CHAPTER 6
By two o’clock I headed out with a fat bank envelope on my way to deposit the weekend till. I had my ever-present EpiPen in a bag I wore slung across my chest. I’m a person of many allergies, and bee stings were the worst of them. While I perambulated, I thought I’d stop in and have a chat with Gin, too.
Derrick had arrived at the shop at eleven, and our grandma had bustled off to the rest of her day. We’d had a busy few hours. When I’d asked Derrick why he was late, he’d said he had a meeting to attend. AA. I always encouraged him to keep up with his recovery, but it didn’t usually make him that late.
“Try to find an earlier meeting, okay?” I’d asked.
Business had ebbed a little while ago. I carpe diemed the heck out of the lull by leaving the shop in his and Orlean’s hands.
First I popped into Greta’s Grains, Tim Brunelle’s bakery, a three-minute walk from my shop. My boyfriend closed right about now. I went around to the back door and pulled open the screen door. Tim was wiping down the stainless counter. He paused to give me a big one-armed hug and a kiss worth a million times what I held in my bank bag. The place smelled of yeast and bread, but he was way more delicious than anything he baked, and that was saying something.
“How are you, Mackenzie Almeida, most gorgeous woman in Westham?”
I laughed. I had short curly hair matched by my lean, almost-boyish body, a product of an inherited high metabolism. Gorgeous I definitely wasn’t, but if I fit the description in his eyes, it was all good.
“I’m all right. Did you hear the news?” I asked.
“That something bad went down at the Lobstah Shack?”
“Right.”
“I heard a little, but no details. My assistant baker called in sick, and I’ve been flat out.”
“Tulia called me this morning before I made it to the bike shop. When she sounded panicked, I went over. She found Annette DiCicero dead in her walk-in. And not merely dead.”
His big baby blues went wider still. “Murdered?”
I stuck my hands in my jeans pockets and nodded.
“Are you okay, hon?” He laid his strong hand on the side of my face.
“I’m all right.” I filled him in on the rest of the morning. “I have dozens of questions. I have no idea who would have killed Annette or how she got into the walk-in. Did you know her?”
“She used to come in with her little girl.”
The now motherless daughter. “Have you ever had any contact with Phil DiCicero’s business?”
“Furniture guy, right? I met him at some Chamber of Commerce mixer a couple years ago. Hicks, his partner, hired me to bake for an event his church held last year. The dude, name’s Ogden, seemed a little odd, but I did it.”
“Odd? How so?”
A bit nervous. Avoided eye contact. That kind of thing. Nothing big.”
“What’s Phil like?” I asked.
He made a little grimace. “He’s got some attitude. Made a crack he tried to disguise as a joke about how tall I am. Kind of silly.”
“Abo Reba said it’s a short-male insecurity, that he’s like a bantam rooster.”
“That’s a good description,” Tim agreed. “Leave it to your grandma. But the daughter, now, she’s a darling. Cokey’s age, more or less.”
My niece Cokey, Derrick’s daughter—whom he was bringing up by himself—was in kindergarten.
“I always give little ones a ball of dough to play with if they want it. Kendall and I are buddies. She’s a pistol.” His smile slid off. “But now she doesn’t have a mommy.” He set down his rag and pulled me in for an embrace.
My man had an enormous kind heart, and he adored children. We were ever so gradually moving toward an agreement to have some of our own, with me being the one applying the brakes for reasons I strived to overcome.
I pulled away after a few moments of listening to the beat of his heart, inhaling his scent. “I have to keep moving, sweetheart.” I held up the bank bag. “Book group is meeting on an emergency basis tonight to talk about the case, but do you want to grab a quick dinner before I go?”
He kissed my forehead. “I’d love to, but I promised the Dudes to go for a beer. Tomorrow for sure, yes?”
“Yes. Beer is actually an excuse to play chess, am I right?” The Dudes were a few guys, plus one Dudess, who loved nothing more than a few rounds of chess over brews.
“You know me too well, my dear.”
I pulled open the screen door. “Love you, Tim.”
“Love you, Mac.”