Death by the Dozen

by Jenn McKinlay

  Mel grabbed two lesser blocks of specialty goat cheese and started mentally compiling a list for Joanie to go and get from the supply shack.

  Once back in the kitchenette, she rattled off the list to Joanie, who gave a nod and bolted away as fast as her trainers could carry her.

  “Cheesecake?” Angie asked.

  “Too obvious,” Mel said. “If we want to make the final four, we’re going to have to dig deep.”

  Angie nodded. “What’s your plan?”

  “I’m feeling a bit tart,” Mel said. “You?”

  “I’d say I’m running more toward bitter, but I can scale it back to tart if you want,” Angie joked. “What do you need?”

  “Remember the cheesecake cupcakes we made last year? Yeah, well, same idea but more of a tart. I need you to make eight ginger-infused graham cracker crusts in eight tart tins,” Mel said.

  “On it,” Angie said, and she dove into the cabinets to pull out the appropriate bakeware.

  Mel considered her blocks of goat cheese. This was going to be good; even Vic would have approved. In her mind, she could even see the plating. A delicate goat cheese tart on a thin ginger-infused graham cracker crust with a caramelized top holding diced figs and drizzled with lavender honey.

  She got her mixer and began prepping the tart. Joanie arrived with what they needed. Sadly, there was no lavender honey to be had, but she had gotten orange blossom honey, which Mel figured would do just fine. While she stood at the ready, Mel and Angie set to work.

  Mel checked the tarts, and when they were slightly jiggly in the center and firm around the edges, she knew they were done. She and Angie hurriedly plated them as the five-minute alarm had already sounded.

  With a glance at the eleven other competitors, Mel saw several variations of cheesecake, pastries stuffed with cheese, and even an ice cream, but no one else had gone with the tart. She took this as a promising sign.

  When the final buzzer sounded and the servers came to collect their entries, Angie sagged limply against the counter. Two of her brothers and Tate vaulted onto the stage.

  “You shouldn’t have competed today,” Tate chastised her as he slipped an arm about her waist in an attempt to help her off the stage. “You’re not strong enough.”

  Mel blinked. Did Tate have a death wish? Angie was going to kick him into next week.

  To Mel’s shock and amazement, Angie leaned into Tate and said, “You’re right. I overdid it. Can you give me a lift home?”

  “‘As you wish,’” Tate said, and he scooped her up into his arms.

  They exchanged a long look, and Mel waited for Angie to identify the line from The Princess Bride, but she said nothing.

  Mel and the brothers went bug-eyed. Was Angie really that ill? She didn’t get the chance to find out as Tate strode through the festival with Angie still in his arms.

  “Well, it’s about time, don’t you think?” a voice asked.

  Mel turned to see Joe standing there.

  “You mean . . .”

  “Angie’s fine. She’s just enjoying being the center of Tate’s attention.”

  “But she . . . and he . . .” Mel stammered. She knew how Angie felt about Tate and how Tate felt about Angie, but they’d never listened when she’d told them how the other felt about them. Had Angie’s near-death experience finally made them see reason? And if so, was Mel going to be forever on the outside looking in at their coupledom?

  “You still have me,” Joe said, correctly interpreting her thoughts. He draped his arm around her shoulders, and Mel was left to wonder why this didn’t make her feel any better.

  Twenty-five

  Mel was elbow deep in a luscious almond buttercream frosting when Uncle Stan came into the kitchen through the back door.

  “So I was just chatting with your mother over at the festival,” he said.

  “How is she?” Mel asked. “I can’t believe Ginny talked her into volunteering so she could meet men.”

  “What?” Uncle Stan asked.

  “Oh, you know Ginny,” Mel said. “She always has some crazy scheme that she gets Mom into.”

  “I didn’t think your mother was looking to date anyone after that last . . .”

  “Fiasco,” Mel supplied helpfully. “I don’t know that she really wants to be dating so much as she just wants something to do, but that’s just a guess. You’d have to ask her.”

  “I may just do that.” Uncle Stan looked thoughtful.

  “So, can I tempt you with a freshly baked and frosted Blonde Bombshell?” Mel asked.

  He looked about to say yes and then patted his stomach and shook his head. “I’m going to pass. I’ve got to start working on getting my girlish figure back.”

  Mel raised her eyebrows. “Any reason in particular?”

  “Just want to be healthy,” he said.

  “Uncle Stan, you can tell me, you know,” she said.

  “Oh, all right,” he glowered. “I failed my annual physical. If I don’t drop some pounds and get in better shape, they’re going to put me on a desk.”

  “Oh, harsh,” Mel said. “I promise I won’t bake another thing for you unless it’s whole wheat and sugar free.”

  “If I give you my gun, will you shoot me?” he asked. He looked as if he had sunk into the lowest depths of despair.

  “No,” she said. “I’d miss you too much.”

  “Fine, be that way,” he said. “I do have some good news, however. The leader board was up when I left the festival.”

  “And?” Mel tried not to look like she wasn’t frothing at the mouth to get the results.

  “Fairy Tale Cupcakes is sitting pretty at number . . .”

  “Uncle Stan!” she cried as he dragged it out.

  “Number two!” he said.

  “Who is number one?” she asked.

  “Confections Bakery,” he said, looking none too pleased. He was not a fan of Olivia Puckett either.

  Mel blew out a breath of relief. So they had made the final four. This was good, but still, she frowned. Tomorrow was a winner-take-all, do-or-die situation. She was going to have to bring her A game as it was her last chance to trounce Olivia.

  “I have to call Angie,” she said.

  “Her brother Dom already did,” he said. “She was happy to make the final four but not pleased that Confections ranked higher today.”

  Mel grabbed two bottles of water out of the walk-in cooler and handed one to Uncle Stan.

  “On a different subject,” she said. “Has the ME said anything about Vic’s death?”

  “The tox screens won’t be in for a while yet,” he said. He looked longingly at the tray of Blonde Bombshell cupcakes and then took a long sip of water as if trying to wash away his hunger pangs. “As of now, the cause of death remains a heart attack.”

  “But why was he in the freezer?” Mel asked.

  “The current theory is that he fell in when the heart attack hit,” he said.

  “I don’t like that theory,” Mel said.

  “Neither do I, but until I can get proof of another method of death, I’m pretty much stuck.”

  “So many people hated him,” Mel said. “On the morning Angie was poisoned, I heard a conversation between Dutch Johnson and Jordan Russell. She was upset and saying something about how she didn’t want anyone to find out what they had done.”

  “I think I may know what that’s about,” Uncle Stan said. He sat on a stool at the steel table and inhaled the scent of the cupcakes before taking another slug off his water bottle. “Apparently, your friend Dutch faked some credentials for Ms. Russell so that she could be appointed a judge in the festival.”

  “What sort of credentials?” Mel asked.

  “I believe he told Johnny Pepper that she’d been his intern on his television show, which of course she hadn’t, since according to both of them, they hadn’t even met until this food festival.”

  “That’s a lie,” Mel said.

  Uncle Stan studied her face. “I thou
ght so, too, but what makes you say that?”

  “The very fact that he would vouch for her to Johnny Pepper to get her a spot as a judge. Why would he do that if he had only met her here?”

  “He tells us it was love at first sight.”

  “Oh, please, the only thing Dutch loves is his own reflection,” Mel scoffed.

  Uncle Stan smiled. “Yeah, I had him pegged like that.” The phone on his belt buzzed, and he checked the display. “Gotta go.”

  “Well, thanks for the update,” Mel said. “You’ll be there tomorrow?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it,” he said, “and Mel, until we get the tox screens back and are sure that Angie’s poisoning and Vic’s death are unrelated, I want you to remain on your guard.”

  “I will be,” Mel said. “I promise.”

  Her own phone rang as she waved him out the door. She pulled her phone out of her apron. It read Angie.

  “So, you heard?” Mel asked. “We’re going to have to implement some serious Olivia take-down tomorrow.”

  “Yeah,” Angie said. She did not sound as fired up as Mel had expected.

  “What’s going on, Angie?”

  “I have a checkup with Dr. Patel in an hour,” she said. “Will you come with me?”

  “Sure,” Mel said. “I would have thought Tate was going to take you.”

  “I . . . he . . . needed to get back to work,” she said.

  “I’ll be right there,” Mel said.

  She closed her phone and carried the loaded tray into the cooler. Popping her head into the main bakery, she saw they were well into the midafternoon lull. Dom, who had stationed himself as her watchdog after Joe had returned to work, was asleep in a booth, while Oz was busy wiping down the bakery tables.

  “I have to take Angie to the doctor,” she said. “Are you all right with Sleeping Beauty?”

  Oz grinned. “Don’t worry. I’ll kick him awake when the first customer comes in.”

  Mel hung up her apron and grabbed her purse. She cut through the back to her car in the lot. Angie lived in a small ranch house in the old neighborhood that surrounded Old Town Scottsdale. Mel pulled into her carport and knocked on the side door.

  “It’s open,” Angie called. Mel strode in to find Angie just grabbing her purse. “Thanks for doing this. I promised Tate and Ray that I would let you take me; otherwise, I don’t think either of them would have left.”

  “Oh, Ray was here?” Mel asked.

  Angie looked chagrinned. “Yes, when Tate and I arrived home after the festival, overprotective brother number three was here waiting for me. It’s just as well. Tate needed to get back to work.”

  Mel followed Angie back out of the house, and Angie locked it behind them. As they were getting into the car, Mel couldn’t stand it anymore and asked, “What is going on with you and Tate?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I saw him pick you up,” Mel said. “That was not ‘nothing.’”

  “I’m dating someone,” Angie said as if Mel could have forgotten.

  “Tate cares about you,” Mel said.

  “As a friend,” Angie said.

  “He quoted The Princess Bride,” Mel argued. “And not just any quote. It was the quote, the one that means—”

  “Are you taking me to the doctor, or are we going to sit in my carport and argue, because if we are, I really should call and let them know I’m running late,” Angie interrupted her, and Mel knew the conversation was over.

  Mel blew out a breath. “Fine.”

  “I’m seeing the doc at his private practice office,” Angie said. She fished a piece of paper out of her purse. “It’s over on Hayden and Shea Road.”

  Mel left the old neighborhood behind and headed east toward Highway 101. Traffic shouldn’t be too bad as yet, and they headed north on the raised highway, looking over the cotton fields on the Salt River Indian Reservation, with the jagged peaks of the McDowell Mountain Range looming at the horizon. It always amazed Mel that she only had to drive five miles to be out in the middle of farm country. The Valley of the Sun was amazing like that.

  She took the Shea Road exit off the 101 and wound her way toward the street number Angie read to her. Dr. Patel’s office was in a cluster of medical buildings that sat on the perimeter of Scottsdale Healthcare’s Shea Hospital.

  “You can go grab a coffee if you want,” Angie said.

  “No, I’m going with you,” Mel said.

  “There’s no need.”

  “Yes, there is,” Mel said. “I know if the wait is more than five minutes, you’ll duck out the back.”

  “No, I won’t.”

  “Angie, you can’t even stand in line for ten minutes for a flu shot. You’re possibly the worst patient ever, and I’m not letting you weasel out of your checkup.”

  “All right, but they’d better have good magazines in that waiting room.”

  Mel stood by her while she signed in. The desk person took Angie’s insurance information, and they selected chairs by the window.

  There was only one People magazine to be had, and Mel let Angie have it so she wouldn’t get testy. She chose an old copy of Food and Wine for herself and settled in to wait.

  Mel thumbed through the magazine, surprised when she saw a photo of one of their challenge to the chefs’ judges pop out at her. How could she have forgotten? Candace Levinson was an editor at Food and Wine magazine.

  She flipped through the pages, looking to see if she could learn anything about Ms. Levinson that might prove helpful for tomorrow’s competition. The feature piece had been written by a celebrity chef and edited by Ms. Levinson. It was an excellent piece on the use of flower petals as edible ingredients. Mel was so engrossed in the article that she didn’t hear Angie’s name get called.

  When Angie stood up, Mel automatically rose to go with her, but Angie shook her head and said, “Really, I think I can handle it.”

  “So sad, too bad,” Mel said. “I’m coming with. I want his approval for you to compete tomorrow. You looked terrible after today’s competition.”

  Angie rolled her eyes but argued no further, which to Mel was proof enough that Angie was not herself.

  They sat in the exam room for a few moments after a nurse came and took Angie’s vitals. There was a quick knock on the door and Dr. Patel entered.

  “Ms. DeLaura.” He smiled at her. “Well, you certainly look better than the last time I saw you.”

  “I feel better,” Angie said. “All better. You’re a miracle worker, Doc.”

  He frowned. “You have no idea how true that is.”

  Mel felt herself go still. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I’ve discovered what the poison was that you ingested, Ms. DeLaura, and I have to say, you are very lucky to be alive.”

  Twenty-six

  “What was it?” Angie asked. Her voice sounded unusually high, and Mel suspected she had to be a little afraid to find out what poison had been coursing through her body just two days ago.

  “It’s a very rare poison—at least in this country,” Dr. Patel said. “My father is a doctor in India, and I was reviewing my cases with him—we do that every week—and when I told him about your symptoms, he said it sounded like you had been poisoned by the seeds of a Suicide Tree.”

  “A what?” Angie and Mel asked together.

  “There is a tree in India, commonly called the Suicide Tree or Pong-pong,” Dr Patel said. His voice was grave. “Many people eat the seeds in order to commit suicide, thus the name.”

  “Well, don’t look at me,” Angie said. “I’m more of a ‘swan dive off of a high building’ type.”

  Dr. Patel frowned.

  “Sorry, bad joke,” she said.

  Mel pinched Angie just above the elbow.

  “Ouch.” Angie rubbed her arm.

  “Behave,” Mel said. “Can you tell us more about the poison?”

  “Its scientific name is Cerebra odollam, and it contains a heart toxin called cerberin, which is similar to
digoxin, the poison found in foxglove.”

  “So that’s why you were able to treat it because it was similar?”

  “Exactly,” he said. “The Suicide Tree grows only in India and Southeast Asia. I can’t imagine how you could have come into contact with it, but if its seeds were crushed and served with spicy food, you may not have been able to taste it. It can shut down the body within an hour. Of course, it depends upon the size of the person and how much they ate. Ms. DeLaura is small so the poison would affect her more rapidly than a larger person.”

  Mel and Angie exchanged a glance.

  “It must have been put in my food at the café,” she said. “And it was probably in yours, too.”

  “There’s no way to know,” Mel said. “By the time I got to the table, you were already reacting to the poison, and I never touched my food. The police tried to retrieve it, but the trash had already been picked up.”

  “That’s unfortunate,” Dr. Patel said. “From an investigative standpoint.”

  “Indeed,” Mel agreed. “Would you be willing to talk to my uncle about what you suspect? He’s a detective with the Scottsdale Police Department.”

  “Of course,” he said. “But I am just speculating.”

  “I know, but I think you’re on to something,” Mel said. She looked at Angie. “All right if I leave you for a bit?”

  “Sure, I’m in good hands,” Angie said with a smile at Dr. Patel.

  Mel fished her cell phone out of her pocket as she left the patient room and walked outside. She stood on the side of the building while she waited for Uncle Stan to pick up.

  “Hello, Mel, is everything all right?” he answered. Obviously he’d seen her name pop up in his caller ID.

  “Uncle Stan, did you say that the ME was doing tox screens on Vic’s body?” she asked.

  “Yeah, we don’t have the results back, however.”

  “I think I may have a lead on what killed him.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Angie’s doctor has a theory about the poison she ingested,” Mel said. “It’s not something found in the United States. If they run the standard screens on Vic, they’re not going to pick it up.”