Murder at the Beacon Bakeshop

by Darci Hannah

  Rory set down his empty mug and frowned. “Unfortunately, I do.”

  CHAPTER 25

  It was late afternoon. Kennedy had borrowed my Jeep to drive around the countryside, scouting out the perfect location to snap a few pictures of herself sporting a pricey new designer handbag. The company that had hired her was marketing it to the equestrian set. It was supposed to resemble what a two-tone leather saddlebag might look like if it was a shoulder purse. To me it said fancy leather wine pouch with extra buckles, which was why I owned a bakery and not a trendy boutique, I supposed.

  Kennedy promised to be back before dinnertime as she grabbed my keys. We decided to go out tonight, which was fine by me. Kennedy was working, and I needed time to think. I was sitting on the couch in the parlor with Wellington sprawled beside me, his giant head resting on the comfy leather arm. I was thinking of Mia. I was trying to make sense of her untimely murder when I suddenly had the desire to visit my bakeshop. I stood quietly, careful not to wake my dog. I tiptoed out of the parlor and slipped into the back hall, where I entered the café through my private door.

  The yellow crime scene tape gave me a jolt, as did the empty bakery cases, the spotless counters, and the polished chrome of the kitchen. It wasn’t natural. The ovens should be on; the mixers should be humming, the bakery cases should be overflowing with mouthwatering treats, and hungry customers should be seated at every quaint little café table. But they weren’t. It suddenly dawned on me that Mia had indeed exacted her revenge.

  Although I was itching to get into the kitchen and start baking, I refrained. I hadn’t come here to bake. Baking was forbidden. The place was still a crime scene, although I doubted that the investigators had found much of anything. No, it was the menu board I was after. Across it in neon chalk were written the names of our opening day specials. On one half, my signature donuts were proudly displayed along with the daily coffee cake, muffins, and sweet rolls. On the other half were our drink specials, naming the few fancy coffee drinks Rory knew how to make. I took out a cloth and erased them all, wiping the board clean. I then picked up the bright green chalk marker and wrote the name Jeffery Plank at the top.

  Understandably, he was my prime suspect. Beneath his name, in hunter orange, I wrote all the possible motives he might have had to want his longtime lover out of the way. Then I began to think of all the ways he could have done it. Thanks to Rory, I now knew everything I needed to know about cyanide and how it might be used as a weapon of murder.

  His knowledge had been as thorough as it was disturbing. Because of his military background, he was particularly versed in all the horrific uses of cyanide in World War II and beyond. It was the preferred poison of the Nazis, he had told me, who not only used it in their gas chambers, but had also given it to high-ranking members of their party in the form of a suicide pill. Death, they believed, was better than facing capture and torture by the enemy. It was a chilling thought. There were many forms of cyanide too: liquid, powder, gas—it was all very lethal. And because it was, I was having a hard time figuring out how it had gotten into Mia’s system while she was in my bakeshop.

  Somewhere deep inside the folds of my brain, thoughts of adding another name to my menu board of murder began to surface. But for the life of me, I didn’t know if I had the courage. He was my neighbor, after all. Wellington loved him. And last but not least, he was the hottest man in Beacon Harbor. Besides, what motive could Rory Campbell possibly have to want Mia Long dead? None, I reasoned, and banished the thought. After all, Jeffery Plank was the villain here.

  I had just written beneath Jeffery’s name, men’s room, paper towel soaked in cyanide (I was brainstorming, adding anything that, literally, popped into my head), when I heard a voice from behind me.

  “Either you’re playing a strange game of Clue, or you’re investigating a murder.”

  I spun around only to find Tuck McAllister in his police blues frowning at me. I’d been so busy pondering murder at my board that I hadn’t heard him enter.

  “Donut names,” I blurted, standing in front of my neon scribbling. “They pop into my head all the time.”

  “Men’s Room’s not a good name for a donut, Lindsey.” He was trying his hardest not to smile as he walked to the bakery counter. “We got a call from Abby Long earlier today. She filed a complaint, stating that you and your friends ambushed her while she was at breakfast. She said you were asking questions about her sister’s death.”

  “What?” My inner New Yorker bristled at the thought of that woman tattling on us. “I paid for their breakfast!” I told him. “None of them seem to mind that. Had I known Abby was going to file a complaint with the police like a little crybaby, I wouldn’t have been so generous.”

  “So, you’re not denying that you went to talk with her?”

  “Of course not. It was a logical step in the process. And you’ll be happy to know that, aside from being a bunch of squealers, I don’t think Abby, or any of Mia’s other friends, is to blame. They all seemed genuinely saddened by her death.”

  Tuck stared at me through narrowed eyes. “Yeah, well, they should. Death is a sad matter. However, judging the measure of one’s sadness is not a good way of proving someone’s innocence. That’s why we gather evidence. It’s important to link the killer to the crime scene with something a little more substantial than grief. That’s what we professionals strive to do, which is why I’m here. Don’t take this the wrong way, Lindsey, but I’m going to insist that you leave this investigation to the professionals.”

  “I would, if I wasn’t your prime suspect.” I set down my chalk marker and moved to the front of the polished black granite bakery counter, standing across from him. “I’m doing what any self-respecting innocent person would do. I’m trying to take myself off your list, and I think I have. I think I’ve found Mia’s killer.”

  “Really? So fast?” I detected a hint of mockery as he added, “And who, exactly, do you think did it?”

  “Jeffery, of course. And I’ll tell you why. He and Mia came here seeking revenge, but that had nothing to do with me.”

  As Tuck was trying to wrap his head around all I was telling him, particularly my conversation with Kennedy and the real reason Mia and Jeffery had come to Beacon Harbor, I asked him if it was okay to brew a pot of coffee.

  “Fine with me,” he said. “Although the bakery is still a crime scene, I believe all the evidence has been gathered.”

  “Is it okay to bake?” I asked.

  “Not for public consumption,” he clarified. “Your shop can’t open until it’s been cleared by the sergeant.”

  “Of course, but I hardly think she’ll be mad if I grab a plate of cookies from the fridge.” I smiled and popped into the kitchen to retrieve a few of the cherry-chocolate-chunk cookies Dylan had baked before we were officially a crime scene. With half a dozen of the delicious cookies on a plate, I headed for one of the café tables, indicating for Tuck to follow me.

  Tuck took a seat. His eyes, I noticed, never left the plate of cookies. I got the feeling that the moment I had put them on the table I had lost him.

  “Did you hear me?” I said, handing him a mug of steaming black coffee. “I honestly had no idea Kennedy had done so much damage to his livelihood. Therefore, his appearance here truly was a surprise, not to mention the fact that I don’t own cyanide.”

  “These look delicious.” With his eyes never leaving the cookie in his hand, he removed his blue cap and set it beside him on the table. “Oatmeal, chunks of chocolate, toasted pecans, and cherries? Is that even legal?” He graced me with a heart-stopping smile before taking a bite.

  Good heavens, I silently mused. Why couldn’t he have been chubby and covered in acne? I consciously shut my mouth and sat across from him, trying not to smile like a brainless fangirl. “In my bakeshop,” I told him, using a two-handed grip on my mug for support, “it’s not only legal, it’s the law.”

  I watched a moment longer as Tuck nibbled away on the cookie wi
th something akin to euphoria. I should have been concentrating on the recent murder when, in fact, I was concentrating on his full, nicely shaped lips. I then reminded myself that he was still in his twenties, and that I was a murder suspect.

  “Delicious.” He looked up from his empty plate. “You know that I’m going to have to check your story, right?”

  “Of course. I’ll give you Kennedy’s number. She’d be happy to tell you. She and Dylan came with me this morning when I went to apologize to Jeffery and set the record straight.”

  “Wait!” he said, narrowing his eyes at me. “You went to talk to Mr. Plank this morning as well?”

  “Weren’t you listening? He’s the person we originally went to see. I thought I should apologize to him after learning what Kennedy had done. I even offered to have her reverse some of the damage by hosting a podcast for him at my bakeshop. All we asked in return was information on Mia’s friends, thinking one of them might have had a motive to want her dead. That’s when Jeffery told me—rather smugly, if you can believe it—that he and Mia had always been a thing and that they had both used me for my money and connections. Our engagement was a sham. And I almost married him.” Hard as I might have tried, I couldn’t keep the anger from seeping into my voice. My hands, I noticed, were also trembling.

  Tuck, with eyes the color of the lake under a cloudless sky, stared at me across his mug of steaming coffee. “Dear God, is that true?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. That’s what I was trying to tell you before you got distracted by my cookies.” He didn’t bother to deny it, so I pressed on. “Had I known this little fact one day earlier, I certainly would have had motive for murder. But Mia Long wouldn’t have been my target.”

  He flashed a cautioning look. “You really shouldn’t say things like that.”

  “Oh, I’m only joking.” I waved an angry hand. “But my point is, I didn’t poison anyone. I can also state with certainty that the crime scene unit didn’t find any cyanide in my bakeshop. I don’t have any. But I’ll bet you a dozen cookies that Jeffery does. You, or your scary sergeant, need to talk to him again. He nearly married me for my money. He might have used cyanide on me too—to bump me off after the wedding. But he didn’t get the chance, because I caught him cheating, got really drunk, and bought a lighthouse in Michigan—in that order.”

  “Jesus,” he uttered and paused for a cautious sip. “I can’t imagine any man cheating on you.”

  From any other man’s lips, I would have thought it mindless flattery, but not from him. He was adorably sincere as he looked up from his mug. He’s not so young, I reasoned, looking into his guileless blue eyes. I mean, history was full of women far older than thirty-five falling for men far younger than twenty-eight . . . right? Would it be so bad, I mused, dating a younger man? As I stared at him, my mind had crafted a fantasy of him running shirtless on the beach in the magical hour before sunset. I’d never seen him shirtless, but I imagined that under his trim-fitting uniform he had a six-pack. Tuck the shirtless runner was getting closer, smiling that glorious smile. I was about to smile back when my fantasy came to a crashing halt.

  “But what motive does he have to want Mia dead?” Tuck, thankfully unaware of my inappropriate thoughts, pushed on with the demands of his profession. “You just said that they’ve been an item for years.”

  “Yes.”

  “Jeffery’s engagement to you was a sham?”

  “Yes.”

  “But not his relationship with the deceased?”

  “No. But they were having problems.”

  “The sarge is convinced he genuinely cared for her. She interviewed him at the hospital.”

  “True, he might have cared for her. But I think she was driving him crazy.”

  He set down his mug. “You’re just speculating. You have no proof of it.”

  “I have proof that she was crazy. Ask anyone who was in here when she stormed my counter and began stealing donuts off people’s plates and throwing them on the floor. That’s the definition of crazy, if you ask me. You could talk to Abby Long again, but I doubt she’d be objective.”

  Tuck nodded. “I’ll consider it. But I also have some news for you. It’s still confidential, but I thought I should tell you. The contents of the victim’s stomach have been examined. You’ll be happy to know that, according to Doc Riggles, the medical examiner, your donuts were void of any trace of cyanide.”

  “Of course they were. Why on earth would I add cyanide to the mix?”

  “Not so fast,” he cautioned. “The cyanide wasn’t delivered through a donut. It was in the coffee, a latte to be more exact. A person who ingests cyanide gives off a distinct almond odor on the breath. It’s one of the telltale signs of cyanide poisoning. When I was helping perform CPR on Ms. Long, I smelled it. However, having never worked on anyone who’s been poisoned before, I mistook the smell for almond flavoring that might have been used in her latte.”

  “We don’t use almond flavoring,” I told him. “We’re not that advanced yet.”

  Tuck nodded in acknowledgment. “Anyhow, Mia ingested twice the lethal amount of cyanide through the little she drank. That’s how the killer did it. And from what you, as well as others, have told me, Jeffery Plank wasn’t anywhere near Mia when she collapsed. In fact, he wasn’t near her the entire time she was in your bakeshop.”

  “That’s true,” I begrudgingly admitted, remembering how Jeffery had stood aside while Mia had stormed my counter. He was also nowhere near her when she collapsed on the lawn. “What if he slipped the poison in a cup of coffee he’d given her earlier? Maybe that’s why he was standing off to the side? I thought he was just embarrassed by her behavior, but maybe he was waiting for the cyanide to take effect.”

  Tuck, having taken another sip of his own coffee, set down the mug. “Under normal circumstances, I’d say that’s plausible. However, cyanide’s highly lethal. The amount found in her stomach killed her nearly instantly. Therefore, given what we know of his behavior and his distance from the victim, he couldn’t have been our killer. Which brings me to the problem at hand. Who made Mia’s coffee yesterday morning?”

  The name, like a warning bell, kept appearing through the fog in my brain, and yet I strived to bury it deeper. There was only one person making coffee that day. I finally closed my eyes and uttered a painful, “Rory Campbell. But listen to me,” I continued. “He wasn’t supposed to be working yesterday morning. He’s not even an employee. He did it as a favor to me. The young man I hired for the position broke his arm the day before. Rory jumped in at the last moment. What possible reason would he have to poison a perfect stranger?”

  “That’s the question. I tried to do a little background check on him this morning, but much of his personal information is classified. Did you know he’s retired Special Ops? The guy served as a Navy SEAL and retired with the rank of captain. A man with that kind of training is capable of anything. How well do you know him, Lindsey?”

  For once I found his probing blue eyes anything but adorable. “Umm, not very well. We’re neighbors.”

  “He did you a favor in a pinch,” Tuck reminded me. “You must know him pretty well to get him to stand behind an espresso machine all morning and make coffee on your bakery’s opening day?”

  “We’ve gone out to dinner,” I begrudgingly admitted.

  “Are you dating?” For some reason it sounded a little accusatory.

  I stared back at him. “Well, no. I mean, I don’t know. I don’t think so. Truthfully, I know very little about him or his motives.”

  “And that’s the problem. Nobody knows much about him or his motives.” Tuck stood and picked up his cap. “I have a call in to one of his superior officers. Until I can confirm that he’s not the killer, I’m going to insist, Lindsey, that you keep out of this investigation. I’m also going to suggest that you keep your distance from Rory Campbell.”

  CHAPTER 26

  “This is where you want to eat?” Kennedy eyed the paneled room, f
rowning at the taxidermied wall art. “When you said you wanted to go out for dinner, I was thinking Traverse City chic and not some backwoods lovechild of a nineteen-fifties diner and Cabela’s.”

  “It’s called the Moose,” I said, pulling her to the hostess station. “It’s Rory’s favorite restaurant.”

  Staring at the cold glass eyes of what was once undoubtedly a regal buck, Kennedy nodded. “Now, that I believe.”

  After a quick word with the hostess, we were seated in Karen’s section, the frazzled waitress who seemed to know more about Rory Campbell than I did. After all, he’d been eating at the Moose long before I moved in.

  Once seated at the faux-wood Formica–topped table, Kennedy leaned in. “So, let me get this straight. You think your current heartthrob purposely poisoned your cheating ex’s lover having never met her? That’s a stretch, even for him.”

  I leaned in as well and matched her near-whisper. “The cyanide was found in the coffee. He was making the coffee.”

  “I get all that, but doesn’t a murderer usually have a motive?”

  “Usually,” I agreed, and rested my elbows on the table. “But Rory has a military background. He’s a trained killer. We know he likes to hunt, but what if he . . . you know, has a taste for killing other things as well?”

  “Like obnoxious donut-stealing divas?” Without much thought, Kennedy nodded. “I get it. She was obnoxious. She was destroying your opening day. Who didn’t want to strangle her?”

  “He was very calm about it all,” I added, trying to recall the chaos of yesterday morning. “We were slammed. He had a lot of orders shouted at him—”

  “Which I’m sure he was used to, being in the military.” She rolled her eyes. “I doubt that set him over the edge.”