Shortbread and Shivers

by Ramona Ransom

  “Neither do I, but I always liked Percy. I felt bad for him when his girlfriend left him. I used to be friends with his daughter, too. She lived here for a while. I called her to give her my condolences, and we got to talking. I asked her what was going to happen to Percy’s house now that he was gone. She said she’d be coming down here eventually to take care of things but that Alana called her to talk about it already. I guess she wanted to know if Percy had given it to her and if she was planning on selling it.”

  “Really? Did she say why she wanted to know?” Nessa asked. She thought Alana had a beautiful home and wouldn’t have any reason to move closer, so it had to be for someone else.

  “Who knows? Maybe she wants to downsize or something. Or maybe, she’s trying to sell it to Joy and Raymond so they can own the whole area like Monopoly. Pretty soon, we’ll have to pay dues to live here.” Bizzie joked, but really, it wasn’t that far off.

  “You said this used to be part of a HOA. Maybe Alana wants to bring that back. She told me she was sad about it,” Nessa said.

  “So what? She wants to get someone in the house that wants to help her make that happen?

  “Could be.” Nessa took the boxes they’d put on a table in the front of the bakery and started carrying them into the kitchen, with Bizzie following behind her.

  “I hope I get to talk to Dart and Jill later. I remember them mentioning to me a while back that they were going to install one of those doorbell camera things. If they did, we might be able to see if it was Melanie who stole the invitations.”

  “That’s a great idea!” Nessa said, going back for the last couple of boxes. “You’ll have to let me know what you find out.”

  “Obviously.”

  Nessa paused and forced a smile. “Thanks for coming in, Bizzie. Let me get you a check so you can go.”

  “About that.” Bizzie clasped her hands. “The bank is closed because someone ran their car into the side of the building. Do you think you could pay me in cash?”

  “What? Who? Are they okay?” Nessa asked, worried.

  “Oh, yeah. No one got hurt. Some student driver was trying to back in the parking space, and they went a little too far, and they crashed right into the doors.”

  “How does that even happen?” Nessa asked, thinking about the parking lot at the bank.

  “No clue, but I think it’s safe to say they didn’t pass their test. Anyway, cash, bucks, moola? Can I get it?” Bizzie said, rubbing her fingers together.

  Nessa stared at Bizzie like she often did. For whatever reason, no matter what Bizzie said, even if she shouldn’t be shocked, she always was.

  “Let me see what we have in the register.”

  She looked at the invoice and went to the register, seeing there was enough to pay Bizzie. Nessa counted out the cash and handed it over. “I’m just going to write up a receipt.”

  “That’s not necessary,” Bizzie said.

  “Okay, but I’m going to do it, anyway.” Better safe than sorry with Bizzie.

  When Nessa came back from the office with the receipt in her hands, she saw Bizzie holding out the cash in her hands.

  “Can’t you break this up a little? I mean, who wants all twenties?”

  “Gee, I don’t know. Maybe someone who wants to get paid for work they did?”

  “Right, but don’t you have any five dollar bills? I really like them.”

  “That’s weird because I can’t stand them, and it was the first rule I put into place when I took over. We don’t accept any five dollar bills. I’m really sorry you had to find out like this.”

  As Nessa spoke, she walked toward the door. She opened it and kept walking outside all the way to Bizzie’s car.

  “You don’t have to be so sarcastic,” Bizzie said, following her.

  “You’re right. I apologize. But hey, thanks for the cookies. I’m sure they’ll go over really well.”

  Nessa waved and ran back inside the bakery, hoping Bizzie wouldn’t follow her.

  Chapter Eleven

  On her way home from work, Nessa was about to pass Bizzie’s house. She didn’t normally drive that way, but she didn’t really want to go past Melanie’s house, either. As she passed, she’d begun to slow down, getting ready to pull into her own driveway when she heard a loud whistle.

  Nessa looked, surprised she’d heard it with her windows closed. Bizzie was sprinting down her driveway, waving her hands like a madwoman. She came to a stop and rolled her window down, expecting Bizzie to stop there to talk. Instead, she went around the side of the Jeep and began knocking on the window. Nessa leaned over to roll that window down, trying to figure out what the heck Bizzie was doing.

  “You’d better unlock the door, or I’m climbing through the window.”

  Nessa let Bizzie in, finding it easier to comply than ask questions.

  “Thank you,” she continued, acting as though she’d been left out in the cold for hours. “Are you just going to sit here?”

  “Where would you like to go?” Nessa asked, afraid of the answer.

  “I don’t know, but anything is better than sitting here.”

  Nessa drove forward to her own driveway and pulled in. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

  “Are you going to drive me back home later?” Bizzie asked.

  “Later? How long is this going to take?”

  Ignoring her, Bizzie turned in her seat. “I talked to Dart and Jill after I left the bakery.”

  “Okay,” she said, waiting for the rest.

  “They have their door camera thing set up, and they told me something really interesting.”

  Getting information out of Bizzie was like trying to nail Jello to a wall.

  “Are you going to tell me, or should I guess?” Nessa asked.

  Bizzie huffed. “They saw Melanie at their mailbox a little after four in the morning when Alana said she dropped off the invitations.”

  “So, then it was her!” Nessa wanted to hug Bizzie, but of course, she wouldn’t dare.

  “Yes, and no. There’s a slight problem. I didn’t discuss it with them, but Melanie was the only one at the mailbox. Alana never went there.”

  “That makes no sense. Why would Melanie go there if Alana didn’t?” Nessa asked.

  “Well, that’s the problem. Either Alana lied and never went to any mailbox, and Melanie was just looking inside their mailbox for no reason, or Alana did deliver them, but not to Dart and Jill.”

  “With that, we’d have to assume that Alana gave the invitations to only certain people. And there’s literally no way to find that out unless more people have those door cameras.”

  “I think the likelihood of Alana picking and choosing who she sent to is way better than Melanie looking in the mailbox for no reason. There’s basically no chance she’d do that unless she was looking for something or putting something in there. And if they didn’t get an invitation or find anything weird in there, then it’s probably Alana who is being sketchy.”

  The only thing Nessa could think about was how little room Bizzie had to talk about being sketchy. She let the thought pass and sighed.

  “Why would Alana lie about giving them out to everyone? Is there a reason she’d not give one to Dart and Jill?” Nessa asked.

  “The only thing I know about them is that they specifically moved here because there was no HOA. Alana may have skipped over them because she wants there to be, and they’d be against it and very vocal about it.”

  “Okay, let’s assume that’s true. Why was Melanie in their mailbox?”

  “She probably didn’t know they hated the idea,” Bizzie answered.

  “Right, but what does Melanie care about that? Why would she want to take the invitations in the first place?”

  “Huh. I have no idea.”

  “I’m on board with the fact that Alana really did pass them out, and maybe even that she skipped over Dart and Jill. But what I can’t understand is why it’d be Melanie. I thought about this scenario
before, but it was Joy and Raymond who went behind Alana and took them out, not Melanie.”

  “Yeah, but they didn’t say Joy and Raymond were at their mailbox. They said it was Melanie. So, now, what do we do?”

  “We?” Nessa asked.

  “Well, yeah. We’re kind of in on this together now, aren’t we?”

  Nessa almost wished for Ranger to come home and magically appear in front of her at that exact moment.

  “I don’t know if I’d say that. We’re talking about things, and…”

  “And I think we should find a way to sneak inside Melanie’s house.”

  Nessa, having tucked her legs under herself in the seat, turned so fast at Bizzie’s comment that she leaned on the horn.

  “What’s wrong with you?!”

  “I didn’t mean to, but I could ask you the same thing,” Nessa said, looking around frantically to make sure no one was looking at them. “What makes you think breaking and entering is a good idea? Aren’t you still doing community service?”

  “Well, yeah.” Bizzie nodded. “But how else do you suggest that we find out if she took the invitations?”

  “How do we know that she didn’t throw them out so there’d be no evidence in case crazy people broke into her house to look for them?”

  “Now you’re just being silly.”

  Bizzie looked around, not saying anything.

  “Yes. I’m the silly one. We could always ask her about it. It’s not like we’re accusing her of murder or anything. We’d just be asking about the invitations. We could pretend to be upset about the HOA or something and get her to believe that we are mad at Alana. Maybe she’ll admit to something.”

  “You lost me at we.”

  “What?” Nessa asked.

  “When you said we could… I tuned everything out after that. You said we. Meaning we are doing things together, right?”

  “Fine, Bizzie. We can do this together.”

  “Okay, now you’ll just need to remind me what it is we’re doing.” Bizzie was visibly shaking with excitement.

  Nessa repeated what she’d said and asked Bizzie’s opinion.

  “I think sneaking in sounds like more fun, but your idea is probably safer. We can talk to her tomorrow, and then we can go down to the hall and see if Alana and Clifford are there and then we can…” Bizzie rambled.

  “How about we take one step at a time?” Nessa suggested.

  “Okay, well, can the first step be you driving me home? It’s kinda cold out there, and I really want to get home to my sheets.”

  “Your what?”

  “My bedsheets. I just changed them, and I don’t want to waste them. If I don’t get back home and into bed soon, then my freshly changed sheets will be old and not as good as before. I need to be there to enjoy them.”

  “Obviously. What was I thinking?” Nessa was tired after talking to Bizzie for a short time. She was the master of talking in circles.

  “Before you judge, I’d just like to point out that this whole time all we did was talk about those invitations. I’d like some recognition for being the brains of this operation. We didn’t talk about Percy once.” Bizzie cocked her head, and her eyes went wild.

  “Fair enough. I’ll get you home to your sheets, and we can talk about him in the morning.”

  Nessa shook her head, unable to do anything but laugh. Bizzie was a lunatic, and for some reason, Nessa was well on her way there after agreeing to work with Bizzie. As if living next door to her wasn’t bad enough. However, she did have a point. They did need to talk about Percy. There was something else going on at the same time that needed their attention, and it very well could be related.

  Chapter Twelve

  Nessa had a short shift at the bakery that day and didn’t know if she was happy about it or not. She’d been working on her no-bake recipe for the few hours that she’d been there and wasn’t having any success. She tried mixing together butter, sugar, and flour and then making no-bake cookies, but those had the consistency of old clay. She tried making the same cookies but dunking them in melted chocolate, but they were no better. She owed this recipe to Bizzie, who had rambled on about shortbread, and now Nessa had it stuck in her head that she had to make them.

  Ready to give up, she asked her grandfather if he minded that she run to the grocery store. She knew it was cheating, but she thought if she smashed up shortbread cookies, mixed the crumbs with butter and used it as a base, she could then make a filling with cream cheese, caramel sauce, heavy cream and vanilla. Once that was done, she topped the crust with the filling and tried to figure out what to do next because it looked too plain. She had two extra shortbread cookies that she’d saved to eat, but decided to smash them up and sprinkle them over the top. Still not satisfied, she drizzled a little caramel sauce over the top, then at the last minute, she did the same with chocolate sauce. The finished product looked amazing and she couldn’t wait to let everyone try some.

  She always made one batch of something before going crazy and making enough for the bakery, because if it was nothing more than an epic fail, the only thing she’d wasted was time, a few ingredients, and her poor coworkers hope for a delicious treat.

  She put her creation in the refrigerator to chill for a while and went out front to see if her grandfather needed any help. The minute she walked out, she saw a line of customers. It wasn’t too busy, and Lex was handling things just fine, but as Nessa looked at each of the customers, she stopped on someone that made her skin crawl.

  She went next to her grandfather, helping him to clear out the line, and when the man she saw was almost up to them, she whispered to her grandfather, asking him if she could take over. There were only two people behind him, so Lex agreed, letting Nessa take care of him, but then took care of the other two customers so she didn’t have to.

  “Hi, there. What can I get for you?” Nessa asked the man, wondering if he recognized her, too.

  “Do you have any blueberry muffins?” he asked, not showing any signs of recognition.

  “We do! They just came out of the oven a few minutes ago. How many would you like?”

  “Just two, please. I’d like to surprise my girlfriend with one. They are her favorite.”

  “That’s so kind of you.” Nessa felt bad for judging the man when she’d seen him on the dock watching on the day Percy was killed. She’d been being paranoid as usual. There was a good chance that this guy lived in her neighborhood and had been passing by when everything unfolded. Not everyone was a killer.

  “Yeah, Melanie is a sweetie. She’s really been through the wringer lately. I’m Ted, by the way. Forgive me if I’m wrong, but you are her neighbor, aren’t you?”

  Nessa tried to stay calm. She’d gone from being concerned he was there to feeling like she’d been wrong about him to being worried again in all of five minutes.

  “I am. I’m Nessa.” She smiled, hoping she was just overreacting.

  “Nice to meet you,” he said. “She told me about you.”

  Nessa told him she’d be right back and ran into the kitchen to get the muffins and ask her grandfather to come back out front. There weren’t any new customers there, but if she was going to talk to Ted, she didn’t want to do it while he was standing in line.

  When she came back out, she saw Ted there, patiently waiting. She handed him a box with the two muffins and asked if he wanted anything else.

  “How about a cream puff? I’d like to sit down for a few minutes. Melanie is getting her hair done, so I have some spare time.”

  Nessa nodded and got the creampuff. “Anything to drink?” she asked.

  She got him all set up at a table and saw some crumbs on the floor so she got them swept up and just as she was about to go back to work, Ted stopped her and asked if she had a minute to talk. She’d wanted to talk to him, but didn’t know how to bring it up and didn’t really know what she’d talk about. She couldn’t very well say, hey, why were you creeping around watching a murder scene?

&n
bsp; She sat down with him, not getting herself anything to eat or drink, and waited for him to start the conversation.

  “I could use some advice,” he said. “You’re a woman and I was hoping you could help me out with how to handle Melanie.”

  Nessa didn’t like the sound of that one bit. “I can try, but I’m afraid I don’t know Melanie all that well. I’m not sure how much help I could be.”

  “It’s not about her specifically. I just don’t even know what women want. Do they want support? Do they want to vent? Do they want me to shut up and say nothing or find a solution to their problem?”

  She held back her laughter. “I guess it would help to know what the problem is.”

  Ted looked at her as though he was trying to decide if she was worth telling anything to.

  “She’s feeling left out and like everyone is against her, and I don’t know how to help.”

  “Well, first of all, I’m sorry she’s feeling that way. Does it have anything to do with everything going on in our neighborhood?” She knew it was none of her business, but she wanted it to be, and since Ted was willing to talk, she was going to take advantage.

  “Of course, it does. Haven’t you noticed all the trouble lately?” Ted asked.

  “I feel terrible about what happened between her and Percy before he was killed,” Nessa said, inching closer to the topic she wanted to hit.

  “It’s not just that. Someone is stealing from her, and that’s never okay. One of her garden gnomes went missing, then her hose, and now it’s the solar lights shaped like butterflies. It’s not fair that people think it’s okay to steal from her just because they don’t like her. She thought she was moving into a nice area, but come to find out, it’s the complete opposite.”

  The only thing Nessa paid any real attention to was that Melanie’s hose was missing. She’d seen Melanie holding a hose when she was arguing with Percy, and that’s also how Percy was killed. She didn’t know if it was more likely that Ted was a liar and just saying what he was to confuse her, if someone had really stolen Melanie’s hose and then maybe used it to kill Percy or if Melanie killed Percy herself.