It was one of those mornings when I didn’t even have time to make myself a cup of coffee. Peter barged into my bedroom with a handyman in tow that he’d found on an app. The guy was on a schedule and I had to rush to get myself together and vacate the room so he could do his work putting together the crib. The dogs made a ruckus at the arrival of the invader. Even Blondie got out some barks from her chair. Samuel heard the noise and came in half asleep since he’d played a gig the night before. He got in an argument with his brother, saying he would have put the crib together.
I think Peter took his inability to assemble the crib himself as a blow to his manhood and argued back that Samuel was all talk and that getting it done was all that mattered, not by who.
Considering the start to my day, it was no wonder that I rushed into the bookstore café without checking out who was in there first. If I’d seen Rick Carlson sitting by the window with a cup of coffee, I would not have gone in. Why offer myself up?
But I was already at the counter when the homicide detective came up next to me, telling Bob my order was on him. It was a bad sign when he urged me to get something to eat as well.
“I hate to drink alone,” he said when my order was ready. “Join me.” His manner was all friendly and casual. Even so, I didn’t want to sit with him, but if I made an excuse, it would look like I had something to hide.
I had been around the block a few times with being questioned and felt pretty certain I could hold my own, and I followed him back to his table while he carried my coffee and a cookie bar.
His manner didn’t fool me. I knew that anything I said wasn’t off the record and could be used against me.
He made small talk about how good the coffee was at the café, making it seem that was why he was there. “I know that you and Greenberg had a thing,” he said, moving into something a little heavier than what kind of coffee roast the bookstore used. “He really likes the coffee here, too, but he was afraid it would be awkward if he came with me. For you.”
“You can tell him I have no problem with him enjoying Bob’s drinks,” I said. I was going to leave it at that, but he was just using it as an opening.
“Greenberg told me that you are kind of an amateur detective. He said you might have some insight into what happened.” He didn’t have a blank cop face, but instead a relaxed expression. Like Barry, he appeared to be in his fifties, but had a softer build. The clothes were the same as what Barry wore, a nondescript suit that never wrinkled and a dress shirt and tie.
I knew what he was doing. Flattering me so I would be caught off guard. I wondered if Barry had also told him that I could hold my own. “I’d hardly call myself a detective like you,” I said. Two could play the flattery game. “I’m just like everybody else these days, fascinated by true crime programs. Did you know that the victim was going to do a true crime podcast?”
“No,” he said, looking suddenly uncomfortable that I’d asked him a question instead of falling for his flattery. “Then you must have known Ms. Cochran pretty well,” he said, trying to recover his upper hand. “I’m sure you deal with all sorts of authors, but Ms. Cochran with her Hollywood connection and this podcast you mentioned was different, wasn’t she? Maybe more of a prima donna than most?”
He left an opening for me to say something. “I certainly know about prima donnas,” I said. He leaned a little closer in anticipation of what he thought I was going to say. “If you really want to see one in action, I can introduce you to Adele Abrams Humphries. She works here at the bookstore in the children’s department. Do you have kids?” I gestured toward the entrance, and he pulled back into his seat.
“Ah, no thank you for the introduction,” he said simply, not answering the personal question about his family situation.
“Have you gotten any test results back for Daisy? You seem to be looking for a motive. Does that mean her death is considered a homicide now?” I asked.
He ignored my questions. “I understand there was an altercation between you and Ms. Cochran about the drink.”
I drew a blank at first and then it came back to me that there had been an issue about the smoothie. “I’d hardly call it an altercation. There were two drinks called strawberry something and I had gotten the wrong one.”
“But a witness said they heard her accuse you of trying to kill her.”
I’d totally forgotten about that part and suddenly found myself on the defensive. “It was hardly serious. She overreacted. She was just nervous about the crowd.”
“Nobody likes being treated like that, particularly in front of other people. And it wasn’t the first time, was it? She was difficult all along. Maybe you got tired of all of her demands.” He stopped for a beat before continuing. “You’re surrounded by all these books. I suppose you learn about all kinds of things. Or you could just do a search on a computer. I noticed a book meant for mystery writers in the reference section that was all about poisons. Did you know there was a mention of one that could easily have been hidden in a fruit drink?” He took a moment to sip some of his coffee, which really seemed more about letting what he had just said sink in.
“Really?” I said. “We do have so many books here. Are you saying that you think Daisy was poisoned for sure? Did you find something in the carpet sample your people took?”
The set of his mouth looked frustrated. He must have expected to be the one asking the questions, but I kept turning the tables on him. Finally, he picked up his empty cup. When he looked at me, he was back to the blank cop face expression. “Thank you for your help. I hope we can do it again.”
I got it. He was setting me up to know that he was going to do a Columbo and would keep stopping by with a question or a comment, hoping he could catch me on something. I waited until I saw him get in his Crown Vic and drive away and then I went to the reference section and looked through the books until I found the one I thought he meant. There was a section on cyanide and its almond-like fragrance. I could see why it looked bad for me. Daisy had made a fuss over the wrong drink and she had yelled something about me trying to kill her. I had the most access to her drink. But it had been left on the table. I know I’d left it with the lid on and a straw sticking through it. But CeeCee had mentioned seeing the lid off the cup, so someone could have tampered with it. Still, wouldn’t someone have noticed if someone poured something into the drink?
I really wanted to focus more on the job that Peter had given me checking Miles out, but since it was obvious that Rick Carlson was going to keep hammering me, I needed to find a way to get the heat off of me. The best way was to find out what really happened with Daisy. Mrs. Shedd and Mr. Royal had told me they hoped that Daisy had died from natural causes. Having a murder committed at an author event wasn’t the kind of notoriety they were looking for to draw people into the store. I was kind of hoping for natural causes too, but it seemed like that boat had sailed.
I went back to my cubicle to work on the newsletter with a list of upcoming events. Adele had tried to talk me into adding a pitch about her party business. Not only would it have been inappropriate since it wasn’t really part of the bookstore’s business, but until she put on a successful party, it was nothing more than a vague plan. I was adding a write-up about a romance book club that was having a meeting when Mrs. Shedd brought Leslie Bittner to my cubicle. Daisy’s assistant and self-proclaimed podcast producer was holding a box of books.
“It’s a sad state of affairs when someone dying ups book sales, but it is the truth,” the store owner said. “We’re almost sold out.” Leslie put the box on the counter that surrounded my enclosure and I noticed something different about her. She seemed to hold herself a little higher and her manner was more confident. Mrs. Shedd pulled out a box cutter and opened the top. She pulled out a copy of the book and looked at the black cover with More than Glitter in gold letters. “Molly, we should create a special display for Daisy’s book. Maybe you can say something, like from a recent author event.”
Leslie left to get another box of books and Mrs. Shedd mentioned that she and Mr. Royal would be gone for several hours. They were off to the Huntington Garden for afternoon tea in the Rose Café. I envied them. Mason had taken me there more than once. It was his style to show up and spirit me off to someplace wonderful. I missed the romantic surprises more than I let on. I missed him more than I let on. After the encounter in the pet store and his cold expression, it was clear that he was over me. But what did I expect after what I had done. I shut down the ruminating and put on a smile, ready to deal with Daisy’s assistant.
I thought of my encounter with Rick Carlson and his mention of Daisy being a prima donna. His implication was that it was a motive for me to have killed her. Wouldn’t that make Leslie an even more likely suspect? She certainly was aware of Daisy’s drink demand. I’d only dealt with Daisy a short time, the assistant might have been mistreated for much longer. After she delivered the books, I did a Rick Carlson and invited her to have coffee.
“Thank you,” she said when I set down her coffee and some of Bob’s famous oatmeal raisin cookie bars. “I’ve been running around all morning trying to get things together. I want to carry on what Daisy started.”
“You mean her podcast?” I said.
“Yes. She left notes and an outline for each of the first couple of cases. I just need to figure out where she filed them on her computer. I can turn them into programs. I just need to find a host.”
“You don’t want to do it?” I asked and she shook her head.
“I do the technical stuff. Besides, nobody knows who I am. I need to get a name. Thanks to her column, Daisy was well-known. It was kind of a double-edged sword though. When the column ended, she needed money and did some PR stuff, but kept it under wraps since she felt it was such a big step back after the power she had with her column.”
“Daisy made it sound as if she was going to give out some information that might cause some problems,” I said.
She nodded. “That was the point. And a way to attract listeners. All the time she had the column, she was always discreet about anything negative. Because of that she was privy to a lot of stuff. It turns out that she kept a lot of notes.”
“Aren’t you worried after what happened to her?” I asked.
“I’ll just be more careful. I want to finish what she started. I know that’s what she would want,” Leslie said. She sounded very confident, and I wondered if it was more than youthful bravado and she had another reason not to be concerned.