Chapter 7
Much refreshed by my bath, I sat at the kitchen table with a cheese omelet, a round-bowled glass of red wine, and the crossword. Mom had crafted the drop-leaf table out of a cherry that shone, with simple Shaker-style legs. I missed her when I sat there, but it was a perfect size for the small room, and I could expand it if I ever had more than one guest over. So far, I’d been too busy to invite anyone for a meal. I flashed on an image of Jim sitting across from me, candles glowing, a vase full of yellow alstroemeria behind them. That’d be nice. Maybe I’d see what he was doing for dinner tomorrow.
I was a bit out of sorts, though, because I couldn’t find my puzzle pen. I always used the same pen when I did the crossword, the pen from Mom’s shop. It was a gel pen I could get refills for, and the ink flowed out really nice. But the best part was the logo from her business, the one featuring the outline of a long table with JEANINE’S CABINETS written inside it. I’d looked everywhere. In the kitchen drawer, in my handbag, in the store. With the flurry of getting the store ready, I wasn’t sure when I’d last had it, but I thought it was in the restaurant. I must have written down breakfast or lunch orders with it over the last two days. Oh well. I dug another pen out of my purse and set to work. It was tricky, being left-handed, not to smudge the letters, but I’d had plenty of practice.
I’d finished a quadrant on the crossword, filling in “strippers” for the clue ECDYSIASTS, when I heard a sound from outside. I cocked my head and listened, then realized it must be the kitty. The dishes I’d left had been empty when I returned, but the little creature had been nowhere in sight.
When I flipped on the porch light and looked out the door, there the cat was again, not quite cowering this time, but crouching in a wary stance. I grabbed the bowls and refilled one with water. I glanced at the clock. Eight o’clock was too late to go out and find dry cat food on a Sunday night, but I located a can of tuna in the cupboard and emptied that into the other bowl. When I set them outside the door, the cat came running up. It started scarfing down the tuna, which gave me the chance to see it was a he. He then proceeded to purr so loudly, he chirped as I petted his head.
“I guess you were just hungry, little guy. Where’d you come from, anyway?”
He didn’t answer. When I switched off the porch light, I glimpsed a full moon rising above the trees and walked back out to get a better eyeful. I supposed it was the harvest moon, not that I was much up on farming lore. It was gorgeous, no matter what it was called. A wisp of cloud floated across the front of the golden orb and I half expected a witch on a broom to follow.
The kitty rubbed up against my leg. I reached down to pet him, which only produced more chirping.
“You sound like a bird, not a cat,” I told him. Should I invite him in? I couldn’t have him in the restaurant, for sure. Board of Health would shut me down in a New York minute. But I didn’t see why he couldn’t share my apartment with me. What if he already had a home, though? It wasn’t cold out. I’d leave him alone for tonight and see if he was still around in the morning.
I locked the door behind me, smiling. I hadn’t had a pet since I was sixteen and the old cat we’d had all my life died. Butch had been an affectionate curmudgeon, deciding on his own terms when he wanted to sit on your lap and letting you know quite vocally when he didn’t. Now I heard another sound and cast my gaze around the apartment for the source. I dashed for the bedroom when I realized it was my cell phone, likely still in the pocket of the bike shirt. By the time I dug it out, the ringing had stopped, but I saw Jim’s number on the display, which made me smile all over again.
I rang him back. “I was just thinking about you,” I said after greeting him.
“Is that so?”
“Yup.” I took the plunge. “How about coming over for dinner tomorrow?” When he didn’t respond, I added, “If you want to.” Damn. Did I misinterpret his interest? It seemed like a week ago, but I realized it was only last night he told me he only kidded people he liked. Maybe that meant people he liked as friends. Why do I feel like I’m back in high school?
“I want to. Thanks, Robbie.”
Whew.
He cleared his throat. “I called to say hello, but I also wanted to share something I learned today.”
“Oh?” I was only half listening, already planning what I wanted to cook for him.
“It might be connected to the murder.”
I thudded off my romantic cloud and back to earth. “Oh.” Now he had my complete attention.
“Well, I was in Nashville for a Rotary Club meeting this morning. Ed Kowalski was sitting across the room, and the woman sitting next to me mentioned he’s been having trouble keeping employees.”
“Huh. I hired Mayor Beedle’s daughter this afternoon to help in the store.”
“Danna?”
“The same. She’s been working for Ed, and when I asked her why she left, she wouldn’t really say. Only that the environment wasn’t so great. Were you thinking Ed’s employment problems mean his business is in bad shape, which would make mine seem like even more of a threat to him?”
“Exactly.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. It’s just such a stretch for Ed to kill Stella and then hope I’d be prosecuted for it. There’d never be evidence linking me to it, right?”
“Let’s hope not. Wait, that sounded bad.” He laughed. “What I meant was I hope the killer didn’t plant something of yours at Stella’s.”
“But—” An image of my lost pen flashed across my brain. No, I had to have just misplaced it.
“Robbie, don’t worry about it. You’ll be fine.”
“Whatever you say, Mr. Lawyer Man. I’ll tell you, it’s been the craziest weekend I’ve ever had.” I yawned.
“Get yourself some rest, then. What time should I come tomorrow, and should I bring red wine or white?”
“Come at six. We are in the Midwest, after all. I’m not sure what I’m making yet. Red wine goes with anything, in my opinion. But then, nobody would ever call me a wine snob.”
Jim laughed again.
“I should ask if you have any food allergies.”
“Not a one.”
“And even though you’re a vegetarian, you eat seafood, right?”
“I do. Thanks for the invite, and sweet dreams, Ms. Jordan.”
Sweet they would be. I was going to have my second date in a week. And for sure Buck and friends would nail the murderer soon.
With my digital tablet in hand, I checked the supplies in the walk-in in the morning, yawning out loud. I’d found an excellent restaurant inventory app linking me directly to my several purveyors. I clicked a couple of items that needed restocking and closed the door behind me.
I stood for a moment with my back to the door. Something felt out of place. I opened the cooler again. As the door clicked shut behind me, I surveyed the wire rack shelves. Dairy took up a big section in a restaurant like mine, with pound blocks of butter, several kinds of milk, bricks of cream cheese, and hefty chunks of cheese. I kept the meat in its own area, although I was still trying to figure out how much to use fresh and how much frozen. Bacon, ham, and sausages kept well, but I really needed to spend the afternoon making beef and turkey patties and freezing them. I’d created another section for fruit, and the last for vegetables, like green and red peppers, onions, and mushrooms for omelets, as well as lettuce and tomatoes for the burgers. The waxed boxes from the supplier lined up on the shelves like squat waiters ready to serve.
So, what was awry? I walked all the way in, checking every shelf, but I couldn’t find anything. The dairy didn’t seem quite as I’d left it, but then Adele and Vera had been helping all day yesterday. Either one could have rearranged things. A shudder ran through me and it wasn’t from the cold air. As far as I knew, a killer still roamed free in town. And I was shut in alone in an extremely cold place. I shook my head. The big red emergency button perched on the wall next to the door, after all, and I held an Internet-connected tablet that got a signal even in this thick-walled room. I made my way out and pushed the heavy door shut, the thick latch clicking shut with a satisfying clunk.
I felt at loose ends. I’d planned Mondays as my day off, to relax, to catch up. Ever since I bought the store, I’d been pushing with all my energy toward opening day. But that day had now come and gone. I wandered back into my apartment, where the morning light streamed into the kitchen. I’d had coffee and munched an apple, but my stomach now called out for more.
As did kitty’s, apparently. He mewed from outside, so I opened the door. After I picked up his bowls, I propped open the screen.
“Hey, little guy. Come on in.” I filled the bowls with milk and water and set them in the entryway.
He peered in, looked behind him, and moseyed in a few steps. Stopping, he gave a bite and a furious lick to his left shoulder, then licked his paw. With a little chirp, he continued in until he was lapping up the milk, purring like a tiny electric fan.
I watched him finish the milk and then give himself a bath all over. Finding a sack of dry cat food was apparently top on my list for my day off, and a few cans of wet food as well. Did I need to set up a litter box and all, too? As I turned toward where my purse hung from a hook, I jostled a chair, and kitty streaked out the still-open door. He could keep going to the bathroom wherever he’d been going up to now. At least until the ground froze.
I made and ate a piece of toast with peanut butter and honey, then grabbed my bag. I’d seen cat food in Shamrock Hardware. I could pick up a bag there, for starters. As I locked the door behind me, kitty sauntered up again, purring with his chirping noise.
“That’s it,” I told him. “Your name is Birdy.”
He eyed me with an inscrutable gaze as he crouched, paws in front of him, looking for all the world like a tiny black-and-white Sphinx. A Sphinx named Birdy.