Chapter 19
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With the animals riding along with her, Doreen didn’t want to stop and pick up groceries, so she headed on home.
Just as she was getting inside her front door, the animals barely waited for her to push the door open and bolted inside.
She herself was looking forward to a cup of tea in the kitchen that she’d been thinking about the whole way home, her phone rang.
She answered it absentmindedly and found it was Richie. “Hey, Richie. How are you guys doing?”
“Better,” he replied in a jovial tone. “Your grandmother and I have talked.”
“That’s good,” she said. “I hate to see you guys on the outs.”
“Ha, me too. Anyway, Cleavis with a C’s grandson Denton has time for a phone call, if that’s of any help.”
“Sure.” She grabbed the phone number from him and said, “I’ll give him a call right now.”
“That’s good. He’s got to get ready for his day, but he said he would try to fit in a short call.”
So, putting on the kettle, Doreen dialed the number. When a man answered, she quickly introduced herself and thanked him for taking the time for the call, and he sighed.
“Ah, yeah, Grandpa was pretty insistent.”
“Sorry, I’m just wondering about the state of the restaurant world and how that would work currently. If you were in the kitchen doing prep work, could somebody come up from behind you and stab you without you knowing or hearing anything?”
A shocked gasp came first. “Good God, you don’t mince words, do you?”
“My understanding is that you were short on time, so I thought I would get to the point right away.”
“That was definitely a point. Okay, keep in mind that I’m a big guy, but, if I were in the kitchen at my prep counter, and I’m chopping away, if I had on a headset, and I was listening to music or lost in my own world, I guess it’s possible somebody could sneak up behind me.
Yes, that’s possible,” he said, “but, God help me, now I’ll think about that every time I’m in my kitchen. ”
“I can imagine the image would have a chilling effect.”
“Is that what happened to Alice?”
“It’s what happened to Barry,” she clarified. “From the looks of it, he didn’t even turn around and didn’t know anyone was there.”
“Oh man,” he muttered.
“Do you have a security system in your restaurant, including your kitchen?”
“We do have a security system, and I’ll go check on that,” he muttered to himself, as if making notes, “so thank you for this lovely phone call.”
She chuckled. “Hey, maybe it’ll keep you safe.”
“That would be nice.”
“I would never hear the end of it from your grandfather Cleavis if something happened to you after this,” Doreen shared, “so keep yourself safe.”
At that, he burst out with a bellow.
Doreen continued. “And if somebody were to come in, how hard would it be for them to get into your back door, say, if you forgot to set the security system?”
“If I forgot to set the security, it wouldn’t be hard at all.
The way my kitchen layout is, somebody could come around the corner fairly quickly, and I wouldn’t really see them.
And, if somebody was familiar with the layout, it wouldn’t take any time at all.
You really think that somebody came upon Barry unsuspecting? ”
“Sure. If you’re stabbed in the back, that’s most likely what happened.”
“Right, but, even if he knew who his killer was, potentially expecting a visit, it wouldn’t take a whole lot for somebody to turn around and stab you in the back.
If you were expecting them anyway, you would say hello and would talk to them for a bit, then carry on with your work.
You don’t know that somebody will kill you until that knife hits your back. ”
“Exactly,” she agreed. “And, for your restaurant, does anybody log in or log out?”
“No. And I wouldn’t sign in anyway. No owner wants to pay the overtime.”
“Interesting,” she murmured. “Okay, that helps.”
“God only knows how it can help at this point,” he muttered. “It sounds very much as if nobody has the slightest idea what happened over there.”
“We’re working on it. However, it won’t be a stranger killing if they went into the kitchen of a restaurant where someone was working late at night for a one-off event and at a time when nobody would typically be there.”
“And that’s another thing,” Denton noted in a curious tone. “Do you know why they were working?”
“They were prepping for a catering job for a business lunch the next day.”
“That’s interesting because generally those are things you would just come in early in the morning and do.”
“The boss was the aunt who apparently wanted them to stay late that night to confirm it got done.”
“Hmm.”
“And you’re thinking that sounds off?”
“I don’t know about off, but it could be that she didn’t trust them and didn’t want to take any chances on something going wrong on that particular job. Or it was big enough to need some special handling both the night before and the rest in the morning.”
“Good point,” she replied. “I was just told that Alice was very insistent that they stay late and finish.”
“So, she knew they were there.”
“Right,” Doreen confirmed.
He hesitated. “Has anybody considered the idea that maybe she killed him first, then someone else came back and took her out?”
“Oh, it’s been tossed about, but, of course, we don’t have anything proving it either way.”
“Or, if you do, you’re not talking,” he quipped, with a note of laughter.
“Exactly.”
She asked him a few more questions about the industry but didn’t find anything else of interest. So, she thanked him for his time and quickly ended the call.
Then she reached for the teakettle to make tea, but she didn’t even get that far when her phone rang again.
She groaned and answered it and found her grandmother on the other end.
“Hey, I’m trying rather desperately to get a cup of tea, and I still haven’t managed. Can I call you back in a bit?”
“Don’t bother now,” Nan stated briskly. “Come on down here.”
“I’ve just come in from talking with the family of the two murdered people,” she explained. “I really just need a chance to have a cup of tea and to settle for a bit.”
“Yeah, well, you can have your cup of tea and settle down here. I’m putting on the teakettle. It sounds as if you need the walk, child. You’re getting crabby.” And, with that, Nan ended the call.
Doreen stared down at her phone, closed her eyes, counted to ten, then counted to ten again.
She really had no reason to be upset, except that she was really, really, really looking forward to that cup of tea in her own space, in her own living room, where she could kick back and relax, which was not the same thing as having a cup of tea at Nan’s.
But it wouldn’t make a darn bit of difference now.
She walked back to the kitchen door, grabbed the harnesses, and the animals came running. Thaddeus, who had barely hopped off onto the kitchen table while she was trying to get to the tea in the first place, came squawking, “Thaddeus is here. Thaddeus is here.”
She bent down, scooped him up, tucked him up onto her shoulder, and announced, “We’ll go to Nan’s for some tea.”
She looked outside and realized that the walk would probably do them all good, even if she wasn’t necessarily enthralled with the idea. Still, she bundled up and headed outside with them. The animals were ecstatic to be going anywhere but even happier to be heading down the river.
She sighed as she walked with them.
“I’m not sure what’s going on with this case,” she muttered. She tried talking through some of the salient points. Her animals had always been great sounding boards, mostly because they didn’t give her any cheek, and, as she was coming to find out, that was nice too.
She chuckled to herself, and, by the time she made it down to Nan’s, not only was her stomach rumbling but she was in a much better mood.
Nan smiled at her as she came in. “See? It was a good idea, wasn’t it?”
Doreen rolled her eyes. “Maybe,” she snorted, “but I still need that cup of tea.”
“Hopefully you’re also hungry because Richie is here with some treats for you that he got from the kitchen.”
Doreen laughed. “I’m so glad that you have a great relationship with the kitchen staff,” she murmured, as she stepped into Nan’s little patio, where she proceeded to unclip the animals, and they all bolted inside so they could climb all over the people there.
As Doreen went to sit down, a knock came on Nan’s front door.
She went over and answered it, letting in Cleavis with a C.
Richie appeared to be completely okay with that too, and right behind Cleavis came Maisie.
As they all settled in, they turned their attention to the basket that Richie had brought.
He smacked the first hand to touch it. “Doreen gets first dibs,” he muttered. When Doreen frowned at him, he smiled and said, “The kitchen staff told me it was okay to take these as long as it was for you.”
“Ah,” she said, with a smile. “I’m really happy to hear that, since I always feel terribly guilty.”
“And that would be foolish,” he declared, with a snort. “We pay good money to be here.”
She chuckled. “Yes, you pay good money to be here, but I don’t.”
Then she obliged him by snagging up the first thing that came to her fingers in the basket of warm goodies, a big chocolate croissant. She moaned. “You guys will make me fat.”
“There’s a long way to go for that to happen,” Richie quipped, with a snicker, as he passed around the basket.
Everyone grabbed something of their choice, but Cleavis took his time, finally settling on a chocolate croissant.
As Doreen sat there, sipping her tea, she smiled over at Nan. “You’re right. This was a good idea.”
“Of course it was, child,” she stated, with a chuckle. “I’ve been out of sorts for the last few days, so I figured this was a good way to make everybody feel loved.”
“It’s always a good way to make us feel loved, but you really don’t have to do anything because we already know that we’re loved.”
Nan just smiled.