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

Chapter 3

3

Marcus and Mart showed up right on time at one o’clock, and, after giving Marcus a quick heads-up on the morning’s events and urging him to get the details from Rocky, Mart and I headed over to Chez Cuisine for lunch. Apparently, I had not yet had enough breakfast-type food because the cheese soufflé called my name as soon as I saw it on the menu. Mart went with the far more sensible salad with a lemon Dijon dressing that looked amazing.

I had pretty much stopped coming to this delightful French café because the owner, Max, was getting on my very last nerve. He had this fervent crush on me, one he wasn’t afraid to flaunt despite my best attempts to put him off and despite his very clear understanding that Daniel and I were together. I missed the food, especially the risotto, but even that cheesy goodness wasn’t worth Max’s obnoxious flirtation.

Max typically worked nights, though, so I had been hoping that we’d miss him at lunch. Alas, my big mouth and tendency to over-compliment everyone ended that hope when I asked the waitress to thank the chef for the wonderful meal. (It was really wonderful. I could have eaten another entire soufflé if embarrassment hadn’t reigned me in.) The eager young woman brought out the chef to meet us since the dining room was mostly empty when we finished, and I was just getting up to shake the young, red-headed man’s hand when Max followed him out of the swinging kitchen door.

I had to suppress a groan and force my smile back to my lips as I told the chef the soufflé was the best I’d ever had. Mart chimed in that the salad was perfect and asked about what herbs he’d used when poaching the chicken. This question sparked a lively conversation about the underappreciation of sage which led into a conversation about wine, Mart’s specialty. Soon, the two of them had moved off to the wine racks at the side of the restaurant, and I was left there alone with Max.

My eyes darted around the room, hoping the waitress was within sight so I could ask for our check and give Mart the “I’m headed back to work” wave. But alas, the vibrant and eager young woman had disappeared at exactly the wrong moment, and I was forced to stand there and make small talk with my least favorite person in the world. Literally.

“Hi Max.” I was trying to be polite.

“Bonjour, mon cher. It’s lovely to see you.” He bowed and kissed my hand, as usual leaving his lips far too long against my skin. Max was not French in any way. My understanding was that he was Polish, born in Dundalk just outside of Baltimore, and every once in a while I could hear the Baltimore accent creep in. But mostly, he put on this ridiculous affectation of being European, replete with scarves and berets and such on occasion. “If I had known you were coming in, I would have had the chef prepare something special just for you. He makes an excellent apple tart I know you would love.”

Now, it was my time to roll my eyes. “I don’t actually like fruit desserts very much, and that soufflé was amazing.”

“You haven’t tasted my recipe for apple tart. I’ll make it a point to be sure you can have some on your next visit.”

Max had this absolutely obnoxious habit of thinking my personal tastes were something I needed to have improved. Clearly, he had not learned the fundamental lesson of courtship – because that was what he seemed to think he was doing with me, courting. He simply could not cater to the other person’s desires rather than try to change them.

Once again, I found myself grateful that Daniel didn’t mind at all that I never wanted apple tart or bananas foster or even that cherry ice cream that so many people raved about. He trusted that I knew myself well enough to appreciate cream puffs and white cake with white icing as my natural desires. So much so, every Friday, he brought me two vanilla cupcakes with vanilla icing from our friend Lucas’s fledgling cupcake business. Daniel said it was because he knew I needed a little boost after a long workweek, but I also knew he just wanted to support Lucas’s new endeavor.

Max would never bring me cupcakes. They would be below him, I’m sure.

I not so subtly shook my key ring in my hands, and then, because I am terrible at small talk and because I just so wanted to keep Max from saying anything else, I began to detail what each key on my ring did. “This one opens the shop doors. This one is for Mart’s car. This one is for a car I used to own back in San Francisco. I’m not sure exactly what this one does . . .” After about fifteen explanations, I looked up and hoped to see Max’s eyes glazed over with boredom, or even better, to see that he’d just walked away. But no, there he was just staring at me like I was quoting Baudelaire’s love poems to him.

Fortunately, at that moment, Mart returned to the table with the chef. “Harvey, this is Symeon. Symeon Cagle.” She leaned hard on the last name.

“Oh. Oh. Nice to meet you, Symeon.” I glanced at Max, who looked quite peeved that our “conversation” had been interrupted. I chose to ignore him by putting my foot in my mouth, not an unusual occurrence. “Are you related to Coach Cagle?” I have all the tact of a lion with a raw steak.

I saw the corners of his eyes pinch, but he smiled at me. “Yes, Coach was my uncle. Terrible thing that happened to him. I guess you guys heard?” He looked from me to Mart and then over to Max.

Max blew me a kiss and walked away without a word. Apparently, the news of a murder did not warrant the same attention as the uses of my keys. I resisted the temptation to try to explain Max’s gesture to this man I had just met and said, instead, “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

Symeon nodded. “Thank you. I appreciate that, and any death is a horrible thing, but to be honest, I didn’t much like him. Nobody did really. He was a jerk to most people.” He tilted his head and looked from me to Mart again. “Has news spread that quickly? I mean St. Mariner’s love nothing more than gossip, but even this feels pretty fast—”

Mart cut him off. “I’m actually the one who found him. He was my running coach.”

This time Symeon’s wince was more intense. “Oomph. Sorry.”

Mart sighed. “He was a good coach.”

“I had heard that,” Symeon said. Then, there was this gigantic awkward pause, a pause so big that tractor trailers could have driven through it.

It was into that gaping hole of silence that I realized that I might need to say something. “Well, anyway, I just, well, lunch was really good.” One would think that after all the books I’d read I could come up with a better compliment than good but there we were.

Symeon grinned. “I’m glad you liked it, and I’m glad you braved the, er, atmosphere to come in.” He winked and threw a glance back to where Max hovered by the pass-through window into the kitchen. “You two are brave.”

“Hey, we don’t work here,” Mart said with a laugh as we headed toward the door.

Once we were on the street, I groaned. “Now what do we do? The food is great, and the chef is nice . . . but Max. That man!”

Mart slipped her arm through mine. “He is something.” She glanced back through the window one more time. “Might be worth the trouble though.”

I smiled.

Mart walked me back to the shop and then headed out for her job at the winery. Some days I envied her because she got to jet off to wineries all along the east coast to consult, and on the days when her full-time job was winery manager, her hours were always at her discretion. She was that good.

I watched her stroll up the street toward her car and felt a little jealous, but then, I walked in the bookstore, heard that little bell over the door ring, and took a deep breath. Nothing gave me as much peace as the scent of paper and coffee. It smelled like home.

Behind the register, Marcus was just putting a copy of The Complete Illustrated Book of Herbs into a customer’s reusable bag, and as she walked toward me to leave the store, he rolled his eyes. “I never knew there was so much to know about the uses for thyme.”

“I bet you do now, though, huh?” Our customers were always eager to expound on their loves, and nothing gave people more license to talk about their passions than a new book on the subject. Well, nothing except a well-placed question. “Any tips?”

“I tuned out sometime around the part about fresh leaves in a rolled pork roast, but that did sound delicious.” Marcus smacked his lips together.

My assistant manager was an ideal co-worker. He was never late. He knew his subject, and he loved talking with customers even more than I did. Except, it appeared, when it came to culinary herbs. Before I’d hired him, Marcus’s reputation in town had been a bit marred – some by the fact that he’d stopped college and some by the racism that came with the fact that he was a Black man. But now, after he’d personally recommended a book to almost everyone in town with great success, he was one of the reasons people came to my store.

He was also the reason I could take long lunches and got an occasional day off. His mom also wrote a book matchmaking article in our newsletter, and much like Tannie Maria in the wonderful South African murder mysteries by Sally Andrew, she was a natural. We sold more books off her recommendations than on even my most eye-catching window display. I owed a lot to the Dawson family.

Just then, the bell rang over the door, and a white woman with very tan skin and the longest, thinnest arms and legs I’d ever seen headed toward the sports section. Given my recent weekend at the Humboldt Marathon, I recognized a runner when I saw one, and this woman was a serious runner. I gave her a few minutes to browse on her own just in case she’d come in looking for something specific that she could grab easily, but when she lingered by the two shelves of running books we stocked, thanks to Mart’s suggestions, I headed over. “Help you find anything?”

The woman turned toward me. Her face was pinched, like she’d pulled a muscle, but she smiled when she met my eyes. “I’m not sure. I’ve got terrible shin splints for the first time in my life, and I was hoping you might have a book about stretches or technique or something.”

I was way out of my element and wished Mart had come in with me before she headed off to work, but I scanned the shelves anyway. I had some flicker of a memory about a book Mart had suggested, something with a teal cover. Yep, there it was. I grabbed the copy of Running Rewired and held it up. “Something like this?” I pulled my mouth into a smile mixed with a cringe. “I’m not much of a runner, but my best friend thought this one had good resources. She’s a marathoner.”

“Oh, cool. Does she live nearby? Maybe I know her.”

“She does. We’re roommates. Mart Weston?”

The woman looked past my shoulder for a second as if thinking about something before meeting my gaze again. “Sorry, don’t think I know her. Does she train in the area?”

Before I thought I said, “Oh yeah, Coach Cagle over at the high school—” I stopped mid-sentence, remembering the man had just been killed.

“Oh, I know Coach, alright, but I don’t train with him anymore. How does – Mart, is that right? – how does she like him?” She was staring hard at an illustration of a hamstring, and I got the impression she didn’t want to make eye contact.

I sighed. I might as well tell her because the St. Marin’s gossip train would reach her anyway. “I guess you haven’t heard yet?”

She frowned. “Heard what? He didn’t harass some woman again, did he?”

I shook my head. “No, actually, he was murdered.”

She sucked in a breath. “Holy crap. No, I hadn’t heard that. Wow.” She kept staring at the illustration. “Man.” She shook her head a little bit but then looked back at me after letting out a hard breath. “The guy was a jerk but . . .”

“Yeah.” I looked from the book to her face. “Anyway, if there’s anything else you need, we’re right over there. Just let us know.”

She glanced over at the counter. “Thanks. Oh, and I’m Tiffany Steinburg. Nice to meet you.” She smiled warmly as she put out her hand. “This place is great.”

“Nice to meet you, Tiffany. I’m Harvey Beckett. This is my store.”

Tiffany looked around. “My first time in, but I like it. And this,” she waved the book, “looks perfect. If it’s okay, I’d like to take a look.”

“Please do. Customers are always welcome to browse.”

She waved as I headed back to the counter to take a gander at the day’s sales so far.

A few minutes later, Elle Heron from the local farm stand stopped by with two buckets of cut flowers. Each week, she delivered new stems for the tiny vases on the tables in the café, and recently, I’d added an order for a big bouquet to put on the front desk. I knew most people thought of flowers as spring-time things, but the fall colors – the sunflowers and late dahlias, even the weird green seed pods that Elle called “hairy balls” – made me happy.

“Oh, those look incredible, Elle. What are these?” I asked as I lifted flowers that looked like Dr. Seuss’s Christmas trees.

“Celosia,” Elle said. “They’re just so perky and bright.”

I nodded. I loved all the reds and yellows. “These will be perfect for the tables.”

“Yep, and this batch is for you.” Out of one bucket, she lifted a perfectly-arranged group of sunflowers in the most brilliant golds and oranges I’d ever seen. She slipped them into the green glass vase I had washed earlier for this very purpose, and they made the entire counter look more happy.

“Oh, I LOVE them, and you know Daniel’s favorite flowers are sunflowers.” I blushed a little at my impromptu confession.

“Well, then these should make him even sweeter on you than he already is, if that’s even possible.” She batted her eyes at me and put a finger in her cheek before she turned toward the bookshelves behind her. “Mind if I take a look at your business section. I have an idea for expanding my market share, but I want to be sure I revise my business plan before I go too far.”

I smiled. “Sure. You know where the business section is, right?”

“Yep.” She headed right toward it.

That was one of the reasons I loved Elle – she was a fellow businesswoman, and, like me, she was always looking for ways to improve her cash flow while also serving her customers better. The difference between Elle and me was that she loved a written plan, and I loved to wing it. Both of us had done alright so far, so I took that as yet another sign that it takes all kinds in the world.

As I ran a quick report on the morning’s sales, Marcus returned from the café with two mugs of steaming hot tea, for which I was mighty grateful. I’d have preferred a latte, but even a decaf one might have too much caffeine for my middle-aged body. I loved sleep too much to risk it.

“I thought yours smelled so good that I couldn’t resist,” Marcus said as he sipped from his own mug. “Can you smell it?”

I could. Cinnamon and something sweet. “Is that nutmeg?”

He winked. “You’ll like it.”

I took a little sip, and grinned. “Seriously, pumpkin tea? I didn’t even know that was a thing.” I perched myself on the stool behind the counter and took another sip. “It’s just a little sweet, but I don’t taste sugar.

“Nope. No sugar. The tea shop I get it from up in Easton doesn’t sweeten their blends,” Rocky said as she hopped up on the counter beside Marcus. “But the owner said that she thinks it’s the blend of spices that make people think it’s sweetened, like a pumpkin pie.”

“Well, I’ll take the illusion of sweetness without the calories. No problem there,” I said.

“Good because I brought in a bunch more of her teas, too, and she’s going to be here in the café on Saturday to do a demo of how to brew loose tea well. Hope that’s okay.” Rocky looked at me over the rim of her own mug.

“More than okay. I love that. I never have been able to figure out how to use an infuser without leaving bits of tea in the mug. Those little sprigs get caught in my teeth. I hate that more than I hate pulp in orange juice.”

“You hate pulp in orange juice?” Marcus asked. “What is it? Too much like an actual orange.”

“Precisely. I don’t like oranges either.” I laughed and then watched Elle come back to the counter, a book in her hand and a frown on her face.

She gave a subtle swing of her head back toward the direction from which she’s come then asks, “You know that woman over there? The thin one?”

I catch a glimpse of Tiffany’s legs and say, “Just met her. Tiffany Steinberg. Apparently, she’s a runner.”

Elle took out her debit card as I rang up her book, with the employee discount of course. “That makes sense then. She was just talking with someone about Coach Cagle.”

“Oh yeah, she knew him, I guess. But pretty much everybody’s talking about his murder, right? Something else?” Elle was still frowning, and I knew my friend well enough to recognize when something was troubling her.

“I’m not sure. She was saying that she was glad somebody took care of him. ‘He got what he deserved.’ That’s what she said.” Elle shrugged and shimmied her shoulders. “I don’t disagree, but something about how she said it.”

I pursed my lips and leaned over to see more of Tiffany in the wing chair. She was reading again, so it wouldn’t do me any good to eavesdrop by pretending to straighten the books there.

“Maybe he harassed her,” Rocky said. “If someone had been harassing me, scaring me like Coach did a lot of women, I’d probably be relieved if he was dead.”

Elle shrugged again. “Yeah, maybe.” She smiled. “Well, thanks for the book, Harvey. Rocky, Marcus, good to see you, too.”

“You’ll let us know about this new angle of the business?”

“As soon as I get the details in place, you’ll know. Trust me.” She winked as she slipped her book under her arm.

Ooh, another mystery, I thought.