Flamingo Diner (10 page)

Emma seemed momentarily taken aback when the very pregnant Corinne lumbered awkwardly around the desk and embraced her. She blinked hard and then a slow smile spread across her face. “Cori? Corinne Holt?”

“It’s Fletcher now.” Her own smile dimmed. “Oh, Emma, I am so sorry about your dad. You know how we all adored him. I’d expected all my kids to grow up in Flamingo Diner under his watchful eye just the way we did. I can’t even count the number of times he sat down with me and gave me advice. He always had time to listen, even when I was going on and on about my parents or some boy. You were so lucky to have a dad like that.”

“I know. Thanks,” Emma said, her eyes turning damp.

Matt immediately stepped in. “Cori, can you get
us in to see Jennifer? We have some questions we thought she might be able to help us with.”

Cori looked oddly uncomfortable. “Actually she’s out of town right now. I’m not expecting her back till next week. Can someone else help you?”

Matt glanced at Emma, who shook her head. “No, we’ll wait for her,” Matt said. “Set up an appointment for Monday afternoon. Is that okay for you, Emma?”

“Sure. Anytime after three should work.”

Cori went back behind the desk and scanned the page of a date book. “She has a three o’clock, but I can change it.”

“Thank you,” Emma said.

“Will you be staying in Winter Cove?” Cori asked her. “I’d love to get together if you are.”

Emma nodded. “At least for the time being, and I’d love to see you. Maybe we can have dinner sometime?”

“I’ll check with my husband and compare schedules, then call you,” Cori promised. “You’re staying with your mom, right? I have that number.”

“Then I’ll wait to hear from you,” Emma replied.

Cori looked from Matt to Emma, then back again. “You want to join us, Matt?” she asked, her tone about as innocent as that of the scheming operator of a full-service matchmaking enterprise.

Matt glanced at Emma. “Sure, as long as Emma doesn’t object.”

“Of course not,” she said with something that almost sounded like relief.

After they’d left, he called her on it. “Was there some reason you weren’t looking forward to getting together with Cori and her husband on your own?”

She frowned at the question. “What gave you that idea?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe the fact that you looked as if I’d saved you from a fate worse then death when I agreed to come along.”

“Maybe I just wanted your company,” she replied.

He leveled a look straight into her eyes. “Did you?”

He heard her breath hitch, saw the pulse fluttering at the base of her neck, the quick rise of color in her cheeks. Clearly she hadn’t been expecting him to call her on her claim.

“It’s dinner, Matt, not an invitation to have sex,” she finally said testily.

“Too bad,” he murmured, then grinned. “I’ll try real hard to remember that.”

“See that you do,” she said sternly, but there was an unmistakable twinkle in her eyes.

That little spark was more than enough to give a man hope.

Emma spent a lot of time weighing Matt’s argument that she needed to be honest with her mother about what she was doing. She finally concluded that he was right, it wouldn’t be right to keep Rosa in the dark, especially since it could cost her mother whatever insurance money there was. If Rosa objected too vehemently, there was still time to call off the investigation.

When she took a supper tray into her mother’s room, she carried a bowl of cold, spicy gazpacho along for herself.

“I thought I’d eat with you,” she announced, not
waiting for her mother’s response before pulling a chair over beside the bed.

Rosa watched her warily. “What’s on your mind, Emma?” she asked eventually.

Emma barely resisted the urge to snap a response asking what on earth her mother thought would be on her mind these days. Instead, she said quietly, “I’ve done something I wanted you to know about.”

Rosa’s hand froze in midair. Slowly she placed the spoonful of soup back into the bowl. “What have you done?”

There was no point in dancing around it, Emma decided. “I took the diner’s books to Matt and asked him to help me figure out what was going on with Dad.”

Rosa’s already pale complexion turned ashen. “Oh, Emma, you didn’t. Why would you do such a thing?”

This was going to be the hard part, telling her mother that she suspected her father’s death wasn’t an accident. She drew in a deep breath. “We need to know, Mama.”

“Maybe you do.”

“We all do,” Emma insisted. “I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to make this harder on you than it already is, but the truth is that I don’t believe Dad’s death was accidental.”

She waited for a shocked gasp, some hint of outrage, maybe even another slap, but her mother merely closed her eyes. A tear trailed down her cheek. In that instant she looked as if she’d aged ten years.

“You suspect the same thing, don’t you?” Emma said at last. “I thought so.”

“I can’t talk about this,” her mother said, shoving
away her tray. “Please, Emma. Leave it alone. Think of your brothers.”

“That’s exactly who I am thinking about. Them and you. Look at you. You’ve been holed up in here for a couple of weeks now. Jeff’s run off to who knows where. Andy’s worrying himself sick.”

“And you’re trapped here in Winter Cove,” Rosa said sharply. “That’s the real problem, isn’t it? Once you find out what happened with your father, you’ll be able to place the blame on me or someone else and then take off again.”

The accusation was as stinging as the slap she’d anticipated. “That’s not it,” she insisted. “I’m happy to stay and help out for however long you need me, but none of us can go on forever wondering about that night and why it happened. It’s this huge elephant sitting in the middle of the room and we’re all trying to ignore it. I think even Andy and Jeff suspect that something’s not right.”

“Surely not,” her mother said. “They’re young. They adored their father, even Jeff, though he’d never admit it.”

“I know and this won’t ruin that. It will just make it easier for them to understand why he’s gone.”

“Will it really?” her mother asked bitterly. “How will you explain that there’s no insurance money for Jeff to finish college, for Andy to go next year, or to pay off the mortgages your father took out on the house and the diner?”

Despite her mother’s emphasis on the money, a vague suspicion crept into Emma’s head and refused to be ignored. “Mama, do you already know why Dad would commit suicide? Do you think he did it for the money?”

“Of course not. If I had known he was that upset over something, don’t you think I would have insisted he get help? Don’t blame me for any of this.”

“I wasn’t blaming you. It’s just that it wasn’t like him to refinance the house and the diner without talking it over with you.”

“Well, he didn’t,” Rosa snapped. “I would never have let him do such a thing and he knew it.”

Emma sighed. “I just thought maybe you had some idea what was going on in his head, maybe without even realizing it was important. You two always talked about everything.”

“Well, not this time, and I don’t want to know, either.” There was real fear in her voice.

“What are you afraid of, Mama?” Emma asked.

“I’m not afraid. I’m angry.”

“At Dad?”

“No, at you for taking a step like this without asking me first. You’re just going to make it worse, Emma.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. I just feel it in my gut.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m doing what I think is best,” Emma said unrepentantly. “And now that I’ve talked to you, I’m more convinced than ever that I’m right. Whatever you’re thinking has to be worse than the truth.”

“You can’t know that.”

“I do. I knew Dad. So did you.”

“No,” Rosa said sadly. “I only thought I did.” She rolled over, turning her back once again on Emma.

That hurt as much as anything that had happened in recent days. She and her mother had always been
able to talk, had always understood each other. Now her father had managed to drive a wedge between them.

Ever since the suicide, Matt had driven by the lake every evening, passing the spot where he’d found Don’s car. There was a makeshift memorial there, a growing pile of flowers and markers left by the grieving citizens of Winter Cove. A similar memorial had appeared in front of the diner the day the news had spread, but out of respect for the family’s feelings, someone had cleared it away before the restaurant opened for business again. Now this place, rather than the cemetery, was where people left their tributes to a man who’d done so much for the community.

In all his past trips, Matt had never actually spotted anyone at the site, but tonight there were two shadowy figures there. Rather than leaving something behind in remembrance, though, it looked as if they were digging through the display. Thoroughly disgusted by the apparent vandalism, he slammed on his brakes and turned on his flashing lights.

“Dammit, I told you, we shouldn’t be doing this,” a crotchety voice grumbled. “We’re about to be hauled off to jail.”

“Oh, shut your trap,” the other man answered. “It’s not as if we’re committing a crime.”

Matt groaned as he recognized not only the voices, but the sparring. Gabe Jenkins and Harley Watkins, he concluded as he took a more leisurely stroll in their direction.

“Nice night,” he observed when he could look the two men in the eyes.

Gabe regarded him suspiciously. “You stopping by for a chat?”

“That depends,” Matt said. “What are you two up to?”

“Nothing,” Harley responded flatly, casting a quelling look in Gabe’s direction.

“That’s right, not a thing,” Gabe said dutifully.

“Looked to me as if you were poking around for something in Don’s memorial,” Matt countered. “Did one of you lose something?”

“No,” Gabe said, just as Harley said, “Yes.”

Matt bit back a chuckle. “Which is it?”

“I lost something. He didn’t,” Harley said.

“What?” Matt inquired. “I’ll help you look.”

“A contact lens,” Harley said readily. “I was bending over, putting a handful of flowers down, and the dang thing fell right out of my eye.”

Gabe stared at him as if he’d grown two heads.

“I don’t recall ever seeing you wear glasses,” Matt said.

“Because I have contacts,” Harley said patiently. “Had ’em for years now, practically from the minute they were introduced on the market.”

Matt nodded. “Is that so? Soft or hard lens?”

“Hardheaded, more likely,” Gabe muttered.

Harley scowled at him. “Are you determined to blow this? I’m doing the best I can here.”

Matt leveled a look straight into his twenty-twenty eyes. “Blow what, Harley?”

Gabe heaved a sigh. “We might’s well tell him. It’s not like we’re committing a crime or something. Maybe he’ll appreciate the help.”

Matt nearly groaned. He’d been afraid it might be something like that. “What sort of help?”

Harley shot a sour look at his friend, then said, “We got to thinking this morning that somebody might have left a clue out here.”

“A clue?” Matt repeated slowly.

“Are you deaf, boy? Or just stupid? You do know what a clue is, don’t you?”

“Indeed, I do,” Matt said. “But why here? And why did the two of you decide to come looking for it, instead of just telling me?”

“Didn’t want to waste your time on a wild-goose chase,” Gabe said. “We figured we’d scope things out, then fill you in.”

“What exactly did you think you might find?”

“Maybe a note from somebody who was feeling too guilty to send flowers to the funeral,” Harley explained. “Or maybe some little memento.”

Matt couldn’t really argue with the theory. He just didn’t want these two to start getting ideas about conducting their own investigation into Don’s death. Who knew what sort of mischief they might get into. If they needed more excitement in their lives, they should take up bingo.

“Next time you guys get a bright idea like this, bring it to me,” he told them sternly. “Otherwise I’m liable to haul you in for interfering in police business, obstructing justice or any other charge I can dream up and make stick.”

“So that’s the thanks we get for wanting to do the right thing?” Gabe grumbled.

“No, the thanks you get is me not hauling you in tonight,” Matt said. “I won’t go so easy on you next time, if you keep this up. What makes you think you have any business digging around in Don’s death?
The ME’s ruling came out this afternoon. The case is officially closed. It was an accident.”

“As if you believe that any more than we do,” Harley scoffed.

Matt groaned. If these two were convinced otherwise, then half the town probably was, as well. “Could you manage to keep your opinions to yourselves?”

“Well, of course, we will. We don’t like seeing the family upset,” Gabe said.

“Then leave it alone.”

“Silence never solves anything,” Gabe retorted. “We figured if we could come up with some sort of explanation for why Don did what he did, it might be easier on the family in the long run.”

There was a lot of that kind of thinking going around these days, Matt thought. “I don’t disagree,” he told them. “But let me do the investigating, okay?”

The two men eyed the pile of flowers and stuffed toys with regret, but they did turn away to leave.

“You’re not leaving, are you?” Matt finally concluded with a sigh.

“Seems like a waste to have three of us standing here and not poke around a little,” Harley said.

“Okay, fine,” Matt said, resigned. “Now that I’m here, I suppose I could use some help, but you only touch things I tell you that you can touch. Got it?”

Their expressions immediately brightened. “Got it,” Harley said enthusiastically.

“What do you want us to do?” Gabe asked.

“I’m going to pick things up one by one,” Matt said. “I’ll look ’em over, then hand ’em to you. See if you see anything I missed, then set it down over
there.” He gestured to a bare patch of ground where the memorial could be rebuilt with few people the wiser. Just on the remote chance there actually was a clue, it might be best if no one knew there had ever been a search conducted out here.