Plotted For Murder Read online

  I sat back and took a deep breath. “Okay.” I wasn’t sure what I was feeling just then, a little bit hurt maybe, a lot bit confused for sure. But Mart didn’t need to deal with my emotions just then. “I’ll do whatever helps you, Mart. You’re always my top priority.”

  She looked at me out of the corner of her eye, and I saw a little smile turn up one corner of her mouth. “After Daniel.”

  I blushed. “Okay, after Daniel.”

  “And Mayhem.”

  I laughed. “And Mayhem.”

  “And maybe Taco.” Now she was really smiling, and I knew my best friend’s equilibrium was returning.

  “I’ll have to get back to you on where Taco ranks. Remember, he ate my hamburger right off my plate last week. I’m not sure I’m ready to forgive him.”

  “Fair enough,” Mart said as she shoved my cinnamon roll at me. “Now, eat.”

  I coughed. “I really shouldn’t. I had two of Lu’s burritos already.”

  She gave the blue plate a little nudge. “That was at least an hour ago. Be a hobbit. Have a second breakfast. It’s your favorite meal of the day.”

  It was good to be so well-loved. I picked up the roll and chomped down.

  * * *

  Mart headed home a bit later after I exacted a promise that she’d come back at one o’clock and join me for lunch, and I went out to the floor to do the bare minimum of prep for opening at ten. Fortunately, my assistant manager, Marcus, had been up to his usual form while I was gone, and the store was in fine shape. I didn’t have much to prepare, so I walked back over to the café so I could chat with Rocky who had seen me come in with Mart and prepped the cinnamon rolls with nary a question.

  “Everything okay?” she asked now.

  I sighed. “Yeah, she’s okay. You’ll hear soon, I expect. She found Coach Cagle’s body over at the high school this morning. He’d been stabbed.”

  Rocky’s mouth fell open. “Coach was murdered?”

  I nodded. “I know he was a real—”

  “He was,” she said, “but he didn’t deserve to be killed. Gracious!” Her face had drained of blood, and she put her hand over her mouth. “Do they have any idea who did it?”

  “Not that I’ve heard,” I said. “Tuck was there, so I guess we’ll know when we know.”

  Rocky raised her eyebrows. “You mean, you’ll know when you can’t resist butting in?”

  I cleared my throat and decided to change the subject. “So was it fun for you and Marcus to run the shop together, just the two of you, for a few days?”

  My café manager and my assistant manager had been dating for a few months now, and all signs pointed to a long-term commitment sort of situation. They were discreet and totally appropriate at work, but every once in a while, I’d catch them exchanging a glance across the shop floor. There was no doubting this was a big old love thing happening.

  Rocky turned her back to me and pretended to clean the milk steamer. “It went great. We work well together.”

  “I’ll say,” with as much innuendo as my voice could carry. Then, I laughed, and Rocky turned back to me, a grin across her face as she tugged on one of the curls framing her light-brown face.

  “Thanks for keeping the place going. It was good to get away and still know things would be fine here,” I said.

  “So the trip was good?” Rocky asked, seizing her own chance to change the conversation.

  “Very. Mart and I had a blast, and her race was good. Now, though, I have to finish up the prep for the Harvest Festival. I hear it’s the big event for St. Marin’s in the fall?”

  “Yep, the last of the tourists for the season. How’s the float coming?”

  I frowned. “Just fine, thank you very much. We could use two more Peanuts, though. Sure I can’t convince you and Marcus to join me.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Harvey Beckett, you know there is only one black Peanut. Marcus looks nothing like Franklin, and I refuse to be a token, no matter how good Mr. Schultz’s intentions back in the day.” She smiled at me. “Nope, we’re totally good holding down the fort here.”

  I laughed. “Fair enough,” I said, “although you would make a great Franklin.” I turned to open the front door and heard her laughing as she began to steam the milk for the vanilla latte she always made me first thing in the morning.

  * * *

  The day’s sales were steady for a Monday, and, between customers, I kept busy getting the pumpkin display set up in one of the front windows, despite two dogs’ commitment to getting under my feet. I even had a bit of time to set up the other window full of October-themed murder mysteries. There was just something about the fall that made me want to dig into a mystery with an amateur sleuth who solves the case.

  The centerpiece of that display was Leena Clover’s Apple Caramel Mayhem, one of her delightful cozies that included just the perfect number of recipes to make my mouth water. Add to that Samantha Silver’s first witch mystery, Lee Child’s Blue Moon, and Oyinkan Braithwaite’s strangely funny novel about a her sister who is a serial killer, and I had a pretty great reading recommendation list for all the mystery lovers in town.

  I had just finished putting out the adorable bean bag witches and pumpkins that I’d picked up at a craft fair in September when Sheriff Tucker came in. “Hi Tuck. Cup of coffee?”

  The sheriff nodded and headed toward the café as I climbed down out of the front window. I had yet to figure out how to make that exit gracefully, so I almost took out a floor-stand of new bookmarks in my endeavor.

  Tuck was already sitting at his usual table near the back of the café close to the counter. He preferred a little privacy on his visits, and I couldn’t blame him. As one of three police officers in town, he was often asked to give his ear to grievances about anything and everything. The other evening when he and Lu had come in to pick up a picture book for Lu’s niece’s sixth birthday, another customer had kept Tuck pinned in the fiction section for twenty minutes as he lamented the excess of stray cats in his neighborhood and the town’s need to euthanize “the little buggers.” I’d finally had to extricate him from the situation myself by telling him I thought I heard someone trying to break in my back door. The cat-hater tried to follow, but I waylaid him with a diversion to the true crime section. Something just told me this man would appreciate books on serial killers, and I was right. I made a mental note to be sure my cat, Aslan, was kept carefully inside just in case this joker lived near Mart and me.

  I sidled over to the sheriff with my second latte of the day and sat down. I’d learned that the best thing to do with most people was to just be present, and they’d talk if they wanted to talk. This was especially true of our usually jovial sheriff on the rare days when he was quiet and introspective. Today was one of his quiet days.

  I turned my chair so that I could keep an eye on the register, and then I sat back and enjoyed my drink. A lot of people found it odd that the sheriff came to talk to me, of all people, about his cases from time to time. I wasn’t law enforcement, and the sheriff was more than competent to do his job. It wasn’t that he needed my help. No, it was more about camaraderie, about needing a sounding board, I thought. As someone who had to talk through things to understand them, I figured the sheriff was probably the same way. He had deputies, sure, but maybe it was safer to just run ideas by a neutral person who was genuinely interested.

  It was that genuine interest that gave my friends concern, though. I had a bad habit of getting entwined in investigations, and sometimes my curiosity got me in trouble. I was glad Mart and Daniel weren’t in the shop just then . . . but I could see from the look on Rocky’s face as she watched us from behind the café counter that she was already wary.

  I winked at her with the hope that I could dispel her worry, and then I turned back to the sheriff. He took a long swig of his coffee and then sat back. “Some start to the week, huh?” he said as he ran his hand over his short hair.

  “I’ll say.” I glanced over at the shop. Just a
couple of middle-aged women browsing the self-help section. From their careful study of the shelves, I could tell they’d be a while. “Mart was pretty shaken up. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen her that scared.”

  The sheriff sat forward. “Yeah, that seemed a little out of character for her. She’s usually so pulled together.”

  I looked down into my mug. “Usually. But she thought she heard—”

  “Right. I get it. She did the smart thing to get out of there.” He looked me in the eye for the first time. “She’s not a suspect, Harvey. I hope I don’t have to tell you that.”

  Until that moment, I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath, but the wave of relief that washed over me told me I had actually been wondering. “Right. Good. That’s good.” I took a deep breath and then said, “So any suspects?”

  The sheriff squinted at me. “Just between you and me?”

  “Of course.” I felt a warm body brush against my legs. “Well, you, me, and Mayhem.” I bent down to scratch my girl’s ear and saw Taco drop his weight against the sheriff’s legs. “Okay, between the four of us.”

  Tuck bounced his foot to give Taco a little nudge. “Too many.”

  “They’re just dogs, Tuck. They can’t tell anyone what you say.”

  He rolled his eyes. “No, Harvey. Too many suspects. Coach Cagle did not have the best reputation, especially with the ladies.” His voice was low, but the café was pretty quiet so I wasn’t surprised to see Rocky nod vigorously from behind the glass of the pastry case.

  “So I’ve heard,” I said, turning my eyes back to the sheriff. “Someone I know had a really rough go of things with him. From what I heard, he should have been fired a long time ago . . . and charged with sexual harassment.”

  “That’s my impression, too,” Tuck drained the rest of his coffee. “But impressions aren’t evidence, and right now, I’m really short on that essential part of this investigation.” He stood up and straightened his gun belt. I always marveled at police officers with all that gear on their waists. It looked so heavy.

  “Why’s that?” I asked as I stood and moved toward the register where the self-help ladies were waiting with books in their hands as if making their final choices.

  “I’m hoping you and Mart might be able to go back to the track with me tonight and see if she remembers anything else, now that the situation is a little less, well, intense.” Tuck slipped his sheriff’s department baseball cap onto his head. “I thought she might feel calmer if you were there.”

  I nodded. “So you aren’t inviting me along to help with the case?”

  He laughed, but then the smile dropped from his lips. “Absolutely not, Harvey Beckett. You’re just coming to support your friend. Understood?”

  I smiled. “Understood. Happy to do anything for my friends.” I waved as he headed for the door then turned back to my customers.

  Their choices seemed especially fitting for today: The Body Keeps The Score and Why Does He Do That?

  3

  Marcus and Mart showed up right on time at one o’clock, and, after giving Marcus a quick heads-up on the morning’s events and urging him to get the details from Rocky, Mart and I headed over to Chez Cuisine for lunch. Apparently, I had not yet had enough breakfast-type food because the cheese soufflé called my name as soon as I saw it on the menu. Mart went with the far more sensible salad with a lemon Dijon dressing that looked amazing.

  I had pretty much stopped coming to this delightful French café because the owner, Max, was getting on my very last nerve. He had this fervent crush on me, one he wasn’t afraid to flaunt despite my best attempts to put him off and despite his very clear understanding that Daniel and I were together. I missed the food, especially the risotto, but even that cheesy goodness wasn’t worth Max’s obnoxious flirtation.

  Max typically worked nights, though, so I had been hoping that we’d miss him at lunch. Alas, my big mouth and tendency to over-compliment everyone ended that hope when I asked the waitress to thank the chef for the wonderful meal. (It was really wonderful. I could have eaten another entire soufflé if embarrassment hadn’t reigned me in.) The eager young woman brought out the chef to meet us since the dining room was mostly empty when we finished, and I was just getting up to shake the young, red-headed man’s hand when Max followed him out of the swinging kitchen door.

  I had to suppress a groan and force my smile back to my lips as I told the chef the soufflé was the best I’d ever had. Mart chimed in that the salad was perfect and asked about what herbs he’d used when poaching the chicken. This question sparked a lively conversation about the underappreciation of sage which led into a conversation about wine, Mart’s specialty. Soon, the two of them had moved off to the wine racks at the side of the restaurant, and I was left there alone with Max.

  My eyes darted around the room, hoping the waitress was within sight so I could ask for our check and give Mart the “I’m headed back to work” wave. But alas, the vibrant and eager young woman had disappeared at exactly the wrong moment, and I was forced to stand there and make small talk with my least favorite person in the world. Literally.

  “Hi Max.” I was trying to be polite.

  “Bonjour, mon cher. It’s lovely to see you.” He bowed and kissed my hand, as usual leaving his lips far too long against my skin. Max was not French in any way. My understanding was that he was Polish, born in Dundalk just outside of Baltimore, and every once in a while I could hear the Baltimore accent creep in. But mostly, he put on this ridiculous affectation of being European, replete with scarves and berets and such on occasion. “If I had known you were coming in, I would have had the chef prepare something special just for you. He makes an excellent apple tart I know you would love.”

  Now, it was my time to roll my eyes. “I don’t actually like fruit desserts very much, and that soufflé was amazing.”

  “You haven’t tasted my recipe for apple tart. I’ll make it a point to be sure you can have some on your next visit.”

  Max had this absolutely obnoxious habit of thinking my personal tastes were something I needed to have improved. Clearly, he had not learned the fundamental lesson of courtship – because that was what he seemed to think he was doing with me, courting. He simply could not cater to the other person’s desires rather than try to change them.

  Once again, I found myself grateful that Daniel didn’t mind at all that I never wanted apple tart or bananas foster or even that cherry ice cream that so many people raved about. He trusted that I knew myself well enough to appreciate cream puffs and white cake with white icing as my natural desires. So much so, every Friday, he brought me two vanilla cupcakes with vanilla icing from our friend Lucas’s fledgling cupcake business. Daniel said it was because he knew I needed a little boost after a long workweek, but I also knew he just wanted to support Lucas’s new endeavor.

  Max would never bring me cupcakes. They would be below him, I’m sure.

  I not so subtly shook my key ring in my hands, and then, because I am terrible at small talk and because I just so wanted to keep Max from saying anything else, I began to detail what each key on my ring did. “This one opens the shop doors. This one is for Mart’s car. This one is for a car I used to own back in San Francisco. I’m not sure exactly what this one does . . .” After about fifteen explanations, I looked up and hoped to see Max’s eyes glazed over with boredom, or even better, to see that he’d just walked away. But no, there he was just staring at me like I was quoting Baudelaire’s love poems to him.

  Fortunately, at that moment, Mart returned to the table with the chef. “Harvey, this is Symeon. Symeon Cagle.” She leaned hard on the last name.

  “Oh. Oh. Nice to meet you, Symeon.” I glanced at Max, who looked quite peeved that our “conversation” had been interrupted. I chose to ignore him by putting my foot in my mouth, not an unusual occurrence. “Are you related to Coach Cagle?” I have all the tact of a lion with a raw steak.

  I saw the corners of his eyes pinch, but he s
miled at me. “Yes, Coach was my uncle. Terrible thing that happened to him. I guess you guys heard?” He looked from me to Mart and then over to Max.

  Max blew me a kiss and walked away without a word. Apparently, the news of a murder did not warrant the same attention as the uses of my keys. I resisted the temptation to try to explain Max’s gesture to this man I had just met and said, instead, “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  Symeon nodded. “Thank you. I appreciate that, and any death is a horrible thing, but to be honest, I didn’t much like him. Nobody did really. He was a jerk to most people.” He tilted his head and looked from me to Mart again. “Has news spread that quickly? I mean St. Mariner’s love nothing more than gossip, but even this feels pretty fast—”

  Mart cut him off. “I’m actually the one who found him. He was my running coach.”

  This time Symeon’s wince was more intense. “Oomph. Sorry.”

  Mart sighed. “He was a good coach.”

  “I had heard that,” Symeon said. Then, there was this gigantic awkward pause, a pause so big that tractor trailers could have driven through it.

  It was into that gaping hole of silence that I realized that I might need to say something. “Well, anyway, I just, well, lunch was really good.” One would think that after all the books I’d read I could come up with a better compliment than good but there we were.

  Symeon grinned. “I’m glad you liked it, and I’m glad you braved the, er, atmosphere to come in.” He winked and threw a glance back to where Max hovered by the pass-through window into the kitchen. “You two are brave.”

  “Hey, we don’t work here,” Mart said with a laugh as we headed toward the door.