Murder & Marble Cake

by Nancy McGovern

  “Maybe you do,” Rachel said. “Maybe Paul doesn’t.”

  Jackson shook his head. “I don’t know. Paul just doesn’t seem like the type.”

  “Why? Did he pet your puppy too?” Rachel asked. She bit her tongue. Her comment had probably come off a little bit meaner than she intended. Jackson, however, didn’t seem to notice. He was frowning into the distance. “Well . . . Paul was never very fond of animals. Matter of fact, I once chased him down the football field because he kicked a cat. That was when we were twelve, though. Can’t call him a murderer just based on that.”

  “No. But it helps a little bit,” Rachel said. “Look, if it wasn’t Paul, who killed Arthur? Someone has got to have done it.”

  “What if it was just a passing hobo?” Jackson asked. “Like a tramp who thought he’d get some money?”

  “A hobo? Here in Swaddle?” Rachel shook her head. “What’s the town population? Two hundred and fifty people?”

  “Thirteen thousand people in the last census,” Jackson said. “We’re small, but we aren’t microscopic. Drifters come and go. There’s even a few junkies in town, sadly. Can’t escape drugs anywhere in this sinful world. It was very different when I was growing up. Still, we keep Swaddle as homey as possible.”

  Rachel sighed. “It really doesn’t seem likely. The police discovered a love letter strewn over Arthur’s body, you know. This is definitely a crime of passion.”

  Jackson frowned. “I didn’t know that. About the love letter, I mean.”

  “Oh.” Rachel bit her lip, and hoped that it wasn’t confidential information. That would give Tanner one more reason to get angry at her. “Maybe don’t tell anyone else?”

  “Sure, I’ll keep it under my hat, except—” Jackson frowned. “Except Audrey’s going to be quite devastated when she finds out. I mean—that’s proof that Arthur cheated on her, right?”

  “I guess it is.” Rachel felt uncomfortable. She’d never considered this aspect. “Has Sheriff Tanner talked to her yet? He’ll probably tell her about the letter.”

  “He hasn’t told her much. Just . . .” Jackson’s eyes widened. “So that’s why Tanner was probing her about Arthur’s love life. Audrey kept insisting that Arthur would never cheat. She was quite upset about it. I had to get a little strict with Tanner, not that it made a difference to him.”

  “Wow.” Rachel shook her head.

  Jackson’s phone began to buzz, and he excused himself to answer it. Rachel stood on the sidewalk, still thinking about all that he’d said. Somehow, things had happened so fast that she hadn’t really processed any of it. She had to slow down and really think things through. There was so much about this murder that completely baffled her.

  For one thing, Rachel absolutely believed that more than one person was involved in the killing. The crank call she had received was deliberate, for it was too big a coincidence for it to have occurred within the same ninety second timeframe that Arthur was murdered. But the love letter; the love letter implied that the killing was a crime of passion. If so, she couldn’t see how two people were involved. Unless Arthur had been cheating on Audrey with not one, but two different women and then those women had teamed up to kill him when they learned of his betrayal.

  No, that felt too far-fetched. The truth had to be infinitely less complex. Something simple that eluded her. One thing was certain—Arthur had probably been cheating on Audrey. But if he had . . . Rachel felt a sudden swoop in her stomach—if he had—that raised a whole new possibility. If Arthur had been cheating on Audrey, then it was possible that she had found out, and that she had decided to kill him.

  *****

  Chapter 11

  Cake & Condolences

  “Rachel? What are you doing here?”

  Rachel gripped the marble cake a little tighter, and took a deep breath. She’d tried to prepare herself mentally before ringing Audrey’s doorbell, but the sight of Audrey unraveled her. Audrey and Arthur had been Rachel’s first real friends in town. They’d invited her to dinner once, and by the end of it, she’d felt as though she’d known them for years. The Audrey who answered the door, however, was unrecognizable. Her long hair, usually tied up in a neat bun, was now open and hung in strings around her face. Audrey had been so self-assured and witty in their last conversation. Now, her entire body was held stiff and she had developed a slight twitch in her left eye.

  “Thanks for coming,” she said, as she ushered Rachel past an upended vase and strewn papers. “Sorry about the mess, I just haven’t had time to—”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Rachel said immediately. “Just take your time. It’s been a huge shock to everyone. I can’t even imagine how you feel.”

  “I’m OK . . .” Audrey sat on the sofa and hugged a pillow to her chest. “I think.”

  “What’s the last time you ate?” Rachel asked. “Can I make you some coffee or tea?”

  “No . . . I’m OK.” Audrey shook her head. “Jackson keeps pestering me to eat. I had some toast earlier. He’s been such a support, you know. He’s helping me with everything. The funeral. With my parents away I don’t know what I’d have done. My head just feels like it’s in a fog.”

  Rachel nodded. Even if she hadn’t promised Jackson not to press Audrey about Arthur’s death, seeing her in this state decided things. She was here to give comfort, and that’s what she’d do.

  Getting up, she went to the kitchen and grabbed a plate. She rummaged in the fridge and found pistachio ice cream. Putting a scoop of it on one side of the plate and the marble cake on the other, she headed back out to Audrey.

  “I really can’t eat . . .” Audrey protested, but Rachel forced it into her hands.

  “You have to keep your strength up, Audrey. It’ll do you no good starving yourself. Eat. I want to see that entire slice finished before I go.”

  Audrey smiled weakly as though Rachel’s command comforted her. She dug her fork into the cake and took a bite. Instantly, her eyes closed, and an expression of delight escaped her mouth. “This is fantastic.”

  “Thanks.” Rachel smiled.

  “You know, it’s really crazy. This tastes exactly like the marble cake sold by Bull’s Café,” Audrey said. “I mean, I used to love that cake. Everyone in town was crazy about it, really. Emily stopped making it a while ago, and we’ve all been begging her to start again.”

  Rachel raised an eyebrow. “Emily stopped making it? Don’t you mean my Aunt Rose stopped making it?”

  “No, Emily made it herself. She advertised ‘Homemade Marble Cake.’ It was one of the things that made Bull’s special. Marble cake and coffee go really well together.”

  “Oh.” Rachel shrugged. “I guess she got the recipe from my aunt; there’s a secret to it, you know.”

  “What’s the secret?” Audrey asked.

  Rachel winked. “Not sure if I’m qualified to give it away.”

  Audrey gave a laugh, and for a moment, all the grief was stripped from her face, revealing the beauty and wit that Rachel remembered. Then, instantly, the weight was back, pressing Audrey’s shoulders down. She placed the now empty plate on the coffee table.

  “Thanks for coming to see me, and thanks for not mentioning, you know—the death,” Audrey said quietly. “People have been really supportive, but some of them, it almost felt like they’d come to gossip instead of to support.”

  Rachel felt a little pang of shame. That had been her original plan too, to gather information.

  “The truth is, I wanted information from you, Rachel,” Audrey said. “Like—” Her lips quivered. “Like, is it true? Was Arthur cheating on me?”

  Rachel shook her head, “Audrey, you can’t be thinking of—”

  “I can’t stop thinking of it! I’m obsessed with it!” Audrey’s eyes shone with a queer light, and her mouth contorted into a snarl. “Sheriff Tanner told me all about the love letter.”

  “He did?”

  “He even gave me a copy!” Audrey said. She fumbled around inside the
pocket of her cardigan, and drew out a crumpled piece of paper. Audrey shuddered a little as she almost threw it at Rachel.

  Rachel caught it, and quietly tucked it into her pocket. “Audrey, Arthur never once flirted with me. I know we had breakfast together a bunch of times, but he was nothing more than a friend. He really didn’t seem like the type to cheat. That’s all I can tell you.”

  “But you were there. You were the last person he spoke to!” Audrey exclaimed. “Did he tell you anything? Anything at all? Even a hint?”

  Rachel shook her head.

  “Did he mention me?” Audrey asked, looking eager. “Did he mention me at all?”

  Well, he had mentioned Audrey when Rachel had remarked about the stain on his tie. But Rachel didn’t want to bring that up. “We just talked about the opening of Comfort Cakes,” Rachel lied. “Arthur was a good guy, Audrey. I’m so sorry I have nothing more to tell you.”

  “No. He wasn’t a good guy. That much is clear. Where else did that horrible letter come from? Read it!”

  “Audrey—”

  “Read it!” Audrey commanded.

  Rachel unfolded the letter and read:

  I love you as I’ve never loved before.

  I love you like the candle loves the flame.

  You consume me with passion,

  And with you, I even worship the pain.

  My darling, I don’t care about my parents, I don’t care about Audrey, all I want is you. I’ll do anything for you. Anything at all. I know you feel bad about me leaving her, but I don’t care. You are all that matters to me.

  Uncomfortable, Rachel crumpled the paper and put it back in her pocket.

  “That’s all they found,” Audrey said. “That’s ridiculous, isn’t it? I can’t even believe that my Arthur wrote it. How could he write that letter, Rachel, and then look me in the eye and say he loved me each day? How is that possible?

  “I’m sorry,” Rachel said. “Sometimes, the people we think we know can betray us in the worst ways.” The words were bitter on her tongue, but they were important to say. Rachel knew that it wasn’t just Arthur’s death Audrey was struggling with, but also his betrayal. She hoped her words would help just a little.

  “Did your boyfriend betray you, too?” Audrey asked, looking at Rachel.

  Rachel hesitated. This wasn’t a story she’d shared with anyone else before, but something about Audrey’s face—confused and scared and betrayed—made her want to share.

  “Brandon and I were together since college,” Rachel said. “I thought he was the one, you know? Every decision I made, everything I did, was for him. We even built a start-up together. He stayed at his job, but helped me with the technical details and financing. I quit mine and threw myself into doing all the work. I mean really threw myself into it. I even missed Aunt Rose’s funeral to attend meetings. That company was my baby.”

  “So what happened?”

  “He betrayed me,” Rachel said. “He got greedy and sold it off without asking me. Since he’d financed ninety percent of it, all I received were crumbs. Brandon kept saying that he would share with me, that we were going to be married anyway, that it was a good deal . . . but I was furious that he’d made a unilateral decision like that. We broke up. I moved back to Swaddle, so that I could start over again.”

  “That’s awful,” Audrey said. “What he did, I mean.”

  “Thanks. I can’t really explain it to anyone else, but I didn’t really care about the money, it was the fact that he’d gone behind my back that ate at me. It’s been three months, but I still can’t believe that my Brandon, the guy I loved, the guy I spent so much time with, would do the thing he did. The worst part is, Brandon never even understood why I was angry. He thinks I’m a fool for breaking up. As for me I didn’t know what to feel. I still don’t. My feelings just come like waves. Grief sometimes, anger sometimes, fear that maybe I’ve done the wrong thing sometimes. I just sit and let them come.”

  “That’s exactly how I feel too,” Audrey agreed. “A mix of violent emotions, and no brain power to figure anything out.”

  “Take it a day at a time, and it’ll all work out,” Rachel said, giving her a hug. “My Aunt Rose always said that you can’t control life or other people. You can just keep doing the right thing and hope it all works out in the end.”

  Audrey smiled. “I agree with her—in theory. But right now, I don’t know what I want to do, or what I want to feel. Part of me hates Arthur with a deep fury, and the other part still loves him.” That queer light was back in Audrey’s eyes, and her fists were clenched as she spoke.

  Rachel watched her, and she couldn’t help wondering if maybe Audrey had known that Arthur was cheating. Was it possible? How could you live with a man, and not know that he’d stopped loving you? Surely in the smallest of actions, or in the manner of his speech, or in the way he looked at her, there would have been a hint of Arthur’s intentions.

  Rachel herself, had known that something was wrong between her and Brandon, long before he ever sold the company and pulled the rug out from under her. She knew that Brandon hated how she focused more on work than him. She knew that he was jealous of the start-up in a weird way. She had known that there were issues, she’d just chosen to ignore them. Perhaps Audrey had chosen to ignore things too even though she claimed that she had just never noticed a difference in Arthur’s behavior.

  Perhaps, worse yet, Audrey was only pretending not to have known. Perhaps she had known and plotted to kill Arthur. But then, why do it in such a weird way? There were plenty of simpler ways to kill him.

  Audrey spoke as though she had read Rachel’s mind. “I never really even guessed that Arthur had stopped loving me,” she said. “I guess he was a really good actor. I should have known. He was in the theater club back in school. He and Jackson brought down the house with their Laurel and Hardy impressions.”

  The door opened as she said this, and Jackson walked in with the phone still glued to his ear.

  “It’s your parents, Audrey,” he said. “They’re almost back. They’ll be here in an hour. Want me to clean up a bit around here before they come?” He looked around at the vase and strewn papers, then blinked as he looked at Rachel, as though he had forgotten she was here.

  “I’ll help clean up,” Rachel said, standing up. “Let’s let Audrey rest a bit. I think she needs it.”

  “No, really, I can handle it.” Audrey stood up too. “I’m sure you have work, you should get going.”

  Rachel was about to protest, when her own phone vibrated in her pocket. She pulled it out and picked up—only to freeze.

  “I have information you need. Come meet me behind the old cannery. Now. Don’t call anyone else—or you’ll regret it.”

  The number was set to private, but Rachel knew who it was. She would never forget that voice. It was the same voice that had kept her in the other room while the killer took care of Arthur.

  *****

  Chapter 12

  The Crank Caller

  The town of Swaddle had stood guard for two hundred years on the rugged central coast of California. It had stretched itself out along the Cabrillo highway, servicing truckers and tourists alike. In the years before trucks and highways defeated the shipping industry, it had also been a thriving center for sardine packing. In fact, locals often claimed that Swaddle, not Monterey, was where Steinbeck should have based his famous Cannery Row.

  The Jonas Cannery Co. had gone bankrupt about fifty years ago. All that remained of what had once been the largest employer in town was a rusted, old warehouse with no clear owner. Brown grass grew knee-deep around it, and a broken fence warned that trespassers would be prosecuted. Rachel felt some nervousness as she parked her car by the fence. The warehouse stood on an old dock, and as far as the eye could see, there were only exposed bricks, graffiti, and broken boards. Rachel’s heart hammered as she pondered her own stupidity.

  Why was she here alone? She should have told someone and brought them along. S
he didn’t even have a weapon to protect herself with. Yet even though she knew it was a bad idea, she moved toward the warehouse as though she was hypnotized. Part of her couldn’t stop, hoping that the crank caller would tell her the truth. The crank caller must know who the killer was. That had to have been why he called. His conscience didn’t allow him to stay quiet anymore. So if he needed a listening ear she was ready to provide it.

  Heart hammering in her chest, Rachel moved through the knee-deep grass, averting her eyes from the discarded syringes and beer bottles that were littered all around. Ahead of her, the bright-blue ocean crashed into the dark rocks and yellow sand of the beach, creating a reassuring roar of thunder each time. For a moment, she looked out at the beach, and remembered her own childhood, wonderfully warm days spent on this same beach, with Aunt Rose reading a book and herself in a swimsuit, shoveling sand into a bucket to make a castle. The vision of those days seemed to melt into the mist of the ocean, leaving her stranded at the warehouse—cold and alone.

  “Psst! Here!”

  The voice was exactly as she remembered, deep and raspy, but with a manic eagerness inside it. It was the man behind the voice that she didn’t expect. She’d pictured a monster, someone large and threatening. This man was in a wheelchair, with a bright-blue, woolen cap on his head and matted, curly hair piling down around his shoulders. His body was shrunken and small, covered in a thin blanket that made his head look overly large. His face, too, was memorable—spotted with red sores, and rather sickly.

  “You came.” He smiled. “Alone?”

  “Alone.” Rachel kept her distance, determined to run at the slightest sign of foul play. “You’re the one who crank called me that day, aren’t you?”

  “I am,” he said. “Look, I was told it was a prank. I was told it’d be funny to hassle the big-city girl a little bit. I did think it was a little weird that I was given the time down to the minute, and waking up that early isn’t my cup of tea. But I kinda shrugged it off. I was promised money, you see. That’s all I cared about. I had no idea . . .”