Bake Off

by S. Y. Robins

  “Miss,” he called to the young lady and she quickly came from behind the corner, her green eyes clearly showing concern. To her, he had sounded a bit frantic when he called out for her attention.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Okay?” he said evenly and slid off his glasses. “No, everything is not okay.”

  The young woman sucked in a breath, “I don’t know what to say---”

  “It’s fantastic.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “This is the best chocolate ganache I’ve ever had.” The young lady was now beaming. “Is the chef here?”

  “I’m the chef.”

  Carver’s eyebrows shot up. “Well then young lady, I have a surprise for you. I’m going to make you into a star.”

  Confused, the young lady said, “I make good cake, but I’m far from a star.”

  “Well you will be when I’m---” Abruptly he stopped talking, attempted to stand suddenly and was breathing heavily.

  “Are you okay?” the young chef asked feeling worried, grabbing hold of his arm.

  “I---” He never got another word out as he slumped to the floor. Oh God, he’s having a heart attack, the young chef thought to herself as she bent down to help him, but it was useless, Carver Jenson was already dead.

  1

  “Why did he have to die in my store?” Sandy said before she caught herself and the detective frowned at her.

  “I mean, not that I wanted him to die outside my store. I just...well...never mind.”

  The police officer or rather detective who was interviewing Sandy studied her carefully before giving her a funny look. Oh gosh, he must think I’m crazy. He had introduced himself as Detective Roonie. He had red hair like Sandy’s and his eyes were a very light shade of blue. He was also probably the palest person Sandy had ever met in her life. And she wondered how he ever survived the nasty Texas summers.

  “Ms. Pepper---”

  “Sandy.” She immediately corrected.

  “I prefer to call you Ms. Pepper; I think we should keep things formal,” Detective Roonie promptly replied.

  Sandy was caught off guard by his words and swallowed hard. “Whatever you prefer Detective.”

  “As I was saying Ms. Pepper, you know what comes next right?”

  “I’ll need to make a statement?”

  “You already did.”

  “Oh yeah,” Sandy was feeling discombobulated as if this was happening to someone else, not to her.

  “We’re going to need to shut down your shop.”

  “What? No!”

  “I’m afraid that we are.”

  “This shop is my livelihood. You can’t just shut us down.”

  “Sorry, but your shop is a crime scene until we say otherwise.”

  “Crime scene?!”

  “Yes. It looks like he was poisoned and until I find evidence to the contrary, we’re closing you down.”

  “You think he was poisoned?” Sandy’s eyes bulged at the idea. She had simply thought he had a heart attack. Surely, it was just a heart attack. Detective Roonie was way off base, she thought shaking her head refusing to believe anyone here would be capable of murdering someone and in her restaurant of all places.

  And then a thought occurred to her, “Oh my God, am I a suspect? I’m a suspect, aren’t I?” she said about to faint, only a few heartbeats away from hysteria.

  “I’m not at liberty to say more until we learn more, Ms. Pepper. Just be sure to stay in town and like I said, until we have what we need, your shop will be out of commission.” He closed the little notepad he was carrying and was about to walk away, but Sandy scrambled behind him. Her short legs taking quick strides to keep up with his long gait.

  “But I---”

  “No buts.”

  “Then let me speak to your supervisor.”

  He stopped and gave Sandy a look that clearly showed he wasn’t taking her seriously and it wasn’t the first time that Sandy regretted setting up shop in nowhere Texas instead of in New York like her grandmother had suggested. But no, determined to make it on her own she had opened Hot Stuff in her apartment and built it up so that she could afford a storefront with a little help from her absentee father in the form of a hefty down payment. And from there her shop had been featured in many pastry and dessert blogs around the world. It wasn’t until small town things like this happened that she regretted her choice to stay in the town so close to her alma mater. She knew she could have started her business anywhere, but she had been active in the Fou Valley’s youth club while in college. And after she opened Hot Stuff and had recruited her best friend Imani as her assistant, she had taken it upon herself to open the doors of Hot Stuff two evenings out of the month so that all interested kids could learn the ins and outs of the pastry world. Her shop could have been successful anywhere. Sandy was very sure of that. However, she had stayed for the kids. It had been five years since she graduated from college, but she had very few regrets.

  “I have a group of preteens coming in this weekend. I host the teens’ after school program here in town sometimes as well. Please tell me I’ll be up and running before this weekend.”

  “Well I don’t know. That all depends...”

  “On what?”

  “What we find.”

  “So that’s that?” Sandy placed her hands on her hips and swore softly to herself as the detective didn’t even bother to acknowledge her question. He just walked up to a few other officers and began to speak with them. Well this sucks, she thought to herself.

  She walked away and took down the Now Hiring sign, not wanting anyone to stop by while the police were investigating and Sandy could see from the corner of her eyes that the coroner’s office was removing the body.

  She swallowed hard and tried not to look. She shook her head, not knowing what to do and sighed as she watched additional cops and what seemed to be a forensic team descend on the small shop she had built to its current glory. As she reached for her purse she wondered what Dr. Jenson could have done to inspire so much hate that someone could have possibly killed him. And then she pushed thoughts of murder aside. The detective surely was just overreacting. He was probably just happy to have something else to do besides solving mysteries of what random teen painted a vulgarity on the town’s welcome sign.

  However, Sandy knew that it didn’t matter. Detective Roonie was taking it seriously enough to close down her shop, which meant Sandy had to do something about it and sooner rather than later. The kids from the club were counting on her and she had a business to run. So as she surrendered her keys to the police officer and walked away to her car she thought of contacting the last person she wanted to speak with, but it didn’t matter, desperate times called for desperate measures.

  * * *

  “Sandy, my dear girl! How are you?” Her grandmother screeched into the phone upon hearing Sandy’s voice. Sandy smiled. Her Grammy was always super sweet. Her grandfather, well, not so much.

  “Hi Grammy, how are you?”

  “Oh wonderful, dear. I’m starting this new cooking class in the community. You know we’re a bunch of seniors, but we need activity. We need fun. We can’t just sit around and plan our deaths.” She laughed. Sandy thought of how her Grammy’s sense of humor had always been frank and maybe also a bit morbid. The community she was referring to was a senior neighborhood. According to her Granny, you had to be at least 55 to move in. It had been her grandfather’s decision to leave Dallas and settle into a senior’s community. Her grandfather had seen it as a way to get away from the riff-raff as he referred to any human being below the age of 40. He just didn’t trust the youth of America today, is what he liked to say. Sandy always wondered why not? Given that he had made his fortune exploiting the youth of America, Sandy didn’t understand his hatred for them. After all, her grandfather’s company which he had recently sold marketed their products to the very millennials that her grandfather hated so much. Sandy assumed it wasn’t just millennials he hated. If h
er grandfather could live on an island away from all human kind, he would.

  “I’m sure it’ll be a great class,” Sandy said and she meant it. After all, her grandmother had taught her everything she knew about cooking. Actually, she had taught her everything she knew about life, given that she had raised her.

  “Granny, I umm...was wondering when was the last time you heard from Dad?”

  Gone was the pleasant tone from earlier as her grandmother responded tensely, “He sent us a postcard from Bermuda the other day. Well, I should say he sent me a postcard, given that your grandfather refuses to even acknowledge that he has a son. I should have left him a long time ago,” she mumbled half to herself. Sandy wasn’t surprised by her statement. She herself wondered how in the world her grandmother had put up with her grandfather for so long. And guiltily she believed that her grandmother would have left her grandfather a long time ago if it weren’t for the fact that she had been stuck raising Sandy when her own father disappeared, leaving Sandy without a father or a mother.

  “Did he by chance leave a way to contact him?” Sandy asked before her grandmother could lose her train of thought. She admittedly wasn’t as sharp as she once was and needed a reminder sometimes.

  “Do you need to talk to him? Are you trying to contact him because I have a number for him? I’m not sure if it works though. I called it a dozen times at least just to hear his voice, but he never answers.” She said this with a sigh and this time Sandy could hear the sadness in her grandmother’s voice.

  “I’m sorry, Granny,” Sandy said immediately regretting that she had brought her father up.

  “No need to apologize for your father’s behavior, honey. I never blamed you for his actions.”

  Sandy immediately changed the subject, no longer interested in her father’s help, “Well, I hope the cooking class goes well. I might have some time on my hands, so if you need me feel free to call me. I’m volunteering myself.”

  “Time on your hands? Running that shop all by yourself? Are you kidding me? I bet you miss Imani. She was such a sweetheart.” Imani, Sandy’s best friend and assistant pastry chef, had recently gotten married and relocated to Seattle. Sandy had been reluctant to replace her, not only because Imani had been her best friend, but also because she was the best chef she knew. When it came to creating new and amazing flavor profiles, they had been in perfect sync. And Sandy knew she wouldn’t find that type of relationship with anyone else. But she had a business to run, so when Imani had left, Sandy had placed the “Now Hiring” sign out front, hoping that maybe if she even needed to train someone, she would get lucky and they would be half the chef Imani had been.

  “I do miss Imani, but I umm…Yeah, well I had an incident.”

  “An incident?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is everything alright?”

  “Umm...not quite. They closed my shop down.”

  Granny gasped and said, “But why? What about the kids? Where are they going to go?” Granny was just as fond of the town kids as Sandy was and volunteered whenever she felt up to it when she came down from Dallas to visit Sandy. Slowly Sandy recounted her story.

  When she finished there was just silence on the phone, “That poor man,” were the first words out of her Granny’s mouth.

  “I know. It’s terrible.”

  “You didn’t use too much cayenne, did you?”

  “Granny!”

  “What?”

  “Cayenne doesn’t kill people. Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “I’m sorry. I just know sometimes you go a little overboard on those fancy new concoctions you come up with.” Granny was strictly old-school and accordingly she added, “Honestly, what’s wrong with selling just plain chocolate chip cookies or pound cakes? I love a good pound cake. Speaking of which, are you coming out here for dinner next Sunday? I’m making pound cake.”

  Sandy had to smile. She hadn’t missed a Sunday dinner since she studied abroad briefly in Europe, yet her Granny or Grammy as she liked to call her, always asked her that question week after week.

  “I’ll be there. I love you.”

  “Love you too dear.”

  “Tell grandfather that I said hello, I guess.” Sandy added reluctantly.

  “Will do, if he even feels like talking today...” She didn’t bother to hide her bitterness and Sandy couldn’t blame her. Granny Pepper was a saint for dealing with her cranky, mean-spirited grandfather. And on that note she hung up and placed her head back against the couch.

  “Oh God, please let it have been a heart attack. Please don’t let the phone ring and then have them tell me it was murder. Please, God. Pretty please,” She said staring up at her ceiling.

  The phone rang then, startling Sandy and as she reached for it, she kept her fingers crossed.

  2

  It had been three days and Sandy breathed a sigh of relief when she actually had the keys to her shop back in her hand. She looked around her shop and felt violated, for a lack of a better word. Things weren’t where she left them. Everything seemed out of place. She sighed to herself and knew she would waste valuable time just getting her shop back in order. Detective Roonie hadn’t told her details of the case. When he had called her, he had simply told her that she could be let back into her shop after a few days. According to the detective, foul play was suspected, but he didn’t give her any additional information. In fact, he had grudgingly supplied the little information she did know. Gratefully, despite his death occurring at her shop, she was no longer considered a suspect, which at least made her feel slightly better.

  After she had the shop open for a while, she realized that her normally booming afternoon business was scarce. Not thinking much of it, she sat the Now Hiring sign out front again and continued making pastries. She was deep in the task when her cellphone rang. She looked down and immediately recognized her friend’s number.

  “Hey, you!” Imani said and immediately Sandy smiled.

  “How’s Seattle treating you?”

  “Ughh...it’s alright. I wish Emmett had been recruited somewhere fun, like L.A. or Miami. Seattle is just kind of dull to me.” Emmett, Imani’s husband, was a freelance sports journalist.

  Before Sandy could comment, she continued on, “Anyway, what’s going on in Fou Valley. Tell me everything. I can’t believe that someone was murdered in our shop. That’s crazy!”

  “Huh?”

  “Umm...you did see the paper, right?”

  “The paper? How did you see it? You get the Fou Valley Chronicle delivered to Seattle?” Sandy said bewildered.

  “No. I read the headlines online. They have their own website.”

  “Our small town newspaper has its own website?”

  “Yes, everyone’s online now. But I didn’t call to discuss Fou Valley Chronicle coming into the 21st century. I called to get the scoop. What’s going on? And why didn’t you tell me?”

  Sandy said, “Detective Roonie made it seem like he would arrest me if I talked about it so I was sort of hoping it would all just blow over.”

  “Blow over? It’s made the headlines not only in Fou Valley but lots of other places too. I even heard it on a morning talk show.”

  “What?”

  “Ummm yeah, I’m surprised you didn’t hear anything. That guy who died there, he was a television personality on the Culinary Network.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Wow, you’re really in the dark, aren’t you?”

  “Apparently. Just tell me.” Sandy said now feeling her stomach churn even more than it had when the man had fallen to the ground dead at her feet.

  “The guy who died in our shop was Dr. Carver Jenson. You probably didn’t recognize him. He looks like your average Joe so unless you watch his show, which millions of people do, you probably wouldn’t recognize him from any other patron.”

  Sandy knew her friend was right. She was too busy running the shop and volunteering to do much TV watching.

  “So this gu
y was like super famous?”

  “Yep. He had a show all about culinary delights. He went around and critiqued well-known bakeries. It was called Culinary Hype. Pretty much, he liked to unceremoniously show up at bakeries and eateries around the country that were supposedly the best of the best and he would decide whether or not to feature them on his show. Apparently he must have taken an interest in Hot Stuff. And now the world will be too and not exactly because of our culinary masterpieces.”

  “What do you mean?” Sandy said although she was slowly putting it together. No wonder not one customer had shown up.

  “They’re calling Hot Stuff, Death by Chocolate, which is crazy, because we bake more than chocolate!” Imani said huffily. She still saw herself as part of the team even though she was thousands of miles away.

  “So the news is reporting that he died here?”

  “Yep. Our shop was in the headlines. I’m surprised no one called you for an interview.”

  Sandy swallowed hard, “I’ve been so out of it lately, depressed by the shop being closed that the only call I’ve taken has been from Detective Roonie. If anyone else called me it went straight to voicemail. And even that’s full now. I haven’t checked it because I’ve been in such a funk.”

  “I get it. So has this whole situation hurt business?”

  “We just reopened and not a soul has come in.”

  “I’m so sorry, Sandy.”

  “I guess it’s no wonder. Everyone is probably associating my shop with selling killer pastries. And not in a good way.”

  “Yeah,” Imani agreed quietly. “Do you think your dad could help figure this all out? Isn’t that what he does for a living?”

  “Well, sort of. I called Granny when this whole mess happened. He hasn’t been answering her calls so I just left it alone. I’d rather not ask for his help anyway. His modus operandi is to not be there when I need him, so I’m not sure why I was expecting differently.”