by Vickie Fee
“Hi, Halley. Sorry I’m late, I got delayed closing up. Trey, can you get me a matching beer? How ’bout you, are you ready for another?”
Part of me resented Nick thinking that I was a damsel in need of rescuing. But my distressed stomach felt relieved all the same.
“No, I’m good. Just started this one. Shall we move to a booth?” I said nodding toward a line of booths against the wall and as far away from the bar as possible.
Trey scowled as he handed Nick a beer. His drink wasn’t on the house.
We sat down across from each other in the booth.
“Are you waiting for Kendra to meet you?” Nick said.
“No, I just had supper with her, but she was beat. I hadn’t been inside the saloon yet and thought I’d pop in for a quick drink.”
Not sure why I felt I needed to explain to Nick, since I barely knew him. Although he was nice enough to help out during renovations, an effort for which he’d only received random offerings of pizza and beer I provided for the volunteers.
“All the businesses in town seem so family-friendly, I guess I just assumed…” I trailed off, feeling embarrassed.
“Early in the evening it’s mostly couples and some old guys in here, and single women singing karaoke, but later on it can sometimes turn into a frat house, I’m afraid. When you want to go out for drinks, I’d suggest the hotel bar as a much nicer place to go. And Trey has a reputation for being a wolf with the single ladies.”
“What about you, what’s your reputation with the single ladies?”
After a pause, he said, “I think I probably have a reputation for being a jock, you know, kind of a clod with the ladies.”
He blushed, which was totally cute.
“You don’t seem like a clod.”
“You haven’t known me very long.”
Nick made me laugh, telling me about a heavyset customer who got stuck in a kayak he was considering buying.
“I was trying to act cool like, ‘No, worries, happens all the time.’ But I was seriously beginning to wonder how I was going to dislodge him from the kayak. We got way more hands on than I normally would with a stranger, with me working my hands down under his butt and him wrapping his arms around my waist, but I finally managed to get him unstuck.”
He waved at the bar, signaling we’d like another round. Doofus brought over our beers.
“I’m glad I ran into you,” Nick said. “I’ve been meaning to drop by and see you, but I knew you were busy with the opening and everything. Sorry I wasn’t able to make it on opening night. I was playing guide to a group of backpackers. And I was very sorry to hear about the death. Was it really a murder, or was the guy at the Sentinel just trying to sell papers?”
“I don’t know if it’s official, like with autopsy reports. But the cops think it was murder, and the detective has been eyeballing me as a suspect.”
“What? That’s crazy, you’ve only been in town a few weeks.”
“Did you know the dead guy?” I asked.
“No. The photo in the paper looked familiar, so I guess I’d seen him around.”
“Apparently, he’d been trying to buy some of the businesses downtown. He or his partner never approached you?” I was fishing. I watched his face, trying to figure out if he knew more than he was telling me.
“No, nobody’s offered to buy my place. But I wouldn’t sell anyway. This is what I want to do. And besides, I doubt anyone would be interested in buying if they looked over my sales figures,” he said with a smile that showed off his dimples.
When my second bottle was empty, I told him I should be going.
“Yeah, it’s getting late,” he said with a sexy grin, reaching over and touching my hand. “I’d like to take you home.”
I jerked my hand away.
“Running into me in a bar and buying me a drink does not make this a date, Nick Raiford,” I said, feeling my face flush.
“Halley, wait. I just meant I’d walk you to your door. Nothing more. Honest.”
Maybe I’m gullible, but I believed him. We left together and walked up the block to the theater. I stopped at the front door instead of going around to the alley entrance, saying goodnight and thanking him for the drink with a sideways glance. I wanted to make it absolutely clear there would be no goodnight kiss.
CHAPTER 15
About seven Thursday morning, I walked down to The Muffin Man, hoping he’d have a dozen muffins or cinnamon rolls boxed up and ready to go. I worried for a moment because Zeke was busy handling orders for a pretty long line of customers. But he spotted me and motioned to the end of the counter.
“Halley, your order is good to go.”
“Thanks, Zeke,” I said as I picked up the box. From the heavenly aroma wafting up to my nostrils I could tell the box included at least a few of Zeke’s magic cinnamon rolls. As I stepped onto the sidewalk with a smile my phone buzzed. I fished it out of my pocket and caller I.D. told me it was Marco. My smile got even bigger.
He asked if it would be okay to make a wine delivery at the theater around three thirty to replenish stock. He would be making the delivery himself. Why did that make me so happy?
The warm glow didn’t last long. As I approached the theater, I spotted Detective Frank Stedman standing in front of the door like a blockade
“Hello, Detective.”
“Ms. Greer, could I have a word?”
“If you don’t mind talking while I get things up and running for customers,” I said, pointing to the sign on the door about the morning coffee bar. “If you want me to come down to the station again, it will have to wait a couple of hours.”
“We can talk here—for now,” he said, noncommittally.
I unlocked the door and we entered. It wasn’t time to open, but I left the door unlocked desperately hoping someone would wander in and interrupt my conversation with the detective.
“That smells good,” he said, motioning to the box from Zeke’s.
I set the box on the counter and flipped open the lid, letting all that enticing deliciousness waft toward him. I spied a mix of muffins and cinnamon rolls.
“They’re for sale.”
“I’ll pass.”
He sat down on a bar stool at the counter and eyed me wordlessly for a long moment as I got busy prepping for service. Finally he spoke.
“I think we may have a problem, Ms. Greer.”
I glanced up at him briefly, thinking how his monotone delivery reminded me of Sergeant Joe Friday from Dragnet, only with less enthusiasm. As he talked, I kept expecting him to yawn.
“It’s come to my attention that you’re inserting yourself into my murder investigation. Following after the police, questioning witnesses. What do you have to say for yourself?”
“I can assure you I haven’t been following after you, Detective. I have no idea where you’ve been or who you’ve talked to. And I haven’t been questioning witnesses, as you put it. Now that the grand opening’s behind me I have been trying to get acquainted with some of the other business owners. Is that illegal?”
“Could be, if you’re interfering in a criminal investigation. But my bigger concern right now is that you may have tampered with or removed physical evidence.”
“What evidence?”
“It seems a certain item from the victim’s cottage has gone missing. It’s clearly visible in evidence photographs that were taken at the residence, and now it’s gone. And according to his landlord, you and your pal Kendra Williams are the only people who had access to the scene. Paula Turpin said she let you two look around his place, at your request. Shortly after you left, she had the locks changed. There’s no sign of forced entry and no one other than her has the new keys, and yet, an item has gone missing. How can you explain that?”
“I can’t, but I can assure you that the only thing Kendra and I took was
a look around. We left empty-handed.”
“What were you looking for?”
“I don’t know. I guess I just wanted a sense of who this man was who had vandalized the theater, even though he apparently had wanted to buy it at one point.”
“Did you find anything?”
“Honestly, no, except that he was a slob. Unless the police were the ones who made such a mess of his place.”
The detective remained expressionless. Apparently, he would neither confirm nor deny that the cops trashed Vince’s place.
The front door opened. Trudy stepped inside, looked over at the bar and stopped in her tracks. “Is the coffee bar open for business?”
“Yes, it is. Come on in,” I said with a smile, before turning to the detective and asking, “Is there anything else?”
“That’ll do for now,” he said quietly. “But if I catch you meddling in this investigation or if I find you removed so much as a cockroach from the victim’s house, I will not hesitate to lock you up, Ms. Greer.”
“Always a pleasure talking with you,” I called after him. The image of a cockroach was unsettling. But as much as he ticked me off, I forced a smile as he left.
Trudy wiggled her fingers in a wave to Detective Stedman as she walked past him and took a seat at the counter.
“Where’s George? I thought he was coming with you.”
“He’ll be along in a minute. He stopped to give directions to some confused-looking tourists. George is remarkably friendly and helpful for an old curmudgeon,” Trudy said. “What did the detective want?”
“I’ll tell you after George and Kendra get here.”
I started making a latte for Trudy. In a moment George entered and held the door open for Kendra. She lit up as she waved and said hello. George almost smiled as he said, “Good morning.”
I took their coffee orders.
“Help yourself to some muffins, on the house.”
“I’ll take a muffin, but we’ll pay for it. After all, you’re not getting them for free,” Trudy said.
“I’ve been married long enough to know ‘we’ll pay for it’ means I need to take out my wallet,” George said with his usual charm, before adding, “Not that I’m complaining.”
“Ooh, I’ll take a muffin, too,” Kendra said, using a napkin to pluck a blueberry muffin from the box. “Only, I’m okay with letting Halley treat.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Trudy cut her eyes sharply to George. He saw it, too, and pulled some more cash out of his wallet.
“Breakfast is on me,” he said.
“Detective Stedman was leaving as I came in,” Trudy said. “Halley, now that the gang’s all here, you want to tell us what that’s about?”
“Apparently, he thinks I’m a thief as well as a murderer. He all but accused Kendra and me of stealing something from Vince Dalton’s cottage.”
“What does he think we pinched?” Kendra asked.
“Beats me. But Paula Turpin put us in the frame for the missing item and that seems good enough for the detective.”
“Pinched? In the frame? You know you two don’t talk like normal people your age, right? Y’all sound like a couple of gun molls out of an old movie or a reenactment on The History Channel. Maybe you should expand your television viewing to include some current pop culture and hang out more with people your own age,” Trudy said.
“I like the way they talk. Makes me feel like the hip kid in the room,” George said.
Kendra and I started giggling.
“I guess it’s good that we can laugh on our way to prison,” I said.
“What exactly did Stedman say?” George asked.
I filled them in on my little chat with the detective.
“Paula threw you and Kendra under the bus?” Trudy said.
“Totally,” I said.
“That stinks,” George said.
“Yeah, it’s not like we’re close, but I don’t know why she’d go out of her way to incriminate Kendra or me.”
“Wait just a minute. Didn’t you say she changed the locks shortly after you and Kendra left?”
“Yeah.”
“And the detective said there was no sign of forced entry?”
“Yep. Oh, I see where you’re going with this. If we didn’t take whatever it was, then most likely…”
“Paula did,” Trudy and I both said in unison.
“I’m wondering what she took. And why did she take it then? She had plenty of opportunity to go through Vince’s belongings before she let us in,” Kendra said.
“I don’t know, but I think Halley and I should ask her. We’ll have the perfect opportunity today. She almost always comes to my Thursday afternoon yoga class.”
“That sounds like a plan. I’m eager to hear what she has to say for herself,” I said.
“I haven’t been sitting on my thumbs while you gals have been out investigating,” George said with the look of a kid who was picked last for the kickball team. “I just learned something about one of our suspects that could be important,” he said.
He took a dramatic pause and Trudy looked like she was ready to smack him.
“Well?” she said.
“Trey Tilby inquired about renting some excavating equipment. Not like a backhoe to dig in open ground, but the kind of rig you’d use to carefully excavate under a building.”
“When did he do this?” I asked.
“Not sure exactly when. A couple months ago, maybe. He never actually rented it, but he obviously had some project in mind.”
“I wonder if he’s wanting to dig under the bar or one of the other businesses on the block,” Kendra offered.
“Either way, I don’t think the excavation would be to expand the business operating space,” George said. “Which gives credence to the idea that Tilby was involved with Dalton somehow—maybe even a business partner. Lusting after buried treasure seems completely in character for Tilby. And getting into a brawl wouldn’t be exactly out of character for him either.”
“Maybe he and Vince had a falling out,” I proposed. “Good work, George.”
After the creepy way Trey Tilby had come on to me last night, I found the idea of him as a murder suspect appealing. But I decided not to mention it to George.
“By the way, I filled Kendra in on our chat with Linda, but I keep thinking about her saying he blackmailed her twice. “Do you think he pressured her for sexual favors?” I asked, wide-eyed.
“You met Linda, right?”
“George, really,” Trudy said, swatting at him.
He cleared his throat. “I think that’s highly unlikely. But one kind of payment blackmailers have been known to accept in lieu of cash is information on a larger, richer target. Linda’s grafted onto the gossip grapevine. Not much goes on in this town that she doesn’t know about, so she could’ve provided him with blackmail info. Although, I think he would’ve demanded proof, not just hearsay, and I don’t think that Linda would have had incriminating evidence on people just lying around,” George said.
The front door opened and a lady in a light pink sweater peeked inside. “Is the coffee bar open yet?”
“Yes, ma’am. Come on in,” I said.
“You’re in the right place. Best coffee in town,” Trudy said.
“I better get to work,” Kendra said.
“Us, too,” Trudy said, as they got up to leave in unison.
“Trudy, when and where should I meet you to chat with our favorite landlady?” I asked.
“A little before one. At the community center. Class wraps up around a quarter to one. You drop by and wait by the door. I’ll stall her as the other students are leaving, then we’ll corner her for a little chat,” Trudy said, deviously arching an eyebrow.
It was by no means a deluge, but I had a steady trickle of customers al
l morning for which I was thankful. Right at ten thirty I was washing up, just about ready to lock the doors when I heard someone enter.
“Am I too late to get a cup of coffee? I hear yours is pretty good,” he said.
“You’re just in time, come on in.”
I turned around to see a handsome, bearded face with a broad smile. But what really popped out at me was the Roman collar at the top of his black shirt.
“Mornin’,” I said awkwardly.
The priest, who I guessed to be in his late thirties or early forties, walked up to the counter and extended his hand.
“Hi, you must be Halley. I’m Father Ben from St. Cecilia’s. I’ve heard so much about you,” he said. He hastened to add, “All good.”
“Wow. Really?”
“I’ll have a cappuccino and a muffin if you have any left.”
“Coming right up. Oh, and you’re in luck—last muffin,” I said, pointing out the blueberry muffin sitting on its own in the corner of the tray.
“It would be a shame to let that go to waste. I’ll take it,” he said.
I placed the muffin on a paper plate and handed it to him, along with a napkin before starting on his cappuccino.
“Has word really gotten around town about me?” I asked, feeling slightly paranoid.
“Well, of course, everyone knows you are Leon’s niece who inherited the theater. That’s big news in a small community like ours. But the good things I mentioned I’ve heard from Kendra—and from your grandmother.”
“My grandmother called you?” I said, almost spilling his coffee as I set it on the counter.
“She worries,” he said kindly.
“Father, I apologize. I’ll tell her not to bother you again.”
“No, no. Please don’t. She’s lovely and we had a nice chat. I promised her I’d check in on you, which gave me the perfect excuse to come in for some coffee. I’d been wanting to meet you anyway.”
“Since you couldn’t exactly lie to her, I guess you had to admit you hadn’t seen me at Mass?”
“Actually, I was kind of cagey about that. I’m good at keeping confidences—part of the job. And just so you know, Evelyn, I mean your grandmother, didn’t tell me anything all that personal. Mostly that she worries about you being on your own in a new town, especially after having a man die in the theater on opening night. And she mentioned your parents aren’t totally supportive of your new business venture here.