Body and Soul Food, page 7
“Thank you, Mr. Al.” Smile still plastered, I was trying to think where I would put the gift of books he’d just sprung on me. I could put them in storage, I thought (after I checked what shape they were in), but I’d hate for him to come to the bookstore and not see what he’d given me.
“I’m a giver,” he said, placing his hand over his heart. “What can I say?”
“I’ll have to send someone over to get them,” I said. “Is that okay?”
“Sure. Of course. I didn’t expect you to carry them yourself.” He gave the box a jab with his toe. “I can bring it over if need be. I would have dropped it off this morning, but no one was there when I got here at six.”
I chuckled. “We got there at eight today, but once we open, we probably won’t be getting in until ten.”
“Good to know,” he said. “I’ve been thinking that Books & Biscuits, with Koby cooking up a storm, will give me a run for my money.”
“I’m sure we’ll all get along great.”
“What can I get you today?” he asked.
“Do you have any fresh bagels?”
“You know I do. And I’ve got your favorite.”
Mr. Al prided himself in knowing his customers, and I hoped to do the same thing when we got regular customers.
I loaded up on bagels, cream cheese, smoked salmon, breakfast quiches fresh out of the oven and sliced seasonal fruit. I headed back to the café. When I rounded the corner to go back inside, I noticed someone on the Park Street side of our building peeking in the window. Initially happy to see a would-be customer checking us out, that soon turned to shock.
Maybe horror.
It was Tessa Chaiken. From the train.
What was she doing at our window? How could she know we could be found there? I hadn’t put that address on the sheet I filled out at the interrogation.
Maybe she had followed me from home . . .
Maybe that was what happened to my book.
Yeah, right, Keaton. A killer comes to your house and takes a book.
That made no sense.
The heart palpitations I was having were what made no sense. She wasn’t going to kill me in broad daylight. But most important, I didn’t know if she had killed anyone.
I decided to say something to her.
Just a Hello. And a We won’t be opening for a couple days. Maybe even a Don’t I know you from somewhere?
“Yeah, maybe not that last one,” I muttered as I took a step toward her. But as I did, she took off in the other direction.
“Oh. Okay then. Guess I won’t be doing that.” I opened the door to the store, ready to go back in when a thought hit me. It made me feel kind of excited. I was thinking it must be the kind of thing that Koby experiences—a need to know.
Why was she in Timber Lake? And why had she stopped at our store? I wanted—needed—to find that out.
What exactly did I think I was going to find out by doing this? Not sure. I certainly wasn’t going to try to get any information out of her. I wouldn’t know what to say. Still, I was so curious.
I could only hope not so curious as to have the same fate as that pesky proverbial cat.
I tucked the packages I’d gotten from the farmers market right inside the door in a little recess so no one would trip over them, not that anyone was coming in, and turned to head back out. To follow Tessa. I thought I heard Koby calling out my name as I shut the door, but I didn’t take the time to answer. He’d wonder what happened to me. Hopefully he wouldn’t worry, though. After all, he was the one who had said Tessa was someone to watch.
I had decided to do just that.
As I started out, I did think it might have been a good idea to tell someone my plans.
Thank goodness the streets were still kind of busy. Not as many cars as had been out on my way in, but enough that I felt like I’d be okay if she discovered what I was doing and confronted me.
I stayed back as far as I could.
Tessa headed toward the west side of town but didn’t go any farther than a couple of blocks, stopping at the Pfeiffer Crest Pharmacy. I stood outside, tapping my foot for four or five minutes, eager to see where she was going and confident I’d be able to follow her without being seen.
It was only after I decided to go into the pharmacy that I started feeling foolish. She’d already picked up whatever it was that she came in to buy. She was at the counter, next in line to pay for her purchase.
“Hi,” the clerk said. “Did you find everything you needed?”
“Yes,” Tessa said. “Thank you.”
She had good posture. She stood up so straight. Her voice sounded different from what I remembered from the train. Younger.
Today Tessa had on a bright red summer sweater, blue jeans and flats that were red and white striped. She would have been hard to miss.
I shook my head. That is not what I should do to get information. How did noting what she was wearing tell me anything about what she was up to? It didn’t!
I needed to try to think more like my brother.
“Going out on the water?” the clerk asked, and passed something under the scanner.
What would make the clerk say that?
Dramamine? I thought.
“Oh yeah,” Tessa said. She put her head down, looking into the shoulder bag she carried. “Not much else to do around here.”
“No,” the clerk agreed. “Not around here. But I’m used to it.” She dropped the purchase in a bag. “You’re not from around here?”
“No,” Tessa said.
“Oh.” The clerk’s face lit up with an idea. “You should go into Seattle. Lots of stuff there. Plenty of people your age.”
“I don’t really like big cities,” Tessa said, handing over some paper money. “I’m sure I won’t be going into Seattle while I’m here.”
Ha! She was just in Seattle. Why would she tell that clerk that?
“How long you staying in Timber Lake?”
“I’m just here a few days.” She paused but then added, “To visit with my grandfather. Keep him company.”
“Aww. That’s sweet.” With a proud smile, the clerk handed the change back to Tessa. “My grandpop just went to live with my uncle in North Carolina. Didn’t realize how much I was going to miss him. But the rain around here wasn’t any good for his lungs.”
“Okay.” Tessa took her bag from the clerk and thanked her as she turned to head out.
“Eee!” I ducked my head and ran the other way down the aisle. I couldn’t let her see me. I rounded the corner into the next aisle just as she was going out the door.
I watched from the door until she got a few feet ahead of me. She didn’t walk with much purpose, swinging her arms as she ambled along down the street, looking in windows as she passed stores. She waited at street corners for traffic to go by.
My borrowed Koby intuition told me that meant something.
But what?
“Well . . .” I muttered, swallowing as if that would help an idea formulate in my brain. “Maybe. Uhm . . .”
I know! She wasn’t in a hurry. It wasn’t like she was up to something nefarious (like coming to kill me and Koby so as not to leave any witnesses). And she seemed to know exactly where she was going.
I smiled. Happy to have come up with an observation that went beyond fashion.
But what did that mean?
Ahhh. It meant that she probably lived here.
Or had lived here.
Or knew someone who did.
Oh wait. She had just said she was visiting her grandfather.
I had to stop thinking so hard. I was trying to figure out stuff I’d already heard her say. Plus, she was getting too far ahead of me.
Tessa headed east this time and cut through the ravine just as I had that morning.
I started to get nervous again. She was going in the direction of my house.
Then I started worrying about what was in that bag other than something for seasickness.
Rat poison?
Or something less lethal. Had she’d filled a prescription for a drug that would knock me unconscious so she could take me captive to torture me to see what I knew?
Like the book Still Missing by Chevy Stevens that I hadn’t too long ago finished. Of course, my mother would be the therapist, like the one in the book, who would help me overcome the trauma after I was finally rescued.
That gave me chills.
I was going to have to start reading romcoms . . .
But before I could have a full-on panic attack, she veered right and headed toward the docks.
The Timber Lake Marina wasn’t much of anything. There were buildings—the clubhouse—I could see from the path I took to the shop. But there wasn’t ever much of any activity going on when I passed by.
Once a hub for the residing boats, now it really had no purpose. Old Man Walker had run it for years, and while there were few social interactions and no restaurants or showers available for the renters anymore, it still had locked storage spaces. So he often was prone to complain when he visited the library. He had one librarian whom he seemed to like to talk to. Liz Chambers. And then she’d tell me, not that I’d asked, what he said.
Nowadays, there wasn’t much for him to do—put locks on the storage spaces, take out the garbage from trash receptacles and change the lightbulbs along the dock whenever they went out.
The need for the clubhouse had faded when the slips began to be filled with fewer pleasure boats and more houseboats. All sizes and shapes, they dotted the shoreline for nearly as far as the eye could see.
The floating homes, some fully navigable, some rickety, retired steamers and some new, state-of-the-art. They were a mix of single and double story with covered patios and large windows used as permanent homes or Airbnbs. There was even one that sold cupcakes, a moored bakery of sorts. Tessa made her second stop there, picking up a half dozen, or so it seemed from the size of the box she emerged with.
I smiled at my observation.
But there was no time for a pat on the back. She was on the move again.
But not for long. She walked down the pier to a one-story pontoon houseboat docked about seven piers down. It looked homemade from its blue jay–and-white-colored aluminum siding to its tin patio roof. There was a metal rail around the bottom of the boat and a sunbathing deck on the roof.
She boarded without announcement and went inside.
Is that where her grandfather lived? I looked down the shoreline, my house not too far out of view. A random woman on the 6:44 train in Seattle was my neighbor. Go figure.
It was a coincidence that I was on the same train as someone from Timber Lake, but not so for Reef. He lived in Seattle. Well . . . I guess I shouldn’t say that. He might not live in Seattle proper—there were plenty of neighborhoods around it. But he certainly didn’t live in Timber Lake. I knew that for a fact.
But she did. How hadn’t I ever seen her?
I hid behind one of the light posts along the dock for what seemed like forever. And then I reasoned, if she did indeed live there, she might just be in for the day. Or at least long enough that I couldn’t spare the time to hang around to see her again. I checked the clock on my cell phone.
I could just leave . . .
Then Koby’s voice percolated around in my brain.
She was one to watch.
I needed to see what she was doing inside.
I looked around to see if there was any way I could get close enough to see what she was up to. Boarding her boat and peeking through the window crossed my mind, but of course I knew better than to do that.
However, on the uncovered deck of a two-story canal houseboat right next to the one Tessa had disappeared into was a telescope. I’d be able to see her.
I glanced up to the top level and wondered why a telescope wasn’t up there. After all, it was for gazing at the stars. Maybe the owner of that houseboat had been doing exactly what I wanted to do.
Now to hope no one was at home.
I walked with reckless abandon to the door and knocked. I had thought about calling out, but I didn’t want Tessa looking out of one of her windows at me.
There was no answer to my rap on the door. Probably at work. I thought that was a good assessment and took it as a go-ahead on my plan. (I could have tried again to make sure, but why take the risk?) I made my way to the telescope.
“Shoot!”
Just as I put my eye to the rim of the scope, it started to rain. Not a downpour, just a drizzle—even the sun was still shining—but enough to collect droplets on the other end of the lens.
“Now how am I supposed to see anything?” I muttered.
I went around and swiped the lens with the tail of my shirt. Then went back. Putting my eye to it, I got a shock.
It was Jason Holiday! The nerdy guy from the train, only he didn’t look so nerdy today. He was inside the boat that Tessa had just gone into. That knocked me back on my heels. Surely he wasn’t her grandfather.
What the heck! Was there even a grandfather?
Probably not. Hadn’t she lied when she told that clerk she wouldn’t be going into Seattle? She had been in Seattle.
They had acted like they didn’t even know each other on the train. At least that was what I thought. Now here they were in the same houseboat.
And how had I never seen either one of them before?
I mean, before we decided to open the bookshop café, I was working full-time at the library and wasn’t usually out in the morning roaming the streets. And then again, if I had seen them, I wouldn’t have known who they were and wouldn’t have paid any attention to them.
And maybe they had just moved in.
But whatever the reason, here they were.
Now to figure out how that had anything to do with what happened to Reef.
I was going to have to tell Koby about what I’d seen. He had been suspicious of them from the beginning.
And I had to get out of the rain.
I’d gone back in my house that morning to get an umbrella but hadn’t even thought about bringing it with me when I decided to tail Tessa.
But when I decided to leave, so did Jason and Tessa.
“Shoot!”
I couldn’t let them see me. I ran around to the far side of the boat. I peeked around the corner of the house to watch until they left.
But instead of leaving, they came out and stood on the deck. Their covered deck. I was going to have to wait them out, but I couldn’t just stand around in the rain either.
Geesh! I looked up at the sky. That sun was starting to get blocked out by grayish clouds. This might not be a quick shower. We hadn’t had much rain in the last couple of weeks. I guess it was time for it. I was hating, though, that I was going to get caught in it.
In my distress, I turned and leaned my back against the outside wall of the boat. Well, I thought it was a wall. It wasn’t. It was a door and it pushed right open! I ducked inside and prayed that no one was in there.
I took a look around but didn’t wander too far into the interior. I let my eyes scan the area. It was a nice place, reminding me of a dorm room or college apartment. A hodgepodge of different kinds of furniture didn’t match at all the modern exterior. But it was neat and clean and newer-looking.
I crossed my fingers in hope that no one rubbing their eyes would emerge from a bedroom, or still wet from the shower with only a towel wrapped around them. Or no towel at all.
Those thoughts were making me anxious. I tiptoed across the space to the window on the side closest to Tessa and Jason’s boat and watched as they stood on the porch and talked.
What in the world are they doing?
Couldn’t they talk inside? Or get going to whatever their destination was?
Deciding to “watch” these two hadn’t turned out to be such a good idea . . .
Chapter Nine
WHEN I GOT back to the store, my mother was there, and so was Homicide Detective Daniel Chow. Both standing in the dining area with Koby. Both still in their nearly matching trench coats, so I figured they hadn’t been there long.
I had come through the door and found the bookstore side like I’d left it, including the food I had set inside the door, still tucked in the corner.
I grabbed the bags and followed voices I heard to the café, and that’s when I saw them.
I hadn’t forgotten about my mother coming with her “feel good” cookies, but I never expected to see Chow.
“You’re all wet.” My mother was the first to speak. “Where have you been?”
I held up the bags. “Getting food.”
Koby raised his eyebrow. “Why aren’t the bags wet?”
He would notice that. I looked down at them, then put them on the table. Georgie and Pete came out from the kitchen area. “What’s going on here?” I asked.
Tessa and Jason had stayed on the porch talking for just a few minutes, but it seemed like an hour. They finally stepped back into the house and I made a dash for it. Wasn’t sure if they ever came back out or if they even had gone anywhere. I didn’t care. By the time I made my getaway, the rain, thankfully, hadn’t gotten any heavier, but it was still coming down. I trotted all the way back to Books & Biscuits, trying to miss as many raindrops as I could. But I’d escaped one tight situation just to find myself in the middle of another one.
“I brought you cookies,” my mother said. She should have known that question wasn’t directed at her.
“I came to have a word with you and Koby,” Detective Chow said. His presence was already the one I was questioning, but after he said that, I started to feel anxious. Dressed almost the same as he was yesterday, except today his shirt was a powder blue, he stood with his hands folded in front of him. He was looking official.
