An icy drizzle was falling as Harriet hurried from her car into The Steaming Cup. It had taken less than an hour to deal with the dogs and switch cars, but Lauren had beaten her there. Her Christmas must have been a doozie.
She ordered a London Fog latte and, when it was prepared, carried it to the table where Lauren sat, nursing a large black coffee.
“Yesterday must have been bad if you’re drinking the hard stuff.”
“It was the usual fun event at the Sawyer household. My parents picking Les apart and me trying to make peace among everyone, all set to the background of my aunt spouting the latest pop psychology on the topic at hand. How was your first Christmas with your baby boy?”
“Christmas Eve at James’s parents was great. Christmas Day dinner was bizarre.” She described Aiden’s girlfriend, the surprise proposal, and the aftermath. “Hopefully, Julio’s second attempt this morning at the restaurant went better.”
Lauren sipped her coffee.
“That definitely tops Christmas combat at the Sawyer’s.”
“I felt sorry for Julio.”
“Great minds think alike,” Aunt Beth said as she came up to their table. “Is this private, or can we join you?”
“We?” Harriet said and looked behind her aunt.
“Connie and Mavis will be along in a minute.”
Harriet got up and dragged a couple of additional chairs to the table.
“We got a partial license plate number for the gray sedan that’s been hanging around my house,” she said when everyone was seated with their drinks.
Mavis set her mug down with a thunk.
“And?”
“And…nothing yet. This just happened last night. I left Morse a message, but I haven’t heard back. We may not need her help, though. We took Luke to the stable this morning, and he got Emily to confess that Jade did not, in fact, leave the country but instead has been hiding out at the stable.
“Before we could track her down, she disappeared, and then the stable manager drove off in her gray sedan. We’re making the assumption Jade was hidden in the car.”
“Could you tell if it was the same car?” Lauren asked her.
Harriet smiled.
“It looked like it to me, but you know I’m not good with cars. We’re lucky I knew they were both gray sedans.”
Connie tapped her spoon on the table.
“So, we’re back to thinking Jade is our killer?”
Harriet sipped her latte.
“I wouldn’t go that far. She could be hiding from the killer. And I guess I can understand why she would lie to me about her whereabouts.”
“But we can’t rule her out,” Lauren finished for her.
Mavis pulled a piece of wool felt from her bag and began attaching a flower petal to the black background with a blanket stitch.
“So, does that mean we’re back to square one?”
Harriet leaned back in her chair.
“You know what I’ve been wondering? We know, or suspect we know, that a number of the shopkeepers in the downtown area are being blackmailed. Then, that whoever is doing this escalated to killing people—or attempting to kill them, in Jade’s case.”
“Okay,” Lauren said.
“Who is the one merchant among them who didn’t make much of a secret about being blackmailed and yet has not had a hint of an attack on her person?”
“Sunny,” Mavis and Beth said at the same time.
“And,” Harriet continued, “while Jade has had her store burned, and an apparent attempt made to steal her horse, nothing has happened to her personally. What if Sunny has been helping Jade?”
“Diós mio, why would Sunny and Jade want to harm the rest of the downtown merchants?”
Lauren made a face as she took another sip of her black coffee.
“Were they both friends of Valery’s daughter? Maybe they blamed him for her death.”
Harriet stood up. “That doesn’t explain all the deaths.” She walked to the service counter and came back with a thermos of half-and-half and several packets of organic sugar. She handed both to Lauren.
“I can’t stand watching you torture yourself any longer.”
Lauren took the seasonings and began stirring them into her coffee.
“What if its plain old greed? Maybe Sunny and Jade are having money problems and decided to prey on their more prosperous competitors?”
“Why did they select the particular shops they did?” Beth asked.
Harriet sipped her latte thoughtfully.
“Their victims have skeletons in their closets they wouldn’t want exposed, otherwise, it wouldn’t be blackmail. Vern was implicated in Val’s daughter’s death. He was exonerated eventually, but I’m sure he wouldn’t want to be dragged through the mud for a second time. Daniel had AIDS, and Millie had a convicted killer working for her.”
Lauren sipped her doctored coffee and smiled. “That’s better. Now, what about Valery?”
“We don’t know, but judging by the two thugs who were pretending to be family at Val’s funeral there could be something there,” Harriet said.
Beth dunked the leg of her gingerbread man in her tea and bit it off, chewing slowly as she considered the idea.
“Not that this should be a reason in this day and age, but Val’s son also had AIDS. He said he met Daniel at a support group. Maybe Val was Old World enough to pay to keep that quiet.”
Harriet sat back in her chair.
“Still, it doesn’t seem like multiple people would stop paying the blackmail all at the same time, resulting in them being killed. You’d think after the first murder they’d be scrambling to scrape up the cash to pay the blackmailer.”
Lauren took another sip of her coffee. “Or leaving town,” she said.
Mavis tied off the thread on the back of her piece and cut it with her little scissors.
“I still think it’s Valery’s wife, seeking revenge for her daughter being killed and her son getting AIDS.”
Lauren pulled her tablet from her bag and typed in a reminder.
“Sorry, I was supposed to follow up on her, but I got distracted with all the Christmas festivities. I’ll see what I can find.”
Mavis patted her hand.
“It’s okay, honey, it’s probably nothing anyway. And we shouldn’t take your computer skills for granted. You do have a real job, after all.”
Lauren blushed. “It’s not exactly a burden. I just got distracted.”
“What’s not a burden?” Jane Morse asked as she sat down with her cup of coffee. “I got your message,” she continued to Harriet, “and was on my way back to the office when I saw your car in the parking lot.”
Harriet stood up again. “Let me run to the ladies’ room, and then I’ll tell you all about it.”
Jane was catching up with everyone when she returned.
“I’m not sure how significant this is, but we were at the stable this morning so Luke could ride, and he was talking to his friend Emily, and it came out that Jade did not leave the country to join her parents but has been staying in an attic dormitory in the barn there.”
Morse pulled out her notebook and made a note. “Did you talk to her?”
Harriet shook her head. “No, we didn’t see her. I did attempt to find the barn manager, but she drove off as we were reviewing surveillance video trying to locate Jade.”
“Tell her about the car,” Lauren prompted.
“I’m getting to that. There’s been a gray sedan hanging around my street, and I’ve seen it several other places I’ve been. While we were looking at the video, the barn manager drove off in a gray sedan. And before you ask, I’m not good enough with car types to tell what make and model it was. It looked like the generic cars they give you at rental places.”
“She did get a partial plate off the one in her neighborhood last night,” Lauren added.
Morse wrote another note and looked up.
“I’ll go out to the stable and see what I can find out. With the enhanced security they put in after the attempt to steal Jade’s horse, there should be plenty of video footage to look at.”
Harriet twirled her stir-stick in her fingers.
“It looked to us like someone has edited it. We caught a glimpse of Jade, but she winked out while she was walking down the aisle.”
“Define ‘winked out’,” Morse asked.
“Like someone erased a segment. She was in one frame and gone in the next.”
Morse closed her notebook.
“It’s never easy, is it?”
She started to get up. Beth reached out and held her arm.
“Sit down and have your coffee. You won’t do anyone any good if you get sick from not taking care of yourself. Have you eaten anything?”
Morse sat back down.
“I was going to get a bagel to take back to the station.”
Beth stood up.
“You sit. Crime can wait a few minutes. Do you want your bagel toasted?”
Morse nodded, and Beth went to the counter to order her snack.
Harriet drained the last bit of latte from her cup and set it on the table.
“It still bothers me that Sunny was being blackmailed but, as far as we know, had not had any sort of threat to her wellbeing.”
Lauren tore a fringe on the edge of her paper napkin.
“Maybe Sunny is the only one who didn’t run out of money to pay the blackmailer.”
“That’s hard to believe,” Connie said. “It doesn’t seem like a cupcake bakery would be that much more lucrative than an outdoor store or a print shop or any of the other businesses.”
Harriet balled up her napkin and put it in her cup.
“How about we go to Sunshine Bakery and have a chat with her? We can see if there’s a gray car there, for one thing; and maybe, if we’re lucky, we’ll find Jade. If nothing else, we can flat-out ask Sunny what’s going on with the blackmail business.”
Lauren picked up her used dishes.
“I’m in.”
Connie slid her arms into her coat and looked at Beth and Mavis. “What do you two think?”
“I could use some cupcakes. My granddaughter is coming over tomorrow,” Mavis said.
Beth picked up her purse and her dirty dishes.
“If you guys are going, count me in.”
Lauren and Harriet stood by the door while the other three put on coats and bussed their table. Lauren leaned toward Harriet and whispered, “I love their decision-making process. Mavis drove them, so once she said she was going, the others didn’t have a choice unless they were going to walk home.”
“That’s how they’ve stayed friends so long. They’re considerate.”
Lauren laughed. “I guess you and I are doomed, then.”
Harriet shook her head and joined in laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Beth asked.
They just continued chuckling as they went out the door.