Murder on Aisle Three Read online

  After breakfast was done, she walked her aunt and uncle back to their room. Once they were settled, she returned to the building’s main area, and was unsurprised to see Emily in Nick’s office. She smiled. She was glad that the young woman had jumped on the job offer. Hopefully Nick would hire her. It would be nice to keep working with someone she knew from the grocery store.

  She took a seat in the common area while she waited for the interview to end. A couple of the residents greeted her, and she found herself drawn into a conversation with them. This hardly feels like work, she thought. I love cooking for these people. I don't know how I got so lucky.

  It wasn't long before she heard the office door open and Emily came out. Autumn waved, and her coworker made a beeline for her.

  “How did it go?” Autumn asked.

  “Great,” Emily said. “I think. Mr. Holt seems nice, and I think I'd like working here.”

  “That's good. I hope you end up getting the job. I think you'd like it here too. Everyone's nice, and it's definitely rewarding.”

  Emily beamed, but then her face fell. “I just wish all of this wasn't coming right on the heels of Grace’s death. I still can't believe it's real. She's actually gone.”

  “I know,” Autumn said. “It's been hard for a lot of people. I can't imagine what her family's going through.”

  “It’s all my fault,” the young woman said in a quiet voice.

  “Don't be silly. It's not your fault. How could it be?”

  Emily’s gaze fell to the floor. “The key,” she whispered.

  Autumn felt goosebumps on her skin. What did Emily know about Jed’s missing key?

  “What do you mean?” she asked, more sharply than she had intended to.

  “I knew that she had made a copy of your key. She did it a few months ago, one of those days when she went out to pick up lunch for us. She didn't tell me until after, and I didn't want to get her in trouble, so I'd didn’t say anything.”

  “Grace made a copy of my key?”

  Emily nodded. “I thought you knew? Isn't that how she got into the store that night?”

  Autumn was speechless. If there was a fourth copy of the key, then maybe all of their assumptions were wrong.

  “Why did she want a copy of the key?”

  “I don't know for sure. I think she might have used it to get alcohol after hours — she always had some at her apartment even though neither of us are old enough to buy it legally.”

  It sounded like Grace hadn't been quite the perfect employee after all. It also meant that the killer could have been anyone. She could have snuck into the store with a boyfriend to steal alcohol, and then gotten into an argument with him. Maybe Jed really had just lost his key. Were she and Jed getting ahead of themselves with their plan to try to get Mr. Goodall to confess?

  “Are you all right, Ms. Roth?”

  “I'm fine,” she told Emily. “I've just got a lot to think about now.”

  “I'm sorry. I don't know whether I should have told you all of that or not. I don't want it to affect the way you think about her. She really was a mostly good person. Now I feel terrible, like I was saying something bad about her.”

  “Don't feel terrible,” Autumn said. “You were just telling me the truth. And don't worry, I understand why you didn't tell me about the copy of the key, though of course you should have. But I can admit that if I was your age and one of my best friends did something like that, I probably wouldn't have turned them in either.”

  “Don't you just feel like you wish you could turn back time? I would do anything to have it be this time last week, so I could warn her.”

  “I know exactly what you mean,” she replied. “I feel the same way. If there was any way to go back, I would. But there isn’t, so both of us have got to try to figure out a way to keep going forward.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  * * *

  She was filled with doubt as she drove to meet Jed the next afternoon. Did they have the right person? Even if they did, was this the right thing to do?

  Autumn took a deep breath. She was already committed to this. Worrying and wondering wouldn't help her at all. Mr. Goodall was still their strongest suspect. The fact that Grace had her own secret copy of the key didn't mean a thing. Jed’s key was still mysteriously missing, and Mr. Goodall was the only person who could have taken it.

  She arrived at the restaurant a few minutes before her boss. While she waited in the parking lot, she looked around at the other cars, wondering if the man that they were meeting was there yet. She had never seen Mr. Goodall, and had no idea what sort of vehicle he might drive. She didn't even know what sort of business he was planning on opening after he bought the building from Jed.

  She was relieved when Jed's truck pulled up beside her. Getting out of her car, she walked over to meet him. "Are you ready?" she asked.

  “As much as I will ever be," he said. "Did you bring it?”

  “I did,” she said. Earlier that morning, she had stopped at the supermarket. The first ever purchase she had made there had been a small, cheap voice recorder. It could easily fit in her pocket, and would hopefully be able to pick up the man's voice through the thin fabric of her blouse.

  “All right,” he said. “You ready to go in?”

  She nodded. For better or for worse, they were doing this.

  She had no idea who they were looking for, but Jed did. He took a moment to look around the restaurant, then made a beeline for a man sitting at a table in the corner. He was a large man, with a ruddy face and sharp eyes. He rose when Jed approached him and shook his hand.

  “This is my manager, Autumn,” Jed said. “I asked her to come with me today. I trust her opinion; she's worked for me for quite a few years.”

  “It's nice to meet you,” Mr. Goodall said. He sat back down. Autumn and Jed took the seats across from him. She checked the voice recorder in her pocket, making sure it was on. The green light blinked at her. It was recording.

  “So, have you thought about my offer, Jed?”

  “I was hoping that you would have reconsidered,” Autumn's boss said. “I still think it's too low.”

  “It's the middle of winter. There won't be very many people looking to buy at this time, especially not when you've got two feet of snow on the ground up here. And considering what you've got to deal with now, with all of the bad publicity, I think your chances of getting a better offer are even lower. If you'd like, I can sweeten the deal. I'll do half in cash.”

  “Are you really using Grace’s death as a bargaining tool?” Autumn asked. She couldn't help herself. Mr. Goodall hadn't even offered his condolences. Even if he wasn't the killer, he definitely was rude.

  “I'm just saying, it's a difficult time to be selling the building. Especially one that you're being forced to sell because you're going out of business. With the price you're asking, any buyer is going to want more of a guarantee that it will be a good investment. I'm just not seeing that, although I'm willing to take a chance on it, primarily because my business is so different from yours, and I think this would be a good area for it.”

  “What sort of business will you be running there?” Autumn asked.

  “I'll be opening an outdoor sports shop. Ski rentals in the winter, canoe and kayak rentals in the summer – with the river right there, it's perfect – and will offer hiking and camping equipment year-round. It should bring in a lot of business from out of town, and of course it will benefit the locals too. Like I said, it's a great opportunity, and the perfect location for it.”

  “And I agree that it's a perfect location, which is why I don't understand why you won't raise your offer.” Jed closed his eyes. “I'm just trying to recoup what I spent on this building. I'm sure you understand that. The store was my livelihood. I'm struggling as it is, and I can't take such a loss when I sell the building.”

  Autumn glanced at Jed. Had he gotten distracted? Did he still remember why they were there? He seemed to be getting pretty worked up ov
er the discussion of the sale price, and hadn't brought up Grace once.

  Even though she wasn't certain any longer that Mr. Goodall was the killer, she still had to ask him about the key. Jed's missing key could be the solution to everything. The only question was, how could she bring it up? She doubted that asking him head on would work. She didn't want to make him suspicious. She wanted to make him talk.

  She watched while the two men discussed the sale more.

  “I understand it's a loss, but you'll be taking a loss either way, won't you? If you shut down the store, then don't manage to sell the building for months – or even a year – you have to pay for its upkeep the entire time. If anything happens to it, you'll have to pay for repairs, and of course you will always be taking the chance that the market will fall again. There's a lot that could happen. Imagine if a bad winter storm blows through, and breaks all the nice windows you have on the front.”

  “My insurance will cover that,” Jed said.

  “Insurance on the building can’t be cheap,” Mr. Goodall pointed out. “How much of a loss are you going to take paying that month after month? How many months will you wait until my offer starts to look good to you?”

  Jed fell silent, staring dejectedly at the table. “Maybe you're right,” he said after a moment. “In fact, you probably are. But I've been rolling over for people my whole life. I've got a wife who is depending on this money, and two kids in college. I owe it to them to try to get as much out of the sale I can.”

  Now it was Goodall’s turn to fall silent. Jed ordered more beer, even though he wasn't drinking any. Mr. Goodall drained his second glass, then rose from the table a few minutes later.

  “I'll be right back. I have to go use the facilities, and when I return, I'll consider raising my offer slightly. I am sympathetic to your plight. I hope that we can come to terms that we both agree on.”

  He left. Autumn leaned back in her chair and sighed. “Well, this has been a waste of time.”

  “What do you mean?” her boss asked.

  “We were supposed to be getting him to confess to killing Grace. I know that selling the building is important, but the only reason that you even had me come along was so we could figure out whether he's guilty or not.”

  “Why do you think I kept ordering more drinks?” Jed asked. He gave her a half smile, then got up and slid into Mr. Goodall seat. He rifled through the man's coat pockets, and withdrew a keychain. “You have your keys with you, right? See if any of these match the store key. I'm going to head to the bathroom too, and see if I can keep him talking. You put the keys back as soon as you find a match. If you do, then I think we can probably call the police.”

  Stunned, Autumn took the keys from Jed. She hadn't expected such scheming from her boss. It was a good idea, though, and she began sorting through the keys immediately. She matched any key that looked remotely promising against her own store key, and it didn't take her long to find her key’s twin.

  Mr. Goodall had Jed’s missing key. She slipped the keychain back into his coat pocket, then pulled out her cell phone. Mr. Goodall had just shot back to the top of her list of suspects, and she had the feeling that once the police heard about the stolen key, they would feel exactly the same way.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  * * *

  Autumn hummed along to the soft music playing on the radio station as she stirred the pot of chicken stew. It had been less than a week since she had found Grace’s body in the store. Now, the person who was most likely the cause of her death was sitting in a jail cell across town, and she had been instrumental in his capture.

  The work that she and Jed had done felt satisfying. Both of them had risked their own safety to make the world a safer place, and to get justice for the murdered young woman. Mr. Goodall had been arrested when the police arrived on scene at the restaurant, and though she didn't know if he had been charged with anything yet, she felt confident that her original guess had been right. He had done it.

  All in all, it was the best possible end to what had been a horrible week. Emily had even been hired; today was her first day working at the nursing home. She had been in and out of the kitchen during lunch, helping clear places and bring the residents the refills that they wanted.

  Autumn was unsurprised when she showed up a few minutes later, ready to help with dinner as well. “Mr. Holt said that it's a busy night so you might need an extra set of hands. What can I do?”

  “The stew is all set, but I still need to mash the potatoes and get the dinner rolls in the oven. The cakes also still need to be made. It's Stanford's birthday – he's one of the residents who has been here the longest – and we are all having cake for dessert. You can get started on that if you would like. There are two boxes. We're going to use the rectangular pans, not the round ones.”

  “All right.” Emily had seemed more cheerful today; Autumn thought that they all probably felt better knowing that Grace’s killer was behind bars. Her death had affected so many people, so strongly. She knew that the young woman's passing would continue to affect many of them for a long time. Some people, like her parents, would never recover from it.

  “You'll have to preheat the ovens, too,” she said. “I think the dinner rolls and the cake have to cook at different temperatures, so you might as well turn on both of them.”

  They cooked in companionable silence for a while. While Emily began to combine the ingredients for the cake mixes, Autumn focused on the stew and mashed potatoes. The dinner rolls would be easy; they were simply using frozen rolls this evening. It would be a simple matter of popping them in the oven, and taking them out about five minutes later once they had been cooked.

  The mashed potatoes were another story. One of the first meals that she had ever made at the nursing home had been a meal with mashed potatoes, and while she might have enjoyed peeling the potatoes the first time, it had certainly grown old since. Potatoes were another staple at the nursing home. They were versatile, inexpensive, and almost everyone liked them.

  Their biggest downfall was that they took a long time to cook. Since a good portion of the residents had problems with chewing food, Autumn couldn't take the risk that there might be chunks left in the mashed potatoes. The potatoes had to boil until they were tender, and then were mashed very thoroughly with an electric beater. Even worse, in her mind, was the fact that she couldn't add all of the heavy cream, cream cheese, and salt that she might add to her own homemade potatoes. Sodium and fat intake was something that many of the residents had to watch. She had gotten used to cooking with two-percent milk and next to no salt.

  Once the potatoes were peeled and cut up into small chunks, she turned her attention back to the stew while they boiled. She tested the stew, tasting the broth, and decided that it was good. Given another twenty minutes or so of cooking, it would be perfect.

  She turned her attention over to Emily’s station to see how she was doing with the cakes. One was chocolate, and the other was vanilla. Her young coworker had finished making both of the batters, and was in the process of pouring the vanilla mix into the rectangular pan.

  “This is making me hungry,” Emily said.

  “Me too,” Autumn admitted. “I can't wait until the cake is done. There should be enough for everyone to have some. So, how are you liking this job so far?”

  “Well, it's only the first day, but so far it seems great. It's a lot less repetitive than working at the grocery store is. I absolutely love getting to know the residents. Since I'm in training, I haven't been doing much but cleaning and fetching things for people, but so far everyone has been super nice.”

  “I'm glad. I knew you'd be the perfect match for the job.”

  “I just wish it was under different circumstances that I had gotten it,” Emily said. “I feel bad for enjoying it so much, when Grace is dead and the grocery store will probably never open again.”

  "I think Jed is planning on opening it for the last week of January," Autumn said. “I know he wants
to try to sell as much as he can before the store closes down for good, especially since he doesn't have an interested buyer anymore.”

  Even if Mr. Goodall would be able to purchase the business while he was in prison, which she doubted, she knew that Jed wouldn’t accept any offer from him. She had gained a newfound respect for him after watching him at the meeting. Maybe in a way, the store’s closing would be good for him. He might find the confidence that he needed, and turn over a new leaf as well.

  “If he does, I’ll have to ask Mr. Holt if I can have some time off to work there. I would feel bad not showing up for the last week that the store is open.”