Flamingo Diner

“I know one thing,” Rosa declared. “I am not setting foot in that diner ever again, not when there could be someone there who was sleeping with my husband.”

“Rosa, you’re talking crazy now,” Helen said impatiently. “Listen to me. There was no other woman. I am as sure of that as I am that the sun will rise tomorrow morning. You love that diner. You’re its heart and soul. People come there for a kind word from you. They can get a decent omelette or pancakes anyplace, but they can’t see their friends or be welcomed like one of the family anyplace else in Winter Cove. Besides that, it’s your livelihood. Who’ll run it, if you don’t?”

Rosa faltered at that. Don had always taken care of the finances. She had no idea what sort of money they had, but she doubted it was much, not with Jeff in college and Emma out only a few years. Don had believed in building up the equity they had in Flamingo Diner. Every spare penny had been put back into the business. That equity ought to be worth something. And it was on a prime piece of real estate now that downtown Winter Cove was turning trendy.

“I could sell it,” she said slowly.

“You wouldn’t,” Helen replied with shock.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Rosa challenged. “Emma and Jeff aren’t interested. That leaves Andy, but why should I tie him down to a business he might not even want? Why not sell it and invest the money?” She was already warming to the idea. In fact, she could move back to Miami to be closer to her sisters. No one there would stare at her with pity the way so many of her friends had today. Of course, she wasn’t as close to her sisters as she was to Helen, Sylvia and Jolie, her three best friends.

“And do what?” Helen asked. “How would you spend your days?”

Right now the only thing that appealed to Rosa was sleeping through them. “I’d find plenty to do,” she said confidently. “Especially if I went back to Miami. I could work in my uncle’s restaurant. I could have Sunday dinners with my family, go to Mass at the church where I had my First Communion.”

And best of all, there were few memories of Don in Miami. They had met there, but the courtship had been brief and tumultuous. Then, immediately after the wedding, they’d moved to Winter Cove and opened Flamingo Diner, using every penny of both their savings to invest in their future.

Helen was staring at her as if she didn’t even know her. “Would you honestly rip Andy out of school here, just before his senior year? Would you be that selfish?”

Rosa felt Helen’s jab hit its target. She couldn’t do that to Andy. It would destroy his chances of getting into a good university with the football scholarship they were counting on. She sighed heavily, filled with regret.

“You’re right,” Rosa admitted reluctantly. “I’d have to wait.” She met Helen’s gaze and added defiantly, “But it’s still something to consider.”

“If I learned nothing else when Harrison died, I learned that it is not wise to make any sort of major decision when you’re grieving,” Helen told her. “Whatever you do, don’t make any hasty decisions. Promise me.”

Since Rosa didn’t feel capable of deciding what clothes to put on, much less what to do about the future, she nodded. “I promise.”

“That’s good, then,” Helen said, linking her arm through Rosa’s. “Now let’s get back out there. This will be over soon.”

“Not nearly soon enough,” Rosa said grimly.

Matt hovered in the background as the gathering at the Killians’ finally began to wind down. People had been coming and going for a couple of hours now, sharing stories about Don, reminding Emma and her mother of how much Flamingo Diner meant to them. He could see from the weariness in Emma’s eyes and the distance in Rosa’s that the words weren’t really registering. As for Jeff and Andy, they had disappeared back into the tree house. Matt had reassured himself on that point the second he’d realized they were gone. As long as Jeff focused on getting Andy through his grief, he couldn’t be somewhere else getting into the sort of mischief that could ruin his life.

Matt glanced around at the few remaining guests, most of whom were longtime friends. He wondered if any of them had any inkling of what had gone wrong in Don’s life. If they knew, would they eventually share what they knew with the family, stirring up the doubts about Don’s death that were already plaguing Emma?

If it was a suicide, then finding a motive wasn’t really his job, but Matt felt compelled to investigate, because Emma wouldn’t be at peace until they had one. She was going to push this, no matter where it led.

He spotted Gabe Jenkins and Harley Watson huddled together in a corner and wondered if they knew anything about what had tormented Don in his last weeks. Gabe was a cranky old geezer on his good days, but he and Harley somehow managed to get along, and Don had always found a few minutes to sit with them once the breakfast rush had died down at the diner. Matt doubted they’d exchanged any deep, dark secrets, but after knowing each other for a lot of years, there was no telling what they talked about. Matt wandered over, hoping to pick up some tidbit of information on the sly, but they were on to him at once.

“Might’s well come all the way over here, if you expect to hear what we’re saying,” Gabe told him irritably.

Matt grinned at having been caught. “I thought I’d wait to see if you were talking about anything interesting. I don’t want to be bored to death listening to you two moan about your prostates.”

Harley gave him a dark look. “We’re talking about life and death, if you must know. Can’t figure out how Don missed that curve. He drove along the lake twice a day at least, sometimes more. He knew the road. Was there any evidence that he was hit by another car?”

“None,” Matt admitted.

“He was smart, too,” Harley added. “I’d bet there was one of those gizmos in the car that can crack a windshield in an emergency. Why do you suppose he didn’t use it?”

Nothing in the report Matt had gotten just that morning indicated that there was a tool to shatter glass inside the car, but he agreed with Harley that it was the kind of thing Don would have, given the number of canals around Central Florida. He needed to check on that.

He tuned back in to what Gabe was saying.

“I just don’t get it. He had a great business, a terrific family—what more is there?”

“Nothing I can think of,” Matt agreed.

“You think the mob was after him?” Gabe asked with more enthusiasm than usual. “Maybe they ran him off the road.”

“Are you crazy?” Harley retorted. “What’s the matter with you, old man? Have you been watching The Sopranos again?”

“Only sopranos I know sing in the choir at church,” Gabe responded. “But everybody knows the mob likes to pokes its nose into all sorts of places asking for protection money. Maybe Don wouldn’t pay up.”

“Protection from what?” Harley demanded. “What kind of crime do we have in Winter Cove? Matt here sees to it that we don’t have a lot of criminals on the loose.”

“He does his part,” Gabe agreed with a nod in Matt’s direction. “Doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a little help. You never know.”

“I know,” Harley retorted, scowling fiercely.

“You don’t know everything.”

Matt decided it was time to step in before the two men came to blows. “I think we can safely assume that there was no mob involvement in this. I know a little bit about organized crime.”

Gabe nodded enthusiastically. “It’s rampant in the big cities, am I right?”

“I wouldn’t say rampant,” Matt countered. “But it does exist. I just don’t happen to think it’s made its way to Winter Cove, certainly not to the point where our residents are likely to be the target of a hit that’s made to look like an accident.”

“Maybe it wasn’t an accident at all,” Gabe suggested. “Maybe he killed himself because they were after him.”

“Oh, give it a rest, you old coot,” Harley said, regarding him with disgust.

“You got any better ideas about why a good driver like Don would wind up in the lake?” Gabe asked, clearly annoyed that his theory hadn’t been taken seriously. He turned to Matt. “You think there’s something funny about the way he died, too, don’t you?”

Matt refused to answer. He didn’t want to send their already wild imaginations into a frenzy. Who knew where that could lead?

Gabe regarded him with disgust. “Okay, don’t say it, Matthew. I can see the truth written all over your face. That’s what brought you sneaking over here to listen in on our conversation. You don’t think it was an accident any more than we do.” Before Matt could respond, Gabe turned to Harley. “I suppose you’ve got a theory.”

“A woman,” Harley said without hesitation. “When a man goes off his rocker, there’s always a woman involved, believe you me.”

“And you would know, wouldn’t you?” Gabe retorted. “What’s it been? Three marriages? Four?”

Harley frowned. “Five, if you must know, so yes, I think I know a thing or two about what a woman can drive a man to do.”

“Don had Rosa,” Gabe reminded him. “You ever seen two people more in love?”

“They’d been together a lot of years,” Harley persisted. “Sometimes a man gets to a certain age and decides to take a look around. Don was a friendly guy. A lot of women who came in the diner probably took a second look at him.”

“Any one in particular?” Matt inquired casually, even though he couldn’t imagine Don ever looking at anyone besides Rosa.