“Come in!” Autumn heard the quiver in her own voice. Now, she was sure, she was looking just as stressed as Fenella. She was behind a desk where she had no right to be, looking through private papers. With somebody bursting in, she’d better come up with a good reason for her presence, and her actions.
The woman who entered was someone that Autumn recognized. She was one of the coffee sellers, who’d been having the impassioned discussion with a fellow salesperson yesterday. Emily, that was her name. She and Carter had both been trying to outdo each other in bragging.
“Ah, I need your help, please,” the woman said, not even looking closely at Autumn. She must think she was just an assistant.
"How can I help?" Autumn replied politely. She could keep up the pretense for a few minutes. She couldn't actually answer any questions. And, of course, if Fenella came back, then big trouble would land.
"I need to know where I'm judging. We've got a barista blend competition coming up and it has two different sections," the woman said. "There's the Custom Coffee section and the Commercial Blend section. I can't remember which panel I'm on or where I'm supposed to be. Please, help. I have a nasty feeling it's starting in a few minutes."
This poor woman was frantic. Autumn sympathized with her predicament. Being late was terrible, and as a judge, she had to be on time and make a good impression. Now, anxiety was flashing from her hazel eyes, and tension visible in every line of her short but trim, turquoise-suited, body.
“I’ll try to find it for you,” Autumn said, now derailed from her current objective and on a new mission of assistance.
“Try? What do you mean, try? This is the organizer’s office. Aren’t you the organizer?” Emily demanded.
That was a precarious path that Autumn wasn’t willing to venture down at this time.
“Well, ma’am, I’m not the organizer. The organizer has headed out to fix a problem in the men’s restrooms. I am just a helpful member of the public.”
“Oh.” She sounded less mad at Autumn now. “I appreciate your help. Really it’s my fault, for having mislaid the list I was sent. It was just so chaotic here yesterday, and there were so many clients to meet up with.”
While she was talking, Autumn was frantically searching. Surely something like a judges’ list would be near, or at, the top of one of the trays? After all, if the competitions were taking place today, then this woman couldn’t be the only one who’d need to know where and when to go. There were probably going to be streams of worried people filtering in.
She grabbed frantically at the topmost papers in the first tray. Searched through. No luck. How about the second one? Nope, these all seemed to be exhibitor forms. What about this one?
“Please, help!” Emily’s voice was quivering with stress. “Emily Wilkins. Can you find my name?”
“I’m trying. I’m trying.” Autumn hunted through the papers, feeling stress rise inside her. She’d expected to be stressed at this moment, but for different reasons.
“Here it is!” she said. “I’ve got it!”
A double-page document, neatly stapled together, with a heading that was both in capital letters and in bold. "JUDGES TIMETABLE".
With a finger on the paper to guide her, she looked down the neat columns, ready to help this judge at this crucial time.
“Okay. You’re in luck,” Autumn said, deeply relieved. “You’re judging right here, in the Festival Main Hall, at the far end, next to the coffee tasting competition. There’s a side room called The Annex, and that’s where you need to be.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you, that’s so helpful.”
“Are there any other times that you need?” Autumn said.
“There’s the afternoon one, but I think I know where that one is. It’s at South beach Lodge, at three p.m.?”
“That’s correct. Well, good luck,” Autumn smiled. “May the best coffee blender win.”
The judge hurried out, and Autumn shook her head. Doing that impromptu good deed had left her very short on time. At any moment, Fenella could return, and she hadn’t even located the list of attendees yet.
But, as she was about to put the judges’ paper back, a name near the bottom caught her eye.
“Gavin Garrett”.
“Wait, he’s there?” In shock, Autumn grabbed the sheet and took a closer look.
She couldn’t believe it. There was his name, in black and white. Her good deed in helping Emily had unwittingly rewarded her, because Gavin Garrett was not only at the festival, but he’d been invited to be a celebrity judge, too.
Trevor Brewster would have been appalled. If he’d been alive, Autumn was sure he would have choked on his own coffee when he read the news. But the point was – he wasn’t alive, and perhaps Gavin’s fame in being asked to judge, and his good fortune in having been able to get this far without a huge outcry from Trevor, had been because he’d stealthily eradicated the man who intended to destroy his life.
Everything had worked out very fortunately for Gavin, and Autumn couldn’t help wondering if he’d had a part in creating his own good luck.
He was judging at a competition that was taking place along the Coffee Route. It was at the Gardens venue, a quaint tearoom that was located on the opposite side of the island from the harbor. At eleven thirty a.m., the Gardens Tearoom was hosting the Fruity Flavors competition, where coffee brands that had fruity notes would be competing against each other to decide on – well, Autumn guessed it would be which was the fruitiest. She didn’t know exactly. But a panel of three judges were assessing the entries, and one of them was Gavin.
They needed to get to the Gardens Tearoom, and fast.
Autumn jumped up from the seat at the desk, which she’d ended up perching on while she searched for the list that Emily had needed. Just in time to hear footsteps approaching.
“There might be one other small issue that needs your attention,” she heard Ben saying, in a strained voice, as the footsteps neared.
“It will have to wait, Dr. Hartley. I have to be here, at my desk, now. There may be queries coming in.”
Fenella rushed in, and rounded the desk, as Autumn quickly shimmied in the direction of the door.
She gave Ben a conspiratorial nod, and relief filled his eyes.
They hurried out.
“You found it so soon? That’s amazing,” Ben said, as they rushed down the corridor. “I was hoping to delay Fenella with the issue of a missing light bulb in the men’s restroom. I noticed it yesterday. But when I got there today, someone had already fixed it!”
“Oh, no. That must have been a nasty moment,” Autumn sympathized, now on a zigzag route through the back corridors, to the main road.
“It was. I bought some time by saying I thought it was flickering, but all in all, it was a lost cause, and now I fear that Fenella thinks I’m weird,” Ben said.
“I’ve found that’s an unwanted side-effect of investigating,” Autumn said. “But I’m sure that when she brings her cats for their next checkup, you’ll redeem yourself in her eyes.”
“I hope so. By the way, where are we going? Was Gavin on the guest list, and if so, why are we heading out?” Ben asked.
“Because he’s not just on the guest list. He’s a celebrity judge. And in exactly twenty minutes, he’ll be assessing the Fruity Flavors competition, up at the Gardens Tearoom,” Autumn said, unable to conceal the pride in her voice at having gotten this information.
“That’s brilliant of you to work it out.” Standing in the road, Ben quickly got on his phone to call a buggy. "But that's also very worrying, because it shows you that he's benefited from Trevor's death. If Trevor was alive and he'd seen his name on that list, he'd have caused a massive outcry. I doubt that Gavin would have ended up judging, if Trevor had started complaining about those lawsuits, and that defamation."
Autumn nodded as the buggy, which must have been just around the corner, pulled up and they got in. Ben was thinking along the same lines as her. It was easy to see the motive for the murder. Being a celebrity judge would raise Gavin Garrett’s profile, bring readers flocking to his blog, and benefit his reputation.
She felt a sense of tense certainty, as they headed toward the Gardens Tearoom, that they were going to meet the killer there.