I liked to think that I was an intelligent person. I was in all the academic clubs and events in high school—chess club, spelling bee, AP English. I graduated from UT with honors and went on to become a moderately successful software developer before moving back home to open my own small business.
Of course, I made mistakes. Who doesn’t? But I liked to think I learned from my mistakes, and this conversation was red flag city.
Letting Beau lull me into dropping my guard with a friendly grin and a few well-timed “Shucks” was, to be perfectly honest, par for the course. Truth be told, I had a soft spot for him big enough to drive a tractor trailer through. He knew it, and wouldn’t hesitate to exploit it. But I wasn’t mad at Beau for being Beau. I was mad at myself for letting him get away with it. Again.
“Before I answer that, I need to talk to my brother-in-law,” I said.
“Shucks, Junebug, you don’t gotta bring J.T. into this,” he said, his drawl getting more pronounced as he laid it on thick. “Can’t two old friends have a casual conversation with getting lawyers involved?”
I nodded. “No doubt. But this? This is no casual conversation.”
True crime podcasts, murder mystery books, and even reruns of Law and Order had taught me well. Blue lips on a dead body meant one of two things. Mayor Bob either froze to death or he was poisoned. Intense air-conditioning or not, I could safely rule out hypothermia. Of course, the detective in charge was focusing on anything that the mayor ate or drank before his death, and while I was a part owner of Sip & Spin, I hadn’t brewed that pot of coffee he’d drunk out of or handed him the cup. My oldest sister had. And anything I said could get her into trouble.
I held out my hand. “I’d like my phone now.”
“You can have it back in a minute,” he said. “But first…”
I stood up. The squeal of the chair sliding across the hard floor made my teeth ache. Rather than worrying over the return of my cell phone, I strode over to a phone mounted on the wall near the door. I lifted the handle, pressed nine, and got a dial tone. It took me a second to remember J.T.’s number, but he’d insisted that we all memorize it instead of relying on speed dial. I was glad he had.
Personally, I never answered my phone if I didn’t recognize the number, but my brother-in-law didn’t have that luxury. “J.T. Taggart speaking,” came his familiar voice after two rings.
“It’s Juni. I’m at Town Hall being questioned about a murder.”
“Again?” he asked.
“Again,” I confirmed.
“Hold on, I’m on my way. And Juni, it goes without saying but…”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” I told him. “Don’t say anything until you get here.” I heard a sigh on the other end of the line before he hung up. J.T. had to assume I’d already said too much, but he was riding to my rescue anyway. Family. Am I right? I turned to Beau. “My lawyer’ll be here in a minute.”
Beau raked his hand through his hair before settling his cowboy hat back on his head. He stood in a smooth motion and spun his chair back into position, without making the annoying screech that I’d made. “Like I said, it’s not necessary.” He let out a sigh. “There’s nothing more important to you than family, so if you’re clamming up, that means that one of your sisters served him the coffee. Which one was it? Maggie or Tansy?”
“Neither,” I said. “It was self-serve. Mayor Bob poured that cup himself.”
He pulled out his phone and glanced at the screen before walking in my direction. “Jayden just had a chat with Tansy and confirmed that your sister made the coffee this morning. We’re taking the coffee maker and any remaining cups and fixings as evidence to test, but since no one else has gotten sick, I don’t reckon we’ll find anything.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “You know you can trust me, right?”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. While we were in here, his partner was questioning my sister. Seemed like a dirty trick from someone who wanted my trust. “I want to trust you,” I said.
“Let me walk you out.” He scooped up the formerly iced coffee.
I followed him, noticing that the hall leading to Mayor Bob’s office was still bustling with activity. I didn’t recognize most of the people wearing white paper gowns with matching masks. I presumed these were crime scene techs from Austin. Cedar River didn’t have enough crime to need our own. I glanced over at Beau. Even our only detective was part-time.
Beau handed me my phone. “We needed to talk to Tansy before the word got out about what happened. I’m sure you understand.”
We stepped outside. I blinked, adjusting as the sunlight beat down on me. The parking lot was now full of tourists’ cars. Beau’s police car and the crime scene van were blocking the driveway. J.T.’s BMW pulled up in front of the town hall. He stepped out of the car. Beau waved at him. J.T. scowled in return as he hurried toward us.
“I know we had a date tonight,” Beau said, as if we weren’t standing outside of a crime scene. We were supposed to go to dinner and a movie. “Obviously I’m going to be working. Rain check?” He bent down, adjusting his hat so he could kiss my cheek. “I’ll call you later. And look, I know people talk and news travels like wildfire, but try not to say or do anything that might impede our investigation. At least let us notify the widow before you start spreading gossip. Please.”
J.T. joined us. “Stop harassing my client,” he told Beau.
Beau raised both his hands. “She’s all yours,” he said, before walking away.
“Juni?” J.T. asked.
“Mayor Bob is dead. I found him.”
J.T. rubbed his eyebrows with one hand as if he had a headache. “Of course you did.” He put an arm around my shoulders and steered me in the direction of his car. “Come on, let’s talk in my office.”
I waved my hand at my trike. “Let me get the stuff out of my basket first.” We walked over to my tricycle and I lifted the stickers out. “I should get these to Tansy, and I have a feeling she might need your services more than I do today.”
J.T. looked around at the stream of pedestrians heading toward Cedar River Memorial Park. “It’s probably too much to hope for a parking spot closer to the festival?” he asked.
“Yeah. Those spots were taken a while ago,” I agreed.
He looked down at his cowboy boots, then over at my feet. My tennis shoes might not be fashionable, but they were made for walking and standing all day. “I guess we ought to get started. You can fill me in while we walk.”
I texted Tansy to let her know that we were on our way. While J.T. and I strolled through the park, past the lush patches of bluebonnets where people posed for selfies, I told him everything I knew. By the time we made it into the throngs of tourists, I’d worked up an appetite. The morning’s events aside, the smells of food roasting, frying, smoking, and baking coming from the food trucks lining the park paths were calling my name.
“Hold up,” I said, when I couldn’t take it anymore.
“We don’t have time for this,” J.T. grumbled, but he knew better than to argue.
“In a feat of extraordinary willpower, I walked past the honey roasted brisket, the spicy taco in a bag, and the caramel apple booths, but the day that Juniper Jessup passes up a fried ice cream and churro sundae is the day I’m dead,” I told him.
“Don’t I know it,” he replied.
The line was long but it moved quickly, and soon we were at the window. As I placed my order with the bored teenager behind the counter, Carole Akers deserted her post at the deep fryer to pay attention to us instead. I’ve known Carole since we were both in pigtails. We were in Girl Scouts together. Her parents owned a pool, so she was the most popular kid in school. Now she owned a successful chain of food trucks that had been featured on two different food shows.
“Juni! Is it true?” she asked, leaning her head out the window.
“Is what true?”
“Is the mayor dead?”
I looked over at J.T. He shook his head. “Don’t. You’re already in enough trouble.”
The woman who had ordered before me picked up her ice cream. “I heard he was stabbed to death with a pencil,” she said.
“Don’t be silly,” the man in line behind us said. “The elevator door crushed his head.”
The first woman scoffed. “And you call me silly? There are no elevators in the police station where he was killed.”
“Help,” I mouthed to J.T. He made a zipping-the-lips motion in return.
I knew that the rumor mill was fast, but this was downright ridiculous. Mayor Bob hadn’t been dead long and the stories were already flying. Although, to be fair, I wasn’t exactly sure when he’d died. It had taken me a while to pedal to the shop, prepare three drinks, and then ride to Town Hall. He was still holding his coffee, but I had no way of knowing if he’d drunk it immediately or if he was one of those people who let their coffee get cold and then—shudder—heated it in the microwave.
I hadn’t noticed a microwave at his office, but there had been a mini-fridge next to the filing cabinets. The refrigerator at Tansy’s house was covered in magnets, notes we leave each other, and invitations to weddings or baby showers. The one in the mayor’s office had been free from any decoration. Like his desk with its large green blotter, a simple stainless steel pencil cup filled with matching pens, and an empty outgoing mail basket, it was functional and generic. Even his laptop, which had been closed, was a plain black model. Elections were coming up in the fall, which meant that Bob had been mayor for nearly twelve years, and he had yet to personalize his office. How sad.
“Juni, you stay right there,” Carole told me. “I’ll bring your order around the side.” She turned to the teenager. “Her ice cream is on the house. And tell your cousin his break’s over, I need him back on the fryer.”
While we waited for Carole, I turned to J.T. “Speaking of cousins, I met Kitty today. She seems nice.”
“She’s fantastic,” he said. We stepped to the side to let the next customer order. “I keep meaning to introduce you two, but she’s always working.”
“That’s no excuse. She’s family.” J.T. might be my brother-in-law, but he’d married Maggie while I was just a teenager, and I thought of him as a brother. “Give her my number and tell her to text me.”
Before he could respond, Carole emerged with two large balls of fried ice cream on a bed of churro bites, topped with whipped cream, a sprinkle of cinnamon, and a bright red cherry. She handed it to me. I plucked a plastic spoon out of the condiment tray mounted to the side of the truck and took a bite. “Tell me everything,” she demanded.
“This is delicious,” I said around a mouthful of melty ice cream and warm, crunchy batter.
“I already know that,” Carole said, losing patience with me. “What about the mayor? Is he really dead? Was he strangled with his own tie? Is it true that he was wearing only boxers?”
I shook my head. How did these rumors get started? I guess what the grapevine lacked in accuracy it made up for with speed and imagination. “I’m not supposed to talk about it, but that’s not what happened.”
Carole grabbed my elbow, arresting my spoon halfway to my mouth. A dab of ice cream spilled over the edge and dripped onto my shoe. “So Mayor Bob’s alive?”
I sighed. Beau had asked me not to contribute to the local gossip, but everyone was going to talk about it whether or not I kept my lips shut. They might as well have their facts straight. “Unfortunately, he is deceased. But he wasn’t strangled. And he was fully clothed. The cops haven’t had a chance to notify Faye yet, so please keep this to yourself.”
Carole waved her hand at me in a dismissive gesture. “Faye’s on a cruise to Alaska with her sister. You know how cell phone reception is on those cruises.”
“Actually, I don’t. I’ve never been on a cruise.”
“You should try it. You’d love it. But Faye won’t get her messages until they pull into the next harbor, and by then everyone in town will already know everything, so you might as well spill it. Speaking of spills…” She turned, snagged a napkin, and dabbed at my chin. “You’re making an absolute mess.”
“Yeah, well, we should really get going,” J.T. said before I could respond. “Great seeing you, Carole. Tell Hank I look forward to seeing him on the links so I can win some of my money back.” Carole and Hank had been a couple since high school. He’d proposed to her at graduation, and they’d been happily married ever since.
J.T. took hold of my upper arm and propelled me away from Carole’s food truck. “I let Hank win.”
“Sure you did,” I agreed, but I knew better. J.T.’s competitive streak was one of the things that made him such a good lawyer. I couldn’t imagine him letting anyone win. I’d once watched him humiliate a circuit judge over a round of pool, which couldn’t have been great for his career. “Want a bite?” I held out the spoon.
“I’m good,” he said and kept walking. That was just like J.T. to keep his eyes on the prize, even when fried ice cream was right there for the taking.
When we got to the DJ booth, we had to wade through a crowd four or five people deep to get to my sister, who was looking harried. Our mother was beside her in the booth, along with an older man I vaguely recognized but couldn’t name.
“Juni!” Tansy said as soon as she spotted me, and the crowd turned to stare at me. “Took you long enough.” She looked over at our brother-in-law. “And you. Where were you when I needed you?”
He shrugged and turned to my mom. “Bea, if you don’t mind, I need a word with your daughters.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got this,” Mom assured him. Unlike Tansy, she looked like she was having the time of her life. Holding court in the middle of a town scandal was her happy place.
J.T. and I pushed our way around the side of the crowd and joined Tansy behind the booth. As soon as we were close, my oldest sister hissed, “Juniper, what on earth did you get us into this time?”