A Trifle Dead: Cafe La Femme, Book 1 Read Online Free PDF Page B

exit. ‘ Be a policeman.’
    Half a minute later, Stewart McTavish popped his head in the same door. ‘He seems a mite pissed off, that copper o’ yours,’ he observed.
    ‘Lack of chocolate,’ I said, tossing him a brownie off-cut. ‘Shouldn’t you be blogging about naked meringue ladies?’ I tried not to be quietly smug about the fact that Bishop would have passed him on his way out.
    ‘Need coffee first. Coffee is the essential fuel tha’ keeps any good journalist on his toes.’
    ‘Didn’t we just have tea?’
    ‘Tea is not coffee. Tea is a thirst quencher and occasional calming agent. Coffee is a lifestyle choice.’
    He seemed twitchy, but I’d known plenty of caffeine addicts in my time, so that seemed normal. ‘Help yourself,’ I said, gesturing to the always-full staff coffee pot on the bench.
    Stewart found a mug and filled it. ‘That’s the stuff. Should ye no’ be charging me for these beverages?’
    ‘Did we not discuss how you were going to plug my café in your widely-viewed tourist blog?’ I said in mock-surprise. ‘Oh, wait—we did!’
    He grinned around his coffee, and caught my sticky note as it fluttered off the fridge. Bishop may solve crime, but he’s lousy with stationery. ‘DNA testing. Dinna believe in it, meself.’
    ‘Is this a religious objection?’
    ‘Cultural. I blame forensics for the death of the good old-fashioned detective novel. Wha’s the point of crime fiction when they feed all the details into a computer and it prints out the name of the murderer?’
    Nin, who loves all those sexy forensic shows on TV, made a little strangled noise at the blasphemy.
    I took Stewart’s coffee from him, which made him whimper. I filled his arms with bikkie jars, and pushed him through the door to the public part of the café before bloodshed occurred.
    Lara, working at the counter, stopped fiddling with her butterfly-tipped blonde dreadlocks long enough to smile flirtatiously at Stewart. He eyed her, and they exchanged a few words while he figured out where to put all the jars. Hmm. Further evidence that he might not be gay. On the other hand, I was now going to have to fire Lara.
    Stewart frowned at my posters and my collage of Vogue covers.
    ‘What’s wrong?’ I said defensively.
    ‘You need a mural there,’ he said, nodding at the feature wall. ‘All this paper—it’s a bit scruffy.’
    ‘Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a reliable mural artist in this city? Not to mention the expense.’ I checked out his dog-eared grey jeans and rumpled hair. ‘Anyway, if you want to talk scruffy…’
    ‘Och, don’t get personal.’ He was eyeing my walls in the same way that the dental technician I dated last month had eyed my teeth—like he was longing to fix them up. ‘I’m sensing a theme in your posters here. Did ye not hear about the 1960s being over?’
    ‘The 60s are eternal,’ I gasped.
    ‘And the 50s too, I suppose? Ye havnae even settled on an era or a single style—it’s a mess.’
    ‘Vintage fashion fusion isn’t a mess,’ I said, gritting my teeth. ‘It’s a spiritual philosophy.’
    ‘Fusion, you say?’ He didn’t sound convinced. ‘Ye need real art, to get an idea like that across.’
    ‘And I suppose you know a great mural artist who knows his fashion history and works for coffee and crumbs, possibly the occasional sandwich?’
    A sideways smile this time. ‘As it happens…’
    ‘Oh, no.’ I gave him a push back towards my kitchen. ‘I’ve hung out with writers and artists before. You are so procrastinating. Go back to your computer and blog the porn meringues. I am not your project.’
    ‘I was thinking maybe after that…’ Stewart said, as I pushed him through the kitchen, slapped his mug into his hand, and kept pushing him out the back door. ‘I need more coffee,’ he called pitifully.
    I closed the door on him. ‘If he comes back here with a paintbrush,’ I warned Nin, ‘don’t let him in.’
    I like my vintage