A Burned Out Baker: Classic Diner Mystery #7 (The Classic Diner Mysteries) (12 page)

My grandfather shrugged. “I don’t suppose it will hurt to tell you. Sam’s granddaughter needed an operation, and her folks couldn’t afford it. Sam offered to pay, but the bank wouldn’t let him take out another mortgage on his house or his shop, so he did the only thing he could think of; he went to Cliff.”

“That’s terrible,” I said.

“What, that he borrowed money from a loan shark?”

“No, that his granddaughter needed an operation. How is she now?”

My grandfather grinned at me. “She’s doing fine, the last I heard,” he said.

“That’s good. At least it was worth it.”

“It’s not up to us to say whether it was one way or the other.”

I studied Moose a moment before I spoke. “You would have done the same thing for me, wouldn’t you?”

“Victoria, there’s nothing that I wouldn’t do to make you well if you were sick, as long as it was in my power.”

“Right back at you,” I said with a smile. To my grandfather, and to me as well, our family was everything.

When we pulled up in front of Sam’s place, my grandfather frowned.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“That’s not Sam’s car,” he said as we slowly got out of the truck.

“That’s right,” a voice said from the shadows of the deck. “It belongs to me.”

I looked at where the voice had come from and saw Cliff Pearson moving toward us, and from his expression, it appeared that he wasn’t all that surprised to see us there at all.

“You were expecting someone else?” Cliff asked us as he reached us. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

“What are you doing here?” Moose asked him, taking a step forward as though he were trying to shield me from the loan shark. “Where’s Sam?”

“What do you think I’m doing here? Sam called me, of course.” I had some seriously dark thoughts about the ice cream man at that moment, but before I could speak, Cliff continued, “Don’t blame him. It’s one of the requirements that I ask of all my friends.”

“Is that what you call your victims?” I asked him heatedly.

Cliff studied me for a moment before he spoke, and I could feel the anger radiate in the man’s gaze. “I don’t make anyone come to me. They all do it of their own free will.”

“When there’s nowhere else for them to go, maybe,” I said.

“Then thank goodness that I’m there, right? Victoria, you just said it yourself. What would they do without me?”

“And you help them all out of the goodness of your heart, is that what you’re saying?” Moose asked him pointedly.

“I’m a businessman,” Cliff said with a shrug. “I deserve a return on my investment, just like a bank does.”

“Maybe so, but I’m willing to bet that your return is a lot higher than theirs,” I said.

“Have you ever looked at a bank’s year-end report? They make me look like an amateur.”

“We’re not here to debate the morality of your business,” Moose said. “We’re looking for a killer.”

“I told you before, I didn’t kill anybody.”

“And yet we don’t believe you,” I said. “Shocking, isn’t it?”

“I’ve had about enough out of you, Victoria,” he said as he raised one bony finger and pointed it straight at my heart.

I started to reply when Moose put a hand in the air. As much as it went against my nature, I decided to keep my comments to myself, at least for now.

“Let’s keep this civil, shall we?” Moose asked him. “Cliff, why are you here?”

“I told you to leave me and my business alone when you dropped in at the bowling alley. Surely you haven’t forgotten our conversation so soon.”

“We remember it,” Moose said. “But that doesn’t mean that we agreed to do anything you requested.”

“I can see that,” he said. “I’m a fair man, no matter what you two might think. I’m willing to give you one last warning to butt out. This is it. The next time you hear from me, it won’t be nearly so pleasant for either one of you. Do I make myself clear?”

“We understand what you’re saying. Now you need to listen to me. If you raise a finger against me, my granddaughter, or any member of my family for that matter, there’s no place you can hide that I won’t find you, and you won’t like it when I do.”

He shrugged slightly, and then Cliff Pearson said, “That’s all that I came to say to you.” He walked past us, and he was close enough for me to smell the expensive cologne he was wearing before he got into his car and drove away.

I hadn’t realized that I was holding my breath until he was gone. “That was intense,” I said.

Moose shrugged. “I’ve dealt with bullies before. The only way to respond to them is to not back down.”

“What if he calls your bluff?” I asked my grandfather as we got back into his truck.

“Who said I was bluffing?” Moose replied, and we drove mostly in silence for a few miles.

If war had just been declared, I liked our odds. After all, we had Moose on our side, and that man was a force of nature, especially when he was angry.

I just hoped that it didn’t come to that.

Our lives were, for the most part, peaceful and tranquil, and I hated the thought of anything intruding on that. Then again, I knew in my heart that Moose was right.

If we let one bully back us down from our investigation with a threat, then we might as well not even dig into the crimes that occurred around us.

And that was something that I absolutely would not stop, at least not as long as me, or any member of my family, was in danger in any way, shape, or form.

“Where are we going now?” I asked Moose.

“I thought we could swing by the diner,” my grandfather said.

“I doubt that we’re going to find any clues there,” I said.

“Who said anything about looking for clues? I thought we might catch lunch.”

It had been quite a while since breakfast, but we needed to solve this murder as soon as possible. “Can we really afford to take time off to eat?”

He looked at me askance as he drove. “Victoria, we’re not going to be able to do ourselves any good at all if we’re starving. Besides, I think better on a full stomach, don’t you?”

“There’s not much that I don’t do better when I’m full,” I admitted.

“So then, a quick bite it is.”

“And after that?” I asked him.

“Then it’s straight back to crime fighting, I promise.”

It would be good to see Greg again, if only for a few minutes. I was spoiled, and I knew it. Most married couples didn’t get to see each other during the workday, and that was one of the reasons that I loved running The Charming Moose. It didn’t hurt that my husband was one of the best grill jockeys in the county, and that he was usually never more than a few steps away from where I was working.

“Okay, that should be acceptable. After all, I could eat something right about now,” I conceded.

“That’s my girl,” he said, and a few minutes later, we pulled into the diner parking lot.

We didn’t quite make it inside before someone approached us, though.

It appeared that lunch was going to have to wait after all.

“Sam, what are you doing here?” Moose asked the ice cream man as he approached us.

“I had to come by and apologize,” the older man said as he looked at us in turn. “I didn’t want to call Cliff, but I really didn’t have any choice.”

“It’s okay, Sam,” Moose said. “We understand.”

“How’s your granddaughter doing?” I asked him.

Sam glanced quickly over at Moose. “You told her?”

“It came up in conversation,” my grandfather answered.

“I wish you hadn’t said anything,” Sam replied solemnly.

“Yeah, well, there are a lot of things that I wish for.”

Sam just shrugged, and then he turned to me. “She’s going to be fine. Victoria, I know what you must think of me, but I didn’t really have any choice.”

I leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “I think it’s wonderful what you did for her.”

Sam blushed a little from the attention, but he looked pleased nonetheless. “Well, I just hope that I can pay Cliff off soon.”

“Is there anything we can do to help?” I asked.

“No, but thanks for offering. Anyway, I just wanted to tell you both that I was sorry.”

Moose put a meaty hand on Sam’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. See you later.”

“See you,” Sam said, and then he left.

“I feel bad for him,” I said after he was gone.

“He’s a big boy, Victoria. He knew what he was doing when he called Cliff Pearson. I feel for him, too, but we can’t take on his problems, or anyone else’s. We’ve got enough of our own, don’t you think?”

I nodded, and then I heard yelling coming from inside the diner. “What do you suppose that’s all about?”

“I don’t know, but there’s only one way to find out,” my grandfather said as he pulled the door open and we walked inside.

The last two women on earth I would have expected to be in The Charming Moose were there. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. I was sure that I could come up with an odder pair than the ones we found screaming at each other, but it was still a pretty odd couple. Sandy Hardesty and Susan Proctor, the two most recent women in Barry Jackson’s life, were standing toe-to-toe yelling at each other at the tops of their lungs. Martha stood helplessly by watching them, and Greg looked relieved when we showed up.

“What’s going on here?” I asked as I took my life into my own hands by stepping between them.

“Ask her,” Susan yelled at me. “She’s the one who started it.”

“Me? What did I do?” Sandy asked loudly. “You’re the one who interrupted my meal.” The women were two studies in contrasts. Susan was in her mid-thirties, a lovely wisp of a redhead with pale, almost luminescent skin, whereas Sandy was easily ten years younger, a tall curvy blonde with warm blue eyes. How had Barry Jackson managed to attract these women? Personally, I didn’t see it, and I thought each woman could do much better than they’d done choosing Barry.

I looked around and saw that they were attracting quite a bit of attention from our customers. “If you two can’t keep your voices down, I’m going to have to ask you both to take this outside.”

“Why should I leave?” Susan asked. “She’s the one who started it.”

“And I’m going to finish it, too,” Sandy replied with fierce determination.

“Okay, ladies, let’s go,” Moose said as he gently put a hand on each shoulder. As he started walking them toward the door, I raced ahead and opened it for them.

Once we were all outside, Moose asked, “Now, what seems to be the problem?”

Sandy pointed to Susan. “Ask
her
. She stole Barry from me, and now he’s dead, so he’ll never get the chance to realize what a mistake he made and come back to me.”

“He could have lived a thousand years, and that still never would have happened,” Susan said. “He got tired of being with a girl, so he decided what he needed was a woman in his life.”

“An old woman at that,” Sandy said snidely.

“At least I had more to offer him than a few curves and a girl’s naiveté.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sandy asked her.

“Look it up. It’s in the dictionary.”

“I know the definition of the word, you old hag,” Sandy said.

“Then why did you ask me?” Susan asked. “You know what? I’m done with you. Suddenly I’ve lost my appetite.”

“Go on and go, then. It’s not like anybody’s going to miss you.”

Susan stared at her a moment, and then she started to walk off. On the spur of the moment, I called out, “Wait up, Susan. I’d like to chat with you a second.”

I glanced back at Moose as I hurried to catch up to Susan and pointed him in Sandy’s direction. Maybe he’d be able to get something out of her, if there was anything there in that shallow puddle of a girl.

“What do you want, Victoria?” Susan asked me impatiently. “I have to get to work.”

“This will just take a second,” I said.

“Go on, then,” she said reluctantly.

“When Moose and I told you what happened to Barry, you had a pretty decent fire going.”

“So what?” she asked.

“Were you burning anything more than branches and old paper?”

Susan looked at me oddly. “What business could that possibly be of yours?”

“I just found it curious, that’s all,” I said.

“That’s going to get you into trouble someday, you know that, don’t you?”

“What’s that?”

“Your curiosity.”

“Aren’t you going to answer my question?” I asked her as she turned and walked away.

Evidently not.

Well, that had turned out to be a big bust.

Hopefully Moose was having more luck with Sandy.

When I got back to where I’d left them, I realized that the answer to that was probably not, since Sandy was gone, too.

“Well, at least we both struck out,” I said as I rejoined my grandfather.

“What are you talking about?”

“Moose, don’t try to tell me that you got more out of Sandy than I got out of Susan.”

“Which was?” he asked.

“Nothing. Zilch. Nada.”

“Then I managed to do a little better than you did,” Moose said smugly.

“Tell me what you got,” I asked.

“Sandy dropped a real bombshell before she left.”

“What did she say, Moose?”

“She told me that a woman in Parker Ridge is claiming that she’s pregnant with Barry’s child. How’s that for new information?”

“You’re not serious,” I said.

“I don’t think Sandy was lying to me,” Moose said. “This could change everything.”

“No kidding,” I replied. “Who is this mystery woman?”

“That’s where it gets a little sticky,” Moose said. “It’s Natalie Dixon.”

I had a sinking feeling in my gut. “Don’t tell me she’s related to Holly Dixon.”

“I won’t, but it’s true nonetheless. Natalie is the judge’s granddaughter.”

“We have to talk to her, Moose,” I said.

“Don’t you think I know that? Natalie could be our chief suspect now.”

I looked hard at my grandfather. “I’m not talking about Natalie, and you know it.”

“Oh, no,” Moose said. “Don’t even say it. My wife is still pretty upset with me that Holly came by the diner to see me.”

“How about if I talk to Martha for you?” I offered. My grandmother might not kill me if I told her the news.