The following morning…
I bid Waffle farewell at 06:30 a.m., yawning on my way out of the door because I’d barely had a wink of sleep last night. It had been difficult to think of anything other than Nora’s murder. After hearing twice today that I was meant to be a suspect in the case, I’d been unable to stop myself from going over the facts again and again.
I’d even opened up my gallery on my phone and taken another look at the pictures I’d taken of the applications to join the Bakers group with their half-eaten cupcakes.
Silliness. Focus on the cafe. That’s what’s important.
Besides, it was like I’d said to Luca. I was only really worried about what law enforcement thought, and, so far, they hadn’t coming knocking with an arrest warrant.
I took the walk over to the Starlight Cafe at a brisk pace. I didn’t have a car, and it was icy cold this morning. Then again, I just had to get used to the weather in Star Lake.
I unlocked the cafe doors, flicked on the lights, and smiled at the tables, their chairs stacked upside down atop them.
A strange smell was in the air. Almost like a perfume, but I couldn’t quite place it. EIther way, it wasn’t how the cafe usually smelled.
I shut the door and called out. “Hello? Fran? Noel? Are you in here?”
But no, I had unlocked the front door. Both Fran and Noel had a key, but they didn’t usually lock up behind themselves after they’d entered. Apart from what had happened to Nora, and that time there’d been a mugger in town, Star Lake was relatively safe. Quiet.
Then again, the last time I’d left the door unlocked, Angela Sampson, my old next-door neighbor had been murdered in front of the waffle station.
With that in mind, I locked the front door again and proceeded toward the kitchen doors. “Noel? Fran?”
I opened the swinging doors, but the kitchen was empty and dark, the steel counters glistening in the darkness.
“Weird. Why do I feel like someone’s here?” I shook my head and returned to the counter and cash register. I dropped my purse under the counter then made for the office door where we kept the safe.
I stopped two paces from it.
The office door was shut tight, but a light was on inside, the sliver of it showing in the gap between the bottom of the door and the floor.
“Hello?” I repeated, and strode toward the office. I opened the door, swiftly, and gasped.
No!
Someone had broken into the office through the back window! The office computer, old and yellow, had been stolen. And my desk drawers had been pulled open, the papers within spilling out. My office chair was upturned, and the filing cabinets had been opened as well and rifled through, almost as if someone had been looking for something.
Evidence?
Could it be that another person in town had taken it upon themselves to try to find evidence that I had murdered Nora? It was the only thing that made sense.
The safe was untouched in the corner. That or the thief hadn’t been able to open it.
I took several calming breaths, exited the office, and fetched my cellphone to call the police. This was too much.
The window was broken, there was glass everywhere, and the computer was gone. The cafe was doing better than it had been, but I couldn’t afford this.
“Yeah, it seems like somebody just got desperate, honestly,” Detective Freedman said.
As the only detective in Star Lake, thanks to his transfer down here from Des Moines, Freedman didn’t just handle murder cases. There weren’t enough of those to keep him employed here all year round. He was now an investigator for theft and other crimes that needed his deductive reasoning.
What there is of it.
“What do you mean?” I asked, standing in the center of the cafe, my arms folded against the apron I’d donned a half an hour ago.
I couldn’t afford to close the cafe, even though I wanted to just for damage control. We needed the money now more than ever.
“What I mean is, times are tough. People need money. Somebody probably heard that you had some money in the office and broke in. Simple.”
“Yeah, simple,” I said. “Except for the fact that they didn’t try to get into the safe, remove the safe, or steal anything else of value.”
“Except for your computer.”
“That computer doesn’t even work anymore,” I said. “It’s been broken for months. And it’s obvious that it’s broken too. It’s ancient. Anybody who wanted to make some money would’ve gone for the safe.”
“Excuse me, Miss Pepper, but is it you or me who’s the detective around these parts?”
Don’t punch him. “You, Detective Freedman. It’s right there in your title.”
“Right, so how about you leave the detecting to me, eh?”
“I’m not trying to do your job for you.”
“Miracles do happen. You’d swear it was already Christmas,” he replied, sardonically.
“I’m just trying to say that it’s highly suspicious that this has happened so soon after the death of Ms. Jensen. Think about it, Detective. People have been talking about me all week, and now…”
Detective Freedman waved a hand in front of my face. “You’re getting ahead of yourself here. Look, just leave the casework to me. I get it. You wanted to be a cop.”
“I was a cop.”
“You wanted to be a detective. Whatever. Look, just let me do my job, and you do yours. Stick to the cupcakes, OK?” Detective Freedman patted me on the shoulder and tucked away his notepad and pen. “I’ll get to the bottom of this one. You’ve got insurance for the window, right?”
I pressed my lips together. “Sure.” It was getting to pay that would be the problem.
“There you go. Problem solved.” Detective Freedman strolled from the cafe, his hands in the pockets of his jeans.
I let anger wash over me for a full minute before I dismissed it. If Detective Freedman didn’t want to play nice, then I wouldn’t. I’d had enough. Officially. First, my knives used as the murder weapon and Detective Freedman’s rude interview at the house. Second, the rumors about me in town even though there’d been no arrest. And finally, this, the break-in.
I couldn’t ignore this any longer. It was time to take matters into my own hands.
If this case was threatening the Starlight Cafe, I’d have to get over my fear of doing detective work and figure this out before it claimed the only part of my father I had left.
Excitement bubbled in my chest. Sleuthing was my true calling, not hospitality, and that made this even scarier. I didn’t want to know what I was missing out on.
But it was time to get serious.