Wedding Cake Killer: A Fresh-Baked Mystery

by Livia J. Washburn

  “I might stay up and watch,” Sam said. “There’s somethin’ about sendin’ the old year off into history and welcomin’ the new one that appeals to me. Maybe it’s the old hope-springs-eternal thing.”

  “I hope the New Year is more peaceful than the last one,” Carolyn said as she stood up.

  Phyllis certainly couldn’t argue with that.

  * * *

  The New Year started off peacefully enough. The first two weeks passed without anything major or exciting happening in the big old house on the tree-lined street a few blocks southwest of the courthouse square in Weatherford. There had been a small snowstorm, not much more than a dusting of white on the lawns and cars and bushes, which was nothing unusual. Upheavals, political and otherwise, continued elsewhere in the world, but not here. Sam came down with a cold but shook it quickly. Phyllis started thinking about recipes she might use in the cooking contest that was held in conjunction with the annual Peach Festival. That was a long time off yet—July—but it never hurt to start thinking about these things early. She knew that Carolyn would already be considering options for her own entry in the contest.

  And they got a couple of old-fashioned postcards from Eve and Roy in the Bahamas, not saying much except that they were having a fine time on their honeymoon. According to the second postcard, they expected to be back in Weatherford on January 15, assuming the weather in Texas cooperated and their flight wasn’t delayed.

  Eve had written the postcards, but both she and Roy had signed them. Phyllis propped them up on the mantel in the living room. All the decorations were gone now, taken down and put away. It was unlikely there would ever be another wedding here, Phyllis knew, but if there was, they would be ready.

  The weather was nice on the fifteenth, so it seemed that there would be nothing to keep Eve and Roy from arriving on schedule. Phyllis was eager to see her old friend again. She had a roast cooking and intended to welcome the newlyweds back with a big supper. She and Carolyn had also made a hearts-and-flowers banner that read WELCOME HOME EVE AND ROY, and Sam had hung it over the fireplace.

  Eve called on her cell phone at about three o’clock. “We’re back!” she said. “Our flight just landed. And we had a wonderful time!”

  Phyllis had taken the call. She said, “We can’t wait to see the two of you and hear all about it.”

  “I don’t know how long it’ll take us to get there. I suppose it’ll depend on the traffic.”

  Phyllis knew how terrible the traffic could be on all the roads leading in and out of the giant airport. “Just be careful,” she said, “and you’ll be here whenever you can.”

  “That’s right. And Phyllis . . . we have a surprise for everybody, too.”

  Eve wouldn’t say anything else about that. She said good-bye, leaving Phyllis to pass along the part of the conversation Sam and Carolyn hadn’t been able to hear.

  “A surprise?” Carolyn repeated. “What in the world do you suppose she means by that?”

  “Maybe she’s expectin’ already,” Sam said with a grin.

  Carolyn gave him a withering look. “You have got to stop saying things like that. You think you’re funny, but you’re not.”

  Sam appealed to Phyllis. “Am I funny?”

  “Not in this case,” she said. “Sometimes, though, you can be fairly droll.”

  “I reckon I’ll take it,” he said with a shake of his head. “Looks like all I’m gonna get.”

  Carolyn said, “I can’t imagine what the surprise could be, unless they brought us presents of some sort from the Bahamas. You don’t think they’d bring us some of those ridiculous grass skirts, do you?”

  “Those are from Hawaii,” Phyllis pointed out.

  “Yes, I suppose you’re right, but they’re still tacky.”

  “And with these knobby knees of mine, I’d look downright foolish in one of ’em,” Sam said. He held up both hands in a gesture of surrender. “I know, there I go again. I’ll stop.”

  Eve had sounded excited about the surprise, whatever it was, Phyllis thought, but at the same time, she had detected a slightly forced note in her friend’s voice, as if Eve had been trying to be happy about it but not completely succeeding. That worried Phyllis. She didn’t think anything major had happened, or Eve would have just gone ahead and told her about it. But it would certainly ease her mind to find out what Eve had been talking about.

  That slight worry Phyllis was experiencing made the time seem to pass more slowly, and after a couple of hours had gone by, the minutes really dragged.

  Carolyn seemed to be concerned, too. “I thought they would be here by now,” she said.

  “They’re probably sittin’ in a traffic jam somewhere,” Sam said. “At this time of day, you’ve got to expect that. I’m not sure there even is a good time of day to come or go from that airport.”

  Phyllis knew he was right about that, but it didn’t make her feel any better. Finally, more than three hours after Eve’s call, headlights pulled into the driveway and car doors slammed outside.

  “It’s about time,” Carolyn said. “Supper’s ready.”

  That was true. The pot roast was done, but it could continue simmering in the Crock-Pot with the potatoes and carrots for a while without being hurt by it. Phyllis went to the front door and opened it as she turned on the porch light. Eve and Roy smiled up at her as they came along the walk. Both of them had tans that it would have been difficult to get in Texas at this time of year.

  “Come in!” Phyllis said as she held the door open. “My goodness, it’s wonderful to see you both!”

  The reunion in the hallway was an effusive one. Phyllis hugged Eve, and then, after only a second’s hesitation, hugged Roy as well. Sam pumped Roy’s hand and slapped him on the back. Carolyn hugged Eve but shook Roy’s hand. Everybody was talking at once.

  After things had settled down a little, Roy took a deep breath and said, “That smells wonderful! Roast, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right,” Phyllis said. “Supper’s ready, but it can wait for a few minutes. Let’s all go into the living room and sit down and catch our breath.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Eve said. “That’ll give us a chance to talk to you.”

  “About that big surprise of yours, I imagine,” Carolyn said.

  “Actually, that’s right. I think we should get that out of the way first.”

  “Well, come on,” Phyllis said. “Goodness knows, we’re all curious.”

  When they went into the living room, Eve saw the banner over the fireplace and exclaimed, “Oh, my! That was so sweet and thoughtful of you.” She grew solemn. “I’m afraid this is just going to make things harder.”

  That feeling of unease cropped up inside Phyllis again. She said, “What do you mean by that?”

  “Well . . . the banner, and the way you were all so happy to see us, and the lovely dinner that you obviously fixed to welcome us home . . . that’s going to make it more difficult to tell you what we have to tell you.”

  “What in the world are you talking about?” Carolyn asked.

  Roy put a hand on Eve’s shoulder and said, “Would you like me to explain things to them, dear? It was my idea, after all.”

  Eve shook her head. “No, that’s very nice of you, but these are my friends—”

  “My friends, too, now,” Roy said with a smile.

  “Of course, but this is something I should do.” Eve faced Phyllis, Carolyn, and Sam and went on, “I know you were expecting us to move back in here for the time being, but I’m afraid we’re not going to be living here after all.”

  Chapter 7

  Amoment of surprised silence passed; then Carolyn said, “Not living here? What are you talking about? Where are you going to live if not here?”

  “I thought you were going to stay here while you look for a house of your own,” Phyllis said.

  Eve nodded. “I know that was the plan, but Roy found this charming bed-and-breakfast in the country outside of town, and the own
ers have agreed to let us stay there on a longer-term basis than usual. It’ll be sort of like renting an apartment, but not exactly.”

  Roy said, “I think it’s important in the early stages of a marriage for a couple to spend as much time together as they can.”

  “But . . . but you won’t have any more privacy in a bed-and-breakfast than you would here,” Carolyn objected. “There’ll be people coming and going all the time.”

  “Yes, but there they’ll be strangers,” Eve said. “I won’t feel any desire to spend time with them, and they won’t be interested in us. I can devote all my attention to Roy and to our search for a house of our own.”

  What Eve was saying actually made sense in a way, Phyllis thought. The anonymity of the other people staying at the bed-and-breakfast would make it seem like they had more privacy, whether they really did or not. But that didn’t mean Phyllis wanted things to happen that way.

  “We’ll support your decision, whatever it is,” she said, “but we were really looking forward to having the two of you here with us.”

  She gestured toward the banner over the fireplace to support her words.

  “Oh, I know!” Eve said. She came over to Phyllis and hugged her. “And everything you’ve done means so much to me. But this is the right thing for us. I know it is.”

  Once again, Phyllis thought she heard the tiniest forced note in her friend’s voice. But maybe that was because she wanted to hear it, she told herself. She wanted to believe that Eve could be persuaded to abandon the bed-and-breakfast . . . when she knew that they didn’t really have the right to try to persuade Eve to do any such thing. Being friends meant what she had just said: accepting and supporting their decisions.

  “All right,” Phyllis said, “on one condition.”

  “What’s that?” Eve asked.

  “That the two of you will come over here for dinner at least once a week.”

  Roy grinned and said, “I think we can guarantee that, Phyllis. We’ll probably still be around so much you’ll get sick of us and boot us out.”

  “That will never happen,” Phyllis said.

  Sam said, “It’s all settled, then. Why don’t we all sit down to dinner now, and you two can tell us all about your trip?”

  They headed toward the dining room, and while they were in the hall, Eve said quietly to Phyllis, “I’m sorry about springing this on you that way. I would have told you on the phone, or written to you about it, but I just couldn’t figure out how to tell you. I decided it would be better to do it face-to-face.”

  “It’s all right, Eve, really,” Phyllis said as she took her friend’s hand and squeezed it. “We’ll miss you, but it’s not like you’re leaving forever. You’ll still be around.”

  “You can count on that,” Eve said.

  * * *

  Over dinner, in addition to telling Phyllis, Sam, and Carolyn about their trip to the Bahamas, Eve and Roy also explained more about the bed-and-breakfast.

  “We went by there on the way from the airport so I could take a look at it,” Eve said. “That’s why it took us longer to get here. Roy told me about it while we were on our trip, but I couldn’t agree until I had seen it for myself. I had just about made up my mind, since I knew it was what he wanted, but I had to see it, just to be sure.”

  “Which is certainly fair,” Roy put in. “I wouldn’t have expected otherwise. Nobody wants to buy a pig in a poke.”

  “You think kids still say that these days?” Sam asked. “They’d know what a pig is, but I’m not sure they’d know what a poke is.”

  “Never mind that,” Carolyn said. “Tell us about the bed-and-breakfast, Eve.”

  “Oh, it’s utterly charming! It’s in the hills southwest of town and has a beautiful view of the Brazos River.”

  “It was originally a farmhouse,” Roy added, “but it’s been remodeled and brought completely up to date. And it’s in the middle of twenty or thirty acres, so even though it’s only a few minutes from town, it’s so quiet and peaceful, you feel like you’re in the middle of nowhere.”

  “It sounds lovely,” Phyllis said.

  “And you sound like a sales pitch, Roy,” Carolyn said.

  He laughed. “I don’t mean to. But as soon as I saw it, I knew I wanted to spend some time there with Eve while we look for a home of our own.”

  “I think that was a good idea,” Phyllis said. She was determined to be supportive of what Eve was doing.

  “After Roy had shown the place to me, I knew it would be all right, so we went ahead and left our bags there,” Eve said.

  “So you’re moving in there tonight?” Carolyn asked.

  “I didn’t see any reason to wait.”

  “What about all the things in your room?”

  “Well, I was hoping that Phyllis would let me leave some of them here until we find a house,” Eve said. “Is that all right, Phyllis?”

  “Why wouldn’t it be?” Phyllis asked.

  “Well . . . I assume that eventually you’ll want to rent that room to someone else.”

  Phyllis, Sam, and Carolyn looked at each other in surprise. At first when Eve had told them that she and Roy were getting married, Phyllis had hoped that Roy would just move into their home and things would go on roughly as they had before. Then, when it was established that Eve would be moving out, at least eventually, the question of what to do with the room had crossed Phyllis’s mind, but only briefly. She’d been much too busy, what with the holidays, the bridal shower, the wedding—and the murder—to even think about it all that much. And since she’d believed that Eve and Roy were coming back here to stay temporarily, it had been easier to just put the whole thing out of her mind. She suspected that Sam and Carolyn felt the same way.

  It had been several years since Sam had moved in, and during that time they had all settled into a comfortable routine. If someone new came into the house, it would be more than just a change. It would be an upheaval. Phyllis wasn’t sure she wanted that. Financially, she didn’t need another boarder, although the extra money certainly came in handy. She just wasn’t sure it was worth getting used to all the changes that might come about.

  For now, though, she was noncommittal as she said to Eve, “We’ll worry about that later. Of course you can leave some of your things in the room, for as long as you need to.”

  “Thank you, dear. You’re always so sweet.”

  After dinner, they took coffee and dessert—slices of s’more pie, which was a cross between a pie and a brownie, that Phyllis had made earlier that day—into the living room.

  “How’d you happen to find that place, Roy?” Sam asked when they had all settled down on the sofa and in armchairs.

  “I was out just driving around one day when I saw it and decided to investigate,” Roy said. “You know, I’ve never spent much time in this area, so I like to explore and find my way around. When I saw this house sitting on top of a hill, something about it just drew me. I felt like that was where I wanted to spend some time with Eve.”

  “He has such good instincts,” Eve said with a smile.

  “Ever given any thought to owning a place like that?” Sam asked.

  “Oh, now, don’t give him any ideas,” Eve said before Roy could reply. “Remember when we went down to Rockport and took care of that bed-and-breakfast for Phyllis’s cousin? There’s a lot of work involved in something like that.”

  “Not to mention the dead man on the dock,” Carolyn added.

  Roy’s eyebrows rose. “Another murder?” he asked.

  “That was just an isolated incident,” Phyllis said quickly.

  “Hmmph,” Carolyn said.

  “Anyway,” Roy said, “I don’t have any experience at running a bed-and-breakfast or any other sort of business like that, and since I’m semiretired, I don’t particularly want to learn. I’m fine with just staying there and enjoying it.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Sam said. “When you’ve worked hard for as long as we have, you deserve to tak
e it easy.”

  They continued to chat amiably while they finished their coffee and pie, until finally Roy said, “Well, it’s getting late. I suppose we’d better be getting home, dear.”

  Eve was sitting next to him on the sofa. She leaned closer and embraced his arm as she said, “Home . . . I like the sound of that. Even though it’s not really our home.”

  “It is for now,” he told her with a smile. “Anywhere you are, that’s home for me.”

  Phyllis saw Carolyn look away so the newlyweds wouldn’t notice her eyes rolling slightly. The affection between Eve and Roy did seem a little overdone, especially for people their age, but Phyllis had no doubt it was genuine.

  There were hugs and handshakes all around again. When they were saying good night at the front door, Phyllis quietly told Eve, “If there’s anything you need, don’t hesitate to call on me. I’d do anything for you—you know that.”

  “I know, dear.” Eve leaned in and kissed Phyllis on the cheek. “Thank you for everything you’ve already done.”

  “It was my pleasure,” Phyllis assured her.

  The three of them stood on the porch and waved while Eve and Roy got back into Roy’s car and left. As they watched the taillights recede along the street, Carolyn said, “Well, that certainly didn’t turn out the way I expected it to.”

  “No,” Phyllis said, “but I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

  “I’d feel better if they were staying here.”

  “They would have left sometime,” Phyllis pointed out.

  Sam said, “That’s what these kids do. They grow up and leave the nest.”

  Carolyn snorted. “Still not funny.”

  Maybe not, Phyllis thought, but in a way Sam was right. All three of them had grown, married children. They’d had to watch as those children left home and established lives on their own, and while that was the way it should be, the happiness that parents felt was a bittersweet one, mixed with an undeniable sensation of loss that tightened the chest and made the eyes grow misty. You watched children grow up and raised them to be able to take care of themselves, but when the time came . . .