Thai Coconut Murder: Book 6 in The Darling Deli Series (7 page)

“That’s what we love to hear.” The young woman beamed at her, then turned her attention to her notepad. “Will that be together or separate?”

“Together,” David said, just as Moira was reaching for her purse.

“Oh, you don’t have to,” she told him. “I got all those cherries…”

“I want to,” he told her, laying his hand gently over hers for a moment. “As a thank you for coming with me, and everything you’ve done for me over the past few weeks.”

“Thanks,” she told him, touched by his appreciation and at a loss for what else to say. “But you don’t need to thank me… I’m happy to go to the cabin with you and help out however I can with this case.”

“I know,” he told her. He handed the waitress a few bills, which she took up to the register. “But I need some way to show my appreciation, and you’re a hard woman to buy things for.”

“Well, thank you,” she told him with a smile, blushing slightly from his compliments. “I really do appreciate it.”

The waitress reappeared with the change and a bag for the cherries. She thanked them again and cleared their plates. Determined to pay for
something
, Moira reached into her purse and pulled out a few bills for the tip before David could separate the change that the waitress had given him. He chuckled, but didn’t say anything as she put the money down.

“Let’s hit the road,” she said.

The last half of the drive seemed to take much longer to Moira, probably because she didn’t fall asleep for any of it. As they got farther up north, the towns gradually got smaller and farther apart. The highway ended, and David began navigating smaller roads, some of which weren’t even paved. She was surprised that he knew the way so well—he didn’t even glance at a map.
How many times has he been up here?
she wondered. He never really talked about his past much, and she never pushed it. She knew firsthand what it was like to have periods in life that weren’t very fun to think back on. Thinking about the years she had wasted on her ex-husband was never pleasant, and she was grateful that David never asked her very much about that. She would extend the same courtesy towards him.

“Is that the town the cabin is in?” she asked, nodding to a small, beat up sign that said
North Lake—10 miles.

“The cabin is a few miles north of town, but yes. We should be there in about twenty minutes.”

She was relieved to hear that; her back was starting to cramp from sitting for so long and she was eager to get out, stretch, and walk around. Hopefully this trip wasn’t in vain, and they would manage to find helpful clues about Henry’s true fate somewhere in the cabin that he had spent so much time in.

The town of North Lake was tiny, nothing like Maple Creek or Lake Marion which, while small, were relatively prosperous tourist towns. North Lake appeared to have only two stores: a bait shop that doubled as a convenience store, and a two-pump gas station, where David filled up before driving the last few miles to the cabin. Moira kept her eyes peeled for a motel, knowing that they would need to find one before driving back to Maple Creek the next day, but she didn’t see anything that looked promising. It looked like they would have find one on their way back.

It was late afternoon by the time they finally pulled up the cabin’s long driveway. David parked the car and rolled the windows down. The only sounds were those that she had come to expect from Michigan’s forests: cicadas, birds, and the occasional angry chatter of a squirrel. She traded a glance with him, and was surprised to see that the private investigator looked uneasy.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Are you worried that someone might be here?”

“No. It’s just odd to be here without Henry. It looks like no one has been here in a while; the yard is overgrown, and it looks like the gutters are full. And look at the roof of the garage. A tree is leaning against it and causing damage. He was always careful to take good care of his things, so I doubt it would look like this if he had been here all winter like his granddaughter told us,” he said.

“I’m glad Candice is out of her apartment and away from that toy shop, at least for a few days,” Moira replied, shivering. The thought of the shopkeeper murdering her grandfather was horrifying.

“Let’s go in,” David said, grabbing his keys. “I want to check out the inside of the house.”

Inside the small cabin it was dark and stuffy. A layer of dust covered everything and the curtains were drawn shut. It had the feel of a house that hadn’t been lived in for a very long time. A few dark pellets on the floor suggested mice, and the stack of wood next to the wood burning stove looked untouched. There was a pile of mail on the small kitchen table, and a stack of unread newspapers next to it.

“If he hasn’t been here, who brought in the mail?” she asked.

“One of his neighbors does it for him. I think she comes by once a week, brings it in, and checks the house to make sure there haven’t been any leaks or break-ins,” he said.

“Should we ask her if she’s seen him at all in the past few months?”

“We’ll do that next.” He looked around the small space. “I want to make sure there’s nothing helpful here, first.”

He pulled open one of the curtains, letting the afternoon sunlight in, and Moira joined him at the table to help him sort through the mail. Most of it was what she considered junk mail—advertisements for internet and cable services, coupons for chain restaurants, and credit card offers. There were only a few envelopes that were addressed to Henry Atkins specifically, and the address was written in shaky cursive handwriting. The return address named a town that she vaguely remembered passing through a few hours ago.

“If I had to bet,” he told her, “I would say these are the rent checks that Henry hasn’t been cashing.”

“I don’t understand why he would have his renters send the checks here,” she said. “It would have been so much easier for him to cash them if they were sent to his address in Maple Creek.”

“I’m not sure why he chose to have his tenants send the checks to the cabin either. He must have had a good reason—but chances are, that reason died with him. We may never know,” he said.

They spent the rest of the afternoon going through Henry’s house and the pole barn, looking for anything that might prove that he had been there over the winter. The water had been turned off and the pipes emptied so they didn’t freeze over the winter, and the refrigerator was unplugged and hanging open. In the pole barn, a variety of boats were stored off the ground on trailers and stands. They were also full of dust and cobwebs and didn’t look like they had been used recently.

They took one last look around the property as darkness fell. With his flashlight illuminating the forest edges, David led the way. The path through the brush that led to the lake was mostly overgrown. David sighed and turned to face her, careful not to let the light shine in her eyes.

“Let’s call it a night,” he said. “The more I see, the more it seems like he hasn’t been here in a long time. I keep hoping I’ll see some clue that he really was up here earlier this year, but I haven’t found a single thing that might prove that Alice wasn’t lying.”

“Do you think she really killed him?” Moira asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t want it to be true, but it does look very suspicious that she’s been lying about his whereabouts for months.” He sighed, and she realized that he looked exhausted.
Well of course he does
, she chided herself.
He drove for six hours, and then spent the rest of the day going through his dead friend’s belongings.

“We should find a motel,” she said. “We can come back in the morning if you want to spend more time looking around the property.”

“I think we’re done here, but I do want to ask the neighbor that brings in the mail if she’s seen him.” He covered a yawn, then continued, “We’ll do that tomorrow, though. A motel sounds great right about now.”

Feeling bad for not taking a turn at driving earlier, Moira volunteered to drive them to the nearest motel, which her phone said was about twenty minutes east of town. The got a pizza on the way, and the scents of garlic and cheese filled the car as they drove, making her stomach rumble with hunger.

The motel was tiny, but the woman at the desk was friendly and gave them a good price on two rooms across from each other. Moira followed David to his room and set the pizza on the table. The grabbed a few paper towels and settled down to their impromptu meal. It had been a long time since she had eaten pizza, and the gooey, cheesy slice was almost unbelievably good.

A few minutes later, full and sleepy, she bade the detective good night, grabbed her overnight bag from the car, and went to her own room. Lying between the sheets, she felt sleep tugging at her.
I really should check in with Candice and see how the deli is doing
, she thought. She stared at her phone, which was charging on the nightstand. The thought of leaving her warm cocoon and getting up to grab it seemed like far too much effort.
I’ll call them in the morning,
she thought.
Besides, if anything had gone wrong, they surely would have called by now.

She woke up too hot, and threw the blankets off herself. It seemed the motel either didn’t have air conditioning or it was broken. Feeling gross from the too-warm morning and the long day of traveling the day before, she opted to take a quick shower before checking in on things back home.

The water pressure was good, and there seemed to be an infinite supply of warm water, so she ended up staying under the spray for longer than she had meant to. When she got out and finally checked her phone, she saw that she had missed a call from Candice.

“Hey Mom, it’s me,” the message began. “I hope you’re having fun up north. Everything is going super well here. Maverick seems to miss you, but he liked his walk last night. The deli was really busy yesterday, but everything went smoothly. I’ve got some exciting news, though. Call me back! Drive safe… bye.”

She called her daughter back right away, but only got her voice mail. She glanced at the clock and saw that her daughter would already be at the deli, and was probably just starting her shift. It would be hours before she checked her phone again. Moira left a quick message, letting her daughter know that her trip was going well, and asking her to call her back when she got the chance. She hung up, thankful that things back home seemed to be going smoothly. After quickly getting dressed and tying her wet hair back, she went to find David and see what their plans were for the day.

“There it is,” the private investigator said as they approached a driveway a mile down the road from Henry’s cabin. “The neighbor’s name is Beth. I’ve only met her once, so she may not be willing to help us, but we can at least give it a try.”

They parked next to a dilapidated Oldsmobile. David left the car running as he strode toward the porch. Moira hung a few steps back, feeling outside her comfort zone. She wasn’t used to walking so boldly up to a stranger’s house, and felt oddly like she was trespassing. She supposed David must be used to it. He had to talk to a lot of people, not all of them pleasant, in his line of work.

“Yes?” said the elderly woman who opened the door at his knock. “Can I help you?”

“My name is David Morris,” he told her. “I don’t know if you remember, but we met once before, a few years ago…”

“Oh, yes, I remember, dearie. Come on in. How are you?”

They followed the old woman inside, Moira introducing herself quickly, hoping the invitation inside had been meant for both of them. Beth just smiled and shook her hand.

“It’s such a pleasure to meet you,” she said. The deli owner realized with a start that chances were this woman didn’t know that Henry had passed away.
She had probably known him for years
, she thought. Suddenly she wished that she had stayed in the car.

“Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?” David asked, professional now that the introductions were out of the way.

“Of course, go right ahead. And here, take a seat.” She ushered them to the kitchen, where she pulled out an antique stool for herself. Moira and David joined her at the table, David taking the cup of tea she offered him. Moira refused politely, unwilling to make any more work for the woman.

“Do you know if Henry came up here at all this winter?” he asked once she was settled.

“No… no, I don’t think he did. I felt bad because I couldn’t bring his mail in as often as I usually do. This is a seasonal road you know, so we have to plow it ourselves. Anyway, whenever I did stop by to check up on the cabin, there was never any sign of anyone else. The mail pile just kept growing, too.” She took a small sip of her tea, then set it down. “I don’t blame him for not wanting to make the drive this year; we’re both getting old, you know, and the cold weather just makes your joints ache when you get to be our age.”

“How did he seem the last time you spoke to him? Was he worried about anything at all?”

“Let me think… oh, he was actually a little bit concerned about his granddaughter. He said he wanted to get her out of Maple Creek, and was hoping that she would agree to move up here later this year. There’s a pretty little cottage down the road that’s for sale; he was thinking of buying it for her.” She hesitated, concern coming into her eyes for the first time. “Is something wrong, dear? Why ask all these questions about Henry?”

“I’m very sorry to tell you this, Beth.” David took a deep breath. “Henry passed away. His funeral was last week.”

“Oh my goodness.” The elderly woman gazed at David as if she didn’t want to believe him. “Poor, dear Henry. What happened to him?”

“The official report is that he drowned, likely in some sort of boating or fishing accident.”

“Do you think something else happened?” she asked. “The way you say ‘official,’ it doesn’t sound like you completely believe it.”

“At first it was just gut instinct,” the private investigator admitted. “Henry was always so careful and smart about being out on the water; after what happened to his cousin when he was younger, I just can’t see him doing something reckless out on the lake that would have gotten him killed.” He paused. “And a few more things came to light that made me think his death may not have been as accidental as it seemed. I don’t think I should mention the details right now though, not until we’re sure.”