Ginny Gold - Early Bird Café 03 - Dead and Berried by Ginny Gold Page A

Greene.”
    Nora nodded and started typing out her reply. “I told him we’ll meet him in an hour. You wanna drop stuff off at the café first?” Kori nodded. “Bring Ibis if you want. I’m sure Milo and Otis can tire her out more.”
    Kori agreed to bring Ibis and headed back to her tent to pack up all of her coolers and cookware now that the festival was coming to a close. There were still events tonight but she wouldn’t be a part of them. She had to start getting back into the mode of serving at the café since tomorrow would be an early morning. And likely a busy day with plenty of tourists spending the week in town.
    At the café, Kori brought all of the coolers into the walk-in fridge and just left them there, open to stay cool. There was leftover batter, fillings and toppings that she would use tomorrow. She hoped no one was sick of waffles and crepes with strawberries!
    The pies were gone but she still had plenty of strawberries that she would use in something, maybe muffins or smoothies or toppings on oatmeal and granola. She didn’t want to spend long thinking about it, knowing she could do that tomorrow morning.
    When things were put away enough—mostly in the sink waiting to be washed—she loaded Ibis back into the car and headed out to Red Clover Farm. She didn’t find any extra cars in the driveway, just Nora’s beat up truck near the barn. Stanley wasn’t there yet.
    Milo and Otis ran out the back door of the house and found Ibis and they took off on their second game of chase today. Kori found Nora inside, rinsing strawberries.
    “You’re not sick of strawberries yet?” Kori asked.
    “Never. I can’t believe you’d say such a thing,” Nora said between laughs.
    Kori took a seat in the kitchen. “I guess you’re right.”
    “Of course I’m right.” Nora paused but looked like she had something else to say. “I have to tell you something about Stanley.” She turned around and looked Kori in the eye. “We dated a few years back. Before I went on that date with Derek. He was the last almost serious relationship I was in.”
    “What? And you never told me?” Kori was shocked. She thought she knew everything about Nora.
    Nora hurried to explain, leaving Kori chuckling. She wasn’t really hurt. “It was a few years before you moved back to Hermit Cove. You were still in New York City. I knew you were so busy. And we took things so slow that just about as soon as we were really a couple, we were breaking up.”
    “I was just giving you a hard time.” Kori continued laughing.
    Nora relaxed. “I thought you were really upset.”
    “Of course not. How’d it end?”
    Nora turned back to the sink and her strawberries. “On good terms. We’ve actually kind of kept things open if we both want to get back together at some point. Things with my farm were in a tough spot. And he was struggling with a new job. So it just wasn’t the right time.”
    “So what if it looks like he killed Dan? Are you going to see things differently because of your past?” What Kori really wanted to ask was, So you’ll be determined to see whatever his alibi is as innocence? But she knew she wasn’t justified in saying anything like that.
    Nora shrugged, her back still to Kori. “I mean, if he’s guilty, he’s guilty. We just need to know if there was any reason he would have wanted Dan dead. Or if he could have been at the scene of the crime. What’s his alibi? You know?”
    Kori did know but she didn’t have a chance to tell Nora because the dogs started barking and they both knew Stanley Roche had arrived.
    Kori followed Nora when she went to the front door to make sure Stanley wasn’t like his brother and had a problem with barking dogs. Kori knew she and Nora would interpret anything he said differently because of their relationship—or lack thereof in Kori’s case—so she wanted to make sure she saw and heard every interaction.
    Much to Kori’s surprise, Stanley was down on the ground