Ouna Bay Cozy Mystery Boxed Set (4-Book Bundle)

by Deany Ray

  “Okay, what?” I asked her as I took a curve too fast. I always drove badly when I got excited.

  “He said he’ll look into it right away.”

  “So what’s new with the murder case?”

  She shrugged. “Nothing to report.”

  Well, shoot. “He took an awful long time to pretty much say nothing,” I told her, disappointed.

  She smiled and got all dreamy eyed. “He uses lots of words. Isn’t that the cutest thing?”

  Hopefully, he’d learn something and get back to us soon with information we could use. It was great to have an inside source, but I wondered at Dwight’s willingness to pass along tidbits to his girlfriend that were surely meant only for police.

  “He’s sweet,” I said to Rosalie. “But he needs to be real careful. He’s not supposed to be telling you the things he learns at work.”

  I knew that Dwight had his hopes set on a big promotion. “Maybe when this is over, you and he should have a talk about not spilling the kinds of secrets that could get him in big trouble.”

  “And this coming from my best friend who’s going twenty miles over the speed limit. With a stolen letter in her purse.” Point made. What could I possibly say to that?

  We pulled up to the Gazette, a five-story building with the paper’s logo prominently displayed on a sign out front. We headed to the reception desk and I asked to see Lynn Fowler.

  The young receptionist eyed us with suspicion. “Can I ask what this is about?”

  “It’s personal,” said Rosalie.

  The receptionist hesitated, then she made a call. “Please take a seat out in the lobby. Ms. Fowler will be right out.”

  We retreated to some worn gray chairs, and were soon joined by Lynn who has long blonde hair and delicate, pretty features. She was dressed as if she expected to be called out to a war zone as opposed to a meeting of the library board or the city council which accounted for most of the headlines in the Ouna Bay Gazette.

  “Hey. What’s up?” she asked, shoving her hands inside the pockets of her oversized jacket. There was a bright look in her blue eyes. I could tell that she was hoping that we had information. Instead, we wanted some from her.

  I introduced myself and Rosalie. “We’re just curious,” I said, “about the latest on the murder. We work at a café. This has pretty much killed business, if you’ll excuse the pun.”

  “Oh, I understand,” Lynn said. She ran her fingers through her long hair. “I’m getting anxious too. This is pretty much the biggest story of the year.”

  Rosalie pulled out her ever-present notebook. “I know you talked to the contestants just before the judging. Did anyone look at all suspicious? Did anyone say something weird?”

  Lynn thought, gazing down at her brown boots. Then she shook her head.

  Rosalie tilted her head to one side, her glittery pencil posed to take a note. “Anything at all?” she asked.

  Lynn took a seat. “Well, now that I think about it, Marilyn Cobb was acting a little off,” she said as she stretched out her long legs.

  Marilyn? Well, this clue is not a clue at all, I thought, disappointed. There was no way that Marilyn Cobb had committed any kind of murder. Soft spoken with soft gray curls, Marilyn was a longtime resident of Ouna Bay. She had lunch a couple of times a month at the café, and I always tried to make time to pour a coffee for myself and sit with her a while to catch up on her life. She loved to talk about her grandchildren. Marilyn, I could tell, was the perfect kind of grandma who would buy you that extra stick of candy, who’d say yes when Mom said no. Who would never kill a mosquito buzzing in her face, let alone a mean old woman. Last time that we spoke, she was planning to take the grandchildren on a big trip.

  Marilyn? No way.

  I sat down by Lynn. “What do you mean?” I asked. “How was she acting off?”

  “Well, when I wanted a picture of her cake, she wouldn’t take the cover off. She just flat out refused. And that’s a little weird. Cause who wouldn’t want your cake right there on the front page? People beg me all the time to get that kind of coverage.” She bent down to tie the laces that had come loose on her left boot. “But Marilyn said no. Said her cake was gonna stay covered until the judges came to taste it. She seemed more nervous than the others. She just seemed really stressed.” She stared at the ceiling in thought, as if she was contemplating what the strange behavior might have meant.

  “Interesting,” Rosalie said. She thought for a moment. “Where would we go if we wanted to find Marilyn for a little talk? Maybe we can get a bit more information. Maybe she’ll talk to us since we’ve got that whole baking thing in common. And she’s always been a big fan of the Blue Bay Café.” She smiled. “Marilyn loves our red velvet cake the best.”

  Lynn sighed. “Well, she doesn’t have a business, although I really wish she did. Cause that way, you could walk in like a customer and start up a conversation. She just makes cakes for fun, although some of them taste good enough that she might do well to sell them. That’s what I’ve always thought.”

  “Do you know where she lives?” I asked.

  Lynn hesitated for a moment. Then she pulled a thin notebook out of one of the many pockets in the inside of her jacket. I guessed Dwight was not the only one who was willing to give up information he wasn’t supposed to share. She flipped through the book until she found the page she was looking for. Then she wrote down Marilyn’s street address and handed it to us.

  I looked down at the paper in my hand. I was surprised by the street name. Marilyn apparently lived just a few minutes away from Ada.

  “Thanks,” I said to Lynn.

  She winked and brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. “Just don’t say it came from me. And let me know if you learn anything that you think I could use. We’re kind of light on stories for tomorrow’s paper. Right now the lead headline is about the chance for rain. And nobody cares about the weather when there’s a murder that’s unsolved.”

  Rosalie looked with envy at the notebook that Lynn set down on the table. “Hey, do you have another one of those? It’s so cute and little.”

  Lynn caught my eye and raised an eyebrow at the strange request. But she pulled a second notebook from a pocket inside her jacket and handed it to my chatterbox best friend.

  ***

  Armed with our newest information, we set out to find the nervous, sweet tempered baker who had just become the unlikeliest of suspects.

  On our way to Marilyn’s house, we passed the home where Ada had lived not so long ago. I glanced over as we passed it, just to make sure that no more surprises were sticking out of the mailbox.

  We were almost to Marilyn’s driveway when Rosalie answered her phone. Her eyes grew wide as she listened to what the caller had to say.

  “Might as well turn around,” she said after she hung up. “Marilyn’s not at home.”

  I waited, but Rosalie had been silenced by surprise. That didn’t happen often: a silent Rosalie.

  “She’s not home because...” I said, waiting for her to finish the thought.

  “Because she is in jail. That was Dwight reporting in. And they’ve arrested Marilyn. The lab results are back. There were traces of cyanide in the cake that Marilyn made to enter in the contest.”

  Chapter Eight

  An arrest! An end to the case. It was the very thing we’d been hoping for. But Marilyn? It couldn’t be.

  Stunned, I turned to Rosalie. “So just like that? It’s over?” I asked. I pulled over to a nearby parking lot, much too shaken up to drive.

  Rosalie let out a sigh. “I’m so glad that this one’s solved. Do you know how long it’s been since I had a piece of cake? Or just one tiny muffin?” She got out the notebook that Lynn had given her.

  “Hey, you don’t need that anymore,” I said. Our stint as amateur detectives had apparently just come to an end.

  “Oh, I can still write down a lot of things,” Rosalie said. “Let’s think of some ideas, hon. Cake of the week ideas!
I know that’s usually something you decide all on your own. But my sweet tooth is crying out Rosalie! Please feed me!”

  It’s true that I was anxious to get back in the kitchen. But I had a funny feeling. The murder of Ada Sinclair did not feel solved to me. What reason could Marilyn possibly have to commit a murder?

  And right there at the town fair! Where Marilyn’s grandchildren were likely close enough to see. The grandchildren were probably right there eating hot dogs with extra ketchup and trying to win cheap toys by popping balloons or knocking bottles down. If a grandma feels the need to kill, she would make sure that her grandchildren wouldn’t be there to see the paramedics rushing to the scene or the body carried off. Somehow, I felt sure of that.

  “You better rest up, Becky.” Rosalie stuck her arm outside the car window and pumped her fist into the hair. “Whoo Hoo!” she shouted to a flock of birds heading off into the clouds. “The Blue Bay Café will be open tomorrow morning. And business tomorrow will be booming.”

  But first she wanted to celebrate the end of our temporary unemployment. Houston and I were invited to Rosalie’s for dinner. There would be pasta, she promised. And lots and lots of wine.

  “Pasta?” I asked, surprised. I had never known Rosalie to cook unless I was paying her to help me make something at the café. A night at Rosalie’s meant slices of cheese served on small round crackers. Or maybe a bag of chips or Styrofoam containers loaded with takeout food.

  “Are you really gonna cook?” I asked her, starting up the car. Maybe she’d used her time off to learn a brand new skill.

  She laughed. “Maybe I will and maybe I won’t. Maybe when you get there, you’ll get a big surprise.”

  She was right about the latter.

  ***

  That night, we arrived at Rosalie’s to find Dwight working in the kitchen.

  “He’s making chicken fettuccini,” Rosalie whispered, looking proud. “Becky, do you believe it? Not only is he involved in police investigations, but his talents don’t stop there. He’s the most amazing cook.”

  I peeked into the kitchen where Dwight’s quick movements created a whirlwind of spinning arms and legs, leaving in their wake counters full of dirty dishes and puddles of dripping sauce.

  But the results, I had to admit, were melt-in-your-mouth amazing.

  At the table, Houston closed his eyes to savor the taste of the succulent sauce and flavorful bites of chicken. He squeezed my hand and whispered “You should get this recipe.”

  “Told you he could cook!” Rosalie grinned then jumped up to give Dwight a kiss just as he was lifting a forkful of pasta to his mouth. As a result, the pasta fell to the ground. Dwight leaped up to clean it off the carpet.

  Houston took another bite before asking Dwight about the case. “Do they know why she might have done it? Everyone I’ve talked to says they’re still in shock. Nobody can believe it.”

  Rosalie fed Dwight another bite of pasta. “Just like the whole town hated Ada, they all thought Marilyn was great.”

  Dwight chewed his fettuccini, wiped his mouth, then shook his head. “They don’t exactly have a motive. Guess she just didn’t like the woman. And who can blame her, really?”

  “Well, what does Marilyn say when they ask her why she did it?” I asked.

  The question made Dwight sad. “She just keeps saying over and over again that she didn’t do it. And she looks so brokenhearted. She swears up and down she’s innocent, that she would never in her whole life do a thing like that.”

  “She doesn’t seem the type,” Houston frowned. “But how does she explain the little detail of the cyanide in her cake?”

  “She has no explanation,” Dwight said. “Says she has no idea how that could have happened.” He twirled more pasta onto his fork. “But it doesn’t look good for her. Not with evidence like that.”

  It still felt wrong to me. I couldn’t let it go. “Do you think they’d let me see her?” I sat up straighter in my chair.

  Houston gave me a look that said Oh, no. You stay out of this one. He knew that I had a tendency to get involved in a way that ended too often with trouble.

  But I couldn’t help it. Letting an innocent woman stay in jail did not sit right with me.

  “She can only see her lawyer,” Dwight said. “No other visitors allowed.”

  Rosalie looked at me, curious. “Remember, hon? The case is closed.” Then she raised her glass. “Here’s a toast to being back in business. A toast to a line of customers at the Blue Bay Café.”

  Houston raised his glass as well. “And to chicken fettuccini. Do you think I could have seconds?”

  That night, I couldn’t fall asleep. I thought about the note I’d found. And about the fact that Ada was about to get fired very soon from the judges’ panel. Could those facts be related to her untimely and very dramatic demise?

  I thought about mild-mannered Marilyn sitting in a cell. And I thought about cyanide. If Marilyn was being truthful and hadn’t poisoned the cake that was meant for Ada’s ceremonial first taste, how could cyanide have made its way into the sweet (or not so sweet) creation that Marilyn had carried to the town fair?

  Something didn’t add up. And I knew that I would never rest until it all made sense. Tomorrow the café would open, and so would Purdy’s Coffee Beans and the donut shop. And Becky and Rosalie, amateur detectives, would be back in business too.

  Rosalie didn’t know yet that her detective days were far from over. As soon as Houston was out of earshot, I would tell her that we still had work to do.

  And having the wrong person sitting behind bars meant that the police would stop their investigation. Now it was just the two of us who were left to solve the case. The mystery of the deadliest ingredient had just become a much harder case to crack.

  Chapter Nine

  Instead of wishing for more customers, I was dreaming of a nap. And it was only noon.

  As soon as we could wipe a table down, a new group of eager guests would settle into the chairs with muffins, cake and, of course, great big mugs of coffee whose sweet aroma blessedly filled the Blue Bay Café again. The customers were back and they starved for sweets.

  And starved for the kind of gossip that was always better with a hazelnut latte, perhaps, and a slice of blueberry-lemon layer cake. I’d outdone myself, I thought, with my welcome-back-to-the-Blue-Bay-Café special cake of the week.

  The customers were whispering. Marilyn Cobb? But why? No one seemed to have the answers. Only lots of questions – and an appetite.

  I was standing behind the register next to Rosalie who had at last forsaken her ever-present notebook. She was planning a second dinner date instead of another round of tracking clues. “Dwight was so happy you loved his pasta,” she said. “Wasn’t it the best?”

  It was, indeed. But my mind at the moment was on pastries and on the customers who were lined up in droves to buy them. “The food was fabulous, Rosalie, but could you concentrate on business? These people are waiting to pay, and we need to clear more tables.”

  But Rosalie was off in that special place her mind goes when she thinks about a long-legged, red-faced assistant to the police. “A cheese soufflé? Beef Bourguignon?” She smiled. “I love it when he talks French.”

  “Rosalie? The customers?” I gave the next woman in line an apologetic smile.

  It was three o’clock before I could grab a coffee for myself. Rosalie handed me a muffin. “Hey, hon. You’ve gotta eat. Bet you can’t wait to get back home and kick off those sensible shoes.” She frowned down at my feet. “Which you should replace, you know, with some really cute low heels.”

  “Actually,” I whispered. “I’d like us to go to Ada’s house and snoop around a bit. There might be some more notes there. I’d love to know what they might say.”

  Rosalie tilted her head to one side, perplexed by my request. “Hey, hon. Don’t you remember? Case closed. Suspect in custody. Cake is no longer a dirty word, and we’ve got us some spending money.”


  “I know all that,” I told her. “But something’s still not right.”

  “Well, it sure feels solved to me.” She shrugged. She took the cake slice from my hand and pulled off a bite to pop into her mouth. “But I guess I’ll be heading off to Ada’s with you. A good cop never lets her partner work alone.” She began peering under piles of napkins and behind the stacks of plates. “Now, where did I put my notebook?”

  We closed the café a little after eight, and I drove to Ada’s house. I looked over at Rosalie who sat in the passenger seat, scribbling in her notebook. “I hope there’s a window unlocked somewhere,” I said. “Some easy way to slip in and have a little look.”

  “Climbing in the window?” She stopped writing and looked at me. “That looks cool in all the TV shows. I’ve always wanted to do that: leap through a window into the scene of a hideous crime. But, hon, not today. It would snag this fabulous skirt.” She looked down at her lap. “Do you like the color? It also came in blue.”

  “But we can’t solve the crime,” I said. “If we’re stuck outside of Ada’s house, and the clues are locked inside.”

  “I’m not saying we stay outside, hon. But let’s go in another way. I’d rather just do the usual. You know, walk right in through the door.”

  “Well that might not be the easiest thing. Unless you know how to pick a lock.”

  Rosalie grinned. “Do you know what else Dwight is really good at? Besides creating the most delicious sauce that makes you want to die? The man is just the cutest thing when he picks a lock. He can do all kinds of things, you know.” She turned serious. “Official police work calls for skills.”

  I didn’t want to spoil her dreamy thoughts by pointing out that Dwight’s official business tended more toward a pen and telephone than locks and hidden clues.

  I turned down Ada’s street. “Well, that would all be well and good if Dwight were here to help.”

  Rosalie looked proud. “You don’t have Dwight, but you have me. He showed me how to do it. We were talking about his job one night. He could tell I thought it was so cool, outwitting bad guys every day. So we sat down on the floor and then we had ourselves a little demonstration.”