Banana Muffins & Mayhem

by Janel Gradowski

  "We are going to a farmhouse, but many of the fields around it have been sold off as lots for other homes."

  That explanation was about as clear as the clay pottery Geri made.

  She handed Amy a small plastic bottle. "We're going to visit Mick, to see if that stain on his workshop floor is blood. My gut tells me he isn't a killer, but my eyes saw something that says he could be. It's been driving me crazy thinking about it. I really like him. So I really don't want that stain to be blood."

  Amy didn't think the adventure sounded very fun anymore. "I understand why you want to know what the stain is, but we aren't crime scene analysts. Are you just going to ask him what caused it? If you're wrong about him being innocent and it is Phoebe's blood, that could be a very bad thing. If he doesn't kill us, Shepler and Carla will. We will be in so much trouble if something goes wrong."

  Geri pointed at the bottle Amy was holding. "I did some research. Peroxide, which is in that bottle, is supposed to bubble up just as well on dried blood as fresh. At least according to what I found on the internet. I'll show you where the stain is, distract Mick, and you can test it. He'll never know we even did anything, so my family won't have any reason to get their undies in a bunch."

  "That sounds like a safe plan to me, but I'm sure your son-in-law would find fault in it."

  "He can't criticize what he doesn't know about." Geri grabbed a set of keys from a raspberry-red ceramic bowl on the kitchen counter. "Let's go get this over with. I've been a nervous wreck ever since I found that stain."

  A few minutes later, they settled into Geri's white minivan. As she pulled out of the parking lot, another thought wiggled into Amy's mind. "What if it is blood? How are we going to get Detective Foster to test it to see if it's a match to Phoebe's? My gut says she doesn't trust me enough to look into any leads I pass along to her. Every time I talk to her, she looks at me like I have kale stuck between my front teeth. But if we tell Shepler, having him relay the information could put him in a difficult position. She could think he's messing with her investigation and get bent out of shape about it."

  "How about we figure out if it's blood first? If it isn't, there's no reason to alert anybody at the police department. No need to worry about something that may not even need to be done."

  "I need to employ that philosophy more in my life." They were heading out of town, driving along the Cooley River. Amy rummaged around in her purse, searching for lipstick. Her fingers finally closed around one of the half dozen or so tubes that resided in there. She pulled it out—sheer pink tint. Perfect for the informal meeting. She slicked it onto her lips. "I've been going a bit crazy thinking about something. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to tell anybody, but I know you'll keep a secret. The producers of Old House/New Style asked me if I would like to possibly do some cooking segments on the show. It sounds like they are planning on coming back with a new cast of people."

  "That's interesting. They asked Charlotte, Tommy, and me to try out for the show too. Don't you think that's weird?"

  All of them? Well, that melted her assumption that she was a special snowflake. "Um…I think it's weird that they asked me. The rest of you are talented artists. I just like to cook."

  "No, that's not what I mean. I would think it odder if they didn't ask you. What I can't figure out is why they are trying to build a new cast from people living in Kellerton. The production company is based in Traverse City. The house where the show is filmed is on the Old Mission Peninsula. It has to be a four- or five-hour drive for any of us to get there. The Traverse City area is full of creative people and artists who would be perfect for the show. What is the point of casting people who live so far away?"

  "So maybe Nigel and Ginny are staying in town for another reason."

  Geri nodded. "Like to make sure a murder that one of them committed is covered up."

  Silence settled in as they both digested the scenario they had pieced together. Considering how excited Amy had been about being on television, it was pretty much like trying to drink a glass of sour milk. Gut wrenching and disgusting. Finally, to try to get her mind off the dismal topic, Amy asked, "So does Mick know we're coming?"

  "Yes." Geri glanced at Amy for a second and grinned. "We're stopping by so you can see his vardos…because I told him you are very interested in them. Sorry to put you on the spot, but it was the only way I could think of to explain why both of us would want to go to his place."

  "Actually I am intrigued by them." Hooray for the fact that she wouldn't have to try to fake interest in the curved-roof wagons. No need for her to battle her nemesis—guilty body language—while also trying to play CSI. "I looked up the trailers online after you told me about them. I think I would actually go camping in one of those. The tent thing that Alex and his friends do on their outdoor adventures just doesn't work for me. Cooking over a campfire is great, but at night, I would like to have more than a piece of fabric between me and the wild animals."

  After driving along the river into the countryside for about fifteen minutes, Geri steered the van into a driveway. A two-story, yellow farmhouse was at the end of the gravel pathway. An old, redwood barn sat behind it. The large doors on the side of the structure were slid open. The tongue and front wheels of a trailer protruded from the opening.

  "It looks like he's in the barn," Geri said as she parked the van on the cement pad beside the house. She pointed at a white metal pole barn. "That's where the shop is that has the stain."

  A man who looked as though he was on track to becoming a Santa Claus impersonator emerged from the barn. His thick salt-and-pepper colored hair was long enough that it curled around the tops of his ears. A beard that was still several shades too dark to be snow-white and gold wire-rimmed glasses completed the budding St. Nick appearance. He waved at Geri as she emerged from the van.

  The reasons why Geri was charmed with the potential murderer was apparent as he showed them the gypsy wagons in various stages of construction. The tiny dwellings seemed as though they had popped out of the pages of a fairy tale. Amy examined ceilings painted like night skies and miniature potbelly wood stoves to keep the trailers warm. The wagons were as charming as their maker as he chatted with both of them about how he made everything. Geri probably couldn't have stopped grinning even if she had tried. A happy smile seemed to be permanently affixed to her face. She placed her hand on his forearm and asked, "Do you think we could go to your workshop now? Watching you work with the lathe was mesmerizing."

  Mick's cheeks turned as rosy as cherries. "I could turn a few spindles, if you'd like. I can even show you how to do it."

  Amy let the flirtatious couple lead the way to the second building. Mick's response sounded subtly dirty, as though he and Geri were sharing a private joke with a secret punch line. The shop was filled with all kinds of power tools from saws to drills and many other things which Amy had no clue what purpose they served. As the cozy couple wandered past a table saw, Geri used the toe of her cowboy boot to slide one of the black rubber mats on the floor. A dark, reddish-brown stain peeked out from under the mat. Amy feigned interest in a collection of old tools hung on the nearby wall as she moved to stand over the blotch. She pulled the eye drop bottle out of her skirt pocket, pointed the nozzle at the floor, and squeezed.

  The lathe roared to life. Amy watched as Mick pushed a chisel against the spinning wood cylinder, instantly cutting a groove into the spindle or whatever it was destined to be. She glanced down. There was a darker patch in the stain but no foam or bubbling. Had Geri been correct that the peroxide would react to dried blood?

  She used her sandal to scoot the mat back over the stain. As she turned to check out what the giggling couple was doing, an array of rusty speckles on the wall caught her eye. What would've caused those on the otherwise pristine white walls? She glanced at Geri and Mick. They seemed to be completely focused on creating the curvaceous wooden rod. He probably was enjoying having Geri's curves so close to him.

  Amy circumvented the
freestanding table saw and made it to the long bench that ran along the wall. The splatters were randomly spaced out on one side of the discolored area, but a straight line formed the other edge. A piece of equipment, which she thought might be a jigsaw, sat on the bench. Its case had a straight edge. If Phoebe was hit on the head about where Amy was standing, the blood splatter from the impact could have ended up on the wall with part of it blocked by the power tool. The muscles in her neck tightened at just the thought of what could've happened.

  When she turned to check on the wood carving couple, Amy was startled to see Geri shaping the wood with Mick's arms wrapped around her, steadying her hands for guidance. The dating habits of her best friend's mother were none of her business, but figuring out if her paramour was dangerous was definitely a priority. Amy turned back to pretend to study the tools hung on the wall. She positioned herself so that Mick hopefully wouldn't be able to see what she was doing. The arc of peroxide traced across the middle of the patch of splatters. The spots seemed to puff up, almost like droplets of cherry cola. Just as Geri had said, the peroxide was reacting to dried blood by bubbling.

  Geri's cheeks were flush, and the joyous smile was still on her face when they got back into the van after the woodworking lesson. "Well, that was interesting, as expected," she said as she started the engine.

  "Yes, it was." Amy tugged on a strand of her straw-colored hair. She hated to be the bearer of bad news. "So the peroxide didn't react to the stain under the mat."

  "Oh, that's such good news."

  "But I found blood somewhere else. Splattered on the wall behind a workbench."

  The engine revved as Geri stepped on the gas pedal, sending the van flying backward. She slammed on the brakes. She glanced in the rearview mirror and shook her head. Amy could hear her take a deep breath before she put the gearshift into drive and navigated up the driveway. When they were back on the road, Geri said, "I saw where you were standing. That bench is huge, probably at least four feet deep. So what do you think could've happened for blood to end up on the wall?"

  "Phoebe definitely had a head injury. I saw that when they opened the trash bag she was in. Her hair was soaked with blood. So she could've been shot or bludgeoned. I'm guessing that if she was hit with something, a blow doing that much damage would splatter blood quite a distance. If she was standing near the bench when she was hit, I'm pretty sure it would be possible for blood to end up on the wall."

  Geri gripped the steering wheel in the ten and two o'clock positions. Her knuckles turned white. "If the blood was on the wall behind the workbench, how did you get the peroxide on it?"

  Amy frowned. She wasn't sure where the conversation was going. "I squirted it at the stain."

  "What if the bubbles formed from the force of the liquid hitting the wall at a high velocity? I bet you had to squeeze the bottle pretty hard to get the peroxide to travel that far."

  Whenever she accidentally set the window cleaner bottle to stream instead of a gentle spray, the liquid did look bubbly after hitting the glass at a high velocity. "Good point. It looked like blood to me, but the reaction may have been caused from how I applied the peroxide," Amy said.

  "So there's no reason to tell anybody about it until we find out more."

  "How are we going to do that?"

  Geri reached over and patted Amy's forearm. "Don't worry about it. I'll take care of everything and let you know in a few days."

  "That's too dangerous!"

  "Not if he's so distracted that he doesn't realize what I'm really doing."

  As Amy drove home from downtown half an hour later, she couldn't stop wondering how Geri was going to figure out if there really was blood on Mick's wall. The determined woman had refused to disclose any of her solo plans. A big Caution sign was flashing in Amy's mind. She should find out for safety's sake what the plan was, but did she really want to learn how Geri intended to distract him? Not really—especially after seeing the rather erotic wood-turning lesson.

  The house was quiet when she walked into the kitchen. After several unplanned short workdays for Alex due to talking with the police about the murder investigation and threats, she was glad to see he wasn't waiting to tell her more bad news. Witnessing Geri's reaction to possibly finding Phoebe's murder scene had been bad enough. How devastating to finally begin dating after an extended divorce recovery period, only to find out the new man in her life could be a killer. Amy hoped, for Geri's sake, that the amateur bloodstain test was wrong.

  Fright of being caught by Mick must have zinged up her metabolism because even though it was mid-afternoon, she was starving. Before deciding on the malted milkshake mimicking muffins to enter in Muffin Tin Madness, she had jotted down a bunch of potential recipes that would be perfect to post on her blog. So she was working through testing and photographing them. All of the tentative recipes were printed out and stuck on the refrigerator with a magnet that looked like a blueberry muffin. Up next in the muffin trials was one made out of oatmeal, bananas, and dried fruit. The big question was—what kind of dried fruit?

  Amy headed to the pantry. It was like a walk-in closet for her food obsessions. As she studied the jars of raisins, cherries, and other dried fruits sitting on the shelves, the little bit of mood boost from hanging out in her happy place disappeared. Cooking reminded her of the Old House/New Style crew. While she had thought it was odd that they were still in town, it hadn't dawned on her that they could be trying to cover up the murder as Geri had suggested. And if that was true, and if the Dumpster fire was a ploy to destroy evidence, and…that line of reasoning was so disheartening and terrifying, she didn't want to think up any more ands. Not when she was alone with nobody to help tame her scary ideas by telling her they couldn't possibly be plausible.

  She loaded her arms with all of the storage canisters she could safely carry and ferried the ingredients to the kitchen island. Distraction would be the best way to prevent coming unglued. She still hadn't decided on the dried fruits to include in the muffins, so she returned to the pantry. Perhaps an unusual combination would catch readers' attention. She grabbed jars of dates and raisins. Those would add sweet jammy pockets of flavor to the sure to be moist muffins.

  Her cell phone began ringing as she was trying to decide if she wanted to use vanilla or almond extract to add a flavor boost to the batter. She was surprised to see Geri's name on the screen. Had she gone back to Mick's already to try to find out more about the splatters and gotten into trouble?

  "Hello?"

  "Can you go to Kellerton Hospital right now?"

  Amy's heartbeat whooshed in her ears. "Yes…why? Are you hurt?"

  "No, but Bruce is. Carla dropped Macy off a few minutes ago. She's on her way to the hospital. He's been shot."

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  (Carla)

  Carla stuck her hands in the front pockets of her jeans as she walked past the bank of vending machines for the tenth time. Her husband was injured, lying on a bed in the emergency room where she had worked for over ten years. And she had been banished to the waiting room for being a distraction to the medical staff. The indignities of being a crazy, stressed-out wife.

  The bullet had grazed Bruce's upper left arm, raggedly slicing the skin open but missing any major arteries. Her former coworkers were busy cleaning and stitching up the wound. They were fully capable professionals, and she knew that. But she couldn't silence her hypercritical side. Questioning every move the nurses and doctors made had gotten on everybody's nerves, including her own. Since she no longer worked at the hospital, the only thing she could do was hold her husband's hand, and apparently, she had been squeezing it so hard his fingers began going numb. Not being in charge of taking care of him was a bitter pill that was choking her, it seemed, literally. She was so tense that it felt as though her chest muscles wouldn't release enough to allow her to take a deep breath. If she kept on the same path, toward a full-blown anxiety attack, she too would end up in the emergency room.

  As Carla
turned and walked toward the windows facing the parking lot, she concentrated on filling her lungs with as much air as possible. Oxygen was a good thing. A woman with blonde hair who was weaving between the rows of parked cars was a dead ringer for Amy. But it couldn't be her. Carla hadn't told anybody about what was happening, except for her mother. Amy had enough to worry about with everything that was going on with the threats to Alex's business. She didn't need to add to the stress when Bruce only had an easily repaired flesh wound. The familiar-looking woman disappeared behind a van, so Carla turned around to trudge back to the vending machine area. Now she understood why the lanes between the rows of chairs in the waiting room were so wide. It allowed for more pacing space for loved ones waiting for updates.

  "What's happening? Are you okay? How is Shepler doing?"

  The barrage of questions shot Carla's heart rate into double time. She spun around to find Amy running toward her. Within seconds, she was locked into a bear hug that instantly calmed her frayed nerves while simultaneously making it even more difficult to breathe. She and Amy had been through so many ordeals. It was comforting to have her present, even though there was no real need for her help. When Amy released her, Carla shook her head. "He's fine. A bullet just grazed his arm. The injury amounts to a nasty cut. They're stitching him up right now, and then he can leave."

  "Oh, thank goodness." Amy exhaled with a loud sigh. "Your mom called to tell me you were here after you dropped Macy off. Did you let her know what's going on now?"

  Carla nodded. She blinked to try to keep the tears building in her eyes from leaking out. It had been a long time since she could count on her mother to help with anything in her life since she had been living on the other side of the world. It was a relief to know Macy was with her loving grandmother in a clean apartment. If it weren't for her, the baby would be camped out in the germ-filled waiting room too. "I called her a few minutes ago." She chuckled. "Macy tried to talk to me. I think everybody in the building must've heard her screech when I said hello."