Chapter 14 #2
“Oh, there’s a good restaurant just around the corner here,” he pointed out.
“It was a restaurant that’ll probably do much better now.
These Burgons seem to take a lot of the downtown business, and everybody understood that,” he said, with a headshake.
“Yet this other restaurant is a family-run business as well.” He gave them directions to get there.
He frowned as he looked at the animals. “I don’t think anybody will allow the animals in. ”
Doreen sighed. “I can understand that, with the food regulations and such. Maybe Nan can look after them while I run in and grab coffee, at least.”
“Now that you could do,” he replied, chuckling. They spoke for another few minutes, and then the father and daughter quickly headed off.
Nan turned to her. “You really do have to come to the location of the crimes, don’t you?”
“I really do,” Doreen confirmed. “And, if I wasn’t off my step on this one, I would have been down here earlier.”
“I don’t know that it would have been the right time,” Nan stated. “I think timing has to come into play as well.”
“Maybe,” Doreen acknowledged, with a smile, as they headed off in the direction of the other family restaurant. As soon as they got there, she nodded. “This looks much friendlier, doesn’t it?”
She opened the door and stepped in and asked, “I’m just here to grab some coffee right now, and we’ll think about coming back later to pick up something for lunch, but can I bring in the animals while we order coffee?”
The woman looked at her and her animals and smiled. “As long as you do it fast, and we don’t have anybody from the board here, then we certainly allow some animals in,” she explained. “So, if it’s just for coffee, come on in.”
And, with that said, and a beaming smile in her direction, Doreen and the rest of them trooped indoors. Mugs set his tail to wagging, as if certain that would score him a treat. And, indeed, the woman came around and bent down to say hi to him.
“Oh, he’s lovely,” she crooned. When she saw Goliath on a leash, she gasped and laughed. “Oh my, doesn’t he look dapper in that?”
“Dapper maybe, but he’s not a big fan. As long as we’re on the move, he’s good, but, if we stay stationary for too long, he’s not impressed to be wearing it.”
The waitress chuckled. As she straightened, her eyes widened, and Doreen realized that Thaddeus was poking his head out of her hair. “And who is this?” the waitress crooned, reaching up a gentle finger.
Thaddeus cried out, “Thaddeus is here. Thaddeus is here.”
She gasped, looked at her, and exclaimed, “Oh my, you’re that sleuth person in town, aren’t you?”
“I’m not sure about that exactly,” Doreen noted, laughing, “but, yes, some people see me that way.”
Nan stepped forward. “She’s my granddaughter,” she stated proudly. “And she solves so many cases here.”
“Good, I hope you can step up and solve the one across the street.” She pointed to the Rocking Horse Pub. “That’s got us all in a tizzy.”
“You’re talking about the murders at the restaurant?” Doreen asked.
“Yes,” the waitress cried out. “That’s been awful.”
“Did you know them?” Doreen turned to look back at the closed restaurant.
“I don’t think anybody knew them,” she clarified. “They just weren’t the kind of people you can ever really get to know.”
“Standoffish?”
“Standoffish, competitive, grouchy. All of that and more. If I just wanted to say hi, they would look at me as if I were there to steal restaurant secrets or something,” she muttered, with a headshake.
“The new young guy who worked there and his fiancée, they were quite decent, but the older lady? The one who was just killed? She was crabby and cranky.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Doreen replied. “That can make a bad impression on restaurants everywhere.”
“That was the thing,” the waitress explained. “We’re all in the industry, and there’s no reason to be nasty about any of it, but she just didn’t see it that way.”
“So, you couldn’t really talk, have coffee, or discuss anything in the industry with her?”
“Oh, no, no, no. That was definitely not something she would ever be strong on.”
“How was her health?” Doreen asked.
“I don’t really know. She often looked worn out, but she was one of those steely kinds of people, you know? Instead of blood running through their veins, it’s as if they have steel in their system. She never really looked anything other than tired, but she never slowed down either.”
Doreen nodded. “I’ve certainly met a few people like that myself.”
“That’s the thing. Once you’ve seen the type, you recognize it,” she noted, with a bright smile. The waitress turned to Nan and asked, “What can I get you, dear?”
Nan ordered tea.
“If you want to take a table and keep the animals tucked up close,” the waitress suggested, “I’m happy to have you here. That way you can stay long enough to warm up.”
“Sure, that would be lovely,” Doreen replied, with a bright smile. She led Nan to a table and tucked Mugs and Goliath up underneath. Goliath just glared at her, but she nodded. “I know, Goliath. You want to get moving.”
“I can’t believe you have the temerity to put a cat on a leash,” the waitress cried out, laughing.
“Yeah, he can’t believe it either,” she quipped, smiling at the helpful waitress. “The thing is, most of the time he’s really happy with it.”
“I’ve heard some crazy things about some of the cases you’ve been on. I’m sure they aren’t true, but they’ve made for great reading fun.”
“Oh, they probably are true,” Nan corrected, with a chuckle, looking over at Doreen. “She’s gotten into all kinds of trouble.”
“The police must not be impressed with some of your antics.”
“Lots of times I would say that’s true, but yet they’ve been quite happy in the end to have me involved,” Doreen noted.
“Of course it doesn’t hurt that she’s gotten herself engaged to a detective either,” Nan added, smiling.
The waitress seemed astonished and then burst into delighted chuckles. “Oh my, now that’s how you make a friend out of your enemy.”
Doreen grinned. “Except, in this case, he’s been a very good friend, long before we ever became anything more.”
“That’s a good way to do it,” the waitress murmured, then quickly disappeared and came back out with pots of tea. “I’ve got two different kinds here for you, so let’s see if we can get you warmed up.”
“You’re not open yet, are you?” Doreen asked, noting all the empty tables.
“No, not yet,” the waitress confirmed, checking her watch. “For once, I’m ready in decent time too. So I can spend a minute or two just visiting. I’m Marla, by the way.” She looked at Doreen. “About that restaurant …”
“Yes?” Doreen leaned forward slightly.
“You know that older lady, she had some pretty-ugly business practices, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she was killed because of that.”
“What do you mean?” Doreen asked.
“Apparently the young man and his fiancée were working on some catering jobs, and that’s why they were there that night.”
Doreen acted surprised. “I hadn’t heard anything about them working so late on a catering job.” At the moment she couldn’t remember the details Jillian had shared with her.
Marla glanced around the restaurant and shared, “I can’t imagine taking on more work on top of what I’m already doing.”
“But the fiancé was also fairly new, so maybe he was pushing for it?”
“Maybe.” Marla frowned. “Hard to say.”
“How is your business?” Doreen asked.
“Rough,” she stated. “After COVID, with everybody stuck at home for so long, then came this spurt of people who just couldn’t wait to get back out again.
So we had a fair bit of business at that time.
However, as the costs went up on our supplies, we had to raise our prices.
People didn’t appreciate that, of course,” she noted, with a sigh.
“The other thing during COVID was that everybody has gotten used to having deliveries, and that continues to cut into our profits pretty heavily as well,” she shared, a sad smile playing on her lips.
“And now with the high inflation rates and the cost of gas and everything? It seems a lot of people have decided to stay with delivery and not come in person. The business crowd is pretty decent though, and that’s coming back again.
Plus, if we host events on the weekends, I stay open for that.
Still, it’s just not been the same,” she admitted.
“There have definitely been times when I wondered if I could stay afloat, but ours is a family-run business, and I just don’t have a whole lot of work experience, outside of running this business,” she shared. “So it’s more about keeping it because, otherwise, what will I do?”
“Ah, so it helps you to stay busy more than you need the business?”
“Oh, I do need the business,” she clarified.
“I don’t want you to get the impression that we’re rolling in it because we certainly aren’t.
Yet it is not quite the same thing. I’ve been here a long time, bought our house many years ago, and thank the Lord it’s paid for.
So it’s not quite the same stress as if I were just starting out.
I don’t know how the young people will do it today. ”
“Do you have a family?” Doreen asked.
“Yes, but they’ve all moved down to Vancouver,” she said, with a careless shrug. “They couldn’t wait to get out of town and to find something a whole lot more exciting,” she shared sadly. “My husband and I, we both run the restaurant, and we’re doing okay.”
But Doreen noted it was obvious from her tone that it wasn’t great. “Would you consider shutting it down and maybe retiring at some point?”
“Oh, someday we’ll definitely have to figure that out,” she replied.
“I don’t know when, but the goal had always been that the kids would retire up here with us.
Yet I think they’re more settled down there with jobs that they can handle better and get paid better for.
So it may end up being the other way around, and we retire down there,” she explained.
“But I don’t know that our old house would fetch enough money to enable us to have the same lifestyle that we could have here,” she added. “So it’s one of those many decisions that come your way as you get older.”
“Grandkids yet?” Nan asked.
“Two,” she stated, with a bright smile. “Two little girls, and, of course, we would love to be closer just for that reason alone.”
The conversation continued around family for a bit as Doreen tried to navigate through the restaurant questions that she needed answers for.
“Do you have any idea what could have happened at that restaurant?” she asked suddenly.
She smiled at Marla. “Sorry, it just seems so hard to contemplate that something like that could happen here.”
“I know,” she exclaimed, with a delicate shudder. “I’ve been struggling to get my head wrapped around it all this time.”
“And, of course, as a bit of an amateur sleuth myself,” Doreen began, “the questions are endless. Like, is anybody even left in that family? Like, who is there to inherit the business?”
“There’s definitely two brothers still nearby. One is retired, I think. The other brother is an artist, though I don’t think he ever makes any money.”
Doreen just nodded, once again wincing at the thought that this guy may not be any good.
It had been a spur-of-the-moment decision to choose him to do Nan’s birthday gift, but now Doreen wondered if it was the best choice she could have made.
“So, maybe he doesn’t want anything to do with the restaurant then? ”
“I think his wife does. She helped out a little, but the sister-in-law and Alice? … For being so alike, they didn’t get along all that well.”
Doreen nodded. “Ouch. That’s hard. Although maybe her husband will inherit it, and maybe he’ll put his wife in charge to manage it how she wants.”
“Maybe. I don’t know how that works, but it is possible. It’s been in the Burgon family a long time.”
“And there’s the niece too, the one who lost her fiancé.”
“Yeah, I think she would probably go back to Alberta. Her uncle was talking about it. He was in here not that long ago.”
Doreen frowned, having just realized that she’d more or less put Uncle Zev out of her mind. Yet he was the one who had brought Doreen into this in the first place. How could she have forgotten him? What part did he have to play in all this?