The following morning, bright and early…
It felt like ages since I’d last opened the Starlight Cafe.
I met Francesca at the front doors at 07:00 a.m. sharp, nervous for the day to come. Would I have to out Roxanne to the police after yesterday’s discovery?
No amount of stroking Waffle’s furry ears had calmed me down this morning.
“Are you OK, Milly?” Fran asked. “You’re kind of pale.”
“I’m great.” I opened the front doors of the cafe and we entered. Fran headed for the back to start cleaning up. We wouldn’t be serving any customers today, though I doubted anyone in Star Lake would be dropping by after all the recent rumors and allegations.
Today was cleaning day. Cleaning up after the police had done their job.
Thankfully, they’d done cleaning of their own, but I wanted to make sure that the Starlight Cafe was spotless.
I stopped at the glass counters, empty of treats, and glanced over at the waffle station.
Poor Angela.
It seemed like years ago that she’d been murdered. So much had happened, from the boating blowout to my investigation into her death. Really, it had been little over a week.
“No use crying over spilled milk.” I set to work washing the floors, pausing once in a while to check the front of the store and the sidewalk.
Where had Angela come from? She had to have stopped on the way to the cafe because she’d been wearing the scuffed sneakers here, but Roxanne had seen her with heels on.
The bell above the cafe door tinkled, and Gran entered.
“Good morning, dear,” she said. “How are you holding up?”
“I’m doing great, Gran.”
My grandmother gave me a look that said she knew otherwise. Today, she wore her favorite art overalls and they were spotted in colorful paint.
“Are you really?” Gran took a seat on a puffy bar stool in front of the counter. “I don’t suppose you’re serving coffee today?”
“I’m not serving anything,” I replied, “but I can make an exception for you.” And I was in dire need of a coffee myself. I fixed three, one for me, one for Gran and one for Francesca. After I’d taken Fran’s through to the kitchen, I returned to the counter and stood behind it, sipping from my mug.
“You don’t want to sit down?” Gran asked.
“No. Call it nervous energy, but I’d prefer to stand.”
“I know you’ve been working hard on this investigation, Milly,” Gran said, reaching out to stroke the back of my hand. “This must be difficult for you.”
I swallowed the emotion in my throat. Between losing Dad and giving up on my dream of being a detective, there wasn’t much space left for emotion. But the threat of losing the cafe was just as painful.
“When I’m not busy with work,” I said, “I feel anxious.” It was tough to admit that, even to Gran. I figured it was far better to pretend everything was OK and keep on moving. Fake it until you make it? “This case has kept me busy at least.”
“You’ve been through a lot, dear,” Gran replied. “This will pass. You’ll find yourself again. Find your groove.”
“You’ve been through a lot too, and I don’t see you freaking out.”
“That’s because I spend most of my time freaking out while I paint. Have you seen my overalls?”
I laughed.
Gran took a sip of her coffee. “So, what can you tell me? What have you discovered about Angela’s death?”
I withdrew my phone from my pocket and started going over my notes. “So far, I know that Peter and Angela may have had a rocky relationship, and that he wanted to get into her house the day after her death, even though he didn’t have her key. Did she change the locks beforehand?”
“OK. So Peter’s still a suspect.”
“Yeah. And I know that Roxanne was blackmailing Angela.”
“Oh really?”
I explained what I’d discovered, and my Gran’s eyebrows climbed at the new information.
“That’s quite something,” she said. “I told you that Roxanne is no good. She’s happy to threaten and cheat to get money but she won’t accept anyone’s offered help.”
“I wondered if it was the victim of the near-death accident, the hit and run, that may have come back to town to take revenge on Angela, but that doesn’t make too much sense to me if this person was a tourist. And if they didn’t know it was Angela in the first place.”
“Yes. They would’ve reported her.”
“Exactly,” I said. “I’m puzzled about two things. Angela’s strange shoes, and her dealings with the boaters. Apparently, this business venture had something to do with the boating industry. Or so Roxanne says, and it’s safe to say I can take everything she says with a healthy dose of skepticism.”
“The boaters wouldn’t take kindly to Angela moving in on their turf,” Gran said, with a sip of coffee. “She wasn’t one of them, and they’re infamously hostile to the other factions in town and even people who aren’t a part of any faction.”
I nodded, staring out of the glass front doors of the cafe, wiggling my nose.
“What is it, Milly?”
“I can’t help but think that Bob Binkins’ stabbing is related to Angela’s. And now that there’s a connection between Angela and the boaters…”
“You think it was one of them?”
“It makes sense to me,” I said. “But the evidence has to stack up correctly.” And I was fresh out of evidence. So far, I’d proven that Roxanne Maas wasn’t the nicest person in Star Lake, and that Peter potentially hated cats. And that was about it.
“What are you going to do?” Gran asked.