Trifle and Trouble (No-Bake Cozy Mysteries Book 2)

by Ramona Ransom

  “That’s kind of mean,” Nessa said, feeling sorry for Mallory. “I thought she was impressive.” She told Daniel the story about how she knew everyone’s lunch order.

  “Mallory is great. She’s the best waitress we have by far. I’ve never once had any issues with her, but I think while she maintains a professional manner at work, she may not be so easy to get along with in real life. Of course, I’m only speculating. I don’t know her all that well on a personal level.”

  “What’s that mean?” Nessa asked, genuinely curious. The woman’s ex-mother-in-law had just been killed.

  “From the stories I’ve heard over the years, I think Mallory and Ellen may have butted heads like they did because they had a lot in common. I believe Eric and Mallory divorced because he ‘didn’t intend on marrying his mother’.”

  “Yikes.”

  “Yeah,” Daniel agreed. “It’s really none of my business what she does on her own time, though. She’s great at her job and never brings her drama to work. That’s all I care about. On that note, I’ve got to be going, but I wanted to apologize for standing you up and not calling. I should have at least sent you a text.”

  “It’s fine, really. I’m sure we’ll find time to set up another coffee date.”

  “I hope so.” Daniel grabbed her hand and gave it a little squeeze. “Talk soon.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Make the coffee, stock the case, flip the sign, put bagels in the oven…” Nessa recited her opening duties list aloud and mentally checked off each task as she went.

  She unlocked the front door, surprised to see a young man standing on the other side. She could barely see his face as his long, wavy hair nearly covered it.

  “Good morning,” she said, letting him inside.

  “Hello.”

  “Can I help you?” Nessa asked, seeing the guy standing awkwardly by the door.

  She went to the register, hopefully giving him a hint to follow her.

  “Not yet. I’m waiting for someone,” he said, pulling out his phone.

  Nessa stayed behind the register, admitting silently to herself that she was a little sketched out by the guy dressed in all black, whose face she couldn’t see because his hair was so long and unkempt and who was there at six o’clock in the morning waiting for her to open.

  “Alright. Let me know if I can get you anything while you wait.”

  They both waited about five minutes longer before an older woman entered the bakery.

  “Brice, you’re here already,” she said, seeing him upon her entry.

  “I got here when they opened like you said.” He shrugged.

  They walked up to Nessa at the register.

  “Good morning. I’m Quinn Caruthers, and this is my son, Brice. We were hoping you’d be able to accommodate us with a pretty large order. I’m not sure if you’ve ever heard of The Lunch Bunch, but it’s a group of women who meet weekly. I’ve yet to be asked to join, but after the horrible and sudden death of the group’s leader, I think it would be a nice gesture if I supplied them with some baked goods.”

  “Oh. Of course.” Nessa bent down below the register and pulled out a notebook. She took a pen from the cup on the counter and wrote down Quinn’s name. “When do you want to pick up the order?”

  Not receiving a reply, she looked up.

  “Today?” Quinn said. “Right now.”

  Nessa put the notebook aside. “Okay.”

  “That’s why we got here so early. We wanted to make sure you’d have enough. I’ve invited the entire group over to my home this afternoon, so it’s sort of important that I make a good impression. I’d hate to have them leave without giving me an invite.”

  “Of course. That’s very kind of you to do since you aren’t part of their group and all,” Nessa said, hearing Brice mutter something under his breath.

  She swore he said something about Ellen.

  “The group’s leader didn’t think I was the right fit, but that’s okay. Things change, and I think now they’ll be happy to have me,” Quinn explained, swatting at her son and telling him to keep quiet.

  Nessa didn’t want to get involved with these people at all. No matter how badly she wanted to know who killed Ellen, she had absolutely no desire to find out from Quinn or Brice. If she didn’t know better, it sounded like Quinn was excited that Ellen had been killed so she would get another chance to join the group. Then there was Brice, who was just plain creepy.

  “Alright. What can I get for you? I’ll do my best to get you everything you need, but I can’t make any promises. We don’t normally do large orders at the last minute.”

  “I can leave and go somewhere else if you’d like?” Quinn shot the words out like a cannon.

  “That’s not what I meant. I’m just new to the bakery and don’t know if I made enough for the day. I hope you understand,” Nessa said, once again thankful she could blame being new to the bakery.

  Quinn inspected the case. “I’ll take six salted caramel brownies, six apple fritters, a dozen cannoli, and how about a dozen of those mini apple pies.”

  Nessa filled two boxes with her order. “How’s that look?”

  “Empty,” Quinn said. “Let’s add a whole box of whatever that orange thing is.”

  Nessa looked, seeing that Quinn was talking about the chocolate orange trifle she’d made that morning. Truthfully, she’d hoped that her grandfather got to try them first, but it was her own fault for putting them in the case. She’d only done it because she knew she didn’t make as much as her grandfather would have, and the case had looked a little bare.

  “A whole box?

  “Yeah. Just take as many of the little dishes as you can and shove them in a box. Whatever that comes out to is fine.” She looked at the case, then the box. “I bet you can get at least ten in there.”

  Nessa carefully took out ten of the mini plastic trifle dishes and lined the box with parchment paper. She set each of the dishes in the box, making sure they had no wiggle room and closed up the box. “Anything else?”

  “Whatever my son wants. He’s here to help me carry the boxes, so that’s my payment to him.”

  Nessa was having a hard time not saying anything out of turn to this woman. She looked at Brice. “What can I get for you?”

  “I gotta play frisbee soon, Ma. I can’t be all heavy and tired from bakery stuff.”

  “How about I pack up something for you to take home, and you can have it later?” Nessa suggested, just wanting to get rid of them.

  “Fine. Whatever you give me is fine,” Brice said noncommittally.

  Nessa tapped on the screen of the register, getting everything added, and gave Quinn her total.

  “These people better accept me,” she mumbled as she fished around in her purse. She passed Nessa a wad of cash and instructed Brice to take the boxes to her car.

  She told the woman to have a nice day as she left, but really, she wanted to ask her what her comment had meant. She understood that Quinn hadn’t been accepted previously, but ‘they better accept me’ sounded a little more daunting than a simple wish to participate in a group.

  Alone, Nessa took the bagels from the oven and got started making more brownies and fritters. Quinn and her son had nearly wiped them out, and they were the bakery’s biggest sellers. She had a lot to take care of before her grandfather arrived. She didn’t want to leave him with a ton of work to do, but it didn’t hurt that those were the two easiest things for her to make.

  Chapter Twelve

  Finally feeling settled in and satisfied that she wasn’t going to leave her grandfather with hours of work, Nessa poured herself another cup of coffee and decided it was time for breakfast. She didn’t normally do that when she was alone, but she was hungry and having a hard time ignoring all the delicious food in front of her.

  She went to the back, picked out a croissant, toasted it, and drowned it in butter before bringing it out front. She didn’t want to hide out in the back in case someone came
in. While she waited for that to happen, Nessa pulled out her phone and saw she’d missed a call from her realtor. She listened to the voicemail and checked her calendar. The voicemail was an apology for the cancelation and a request to see if she’d be interested in seeing the house again in a few days. Of course, Nessa couldn’t wait to see the inside of the house, so she called her back and agreed.

  Just as she was finishing up her breakfast, the door opened, and Daniel came inside.

  “Morning, sunshine,” he said.

  “Hey! What are you doing here?” Nessa asked, wiping her mouth with a napkin. She probably had butter everywhere.

  “I was hoping you had an ‘I’m sorry that I have to cut your hours dessert’.”

  “A what, now?” Nessa asked, intrigued.

  “So, Kyle has officially been cleared in Ellen’s murder. He asked me for a few extra days off to get his head back in the game, but now I have to tell the new guy I hired in his place that I need to cut his hours since Kyle is coming back.”

  “You feel terrible about that, don’t you?”

  “I really do. I never wanted to believe that Kyle did it, but I also had to face reality. If he did, I knew that I needed to hire someone else, but I couldn’t very well do it with the condition that if the murder suspect is cleared, he no longer has a job there.”

  “Interim chef for the murder suspect doesn’t really have a ring to it,” Nessa said, trying to lighten the mood.

  “I’m going to tell him today that I want him to stick around but that I need to scale back his hours quite a bit.”

  “And you want me to supply you with something sugary and comforting to help make the news easier to handle?”

  “That’s exactly what I want. Please tell me you have something that will help me,” Daniel begged. “This is the last thing I want to do.”

  “It sucks,” Nessa agreed. “But I still say you’re lucky. I’m over here trying to find the perfect employee, and you have too many.”

  “Wait. What if he comes here and works for you? He’s clean, works hard, and learns fast. I bet he’d be perfect.”

  “Clean is good,” Nessa said, looking in the display case for the perfect item.

  “Hey.” Daniel shrugged. “There are some sloppy people out there. He’s clean-cut, and that’s important when you work in a restaurant.

  Nessa thought about the younger guy who had been at the bakery not too long before. He definitely wasn’t clean-cut and realized that it did make a difference.

  “Do you want something sweet or savory?” she asked.

  “Sweet, I guess.”

  Nessa pulled out the tray of donuts. “Does he eat donuts?”

  “How would I know? He’s only worked for me for a couple of days.” Daniel hung his head.

  “I’m sorry you have to do this. We’ve got someone coming in for an interview later today, but if it doesn’t work out, I’ll let you know. Maybe you can send your chef my way if he’s interested.”

  “I definitely will. I can give him your donuts, then tell him the bad news. Hopefully, he’ll love the donuts so much that he’ll be thrilled to leave me and come work for you.”

  Nessa boxed up a half-dozen donuts and handed them to Daniel. “On the house,” she said.

  “That’s not necessary. I didn’t come here for free food.” Daniel reached into his back pocket.

  “I know. But we small business owners have to stick together. Plus, this guy may be my new employee before I know it. It’s the least I can do.” She laughed.

  “Speaking of small businesses,” Daniel began. He leaned against the counter, looking like he was about to tell a long story Nessa didn’t want to hear.

  “Uh, oh.”

  “Have you talked to Ranger lately?” he asked.

  “Not since he came in here scolding himself about not being the one who found Ellen’s body. Which, if you ask me, is pure insanity.”

  Daniel narrowed his eyes. “I’m not going to ask what that means. But anyway, Ranger wants all the small business owners to have a meeting. He seems to think that we need to get together and work a little harder.”

  “I’m sorry. Ranger thinks we all need to work harder? In what way?” Nessa asked, flabbergasted. Ranger was a good guy, but he certainly wasn’t the means of measuring how hard people worked within their businesses.

  “Take it easy,” Daniel said, holding up his hands in mock defeat. “He means for his little Rangerhood Watch thing. For whatever reason, he seems to think that small businesses are being targeted.”

  Nessa had enough going on, so having a meeting with Ranger or any of the businesses in town was out of reach for her. She knew how he wanted his Rangerhood Watch thing to work out, but she didn’t want to be part of it.

  “In what way?” she asked.

  “Well, we’ve had two murders here in Lake Wilawalo, and normally we are a completely crime-free area. The first was sort of attached to your bakery and now Ellen’s is related to The Shack.”

  “Ranger also thinks that everyone is suspicious and might be out to get him or someone else. I guess I see where he’s coming from, but there’s essentially no reason for anyone to attack all of the small businesses in town. That literally makes zero sense.”

  “So, you won’t come to his meeting?” Daniel asked.

  “I wasn’t invited to any meeting, so I don’t see any reason for me to force my way in.”

  Nessa hoped she hadn’t sounded rude to Daniel, but Ranger tended to be a little over the top. So far, he’d accused his employee’s parents of using a listening device, started a neighborhood watch committee because another cleaning business advertised in his area, and now he thought all the small businesses in town were being attacked by a serial business killer. Whatever that was. She sounded almost as ridiculous as Ranger the more she thought about it.

  “Weird. Well, I’m going to be there, so if you get an invite or change your mind, let me know. Now.” He sighed. “I have to get to work.”

  “Good luck.”

  “I’m gonna need it.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “How was your morning,” Lex asked, seeing the near-empty display case.

  “Good. Busy. Weird…” she trailed off, studying a recipe card.

  “Would you like me to take over?”

  “So much.”

  Nessa had gotten busy after Daniel left, and most of the stock had been depleted. She’d tried hard to go back and forth between the kitchen to bake and the front to ring up customers and clean up messes, but she simply couldn’t keep up. She did, however, understand why it was easier for her grandfather. He knew the recipes like the back of his hand, so where it took him five or ten minutes to whip something up and get it into the oven, she had to first pore over the recipe, find the ingredients, figure out how to mix them properly, then get them baked without ruining them. She was much slower than he was, and it showed.

  “Did you have a tour bus come in or something?” he asked, taking inventory of what he needed to make.

  She told him about Quinn and Brice coming in and cleaning house, how she remade the brownies and fritters on her own. Then how Daniel came in and finally, about the rest of the town who apparently needed to have baked goods all at once.

  “I need to get faster at this.” She sighed

  “You will. When you’ve been at it a little longer, it will be second nature, and you won’t even need me around.”

  “Oh, please. This place needs both of us and another employee.”

  “We’ve got that interview today.” He crossed his fingers.

  “And Daniel may know someone if the interview doesn’t go well, so that’s good, too.”

  Lex stopped jotting down what he needed to work on and looked to her. “You and Daniel have been seeing quite a bit of each other lately. What’s going on there?”

  “We’re just friends, I think. I don’t know,” Nessa said. They hadn’t discussed it, but she’d definitely been enjoying spending time w
ith him.

  “Just friends. Got it.” Lex gave her a thumbs up and got back to work.

  Nessa tended to the cleaning. She wiped the tables and chairs, took out the trash, filled the napkin dispensers and straw holders. She then swept the floors and cleaned the windows from where children’s sticky hands had touched them. She thought about what kind of questions she’d ask at the interview, as her grandfather had made it clear that he wanted her to take the lead.

  Her mind wandered to Ellen’s murder. It was sad to know that so many people had disliked or had problems with her. Nessa hoped that no one ever felt that way about her. She didn’t want people to remember her that way. One good thing about it all was that Kyle had been cleared. She wasn’t sure why and hadn’t wanted to ask Daniel about the details. Whether or not Kyle was cleared didn’t change the fact that someone had killed Ellen. It could have been her ex-daughter-in-law that she had issues with or Susie who wanted to take over their group, or even Quinn, who wasn’t invited to be part of the group in the first place. All Nessa knew was that The Lunch Bunch group, no matter how clever the idea or fun their meetings were, seemed to be more trouble than anything else. She hoped that Susie didn’t come around again asking if the bakery would host them because Nessa worried that it wouldn’t be in the bakery’s best interest.

  She couldn’t seem to get her mind away from Quinn and her son. The whole thing seemed so weird. Getting a box of something to send condolences was one thing, but nearly buying out an entire bakery to sneak your way into a group you weren’t part of after the death of its leader seemed… icky to her. That and dragging her son around at six in the morning to carry her things for her. Aside from all of that, the kid was creepy. That had to mean something. She wondered if anyone in town knew anything about him.

  Nessa didn’t have time to think more about it. The door to the bakery whipped open. “Can I get a little help around here?” Bizzie yelled.