Dying for Devil's Food

by Jenn McKinlay

  Dwight’s lips puckered and twisted up to the side. “Are you telling me that the story was true, that Cassidy actually went after Danny knowing that he and Megan were interested in each other?”

  “I don’t think she bothered to find out if Megan was interested, but she knew Danny was,” Mel said. “You could see where there might be some hurt feelings.”

  “Sure but not enough to murder someone,” Dwight said. “No, I don’t believe it. Megan wouldn’t do that. Besides, there’s more pictures to go through. There could be someone else with red lipstick. I haven’t even seen Kristie Hill yet and she most definitely is holding a grudge.”

  “That’s true,” Angie said. “We shouldn’t jump to conclusions.”

  “All right, but I’m still going to call Uncle Stan and see what he thinks about all of this,” Mel said. “Maybe they’ve already checked out the red lipstick connection.”

  “See if you can get him to tell you what the poison was,” Angie said. “That might help narrow it down, too.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Mel said. She ducked back into the kitchen to make the call in the privacy of her office. Partly because she didn’t want to tell Uncle Stan what she knew in a public area, but also so that no one else heard him when he started yelling. Yeah, it was mostly because of the yelling.

  “Mel, don’t tell me, let me guess: You were at the car wash and found a dead body,” Uncle Stan answered his phone.

  “Funny,” she said. “No. And hello to you, too.”

  “Coffee shop? Library? Post office?” he asked. “Seriously, there has to be a dead body somewhere.”

  “That’s it. I am telling Mom to take you off the diet,” she said. “You’re turning into a crankypotamus.”

  “I haven’t had a potato chip in weeks.”

  “It’s for your own good.”

  “Or dessert!” Stan cried. “No dessert for weeks!”

  “Oh, that is too far. That’s positively abusive,” Mel said. “I’ll talk to her.”

  “Promise?” he said. “I need dessert. I mean what’s the point of being alive if you can’t have dessert?”

  “If I bring you some cupcakes, would that help?” she asked.

  “It would,” he said. He sounded happy just at the suggestion. “Wait. What’s your angle?”

  “No angle,” Mel said. She hoped she sounded sufficiently outraged.

  “You want to know something, don’t you?” he asked.

  Mel sank back into her office chair. “So, if I bring you cupcakes, do you want the hi-­top meringue frosting or the chocolate coconut ones, or something else?”

  “Chocolate coconut? Your Moonlight Madness ones with the thick layer of coconut?” he asked.

  “Just made a fresh batch this morning,” she said.

  “You’re killing me,” he said. “Okay, what do you want to know? I’ll see if I can share.”

  “The lipstick Cassidy was holding, the one she used to write on the bathroom wall,” Mel said. “Do we know whose it was?”

  Stan was quiet for a moment. “How do you know it wasn’t hers?”

  “Cassidy has only ever worn the same bright pink lipstick,” she said. “I could have told you the night of her murder if you had let me see the lipstick then.”

  “How do you know she never changed it?” Stan asked. “She might have. The lipstick could still be hers.”

  “It wasn’t. She was wearing the same bright pink at the reunion,” Mel said. “Also, I confirmed with a friend of hers that she never changed.”

  “Megan Mareez?” he asked. “Mel, you’re supposed to stay away from this.”

  “We already had this fight,” Mel said. “I told you I would be there for my friends and I am.”

  “Last I checked you weren’t friends with Megan,” he said.

  “It so happens it’s not Megan who confirmed her lipstick choice, it’s Dwight Pickard.”

  “What?!” Mel held the phone away from her ear as the shouting began. When the volume got lower, she held it closer. He was in the home stretch. He said, “Why on earth would you have anything to do with a known sociopath?”

  “Because he showed up here, looking for me,” Mel said. “Because he still thought it was me who poisoned Cassidy, but we had a chat and he realized that makes no sense. He’s here right now, going through the reunion pictures with Angie.”

  “I’m on my way,” Stan snapped. The call ended.

  Mel held the phone away from her and said, “Good talk.”

  She knew Uncle Stan would come barreling through the backdoor in five minutes. His office was nearby, in the local police precinct. She figured she’d better get those Moonlight Madness cupcakes ready.

  She unlocked the back door for him and then plated a few cupcakes and made a fresh pot of coffee. Oz was still in front, helping Marty and keeping an eye on Dwight. Mel took a deep breath and enjoyed the solitude of her kitchen for a moment. It didn’t happen often these days that she got to be here alone. She soaked it all in. It didn’t last.

  “So, you’re what, friends now?” Uncle Stan demanded as he banged through the back door of the bakery.

  “No, never that,” Mel said. She grabbed a mug and the coffeepot and gestured for Uncle Stan to sit. “But we have a mutual interest in finding out who murdered Cassidy. So, what can you tell me?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “We’re still waiting for the toxicology report to confirm what was in her system.”

  “How about the delivery?” Mel asked. She handed him a fork. “Any idea how she was poisoned?”

  Stan was quiet for a beat. “There were trace amounts of a toxic substance in her drink. But we have to wait to find out if it’s what was in her system and whether it killed her. We are being very thorough.”

  “Her drink was poisoned?” Mel asked.

  “Possibly,” Stan said. “We are waiting on confirmation and that is all I’m saying.” He then tucked into his cupcakes and didn’t speak until he had scraped the last coconut flake up with his fork. Then he leaned back and sipped his coffee as if his reason for living had been restored.

  “So, someone wrote M-­E-­L on the bathroom wall in red lipstick, probably trying to make it look like it was me, because everyone knew about our history,” Mel said.

  “I’d say that’s a safe bet,” Uncle Stan agreed.

  “I think whoever did it used their own lipstick,” Mel said. She peeked through the round window in the swinging door. Tate, Dwight, and Angie were hunkered over the laptop. “And I’m betting Dwight and Angie have a short list of names for us.”

  Stan rolled to his feet. He kept his coffee in one hand as he gestured for her to lead on with the other. Mel pushed through the door, hoping that Dwight had come up with someone more than Megan to give to Uncle Stan.

  Marty and Oz were helping some customers and they both glanced up when Uncle Stan appeared. Mel noticed they both looked relieved to see him as they exchanged handshakes with their favorite detective.

  “‘You’ve got to ask yourself one question: “Do I feel lucky?” Well, do ya, punk?’” Oz said.

  Uncle Stan laughed.

  “Dirty Harry,” Mel said, and then asked, “Are we done here?” The men nodded.

  She led Uncle Stan to the table where Dwight sat with the others. Uncle Stan and Dwight eyed each other like pre­dator and prey. She wasn’t sure which was which, and she wondered who would strike first.

  “So, cupcake bakeries have replaced donut shops for cop hangouts?” Dwight asked. “Good to know.”

  “Apparently, it’s also the place for the chronically unemployed,” Uncle Stan.

  Tate hissed through his teeth. “Solid burn.”

  Dwight glared at him and then turned his sneer on Uncle Stan. “I have a job.”

  “Yeah, you’ve had several,” Uncle Stan said. “Let�
�s see, airport baggage guy, fired for your bad attitude; pool maintenance man, fired for anger issues; car salesman, fired for threatening a customer; housepainter, fired for foul language; hmm, am I missing anything?”

  “At least I’m my own boss,” Dwight said. He tipped his chin up in defiance.

  “Yeah, you’re the king of going nowhere,” Uncle Stan said. “Good for you. You know we’ve asked for the fingerprints of anyone who was close to Cassidy Havers-­Griffin on the night of the reunion. You were supposed to drop by the station for fingerprinting. Any reason why you haven’t made it there yet?”

  “I’ve been busy,” Dwight said.

  “Yeah, with all that employment,” Uncle Stan retorted. “Let me be clear, you can come in voluntarily or we can make it happen.”

  Dwight looked like he was going to swear or take a swing at Uncle Stan, so Mel stepped forward and said, “Great, I see you two know each other, so let’s move on.” She turned to Angie and asked, “What did you find?”

  “We looked at all of the women wearing red lipstick at the reunion and then narrowed it to the top ten who looked like they wore the right shade of red,” Angie said. “Then we did a sweep to get rid of people we didn’t recognize, spouses of classmates who wouldn’t have any reason to harm Cassidy or to implicate you—that was Dwight’s idea, by the way.”

  Mel looked at Stan, who glanced at Dwight and gave him a small nod. Dwight’s sneer got deeper, as if he couldn’t care less what Uncle Stan thought, which Mel didn’t believe. Not anymore.

  “So, who are we left with?” Mel asked.

  “Megan Mareez, Lianne Marsten, and Kristie Hill,” Dwight said. “There are a couple others who knew Cassidy but these three were the closest to her inner circle.”

  Angie had kept the pictures of the three women up on the computer and Uncle Stan leaned in to get a look at them. He nodded but didn’t say a word.

  “I think you can let the police handle it from here,” he said.

  “Make me,” Dwight said. He rose to his feet and crossed his arms over his chest. His big lantern jaw was jutted out and he looked like he was hoping Uncle Stan would take a swing at him. Uh-­oh.

  Seventeen

  “Hey, gang, what’s the haps?” a voice called from the front door. It was pushed open and Tucker strolled in, wearing his usual khaki pants and loafers with his shirt neatly tucked and his brown leather belt matched precisely to his shoes.

  “Hey, Tucker,” Tate said. He had moved ever so slightly so that he was in between Uncle Stan and Dwight. Mel was grateful but suspected if Dwight put his mind, or rather his fists, to it, there would be no stopping him. “What brings you here?”

  “I’m on my way back to LA,” Tucker said. He had his laptop bag over one shoulder and a blazer folded over his arm. “I just wanted to say good-­bye.”

  “Bye,” Dwight growled.

  Tucker seemed to notice him for the first time. His eyebrows went up as he glanced from Dwight to Mel and back. He looked at her in alarm.

  “Save it,” Dwight said. “I can read your face like a bad hand of poker. Mel and I are working on a thing.”

  “Together?” Tucker asked. His voice went up an octave and he cleared his throat.

  “Crazy, huh?” Mel asked. “By any chance have you loaded all of the pictures you took to the reunion website?”

  “No, I didn’t have the heart after, well, you know,” he said. “Most of them are just in my photo file on my laptop.”

  Mel looked at Dwight. “There might be people we’ve missed.”

  “Can we see them?” Angie asked.

  “I . . . uh . . . I have to catch my plane,” Tucker said. “But I want to help, I do.”

  “Excellent,” Uncle Stan said. “Go ahead and open up your laptop. Then you can rebook your flight.”

  Tucker let out a huge sigh. “But my girlfr—­”

  Dwight shook his head at him. “Pictures.”

  “Fine, but it’ll take me a second to open up the files,” he said.

  “We’ll wait,” Uncle Stan said.

  He sounded so reasonable. Mel knew this was his detective voice. He was very mild and unassuming and then when the suspect least expected it, he pounced.

  “Can I at least ask what you’re looking for in the pictures?” Tucker asked.

  Mel glanced at Uncle Stan. He was the professional, this was his call.

  “The lipstick used in the bathroom to write on the wall,” he said. “We’re looking for any women who were wearing that shade.”

  “Why?” Tucker asked. “Clearly it was Cassidy’s—­”

  “No,” Mel said. “She never wore that shade. We need to know who did.”

  “We have a few people already but we want to make sure we didn’t miss anyone,” Angie said.

  “Oh,” Tucker said. “Wow, that is worth missing my flight for.” He set to work opening the files on his computer while they waited.

  “What will you do with the names we’ve found?” Mel asked Uncle Stan.

  “Interview them again,” he said. He looked at the pictures on Mel’s laptop. “Or bring them in.”

  Mel knew he was looking at Megan Mareez. She supposed she needed to tell him about her affair with Danny. Why did it feel like such a betrayal? Because of the baby. She hated that she had to be the one to go back on her word and tell Uncle Stan about their relationship. She glanced up and found Tate studying her. This was the best thing about lifelong friends. They frequently were thinking the same thing at the same time. Mel had told Megan she wouldn’t say anything; she hadn’t said that the person listening to their conversation wouldn’t. She nodded at him.

  “Can I talk to you for sec, Stan?” he asked.

  Uncle Stan looked at Tate. His eyes narrowed and then he gave a curt nod. “Don’t go through the pictures without me.”

  He and Tate moved across the bakery to the opposite side of the bubblegum-­pink interior. They both leaned in and Mel knew Tate was whispering. At one point, Uncle Stan looked at her and Mel tried to make her face look as innocent as possible. Judging by his frown, he wasn’t buying it.

  “File’s open,” Tucker announced. Dwight reached around him and moved the laptop so it was in front of him.

  “Hey!” Tucker protested.

  “I’m the one who saw the lipstick,” Dwight growled.

  Tucker raised his hands in surrender, and Mel knew it must pain him to turn his laptop over to a thug like Dwight. They were living in weird times when Dwight was the leader and they were all working together. She had a feeling she’d be dreaming a Hunger Games version of this moment when she went to bed that night.

  Uncle Stan and Tate returned to the table. Dwight began scrolling through the pictures. Like the former high school reporter he was, Tucker had captured pictures of everyone. The most telling was one of Cassidy and Kristie Hill giving each other the cold stare. It didn’t look like Kristie was going to forgive the hijack of her homecoming tiara anytime soon.

  Mel glanced at Uncle Stan to see if he was getting this. His eyebrows were lowered into a V, meeting over the bridge of his nose like an accent mark of frustration.

  They went through a few more pictures, and then there was a series of pictures of Cassidy. Mel wasn’t sure about what she felt, seeing her old nemesis. She was a beautiful woman and the pictures caught her smiling and laughing. Mel probably would have thought they were lovely if she knew Cassidy wasn’t laughing at the expense of someone else, but she probably was. It tainted the pictures for Mel. She glanced at Dwight and Tucker, the two men who’d adored Cassidy since high school. Their expressions were of grief and mourning. Mel tried to be empathetic; after all, no matter how vile Cassidy had been, she didn’t deserve what had happened to her.

  The next picture that popped up was one of Cassidy and Dan. They were standing close. It looked like an intimate moment
between a husband and wife. What was interesting in the photo was that Cassidy and Dan were in the forefront and slightly out of focus and behind them in sharp focus was Megan. The shot of her face revealed an expression of pure fury and gave a close-­up of her eyes and lips much better than the other picture of her. Mel caught her breath when she saw it.

  “That’s the lipstick I saw on the wall,” Dwight said. He tapped Megan’s face with his forefinger. “I’m sure of it.”

  Mel felt Uncle Stan straighten up beside her. He fished a business card out of his pocket and tossed it to Tucker. “Send that picture to my e-­mail and any others like it. I have to go.”

  Mel followed him to the door while the others went back to viewing the pictures. “Uncle Stan, where are you going?”

  “It’s better if you stay out of this, Mel.”

  “You’re going to arrest Megan, aren’t you?” she asked.

  “Just look for more pictures, okay?”

  The door banged shut behind him. Mel leaned against it. If Megan had murdered Cassidy she deserved to be arrested, but Mel couldn’t help feeling horrible for Dan and the baby and, honestly, for Megan. If Cassidy hadn’t interfered with Dan and Megan getting together, then Megan would have been with Dan from the start.

  Mel knew that if someone had stopped her from being with Joe, oh, she’d be furious. But murder, there was never any excuse for that, no matter what the person had done. To take a life was just inexcusable. Even if Cassidy had refused to divorce Dan, there was no excuse for murdering her.

  Dwight continued to search through all of Tucker’s pictures, flagging the ones he saw that Uncle Stan would be interested in. Mel returned and sat beside him, taking notes on a pad she’d retrieved from her office. It occurred to her that establishing a timeline would be helpful and she had Dwight click on the pictures to see the time each photo was taken. She focused on the pictures of Megan and Cassidy, trying to see when Cassidy left for the ladies’ room and where Megan was at the same time.

  “What are you doing?” Dwight asked.

  “Establishing a timeline for the murder,” Mel said. “We know the poison was put in Cassidy’s drink. I’m trying to figure out her whereabouts before she disappears into the bathroom, and I’m trying to track Megan, too.”