Kelly's Koffee Shop (A Cedar Bay Cozy Mystey Book 1) (14 page)

“Good planning. I stopped
by my place and picked up some clothes. Let me put them away and I’ll be back
in a few minutes.”

“Okay, Kelly,” he said as
he walked down the hall into the kitchen. “What kind of trouble did you get
into today?”

“No trouble, Mike, but I
did have an interesting conversation with Amber’s best friend, Lindsay
Williams. She wanted to talk to you, but thought you might dismiss what she had
to say as silly girl stuff, so she called and asked if she could come by the
coffee shop and talk to me. I was surprised to hear what she had to say. I
think it might be important to your investigation. We’d heard that Madison
hated Amber, but I’d kind of dismissed it. According to Lindsay, Madison really
hated Amber, far more than I knew.”

Mike opened the
refrigerator and took out a beer. “Okay, shoot. What did she have to say?”
Kelly sat across from him at the kitchen table and related the details of her
conversation with Lindsay. When she was finished, he sat quietly, deep in
thought.

He took a sip of his beer.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever had a case with this many possible suspects. You’ve
done a lot of the work for me and you’ve talked to all of the possible
suspects. What’s your take? Who do you think did it?”

“I’m frustrated. In my
mind there had been four solid suspects and now I have to add Madison. That
makes five. I know there’s a possibility that Jeff did it, but my intuition
tells me no, however I could be wrong. He certainly had a motive if he thought
Amber knew about the marijuana farm he had and he was worried she would tell
someone.”

“Kelly, I’m not ruling him
out. He’s definitely still a suspect in my book, even if he is in the county
jail. Looks like he’ll get out on bail tomorrow.”

“The next one is Doc. He
had a reason to kill her, actually a very good reason. He’s trying to make a
new life and doesn’t want his cover blown. What if he didn’t tell me
everything? All we know is pretty much what you were able to find out about him
and what he told me. He befriended Amber and she talked to him about getting an
abortion. But what if there’s more? Maybe she knew something about him that he didn’t
tell me. I don’t know, but having your cover blown might be motive enough.”

“I agree, Kelly. The thing
that bothers me is that Amber was drowned. To my knowledge, I don’t think Doc
has a boat, but maybe he keeps one somewhere on his property. Did you see any
kind of a small motorboat, perhaps on a trailer, when you were out there?”

“No,” Kelly said. “Doc’s
place was spotless. You know how lots of people who own small ranches often
have junk piled up all around their house. You could eat off the ground around
his place. There wasn’t a bit of trash. He takes as much care of the outside of
his house as he does the inside. Call it instinct, but I don’t think he did
it.” She paused for a moment. “Then again, I didn’t go in his garage. Maybe he
has a boat in there.”

“Well, if he has a boat,
he’d probably be the top suspect on my list, but from what we know, I can’t
connect the dots without a boat.”

“Let’s talk about Madison.
Her dad’s fished the bay forever and has a small boat. I would imagine she’s
been out in that boat a number of times and is probably pretty familiar with
the coastline and the bay. She’s strong and she certainly had a motive for
killing Amber, even if it was all in her mind. Don’t forget, according to
Lindsay, Madison threatened to kill Amber.”

“Maybe I’m naïve,” Mike
said, “but I can’t imagine that a young woman would kill another young woman
out of jealousy and that’s primarily what her motive would have been.”

“I agree. She certainly
has led a tough life, but I haven’t seen anything that makes me think she’s
unbalanced. Lindsay says she’s not very smart and is barely going to be able to
graduate. There’s nothing that would point to Amber’s death being premeditated
and it would require some brains to think to weight a body down and dump it in
the ocean. Maybe I just hate to think she was the one who did it, but that
doesn’t keep her from being a suspect. I wonder if she was in her first class
on the morning Amber was murdered. According to Ginger, Amber left the house at
5:00 a.m. It seems hard for me to believe that Madison could have killed Amber
and then gone to school as if nothing had happened.”

“I’ll call the principal
in the morning and find out if she was in school that morning,” Mike said.

Kelly went on, “Then
there’s Chris. He rows his boat every morning, is knowledge about the ocean,
and owns some free weights, so he certainly qualifies as a suspect. What I’m
struggling with is his motive. I’ve never heard anything that remotely gives
him a reason to kill her.”

“Well don’t forget we
still don’t know who the mystery man is that Amber referred to in her diary,
someone she was having a sexual relationship with,” Mike said. “Maybe Amber was
flirting with him at school. It’s not that unusual for a young high school girl
to become infatuated with her teacher. She could have been teasing him by
wearing too short of a skirt or giving him a peek down her blouse or something
like that. Maybe Chris takes the bait, one thing leads to another, and suddenly
Amber tells him she’s pregnant.”

“That would sure give him
a reason to kill her. Mike, we haven’t even talked much about the fifth
suspect, Brandon. What if he was the one Amber was going to tell about the
pregnancy and he was afraid it would ruin his chances to play football for
Oregon State? Or what if he found out Amber was seeing someone else and was
jealous? We’ve said jealousy would have provided a motive for Madison. Well,
the same thing applies to Brandon, maybe even more so. Even though everyone
feels sorry for him, he, too, has to be a real suspect. When you call the
principal, see if Brandon was in his first class that morning.”

“Kelly, those are the five
we have so far. Hopefully, no more suspects will turn up. At least we’ve
solidly identified five people who each have a powerful motive to kill Amber.
Wouldn’t have thought it was possible a couple of weeks ago. I do now.”

“Mike, we’re starting to
go around in circles. I’m going to let all of this settle in my subconscious.
I’m not having much luck solving it consciously. Time to eat. It’s been another
long day for both of us.”

The next afternoon after everyone,
including Roxie and Charlie, had left the coffee shop for the day, Madison
turned to Kelly. “Do you have time to talk to me?” she asked.

“Of course. Let’s get some
iced tea and sit down. We could both stand to get off of our feet.”

“Okay, Madison. I’m all
yours. Finally it’s quiet in here. What did you want to talk to me about?”

“I know this is gonna
sound kinda strange, but I’ve been talkin’ to Father Brown.”

Kelly raised an eyebrow.
“Really, what about?”

Madison went on, “I told
you I really felt good after bein’ in church at Amber’s funeral. My dad’s an
atheist and he never took me to church. You probably know my mother left us
when I was very young. My childhood hasn’t been the easiest. I see all these
lovin’ families and something inside me hurts so bad sometimes I can hardly
stand it. I’d give anything to be part of a happy lovin’ family, but it just
never happened.”

She took a deep breath and
continued. “I’ve never told anyone this, but I feel I can tell you because
you’ve been kind of like a mother to me these past few days. My dad drinks and
he’s a mean drunk. I can usually tell when he’s been drinkin’ and I make a
point to keep out of his way. A coupla times I was asleep when he came home and
he woke me up, really angry with me.” She turned away from Kelly.

“When he gets angry he
hits things, like me. I’ve never felt loved. My mother left me. My dad’s a
drunk. I really don’t have any friends. The reason I’m tellin’ you this is that
when I was in church I felt loved for the first time in my life. God’s love,
maybe, I dunno. It just kinda overwhelmed me. It was the strangest thing. The
afternoon of the funeral after I finished up here I went back to the church and
sat inside on one of the pews for a long time. I felt somethin’ while I was
sitting there that I’ve never felt before, kind of a wonderful peaceful
feelin’. Anyway, Father Brown walked in and came over to me. He sat next to me
for a long time and didn’t say nothin’. Finally, he reached over and took my
hand and said he’d like to help me. I don’t know why he did that. Maybe he knew
about my father or maybe it was somethin’ in the way my face looked. I started
cryin’ and couldn’t talk. He led me to his office in the back of the church and
told me he was there for me. He said if I’d like to talk, he was happy to
listen.”

“He’s a wonderful man. You
couldn’t have found anyone better to confide in. I’m glad he was there for
you.”

Tears welled up in
Madison’s eyes. “I talked to him for over two hours. I told him about my
childhood, my dad, my mother leavin’, everything. I told him I’d done some bad
things to Amber and I hated myself for doin’ them, but I was so jealous of her
I couldn’t help myself. I told him I wanted to feel peaceful all the time, like
I did when I was in his church. He told me I was one of God’s children. Comin’
from anyone else it would have sounded pretty corny, but comin’ from him it
meant a lot to me. For the first time in my life, I began to hope that maybe I
could be happy and peaceful.”

“Does that mean you’re
going to join the Catholic Church?” Kelly asked.

“Yes. I’ve met with him
two more times and he said he’d prepare me for becomin’ a Catholic. He tol’ me
I needed to get a sponsor and I thought of you. Kelly, would you be my
sponsor?”

“Oh, honey, it would be my
honor. I’m so glad that Amber’s death led to something positive for someone.”

“You know it’s funny. He
told me that the things I tol’ him, you know, my sins, weren’t no worse than anyone
else’s. I guess maybe I ain’t such a bad person after all. I really think this
is a turnin’ point for me. Who knows? Jes’ might be able to earn enough money
to go to cosmetology school. Always loved playin’ around with hair and make-up.
There’s one up in Sunset Bay. Maybe if I earn enough money this summer, and if
you’d let me work here in the fall, I might be able to do it. I really think
this is just the beginnin’ of my life. I’m pretty excited.”

“I’m pretty excited for
you too, Madison. We’ll make it work. Why don’t you apply to that school? If
you need some money for tuition, I could probably make you a loan against your
future pay. If you need a recommendation, you can use me. I could also say a
few words to Wanda, who owns the beauty shop here in town. She told me the
other day that Missy was planning to retire next year. It seems that the timing
would be right. She said she’d be looking for someone. Maybe you could help her
in the shop until you get your license.”

“Kelly, I can never thank
you enough for being so understandin’ and helpin’ me. For the first time in my
life, I feel really, really good.”

“Madison, maybe you should
think about moving in with someone, renting a room or something. I really don’t
like to think of you living with your father.”

“I think I need to tell
him that I’m joinin’ the church. Maybe if he knows that I’ll be confessin’ my
sins weekly, he might be afraid that I’ll say somethin’ about him.”

“Be careful. You might
want to think about calling me or Mike if it happens again. Since you haven’t
turned eighteen yet, maybe an arrest for child abuse would make him think twice
about it. Any chance he’d agree to get some help for his drinking?”

“Don’t think so. He’s kind
of private about a lot of things. He always apologizes to me afterwards and
tells me he’s sorry. I don’t think he wants to do it. He can’t help himself. I
think he just turns into another person when he drinks, a person who’s not very
nice.”

“All the more reason for
him to get some help. Let me see what I can do. Now that you’re starting a new
life, sure would be great if you didn’t have to deal with that problem. Do you
have any relatives who live in the area?”

“No. There’s no one. Just
Dad and me.” Madison looked at her watch and said, “Oops, I better get outta
here. My first real meetin’ with Father Brown is in fifteen minutes. I sure
don’t want to be late for that. Again, Kelly, thanks for everything.”

“Not a problem. Tell
Father Brown I’m really proud and honored to be your sponsor. Go.” She opened
the door and gave Madison a friendly push. “It’s time to get on with your new
life.”

She had just closed the
door and was getting ready to leave for the day when there was a knock on the
door. “Yes, who is it?” she asked.

“It’s Dottie, from the
yacht club. I was driving by and saw Madison leave and figured you might still
be here. I want to return the serving trays you brought by last night. The
coffee cake and French toast casserole were great. There wasn’t a crumb left.
Here they are.”

“Thanks, but I could have
picked them up. What’s this blue ribbon doing on top of the trays? I don’t
remember seeing it before.”

“Of course you don’t. I
found it on the gangway this morning when I went down to our boat after the
meeting. Our nephew’s been living on it the last few months and I like to check
in on him and the boat whenever I can. I kind of remember the cheerleaders
wearing blue ribbons like this at one at the football games. I didn’t want the
ribbon to fall in the water, so I put it in the back seat of my car with your
things. Here, I’ll take it.”