CHAPTER 11

Luckily, no fireworks ensued between Don and Buck. Diners ate, paid, and left. I was able to close and lock the door promptly at two thirty, and my crew and I began cleaning up. Danna scrubbed the grill. Len wiped down the tables and chairs and swept. I stashed most of the perishables in the walk-in cooler, leaving out the ingredients I needed for breakfast prep, and started the dishwasher.

By three o’clock, we sat at a four-top while the mopped floor dried. They sipped the beers I’d offered them. I would keep them company with a non-alcoholic beer, except the thought of a drink tasting even like fake beer roiled my stomach. I stuck with iced herbal tea. Danna replenished the table-top caddies with packets of sweeteners, tiny jars of jam, and little pouches of ketchup, mustard, and honey. Len rolled silverware into our blue cloth store napkins.

My fingers hovered over my tablet. “What would be good seasonal specials for tomorrow?”

“You mean that we already have supplies for?” Danna asked.

“Yeah. It’s too late to put in an order for tomorrow.” We were always closed on Mondays, so that wasn’t an issue.

“We still have plenty of strawberries, I think,” Len said. “A coffee cake would be easy.”

“I like that idea,” I said. “Sliced berries on top of the batter and a crumble topping.”

“Perfect.” Len nodded. “And it’ll be easy to make several big pans of it.”

“We need a savory offering for lunch.” Danna cut open another box of sugar packets.

“Monday’s Memorial Day,” Len said. “Hot dogs and potato salad would work.”

“Hot dogs in the salad?” I asked.

Danna snickered. “I can think of more than a few customers who would like that. Instead, how about we do up a bunch of kielbasas? That butcher in Nashville brings them down from Chicago. They’re super tasty, especially on the grill.”

“Sounds perfect.” I supposed I could drive back to the county seat this afternoon.

“Isaac and I are meeting friends for drinks in Nashville at five,” Danna said. “We’ll pick up a few dozen and I’ll drop them off, since I won’t be here tomorrow.”

“That’d be great, Danna, thanks.” I sipped my tea. “I’ll get you cash before you leave. Be sure you leave me the receipt. You’ll drop the kielbasa in the walk-in?”

“You bet.”

“Speaking of Nashville, how did your interview with the police go?” Earlier I’d given Len the thumbnail sketch of our aborted Outhouse Race.

“As you might expect,” Danna said. “I told them probably the same things you had. We showed up Friday with the outhouse, which was empty. On Saturday, when we began pushing it into place, it was heavy. We hit a bump. She fell out. What more is there?”

“Chief Harris must have asked if you had any ideas about how Evermina got there and who might have been responsible,” I said.

“Sure.” She glanced up at me and cringed to herself. “I, like, had to tell her about that nasty ad campaign. I’m sorry, Robbie.”

“It’s okay. You had to. I did, as well.”

“On the way back, Turner said he’d answered the same way.” Danna drained her beer bottle.

Len had been following the conversation. “The Miss South Lick Diner, right?” He thumbed his phone and whistled. “That was nasty, all right. Did this lady think nobody wants more than one option for breakfast and lunch? Check out this ad on Insta.” He held out the display.

I didn’t want to look. I’d already seen them all.

“Wow.” Danna now worked her own phone. “She even made a couple of TikTok videos. Radical.”

“Too old, much?” Len said. “Dude. She basically had no idea what the app is even for.”

I wasn’t more than a decade older than college-student Len, and Danna was closer to his age than mine. Being a business owner, a wife, and a mother-to-be made me feel as if I were of a different generation and out of range for things like TikTok. I did post food photos to our store’s Instagram and Facebook accounts regularly, but I didn’t share my personal life in either place. That was private, and I intended to keep it that way.

“I didn’t kill Evermina, obviously,” I said. “And I’d like to know who did.”

Len scrunched up his nose. “Is there anyone holding a grudge against you, Robbie? A person who would want you to look guilty?”

“I have no idea.”

“To change the subject,” Danna began. “I saw Jim Shermer around there this morning. What’s he doing in the area?”

“Who’s he?” Len asked.

“Long story,” I said. “Old story. He doesn’t matter. But to answer you, Danna, he apparently now owns the Hickory art gallery in Nashville.”

“Seriously?” she asked. “Isaac has a couple of pieces for sale there.”

Her boyfriend produced gorgeous metal and wood sculptures. The ones I’d seen would be too big for a storefront shop.

“He’s making smaller works these days, and Jim was happy to display them.” Danna finished resupplying the last caddy. “But here’s an idea. What if Octavia wigged out and was jealous of seeing you, Robbie? Maybe she killed Evermina to make it look like you did.”

“No,” I said. “Just . . . no. She has no reason to do that. She’s the one who stole Jim from me, sort of. Anyway, she’s a state police detective, and I happen to know she loves her job. That’s pure fantasy, Danna.”

“You’re the one who has wigged out,” Len told her. He finished his last roll and stashed the box under the counter.

“Hey, simply brainstorming, here.” Danna stood. “Okay if I push off?”

“Of course. Get out of here, both of you. I’ll get the coffee cake dough mixed up along with the rest of the prep before I leave.”

“See you next weekend,” Len said. “Did I tell you I’m flying out to see Lou tomorrow?”

“No. Give her my love. Is she still coming in August?” His big sister was my good friend and biking buddy Lou—Louise—who’d finished her doctorate at Indiana University and landed a tenure-track teaching position in Albuquerque. I missed her.

“She is.”

“Good. I hope I’ll still be able to bike with her by then.” Having never been pregnant before, I didn’t have a good sense of when I was going to have to stop doing my favorite—and primary—form of exercise. Any ride around here was a hard workout because of Brown County’s signature hills.

They let themselves out. I sat quietly sipping my iced tea and thinking. I flashed on Wendy Corbett’s arm through Zeke’s. What if she and Evermina had had conflicts over Zeke? Maybe an affair between Wendy and Zeke had been the cause of the divorce, and the ex had been causing problems. Demanding money. Threatening something. Wendy could have had cause to kill Evermina, with or without Zeke’s help.

It wouldn’t be dark tonight until nearly eight. I didn’t have anyone to cook dinner for this weekend, or even to eat with. I needed a good, long bike ride after I was done here. And now I had a destination in mind.