Chapter 4
I busied myself making a pot of coffee a few minutes later, keeping my back to Buck and Jim at the table behind me. I’d insisted we talk inside. The image of Stella, dead with a biscuit in her mouth, filled my brain until I thought it would explode. Me, I didn’t want coffee. My bottle of Four Roses Kentucky bourbon was calling out like an across-the-border siren. I slid it out of my private cabinet and measured a shot into a mug before I poured coffee for Buck.
“Tea, Jim?” I asked, setting Buck’s mug down in front of him, managing not to trip on his stretched-out legs.
Jim shook his head. “Got anything stronger?”
Those green eyes were going to be my undoing, I could tell. Even took my mind off murder for a second.
“Sure. You can have what I’m having.” I set the bottle and the shot glass on the table with another thick blue mug and joined the men, collapsing into a chair. “All right, Buck. Now I’m ready.” I sipped the bourbon, which went down like a silky ribbon of warmth.
Buck rubbed the top of his head, which only made his hair resemble the locks of a cartoon character who had just stuck his finger in an electric socket. That is, more than it already had. A tablet device lay on the table in front of him.
“I know you had several disagreements with Stella,” he began. “And I have to look at anybody who might coulda killed her.”
Jim hoisted the bourbon bottle and poured a bit into his mug. I sampled my own drink again.
Jim gazed at Buck. “Do you have any evidence to link Robbie with the killing?”
“How could he?” I heard my voice rising.
“I’m a lawyer, Robbie. Let me ask the questions, okay?” Jim looked encouragingly at me and nodded in that way people did when they wanted you to nod back.
“No evidence to speak of. So far, anyway.” Buck stared at the ceiling. “But it appears Robbie did have motive. You know, a reason to do away with Stella.”
“I know what ‘motive’ means.” I took another sip, set the mug down, and folded my arms. “Why in blazes would I want to jeopardize all this”—I opened my arms to encompass my store—“when I just this week finished the renovations and opened my new restaurant? Sure, Stella was difficult over the last year, but I’m looking forward, not back.”
Buck looked straight at me and used his serious police voice. “I’m going to ask you again. Where were you at between three o’clock and seven o’clock tonight, Roberta Jordan?”
I swallowed. “I told you. I was here in the store, and then in my apartment in the back.” I’d watched enough TV shows to know the drill. “I didn’t leave. I was alone. I didn’t talk to anyone.” I was innocent. They had to figure that out sooner or later. The former, I hoped.
Buck used his left index finger to type laboriously onto the virtual keyboard of the device.
“How was Stella killed?” Jim asked.
“Just a sec.” Buck held up his right hand until he finished typing what was presumably my answer, then looked at Jim. “I can’t share the method of death at this time,” he said in a sorrowful tone, as if he would share if only he could. He stared at me for a beat. “Did you kill Stella Rogers?”
“No! There’s gotta be other people in town who’d just as soon Stella disappeared,” I said. “Right? She wasn’t a very nice person. God rest her soul,” I hastily added, even though I was about as unreligious as they came.
Jim took a sip of his drink. He set the mug down and folded his forearms on the table, narrowing his eyes. “What about Ed Kowalski? Robbie’s his newest and only competitor.”
“But why kill Stella to get at me?” I copied his arms and attentive gaze until I realized what I’d done, then unfolded my arms and sat back in my chair. “That seems crazy.”
“If it was staged to make Buck here think you killed Stella, you’d be out of business,” Jim said. “Hard to make pancakes from jail.”
Buck let out a low whistle and nodded his head so slowly I wondered if he was falling asleep.
“Coulda happ’ned. Coulda indeed.”
He kept his gaze somewhere near the ceiling so long I looked, too. Had I missed painting a section, or was a bat roosting up there? I didn’t see anything out of place.
I thought of something. “Where’s Stella’s house? My Dodge van was here all day, parked around the side like always. Somebody must have seen it, walking or driving by.”
Buck shook his head real slow. “She lived three blocks down and one over. On Beanblossom Road. You coulda walked. Or ridden that bicycle of yours.”
“Rats.” I glanced at Jim, who raised his eyebrows and shrugged as if to say, “Good try.”
When something started buzzing, Buck retrieved a big old cell phone out of a case clipped onto his wide belt and flipped it open with all the flair of the pre-smartphone days.
“Yup.” Buck listened and sat up straight. “Yes, sir.” He flipped it shut and stood. “Gotta go. Chief says to ask you to stick around town, Robbie. If you’d be so kind.”
I rolled my eyes. “Like I’m going anywhere.” I watched Buck amble out; the bell on the door tolled his departure. I turned back to Jim, who stared at me, chin in hand, looking a little bit inscrutable.
“What?” I asked. I took another sip of bourbon.
“I was just thinking this changes the picture.”
“What picture?” Was he talking about him and me, that picture?
“I hope being a person of interest in a murder investigation doesn’t jeopardize your brand-new business here.”
Oh. “Ya think?” I shook my head. “I had such a good first day, too. Now folks might not want to eat breakfast cooked by a killer. Well, I didn’t murder anybody. And they’re going to figure that out sooner or later.” I stretched my arms to the ceiling, and then let them collapse at my sides. I was out of fuel, as drained as a gas tank running on fumes. I closed my eyes for a second, then opened them when I heard Jim’s chair scrape the floor.
“I’ll let you get your beauty sleep,” he said as he stood.
“Ha,” I said, also rising. “All six hours of it.” I walked him to the door. The electricity of the moment in the car had vanished with the pronouncement of murder, and I wondered if it would ever come back.
With his hand on the door handle, he looked at me with a somber face. “Thanks for coming out with me.”
“I should thank you. I enjoyed getting to know you beyond the world of real estate law, and the dancing . . . well, that was great.”
A smile spread across his face. “It was, wasn’t it?”
On an impulse, I stretched up and planted a kiss on his cheek. “Let’s do it again sometime.” I stepped back before things got carried away.
Despite how tired I was, I took the time to clean out the coffeepot, set up the regular coffee and the decaf for the morning, and make sure all was clean and ready for what I hoped would be another breakfast rush. My brain was rushing along like the Wabash Cannonball and I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep yet. Instead, I pulled out butter, milk, cheese, and eggs. I could prep the biscuit dough now to save time in the predawn hours. It would hold fine in the walk-in overnight.
After I scrubbed my hands and put on an apron, I measured out the flour, half whole wheat and half unbleached white, into the big stainless bowl, mixing in baking powder and salt. The image of Stella Rogers with my biscuit in her mouth rose up as if I was looking at her in full color on the big screen at the Starlite Drive-In in Bloomington. Who would have done a thing like that? Was somebody really trying to frame me? I didn’t hate anybody. Well, besides Will, my ex. But you’d have to hate someone to kill them. Wouldn’t you? Or to even frame them for murder.
I cut the butter into small cubes and used my big vintage pastry cutter to slice it into the flour, pressing the U-shaped wires down again and again until the flour was the texture of coarse meal. What other reasons would drive a man or a woman to take a life? Rage at losing something valuable, like a spouse or a treasure, I supposed, or at feeling unfairly treated. Fear of being exposed could be another motivation, exposed for having committed a crime or done something shameful.
Making a little well in the flour, I cracked in the eggs and stirred them up with a fork, then added the milk and the grated cheddar from the industrial-sized bag. Buying already grated cheese might have been cheating, but it saved so much time I’d decided to give it a try. I stirred the dough until it just came together. Who in this small town felt that kind of rage at Stella, or that type of fear?
I floured the big marble pastry slab I’d installed at hip height—which for me was only thirty inches off the floor—and turned out the dough. I kneaded it only enough to bring it all together, then slid it into a clean plastic bag, sealed it, and set it in the walk-in along with the other perishables. After I cleaned up, still wearing my apron I sank into the chair next to the bourbon. One more little splash wouldn’t hurt, and it might help me sleep.
My gaze wandered to the framed picture on the front wall. My mom and me, each with an arm slung over the shoulder of the other, laughed into the camera. I lifted the mug toward the image.
“Hey, Mommy. How’d I do?” Adele had taken that picture the last time she’d been out to visit before I moved to Indiana. Mom and I had taken her to the Wild Pelican, a high-end restaurant perched above an unspoiled beach outside Santa Barbara, its wall of windows showcasing the sparkling Pacific that stretched out all the way to Japan. My mom’s wavy blond hair was cut in a no-fuss short do and her blue eyes were brilliant in a face tanned from walking on the beach. I’d gotten my dark curly locks and Mediterranean skin tones from my long-disappeared father, but my body matched Mom’s. We’d often talked about how we came from good peasant stock.
“You would have loved this place,” I told her, taking a sip of bourbon, another taste we’d shared. My throat thickened, as it still did frequently, when I thought about her. She’d been my best friend. She’d taught me carpentry, giving me projects in high school to keep me busy and off the streets. Every summer she’d sent me out to stay with Adele for a month so I’d get to know my Midwestern roots. She’d fostered my love of puzzles of all kinds, and encouraged me to attend the engineering program at Cal Poly a hundred miles up the coast in San Luis Obispo. She’d even given me her blessing when I wanted to marry Will the day after I graduated, even though I could tell she didn’t like him much. I should have trusted her judgment over my own.
“But I have the feeling you’d think this was the right move. This store, this restaurant. Right?” I didn’t have much of a belief in the afterlife, but I hoped her essence was out there watching, listening, and giving me the thumbs-up with a great big old grin.