Murder at the Tremont House (A Blue Plate Cafe Mystery) Read online

  “I can’t pay a lot, David.”

  “They owe me. Now let’s talk about getting you away from Wheeler for a wonderful dinner.”

  “Sounds great, but I told the sheriff I’d either be at the café or they’d know where I was.”

  “I’ll call Rick and tell him I’m taking you to Tyler for dinner. I’ve wanted to go to that upscale bistro ever since you mentioned it. How about I invite Rick? I promise, no talk about Sara Jo.”

  I really wanted to blurt out, “Why invite Rick?” but I didn’t know how David would interpret that. He was trying to be diplomatic, I knew, but I couldn’t imagine anything more awkward than a dinner with David and Rick where we were forbidden to talk about the one thing that was on all our minds.

  In the end, we did talk about Sara Jo. David met Rick and me at the restaurant because he would be going back to his cabin. Rick was solemn. He was out of uniform, and he looked particularly handsome in crisply creased blue jeans and a pale blue Oxford cloth shirt. But there was no smile on his face, no light in his eyes. He was the Chief of Police I’d first met in Wheeler.

  David asked us about Donna, and I reported that the B&B seemed to be building a clientele. “She can’t count Sara Jo, who had a long-term arrangement, because that’s not likely to happen again anytime soon. Especially now with the murder,” I said.

  “She making any money?”

  “She claims she’s paying her expenses, but I don’t know how she figures that. I’m going to take over her bookkeeping or at least get her started. I’m surprised Tom hasn’t helped her. In fact, I don’t see how he could stand not to set up the books for her. He’s a good businessman.”

  That got the first chuckle out of Rick all evening. “I think our mayor’s string is a bit short, as far as his wife is concerned,” he said. “Tom doesn’t talk much, but I get the feeling he’d still like to shove the whole B&B idea and have a wife again…or a new wife.”

  Now why did he throw me a sideways look when he said that?

  David caught the look, too, but said nothing. “I don’t suppose she’s paying off her investment.”

  “Hasn’t even thought about it. In fact, she’s talked about building a house for her family on the grounds. Tom, needless to say, is opposed.”

  Even Rick looked surprised at that. “You know, Kate, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I think your sister is certifiably crazy.” It was said with a gentle smile, but the words stung.

  I felt my lips compress into a thin line. “She thinks you’re going to accuse her of murder.”

  Breaking the tension, David asked in a calm tone, “Is she a suspect?”

  Rick shook his head. “No, but Tom could be. I’ve lost control, you know. It’s Sam Halstead’s case. I’m to follow and help. Frankly, I know Tom resented the Cavanaugh woman, but I don’t think he’d ever resort to murder…except maybe his wife. Okay, that was uncalled for and off the record. Sorry.” He looked at me sideways and offered a slight grin, his idea of an apology.

  I broke in, looking squarely at David. “Of all people to say this, I’m the wrong one. But Donna had gone from being infatuated with Sara Jo to being infuriated. As I told you, Sara Jo asked too many questions about Irv’s murder and Donna’s arrest and all that ugliness, and Donna really doesn’t want it brought up again, let alone in a national publication. “But,” I hastened to add, “I don’t think she’d kill anyone, and she was pretty hysterical when Sara Jo’s body was found.”

  Rick raised a skeptical eyebrow at me. “If we knew who slashed the tires and shot buckshot into the B&B, we’d be ahead of the game.”

  I didn’t. “Yeah, but we don’t know who it was and aren’t likely to find out. Do high school boys have shotguns?”

  “Some,” he said, his expression grim. “Not that I think Cary Smith does.”

  There we were, three people in lovely surroundings—white tablecloths, fine china, crystal wine goblets, attentive waiters who managed not to hover—and we were having the world’s most awkward conversation and furtively looking around to see if anyone heard us. Soft background music and dim lights may have given us some cover, but not enough. The couple at the next table openly stared at us.

  David claimed he needed a flashlight to read the menu, and he actually got a small penlight out of his coat pocket. “Dallas restaurants teach you to carry these things, he said with a grin.”

  If Rick was uncomfortable, David was happy. And me? I felt sort of bitchy, as if I wanted to pick a fight with someone. But I could feel Gram’s restraining hand on my shoulder.

  Dinner was strained but not as bad as I had imagined. I had Veal Français, which reminded me of the veal piccata from the cooking class, complete with capers and lemon-wine sauce. Rick and David both chose steak, and we finished the meal with brandy for them and chocolate mousse for me. A girl deserves an indulgence every once in a while. David paid the bill, and we left, Rick and I thanking him. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.

  On the way home, Rick’s talk became more personal. “I don’t know what Sara Jo’s murder will do to our relationship, Kate. I’m so confused right now, I can’t think straight.”

  I let out a quiet sigh. “Why think about it then?”

  “You can’t just let the things and people in your life drift,” he said. “You have to be aware of what you’re doing. If we continue seeing each other, the investigation—and Halstead—could drive a real wedge between us.”

  I smiled to myself. Here we were, driving Texas back roads on a lovely April evening, full after a wonderful meal, and we were talking about ending a relationship. Rick, of course, did not smile and looked straight ahead, concentrating on his driving.

  I turned toward him. “Rick, do you want to stop seeing me? If you do, it’s okay. I understand. No grudges.”

  “No, I don’t. I…oh, hell, Kate, I don’t know what I want. I don’t know if I want to go back to Dallas, move someplace new, stay in Wheeler.” He glanced at me, then back to the road. “I just don’t want things to be the way they are right now.”

  “Sara Jo’s murder has us both on edge.”

  “You’re damn right!” His right hand pounded the steering wheel in the most obvious display of frustration I think I’d ever seen from him, especially when he was driving.

  A part of me was tempted to reach over in a gesture of intimacy and rub the back of his neck. I bet the muscles were like taut ropes. I settled for a gentle hand on his arm. “Rick, you don’t have to decide anything right here, right now. Wait a week…shoot, wait a month. See what happens.”

  “What about you?” he demanded. “Do you want us to quit seeing each other?”

  I was silent so long, he again took his eyes off the road to look at me. Finally, I said slowly, “I don’t know what I want either, but I’m not in as big a hurry as you to find out.” If I’d told the truth, I’d have said I didn’t see sharing a rose-covered cottage with him, let alone Gram’s house, and raising babies. And for the time being, I did know what I wanted—to live in Gram’s house and run her café. Would I want that in ten years? I had no idea, but I sort of doubted it. And, yes, Donna, I hear my biological clock ticking, but with your example I don’t know that I want kids. On the other hand, when Rick was relaxed, which he sure wasn’t right now, he was good company, and it was nice to have someone to go to Canton or Tyler with. I was as confused as he was, but I knew one thing: if you aren’t passionately attracted to a man, drawn to him in a way you can’t explain, you’re not in love with him and probably aren’t going to be. In a series of flings, I’d had two wonderful, but ultimately disappointing love affairs, but I know the rush of emotion, the joy and the longing. This wasn’t it.

  Back at my house, Rick asked if he could come in for wine, and I said of course. We let Huggles out to do his business and, as the night air had turned chilly, sat around the kitchen table sipping wine.

  He was silent for a while and then reached across the table and took my hand, his fingers playing
with mine. Yes, it gave me goose bumps. So did his next words. “I think you should let me make love to you.”

  I was smart enough not to draw my hand away instantly, and I sure didn’t laugh, but I said, “That won’t solve anything, Rick. In fact, it would make it all worse.”

  He stood up, and for the first time that evening, he grinned, a sly, slightly wicked little grin. “Yeah, I know. But it might be fun. We might both enjoy it.”

  “Yeah, we might…for the moment. Could we just wait and solve this murder? I feel like a deer caught in the headlights, and I want that feeling to go away before I…” I let my voice trail off. Some things are better left unsaid.

  He gave me an affectionate hug, nothing more, and said, “I don’t blame you, and I’m trying to make that happen. See you tomorrow.”

  I watched at the door until his headlights faded down the drive. Huggles sat at my feet, and almost without knowing it, I sat down on the floor, put my arms around that dog, and had a good cry, sobbing into the dog’s soft coat while he licked and whined and snuggled. Then I got up and poured myself one more glass of wine, knowing full well I’d regret it at five-thirty the next morning.

  My thoughts, of course, wandered to Sara Jo, and then they kept landing on Cary Smith. Maybe because Cary’s father wanted to lodge that complaint. I didn’t have an answer. At least not now. Maybe Gram was channeling me, but she didn’t make her presence known. I stood up, got pencil paper and sat at the kitchen table. Then I doodled, writing “Sara Jo, Cary Smith, Sally Vaughn.” Then my pencil kept going back to Sally Vaughn’s name and tracing the letters, deepening and darkening them like we used to do shadow writing when we were bored in high school. I knew what I’d do: I’d go talk to Ms. Vaughn tomorrow.

  I stood up, rinsed out our wine glasses, and fell into bed without brushing my teeth or cleaning my face. An extra glass or two of wine makes for sound sleep until about three in the morning, and then I was awake—my mind racing. What exactly did I expect to find out from Ms. Vaughn? What would I ask her? As I finally drifted off about four, I decided I’d just have to wing it.

  Five-thirty did come too early, and I’d forgotten to take aspirin before I went to bed. With a definite ache and knot in the back of my head, I’d trudged off to the café, wondering if Rick would come in this morning. If so, I wasn’t going to tell him about my plan.

  First morning in a long time that Rick Samuels didn’t come for a sticky bun.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I’d momentarily forgotten that the consolidated school district had torn down the original three-story red brick building that I’d attended and replaced it with what was now referred to as a “sprawling campus.” Sprawl it did, taking in the better part of what I remember as a farm belonging to the Maloney family. I could see their two-story, weathered, white clapboard farmhouse still standing—and apparently occupied—at the edge of one of the huge parking lots, this one for students and filled with Jeeps and pick-ups and an occasional expensive small car. I pegged those as Daddy’s darlings from Dallas.

  The school itself was tan brick, with unfriendly, narrow windows, and I remembered those big windows that let sunshine into our classrooms and, on warm days, a pleasant breeze. This would be an isolated, controlled environment. A sign on a locked side door said, “Visitors: Please use main door,” so I trudged around unimaginatively trimmed hedges to the main door which sported a metal-covered walkway. Black and white square tiles covered the floors inside, but the walls were painted a lovely shade of sunny yellow—much brighter than the tan of my high school days. Still I missed the creaking wood floors, the smell of chalk and dust, and old lockers that had held too many dirty sneakers.

  I followed the signs to the office, suddenly realizing I should have called to ask Ms. Vaughn’s schedule first. Who knows in this day of school security if they would have given it to me? I signed in, as required, and for “purpose of business” wrote “to see Ms. Sally Vaughn.” As luck would have it, her free period would start in about fifteen minutes, and they would inform her I was waiting.

  Fifteen minutes can be a long time. I got out my cell phone, but it wasn’t like the old days in Dallas when I had tons of emails, mostly about social arrangements. Folks in Wheeler rarely did business by email—they stuck to the good old telephone. I did pick up on three missed calls, but I didn’t want to return them sitting there. I scrolled through Facebook, which pretty much bored me these days, I guess for the same reason I didn’t get emails. I was living in a different world. Suddenly the phone alerted me, loudly, to a new text. It was from Rick, and it sounded demanding even in print: “Where are you?” I sighed, and slipped the phone into my pocket.

  Good timing, because just then a woman in her late twenties with spiky blond hair, minimal make-up, and a shape I’d die for, came into the office. Without preamble, she said, “I hear you’re looking for me.”

  Putting on my most disarming smile I said, “Yes, if you’re Ms. Vaughn. I’m Kate Chambers, from the Blue Plate Café.”

  “I know who you are. Let’s talk in my classroom. I don’t have a student appointment for twenty minutes.”

  Letting me know she had limited time and didn’t want to chat. I agreed with the girls—Ms. Vaughn didn’t want to be my friend either.

  Without looking back at me, Sally Vaughn led the way down a hallway. Trailing behind her, I studied the short, spiky blond hair, the trim figure—must play a lot of basketball as well as coach it—and the determined stride. This was a woman who took no nonsense from anybody, and I wasn’t sure I was prepared.

  She made an abrupt left-hand turn into another corridor, stopped at the second door on the left, and courteously held it open for me. I half expected a mocking bow or some other sarcastic gesture, but she stood straight and motioned with her hand, her face neither grim nor smiling.

  Inside, she motioned me to a seat, a student’s desk with the traditional writing armrest. Another way of putting me in my place.

  Her back to me, she began to clean a whiteboard that displayed an algebra problem so complicated that I was sure I never would have understood it, even when I was taking algebra.

  “You want to see me about that reporter who was murdered,” she said without preamble.

  “Yes and no,” I said. “I also wanted to ask about Cary Smith. Sara Jo Cavanaugh—that was her name, in case you’ve forgotten—seemed to spend a lot of time with him.”

  Was it me, or did I really see her hand freeze at the whiteboard for just a minute and her body stiffen?

  “I wouldn’t know about that. You’d have to ask Cary. He’s one of my better students.”

  I tucked that comment away in my mind. According to Ava, Cary was having trouble with math; yet his teacher called him one of her best students. “Does he have any trouble with math? I understand you tutor him quite a bit.”

  She whirled to face me, and I saw defense written all over her face. “He’s advanced for where we are in the curriculum. I’m helping him move ahead. Cary Smith is an exceptional young man.”

  “I’ve no doubt,” I said. “The few times he’s been in the café he’s been polite and pleasant. Sort of a model young man. Did he ever talk to you about Ms. Cavanaugh, why she spent so much time with him?”

  She tilted that blond spiky-haired head to one side and said, “I didn’t know she spent more time with him than any other student. You’ll have to ask him.” Her hand was clutching the dry eraser so tightly that her knuckles showed white. She was lying with every fiber of her body. She knew what was going on between Sara Jo and Cary, and it scared her to death.

  “Okay,” I said lightly. “How long have you been in Wheeler? I haven’t seen you in the café. Most everybody comes in sooner or later.”

  She put the eraser on her desk and stared at me as though even that innocuous question was a challenge. “I put in long hours what with teaching, tutoring, and coaching, and I don’t live in Wheeler. I live closer to Tyler, so I don’t eat in town. I’m a vegetari
an and do most of my own cooking.”

  I whipped out a business card, wrote “Comp meal” on it, and handing it to her, said, “Come see us sometime. Our vegetables are wonderful, and I make a mean chef’s salad to order.” With that, I walked out of her classroom, without looking back. Sally Vaughn should never play poker. Her body language had told me a lot more than she knew.

  This was neither the time nor the place to track down Cary Smith, but I had a plan, one I wouldn’t tell Rick.

  That evening, while the dinner shift was under control, I went back to Gram’s house, looked up the number, and called the Smith residence. It sounded like Cary answered, a male voice that wasn’t fully deep yet.

  “Cary?”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Kate Chambers from the Blue Plate Café. You have a minute?”

  “Sure, Miss Kate. What can I do for you?”

  I gulped hard once and plunged in. “Yard work. My niece, Ava Bryson, told me she heard you were looking for odd jobs.” I began to prattle despite my best intentions. “Ever since Steve Millican, uh, left town I haven’t had anyone to tend my flower beds and mow.”

  “He was the guy at the nursery, wasn’t he? Bad story. Gee, Miss Kate, I don’t know much about yard work, but I suppose my dad would get me started.”

  “I can show you some of what needs to be done,” I said, “but I’m not really good at it either. Why don’t you talk to your dad and see when’s a good time. I have a power mower and everything you’d need. I’ll pay fifteen dollars an hour.”

  “You will?” His voice squeaked with incredulity, and I wished I knew him better so I could picture him on the other end of the line.

  “Yes, I will. Get back to me as soon as you can. Either at the café or here at home.” I gave him Gram’s number.

  “Gosh, thanks, Miss Kate. I really appreciate you calling me.”