Ice Coffee Corruption, page 3
The boardwalk was adorned with festive decorations for the Friendsgiving Harvest Fest. Carriage lights lined the path, flags flapped in the breeze.
Each one was attached to a dowel rod, proudly displayed the festival’s name. Large planters overflowing with vibrant fall flowers—mums, marigolds, and ornamental kale—added splashes of autumn color along the path.
“No, no, no!” I yelled as Deputy darted down the pier toward the Bait and Tackle, just hoping I didn’t have to take a swim in the lake. Not only was the water cold, but I didn’t feel like getting all wet.
People rushed out of the way, startled by the sight of the runaway hound and our frantic pursuit. The air was filled with the scents of roasted nuts and hot cider from nearby festival stalls as the vendors prepared for the festival opening ceremony.
Deputy was a blur of fur and determination, weaving through the crowd with a single-minded focus. On what, I had no idea, but he knew—or at least, he knew we were chasing him, and he was enjoying it.
Aunt Maxi and Loretta stumbled behind me, dodging people and planters, their breaths coming in short, exasperated puffs.
“Get that dog!” someone shouted, adding to the chaos.
As we neared the pier, the fluttering flags and the twinkling carriage lights reflected off the water, creating a scene that, though picturesque, was anything but peaceful. Deputy, unfazed by the commotion he was causing, continued his mad dash toward the Bait and Tackle.
“Please don’t jump in the lake!” I pleaded, more to myself than to Deputy.
Finally, Deputy skidded to a halt at the end of the pier, right behind the shop where the owners had erected their contribution to the scavenger hunt in the form of a scarecrow. His nose twitched as he sniffed the air. He stood there, wagging his tail furiously, seemingly satisfied with his chase.
“Did someone say you needed a deputy?” Gloria Dei, an employee of the sheriff’s department and now a deputy, strolled up behind us, candy apple in hand. She had asked her question around a mouthful of the festival treat.
Breathless and frazzled, I reached for Deputy. Aunt Maxi and Loretta weren’t far behind, both looking equally disheveled but relieved when they stopped next to Gloria.
“Gotcha!” I said, grabbing Deputy’s leash.
Though he didn’t appear to budge from the foot of the scarecrow, his eyes rose.
“What were you thinking, you silly dog?” I glanced over my shoulder and looked at Gloria. “Nah, his name is Deputy, and he’s the Pet Palace dog the Bean Hive…”
I stopped talking as my eyes shifted to the scarecrow.
It wasn’t a scarecrow.
It was a person disguised as one.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Bean Hive was awake with its usual energy. Not too many patrons had realized what had happened yet.
Mostly, that was because the Bait and Tackle Shop had not opened for the day and the pier past it was usually remote, so any sort of activity that far down was hard to see from the top of the pier.
But I knew this place would soon be buzzing and with more than just the caffeine running through the customers’ veins. That was the thing about being the only coffeehouse in town that served gossip as hot as the coffee. The Bean Hive seemed to be the place to get both.
Especially when something big like a murder happened.
With all that said, it seemed to be a couple of hours before Sheriff Spencer Shepard came in to get any sort of statement from Aunt Maxi, Loretta, and me.
Of course, Loretta insisted she go first, since we were already nearing the four p.m. ribbon-cutting ceremony meant to start the Friendsgiving Harvest Fest. But Spencer wasn’t having any of her tomfoolery.
Sheriff Spencer Shepard exuded an air of authority and rugged charm that seemed to draw the attention of nearly every woman in the coffeehouse, all of whom appeared to be rubbernecking to see why he was there.
Bunny Bowowski was especially attentive, bustling around him with a tray of food and a fresh pot of coffee. No doubt she was trying to get an earful so she could go tell her best friend, Mae Belle Donovan, who eerily looked like Bunny but shorter.
“Here you go, Sheriff,” Bunny said, her voice dripping with Southern hospitality as she set a plate of pumpkin spice muffins and a steaming cup of coffee in front of him. She lingered just a bit too long, clearly trying to overhear the conversation.
“Thank you, Bunny,” Sheriff Shepard said, his tone polite but distracted. His deep-green eyes swept across the table, and his jaw set as he turned his piercing gaze back to me. “Now, Roxy, I need you to walk me through everything that happened this morning.”
I took a deep breath, trying to organize my thoughts.
“Well, it all started when Deputy here”—I gestured to the hound dog sitting obediently by Sheriff Shepard’s feet and not mine—“heard a scream and took off running. We chased him down the boardwalk, and he led us straight to the pier behind the Bait and Tackle Shop. That’s when we found the… um, scarecrow.”
“Scarecrow?” Bunny interjected, leaning in a bit too close. “You mean the one for the scavenger hunt?”
“Yes, Bunny,” I said, giving her a look. “But it wasn’t a scarecrow. It was… it was a person disguised as a scarecrow.”
Bunny’s eyes widened, and she clutched the tray to her chest. “Lord have mercy!”
Sheriff Shepard cleared his throat, directing my attention back to him. “Did you recognize the person, Roxy?”
I shook my head. “No, I didn’t get a good look. Everything happened so fast. Gloria Dei was there, and she called it in right away. Then she moved us down the pier so she could secure the scene.”
“Don’t forget about the boat,” Aunt Maxi interjected, her finger in the air.
“The boat?” Spencer asked, jotting something down in that little notebook he carried in the front pocket of his sheriff uniform.
“Listen.” Loretta piped up and tapped her fake fingernail on the face of her watch. “Can I just tell you I saw nothing? Not a thing. I’ve got to get down to the ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Cocoon Hotel before four p.m.”
“Lucky for you, it’s three o’clock, and it takes five minutes tops to walk down there,” he said and motioned for her to sit.
“Five minutes?” Bunny scoffed. “I’m old, and it only takes me about a minute, and that’s because I got arthritis in my hips.”
Spencer let out an exhausted sigh. Everything in his sigh conveyed exactly how I felt at the moment.
“Let’s start over, Roxy. And do not leave out the boat.” He leaned back in the chair, and its legs groaned under his weight.
I blinked a few times, trying to recover all the memories and replay them in my head.
“Louise brought Deputy in here, and when he heard a scream—” I stopped talking when the sheriff lifted his hand, the ink pen in between his fingers as he shuffled back a few pages in his notebook.
“Who screamed?” he asked.
“You know, I have no idea.” I couldn’t answer his very good question. “And I’d not thought about it since we heard it.”
I looked over at Aunt Maxi and Loretta to see if they had any answers, but they both just shrugged.
“We were too busy trying to catch that dumb dog.” Aunt Maxi looked at Deputy and stuck her tongue out like she was ten years old. “He made me sweat, and I do not like to sweat or run.”
“Definitely didn’t like the running,” Loretta chimed in.
“Ladies, can we please stick to the facts?” Spencer looked at each of us, separately, from underneath his furrowed brows.
“I can pretty much say for all three of us that we didn’t see who screamed. Again, we were trying to catch Deputy because he’d gotten loose from Louise.” I told him the basic facts, but I was already trying to figure out how to discover who was screaming.
Not that it was my place to stick my nose into what looked very much like a murder, but my lawyer side felt an itch that could only be scratched by pursuing a lot of unanswered questions that didn’t have a thing to do with Deputy.
“But it wasn’t the scream that caught Deputy’s attention,” I said as a curl crept along the edge of my mouth. “He must’ve caught the scent of the man who was running down the boardwalk who jumped into that boat.”
“Man?” Spencer asked.
“I’m not sure if it was a man or a woman,” I stated. “Really, I didn’t see the person.”
“Nope, we just saw the back end of that dog,” Aunt Maxi growled, looking at Deputy.
“The boat?” Spencer was putting us back on track.
“Yes. Deputy was chasing someone from the pier and down the boardwalk to the marina, where that person jumped into a boat and zoomed off.”
“I’m telling you that we need more no-wake signs.” Loretta smacked the table to get her point across. “As the president of the Southern Women’s Club, I’m going to bring that to the next town council meeting.”
“The boater was not adhering to the no-wake-zone rules.” For the first time in a while, Aunt Maxi was agreeing with Loretta.
“Ladies.” Spencer said the word like he was exhausted already, but he pressed on. “You saw this person running from the direction of the, ahem”—he cleared his throat—“scarecrow?”
“You mean dead person.” Aunt Maxi called a spade a spade, a quality that was annoying but also endearing at times, as were other tendencies of hers.
“Yes. The…” Spencer seemed to try to find the right words but decided to move on. “The person came from the direction of the scream?”
“I’m not sure,” I replied. “I just heard a scream, and Deputy took off and bolted out the door. I didn’t even think about the scream until Aunt Maxi just mentioned it because I was so focused on the dead scarecrow—” I wasn’t quite sure how to say it, but then it just came out. “Murdered person.”
“Murdered?” Spencer asked as if he already didn’t believe it.
Unfortunately for him, I’d worked with Spencer so many times that I knew when he was trying to play his hand close to his vest. He was doing just that now.
I could feel my litigious side rising to the surface, the need for answers burning within me. “You’re questioning whether someone decided to dress themselves up like a scarecrow, hoist themselves onto a makeshift cross, and take their own life?” I scoffed. “I do not think so.”
Spencer’s eyes narrowed, but I continued.
“So, Sheriff, let me ask you this—what do you think the motive was? Do you think it was personal? Or do you suspect it’s connected to the festival somehow? Have you asked anyone but us? I mean, there were a lot of people out there on the boardwalk and the pier when all of this was happening. And where is the person who screamed?”
Although he opened his mouth to speak, I didn’t give him the chance. “And what about the boat? Did anyone report a boat missing, or perhaps there were unusual transactions at the marina recently?”
“Roxy, you just told me about the boat—”
I kept going. “Furthermore, have you considered the possibility that the scream was a diversion? Maybe the person wanted to draw attention away from the pier and create chaos, making their escape easier.”
“Roxy, you really need to—” Spencer started, but I was on a roll.
“And what about fingerprints? Have you really secured the scene properly? Collected all potential evidence? Checked the surveillance cameras in the area?”
His face was growing redder by the second. “Roxy, this is an official investigation. You need to let us handle it.”
“Oh, I’m sure you will, Sheriff,” I said, my tone retaining its edge. “But you know how thorough I can be. Missing details can often be the key to solving a case.”
Clearly exasperated, Spencer rubbed his temples. “Roxy, I understand your concern, but this is sheriff’s business. We have protocols and procedures to follow.”
Aunt Maxi and Loretta exchanged amused glances, obviously enjoying the show.
“And what about potential witnesses?” I continued. “Have you questioned everyone who was in the vicinity? Collected their statements thoroughly?”
“Roxy,” Spencer said, his voice firmer now, “I appreciate your passion, but you need to stay out of this. Let us do our work.”
I met his gaze, my own eyes steady. “I just want to make sure everything is being done to find out what happened and bring justice to that poor person. Because sitting here, enjoying your scone and cup of coffee, is great for business, my business, but the three of us didn’t see anything but the back end of that dog.”
I drove the point home to let him know we knew nothing.
Yet.
CHAPTER FIVE
“That was great!” Aunt Maxi said. She and Bunny had followed me to the kitchen as soon as Spencer left.
“I wouldn’t say it was great,” I replied. “I was trying to let him know he was wasting his time asking us over and over again if we saw or heard anything suspicious.” I turned around to face Aunt Maxi, but she’d already grabbed one of the whiteboards I used for recipes and possible menu items while I cooked. She was erasing it with her bare hand, the dry-erase marker clamped between her teeth.
“What are you doing?” I asked, knowing fully well what she was up to. “I am not investigating what happened. I’ve got my hands too full with Deputy to even think about adding something else to my plate during the Friendsgiving Harvest Fest.”
Aunt Maxi gave me a flat look, the one that told me she knew I wouldn’t be able to rest until we learned all the particulars about who the dead person was and why they were killed, not to mention the person who really did appear to be running from the scene—or at least, the person who Deputy made us think was running from it.
“Roxy, you know as well as I do that you can’t just leave this alone,” Aunt Maxi said, scribbling on the whiteboard with quick, deliberate strokes. “We’ve got to figure this out. It’s not just about the festival; it’s about keeping Honey Springs safe.”
Bunny chimed in, her eyes wide with excitement. “And you know how much fun we have when we’re sleuthing together. Remember the time we solved that mystery about the missing heirloom jewelry? That was a hoot!”
Sighing, I glanced at Deputy, who was lying on the floor, gnawing on a bone. “This is different. There’s a dead body involved. It’s dangerous.”
Aunt Maxi waved her hand dismissively. “Danger, schmanger. We’ll be careful. Besides, you’re the smartest person I know. If anyone can figure this out, it’s you.”
Bunny nodded vigorously. “And you’ve got us to help. We’ll be your eyes and ears. Plus, Deputy here seems to have a knack for sniffing out trouble. He might lead us right to the answers.”
As I looked at the two of them, my resolve wavered. The truth was that the mystery had already started to gnaw at me. Spencer’s questions had stirred something inside me, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to let it go.
“Okay, fine,” I relented, throwing up my hands. “But we have to be careful. And discreet. The last thing we need is to interfere with the official investigation.”
Aunt Maxi grinned, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “Of course. We’ll be like shadows. No one will even know we’re on the case.”
Bunny clapped her hands together. “Great! Now, where do we start?”
I rubbed my temples, feeling a headache coming on. “First, we need to find out who the victim was. Maybe there’s something in the town records, or someone might recognize them.”
Aunt Maxi wrote Identify the victim on the whiteboard. “What about the scream? We need to find out who screamed and why.”
“Right,” I agreed. “And we need to look into that boat. Someone must have seen something or knows who owned it.”
Bunny bounced on her toes. “This is going to be so exciting! I’ll start asking around about the boat.”
“And I’ll check the town records and see if there are any reports of missing persons that match the victim’s description,” Aunt Maxi added.
I took a deep breath, feeling a mix of anxiety and determination. “All right, let’s do this. But remember, we need to keep it low-key. No drawing attention to ourselves.”
Aunt Maxi and Bunny nodded in unison, their expressions serious.
"But for now, we need to get these cookies down to our booth at the festival," I told them, knowing Patrick and Sassy were already there, setting up.
I’d not heard from Patrick, which was a surefire sign he hadn’t learned of what I was sure was a murder.
“Right,” Aunt Maxi said, snapping back into action. She grabbed a tray of freshly decorated cookies, the sweet smell of sugar and icing filling the air.
“I’ll carry these,” Bunny offered, picking up another tray and balancing it expertly despite the tremors of excitement that rippled through her hands.
As we headed out of the kitchen, the lively sounds of the festival drifted through the open door.
“Are you going to be okay until one of us can get back to help after we take these cookies down to the booth?” I asked Shelley and Shanda, the twin sisters who had been helping me while they were in high school and had graduated this year.
“Honestly, Roxy,” Shelley said, sounding a bit annoyed. “When are you going to stop asking me that? I’m the manager, and I don’t think you’d have given me this title if you didn’t think I could step in at a moment’s notice.”
“You’re right, but I want to make sure I continue to respect your boundaries.” I untied my apron, exchanged it for my jacket, and grabbed Pepper’s leash.
The festival was going to be too busy to let him roam around, even though he knew exactly where he was going and would stay close. That other people considering him too cute and snatching him up was what worried me.
