Cast Iron Conviction (The Cast Iron Cooking Mysteries Book 2) (11 page)

It was one of those rare days where we were never overwhelmed yet still managed a slow and steady flow of customers trickling in throughout the entire time we were open. Pat and I barely had time to exchange more than a smile, and I couldn’t wait until we closed the doors for the day so I could bring him up to date on what I’d learned. I had the feeling that he had a few things to tell me as well, and it took everything I had to stay at my post at the grill until closing time.

A little after my regular lunch crowd was gone, I was surprised to see Timothy Roberts walk in the front door. Oh, no. There was a frown on his face. Was he going to cancel our date? I’d found myself looking forward to it, probably more than I should have, but from his expression, I got a feeling that it wasn’t going to happen; not tonight, at any rate.

“You’re not breaking our date tonight, are you?” I blurted out as soon as he was close enough.

“What? No. Of course not. What would make you ask me something like that?”

I felt relieved, and then I found it odd that I’d put so much stock into it. “I don’t know. There was something about your expression that made me think you were about to deliver some bad news.”

“Annie, I could break both legs and my right arm and still make it tonight,” he said with a grin.

“But not both arms?” I asked him lightly.

“What can I say? I’m a lefty. I’d be lost without it,” he answered. “I came by to apologize again for skipping out on you last night.”

“It
was
kind of odd,” I admitted. “What exactly happened?”

“I was just putting out the fires when I saw someone creeping around the edge of the building, spying on me. When I tried to see who it was, they vanished.”

“Wow, they must have been fast for you not to catch them.”

He looked a little sheepish as he admitted, “I would have been fine if I hadn’t stepped on my own shovel. I’m just lucky it whacked my shoulder and didn’t give me a black eye.”

I caught myself after the first giggle escaped, but not in time to keep him from hearing it. “Sorry about that.”

“Yeah, you sound really sorry,” he said with a smile. “Anyway, they drove off. I tried to follow in my truck, but by then, I was too late.”

“Who do you think that it might have been?” I asked him.

“Beats me. It could have just been kids out messing around for all I know.”

I stopped smiling. “But you don’t think so, do you?”

“Why do you say that?”

“If you thought that it was innocent, you wouldn’t have kept trying to find them.”

“You know me too well,” he said after whistling under his breath softly. “I really hate that I missed those ribs.”

“They’re in the fridge, if you want me to heat them up for you.”

“That sounds great, but I’m going to pay for them,” Timothy said as he pulled out his wallet.

“Then you can’t have them,” I said quickly.

“What? Why not?” He was clearly confused by my offer and then immediate withdrawal.

“The food was part of your payment for last night. It would be like you’re paying for them twice, and I won’t allow that.”

“Okay, I’ll eat them on the house, then,” Timothy said.

Lee Pepper, an older man who’d claimed to move to Maple Crest solely to eat my food, volunteered, “I’ll have some of those too, Annie. I heard Doc Blackberry talking about them this morning, and they sounded delicious.”

“Sorry, Lee, but they aren’t on the menu.”

“That’s okay,” Timothy said. “I don’t mind sharing.”

Lee smiled broadly at him. “That’s the finest offer I’ve had in months, but I couldn’t deprive you of the right. Besides,” he added with a twinkle in his eye, “I’m signed up for Annie’s winter cooking class, and I can’t wait to see what we’ll be making then.”

I had enough left over to feed both men. “You won’t have to wait that long, Lee. You can have some ribs, too.”

“Sure, I’m happy to share,” Timothy said. Was that a hint of reluctance in his voice?

“Don’t worry, there’s plenty for both of you, but Timothy, I don’t want you filling up, even if it is on my ribs. We have a date tonight, remember?”

He laughed. “I’m not about to forget that.”

“Bring on the ribs, then,” Lee said happily. He’d just polished off one of my cast iron fried hamburgers, a scoop of garlic-and-cheese mashed potatoes, and some fresh green beans.

“Are you sure you have room?” I asked him.

“Just try me,” he said as he patted his lean stomach.

I served both men equal portions, but I wasn’t surprised when they studied each other’s plates to be certain that one of them hadn’t gotten more than the other. Men might be men, but there were parts of them that would never stop being boys, a fact that I found rather delightful.

Ten minutes before closing, I was starting to wrap things up at the grill. I wanted to have time to compare notes with Pat before my date a few hours later. I still hadn’t told him about it, and I wondered why I was holding back. It wasn’t as though I was deliberately trying to keep it from him. Maybe if the timing were right later, I’d let it slip out casually.

I realized that I might not get the chance, though, when I saw my sister the sheriff walk into the Iron with something obviously on her mind.

Chapter 14: Pat

W
hat was Kathleen doing at the Iron so close to closing? Had something else happened in the course of her investigation that she was willing to share with us? In the course of the day, I’d seen Annie speaking with at least three of our suspects, Ollie Wilson, Harriet Parton, and Sally Tremont, but I hadn’t had a chance to find out what she’d discovered yet, given how busy we’d been. I’d spoken with two of them myself, but just briefly. Both had been angry about the bills my sister had presented them, so by the time I got to them, they were in no mood to talk. That accounted for Ollie and Sally. Harriet just ducked past me when I tried to speak with her, hot on Sally Tremont’s heels.

“I thought you’d be closed by now,” Kathleen said as she glanced at her watch.

“In nine more minutes, we will be,” I told her. “If it’s important, we can shut down early, though.” I glanced back at Annie and saw that she was already closing the grill. I was happy to see that she’d started without any prodding from me. Today of all days, I wanted to get her out of there before I had start getting ready for my date with Jenna. I couldn’t believe how nervous I was. Then again, it had been quite a while since I’d gone out on a first date. I figured the butterflies dive-bombing my stomach were a good sign. At least that was how I was going to choose to see them.

“No, I can wait until then,” Kathleen said impatiently.

We had a grand total of two customers still in the store, so I flipped the sign on the front door to show that we were closed, and I locked the door itself for good measure.

“We can still get out, can’t we, Pat?” Cynthia Blakely asked me as she watched me work.

“And finish our shopping as well?” her friend, Louisa Holliday, added. The pair of older widows were notorious for taking hours to decide on which brand of toothpaste to buy.

“You have seven minutes,” I said with a grin.

Cynthia looked at Louisa. “We may as well go now, then. I’ll never be able to make up my mind under that kind of pressure.”

Louisa shook her head. It appeared that even she was getting fed up with her best friend’s hesitation. “Just choose one, Cynthia.”

“Don’t rush me,” her friend said. “You know how I hate being rushed.”

“Tell you what. Buy them both, and the one you don’t use, I’ll pay you for and use myself. Do you see any flaws in that plan?”

Cynthia frowned for a moment, and then she said, “I suppose that will be all right.”

I rang them up before they could change their minds, and after they were gone, I pulled the shades down, showing the world that the Cast Iron Store and Grill was now officially closed for the day.

Annie joined me the moment the blinds were down. “What’s up, Sis?”

“I just wanted to thank you both for passing Albert’s notes along to me. That was unexpectedly gracious of you.”

I looked at Annie and asked, “Was there a thank-you buried somewhere in that slam?”

“I don’t know,” my twin said. “It was hard to tell. There’s nothing like being called unexpectedly gracious, is there? It stands to reason that graciousness isn’t a part of our everyday lives, doesn’t it?”

“Okay, quit ganging up on me, you two,” Kathleen said. “It didn’t work as kids, and it’s not going to work now.” She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and then continued. “I’m willing to admit that I could have worded it better, but I am appreciative of the information.”

“Did it do you any good?” I asked her.

“You read the notes, didn’t you?” she asked, studying us both as she spoke.

“What do you think?” Annie asked our older sister. “Would you expect us to do anything less?”

“No, I suppose not. Since you both read them, did you come up with anything that I might have missed?”

“Did you see the part about Edith?” I asked her with some reluctance.

“I did, though it was well hidden. What do you two think about that? Did you ask her what it might have meant?”

“We tried, but the moment we brought it up, she left the Iron rather abruptly,” Annie said.

“Like it struck too close to home, perhaps?” Kathleen asked, probing deeper.

“That was our guess, though neither one of us has any idea what secret Albert was talking about.”

“I don’t, either. How about the rest of the names on the list?”

I hadn’t even told Annie yet about my conversation with the Wilsons, and she hadn’t shared a word with me about her day, either. “Some of them came by the store today,” I admitted.

“That’s true enough,” Annie echoed. She was following my lead and not disclosing anything, either.

Kathleen could tell that we were holding back on her. “Come on, guys. This is serious. If you can help me, I hope you do. I’m trying to solve two murders, and the mayor is screaming for me to call in the state police to help out. They’ve got a team of investigators that are supposed to be top notch, but I’d like the opportunity to do this myself.”

She had a point. “The Wilsons came by first thing this morning,” I said, and as an aside, I turned to Annie and added, “By the way, Mrs. Wilson insisted that we both start calling her Margaret. She made the point that we haven’t been her students in donkey years, and she feels as though we’re slighting her by not calling her by her first name.”

Annie frowned. “I don’t know if I can do that. Can you?”

“It’s not bad, once you do it a few times,” I admitted.

“May we get back on track here?” Kathleen asked us both.

“Sorry,” I said. “It seems that Mitchell Wells cheated Ollie out of an inheritance, and Ollie was livid about it. If Albert got wind of that, it’s not too much of a stretch for Ollie to come after him to shut him up. Albert was making a great deal of noise around town, and if Ollie killed Mitchell, it’s conceivable that he got rid of Albert, too.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that?” Annie asked me.

“There wasn’t time,” I said apologetically.

“I found out a few things myself,” she admitted. “Sorry, Pat. I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that.”

“We’re all under a great deal of pressure here,” I said. “What did you learn?”

“Well, Sally came in accusing Harriet, and she saw it happening, so after Sally left, Harriet said the same thing about Sally. They each claimed to be following the other one last night when they skipped out in the middle of my class, so as far as I know, either one of them could have done it. The only thing I’m fairly certain of is that they didn’t do it together. Those two couldn’t conspire to open a bag of potato chips together, let alone murder two men ten years apart.”

“Ollie ate at the grill, too, didn’t he?” I asked her.

“He almost didn’t, but when I told him that he’d have to pay for his order one way or the other, he decided to eat after all.”

“Why would he leave before eating?” I asked her.

“I mentioned Albert’s murder, and he said that he didn’t know anything about it.”

“Did you believe him?” Kathleen asked her.

“I don’t know. Part of it was convincing, but I had the feeling that he might be holding something back. Anyway, he ended up eating in a rush, and then he paid for the meal and left. Did he say anything to you when you rang him up, Pat?”

“No, he threw a ten-dollar bill at me and basically ran away.”

“Wow, that’s a pretty healthy tip,” Annie said.

“I put it in the donation jar,” I said. We contributed any tips we got to the animal shelter, something that our customers could feel good about. Us too, for that matter.

“Is that it, then?” Kathleen asked.

I thought about our list of suspects and realized that one of them hadn’t shown up today. “Did you see Betty Murphy, by any chance?” I asked Pat.

“No, she didn’t come in. That’s odd.”

“What’s so odd about it?” Kathleen asked me.

“She checks her mail every day without fail. So why didn’t she come in today? Was she afraid that it might look suspicious, if she’d killed Albert Yeats?”

“I would think that it would be more puzzling that she didn’t come in,” Kathleen replied.

“Who knows what’s going on? All I’m certain of is that she didn’t come into the Iron today.”

“I’ll go speak with her after I leave here,” Kathleen said. “Does that round up all of your suspects, then?”

“If you include Edith in the mix, which I still highly doubt, then that’s all we’ve got. I feel pretty good about our suspect roster being complete, since those were all of the names that Albert mentioned.”

“Those notes were the ramblings of a madman,” Kathleen said.

“Maybe so,” Annie replied, “but there could be hints of truth throughout them. How about you? Have any other names you’d care to share with us?”

She ignored the question. Oh, well. I’d at least tried. “Would you like copies for yourselves so you can keep trying to decipher them?” the sheriff asked, and then she almost instantly added, “Why am I even asking you that? You made copies for yourself before you gave them to me, didn’t you?”

We could lie, or we could tell the truth. I decided that not only would the truth make me feel better, but it was also simpler to remember. “We made one copy to share. Honestly, we didn’t see what it could hurt,” I confessed.

“I’d like to be angry about it, but I just can’t bring myself to do it,” she said. “If I don’t make some serious progress on these cases in forty-eight hours, the mayor’s going over my head and calling the state police, with or without my blessing.”

“We’ll help if we can,” I said.

“You know it,” Annie agreed.

“What are you two up to tonight?” Kathleen asked.

Now was the moment of truth. I could tell them both about my date with Jenna, or I could remain silent about it. Knowing the amount of teasing that I would be letting myself in for, I decided that discretion was indeed the better part of valor. “We don’t have any plans at the moment.”

“Not to work on the case, at any rate,” Annie chimed in.

I couldn’t believe my luck. I’d been trying to figure out how to tell her that I was taking the evening off from sleuthing when she did it for me. “I figure we’ll spend this evening apart and think about our options, and then get back into it tomorrow.”

“Just don’t take too long,” Kathleen said with a sigh. “Clearly I can use all of the help that I can get if I’m leaning on the two of you.”

“Was that another slam?” Annie asked me.

“It sounded like it to me,” I said.

“You two give me a headache,” our older sister said, and then she unlocked the front door and left without another word.

Before I could say anything to Annie, she said, “If you don’t mind, I’m going to take off, too. The grill is shut down, cleaned, and ready for tomorrow. See you tomorrow, Pat.”

“See you then,” I said. “Have a good night.”

After Annie was gone, I balanced the register, made out the deposit slip, and then headed out to the bank to take care of the last piece of store business for the day. Maybe, if I was lucky, I could catch a thirty-minute nap before I had to get up, take a shower, get dressed, and go on my date.