Laina Turner - The Trixie Pristine Boxed Set

by Laina Turner

  Berklie and I looked at Sophie. While she was right, just the thought seemed surreal. How could this happen twice?

  “What? It is what it is. We didn’t do anything wrong.” she said, noticing our funny looks.

  “C’mon, Clive. I’ll take you over there. The quicker we can clear this up the better,” I said.

  Chapter 2

  I went home after taking Clive to Read-Wine to get what he needed. He had his crime scene guys there and told me he thought we could reopen tomorrow, which was good news. I just hoped our customers wouldn’t be scared off. We were a new business, and it wouldn’t be good for us to be closed too much. It’s not like we just had money rolling in. I thought I would come home and use this free time to clean my house. I wasn’t the best housekeeper on a good day and had been too busy in the last few months. The house was so cluttered with things I needed to just go through and put away. I thought it might be a good distraction. However, thirty minutes later, I was still sitting at the kitchen table enjoying a glass of iced tea while reading the newest issue of In Style magazine, trying to motivate myself to clean and not doing a very good job of it.

  I heard a knock on my door and looked out my window to see Clive standing there. Hoping he had some good news for me, I walked over and let him in.

  “Want some tea? Or I can put on a pot of coffee really quick?” I asked.

  “Tea would be great,” he replied and took a seat at the table. I set the beverage in front of him, refilled my glass, and sat down myself.

  “I’m assuming you are here because you have more information about Harvey?”

  “Yes, and it’s not good.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  Clive took a breath. “It was the cupcake.”

  I looked at him quizzically. “You mean the red velvet cupcake?”

  He nodded his head. “It was poisoned.”

  “Just that one or all of them?”

  “Just that one.”

  “How could that happen?”

  “That’s what we’re looking into. Do you remember anything strange or anyone strange hanging around this morning?”

  “No. I told you earlier it was a normal day. I took the cupcake delivery from Avery. I’m the one who took that particular cupcake and gave it to Harvey. I promise you I wasn’t the one who poisoned him.”

  “I know, but knowing who didn’t poison him doesn’t help to tell me who did.”

  “I don’t know who would have had access besides myself, Berklie and, of course, Avery. Everyone who came in this morning was someone we know. I mean, they’ve at least been in before. There weren’t any new customers or strangers. Do you think it was some random act, or for Harvey specifically?”

  “That’s also something we are trying to figure out. I need you to make a list of everyone you can remember who came in so we can talk to them.”

  “Okay.” My cell, which was sitting on the table, started ringing. “It’s Avery.” I said to Clive, and answered the phone. “Hello.”

  “What am I going to do?” she immediately cried into the phone. “People are going to think my cupcakes aren’t safe. I’m going to lose my business!”

  “Calm down Avery,” I said and held up a finger to Clive to signal him to wait a second. “Listen, we will figure this out. Let me call you back in a few minutes. Or better yet, where are you? I will come over.”

  “I’m at the shop.”

  “Okay, I’ll be there in a half hour or so.” I sat the phone back down on the table and looked at Clive. “She’s upset to say the least. You don’t think she had anything to do with it either, do you?”

  “I’ve known both you girls for a long time, Trixie, so no, I don’t think you had anything to do with it. I still need to investigate and figure out who did, but I have to treat ya’ll fairly, not just blow it off because we sat in geometry together.”

  “I know, I know. I get it. What did Harvey’s wife, I guess widow, say?”

  “Doris. Now there’s a unique individual,” he said, and apparently he couldn’t help but crack a smile in spite of the circumstances.

  “I’ve only met her a handful of times over the years. I went to a few cookouts at their place with my parents when I was a kid, and she seemed nice.”

  “Oh, she is nice and a great cook. Her and Harvey just had, how should I put it, an interesting marriage.”

  “I know they were getting a divorce, which shocked me. At their age! What’s the point?”

  “Did you know Harvey had a girlfriend?”

  “Shut the front door! No way. Isn’t he in his eighties?”

  “Age isn’t a factor these days, if you know what I mean.”

  I hit him in the arm. “I wasn’t talking about that. I just meant dating is hard enough at my age, I can’t imagine wanting the drama of dating and a divorce at his.”

  “That I agree with.” He pushed up from the table. “Go ahead and go comfort Avery. You’re cleared to open back up for business tomorrow, but Avery isn’t. Since the cupcakes came from her business, forensics needs to go through and test everything in there.”

  “Poor Avery. How long do you think it will be?”

  “At least a couple days.”

  “Okay. Thanks, Clive.”

  *****

  “No one is going to think you poison people. Clive doesn’t think that, and anyone who knows you won’t think that.” I had spent the last thirty minutes since getting to Avery’s trying to calm her down and convince her the world wasn’t going to end.

  “Clive doesn’t eat my cupcakes. He likes the donuts at the bakery better,” she said obstinately, in no mood to listen to reason. I could understand why. She had her heart and soul, not to mention all her money, poured into CupCakes. Much like I did in Read-Wine. She had opened the bakery about a year before we opened Read-Wine, after being fired from her position as a pastry chef for being too fancy on a wedding cake at a different bakery. That reasoning never made sense to me. Weren’t wedding cakes supposed to be elaborate? The cupcake craze had just hit, and she knew most people liked fancy. CupCakes didn’t just carry cupcakes. They also did custom cakes, pies, cookies. Any baked good that, as Avery put it, could be fancified. People in town and even farther away liked her version of fancy, and she had been doing amazingly well.

  “Avery, listen to me. People in this town have been enjoying your baked goods for over a year and once Clive finds the person responsible for Harvey’s death, they won’t think twice about eating your cupcakes.”

  “I hope so. We have all our savings riding on this place. Maybe someone is out to get me, and Harvey just got caught in the middle.”

  “You’re being overdramatic, Avery. I don’t think anyone is out to get you. I’m sure Clive feels the same way.”

  “You’re right. I just can’t believe this is happening. The last few months have been so good. We were finally starting to operate in the black. This could be a fatal set back.”

  “Just try not to think of it that way. You need to think positive. This will all work out—you’ll see,” I said.

  “Who do you think could have done this?” Avery asked me.

  “I have no idea. Harvey seemed harmless. Hopefully Clive will figure it out soon.”

  Chapter 3

  A ringing phone interrupted my conversation with Berklie, and when I went to grab it I looked at the clock above the desk. I still had fifteen minutes until opening time. Harvey had just been murdered yesterday, and it seemed forever ago. The concept of time could be such a funny thing. Berklie and I were both just hoping people would show up today, and while we knew we were bound to have a lot of questions by customers on what happened, we were hoping for a return to business as usual as much as possible under the circumstances.

  “Hello?” I waited for a second before saying hello a second time, and then a third, and when there was no response I hung up the phone and frowned.

  “Same thing?” Berklie asked.

  “Yep. It’
s starting to really tick me off.”

  “Do you think it’s him?”

  “I don’t know, but this is the tenth day in a row where someone has called and then doesn’t say anything. At this point, I don’t think it’s just a wrong number and it’s not some random heavy breather. For one thing there’s no heavy breathing, and I don’t think someone playing a prank would just call the same number over and over and over again. Not ten days in a row. If it’s a heavy breather the person sucks at it,” I said attempting some humor.

  “Have you told Clive about the calls?”

  “Not yet. The first couple days I didn’t think much of it and then I kept thinking they would stop.”

  “What if they don’t, Trixie?”

  “I don’t know. I will talk to Clive tomorrow when I go for my last shift of community service.”

  A few months ago when Sylvia was killed, a guy by the name of Stephen Westner came into town. Came to find out Stephen had an arrangement with Sylvia to keep her identity hidden from some mob types who were after her and Jack. Sylvia owed him money, which after she was killed, in an entirely unrelated chain of events, was confiscated by the police because she had it at her house and it became part of the crime scene. Stephen said if I didn’t get him his money back he would hurt Sophie, so I hatched a plan that involved Berklie and me breaking into the property room at the police station and getting the bag of money back. Not one of our smarter plans, although it worked, and at the time it was the best I could come up with. At the last minute I double crossed Stephen. It had never been my intent to actually give him the money. I wasn’t that stupid, and all he got was an empty bag. He did, however, escape from the police, which wasn’t a part of my grand scheme and why I would suck as a criminal. His parting words to me were that he wasn’t finished with me and he would be back. I had put it out of my mind as an empty threat until recently when these hang up calls began. It was starting to unnerve me and frankly, make me paranoid.

  “How do you only have one left? I have two.”

  Even though Clive, the Chief of Police, was a high school friend of ours, he was not happy we’d stolen evidence out of his station. In fact he had been furious, and Berklie and I had been screamed at and lectured for hours, though we were lucky it wasn’t much worse. It really had been a bad judgment call, one of my worst decisions ever. I had almost been afraid we were going to cause him to have a stroke. Once he had calmed down somewhat, he told us he wouldn’t press charges if we volunteered one hundred hours of our time to community service. Specifically, working at the women’s shelter. All in all, it was a fair trade off. We could have been in so much more trouble, and I was finding I enjoyed my time at the shelter. Something I probably would not have experienced if this hadn’t happened. Good things can come out of bad decisions. Though I tried not to make bad decisions a habit.

  “Katherine was sick last Saturday, and I worked the night shift to cover. So I got in extra time. I think I might even keep volunteering once our mandated gig is up. I like it, and it makes me feel like I’m doing something good for the community, and Katherine needs the help.”

  “I feel the same way. Sure puts our problems in perspective.”

  “Yes, it does. It’s easy to get caught up in your own negativity. Thinking of others is almost a relief and makes it easier to appreciate what you have.”

  “I’m glad you’re planning to talk to Clive. This may be nothing, then again it may very well be Stephen. Even if it’s a random stranger, it needs to stop. It’s creepy. We just need to be safe. I don’t even want to think about what could happen if it is Stephen.” She shuddered.

  “I know. We need to get the doors unlocked,” I said, looking at the clock. It was a couple minutes to opening time and while during the week we didn’t often have people beating down our doors, it was never good business to open late. You never knew when there might be an early bird, and we couldn’t afford to miss a sale, especially today.

  Walking up to the front, I opened the door and saw Sophie coming around the corner. I held the door open for her, and she walked in.

  “Brrr. The mornings are getting cold,” Sophie said.

  “I know. I had to scrape frost off my windows this morning,” Berklie said walking behind the cash wrap to open the registers. She poured a cup of coffee and handed it to Sophie, who was taking off her jacket to hang on the coat tree.

  ‘Thanks, Berk.” Sophie took a sip and said, “What’s on the agenda today?”

  I looked at the list I wrote down each day on my notepad. If I didn’t write down the things I was to do each day, I would never remember them. I then noticed chipped polish on my index finger. Damn, I’d just had a manicure two days ago. “I’ve got a shipment of books coming in, and I’m running book buy back event from five to seven tonight. Berklie will be working the shop this morning and has a networking event over in Cedar Creek at three, and for you we have a bunch of website updates. I took pictures of the new books for you to upload and catalog.”

  “Fun stuff!” Sophie said. “And hopefully we can accomplish all that without any dead bodies.”

  “I hear that. All kidding aside, even the most tedious stuff we have to do is more fun because we’re doing it for ourselves,” I said.

  “So true,” Berklie agreed. “Are you going to tell Sophie about the hang up this morning?”

  I gave her a look. I hadn’t planned on it. Not wanting to bother Sophie with such things while she was on cloud nine over her engagement and wedding planning. Why not let her enjoy her own version of reality for a while instead of the one we were currently experiencing?

  “Another one?” Sophie looked at me, eyebrows raised.

  “Yes, just a few minutes before you got here.”

  “This makes how many straight days now?”

  “Too many. I told her she needs to tell Clive,” said Berklie.

  “And I said I would tomorrow when I see him. Now let’s talk about something more fun and enjoy our coffee. How’s the wedding planning going, Sophie?”

  Sophie looked at us with a hint of a frown on her face and took a sip of her coffee. She was clearly thinking about something, and it wasn’t her wedding. At least I hoped it wasn’t, with that frown.

  “Is something wrong, Sophie?” I asked. “Is it you and Jonathan?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Thank goodness,” said Berklie. “If it’s not Jonathan then it can’t be that bad.”

  “Actually it may be worse.”

  “What is going on Sophie?” I asked.

  “There’s something I’ve never told you guys. One of the reasons I moved here was because I was being harassed by an ex-boyfriend of mine. He was stalking me, following Jim, crank calls, nasty emails, you name it. When Jim got the job offer here, it was perfect. We thought we could start a new life together and get away from crazy. When Jim and I broke up I was settled here, and had met you two, and I didn’t want to go back to the place where this guy could possibly find me, so I stayed.”

  “Oh, honey. Why didn’t you ever tell us this before?” Berklie said putting her hand on Sophie’s arm.

  Sophie shrugged. “I was making a fresh start. I wanted to put it all behind me and pretend it didn’t happen. It worked. I had all but forgotten about it until a few days ago.”

  “Why? What happened a few days ago?” I asked.

  “This,” she said pulling a note out of her purse and handing it to me.

  With Berklie looking over my shoulder I read, You thought you could run, you thought you could hide, but now that I’ve found you, it’s going to be a great surprise!

  I looked at Sophie. “Are you telling us this is from him?”

  “I’m sure it is. No one else would send that.”

  “Maybe it’s from Stephen?” Berklie said.

  Sophie shook her head. “No. It’s his handwriting. I recognize it. It was mailed to my house. Somehow he found out where I live. What am I going to do?”

  “You
need to tell Jonathan, first of all. He deserves to know. Besides, he can protect you. And then you need to tell Clive. They need to know if you think this guy is loony,” I said. “There’s no telling what he might do.”

  “Trixie’s right, Sophie. You need to tell them,” Berklie said.

  “I don’t want to worry Jonathan with this.”

  “Why not? He’s your fiancé. He has a right to know and he would want to,” I said.

  “I know. You’re right. Just give me some time. I need to process this. I can’t believe when I’ve finally found the guy of my dreams, this has to resurface.”

  “Sophie, it’s just a small setback to your smooth road of happiness. Don’t let it bother you,” I said. “It’s not like it’s your fault.

  “At least say you will tell Clive so he can keep his eyes open,” Berklie said, “and then I agree with Trixie. You need to not let this loser interfere with your happiness. That’s what he wants, to get in your head, so you can’t let him win.”

  “You don’t think Clive will tell Jonathan do you?”

  “No. Not if you tell him not to,” I said. “But you’re being silly to not tell him yourself.”

  “Do you think maybe that is who has been calling the shop and hanging up?” asked Berklie. “Maybe it’s not Stephen at all.”

  “He’s never pranked before, but I guess it could be him. It’s not out of the realm of possibilities,” Sophie said.

  “So we have two potential crazies out there and yesterday’s dead body. I’m sorry I ever said the library was boring,” I said dryly. “Boring doesn’t sound all that bad right now.”

  *****

  I let the last person out of the shop and locked the door behind her. It was almost eight. I was exhausted, and it had been a long day. People had asked a lot of questions about what happened to Harvey and, interestingly enough, pastry sales stayed good. So apparently no one was too worried they would get a poisoned cupcake. Exactly what I told Avery this afternoon when I called to check on her. The book buy back event had been a success. We were even drawing from other towns now. Word of mouth was traveling, and we had some popular, new titles to add to our used book collection. It never failed to surprise me how many old and rare books people had stashed around that they no longer wanted taking up space. I walked back to the office to grab my coat and purse, deciding to deal with all the paperwork in the morning; I was too tired to worry about it now. The phone rang and I paused. Since the hang up calls had started a couple weeks ago I got a little nervous every time the phone rang. Did I feel like dealing with a customer right now? Not really, but the businesswoman in me won out, and I decided to answer it. Plus it could be Berklie or Sophie seeing how things went.