Illegally Iced (23 page)

“It is a chance I must regretfully take,” he said.

Emma nodded, looked at me briefly, and then went back to her dishes.

Once she was gone, Rome looked at me and said, “I really botched that up, didn’t I?”

“Are you kidding? That went spectacularly. You left her with her pride, which is more than I thought you’d ever be able to do. Have you ever let someone down that gently before?”

“No, and I hope I never have to do it again. She just about convinced me that I was wrong after all. Someday I might even regret turning her down.”

“I wouldn’t blame you if you did.” I knew that it would be crazy to tell this man so much of what I’d discovered, but the tender way he’d handled Emma made me inclined to tell him what he wanted to know. Besides, if I spoke with a complete stranger about the case, it might help me clarify my own thoughts and suspicions. In the end, what harm could it do to share? “Do you still want to know about James and the case?”

“I didn’t think you wanted to tell me.”

“Let’s just say that you convinced me. What do you want to know, and I’ll tell you what I can.”

“Everything,” he said.

“Then let me get you some coffee and a treat and I’ll cover what I can.”

Ten minutes later, after he’d had a donut and some coffee as I briefed him, Rome was on his way. He thanked me for my time, left an overly generous tip, and then took off.

I waited on a few customers, and then called Emma out front. “Could you come out here for a second?”

She came to the door, but wouldn’t walk through. “Is he still here?”

“No, he left a while ago.”

“Why did he stay so long?” she asked, clearly a little hurt by my acceptance of him after he’d turned her down.

“He wanted to know more about James, and I told him. Listen, I’m proud of you for the way you handled that.”

“How so?” Emma asked. “I thought I was kind of rude, actually.”

“My dear friend, I can say with complete sincerity that you handled it better than I ever could have.”

“Do you mean that? I really am trying to grow up.”

I hugged her, and then I said, “If you ask me, you already have.”

She nodded, and then disappeared back into the kitchen. I didn’t know why, but I always felt somewhat maternal toward her, though she had a perfectly fine mother of her own. Still, she was all the work family I had, and we’d formed a bond closer than any employer and employee. When Emma had been gone exploring the world, I’d missed her greatly, and though I hadn’t begrudged her the opportunity to get out of April Springs to see what else was out there, no one short of her mother and father had been happier to have her back among us.

*   *   *

I was about to give Lily Hamilton her change when I happened to glance out the window toward the park across the street. Standing near the abandoned railroad tracks—mine according to the document that James Settle had signed over to me—I saw Rebecca Link looking all around her in anticipation of something happening. Was she waiting for someone there? I kept watching, even though nothing was going on, because I was dying to know who she might be seeing. The next time I glanced her way, I saw something that I didn’t like. Was that fear on her face, or was I mistaken?

“Suzanne, what’s going on?” Lily asked, bringing me back to my shop.

“I’m sorry, Lily. I zoned out for just a second.”

She nodded as she dropped her change into her purse. “Don’t worry about it. That happens to me all of the time.” Lily was dressed in her EMT outfit, and I hoped that she was exaggerating. She had a vital job to do that I’d assumed took all of her attention, and the idea of her mind wandering was a disturbing one.

“Not on the job, though,” she quickly added.

“That’s good to hear.”

After she started out the front door, I glanced outside again, but Rebecca was gone. “Hey Emma, could you come up here?”

She appeared quickly, and I said, “Take over. I’ll be right back.” I knew that she wasn’t all that fond of working the front, but it couldn’t be helped. I grabbed my light jacket and headed outside, putting it on over my apron. As I walked in the direction where I’d last seen Rebecca, I kept scanning the folks around me. The day was much warmer than it had been over the last week, and I was glad for it. Where had Rebecca disappeared to? I looked and looked, but I couldn’t find any sign of her anywhere. It was odd to say the least, but I couldn’t spend all of my time tracking her down.

I walked over to the Boxcar just in case she’d ducked in there, but I didn’t see her sitting at any of the booths.

Much to my surprise though, Forrest Pinerush
was
there, scowling at a copy of the
April Springs Sentinel
as he sipped a cup of coffee.

I nodded to Trish and held a finger to my lips. She nodded back, and I made my way to Forrest’s table. He was wearing a suit that looked as though it had been made in some European capital instead of here in North Carolina. His tie alone was probably worth more than my Jeep, and if I had to guess, I figured that his complete ensemble probably exceeded my entire net worth. I didn’t like him for several reasons, not the least of which was his choice of flaunting his wealth through his clothing, but the thing I despised most of all was the way he’d treated James.

“What’s the matter, Forrest? Did you find something in our little local paper that you don’t approve of?” I asked.

He looked up from the newspaper, clearly startled to see me standing there. “Suzanne, what are you doing here? Don’t you have a donut shop to run?”

“I’m on my break,” I said as I sat in the chair across from him. “Mind if I join you?”

“The question’s a little late for you to ask, don’t you think?”

“What are you doing here, Forrest?” I asked him.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but I have a meeting,” he said.

“Is it with Rebecca Link, by any chance?” It was a wild shot, but still one worth taking.

“I don’t have the slightest idea who you’re talking about. Mother demanded that I meet Thomas Oak here and get his progress report. Why he couldn’t come out to the manor is beyond me.”

I felt as though it had more to do with the power struggle between mother and son than it did with inconveniencing the attorney, but I wasn’t about to say anything. “Has he made any progress that you know of?”

“If I could answer that, I wouldn’t have had to come all the way here for this meeting, now would I?”

“Mind if I sit in, too?” I asked.

“Actually yes, I do mind, very much.”

I laughed it off. “That’s the way to extend the warm hand of friendship. I’ll find out soon enough, since your mother told me that she was going to instruct him to keep me updated as well. If you’re not careful, I’m going to tell your mommy on you, Woody.”

He visibly flinched at the name, and I knew that I’d scored a direct hit. “No one, and I mean no one, calls me that. Do you understand?”

“Sorry,” I said, though I wasn’t, not one bit, and what was more, I was certain that he knew it. “James used to refer to you that way, didn’t he?”

“It was an annoying childhood habit of his that I thought he’d outgrown a long time ago. Did you hear it from him?”

“Indirectly,” I said, trying not to give too much away. I was on a fishing expedition, so it wouldn’t hurt my cause if Forrest thought I knew more than I actually did.

“I was under the impression that he didn’t mention his family to anyone.”

“We were friends,” I said. “We chatted about a great many things.” Both of those statements were true, but combined, they turned into one big lie. It was a rather elegant way of bending the truth, if I had to say so myself.

“Well, now that you’ve learned it, you can promptly forget it. I’ve grown a great deal since my childhood. What else did he tell you about me?”

It was too good an opportunity to pass up. I decided to take a shot at him squarely between the eyes. “Are you asking me if he told me about you having him committed to an insane asylum?”

“It was a mental health facility,” he said. “I was concerned about his well-being, and no one else would take action.”

“Could that be because your mother was sick in bed at the time?” I asked.

He started to stand, so I quickly added, “Did I hit a little too close to home just then? Where are you going? I thought you had a meeting.”

“We can hold it elsewhere,” he snapped. “Someplace that’s more private and less apt to interruption would be nice.”

As he stormed out, he threw a fifty at Trish and grumbled, “Keep the change.”

I approached her and said, “Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to run any of your customers off.”

She held the fifty up to the light, nodded in approval, and then put it into her till. “With that kind of tip, you can hose them down with the fire extinguisher if you’d like. Why was he so upset, anyway?”

“You don’t know who that was, do you?” I asked softly.

“I sure don’t. Why do you ask? Should I?” she asked, looking puzzled by my question.

“That was James’s cousin, Forrest.”

Trish’s expression turned to sheer hatred as she started for the door.

I stepped in her way, effectively blocking her path. “Hang on a second. You need to think about what you’re about to do.”

“Get out of my way, Suzanne. That man had James locked up,” Trish snapped. “He’s not going to get away with it.”

“Let me ask you something first. Did James attack him when he had the chance?” I asked.

“No, he said he just wanted to forget that it had ever happened.”

“So didn’t he have more of a right to be angry than you are right now?”

That managed to calm her down. “No, but that man is the reason that James left his old life behind.”

“As bad as it was,” I said, “isn’t that the reason he ended up here in April Springs, and eventually to you? I’m not trying to justify what Forrest did to him, and I’m certainly not making excuses for the man, but what good would it do for you to go after him now?”

“I don’t know. I might feel better if I slapped his face a few times,” she said, the tension beginning to ease somewhat.

“Maybe for a few seconds, but the man probably has more attorneys on his staff than you have chairs in the diner. You can’t win if you go after him like that.”

“Suzanne, since when have
you
ever backed off from a fight?” Trish asked.

“If the cause is doomed from the start, it doesn’t mean that I’ll give up on it, but I always try to take the time to think it through before I do anything rash. I learned that lesson the hard way.”

“How so?” she asked.

“Remember when I flew off the handle with Lester Moorefield? The next day he was dead, and I was the main suspect.”

“Are you saying that you shouldn’t have gone after him?” Trish asked.

“Logically, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“But emotionally?” she asked.

“Yeah, he deserved the grief I gave him. If you want to risk losing the diner in a lawsuit, go ahead. I’ll even hold his arms for you.”

I stepped aside, and as I did, Trish dropped her head a little. “I just hate it when you’re right,” she said as she smiled at me.

“It can be really annoying, can’t it? Momma does it to me all of the time.”

“I might not go after him physically, but if he ever shows his face again, I’m going to lace his sweet tea with ipecac.”

“How’s that going to reflect on your diner if he stumbles out of here throwing up?” I asked.

“Okay, maybe not that, but how about some strong laxatives in his fudge brownies?”

“Why don’t you just give him a dirty look,” I suggested. “You have some monstrous scowls that scare me.”

She hugged me, and then tweaked one of my ears.

“What was that for?”

“The hug, or the flick?”

“Either. I guess I mean both.”

Trish smiled as she said, “The hug was for stopping me from making a big mistake.”

“And the ear tweak?”

“The same reason, actually.”

I shook my head as I laughed. “I’d love to stay and chat, but I have a donut shop to run across the street.”

“I was wondering about that,” Trish said with a smile.

I found Forrest ten feet from the diner, clearly waiting impatiently for Thomas Oak.

As I approached him, he said in a bit of a huff, “I’m not interested in discussing anything more with you, Suzanne.”

“That’s good. You don’t have to say a word; all you have to do is listen. I wouldn’t go back in there if I were you. It’s some free advice, and I’d follow it.”

“Why should I?”

“The owner was dating James when he was murdered,” I said. “And I just told her that you were the one who had him locked up against his will.”

Forrest’s face reddened, and he was about to say something when Thomas Oak appeared. He was dressed nicely, though not as stylishly as his client, and he held a battered old leather briefcase that looked somehow out of place with the rest of his attire. “Forrest, whatever you’re about to say, I suggest that you keep it to yourself.”

“Who are you trying to protect, Oak?” he asked.

“At the moment, you.”

“Let’s get this meeting over with,” Forrest said, “so I can get out of this dump of a town and head back to civilization.”

“Why don’t you wait for me over there?” he suggested as he pointed to a nearby bench.

“Why should I?” Forrest asked angrily.

“Because your mother asked me to handle this, and I’m doing my best to do just that. I suggest that if you have a problem with that, you take it up with her.”

There was a moment when I thought Forrest was going to ignore the attorney, but after a short pause, he walked to the bench as he was told, acting like a sullen four-year-old the whole way.

“That was excellent,” I said with a grin to the attorney. “Can you make him do tricks, too? I’d love to see him try to do a handstand.”

“I’m doing my best not to press my luck,” Oak said. “Are you free around eleven this morning? I need to speak with you.”

“That depends. What’s our topic of conversation?”

“Mrs. Pinerush has instructed me to tell you everything I’ve learned in the investigation so far. It’s the same information I’m about to deliver to Forrest.”