Killer Sweet Tooth

by Gayle Trent

AS I WALKED across the Save-A-Buck parking lot, I was greeted by China York, who looked like a female Willie Nelson. The tiny little woman was wearing her typical ensemble—jeans and a white tee under a red and black flannel shirt—but today she was also wearing a quilted jean jacket and men’s work gloves. She sort of looked like a cross between a pixie and a lumberjack. She had a plastic bag hanging from each arm.

  “Hi,” she said. “You doin’ all right?”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “How about you?”

  “I’m good. It must’ve been rough on you and Myra finding Dr. Bainsworth like that last night,” China said.

  “How’d you know?”

  “Heard it over the scanner.” She shifted her weight from one booted foot to the other.

  “They gave our names?” I asked.

  “No, but as soon as they gave the descriptions, I knew it was you and Myra.”

  I smiled wanly. “Yeah, it was a rough night.”

  “How’s Myra doing?” she asked. “Did she get that tooth fixed?”

  “Yeah, the dentist—a Dr. Huffington—was there at the jail to help an inmate, and he refilled the tooth for her.”

  “Butter Huffington?” China laughed. “I’d have loved to have seen the expression on Myra’s face when she saw that Butter would be her dentist.”

  “You know, he seemed really capable,” I said. “I think he did a good job.”

  “Oh, I don’t doubt he’s a good dentist, but when you know someone in one capacity, it’s hard to imagine them in another.” She cocked her head. “Take your niece and nephew . . . do you know any of their friends?”

  “I know a few of them.”

  “Now imagine going to the gynecologist twenty years from now and having one of those kids come into the exam room,” she said.

  My eyes flew open in horror. “Ewww!”

  China grinned. “Exactly.”

  “So, let’s change the subject quickly,” I said. “Do you know anyone who might’ve wanted to hurt Dr. Bainsworth?”

  “I wanted to hurt him last year when he did a root canal on one of my teeth. But I got over it.” She shrugged. “I’ll keep my ear to the ground and let you know if I come up with anything. By the way, I’ve got some potato soup in the slow cooker. I’m going to take some to Myra later on. Want me to bring you some?”

  “I appreciate the offer, but Ben said he’d bring dinner later.”

  She nodded. “That’s good. Let him take care of you. It’ll make him feel strong, and it’ll make you feel cherished.”

  “Let me know if you hear anything about Dr. Bainsworth,” I said.

  China waved as we went our separate ways.

  Before doing my shopping, I asked my favorite checkout girl, Juanita, if I could speak with the manager, Mr. Franklin. She paged him, and he came to the front.

  “Hi, Steve,” I said. “I thought I’d see if you need any cakes, cookies, or candies while I’m here. You haven’t ordered brownies in a while.”

  He nodded. “How about some football-themed stuff? The Super Bowl is coming up in a couple weeks. Maybe people getting in the spirit of the game will give up their New Year’s diets and give in to temptation.”

  “Okay. Would you like a few cakes and some dessert party platters with cookies, candies, and mini brownies?”

  “Sounds good, Daphne. Can I count on five cakes and five party platters to start with?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Great. Bring the invoice when you bring in the cakes.” With that, he returned from whence he came as if he were a man of great importance with scant time to spend on the little people. I wondered if the fact that he was dating the well-to-do Maureen Fremont had contributed to his increased sense of self-worth. Maureen was the sister-in-law of Belinda Fremont, the rich client for whom I’d made a guinea pig birthday cake. The guinea pigs are “champion cavies” and have their own suite in the Fremont home.

  After Mr. Franklin left, Juanita said, “I’d like to talk with you before you leave. I want you to cater my sister’s quinceañera.”

  “A quinceañera . . . that’s her fifteenth-birthday celebration, right?”

  “Yes,” she said. “It’s a very special occasion.”

  “That’s wonderful, Juanita. When is it?”

  “It is next Saturday. I know this is very last-minute. My mother and I had planned to make the cake ourselves, but I know you could do such a great job,” she said.

  “Why don’t you come by my house after work and we’ll look at some books for ideas?” I asked.

  “I can’t today, but maybe I can come tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow sounds super.” I grinned. “Well, I’m off to buy lots of bananas.”

  She gave me a quizzical look. “You’ve adopted a monkey?”

  I laughed. “No, but I’m making a peanut butter and banana Cadillac cake for the Elvis Impersonators’ Evangelical Interdenominational Outreach.”

  “Oh, I know the EIEIO,” she said. “My boyfriend is a new member. He learned of them through our church.”

  “So your boyfriend looks like Elvis?” I asked.

  “Not so much. He is better, I think. But when he puts on the wig and sunglasses and flashy clothes, yes, he does resemble Elvis Presley . . . at least, as much as some of the other EIEIO people I’ve seen,” said Juanita. “And he has a beautiful singing voice. That’s how he won my heart—singing to me.”

  “Sounds romantic.”

  “He is romantic.” She lowered her eyes. “Sometimes I feel I do not deserve him.”

  “Yes, you do. You deserve the best, Juanita.”

  WHEN I GOT home, I put away my groceries and made enough batter for three large peanut butter and banana sheet cakes. I was only able to put one cake into the oven at a time, so I covered the rest of the batter and put the mixing bowl in the refrigerator.

  While waiting for that first cake to bake, I called Myra.

  “How are you today?” I asked when she answered.

  “I’m feeling much better, thanks.”

  “I’m sorry my cashew brittle caused you so much pain and aggravation,” I told her.

  “Me too,” Myra said. “Want to know the worst part? I didn’t get to eat any of it. I messed up my tooth with the first bite. Save me some?”

  “Of course . . . if you aren’t afraid to eat it,” I said. “I think if I were in your position, I’d never want to see another piece of cashew brittle for as long as I lived.”

  “Not me. I don’t hold grudges against food,” she said. “I’ll just chew my brittle on the other side of my mouth. I think those fillings are in pretty tight.”

  “So I never got around to asking last night, did Dr. Huffington do a good job?” I asked.

  “He did all right,” Myra said. “I just had to get my mind around the fact that he’s not a little, clumsy football player anymore. Now he’s a big, clumsy dentist.” She giggled. “He liked you, by the way.”

  “He did?” I asked. I hadn’t been aware he’d really even noticed me.

  “Yep. Asked if you were married. I told him you were divorced but that I believe you’re seeing someone.”

  “Thank you. I mean, he seemed nice enough, but I am seeing Ben and . . .” I let the sentence trail off.

  “Right. So were you too tired to bake today?” Myra asked.

  “As a matter of fact, I have a cake in the oven right now.” I explained to her about the EIEIO and the cake I was making for their Friday-night end-of-convention festivities.

  “Sounds interesting. I used to love Elvis,” she said. “Not literally love, you know, but I sure thought he was the berries.”

  “Lots of people did. Lots of people still do, I guess,” I said. “Scottie—my client—invited Ben and me to go to the show at the hotel tomorrow night.”

  “Are you going?” she asked eagerly.

  “Maybe,” I said. “I’ll ask Ben this evening. He’s bringing over dinner.”

  “If you decide to go, ask if he’d mind my tag
ging along.”

  “If we decide to go,” I said, “I’m sure he’d love to have you tag along.” Actually, I wasn’t sure of anything. But I felt obligated to take Myra to the Elvis concert the next night either way.

  CHAPTER

  Three

  BEN CAME over to my house at about seven o’clock that evening and brought dinner from Dakota’s. It’s the only steakhouse in Brea Ridge, and the food is terrific. Ben had a prime rib, and he brought me my favorite, the filet mignon. He’d gotten us house salads, fries, and rolls to go with the steaks. I’d have to spend an extra thirty minutes on the treadmill tomorrow morning, but it was worth it.

  I went to the refrigerator and got a Diet Coke for me and a regular one for Ben. “Did you go into the office today? Was everyone talking about the murder?” I asked as I sat down at the table. I noticed he’d changed from the jeans and sweatshirt he’d been wearing that morning into dress pants, a blue and white striped button-down shirt, and a sport coat.

  “I went in for a little while,” Ben said. “Neil is doing fine as assistant editor, but he’s still new at it.” He sighed. “Of course, there was quite a bit of buzz about Dr. Bainsworth, but it’s all speculation at this point. The police aren’t giving us much to go on.”

  “About Neil . . . don’t you think you might be giving him the impression you’re not confident in his abilities?” I cut into my steak. “You are confident in them, aren’t you?”

  “Yes and no.” Ben took a drink of his soda. “He’s a good editor, but he’s young and inexperienced.”

  “And so were you at one point. Besides, that’s why you have a cell phone,” I said. “So he can call you if he has any questions. You’re going to have to give him some wings if he’s ever going to fly, you know.”

  “I get what you’re saying, Daph, but it’s my name on the masthead. When all is said and done, my name as editor in chief is what people see. I’m ultimately who they blame or who they praise for the paper’s content.”

  “Yeah . . . okay.” I knew I was fighting a losing battle, so I began to eat in silence. Ben and I had been over this before. If he’d delegate more of his responsibilities at the newspaper—the responsibilities that had already been assigned to other people anyway—then he and I would be able to spend more time together. Don’t get me wrong. I was glad Ben took such pride in his work and that his job was important to him, but I’d like to think spending time with me was a priority to him too.

  “What?” he asked after a few minutes. “Are you mad at me now?”

  “No, I’m not mad.” Maybe I was just trying to resign myself to the fact that Ben Jacobs was a married man . . . married to the Chronicle.

  That might even explain why he’d remained single all these years. What a dope I’d been to think even for a second that maybe Ben had never gotten over me when we’d broken up all those years ago.

  “You are,” he said. “You’re mad. Daphne, you know my job entails working some long hours. I can’t help that.”

  “Let’s please not discuss this right now. Let’s just eat dinner in peace,” I said.

  Ben huffed. “Fine.”

  As we were finishing up, the doorbell rang. I got up to answer it and was surprised to see Scottie Phillips on my doorstep for the second time that day.

  “Hey,” he said as he came in the door. He shook off his leather coat and handed it to me.

  Okaaay. “Hi.” I hung the jacket up on the rack beside the door.

  “Got your message,” he said. “Sorry I had my phone off. Whatever you want to charge for the cake is fine. EIEIO is going all-out for this party. We just ask people to remember we’re a missionary organization.”

  “Sure. I’ll . . . uh . . . give you the fifteen percent missionary organization discount,” I said. “Does that sound about right?”

  “Sounds good to me.” He nodded at Ben. “How you doing this evening?”

  “Fine,” Ben said tightly. “I’m doing just fine.”

  “Man, those fries look good.” Scottie looked back at me. “You gonna finish those?”

  “No. Be my guest,” I said.

  He sat down at the table opposite Ben and dug into my remaining fries. “I love big ol’ thick steak fries. They’re the best.”

  “Yeah. They’re good.” Ben glanced at me in exasperation, but I couldn’t very well be rude to a client, the only client I’d had in two weeks besides the Save-A-Buck. It was a work thing. Certainly he could understand that.

  “So,” Scottie said to Ben, “are you and long, tall Sally here coming to the performance tomorrow night? The EIEIO will rock your socks off.”

  “Sorry,” Ben said, sounding anything but sorry. “I have to cover a council meeting tomorrow evening.”

  “My neighbor Myra and I are going to try to make it, though,” I said.

  Scottie smiled. “Super.”

  Ben merely stared at the man.

  After he’d finished my fries and my Diet Coke, Scottie wiped his mouth and hands on my napkin and got up from the table. “It’s been real, folks, but I have to get back to the hotel. We’ve got one last rehearsal before tomorrow’s show.” He kissed my cheek and grabbed his jacket. “See you there, Daphne.”

  With that, he was out the door . . . and yet he left behind a silence that was palpable.

  “Had you ever seen that guy before this morning?” Ben asked.

  “No,” I said.

  He blew out a breath as he was shaking his head. “What a jerk! He asks for your leftovers and then kisses you like we’ve all been old friends for years. Seriously, who does he think he is?”

  “I guess he thinks he’s Elvis.” I shrugged.

  “I don’t like him. There’s something smarmy about him,” Ben said. “Did you have to tell him you’d come to that concert tomorrow night?”

  “As a matter of fact, I did. You didn’t leave me a way out—you said you have to be somewhere, not that we have to be somewhere,” I said. “Besides, when I mentioned to Myra today that I had a new client who had invited us to the EIEIO concert, she asked if she could go with us.”

  “Then you’re actually going?” he asked.

  “Of course I am. I have to. One, he’s my client; and two, I’m the reason Myra lost her filling yesterday and had to go to the dentist; which means that, three, I might be the reason Dr. Bainsworth is dead.”

  Ben ran his hand over his face. “How did you get from going to an Elvis concert to killing a dentist in three easy steps?”

  “It wasn’t hard,” I said. “Isn’t there any way you can get out of this council meeting? Can’t someone else cover it?”

  “I’ll see, but I doubt it,” Ben said. “Everyone else has their own assignments.”

  I could’ve pointed out the times since I’d been back in Brea Ridge when he’d had to—or volunteered to—take on the assignments of others, but I didn’t. Instead I took his hand and led him into the living room. “What’s being said about Dr. Bainsworth today at the newspaper? You said the police weren’t giving you much to go on, but do they have any suspects?”

  “Besides you and Myra?” he asked. “No.”

  “Oh, come on. There has to be somebody.”

  “I know, but they don’t have any leads yet,” said Ben. “The police are going over the office, interviewing Dr. Bainsworth’s staff members, and talking with everyone who had appointments scheduled during the past couple weeks.”

  “Well, that’s good.” I sighed. “But what if they don’t find anybody? Will they arrest Myra and me?”

  “From what I gather, I don’t think so. They don’t have any real evidence against you at this point.”

  “But they’re looking,” I said.

  “Sure, they’re looking. They’re asking around to see if you or Myra had a prior connection to the man or a motive to harm him. It’s standard procedure.”

  “Myra was his patient. Is every patient he had on the suspect list?” I asked.

  “At this point, they could be.
But the cops aren’t going to find any evidence linking you or Myra to Dr. Bainsworth’s murder.” He squeezed my hand.

  “Since I’ve only been back in Brea Ridge a few months, I never even met the guy. What was he like?” I asked.

  “I didn’t know him that well either. I go to Farmer—the other dentist. But Bainsworth seemed like an okay guy. I interviewed him for the paper a few times.” Ben stretched his legs out in front of him. “I did an article on him when he moved his practice into a new building—where it is now—because it was in the historical section and he was remodeling. I also spoke with him about the mission trip he took a couple months ago.”

  “A mission trip? He wasn’t an EIEIO, was he?”

  Ben smiled. “I don’t think so. He was doing dental work for the poor, which was really magnanimous of him given his circumstances at the time.”

  “What circumstances?” I asked.

  “Well, his wife had left him a few months prior and was in the process of taking nearly everything the two of them had,” Ben said.

  “That doesn’t seem very fair.” I leaned back into the sofa.

  “He was cheating on her,” Ben said. “Angela, his wife, caught him with one of his hygienists.”

  “That bites.” I laughed at my own joke, but Ben didn’t.

  “Anyway, the mission trip had already been scheduled, which is why I suppose he still went. Once the divorce was more fully under way, I don’t think he could have afforded it,” Ben said. “That’s a shame too, because from the way he talked he’d really enjoyed helping those people.”

  BEN LEFT FAIRLY early since he had to get up and go to work the next morning. I was a little tired but restless. I went into my office to search online for a large model of a 1955 Cadillac I could use to make a template for the EIEIO cake.

  As I searched, I wondered about Dr. Bainsworth. Maybe his wife killed him. She could still harbor feelings of hurt and jealousy. Surely the police would check her alibi.

  Or since he was cheating on his wife, perhaps the other injured party—the hygienist’s husband or boyfriend—had gone to the office to confront Dr. Bainsworth. But why would he wait so long? From the way Ben had talked, Dr. Bainsworth’s wife had discovered the affair and started divorce proceedings more than four months ago. Wouldn’t anyone entangled in that volatile situation have lashed out before now?