Chapter 3
I yawned as Jim piloted us back to my apartment behind the store. His Prius dashboard readout put the time close to eleven-thirty. He glanced over at me.
“Boring you, am I?”
“Of course not!”
He snorted. “I’m kidding you, Robbie.” His voice quieted. “But I only kid people I like.”
I let his comment hang in the air. I was too tired to see it and raise it one. And I wasn’t quite sure of my feelings yet, anyway. We’d had a friendly business relationship until now, but this evening had upped the ante. I settled for: “Tonight was really fun. But I had a pretty long day, as you know. And I get to wake up bright and early tomorrow and do it all over again.”
“I don’t envy you your schedule,” Jim said with a chuckle. “Me, I like to sleep in on Sundays.”
I watched as we turned onto South Lick Road and rolled quietly through town, past Shamrock Hardware and First Savings Bank, both housed in Art Deco–era buildings from almost a hundred years earlier with symmetrical stacks of geometric forms. We passed the ornate gazebo labeled JUPITER, which had been a sulfur spring in the 1800s. The town had been famous for its spas, and Adele had told me Jupiter Water was sold as a laxative nationwide up until about 1950. When we turned onto Walnut, I saw Bill’s Barbershop and Play It Again Consignment, where I’d purchased the very boots I now wore, and hadn’t paid much at all for them.
“I live upstairs, right there,” Jim said, pointing at the consignment store, which was also in an Art Deco–style building, with a rounded limestone corner and a pyramid-shaped cap in the middle.
“Really?”
“Third-floor condo. It’s nice. Mine faces the back, so it’s quiet, and I have a view of the creek, which runs right behind. Perfect for a bachelor gentleman.” He grinned.
“If it’s perfect for you, then that’s all that counts. You know, I was thinking,” I said, turning in my seat to face him, “getting to today was really just a big puzzle, and I love puzzles. Figuring out what I needed to do and putting it together. I worked hard, but I enjoyed the process.” I tucked one foot under me. “I won a state crossword puzzle championship when I was in high school in Santa Barbara.”
“I’m not surprised.” Keeping his eyes on the road, he turned right onto Main Street, then reached over and laid his smooth, slender hand on top of mine. “You’re a remarkable woman, Robbie,” he said with a voice turned husky.
His touch sent a zing through me like the most pleasant of electric shocks and I wanted to hear that husky voice a lot closer. I’d opened my mouth to reply when he pulled up to my store.
“Uh-oh,” I whispered instead. A green-and-white town police car sat idling in one of the diagonal parking spots, its lights reflecting garishly off the grinning stack of pancakes painted in blue and white on the front window. Buck’s hair brushed the illuminated dome light inside the vehicle. He opened the door and stood up, up, up. I got out, too, and hurried around the hybrid to greet him.
“Is something wrong? Somebody didn’t break into the store, did they?” My heart thudded like the bass drum in the band at the roadhouse.
“I need to know where you were at this afternoon and evening, Ms. Jordan.” Buck hooked his thumbs through the front of his wide belt sporting all kinds of attachments.
I’m Ms. Jordan all of a sudden? “Why?” I craned my neck to span the foot-long distance between my eyes and his.
“Please answer me.”
Jim strode up. “What’s going on? Was there an accident?”
“You might say that. Robbie?”
“I was cleaning here from the end of the lunch crowd pretty much until Jim picked me up for dinner at seven.” I shivered. My little black sweater wasn’t enough to keep off the chill of the fall night, but I pulled it together at my throat for a bit more warmth. And comfort.
“What time did the last customer leave?” Buck asked.
“Around two-thirty. I sent Adele and Phil home at three.”
Buck turned to Jim. “You can vouch for her whereabouts from seven o’clock until now?”
“I can.” Jim frowned. “Tell us what happened. And your reason for asking Robbie where she was.” He moved closer until his arm touched mine.
Buck let out a mournful sigh. “Stella Rogers’s son, Roy, found his mother dead in her house tonight.”
“Poor Stella. But what does her death have to do with me?” I heard my voice rise and swallowed hard.
“She did not die of natural causes,” Buck said.
“Oh, no. That’s awful,” I said.
“Do you mean she was murdered?” Jim’s voice came out low and slow.
“Yup. And then somebody stuffed a cheesy biscuit in her mouth.” Buck stared at me.
A cheesy biscuit? One of my cheesy biscuits? Damn. Double damn.