Tea Shop Cozy Mysteries - Books 1-6 Read online

  Willow managed to grab two cards, her driver’s license and her social security card, while the broader fold of her passport remained out of reach. She slapped those down on the counter, smiling an apology at the teller, and continued the hunt.

  “I’m aware that it appears to have overdrawn the business account, but I can assure you that it’s not the case.” The man in the office sighed. “Although the money was temporarily deposited in Mr. Lacy’s favor, it has already been taken out of his name and redirected back into Mr. Waterman’s account.”

  In front of Willow, the teller snapped her fingers to get her attention. “I’ll still need that third form of ID.”

  “Yes, sorry.” Willow put her eyes back on the job, but her mind raced off with the overheard conversation.

  Mr. Lacy could only be Charley Lacy surely—anything else would be too much of a coincidence. Could it be possible that not only had Charley been stealing jobs away from under Jeff Waterman’s nose, but he’d also been stealing money?

  “No, checks are not an inherently bad form of currency,” the man in the office continued, his forehead now cupped in the one hand he had free. The other remained in a death grip on the phone receiver. “They’re as good as any other. Unfortunately, no system is immune to forgery. However, we’ve caught the instance, and it’s now in the hands of the sheriff’s office to deal with. I’m sure that something like this will never happen again.”

  “Ha!” Willow made a show of triumph as she finally snagged her passport.

  The teller just picked up the offering and typed a few lines into the computer, looking bored. “It’ll be a few minutes for the standard checks to go through, then we’ll send out a letter with your account information.”

  Willow nodded happily as she swept her ID back into the black hole of her handbag, giving the teller an enormous smile and walking out the door with another piece of information to fit into the murder puzzle. It mightn’t form a complete picture yet, but she felt sure it would all come together, given time.

  Chapter Ten

  As Willow was about to get back in her car, a distraught young man appeared beside her. She gave a yelp of fright as the youth appeared out of nowhere—clutching her bag close against her body and poking her car keys out, just like her self-defense instructor had taught her years before.

  “Sorry.” The man backed up a few steps, holding his palms up in surrender. “I didn’t mean to give you a fright. I’ve been calling your name for a minute.”

  Considering how deep in thought Willow had been, she supposed the young man could be telling the truth. Something about his face looked familiar to her, and she leaned forward, squinting against the afternoon light.

  “My name is Lee Harrington,” he explained. “You’ll have seen me working on the extension to your conservatory.”

  Willow nodded, only realizing how tense she’d been as her shoulders relaxed down to their normal level. “What was it you wanted?”

  Lee looked down at his shoes, shuffling nervously from foot to foot. Willow resisted the urge to snap at him to hurry. Even if she felt impatient, it wasn’t as though she had anywhere she needed to be.

  At last, Lee straightened his back to look her in the eye. “I wondered if you might consider hiring me to finish up the job. I know I don’t have a lot of experience, but I’m a quick learner, and I’ve memorized the basics, in and out. Anything I haven’t come across yet, I’m happy to question.”

  “To ask who?” Willow said with curiosity. “It’s no use asking me. I wouldn’t have a clue how to go about building so much as a birdhouse.”

  “No. I have a mentor who helps me out…”

  The young man trailed off, staring down at his shoes again as the temporary courage wore out.

  “Would that be Charley Lacy?”

  Lee looked up again, his expression a mix of startled and delighted. “Yeah. He’s the one. There’s nothing about building that he doesn’t know.”

  “There’s nothing about blagging that he doesn’t know,” Willow quickly responded, then laughed as Lee’s face creased in doubt. “It’s an old word,” she explained. “It means showing off or selling yourself a bit hard.”

  “Oh.” Lee’s face brightened again. “Well, he’s certainly got that going for him.”

  “I don’t have anything against the idea,” Willow said carefully. “But I also can’t say for certain what the monetary situation is at the moment. According to the contract, all the money for the building work is held in a separate account. I’m not sure if I can access it until a court has decided how much of it should be paid to Jeff Waterman Building.”

  “But he’s dead!” Lee stamped his foot down on the pavement, his lower lip poking out. The quick transition from asserting he was a builder to be trusted into such childish behavior was the best warning Willow could have received.

  “Don’t you need to finish out your apprenticeship before you can work on your own as a builder?” Willow had her finger’s crossed, hoping she was parroting the information Charley had told her back in the right order.

  If she judged it from the deepening look of sorrow on Lee’s face, she’d hit that nail squarely on the head.

  “How do you know about all that stuff?”

  “Because I do my homework, young man.” Willow’s brisk demeanor softened a little as she considered Lee’s position. What was it Charley had said? A pregnant wife to look after. She couldn’t imagine how frightening it must be to have growing responsibilities, then lose your only source of income. “Aren’t you still working with Charley on the side?”

  Lee shrugged. “There’re few jobs we’re finishing up, but they’re all small and not good payers. We couldn’t take on anything too large. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have been able to promise we could get it done on top of the work we did for Jeff.”

  He scuffed the toe of his shoe on the pavement again. “We suffered a bit of a loss on the last job, too. Someone walked off with a few of Charley’s tools.”

  “Oh, no!” Willow felt a pang of shock. “How did that happen? Did someone break into the house you were working on?”

  Lee looked startled at the proposition. “Nah. We were building a decking out on the Patterson’s backyard—down by the river—and someone walked along and just stole the tools while we were inside, having a cup of coffee.”

  Willow shook her head, wondering if that explained why Charley had written a check out from Jeff’s account. Either way, she made a mental note never to leave her purse or checkbook out in clear view if the two men did start working on her tea room.

  The world was a very different place now than it had been when she was a child in the same town. Even though Aniseed Valley sometimes appeared like it was holding back the groundswell of modernity, some of the nastier pieces still managed to slip through the net.

  Her mother would think Willow crazy for letting a thief onto her property. However, despite the weirdness of their last few encounters, Willow still got a good feeling from the man. She couldn’t believe Charley would do anything to steal from her, not if he was earning a living wage.

  Hm. Or she was a fool being sweet-talked by a British accent and would soon learn her lesson.

  “Well, why don’t you have a word with Charley about both of you coming to finish up the job.” Willow hid a smile at the burst of relief on Lee’s face. “I have to warn you, I’m having a group of professionals take a look at the building already done. If they find anything in there that looks like the type of work Shelby Causer ended up with, then I might need to hire somebody else. No offense to you two, but I can’t have people working on my business premises who’ve been led astray.”

  Lee’s face turned into thunder. “You don’t have to worry about that, missus,” he said. “There’s none of the crew that worked on her place would ever let something like that happen again.” He flashed her a quick smile. “Not that I was one of them, that’s before my time.”

  “Good.” Willow nodded to Lee, t
hen got into her car and drove away.

  * * *

  Later, at home, Willow watched Mavis chasing a ball of twine over the floor for an hour, getting into ever-more-ridiculous tangles. The sight had her laughing so much she thought of poor Shelby Causer. That woman had a lot of heartache in her life and could use a nice mood lifter.

  Only a few minutes passed between the thought occurring and Willow setting out to drive there, Mavis installed on the passenger seat. If Shelby didn’t want to let them in, fine, but if she did, hopefully an hour from now the woman would feel the same joy Willow was now experiencing.

  “I should have got a kitten a long time ago, shouldn’t I?”

  Mavis padded the seat with her paws, craning her long neck to try to see over the dash. Her loud meows seemed to be in perfect agreement with Willow’s statement.

  “Come on, then,” Willow said to Mavis as they pulled up outside Shelby’s bomb site of a house. “Let’s go in and try our best!”

  Although Shelby looked startled that the pair were on her doorstep, she willingly let them inside. By the time she fetched a cup of coffee, Shelby was as entranced with Mavis’s antics as Willow had been.

  “I keep thinking I should get a pet of some kind,” Shelby said with a soft sigh. “With my home in the state it is, though, I can’t see it happening. I’d hate to lose a pet to the rotting floorboards in there, just because I turned my back for a minute.”

  “I didn’t think of that,” Willow said, taking a small sip of her coffee, so she didn’t offend her host. It was really too late in the day for her to introduce much more caffeine into her system. Otherwise, she wouldn’t get to sleep tonight.

  “It’s like my entire life has gone on hold until this house is sorted out.” Shelby looked at the connecting door as if it were the grim reaper, scythe in hand. “Until I can get this fixed, I can’t see my way to having anything nice.”

  “Are you able to put some temporary repairs into place?”

  Shelby shook her head. “The unsealed floorboards introduced so much moisture into the house it’s gotten everywhere. The last inspection showed the mold was advancing. My best bet is to tear down the whole thing and start again.”

  Shelby closed her eyes, the strain clear in the slumped defeat of her shoulders and the deep lines in her forehead that shouldn’t exist there at her age.

  “Do you have a job opening up?” Shelby asked, eyes popping open. “I used to do a lot of waitressing work, back in my hometown. I’m good with people.” She gave a rueful smile down at the stained shirt and torn jeans that she’d opened the door wearing. “And I scrub up nicely, despite appearances.”

  Willow was taken by surprise. Her mind had been so fixed on getting through the weeks of the extension being built she hadn’t given much thought to what would come afterward.

  Of course, she would need staff. Maybe one or two to start with but that might expand into a small team. They would need uniforms—or a dress code—and Willow would have to pay them.

  Oh, goodness. There was so much Willow hadn’t thought about. With staff would come a payroll system and then the business would need a balance sheet and accounting systems and taxes and rebates and expenses and claims.

  Willow would not only need to train employees, but she also needed to work out the procedures her staff would be trained on. There would have to be standards—on the amount of leaves in a pot or the level of liquid to pour into a cup. She hadn’t even sorted out what brand of china she’d be serving the tea to her customers in!

  Shelby gave a small laugh, snapping Willow back to the present.

  “What?”

  After a short struggle, Shelby got her face back on straight. “You looked like I’d asked you to kill your mother. If you don’t have a job available, that’s okay. It was a long shot.”

  “I do,” Willow insisted. “Or, at least, I think I should. I just realized there’s a whole heap of stuff I never gave the slightest thought to and now I’m sure my venture will be an unmitigated disaster.”

  Mavis ran over, perhaps sensing Willow’s mood had taken a treacherous turn downward. The kitten rubbed her forehead against the side of Willow’s ankle, making her laugh.

  “I will say, yes you can have a job, but you have to say how much I should pay you.” Willow turned to Shelby, who rewarded her with a shy smile. “You’ll also need to tell me what hours are appropriate for someone to work in the job you’ll have, and what they should wear. In fact, you should come over to my place as soon as the builders finish so we can work out a plan.”

  “Really?”

  Shelby looked so happy at the same ideas that were giving Willow conniptions, she emphatically nodded. “Yes, really. I’ve never done anything like this before, and I’m beginning to realize how far out of my depth I am. It’ll be nice to have someone to advise me—on anything!”

  Shelby knocked her cup against Willow’s in a small toast, sealing the deal. “When will the builders be finished with your place?”

  As one bubble was pressed down on Willow’s wall of worry, another popped out.

  “I don’t know. My friend Reg—do you know him?”

  Shelby shook her head.

  “Well, he’s organizing some fellows to go around the town and check on the state of all the building work—finished and incomplete—that Jeff Waterman had a hand in. Once they sign my stuff off, I’ll need to talk to a lawyer about the contract. Apparently, all my money is being held somewhere until the job’s finished and I don’t know what I have to do now that won’t happen.”

  “Hm. The inspections sound like a good idea.”

  Willow buttoned her lip at that moment, realizing she’d been about to tell Shelby the proceeds of the inspections would be flowing directly to her. It was Reg’s brainchild, so it needed to be him that gave her the good news.

  “Anyway, Lee and Charley have offered to finish up the job, just the two of them. As long as I can sort out the contract side, I’ve agreed to accept their offer.”

  “That all sounds like a fine plan.”

  The note of sadness in Shelby’s voice sounded an alarm in Willow. You’re meant to be cheering her up!

  Without the authority to talk about Reg’s plan, Willow went back to her original idea and tossed a ball of string out for Mavis. The kitten took to the effort with gusto, ending up so tangled in the strands she could barely move.

  “I think we’d better cut you free, little one,” Willow said when Mavis’s expression of contentment changed to one of panic. “Would you be able to hold her steady while I snip?”

  Shelby cradled Mavis to her chest, giving the kitten a tiny kiss on her nose when she looked up in appreciation. Willow took a lot longer than she needed to set the animal free.

  “There we go,” she announced at last, quickly gathering up the wool before Mavis could launch into another head-on attack. “I think you’ve had quite enough of that for one day!”

  This time, Shelby laughed along with her. The woman’s anxiety lifting, if only for the few minutes she spent entertained by the cat.

  * * *

  “Now, you must stay in touch,” Willow ordered as she packed Mavis back into the car. “I’m going to start a list tonight called ‘all the things I haven’t thought of’ and I’ll call up and ask you about every single one of them. So be warned.”

  Shelby laughed and gave Willow a salute. “Aye-aye, captain. I used to run a team back in my hometown of Wilber Pines, so I can probably help out a little. Just don’t expect miracles. I don’t know all the business lingo you’ll need.”

  “Business lingo can go and get hanged, I want plain English, thank you very much.” Willow rolled down the window and poked her head out to continue the conversation. “It really means a lot to me that you’re willing to help me out with this. I can’t even begin to guess all the things I don’t know.”

  Shelby reached into the car and gave a quick squeeze of Willow’s shoulder. “You can’t imagine how much it means to me to
have something to look forward to.”

  “We’ll make a great team, then.”

  Mavis interrupted with a meow to remind Willow she was hungry, thirsty, or wanted to hit the road. She waved goodbye to Shelby as the woman went back indoors, then on a whim, pulled to the side of the road as she neared the pier.

  “I’ll just be two ticks,” Willow told Mavis, getting out of the car.

  The softening afternoon light caught the small ripples of the river and turned it into a dancing crystal display. Willow walked along the full length of the pier, sitting at the end and dropping her legs over the side. She looked up and down the stream at the houses that backed onto the water. After a few minutes, she closed her eyes, wondering what Reg felt as he sat in this exact same spot.

  Something completely different, no doubt.

  Even from the end of the pier, Willow felt Mavis’s anxiety reach her. She turned and saw the kitten with both paws flat on the window, face pressing close to the glass.

  She waved again, hoping Mavis could see that far, then mounted a battle with her rickety knees as she stood up.

  Willow had turned, ready to give one last goodbye to the pier when her eye caught a flash of metal in the long grass to the side. Probably a can, she thought, leaning forward to investigate. Willow hated litter, but some people still thought it was okay to mess up the streets of their town.

  Strange. It definitely wasn’t an empty can. Willow picked up a stick to hold back the ends of the grass to get an unobstructed view. The brief glimpse she’d had was enough to warn her not to touch.

  A hammer.

  Willow was about to shake her head with annoyance—almost had her hand on the tool—when another sight registered.

  Blood. There was blood on the head of the hammer.

  Willow took a step back, gasping in fright as she realized she’d discovered the murder weapon.

  Chapter Eleven

  Mavis became more vocal the longer Willow sat in the car, but she couldn’t leave. One call to the sheriff’s office, and they’d sent out a small team, combing the area and placing up thick, yellow tape to warn passersby from coming near.