Bake Off

by S. Y. Robins

  “Emma is telling people that it was just a misunderstanding.” Her mother’s voice said clearly what she thought of that idea.

  “Mom, it might have been.”

  “Mm-hmm. But there’s more. Someone overheard her talking about buying some land in South America—this was months ago. But coincidentally, it was right around the time they took out the new policies.” Her forehead creased. “Now, the only problem with that one is that she was apparently talking to Joel.”

  “So it wasn’t exactly a getaway plan, then.”

  “Although, it would make sense to have him know about it and suspect nothing was wrong,” her mother pointed out. “And the final piece of information, my dear, is that Emma has been seen taking large sums of money out at the bank every day in the early morning. In cash.”

  “Who’s seen her doing that?” Suzanna frowned. “Someone hired a private investigator? Are we in a crime novel now?”

  “Hush, young lady. I’ll have you know that old women get up early. I won’t say who saw her.” Her mother’s eyebrows rose in her secret smile. “But I will say that it’s been every morning for a good month. And today…? Apparently, the life insurance check came in.”

  “Mom, you’re being ridiculous.”

  “Why? I thought you wanted to talk to her, too.”

  “I did! But that was because I thought she was just angry and grieving and knew her husband and I had been having problems. She was always too nice for him.”

  “You don’t know that.” Her mother pointed a finger at her. “Like marries like.”

  “Not always.”

  “Well, come along. Let’s go see her, then. Put the cake batter in the fridge.”

  “We can’t just go over there!”

  “Why not? She only lives a few blocks away. We’ll walk.” Her mother sighed. “And I promise we’ll try your way first.”

  “Thank you.” Suzanna put the cake batter in the fridge grudgingly and went to get her coat. “Are the reporters gone?”

  “They’ve given up for the meantime. Your lawyer put out another statement, by the way.”

  “Don’t even tell me.” The woman had been nothing but useless.

  “All right, then. Come along.”

  Out they went into the swirl of leaves and wind, Suzanna shivering at the sudden chill after her days spent in a hot kitchen. She had re-watched most of Friends, and she and Eliza between them had eaten three batches of cookies. Her waistline wasn’t going to thank her for that.

  “What are you going to say?” her mother asked, as they walked.

  Suzanna scuffed a few leaves with her boot and considered her answer.

  “I’m going to start by saying that I know she probably doesn’t want to see me, and she doesn’t have to invite me in. I’ll say that I know it must be difficult to lose her husband, and we weren’t on great terms, but that I wouldn’t ever have killed him, and I hope they turn up who really did it.”

  “Hmmm.” Her mother also considered. “It’s not perfect, but it’s not bad.”

  “Mom, are you sure we should be doing this?”

  “Yes,” her mother said seriously. “We should.”

  “But why?”

  “Because if you’re right, we can’t trust the police or your lawyer to come up with other leads,” her mother told her. “And your sister is right. They shouldn’t have arrested you without finding Joel’s body first. Maybe it will show that the murderer couldn’t have been you. Now chin up, and follow me.”

  They walked up to Emma’s door hesitantly and knocked. Standing on the step, Suzanna was acutely conscious of the cars passing by. Of the people seeing her here.

  “It’s good that you want to stay outside,” her mother said. “That way people can say they saw everything.”

  “You know how they twist things, though.”

  “Yes, but no one can make up a shove or yelling, right?”

  “True.”

  They waited. And waited. Suzanna knocked again.

  “No one’s here. Come on.”

  “Wait…” Her mother was frowning. “Do you hear something? Wait for the wind to die down.”

  And she was right. As the wind quieted for another gust, Suzanna caught a faint cry. With a look at one another, she and her mother pushed open the door to Emma’s house.

  “Emma? Mrs. Smith? Are you here?”

  The cry was faint, but they caught it. Running to the kitchen, they pushed their way through the door—and Suzanna screamed. Emma lay on the kitchen floor, blood pooling on the floor.

  Her lips formed the word help, and then her head fell back and she passed out.

  3

  “So you’re saying you had absolutely nothing to do with this?” The police officer was clearly skeptical.

  “No! I didn’t!” Suzanna sat on the steps of Emma’s house as police, paramedics, and lawyers swarmed all around them. And media. Of course, the media. “Can’t we go inside?”

  The officer gave her an annoyed look, but shooed her up the stairs into the house. The place, one unnaturally quiet with both Emma and Joel gone, was now such a hub of activity that it fairly buzzed. The ambulance had been on the scene within minutes, and all of the neighbors who gathered around to speculate in hushed whispers about overdoses and broken hearts were soon scandalized by the appearance of police—and Suzanna, of course.

  Now the ambulance was gone, but the caution tape was up and the media had started arriving. Her lawyer was presently speaking urgently to two of the officers, but Suzanna had no hopes about what might come from that.

  “All right. So, Miss Thomas.” The police officer sat across the dining room table from her. “You’re telling me that you came to the house to speak to Mrs. Smith.”

  “Yes,” Suzanna repeated impatiently. She tossed a look at her lawyer. “Should she be here for this?”

  “There’s no need.”

  “I think there’s a need,” Suzanna muttered.

  “Do you?” His eyebrows rose.

  “Not like that!” She wanted to scream. Everything she said seemed to be twisted around and around until it could make her sound guilty. “Officer, the last time I was brought in for questioning, I ended up in jail!”

  “Because you are the leading suspect in the murder of Joel Smith,” the officer reminded her. “And now you have been found next to his wife, who may or may not be mortally injured.”

  “I called you here!” Suzanna waved her hand at the kitchen. “There have got to be people who saw us walking here and waiting outside the door. It must be clear that Emma was injured a while ago. Don’t you have teams that can analyze that?”

  “This isn’t CSI, ma’am.”

  “But you have to understand," Suzanna whispered. “I didn’t do it.”

  “No? So why were you here? What did you come here to say to Mrs. Smith?”

  So she tried telling the truth. Again.

  “Okay. I understand that from your point of view, there’s evidence against me.”

  “From our point of view?” He looked almost angry.

  “And that’s valid!” Suzanna hastened to assure him. “But me? I know I didn’t do it. So I know that someone called in that tip and they either saw someone else and thought it was me, or they just figured that was what happened, you know? And the tip was a lie. Don’t you see?”

  He looked at her, stony-faced.

  “Okay, just listen. I came here because I thought maybe Emma was the one who called in the anonymous tip.”

  “And you came here to tell her to take it back?” His tone was incredulous. “That’s called intimidating a witness, ma’am.”

  “I wasn’t going to—look, officer, I only meant to tell her that even though Joel and I never got along, I would never have killed him. I wasn’t even going to mention the tip. I just wanted her to know that Joel might have been a jerk to me, but I wouldn’t ever have killed him for that. I know she lost her husband. I was sorry for her.”

  “So sorry you br
oke into her house.”

  “She was calling for help!”

  “She was unconscious when the authorities arrived.”

  “Did you see how much blood she lost?” Suzanna gestured wildly and was nearly sick at the memory. “How can you not see?"

  “Miss Thomas, do you understand that you are now a suspect in the attempted murder of Emma as well as her husband?”

  “I didn’t come here to kill her!”

  “And when you were here…”

  “I never even talked to her!” Suzanna threw up her hands. “This happened before I got here. You have to believe me.”

  “You keep ending up at crime scenes, ma’am. And as a representative of this police force, I must tell you not to attempt to contact any more members of these families.”

  “I’m not going to,” Suzanna muttered.

  “In fact.” His voice trailed away as he looked over at the other officers and the lawyer, who seemed to have come to an accord. “Well?”

  “My client and I will be going.” For once, the woman seemed decisive. “Miss Thomas, please come with me. We must discuss this new development.”

  “But Miss Thomas is a suspect in Mrs. Smith’s assault.”

  “There is no evidence at all that she did anything other than call for assistance,” the lawyer said crisply. “Media stationed a few streets away observed that she did not leave the house at all until today, and there simply wasn’t time between when she went inside and when she called the police for the attack to have taken place. Not to mention, there are no bloodspots or defensive wounds on her, and she’s not carrying a bag, so she can’t have changed clothes.”

  The media had helped her. Suzanna would not have seen that coming.

  “So…” The officer who had been questioning Suzanna looked at the others.

  “So she is not being arrested,” the lawyer said. She took Suzanna’s arm and led her from the room. “Don’t talk to the media,” she added under her breath. She ushered Suzanna through the crowd to a nondescript car with tinted windows, and she, Suzanna, and Suzanna’s mother piled inside. “Back to your parents’ house?”

  “Yes, please.”

  The woman drove quickly, and came inside with them.

  “All right. First of all—no more visits to anyone who might be a suspect.” She jabbed a finger at Suzanna. “Second…” Her voice trailed off. “What smells so good?”

  “Cake. Cobbler. Cookies.” Suzanna shrugged. “I bake when I’m stressed.”

  “Ah, yes, the bakery. Well, you should do very well.”

  “Somehow I don’t think ‘murderer’ is exactly the vibe people want in a bakery owner.”

  “Publicity can be good. Now, Miss Thomas. There are some things we need to discuss. The investigation is turning up other suspects. Just so that you know, Mrs. Smith was a suspect up until now. I suspect that her beating will clear her, although frankly I’m not sure we can rule her out just yet.”

  “Why?” Suzanna’s mother frowned. The family had congregated around Suzanna, a comforting presence at her back.

  “Well, it’s beginning to look as though Emma’s brother had significant problems.”

  “The sort of problems he’d need regular cash for?” Suzanna’s mother guessed, one eyebrow arched.

  “Precisely.” The lawyer did not look very pleased. “I see that the gossip mill is functioning at full speed.”

  Suzanna’s mother only shrugged.

  “I have a question.” Suzanna interrupted. “You haven’t wanted to help me up until now. Why not?”

  “Because the case seemed fairly cut and dry up until now. One suspect, one motive, and evidence. But frankly, I expected Joel’s body to have been recovered by now and it hasn’t, and you don’t strike me as a criminal mastermind, Miss Thomas.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It’s actually remarkably difficult to hide a body. Whoever did this, knew what they were doing. And if it was you, you would have laid low until they cleared you for lack of evidence.”

  “Were they going to?”

  “Quite possibly.”

  “You don’t think I got angry and charged over to Emma’s house to kill her, too?”

  “If you were that impulsive, you’d have done it a few days ago. And if you were a calculated killer, you would know that waiting three days would hardly help. So now I find myself quite intrigued, Miss Thomas.”

  “Especially now that Emma’s brother might be a suspect.” Suzanna frowned. “And what did you mean, Emma might still be a suspect?”

  “Well, he needs money, but she’s the one who’s been seen getting it out of the bank.” The lawyer looked pensive. “And it’s not uncommon for partners in crime to squabble over the money once everything is done.”

  “So they think that she helped him kill Joel for the money…”

  Something just seemed off about it. Suzanna shook her head.

  “The police will track it down,” the lawyer told her. “For now, I need to go and research what I can on river currents to see where they’ve been checking for Joel’s body. And you, Miss Thomas, do not go outside at all.”

  Suzanna nodded.

  “Well, this is wonderful news,” Suzanna’s father said heartily. “Two other suspects—and I regret that the poor woman is injured, but there should be more evidence from that. It’s all coming together.”

  But Suzanna shook her head.

  “It doesn’t add up.” She pursed her lips. “Something’s still wrong.”

  And she didn’t like where it was headed.

  4

  “This is interesting.” Suzanna’s mother was frowning at her phone.

  “Mom…” Suzanna paused, setting out a pitcher of tea and some cookies. “The lawyer said to leave it alone.”

  “She said no more confronting people—this is reading about them.” Her mother looked out at the spread. “Was this what you were planning for the tearoom, honey?”

  “Yes.” Suzanna couldn’t keep the pride from her voice as she looked at the cookies. The gingersnaps and snickerdoodles were from her grandmother’s recipes, and they were so melt-in-your-mouth perfect that she hadn’t needed to change the recipe at all. The chocolate chip shortbread was her own creation, painstakingly tested in high school—while Joel tried to steal the recipe and pass the cookies off as his own at a school fair, presumably thinking that cooking would help him get girls—and the cinnamon scones were perfect for fall. “There will be peach spice scones as well, and The Cake.”

  “Will you have hot tea, too, or just sweet tea?” Eliza peered out at what had turned into a rainy day.

  “Hot tea for the cold months.” Suzanna shivered reflexively. “And I thought maybe a really nice hot chocolate, too.”

  “Oh wow.” Eliza had taken a mouthful of a cinnamon scone and she smiled as she chewed. “This is amazing. And you’re going to let me decorate in there, right? Because I have the best ideas. You want it to be just like everyone’s grandma’s kitchen—maybe an armchair or two, but old kitchen tables and the checked curtains…”

  “That’s a perfect idea.” For the first time in days. Suzanna let herself dream that everything might actually work out. She poured herself a glass of tea and sat down on the couch, curling her feet under her. “Okay, fine, you made me curious—what did you say was interesting?”

  “Well, you know how it is with people.” Her mother sounded oddly cautious. “Everyone’s heard something bad about something.”

  “Not about me,” Suzanna protested.

  “I know you went skinny dipping in the river senior year of college.”

  “How?”

  “Old ladies in a town know everything,” her mother reminded her for the tenth time. “So, like I said…”

  “So what do they know about…what’s Emma’s brother’s name?”

  “Harry.” Her mother looked up. “And nothing.”

  “Well, he’s got the money troubles.”

  “He was sick for
a long time. It all adds up.”

  “And nothing aside from that?”

  “No. He’s apparently…”

  “He was,” Eliza said, frowning. She pulled her laptop toward her and opened it, bringing up Facebook. “I remember that now. He was the nicest person anyone ever met. He graduated with me last year, remember?”

  “Right.” Suzanna craned to look at the Facebook tab. “Wait, why didn’t their parents help with the medical bills?”

  “They died in a car crash two years ago.” Eliza looked sad. “Emma really took care of him.”

  “So it’s possible the money from the bank was to cover his debts, then.”

  “Yeah—but not that he’d try to kill her.” Eliza shook her head. “When you talk about a great guy, Harry was that guy. Not like a nice guy, like he bought you dinner and expected you to put out—”

  “Eliza!” their mother said, horrified.

  “Just telling it like it is, Mom. But Harry wasn’t like that. He was the guy who would drive someone their homework when they were sick, or help you out in a subject he was good at. There’s no way he would have done this.”

  “Anyone can be pushed to their limit,” their father opined from the dining room.

  “Not Harry.” Eliza shook her head. “And, Dad, if it was him, if the banks were after him or something, I know Emma would have helped him find a lawyer or something. None of this fits with them. Suzanna was right from the first.”

  “Well, I hate to break it to you…” Their father looked over. “But it might be unrelated. If that money was for Harry, maybe someone else knew she had it and broke in to steal it.”

  “Emma would have defended it because she knew Harry needed it…” Eliza said, frowning. “That tracks.”

  “But why cash?” Suzanna asked. “Why not just go into the bank and transfer the money?”

  They were all silent for a moment.

  “None of this is adding up,” Suzanna said, frustrated. “I don’t get it.”

  Her mother’s phone beeped.

  “Well, this is interesting…”

  “You keep saying that—just say what’s interesting!”