Mocha and Murder Read online

  I turned away. I didn't need to talk anyway.

  "Ready to go?" Mom asked.

  I smiled and gave Mom a confident nod yes, and we turned our backs on my ex and his girlfriend to leave.

  A cool breeze swept across the back of my legs as I took my first step to leave the courthouse. In that moment, I'd thought it was a symbolic breeze. The wind at my feet. Leaving all of this unpleasantness behind me, etcetera.

  But no.

  Laughter echoed in the courtroom hallway. That exact flavor of laughter was one I knew well. It was the flavor of laughter heard in the halls of countless high schools and lunchrooms. The cruel type of guffaw that only can be had at the expense of another. Instinctively my face reddened, and I turned around to see my ex-husband and his new girlfriend laughing and looking at me.

  Mom whispered in my ear. "Your skirt."

  I looked down and cringed at the sight of my flowing skirt tucked into the back of my gigantic underwear, leaving my entire leg, thigh, and control-topped bottom exposed. I snatched the edge of the cloth and pulled it down, but it didn't silence the laughter.

  Yes, I'd gotten the equitable settlement that I deserved, but he'd literally gotten the last laugh.

  "Congratulations, kid," Mom said, breaking the silence in the van.

  "Thanks, Mom," I said, trying to smile.

  "You look really nice today," she said.

  I knew Mom was trying to cheer me up, and I appreciated it. For a while in the courthouse, I really felt like I was turning a new leaf. But somehow hearing my ex-husband's new girlfriend laugh at me brought back my lifelong insecurity.

  "I wish that last part didn't happen," I said.

  "It could've been worse," Mom said.

  I gave her a quick look as if to ask her how so.

  "You could've been wearing one of those adult diapers like in my commercial," Mom said.

  I couldn't help but laugh. My mother had been a featured extra in a TV series while I was growing up, and now she still did the occasional television commercial or background work or small part. She'd recently shot a national commercial for an adult undergarment, but it hadn't aired yet.

  "How about we go to Mr. Toodles?" Mom suggested.

  I knew Mom was desperate to cheer me up when she suggested going to Mr. Toodles. I'm one of the few people who loved Mr. Toodles. Mom had always found the sliced roast beef sandwiches "weird."

  "Are you sure?" I said, remembering their special "Tood Sauce."

  "It's not far from here," Mom said.

  I was just thinking that we hadn't been near this neighborhood since our last big case. That was the last time I had Mr. Toodles as well. As we turned onto Foothill Boulevard, I could have sworn I saw Mom's friend Dar-dar at the bus stop. We'd met him while we were following a lead at the Moonlight Motel for that same case.

  "Was that Dar-dar?" Mom asked me.

  "I was just thinking the same thing."

  "Let's go see!"

  I made a U-turn and circled back to the bus stop where we'd seen him.

  "It's him!" Mom said. Dar-dar was a hard person to miss.

  I pulled to the bus bench. Mom rolled down her window and yelled, "Dar-dar, what are you doing there?"

  Dar-dar had come to the United States after he'd won a beauty pageant for men who liked to dress as women. Dar-dar's adoptive papa needed a little distance.

  I hadn't noticed from farther away, but Dar-dar was surrounded by four gigantic pieces of luggage.

  "I'm waiting for the next bus to Vegas," he yelled back to Mom.

  She yelled back at him in Visayan, a local dialect from their island in the Central Philippines.

  "What do you mean you quit your job?" Mom yelled in English as she hopped out of the van.

  He answered in Visayan again.

  "Aye!" Mom yelled back. "You're at a city bus stop. It doesn't go to Vegas. It just goes around and then back here."

  "Oh," he said, looking down at his white-gloved hands. The gloves looked like something out of a movie from the fifties. He had on large sunglasses and scarf over his head a la Audrey Hepburn in Charade.

  "We're going to lunch at Mr. Toodles," Mom said. "Come with us."

  "Is that the Mr. Toodles next to my work?" he asked.

  "Yes, it's just down the street," Mom said.

  I put the van in park as Mom opened the back of the van.

  "I don't think I want to go back near my work," Dar-dar said. "I just stormed out of there, and I think it would be weird to have only gone just next door."

  "Kid," Mom called to me, "help me with his luggage."

  "It's okay," Dar-dar said. "I'm fine here."

  "I'm buying lunch," Mom said. "Christy just got divorced. She needs a sandwich to cheer her up. You have to come."

  Dar-dar got up and grabbed two of his bags and threw them into the back of the van. "Come to think of it, right next door to the motel will be the last place my boss will think to look for me."

  I reached over to pick up one of Dar-dar's bags to put into the van, and Mom reached for the other. Both of us couldn't lift either of the bags off the ground.

  "I've got it," he said, grabbing a bag in each hand and tossing them into the back of the van as if they didn't weigh anything at all.

  Mom scooted over and for once, sat on the hump of the van and let Dar-dar sit by the window. Looking closer at his face, I could see that he'd been crying. His makeup was smeared.

  "Are you okay?" I asked him as I put the van into first gear.

  "I just can't believe it's over," he said.

  "I can relate to that," I said, thinking about my divorce.

  It was only a few minutes to reach Mr. Toodles. Without thinking, I pulled into the very tight parking lot and managed to park the van without too much trouble. Mom noticed and gave me a smile and nod of acknowledgment. After six months of driving this monstrosity, I'd started to get a little better.

  We got out of the van, and I noticed that Dar-dar was wearing his usual designer heels. How he managed stilettos and all that luggage amazed me.

  "I like your skirt," Dar-dar said. "And you've lost weight, too."

  "Thanks," I said. Dar-dar was still his usual toned and muscular self, but the spark in his enthusiasm had dimmed.

  Mom gave me a twenty, and I grabbed our lunch at the counter. When I joined them at the table they were making small talk.

  "I saw you both on the cover The Fletcher Weekly," Dar said.

  "The Los Angeles Times did a story on us too," Mom added.

  "You're famous!" Dar-dar said.

  Small talk ensued about our cases. We'd solved three to date, and Mom loved to talk about them. I sensed Dar was avoiding talking about his job, but I knew Mom wasn't going to let it go.

  "What happened between you and your boss?" Mom came out and asked.

  "I quit," Dar-dar said and then examined his roast beef sandwich. "I looked at the sign for this place for two years while I worked practically next door. Never ate here. The meat is very…" he paused and looked in the air as he was thinking, "interesting in its thinness."

  I laughed. He wasn't trying to be funny, but I couldn't help it. I thought the sliced roast beef with melted cheese was fantastic.

  "Isn't your boss married?" Mom asked.

  There was a directness to Mom's question. We spotted a little bit of chemistry between Dar-dar and his cigar-chomping boss Burt when Burt had picked him up from the diner during our last case. Burt had given Darwin a very un-boss-like hug and pat on the butt.

  "Oh yes," Dar-dar said. "His wife is about my age. She's very…" Dar-dar paused to think of the word, "theatrical."

  Dar-dar, a crowned drag queen, calling someone theatrical was impressive. My brain couldn't even begin to picture what Burt's wife look like.

  "Does your mom know you quit?" Mom asked.

  "No," he said. "I have to Skype her. By the way, have you talked to my mom about your sister yet?"

  Mom hadn't called Dar-dar's mother. I've be
en asking her to do it off and on for the last six months. I'd come across some paperwork in the closet regarding my Aunt Lalaine's death. It looked as if before Mom came back to the States from the funeral she had been investigating what happened to her sister, but she never talked about it.

  "I'll talk to your mom about that when I can do something with the information. But right now let's talk about your job. You quit the motel, but don't you live there?" Mom said.

  "Lodging was part of my pay. But I'm thinking that I'll move to Vegas and find a place there," he said.

  "Why Vegas?" I asked.

  "It seems like people go there in the movies a lot," Durbin said.

  "Aye!" Mom said. "If you're going to go somewhere because people go there in the movies, then you should stay here in Los Angeles. Every movie in the world is set right here, Dar-dar. Every TV show is right here. Even if they say it's New York, it's shot right here. I was on a show that took place in Vietnam, and it was here in Los Angeles. You can't leave. You don't have any family in Las Vegas."

  "I don't have any family here," he said.

  Mom folded her arms and stared at Dar-dar. "We are your family here, Dar-dar. You'd know that if you called us."

  Dar-dar looked like he was going to cry. Mom wasn't the kind of person to leave a friend in need.

  "Jo," Dar-dar said. "I can't be a burden to you."

  "You won't be a burden, Dar-dar," Mom said. "You'll be staying in our guest room."

  We left the restaurant and went to where I thought I'd parked the van, but it wasn't there.

  We all traded confused looks, and then Mom pointed across the parking lot.

  I turned and saw our van had rolled out if its spot and into the parking lot.

  "Oh no!" I said as I ran over to the van. "I must've forgotten to use the parking brake!"

  3

  Coffee and Congratulations

  The van had been stopped by a refillable Mr. Toodles soft drink container that wedged itself under our tire. Those things are durable.

  With a lot of honking and glares, I'd been able to maneuver the van out of the parking lot without doing any damage to our van or any of the innocent bystanders' vehicles.

  Dar moved into our guest room that night. He was a fun housemate, but he required an extensive amount of time in our shared bathroom and was an early riser.

  Mom and I were at the Lucky Dragon restaurant hanging out with Wenling, Mom's best friend and owner of the restaurant. Dar had been up early this morning and had headed off for a hike or something.

  I stared at my order of beef broccoli and tried to conjure up the energy to eat it. I'd already had two cups of half-caff coffee at home, and I was on my third diet soda here at the restaurant.

  "You don't like it?" Wenling asked. "I thought it was your favorite."

  "It is," I said. "I think I might be too tired to eat."

  Mom laughed. "You're being dramatic."

  "Mom, he's up at like five in the morning every day," I said.

  "He's only been with us for three days," Mom said.

  "He seems like a very nice young man," Wenling said.

  "He is," I said. "But he's always awake early fixing things and making a racket. This morning he was running a leaf blower at six."

  "Did he mow your lawn, too?" Wenling asked Mom.

  Mom nodded. "Even fixed the lawnmower."

  "Maybe he could come to my house," Wenling said.

  I took a tired bite of my broccoli beef and scowled to myself. I hated being so cranky, but I don't think that Mom and Wenling really understood just how tired I was. I'd spent the last ten years of my life working in nightclubs managing my ex-husband's band. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a newspaper resting under the portable TV we kept at our booth in the back of the restaurant.

  "Is that today's LA Times?" I asked Wenling.

  "I'm not finished with it yet," she said.

  Mom and Wenling like to go through the obituaries or the Fletcher Weekly, the Valley Daily News, and the LA Times. I don't know what it is about getting older that makes you want to know who else died on a regular basis, but Mom and Wenling never missed a day.

  "I wanted to take a look at the classified section," I said.

  Mom shot me a look, but didn't say anything.

  "He said he needs a job, and I figured I might as well look through the paper and see if there's anything available."

  "And maybe see if there's an apartment near it to," Mom said, raising her eyebrow.

  Mom had been enjoying having another guest at the house. She and Dar-dar would talk for hours in Visayan. I had no idea what they were talking about, and being somewhat suspicious, I assumed they were talking about me.

  "He said he needed some place to work. I'm just trying to help him."

  Mom cast another doubtful look my way and then turned her attention back to her coffee.

  I opened the classifieds. There weren't a lot of listings. Sigh.

  Most jobs were listed online these days. Dar-dar had ventured an interest in living in one of the hipper areas of Los Angeles like Silverlake or West Hollywood, which I thought would be a good thing. He might meet a potential boyfriend in a trendier part of town. The night before I spotted him staring at pictures on his phone of him and his boss with their arms around each other. There was more to that relationship than just employer/employee.

  "Where is Dar now?" Wenling asked.

  "He's hiking in the mountains, and then checking out the rest of downtown," Mom said.

  "Auntie Jo!" Dar yelled from the other side of the restaurant. Mom, Wenling, and I always hung out in the back booth on the closed side of the restaurant. Dar had started to call Mom Tita Jo because he found it more respectful.

  Respecting elders is a big part of Filipino culture. But Mom said they were in the States so Auntie Jo would be better.

  "We're over here," Mom yelled.

  Dar rushed up to our booth, breathless with excitement. "You were right. They were completely hiring at that new coffeehouse."

  I shot Mom a look. I had no idea that she mentioned to Dar-dar that the coffee shop was hiring. I didn't even know when they were going to open. And she certainly hadn't told me about Dar getting a job there.

  Mom shrugged and sipped her coffee.

  "And when I got there," Dar continued, "Al, the one that owns the place, was having trouble hooking up the new espresso machine. I told him that I'd worked one of them in the Philippines before, but the truth is I never worked one. I'm just good with machines. But anyway, I was able to hook it up like that!" Dar said, snapping his fingers. "Then I gave him my resume, and he saw that I had a degree in Hospitality and Restaurant Management, and I threw you in as a reference and…" he paused to catch his breath and for dramatic effect. "Guess who is going to be a manager?"

  "Wow!" I said, impressed. Mom and Wenling congratulated him.

  "I start tomorrow at five a.m.," he said.

  "But they're not even open yet," I said. "They don't even have a name for the coffeehouse."

  "They do now," Dar-dar said. "The Mocha Muse."

  Mom and I nodded. It sounded interesting.

  "It's because it's attached to the bookstore next door. The lady next door," Darwin paused to remember her name.

  "Mrs. Mars," Mom said.

  "Right," Dar said. "She loved the name. And since she and Al had been fighting over the name, he decided to go ahead with it. We still need to do some construction on the inside. I showed him the pictures on my phone of the renovations I did at the Moonlight Motel, and he hired me right on the spot. Of course knowing that you're my auntie sealed the deal."

  Mom and Wenling clapped with excitement.

  "We should celebrate!" I said.

  "Should I get us some cookies?" Wenling asked.

  "No, something different," Mom said.

  "I was just coming over here to see if you wanted to taste-test our new signature mochas," Dar-dar said. "How about we celebrate with those?"

&
nbsp; "Is it free?" Wenling asked.

  "Yes! And when we open, I can probably get you a discount," Dar-dar said.

  I liked the sound of that, and so did Mom and Wenling.

  The four of us headed down Main Street toward the mountain. The new coffeehouse would be right across the street from the Fletcher Diner, and next door to the Fletcher bookstore. A part of me had assumed that the place would just be called Fletcher Coffeehouse, but the Mocha Muse sounded hipper and more creative.

  "Dar-dar!" a male voice called from behind us.

  The four of us turned around. Dar-dar, having lived in town for three days, had snagged himself a job, gone hiking, and already made friends. My new pseudo-sibling was already outshining me. And the truth was I didn't need to acquire another sibling to outshine me. My older sister and younger brother have had that covered for decades.

  I turned and saw two men walking toward us—a police officer and one sexy detective that I had a crush on. They caught up to us, and I smiled at said sexy police detective, DC Cooper. He gave me a polite nod, which I pretended didn't crush me.

  It was strange, because when we caught the guy who murdered Brent Cryer, DC mentioned the possibility of the two of us going out on a date. We'd both been busy, but I was hoping it was still a possibility.

  I tuned back into the conversation to find that Dar-dar and the cop, Michael Keller, had apparently met during a raid on the Moonlight Motel.

  "I told you that you might meet a nice po-po," Mom said. She had indeed said that six months ago.

  Officer Keller laughed at Mom's use of phrase po-po.

  "You're the one who told him that," he said.

  "Yes, our family has always been very cooperative with the police," Mom said, looking at DC. Our amateur crime-solving wasn't something he was thrilled about.

  "Glad to hear it," Officer Keller said. "So what brings you to Fletcher Canyon?" the officer asked Dar-dar.

  "I'm staying with my Auntie Jo," Darwin said. "And I just got a job as the manager of the coffeehouse here."

  The police officer looked happy. "So are you planning to live in town now?"