Murder Served Cold (4 page)

Kevin McLean was sitting outside A Scoop of Sunshine when I arrived. His skinny frame, dark hair, and easygoing but anxious personality were just as I remembered them. All right, we’d broken up yesterday, not five years ago. It did seem like a lot longer than a day, I had to admit.

I sank into the chair across from him. “Kevin.”

“Ruby.” Kevin fiddled with his napkin. An empty Scoop cup was in front of him. “I was going to wait for you, but…”

“Don’t worry about it. I had a cone earlier.” I put my hand on his. “Are you all right?”

Kevin tugged his hand to his chest. “What do you think you’re doing? Why would you toss out our life together?”

“I realized that maybe we’re not meant to be together.” I tried to say it as nicely as I could. How do you crush someone in a nice way, though? No matter how you say it, the wind still gets knocked out of them.

And it did appear like the wind had been knocked out of Kevin. His skin paled and his breathing grew shallow.

“Kev, you knew this. I told you last night.”

“Last night,” he muttered. “Last night! On what was supposed to be a joyous occasion. You flipped it around into the worst night of my life.”

“Hey, it wasn’t that great for me either. You think I wanted to break up with you?” Until he’d said he could have been happy with someone else, I’d been content to spend the rest of my life with him. I would have been happily content to do so. I hadn’t realized until he said it that I wanted more than that.

“Why did it have to be last night?” Kevin looked at me with bright eyes, full of regret.

“I don’t know. I guess everything came together and I saw what our future would be like if we got married. I wanted more for us.”

Kevin pulled a ring box out of his pocket, opened it, and stared at the shiny ring. “You never even put it on.”

“It’s better this way.” I closed the box. “Put that away.”

He did. “I wish my feelings for you were as easy to put aside.”

“They will be,” I reassured him. “Not today, but eventually.”

“I’m not so sure.” Kevin tapped his fingers on the table. “I’m going to win you back. Give me two days, because that’s how long my hotel reservation’s for.”

I crossed my arms. “It’s not going to work.”

“Give me a shot,” Kevin pleaded. “If you change your mind, then perfect! If not, then what do you have to lose?”

“All right,” I conceded. “Two days.”

Kevin leaned back in his chair. “Did you really quit your job?”

“Yeah. I was going to tell you last night, but…it wasn’t the right time. I put my two weeks’ notice in two weeks ago and yesterday was my last day on the job.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Kevin frowned.

I shrugged. “Everyone else was against it. I couldn’t bring myself to tell you and have you convince me not to.”

A smile crept up on Kevin’s face. “My opinion means that much to you?”

“Of course it does! I couldn’t tell you I was quitting and let myself be talked out of it because I wanted to take a risk. I needed it to be fully my decision. I mean, I’m not sure that I’ve made a decision all by myself in years. I’ve always taken into account someone else’s thoughts, even when they weren’t right for me.”

“I get that. Good for you.”

A comfortable breeze floated past and I wished we could have had a different conversation under this setting. The evening was beautiful. Sitting here and discussing the end of our relationship was surreal. I’d never have imagined doing this last week.

The glass walls of the ice cream shop showed two people inside — Rebecca the manager and one customer. The one customer left a minute later.

“You know, I’d never try to talk you out of something that would make you happier,” said Kevin.

“Except get back together,” I pointed out.

Kevin grinned. “Other than that. I don’t have the conventional 9 to 5 job that everyone else does. Why would I discourage you from leaving that?”

Kevin was a talented artist who made sculptures for galleries, personal orders, and once for a movie set. I loved his work.

“You have to take chances,” Kevin continued. “This chance, even if it involves the end of us — which I’m hoping it won’t — is good for you. You’re chasing your dreams.”

I laughed. “I don’t know what my dreams are.”

A couple of teenagers walked up to Scoop. They halted in front of Scoop’s doors.

“It was right here,” said the first. “This is where that man bled to death.”

Kevin squirmed. I had no fondness for blood, but he really had a distaste for the stuff.

“I wonder how they cleaned the blood up so fast,” said the second.

“It wasn’t right there,” I told Kevin.

His eyes widened. “How do you know?”

The teenagers moved on. “I found him,” I said.

Kevin stiffened. “You what?”

“That’s what I did today. Got caught up in a stabbing — he didn’t die — and I’ve been trying to figure out who did it.”

“You saw the stabber? How do you not know who it was?”

“She or he was in the shadows. Rodger’s a big guy.”

After taking a moment to compose himself, Kevin sighed. “I kinda wish I was there. It sounds like fun to investigate a crime.”

“It’s not over yet. You can help if you want,” I offered.

Kevin brightened. “Okay!”

“You see the woman behind the counter?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“I found a paper with her handwriting on it in the area where the stabber escaped. Jade and I don’t know if she’s the stabber, and I was wondering if you could talk to her and get a feel for her violence levels.”

“How can you get that feel with one conversation?”

I stood up. “I have an idea.”

I peered at the chocolate ice cream under the glass. I pressed my thumb against the glass and looked closer. “Rebecca, there’s a scratch.”

She came around to see. “I don’t see a scratch.”

“It must have been my imagina—”

I was interrupted by Kevin’s arrival. He tapped my shoulder and threw a fake punch. I fell to the floor.

“Hey!” yelled Rebecca.

I got to my feet and ducked as he tossed another fake punch my way. I grabbed his arms and pinned him against the ice cream display glass. “Rebecca, hold him here while I call the police.”

She wavered. “I’ll call them.”

“No!” My shout came on too strong and I winced. “No, I’ll do it.” I tried to make it convincing, but she didn’t buy it.

“Hold him there, I’ve got this,” said Rebecca, her hand on the shop’s phone.

I exchanged a look with Kevin and let go of him. “Surprise! We’ve been practicing a routine for a community theater performance.”

He waved his hands. “We wanted to test it on a real audience.”

Rebecca’s mouth hung open and her eyelid twitched. “That’s…awesome! Good job. That was incredibly realistic.”

I high-fived Kevin. “That stage combat class paid off.”

It was true. We had enrolled in Stage Combat for Beginners in college for fun. We’d ended up getting pretty good at it and I had hoped Rebecca would jump in and peel Kevin off me, showing that she wasn’t afraid of getting her feet wet. Now I had to reconsider her as a suspect. If she had jumped in, she would have shown that she was comfortable with physical combat. Now that I saw she wasn’t, I couldn’t quite imagine Rebecca thrusting a knife into someone.

“You know who’d like your performance?” asked Rebecca. “Allen Leon. He was here earlier. Maybe you saw him.”

“The guy who came out of here ten minutes ago?” I asked.

Rebecca tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “No, he was here right before the Rodger thing. He had a plaid shirt and jeans on.”

I vaguely remembered seeing someone wearing a plaid shirt, eating ice cream in the corner and minding his own business.

“He’s a street performer. You should check him out.” Rebecca gave us a conspiratorial look. “Word on the street is that he owes Rodger a ton of money.”

We found Allen Leon juggling knives on the corner of a busy sidewalk. He was standing in the sand with the back of his neck burnt and peeling, facing the night crowd. A pirate’s hat lay by his feet, holding a couple of bills, some change, and a few seashells.

I lowered my sunglasses. “Can we ask you some questions about Rodger Becker?”

He kept his eyes on his knives. “I told the cops everything I know.”

“Did you tell them about the money you owe?” asked Kevin.

“Where did you hear that?” Allen’s face turned ashen and he missed a beat in his juggling. A knife slipped from his grip and I caught it.

“Around,” I said vaguely. “We’re trying to find out who stabbed Rodger earlier today. Do you know anything about that?”

Allen dropped all pretenses. “Listen, I’m not crazy. I just made some mistakes a few years ago.”

I tossed him the knife. “What did you do?”

Resuming his juggling, Allen shook his head. “Not here. Meet me at The Parrot Tree in ten minutes.”

He gave us directions and we headed over there. It was within walking distance, so we strolled along the beach as the sun set and the stars came out. Again, it struck me how different the idyllic setting would have felt a day ago.

Kevin scratched his chin like he always did when he had a question to ask. It wasn’t out of pretentiousness or from watching too many serious movies that he did it. It was more of an absentminded, unconscious move. It endeared him to me because he thought over his thoughts before speaking them. He was cautious, stable. Sturdy, steady. Dependable.

In all the time I’d known him, I’d never been caught off guard or surprised. I thought that was a good thing, but now I was reconsidering. Would something like Kevin being able to throw a simple surprise party have changed my feelings for him?

Kevin shoved his hands into his pockets. “What are you going to do?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You left everything behind. What’s on the road ahead?”

“I thought you were going to win me over,” I teased.

“I am.” He flashed me a wide smile before turning serious. “You’ve still got more decisions to be made, regardless of my part in your life. Your career is taking a U-turn.”

I shook my head. “It’s more like taking the scenic route.”

We passed a few shops, and a restaurant with palm trees painted on the exterior and bright lights covering the doorway came closer into view. “That’s got to be it,” I said, taking note of the outdoor seating with people laughing and toasting to a good time. We entered and got seated by the hostess without waiting. It was busy, but not filled to capacity.

The Parrot Tree was casual dining with a flair for excitement. Tables had been pushed back from the center of the place to make room for a dance floor. Loud music with a good beat was playing and if someone told me that the people dancing were professional dancers, I’d believe them in a heartbeat.

One guy who did a graceful backflip looked familiar and when I placed him, I laughed. Kevin gave me a funny look and I explained. “That’s Corey Davila. I didn’t expect that he would trade his police uniform for black stretchy pants and a gold top.”

“That guy’s got moves I couldn’t attempt in my wildest dreams,” Kevin observed. “You think he could give me some pointers?”

I grinned. “I think we need to sign up for a class of his.”

Silence fell when we realized that a class wasn’t in our future. Not as a couple, anyway. The waiter came to take our drink order and it was none other than Allen. I had been wondering how he’d show up. I thought he might have joined us, although I could see how taking an order would be more inconspicuous.

“Why the secrecy?” I asked.

Allen relaxed into an easy grin. “I like to take precautions. What do you want to know?”

“What do you know about Rodger Becker?”

“Becker and I go way back — just not in a high school buddies kind of way. Plus, he’s like twenty-five years older than me.” Allen glanced around the room. “When I was eighteen, I planned on moving to L.A. and pursuing acting. That dream got postponed when my friends and I were hanging around at an empty building one windy night. I was playing with a lighter I had. Flicking it on and off soothed me for some reason.