Death by Coffee (2 page)

“I don’t know,” I said. “I just moved in and have yet to unpack. And like I said, I don’t write.”

“Everyone will love to have you.” Rita opened her purse, seemingly oblivious to my refusal. She removed a coffee mug and held it out to me. “Here,” she said. “I brought this for you.”

I took the mug from her. “Um, thanks.” I tried hard to sound enthusiastic.

The mug was white with
PINE HILLS WRITERS
written on it in large block letters. I set the mug behind the counter, where it wouldn’t get broken.

“It’s no biggie,” Rita said with a smile and a pat of my hand. “I hope to see you on Tuesday.” She glanced at her watch. “Oh, dear, I best be going. I don’t want to keep you too long, you know.”

Too late,
I thought as she grabbed her coffee from the counter where she’d set it. She waved once and then waddled away.

“She seems enthusiastic.”

I glanced over to see Vicki smiling at me.

“She seems something, all right.”

“Think you’ll go?”

I shrugged. “I don’t write.”

Vicki laughed. “I don’t think that matters to her. I caught a little of your conversation. She seems taken with the idea you’ll be just like your dad.”

“She’ll be disappointed.”

“Excuse me, miss?” I looked up to find a short, balding man in a tweed jacket standing at the counter. He was holding his hand over his nose like he smelled something terrible.

“Yes?” I asked, taking a deep breath. Everything smelled fine to me.

“There’s a cat in here.”

I looked past him to where a long-haired black-and-white cat sat on the table that I assumed was his sitting spot.

“That’s Trouble.”

“It sure is,” he said. “I’m allergic.”

“No,” I said with a smile. “The cat’s name is Trouble. He’s our resident feline.”

“I’ll go get him,” Vicki said. She hurried around the counter, long legs scissoring toward where the cat was busy washing his nether regions on top of the man’s newspaper. All eyes followed her.

Well, all male eyes, anyway.

“He’s supposed to stay up in the bookstore,” I said, trying my best to sound apologetic.

The man’s eyes were watering. He frowned at me a moment before turning and walking out of the shop, leaving both his coffee and paper behind.

“And there goes another one,” I said with a groan.

A loud blast of sound came from the back corner. Brendon Lawyer snatched his phone from his belt, barked something into it, and then slammed it back in place. He snapped his briefcase closed, stood, and then gathered his things. He left the shop without a glance.

“And another.”

Just as Vicki reached the table, Trouble jumped down, flipped his fuzzy tail at her in an “I’ve got this” sort of way, and then strolled back up the stairs. His work, obviously, was done.

“Sorry about that,” Vicki said, returning. “He has a mind of his own sometimes.”

“Tell me about it.” I plopped my chin in my hands and looked out over the meager crowd. “This was a bad idea.”

“Nonsense.” Vicki patted me on the shoulder. “It’s only been one day. Business will pick up soon. You’ll see.”

I sighed. “I’m sure you’re right.” I just wish I could believe it.

“I’m always right.” She glided her way back up toward the bookstore, presumably to tell Trouble to stop acting like his namesake.

I spent the next twenty minutes trying to pretend I wasn’t worried. I cleaned the counter, brewed fresh coffee, and washed clean tables twice, just to have something to do. A few more customers came in, seemingly more interested in the newness of the place than actually wanting to buy anything from it. At least a few of them ordered coffee before leaving.

I was in the process of making a red eye—an extra-large helping of espresso to go with the coffee—for a brown-haired girl whose arms and chin were covered in scabs and who carried a skateboard under one arm, when I heard the sirens.

I looked up in time to see an ambulance, quickly followed by a pair of police cruisers, come to a screeching halt outside the building across the street. Traffic came to a halt and everyone in Death by Coffee rose and crowded around the large plate glass window fronting the store to gawk at the scene.

The cops and paramedics leapt out of their vehicles and rushed inside the building. Nothing seemed to happen for the longest of time before a pair of cops returned. They ushered the gathering crowd back away from the entrance.

“Is someone hurt?” Vicki asked, coming to stand beside me.

I shrugged and continued to watch.

As soon as the path was clear, the paramedics returned. They carried a stretcher between them. Someone lay upon it, face covered by a plain white sheet.

There was a collective gasp as everyone realized the person was already dead. You don’t cover the face of the living.

Just before the paramedics managed to maneuver the dead man into the ambulance, his right arm fell free of the sheet covering him. Even from as far away as I was, I could make out the overly large class ring on his finger.

Brendon Lawyer, the man I’d so recently served, was dead.

2

Of course, I couldn’t be sure it was actually Brendon Lawyer who had died. There could be any number of people in Pine Hills who wore a class ring just like that one. As far as I knew, it was a local status symbol that half of the town wore or something given to everyone who works in the building across the street. I hadn’t been in town long enough to know.

It was tempting to head over and ask someone. It seemed like everyone else in town had converged on the spot. I had a feeling deaths like this weren’t all that common here. This wasn’t New York, or even Cincinnati for that matter. Pine Hills was perhaps a tier above a small town, making a sudden death all the more shocking because everyone probably knew one another by sight. News of the death would be spread across town within an hour.

The police were having a hard time keeping everyone back, though I doubted there was much to see. If the guy had been shot or stabbed or something, I had a feeling there’d be more panic. People would be running around, screaming, hands waving in the air, making it harder for the police to do their jobs. As it was, the crowd was simply trying to push forward to get a better view of what had happened.

I could only assume Brendon Lawyer had suffered a stroke or maybe an aneurism like Eleanor’s husband. Natural causes. That’s what I kept telling myself. The guy had died of natural causes and everything would get back to normal in a day or two.

“What do you think happened to him?” Vicki asked. She had Trouble in her arms and was stroking him as if he was the only thing that was keeping her calm. He had a look on his face that said he was none too happy about the attention; but whenever Vicki held him, she could get away with just about anything. I, on the other hand, would have had gouges in my arms that would have required stitches.

“I think someone died.” I didn’t want to voice my opinion on who I thought was dead, in case I was wrong. It would be just my luck to start a rumor that would turn out to be wildly inaccurate. I didn’t need that sort of attention, especially being so new.

We watched the scene for a little while before going back to work. There wasn’t much to see out there, anyway. A few of the onlookers had given up on catching sight of something exciting and had come over for some coffee and gossip. I had to admit that while the circumstances weren’t ideal, the death sure had increased business. I spent the next half hour filling orders and bussing tables without a breath in between.

Vicki, likewise, was busy up by the books. Whenever she got a moment, she’d come down and help me out. She’d fill a few orders and then would return to the books, pushing my dad’s novels more often than not. And despite her rushing around, not a hair was out of place. I, however, was drenched in sweat and my hair was plastered to my forehead like it had been glued on.

I wasn’t jealous. Really.

“Excuse me, ma’am?”

I looked up from where I was scrubbing a table to find an angel standing before me.

Okay, maybe he wasn’t an actual angel, but I swear to you that when I first laid eyes upon him, he was glowing. It might have been the sun, or the way the lights caught his sandy brown hair, which verged on the edge of blond, that caused it, but that knowledge did little to diminish my first impression of the man. His eyes were a deep blue and he had dimples that I could lose myself in for days.

“Um, yes?” I glanced away before he realized I was staring. I hurriedly brushed hair out of my eyes and tried to tidy myself up as much as I could without a shower. I sucked in my gut, tucked in my shirt, and silently wished I would have started working out before now. I kept promising myself I’d get in shape, but something always came up, like a good cupcake or a movie that I just had to watch. I wasn’t fat or anything, but compared to Vicki, no man was ever going to give me a second glance.

“I’m Officer Dalton. Are you in charge here?”

I came crashing back down into reality. “Yeah,” I said, looking down at the badge on his chest. The glow dissolved around him as realization set in. This man, this angel who’d been so kind to bless me with his presence, was a police officer.

Craptastic.

“I’d like to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind,” he said, almost shyly. He might be a police officer, someone who was supposed to be in charge of any given situation, but he seemed downright cute with his sheepish smile and kind eyes. I couldn’t see him throwing anyone down and cuffing them. Well, maybe in someone’s dreams, perhaps.

I felt the flush rush up my cheeks and I glanced around the room to hide it. There were still quite a few customers left and they were all watching us. I feared what would happen if I were to be questioned in front of them. I hadn’t done anything wrong, yet I couldn’t help but feel that one wrong move would destroy any hope of Death by Coffee surviving.

“I can handle this,” Vicki said, coming up behind Officer Dalton. She raised her eyebrows at me and mouthed, “Wow,” just before he glanced back at her. She smiled sweetly at him.

Officer Dalton looked around the room, surprisingly unhypnotized by Vicki’s good looks. “Is there somewhere we can talk that would be a little more private?”

The thought of being alone with him was enough to make my temperature rise. I had to fan myself and clear my throat before I could even think to speak.

“The office,” I said, gesturing toward one of the two doors behind the counter. I doubted he’d want to go back into the kitchen, with the dirty dishes, or in the stockroom upstairs, where the only place to sit was on unpacked boxes of books and cups. “We can talk there.”

There was a collective groan from the crowd. I swear one of the ladies sitting by the window had moved a few seats closer while I wasn’t looking. They’d just have to get their gossip somewhere else.

I led Officer Dalton to our dinky office, sort of wishing the space was bigger. Maybe the stockroom wasn’t such a bad idea. At least there we could talk without knocking knees.

I prayed Vicki did a good job with the customers in my absence because, quite frankly, I’d been just about running myself ragged working with just the coffee. She was going to have to run both sections, which had to be near impossible.

Officer Dalton closed the door behind us. I offered him one of the two computer chairs crammed into the room with the tiny desk and filing cabinet. The space was more of a closet than anything. In fact, I think it was a closet at one time, but it was the only place where we could put a computer without sticking it in a sink.

We both sat.

“What is this about, Officer?” I asked, taking my cue from the movies.

“Call me Paul,” he said, clearly not going by the script. “Everyone else does.”

“Okay, Paul.” I felt the blush creep farther up my neck. I felt like a girl talking for the very first time to a boy she liked. I wasn’t sure when I’d last felt that way. “I’m Krissy. Kristina. Hancock. Krissy Hancock.” This time my face erupted into a flush that burned.

Paul gave me another flash of those dimples of his before opening a notepad. “I just have a few questions for you, Mrs. Hancock. You’re not in any sort of trouble.”

“I’m not married,” I blurted out. I promptly wanted to die.

“Noted,” Paul said with a smile.

“Just call me Krissy.”

He nodded, cleared his throat, and then launched into the questions.

“Did you know a man by the name of Brendon Lawyer?”

I knew it!
I choked back the exclamation and nodded. “Sort of,” I said. “He came in for coffee earlier today.”

“Was he with anyone else?”

“No, he came in alone.”

Paul flipped a page. “Did he buy anything to eat while he was here? I noticed you sell donuts?” He made it a question, telling me he hadn’t looked too hard.

“Cookies,” I said. “Homemade. And no, he didn’t buy anything other than a coffee. He asked for it to go and then sat down to drink it.” I wasn’t sure why I added the last.

“Did he eat anything at all while he was here?”

I thought back. “I remember seeing a briefcase. I suppose he could have brought food with him, but I didn’t pay too much attention to what he was doing. He didn’t stay long. He got a call and then rushed off after only a few minutes.”

“Did you see where he went?”

“Back to his office, I think.” I tapped my chin before nodding. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure he went back to his office, though I didn’t actually see him go in.”

“So you don’t know if he made another stop?”

“Sorry.”

Paul scribbled something into his notepad before asking, “Do you happen to use peanuts in your cookies?”

The question caught me a little by surprise. “Peanuts? Why, no.”

“Is there any chance his coffee came in contact with some sort of peanut product?”

“Not from my end,” I said. “If Mr. Lawyer had brought a lunch with him, then I guess he could have had some peanuts then. Why?”

Paul wrote something else down in his notepad before looking up at me. He was all seriousness. My heart rate picked up and I had to force myself to keep from looking too nervous. My foot wanted to jiggle up and down, so I planted it firmly on the floor, where it had nowhere to go.

“Did Mr. Lawyer leave anything behind when he left your store?”

“No,” I said. “I cleaned the table myself just a few moments after he’d gone and I didn’t see anything. Did something come up missing?”

Officer Dalton sat back in his chair and flipped his notepad closed. “His EpiPen.”

I frowned. I’d heard of an EpiPen before, but wasn’t sure what it was for. I asked him as much.

“It’s used by people with severe allergies,” he said. “If they are experiencing an attack, they jab themselves with it.” He used his pen to demonstrate, poking himself in the outer thigh with it. With a frown he looked at the mark he’d made on his otherwise clean tan slacks. He clicked his pen closed and looked back to me. “Mr. Lawyer’s EpiPen was gone. He went into anaphylactic shock.”

My hands went to my mouth. “He had a peanut allergy?”

Paul nodded. “He was extremely allergic to peanuts. Though from what I’ve gathered, he could eat most other nuts. He was alone in his office and his EpiPen was missing. Right now, we think it was an accident. He might have left the device at home and then came into contact with peanuts somehow during the day. I was hoping you could shed some light on what he might have eaten.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t have peanuts here and I didn’t see whether or not he brought anything to eat with him.”

Paul gave me a reassuring smile. “It was a long shot,” he admitted. “Someone is talking to his wife and I’m sure she can fill us in more.”

We fell silent. I couldn’t believe someone I’d just served had died. The guy had a wife, maybe even a kid or two, and was now gone forever. It hit me just how bad of a name Death by Coffee really was. No one was going to want to eat here now.

“I take it you are new in town?” Paul asked suddenly, drawing me out of my contemplations. He cleared his throat and looked at his hands instead of directly at me. “I haven’t seen you around before.”

“Just got in yesterday,” I said. “Would have been in sooner, but my U-Haul broke down on the way. I still haven’t unpacked.” I paused. “We just opened up the store today.”

“Hell of a way to start out, right?” Paul gave a nervous laugh before clearing his throat again.

“Yeah.” Vicki was going to die when I told her what had happened. So much for a positive outlook.

Paul sat there a moment longer before suddenly standing. “I’ll get out of your hair,” he said. “Thanks for your cooperation. If you learn anything more, please let us know.” He held out his hand.

We shook. His hand was firm, but surprisingly soft. I was guessing he didn’t do much hard labor, but he kept himself in stunning shape due to his job. I had to force myself to let go of his hand, lest I drool on it.

This time Paul led the way as we left the small office and returned to the store proper. He nodded once to Vicki before glancing back at me. He gave me yet another winning smile before leaving. He crossed the road and stopped to talk to an older woman in a police uniform. They spoke for a few minutes before they each got into a squad car and drove off.

I stared dumbly after them. I was trying hard to remember if there was any way I could have gotten peanut extract in Brendon’s coffee. I was terrified I was somehow responsible for the man’s death. He’d come here just before he’d died. Did that mean his coffee had been laced with peanuts?

“What did he want?” Vicki asked, coming to stand next to me. Her hair was still perfect and she hadn’t broken a sweat the entire time I was gone. All eight tables were sparkling clean and the customers seemed happy. They watched me with eager, curious eyes.

I led Vicki behind a stack of to-go cups where no one could see us. “The guy who died came here for coffee before he, well, you know . . . died.” I spoke at a near whisper. “He had an allergic reaction and went into some sort of shock.” There was no way I was going to try to pronounce the word Paul had used. I’d end up sounding dumber than I really was. My tongue did strange things on big words, even if I
knew
how to pronounce them.

“A reaction to something in the coffee?” Vicki asked, a little too loud for my liking.

I glanced around the cups to see some of the customers look at their coffee cups as if they might contain poison. At least four of them got up and left.

“I hope not,” I said. “He was allergic to peanuts. We don’t have any of those here.”

“Oh.” Vicki was quiet a moment. “What about the hazelnut coffee?”

I sucked in a breath. Could I have accidently given him the wrong kind of coffee? I was almost positive I’d served regular black coffee, but I supposed I could have made a mistake.

“I don’t know if that would affect his allergy,” I said. I’d have to look it up sometime. “Besides, he wanted regular coffee, none of the flavored stuff.”