Bake Off

by S. Y. Robins

  “It isn’t fair,” David said when she returned, bearing her little star trophy.

  “It’s all right,” Emmeline told him. “Just think how many people will come to see the shop now.” She felt her chin tremble, and looked away. “You know, it’s been a really long weekend. I think I’m going to head home.”

  “Oh, sweetheart.” Her sister in law enfolded her in a hug. “You know that—”

  But whatever words of wisdom Jenna might have had, they were lost in the sudden screaming from behind the podium. The crowd surged forward to look, carrying everyone with it, and more screams rang out as they saw what had upset the cleaning woman: James Pike’s body, blood running from his head, and the blood spattered trophy lying nearby.

  “Oh, my God.” Emmeline put her hand over her mouth. Everyone was looking around as if they might spot the killer lurking in the crowd, and all she could think of was the one person no one would see.

  Audrey Galloway.

  2

  “And you’re planning to go into work like everything’s normal? Just like that?” Nick, Emmeline’s downstairs neighbor, flipped the pancakes and gestured at her mug with a spatula. “Drink your coffee.”

  “Well…I guess I didn’t think of closing the shop.” Emmeline took an obedient sip of coffee and grimaced. “Do you have any creamer? Your coffee is…strong.”

  “Only way to drink it.” Nick stirred the bacon that was hissing in another pan. “Creamer’s in the fridge. And…well, I guess I thought…”

  “The whole town would drop everything?” Emmeline asked. She poured a healthy dose of creamer into her coffee and stirred. “Oh, that’s much better. To be honest with you…” She wrapped her fingers around the mug and stared out at the fall colors. “I guess it doesn’t feel real. I woke up this morning and felt like someone was going to call and say it was all a misunderstanding and James is fine. Is that the stupidest thing ever?”

  “No.” Nick left the stove and came to pull her into a hug, his blue eyes warm with sympathy. “No, it’s not stupid.”

  “The pancakes will burn,” Emmeline said, her voice muffled by his shoulder.

  “Then I’ll make more.” His voice was soft. “You say it doesn’t seem real, but you look like you’ve barely slept, Em.”

  She relaxed into his arms, tears pricking at her eyes. Nick had texted her to invite her downstairs for breakfast, having heard the news about the craft fair and wanting to know if she was all right. He hadn’t asked for any details, for which Emmeline was grateful. He just wanted to make sure she was all right, and seemed to understand instinctively that pancakes and bacon in his sunlit kitchen, with his cat Midnight winding around their feet, was what Emmeline needed to unwind.

  She never would have guessed that they would be friends when he moved in six months ago. Nick was a writer, and between his easy good looks and hectic travel schedule, she was too shy to talk to him—and assumed he’d never be interested in her. But eventually his all-star book tour had come to an end, and he’d come upstairs one night to offer her tea. Nick, it turned out, fit none of the stereotypes she thought of when she thought of authors: neurotic, introverted, full of himself. He made her laugh harder than anyone else in her life, and they’d set up a standing dinner date each week to catch up on their lives.

  And now this. Emmeline tried to keep her breathing steady. She was overtired, and she’d had some very bad dreams the night before. After such a stressful week, she really needed a hug. That was why she felt so comfortable in Nick’s arms. Nothing more than that. It certainly wasn’t that his chest was more muscled than a writer’s chest had any right to be. And it wasn’t that his sweet offer of breakfast was making her think he would be the perfect boyfriend. Nope. Not at all. She drew back and wiped her eyes, trying to summon a smile.

  “I’m sure I’ll feel better after some breakfast and coffee,” she said, trying to convince herself as much as him. “Baking will help.”

  “Really?” Nick raised an eyebrow as he flipped the burned pancakes into the trash.

  “It’s what I do to relax.” Baking always helped. When her parents had died in a car crash fifteen years ago, Emmeline had helped her grandmother bake the pastries and cakes for the funeral, and the smell of flour and spices, the exacting measurements, and the soothing motion of kneading had given her a peace she could still not find anywhere else. As she made her way through business school in Chicago, Emmeline baked whenever she felt stressed; toward the end of her degree, that was just about all the time. As her job at the bank grew worse and worse, she had brought in multiple batches of scones and cupcakes every week, trying to work the sadness in her soul out with sugar and vanilla.

  “Are you going to be alone at the bakery?” Nick asked her, frowning.

  “Well, for a couple of hours, anyway—I usually do all of the baking myself. Why?”

  “I…it’s nothing.” When she raised an eyebrow, Nick shrugged. “I don’t like the idea of you being alone with some murderer running around town.”

  “You think they’d come after me?” Emmeline gaped.

  “Well…I mean…do they have a motive? Until they do, for all we know, it’s some serial killer on the loose.”

  Emmeline swallowed uncomfortably. She hadn’t thought of that. She hadn’t told Nick about her private suspicions of Audrey’s guilt, feeling that it was just too ridiculous to be true. The police would figure it all out, anyway.

  As if on cue, a knock sounded on the door.

  “Sounds like my door. I’ll get it.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “You’ll lose another set of pancakes. I’ll be fine.” Emmeline gave him a look and went to the front door, raising her eyebrows when she saw the policemen waiting at her door. “Hello. I’m Emmeline.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Miss Hayes.” One of the officers, a young man with sandy blond hair, frowned at a notepad. “We seem to have had your address wrong.”

  “Oh, that is my house. I’m just having breakfast with my neighbor.”

  “I see.” The first officer, whose name—she saw from his badge—was Johnson, looked at the other one nervously. “Ah, may we come in, ma’am? We have some questions about James Pike’s murder.”

  “Of course.” Why was she surprised? She should have known that they would want to ask for any details she could remember. But there had been dozens of people there; somehow she’d thought they would ask bystanders and the mayor.

  “Now, Miss Hayes—did you know Mr. Pike well?”

  “No, not at all.” Emmeline shook her head. “I saw him once or twice at my tea shop, but that was it.”

  “So you wouldn’t say you knew him well.”

  “No, definitely not.” She thought back. “I did give him a taste of the honey-spice cake before the competition. He said he really liked it, and I told him that was what I was entering in the craft competition. At the time, I didn’t know he made sculptures.”

  “I see.” Officer Johnson made notes. “So you would say that you were surprised he won the craft competition.”

  “A little, I guess.” Emmeline shrugged.

  They looked at her, waiting for her to say something more.

  “His sculpture was really nice,” she said, finally. “I voted for it.”

  “Miss Hayes, didn’t you think that you would win the competition?” Officer Johnson asked her.

  “I mean, I hoped I would.” What was going on?

  “Now, I hear from someone at the competition last night that you had said…” The second officer flipped through a notebook. “Ah. That you would ‘crush the competition.’”

  “I didn’t say that.” They looked at her, and Emmeline remembered. “Oh, wait. I did. It was at the shop a couple of weeks ago. I’d just given out tastes of the honey-spice cake and everyone really liked it. I was just—I didn’t really think I’d win, I just…” She shrugged.

  “I see. Now, winning that competition would have meant a fairly substantial cash prize,
I believe.”

  “A thousand dollars,” Emmeline said. “Usually it’s just bragging rights, you know. And a trophy.”

  “Mm.” Officer Johnson looked up at her. “And how is your business doing, Miss Hayes?”

  “Fairly well. It just started paying its own way.” She was quite proud of that. It wasn’t what she’d imagined using her business degree for, but it felt so much better than spending each day in a suit, looking over spreadsheets. She was still glowing with pride when she realized she’d missed another question. “I’m sorry, what did you ask?”

  “I asked, how did it feel for you to come so close to winning the competition, and then not make it at the last second?”

  For a moment, it seemed like a sweet question. The man was sympathetic to her emotions. He understood that even though it was a silly craft competition, it really meant something to her. Then, like ice water, the realization hit her.

  “You can’t possibly think I did it.” Her eyes were wide. “It was a craft competition. It was…it wasn’t…You can’t be serious.” She shut her mouth with a snap and looked between the two of them. “You really do. You think I did it.”

  They just looked at her, and Emmeline began to shake her head.

  “No. I was with my family the whole time. The whole time.”

  “Ma’am, it says here you left to go down the corridor where Mr. Pike was found, and you came back about five minutes later.”

  “I went to the bathroom!” Emmeline cried. She sank her face into her hands. “You can’t think I did it.” It felt like a nightmare, but when she looked up, they were still there.

  “We’ll be back with more questions,” Officer Johnson said seriously. “Ma’am, we’ll have to ask you not to leave town for a few days.”

  3

  It was impossible to get away from news of the murder. Even baking did not soothe Emmeline’s mind today. She measured and grated and sifted and kneaded, but the blank horror never eased from her mind.

  There weren’t any formal charges, Officer Johnson told her.

  Yet hovered in the air between them, and over Nick’s strident objections, Emmeline went to the shop alone to bake. She didn’t see what else she could do, but her mind was a whirl of questions: would it seem more suspicious to the police if she went to work, or if she stayed home? She wanted, all of a sudden, to go see her grandmother’s grave and tell her troubles to the clean air of the graveyard. It would be beautiful with the fall colors coming out…but it would look suspicious if she skipped town, wouldn’t it?

  They couldn’t possibly think she had done it. They just couldn’t. The idea that someone would commit murder over an craft competition was just too ridiculous for her to believe…until she remembered that her first thought the night before was to blame Audrey. Emmeline shook her head as she lifted chocolate ginger scones off their tray and loaded them into the display case. She’d clearly been watching too much TV.

  Her phone buzzed, and she jumped. Emmeline looked over and seriously considered ignoring it entirely, but finally caved and went to check, wiping floury hands on her apron.

  Are you okay? She could practically feel Nick’s worry radiating through the air, and she smiled.

  A little bit. Baking helped. He didn’t need to know that it hadn’t helped at all.

  Tell me if you want me to come hang out there.

  She smiled and chewed her nail. There was an invitation there and suddenly, with everything going on, she was shy. She hadn’t dated in years. Was he flirting?

  No. Men as gorgeous and successful as Nick did not flirt with their upstairs neighbors.

  You’re sweet. Are we on for dinner tomorrow?

  Make it tonight. Steaks and plenty of wine.

  Her heart flip-flopped. Oh, dear. She had been staring at the message for a good minute, her brain cycling endlessly through inadequate responses that were just flirty enough to be funny without being so flirty that he would think she was serious if he wasn’t, when the door opened and rescued her from her own mind.

  See you there she typed and went out to greet the customers.

  The day was so busy that Emmeline hardly had the time to sit down. She darted from table to table refilling coffee mugs and teapots, dispensing enough scones that she nearly ran out midafternoon and had to bake three more batches. She would have considered the day a wild success, but unfortunately, all anyone wanted to do was talk about the murder. By the time the shop finally emptied around the evening, Emmeline wanted to scream. When the door jingled again, she seriously considered calling out that they were closed.

  “Hello?”

  That voice changed her mind. Fired up with something she couldn’t understand, heart suddenly pounding as if she was trying to outrun a bear, Emmeline walked out into the front room, pasting a smile on her face.

  “Hello.”

  Audrey looked terrible. Her eyes were red, her skin was several shades too pale, and her once-perfect hair was drawn back in a ponytail. Suppressing an ungenerous smile to realize that the effortless look wasn’t so effortless after all, Emmeline tilted her head carefully and waited for Audrey to say something. The woman seemed frozen, however.

  “Why don’t you sit down,” Emmeline suggested. She pulled out a chair at one of the tables closest to the counter. “I’ll get you some herbal tea to go with a scone. Does that sound good?”

  “I guess.” Audrey sounded like she hadn’t heard a single word.

  She would probably, Emmeline guessed, have said the same thing if offered warmed over oatmeal and warm beer. She looked over her shoulder as she worked on the tray, trying to examine Audrey as stealthily as she could. For certain, she seemed sure that the woman hadn’t slept at all, and she had the air of someone who had been too close to death. Or perhaps that was just an overactive imagination; Emmeline set the tray down, and on an impulse, pulled out the chair opposite her and sat as well.

  “Are you okay?” She asked finally.

  “No.” Audrey’s chin trembled, and she looked over her shoulder sharply. Then she drew herself up, eyes wide, and shook her head. “I mean, yes. I guess I just didn’t sleep well.”

  “Me, neither,” Emmeline said encouragingly, with a sympathetic smile. It wasn’t even a lie. She was just congratulating herself for playing the good cop really well when Audrey blurted out,

  “I can’t believe he just died. Blood…” She looked briefly like she was going to throw up.

  “I thought you’d gone home,” Emmeline said carefully, hoping to trap the woman into an admission. She almost flinched when the woman looked up at her.

  “I have four of those trophies at home,” she whispered. “I keep thinking about it coming down, the base hitting—” She dropped her face into her hands.

  “There, there.” Emmeline patted the woman’s shoulder, genuinely torn. Was this conversation odd? How would she know? She didn’t know how she was supposed to behave, or even how she was supposed to feel. How would she know what was odd for Audrey? Part of her was insisting that something really was wrong here, but she couldn’t tell if that was just her having taken an irrational dislike to another pretty woman.

  “And I heard they think you did it,” Audrey wailed suddenly. Her face was in her hands, and she fumbled in her purse for a tissue.

  “I…” Emmeline froze. She tried not to speak, but the words tumbled out of her mouth anyway, unbidden: “I’m so scared. I keep thinking everything I do looks guilty.”

  “I know what you mean,” Audrey whispered. But her mouth clamped shut when Emmeline looked at her, and she dropped her eyes away.

  “What do you mean?” Emmeline asked, almost coldly, before she could stop herself. Did the woman feel guilty because she’d cast suspicion on someone else?

  “Nothing. I don’t know why I said it. I guess because we were both competitors and…” Audrey did not look up. But a few moments later, her voice came again, so soft that Emmeline almost didn’t hear it. “I feel so guilty.”

  “
What?” Emmeline, halfway out of her seat, dropped back down and fixed her eyes on Audrey.

  “I voted for you! I voted for you because I thought you were so much nicer than him. I know people say I vote for myself, but I never do. I think other people’s quilts are nice, too, you know,” she added defensively. “But then I kept thinking, maybe if I hadn’t voted for you—then there wouldn’t have been that tie, and no one would have been talking about your face after you lost.”

  “Who was talking about it?” Emmeline demanded, before she could stop herself. “Who said it was me?” There were tears in her eyes and she dashed them away angrily before realizing how guilty the questions made her sound.

  “They don’t matter,” Audrey said fiercely. She looked up and met Emmeline’s eyes without flinching. “I know you didn’t do it. You’re not a murderer. They’re being crazy. You lost a craft competition, not…” She shook her head and looked away. “I don’t see how they could think you did it over that.”

  “That’s what I thought when they showed up this morning,” Emmeline said. To her horror, her voice was quavering. She bit down on her lips and looked away. “I kept talking and talking and I can’t remember all of what I said. I wasn’t watching any of it because it never even occurred to me—and then—”

  “I know you didn’t do it.” Audrey’s voice was fierce. “I know you didn’t. I believe you.”

  Emmeline looked back and felt her face crumple at the kindness.

  “Thank you so much.” She gave a laugh that was mostly sniffle. “I don’t suppose you’d go tell the police that. Give me an alibi or something.”

  “I wish I could,” Audrey said, but she didn’t look up. “But I was home, remember?”

  For a moment, all Emmeline could feel was blinding rage. Audrey was choosing her own story over Emmeline’s, when she could easily have said she was in the back hallway—and for all Emmeline knew, maybe Audrey had been there. She was just opening her mouth to say that Audrey had better go, when she caught sight of the woman’s face again. Audrey looked wretched, guilty and tortured and…