Death Before Decaf (9 page)

I was never so happy to see some college kids than when they arrived for their evening shift. Now that Logan and Shane were here to help Brandon, I was off kitchen duty, so I called Seth and told him I was finally free for lunch. A disheveled Camille and a pouty Rhonda clocked out and gladly let Brianna, Jamie, and Cole take their places. The three new baristas looked around the crowded room in shock.

“Is this all because someone died here? People are so morbid,” Jamie said, exasperated.

Brianna didn't say anything, but she looked like she was on edge, twisting her frizzy blond hair around her finger.

Cole summed it up best when he observed, “Dude, if any more dudes come in here, this place is going to freakin' explode. This shit's messed up.”

Seth came in then, and I quickly popped into the office and changed my shirt. If I had learned one thing in the restaurant business, it was to always have a change of clothes available. I was forever spilling something on myself or sweating to death and needing a fresh shirt. After changing, I hurried out to meet him.

“Why don't we walk?” he asked.

“Sounds good. I could use some fresh air.”

We walked a few blocks and ended up at the Pancake Pantry, a Nashville icon and easily my favorite restaurant in the world. I had eaten my weight in pancakes here as a student. It was nearing closing time for the day, so it was fairly empty.

After we ordered our food, Seth asked, “Happy to be away?”

I groaned. “You have no idea. The crowd didn't let up until I called you. Without Dave, someone had to help Brandon in the kitchen during the lunch rush.”

“That someone would be you?”

“Unfortunately. I didn't do so great, mostly because I didn't know where anything was. But George hadn't changed the menu since I worked there in college, so at least I knew how to make the food.”

“Did Pete work there in college, too?”

“Yes. George was nice about putting us on the same shifts, even though he knew we'd get more done if we weren't together.”

“So you've known him a long time.”

“Since I was nineteen. Why?”

He shrugged. “I was wondering if you thought he had anything to do with the murder.”

“What?” I cried, baffled. “Pete wouldn't hurt a fly! In fact, I don't think he's ever done anything wrong in his life.”

“Hey, I was just thinking out loud. I love thrillers, you know, where the mild-mannered guy snaps and kills someone, but you don't find out until the end and it's this huge shock.”

“This is real life, not a movie,” I griped. Who was he to doubt Pete's character?

“I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that.” He took my hand. “I know he's your best friend. It's just that I've been following this case on the news and in the newspapers, and there haven't been a lot of developments since they first reported the murder. The police don't seem to have too many good leads.”

Not if you didn't count me. And I sure as hell wasn't going to mention that to Seth. Then I'd really get the third degree. “Yeah, they're not exactly cracking this case wide open,” I replied uncomfortably. Time for a subject change. “So how was your class this morning?”

“What class?”

“I thought you mentioned something about a lecture earlier.”

His jaw tightened. “Oh, right. No…it's later.”

“What's the lecture about?”

Seth was saved from answering my question by the arrival of our food. He deftly changed the subject. “You know that reporter from this morning?”

“Yeah.”

“I checked him out online. You really should watch your back with him. He has a reputation for dragging people's names through the mud. I'd hate to see him do that to you or any of your staff.”

“Wow. I didn't know that. Thanks for the heads-up.”

“I know they say there's no such thing as bad press, but that doesn't always hold true with restaurants. Right now, Java Jive is enjoying some notoriety, being a murder scene. But a couple of negative articles could change people's minds.”

“Don't I know it,” I said ruefully, thinking about the decline of my own café.

After Scott the Dickhead wiped out our accounts and my employees' checks bounced, they started abandoning ship. I didn't really blame them. Who would keep working without getting paid? So I had to do more and more myself, and ended up stretching myself way too thin. I would screw up orders or forget them completely. With little to no operating money, we would run out of ingredients constantly, and I couldn't afford to restock. Customers got pissed when they were told we were out of their favorite dish. I burned batch after batch of pastries, frequently having to abandon the kitchen to take care of issues in the front of the house. As a result, many days our selection of desserts was meager. My café was in a small town, and word got around that the service and the food were declining. After one bad review in the town's newspaper, I was done.

Seth wrinkled his forehead and asked, “Are you okay? You went dark there for a moment.”

I tried to smile, but it probably came out as a grimace. “What you said reminded me of what happened to my café. Bad press can be the final nail in the coffin.”

He looked impressed. “You owned your own place?”

“Yeah, I'm surprised Gertie didn't tell you my life story.”

“She likes to talk about herself when she's with me. She also likes to make me flex so she can feel my biceps. I drew the line when she asked me to pull up my shirt so she could see my abs.”

I didn't blame her for trying. Shaking my head, I said, “Yep, that's my Gertie. She needs a muzzle.”

He laughed. “Yeah, I heard her cuss out Rhonda the other day.” Seth wasn't kidding about being a regular. He seemed to know every staff member by name.

“Rhonda probably deserved it.”

“She's not your best employee. What's her deal?”

“Who knows? She's been working there way too long. I remember her from ten years ago. She hasn't improved her job skills even a little.”

“The woman is mean, too. I told her you guys were out of cream at the counter this morning, and she nearly took my head off. Maybe
she
killed Dave.”

Chuckling, I said, “I doubt it. She's too lazy to expend the effort.”

“How about your other employees? Anyone acting squirrelly?”

“Not any more than usual, although I just met them on Tuesday. Everyone's on edge, but that's to be expected.” Besides, the only staff member who seemed to have a beef with Dave was yours truly.

The waitress brought our check, so I had a reprieve from the inquisition while Seth settled up with her. It was a little tiring talking to him, but I really did kind of like him. He walked me back to Java Jive and gave me a lingering kiss goodbye.

“I'll come see you later,” he said.

“Thanks for lunch. Sorry it had to be so late.”

He smiled at me. “I told you I don't mind waiting for what I want.”

Later that afternoon, another reporter came in and tried to engage Jamie in conversation, but Jamie chewed her out and made her leave. Sometimes the giant chip on Jamie's shoulder was useful. Brianna watched the exchange with wide eyes, and Cole didn't even notice. It wouldn't be a terrible idea to do some random drug testing around here.

Quirkiness aside, the three of them worked extremely well together. They didn't get in one another's way, and they didn't gripe at one another too much. Normally, it was part of their job to trade off on garbage duty, but I knew none of them enjoyed it. With more customers coming in, we had tons more trash. Many of them must have been new customers, since there was a marked rise in people leaving messes on tables. Regulars never did that. I walked around, wiping down tables and throwing away abandoned trash.

One of the cups caught my eye. There was writing all over the side in black Sharpie. Granted, we normally wrote the coffee order on the cups to make sure we got it perfect, and sometimes we wrote the person's name on the cup if we were backed up and had a line of people waiting to pick up their coffee. But this was ridiculous. There were hearts and smiley faces, plus the words, “You have a nice smile.” I thought it was important to be friendly to our customers, but this was over the line. I didn't mind a little flirting—I was definitely guilty of that—but graffitiing someone's coffee cup was a little juvenile and a lot unprofessional. Then again, with college help, what did I expect?

I returned to the counter and pulled the baristas aside. I showed them the cup. “About the message on this cup, I'm not going to make a big deal out of this or point fingers—”

“That's all Brianna,” said Jamie. You had to respect a person who would throw someone under the bus to her face. Brianna made a pouty face.

“It doesn't matter. While we do want to be kind and friendly, we don't want to take it too far. I'm going to make a blanket statement that we probably shouldn't write little love notes on our customers' coffee cups. If you want to flirt with someone, do it the old-fashioned way. This”—I gestured to the offending cup—“is unprofessional.”

Brianna sniffed, “The baristas over at Starbucks do it.”

“Yeah, the slutty ones,” interjected Cole, grinning. I wasn't sure if he was insinuating that was a good thing or a bad thing.

“Exactly,” I said. “That's why we aren't doing it. Got it?”

Jamie and Cole went back to their stations unfazed, and Brianna pouted for a while. I headed outside with the bags of trash, and suddenly a weird feeling of déjà vu spread over me. I was going to have to open the dumpster again. Granted, it wasn't the same one that Dave had been in. The crime scene people had taken the entire thing with them to the crime lab, so at least we didn't have to use the same one. Pete called and got a new dumpster brought out to replace it, but unfortunately it was identical, and therefore still creepy. Every time I saw it, I was reminded of when I found Dave two nights ago. Gingerly, I lifted the lid, half expecting to find another horrible scene, but it was only trash. I added mine and hurried back in, unsettled by the chill that had crept up my spine.

By four o'clock, the pastry case was very nearly empty, which never happened, because frankly the pastries weren't that good. George had always bought his baked goods from a restaurant supply company rather than baking them onsite, which was one major change I was going to make. It would save a ton of money to make our own pastries. They would also taste much better, therefore I was sure they would sell better. Today's sales were a fluke, thanks to the increased traffic.

Thankfully, there was a lull in the flood of customers, so I let the baristas and the kitchen staff all take a break before the dinner rush. I took the time to clean up the area around the espresso machine, making sure to separate trash from recyclables. I wiped the diner counter down and tidied up the area around the cash register. The pastry case looked pretty sad and ravaged, so I took a moment to slide all of what was left to the front, so it would look fuller.

As I was moving one of the plates of muffins, something fell down onto the lower rack. It was a credit card. What in the hell would a credit card have been doing in the pastry case? The name on it read “Paolina Ghirlandi.” It certainly didn't belong to anyone on the staff. I wondered if in the frenzy today someone had accidentally dropped it or set it down while getting out a pastry and forgotten to return it to the customer. The staff was just coming back from their collective break, so I could ask them before they returned to work.

I stopped the baristas in the hallway, so none of the customers would hear our conversation. “I found a customer's credit card in the pastry case. Anyone know anything about it? Maybe one of you dropped it during the rush?”

Jamie and Brianna shook their heads, and Cole shrugged.

I asked, “Cole, is that a ‘no' or an ‘I don't know'?”

“Hell if I know. We were in the weeds all day. Could have been me.”

“Okay, thanks.” Not helpful. Cole was more likely high on weed than “in the weeds,” which was barista slang for busy and behind on orders. I'd have to talk to Camille and Rhonda in the morning.

Nervously, Brianna asked, “Juliet, um, do you think it's going to be like this for much longer? You know, the crowds…and people asking about the murder?”

Sighing, I replied, “I hope not. I'm sure that after a week or so people will start to forget about it.”

“You mean forget that a man
died
here? That's real nice,” Jamie snapped, looking down her nose at me. Jamie was a very beautiful girl, part Asian, with impossibly silky hair. When she got on her high horse, though, it wasn't pretty.

I took a breath to relax. “No, Jamie, I meant that the people who are here to gawk will move on as soon as there's some new gossip.”

Cole piped in, “Did ya hear? Everyone's calling us Java Jive
Murder
house.”

Seriously? Java Jive was doing badly enough already without a derogatory nickname. “Look, let's just make sure we don't do or say anything that will add to the nonsense that's going on. Just do your jobs and try to ignore the rest.”

They didn't respond, but went back to work. I headed to the kitchen. “Hey, guys,” I said to Brandon, Shane, and Logan. They all turned around, looking none too pleased to see me. Tough crowd. I continued, “I found a credit card in the pastry case. Anyone know anything about it?”

They all shook their heads and went back to what they were doing. Maybe it was the impact of losing Dave. It had to be tough, even if they hadn't been friends with him. They'd seen the guy nearly every day. They had to have some feelings about him.

Determined to put a positive vibe out, I said, “I really appreciate your hard work today. I know we've been busy, but you guys have done a great job, especially with all that's happened lately. I just wanted to say thanks.”

Logan gave me a bit of a glare, Brandon nodded, and Shane didn't look up from the grill. It was going to take a lot to get these boys to communicate with me, but we would get there eventually.

Holing up in the office, I decided to hunt down our credit card holder, Paolina Ghirlandi. Surely there weren't too many Paolina Ghirlandis in Nashville—or the world, even—so she shouldn't be too hard to find. After a quick search, I found Paolina Ghirlandi, Vandy student, on Twitter. Sounded like a winner, so I tweeted to her from Java Jive's profile, telling her who I was and that I had something she had left here, making sure to give her Java Jive's phone number so that we could get in touch. I hated to tell the whole world that I had her credit card, so I was purposely vague. I hoped that she'd call soon so that I could be done with this mess, because it really bothered me. Basically, either one of my employees was careless with her card or one of them stole her card. Neither was a good scenario.

While mulling over the idea that someone at Java Jive had possibly stolen a credit card, I took Dave's hidey box out of the filing cabinet where I had stored it. I got the three envelopes out and looked at them again, having remembered that one of them had something to do with a credit card. When I took a good look at it, I realized it was just a credit card
offer
, not an actual card or statement. Oh, well. That didn't help. But I was pretty sure it wasn't legal to have someone else's mail in your possession without permission, and it wasn't likely that three Vandy students all had an agreement with Dave to pick up their mail for them. So I would go with the notion that this mail was indeed stolen. But why? The other two envelopes held a phone bill and an advertisement for an auto insurance quote, respectively. I could see intercepting someone's actual credit card that was being sent through the mail, but this was junk mail except for the bill. Maybe Dave just had some weird mail fetish.

Thinking about all of that was hurting my head, so I decided to switch gears. I went onto several job posting websites and advertised Dave's job opening, and then decided to dig a little deeper into Seth's background. I found a couple of Seth Davises on Facebook and Twitter, but none of their pictures looked like him. Stumped, I got up and paced the room for a while. There was something nagging at me about Seth. I sat back down and went onto Vanderbilt's website and clicked on “film studies.” On the course descriptions page, the name of the professor teaching the course was listed alongside each description. I scanned the page and didn't find Seth's name anywhere. This page had definitely been updated, because it listed the fall and spring courses for this year specifically. According to it, Seth wasn't currently teaching
any
film studies classes at Vanderbilt, even though he had said he was. Hmm. Why would he have felt the need to lie to me?

I didn't like liars. Lying was a deal breaker. Maybe this fling with Seth was not going to work out after all. Oh, well—easy come, easy go, right? There were plenty of other eligible bachelors in Nashville. At least I hadn't slept with him.

The door opened, and Pete stuck his head inside. I quickly closed my browser. “Hiding out?” he asked, chuckling.

“Ha-ha. Very funny. It's been quite a day.”

He came over and sat down in the chair opposite me. “Had a break yet?”

“I took a lunch.” I didn't choose to elaborate on it.

“Jules,” he admonished, “you look beat. I'm here now, so take a breather.”

“I will. Hey, any tips for getting the boys in the kitchen to talk to me? I don't think I'm connecting with them.”

“Brandon doesn't say much on a good day. He's been here for a while, so Dave's death probably bothers him. I don't think they were bros or anything, but it's difficult to lose someone you work with every day. As for Shane, I think he's kind of a dillhole, so I wouldn't worry about him too much.”

Laughing, I said, “That is not a very professional assessment of your employee.” I didn't mention the fact that I had thought the same thing about Shane.

“You know I'm never professional. And Logan, well, he may be a tough nut for you to crack.”

“How so?”

Pete replied, “Logan was already having a hard time of it. He's a very bright kid, but his family isn't well off, so he was putting himself through school. Money got tight, and he had to take a year off.”

“That sucks. Poor kid.”

“Dave's death hit him hard. Dave got him the job here. He's a friend of Logan's family.”

“I had no idea. Logan doesn't seem to care for me much, but that's probably because he didn't appreciate me calling Dave out. That and the fact that I'm the prime suspect in his murder,” I said broodily.

“Don't be so dramatic. Logan's a good kid. He'll come around.”

There was a knock at the door. It was Brianna, and she looked shaken. “Juliet, there's a detective out front who wants to talk to you.”

My heart sank. Surely Cromwell hadn't come to badger me again! “Thanks, Brianna. Please tell him I'll be out in a minute.” I looked forlornly at Pete. “I guess my ‘break' is over.”

“Hold it together, Langley. I'll be slinging 'spros if you need me.”

We left the office. Pete headed behind the counter to fill drink orders, and I headed to my doom. I spied Detective Cromwell at a table by the window. The place was starting to fill up again, so I really didn't have time for his crap.

“Hello, Detective.” I sighed, throwing myself into the seat across from him.

“Don't look so happy to see me,” he grumbled. “You can relax, Ms. Langley. I'm not here to see you this time. I'd like to speak with a few of your staff again. Just routine stuff.”

I frowned. “I really wish you'd picked a better time. Today has been very busy already, and our dinner rush is about to start.”

“Oh, it shouldn't take long. I'd like to conduct my meetings in your office, if that's okay.”

“We're expecting to be busier than usual for the next couple of hours. Couldn't you come back another time?” The last thing I needed was my workers getting pulled away from their jobs to be harassed by Detective McGruff.

Mustache twitching, he stood up and growled, “No, I want to speak to them now. I'd be happy to bust you for obstruction of justice, if you want to keep arguing with me.”

I really didn't like this guy. I stood up, crossed my arms, and plastered a fake smile on my face. “Well, when you put it that way, how can I refuse? Please, take my employees away from their duties and interrogate them, and by all means, do it in my office. I insist.”

“You'd do well to hold your tongue. You're still one of the best leads we have, and trust me, if you're hiding something, we
will
get to the truth.” Glaring at me and stalking toward the counter, Cromwell pointed at Brianna and motioned for her to follow him to the office. I could only hope that my workers weren't all going to go on and on about how much Dave and I didn't get along. I sighed. This day was so sucky.