by Deany Ray
“All right,” Rosalie said, hopping off the stool, having finished her cake and coffee. “I’m off to the bay. I'll see you two later. And maybe we can double date again soon. I had a great time.” She walked to the side of the counter and wrapped me in a hug before leaving the Blue Bay Café.
After she was gone, Maia walked behind the counter to get a piece of cake for a customer. Houston leaned into me. “Do you have a free minute?” he asked.
Before I could answer, Maia interjected with a wink. “She has a minute. Take all the time you need.”
I laughed as she walked away and Houston joined me on my side of the counter. He pulled a long, slender box with a nice bow on top of it out of his jacket. With a smile on his face, he handed it to me.
“What's this?” I asked, surprised, as I accepted it.
“Open it and find out,” he said, motioning toward the box. I pulled the lid off and saw a beautiful necklace inside. Gasping at how pretty it was, I pulled it out of the box.
Houston smiled again. “I know how upset you were that you lost your other necklace. I wanted to make you happy so I got you this. I hope you like it.”
Speechless, I fastened it around my neck and kissed him on the cheek. “It's beautiful,” I said, smiling from ear to ear. “I love it even more than the other one.”
Cake Contest Murder
by
Deany Ray
Chapter One
Nobody in Ouna Bay had ever seen a smile on the face of Ada Sinclair, not the tiniest upturn of a lip or the smallest sparkle in her eye.
But I thought I might be the one to crack her tough exterior. I could do it with five magic and delicious words: Gingerbread Cake with Mascarpone Cream. Top it with candied pecans and slivers of white chocolate, and even the strictest of culinary judges couldn’t help but get excited. At least that was my plan.
Not that Ada Sinclair ever admitted to liking anything at all. She was always the first judge to take that first important bite in the annual cake contest in Ouna Bay. And the big day was finally here. The contest was the most anticipated part of the annual town fair.
My best friend Rosalie waved excitedly to Susan from the bank who was placing cut strawberries in a perfect circle on a chocolate layer cake. “Save me a bite,” called Rosalie who could eat a huge slice of every single cake at the fair and still be an adorable size eight.
I spotted a reporter from the Ouna Bay Gazette snapping a picture of a small girl looking up at a red balloon floating toward the azure sky. The child grinned brightly at the camera, then burst into tears when she realized that the balloon had slipped just out of reach.
Ah yes, the Ouna Bay Gazette. Just in case, I’d put together some quotes. I’m thrilled and so surprised. I never dreamed that I might win.
A girl has to be prepared. And a picture on the front page of the paper would be a boost for business.
The town square was filled with crowds who had come to enjoy burgers and snow cones while catching up with friends on a gorgeous August day near the prettiest part of Lake Erie. Crowds of teenagers gathered around the game booths to try to win small prizes. Rosalie’s boyfriend Dwight had spent much of the previous day contorting his six-foot-five-inch frame into just the right position to send a dart into a yellow balloon or throw a ring around a bottle. Despite his acrobatics, no darts or rings had landed anywhere even close to their intended targets.
Now he stood behind our table and kept one eye on the games. “They make it hard to win those things. They just want your money. I might need to investigate.” He frowned like a detective on a big case, which was the exact career goal he hoped to achieve one day. He had, perhaps, a head start as an assistant to the Ouna Bay Police.
I guess Dwight hadn’t noticed the bright orange plastic bracelet that my boyfriend Houston had won for me the day before. He’d tossed a ball at a line of bottles and knocked them down in one fell swoop, bringing cheers from the small crowd.
“It was this or a pack of bubble gum or maybe a spinning top or a stuffed bunny that looked cross eyed and a little evil.” Houston had laughed when he put the bracelet on my wrist. I didn’t care that it was tacky or that cheap bright orange went with…well, nothing in my closet. I cared that Houston’s arm felt good around my waist as he made fun of my new jewelry and kissed me softly on the lips.
Now he gave my shoulder a supportive squeeze as the judges trickled in with notebooks in their hands. I could feel the muscles that must have been a factor in getting the bottles to tumble in a mighty crash that seemed to startle the teenage boy who’d been collecting tickets for the game.
As a corporate lawyer, Houston works some crazy hours. But this weekend we’d both been free to enjoy walking slowly around the town fair with Rosalie and Dwight. I hadn’t bothered to open the Blue Bay Café which I had run for many years. Nobody would be coming in. The whole town was at the fair. I had seen several favorite customers and my best friend from second grade. I’d caught up with old neighbors who’d moved away last year but came back for the festivities.
The weekend hadn’t been all play. The gingerbread cake was one of the more complicated recipes I’d ever tried although, I do admit, I’m quite good turning out a perfect cake. The more elaborate, the better. I’d never entered the contest; I spend enough time in the kitchen. But Rosalie had talked me into entering this year. She works at my café now so she was free to help. And both of us were excited about the thousand-dollar prize.
She’s surprisingly good in the kitchen, although her real talent is for losing things: car keys, perhaps, or measuring spoons. She’ll lose a recipe card before the ingredients are mixed in. Once she lost a cup of sugar. I’m still not sure how she pulled that one off.
As the contestants waited patiently behind their cakes, Dwight and Houston compared notes on the best spot to surf near Ouna Bay while Rosalie and I studied the judges. There were five in all. Peter Blevins, tall and thin, studied the cakes with an air of careful anticipation, while Arabelle Jenkins, short and stout, had her notebook at the ready. But everyone knew that Ada Sinclair had the final word on which cake had the best texture, taste and flair. She had visited the finest restaurants around the globe. Her taste was perfect and exacting. Nobody could argue with that fact.
With her hair pulled back in a severe bun and a wardrobe that screamed uptight, she was a tough critic who told it like it was when it came to cakes and other matters like the placement of stop signs on our town’s street or the exact shade of brown that a business should be painted. That wasn’t always easy for our town’s most devoted bakers who planned their recipes for months before the much-anticipated fair. But even Ada’s detractors had to admit that she was always, without question, absolutely right.
The judges had gotten to the table next to ours. Ada, as tradition held, took the first bite of every cake while everyone else stood back. She walked up to a caramel cake and nodded at the woman who waited nervously behind it. The baker’s hands were shaking as she watched Ada slowly chew, contemplate the taste and texture, then write something down.
I counted the number of cakes the judges had to taste before they reached my masterpiece.
“Should we have put more pecans on top? I don’t think we put enough.” Rosalie nervously straightened our stack of napkins with the Blue Bay Café logo embossed across the front.
“It’s fine,” I said. “It’s better than fine. We have chocolate and gingerbread and mascarpone cream. What is there not to love? And I put just enough pecans on top to give it a little crunch.” I didn’t add that we would have added more pecans if Rosalie hadn’t misplaced one of the bags of nuts. She found it later underneath her coat, which she’d thrown on a chair just outside the kitchen when she came back from the market.
She smiled, reassured by all the deliciousness we’d baked into a single cake. “Medium heel, pointy toe. Baby blue, I think. And really, really sexy.” She winked and clapped her hands in glee.
What? How did we go in three secon
ds from gingerbread to heels?
She laughed at my questioning look. “That’s how I’ll spend my half of the money. Shoes!” Then she frowned like she was thinking hard. “Or cute dresses might be better.” She smiled. “Hey, I don’t have to pick. Cause it’s a thousand dollars!”
When the judges reached our table, Ada never looked us in the eye. She tasted the cake and moved on to table eight without a word, the other judges following suit. Not the reaction I had dreamed of. But the tasters were most likely trained not to show emotion, not to give a single hint about how the vote might go.
I glanced at the table next to ours where the judges had gathered with their notebooks and their serious faces. Ada cut the smallest slice of cake, but before the fork could reach her mouth, suddenly she stopped. She put her hand up to her throat. I was seized by a sense of something going terribly wrong. She’s choking, I thought. But no. It was so much worse than that.
She dropped to the ground and lay sprawled by the metal leg of the folding table, her dove gray jacket still buttoned oh so neatly. Stuck in the pocket was a pencil sharpened to a perfect point.
Ada Sinclair: very tasteful, very proper, very exacting in her opinions. And, from the ghastly look of things, very very dead.
Chapter Two
A hush fell over the crowd, and then everyone spoke at once. Two judges got down on their knees beside Ada. One of them shouted her name. “Ada! Can you hear me?”
But Ada’s gravelly, querulous voice had at last gone silent. For the first time that anyone could remember, the mighty Ada Sinclair had nothing at all to say.
A heavyset man ran into the huddle and held his thumb to Ada’s wrist. “I don’t think she has a pulse,” he said in a panicked voice. “Someone call 911.” But nearly every person in the crowd was already punching numbers into a cell or holding a phone up to their ear.
Rosalie grabbed my arm. “Oh, hon,” she said. “This doesn’t look good for Ada.” She looked down at our gingerbread creation. “And I don’t think there’s going to be a cake contest after all.” She dipped her finger in the icing and took a little taste.
The EMTs were there in minutes. Most likely they, like everyone else, had already been at the fair, eating hog dogs or playing games. After a short examination, one of them shook his head. “I’m afraid she’s gone.” He got up from the spot where he had kneeled by Ada. “You people need to give us space so we can come back with the stretcher.”
“But what happened?” called out an elderly man. “She was fine a minute ago. Do you know what happened to Ada?”
The EMT shook his head again, and ran his fingers through his thick hair. His voice was gentle as he addressed the crowd. “All we know right now is that Mrs. Ada Sinclair is no longer with us.”
I looked down at my cake with its slivers of chocolate starting to melt into the topping. Was it something in one of the cakes? But I dismissed that thought as soon as it popped into my head. Because how ridiculous would that be? Surely not, I thought. No way. I felt Houston’s arm go around my waist and I leaned in close to him to absorb the awful news.
I mused over just how quickly a day can change. Ada had looked so normal, so serious about the task at hand, so very Ada-like. And she wasn’t really all that old. She was probably only in her forties, much too young to die.
People started to move about, the cakes on their waiting platters momentarily forgotten. A few people began to cover theirs up in foil or plastic wrap. Others huddled together, whispering about the only topic that was on anyone’s mind that afternoon.
Rosalie grabbed Dwight’s arm. “Why don’t you head over to the station, babe?” she asked him quietly. “To see what they’re saying there.” When there was news to be had in Ouna Bay, Rosalie always wanted to be the very first to know.
“Rosalie.” Houston shook his head. “Don’t you think it’s kind of soon for them to know anything at all? They haven’t even moved the body.” He looked beyond the crowd to the spot where Ada’s feet were visible, clad in the sensible shoes she’d put on for a day of walking at the fair.
Just then the EMTs came through with a stretcher.
Dwight’s face turned red like it did when things turned serious. “I’m on it,” he said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can with news from the police.” And then he was off.
Well of course, I thought. Because it was Rosalie who’d asked. Dwight was as smitten with my best friend as she was with him.
After he left, she spilled her thoughts to me. Leave it to Rosalie to already have a theory. “I’ll bet you anything this wasn’t accidental,” she said. “Because how many people in this town have had their feelings hurt by something Ada said?” I had to admit she had a point.
Houston nodded his agreement. “Or they lost their business because of Ada, or their place on some committee.” Almost everyone had an Ada story.
Whether she was discussing cakes or wardrobe choices or the running of the town, Ada always spoke the truth. Everyone claims to love the truth. But when all is said and done, it’s surprising how many people don’t really want to hear it.
By then the police were on the scene, and Chief Peter Robards gathered the crowd together. “I’m sorry about your contest, but I’ll need you all to clear out. We’re shutting down the fair. First, though, I’ll need to get your name if you were here to witness the...unfortunate event.” He nodded toward a female officer who had appeared beside him. “Officer Lindley here will take down your contact information.” Then he shook his head. “A tragedy indeed.”
Several officers had begun to take photographs and measurements in the spot where Ada had taken her last bite. Others were studying the tables where the cakes still waited for someone to have a taste. Other officers gently kept people away if they tried to ask questions or get too close to the area where a contest was to have been held before things went tragically, horribly wrong.
An out-of-breath Dwight appeared, red-faced with the importance of bearing important news. He pulled us away from the crowd. “The station was mostly empty,” he said quietly. “It took me a while to find anyone in the place to ask.” With that he looked perplexed, as if he couldn’t understand why all the desks at the station had gone suddenly unmanned.
Houston looked at me and rolled his eyes. “That’s because they’re here, Dwight. To investigate the case.” He waved his arm toward the expanse of green where the majority of Dwight’s co-workers were busily at work.
“Oh yes,” Dwight said. “That’s right. They put everyone on this. They’re going full guns on this one. Chief says it’s important to make sure that there was no foul play.”
“You sure got back real fast hon,” said Rosalie, impressed. She grabbed Dwight around the waist. “I missed you while you were gone.”
“The last guys were rushing to the scene,” Dwight said with a proud smile. “I caught a ride with the police.”
I glanced over at my cake. It might have been my best one. Then I immediately felt bad. Here I was, thinking of gingerbread and candied pecans and prizes while poor Ada was headed to the morgue.
“Well, this is just heartbreaking.” Rosalie looked down at the ground.
I grabbed her hand, surprised by her compassion for a woman she barely knew. Although, to tell the truth, the people who didn’t know Ada were the ones who’d be most likely to have warm feelings for the woman.
Rosalie looked like she might cry right then and there. “Cause I’d been thinking I might look for a leather bag,” she said. “A leather bag by Coach. Just a tiny one. In pink. With a little pocket on the outside. And a shoulder strap.”
Houston gave me a look.
“We might not have won the money,” I said to Rosalie. “Did you see that pineapple cake beside us? If that one tasted as good as it looked, it might have been the winner.”
Houston smiled. “I was looking forward to a taste of that. That looked like a cake to die for.”
We all stared at him.
He frowned. “Sorr
y. I should have put it another way.”
Then I had an idea. I’d been up late in the kitchen and I needed some caffeine. “Hey, who’s up for a coffee? Let’s head to the café.”
Fifteen minutes later, I had just stirred some cream into my mug and taken the first sweet sip of coffee when I heard a knock on the window by the door.
It was Angela, my hairdresser friend who works next to the café. She had a crowd of friends behind her. “Are you open?” she mouthed the words.
I suddenly felt tired and even a little bit annoyed. Of course I wasn’t open. That’s why the door was locked! That’s why the sign said Closed. But I liked Angela. She told good stories and was always quick to recommend us to her customers. So I opened the door for her and her friends. I put on another pot of coffee and checked the pastry case.
Soon the place was full of people who’d come into town to enjoy the fair which had ended so abruptly. I kept the coffee coming, but nobody seemed to want the cupcakes or muffins or slices of cake that usually went so quickly. I guess we were all haunted by the same picture in our heads: Ada and her fork full of cake falling to the ground.
But there was no time for me or Rosalie to join in the contemplation of what might have happened to the judge. Every table was taken. The whole town wanted coffee with large helpings of gossip on the side.
The tables were buzzing with talk: Could Ada have had a heart condition? Had she looked well the day before? Had she said anything before she fell? Was it an accident? Or could it possibly have been something else entirely? Could someone have murdered Ada? The last thought was delivered in a whisper.
So many questions. But no answers.
Hours later, the coffee pots were empty and the tables at last cleared out. For the second time that day, I locked the doors and settled in to trade theories with my friends.
Houston grabbed my hand beneath the table. “Well,” he said. “That was a day at the fair that we won’t soon forget.”