A Burned Out Baker: Classic Diner Mystery #7 (The Classic Diner Mysteries) by Jessica Beck Page B

Mike said as he looked at me oddly. “Don’t worry. I won’t be pursuing the lawsuit.”
    “To tell you the truth, that hadn’t even crossed my mind,” I said, which was true enough.
    “You probably couldn’t even if you wanted to, could you?” Moose asked. “After all, it was his word against ours, and now he’s not around to testify.”
    “That worked out pretty well for you then, didn’t it?” Mike asked loudly enough for a few of the other customers to notice.
    “Let’s all take a deep breath here,” I said. I loved my grandfather dearly, but sometimes I wished that he had a few thoughts that he didn’t feel the need to express so openly. “Mike, it’s important that you know that we didn’t have anything to do with what happened to Barry.” I looked over at the charred remains of the bakery, a sight that was obvious from our position at the tire shop. “What’s going to happen to the space now?”
    “Well, as a matter of fact—” Mike started to say when Rob interrupted him.
    “Nothing’s in stone yet, Mike, so we don’t want to jinx it, do we?” The tire man didn’t look all that pleased about the subject being brought up, though I still wasn’t sure what he was talking about.
    That’s when I got it.
    “You’re buying the lot after all, aren’t you?” I asked.
    “What do you mean?” Rob asked me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    He may have tried to brush me off, but Mike wasn’t about to allow it. “Let her explain,” Mike said to Rob, and then he turned to me. “What are you talking about, Victoria?”
    “Barry didn’t tell you about it?” I asked.
    “Tell me what?”
    “Rob tried to buy the bakery last month so he could expand his tire business, but Barry turned him down cold.”
    Mike looked at the tire man with fresh suspicion in his gaze. “Is that true?”
    “It’s all one big coincidence,” Rob said as he tried to backpedal as quickly as he could. “Your brother and I just had an informal conversation a few months ago, that’s all there was to it.”
    “It was more than that,” I said, recalling the offer sheet we’d found in Barry’s office that he’d torn up. “You made him a written offer, and he tore it into tiny little pieces.”
    “How could you possibly know that?” Rob asked as he stared openly at me.
    “We found the paper, Rob,” Moose said.
    “This changes everything. I need to rethink things, Rob,” Mike said as he abruptly started to leave.
    “But we had an agreement,” Rob said angrily.
    “Yeah? Try to prove it. I haven’t signed anything yet,” Mike said as he walked away.
    Rob wanted to go after him, but he still had to contend with my grandfather and me. “Thanks a lot, you two. What good is an empty lot going to do him? I was going to take it off his hands and expand my showroom, but now I’m not so sure that’s going to happen because of your meddling.”
    “Sorry about that,” Moose said, clearly not upset at all. “Where were you when the fire started?”
    “I was sitting at home by the fireplace enjoying a cup of coffee. There must have been some kind of plug in the chimney, though, because I got a backdraft and it blew smoke all over my living room. Who knew that as that was happening to me, poor Barry was dealing with a fire of his own?”
    It was a convenient time to have a fireplace emergency; that much was certain. “Was anyone there who can confirm that?” I asked him.
    “Sadly, since Rita left me, I’m all alone these days,” he said.
    “But I saw you at the fire soon after it must have started,” I said.
    “Like I said, I found out the bakery was on fire, so I rushed right over here to see if I could help. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to talk some sense into Mike.”
    “Why don’t we all go together?” I asked. “Moose and I want to talk to him again ourselves.”
    Rob looked at us for a few moments, and he must have seen that we weren’t going to back down. In