Gluten-Free Murder (Auntie Clem's Bakery Book 1)

by P. D. Workman

“I hear you’re trying to find some keys,” Gema said casually.

  “Yes, I am,” Erin agreed. She pointed to the chocolate chip cookies. “I know you’re probably just here for an early lunch, but those are fresh out of the oven.”

  “Oooh… those do look good,” Gema admitted. She pushed her hair back behind her ear. “I’ll take a dozen.”

  “Do you want twelve or thirteen?”

  Gema raised her brows. “Is there a price point difference? Usually a baker’s dozen is just an extra cookie for the same price.”

  “Same price,” Erin confirmed. “But Mary Lou, when she bought some the other day, didn’t want thirteen because her family can’t split them up evenly.”

  Gema laughed. “That sounds just like Mary Lou. No, thirteen is fine with me. My husband will eat most of them, but no one keeps track.”

  Erin started counting them out. “Is it just you and your husband at home, then? I don’t really know about anyone’s families.”

  “Yes. Kids are grown and gone, so it’s just me and Fred now.”

  “Empty nesters.”

  “We’re quite happy to have the nest to ourselves, truth be told. No boomerang kids, if we can help it.”

  Erin nodded. “Boys or girls?”

  “Three boys. I always wanted a little girl, but… Fred and I only ever had boys…”

  “Maybe you could adopt or foster a girl. An older child.”

  “I’ll bet you didn’t go back to your parents after you left the nest.” Gema changed the subject abruptly.

  “Umm… no. My parents are dead. I didn’t have anyone to go back to. Once I hit eighteen, I was on my own. No safety net.”

  “Oh, my! Well, that’s the way the birds do it. And you seem like you turned out okay. A responsible young woman. Owner of your own baking establishment.”

  Erin handed her the bag of cookies and waited for payment. Gema poked around in her wallet, laying down bills and coins one at a time. Eventually, she had the right amount and pushed it over to Erin.

  “Except I didn’t exactly earn this place,” Erin reminded her. “It was left to me by Clementine. So, I guess… there was a safety net. Eventually. But it took a few years to find it.”

  “You could very well have just liquidated everything and blown the cash on drugs or an exotic vacation. But you didn’t. You started a business. And not Clementine’s business,” Gema held up a finger. “Your own business. What you wanted to do. No matter what anyone said.”

  “I guess I’m past needing anyone’s approval.” Erin turned to Melissa. “And what would you like?”

  “Getting back to the keys…”

  Erin had been enjoying Gema’s and Melissa’s looks of frustration as she led the topic away from the treasure hunt.

  “The keys?”

  “You were looking for a lost key? To something Clementine had?”

  “Right. I guess Mary Lou must have told you about it. So far, no one has come forward with any keys. Clementine must have been the only one who had keys to this store. Just the ones I got from the lawyer.”

  “Clementine had more keys than that,” Melissa protested. “Everyone around here has everyone else’s keys. I look at the keys on my rack at home and I don’t even know which ones belong to who anymore. A lot of good that does!”

  “Everyone has everyone else’s keys? Why even have keys, then? Why not just leave the door open for whoever comes by?”

  “You couldn’t do that!” Gema protested, jumping back into the conversation. “We may not have a lot of crime in Bald Eagle Falls, but there are still robberies. Drug addicts who drift through. Things… could still happen. But sharing your keys with your friends, that’s just neighborly and good policy.”

  “So, did you have any of Clementine’s keys?” Erin looked from one to the other.

  “Why, I’d have to know what I was looking for, like I said,” Melissa reminded her. “I wouldn’t recognize them myself. Can you describe the key that you’re looking for?”

  “You don’t put tags on the keys? Clementine’s Tea Room? Something like that?”

  “I guess that would be the smart thing to do. Everybody just hands you whatever they’ve got on hand. Then you put it on your peg board, or in your junk drawer, and in six months, you can’t remember where they came from.” She gave a laugh.

  “Huh.” Erin turned to the next woman in line, a large woman in a red blazer who Erin thought might have been there opening day.

  Melissa and Gema waited impatiently while Erin served her.

  “You don’t know if you had any of her keys?” Erin asked.

  “What did this key look like?” Melissa persisted. “This key to a cabinet. How big? What do you think is in the cabinet?”

  “How would that help you find the key? It’s just a little one, I guess. Half the size of a door key. Probably a little brass key. Old.”

  “Old? How old?”

  “I don’t know. The cabinet has been there as long as I can remember. But if Clementine never gave you any keys, there’s no point in worrying about it.”

  “And what do you think is in the cabinet? Mary Lou said something about a treasure map?” Gema asked.

  “It’s not a treasure map. Just an old map. And I’m sure it’s nothing important. Maybe it was just something to do with her genealogy, or a cave she wanted to explore when she had the time.” Erin thought she’d better play down the treasure angle. It was just a little too fanciful for anyone to believe. But minimizing it only seemed to encourage the women.

  “But the cabinet is locked. Like something was left there. Forgotten, all this time.”

  “Do you have any of Clementine’s keys?” Erin demanded. “There’s no point in even talking about it unless you have Clementine’s keys.”

  Gema and Melissa exchanged looks. They weren’t, Erin thought, rolling their eyes at her demand, or exchanging a knowing look. Instead, they looked like they were sizing each other up. Weighing what they wanted to say in front of the other.

  If they had something to hide, they shouldn’t have come in together. Had they just been swept up in the excitement of a mysterious treasure map and hadn’t thought of the consequences? Mary Lou had been a lot more wary about buying into the idea of a secret to a treasure hunt.

  “I’m sure Clementine did give me keys at one time,” Melissa admitted slowly. “But I’ll have to look for them. I just thought if you could describe the one you were looking for, it would make it a lot faster.”

  “Would you mind returning any of Clementine’s keys to me? Even if it’s not the key to the cabinet, I’m supposed to be inventorying them and getting the locks changed.”

  It was Gema who narrowed her eyes at this statement. “Why do you need to inventory the keys if you’re getting the locks changed?”

  “Well… that’s what the lawyer told me I needed to do. I guess maybe in case there are keys to other things that we don’t know about, like the cabinet. Maybe… a safety deposit box or storage locker somewhere. Or a safe at the house. They weren’t sure they had identified all her assets and there could be something else.”

  “She wouldn’t have given anyone her safety deposit key or anything like that. They would be on her own key chain. She would have wanted to keep them safe.”

  Erin gave a shrug. Maybe she wasn’t as good of a liar as she thought she was. Her stories kept unraveling on examination. “That’s what the lawyer said. I wouldn’t want to get cross-threaded with him.”

  “I’ll have to look through what I’ve got,” Melissa said. She looked at Gema. “You don’t think you had anything like that, do you?”

  “No. I don’t know if there ever was a key to that cabinet. I never heard Clementine say anything about it. Maybe it’s just a cabinet with a stuck door. Are you sure it’s locked? Is it one of those flimsy sheet-iron things? You can generally pop one of those right open with a crowbar.”

  “I didn’t think of that.”

  Both women looked toward the door th
at led down to the basement. Each eyed the other.

  “Sorry, it’s closed,” Erin said. “I’m not supposed to let anyone down there until the police have cleared it. You know, in case there’s still evidence… some evidence as to who it was that killed Angela.”

  Gema shook her head. “That’s so ridiculous. I can’t believe little Terry Piper would go so far as to claim that it was murder. It was obviously just an accident. Angela had severe, life-threatening allergies. She got exposed to something. And she died. It wasn’t anyone’s fault and it certainly wasn’t murder. That’s ridiculous.”

  Erin smiled at Gema calling the policeman ‘little Terry Piper.’ She obviously remembered him from his younger days, before he was the law in Bald Eagle Falls. She imagined Piper trying to give her a ticket and Gema waving her finger at him, telling him that he needed to do more research, or go home and practice his piano, or something from whatever other role she had played in his past. Gema worked at one of the stores in town. Maybe she had caught Piper shoplifting once as a child.

  “Well, if either of you can return Clementine’s keys to me, and let me know if you can think of anyone else she might have given a key to…”

  “I’ll look through my keys,” Melissa agreed. She turned and looked at the silent Gema. “And what about you, Gema? You have a set of Clementine’s keys, don’t you?”

  “I would have to look. I got rid of a lot of old stuff. I doubt I do anymore.”

  And if she had used them to commit the murder, she wouldn’t be handing them over to Erin any time soon. Anyone who turned keys over to Erin was unlikely to be the murderer. It would be someone who claimed not to have keys.

  “What about Mary Lou? Would she have had keys?”

  “Didn’t you ask her?”

  “She didn’t say she did. I’m just wondering… I mean. She might have forgotten.”

  “If anyone had a key, it would be Mary Lou,” Gema said. “She was the closest one to Clementine. Her or Angela.”

  “You think Angela might have had a key?” Erin asked, surprised at Gema’s guess. Hadn’t Mary Lou said that no one really liked Angela? “Why would she have had one?”

  “They were friendly. Clementine made a little bit of baking, but mostly she bought from Angela. They were probably back and forth to each other’s shops all the time. It would make sense for them to have a way to get in and out. Angela would be up before the birds to bake bread and she could put it in Clementine’s shop before opening up her own store. Or if Clementine ran out of something, she could run over and get it, and they would settle up over it later.”

  Erin avoided looking at Vic. She was sure Vic was straining her ears to hear every word she could. Funny how their lives were mirrors of each other. Their aunts friends together, running their businesses with each other. The aunts both eventually dying, and now their nieces, side by side, trying to unravel the threads of what had happened before Clementine shut down her business. Before Angela was murdered.

  Was the secret to the murder in the recent past? Or years ago? Was one of the three ladies responsible for what had happened to her? Or did they know something that would identify the killer? The threads of their lives had obviously all been intertwined.

  Before she could think of anything else to ask, both women were saying goodbye and heading out the door. Erin watched them go and sighed, turning to look at Vic.

  Vic gave a little shrug and they continued to work together without comment until the lunch rush was over and the shop was empty again for a few minutes. Erin put some more muffins in the oven for the after-school crowd. Kids and teachers looking for something sweet at the end of the day. Parents wanting dessert to go with supper or breakfast for their children the next day. She was starting to get a feeling for the ebb and flow of the people going through the shop.

  Erin was rearranging the products in the display case when she saw a man walk by the big window. At first, she saw just a dark and threatening shadow, then realized she had seen him somewhere before. But where? She hadn’t been to that many places in town. He could have been working or shopping at one of the stores she had been to.

  But even through the window, he seemed grimy and work worn. Not like someone who worked in a shop or at a desk. Someone who belonged on an oil rig or down a mineshaft. Maybe a welder.

  “What…?” Vic followed her gaze.

  “That man out there. Do you know him?” It was probably silly to ask Vic. Vic had been there a little longer than Erin, but she had been hiding out, not out meeting people.

  “Uh, yeah. William something. Willie… William… is it Anthony? Something like that. William Anthony. No. Andrews. William Andrews.” Vic nodded, sure she had hit on it. “Yes. William Andrews.”

  “How do you know him? What exactly does he do?”

  “Drifter. Lazy good-for-nothing,” Vic said. When Erin looked at her in astonishment, open-mouthed, Vic grinned. “Aunt Angela’s words, not mine. I don’t think he’s a lazy good-for-nothing. I’ve always seen him working. Odd jobs. Maybe that’s why Aunt Angela thought he was lazy. Because he didn’t have one steady job. But he’s always doing something. Not begging or living off of anyone else.”

  “How do you know that? I thought your aunt wouldn’t let you stay around. It didn’t sound like you sat down to discuss the pros and cons of each of the town’s residents.”

  “No.” Vic laughed. “Other years. I used to come here to do work for Aunt Angela sometimes. Just give her a hand with whatever she needed done around the store. And she talked about people. More than she should.”

  Erin nodded, accepting this. Though Vic’s words niggled at her. If Vic had come to Bald Eagle Falls in past years, why didn’t people know her? Everyone seemed to accept that she was a friend of Erin’s, an outsider they had never met before.

  “So, William Andrews has been around for a few years. He’s not someone who just drifted into town recently.”

  “No. I don’t think he’s from here originally, so that makes him a drifter as far as Aunt Angela is concerned. Not Bald Eagle Falls prime stock.”

  “That’s a pretty narrow view.”

  “Aunt Angela had a lot of narrow views. I didn’t really understand that until I came back here. She was the aunt who always had something in the cookie jar. And who paid me to do jobs for her. I thought she was a pretty good person. I didn’t understand that she… she was really prejudiced against all kinds of people.”

  “Prejudiced?” Erin’s mind had been wandering and the word drew her back. “What kind of people was she prejudiced against?”

  That was just the type of insider information Erin needed. Anyone Angela was prejudiced against would be a prime suspect. She had been unfair to them, they had retaliated…

  “Everyone,” Vic said. “I didn’t realize how she found fault with everyone. It wasn’t just the people who didn’t follow the rules of her house. William Andrews was a drifter, because he wasn’t born here. He was a good-for-nothing because he didn’t have one job. She always had something to say about Blacks or immigrants. People who weren’t educated, or who were too educated and thought they were better than she was. People who wouldn’t get involved in investments or another one of her schemes, they were scared rabbits. Gutless. But the people who did get involved and complained about her losing their money were just whiners. Worthless, no-account people who didn’t know what they were talking about or how risky the market was.” Vic shrugged. She shook her head, as if reliving a private hurt that she couldn’t tell Erin about. Something worse. Erin wondered what it was.

  “Did she say who had invested and lost money?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose. But I kind of got the feeling that it was everyone, at one time or another. She acted like the whole town was against her.”

  “And yet, she wouldn’t take in one person who wasn’t against her,” Erin observed.

  Vic turned her back to take some dishes to the sink, sliding them carefully into the soapy water.

>   “What kind of odd jobs does William Andrews do?” Erin asked, when Vic returned to the front of the shop.

  “I’m not sure. He drives things around. Like a courier or hot shot service. He does yard work. Painting. Cleaning. Lots of different things.”

  Then Erin remembered where she knew him from. He had been the man who had helped her—or tried to help her—to unload groceries when she was first stocking up the bakery. She’d had to chase him off, because he was being so persistent and making her uncomfortable. Maybe he had just wanted to help. Maybe he had expected a couple of dollars by way of tip for having helped her out. If the poor man was destitute, surviving on odd jobs, maybe it had been wrong of her to chase him away like that. He had said that he only wanted to help.

  “Oh, yeah,” she said. “I remember him.”

  Had Andrews known who Erin was and what she was doing, opening up the specialty bakery? He had been the one person who had gotten close to her flours and other baking supplies. Was it possible he had tampered with something? If Angela had bullied him for not having a job, maybe he had decided to take his revenge. And the missing autoinjector was just a coincidence. The icing on the cake. Or maybe he had done a job for her and picked her pocket.

  “Was he here on opening day?”

  “I don’t know,” Vic reminded her. “I wasn’t around on opening day.”

  “Oh, that’s right. I’m sure I would have noticed him.” Erin remembered how busy opening day had been. “Maybe. But not if he had a key and came through the back. If he did odd jobs for Clementine, maybe he had a key. It doesn’t seem like he could have contaminated one of the ingredients… No one else reported reacting to any of the baking. It seems like Angela was the only one. Like it was targeted.”

  Vic raised an eyebrow, listening with interest to Erin rambling on. “So, is he another suspect?”

  “Maybe. But it is a reach. I’ll have to mention him to Officer Piper.”

  She watched him out the window for a minute. He was putting flyers on cars. Was he being paid by someone else, or trying to drum up for business for himself? He was younger than she remembered from that night. Older than she was, but not by so much. Not a grizzled old man. Handsome, in a way, if it hadn’t been for the dirt that seemed to be ingrained in his skin.