The Home Cooking Café was the only restaurant in Birdwell, and it was always busy, even though their food tasted like musty roadkill. It, along with the hair salon next door, was owned by Thelma Sue, she of the giant red beehive, teeny tiny clothes, and the never ending gossip. Maybe she knew something, though I wasn't sure what her source would have been. Thelma Sue was the last person people like the Crowe crew would be friends with. It couldn't hurt to ask while we waited for Vi, though.
We showed up a bit early so we could talk to Thelma Sue, who ate there every night, and the waitress Cindy Lou, who knew a lot about a lot, even if she didn't gossip to quite the extent Thelma Sue did. You never could tell what people in Birdwell knew.
As anticipated, Thelma Sue made a beeline for us the moment we came in the door. She slapped a hand on our table before joining us without being invited. "Now, honey, what is goin' on with that family in your house? Killing people everywhere."
I stared at her. "Did someone die while we weren't paying attention? I thought it was just Carl Crowe."
Her mouth pressed. "Don't you think one is enough, Sugar Booger?"
"Please don't ever call me Sugar Booger again."
She glanced at my deadpan face, and breath pushed from her body. "You're not paying any attention to the right stuff, Helen. What is going on with those people? Are they buying your house for real? Are they really starting a factory? Did they really murder someone?"
This wasn't turning out to be the kind of information session I'd hoped for. She was trying to tap us as a source of gossip. Well, crap. She had nothing.
Aodhagan seemed to realize the same thing and pressed his mouth. "They really are building the factory. They already bought the land earlier today. Someone did die, but who knows who killed him, and I have no idea about Helen's house."
"I doubt it, about my house I mean." I shrugged. "They just…aren't the right ones. Plus, who could guess who will be living in it. They'll go back to Dallas I'm sure, and the person they send to run this location might be even worse than they are."
Aodhagan smiled at me very slightly, and I could see that he was trying to suppress it. I wanted to tell him that the choice didn't mean I was staying when another buyer came along. But it wasn't a conversation I wanted to have with Thelma Sue at the table. I also didn't want him to know how tempted I was to be anywhere he was. I was getting weaker, but I still knew I was a terrible choice as a partner. If Aodhagan wasn't secretly a douchebag, I'd make him into one somehow, because that's what I always did. He deserved better. The way he kissed made it hard to remember that argument though.
I turned back to Thelma Sue. "A better buyer will come along. I'm sure of it."
Her expression, like her top, didn't leave a lot to the imagination. She didn't believe I was right about that.
"What have you heard about the Crowes?" Thelma Sue was a good potential source of information that might be floating around town. She always wanted to know the next juicy tidbit. If we wanted anything from her, we would have to make a trade. "I heard Carl was quite the sexual harasser at his office in Dallas."
Thelma Sue brightened at this, and I could tell she considered the information worth a trade. "I heard from one of them Crowe people while they were eating that another company is trying to buy out Crowe Appliances and that oldest Crowe boy was doing everything to stop it. No word on whether the man who owned the place, I think his name was Carl, meant to take the offer."
I glanced at Aodhagan. Well, that was something. It could be that the company that wanted to buy Crowe had killed Carl to get in. It could be that Carl was considering it and someone in his family wanted to stop that. It was a good clue. I just wasn't sure how to get the information about who wanted to buy Crowe and why.
Cindy Lou approached the table, gleaming smile already on her face.
As she saw her approaching, Thelma Sue stood. "No rest for the wicked," she trilled.
Cindy Lou was stupidly beautiful. "I didn't know you were coming in today. What can I get y'all?"
We ordered the safest items on the menu and handed our laminated pages that we didn't need back to her. The fare at the Café never changed. The glass window at the front sported the saying, "Just like your mom used to make." That was absurd for me because my mother didn't make anything. She was a famous celebrity wedding planner. All she did was order catering and hire cooks. And I liked to imagine that if my mother did cook, it would be better than the stuff that the Café offered. It probably wouldn't have been. But I liked to imagine it.
"Cindy Lou, have you heard anything about the Crowe family? The people in my house?"
She glanced around and bit her bottom lip. "He's really nice. James, I mean."
My eyebrows arched. I didn't realize she'd already made friends with a member of the Crowe crew. "Is he?"
She nodded. "This morning he came in, and he was telling me all about their plans for Birdwell. They sound exciting."
Aodhagan nodded, too. "They do. I hope everything goes as planned. Did he talk to you about what happened to Carl Crowe yesterday at the Spring Fest?"
"Not really. He just said it sure was a shame and they were all sad."
"Did he?" I had my doubts that they were all feeling down. I wondered if any of them were, given some of the things I'd heard of late.
She nodded so hard her hair fluttered. "He said they were all crying last night at the house."
Well, if that were true, it made me feel bad. Maybe they were like me, afraid to show any feelings in public and they'd barely held it together until they were alone. If they were, I was sorry to have to question their motivations, but clearly someone wasn't upset that Carl was dead. They'd gone through a lot of trouble to see him that way.
"Did he happen to mention the name of the company that wants to buy Crowe?" I was probably way off base asking her, but it couldn't hurt.
She shook her head. "No, but I can ask him. He's been coming in for every meal."
I was torn whether to have her ask. It could just muddy the water if he was bothered by her asking such pointed questions, or he could freak that we even knew that much.
Aodhagan stepped in. "If you do, make sure you write down the name of the company so we can look it up later."
We heard the bell and glanced up to see Vi entering the Café. I made a shushing face to Cindy Lou, and she nodded, chewing on the end of her pen. Vi brightened when she saw Aodhagan and then scowled when she noticed I was also present. I decided to give them a few minutes alone for him to soften up the prey before I came back. I followed Cindy Lou across the room and ducked into the kitchen, watching Vi and Aodhagan around the doorframe. In another restaurant, I wouldn't have just invited myself into the kitchen. But this was the Home Cooking Café. There was no way that they cared remotely what the local health inspectors might think about me being in the kitchen.
Cindy Lou didn't even bother to ask what I was doing. I watched Vi talk to Aodhagan for a few seconds before sitting down directly across from him. I was surprised she didn't sit next to him. Then she leaned across the table and grabbed both his hands in hers, and I understood that she was playing a different sort of game at the moment. Sympathy was a better card to play than outright seduction. She dabbed at a completely dry eye with a tissue and returned her hand to his. I stood and watched while she spoke more and then was galvanized into returning when she started running her nails softly up his wrist.
I was headed back to the table. For a number of reasons, and I was fully prepared to pretend that jealousy wasn't among them. I slid into the booth next to Aodhagan and smiled at her. She didn't release Aodhagan's wrist for a long moment. When she did, it was with clear reluctance.
"Oh, it's you. I wondered what happened to you last night," she said dully.
"Given your grief, we felt it was best she stay with me and let you all be together as a family," Aodhagan said smoothly.
It sounded good, even if it wasn't entirely the truth. I nodded. "I stayed at Aodhagan's. I recognize you need your space."
Her mouth pressed, but she didn't disagree with the statement. At any rate, it sounded better than "I stayed at Aodhagan's because I know one of you is a killer." I wouldn't say it out loud…anymore. A year ago I might have. I was learning my lessons slowly, as Uber driver Moe had pointed out.
Aodhagan leaned closer across the table. "You are familiar with the fact that I'm the sheriff around here, right?"
I knew he was planning to ask her some pointed questions or he wouldn't have bothered to tell her at all.
Concern touched her features. "I didn't, no. I guess it doesn't surprise me, though."
He nodded. "Okay, then. Did you know that all of your husband's money was left to a cat shelter?"
I could tell from her expression that she in fact did not know. She wasn't even entirely sure what we were talking about. But she didn't want us to realize that. Finally, she apparently just decided it didn't matter if we had her at some kind of disadvantage. "Why would he do that? He didn't even like cats."
Just as I'd suspected, Carl had reasons for giving his money to Little Beans that had nothing to do with his inherent love of felines and their little paw beans. There were two options. Either Carl hated his family enough that he would have given his money to anyone to avoid them getting it, or Little Beans was just a front for something or someone else and Carl wanted his money to go to the root organization. Little Beans definitely needed to be the next place we looked.
Vi looked like she'd been punched in the face, and it was clear she had no idea how to process the information we'd just given her. The vague guilt was still haunting me. I was beginning to discover that I didn't love being the person who delivered shocking or terrible information to people.
Finally, Vi looked up. "How do you know all this?"
"Because we went up to Dallas today and asked some questions at your corporate office."
If Vi wasn't genuinely shocked, she was doing an excellent job of pretending. "But…why would you do that?"
Aodhagan's eyebrows pulled together. "Because the owner was murdered and the person who killed him is likely someone here in Birdwell right now. I mean, hasn't that occurred to you?"
She looked like it hadn't. What did she think had happened to Carl? It's not like anyone from Birdwell had a reason to kill him. Unless it was Aodhagan, and no one believed that but Connie B.
Finally, I couldn't stand it. "What did you think happened to him?"
She sat still for a long time, and then she shrugged. I was starting to feel bad for Vi. She didn't look like she was doing at all well. I had assumed she didn't care because of her behavior the day before, but I suspected that she was doing her best to ignore the fact Carl was even dead. That was an impressive level of denial.
"I don't know." I could barely hear her voice.
I didn't think she'd killed Carl, and I hated myself a little for it. She was statistically the most likely suspect.
Aodhagan gripped her hands tighter. "We are aware of the prenup. Would you ever have considered divorcing Carl even though you would lose so much?"
She seemed genuinely startled by the question. "Why would I want to divorce Carl? We had an understanding. He wasn't going to live forever, and I ignored his…proclivities, and he pretended to care about me. It was working out just fine, I assure you."
I wasn't sure whether to believe her or not, but there wasn't much we could say to press the issue. There was no evidence, aside from their behavior regarding sexual liaisons, that suggested they weren't both getting exactly what they wanted from their marriage.
"Can you tell us the name of the company that wanted to buy out Crowe Appliances?" Aodhagan asked gently.
She shook her head but then answered anyway. "Hilton-Hill. They're an East Coast company. But surely Carl wouldn't have sold to them."
"He didn't make it clear to you if he meant to sell or not?" I asked, leaning forward.
"I…" Her mouth worked. "He didn't say for sure."
So now we had to look at Carl saying no as a motivation from someone at Hilton-Hill and Carl saying yes as a motivation for someone in the family who didn't want the business to go. "Do you think he wanted to sell?" I asked.
She shrugged, some of her attitude suddenly returning as the shock of being forced to think about reality started to wear off. "I'm sure I don't know. I didn't have much to do with the inner workings of the company."
I wasn't sure whether to believe her or not. Multiple people had told us she didn't do much there, but she also had an office, while Faith didn't.
"But you knew what was happening, didn't you?" I questioned.
Her mouth pressed, but she nodded.
"Did you want him to sell?" Aodhagan asked, his voice still gentle.
She opened her mouth and then shut it again. "I don't know."
It took a lot of restraint not to ask her if there was anything she did know. But I really did feel bad for her, so I kept my big mouth shut. Once again, the influence of Birdwell rearing its head.
She stood suddenly and violently, without any warning. Aodhagan and I both reared back in surprise. "I'm sorry. I need to go."
She basically ran out the door, and I had no idea what to make of her behavior. I still felt like she wasn't the person who had killed Carl, but her behavior was most certainly unusual. It wasn't the way I would expect a grieving widow, or even a normal human being, to act. Though my behavior was often a little left of center and I certainly had been judged for it, so I was going to give Vi a little leeway. Grief was a mixed-up thing. It made people do strange things. Like stay in middle of nowhere tiny Texas towns to try to rebuild the economy.
Aodhagan let out a long breath. "Well, now we need to do a deep check on Little Beans and on Hilton-Hill. I have no idea what's going on right now."
I nodded. "Word."
Little Beans turned out to be a cat sanctuary in Houston, just as had been reported to us. They were ostensibly a 5013c, though we couldn't say for sure without a little more research. Just because a website said something didn't mean it was true. Especially given the mystery around why Carl would have left them so much money. A lot of investigation between Aodhagan, the local lawyer Jamie, and me produced very little information about Little Beans. Online, they said they were a brick and mortar cat sanctuary, housing two hundred and seventeen cats, as well as a source of funding for a variety of other cat sanctuaries. That didn't tell us much. Jamie found it was indeed a 5013c registered to a woman named Lynette Spears. We could find only a little about Lynette Spears as a person. From the few pictures we could find, she was a slender blonde in her late twenties, and there was nothing about her that explained immediately what it was that had attracted Carl to her charity.
She was more than half his age, which seemed to be his primary goal in a mate, but she wasn't made of the same stuff as the people he seemed to choose that we knew about. She had messy hair, no makeup, and her clothes were a little sloppy looking. Acceptable for dealing with an animal shelter, likely less than appealing to Carl. So it probably wasn't Lynette herself that had brought Carl to Little Beans, but it also wasn't cats. I felt pretty confident about that.
Lynette Spears belonged to several community organizations and sat on the board of multiple charities, including her own. She seemed like a nice lady, but I didn't have a clue how that applied to Carl's interest. She lived directly outside of Houston on a farm with the cats, and her bio said all of her time was devoted to the sanctuary. Cats were apparently her day job. She'd graduated from Texas Tech about ten years before.
There were probably only two options for getting to the bottom of Little Beans, and I was very much afraid that the good one involved us getting back on Aodhagan's plane. I didn't want to, so I was willing to call Lynette Spears and see what kind of information I could get. Despite the fact my people skills sucked, I was pretty good at interviewing people. Then again, Aodhagan was more her type. He could probably understand the urge that made a person give up everything to house over two hundred cats. All I could do was picture two hundred Luckys and shudder. In the end, it was decided that we would both speak to her if we could. Neither of us was in the mood to immediately return to the plane and fly to Houston and back. Aodhagan phoned the sanctuary and arranged with Lynette's assistant to speak with Lynette later that night via a video call.
In the meantime, it was necessary for us to try to figure out whatever we could about Hilton-Hill, the appliance company that wanted to buy out Crowe. It took about twenty seconds on Jamie's laptop to see that we'd been wrong. All Vi had told us was that Hilton-Hill was an East Coast company that wanted to buy Crowe Appliances. But we'd assumed wrong. Hilton-Hill wasn't an appliance company. Hilton-Hill Holdings bought out large companies from people who either wanted out of their business or those who were weak and floundering, waiting for a shark to come and pull them down. Hilton-Hill was that shark. Crowe wasn't a publicly held company. We couldn't see their finances. But the fact they were building a brand-new factory didn't suggest they were failing.
And that did suggest that Carl had simply wanted out. But if he'd wanted out, why not just give his shares and the head position to members of his family and move on? There was no reason to sell the company. That gave me a whole new round of reasons that someone might have elected to kill Carl. If he sold, the company would be gone, despite all his employees and family had put up with, and all of their stock would be useless, no matter what they did or who they married.
"I wonder if they knew he was thinking about selling—I mean, besides Vi."
Aodhagan's question jolted me out of my deep thoughts. "I don't know. But stopping him from selling would be my priority if I were one of his kids. They stood to lose everything. The company would be gone, and all his liquid assets were going to some freaking cats. That sounds like a good motive for murder to me."
Of course, that was assuming a lot. It was assuming that whoever had killed Carl knew he was both planning to leave his money to a charity and considering selling his business. If I were Carl, I certainly wouldn't have let the others in on that info, but maybe he had. I could see him looking for a way to torture his family and employees at every possible opportunity, probably never considering how appealing that made him as a murder victim.
Aodhagan glanced at his phone. "We better get home and get ready for the call with Lynette." He smiled at Jamie. "Thanks again, man." They fist bumped, and we left Jamie's office, a brownstone building behind the Birdwell Consolidated Schools building. Birdwell Consolidated Schools housed all twelve grades and probably had fifteen classrooms, as well as a lunchroom the size of a garage. Each grade held maybe fifteen to twenty kids, tops. Not surprisingly, there was no one around when we emerged. It was nearly seven at night, and the school wasn't known for its late-night activities. I scanned the scene and saw Connie B. and her cronies standing in the green. They didn't approach us, but their presence reminded me that they were still watching and picturing Aodhagan as a murderer. I decided to ignore them.
I poked Aodhagan in the arm and pointed across the street. It was Daisy. Alone and coming out of the Café. Daisy didn't stand to lose much in terms of money or property if Carl sold or died. If she had killed him, there was another reason. Maybe just because he was a massive ball of skeeze. There would be lots of reasons for rejecting Carl's advances, but it probably didn't help that Carl likely knew that Daisy was same-sex oriented, and instead of respecting that, he resorted to coercion. That was something I could see murdering over.
We had twenty minutes to get back to Aodhagan's house, but I wanted to have a minute alone with Daisy. Without announcing my intention, I jumped off the curb and headed for Daisy. She was just standing there, and I had to take advantage of that. Aodhagan sighed and followed me. She seemed overly surprised to see us, which didn't make much sense. They were everywhere we went, so why wouldn't we be expected wherever they went?
"Oh, hello."
I nodded and returned her greeting, waiting for Aodhagan to catch up. When he reached us, I turned my eyes back her way. "Hey, so, uh, how are you guys holding up?" It seemed rude to just start the grilling immediately.
She shrugged delicately. "Everyone is upset of course."
I cocked my head. "Why?"
Aodhagan, who never would have asked such a question, pressed two fingers to his forehead and lowered his head like he was praying. Maybe he was. For patience. Luckily, this was why we often worked well together. Aodhagan smoothed over all the waters I just went splashing into like an excited retriever.
Daisy's eyebrows rose. "Excuse me?"
"I said why. Why would a group of people who hated Carl Crowe be upset to see him gone?"
Daisy blinked several times and then exhaled. "Look, Carl wasn't a very nice guy, but when a not very nice guy is part of your family, you're still sad to see them go."
Nodding, I gave her a sympathetic look. Or at least I hoped it was. "So what about the others who aren't Crowes? How are you guys faring?"
She sighed again. "Carl was a jerk. He was hard to work with. And we didn't love him simply because he was family. But he was still a part of our everyday lives. Even when you don't like someone, you don't feel joy when they die. Plus, I care about the Crowes. I'm sad when they're sad. And I suspect the others feel the same."
It was such a nice answer. Exactly the kind of thing I would have expected from Daisy.
Aodhagan surprised me by asking her a difficult question as well. "Someone at the Dallas offices told us the staff on the top floor were all sleeping with Carl. Was that true?"
Daisy's head snapped up. But it wasn't the response I was expecting or for the reason I thought. She had no commentary on the concept of sleeping with Carl at all. "You were in Dallas? Why would you do that?"
"Yes, we flew there this morning and had lots of interesting conversations. But what's your take on that concept? Do you think everyone outside the family upstairs was sleeping with Carl? What about you? Were you sleeping with Carl?"
Her mouth pressed with disapproval for perhaps the first time I'd seen. She still reminded me of nothing more than an elementary school teacher. "If I was, it wouldn't be any of your business. But I wasn't. I had no interest in Carl, and he had very little in me."
Aodhagan opened his jacket and pulled the badge from his inner pocket. "I guess you guys didn't realize that in addition to being the mayor, I'm also the sheriff. It is my business as long as Carl is still a man who died in my town."
It did, however, explain her confusion and horror about our choice to fly up to Dallas and question people. If we were just two random people, which truthfully we kind of were, it did read as a little much, but she wasn't in Aodhagan's shoes or the shoes I'd already been in. She wasn't being basically accused of murder. I knew from personal experience that wasn't a nice place to be, and I would do anything to avoid it. Even overexaggerate Aodhagan's penal power in this particular case.
"As I said, I was certainly not having sex with Carl. If any of the others were, aside from Vi of course, I have no information about it."
"But Carl did have an interest in you," I pointed out.
She turned to me. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"You said you slapped him at the Spring Fest because he was sexually harassing you."
For a second she seemed confused and alarmed. Then she waved a hand dismissively. "Oh, that. Carl would smack a hand on anything with a butt. It was as instinctual as breathing for him. Sometimes he just had to be reminded."
Oddly, that made sense to me. I'd met older men, especially when I was nineteen or twenty, who ran with my parents' set and who'd tried to corner and grope me like it was their job. Sometimes they just needed a good slap to reset and find some other hapless lady to chase. It never changed them inherently, but it did keep them away for the next couple of parties.
"Did you know that Carl's will leaves all his liquid assets to a cat sanctuary in Dallas?"
Daisy visibly paled at that information, even though she had no skin in that game. "What? Why would he do that?"
I shrugged. "He left the business to the family. I guess you weren't aware?"
She shook her head. Her face cleared very slightly. "Of course not. I wasn't privy to anything inside the immediate family. Of course, none of it goes to me. But it's such a cruel thing to do to your family."
"Maybe he figured they could earn all the money back. Or sell the company to recoup their losses," Aodhagan offered.
She seemed startled. "Why would they sell?"
Poor Daisy seemed generally unaware of anything, if she was telling the truth. "You didn't know about Hilton-Hill Holdings?" I watched her face carefully, and I could tell it was true. She hadn't known about the will or Hilton-Hill. If Carl was killed for either of those reasons, she wasn't the one responsible.
"I…no. Hilton-Hill? But they're such sharks. Everyone who follows business news is aware of how predatory their policies are. Why would he do that?"
"Well, no one said he was going to do it, just that he was considering it."
She shook her head. "But the company is doing fine."
I shrugged. "Who can guess what he was thinking. You do realize that whoever killed Carl is probably in Birdwell right now?" I watched her face drain of color and then her eyes move to Aodhagan. "In your group," I clarified, trying not to let my annoyance show.
"I guess I never thought about it."
Aodhagan moved a little closer to her, a tactic I had seen him use when he was trying to intimidate to a degree. "Well think about it now. Why would one of you guys kill Carl?"
She bit her bottom lip. She didn't answer for a long time and then just gave a small shrug. "Carl wasn't a nice man, like I said. I know what he's done to some members of his family and crew but not everything. There could have been a million things that Carl did that I never even knew were happening. I couldn't begin to guess why someone killed him."
I could tell we weren't going to get anything else out of her. Her expression and posture told me that she was shutting down at the stress of all the revelations we'd just given her. It was a lot to process. Daisy was gentle, but I had a feeling she had a spine of steel. She'd rally because her team needed her.