cold blooded brew by Tonya Kappes

Author:Tonya Kappes [Kappes, Tonya]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cozy Mystery Publishing
Published: 2018-03-10T05:00:00+00:00

NINE

The afternoon help was in the coffeehouse and taking orders from the typical crowd, along with a bunch of after-work folks who normally didn’t come into the Bean Hive afterward but wanted to hear the story. The tale of me finding Hillary Canter’s body wasn’t going away anytime soon.

Mae Belle Donovan sat like a little perched bird at one of the tables in the shop. Today, she wore a bonnet tied with a big bow underneath her chin. “Don’t you think it’s a little strange that she had on the coat that she and Babette were fighting over just a few hours before she died?”

Mae Belle and Bunny Bowowski had been friends forever. The two of them had been regulars when I opened the Bean Hive. They were both on the Beautification Committee and came down every morning to see the progress Cane Construction was making on their approved changes. Rarely did I see one without the other, and both loved to wear some sort of hat.

Mae Belle had the same hairstyle and even the same pocketbook as Bunny. If I wasn’t from Honey Springs and saw them together, I would think they were related. They acted so much alike.

“And with that Babette’s past history…” someone said.

“Now, now.” Bunny Bowowski tsked from the other side of the table.

Bunny had decided to hang around after her shift. Her excuse to me was that didn’t feel like going home to an empty house. I knew better. She and the rest of her little buddies lived for the gossip.

“It’s time to put the chairs in the wagon.” Bunny meant that it was time to go home.

“Who have you turned into?” Mae Belle asked Bunny. “Roxy, what have you done to my friend?”

“Why, what do you mean, Mae Belle?” I called from the counter, where I was going through the articles I’d had Dee-Dee print off for me from the microfiche.

There was really nothing in the articles that I hadn’t already heard. They mentioned a few names of friends who’d gone down to the river to watch them race, but there was no clear motive. It simply stated that Babette and Paige were rivals. They’d agreed to settle the score by testing who had the most horsepower in their boats—and racing.

“You’ve somehow turned off the nosy parts of my friend since she’s been working for you.” Mae Belle’s chair made a screeching sound as she stood up and scooched it back. “And I don’t like it.” She huffed and adjusted her pocketbook in the crook of her arm before she threw her nose up in the air and waddled out the front door of the coffeehouse.

“Why don’t the two of you go on and get out of here?” I said to the afternoon girls. “It doesn’t look like I’m getting out of here anytime soon. I have it covered.”

I looked up at the clock on the wall. It was pretty close to closing time—six p.m. The last message I’d gotten from Patrick was that he’d be by the shop to see me, and he didn’t want me to leave.

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