Sex, Murder & Killer Cupcakes is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
© 2014 Allison Janda
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States.
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Your first book puts a lot of pressure on you to thank the right people. Whew, I’m already nervous.
A heartfelt gratitude to my mom for telling me I could do it, to Teri for being my most dedicated reader and cheerleader, and to Mark for not letting me delete the whole darn thing. Without the three of you, this book would certainly not exist.
I pretty much attribute my fascination with photographs to the fifth grade. The internet was fresh and Ms. Cunningham, my science teacher, was determined to educate our class using this new tool, despite knowing nothing about it herself. The assignment: research and write a report about your favorite animal. At the time, I had just returned from a vacation to Sea World and felt that my calling was to work with whales. You haven’t lived until you’re 11 and search for more information on blowholes. Suffice it to say, Ms. Cunningham was among the first to advocate for internet restrictions in schools.
My parents, both hippies who’d begun to lose their “copacetic” attitudes somewhere around the birth of my brother, were extremely protective parents. So protective that my dad, who never slept without a gun under his pillow, decided to earn his badge as soon as he found out my mother was pregnant with their first bouncing bundle of joy. It’s only natural, then, that my brother and I were raised in a typical small-town Midwestern bubble made all the tighter when Ms. Cunningham called home that afternoon, on the verge of hysteria, tripping over herself with apologies. She was never able to make eye contact with my parents again.
My name is Marian Moyer. While I can’t say that the experience in fifth grade scarred me, if you ask my parents the same questions, they would probably disagree. I will say that the experience turned me on, both literally and figuratively, to a whole new mindset. I became fascinated with photographs. I studied their every aspect — the light, the dark, the shadow, the subjects themselves. I poured over any photos that I could get my hands on, which included my older brother’s porn collection, kept hidden in the back of his closet, behind the swell of hockey gear.
When I couldn’t talk my parents into purchasing me a camera that Christmas, I drew instead, not wanting to forget a single detail of my surroundings. Trees, cars, people on the street — a modern day Picasso but with a rapidly growing chest. My mother, on the brink of madness with my constant doodling, finally gave in and purchased me a secondhand point-and-shoot in middle school.
In high school, I was still obsessed with my camera, learning film development and the art of catching just the right angle. Additionally, I was growing a mad obsession with everything related to food and (thanks to time spent in front of the television, eating my various creations) crime television.
By college, I was majoring in Criminal Investigation, minoring in Photography and working the cash register for a hole-in-the-wall bakery that turned out the most incredible doughnuts. My freshman 15 was more like the freshman 30. In addition to weight gain, I was also harboring a not-so-secret crush on a sophomore by the name of James Holden. Flattered, by which I mean creeped out, by my constant gawking while he worked his desk job in the student union, James finally asked me on a date. Kabuki was the most popular sushi restaurant in downtown Milwaukee. While I’d never tasted the stuff, I was well aware of what it looked like, having seen trays of it in the ready-to-go section in the grocery store. Combine its beautiful texture with my beautiful date and my mind was in overdrive with all the photographic opportunities that would present themselves.I tucked my incredibly out-of-date digital into my purse on my way out of my dorm room and have never regretted the decision.
While my camera was originally pointed at the crisp white plate, drizzled in rich dark sauces, I slowly found the lens following the line of James’s lightly tanned hand, the curve of his muscular jaw line and the shadow of the light-colored 5 o’clock stubble that dotted his upper lip and chin.
Becoming aroused in a way that even my brother’s porn collection had never produced, I found myself fighting the urge to remove my blouse and lie flat across the table, hoping my body would draw a similar reaction from James as the sushi did.
For the record, if you fast forward through the heavy awkwardness created by taking photos on a pity date, you’re left hot, bothered and dateless in front of Dorm C. Still, I held in my hand a camera full of gorgeous photos that any food critic would be proud of. Well, food critics who could appreciate the art of outdated digital technology.
After some dramatic inner monologue which I won’t bore you with, I decided that my idea of an underground publication focused on my love of both food and beautiful people was worth pursuit. Pushing James (but not the erotic reaction I’d had at dinner) from my mind, I threw myself into the creative process — all spare time and socially awkward experiences most suffer through in college sucked away. My best friend Addison tells me that it stunted my emotional growth (my first kiss came well after graduation) but it sure has led to a hell of a career path.
By my own sophomore year, more sexually frustrated than baseball fanatics’ wives during a losing season, but 20 pounds lighter, I’d collected enough eye-popping photographs of various foods held by beautiful people around the city to begin my underground publication, Foodtopia, where food was never the lone subject of any photograph. And yes, my subjects were clothed. Hello, I was 19. By my junior year, I’d formed a bit of a cult following for the magazine which I slipped into copies of the student paper after hours. By the time I graduated, I’d decided that I wanted to let my inner freak flag fly with the publication and post it citywide, but wasn’t quite sure how to manage it in that sweet, Midwestern girl kind of way.
Enter James Holden. Three years had passed and the only thing that hadn’t changed was his magnetism. Fate, the saucy minx, had him waiting for coffee next door to the yoga studio I attended one afternoon. His dark, green eyes took in my bright spandex pants and slight flush from an overly vigorous power class — I never stood a chance.
Age had increased his charm, a gym membership had increased his bulk and I’m pretty sure that the dark roast he confessed to drinking religiously gave him some Amazonian jungle smell that can only be described as animalistic. Still, it was his eyes that captivated me the most: an emerald green; two raging storms of desire beneath his thick reddish-brown brows. A vanilla latte and 20 minutes later, he was nuzzling my collar bone while I was shimmying out of my yoga pants in the back of his Honda. Undeterred by the seat belt fastener digging into my back, the following 30 minutes served as my exit from studying porn magazines, trying to understand what all the fuss was about, and shoved me through the barriers to womanhood.
I never heard from James again after our fling. Stumbling from his backseat, however, I found that he’d again served as some kind of twisted muse. A few months later, I’d managed to turn Foodtopia — my fun, relaxed college-age publication — into Food Porn. It was still free and still turned out once a month, but now it was distributed throughout the city, featuring beautiful local models in barely (if any) clothing, posing with delicious handheld morsels.
So as to give it
that sweet Midwestern spin, Addison, who’d majored in Journalism, and I wrote up reviews of each bakery and restaurant we featured, making sure to sample as many of their dishes as they’d create for us. Doing so, we’d become both beloved and hated among the various chefs throughout Wisconsin and Illinois. The gig doesn’t pay us much. Heck, it doesn’t pay us anything other than in the form of new equipment. Addie and I keep it alive purely for the thrill. We do manage to offer meager stipends, college credits and some killer exposure for all of our employees, though.
While Addison’s day job is reporting for a major local paper, I moonlight as a crime scene photographer, rounding out that crazy list of passions I’ve clutched to my heart since the age of 14.
In addition to being the talk of the food critic town, plenty has changed since college. Addison’s fierce appearance has taken her far in uncovering some major scandals around the city. Something about being 5′10″ and looking eerily similar to Cameron Diaz made people want to talk to her about things. Go figure. Meanwhile, her sharp brains have kept her ahead in the ever shrinking pool of what could be considered good reporting. She’s a bit of a head case, that’s part of her charm. While she’s freelanced plenty outside the city, I’m convinced that Milwaukee will always be her home.
I remain a paltry 5′7″ with pale skin, a bubble butt and insanely long auburn curls. I remain addicted to eating delicious food, reveling in real crime scenes and taking my photographs. While I’d like to tell you I outgrew that pesky fascination with dirty magazines, I own one in a sense, so I’d be lying. I’m still working to tame my insanely thick curls and figure out how an eyelash curler works, but unfortunately am still leading a much more boring personal life than all of my employment suggests. However, if I had known what was waiting for me, I think I would have embraced the boring and ordinary with far more relish, thanking my lucky stars that my twisted muse had left me to my own devices.
I knew that something was amiss the second I stepped into the studio. The morning had been overcast with a slight chill in the air, the smell of a late, damp autumn whistling through the few festive colored leaves that still clung to their branches. I clutched my coffee cup tightly with both hands, elbows tightly held to my sides as I pushed through the throng of commuters that clogged the sidewalk every weekday morning. I’d awoken late that day, hastily pulled my hair into a ponytail, scrubbed my face clean and raced out the door in the yoga clothes I’d fallen asleep in the night before. Not exactly my most professional attire and certainly not the best smelling, but it allowed me a much needed stop through the coffee shop and put our Food Porn shoot with some pastries from Yummy Tummy only ten minutes behind schedule. Or so I thought.
“Marian!” Addison yelped in surprise as I breezed into the studio, windblown flyaways giving me a somewhat Medusa quality. “Didn’t you get my voicemail?” She paused. “Darling, we cancelled. I was getting ready to head into the Journal.”
Numbed by the cold and not fully alert from caffeine, I paused, processing her words one at a time. After a few seconds, I started digging through my coat pockets for my phone which, coincidently, was dead, having never been plugged in the night before. “Perfect,” I groused under my breath.
“Alec never showed up to makeup this morning and I didn’t have the time to drum up a replacement,” she informed me. “We’ll have to have Betsy reschedule things.”
As if on cue, Betsy, our short, adorable, freckle-nosed intern, scuttled into the studio, gripping her neon clipboard and speaking frantically into her headset. Her free hand pushed her silver wire frames back up her nose, but they just slid back down with every nod of her head. “Mmmhmm. Mmmhmm. Mmmmm. Mmmhmm. Okay, thank you,” she said, clicking off and raising her gaze to meet ours. “Alec’s roommate is in Tampa. He hasn’t heard from Alec since last week.”
“Damn it,” Addison murmured under her breath. I caught the twitch that plagues her left eye when she’s really pissed off. Betsy swallowed hard and her sweet brown eyes widened to the size of saucers. Addison had a famously short fuse. Upon reaching her breaking point, there was a nearly undetectable twitch of her left eye before she became a flailing, ferocious, red-faced string of cuss words, the tirade falling upon whoever stood closest. I slowly took a half step backwards, clutching my purse in fear.
Surprisingly however, Addison sucked in a deep breath, noisily releasing it as she closed her eyes, and shrugged her arms into the fall jacket she’d been clutching, cinching the sash tightly around her waist. This was new. And infinitely more disturbing.
I cut my gaze back to Betsy who was standing rigid, her clipboard clutched to her chest in a meager attempt at protection, eyes half closed, her short red bob offsetting her scrunched face, which had gone completely devoid of color. The cold, concrete studio was silent save for the echoes of Addison’s deep breathing exercise. Betsy turned to me, her dark eyes troubled. I simply shrugged and shook my head.
After a few uncomfortable moments, Addison turned and began walking purposefully towards the stairs that led to our joint office. The clicking of her heels paused, the door clicked shut, and Betsy and I were once again enveloped in echoing silence. We released the breaths we’d been holding in a loud whoosh. I took a long swig of my well-creamed coffee while Betsy disappeared without a word around the corner, likely curling into the safety of her cubicle.
With slightly more bravado than I actually felt, I marched towards the stairs and up to the office ignoring the fact that my squeaky sneakers made me feel like a youth headed to the principal’s office, after a failed attempt at rebellion.
Taking a deep breath, I knocked a little too hard on the door and let myself in without invitation. Being Addie’s best friend, I was afforded the luxury of shoving my way into her life at times when most others would have been yelled at or cussed out. Her head was in her hands, elbows akimbo on her beautiful mahogany desk, blond hair spilling in front of her ears. Her thin shoulders shook with the efforts produced by what sounded a lot like what I could only describe as lamaze breathing.
Clicking the door closed behind me, I cleared my throat to announce my presence and waited for her to speak. A few seconds later, the deep breathing paused. “My therapist said he wanted to recommend me to some anger management classes,” Addison confessed between her hands.
“I hope you punched him.”
Addison lifted her head and smiled, then thoughtfully began twirling a long strand of platinum hair around her index finger. “He told me that I need to learn how to manage my frustration properly.”
I made a face and stuck out my tongue. “And you do that by working through the pain of childbirth?”
We grinned at each other before bursting into giggles. A few seconds later, her face crumpled and fell back into her hands. “What are we going to do about Alec?” she moaned.
“This is the third time in two months he hasn’t called and hasn’t shown up to a shoot. It’s probably another hangover.”
“We fire him,” I replied simply.
“But he’s gorgeous — our best looking male model,” she stammered. “And that’s saying something, considering that everyone who models for us has to look good naked. He doesn’t even get paid!”
“He gets exposure,” I reminded her. “And a lot images for his portfolio. Yummy Tummy paid well above what was necessary in order to be featured exclusively.”
She sighed and spun around to face her window, which was just one story above street level. The trees outside covered the cloudy morning. You could almost be fooled into thinking that it was a bright autumn day if people weren’t holding fast to their hoods and scarves as they pushed hard against the wind. “We’re going to have to find somebody new. Can you ask Rory to throw together an open call?”
“I’m sure he’d love to hear it from you,” I smiled.
She snapped herself around so quickly I thought she’d fall out of her chair. Stifling a laugh, I opened the door to let myself out. Despite Addison’s on-again, off-again relat
ionship with a model, Rory was madly in love with her. He refused to give up hope that one day she would succumb to his adoration. Taking the stairs down two at a time, Addison’s angry howl sent goose bumps up my spine as I rushed towards the admin offices.
On the outside, our building was a boring, tiny warehouse with four single-square windows per side. It was situated in a quiet spot on Water Street, away from the hype of downtown. The main entrance consisted of two giant metal doors, which were heavily spray-painted, along with the rest of the outside.
Once inside, you were enveloped in a large, soft gray and white, albeit cold, concrete studio. Backgrounds of every imagination hung from the ceiling on large black frames that could be flipped through like posters. Various lighting equipment was tucked into the cracks and crevices. A small pile of rugs and mats haphazardly took up a small corner by the door. About 15 feet away was a sturdy black metal staircase, which led to the only real office and a dressing room. The warehouse had once been a coffee-making factory. The faded, brown Weise Butternut Coffee logo had added some flair when we’d first moved in and not one of us had, had the heart to paint over it.
Just around the corner of the staircase was a tiny office, painted a blue as brilliant as the sky just before it tinges orange with sunset. The office was home to four paltry cubicles, two of which sit empty, each featuring a different theme based off of our well-known magazine covers. My favorite was the intern cube, featuring People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive from a few years ago. He’d agreed to advertise Mootastic Chocolate Milk product and had needed an entire carton to cover his…erm…well, anyway.
When we were close to a deadline, the room — though small — hummed with activity and a lot of swear words. On days like today however, a full week after our release, the room is quiet. On the opposite side of my studio entry point, there are two regular-sized thin metal doors. One leads to our photo development room and my second “office” while the other is an employee entrance through the alleyway.
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