Lattes, Ladyfingers, and Lies

by Harper Lin

  I sat for a minute and listened to the noises coming from the café. It sounded pretty quiet. “Hey, Rhonda?”

  After a few seconds, she appeared in the doorway. “What’s up?”

  “Who’s that other girl who works over at Howard Jewelers?”

  “Which one? There are a couple, and I think a guy. And then I think another guy.”

  “The main one. You know, the blonde.”

  “The tall blonde or the short blonde?”

  She seemed average height to me. “The bleached blonde.”

  “They’re both bleached blondes.”

  I rolled my eyes. Rhonda’s face was completely impassive. Knowing her, there was every chance she was messing with me, but I couldn’t tell. “The obvious bleached blonde.”

  “Karen.” She smiled, and I knew she’d been drawing it out at least a little.

  “Do you know how to get a hold of her? Where she lives or anything?”

  Rhonda thought for a second then shook her head. “I know she lives in town somewhere, but I’m not sure where. I’ve seen her with her dog in the park, though, when I pick the boys up from school.” She looked at the clock over the door. “Usually about now.”

  I jumped up out of my chair and reached for my purse in the desk drawer before I stopped and looked at Rhonda.

  Before I could even say anything, she waved me off. “Go. I can take care of things here.”

  “Thanks, Rhonda!” I grabbed my purse and looked around to see if there was anything else I needed before I left. I spotted my notes on the table and picked them up. I folded them and put them in my bag. “Are you okay closing up if I don’t make it back in time? I mean, I’ll be back if I can, but—”

  “Go where the investigation takes you. Don’t worry about me. I can always call if I run into any issues.”

  “Thanks a million!” I dashed out the back door. If Rhonda usually saw Karen at the park about this time, I needed to hurry. I didn’t want to just walk up and start grilling her out of the blue. But Rhonda had given me the in I needed, and it was time for Latte’s walk anyway.

  It wasn’t far from the café back to my house, even without taking the shortcut through my neighbors’ backyards that I’d taken as a child. I’d taken that route once since I’d been back in town, and I still hadn’t recovered enough from the unpleasant surprise I’d found there to try it again, so I kept to the streets and the sidewalks.

  I turned onto my quiet street. A few of my retiree neighbors were out, tending to their gardens. I’d known most of them my entire life. They waved a greeting, and I waved back but hurried on toward my house. I knew I was developing a bit of a reputation for being an uppity New Yorker who wouldn’t stop and chat, but today wasn’t the day to remedy that.

  I unlocked my front door and pushed it open. “Latte!”

  Even though it was more or less the same time I always came home to let him out, it took him a few seconds to rouse from his nap—right on top of my pillow, based on the collection of dog hair I found there every evening—and bound down the stairs.

  He pranced around my feet while I tried to get my hands in the same place as his collar so that I could put his leash on. Every time I got close to hooking the leash, he darted for the door like he thought I’d already done it. I was used to the game, and it didn’t usually bother me, but today, I was anxious to get to the park so I could catch Karen and talk to her—if she was even there. The frustration was getting to me. “Latte! Sit still!”

  Apparently, the obedience lessons I’d been trying to give him were actually paying off because he plopped his bottom down on the floor and immediately raised one paw for the “shake” that usually came next.

  “Well, why didn’t I try that sooner?” I muttered, bending down and finally getting the leash on him.

  I grabbed his favorite tennis ball then led him outside and locked the door behind us. Even after the recent spate of murders, I was unusual among the denizens of Cape Bay for religiously locking my house and car. When I’d first moved away, locking up had seemed odd to me, but now I couldn’t imagine not doing it. It wasn’t that I expected to be murdered in my home, but it only took a second, and it gave me some peace of mind, especially since I was apparently known around town for sussing out murderers. I didn’t know whose bad side I might be getting on.

  Latte didn’t mind my quick pace down the sidewalk, even though it was much faster than our usual speed. He trotted along, tongue out, looking like the happiest dog in the world. It wasn’t long before we got to the park. We came in through the back entrance. I didn’t see Karen anywhere, but if Rhonda could see her on her drive, she’d have to be at the front of the park.

  Latte resisted a little when we didn’t stop at the soccer fields where we normally played, but stayed by my side as we passed the playground and the pond and then went up the stairs where we’d first found each other when he was a stray, and I had just stumbled into my first murder investigation.

  As soon as we crested the stairs, I saw Karen and her big red Irish setter, openly flouting our annoying, relatively new leash law. In general, nobody in Cape Bay cared if you threw a ball for your dog in the park, but someone moved into town and campaigned the town council to stop such reckless behavior by dog owners.

  Karen wasn’t the only person who didn’t care. While a lot of people were like me and just used the enclosed soccer fields as a makeshift dog park, I still saw quite a few people acting as if the law didn’t exist and playing fetch with their dogs elsewhere in the park. I was also pretty sure the police didn’t care and not only because they’d been keeping busy lately investigating murders.

  I tried to look nonchalant as I walked over. “Hey! It’s Karen, right?”

  She nodded, her platinum hair catching the sun. It was impressively shiny for being so heavily processed. If I didn’t know better, I would have almost thought it was natural except for the streak of dark roots along her part. Her whole look was like that, though. From far away, she looked like she was nineteen or twenty. Up close, I couldn’t tell whether she was closer to thirty or forty, but I knew she’d definitely been old enough to drink for more than a few years.

  Her tastefully distressed jeans looked like they were feeling a little extra distressed by how tight they were. She had them tucked into a knee-high pair of high-heeled boots that I might have worn on the pavement in New York City, but wouldn’t have risked in a grassy field in Cape Bay. I could see myself going down hard and probably breaking a bone. Karen was either gifted with exceptional balance, exceptional courage, or exceptional stupidity to play with her dog in them. Her shirt was long sleeved in a concession to the chill creeping into the fall air, but it had a low scoop neck, and the hem just barely brushed the top of her jeans. I had a feeling that there was more than one way she could bend and end up showing off the goods.

  She squinted her heavily lined and mascaraed eyes at me. “Antonia?”

  “Francesca,” I corrected her. I wasn’t surprised by her mistake. It was a common one. There were even a few people who insisted on calling me Antonia even after I’d corrected them several times. “Antonia was my grandmother.”

  “That’s right. I couldn’t remember if it was named after your mom’s mom or daughter.” She stuck out her manicured hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  “You too.” I switched Latte’s tennis ball into my leash hand and shook her hand.

  “And sorry about your mom.”

  “Thanks. Sorry about Georgina.” I was surprised to have gotten to the subject of Georgina so easily. I’d expected to make dog-based small talk for a while: what’s his name, his breed, how old is he? It was the dog version of the questions parents ask each other while they watched their kids at the park. We only had to stop chatting slightly less often to yell at our charges to behave.

  “Thanks. I still can’t believe it.” She held out her hand, and her dog plopped his tennis ball into it. She hurled it back across the park, and her dog took off after it. Latt
e jerked to the end of his leash, looking enviously at the ball. Karen looked down at him and then at the tennis ball in my hand. “It’ll probably work if we alternate.”

  I hesitated for a second. I generally preferred to follow the rules, and letting Latte off his leash was obviously against them. Still, I wouldn’t be able to get any information from Karen if I didn’t make nice with her. I bent down and unhooked Latte. When Karen’s Irish setter picked up his ball and headed back our way, I tossed Latte’s ball out as far as I could. I thought for a second that the setter was going to drop his ball and go after Latte’s, but apparently, he decided to stick with the treasure he had and kept loping back toward us. Latte took off to get his prize.

  “Do you know if the police have any leads?” I hoped she wouldn’t mind me keeping the conversation on Georgina.

  She shrugged as she threw the ball. “I dunno. But Dean sure seems to think Georgina’s ex did it. He kept going on about it when he called to tell me what happened.”

  At least he was consistent with his story. Maybe he figured that the more people he told, the more believable it would be. “Do you think he killed her?” I took the drooly ball from Latte and waited until the setter turned back toward us to throw it.

  She looked at me for a second. “Alex?” She shrugged and shook her head a little. “I dunno. A brick seems like a weird murder weapon.” She threw her ball.

  “But it was the murder weapon, wasn’t it?” I took the ball from Latte.

  “Well, yeah, I mean, it just seems like a weird choice. Like, if you were going to murder someone, why would you pick a brick? I mean, a gun, a knife, poison, I don’t know, strangling. Of all the things you could pick, why would you pick a brick? It seems easy to screw up.”

  I threw Latte’s ball while I thought about what she said. She had a point. If Alex—or Dean—was planning to kill Georgina, why wouldn’t they choose a more foolproof weapon? It wasn’t as if they could have thrown the brick through the window over and over until they got it right. Maybe the police were right about it being a robbery after all. But I still didn’t think that eliminated Dean. He could have been staging the robbery to get the insurance money and accidentally killed Georgina in the process.

  “If you ask me, it was a straight-up robbery,” she said, tossing her dog’s ball. “As soon as I heard that all they took was that ring, it was obvious.”

  “Really? Dean said he didn’t think it was a robbery because that was all they took.”

  She arched an immaculately plucked and heavily penciled eyebrow at me. “You talked to Dean?”

  “Well, yeah, you know.” I stumbled for words. Karen’s dog had just turned around and started running in our direction, so I hurled Latte’s ball again in an attempt to stall for time. As Latte took off, it came to me. “My coffee shop’s on Main Street too. It’s scary to think about. What if it had been Antonia’s instead of Howard’s?”

  “Last time I checked, Antonia’s sells cappuccinos and cupcakes, not expensive diamond rings.”

  “Tiramisu too!” The business owner in me was unable to resist an opportunity to promote our offerings. “And ladyfingers now. They’re the same ones used in the tiramisu, and they’re delicious. You should come in sometime and have some. If you get a latte with them and dip the ladyfingers in it? Oh! So good!”

  She looked at me like I’d lost my mind then nodded slowly. “I’ll keep that in mind.” She tossed her dog’s ball across the grass.

  “So, um, you said something about knowing it was a robbery as soon as you heard that only the ring was stolen?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How did you know?” I threw Latte’s ball, trying to look casual, as her dog headed back toward us.

  “Because I knew who did it.”

  Chapter 11

  “You knew who did it?” I bit my tongue to keep from asking why Karen had gone on about Dean’s theory about Georgina’s murder instead of saying immediately that she knew who did it.

  “Yeah.” She held on to her Irish setter’s ball while she waited for Latte to run back toward us, his drool-soaked tennis ball grasped in his teeth.

  “Who?” I asked, afraid she wasn’t going to offer it up.

  “Guy named Sean Donnelly. He’s the janitor over at the high school.”

  “How did you know?”

  “He’d been in a bunch of times, asking about the ring. Apparently, his girlfriend said she wouldn’t marry him unless he got it for her.”

  “Wait, did you say he’s the janitor at the high school?”

  She laughed derisively as she hurled the dog’s ball again. “Yeah.”

  “But the ring cost fifty thousand dollars.”

  “Yeah, no kidding.”

  “Did she not actually want to marry him?” I threw Latte’s ball.

  “As far as I know, she did. She’s just one of those entitled types who think she deserves nothing short of the very best, and if a guy wants to marry her, he’d better provide the most amazing engagement ring known to man.”

  “Do high school janitors get paid a lot more than I think?”

  “No, they don’t. Sean doesn’t, anyway. He came in a bunch of times to try to negotiate and get the price down or work out a payment plan, but I don’t think he could have afforded the cheapest ring in the store, let alone that thing.”

  “And you think he wanted it bad enough to break in and steal it?”

  “I think his girlfriend wanted it enough for him to do it. He would get really intense and kind of desperate seeming. It’s not that I expected him to break in and take it, but if it was him, I can’t say I’d be surprised.”

  I thought about that as I threw Latte’s ball again. Why hadn’t Dean mentioned this Sean guy if he seemed like such an obvious suspect to Karen? Did he think Alex was a more plausible suspect to blame it on? Or was Dean actually innocent and genuinely thought Alex killed Georgina? I needed to track Sean Donnelly down and talk to him. I was pretty sure it was too late to catch him at the high school. “Do you know where Sean lives?”

  She looked at me out of the corner of her eye. I hadn’t told her I was investigating Georgina’s death, and it probably sounded strange that I wanted to know the address of the person she thought killed her coworker. Not that I expected her to know it. I didn’t know the home address of anyone who came in to my café unless I was friends with them.

  “Over on Surfside Drive,” she said, surprising me. “I don’t know the house number, but it’s a little white house with green shutters.”

  Now I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. Before I could say anything, she answered my unspoken question. “My friend lives down the street. I’ve seen him come and go.”

  “Are you sure that’s his house?”

  “Yeah, I asked her since I knew who he was, and I was curious.”

  At least I had a sister in curiosity. I threw Latte’s ball. “Do you know his girlfriend’s name?”

  She made a little bit of a face. “Celine? Fantine? Delphine? Something Frenchy with an ‘een’ at the end, I think. I don’t know. I’m not great with names.” She smiled. “Francesca.”

  “You can call me Fran.”

  “Yeah, I’m not going to remember that.”

  “Do you mind if I ask you a couple more questions?” I realized I was starting to sound like a weirdo with my borderline interrogation.

  She gave me the side-eye again.

  “I’m kind of helping out with the investigation,” I said before remembering Mike’s warning that I absolutely was not officially involved and shouldn’t do or say anything that might suggest that. “I mean, I’m not working for the police or anything. I’m just looking into it on my own. For Georgina. She deserves to have her killer found.”

  Still the side-eye. This time, I decided to wait. I threw Latte’s tennis ball.

  Finally, after the setter had returned and dropped his slobbery ball in Karen’s hand, she answered me. “Yeah, ask me whatever you want if you think it’ll h
elp catch the guy who did this. A brick to the head is a crappy way to go.”

  “Had you heard anything about Dean and Georgina arguing lately?”

  “You mean more than usual?”

  “Fighting was a normal thing with them?”

  “Yeah, you know.” She shrugged. “They bickered. He didn’t like the way she’d set up a display and say something, and she’d get kind of snippy back. Nothing major. Not like the way she fought with Alex. I actually kind of wondered if there was something going on between them—it was that kind of fighting.”

  There was so much there I didn’t know what to start with. I decided to start at the end. “You thought there might be something going on between Georgina and Dean?”

  She shrugged again. It seemed to be her default move. “I dunno. I mean, I don’t think they were actually hooking up or anything, but the tension was through the roof.”

  “Sexual tension?”

  “Yup.” She chucked the tennis ball. “That’s how I interpreted it anyway.”

  Well, that was some new information. “Had they been fighting any more than usual lately?”

  Karen thought for a minute. “Maybe a little. The past couple months or so. Not a lot, but, yeah, I think it was more. I mostly tried to tune it out.”

  “You said she used to fight with Alex?” I asked even though I’d already heard about it from Sammy. I wanted to hear someone else’s perspective.

  “Oh, my God, yes! For months after they broke up. He’d come by the shop, and they’d get in screaming matches.”

  “In the store?”

  “No, they’d go out back, but you could still hear them.”

  “Do you know what they fought about?”

  “Really stupid stuff. ‘Your crap’s still at my house.’ ‘If you weren’t out partying every night, maybe I could come and get it.’ ‘You’re always nagging me.’ ‘You never listen to anything I say.’ Blah, blah, blah. Drama. I tried to ignore that too.”

  For someone who said she tried to ignore her coworker’s fighting, she sure knew a lot about it. “Was he still coming around?”