Marvels, Mochas, and Murder Read online

  I took the stairs by two, still wondering what the hell was going on. What greeted me only left more questions. The pocket door to the storefront was closed. Gambit barely gave me any notice. He pawed and scratched at the door.

  “What’s going on, boy?” Sighing, I realized I was talking to the dog yet again. But why would Ryan lock him in here? None of this was making any sense.

  I slid the door open—Gambit had nearly done so himself, nudging at the pocket door with dogged determination and his long nose. The dog raced from behind the counter and into the center of the shop.

  My heart began hammering for no reason whatsoever. Or so I thought.

  I edged up to the counter. Unthinking, I reached behind me to pull down a coffee mug. That’s when I saw the body.

  Ryan lay flat on his stomach in the walkway between the front counter and the door to the shop. A knife was stabbed crookedly into his back. He wasn’t moving. Gambit licked at his face.

  My hold on the coffee mug grew limp, and it shattered on the floor around my feet.

  5

  The next few minutes were a blur. I called 911, and the operator had me stay on the line until the emergency personnel arrived. I didn’t know Niilhaasi had so many cops, especially on duty this early in the morning. The first to arrive were two uniformed officers, followed by two more, and then finally an ambulance, and a fire truck.

  In the commotion, I had grabbed ahold of Gambit—possibly because the operator told me to do so, possibly because I knew it couldn’t be a good thing to allow the dog to continue tampering with the scene of a crime. I held him closely. Tears rolled down my cheek. It’s safe to say I was in a state of shock.

  One officer took the dog from me, another two escorted me to the back of their vehicle. They didn’t say much, but it only took a moment for me to realize I was their suspect.

  “Sir, did you participate in the murder?” one asked.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head.

  The other pushed me hard in the back “helping me” into their waiting vehicle.

  “All right,” the first said dismissively. “We’ve got to get this scene locked down. A detective will be by shortly to ask you some questions. If you could wait here in the vehicle…” he trailed off.

  I just shrugged. There was no use in resisting, pleading my innocence. Not only was I not the confrontational type, but of the emotions building inside me, fear wasn’t one of them. Not yet. I wasn’t done processing Ryan’s death. I wasn’t ready to put up my own fight. Only a minute or so later I realized that it could’ve been my last moments of freedom.

  Time passed slowly in the backseat of that patrol car. What was probably half an hour stretched and felt more like two or three. I watched as more teams arrived. Officers cordoned off the area. Some jotted down notes in small notepads while others took photos of the scene.

  I wish I could say in those moments I’d done something constructive. Like the hero from my favorite show, Castle, I could’ve tried analyzing the crime scene, racking my brain for suspects. But I felt numb.

  A rapping on the window woke me from the half-dazed stupor. I wiped drool from my chin, staring up at the shadowy figure outside the door. The sun was just now peeking over the horizon. There was a glow of orange light poking through the dark pines to the east.

  The door opened. A familiar voice cried out, “Kirby?”

  “Felicia?”

  “Detective Strong,” an officer beside her said, “do you know this guy?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  Felicia Strong looked exactly as I remembered her. Well, not exactly. My mental image of her was in a blue cap and gown with a golden tassel and white honors ribbons. The woman who barricaded my exit from the vehicle was in a smart women’s suit. Beneath the light jacket a starched maroon button up shirt had a collar so sharp it could cut bread. Her crinkly dark hair was pulled back but still poofed out behind her thin neck. Her chestnut brown eyes stared down at me in contemplation.

  She was reading me. Everything I said or did from here on out would be judged as truth or lie.

  “Is it going to be a problem?” the other detective asked. He, too, wore plainclothes, but looked nowhere near as sharp as Felicia. His clothes were loose-fitting like he’d recently lost weight.

  “Kirby, this is Detective Ross.” She turned to him briefly. “No, it’s not going to be a problem. Kirby, you can step out over here to the side of the building. We have some questions we’re going to ask you here. But there’s a real possibility we’re going to have to take you back to the station later.”

  Detective Ross gave her a hard look which she returned with a roll of her eyes.

  Felicia Strong was in her element. I’d never seen her quite like this. But it wasn’t all that surprising. Becoming a cop had been her dream. But I thought she’d probably grow out of it. Her parents had always encouraged her otherwise. Her older brother was a cop—or he had been.

  Felicia led me over to underneath the awning of one of the neighboring boutiques.

  I could count on one hand—on one finger—how many times I’d been inside Jenny’s Scrapbooking. But Jenny, that is Jen, was a regular customer—caramel macchiato, no whip, sugar-free vanilla syrup.

  Detective Ross pulled an outside table and a chair over from the restaurant two shops down. Then he went into an unmarked car and pulled out a laptop.

  “So, let’s start with this morning and work back,” Felicia said, almost to herself. “Kirby, can you tell us what happened this morning?”

  I nodded. Then I explained about hearing Gambit, going downstairs and finding him locked up outside the storefront. Next, I told them how I found the body, about the knife protruding from out of Ryan’s back, the blood on the floor, how cold he was to the touch when I checked for a pulse.

  Felicia questioned. Detective Ross typed. And I answered.

  “This knife in the deceased’s back, did it look familiar to you?”

  I bit my lip and nodded. I couldn’t help but think how wrong the words she used to describe Ryan felt—the deceased. Only yesterday, he was full of life.

  Felicia knew Ryan, too, but mostly through me. While Ryan had pined after Jill Thompson, Felicia was my high school crush. And weirdly, even in this setting, those feelings came flooding up toward the surface.

  “And?” she prodded.

  “It’s the bread knife we use to cut bagels.”

  “You think it is or you know it is?” Detective Ross cut in.

  “I, uh, I know it is.” Before they had time to ask, I explained, “I thought it looked familiar, so while I was on the phone with the 911 operator, I checked behind the counter. It was missing.”

  “Was anything else missing?” Felicia asked. “Do you think this was a robbery?”

  “No, I, uh, I don’t know. I didn’t check.”

  “Do you think your fingerprints are gonna be on that knife?” Detective Ross asked. He readied to close his computer for some reason.

  “Probably.” I shrugged. “We all use it—even Ryan.”

  “Are you suggesting—”

  “Sorry,” I said, flustered, “I’m not suggesting anything.”

  “Listen, Kirby,” Felicia put herself between me and Detective Ross defensively, “we’re going to take you to the station now. Once everything here is processed, we can go through the store and see if anything was stolen. You understand that’s not the priority right now.”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “Is there anyone I should call? Your folks? A lawyer?”

  “My Memaw.”

  “Your Memaw?” Detective Ross laughed.

  Felicia rolled her eyes. “It’s not funny, Alex. We’ll have your Memaw meet us down there. You mind getting in the back?” She opened the back door of their unmarked vehicle, a forest green Chevy Impala. I got in.

  As Felicia shut the door, I heard Detective Ross ask, “Why isn’t it funny?”

  I couldn’t hear her response. But I imagined it went someth
ing like this: “Because Kirby’s Memaw was the paralegal to Niilhaasi’s most powerful lawyer for thirty years.”

  The room the detectives placed me in was vaguely reminiscent of the interrogation rooms seen on TV and movies. But only vaguely. It wasn’t a cold steel blue or gray, instead the walls were a cream color. And there wasn’t a two-way mirror.

  There was, however, a set of bars on the table between me and the detectives—a place to cuff a suspect. Luckily, I wasn’t in handcuffs. Not yet. Another obvious addition to the room was the camera mounted in the corner.

  Again, Detective Ross brought in his laptop. He fell into a seat opposite me and circled his fingers on the trackpad to wake the computer.

  Aside from the differences in the room, it went almost as I expected it would. Detective Ross read me my rights. Asked if I wanted a lawyer. Said I was being detained, not arrested. Like a zombie, I complied with everything they said. I was equal parts numb and panicked.

  By the looks of the detectives, they both assumed Morrison Grantley, Niilhaasi’s well known defense attorney, would come striding in the station any minute now to shut me up.

  Felicia offered me water and coffee—which I agreed to eagerly. Thoughts of my latte, the nutty flavor of the Kapow Koffee espresso, were all it took to send my head spinning once more. I wondered what had happened to Ryan? None of it made sense.

  I drank their bitter brew, hoping caffeine would help to find the answers.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to wait for a lawyer?” Felicia asked again.

  I said, “I’m sure.” But my insides weren’t exactly aligned with that judgment.

  “Okay,” she said grimly. Then Felicia looked up to the camera as if to ensure it was on. “Your name is Kirby Jackson, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “And your relationship with the deceased, Ryan Walker, is what?”

  “Friends since middle school.” I shrugged. “And co-workers.”

  “You own Kapow Koffee on Main Street?”

  “Yes. We both did.”

  “And what was the deceased’s role there? What did he do as owner?”

  “Uh, he did the comic book side. I do coffee.”

  She nodded. “I see.” Felicia gave me another grim look. “Kirby, out of courtesy, I’m going to tell you that we’re beginning the process of securing a search warrant for your apartment upstairs—and for the coffee shop’s books, your laptop, all of that kind of stuff. You understand?”

  I nodded. I’d seen enough Castle to know how this was going to play out.

  “Can you tell us about the last time you saw Mr. Walker alive?”

  I explained about the D&D game back at the shop.

  “Can I get the names of the other players again?” Detective Ross asked. This time, he scribbled them in a notepad.

  “Sure,” I answered, “Marc Drake, this guy named Tim Grayson, and I don’t know his last name, but a kid named Damian.”

  “Kid?” Ross questioned.

  “Sorry. He’s high school or college age.”

  “Right.”

  “I know Marc,” Felicia announced. “We can run by his place after this.”

  Detective Ross gave her a curt nod as he went back to his laptop keyboard.

  “All right,” Felicia turned back to me, “so this is the important bit. If it really wasn’t you, do you know anyone who wanted to harm Mr. Walker? Is there anything he said or did to indicate—”

  “Well,” I interrupted, “he did just go through a breakup of sorts.” My mind went back to the cold stare of Robin Snider back at The Fish Camp. “And I think he was supposed to meet someone after D&D.”

  “Who?” both detectives asked quickly.

  I shrugged. “He didn’t say.”

  Detective Ross took out his phone and texted someone.

  “Tell me more about the breakup,” Felicia said.

  I told them the little I knew about Robin—she was married, and she wanted to work it out with her husband. Something told me not to say anything about seeing her the previous night.

  A few moments later, there was a knock at the door. A uniformed officer handed Detective Ross a plastic bag, in it was Ryan’s cell phone. He set it down on the table between us.

  “You don’t happen to know the code for this thing, do you?”

  “Ryan usually uses his thumbprint.” I shrugged but wondered if that sounded bad—like I was suggesting they use a dead man’s thumb. I rushed to say, “But maybe you could try one two three four.”

  Over the plastic, Detective Ross hit the home button and typed in the numbers.

  Felicia almost laughed when it opened. “Really? They didn’t try one two three four?”

  Ross smirked. “I think they tried all ones and all nines before giving up.”

  “So, what was this guy’s deal?” Detective Ross asked me. His thumb was swiping up and down through Ryan’s contact list. “Hardly anyone in here is listed by name. There’s four different iterations of ‘Hot Bar Chick.’ There’s a Married Robin—I’m guessing that’s the one we were just talking about—and a hawt Kristie with a K, hot spelled H A W T. There’s even a MILF 1 and MILF 2.”

  Ross gave Felicia a weird look. Does she have a kid? If so, I thought she would definitely qualify.

  “It’s not me,” she said defensively.

  Ross smiled. “So, what was his deal?” he asked again.

  “His deal? He just dated a lot.”

  “I see.” Ross leaned back in his chair, still perusing the phone. “Well, lucky for us, it looks like last night’s lady has at least a first name. I’ll give her a call and see if she can come by the station.”

  “Who is it?” I questioned.

  “Nice try.” Detective Ross closed the phone screen—not that I had an opportunity to see it.

  “And you’re really just going to call and tip her off? Couldn’t she be the killer?”

  He pursed his lip in thought—or feigning it. Detective Ross was still convinced I was the killer. But he wasn’t stupid. He closed his laptop. “Fair point,” he conceded.

  He stood and gave Felicia a pat on the shoulder. “Let’s go pay her a visit. And Mr. Jackson, we’ll be seeing you soon.”

  “Am I, uh, free to go?” I asked, probably a little too skeptically.

  “You are. Unless you don’t think you should be?”

  “No, no,” I said hurriedly. “Of course I should.”

  Ross smirked. “Your grandmother and a lawyer are waiting outside. It’ll be a few days before you can go back to your store—or your apartment. And like I said,” he added sourly, “we’ll be in touch.”

  6

  I spent the next day and a half on house arrest at Memaw’s—well, a self-imposed house arrest. It felt like a waiting game, like any moment the police were going to come and knock on her door, then take me to a cell to wait out the remainder of the case.

  Memaw, of course, had to hear the whole story. Twice. She told me it took Mr. Grantley, her former boss, a lot of finagling to get me out without the cops making an arrest. But the way Memaw had said it, well, she made it out like that finagling could be moot.

  So, I was surprised when Detective Ross called and said I should come pick up my possessions—my laptop and a few other odds and ends from the shop they’d taken with their warrant. He said my apartment and the shop were okayed to go back into my possession, as well.

  Briefly, I wondered if it was a trick. I thought it’s probably a lot easier to make an arrest when the suspect walks into the station. More than anything, I wanted answers. I knew I didn’t kill Ryan Walker. I wanted—no, I needed to know who did. And why.

  Neither Detective Ross nor Felicia were available when I picked everything up. So, it looked like that was all the explanation I would get, at least for now. But I did walk out of that place feeling lighter, free. There had to be a reason they returned these things. Perhaps I was no longer a suspect.

  The hanging wood sign above the shop was a welc
ome sight, despite that it was almost noon and the dim neon “Open” sign told its own story. A small bustle of people shopping and eating on Main Street held their gazes on the sign a bit longer than I did. Then their eyes found me.

  I unlocked the door and went inside, feeling uncomfortable, wondering what the rest of the town was saying about me, Ryan, and the shop.

  Inside, I was surprised at the state the police had left everything. Not that the store or my apartment were immaculate, but neither looked as ransacked as I was expecting. Thinking on it, it made sense—it was probably easier to search for evidence with a structured system and not by tossing everything from drawers to the ground.

  There was still some cleaning up to do. I got to it, mostly to busy myself. Also, I hoped to reopen the next day. Not that I thought I’d see a single customer. Ryan’s death likely spelled the end for Kapow Koffee, too.

  My dream shop... it was over almost as soon as it started.

  Of course, a coffee shop wasn’t always my dream—no kid dreams of brewing coffee for a living. But I drank it often enough, off and on since high school, every day in the Air Force, and every day after. Those first few semesters of college it became an addiction.

  Not just a caffeine addiction. I found myself studying up on coffee bean blends and not my growing course load.

  The Air Force was where I met Gwen. We were engaged. The plan had been to get out and use our GI Bill to attend Florida State. I would major in business. She wanted to be an engineer. And somewhere down the road, we’d start a firm together. She’d do the engineering, and I’d do all the boring business work. That plan crashed and burned in the first semester—when she met Trevor.