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It was a busy morning at Bitter Beans as more and more people came to the festival. I, however, was still a little shaken from the incident at the cannery, and was feeling kind of over the whole Halloween vibe. Tends to happen when you find yourself at risk of becoming a ghost yourself.
But speaking of ghoulish, the door tinkled. I groaned as Madison came stomping in, scrolling on her phone. She was dressed in a tight, leopard print jogging suit, and wore a velvet headband with the outline of cat ears over her tight ponytail.
"Excuse me?" she said as she continued her march, but held up her phone up like she expected me to read it. "What is this?"
"Sorry, you're a little far away," I pointed out to her.
She gave an exasperated huff and then came closer. "As Seaside's social media marketing manager, I can't believe you all didn't immediately tell me about the accident at the cannery so I could do some damage control."
"It just happened last night," I pointed out, before then pointing at the clock. "And it isn't even 10 AM. Are you ever even awake this early?"
She flipped her long, blonde, flat-ironed ponytail. "I don't just wake up looking this good."
"You don't say..." I said, going back to my cleaning. "Yeah, one of the catwalks fell at the old cannery. Stan and Fred are investigating it."
Madison rolled her eyes. "Oh. That's all. It is ALL over the news. And it appears it was reported by our own little Lottie the Traitor."
She held up her phone again and I grabbed it. I started scrolling through the story. Sure enough, it was in the Herald and the byline was Lottie's.
"You tell that reporter friend of yours—" Madison began.
"Technically? Not actually my friend. She's Nate's ex. And a journalist doing her job."
"—that she is no longer welcome in Seaside if she is going to pull this sort of dirt bag reporting."
"How did she even know about this?" I said, completely taken aback as I read. There was so much detail in her recap. "She wasn't even there."
"Wait. She's reporting on something that she wasn't even present for?" Madison confirmed. I don't think her voice could have sounded more disgusted.
"I mean, technically, that is the job of a reporter. You know. To disseminate information."
"She has gone OVER THE LINE," she said.
I folded my arms, already knowing the true answer to this question. "Are you just hoping for an excuse to ban Lottie from the island? Keep her away from the saloon? And Trevor?"
Madison huffed and puffed with outrage. The closest thing she could get to a denial was to just say, "No."
I handed Madison back her phone. "Don't worry. I'll get to the bottom of this."
Madison dropped the phone into the bottom of her massive shoulder bag. "Good," she said, like I had done exactly what she was hoping for. "Because it is garbage like this that damages us all."
"I thought that you wanted Johnny's tours to be a failure," I reminded her.
"Not like this!" she said, as if horrified by what I was suggesting. "Listen, this island may be a backwater dump—"
"You're the only one who thinks this is a backwater dump."
"—but it does none of us any good to have the impression it is a dangerous ramshackle dump." She shook her head like we had been such fools not to heed her. Her voice dripped with I-told-you-so. "If Nate had only sold us the cannery to build that cruise ship port, this could have all been avoided. Instead, we have a derelict building falling down around people's ears."
Suddenly, the bell over the door tinkled again and Stan walked in. He was pleased as punch, grinning with a self-satisfied smile.
"Hey Stan!" I said, kind of surprised to see him. He never came to Bitter Beans. Mainly because I made an executive decision to always charge him while Yvette down the street usually comped him a cup of coffee. I was more than happy to take that loss. The man had wrongly accused everyone I knew and loved of some terrible crime at some point. It's not called Bitter Beans for nothing.
But he sauntered over the counter and then leaned his elbows across it. His round belly pressed up against the glass. "Thanks again for that tip off," he said with a wink and a smile. "Turns out, there was sabotage!" He stood and rubbed his hands together. "A real crime! This couldn't have happened at a better time!"
"What?" I asked, confused.
Madison gaped at him, equally confused. "I'm sorry, what happened?"
"That catwalk didn't fall naturally," Stan confided. "Someone removed the bolts. And they weren't easy! You can see the rust from where they were. But they were all gone. That catwalk was rigged to collapse!"
A cold chill washed down my spine. "Do you think it was rigged to collapse specifically for when we were there?"
"Either that or it was just magic!" he said, wiggling his fingers like it was spooky.
Personally, I feel like a murder attempt was a little beyond 'spooky.'
"We would have been killed if Echo hadn't told us to run to him," I remarked, realizing how close it had come.
Stan suddenly got a curious look on his face. "Echo told you to run to him?"
"Yeah. He had this... machine... that said 'Run to me' and then he said he had this... feeling. So he told us to run to him." I shook my head. It was all so crazy.
"Huh. Funny that he got this 'feeling' just as you were about to get crushed..."
"But why would he ruin his own tour?" I pointed out. "It doesn't do him any good."
"There's lots of reasons," Stan stated.
"Like what?"
"I don't know... Insurance payout?"
"Except if Nate or I were hurt, that would mean we'd be getting his insurance to pay us. Not the other way around."
Stan was starting to get flustered by my questions. His cheerful face darkened and he pointed his finger at me. "That doesn't change the fact that by your own admission, Echo knew it was going to collapse. That makes him a suspect."
I knew better than to argue with Stan at this point. He'd just double down. So, I just kept my mouth shut.
But by this point, he was on a roll. "It isn't your job to come up with a hypothesis as to why things happened or didn't happen. It is my job to determine the facts and let the lawyers figure out the reasons."
"I think, technically, a 'motive' is usually required," Madison stated, bored as she scrolled through her phone.
"Don't go telling me how to do my job!" Stan snapped back. He backed out of Bitter Beans, waving his arms low like an umpire telling someone they were out. "I came here as a courtesy. But that's the exact opposite of what I get from you people. I'm going to crack this case and prove it was Echo and then you'll all be sorry."
As he stormed out the front door and slammed it behind him, Madison remarked, "Not as sorry as you're gonna be when everyone figures out you're an idiot."
I looked at Madison and smiled. Even a stopped watch is right twice a day. "Hey, let me buy you a drink," I offered.
She shrugged her shoulders. "Naw. Trevor has better coffee." And then she flounced out.