Death Before Decaf (6 page)

After surveying the kitchen at Java Jive, I started to think that it wouldn't have been such a bad thing to have Pete here to help. The place was a freaking nightmare. There was grease and grime
everywhere
. Donning an apron, I decided to start at the top and work my way down. Armed with bleach (a
lot
of bleach), rags, sponges, buckets, mops, gloves, and a putty knife, I went to work. I scraped an eighth of an inch of black, greasy grime out from under the entire range hood. It obviously hadn't been cleaned in over a year, probably right around the time that George started having health problems. I was pissed that his workers slacked off when they weren't under his watchful eye.

The phone rang. I took off my gloves and hurried to the office to answer it. “Java Jive, this is Juliet.”

“Ah! Just the woman I wanted to speak to. Don Wolfe here, from the
Nashville Gazette
.” Uh-oh. A reporter was calling to speak to me? Maybe he wanted to do a story about Java Jive's change in management. Yeah, right, that was what he'd want to talk about after a murder had occurred here yesterday.

I took a breath to calm my nerves. “Hello, Don.”

“You certainly had some excitement there yesterday, didn't you?”

He sounded so chipper, speaking so flippantly about a person's tragic death, it angered me. “That's a rude way to speak about someone passing away.”

“Oh, now, don't get hot under the collar, darlin',” he said in a twangy, thick Southern accent. “I just want to tell your side of the story.”

I was pretty sure that Detective Cromwell wouldn't appreciate me blabbing to the media about Dave's murder. “I don't think I should. Thanks for calling.”

“Oh, come on. You can tell little old me. I can give you your fifteen minutes of fame.” This guy was a total sleazeball.

“I don't want my fifteen minutes, especially over this!” I cried, horrified that he would say something so callous.

“Now, Juliet, don't be hasty. The
Gazette
might even be able to offer you some kind of incentive for giving us an exclusive.”

“You're a vulture. The answer is no.”

He tried a different tactic. “You have to speak to me by law. It's in the First Amendment.”

I knew the First Amendment, and nowhere did it say that people had to speak to overbearing reporters. What an idiot. “No, it is not. Here, I'll prove it.” I hung up on him.

The phone rang and rang incessantly after that, so I turned the ringer off and let the calls go to voicemail.

Moving on, I took my aggression out by scouring the countertops, food prep surfaces, and the grill. Nasty. I hated to think ill of the dead, but Dave really did a shitty job of keeping the kitchen maintained. There were a couple of burners out on the stove, and the small refrigerator where the sandwich toppings were kept (lettuce, tomato, pickle, et cetera) wouldn't cool below forty-five degrees. Perishable foods that are not kept under forty degrees can and do breed bacteria. I was shocked that none of our customers had complained of getting food poisoning. I called a repair company and then cleaned out the fridge, tossing its contents. Luckily there was a food delivery tomorrow that would restock the waste.

In the midst of my frenzied cleaning, I heard a knock at the entrance. I took off my gloves and made my way to the front of the house. I could see Detective Cromwell standing patiently at the door. What could he want?

I opened the door. “Detective Cromwell. Come in.”

“Thank you, Ms. Langley. We need to talk,” he said gruffly.

The phrase “we need to talk” should be banned from the English language. It's never a good start to a conversation. I showed him to a table, and we sat down.

“I've spoken to some of your staff, and it seems that you left some key information out of your statement.”

My entire body went cold. What could he mean? “What information?”

“The nature of your relationship with David Hill.”

This sounded like trouble. “I was his boss for a day. We didn't see eye to eye, but I was going to work on that.”

“All of the employees I interviewed said that you had two screaming matches with him yesterday, one of which happened shortly before he died. And right afterward, you disappeared for a while. Now, what am I supposed to think about that?”

I couldn't breathe. Was he insinuating that I was the killer? I choked out, “I didn't kill him.”

“Do you own a knife, Ms. Langley?”

“No!” Scott the Dickhead had stolen all of my good knives. All I had for kitchen utensils was a half-empty package of plastic spoons. “And I didn't kill him!”

He pressed, “But you wanted to. You wanted him gone. You said so.”

“What? When did I say I wanted him gone?”

Detective Cromwell flipped through his little notebook. “Logan Carmichael stated that you threatened Mr. Hill and told him you didn't want to see him again and that you were ‘in charge.' You then whispered something in his ear. Care to elaborate on that?”

Thanks a lot, Logan.
I racked my brain to think of what I'd said to Dave. “Oh,” I exclaimed. “I remember exactly what was said. I told Dave that I didn't want to see him
sitting on the prep table
again. Logan must have left out that part. And I did say that I was in charge, and if Dave didn't like it, he could leave. The only thing I threatened Dave with was being fired.”

“Hmm. And what did you whisper to him that no one else heard?”

Ashamed, I hung my head. “I said…I doubt that anyone else would want to hire an ex-con. It was unprofessional of me to say it to him. I came back to apologize, but that was when the staff said he had already left.”

“I suppose I'll have to take your word on that one. Is it correct that Mr. Hill left the building during the time that you were on your walk and unaccounted for?”

I had had enough. “Are you charging me with something?”

The detective smiled and said easily, “Now, now. Don't get your feathers ruffled, Ms. Langley. I'm just doing my job.”

“So you're harassing
everyone
that Dave had a conflict with? Because his wife wasn't surprised that he had pissed someone off enough to kill him.”

“Trust me, Ms. Langley, I'm exploring every possibility,” the detective growled.

“And I'm a possibility?”

“Yes, because you wanted to be rid of him.”

Angered, I leaped out of my chair. “If I wanted to be
rid
of him, I would have
fired
him. Why would I kill someone when I could just show him the door?”

The detective shrugged. “Maybe you have violent tendencies.”

I was going to have a violent tendency in a minute if this guy didn't quit badgering me. “I think we're done here.”

He turned on his way out and smirked at me. “Keep your nose clean, Ms. Langley.”

I stomped back to the kitchen, yelling and spewing a torrent of foul language that I didn't know I had in me. Redheaded She-Devil was in charge now. How dare he accuse me of murder and “violent tendencies”? People argued all the time, but that didn't mean the next logical step was murder! I felt like getting myself a lawyer, but that would probably only make me look guilty, plus I had no money with which to retain said lawyer.

After kicking the mop bucket across the room, I filled it up and went to work on the floors. As I was angrily mopping, I replayed my conversation with Detective Cromwell. It certainly had sounded like he thought I was guilty. How could he think that? I wouldn't hurt anyone! But he didn't know me. It wasn't like I was back in my little hometown, where I had grown up with most of the cops. This guy had me as a possible suspect and hinted that he thought I could be violent. Well, to be fair, Redheaded She-Devil could be a little scary—but murder? No way. Maybe the detective simply didn't have any other suspects. Surely it wasn't that hard to come up with a list of people who might have had it out for Dave. Hell,
I
could do that.

Wait. I
could
do that. What better way to take the heat off myself than to hand mean old Detective Cromwell a list of people who had an actual reason to kill Dave? I could ask around at Java Jive. Surely his co-workers would know something. Even Pete would probably have a few ideas. Oh! I had almost forgotten about Charlene. She had said that Dave was always meddling in other people's business and that it was only a matter of time before he really pissed one of them off. She probably wouldn't talk to me, considering the way she'd treated me at her house. But I
did
know someone she'd be happy to talk to, though.

I called Pete. “I need to ask you for a favor.”

“Name it.”

“I need you to go out with Dave's wife.”

He laughed into the phone. “Good one, Jules. What is it really?”

I hesitated. I wouldn't put it above Charlene to try to man-rape Pete, but I really needed info from her. “I wasn't joking. Detective Cromwell came by just now, and I think I'm in real trouble here. I want to put together a list of people who would be better suspects than I am.”

“Come on. You'll be fine. The evidence will show that you didn't do it. If it will make you feel better, we can get you a lawyer.”

“Or we could figure out who actually did it,” I said.

“Isn't that what the police are for?”

“Well, you'd think that, but evidently not in this situation. Who knows? It might even be fun.”

“It sounds dangerous,” he said apprehensively. “And speaking of dangerous, how does me dating Charlene come into play?”

“Remember when she said that she wasn't surprised that Dave had managed to piss someone off enough to kill him?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, maybe she knows the names of the people she was referring to. I bet she'd tell you if you were nice to her,” I said sweetly.

“Sick, Jules! You're prostituting me!”

I supposed that was kind of true. “It's not prostitution if no money changes hands.”

He ignored me. “Where are you? I'm going to come knock some sense into you.”

“At Java Jive.”

“I'm on my way.”

“Wear something pretty.”

He growled at me and hung up. It only took him a couple of minutes to get to Java Jive, so he was still pissed. “You're insane, you know that?”

I sighed. “Do you want me to go to jail?”

“No. Do you want me to get violated by Charlene…again?”

“No, but I can live with it if we get the information we need.” Pete scowled at me. I continued, “Why don't we have the two of you meet in a public place? That way maybe she won't try to hump you. We could get you one of those rape whistles if that would make you feel better.”

“Couldn't I just call her on the phone?”

“Yes, call her and invite her to get a drink with you. We'll go to some dark, seedy bar, and I'll sit near you guys. She'll never see me. If she tries anything, I'll jump out of the shadows and karate chop her. Deal?”

Pete begrudgingly got out his phone. “You couldn't karate chop a houseplant.” He dialed her number and said, “Hey, Charlene, this is Pete Bennett.”

I could hear her exclaim, “Oh, Pete! Hello, sugar!” causing Pete to wince and pull the phone away from his ear.

He stared daggers at me as he said, “I'd…I'd like to take you out for a drink. Where would you like to meet?”

There was more shrieking on the other end of the phone, but I couldn't make it out. Pete continued to make his mad face at me as he listened to her yakking. He finally said, “Okay, I'll meet you there in fifteen minutes,” and ended the call. He got in my face and said through gritted teeth, “You owe me.”

Charlene suggested meeting at her favorite bar, The Dirty Duck. I had never heard of it, and when I pulled up in front of it, I realized why. The Dirty Duck was a scary, run-down biker bar across from a bunch of crappy warehouses down by the river, somewhere I normally wouldn't have gone in a million years. Pete and I had driven separately so no one would know we were together. I was to go in first and stake out a couple of empty tables. Inside, it was even more of a nasty hole, and my shoes stuck to the floor as I walked across the room. I grabbed a drink from the bartender, found the cleanest-looking table, and sat down.

Pete and Charlene came in a few minutes later, Charlene clamped onto his arm like a leech. They sat at the table next to me, with Charlene's back to my back. I had my hair pulled up in one of Pete's baseball caps and wore sunglasses so Charlene wouldn't recognize me. She'd barely glanced at me when I was at her house, so she probably didn't remember what I looked like anyway.

Her voice was so loud and obnoxious, it was easy to hear every word of their conversation. Charlene was blabbing on and on about how wonderful it was that Pete had asked her for a date. I tried to nonchalantly sip my drink, but every time I set the glass down it would stick to the disgusting table. Even the filthy kitchen at Java Jive was cleaner than this place.

My ears perked up when I heard Pete say, “Man, the police have really been hounding me about who might have killed Dave. Did someone come and talk to you?”

I turned on my phone and started recording their conversation. Charlene sighed. “Yes, some detective came by and asked me a whole bunch of awful questions. It was so
hard
on me, Pete.” I was dying to watch Charlene as she flirted with Pete, but I couldn't move or I'd blow my cover.

“That's understandable,” Pete replied politely, his voice shaking a little. “I told the police that I had seen Dave arguing with a rough-looking guy on a Harley in the alley behind the coffeehouse the other day. Any idea who that might be?”

Puzzled, I looked over my shoulder at Pete. He shook his head slightly, so I turned back around. Was this true, or was Pete trying to get her to talk? I would need to remember to ask him later.