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“It will all be a nightmare,” he said. “I shouldn’t have complained about that man in front of anyone. Laila, as much as I hated him, the thought of prison time alone would never let me kill him nor even think of assaulting him. I am one former inmate who learned his lesson. I just wanted to tell him off.”
Anger does strange things, I thought to myself, but I believed Jacob at that moment. If he expected all judgment to result in his innocence in West River, he had a hard road ahead of him. He needed a neighborhood witness or someone who could vouch that he was at home after leaving here. He needed someone who saw him actually leave Roasted Love and walk straight home. I berated myself for not calling him last night to come over when I thought about doing so.
By late morning the excitement had calmed down and the only reminder of the earlier chaos was the existing yellow tape around Sunrise. The gaudy signs still flickered in the sunlight but the doors were closed to customers and the only people in the coffee house across the street were detectives combing through for any signs of who committed murder in the Sunrise coffee house on the Piazza.
Two elderly ladies sat at a table in Roasted Love sipping lattes. They spoke in low voices and their eyes skirted from inside Roasted Love to outside Sunrise. Jacob finally emerged from the back and began wiping down the counter and keeping himself busy with duties Janie and Lila usually were expected to do. His face was still pale but he seemed to have a little more life in him.
Jacob Weaver would need all the confidence he could muster when the police got to him.
Chapter Four
As for me, I hoped against hope my boss had not murdered his enemy from across the street. I grabbed a plain black coffee and headed for the back door. I needed fresh air and the alley behind the line of shops was a good place for a walk. After striding behind the businesses several times, I was just about to open the rear door to Roasted Love and get back to work when Jen Perry came around the corner.
“Laila, they told me you were out here walking,” she said.
The light wind whipped strands of shining hair across her face. She didn’t bother pushing them away. Her curves accentuated by charcoal slacks and a sky-blue silk blouse caused envy to make its way up inside me. I hoped my mannerisms didn’t betray the look in my deep blue eyes where expressions sometimes were easily hidden.
“What did you want?” I struggled to say nicely.
Her puffy red eyes failed to encourage my sympathy. This was the third time I had spoken to Jen face to face since Sunrise had opened. The two previous
exchanges were sterile greetings when we were too close to one another to ignore the other. I noticed a certain panic in her red-rimmed eyes.
“I’ve already heard rumors that Jacob is to blame for Michael’s death.”
“I think I saw you pointing over this way when you talked with the cop earlier. Did you make sure that message reached the cop’s ear?”
“He merely asked me if Michael had any known enemies. I pointed out that Jacob Weaver didn’t get along with him,” said Jen. “That’s all I said.”
“I might add,” I said, “that Michael Simms did not get along with more shop owners than Jacob.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “I know that, but Michael hated Jacob most of all.” She swallowed hard. “That officer thinks of me as a suspect. They think he may have been poisoned.”
I stared at her but didn’t respond. I wondered where this petite woman had been at the time of her boss’s death and whether or not she had put something foreign in his coffee. In spite of the news, a little surge of hope arose when I thought at least Jacob wasn’t going to be the only suspect in this case. I rallied back to the situation at hand and asked her why they thought she might have something to do with it. Suddenly she didn’t look so suave after all. In halting tones she explained why the cops were looking at her.
“Michael and I had argued a lot recently. Then, I saw how he let Thor chase after you. I could tell from Michael’s demeanor that he was being hateful toward you. I had a close relationship with Michael and was probably the only person who could put him in his place and get by with it. I asked him what the meeting with you was all about.”
She took a deep breath. “Without warning he lashed out at me as if I meant nothing to him. We ended up having a huge argument. It was just about closing time but he told me to stay open another two hours.”
“Why would he ask you to stay open past the usual hours?” I asked. Now curiosity replaced envy. I had yet to figure out why she was confiding in me.
“He told me it was a way to snatch customers from his rival across the street. He meant, of course, Roasted Love. But I believe he signaled me out because he didn’t like that I was correcting him on his behavior toward you. Besides, he was getting cold toward me for the past few days. That dog is a monster as you found out. Michael had no right to let him run where he wanted.”
“Was that dog always unleashed?” I asked as a way to encourage her to say more.
“He leashed Thor during the day when Sunrise was open but in the early morning and late afternoon he let him run. The dog stayed close to the coffee house and didn’t go more than a block away. He didn’t run up and down the street.”
Had she had one harsh argument with her boss or was that one of many? Thoughts of rumors that Michael was married didn’t push away the idea that he and his Barista were more deeply entwined than in a mere business relationship. I wanted to get back to the angry conversation between Michael and Jen the night before but I had a more important question for her. She had veered onto the subject of Michael’s dog.
“What do you want from me?”
“I don’t know many people around here. You seem like someone decent. If the cops ask you for information, I just need someone to stand up for me. Our voices got loud so I’m sure customers overheard our argument from the back room. The worst of it all is that I told him in no uncertain terms that someone would get rid of him unless he changed his ways in the neighborhood. I meant someone would eventually run him out of business, not kill him.”
She sniffed and dabbed her eyes. Not sure of her explanation, I had to hand it to her that she stood up for me against Michael. I suspected she had an ulterior motive. We didn’t know each other well enough for me to vouch for her character and possible motives for killing her boss. I told her as much but promised her I would let them know only what I had observed of her from a distance. That seemed to satisfy her but I felt she wanted much more from me. There was something about her that rang false. She didn’t move to leave.
“Were you and Michael Simms having an affair?” I asked.
Her eyes filled with tears again. “Yes, we were, but he told me he wanted to go back to his wife and try to make his marriage work.”
