After Kate flipped the sign on the bakery door to “open,” she grabbed the ancient avocado phone on the wall and dialed the flower shop.
“Flowers Maximus, this is Maxi.”
“Maxi, I can’t leave the shop right now, but I learned something that could help us. Can you come over for your next coffee break?”
“Of course. See you soon!”
Kate stared at the phone in her hand as the line went dead. She shrugged. The florist must have had a customer.
Maxi breezed through the front door less than a minute later, with Oliver by her side. “So what’s the news?”
The pup stretched his neck, put his nose high, and sniffed furiously. Then he trotted into the kitchen and stationed himself by the table. Like a guard on the alert.
“As Oliver’s already deduced, I’ve got some cheddar biscuits cooling. How about you pour us a couple of mugs and I’ll grab us a plate?”
“Don’t keep a poor old flower lady in suspense. ¿Qué pasa?”
“I think I know who broke into the bakery.”
“Well, I still don’t think it’s Carl. Or Harp.”
“Stewart Lord,” Kate said.
“No!”
Kate nodded. “Think about it. The guy was always impeccably dressed—right down to the soles of his handmade shoes. And I found out from Rosie and Andre that he was a smoker who was constantly sucking some kind of anise breath mints. Muriel used to talk about the smell. And he died the next day. So we never considered him as a suspect.”
“But why would he break into the bakery?”
“No idea. But I have a feeling it had something to do with his plans to buy the shop. And Coral Cay.”
“Maybe he was looking for something,” Maxi said. “Something he could use against Sam. To make him sell.”
“I’m guessing he didn’t know I was upstairs when he broke in—but he found out pretty quick. So he probably didn’t have a chance to finish what he started.”
“And the next day, he was gone,” Maxi said. “So he couldn’t try again.”
“Which explains why the break-in was a one-off.”
“It makes sense. But can we be one hundred percent sure?”
“No,” Kate admitted, shaking her head. “Not yet. I smelled three things in the shop right after the break-in. Cigarettes, anise, and something else. Something cloying—like a sweet soap or cologne or deodorant. And so far, I can only link Stewart Lord to two of the three.”
“Plus the hard shoes,” Maxi added.
“Plus the hard shoes,” Kate conceded.
“But we also found that Coral Cay has a lot more smokers than we thought,” Maxi said, grabbing a biscuit, breaking off a piece, and slipping it to Oliver. “And we learned a few of them have hard shoes, too.”
“I can’t explain it, but this just makes sense. It’s a sneaky move. And Lord was a total sneak. And it fits the facts we have. I mean, Harp likes anise. But not so much that we ever smelled it on him. And both he and Carl smoke, but secretly. So secretly that we never smelled cigarettes around them.”
“Yeah, because their wives would kill them,” Maxi said.
“Exactly. But Stewart Lord walked around exuding a cloud of the stuff. And…”
Kate paused. She recalled the moment Lord entered the bakery. Something about him had made her skin crawl.
“What is it?” Maxi asked.
“When Lord walked into the bakery, for some reason I just wanted to run.”
“Well, yeah, he was a real cabrón.”
“No, I mean, this was visceral. Before he ever opened his mouth. Before I knew who he was. Or why he was there.”
“His smell,” Maxi said simply.
Kate nodded. “I may not have realized it at the time. Not consciously. But the last time I smelled it—that mix of scents—I was afraid for my life.”
“So when suddenly it’s there again—thump, thump, thump—your heart beats the mambo, and you want to run away.”
Kate nodded. “I want to know for sure. If it was him. And why. This could really help Sam. But how do we find out?”
“I have an idea,” Maxi said, grinning. “How do you feel about a little road trip?”