Dying for Devil's Food

by Jenn McKinlay

  “What’s going on?” Megan Mareez popped out of the crowd. She looked anxious, and Mel knew there was no way they were going to be able to keep her out of the loop about her best friend.

  Mel glanced at Angie. She couldn’t imagine having someone tell her Angie was dead. The mere thought of it made her feel faint. She noticed that Megan looked a bit pale and wondered if it was just the bad lighting or if Megan had some sort of best-­friend psychic connection going. Maybe way deep down, she just knew that something had happened to Cassidy.

  “Megan.” Mel waved her in close. “Listen, there’s been, well, I don’t know what happened but I’ve got some bad news.”

  Megan leaned in. “What? Did something happen to Danny? I saw him go in there.” She pointed to the restroom.

  “No, not him,” Angie said. “Cassidy.”

  Megan looked confused. “What do you mean?”

  “She’s . . .” Mel struggled for words.

  “Not well,” Angie supplied. Mel looked at her and she shrugged.

  “What do you mean not well?” Megan asked. Her voice was tight and it was clear she was getting upset. “Was she drunk?”

  “She’s dead,” Brittany broke in. She looked at Mel and Angie with a look of disdain before she continued, “I’m sorry, but Lianne and I went into the bathroom and we found Mel and Cassidy in there, but Cassidy wasn’t moving. When Lianne checked—­she’s a nurse—­we discovered she was dead.”

  Megan put her hand over her heart. She sucked in a breath or two and then went pasty pale. She staggered on her feet and then dropped to the floor. Angie caught on quicker than the rest and leapt forward, catching Megan before she hit the ground, probably saving her from a broken nose.

  “Help,” Angie cried as she staggered under Megan’s weight.

  Mel stepped forward and crouched so that she could loop one of Megan’s arms over her shoulders. Then she half dragged, half carried her with Angie’s help over to a chair in the corner. She looked at Brittany, who was standing there as if she couldn’t believe what had just happened, and snapped, “Go get help. Get Lianne.”

  Brittany glanced from the bathroom back to Mel and then back to the bathroom. It was pretty obvious she did not want to go back in there.

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Mel snapped. She propped Megan up against the wall and then grabbed Brittany’s hand and yanked her over to one side of the chair while Angie watched the other. “Watch her, I’ll get help.”

  She hurried down the short hall that led into the restroom. Inside, the atmosphere was grim. Lianne was standing off to one side, so Mel sidled up to her and said, “Megan Mareez just fainted. She’s right outside and she seems okay but it might be best if you take a look at her.”

  “Oh, okay,” Lianne said. “I’ll go right now.”

  She dashed out the door without looking back and Mel realized she had been looking for a reason to leave. Mel glanced back at the group. Stan and Joe were standing together on the other side of the rest area talking to a man Mel recognized as a county medical examiner. Their expressions were grim. Dan was slouched on a chair. His hands were jammed in his hair and his head was down. He looked as if his entire world had just imploded on him.

  The EMTs were standing off to the side and the two officers in attendance were snapping pictures and putting out the yellow markers that denoted a crime scene under investigation. So not an accident then. Mel felt her entire body go cold. Someone in their graduating class had wanted Cassidy dead. But who? And why?

  Six

  Joe glanced up and saw Mel. The look he gave her did not reassure. He said something to Stan and the medical examiner and made his way around the edge of the room to get to her.

  “You need to get out of here,” he said.

  “I know,” she said. “It’s a crime scene. I only came in because Megan Mareez fainted and we needed Lianne to take a look at her.”

  “It’s worse than that,” Joe said. “Come on.”

  He took Mel by the elbow and led her toward the door. He was moving pretty fast and she had to scurry on her high heels to keep up.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” a voice called after them. “Is that Mel?”

  “Don’t look,” Joe ordered.

  But Mel had already swiveled her head back toward the room. “Too late.”

  Detective Tara Martinez, a spark plug of a woman, stepped out of one of the bathroom stalls. She was wearing crime scene investigation gloves and holding a small camera.

  “Trying to hustle your girlfriend out of the scene of the crime, DeLaura?” she asked. Her voice was unfriendly, per usual. “Wouldn’t be because you think she’s a suspect, would it?”

  “Hey, that’s my niece you’re talking about,” Stan said. He stepped forward. Tara was his partner, having taken the place of her cousin Manny Martinez, and while Mel knew Stan and Tara got along in a working capacity, he wouldn’t tolerate her going after Mel, which Tara did frequently because she had a thing for Joe. In short, it was complicated.

  “Well, your niece, or his girlfriend, has some explaining to do,” Tara said. She glared at Mel, who decided she’d had enough.

  “Actually, I’m his fiancée,” she said. Tara’s pinched features became even more so.

  “Well, fiancée,” Tara said. “Maybe you can tell us what our victim was writing on the bathroom wall with her lipstick right before she died.”

  “Huh?” Mel asked. She blinked. She had no idea what Tara was talking about.

  “Really?” the detective asked. “That’s all you’ve got?”

  “Come on, Mel,” Joe said. “I don’t think—­”

  “No,” Mel refused. She’d dig her heels into the carpet if she had to but she wanted to know what Tara was talking about.

  Stan blew out a breath. “Mel, I want you to tell me exactly what happened when you came in here.”

  “I came in,” Mel said. “I found Cassidy on the couch. I thought she was asleep, so I tried to slip back out because she had been angry with me earlier for dancing with her husband and I didn’t want another scene. I was backing up when I bumped into Brittany and Lianne, who were coming in. That’s when we discovered she was dead.”

  “But you were in here with her alone at first?” Tara persisted.

  “For mere seconds and not really,” Mel said. “Because she was already dead.”

  Mel tipped her chin up. She really didn’t like the way the pretty brunette was looking at her as if she’d finally got something on Mel. Mel didn’t have anything to do with Cassidy’s death. Why would she? She’d had her big life moment showing up Cassidy. Killing her would have been excessive and completely ruined it. Why would she do that? Fortunately, she had the presence of mind not to say any of this out loud.

  “So you say,” Tara said.

  Mel didn’t like the innuendo but she wasn’t going to let the detective get to her. Instead, she turned to Joe and said, “Explain.”

  Joe glanced at Stan, who nodded and then waved Mel over to him. Mel left Joe and crossed the floor to stand beside her uncle. “What’s going on?”

  “The lipstick,” Stan said.

  “The one she had in her hand?” Mel asked. “What about it?”

  Stan gestured toward the large stall at the end of the row. There was a crime scene tech in there taking pictures.

  “It looks like Cassidy had begun to write, well, your name.”

  Mel turned from the tech working in the stall to her uncle. “I don’t understand.”

  “M E L,” he said. “That’s what’s written back there.”

  Mel went to go look, but he grabbed her arm and held her back.

  “Are you sure she was writing my name?” Mel asked. “I mean it could be the beginning of something else, like, mellow or melancholy.”

  “Or Melanie,” Tara added. She crossed her arms over her chest.


  “Or melodrama,” Mel countered. They all looked at her and she shrugged. “I have no idea why she wrote that, but don’t you find it odd that she didn’t write anything else?”

  “Not really,” Tara said. “Not if she did it to tell us who killed her.”

  “Hey, now,” Stan snapped. “Easy, Detective, we’re gathering evidence, not making wild accusations.”

  Mel put her hand over her chest. “Uncle Stan, you can’t think that I—­”

  “No, I don’t,” he said. “Now that’s enough, you two. We have plenty to do here without you baiting each other. Detective Martinez, if you don’t mind, I think you’re needed elsewhere.”

  Tara sent Mel a triumphant look. “No, I don’t mind.”

  She turned and went back to where the crime scene techs were working on the body. Mel felt a surge of anger spike but she pushed it down. She refused to let this woman get to her. She hadn’t done anything wrong and she wasn’t about to let Tara Martinez make her feel as if she had.

  “I had nothing to do with this,” Mel said. She glanced at her uncle. “You know that, right?”

  “I do,” he said. He gave her a one-­armed bear hug and Mel felt instantly better. “Still, you may want to call an attorney just in case.”

  And her peace vanished just like that. She turned to Joe and he said, “Come on, let’s get you out of here. Stan, can I take her home or do you need her to go down to the station?”

  “I think we’re good for now,” Uncle Stan said. “But be prepared in case I have to call you in, and, Mel, call your mother. Don’t let her hear about this on the news.”

  “I will,” she said. She put her hand in Joe’s and he led her out of the narrow, cramped room.

  When they got outside, the crowd from in front of the stage had joined those in front of the bathroom and they resembled an unruly mob more than they did a bunch of former high school students at a reunion.

  Tate and Angie were off to the side, and Joe and Mel joined them. Angie took one look at Mel’s face and hugged her tight. “It’ll be okay.”

  “I hope so,” she said. “Because this is actually a nightmare.”

  “You!” Dwight Pickard pointed at Mel. His cheeks were ruddy and his eyes were glassy. It was clear to Mel that he was schnockered, which not surprisingly did not make him more endearing and made her want to avoid him at all costs. She glanced in both directions. There was no path to escape.

  Mel stiffened her spine and stared him down. “What about me?”

  “Is it true?” he asked. He lurched forward and Mel felt Joe step up behind her, surrounding her with his own body and keeping her protected.

  “Is what true?” Mel asked. She felt Joe squeeze her hip, and she knew he was trying to signal to her that she shouldn’t engage, but how could she not? Dwight was coming after her in front of their entire graduating class. She had to defend herself.

  “Did you kill Cassidy?” he slurred.

  “No!” Mel protested. She didn’t add “you idiot,” which she thought she should get points for, but knew better than to point this out. “I would never do anything like that.”

  “Really, Melephant?” He dragged every syllable of her horrible nickname out and Mel began to grind her teeth. She’d never wanted to punch anyone so much in her entire life.

  “Stop—­” Joe began but Mel held up her hand. She didn’t want him taking this fight for her.

  “Because I’ll bet you did,” Dwight said. “You made a play for her husband, we all saw you, and when he rejected you, you decided to kill her.”

  “You are insane,” she said. “How could I kill anyone?”

  “With your cupcakes,” Dwight said. His eyes took on a crazy light as if he’d just had an epiphany. He lifted up his head and shouted to the crowd. “Don’t eat the cupcakes! They’re poisoned!”

  “No, they aren’t, you big jerk!” Angie snapped. She turned to the crowd and yelled, “Don’t listen to him!”

  It was too late. The damage was done. Mel watched in horror as people started spitting out the cupcakes. The ones who hadn’t eaten theirs yet tossed them into the garbage and one woman, Millie Davis, was actually trying to make herself throw up the cupcake she had just eaten. For the love of frosting, had they all gone mad?

  “Mel, don’t engage,” Joe said from behind her. “He’s a bully and you can’t reason with people like that. It’s a waste of time.”

  “What’s that, pretty boy?” Dwight goaded Joe. “You talking about me? Why are you hiding behind your girlfriend? Aren’t you man enough to face me?”

  Joe lifted Mel up and put her behind him.

  “Oh, no,” Mel said. This could play out a variety of ways, one of which included Joe being disbarred. “Joe, don’t listen to him.”

  “‘Joe, don’t listen to him,’” Dwight said. He made his voice high-­pitched and mocking. “So, DeLaura, what’s it like to be whipped by a reformed chubette? You know, she could blow up on you at any point. One minute she’s fine and the next she’s packin’ on an extra hundred pounds or so. Is that a risk you’re willing—­”

  Kapow!

  That was as far as Dwight got when Joe’s fist connected with his face. Mel let out a tiny shriek and watched in horror as Dwight crumpled like a folding chair down to the ground. Mel thought it was very telling that no one jumped in to help him.

  “Nice punch, Bro,” Angie said. She slapped her brother on the back.

  “What punch?” Joe asked as he shook out his fingers. “I was merely stretching my fist when he walked into it.”

  “That’s how I saw it,” Tate said. “Freak accident. Very unfortunate.”

  “Me, too,” Angie chimed in. “It probably wouldn’t have happened if Dwight wasn’t so inebriated. It’s a shame he’s become such an unreliable drunk when he was such a stand-up kid in high school.”

  How she kept a straight face when she said that, Mel had no idea. It was just then that the stretcher with a body bag on it came out of the ladies’ room. Everyone stepped back to make room and also, she suspected, to avoid getting hit with the dead-­body cooties. Some things don’t really change from the playground days.

  Mel glanced behind her and saw Danny following the stretcher, looking as if his insides had been scooped out. Megan Mareez rose from her chair and fell in beside him, looking equally hollow. In the face of their shock and grief, the crowd grew silent. Like her or not, the fact that Cassidy Havers-­Griffin had died so unexpectedly reminded each of them of their own mortality and how quickly they could go from eating a cupcake to dead.

  * * *

  The reunion ended shortly after the medical examiner took Cassidy’s body away. No one was feeling it, despite the DJ’s repeated attempts to get the party started again. Mel wondered if he was just really into his job or if he was always that tone deaf to the mood of a crowd.

  She glanced at Joe on their ride to the bakery and said, “I’m thinking a band for our wedding.”

  He was driving and he glanced at her quickly, his grin a slash of white in the night. “That DJ was terrible. Band it is.”

  They were quiet for a while. By mutual agreement, everyone had decided to stop by the bakery on the way home to fortify with a cupcake. Mel was afraid she wouldn’t feel better even if she ate an entire six pack of Black Bottom Cupcakes, a chocolate cupcake with a surprise cream ­cheese filling, all by herself.

  They parked in the lot behind the bakery. It was closed now but per usual, Oz was in the kitchen already baking the next day’s special. Oz had taken to culinary school like a champ and Mel knew it was only a matter of time before he left them to go work for someone else or to open a bakery of his own. She tried not to think about it. Losing Oz would be like losing her right hand, possibly her left, too.

  Tate and Angie parked nearby and the four of them made their way to the back door. Tate used h
is key to let them in and held the door open for everyone before closing it behind them. The music was cranked, Logic rapping his hit “Under Pressure,” while Oz opened the oven, bopping his head to the flow, completely oblivious to the fact that he was no longer alone.

  Mel watched him for a bit, not wanting to scare him when he was holding a hot tray. A well-­muscled dude over six feet tall and rocking piercings and tattoos, Oz was no one’s image of a cupcake baker, and yet he had an intuitive baking skill set that Mel hadn’t seen in many chefs, not even when she was studying in Paris.

  “‘But finally gettin’ cake like a happy belated,’” Oz rapped with the song as he pulled the industrial-­sized baking tray out of the oven. He turned around to find the four of them standing there and he let out a little yelp. The tray in his hands bobbled but he caught it, dropping it onto the large steel table in the center of the kitchen.

  “Sorry!” Mel shouted over the music.

  Tate crossed the room and lowered the volume on the mini-­speaker so it was more background music and less main event. The swinging doors that led to the front of the bakery opened and Marty appeared, holding a mop in one hand.

  “Who shut off the music?” he said. “It was just getting to the good part. I was going to bust out the floss.”

  Oz rolled his eyes. “You can’t do the floss, you’ll throw a hip out.”

  “Can so.” Marty tossed down his mop and executed the dance move, alternating hip thrusts between his arms, which didn’t go at all with the faint sound of Logic’s rap still coming from the speaker.

  “All right, all right,” Joe said. “I’m never going to be able to unsee that, and we only stopped by for cupcakes, not a dance party.”