Murder, Money & Marzipan (A Lexy Baker Bakery Cozy Mystery)

by Dobbs, Leighann

  “Are you winning?” Lexy asked as she approached the older woman.

  Nans swiveled her head in Lexy’s direction only long enough to indicate she heard her, then returned to watching the reels spin.

  “Not so much, about even,” Nans said holding her hand out flat and tilting it back and forth.

  “Did you hear?” Lexy asked.

  “Hear what?” This time Nans didn’t even turn her head.

  “There was a murder this morning in Bakery Battles Stadium.”

  That got her attention. Nans turned to face Lexy, the slot machine all but forgotten. “Really?”

  Lexy told her about how she had discovered the body, the police inquisition and the discovery of her apron as the murder weapon.

  “That nasty woman.” Nans looked like she’d eaten a sour lemon. “There’s probably a lot of people who would have wanted to kill her.”

  “Only every baker in the competition. I also noticed her husband is in the bar over there,” Lexy tilted her head in the direction of the bar, “living it up with some blonde.”

  Nans’ eyes widened. She craned her neck to get a view of the bar.

  “And I noticed Aurea Pearce is very friendly with Grace Harvey. If Grace replaces Amanda it could throw the competition in Aurea’s favor.”

  “Do you think she would stoop to murder just to win the competition? I know there is a lot of money at stake, but murder?”

  Lexy worried her bottom lip with her teeth. Did she think Aurea would stoop to murder?

  “It does seem a bit extreme, but no harm in checking her out, right?” Lexy shrugged. “Nans, I was hoping you and the ladies would help look into some of the suspects. Right now all the evidence points to me and I’m so busy with the competition…”

  “Of course, dear.” She slid off her seat, grabbing her gigantic purse. “I’ll go back to the room and call Ida.

  Lexy felt relief wash over her. Earlier in the year she had discovered that her grandmother and her four friends had an odd hobby - they solved murders. In fact, they had been instrumental in finding the killer of Lexy’s ex-boyfriend and in helping to clear her name from the suspect list. Their investigative skills had also come in handy when Lexy had stumbled across the dead body of a client several months earlier. Lexy felt a lot better knowing they were going to be helping to find Amanda’s real killer and get the police off her back.

  “Thanks, Nans. I knew I could count on you.” Lexy noticed the older woman squinting at something just over her shoulder.

  “Who is that?” Nans asked.

  Lexy turned. She spotted the object of Nans’ question about 20 feet away, making a beeline toward her. Detective Nik Stone.

  ###

  Lexy’s stomach rolled over as she watched the tall red-head barreling toward her, a trail of detectives in her wake.

  “Your assistant told us we could find you here.”

  Lexy raised an eyebrow, afraid to speak. She noticed Nik looking at Nans. She wouldn’t arrest a girl in front of her grandmother, would she?

  “This is my grandmother, Mona Baker - Nans, this is Detective Nik Stone.”

  Lexy was surprised to see the stoic detective’s face soften as she reached her hand out to Nans.

  “Call me Nikki, Ms Baker.”

  Nik turned back to Lexy. “I need to ask you some questions. We’ve found out a few things that make you a person of interest in this case.”

  Lexy raised her eyebrows. “What?” she squeaked out.

  “We reviewed the videos from yesterday. It seems Judge Saunders gave you quite a smack on your marzipan.”

  Lexy shrugged. “I already told you that this morning.”

  Nik flipped open her notebook thumbing through a few pages. “Yes, but what you didn’t tell us is that afterward, you said the competition would be ‘better if Saunders wasn’t around’.” Nik wiggled her fingers in the air to punctuate the last five words.

  Lexy swallowed. “That’s just the sort of thing you say without really meaning anything. I was steaming about the bad judgment. I wouldn’t actually kill her over it!”

  “Your competitor Aurea Pearce seems to think you might.”

  Lexy felt her cheeks grow red with anger. It would be just like Aurea to say that. She took a deep breath. “Detective, Aurea Pearce is my biggest competition. She’ll say pretty much anything to cast suspicion on me.”

  Nik nodded. “There is one more thing. We’ve done a little checking, and it seems this isn’t the first time you’ve been suspected of murder.”

  “I already told you about my client…”

  “Not that murder, your ex-boyfriend.”

  “But I was cleared. I was even the one who caught the real killer - with Nans’ help.” Lexy turned to her grandmother who nodded in agreement.

  Nik raised an eyebrow at Nans. “Be that as it may, I have a call in to Detective Perillo back in Brooke Ridge Falls regarding you, so if you are hiding anything, you better come clean now. Jack and I are old friends.”

  Old friends? Lexy didn’t like the predatory gleam in Nik Stone’s eye when she said Jack’s name. Nor did she like the fact that Jack hadn’t mentioned he knew a gorgeous female detective out here. Then again, he probably wasn’t expecting her to get involved in a murder case.

  “I’m sure you’ll find I’m not hiding anything.” Lexy bristled.

  “Well, then, I trust you won’t leave the hotel. We may have more questions for you once we review the surveillance tapes and electronic room key records.” She nodded at Nans. “A pleasure to meet you ma’am.”

  Nik turned in a billow of copper hair and strode off on her long legs, the detectives trailing behind her.

  Lexy let out a breath she hadn’t even realized she was holding. Jack was going to be mad when he found out she had gotten herself involved in another murder. He wasn’t too happy when she’d investigated the last one and had made her promise she wouldn’t get involved in any more.

  “Well, I can see why you are in such a hurry to find the killer.” Nans interrupted her thoughts.

  “Exactly. Judge Saunders was nasty to everyone in the competition. That means we have a lot of suspects to weed through. I need to get busy finding out which one of them was not in their room at 4 am.”

  “I’ll go back to the room and get the girls working on checking out Judge Saunders and Aurea Pearce. We can compare notes when you get up there.”

  “Thanks.” Lexy bent over, giving Nans a quick hug before the women headed off in different directions.

  Lexy exited the casino making a mental “to-do” list. She had to put some finishing touches on the wedding cakes for tomorrow’s judging, then she wanted to talk to as many of the other contestants as she could to see if they had noticed anything that could help her find the murderer.

  Most importantly, she needed to figure out how to keep Jack from finding out she was investigating another murder. She had a gut feeling that keeping their relationship intact depended on preventing Detectives Perillo and Stone from talking to each other. Not only to keep Jack from finding out about her involvement in the case but also to keep the two of them from rekindling any old friendship they may have had.

  Chapter Four

  “It must have been scary finding her body.” Corinne stared at Lexy wide-eyed.

  “It gets your adrenalin going, that’s for sure.” Lexy looked around the other baker’s booth which had wedding cake decorations neatly laid out. “Did you hear if they are going to be starting up the filming again tomorrow?”

  Corinne nodded. “The show must go on.”

  Lexy studied the other woman. A perky girl in her mid-twenties, she was a good baker and a nice person. Lexy knew how much Corinne wanted to win Bakery Battles - her husband had left her with three kids and a mountain of debt. She desperately needed the money.

  For a fleeting second, Lexy wondered if the death of Judge Saunders would help Corinne’s chances. If Corinne thought it would, could she have murdered her?

/>   Lexy shook off her suspicions. Was she getting so paranoid that she saw potential killers everywhere?

  “Did you notice anything suspicious about Sanders or see anything that morning?”

  Corinne shook her head. “I didn’t get down here until six, and I heard she was killed much earlier. I was in my room all night with Kara.”

  Most of the contestants had roommates - other bakers they had teamed up with to share expenses. This made things a little easier for Lexy and her investigation since each baker had someone who could vouch for their whereabouts. Of course, that assumed they were all telling the truth.

  The baker in the next booth, Mikela, leaned across the table separating the booths. “The police came by asking us all where we were and if anyone could confirm we were in our rooms. They said they could tell if anyone left because of the electronic room keys. The doors record when they are opened and closed. The only thing is, if the room door is opened, they don’t know who left.”

  “To tell you the truth, I don’t think anyone in the competition is too upset about Saunders, but I hate to think one of us killed her.”

  Lexy felt a chill at the young woman’s words. The three woman looked around the stadium at the other bakers. Could one of them be a cold-blooded killer?

  Mikela leaned in closer to Lexy and Corinne. “I didn’t say too much to the police - none of us really want to because we’re afraid of getting the competition closed down, but I did notice Judge Saunders was acting kind of funny.”

  Lexy felt her heart beat pick up speed. “Funny how?”

  “She was acting kind of secretive - more so than usual. I saw her getting chummy in the corner with Evan Westmore a few times.”

  “Evan Westmore - the event coordinator?” Corinne made a sour face. “Who would want to get chummy with him?”

  Lexy and Mikela chuckled. Westmore wasn’t exactly handsome. He was actually rather dowdy - a short, stubby man with a bad attitude. Given Saunders’s own nasty attitude, Lexy thought they might have made a perfect match.

  “Hey, now that you mention it, I did notice she had some expensive new shoes and clothes. I didn’t realize competition judges got paid so much.”

  “Did you see the Coach purse she had? I wondered why she seemed to be taking pains with her appearance. Maybe she was having an affair with Westmore?”

  Lexy opened her mouth, pointed her finger at her throat, and made gagging noises causing the other two to collapse into a fit of giggles.

  The laughter caught the attention of Janice, one of the other bakers, who came over to join them.

  “We were just talking about Judge Saunders’s murder,” Corinne offered.

  Janice raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, the police have been all over asking questions.” She looked around the room, then stepped closer to the other women. “Some I’d rather not answer.”

  “Oh?” Lexy asked. “Like what?”

  “They were asking us if we were in our rooms all night, if we had anyone in there, and what time we left.”

  “Right, they asked all of us.”

  “Well, I don’t really like my roommate, but I don’t want to be a tattle-tale either.”

  “Who is your roommate?”

  “Aurea Pearce.”

  Lexy, Mikela and Corinne groaned in sympathy. No one liked Aurea, and to be saddled with her as a roommate seemed cruel.

  “What do you know that you didn’t want to tell them?” Lexy asked.

  Janice looked down at the floor. “They asked me to verify what time Aurea and I left the room in the morning. Apparently she had told them she left at 5 am. I told them I got up at 5:30 and left around 6 and that Aurea had left before me.”

  “That sounds about right., I don’t see the problem.” Corinne said wrinkling her brows together.

  Janice bit her lower lip. “Aurea made a lot of noise when she got up and it woke me. I looked at the clock when she left and it wasn’t 5 am like she said…it was 3:25 am - shortly before Saunders was murdered.”

  ###

  “How long until you can get all these surveillance tapes looked at?” Nik perched herself on the edge of Detective Jake Ryan’s desk.

  “Days, boss.” He shrugged up at her. “The bakers’ rooms are on all different floors and not all of them are staying in the hotel. It’s gonna take a long time.”

  Nik chewed on an already stubby thumb-nail. They had questioned all the bakers in the competition and they were proving to be a tight lipped bunch.

  “It’s too bad they don’t have cameras right in Bakery Battles Stadium. That would make our jobs a lot easier,” Nik said wistfully.

  “That’s for sure. Unfortunately, the contestants wouldn’t hear of it. They didn’t want any cameras spying on their secret recipes.”

  Nik nodded. “Well, you know how I love a challenge. What do we have so far?”

  Jake hit a few keys on the keyboard, then swung his monitor in her direction. “We have a dead bakery contest judge - TOD about 4 am. We have a bunch of contestants who hated her - they might all have had a motive. We’ve been able to verify that about half of them were in their rooms at the time of death so they can be ruled out. We have reports that the judge and her husband were fighting quite loudly the day before. That’s about it.”

  “The husband…does he have an alibi?”

  Jake shook his head. “He was in their room alone at the time of the murder. He did seem upset when we first informed him of his wife’s death, but when I went back to question him later, he was in the casino drinking and didn’t seem upset at all. He did say they were having troubles, but to tell you the truth he was so drunk it was hard to get anything concrete out of him. I have a note to go back and question him again.”

  “What about Lexy Baker, the one who found the body? Saunders was strangled with her apron. Do you think she is involved?” Nik remembered the call she had put into Jack Perillo to check up on Baker. She pulled out her cell phone. No messages. Same old Jack, gets so involved in his cases he forgets to look at his messages.

  “I’m not sure about her,” Jake said. “She doesn’t have much of a motive, even though the evidence points to her. Someone could be trying to frame her, or it could be co-incidence. Murder is pretty serious; most people don’t kill someone over losing a contest…unless they have another reason.”

  Nik glanced at her watch. “We need to get more answers before the trail gets cold. It’s too bad the contestants aren’t more forthcoming with their information.”

  “They don’t want to do anything to get the contest shut down. Maybe we should threaten them with pulling the plug on the whole thing unless they start coming forward with what they know,.” Jake offered.

  Nik screwed up one side of her face while she thought about it. It might work, but then again, it could also backfire on them. What they needed was a way to get them to open up…to gain some sort of an “in” with the bakers.

  A sudden inspiration hit. She snapped her fingers. “I’ve got it!”

  Jake raised his eyebrows for her to continue.

  “The bakers won’t talk to us, but they will talk to each other, especially Lexy Baker. What if we could get close to her and let her do the work for us?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Make friends with her, maybe feed her some information. Let her get the dirt from the other bakers. I’ve seen her snooping around - if she’s not the killer, then she might be able to lead us to whoever is.”

  Jake chewed the end of his pencil. “That might work, but how do we get chummy with her?”

  Nik looked down at Jake. His straight white teeth worked the end of his pencil. His baby-blue eyes stared up at her from his handsome, finely chiseled face. A face that exuded honesty and trust but that was dotted with just enough stubble to give him a roguish air. What woman could resist a face like that?

  “Not we, Detective Ryan - you.”

  Chapter Five

  Lexy leaned back against the pillows, stretching her legs out
on the bed. Her hand absently patted the spot beside her where her dog, Sprinkles, would be lying if she were at home.

  She missed Sprinkles. The little white poodle mix was a big part of her life but Lexy couldn’t bring her to Vegas so she had left the dog with Jack.

  Jack!

  She cringed, realizing he’d probably heard about the murder by now. She’d have to call him and downplay her role in it.

  “…out anything interesting?” Nans’ question interrupted her thoughts.

  “What?” She looked over at the older woman sitting at the round table in their hotel room. Her iPad sat in front of her with the crossword puzzle and pencil next to it.

  The room was a decent size with two queen beds. Lexy lay on the one nearest the table. She could see into the adjoining room through the open door. She and Cassie had rented two rooms so the three of them would have lots of space. In the next room, she could hear Cassie making showering noises which reminded her that she needed to hit the shower herself to wash off the days accumulation of flour and sugar.

  “I asked if you had found out anything more downstairs - you were going to talk to the other bakers.” Nans raised her eyebrows at Lexy.

  “Oh, right. Actually I found out something very interesting. I talked to Aurea’s roommate - she said Aurea wasn’t in the room at the time Judge Saunders was murdered.”

  Nans’ eyes went wide. “That is interesting. Would she have a motive to kill Saunders?”

  “Her good friend Grace Harvey is one of the replacement judges. If Grace takes Saunders’s spot, she might judge Aurea’s work more favorably and give her a better chance of winning. There’s a lot of money at stake.”

  Nans tapped her lips with her pencil. “Murdering someone is a pretty drastic move to win a contest, even if the prize is $100,000 and a magazine spread. I think the killer must have had a more pressing motive.”

  Nans’ iPad erupted in a sequence of beeps and rings making Lexy jump. “What’s that?”

  “Oh, its FaceTime.” Nans looked down at the tablet. “Ida’s calling.” She slid something on the screen, then peered down into it.