Caramel Crush Read online

  Mel decided to go for the direct approach. She leaned in close, hoping she smelled of vanilla and cinnamon, as she’d read in a fashion magazine that those are the scents that usually turned men’s heads, although she suspected an Eau de Hops would be more Butch’s jam.

  “Hey, there,” she said.

  Butch didn’t even glance her way. So much for the lure of baked goods that usually clung to her skin. This guy was oblivious. Of course, he had just lost his son. He was probably drowning his sorrows and too grief-stricken to register anything that was going on around him.

  “Butch Bordow!” a voice boomed from the swinging doors. “I want to talk to you.”

  The man who entered the saloon had neatly trimmed gray hair with an equally well-maintained mustache. He stood almost as tall as Mick and a little wider, mostly in the gut. Despite the dress shirt and slacks that he wore, Mel didn’t think she was imagining the feeling of menace that pulsed off of him like a growl coming from a scary dog.

  Butch turned on his stool and took in the man with a bleary squint. Mel wondered how many of the man he was seeing, two or three, or maybe he was just near-sighted. Finally, the man registered and Butch nodded.

  “Tyson,” he said. He then turned back to his drink.

  “Oh, this is not good,” Mick whispered in Mel’s ear. “Not good at all.”

  “Why? What do you know?” she whispered back. Mick opened his mouth to answer but Mel shushed him when Tyson began to speak.

  “I want my money, Butch,” Tyson said.

  “It’s not a good day,” Butch said.

  “It’s never a good day with you,” Tyson said.

  He strode into the bar, looking like he owned it.

  “Tyson Ballinger. He’s a glorified loan shark,” Mick whispered into Mel’s ear. “He gets companies in deep, deep debt and then when they are on the brink of ruin, he swoops in and takes them.”

  “Uh-oh,” she said. Maybe he did own the joint.

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “Big-time.”

  The bartender chose that moment to ask Mel and Mick what they would like. To Mel, it was still a bit early in the day to be drinking, so she went with a root beer. She was surprised when Mick did the same.

  “What?” he asked at her surprised look. “I have fine art to produce. You can’t do that wasted.”

  Mel smiled. Despite his outward scary appearance, Mick had a true artist’s soul.

  “When are you going to pay me?” Tyson asked Butch. “I mean, you don’t think I gave you all that scratch for your gambling debts for nothing, do you? You know what I want.”

  Butch was curling into himself, obviously ignoring Tyson and looking like he wanted to take a dive right into his beer headfirst.

  “Answer me, Butch,” Tyson badgered him.

  “Go away,” Butch snapped over his shoulder.

  “I will when you pay me,” Tyson growled.

  Butch let loose a string of expletives that made the bartender’s eyes go round, and he looked as if he was trying to decide whether he needed to call someone for backup or not.

  “What did you say to me?” Tyson asked. He leaned over the other man as if he was just spoiling for a fight.

  Mel had a feeling that things were about to get ugly. Tyson was stroking his mustache as if he really wished he could wrap his fingers around Butch’s throat instead. In fact, she got the feeling that he just might do it anyway.

  “Hey!” she cried, looking wide-eyed at Butch. It was not entirely an act. “Didn’t I see you on television last night?”

  Butch turned toward her. There was a nervousness in his gaze that Mel knew meant he wasn’t totally unaware that Tyson Ballinger was looking to do him some harm.

  “I’m sorry, what?” Butch asked.

  “You were on the news,” she said. “Oh my goodness, the story was about your son, wasn’t it?”

  Butch nodded. “Yeah, he was murdered.”

  Mel looked at Tyson. “I don’t know what it is you want from him but, clearly, he is struggling with grief right now. I suggest you save your discussion for another day.”

  Now Tyson looked like he wanted to have her neck under his fingers. Mick must have gotten the same vibe because he stood up behind Mel, looking like one big badass avenging angel.

  Tyson looked Mel over. His lip curled with scorn. “You should be careful about ordering people about. Some might not like it.”

  The menace in his voice dripped over her like hot wax. Mel felt a shiver wiggle at the base of her spine, but then she remembered Mick had her back and she straightened up and stared Tyson down.

  “The man lost his son,” she said. She looked at the bartender to see if he was planning on doing anything. He nodded at her and showed her that he had his phone in hand, ready to call the police should the situation escalate. “Surely whatever problem you have with him can wait.”

  “For now,” Tyson said. The look he sent Butch made Mel’s heart turn cold. Then he strode out of the saloon, casting Mick a doubtful look as he went. He moved like a man who had all the time in the world.

  “Oh, wow,” Mel said. She sank back onto her stool.

  “Two shots of Jack,” Mick ordered, and the bartender nodded, poured three, and then downed one himself.

  Mel took a sip of hers but then pushed it away. Mick downed his and she realized he really hadn’t been kidding. He was a pacifist and this scene with Tyson had shaken him badly. She squeezed his forearm and then turned to Butch.

  “What, no shot for me?” Butch asked. Mel pushed her half-full glass at him and he threw it back like it was a miracle cure for whatever ailed him.

  “What was that all about?” Mel asked.

  “No idea,” Butch lied. “Obviously, the guy is crazy, coming in here and hassling me when I’m grieving for my son.”

  “Cut the crap, Bordow,” Mick interrupted, the clenching of his jaw signaling that he was out of patience. “Tyson Ballinger eats guys like you for snack, so what are you into him for?”

  Butch ran a hand over his eyes. He looked broken and Mel felt sorry for him. His son was dead, Tyson was after him, he clearly had a drinking problem—yeah, on the scale of bad days, his was off the chart.

  Sympathy aside, however, Tyson struck Mel as a ruthless sort and it occurred to her that he might have gone to Mike Bordow about money owed to him by Mike’s father, Butch. If Mike refused to pay, would Tyson have put a hurt on him or have hired thugs to do so? Could it have gone wrong and ended in Mike’s death? It could be the first real lead in who might have killed Mike Bordow aside from his bitter fiancée.

  “Everything,” Butch muttered. “I’m into him for everything, which is why . . .” He began to sob. “He k—kill—killed my son.”

  Eighteen

  “Did he say that?” Mel asked. “Do you have proof? Have you told the police?”

  “Pah, the police!” Butch picked up his beer and chugged it down in one long guzzle. If Mel had done that, she’d be sitting on the floor. “The police are useless. My daughter told me they had a suspect in custody right after his body was found and they just let her go, just like that. She was related to one of the detectives so they looked the other way.”

  Mel could feel Mick’s eyes boring a hole in the side of her head, but she refused to look at him and risk giving anything away.

  “I’m sure if the police had a person in custody, they wouldn’t just let them go,” she said. “Didn’t I hear on the news that they were looking at your son’s fiancée? What did you think of her?”

  “She’s evil, Satan in a dress, a total she-devil,” he said. “I told Mike she wasn’t good enough for him, but would he listen to me? No. She probably hired the person the police had in custody.”

  Mick and Mel exchanged a look.

  “I thought you said Tyson Ballinger killed your son because of the debt you
owed him,” Mick said.

  “He did!” Butch bellowed.

  Mel and Mick exchanged another look. It was clear that whatever brain cells Butch Bordow had were so pickled that they would never get a straight answer out of him. Still, Mel had to try.

  “So who is it? Who killed your son, Tyson or Diane?” Mel knew she was pressing. She knew it was uncool but she couldn’t seem to help it. She wanted someone other than herself to confirm her belief that Diane didn’t kill Mike Bordow.

  Butch wobbled on his stool. He leaned toward Mel, almost as if he was about to fall on her, and then he reared back as if yanked by an invisible string.

  “How’d you know her name was Diane?” he asked. “I never said her name.”

  Okay, so not all of his brain cells were sotted. Mel felt herself start to sweat. What if he figured out she was the woman the police had found at the scene yesterday? She felt her heart pound hard in her chest as he regarded her with a suspicious look on his face.

  “Yes, you did,” she lied. She had no idea where it came from but it was out her mouth before she had the wherewithal to stop it. She slapped her hand down on the bar with more bravado than she felt, and said, “Duh, how could I know her name unless you said it?”

  Butch looked from her to her hand on the bar and back to her. Mel held her breath.

  “Good point,” he said. “Well, one of them killed him.”

  He sagged against the bar, as if he needed it to hold him up, then a sob ripped out of him as if it had had to fight its way out of him. Behind the sob came a flurry of more sobs, a hiccup, a wail, and then the tears. They ran unchecked down his face as he blubbered.

  Mel felt ill that she had caused the man to crack wide open but, truly, booze can only anesthetize a person for so long. Better Butch lose it here than out there alone in the world with no one to make sure he got home okay.

  “Hey, man, is there someone I can call for you?” the bartender asked.

  “He was my best friend,” Butch cried and buried his face in his hands. “We did everything together. What am I going to do without him? Oh, god, and Suzanne. She’ll never forgive me if I caused this to happen. She loved her brother. She’ll hate me. She can never know.” He looked desperately at all of them. “She can never find out that it might be my fault. She’s all I have left.”

  Mel and Mick exchanged a look. Mick looked like he might cry with sympathy and Mel squeezed his tattooed forearm to steady him. She put an arm around Butch and gave his shoulders a gentle squeeze. It was a comforting gesture, sure, but it also gave her access to his shirt pocket, where she could see his cell phone.

  As Butch dropped his head onto his forearms on the bar, Mel slipped his phone out of his pocket and checked to see if she could get in. It had no blocks on it. She could. She scrolled through his contacts until she saw the name Suzanne Bordow.

  “His daughter,” she said to the bartender as she handed him the phone. Then she fished her money out of her purse and paid for their drinks and for one more beer for Butch. It would keep him busy until his daughter got here and, maybe, help ease his pain if only for a little while.

  She stepped back from the bar, looked at Mick, and said, “Let’s go.”

  “Now?” he asked. His voice sounded tight, as if he was talking around a lump in his throat. “Are you sure there aren’t some puppies you want to kick or butterflies whose wings you want to pull off?”

  Mel frowned and pushed past him toward the swinging half doors. Once they were outside she stomped to the corner before stopping. She crossed her arms over her chest and frowned at him.

  “Was that nice?” she asked.

  Mick mimicked her stance. “I don’t know, you tell me.”

  “Oh, come on,” she protested. “Don’t put this on me. He is a horrible father, just look at him. He’s in there getting wasted when his son was just murdered.”

  “Maybe that’s why he’s in there getting smashed,” Mick said.

  “No, he’s a regular barfly,” Mel said. “And what about that situation with Tyson Ballinger? He even said he thought Tyson might have killed his son because of his gambling debts.”

  “All right.” Mick uncrossed his arms and matched his stride to Mel’s as she continued back to their part of Old Town. “He does seem to be a lousy father but you have to feel sorry for him.”

  “Do I?”

  Mick looked at her as if he didn’t recognize her. “Melanie Cooper, I had no idea you could be so cold.”

  “Yeah, well, when it comes to keeping my friend from being accused of a crime she didn’t commit, I’m solid ice, baby.”

  Mick shivered as they hurried on their way. Mel left Mick at his shop with a promise to deliver his cupcakes later. He told her she didn’t have to, but Mel insisted. A deal was a deal and she didn’t want to be a swindler. She paid her debts fair and square. Besides, she never knew when she might need him again.

  “I’m in hell, aren’t I?” Mel asked Marty an hour later as they sat beside each other in the Fairy Tale Cupcakes booth at the bridal expo.

  “Only if hell is full of crazed brides and their mothers and is swathed in organza and taffeta and reeks of cheap perfume and dead flowers,” he said.

  Mel glanced at the florist booth beside theirs. She wondered if they heard Marty’s commentary on their flowers. Then again, their booth did smell of rotting blossoms, so he wasn’t wrong.

  As for their setup, they had opted to keep it simple, mostly because the Phoenix Bridal Expo had been a complete surprise to everyone except Angie, who had booked it without telling anyone. Apparently Angie wanted to wallow in her bridal-ness at the expo and had figured that if she was a vendor, she might rate some special deal from the other vendors. She was off working the room, which Mel hoped did not undo her pep talk of the evening before. If Angie changed one more thing on her wedding, Mel was pretty sure she was going to have an aneurysm.

  Mercifully, it was only a one-day event and they spent it handing out brochures and coupons for free cupcakes to any brides who wanted to stop by the shop and try out some samples.

  “Can I offer you a coupon for a free cupcake?” Mel called out to a group of women all surrounding one cute young thing who was clearly the bride since she had a veil on her head and was working the I’m-getting-married strut.

  “Puleeze,” the bride scoffed. “Cupcakes are so over. No, I’d rather have an ombré cake, you know, something really on trend.”

  Marty looked like he was about to launch one of their cupcake samples at the unsuspecting diva. Mel grabbed his arm just in time. They’d been in food fights before and it never ended well for them.

  “Where’s your main squeeze?” Mel asked him. She didn’t really care where Marty’s girlfriend, Olivia, was but she’d use anything to distract him from glaring at possible customers.

  “She’s not speaking to me at the moment,” he said.

  “Oh, why not?”

  “Because someone is a complete and utter slob,” a voice answered from behind them.

  Mel spun around to see Olivia there. She was glaring at Marty, and Mel wondered if they were going to start arguing, which would not be great for business at a bridal expo.

  “I am not,” Marty protested. “If you weren’t such a neat freak—”

  “I am not,” Olivia protested. “I just believe there is a place for everything and everything should go in its place, you know, as opposed to being left on the counter or dropped on the floor.”

  “See?” Marty raised his hands in the air. “She is completely unreasonable.”

  “I’m unreasonable?” Olivia gaped at him. “You, who can’t be in the house for three seconds without switching on the TV? That thing is on twenty-four-seven. It’s maddening!”

  “It’s company!”

  “I’m supposed to be your company!”

  Mel frowned at Mar
ty. She’d known him for well over a year now and she knew for a fact that he wasn’t a slob nor was he the sort who kept the television on all the time. So why was he doing these things now that he lived with Olivia?

  “That doesn’t sound like—” she began, but Marty interrupted.

  “Listen, Queen of Clean,” he said. “You’re the one who wanted to move in together.”

  “Yes, when I thought you had at least a tentative relationship with a hamper,” Olivia snapped.

  Mel glanced at Marty for his rebuttal when a movement behind him from several booths away caught her attention. It was Suzanne Bordow, looking like she was trying to hand out brochures for the business. Judging by how wide a berth most of the prospective brides gave her, the news was out about her brother’s death and people were responding as they generally do when something is uncomfortable: They avoid it and ignore it almost as if they thought to acknowledge it made it contagious.

  “Excuse me,” Mel said to Marty and Olivia. She was several feet away when it occurred to her that leaving them alone was a bad idea. Still, she needed to speak with Suzanne. She turned around and added, “I’ll be right over there. Behave yourselves.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Marty snapped. “What did you think we were going to do here?”

  “Brawl,” Mel said.

  Marty looked horrified while Olivia was intrigued and said, “That could be fun.”

  “On that note,” Mel said. “I have an errand to run.”

  She felt bad about lying to them. Well, not super bad. Not enough to tell them the truth and technically, it was an errand, sort of, in a totally sticking-her-nose-where-it-didn’t-belong kind of way.

  Suzanne looked tired. Her face was pale, making her makeup stand out a bit too boldly. Her long brown curly hair was arranged in a pile of messy curls on her head and she was dressed in casual professional, meaning nice jeans with a tank top and blazer.

  Mel approached her, not really knowing what she was going to say. The last time she had seen Suzanne, the woman had been a potent cocktail of shock and grief with a splash of anger, all of which had been directed at Mel.