by Donna Doyle
“Hey, you’re pretty good,” Helen said with a crooked smile several hours later. It was hard to believe that Just Like Grandma’s was the same restaurant it had been earlier in the day. Only a few customers were scattered around, and the black-and-white tile floor was actually visible again.
Sammy wiped down a chrome-trimmed table and smiled. “Thanks. It was a lot of fun.”
“Fun?” Helen’s eyes widened, and she swung her steely braid over her shoulder. “You must like to torture yourself, honey. That rush we just went through is exactly why Jill quit. I wouldn’t let her have breaks to go play games on her cell phone.”
“I like to be busy,” Sammy said with a shrug. “And the tips weren’t too bad, either.” She knew from experience that everything in Sunny Cove was going to be cheaper than in New York, so she hadn’t been too concerned about making a living here. Still, the cash in the pocket of her apron let her know that she had been right.
“Well, if you want to stay busy, then how about you get in the back and show me some of those baking skills you bragged about over the phone. Or was that just a play on words with your last name?” Helen smiled, letting Sammy know that she was just messing with her.
It had always seemed a little ironic that she was not only a talented baker but had married a man with the last name of Baker. She had considered changing back to her maiden name, but it almost seemed easier to keep her married name. It was already on everything she owned, and it felt like more of a clean start to have an unfamiliar name in her old hometown. “What would you like me to bake?”
The older woman waved toward the kitchen. “Look at what we have in there and make anything your heart desires. I’ve been buying it all commercially, but I don’t like to do it that way. There’s nothing like a homemade muffin or piece of pie.”
“You really don’t have a preference?” The bakeries where she’d worked in the city always had certain flavor combinations they were going for, always trying to stay on the very tip of the trends.
Helen pushed her gently toward the swinging door. “As long as it tastes good and the customers want to buy it, then I don’t care. I’ll be cleaning up out here while we wait for the next rush.”
Smiling to herself, Sammy stepped into the kitchen. Johnny was scraping the griddle, and she smiled shyly at him while she began looking through the fridge and the pantry. It took a few minutes to familiarize herself with everything in the kitchen, but she soon lost herself in what she did best. Sammy wasn’t worried about the fact that she still had all her earthly possession in her car and would need to haul them upstairs to her new apartment at the end of the day. She wasn’t thinking about all the wrongs she had suffered with Greg. Instead, she was mixing and stirring, crafting something that she truly cared about.
An hour later, Helen came into the kitchen. “What smells so good?”
Johnny shrugged and gestured toward Sammy with one hand.
“Nothing too fancy,” Sammy said as her new boss approached. “I made lemon cupcakes with homemade whipped cream frosting. I thought something light and fresh would be a nice contrast to the gloomy weather.” She picked one up off the tray and handed it over.
Helen immediately peeled back the wrapper and took a big bite. Her brow creased and then raised, her eyes sharp as she looked at Sammy. “This is excellent!” She took another bite before picking up a second cupcake and handing it to Johnny. “Try this.”
He did as he was told, smiling and giving Sammy the thumbs up.
She blushed, flattered that her first creation had gone over so well. “What would you like me to do next?”
The older woman laughed as she picked up a platter and loaded half the cupcakes onto it. “I think you’d better keep baking. As soon as word gets around that we actually have something besides supermarket cookies, we’ll be running out in no time. I’ll holler for you when we get busy up front again.”
“You really like it?” Sammy asked the cook once their boss had disappeared. He didn’t seem to talk much, if at all. She would have to ask Helen about that some other time.
He nodded enthusiastically and smiled, even going as far as to rub his belly with one hand.
Feeling better than she had in a long time, Sammy went back to work. This time, she started in on some homemade dinner rolls. She wanted to show Helen that she wasn’t all about the sweets, and she knew her own creations had to be better than the brown-and-serves that the restaurant was currently using.
Just as she was checking on her dough to see how well it was rising, Sammy heard a crash from the front of the restaurant. She and Johnny peered through the serving window to see a man running through the dining room. He was a blur of mismatched clothes as he dodged around stools and customers. Helen was calling out to him, telling him to calm down, and the other customers stared with wide eyes.
“What’s going on?” Sammy mused, but of course Johnny didn’t answer.
To her surprise, the kitchen door swung open. The man burst through and into the back. He looked frantically around him, no doubt searching for a way out. Sammy froze, unsure of what to do. The intruder’s eyes met hers for a moment, wild and fearful, before her turned and crawled under a prep table. The remaining lemon cupcakes that sat on top of the table shimmied a little at the movement.
Johnny picked up a pot and a spoon, banging the two together at the man, but he didn’t seem to get the hint.
More commotion from the front had them looking through the serving window again. “He’s back there,” Helen said to a man in uniform. “You’d better find a way to keep that young man off the streets, Alfie. It looks like he’s getting himself into trouble again.”
“I’m doing my best, Helen.” The officer that came through the door was tall and broad-shouldered. His hair, dark brown but peppered with just a little bit of dark silver, was cut close underneath his policeman’s cap. He glanced around the kitchen, quickly finding the perpetrator under the table. A garbled message came over his radio, one Sammy couldn’t understand, but the officer seemed to. “Yeah, I got him,” he responded before bending down. “Austin, you know you can’t be back here.”
The man under the table watched him warily. “Alfred Jones, 465 Watson Street. Gray with white shutters.”
The officer’s shoulders sagged. “I wish you wouldn’t do that.”
“Christmas in 1994 was on a Sunday.”
“Is that so?” the uniformed man responded kindly. “Why don’t you come down to the station and we can talk about it a little more?”
Austin started to come out from under the table, but he paused. “Coffee with two sugars?”
“Yep, we can have a cup of coffee. As many sugars as you want.” He helped Austin off the floor and guided him toward the kitchen door.
“Two,” Austin insisted.
“Just two, then.” The officer escorted him out of the café and to his squad car that waited by the curb. He stood near the door, talking to him for a moment before coming back inside. “I’m sorry about that, Helen. You know how it is.”
Sammy stood in the kitchen doorway, holding the swinging door at bay and dying to know what was happening. The policeman noticed her. “Are you all right, ma’am?”
“I am,” she said, nodding and feeling a little dumb. She tried to attribute it to the odd situation that had just happened, but the fact that this man was so good-looking didn’t help. She dusted her hands on her apron and held one of them out. “I’m Sammy Baker.”
“Sheriff Jones,” he replied, enclosing her fingers in his warm ones. “You look familiar.”
“Oh, um, I grew up around here. I’ve just moved back into town.”
The sheriff’s dark blue eyes sparkled. “I’ll see you around, then.”
“Wait!” She didn’t know exactly what prompted her to do it, but Sammy dashed back into the kitchen and grabbed a cupcake off the table. She handed it to Sheriff Jones, feeling that she somehow owed him for what he had done. “On the house.”
; He raised it in the air in thanks. “I’d better get him to the department and get his cup of coffee before he gets too antsy.” Jones disappeared through the front door, chomping into the cupcake as he went.
Sammy watched him go. After a moment, she realized Helen was watching her from her position by the cash register. “What?” she asked, but she turned and dove back into the kitchen before her boss could say anything.
Chapter Three
“Sammy girl, you saved my life today,” Helen said when the dinner crowd had eaten all the stew they wanted and left their tips on the counter. “And so did those rolls. They went perfectly with today’s special. Did you plan that?”
“Not really.” Sammy dumped a load of dishes into the sink and began washing up. Nobody had told her that she was a dishwasher, but the job needed to be done. “I just felt like doing it.”
Helen nodded as she began rinsing plates. “I’ll give you a copy of the menu for the week, so you can plan all your deliciousness around it. And you give me a list of any ingredients you need if we don’t already have them.”
“Thank you. I’ll do that.” It was flattering to know that she had done such a good job on her first day that Helen was willing to give her a little bit of control over what Just Like Grandma’s offered.
“What are you thanking me for? There’s not a cupcake or a roll left in the house. I’ll be lucky not to have people breaking down the doors to get more,” she said with a smile.
Right on cue, a knocking sounded on the front door.
Helen rolled her eyes. “I’ll go tell them we’re closed. Doesn’t seem to matter that you post your hours and lock the door.” She returned a moment later. “Sammy, there’s someone here to see you.”
Sammy looked past Helen’s grim face to that of the man who accompanied her. Like Alfred Jones, he wore a uniform, but he didn’t wear it quite as well. An older man with a paunch and a dour look on his face, he frowned at her. “Samantha Baker?”
“Yes?”
“I’m Sheriff J.J. Barnes from the Calmhaven Sheriff’s Department. I’m here to arrest you for the poisoning of Alfred Jones.”
The edges of her vision instantly grew dark. Sammy’s hands shook, and she tucked them into the pocket of her apron. “What are you talking about?”
He glanced at Helen and Johnny, who stood staring at the scene unfolding in the kitchen. “Maybe we ought to head down to the station so we can talk in private.”
“Um, okay.” Slowly, Sammy untied her apron and hung it on the wall where she had gotten it, hoping she would have a chance to wear it again. This couldn’t be happening. She hadn’t poisoned anybody. She’d barely been in town for a full day. In shock, she followed Sheriff Barnes to his squad car.
Fortunately, Barnes hadn’t elected to use the pair of handcuffs that dangled from his belt. Sammy hadn’t put up a fight, though, knowing it was much smarter to cooperate while they figured all this out. The sheriff had shown her to a private office with Sheriff Jones’s name on the door and told her to have a seat. He lowered his heavy body into the chair behind the desk.
“Can you please tell me what’s happening?” she asked.
He pursed his lips and leaned forward over the desk. “I think you already know, young lady. Sheriff Alfred Jones is currently in the Sunny Cove Hospital under treatment for poisoning. The last thing he ate was a cupcake, a cupcake that you baked and that you handed him personally.”
“I gave him a cupcake,” she stammered, “but I didn’t poison it. I was just trying to thank him for doing his job.”
“The only thanks you gave him was sending him to the hospital,” Barnes grumped. “And you happened to leave Sunny Cove without a sheriff while you were at it. That’s why I’m here, that and the fact that this case involves one of the Sunny Cove Sheriff’s Department’s own. Now, why don’t you tell me why you did it?”
“Aren’t I supposed to have a lawyer present or something?”
“All right, fine.” Barnes picked up the phone and held a chubby finger over the buttons. “Who’s your lawyer?”
He had her there. “I just got back into town. I don’t have one right now.” She was sure her divorce attorney back in New York didn’t count.
Barnes set down the receiver. “Then let’s talk. And I’ll tell you right now, you might as well confess. It’ll go a lot easier for you when you go in front of the judge. Besides, I already know why you did it.”
“Then maybe you should tell me, because I certainly don’t know.” She didn’t mean to sound snarky, but this was getting ridiculous.
Barnes picked up a thick file folder that lay on the corner of the desk and let it fall to the surface again, making a soft thump. “Almost twenty years ago, your father was sent to prison.”
Sammy’s jaw dropped. This had to be some sort of nightmare. “What does that have to do with this?”
“You see,” Barnes continued as though she hadn’t said anything, “you thought you were fooling someone by coming into town with a different last name. But people around here talk. It’s a small town, and you should know that. It didn’t take much digging to find the connection between yourself and Sheriff Jones.”
“I wasn’t aware that there was any connection.” Sammy wondered if Barnes was deaf or just that stubborn.
“Jones’s father was a county judge, and he just so happened to be the same judge who sent your father to jail for five years. He was later acquitted, but you have a grudge against the man. After all, a teenage girl who sees her daddy in an orange jumpsuit is going to be a little affected by the experience. You wanted to get revenge on Judge Jones, but since he’s dead you poisoned his son.”
Sammy shook her head, refusing to let all of this information into her brain. “I never did any such thing! I didn’t even know who Sheriff Jones’s father was. And even if I did, I’m not vindictive enough to hurt an innocent person over it.”
“But you did bake those cupcakes?” Barnes fired back.
“Well, yes.” She shrank back a little in her seat.
“And you personally gave one to Sheriff Jones?” He didn’t look like the sort of man who could be taken seriously, but his eyes were hard as he questioned her.
“Yes.”
He tipped his hand over, spreading his fingers. “Then it seems pretty obvious to me.”
Sammy bit her tongue to hold back her tears. This was so unfair. She had come to Sunny Cove to start her life over after her divorce, maybe to rediscover her roots and find her way again. For a few hours, she thought that was happening at Helen’s café, but now her past was being thrown right in her face. She clearly remembered those long weeks back in high school when her father had been arrested for fraud and money laundering. It had been traumatizing to see him convicted and hauled away, and that was the exact moment that Sammy had stopped believing in the religion that had been a part of her entire life up until that point. “You know my father died last year, right?”
“I do.” Barnes pointed at the folder he had indicated before. “It’s all in here.”
“Then why would I take revenge now? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to do it a long time ago? Like when my dad was in jail? Or maybe right after he’d been acquitted and released?” Anger stirred inside her at the Sheriff’s insinuation.
“People do crazy things when they’re grieving,” was his explanation. “You came back home for your father’s funeral, it reminded you of how unfair the entire thing was, and you started plotting your revenge. These sorts of things take a little time to plan, I suppose.”
“I wouldn’t know, since I didn’t plan anything.”
A gentle tap sounded on the door. Barnes rose to his feet and waddled around the desk. “Excuse me a minute.”
Sammy could hear his voice and another one just on the other side of the door, speaking quietly but urgently. She wasn’t normally in the habit of eavesdropping, but this seemed like a good time to start.
Barnes returned, looking frustrated. “We don’
t have enough evidence to hold you right now, but you should consider yourself detained to the city limits,” he said as he sat back down with a sigh. “You’re not to leave Sunny Cove under any circumstances while we investigate this matter, do you understand?”
Sammy couldn’t quite let herself feel relieved. She might not have to spend the night in a jail cell, but she was still a suspect in a crime she didn’t commit. For a brief moment, she let herself wonder if the sense of disbelief that overwhelmed her was the same thing her father had felt when he was in a similar situation. “I understand.”
“I’ll have one of the deputies give you a ride back to Helen’s. She tells me you’re staying there?”
In all the commotion, Sammy hadn’t even had a moment to think about that fact. “Yes.” At least, she hoped so. This wasn’t a very good impression to make on her first day.
Chapter Four
The next day, Sammy walked into the Hamburger Hideaway and immediately wished she hadn’t. The fast food joint was just as greasy and ugly as she remembered it. The hard benches in the booths were all bright red, a stark contrast to the white walls and bright yellow napkin dispensers. The floor was greasy enough that it was dangerous to walk across.
“Well, well. You made it. I honestly figured you wouldn’t show up,” said the woman across the booth from her as Sammy sat down. “I mean, why would someone who had actually gotten out of this crappy place ever come back?” Heather Girtman had been one of Sammy’s good friends back in high school, and she was the first person Sammy had thought to call to get together with now that she was back.
“Lots of reasons.” They stepped up to the counter and ordered their food before sitting again, greasy brown sacks in hand. The Hamburger Hideaway didn’t have any dishes. “Mostly, though, I got divorced. I didn’t want to stick around for the fallout.”
Heather raised one dark eyebrow as she picked at her fries, which were limp with grease. “Someone divorced you? Why would they do that? Doesn’t he like a goody-two-shoes?”