The Crêpes of Wrath: A Pancake House Mystery (14 page)

As the BMW pulled to a stop next to Jimmy’s house, I made my way up the beach and approached the vehicle, Brett right behind me. Maybe I shouldn’t have judged the man based only on what other people had said about him, but the last thing I wanted was for Jimmy’s house to be transformed into something garish like the eyesore next door. If that was what Teeves wanted to do with this property and others like it, he wasn’t going to find a fan in me.

Nevertheless, I kept my expression neutral as I walked over to meet him.

“Hello,” he said as he climbed out of his shiny car. “Gerald Teeves.”

He had a head of thick silver hair and wore an expensive gray suit with a maroon silk tie. I noted that he was the same height and build as the man I’d seen taking pictures of Jimmy’s house the other day.

Once free of his vehicle, he extended a hand toward me.

Hiding my reluctance, I shook it. “Marley McKinney.”

“Great to meet you,” he said with a smile that I could only describe as predatory. He nodded in Brett’s direction. “Mr. Collins, isn’t it?”

“That’s right,” Brett replied without coming forward to shake Teeves’s hand.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Teeves?” I asked.

“First, let me express my sincere condolences on the passing of Mr. Coulson. I understand you’re a relative of his?”

I didn’t buy his supposed sincerity for a second, but I focused instead on his question. “How did you know that?”

He flashed his too-white teeth at me. “Small town, Ms. McKinney, small town.”

“Right.”

“I was hoping I could have a chat with Mr. Coulson’s heir, whomever he passed this property to. You wouldn’t happen to know who that is, would you?”

“I do, as it happens,” I said, doing my best to keep my voice polite. “He left it to me.”

“Fabulous. You’re just who I was hoping to see, then.”

I almost expected him to rub his hands together with hungry glee, but instead he withdrew a business card from an inner pocket of his suit jacket and handed it to me.

“Perhaps you’ve heard of me.” He didn’t give me a chance to say whether I had or not. “I own the property next door and I’m looking to, shall we say, improve the character of more properties in the area.”

I wasn’t able to stop myself from wrinkling my nose at his words.

Strip the entire cove of its character is more like it,
I said in my head.

Brett shifted behind my right shoulder, and I guessed he wasn’t any more impressed than I was.

“And how is it you think I can help you?” I asked, though I knew full well.

Teeves turned up the wattage on his predatory smile. “I understand you’re from Seattle. No doubt you’d like to get back to your life there as soon as possible. I’m offering you the chance for a quick sale. At a fair price, of course. I’ll take this place off your hands as soon as the estate is settled. No muss, no fuss.”

My blood simmered with annoyance. Somehow, I managed to keep my voice steady, although it had a definite edge to it. “I’m sorry you’ve wasted your time, Mr. Teeves, but I haven’t yet decided whether or not to sell the house.” He tried to cut in, but I plowed onward. “And if I do decide to sell, it won’t be to someone who wants to come in and bulldoze the place.”

“Now see here, Ms. McKinney—”

I didn’t wait to hear what he had to say. “I think it would be best if you were to leave now.”

I could tell that Teeves wanted to protest again. Brett took a step forward to stand by my side, silently supporting my statement and adding a slight intimidation factor. Although he had only an inch or two of height over Teeves, he had a heck of a lot more muscle.

After glancing at Brett and back to me, Teeves took a step toward his car. “All right. I’m sorry you feel that way.” He climbed into his BMW. “If you change your mind, you have my contact information.” He nodded at the card in my hand and then shut the driver’s door.

I gritted my teeth together as he backed up and turned around before driving off the property. Once he was gone, I marched up to the front porch and snatched up the salad bowl before unlocking the door.

Brett followed me inside as I stormed down the hall to the kitchen.

“Can you believe it?” I said, fuming as I plunked the bowl onto the counter. “Jimmy’s only been gone two days and already Teeves is howling at the door, hoping to sink his teeth into this place.”

Brett leaned against the island. “Unfortunately, I can believe it, knowing Teeves.”

I glared down at the business card held in my hand. There was no way I’d be contacting that man. With a sense of grim satisfaction, I tore the card in two and tossed it in the garbage pail beneath the kitchen sink.

As I slammed the cupboard door shut, a thought struck me.

Gerald Teeves was obviously eager to get his hands on Jimmy’s property. But just how eager was he?

Eager enough to kill Jimmy to get him out of the way?

I voiced my thoughts to Brett.

“I don’t know about that,” he said. “Killing Jimmy wouldn’t guarantee him anything. Even if he knew who Jimmy would leave the house to—and I highly doubt that he did—he couldn’t be at all certain that you’d want to sell.”

I bit down on my bottom lip. “That’s true.” Even
I
didn’t know if I wanted to sell the Victorian. “But what if he tried to convince Jimmy to sell and they ended up arguing. Maybe in the heat of the moment, Teeves killed him out of anger and frustration.”

That scenario was all too easy to picture. I shuddered and rubbed my arms, chilled by the idea.

“I guess that’s a possibility,” Brett said, but he didn’t sound too convinced.

“
Somebody
killed Jimmy.”

“Yes, somebody did. And maybe that somebody was Gerald Teeves.” Brett rested his hands on my shoulders. “Just promise me you won’t confront him or anyone else you suspect. Doing that could be dangerous.”

“You’re right,” I said. “And I’m not planning on confronting anyone.”

“Good.”

I tried not to let my disappointment show when Brett removed his hands from my shoulders, but I missed their warmth as soon as they were gone.

“Why don’t you try to focus on something more pleasant?” he suggested.

“Like what?”

He grinned. “How about our first kiss?”

“Um…We’ve never kissed,” I pointed out, confused. “So—”

His lips touched mine.

My train of thought flew off its tracks and my body buzzed with electricity. I lost all awareness of the world around me. Nothing existed in that moment except the feel of his lips against mine, the warmth of his hand as it rested against the small of my back.

Brett deepened the kiss and the electric current humming through my body upped its voltage. I slipped a hand up to cup the back of his neck.

Just as I tried to pull him closer, he broke off the kiss and stepped back.

I stood there, breathless and dazed.

He leaned in toward me again and my lips tingled in anticipation. But instead of pressing his lips to mine, he placed them close to my ear. “Now we have,” he said, his breath tickling my earlobe.

He stepped back again and flashed me his irresistible grin. “I’ll let myself out.”

Then he was off down the hall and out the front door.

I couldn’t move, couldn’t think. I remained where he’d left me, and as I heard the front door shut behind him, all I could do was whisper, “Holey buckets.”

It took a few minutes, but I finally managed to gather my wits about me and head back to The Flip Side. Brett had successfully distracted me from the annoyance of Gerald Teeves’s visit, but he’d also left my thoughts completely scattered. I had to struggle to stay focused as I spoke with the locksmith, but in time I was able to think more clearly, despite the fact that I kept replaying the kiss in my head.

Over the next hour or so, the locksmith took care of all the locks at The Flip Side as well as at Jimmy’s house. Rendering the old keys useless made me feel safer, and I hoped it wasn’t a false sense of security. The fear that had sent me fleeing from the pancake house in the middle of the night was still fresh in my mind, and I had no desire to repeat the experience or anything close to it.

Soon after I’d written the locksmith a check to cover his bill, I closed up for the day and cleaned the pancake house. My mind wandered as I worked, not surprising me in the least by returning once again to the memory of Brett’s lips against mine. I wanted to see him again as soon as possible, but at the same time a small nugget of worry formed in my stomach. I was only in town temporarily and the last thing I needed in my life was another distraction, so was it really a good idea to let my attachment to Brett grow any stronger?

As I finished wiping down the last tabletop, a knock sounded on the front door, saving me from answering my own question. I glanced at the clock. If that was the first interview candidate, she was right on time.

I opened the door to find a short and stout woman in her early fifties standing on the other side.

“Beatrice Hall?” I guessed, remembering her name from her application.

“That’s right.”

I stepped back. “Please, come in.”

We exchanged pleasantries as I led her back to the office.

“Sorry,” I said as we stopped at the open office door. “We had a bit of an incident and the office is a mess at the moment. I’ll just get my things and we’ll do the interview in the break room across the hall.”

I grabbed a notebook filled with questions Jimmy had suggested I ask the interviewees. When I turned back to Beatrice, she was eyeing the mess of papers on the floor with pursed lips. Clearly, she wasn’t impressed, and I had to force a polite smile back on my face.

After showing her to the break room and inviting her to take a seat, I backtracked down the hall. When Jimmy had first told me about the upcoming interviews, he’d suggested that Ivan be involved. I figured that was a good idea, since the chef would be the one working most closely with the new employee. Plus, his presence would give the candidates some forewarning about what he was like. I knew that not everyone would be up to the task of working alongside Ivan with his scowls and intimidating physical presence.

Poking my head into the kitchen, I said, “Ivan? The first interview candidate is here. Would you like to join us?”

Wiping his hands on a towel, he nodded. Leaving the towel and his apron behind, he followed me back to the break room, where he declined a seat and stood with his back to one wall, his muscular, tattooed arms crossed over his chest. It wasn’t the most welcoming pose, but that was Ivan and there was no point in pretending he was a sociable, chummy guy.

As I sat down across the table from Beatrice, I noticed she once again had pursed lips. This time her judgmental gaze was fixed on Ivan. Did she not like tattoos?

I didn’t know, but I’d already tired of her attitude. That didn’t bode well for her employment prospects at the pancake house. Still, I tried my best to keep an open mind and went ahead with the interview. She provided curt answers to all of my questions, never voluntarily offering any extra information. The entire interview process felt more like I was pulling teeth than getting to know a potential employee.

Once we’d finished the interview, I walked Beatrice to the door and thanked her for coming, telling her I’d be in touch within the next few days. As soon as she was gone, I turned back to Ivan and raised my eyebrows.

“Not her,” was all he said. Then he disappeared into the kitchen, the door swinging in his wake.

I leaned against the wall and let out a sigh. I agreed with Ivan’s assessment, but now I had to cross my fingers that the other candidates would make a better impression. We’d soon find out. The second one was due to arrive any minute.

As I made my way toward the office, I heard a knock at the front door. At least I knew this candidate was as punctual as the first, although that hadn’t been enough to make Beatrice Hall an attractive prospective employee.

When I opened the door a cloud of cigarette smoke hit me in the face. I cringed and stepped back before I even noticed the thin, reedy man standing a few feet in front of me.

“I’m here for an interview,” he said as he dropped his cigarette to the ground.

“Peter Aylesworth?” I asked, although I figured that must be who he was.

“Pete.” He offered me a hand covered in nicotine stains.

After shaking his hand, I opened the door wider and invited him into The Flip Side. While his back was turned, I stepped outside and ground his still-lit cigarette beneath the toe of my shoe before slipping back inside and shutting the door.

A strong smell of cigarette smoke clung to Pete, following him as I led him to the break room. I fought the urge to cough. A mere hint of cigarette smoke was enough to tickle my throat and make me yearn for fresh air. I knew Ivan wasn’t a fan of cigarettes or their smoke either. Maybe the man’s experience and competence would win over the dour chef, but I had my doubts.

As it turned out, Ivan didn’t need to use the smell of cigarettes as a reason to dismiss Pete as a candidate for the job. Right from the start of the interview, something seemed off about the man. After exchanging a few preliminary remarks, I asked him to tell me about the last restaurant he’d worked at.

“Not much to tell,” he replied. His hand went to his shirt pocket before dropping back to his lap.

I spotted a small packet in his pocket and suspected he was craving another cigarette.

“It says on your résumé that it was a diner in Seattle,” I prompted, hoping to get more out of him.

“That’s right.”

“Was it about the same size as The Flip Side?” I asked. “Bigger? Smaller?”

“Oh, about the same size.”

“And what were your duties?”

“I did a little bit of this and a little bit of that.”

I exchanged a glance with Ivan before asking, “Could you be more specific?”

Pete shrugged. “You know, chopping things, frying things.”

Ivan’s usual scowl had deepened, and I had to work to keep my expression pleasant. I asked a few more questions, but Pete answered them all in the same vague fashion. At one point he referred to crêpes as “those fancy French things,” and I knew then with absolute certainty that Ivan would never let the man in his kitchen.

After that I wound up the interview as quickly as I could, sensing that Ivan was becoming more and more aggravated with every passing minute. As I walked Pete to the door and thanked him for coming, he fished a cigarette from the packet in his shirt pocket and already had it in his mouth by the time he stepped out of the pancake house.

I barely had the door latched before Ivan said, “His résumé is a work of fiction.”

That wasn’t a statement I could argue with. Pete’s answers to my questions and his general demeanor had strongly suggested that he’d made up most—if not all—of the past experience listed on his résumé. I had no doubt that if I bothered to take the time to look up the listed places of past employment, they either wouldn’t exist or would never have heard of Peter Aylesworth.

Ivan said nothing more, spearing the front door with a dark look before returning to the kitchen. I sighed once again and marveled at how badly the two meetings had gone. It was like a comedy of bad interviews, except I wasn’t laughing and neither was Ivan.

It seemed as though I had to pin all my hopes on the last candidate, but considering how things had gone with Beatrice Hall and Pete Aylesworth, that thought didn’t fill me with optimism.

The final applicant was due to arrive in approximately fifteen minutes, so instead of worrying about how disastrous the next interview might be I busied myself with sorting through a few more papers on the office floor. I’d managed to get only a small pile of documents tucked away in the filing cabinet before another knock sounded on the front door.

This time I opened it to a young man with a skateboard in hand. His dark hair was styled in a short Mohawk with a zigzag design shaved into the sides.

“Thomas Park?” I asked.

He grinned and held out his hand. “Everybody calls me Tommy.”

I shook his hand and invited him into the pancake house, grateful for the fact that he didn’t smell of cigarette smoke, or anything else for that matter. As I shut the door behind him, he gazed around the dining area, still grinning.

“Man, this place is great. And I hear your chef is awesome.”

“His cooking’s definitely popular,” I said, wondering what Tommy would think once he’d met Ivan.

We made our way back to the break room, where I invited Tommy to get settled in one of the chairs. Before I had a chance to go fetch Ivan, he appeared on his own, taking up a similar stance to the one he had during the previous two interviews. That didn’t seem to faze Tommy in the least.

“Hey, man,” he greeted Ivan. “Sick tattoos.”

I held my breath, hoping Ivan realized that was a compliment. To my relief, he seemed to know that was the case and acknowledged the comment with a nod.

Wasting no time, I delved into Tommy’s employment history and experience working in kitchens. Some of the information I already knew from his application, but—in stark contrast to Pete—he wasn’t at all hesitant about chatting and he generously filled in the blanks. While he was growing up, his parents had owned a Korean restaurant in Seattle where he’d helped out after school each day. He’d recently moved to Wildwood Cove because of the “chill atmosphere,” as he put it. He was into photography, but was just starting out professionally and needed income from another source to keep him afloat.

The whole time Tommy talked, Ivan never said a word, and every minute that passed left me more worried, although I didn’t let it show. I liked Tommy. He was personable and had the type of experience we were looking for, but I doubted Ivan would give the twenty-one-year-old his stamp of approval. The chef was a man of few words and although his expression was giving nothing away, I doubted he’d be thrilled to have a chatterbox like Tommy in his kitchen with him every day.

Once the interview had come to its end, I showed Tommy out of the pancake house with a smile but a sense of heavy disappointment. I knew we’d be losing out on a great employee if Ivan didn’t approve of Tommy, and I didn’t know who else I was supposed to hire in his place.

Brushing my curls away from my face, I locked the door and turned to face Ivan, my shoulders sagging, ready for him to express his disapproval.

“He’s the one,” the chef said.

My eyebrows shot up. “Really?”

“You don’t think so?”

“No. I mean, yes. I think he’s great.”

“That’s settled, then.”

Ivan disappeared into the kitchen, leaving me standing there, stunned. He really didn’t mind Tommy’s chatter?

I shook my head, still surprised, but pleased and relieved. With that decision made, at least one task was off my plate. I’d call Tommy later that day to give him the good news, but at the moment I had another job to tackle.

Once I’d collected my belongings and said goodbye to Ivan, I hurried along the beach to Jimmy’s house and hopped in my car. From there, I drove to the edge of town where the funeral home was located. After pulling into a spot in the nearly empty parking lot, I sat in my car and took some deep breaths, trying to fight off the anxiety that threatened to take hold.

Funeral homes stirred up terrible memories for me. Losing three people I loved dearly in the space of a few days had been soul shattering. Helping my mom deal with all the arrangements afterward had taken far more than I’d thought I had in me. Years later, I didn’t know how we’d managed to get through those dark days. We had, though. Somehow.

I didn’t want to dredge up my painful past, and I needed to go inside to take care of things for Jimmy. But when I rested my hand on the golden handle of the front door, my anxiety once again threatened to take over.

I took another deep breath and let it out slowly. I could do this. I
had
to do this.

Drawing on all the inner strength I could find, I turned the handle and opened the door.