Cappuccinos, Cupcakes, and a Corpse (A Cape Bay Cafe Mystery Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

along!” “What an unfortunate coincidence, what with your mother just passing!” “If you need any help going through his things, Matteo, I’d be happy to help. You know, I’ve lived just down the street there since your parents first moved in, back before you were even born.”
    The women’s voice overlapped and merged as they went on and on in their chattering and so-called condolences that all too frequently sounded more like thinly veiled insults and criticisms.
    “Such a tragedy, losing both your parents. And you so young yet!” “You’re all alone in the world now! Neither of your parents will be there to see you get married when you finally find the right girl!” “Oh, your children won’t have any grandparents!”
    At that point, I grabbed Matty’s arm and pulled him through the crowd toward the front door of Mr. Cardosi’s house.
    “Didn’t Mike want us to look through the house?” I asked loudly.
    “I can help you!” one of the women called.
    “No, no, we have it!” We were almost at the door.
    “I know where everything belongs! I spent quite a bit of time with Gino!”
    Matty and I whirled around. Matty had specifically said that his dad didn’t really socialize, so I wanted to see who was claiming to be his close friend. It was Mrs. Collins, a widow who lived across the street and two houses down, directly across the street from my house. She was rather well known for her, well, let’s just call them “exaggerations.” I narrowed my eyes at her, telegraphing a “back off” message. She stopped in her tracks at the edge of the group of women. Without taking my eyes off her, I pushed Matty toward the front door. I backed through it after him then slammed it and locked it for good measure.
    “Thanks for that,” Matty said as I stalked to the back door to lock that too.
    Satisfied that we would have no surprise or accidental visitors, I walked back to Matty. “They should be ashamed of themselves.”
    I glanced around and noticed the living room curtains were open. I didn’t put it past a single one of those women to walk through the flower beds and stare in, so I pulled the curtains closed, glaring through the window at the lingering crowd before I did. I walked through the first floor and closed the rest of the curtains before circling back to Matty, who was still lurking in the entryway.
    “That should keep them at least from being full-on Peeping Toms,” I said.
    Matty nodded and shoved his hands in his pockets as he looked around. “He’s really gone, huh?”
    The aggression I had felt toward the meddling neighbors vanished, and I was filled again with sympathy for Matty. I rubbed his upper arm with my hand. “I’m so sorry.”
    He was quiet, staring at his shoes, then he looked at me. “So you found him?”
    I swallowed hard and stepped back, shoving my hands deep in my pockets. “Yeah,” I said as I nodded.
    “Did he look—? How did he—?”
    “I thought he was asleep,” I said softly, understanding what Matty was asking.
    “And you didn’t see any—”
    “No.”
    Matty nodded and looked at the ceiling with a sigh. “Thank you.”
    “For what?” I scoffed. I’d found his father’s dead body and called the police. That was nothing special. In fact, I wouldn’t have blamed Matty if he’d been angry with me.
    “Finding him, calling the police, saving me from the biddy brigade out there,” he listed.
    “I didn’t do anything special.”
    “Who knows how long he would have been back there if you hadn’t walked by?”
    I shrugged. “I’m sure it wouldn’t have been long.”
    “Doesn’t matter,” Matty said. “Any time is too long.”
    I nodded sympathetically. My mother had collapsed in public and been whisked straight to the hospital. I couldn’t imagine how awful it would be to know that your loved one had been lying somewhere, dead, for an extended period of time.
    Matty took another deep breath. “Should we look around? See if there’s