Espressos Eggnogs and Evil Exes Page 2

  As Ryan tried to hold Dawn upright and still so that Sammy could button her coat for her, Matt grinned at him. “And you thought you were going to get away with not dealing with any drunks for New Year’s.”

  Ryan rolled his eyes.

  “I can’t believe Mike got stuck working the holiday again,” I said, holding Dawn’s arm as Sammy struggled to shove Dawn’s gloves onto her hands. “You’d think that if you worked Christmas Eve, you’d get New Year’s Eve off.” Our friend Mike was a detective in the Cape Bay Police Department had had somehow gotten stuck working patrol on both holidays despite outranking and having more time with the department than most of the force, including Ryan.

  Ryan shrugged. “I don’t know, but I’m not complaining.”

  I wondered what was going on. Ryan had thought that Mike volunteered to work Christmas Eve, but that hadn’t sounded right to me. Not when he had kids, or when his family was celebrating the holiday out at his in-laws’ cabin in the mountains a couple hours away. He’d gone out there to spend Christmas Day with them, but had come right back, leaving the rest of his family there. In fact, I was pretty sure they were still there. It was strange. I hoped him having to work the holiday shifts wasn’t some kind of punishment the department was doling out to him. His last case had been particularly rocky though. Maybe he was just doing it for the overtime pay though.

  “Alright, we better get these two out of here,” Ryan said, moving Dawn in the direction of the door.

  Beside me, Sammy’s cell phone blinged and she tensed up almost imperceptibly. I glanced at Ryan, but he didn’t seem to have noticed.

  “You’ll make sure she gets home okay, won’t you?” I asked Ryan.

  “Yeah, but that’s all I’m doing,” he said. “I’m not responsible for her after she walks through that door though.”

  For a second, I was horrified. Then Matt leaned over. “He means Dawn.”

  “Oh! No, I don’t expect you to babysit Dawn!”

  Sammy had told me stories about Dawn’s drunken exploits—going back out to party some more after Sammy dropped her off at home being the most common one. Dawn was fun, but sometimes she was a little too much fun. And she definitely wasn’t someone you could control.

  As if to prove that, Dawn laughed from outside. We all turned to see her and her, uh, gentleman friend chasing each other around my front yard. The girl had been barely able to stand while we got her bundled up and now she was running around my tree root covered front yard in the dark with no problem.

  “I meant Sammy. You’ll make sure Sammy gets home okay, right?” I said, redirecting my attention away from the game of tag in my front yard and back to Ryan.

  “Of course!” He slung his arm around Sammy’s shoulders, initiating just about the most physical contact I’d ever seen between the two of them. I couldn’t be sure in the dim light of my foyer, but I thought Sammy’s cheeks turned ever-so-slightly pinker at his touch.

  “And I don’t just mean walk her home. Make sure she gets inside all right, okay? Have her flash the lights or something when she gets in?”

  The maybe-blush seemed to intensify on Sammy’s cheeks and Ryan started to look bashful. I didn’t care though. Cheryl’s text made me nervous.

  “I’ll make sure she’s safe and sound.”

  “I just mean, a single woman living alone—”

  “I think he’s got it, Franny,” Matt said, interrupting me.

  “I just—”

  “He’s got it.”

  I looked at Sammy. “Text me when you get home, okay?”

  “I will.”

  There was another loud laugh from outside. We looked out to see Dawn launching herself onto her date’s back. Or trying to, anyway. What she actually did was fall off the side, then get up and walk several feet away to attempt it again with a running start.

  “We should go,” Ryan said quickly.

  We hugged our goodbyes—well, except for Matt and Ryan who just sort of slapped each other on the back. When Sammy hugged me, she whispered in my ear, “Thanks for looking out for me.” Before I could say anything in return, she was on her way out the door towards Ryan who was using his best cop-breaking-up-a-crowd voice at Dawn and the guy toting her around on his back—she’d finally managed to get up there after all.

  “Okay! Let’s go! Come on guys! Time to move on!” He gradually herded them toward the sidewalk and down the street. Sammy gave me a last little wave. I waved back, my brain full of concern about the Cheryl situation.

  “I’m sure Ryan will keep an eye on her,” Matt said quietly. “And maybe some other body parts too.”

  “Matty!” I swatted at him, but he jumped back out of my reach.

  “What? It’s what I plan on doing with you!” This time when I tried to swat at him, he grabbed my hand and pulled me close to him. “You got a problem with that?”

  I made a face like I was thinking about it and he pulled me even closer, right up against his warm, strong chest. “No, I don’t think I do.”

  Chapter 3

  A high-pitched noise slowly pierced my consciousness. It started and stopped, started and stopped, started and stopped. Through the fog of sleep, I kept hoping it would stop for good, but every time I thought it had, it started right back up again. Maybe even a little louder. My sleep-addled brain didn’t know what it was, but was pretty sure it didn’t want to deal with it.

  Something cold and wet touched my face. Then something warm and wet.

  “Hi Latte,” I murmured, reluctantly reaching one hand out of the snuggly warmth of the sheets and out into the cold air to scratch his head.

  When I stopped, he nudged my hand again. I scratched his head again. Then the high-pitched noise started again and I realized it was Latte whining for food. Or to go out. Or maybe both. Probably both. I groaned. One hand was bad enough. I did not want to expose my whole body to the chill of my bedroom.

  Latte whined again. I wondered how Matt could possibly not hear that. Of course, there was the possibility that he could hear it and was just ignoring it in hopes that I would get up and take care of it. Just like I was hoping he would.

  Another whine and I gave in. I slung my legs out of the bed and sat up. My room was the bedroom I’d grown up in and it had always been cold and a little drafty during the winter. I didn’t remember it bothering me when I was a kid though. I slid my feet into my slippers to save them from the cold floor and looked at the time on my phone. It was just before seven. The sun wasn’t even up yet. You’d think he could have given me a break since it was New Year’s, but nope. He was up even earlier than usual.

  I grabbed my robe as I headed for the stairs. Latte ran straight for his food bowl, so I filled it up and sat down at the kitchen table, hoping the food was all he wanted even though I knew it wasn’t. Sure enough, as soon as he was done, he walked over and looked at me with those puppy dog eyes. “All right, you win.” I scratched his head and made my way back upstairs to get myself dressed enough to take him for a walk. On my way past the thermostat, I cranked the heat up. I was going to be frozen to the core by the time we got back and I wanted to at least have the luxury of walking back into a toasty warm house. Maybe I’d even get lucky and Matt would light a fire for me.

  A few minutes later, fully clothed in my very warmest sweats, I stood in front of my commercial-grade home espresso machine. The Amaro family didn’t mess around when it came to coffee. I pulled more shots of espresso than I probably should have, but I was tired and needed the fortification. On a whim, I grabbed the leftover eggnog from the refrigerator and steamed that to add on top of the espresso in my very large insulated cup. I was surprisingly pleased with the finished product even though—or maybe because—it was more espresso than eggnog.

  Latte, knowing my morning routine better than any dog had a right to, was hovering by the front door. I slipped on my heavy winter coat and reached in the pockets for my gloves. Which were missing. I checked my lighter coat and my purse. Nothing. I looked down at
Latte who stared back in full innocent puppy dog mode. I sighed. Cold hands it would be. I pulled my warm woolen hat down low over my ears and wrapped my scarf around my neck. I grabbed my cup, silently cursed its outstanding insulation that kept all the heat in and allowed none of it to reach my soon-to-be frozen hands, hooked Latte onto his leash, and headed outside.

  I was sufficiently tired that I just let Latte lead me wherever he wanted to go. Not that I usually made him follow a strict path, but today I was especially laid back about it. If he wanted to walk through the park, fine. If he wanted to turn down a street we didn’t usually go down, no problem. If he wanted to wander down a path worn through some back yards, I was game. He seemed to have a mission, sniffing the ground as he walked, so I let him pursue it. We walked all over town. Through my neighborhood, up to Main Street, past my café, back down another residential street, around a couple of corners. The town was exceptionally quiet, even for an early morning. Everyone was tucked inside their houses, enjoying the last opportunity of the holiday season to sleep late . . . or sleeping off the night before. Everyone but me.

  My coat and hat and large cup of coffee were keeping me warmer than I’d expected, which I was grateful for as Latte didn’t show any signs of slowing down. It probably helped that I kept whichever hand wasn’t currently holding the coffee buried in a pocket. And the hand that was holding it was as far into my sleeve as I could manage.

  After a while, I decided it was time to head back home. To be honest, I wasn’t even totally sure where we were at the moment, but it was Cape Bay—it wouldn’t be hard to figure it out once I got Latte back to the road. We were currently on one of his side explorations through some backyards. “Come on, Latte,” I said, tugging at his leash to try to get him to turn back towards the road. As far as I could tell, he didn’t even notice. “Latte!” He didn’t even flinch, just strained at the leash like he was determined to find whatever it was he was looking for. I sighed and gave in. I’d let him explore a little bit longer. I still had a couple of ounces of coffee in my cup.

  He trotted resolutely down the walking path, dragging me along behind him. Then, suddenly, he veered off and tried to head into someone’s backyard. “Latte! No!” He kept pulling. “Latte!” Still nothing. “Latte!” I decided that my New Year’s resolution was going to have to be to look into obedience training. He began to bark. “Latte! Hush!” I whisper-yelled at him. He didn’t care. I decided it was better to just follow him into the yard than to wake up the whole neighborhood’s attention with his barking.

  I looked around as Latte dragged me towards whatever his prize was and recognized Ryan’s car sitting in front of one of the houses—the house Latte seemed intent on dragging me to.

  Ryan’s was a hard-to-forget vehicle. One of those odd, boxy SUVs that nobody claimed to like but a lot of soccer moms seemed to drive. Matt teased Ryan about it pretty regularly. Ryan defended himself by saying he’d gotten it dirt cheap.

  There was a big black trash bag laying in the middle of Ryan’s yard and I realized that must have been what was drawing Latte’s attention. Nothing like garbage to get a dog excited early in the morning.

  Latte trotted towards the trash bag. It was definitely what he was going for. Why there was a trash bag lying in the middle of Ryan’s backyard, I didn’t know. I hoped some critter hadn’t gotten into it and dragged it out there, probably tearing it open in the process, and making it easy for my dog to access whatever stinky, smelly leftover food was probably in it.

  Something about the trash bag didn’t look right though. Namely that it wasn’t a trash bag. It was a black winter coat. The thought flashed through my brain that someone must have been pretty drunk the night before to abandon their coat outside.

  But they hadn’t abandoned it. As I got closer, I realized there were jeans and a pair of boots with the coat. Also not abandoned. So then I wondered how drunk you had to be to lay down and go to sleep in the middle of someone’s backyard in January. Whoever it was was lucky they had that warm coat on.

  I wrapped Latte’s leash around my hand, forcing him to stay closer as I moved forward.

  I spotted a shock of blonde hair and my stomach clenched. It wasn’t—it couldn’t be. And then as quickly as the thought that it was Sammy popped into my head, I realized it wasn’t her. The hair wasn’t the right shade of blonde and it wasn’t long enough. But I knew someone else who had that shade of blonde hair. And she had no business being in Ryan’s backyard.

  “Cheryl!” I yelled as I stomped over. The way she was laying on her stomach, it looked like she was spying on the house. I wondered if she’d been there all night or had just arrived early this morning to watch what he was up to.

  Cheryl didn’t move, which made me even angrier. Like she thought she could just play possum and I wouldn’t notice her. “Cheryl!” I yelled again, standing right over her. Still nothing. Despite my anger, I had a flicker of worry that she really had fallen asleep there or had passed out. Even with the coat, a whole night outside would give you a chill.

  I bent down and shook her shoulder. “Cheryl!” No response. I pushed her over onto her back and froze. She hadn’t fallen asleep. Her eyes were open, staring up at the sky. Her face was completely slack and covered with little speckled bruises. And her neck—

  The next thing I knew, someone was screaming.

  Chapter 4

  The screaming didn’t stop until I finally realized it was coming from me. By that time, Latte was going crazy barking, and I’d woken up half the neighborhood. At least, that’s what I had to assume by the number of people who had suddenly appeared. Two of those people were Ryan and Sammy. They both came running towards me.

  “What’s going on? What happened?” Ryan asked. He pulled me away from Cheryl’s body and pushed me towards Sammy. I held my breath as he bent to check Cheryl’s pulse, hoping that, despite all the signs to the contrary, maybe she was still alive. When he closed her eyes, I knew she wasn’t. “Sammy, go get a sheet and my cell phone from inside the house,” he said. “Fran, go up there with her. Take Latte.”

  That was when I realized I must have dropped his leash. “Come on, Latte.” I patted my thigh as I followed Sammy back towards Ryan’s house. For the first time that morning, Latte actually listened to me.

  “Everybody go back inside your houses! There’s nothing to see here!”

  I stayed on the patio while Sammy went inside. She came back a minute later with the sheet and cell phone. Ryan met her partway across the lawn and took both items from her. He covered Cheryl’s body with the sheet, then dialed the phone and held it to his ear. Sammy and I leaned against the house, Latte sitting obediently between us. Neither of us spoke.

  After a minute or two on the phone, Ryan walked back up to the patio.

  “What—what happened?” I stammered. “Was—was she—“ I struggled to ask the question even though the answer was obvious. Some part of me just hoped Ryan would say that she had a medical condition that made her face and neck explode in bruises just before she dropped dead.

  “The police will take our statements when they get here. We shouldn’t discuss anything before then.”

  “But you are the police,” I said stupidly.

  “Not on this case, I’m not.”

  It made sense in some part of my brain—it’s probably not looked highly upon to investigate the body that shows up in your yard—but another part of my brain didn’t see what the problem was. A cop is a cop, regardless of the case, right?

  The sound of sirens distracted me. Once the police got here, we’d be able to talk about it.

  Mike Stanton, our friend and detective in the Cape Bay Police Department, was the first to come around the corner of the house, followed by another uniformed officer who I recognized vaguely but didn’t know the name of.

  “Leary, what’ve we got?” Mike said, barely breaking stride as he walked past Ryan.

  Ryan jogged to catch up with him. They spoke quietly, so I couldn’t hear them,
but I imagined it was something along the lines of “Fran found my ex-girlfriend strangled to death in my backyard and started screaming so loud that it woke up me and my current girlfriend—”

  I turned to look at Sammy. “You spent the night here!”

  She blushed a bright red and looked down at her feet which, I noticed, were wearing what looked to be Ryan’s shoes. The sweatpants she was wearing were also Ryan’s, at least if “Buffalo Police”—Ryan’s previous employer—was any indication. Her coat was her own at least. Before either of us could say anything, Mike and Ryan walked back over.

  “Sammy, you’re going to talk to Simmons,” he said, pointing at the other uniformed officer. “Fran, you’re coming with me.”

  The paramedics passed us on their way to the body as I followed Mike around the front of the house and in the direction of his patrol car. I swallowed hard as he opened the back door.

  “C’mon, Latte,” he said, gesturing for him to hop in. Again, he was mysteriously obedient and hopped right in. I moved more slowly, reluctant to find myself in the back seat of a police car. “What are you doing?” Mike asked as he shut the door in my face. “You’re up front.” I must have looked as confused as I felt. “It’s warm in here and you can’t be within earshot of Sammy while you give your statement.”

  “What about Ryan?”

  “I’ll talk to him when I’m done with you.” Mike opened the passenger side door for me. “Sorry about the mess.” He swiped some of the energy drink cans and fast food wrappers off the seat and onto the floorboards. I was surprised by how messy it was. I didn’t think of Mike as a messy guy, but his car looked like he’d been living in it.

  Once I was situated inside, Mike walked around and got in the driver’s side. He pulled his gloves off and grabbed a little notebook out of his coat pocket. “You wanna tell me what happened?”

  I gave him the rundown of seeing what I thought was a trash bag in the yard, realizing it was Cheryl, rolling the body over, and screaming.