A Chili Death: A Classic Diner Mystery by Jessica Beck

after Sheriff Croft was gone.
    “Sorry, I’d love to stay and chat, but I’ve got to run,” he said.
    “Is it about the case?” Moose asked.
    “No, some idiot decided to try to beat a train to a crossing on the edge of town.  Nobody got hurt, but this fool’s car is totaled.”
    After the sheriff was gone, I asked my grandfather, “What was that smile about?”
    “I was just impressed with the way you figured that out,” he said.  “How did you do it?”
    “Hey, read enough mysteries, and you too can be a crime solver.”
    “Seriously, that’s good work,” Moose said.  “We chose our fearless leader wisely.”
    “I appreciate the compliment, but we’re still no closer to finding the killer than we were before,” I said.
    “That’s why we keep digging,” he said.
    “What about the diner?” I asked.
    “The rest of the family can pitch in today.  You and I have a murder to solve.”  He grinned again, and added, “Besides, I’ve got a hunch that Greg and your mother would jump at the chance to work together for awhile.  Why don’t you give Ellen a call and see if she’ll come in?  While you’re doing that, I’ll round up the rest of the troops, and then we can get back to our investigation.”
    “That sounds like a plan to me,” I said as I called my morning server at home to give her the good news.
     
    Moose and I left the diner in the capable hands of the rest of our family a little later, and we went off in search of a killer.
    When we got to The Clothes Horse, though, we found the front door locked and the CLOSED sign in the window.
    “What’s going on?” I asked as we got out of Moose’s truck.  I looked at the store hours posted by the door and saw that Hank should have been open for half an hour by now.
    “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.  Let’s take a drive over to Hank’s place and see what’s going on.”
    When we got there, though, there was no sign of life.
    It appeared that Hank was gone.
    “It doesn’t look good, him running like this.  Doesn’t he know that?” I asked Moose as he pounded on the front door for the fourth time.  I didn’t figure it would do him any good to keep trying, but on the other hand, it couldn’t hurt, either.
    “The fool must have lost his mind,” Moose said, pausing for a moment.
    “Do you think he might have killed Howard Lance?” I asked.
    “I don’t know what to think at this point, to be honest with you.”
    “You just said that he had to have lost his mind.”
    “Victoria, I was talking about him leaving town.  Just because he’s gone doesn’t mean that he’s the killer.”
    “Somebody murdered that man,” I said.  “Why couldn’t it have been Hank?  His wife started this store herself, and when she died, he took it over.  Maybe the thought of losing the last part he still had of her was too much for him to take.”
    “It’s possible,” Moose admitted.
    “Think about it.  What if your roles were reversed?  Wouldn’t you miss Martha at least that much?”
    “Of course I would, but I’d like to think that I still wouldn’t kill somebody over it.”
    I had my doubts myself.  Moose’s charm had a flipside, and that was his temper.  He liked to think of it as passion, but my family knew better.
    “So, what do we do about this?  Do we call Sheriff Croft and tell him what we suspect, or keep it all to ourselves?”
    “We could call Croft,” Moose said, “but let’s give Hank a chance to come back on his own before we do anything rash.”
    “We aren’t holding anything back from him, though, remember?”
    “Victoria, if Hank’s on his list of suspects, the sheriff most likely already knows about this.”
    “And if he’s not?” I asked, refusing to give any ground.  We’d made a promise, and I meant to keep it.
    “Tell you what.  We’ll go see Cynthia, and then we’ll try here again.  If he hasn’t popped up by then, I’ll call Croft myself.  Is that a deal?” he