Mystery of the 19th Hole (Taylor Kelsey, Mystery 1) (13 page)

             
Chad believed Taylor’s theory that Aaron didn’t commit the murder, but not because it made a lick of sense.  He just liked Taylor and wanted to impress her.  Finding a seat, he set the flowers on the table.  Nervously twiddled his fingers.

             
Just then, Susan stepped into the café.  Chad thought it was just a coincidence, but she made a beeline to him and sat across from him on the square table.  “How’s it going?  Good,” she replied before he could speak.  “What are the flowers for?”

             
“For Taylor.  I’m on a date.”

             
Susan just stared a moment.  “Then why am I here.  Taylor told me to meet you and her here to investigate.”

             
Chad’s eyes opened wide.  “You mean, she was being sarcastic.”  Taylor stepped into the cafe, and his wide eyes grew wider.

             
“I don’t know why I’m doing this,” said Susan.  “Well, I actually think you’re better for Taylor than Jason, but that’s beside the point.  Don’t expect favors like this again, understand?”

             
Chad just nodded, not knowing what he was nodding too.  Susan reached across the table and snatched the floors, pretending they were hers.

             
Taylor went to the counter, ordered three milkshakes, and had a seat with the others.  “What are those flowers for, Susan?”

             
“For?”  Susan shrugged.  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

             
At the counter, a café worker took some flowers out of a vase to replace them and walked into the back of the store.  Taylor didn’t see this and looked around the café until she saw the empty vase.  “Did you steal those flowers from that vase?” asked Taylor accusatively.

             
Susan raised an eyebrow.  “What?”

             
“That vase.  It’s empty.  Where’d you get those flowers?”

             
“Get?” asked Susan, patently hiding something.

             
“Susan, put the flowers back.”

             
Susan glanced at Chad.  Taylor repeated, “Just put them back.”

             
Shrugging, Susan got up and looked for the empty vase.  She hadn’t looked at it when Taylor was pointing, and neither could she seem to find it.  (She didn’t know that the café employee had come back for the vase and had taken it to the back room).

             
In the corner of the room, an old man was sitting by himself reading a newspaper.  Susan stole a glance and Taylor, who was locked in a one-sided conversation with Chad.  Susan smiled and traversed the room to the old man.  “Excuse me, old—”  She caught herself.  “—kind, sir.  I would like to give you these flowers.”  She glanced back at Taylor.  Still yapping.  Good.

             
The man set his newspaper on the table, and peered through large spectacles at the flowers Susan was holding.  “You want to give me those?”  The man’s speech was slow and hoarse.

             
“Yes.”

“You want to give me those?”

             
“Yes.”

             
“You want to give me those?”

             
“Yeah.  That’s what I said.  Yes.”

             
The old man slammed his hand down on the table in anger.  “No one gives me anything.  Gosh, no one does.”  He brought up his hand to slam it down again but stopped midway and looked at Susan in the eyes.  “The last person who gave me something was my son.  Do you know what it was?”

             
“I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

             
“A lawsuit!  Can you believe that?  Can you believe that?  Can you believe that?”

             
“Severe case of old-timers?” asked Susan, mostly talking to herself.

             
“Can you believe that?”

             
“I thought so.”

             
“Gosh, no one gives me anything.  My ex-wife gave me something.  Do you know what she gave me?”

             
“No.”

             
He was silent for a few beats.  “Neither do I.  I can’t remember.  Oh, wait, I do.  Gosh, do you know what she gave me?  She gave me something.  She gave me heartache.  Not because she left me, though.  Gosh, that was a relief.  She took my heart medication by accident, and I got heartache because I couldn’t find my pills.  I lost my pills.  She took them.  She gave me a heartache.”

             
“Interesting,” said Susan.

             
“You—you come here.  You want to give me these—these flowers.  They’re poisonous I tell you.  Probably my ex-wife told you to give them to me.  No, sir, I’m not taking them, see.  Probably my son told you to give me them.  No, sir.  No, sir.”

             
“No, I just want to be nice.”

             
“No one’s nice, see.  I’m nice.  But that’s another story.”

             
“I’d love to hear it,” said Susan, “but I got to go.  Here’re your flowers.”  She plopped them on his newspaper and ran back to Taylor and Chad, who were still talking.

             
“What took you so long?” asked Taylor.

             
“Poisonous flowers.”

             
“Oh.”  Taylor raised an eyebrow in confusion, then shrugged.  Behind Susan, the old man was throwing a muffled fit about the flowers.  He rolled up the flowers in his newspaper and took them to the worker at the counter, explaining how someone was trying to kill him.

             
Susan had to hold back a laugh as Taylor spoke.  Three milkshakes were on the table now.  Susan grabbed hers and took a drink before she broke out in laughter.

             
“So you put the footage of the apartment on your computer, right?”  Taylor was asking Chad.

             
“Yeah.  I emailed it to you too.”

             
“You can do that?  It’s not too big a file?”

             
“I compressed the format.  It was originally layered, so I changed that so it wouldn’t take up so much memory.  The footage was also cheap quality anyway, so it was easy.”

             
“Can you hot wire a car?” asked Susan.

             
Chad laughed.  “That’s one of the only things I can’t do.”

             
“Can you fly?”

             
“No.  You got me there.”

             
“Can you reroute an old hard drive to a new computer while driving a bike upside down and navigating your way through a maze at an electronics-destitute castle in England?”

             
“You got me there, too.”

             
Taylor, laughing with them, interrupted, “Okay, guys, let’s get serious.”

             
“I love satellite radio,” remarked Susan.

             
Chad understood the joke, but Taylor didn’t.  She started talking about the case.  “See those four pictures”—Taylor pointed past the counter to a wall with ten or more pictures on it—“the pictures with the man with the brow-length hair?  The one with the red shirt.  He’s kind of older.”

             
Susan and Chad concurred.  “That is Jack Cadell.  Father, a bad father at that, of Aaron Cadell.”

             
The waitress named Chelsea overheard them and approached their table.  “Yeah, he has his picture up there because he was Employee of the Month four months running.  Until he quit.”

             
“The day before Brad Ringer was killed.”

             
“So,” said Chelsea.

             
“Doesn’t that seem odd to you?”

             
Chelsea cast Taylor a dirty look.  Ignoring it, Taylor continued with her questions.  “What can you tell us about Jack?”

             
“He was fun.  Funny.  A good guy.  Why?”

             
“What else?” asked Chad.

             
“Well, he wasn’t good with electronics, let me tell you.  He always messed up the cash register, and franchise management always had to come down and fix it.  They even had to replace it once.  Let’s just say Jack was stuck in the past era before computers.  Oh, he also liked golfing.  He went whenever he could afford it.  I guess he’s been golfing a lot since he quit.  He must have come into money.”

             
“Anything else?” Susan pressed.

             
Chelsea eyed them all at this time.  “What are you guys doing?  Like, are you investigating or something?  Isn’t that illegal?”

             
They all looked at her funny.  “No.”

             
“Well, then, just—just keep your opinions to yourself.”

             
“What did we say?”

             
“Just…”  She breathed deeply.  “I don’t want to repeat myself again.  Don’t spout off your opinions, and don’t snoop in this café.  It’s not nice.”

             
Chelsea walked away, and they finished their milkshakes and made small talk.  Then they put their money together equally to pay for the shakes and went to the counter.  Now that Taylor was closer to the pictures of Jack, she studied them with scrutiny.

             
The lady at the counter was printing their receipt.

             
“Guys,” said Taylor, “look at Jack’s shirt pocket.  There’s something in it.”

             
“Maybe a golf ball like Billy’s,” suggested Chad.

             
Susan was looking at the picture intently now.  “I don’t think so.  It looks longer.  Like a pocket knife.”

             
Chad suddenly became still.  “So do you think he’s the guy, the murderer?”

             
“Too early to tell,” said Taylor.  “Let’s check the bathrooms.”

             
They got the receipt, scanned for Chelsea, who was busy with a customer, and snuck into the men’s bathroom.  It had been carefully cleaned since the murder, so it was almost no use.  Plus it wasn’t an official crime scene anymore, thus any evidence found couldn’t count.  That is, according to the law.  However, Taylor figured it might hold another clue.

             
“So,” Taylor said, looking around, “if the man was killed elsewhere, like the medical examiner’s report suggests, how was the body snuck in without detection?  If Aaron is innocent, which I think he is, then someone planted the body here after Aaron used the restroom.”

             
“Maybe he was hiding in a stall,” said Susan.

             
“Maybe.”

             
“Maybe he came down through the roof,” suggested Chad.

             
Susan didn’t look up when she said, “The roof is solid, not tiled.  There’re five vents, all too small to crawl through.  The golden one above the far urinal might be big enough for a baby, but not a dead man.”

             
Chad looked at the roof, saw everything was true, then eyed Susan incredulously.  “You didn’t even look up.  How did you notice all that?”

             
“What are you talking about?  I noticed it when I first walked in, you didn’t?”

             
“You’re a lot smarter than you act,” he said in astonishment.

             
“That’s what I always say,” said Taylor.

             
“Well, if there’re no secret tunnels or doors in here,” said Chad, “then he must have come through a backdoor in the restaurant.”

             
“Let’s find out.”

             
They went out the bathroom and walked further down the hall, away from the main room, until they found an emergency exit.  From the main room, someone started yelling, “Hey, I told you guys not to snoop.”  It was Chelsea. 

             
They all exited through the backdoor to get away.  The door automatically closed behind them.

             
Chad kept running for his car, but Taylor and Susan were still at the door.  When he realized they weren’t coming, he doubled-back to see what they were looking at: a combination lock on the outside of the door.

             
“If the murderer snuck the body in through this door,” Taylor said what they were all thinking, “he had to have known the code.  Which means he had to have worked at the café.”

             
“What next?”