Fudging the Books

by Daryl Wood Gerber

  Seeing Jake made me think of Ingrid Lake and her alibi. I knew I’d forgotten to tell Cinnamon something at karaoke night. Would she care? She hadn’t seemed particularly interested in Ingrid as a suspect, probably because, directly after I related Ingrid’s account about Dash and the clash with Alison over photos, I mentioned Dash’s alibi, and Cinnamon took off after him.

  Dad beckoned me over.

  I glanced toward The Cookbook Nook. Bailey could handle Coco on her own, couldn’t she? Bailey loved playing therapist to girlfriends. She said it was like being a fan of soap operas; after watching the train wrecks, Bailey always felt happier with her own life choices.

  My father pulled out a chair so I could join Jake and him.

  I waved him off. “Can’t stay.” I kissed him on the cheek. Bubbling beverages sat in front of both of them. Jake had set one of each item from the breadbasket on a side plate. “Hi, Jake. How are you?”

  “Great. Couldn’t be better. You’re looking mighty pretty today, Jenna.” He said that to everyone. I knew for a fact I looked frazzled. I never left the café kitchen without feeling like I had spent time in a sauna.

  I tucked a loose hair behind my ear. “Thanks.”

  “I hope you have wonderful things planned for yourself.” Jake offered that greeting to everyone, too.

  “I do. Sir, could I speak to you about something, possibly confidential?”

  “Shoot.” Jake took a sip of his drink.

  I could feel my father’s gaze on me; I ignored it. “A lady in town might owe you an apology.”

  Jake chortled. “There might be a few ladies to whom I owe an apology.”

  “She said she nearly ran a guy on a tractor off the road the night Alison Foodie was killed, around midnight. I can’t think of anyone else who drives a tractor that late”—I winked—“can you?”

  “Balderdash!” Jake didn’t raise his voice. He naturally said things like balderdash and poppycock. No one was quite sure where Jake came from. He had drifted into town; he never spoke about his past. His wife, the love of his life, had taken the personal secrets she had known about him to her grave. “The woman’s lying,” Jake said. “No one ran me off the road.”

  “Nearly off the road,” my father inserted.

  “Last Thursday night,” I added.

  Jake set down his glass. “Now look here. I realize I’ve been known to take a ten-second snooze every once in a while on the old girl.” Old girl was what he called his tractor. He missed his wife something fierce. I think driving his tractor at night gave him the opportunity to talk to his wife beneath the stars. “The eyes get tired. I just need to rest ’em. I always put the tractor in park. I don’t drive when I’m nodding off. And, by the way, young lady, I’m not the only one who snoozes. Why, I’ve seen your father taking a quick nap at that hardware store of his.”

  My father bit back a laugh.

  Jake went on. “But I have a clear recollection of last Thursday, and I didn’t sleep a wink. Not one wink. That’s when the schooner came to harbor.”

  “The Victory?” I asked.

  “Indeed.” Jake tapped the table with his index finger. “I know I was wide awake and bushy tailed because I downed three cups of coffee so I could stay awake long enough to see the ship arrive. My, what a beauty she is.”

  “Yar,” I said.

  “Yar, indeed.”

  The schooner was scheduled to leave harbor this afternoon.

  “After I took a gander at the boat,” Jake went on, “I went about my nightly chores.” He offered his sand-sweeping services for free. It was his way to give back to the community. He wanted a clean beach like the rest of us. “So you see, I’d have known in an instant if someone made me swerve. Whoever made this claim is a bald-faced liar.”

  “Who told you this, Jenna?” my father asked.

  “A woman with motive to kill Alison Foodie. Jake is her alibi.”

  “I repeat, she’s a liar.” Jake stabbed the table again. “A conniver. A fraud. Who does she think she is, trying to wrangle me into corroborating her whereabouts? Did she think I was so old I wouldn’t remember? Why I ought to—” He pushed back his chair and stood.

  My father said, “Sit down, Jake. Don’t get your nose out of whack. Jenna will take care of this.”

  Dad gave me a supportive look . . . or what I interpreted to be a supportive look and not a chastising one. A girl has to pick her battles.

  Chapter 21

  WHEN I RETURNED to The Cookbook Nook, I found Bailey sitting with Coco at the vintage kitchen table. Coco’s eyes were puffy and her face tearstained. My aunt lingered behind the sales counter, rubbing her phoenix amulet while looking on. The children’s corner was still chaos, with Pirate Week stuff scattered everywhere. The display window was the same, unpacked. Luckily, no customers roamed the shop, and even if there had been a few, most would have understood a changeover day.

  “Over, finished, done.” Coco shook her head. “Before it even began. Ooh.” She gripped her abdomen. “I feel like I could die. Just die.”

  A breeze gushed through the open door and chilled me to the bone. I closed the door and hurried back to the vintage table. “What’s over, Coco?” So much for me having a moment to contact the police about Ingrid.

  “Simon and me.” Coco hiccupped and covered her mouth. “I apologize. My insides . . .”

  I knew what nerves could do. For months after my husband’s death, my stomach was in knots.

  Bailey threw me a concerned look. Do something, she mouthed.

  “His wife . . .” Coco leaned forward on the table, arms crossed. “He told her about us. She threatened to leave him, and then she ran off crying. He . . . he said seeing her like that—so vulnerable—he realized he still loves her. He can’t let her go. He said he’s sorry, as if that’s enough. Sorry!”

  Bailey said, “What did you expect?”

  “You already said that,” Coco sniped. “Five minutes ago!”

  “I thought maybe you hadn’t heard me.”

  Coco sniffed. “Of course I heard you. I’m not deaf.”

  “Honestly, believing that Simon will love you forever if he leaves Gloria is sort of naïve, too. There’s no guarantee he’ll stick around.”

  “Okay, I get it, Bailey Bird. Stop talking!”

  “Ladies,” I said. They shot me scathing looks. I threw up my hands. “Do either of you want tea?”

  “No!” Both of them. In chorus. Like harpies.

  “Ooh,” Coco moaned. “I’m going to be sick.”

  “Do you want something fizzy to drink?” I asked.

  “No!”

  I settled into a chair and gazed at Coco. “What did he say?”

  Bailey rolled her eyes like she didn’t want to hear the story again. I ignored her. She was the one who had dragged me into this little tête-à-tête by texting me to hurry back to the shop. What did she want me to do, usher Coco out by the elbow and throw her to the curb? Puh-lease!

  “Coco, talk to me,” I said.

  “He cried. He said it was wrong of him to ever involve me in . . . in . . .” Coco held her quivering lip in check with her teeth. “He said he was a cad and selfish. I agreed, of course. He’s all of those things and more! He swore that our night together meant something special to him, and he wouldn’t trade that for anything, but he had to preserve his marriage.” She hissed through tight teeth. “Preserve. Does that mean he loves her? No, it does not. He’s staying with her because he has to. He doesn’t love her.”

  “He took a vow,” I offered. “Some men are faithful that way.”

  “She doesn’t like wine,” Coco said. “I do. She doesn’t go bird-watching with him. I would.”

  Actually, Gloria had gone with Simon, if those binoculars around her neck were any indication, but I wouldn’t throw fuel on the fire.

  “Simon told me Gloria didn’t understand him. Why does he want to be faithful to a woman who doesn’t get him? I—”

  Bailey cut in. “They all
say that.”

  Coco held up a hand to quiet her. “You don’t have to preach. I’ve seen the movies. I’ve read the books. Heck, I’ve sucked up all the advice columns, too. I thought he was different. I thought I was special enough that Simon would—”

  “You are.”

  “Then why did Simon do an about-face?” Coco snapped her fingers. “Like that! Why?”

  Bailey kicked me under the table and eyeballed me. Chime in anytime.

  What could I say? I had never dated a married man. I had never even dated a guy who was in a relationship with someone else. I had a boyfriend in college; we broke up; and then I met David. I fell head over heels in a matter of seconds. He had felt the same. We never considered looking at, let alone dating, anyone else.

  Bailey booted me again.

  “I don’t know,” I said feebly.

  Bailey rasped, “You’ll find someone special, Coco. You will.”

  “When? My fiancé left me for a stick. The boyfriend before that dumped me for an eco-nut.”

  “Soon,” Bailey promised.

  “Here? In Crystal Cove? Ha!” Coco’s sharp laugh could have cut diamonds. “I should pack up and leave. Move to a big city where—”

  “No!” Bailey and I cried in unison.

  Tigger raced over to see what was the matter. Hershey sat up in the chair he had chosen as his throne.

  “Why not?” Coco asked.

  Bailey and I flushed pink, embarrassed by our simultaneous outbursts, but I could see in my friend’s gaze that neither of us wanted Coco to take away our favorite sweet shop. We wanted Coco to stay, too, of course.

  “You’re hurting; you’ll heal,” I said lamely, as if those words were comforting. They hadn’t helped me when I learned David disappeared in the ocean. They definitely hadn’t helped when I found his suicide note. I wove my hands together and studied my thumbnails.

  “Jenna’s right,” Bailey said. “I found someone here. You will, too.”

  “Tito?” Coco coughed.

  Bailey bridled. “What’s wrong with Tito?”

  “Nothing. He’s darling. He adores you. It’s just—” Coco opened her pink Prada tote bag and suddenly burst into heaving, sloppy tears. “Oh my. Oh, Alison.”

  “Alison?” Bailey bolted from her chair, grabbed a box of tissues from the sales counter, and raced back. She thrust the box at Coco, who drew two and mopped her face. “What about Alison?”

  “This.” Coco wadded up the tissues and extended her Prada purse. “Alison . . . gave this to me. She said . . . it was the first of many. She said”—Coco hiccupped—“that we would make so much money together, we would each need an extra closet to store all the beautiful things we could buy with our loot.” Coco giggled in a hysterical way. “I miss her so much!”

  And then she vomited into her purse.

  • • •

  COCO OPTED OUT of coming to the cookbook club meeting. She needed to distribute her invitations, then go home and figure out her future . . . and recuperate. She hoped her sour stomach was simply due to nerves. She couldn’t afford to have the flu. She had to fix up her shop tonight for tomorrow’s Valentine’s Day Lollapalooza. Bailey and I offered to hand out the rest of her invites, but Coco wouldn’t hear of it. She shuffled out of the shop, the weight of the world on her shoulders.

  For the remainder of the afternoon, Bailey and I decided to ditch revamping the store and chose, instead, to compile a batch of chocolate-themed cookbooks to share with the book club. I selected some reasonably priced books so that the cost wouldn’t break the bank for our book club members. Crazy for Chocolate was a good primer that beginning cooks could use to understand everything about chocolate. Hershey 4 Cookbooks in 1: Bars, Brownies & Treats; Cookies, Candies & Snacks; Cakes & Cheesecakes; Pies & Desserts, a horribly lengthy title, was a spiral-bound cookbook, recommended highly by all its readers for the abundance of great recipes. I must have sold a dozen of those in the last week alone. In addition, I included Adventures with Chocolate: 80 Sensational Recipes by the British chocolatier Paul A. Young, famous for his unique ideas. Who could pass up an exotic recipe like Aztec Hot Chocolate or Caramelized Red Onion and Rosemary Truffle? Sure, the author pushed the envelope when it came to quirky, but according to him, cooking with and eating chocolate was meant to be fun, delicious, and daring. To the growing stack I also added a few of the cookbooks I had seen in the café’s kitchen earlier when I’d helped Katie compile a menu.

  Close of business rolled around in record time. Bailey and I checked on Katie, who was happily in her element, whistling as she whipped, baked, and taste-tested. She promised the braised pork with chocolate was going to be a hit. I had no doubt.

  We didn’t close the restaurant for the book club event because we hadn’t scheduled an author to give a chat. Instead, we set an extra-long rectangular table where the club could gather.

  Lola arrived first. She had left The Pelican Brief Diner in the good hands of her chef and was flush with excitement for a dinner with her daughter and friends. Her face dropped, however, when Bailey quietly told her about Coco’s heartbreak. “Poor thing,” Lola said, “but we all know what happens when you get involved with a married man.”

  Bailey put up a hand. “Yes, Mom, we know.”

  Lola sighed. “I’m sorry, love. I didn’t mean to open an old wound. Will Coco be all right? Should we check on her?”

  “She’s fine, Mom. She’s a big girl.” Bailey pinched her lips together. I could tell she was doing her best not to add that she, too, was a big girl, and her mother should mind her own beeswax—Bailey’s snappy comeback since the time we were six years old.

  Next, Cinnamon and her mother strolled into the café. I was glad to see they had made up. Pepper couldn’t stay ticked off at her daughter for long, no matter how meddlesome Cinnamon was. Pepper was wearing a sweater beaded with a pair of frogs—she loved the little green creatures. Cinnamon had changed out of her police uniform and looked refreshed, casual, and approachable in jeans and a formfitting T-shirt.

  I hurried to them and welcomed them to the club. I asked Pepper how she was feeling. She told me in her typically crisp fashion that she was fully recovered from her illness and to stop prying.

  Cinnamon surprised me by thanking me for alerting the police to Dash Hamada’s whereabouts today. “We searched for him last night, but he wasn’t at his friend’s home. Your heads-up was invaluable.”

  The book club soiree maxed out at sixteen; a number of members hadn’t been able to attend. Keeping out of the way of other diners, we hovered around the table without sitting. A waitress mingled among us, offering tiny wedges of a grilled panini sandwich made with dark chocolate and mozzarella. We each took one.

  “Do you still have Dash in custody?” I nibbled the panini appetizer. Divine. It tasted like a cheesecake sandwich.

  Cinnamon nodded. “He’s copped to being a voyeur. He won’t admit that he killed Alison.” She bit into her tiny sandwich and hummed her approval.

  “Can I give you another heads-up?” I asked.

  “Can I stop you?”

  I filled her in on Ingrid’s bogus alibi. “Also do you know that Neil Foodie lied about his whereabouts on the night of the murder?” I revealed my suspicion that Neil was the doubloons thief, and paused as an image niggled at the edges of my mind. Of Neil. At Vines.

  “I know that look.” Cinnamon mimicked my expression, wrinkling her nose and squinting her eyes. “What’s going on in that brain of yours?”

  “It’s probably nothing.”

  “I’ll make the determination of whether it’s nothing.”

  Was she once again trusting my instincts? Doubtful.

  Our waitress asked us to take our seats. I perched on the chair at the north end of the table; Bailey settled at the opposite end.

  Cinnamon chose the chair next to me. “Go on.”

  “At the book club event last Thursday, Alison was texting someone. She was frowning as she stabbed in the letters. Did you
check her text messages?”

  “We did. There was only one to her mother.”

  “All others were erased?”

  “What others?”

  I replayed the scene from that night. “What if the killer texted her? What if the killer planned to meet Alison?”

  The waitress returned with a bottle of pinot grigio. She apologized for interrupting and asked me if she could pour.

  I signaled her to go ahead and turned back to Cinnamon. “What if the killer erased that communication with Alison after stabbing her?”

  “Then we have nothing.”

  “Maybe you do. I saw Neil Foodie that night at Vines.”

  “You went to Vines? When?”

  “Right after you and the mayor left to track down the doubloons thief.”

  Cinnamon screwed up her mouth. “Didn’t you just tell me that Neil was the doubloons thief? How could he be running around town and working at Vines at the same time?”

  “He could have stolen the doubloons earlier, taken photographs, and then posted the photographs from work. But that doesn’t matter right now. I’m telling you, I saw him texting someone that night. He was being quite cagey about it.”

  Cinnamon shook her head. “How can you be sure he was texting and not e-mailing?”

  I couldn’t. Rats. “Have you checked his cell phone for text messages?”

  “We had no cause to.”

  Mayor Zeller sidled up to the table and plunked into the chair next to Cinnamon. “Sorry I’m late.”

  Cinnamon offered a formal nod. “You look exhausted, Z.Z.”

  “It’s been a trying week.” The mayor took a sip from her water glass and sighed. “Oh, that tastes good. I needed to wet my whistle. So, Jenna, did I overhear you talking about Neil Foodie?”

  “You did.” I explained my theory. He stole the pot of doubloons and concealed the pot under the stage at The Pier, then acted as if he’d discovered its whereabouts to reap the reward.