A Game of Cones Read online

  “I had to make a shiva call today,” she said, taking her slender finger and pushing a strand of her gray hair out of the way. She wore her hair pulled back, braided and wrapped around in a bun, and there were always wisps falling down around her face.

  “Who died?”

  “Frank Seidman. Maybe you know him.” I was sure I didn’t, but I nodded just the same. “He used to come to my restaurant all the time and order tofu. Trying to eat healthy.” She waved a hand. “A lot of good it did him—he died from a heart attack.”

  “Oh, that’s sad,” I said.

  “I took food,” she said, telling me the story I knew I wouldn’t get out of hearing. “People were bringing trays of cookies and dairy.”

  “But not you?” I asked.

  Juggling Felice, she shifted the cat to the other arm and tugged on her sweater, pulling it closed. “My heart was so heavy. I don’t think anyone at the house can cook.”

  “Anyone? Like who? His wife? Did he have a wife?”

  “Yes,” she said. “He had a wife. A sweet woman. A little loud sometimes.”

  “Why don’t you think she can cook?”

  “If she could cook”—Rivkah shrugged—“why did he eat at my place all the time?”

  I chuckled. “Maybe he just liked Chinese food.”

  “No one likes Chinese food that much,” she said.

  “So what did you take? Some tofu?”

  “Pfft. No.” She placed the palm of her hand on her cheek, pushing the wrinkles around. “I took chicken and a side dish.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Is that all?” That didn’t sound like her.

  “It was probably three side dishes.” She hunched a shoulder as if she didn’t remember. “And creamed herring. And potato knishes. Not too many.”

  “Anything else?”

  “I may have dropped off a tuna casserole for the seudat havara’ah.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The first meal after the burial.”

  “That’s a lot of food, Savta.”

  “And of course, some hard-boiled eggs.” She was still going down the list.

  I tried to contain my amusement. Rivkah loved to feed people. “And that’s it?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “What does it matter? Everyone there will eat it up. There were twelve people sitting shiva and all the visitors. There’ll be nothing left for Elaine.”

  “His wife?”

  “Yes. Elaine is his wife.” She shook her head. “I’ll have to take food again when the mourning period is over.”

  “All this talk of food has made me hungry,” I said.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I kept a plate for you.”

  chapter

  FIVE

  Afternoon!” Wilhelmina ambled into the store for her shift. She had on lip gloss, a light dusting of too light powder for her dark-skinned face and her signature reddish-brown wig.

  Rivkah groaned. I chuckled.

  When Wilhelmina first started, she’d had a crush on PopPop, which made him nervous. He’d bounce up and out whenever he saw her coming. But she was a good employee, which I was sure came from her time as a Walmart greeter. Always pleasant, smiling and attentive. She handled all the customers, big and small, with care.

  Rivkah, like PopPop, hadn’t liked the whole crush thing. I wasn’t quite sure what, if anything, my PopPop and Rivkah had going. I knew that with my old grumpy grandpa, there weren’t a lot of things that made him smile. Except for me. And Rivkah. We, it was easy to tell, were his favorites.

  Maybe it was because Rivkah had been friends with my Grandma Kay and he liked having someone to share memories with. Or maybe he just liked Rivkah.

  Either way, to keep PopPop from acting jittery every time Wilhelmina was at the ice cream shop, and to keep her on payroll, I had to have a sit-down talk with her.

  “What is she doing here?” Rivkah whispered to me.

  “She works here,” I whispered back.

  “Hmph.” Rivkah walked back toward the kitchen and disappeared only for a second. She came back, walked to the window seat and picked up Felice. “Come, Baby, Mommy’s taking you home.” She disappeared through the kitchen again.

  “What was she doing here?” Wilhelmina whispered after Rivkah had disappeared.

  “She lives here,” I whispered back.

  “Hmph.” Wilhelmina walked over to the sink and washed her hands.

  I smiled. All of that over a man. Love never grows old.

  “Welcome to Crewse Creamery,” Wilhelmina said just as the chime jangled over the door.

  I looked up to see the Dixby sisters coming in.

  “Win,” Delilah said, huffing as she came over to the counter. “We heard you were our new competition.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “Don’t play coy with us,” Delilah’s sister, Daubie, who was just as round as her twin, said. “Are you selling tea and coffee?”

  “Nooo,” I said slowly. I glanced at the counter behind me, hoping their eyes would follow mine. “No coffee or tea here.”

  “Good, because we thought we may have to take you out if you were trying to compete with us,” Delilah said, her face serious.

  Take me out?

  Wow.

  I looked at Delilah’s twin, she had the same expression on her face. One that said “Don’t mess with us or our business.”

  Delilah and Daubie Dixby were the owners of the Juniper Tree Coffee and Tea House. Had been for years. Way before coffee shops became popular. Their shop was cozy, had plants hanging from the ceiling and always the sweet aroma of something brewing. Not necessarily a trendy hangout, but in Chagrin Falls, it was all we had.

  “Uhm . . .” I looked at them, flabbergasted, not quite sure what to say to that.

  “We’re just kidding,” Daubie said and laughed. “I think we really had her going.”

  “I think we did, sister,” Delilah said.

  I looked at Wilhelmina, who’d been standing there, not saying a word, then back over to the sisters.

  “We came in for that coffee ice cream we heard you had.”

  “And the tea one, too. What else is in it?”

  “Shortbread,” I said.

  “How clever,” Daubie said.

  “And British,” Delilah said.

  They both thought that was funny and almost doubled over with laughter.

  “Sorry, Win,” Daubie said. “We just couldn’t resist when we heard you were serving our drinks in your ice cream.”

  It sounded as if they thought they had the tea and coffee market cornered.

  “I’ll dip them up some,” Wilhelmina said.

  “Oh good,” Daubie said and followed Wilhelmina over to the far end of the dipping case. “I want to try the tea and crumpet one.”

  “It’s tea and shortbread,” Wilhelmina corrected.

  The sisters were short and stout just like a teapot. They wore matching oval-shaped bifocal glasses, had the same coffee-stained teeth, and both wore their gray hair short and parted down the middle. “Did you hear about that awful mess last night?” Delilah asked. She hadn’t mentioned any ice cream she wanted.

  “What mess?” I asked.

  “With the mall and the murder. Madness!”

  “Yes,” I said, not wanting to delve into the gossip.

  “Sometimes we have to protect our own,” she said. “My sister and I have been in this town a long time. It’s our home. People must know that outsiders coming in won’t be tolerated.”

  “I guess not,” I said, my voice going up at the end. I didn’t have an answer for that.

  “Everyone has to be on the same page.”

  I didn’t even want to ask which page that was.

  “Sister, are you getting ice cream?” Daubie called over to her
twin. She wrapped her hand around the double scoop of ice cream piled high on a sugar cone and held it out toward her. “You must! This is delicious. You have to try this!”

  “I’ll get my own,” Delilah said and walked down to the end of the counter. “What kind did you get?” She bent forward and peered through the glass case.

  “Tea and crumpets!” Daubie said.

  “Shortbread,” Wilhelmina said.

  Delilah tapped her nail on the glass case. “I want to try this one. Mint mojito coffee.” She stood up and looked at Wilhelmina. “Please.”

  I cringed when she chose that one. It had alcohol in it. Rum to be exact. And with her hyped-up attitude, I wasn’t sure if that was a good idea. There was a sign that stated its contents. She’d been close enough to it.

  Delilah Dixby reached over the counter and took the taster spoon from Wilhelmina. She stuck the tip of her tongue on the ice cream, which she then rubbed against the roof of her mouth. I saw a smile cross her face. “This is good,” she said. “Your grandmother would be proud of you.”

  “Thank you,” I said, beaming.

  “Give me two scoops,” she said. “On a sugar cone.” She turned and looked at me. “Not so sure how she’d feel about you selling alcohol, though. Don’t you need a license to do that?”

  “I have one,” I said. “We’re all legal here.”

  “Good,” she said. “Because I’ll be back for more.”

  When Wilhelmina handed Delilah the cone, she ran her tongue around the ice cream then turned to her sister. “It isn’t as good as our tea and coffee . . .”

  “But it is a very close second,” Daubie said. And with that they toasted each other, touching the tops of the cones.

  They paid, and went out licking and chatting and throwing me a wave as if it was an afterthought.

  “That was strange,” I said.

  “Don’t they own the coffee shop?” Wilhelmina asked.

  “Yep.”

  “They must have been drinking too much green tea.”

  “What?”

  “It makes you kind of crazy. Hallucinations and such. Really not good for you. I’ve heard it can make you do crazy things.”

  chapter

  SIX

  Maisie and I were headed out to get her food at Dave’s Cosmic Subs. It was the opposite way compared to most of the other shops. She hadn’t wanted the plate of food her grandmother had saved for her. I ate mine. Rivkah, after all, is a good cook.

  But as we walked down the street, I questioned why I’d agreed to go out with Maisie. She was back to talking about her Acorn sleuthing shows and how we could solve this murder.

  “They’ve got a new show,” she said. “Queens of Mystery.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said, ambling along next to her, my mind somewhere else.

  “The amateur sleuth has three aunts who write mystery books, and the four of them solve murders together.” She grinned at me. “That could be us.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Us as in who?”

  “You, Riya and me!”

  “That’s only three people.” I held up as many fingers.

  “I didn’t mean exactly like them.”

  “Good,” I said. “Because I don’t think I could juggle writing mystery books, solving murders and running the ice cream shop all at the same time.”

  “There probably won’t ever be another murder around here. So it would be just this one time. And Detective Beverly did—”

  I held up a hand. “Don’t say it.”

  “You know you heard him say—”

  “Uh-uh.” I shook my head. “I’m not listening.”

  “Don’t you want to know who shot him?”

  “No.”

  Unlike Maisie’s television shows, I was pretty sure that people in real life (other than her) didn’t actually investigate murders on their own or try to track down a killer. Wouldn’t self-preservation step in and grind those kinds of thoughts to a halt? It did for me. I didn’t want to chase murderers.

  “And I’ve been thinking, if he was in the alley, how did Ms. Devereaux know he’d been shot? Did she find him? Is she the one that called it in?” She smacked me on the arm. “Is she the one who did it?”

  I blew out an exaggerated breath.

  “At first I thought she knew because he was staying at her sister’s bed-and-breakfast.” We went to turn the corner onto River Street, but she stopped. “But if he wasn’t killed there, there really wouldn’t be a reason for Ms. Devereaux’s sister Dell to know. So how did Ms. Devereaux find out?”

  She was excited formulating her theories and precipitous revelations. Talking fast, eyes fluttering, hands gesturing. I could almost see the smoke rising from the questions burning through her brain.

  “I’m sure Detective Beverly will figure that all out.” I started walking so she’d follow suit.

  I got her feet to move while her mind churned, and we made it to the sub shop without anything else from her. But that didn’t last long. She grabbed the yellow-painted screen door and swung it open. Standing in the doorway she looked at me. “I don’t know why you’re so averse to us finding it out.”

  “What?”

  “You said Detective Beverly would figure it out. But we could do it.” I started to shake my head. “No!” She placed a hand on my cheek. “Stop saying no. We could do it. We solved the last one. And if I remember correctly, which I do, you were all gung ho to do it.”

  “The last one involved my father.”

  She pushed opened the wooden psychedelic-painted door. “This one could involve you.” She gave me an all-knowing look.

  “Me?” I chuckled. “I don’t think so.”

  “Yep. You. And me. And Riya.” Her eyes got big. “Maybe your grandfather and even your brother Bobby. All the people you care about.”

  I frowned. “How do you figure that?”

  “We were all there. We all had a motive.”

  “I didn’t have a motive to kill that man,” I said. “If, and that’s a big if, he was killed based on what he was doing here in Chagrin Falls, it didn’t affect me or my family’s store. So that would leave out Bobby, PopPop and me as suspects. We had no reason to hate him or what he was doing. At least not enough to kill him over it.”

  “You think me or Riya could have done it?” Maisie stopped and turned to face me. “Really?”

  “I didn’t say that.” I shook my head. “And of course I don’t think you or . . .” I thought for a moment before I added Riya’s name—she was such a firecracker, still I had to stick up for her—“or Riya could do such a thing.” I hunched my shoulders. “And that proves my point. None of us did it. So that means you and I”—I wagged my finger between the two of us—“have no reason to go around sticking our noses in trying to solve it.”

  “No reason other than the fact Detective Beverly—”

  I covered my ears. “I’m not listening.”

  She gave me a smirk and got in line to get her sub. There was a crowd of people waiting to order or for their food to be prepared.

  Since the remodel, we had yet to have this many people in the ice cream shop all at once . . .

  I sat at one of the two round tables at the front of the small store, next to the windows, and surveyed the joint. The walls were painted, like the front door, in bright colors—yellow, blue, pink—with peace signs and squiggly lines all over them. Mounted were framed pictures of 1960s rock ’n’ roll artists, posters and musical instruments. The ceiling, depicting a blue sky with white clouds, was hand-painted like the Sistine Chapel—only these paintings were of the music gods—Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Elvis Presley and Frank Zappa, among others.

  I looked at the faces of the people waiting for their food. They were young. Half the people in line wouldn’t even know who the people on the walls and ceiling were. I wasn’t e
ven sure how I knew who they were.

  It couldn’t be the atmosphere that brought them to the sub shop, could it? I looked around at the walls again and up at the ceiling. Ours was all classic 1950s soda fountain.

  Maybe I picked the wrong motif . . .

  “You want anything?” Maisie had made it up to the counter to order. She turned and looked at me.

  “No,” I said and gave her a half smile. “I’m full.”

  “There wasn’t that much on those plates,” she said.

  How would she know, I thought, she didn’t even unwrap hers. “I’m fine. If I need anything else I’ll just eat some ice cream when we get back to the store.” A couple people turned and looked at me. I smiled.

  She gave a half-throated chuckle. “Okay. I can share my sub if you get hungry.”

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  Maisie hung out around the counter until they called her name, then she got her food and walked over to me. “I’m ready,” she said.

  I stood up and we headed out the door.

  “Look!” Maisie said, grabbing my arm and shaking it with urgency. “It’s Ari.” She took to whispering.

  “Aren’t you guys speaking?” I asked. “He couldn’t still be mad that you quit working for him.”

  “Shhh!” she said, gesturing for me to lower my voice. “He wasn’t ever mad,” she said and waved her hand.

  “Why are we whispering?”

  “Because. Think about it,” she said so low I had to lean my head into her to hear. “He wasn’t at the meeting last night.”

  I blinked my eyes and thought about it. “Oh. I guess not. But that still doesn’t explain why we can’t talk louder.”

  “Maybe he wasn’t there because he was waiting on Zeke Reynolds out behind the stores. In the alley.”

  “What?” I said. I frowned and stepped away from her.

  She grabbed my arm and pulled me closer. “He could be the killer.”

  “Oh. My. Goodness,” I said. My shoulders drooped. “Really, Maisie? Really?” I started marching off, back in the direction of the ice cream shop.

  “What?” she said, trotting to catch up, as if she didn’t know what I meant.