Cobb also stood, blocking her way. “Excuse me?” he said to the man, pulling Willa against his side. “Is
there a problem?”
The man, obviously the owner, pointed at her. “She owes me seven hundred forty-three bucks and sixty-four cents.” He turned the hand he was pointing at Willa palm up. “And if she doesn’t give me every last penny, in cash, in exactly one minute, I’m calling the sheriff.”
“Sam, do something!”Doris hissed, pushing his arm and spilling his coffee. “You need to save her!”
He looked over atDoris . “Don’t women today prefer to save themselves?”
“That is a crock of shit,” she snapped. “We still want to know we can count on a man in a crisis. This is your chance to prove what a good husband you’ll be.”
Sam blinked atDoris . Had she just said what he thought she had? He looked back at Willa, realizing she hadn’t spotted him yet. He stood up and sauntered over to stand beside the owner, who was still holding out his hand, apparently expecting it to fill up with money in the next thirty seconds.
“You carry that much cash on you, Cobb?” Sam asked, stifling a grin when Willa gasped. She tried to wriggle away from Barry again, but he merely pulled her closer.
“I’m not paying this man anything,” Barry said, looking from Sam to the owner’s outstretched hand.
“Not even to save your girlfriend from the sheriff?” Sam asked. “She’s going to look awful funny wearing a corsage in jail.”
“Butt out, Sinclair,” Barry snapped.
“Ten seconds,” the owner growled. “Martha!” he hollered over his shoulder. “Start dialing nine-one-one!”
Surprised that Willa still hadn’t done or said anything, Sam let out a loud sigh and reached back for his wallet. “Never mind, Cobb. I’ll get this one. You can bail her out of the next mess she gets herself into.”
Willa went from zero to sixty in one second flat. “You’re not getting one stinking dime, you greedy man!
It wasn’t my fault the last time, and it’s not my fault this time, either!” she yelled, shoving Cobb toward the owner, making them both stagger into a nearby table. She grabbed Sam’s hand and headed for the door. “Come on!” she shouted over the roaring laughter of the patrons. Willa pulled him onto the sidewalk, then suddenly stopped, undecided which way to run. Sam headed to their right, turning the corner at the first street they came to. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his key fob, hitting the unlock button as they approached his truck.
“Hop in,” he said, running to the driver’s side. She climbed in beside him and snapped her seat belt. Sam quickly snapped his own belt, looked over his shoulder, and pulled out onto the narrow lane. “Which way?” he asked. “We can’t go to your house. That’s the first place the sheriff will look for you.”
“Turn left up ahead,” she said a bit breathlessly. She suddenly laughed. “Oh, my God, did you see Craig’s face?”
“Craig?”
“The coffee-shop owner. Craig Watson.” She snickered. “I wonder what outrageous price he’s going to come up with this time. I didn’t even break any dishes today. Did you see me break any dishes?” she asked, batting her lashes at him.
He smiled at the gleam in her eye, then turned left at the first road he came to. “Nope, I didn’t see you break anything. I did see Cobb bump into a table and break some dishes, though.”
She giggled. “I’m trying to picture myself sitting in jail wearing a corsage.” She sighed. “I guess dinner and dancing is a no-go now.”
“Unless you wouldn’t mind if I stood in for Cobb,” he said with a smile, puffing out his chest to better his chances. “I’d be right honored, Ms.Kent , if you would let me take you to the dance this evening.”
She giggled again, then suddenly pointed. “Here! Turn left here. This is Route One, and it’ll take us toward Prime Point. I know a secluded beach we can go to.”
That sounded promising. “Mind telling me why Craig Watson says you owe him seven hundred and forty-three dollars?”
“And sixty-four cents,” she tacked on. “Um, a few dishes might have gotten broken the last time, but Craig started it.”
“And you were just an innocent bystander? Did anyone else get banned from the diner?”
“No. I was the only one in the diner with Craig at the time. His wife, Martha, had just left for the night.”
“You were alone with Watson?” The man didn’t look like anyone he’d want Willa to be alone with. Ever.
“I wanted to talk to him in private.”
“Why?” he asked, sensing a community-crusader story coming on.
“Craig had just purchased the diner about four months earlier, and he wasn’t…um, he wasn’t doing things the way the previous owner had.”
“I don’t suppose he was obliged to.”
She turned in the seat to face him. “Okay. Let me tell you about Gertrude, so you’ll understand. There used to be a little old lady named Gertrude Bliss who lived in town. She was ninety-four, she lived alone in her big old house, and all she had for income was a small social security check. Gertrude also had six cats. They were all the family she had, and they meant the world to her, even if she could barely afford them.”
“Let me guess. You paid for their upkeep.”
“I took them to the veterinarian for her and paid for the visits. And the previous diner owner always saved a small bucket of clean food scraps for them. Gertrude would walk to the diner and pick up the scraps every morning, along with her cup of hazelnut coffee. When Craig bought the diner, he started charging Gertrude for the scraps, claiming it caused him a lot of extra work to sort them out. He also charged her for the coffee.”
“And you decided to have a little talk with Watson to get him to give Gertrude the food for free.”
“Well, yeah. Gertrude was a very proud woman, and she didn’t want anyone in town to know how destitute she was. Her husband hadn’t planned properly for their retirement, likely because he hadn’t expected them to live so long. When he died five years earlier, they were already down to just their social security. But when a husband dies, his check stops coming, and a surviving wife is left with only her check, which is usually only half of what his was if she never worked outside the home.”
“So you confronted Craig Watson about charging Gertrude for the scraps. How did it escalate to broken dishes?”
“When he wouldn’t agree to stop charging her, I might have threatened to tell all his customers what a rat he was. But I was bluffing, because that would mean embarrassing Gertrude.” She gave him a furtive glance, then looked out her window. “I accidentally knocked over a stack of plates sitting at the edge of a shelf.” She looked at Sam, her chin raised. “I wave my hands sometimes, when I get worked up about something.”
“You knocked over seven hundred dollars’ worth of plates?”
“The plates might have hit a couple of turkeys he had thawing on the counter, and they might have fallen into a sink full of soapy water.” She waved her hand in the air. “I don’t remember, exactly. But I’m betting Craig still served those turkeys the next day, even though he added them to my bill. He probably tacked on a few other things, too. I didn’t exactly stick around to take inventory.”
Sam was trying so hard not to laugh that his side started to ache. “Okay, then,” he said, forcing a straight face. “Would you like me to talk to Watson about the table scraps?”
“It’s too late; Gertrude died six months ago. I took in her cats, but four of them died of old age soon after. The other two were fairly young, and they’re living at Grand Point Bluff with Ida Bates,Shelby ’s mother-inlaw.”
“What happened to Gertrude’s home, since she didn’t have any family?”
“She left it to the local humane society.”
“Good for her. So back to tonight. Will you do me the honor of going to the dance with me, Willamina?”
“That depends.” She looked down at her lap. “If you still want to after we talk…then yes, I’ll go to the dance with you.”