Back in the kitchen, Melvin was busy prepping and cooking. The kitchen was going to stop serving soon, and from the looks of the cooktop, he was at the tail end of new orders.
“Hey there, Miss Riley. You come in to get one of those croissants you love so much?”
“Am I that predictable?”
“You are indeed.” Melvin smiled. “How’s your sweet mama doing?”
Melvin and my mother had gone to high school together, and while they weren’t close friends, they had a deep fondness for each other.
“She’s become an Uber driver.”
Melvin laughed. “Sounds about right. That woman is like the Energizer Bunny. Tell her I say hi, okay?”
I assured him that I would and followed Ridley into Rosalee’s tiny broom closet of an office at the rear of the kitchen. “What’s up?” Ridley asked once we were sitting down.
“I wanted to ask a few more questions about what you told me last night—about the funky butter expenditures.”
Ridley gave me what could only be described as a cat-that-ate-the-canary look. She reached into the bottom file drawer of Rosalee’s desk and pulled out a thick manila folder that was double wrapped with rubber bands. She handed it to me. “I thought you might.”
“What’s this?”
“Those are the invoices from Colonel Mustard Enterprises for the past several years. Every bit of paper I could find that had anything to do with them, I put in there.”
My mouth hung slightly open.
“What?” she asked. “Not good?”
“No, this is great,” I said, trying to push aside my astonishment. “I’m just surprised is all.” When did she have time to do this? Not only did she open a restaurant today but she had a newborn baby at home and was moving in three weeks. I came to the only logical conclusion there was: Ridley must be a robot. Or a vampire. Or an alien. Whatever she was, she was definitely superhuman. No wonder Ryan was infatuated with her.
“I just figured you were going to ask, so I came in a little early this morning and pulled it together.” Ridley beamed at me the way a child would for her teacher. She looked like she was waiting for a gold star.
“Thanks.” I opened the file and thumbed through a few sheets of paper. “Have you noticed anything else odd or out of place in her records?”
“Not really.”
“What about the cellar? Have you ever been down there?”
“Cellar?” Ridley said, her brows knitting together. “I didn’t even know this place had a cellar.”
Well, that was interesting. Rosalee said she’d bought the sledgehammer to do renovations on the cellar. Then I remembered she mentioned Melvin could back up her story. “Do you mind if I ask Melvin something real quick?”
Ridley stood and up and followed me out of the office. I asked Melvin if the Tavern had a basement.
“It does indeed,” he said, flipping a chicken breast on the griddle. “It’s basically a dungeon, though. There’s all kinds of walls and piles of bricks and stuff down there. Rosalee always wanted to make it into a true root cellar for storing food and such, but we never got to it.”
“Was she planning to remodel?”
“Rosalee always had some kind of plan,” he said with a wink.
“I’ve never seen a cellar,” Ridley said. “Where is it?”
You’re standing on it.”
“It’s in the floor?”
He nodded. “This building is old. As in old-ass old. Kitchens used to be underground before refrigeration, did you know that? This here—where we’re standing—used to be the butler’s pantry, and the food was brought up a staircase right there under that table. Kind of hard to access, but when this stuff is all moved out of the way, you can open up a door right there in a floor. Rosalee used to have me move the stuff for her sometimes so she could get down there and sketch out the plans for remodeling it into a storage area. It’s kinda tight in here, case you haven’t noticed.”
I bent down and looked under the stainless-steel prep table. Sure enough, there was a rectangular outline of a door cut into the floor. “Have you ever been down there?” I asked Melvin, who had turned his attention back to his grill.
“Me? Nah,” he said. “I don’t do small, enclosed spaces. Or spiders. Or snakes—which I am sure are having themselves a big ol’ party down there. Butter came and checked it out a few days ago and said it was like a scene outta Indiana Jones or something, couldn’t wait to get back up here.” He shuddered. “I told Rosalee I’d go down there once she got it all fixed up. Till then, I’m staying aboveground.”
I left the Tavern and got into my car, ignoring the alarming wheezing sound that seemed to happen every time I started it. Poor Oscar. I didn’t have the money or time to deal with his problems at the moment. And besides, if something was really wrong—wouldn’t some sort of light come on on the dash? Surely Oscar would give me a warning before he conked out completely. That’s just the decent thing to do.
Comfortable with my irrational rationale, I drove over to Campbell & Sons to check on Ash before I went back to the newsroom. He was pretty upset last night, and after what Dr. H told me this morning about his mother, I felt a new kind of empathy for him. He really had more than his share lately. I thought he might be able to use a friend.
“Hey there.” When he opened the door, Ash looked more like he could use IV fluids, a cheeseburger, and a good long nap. He also looked like someone who’d recently drank his body weight in bourbon.
“Hey,” I said, taking in his rumpled jeans and T-shirt that looked like it had recently been picked up off the floor. That, combined with his hair that was mussed up (in a not altogether unpleasant way), led me to ask him, “You feeling okay?”
He smiled and looked down at his feet. “Uh, yeah. Sorry about last night. I was slightly overserved.”
“At least it doesn’t look like you’re too busy today.”
“Nah, not too bad,” he said, scratching at the stubble on his chin. “What are you doing here?”
“Um,” I said, suddenly uncomfortable telling him I came to check on him. It wasn’t like we knew each other that well or anything. And I didn’t want him to get the wrong impression. “I was just…um, going to see if you’d heard anything else about Balzichek’s next of kin?”
“Actually, funny you should ask. I just did.”
“You did?” I said, surprised. “You found them?”
“Follow me,” he said and led me back to Franklin’s office. He sat down in his grandfather’s chair and gestured for me to take the one opposite. He picked up a piece of paper and read off of it: “A woman named Sofia Scheiner called. She said Sheriff Haight’s office tracked her down in northwest Arkansas. She’s the deceased’s paternal aunt. Said she doesn’t have any money for a funeral but will take the ashes once he’s been cremated on the State’s tab.”
I wrote down this information and got the phone number from him as well. “Did she say anything else?”
“Not really,” Ash said. “Just asked if he had left behind any valuable personal effects.”
I rolled my eyes. “Wow, how caring.”
“She said she hadn’t seen him in a few years. Last time was when he borrowed money from her to get his car out of the impound lot. She wanted to know if she could get her three hundred bucks back.” Ash let out a soft laugh. “I told her not unless she could sell two dimes, a nickel, three pennies, and a ginormous rosary for three hundred dollars.”
“If it’s okay with you, I’ll give her a call later today,” I said. “I’m writing a piece on him for the paper, and she’d be the perfect person to answer some of my questions.”
“Sure,” he said and smiled. “Happy I could help.”
I realized that might be the first genuine smile I’d ever seen out of him. All the others had been sarcastic or gloating or caustic in some way. Being nice suited him—even with the slightly bloodshot eyes and scruffy day-old beard, he looked good. I felt the flush of attraction creeping into my cheeks again.
“Listen,” I said, standing up to leave. “I know you’re in a tough spot with your family business and everything, and I just want you to know that if you ever want to talk to someone, I’m a pretty good listener.”
“Talk to a reporter?” His nice smile morphed into his more familiar evil grin. “I may look dumb, but I ain’t stupid.”
I laughed. “Can I ask why you hate reporters so much?”
“Let’s just say I’ve had a bad experience.”
“What kind of bad experience?”
“A really bad one.”
“What—were you misquoted? Libeled? Did someone refer to you in print as Miss Ashley Campbell?” I joked.
“In short, yes.”
“Wow. Must have been some story.”
“Oh, it was.”
“But you can’t judge all reporters by the actions of one. That’d be like saying all lawyers are greedy sons of bitches.” It was my turn to give him an evil grin.
“Right. And no one would ever say that.”
“I’m just saying maybe the person who interviewed you was just a bad reporter. Maybe he or she had a bias on the story or something?”
“There was no maybe about it. She was definitely biased.”
“What—did you call her ‘honey’ one too many times?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Not exactly,” Ash said opening the front door to let me out. “I left her at the altar.”