KILLER COCOA PIE

by Carolyn Q. Hunter

  Bert was on friendly terms with most, if not all, the employees at the paper. This young woman of about twenty wasn’t somebody she recognized. It was possible she was a college student who was doing a project, paper, or presentation on local business in the area. She’d had a few of those come through as the shop had grown in popularity.

  “What can I get for you?” Bert asked, cutting to the chase and hoping the poor girl wasn’t looking for an interview and instead just wanted pie.

  “Excuse me, but are you the Mrs. Bertha Hannah? The owner of Pies and Pages.”

  Bert nodded while whipping the flour off her hands. “Yep, hon. That’s me. What can I get for you?” she asked again, wanting to get on with things.

  Much to the shop owner’s dismay, the woman clutched her hands together eagerly, creating a sandwich around the tape recorder. A brimming smile appeared on her face and her eyes lit up so vibrantly you’d think you were staring into the headlights of a semi-truck. “I am a food blogger, Mrs. Hannah, and I am such a huge fan of your shop. Books and pies, who could have come up with a better combination?”

  “Thank you. Can I get you a slice of pie to eat?” she asked, eyeballing the ever-growing line of patrons. The red-haired woman directly behind the girl had her mouth in a sour puckered shape, tapping her blue fingernails along the clasp of her peacock patterned purse while she waited to be served.

  “I’ve just flown in this morning, all the way from Maine, to see your shop and meet you.”

  Oh no, Bert thought, feeling a sickness in the pit of her stomach. This poor girl had traveled a long way to come and see the shop but had likely picked the worst time of the year. On any other week, she would have been thrilled to welcome the young woman into the shop, show her around, and offer an interview.

  “I’m hoping that I can get my new blog off the ground. You know, turn it into a real money maker, and I wanted your shop to be my highlighted article. The blog is called Greetings with Sweets. My focus is on bakeries and pie shops, just like yours. I’ll even do podcasts, maybe, if I can figure out the right equipment and stuff. I’m still learning, you know.”

  Bert felt horrible for the poor girl, knowing that her dream of a money-making blog was probably a pipe dream which would never reach fruition. She wasn’t an expert on modern technology, social media, or the internet. However, she’d heard far too many horror stories about undergraduates who had hopes of making it big through some sort of online scheme that would never pan out.

  The next woman in line had her nose all wrinkled up and was breathing heavily to make her presence known. The older man and young girl behind her were starting to get similar looks on their faces.

  “That’s nice, honey, but as you can see, now isn’t the best time. Can you come back later?”

  “As a matter of fact, I’ve never even used this mini tape recorder thing before. I hope it works,” she continued talking without even hearing Bert.

  She tried again. “Even if you came back this evening, maybe I could fit in a little time for an interview,” Bert commented, noticing the irritated expressions of the people in line.

  “I’d heard you might be selling the shop, but I sure hope that isn’t true. We need more businesses like yours in America.”

  This made Bert pause cold. “Hold on. What did you just say?”

  “I said that we need more businesses like yours.”

  “No, before that.”

  “I heard you were selling or might be.”

  Instantly, Bert saw the bigger picture. Rearing back, she straightened her neck and folded her arms. “Who sent you?”

  “Huh?” the girl asked, playing stupid.

  “Who sent you? Are you here working for Bradford and Bradford?”

  “Oh, is that who you’ve gotten an offer from?” she asked, fiddling with the tape player and attempting to hit the record button.

  “I don’t care who they send, or what kind of underhanded stunts they want to pull, I’m not selling.”

  She managed to push the button. “I’m glad to hear it. I just know that with the pest problem, sometimes small shop owners are more likely to sell.” The words came out loud and over pronounced as if she purposefully wanted everyone in the room to hear her.

  The patrons nearby quieted down, a few of them turning pale at the notion of mice or rats anywhere near their Valentine’s treats. The woman next in line let out a little scoff of disgust.

  “What did you say?” she demanded.

  The girl’s mouth hung open slightly, like she was caught off guard. “T-The pest problem. I know these old buildings sometimes have issues. It’s some tactic larger businesses will use to convince people to sell.”

  She was basically claiming that Pies and Pages had some sort of rodent or bug infestation in front of a whole store full of people.

  Bert felt her cheeks grow hot, a combination of embarrassment and rage filling her face with blood. “Excuse me? You need to leave now,” she ordered.

  “I’m sorry, I just heard a rumor that one of the Bradford’s were seen here this morning.”

  How could she know that unless she worked for the Bradford’s? Bert clenched her teeth. “Please leave.”

  “Oh, is now not a good time?” the girl asked, still playing at it.

  “Get out of my shop and don’t come back. Tell your bosses that if they want to play dirty, so can I.”

  The girl’s cheeks flushed red, and the tip of her nose quickly followed. “I don’t understand,” she managed to whisper just as her eyes were beginning to take on a glassy look.

  “You heard me. Out. I don’t want you around again.”

  “B-But I came all this way to see you.”

  “I don’t care. Out,” Bert demanded. “Unless you want me to call the Old Market security.”

  The girl’s lower lip quivered, and a teardrop fell from her left eye.

  Bert instantly regretted her outburst, wondering for a second if she’d made a mistake about who the girl was working for. “Hon,” she tried to say in a calmer voice.

  But it was too late. Spinning around like a whirlwind, she pushed her way through the crowd and out the door, leaving Bert behind the counter with everyone staring.

  After a moment, the next woman in line came up. “Well, then. I need a red Lovers Pie addressed to Kenner.”

  “V-Very well. Do you want to include a message with that?”

  “Yes, please,” she snipped, clearly wanting to be on her way.

  Bert handed over the standard mini-sized card and envelope to the woman for her to write down her message, all while trying to hold back her own set of tears in front of the shop full of people.

  CHAPTER 5

  * * *

  “I feel just terrible,” Bert admitted to Harry that evening as they ate burgers together at The Burning, a popular grill and brewery in the Old Market. The walls were decorated with old scouting uniforms, badges, workbooks, canoe paddles, walking sticks, and other items that gave it a rustic feel.

  “I understand how you feel, but it was an honest mistake. Who knows, maybe she was there to write a scathing review. Could have been a good actress.”

  Bert poked her wedge fries around with a fork, staring down at her plate. “I guess so, but I just don’t know. You didn’t see that poor girl’s face.”

  “I’m sure it was unpleasant,” he offered, not really giving any real support. He took another big bite from his Charbroiled “Cropsey” Burger, covered in jalapenos, pepper jack cheese, and spicy mayo.

  Bert set down her fork and drummed her fingers on the table. “Do you really think she was acting?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” he said, after swallowing the bite in his mouth. “I’ve worked as a police officer for more years than I care to count, and I’ve seen some pretty weird stuff in my time. Hiring an actress to portray a journalist to pump you for information isn’t anything new.”

  “She wasn’t a journalist. She was a food blogger.”

  �
�Same difference.”

  Looking at her own burger, The Meatball (made with a patty seasoned in Italian spices, topped with a rich marinara sauce, a layer of parmesan cheese, and served on a garlic bread bun), she realized she hadn’t touched it, despite how tasty it had sounded when they ordered.

  “What kind of useful information could she even possibly get, pretending like that?” Bert wondered aloud, picking up one of the fries and eating it. It would be a shame to just let all this food go to waste.

  Harry set down his burger and wiped his fingers on the napkin, picking up his stout beer and taking a drink. “Oh, anything that might give them an edge over you, convince you to sell.”

  “Like what?”

  “For instance. The girl brought up pests in the building.”

  “But there aren’t any pests. I hope not anyway.”

  “The point is, the word pest is very general. If you honestly did have a pest problem, let’s say with mice, she might have gotten you to say something specific about the issue, thus giving yourself away and opening you up to ridicule.”

  Leaning her head on her hand, she sighed. “Goodness knows, if that tape recorder was picking me up, they have some things to use against me.”

  “From the sounds of it, nothing too condemning I think.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “Anyway, I think you did the right thing by sending the girl away.”

  “You do?” Bert asked, perking up for the first time the whole meal.

  “You bet.” Eating one of his fries, he smiled. “So, interested in getting any dessert?”

  Looking down at her untouched burger, she nodded. A little sugar was just the thing to pick her up. “I’ll have them box this up for later.”

  * * *

  It was four a.m. and Bert had just woken up to the sound of something beeping in the shop below. Despite her earplugs, the sound was bleeding through. Removing her earplugs and her sleep mask, she blinked away the fuzziness in her eyes. She sat up and listened, making sure that what she was hearing was real and not a part of her dream.

  Yep, there was definitely something beeping, but what?

  It couldn’t be the fire detector, could it?

  Sniffing the air, she didn’t sense any signs of smoke. There was something, for sure, but she couldn’t place the scent. Not yet, anyway.

  Tossing back the covers, she got out of bed and put her feet directly into the slippers. Walking out of the bedroom and into the main living area of the apartment, the strange and unfamiliar smell grew stronger. The beeping was still somewhere else in the building, most likely from the store.

  Quickly grabbing her robe off the bathroom door and slipping it on, Bert opened the door and instantly winced at the horrific scent. “What is that?” she groaned, waving a hand in front of her face. It was almost as if someone had left a boiled egg out on the counter for days.

  Had there been some sort of sewer back up in the building’s plumbing? A leak, maybe?

  Foraging onward down the wooden staircase, she paused at the bottom and realized it was coming from the kitchen. A hissing noise filled the air. In the next moment, Bert felt her heart skip a beat.

  It wasn’t sewage at all. It was natural gas from her industrial oven.

  “Oh no,” she gasped, glancing up and having the final realization that the beeping was coming from the carbon monoxide detector in the upper left corner of the room. The little red light was blinking with each beep, getting closer together with each passing second.

  She needed to get out of the building ASAP.

  Without a single thought, she turned toward the storeroom door and ultimately the backdoor to the alley since she was closer to that exit than the front. Rushing on her slipper covered feet, she burst through the door into the storage room but paused when the door knocked into something heavy on the floor.

  Had one of the bags of flour fallen off the shelf?

  Glancing down, she let out a loud gasp and instantly felt light headed.

  Laying on the floor of the tiny cramped room was a crumpled form of a body. Someone else had been in the building, but who? The dark room kept the face hidden.

  There was no time to think, and Bert didn’t dare turn on the light.

  Gripping the anonymous intruder by the ankles, the shop owner pulled with all her might, feeling a strange rush of energy through her muscles and up into her head. Heaving and grunting, Bert managed to get the back door open and pulled the body out into the alley.

  With a careful and slow hand, Bert closed the door as to not cause any kind of spark that might ignite the gas inside.

  Finally, breathing heavily with her hands on her knees, she looked down at the person. It was the food blogger from earlier.

  She didn’t appear to be breathing.

  CHAPTER 6

  * * *

  Bert sat on the back-end of the ambulance as a paramedic listened to her pulse. She wore a medical mask attached to an oxygen tank which pumped clean, fresh air into her body to flush out any possible carbon monoxide. Nearby inside a separate ambulance, Pen Topper, the city coroner, laid a white sheet over the girl’s body which was strapped to a stretcher.

  The entire alleyway was blocked off with police tape and swarms of officers and gas company employees filled the streets, trying to keep everyone as far away from the building as possible in case of an explosion.

  Bert prayed that they would get the leak under control quickly and assumed that they’d already shut off the gas.

  “Bert, thank goodness you’re okay,” Detective Mannor declared, appearing from around one of the police vehicles. Getting close, he gave her an awkward and unexpected hug.

  “Can you please give us some space, Detective?” the paramedic asked.

  “Of course. What happened?”

  “She’s just a little low on oxygen. Whether it was carbon monoxide or something else, she will be just fine,” the woman informed him.

  “That’s good to hear.”

  “She was far enough away from the leak and got out quickly enough.”

  “That poor girl wasn’t so lucky,” Bert pointed out, her voice muted behind the mask.

  “What?” he asked.

  Bert lifted the mask slightly. “I said, the other girl wasn’t so lucky.”

  “Ma’am, please don’t remove the mask,” the paramedic scolded her.

  She let the mask fall back into place.

  Luckily, she didn’t need to explain further—not yet anyway. Pen approached the detective with an outstretched hand. “Harry.”

  “Pen, good to see you. I’m just sorry it’s under these circumstances.”

  “As am I.” He turned slightly back toward the other ambulance that was loading the body into the back. He jabbed a thumb in that direction. “I’m afraid that young woman didn’t stand a chance,” he informed him.

  The detective shook his head. “Who was she?”

  “Delila Browning, according to her college identification card. Seems she was attending a community college in Tuscany, Maine.”

  Bert couldn’t help but let out a shallow sigh at this news. Even if the girl had been a spy for Bradford and Bradford, she hadn’t deserved to die. On the other hand, maybe she really was just a young woman looking for an interview for her blog.

  “Is this the young woman you mentioned was at your shop earlier?” Harry asked, turning to Bert.

  She nodded her response, not wanting to frustrate the paramedic.

  “What the devil was she doing in there this late?”

  Bert could only shrug, hoping she wouldn’t have to wear the oxygen mask for much longer. In her own thoughts, maybe the girl came back to still try and get the interview but ended up passing out before anyone noticed.

  On the other hand, Bert checked all the outside doors before heading to bed. So, how would the girl have gotten inside unless she broke in? Unable to stand the thing on her face any longer, she pulled it off. “Why did she die?” she asked.
r />   “Mrs. Hannah, please put the mask back on,” the paramedic pleaded.

  Bert held up a finger for the woman to wait. If she didn’t clarify a few things first, she might just go insane. “Pen?” she asked her old friend from church.

  Sighing, the coroner placed his hands on his hips. “It appears she was much closer to the source of the gas, and I assume she was in a far more small and confined space. She inhaled a lethal amount quickly,” Pen said.

  “I found her in the stock room with both doorways closed,” Bert said.

  “Mrs. Hannah, the mask.”

  Bert waved her off, determined to finish her conversation before putting the thing back on.

  “You said she didn’t stand a chance?” the detective asked.

  “That’s right. She has a pretty nasty bump on her head. She must have hit it falling over. She could have been light headed, tried to get out, but stumbled and knocked herself out. After that, she just took in breath after breath of carbon monoxide.”

  “And it was carbon monoxide?” Bert asked, wanting to fully understand what had happened.

  “She has the symptoms for it. Further tests will prove that fact.”

  “And the gas company is taking readings of the air quality as we speak,” Harry said. “What I want to know is why was she in there.” His gaze darted over to Bert.

  “I have no idea. She must have broken in at some point. I double checked all the doors.” Saying this out loud made her pause, a realization dawning on her.

  “What is it, Bert?”

  “The back door. It was unlocked when I dragged her out of the building and into the alleyway. I hadn’t thought of it until now.”

  The detective made a harrumphing noise, displeased with the information so far. “For all we know, she’s the one who started the gas leak,” he pointed out.

  “That doesn’t make sense. If she started the leak, why wouldn’t she just leave right away?”

  “She’s got a point,” Pen agreed, taking Bert’s side of things.

  Pinching the bridge of his nose, Harry sighed. “Okay, then. What was she doing in there?”