THOUGHTS OF HOW Emmy Lee Barstow had been found kept me thrashing about most of the night. After Steve headed home around four, I gave up on the notion of sleep and trudged over to my mostly empty refrigerator. Not because I was hungry. I needed to fill my head with another image, even if it were just to create a visual grocery shopping list.
After I sucked down the last of my French roast, showered, and dressed for work, I felt as ready to face the day as I was going to get. But it was barely five o’clock and the Chimacam County Sheriff’s deputy working security didn’t like it when we arrived before he did, so to distract my brain from circling back to those pictures of Emmy Lee I decided some mindless baking was in order.
“Good morning,” I called out minutes later, when Duke’s kitchen screen door banged shut behind me.
My great-aunt Alice frowned at the clock mounted above the red and white Coca Cola sign that had hung on the wall since the first day the cafe opened. “You’re up early. Couldn’t sleep?”
I didn’t want to get into the reason why. “New bed. Probably have to get used to it.”
Measuring sugar into a stainless steel bowl, Alice nodded. “Some things take a little time.”
Some things more than a little, I thought as I hung up my coat.
“It’s too early to go to the office, so you might as well put me to work.” Please.
“Haven’t made any muffins yet. Want to handle that?”
I’d filled her bakery shelves with so many muffins over the years that I could do it on automatic pilot. “Perfect.”
As I reached behind her butcher block table for a mixing bowl I inhaled the mouth-watering aroma of Alice’s award-winning chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven. Between the oven and Duke’s doughnut fryer, a cooling rack stood ready and waiting for the two dozen pies that would be featured during this afternoon’s pie happy hour, just like it had for as long as I could remember.
The sights, sounds, and smells of the kitchen were normal, predictable, and so bundled into a routine of repetition that it would drive most people nuts.
I loved it. For me it was coming home—exactly what I needed this dank and dreary morning. Along with a couple of those cookies.
“Don’t tell me, let me guess,” Duke said as he ambled toward the table with a porcelain mug of coffee in each hand. “You couldn’t sleep because you felt so guilty about not paying for all the food you eat around here.”
I smiled sweetly at the old goat. “You took the words right out of my mouth.”
After he delivered one of the mugs to Alice, his eyes narrowed, watching me tie a white canvas apron around my waist. “It’s that investigation you’re doing, isn’t it?”
“I just woke up early. You know, not used to the new bed.”
He aimed a smirk at me on his way to the doughnut fryer. “You’re such a bad liar.”
“Am not.” At least not usually.
Aunt Alice lifted her gaze as I took a seat across from her. “Is there any news since we talked yesterday?”
I shook my head.
“Is that a real no, or does that mean that there isn’t any news that you can share?”
“It’s really no. I have an interview or two to do later, but until…” I almost mentioned the autopsy scheduled for this afternoon. She wouldn’t want to hear about it, and I didn’t want to think about it. “…everything gets wrapped up, I doubt there will be much news.”
She reached for the sack of flour in the middle of the table. “And would one of those interviews be with that doctor?”
It had better be or Shondra was going to have my hide. “Maybe.”
Alice nodded. “Good. Because where there’s smoke there’s fire.”
Or as Steve suggested, there was just an old flame who happened to be back in town. And then Emmy Lee just happened to kill herself a few weeks later.
Yeah, I wasn’t buying that.
“You mentioned two interviews,” Alice said, waiting expectantly as I sliced a cube of butter into my bowl.
Me and my big mouth. “Did I?”
“You did. So spill it. Who’s number two?”
“I really can’t say.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“I’m not supposed to talk about the case.”
“You were talking about it yesterday.”
“I was asking questions yesterday. That’s different.”
Alice puckered. “Kinda splitting hairs, aren’t you?”
Probably.
I shrugged having said all that I was going to on this subject.
We worked in relative silence for most of the next hour with her barking out the occasional instruction at me, like she had done most of my working life in this kitchen—which was fine. Her roost, her rules. There just seemed to be a little more pucker factor behind the bark this morning.
I didn’t hear much else out of her until Lucille stepped through the kitchen door around six-thirty.
“You’re late,” Alice grumbled.
“I know.” Lucille squeaked over to the rack and hung up her damp coat next to mine. “I spent all night thinking about who might’ve bumped off Emmy Lee.”
Great. My probable suicide had just been proclaimed a murder by Duke’s resident conspiracy theorist.
Alice glowered when her friend of over forty years sat on the wooden stool next to me. “Don’t even bother. She’s not talking.”
Lucille waved her away. “That’s okay. I got a theory, so I’ll talk. You listen.”
Swell.
“First of all, you gotta think motive and opportunity.” Lucille nudged me in the ribs. “That’s what they always talk about on those cop shows on TV.”
Stifling a yawn, I nodded and wished I had a cookie. Lucille’s theories were always more palatable accompanied by a cookie chaser.
“Let’s start with opportunity.” Lucille drew an X in the layer of flour dust coating the table. “Emmy Lee’s here, enjoying her life with her family, and suddenly…” She drew a second X next to the first one. “…Tim Osborne comes back to town to reunite with the woman he loved.”
She was jumping to a very large conclusion. “We don’t know that’s why he came back.”
Lucille gave me a knowing smile. “Doesn’t matter.”
Doesn’t matter? If her theory was going to hold any water the reason Dr. Osborne came back to Port Merritt would have to matter.
She drew another X in the dust. “Who would be the most upset to learn that Emmy Lee and the old boyfriend were seeing one another again?”
“Her husband,” Alice and I said in unison.
“That’s the obvious answer. The cops always look at the spouse first.” The Law and Order aficionado made a fourth X with her index finger. “But what if there were another woman waiting in the wings? A woman who had her sights set on a rich doctor, and she’s not about to lose him to an old love?”
“So she eliminated the competition,” Alice chimed in.
Lucille brushed off the flour from her hands. “Exactly.”
Having spent hundreds of hours in this kitchen, listening to Lucille spin some pretty outlandish theories, I had to give the woman credit. She’d done some mighty creative spinning in the night.
She also had some major problems with her theory.
I pointed at that fourth X. “You don’t know that he’s involved with another woman.”
“He could be,” Lucille said. “Good-looking guy. I’d almost bet on it.”
“We also don’t know why he came back. It could have nothing to do with Emmy Lee.” Although I did intend to ask what had brought him back to town.
Lucille’s thin lips curled with satisfaction. “Told you. That doesn’t matter. It’s only what the person who offed her thinks that matters. And if she thought Emmy Lee was trying to go for a husband upgrade, that’s motive, my dear.”
“Yeah.” Motive that didn’t appear to have anything to do with a guy in a ball cap.
“I’m gonna ask around.” She patted me on the shoulder. “I’ll let you know if I come up with any likely suspects.”
Okey dokey.
Emmy Lee’s death investigation would be wrapped up in no time.
* * *
After scarfing down the bacon and eggs that Duke had insisted upon feeding me for the two hours of occupational therapy I’d taken advantage of, I stopped at my favorite espresso stand for a mocha latte. By the time I rolled into the courthouse parking lot, the rain had stopped, I’d been fortified with caffeinated chocolate, and I’d received a text from Steve with an invitation to lunch.
My day was looking up.
Minutes later, I walked by Patsy’s desk with the expectation that I’d be on the receiving end of an attagirl for arriving early two days in a row. Instead, she pointed at me with a stubby index finger. “Perfect timing.”
I had a sinking feeling my day was going to take a sudden turn for the worse.
She weighed down my arms with a cardboard box full of manila file folders. “Shondra needs two copies made of everything.”
Shondra needed to get herself an administrative assistant for this kind of crap. “Today?”
“It’s for a noon meeting.”
It wasn’t yet eight o’clock—too early to call Dr. Osborne to schedule a meeting. If I had to isolate myself in the copy room for an hour, maybe Patsy was right. Maybe this was perfect timing. “Fine.”
It just didn’t feel so perfect when the copier overheated and started jamming every fifth page. “You turkey!” I yelled, pounding the ancient contraption with my fists. “If you jam one more time—”
“What on God’s green earth do you think you’re doing?” Shondra asked, glaring at me from the doorway.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to get so loud.” I had learned early on that anyone in the Prosecutor’s office with assistant in their job title was supposed to be seen and not heard.
“Screw that. What are you doing in here?”
Wasn’t it obvious? “Making copies.”
“You better not be doing that for me.”
I cringed. “Someone had to.”
“Girl, you need to learn how to say no.”
I knew how to say it. My problem was that Patsy wasn’t accustomed to hearing it, especially from me. “It’s okay. I’m just about done.”
Shondra cast a skeptical glance at the two rows of labeled folders laid out on the floor that had yet to be filled. “Uh-huh. Don’t spend all day in here. You have more important things to do.”
Try telling Patsy that.
Almost an hour later, I wheeled three boxes on a hand truck into Shondra’s office. She was on her cell phone, so I stacked the boxes next to her desk and tried to duck out without disturbing her.
“Hold on,” she said. “Charmaine.”
I looked back over my shoulder.
“Thanks. You call that doctor yet?” Her mouth stretched into a warm smile. “I know I told you it was okay to say no, but that’s not the answer I want to hear.”
I nodded, once again dancing around the truth—something I knew I’d better not make a habit of with this savvy prosecutor.
Putting her phone back to her ear, Shondra gave me a thumbs-up.
It wasn’t the attagirl I’d hoped for earlier, but I took it gladly as I hightailed it to my desk, where I opened Emmy Lee’s blue folder with Tim Osborne’s information to make an honest woman out of myself.
Just as I started punching in his number I noticed I had a voice message and proceeded to listen to Elaine from Dr. Osborne’s office tell me that she’d made a three o’clock appointment for me to meet with the doctor in his office.
A little late in the day but beggars couldn’t be choosers. This meant that my trip out to the wilderness area of Crooked Lake needed to be the next item on my agenda, especially since I had a noon lunch date I didn’t want to be late for.
I bundled the folder into my tote, grabbed my coat, and headed down the hall.
Patsy’s eyes bored into me as I entered her territory. “Going somewhere?”
Always the self-appointed hall monitor. “I have an interview.”
“Could you stop at the post office?” She held a white envelope in her hand.
“Sorry, I’m late as it is.” And Shondra thought I couldn’t say no.
“It needs to go out certified mail today,” Patsy said, increasing her volume as I blew by her.
Gritting my teeth, I did an about-face and snatched the envelope from her.
Patsy gave me a smug smile. “Be sure to get a receipt.”
Yep, I definitely needed to get better at saying no.