by Mary Maxwell
I smiled, but kept my thoughts to myself. Mrs. Swift didn’t need to hear the jumble of emotions that her comment had unleashed about my ex-boyfriend in Chicago. Or Trent Walsh, the high school heartthrob who’d dumped me for Dina Kincaid. I’m over them both, a voice whispered in my head. I’ll find someone when the time is right. I’ve got to focus on myself now. And the business. And the—
“Kate?”
Mrs. Swift’s voice cleaved the avalanche of anxious burbling.
“Yes?”
She delicately folded her hands and put them on the table. Then she announced that she was going to reveal the secret to a long and happy life.
“It’s something I learned the hard way, dear,” she said gently. “And I’d like to share it with you in the hopes that it might spare your heart from some unnecessary bumps and bruises.”
I sighed and waited. The bell on the front door chimed, but I kept my focus on Mrs. Swift.
“You see, Kate,” she said, motioning for me to come closer. “The most important thing that I’ve learned in my life is—”
“Hey, Kate!”
A hand touched my shoulder and I spun around. It was Trent, dressed in a suit and tie.
“Hi, Deputy Chief Walsh,” I said, doing my best to sound professional. “I’m right in the middle of something here, so if you could just give me a sec?”
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” he said, smiling at Mrs. Swift. “But it’s kind of urgent. I was on the phone with Adam Caldwell this morning.” He stopped there, letting me fill in the blanks. “Maybe just ten minutes in your office?”
I nodded and told him that I’d be right there. Then I apologized to Mrs. Swift.
“Don’t you worry about it, Kate,” she said. “I can see that the Walsh boy has something important to tell you. I’ll finish my story another time.”
I didn’t want to walk away without hearing Mrs. Swift’s secret of eternal happiness, but the mood had changed and the spell had been broken.
“Can we can have dinner before you go back home?” I asked.
Her eyes twinkled. “Wouldn’t that be nice?” she said. “My calendar’s chockablock full, but maybe you and the Walsh boy could come to Blanche Speltzer’s next week. She’s throwing a little party, and it would be lovely if you could join us. You should bring dates if you’re not going out with each other.” She paused, raising one eyebrow. “It’ll be just a few people for cocktails and fondue. Do you know what fondue is, dear? It used to be very popular back in my day.”
“Sure,” I said. “The melted cheese and chocolate that you dip things in.”
“That’s it exactly,” Mrs. Swift said. “Now, you should probably scoot. He had a pretty serious look in his eye. Are you in some kind of trouble with the law, Katie?”
I shrugged. “Not yet,” I said. “But the day is young.”
She laughed. “Well, mind your manners and you’ll be just fine. I’ll check with Blanche to make sure she’s got room for a few more young people at the soirée. It’s one of her wild ideas, a gathering of all ages to discuss current events. I also think she has some type of announcement to make. She fancies herself to be the Gertrude Stein of Crescent Creek. You know—hosting salons where smart and talented people get together and discuss literature and the arts?”
“Sure, I know the name.”
She raised both hands and fluttered her fingers at me. “Go on then, dear. You don’t want to keep Deputy Chief Walsh waiting too long.”
CHAPTER 22
Trent wasn’t in my office when I hurried through the door, but I could hear his voice booming down the hallway from the kitchen. When I found him a moment later, he was regaling Julia with a story about his recent visit to Grand Junction.
“…and that was because the Buffalo wings made him so sick that he—”
“I thought it was urgent,” I said.
Trent glanced up. “Uh-oh. Somebody’s hot under the collar.”
“Well, you just interrupted a very poignant conversation I was having with Mrs. Swift.” I shot a quick glance at Julia, but she was already back at work on a batch of Georgia Snowcap Cookies. “What’s so urgent, Deputy Chief Walsh?”
He smiled at the tone of my voice. “I love it when you call me names, Katie.”
Julia giggled, so I grabbed his arm and marched him out of the kitchen and down the hall to my office.
“I’m trying to run a business here,” I said as he leaned against a filing cabinet and I dropped into my desk chair. “It may look like everything’s on an even keel, but it’s not. I’m a bag of jittery nerves, the accounts payable stack is big enough to choke a horse and Blanche Speltzer placed a special order with no advance warning.”
Trent’s forehead crinkled. “You poor thing. I had no idea you were so delicate and fragile.”
I smirked. Then I rolled my eyes. And then I waited because the familiar look on Trent’s face told me that he wasn’t done being cute and annoying.
“Kind of like the flowers that handsome photographer brought in for you.”
The smirk on my face simmered into a frown. “Who told you that?”
“A little bird,” said Trent.
“Would her name happen to be Harper?”
He shook his head. “Evangeline Sperling. She was coming up the front steps when you and Zack were sitting outside. She saw him. She saw the flowers. She did the math.”
“Well, you can tell Evangeline to try again,” I said, surprised by the edge in my voice. “Gretchen Goode asked Zack to deliver the bouquet. They were a little thank you gift from her to me.”
Trent’s eyes widened. “You guys dating now?”
“Would you please stop?” I demanded, surrendering to the bubbly smile that was flickering on his face. “What’s on your mind, Trent? What did you want to tell me?”
He reached up and loosened his tie. “Man, I hate these things,” he said, drifting over and sitting in the guest chair. “It’s like a hangman’s noose, but fancier.”
“You in court this morning?”
He nodded. “Yep. Thought I’d still be in Grand Junction, but you know it goes.”
“I do. And I also know that our prep list is longer than the Nile, so chop chop! What’s going on?”
He crossed his legs and leaned back in the chair. “Why didn’t you tell me what happened yesterday?”
I knew he was talking about the shooting victim in Delilah’s apartment, but I wasn’t in the mood for a lecture. Trent was like a lot of guys; a predictable and obvious outer shell of machismo surrounding a tender, gentle heart.
“Yesterday?” I asked rhetorically. “It’s all kind of a blur at this point. Got up at four-thirty, stumbled down the stairs, started baking and—”
“Cut the crap,” he interrupted. “You know I’m talking about the shooting at the AltaVista Apartments.”
I attempted to appear bewildered by his remark, but it lasted about a second. “Okay, Deputy Chief Walsh. I’m guilty as charged. Viveca and I accidentally came upon a—”
One of his hands shot up. “Again, Katie! Cut the crap. It was no accident. I know that you guys went there looking for Delilah Benson and Tim England.” He stopped, gauged my expression and kept going. “And don’t bother asking me how I found out. Because you know that Adam and I are friends. And he knows about our past. So after you and Viveca left the precinct yesterday, he gave me a quick call.”
I waited to make sure he was finished with the cheery harangue before I mounted my defense. “All of that is true, okay? But I wasn’t trying to hoodwink anybody—especially you, Trent. I was trying to help Viveca. Her brother’s mixed up in a pretty tricky situation.”
Trent blurted a skeptical laugh. “Tricky? The guy gave poisoned cookies to his neighbor. Don’t you think that’s crossing the line from tricky into flat-out stupid?”
“Cupcakes,” I said.
“Huh?” Trent scowled. “What’re you talking about?”
“Tim gave his neighbor cupcakes, no
t cookies,” I explained. “And Tim is innocent. He found them on his doorstep when he got home Saturday afternoon.”
“And then he gave them to—”
“He had no idea they were toxic,” I said. “He’s a musician, not a killer.”
“What if he’s both?” Trent chuckled. “From what Adam told me, the guy’s alibi is shaky, he looks guilty as sin and he’s burning bridges left and right.”
“Did Adam tell you about the eyewitness at the hospital?”
“Yeah, one of the nurses saw Tim leaving the victim’s room shortly before he was found dead.”
“But the guy was his neighbor,” I said. “Maybe he just wanted to pay him a visit and see how he was doing.”
Trent shrugged. “Or maybe he wanted to finish what he’d started with the poisoned cupcakes.”
My throat tightened as I studied Trent’s smug smile. He was a great cop. And our once ruptured friendship was on the mend. But he could also be a self-satisfied doofus.
“Why are you being that way?” I asked.
“Me?” Trent’s grin deepened. “I didn’t do anything, Kate. I wasn’t responsible for giving tainted cupcakes to anybody.”
I held my tongue, knowing that the knot of irritation building in my chest could send an unfortunate word or two out of my mouth at any second.
“Let’s face it,” Trent continued. “Tim’s in some very deep doo-doo. I really think you should steer clear of this and let Denver PD track him down.”
“Am I stopping them?” I asked slowly. “Me going to Denver a couple of times to ask a few questions isn’t exactly throwing a roadblock in front of the police down there.”
“I know, but you could inadvertently muddy the water or something.”
I didn’t take the bait. An argument with Trent about whether or not I should help Viveca wasn’t in the cards. So I asked him again if Adam Caldwell had shared anything more about the shooting at Delilah’s apartment.
“Not really,” he answered. “The vic’s wallet wasn’t recovered at the scene, so maybe it was a robbery gone wrong.”
“It sure didn’t look that simple,” I offered. “The place had been tossed and the wound looked like the shooter was behind the guy.”
“Execution style?”
I nodded. We both sat and contemplated the brutality of the act for a moment. Then Trent asked me how I knew Delilah Benson.
“I didn’t,” I said. “I mean, until you just mentioned it, I didn’t even know her last name. Viveca and I ran into her when we went down to try and see if we could find phone numbers for Tim’s friends in his apartment. I thought that was a logical place to start, you know? Call around and see if one of them might know where he’s hiding out.”
“Did you know that she’s a convicted felon?”
“Delilah?”
Trent nodded. “Forgery and mail fraud,” he explained. “It happened when she was nineteen. Lucky for Miss Benson, Judge Booth considered the fact that it was her first offense, but she still ended up doing two years at La Vista in Pueblo.”
“La Vista? Why didn’t they send her to the Denver Women’s Facility?”
Trent shrugged. “You’d have to ask the Department of Corrections.”
I considered what he’d just revealed about Delilah’s background. When Viveca and I talked to her the other day, I got the sense that Delilah was putting on a performance. The kind of overly cheerful and vivacious act someone does when they’re trying to hide a deeper, darker truth. Since the handbook for Alcoholics Anonymous was among her scattered possessions and she had a felony conviction in her past, it made sense that those two things alone could possibly explain the curious behavior.
“What are you thinking about?” Trent asked. “The gears in your brain are making a terrible racket.”
“I’m thinking about what you just told me. I didn’t expect that curve ball. Delilah seemed kind of eccentric and ditzy, but I didn’t get the sense that she was a convicted felon.”
“Criminals can hide in plain sight,” said Trent. “You know that after your time in Chicago.”
“Or hearing you talk about the seedier side of Crescent Creek,” I added.
“True enough.” He gently thumped his knuckles on the desk. “But knock wood things have been pretty quiet around here in the past few weeks.”
“Other than Blanche Speltzer screeching at me now and again.”
Trent smiled. “She’s harmless,” he said. “Unless she gets her hands on a bottle of Wild Turkey and her late husband’s shotgun at the same time.”
I sat up in my chair. “Do tell. I haven’t heard this one yet.”
He frowned and shook his head. “It’s ancient history at this point. And nobody got hurt. Maybe I can tell you the whole sordid affair when we have dinner. What do you think?”
I narrowed my gaze. “Are you asking me out on a date?”
He blushed. “As friends, Kate. I know how you feel about things. But I like hanging out with you.”
“Ditto,” I said, enjoying the familiar blend of faded heartache and gracious affection as it lingered in the air for a moment or two. “That would be very nice. To be honest, I was a little disappointed when you took off for Grand Junction the other day. I really was looking forward to having dinner with you.”
“Same here,” Trent said, getting out of the chair. “For now, however, I should be going. I’m going by to see my parents and then a very important speaking engagement in front of eighteen middle school students.”
“About what?”
“They’re studying local government and law enforcement. Can you imagine such a thing?”
I laughed. “Not really. When we were that age, I learned everything I needed to know right here at Sky High.”
“I remember.” A silly grin emerged above his dimpled chin. “Me and Kenny Talbot used to sneak up on the back porch and watch you through the window.”
“Are you serious?”
“Completely,” Trent said. “We’d watch you follow your mother and grandmother around as they made pies and cookies and stuff.”
“Hmmm,” I murmured. “I love making stuff. So sweet and yummy!”
He turned for the door, stopping just before he stepped into the hall. “Okay, so what’re you planning to do about the Delilah and Tim thing?”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t play coy, Katie. I know how you operate. On one hand, you’re buried up to your eyebrows in running this place. But on the other, you can’t resist the temptation to relive your glory days as a PI in Chicago.”
I held his gaze, silently wishing he’d asked me about something else. Like the new coffee cake recipe I was testing. Or how many Cocoa Loco Cupcakes we’d sold in the past few days.
I stood and walked toward him. “Get on your way, Deputy Chief Walsh! I’m not reliving my glory days. If I’m doing anything, it’s helping my neighbor find her brother before he digs this hole any deeper.”
Trent nodded. “I understand,” he said. “But that’s not your job, Katie. And it’s not your responsibility. Maybe Viveca could hire Alex Kendall or Max Adler. They’re both top-notch PIs in Denver.”
“Do you have their contact info?”
He patted his pocket. “It’s on my phone. I’ll text their numbers to you a little later. Then you can pass them on to Viveca. I just don’t want to see anybody get hurt.”
“And by anybody,” I said, “you mean me?”
He smiled warmly. “Yes, Katie. Especially you.”
I closed the remaining distance between us and gave his hand a friendly squeeze. “Thanks, Trent. I appreciate your concern. And, if I do keep poking around in things to find Tim, I’ll be extra careful.”
“Okay, on that note, I’m outta here,” Trent said, leaning in and quickly kissing my cheek.
“Be careful, Katie.”
“I will,” I promised. “Today, tomorrow and always.”
CHAPTER 23
Blanche Speltzer lived in a cozy
bungalow with a wide screened porch on a tree-lined street near the center of Crescent Creek. The front yard was small and enclosed by a white picket fence. A trio of bird baths, situated beneath the outstretched limbs of several mature cottonwood trees, were filled with pools of water that Blanche refreshed every day from late spring through early fall.
“Are you sure she’s home?” Julia asked from the passenger seat as I parked near the arched entry in the fence. “I forgot to call before we left.”
I gave her a confident nod. “I sent her a text as you were loading the pies. She’s here and she’s obviously in a very good mood. When I told her that we were ready to deliver the special order, her response surprised me: ‘Bring it on, baby!’”
Julia smiled with relief. “Oh, thank goodness!” she cheered. “I was so worried that she’d be in snit about something or other.”
As we started to get out of the car, the front door of the bungalow flew open and Blanche appeared in a swirl of pale lavender chiffon.
“Get a load of that outfit,” whispered Julia. “She looks like a contestant on Dancing with the Stars.”
I opened the car door and did another quick inventory of the pies in the backseat—two peach, three boysenberry and one strawberry-rhubarb—along with a dozen blueberry scones and the same number of butterscotch pecan muffins. As a little surprise, I’d also made a quick stop at Rusty McCoy’s liquor store to buy the ingredients for at least one round of Long Island Iced Teas. Blanche seemed a bit peeved that I’d spotted the liquor entries on her list the other day, but I wanted to show her that I could go above and beyond just like my parents did when they ran Sky High Pies.
As Blanche had already explained, the meeting was the last time the local Auxiliary to the Veterans of Foreign Wars would gather before their big national convention in Pittsburgh. “I want the girls to have a good time before I lay down the law,” she’d told me. “A little cocktail. Some tasty sweets. And then I make it crystal clear that nobody’s going to trash another hotel room like they did at last year’s big meeting.” When I followed her cryptic comment asking which demure VFW supporters had vandalized their accommodations, Blanche had screwed her face into a daunting frown and told me to mind my own business.