Chapter 12
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Doreen was surprised to have Richie nearly brush her aside so he could get into Nan’s living room faster.
She went in behind him, and Nan stood there, glaring at him.
Doreen stepped between the two of them. “Now, let’s not forget that we’re here because we need answers.
” She turned, looked at the new arrival with a smile, and greeted him.
“Hello, I’m Doreen.” Mugs walked over trying to sniff the new arrival.
Goliath in typical cat mode ignored him, and surprisingly enough Thaddeus snoozed missing the new arrival completely.
“Hi, Doreen. I’m Cleavis with a C.”
“Versus Cleavis with what?” she asked, frowning.
He burst out laughing. “That’s the thing. As far as I know, Cleavis is only ever spelled with a C.”
She wasn’t even sure how to approach that, so she decided to avoid that topic. “I do thank you for coming, Cleavis with a C. I’m hoping you won’t mind answering a few questions about the restaurant industry.”
“It’s a mess. I can tell you that much.”
“Pretty sure everybody in this place looks at their own industry as being a mess,” she noted, with a smile. “Not exactly sure what part of it is a mess though.”
“It’s very competitive. I think the statistics in Vancouver—before COVID hit—noted that a restaurant closed every day of the year, and a new restaurant opened every day of the year.”
“So, is that a bad thing then?” she asked, frowning at him. “That is the way life often is. Some people make it, and some people don’t.”
He nodded. “But, if you’re one of the ones who don’t make it, then it’s devastating.”
“Of course. I get that. What about locally? What are the stats in Kelowna?”
“With not as many people, it could be even more cutthroat,” he suggested. “You’ve got to think about the reality that somebody out there will always do better than you. Some places take off really quickly, and some places just really struggle.”
“And what about the Rocking Horse Pub and the attached restaurant? Do you know anything about them?”
He snorted at that. “Those two businesses have been in and out of trouble for years.”
“What about now?”
“I can’t say I really know,” he admitted, staring at her. “Is there a reason we’re talking about it now?”
“We’re talking about it because of two murders there.
Part of the Burgon family came over from Alberta, and the niece’s fiancé was murdered a few days ago here.
He was just a young man, and he’d been working in the kitchen when he was stabbed.
Now, as of last night, an older woman has also been murdered in the same kitchen. Alice Burgon.”
He paled at that.
“Did you know her?”
He frowned. “I know of her, but I hadn’t heard about the murders.”
“Exactly, and I don’t know if Nan has mentioned anything to you, but I do a lot of amateur detective work and sometimes help the police.”
“Sometimes?” Richie snorted. “You’re in their way all the time.”
She glared at him. “That may be, but I prefer to think that I’m offering my assistance to them.”
He frowned and nodded. “Darren says that they wouldn’t have closed half those cases without you.”
“I’m not trying to take any credit either,” she clarified. “All I want to do is help close these cold cases—and some related current ones. So, the question I have is”—Doreen turned to face Cleavis—“what can you tell me about the history of that restaurant?”
“It’s a mess. Dave Burgon, the original owner of the pub and restaurant, was a right terror, and he used to rent out rooms above the pub. There was even talk about his getting involved in some minor prostitution, all in order to make some money when times were tough.”
“He prostituted himself?” she asked.
He blinked and shook his head. “No, God no. He had a couple of prostitutes and rented the rooms up there by the hour.”
“Ah, so he operated as a pimp, or was he renting rooms in order to make ends meet?”
He frowned and nodded. “You know, that’s a good point. I’m not sure which, whether he got a kickback or just rented rooms.”
“Right. So, we have to keep an eye on that issue as well,” she muttered.
“Why?” he asked. “That old man was just bad news, and he’s dead. It would take a better man than me to miss him.”
“He was that difficult?” Doreen asked Cleavis.
“Yeah, he was that difficult. If he didn’t like you, he poured your pints on the skinny side. If he thought you were pretty and were likely to give him a run for his money upstairs in bed, your pints got a little bit heftier. For all I know, he may have slipped something into their drinks too.”
“But you don’t know that though, right?” Doreen asked.
“No, I don’t know that,” he confirmed, waving his hand. “That’s just what the rumors were.”
“Right, well, rumors being what they are, we also have to keep an eye on that too.” She shook her head.
Nan started to laugh. “If Mack could hear you, he would be so proud of you.”
“No, he wouldn’t. He would be telling me that I was barking up the wrong tree and wasting everybody’s time,” she retorted, with a knowing smile for her grandmother.
“But look at you now? You’re trying to keep the conversation on track and not let rumors and innuendos dominate the discussion.”
She shrugged. But inwardly she couldn’t help but smile. And as if he knew Thaddeus stirred in her hair, grumbling slightly as if upset at being disturbed. The others had settled down to wait for her.
Cleavis continued. “I can’t really tell you a whole lot about the family, except that, in most cases, they were okay.
Old Man Dave Burgon was a bit rough on everybody.
Dave just seemed to think that what he said was never to be contested.
If you didn’t like it, that was your problem, not his.
He wasn’t an easy person to get along with, but I didn’t really have any personal beef with him. ”
“Okay, that’s good to know,” Doreen noted. “And what about this woman who was murdered ten years ago in Alberta? Katie Burgon? I understand she was married, but her husband left her and was never seen again. I presume that’s why she went by her maiden name.”
“As far as I know, she was okay. She was one heck of a cook in her own right, but her world was in Alberta. Some of the family moved to Kelowna after her death and more moved here later.”
“Ah, okay.”
“I think Alice would have been the current owner of the pub and restaurant.”
“Okay.” She wrote that down. “What was she like?”
“A chip off the same old block, just like Old Man Burgon,” he noted. “Again, I don’t have any personal experience, so everything is hearsay.”
“Good enough,” she muttered. “And when we’re talking hearsay, what hearsay have you heard?”
He shook his head. “I’m not really sure I can tell you very much on that score. Just that, when times were tough, the Burgons got a little tougher.”
“Hmm. Is there any reason to believe that anybody would still be harboring something against Dave for all those tough times?”
“Sometimes memories are short. Sometimes they’re long.
Old Man Burgon was in the property business at one point in time, whatever that means.
I just know that, when he was expanding his restaurant and trying to move to a new location, things got a little ugly.
I think he may have managed to squeeze out a couple people so that he could have their places.
And, when I say, squeeze out, I suspect that he was pulling some strings to make things difficult for the other restaurants, effectively shutting them down and then hoping to buy them out before things got too bad.
He did that to the competition a while back too. ”
“And to you?”
“No, not to me,” he replied, with a shrug. “I didn’t particularly care for his dealings but I made no bones about it, so it was a little easier for me to stay clear.”
“Interesting,” she murmured.
“I’ve done a lot of things in my life that I may not be proud of, but I never actively tried to hurt somebody’s business.
Yet you can bet that Old Man Burgon did.
That I know for sure. At one point, he and I had words.
The old man … Well, … he was old, and I guess I was too,” he admitted, with a shake of his head.
“You forget just how old you are. Looking back at things, we were crazy to even be fighting over these things, but it is what it is,” he conceded, with a shrug.
“The restaurant business has changed a little bit, but it’s maybe even more cutthroat now. ”
“You think it is?” Doreen asked, frowning.
“Oh, I think an awful lot of people are suffering out there, following the peak COVID years. The delivery services took a big fat knife and cut themselves a hefty profit. People want to stay at home more than going out to the restaurants, and that’s having an effect on the industry too.”
“So, you stayed involved in the industry back then?”
“No, I stayed interested in the industry. I’m well past the point of being involved in anything.”
“And does anybody in your family still have a restaurant?”
“Sure, my grandson runs it now. We lost my boy a few years back,” he shared, his voice thickening. “Nobody should live to see their son die.”
“I agree with you there,” Doreen replied, “but who could still be around with potentially any knowledge of how that restaurant business is run today?”
“Do you think it’s really about how the business is run?” he asked.
“Considering that a young man’s been killed, and now Alice, the older woman, has also been killed, it makes me wonder if it was mistaken identity.
If you’ve got your hair up in a ponytail, and I understand Barry did have his hair up, it could be that he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
And determined to not let it go, this killer came back and took out the person he really intended to take out the first time.
” When Nan stared at her, Doreen shrugged. “It’s just a working theory.”