Death by Coffee (15 page)

Among other things,
I thought. “Let me know if you find anything out, okay?” I asked, hoping he wouldn’t laugh at the idea. Why would he tell me anything? I wasn’t officially on the case. I wasn’t even a real detective.

“I will,” Paul said. He sounded distracted, so I’m not so sure he realized what he was agreeing to do.

“Talk to you soon?” I tried not to sound too hopeful, but I don’t think I did a very good job. I really wanted to see him again, outside of work, and was afraid our arrest ruined any chance of that.

“Sure. Gotta run.” He clicked off.

I stood there a moment more, wondering if I’d done the right thing. Brendon had hurt so many people, maybe it was better he was dead. If it wasn’t for the fact that someone had actually killed him, meaning there was a murderer on the loose, I very well might have dropped it.

But no matter how uncomfortable I might get, I knew, in the end, I was definitely doing the right thing.

17

“Don’t get involved.”

“Haven’t we had this conversation already?”

Vicki rolled her eyes and set a cup of coffee in front of me. Without me having to say anything, she’d added the chocolate chip cookie.

“We have,” she said, sliding into the chair across from me. “But you aren’t listening.” She rested a hand on my own. “You’ve done all you can. Now let the police do their jobs.”

Speaking of the police, I glanced out the window toward the building across the street. A cruiser was pulled up out front, but I couldn’t tell whose. I’d missed the officer getting out of the car because a customer had spilled her coffee trying to get a better view. It had missed landing in my lap by inches.

I was dying to go over and see who was there. Had Paul followed up on my tip himself? Or was it someone else, someone like Officer Buchannan, who wouldn’t take anything I said seriously, simply because I’d gone on a date with what appeared to be his rival within the force?

“See,” Vicki said, cutting into my train of thought. “This is exactly what I mean. You’re looking over there like you can’t stand the thought of letting someone else do all the work. You don’t have to know everything that goes on here. Relax!”

I forced myself to look away. “That’s not true,” I said. “I’m here, aren’t I? I could be over there this very minute, but I’m sipping coffee here with you, instead.”

“Yeah,” Vicki said. “How is your coffee?”

I glanced down; I had yet to touch it.

“You might be here physically,” she went on. “I’m not so sure about mentally. You’re going to get yourself hurt if you keep at it.”

I knew she was right, but I wasn’t about to admit it. I finally took a sip of coffee and closed my eyes. It felt good going down. I think my favorite part of it was the little bits of cookie that floated around in the caffeinated goodness.

Death by Coffee, like usual, was dead. The name was sounding more and more ominous, the longer it took to figure out exactly what had happened to Brendon Lawyer. So far, he’d been the only person who’d died after drinking our coffee, but that didn’t mean the rest of the town wanted to risk it. The only person I’d seen since I’d gotten there earlier was the woman who tried to scald me with her coffee. She’d left five minutes ago, leaving Vicki and me alone.

Well, Trouble was there, too, but he was up in the bookstore, where he belonged. Chances were good that he was quietly living up to his name somewhere.

“I just want to know what they’ve found,” I said, poking at the cookie, which had floated to the top. It would eventually soak up a good portion of the caffeine and would await consumption at the bottom of the cup. If nothing else, I had that to live for.

“And you will,” Vicki said, “when the rest of the world does. You don’t need to go snooping around anymore.”

I grumbled and took another sip.
Mmm, cookie.
“What else am I going to do with my time?”

Vicki smiled and propped her chin on the backs of her hands. “Well, you could, I don’t know, come to work here, perhaps?”

“And after we fold in a couple of days?”

She sighed. “We’re not going to fold. You’ll see. Business will pick up.”

“Seems like we’ve had this conversation, too.”

“You know I’m right, Krissy. Things have a way of working out.”

Unless you’re Brendon Lawyer, apparently.

My gaze traveled back to the window. A few onlookers were doing their best not to appear as if they were, well,
onlooking.
They milled around outside, going up one way, and then back the other. A few women stood off to the side, whispering to each other. I thought I caught a glimpse of Eleanor Winthrow at one point, but she vanished into the pacing masses before I could be sure.

“So, how did it go, anyway?”

Apparently, Vicki had been talking. I turned back to her with a “Hmm?”

“The date,” she said. “With Officer Studly.”

I couldn’t stop the grin from rising to my face. “It went okay . . . until we got arrested.”

Vicki’s eyes just about popped from her head as she leaned forward. “Are you serious? What did you do?”

“Nothing bad,” I said. “We just sort of snuck into Lawyer’s Insurance and had a look around.”

“Wait . . .” Vicki looked stunned and amused at the same time. “You convinced a cop to let you go snooping around at what very well might be a crime scene?”

“Maybe,” I said with a smile.

“What did you offer him?” Her eyes dropped and I instantly knew what she was thinking.

“Of course not!” I said, actually offended. What did she take me for? “I sort of just convinced him, that’s all.”

“Mmm-hmm,” she said, as if she knew exactly how I managed it. “And you ended up getting yourself arrested.”

“
We
did.” I made sure to stress the “we” part.

“How?” She held up a hand before I could answer. “Wait. I don’t want to know.” She shook her head. “An enabler.”

“What?”

“He’s an enabler.”

I didn’t have to ask who it was that she was talking about. “He is not! Maybe he just likes me.”

“Is that how you impress a girl these days? Get her arrested when you take her to a place where
somebody got murdered
!”

“It wasn’t like that. . . .”

I was saved from further taunting when the bell above the door jingled. Both Vicki and I turned in the hopes we actually had a customer.

“Ladies,” Officer Dalton said as he sauntered into the room.

Vicki snorted and rose. “I’ve got a few things to do. You two have fun.” She started to walk away and then glanced back at me. “Try not to get arrested this time.” She hurried up the stairs before I could formulate a response.

Paul walked over to where I sat. He paid Vicki only a cursory glance before turning those blue eyes on me. “She’s an odd one, isn’t she?”

“Tell me about it,” I mumbled. “Would you like to sit?” I indicated Vicki’s recently vacated chair.

He looked like he might say no; then he heaved a sigh and sat heavily down. He looked troubled, which wasn’t much of a surprise considering where he’d just come from. Paul was in full uniform; and I had to admit, it felt a lot warmer in the room now that he was here.

“Did you find anything?” I asked, nodding my head toward the window.

Paul frowned and looked down toward the table rather than meet my eyes. He started to say something, and then his frown deepened. He leaned forward and peered into my coffee cup.

“What the hell is that?”

By now, the chocolate chip cookie had turned into a black-and-brown lump of sugary, chocolaty goodness. It took all of my self-control not to slurp it up.

“A cookie.”

“Why do you have a cookie in your coffee?”

“Because it is tasty and I like it and . . . ,” I trailed off, and gave him a helpless shrug. Sometimes there are things you just can’t explain.

Paul shook his head as if he didn’t even want to know any longer. He turned his attention, instead, to the window and the building across the street.

“You were right,” he said after a long moment. “It wasn’t your usual dust.”

“You’ve tested it already?”

“The pinky test. But the real tests won’t be in for a while.”

“‘The pinky test’?”

He mimed running his finger along the table and licking it. “The pinky test.”

I shuddered. What if it had been the guy’s dandruff or something? I reminded myself to wait until he brushed his teeth a few dozen times before ever trying to kiss him again.

“So it was peanut?”

He nodded. “As far as I can tell. I suppose all dust could taste like that—I haven’t tasted much dust to see—but I highly doubt it.”

“So I’m totally off the hook then? It wasn’t my coffee that killed him?”

Paul finally met my eyes and dazzled me with his dimples. “You never were on the hook.”

My heart did a little pitter-patter and all my muscles eased at once. I didn’t realize how tense I’d become over this. No matter how much I told myself that my coffee had nothing to do with Brendon Lawyer’s death, I’d still harbored doubts. Having it confirmed both relieved and worried me at the same time. It meant there actually
was
a killer out there.

I tore my gaze away from Paul’s dimples and focused on my own hands. I needed to focus here, not get lost in the man’s facial features, no matter how dreamy they might be.

“Did you talk to Raymond Lawyer?” I asked. “And the secretary, Beth?”

“I have.” I could hear the amusement in Paul’s voice. “But I haven’t said anything about the dust to them yet. I don’t want word getting around. If the killer still thinks we view this as an accident, they are less likely to make a run for it.”

I’d never even thought of it that way. “Do you think the secretary might have done it?”

“Beth?” he asked with a laugh. “She couldn’t have hurt a fly, let alone someone like Brendon Lawyer. He’d walk all over her first. She’s just . . .” He shrugged as if that said it all.

“Oh. I see.”

“So I went in and told Raymond I wanted to check on a few things before we let him clean out the place,” Paul went on. “He grumbled a lot about it, but he let me in, anyway. I opened the vent and found a small amount of dust trapped up against the base. If the lip hadn’t been there, all of the evidence would have blown away.” He patted a bulge in his chest pocket, telling me he had some of the dust on him.

“Then it’s definitely murder?” I dreaded the answer.

“I’m not ready to say that.” Paul looked around the room as if one of the empty chairs might overhear. He frowned once more and then stood. “I should get the evidence in so we can run the proper tests,” he said. “Though I’m pretty sure I already know what we’ll find.”

“Great.” I stood. “Let me know.”

“Even if it is peanut dust, I doubt we’ll be able to use it as evidence in court.”

“Why not?”

Paul sighed. “The room has sat open for a few days now. A good lawyer will say that anyone could have come in and planted the dust at any time. And really, it isn’t like we’re going to get fingerprints from the dust particles, even if we do prove that he was murdered. There were no fingerprints on the vent.”

My stomach plummeted. “Oh.”

He nodded distractedly. “But I will let you know what I find out.” He turned toward the door.

My heart stopped its pitter-pattering and instead did a huge leap and a hiccup. “Paul?” I asked, too afraid to move his way, lest I scare him off.

He stopped and turned to me. “Yeah?”

“Is everything all right?”

He wiped a hand over his face, looking suddenly a lot more tired than he had before. “As much as it can be, I suppose. I just found out for sure our man was probably murdered. I’m going to have to log extra hours looking into this, especially at his wife.”

“It’s not her.” It was out of my mouth before I could stop it.

“Why do you say that?” He didn’t sound offended or overly interested. In fact, he just sounded weary.

“Just a hunch,” I said. “I’d focus on her mom. And maybe the mistress.” I paused. “Both of them.”

Paul cracked the faintest of smiles, gave me one last nod, and then strode out of the building. I watched him go, wondering if I’d done something wrong. I would have thought he would have at least brought up our date, especially after Vicki’s parting jab, but there’d been nothing. Had I already ruined my chance with him? Considering my usual luck with men, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise.

Vicki came up beside me and watched Officer Dalton get into his car and drive off. Trouble was purring contentedly in her arms.

“You hear?” I asked, unable to look away from the dwindling shape of his car.

“I heard.”

“Think it’ll help business? We can advertise that our coffee doesn’t actually cause death.”

She snorted a laugh. “Where’s the fun in that?”

Paul’s car vanished around the corner and my world got just a bit darker. Trouble batted me once on the arm as if to tell me to forget about Paul; there were a lot of men in Pine Hills.

Of course, the little troublemaker was right. There
were
lots of men in Pine Hills. I just hoped that when I did find one, he wouldn’t end up like Brendon Lawyer.

Or worse: like the person who had killed him.

18

I hung around the shop for a few hours more because, well, what else was I going to do? I wasn’t really interested in going back home just so I could mope around. I was completely out of Rocky Road and didn’t feel up to going to the store to get some more.

So, in the end, I chose to come to work, after all.

A few customers came in, bought coffee, and one elderly man bought a book. Lena appeared on her skateboard, bought a red eye, and then rolled down the sidewalk, sipping it. I hoped she was careful or she could add severe burns to her list of bodily injuries she’d sustained while riding that death trap.

I must have been moping a little too much, because after two hours of me wiping down tables and looking gloomily out the window, Vicki had had enough.

“Go,” she said. “Find something to do.”

“I have something to do,” I said, indicating the thrice-washed table, which no one had sat at all day.

“Please,” she said. “You’re going to drive me crazy.”

“I can’t just leave you here alone,” I protested weakly.

She gave me her movie star smile and shooed me toward the door. “I can handle this. If we suddenly get busy, I’ll call.”

And out the door I went, still wearing the apron I’d put on. I considered taking it off and handing it to Vicki, but I was pretty sure any movements that didn’t equate to me getting farther away from Death by Coffee would end up earning me another firm reprimand—and I was all reprimanded out.

I left the apron on as I crossed the street to where I’d left my car. I figured if nothing else, it might serve well as advertising. The apron
did
have
DEATH BY COFFE
E on the front.

It took monumental effort not to poke my head into Lawyer’s Insurance as I passed. I had no idea what good it would do, considering Raymond would bite my head off the moment he saw me, and the police had once again been over the office. A part of me wanted to do it, anyway, just to irk the old man a little more before I headed home. But then again, if Raymond Lawyer had killed his son, he might kill me off, just to be rid of me.

I turned my back on the place just as the door flew open, nearly smashing into the wall. Mason Lawyer stormed out, face red. A few choice words hurled by his father chased after him. He stopped when he saw me, and the frown he already wore deepened.

“You again,” he said, as if I’d been out here waiting for him on purpose.

“Sorry,” I said. “I was just heading home.” I gestured toward my car.

His eyes narrowed as if he didn’t quite believe me, and then he gave a frustrated sigh. “Whatever.”

And then, like magic, both our stomachs growled at the same exact instant.

Mason glared at me like I’d planned it, and I did my best to look like it had not happened at all. Despite my best efforts, I could feel my face reddening.

“I haven’t eaten,” I said. Coffee and cookies didn’t count.

Mason ran his fingers through his hair. “Yeah, me either.”

Okay. I might have restrained myself from rushing over the moment I’d seen the cop car pull up in front of Lawyer’s Insurance, and I might have avoided begging Officer Dalton for every ounce of information he had about the case, and I’d even stopped myself from making matters worse by tweaking Raymond Lawyer’s nose by sticking my own nose where it didn’t belong, but there was absolutely no way on God’s green earth that I could possibly pass up this opportunity.

“You know,” I said, taking a step toward him, “I’m new in town. I’d love to sit down and talk for a little bit.”

Mason looked at me as if I’d just sprung horns and pooped on the sidewalk.

“Really,” I said hurriedly, before he could run screaming in the other direction. “I just want to talk.”

Mason looked either way as if he was looking for someone to rescue him before he grudgingly turned back to me. I gave him the smile I’d learned from Vicki, the one that would have earned her any role she could ever want. Mason visibly melted at the sight.

“Okay, fine,” he said. “At least take that thing off.”

The apron left my waist in a flurry of arms and hair. I balled it up and hid it behind my back, like I thought he might forget about it because he could no longer see it.

“I’ll drive,” he said, walking toward his car.

There was a moment where that little voice in my head started screaming:
Mason Lawyer could be a murderer!
If I got into his car with him, he could drive off with me, kill me, and then leave me lying in a ditch somewhere. No one would know I’d gone with him. I knew—just
knew
—that anyone on the streets now wouldn’t remember seeing me with him.

But I really did want to talk to him. If I turned him down now, or went to my car and followed him instead of riding with him, I’d lose a golden opportunity to get to know the man. Without me in his car, he might even change his mind and try to lose me. It wouldn’t be hard; I barely knew my way around Pine Hills. A few quick turns down the right side streets and I’d be as lost as if I’d been dropped into the middle of Eastern Europe.

I smiled, hoping it didn’t look too strained, and slid into his car, next to him.

There are some people you should never ride with: Mason Lawyer was one of them.

He clearly believed the rules of safety and sense didn’t apply to him. He stomped on the gas the moment my door was closed. I was thrown into my seat with a huff of expelled breath. I scrambled for the seat belt as he turned the corner, and I just got it snapped into place as I slammed against the door. His engine revved and we blew through a light that had just turned red.

I have to admit, I spent most of the ride with my eyes closed and my hands gripping what I’d always lovingly referred to as the “Oh, shit” bar, instead of actually saying anything. By the time we screeched to a halt outside J&E’s Banyon Tree, my hand felt as if it was locked into the claw position. I just about had to pry my fingers loose.

Mason didn’t even wait for me to get out of the car before he was inside the diner. I closed the door and ran after him, knowing I looked a mess after my terrifying ride. The guy was a legitimate maniac.

A waitress fluttered over as soon as we were seated. She took our orders—I ordered the grilled cheese and a water, while Mason ordered something called the Tree Burger—and then whisked herself away as if she was going to float off into the clouds and marry the first man who looked at her twice. I had a feeling she needed to cut back on both the sugar and the caffeine.

“What do you want to talk to me about?” Mason asked, folding his napkin onto his lap.

“I know it’s hard, but I thought we could discuss your family.”

He scowled, but he didn’t say anything. The waitress set our drinks onto the table and then vanished again without a word.

“Did you know your brother was cheating on his wife?” I blurted out the question both because I was afraid of him and because I hoped to catch him off guard. I wasn’t sure what I’d learn from it—but, hey, I never said I was good at this.

Mason’s scowl turned into something that would scare little kids. “I knew,” he said. “Everyone did.”

“Did you know he had more than one mistress?”

“Of course.” He took a long drink of the tea he’d ordered and just about slammed the cup back down. Iced tea sloshed over the side and splattered onto the table. “Why does this matter?”

I bit my lip. I couldn’t tell him the police suspected his brother had been murdered. If Mason had killed Brendon, I didn’t want him to know I suspected anything, either. I really didn’t want to end up stuffed in his trunk.

“I don’t know,” I said with what I hoped to be an indifferent shrug. “It happened so close to where I work—it was kind of shocking. And then there are the rumors . . .”

That caught Mason’s attention. He tried not to show it, but I saw the way his eyes widened for a heartbeat, how his hand froze for an instant as he set his silverware onto the table in an orderly fashion.

“What kind of rumors?”

Before I could speak, the waitress returned. She placed a scorched thing that was supposed to be a grilled cheese in front of me and a strange concoction in front of Mason. The bun had been toasted to a dark brown and I was pretty sure it consisted of ham, bacon, hamburger, lettuce, maple syrup, and almond slices. My own heart cried out in protest.

“Anything else?” our waitress asked. Both Mason and I shook our heads and she vanished as if she’d just gone up in a poof of smoke.

I took a moment to think about how I was going to word what I was going to say next. I tried my grilled cheese and found that despite its blackened state, it wasn’t half bad. The cheese might have been a little too gooey and the blackened bread a bit on the crunchy side, but it was still far better than anything I ever produced out of my own kitchen.

“You were saying something about rumors?” Mason prodded just before taking a bite out of his sandwich. Surprisingly, he didn’t keel over from heart failure right then and there.

“Well,” I said, leaning forward, “I’d heard a rumor that Heidi was so upset with her husband, she chose to, well . . . ,” I trailed off, suddenly uncertain I should go on. I was about to accuse this guy of something that some people view just as bad as murder. He might decide to dispense with the trying to kill me in a roundabout way and instead force me to eat his heart attack on a bun.

But there was nothing I could do but go on. If I stopped now, then I might never get a straight answer from him ever again. And with the way everyone else had been treating me lately . . .

I glanced around the diner and lowered my voice. The place was actually pretty packed, making me feel worse about the state of my own store. If only a third of the people I saw drinking coffee here would go to Death by Coffee, we’d be set.

“I heard you and Heidi had gotten together.”

Mason snorted as if dismissing the idea, but his hands squeezed on his sandwich, squirting maple syrup and almond slivers onto his plate.

“Where did you hear a thing like that?”

I shrugged, hoping he wouldn’t kill me for bringing it up. “Around.”

Mason ground his teeth together and looked at his Tree Burger like he might take his frustrations out on it instead of my head, which was a good thing in my book.

“It’s a lie,” he said, still staring into his toasted bun. “Nothing but a pack of lies.”

“So you and Heidi never . . . ?”

“Of course not!” he roared. Everyone in the place turned to look at us. They stared for a few moments before turning back to their meals, though I could tell most of them were now leaning our way in the hopes of catching some juicy gossip of their own.

Mason glanced from side to side, set his Tree Burger down, and then leaned closer.

“Look,” he said at a near whisper, “Heidi and I are friends. Brendon was a dick to her and she needed a shoulder to cry upon. I lent her that shoulder, but I would
never
take advantage of her. Everyone is so busy blaming each other for what happened to Brendon, no one is seeing how torn up Heidi is over his death. Maybe if more people cared about something other than themselves, they’d see it.”

I cringed back into my chair. I detected nothing but honesty in Mason’s voice. I felt like a royal jerk for even thinking he could have had anything to do with Heidi, outside friendship, let alone with Brendon’s death.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to insinuate anything.”

He smirked. “Of course, you did. Right now, that’s pretty par for the course around here.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Mason started to speak, but I never got to hear what he had to say.

“Out!”

I just about fell out of my chair. The command had been barked directly into my right ear. I managed to choke back my yelp of surprise as I turned into the furious face of Judith Banyon.

“I said, get out!”

“What did I do?” I asked. I snatched up my grilled cheese and held it up like a tiny blackened shield against the woman’s rage.

“You opened up that dirty place downtown just to steal my customers,” she all but shouted into my face. “I won’t have you here advertising yourself.”

My mouth fell open. I wasn’t advertising myself. I wasn’t a product. I’d even taken my apron off before coming. It was sitting in Mason’s backseat.

“Judy, please.” The soft voice came from behind her. Eddie stood there, looking chagrined.

“Please, nothing,”
Judith snarled. “This woman is here to steal our customers. She wants to kill them with her poison coffee!”

“That wasn’t my fault!”

“I don’t care!” Judith roared. She bared her teeth at me. They looked strong enough to snap steel, so I stood, holding my flimsy shield protectively in front of me.

“We just came in for a bite to eat,” Mason said, his voice full of reason. Out of all of the Lawyers I’d met, he sounded like he could actually have
been
a lawyer. He could talk a bear out of its cave, his voice was that smooth. “We aren’t here to cause trouble.”

Judith snorted. “If you knew what kind of person you were dining with, you wouldn’t feel so secure, mister.” She waved a finger in front of his face. “I have my sources, you know.”

And I knew who that source was. She was probably sitting in front of her window even now, waiting for me to get home with her binoculars at the ready.

“I have it on good authority that this woman is nothing more than a harlot who can’t even make coffee that doesn’t kill anyone who drinks it.” Judith glared at me. “She’s even trying to seduce sweet Jules Phan!” That earned her a gasp from the crowd. “I’ve even heard rumors she screams about killing people while in her own home.”

I was about to protest, but then I remembered how I’d threatened Misfit. I doubted anyone would care that I was referring to my cat, and not an actual human being.