by V R Tapscott
I sighed and said, “Yea, I’ll look at it, Mare. If you think Mitchell can’t handle it. She might surprise you, though. She seems damn competent.”
“I know. I’ll talk with her when she gets back, but there is the thing about timing too. I’ll call Seth back from vacation if I have to, but that’ll be tough on him and his family. It’s a small town, Cin, but it’s not that small.”
“Ok, just let me know. I called in to the bakery, they should be ok for now, but I want to head over there by 11:30 or so. Good thing I left early this morning.”
“Um ... along that line, Cinny ... “
“What? Why do I have the feeling I’m being railroaded someplace?”
Mary tried to look innocent. “Maybe it’s the gentle sound of the train whistle?”
I rolled my eyes. “Ok, out with it. What is it that you want me to tease out of you?”
“It’s not really that. See - you know Rose over at Brew and Bagel?”
“Uh huh, I get bagels there sometimes.”
“Well, she’s going to have to close. She’s run the numbers and she won’t be able to survive another winter.”
I sighed. “It’s so awful when someone loses their dream, and she made such great bagels. And coffee, for that matter.”
“Mmmhmm ... sure will be sad losing the best coffee and the only bagel place in town. And Rose is such a peach, always there to help when you need her. It was her dream to own a coffee shop, she’s been saving for years.”
I finally began to get an inkling where this was going. “So, gonna pour on some more honey to cover the BS, or just hand it to me straight?”
Mary looked me up and down. “Well, remember how you’ve commented that you really wish you had allocated a bit more space for another apartment instead of so much space for the bakery?”
“Maaaybe ... why?” I was determined to make her drag this out of me.
“Oh for Lord’s sake, Cin, if Rose moved into The Cinnamon Roll with you, you’d have coffee and bagels to sell along with the pastries - and everyone knows that coffee goes perfect with donuts, right?”
“Well, yea, but it goes perfect with bagels too, and that means they’d buy less donuts and cut into my income.”
“But if the overall income was higher since people’d be coming to buy coffee instead of just rolls, it would be better. AND she can help share the cost of the building with you, which decreases your overhead. She helps pay down your mortgage, stays in business and saves her dream, and is there at the same time of the morning as YOU are, just in case ... “
I sighed. “Just in case - what?”
Mary rolled her eyes. “Just in case you’re gone out on a case, ditz.”
“Hah! I got you to admit it. You’re trying to poach a new cop!”
She shrugged. “That was pretty damned obvious. But this way, I get a part time cop that I can call for help when I need it, without having to justify a full-time officer. And you have such great credentials - remember what a perfect letter of recommendation the LA cops wrote?”
I almost blushed, remembering it. “The chief may have gone a little overboard.”
“The chief was 100 percent accurate, honey.”