Apparently Principal Cantu hadn’t heard about my scandalous reputation. “That might be fun. At least it would get me out of the house and show everybody I’m an upright citizen.”

  “I doubt that anybody thinks that about me, but whatever. Now what the hell is this with Fowler?”

  I heard Nate come into the room behind me. “Just what I wrote. He tracked me down at the market and told me to keep out of his investigation.”

  “He can’t do that.” Susa sounded outraged. “We have a right to ask questions, and people have a right to answer them if they want to. He can’t limit our access to information any more than he could limit a reporter’s.”

  Actually, I wasn’t sure about the real legal limits we faced. There were probably laws against interfering with an investigation. “We reached a compromise. I told him everything we’d found out so far. But he didn’t seem impressed.”

  “Well, impressed or not, he’s got no right to stop us. He’s probably used to having people back down when he gives them one of those intimidating looks of his. We won’t back down, right?”

  “Right.” Although if Fowler leaned hard enough, we might have to. Susa’s professional skills were essential to the town of Shavano—nobody would put up with Fowler bullying her. But my jam production fell into the luxury category. People might sympathize with me, but I doubted they’d go to the mat for my right to talk to Principal Cantu.

  After promising to meet Susa at the high school at four, I hung up and turned around to find Nate watching me, eyes troubled. “You didn’t tell me Fowler was after you.”

  “It wasn’t a big thing. He tried to browbeat me into not talking to people, but I didn’t want to be browbeaten. We compromised.”

  “Compromised how?”

  “I’m telling him what I find out. He’s telling me zilch.”

  Nate settled into a kitchen chair. “Did you ever consider this quest might be dangerous? Whoever killed Holmes is out there somewhere. If they think you’re getting close, they might decide to do something about it.”

  My shoulders suddenly felt tight. “How would they find out?”

  “The same way Fowler found out, I guess. If I was a murderer, I’d have my ear to the ground to keep track of any investigation.”

  “I don’t know how Fowler found out. I guess somebody might have complained, but I don’t think Bridget would have done that. Or Spence. I suppose Evelyn Davidson might, but I didn’t talk to her. That was Susa. And I got the impression Evelyn was glad to talk. She wanted to vent to someone.”

  “Maybe Evelyn or Bridget or Spence told somebody in passing that they’d talked to you or Susa, and maybe that somebody told somebody else who told Fowler without knowing what they were telling him. I mean, there are lots of ways Fowler could have found out without it being a complaint.” Nate poured himself a cup of coffee.

  “Yeah, that’s true. And I’m pretty much done with my investigating now. Susa and I are going to talk to the high school principal to see what Brett did to get kicked out of the mentorship program. But that’s pretty much everything I had in mind, unless I can find that waitress who had a relationship with Brett and quit after they broke up.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “The waitress? Carrie.”

  Nate frowned. “That’s all, just Carrie?”

  “That’s all Bridget remembered. I guess they don’t do much with last names at High Country.”

  “I worked for a guy once who called all the waitresses Rose because that was the name of the last waitress he remembered. It’s not always a great job.”

  “I guess I could check at some of the restaurants around town to see if they have a waitress named Carrie.”

  “Hell, just ask my mom.” Nate took another swallow of his coffee. “I swear she knows every waitress in town, where they’re working and if they’re likely to move on. Whenever somebody quits at the café, Mom’s got a replacement lined up within a day.”

  “Okay, that would save me some time.” Of course, talking to Madge after starting a relationship with her son might be a little charged, but maybe she was as eager for Nate to get into dating as Uncle Mike was for me. “What would you like for breakfast? I’ve got ham. And I could scramble some eggs.”

  Nate pushed himself to his feet. “No way. You made dinner. I make breakfast. Besides, eggs are my life. At least most mornings they are.”

  Uncle Mike and Herman wandered in a few minutes later as Nate was working on his first omelet. He made a couple more and slipped some ham to Herman when he thought I wasn’t looking. That, of course, ensured Herman’s lifelong devotion.

  After we’d finished eating, Uncle Mike strolled off, leaving Herman with me. Just as well—Herm needed to get used to new people entering his life, particularly if Nate stuck around.

  And I was beginning to think he might.

  Nate stretched in his chair, luxuriating in the sunshine. “I could snooze in the sun today. What have you got on your plate?”

  “Jam. As usual. I need to check the seals on the apricot preserves I put up yesterday. And I’ve got to make some more of my staples before the weekend.”

  “Can I help?”

  I paused. I’d never had anyone help me make jam before. It was pretty much my deal. On the other hand, I still might hire an assistant, particularly if I could get my local business in shape. And Nate was the best cook I knew. “Sure. You can chop.”

  And he did. We were almost at the end of the strawberries by then, but I had a couple of flats. And I had some rhubarb, although we don’t get much of it in Shavano. I figured I’d do some strawberry rhubarb jam since it always sold well.

  Nate chopped up the rhubarb after I’d told him what I wanted. He was very precise, but that wasn’t a surprise. If you tell a good chef you want one-inch chunks, one-inch chunks is what you’ll get.

  I got everything into jam kettles, then filled the canner with water and jars and set it on the other side of the stove. “How long?” Nate asked.

  “Around fifteen minutes to cook, with stirring every few minutes. Another ten or twenty minutes in the canner to process.”

  “Ten or twenty minutes?” He gave me a slow smile.

  “I have to be vigilant,” I said quickly. “I can’t get to it too late.”

  “You won’t be too late.”

  “Ten minutes?” I raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

  “Oh, lady, you have no idea how efficient I can be when motivated.”

  I didn’t then, but I certainly did twenty minutes later.

  After I’d gotten all the jam jars out on the cooling racks, we decided to head to Nate’s place since Madge would probably be at her house on her day off. I’d follow him in my truck so that I could go on to the high school after I asked Madge if she knew anything about a woman named Carrie who’d worked at High Country.

  I was a little nervous about talking to Madge since I figured she probably knew what was going on with Nate and me. After all, he lived above her garage. She probably had a pretty good idea of when he left and when he came home.

  I didn’t know if she’d approve or not. I just hoped we could still be friendly.

  As it turned out, I shouldn’t have worried. Madge was standing on her front porch as we walked up, with a grin almost as wide as Uncle Mike’s had been. “Nathan, Roxy, come in, both of you. Would you like some coffee? And I’ve got some of Bianca’s cinnamon rolls.”

  “I’d love some coffee. We had a big breakfast.” I felt my cheeks flush. I hadn’t meant to bring up the fact that Nate and I had eaten breakfast after spending the night together, but I’d done it straight out of the gate.

  Madge didn’t seem to notice. Or she didn’t care. “Come on into the kitchen. You, too, Nathan.”

  I followed her through the house, a cozy Craftsman bungalow with lots of dark wood and a red brick fireplace in the living room. Her kitchen stretched the width of the house and had the kind of appliances I’d expect to see in a chef’s house. I wondered if Nate’s dad had done all the cooking when he was alive. Madge was clearly at home there now.

  “Come on, sit down.” She gestured toward a large golden oak table in a breakfast nook. I grabbed a captain’s chair and sat opposite her with my coffee mug, while Nate dropped into a chair nearer the windows. “Now,” Madge said, “tell me what’s up.”

  “I’m trying to find some information about Brett Holmes, the chef who was killed last week.” I’d decided on the way there to be direct. I couldn’t have thought of a way to tiptoe into the subject anyway.

  Madge’s forehead furrowed. “Why would you want to do that?”

  “Because some people in town think that I killed him. I didn’t,” I added hastily.

  “Of course you didn’t.” Madge sounded as outraged as Susa had. “What kind of people would think something like that?”

  “Some of them are women who had relationships with him, like Evelyn Davidson.”

  “Oh, like that woman at the Colorado crafters store, Janet or Janice, something like that?”

  “Janet Leonhart?” I managed to keep my jaw from dropping. Brett had certainly gotten around.

  “That’s the one. I don’t know that they had what you’d call a relationship, but I certainly saw them together a few times.”

  “She’s one of the ones who thinks I killed Brett. She wasn’t interested in putting my jam out for sale at the store.” And now I understood why.

  “Well, it’s her loss. I don’t imagine that’s cut into your sales that much.”

  “Not yet. But I’ve lost some local customers. Enough that I’m a little worried.”

  “Roxy’s just talking to people she knows,” Nate explained. “And she’s passing her information on to Chief Fowler.” He gave me a looked that reminded me he really wanted that statement to be true.

  I’d pass anything on to Fowler I thought would be of use in his investigation, but I wasn’t promising to give him everything I found out.

  “So how can I help?” Madge asked. “I don’t think I ever talked to Brett Holmes, but I knew who he was. Most people in the restaurant business around here know each other.”

  “I’m interested in a waitress who used to work at High Country. She and Brett dated, but then he broke up with her, and she quit. I’d like to talk to her.”

  “I know some of the waitresses who work over there. What was her name?”

  “I’ve only got a first name. Carrie.”

  “Oh.” Madge paused for a long moment, then sighed. “Carrie Bremer, probably. I don’t know how Denny could justify hiring that child. She was much too inexperienced to work in a fine dining joint like High Country. But I think he was scrambling to fill some openings, and she showed up at his door.”

  “You knew her?”

  “I knew her mama, Stacy Bremer. She waited tables, too. At that Italian place near the highway. I think Carrie was her only chick. Stacy was holding down a couple of jobs to pay for Carrie’s school expenses.”

  I felt a little shiver work its way down my backbone. The way Madge used past tense when she talked about Carrie didn’t sound good.

  “Is she still here in town?”

  “Carrie?” Madge shook her head. “She took a job in one of the ski towns, I’m not sure which. Maybe Winter Park. Or Breckenridge. She left after Brett Holmes broke her heart. Or anyway, that’s what Stacy said.”

  “Broke her heart?” Nate raised an eyebrow.

  I had to agree with him. I had a hard time believing anybody could get a broken heart over Brett. Most of us would be more likely to sigh in relief.

  “She was just a child when she worked there, Nathan. Just a little over seventeen.”

  “Seventeen?” Nate frowned. “Why the hell would they hire a seventeen-year-old at High Country? She wouldn’t even be able to bring drinks to the table.”

  “Well, like I said, Denny was scrambling. And Carrie really was a conscientious little thing. A very hard worker. Still, she would probably have been better off working for us than for Denny.”

  “Her mom and dad didn’t care?”

  “Stacy’s divorced, and I never heard anything about her husband. I assume he’s long gone. And from Stacy’s point of view, Carrie was making more money than she was. The tips are a lot better at High Country. She probably thought the job was good for her.”

  “So Brett was dating someone under age?” This was the second seventeen-year-old Brett had taken up with, counting the one in Denver. I only hoped the relationship had been better than the one he’d had with Harry Moritz’s daughter.

  “Yes, he was. Stacy worked long hours. She couldn’t really ride herd on Carrie. And besides, the child would probably have resented her mother trying to tell her who to date. But a seventeen-year-old probably wouldn’t have been able to see through Brett Holmes as easily as some of the other women around town.” Madge took a sip of her coffee. “From what I heard, I don’t think Denny liked it much. He may have told Brett to knock it off.”

  “And Brett did?” Brett had never struck me as the type to obey orders.

  “Perhaps he was already tired of her.” Madge looked like her coffee tasted bitter all of a sudden. “Maybe it fit his own inclinations.”

  “That sounds like Brett. He could blame Denny and duck out of a relationship he wanted to duck out of.” And Denny hadn’t beaten him up the way Harry Moritz had. At least I didn’t think he had.

  Unless Denny had given him that skull fracture.

  “Brett and Denny had a lot of run-ins over things like the menu at High Country,” Madge mused. “We talked about it at the Merchants’ Association meeting one time, Denny and I.”

  “Talked about what?” Nate asked. “Brett’s love life?”

  Madge shook her head. “Denny wanted some advice about managing a chef. I didn’t really have any to offer him because our kitchen has always been family-run. And of course you boys do exactly as I ask whenever I ask it.” She gave him an angelic smile, and Nate snickered.

  “Was he thinking of firing Brett?”

  Madge turned to me. “I don’t know that he could fire Brett, unless he cleared it with Ethan O’Reilly first.”

  Nate frowned. “Who’s that?”

  “Ethan O’Reilly owns High Country, along with a couple of restaurants in Breckinridge. He hired Brett. Denny’s the manager, and he hired everyone else. In my opinion, that shows Denny knows a lot more about managing a restaurant than Ethan does. But Ethan’s the one with the money.”

  “So Denny didn’t like him but couldn’t get rid of him,” I said slowly.

  Madge shook her head. “Don’t make more out of it than it was. A lot of managers are in that position. But Ethan listens to Denny, and if Brett had become a real problem, my guess is Ethan would have fired him without a second thought.”

  “So dating kids wasn’t a problem?” Nate still looked a little annoyed.

  “Nathan, you know as well as I do it’s not our business to manage our employees’ personal lives,” Madge said flatly. “As long as those personal lives don’t impact the work. From what I heard, Denny did tell Brett to leave Carrie alone. On the other hand, I’d guess Brett wouldn’t have stopped dating Carrie if he hadn’t wanted to. So maybe it was just a fling for him, and poor Carrie got in over her head.”

  I gritted my teeth. Brett seemed to have had a lot of “flings” around town and left a lot of women unhappy. I still considered him a creep, but maybe if he’d appealed to me, I’d have been more sympathetic.

  Of course if he’d appealed to me, I might not have had a relationship with Nate. And that really would have broken my heart.

  “Thanks, Madge,” I said.

  “Did I help at all? I could ask around at the next Merchants’ Association meeting, but I don’t know how Denny would feel about that. He’s trying hard to make people forget about Brett being murdered in his kitchen. That’s the kind of thing that makes customers decide to eat elsewhere.”

  I could see their point. “You confirmed what I already knew. He was a womanizer, and his ethics weren’t sterling.”

  “No, they definitely weren’t. Still, that’s true of a lot of chefs. And nobody fires them, more’s the pity. I’m just glad I’m related to two wonderful chefs who have the café running better than it has for a long while.” She beamed at Nate, and he gave her a slightly half-hearted smile in return.

  I figured he was thinking about Bobby, who was a lot more my way or the highway than you’d expect from a family member.

  Still, that was better than working with a sleaze who treated women as if they were disposable. On reflection, I wasn’t surprised that someone had lost it with Brett. I was only surprised that they’d apparently gotten away with it.

  Chapter 22

  I drove to the high school at four, parking in one of the side lots where the faculty parked. I was surprised at how many cars were still around. Apparently, summer school was in full swing. I didn’t envy the teachers trying to hold students’ attention when the sun was warm and the mountains were shining blue against the horizon.

  Susa climbed out of her truck as soon as I parked, her lips curving into a Cheshire Cat smile. “You have a nice Sunday?”

  “I had a lovely Sunday. And a very nice Monday, too.” And no, Sus, I’m not going to fill in any details.

  Susa gave me a mock pout. “Fine. Don’t tell me. I’ll probably imagine something a lot hotter.”

  Doubtful. Definitely doubtful.

  She turned toward the main high school building, a granite pile constructed in the sixties that we’d actually attended ourselves back in the day. They’d added on a new wing five years ago that looked a little more contemporary, but the overall style was institutional bleak.

  Susa glanced up, shaking her head. “You’d think they’d try to make schools look like places kids might want to go.”

  We pushed the main door open and walked down the hall toward the central office. Nothing much had changed about the interior either, but at least somebody had posted some cheery wall decorations that covered up the institutional beige.

  We stepped through the door to the principal’s office. “Hey, Susa,” someone called. “Right on time.”