Sweet Taffy and Murder: Sweet Taffy Cozy Mysteries Book #1 (6 page)

Maria shrugged and looked away. “It’s a long time ago now.”

Taffy wondered whose death. Maria didn’t seem to want to give much away.

“But you did grow up in New York? Where?”

“Upper East Side.”

That surprised Taffy, and it must have shown on her face, because Maria added, “My mother was a maid for a wealthy family when I was younger.”

That was a common enough story, but it still made Taffy uncomfortable. She sensed that Maria blamed her for something, but she had no idea what. Taffy had no control over anyone’s lot in life. And wealthy people suffered, too. Sometimes they did terrible things to each other, like book them one-way tickets to small towns in Oregon.

Maria added, “We moved to the West Coast when I was twelve, so I suppose I only partially grew up there. But it’s my home now.” She sipped her soda and watched Taffy, who was now thinking about the year when she turned twelve.

That time in her life was a mental blur. Taffy’s mother died that year, and the trauma of her death, the psychiatrist claimed, had had a damaging effect on her memories. Parts of Taffy’s childhood just seemed to be wiped clear. The psychiatrist said they would come back over time, but not much had. In some ways, this had made moving on easier. Every so often, when she was just falling asleep, or in that deep relaxation pose at the end of yoga class, an image or scenario would come back to her.

Taffy murmured, half to herself, “I don’t think I’ll ever feel at home anywhere but New York.”

She finished the last sip of her second beer, and Ethan pushed his untouched second towards her.

“Don’t you want it?”

“You can have it. I’m driving.”

Maria smiled approvingly. “I’m off duty, but I’m always on the lookout, McCoy.”

They definitely had a flirty thing going. Taffy pushed aside her empty beers and ploughed into her third. She considered ordering another shot as she turned to Ethan.

“So you gonna sing or what? Isn’t that why we’re here?”

“We’re here so you can observe some of the local culture.”

“Or contribute to it,” Maria said as Taffy tried, unsuccessfully, to hold back a burp.

“The culture I’m used to is the Metropolitan Opera and Tony Award–winning Broadway shows.” She clinked beers with one of her empty bottles.

Maria smirked. “You can take the girl out of the Big Apple, but you can’t take the Big Apple out of the girl, is that it?”

“Precisely.”

Maria leaned forward. “And what if her core is rotten?”

“Hey,” Ethan said jovially. “Remember we’re just out for a good time.”

Maria leaned back in her chair and watched a geeky-looking hipster wrap up his version of “You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet” by Bachman Turner Overdrive.

“My turn,” said Ethan standing up. “Play nice.” He headed for the stage. As he cued up his song, he tossed the list over to Taffy. She shook her head.

“You don’t seem like the shy type,” Maria said.

“Just because you’ve seen my driver’s license doesn’t mean you know anything about me.”

“Don’t I?” Maria placed her elbows on the table and met Taffy’s slightly drunken gaze. “Spoiled little rich girl needs a reset. Moves out west for a change of scene. Thinks her life is so hard because of some tragic event in her past—”

“You don’t know anything about me.” Emboldened by drink, she shared a thought she hadn’t meant to say out loud. “You’re just jealous because Ethan likes me.”

Maria laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”

From the stage, Ethan said, “This goes out to the two lovely ladies at my table.” The first few drumbeats rumbled through the bar. The Rolling Stones, of course.

“I saw how you looked at him while you were singing.” Taffy downed the rest of her beer and waved to Ted for another. “But all’s fair in love and war, ain’t it?” She picked up the list of songs and tried to focus on the titles.

Maria was shaking her head in disbelief. “You’ve got it all wrong.”

“We’ll see about that.” Taffy stood up. She wobbled. And then she wove her way to the stage as the audience applauded Ethan.

Taffy took the microphone from him before the next guy in line could start. She pointed to a song title and took a deep breath. She had to sing fast because as soon as she stood up she realized she had to pee.

The opening chords to Janis Joplin’s “Piece of My Heart” twanged through the room. Taffy sort of sang-yelled the lyrics. She tried to sing to Ethan but the lights made it hard to find him in the crowd. Halfway through the song, it occurred to her that she hadn’t sung nor lip-synced a song since before her mother died. She had to swallow a lump in her throat. The effect of this made her voice even more Joplin-esque. She was surprised to hear the audience roar with applause when she was done.

She stumbled off the stage and headed straight for the restroom. In her inebriated state, she was only half mortified at what she had done. When she returned to the bar, Ethan found her before she found him.

“Let’s get you home, shall we?”

“Where’s Maria?” Taffy slurred slightly.

“She left before you finished. She said she has an early day tomorrow. I think you do, too.”

Taffy had nearly forgotten about work. She let Ethan lead her back to his truck.

“Never again,” she said. “Don’t let me do that ever again. Good friends don’t let other friends drink and kary-cokey.”

“Come on, Lightweight, time for bed.”

Back in New York, Ethan’s last line would have been an invitation, not a simple statement of fact, so Taffy half expected him to follow her up to bed and do much more than tuck her in, but instead he just dropped her off in the driveway, said ‘good night,’ and waited until she’d found her wobbly way to the front door.

Once inside, feeling equal parts disappointment and defiance (thanks to the booze), Taffy stood in the spot where the body outline had been and stared at the closed door of the hall closet.

She decided to interpret Ethan’s stop-and-drop not as disinterest or rejection but rather as gentlemanliness. Of course, he was too nice a guy to make a move on a first date, and not even a real date—he’d said as much—so his strategy must be to be friends first. Taffy respected that. She hadn’t come across many gentleman-friends back in New York.

She hoped Maria wouldn’t turn out to be a nuisance. Whatever had once gone on between her and Ethan, they both claimed to only be friends now. Something about Maria set Taffy on edge. She was overly confident and self-assured. Not to mention she’d totally blown off Taffy’s suggestion that Janet’s death was suspicious, which was embarrassing. Taffy had only been trying to help.

She looked down at her feet. A woman—a ‘good woman,’ according to Ethan—had taken her last breath here on this floor.

Taffy took a deep breath, opened the closet door, and tugged on a chain to activate the inside lightbulb. She blinked against the glare.

Inside was a closet rod full of coats for various seasons. Below their varied hem lengths sat a dozen pairs of shoes and boots. Tucked under a pair of shoes was a wooden stepping stool, which Janet must have used to reach the top shelf.

Leaning back, Taffy saw a bowling-ball bag on one side of the shelf. The empty side must have originally housed the fatal bowling ball.

She pulled out the stool and positioned it so she could stand on it and reach the bag on the shelf. She probably shouldn’t be doing this drunk, but she had a bone to pick with Maria. Something about Janet’s death by bowling ball didn’t ring true.

Awkwardly, she pulled down the nearly empty bag. A pair of bowling shoes rattled around inside, plus a package of gum, a small hand towel, a box of chalk, a lone red mitten, and a small black book at the bottom. It had the letters MBC on the cover, like the composition book in the piano bench.

Keeping the book, Taffy shoved the bag back onto the shelf and nearly missed. The line of the shelf looked a little out of whack. Or maybe it was Taffy’s beery state of mind. As she got down off the stool, she nearly toppled over. After regaining her balance, she took a few steps away from the closet to assess the shelf. It didn’t look level.

She went to the parlor and fished out a marble from the jar. Back up on the stool, Taffy set the marble on the shelf. It rolled away from her. She stretched forward to get the marble back and positioned it at the front edge of the shelf again. It quickly rolled to the back left corner again. Not only was the shelf not level side to side, it was also tipped backward. She rolled the marble one more time to be sure. She didn’t have to be sober to come to the obvious conclusion: There’s no way anything could roll forward and off this shelf. Not even a bowling ball.

When Taffy’s alarm buzzed the next morning, she was still hanging on to a fragment of a dream, which was more like a forgotten memory. In the dream, her mother was still alive, and they were in their apartment on Park Avenue. Someone was helping her mom get dressed for an event. Her father was away on tour. There was music playing, pretty loudly, and Taffy and a friend were singing along and dancing a routine they’d choreographed to the song. It wasn’t Kyla or Macy or Cher dancing and singing with her—she hadn’t met them until high school—but she couldn’t picture the face of this other friend.

She rolled over, reached for the snooze button, and noticed a marble sitting on the bedside table. It took her a moment to remember where it came from. Then she remembered the rest of the night, and the reason her alarm went off extra early in the first place.

Ignoring her hangover headache, she dragged herself through the shower. She had to stop by the police station on the way to work.

At the station, she was greeted by a lanky, buck-toothed Lieutenant. She recognized him as one of the pool players from the bar. His name tag said ‘A. Gravely.’

“Good morning, Little Lady. Now what can I do for you?”

“I’d like to speak to Officer Salinas.”

“You mean, Lieutenant Salinas?”

He held open the gate that divided the public space from the open office layout. “Right this way.”

As they passed a young woman with a cute pixie cut entering data at the front counter, he said, “I need that report pronto, Zoe.”

“On its way, Sir.”

“Salinas!” Gravely barked. “Pretty girl here to see you.”

Maria Salinas looked up from her computer. Her eyes hardened when she saw Taffy.

“Miss Belair, what a pleasure.” Her voice dripped with sugary sarcasm. “How are you feeling after last night? Got quite a set of pipes on you, I must say.”

Gravely left them to talk and headed toward the chief’s office. Taffy sat down in the chair next to Maria’s desk without being asked and eyed the steaming mug of coffee sitting next to her computer. She could really use a cup, even police station drip, but Maria wasn’t offering.

“Whatever you have against me, I hope you’ll put it aside and hear what I have to say.”

“It better be good,” Maria said, taking a sip of her coffee. The young woman with the pixie cut put some papers in Maria’s In basket.

“Thanks, Zoe.”

Taffy waited until Zoe left and then produced the marble.

“I think Janet Harken’s death was murder.”

Maria scoffed as she put her mug down. “Murder? Tush-tosh!”

Taffy blinked, the murder and the marble temporarily forgotten. “What did you say?”

“The medical examiner concluded the death was accidental. The case is closed.”

“No, what did you
say
?”

“Not murder, Miss Belair. But thank you for taking the time to come down and share your insights.”

Taffy stared at Maria Salinas, her mind working through shreds of partial memories. Her eyes narrowed, her brain strained, and then it came to her, and she sat back in her chair, dumbfounded.

“You’re Maria Salinas.”

“Bingo. Good thing we already met or I’d be blown away by your sleuthing abilities.”

“No, you’re
my
Maria Salinas.”

Maria met her steady gaze now.

Taffy couldn’t believe it. She was staring into the eyes of her mostly forgotten childhood friend, the daughter of her mother’s maid, who had been let go after her mother died. Maria and Taffy had practically grown up together. Maria was the one she used to sing and dance with, the one she laughed and cried with. A wave of emotion rolled through her, and she might have cried in that moment if her tear ducts hadn’t shut down all those years ago.

Maria cleared her throat. “Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way. How’s Nana?” The sarcasm wavered but didn’t completely disappear.

“
That’s
why you’re giving me such a hard time?”

“Hard times don’t touch Sweet Taffy Belair. She’s a good-time girl. Always looking on the bright, shiny side of things.”

Maria and her mother had been at the funeral. Taffy hadn’t seen them since. And she’d never wondered where they went, because something in Taffy froze that day. All her childhood memories jumbled and then faded. She made a habit of never looking back.

“Murder’s not very bright and shiny,” said Taffy, trying to push aside the hazy memories of her past.

“Compared to an accidental death, it’s pretty dramatic and exciting.”

“You think I’m making it up?”

Maria looked at the marble. She looked at Taffy.

“I think you’ve lost your marble.” She handed it back to Taffy. “Have a good day.”

“Now wait a minute.” Taffy held up the marble between her thumb and forefinger. “This marble means you just might have an unsolved murder on your hands.” She clicked it down onto the desk. Then she rolled it toward Maria. “The closet shelf in Janet’s foyer is so crooked, nothing could have rolled off it.”

Maria looked confused. The marble came to rest beside her mug. She picked up the marble and looked at Taffy.

“What are you saying?”

“It’s true Janet stored her bowling ball on the closet shelf. I saw the bag and the shoes and the empty space where the ball might have been. But it couldn’t have rolled off accidentally.” She nodded at the marble. “Somebody must have hit her with it. The bowling ball, not the marble.”

Maria cleared her throat. “Who would have done that?”

Taffy shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s your job. I’m nothing but a good-time, jaywalking sugar elf.”

She stood up to leave and then stopped. She looked back at Maria, who had picked up the marble and seemed to be lost in deep thought, and said quietly, “When you said death brought you to Abandon, you meant my mother, didn’t you?”

Maria sighed and didn’t meet Taffy’s gaze.

“That was a long time ago. My mother and I started a new life here.”

Taffy’s memories of Maria’s mom were hazy, too, as if everyone from that time in her life had faded to mere shreds of an irretrievable dream. But what little she recalled stirred a feeling of warmth in her chest.

“How is Rosa?”

Maria smiled slightly and then stiffened. “Fine. Never been better.” She crossed her arms and turned back to her work, effectively shutting down any further conversation.

Ethan might have been right about her being a good nut, but she was also a tough one.

“Well. Good luck with the case.”

Maria nodded without looking up as she started searching files on her computer. Taffy took one last longing look at the mug of coffee.