Chapter 14
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Doreen woke the next morning, bounced out of bed, and reached for the phone to call Nan. “Hey, do you want to go to a restaurant for lunch today? Anything except for the one in question of course?”
Nan came back with an immediate yes. “And we should talk to Cleavis’s grandson.”
“I was thinking about that,” Doreen murmured. “Some discussion is warranted, but I want to go to the restaurant itself first. If it’s closed, we’ll pick whatever one is closest and maybe talk to some of the local businesses too. The thing is, I was hoping to take the animals.”
“So bring the animals,” Nan stated. “We could always do takeout—or sit outside, if that’s an option.”
“It’s pretty cold out there,” she murmured. There was a pause while Nan appeared to consider that. Doreen repeated, “I don’t really want to go without the animals.”
“Let’s take them, and we can just do our talking and see how people feel about it. If need be, we can pick up food and bring it home.”
“Good,” Doreen agreed. “I like that idea too.”
It didn’t take very long to get through her morning routine, and then she found herself just waiting and waiting, frustrated.
An hour later, the phone rang, and it was Nan. “If we don’t plan to sit inside a restaurant, why don’t we just go now?” she suggested. “I’ve been sitting here, waiting, trying to fill my time.”
“Yeah, me too,” Doreen admitted, laughing. “I’ll come pick you up.” And that’s what she did.
When she pulled up to the front of Rosemoor ten minutes later, Nan was already bundled up in a nice wintery coat, standing outside, waiting for her.
She dashed to the parking lot, stepped up over the curb, and got into the car. “Thank heavens you finally got here. I was freezing.”
“It’s only been ten minutes,” Doreen protested.
“It felt like at least an hour.”
“But it wasn’t,” Doreen stated. As she drove off, she looked at Nan and asked, “Do you know where Cleavis’s grandson’s restaurant is?”
“I do,” she said, with a smile. “It’s down off Bernard.”
She frowned at her and asked, “Bernard is close to the Rocking Horse Pub, Dave Burgon’s place?”
“Oh, now that’s an interesting point,” Nan noted. “I hadn’t considered that Dave’s pub was near Bernard, which is the touristy area of downtown.”
“In that location, you would think they had a good thing going in terms of lots of business.”
“Maybe, but I don’t really know the ins and outs of it over all these years.”
“No, me either,” she muttered.
They headed downtown, parked, and, with the animals in tow, they walked around. When they came up to the restaurant in question, the Rocking Horse Pub, a big sign was posted. Temporarily closed.
“Ah,” Doreen muttered, “so they did have to close it.”
A couple stood outside, talking, holding steaming cups of coffee in their hands.
Doreen looked over at them, not necessarily wanting to interrupt their conversation but hoping to get a bit more in the way of answers.
She hesitantly called out and asked if they knew anything about when the restaurant would open again, pretending complete ignorance of what had gone on.
The woman replied, “I don’t know if it’ll ever reopen, to tell you the truth. A double murder happened in there over the last few days.”
Nan gasped and did a lot better job of acting surprised than Doreen.
“Oh my, really?” Doreen turned and looked back at the storefront. “We heard it was a good place to eat and were hoping to come check it out. We’re early, but we were just in the neighborhood.”
The older man with this woman added, “I don’t know about it being good. It was okay, but nothing compared to when the old man had it.”
“And how long ago would that have been?” Doreen asked curiously.
“Oh, quite a while ago.” He laughed. “I’ve been here a long time, so things for me in terms of years tend to look a little differently than they do for everybody else.”
Doreen smiled and nodded.
Nan, of course, laughed and replied, “Oh, I hear you there.”
“I guess you don’t know any details on the murders, huh?” Doreen asked.
“No, I sure don’t,” he replied, with a snort. “But, if it was some insurance scam, now that I would have believed.”
“Meaning that they really were suffering for business?”
“Yes,” he confirmed, “at least as far as I know.”
The woman beside him hushed him. “Now that’s just rumors,” she said. “You shouldn’t be passing on that stuff.”
He shrugged. “I tell ya, it might have been rumors, but it was money on the line because that place was empty a lot of times.”
“I understood that they were also into catering,” Doreen shared, with a wave. “We were wondering about getting them to cater for a party.”
“The catering option was fairly new, I believe,” clarified the older man, as he frowned and looked at the restaurant. “It’s a shame about the kid though.”
“What kid?” she asked.
“The first one murdered was a young man, fresh out of culinary school and really excited about it.”
“Oh, did you know him?” she asked. “I am so sorry if you did. That’s got to be hard.”
“I met him here the odd time or two, as I work just next door.”
And right next door was … an unmarked building, so that didn’t say much.
“I work up on the second floor,” he added.
Doreen’s gaze drifted upward, and she realized an office suite was up there.
“I’m part of an insurance assessment and evaluation company.”
“Ah, so then you must come down here to get your coffee and whatnot on a regular basis.”
“I don’t know about coffee. I’ve got a coffeemaker up there,” he shared.
“However, I do come down for a lot of the socials sometimes, and I would pop in the restaurant every once in a while. One day I saw the kid trying to unlock the door, and he couldn’t get the keys to work.
The mechanism was just stiff from the cold, so I helped him out. ”
The older man shrugged. “He seemed nice enough. He was pretty excited. He and his girlfriend had finally moved over from Alberta, and this was a family business or something, and he was hoping to make a mark of his own.”
Doreen’s heart broke for Barry. “And that has got to be terrible to hear about that and to know that he was cut down in his prime.”
“Exactly,” he declared, his tone turning brisk. “I just wish the whole building would go. There’s a really ugly history to it.”
“What now?” she asked. “I haven’t heard any of this stuff.”
With a glare in the older man’s direction, the woman with him interjected, “My father’s a bit of a local historian. So, take everything with a grain of salt.”
“It’s not gossip,” he declared. “I get it that you don’t want me talking about this stuff. Yet, maybe, if we talked about what some of these places are doing wrong, we wouldn’t have these recurring situations.”
Nan stepped forward, smiling up at him prettily, and nodded. “I think that’s a really good way to go forward. Unfortunately so many of the young people today are all about staying out of everything and not getting involved.”
He nodded, smiling back at Nan.
Nan asked, “What can you tell us about the history of this business?”
He shrugged. “It’s not even so much about the restaurant but just the history of the place,” he clarified. “I didn’t know the young man or his fiancée at all.”
“What about the second murder?” Doreen asked curiously, wondering just how much information this guy had.
“All I heard was what was on the news,” he replied. “And I believe Alice was the last living daughter of the old man. He had two sons as well. … One is a retired contractor, and one is an artist. God, that son’s a bit of a character and lives somewhere out in Glenmore, I think.”
“Oh, interesting, so then that’s got to be a shock to everybody.” Not wanting to really bring too much attention to themselves, Doreen glanced around and asked, “So, is there a good place to grab a coffee at this hour?”
“Not with the animals,” the woman said, glancing down at Mugs, who was currently lying down on the ground. “They wouldn’t have let you into the restaurant anyway, especially with a cat. That would cause chaos around here with the health inspector and customers.”
She looked down at Goliath, who swished his tail with big, wide jerks. “Even if we just pick up a coffee?”
The woman snorted. “No, the restaurants are fairly anti-animal.”
“The Burgons weren’t the most social of people anyway,” her father noted. “And I’m not sure they had to be either.” He glanced at his daughter. “Some people just aren’t … social.”
She laughed. “My father is very social, in case you haven’t noticed.”
Doreen smiled at him. “It’s nice when we get a chance to talk to people. It’s often cold and dark this time of year, and everybody is bustling on their way to get to the next point of their day.”
The older man nodded. “And I came here to meet my daughter and to just have a cup of coffee with her before she heads back to work again.” He smiled at her. “It’s always so much fun to see her during the week.”
The daughter smiled and gently patted her father’s cheek. “If you hadn’t chosen to work down here, we could do it more often. As it is, I only get to see him when I’m in this corner of the world,” she explained. “Otherwise it’s a little bit far for us to travel during our workdays.”
Doreen nodded. “Still, it’s really lovely for you,” she said warmly.
“It’s nice to even think that such a thing can happen.
” She hugged Nan and explained, “I’ve just brought my grandmother downtown to spend a few hours together.
We thought we would do coffee, maybe walk around for a bit, and then find a restaurant to try for lunch. ”