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The rest of the week passed uneventfully. The new sixty-five percent hot chocolate powder arrived and was declared a success – by them and their customers.
Thankfully, they didn’t hear from the detective again.
“He must have realized we’re innocent,” Zoe proclaimed.
Ms. Tobin told them she hadn’t been questioned again, either. Apparently, her friend had mentioned her name to the detective when he’d questioned her.
“This fellow is very zealous, I must say,” Ms. Tobin told them. “I just hope he’s not too zealous.”
“So do we,” Lauren replied with a grimace.
On Friday night they visited Mrs. Finch for craft night, filling her in on their plans to visit the farmers’ market on Sunday.
“How wonderful.” She smiled at them. “Is Annie accompanying you?”
Lauren and Zoe glanced at each other.
“No, I don’t think so.” Lauren shook her head. “I think it will be too much for her.”
“She’ll probably enjoy some time on her own,” Zoe added. “She can play with her toys or have a big snooze.”
“Brrt,” Annie agreed.
On Sunday morning, Lauren gave Annie a cuddle before Mitch picked them up.
“Be good,” she whispered into the velvety soft fur.
“Brrt.” You be good, too.
“I will,” Lauren promised.
By the time Mitch picked them up at nine o’clock, Annie was curled up on the sofa with her toy hedgehog.
“I hope there’s not much traffic,” Zoe fretted as she raced down the porch steps. “Chris says the market closes at noon.”
“That will give us two hours there,” Mitch said easily, smiling at Lauren.
The drive to Sacramento went smoothly, Mitch even finding a parking space quickly.
“There’s Chris!” Zoe jumped out of the car and waved.
Lauren and Mitch followed Zoe as she greeted Chris.
They wandered around the market, browsing local honey, olive oil, preserves, asparagus, carrots, and rhubarb, as well as other fruits and vegetables.
Stands selling California poppies, hyacinths, and other colorful spring flowers dotted the grounds.
Lauren watched Zoe and Chris. They seemed happy together, strolling hand in hand, as Zoe urged him this way and that to check out each stand’s offerings.
Lauren gazed around, wondering what to look at next. Suddenly, she froze. Was that Scott, Jason’s friend? With Jessica, Jason’s ex?
“What is it?” Mitch asked.
“Over there.” She nodded ahead of her. “I think it’s Scott.”
“Scott – Jason’s friend?”
“Yes.”
“Hey, are you guys coming?” Zoe whirled around, her brow furrowed. “I want to check out the – what’s wrong?”
Lauren tilted her head in Scott’s direction.
Zoe’s eyes widened. “That’s—”
“Shh!” Lauren cautioned.
“What are you guys—” Chris looked at them in puzzlement.
“We’re sleuthing,” Zoe told him in an exaggerated whisper.
“Right now?”
“Yes!”
Zoe urged them into a huddle. “What’s Scott doing here?”
“Buying fresh produce like everyone else?” Chris offered.
“I thought I saw Jessica with him,” Lauren said.
“We’ve got to check it out!” Zoe sounded excited.
“There is nothing wrong with Scott and Jessica walking around a farmers’ market,” Mitch told them. “They’re not committing a crime.”
“No, but they are persons of interest in one,” Zoe told him.
There was a pause.
“True,” Mitch finally said.
“Let’s bump into them,” Zoe suggested. It sounded like a command.
“All right,” Lauren agreed after a slight hesitation.
“You’re okay with this?” Mitch asked Lauren in a low tone.
“This is one of Zoe’s more sensible ideas,” she whispered to him, her lips close to his ear.
“I don’t even want to know what her wild ideas are,” he returned in a mutter.
“No, you don’t,” she agreed.
“Let’s do this!” Zoe grabbed Chris’s hand. “We’ll take the lead, and you two can be back up.”
“Okay.” Lauren nodded.
Mitch frowned as he laced his fingers through Lauren’s.
Zoe tugged Chris in the direction of Scott and Jessica. Lauren and Mitch followed. The expression on Chris’s face looked like he was trying to hide a grin.
Zoe and Chris drew alongside Scott, who was inspecting a bunch of daisies.
“But why can’t you buy them for me?” Jessica asked Scott. “I know you and Jason won the lottery—”
“Scott!” Zoe affected surprise. “Hi!”
“Um – hi,” Scott greeted her, looking genuinely surprised – and embarrassed. “Zoe.”
“Yep, from the cat café in Gold Leaf Valley. And this is Chris. Oh, Jessica! Hi!” Zoe grinned at the girl.
“Hi.” Jessica smiled at Zoe, then spotted Lauren and Mitch. “You’re here too, Lauren.”
“Yes.” The scent of Jessica’s cloying rose perfume competed with the natural scents of the flower stand.
“We’re on a double date,” Zoe told Jessica and Scott.
“That’s nice,” Jessica remarked.
There was a pause.
“Jess and I are here having a look around,” Scott offered.
“I’ve always wanted to come here, but never found the time,” Jessica added. “I was usually at Jason’s on the weekends.” As she mentioned her ex, she blinked back tears. “Sorry.”
“It’s perfectly understandable,” Lauren told her.
“Yes.” Zoe nodded.
“Have you bought anything yet?” Jessica dabbed at the tear that had escaped.
“Not yet,” Zoe replied. “Is there a stall you guys recommend?” She looked at the cloth bag Scott held, green vegetable leaves sticking out of the top.
“The organic Swiss chard stand over there.” He nodded in the direction Zoe had just come from. “It looked so good we bought some.”
“We’ll have to check it out.” Lauren smiled at him, wondering if he and Jessica felt as awkward as she did right now.
“It was nice meeting you,” Jessica said, wrapping her hand around Scott’s arm. “We’d better get going.”
The four of them said goodbye and watched Jessica and Scott walk ahead.
Lauren watched Jessica say something to Scott, making him turn into her body. As he did so, the bag containing the Swiss chard bumped his hip. A small piece of paper fluttered out of his jeans’ pocket.
“Look!” Zoe ran forward and picked it up. She held it up as she showed Lauren, Mitch, and Chris.
“What is it?” Lauren peered over her shoulder at the fragment that looked like it measured just over one inch.
“I bet it’s a clue!” Zoe’s eyes sparkled.
“It looks like a torn scrap from a photo.” Mitch frowned. “If we all handle it, there’ll be too many fingerprints on it – although there probably are already – Zoe’s, plus Scott’s, if he put it in his pocket to begin with.”
The picture on the fragment was pink with light yellow at the top.
“Pink and yellow. Pink and yellow.” Zoe tapped the scrap against her hand.
“Show me?” Chris asked.
Zoe held it out to him.
“I’ve seen that somewhere recently,” he said slowly.
Pink and yellow. Pink and yellow. Zoe’s words beat a tattoo in Lauren’s brain. Tattoo – Jason – blonde hair – pink cupcake truck.
Her mind flashed to the day Scott had helped out Jason in the truck. He’d been taking photos with an instant camera.
“I think that photo might be of Jason’s cupcake truck,” she said slowly.
“Of course!” Zoe tapped the sliver of photo on her head. “And I bet it matches the other piece of photo we found!”
“What other piece of photo?” Mitch frowned.
“You haven’t told me about that,” Chris added.
“I actually forgot about it,” Lauren confessed. “Annie found it the day of the murder, but later, in the afternoon. The street had been dirty that day—”
“Yeah, really dirty,” Zoe jumped in. “You know, because we had all that wind the night before? And the street sweepers ran late that morning because there was so much cleaning up to do.”
“So I thought that I, or Zoe, or a customer must have walked it in, it came off a shoe, and Annie found it.”
“What did you do with it?” Mitch asked.
“We saved it,” Zoe told him. “I put it in my ashtray. I knew it would come in handy one day!”
“Your pottery ashtray?” Chris checked.
“Yes.” Zoe beamed at him. “I also knew you were a good listener.”
A small stain of crimson hit Chris’s cheeks at the compliment.
“When we return home, we can see if the two scraps are from the same photo,” Lauren said.
“I was going to run after Scott and tell him he’d dropped this.” Zoe furrowed her brow. “But now—” she craned her head to the left and then to the right “—I can’t see him.”
“Maybe I should put it away for safe keeping.” Mitch dug out his black leather wallet.
“But I found it,” Zoe protested.
“He outranks you,” Lauren murmured to her.
“But he’s off-duty!”
“And I can be on-duty any second,” Mitch informed her.
“Fine.” Zoe handed him the photo. “But I want it back when we get home.”
“Fine.” Mitch nodded. “We can see if it matches the other piece of photo you found and didn’t tell me – or the detective in charge of the case – about.”
“But even if it matches, what does it mean?” Chris asked. “The victim’s friend took some photos of him – what if the photo didn’t turn out the way they thought it would, so they ripped it up so no one else could see it?”
“So why would he have a piece in his pocket?” Zoe asked. “Ooh, maybe it’s Jessica! She was in the cupcake truck the day of the murder – she’s the one who found the body, and she was in our café. She could have dropped the little piece of photo without realizing it, if it was actually stuck on her shoe and not Lauren’s. We didn’t actually see it stuck on Lauren’s shoe.”
“That’s true,” Lauren replied.
“What we need to do is go back to your house and see if the two fragments are a match,” Mitch informed them.
Zoe peered at Lauren’s watch. “The market closes in thirty minutes and we haven’t seen everything yet.”
“We should go home now,” Mitch told her.
“Maybe we could do this again next weekend,” Lauren offered. “Another double date.”
“Sounds good to me.” Chris grinned.
“Okay.” Zoe gave in.
“Does that work for you?” Lauren turned to Mitch, realizing she hadn’t given him much choice in the matter. Oops.
“Yeah, it’s okay.” He smiled at her, making her stomach flutter.
Mitch drove them home, Chris following in his own car.
Once they arrived at Lauren’s cottage, Annie ran to greet them.
“Brrt!”
“I’ve found a clue, Annie!” Zoe’s voice was full of excitement.
“Brrt!” Let me see!
“This way!” Zoe led the way into the kitchen and fished around in the clay ashtray. “Here!” She brandished a torn scrap of photo.
Mitch pulled out his wallet, carefully took out the fragment Zoe had found, and placed it on the kitchen table.
“Snap!” Zoe fitted her piece next to Mitch’s. “It fits – just like a jigsaw!” The two pieces showed the side of the serving hatch, the pink of the truck, and the yellow blonde of Jason’s hair.
“Yeah, it does look like it could be the cupcake truck,” Mitch said. “Have you got a plastic bag? I should take this in for evidence. I’ll let the detective in charge of the case know about it as well.”
Zoe looked mutinous while Lauren fetched a plastic bag from a drawer.
“Thanks.” Mitch carefully sealed up the bag.
“Brrp.” Annie sounded disappointed.
“It could be important evidence, Annie,” Lauren spoke to her.
“You found something important,” Zoe told the cat, bending down to stroke her. “And so did I!”
“We don’t know for sure yet if it means something or not,” Mitch told her.
“That guy could be perfectly innocent,” Chris reminded them.
“Mmpf,” Zoe muttered.
Mitch said he would take the photo scraps to the station right away.
Chris invited Zoe to lunch at Gary’s Burger Diner, which she accepted. “Only if you’re paying, since you’re wrong about Scott.”
“But if I’m right, you’re paying next time,” Chris replied with a smile.
“Deal,” Zoe agreed.
Lauren felt like a third wheel in her own kitchen.
“Do you want me to bring you back something, Lauren?” Zoe asked.
“No thanks, I’m good,” Lauren replied.
Once Zoe and Chris had left, Lauren sat down at the kitchen table, for a moment feeling abandoned. Until Annie jumped up on her lap and snuggled into her chest. She would never be alone as long as she had Annie.