Mango Cake and Murder

by Christy Murphy

  Three more guest filtered in, but the large, ornate living room looked very empty. Celia helped herself to some crab rangoon. I shot her a look. "I'm a guest," she said. "Sir invited me." I decided it was better for her to be a guest than the help at this stage of the party.

  Celia turned up her nose, sauntered over to the stuffed animals, and pretended to be fascinated with the taxidermy, even though I knew she didn't like them. "So lifelike," she said to Margaret, who ate up the compliment. The three guests, who I'd later find out were the Turner family, didn't do a great job of hiding the horror at the stuffed partygoers.

  "We won't be able to stay long," Oscar Turner said. "We have to be up early." His wife and son nodded in agreement and headed to Mom at the bar.

  A man I hadn't seen before came down the main stairwell near the front door and jumped into the conversation. "Getting involved with Dad in business is likely to land you in jail."

  "George, if you're going to be like that, you shouldn't have even come," Margaret said, her voice a little too loud. George ignored her and headed to the bar. I got the vibe that this wasn’t his first drink of the day.

  Knowing that he was Margaret’s brother, I was able to see the family resemblance. They both were tall, Margaret must’ve been 5’10" and her brother well over six feet. He was balding, but what was left was also gray-streaked, but where Margaret was fit with a healthy glow, her brother had that puffy, boozy look complete with a red nose and cheeks. In that moment, I was glad I was more of an eater than a drinker. Sure, I had a puffy face, but my nose was less Rudolph-like.

  The doorbell quashed the budding family argument. Margaret was excited to greet the new arrival, a very beautiful older lady with perfectly coiffed hair. It took me a moment to recognize her from Main Street earlier in the week.

  "Edna!" the first houseguest called out.

  "Charles! I didn't know you'd be here," she said.

  "I got in town yesterday. First thing I did was visit my best buddy and ask him about you," Charles said. They made small talk, and Edna escaped to the ladies room. I got the vibe this party might be in a death spiral.

  Margaret decided that the party needed some music and put on the Bee Gees, and then boogied over to me to ask me to fetch the guest of honor.

  I'd say the rest was a blur, but that's not how my weird brain works.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Mom, Celia, and I waited by the food on the far side of the living room. The guests sat on folding chairs we’d placed on the other side. We were told not to leave. My gaze drifted to Bandit, the stuffed raccoon with the balloon. The EMT had confirmed that Mr. Sanders hadn’t made it, and a small part of me worried that Margaret might try to memorialize Harold in a Bandit-like fashion so he could "be enjoyed by generations."

  "I think he was murdered," Mom whispered to me.

  At first I thought she was talking about the raccoon, and my brain spat out Margaret as the prime suspect. Thank goodness I caught on a second later.

  "Harold was 85 years old," I whispered back. "It's probably natural causes." But details from the den peppered my brain: the pills on the floor, the knocked over furniture, the scattered papers, the open checkbook.

  "They'll think it's me," Celia butted in, also keeping her voice low.

  "They won't," I said, annoyed that Celia's need to be special even encompassed being a murder suspect.

  "They always say, the butler did it," she said.

  "You're a home healthcare worker!" I said. "If anyone is the butler here, it's me. I'm the one serving the food."

  We stood and scowled at one another in silence until the doorbell rang. Margaret answered the door. A handsome man just under six feet tall, with salt and pepper hair and blue eyes, entered the house and spoke to Margaret. He looked like a mix between Henry Rollins and a young Ed Harris with more hair.

  After a few minutes of talking with the hostess, fantasy Henry/Ed turned away from Margaret and glanced around the room. His eyes locked on mine. My heart did that flutter thing I’d imagined only happened in movies. I could almost hear the music swell.

  He turned back to Margaret and said, "Is she the one who found the dead body?"

  Rats. I thought we had "a thing" there.

  Margaret must've answered him, because he crossed the room and approached me.

  "Ma'am," he said.

  Ma’am! I was at the ma'am stage in my life. We definitely did not have "a thing" at all. Unless it was a ma’am thing, in which case I’d rather have no thing. Well, nothing is what I had.

  "Her name is Christy," Mom chimed in. "She's my beautiful, single daughter."

  My face heated with embarrassment. Mom hit that word "single" hard and loud. The man smiled.

  "I'm Detective D.C. Cooper, and I need to ask you some questions." He reached for his pad and pen.

  I nodded, unable to talk. My eyes had followed his hands to his shirt pocket and got distracted by how broad his chest and shoulders were. My traumatized brain remembered every inch of him, and for once, I was glad.

  "Christy, is it?" he said clearing his throat.

  My eyes shot back up to his, but it was too late. I was totally busted on checking him out.

  Annoying Celia let out an "ooh," like kids do during the kissing parts of a movie to add to my humiliation. A part of me wished I'd crashed our catering van on the way over.

  D. C. Cooper shook his head, looked down at his pad, and smiled. "Do you remember what time you found the body?"

  "The clock on the study wall read 4:22 when I looked up at it. It couldn't have been more than a minute or two before that when I saw the body."

  The detective looked up at me. "4:22?"

  "According to the clock in that room, but after the ambulance arrived, the den clock read 4:52, and when I came downstairs the grandfather clock over there," I pointed to the antique clock against the wall not too far from us, "read 4:45. So one of those clocks has to be wrong, but I'm sure you can check by your official detective time and figure it out from there," I said, and then took a huge gulp of air.

  "You remember a lot of details," he said, but his voice sounded more like a question.

  "She remembers all the details," Mom said.

  "You have one of those photographic memories?" he asked.

  "Something like that," I answered. "Except it only kicks in when really bad things happen."

  "I see. And 'really bad things' happen around you so often, you've recognized a pattern in your memory. Is that right?" he asked.

  I liked that the man was smart and a good listener, but I didn’t like the part where he was suspicious of me. I was starting to think by the tone and veracity of his questions that this might turn into one of those "the butler did it" scenarios. Heck, he had such a commanding presence, I almost thought I had done it.

  * * *

  I peeked out the kitchen door and watched as Detective Cooper questioned the other guests. Mom joined me in my snooping. He didn’t spend nearly as long with each of the guests as he did me. He and Mom seemed to get along like a house on fire during their questioning. Celia’s interview went a tad better than mine, but not by much.

  The Thomas's looked like they were off the hook. They’d never been to this house before and had only just met Margaret at her yoga class earlier that week. DC interviewed Edna next. Charles, the first guest, stood close by. It looked like he wanted to protect her and console her, an old-school gentlemanly move. I wished my ex had been like that.

  "So how did you know the deceased?" Detective Cooper asked Edna.

  "We’d gone to high school together. Charles did, too," Edna said, motioning at her protector. "Then, I went to boarding school, graduated, got married, children, grandchildren." She paused to take a breath, her face sad for a moment. "I moved back about a year ago after my husband died. My sister had been living in our parents’ house after they passed, but she moved to Florida to be closer to her grandkids, so I moved here. Upstate New York gets so cold in winter, and I didn't
have anyone to shovel the snow anymore."

  She paused again. Charles patted her on the shoulder. Edna gave a weak smile and continued, "I’d see Harold around town. At the pharmacy and what not. We’d have coffee sometimes when his aid, Celia, would have to run other errands."

  "And what time did you arrive at the party?" he asked.

  "I imagine not long after four. Maybe ten minutes late. I think I was the last to arrive," she said.

  "That’s right," Charles reassured.

  "You don’t think this was anything other than natural causes, do you?" Edna asked the detective.

  "He looked healthy as a horse when I saw him yesterday," Charles said. "But at our age, there's no way to know for sure."

  The three of them spoke for a few minutes longer. I couldn’t make out exactly what they said, but it didn’t seem important. Detective Cooper had tucked his pad back into his pocket. The detective turned back to Margaret. "I understand your brother was here. I’ll need to talk to him."

  "He’s upstairs," Margaret said. "Father's passing hit him pretty hard."

  Mom and I traded a look. It was more like the booze hit him pretty hard. The guests didn’t seem to buy Margaret’s version of events either. Margaret and Detective Cooper headed upstairs to talk to George Sanders.

  Mom and I went back to our work. We’d hauled the trays into the kitchen to pack the uneaten food. Margaret didn't want to keep the dinner at first, but Mom offered to make "a few plates" for the guests and Margaret to have for later. Mom cut and wrapped several slices of cake, careful not to cut off any of Harold's name into the pieces. She said it might be "too depressing" and wrapped those as well. I wouldn't mind taking the depressing Harold piece home.

  Celia continued to chow down on the leftovers. She even asked if it was okay if she took some home for her family. Celia was happily married to a doctor and had two perfect children. She ate like a piranha and never gained any weight. Life didn't have to be fair, but I always wanted it to be unfair in my favor.

  A half hour went by, and we heard footsteps on the main stairwell. Mom handed me a paper plate wrapped in tinfoil and elbowed me. "This is for DC," Mom said like they were old friends. Mom's chat with the officer had a lot more laughing than mine. Mom got along with everyone. "Come on. Go out there before he leaves."

  "He's working, Mom. Besides, I don't think he can have food on the job."

  "It's wrapped up for later," Mom said, "and police can eat on the job. How else would those cop-eating-donut jokes make sense?"

  She had a point, but I wasn't going to bring him a plate of food.

  "Now that I think about it," Mom said half to herself, "I should give him a big slice of cake."

  Mom rushed over to the counter and snagged one slice she'd pre-wrapped, but then thought better of it. "He can have the piece with Harold's name. It's the biggest, and he's used to dead people," Mom said and then rushed back to the kitchen door and poked her head out. I spied over her shoulder. He was talking to Margaret, and it looked like he was getting ready to leave.

  "Hurry!" Mom said, but I shook my head no.

  "Someone will be in touch as to when the coroner’s office will release the body," he said to Margaret.

  Mom elbowed me again, but I wouldn't budge, so she barged out the door. "DC, wait!" Mom said. He stopped. "I wrapped some food for you."

  He gave Mom a friendly smile and tried to decline her offer. I scooted out of the kitchen and came closer. It looked like Mom would win the argument, and he didn't seem to mind. Mom whispered something in his ear, and then he laughed and blushed. Their whispering drew me closer.

  "That is something to consider, Jo," he said.

  Jo! I got ma’am-ed, and he called Mom Jo. He turned to me with those blue eyes. A zing of excitement pulsed through me, and then he said, "And as for you. I think it's best you don't leave town."

  Mom laughed and gave him a playful nudge as he left, but I wasn't sure he was joking. The guests filtered out of the party. Mom gave each of them food for later, and Margaret insisted they take their gifts back. It was like we'd all lost as contestants on the most depressing game show, and they were reluctantly taking their "parting gifts."

  The doorbell rang. Margaret said, "Oh no. That might be a late arriving guest."

  "Would you like me to tell them?" Mom asked.

  "Would you?" Margaret said. "I'm going to check on my brother."

  "I'll take care of it," Mom said, going to the door. Margaret headed up the main staircase. Mom motioned to me. "Get more food," she said.

  I dashed to the kitchen and fetched a few of the wrapped dinner plates and slices of cake. My mind filled with dread. How would we break the news to a stranger? When I returned to the living room Mom was talking to an older couple at the door. "He's dead, so there's no party," Mom said plainly. "So sorry. Please take dinner and cake. I'm sure you can get a refund for the gifts."

  I guess that problem was solved.

  I handed the couple their two dinners and slices of cake. "It looks delicious," the woman said.

  "Our card is in there if you need any catering," Mom said.

  "What kind of cake is it?" the man asked.

  "Mango cake," Mom said.

  The gentleman asked for another slice of cake, and I gave it to him. They asked us to pass their condolences onto the family and left. I was impressed at how well they took the news.

  The doorbell rang a few more times over the course of the next hour. Margaret stayed upstairs, content to let Mom tell the guests that Harold was dead and the party was canceled. Somehow this odd exchange was less awkward than the actual party. Man, that was a bad party.

  After no new guests arrived for a good half hour, Margaret came downstairs to thank us for all of our help. I'd taken down all the party decorations in between the late-arriving guests. The only remaining decorations were those left on Margaret's memorialized pets.

  I looked over at the taxidermic animals. They were dressed for a party that never came to pass. It was then I noticed for the first time a stuffed tuxedo cat on the table next to the raccoon. He looked so lifelike, I stepped closer to get a better look. Perhaps Margaret's business idea wasn't so odd.

  I leaned forward. His fur looked so soft and shiny I wanted to pet him. "I didn't catch this one's name," I said to Margaret.

  "Which one?" she asked.

  "This tuxedo cat," I said pointing to the black and white kitty. I turned away to face Margaret for a moment and a flash of fur flew at me. Before my brain could register what happened, the cat leapt to life and attacked my hand with a loud meow. I shrieked. The frightened cat bolted across the living room and out an open window.

  Mom laughed and laughed. Margaret and Celia joined her.

  I tried to get my heart to start again.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  If I thought driving down the windy road in the daylight was terrifying, doing so at night became an out-of-body experience. I was so frightened that I swore I could hear a ghost howling in the distance. My brain figured it was the ghost of van drivers past, who’d come to warn me of our cliff-diving future.

  Mom and I remained silent. I wasn’t sure if it was my driving or the murder, but when we reached the bottom of the hill, it hit me.

  "Mom, we forgot to get paid!"

  Mom laughed. "I got the check from Harold before. He was such a nice guy. It's a shame his son murdered him."

  "He wasn't that nice," I said to Mom.

  "You haven't seen the check," Mom answered.

  I smiled, not just because we got paid, but also because we were back on flat ground, and there were only three right turns until home. Mom’s murder comment registered in my brain, but I was too busy trying to downshift to make my turn. I'd taken a turn in fourth earlier, and the van had almost tipped over on its side. Five quiet, stress-focused minutes later, I pulled into our driveway.

  Even though it would’ve been easier for us if I backed into the driveway, I didn’t want to risk crashing into t
he house. So, I pulled in front-first. Mom said nothing. Luckily our house has a large driveway at far end of a cul-de-sac. We only have two neighbors, and since our house is on a little over an acre, they couldn’t see my horrible driving.

  "Why do you think the son murdered him? If anyone, wouldn’t you think it was Margaret?"

  "Margaret’s too obvious. It’s the son. I overheard when I was bartending that he served two years in prison for accounting fraud. He blames his father."

  I didn’t want to believe that the nice man we’d met had been murdered. "We don’t even really know if he was murdered. The man was eighty-five years old. It’s likely to be natural causes."

  "But didn’t you say you saw all the pills scattered on the floor?" Mom asked. "And you told DC that the furniture was knocked over."

  "That's true," I said, and made sure I engaged the emergency brake before sliding out of the van. The stress of the day exhausted me. Mom met me at the back of the van as I unlocked the double doors. "Maybe he knocked over his medication reaching for the phone while having a heart attack,” I said.

  "Tell me about the position of the phone. Wasn’t it closer to his body than the lamp and the chair?"

  "Yeah," I said remembering how the phone was closer and none of the items on the desk were disturbed. "He could have fallen and knocked them over," I suggested, but I didn’t quite believe my own theory.

  "What else was near the phone?" Mom asked as we pulled the collapsible rolling cart out of the van and unfolded the legs.

  "His checkbook, the empty can of diet soda." I said.

  "Where was the glass you gave him?" Mom asked.

  “On the floor, a few feet from the body. It looked like it rolled away, but that doesn't prove murder. Does it?" I asked.

  "Prove murder? No, but I think he died taking those pills,” Mom said.

  What Mom said made sense, but I didn’t think it was the only explanation. We unloaded the equipment we kept in the garage onto the cart, along with the leftover food we'd no doubt be eating for days. The rest of the stuff Mom told me we’d leave in the van to bring back to the restaurant. We worked quickly. It wasn't yet eight at night, but I was exhausted.