Town in a Cinnamon Toast

by B. B. Haywood

  A look of total disbelief crossed the baker’s face. When he spoke, his voice was low and coarse. “But that’s not possible. There must be some mistake.”

  “Candy found his body at the museum,” Doc said softly. “The police are on their way to the scene.”

  Herr Georg became distraught. “But that’s incomprehensible. How can something like this happen? He can’t be gone! I just talked to him a few days ago and he was fine.”

  Doc nodded in understanding as the baker continued, giving him a few moments to process this information before he continued with the rest of his news. “Here’s the thing: The bottle of champagne Candy found near the body had a label from House Villers-Moussy.”

  Upon hearing this, Herr Georg’s normally reddened face went deathly pale. “But how can that be? Are you sure?”

  “That’s what Candy says.”

  “But . . . that’s the champagne I ordered specially for tonight’s dinner.”

  “Exactly,” said Doc, “and we have to count the bottles that are here to find out if any are missing from the stock you ordered. Do you remember how many there were before we started opening them?”

  The baker tugged at his white moustache and stammered about a bit, still in shock, before he answered. “But of course. I ordered two cases, six bottles each. Twelve in all. I thought that should be enough, since none of us are heavy drinkers—though Ellie’s put down several glasses so far.”

  “Did you bring the cases here yourself?”

  “No, they were delivered directly to the inn. I believe we’ve opened four bottles so far, though we can quickly check what’s on the table. The rest must be back in the kitchen somewhere.” He glanced toward the set of double doors near them, at the end of the hall, through which the waiters emerged.

  Doc followed his gaze and nodded. “Okay. Let’s see what we can find out. Hopefully the bottle that killed Julius wasn’t from your stock. But if it was, we could have a mess of trouble on our hands.”

  FIVE

  Maggie watched, curious, as her fiancé and Doc Holliday walked quickly and solemnly from the room, their heads bent together, talking in low tones.

  “Well, that’s odd,” she said to herself, her gaze following them until they disappeared out the door and into the hall beyond. “I wonder where they’re off to.”

  Why would they leave the dinner party so quickly like that, especially with the entrées just about to arrive? And without saying anything to anyone—especially her?

  Almost immediately her curiosity gave way to suspicion. “Something’s up,” she muttered under her breath as her brows fell together. In her mind, she added, And I’m going to find out what it is.

  Could it have something to do with Candy? Doc had said she’d been delayed. What did that mean? Could it have something to do with Julius? Or with Blueberry Acres? Or could it be something else, something she hadn’t considered?

  What was going on?

  As her mind whirred, she felt a flutter in her stomach and a rising sense that something bad was occurring that would disrupt their wedding plans.

  No way, she thought. I’m not going to let that happen.

  So with her jaw firmly set, she glanced around the table, trying to decide on her next move. She had to know why their pre-wedding dinner party was being interrupted in such a strange way, but reasoned that she couldn’t just waltz away from the table, leaving her remaining dinner guests unattended. That would be rude.

  She needed a pretext—a reason to excuse herself from the table for a few minutes. And she decided to go with the most obvious one, since it was the only thing she could think of at the moment.

  “Oh, all that champagne! It’s so delicious, isn’t it? But I think I drank too much too fast!” she said to no one in particular, and she leaned over toward her daughter. “I have to go to the little girls’ room. Would you keep an eye on everything until I get back?”

  Amanda, who was munching on a stuffed mushroom cap, nodded absently, and looking around the table, Maggie saw that the others were contentedly enjoying their appetizers as well. No one seemed to notice that anything was wrong. If she was going to go, now was the time.

  Without any further hesitation, she rose from her chair. “I’ll be right back!” she said, holding up a finger. “Don’t go anywhere!” And with that, she hurried out of the alcove, across the dining room, and into the hallway beyond.

  She looked in both directions. They were, somewhat surprisingly, empty. No sign of Doc or Georg.

  Where had they gone?

  To her right, at the back end of the hall, a set of double swinging doors led to the kitchen. At the other end, the hall emptied into the inn’s lobby area, lounge, and front entrance.

  She turned first in one direction, then the other, trying to decide which way the two men might have gone. After a few moments of indecision, she turned toward the lobby first and started off.

  It was a Wednesday night in mid-May, with the summer season still a couple of weeks away. The calm before the storm. Not surprisingly, the inn’s lobby, like the hallway, was deserted. She heard voices and the sounds of soft music and clinking glasses from the lounge, but a quick glance through the doorway revealed no Doc and no Georg in there—just a very subdued atmosphere and a few people talking in low tones.

  She made a quick sweep of the general lobby area, peering into alcoves and even glancing behind the main desk, before heading back the way she’d come, toward the kitchen. It was, she surmised, the only other place they could have gone.

  But she stopped just outside the double doors at the end of the hall and wondered if she should enter. Were civilians like her allowed inside that inner sanctum? Would she be breaking some sort of unspoken protocol? Would they kick her out or cause a scene if she wandered in there uninvited?

  “Only one way to find out,” she said to herself, and pushed through the swinging door on the right.

  She entered the warm, well-lit, gleaming kitchen, a cacophony of stainless steel tables, shelves, racks, drawers, work spaces, ovens, cooktops, and refrigerators, as well as pots, pans, and cooking utensils hanging from pegs and hooks along one wall. The place was dominated by a large center island, over which hung a huge commercial-sized ventilation hood. Its fan gave off a mild hum as it drew out the heat, smoke, and cooking odors.

  There were several people working in the kitchen, wearing white aprons or chef coats. One or two also had on tall, narrow chef’s hats, which she knew were called toques, although she’d learned that only when she started working at the bakery. Georg often wore one when he was baking.

  No one seemed to notice her, or even look around to see who had entered the kitchen. She realized that waiters, waitresses, and staff members probably came and went so often that no one bothered to pay attention.

  She was going to announce her arrival but hesitated. No point in disturbing anyone. She’d just make a quick search of the area and see if she could find her soon-to-be husband.

  But at first glance, she saw neither Doc nor Georg.

  They seemed to have disappeared. Again, she thought, where could they have gone?

  On an impulse she started across the kitchen, walking quickly and confidently, as if she belonged there, eyes pointed straight ahead as she went. She headed toward a doorway in the opposite wall that seemed to lead back out of the kitchen, toward the rear of the building. Maybe the two of them had gone in that direction.

  At first she thought she’d simply make a fast exit, before anyone noticed she was there. But then she realized she was missing an opportunity. So, instead, she stopped beside a young blond-haired man in his early twenties who was chopping vegetables at a stainless steel table. “Excuse me,” she said. “Did you happen to notice two white-haired gentlemen pass through here a few minutes ago?”

  He stopped chopping and glanced toward her. Then he pointed toward
the far door. “They went back to the storage rooms with the chef.”

  She patted him on the shoulder. “Thanks. And great job, by the way. The food here is terrific.”

  He smiled easily. “Thanks!”

  She headed off again, through the doorway and into a green-tiled corridor beyond, much starker in appearance than the front carpeted hallway. Here she saw several doors on either side, and another one at the opposite end of the corridor, probably leading to the outside.

  But still no Doc and Georg.

  “Hmm,” she said, pondering her options.

  Most of the doors that lined the corridor were closed, and possibly locked, but one stood ajar, toward the end on the left, and she thought she could hear voices coming from inside that room. She approached it somewhat stealthily, as if she were a spy creeping up on an enemy discussing military secrets. With her ear cocked she could hear snatches of conversation.

  “One’s definitely missing from this case,” she heard a male voice say. It didn’t sound like either Doc or Georg.

  “Are you certain?” That sounded like her husband-to-be.

  “I’ll double-check, but yes, that’s my impression.”

  “We have to make sure,” said a gravelly voice that could belong only to Doc. “And we need to seal this room until the police get here. This could be evidence, and we have to make sure it’s undisturbed.”

  That stopped Maggie in her tracks.

  Evidence? Evidence of what?

  She thought she heard movement then, the sounds of shuffling shoes, coming from the storage room at the end of the hall, and the door opened farther, as if someone was about to emerge into the corridor. That spooked her for some reason, and an instinctive flight response surged through her. She decided in a split second that she didn’t want to be spotted here, since she was afraid it would look like she was eavesdropping, sneaking around, even stalking her fiancé. It was an impression she didn’t want to project, so she shifted around, looking back the way she’d come. It was time to retreat.

  But she was too late. Someone was emerging from the room at the end, talking to someone else who still remained inside. She didn’t catch the words, for her head was swinging back and forth as she sought a place to hide. She reached out and tested the knob of the door closest to her on the left, and was surprised to find that it opened. Without giving it a second thought, she pushed through the door, darted inside, and closed it quietly behind her.

  She stood in total darkness with her back against the door, holding her breath as she heard someone walk hurriedly along the corridor outside. The person quickly passed her door and, she surmised, went into the kitchen.

  She waited in the darkness, her heart beating strongly in her chest, wondering what to do next. But after a few moments of thinking it through, she decided that she was probably just being silly. Who was she hiding from? Georg? Doc? And why? She had nothing to hide. She’d done nothing wrong. She’d simply been trying to find out what was going on.

  “Maggie, you’re overreacting,” she said under her breath. “And why are you standing here talking to yourself in the dark, you ninny? At least turn on the lights.”

  Tentatively she reached out with her right hand, feeling along the wall beside her, fingers probing for a light switch. It took a few moments but she finally located it, and moved the switch upward to the on position.

  Overhead fluorescent lights flickered to life, casting an eerie green glow. She relaxed a bit as she took in her surroundings—mostly metal shelves that reached from floor to ceiling, stocked with a variety of large canned goods. Her gaze slid around from shelf to shelf, and then angled downward toward the floor . . .

  Where she saw the body sprawled out before her, lying facedown on the cold tile in the middle of the room.

  SIX

  Not too far away, Candy also stood with her back against a different door, hesitant to move. While she’d been talking to her father on the phone, she thought she’d heard sounds from downstairs—the creak of a wood floorboard, the echoing shuffle of footsteps. At first she’d been certain the police had arrived. Now she wasn’t so sure.

  Other than those few obscure sounds, she’d heard nothing to indicate someone else was in the building. No one had called out to her. No one had rushed up the stairs to her aid. She hadn’t seen any flashing lights coming through the window, but she could hear the siren of an approaching vehicle—probably the ambulance, she surmised. It sounded as if it was still a few blocks away, coming through Fowler’s Corner or over the bridge across the English River.

  So if the police and ambulance hadn’t arrived yet, who was downstairs? Who had made those sounds? Had she imagined them—or was someone sneaking around down there?

  She had the fleeting thought that the killer might have returned to the scene of the crime. But that didn’t make any sense. Who would be dumb enough to murder someone and then hang around until the police showed up?

  Unless something had gone wrong. Unless the killer had come back for her.

  But she shook that thought away. Ten minutes ago, no one knew she’d be here. She hadn’t known herself that she was stopping by.

  Unless the killer had hung around and watched her enter the building—and knew she had probably discovered the body.

  But still, the pieces didn’t fit. Why would the killer be concerned if the body was found? It was bound to happen sometime. So why would someone want to kill her?

  Unless some sort of evidence had been left behind.

  Once again, her gaze swept around the room, but from where she stood, she couldn’t see anything that would incriminate anyone, other than the bottle of champagne.

  Maybe the killer had come back for that.

  Candy, you’re jumping to conclusions, she thought, trying to calm herself. It was probably just the maintenance man, or a cleaning person, or someone who had wandered in through the cottage’s front door, which she’d left open when she’d arrived, allowing herself a quick escape if she needed it. Just someone checking to make sure everything was all right.

  Yes, it was probably something like that, and she toyed with the idea of calling out. But any words she might form in her brain got stuck in her throat, which had become dry and raspy, and refused to come out.

  So she waited and listened.

  And then she heard, through the closed door at her back, what sounded like footsteps coming up the stairs to the second floor. More than one or two of the wooden steps creaked when weight was put on them. The sounds were faint but she could still hear a slight sliding noise echo up the stairwell as someone’s shoes moved hesitantly from step to step, a few at a time, pausing often.

  Someone was definitely out there. But who?

  Right now, she wasn’t about to open the door to find out. She remained with her back against it, though now she could feel her heart beating strongly, and her breathing sounded loud in her ears.

  The footsteps reached the top of the stairs and paused there, on the landing. After several moments a voice called out—a man’s voice.

  “Hello? Anyone up here?”

  Candy’s body tensed. Whoever he was, he was on the second floor!

  It took several beats of her heart as her mind worked, but she finally realized the voice sounded familiar. She might know who it was. Still, she was uncertain, so she said nothing.

  “Hello?” the man repeated.

  Through the door, she could hear the footsteps approaching, growing closer and closer.

  Then someone knocked, sending small vibrations through the wooden door at her back. “Anyone in there?” A pause. “I saw the light on and the door open downstairs.” Another pause. “It’s Owen Peabody, the museum’s director,” he clarified.

  “Owen?”

  He must have heard her voice through the door.

  “Who’s in there?” he called from the othe
r side.

  “It’s . . . it’s . . .” Finally able to speak and move, she shifted awkwardly. Her hand reached for the doorknob, but it was already turning, so she backed away a few paces.

  The door opened a foot or so, and a florid face peeked into the room.

  “Hello?”

  With some effort, she finally managed to push a few words out of her mouth. “Owen, it . . . it’s Candy Holliday.”

  Standing just outside the doorframe, he was a short, squat, balding man wearing a tweed sport jacket and an open-collared shirt. He had a thick neck, heavy jowls, and close-set dark eyes partially hidden in the shadow of an overhanging brow.

  “Candy?” he said, sounding confused.

  Owen had served as the museum’s director for several years now. He’d taken over the position after the unfortunate death of his predecessor, Charlotte Depew. Early in his tenure, Candy had interviewed him for an article in the village newspaper, the Cape Crier. At the time she’d been its community correspondent, before being promoted to interim managing editor. She’d left her full-time job at the paper just a few months ago, after the beginning of the year, wanting to spend more time out at the blueberry farm. She didn’t come into town as much as she used to, so she hadn’t run into Owen in a while.

  “What’s going on?” he asked, recovering from his surprise at seeing her. “What are you doing up here? The museum is closed, you know.”

  “Yes, I know, but . . .” Candy had to swallow several times to ease the dryness of her throat before she spoke again. “I’m afraid there’s been a terrible accident.”

  His eyes narrowed and his voice took on a hard edge. “What kind of accident? What do you mean?”

  She moved aside then, and the director pushed the door fully open. He took a few commanding steps into the room, then stopped in shock as he saw the body.

  “Who is that? What’s happened here?” His words took on an accusatory tone.