Death by the Dozen

by Jenn McKinlay

  Captain Jack began to purr, and Mel felt him nuzzle her. It appeared he had decided he liked her, or maybe he had just scared himself silly and was willing to take comfort where he could get it.

  “Captain Jack?” Joe asked.

  “Angie named him because of his black eye spot. It looks like a pirate’s patch.”

  “So, we’re talking Pirates of the Caribbean’s Jack Sparrow?”

  “Exactly,” Mel said.

  “But Jack doesn’t have an eye patch.”

  “Yeah, tell your sister that.”

  Joe followed her into the apartment with a little wince.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “He gashed me pretty badly. I think I’m bleeding.”

  “Oh, let me get you some Neosporin and a Band-Aid,” Mel said.

  She turned to go to the bathroom, but Joe stopped her by grabbing the back of her jeans and pulling her back.

  “I really think a kiss and a cupcake will do the trick,” he said with a grin.

  “Oh, you big faker,” she said. “You have cupcakes on the brain. Here, he can kiss you.”

  She held out Captain Jack to him, and Joe gave her a wary look before he took him. “He’s not going to shred me, is he?”

  “No, but he may try to steal your cupcake.”

  Joe lifted the kitten until they were nose to nose. “Apparently, we need to come to an understanding,” he said. “The cupcakes and the girl are mine. I’ll share but remember more mine than yours, got it?”

  Captain Jack gave him a squinty stink eye and then promptly began to lick his own shoulder.

  “I’m just guessing here, but I think this little pirate is plotting to have me thrown off of his ship.”

  Mel laughed as she quickly made them each a chicken sandwich on toasted sour dough with lettuce and tomato and a light smear of mayonnaise. She then poured Captain Jack a small saucer of milk and gave him some diced-up chicken of his own, placing it on the floor in his corner of the kitchen.

  “No wonder he attacked me,” Joe said. “You feed him like this and he’s never going to leave.”

  “Would that be such a bad thing?” she asked.

  Joe looked at the kitten and then at her and back at Captain Jack, who seemed to sense that his future swung in the balance. He looked up at Joe and gave a very loud belch for such a tiny cat. Joe burst out laughing.

  “He really is a Captain Jack,” he said. “I’m game if you are.”

  Mel smiled. “We have a pet.”

  Joe took a bite of his sandwich. “It’ll be good practice for us.”

  “Practice?”

  “You know, for having kids,” he said.

  Twenty

  Mel sucked in a gulp of air and a piece of bread lodged in her throat, making her choke. It wasn’t the “delicate clearing of the throat” choking; it was a full-on hacking like she was going to die before she got the bread dislodged with several whacks on the back from Joe.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Fine,” she answered, her voice tight. She took a long sip of water, trying to ease the raked feeling of her esophagus. It only helped a little. “Wrong tube.”

  If Joe thought her sudden attack was from him mentioning babies, he said nothing and neither did Mel. She thought perhaps she had misunderstood him. They had been dating for only a few months; surely he couldn’t be thinking that far in the future, could he?

  Thankfully, Captain Jack kept them entertained by swatting and chasing his empty plastic bowl around the kitchen floor.

  Joe collected their dishes while Mel took out Oz’s cupcakes. She had to acknowledge that a part of her was nervous.

  They looked good with their thick chocolate coating and pepper on top. She put one on a plate for each of them, and Joe handed her a fork.

  “Here goes nothing,” Mel said. She tucked into the cupcake, breaking through the chocolate exterior and into the seemingly moist cake. She raised the forkful to her mouth, knowing that their contest status was dependent upon the efforts of a supersized high school punk rocker with culinary aspirations, and her first impression of the taste was that it was exquisite.

  She and Joe exchanged wide-eyed glances.

  “This is fantastic!” he said. “This could be one of yours.”

  The taste of chocolate and chili rolled across her tongue in a burst of flavor that burned while it soothed, but neither flavor overpowered the other. It was addictive. She took another bite and another, and before she knew it, the cupcake was gone. She glanced at her empty plate and then at Joe.

  “Don’t look at me,” he said. “You did that all on your own.”

  “But . . . oh, man, I have to get that recipe.”

  “Yes, you do,” he agreed. His plate was empty, and he was looking at the box with longing.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” Mel said. “The last one is for Angie. Speaking of which, I want to get back to her.”

  “Agreed,” Joe said. “Will the little guy be okay?”

  “I think so,” Mel said. She watched Joe reach down and give Captain Jack a scratch under the chin. The white ball of fluff gave a contented purr, and Mel had a feeling her males were bonding. She refused to acknowledge how charming she found this entire situation or to dwell on how much it scared the baloney out of her.

  It wasn’t that she was commitment phobic, she told herself. Really. It was just that she’d been single for a long time, and although she loved dating Joe, she wasn’t sure she was ready for the “24–7 together” thing or the “coparenting a pet” thing.

  She reached down and rubbed Captain Jack’s head, and he let out a big yawn. As they shut the door behind them, he was kneading a fluffy pillow on the futon, looking ready to pass out.

  When they arrived in the waiting room, most of the DeLauras were still there. They were watching a movie on the TV, and someone had brought in a load of subs from DeFalco’s Italian Deli. They appeared to be camped out for the duration.

  “How did it go, Mel?” Paulie asked. “Did you make the cut? Angie’s been anxious.”

  “I think we may have pulled it out,” she said. “Do you think I could go see her?”

  “You might want to ask her husband,” Dom said and gave Tate a firm nudge in the ribs.

  Tate rubbed his side and said, “I’ll call back and see if they’re letting her take visitors.”

  He went to use the phone on the wall beside the door that led to the ICU. In a moment, he turned and waved Mel and Joe forward.

  “It’s a go,” he said. As the door was unlatched, Tate grabbed Mel’s arm. “Tell her if she needs anything, anything at all, to let me know.”

  “I will,” Mel said.

  The air in the ICU was suffused with the harsh astringent smell of disinfectant and body odors that Mel didn’t care to dwell on. She forced herself to think of Oz’s cupcake instead and tried to deconstruct the ingredients in her mind.

  The corridor ended in a circle with the nurses’ station in the middle and the rooms jutting off it. Joe paused beside Angie’s room. Her curtain was pulled shut, and they eased around it, afraid to disturb her if she was sleeping.

  Angie turned her gaze from the window, and her face lit up as soon as she saw them. She struggled to sit up, but Joe hurried forward and pushed her back down.

  “Don’t get excited or we’re leaving,” he ordered.

  Angie ignored him. “How did we do? Did you make it in time? Did we win?”

  “We did all right—better than all right, in fact,” Mel said. “And we owe it all to Oz.”

  Angie’s eyes went wide. “Explain.”

  Mel told her the entire story. Angie hooted with triumph when the story finished.

  “We have to hire him,” she said. “If we win, he gets a cut of the prize.”

  “Absolutely,” Mel agreed. “I was so late. I never could have put together an entry, and his cupcake was superb.”

  “You have to check the leader board,” Angie
said. “First thing tonight when you go home and then call me. And Joe, you have to stay with her. Don’t let her out of your sight.”

  “Angie—” Mel began, but Angie interrupted her, “No, this poisoning was no accident. I’m telling you it was meant for you.”

  “Joe said that before, but I just can’t believe anyone would want to win this competition so much that they would poison one of us.”

  “I think both of our meals were poisoned,” Angie said. “I’ve been lying here thinking about it, and I bet they were trying to take you out, but they would have to have poisoned both of our breakfasts since there would be no way for them to know what you had ordered. Mel, if you hadn’t gone to the bathroom, we might both be dead.”

  “I hope you’re wrong,” Mel said. A shudder coursed through her at the thought that Angie might have died. “I couldn’t stand it if some nut harmed you while trying to get to me. That would mean this is my fault.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Angie and Joe declared at the same time.

  Mel looked at them.

  “It’s not your fault if some wacko thought that poisoning you would give them a better shot at winning a cooking contest,” Joe said. “That’s out of your control.”

  “Does Dr. Patel have any more information?” Mel asked.

  “No,” Angie said. “He’s still trying to figure out exactly what the poison was, but he did say he thought it was something that would have an immediate reaction, which means it had to be in my breakfast at the café. It was my first meal of the day.”

  “Did we see any of our competitors there?” Mel asked. “All I saw were a few of the judges.”

  “Just because we didn’t see them doesn’t mean they weren’t there,” Angie said.

  The phone beside her bed began to ring. She reached for it, but the tubes she was tied to made it too difficult. Joe grabbed it for her and handed it to her.

  “Hello,” she said. There was a pause and then her voice got soft. “Oh, hi.”

  Mel figured it had to be Roach, Angie’s boyfriend, and she glanced at Joe, who was watching his sister with a face full of unhappy.

  “Come on,” Mel said.

  He looked exasperatedly at her as if he couldn’t believe she was dragging him away from the perfect opportunity to eavesdrop on his sister.

  She took him by the arm and pulled him away. She stopped only to wave at Angie to let her know she’d be back.

  “I can’t believe you’re letting her have her privacy,” Joe said. “Last I heard she was pouting because he wasn’t calling as much as he had been.”

  “Yeah, then he sent her a cuckoo clock from Germany to tell her how cuckoo he was about her, and all was forgiven.”

  “How did Tate take that?” he asked.

  “I believe he wanted to vomit,” Mel said.

  “I don’t blame him,” Joe said. “Poor bastard.”

  “And yet, he must have been the one to call Roach, because I didn’t and I’m sure Angie didn’t,” Mel said. “It’s like he wants to lose her.”

  They stopped beside the exit door to the ICU. Mel went to hit the electronic button that would release the door, but Joe grabbed her hand, stopping her.

  “He doesn’t want to lose her,” he said. “Quite the opposite, I’m betting. I think he called Roach because he thinks it’s the right thing to do, and that if he and Angie are meant to be together, he wants it to be because he won her fair and square, not because he withheld information from his competition.”

  “Is that what you would do?” Mel asked him.

  Joe kissed her quick and hard on the mouth and then lightly brushed her bangs off her forehead with the back of his fingers. “Nope, when it comes to you, Cupcake, I play dirty.”

  And there it was, the grin that had made her weak in the knees since the first day he had strolled into her life when she was twelve. Mel felt a little light-headed, and she shook her head, trying to clear it as he took her hand and led her back into the waiting room. To Mel’s surprise, Uncle Stan was waiting there, and he looked grim.

  “How is she?” he asked.

  “Feisty as ever,” Mel said. She noticed everyone in the room was listening, and at her words the tension level seemed to drop like the temperature on a winter’s day.

  “Good, that’s good,” he said. He glanced at the room full of DeLauras. “How about we take a walk and I buy you a cup of coffee. You look like you could use a pickme-up.”

  “Am I invited, too?” Joe asked.

  “If you must, but then the coffee is on you,” Uncle Stan said. “Rule of deepest pocket.”

  “How do you figure?” Joe asked. “We’re both public servants.”

  “Yeah, but the suits make more than the badges, so you can pony it up, pretty boy,” Uncle Stan teased.

  Mel knew that Uncle Stan was just yanking Joe’s tie, as it were. They’d been friends even before Mel started dating Joe, and their affection for one another was always demonstrated through put-downs. She figured it had to be a lawenforcement thing.

  “Fine, but we’re not getting any of that vending machine swill you like,” he said. “We’re going to the cafeteria.”

  They left the ICU and made their way to the first floor. People in scrubs as well as visitors filled the room, but Mel, Joe, and Uncle Stan managed to get their coffee and then went to sit in the courtyard just off the cafeteria.

  It was shaded from the direct blast of the sun, but the afternoon air was still warm and Mel was grateful to be outside, away from the chilly air-conditioning.

  Uncle Stan led them to a table in the back, and when they sat down, he said, “So, you’re not just putting on a brave face for the family? She really is doing better?”

  “Compared to being huddled in an unconscious ball under a table, yeah, I’d say she’s doing better,” Mel said. “Why?”

  “Does the doctor know what did this to her yet?”

  “He only knows that it was a fast-acting poison reminiscent of digitalis something or other, like foxglove, but he can’t pinpoint exactly what it was. I’m just glad he’s finding it treatable.”

  “She’s going to have to keep the electrocardiogram on and they’re still treating her with potassium chloride, but so far her recovery looks promising,” Joe added. “Why the interest, Stan?”

  “I care about her,” Stan said. “She’s always been my favorite DeLaura.”

  “No doubt,” Joe said. He took a sip from his steaming cup of coffee and added, “But I know you. What’s going on in that cop head of yours?”

  “I talked to the medical examiner about Vic Mazzotta,” he said. “It looks like he died of cardiac arrest, but we can’t tell if it was before or after he ended up in the freezer.”

  Mel and Joe exchanged a glance.

  “And?” Mel prompted him, knowing there had to be more.

  “I got his doctor’s name from his wife, Grace,” Stan said. “When I talked to the doctor, I asked if he had a history of heart disease. The doctor said no.”

  “Well, that doesn’t mean it couldn’t have been natural causes,” Joe said. “Some people don’t know they’re high risk until they have a heart attack.”

  “Except Mazzotta just had a stress test a few weeks ago, and according to the results, he had the ticker of a twenty-five-year-old.”

  “You think he was poisoned by the same person who got Angie,” Mel said.

  “I’m just saying it’s possible,” Stan said. “I’m having the ME run some toxicology tests, and we’ll know more soon. We’ve also questioned the kitchen staff at the café, and no one saw anyone in the kitchen who shouldn’t have been. We were hoping to retrieve your breakfasts from the café’s garbage to test them both for poison, but the city truck had already picked up by the time we got there.”

  “You know what this means,” Joe said to Uncle Stan.

  “We need to watch her around the clock” Uncle Stan said.

  “I’ve got the night shift,” Joe said. “And I can work out a schedule
with the brothers to cover the rest of the hours in the day.”

  “What about me?” Mel said. “I want to help.”

  They both looked at her with identical expressions of confusion.

  “I want to help watch over Angie, too,” she said.

  “Oh, honey, we’re not talking about Angie,” Uncle Stan said. “We’re talking about you.”

  “Me?” Mel blinked.

  “I think Stan is right,” Joe said. “If Vic was poisoned, then whoever did it to him went after you.”

  “But why?” Mel asked. “There is no purpose in poisoning me. Vic, sadly, had a lot of enemies, but I don’t.”

  “Don’t you find it odd that Vic was judging the competition, you were his favorite student, he dies, probably poisoned, and then your sous-chef ingests poison that was most likely meant for you, too?”

  “But that’s mental,” Mel said. “I mean it’s not like we’re having a million-dollar bake-off. It’s ten thousand dollars and a plaque, not really worth murdering three people over.”

  “Mel, why are you in this competition?” Stan asked.

  “Because it will bring prestige to the bakery, it’s excellent publicity, and the cash prize is a nice chunk of change.”

  “Mel, we talked about this. You’ve got competitors who see this as the leap to a television career on the Food Channel,” Joe said. “This is like American Idol for chefs to them.”

  “But that’s ridic—” Mel cut herself off as she remembered Polly Ramsey, the cookie baker, telling her that her mother had high hopes that Polly would get noticed and picked up by the network.

  “What are you thinking?” Stan asked. His gaze was shrewd.

  “That I hate to admit it, but you might be right about some of my competitors. This is more than just a baking competition for them.”

  “And not just your baking competitors,” he said.

  “What do you mean?” Mel asked.

  “Bertie Grassello is replacing Vic on his show, right?” Uncle Stan asked.

  “Yeah,” Mel said. “And he’s taking Dutch Johnson along with him.”

  “Well then . . .” Uncle Stan trailed off, waiting for her to put it together.