Chapter 8

After phoning Lily to tell her I had to make a detour and couldn’t be sure when I’d be back—I left out the part about the police station—I changed my mind about going there at all. My staff needed me right now. And I had to get back to relieve Tony so he could go home and get some sleep. The next few weeks were bound to bring about grueling hours for him.

Hoping not to upset him, I dialed Detective Griffin back and let him know I had to get back to the inn immediately and could he please meet me there. He hesitated, then agreed. Since he would be at the inn this afternoon, I hoped he interviewed everyone on staff today to get it over with. I didn’t want it hanging over us like a malevolent cloud, causing nothing but anxiety. 

Aspen and I had no sooner walked in the front door of the inn when Detective Griffin arrived. The guests who were outside enjoying the beautiful day strolled in shortly after him. I assumed out of curiosity. It’s not every day there’s a murder at the place one was staying—thank God. I couldn’t fault them for wanting answers. It impressed me that more of them hadn’t checked out, tires squealing as they made their escape.

“Good afternoon, Detective,” I said.

He nodded his head in acknowledgment. “Do you have somewhere private we can talk?”

I felt all eyes on me. As a taller-than-average redhead, I was used to people giving me a second look. I didn’t exactly fit into what society considered the norm. Heck, not just my hair and height, but all of me was far from society’s consideration of normal. I had legs up to here, which served me well in track and field during high school and college, so there was that, at least. But this was hardly the same. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other and felt my cheeks warm. 

“Let me check in with Tony, and then we can go back to my office.”

He waited by the front desk while I escaped the proverbial heat to let Tony know I’d be back to relieve him as soon as I finished the interview with Detective Griffin. Then he could beat it and get some rest.

“I can’t imagine he won’t want to talk to you before you split, though,” I told him. “Has he called you yet?” 

“Yeah, but he said he wanted to talk to you before the rest of us.” He cast me a sidelong glance. “Probably to get the dirt on each of us.”

“Well, you know I don’t play that way. At least, I hope you know that by now.” 

“He’s probably hoping it is one of us so he can wrap up the investigation and close the case fast.”

Tony’s words left echoes of discomfort. If his statement held an ounce of truth, Detective Griffin’s focus would fall solely on us, and he might not investigate anyone outside the inn. 

“There’s nothing more to do here until we get the green light to reopen the kitchen.”

“I’ll ask him if he has any idea when that will be. I hope we can get the all-clear so we can prep dinner.” I turned back toward the doorway and said over my shoulder, “We’ll be in my office. Call if you need me for anything.”

“Is your ringer back on?”

I turned back toward him. “Yeah. I turned it back on after the meeting.”

My staff all knew about my AA meetings. Shortly after the start of my sobriety, Brad said I had nothing to be ashamed of and that if someone was going to criticize me for improving my life, that was on them. I smirked at the memory and the irony.

“Back soon.” I waved and returned to the entrance area where Detective Griffin waited. Jade squirmed and looked uncomfortable under his watchful eye, like she wanted to be anywhere but there. Her pale complexion took on a greenish hue and I wondered if she might puke. And if so, from dis-ease or pregnancy? Lily, on the other hand, gave him no mind. 

“Ready?” I asked him, eliciting a look of relief from Jade.

“Want me to keep Aspen?” she asked. “He’ll like it better; I can guarantee it.” Her offer earned a scowl from Detective Griffin.

If ever I needed an ESA, it was now. “No, I want to keep him with me. Thank you, though.”

The detective stood and followed me to my office. I closed the door behind him. If he planned to confront me about my dispute with Ivan last evening, which I was sure he was, given his tone when he called, no one else needed to hear. I only wished Aspen could testify on my behalf.

I gestured to the chair in front of my desk, then went around and sat behind it. He sat back and tugged on the front of his button-up shirt as if loosening it from around his beefy neck. Jeans, no tie, no jacket; police appeared to keep things casual here in Spirit Lake. For that, I was grateful. Denim, whether on me or anyone else, always made me comfortable. And barefoot. Oh, how I loved to go barefoot whenever possible. I wriggled my toes, wishing I’d changed into my flip-flops.

“Are you interviewing my staff today as well?”

“Planning on it. But it depends on how our conversation goes. Perhaps not all today.”

“Jade—the younger gal from the front desk—asked me to be with her when you do.”

He looked at me over the rim of his glasses, a second chin protruding. “And why is that?”

“Ivan was a friend of hers. She’s distraught.”

“She looked like she was in her late twenties, early thirties. She’s not a minor, nor are you her guardian. So, no, you won’t be able to do that.”

“If I’m sitting by her with my mouth shut, helping her to be more comfortable, what could it hurt?”

“She might not be as forthcoming with information if you’re there. That and my interviews with everyone are private.”

“Is that the law?”

“Mine,” he said, his lips in a firm line. No budging room there, no, sir.

Despite my disappointment, I told him I understood. The last thing I wanted to do was argue with him and get on his wrong side, especially given my circumstances. I stayed silent, waiting for him to open his notebook and flip it to the desired page. 

“Tell me about last night,” he said.

“I wrote it all in my statement.”

Again, he looked at me over the rim of his glasses. “All of it?”

“Yes, from the minute I got to the inn and found Ivan until you all arrived.”

“Seems to be a pretty big piece from before you came back to the inn that you neglected to mention.”

My stomach was getting to be a professional at flipping and flopping. I picked up a pen and began toying with it, focusing on it instead of Detective Griffin.

He cleared his throat. “Ms. Kaczmarek?”

I forced my gaze to meet his. “It’s not how it might look. I was meeting my boyfriend at Brewski’s Pub. While I waited for him, Ivan came into the pub, saw me, and walked on over.”

“And?” 

“He hasn’t liked me since I took over the inn almost six months ago. When I arrived, he took that as an opportunity to stop baking dog biscuits.” 

He scrunched his face, a cross between a frown and amusement. “Come again?” 

“You heard right. Dog biscuits. I told him we would continue making them because several businesses in town bought them from us. This town is very dog friendly,” I explained.

“I know. I’ve been here for many years. And I’ve bought some biscuits for my own dog. But I don’t understand how that created a ruckus between you two.”

“So if you’re from here, you know how popular they are,” I said, grasping at the opportunity to connect with him on some level. “They’re not a moneymaker, which Ivan thought made them a nuisance. He said professional chefs don’t cook for dogs. I disagreed, told him I’ll take over baking them so he didn’t have to, and he blew a fuse.” 

Detective Griffin scribbled furiously in his notebook. When he stopped, he looked up at me with a confused expression. “So the whole thing was over dog biscuits?”

I shrugged and broke eye contact.

“Ms. Kaczmarek?”

I fidgeted with the pen some more, cleared my throat, then said, “And my use of the kitchen to bake. I told Ivan that since he’s so unhappy under my ownership, he might want to look for another job.” I looked back up at him. “Life’s too short, Detective. We spend far too many hours of our day at work to be miserable.”

“Couldn’t agree more,” he said. “That’s why I’m hanging it up within the next year. Maybe earlier.”

“You don’t like your job?” I asked, grasping at yet another opportunity to connect with him, hoping to help with my case.

“Time to move on and figure out what to do with the rest of my life.”

“I’m a certified life coach who helps people find their purpose and passion. I’m also a relationship coach.” One had to laugh at the irony of that, given my history with relationships, but I comforted myself on more than one occasion with the phrase my father used to say, those who can, do; those who can’t, teach. “I don’t have my office set up to accommodate it yet, but I will within the next few months. Just putting that out there for you.” I slid a business card across the desk toward him. 

He snatched it up, glanced at it briefly, tucked it in his shirt pocket, then said gruffly, “We’re not here to talk about me. What else happened last night at the pub?”

“I asked him for the recipe for the dog biscuits, and he said I’d get it over his dead body.”

Detective Griffin stopped writing abruptly and looked at me. “Well, that sure seemed to have happened, huh?”

“I didn’t do this, Detective. I wouldn’t kill over a recipe.” I sure hope Tony didn’t, either.

“What would you kill for, then?” 

He watched me closely, but I didn’t respond. I didn’t appreciate his inference and wanted to withdraw my life coaching offer pronto. “From what I heard, he returned to the inn to retrieve a recipe after leaving the pub. My guess is it was that specific one. For the dog biscuits.”

“Who told you he was coming back for the recipe?”

“One of my staff.” I cringed when I realized what I’d done.

“Who?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Really.”

“It was late. I got into a minor disagreement with my boyfriend—”

“First Ivan, then your boyfriend—sounds like it wasn’t your night. But I bet if you tried real hard, you’d be able to remember who told you that.”

I exhaled and sighed. “Jade,” I mumbled. 

“And how’d she come by that information?”

“Because they’re friends—were friends—and they’d talked on the phone.” Innocent enough. “I heard Ivan was in an altercation with someone by the name of Mike Swanson a couple of days ago; that one was also at the pub.”

“Who told you that?”

“Can’t tell you.”

“Do I need to remind you—”

“No, I mean, I really can’t tell you. I heard it in my AA group. Anonymous?”

He shook his head and muttered, “How convenient. Any other incidents you know about?”

“I heard Luka Molotov and Ivan are longtime rivals.”

His eyes widened. “The deacon at St. Michael’s?”

I nodded. “The same.” 

He narrowed his eyes at me. “You seem to know more about the people in this town in the short time you’ve been here than I do in my long-term position. One of the small-town gossip mongers?”

“Far from it, sir.”

He shook his head slowly and made a grunting noise. “Either way, you’re going to be a problem and an obstacle during the remainder of my time at the police department, aren’t you?”

“I don’t intend to be. But I want to be sure my staff are cleared as fast as possible.” 

“How about you let me work on that,” he warned. “Besides, you might want to be a little more concerned about clearing yourself. The murder weapon, the corkscrew, came from the pub. The name is stamped on it. Can you explain that?”

I shook my head and frowned. “How could I? I don’t drink, so there’s no reason I’d have had it.”

“If you don’t drink, what were you doing at a bar?” 

I took a deep breath and counted to five in my head. “Just because I don’t drink, Detective, doesn’t mean I don’t live a normal life. That’s where my boyfriend wanted to meet, so we met.”

“Can your boyfriend verify you were there and the timeline?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll need his contact information.”

I grabbed a post-it note, wrote Brad’s name and phone number, and then stuck it on the desk in front of Detective Griffin. “I have to go relieve my sous-chef so he can go home and get some sleep. I had to call him in early to cover Ivan’s shift.”

“Send him in before he goes home. Assuming I can use your office?”

“Of course you can. But Tony’s exhausted.” Not to mention he has a nasty hangover. 

“We’re both here, so it makes sense. Shouldn’t take long.” He opened a worn, brown leather cardholder, slipped out a business card, and held it out to me between his thumb and forefinger. “Call me if you come across more news. Which I have no doubt you will,” he snarked.

I reached for the card, tapped it against my other hand, and asked, “I don’t suppose I could ask you to do the same?”

He gave me an amused smile. “What do you think?”

I lifted a shoulder and let it fall back down, as I caught my lower lip between my teeth. “Doesn’t hurt a girl to try.” It looked like I’d be working this out independently. I hoped above hope that Tony didn’t incriminate himself by an inability to think clearly in his exhausted, hungover state. “Do you know when we can use the kitchen again?”

“I’ll check with the State police while I’m waiting for Tony to come in. They assist us with these cases since small towns don’t have the fancy, pricy up-to-date technology.”

I nodded. “Thank you, sir. I’ll send Tony in.”

“I’ll be in touch,” he said as he punched a number into his phone.

I entered the dining room through the side door so no one else saw me and badgered me with questions or concerns. Not yet anyway. I needed a minute to get my head together. I’d meant to ask Detective Griffin who told him about my presence in Brewski’s but ultimately decided it didn’t matter.

Tony was slouched on a chair in the corner, his legs stretched out on a chair in front of him. His head leaned against the wall.

“Tony?”

He opened an eye. “Yeah?”

“You’re up. Detective Griffin is in my office.”

His jaw dropped. “Are you kidding me? My eyelids won’t stay open anymore, and my head is pounding.”

“Sorry,” I said, lifting my hands. “Better to just get it over with. I told him about Mike Swanson—I guess Ivan was in an altercation with him at the pub a couple of nights ago. And I told him about Luka Molotov. I’m hoping he’ll stretch his investigation well outside the walls of this inn.” I nabbed a bottle of Tylenol from a first aid cabinet that hung on the wall and tossed it to him. “Here, pop some of these first.”

“He ask anything about me or Jade?”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

“Jade’s husband?”

I sighed. “As much as I wanted to say something about Tom, no. It serves no purpose except shedding more suspicion on Jade as having a motive, too.” We looked at one another for a moment in silence. “Well? It’s not getting any earlier. Give me a quick rundown of what you’ve planned for dinner and what I need to do.” 

“Kind of hard to do anything at all when I can’t get into the kitchen. Once we know that, we can figure it out.”

“Detective Griffin placed a call to the state forensic team to see when they plan to release the crime scene.”

He groaned. “This day has been a nightmare.”

“Tell me about it,” I grumped back.

He stood, stretched, and shuffled out of the dining room toward my office. Oh, how I wished I had planted a recording device under my desk.