Chaos, Desire & a Kick-Ass Cupcake

by Kyra Davis

  “I’m going to take these out to the garbage, before Anatoly comes home,” I told her. “This will be one more secret between the two of us, okay?”

  She tilted her head to an angle that I now understood to mean, whatever you say.

  I marched out of the kitchen, plate in hand, ready to just dump it in the garbage in the garage…

  …except when I entered the dining room I heard the front door open and close.

  Anatoly wasn’t supposed to be home for hours.

  Ms. Dogz went rushing forward, barking her doggie head off. And then the barking stopped.

  “Hey, Sophie, I’ve missed you!”

  It was a girl’s voice that said the words. A teenager’s voice.

  Carefully I walked to the foyer to see Cat, clad in jeans, a long sleeved tee and a long red, checkered scarf crouched down in front of Ms. Dogz, scratching her behind the ears. When she saw me she jumped up, as if a little stunned. Her knapsack swung from one shoulder as she stumbled back a step. “Oh! I’m sorry!” she blurted out. “I didn’t know you were here…I knocked but you didn’t answer.”

  “Oh,” I glanced at the door. Last I checked someone not answering the door was not an invitation to let yourself in.

  “Normally I wouldn’t have just barged in,” she said, clearly anticipating my questions. “But I heard an alarm and I thought I smelled something burning so I thought…I just thought I should try the door and it was open so…” She blushed a little and looked down at Ms. Dogz. “I’m sorry.”

  “I was baking,” I said, still feeling disoriented. I had forgotten to lock the door after checking the mail. How careless could I be?

  “Oh…you’re making…um…are those muffins?” she asked, looking down at the plate.

  “Yeah, um, they’re more like novelty cupcakes.”

  “Novelty like novelty toys? You…bake novelty cupcakes?”

  This girl barges into my house and then insults my magical, empowerment cupcakes? No. Just no.

  Except…were her actions really so unreasonable? She smelled something burning so she tried the door. In a certain light that would seem like the responsible thing to do.

  And in any light Cat was a tragic figure in the truest sense of the word. Her father had left his family for another woman, then lost his mind and then was murdered by her mother…who was about to go to jail for it (or she would if I had anything to say about it). “I’m not much of a baker.” I looked down at the lumps of hard, wasted sugar and flour on my plate. “It’s been years since I tried my hand at it and I think another long baking hiatus may be in order.”

  Cat smiled at my comment. She seemed softer than the last time I had seen her. Less angry and more vulnerable. “I love baking. I’m always making things for my friends and my parents. I’ve been baking even more lately to, you know, distract myself. Look.” She reached into her bag and pulling out a Ziploc bag filled with sugar cookies (my least favorite kind of cookies). “I brought these for you,” she said shyly as she handed them over.

  I placed them on the corner of the plate filled with my novelty empowerment. “I wasn’t sure you were coming,” I said. “We never set up a time.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Cat gave an apologetic shrug. “I wasn’t able to really plan this. My mom has been hovering like crazy since my dad died. I thought she was going to be at work all day but she took the first half of the day off so she could…I don’t know…hover some more I guess. She’s weird sometimes.”

  Yes, weird and homicidal. “Care to come sit down?” I led her into the living room and placed the cupcakes on the coffee table but held on to the cookies. Ms. Dogz sniffed at the chocolate and then turned her nose up. Ms. Dogz, who used to live in a place overrun with insects, rotting food and trash, was disgusted by my cupcakes.

  I claimed the armchair and gestured for Cat to take the couch. Mr. Katz entered the room and took a seat by my side, eyeing Cat warily.

  “Do you like cats?” I asked. “I mean, you kind of have to if your name is Cat, right?”

  Cat offered me a strained smile. It was likely a familiar joke to her. “When did you meet my father?” she asked.

  “The day he died,” I answered truthfully. “I wasn’t dating him.” I hesitated a moment before asking, “did you know the woman he was living with after your mom? Anne Keller?”

  “Of course I knew her,” Cat said off-handedly. “She was my mom’s best friend before she hooked up with my dad.”

  “What?” I gasped.

  Cat shrugged and fiddled with her scarf. “My mom used to go by Anne too. When I was little, they were the two Anne’s. The fun AA,” Cat laughed. “That’s what they called themselves. The Fun AA. Although I guess Anne was the more fun of the two. She was definitely the one who liked to party the most. Mom always told me that guys loved Anne. She just didn’t know that one of those guys was my dad.”

  Oh, no wonder Anita killed him. I might consider killing Anatoly if he took off with Dena or Mary Ann. Of course if he made a pass at Dena or Mary Ann they’d kill him for me. Now I felt kind of bad for wanting to put Anita in jail.

  “When was this?” I asked.

  “Oh, like seven years ago…a little over that I guess. She came over to our house all the time when I was a kid. I remember a few times when my mom and I would be baking…we baked those cookies,” she said, gesturing to the Ziploc in my hand. “They’re kind of our specialty, really good. Anyway, we’d start baking and then mom would say, Let’s invite Anne over for this. She really wants to learn how to bake.” Cat rolled her eyes at the memory. “And then Anne would come over and drink wine with dad and the two of them would watch us bake. That was Anne.”

  Although I wanted to be attentive to Cat’s baking stories my mind was sort of stuck on the seven years part. I hadn’t really thought about the number before. Seven years was a long time. If Anatoly cheated on me with one of my girlfriend’s I wouldn’t wait seven years to murder him.

  “Were you close with your dad?” I asked, a little distractedly.

  “When I was little? Yeah, I guess.” She crossed her legs at the ankles and then re-crossed them with the other leg in front. “It was too weird after he left us. My mom didn’t want me spending any time over there and Ann didn’t know how to act around me anyway. Dad never filed for divorce because he knew my mom was going to make it super difficult but he acted like he was married to Anne. He even gave her a stupid ring.” She tugged gently at the ends of her scarf. “Are you going to try my cookies? I promise, they’re so good.”

  “Oh, yeah…” I opened up the Ziploc. Ms. Dogz was immediately on her feet and trying to get her nose in the bag.

  “No!” Cat said, firmly to the dog. “That’s not yours.” She looked up at me with an apologetic smile. “Sugar’s really bad for dogs. Don’t let her eat it.”

  “Oh, I won’t,” I said, pulling the cookie close to me. “After Anne Keller…um…when she…”

  “When she offed herself?” Cat filled in for me, without a trace of discomfort.

  “Yeah,” I said with a nod. “Did you see your dad much after that?”

  “My mom and I would go over there sometimes in the couple weeks after she died. Actually my mom went over there a lot. Dad was a mess…I mean, not like he was toward the end, but he was definitely hurting. And my mom…I don’t know. I guess my mom just decided she was going to forgive him, which is kind of pathetic when you think about it.”

  “Wait, after everything they went through she was ready to be his friend again?” Anita did not strike me as being that magnanimous.

  “She was ready to be his wife again,” Cat corrected.

  “Oh.” Now I was beginning to understand the timing of the murder. “So he left her, for her best friend no less, and she was still willing to forgive him if he’d take her back and he said…no.” God that had to hurt.

  “Wrong,” Cat said with a shake of her head. “He said yes, and then he said no. They were back together for, like a month. And the
n he pulled away again. Sold his condo, moved into that ugly apartment. He would invite me over sometimes but he didn’t want to see Mom. I didn’t get why but then, I didn’t know about you.”

  “Cat, it wasn’t me. I know you don’t believe me but--”

  Cat held up her hand. “It’s okay. My mom and dad were all kinds of dysfunctional. For a little while, I thought he would come back to us because…I don’t know, I thought he was just better with my mom than he was with Anne. Mom says he didn’t even need to take his bipolar meds when he was with her.”

  I pressed my lips together. I could tell her that while he may have been able to function without medication in the years he was with her mom he was eventually going to need medication regardless of who he was living with. It was the nature of the disease. But why ruin her romantic fantasy that her mother was able to keep his demons away by her mere presence? Soon she would have to reassess her opinions about her mom, but not yet and not about that.

  “I even thought that when he started to really lose it he would turn to my mom for help. My dad…he used to lean on her and if he had leaned on her again he would have gotten better. But he didn’t.” Her voice cracked and she angrily swiped at her cheek. “I guess they just weren’t meant to be. I get that now. I’m really just here because…well, I miss my dad.” She met my eyes. I saw no sign of the tears she had just made a show of wiping away.

  But then maybe that was because she had just wiped them away. I needed to stop being so suspicious and just listen.

  “I can’t tell my mom that,” Cat went on. “I can’t talk to her about him. I thought maybe I could talk to you.”

  Oh God, this was hell. I needed her to know I hadn’t been sleeping with her dad. But now she was here because she thought I did have a relationship with him and therefore could mourn with her.

  “Hey, are you going to try that cookie or what?” she asked again with a smile. “I’m beginning to to be insulted! What is it, you don’t trust me to know how to bake?” she looked pointedly at my own weak attempt at the art.

  “Sorry.” Her red scarf didn’t suit her coloring. Pink would be better on her. “Of course I trust…” but then my voice trailed off.

  I knew that red scarf. I had seen it in London’s apartment the first time I went in.

  But not the second.

  Someone had removed the scarf between my two visits. Anita had told me that neither she nor Cat had ever been in that apartment before. So either Anita had been lying to me or Cat had been lying to her.

  I looked down at the cookie in my hand. “You must have been very angry with your father.” There had been a cookie tin in London’s kitchen. The ants around it had been dead.

  “I was,” she said flippantly. “I’m not anymore.”

  “Because now he’s dead.”

  She didn’t say anything for a moment and then gave me a cool smile. “I guess that has something to do with it.”

  “You said you played Catherine of Aragon in a school play.” I looked back up at her, trying to keep my voice calm. She had been surprised I was home. Was that because she was tracking my car that was now parked by Anatoly’s office? “Are you really into theater?”

  “I like to act,” she said, cautiously. “I like lots of things. I’m a member of the robotics team too. And the softball team.”

  “What play is your school putting on now?”

  Cat studied me for a moment. Mr. Katz swished his tail.

  “Macbeth,” she said quietly. “We’re putting on Macbeth.”

  Carefully I put the cookie on the edge off the coffee table. “What’s in the cookies, Cat?” I whispered.

  “The usual,” she said calmly. “Butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla…and a little bit of rat poison, just for you.”

  I jerked my head up to meet her eyes but she was already flying across the coffee table, her hands out like claws. I instinctively raised my arms to protect my face as she literally straddled me in my chair but then I felt her squeezing my neck, making it hard to breathe.

  Oh fuck that.

  I grabbed her hair and yanked, hard. She screamed and I pushed her off, coughing. Ms. Dogz was barking, looking confused as to where she should place her loyalty.

  My gun was in my purse, which was in the office. I just had to get to the office. I started to run. Cat lunged for me but she wasn’t fast enough. I looked over my shoulder just in time to see Ms. Dogz sniffing the sugar cookies that were now on the floor.

  “No!” I screamed running back to stop her. But I didn’t get far, Cat was on me again, knocking me to the ground. I felt her fist hit the side of my head, causing an explosion of pain to vibrate through my skull. Again her hands with to my throat. I tried to pry them off but she was surprisingly strong and the blow to my head had made me dizzy. I reached up to the surface of the coffee table, groping for anything I could use as a weapon as she continued to squeeze.

  My hand wrapped itself around a cupcake.

  With every bit of strength I had I smashed that cupcake against her head. It made an audible sound and Cat cried out in surprise and pain. I hit her with it again and again. My baking skills were so bad I was actually able to weaponize my empowerment cupcakes! The repeated impact was enough to get her to loosen her grip. I pushed her off me and turned over on my stomach. I tried to crawl in the direction of where Ms. Dogz had been but when I lifted my head I saw the poisonous cookies still laying on the floor, but no Ms. Dogz. And then the red scarf was around my throat and I was in an even worse position than before.

  “I didn’t want to do it this way!” she was screaming. But I didn’t really care what she was saying anymore. I was not going to be strangled to death by a high school drama geek. That just wasn’t the way I was meant to go out.

  I flailed at her, but now, with my face pushed against the floor and the scarf getting tighter and tighter around my neck…it wasn’t working. Nothing was working.

  And that’s when Ms. Dogz chose a side.

  Seemingly out of nowhere she leaped onto Cat, pushing her off me, snarling and growling all the way. I heard Cat scream as she bit into her arm.

  “Sophie, stop it, it’s me! Sophie!” But it wasn’t helping.

  I struggled to my feet as Cat got bit again. She screamed but it was my whistle that got Ms. Dogz to stop. She backed up a few feet as she continued to growl.

  Cat looked up at me helplessly as I glared down at her. “Sophie bit me,” she cried.

  “She’s not your Sophie, anymore” I snapped. “That’s Ms. Dogz, and she’s my bitch now, bitch.”

  “I considered watching the solar eclipse but I didn’t have the right glasses and I’ve been told that there are more enjoyable ways to go blind.”

  --Dying To Laugh

  In the early morning, less than forty-eight hours after the police came to my house to take Cat away, less than forty-seven hours since Anatoly had taken me in his arms, kissed me passionately and tended to my rapidly forming black-eye, less than forty-four hours since I had called Dena to tell her the whole story, and less than twenty-six hours since I had called Mary Ann to ask her where I had gone wrong with the cupcakes, I sat with Charity in my car across from Nolan-Volz. I had stopped her from going inside and asked her to sit with me for a few minutes while I caught her up on a few things. Now, on her lap, was a newspaper. She read the article detailing Cat’s arrest. She looked up at me, and then read the words again. “I can’t…I can’t believe this.”

  “London had been taking Gaba,” I explained to Charity. I watched her through my dark sunglasses (which were necessary to hide my black eye). “The particular Gaba pills he was taking came in big, clear capsules. So Cat just ordered up a bunch of clear capsules and filled them up with all the drugs in the medicine cabinet. The Abilify that London used to take before the Gaba and then all of Anne’s old pills. Her allergy pills and...other stuff. Apparently there were a lot of pills. When filling up capsules proved to be too time consuming she just sprinkled the pills into the su
gar he sweetened his coffee and oatmeal with, mixed it into baked goods she made for him and so on thereby making sure he was getting drugged all the time. She replaced Anne’s pills with over the counter stuff that looked similar enough. It’s not like London was checking on it. Of course, after London died Cat cleared out the medicine cabinet, otherwise it might have been discovered that the drugs were all mixed up and not what they were labeled.”

  “Why?” Charity whispered. “Was she really trying to kill her own father?”

  “Maybe?” I ran my fingers over the steering wheel as I watched the doors of Nolan-Volz. “Aaron London had rejected both her and her mom for this other woman and when the other woman was out of the picture, he rejected them again in an even more humiliating way. It’s possible she thought that if her dad got sick, he’d turn to her mom. Then she’d stop poisoning him, he’d get better and credit…well, her mom.”

  “Seriously?” Charity asked.

  I shrugged. “Maybe not. Maybe she was trying to kill him. What Cat’s saying is that she was just worried about her dad. She knew he had ditched his prescription for holistic medicine and she was trying to trick him into taking the pills he needed. But I’m pretty sure that’s bullshit.”

  “But…to mix a whole bunch of pills together…some of them weren’t even his…you know what that could do to a person?”

  “Drive them crazy? Cause hair loss? Congestive heart failure? Yeah, I know. And by stalking him in Zipcars…she was full on gas-lighting him. The thing is, London was already kind of losing it due to the loss of his girlfriend and his decision to go off his meds. So people just saw his descent into madness as the natural progression of things. They didn’t suspect.”

  “Wow. Just…wow.” She finally looked up from the paper and patted her perfect curls. “And you figured all this out because I told you he was married to Anne?”

  “That and some other things. I had actually thought Anita was the killer but I didn’t take into account that Cat had access to all the things that would have enabled Anita to stalk and kill London.” I glanced out my window just in time to see Gun walk into Nolan-Volz. Perfect. Charity hadn’t noticed so I simply looked away and gave my full attention to her. “Anita brought her work home with her, so Cat used the tiny little GPS devices to place on London’s car. They’re so small if you put them on the underside of a vehicle they’re practically invisible. I got the one she planted on my car removed yesterday and the mechanic told me that if I hadn’t been able to tell him exactly what to look for he never would have found it.”