St. Marin's Cozy Mystery Series Box Set - Volume 2: Books 4-6

Chapter 2

2

By the time Mart, Daniel, and I walked the two blocks back to the high school, Sheriff Mason was already on the scene, and he didn’t look happy. Specifically, he didn’t look happy with Mart.

“What in the world would possess you to leave a man’s body here unattended?” The sheriff’s voice was low and controlled, but I could sense the anger seething behind his words. He looked like he could chew nails to powder.

Now that she was recovered from the initial shock and fear, Mart was her usual, composed self. “I was afraid,” she said with her hands on her hips. “And I thought I heard someone there,” she pointed toward the bleachers behind the bathrooms where she’d found the coach’s body. “I thought maybe it was the killer. So I ran.” She stared at the sheriff until he broke eye contact and walked back to the coach’s body.

Coach Cagle was a thin, wiry man – a distance runner all his life, or so I understood from Mart. From Rocky, who ran the coffee shop at the bookstore, I also knew he was a bully. When she’d been in his gym classes, he’d harassed her to no end about her curvy physique. He’d even told her that she’d never find a man if she didn’t lose a few pounds. Apparently, Rocky wasn’t the only one he bullied, and bullying wasn’t the worst of it. There were lots of rumors that he was beyond inappropriate with some of his students.

So I couldn’t say the coach would be missed by much of anyone, especially not his female students. Mart only tolerated him because he was an expert at what he did. He’d helped improve her distance times considerably, and she hurt less after long runs. But Mart was also not a teenage girl, and she didn’t take crap from anyone, In fact, when I’d told her about Rocky’s experience with Cagle, she’d said, “He and I will be having a conversation about this,” and sure enough the next afternoon, he’d come by the shop to apologize to Rocky, who, to her credit, had been gracious but cold as ice when she said, “Thank you for your apology. I appreciate that it must have been hard to give it. Take care, Coach.”

I had almost applauded. Now, though, with his long legs sticking out of those far-too-short running shorts, I kind of felt bad for the guy. It’s hard to find someone despicable when they’re dead.

“Looks like it was personal,” Tuck said as he bent over the body. “Someone was taking out some anger on this guy.”

I started to take a few steps forward to get a closer look, but Daniel put a hand on my arm. “Do you really want that image in your head, Harvey?” he asked quietly.

Immediately, I stopped moving. No, no I did not want to see that. He was right. Instead, I did what my seemingly limitless curiosity led me to do, I asked a question. “You think the person who did this knew him?” I tried to look innocent as Sheriff Mason turned slowly to me, his eyes narrowed.

“I expect so. Stabbings are usually personal, and this,” he glanced back at Cagle’s body, “this looks really personal.”

I again resisted the urge to step forward by feeding my curious mind. “Plus, the person would have had to know he would be here, right?”

Mart spun toward me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

I stared at her for a minute until I realized what my question implied. “No, I didn’t mean that, Mart. I mean, since you were meeting him here to train, of course you knew he would be here, but . . .” I petered out. I was just making it worse by trying to explain.

Tucker came to my rescue. “Yes, the person would have had to have known he was here. But from the looks of things, he’s been dead a while. I’ll know more after the coroner’s report, but I don’t think he was killed this morning.” He winked at Mart. “You’re off the hook.”

Her eyes went wide with rage. “Well, thank goodness I’m off it since I should have never been on it in the first place.”

The sheriff stepped up and raised his hands. “It was a joke, Mart. Sorry.”

“You’re making a joke about me being a possible murderer? Some joke, Sheriff.” Mart’s voice could have cut glass.

I stepped between the two of them and put my hands on Mart’s shoulders. “It’s okay. Let’s go get a cinnamon roll,” I said. I smiled back at Daniel and Tuck as I led Mart away from the track. I’d seen this sort of reaction in Mart before. It was her post-adrenaline process, and it usually included a fair bit of anger followed by a great measure of tears. Mart was not a person who liked to be seen as weak, and she defined crying as weak. I knew it was better for everyone if we got her to a private place before she broke down.

We just made it, too. I was coming back to the storeroom of the bookstore with two warm cinnamon rolls freshly made by Rocky’s mom that morning when I heard the sobs begin. Luckily, Mart was tucked behind the storeroom door at the little table I’d added recently as a sort of break room. “Oh, Harvey,” she said as I set the plate down in front of her with a fork. “It was awful.”

I sat down beside her and let my forearm rest against hers. “I imagine it was. You knew him, too, so that must have been especially hard.”

She took a deep sucking breath. “He was a total jerk, but he was also my friend. How could someone have done this to him?” She continued to cry, but I took the fact that she stabbed the cinnamon roll with the fork and ate a bite as a good sign.

“No one deserves to die that way,” I said, “No matter how much of a bully he is. Tuck will figure out who did this. We know that.”

She nodded her head ever so slightly as she pried another piece of the roll off. “You’ll help him, right?”

Now, it was my turn to be gob-smacked into silence. Mart had always been a staunch opponent of any sort of investigating on my part, so I didn’t quite know what to make of her question. “You want me to help look into this murder?”

Mart pushed the pieces of hair that had fallen out of her pony tail from her face and said, “Well, no, not really. Okay, maybe, a little.” She picked up the cinnamon roll and shoved the center circle into her mouth whole. “Oh, I don’t know. You’re going to be involved anyway, aren’t you? Maybe I’m just trying to save myself some angst by making myself feel like it was my idea.”

I sat back and took a deep breath. “Okay.” I wasn’t sure what I was feeling just then, a little bit hurt maybe, a lot bit confused for sure. But Mart didn’t need to deal with my emotions just then. “I’ll do whatever helps you, Mart. You’re always my top priority.”

She looked at me out of the corner of her eye, and I saw a little smile turn up one corner of her mouth. “After Daniel.”

I blushed. “Okay, after Daniel.”

“And Mayhem.”

I laughed. “And Mayhem.”

“And maybe Taco.” Now she was really smiling, and I knew my best friend’s equilibrium was returning.

“I’ll have to get back to you on where Taco ranks. Remember, he ate my hamburger right off my plate last week. I’m not sure I’m ready to forgive him.”

“Fair enough,” Mart said as she shoved my cinnamon roll at me. “Now, eat.”

I coughed. “I really shouldn’t. I had two of Lu’s burritos already.”

She gave the blue plate a little nudge. “That was at least an hour ago. Be a hobbit. Have a second breakfast. It’s your favorite meal of the day.”

It was good to be so well-loved. I picked up the roll and chomped down.

Mart headed home a bit later after I exacted a promise that she’d come back at one o’clock and join me for lunch, and I went out to the floor to do the bare minimum of prep for opening at ten. Fortunately, my assistant manager, Marcus, had been up to his usual form while I was gone, and the store was in fine shape. I didn’t have much to prepare, so I walked back over to the café so I could chat with Rocky who had seen me come in with Mart and prepped the cinnamon rolls with nary a question.

“Everything okay?” she asked now.

I sighed. “Yeah, she’s okay. You’ll hear soon, I expect. She found Coach Cagle’s body over at the high school this morning. He’d been stabbed.”

Rocky’s mouth fell open. “Coach was murdered?”

I nodded. “I know he was a real—”

“He was,” she said, “but he didn’t deserve to be killed. Gracious!” Her face had drained of blood, and she put her hand over her mouth. “Do they have any idea who did it?”

“Not that I’ve heard,” I said. “Tuck was there, so I guess we’ll know when we know.”

Rocky raised her eyebrows. “You mean, you’ll know when you can’t resist butting in?”

I cleared my throat and decided to change the subject. “So was it fun for you and Marcus to run the shop together, just the two of you, for a few days?”

My café manager and my assistant manager had been dating for a few months now, and all signs pointed to a long-term commitment sort of situation. They were discreet and totally appropriate at work, but every once in a while, I’d catch them exchanging a glance across the shop floor. There was no doubting this was a big old love thing happening.

Rocky turned her back to me and pretended to clean the milk steamer. “It went great. We work well together.”

“I’ll say,” with as much innuendo as my voice could carry. Then, I laughed, and Rocky turned back to me, a grin across her face as she tugged on one of the curls framing her light-brown face.

“Thanks for keeping the place going. It was good to get away and still know things would be fine here,” I said.

“So the trip was good?” Rocky asked, seizing her own chance to change the conversation.

“Very. Mart and I had a blast, and her race was good. Now, though, I have to finish up the prep for the Harvest Festival. I hear it’s the big event for St. Marin’s in the fall?”

“Yep, the last of the tourists for the season. How’s the float coming?”

I frowned. “Just fine, thank you very much. We could use two more Peanuts, though. Sure I can’t convince you and Marcus to join me.”

She rolled her eyes. “Harvey Beckett, you know there is only one black Peanut. Marcus looks nothing like Franklin, and I refuse to be a token, no matter how good Mr. Schultz’s intentions back in the day.” She smiled at me. “Nope, we’re totally good holding down the fort here.”

I laughed. “Fair enough,” I said, “although you would make a great Franklin.” I turned to open the front door and heard her laughing as she began to steam the milk for the vanilla latte she always made me first thing in the morning.

The day’s sales were steady for a Monday, and, between customers, I kept busy getting the pumpkin display set up in one of the front windows, despite two dogs’ commitment to getting under my feet. I even had a bit of time to set up the other window full of October-themed murder mysteries. There was just something about the fall that made me want to dig into a mystery with an amateur sleuth who solves the case.

The centerpiece of that display was Leena Clover’s Apple Caramel Mayhem, one of her delightful cozies that included just the perfect number of recipes to make my mouth water. Add to that Samantha Silver’s first witch mystery, Lee Child’s Blue Moon, and Oyinkan Braithwaite’s strangely funny novel about a her sister who is a serial killer, and I had a pretty great reading recommendation list for all the mystery lovers in town.

I had just finished putting out the adorable bean bag witches and pumpkins that I’d picked up at a craft fair in September when Sheriff Tucker came in. “Hi Tuck. Cup of coffee?”

The sheriff nodded and headed toward the café as I climbed down out of the front window. I had yet to figure out how to make that exit gracefully, so I almost took out a floor-stand of new bookmarks in my endeavor.

Tuck was already sitting at his usual table near the back of the café close to the counter. He preferred a little privacy on his visits, and I couldn’t blame him. As one of three police officers in town, he was often asked to give his ear to grievances about anything and everything. The other evening when he and Lu had come in to pick up a picture book for Lu’s niece’s sixth birthday, another customer had kept Tuck pinned in the fiction section for twenty minutes as he lamented the excess of stray cats in his neighborhood and the town’s need to euthanize “the little buggers.” I’d finally had to extricate him from the situation myself by telling him I thought I heard someone trying to break in my back door. The cat-hater tried to follow, but I waylaid him with a diversion to the true crime section. Something just told me this man would appreciate books on serial killers, and I was right. I made a mental note to be sure my cat, Aslan, was kept carefully inside just in case this joker lived near Mart and me.

I sidled over to the sheriff with my second latte of the day and sat down. I’d learned that the best thing to do with most people was to just be present, and they’d talk if they wanted to talk. This was especially true of our usually jovial sheriff on the rare days when he was quiet and introspective. Today was one of his quiet days.

I turned my chair so that I could keep an eye on the register, and then I sat back and enjoyed my drink. A lot of people found it odd that the sheriff came to talk to me, of all people, about his cases from time to time. I wasn’t law enforcement, and the sheriff was more than competent to do his job. It wasn’t that he needed my help. No, it was more about camaraderie, about needing a sounding board, I thought. As someone who had to talk through things to understand them, I figured the sheriff was probably the same way. He had deputies, sure, but maybe it was safer to just run ideas by a neutral person who was genuinely interested.

It was that genuine interest that gave my friends concern, though. I had a bad habit of getting entwined in investigations, and sometimes my curiosity got me in trouble. I was glad Mart and Daniel weren’t in the shop just then . . . but I could see from the look on Rocky’s face as she watched us from behind the café counter that she was already wary.

I winked at her with the hope that I could dispel her worry, and then I turned back to the sheriff. He took a long swig of his coffee and then sat back. “Some start to the week, huh?” he said as he ran his hand over his short hair.

“I’ll say.” I glanced over at the shop. Just a couple of middle-aged women browsing the self-help section. From their careful study of the shelves, I could tell they’d be a while. “Mart was pretty shaken up. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen her that scared.”

The sheriff sat forward. “Yeah, that seemed a little out of character for her. She’s usually so pulled together.”

I looked down into my mug. “Usually. But she thought she heard—”

“Right. I get it. She did the smart thing to get out of there.” He looked me in the eye for the first time. “She’s not a suspect, Harvey. I hope I don’t have to tell you that.”

Until that moment, I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath, but the wave of relief that washed over me told me I had actually been wondering. “Right. Good. That’s good.” I took a deep breath and then said, “So any suspects?”

The sheriff squinted at me. “Just between you and me?”

“Of course.” I felt a warm body brush against my legs. “Well, you, me, and Mayhem.” I bent down to scratch my girl’s ear and saw Taco drop his weight against the sheriff’s legs. “Okay, between the four of us.”

Tuck bounced his foot to give Taco a little nudge. “Too many.”

“They’re just dogs, Tuck. They can’t tell anyone what you say.”

He rolled his eyes. “No, Harvey. Too many suspects. Coach Cagle did not have the best reputation, especially with the ladies.” His voice was low, but the café was pretty quiet so I wasn’t surprised to see Rocky nod vigorously from behind the glass of the pastry case.

“So I’ve heard,” I said, turning my eyes back to the sheriff. “Someone I know had a really rough go of things with him. From what I heard, he should have been fired a long time ago . . . and charged with s****l harassment.”

“That’s my impression, too,” Tuck drained the rest of his coffee. “But impressions aren’t evidence, and right now, I’m really short on that essential part of this investigation.” He stood up and straightened his g*n belt. I always marveled at police officers with all that gear on their waists. It looked so heavy.

“Why’s that?” I asked as I stood and moved toward the register where the self-help ladies were waiting with books in their hands as if making their final choices.

“I’m hoping you and Mart might be able to go back to the track with me tonight and see if she remembers anything else, now that the situation is a little less, well, intense.” Tuck slipped his sheriff’s department baseball cap onto his head. “I thought she might feel calmer if you were there.”

I nodded. “So you aren’t inviting me along to help with the case?”

He laughed, but then the smile dropped from his lips. “Absolutely not, Harvey Beckett. You’re just coming to support your friend. Understood?”

I smiled. “Understood. Happy to do anything for my friends.” I waved as he headed for the door then turned back to my customers.

Their choices seemed especially fitting for today: The Body Keeps The Score and Why Does He Do That?