Loose Lips (16 page)

“Did you threaten him with something?”

I snorted. “With what? You know my power
level.” Minus 30 on a 100 point scale.

He stared at me for a second or two longer,
but finally either decided I was on the level or that he couldn’t
waste any more time waiting for me to come clean. After a quick
peck on the cheek, he pulled on his boots and left.

After waiting to hear his key turn in the
lock, I leaned against my pillows, scraped a chip off my cheek and
plopped it into my mouth.

Kiska watched with interest. With a grunt, I
retrieved the almost empty chip bag from between my mattress and
night stand and held it out to him. While he licked it clean, I
reviewed my options.

1.) Stomp into the police station and
demand to be told, as a tax–paying citizen of this county, how
Missy had been killed.

The simplicity of this held a lot of appeal.
But even my corn–chip fueled brain knew the reality would be a lot
more complicated.

2.) Find Missy’s killer and ask
him/her.

The obvious flaw here was that I needed to
find the weapon so I could eliminate my friends and myself as her
killer. If I knew the killer... well, then I wouldn’t need to find
the murder weapon
to find
the killer...

3.) Suck up to, confuse, trick... rob...
some person who was in the know of the needed information.

This, of course, was the answer. But which
person in the know?

I made another mental list.

Peter
. I laughed out loud. I
couldn’t help it.

Moving on...

George? Most likely to be in the know, aside
from Peter of course, but also most likely to get in hot water for
sharing such a tempting tidbit with me.

And George was my friend. I really didn’t
want him losing his job for me.

For similar reasons, all other police types
were out. Since I’d given up reporting and lost the power of
“protecting my source,” my ability to get anything good out of any
of them had dissipated. Dating a detective hadn’t helped my cause
much either.

Which left those still with the power of a
“protected source.”

Two such people came to mind: Daniel and
Bev.

I knew both would be more than happy to sit
down and chat with me, but which would be most likely to share
something with me in return, without me wanting to shove a pencil
in my eye?

Bev agreed to meet me for lunch. I picked a
cafe with greasy patty melts and greasier fries. It wasn’t a place
my usual lunch date, Rhonda, would let me frequent too often. Plus,
the place had out–of–control shrubs that shielded its parking lot
from the main road.

Free from prying eyes, I placed my order and
waited for Bev.

She arrived, looking like she’d taken a page
from Phyllis and Kristi’s fashion book: pencil skirt and pumps. I
smoothed the collar on my “Woo To You” t–shirt and took a sip of my
Diet Pepsi.

“This is interesting.” She glanced around,
picked up her water glass to take a sip, set it back down without
taking a drink and then slid it across the table away from her.

A dark hair, considerably shorter than any
on my head, bobbed up and down with the ice.

So maybe the greasy food wasn’t the only
reason Rhonda quit coming here with me.

I took another drink from my glass and
waited for Bev to relax.

After she’d settled herself a bit, she
pulled two paper napkins out of the dispenser and placed them on
the table in front of her. After placing her elbows on top of them,
she leaned forward.

“So, you’ve decided to talk.”

I didn’t like how she was looking at me.
Like I was the last hot dog on the roller.

“I’m happy you chose me instead of Daniel.
Sometimes it’s easier to talk to someone you don’t know, don’t you
think?” She pulled her phone out of her pocket, punched around on
it a bit and then set it on the table between us. “Now where did
you want to start? Maybe with why you killed Missy?”

Her eyes were big and brown and hungry.

Just like a wolf’s.

I shoved her phone off the table and into
her lap. “I did not kill Missy, and I did not ask you here to
confess—to
anything
.”

“Oh.”

Her disappointment was palpable. “But Kristi
said...” Shaking her head, she put her phone back into her bag.

“What did Kristi say?”

“She just thought maybe you’d decided to
come clean.”

“You told her that I’d called?”

One of her napkins slipped off the table and
onto the floor. She plucked another one from the dispenser and
pulled it through one hand. “We have an agreement of sorts.”

An agreement. I wondered if that agreement
included telling the reporter about the
WIL
ers’ late night
visit to the kiosk.

As if reading my mind, Bev leaned forward
and admitted, “I know that Phoebe and Laura talked to Missy that
night, and I know your friend Phyllis was there too. Do you have
information on one of them?”

“What about Kristi?”

She blinked. “Kristi?”

So the good lady had carefully kept herself
safely in a seat as she tossed her friends under the reporter’s
bus.

“She was there.”

“Really?”

While Bev computed that tidbit, my hamburger
and fries arrived. Earlier, I’d thought I might be too stressed to
eat them, but suddenly I was ravenous. I dug in.

I took a bite. “Yep.”

Bev frowned. “She hadn’t mentioned
that.”

“She stayed in the car,” I mumbled around a
mouthful. “But she was there. She could easily have come back after
the others left.”

“So you think she did it?”

I paused mid–chew. Did I think the
sanctimonious Kristi had killed Missy? After a second, I shook my
head. Who was I kidding? I had absolutely no reason to think that
she had.

It was a disappointing admission. At least
to me. Bev looked relieved.

As an ex–reporter, I understood. It wouldn’t
have looked good for her if her source had actually been the killer
and playing her all along.

I dabbed a fry in some ketchup and
considered my next move. “Actually, I was hoping we could form an
agreement of sorts
.”

Busy brushing something off her palm, Bev
looked up. Her eyes rounded in surprise and interest, I hoped.
“Really? What kind of agreement?”

“Well, as you know, I found the body and I
haven’t told anyone everything that happened.”

She nodded, but her eyes were narrow,
appraising.

“And, well, because I found Missy, the
police are, of course, watching me, and then there’s Phyllis and
her bizarre need to take a break right in the middle of all of this
and...” I could feel myself rambling. I shut my mouth and took a
breath. “Anyway, I’d like to get Missy’s murder solved as quickly
as possible, and I thought we might have information that would
complement
each other’s efforts.”

“Complement, eh?”

I gave her a minute to let my oh–so–generous
offer sink in.

She squinted one eye and then sighed the
sigh of a reporter in need of a break. “Okay. You tell me your
story, and then I can fill in with what I know.”

This was not the deal I’d hoped for. Showing
your cards first was seldom the best idea, unless you were holding
something so big and intimidating it would force the other player
to fold.

I wasn’t. In fact, I was a tad concerned
that my hand was so weak, she’d just get up from the table and
leave. But I could tell by the set of her chin that this was the
only deal I was going to be offered.

With a sigh of my own, I told her what I
knew. Little that it was.

She tapped a fingernail against the scarred
tabletop. “So, you didn’t even see the body.”

Her voice dripped with disappointment and a
bit of annoyance.

Which, considering that so far I’d been the
only one to share, was completely unfair.

“Well, there was one other thing.” I had
planned to pump her for information on the possible murder weapon
without revealing what I knew, but I couldn’t take the pressure of
her superior gaze at how little information I had. I knew more. A
lot more.

I spilled the beans.

She raised one brow. “A missing murder
weapon...”

I cocked a brow in response. I had, after
all, just bled helpful information.

She relented a little. “The police have been
very closed–mouthed about how Missy died. I knew from talking to
the EMTs that it wasn’t anything gory.”

She looked a bit disappointed by this
fact.

“But they wouldn’t or couldn’t give me any
more than that.” She tapped her finger again. “A weapon, but no
blood. Not a gun or a knife.”

“Unless the killer hit her in the head with
it,” I offered.

She glanced at me as if surprised to see I
was still there. “I suppose.”

Her tone said she didn’t.

She sat silent for another minute. I could
see the wheels turning, but they didn’t churn out any words. I took
a loud drink of my soda and cleared my throat.

“So, anything else?”

She glanced back toward me. “Hmm? No, but
there is one other thing you could do for me.”

Feeling like so far I’d been the only one to
do anything, I nodded, but reluctantly.

“It’s about Joe, the coffee guy. What do you
think about him? I’ve heard he’s lost a lot of business.”

“Joe? He’s a great guy. He has lost
business, but things happen. Businesses go up and down. It’s
expected, and he’s taken it completely in stride.” Another slurp.
This one extra loud.

“Really?” For some reason she didn’t look as
if she believed me.

“He has.”

“Hmm.” She watched me for a second.

“Have you talked to him? You should talk to
him. You’ll see.”

Her face brightened. “Could you arrange
that? I’d love to talk to him. Just to get his perspective, of
course. Being a fellow coffee shop owner, he’d have a unique view
of what might have happened.”

Unique view. That didn’t sound bad. In fact,
it sounded like the kind of promotional opportunity that Phyllis
was always lecturing me about finding for myself.

Double score if I could secure it for Joe,
doing a good turn for a friend and proving that I could get
publicity on my own, even if it wasn’t for me.

“He should be around this afternoon. I’d be
happy to introduce you. I’ll talk to him and then give you a
call.”

With that settled, she checked her phone,
exclaimed that she was late for some meeting, and after a quick
good–bye, hurried out the door.

The napkins she’d been using as elbow rests
poofed up in the resulting breeze and drifted back down, landing
perfectly on the layer of ketchup that topped my fries. I picked
them off and kept eating.

o0o

After finishing my fries, I pointed my Jeep
toward home where I’d left Kiska that morning.

I was feeling pretty pleased with myself.
True I hadn’t gained any new information from Bev, but I had lined
up an interview for Joe. It was exactly what he needed, both to
remind everyone that Cuppa Joe’s was still here, and deserving of
business, and to squash any suspicions Bev and anyone else had that
Joe was anything except the outstanding guy that he was.

At my house, I found Kiska lounging on the
cool bathroom tile. I convinced him to leave it by waving a
malamute–sized cookie under his nose and quickly stepping backward.
Once he was on his feet and done munching, he was happy enough to
follow me down to the Jeep.

I loaded him up, and we headed into the shop
to do what I’d told Peter I was going to be doing, going through my
Deere finds, and to share with Joe the good news of his upcoming
media appearance.

I got to the shop to find three boxes
sitting next to the back door. I was surprised to find them there.
Being what Darrell deemed the more valuable items, I thought he
surely would have wanted them delivered during store hours.

Then I saw the note. It was from Joe. The
boxes had been delivered to his place by mistake. He’d loaded them
onto a handcart and brought them to me himself.

Probably during his morning rush. Or not, I
realized, what with how his business had been going lately.

Feeling a bit down, I tugged the boxes
inside and got to work.

Kiska and I were elbow deep in old
newspapers that I did not remember requesting, or think were
anything near valuable, when Betty whirled in through the back door
and raced toward the front.

“Quick! Lock up! That—”

A rap on the back cut off whatever she’d
been about to say.

I glanced at my overly worked up
employee.

“Klein,” she finished. “He’s headed our
way.” Her eyes shifted back and forth in her face.

“How do you—”

The rap turned to more of a pound. This time
Peter’s voice called out. “We saw Betty come in.”

Betty twisted her boa in disgust. “I didn’t
think they saw me.”

Dressed in her yellow–feathered number that
always made me think of Big Bird, I didn’t know how she could think
anyone could miss her. I shook my head and took a step toward the
back.

She stopped me with a hand on my arm. “Klein
is with him. He got a call. I don’t know from whom, but it was
something that made him come here.”

“Lucy?”

I recognized the tone. Peter was losing
patience.

I wanted to hear the rest of Betty’s story,
especially the answer to my question that had been cut off, but I
knew not answering the door was only going to make whatever this
current situation was worse.

I told Betty to put Kiska in my office and
went to unlock the door that Betty had locked behind her when she’d
snuck inside so stealthily.

Peter frowned at me from the alley. Klein
stood behind him looking only mildly interested in our
conversation.