Sweet Masterpiece - The First Sweet’s Sweets Bakery Mystery

by Connie Shelton

  Chapter 14

  Sam woke early, with an uneasy mix of images running through her head. Beau’s kiss last night came back to her, creating an ache inside. Then she remembered that Kelly was in the next room and suspected that she’d only heard half the story about her quick exit from L.A. and her job.

  The phone was ringing in the kitchen when she stepped out of the shower. When it became apparent that Kelly wasn’t going to get herself out of bed to answer it Sam threw on a robe and dashed for it. A female voice was leaving a message about a cake. She grabbed up the receiver before the answering machine cut off. At this moment, any business was good business.

  “I know this is short notice, but is there any way you could do a wedding cake by Thursday?” the female voice inquired, once she realized she was speaking to a real person.

  Sam got the details on size and colors and quoted a price, with a little added premium for the fact that she would once again have to drive to Santa Fe for delivery. Sam’s own inclination, if she were the customer, would have been to look for the nearest local bakery but as the baker she was more than happy to accept an order. It wasn’t as if she were swamped with extra business right now. If Sweet’s Sweets was ever going to get off the ground Sam had to jump through a few hoops to get that necessary can-do reputation.

  The minute she hung up she made a quick inventory of supplies and calculated a schedule. The three cakes for the tiers would have to be baked the night before assembly and delivery. But she could get busy on the flowers and trim pieces right away. She whipped up a batch of buttercream frosting, tinted part of it in the bride’s chosen mauve and started making roses and buds. A darker tint for some of the flowers would add dimension. Even with a traditional cake like this customer wanted, Sam liked to add special touches. She’d no sooner slipped the baking sheet full of roses, on their small paper squares, into the fridge than Beau called.

  “How did it go last night?” he asked.

  “Same song, next verse. I don’t think I’m getting the whole story.” She glanced toward Kelly’s room. The door remained closed. Some job hunt.

  “Thought you might be interested in knowing that some kind of plant toxin showed up in Riley Anderson—uh, Pierre Cantone’s system. The M.I. said there was fluid in the lungs, maybe pneumonia, so I don’t know if the two are related.”

  “Odd. Maybe he was having an allergic reaction to something and that caused the fluid.” Sam realized that she was merely making wild guesses. “I’m still wondering where the roommate went, too. How weird is it that he just vanished. Do you think someone might have harmed him?”

  “No real evidence of that. Maybe with Cantone’s death, he simply had no reason to stick around.”

  That was certainly possible.

  “Sam . . . I’d really like to see you again.” His voice held that familiar ache.

  She glanced again at Kelly’s closed door and lowered her voice. “Me too. But it’s awkward right now. Your place?”

  “Well, that’s awkward too. My mother is here.”

  He’d mentioned his mother before. “Visiting?” she asked, daring to hope.

  “No, and that’s the thing. She’s getting fragile and I’ve been debating what to do. Nursing homes are just so depressing.”

  Sam could only imagine. Her own parents were still going pretty strong, and her sister Rayleen lived less than ten miles from them. Whenever Sam talked to friends who were dealing with the elderly and frail, it made her appreciate her situation.

  They ended the call without really making any plans.

  She was brooding over it when the phone rang again. Delbert Crow. He had another house for her to take care of, this one between town and the Taos Ski Valley. Not exactly a convenient drive, but hey, income was income. She wrote down the details and asked whether there was a key or if she’d need to break in. She knew what the answer would be. Luckily, her tool box was still out in the truck. She told him she could get on it that afternoon.

  With another glare at Kelly’s closed bedroom door, Sam made herself a sandwich for lunch, knowing she still had to talk to her daughter about repaying the money. Dreading it.

  Sam went out to her truck to be sure her tools and lawn equipment were loaded. She doubted that a property on the ski basin road would have an actual, formal lawn but she never knew. Best to be prepared.

  Back in the kitchen she grabbed an apple and chips to go with her sandwich and noticed that Kelly’s bedroom door stood halfway open. A flush from the bathroom, and she meandered out wearing an oversize T-shirt and loose silk kimono.

  “Morning, Mom,” she said with a yawn, coming into the kitchen and touching the side of the coffee carafe to see if it was warm.

  “It’s nearly noon,” Sam said. “Coffee went cold hours ago.”

  Kelly hmmm’d and filled a mug with the cold leftover brew, sticking it into the microwave.

  “I’ve got a property to attend to this afternoon. Do not get into those roses in the fridge. They’re for a customer.” One of Kelly’s favorite things as a teen had been to pop a whole frosting rose into her mouth and just let it melt. “What are your plans today?”

  She shot Sam a look that said she’d hoped not to do anything at all.

  “We need to talk. Later.” Sam gathered her pack and left.

  She reached the ski valley property quickly enough. Posted the requisite signage that USDA provides, notifying the world that the property was now under their jurisdiction. The place was high enough in elevation to be largely covered in trees, mostly piñon but with a few taller pines as well. Aside from a summer’s worth of mountain wildflowers and grasses to be leveled with the weed trimmer, the outdoor work would be minimal.

  The house was a charmer, a picturesque log cabin with a wide porch across the front and a large redwood deck at the back. Wooden planters once held lush annuals, but crisp brown stalks provided the only evidence of them now. Overall, the place was well maintained and Sam wondered what had caused the owner to abandon it.

  Inside, it was clear that they’d taken their time moving out. No furniture remained, the kitchen was neat, the refrigerator empty. Utilities had been cut off, apparently, but she checked the breakers anyway and made sure the hot water heater was shut off. This place wouldn’t need much at all in the way of cleanup, just some routine maintenance to keep it in showable condition until it sold. She guessed that a sale would come along soon—the property had that kind of curb appeal.

  She spent an hour or so inside, sweeping up the few bits of mouse evidence and swiping at some corner cobwebs with a duster, draining the pipes and pouring a little antifreeze into each drain. With freezing temperatures approaching in the next month or so, and no heat in the cabin, frozen pipes would be the biggest potential problem. That done, she replaced the locks and turned her attention to the outdoors.

  A split-rail fence surrounded an area that was probably two or three acres. Of that, most had been left natural with just a perimeter of twenty feet or so immediately around the house trimmed, either for appearance or as a firebreak. Sam cranked up her gas weed trimmer and set to work on it, concentrating on the drive and walkways first. The drone of the engine and monotony of cutting neat swathes gave her peace from dwelling on her daughter’s messed-up situation. Instead, she found herself thinking of the artist Cantone, imagining that he might have found inspiration in an idyllic mountain setting like this.

  The sun had gone behind the surrounding mountains by the time she finished, darkening the property and narrow lane with shade. She packed up her gear, rechecked the locks and headed out.

  As long as she was at this end of town, Sam decided she might as well dash by the Cantone property and give things there a quick check-over. It wasn’t more than ten minutes out of the way and there was still daylight once she got away from the steep hills surrounding the ski valley.

  She zipped along the county road, enjoying the fact that she was out of the house, doing something on her own for a fe
w extra minutes. Betty McDonald’s car was in her driveway, Sam noted as she turned in at Cantone’s. Some weeds were sprouting along the driveway but otherwise the property looked fairly neat.

  Inside, nothing had changed. The smell of drywall mud from her little patch job gave the house an air of freshness, like new construction. In the kitchen she found herself staring at the places where she’d previously seen the greenish haze, but it was harder to spot this time. A faint dusting, barely noticeable now. She still wondered about that, whether she should mention it to Beau.

  She locked the front door and turned toward the truck. Beside the driveway were some short plants that she’d never noticed before. They had an odd color, similar to the unusual green she’d spotted inside. On a whim, she walked over and plucked a stem from one. Handling the stem, some of the same substance came off on her fingers. It looked identical.

  That probably explained it. Maybe the plant was something Cantone used to mix his paints. Or maybe it was edible and they cooked with it. She found an old sack on the back seat of the truck and carefully wrapped a few stems of the plant in it. She would ask Zoe, her friendly plant expert.

  At the Y intersection at the north end of town she happened to glance down at her cell phone on the seat beside her. She’d missed a call, probably while she was behind the hills all afternoon. She recognized Rupert’s number and dialed him.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  “Interesting news flash in the art world.” He paused, obviously waiting for her to beg to hear it. She obliged. “Two Cantone paintings have just showed up at an auction house in New York. I inquired, through Esteban, and word is that they came through an artist rep in Santa Fe.”

  “What, like an agent?”

  “No, I think this is more like a broker, someone who finds art from various sources—sometimes artists or their estates, sometimes owners who want to sell a piece. The rep contacts the big auction houses if the piece might bring a higher price at a national or international sale. The two Cantone paintings are some of his earlier work and are considered very rare. They haven’t been seen publicly in years.”

  “Rare, meaning how much in dollars?”

  “Well over a million.”

  Sam’s breath caught. How could a man who’d created such valuable art live and die in near poverty? When the sale of one painting would have set him up for life, why hadn’t he been able to pay a mortgage on a tiny scrap of property?

  “I wonder how and where this art rep got hold of the paintings,” she mused.

  “No idea. But we can check her out. It’s Carolyn Hildebrandt and she’s got an office in Santa Fe. I’ll call, see what I can learn.”

  “Give it a try,” Sam said. “I’m on my way home. Let me know what you find out.”

  She stopped at the market for a roasted chicken and a couple of deli salads for dinner, then headed home. She found Kelly stretched out on the couch in sweats, with the TV blaring some kind of reality-show contest between teams of twenty-somethings who couldn’t stop jumping up and down and screaming “ohmygod!!!”.

  “Hey,” Sam called out. “I brought dinner.”

  Kelly shuffled into the kitchen, not bothering to lower the television volume.

  “Yumm . . . you remembered my favorite chicken. Thanks, Mom.” She helped herself to a heaping plate and started back to the living room.

  “Let’s eat in here,” Sam said. “Get the chance to catch up on things.”

  She complied but didn’t look thrilled about it.

  First things first, Sam reminded Kelly that she needed her debit card back and expected her to repay the money she’d taken from the account.

  “That wasn’t meant to be an open-ended cash supply, you know. I gave you the card to help with Christmas expenses only, you know.”

  Kelly had the good grace to hang her head, just a little. Then came the charm. “I know, Mom, and I’m really so grateful for that. I didn’t mean to get so far behind on my credit cards. It won’t happen again.”

  “Get the card for me now,” Sam said with the biggest smile she could muster. Two could play at this charm game.

  Kelly left her dinner plate long enough to retrieve her purse from the bedroom and hand her mother the card. Sam slipped it into her jeans pocket.

  “So, what’s going to happen now?” Sam asked. “Job, house in L.A., all that?”

  Kelly took a deep breath and pushed her plate away. “Well, it’s like this. I have no reason to go back to California.”

  Sam pushed her own plate aside now and gave her daughter a hard stare.

  “Real estate has tanked. My house is under water.”

  Sam envisioned some kind of flood, but she went on.

  “It’s worth less than I owe on it. I can’t refinance because the lenders would never take the loss. I can’t sell it because I’d have to come up with two hundred grand to make up the difference. I know I bought too much house at too high a price. Don’t even remind me of that.” She wouldn’t look straight at Sam. “Even if I’d kept my job I was sinking farther behind every month. It was just a matter of time. So I walked away. Everybody’s doing it.”

  Sam wanted to launch into the whole motherly lecture about what if everybody were jumping off the cliff, but that sounded way too much like what her own mother would have said.

  “Everybody? Kell, really?”

  “Okay, not everybody.” She carried the dishes to the sink and dumped the remains of the uneaten food. “Mom, I tried. I really did. I’ve been looking for a new job for months. There’s nothing.” Unshed tears made her voice go ragged.

  Sam could have gone into the whole ‘then why did you leave the job you had’ speech but that, too, was what her mother would have said. She let the silence fill the room.

  “I’ll find something. I know I will. But I need to stay here awhile. It won’t be long.”

  What choice did she have? Give up her privacy and put her hot new boyfriend on hold. Okay, so that versus a homeless daughter—Sam knew she’d let her stay.

  “One month. I want you online every day, looking and putting in applications.” What was she saying? That she’d kick her out in thirty days if she hadn’t moved on? Yes.

  Easy to say, but what would she really do?

  She walked into the living room and switched off the TV and pointed Kelly to her computer on the desk in the corner. Job applications were no longer a nine-to-five proposition.

  While Kelly pecked away at the keys Sam showered and changed into soft flannel pj’s. She got out her calendar and marked check-back dates for each of her properties. She would need to keep the yards maintained until winter set in, plus go back to each and make sure they were tidy and mouse-free until they sold. The cabin she’d visited today would require snow removal by December, and she would have to contract that out to someone else. Most places sold within a month or two, but even their small rural counties weren’t immune to the real estate problems that were hitting other parts of the country. Sam might have more long-term jobs than she’d reckoned on.

  Kelly was still happily tapping away at the computer keys so Sam took a moment to call Beau and fill him in on the situation, given that she’d left him pretty bewildered last night. Once she’d covered her daughter’s circumstances, she remembered the earlier call.

  “Rupert told me today that two Cantone paintings came up for auction in New York,” she told him. “Remember those blank spots and the nails on the walls in his house? I have the strangest feeling that millions of dollars in art might have been hanging in that little place at one time.”

  His question was the same as hers—why hadn’t Cantone sold something and afforded himself a better lifestyle.

  “Maybe he just wanted a simple life,” she said. “Nothing wrong with that. But I still get a weird feeling about that situation, the guy who was living with him. It would have been so easy for some unscrupulous bum to take advantage of the artist, maybe even kill him.”

  “Murder by p
neumonia?” he said. “It wouldn’t be the most efficient way to off someone.”

  “Still—I wonder where the other guy went. You know, it’s entirely possible that someone else came along—someone who knew the value of the art—and maybe the roommate was also a victim of foul play.” She remembered Betty McDonald’s gossip about neighbors who didn’t like Cantone. When she mentioned it to Beau he said there hadn’t been time for him to get out there and question anyone else. Other cases were beginning to take precedence.

  “Sam, we don’t know that Cantone was a victim of anything. Probably he was old and simply got sick and died.”

  Still, she just couldn’t let go of the idea that the roommate was out there somewhere, dead or alive. She realized that Kelly’s attention seemed to have wandered toward her conversation. She lowered her voice to say goodbye to Beau. As soon as she clicked off the call she turned to her daughter

  “Any luck?”

  Kelly quickly turned back to the screen. “Mom, it doesn’t quite work that way.”

  Sam paced the kitchen for a minute but doing nothing wasn’t her style. Remembering that the Chocoholics Unanimous group would be meeting again tomorrow, she whipped up a batch of brownies and called Ivan at the bookstore to confirm that she could deliver them in the morning. Then, knowing that Rupert was a night owl, she phoned him to see if he’d learned anything new about the origin of those paintings.

  “Well.”

  Another of his long stories. She checked the timer on the oven and sat down.

  “I called the art rep at her office. Then I got to thinking, what was I going to say? Just blurt it out that we knew where Cantone had been living and demand to know where she got the man’s art? No. I remembered how I handled something like that when I wrote The Jewel Heist—you remember those few mysteries I did?—how it’s always better to confront someone in person rather than over the phone.”

  Sam found herself twirling her hand in mid-air, as if that would hurry him up.

  “So I told the lady that I represent a wealthy woman who is interested in Cantone’s work, and I set up an appointment for tomorrow.”

  “What wealthy woman?”

  “You, my dear. You will be the wealthy client, and that will get us into her office.”

  Sam howled out loud. Kelly stared at her through the doorway.

  “Rupert, how on earth am I going to convince this lady who works with wealthy clients all the time that I’m one of them? There’s not a thing in my closet that came from better than JC Penney.”

  He hmmm’d for a second. “I’ll work on that. I probably have something I can loan you. If all else fails, we’ll go for the grunge look.”

  Uh-huh. Me in grunge, she thought. About as likely as me in Versace.

  He said he’d be over in the morning and they’d take it from there.