Going Organic Can Kill You (13 page)
Read Going Organic Can Kill You Online
Authors: Staci McLaughlin
“Coffee then. I know where to get the best coffee in town, without the usual locals hanging around.”
A secret coffee shop? Where I wouldn’t run into my dentist, the mailman, or my high school teacher?
“Sign me up.” I didn’t know where he was taking me, or what questions he’d ask, but I’d use the drive to think up a few questions of my own.
And I wouldn’t be telling him about getting shoved at the chicken coop either. At least until I knew I could trust him.
14
The moment Jason and I stepped out the front door, the six media people straightened up, cameras and microphones at the ready.
Jason held up a hand. “I’m interviewing her for local interest stuff. No break in the murder case.”
Everyone lowered their equipment and resumed their conversations. As we passed by, I heard one blond reporter mumble, “What a waste. I can’t wait to get out of this Podunk town.”
I fought the urge to stop and yell at the reporter for dissing Blossom Valley. Sure, I felt the way she did most of the time, but I was born and raised here, so I was allowed to insult my hometown.
I pointed to where my Honda sat nearby. “We can take my car.”
“I asked; I’ll drive.” Jason led the way across the lot. In the modest parking area, he’d managed to find a space with no surrounding cars, his silver Volvo gleaming in solitude.
With a flourish, Jason swung open the passenger side door. “After you.”
I couldn’t remember the last time a guy opened the door for me. “Thanks.” I slid into the seat, nestling into the leather like a mother hen, and clicked my seat belt in place.
“Nice car,” I said, noting the immaculate interior. Not even a straw wrapper on the floor.
“Thanks. Volvo is consistently rated one of the safest cars out there.”
Oh, my, a guy who bought cars based on safety ratings. Not exactly sexy.
Jason got in the driver’s side, a whiff of lavender and spice tickling my nose. I inhaled the intoxicating aroma as he backed out of the lot and onto the freeway. We motored down the highway in silence and he took the exit for the older part of town.
The now-vacant lumber mill loomed over the surrounding auto shops and storage facility, the smokestack casting a cylinder-shaped shadow over the immediate area. Beyond the used-car lot, Jason pulled into the parking lot of a run-down diner, the battered sign out front announcing the Eat Your Heart Out cafe. The windows were smeared with dirt, the awning sagged, and the asphalt in the lot had long since turned to chunks.
“Best coffee in town,” Jason commented.
“Didn’t this used to be a biker hangout?” I recalled my parents talking about more than one bar fight, not that Mom would ever let us eat here ourselves.
“New owners,” Jason said.
I stepped over the missing plank in the wood walkway and followed Jason inside. The interior was the exact opposite of its outer shell. Bright bulbs inside Tiffany-style lamps illuminated wood tables with cloth-covered booth seats. Light jazz played in the background from a jukebox in the corner.
At the counter, a heavy-set older man sipped a cup of coffee, a half-eaten Danish on the plate in front of him.
“Writing about the murder?” he asked Jason.
“Side story.”
The man squinted at me, one rheumatic eye half-closed. “Say, aren’t you Dorothy and Roger’s oldest?”
“Yes, I’m Dana.”
“Heard you was back in town working at that spa. I had high hopes that place would bring in more people, but don’t know what’s gonna happen after that murder.”
Jason tilted his head toward the man. “Bill here carves animals out of old telephone poles. Sells them from his yard.”
An image of his house on the edge of town, lawn filled with wooden bears, owls, and meerkats, popped into my head. “I remember you.”
“Your daddy used to bring you around years ago. Weren’t much bigger than those penguins I carve.”
“Sorry to cut this short,” Jason said. “But I have a lot of people to talk to today.”
“Give your momma my best,” Bill said to me.
As we walked away from Bill, a woman at a nearby table waved to Jason.
Her companion wiped his mouth. “Hey, Jason. Working on the big story?”
“You bet,” Jason said as we continued to a booth in the back.
We passed another occupied table where two women ate breakfast. They watched us go by, then I heard rapid whisperings.
I slid into one side of the booth, facing the two women at their table.
Jason leaned forward. “We’ll need to keep our voices down. Those two ladies we just passed will tell the whole town your background before I get a chance to print it, only half their information will be wrong.”
As he said this, they picked up their plates and moved to the booth next to ours, avoiding eye contact with me. Subtle.
“Don’t look now,” I whispered, “but we have company.”
Jason glanced over his shoulder. “We’ll have to move this interview outside as soon as we get our order.”
I smirked. “Looks like the locals have discovered your super-secret restaurant.”
“This place used to only attract out-of-towners and truck drivers. I don’t know what happened.”
“Guess everyone wants to see Blossom Valley’s biggest reporter interview people.”
Jason blushed.
A teenager strolled over, clearly in no hurry, her low-waisted jeans sagging atop her hips, her too-short T-shirt exposing a muffin top. She pulled an ear bud out, the faint strains of Lady Gaga reaching me through the tiny speakers.
“You ready to order?”
“Just coffee,” I said.
She looked at Jason.
“Make that two. In to-go cups.”
The waitress walked off. We sat in silence while we waited for our drinks. I twiddled with the saltshaker and glanced occasionally at the two women in the adjoining booth. They were also silent, obviously waiting for Jason to dish out a tasty gossip morsel to go with their eggs.
I glanced at the clock on the wall. Had the waitress flown to Colombia to harvest the coffee beans herself? I offered Jason a small smile and pulled a handful of napkins from the dispenser.
“You could probably go ahead and ask me those questions in here. No one could possibly care what I have to say about my personal life.”
Jason glanced over his shoulder. “You’re still a newcomer to town. And you found a body to boot. People will devour any information they can get.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “We wait.”
Touchy, touchy. “Fine. Working on any other stories right now? Or are you not going to talk about those either?”
As Jason opened his mouth to speak, the waitress returned with two Styrofoam cups and the tab. Jason paid at the register by the door and we walked over to his car.
He set his coffee on the roof and pulled his notebook and pen from his shirt pocket. “Guess this will be a parking lot interview.”
I eyed the notebook. How was I going to transition Jason’s interview of me into talking about the murder?
“Why’d you move back to Blossom Valley?” he asked.
I thought for a moment, figuring I’d have to answer his question first if I wanted him to return the favor. “I’ve been worried about my mom ever since my dad passed away. She’d completely withdrawn from her clubs and friends. When I called home, all she’d talk about was visiting my dad’s grave and sitting at home staring at his picture. I decided she needed someone to push her back into her activities. Or at least get her to leave the house once in a while. Since I was unemployed, the timing to move was perfect.” A little voice whispered in my ear about my teeny tiny lie—the timing had been far from perfect—but I shushed it up.
“Sorry about your dad.” Jason jotted in his notebook. “How do you like being back in your hometown?”
I studied the concrete at my feet, noting the ants crawling in and out of the cracks on an endless quest. For food? For happiness? “I’m adjusting. Of course, finding Maxwell’s body hasn’t helped. Are the police making any progress on his murder?” Gee, that little change of subject wasn’t too obvious.
Jason squinted at me, clearly confused by my question. “Barely. Whoever killed Maxwell took the murder weapon and didn’t leave much evidence behind. The cops have interviewed every guest and no one saw anything.”
“Well, the entrances to the cabins face away from the pool area, so anyone could have hidden in those bushes and waited until Maxwell was alone.” Oh, didn’t I sound like a detective.
“Right, but let’s not get off track here. What exactly are you adjusting to here? Life in a small town?”
I’d gotten some information from Jason. His turn again. “Partly. One nice thing about San Jose is the anonymity. I could trip over a dead body once a week and none of the neighbors would be any wiser. Blossom Valley is like living in a fish bowl. You can’t even drink a cup of coffee without people whispering and pointing.”
As if proving my point, a blue Saturn turned into the lot. The driver stared at us for so long, she almost hit a parked car. She braked within an inch of its bumper, then twisted the wheel and pulled into a vacant spot. Cell phone already to her ear, she got out of the car and watched us as she spoke. She appeared vaguely familiar but I couldn’t place her name. That was the trouble with this town. Even the people I didn’t know looked familiar.
I sipped the coffee. Scalding but weak.
When I didn’t resume my answer, Jason stopped jotting notes.
“You said, ‘partly.’ What’s the other part?” he asked.
“Being back home.” I watched an ant that had strayed from the rest of the line and now wandered aimlessly. “I mean, I know I’m helping my mom, but I feel like I’ve taken a step back in life. I was making decent money at a job I was good at. Then I got laid off and wound up back here. And what do I have to show for it? Nothing.”
That internal voice, the one that usually woke me at three
AM
, piped up again, reminding me I’d almost had something to show for it. I drowned out the voice with a slurp of coffee.
AM
, piped up again, reminding me I’d almost had something to show for it. I drowned out the voice with a slurp of coffee.
“Um, do you need to put that in your article?” I asked. “I sound like a bit of a loser.”
“No, you sound like a lot of people around here in a tough economy. And I find it admirable that you want to help your mom.”
“Thanks. But I’m worried that Maxwell’s death will be a reminder of my dad’s death and she’ll slip back into a depression.” Bit of a stretch on that one, but it was for a good cause. “How is it that no one saw anything suspicious near Maxwell’s cabin?”
“Apparently the yoga class had broken up a few minutes before, and people were already in their cabins resting before lunch or visiting in the lobby, that sort of thing.”
“So how will the police find the guy?”
He transferred his pen to the hand with the notebook, sipped from his cup, then put the coffee back on top of his car. “I’m sure they’ll try to figure out exactly where everyone was when Maxwell was killed, see if they can catch someone in a lie. But unless the killer announces his guilt, the cops will have a hard time nailing this guy.”
“Or gal,” I said. “You don’t need much strength to stab someone.”
I stared at the ants on the sidewalk. The police might not find the killer. I’d seen Maxwell dead, clutching his stomach. He at least deserved to have his killer caught. And Mom was counting on me to help Esther.
I looked up to find Jason frowning at me. “What?” I asked.
“Last time I tried to question you about the murder, you practically ran screaming from me. Now that’s all you want to talk about. What gives?”
I waved my hand at him, like he was creating a whole beach from a handful of sand. “Idle curiosity, nothing more. So, uh, let’s get back to that interview.”
He studied me for a moment, then glanced at his notebook. “Why did you agree to work at the farm and spa?”
“Marketing positions are few and far between in this town. The farm was the first place that offered me a job.” Boy, didn’t that sound pathetic. I’d leave out the part where my mom actually arranged the job for me.
The two whispering ladies from the diner exited the restaurant and walked over to a red car parked near where we stood. One woman clutched a set of keys in her hand but made no move to open her door and drive away. Instead, they stood in silence.
After an unbearable pause, the other woman said, “Excellent eggs this morning.”
More silence, while the woman with the keys cast sideways glances at Jason and me.
Jason opened the passenger door of his Volvo. “Let’s sit in my car.”
I smiled at the ladies, who pretended not to see me, and turned to step in. My foot caught in the asphalt crack and I fell toward Jason. I tossed my coffee cup to the left so as not to burn him and my hands landed on his chest. Even in my frantic state, I noticed the hard, muscular surface. I clutched his shirt and our faces came close together, our lips a mere inch apart.
For a moment, our gaze connected. I noticed little gold specks in his green, green eyes. I felt his breath on my lips.
“My car!” Jason yelled.
Behind me, a snort erupted. Guess those two women witnessed my little accident.
I straightened up, my face hot. I grabbed the napkins that had floated to the ground and wiped the top of his car, the flimsy paper causing the coffee to spread and drip off the edges.
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