“Tell her thank you for tuning in,” I said. “Our next recording is going to be really interesting. Did you know that Jane Stanford—as in Stanford University—was poisoned by—”
He waved me off. “No, no, not you. She likes this one over here.” He picked up his coffee cup and lifted it toward Daisy. “She’s real excited about that lemon curd secret you told. She’s gonna use it at our family reunion next month.”
Daisy looked half-excited, half-alarmed. “I’m honored,” she said. “Really. Tell her our next podcast will have a secret to making your muffins moist.” She turned to me, and said through a smile, “You didn’t edit my secret ingredient out?”
“I told you I didn’t know how,” I said. “I’m working on it. Every time I try to edit something out, I end up cutting something good.” And, I didn’t add, sometimes when I edited out all the chatter we wanted to keep off the podcast, there was only about four minutes of actual podcast material left. First, we probably needed to learn how to edit ourselves—which wasn’t going to be easy when it came to Daisy and me.
Esther poured me a coffee to go with my muffin. I stirred two sugars into it. “So, um…what does your wife think of the reporting?”
“Huh?” He sipped his coffee. “Oh, she doesn’t really ever talk about that. She tunes in for the recipes.”
“Recipes?” the woman sitting on the other side of him repeated. “What television show did you say this was?”
“Not television,” I said. “Radio. Kind of. It’s a podcast.”
“My wife, she listens to all of them. Conspiracy theories, politics, cooking shows…” He gestured at Daisy.
“It’s not a cooking show per say,” I said. “It’s more of a murder show, where she sometimes mentions food.”
“All I know is my wife made lemon bars and lemon tarts that practically melted in my mouth. To me, that’s a cooking show. A really good one.”
“Ooh, I could use some new recipes,” the woman said. “What’s it called again? I’ll have to listen.”
“Knock ’em Dead,” Daisy said. “Like, desserts that will knock ’em dead.” She punched the air, looking pretty proud of her ad-libbed tagline.
“No. What? No, not just desserts,” I said, but then the lady was talking to two ladies in a booth behind her, and Esther started buzzing about it to someone at the other end of the counter, and I realized it was pointless to fight it. And why would I want to? Everyone was talking about our podcast! Even if they were calling it a cooking show and only tuning in for good curd recipes. It was a start.
Daisy’s phone rang. She whipped it out with a worried look on her face. “Oh, sheesh, hello?” She paused. “No, I don’t have any other laundry baskets. Why?” Another pause, then she shut her eyes and shook her head. “He what? Well, is he okay? Uh-huh. Yeah, all right, I’ll be home in five minutes.” She hung up. “Don’t ask. Everyone’s fine. Except my laundry basket. I just bought that one, too. Walk with me?”
I tore the top off of my muffin and took it with me, getting in a good sip of coffee on my way off the stool. “See ya, Esther,” I said.
“Bye, honey!”
“So what’s the scoop, Miss Reporter?” Daisy asked as soon as we were outside.
“The police either have nothing or they’re just not telling me. There was this hair net—”
“No, I don’t mean about the case,” Daisy said. She bit down on a smile. “I mean about you and Officer McDreamy.”
I felt my face flush. “What do you mean?”
“Your text said you met with him, but didn’t say any more. Was there kissing?”
“Kissing? No. There were onion rings. Why would there be kissing?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Because he’s so dreamy and you’re so single.”
I frowned. “Excuse me, but maybe I’m single by choice.”
“You’re not.”
“Maybe I’m single because I’m focusing on my career.”
“You’re definitely not.”
“Maybe I’m single because I don’t have time or energy to maintain a relationship right now, and I enjoy my own company and don’t need a man to fulfill me.”
“Maybe that one,” she said. “But probably not. I think you’re single because you’re afraid to move on. You think if you start a relationship with someone, that will mean you’re putting down roots here and finally saying goodbye to the ex for real.”
“That’s not true.” It wasn’t true, was it? Why did it feel at least kind of true? And how did she know that before I did?
We’d gotten to her minivan. She unlocked it and opened the door. “All I’m saying is you’re single and he’s cute and you two had dinner together and that’s kind of the start of something.”
“It was definitely not the start of something. Can I tell you about it now, or are we going to continue to write romance stories in our heads?”
She sighed. “I like romance stories. But okay. Lay it on me.”
I told her about the crime scene and how the witness never had anything else to say—probably because no one ever asked her—and how they were focused on the Mercedes hood ornament. I told her about the hair net and that Chief Henderson had assigned me my own interference force.
“I’ve seen worse methods of interference,” she said, elbowing me.
“This again?”
“No, no, you’re right. I’m just teasing you anyway. And the assistant coach?”
I shook my head. “Not one word about him. Which, I hope, means we’re ahead of them, and they haven’t even considered him yet.” Or they had, and Brooks was just keeping it from me. But I preferred my version—the version where we had the scoop.
“We should go back over there, see if we can get a better interview with him or something.”
“You think he’d talk to us?”
She slid behind the wheel. “Honey, he is desperate for a promotion. We play this right, and he’d talk to
