Dead Pan

by Gayle Trent

  “Let me check and see if he’s busy.” She walked away from the desk and stepped down the hall.

  Although Dr. Broadstreet had ordered the cake for the Christmas party, I’d never actually met him. He’d ordered the cake over the phone, I’d delivered it the afternoon of the party and I’d received my check in the mail.

  “Dr. Broadstreet will see you,” Helen said when she returned to the window. She pressed a button and a green light came on over the door to her right. “You may come on in.”

  I opened the door and went through to Helen’s office. The door shut behind me with a clang.

  “Oops,” I said. “I didn’t mean to let the door slam.”

  “That’s okay. All the doors here slam. They’re heavy and automatic, and they’re loud. These guys are big on security.”

  “They deal with a lot of sensitive stuff, I guess.”

  “You’re telling me. That’s why I keep a big bottle of hand sanitizer on my desk at all times and one in my purse.”

  “Were you at the Christmas party?” I asked.

  “No way, and thank goodness I wasn’t.”

  “Really. I’ll talk with you again in a sec. I don’t want to keep Dr. Broadstreet waiting.”

  “Right. He’s straight down this hall, second door on your left.”

  “Great. Thanks, Helen.”

  I followed Helen’s instructions and knocked on Dr. Broadstreet’s door. He called for me to come in.

  He was a large man with a florid face, heavy black-rimmed glasses, white hair combed back to reveal a high forehead and a full beard. He was wearing a white lab coat over a yellow T-shirt. His office was half lab, half office—all mess. I wondered how he ever found anything in this room. Test tubes, beakers, microscopes and papers cluttered the counter against the wall to the right. Papers, files, notebooks and more beakers cluttered the desk.

  “Yes? What can I do for you? Didn’t you get your check?”

  “Indeed, I did, Dr. Broadstreet, and I merely wanted to stop by and thank you for your business.” I handed him the box containing the oatmeal cinnamon bread.

  “What’s this?”

  “Just a little thank-you gift . . . oatmeal cinnamon bread.”

  By the time I got those words out of my mouth, Dr. Broadstreet had a bite of oatmeal cinnamon bread in his.

  “Delicious,” he said with his mouth full and his beard dotted with crumbs.

  “Thank you. Please keep me in mind for future baking and catering needs.”

  “I shall do that, young lady.” He pinched off another piece of the bread and popped it in his mouth. “Anything else?”

  “No, sir. Um . . . enjoy the bread. My business card is on the top of the box.”

  He simply waved and kept eating.

  Okay, so I didn’t have the guts to come right out and ask him why he’d host a Christmas party in a pharmaceutical cafeteria. By the way he’d delved into that bread, I took it he wasn’t terribly particular about when and where he ate. Besides, I’d probably make more headway on that topic by talking with Helen.

  I saw a sign with an arrow pointing toward “Accounting.” Remembering that Connie was the bookkeeper here, I thought I’d drop in very quickly to see how she was doing today. When I opened the door to the accounting department, a man was standing in front of the filing cabinets thumbing through a file. He was tall and slender with gray-streaked brown hair and a thick but neatly-trimmed moustache.

  “Can I help you with something?” he asked.

  “Please. I was here visiting Dr. Broadstreet, and I wanted to stop by and see Connie Duncan before I left.”

  “Connie stepped into another office,” he said, “but she should be back any minute. You’re welcome to wait.”

  “Thank you. I’m Daphne Martin.”

  He stretched out his arm and shook my hand. “Pleasure to meet you, Daphne. I’m Don Harper.”

  “Don Harper. I recognize your name from a newspaper account I read about Fred Duncan’s car accident.”

  “You must have some memory. That accident happened well over a year ago.”

  “Still, you were quite the hero.”

  He grunted. “Not everybody shares your opinion, Daphne.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. What an ordeal that entire day must’ve been for you.”

  “You can say that again. That’s one time I wish I’d minded my own business and not got involved in any of it.” He returned the file to the cabinet and slammed the drawer shut. “I’d better get back to work.” He strode into the office labeled “comptroller” and closed the door.

  I decided not to wait for Connie after all. I went back out front and said goodbye to Helen.

  “Thanks for all your help,” I said. “I really appreciate Brea Ridge Pharmaceuticals’ business.” I leaned in and lowered my voice conspiratorially. “Although why they decided to have their party here is beyond me.”

  “I’ll tell you why,” Helen said. “This place is bleeding money, and they don’t have any bandages big enough to make it stop. Two drug companies pulled their funding for research, and there are fewer government grants available right now to help offset costs. Personally, I’m keeping my options open just in case. If you hear of anyone who’s hiring . . . .”

  “I’ll let you know,” I said.

  “Thanks. Oh, and Merry Christmas, Daphne.”

  “You, too, Helen.”

  *

  On the way home, I called Fran to see if she could help me get some baking done. She said she could and that she’d meet me at my house.

  I got there first and put my hair up, slipped on my apron and washed my hands. I was making peanut butter fudge when Fran got there.

  “We’re making candy today,” I said, “for Save-A-buck and for our families.”

  “Our families? I get some, too?”

  “Of course. But don’t worry, you’re still getting paid.”

  “Are you kidding? That’s the least of my worries. I’m just thrilled to be able to take something home and show off what I helped make.”

  “By the end of the day, you’ll have lots to take home and show off.” I stirred the fudge, which was almost ready to pour into the pan. “Besides this fudge, we’ll be making cake balls, chocolate-covered coconut candy, white and milk chocolate dipped strawberries, haystacks, macadamia brittle and maple fudge.”

  “I’m gaining weight simply thinking about it.”

  I smiled. I was thinking as if, but I didn’t say it. “We’ll be packaging the candy in small boxes of individual types and larger boxes of assorted candies.” I poured the fudge into a large pan and sat it in the refrigerator to set. “Now let’s do the cake balls.”

  “What on earth are cake balls?” Fran asked.

  “You know how I sometimes carve cakes into particular shapes?”

  Fran nodded.

  “Instead of wasting the cake trimmed away, I use it to make cake balls. Here, I’ll show you.”

  I took a freezer bag of cake trimmings from the counter where they’d been thawing. These pieces were chocolate, marble and white. I divided the cake trimmings into various flavors. I had a small bowl of chocolate butter cream and a small bowl of vanilla butter cream. I slipped on plastic gloves and handed the box to Fran so she could do the same.

  “Start tearing the white into smaller bits please,” I said, starting on the chocolate. “Put the pieces into the vanilla frosting.” I put the chocolate cake into the chocolate frosting.

  I showed Fran how to mix the cake and frosting together with her hands until she could form one-inch balls from the mixture. It’s messy but by no means difficult; and within minutes, we had two dozen chocolate cake balls and two dozen white cake balls. We divided the marble cake, using white frosting for one dozen and chocolate frosting for the other.

  “Cool,” Fran said. “Now what?”

  “Now we put them in the freezer for a few minutes so they’ll set up enough to dip in chocolate. We could use white, dark or milk choc
olate; but I thought we’d use milk chocolate and then roll the balls in white sprinkles.”

  “Are they as good as they sound?” Fran asked.

  “Better.” I took off my gloves and tossed them into the garbage can. I then slid the trays into the freezer and sat on a stool at the island.

  Fran threw her gloves away and took a seat on the other stool. “Remember the football player I was telling you about the other day? He came to Fred’s funeral.”

  “That was nice.”

  She smiled slightly. “Yeah, it was. I might invite him over to have some of these cake balls.” She looked down at her hands. “He did say he was there if I needed to talk.”

  “That was very nice.”

  “Yeah. I didn’t want to mention that in front of Mom. You don’t think that’s taking advantage of Fred’s death, do you?”

  “No. I think he reached out to you during a sad time and that if you want to call him up and thank him for that, it would be perfectly all right. And then, if he asks you out, or if you want to invite him over for dinner with you and your parents or something, that would be all right, too.”

  “Thanks, Daphne.”

  “Now let me ask you something. Did your aunt think it was strange that Brea Ridge Pharmaceuticals had their Christmas party at the office, or was it customary to have it there?”

  “They usually have their parties at the Brea Ridge Inn’s banquet hall or at a restaurant in Bristol. But they said things were a little tighter this year. They had you make the cake, of course, but Dr. Broadstreet’s wife made everything else.”

  “She must’ve been a wreck when everyone got sick.”

  “She got sick, too. But I guess it did worry her to think it could’ve been her food that made everyone sick . . . which, of course, is what everybody thought until the police told us it wasn’t.”

  “That makes me wonder . . . .”

  “What?” Fran asked. “What are you wondering?”

  “I’m wondering if Dr. Broadstreet or one of the other doctors would contaminate something else with the bacterium so they could pull out their terrific new drug, become heroes, get a lot of good publicity and have the money start rolling back into the company.”

  “I don’t know about Dr. Broadstreet. I mean, with his wife making the food, wouldn’t everybody automatically suspect her first?”

  “Yeah. But what do we know about the other doctors? What do we know about Dr. Broadstreet, for that matter? Maybe the guy hates his wife, and he saw this as an opportunity to take care of his financial problems and his marital problems at the same time.”

  “True,” Fran said, “but that doesn’t seem likely since the bacterium wasn’t found in the food.”

  I nodded. Connie would have a lot better insight into the doctors and which of them—if any—might be driven to pull a stunt like this. I’d promised Violet I wouldn’t investigate the case anymore, though. And Fran’s mother didn’t want her investigating the case. I tapped my fingernails on the island.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking Connie could help us out on this one. This thought might have even crossed her mind already.” I shrugged.

  “I’ll stop by her house and talk with her on the way home.”

  “What will your mom say?”

  “She’ll think I was terribly sweet to stop by with some candy for Aunt Connie.” She batted her eyes and smiled.

  I laughed. Okay, I know I shouldn’t be encouraging her. But encouraging and refraining from discouraging are actually two different things. Aren’t they?

  *

  I packed up the boxes of candy I was taking to Save-A-Buck and placed them in the backseat of the car. I went back to get the invoice I’d left on the counter. When I stepped back onto the porch, Sparrow rubbed against my legs. I bent and stroked her head, and she purred.

  I’ll get you moved in soon, I thought, my mind conjuring up an image of the cat coming to the door with her worldly possessions wrapped in a bandana and tied to a stick.

  When I arrived at the store, I retrieved a cart and stacked the boxes of candy in it. I’d printed labels with the candies’ names and ingredients and placed the labels on the clear boxes. I have a computer program that will also provide nutritional information, but I didn’t include that. Who wants to think about calories at Christmas? I know I don’t.

  Mr. Franklin met me at the door. “Goodness! It appears Save-A-Buck customers have hit the jackpot today.”

  “I hope they’ll agree.”

  “After you get those arranged on the display table, come on back to my office. I have a check for the birthday cakes and some other items that have sold this week.”

  “Great. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  Very little of what I’d brought in last week and earlier this week remained on the table that served as Save-A-Buck’s bakery. I rearranged the items that did remain to accommodate the boxes of candy.

  Once I had the display looking suitable, I went to Mr. Franklin’s office to get my check. I tapped on the office door, and he called for me to come in. I’d been rehearsing a faux conversation with Mr. Franklin while I’d worked on the bakery display, but I was a bit nervous about starting the conversation for real.

  I walked in and sat on a vinyl chair near the door. “Don’t mind me,” I said. “I just popped in to get the check, but you go ahead and finish up what you’re doing.” I glimpsed a game of solitaire open on his computer screen. “I don’t want to interrupt.”

  “I’m . . . I’m not that busy at the moment. Let me take care of this one thing.” He minimized the window. “There.”

  I gave a loud sigh. “Mr. Franklin, do you have any brothers or sisters?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Just curious.” I sighed again. “I love my sister dearly, but she can be a total pain. I’ve always felt like Violet was the golden child in my mother’s eyes . . . the one who did everything right. And then Mom has me—the disappointment. In some ways, it makes me dread holidays.”

  “I know what you mean. I have a brother—Robby—who’s older, more sophisticated, more successful . . . more everything.”

  “Does he live here in Brea Ridge?”

  Mr. Franklin shook his head. “He lives in Boone. He went to Appalachian State and then got a job there in town when he graduated.”

  “What does he do?”

  “Retail management.”

  “Same as you. Cool. At least, you have some common ground, right?”

  He looked at me for a second and then smirked. “Yeah.”

  The polite thing would’ve been to let it go at that point. But I wasn’t being polite. I was digging for information. So I said, “That didn’t sound very convincing. Do the two of you have different management styles?”

  “Yeah. I use the small management style, while he employs the large regional chain style of management.”

  “Aren’t you being a little hard on yourself? You operate the only independently-owned—heck the only—grocery store in Brea Ridge, and that’s an impressive accomplishment.”

  “You can say that because you’ve never met Robby—or Robert, as he calls himself now.”

  “I don’t believe that. No matter what your brother has done, he can’t belittle your accomplishments . . . and you shouldn’t either. You need to remind yourself of all Robby’s mistakes and failures,” I said. “Hasn’t he ever screwed up?”

  As Mr. Franklin slowly nodded, his eyes filled with tears. Blinking furiously, he spun back around to the computer. He plucked an envelope from the corner of the desk and, without looking away from the computer, handed it to me. “Thank you, Ms. Martin.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Franklin.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  I was tired when I got home. I didn’t feel like baking any more this evening. Instead, I took a bath, slipped into some comfy flannel pjs and curled up on the sofa with the photo album I’d filled with photographs I’d taken at the 2009 Oklahoma Sugar
Art Show. Tucked between a couple back pages of the photo album was the manila envelope containing the articles Cara had sent me reporting on the event.

  She was a good reporter. She really brought situations and the people involved to life. In one portion of the article, she told about a contestant’s mad rush to get his cake to the event in time to qualify for entry.

  He was pushing it, and his reckless driving attested to that. He even cut this reporter off in traffic, and I called the phone number listed on the van to report him to his superior. Unfortunately, he was the superior. However, the girl who answered the phone said she was sorry and she was sure “Dad” hadn’t cut me off like that on purpose.

  Poor “Dad.” Luck wasn’t with him today. Whatever had conspired to keep him from the competition further bedeviled him after he arrived at the show. Either damaged en route, or via “spectator damage” as alleged, some breakage occurred prior to the judging, causing “Dad” to suffer a disheartening loss.

  Reading that, my mind flashed back to Cara warning me not to get in her way. Had she been angry enough with the guy in the van that she sabotaged his cake? Or was I merely jumping to conclusions?

  Knowing there was one person who knew everything that happened at the Oklahoma Sugar Art Show and who didn’t draw conclusions lightly, I went to my office and got out Kerry Vincent’s business card. Before I lost my nerve, I placed the call. Expecting to reach an answering machine, I was surprised when Mrs. Vincent answered the phone.

  “Mrs. Vincent, this is Daphne Martin calling. We met at the Oklahoma Sugar Art Show a couple months ago.”

  “Ah, yes, the young woman from Virginia who was afraid to enter the competition.”

  “Um . . . yes . . . that’s me. The reason I’m calling is to ask if you recall a reporter who covered the Sugar Art Show. Her name was Cara Logan.”

  “Of course, I remember that nasty piece of work from Richmond. Why do you ask?”

  “A few minutes ago, I was rereading her article detailing the events of the show. She told about a man who’d cut her off in traffic and whose cake later suffered breakage. I thought that was quite a coincidence.”