Dying For a Cupcake: A Devereaux's Dime Store Mystery

by Denise Swanson

  When I finally calmed down enough to climb out of my car, I held my breath as I examined the Z4’s fenders and the driver’s-side door. The BMW was the only really expensive toy that I had kept after quitting my job with Stramp Investments. At the time, I rationalized that because of the poor economy I wouldn’t get a good price for it if I sold it, but the honest truth was that I loved that car, and I knew there was more chance of me winning America’s Next Top Model than ever owning a vehicle like it again.

  After a thorough inspection, I blew out a sigh of relief. The sapphire black paint was still perfectly smooth. My sky-high insurance deductible meant that repairing cosmetic damage was out of the question. And call me superficial, but the idea of driving a dented vehicle made me cringe.

  Satisfied that my baby was still in pristine condition, I strolled up the B & B’s sidewalk, admiring the enormous Italianate-style mansion. Back in the mid–eighteen hundreds when this type of Victorian design had been popular, it had belonged to one of the town’s five founding families. Rumor had it that the cupola in the center of the nearly flat roof, the ornamental brackets, and the wraparound porch made the wealthy residents feel as if they were living in a renaissance villa somewhere in Italy.

  As I rang the doorbell, it occurred to me that everyone might already have gone over to the cooking school. Maybe I should have headed to Winnie’s instead of coming here. Or at least called to find out the group’s current location.

  I was digging my cell phone out of my jeans’ pocket when, like the great Oz, I saw Ronni’s face materialize in the curved window of the double front door. She grinned, and a nanosecond later, she ushered me into the spacious foyer, then pulled me over to the reception area nestled inside the curve of a beautiful wooden staircase.

  “Have a seat.” She plopped down behind the desk and tapped a few keys on the laptop.

  Once I was off my feet, I asked, “Has the cupcake menagerie all left for Winnie’s?”

  “About ten minutes ago.” Ronni gestured to the computer. “I needed to get some work done, and since the cooking school’s so small, I said that I’d skip the tour and catch up with them all at dinner.”

  “It was a brilliant idea to ask the various churches to host the meals.” I stretched my legs out and rubbed my sore calves. Standing behind the candy counter for so long without moving was tough on the muscles. “They get to make some money for their organization and the cupcake committee gets a large enough space to feed the contestants, judges, media, and the rest of the crew without having to transport all of them to an out-of-town restaurant.”

  “At first I was stumped when I realized that Shadow Bend’s dining options were limited to Little’s Tea Room, the Golden Dragon, the diner by the highway, and the Dairy Queen,” Ronni said, “because none of those could handle the number of people we would need to accommodate.”

  “St. Saggy’s is tonight’s location, right?” I was referring to St. Sagar. No one had any idea why Shadow Bend’s Catholic church had been named for a martyred bishop from Turkey and, not surprisingly, the parishioners called it St. Saggy. “And then tomorrow’s lunch is the Baptists, and the Presbyterians are doing the cookout in the square for dinner.”

  “Yes. Except for the people staying here, everyone is on their own for breakfast,” Ronni answered, concentrating on the laptop’s screen. “The Methodists won the lottery for the Sunday supper.”

  “Right.” I nodded. “All the churches wanted that meal because it’s when the cupcake winner will be announced.”

  “That one and the picnic were the most sought-after since they’re the only meals open to the public and thus the most profitable.” Ronni’s fingers flew over the keyboard. “Which is why we finally just put all the churches into a hat and drew names for the various options.”

  “How did today’s lunch go?” I asked. “Did all your helpers show up?”

  “Sure.” Ronni finished whatever she’d been working on and closed the laptop’s lid. “Cody and his buddies did a great job. I was glad he was able to come up with enough local college friends of his for me to hire. This is the first time since I bought the B and B that it’s at full capacity, and I couldn’t prepare breakfast, serve it, and clean all the rooms by myself.”

  Cody Gomez did odd jobs for Ronni when he wasn’t at college, and had volunteered to find the additional employees the B & B required for the Cupcake Weekend. Our community wasn’t accustomed to needing so many workers. After the crowd at the dime store this afternoon, I just hoped that Dad, Hannah, and I could handle the customers because I doubted there were many jobless teenagers still in town for me to employ.

  “Speaking of lunch, is there anything left?” I asked. “The shop was mobbed, so I didn’t get a chance to eat anything and I’m famished.” My stomach rumbled as if to reinforce my last statement.

  “Sure.” Ronni jumped to her feet. “Come on into the kitchen and I’ll fix you a plate. It’s all cold stuff, sandwiches, salads, and such. Since we ran out of churches willing to host meals, I had to come up with the food for today’s lunch myself.” She glanced over her shoulder and winked at me. “And none of the kids I hired know how to cook.”

  “Anything is fine.” I followed her down the hall and took a seat at the table as she opened the fridge. “It’s got to be better than my usual lunch of PB and J or a carton of Greek yogurt.”

  “Oh, it’s good,” Ronni assured me as she fixed me a plate. “I had Chapattis over in Sparkville cater it from their deli department.”

  “Yum.” Chapattis was a tiny Italian market located on the outskirts of Shadow Bend’s nearest neighbor. “Another great idea.”

  “Yep. I’m full of ’em.” Ronni beamed, then, after pouring us both a glass of iced tea, joined me. “Let’s just hope this baking competition turns out to be one of my good ideas and not one of my harebrained schemes.” She ran her fingertip over the wood of the table. “What’s the word on the street about Fallon’s death?”

  “Besides having you feed me, that’s why I came over.” I paused as I bit into a stuffed pepper shooter, moaning as the pickled cherry peppers filled with prosciutto ham wrapped around provolone cheese exploded on my taste buds. Then after swallowing, I told Ronni about the conversation I had overheard at the store. I finished with, “So I wondered if the cops had come to any conclusion about what caused Fallon to die so suddenly?”

  “Not that they told me.” Ronni tossed a black olive into her mouth. “Maybe you should give your buddy Chief Kincaid a call.”

  “I doubt he’d share information with me unless I had something to trade.” I ate a bite of insalata caprese. After I savored the slices of mozzarella and tomatoes drizzled with extra-virgin olive oil and sprinkled with fresh basil leaves, I added, “You know the only time he’s ever generous with info is when I can give him important facts in exchange.”

  “Shoot!” Ronni took a sip of her iced tea. “We really need to know in what direction the police’s investigation is heading so we can nip the rumors in the bud before they scare away all the Cupcake Weekenders.” She paused. “Do you have any other contacts at the cop shop? One of the dispatchers?”

  “Nobody I can come up with right this minute.” I briefly considered the woman who had kept Jake up to date on the last case, but Nympho Barbie wouldn’t spill the content of official reports to me. That is, unless I promised to gift wrap the hunky deputy marshal and put him under her Christmas tree, and I wasn’t feeling quite that desperate yet.

  “Can Poppy get anyone to talk?” Ronni asked as she spread a thin slice of Italian bread with Brie, fig jam, dried fruits, and pine nuts.

  “Well . . .” I hesitated. It was a well-known fact that Poppy and her father didn’t get along, but few people knew how deeply the rift actually ran. “I don’t think she’d be willing to ask her dad for that kind of favor. Their relationship is pretty tense.”

  “Oh.” Ronni fini
shed assembling her crostini and brought it to her lips. “How about one of the other officers? She’s so freaking gorgeous. Who has naturally platinum hair and eyes that shade of violet without colored contacts? If she wasn’t my friend, I would hate her.” Ronni shook her head. “I doubt any red-blooded male could turn her down.”

  “But is it fair to get some poor schmuck in trouble with the chief for blabbing?” I really didn’t care that much about a guy who let his little head rule over his big one, but I hated to see Poppy do something that would widen the chasm between her and her father.

  “Do you have another suggestion?” Ronni narrowed her eyes and slid the tray of biscotti, amaretti, pizzelle, and cannoli out of my reach.

  “We need a tidbit of info the cops don’t know to swap for whatever they do know.” I pulled the plate of desserts back toward me.

  “But how do we get that?” Ronni wailed. “Make something up?”

  “Only as a last resort.” I dug my favorite fountain pen, a Retro 51 Tornado Lincoln, and an old envelope out of my purse. “Let’s go over what happened yesterday again.”

  “Okay.” Ronni gazed at the ceiling. “Kizzy and Lee got here around four thirty. Lee was driving. I had just gotten them settled in their respective suites when Fallon arrived in her own car. I was a little shocked at how much she resembled a younger Kizzy, and when I mentioned it, Fallon said that was one of the reasons she’d been hired, so she could stand in for Kizzy on the packaging.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Yeah. I always wondered how Kizzy never aged on the promo material.” Ronni snickered. “Anyway, I showed Fallon to her room, she dropped off her luggage, and then I helped her carry in several boxes containing stuff for the competition, which we stowed in the pantry. Afterward we had a cup of coffee while she went over Kizzy’s schedule and special requests.”

  “Did she have anything to eat or drink other than the coffee you both shared?” I asked as I nibbled on an almond macaroon.

  “No.” Ronni slowly shook her head. “And we both used the same container of cream.” She bit her lip. “Fallon did use two packets of sugar, but they were sealed. I watched her tear them open.”

  “So any food she consumed was before she arrived, and she didn’t mention feeling sick, right?” I selected a cannoli, ate the chocolate chips decorating it, then licked the powdered sugar from the top. “When you and Kizzy left for the restaurant, she was fine?”

  “Yes.” Ronni nodded emphatically. “In fact, I could tell she was a little upset with having to wait for the delivery, because she complained about missing lunch and being hungry. I offered her a snack, but she said she was saving her daily calories for the Chinese food, specifically the crab rangoon.”

  “Then less than an hour later, she decided not to come to the Golden Dragon because she felt ill.” I tapped my pen on my notebook. “Did Lee or Kizzy mention whether Fallon tended toward hypochondria?”

  “No.” Ronni got up and started to clear the table. “I heard Lee tell the EMT that Fallon had never been sick in all the time she’d known her, and Kizzy said something similar to Chief Kincaid.”

  “Hmm.” I thought about the timeline, then asked, “Did the paramedics ask Lee if Fallon had eaten anything while she was waiting here with her?”

  “They did, and Lee said Fallon hadn’t had anything while she was present.”

  “Could you tell if Fallon had eaten anything after Lee left for the restaurant? Anything missing from the fridge or the cupboards?”

  “Nothing I noticed.” Ronni shrugged. “But I didn’t take an inventory.”

  “Hell!” I slumped in my chair. “So much for gathering info to trade with the cops.”

  “Now that I think about it, there is one thing we might know that they don’t.” Ronni chewed on a fingernail. “I doubt Kizzy told them about the fight that she, Lee, and Fallon had before we left for the restaurant.”

  “Fight?” I perked up. “Spill.”

  “Unfortunately, I didn’t hear much, but we were getting ready to leave for the Golden Dragon and Kizzy suddenly laid into Fallon for something—I didn’t catch what her transgression had been—and when Lee stepped in, Kizzy started yelling at her, too.” Ronni pursed her lips. “About that time Kizzy noticed that I was standing there, pulled them all into the parlor, and closed the doors.”

  “Crap!” I thought about the incident for a few seconds, then asked, “Could you tell if the argument was about the business or the competition or . . . ?”

  “I can’t remember why, but it struck me as something more personal.” Ronni worried the skin around her thumbnail. “I could swear I heard the word betrayal. And it was only after this fight happened that Lee decided to stay behind with Fallon to wait for the delivery. Before that, only Fallon was going to wait here for it.”

  “Interesting.” I stared at the ceiling. “If Kizzy had died, I’d wonder if Lee had poisoned her. I noticed at the restaurant that the cupcake queen seemed to treat Lee more like a servant than a business partner.”

  “I noticed that around here, too,” Ronni agreed. “But Kizzy orders everyone around and Lee doesn’t seem to mind.”

  “True.” I was silent for a minute and then asked, “Did the police process Fallon’s car?”

  “I don’t think so.” Ronni pursed her lips. “They probably didn’t realize that she’d driven here on her own, and maybe Kizzy didn’t think to mention it. I sure didn’t.”

  “Too bad we don’t have the key or we could search it.”

  “Actually”—Ronni walked over to a rack made up of pink metal roses by the back door and selected a key from one of its many hooks—“we do. I asked for her spare in case I needed to move her car out of my way. With so many guests I figured we’d probably have to let people in and out of the parking area.”

  “Great.” I stood. “Let’s go take a look.”

  “Wait.” Ronni moved over to the sink and reached into the cupboard underneath it. When she straightened, she was pulling on a pair of rubber gloves.

  “Seriously?” I raised an eyebrow at the bright purple gloves.

  “Here.” She handed me a second pair. “If the cops decide Fallon’s death was foul play and end up dusting her car for prints, we don’t want them to find ours all over the interior.”

  “You have a point.” I pulled on the neon orange gloves and followed Ronni outside.

  Fallon drove a Fiat 500. It was a cute little vehicle with shiny white paint and hubcaps with an interlocking GG in the center. I had read about the Gucci edition of this car but never seen one before. The trademark red-and-green Gucci strip ran along the side, and if that weren’t enough to identify the design edition, the logo and name were everywhere.

  As Ronni unlocked the driver’s-side door and slid inside, she said, “Fallon was so proud of this car. She said she’d just bought it and it was the first new one she’d ever possessed.”

  “That’s so sad.” I got into the tiny backseat.

  “Fallon said she’d been saving up for the Fiat ever since she went to work for Kizzy five years ago,” Ronni commented as she went through the glove box. “She told me that she grew up in foster homes and everything she’d ever owned was secondhand.”

  “How awful that she finally got the car of her dreams and didn’t have time to enjoy it.” My heart hurt for the poor girl. “Someone her age, dying so young, is always sad, but Fallon’s death seems even more so for some reason. Maybe because she had turned her life around and was finally on a good path.”

  “You’re right,” Ronni agreed. “I feel that way, too.”

  I felt between the cushions and along the floor. There was nothing. The car still looked as if it had just driven out of the showroom. “Anything?” I asked Ronni.

  “Not even a gum wrapper,” she answered.

  After checking the trunk, which contained only a first
aid kit and jumper cables, Ronni and I dejectedly returned to the kitchen. It looked as though our only hope was that the police would decide that Fallon had died from natural causes and that Chief Kincaid would make that conclusion public before the cupcake tourists were scared out of town.

  CHAPTER 7

  I waited while Ronni packed up some sandwiches and cookies for me to bring to my father and Hannah, then thanked her and headed out to my Z4. Before getting inside, I examined the paint one more time to make sure that delivery guy hadn’t scratched it.

  As I used the bottom of my polo shirt to rub off a smudge near the handle, an idea flitted through my mind. With the hope that Fallon died from natural causes becoming harder and harder to sustain, I thought more about the possible cause of her death. If it wasn’t something she ate that made her sick, what about something she touched? Something no one else had handled. Like something that arrived after everyone else left for the restaurant.

  After placing the bag of food for Dad and Hannah in the passenger seat, I turned on my heel and jogged back up the sidewalk to the B & B. I rang the bell, and as soon as Ronni answered the door, I asked, “Whatever happened to the package that Fallon was waiting for last night?”

  “I have no idea.” Ronni’s expression became thoughtful. “Once we got home from the Golden Dragon, and Lee discovered that Fallon was seriously ill, I doubt anyone ever even thought about the delivery.” Ronni wrinkled her brow. “You know, now that you mention it, Fallon said they weren’t expecting anything, and Kizzy and Lee were both puzzled as to what was being sent.”

  “You didn’t notice an extra box or padded envelope sitting around?” I asked.

  “There was nothing in the public rooms or with the cupcake stuff in the pantry.” Ronni shrugged. “But I wouldn’t know if there was anything in the guests’ rooms.” She glanced at her watch. “We can ask Kizzy and Lee when we see them later at dinner.”