A Geek Girl's Guide to Arsenic (6 page)

How’d my cup get empty? “Yes, please. In a to-go cup?”

Stew returned with fresh coffee in a cup I could take with me, and bagged the remaining treats with a handful of monogrammed napkins. “Enjoy your day.”

“The bill.” I laughed. “Nothing this delicious is free.”

“On the house.” He disappeared into the back room. Darlene followed.

“Okay then.” I stuffed a ten into the tip jar and headed for the clubhouse, where I worked as Horseshoe Falls’ IT Manager.

I barely had both feet on the sidewalk when Bernie rounded the corner. She barreled in my direction, pad of paper in hand, crazed look in her eyes.

I braced myself for impact, but she whipped open the door to Sweet Retreat and disappeared.

A handful of costumed residents took notice and followed, gathering at the shop window and speculating about the scoop big enough to drive Bernie from her post.

Mark and the Kubickas stood akimbo inside the shop, glaring into the window display, transfixed by a mound of cream-colored goo that roughly resembled a melted dog.

Bobbie Kubicka pointed frantically at the slop. Her face turned pink, and her voice rose to penetrate the glass. “They melted our butter sculpture! Do you have any idea how long it took Steve to carve an authentic-looking Civil War horse from solid butter? Fine them! Close their shop!
Do something
.”

I took a baby step away and spun on my heels, vividly recalling the smudge on the Lindseys’ countertop and their combined reaction. I hustled toward the clubhouse at a clip, before the butter started flying.

Chapter Eight

My office in the Horseshoe Falls clubhouse was a tomb, albeit a gorgeous one, decorated by Bree and designed to simultaneously stimulate and relax me. Soft shades of gray for peace and tranquility. Punches of yellow to keep me awake. A reed diffuser that smelled like vanilla and cinnamon. Bree had exacted Feng Shui on the space, and it was a long and expensive process. One I’d adored until I found my best friend dead in my office chair. Now it gave me the creeps. It was too quiet and full of sad memories. Unfortunately, I couldn’t change offices the way I’d changed apartments. I’d tried.

I set my coffee on the desk and carefully maneuvered my hoop skirt underneath without sending it over my head. The pile of papers awaiting my review was mind-boggling. Office memos. Flyers for Pioneer Days events. An office birthday calendar for November. I tapped the days for free cake into my phone and threw the calendar in the trash.

Coffee scented the air and warmed my mood. I booted up my computer and logged into the work email, expecting ten to twelve emails had appeared overnight. Instead, I found nearly thirty. “Good grief.” A quick scan of subject lines left me spinning.
Can we cut off Wi-Fi until after Pioneer Days?
Can you create a Pioneer Days app for our phones?
Can we order a green screen for souvenir photos?
Yep. Let’s turn off that modern-day Wi-Fi and haul in a green screen. Have to keep Pioneer Days as authentic as possible.

I responded to those with messages of hope for next year. If they wanted it, I could make it happen, but not with zero hours’ notice.

I moved on to the things I could fix. Residents with new devices needing to be networked to the community Wi-Fi. Residents needing help creating or maintaining their clubhouse accounts. Others with spyware or viruses slowing their speed and threatening their work systems via remote sessions.

I gave the empty desk beside me a weary glance. I needed to fill the tech support position. It wasn’t fair to make residents wait while I went door to door on my own. We’d always had two bodies in IT. I had to face my issues.

I pulled up the resumes sent from a local temporary service and gave them a once-over, skipping the male names and focusing on the most interesting applicants. The ages weren’t listed, thanks to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, so I couldn’t make the feeble old lady request I wanted. I chose my top three from the list and shot an email to the company, asking if any of those workers were available for a trial run. With any luck, none were homicidal, roofie-wielding maniacs.

Another email popped into my inbox. Then three more. I cracked my knuckles. Time to start putting out fires. I stuffed earbuds into my ears and set my playlist to shuffle. One benefit to a lonely office: I could sing to myself without being judged.

After I tackled the email, I grabbed the black file seated atop my paperwork. The attached business card was my calling card. Someone needed information. Carriers of the card knew my secret. For a small fee, I would retrieve or redact online information as needed. More often than not, the card showed up when a middle-aged resident wanted proof their significant other wasn’t a gold digger or long-con artist. Dating in the millennia was complicated. Personally, I avoided it at all costs.

The card was intentionally blank except for one small embossed almond leaf, to keep my anonymity. The leaf signified a mutual promise. The customers trusted me to keep my digging on the down low, and I trusted them to return the favor.

“Whose secrets will I unearth today?” I asked the folder before flipping it open. Ah. Mr. Fillmore wanted to know about Daisy Evans.

As it turned out, Daisy was a human rights attorney and standup citizen. I printed several sheets of information and stuffed the empty folder. Sorority photos. Credit report. Speeding tickets. Nothing of interest if Mr. Fillmore didn’t mind a little boob flashing circa Mardi Gras 2001. Seemed harmless enough to me, and it hadn’t stopped her current employer from promoting her twice in the past four years.

By early afternoon, I’d responded to all company email and set appointments to visit the residents who needed me to stop by for assistance. Shockingly, not everyone owned a laptop. I still made house calls to those with desktop computers and outdated towers.

“All About That Bass” boomed through my earbuds, and I spun in my seat, caught up in the sass. My hoop skirt popped loose from beneath the desk and I pumped both arms as I twirled, singing along, quietly but enthusiastically.

“Mia?”

My eyes popped open.

Marcella, the community relations head, smiled sweetly across the desk from me. Her cheeks were as red as poison apples. “You didn’t answer when I knocked. There’s someone here to see you.” Her thick Latina accent clung to every word.

Jake Archer leaned against the doorjamb behind her, thoroughly amused.

I nearly swallowed my tongue. I jerked earbuds from my ears and shoved the hoop dress back into position under my desk.

Marcella ducked out before combusting with laughter.

Jake lumbered to the guest chair and took a seat. “You can finish the song if you want. I told her not to interrupt you.”

“Shut up.”

His brilliant smiled disarmed me. “I’m not joking. You can sing, too. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Is there anything you can’t do?”

“I can’t seem to get rid of you with any permanence. Does that count?”

“Funny.” He rubbed his palms against jean-clad thighs and surveyed my office. The marshal badge on his belt shone under fluorescent lighting.

“Why are you here?” Impatience bubbled in my tummy as I waited for the answer he wasn’t in a hurry to give.

He leaned forward. “I spent the morning at the Faire.”

I matched his body language in my best you-can-trust-me-with-your-secrets move. “Is this about my booth? Did Dan send you? Was there a break in the John Francis case?”

Jake averted his eyes.

“This isn’t about any of that?”

He didn’t speak.

“Jake, please. I don’t understand why you’re here or why you haven’t made that clear, and you know I’m terrible with social cues and small talk. So, at the risk of sounding rude, I’m begging you. Why are you here?” I enunciated the last four words. Politely.

He rolled his head to one side, a mixed look of defeat and aggravation in his eyes. “The vendors weren’t very forthcoming with me.”

I imagined a lasso around his tongue and how much effort it would take to physically remove the information from his mouth. “Yeah, and?”

“I think they took one look at my badge and decided they weren’t talking.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t your personality? I’m just throwing that out there.”

He worked his jaw. “They don’t want to talk to a lawman, and I don’t know why.”

I shrugged. “It could be anything, or you could be imagining it. How should I know? Go back and try again without your badge.”

He was swinging his head in disagreement before I finished speaking. “That won’t work. They’ve already seen me and decided they aren’t talking.”

I huffed. “Fine. Don’t. Why are you here?”

He rubbed the back of his neck.

Why wouldn’t he answer me? The proverbial lightbulb flickered on, and I slapped my desk. “You need my help! You came here to ask for my help and then chickened out.”

Jake flinched. “I don’t need your help.”

I leaned back in my chair and smiled. “Oh. Okay then. It was nice seeing you. Thanks for stopping in.”

He glowered. “I could use some advice. That’s all. Just advice.”

“Can you say that again?” I lifted my phone in his direction.

“Are you recording this?” A little pulse beat in his temple.

“Not yet. That’s why I need you to say that one more time. Please. Go ahead when you’re ready.” I wiggled the phone between us.

Jake growled and sprang to his feet, mumbling about women being impossible and other ridiculously misogynistic things.

“Okay.”

He froze. “What’s okay? You’ll help?”

“Yes. I’ll help.” I set the phone aside and folded my hands on the desk, very businesslike. “Did you talk to the business partner?”

Jake dropped back onto his seat. “Yes. I compelled Mr. Flick to talk. He said the company is fine and he and John Francis got along well. He didn’t know him long, obviously, but they were well-suited for a seasonal business. He said a woman was a more likely suspect.”

“What woman? Melanie?”

Jake shook his head. “He didn’t name anyone, but he called John a hussy.”

“He was a flirt.” Melanie’s face came to mind, sopping with tears and locked in the back of a squad car. “I saw Melanie last night. She’s a little cuckoo, but I don’t think she’s a killer.”

Jake scoffed. “She burned your booth down. I’d say that stands as evidence of impulse control. She might regret it now, but she still did it.”

“She was slippery too. Dan said he’d been keeping an eye on her all day, but she still annihilated my booth.”

Jake chuckled. “Nothing like allowing first-degree arson on your watch.”

“That’s what I thought.” I scooted to the edge of my seat. “Last time we talked, you were certain this was a mob thing. Now you’re looking at Faire employees and John’s business partner. What changed?”

“Poison.”

I nodded, immediately on board with his line of thought. I’d had it too. “Poison isn’t a normal mob MO. I read about it last night. Also, Melanie might have issues with her temper, but poison takes time to plan. She’d have to decide what to use and how to administer it. She didn’t look like someone who’d expected him to die when she was pounding on his body bag.”

“I agree.” Jake balanced on the edge of his seat, matching my body language. An obvious attempt to connect with and manipulate me. I’d read about that after we met. Whatever his intentions, I wasn’t going to be managed, and he should know better.

I shook it off and engaged in the puzzle. “I researched poisons while I was at my folks’ house. There are plenty of slow-acting things John could have ingested earlier in the day. The killer could have been miles away by the time he died. It’s like I told Nate. This is probably unrelated to the mob thing.”

“The possible time delay is another reason I’m still convinced this has everything to do with his testimony in the Bennie the Bean trial. One of Bennie’s guys could get in and out before anyone knew the deed was done. I’m willing to concede Bennie might have used someone outside the family, especially with all the publicity on the case. He wouldn’t want a known associate to be seen within a hundred miles of John Francis.”

“I accept that premise.”

Jake lifted his cheek in a lazy half-smile. “Good. Now what?”

“Now we try to disprove it.”

“You mean prove it.”

“No.”

“That’s not how criminal investigation works, Coffee.”

“Well, it’s how science works, and it’s how
I
work.” I ignored the pet name. He’d called me Coffee once or twice the last time he blew through my life. I didn’t hate it.

“So you’re helping?”

“I’m helping. Jeez.”

He leaned back in the chair, stretching long legs out and digging in one pocket. “Here.” He set a thumb drive on my desk.

“What is it?” I turned it over in my fingertips. The US Marshal emblem was painted on the back.

“It’s a thumb drive. You know. For your bowl.” He waved a big hand over the glass dish on my desk. My family competed with one another, buying me silly novelty drives I never used. It had started in college and stuck. “It’s official. You can’t get that without credentials.”

My heart softened and my bottom lip poked out. “Aww. Thank you.”

He pulled his hand back and put his grouch face on. “Don’t thank me. It was bribery in case you didn’t say yes.”

I wrinkled my nose. “You didn’t think I’d help you?”

“You said you told Nate your theory. Should I assume you told him everything I told you?”

I pulled my guilty lips to one side. “In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have done that, and I might owe you an apology.” My tummy knotted with regret. “You don’t have to worry about Nate repeating anything I’ve told him. He can be trusted. You know that from the summer. He won’t cause you any trouble.”

Wow. Apologies were hard.

He lifted his brows in wait. “Am I getting the apology now or in a birthday card next spring?

“Funny.”

Jake rolled his head over both shoulders and sighed dramatically. “At least tell me the classified identity of my witness isn’t typed out forever in an email or text message somewhere?” A vein in his neck throbbed.

“Of course not. I went to Nate’s place on my way home.”

Jake’s steady expression faltered momentarily. “I see.”

“No, you don’t.” Why did everyone assume there was something physical between Nate and me? Repeatedly? “We’re friends. He wanted to help.”

Jake made a face.

“Why do you care either way?”

“I don’t.”

“Good.”

“Fine.”

I pulled in a deep breath. “Can I ask you something?”

He rolled tentative eyes in my direction but didn’t agree.

“Why didn’t you contact me after you left?”

“I told you. You had everything you needed, and my case on you was closed.”

I pursed my lips and nodded.

“What? What’s that face?”

I waved him off. “No. It’s nothing. I misread people. No big deal.”

“Can I ask you something now?” He didn’t wait for my permission. “Why on God’s green earth are you at work dressed like Little Bo Peep? I mean, I know you love costumes, but this is a little over the top, isn’t it? Don’t tell me it’s for Pioneer Days. Not another soul on this staff is dressed like that.”

I patted my bonnet. “Bernie has a coonskin cap.”

Jake shook his head. “You’re not normal.”

“Thank you.” I moved to the office door. “I’ll meet you at the Faire after work and go with you to talk with the vendors. They’ll see you mean well and open up.”

He moved to meet me at the threshold. “You think so?”

“Yeah, but come in costume.” For clarity, I added, “Not as Harry Potter.” As far as I knew Harry was his only costume and better suited to Comic Con than Ye Ole Madrigal Craft Faire. “Wear something that shows you get it and you aren’t judging.”