The Counterfeiter-Catching Cat: A Beatrice Young Cozy Cat Mystery (Beatrice Young Cozy Cat Mysteries Book 1) (4 page)

Behind the cash, wall-mounted chalkboards advertised pies, cookies, coffee, tea, homemade lunches, and more. An assortment of old tins and apothecary jars lined the wooden shelves below them. A gleaming espresso machine sat on the corner of the heavy wood counter and the custom glass and wood display shelves contained a tempting array of pumpkin-maple pies, cookies bursting with dark chocolate and dried cherries, chocolate layer cake with a touch of brandy and hazelnut, and plump cinnamon rolls dripping with vanilla icing.

After her divorce in her early twenties, Beatrice had gone to Plymouth and began working in bakeries where she learned the art of making bread and pastries. She had desperately missed Ashbrook, though. Her parents, who owned both a condo in Plymouth and a converted barn house outside of town, offered to give her the house as her inheritance. As they got older, they preferred the convenience of the city and their condo, and they knew that Beatrice was pining to open her own café in Ashbrook.

Which is exactly what she did. She managed to get a loan to buy a smaller shop around the corner and worked diligently to convert it into a cozy little café. Her customers trickled in slowly but steadily. Beatrice was able to pay back the loan and even get her business degree by distance. Sadly, her parents passed, but she was comforted that at least they were able to see their daughter become happy and successful.

Then Ashbrook really took off as a tourist destination and business exploded. She moved to her current space, hired staff, and put more of her energy into interior decorating, marketing, coffee selection, and managing the finances.

The Cozy Cat Café had gone from neighborhood favorite to a popular tourist spot that was in all the New England travel guides. Beatrice always thought she would burst with pride whenever she saw the café listed on a well-known travel website or a great review popped up online. Life was good.

Her assistant was helping a waitress clear a few tables when Beatrice walked in, the cats running ahead of her. Zoe smirked. “You’re still in one piece. Looks like the sheriff spared you this time.”

“He’s softening in his old age.”

Beatrice went behind the counter and pulled out the envelope with the fake bill. Hamish immediately leapt up onto the counter and tried to paw it. Beatrice moved out of his reach and held the bill up the light again. Its subtle differences were becoming more noticeable to her.

“Zoe,” she called. “Do you know how to tell if a bill is counterfeit?”

The young woman came over, wiping her hands on her apron. “Uh not really.”

“Me neither. I never thought I’d have to worry about that in Ashbrook.”

Zoe shrugged. “Doesn’t surprise me. There are so many more tourists coming through here now.”

A minute later they were both at the back kitchen table, searching on their smartphones for: “how to tell if a bill is fake.” Beatrice trusted the counterfeit detection pen but she wanted to learn more. She felt deceived and she was determined to educate herself and pass on that knowledge to other business owners in the area.

After a long minute of frantic typing and scanning various websites, Zoe found the Secret Service’s page on counterfeiting.

“I’m pretty sure they know what they’re talking about,” Zoe commented, her fingers frantically scrolling and zooming in and out.

“You’d think.”

Zoe read their checklist out loud and they compared it to the counterfeit bill on hand. Real money had red and blue fibers embedded in it while the fake bill just had red and blue lines
printed
on it. Then they checked the serial number—the numbers on the fake were unevenly spaced and colored differently than the Treasury seal above. The seal itself was blurred and its points were skewed. Not to mention that the entire background of the bill was too dark and the image of Andrew Jackson was flat and indistinct.

All the while, Hamish sat behind the cat gate, tail twitching, ears perked, and eyes bright like a squirrel waiting to be fed a peanut. Every so often he let out a throaty yowl, as if to remind Beatrice of his presence. Lucky sat quietly next to him, his big round green eyes shining all the brighter against his coal-black coat.

Beatrice tried to ignore them and instead stared at the fake bill in her hand. Now that she knew what to look for, this bill and a real one looked as different as night and day. She frowned. The fake wasn’t even convincing. The fact was that she never really looked at the money given to her, except to check the amount. This little mistake could cost her big, depending on how many of the bills were in her coffers.

“I wonder who’s making the fakes?” Zoe breathed. She took the bill from Beatrice’s hands and squinted hard at it. “This could be a huge operation. People we know printing
millions of dollars
in fake bills right under our noses. Maybe they have ties to some kind of mafia…”

Beatrice shot her a look. Zoe was obsessed with books about serial killers, crime TV dramas, and conspiracy theories. None of that stuff appealed to Beatrice, who had a weak stomach. Her interest wasn’t in the grotesque or sordid—she liked solving mysteries just like she enjoyed a morning in bed with the Sunday crossword and a cup of coffee. It was a puzzle to be solved and, if she could help her neighbors in the process, even better.

Beatrice avoided the question and dialed Matthew.

“Miss me already?” he said in his deep voice that was as warm and slow as honey.

“I’m too busy to miss you.” Zoe made a face at this comment and went to tidy the counters. “I wanted to ask where you think you picked up that fake bill,” Beatrice continued.

“I went to the grocery store on Sunday. Hardware store. Stopped in at Moore’s bar yesterday.”

Beatrice wrinkled her nose. Cameron Moore was a young scrappy guy who ran a bar at the far edge of town, a place he had inherited from his father. It wasn’t exactly the most reputable joint. “That dive? What the heck were you doing there?”

Matthew laughed. “Tyler wanted to go there—you remember, that young ranger who started working with me about six months back? A bit of a roughneck, if you ask me.”

Hamish let out another angry yowl from the other side of the cat gate. Beatrice gave him a hard look. “Do you remember getting change there?” she asked.

“Not sure, Bee. I spent a lot of money that day. A ton of groceries, paint for the downstairs bathroom, and actually I popped into the pharmacy too to pick up my prescription for my blood pressure. I don’t remember what change I got where.”

She sighed with frustration. A dead end. “Alright. I guess I’m going to have to go around to some of the businesses and ask questions.” Just then the sound of sirens blaring filled the kitchen. The sheriff. He must have found something pretty important to be turning his sirens on.

“Did you hear that?” she hissed into the phone.

“Bee, don’t tell me you’re going to…”

“…follow him? You bet your buttons I am. I’ll call you later.”

She hung up and went to grab her purse.

“Hold down the fort, Zoe,” she said over her shoulder as she went into her office. “Hamish! Lucky! We’re going for a drive, kitties.”

5

In a split second they were in the truck, following the sheriff at top speed. Lucky was in his cat carrier, yowling desperately in protest of this impromptu voyage. Eventually Hamish stuck his furry face in front of the wire mesh and hissed emphatically, which quieted Lucky for a few blissful minutes.

Beatrice expertly piloted the streets on the outskirts of town. She couldn’t see the sheriff but she could certainly hear him, so it wasn’t hard to follow his trail. She pulled onto Water Street and her stomach began to feel queasy. It was the same road that the camera footage had captured Jordan walking down before he disappeared.

The road continued out of town and into the dense forest that surrounded Ashbrook. Since it was autumn, mid-October to be precise, the trees were bright with color. The sugar maples were burnt orange and fiery red, the spruces were Christmas green, and the alder and ash trees were sunshine yellow. Fat, fleecy clouds were suspended in a bright azure sky and the light that flooded the forest had that warm, buttery quality you see on a perfect fall day.

Such a gorgeous scene would have usually captured Beatrice’s entire attention. That day, though, she didn’t have eyes for anything but the road ahead.

It didn’t take long for her to spot the sheriff’s truck on the side of the road. An ambulance was in front of it. She parked and raced out, leaving the cats in the car. The sheriff was just about to go into the woods.

“What’s going on?” she huffed, trying to catch her breath.

Sheriff Roy’s heavy gray brows lowered dangerously. “I won’t even ask how you managed to find me. You are not coming on this one.” He sighed wearily. “Really Bee? Don’t you have a café to run?”

Beatrice crossed her arms over her chest. “I make my own schedule. One of the benefits of being self-employed.”

The sheriff shook his head and leveled a serious look at her. “This isn’t a game,” he said in an undertone. “A hiker found Jordan floating face down in Hancock Lake. Dead.”

Beatrice’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my heavens. Poor Amy. Poor Sally Ann.” The sheriff shook his head gravely in agreement. “What do you think happened? Murder? Suicide? Accident?”

“I haven’t even seen the crime scene yet. The EMS team’s been in already and they didn’t see any obvious signs of foul play. But who knows? Listen Bee, I’ve got to get going. I’ll call you later, okay?”

He looked towards her car, where Hamish was pressed against the window, staring at him intently. He sighed and headed into the woods.

Beatrice let the cats out and led them into the woods so they could stretch their legs. The grey squirrels that darted about fascinated Hamish. Much to their horror, they quickly discovered that the big Maine Coon could climb trees just as well as them. Beatrice had to act as mediator more than once. Lucky, meanwhile, was snuffling through a pile of fallen leaves, playing in their musty depths until he was coated with a thin layer of dust.

After a few minutes, she rounded them up, wiped off debris and dust from their coats, and got back in the car. Her heart felt indescribably heavy. Jordan was such a young man. It was dreadful that things had to end this way for him.

But it wasn’t Beatrice’s way to wallow in sorrow for long. She was a doer and her doer brain told her to spring into action. Jordan didn’t need her to mourn him. Other people could do that. He needed her to figure out what had happened.

She drove straight to the bar where Jordan had worked—Johnny’s Place. It was a decent joint, though Beatrice wasn’t much of a bar person. There was a jukebox in the corner, pool tables in the back, a series of booths with green velvet seats, a long bar with a series of beer fridges behind it, and the heavy smell of things frying.

Thankfully, she knew the barman, Jeff Gagnon, a young man with a full beard and fancy glasses. He had a bored expression, probably because he had graduated from art school the year before and so far the degree had only resulted in him pouring drinks. He often came into the Cozy Cat Café because he said it was the only decent place to get an espresso in town.

“Hi Jeff, how are you?”

“Yeah, I’m okay,” he said, leaning on the bar. “Can I get you anything?”

“I wouldn’t mind a spritzer with lemon, thanks. Is it okay if Lucky and Hamish come in?”

“I’m probably violating like a million health code regulations but sure. You know I’m a cat person.”

She sat at the bar and the cats crept around the huge room, sniffing cautiously and getting into and under everything possible, while Jeff made the drink. He put it in front of her on a coaster and she took a sip. It was wonderfully tart and refreshing.

“I know you’re not here for a spritzer,” Jeff said finally, eyebrow raised. “You can’t fool me, Beatrice. It’s about Jordan, right?”

Am I really that transparent?
she thought. “Well, you make a fine drink but yes, I have some questions.”

“You know if they found any clues about why he disappeared?”

Beatrice stared into her drink. She didn’t think it was fair to give him the news until the sheriff wrapped up his investigation. “I’m not sure. All I can say is that I think the sheriff will have an update soon.” She looked the barman in the eye. “Have you noticed anything strange about Jordan lately?”

Jeff exhaled heavily and shook his head. “Are you kidding me? Jordan was
always
strange. Had these crazy ideas about how he was going to get rich and he wouldn’t stop talking about them. He signed up for these pyramid-scheme type businesses online or he tried to buy cheap electronics and resell them. Nothing really worked. I’m sure he
lost
money, if anything.”

“Why was he so obsessed with getting rich?”

Jeff shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe it was because he grew up dirt-poor. Maybe it was because he wanted to impress Amy. He seemed to love her a lot.”

“Why would he need to impress her? Hadn’t they been going out since high school?”

“Yeah but I’m not sure things were going so well. Whenever they talked on the phone things sounded tense.”

“What did they talk about?”

“Didn’t hear any specifics.” Jeff pulled out the soda gun and refilled Beatrice’s drink. “She seemed unhappy about something but I couldn’t tell what.”

Beatrice stirred her drink absently with a straw. “Did Jordan seem depressed? Did he have any enemies?”

“He seemed angry, not depressed. And I’d be surprised if a guy like Jordan didn’t have a few enemies. He wasn’t exactly Mr. Congenial, you know? I don’t want to talk bad about him, I mean it’s awful the guy is missing, but those are still the facts.”

Beatrice thanked him and plunked down a bill to pay for her drink. To her surprise, Jeff held it up to the light and looked at it carefully.

“What’re you doing?” she asked.

“Making sure it’s not a fake.” He put the bill in the register and counted out Beatrice’s change. “We’ve been getting a bunch of counterfeit twenties over the past few months. Haven’t had any reason to suspect anyone—folks seem as surprised as me when they find out the truth. Embarrassed too.”