Do or Diner: A Comfort Food Mystery (25 page)

“Walk or I’ll shoot you right here,” Sal said.

“Whatever you say, Sal,” I said. I was mad now. I wasn’t going to go quietly into an old well. I shuddered, thinking of snakes and spiders and spending that much time with ACB.

I wasn’t worried that Sal was going to pull that trigger. He was a sneaky killer who used poison. He didn’t want to see blood.

We walked to the van with Sal toting one of Roberta’s suitcases and with his gun in my back. Roberta carried another suitcase and still pointed her gun. Where was everyone?

“I hope you’re going someplace warm,” I said, still fishing for information.

“We’re going someplace without an extradition treaty.” Sal laughed and, as he did, the gun jiggled up and down in his hand.

When Antoinette Chloe saw Sal, she began to thrash and tried to kick him. If that gag ever came off, there’d be a string of obscenities so loud that the people in Watertown would hear her.

“Roberta, do you have anything I could gag Trixie with?”

“I have a couple of silk scarves, but I don’t want to—”

“Just give them to me!” Sal spit the words, and I felt the spray.

He stuffed a scarf into my mouth. It tasted like old Estee Lauder perfume. He tied the other around my head to keep the gag in place. Then he tied my hands with rope and pushed me down onto the hard metal floor of the van.

ACB looked at me, tears pooling in her brown eyes. Her cheeks were striped from dripping mascara. I blinked back my own tears. I wouldn’t give Sal or Roberta the satisfaction of seeing me cry.

They both slipped into the front seats, and we started to roll.

Looking around for something to cut the rope binding me, I couldn’t find anything. I turned on my side to ACB, hoping that she might have some fingers available to untie my hands.

She had to turn her back to me because her hands were tied behind her back, but I did feel her trying to untie my hands.

Luckily, Roberta and Sal were chatting away and didn’t notice what we were doing in the back of the van.

I finally felt the rope loosen around my hands, just as my shoulder was growing numb. ACB did it!

Then I helped her, being careful not to give us away. I put my index finger over my gag as a sign for her not to talk.

We both loosened the ropes that were tying our ankles, just enough so Sal wouldn’t notice.

We drove over smooth roads, and then a crazy bumpy road. We had to be on Sal’s land, which was not far from my property. If only I could make it to the Silver Bullet! I didn’t know the woods at all, but I could try to make it to the lake. Then I could find my way on the beach.

I glanced at my fellow captive. Could she and her flip-flops keep up with me?

Who was I kidding? Did wearing sneakers suddenly turn me into an athlete? I hadn’t run three feet in my entire life.

But then again, I’d never had to run for my life.

I tried to signal to ACB that as soon as the doors to the van opened, we should kick with all our might.

She seemed to understand me. We took off our gags—thank God—and slid closer to the back door of the van, our knees almost touching it. Just as Sal opened the double doors, we kicked him with all our might.

ACB landed the best kick, right in Sal’s jewels.

As Sal squirmed on the muddy ground, Roberta appeared with Sal’s gun in her hand.

I kicked out at her, but she was too far back.

“Get out!” she screamed. “And put your hands in the air.” She looked at Sal, holding his privates. “Get up, Sal. I don’t know where the damn well is.”

“Over there,” he said, pointing. “Just go straight. I can’t…walk.”

“Don’t do this, Roberta. Don’t do it!” I pleaded.

“You can have Sal. Take him.” ACB sniffed. “But leave us alone.”

“I don’t want him.” Roberta looked down her nose at ACB. “I just want my share of the money he promised me for luring Juanita away from the kitchen.”

“Were you the one who phoned in an order to Sunshine Food Supply for a box of mushrooms?” I had to know; it had been bothering me.

She laughed. “I thought it would cast more suspicion on you,” Roberta said, pushing me forward.

“We were going to build our retirement home here.” ACB started to wail.

Roberta raised her arm up to the sky and shot the gun. “Shut up! Both of you, just shut up.”

The crack of the shot echoed in my brain. My scream echoed across New York State. Before Roberta could point the gun back at us, I reached for her skinny wrist and twisted it. Then I threw all my weight at her like a crazed wrestler, and we both fell into a pile of snow. For good measure, I heaped some snow on her face.

“Get the gun, Antoinette Chloe.”

“I don’t want to touch it,” she said.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” I sighed. “Then take my place on top of Roberta.”

“Okay.”

She obliged, hiked up her palm-tree-and-coconut-covered muumuu, and sat on a probably very cold, very sore, Roberta Cummings.

I picked up the gun from the ground and looked over at Sal Brown. He was still curled up like a boiled shrimp in a foot of snow.

“Antoinette Chloe, by any chance do you have a cell phone?” I asked, wondering why I hadn’t asked her that while our hands were semi-free in the van.

She grunted. I took that to mean yes.

I searched the pockets of her coat and found it. Before I could dial, I could hear police sirens getting louder and louder.

Soon, they found us.

Ty knelt down and handcuffed Sal Brown. He turned him over to Vern McCoy to be searched.

Then Ty ran toward us. “Are you okay?” he asked me, gently taking the gun from my hand.

He looked at me from head to toe.

“I’m fine. Really.”

“And how about you, Antoinette Chloe?” he asked.

She made a face. “Considering that my husband is a killer and he was going to frame me and run off with this skinny skank, I guess I’m okay.”

Ty stifled a laugh, and so did I.

“Get this elephant off me!” Roberta gasped for air.

Ty helped ACB off Roberta and helped a wet Roberta to stand up. He then cuffed her and patted her down.

“Let’s all go back to the office and sort this out,” Ty said.

“And, boy, do I have a lot to tell you!” ACB said, glaring over to where Sal stood with his arms cuffed behind his back, being guarded by Vern McCoy.

Her feet had to be freezing in those flip-flops, but that didn’t stop her from stomping over to her husband, throwing back her arm, and slapping Sal’s face.

“That’s for poisoning Marv Cogswell. There was never anything between us, you stupid idiot. I just tried to make you jealous because…because…I wanted to keep you on your toes.”

His mouth dropped open. “Oh, Annie! Dammit, Annie! Now you tell me?”

“Oh, Sal, you supreme idiot. How could you ever think I’d love Marv? He wouldn’t marry me when I was pregnant, but you did, Sal. You did.” She blinked back tears. “But I can’t understand how you could fool around with the snow queen.” She curled her top lip and sneered at Roberta.

“How did you and Roberta get together?” I asked Sal. I knew from Deputy Doug that once a suspect was handcuffed, he couldn’t be questioned by law enforcement without his Miranda rights being read. However, that requirement didn’t pertain to a certain diner owner who almost spent the rest of her days in a well and chitchatting with ACB.

“Yeah, Sal, explain that,” ACB ordered.

“One day, I went over to the Crossroads for a beer and to unwind. Roberta and I got to talking. We decided for our own reasons to take care of Marv.”

“What was your reason, Roberta?” I turned to her, but she stared down at the ground. It was dawning on me that Sal was definitely not the
mastermind criminal type. Roberta must have orchestrated the entire murder, but still I didn’t understand why. “Roberta?”

“I had a boring, dead-end job and no savings. I needed cash to get away from here and start over. So when Sal told me he thought Marv and that floral explosion of a woman over there were having an affair, I decided to manipulate Sal into killing Marvin and running away with me. Believe me, I’d have spent all his money before he knew it.”

“It’s my money, too!” ACB burst into tears. “Oh! This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have brought up Marvin all the time. He was no prize. Matter of fact, he was a no-good coward, a moocher, and a—”

“Let’s go,” Ty said, moving Sal in the direction of his cruiser.

Antoinette wiped her tears on the sleeve of her coat. “I can’t believe this, Sal. How could you? And you were going to take off with our retirement money? I worked just as hard as you.”

“It’s in the green suitcase in the van. It’s yours, Annie.” His eyes lowered. He couldn’t even look at her.

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“It should,” Sal said. “I love you, honey, and I always will. There’s no other gal for me.”

ACB rolled her eyes. “Men!”

I choked back a laugh.
Stay tuned for another episode of
Love and Murder in Sandy Harbor.

“Okay,” Ty said, a bewildered look on his face. “Let’s roll.”

Everyone was loaded into the sheriff’s department
cars and taken downtown. Two were booked; the rest of us weren’t. We gave long, boring statements to the three deputies, who could only type with two fingers, if that.

Finally, it was all over, and things could get back to normal, whatever normal was.

Ty drove me home, back to the old Victorian. I’d pick up my car later.

“Think you can get some sleep now?”

“Absolutely.” I was crashing, and I couldn’t stop my head from drifting left, onto his shoulder. “I’m always so tired. I really need my own shift. Maybe Bob is due back soon.”

I took a couple of breaths to wake up. I could smell soap and leather and some kind of spicy aftershave, and if I looked up, I could see the brim of his white cowboy hat.

Good guys always wore white hats.

“Now that this is all over, do you think you could put pork and scalloped potatoes back on the menu?” he asked. “My mother used to make it for us all the time.”

“Of course, I’ll put it back on the menu.”

“Poor Mr. Cogswell the Third,” I said, yawning. “It was all just a big misunderstanding—one big, stupid, murder, mushrooms, misunderstanding, mistake.”

Ty laughed. “That’s right, darlin’.”

“I’m glad you came along when you did,” I mumbled, stifling another yawn.

“You seemed to have had things under control when we arrived.”

Ty chuckled, and I loved the sound—throaty, deep, and masculine. “You were holding a gun and Antoinette Chloe was straddling Roberta. And Roberta had a ton of snow on her face.”

“I made a hole in it for her to breathe,” I clarified.

“Trixie, the next time, do you think you could let me handle things?”

“The next time? Cowboy, there isn’t going to be a next time!”

Four Months Later

“Trixie, Juanita wants to know if you could help her out in the kitchen for a while.” Bettylou, the new waitress I just hired, leaned over the counter and refreshed my cup of coffee. “I just took a huge take-out order from a bunch of fishermen fishing at the bridge on Route 3. She said that she’ll do the big order if you can do the regular diner orders.”

“Sure. I’ll be right there.”

I closed my laptop and debated whether to take it with me. Then I decided against it. Although all the booths and tables were taken at the Silver Bullet, there were several stools available at the counter, so my laptop wasn’t monopolizing a seat. Besides, there was hardly any crime in Sandy Harbor.

No crime? What was I thinking? I’d just almost, sort of, more or less, very nearly, basically, somewhat solved a murder on my own. Okay, maybe I had help.

I clicked on my screen saver, left my laptop on the counter, and hurried into my kitchen. It was still hard to think of the gleaming chrome and aluminum 1950s diner as mine, but as long as I kept making payments, it would be.

Pushing open the double doors to the kitchen, I caught a major whiff of garlic, oregano, and tomatoes. Yum! Tonight’s special was spaghetti with sausage or meatballs, garlic bread sticks, and a small chef salad or vegetable soup. Our customers loved Spaghetti Saturday, especially the younger crowd and the kids.

I slipped into a clean apron and smiled at my second-shift cook and friend, Juanita Holgado. I pulled an order off the clip rack, read it, and started pulling various dishes off the stacks. I headed for the refrigerator to get what I needed.

“Big order from the fishermen, huh, Juanita?” I asked. “We are getting more and more take-out orders from all over the river and lake.”

“Thirteen spaghetti dinners to go and four other assorted orders. The fishermen probably don’t want to leave their spots to eat.”

“I wouldn’t either if I was catching fish.”

“I guess,” Juanita said. “And they all want dessert, too. And drinks.”

“The waitresses can help pack the desserts and the drinks when they aren’t busy.”