Coffee and Crime (Cup of Jo 0) Read online

  Coffee and Crime

  Cup of Jo Prequel

  Kelly Hashway

  Copyright © 2020 Kelly Hashway

  All rights reserved.

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  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual places or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduced, copied, or recorded without written permission from the author.

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  The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark ownership of all trademarks mentioned in this book. Trademarks are not sponsored or endorsed by the trademark owners.

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  Cover design ©Red Umbrella Graphic Designs

  To Ayla with love

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Epilogue

  Also by USA Today Bestselling Author Kelly Hashway

  Writing as USA Today Bestselling Author Ashelyn Drake

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  I’m pretty sure I’ve had coffee running through my veins since the day I was born, despite my mother asserting she didn’t drink coffee while she was pregnant with me. My parents own and operate their own coffee shop, Time for Coffee, and our last name also happens to be Coffee. Add in the fact that my name is Joanna but everyone calls me Jo, and I really can’t escape my destiny to have my favorite caffeinated beverage in every aspect of my life.

  Of course, my life is very different these days after my boyfriend cheated on me with my longtime best friend. That’s what drove me out to California, clear across the country from Bennet Falls, Pennsylvania where I grew up. My aunt Cindy was nice enough to let me stay with her three years ago when I ran as far away from Quentin Perry and Samantha Shaw as I could get without leaving the country. I’ve been working at Aunt Cindy’s coffee stand, Coffee Break, ever since.

  “Good morning, Jo,” Eduardo says as he steps up to the small countertop seating area. It only fits three people, but seeing as Coffee Break is smack in the middle of the mall, we don’t have much more room to accommodate customers.

  “Morning, Eduardo. The usual?” His usual is an iced coffee with two sugars and a splash of whole milk to go even though he always stays here to drink it.

  “You know it.” He takes a seat while he waits. “When are you going to let me take you out on a date?”

  “Oh, Eduardo, we both know you’d only break my heart.” It’s the same line I give him every day when we do this little song and dance.

  He smiles and nods. “I’m just not the type to settle down.” He must be in his late thirties, early forties, so he has about a decade on me. He’s also the biggest flirt I’ve ever met. He works construction, usually on the night crew, which is what brings him here every morning.

  “Ed, I’ll never understand how you drink coffee every day before going home to go to bed,” a woman says, taking the seat next to him.

  “Caffeine has no effect on me,” he tells her. “Besides, coming here means I get to see Jo, and that always ensures I’ll have sweet dreams.” He winks at me as I cap his to-go cup.

  “Such a flatterer, Eduardo.” I turn to the woman since Eduardo already has his money on the counter for me. “What can I get for you?”

  “Just a large black coffee,” she says.

  “Dark roast okay? It’s the freshest pot.”

  “Sure. That’s fine.” She turns to look down the mall. “Where is that man?”

  “Who are you waiting for?” Eduardo asks her before taking a sip of his coffee.

  “My husband. He was supposed to meet me here. I swear he couldn’t be on time for anything if his life depended on it.”

  “If you ask me, a man lucky enough to call you his wife should never keep you waiting, Victoria,” Eduardo says.

  The woman shakes her head. “I wish someone would tell him that. He’s always running off to do something and leaving me waiting and wondering where he is.”

  Eduardo narrows his eyes and meets my gaze as I hand the woman her coffee. I know what he’s thinking because I’m thinking it, too. Her husband is probably having an affair. I can spot the signs a mile away after Quentin cheated on me. Of course, at the time, I was completely oblivious to what was going on.

  The woman removes a five-dollar bill from her wallet, but I hold up my hand. “It’s on me.”

  “Really? That’s so nice of you.” She cocks her head, and realization washes over her face. “You think he’s cheating on me, don’t you?”

  I’m not sure I should answer that question, so I start wiping the counter with a dish towel and say, “It just seems like you’re having a rough morning. That’s all.”

  “More like a rough five months, but thank you.” She gets up. “See you, Ed.”

  He dips his head, and she walks off with her coffee.

  “Now you see why I won’t settle down,” Eduardo says.

  “You might be on to something there, Eduardo.”

  The morning rush hits, and I’m busy making espressos, lattes, and cappuccinos. To my surprise, only a few people order regular coffees—a woman in a very big hurry, a man with a briefcase, and a male mall employee late for his shift at the pretzel place. Regular coffee is usually my biggest seller, so this definitely strikes me as odd. To be honest, living in California is very odd to me. I’m still not used to this place after being here for three years. Having grown up in a small town, it’s strange to be somewhere where most people don’t know each other. My regulars here are the exception.

  My phone rings, and since everyone currently at the coffee stand is sipping their drinks, I answer it. “Hello?”

  “Hey, Jo. Sorry to do this to you, but I’m going to be a little late,” Aunt Cindy says. “I’m right outside the mall, but there was an accident at the intersection. The police aren’t letting anyone through.”

  “No problem. I’m holding down the fort just fine.”

  “Is Eduardo still there?” she asks.

  “Naturally.”

  She laughs. “Figured as much. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “See you soon.” I hang up and pocket my phone just as a man runs out of the men’s bathroom at the end of the hallway. He’s waving his hands in the air and yelling for help. “What’s going on?” I ask no one in particular.

  Eduardo stands up. “I’ll go find out.” He walks in the direction of the man, and it gets difficult to see much of anything with the crowd forming.

  A woman screams, and I can just make her out through the people gathered by the bathroom. It’s the woman who was waiting for her husband. Victoria, Eduardo called her. She rushes inside the men’s room, and about thirty seconds later, she comes back out in hysterics. “That’s my husband. He’s…dead.” She collapses to the floor.

  Complete chaos ensues. The mall security is herding the crowd away from the bathroom area, which brings them closer to the coffee stand.

  A few people order coffee as they watch the scene like it’s a movie and not real life. Theories of how the man died in the restroom circulate, getting wilder as the minutes pass. It goes from a heart attack to a stroke to a stabbing.

  “I saw the blood on her shoes,” a redheaded woman says. “It was definitely murder.”

  “On the wife’s shoes?” another woman asks.

  The redhead nods.

  “Was he shot or stabbed?” an older man in jeans and a crewneck sweater asks.

  Eduardo walks back to the coffee stand and leans over the counter to whisper to me. The crowd nearby leans in as well, tr
ying to eavesdrop. “I got in there before mall security roped off the area. He was stabbed in the neck. There’s a lot of blood.”

  “That’s horrible.”

  “It is, but that’s not all. His face is red and covered in burns. Someone threw hot coffee in his face. The to-go cup is next to the body.”

  My heart nearly stops. “The to-go cup from Coffee Break?” I ask.

  He nods.

  “So I served the killer?”

  “Looks like it, Jo. You better prepare yourself to be interrogated by the police. You might be the only one who can ID the killer.”

  Chapter Two

  This can’t be happening. Why did there have to be an accident outside the mall today of all days? If there hadn’t been, Aunt Cindy would be here to help me through this. But now with the police inside the mall as well, it’s not likely she’ll get here before I’m questioned. The police aren’t letting anyone in or out until they get the names and contact information for everyone inside the mall when the murder occurred.

  “I’ll stay with you, Jo,” Eduardo says. “Don’t you worry. It will all be fine.”

  A man is dead. It’s not fine at all, but I’m glad to have Eduardo here for support. I make him another iced coffee and place it on the countertop in front of him. He sits with me while we wait for the police to finish up at the crime scene. It takes a while before an officer approaches the coffee stand with the to-go cup in an evidence bag.

  “Good morning,” he says to me. “I assume this coffee cup came from your stand.” He doesn’t mention that it was found at the scene of the murder.

  “It’s my aunt’s coffee stand. I just work here, but yes, that cup came from here.”

  He takes a seat at the countertop, which I’m grateful for because he’s a tall man and having him tower over me while asking questions about a murder case is more than a little intimidating. “Roughly how many people would you say you’ve served this morning?”

  I blow out a breath. “Um, maybe fifty.”

  “Fifty? On a Tuesday morning? That seems like a lot for a mall coffee stand.”

  “Not really. It’s pretty typical. The mall gets a lot of traffic.”

  “Okay, well I don’t suppose you could give me descriptions of all those people.”

  That would be crazy, but I get an idea. “What kind of coffee was it?” I ask, hoping that will help me narrow down the suspects based on the order.

  “Looked like just plain black coffee.”

  “I might be able to help then. I only served three. No, four.” I almost forgot about Victoria.

  “Great.” He places the evidence bag on the countertop and pulls out a pad and pen. “What can you tell me about those four individuals?”

  I take a deep breath and try to recall the people who bought black coffee. “Um, there was a woman in her late twenties if I had to guess.”

  “What color hair did she have?” the officer asks me.

  “Blonde. It was curly, too. Shoulder-length.”

  “You don’t happen to know her name, do you?”

  I shake my head. “Sorry, no.”

  “Okay, who else?” he urges me.

  I squeeze the dish towel in my hand. “A man with a briefcase. He wasn’t very tall, about five-nine, maybe. He had dark hair and gray eyes.”

  “That sounds like Jackson Derting,” Eduardo says. “He works in the law office across the street.”

  “Jackson Derting, you said?” the officer asks, scribbling down the name as Eduardo nods in confirmation.

  “Then there was the guy from Pretzel Palace here in the mall. I don’t know his name, but he has dirty-blond hair and a goatee.”

  “You’re doing great,” the officer tells me.

  “Thanks. Other than those three, it just leaves Victoria,” I say, looking to Eduardo since he knows her.

  “Victoria Blount,” Eduardo says.

  “The victim’s wife?” the officer asks him.

  Eduardo nods.

  The officer stands up. “Okay, thank you for your cooperation, Ms….” He pauses, waiting for me to give him my name so he can jot that down, too.

  “Coffee. Joanna Coffee.”

  He clamps his lips together, I’m sure to keep from laughing. “Do people call you Jo?”

  “Like cup of joe, yes. I get that a lot. It’s okay to laugh.”

  He smiles at me. “If I need to speak with you again, is this where I’ll be able to find you?”

  “Yes, but take this.” I grab a business card from the holder on the counter and hand it to him.

  “Thank you. I’m Officer Moncavage.” He pulls a card from inside his jacket pocket. “If you remember anything else that might be helpful, give me a call.”

  I take the card from him and put it in my back pocket. “I will.”

  “Thank you for your time,” he says before walking away, taking the evidence bag with him.

  “Jo,” Aunt Cindy says, rushing over to give me a hug. “I had a heck of a time trying to get in here. The police are guarding the mall entrances. They only let me in because I told them I own a business here. Someone was really murdered here in the mall?”

  I nod. “Looks like it, and unfortunately, one of your to-go cups was found at the crime scene.”

  She pulls away and raises a hand to her lips. “That’s why I saw that officer walking away from the stand. You were questioned, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, they’re questioning everyone here, but they wanted me to try to help ID the killer.”

  “How could they expect you to remember everyone you served this morning?” she asks, furrowing her brow.

  “Jo remembered only four people ordered black coffee, so she was actually a big help,” Eduardo says.

  “Since it’s usually our best seller, it stuck out to me that so few people ordered it today,” I say.

  Aunt Cindy blows a stray hair out of her face. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here. Apparently, someone went speeding through the traffic light at the mall intersection. They got away, but it caused an accident between two other cars. The police had to close the entire intersection.”

  What are the odds someone would be murdered inside the mall and someone would cause an accident leaving the mall in the same morning? It would only make sense that it was the same person. “What if the person who killed Mr. Blount sped out of here to get away and that’s what caused the accident?”

  “That certainly seems plausible,” Eduardo says.

  Aunt Cindy nods. “You shouldn’t think about it, though. Why don’t you go home and take the rest of the day off? You’ve already been questioned, so they’ll allow you to leave, and you look shaken up by all this.”

  I definitely feel shaken up. “Okay, thanks, Aunt Cindy.” I grab my purse from under the counter, give her a hug goodbye, and wave to Eduardo. Since my usual exit is blocked by the police, I have to walk down the opposite hallway to leave the mall. I run into Victoria Blount on the way.

  “Are you closed?” she asks me.

  “Do you mean the coffee stand? No, my aunt is there now.”

  “Oh, good. I need something for my nerves. The police have no idea who did this to my husband.”

  “I’m so sorry for your loss.” I feel bad for thinking the man was having an affair and standing his wife up when he was really dead in the bathroom. If that’s how it happened. Officer Moncavage didn’t share any details with me other than the type of coffee found on the victim’s body and bathroom floor.

  “I don’t even know what to think. Did you happen to see him before I showed up at the coffee stand?”

  “I don’t even know what he looks like, but the officer who questioned me said it was black coffee in the bathroom. I only served four of those, and unless your husband is the guy who works at Pretzel Palace, I didn’t serve one to him.”

  She whips out her phone, swipes the screen a few times, and turns it to me. “That’s him. That’s Craig. Did you see him at all today?”

  The man on the
screen looks to be in his mid-thirties. He has dark hair, big brown eyes, and a thin scar above his left eyebrow. “No, sorry. I don’t remember him. And like I said, I know who I sold black coffee to today.”

  “Wait.” She lowers her arm to her side. “Did you tell the police who you sold black coffee to?”

  I nod.

  “You mentioned me?”

  “I’m sorry, but I had to. I doubt anyone would suspect you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  Her face goes completely pale. “My husband was having an affair. Of course, the police are going to suspect me. You have to go with me and tell them I was with you at your coffee stand and couldn’t have murdered Craig.”

  “Look, I’m sure they’ll get prints off the coffee cup. You have nothing to worry about.”

  “I touched the coffee cup when I went into the bathroom. They’ll find my fingerprints on it.”

  Why would she pick up something at the crime scene?

  “Mrs. Blount?” Officer Moncavage says, coming up behind her.

  She turns to face him. “Officer, I was at the coffee stand this morning talking to this woman and Eduardo Cruz. You can ask them.”

  Officer Moncavage’s gaze meets mine. “Is that true, Ms. Coffee?”

  “Well, yes, she was there, but I don’t know what time the murder took place.”

  “Are you saying Mrs. Blount wasn’t with you when the body was discovered?”

  “No, she had left before that.”

  “I didn’t kill my husband,” Victoria yells, drawing a crowd to us outside the department store.

  “Mrs. Blount, the murder weapon appears to be a small sharp object, perhaps a metal nail file. Would you please empty the contents of your purse?”

  Victoria’s jaw drops. “No. That can’t be.”