Dead and Berried (The Early Bird Cafe Cozy Mystery Series Book 3) Read online

“He certainly didn’t like my last question.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Monday morning came sooner than Kori would have liked after her weekend of sleeping in. She rolled over in bed at four thirty and turned her alarm off. Ibis didn’t want to get up either, having gotten more play time with Milo and Otis than usual on Sunday.

  Kori dragged herself to the bathroom, washed her face with icy water to help get the sleep from her eyes and brushed her teeth. When she had jeans and a t-shirt on, she grabbed Ibis’ leash and the dog finally leapt off the bed like she’d just downed a large coffee.

  They took a quick walk along Main Street, not seeing a single other person, and then made their way to their usual morning places—Ibis in Kori’s small office and Kori in the industrial kitchen of The Early Bird Café.

  Kori hadn’t even erased the menus she’d had on the chalkboards on the walls after closing on Friday. Now she wiped them clean and took stock of what she could most easily serve for breakfast. She really had to stop leaving this to the last minute.

  She opened the door to the walk-in fridge and found the coolers from the festival still waiting to be unpacked. There was still plenty of waffle and crepe batter and those went immediately on the menu. Even if all of her customers had visited her booth over the weekend, coming in on Monday meant they loved it and wanted more.

  There were still plenty of fresh strawberries as well as rhubarb, so she decided on fresh muffins. And finally she added veggie omelets. When she’d left Nora’s last night, she took plenty of eggs, spinach, tomatoes and onions with her. With only four items, her menu was extra simple, but for a Monday she hoped no one would mind.

  Kori then set to work on the muffins. The strawberries were already chopped so she peeled and chopped the rhubarb, mixed together the muffin base and added the fruits. Just after five, she was ready to stick the first pan in the oven. As she closed the oven door, she heard the café’s front door open.

  Mom, Kori thought to herself. It was Monday morning and Gale always stopped by on her way to her spin class.

  “Morning Kori,” Gale said as she placed a nonchalant kiss on her daughter’s cheek and made her way to the fridge. She poured herself a glass of juice and then launched into the drama Kori was waiting for. “Well, Mayor Devlin and I are over.”

  “I didn’t know you two were official already,” Kori said, not meaning to sound snide but Gale seemed to miss the tone of her words.

  “It just wasn’t going to work out. We have different needs.” Gale took a big swallow of juice. “I wouldn’t know what to do in the spotlight.”

  Kori knew that wasn’t true. Gale would thrive in the spotlight. She was always trying to point the spotlight at herself. But she let it go. Clearly there was something else going on that she was likely going to tell Kori.

  “He just has too many girlfriends.”

  And there it is, Kori thought, trying not to chuckle out loud. Instead she told her mom, “Sorry to hear that.”

  “I’m over it.” Gale placed her empty glass in the sink, waved her hand in the air like she was brushing away the nuisance of Mayor Devlin and turned back toward the front door. “Gotta go to spin. You gonna make it to yoga with me this week? Tomorrow at one thirty.”

  “I’ll let you know tomorrow. I close at one so that’s cutting it close.”

  “Okay. See you.” Gale waved again as she left.

  Kori glanced at the clock and saw that it was already five thirty—time to flip the sign to open. Even though the door was already unlocked, she found that customers didn’t just let themselves in like her mother did if the sign still said Closed. For that, she was grateful.

  With the warm June-nearly-July air, Kori propped the front door open when she flipped the sign around. She put her head outside to take a breath of fresh air and saw her heartthrob walking toward her. Zach waved and Kori fully stepped out onto the sidewalk, a smile nearly hurting her cheeks. She loved seeing him before he went to work.

  This morning Kori didn’t hold back with her greeting. She knew he’d had a tough weekend with the murder investigation, and she couldn’t say that hers had been particularly easy with the festival and the investigation she was conducting on the side. When he was just a few paces away, she took a big step and opened her arms to him. He wrapped his own strong arms around her body and kissed her cheek. She didn’t think she’d ever get sick of feeling his body against hers.

  “Good morning,” he said into her ear and she flinched as his breath bushed against her hair and tickled her neck.

  “Good morning,” she said back between her childish giggles. “No one else is here yet. Come on in for a cup of coffee. And breakfast if you want,” she quickly added.

  Zach took her up on the invitation and helped himself to a cup of coffee while she checked on the first two dozen muffins. She pulled them out of the oven and placed the muffin tins on cooling racks, scooping two of them out before they cooled. She ended up with crumbled messes but they would still be delicious. She added a scoop of yogurt on each and placed them on the counter where Zach could reach them. Then Kori joined him on the other side of the counter on the seat next to him.

  “I could really get used to this,” he said through his first mouthful of muffin.

  “Be my guest,” she teased back.

  He leaned over and kissed her, making her blush even without an audience.

  Kori debated in her head about whether or not to tell him about seeing Stanley last night at Nora’s house. She finally decided that if she wanted any information about the official investigation she’d have to offer what she knew. “I saw Stanley Roche last night.”

  Zach looked up from his muffin. “Oh yeah?” He didn’t press for details.

  “At Nora’s,” she continued. “He wanted to see where she’d found the body. He told us Dan was allergic to strawberries.”

  Zach nodded slowly. “And he wasn’t poisoned. AJ had been a prime suspect because we thought it was rat poison, but he was actually out of town Friday night and Dan wasn’t poisoned.”

  Kori dropped her spoon and her mouth fell open. Muffin spilled onto the counter and she jumped up to get a towel to clean it up before any other customers came in. She considered what Zach’s news meant for her suspect list, motives and alibis.

  Before she had a chance to talk about it more with him, a family of six came in and she had to get back to work. Zach finished his muffin and coffee, gave her another discrete kiss on the cheek and left.

  Kori wanted nothing more than to call Nora, but the morning rush had started and she wouldn’t be able to talk to her until after one.

  ***

  At exactly one o’clock there was no one in The Early Bird Café, including Kori and Ibis. She’d managed to close five minutes early after the final family had left. She didn’t take a chance on having someone else walk in before turning the sign back to closed, closing the door and locking it.

  She headed straight to her car and brought Ibis to Nora’s. She had things to talk about and Ibis needed some exercise.

  Milo and Otis were the first to notice the car and came running in greeting, Nora following them from behind the barn. Her knees were muddy and she was still wearing her gardening gloves, so she’d clearly been working in her large garden.

  Kori walked toward her with purpose. She’d been bursting since her breakfast with Zach to tell Nora about Dan’s non-poisoning. Now she finally had her chance.

  “What’s going on?” Nora asked when she was close enough to see Kori. Nora’s face was twisted into an expression of concern.

  “We have to talk. We thought AJ might have been guilty because he had access to rat poison. But Dan wasn’t poisoned and he was out of town Friday night. We thought last night that the strawberries might have been placed there to throw off the detectives. Well, it worked.”

  Nora looked confused. “What do you mean?”

  They were still standing outside and Kori looked around to make sure no one else was within ea
rshot. “I saw Zach this morning and I told him about seeing Stanley last night and that Dan was allergic to strawberries. He already seemed to know that. And then he told me Dan wasn’t poisoned.”

  “So how was he killed then?”

  “I don’t know. But AJ isn’t guilty. That leaves Stanley, Holly and Arnold Greene.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Kori and Nora found themselves in an all too familiar setting—Nora’s kitchen with Kori’s measly list of suspects and a pen. “Let’s start with Stanley,” Kori suggested, pen poised over the paper as Nora washed dishes. “Alibi and motive?”

  “Well, I hate to admit it but he doesn’t seem to have an alibi.” Kori could hear pain in Nora’s voice as she admitted what Kori already knew to be true. She made a note of his lack of alibi and avoidance of offering information on her paper.

  “Motive?” Kori asked.

  “None that I know of. I don’t know why he would have wanted to have Dan dead. He said their parents were on their way, so they are still alive—no inheritance to steal from Dan. I don’t know.”

  “Okay. What about Arnold?”

  “Well, we haven’t talked to him and don’t know much about him. But if he was the prosecutor in the case against the chemical spill and probably had a grudge against Dan; that could be a motive.”

  Kori wrote that down. “It seems like a stretch.”

  “It always does because we wouldn’t kill anyone.”

  Kori chucked. Nora was right. “Alibi for Friday night? Why would he have wanted to dump the body on your farm?”

  “Because I was vocal about the water contamination? To frame me?” Kori could hear the questioning in Nora’s voice and knew she was grasping at any straws to draw the attention away from Stanley.

  “Well, he didn’t do a very good job. They ruled you out pretty quickly.”

  “Yeah. Who’s our last suspect?”

  “Holly. Alibi and motive?”

  Nora was silent for a few moments. “I don’t know. But her shovel showing up wasn’t a good sign. Maybe she was working with someone and is covering their tracks for them.” Kori reminded Nora about Holly leaving the shovel out on Friday night—could it have all been part of a plan?

  She looked over her list and was disappointed that they had so little information.

  “I want to talk to Stanley again,” Nora said, suddenly turning away from the sink and looking at Kori. “I want to know if he wanted Dan dead or if he is just hiding something he doesn’t want to talk about.”

  “We definitely have to do something. We don’t even have enough information on any one of these three to have a front runner. A shovel, a lost case and no alibi. That’s it.”

  “Good, I’m glad you agree. Because he asked to visit the barn again. He said he wants to look for clues and he should be here any minute.”

  They didn’t have to wait long. Within minutes they heard a car pull into the driveway and the dogs congregate around where it stopped, barking their heads off.

  “You stay here,” Nora instructed. “I’m going to talk to him. I hope he’ll tell me more if I’m alone. Don’t worry, I’ll tell you everything.”

  Kori was skeptical that Nora would remain unbiased but she was also pretty sure that Kori was one reason Stanley had been so jumpy yesterday and had suddenly rushed off.

  “Okay,” Kori agreed. “Ask him about where he was again. And if he knew about any enemies Dan had. But don’t bring up names.”

  Nora cut off Kori with a look to stop talking, that she had a handle on this and Kori just had to trust her. Then she was out the door and Kori was left sitting in the kitchen with barely anything on her pad of paper to think about.

  Instead, she got on her smart phone and started looking up anything she could find about Dan Roche. If they were going to find his killer, then they needed to know why someone might want him dead.

  The first hits she got in her search were his obituary in various newspapers. He and Stanley were the only kids their parents had. Dan studied law in San Francisco and then moved back east where he easily got a job in Boston.

  He’d worked at only one law firm, representing various corporations throughout his career, with a near perfect record of wins or dropped cases. Kori recognized a handful of his clients, but none of the cases until this recent one that affected Hermit Cove rang a bell.

  The back door suddenly slammed closed and Kori jumped. “Nora?” she called. She wished at least one of the dogs had stayed inside.

  Nora walked into the kitchen and Kori’s heart returned to its normal pace. “Okay, I have more information for you to add.” Nora sat down next to her and kept talking. “Stanley has been questioned multiple times already by the police. And given their timeline, he was the last person to see Dan alive—we already knew that. Stanley admits that they had an argument over dinner and things got heated, but then he didn’t see him again. Dan left—Stanley doesn’t know where—and never came back. He didn’t realize it until Saturday morning.”

  Kori made notes furiously on her paper. “Do you know what the argument was about?”

  “No. But he said at the time it seemed to matter and now it doesn’t.”

  Kori laughed. “Of course it matters. If he was really mad, was it enough to kill his brother?”

  “Well, we don’t know.”

  “Okay. Was anyone else home with him? Can anyone corroborate his story that he never left his house and followed Dan?” Kori asked. She was proud of herself for coming up with that idea.

  “Not according to Stanley and the story he gave the police. But it seemed like there was something else going on too. Like he didn’t want to tell me something else. Why wouldn’t he have wanted to tell us all this yesterday when we were talking to him? Why wait until now to tell me?”

  “That is strange. Maybe he did go somewhere but it incriminates him in something illegal so he’s sticking to this story instead. Is he gone?” Kori asked.

  “No. I told him to take his time. I can’t imagine how hard this is on him.”

  Kori nodded but she wasn’t sure if it was hard because he’d lost his brother or because he was trying to cover his tracks for killing him. “How would you feel about keeping him here longer so I can go look in his house?” Kori asked, suddenly realizing that this would be the perfect time to snoop. She knew she had to tread lightly since Nora had been involved with Stanley, but she couldn’t pass up this opportunity.

  Nora hesitated, studying Kori for her true intentions.

  “If we’re going to get to the bottom of this and put it all behind us, we need to know what else was going on with Stanley,” Kori added.

  “Okay. But take Ibis. She’ll alert you if something goes wrong. I’ll give you half an hour. Then I’ll have to let him go.”

  “Deal. Thanks.” Kori gave Nora a quick hug and nearly ran out the front door.

  Outside, she called Ibis and made a point of being loud about leaving. Stanley would know he was alone with Nora and that Kori had taken her dog, looking like she was going home.

  Ibis didn’t have to be told twice to come. Kori knew she loved playing with Milo and Otis, but she always seemed ready to go when Kori was. They got into her car and she quickly drove across town to Stanley’s house.

  Kori found it completely closed up with no cars around. His parents must have been staying at a hotel or bed and breakfast or hadn’t arrived yet.

  There were plenty of trees surrounding the house so nosy neighbors wouldn’t even see her. She parked a little ways down the road, got out with Ibis and together they headed toward the small house.

  It was clearly meant for only one person. Kori could see that there was nothing big about it, barely larger than a mobile home. But much nicer looking.

  She wasn’t sure what she’d find, or if she even wanted to go inside, but walking around it, she saw nothing suspicious. There were no strawberry plants, not signs of rodents and no shovels.

  On multiple occasions, a car drove down the stre
et and Kori would have sworn that they slowed down as they passed Stanley’s driveway. She was too jumpy to trust herself to find an unlocked door or window. Even if Ibis was there to warn her about anyone coming.

  Instead she peered through windows but couldn’t see anything in the dark. So she headed back to her car, pausing when she realized that tomorrow the trash would be collected. Stanley had already put his cans at the end of his driveway.

  Kori looked up and down the street but saw no one. She quietly opened the metal lid, making hardly a sound, and was met with the stench of chemicals. She backed up to catch her breath and then looked back inside. She saw boxes of rat poison.

  Had Stanley been the one to plant the poison after all?

  CHAPTER 10

  Kori hurried back to her car, not having any idea how long she’d been snooping around Stanley’s house. She drove a short distance down the road and then turned her car around and waited. She wanted to see if Stanley came straight home after Nora’s house. She didn’t know what she would do when he arrived, but she felt like she had to wait.

  Only a few minutes after she parked, her phone buzzed with a message. He’s on his way home. Come back. News to share.

  Kori was torn between sitting and waiting to see if he really came home and returning to Nora’s to find out what else she had learned. She eventually decided that Nora would be able to offer more information than Stanley coming home could.

  Before any cars turned into Stanley’s driveway, Kori turned and drove the long way back to Nora’s to avoid being spotted on his street.

  “I finally got the rest of his story from Friday night,” Nora said as soon as Kori walked in.

  All of the dogs collapsed on the kitchen floor, exhausted from their afternoon of playing. Kori was slightly jealous and hoped this would be a quick visit.

  Nora continued, “After their argument, Stanley went to the high school where he works.”

  “But isn’t it summer vacation? And on a Friday night?” Kori interrupted.