Ginny Gold - Early Bird Café 04 - Croaked Wheat (7 page)

Less than a half hour later, Kori was getting into Nora’s truck and they were retracing their route from yesterday. “How could he have cheated on his wife with the neighbor?” Kori asked. “Wouldn’t he want a bigger buffer between those two women?”

Nora chuckled. “It sounds like you’ve given cheating a lot of thought.”

Kori mock glared at Nora. “Yeah right. I barely see Zach as it is. I wouldn’t want to add something else to my life that would keep me away from him.”

“I know. I was just busting on you.”

Nora drove past Karin’s driveway and turned into the next one. Richards was written on the mailbox so Kori knew they were in the right place.

“What’s your story today?” Nora asked.

Kori gave it some thought. “Reporters. For the Maple Daily.”

“And our names? I don’t want to be caught off guard again.”

“We can stick with the same ones. I’m Linda Smith and you’re Julie Fellows.” Kori smiled at her cunning ways. She was having too much fun at it too.

“Do you have a pad of paper to take notes with?” Nora asked, parking behind a car near the house.

“Who uses paper anymore? I’ll record our conversation with my phone.”

Nora shook her head. “You’re too much, you know that?”

They both got out of the truck and made their way to the front door. Kori looked around at the small yard and noticed plenty of abandoned kids’ toys that looked like they hadn’t been touched in years. There was a plastic slide on its side, a rusted bike and a wagon with broken panels. She’d assumed Joline was younger than Marty—and Karin—but maybe she wasn’t. Maybe she had her own family with grown kids and she hadn’t bothered to get rid of their childhood toys.
Or keep them in good shape for grandkids.

Kori led the way up two steps to the front door. She rang the doorbell and they waited. When no one answered in what she considered a reasonable amount of time, she knocked. She hadn’t heard the doorbell echo through the house, so it was either a quieter bell or was disconnected or not functional.

This time, it was only a few moments before a young woman came to the door, hair up in a messy bun, like she either didn’t care what she looked like or was intentionally going for a just-got-out-of-bed style. She opened one door so that there was still a screen between her and Kori and Nora.

“Ms. Richards?” Kori asked.

“Yes. Can I help you?” She wrinkled her eyebrows and stared down at them from inside, one step above.

“I hope so. We’re here with the Daily Maple. We’re running a story on Marty Rivers and we understand that you knew him.”

Joline nodded slowly. “He was my neighbor. It’s terrible what happened. I can’t believe it still.”

Kori thought Joline might thrive on the attention
of giving her side of the story so she pressed on. “Could we come in to ask you a few questions? We’d love to have a quote from you if possible.”

Joline pushed the screen door open and held both doors so Kori and Nora could enter the house. “Have a seat on the couch. Do you want some water?”

“Sure,” Kori said and Nora nodded.

Now that there was no screen blocking Kori’s view of
Joline, she could see that Joline was much younger even than Kori had expected. Maybe just out of college. How had she been able to buy a house so young? And what did she do to make a living? If she was home in the middle of the afternoon, she didn’t work a regular houred office job.

Joline took a few minutes in the kitchen, but it was immediately clear why when she came back to the living room. It looked like she’d reapplied makeup—to the point that it was overdone—and smoothed down the loose hairs that had been flying all over the place. With the skinny jeans and snug fitting shirt across an ample chest, she looked like she could pass for a Hooters waitress.

Kori knew there was no Hooters in Hermit Cove, but there could easily be a similar kind of restaurant where she could work nearby. Kori decided not to let her mind dwell on what other kind of professions would suit Joline’s look, but an escort service quickly wandered into her consciousness.

Even
Joline’s voice changed. She hadn’t been unfriendly at the front door, but Kori’s intuition had been correct about her wanting to be the center of attention. Suddenly she was babbling in a high pitched, ultra girly voice that Kori loved to avoid. She’d have to suck it up this afternoon.

“We’ve only lived next door for a little while. I just moved here less than a year ago. I met him through his wife, Karin, actually. Are you talking to her too? But she and I ended up not really hitting it off. She’s older, you know? So we’re just looking for different things in life right now. But Marty and I …”

Joline’s eyes got a faraway look and Kori waited for her to continue. When she didn’t, Kori asked, “Would it be okay if I record our conversation? It’s easier than taking notes.”

Joline sat on a chair facing Nora and Kori on the couch, a low coffee table between them. “Oh
, of course. And what about a photo to go with the quote I give you?”

Kori was surprised she wanted to be associated with this when she was
the other woman
. She turned the voice recorder on and then answered, “Sure. At the end I’ll take one.”

“Great. So, where did you want to start?” Joline asked, way too excited for what this conversation was about.

“Well, let’s start with your story. You said you just moved here. Where did you come from? What brought you to Hermit Cove?” Kori hoped her answer wasn’t ‘To be an escort.’

“Well, I’m from a town even smaller than Hermit Cove. Can you even believe that?” She waved her hand to emphasize her point. “And with my work, I can live anywhere. I didn’t want to jump right into a city, so I ca
me out here to Hermit Cove.”

“What exactly is the work you do?” Kori asked, mentally crossing her fingers.

“I’m an editor for an online publication.”

Kori had to do a double take and she felt Nora shift beside her. How did someone smart enough to be an editor come off as such a bimbo? “What’s the publication?” Kori pressed.

“It’s called Growing Green. It’s for urban gardeners to get information,” Joline explained.

Kori wondered if she could be connected to Seeds ‘n More. Could that have been further motive than just her relationship with Marty?
Kori nodded and waited for Joline to decide where she wanted to take the conversation.

“That’s actually how I met Karin.” Kori tilted her head to one side. Was Karin even connected to Seeds ‘n More? She hadn’t said anything about that yesterday. “She was a regular contributor to the publication
until about a year ago. I don’t know why, but she stopped adding anything to the magazine. She’d been freelancing, so maybe they just moved on without her. I’m not sure. But I met her at a conference the company put on. She told me about Hermit Cove, and well, here I am!”

Kori nodded. “And from there you met Marty,” she offered as a segue to what she really wanted to know.

“It’s hard not to meet people here.” Kori had to agree, but was glad she hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting Joline before today. “The town’s so small. And with Marty and Karin right next door, they were my lifeline when I moved here and didn’t know anyone else.”

“Did Karin help you get this place, then?” Kori asked.

Joline shook her head, no. “Actually Marty did. He knew the owner who was selling and he negotiated a great deal for me.”

So those toys outside weren’t hers. They’d
probably belonged to the previous owner, Kori decided.

“So that’s how you met?” Nora jumped in and asked.

Joline nodded.

“How would you describe the nature of your relationship?” Kori asked, trying to sound level and not like she was making any assumptions.

The faraway look returned to Joline’s eyes and a smile formed on her lips. “I love him,” she whispered. Then her face suddenly changed to a hardened expression, her eyes growing dark. “But don’t write that. I would hate for Karin to know about us.”

“What do you mean, ‘us’?” Kori asked.

“He loved me too. He was going to leave Karin. I even have his divorce papers. But she didn’t know. And I wouldn’t want her to have any hard feelings toward her late husband. Or toward me, her current neighbor.”

“Was there anyone you knew of who would want Marty dead?” Kori watched Joline closely and could see the wheels turning in her head.

“There was one lady he talked about. I don’t remember her name, but she worked at Seeds ‘n More. You know, the place that let him go six months ago?”

“He was fired?”

Joline nodded. “I don’t know why though.”

Nora asked Joline, “Her name wasn’t
Ria Mayfield, was it?”

“Yes! That was her. He didn’t like her. But I don’t know if there was anything bad enough between them that would make her want to kill him.”

Kori looked at Nora, who looked back at Kori. If Nora was right, Ria didn’t have a mean streak in her body. And Doug certainly hadn’t seemed a reliable source to learn about Ria’s bad side. But if Nora had a suspicion now about Peter, maybe Ria had convinced him to do the dirty work.

Kori returned to the jilted wife path. “You’re sure Karin didn’t know about the affair Marty was having with you?”

Joline’s face paled. “Affair? Who said anything about an affair? We were in love. Affairs are for cheaters. You only cheat when you want to get even with your partner. But this wasn’t cheating. He was getting a divorce.” Joline’s voice kept rising in volume as her logic disappeared more with each sentence. She was clearly deluded into thinking that she wasn’t in the wrong and her relationship with Marty couldn’t have hurt anyone. “I think we’re done here,” she said with finality.

Kori nodded and picked up her phone, turning off the voice recorder. She smiled and asked, “What about that photo?”

“No,” Joline said and led them to the front door.

Kori and Nora didn’t say anything until they were on the road and knew no one was following them. Then Kori said, “That certainly took a turn for the worse very quickly.”

Nora laughed. “I could barely hold it together in there. What does she think that was with Marty if it wasn’t an affair? How old is she anyway? Eighteen? She has no concept of what a healthy relationship is.”

Now Kori was laughing too. When she’d finally recovered herself and could form a coherent sentence she said, “What about Karin working for Growing Green? It sounds like she
stopped freelancing for Growing Green about the same time Joline moved to Hermit Cove. Do you think those two things are linked? If Karin killed Marty because she’d found out about his affair or pending divorce filing, could Joline be in danger because of the relationship
and
if Joline had anything to do with Karin losing her job?”

Nora shrugged. “Why wouldn’t she have just killed Joline? She sounds like she was at more fault. Why kill her husband?”

“I don’t know. And if he was getting a divorce, why would Joline kill him?” Kori asked as they pulled into Nora’s driveway and the dogs ran toward the truck in greeting.

“Maybe that wasn’t true. Or she didn’t really want to be with him but was using him for something.”

“Sounds like we have plenty more questions to find answers to.”

Kori sat down hard on the couch as soon as she got home. She was exhausted. And hadn’t planned a menu for Saturday so would have to do that in the morning. Would it be so terrible if she just didn’t open one day to give her a day off? Maybe on Monday, but not on a summer weekend. The Early Bird Café existed for mornings like tomorrow.

Sitting there, letting her body completely relax, Kori’s mind continued to run in circles between what she and Nora were missing about Karin and Joline. Something wasn’t adding up.

But she was spared the mental agony of going nowhere fast when her phone buzzed with a message. She unlocked it and smiled to herself when she saw that it was from Zach. That smile quickly turned to mild panic when she read the message:
Downstairs with dinner. Come let me in?

Kori had completely forgotten! She’d been so wrapped up in her afternoon pretending to be a reporter that she’d ignored the fact that she had a date tonight!

Kori typed out a quite reply:
Be right there.
She then ran into the bathroom where she saw her reflection and cringed. But she didn’t have time to even pretend like she was going to fix her hair. She didn’t know what to do with it anyway. Wash it? That’d be a start. Oh well.

She smoothed her hair down, changed her shirt and headed downstairs where Zach was waiting patiently on the sidewalk.

“Hi,” she said, unable to hide her smile when she opened the door.

He wrapped her in his arms, a paper bag with a delicious smell wafting out of it
in his hand. “Hey. Thanks for letting me in.” He stepped back and Kori turned to go back inside to her apartment.

“Of course.”

“I was surprised the door was locked. Did you forget I was coming over?”

Kori was glad her back was to him as she locked the door. She could feel the heat kiss her cheeks
in a blush.

“Of course not.”

They walked up the narrow stairs, Kori conscious of how close their bodies were and her heartbeat sped up. Without turning to face him she asked, “What’d you bring? It smells delicious.”

“Oh good. I wasn’t sure if you liked sushi.”

A single laugh exploded from Kori’s chest and she threw a hand over her mouth. “I
love
sushi.”

“Great. I brought all the ingredients but we still have to make it.”

Kori had never made sushi but she was always up for trying new things and looked forward to a night of learning the ropes of a new dish. And of course next to Zach for dessert.

***

Kori’s alarm went off far too early the next morning and she wasn’t nearly ready to get out of bed. Apparently Zach wasn’t ready either because he rolled over and wrapped his arms around her.

But Ibis had different ideas. Sentenced to spend the night on her dog bed on the floor
instead of her normal spot on the bed next to Kori, she now got up and stuck her nose in Kori’s face. “Okay, okay,” Kori whispered, gently removing Zach’s arms from around her. “You need to go out?”

Kori didn’t have a ch
oice but to get up, get dressed, leave a note for Zach and take Ibis for a quick walk up Main Street. By the time she was in the café, she was wide awake and Ibis went straight back to sleep.

Once the coffee was percolating, Kori got to work in the kitchen. After another perfect night with Zach, she was feeling even more ambitious and adventurous. Immediately she put eggs and home fries and green smoothies on the menu. These would be the only regular things she made today, and they were easy to serve since they were both almost completely make-as-she-went so wouldn’t end up with leftovers. She cut up plenty of potatoes, seasoned them and put them in the oven to start cooking right away.

Then she started flipping through her binder of ideas she’d been compiling since opening The Early Bird Café. The first one that caught her eye was an apple braided bread. She’d never made it, and had never tasted it, but how could an apple-pie-like filling in a sweet bread be bad?

Next she settled on a baked pumpkin oat
loaf. But instead of a loaf, she’d spread it thinner in cake pans and offer it topped with a variety of nut butters or jams.

Finally, French toast became the final item on the menu. But not just
any
French toast. There were still two loaves of fresh bread leftover from yesterday that hadn’t yet been touched. The frittata and Dutch baby had been crowd favorites and now she would use the bread for thick slices of French toast in a decadent buttermilk and egg batter, thicker and tastier than her usual one, fried in butter on the stove top. She had plenty of berries to add as toppings with maple syrup.

Kori looked over the menu and her mouth immediately started watering. She loved coming up with exciting food options for her friends—and the strangers who ventured into the café—and today she thought she’d done exceptionally better than her average menu.

Now Kori had to get to work. First she mixed together the baked pumpkin oat loaf—she quickly thawed frozen pumpkin puree from last year’s harvest at Red Clover Farm. When that was in the oven, she looked at the clock and panicked when she realized she only had a half hour until opening.

Next was the apple braided loaf. She peeled and chopped apples, mixed them with cinnamon, sugar, nutmeg and cloves, then tossed them to evenly coat and stuck them in the oven to start baking. Then she got to work on the loaf. She made a triple batch, hoping that this would be a favorite since she was so excited about making it. The dough was easy to make, and when it was a not-very-sticky consistency, she rolled it out flat and made slits on either side of the circle, leaving the middle completely intact.

She pulled the softened apples from the oven and put a third of them in the center of the loaf and started folding the edge strips into the middle, making it look like a braid. She was pleased with her first loaf, but each successive loaf looked a little bit better.

Just as she put the final loaf into the oven to bake for almost a half hour she looked at the clock again and had to go prop the door open. The loaf wouldn’t be ready until close to six, but customers could wait. She knew that those who came in early and ordered food were almost never in a hurry and enjoyed the slow pace of sitting and chatting with their friends.

Finally, still alone in the café, she mixed together a sugary glaze to brush on the loaves as soon as they came out of the oven. As the loaves cooled, the glaze would harden and add a special excitement to each bite—a little extra sweetness.

At quarter to six, her first customer entered. From behind her. Zach came quietly down the stairs and surprised her with a kiss on the cheek.

“Good morning. I didn’t expect to see you for at least another hour. Don’t you have today off?” Kori asked, filling two mugs with coffee and handing one to him. She could tell he was thankful to add caffeine to his body. His eyes still looked drowsy.

“I do.
I’m letting everyone else work on the Marty Rivers case and I look forward to spending today doing nothing,” he told her between sips.

“Oh, rub it in why don’t you.” Kori laughed.

“Well, when you put it that way, why don’t I stay here and help you out?”

Kori couldn’t hide her surprise. “You don’t have to do that. I’ll be making an offer to an employee on Monday. I can wait until they start.”

“I know I don’t
have
to. But I want to. I had a lot of fun cooking with you last night. I could do it again today.”

“Trust me, making sushi with your girlfriend is not the same as cooking for an entire town.”

Zach took an apron from a hook near the doorway to the dining area. “Well, I’ll be the judge of that. Where do you want me?”

Kori went through a whole list of places she wanted him
, and none were in the kitchen, before she answered. “If you’re not giving me a choice, then pull the baked pumpkin oat loaf out of the oven and let it cool over there.” She pointed to a stone slab on the counter that wouldn’t be damaged by a hot pan.

With Kori’s first ever assistant in the kitchen, she relaxed just a bit as the wave of customers started. Betsy Scoop and Anita Price were two of the first customers and Kori walked Zach through taking orders since they were locals and would more easily put up with mistakes.

Minutes later, Lani entered on the arm of Spencer Graff. Kori couldn’t help but wonder if Lani was trying to make it clear to Kori—or Jay—that she was already looking at someone new. She happily let Zach take their order on his own while she brushed the glaze onto the apple breads.

As Zach got comfortable in his self-imposed new role, Kori settled into just cooking. There were plenty of egg, smoothie and French toast orders amidst those of apple bread and pumpkin oat loaf. She loved looking out to the dining area and seeing
Zach chat with customers like she usually did.

On one such glance at the tables, she saw Jay sitting with Jenna and Kyle Rhodes, not far from where
Lani was still eating with Spencer. She said a silent prayer to the universe to let them not have a fight in her café.

But she wasn’t so lucky. She heard it before she saw it;
the sound of something splashing. By the time she’d come around to the dining area, Jay was on his feet and dripping with what she hoped was water. If Lani had thrown hot coffee at her brother, Kori might have to ban her for life.

Lani
was on her feet, facing Jay, when Kori reached their table. Without giving them a chance to have it out with each other in front of everyone, she grabbed them both by their elbows and pushed them into the kitchen. Everyone was happily eating again when she checked and she had no outstanding orders so she decided to play peacemaker.

She started with an attack—not the best peacemaker.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she hissed at Lani as Zach walked in. He didn’t say anything, but Kori supposed she couldn’t very well kick him out of the kitchen. She allowed him to stay, shooting him a warning glance that he was to do any crowd control with customers if needed.

“What do I think I’m doing? What is your brother doing?”
Lani shot back.

Jay said, the most calm of all three of them, “I’m just eating breakfast. I don’t know what is going on. But ever since I ended things, all I’ve been hearing is that you’re taking your anger out o
n all of my family and friends.”

“My anger? My
anger?
” Lani’s voice was rising and Kori needed her not to draw any more attention to this fight. Thankfully, Lani lowered her voice. “Jay, I was
pregnant
.”

All eyes were on
Lani as they stood there in silence, waiting for Jay to respond. Finally he asked, “Was?”

Lani
nodded. “Yes. Was. I lost it right after you broke up with me.”

The silence stretched on until Kori couldn’t take it anymore. “Why don’t you two go upstairs and talk this out?” she offered.

Lani shook her head. “There’s nothing to talk about.” Then she stormed out of the kitchen and back to her table with Spencer.

Zach was next to leave, making the rounds with coffee refills and to take any additional orders. Which left Jay and Kori alone in the kitchen.

“What are you going to do to make this right?” Kori asked. She didn’t want Lani holding anything against anyone, least of all herself.

Jay shrugged. Kori knew words weren’t his strong point, making it almost impossible for him to deal with any type of confrontation without shutting down. “Wait it out. Maybe she’ll move. She’s not from here.”

“Good plan,” Kori said snidely at him.

“I’ll let you know if I come up with something better,” he said and turned to leave the kitchen.

Kori was relieved when Lani finally left, and gave a generous tip. The rest of the morning went smoothly and Kori enjoyed a leisurely lunch with Zach when they were finished working.

“If you ever decide to give up law enforcement, you can have a job here,” she said, sitting across from him at a table. She was having eggs and the last of the home fries and a small piece of apple bread. She’d made Zach French toast with plenty of fruit and syrup. They were splitting a green smoothie.

“I’m not sure I could keep up.”

Kori laughed. “Harder than it looks, huh?”

“You have a way of making it look easy.”

When Zach left to take a nap—Kori was jealous—she cleaned up some of the kitchen and then brought Ibi
s over to Nora’s. But her truck was nowhere to be seen, unusual for a Saturday afternoon, a time she almost always used to get a head start on the coming week.