Double Scoop of Murder, page 5
He bounced up and down, unable to stay still for more than a minute or two at a time. "Are you going to open now?"
I checked the clock over the door. A little early, but since we were ready to go, there was no sense waiting. "Yeah, I may as well."
"Great. You go ahead and do that, and I'll restock the rest of the ice cream." He bolted toward the back foyer.
"Hey, are you sure?" Even though Eli was a great worker, he rarely offered to carry all of the ice cream tubs up the stairs. Suspicion tugged at me, and I aimed a narrow-eyed stare at him.
"Yup." He stopped and grinned, oozing boyish charm.
"Eli?"
"Oh, fine. I might have mentioned the café to Storm, and he might have said he'd stop in for coffee on his way back to the Airbnb where he's staying, so…"
"So you want me to open before he goes back and we miss him."
He popped a finger into the air. "Exactly."
"Sure thing." No wonder his grandmother had sent him on his way. Leaving Eli to stock the kitchen, where everything would be easily accessible when needed (wasn't I the eternal optimist?), I walked into the front of the shop and stopped short.
An elderly woman stood with her hands cupped around her eyes, peeking into the front door. Blue hair hung in soft waves surrounding a slightly plump face. The instant she spotted me, she jumped back and slapped the man beside her in the arm with the back of her hand.
I smiled as I unlocked the door and held it open for the couple, both wearing khaki shorts and light-blue T-shirts with Team Adventure stenciled boldly across their chests. My good cheer faded an instant later when I spotted the white van parked against the curb in front of the shop. "Um. Is that your van?"
The woman looked over her shoulder then back at me. "Yup. That's us. Ike and I retired back about ten years ago, sold our house, bought ourselves that beauty, and now we drive all over the country looking for adventures. Hashtag van life. Who says it sucks to get old? We're having the time of our lives."
I opened my mouth the second she stopped talking. Before I could ask if they'd been out by the high school the night before, the elderly gentleman, bald as a baby's bottom with a long, thick white mustache that swallowed up his whole mouth, nudged her inside.
"Quit jabbering and get inside, Francine. Don't make the poor woman stand there all day letting the air conditioning spill out. A/C ain't cheap, ya know."
"Oh, right." She hustled through the doorway. "Sorry about that. I tend to get a little overexcited when I've been up all night. Too much caffeine probably."
"You're welcome to browse the cases." I gestured toward the row of refrigerated cases along the front of the ice cream counter. "I don't have a huge breakfast selection, but I do have coffee or tea, rolls and bagels, pastries…"
"Thank you, dear." Ike dropped onto a stool.
Francine plopped down next to him and dropped her backpack on the stool next to her. "I'll take a buttered everything bagel and a coffee light and sweet. Extra sweet, please."
"And I'll take one of those banana things in the picture right there." Ike tapped a sign advertising our newest special.
"Oh, Ike, please. Don't be ridiculous." Francine dug through her backpack and came up with a bottle of hand sanitizer and a triumphant whoop. "You can't have ice cream for breakfast."
"Says who?" He smiled at me, and the creases in the corners of his eyes crinkled as if he did so often.
I paused a moment to see which of them was going to win that argument, but when neither said anything else, I left them to it.
I poured Francine's coffee, set a mug in front of her, and started to fill one for Ike.
He set a hand over the mug. "I'll take a Coke, if you have it."
I offered Francine a quick glance, but she just waved a hand. "That man's been drinking Coke for breakfast since I met him. And look at him. Go figure."
She wasn't wrong. He was slim as could be, while she boasted a more matronly figure. I ruminated over how unfair life sometimes was as I filled an old-fashioned glass with Coke from the fountain and set it on the counter in front of him then grabbed a waffle bowl. I filled it with two oversize scoops of banana ice cream, one of chocolate, and one of vanilla then added chocolate syrup and marshmallow sauce. I piled the whipped cream high then sprinkled a generous helping of crumbled Nilla wafers over the top.
My stomach growled as I put it in front of him and turned to get Francine's bagel.
She grabbed my shirt and yanked. "You know what? Don't even worry about the bagel. Just give us another spoon."
"For what?" Ike glared, hovering protectively over his sundae.
Francine lifted the long ice cream spoon I laid on her napkin. "I'll just have some of yours. You don't need all that sugar and fat anyway."
"Who says I don't? If you want a sundae, get your own." He shifted his sundae away from her.
"But it's cheaper if we just split that one."
"Maybe today I feel like splurging," he huffed.
"Oh, please. You're a stingy old codger when it comes to everything else, but now you want to indulge?"
"What can I say?" He winked at me. "A man's gotta have priorities."
Francine just harumphed and slapped her spoon back onto her napkin.
Rather than watch the two of them bicker any longer, I set another waffle bowl on the counter. "You know what? Saturday is buy one get one free day. So I'll just make you your own sundae, and you can eat as much of it as you'd like."
"Fine." She perked right back up.
For a moment, I had to wonder if they just enjoyed bickering. If not, being cramped together in that van mile after mile for hours on end would get awfully heated. "So, what made you guys decide to travel the country in a van?"
"Oh, that's how we make extra income." Francine answered, since Ike was busy chowing down on his ice cream. "It's not like we could survive on our retirement alone. Now, we have no mortgage, no utility bills, nothing but gas and food. And if we're low on gas one week, we just extend our stay wherever we're at."
"Someone pays you to drive around?" Good to know in case the café didn't work out and I couldn't manage to lure millions of viewers into watching me livestream kitty videos. It always paid to have options.
"Not exactly." Francine laughed, humor lighting her pretty sapphire eyes. "We're travel vloggers. Hashtag living your best life. We worked the nine to five, raised our four kids, and now it's time to relax. Now, we travel around the country seeking adventures."
Eli set a stack of cones on the counter. "So you guys are participating in the treasure hunt?"
"You betcha. Team Adventure." Ike used his spoon to point to the name across his shirt then dug into his sundae and savored a bite. "Mmm… this is delicious."
I finished Francine's bowl and handed it over before she could get any ideas about digging into Ike's then leaned a hip against the counter opposite them. "Have you solved the first clue yet?"
The two shared a look, suddenly all conspiratorial. It was Francine who answered. "We may have."
Seemed I was going to have to give a little if I hoped to garner any information from the two. "I don't remember seeing you out at the high school last night."
Ike lost himself in his sundae.
Francine eyed me. "Are you hunting too?"
"We are." I gestured toward Eli, who'd come around the counter to stand beside me. "Along with my best friend and my sister. Not that we really expect to find it—"
"Hey!" Eli bumped my shoulder with his and grinned. "Speak for yourself."
I ignored his faked indignation. "But it seemed like a fun idea. I just think maybe things have gotten out of hand."
Francine stirred her chocolate and banana ice cream around and around, seemingly mesmerized by the swirls she created. (But the concoction gave me an idea—banana and chocolate swirled soft-serve. My mouth watered just thinking about it.) "I have to agree. We've done hunts before, but never on this scale. And we've never seen such animosity."
"Francine." Ike glared daggers. "Haven't you learned your lesson about keeping your mouth shut?"
She shrugged it off. "That episode with Preston Sanders was not my fault."
Eli opened his mouth to speak, but if he got going, we might never learn what Francine wanted to tell us that Ike clearly did not want to share. "Wha—"
I dug my heel into his instep.
"Ow."
"It's fine, Ike." Francine patted his wrist. "It's not like everyone's not going to find out about it soon enough anyway. You know how small towns are. Besides, I have nothing to hide."
He heaved a sigh, seemingly resigned to her blabbing. "Okay, fine. I'm not gonna say that guy got what was coming to him, because that would bring bad karma, if you believe in such things."
I didn't dare tell him Karma and I were on a first-name basis.
"But Preston Sanders was not a nice man." Ike gestured toward his wife. "Francine might get on my nerves sometimes, what with all her naggin' and nonstop chatter."
I spared a quick glance at her to see if she might be offended, but she simply nodded.
"But the way that man spoke to her last night was downright cruel." He slammed his spoon down onto the counter. "And I told him as much."
"You had an argument with Preston before he was killed?" I tried to run through the crowd in my mind, but I couldn't recall seeing Ike or Francine at the field. Of course, if they'd been in the van that had taken off, they'd have probably been gone by the time I arrived.
"Not so much an argument, as I threatened to beat him within an inch of his life if he ever spoke to my wife that way again." He clenched a fist and pounded once on the counter, making his spoon clatter.
Huh. There seemed to be more to Ike than the good-natured old man I'd first viewed. "You threatened—"
"And I meant it too. I don't know who that guy thought he was, but he had no right to lay into Francine just because she figured out the clue before he did." He reached over to entwine his fingers with his wife's.
"She figured out the clue?"
He clenched his teeth tight, as if to cage whatever he'd been going to say.
"You mean about the football field?" I nudged.
"Francine didn't think so. She's not much on sports, you know. She was searching for another meaning for some of the words in the clue, said it seemed too easy, almost like just coming out and saying to head on down to Watchogue High School and dig up that field. She and I argued over it because it seemed so obvious to me, and I figured they were just starting off easy and would get harder as time went on."
The fact that they'd argued was no surprise, though it was interesting to know someone agreed with Uncle Jimmie and Harry. Maybe I'd been too quick to dismiss their thoughts.
"So, we got to the football field." Ike released Francine's hand and returned to his sundae.
"First, as far as we know." Francine licked her spoon.
"And we had just started to dig when Preston Sanders showed up. And do you know what he told my Francine? Who you can see is just as sweet as they come, loves to chat up friends and strangers alike. He told her to move her fat…you know what, out of the way."
Francine lowered her gaze to the sundae then set her spoon on the napkin.
And Ike reached out and lifted her chin, then picked up her spoon, scooped up a nice pile of crumbled cookies and ice cream, and held it out to her, earning massive points in my book. "That boy's just lucky Francine grabbed my arm before I whacked him one with the shovel I was holding."
"So, what did you do?"
"We left. Drove around a while and figured we'd go back after he was gone. Since you're supposed to leave the clues you find in situ, we figured it didn't matter if he got to it first."
"It wasn't worth getting hurt over." Francine laid a gentle hand over her husband's. "Thank you for sticking up for me, Ike. But I don't want you fighting for me. Or for anything. It's just not worth it. Look how it turned out for Preston Sanders."
"Yeah, well, he shouldn't have spoken to you like that."
"No, he shouldn't have." I laid a hand over Francine's on Ike's. "But if you got hurt or went to jail, Francine would be alone, so you did the right thing walking away."
He shrugged and dug into his wife's ice cream. "Here, let me help you out with that. It's starting to melt. You weren't going to eat this whole thing anyway, right?"
CHAPTER SEVEN
"So, what do you think?" I dumped the last of the dirty dishes into the bus bin beneath the counter, straightened, and stripped off my gloves to rub my lower back. We'd been going nonstop since opening, and it was already past one p.m., but there was finally a lull.
Eli paused from where he was creating his own concoction that looked more like a kid's chemistry experiment than anything edible. "About?"
If my back continued to ache, I'd have to take something for it, but for now, maybe sitting for a minute would help. No sooner had I planted my butt on a stool than the bell chimed, indicating a customer. Resigned, I started to stand.
"Don't bother. You can sit back down. It's just me." Gwen plopped on the stool next to mine and eyeballed Eli's colorful creation. "That looks like a crayon factory threw up."
"Ha-ha. It's going to be delicious."
"Uh-huh." Gwen continued to dubiously study the mess that had begun to ooze over the sides of the waffle bowl and leak onto the counter. "What is on that thing?"
Eli shot her a grin. "What's not?"
I just shook my head. Since he'd started working at the café, Eli had been in search of the perfect dessert. I was pretty sure this wasn't it. Giving up, I swiveled my stool toward Gwen. "So, care to swap gossip?"
"Sure thing. Whatta ya got?"
"An elderly couple, one half of whom threatened to clock Preston with a shovel sometime before he was killed."
Gwen frowned. "You don't think he followed through, do you?"
"Nah." At least I hoped he hadn't. "I liked them a lot, though I imagine the constant bickering would get old pretty quickly."
"Ha." She plucked an M&M off the top of Eli's sundaeish thing. "Okay, then, I'll see your elderly couple and raise you a couple of TikTokers who showed up at the football field immediately after we did, but not for the first time."
Athena and Caleb? Because as much as I liked Ike and Francine, I didn't care for Athena. She was brash, rude, and had no sense of morality. And Caleb either agreed with her or just did whatever she told him to. But could I see either of them as a killer? "What do you mean?"
"Well…" She swung her stool back and forth as she spoke. "When I left this morning, I had time before work, but I was too wound up to sleep, so I stopped in the deli to pick up a breakfast sandwich, and all everyone was talking about was the…uh…" She froze mid-swivel, eyes so wide I was afraid her blue contacts might pop out. "I mean…"
"Just give it to me straight." No doubt I'd landed on the gossip mill once again. But at least this time I was fully clothed, so how bad could it be? The thought hadn't even fully formed before I was begging karma for forgiveness. "What are they saying I did this time?"
She offered an apologetic wince. "Rumor has it you found Preston."
True enough. But why me? Why not Gwen or Eli?
"And that you might have been the one who put him there." She caught her thumbnail between her teeth.
"What!" Then the nail she was chewing on registered. Gwen never chewed her nails, unless… I narrowed my gaze at her. "What else?"
"You know, anyone can have a bad hair day. It's just…" Her gaze shot to my now smoothed back in a ponytail hair then skipped quickly away.
I groaned out loud. I knew it.
"Well, with all those strawberry curls, that look amazing when tamed, but when they turn to frizz and stick up all over the place…" She lowered her hand to her lap. "But don't you worry. I set them all straight. I told them you'd just rolled out of bed and had most definitely not gone a few rounds with Preston before killing him."
"Thanks." Because what else could I say to that? "That's what they're saying? That I fought with him?"
"Yeah. Sorry." She swiveled back to Eli, who stood at the counter plowing through his melting ice cream mess, and picked off a gummy bear.
"But I never even met the man. How could a rumor like that even get started?"
"Oh, right." She swung back. "I forgot that part. According to both Ron and Sally Hart"—the owners of Watchogue Deli, aka Gossip Central—"Athena Owens was in even earlier than me for breakfast, and she was going on about how she saw you creeping around at the high school after the registration ended."
"What?" I hadn't gone anywhere but home between the time I left the event with Gwen, Meghan, and Eli and the time Eli called to wake me a few hours later.
"She said you had a guy with you." Her gaze shifted apologetically to Eli.
He turned around and looked behind him then back at her and gestured to himself with his unfortunately full spoon, flinging a pile of ice cream and sprinkles onto his shirt. "Who me?"
"Yeah. Sorry."
He grabbed a rag and absently scrubbed at his shirt, smearing the mess even further. "But I went home right after. How can I be involved in this?"
"Hey." Gwen laid a hand over his and eased it down then took the rag from him. "Don't worry about it. It's not like the police have shown up to question either of you. It's just unsubstantiated rumors started by someone who didn't bother to explain what she was doing at the high school at the time or if she'd seen Preston Sanders anywhere before his death."
"Right. You're right." He sucked in a deep, shaky breath and nodded then dug back into his bowl. "Okay."
But my mind was racing full steam ahead. Or maybe back, because an image of Athena's broken nail flashed into my head. "Do you think Athena could have killed him?"
"Right. Yes." Eli flung his spoon again, and I ducked just in time to avoid being splattered. "Oh, uh, sorry about that. I'll clean it up. I just got excited because you're right. Maybe she did kill him, and she's just throwing blame at us to keep herself off the suspect list."
