Cups and Killers

by Tess Rothery

  “Let’s go across the street.” He nodded in the direction of a Starbucks.

  They walked through the misty morning. It would burn off, and the day would be warm. The weather report promised it. But for now, Taylor shivered in her Flour Sax Quilt Shop polo shirt.

  She ordered herself a coffee—just a regular one. Reg didn’t have anything. The place was crowded, but they found two stools at the bar that flanked the window.

  “I assume you want to know more about the Leon Farkas murder.”

  “And now Cricket Jones too.”

  He looked grim, his mouth a flat line in his otherwise ruggedly handsome face. “Well?”

  She held the warm paper cup in two hands. She’d had several thoughtful and important-seeming questions in mind, but they felt shallow and worthless now that she was free to ask them. She swallowed hard and went ahead with it anyway. “First, I’ve heard mixed reports about his marital status. Do you know?”

  “Legally separated.”

  “Ah. Um…has anyone talked to his wife?”

  He didn’t respond, his eyes were guarded and trained on the sheriff’s office across the street.

  “I’ve also heard he was dating Cricket. They were both stabbed. Were the knives similar?”

  He still didn’t respond.

  “Okay. Then how about this one: Who has contacted the sheriff to talk about the final disposition?” Terms like that were all too familiar to Taylor, having gone through the loss of her mother not so long ago.

  Reg nodded, remained quiet for a minute, then responded. “His wife, Annie Farkas. The divorce wasn’t finalized so she’s still the next of kin.”

  “I see. But, also, possibly a suspect?”

  “I can’t tell you police secrets about an open investigation. Especially a double murder. I wouldn’t even be able to tell a wife the kinds of things you’re asking. But Annie being the next of kin is an issue of public record. I’m sure if you hunt for her you can find a way to contact her.”

  “And what about Cricket Jones? Who’s her next of kin, according to public record?”

  “Her parents, Clark and Bethany Jones.”

  “Wait! I know them!” She almost dropped her coffee. “They are the cutest couple ever. They quilt together. I’ve met them at the shop a ton of times.”

  “I’ve got to go to work.” Reg glanced at his watch.

  “It’s so early.” She frowned. This wasn’t a friendly chat. This was barely a worthwhile chat, and she’d left her house at five-thirty in the morning to have it. “Can’t I ask just a couple more questions?”

  “I don’t know why I said I’d meet you. Maybe I thought….” He looked at her with softened eyes for a minute, but then they grew cold. “I’ve got to go to work.”

  “Thanks for your help.”

  He left. She didn’t walk out with him.

  Dating around sucked. That was one thing she’d learned in the last year and a half. Relationships weren’t necessarily easy, but this dating around business was for the birds.

  Nonetheless, she wouldn’t have learned about Cricket’s parents if she hadn’t kept in touch with Reg some way or another, and somewhere in the database of the Flour Sax Quilt Shop she had their contact information. She could call them immediately and offer her condolences. In fact, had she realized this couple had lost a daughter, she would have done it anyway.

  Taylor had modernized Flour Sax Quilt Shop’s mailing list earlier in the year, so it was a cinch to find Clark and Bethany Jones’ contact info. She waited till it was a polite hour to call, but didn’t rehearse what she was going to say. She didn’t need to—she honestly loved those guys and felt awful for them.

  Bethany answered on the first ring.

  “Bethany? This is Taylor Quinn from Flour Sax Quilt Shop.”

  “Taylor, nice to hear from you.” Bethany’s voice was soft and sad.

  “I can’t tell you how much I am feeling for you,” Taylor said, after a quick greeting.

  “Of all the people in the world who could, it would be you.”

  “Do you remember when your daughter was involved with Doug East?” Taylor was glad Hudson’s dad’s name came to her quickly.

  “Oh! Doug. Yes. He was a nice man, a bit older than her. It took him a while to win over her father.”

  “His son, Hudson is…a friend of mine. And he is really broken up over this.”

  “I haven’t thought of little Hudson in years. He was such a pill, but we had so much fun playing grandma and grandpa to him. He was with his mom all the real holidays, but we did our best with April fools.” Her voice cracked. “Cricket never got to be anyone else’s mommy.”

  “I don’t have words. I’m just so sorry.”

  “After what you went through, darling, your few words mean the world to us. I can’t believe you even thought to call.”

  “Is there anything I can do to help? I know there’s so much to do for a funeral, especially when the death was…a tragedy.”

  “Our son and daughter-in-law flew in yesterday and will be helping us with everything, but it means so much that you called.”

  “After talking to Hudson, I just…had to.” She knew she wasn’t telling the whole truth about the call, but she found herself saying it anyway.

  “Thank you, darling. Thank you.”

  They ended the call. She had a yen to call Hudson, talk to him about the intimate things of his childhood life. Get to know his inner man in a deeper way. But it was the middle of the morning and he was off somewhere swinging a hammer and bringing home the bacon. And for a young man in his mid-twenties, he was remarkably good at both. His spacious, modern home in the hills flitted through her mind. How had he managed all of that in such a short time? Most of it he built himself, and he knew who to hire to do the things he couldn’t. But he’d had to work hard and plan wisely and save up to create a home like that. Hard work and dedication….

  She had paused the YouTube filming schedule after the murder of Leon. She knew it was a bad decision, but she didn’t like filming and took any excuse she could to take a break. Still wasn’t fully comfortable. Was always aware she was but a poor imitation of her mom. She wasn’t remotely as hard working and dedicated as Hudson was.

  YouTube income had increased since they began regularly filming and posting, and it was an important supplement to their business income. Just a month ago they’d had a packed house for a class based on one of her mother’s projects—quilters had come from around the country for it. The next class was scheduled for August, and they had booked space at the Comfort College of Art and Craft to accommodate the expected crowd. Quitting because of “stress” was foolish.

  She texted Roxy.

  Roxy replied with a thumbs up.

  A short twenty-five minutes later, she was at the shop. They didn’t have much time before they needed to open at eleven, but it was something.

  “Sorry.” Taylor held her hands up in surrender. “You know how hard this is for me.”

  Roxy gave her a friendly side hug. “I know. Life is full of hard stuff, isn’t it? I respect you so much for continuing this, and not just because it helps my son pay his bills.” Her high school son did all the editing, and the wages he earned paid his car insurance and whatever extras teenage boys needed.

  “I don’t have a plan. I just know we need to do it.”

  “Then let’s not film just this minute. Let’s look at the plan you’ve been working on and talk our way through it.”

  Taylor’s filming notes were in a binder at the desk at the back of the shop.

  “You wouldn’t have texted if you didn’t want to do this.” Roxy didn’t seem phased by Taylor’s reticence.

  “I know. I’ve gotten lazy, I think.”

  “Hardly.”

  “I just mean…I spend all day thinking about who killed Leon Farkas, or who I’m going to dinner with, or what’s going to happen to Grandpa Ernie. Now that Clay does all the accounting and we’ve got Willa back to work with yo
u…I don’t know. I just feel very distant from the shop.”

  “It’s not your shop.” Roxy’s words were devastating even though she said them without judgment. “Your grandma founded it. Your mother left her indelible stamp on it. You’ve been saving it, true, but it’s not like it was your creation or your passion.”

  “And yet, it sort of is, isn’t it? All I did in Portland was manage a Joanne’s, and I called that my passion.”

  “But it wasn’t rally about the fabric, was it?”

  “I do have a degree in fiber arts from the craft college.” Taylor was beginning to feel defensive.

  “I’m not doubting your qualifications. I promise. There’s no one else in the world I want running this place. But from the style of fabric to the YouTube program, none of this exists because it’s what you would do, is it?”

  Taylor looked across the many, many walls of vintage reprint thirties fabric. “No.”

  “You’ve brought in a few new fabric lines, but even though they aren’t exactly what your mom had before, they are almost the same.”

  “It’s what the shoppers want.”

  “But what do you want?”

  Almost like her mind refused to take life seriously, John Hancock, Hudson East, and even Clay all came to mind. “It doesn’t really matter, does it?”

  “You’ve got a bad case of the megrims, I’m sorry to say. And filming today, or even going over the film schedule, won’t help.”

  “Let me guess, it’s time I start seeing a counselor to deal with my grief.”

  “It’s not a bad idea, but they might not have an opening this second. How about we make some popcorn and watch your mom’s videos and cry together a little?”

  A laugh escaped.

  Roxy smiled softly. “I love you, Taylor, but I miss your mom so much it hurts. Every day.”

  “I’ll make coffee to go with the popcorn.” This time she gave Roxy a hug. It was easy to think that all the grief in the world always belonged to her, but it wasn’t true. Laura Quinn’s death had left a lot of people lonely and hurting.

  They were a wreck when it was time to open the store, but it was a good kind of wreck. Red-eyed from crying and tummy ache from laughing and talking and remembering. They didn’t get through a single video without stopping it to talk about something it reminded them of.

  For the rest of the morning, she could hear her mother’s voice in her head reminding her that you get what you pay for. The integrity of the materials is what makes the integrity of the quilt. And the person. This was implied with the lift of Laura Quinn’s eyebrow, and the knowing look she gave the camera. If a person didn’t have integrity, if they weren’t a good, quality person on the inside, no one should be surprised to see their life fall apart.

  Hudson stopped by right after Flour Sax opened at eleven. “I’ve got a bunch of salvage stuff to drop off across the street.” He jerked his thumb at the antique mall across the way. “We’ve been fixing up an old Queen Ann in Junction City. Deirdre at Comfort Memories has first dibs on all the good salvage.”

  “Lucky her.” Taylor had managed to pull herself together after the emotional release of her morning with Roxy.

  “This time, for sure. Lots of good stuff. I was just wondering if you were up for lunch, since I was in town.”

  Taylor loved the old-fashioned way Hudson would come in and see her, or call, instead of texting little invites like this.

  Roxy was within listening distance and nodded with a sappy smile on her face.

  “Sure, what time?”

  “Give me about an hour to unload. I thought we might take Grandpa out and talk to him a little about Leon.”

  “Ooh. I like.” And she did. The idea of distracting herself with the investigation was even better than a lunch date. No need to come up with small talk.

  Exactly an hour later, Hudson and Taylor took a comfortable stroll to Bible Creek Care Home to collect Hudson’s grandpa, Boggy. He was waiting with his windbreaker and a khaki bucket hat. “Well, well, well! I didn’t know I’d have good company today.” He gave Taylor’s elbow a little squeeze.

  “Grandpa, what’s your poison? We can go to Rueben’s or the dining hall or the bar.”

  “The bar?” His face lit up. “You know, I haven’t been to the bar in at least a year. But you’d take a lady there?”

  “It’s not so bad at lunch time, Boggy.” Taylor blushed. It was so sweet, this idea that she might be too delicate to go to a bar.

  “Then let’s go. I could use a beer. You know what they’ve been doing here?” He walked them out, locking his apartment as he went. “They’ve got us on short rations. Sack lunches. Sack lunch for breakfast—it’s got yogurt in it. Sack lunch for lunch, which is fine, except they never give us bologna. Sack lunch for dinner. That’s just an insult. Who wants a cold dinner? I don’t.”

  Boggy was stronger, fitter, and a bit younger than Grandpa Ernie. The gentle walk across their small town to the nicer of the two bars didn’t strain him at all. “They promised us good times at this old folks’ home, and what’s good about sitting alone in your apartment eating a cold sack lunch three times a day?”

  “Literally nothing is good about that,” Taylor agreed

  The atmosphere of Loggers, the nicer of the two bars in town, wasn’t all that nice. The dimly lit, dark interior smelled like stale beer and dirty frying oil. The knotty pine walls had been shellacked long ago and were golden and greasy. The tabletops felt sticky, though they looked clean. The dusky atmosphere couldn’t hide that the oxblood vinyl booths had been repaired with duct tape or that the chipped linoleum floor was also held down with the silver plastic repair magic. But Boggy sat down with a happy sigh and took a deep breath. “Smells like despair in here, kids, but it’s better than eating alone. And they don’t serve beer at Rueben’s.”

  The waitress—a regular at Flour Sax—brought them their menus. “Good to see you, Boggy, and you, too, Taylor.” Suzanne smiled a wide, gap-toothed grin. She had the quirky looks of a super model or a small-town girl. There was something special about her that life in the city would have ruined. “And Hudson, right?”

  “Yup. Good to see you.”

  The men each ordered a Budweiser and burgers, but Taylor got a Coke with hers. “I’m headed back to work after this.”

  “Can you imagine cutting yardage drunk?” Suzanne laughed.

  Taylor smiled, but didn’t laugh. She hated the feeling of being drunk and avoided it.

  “This is what I’m talking about, Son.” Boggy leaned forward and stared down his grandson. “Good food and the company of beautiful women. How am I supposed to get that if they keep feeding us sack lunches in our rooms?”

  “Any word on when dinner service will resume?” Taylor wished she had discussed this with Reg. She assumed the residents were in their locked apartments to keep them safe, but she didn’t know if Bible Creek Care Home decided that was how they needed to do things or if the police had.

  “Not a word. And we were supposed to go to Spirit Mountain tomorrow. Leon took us once a month.”

  Comfort, Oregon bordered the Grand Ronde Reservation, and their Spirit Mountain was one of the most popular casinos in Oregon.

  “That sounds exciting.” Taylor nibbled a French fry. While a day at the casino did nothing for her personally, the loss of that outing would be a big deal to the residents. “But, are you telling me the chaplain used to take you all gambling?”

  “He took us for the buffet. Whatever else we did was up to us. Chaplains in general are very nonjudgmental.” Boggy grinned. “I liked the craps table. Simple fun. Mrs. Sylvester always gave me a five to play in the slots for her. Magically, she always won ten.” He winked.

  “Anything for the ladies, right, Grandpa?” Hudson chuckled.

  “What else did Leon do?” Taylor asked.

  “He was a smart cookie.” Boggy narrowed his eyes in thought. “Always had some fun idea. It’s hard to come up with stuff for us old folks to do, you kno
w. No mountain biking or jet skiing. He set up one of those computer sports games in the rec room, though, and we have bowling competitions in the winter. In the summer we putt-putt in the quad.”

  None of that sounded like it would get Chaplain Leon Farkas killed though. “Any other outings? Overnight trips?”

  “No, but a few of the classier folks go see the school plays at that little college in McMinnville.”

  “Obviously you go.”

  He grinned. “I can be classy when it’s warranted.”

  “I bet all the employees loved the guy.” Taylor decided to turn the conversation from the residents to the staff. She just couldn’t picture any of the folks like Boggy going in for stabbing. Especially stabbing and shoving the body of Cricket Jones in a closet.

  Chapter Eleven

  Joey floated back to her apartment. She hadn’t met a friendly stranger under the age of seventy-five since taking the job at Bible Creek Care Home.

  The warm glow of the early summer sun on her face, the fresh air as she walked down the long driveway to the apartment she lived in above the garage of her bosses’ house, the happy feeling of a sweet mid-morning treat all combined to make her wonder if she believed in love at first sight.

  It was nonsense.

  Silly.

  She didn’t believe in it, but hadn’t the world looked absurdly dark and impossible before Clay welcomed her to his table at Café Olé? And hadn’t it turned into an amazing place of wonder and hope just seconds later?

  Once safely behind her own door, she allowed herself to laugh out loud. Surely she hadn’t fallen for Clay on first sight. But she had the loveliest feeling that, given enough time, she might very well fall deeply in love with him and find that this morning, this very morning, was the morning she had met the love of her life.

  She flopped backward onto her futon, a silly, happy smile on her face, ready to dream about wedding dresses that suited the petite bride. She had just decided on a very long train when her phone rang.

  “Yes?” She hoped it was Clay. They had exchanged numbers, after all.