Hallow Haven Cozy Mysteries Bundle Books 4-6

by Mara Webb

  “You are accusing me of being a liar?” she snapped.

  “Not a liar, necessarily, but you have been mistaken in this instance,” I smiled. I knew that adding the smile would make her angrier, but her husband seemed to be getting a kick out of it. “Now, if you have some other grievance with us then please let me know, but unfortunately you have come into my café and eaten a full meal, I assume you ate too?” I asked, looking at the man behind her. He nodded.

  “Let’s just pay and leave,” he muttered to his wife.

  “I can’t believe the service in this place,” she hissed, trying to maintain her anger as she pulled a credit card out of her purse. She paid up, all the while whittering expletives to herself. “You know, one day this place is going to get shut down. Maybe someone could take over and turn this prime real estate into something useful.”

  She stormed out of the café and a few customers cheered to see her leave. “Some people just don’t know when to quit,” Effie laughed.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “That woman comes in here every few months, tries to scam her way out of paying the bill and then makes a bunch of random threats when we call her out on it. I thought she would have gotten bored of it by now, but here we are,” Effie replied.

  “What kind of threats?” I pressed. Effie’s gaze met mine and I had to assume we were both thinking the same thing. “Would she call the IRS to have us investigated?” Effie scowled and we both looked out of the glass front of the café at the back of the retreating woman stomping along the sand.

  4

  I waited patiently for the kettle to boil so that I could make Effie the brew that apparently was going to be all she needed to get the paperwork organized before Kane arrived. I couldn’t help thinking that the pile of receipts in the small office would take weeks to sort through, but I was keeping those concerns to myself.

  “That woman has gone, yes?” Fern asked.

  “The yelling customer? Yeah, she’s gone,” I answered.

  “If she comes back in here accusing me of serving a frozen lasagna then I won’t be held accountable for my actions,” she warned.

  “Noted,” I grimaced. “Effie said she’s tried to duck out of paying a few times though, can’t we ban her? Do you guys ever ban customers?”

  “We try not to,” Effie added. She had spent the last fifteen minutes reaching into the office through the small gap she had created in the doorway and pulling out fistfuls of paper, shoving it into a box and piling them up to take elsewhere. “In fact, I think we’ve only ever banned one person and that was totally justified.”

  “The man was a flasher,” Tara explained. Tara, Fern and Effie all shuddered at the memory. I didn’t plan on asking any follow up questions about that.

  I re-read the instructions that were handwritten on the paper bag from ‘Coaled Water’. Seeing the name of the store instantly reminded me of everything the owner had said about Ryder and I considered making two cups of the calming brew to settle my own nerves as well as Effie’s.

  “So how long before that lady comes back then?” I asked.

  “Urgh, when is the next full moon? Demon woman,” Tara scoffed. “Oh, sorry, no offense.”

  I realized that Tara was apologizing to me because Miller turned into a wolf under a full moon. If I was going to split hairs over the matter, then I would have told her about the time that he transformed into a wolf in the middle of the day last week, but I imagined she had to have heard about that by now. Hallow Haven had a fervent rumor mill.

  “I would love to make fun of that maniac, believe me,” Effie laughed. “But she had her house broken into a few months back and I think it’s changed her. I mean, she was no shrinking violet before all that, but she has been way more hostile towards everybody since then.”

  “She was robbed?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Tara replied. “I heard that a group of guys came in with guns or baseball bats, one of the two. They thought the house was empty, so they got a pretty big shock to find out that the Susan Colter was curled up and sleeping in her four-poster bed.”

  “If they thought it was empty, why did they bring weapons?” I said.

  “That’s a good point…” Tara hummed.

  “Who is Susan Colter anyway? You made it sound like she’s a big deal.”

  “Dude, you haven’t heard of the Colters?” Effie called. She was still ramming paperwork into baskets and the pile of full ones was teetering dangerously close to a sink filled with water. I ran over to rearrange them before all the receipts got wet, that was the last thing we needed. “You’re lucky then. If I could remove them from my consciousness, then I’d be a happy gal. Not all of them actually, just her.”

  “Bearbrooks,” Fern grunted.

  “The jewelry store on the high street?” I said.

  “The very same!” Effie grinned. She stood up and started rubbing at her lower back, it was clearly aching from the crouching position she had been locked in for the last half hour. “Well, her father was the original owner of the store. I think he came up with Shell’s Day. The guy is a millionaire.”

  “What do you mean by original owner?” I asked.

  “I think he signed over some documents to put her in charge of the business. I think it’s one of those ‘in name only’ deals and that he is still calling the shots,” Effie explained. “Either way, she’s rich too. Her dad is a good guy, I’ve seen him kill it on karaoke nights a bunch of times. He knows how to have a good time, he can take a joke, he’s a whole bunch of fun. Susan on the other hand…”

  “All she talks about is herself,” Tara interjected. “She acts like she owns everything on the island, as if we are all supposed to dance to her tune because she got a huge handout from her daddy.”

  “Yeah, I highly recommend you look her up online. She started a blog about how to be a ‘boss babe’ and nowhere on the entire website does she point out that she’s never actually had a job and that she inherited every penny she has,” Effie laughed.

  “She sometimes posts recipes on there,” Fern snarled. “She does the thing bloggers do where they start a recipe with a fifteen-page diary entry about when they first discovered sweetcorn, or something. That woman has a chef, she doesn’t cook!”

  “It’s an image thing,” Tara added. “She wants to be seen as a successful woman with a business empire and she’s also a top chef and also as fit as an athlete. I heard she has one of those machines that you wrap around your abdomen and it electrocutes you enough that you body acts like you just did four thousand sit-ups.”

  I made a mental note to look that up later, I wouldn’t mind ordering one for myself. I used to go for a run after work before I moved to Hallow Haven, but it’s just too humid here. Okay, I went for one or two runs a week, sometimes. Alright fine, I went for one run and then spotted a cloud, figured it might rain, so turned right around and went home. I had bought proper running shoes though, so that’s half the battle.

  “Did they catch the people that broke into her house?” I asked.

  “I don’t think so, but you’d have to ask Miller because I don’t know,” Effie replied. “She was in here a few days after the robbery, actually, screaming at everybody eating their lunch that if she finds any of them wearing her diamonds that she will kill them. It seemed a little dramatic too me, but I figured she was just so traumatized that she didn’t know what to do with herself.”

  “She threatened to kill people?” I repeated, slightly taken aback.

  “Yeah… I wouldn’t worry about it,” Effie shrugged. “Her exercise of choice is cycling, like, on a stationary bike. So, unless she plans to talk about her Peloton near you until you get so bored your heart gives up, then I don’t see her as much of a threat.”

  Still, it seemed that she was suffering from an inability to regulate her emotions. A volatile person might lash out in any number of ways. I should speak to Miller about it later.

  “Do you know what was stolen?” I asked.<
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  “She had a huge engagement ring, the stone on that thing must have been so heavy I can’t even imagine,” Effie replied. “I think that was taken, and she loved bragging about her earrings, but I haven’t seen her wearing any since. I figured they’d been stolen too. But, again, Miller would know all this better than I would. He’ll have a record of it somewhere.”

  Hallow Haven was such a small community, it could mean that the robbers had been walking right by me in the street or they’d come into the café for breakfast and I’d not known. I didn’t like that there were criminals wandering around.

  The kitchen door flew open, and Rosie leaned her head in, searching the room until she found me.

  “Oh, Sadie, I have someone on the phone for you,” she said.

  “Who is it?” I asked. I was conscious of the amount of paperwork that needed sorting out before the IRS guy arrived and I knew that it would be just my luck to get completely derailed by something random. This place had a way of messing up my schedule.

  “It’s the woman from earlier, the one who said her lasagna was frozen,” Rosie said, grimacing as she acknowledged she was the bearer of bad news. “She wanted to speak to someone above you so that she could make a complaint. I don’t really know what to say.”

  “Oh boy,” Fern scoffed, lifting a meat cleaver high above her head and slamming it down into a wooden chopping board, wedging it into the grain. I was surprised the thing didn’t instantly split. “Let me talk to her, I’ll give her something to complain about.”

  “Tempting,” I smirked. “But I think I’ll take this one.”

  Dealing with angry customers was one of my least favorite activities for obvious reasons, but it was something I had experience with from running my cafes back in Virginia. In order to expand beyond my first location, I’d had to develop some basic training tools to teach my second in command how to deal with complaints in my absence.

  Everyone always wants their complaints to be heard by the most senior member of staff. Most of the time, the manager tells the customer the exact same thing that they had already been told. At least at that point the customer knows that this thing can’t go any further, but this woman obviously had other ideas.

  I walked back out to the front of the café and picked up the phone that Rosie had set down by the cash register. I scanned the room briefly to look at the faces of the many customers that were perfectly happy with the way this place prepared food.

  “Hello?” I answered.

  “Who is this?” Susan snarled.

  “It’s Sadie, how may I help you, ma’am?” I replied.

  “I told that stupid girl that I wanted to speak to your supervisor, not hers.” I could hear the disgust in her voice, as if she was the smartest person on planet Earth and she was constantly frustrated having to deal with the rest of us.

  “I have no supervisor,” I said, bluntly. “You are speaking to the owner of the café. Would you like to explain what it is that has lead you to calling up today?” I thought I was being perfectly polite, but maybe my tone was a little curt.

  “Urgh, I want to know what you plan to do about the quality of your food, and what sort of compensation I can expect after the unpleasantness I was forced to endure. I don’t know if you know this, but I am a pretty big deal around here and people don’t take kindly to their local heroes being humiliated in public,” she huffed.

  “Did you just call yourself a local hero?” I asked, stifling a laugh. “Sorry, I think there has been a misunderstanding. As I far as I was concerned, the issue had been dealt with. Payment was made and we spoke about the fact that the food had been prepared fresh. If you want to come into the café again and speak to me about it in person then I can set up a meeting. I should be free next week, would that work?”

  “Next week?” she gasped. “You young people don’t know the half of it.” She hung up. I didn’t even know what she was annoyed about at this point, but at least she wasn’t talking to me anymore.

  “Sadie?” I looked up to see Oliver standing in front of the cash register holding a large camera, a microphone and a notepad with a pen attached to the cover. He was a journalist with the island newspaper, and I wondered if he had been sent here by Susan, could she really have gotten hold of them so quickly?

  “Yes, Oliver?” I sighed.

  “I was hoping to get a quick interview with you about the upcoming golf event,” he smiled. His gentle, sing-song Irish accent was always a delight to hear, but he was often approaching me with one topic in mind, only to slip in something else as soon as he started talking.

  If he knew there was something that I shouldn’t be talking about, he would show up with his notepad. Like a sniffer dog that can smell a scandal from a mile away.

  “Do you even call?” I said, waving the telephone handset in his face to demonstrate that we had one. “I mean, I can give you ten minutes, but in future I’d appreciate a head’s up.”

  “Oh, sure,” he said. “I hate to be an inconvenience and all, it must have slipped my mind.” What a liar. It was a good job he was cute, because I would have a lot less patience with him otherwise. There was no chance he had forgotten to call, and he would do this exact same thing the next time he wanted to get information out of me.

  He grinned with relief and set about unloading his things onto a nearby table by the window. What was this really going to be about?

  5

  “I’ll start with a couple of easy ones,” Oliver smiled. What did he think constituted an easy question? I nodded for him to continue. The Dictaphone sat between us on the table, and he was also flicking through his notepad, it seemed he had jotted down some ideas in there but was keeping the paper close to his chest – literally – so that I couldn’t see.

  “Should I be nervous?” I joked.

  “No, of course not. Probably not. Not too much,” he laughed. Okay, well those were three different answers, so now I was definitely getting nervous. “Okay, so I guess we’ll start with some question about your love of golf.” Oh boy. “What is it about the sport that drew you in to begin with?”

  “Er…” Jeez, let my brain please come up with any information about golf, please. Is golf the one with the polo shirts and visors, or is that tennis? Do players in both sports wear those things? I should fit these café tables with a panic button. “I like being outside. Golf is outside, right? I like feeling the wind in my hair and the feel of a golf club in my hands.”

  I am a terrible liar.

  “What is your club of choice?” he asked.

  “Golf club as in the thing I hit the ball with, or the place you go to play?” I replied.

  “Either I guess.” He shrugged. Could he sense that this wasn’t going well? He had to be picking up on it. There was probably a few customers at the far side of the room that could sense it.

  “I like the place in… Scotland?” I guessed.

  “Which one?”

  “Oh, how could you choose between them? All such beautiful spaces,” I smiled.

  “When were you last in Scotland?”

  “I’ve never been, why?” By the time I realized my mistake, Oliver was already writing something down in his notepad.

  “Will you be participating in the event at all? I’m sure you would draw a huge crowd if you were to play a few holes,” he said.

  “I’d rather leave it to the professionals,” I shrugged. This was going badly, but it would be over soon. Hopefully. Maybe I could bribe him to not print any of this with a few slices of cheesecake on the house.

  “Now, rumor has it that you will be sharing the honeymoon suite with Sheriff Miller. Do you have any comment on that?” he said. Ah. This was the real reason he had come in here wanting an interview.

  “Honeymoon suite?” I gawped. “This is the first I’m hearing of it. Look, I have a lot to do today Oliver, so if you don’t have any more questions.” I stood up.

  “Actually,” he flipped over a page in his notepad, “I did have a—”


  “Good, I’m sure I’ll speak to you soon,” I said, cutting him off and walking back into the kitchen to get away from him.

  Effie was taking large gulps of tea from a mug the size of her head, Tara and Fern were arguing about stew seasoning and Kate had somehow entered the building.

  “I thought you were busy,” I muttered to Kate.

  “I was, but now I’m not,” she grinned. “I thought I’d help Effie sort through this mess because you’ve probably got to start baking soon.”

  “Baking?” I echoed.

  “Yeah, or are you taking a savory dish?”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “You’re supposed to be taking food over to the golf resort as a gift for hosting!” Kate said, realizing that I was clearly in the dark and panicking on my behalf. “You guys! Why didn’t you tell her?” She was admonishing the other people in the kitchen and all three of them were avoiding eye contact. It was like when you come home to find that your dog has chewed through your favorite pair of shoes and is now facing the wall.

  “I have had a lot on my plate,” Effie replied. “I figured that someone else would have mentioned it, so I didn’t see the point in saying anything.”

  “Is this really a thing? Are they going to be expecting me to have brought something over?” I asked.

  “Yes,” everyone said in unison. Great.

  “Would Rocky Road be good enough?” I asked. I had my fingers crossed that someone would give me the go-ahead because it was the quickest thing I could think to make.

  “Oh yeah!” Kate nodded. “The golf resort is run by one of the Davick family members, I can’t remember which one exactly, but they all love anything with marshmallows in it. I mean, who doesn’t?”

  “Isn’t it Kieran?” I asked. I thought back to the first time I’d visited the island of Tivercana, I had been introduced to the head of the Davick family, Kieran, and had a fleeting glance at the golf facilities.