Marvels, Mochas, and Murder Read online

  Marvels, Mochas, and MURDER

  Comics and Coffee Case Files Book 1

  Christine Zane Thomas

  William Tyler Davis

  Edited by

  Ellen Campbell

  By Christine Zane Thomas

  Foodie File Mysteries starring Allie Treadwell

  The Salty Taste of Murder

  A Choice Cocktail of Death

  A Juicy Morsel of Jealousy

  The Bitter Bite of Betrayal

  Comics and Coffee Case Files starring Kirby Jackson and Gambit

  Book 1: Marvels, Mochas, and Murder

  Book 2: Lattes and Lies

  Book 3: Cold Brew Catastrophe

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Also By Christine Zane Thomas

  About Christine Zane Thomas

  About William Tyler Davis

  Acknowledgments

  1

  Every day there was one, and today’s had come early—with the very first customer. Of course, I use the word customer lightly—he hadn’t bought anything, not yet. He just eyed the menu with a sort of skepticism.

  I was getting used to these types: folks who looked at the shop like it belonged on another planet. See, I knew the problem. And I was ready to throw my hands up, to give up, and cut my co-owner Ryan from the business completely.

  Ryan, I thought, gritting my teeth. This was supposed to be a partnership. Fifty-fifty. But he was nowhere to be seen. Not this early in the morning.

  The guy continued his perusal while I just stood and watched his eyes flicker back and forth.

  The menu wasn’t different from any other coffee shop, not much different from a Starbucks, really.

  The shop itself, well, that’s a different story…

  “A comic book and coffee shop,” the guy finally said, grinning. “Or is it a coffee and comic shop?” The look he gave me indicated how perplexing the question truly was. Hint, hint: it wasn’t perplexing in the least.

  I shrugged and gave him my best tightlipped smile.

  “It’s cute, really. Kapow Koffee,” he emphasized the misspelling of the word coffee. “I just had to see it.”

  Well now you’ve seen it, I thought. But I said, “Yeah, it’s a real novel concept.”

  He chuckled at my lame joke.

  In the months since the shop opened, this shtick was almost a weekly occurrence. And per usual, it was some rich guy from across the bay, either on vacation or just passing by the shop for the first time.

  What a jerk, I thought snidely, my lips still pressed together with this smile.

  “So, what’re the specials?” he asked. He was an older man, maybe fifty-five. He wore a Titleist ball cap. His purple polo shirt was tucked into khaki shorts. White ankle socks inched over his golf shoes—the old school kind, white with a brown saddle in the center. The guy’s chest hair poked out from beneath the unbuttoned collar of his shirt. His skin was red and splotchy from too much sun.

  A golfer this time of morning wasn’t necessarily unusual. We had a few regulars that liked to stop in on their way to the links. But this guy I didn’t recognize. Not that it meant he wasn’t a local. He very well could be. I’d grown up in Niilhaasi, but I’d spent the past almost ten years away. I’d only moved back last year.

  Southeast of Tallahassee, the city itself was named after the bay—not vice versa. Niilhaasi Bay, a brackish mass of water, sat between us and the island. It was named by the Seminole tribe for the way the moon reflected on the water at night, Moon Bay.

  Technically, Gaiman Island was also part of the city. Full of condos, timeshares, weekend and summer homes of the rich, it may as well have been another part of the universe. The toll bridge was a dividing line between their mecca and the rest of us.

  Sure, a sliver of public beach was available to all. We used it, if grudgingly. But the rest of the island was gated. The houses there sold for prices well into the millions. With its own private airstrip and services to pick up food and supplies from here across the bay, most of the island’s inhabitants never need venture to our side of reality.

  This guy was either a tourist or one of the part-time residents. Yes, Niilhaasi did get tourists from time to time but not in droves like the white sand beaches to the west in Panama City and Destin. Here, the sand was a cream color, and the water was only emerald about one day a month.

  The sad fact—I was holding on to some hope that business would pick up now that summer had fully kicked in. Hope that guys like this one would head past the downtown strip on their way to one of Niilhaasi’s many country clubs.

  Now I was regretting that hope.

  “Well,” I told him, “ there’s a buy two bags get one free ground coffee special.” I motioned to the assortment of ground coffees in their brown bags. “Or there’s the—”

  “No,” he cut me off, his smile growing broader, “I meant the comic and coffee special.” He pointed to the chalkboard sign at the entrance of the shop.

  “Oh, uh, that?” I grimaced. To be honest, the comic book side of the store wasn’t my idea. I’d only agreed to it because I had to. Coffee was my side of the house. I hadn’t read a comic book since the 8th grade.

  I reached under the counter, scanned the shelf. Then I grabbed an old issue of Batman Detective Comics.

  “So,” I ventured, “if you buy any specialty latte and an old comic from this shelf you get them both fifty percent off.”

  He eyed the shelf, then the menu. He crunched the numbers inside his head. “That’s the same price as a latte,” he confirmed.

  My hold on the comic’s outer plastic bag was already slipping as I readied to put it back.

  “I think I’ll just take the latte.” He laughed like we were both in on some inside joke.

  “Sure. I understand.” I put the comic back under the counter and went to make his coffee.

  “And Kirby,” he found my name tag, “can you add a pump or two of vanilla?”

  “Sure thing,” I said. I gave him another fake smile.

  The trick to a good latte was in making the shots—any idiot can froth milk—but getting each shot to perfection is a skill. The ground espresso should be compact enough for the water to seep through, but not too compact or it makes the espresso extra bitter. I knew the shot was a good one when the machine poured the tricolor layers of black, golden brown, and cream.

  Like I said before, coffee is my thing. And it’s what I moved back to Niilhaasi to do.

  I set the vanilla latte down on the counter, nodding toward the customer—and he was a customer. He did pay, after all.

  He grabbed it up and took the first sip hesitantly like he was expecting it to taste of comic book. It didn’t.

  He nodded, turning away. Then the guy stopped in his tracks, took another sip, and turned back to me. “That’s a helluva good coffee.”

  I gave him a knowing smile, watching as the corners of his cheeks slid into a grin. Shaking his head, the customer took one last sip before leaving the shop. His face hovered inches over the lid of the cup, never truly putting the coffee down between mouthfuls. />
  The bell, dangling beneath the door handle, jingled twice.

  That same bell jingled softly a few hours later. Ryan, his arms full with two brown paper sacks from the Chinese takeout down the street, entered the shop. He flashed an all-too-familiar broad smile my way.

  Per usual, he was late.

  A leash hung from his wrist. Attached to it was Ryan’s dapple dachshund. The dog padded ahead, then shook his floppy ears. The sound of his tags shaking echoed in the quiet shop—which reminded me that I’d forgotten to put on the sound system.

  “I know you’re ready to be free,” Ryan acknowledged the dog. He set the takeout on one of the many empty booths and bent over to unclasp Gambit’s leash. To Ryan’s credit, the dog did appreciate the gesture. He bounded away to his dog bed which sat beneath a comic display case at the edge of the shop. Then he burrowed under the ratty blanket on top of it.

  Kapow Koffee was located on Main Street. The city had essentially allowed us, and a few other establishments, to move in for free and renovate the building. This was in hopes we’d invest our money into the rundown space and renew vigor in the community. Just like they’d seen so many other small towns do with success.

  The first part happened almost exactly as they had planned. We sank our funds into reinventing what in the 1960s had been an appliance store. The second part of the city’s plan, well, it was still a work in progress. Downtown was dead in the morning, dead at night, and the lunch hour was less a rush and more a trickle.

  But the money invested did give the shop a decent coffee shop vibe—exposed brick, antique wooden tables, dim lighting. Eight booths made up the center of the shop: four and four, divided by a small wooden wall. Anyone could curl inside a booth with a laptop and coffee. They could sit for hours on the Wi-Fi and either work or play.

  And our few regulars did just that.

  Alan’s face was aglow about three inches from his laptop. His massive headphones looked like earmuffs you’d find in the Arctic north, Bluetooth, no cables to indicate their purpose.

  Another regular, Karen, at least glanced up at Gambit’s entrance. But she went quickly back to whatever she did on the phone while she perused Facebook on the tablet beside the MacBook that she barely used. Her booth slash workstation was always filled with gadgets and cords. I’d literally bought a power strip just for her booth. She put her finger to the MacBook’s trackpad every few minutes to keep the screen awake. She sipped her coffee a bit more often.

  This was our shop. Half coffee—me. Half comics—Ryan. And as much as I wanted to, there was no hiding the comic book display shelves just past the booths or the figurines locked in a display case above the bar.

  Ryan took a seat in the booth closest to the door where he’d set down the food. Hesitantly, I did the same, sliding in opposite him.

  “You know we open at 6:00,” I said for my own benefit.

  “No,” he argued, “the comic store opens at 11:00.”

  “It’s 11:22.”

  “I had to get us food.”

  “Us?” I never knew if he was referring to me or the dog. Gambit sensed this and perked up, ears a twitch.

  “Yeah, us. I got you General Tso’s.” Ryan grinned. The pathway to my forgiveness would always be through my stomach.

  Ryan had been my best friend since the sixth grade when my parents decided to move across town. Instead of going to middle school with my elementary school friends, I was forced to make new ones.

  Lucky for me, Ryan was in a similar situation. He’d just moved to Niilhaasi Bay from Michigan. His father had retired from GM.

  He was an “oopsie baby.” The youngest of three. Ryan’s brother and sister were in college at the time of the move. His parents were a generation older than everyone else’s. They’d saved their whole lives to retire to Florida, and they weren’t going to let a twelve-year-old stop that train.

  After high school, we went our separate ways. I joined the Air Force to see the world, and I did get to see a bit of it. Ryan flunked out of two colleges before he made his way back home to his parents’ now vacant house.

  “You sell any comics this morning?” he asked me between bites of sweet and sour chicken.

  “I, uh, I tried.” I shrugged.

  “Do or do not.” Ryan said in his best Yoda impression.

  “I don’t know, man. This comics thing. It’s just—” I sighed. “When you talked me into this whole endeavor, I thought maybe I’d have some help.”

  “Hey! I do help! Just not in the a.m. And in fairness, I told you from the beginning I wasn’t a morning person.”

  “I know,” I said, flustered. I put down the white box of takeout. The next part came out reluctantly. “It’s just your side of the business—it isn’t really pulling its weight. In fact, it’s kind of a distraction—a deterrent almost.”

  This had been coming for months. But every time I brought it up, Ryan pushed harder, digging his heels in. He was unwilling to hear it.

  “No one knows what they’re getting into when they walk through that door,” I continued. “Kapow Koffee—it sounded cool a few months ago. But the finances aren’t adding up.”

  “Harsh, bro.” Ryan put down his white carton but still gripped the chopsticks tightly in his right hand. “Kirby,” he said defensively, “you’re the one who couldn’t get the business loan without additional collateral.”

  “Right,” I hesitated. “And you’re the one who had to have a comic shop for doing nothing but put your parents’ house up against it. I’m not sure that was a fair trade—especially if it sinks the business and costs you that house. I’m trying to look out for you in this as well.”

  “Sure you are.” Ryan narrowed his eyes. They were a pale blue, a stark contrast to my brown, nearly black irises. He went back to his food and said, “For today, man, can you cut me some slack? I’m grieving.”

  “Grieving? Grieving over what?”

  “Robin dumped me the other night.”

  “Robin?” I questioned.

  “You know.” He sighed like we’d had this conversation before. It was true, we’d had conversations just like it.

  Ryan eyed the rest of the shop for anyone listening. If Alan’s music was off, we’d never know it. But the guy stared intently at his screen like the fate of the world depended on him debugging the software problem of the day. Ryan lowered his voice anyway. “Come on,” he said. “You know, the one with the husband.”

  “Oh, her?” I asked nonchalantly, my voice at the regular level. In reality, the reminder hit me like a gut punch. I was no stranger to cheating. Cheating was fifty percent of the reason I was back in Niilhaasi in the first place.

  “Yeah, her,” he said. “But as far as I know she hasn’t said anything to her husband about us. So at least there’s that. And the kicker is, he was cheating, too. I guess they’re gonna try and work it out. Two cheaters, yeah, I’m sure it’ll all end well. Still, Robin is hot. It’d be nice if we could meet every now and again and, uh—”

  “Don’t say it,” I cut him off.

  “But she is super hot.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  Ryan shrugged and went back to eating.

  It was strange, but Ryan was basically the local playboy. Not because he was so handsome—average height, average weight. His reddish brown hair was two shades lighter than my own.

  What made him desirable, I guess, was that he never changed. The guy looked the same as the day we graduated. Add to that he was thirty and single with no kids, no attachments of any kind.

  All the jocks we graduated with either got married or gained weight or both—usually both.

  I had similar things going for me. Not too much weight gain, either. But the crows were scratching at the corners of my eyes. And I had to go to the gym and eat half as much as I wanted while Ryan, here, devoured a whole order of sweet and sour chicken with two cartons of fried rice.

  But I wasn’t ready to go back in the dating pool. Not yet.

  “
So, what do you have planned for the rest of the day?” Ryan cleaned up the mess while I brewed more coffee. We usually had a rush in the early afternoon—the local kids all coming home from a morning at the beach.

  I opened my palms out to the shop. “You’re looking at it.”

  “No, I mean after work.”

  “I’m supposed to eat dinner with Memaw. But that’s about it.”

  “You should come back to the shop tonight.” He grinned manically. “Play some D&D with us. It’ll be just like old times.”

  “Old times,” I said. Really old times, I thought.

  “Dude, you never want to play anymore! And it’s not like you have a life. Watching reruns up there in your man-cave is not a life.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You know I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “Well,” I said, “some of us prefer to date single women and not play dungeon master when it’s that or go to sleep alone.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about me. I don’t ever sleep ‘alone.’”

  I looked at the dog and grinned.

  “Well, him, too.” Ryan smiled. “But I’ve got a hot date tonight after the game.”

  “After the game?”

  “Don’t judge! She works late.”

  “Sure she does.”

  I pressed the button on the coffee grinder, drowning out Ryan’s retort.

  2

  Right on time, the high school crowd piled in and ordered their caffeine concoctions—blended drinks that tasted more like a melted candy bar than coffee. They added sweetener to the already delicious cold brew and picked over the comics with no intention of buying.