Do or Diner: A Comfort Food Mystery (21 page)

Roberta motioned for me to walk into her office. She followed. The first thing I noticed was that it was naked. There were no trinkets or other memorabilia gracing the faux-paneled walls or bookcases. I scanned her desk for something in a frame, anything. Finally, I noticed one plastic-type frame to the left of her computer.

“Let’s get right to work,” Roberta said. “What do you have in mind?”

I handed her the gas station flowers, a nice mix of daisies and yellow mums. “These are for you, Roberta.” I felt sorry for her, losing someone that she loved. I knew how she felt.

Her mouth tried to form some kind of words, but nothing came out. She leaned back in her chair and took a deep breath.

“What are these for?” she asked, her ice-blue eyes narrowing.

“Just because I’ve been thinking about you, and Mr. Cogswell, and everything. It has to be tough on you.”

She put the bouquet to her nose and took a deep breath. It seemed to relax her a bit.

“You have no idea,” she said.

I remained silent, letting her enjoy the flowers.

“Well, let’s get to work,” she said. “When we’ve finished our business, I’ll put these in water.”

That was another indication that this meeting would be brief.

I pulled a couple of sheets of bond paper from my purse and spread them out in front of her. “I played on the computer, and this is what I came up with. One sheet lists the Silver Bullet’s daily specials. The other is a ‘buy one, get one free’ coupon.”

“I like it when a customer is organized,” she said.

This was about the first positive thing that Roberta ever said to me. Maybe I’d softened her up. There was more to come.

“This is what I had in mind, but they need help. Some kind of picture or graphic.” I handed her a copy of the Silver Bullet’s menu with a line drawing of the diner. “I’d like to feature this picture in both items.”

“Should be easy. I’ll mock something up for you, using your content, and will get it to you for your approval.”

This was going way too fast. I needed to look at that picture on her desk.

“Roberta, can I show you what I have in mind?”

I stood and walked around her desk to where she sat. I pointed to the paper with the coupon. “About here is where I’d like the sketch of the diner to appear.”

“I understand.” She rose to escort me out.

I pulled the other piece of paper in front of her, bending over to get a good look at the three-by-five photo. It was of Roberta with a very attractive man. They were both in casual clothes in front of an evergreen tree and smiling for the camera.

Picking up the picture, I asked, “Is this you and Marvin?”

She snatched it away from me and returned it to its place. “Yes.”

“It’s a fabulous picture. You two look so happy. It must be hard for you to have someone you love so much taken away so abruptly.”

“Yes. It is.”

“I brought us some chamomile tea, Roberta. And some comfort food—meat loaf and an apple pie. Can I make us some tea? I’d love to hear about Marvin. I mean it, truly.”

Talking about someone you have lost is hard, but it’s a good way to start healing. I thought about Uncle Porky and how he’d reminisce about his old army buddies and other friends he’d lost. He always got a little misty but ended up grinning.

I looked around for some hot water, anything, and found a water dispenser with a spout in both blue and red. I assumed the red was the hot water.

“I’ll get the water for tea,” Roberta said, getting up.

She returned with two steaming cups of hot water. I had the tea bags at the ready.

“Cream and sugar?” she asked.

“Plain for me.”

I sliced us two pieces of pie. I’d brought paper plates, plastic forks, and napkins. Like a good Girl Scout, I was always prepared whenever food was concerned.

She seemed overwhelmed and, believe it or not, at a loss for words. This was a side of Roberta that I never thought I’d see.

“This is very nice of you, Trixie,” she said as I handed her the piece of pie. “I’ve been hard on you.”

I waved away her concern. “Don’t worry about it.”

She took a bite of pie and closed her eyes. “This is heavenly.”

“Thanks.”

“Did you make it?”

“Yes, but I’m a better cook than a baker. You’ll have to tell me if you like the meat loaf.”

“I’m sure it’ll be delicious.” She took the container and slipped it into a small refrigerator behind her desk. “Thank you again.”

I smiled. “Did I hear that you and Mr. Cogswell were engaged?”

“We’d been living together for the past five years, but we were talking about marriage.” She gave a half smile. “Marvin has…had…cold feet, but I thought that I was wearing him down.”

Roberta laughed. It sounded rusty, like a car trying to turn over with a bad battery, but she was getting there.

I was trying to like Roberta, since we did have
something in common. A divorce is like a death—the death of a marriage.

“Can you think of anyone who’d want to kill Marvin?” I leaned forward, not wanting to miss a word.

“That hunk of a deputy asked me the same thing. I told him that I couldn’t think of anyone. Marvin loved his job and the fact that he could eat at the places he inspected. I never had to cook for him, not that I can cook anyway.”

“Would you like another piece of pie?” I thought I’d remind her of the delightful carbs that I’d brought. She could use some weight on her slight bones.

“I couldn’t eat another bite. But it was delicious,” she said. “Um…uh…I want to apologize to you for being so…horrible to you.”

“It’s okay,” I said. She’d really ruined my business, but I was trying to get over it. I decided to ask the big question that had been on my mind.

“Did you ever suspect that Mr. Cogswell might have been cheating on you?”

She didn’t speak, and it was so quiet that I could hear June in the outer office talking to her sister on the phone.

Roberta stared at the picture on her desk, her eyes half closed and unblinking.

“I’m sorry I asked.” Actually, I had my answer.

After a moment, she spoke. “All the signs were there, but I didn’t want to believe it: the sudden late-night hours and the out-of-town travel that he
never had to do before, the smell of perfume on his clothes. The hush-hush phone calls.”

“Do you know who the other woman is?”

She hesitated. “I called the number that kept appearing on his cell phone.”

I found myself holding my breath. “And?”

“And the number belongs to Antoinette Chloe Brown.”

I just sat in my car, stunned.

Antoinette Chloe Brown? There was that name again.

She seemed too flashy to have an affair with Marvin Cogswell, civil servant. And if she was having an affair, why would she poison him?

If she poisoned anyone, it would have been Roberta to get rid of the competition. Right?

But Roberta and Cogswell weren’t married. He was actually free to leave her for Antoinette.

I headed for the library. I wanted to see if I could find anything about Cogswell. Since he was a local, I assumed he went to Sandy Harbor High. You could tell a lot from a yearbook—interests, sports, clubs. Who knew what I might find?

May was at the library, and—surprise, surprise, surprise—she knew that I’d had an appointment with Roberta and that it was going to be windy and rainy tomorrow.

I asked her where the yearbooks from Sandy Harbor High School were. She pointed to a low shelf near the travel section.

“There’s at least thirty years’ worth of yearbooks on the shelf, and some of the older ones are on microfiche,” she said.

“Thanks, May.”

I knew Mr. Cogswell’s age from his obituary. I could guess when he graduated from SHHS.

Ty probably never thought of looking at yearbooks.

Maybe I was being too hard on Ty. He was investigating, researching, running record checks and the like, but I was just impatient that things were taking too long.

When God passed out patience, I jumped out of line because I couldn’t stand waiting.

I pulled out five yearbooks, and I settled on the year right in the middle. No Marvin Cogswell was listed.

Then I looked through the following year. There he was. Under his picture was
MARVIN “MARV” COGSWELL
. “Voted class flirt.”

That was interesting.

His interests included fishing, water skiing, and chasing women.

Oh, puh-leeze. I had to admit that he was quite handsome back then. He had smoldering black eyes, a square jaw, and a semi-spiked haircut. At least from the waist up, he looked fit and buff and wore his suit comfortably. He had on a conservatively striped tie with light blue hues.

I remembered the picture of Mr. Cogswell in Roberta’s office. Over the years, he’d only gotten better-looking.

In my opinion, Marv was probably a player.

I leafed through the yearbook, specifically looking for Antoinette Chloe.

There she was. She was Antoinette Chloe Switzer back then. She was much thinner—who wasn’t thinner in high school?—and quite beautiful. She wore flashy clothes even in high school and went heavy on the makeup. In her picture, she was wearing a gauzy peasant blouse with horizontal stripes of bright primary colors. She wore it off her shoulders with a chunky turquoise necklace. Behind her right ear was a red rose in full bloom.

That was an interesting look for a yearbook picture.

Under her name was “Voted the most interesting fashion maven of the senior class.”

I could understand that. She probably had an interesting outfit every day to keep the class entertained.

Wondering by chance if her husband, Sal Brown, attended the same high school, I paged through the pictures. There he was, Salvatore Antonio Brownelli. “Most likely to lead Hells Angels.” His interests included “My hog” and “botany.”

I could see Sal as a biker, but botany? That seemed out of place for Sal. To me, he should have been more interested in mechanics or that kind of thing.

Botany was the study of plants, like mushrooms for instance.

Now,
that
was interesting!

Had Sal Brown kept up his interest in botany over the years?

Did he know about local poisonous mushrooms?

Stunned, I continued to leaf through the yearbooks. Then I came across a picture of Marvin Cogswell kissing Antoinette Chloe Switzer. The caption said, “There they go again! Get a room!”

Hmm…so Marvin Cogswell and Antoinette Chloe were a couple back then.

Wow.

Closing up all the yearbooks, I put them back in order on the shelf.

With a heavy heart, I knew I had to tell Ty about Sal Brown’s interest in botany.

O
n the drive home, I realized that I hadn’t done a very thorough job of checking the yearbooks. I felt like throwing something as a tribute to my lack of focus.

“Damn!”

I should have looked up the Tingsleys and even Roberta Cummings. They were all Sandy Harbor “townies.” They were all about the same age, and this was a small town. They all had to have gone to Sandy Harbor High School or one of the region’s private schools.

I didn’t know what I’d find about the others in the yearbooks, but I thought I’d hit the jackpot.

In high school, ACB had a thing with Marv, and Sal had an interest in botany.

Maybe it wasn’t a big deal, or maybe it was.

I stopped in at the sheriff’s department building to see Ty, and he wasn’t there, but Deputy McCoy was. “He’s off for the rest of the day. He said he was going home to get some sleep. Anything I can help you with?”

“No. I’m good. I just wanted to tell him something, but it’s probably not important. Thanks, Vern.”

“Don’t thank me. I’m just glad that Meat Loaf Tuesday is back.”

“Then I’ll see you tonight at the Silver Bullet. You’ll love my meat loaf. I added a special ingredient, just for you.”

He put his hands over his heart and grinned. “You are the absolute best, Trixie.”

“Aww…That’s what all the men say.”

He burst out laughing. I waved good-bye and left the building. I started for home and continued to think about everything that I’d learned today.

I needed to write it all down in my trusty notebook and get it out of my head.

I drove into the back parking lot of Brown’s because it was the first place I saw where I could park and write in privacy. I pulled my notebook out of my purse.

As I began to write, I saw ACB in a muumuu covered in purple orchids and wearing a red turban. She was carrying a plastic grocery bag.

She looked right and left, and walked as fast as her flip-flops would carry her to the back of the Crossroad’s Restaurant. I was more impressed with Antoinette Chloe plowing through the snow with red flip-flops on than I was with Laura Kingsley wearing white heels.

I sat, astonished, as I watched ACB toss the plastic bag over a wooden fence. I could see the tops of the green metal Dumpsters of the Crossroads Restaurant, and it appeared that ACB made a direct hit to the middle of the largest one.

She hurried back to her restaurant, head down.

Instinctively, I knew what was in that bag—her gardenia muumuu—and I knew what I had to do.