Dying for Devil's Food

by Jenn McKinlay

  Mel and Angie exchanged a look. “What do you know, Tucker?”

  “Nothing specific,” he said. “Just that it wasn’t a happy marriage, which was pretty obvious last night at the reunion. You want to know who I think had a motive to murder Cassidy? Well, as the police always say, it’s usually the person closest to the victim, like the spouse.”

  “Danny?” Angie asked. She wrinkled her nose as if the mere idea of their all-­star being a murderer left a bad smell.

  “Who had the most to gain?” Tucker asked. “Danny would have gotten his freedom and since you know how vicious Cassidy can be, you can imagine he might have done anything to get away from her.”

  “How do you know the marriage wasn’t happy?” Mel asked.

  “When it came time to plan the reunion, Cassidy called together everyone in the area to her house,” he said.

  “But you’re in California,” Angie said.

  “Yes, but I have business in Phoenix,” he said. “I come through town a couple times a month. It makes my mom happy.”

  “So, even though we’re local, we weren’t invited,” Angie said.

  “Duh,” Tucker said. “Cassidy hates . . . hated Mel.”

  “This is so crazy,” Mel said. “Even after fifteen years she still hated me. It’s just ridiculous and such a waste of time and energy.”

  “She didn’t really have a lot on her plate, being a sportscaster’s housewife,” Tucker said. “She was very lonely and miserable.”

  “Why not just divorce Dan?” Angie asked. “She could have found someone she was actually happy with.”

  “No.” Tucker shook his head. “She was the child of divorce, and she really hated her parents for it. She viewed divorce as a failure. She told Dan when they got married that the only way he was getting out of the marriage was in a box.”

  “Harsh,” Angie said.

  Mel could see it, though. In her mind, she could see Cassidy’s overly plumped lips with her particular shade of bright pink lipstick over her artificially white teeth, forming the sentence, You’ll only get out of this marriage in a box. It sent a shiver down her spine and she had a sudden pang of pity for Danny. No wonder he was happy to be on the road and away from his wife. But it also begged the question: Was Tucker right? Was Dan so desperate to escape his marriage that he murdered his wife?

  “Listen, since we obviously can’t go in there, you need to do reunion recon for us,” Angie said.

  “Why would I do that?” Tucker asked. “I mean, for all I know you two killed her.”

  “We didn’t,” Mel said. She met his gaze full on. “You know we didn’t.”

  Tucker heaved a huge sigh. “But what if the person who did kill her finds out I’m helping you? I could become a target.”

  “Don’t worry,” Angie said. “They’ll come for us first. Besides, you’re just stopping by the bakery later to pick up some cupcakes for your mom and to visit with old friends, right?”

  “She’s lactose intolerant,” Tucker said.

  “I have cupcakes for that,” Mel said.

  “Fine,” he said. “But I better not get into trouble over this. Isn’t your fiancé a county prosecutor?”

  “Yes, and my uncle is a police detective,” Mel said. “So look at it as doing your civic duty.”

  “And keeping yourself on my good side,” Angie said. She cracked her knuckles.

  Tucker swallowed and then nodded. “Well, when you put it like that, I’m happy to help.”

  “Great!” Angie beamed at him. “See you around two?”

  “I’ll be there.” Tucker glanced out of the car to see that the street was clear. Then he gave them a tiny wave and hopped out of the car, slamming the door behind him. He looked both ways and then jogged across the street to Danny’s house.

  They watched until he went inside and then Mel said, “Let’s hope Tucker finds something out.”

  “Yeah, your freedom might depend upon it.”

  * * *

  The bakery was buzzing. Marty was working the front counter with Angie while Mel and Oz cranked out cupcakes in the back. After a scuffle over the music, Mel won and they were listening to “Finesse” by Bruno Mars and Cardi B. When Mel looked like she was going to rap with Cardi B, Oz shook his head and gave her his disapproving face.

  “Oh, come on,” Mel said. “I could bust a rhyme. I have great flow.”

  “Lord no,” he said.

  Mel laughed. “Be nice or I’ll put on ‘Seek and Destroy’ by Metallica.”

  “I’d be okay with that,” Oz said.

  “I thought you were all about the rap,” she said.

  “I’m nineteen,” Oz said. “I’m all about rebellion.”

  “Ah,” Mel said. Then it hit her that Oz had been four years old when she graduated from high school. Suddenly, she felt so old. What had she been doing with her life? She glanced at the table in front of her and noted it was covered in cupcakes. This. This was what she’d been doing. And suddenly the absurdity of it hit her. Cupcakes. She spent her life making cupcakes. How crazy was that? And the really crazy thing was, she wouldn’t have it any other way.

  “Why are you smiling?” Oz asked. He looked suspicious. “You’re not going to start playing Adele or something are you?”

  “Adele is the bomb, but no,” Mel said. “I was just thinking that I’m so freaking lucky in my life. I work with people I enjoy, doing what I love; how lucky is that?”

  “Pretty lucky,” Oz said. “But you’ve worked hard for it.”

  “We all have,” she said. “Speaking of which, I was thinking about you the other day. What’s your plan? Do you want a bakery of your own? Or a franchise of one of ours one day?”

  “Whoa,” Oz said. “That came out of left field.”

  “Not really,” she said. “You’re almost done with culinary school. You’re at the top of your class. You could get snapped up by a restaurant or work at a resort, but just so you know we’ll finance you if you want to open your own place.”

  “Are you having a freak-out?” Oz asked. He put his pastry bag down and shoved his bangs aside so he could meet her gaze. “Because you are totally freaking me out!”

  “No,” Mel said. “Er . . . maybe?”

  “Listen, I have no plan,” Oz said. “Except to stay here and bake cupcakes with you all until I have a plan and whenever that is you’ll be the first to know. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Mel agreed. Then she smiled. “Can I hug you?”

  “If you must,” he said.

  Mel circled the table and reached up to hug him. Despite his bellyaching, he hugged her back and his voice was gruff. “In case I haven’t told you enough, I really appreciate you giving me this job. I’m not sure what would have happened to me if I hadn’t ended up here but I don’t think it would have been good.”

  Mel squeezed him tight one more time and then let him go, forcing the lump in her throat to move down by swallowing repeatedly.

  “One of my two best hiring decisions for sure,” she said.

  They smiled at each other and Mel picked up her pastry bag, and so did Oz, just as the doors to the kitchen slammed open and Angie burst into the room. She gave Mel a stern look and said, “We’ve got company.”

  “Tucker?”

  “Yup.”

  “I’ll be right there.” Mel put down her pastry bag and glanced at Oz. “You’ve got this?”

  “Natch,” he said.

  Mel went to the sink to wash her hands and wiped them dry with a paper towel. She untied her apron and hung it on a hook beside the door before she pushed through the doors to join Angie back out in the bakery.

  And there was Tucker seated in one of the booths with cupcakes in front of him and Angie seated across from him, looking like she was getting ready to hit him with a million questions.

  Me
l slid into the booth beside Angie. She was dying to know what had happened at the wake. Who had looked genuinely sad? Had anyone? How had Danny seemed? Was he grief-struck? What about Megan? How was she holding up? Instead, Mel knew that the best way to get on anyone’s good side was through the magic of baked goods.

  She pushed the plate of cupcakes toward Tucker and smiled. She felt Angie stir restlessly beside her and reached under the table to pinch her.

  “Ow,” Angie said and whipped her head in Mel’s direction.

  “Sorry, did I nudge you?” Mel asked. She tried to give Angie a meaningful look. “Let’s let Tucker gather himself for a moment, and then we can ask him about the wake.”

  She looked from the cupcakes to Tucker and back and watched the light in Angie’s eye brighten.

  “Of course,” Angie said. She turned to Tucker. “It must have been a very emotional day. Take your time, enjoy the cupcakes. Mel has some put aside for your mom, too. We’re here to help you through this.”

  “You know,” Tucker said as he picked up his fork and stabbed one of Mel’s meringue hi-­top frosted cupcakes, “you two are so full of bull, I’m surprised you don’t moo. Honestly, if you think that I believe you care even a little about me—­” He shoved a forkful of the cupcake into his mouth. He chewed twice and then like the sun exploding over the horizon on a glorious spring day, his face lightened up, his eyes sparkled, and his entire demeanor became one of bliss.

  “You were saying?” Mel prompted him.

  “This.” He pointed at the cupcake with his fork. “This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever tasted. Seriously, wow.”

  Mel turned her head and winked at Angie, who was trying not to smile. They waited while Tucker plowed through that cupcake and got halfway through the second before he slowed down.

  “You two are the nicest girls from our graduating class, did you know that?” he asked.

  Mel studied his face. He looked almost as if he was drunk. He wore a silly smile; his eyes were glazed. She glanced down at the cupcakes. They were her standard chocolate cupcake with hi-­top meringue frosting dipped in chocolate. She knew they were amazeballs but she’d never seen this sort of reaction before.

  “Um, I’m getting a little worried,” Angie said.

  “Same,” Mel agreed.

  She reached across the table to pull the plate away from Tucker. He wrapped his arm around it, blocking her and looking like he was going to hiss and spit at her if she tried to take the cupcake away.

  “If he says ‘My precious,’ I am so out of here,” Angie said.

  “Lord of the Rings,” Mel piped up. Angie looked at Mel in exasperation.

  “We’re not playing right now,” Angie said.

  “Sorry, force of habit,” Mel said. She turned back to Tucker. “Hey, buddy, how long has it been since you’ve had a cupcake?”

  “Years,” Tucker said. “I’ve been on a raw diet since I moved to Cali. Nothing impure in my system.” He was licking a piece of chocolate off his fork.

  “And you thought today would be a great day to change that?” Angie asked.

  “I’m in pain,” Tucker said. “The grief is too much. It doesn’t matter that she was a mean, selfish, vapid fluff head of a person, for some reason, I crushed on Cassidy hard all through high school. Seriously, I thought she was the embodiment of everything a woman was supposed to be—­”

  Angie made a retching noise.

  “Yeah, I know, what was I thinking?” Tucker said. He shoved another bite of cupcake into his mouth and it seemed to help. “And now she’s gone.”

  Mel figured this was as good a time as any to ask, “How was Danny doing this morning?”

  Tucker’s head snapped up. “Given that every female in our graduating class, minus you two, was there to hug and comfort him, I’d say he’s holding up just fine.”

  Mel noted the bitterness in his voice. She remembered Tucker had been on the school newspaper and yearbook. He’d been the one viewing every event through a camera lens or with his recorder out, interviewing whomever about whatever was happening at the moment.

  It occurred to her that while he was always there, he was also an outlier, always on the outside looking in. She wondered if that’s why he disliked Danny Griffin so much. Danny was always at the center and even now that his athletic career had crumbled, he was still the good-­looking guy with the slow smile and the quick wit in front of the camera, making everyone feel as if he knew them personally and that he cared. There was no faking that sort of charisma.

  “What about your girlfriend?” Angie asked. “Did she go with you today?”

  “No,” Tucker said. “Kayla was supposed to but then she goofed up her mascara or something and it led to a whole existential crisis, so she’s resting poolside at the Phoenician Resort.”

  “Did you want to bring her some cupcakes?” Mel asked.

  Tucker gave her a horrified look. “She would stab me with the first sharp object she could find. She’s on a raw diet, too. Sugar freaks her out, even coconut sugar, which is like the healthiest sugar you can eat.”

  “So, not our people?” Angie said. Tucker made a face at her and she shrugged.

  “I hope she gets over her . . . crisis,” Mel said. She wasn’t really sure if that was correct but Tucker nodded, so she figured it was good. “If you could tell us more about the wake today. What happened? What were people saying? Did anyone act suspicious?”

  “You mean other than Danny?” he asked.

  “Dude,” Angie said. “You’ve got to let it go. You may not like that Cassidy married him, and his life might seem like an impossible dream to the rest of us, but your bias against him is not helping us process potential suspects.”

  “You’re right,” Tucker said. “You’re totally right. I mean he’s not even a bad guy. Always pleasant and friendly, but I swear—­has a drop of rain ever even fallen on his charmed life?”

  “Um, yeah, his wife was just murdered,” Mel said. “I think that qualifies.”

  “Sorry,” Tucker said. He shoved the last of the cupcake in his mouth. Once he swallowed he said, “You’re right, but I forget because I feel like it’s an outcome that’s advantageous to him, so again, does he ever suffer?”

  Angie made a rolling motion with her hands and said, “Explain.”

  “Okay, okay.” Tucker wiped his mouth with his napkin and slumped back in his seat. He turned and looked at Mel. “You’re not going to like it.”

  She felt her stomach drop to her feet. “They blame me, don’t they?”

  “If by ‘they’ you mean Dwight Pickard, then yes. He showed up and was going on and on about the poison cupcakes,” Tucker said. “He was getting everyone riled. Honestly, if I were you I’d have the cops watch the place in case someone decides to torch it in the night.”

  “What?” Angie cried. “That’s insane. We don’t even know if there was something wrong with the cupcake she ate. It could be totally unrelated.”

  Tucker lifted his hands as if to say What can you do? “It might have helped if you had shown up to represent yourself. Not only would it have put Dwight in his place but Danny asked about you. I think he was looking for some moral support from someone he considers a friend.”

  “Me? He asked for me?” Mel felt a sudden pang of guilt that she had let Danny down by not showing up at the wake that morning. She hadn’t thought he’d notice but now she felt horrible for not being there for what was likely the worst time of his life.

  “You,” Tucker confirmed. “Well, until Dwight started going on and on about how you weren’t there because you were probably the killer.”

  “Dwight!” Mel spat his name. “That walking rock has been torturing me since middle school. Why? What did I ever do to him?”

  “You’d have to ask him that,” Tucker said. “But he was telling everyone who would listen that he wa
s certain you killed Cassidy to try and win Dan.”

  “But I’m engaged to Joe DeLaura,” Mel said.

  “Lianne pointed that out but Dwight said Joe was a poor second to Danny,” Tucker said. “Although I gotta say the shiner he was sporting didn’t make Joe seem second to anyone.”

  “Oh, for the love of buttercream,” Mel said. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Clearly, Joe is the superior man. My god, he’s kind, and funny, and sweet, and smart, so smart, and he’s freaking gorgeous. Danny Griffin isn’t even in the same league.”

  Angie grinned at her. “You’re so in love with my brother.”

  Mel felt her face get hot. She couldn’t believe she had just gushed like that, but really, there was no competition there.

  “Yes, I am, but that’s not the point,” she said. “The point is why does Dwight feel compelled to blame me? I mean, how do we even know she ate the cupcake?”

  “Dwight didn’t seem to care about that detail,” Tucker said. “He was too busy making you out to be the villain. Megan did say that Cassidy was known to comfort eat and it wouldn’t have surprised her if Cassidy had grabbed a cupcake before they were being served and hid in the bathroom to eat it. She was pretty weird about eating in front of people, like she wanted everyone to think she existed solely on lettuce leaves and almonds. According to Megan, Cassidy was really struggling with Dan being the most popular person at the reunion. His enjoyment of his return home as the conquering hero and celebrity sportscaster really bugged her since he seemed intent on spending time with everyone but her.”

  Tucker rolled his eyes, letting them know what he thought of Dan’s return.

  “You know, there were a lot of guys who worshiped Danny in high school. Do you think one of them had something to do with Cassidy’s death, maybe in some misguided attempt to help Danny, and let Mel take the blame?” Angie asked.

  “No idea,” Tucker said.

  “Ugh,” Mel grunted. “I hate this.” She looked at Tucker. “Did you get any other information?”