The Crêpes of Wrath: A Pancake House Mystery (6 page)

The exhausting emotional toll of the day served me well by sending me off to sleep soon after I shut my eyes that night, saving me from further thoughts about its unpleasant events. When my alarm woke me the following morning, I didn’t get up right away, instead enjoying the warmth of my bed and the comfort of a purring Flapjack nuzzled up against my shoulder.

Eventually, reality encroached upon my sleep-hazed cocoon, reminding me of Cousin Jimmy’s death, the murder investigation, and the stolen paintings. My bed no longer the haven it had been a moment before, I wriggled free of Flapjack and threw back my covers. The chill of the morning seeped through my skin and chased me the rest of the way out of bed.

After a quick shower, I wrapped myself in a towel and stared morosely out my bedroom window at the dark world outside. With my spirits as heavy as a leaden blanket, I forced myself into action, pulling on my favorite jeans and sorting through my collection of graphic tees before choosing a purple one with a stylized seahorse on the front.

One of the perks of working at the pancake house was that I could dress my favorite way—casually. Dressing professionally for my job in Seattle wasn’t a terrible chore, but I always shed those clothes as soon as I arrived home at the end of each day. I much preferred wearing jeans and a T-shirt, with a hoodie over them for extra warmth if needed.

When I’d first spoken to Jimmy on the phone about taking over The Flip Side temporarily, he’d assured me that I didn’t need to dress up at all for the job. For my first day at the restaurant I’d worn black pants and a sweater, not sure if the townsfolk would really appreciate me showing up in casual wear. It hadn’t taken me long to feel overdressed, and the next day I’d switched to my favorite jeans and a gray T-shirt with a silver embossed skull on the front. I’d immediately felt like I fit in better and I appreciated the fact that I could be myself while taking care of The Flip Side. Soon I’d have to go back to office attire, but while in Wildwood Cove I planned to enjoy the more informal work atmosphere.

Once dressed, I tamed my tangled curls and put out some food for Flapjack. Realizing that it was already nearing six o’clock, I decided to have my breakfast at The Flip Side.

The sun wasn’t up yet, and while there was some light showing in the sky, the beach was shrouded in darkness. I’d quickly learned to keep a small flashlight in my tote bag and now used it to light my way across the sand. Waves crashed nearby, but otherwise everything was still and quiet.

A few minutes later I reached the promenade, dimly lit by a nearby streetlamp. I traded my flashlight for my keys and let myself into the pancake house. While the dining area was mostly a jumble of shadows and dim shapes, light spilled out of the kitchen, allowing me to find the main switch with ease. Through the window to the kitchen, I spotted Ivan hard at work and I raised a hand in greeting. I knew he’d likely been there for a couple of hours already, preparing the batter and toppings for all the delicious breakfasts he would cook up in the hours to come.

As I carried on toward the office, my thoughts remained with Ivan. Ever since his last assistant had quit to move to Colorado with her fiancé, Ivan had been putting in extra hours to keep up with the restaurant’s demands. He arrived by four each morning and was sometimes still in the kitchen when I left the pancake house in the mid to late afternoon.

Although Ivan never uttered one word of complaint, he couldn’t be expected to shoulder such a workload for long. As soon as the chef’s last assistant had left, Jimmy had started the process of finding a new employee. From his hospital bed, and with Ivan’s input, he’d narrowed the applicants down to three candidates. In accordance with Jimmy’s instructions, I’d scheduled interviews for all of them, interviews that were supposed to take place the next day.

Dropping my tote bag on the floor by the desk and plunking myself down in the swivel chair, I wondered what the heck I was supposed to do about the interviews now. Cancel them? Reschedule? Go ahead with them?

I slumped back in the chair and rubbed my forehead. At the moment, I had no idea what would happen to the pancake house down the line, but for now at least The Flip Side would remain open for business and Ivan needed help in the kitchen. So I decided to go ahead with the interviews. Future business-related developments would have to be dealt with when they arose.

With that decision made, I left the office and set about preparing the dining area for the day. It was strange and sad knowing that Jimmy wouldn’t take over the restaurant’s reins ever again, but the familiar morning routine distracted me from my grief and brought me a measure of comfort. As I worked, Ivan came out of the kitchen, scowling at me.

“Didn’t think you’d be here today,” he said, his voice gruff.

I couldn’t tell whether he disapproved of my presence or was simply making a statement. “I’d like to keep busy,” I said, a freshly filled napkin dispenser in my hands.

His dark eyes drilled into me for an unnerving second. Then he nodded once and disappeared back into the kitchen. It took another second or two for me to recover from the encounter, but I shook it off as best I could and continued on with my preparations.

Leigh arrived a half hour later, rushing in through the front door, dark rings under her eyes.

“Car still not working?” I guessed as the door shut behind her, blocking out the chilly, damp air.

“Greg thinks it needs a new battery,” she said, referring to her husband.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” I knew as well as anyone how expensive cars could be to fix and I suspected that Leigh and her husband weren’t exactly rolling in money.

She headed for the break room, taking off her jacket on the way. As she disappeared into the back hallway, I thought I glimpsed a shimmer of tears in her hazel eyes. Concerned, I set down the bottle of syrup I had in my hand and followed her into the break room.

“Leigh? Are you okay?” I asked as she hung her jacket in her locker.

Tears spilling from her eyes, she sank down into the nearest chair and dropped her face into her hands. Alarmed, I hurried to her side and put a hand on her back.

“What’s wrong? Is this about Jimmy?”

Leigh let out a long, shuddering breath and raised her head, wiping at the tear tracks on her cheeks. “In a way.”

I waited as she grabbed a tissue from the box on the windowsill and dabbed at her smeared mascara. Her lower lip trembled, but she closed her eyes and took another deep breath.

“The sheriff thinks I killed Jimmy.”

“What?” I stared at her, dumbfounded.

“Ridiculous.”

The growled word came from behind me and nearly sent my heart jumping out of my throat. Ivan stood in the doorway, taking up the entire space with his bulky frame, his face set in an even deeper scowl than usual.

Leigh wiped at a fresh tear with her crumpled, mascara-streaked tissue. “The sheriff doesn’t think it’s ridiculous. According to him, I had motive and opportunity.”

I grabbed a chair and sat down. “But that’s crazy.”

Ivan nodded his agreement from the doorway.

“The sheriff told me that Jimmy left fifty thousand dollars each to me and Ivan in his will.”

“He thinks you killed Jimmy for money?” Ivan’s thunderous question boomed through the small room. His level of disbelief matched my own.

“I didn’t. I swear.” Leigh’s eyes glistened with desperation as well as tears.

“Of course you didn’t.” I rubbed her back but then stilled my hand as I recalled her earlier words. “He thinks you had motive
and
opportunity? But you were here all morning.”

“I was late, remember?”

“Sure, but you walked your kids to day care. Didn’t anyone else see you there?”

“I exchanged hellos with a couple of other parents, but it’s the time between leaving the day care and arriving here that’s the problem.”

“That should have only taken fifteen minutes or so on foot. Surely Sheriff Georgeson can’t think that was enough time to kill Jimmy, especially since your car wasn’t working.”

“Except it took me half an hour, and I could have intentionally drained the car’s battery afterward to make it look like it wasn’t working that day.”

Ivan muttered a curse under his breath, one that summed up my own opinion of that theory.

Leigh wiped at another tear. “And Greg can’t vouch for the fact that the battery was dead because he left the house before I tried starting the car that morning.”

I focused on her earlier words. “Why did it take you half an hour to get here?”

“I was only five minutes away when a car drove through a big puddle and splashed me. I was completely soaked through to my skin, so I ran home to change before coming here.”

“But somebody must have seen you.”

Leigh shook her head, fresh tears escaping her eyes. “The fog was too thick. I don’t think the driver of the car even saw me.”

My shoulders sagged as I realized she was right. The dense fog had shrouded the entire town for hours that morning. Even Leigh’s neighbors wouldn’t have been able to see her coming and going from her house.

Leigh dropped her head into her hands again. “What am I going to do?”

I put a hand on her back as she sobbed. When I glanced Ivan’s way, he took a step back into the hallway.

“Coffee,” he said gruffly.

He strode off toward the kitchen, but not before I caught a fleeting glimpse of a crack in his usual glower. Although the set of his jaw never changed, the sternness in his eyes had softened, just for a split second. As fierce and intimidating as the chef was, I knew then that Ivan truly cared for Leigh.

Returning my attention to the distraught waitress, I gave her back a comforting pat. “Everything will be all right, Leigh.”

She raised her tear-streaked face. “Will it? I’ve got kids to take care of. I can’t go to jail.”

“You’re not going to jail,” I said firmly. “You know you’re innocent and I know you’re innocent. Somehow we’ll figure out how to prove it. I promise.”

As Leigh gave me a tremulous but grateful smile, I sincerely hoped that was a promise I could keep.

Once Leigh had cleaned herself up and Ivan had supplied her with a cup of hot coffee, I ensconced myself in the office, determined to deal with some of the most pressing paperwork before we opened for business. Focusing wasn’t an easy task, but I forced myself to buckle down and get to work. Whatever would happen to The Flip Side now that Jimmy was gone, I was determined that the business wouldn’t suffer because of any action or inaction on my part.

After I’d taken care of some unpaid invoices and made a phone call to one of The Flip Side’s suppliers, I pushed back my chair and glanced at the clock on the wall. The time had ticked past seven o’clock as I worked and I knew the first customers of the day would arrive soon, if they hadn’t already. Yet, instead of getting up and joining Leigh in the dining area, I sat back and closed my eyes, finally letting my thoughts stray away from business matters.

I didn’t want to question Leigh about Jimmy and remind her of her predicament while she was working, but maybe I could start by asking Ivan the same questions. Not that I relished the idea of seeking answers from the burly chef, but now that I knew he had a softer side somewhere beneath all those muscles and tattoos, I wasn’t quite as scared of him.

I was about to get up out of my chair when Brett appeared in the open doorway.

“Morning,” he greeted with a brief smile.

“Morning,” I returned, my heart giving a little skip.

“Got a minute?”

“Sure.” I shut off the computer monitor. “What’s up?”

The remains of his smile faded away as he leaned his shoulder against the doorframe. “I came by to see how you’re holding up. Yesterday…that couldn’t have been easy.”

I swallowed against a sudden welling of emotion, clasping my hands in my lap as a way to control the resurgence of grief. “It wasn’t easy,” I said once I had my emotions in check, “but I’m doing all right. Did you hear that your uncle thinks Jimmy was murdered?” I didn’t bother to add that Leigh was his prime suspect.

Brett gave a grim nod. “I wondered if that would be the case.”

“Why? What made you think that?”

He hesitated.

“Something to do with Jimmy’s body?” I guessed.

He nodded again. “There was blood on the back of his shirt and two slits in the fabric. They could have been from the rocks, but they were both similar in size. That made me wonder if he’d been stabbed.”

So Jimmy could have been killed before he went over the cliff. The blood wasn’t necessarily the result of him hitting rocks on his way down, as I’d assumed. I didn’t know which scenario was worse. Maybe they were equally bad.

“I guess that’s what tipped your uncle off right away too,” I said. “Did you notice the glitter on Jimmy’s shirt?”

“Glitter? No.”

“It probably doesn’t mean anything.”

I stared at a spot on the desk, trying to stop my imagination from conjuring up vivid images of Cousin Jimmy getting stabbed in the back.

Brett glanced over his shoulder. “I also came to introduce you to someone. If she ever decides to show up.”

He stepped back out of the office doorway. Curious, I got up out of my chair as he waved to someone out in the dining area. A woman in her mid-twenties came down the hall to join us, tugging a cardigan on over her aquamarine top as she approached. Her golden hair cascaded over her shoulders, and when she drew closer, I noticed that her eyes were a similar shade of blue to Brett’s.

“You couldn’t have waited for me?” she said to Brett when she arrived.

“You were taking too long,” he replied.

The young woman harrumphed, but the bright smile on her face gave away the fact that she wasn’t really annoyed.

“My sister, Chloe,” Brett said.

“Younger sister,” Chloe added, getting an eye roll out of Brett. “
Much
younger.”

She opened her arms and I accepted her hug.

“I’m so happy to meet you,” she said as she drew back. Her bright smile faltered. “Of course, I wish it were under better circumstances. I’m so sorry about Jimmy.”