Gray, Autumn decided. Matching today’s low, threatening, wintry skies, gray was the color she was going to wear as she headed to the festival. There was a good reason for it. She wanted to stay as undercover as she could. Nobody, nobody must notice her.
She chose a gray top, charcoal pants, a pale gray jacket, and she even found a silver headscarf to cover her hair. Strawberry blond stood out. Today, she wanted to blend into the background for as long as she could, and hopefully, for long enough to find the killer.
Taking a deep breath, gathering her courage, she took one last look around the guesthouse. It was neat and clean. The guests had headed out, and her cleaner was upstairs, tidying the rooms. When that was done, the breakfast dishes would be washed. There were no check-outs or check-ins today, cookies had been replenished, the fire in the living room was gently crackling so that any guest who came in from the cold could warm themselves there.
Now, it was time. No more delaying.
“Max, I wish I could take you with me,” she said. “But if someone tried to kill me, there’s no way you’re going near that festival today. You can go into the backyard, and I promise I’ll walk you later.”
Imagine if someone fed Max a poisoned cookie? He’d wolf it down before Autumn even realized. She knew her dog. He wasn’t fat, but he had a healthy appetite and a love for treats. Nope, home was the safest place for him today.
With that decision made, she got her purse, and strode up the road, going at a brisk speed to counter the chilling effects of the wind. It wasn’t keeping visitors away. The ferry had just arrived, disgorging a whole crowd of guests, who dispersed to the waiting buggies, with a few hardy souls deciding to walk up the hill and brave the cold.
Guests were thronging into the festival. The pumping music coming from inside was even louder and more vibey than it had been yesterday. Autumn glanced around warily, wondering where the killer was. Was he or she nearby? She couldn’t risk as much as a sip of anything today. In fact, she realized her skin was prickling at the thought of a syringe needle being plunged into her skin.
Shivering, she acknowledged that yesterday had taught her anything was possible.
There was Ben. And he was heading toward her, with hope in his eyes, holding an iPad in his hand.
Did he have a new lead?
She hurried toward him, glad to get away from the crowd.
“It’s good to see you. That gray suits you. And it makes you look mysterious,” Ben said.
“That’s the idea. I’m flying under the radar today.”
They kissed, in a way more passionate at ten in the morning, than Autumn could remember doing for years. Maybe forever. Ethan hadn’t been a morning person.
“I found a source of information we could potentially use,” Ben said. “There’s a media file on the coffee festival. It contains links to a whole bunch of useful resources. It might help us to read through it.”
“Yes, that’s a great idea. The media releases might give us a better overview than we’ll get from walking around and listening in to random conversations.”
It seemed like Ben was having more good ideas than she was. Well, she had been partially killed yesterday, if that was the right way to put it. At any rate, she’d survived.
She flattened herself against the wall next to him, letting the crowd stream past. The iPad was a bigger size than a phone and easier to read. Autumn watched intently as Ben scrolled through the headlines.
Fabulous Festival Launches.
Big Wins Ahead at Coffee Tasting Competition.
Record Crowds Expected At Coffee’s Leading Event.
Autumn sighed. "I think we're looking in the wrong place," she said. "We need to do a general search on the coffee festival and try to find the articles that they didn't want us to read. The ones that maybe show some of the island's coffee purveyors in a bad light."
“I get you,” he said.
To save time, Autumn took out her phone. And she started on a few searches including Trevor Brewster’s name, and bad things. Words like ‘cheating’, ‘fraud’, ‘dislikeable’, ‘unreliable’, and as many others as she could think of.
Irritatingly, she seemed to be drawing blank after blank as her search progressed. From beside her, Ben’s tut-tutting and frustrated sighs showed her that his search wasn’t going well either. But Autumn wasn’t giving up. All it took was one. After all, only one person had killed Trevor. And that was the hatred, the motive, that they had to dig deep to uncover.
Then, just when she wasn’t expecting it, she saw it.
“Coffee Blog Gets Roasted.”
It was a competitor's blog, and the article was both funny and well-written.
“It seems as if a blogger, specializing in critical articles of coffee shops, has gotten himself ‘roasted’ in turn, after his words backfired.”
“Hey, Ben!” Reading on, Autumn leaned over, showing him the phone screen. “Look here. This is interesting. In fact, I’ll go further. It’s fascinating.”
Ben leaned over, reading aloud the words that Autumn was showing him.
“Gavin Garrett has, for months, been writing an amusing blog about the bad side of coffee shops all over the Lake Michigan coastline. These ‘roastings’ have focused on inferior brews, disappointing service, substandard décor, and other nitpicking observations in his humorously satirical blog, Coffee Critics. With the tagline, “Still in Search of the Perfect Cup,” he has never pulled his punches, and many might say he’s exaggerated the failings of the cafes he’s visited for the sake of laughs. Until one coffee shop owner decided to fight back.”
“So you see,” Autumn said. “Trevor Brewster didn’t take this with a sense of humor, like the other store owners did, and he didn’t just brush it off either. It made him bitterly angry, and look here. He retaliated harshly. Very harshly.”
“My lawyer has gotten involved in this,” Ben read, “and The Local Brew will be taking steps to sue Coffee Critics for defamation and inaccurate representation of the facts. It's about time that this mean little man is put in his place and that he learns the consequences of his actions. I am going to destroy his blog and his life. Gavin Garrett will learn what it means to maliciously criticize an honest business. You won't be seeing his blog up for long, and I’ll take him for every penny he has, and a few more he doesn’t yet possess.”
Ben stared at Autumn, and she stared back at him in concern.
“That was a direct threat,” she said. “Gavin Garrett must have received that lawyer’s letter. That article was written a few days ago, and something tells me that Trevor Brewster was the vindictive type. He wasn’t one to threaten to do something without doing it first. His lawyer was probably the only person he actually paid for his services.”
Ben nodded, frowning. "Yes. I can imagine he wouldn't say that in public unless that lawyer's letter was already on the way. The question is – what did Gavin Garrett do in his defense? He had a legitimate and believable threat to destroy him. Would he have taken it? Or for the sake of his blog and his survival, would he have tried to manage that threat before the worst of it landed?"
“Dead men can’t sue?” Autumn said grimly.
“Exactly,” Ben said.
“He could have clumsily made it look like an accident, knowing that there would be so many people in town for the coffee festival that nobody would think it was him. Especially seeing that article, and that threat, didn’t get a lot of mileage. It was a local paper that wrote it, a small town paper. Even the island’s own media didn’t cover it.”
“Maybe they didn’t even know about the blog? Or else, they weren’t prepared to support him in that endeavor? I know the blog was a bit cruel, and it poked cheeky fun, but anyone who read it could see it was lighthearted. It seems like one of those blogs that actually make you want to go to the places, despite the insults.”
“Yes. The blog posts poke fun at the writer himself, as well as at the places he critiques. So maybe yes, our local news sites decided to stay out of it.”
“Where is Gavin Garrett based?” Autumn asked. “He obviously must have come to the island to commit the murder, if he was the killer.”
"And he must have stayed here if he tried to poison your cocktail last night," Ben pointed out.
“The lure of the coffee festival must have been too strong for him to resist,” Autumn said. “But we’re theorizing. There is a guest list for the festival, and we need to see if he’s on it.”
Ben nodded. “Let’s go in and ask Fenella.”
“Only we need to do it discreetly,” Autumn warned, thinking again of how easy it would be to plunge a loaded syringe into her arm. “I know Fenella is not a killer, but I think she has a habit of talking to people. So, if possible, we need to find this out without alerting her."
“It will be better to do that,” Ben said somberly.
"I wonder if you could distract her while I sneak in and take a look at the guest list?" Autumn suggested.
“Distract her? With what? A pointless question, perhaps?” Ben frowned.
"You might need a few of them," Autumn said. "I'll have to find the list and then work my way through it. It might take a while."
“Okay. I see what I need to do.” Ben took her hand. “Come on. Operation Guest List is under way.”
They headed into the festival, showing their tickets at the door, and then, they turned in the direction of the small organizer’s office.
It was at the back, next to the coffee-tasting competition, and that was proving wildly popular today. There was a long queue for the tasting booths. The organizers were being kept busy, rushing to and fro with coffee jugs and stressed expressions, making sure that every tasting cup contained the right coffee. Would anyone win it, Autumn wondered. Eight different cups to get right? It seemed a remote chance, like winning the lottery.
Ben tapped on the door of the organizer’s office, and a moment later, a stressed, “Come in,” resounded from inside. That was Fenella’s voice. She was in there, buried under a mound of paperwork, Autumn guessed.
When Ben pushed the door open, she saw her guess was right.
Fenella had three different in trays piled on her desk, each one teetering under a mass of paperwork. Booking forms, competition rules, exhibitor information and more, all stacked up in the trays.
“Ah, Ben,” she said, looking up at him with a smile that looked as stressed as her voice sounded. “How can I help you? Hello Autumn,” she then said immediately. “Are you okay? I hear there was an incident yesterday night.”
Autumn realized her intuition was correct. Fenella did hear about everything that went on, and she shared it, too. Probably without even realizing she was doing it.
“I’m fine, thank you,” Autumn said, not wanting to give any details. It would be better if the killer thought she wasn’t fine.
“I was wondering if you could come with me quick,” Ben said. “There’s something in the men’s restroom that needs your attention. I’d like to show you. Probably best if we go in together.”
“Oh, goodness. On top of everything else?” Fenella looked so distraught that Autumn felt bad about the fact she was having to leave her desk for no reason. Then again, maybe there was a reason. Ben was clever, and he wouldn’t have lured her out of the office without having some small glitch to show her.
She had no idea how long they would be, but for now, the office was empty. Autumn sneaked inside, pushing the door closed behind her.
She stared at the piles of paper, her mind racing, wondering where the harassed Fenella would have filed the list of ticket sales.
There were so many places it might be, that this was going to come down to sheer guesswork. She hurried over to the first in tray and began looking through it. Where would a list be? Near the bottom? At the top? It would presumably be a long document because there were hundreds of people attending. That ruled out single sheets.
Autumn began to hunt through frantically, with the uneasy sensation that the clock was ticking, and that once this chance was gone, they wouldn’t get it again.
And then, just as she turned to the second in tray, the worst happened.
There was a loud hammering on the office door.
Someone was coming in – and from the sounds of it, they were in a panic.