Crime and Cocktails: A Tiki Mystery (The McCreadie Mysteries Book 4) by Andrew Culver

Author:Andrew Culver [Culver, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-05-30T23:00:00+00:00

7

I was at the Tropicana on a Tuesday, mulling things over. Did I have a new mystery? Yes. But I was a business owner now, proprietor of a tiki bar, and I had little time to solve mysteries these days. And yet…something didn’t feel right. Was it ennui? Adulthood? Responsibility? Or was there something creepy happening, a picture that would come together? I didn’t know where to go next – what was it that bothered me about Simon’s death? He was a troubled young man, and he had probably gotten himself into a sticky situation. So it was hard to feel bad – but dammit, he’d died too soon. And he could’ve had years of bartending ahead of him. He could’ve blazed a trail, he could’ve made thousands of cocktails over the course of his lifetime. He could’ve…forget it, McCreadie, he’s gone, I told myself. Get over it. You’re not going to solve this one.

The bar was getting crowded and the staff was doing well. I was drinking a zombie – I wanted something big, strong, with a lot of flavor. I saw Gabe down at the end of the bar talking to a blonde woman. She was cold, odd, distant. He seemed to know her from somewhere else. She was ordering for some other women who were sitting at a table. I watched as he made the drinks and gave them to her. She carefully carried all the drinks back to the table. I didn’t know what it was about her – some kind of bad energy.

Gabe wandered over to me a few minutes later.

“That was Simon’s girlfriend. Hannah. She’s been in here a few times.”

“That’s weird. I didn’t hear about her after he died.”

“They were on again off again. I don’t know. I can’t tell what they saw in each other.”

“What does she do?”

“She works at the Farmer’s Market. The permanent one in San Miguel.”

He was referring to a fancy open air food mart that wasn’t actually a farmer’s market but had a lot of food stalls with expensive sandwiches, kabob stands, juice stands where everything came with beet juice and kale.

“Her family has a farm in Golden Valley. They grow a ton of avocados and citrus, one of the major suppliers on the west coast. I get some of my stuff at the farm itself, it’s really fresh. They have a fruit stand.”

“Interesting. You know how they met?”

“I think their families know each other. I want to say they grew up together. Her dad is a weird dude, he owns the farm. Kind of a shut-in. But great produce.”

“So what do you think happened, Gabe? You think the surfers up in Bones Beach had anything to do with his death?”

“You know what? Here’s my take: Yeah, those guys are assholes but they don’t kill you for surfing up there. I think he just fell and got trapped in an undertow or something. Anything can happen when you’re surfing, even if the surf isn’t huge that day, even if you’re an experience surfer.

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