Death by Coffee (8 page)

“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling all kinds of uncomfortable. “I’m really not looking for a relationship right now.”

“Sure you are,” Patricia said. “Everyone is. No one wants to be alone.” She fished around in her purse until she found a business card and a pen. She scrawled a number on it before holding the card out to me. “Give him a call, okay?”

I had two choices here. I could take the card, thank her, and then toss it in the trash on the way out. Or I could refuse and get on the Pine Hills police chief’s bad side. Calling her son and actually asking him out on a date was completely out of the question.

I took the card. She’d written down a number, but no name. I flipped the card over, thinking his name would be there, but instead found myself looking at Brendon Lawyer’s business card.

“You two will be great together.” Patricia gave me one last smile; then she turned and left the room.

It took me a few moments to gather myself before I followed after her. I was so blindsided by what had just happened, I completely forgot to pitch the card into the trash on my way out.

The parking lot was already empty as I made my way to my car. I got inside, mindlessly shoving the card into my purse, before starting up the engine. I wasn’t sure what I’d learned at the meeting, but I was sort of glad I’d come. If nothing else, I’d met a few more people in town. Hopefully, they’d decide to come in for some coffee.

Then again, I wasn’t so sure I could stand all of the gossip, especially if that gossip started to turn toward me and my alleged involvement in Brendon Lawyer’s death. I didn’t need that kind of stress on top of everything else.

With a groan I backed out of the lot and headed for home.

8

“I don’t like that look in your eye.”

“Huh?” I looked up to find Vicki staring at me. “What?”

“Leave it alone.”

I turned back to what I’d been doing: staring out the window toward Lawyer’s Insurance. Nothing had happened all day, yet I couldn’t help but watch the place. I was positive some important piece of information would leap out at me if I watched the building long enough.

But I wasn’t going to tell Vicki that. She’d spent a good portion of her life warning me off situations like this one. Well, maybe not
exactly
like this—I’d never dealt with a murder before. Some little thing would catch my eye and I would immediately want to go poking around in the hopes of finding something exciting to occupy my mind, and there she’d be, telling me to stop involving myself in other people’s business.

Of course, the good thing about Vicki was, she didn’t actually mean it when she told me to stop. She always supported me in anything I’d ever done, even when telling me I shouldn’t get involved. I think she enjoyed watching me squirm and worm my way to an answer, even if my conclusions ended up completely off base.

Then again, someone had died this time. This wasn’t me finding a lost wallet, stolen by a parrot that had snuck out of his cage, or discovering where all the tea cozies my neighbor had knitted for my dad had gone after a rather rambunctious birthday party. If I wasn’t careful, someone could get hurt. And that included me.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Uh-huh.” Vicki moved to stand between me and the window. “You and I both know what happens when something like this catches your attention.”

“There’s never been something like this before,” I said.

“You know what I mean.”

“Well, I’m just curious,” I said, still trying to deny how curious I really was.

Vicki cocked her hip, planted her fist against it, and gave me one of her patented warning looks. There was the faintest hint of amusement in it. “Let it go.”

“I can’t.”

“It’s none of your business.”

“I know, but . . .”

“No,” Vicki said sternly. “There are no
buts
here. A man bought coffee here and then he died. There’s nothing more to it than that. That is the
only
connection you should have to this thing.”

“Yeah, but . . .”

“What did I just say?”

I glared at her for a moment before giving in and sighing. “All right,” I said, turning away from the window. “I’ll try to focus.”

The problem was, there wasn’t much inside Death by Coffee to focus on. There were three people sitting at a table by the window. I’d already served them their coffees—coffees, I might add, they had barely touched. It seemed that they were like me and were expecting something to happen across the street. Every few seconds one of them would look up and gaze hopefully at Lawyer’s Insurance before returning to the quiet conversation.

I leaned against the counter and scanned the meager crowd. We had eight tables set up around the room, with only the one occupied. That meant a whopping seven of them were open. What other sign did I need that things weren’t going as well as we’d hoped? It definitely wasn’t looking good.

Vicki joined me at the counter a moment later. The bookstore wasn’t busy, either. There was a couch and pair of recliners placed upstairs where readers could sit, yet they were as empty as the rest of the store. If this kept up, I could take a nap between orders. The couch was comfortable enough for it.

“It’ll get better,” Vicki said.

“You’ve said that before.”

“I know. I have faith.”

I wished I did.

She was silent for a few minutes before going on. “You do know you didn’t have anything to do with that man’s death, don’t you? You can’t go running off getting involved in it just because you feel guilty.”

“I don’t feel guilty.”

She gave me a flat look.

“Okay,” I admitted. “Maybe a little bit.”

“I need you here, not off and poking your nose in business best left to the police.”

“I know.” I rubbed at my face. “I just can’t get my brain to switch gears.”

“Krissy, we all have to deal with that sometimes. You just have to push through it.”

I started to reply, but movement across the street caught my eye. Vicki continued talking, but I tuned her out. I wasn’t intentionally being rude, I swear. I just couldn’t focus on anything but the man who was walking toward Lawyer’s Insurance at that very moment.

“I’ll be right back,” I said, cutting Vicki off. I’d have to apologize about that later.

Before she could stop me, I was out the door and running across the street. A car horn blared as I skirted around it. Mason Lawyer had just opened the door and stepped inside Lawyer’s Insurance a split second before I reached him. I caught the door before it could close and hurried inside after him.

“Mason!” I called, out of breath.

He turned and frowned. “Yes?” A couple of seconds passed before his eyes widened in recognition. “What do
you
want?”

“I just want to talk to you for a moment.”

The secretary sitting at the front desk leaned forward. I paid her little mind. Maybe if I asked the right questions in front of someone else, Mason’s nerves would cause him to say something he didn’t mean to, kind of like what the police did with silence. Sometimes onlookers weren’t an entirely bad thing.

Of course, it might only cause him to clam up all the tighter, but that was a chance I was willing to take if it meant getting to the bottom of his brother’s death.

“Can’t this wait?” he asked. “I’m sort of busy right now.”

“We can always talk in your office, if that is what you’d prefer,” I said with a smirk. It was obvious he didn’t want to talk to me. Maybe he really did know more than he’d originally let on.

My gaze traveled around the room in the hopes of spotting Mason’s office. Instead, I found only four doors, and that included the one I’d come in. One had the universal sign of a unisex bathroom on it. The other two had names on them:
BRENDON LAWYER
and
RAYMOND LAWYER.

“I don’t work here,” he said just as I realized there wasn’t a place for Mason to work, unless he met his clients in the waiting room, which consisted of a couch, four stiff-looking chairs, and a round table.

Before I could apologize for the assumption, the door with Raymond’s name opened and an older man stepped out. He looked so much like Mason and Brendon Lawyer, I knew they had to be related, though he leaned more to Brendon’s hard lines than Mason’s softer ones. He had on glasses, which did nothing to ease the harsh glare that seemed permanently affixed to his face. He scowled at the both of us, a look I was sure he practiced.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. It took me a moment to realize he wasn’t talking to me.

“I came to see you,” he said before glancing to me. “I’m not sure what
she
wants.”

I smiled at the senior Lawyer. “My name is Krissy Hancock,” I said. “I wanted to talk to Mason about his brother.”

Mr. Lawyer’s glower deepened. He glanced at the secretary, who was watching all of this with wide, eager eyes, and then stepped back into his office.

“Both of you. In here. Now.”

Mason and I both moved forward automatically. There was a command to Raymond’s voice that told me he wasn’t used to being ignored. This was a man who knew what he wanted and was damn sure he’d get it, no matter how many fingers he had to walk on in the process.

He closed the door behind us and stormed over to his desk, where he sat down, opened a drawer, and removed a bottle of whiskey. He poured a little into a glass and downed it before he settled his glare on us. The look in his eye almost dared us to say something about his midday drinking.

“What is this all about?” he asked through partially clenched teeth.

“Dad,” Mason said. “She has no right to barge in here, demanding information on Brendon. I’m not talking in front of her.”

“I didn’t barge in,” I said. “And I didn’t demand anything. I just want to talk.”

“Why?” Raymond asked.

“Uh . . .”

I hadn’t even been sure what I was going to ask Mason, outside of anything he could tell me about Brendon and his death. I wasn’t with the police. I wasn’t a detective. There was no way he’d accept me asking questions about a case I really had no right investigating.

“I just wanted to talk to Mason is all,” I said, looking down at my feet. I felt like a kid who’d just been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

Raymond heaved a sigh. “Even now, he haunts me.”

“Dad . . .” Mason took a step forward, but stopped at a harsh glare from Raymond.

“I don’t recall speaking to you,” he said.

Mason joined me in studying our respective footwear. He was grinding his teeth and his face was red. The way he fell silent so quickly told me this wasn’t unusual. Chances were good he’d spent his entire life getting reprimanded by the old man. I wondered if Brendon had suffered just the same. It made me understand why he had been such a jerk before.

Raymond glared hard at Mason for a long moment before turning it to me. “Brendon worked here. He was a damn right asshole who worked hard enough to earn a place here, unlike others I know.” His eyes flickered to Mason. “He treated other people like shit and didn’t give a flying f . . . ,” Raymond trailed off, took a deep breath, and then went on. “He didn’t treat others with the respect they deserved.”

“I heard a rumor he was getting a divorce from his wife,” I said. My palms were sweating now. I was nervous about asking these sorts of questions, especially to a man as volatile as Raymond Lawyer appeared to be. I was afraid that if I said the wrong thing, he might leap across his desk and strangle me.

“He was,” Raymond said. “But someone interfered in that. I don’t know who, but I wouldn’t put it past that witch of a woman, Regina Harper.”

I frowned. There was absolutely no way Heidi’s mom would have convinced her daughter to stay with Brendon. She hated the man with a passion that was near obsession.

“What do you think happened to Brendon?” I asked, still trying to sort out why Raymond might think Regina had anything to do with them possibly getting back together—without having to ask him directly. I wasn’t so sure I’d get an answer.

“What do you think happened?” Raymond growled. “He died.” More whiskey went into the glass and the elder Lawyer threw it back in one swallow. He looked longingly at the bottle before shoving it back into its drawer.

It was then I really questioned how much of this was an act. He might call Brendon all sorts of unflattering names, but he was still the man’s father. It had to have hit him hard to know his son died in an office right beside his. They worked together every day. They had to have had some sort of relationship, even if it was a strained one.

Then again, perhaps the man was an alcoholic and his drinking had nothing to do with trying to drown away the misery he felt about losing his son. Here he was, working, only a couple of days after his son’s death. In fact, I don’t think he’d taken a single day off to mourn. That didn’t speak of a father overly upset that his child was no longer alive.

Or maybe he was using work as a way to forget. Sitting at home, wishing things could be different, didn’t help anyone. I should know. After my mom had died, I’d refused to leave my house for days. All I got out of all my lonely suffering was a ruined tearstained pillowcase and a bad complexion. I didn’t feel better until I actually tried to live again.

“I’m truly sorry about what happened,” I said, feeling guilty for barging in like I had.

“What is it to you?” Raymond’s eyes narrowed. “Who the hell are you, anyway? You’re not a cop, that’s for sure.”

Mason glanced at me with a faint smile.

I straightened, determined not to wither beneath Raymond’s glare. “I work across the street,” I said. “At the coffee shop.”

Raymond grunted. “So yours was the coffee that killed him.”

I bristled. “My coffee had nothing to do with his death.”

“Other than the fact it was laced with peanuts.”

“The police say it was an accident.”

Raymond snorted. His hand went for the drawer with the whiskey, but he stopped himself. “If you believe that, you’re dumber than you look.”

I opened my mouth to tell him off, but thought better of it. Agitating this man any further than I already had seemed like a good way to get myself into trouble. I snapped my mouth closed and clenched my teeth. I’d have to punch something later so I would feel better.

“I’m a busy man,” Raymond said with a weary sigh. He looked suddenly tired, as if he hadn’t slept in a week. “I would appreciate it if you would get out of here.” He glanced to the grinning Mason. “The both of you.”

I turned without a word. If I opened my mouth, I’d surely put my foot in it. I might feel bad for the old man, but if I kept pressing, that wouldn’t mean a thing to him. I had no illusions that he wouldn’t pick me up and throw me out the window if I didn’t do as he said.

I walked right past the secretary, who was quickly brushing her hair out of her face and looked nervous. She’d more than likely been standing at the door, listening the entire time.

I was out the door and almost to the street when Mason caught up with me.

“Hey,” he said, taking my arm. “What are you trying to prove?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, pulling my arm from his grip.

“Brendon’s death was an accident.”

“Was it?”

Mason’s expression hardened. He looked like he was going to tell me off and then suddenly his face softened. Before speaking, he glanced around to make sure no one was listening.

“Do you really think someone could have killed him?”