by Erin Johnson
He fought a grin and turned back to the twins. “Who is that?”
Tonya sighed. “Vince Dupont. Mom’s ex-boyfriend.”
Elin shot us a flat look. “He’s got a bit of money—runs some laundromats and small businesses—but he acts like he’s some big shot.” Her expression darkened. “Plus, he’s a cheater. Mom dumped him after she caught him. They were together about a year before that.”
I frowned. “What happened after that?” And why was he in the audience at a baking competition?
Tonya hugged herself tighter. “He went and did his own thing for a while. Mom didn’t hear from him for months.”
Elin smirked. “We think he ran off with the other woman but probably got dumped recently.”
Tonya nodded. “A few weeks ago he showed up at the bakery, out of nowhere, and tried to get her back. She said no, but he’s been trying ever since. Mom just kept rejecting him.”
Elin’s mouth grew pinched. “You’d think he’d get the point.”
Peter nodded. “We’ll make sure to question him.”
I bit my lip, thinking this over. Had Polly’s ex come here to show support? Or did he have murderous intent?
I looked to Tonya, who seemed the more level-headed one. “Did your mother have any interest in Vince?” I shrugged as I remembered the victim’s impeccable makeup, hair, and dress. “She looked dressed to impress.” Which seemed a bit odd for a baking competition where she’d be likely to get covered in flour and dough bits. Then again, my idea of dressing up was wearing my least-wrinkled tee, so that could just be me.
Tonya shook her head. “Mom didn’t want anything to do with Vince. She generally dressed nicely.”
Elin shot her sister a pointed look. “You finally seem to be taking notes from her.”
Tonya’s shoulders tensed, but she just raised her chin, her tone tense. “In any case, Mom was a little extra fancy since she knew royalty would be attending.” Her shoulders slumped back down, and the corners of her mouth sagged with sadness. “Mom wanted to look her best for the royalty.”
“Babe! Babe!” We all turned to see a tall, good-looking guy striding toward us, waving a muscular arm. His broad shoulders seemed to barely fit in his shirt, which had been unbuttoned low enough to glimpse his toned chest. A diamond stud glinted in his ear, and his jeans looked so tight, I wondered if it took a spell to get in and out of them.
He headed straight for Elin, and she collapsed, sobbing, into his arms. As they embraced, he looked at Tonya, who glared back and turned pointedly away. I pressed my lips together—alrighty. There was a story there.
Elin, teary, leaned away and pressed her hands to the dude’s chiseled chest. “Oh, it’s so awful.” She sniffled, and he rubbed her back.
Peter lifted a thick brow. “And you are…?”
“Oh.” He chuckled, a low, good natured sound. “I’m Lorenzo Cass.”
Elin fawned over him. “My fiancé. We got engaged earlier this week.” She held her hand out to me, presumably so I could gush over her ring. I just looked down at Daisy. Was this for real?
Tonya turned partially away from the lovebirds and grumbled to herself. “Yeah, and you can’t stop shoving your ring in everyone’s face.”
I raised my brows. Oh, the sisterly love was just rolling off these two.
“Sorry it took me so long to get down here, babe; the cops wanted to ask me some questions.”
I had a few questions of my own, but not for him. As Peter interviewed Lorenzo, and Elin was entirely engulfed in her fiancé’s pecs, I pulled Tonya aside. I jerked my head for Daisy to follow. The dog rolled her eyes but trotted over. I needed that lie-detecting sniffer.
Tonya’s eyes widened. “What’s up?”
How to put this… I squinted one eye. “I’m going to take a wild guess that you’re not a huge fan of your sister’s fiancé?”
Tonya paled, her eyes wide, then her cheeks flushed bright pink and she looked down. “I’m sure you’ve picked up on the fact that my sister and I don’t always get along.”
You don’t say.
She blew out a heavy breath and looked at Daisy, then up at me. “But Lorenzo is known around town as a player.” She glanced at the gushing couple, then leaned closer and lowered her voice. “I’m sure he’s cheating on Elin.” Her eyes hardened. “And yet, she still parades him around like it makes her better than me.”
I glanced down at Daisy, who whined. Yes, she’s telling the truth. The dog yawned, showing all her pointy white teeth. I need a nap.
I blinked my burning eyes. Yeah, you and me both, Days. I thanked Tonya, and we rejoined Peter and the others as he finished his questions for Lorenzo.
As we moved off to interview some of the other bakers, I filled Peter in on Tonya’s opinion of the fiancé.
“Guess he’s a player.” I smirked.
Peter chuckled. “Yeah, I could’ve guessed by the number of buttons he missed on his shirt.”
“Ooh.” I elbowed him. “Nice burn.”
He grinned. “I’m learning from the best.”
I counted our suspects off on my fingers. “So we’ve got Polly’s two daughters, who were nowhere near her when she collapsed and had no motive to kill their mother—in fact, without her, they’re unlikely to win the competition.”
Peter nodded. “Plus, a player fiancé.”
I grinned at him. “Who, again, was present in the bleachers, but nowhere near Polly or her tea, and appears to have no motive.”
Peter kept his voice low as we threaded through the baking stations. “At first glance, it seems much more likely that a rival baker is behind this. They’d have the clearest motive and opportunity. Polly’s daughters pointed out Frank Hemlock, who’s bent on winning, and Mimi Moulin, who has a personal history with their mother.”
I nodded. “I agree. But don’t forget the shady ex-boyfriend, Vince. It could’ve been him.”
Peter nodded. “The problem is, none of these people were close enough to Polly to kill her—and we had hundreds of witnesses with their eyes glued to the tent. Someone would’ve seen something if any of them had approached her station.”
I bit my lip. Hopefully, talking to Frank and Mimi, the rival bakers, would shed some light on the murder.
6
Frank
Frank Hemlock and his two teammates stood apart from the rest of the bakers. They huddled with their heads close together, and one of them looked up as Peter, Daisy, and I approached. Frank said something, his eyes hard on us, and all three smirked. We hadn’t even talked to him yet, and already I didn’t like him. Off to a good start.
They broke apart, and Frank, whose bald head came about to my shoulder, stared Peter and me down, his arms crossed, feet in a wide stance.
“Frank Hemlock?”
The guy nodded at Peter. “That’s me.” He raised an eyebrow.
I shot him a flat look. “We need to ask you some questions about Polly Pierre.”
He smirked wider, as did the two young men standing beside him. “Ask away.”
I frowned. “Is something funny?” I suddenly felt like my old headmistress at the orphanage.
He chuckled. “Look, it’s tragic that Polly died, but to be blunt, it just means some of our competition is gone. We’re that much closer to winning.”
Wow. So sensitive. The two young men beside him nodded enthusiastically at each other. I was surprised they weren’t high-fiving and chest bumping.
I raised a brow. “Is winning that important to you, then?”
Frank scoffed and lifted a thick palm. “Look, baking hasn’t been my thing that long. I retired about five years ago after I sold my business, and as I’m relatively young and rich and driven—”
I fought not to roll my eyes.
“—I got bored, so I took up baking as a hobby. I find it relaxing. Drop that!”
I jumped as he turned to the guy on his right, who’d started fiddling with the towel draped over a bowl. The other baker startled too and backed
away. I shot Frank a flat look. This was him relaxed?
“I can’t help it. I’m competitive at whatever I do. I’m a winner, period.” He raised his brows in challenge.
I glanced down at Daisy, and she whined. He’s telling the truth.
Or at least what he believed to be the truth. Someone had a high opinion of themselves. But was that drive of his enough to make him murder a competitor?
Peter leveled Frank with a stern look. “How well did you know Polly Pierre and her daughters?”
Frank shrugged, his hands shoved in his pits, just the thumbs out. “Not well. We’d never met before a few days ago. She was good, but even alive, she was never going to beat us.”
Annoyed by the cocky attitude, I decided to cut through the waves. “Did you kill her, just to make sure you won?”
Frank’s smirk faltered. “W-What?” He scoffed and shifted on his feet. “I didn’t kill her.”
Peter and I looked at Daisy. Unfortunately, she wagged her tail. Truth.
I would’ve loved seeing Peter handcuff this guy.
We asked the same question of his team, and Peter gathered some more information from Frank, including where his bakery was located in case we wanted to get in touch for some follow-up questions in the future. Despite me really wanting the smug sea slug to be guilty, I’d come to trust (mostly) in Daisy’s abilities, so we didn’t have much choice but to move on.
As we left him and his team and headed toward the pantry shelves, I leaned close to Peter. “I’m surprised that dude wasn’t the one who got poisoned. So arrogant!”
Peter shook his head. “No kidding. Too bad being churlish isn’t a crime.”
I did a double take. “Churlish? Really?” I chuckled. “Nice word.”
Peter’s cheeks flushed pink, and he nudged me. “I’m dating a former lawyer now. I’ve got to step up my game.”
I grinned up at him. “Is that what that word-a-day calendar you got is all about?”
He grinned and shrugged.
I chuckled. Cute.
Daisy, who trotted ahead, glanced back at us and huffed. Get a grip, you two—I can smell the hormones from here.
7
Spilling the Tea
We passed several baking stations, fires still blazing in the ovens below the counters and a pleasant yeasty smell filling the chilly fall air. The eyes of the twenty or so other contestants followed us as we approached the woman the twins had pointed out to us.
“Mimi Moulin?”
The older lady looked up and adjusted her polka dot cat glasses.
“That’s me.”
Her team, a young man and woman, edged closer to her. I got the feeling they were protective of the older baker. Could one of them have murdered Polly to get revenge for stealing Mimi’s sourdough bread starter?
“I’m Officer Peter Flint, this is my partner, Daisy—I warn you, she can smell lies, so please be honest with us. And this is our consultant, Ms. Hartgrave.”
I gave a little wave hello, but the three bakers just huddled closer together and glared back. Friendly.
The tiny old lady with the lavender fauxhawk narrowed her dark eyes at him. “And you want to know if I murdered Polly, right?”
The young lady beside her played with her long ponytail and huffed. “Typical.”
I raised a brow. “Typical?”
She stared me down. “Yeah. Typical that you’d blame the only team in this whole competition—which is supposed to be promoting shifter rights by the way—that’s actually made up of shifters.”
Peter and I exchanged looks. I was tempted to tell them they were in good company, but while I’d told Peter the truth—that before my curse I’d been able to shift into owl form—the rest of the police department was still in the dark. I glanced hastily around—cops swarmed around us, interviewing suspects and witnesses and collecting evidence. I decided to keep quiet about my identity and turned back to the bakers, clearing my throat.
“We’re actually questioning you because Polly’s daughters said you had a history with their mom?”
Mimi gave a little sniff and pressed her lips tight together. She shifted on her feet and looked off for a long moment before turning back to Peter and me. There was a fierceness in her dark eyes as she spoke. “I worked my way up from having a little delivery service to a mobile baking cart, to finally owning my own bakery.”
Suddenly, the sands shifted, and I blinked at her. “Oh! You’re Mimi—as in Mimi’s Bakery.”
The three bakers flashed their eyes at me, as if to say, duh. I turned to Peter and filled him in. “It’s famous in the Darkmoon—everyone says it's the best bakery on the island.” During my darker days, I hadn’t been able to afford even their low prices, and the place had slipped off my radar, so I’d yet to try it.
Mimi, her voice low and slightly gravelly, leveled me with a hard look. “May I go on?”
“Oh. Yep. Sorry.” The little wrinkled old lady had an air of authority about her that made me want to step into line.
“Polly worked for me when she was a teenager, just a year or two after I’d managed to open my current location.”
The young man, who’d dyed his hair neon green, rubbed Mimi’s shoulder. Without looking, she reached an age-spotted hand back and squeezed his. With her eyes downcast, she sighed. “I liked Polly, at first. She was bright and hardworking.” Her expression soured. “Right up until she quit out of the blue and took my secret sourdough starter with her, along with some family recipes.”
The young woman set her jaw and muttered a few curses under her breath. Daisy’s tail wagged. Truth.
Which could mean that they just believed Polly had stolen the recipe.
The young guy with the green hair shot me a sassy look. “Polly opened up her own bakery—right on Main Street. Which Mimi of course couldn’t do—no one would rent to a shifter there. So now Polly charges—” He rolled his eyes. “Sorry—charged three times as much as Mimi, using her stolen recipes, and gets all these accolades. But we’re not taken seriously because we’re in the Darkmoon and are shifters.”
The young woman tossed her ponytail. “Yeah. We can’t even get into the baker’s guild.”
I shifted on my feet as anger burned in my chest. Sounded about right. The discrimination against shifters and Darkmoonies just went on and on.
Mimi lifted her chin. “I want to win—not only for myself, but for other shifters, too.”
I grinned. I couldn’t help it. I liked this woman, and her team clearly loved her. I wanted them to win. I sure hoped we didn’t have to arrest them for murder.
Peter nodded. “It’s impressive, what you’ve accomplished, and I’m sorry for the challenges you’ve faced. You must see though, that this gives you motive for murder—”
The young guy with the green hair gasped and lurched forward. “Mimi didn’t murder anyone!”
The young woman stepped in front of the old lady, as if to prevent Peter from arresting her.
Mimi just rolled her eyes. “Alright, kids, stand down.” She turned to Peter as her team settled back, though they kept their wary eyes glued to my cop boyfriend. “I understand. Ask your questions.”
“Did you have anything to do with Polly’s death?”
I truly hoped she hadn’t.
Mimi shook her head. “No. But I’ll tell you, it feels like divine justice that she got hers on bread day after making her fortune off my bread.”
Daisy wagged her tail. Truth.
I blew out the breath I’d been holding. We checked with her team and got their statements. They’d all been nowhere near Polly, denied killing her or tampering with her tea, and they hadn’t seen anyone else do it either. It looked like we’d run into a dead end with these bakers, too.
After questioning Mimi and her team, we found the palace servant who’d brought the tea around. The middle-aged guy seemed distraught.
“I don’t know what happened! I just boiled the water over there—” He pointed a trembling fin
ger at a fire burning in an open hearth near the pantry shelves.
“Did you leave the kettle alone at any point? Could someone have spelled the water or poisoned it?”
The servant dragged a gloved hand through his thinning hair. Sweat rings stained his blue-and-gold palace livery under his arms. “No. I don’t think so. I waited until it boiled, then brought it over to that empty baking station.”
Presumably, as this was midway through the competition, some of the other teams had already been eliminated, leaving a few stations vacated.
“I brought some tea bags down from the palace kitchen with me.”
Peter shifted on his feet, his quill jotting down notes on his enchanted scroll. “Did you leave the tea bags alone at any point?”
The servant shook his head and patted his jacket pocket. “Nope. Kept them on me the whole time. I made the pot of tea, spelled the tray of cups and sugar and cream to follow me, and then made my way around the stations, giving tea to anyone who wanted some.”
Peter took notes on all the contestants who’d taken tea. “And you served Polly last, correct?”
The guy nodded, his brows lifted in the center. “Oh, goddess. Did the tea kill her?”
Peter took a breath. “We, uh—we don’t know for sure yet, but it appears that she was poisoned and that the tea was the only food or drink she consumed today.”
The guy buried his face in his gloved hands. “Oh, snakes. I’m going to get fired.”
I shrugged. “It doesn’t sound like it was your fault. Do you remember anyone tampering with the tea or cups?”
He shook his head, hands pressed to his cheeks. “No! I held the teapot the whole time, and I don’t remember anything untoward.”
Daisy confirmed he was truthful, and after a few more questions, Peter let him go.
“I don’t think he’s involved.”
I shook my head. “Same.”
Peter glanced over his notes. “Alright, well we should track down Polly’s ex-boyfriend, Vince Dupont, soon. We’ll also see what Gabriel has to say after he examines Polly’s body.”