Small Town Murder: Midwest Cozy Mystery Series Read online

  “That’s really amazing, huh? Her children have something to be very, very proud of. Their mother wasn’t perfect, but she was mighty brave, and she inspired others to be brave and honest, too.”

  Blaine nodded. “I agree.” He’d paused the video so Kat could relax and take a sip of her wine. After a few moments, he tapped play again. “I wonder if Oprah has anything else to say.”

  But next, EJ Lewis was brought up on the screen. The news anchor, after introducing him, said, “On the night of the murder, you performed a prank where you got shot and pretended to die on stage. People ran screaming from the theater.”

  She showed a clip, recorded by one of EJ Lewis’ team. “Then when they got outside, the ones who ran the fastest were given candy, and your team handed out merch. Shortly after, Jay Talbot was found dead. Don’t you find this a coincidence?”

  EJ was on the screen, looking solemn. He wore a conservative button-up shirt, which didn’t look at all like his style. Tattoos crept up his neck from under his collar.

  “Yes,” he said. “It is a terrible coincidence. Absolutely awful timing. It makes the prank look to be in poor taste, but my team and I had no way of knowing that was going to happen, of course. We tend to cause some mayhem – that’s just the way we run our business. Unfortunately, this time our funny little prank happened to coincide with a real tragedy.”

  “I need to go see him next,” Kat said, watching his eyes carefully. Was he sincere and telling the truth? Or was the poison part of the prank, too, somehow, and it went wrong? Was the ‘shooting’ some kind of diversion to give someone time to slip into Jay’s dressing room and murder her? Kat felt like there was a layer to the story she didn’t know about yet.

  She wondered about Marie Claire. There was something strange about that young woman, and definitely something strange about EJ Lewis. Was that just because they were young, driven entrepreneurs of the Instagram generation, and that’s just how things were these days? Or was there something deeper under all of that?

  Kat decided to find out.

  That evening, once she’d eaten her sausage, kidney bean, and garlic bread meal and felt warm from that and the wine, she curled up on the couch and typed ‘EJ Lewis’ into Google on her laptop. She wasn’t going to call ahead this time, she told herself. Why risk being told she couldn’t come? Instead, she was just going to turn up.

  Google threw up a whole load of results about EJ Lewis – the good, the bad, and the ugly.

  There was a modest reference to him on Wikipedia, which did nothing but sing his praises. It was evidently written by one of his team.

  There was a blog post entitled, “EJ Lewis DESTROYED my life”, which of course looked interesting. Kat clicked on it. She quickly looked for the author – Marie Claire Harrison. Huh? But wasn’t that the woman who worked for him? Kat continued to read, and then rolled her eyes. The way EJ ‘destroyed’ Marie Claire’s life was taking her off the corporate path she had been planning on and giving her a job that she hadn’t expected. They sure liked to use shock tactics when they were writing headlines about EJ.

  Kat wondered how she could find out his business address. She tried searching on the company register, but nothing showed up. Then she remembered that when she’d created her own email newsletter, she had to enter her address, for inclusion on the bottom of the emails.

  She went to EJ’s website, which was charmingly called How to Stop Sucking, and signed up. Within moments, she was sent an email welcoming her to his ‘squad,’ and sure enough, there was the address at the bottom. Kat realized, with a satisfied smile, that it wasn’t far away at all, perhaps a forty minute drive. Thank goodness for that.

  CHAPTER 12

  EJ’s office was in a part of town that used to be poor, and was now ‘edgy’ and on its way ‘up.’ An old abandoned railroad track ran through the area, with most of the right-of-way being elevated on bridges.

  The space under these bridges had been gradually filled in with stores – one selling health food and supplements, a vegan café, a contemporary art gallery, a baby store full of organic cotton and wooden toys. There were also a few offices tucked under one of the old railway bridges, and EJ’s was one of them.

  It was painted bright red. Why am I not surprised? Kat thought.

  Kat pushed open the door and stepped inside the building. She was confronted with a gleaming white reception desk sitting in the middle of a dazzling all white reception area, but no one was there. An electronic buzzing sound had gone off when she entered, though, and in response, a few moments later a young woman came out to greet her.

  “Yes, hello,” she said, sounding a little distracted and annoyed.

  Kat assumed her most confident and important air. “I’m here to see EJ Lewis. We spoke together at a conference.”

  “Okay,” she said, then paused. “You don’t mean THE conference, do you?”

  “I’m not entirely sure I know what you mean by that.”

  “The one where Jay Talbot was murdered.”

  Kat nodded. “Yes, I’m afraid so.”

  “He’s in a meeting right now. But he should be done in like a half hour. Come on back. I’ll take you into the main office. We have a coffee machine and stuff.”

  “That would be fine, thank you,” Kat said.

  They went through a side door and into a large open-plan office. Again, most of the surfaces were gleaming white, including the floor, which had sparkle in the tile.

  Hardly anyone was sitting at their desks. The workforce was made up of a bunch of people with an assortment of purple hair, tattoos, and piercings. There clearly wasn’t a dress code, as one young man shuffled across the office in flip flops, Bermuda shorts, and a band tee. They were all standing by a whiteboard. Marie Claire was gesticulating wildly as she spoke with passion, a whiteboard pen clenched in her hand.

  “So, when you get the long silence… what do you do?” Marie Claire asked her audience rhetorically. “You go in with the objections script, blam. You say, ‘The only reason you would decline to take this service on is because either 1. You don’t believe it will work for you, or 2. You’re not sure you can justify the cost. Now, which is it?’ That’ll get them talking for sure. Then depending on the answer they give, you launch into the relevant script. Got it?”

  Her little audience murmured.

  “I didn’t hear you!” Marie Claire said. “Did you get it?”

  “Yes!” the assembled group shouted out in unison.

  “Amazing!” Marie Claire slapped the two guys in the front on the backs, then looked at everyone else. “Today is the day we totally smash this.”

  Kat watched in amazement as the workers hurried back to their desks full of enthusiasm. It was a very different work environment from what she was used to.

  The young woman with Kat signaled to Marie Claire, who strode over. When she got closer she smiled, then put her hands in her pockets.

  “You look really familiar,” she said to Kat. “But I can’t place your face exactly. Sorry about that.”

  “She was a speaker at the conference,” the young woman said. “She’s come to see EJ. I told her she can have some coffee and wait for him.”

  Kat smiled. “I’d actually like to speak to you in the meantime, Marie Claire. I’m Kat Denham, one of the writers who spoke at the conference where you all did your big stunt, and where Jay Talbot was killed.”

  Marie Claire looked at her watch. “I have ten minutes.” She flashed a smile. “You caught me at the right time. Let’s go in the office adjacent to where EJ’s meeting is being held. Then we can see him come out.”

  “Good idea.”

  “Jasmine, would you bring us some coffee, please?” she said to the young woman who had let Kat in. “You know what I like. What do you like, Kat?”

  “I think I’ll have white with two sugars today,” said Kat.

  “Brilliant.” Marie Claire clapped her hands, then began to power walk down a corridor that led off from the open plan
office. “Let’s do this.”

  Marie Claire certainly wasted no time. As soon as they were in the office, before Kat had even managed to sit down, Marie Claire sat down and said, “Shoot,” with a big smile.

  Kat wasn’t used to such a fast-paced environment, but she was a person who could adapt quickly. “Okay, let me be straight with you. I know you didn’t know that Jay Talbot was going to be murdered that night, but I still find your prank a little strange.”

  Marie Claire gave her a patient smile, like she was smiling at a little child who didn’t understand something. “We’re having a blast, tearing up the rulebooks, using our creativity, and making a ruckus. This is great fun. We make business fun, both for ourselves and for our people.”

  It sounded like a rehearsed mission statement to Kat. “Your people?”

  “That’s our subscribers, our customers.”

  Kat nodded. “Okay… Do you know anything about the murder? Anything at all?”

  “No.”

  “Why did you run away right when EJ got shot?” Kat thought she’d get right to the point. “Where did you go?”

  “I went to the lobby, of course, where we were doing the t-shirt and candy giveaway. I videotaped it for Snapchat and Instagram live, then I was writing the final touches on the press release to send when Jay was found dead. So that was the end of that.” Marie Claire looked pretty annoyed that Jay’s murder had interrupted her business plans for the day.

  Irritation started to creep into Kat’s system. “You do realize a woman is dead, don’t you?”

  “Yes, of course,” Marie Claire said, “but life also goes on. It’s really sad for her, but we have to think about our business. We can’t think about everyone. Otherwise we’d give all our money away to hungry children in India and never buy a house, wouldn’t we? You can pretend you’re all charitable, but you’re not. In fact, I’d say we’re more charitable because we work so hard to make all the money we can, then give ten percent of the profit away.”

  That surprised Kat. “To whom?”

  “To a programming school for street children in Nairobi,” she said proudly. “They come in off the street, get a bed and food, and are taught computer programming. That’s one of the fastest growing industries around, both in Kenya, and in the world as a whole. Once they learn how to write a computer program, they’ll never be without a job.”

  Kat thought that was a commendable and pretty creative project.

  Just then, the door flew open, and EJ stood there with a huge grin on his face. He was flanked by two small men in jeans and t-shirts who didn’t really suit the ‘vibe’ of the place – they just looked like ordinary men off the street without the flamboyance that came with this office culture.

  His eyes widened for a second when he saw Kat, but the surprise quickly flickered away.

  “And, gentleman, this is Marie Claire, the most incredible visionary on my team. She absolutely must be featured, too.”

  The men looked at each other and smiled. “Well, a face like that sure won’t go amiss in our magazine. Heck, we might even sway the editor into putting you guys on the cover.”

  Marie Claire strode over to them and shook both their hands. “That sounds like a wonderful idea, guys. We’ll flaunt all our assets. Our looks, our intelligence, our creativity, and our innovative methods. Make sure you get it all in.”

  “We will,” one of the men said. Then they both shook hands with EJ. “See you tomorrow.”

  EJ grinned. “That we will. Let me let you out.” He hurried away with them, an excited spring in his step.

  Kat turned to Marie Claire. “What was that all about?”

  Marie Claire’s eyes shined with glee. “I think EJ should tell you himself.”

  He was back within a few moments, and before even acknowledging Kat, he swept across the room and picked Marie Claire up. He was crazily strong as a result of his dedication to working out at the gym, and it showed. While Marie Claire was not a big woman, he looked like he could lift her up with his little finger.

  She pretended to be annoyed, but Kat could tell she secretly liked it. “Put me down, EJ!” she shrieked in mock distress. “This is very unprofessional!”

  He did eventually, after a couple of seconds of playful refusal. When he put her down, they were both flushed and slightly out of breath.

  “Hello,” he said to Kat. “Kat Denham, right?”

  Kat felt he was so self-absorbed it was a wonder he’d remembered her name. “That’s right. Hello, EJ.”

  “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”

  “She’s asking questions about Jay,” Marie Claire said.

  “Well, you don’t need to, Ms. Denham,” EJ said. “You’ll be able to catch our exclusive interview in Entrepreneurs magazine. We’re talking all about the stunt we pulled, and Jay dying, and what it all means. It’s going to skyrocket my book sales.”

  Marie Claire grinned. “It’s sure to hit the top of the New York Times Bestseller list.”

  Kat sat, stunned, for a moment. Watching the absolute delight in their eyes made her feel a little sick. “You do realize…” She shook her head, lost for words. “It’s like you’re glad this tragedy has happened.”

  EJ got quite serious. “No, no, not at all.”

  Kat dared to be bold. “I know this sounds cynical, but watching you, one couldn’t be blamed for thinking that you could have killed Jay yourself, just for the publicity!”

  “No!” EJ said furiously. He banged his fist on the desk as he spoke. “Look, we just turn lemons into lemonade. That’s it. This is a terrible tragedy, but we transform tragedy into victory. Weakness into strength. That’s what we do here. We don’t let negativity rule us.”

  “It’s not about negativity,” Kat said, “It’s about—”

  “My team and I think differently than other people do,” EJ said. “You wouldn’t understand, because you’re normal. But we live at ten times the speed of everyone else. We’re in a totally different league. You feel sad about the murder. We felt sad for a while, too, but we don’t let emotions stand in our way. We choose how we want to feel. We are ‘machines’ and we program ourselves however we want. We program ourselves towards an unrelenting march to success.”

  Kat didn’t quite know what to say to that. She’d never really met anyone with this kind of mentality. He had all the enthusiasm of an evangelical preacher, but this was an entirely different doctrine.

  “You know what, come,” he said. “Come see what this looks like.”

  Kat followed him out of the office and back into the open plan area. By now, all of the employees were on the phones, and the place was buzzing with noise and activity.

  “What do you actually sell?” she asked.

  “My motivational speeches, my motivational training seminars for corporate leaders, my motivational trainings for sales people, leadership consultation, all of that,” EJ said proudly.

  Not only were people making calls, some people had hands-free sets and were pacing around the office as they talked. One young man went up to the whiteboard Marie Claire had demonstrated on and wrote a note on it.

  EJ gestured toward another whiteboard. “This is our leaderboard.” Kat looked up at it. There were laminated name cards stuck up on the whiteboard, with numbers written next to them. Marie Claire’s name was right at the top.

  “I pulled in a million in sales since I’ve been here,” said Marie Claire. “And I’m not even on the phones most of the time, because I’m a strategist.”

  “Congratulations. That sounds terrific,” Kat said, feeling pretty bewildered. It was a totally different world.

  “Well,” EJ said, turning to face Kat with a smile. “Anything else? Or do you want to wait and catch us in the magazine?”

  “Do you have any idea who could have committed the murder, and why?”

  EJ put his arm around Kat and walked her toward the door. “You see, Kat, in this industry, we’re absolutely huge on focus. This means we don
’t have any space in our minds for anything except what we want to achieve. This means that we haven’t spent a moment thinking about Jay Talbot’s murder or who could have done it. We’re staying in our fast lane, which is selling motivational products. That’s it. Nothing else matters to us!”

  “Okay,” Kat said. She shook EJ’s hand, then Marie Claire’s. “Thank you for your time. I’ll be on the lookout for your magazine article.”

  Stepping out into the street was almost eerily strange. It was like stepping out from another dimension. EJ and his crew had created some kind of new world inside the building, and it felt distinctly different from the outside world. It was all very intense.

  To wind down, Kat headed to a coffee shop and got a decaf. She called Lacie, and they spoke for a while about Lacie’s new internship as a child psychologist. After her meeting with EJ and Marie Claire, she needed some normalcy in her life.

  Whew! Kat thought. That was exhausting!

  CHAPTER 13

  Lennon told Kat that she always took the opportunity to ‘witness,’ at her church and said she was calling Kat to invite her to the megachurch that Hunter Moncherry pastored.

  “Definitely,” Kat replied. She was actually very curious about the Moncherry couple and thought it would be great to meet them again. Hopefully she might get to talk with them in person, rather than just seeing them up on the stage.

  “Wonderful. Shall I pick you up?”

  “If it’s not too much trouble,” Kat said. “I can drive there myself, if you’d prefer.”

  “Not at all,” Lennon said. “I’ll pick you up on Sunday at 10:00, go to church, and then you can come to our house for Sunday dinner. We have our big meal of the day after church. How does that sound?”

  Kat smiled. She really liked making new friends. “It sounds wonderful.”

  Kat hadn’t been to this particular church before, and wondered what sort of things people wore there. She’d run the whole gamut of church visits in her time, seeing churches where people wore jeans and tees, and those where large hats and lace trimmings were the expected attire. She didn’t want to look out of place.