The Calamity Café Read online

  “When Ms. Flowers arrived, she found Ms. Holman slumped over her desk. Ms. Holman was bleeding.”

  Billy gasped. “That’s awful. Is she going to be all right?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  The sheriff joined us then and confirmed Deputy Hall’s suspicion. Lou Lou Holman was dead.

  “What?” I asked. “Are you sure?” My head was spinning, and I staggered.

  Deputy Hall put a hand on my back. “Are you all right?”

  “Are you sure?” I repeated to the sheriff.

  “Positive,” he said.

  The sheriff had turned to go talk with the EMTs when Pete arrived in his souped-up 1992 brown Ford Ranger. Why would anyone soup up a 1992 Ford Ranger, you ask? Who knows? Who knows why Pete Holman did anything he did?

  Like Billy, Pete didn’t park. He simply stopped the truck and got out.

  Sheriff Billings had turned back around when Pete pulled into the parking lot. Now he met Pete halfway. “Pete, I need you to stay calm.”

  Pete looked at me, his eyes already wild. “Amy?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t want to be the one to tell him something had happened to his mother. I closed my eyes momentarily, fighting a wave of nausea.

  Sheriff Billings took Pete gently but firmly by the shoulders. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but your mother is dead.”

  Pete looked stunned. “What? She’s dead? What happened? Did she have a heart attack or something? I’ve told her she needs to take better care of herself.”

  “We don’t know what happened yet,” said Sheriff Billings. “But we aim to find out exactly what happened to her.”

  “What do you mean, you aim to find out what happened?”

  “Because your mother didn’t die of natural causes.”

  “Then what kind of causes did she die of?” He looked from the sheriff to the deputy to me and then to Billy. Poor Pete. He was grappling for answers, and no one really had any.

  “I’m sorry, Pete, but it appears that somebody killed your mother. That makes Lou’s Joint a crime scene, Pete, and we’re going to have to shut the café and its perimeter down for a day or so to be able to go over it thoroughly. Were you a joint owner of the café?”

  “I guess,” said Pete. “I don’t know if my name was on anything or not, but I helped run the place.” He looked dazed.

  “Well, then, when you’re permitted to return to the café, I want you to see if anything’s missing. If there is, then please call us first so we can see whether or not we have the item in evidence. If not, then your mother’s attacker likely took it.”

  Pete’s brows drew together. “What do you mean, when I’m permitted to go back in? I want to go in now. I wanna see Momma.”

  “I’m afraid you can’t go see her yet, son. The only person we can allow into the café at this time is Ivy Donaldson, our CST. I could have Ivy take a photo of your mother and bring it back outside so you can confirm that it is your mother in there. Would that be all right?”

  “Y-yes, sir.” He wobbled, and if Sheriff Billings hadn’t been holding to Pete’s shoulders, I think he would’ve fallen.

  “Let’s have a seat in my car and have a talk,” said Sheriff Billings. “It doesn’t look like your mother had either the front or the back door locked. Did she usually leave them unlocked?”

  I didn’t hear Pete’s reply, since they’d opened the door and sat down in the police cruiser by then.

  A blue convertible pulled into the lot and parked neatly beside my yellow Bug. Someone had a clear head even in the midst of a crisis—it was bound to be Ivy. I knew Ivy from her visits to the café. She didn’t come in often, but when she did, she typically ordered a burger—no mayo, extra pickles—and fries.

  In her mid-thirties with shoulder-length auburn hair and gray eyes, Ivy was a no-nonsense kind of person. She got out of her car, nodded toward Ryan, Billy, and me, and then went to the driver’s-side window of the sheriff’s car. She leaned down and talked with Sheriff Billings for a moment, returned to her car, and opened her trunk. She pulled on white coveralls with a hood and took what looked to me like a toolbox out of the car. I supposed it was some sort of medical kit.

  Ivy came over to the door of the café. “Hey, guys. How’re you doing? You found the victim, right?”

  I nodded.

  She placed the back of her hand against my cheek. “Your skin isn’t clammy. Do you feel dizzy or anything?”

  “Not anymore. If anyone is in shock, it’s Pete,” I said.

  She nodded. “Hopefully, Sheriff Billings can prevent that.” She took a pair of surgical booties out of her pocket and put them over her shoes before going inside.

  I looked at Deputy Hall. “May I please go home now?”

  “The sheriff or I might have a couple more things to discuss with you,” he said.

  “What about me?” Billy asked. “Unless you think you might need an attorney, Amy.”

  “No, Billy, I’m fine.”

  “You may go, Mr. Hancock,” said Deputy Hall. “But please make yourself available if the sheriff and I have any questions for you in the next couple of days.”

  “Will do.” Without a backward glance, Billy hurried to his car—or, rather, his wife’s car—and left.

  “So what else do you want to know?” I asked Deputy Hall.

  “You said Pete called you this afternoon to set up this meeting. Why didn’t Ms. Holman call you herself if she was interested in selling?”

  “I don’t know. I thought the idea of selling was more Pete’s idea and that he was trying to talk her into it. As a matter of fact, I figured my coming here tonight was a waste of my time. I’d talked with Lou Lou about selling me the Joint earlier today, and she’d made it clear she had no intention of doing so. I told her that I’d open my own café somewhere else.”

  Deputy Hall scribbled in his notebook. “And you don’t think her son could’ve made her reconsider?”

  “It’s possible—he said he’d played the Hawaii angle . . . Lou Lou always wanted to go there—but even if he’d convinced her to sell, I can’t imagine her selling to me.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because she knew I wanted the café. She’d rather have had someone buy it and bulldoze it than sell to me. That’s why I thought I was wasting my time with the meeting. But I was trying to be optimistic.”

  “Didn’t Ms. Holman like you?” he asked.

  “She thought I was an upstart . . . that I was trying to get above my raising.”

  “Care to explain that?”

  I winced and tried to choose my words carefully. I didn’t want Deputy Hall to agree with Lou Lou. “I went away to school because I wanted to become a professional chef. When my nana got sick, I came back home and took a job here to be closer to her. My house is only about ten minutes away from this place. Anyway, I took a job as a waitress. I made what I thought were helpful comments about the food and things I thought would help the café be more successful, but . . .”

  “But Ms. Holman thought that you were trying to get above your raising,” Deputy Hall finished after I’d trailed off. “Got it.”

  “Right. Plus, she thought the only people who needed to be cooking were her and Pete. And I knew I could do a better job. I didn’t come right out and tell Lou Lou that, but I offered time and again to take a shift in the kitchen.”

  “When you threatened to open a café somewhere else—”

  “It wasn’t a threat, Deputy Hall. I am going to open my own café.”

  “Okay. But Ms. Holman saw that as competition.”

  “I guess. So what? Is there anything wrong with good, friendly competition?”

  “Not so long as it’s friendly,” he said.

  “If you’re asking me if I came in here and knocked Lou Lou in the head—or whatever it was that happene
d to her—I can assure you I did not. I found her slumped over her desk and called the sheriff’s office immediately.”

  “Duly noted.” Deputy Hall held up his notebook to indicate that he had my statement written down.

  “Is there anything else?” I asked.

  “Not for now.” He took a card from his back pocket. “Please call me if you think of anything else you think we should know.”

  I took the card. “Thank you. I will.”

  “And be careful going home. That owl could still be lingering around, you know.”

  I ignored his feeble attempt at humor and left.

  * * *

  When I got home, I was exhausted. It wasn’t all that late, but the only thing I wanted to do was get into bed and read until I fell asleep. The trouble was that as I tried to read, I kept playing the evening over and over in my head.

  I remembered walking into the office and seeing Lou Lou . . . her colossal beehive almost all the way to the other side of her cluttered desk.

  Had she really changed her mind about selling to me? I found that hard to believe . . . unless the café was in financial trouble and Pete had been able to convince Lou Lou that he didn’t want to work in the café for the rest of his life.

  The café could be in financial trouble. Neither Lou Lou nor Pete had given much thought or care to their preparation of the food. And Lou Lou almost always had that cigarette hanging on her lip, even while she cooked. I never ate at the Joint, and neither did my friends. It was never terribly crowded. Let’s face it—the place was a dive. Had I been able to buy the place, I’d have had to do a lot of PR work to raise the café’s reputation to the point where most people—other than the regulars who had eaten there out of habit for so long—would even give me a chance. Maybe it was best that I start from scratch. Like Sarah had pointed out, I could choose everything from the ground up and know exactly what I was getting that way.

  * * *

  I awoke the next morning to Rory licking my face. I groaned. Couldn’t he go out the doggie door? It opened onto a fenced yard where he could play and do his business without making me get up.

  I reluctantly opened my eyes. “Rory, please. Not this morning. I got almost no sleep last night. Please just let me stay here for a few more minutes.”

  He whimpered.

  I rose up onto my elbows, finally realizing what was wrong with the dog. Someone was at my door. I got up and went to the window. I didn’t recognize the car that was in the driveway. Of course, that could possibly be attributed to brain fog.

  “Coming!” I called, as I slipped on a robe and hurried to the door.

  When I opened it, I saw Homer Pickens standing on my front porch.

  “Morning, Homer.” I’d known Homer pretty much all my life. He’d always worked odd jobs, and he did some interior painting for Nana the summers after Pop had died. But I’d never known him to just make a social call.

  “Morning, Amy. I went by the Joint, but there was crime scene tape all over the place. I couldn’t even get into the parking lot.”

  Last night came rushing back. “Yeah . . . something happened there last night, and they’re having to close for a day or two.”

  “It’s ten after ten,” said Homer.

  “Okay.”

  “Would you please make me my sausage biscuit?”

  “Sure.” I moved back so Homer could come on inside. Dealing with Homer’s breakfast was a lot easier than coping with what had happened at the café last night. I felt a wave of sympathy for Pete and wondered if Ivy had found anything to tell the police who Lou Lou’s killer might be. “Lucky for you, I went to the grocery store day before yesterday and stocked up. So, who’s your hero today?”

  “Winston Churchill. One of his quotes reminded me just this morning that ‘A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.’ It was a good thing I saw that.”

  “Yeah, I guess it was. I’m going to preheat the oven for the biscuits, and then I’m going to get dressed. You can make yourself at home here in the living room until I get back.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  Chapter 3

  I quickly dressed and hurried back out to the kitchen. I started a pot of coffee and got to work making the biscuits. By the time the oven light went off to let me know it had finished preheating, I had the biscuits ready to go in. I also had some sausage patties on hand.

  “Homer, come on in here to the kitchen, and I’ll pour you a cup of coffee.” I was still surprised he’d come to my house, but I was also a little glad. Cooking always helped take my mind off my worries, and I sure had a bushel of them this morning.

  “Thank you.” He ambled into the kitchen. “May I wash my hands, please?”

  “Sure.” I nodded toward the sink before getting two cups out of the cabinet. “The soap’s right there beside the sink, and you can dry your hands on a paper towel.” I poured coffee into the two cups. I put Homer’s cup on the table along with sugar and creamer. I added fat-free vanilla creamer to mine and a packet of natural sweetener. That’s one thing I wanted to do with my café—offer most of the items as usual but have some healthier choices on hand too.

  Homer washed his hands and sat down at the table while I fried the sausage patties. “I see you have some coffee too. Are you going to have breakfast with me?”

  “I thought I would, if that’s okay with you.”

  “That’s plenty okay,” he said. “I like having breakfast at your house. The dog is sweet, your kitchen is clean, and you’re even going to eat with me.”

  I didn’t want Homer to think this was our new everyday routine. “The café should be open and things should be back to normal tomorrow.”

  “Oh.” He looked crestfallen as he added two heaping spoonfuls of sugar to his coffee.

  I went to the stove and flipped the sausage patties before turning back to Homer. “May I share a secret with you?”

  “Of course. And it will go no further. My mother always taught me to be trustworthy.”

  “I’m going to open my own café. I wanted to buy Lou’s Joint.” I sighed. “It looks like that’s not going to happen now. But I’m going to build a new café somewhere nearby.”

  “That’s wonderful news! One of Churchill’s famous sayings dealt with the fact that not enough people see private enterprise as a healthy horse pulling a sturdy wagon.”

  “Okay.” I wasn’t quite sure what Homer meant by that, but I supposed it was a good thing. I returned to the stove and saw that the sausage patties were ready. I put them on a plate and set them aside. Then I got the biscuits out of the oven. I put one of the patties on a biscuit, put the biscuit on a small plate, and set the plate in front of Homer. “Is there anything else I can get you?”

  “No, thanks.” He bit into the biscuit and then closed his eyes.

  I placed the rest of the biscuits on a platter and brought it and the plate of sausage patties to the table.

  “These are the most wonderful biscuits I’ve ever had in my life,” said Homer. “They’re so much better than Lou Lou’s.”

  “Thanks. There’s plenty. Eat all you want.”

  “I just need my one morning biscuit, but could I maybe take one with me for lunch? I’ll pay you the extra.”

  “Now, Homer, you aren’t paying for anything this morning. You aren’t at the café. We’re just two friends having breakfast together.”

  “You mean it?”

  “I mean it.” I smiled. “Just remember me when I open up my own café.”

  “I certainly will. And I’ll tell everyone in town to do the same.”

  * * *

  Homer left, and after I cleaned up the kitchen, I wasn’t quite sure what to do with myself. I didn’t want to spend the day being lazy, though, and I knew it was always best to be prepared. So I went online
and searched for some small-business sites that would help me with getting my business off the ground. I knew how to cook—that wouldn’t be a problem. It was the advertising, marketing, accounting, payroll, and tax side of the business that had me concerned.

  I hadn’t been working long when the doorbell rang. I closed my laptop and went to see who was there. It was Dilly Boyd, another regular from Lou’s Joint. Dilly was a wizened little creature who looked half sweet old lady and half impish gnome.

  “Hey, Dilly.”

  “Hi, darlin’. I ran into Homer Pickens, and he said that you made him breakfast this morning. I don’t reckon you’re making lunch, are you?”

  “Well, I wasn’t planning on it.”

  “Shoot. Do you at least have any biscuits left over from this morning? You know, I have that little old raccoon that comes to my back porch every evening about dark, and he won’t go away unless I give him a biscuit. Then he scampers on back up into the woods.”

  “I do have some leftover biscuits,” I said. “Come on in.”

  Dilly followed me into the house and complimented me on my pretty place. “No wonder Homer liked it so good. And he said you sat right down with him and had breakfast with him. That must’ve been really nice. Shame the café’s not open today.”

  “Give me just a second.” I went into the kitchen and put the biscuits into a plastic bag. I was probably getting ready to make a big mistake, but Dilly had thrown such a guilt trip on me with that wistful “must’ve been really nice” comment. I checked my pantry, freezer, and refrigerator, and then I took her the biscuits.

  “Thanks, hon. I appreciate this.”

  I hated to just send her off with a bag of leftover biscuits, even if the biscuits were for a raccoon. Besides, it would be good practice for me to cook for someone other than my family.

  “Dilly, do you think Homer and maybe one or two other people might like some lunch today?”

  Her blue eyes sparkled to life, and her face became wreathed in smile wrinkles. “I believe I could round up a friend or two. What do you have in mind?”