Dead Velvet Cake

by James, Emily

  “I was hoping you’d help,” I finished lamely. “I’d pay you.”

  Heat burned my neck and cheeks worse than if I’d been out all day without sunscreen. Claire probably didn’t need my money. She might even be insulted. But I couldn’t presume on our tentative relationship enough to ask for her help without offering anything at all.

  “Okay,” Claire said and turned back toward the house as if she expected me to follow her.

  So I did.

  Claire glanced back at me over her shoulder. “What’s the counter space like at your apartment?”

  My feet felt like they’d grown too sizes too large for my body, leaving me clumsy. You prepared for this, I reminded myself. “Tiny. Non-existent really.” I used everything I’d learned from living with Jarrod not to blurt the words out frantically and give away my lie. Or perhaps it wasn’t a lie. The counters in my apartment were non-existent. Literally. Since there was no apartment. “We’d be more comfortable working here if you’re alright with that. My freezer’s too small too for everything we’ll need to store anyway. I only have that kind that’s a drawer below the fridge.”

  In for a lie penny, in for a lie pound.

  “I have an old one in the garage that I can hook back up,” she said. “I was going to try to sell it, but that can wait a couple more weeks.”

  Claire was being surprisingly obliging.

  The part of me that had learned the hard way to distrust everything that seemed too good to be true tried to tell me that Claire must have an ulterior motive. I just couldn’t come up with what that might be.

  And I couldn’t help but remember what Dan had said about her. That she was a good person. That she’d warm up to me.

  Maybe this was Claire warm. Warm was relative, right? If I’d just finished a popsicle, even a glass of water full of ice might seem warm.

  Claire directed me to sit on her living room couch. I’d been in this room once before, when Dan brought me to tell Claire that I suspected her of killing her grandfather. It’d had a few boxes in it then, remnants of her husband’s exodus. The boxes seemed to have multiplied rather than diminishing since then. The new boxes were neatly labeled. Claire’s house didn’t have a sold sign on it yet, but she was clearly anticipating the moment when it did.

  Claire came back out with a recipe box, the kind where you wrote down a recipe on a cue card and slid it into the correct category. She sat beside me and pulled out a stack of cards. “These are the appetizers and finger foods I used to use when I threw dinner parties with Mike. He never complained so you know they must be good.”

  Claire’s expression turned wry.

  According the Dan, Claire’s husband had moved out months ago to share an apartment with the woman he cheated on Claire with. He still hadn’t given Claire a divorce. For months, he’d even come back to take a box of his stuff at a time. Dan had finally convinced Claire to allow him to haul all of Mike’s remaining things out to the curb and then call him to say they were there waiting for him. The way Dan told the story, Mike pounded on the door but had backed off when Dan answered rather than Claire.

  I’d gotten the impression Mike was hard to please, to put it mildly.

  Claire’s cell phone rang. She handed me the cards. “No pictures, but I’m sure you can imagine them from the descriptions.”

  She slid her finger across the screen and mouthed the words It’s Dan to me.

  I started sorting through Claire’s stack of cards. Dips were out. They were fine at small gatherings, but at large events, no one wanted to deal with communal food. Too many people didn’t understand that double dipping was taboo.

  She did have some great looking recipes for antipasti bites, pizza sliders, cheese and broccoli quiche, jalapeno poppers, and figs stuffed with goat cheese and wrapped in bacon. Savory wasn’t my specialty, but my mouth watered thinking of taste testing some of them.

  The fact that I’d been too nervous to eat today probably contributed.

  “I hung it on the laundry line to dry.” Claire dropped back onto the couch beside me. “I’m here with Isabel now if you want to come get it.”

  I could hear the deep tenor of his voice on the other side of the phone even though I couldn’t hear his words.

  “Yes at my house.” Claire’s voice had a snap to it. “I said I was home, didn’t I?”

  Dan must have found it hard to believe that Claire and I would be spending time together without him and Janie. I didn’t blame him. My dad used to like to watch re-runs of The Odd Couple where one roommate was a slob and the other was OCD about cleanliness. Claire and I weren’t as mismatched as that, but we weren’t an obvious choice for a friendship either. I still wasn’t sure if we were friends.

  She disconnected. “Dan’s on his way. Janie forgot her bathing suit yesterday when she came to swim.”

  I hadn’t even realized Claire had a pool. That should make her house even easier to sell. If I had a bathing suit myself, I might even find the courage to ask if I could come to swim myself before then. I was on the swim team in high school until my dad got sick and I had to quit.

  I showed Claire the appetizers I was considering, and she helped pick out a few more. We created a list of what could be made ahead of time and frozen and what would need to be made no more than twenty-four hours in advance. I added the cupcakes that I’d been thinking about making to the lists.

  A knock came at the door, but Claire didn’t bother getting up to answer it. She had her eyes narrowed, glaring at the paper, as she jotted timelines down, creating a schedule for how long we had to complete each dish in order to stay on track.

  Dan appeared in the doorway. His gaze swept over the detritus of our work covering the coffee table. His look of confusion was so intense that I had to hide a smile behind my hand.

  “Are you planning a party?” he asked.

  “A job,” Claire said without looking up from her work. “I’m helping Isabel cater a barbecue for an insurance company.”

  Dan’s body language changed. I couldn’t explain it precisely. The closest I could come in my mind was that before he’d had the loose-joints look of a cat lazing around in the sun. Now those muscles had bunched as if he needed to react to a threat.

  “An insurance company?” His voice was too casual. “Which one?”

  Claire tapped her pen against her lips, her eyes still focused on the pages. “Rigman and Associates.”

  Dan’s head swiveled in my direction. “I’ve heard of them.”

  His gaze felt like it was digging through my defenses, right into my brain. He suspected.

  He smiled, but it stayed on his lips. “Isabel, can I talk to you in the kitchen for a minute? That way we won’t disturb Claire’s concentration as she works.”

  I rose slowly to my feet. Claire didn’t even acknowledge me leaving. When it came to planning and organizing, she seemed to go into her own little world.

  Dan closed the kitchen door once we were both inside. He leaned back against the counter, his arms crossed over his chest. He looked so casual that I almost thought I’d been wrong. Almost.

  Dan had been an undercover police officer before his brother died, and he adopted Janie. He knew how to keep everything off his features and out of his voice that he didn’t want there.

  My body tensed, every muscle feeling as stiff as my bones. He had to be angry. I could see it from his perspective. I’d been sneaking around. Or, at the very least, I planned to.

  “Please tell me this job is completely about the money and there’s no other reason you’re catering this event.” His voice was soft, almost sad.

  I hadn’t expected that. I’d expected anger and accusations. I’d expected him to jump to conclusions and berate me.

  I forced myself to meet Dan’s blue eyes. They were as soft as his voice.

  Dan, I reminded myself for what felt like the millionth time, isn’t Jarrod.

  I couldn’t lie to him. I couldn’t make myself confess. I stood there mute, feeling
stupid.

  Dan ran a hand over his face. He pushed up straight. “If you get caught poking around in this case, it could make you look guilty. You could have come to me instead. I thought we agreed to work as a team.”

  We had back in May, but I hadn’t thought that was an open-ended agreement. “Wasn’t that only for your grandfather’s case?”

  Dan smiled in that way that crinkled his eyes and sent a strange spiral of warmth through my stomach. “You seem to want to keep investigating deaths. Maybe we should make it a permanent agreement.”

  How did a man who’d been through so much, seen so much, still manage to smile like that? It made me feel hopeful. Like I could have joy too if I was willing to fight for it.

  “If you’re catering this party to snoop around,” Dan said, “I want to be there as one of your employees.”

  I couldn’t stop the return smile that tugged at my lips. “Not only to snoop around.”

  “It’ll make your business look more successful to have more than you and Claire anyway.” Dan held out his hand like he’d done the first time. “Do we have a deal?”

  I narrowed my eyes and crossed my arms, but I couldn’t wipe away the smile. “I didn’t want to pay another employee.”

  Dan kept his hand extended. A less confident man would have lowered it. Dan stayed still, as if he believed without doubting that I’d relent. “You can pay me in cupcakes.”

  “For how long?”

  Something flickered across his face that I couldn’t interpret, and his smile drained away from his eyes a little even though it stayed on his lips. “To be determined.”

  I slid my palm into his and shook. “You’re hired.”

  He gave my hand an extra squeeze before letting go. “Tell me what you’ve been up to so far.”

  I filled him in on what Eve and I had uncovered, including confessing the half-truth I’d told him about how I got the information about Harper and Anthony.

  The smile fell off of Dan’s face completely as I spoke. “Eve got you the catering job too?”

  I nodded.

  “Did she tell you she’s also a suspect?”

  I opened my mouth to tell him that she came to me shortly after I’d spoken to the police to ask me not to tell them anything. I realized in time that made her sound guilty. I nodded again instead. “My last partnership investigating a crime went so well that I thought I’d try it again.”

  The concerned look stayed on his face as if my attempt at flattery slid right off Dan and didn’t stick.

  He moved a little closer in a way that suggested it was subconscious. “I can’t give you the details, but Detective Strobel has good reasons for suspecting her. Promise me you’ll be careful.”

  That strange warm spiral kicked up in my belly again. Maybe I should feel insulted since I was one of the most careful people he’d likely ever meet. Maybe I should try to argue Eve’s innocence.

  But having someone care about me ripped all those words right out of me, and all I could say was, “I promise.”

  12

  “This is the best one yet.” The woman slowly chewed the tiny bite she’d taken of the lemon meringue cupcake, and her eyes slid shut behind glasses that were too big for her face. “How many varieties did you say you brought again?”

  Three boys around the age of ten raced past me toward where the three-legged race was about to start, and I stepped aside to give them more room. I didn’t want to end up wearing the tray of cupcakes I carried. It’d almost happened twice already today. Weaving through the crowd at the Rigman & Associates annual barbecue felt a bit like trying to find my way through a maze that kept changing. “Six flavors of cupcakes, but we also have appetizers if you’re looking for something savory instead of sweet.”

  “Six!” Her eyes owled open. She chucked the half-finished lemon meringue cupcake into the nearby trash can and snatched a peanut butter and jelly one from my tray. “I’m going to need room to try them all. Maybe I should have entered that silly potato sack race after all.”

  Don’t stare at the trash can, I admonished myself. She couldn’t possibly know how it hurt a baker’s soul to see something they’d created tossed away rather than eaten. Not to mention we’d run out early if everyone decided to eat only one bite.

  “Flag me down when you have some other varieties with you,” the woman was saying. “We should have switched over to you years ago. The other company’s desserts tasted like cardboard. I might as well have been eating diet food.”

  She took one bite from the peanut butter and jelly cupcake, tossed it into the trash with the lemon meringue, and wandered away.

  I shuddered. I’d gotten half my payment upfront, and Eve assured me the company would be good to pay me the rest, so at least the woman wasn’t throwing away my money. Still…

  I turned away and continued weaving through the crowd. I needed to focus not only on doing my official job but on listening for anything that might give us a new lead in Anthony’s murder. The serving trays had been Dan’s idea. If we were going to eavesdrop on people, we needed to be out among them. If they had to come to us, they’d stop any interesting conversation right about the time we’d be able to hear it.

  Anthony’s death was fresh enough that it was still a hot topic of conversation, but I hadn’t heard anything incriminating or useful yet.

  “Have you tried the food?” a man’s voice said to the woman he was standing with as I wiggled through the small space behind him between him and the rope that had been put up to cordon off the “open bar.”

  “They don’t have the crab cakes I liked so much.” The woman’s voice had a pout to it. “I don’t know why they switched to someone new this year. We’ve had the same caterer as long as I’ve been with the company.”

  I felt more than saw the man’s shoulders shrug. “I don’t know, but you should try something. I enjoyed almost everything I’ve tried.” He said it hesitantly like he was afraid of contradicting her.

  I didn’t know whether to put that conversation in the pro-us category or the con-us. So far, Claire and I seemed to be coming out ahead of the other caterer in how much people were enjoying the food. But there were a few who couldn’t seem to understand why the company had decided to mess with a good thing by changing caterers.

  The switch after so many years did seem strange. Based on what Eve had said, Rigman & Associates hadn’t initiated the change. The caterer had cancelled on them. On short notice no less.

  Most caterers wouldn’t quit a job that close to the date unless something serious happened. Not only would cancelling an event last minute create a gap in their income, but it would mean a poor review or poor word of mouth. As Anthony had proven, he had no trouble actively seeking to destroy the careers of people who crossed him.

  I was probably fishing, but it wouldn’t hurt to find out what was behind the caterer quitting. The more I heard people talk about how long the previous caterer had worked the event, the more suspicious I become. They’d worked for Rigman & Associates for years, both their summer cookout and their Christmas party, only to quit so close to Anthony’s death. The timing seemed too convenient.

  My tray emptied out, and I headed back to my truck to restock. Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed Dan also moving through the crowd. Or trying to. A woman in a clingy sundress blocked his path, some sort of brightly colored drink in her hand.

  From this distance, it looked like she was flirting with him. I couldn’t blame her. Somehow the bubble-gum pink shirts Claire had bought us to wear today made his blue eyes look even bluer.

  I focused back on loading up cupcakes. As long as Dan looked like he was actually an employee of How Sweet It Is cupcake truck, I shouldn’t care about anything else. Who he flirted with wasn’t any of my business. I shouldn’t care how blue his eyes were. I was a married woman.

  My tray filled with strawberry cheesecake cupcakes and cookies and cream cupcakes, I headed back into the center of the party. An arm waved above the crowd, and i
n between the other people, I caught sight of a pair of oversized glasses bobbing toward me.

  No way. I couldn’t handle watching more of my hard work end up nestled among rotting banana peels and dirty paper plates.

  I ducked behind the tiki hut-style building where alcohol was being served.

  “Do you think she did it?” The same woman’s voice as I’d heard before came from just around the opposite corner. Her words had the tiniest lisp to them now, as if whatever she was drinking wasn’t the first she’d had. She might not want to eat my food because I didn’t have crab cakes, but she had no qualms about the free liquor.

  “Who?” the man’s voice responded.

  “Eve, obviously. Do you think she killed him?”

  The man snorted. “Of course she did. You should have heard the way he ran her down in the creative meeting for the new ads. No one could take that kind of treatment for long.”

  “Mr. Green should have bought out Rigman’s share of the company years ago.” Anger and regret mingled in the woman’s voice. I couldn’t help but notice that she didn’t call Anthony Mr. Rigman. It was like she couldn’t stomach giving him that level of respect even now that he was dead. “If he had, we wouldn’t have had so much trouble with turnover, and Eve wouldn’t end up spending the next decade or more of her life in prison.”

  “Maybe she’ll hire a good defense attorney.” The man’s voice was getting softer as if they were walking away. “I’d testify for her if she wanted to argue self-defense or battered woman syndrome or whatever.”

  The woman made an affirming noise before they were too far away for me to hear any more.

  What chance did Eve have if even her co-workers believed her capable of murder? Then again, maybe it was less that they believed her capable of murder. Maybe it was that they thought they would have killed Anthony had they been in her position. No one seemed to condemn her actions if she had done it.

  A tiny wriggle of doubt ate at my heart like a worm pushing its way into an already rotting apple. I couldn’t let it take hold. Eve said she hadn’t done it. I needed to believe her until irrefutable proof showed otherwise. Even more so since it seemed like I was the only one who did believe her.