Do or Diner: A Comfort Food Mystery (14 page)

I smiled. “Be careful out there.”

He tweaked his hat brim.

Oh my. I wished he’d stop doing that.

“How long are you going to be here?” he asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. As long as I’m needed, I guess.”

He turned to go, then looked back at me. I thought he was going to say something more, but he just shook his head and left.

Huh?

May and June left at midnight. Only Clyde and I were left at the fire barn, with a handful of food and a huge urn of coffee.

I didn’t think that there was anything else I could do until the morning. Coffee was probably what was needed most about now, and I had everything laid out for easy service.

I hesitated to leave everything unlocked, but Clyde assured me that this was the norm. “Besides, no criminals worth their weight in salt would be out in this weather.”

On the ride home in the van, Clyde was very quiet. He was kind of the quiet type anyway. That was why it surprised me when he suddenly blurted, “Don’t pay any attention to Roberta Cummings.”

“I’m sure she’s just upset. She lost her fiancé. That’s hard to handle.”

“She shouldn’t take it out on you.”

I watched as the wipers, caked with ice and snow, streaked designs across the windshield. The squeak/clunk of them was the only sound in the cavernous vehicle.

“Did you know Marvin Cogswell?” I asked.

“Knew him. Didn’t like him.”

“Why not?” I pushed, hoping that he didn’t clam up.

“I didn’t like how he mooched meals at every place he inspected. If you didn’t feed him, he always found something that wouldn’t pass inspection.”

“Did the Silver Bullet always feed him?” I asked.

“Every time.”

“Then why did the Silver Bullet fail inspection the last time?”

“Juanita and Cogswell got into a fight. He made a dumb joke about her not having a green card. Something like that. It set her right off, and she ‘forgot’ to feed him.” Clyde chuckled. “Then Cogswell failed the Silver Bullet. It was the first time in the history of the place.”

“Really?” I grinned. I could just imagine Juanita yelling at him. “But I can’t believe that my aunt and uncle would bribe the health inspector with meals throughout the years so he’d give the Silver Bullet a favorable inspection.”

“Porky and Stella fed everyone—the delivery people, the Dumpster guys.…They fed anyone who looked like they needed a good meal. And
they were always the first to give to the soup kitchen.”

I smiled. That sounded like Porky and Stella. I’d continue their practice, too.

“Do you know Mark Cummings, Roberta’s brother?”

“Went to high school with him. Now there’s a strange duck.”

I laughed. “Tell me more.”

Clyde shrugged. “He’s a loner. Kinda on the mean side, but he always stuck up for his sister. Always. She was kinda…unpopular in school. She was a looker, but she looked down on everyone. Called us woodchucks.”

“Woodchucks?” That was a new one on me.

“Country hicks,” he clarified. “Bumpkins.”

I could understand how Roberta Cummings wouldn’t be liked in high school and that she might need a protector.

If Roberta Cummings was being physically abused by Marvin Cogswell, would her brother, Mark, go so far as to poison him?

Mark might know Marvin’s schedule. They frequented the same places at work. He could have slipped the poisoned mushrooms into Mr. Cogswell’s meal.

My heart beat wildly in my chest. I couldn’t wait to find out more information.

“You and Max and my uncle Porky go way back, don’t you?”

“Years ago, we all worked in the boiler plant
together on Main Street. Then Porky met Stella, and they started the Silver Bullet. I remember the day when the diner was delivered. It rolled right down Main Street.”

He glanced over at me. “The town gathered like it was a parade. Anyway, me and Max went to work for Porky and Stella when the plant closed.”

It must be wonderful to have good friends—friends with whom you shared a history. Deputy Doug had been my best friend, or so I thought, but his betrayal had knocked the breath right out of me.

I had hoped that when I made Sandy Harbor my permanent residence, I’d be able to make friends in the community, but that was going to be difficult when everyone thought that I was a murderer.

“So tell me about Max,” I said.

Clyde grunted. “Fisherman. Married. Three grown kids. Six grandkids that he never stops talking about.”

“Does Max know Roberta and Mark and Marvin?”

“Yup.”

“And?” I prompted.

He shrugged, and I knew that I wasn’t going to get any more information from him. I’d have to ask Max myself.

As we pulled into the empty parking lot of the Silver Bullet, I remembered that I’d promised Juanita that I’d speak to Clyde and Max about their practical jokes.

“Clyde, there’s something I have to know. On the day you and Max scared Juanita half to death, was there really a mouse in the kitchen?”

The laughter bubbled up inside of him, and it made me laugh, too. I needed that.

“What do you think, Trixie?”

“I think that you and Max just like to tease Juanita.”

He turned to me and winked, and I knew that the mouse was just a pit stop on the long line of practical jokes that Juanita had to endure.

“I can’t afford to lose a cook,” I reminded him. “Go easy on her.”

“Of course,” he said, a twinkle in his eye.

It was then I realized that Clyde had a schoolboy crush on Juanita. “Why don’t you just ask her out instead of playing games like that?”

Another shrug. Clyde was a man of few words.

“I’ll take care of unloading the van, Trixie. You go and take care of business,” he said.

I opened the back door so Clyde could have easy access to the kitchen, and I went out front. Cindy and Nancy were having coffee and reading magazines. Max was sprawled across the front booth, snoring.

“Any customers?” I asked hopefully.

“Just someone asking directions. He got a cup of coffee to go.”

Total income of the day: one dollar.

Total expenses: I couldn’t even think about it.

Speaking of which, didn’t I have to do the payroll?

“When’s payday around here?” I asked.

“Today,” Nancy said quickly.

“I’m so sorry!” And I was. Darn it, I’ve never felt so scattered in my life, and I didn’t like it. I was anal, compulsive, a list maker, and I was organized.

This wasn’t like me.

“I will immediately write you all a check.” I yawned. If only I could stay awake long enough to write them. Since there was no money coming in, I was going to write them from my personal checking account. It would have to do for now. “Just get your time cards and write how much I owe you on it. Gross pay. That’s what I’ll write you a check for this time. I’ll figure out the rest later.”

Everyone made their way to the back, and I sat there alone in my diner, really feeling like I was in over my head. I’d felt it before, but now it was overwhelming.

Deciding that I had to snap out of my funk, I gathered up all my change and headed for the jukebox. It was made to look like an antique, and I just loved the colorful bubbles that gurgled through the arcing tubes, complete with glitter.

I emptied my change and bills into the machine and punched in the Beach Boys, Frankie Valli, some Motown, Frank Sinatra, Elvis, and lots of fifties tunes.

Taking out my checkbook from my purse, I poured myself a cup of coffee and slipped into a booth.

My staff filed out and gathered around me. “We don’t feel right taking your money like this,” Nancy said.

“Yeah,” Cindy added.

Clyde and Max shuffled and didn’t want to make eye contact with me.

“You all deserve to be paid. You did the work, so now let me pay you,” I said, taking Nancy’s time card from her hand. I quickly wrote her a check as Elvis sang about a hound dog.

Dog!

Blondie!

“Where’s Blondie?” I asked, looking around.

Just then, I heard a whimper, and Blondie walked across the floor from the corner of the diner. She stretched, yawned, and wagged her tail at me.

She put her chin on my leg, and my heart melted. What a sweet puppy. I petted her soft blond head with one hand and wrote checks with the other.

Blondie’s barking woke me up out of a sound sleep. I grabbed the nearest thing to me, a Bic pen, and was ready to ink someone to death.

I tried to get my bearings, noting that I was in a booth at the Silver Bullet. In front of me, the pastries, all aglow, were rotating in their refrigerated showcase. Judging by the stiffness in my neck and back, I had fallen asleep.

The intruder was Ty. His hat was off, his chestnut hair, with a glint of red, was sticking up like a brush cut, and he looked sexy as all hell.

Not that I was looking. Not that I cared.

He shed his yellow raincoat and tossed it on one of the stools at the counter.

“Can I get you some coffee?” I asked.

“If I have another cup of coffee, I’ll float out of here.” He slid onto the seat across from me and stared. “You look like roadkill, Trixie.”

I could barely keep my head up, but I wasn’t going to let his remark go by without comment. I knew I’d looked better than this lately. My blond hair needed a good cut and some gray coverage. I needed to find and unpack some of my better clothes, which were still in my boxes and bins. Primarily, I needed a sleep schedule.

“Why, Deputy Brisco,” I said in my best Texas accent. “Is that how you charmed all the women at the Houston honky-tonks? You must have had those buckle bunnies hovering around you like planes over O’Hare.”

He grinned. “Good one, but your accent needs more work. Sounds more like…uh…Pennsylvania, or maybe Transylvania.”

I stood up and got some ice water. I downed it in seconds, then poured another and took it over to the table. “I am totally pooped. I don’t even know what day it is.”

“Early Sunday morning, I think.” His gaze followed Blondie. “I think she has to go out.”

“I’ll do it. I’m standing.” Blondie followed me to the kitchen. I planned on letting her out the famous back door, the place where we’d found her. I looked back at Ty. He was slumped in the booth,
his neck leaning on the back of the red vinyl of the bench seat. “Can I get you anything, Ty?”

“No, but thanks.”

As I waited for Blondie to do her business, I stared at myself in the reflection of the glass. I did look like roadkill. My eyes were slits, my face was puffy, and my neck looked like a turkey’s waddle.

Well, what did Deputy Cowboy expect? This had been a very long day.

Blondie barked at the door, and I let her back into the kitchen.

“What do you have there, Blondie?” I bent over to see what she had in her mouth. Whatever it was, she was proud of it. Please, not an animal!

Blondie pranced around the kitchen with it in her mouth. I followed at a safe distance, calling her name.

Finally, she stopped and came over to me. It was a piece of floral fabric. And I’d seen that kind of pattern before.

Blondie dropped the material at my feet. I picked it up, soggy and dirty. I pressed it flat. A white gardenia.

Antoinette Chloe Brown’s muumuu!

But how did this piece of her dress get here?

I grabbed a flashlight and headed back outside. I ran the light over everything for several minutes, looking for more material. Then I found it. The corner of the Dumpster had a bolt-type thing sticking up. There were several threads sticking out from the bolt, with the same kind of white-green color.

This had to be another clue!

Antoinette Chloe Brown must have been in the back of my diner—maybe she was spying on Marvin P. Cogswell, waiting for the opportunity to poison him. She had to have been hiding by the Dumpster, looking into the window, and her muumuu got snagged.

I should tell Ty!

Could he get into her house, check her muumuu collection, and see if her gardenia dress was damaged?

If he didn’t or couldn’t, I would!

But first, I was going to cook Blondie up a steak for her excellent investigative work.

“T
hat sure smells good, Trixie,” Ty said, walking into the kitchen. “Steak?”