Cappuccinos, Cupcakes, and a Corpse (A Cape Bay Cafe Mystery Book 1) (13 page)

M
att came
over in the morning to make us breakfast before we headed out on our mission. I hovered on my crutches in front of the coffee machine to make cappuccinos for us. It wasn’t easy, but I couldn’t very well let Matt do it when I was the one who ran a coffee shop. Matt made us pancakes. Apparently they were one of the few things Mr. Cardosi could make, so Matt ate them a lot growing up.

“It seems appropriate to eat them on the day we find my dad’s killer,” he declared.

“That seems optimistic.” I only had a rough list, that we both knew was incomplete, of suspects, and we still had to figure out who on that list had a strong connection to Mr. Cardosi. Plus, I’d been wrong once already, and that made me trigger shy.

“I have to be optimistic.” Matt shrugged. “I’m tired of waiting.”

I understood the feeling, even if I wasn’t as confident as he was that we would figure it out today. Even if we did, I wouldn’t get my hopes up that we were right. If we found someone, they would just be a suspect, nothing more. I wasn’t calling anyone else a murderer without some concrete proof.

After breakfast, Matt and I got in the car and drove around town. It was a beautiful day and still early, so lots of old folks were out taking their “morning constitutionals.” I added a few more names to my list based on people Matt knew that I didn’t or just didn’t recognize. It simultaneously felt as if we were inching closer to finding the killer and moving further away. I knew that each name I added to the list might be the killer’s, but also that if it wasn’t, I was just making it harder to actually identify him. Still, I added them and tried to keep my spirits up.

As usual, a group of men was playing chess in the park. Matt and I recognized several of the men, but a few were unfamiliar, and two of them had canes. I considered chess players to be strong potential targets as I could easily have walked past them that day in the park without noticing if one of them was watching me. Playing chess with the men seemed like a good way to get information about the ones we didn’t recognize without seeming strangely curious.

Matt parked out on the street and helped me climb out. Moving was getting easier as I got used to balancing my weight on only one leg, but I still got wobbly easily. He let Latte out of the backseat, because of course we’d brought him with us, and we headed over to the chess tables. Matt and I played each other the first game. He was terrible, and I made sure everyone knew.

“You’re hopeless, Matt!” I said loudly. I heard a few of the men chuckle, and I looked around at them. “Do any of you want to play me? I can’t handle winning that easily again!”

One able-bodied man stood. “I’ll play you.” He made his way to my table.

I didn’t recognize him, but I figured it might still be a chance to learn some names. Matt walked over to the man’s former partner, who I noticed with glee had a cane propped against his chair.

“Mind if I join you?” Matt asked the man.

“Not if you’re as bad as she says.” The man laughed.

Matt and I played a few games, moving to different partners each time. We easily got the names of all of the men with canes. Around lunch, we decided to head out to get something to eat. We went to Sandy’s Seafood Shack again, because the lobster rolls were calling my name and they had a nice covered porch we could eat on with Latte.

“Do you want to keep driving around?” Matt asked as we ate.

“Maybe just a little, but I feel like we’ve found pretty much everyone we’re going to find, you know? At this point, we’ve identified everyone who’s out and about, so unless the Tripper is in hiding somewhere, we should have already gotten him.”

“I need to go by the barbershop to pick up the mail. I was thinking I’d get as many of my dad’s papers as I can, and we can start going through them. He kept track of all of his customers, so maybe we can find something there.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I replied.

We finished our delicious, buttery lobster and got back in the car. At the barbershop, I waited outside while Matt went in to get the papers. Getting in and out was too hard for me to bother with when Matt would only take a few minutes to get everything he needed. He came back with more than I was expecting—a big box full of stuff. He put it in the trunk and got back in the car.

“Did you take every piece of paper in the store?” I asked.

“No, just what was on my dad’s desk.”

“
All that
was on his desk?”

“It was pretty covered.”’

We set up shop with the papers at my kitchen table. It gave us plenty of space, and I could prop my leg up on one of the unused chairs. We started by sorting through the paperwork, arranging it all into piles based on category—ledgers, records, mail, things that should really have been thrown away a long time ago—then went through each pile, highlighting our Cane Walkers’ names as we found them. It was a tedious process, and I didn’t feel like we were actually making much progress. Almost every Cane Walker had gotten his hair cut at the barbershop, so it seemed like Mr. Cardosi had some level of connection to all of them.

Matt made us spaghetti Bolognese for dinner. He moved most of the papers off the table so that we had room to eat and didn’t have to worry about splashing sauce on anything. We were both getting discouraged that we hadn’t yet found a smoking gun, or empty cyanide caplet as the case may be, but neither of us wanted to admit it. I especially felt that Matt would be disappointed if we didn’t at least find a new lead.

Matt cleared the table and washed the dishes as I continued through the paperwork.

“You know, I think my dad kept some of his records at the house,” he said when he was done putting the dishes away. “Do you care if I run over there and see what I can find?”

“No, no, go. We should look at every available shred of evidence.” I was glad he’d thought of more papers. We were getting toward the end of what we had, and I was a little anxious.

Matt brought my phone over to me in case I needed to call him. He let Latte out real quick, then he headed over to his dad’s house. I kept flipping through papers. The mail pile was the only one I could reach, and it was phenomenally boring and useless. It seemed as if Mr. Cardosi had never thrown away a single credit card application or advertisement for business cards. Still, I had to look through everything. The one thing I needed might very well be hidden among all the junk mail.

My phone’s text message alert sounded. It was from Matt.

Ran into Paul Hamilton. Started talking about Dad. Said they used to have coffee together, so I invited him in for a cup. Will be back in 30 minutes or so.

Paul Hamilton, the one who Karl worked for at the electronics shop, wasn’t the most pleasant person, so I wouldn’t complain about Matt not inviting him back to my house instead.

I continued flipping through the mail, finally landing on a section that seemed to be personal correspondence. I wasn’t expecting to find anything useful, but it had to be more interesting than the junk I’d been looking at. It was mostly letters from Mr. Cardosi’s old military buddies and a few letters from family back in Italy. I skimmed each one then set it aside in a separate pile. They seemed like mementos that Matt might want.

I picked up one that looked as if it had been scribbled more quickly than the others. The writing was large and messy and missing the customary “Dear Gino” at the top. The contents were different too. No reminiscences of youthful exploits or updates on shared acquaintances. No, this one was angry. Aggressive.

Stay out of it, Cardosi! My finances are none of your business!

Directly beneath it was a response Mr. Cardosi had apparently written but never sent.

Paul, It is my business when you’re using my name as part of your scheme. I’m not letting this go.

I looked at the paper, trying to figure out what it meant. Both notes seemed angry, but I wasn’t sure if they were evidence. I flipped through the rest of the pile quickly to see if there were any more notes like them. There was nothing. I crossed my arms and stared at the kitchen wall. When I glanced back at the papers on the table, my eyes fell directly on Mr. Cardosi’s note, and the very first word he had written.
Paul
.

Paul Hamilton walked with a cane. He said he used to have coffee with Mr. Cardosi. He was having coffee with Matt now. The cyanide that had killed Mr. Cardosi had been in a cup of coffee.

My blood ran cold. I grabbed my phone and dialed Matt. There was no answer. I had to get over there
now
. My crutches were across the room. I struggled up from my seat and hopped over to my crutches. I shoved them under my arms. Just before I started hobbling out of the house, I had the clarity of thought to put in a call to the police. I didn’t know what I was walking into and didn’t want to be trapped with a murderer with no help on the way. I dialed 9-1-1, pressed the phone between my ear and my shoulder, then started limping across the room. Walking on crutches was hard enough, but doing it while keeping my ear glued to my shoulder was next to impossible. I was inching my way down the front walk when the dispatcher answered.

“I need help. I need police
now
,” I said into the phone.

“What address?” she asked.

I spouted off Mr. Cardosi’s address, listened for her confirmation that she had heard it, then I let the phone drop to the ground. I could move faster without it. The distance from my house to Mr. Cardosi’s seemed exponentially longer than it ever had. When I was a kid, I could run from door to door in less than thirty seconds. This would take me several minutes, minutes I didn’t know that I had.

Latte seemed to know something was going on. He ran back and forth beside me, barking loudly the way he had the day I’d found him. When I turned onto Mr. Cardosi’s walk, he went ballistic, running up to the door and punctuating his barking with long, loud howls. It was as if he knew the man who had tripped me was inside.

When I was just over an arm’s length from the door, I lunged for it, turning the doorknob and pushing it open. Latte rushed past me and into the kitchen. I lost my balance and fell facefirst into the foyer.

“Matty, don’t drink that!” I screamed.

I heard nothing from the kitchen. I was too late. I crawled, dragging myself into the house with just my arms.

“Franny?”

I looked up to see Matt in the kitchen doorway. I dropped my head to the floor in relief. He was alive.

He rushed over to me. “What are you doing?”

Matt started to help me up when I saw Paul Hamilton step out of the kitchen.

“I should have pushed you,” he sneered.

Matt looked between Paul and me. “What? What’s going on here?”

“Paul killed your father! I found letters between them! He was going to kill you too!”

“Franny, that’s—” Matt stopped when he saw Paul moving across the living room, a look of pure hatred on his face.

Latte circled Paul, barking at ear-piercing volume.

“Damn dog!” Paul spat.

I screamed when I saw him lift his cane and strike Latte. Latte yelped and ran past me out of the house. I heard him barking and howling on the lawn. Paul moved closer. I wasn’t sure what he was going to do. Matt was definitely bigger and stronger than him, but if the man would poison someone with cyanide, I wasn’t sure I would put a poison-tipped cane past him either.

He swung the cane at Matt, and it came in too low for Matt to grab, smacking his shin. He grunted at the pain. Paul swung the cane again, striking my hand as I tried to catch it. Through Latte’s howls, I heard sirens in the distance. We only had to hold Paul off for a few more minutes before the police arrived. Paul lifted the cane again as Matt moved to grab it from him. Before he could, Paul brought the cane down on the back of my head. I saw stars and, through them, the flashing red-and-blue lights of police cars.

N
eedless to say
, Paul was arrested. When the police tested the coffee Matt had made for Paul and himself, they’d found enough cyanide to kill not just one but several men. Paul was charged with Mr. Cardosi’s murder, attempted murder and assault for his attack on Matt, and assault for his multiple attacks on me. Just for those charges, he should be in jail longer than Karl had been, and for a man Paul’s age, that was at least a life sentence.

It turned out Mike had suspected Paul for quite a while, but he hadn’t been able to find any direct evidence to use to get an arrest warrant. Walking into a vicious cane-based assault on two people was more than enough to put him in jail while they investigated his motive for murder.

The police went through Mr. Cardosi’s paperwork and found bills for clipper repairs that Paul had supposedly done for him. But Matt was able to show invoices and shipping documents that proved that Mr. Cardosi had always sent his clippers back to the manufacturer when they needed repair. According to Matt, he only trusted the people who had made them in the first place to fix them right.

When the police dug into Paul’s books, they found that he had been recording electronics repairs for businesses all over town, repairs not a single one of them had ever ordered. When Karl started working for him, not knowing that the unpaid invoices were fake, he sent the ones with Mr. Cardosi’s name on them over to him. Mr. Cardosi put two and two together and figured out that Paul was running an elaborate money-laundering scheme. He threatened to turn Paul in unless Paul did so himself. Apparently the money laundering didn’t bother Mr. Cardosi as much as Paul using Mr. Cardosi’s name on the fake invoices.

The reason for the money-laundering scheme was every bit as crazy as the scheme itself, probably even more so. It had started with illegal betting on horse races. Paul was good at gambling—shockingly good—but that wasn’t enough for him. He wanted to bet on the long shots. He started paying jockeys and trainers to fix the races. That had led to even bigger paydays and ultimately to the laundering scheme that was his downfall. It was pretty dramatic stuff for a sleepy little town like Cape Bay.

It seemed as though it took my leg forever to heal. According to the doctors, my fall into the Cardosi house’s foyer had set me back a good week or two. Still, I finally got back on my feet (literally) and went back to work at the café. It was nice to get back into a routine again. I spent my time working, playing with Latte, and redecorating my house.

In a weird twist of fate, it turned out that Latte had actually briefly belonged to Paul—that was why he barked so much whenever Paul was around. Latte, whose previous name was Barkley, had belonged to a family that moved overseas for the father’s job. They weren’t able to take the dog with them, so they gave him to their neighbor Paul, who apparently seemed like a nice enough man. But Paul hit Barkley with his cane every time he did something remotely impish or dog-like. Paul quickly got tired of him, took him to the park, and let him go. Apparently Barkley disliked living with Paul enough that he never tried to go back. I felt as though Latte deserved a fresh start after his rough time with Paul and decided to keep him. I liked the name Latte much better than Barkley anyway.

Matt and I had been spending a lot of time together. I guess you could call it dating. We had dinner a couple of nights a week after I closed up the café and spent the day together at least once on the weekends. It was casual, but a lot of fun. And I had even managed to pay a time or two. It took me slipping the waiter my credit card on the way in, but I’d done it.

I was in the café late one quiet afternoon when Matt came in with a big smile.

“Hey! How are you?” I greeted him.

“I’m great!” He came around the counter to give me a hug.

I had to just lean into him because my gloved hands were all wet and slimy from the mozzarella I was making. “What’s got you in such a good mood?”

“I sold the house!”

That was news that required a real hug. I peeled off my gloves and threw my arms around his neck. “Congratulations, neighbor!” I was excited. Matt had finally decided to sell his house and move into his dad’s. It wasn’t solely because of my presence two doors down, but I liked to think that I was at least part of his motivation. “This requires a celebratory coffee!”

I closed the lid on the mozzarella and put it aside before I turned to the espresso machine to steam the milk for our drinks.

“So I was thinking,” he said, going back around the counter so he could face me as I worked. “I have to invest most of the profit from the sale of the house to avoid paying half of it in taxes, but there’s a good bit of it I can keep.”

“That’s awesome!” I said, pulling the espresso. “Are you going to buy yourself something nice? A new car maybe?”

“Actually, I was thinking of taking a little trip. Maybe someplace exotic, like the Caribbean or Europe. Maybe even Italy.”

“Oh, Italy! I’d love to go to Italy! I’ve always dreamed of seeing the place my grandparents came from.” I poured the milk into the cup. It was silly, but I was making a smiley face. It was a simple, happy design for a happy day.

Matt smiled. “I had a feeling you might say that.”

“So you just thought you’d try to make me jealous? Is that it?” I joked as I worked on the second cup, this one for me.

“Well, no. More like I thought you could come with me.”

I looked at him, completely surprised. I had not expected him to say
that
.

“Yes? No? Only if I put us up in four-star hotels?”

“Um, yes, I mean, if you’re sure. I don’t want to take advantage—” I was stumbling over my words and had let the espresso sit too long to boot. It would be way too bitter to drink, so I dumped it and started over.

“You’re not taking advantage. I want to do it. To thank you for everything you’ve done the past few months.”

“Well, I didn’t do all that much.” This time I managed to add the milk to the espresso in time. I poured in a heart because it was simple and the cup was just for me.

“You were there when I needed you. That’s all you needed to do.”

“And I get to go to Italy as a reward?” I handed his cup to him across the counter.

“Yup.” He looked at his cup then back at me with a smile and raised eyebrows. “A heart? You tryin’ to tell me something, Franny?”

I looked at the cup in front of me. It was the smiley face I’d made for Matt. I was so flustered I’d given him the wrong one! “No, I meant to give you this one.” I tried to hand the smiley face cup to him.

“Too late.” He took a sip.

The bell over the door jingled, and a delivery man walked in with a large bouquet of red roses. “Francesca Amaro?” He came toward me.

“That’s me,” I said, glancing at Matt. He had an innocent expression that I didn’t believe for a second. I signed for the delivery and set the roses on the counter. I pulled the card out and read it.

To Francesca. The beauty of these roses pales in comparison to yours. Signed, Your Secret Admirer.

“Really?” I asked, looking at Matt. “‘Your Secret Admirer’? You invite me to go to Italy with you, but think you have to be coy with the flowers?”

“I didn’t send them,” Matt said.

“Sure, you didn’t,” I retorted.

“No, really. I would have sent you lilies. I know you like them better.”

That was true. I did like lilies better. I looked in confusion at the card. “Then who sent them?”

“Damned if I know.” Matt smiled. “But I’m the one going to Italy with you.” He drank the rest of his coffee. “I’ve got to go. I have a travel agent to see.” He leaned across the counter and kissed my cheek.

My heart fluttered a little. I would be happy to go to Italy with Matt.

“I’ll see you later, okay?” he said.

“Okay.” I smiled and watched as he left.

My life had changed a lot in the past few months, but it was all working out. I was home in Cape Bay where I belonged, doing what I loved, and planning a trip to Italy with the boy next door. Life was good. Very good.

S
ign
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