“I was cleaning up the stage when Doc Ames and Greg were talking about Kent.” She flushed at my look. “I wasn’t eavesdropping, if that’s what you’re thinking. I can’t help it if they were talking loud enough for me to hear.”
I couldn’t help myself; I leaned forward. “So what did they say?”
Darla glanced around, checking the empty shop for listening ears, then whispered, “They found cocaine in a Baggie in his pocket.”
“No.” I thought about the always cheery banker. “Kent Paine did drugs?”
Darla shrugged. “At least they thought it was cocaine. Greg said he would send it to the lab today.”
“Couldn’t that have killed him? You hear about people dying from drug overdoses all the time. Why do you think it was murder?” Darla wasn’t telling me the whole story, I could tell.
She pressed her lips together, then blurted, “What, you think a healthy man just dies?”
I thought about Darla’s statements and shook my head. “I think you are writing fiction instead of your normal, factual news articles. You don’t even know if it was drugs they found.”
“I guess you’re right. Ever since we had that problem at The Castle, I’ve been seeing ducks.” Darla leaned back again and sipped her coffee.
“Ducks?” Sometimes I had a hard time following her logic.
Darla waved her hand in the air. “You know, if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck? I’m saying it’s weird for a guy to just die. So, it looks like a duck.”
“I think you’re reading too much into this. Kent died. Until Greg says different, I’m going to go with unfortunate incident rather than murder.” I sipped the last of my now cold coffee and stood to get a refill.
“Just wait, you’ll find out I’m right.” Darla quacked a few times for emphasis, then finished off her coffee. When I walked to the counter, she followed, stuffing her notebook back into her fanny pack and zipping the leather case closed. “I’ll be back when you have something to tell me.”
As Sasha and I watched Darla leave the shop, I wondered if her radar for gossip was spot-on. Greg hadn’t called yet. Maybe it was time to see if my boyfriend wanted to buy me lunch or if he was too busy trying to solve the latest murder.
The oversized clock on the wall showed eleven. Sasha had the shop under control, Toby would be here in thirty minutes—I could take a break to call Greg. I excused myself to the back office and hit speed dial on my cell. While I waited for him to answer, I stood at the back door and watched birds wander through the small parking lot behind the shops. Mayor Baylor had proposed making all the back lots into a public parking lot, but so far, the shop owners had resisted, each side of the street making strong arguments why it should be on the other side of Main. Besides, with the beach parking and the available street parking, we were okay for all but the largest of our festivals, when people parked on the side of the entry road and walked into town. Like I did each morning.
The phone rang into voice mail and I heard Greg’s deep voice booming out a request to leave a message. Thoughts of Lille’s fish and chips ran through my mind, so after leaving a message about lunch and a quick, “thinking about you,” I dialed Amy’s work line.
This time a real human picked up. Or what passed for a human. “South Cove City Hall,” Mayor Baylor barked into the phone. “What do you want?”
“Good morning, Mayor.” I pulled out the sweet, charm soaked voice I used, well, never. “I take it Amy is out on a break?”
“The girl is probably surfing, since she called in sick. I don’t know why I keep her on.” I could hear paper being shuffled loudly on the desk. “You’ll have to call back tomorrow, I can’t find anything to write a message on.”
I was about to tell him to look in Amy’s left-hand drawer in her desk, but he hadn’t waited for an answer. The line was dead.
Now I was oh-for-two on lunch buddies. I heard Toby’s voice in the front and made a strategic decision. I grabbed my purse and the book I’d been reading. Heading out to the front, I watched as Toby pulled on an apron and organized his counter. Sasha had commented on the stupidity of each of us reorganizing the cups and utensils at the beginning of each shift, but I noticed the mornings she worked with me, she set up the counter with her own method, too. I guess we all knew our way was the right way.
“Hey, Toby, you hear from Greg this morning?” I leaned over the counter, checking the status of the dessert case, trying to appear nonchalant.
“Don’t even start. You know Greg gets testy when I tell you anything about open investigations. I’m not getting another lecture about leaking sensitive police information.” Toby sipped his coffee. “Man, this hits the spot. I’m used to my evening shifts being pretty quiet. Instead, I spent the shift interviewing all those pretend actors for your play.”