, ma’am.” Jerry had come in. He stood six foot tall. His belly spilled over the top of his utility belt. “Please step outside.”
Lena Malone was shaking from the hairs on her head to the tippy of her toes. Her eyes were as wide as the full moon. She was in full-blown shock.
“I…” She gulped. “I thought it was my Lewis.”
“Where is Lewis?” I asked.
“He and Dan had rented a rental car to go to a meeting they couldn’t reschedule.” She couldn’t stop staring at Tom’s body.
The other police officers arrived on the scene and started to block off what they considered the circumference of the crime scene. They moved the guests and my friends away from the room.
“Mae, ma’am, do you two mind?” I moved out of the way when Colonel Holz had come up behind me.
Colonel was the county coroner and usually called right after the police from dispatch when there was a homicide. Hank was usually the next person they’d call since he was a homicide detective, but since he was out of town, I wasn’t sure what they were going to do.
“Yeah.” Lena Malone winked a few times, and it seemed to drag her out of her trance. She rubbed a tear off her cheek and took one last look at Tom before she walked out of the motel room.
“Do you know why Tom Moon was in Lewis’s room?” I asked her once we got outside.
“No. I don’t.” She shook her head and wrung her hands during the entire walk up to the open courtyard, where the police line had been placed with the crowd pushed back.
Coke, Violet, and Christine stood behind the yellow tape, waiting for us.
“Coke, can we go to the café and get Lena some water?” I asked.
“Yes.” Coke readily agreed. We all followed her into the café and took the first available booth that would fit all of us.
Silently, we waited for Coke to bring over something to drink as though we were all trying to process what we’d seen. Me. I was trying to figure out who killed Tom Moon as the list of suspects went through my head, starting with Gert Hobson.
“Can I talk to you in private?” Violet asked me.
“Sure.”
We got up from the table and walked outside, heading back to the fields where the wedding barn was located.
“I wanted to make sure we were away from ears and eyes.” Violet turned around and stopped. She looked at me with a serious expression that made my stomach knot. “Do you realize Tom Moon is dead?”
“Yes. Why do you look like that? What’s wrong?” I asked.
“For starters, Gert Hobson and Tom Moon had a very public fight last night. And his daughter pulled that stunt with the Moonbucks shares that didn’t go over well with him.” Her brows lifted. “I’m thinking this is a much bigger story than me doing a story on your life.”
“What are you saying?” I asked, trying to sift through her words.
“I can’t do your story, and I think I can get national attention without you calling your source for me.” She was asking my permission not to focus on me, and I was just fine with that now. Shay told me Pierce wasn’t going to put me in his article.
“Sure.” I lifted my hands in the air. “You don’t need to worry about my story.”
“Great!” She took off the way we came but turned around. “You might want to get Gert Hobson a lawyer.”
“Why?” I didn’t understand why she was saying things about Gert.
“Because when you were in Lewis’s room, one of the customers in the café had come out to see what was going on. When one of the officers told her Tom Moon was found dead, she told him she saw him arguing with the woman who dropped off the coffee to Coke. She even said it was around nine thirty.”
I gulped when I recalled Gert threatening Carl about Tom Moon. I looked at my phone to record the time. It was almost eleven fifteen.
“Yes! I’m crazy enough to kill your sorry boss and you if you don’t get out of my shop!”
The police were interviewing everyone in the café. I wanted to get Christine and get out of there, but it would be a minute because she was talking to an officer. Our eyes caught, and I discreetly pointed to where she could find me. Outside.
If I hung around in there, I knew they would have me wait so they could interview me, and right now, Gert Hobson didn’t have that time. I’d been around long enough to know that when Normal Police had a suspect in mind, they brought them right into the station for that twenty-four-hour hold. I had to get to Gert before they did so I could start figuring out what happened after they took her to the station.
I made sure to keep out of the police officers’ vision when I went to the car and knelt, waiting for Christine. I could see Violet still trying to get her way back into the crime scene and taking photos. She’d find a ride back somehow, so I wasn’t worried about her.
“Psst, Coke,” I tried to yell-whisper, if there were such a thing, to get her attention when she appeared in the front of the motel. “Coke, over here.”
“Mae, what are you doing?” She came over. Her eyes contained a worried look that wasn’t there earlier.
“I’m trying not to be seen because I’ve got to get to Gert before the police do.” I shook my head. “According to Violet, one of your customers had seen Gert and Tom here this morning, and they were arguing.”
“Oh, dear, I was hoping no one saw that.” Her voice faded to a hushed stillness.
“You saw it?” I asked.
“I wasn’t going to tell the police, but now that you said someone heard it, I’m afraid I’m going to have to tell them what I heard.” She gave me a dark and desolate stare. “Gert threatened him.”
“What do you mean by threatened?” I had to have clarification.
“She told him she’d made up her mind and was going to spend the rest of her life pursuing what was rightfully hers.” Coke blinked a few times and looked down at her feet like she was trying to remember. “Even if it came to killing him.”
“She said that?” I cringed. “I’m afraid you’re not the only person she’s said something similar in front of.”
“Do you know what she’s talking about?” Coke asked.
“She told me she and Tom Moon had went to the same college and worked in a little bakery that served coffee. She would make all sorts of different coffee blends and had written down the recipe after the customers came in asking for it.” I sucked in a deep breath to tell Coke what that recipe was, according to Gert. “Supposedly Tom Moon stole the recipe, and a year later, it showed up as what we know as Moonbucks Original Blend.”
Coke gasped, drawing her hand up to her mouth.
“What? What happened?” Christine had walked up to us.
“I’ll tell you in the car.” I put my hand on the handle of the passenger door, waiting for her to unlock it. “We need to get to Trails Coffee now.”
“The police are looking for you because I told them we were together.” Christine gestured back towards the motel.
“They can find me later. I’m afraid we need to go.” I jerked the door’s handle just as she clicked the fob to unlock it.
“Go. I’ll try to keep them here as long as I can.” Coke waved us off.
On the short ride to the coffee shop, I quickly told Christine what I’d discovered about Gert’s threats to end Tom’s life, which then suddenly it came true.
“Are you saying you don’t think Gert did it and someone has framed her?” Christine looked as white as a ghost as she tried to parallel park in the only parking spot left on the main drag in front of the downtown shops. “The officer told me she was placed at the scene and there was a fight between her and Tom. Plus…” She paused. “Colonel Holz said he was killed at ten fifteen.”
None of this helped Gert’s case at all. I noted the times.
“I’m saying anything could be possible. All I know is that there’s no way Gert Hobson stabbed Tom Moon to death.” My phone chirped, and I pulled it out of my pocket.
There was a text from Hank and one from Dottie.
Dottie’s text said I better get back to Happy Trails because the Moons were beside themselves and the place was crawling with police. Hank said he was giving a taped deposition for the courts to use in the trial because he’d been called back for the murder investigation of Tom Moon, followed up by telling me not to do anything stupid.
He knew better than to text that.
“Are you coming?” I asked Christine from the passenger side when I opened the door and noticed she hesitated.
“You know.” S
he shook her head. “I don’t think so. I don’t want to get any more involved than I need to be.” I could tell she felt like she was between a rock and a hard place. “But I’ll stay here so you can get a ride back to your place.”
“I understand.” I offered a smile. “You go on, and I’ll get a ride. I think my brother is working.” I looked at my phone. “It’s almost time for him to go grab some late lunch. I’ll give him a call.”
“Are you sure, Mae?” she asked with a worried look as her brows narrowed to a V.
“I’m positive. We’ll catch up later.” I jumped out of the car and waved goodbye before I practically ran down the street and into the coffee shop. Time was not on my side, and it definitely wasn’t on Gert’s if the police had already called Hank.
“Where’s Gert?” I asked one of her employees, who was cleaning off some of the tables. She pointed at the office. When I got to the door, I knocked and opened it before I heard her say to come in.
“You’re back.” She looked up from the papers on her desk, her hand on a calculator. “I was finishing up the books from last week.” She sat back. “What’s wrong?”
“Did you hear about Tom Moon?” I asked her.
“What now?” She rolled her eyes.
“He’s dead.” My words caused her face to still. Her mouth dropped open slightly, and she sat up. “He was found inside of Lewis Moon’s motel room with a knife sticking out of him.”
“You tell her.” The one employee nudged the other.
“No, you. She’ll be mad,” the other insisted.
“What? Tell me what?” Gert looked between them.
“One of your knives from that very expensive set you bought back from the convention.” The employee gulped. “The ones you said we had to take extra care of because they are really sharp but very expensive and if anything happened to them you were going to take the money out of our paycheck?”
“Yeah…” She hesitated. The door to the coffee shop squeaked open behind us.
“Well, one is missing, and we’ve looked everywhere,” the employee said in a cracking voice.