by Vreni Fox
I rifled through the papers in my desk until I found it. There it was, thick, creamy paper with nothing but his name and address embossed on the front. This could be the clue I needed.
I entered Viktor Vega and the address into my search bar and bam! There it was. I got the result I needed. Viktor Vega had some kind of professional website that had his name and address.
I clicked on the link and was immediately disappointed. Much like his elegant business card, Vega’s professional website was going for a classy, minimalist look.
It was a single page in the same off white color as his business card with lettering that matched. It just said: Viktor Vega, then his address. Unlike the business card, though, the website had Vega’s job title. Viktor Vega, then underneath: Private Equity.
Now I had to do an internet search for ‘private equity.’ I had heard that term before, but honestly, I had no idea what that meant. I guessed that it meant some kind of banker.
I’m almost embarrassed to say that it took me nearly half an hour of internet searching to figure out what ‘private equity’ meant. I read that it was an ‘alternative investment vehicle,’ and I had no idea what that meant in concrete terms. I learned that it was ‘capital not listed on a public exchange.’ Still no clue.
Finally I was able to deduce that ‘private equity’ was not actually a job. At least it wasn’t a job as I knew them.
Viktor Vega: Private Equity just meant that Vega was a professional rich guy. He used his private money to buy and sell businesses where he never did any actual work. And this somehow made him even more money, so he could own more things that he never built.
“Well,” I joked with Pudding, who was napping on my desk. “I guess now we know what the Mayor sees in that guy.”
Our lovely Mayor is so ambitious this year, Pudding commented. She’s going to make Drachenfels a social media hot spot, she’s going to marry a fortune, what else does she have up her sleeve?
“Where could she possibly have even met this guy?” I wondered out loud. “And why would he want to join her in Drachenfels?”
Drachenfels was a nice place but it wasn’t exactly Monaco.
The more I find out about this guy, the more sure I am that I was right.
“Right about what?”
He isn’t human.
“Really Pudding. What evidence do we have for that?”
It’s just a feeling I had, and everything I hear about him just happens to support that feeling. He doesn’t eat. He can’t be photographed. His ‘profession’ is hoarding wealth. He appeared mysteriously out of nowhere in our dear Mayor’s life.
I thought over what Pudding was saying. I guessed it was possible. Anything was possible.
“You think he’s a demon?”
Yes. I’m not sure, but I think so.
“Jeez. The Mayor? Marrying a demon? That is so, so, so illegal. And not just, like Drachenfels illegal. That’s like prohibited under international witch law illegal. I don’t even know what the consequences for something like that would be.”
I know. I have no idea how we would find this information out though.
“Why do you think the Mayor would marry a demon? You think she just randomly met this guy and fell head over heels in love with him and now she’s on some kind of forbidden inter species romantic journey?”
Pudding looked skeptical. That doesn’t sound like the Mayor we know and love.
“I don’t know,” I really had no idea. “She does get married kind of a lot. You think he’s a demon and she doesn’t know?”
No way. Our Mayor is the most powerful witch on the mountain. No way that we figured out that her new husband is a demon before she figured it out. She knows.
“Then what is she doing? And how could we prove it? You know there’s no way we could approach this directly. The Mayor would probably just throw us both into a hot spring for even suggesting it.”
Pudding and I gave it some thought.
“You think that the two of them are somehow involved in Mandy’s death?”
Maybe? I don’t know. The Mayor seemed so committed to her advertising campaign, but Vega was completely opposed. And then, to make matters more complicated, the Mayor seemed to hate her cousin. I just don’t know.
“I guess we could try to creep shot him?”
What?
Pudding wasn’t down with the way young people communicated these days. He was an old soul.
“Try to secretly take his photo without him knowing? So then we’d see if he appears at all or if he has a tail or horns or something.”
Just then, I heard the jingle bells on my front door jingling.
“Brunhilde! Brunhilde, you in here? You open?”
I got up to meet whoever had just let himself in.
“Detlef?” I couldn’t hide my surprise. It was the handyman from the Hotel. I don’t think I’d seen him in my shop since, well… ever. He didn’t eat refined sugar, or any other kind of sugar, as far as I knew, or carbs in general, or one million other things that I sold.
“You open?” Detlef asked, seeing the empty pastry case. “It’s an emergency.”
“No,” I answered honestly. “But if it’s an emergency, maybe I can help you.” I couldn’t turn away a man in the midst of a pastry crisis.
“I’m celebrating!” Detlef proudly declared. “My God, I haven’t had a slice of cake in years.”
“Okay,” his enthusiasm was contagious. “I’m going to help you. What kind of thing are you in the mood for?”
“Oh,” Detlef rubbed his hands together. “Everything? It’s been so long since I’ve had a treat. I can barely remember how chocolate and marzipan taste. What have you got available right now?”
“Well, since I’m closed Monday I don’t have any fresh stuff unfortunately. In my refrigerated case, however I have… some chocolate chip and walnut bread pudding, peanut butter fudge brownies, a bee sting that might be a little dry today, a yogurt cake studded with blueberries, a pistachio and rose cake if you’re feeling fancy, and some red velvet cupcakes. What do you think?”
Detlef looked carefully over my selection as though it was a matter of life or death. “I’ll take a piece of that bread pudding, please,” he finally decided.
I cut him a huge slice and dished it up for him. “How about I warm it up and add some whipped cream? Since it’s an emergency?”
“I might as well,” the guy agreed, rubbing his belly.
We waited for the microwave to ding and Detlef looked around my shop, picking up books and sniffing the decorative candles I had lying around to make the place more homey.
“So, Detlef,” I asked him, putting the finishing touches on his treat. “Do what do I owe this visit? Are you celebrating something? I don’t think I’ve ever even seen you in here before.”
“I’ve actually never been in here, but it’s a nice place you’ve got,” he replied, taking his bread pudding to an empty table in front of my bookshelf. “But to answer your question, yes, I am celebrating.”
Detlef was a lot more charming that I’d given him credit for. I’d only ever run into him casually at the Hotel when we were both there working. And, of course, he had a terrible reputation for getting into fights when he was drunk. And for being just a little too aggressive when chasing women. Give him a piece of cake, though, and he apparently turned into a giant little boy.
“What’s the big occasion?”
“It’s the Mayor’s lousy slag of a cousin. She’s dropped dead and I’ll never have to deal with her ever again.”
Chapter Nineteen
Well. I guess Detlef wasn’t quite as cute as he seemed.
“Wow.” I knew that this was my big chance to pump Detlef for information about why he was paying off Mandy Unterwegs, but I didn’t want to push my luck and make him angry. He had a reputation for his explosive temper, and as I just learned, that temper was mercurial. One minute he was a kid in a candy shop, the next a cold blooded murderer.
; “So I guess you got the pleasure of meeting her too, eh?” I tried to sound sympathetic. I actually was kind of sympathetic, even though Detlef scared me.
“Oh, I met her alright. I met her, she used me, then she nearly ruined my life.”
How on Earth had Mandy Unterwegs nearly ruined Detlef’s life? He was a single guy who worked as a handyman at the local Hotel. He already had a pretty bad reputation around town. How much worse could things get for him?
“Yeah, she came in here,” I continued, “tried to steal a little girl’s birthday cake, then told me that if I didn’t pay her twenty thousand euros she was going to ruin my life too.”
“I heard,” Detlef got animated. “She did the same thing to me practically.”
“She stole your birthday cake and threatened your business?” I was trying to ask leading questions. It seemed like Detlef wanted to talk, but he wasn’t giving me the details I needed.
“Yeah, she liked my cake alright,” Detlef laughed. “She came on to me. She was all over me at the Hotel, asked if I would take her for a dip in the springs. She was a pretty girl, so I thought to myself, ‘why not?’” Detlef clenched his fist and his teeth. I imagined that he was the type of guy who punched holes in walls when he got angry and I said a quick silent prayer for the dining room.
I wasn’t entirely surprised by what he was saying. He might not have been in the running for any Mister Congeniality contests, but Detlef was in incredible shape. Women probably loved him, until they got to know him. I waited for him to continue his story.
“So I take her for a soak and she asks if it’s okay if this creep photographer who follows her everywhere can snap a few pictures of her. I know she has this Instagram thing that’s her business, and she looks smoking hot, so I agree. I know girls like to get good pictures of themselves.”
“It’s true,” I agreed. Who didn’t like to get good pictures? Especially on vacation.
“So anyhow, she asks me to get her a towel, asks me to get her a drink, asks me to rub her feet. She was a little bossy but I figured, whatever. She looked like a high maintenance princess. I shouldn’t have been surprised when she acted like a high maintenance princess. And all the while, this freak photographer is snapping away, taking these pictures.”
“I got a weird vibe from that guy too,” I added.
“Yeah, he’s obviously obsessed with her. In the friendzone. I mean, have some self respect, man. Anyway, we’re at the hot spring, she’s asking for foot rubs. I decide to make my move. I go in for a kiss and she completely freaks out! She acts like it came out of nowhere and she accuses me of assaulting her!”
“Oh my God,” I was genuinely shocked.
“She even threatens to go to the police, and this twerp photographer agrees and says that he has the whole thing on film!”
“Jeez. You think it was just a massive misunderstanding?”
Detlef scoffed. “Misunderstanding my firmly toned butt. Right after she says she’s going to the cops, she has another idea. We can all just forget the whole thing if I pay for a sponsored post for the Hotel on her Instagram. At first she wanted five thousand bucks, but I don’t have that kind of money. I didn’t want to go to prison, though, so we went to the bank and emptied out my whole savings account. Five hundred bucks. It was everything I had.”
“Detlef, I’m sorry, that’s absolutely terrible. What a snake!”
I did really feel bad for him, and moreover, I completely believed that everything he said was true. This girl was apparently a pro at extorting people. I understood why Detlef caved too. He already had a bad reputation around town and Mandy and Moritz claimed to have this ‘assault’ on film.
“That’s not all she did,” Detlef’s face was red with rage. “After I paid her little bribe she put a post up on her Instagram. It’s a picture of me kneeling at her feet with a bunch of degrading hashtags, like #slaveboy, #eyecandy, and #brawnnotbrains. She played me just like she played that pathetic photographer.”
“Well, Detlef, I can see why you don’t like her. I can’t say that I blame you.”
“Yeah, anyhow, it’s over now. She’s gone. I just have to figure out how to get that photographer to take down that picture. I’m working on it, though. Thanks for the cake, Brunhilde. I have to come by here more often.”
With that Detlef was on his way.
Whew. I had a lot to think about. Detlef’s story was terrible… was it terrible enough to drive him to kill?
Before I had time to collect my thoughts, my door bell was jingling once again.
“Sorry, we’re not opened Mondays,” I called before seeing who it was. “Oh. It’s you.”
“Try not to sound so thrilled,” Sabine Natter replied, taking a seat across from me without asking. “I’m not here to buy a piece of cake. I’m here to talk about the cake.”
“Okay,” I resigned myself to a long afternoon.
“So, I’ve been working on the dinner menu all day. I’m under a time crunch here because of the last minute changes to our plans, but I think I’ve just about got the final selection nailed down. And let me tell you, Brunhilde, this is going to be the meal of the century. You aren’t going to believe what I was able to pull together on such short notice. Everyone in Bavaria is going to be talking about this party for years and now I’m sure that I can put the Hotel on the map for all of the right reasons.”
“As opposed to Mandy Unterwegs?” I guessed.
“Actually,” a smile crawled across Sabine’s lips. “She was my inspiration. Or, I guess, anti-inspiration you could say. The entire driving force behind my new plans. My theme for the Mayor’s wedding dinner is now: un-Instagram-able.”
“Un-Instagram-able?” I repeated. I had no idea what she meant by this but my intuition was telling me that it was going to be an enormous pain in my butt.
“Un-Instagram-able,” she repeated back, her face beaming with pride. “Isn’t it just delicious? Just one week ago I was ready to poison the entire god damned town with those mushrooms you have in your garden, but now everything has changed! We’re on our way to the pages of Saveur! I can already see my Michelin star.”
My ears pricked. Had someone told Sabine about the mushrooms? Or…
“Anyhow now I need to talk to you about the cake.”
“Right,” I focused on what she was saying, hoping that she’d drop me a few more clues. “The cake.”
“I’ve brought a preliminary mock up of the menu here. First up: I’m serving finely sliced Lifrarpylsa in aspic and a centerpiece of Svið for each table.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“Of course you don’t. It’s Icelandic liver sausage with a boiled sheep head. They usually serve it at their winter festivals.”
“Oh my God,” I blurted out, unable to conceal my shock. “What happened to fresh and local? The menu you mentioned earlier sounded great.”
Sabine Natter had clearly lost her mind.
“Plans change,” Sabine snapped. “Don’t be such a rube. You’re going to love it; it’s delicious.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“I should hope so. Moving on. For our entrees, we have a selection of broiled monkfish with gratin of Jerusalem artichoke, sliced blackened seitan with stewed bitter melon, or wild boar civet.”
“What is civet?” I thought a civet was a small jungle cat that lived in tropical climates. I sincerely hoped that Sabine didn’t plan to serve us civets for dinner.
“It’s just wild boar stew. It tastes amazing, rich and flavorful with complex layers that unfold over time in your mouth, but it looks like just a brown bowl of slop. Oh, wait, you’ll like this one. The boar is local.”
“I’m going to order the boar.”
“You mean if you’re still a free woman,” Sabine snorted. “At any rate, we need to discuss the cake. You can’t just serve any cake if I’m going to turn Drachenfels into a center for the culinary avant garde. This has to be the cake of a lifetime, and I’m seriously c
oncerned about your complete lack of aesthetic sensibilities.”
“What’s wrong with my aesthetic sensibilities?”
“I just want to make sure that you understand our agenda.”
“Our agenda? Have you discussed this new menu with the Mayor?”
There was no way that the Mayor approved this menu. I don’t know if Sabine realized this, or she was doing it on purpose, but this menu seemed like some kind of joke about what witches eat. What was next? Eye of newt and frog toenails?
“No,” Sabine retorted, “the menu was approved by Viktor Vega, who happens to be the person paying for all this. He’s the one who put the money down to overnight ship all of the ingredients we need for all over the world.”
“I see,” I nodded. Of course Vega approved this menu. He wasn’t going to have to eat any of it. Or maybe sheep’s heads were a demonic delicacy; I had no idea.
“So.” Sabine laid her palms on the table. “The cake. I need something spectacular. But not in a visually appealing way. Something that will blow the socks off of Drachenfels’ population.”
“Oh I’m quite sure your menu is going to take care of everyone’s hosiery.”
“I’m not going to let your bad attitude get me down today, Brunhilde. All of my dreams are about to come true. Of course you’re jealous.”
“So,” I moved on, not having the energy to argue with Sabine over the sophistication of Drachenfels’ palates, “what did you have in mind?”
“I brought some pictures with to give you some direction.”
“Okay.”
Sabine spread out a selection of photographs that she seemed to have printed herself, careful to arrange them on the table.
The first one was just a single, giant round covered in matte black fondant.
“A minimalist cake,” I commented.
“Yes. It kind of looks like a slab of coal. Or a wheel of black Parmigiano.”
“I hate fondant,” I replied, trying to completely side step the question of why people would want to see a giant wheel of Parmigiano for dessert.
“Everyone hates fondant,” Sabine rolled her eyes. “You just peel it off. That’s what everyone does. This cake would give you the opportunity to fill it with whatever you want. Plus, I tried photographing black fondant in our dining room and it’s impossible. This cake will never appear on anyone’s social media.”