Marge nibbled on her cookie. “What about her husband?”
That confused me. “But he doesn’t seem psycho about the school pageant.”
“No. I mean, he works as a telemarketer, right? So his schedule might not be nine-to-five like most people’s. Maybe he’s the one who took his daughter to practice on Friday, not Connie, leaving her free to take care of her little problem.”
“I never thought of that.” I sat back in my chair and considered it. “It gives me one more avenue to look into, anyway.”
“I’ll see what I can find out.” Her eyes twinkled with anticipation. “And don’t worry, you’ll figure it out. You always do.” She shifted gears. “Now, do you guys need any more help with the wedding, or is it all under control?”
This was a topic I found far less confusing. Lenny joined us and we discussed what was left to get everything ready for that weekend.
Dough
1 Tbsp yeast
1 Tbsp sugar
1/4 cup warm water
1 cup buttermilk
2 eggs beaten
2/3 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/4 tsp baking soda
4 cups flour
1 tsp salt
Cinnamon filling
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 Tbsp melted butter-separate
Sprinkle 1 Tbsp sugar and yeast over the warm water and set aside for five minutes or until frothy.
In the main mixing bowl mix eggs, butter and remaining sugar. Stir in buttermilk and yeast mixture then add the baking soda and salt to half of the flour and stir into the batter. Add the rest of the flour slowly until the dough forms a ball. Knead the dough on the counter for five minutes, or use your mixer’s knead setting. Cover and set aside for an hour or until it has doubled in size.
Dump onto clean counter, lightly floured, and roll it out to a 9 x 12 rectangle. Pour the melted butter onto it and spread it around, then sprinkle with cinnamon sugar filling mixture. Roll it up and slice into 3/4-1” slices. Set out in 9x13 pan or cookie sheet so the sides don’t quite touch. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise in a warm spot for another hour or so.
Bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until turning golden brown.
Powdered sugar glaze
1 1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 Tbsp butter, softened
2 Tbsp water
Mix the sugar, butter and water until . Wait until cinnamon rolls completely cool before frosting.
When I had another lull at work, I pulled up the email Ali had sent me with the names of the people whose booths had been closest to Francine’s. It took nearly twenty minutes to track down their phone numbers and leave messages.
It was early afternoon before I got my first call back. Grace Watts was a kindergarten aid and had been running the beanbag toss. “Hi, Grace,” I greeted after she introduced herself. “I appreciate you calling me back so fast.”
“I wondered why you’d be calling me.” Her voice was distracted.
“Yes, I wondered if you saw anything the night of the carnival. Anything at all that seemed, I don’t know, off somehow.”
“Not unless you count not seeing Francine for the last twenty minutes or so before it all cleaned up. She was supposed to help me break down my booth afterward, but then she didn’t show. I admit, I feel bad that I didn’t go looking for her—it would have meant helping her with her booth too and I really just wanted to get home to bed.”
“I know the feeling. So you didn’t see anyone around who might have been out of place? Anything odd?” I was really hoping for something useful.
“No. I wish I could help you more.” Her voice was wistful and a little sad.
“Thanks. I appreciate it.” I said goodbye and hung up, discouraged.
It was nearly an hour later before the PTA secretary finally returned my call. She had a milk bottle knock-down booth on the other side of Francine’s. “Hi, I’m so glad you called,” she greeted me as soon as she introduced herself. “We’re going to need refreshments for the meeting in the morning. I just know I would have forgotten. Sarah Mae is rather partial to your gingerbread cupcakes, but Iva Lou likes the chocolate ones. Do you think we could get a dozen of each for me to pick up by eight tomorrow?”
My head was reeling from the abrupt change from what I thought the conversation was going to be about. “Sure.” I grabbed an order pad and jotted down the information.
“Why did you call me?” Melanie asked when I’d gotten all the particulars.
“I wondered if you saw anyone or anything out of place at the carnival.”
She sighed. “I already spoke to the detective and told him I didn’t see anything useful. Not really.”
“What does not really mean?” I asked. I knew from personal experience that a small comment like that could lead to something reasonably important.
“Well, everyone was in costumes, right? So I didn’t recognize half the people who were there. And there was this man, at least I think it was a man. He had wide shoulders and a medium build. Could have been a heavier woman, I suppose. Or she could have had padding. It could even have been a teen rather than an adult.”
“Yes,” I said, trying to bring her back around to the topic at hand without showing my impatience. “You saw someone, medium build. How tall was he?”
“Not as tall as the booths, I think. So maybe five-ten, five-eleven at the most. Not too many men that short out there, are there?”
“Not so many.” I agreed, if only to keep the conversation moving forward.
“Well, he kind of moved like a guy, and he didn’t say a word,” Melanie said. “He wore a big skeleton costume and it had a hood, though it didn’t cover his face. He had his face painted like a skeleton. It makes me shiver to think about it now, the white face paint was like a laughing death knell.”
We were finally getting somewhere and I was anxious for anything she could tell me. “Did you see him stop to talk with Francine?”
“I wasn’t paying much attention to them, now was I? I was focused on my own kids. But I think he was there for a while. I guess that was near the end of the night. I think I heard her say something before that about running low on merchandise so when she sort of disappeared, I just figured she had closed up shop.”
“I see. And what about his face? Round, thin, tall, short, chubby?” No one had mentioned the guy’s face before. Of course, it could have been the school principal for all I knew, but something to go on was better than nothing.
“Not round or thin. Kind of in-between. That’s why I can’t tell for sure if it’s a woman or not. The nose was kinda big for a girl, but some women have beaky noses like that, you know.”
“Yes. I’ve seen some. Did you catch the color of his eyes?”
“No.”
“Did Francine seem overly worried when he came over to talk?” I worked to draw out every detail now.
“Not really.” Melanie gasped. “Do you think she was scared of her attacker? You know, before he killed her?”
I very much thought that, but I wasn’t about to say it. I looked at the pad of paper where I’d made notes about the guy’s appearance. I didn’t know if she was in the least reliable, but I was willing to give it a shot. It was more than I had to go on otherwise. “I don’t know. I really appreciate you talking with me. It was kind of you to return my call.” We said goodbye and hung up.
I stared at the list on my pad of paper, and wondered if this was someone I’d seen before. Even someone who had been in my shop. That gave me the creeps.
Lenny came up behind me. “Having a hard time?”
I nodded. “Things just aren’t coming together on this one. I don’t even have a good lead. I’m stumped.” Bits of information floated around in my head like puzzle pieces and I couldn’t make them form a cohesive picture.
He gave my shoulder a pat. “You’ll figure it out. But not until after you’ve
finished those cakes. They need to go out in a couple of hours, you know.”
I wanted to growl, but knew he was right. “Of course. I’ll take care of it.” I glanced at the list one last time before standing to get back to work.
I was just passing a cookie across the counter to Honey when the phone rang. The Caller ID displayed the name of Marge’s gift shop. I glanced at the clock—it had only been a couple of hours since she’d stopped by. Could she already have answers for me? “Hello, what’s up?” I looked across the street and saw her moving around inside her store.
“I talked to Glenda, who had a chat with Karla, who works with Connie’s husband. They worked on Friday evening. They don’t get off until after seven because they’re calling to the west coast. Anyway, I thought you’d want to know. Oh, and I promised Glenda that if she got the information that you’d give her half a dozen cupcakes of her choice.”
I laughed. “Of course. She can pop in anytime.”
“Keep me in the loop, and call me if there’s anything else I can do.”
“Oh, I will. Thanks.” We said goodbye and I hung up.
“So Cole wasn’t really fishing?” Honey asked after I filled her in on Marge’s news and, more importantly, my research trip with Jack the previous evening.
“No. Or at least, the ranger doesn’t remember him being there. But that isn’t exactly proof.” I wiped down the dirty bistro tables in the bakery since things were finally slowing down for the afternoon lull. “I don’t know if Cole can prove it one way or the other. Maybe someone else saw him, but if so, don’t you think he would have mentioned it to Tingey?”
“He owns his own boat?” Honey picked at the edge of her chocolate chip cookie. “Maybe there’s some proof in the boat. You know, fuel receipt or something gross like fish heads so we know he had it out that weekend.”
“Or maybe not.” We’d found information in less likely places, though.
“We could swing by his apartment and talk to him,” Honey suggested. “I just can’t see him as the murderer. He’s too, I don’t know, stuck in the past, I guess.”
“If Tingey can’t find him, what are the chances that we’ll find him?” I asked. “Tingey’s been looking since last night. And if the guy’s truck was there, Tingey would have found an excuse to get into his apartment by now.”
“I don’t know. But you have some errands to run this afternoon, right? We could swing by Cole’s place and see what’s up.” She grinned, lifting a piece of paper between two fingers. “I looked up his address before I came here. I hoped there might be a reason to stop by there.”
“Wow, are you omniscient now?” I asked, loving that she was so ready to jump into this with both feet, and a little nervous that I was going to get her into trouble again.
Lenny came to the doorway between the kitchen and front counter. “You better not be gone long. You promised I could take off early tonight. We have some things to do before Kat’s family arrives tomorrow.”
I saluted him. “Sir, yes sir. I’ll be back quickly, I promise.”
His lifted his brows. “Right. If you’re not back at five, I’m locking up anyway.” He turned and returned to the kitchen.
“I love being in charge,” I said to Honey. “Don’t you just feel the respect radiating off him for me as his boss? It makes me feel so important.”
“Hey, you’re the one who called him your little brother.” She smiled. “That’s what you get for adopting him into your family.”
“That was smart of me, wasn’t it?” I put the cleaning rag into the bucket of sanitizer. “Give me a second to grab the deliveries and I’ll meet you at your car.”
“I’ll make it quick,” I said to Lenny as I grabbed my jacket from the hook near the back door.
“Yeah. You’re always fast.” He voice was low and gruff.
A note in his tone made me pause. “What’s going on? Nervous about meeting the future in-laws?”
He shrugged and kept scrubbing the stainless steel counter where he’d been rolling out sugar cookies earlier.
“Hey, speak to me. What’s up?” It made me nervous that he was so quiet. He hadn’t wanted to get married initially, concerned about making the commitment and what would happen between him and Kat afterward. But he’d seemed pretty good with it since he begged her to stay and proposed that summer. It was like a scene out of a movie—well, I actually wasn’t close enough to hear the proposal, so it was like a scene out of a silent film. It was sweet and they were ridiculously happy, so his questions now made me nervous.
“There’s just a lot to do still. I’m a little stressed because Kat has these big ideas. I thought this was supposed to be a small, simple ceremony. And now it’s blown out of control.”
“Says the man who made enough wedding cake to feed two hundred, even though you only invited like twenty people to the ceremony and maybe double that many invites went out for the reception.”
His lips twitched. “That’s totally irrelevant. I didn’t make the cake to feed the number of people I expected. I made it to fit the design in my head.”
“And it’s awesome. Kat is going to flip and everyone in a hundred miles will want you to do their cakes instead of me.” Despite our banter, he didn’t look any less worried. “Hey. You’re not going to back out, are you?”
“And screw things up with Kat now? No. No way. It’s too likely I’ll make a mess of things later. Guess I need to take the chances I’ve got while they’re here.” He wiped the bits of dough he’d scraped off the counter into the garbage can.
“You really think you’re going to mess everything up?” I asked. Seeing them together, the way he took care of her, and she took care of him, the way he lit up whenever she came into the bakery, I knew something major would have to go wrong for him to make a mess of things.
“I don’t know what I’m doing, Tess. I’ve never seen a good relationship. My ma didn’t settle for one guy for long, and before Kat, I didn’t stick with a relationship for more than a few weeks. If you can call it a relationship when it’s that short. I’m always doing and saying stupid things. It’s a miracle she’s stayed with me this long.”
I pressed my hand to his cheek for a moment. “You’ll be fine. Anyone who cares as much about his wife as you do for Kat is bound to hold up his end of things. Give yourself a break.” I straightened the jacket across my shoulders. “I’ll be back long before five. No worries.”
“Good thing, because I’m serious about locking up if you’re not back.”
“I know you are,” I called to him as I stacked the box of cupcakes for the baby shower on the box of cookies for the Shriner’s meeting.
“What kept you?” Honey asked after I stashed the treats in her back seat and joined her up front.
“Just a quick heart-to-heart with Lenny. Pre-wedding jitters. But he’s good.” I hoped. “Are we on track for the decorating this weekend?” I asked. Honey had sort of appointed herself wedding planner and was working closely with Kat on organizing everything except the food. Lenny and I were handling that.
Kat had made friends with a local artist, Cleve Dutson, who had an amazing backyard. He and his wife offered to let her be married and hold the reception there. It was a nice gesture, especially since moving expenses, along with Lenny’s minimal income, made their wedding budget pretty small. Lenny had talked about running off to Vegas, but Kat put her foot down, wanting a ceremony with family and friends, even if it wasn’t big.
“You betcha. George will come home early Friday to ride herd on the kids and we’re going to stay up decorating that yard until we’re ready to drop,” Honey said.
“I don’t think it’ll take that long,” I said. “They don’t have that many things to set up the night before. Most of it will need to go up the next morning.”
“That’s beside the point—I’m not going home early. I haven’t had a girl’s night in longer than I can remember. One of the kids is always cutting it short because they need stitches or som
ething. We’re going to do girl’s night afterward—maybe some dancing and a sweet cake-ish delight. Thoughts about that?”
“I can handle that. Kat said no bachelorette party, but there’s no reason we can’t have cake and dance—no men allowed.”
“Good. I already mentioned it to Kat and we can work together to get her mom and sister-in-law on board. I need some away time.”
“And now you want to stop by Cole’s? You must be in full avoidance mode.”
“You know it.” She put the car into gear and we headed out.
It didn’t take long to drop off the goodies to my clients and Honey had been right when she said the address was on my way, or pretty close. We pulled up in front of Cole’s apartment. Two covered spots were marked with his apartment number—one was empty, but an old fishing boat on a trailer was parked in the second one.
“This must be his boat,” Honey said.
“Guess so.” We got out and walked to his apartment, knocking on the door. “He’s not here.”
“No, but we might as well try again before we start poking around his boat.” She pounded on the door and called in, “Hey, Cole. It’s Honey Anderson and Tess Crawford. You in there?”
There was a long moment of nothing. “Guess not,” I said.
“All right then, let’s check out the boat.”
We walked back over and loosened the tarp he’d secured to the boat trailer. I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to keep the rain out—an unnecessary effort in our droughty area when he was already parked under a car port—or if he was trying to discourage anyone from stealing stuff from it.
When we peeled back the tarp I realized theft couldn’t be the issue. There was nothing to steal. “It’s bare, not even a spare set of oars,” I pointed out.
Honey uncovered the far end and stared at it, a smirk on her mouth. “Not even a motor. You think he pulls it and stores it inside? This isn’t exactly a high-crime area. Would anyone be desperate enough to take the chance of being caught while they disconnected the engine?”
Muffins & Murder (Sweet Bites Book 3) (Sweet Bites Mysteries) Page 7