Fruit Basket Upset: A Taylor Quinn Quilt Shop Mystery

by Tess Rothery

  “That’s right. Coco was having trouble in her high school, so her parents sent her to me, where she would be safe. How old did she tell you she was?”

  “She’s got to be eighteen, at least eighteen. Surely, she is. Anyway, you can’t blame a man for admiring a girl as pretty as her. You said so yourself.” He lifted his eyebrows and smiled a foolish, opened mouth smile.

  “Is she eighteen? Can you be sure?”

  “She told me she was.” The red that had suffused his face earlier began to drain away.

  “How many other girls were maybe or maybe not eighteen when you noticed them, Robert?”

  “No, really, you’ve misunderstood something. I’m an investor.” He spoke the word overloudly, with a drunken sibilance. A lady in the nearest booth looked their direction.

  Ingrid merely lifted one eyebrow.

  “No, really, I swear to God and Charlotte and all of them. Coco’s the prettiest girl I’ve met in thirty years, but I’m just investing in her business. One or two dinners was all. For company while Charlotte was away for work.” He swallowed several times as though he was choking. “It gets lonely and a man has to eat, doesn’t he?”

  “We’re having her birthday party next week, Robert. Care to guess which one?”

  “It wouldn’t matter. She could be sixteen or she could be thirty. I bought her dinner, then invested in her business. I swear. The family has a little diner, Truie’s, and we ate there. It’s quiet, and she talked to me about how we could use the diner to help introduce people. So her friends would be safe when meeting my friends. That’s all.”

  Ingrid sat with his words for a while.

  He was lonely while his wife was away.

  But he was just investing.

  But they had dinner together at a lonely diner in the country.

  But he wanted to put money in her website.

  It had the dirty thumbprints of Sugar Daddy all over it.

  “How did you meet her?”

  He dropped his eyes. “Online.” The word was almost too quiet to hear.

  “And then?”

  “A couple of dinners. She needed someone who could direct her business. The internet isn’t safe. Much better if I helped her find nice men to meet her friends, don’t you think?”

  “Molly Kay’s body was buried on my farm.” She spoke clearly and firmly though she kept her volume low. “Did one of your nice ‘friends’ kill her?”

  “No, I swear. I swear. What is this? I don’t know that girl. I only met her once. Wasn’t my type.”

  “Too old?”

  “Yes! Yes. Not my type at all.”

  “Robert….”

  He pressed his fist to his forehead. “I love my wife with my whole heart, but a man gets lonely when his wife works, doesn’t he? So, I took her out to dinner a few times. How’s that different than eHarmony or OKCupid? Or Tinder? And it turned out I could help her. I like the girl. I like young women with ambition, goals, dreams. I fell in love with Charlotte because she wanted to go to school and make something of herself. Margot…all she wanted was to sit at home and cook. She was so boring after we got married. Ten years. Ten years, Ingrid, and I was so bored. Youth, dreams, ambition. It’s exciting.”

  “If you say youth one more time…” she muttered.

  “Never kids. Not kids. Co-Eds. College women. Always grown women. I think I’m going to be sick.” His face was green now. “I swear to God every woman I’ve ever had a meal with was a legal adult. All of them.”

  “Stop talking for a moment.” Ingrid held her hand out. “Just stop. Charlotte doesn’t know about these young women, does she?”

  He shook his head.

  “Would you like to keep it that way?”

  He nodded.

  “I don't suspect you murdered Molly Kay, but some other rich old man who paid for her company did, don't you think?”

  “Maybe. I don’t think so. I don’t know. Just ask. Whatever it is, I'll answer your questions.” His words came through the labored breaths of a near panic attack.

  “Let's talk about Jack Groening’s family.”

  He took a few too many seconds to answer. “Good People. His family is good people. They get along so well, he and his ex-wife and her husband and the kids. I would never have recommended Coco introduce him to one of her friends if I didn't trust him with my life.” Robert seemed to be sobering up, which was good now that Ingrid was to brass tacks.

  “Sure, but would you have trusted him with your daughter?” Ingrid asked pointedly.

  He opened his mouth to answer. Then closed his eyes and swallowed hard. He shook his head. “That's absurd. My daughter is married.”

  “It has occurred in the past,” Ingrid said, “that a man's kids became concerned enough about their inheritance that they got rid of their new step-mom.”

  “They'd only been seeing each other a few months.”

  “Indeed. Why not cut it off at the pass?”

  He took several deep breaths, filling his chest and letting it out slowly. When the color returned to his face, he started over. “Okay, okay. I'll talk you through it. His kids are Trevor and Devon. Trevor and Devon are both married, no kids. Twins. He’s dead proud of those boys. They got married within a month of each other. Both newlyweds. Both work for the family business.” He stopped, out of breath again.

  “Twins, huh? So, they already have to share control of the family fortune?” Ingrid asked. “How did they get along with each other?” She drummed her fingers on her glass, slow and steady.

  “Best friends. Best friends. One of them runs the office out of Denver, though, so he's not around.”

  “Which one is that?”

  “I don't know. How can I know with names like Trevor and Devin? I can't tell the difference. You can Google it. Jack’s business is like mine. Investments. Google Ponderosa Investments Denver and you'll find out which one of them runs it. The other one is at the Portland location. And dad works from home. He’s, ha, ha,” His laughs were little punches against his fear. “Ha. He’s, ha. He’s living the good life. Semi-retired. Cute young girlfriend. Very admirable situation, ask pretty much anybody.”

  Ingrid took another sip, then whispered, “Except for the pretty young girlfriend. Now that she’s dead, she would not agree.

  “You think his boys did it?” Robert did his best to get his breathing back under control. Deep breaths in, held and then let out slowly through his nose, but it didn't seem to help his color.

  “Think about Jack’s family now,” Ingrid directed without answering Robert’s question. “You know them all. Two sons, two daughters-in-law, an ex-wife and an ex-wife’s new husband. Which of these people gives you the creeps?”

  “Jack’s a good guy.” He paused, drinking in too much oxygen.

  “But don’t good guy’s do bad things sometimes?” She smiled and batted her eyelashes at him.

  “I've heard rumors about you, Ingrid.” He tried to laugh again, but his cheeks puffed out and his eyes went round. He swallowed something. “Are you interrogating me?”

  She shrugged. “We’ve all had to work for our bread in this life. And I was good at my job. I know what I'm doing.” She smiled at him, the same smile she offered grandchildren who snuck cookies out of the cookie jar.

  “It’s the ex-wife’s husband. I can’t remember the guy's name, but he’s always giving me the creeps. He, he, he's creepy. I don't know how else to put it. He looks normal at first, but he never talks, and never smiles. He hovers. You know what I mean? Hovers on the fringes of everything. And, and, and I don't know what he does for work, but they live big. Big house. Big car. Big boat.”

  “It sounds like you're saying he’s maybe introverted. That's not what I was talking about. Millions of introverts live their daily lives without committing murder.”

  “Okay his wife… she's a slick number. Ex-wife. You know what I mean. She’s a beautiful woman. Powerful too. In control. Put together, and yet she’s with that guy. I can’t see
what she sees in him. It’s just fishy.” Robert seemed to be desperately coming up with stories now.

  Ingrid cut him off. “Why’d Jack and his ex-wife divorce?”

  He nodded, shaking his head rapidly. “Yes! I do know that. Too many kids, too fast. Once, a long time ago, he said he regretted divorcing, but when the twins came, everything changed. He couldn’t hack it. Was always a great part-time dad, but absolute crap at living with young kids in the house.”

  She stared at Robert and his moist, gray face. He was beginning to sweat through his shirt. He’d admitted to a lifetime of infidelity, but nothing criminal and wouldn’t admit to more than dinner with Coco. She’d gotten some information about Jack Groening that she might not have otherwise. Especially the part about the woman who’d been abandoned with two tiny children. A woman with a long grudge. A woman who liked a man she could control. If this ex-wife saw the situation with Molly Kay as a threat to the future of her children, there was a chance she might have wanted to put an end to it.

  But Ingrid had come for more than that and was going to get it.

  After all, she’d promised her sister and her niece that she’d take care of Coco.

  “All right Robert, take a deep breath.” Ingrid leaned back against the booth. “Drink some water. This can all be okay.”

  “But...”

  “But your investment in Coco ends today. Do you understand?”

  “I didn’t know she wasn’t eighteen. I swear to the Lord God Almighty. And also, we only ever ate dinner. That part is true. It is completely true.”

  “Your investment in Coco ends today. Do you understand me?” Ingrid repeated with a sound of patience that she did not feel.

  “Yes.” He reached for the water glass but missed. He knocked it with the side of his hand, and it spilled across the table.

  “If you don’t want Charlotte to know about this conversation,” Ingrid pulled her phone out from under her napkin and showed him the voice recording app, “then Coco will never hear from you again. Not even to say goodbye.” She passed him her napkin.

  He patted at the table frantically trying to mop up the mess. “She’s got to be eighteen.” He looked up at her with wide eyes. “I don’t hurt people.”

  “Someone hurt Molly Kay, Robert. Someone you introduced in her life, killed her.”

  “I will never speak to Coco again. I swear.”

  Ingrid didn’t trust his word any more than she trusted his wedding vows.

  But he was right, Coco was already nineteen.

  And yet, to anyone who had a nineteen-year-old girl in the family, those two years hardly made any difference at all. Ingrid would have loved to strangle the man who sat across from her. And she would have loved to turn him in for soliciting a prostitute on the internet.

  The more she stared at him, the more she longed to do it.

  She added it to her to do list. No reason not to clean up all the litter.

  He was green and damp and silent when she returned him to his office. She enjoyed the idea of his secretary, who had probably started that job at the ripe age of eighteen, grilling him about what on earth had happened over lunch.

  Later that evening, alone in her summer kitchen, she put herself into tree position and practiced round breathing.

  It had gotten to her.

  The fear she might get caught doping him, even though she hadn’t followed through.

  The adrenaline as her little persuasive tricks worked so easily.

  The power to get to the root of a thing.

  She knew full well why her granddaughter kept getting herself involved in murder investigations. The trouble with Taylor was that she hadn’t been trained for the work.

  Chapter Nine

  “I'm starving Taylor,” Belle’s voice crackled over the less than strong cell phone signal. “Let's take Gramps out to dinner. It's been too long since it's just been the four of us.”

  Taylor would have preferred dinner with just her sister and her Grandpa Ernie. It had been far, far too long since it had just been the three of them. But Jonah was Belle's husband. This was the new normal. “Sure. I'll grab Grandpa Ernie. Do you want to meet us at Reuben's?”

  “I bet he'd like some good old comfort food.” Though the connection seemed to be on the fritz, Belle seemed to approve.

  “Great. We’ll see you there shortly.”

  “Awesome.”

  Family dinner was a good idea. Taylor knew she needed to bond with Jonah, and anyway, she could ask him a few pointed questions. He might know more about Coco and her online activities than he was letting on.

  But it wasn't that easy to interrogate anyone over dinner with Grandpa Ernie. His breathing was fine, as he had his portable oxygen. He hadn't had any significant change in memory, lately, either. But he had a head cold and was in a terrible mood. He wore not one, but two moth eaten cardigans over his flannel shirt, giving him a homeless appearance that would have horrified his younger self. The March day had been chilly, but it looked stifling to Taylor. From the moment she first suggested he take a sweater or two off, she hadn’t been able to say one thing right.

  “Because I don't want meatloaf, that's why,” Grandpa Ernie said when Aviva the waitress brought him the plate of meatloaf and mashed potatoes, which he had ordered. “You made me pick that. You eat it.”

  “Mmm. Don’t mind if I do. It’s fine Aviva.” She waved the waitress away, then reached across the table and slid the plate to herself. “Let’s trade.”

  “I don't want to eat your sandwich. What kind of dinner is a sandwich?” He scowled at Taylor’s tuna melt and side salad. “Why'd you make the waitress go away? She could have brought me soup. That's all I want.”

  “You can have my soup, Gramps.” Belle had ordered a cup of cream of mushroom soup with her chicken strips. She passed it carefully to Grandpa Ernie.

  “That's a little bit more like it.” Grandpa Ernie dipped the soup spoon into the bowl.

  “How's the house coming, Jonah?” Taylor was glad they had something easy to talk about over the meal. With Grandpa Ernie in this kind of mood there was no way she was bringing up her young cousin, prostitution, or murder.

  “Oh, it's great, Taylor. It’s great. We’re really and truly finished with everything now. All of the systems have been upgraded. It’s hot-wired and hardwired for Wi-Fi.” He seemed to be in one of his more manic moods, but he was happy, and his energy was a nice antidote to the elderly crankiness coming from the man across from her.

  She smiled at Jonah, surprised at how glad she was to be eating dinner with this new addition to the family. “What all did that entail?”

  “We’ve taken that old pile and equipped it for the twenty-second century. We ran new electric through the whole house, got top of the line routers and repeaters, plus hardwired it with ethernet too. With a house like this one, that’s going to be useful.”

  “Fun fact,” Belle rolled up the sleeves of her mud-colored vintage flannel like she was about to get to work, "since we've got a little land and we're on a bit of a rise I think we can get our own 5G Tower installed.”

  “Your own what now?” Taylor wrinkled her nose. It wasn’t that she hadn’t heard of 5G or of cell towers. But she certainly hadn’t heard of anyone having “their own.”

  “We can lease our land to the phone company. If we can get someone to take us up on the offer and bring all this 5G goodness to Comfort, it would basically pay for the house.” She broke into a silly smile and rolled her eyes. “Or at least the electricity a whole bunch of young content providers are going to need.”

  “Which reminds me, even the solar panels have been installed.” Jonah raised both eyebrows like a miracle had been announced. “Once Belle gets her greenhouse set up, we could be living off the grid.”

  “So, you have a well and a septic?” Taylor asked.

  “Out there? And a house that old? Septic, for sure. Anyway, who would have paid to take sewer all the way from town to our street? We’re going to
be almost all the way off the grid but hardwired to the web.”

  Taylor laughed at his enthusiasm and the way he was talking like a grandparent. Maybe too much time with Grandpa Ernie…

  “When do the influencers come?” Taylor slipped off her own soft cardigan. Grandpa Ernie’s many layers were really getting to her.

  Jonah cleared his throat.

  Belle look down at her coffee with a smile. “Eventually,” she said. “But now that the house is finished, we thought we might like to play internet millionaires for a little while. Enjoy having a mansion all to ourselves and all of that.”

  Jonah glanced at his wife with narrowed eyes, but even that seemed playful. Taylor was clearly missing something, but the mood Jonah was in, she was sure she’d hear all the details before dinner was over.

  “That's a lot of house to clean,” Grandpa Ernie said. “Who's going to clean that house? You going to clean that house, Belle?” He stopped, tilted his head, then nodded. “You've always been a good house cleaner. You'll probably clean that house. But that's a lot of house to clean. I don't know how you're going to do it. Jonah doesn't look like he cleans houses.”

  “I make my own bed, fold my own clothes, and wash my own dishes, sir.” He sat up and straightened the collar of his polo shirt.

  “That barely touches the surface. When my Delma and I were both running businesses, we had help and our house wasn't any big at all. In fact…” He frowned in frustration, probably trying to place what house he had lived in when he’d had help. Instead of finishing his thought he sipped his soup. “Good soup.” He frowned at Taylor. “Kind of wish I had gotten that meatloaf though. It’s my favorite. That looks real good.”

  Taylor nudged the plate to him, happy. These were the ups and downs with an aging grandparent, and though they weren’t easy, she was getting used to them.

  The little bells on the door to Reuben’s diner jingled their jolly welcome as the door swung open. An attractive family that looked like it had just stepped out of a J Crew Catalog came in--tall, muscular father; tall, slender, redheaded mom; led by an energetic boy who looked like a miniature version of his dad, down to the blue checked plaid shirt and tiny work boots. She tried to look away, but Hudson East was hard to look away from for any woman, much less one who had once been his lover.