A Freshly Baked Cozy Mystery Box Set

by Kate Bell

  Meg sounded distinctly depressed. Not that I could blame her. Her husband had been gone for less than a week. The depression would come and go for the next year or more, I was certain.

  “Let me give you a business card. I used to write another blog that was about grief management. I retired the blog after eight years, but there are still a lot of articles there. My husband was killed by a drunk driver,” I said.

  “I’m sorry for your loss, but at least you knew who killed your husband. Not like me. Oh, I mean I know who killed him all right. It was that blond-haired hussy on the other side of town. But the police won’t take my word for it,” she said. It was then that I thought I smelled alcohol on her breath. I glanced at Lucy, who was looking at me pointedly.

  “Meg, why are you so sure Jenna Maples killed your husband? Even if she was having an affair with him, why would she kill him?” I asked, trying to be as gentle as I could.

  Meg rubbed her forehead. “Who else would it be? We don’t know anyone here in Sandy Harbor. That stupid company moved us out here where we didn’t know a soul.”

  “Why did Stanton Industries move here to Sandy Harbor?” I asked her.

  She shrugged. “Why did they move us to any of the other cities? It was always top secret. All Spencer would say was it had something to do with government security.”

  “Meg, do you have any other proof, besides what was on the missing laptop, that Spencer and Jenna were having an affair?” I asked.

  “I think that’s more than enough. He was coming home later and later. He was distracted. He didn’t seem to have any interest in me or what I was doing with my life,” she said, her voice cracking.

  “I see. Did you ever find that laptop?”

  She shook her head. “No. I can’t imagine what could have happened to it. It wasn’t in his car? That police chief was supposed to get back with me on what’s happening with the case, but I haven’t heard a word. Have you heard anything?”

  I wasn’t sure what I could and couldn’t tell her. So I told her the truth. “No, I haven’t heard anything new from the police.” And that was true. It had been several days since Alec and I had been to the police station and I hadn’t heard anything new since then.

  “So, Meg, when is the funeral?” Lucy asked.

  I glanced at Lucy, but she was smiling at Meg. Of course Lucy knew she had already had him cremated.

  “I’m not having a funeral. I’ve already cremated him. I’m not giving that woman a chance to show up at any funeral,” she said bitterly.

  “Didn’t you have family that would want to have a funeral for him? What about your son?” I asked.

  She narrowed her eyes at me. “I don’t care what any of his family might want. We haven’t spoken to any of them in years. And my son, well, my son wouldn’t have time to come to a funeral.”

  “Oh,” I said, not knowing what to say to that.

  She picked up a piece of cake and took a small bite. “Oh, this is really good,” she said, perking up just a bit. Leave it to my grandmama to come up with a recipe that would bring a smile to the face of a grieving widow.

  We sat and visited for a while, enjoying the cake and coffee. I hoped Meg would give me some new evidence to go on, but she really didn’t seem to have any. Finally, Lucy and I got up to go.

  “If you need anything, Meg, let me know and I’ll try to help out any way I can,” I said.

  Meg got to her feet and looked at me. “If I absolutely knew for sure that woman killed my husband, I would do the same to her. If I had the proof in my hand, I mean.”

  “Meg, you don’t want to say things like that. It could get you into trouble,” I said gently.

  “I know. But I don’t care,” she confided quietly.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Thank you for the cake,” she said after a moment. “It’s lovely. Let me show you to the door.”

  We followed her to the door and said our goodbyes.

  Once Lucy and I were back in my car, we turned to look at each other.

  “What do you think?” Lucy asked.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. I have to wonder about her not having a funeral. It doesn’t seem normal to me.”

  “Me either. In my family, we have funerals even for the relatives we don’t like. We sit around and pretend they were nice people. I can’t imagine not having one.”

  “Especially that part about her son not having time to attend a funeral. That’s just an odd family, if you ask me,” I said.

  We left there feeling like we had more questions than when we arrived.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “I think we should park over here so they don’t see us,” I said, motioning to the far side of the park. Alec and I had discovered Spencer’s body here. The fact that both Jenna’s and Phil’s houses were easily seen from this vantage point was not lost on me and I wondered exactly what it was that Spencer had been doing on that early morning last week.

  I was bundled up in the warmest winter coat I owned and wore a black knit cap. The coat was also black and I wore black running shoes, just in case I needed to make a quick escape. I looked over at Lucy, sitting next to me. She was dressed similarly. We had once broken into Henry’s Home Cooking Restaurant trying to find evidence that would clear my name and point us to the real killer. Mission accomplished. I was free and the killer was sitting behind bars. Now we were going to spy on two suspects in Spencer Cranston’s murder. We were getting good at this sort of thing.

  “Can’t we get any closer?” Lucy asked. “How are we going to see anything from here?”

  I parked my car, then pulled my binoculars out of my purse and held them out to her. “I brought some help for that.”

  “Can you see out of those at night?” she asked.

  “Sure. They work great.” I held the binoculars up to my eyes and trained them on Jenna’s house. We were going to catch a killer, whether Alec liked our tactics or not. And since I knew he wouldn’t like them, I hadn’t told him where I was going.

  I could see Jenna through the half shaded kitchen window. She was cooking at the stove. Then she stepped away from the stove and seemed to be dancing by herself. Jenna was an odd duck.

  “Do you see anything?” Lucy asked.

  “Jenna is cooking dinner,” I answered.

  I trained the binoculars on the rest of her house. It looked like there was a light on in her living room, but the blinds were closed so I couldn’t see inside. I moved them to the rest of the house, but the other rooms were dark, with blinds pulled.

  “What about Phil?” Lucy asked.

  I trained the binoculars on Phil’s house. “No go. I can’t see a thing at his house. There’s a thin line of light around his living room window blinds and that’s it.”

  “I wonder if he ever found his dog,” she said.

  “I don’t know. I hope Jenna didn’t have anything to do with his dog going missing. I’d hate to think she could have hurt him, even if he was a loud barker,” I said. “Keep an eye out for the police for me. I’d hate to have to explain to Sam Bailey why we were spying on people.”

  “I’m looking,” she said. “Maybe the dog just found a way to get out of that yard.”

  “Phil’s coming out of his house,” I hissed. “Get down.”

  We slouched down in our seats. I doubted he could see us from where we were, but I would hate to have to explain myself to him, too. After a few seconds, I stuck my head up just high enough to see what he was doing. Phil got into his car and started it. His car was a black thirty-year-old Dodge Daytona and he sat and idled it for a few minutes, allowing it to warm up.

  “What’s he doing?” Lucy asked.

  “Driving away,” I said, and started my car. “Hold the binoculars. I don’t want to lose him.”

  I pulled out, allowing plenty of room to keep Phil from seeing me. He was headed downtown and fortunately there was very little traffic to lose him in.

  “Where’s he going?” Lucy as
ked. She had the binoculars trained on the back of his car.

  “Put those down, what if someone sees you with them?” I said.

  “Oh, stop it. There’s hardly anyone out and no one is going to see me.”

  Phil drove into the grocery store parking lot and drove around it, weaving in and out of parking spaces.

  “Do you think he knows he’s being followed?” I asked. “He’s just driving around the parking lot.”

  “I don’t know. Pull into a parking spot and stop. He’ll think we’re going into the store and we can see him when he drives out.”

  I pulled into a spot and shut off the lights and we waited. Phil made another round of the parking lot and then left by the furthest exit. “All right, Phil, you’re trying to be tricky.” I turned my lights back on.

  “Stay back,” Lucy said. “Don’t let him see you.”

  “I am, I am,” I said.

  Phil headed back in the direction of downtown again and I made sure to give him extra room. After a couple more minutes, Phil parked in front of the Center Street Gift Shop and shut his lights off. I pulled over in front of the jewelry store a block away and followed suit with the lights. Lucy and I slouched down in our seats again and watched as Phil got out of his car. Most of the shops were already closed. It was after seven and Sandy Harbor closed up early in the evening.

  Phil stood on the sidewalk, looking up one way and then down another. Then he took off at a pace faster than I thought was possible for his short legs and crossed the street.

  “There he goes,” Lucy said, training the binoculars on him.

  “Where’s he going? Give me those,” I said, reaching for the binoculars. Across the street was the gun shop and the Salvation Army and a couple of empty stores. Phil hustled around the side of the gun shop and was gone.

  “What do we do now?” Lucy asked.

  “We follow him,” I said and we got out of the car, closing the doors lightly.

  “I like your style,” Lucy whispered to me as we crossed the street.

  I reached in my front jeans pocket, making sure my phone was there. “Maybe I should call Alec and let him know what we’re doing,” I whispered.

  “No, he’ll come down here and stop all our fun,” Lucy said.

  “Fun?” I asked. I wasn’t sure if this was fun because my heart was pounding in my chest and I was breathing hard. But I didn’t turn back. That would have been the smart thing to do and there was no sense in suddenly doing the smart thing.

  We slipped around the side of the gun shop like we had seen Phil do. The alley was dark and deserted. We stopped and tried to see if there was anyone there.

  “Where do you think he went?” Lucy whispered.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  We started walking down the alley, looking for Phil and hoping he wasn’t looking for us.

  “Maybe we should try that door?” Lucy whispered.

  She was pointing to the backdoor of the gun shop.

  “What if he’s hiding in there, waiting to jump us?” I asked. I was worried that I already knew the answer to that one. I wondered if I should have Alec teach me how to use a gun. Just in case.

  “Go see,” she said, nudging me.

  “Seriously?” I tiptoed up to the door. I hoped it wasn’t wired with an alarm. Would turning the knob set it off? I doubted it, but it would be bad if it did and we got caught slinking around out here in the dark. I reached for it, trying to steady my trembling hand and turned it. It was locked. I turned back toward Lucy, shrugged and headed back over to where she stood.

  “I have a flashlight, but it will alert people that we’re here,” she whispered. “Should I use it?”

  “No, let’s look some more.” We kept walking up the alley, but other than a cat looking for food, we didn’t see anyone.

  “Where on earth could he have gone?” Lucy asked when we got to the end of the alley.

  “I don’t know. It’s weird. What would he have been looking for out here?” The cold was setting in and clouds scudded across the sky, darkening what little light the stars and moon had provided. “Let’s get out of here before we get into trouble.”

  We headed back down the alley, still looking, but Phil was nowhere to be seen. It made no sense. There wasn’t anything in that alley.

  We headed back to my car. My cheeks were freezing cold and I shivered.

  “Hey,” I said, stopping in the middle of the street. “Phil’s car is gone.”

  “So it is,” Lucy said. “How the heck did he get back here so fast? Come on, let’s get out of this street.” A car turned the corner and had us in its headlights.

  We caught hands and ran as it sped toward us. Lucy screamed as it swerved and sped past us and we jumped onto the curb. I turned back toward the car, but the night was dark and I couldn’t tell what kind of car it was. All I could see were red taillights set in a dark-colored car.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Did you tell Alec about Phil?” Lucy asked me.

  “Sort of,” I said. We were headed to Le Chemise. I had become obsessed with their desserts. I planned on ordering several and taking them home. I wanted time to really enjoy them. Okay, I wanted time to see if I could figure out a way to make them better than they already were. I needed to figure out a way to beat the French at their own game. It was a lofty goal, but a goal nonetheless.

  “What does ‘sort of’ mean?” Lucy asked as I pulled into a parking space.

  “It means if I told him we went to spy on Jenna and Phil, he would have a fit, so I left that part out. I expect you to leave it out of any conversations we might have about it when he’s around.”

  “Ah, I see. What did you tell him then?” she asked as we got out of the car.

  “I told him I happened to be in the neighborhood and that I saw Phil driving, so we followed him. He stopped across from the gun shop and got out and then disappeared in the alley. All completely true,” I said. And it was, other than the omission of the part about us getting out and following him down the alley. I felt guilty about not telling him the complete truth, but he would have gotten mad and lectured me about it.

  “I see,” she said, holding the front door of the restaurant open for me.

  We approached the hostess and I asked for a menu.

  “Would you like to sit?” she asked in her heavy French accent. She was blond and petite and wore a lot of makeup.

  “No, thank you,” I said. “I’d just like to order some dessert and take it to go.”

  “Ah, I see. Yes, here you go.” She handed me a menu. “I’ll be right back.” The hostess left while we made our decision.

  Lucy looked at the menu over my shoulder as I read it.

  “Oh, look, they have a lemon mousse. I think that’s new,” I whispered.

  “I think you’re right. I don’t remember seeing that on the menu before,” Lucy said. “How many desserts are you going to order? You’re not going to get nutty on me, are you?”

  “What? I’m not going to get nutty. But I am going to order several,” I said, reading over the rest of the listings. Everything sounded so good. Whoever had written up the menu had done a great job of describing every delectable detail. I was taking note of it so I could work on my blog descriptions.

  “Excuse me, but what are you doing?” a French accented woman asked me.

  I looked up from the menu in my hand. A petite, dark-haired woman stood in front of me. Her hair was pulled back in a tight chignon and she was rocking a bright shade of red lipstick.

  “Um, I’m getting ready to order some dessert,” I said. I wasn’t sure who this woman was, but she was giving me some definite attitude with her hands on her hips and her chin jutting out.

  “No, you aren’t. I know who you are. You’re Allie McSwain and you write that disgusting blog and make desserts for that horrible Henry’s restaurant,” she said.

  I gasped. “Excuse me?” I said. “Henry’s is not a horrible restaurant and my blog isn’t disgusti
ng!”

  The nerve!

  “It is horrible,” she said. “And you are spying on us. You want to take our desserts and steal our recipes. You are a terrible baker and will ruin the recipes. Well, I will not allow that. Get out of here.”

  My eyes shot wide open. “What? I am an expert baker! Who are you?” I asked.

  “I am Suzanna Monreal. I am the pastry chef here. I know all about you and your feeble attempts to try and bake desserts. You must leave here. I will not sell you any dessert.”

  My mind tried to process this vile little woman’s orders. How had she heard about me? “This is a restaurant, isn’t it? I have a right to eat here as well as anyone else,” I said.

  “No, you do not. Get out,” she said. “I will call the police.”

  I gasped. I had never been kicked out of any place in my life.

  “Come on, Allie, let’s get going. Everyone’s looking,” Lucy whispered.

  I looked in the direction of the dining room and it was true. It seemed that people at every table were looking in our direction. My cheeks went pink. I had two choices. I could leave quietly. Or I could scream “rat” and run. I blew air out of my mouth.

  “Fine. I’ll leave. But don’t you think for one minute that you’ve won here. I have a reputation in this town and I’m a better baker than you could ever try to be,” I said.

  “You may have a reputation, but I have all the customers,” Suzanna said with a smirk.

  I gasped again.

  “Come on, Allie, let’s go before things get ugly,” Lucy whispered. “People are staring.”

  “I’ll go. But this isn’t over, you little French tart!” I turned and hurried out before I embarrassed myself any further. Lucy was hot on my heels.

  “I can’t believe that just happened,” she said.

  “Me either!”

  We made a beeline to my car. I just wanted to get out of there. We pulled up short when we nearly ran into my daughter Jennifer.

  “Jennifer! What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Oh. Mom. Hey, how are you? I just stopped by the house, but you weren’t home, so I thought I’d get some lunch,” she said, looking suspiciously guilty.