One Potato, Two Potato, Dead

by Lynn Cahoon

  “That’s impossible, she was at the game with her friend.” Angie searched for the girl’s name, “Morgan, that was it. She was with Morgan.”

  “Well, she was, then she left the game to talk to the guy again. But according to Hope, there was a car in front and she could see figures in the window. So she felt foolish and went back to the game. Her friend had thought she’d run into someone she knew and had been talking for the twenty minutes she was gone.”

  “So that’s a good thing, right? She can tell them about the other car and the other person.” Angie’s hands were freezing, so she set the iced tea down on the table.

  “She lied to the police. Now she’s changing her story because they caught her on camera leaving the parking lot, but she doesn’t come back to the game according to the camera.” Estebe rolled his shoulders. “She says she parked at Morgan’s dorm, then walked the greenbelt over to the stadium. They’re looking at the security tapes now, but this would have been easier had she told the truth the first time.”

  “Poor Hope. First she puts herself out there for a guy who’s not worth the trouble, then she finds herself at the scene of the crime.” Angie sank back into her chair. “Your cousin’s going to be able to get her out of this, right? We both know she didn’t kill anyone.”

  “I guess the police are looking at another student. One he did have an affair with.” Estebe’s face went hard. “If I’d known what kind of man he was that day we met, I never would have allowed Hope to drive him home.”

  Angie smiled at the protective streak he had for the girl. “You’re not her father. And I should remind you that she’s an adult.”

  “She’s a child. You and I both know that. Our Hope is very naïve and innocent. And this man put her in a position that she never should have been in.” He stood and paced the small porch. “Anyway, I told you I would update you, and I have. I am going to go work out at my gym. I feel the need to punch something.”

  Angie knew that if Daniel hadn’t already been dead, Estebe would have been visiting the guy’s house rather than the gym. “Thanks for coming over. I appreciate you taking care of Hope. She needs all of us on her side.”

  When he left, Angie went back to her laundry. As she waited for the last load to dry, she opened her laptop and started searching through the websites that she’d bookmarked for Daniel Monet. Again, nothing. She went to her email program to send Sheriff Brown a quick note about how weird it was that this guy had no internet presence. Instead she saw an incoming email from Ian’s Farmers Market account.

  “That’s strange.” She double-checked the from: address a couple of times. Yep, it was his address. Typically Ian emailed her from his Gmail account. Maybe he didn’t have access where he was. She opened the email. There was nothing in the subject line. And the only thing in the body of the email was a link.

  “What am I, stupid?” She closed up the email and her finger hovered over the Delete key. Instead, she went back into the email and forwarded it to Sheriff Brown.

  She typed out her concerns about it not being from Ian and asked if he thought she should open it. Then she told him about not being able to track Daniel Monet through his last few jobs and educational background. Finally she finished with a plea for the sheriff to keep in mind that Hope was an impressionable young woman who had a good heart.

  When she thought her plea had been crafted well enough, she hit Send. Then she went to her closest and got out her old laptop. She’d been reluctant to just give it away, but she’d already taken all the recipes and pictures off the drive. Now, it was more of a dust collector than anything else. She glanced at her email on her tablet, but she hadn’t received anything back from the sheriff.

  She closed out her tablet, then opened the link on her old laptop. It took her to a newspaper article from a London paper. A picture of Daniel Monet that must have been a booking photo looked out of the screen at her. The man wasn’t smiling, not like the one who’d served the homeless that night with them. But it was Daniel, younger and thinner, she could see that. She scanned the article, which seemed to be a piece on what happened to children as they aged out of the foster care system. Arnold, no last name given, was an example of the failure of the system. He’d been in and out of jail since he was sixteen, according to the reporter.

  So he had been a troublemaker. That wasn’t unusual for a chef. Cooking seemed to draw in the ones who weren’t able to handle their anger any other way. Maybe Daniel had turned his life around after this article and had chosen to teach others as his way of giving back.

  Or maybe once a bad seed, always one? She sent an email to Ian using both accounts and then closed down the laptop. She’d spent enough time trying to figure out the guy and who had killed him, and as long as Hope wasn’t on that short list anymore, she was done with the wild goose chase.

  Dreams kept her tossing and turning through the night, and when she woke Monday morning, the alarm hadn’t gone off and the bedroom was still dark. Checking her phone for the time, she noticed a text from Ian. No greeting, no formalities. It simply said Running into a brick wall here. Coming home.

  She frowned at the small leap in her chest. The guy had taken off without a goodbye and now she was excited to see him? She was pathetic. She threw the bedcovers off and headed to the shower. Coming home didn’t mean he’d be here today, but she wanted to talk to him. She’d missed his calm demeanor.

  After chores were done, she sat at the table, drinking coffee and thinking about her day. What needed to get done? Tomorrow was their first class, but Felicia was handling the details for that. She’d buy the supplies and then tomorrow morning, before the class, Angie and Estebe would cook the soups and the breads. Then they’d demo the recipes as the attendees ate. So she didn’t have anything that needed to be done for the restaurant. If Ian had been here, they might have been able to take off for a short trip, if he didn’t have some sort of board meeting.

  She glanced at her planner. She’d checked off all the house cleaning tasks yesterday. And there wasn’t anything she could remember she needed to do, but still, something nagged at her. Maybe she should make some treats for the class.

  “Treats.” She slapped her forehead with the palm of her hand. “I told Barb I’d make her more donuts.”

  She got everything out and started the dough. As she worked, she turned the kitchen television on and watched the local programing. A screaming blonde was being forced into a police car. Angie turned up the sound.

  “Breaking news: There has been movement in the ongoing investigation of the murder of local professor Daniel Monet. Police sources aren’t talking, but News Center Seven was apprised of this upcoming arrest by an undisclosed source.” The female anchor held the camera’s gaze. “This is the second coed who has been brought in for questioning. Which leads us to ask, what exactly is going on over at the college? University officials failed to respond to our requests for an interview.”

  Angie turned the volume back down. She wondered if the girl who had been taken in for questioning was Meg, who Barb had overheard talking about Daniel needing to pay. Donuts were the currency to getting Barb to talk. She guessed she better get the batch going so she could make her way into River Vista on her only day off this week.

  Dom sat on his bed and watched her. Somehow, the dog knew when she was upset. And unlike people, the dog always knew how to listen. “This whole thing might be over. If Meg’s the killer, the case will be closed and our Hope will stop being the easy suspect.”

  Dom looked at her, his face showing his lack of conviction in her words. He lay down in his bed and let a sigh run through his entire body.

  It was midafternoon before she reached town. She had three boxes in her car. One for Barb, one for Sheriff Brown if he was in the office, and one for Beth Lee. The woman saw everything. Maybe she’d seen this girl around town with Daniel. It was a long shot but worth a try.

  D
om had stayed home. Angie had tried to get him to go on a car ride, but he’d just opened one eye, looked at her, then gone back to bed. Maybe he was in a growth spurt and needed to conserve his energy? She hoped he wasn’t getting sick.

  Anyway, she was alone on her trip, which was probably for the better. She could take time and talk to people without worrying about her dog getting too hot or too cold. Dom liked riding, but she didn’t like leaving him in the car. And some people didn’t love having a St. Bernard puppy in their place of business. She turned up the music and was just getting into a song when her phone rang.

  “Miss Turner?” Sheriff Brown’s voice was a sharp contrast to the happy song she’d just been singing.

  “Oh, hey. You must have gotten my email.” She rolled up the window so she could hear him better on the car’s Bluetooth.

  “I did. I’m not sure what you want me to do with this information. You know Daniel’s the victim, not the suspect, correct?”

  “Yeah, but…” She stopped herself. She’d just been going to say on the television shows they said know your victim. She needed a different approach for a real police officer. She knew from Ian’s chatter that Sheriff Brown hated television police shows saying they always got it wrong. “Anyway, I was thinking that knowing Daniel might give you some clues in figuring out who killed him. I don’t think he was the angel everyone thought he was.”

  “Looking into someone’s juvenile record doesn’t always give you a clear picture of who they are now.” He paused, and Angie thought she might have lost him. Then he continued. “And it could accidentally hurt people who were around the guy during his problem teens.”

  “I don’t think I said anything about looking up his entire life history, but don’t you think it’s weird that there is no internet fingerprint for the guy until he showed up here to start the semester?” Angie heard the hesitation in his voice before he even spoke.

  “Just stay out of this. I understand your concern about your employee, but if Hope didn’t do anything wrong, she’ll be fine. No matter what you’ve read, innocent people don’t get charged or convicted of crimes. The legal system does work.”

  Angie could have listed off several people who she knew for a fact had been charged and some convicted when they hadn’t done the crime. Sometimes the technicalities of the law boxed them in. But it wasn’t time for a discussion on the effectiveness of the current legal process. “I’m only trying to help.”

  “Run your business. Make cookies. Feed the homeless. Those are all ways you can help. Just stay out of this investigation.”

  He hung up before she could mention she had a box of donuts for him and his crew. She should find someone on the street to give them to rather than the grumpy sheriff. Instead, she parked in front of the Red Eye. She went to the laundromat first and found a sunny Beth folding towels.

  “Well, good morning to you. What’s got you out and about on a Monday? We typically don’t see you in town until Wednesday.” Beth set the towel in the basket and ran her hand over the top, a gesture Angie had seen her Nona do many times as she finished up folding a load. Appreciating the softness, she’d told her once.

  “I have a delivery for you. I told Barb I’d bring in some for her and thought you might like some donuts as well.” Angie sat the box on the table next to the folded laundry.

  “Well, aren’t you the sweetest thing.” Beth opened the box and sniffed the air. “Sugar and spice and everything nice.”

  “Enjoy.” Angie wasn’t good at just throwing out questions, so she leaned against the table. “Anything new going on?”

  “Well, let’s see. Ian is still out of town, but you already knew that. Your restaurant is getting really good reviews by the country club set. They come in all the time with their laundry. You would think, with such big houses, they’d have their own laundry room, but those women are all so busy running around to different things, I guess they don’t have time.” Beth set the basket on the floor and lifted an empty one. “I shouldn’t talk about them. I mean, I like the work. It just seems weird, you know.”

  “Yeah, I get it. I like spending time at the house doing my chores. It makes me remember my grandmother.” Angie wondered how the class would be tomorrow with all these women.

  “Anyway, at least I get all the good gossip. Like one of the group was apparently having an affair with that professor that was killed. I’d say her husband probably did the deed, but he’s just a mild-mannered thing. He drops off their clothes on his way into work every Monday, even though that wife of his doesn’t work or have kids to wrangle.” She snapped a towel and then folded it. “Must be rough living the life of the rich and shameless.”

  Chapter 10

  Angie managed to get the couple’s name out of Beth before she left the laundromat. The woman had all the dirty laundry, so to speak, on the town’s residents. Angie wasn’t sure how she’d react to some of the women at class tomorrow with the secrets Beth had told her about the group, but the big one about the affair she wrote on a slip of paper, then tucked it inside the box of donuts she’d drop off at the station. Let Sheriff Brown worry about whether or not the rumor was true. She was out of it. She told herself that all the way to the Red Eye with the second box of donuts.

  Barb sat at the bar in her usual spot. A cup of cold coffee sat on the bar to the side of an open newspaper. Angie started when the woman waved her over without even looking her way.

  “Come in and sit down. I could smell those donuts as soon as you walked in the door.” Now Barb did turn and look at her over the top of her reading glasses. “I appreciate you holding up your part of the bargain, even though you probably didn’t get anywhere with the information I gave you.”

  Angie crossed the room, amazed her shoes didn’t stick on the ancient wood floor. Who knew how many beers and cocktails had been spilled on this floor over the years. She sat the box on the bar next to Barb and slipped onto the barstool. “I always hold up my end of bargains, no matter what the outcome. Honestly, since I don’t have a way to check up on people, that information went to Sheriff Brown. But I did have a follow-up question for you. Do you know Tanya Livingston?”

  “She’s one of the new group that moved into the old livestock processing plant that they turned into that overpriced subdivision a few years ago. She’s come into the bar every once in a while, looking for a handout for one of her charity events. The woman is really into literacy and supporting the high school tennis team.” Barb opened the box and took out a donut. “Tell you the truth, I didn’t even know the school had a tennis team. Where are these kids going to play tennis? The barnyard?”

  “Does she have kids?” Beth had said the couple didn’t have children. In fact, Beth had told her specifically that they didn’t have kids, which was why, in Beth’s mind, the woman had started cheating in the first place. Angie didn’t think it made much of a difference.

  “No, she used to be a big tennis player when she was a kid. Her husband took her away from all that with promises of big towns and big money, but I guess he got stuck at Boise State.” Barb held up her coffee cup. “You want some? I just made a fresh pot.”

  “I drank way too much at home this morning. I won’t be able to sleep a wink if I drink any more.” Especially of that black brew that she saw in the coffeemaker. “So she doesn’t work?”

  “Her highness work? Are you kidding?” Barb snorted a laugh. “She devotes all her time to charity, when she’s not off sniffing around other men. I’ve heard the other wives talking over a few drinks about how much they wanted to kill her. I’m surprised she’s never shown up dead. She’s not very popular.”

  Angie pressed her lips together, trying not to smile. Barb had this woman dead to rights. “Did you ever see her with that professor who was killed? Daniel Monet?”

  “That guy certainly got around.” Barb took another donut out of the box. “I hear your dishwasher was sweet on t
he guy too. Men who know they’re cute are hard to keep control of, just ask anyone.”

  Angie really didn’t want to talk about Hope, so she tried to swing the conversation back to Tanya. “So you didn’t see them together?”

  “Now, I never said that.” Barb got up, refilled her coffee cup, and put the box of donuts under the bar. “I’ll eat all of these if I don’t close up the box and put it out of my reach. You’re an amazing cook.”

  “Thanks.” Angie rephrased the question. “So you did see them together?”

  Barb nodded. “Every Wednesday. They liked to come in midafternoon and drink until five, five thirty. I never knew if it was her or him that had to get back to something or someone.”

  “They came in here?”

  “Yep. They were all secretive and such. Only holding hands when they thought I wasn’t watching. But when you’ve run a bar as long as I have, you can tell who’s just friends and who has a little something something on the side, you know?” Barb climbed back onto her chair. “I didn’t realize it was him until I saw his picture in the paper. That’s when I realized he was with Tanya as well as that girl who was way too young for him. I guess the guy had a liking for dangerous women.”

  “Yeah, I think he did.” Angie got up from the stool. “Thanks for the chat. Enjoy your donuts.”

  “When that man of yours comes back, you two are going to have to come down after you get done with that restaurant some night. We have a really good house band right now. In fact, they’re so good, I’m expecting them to leave for bigger pastures soon.” Barb glanced over at the stand where the band set up on weekends. “It’s getting harder and harder to keep this place going. Sometimes I wonder why I bother.”

  Angie didn’t know how to respond to that, so she reached out for Barb’s arm. “It’s a great place. People need somewhere to go blow off steam after a long week.”