Bite the Biscuit (A Barkery & Biscuits Mystery) (14 page)

Which made me just a little uncomfortable, since I was the one he was evaluating. This was, at least somewhat, an official meeting.

But, heck, I didn’t have to do business with him even if he made me a great offer. I would need to feel comfortable before selling anything, even ideas, to him, let alone the recipes I’d been perfecting. For now, we’d chat and I’d see how I wound up feeling.

“From what I know about VimPets,” I said, “that ‘stuff’ in your inventory includes food, treats, toys—”

“Yes, a lot of variety.” He nodded, the afternoon sunlight brightening the soft brown of his ample hair. “We get into different kinds of pet products, although mostly the edible or chewable kind, not clothes or fluffy toys or that kind of thing. Not that there’s anything wrong with them.” He paused. “And in case you’re curious, I’ve visited the Knob Hill Pet Emporium on most of my visits here and they still don’t carry VimPets items.”

I felt my eyes light up and immediately focused on my coffee cup so he wouldn’t notice, necessarily. Had he done that on purpose—changed our conversation topic so I could easily bring up Myra Ethman and his potential motive to be her killer? Apparently he had.

“Then,” I began as casually as I could, “you’ve met Harris before this trip.”

“And Myra.”

I looked straight into his eyes and saw an expression I couldn’t quite read: regret? Challenge? Amusement?

“I wanted to get this out into the open before we do more talking,” he continued. “As I told you before, I may have had as much motive to kill Myra as you did—which wasn’t very much, by the way. And I don’t consider your supposed motive viable either, at least not from what I’ve heard about it.”

I inhaled slowly before continuing. “The cops seem interested in me thanks to the disagreement I had with Myra about my products at my opening party. I suppose it’s because our argument was public and happened on the evening of the night she was killed.”

“Probably. I’ve half been expecting them to come to question me—although my disagreement with her wasn’t so out in the open. Harris knew about it, of course, and so did the sales help at their store, but maybe no one else. Plus, in case you’re wondering, it’s a long-term disagreement, but I poured some salt into that particular wound on the day of your opening party, when I stopped in at the Emporium in the morning. She was there and we argued, as we have before—although it consisted more of jabs than an outright fight.”

I sipped some more of my coffee, which was getting cooler. Cuppa-Joe’s kept a microwave oven inside for its guests to warm their drinks, and I often took advantage of it when my server was slow in bringing a refill pot of regular coffee. But I didn’t want to do anything to interrupt this conversation.

At least not anything major. Instead, I looked around. Cuppa employee Kit had just brought out a tray; she laid Biscuit’s water bowl beside us, then served some drinks to patrons at another table. I noticed then how busy this patio was getting. Under other circumstances, I’d have attempted to leave soon so as not to take up space that Irma and Joe could use for other paying customers. But at the moment, I wasn’t moving. And Kit had seen my glance and came over again. “Everything all right here?”

“Yes,” I said, “although I’d love it if you’d warm my drink with some coffee. You too, Jack?”

He nodded. “Thanks.”

“Oh, and please bring us each a cup of yogurt—peach for me. What kind would you like, Jack? My treat.”

He looked at me oddly. “Strawberry for me. Thanks.”

When Kit left I said, “I tend to feel guilty for overstaying my welcome at a place I like, and I certainly didn’t want to order a pastry that competes with my better stuff.”

“I get it.” Jack grinned.

I liked the grin on his handsome, angular face. I reminded myself this wasn’t a date—not exactly. And I really didn’t need another guy in my life in an indefinable relationship, as I’d sort of started with Reed. No, this was strictly business—with a hint of interrogation thrown in.

“So tell me, while we’re waiting,” I said. “When did you first come here to Knobcone Heights—and when did you start visiting the Pet Emporium?” I decided some background would be helpful before I grilled Jack even more on his disagreements with Myra.

His grin shifted into something more sardonic, then disappeared. “The first time I came up here was about three years ago, strictly on a whim. I was with an old buddy from college who’d told me how fun Knobcone Heights is in winter, so we drove up in the worst mountain conditions to ski—and had a blast. And when I noticed the Emporium, I had to stop in to see if they carried VimPets products.”

“Did they then?”

“No, although they did sell other manufacturers’ items that are considered to be of similar quality—though of course nothing really compares with VimPets.” He smiled again, and I smiled back. “I immediately said I wanted to talk to the owner—and the sales clerk who’d come over to assist me introduced me to Harris Ethman. I didn’t quite get it when he said he couldn’t make a decision on the spot about what items they sold in the store, so I kept coming back on that trip and others—and a few visits ago I hit the jackpot … or not. Myra was there, and Harris, who recognized me and probably thought me a bit of a pushy jerk, introduced us.”

I got it then. “So even though Harris was the genuine Ethman and in charge of the shop, he had to check with his wife before adding another manufacturer’s goods into the inventory.”

“Exactly.”

Kit returned then with a coffee pot and filled our cups to the brim. She also had a small foil pack of rich cocoa for me to add to mine. Plus, she had our yogurt on her tray. I’d not only pay for our treats, but I’d give her a nice, healthy tip.

When she’d left again, I picked up the thread of the conversation, looking down at my yogurt first as I took a bite of the creamy, delicious stuff, then back up at Jack. “And I take it that they didn’t agree to carry VimPets.”

“No, although I got their cards and email addresses and corresponded with them—both of them—for months. It didn’t take me long to realize that Myra was looking for more than excellent products at a reasonable wholesale price for them to jack up when they sold at retail.”

“What did she want?”

“We never did come to an agreement, but I gathered she wanted an even more substantial discount—maybe free products, at least at first. Even more important, she wanted VimPets to talk up Knob Hill Pet Emporium in all of its promotional materials, say what a wonderful town Knobcone Heights was and how its only pet store exemplified perfection … whatever.”

Which would have helped to promote the town where she managed the primary resort, as well. I could understand that—to a point. “Do the manufacturers of all the other things they carry do that?” I asked.

“She never told me for certain. Maybe they do. Or maybe she’d simply decided that VimPets should—or she disliked me enough to hold out for something she wanted that could be to my detriment. She never said anything about the other manufacturers, and I’ll never hear it from her now. And I suspect that Harris, if he even knows, won’t reveal it.”

“So, like me, you argued with her that day and she died.” I didn’t believe Jack had had anything to do with it. On the other hand, he’d brought this subject up.

“Yes, like you.”

I took that to mean that he wasn’t confessing anymore than I was. I knew the reason I wasn’t: innocence. The way he’d described things, the same went for him, too. Probably.

He reached across the table and touched my arm. “Look, Carrie. I got a call earlier today, and I have to go back home tomorrow for an important meeting. I’ll be back here as soon as I can, and we can discuss then the possibility of VimPets buying some of your recipes. But I’d like to bring more samples back with me than I got last time, including different products.”

My inclination, still, was to refuse. I wanted to think about this more. And I would really have preferred saving all my remaining dog treats to donate to my veterinary clinic and Mountaintop Rescue, but until I knew more about VimPets and any offer it might make—and had time to consider that offer—I wouldn’t do anything to turn Jack away. In fact, I’d encourage him … for now, at least. Plus, I did need to get back to my shops now, so I agreed.

We finished our yogurt. Biscuit rose as soon as we did. She’d drunk a little of her water and now seemed full of energy.

I insisted on paying and leaving the tip. Unlike Reed, Jack didn’t seem to mind. That actually gave him a boost up in my estimation, even though we were here ostensibly discussing his business.

But at the back—no, front—of my mind were a lot of questions. Why had Jack bothered telling me about his disagreement with Myra? Should I consider him a suspect? He should at least be on the same suspect level as I was, in official eyes. Should I therefore mention his revelation to the detectives next time I saw them?

I was, unfortunately, sure that I would see them again.

Holding what remained of our cups of coffee, we walked along the sidewalks of Knobcone’s streets around the town square until we reached my shops, with Biscuit sniffing at our feet—and occasionally relieving herself, too, but fortunately nothing that required a pickup.

When we reached my shops, I was glad to peer in the front windows and see groups of customers in both stores.

“Looks busy,” Jack observed.

“Yeah,” I said happily. I headed for the Barkery, both to put Biscuit inside and to collect a few samples for Jack.

Dinah was in charge there at the moment, and she looked a little harried. “Sorry,” I told her. “I’ll help out in a minute.” But first, after fastening Biscuit’s leash to her crate, I used tongs to put just one sample each of the six different treats we had available today into a box and handed it to Jack.

“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll be back here soon, and I’ll be in touch in the meantime. I assume I can reach you by phone, or, by email via your website?”

I had, in fact, had the Icing on the Cake website redesigned to include Barkery and Biscuits as part of my remodel of the stores. “Yes,” I said.

He took the box from me and bent down for an instant, giving me a quick kiss on the cheek. Which made me blush. I felt the redness creeping up my face and hoped that Dinah hadn’t seen anything.

When I glanced at her, though, she looked away quickly, back toward her customers. Of course she had seen it.

I sighed. And wondered, at least for an instant as Jack left the store, if I should have tried to detain him here, in town, until those detectives of mine had had an opportunity to question him as they’d been doing with me.

TWELVE

N
EAL GOT HOME EARLY
that evening from the resort. He’d had an early shift that day and still, unfortunately, no hiking, boating, or water skiing expeditions planned for a while, so we were able to eat dinner together.

I’d spent a few hours at my bake shops after my coffee outing, then closed for the day and returned home with Biscuit before my brother arrived. Neal brought us a good roast chicken dinner from a local fast food place. The idea not only sounded delicious to me, but the actuality tasted good, too.

Even Biscuit—as always, “Bug” to Neal—was impressed, keeping her little nose sniffing into the air as she sat beside me on the floor by the kitchen table while my brother and I ate. I admit that I did give her a couple of small tastes of chicken after checking carefully to make sure there were no bones. But mostly she ate her usual dinner of highest quality dog food. I wanted what was best for her health. That was the only way to treat my customers as well.

Because Neal had brought dinner in, I was the one to clean up. If I cooked or brought stuff in, Neal generally took over cleanup duty. That was our deal.

Even though I pretty much paid for it all.

Biscuit hung out with me in the kitchen, partly because she was my baby but also because it gave her more opportunity to beg. When I finished rinsing our dishes in my gleaming metal sink and put them all into the dishwasher, I purposefully took our bag of chicken bones outside to the trash to make sure Biscuit didn’t try to dig into the kitchen garbage container, even though it had a pretty solid lid. I put her on her leash to join me outside.

We live in a very nice neighborhood in a relatively flat area several blocks south of Summit Avenue. It’s filled with houses that were built over the course of many decades. Our home is probably twenty years old, single story, its exterior an attractive wood siding stained a cedar shade, with several small wings with sloped roofs. I’d bought it soon after moving to Knobcone Heights about five years ago, when I’d interviewed for and gotten my vet tech job.

It hadn’t hurt that I’d received my degree from Pierce College, which was recognized for having a good program for vet techs, or that I’d gotten my first job in L.A.’s affluent Westside, where I’d worked for an animal hospital frequented by upscale residents and even a few film and TV stars. After a relationship gone bad, I’d decided I didn’t want to stay there any longer.

I’d grown up in Riverside and considered returning there, but chose to avoid it—and our remarried parents with their second families. I’d looked online for jobs available in the field, saw the Knobcone Heights Veterinary Clinic opening, and contacted them for an interview; the rest was history. And Neal, who had majored in liberal arts and had no aspirations for a career beyond what he was doing now, had soon followed me up into the mountains.

It was twilight now, and Biscuit and I walked along the side of our winding road, passing neighbors’ homes of similar architecture to ours—attractive but not garish like some of the huge estates in the hills overlooking the lake. I loved it here. This was my home.

As a couple of cars drove slowly by, my phone rang, and I pulled it out of my pocket. It was Brenda.

I hoped she wasn’t calling with bad news about her mother.

“Hi, Brenda,” I said. “How’re things down below?” I braced myself for her answer.

“Fine,” she said. “My mom even recognizes me—most of the time. And she’s getting along reasonably well with her walker although her heart’s still pretty weak. So how are you doing, Carrie? Everything okay there?”