Fudging the Books

by Daryl Wood Gerber

  Aunt Vera said, “Don’t go yet. Let me do a reading for you.”

  My father wagged a finger. “Don’t stall her, Vera. Go, Jenna. No time to waste.”

  Wow. Wow. Wow. Did my father just jump to my defense?

  “I saw that young Lake woman packing a car,” my father continued. Wanda Foodie’s house wasn’t far from my father’s. “Go!”

  I paused. “Why are you two together?”

  “We went to breakfast,” my father said. “We’re starting a new tradition. Once a week, every Thursday.”

  Something quivered at the pit of my stomach. My father was a person of habit, but my aunt was not. For her to set a regular date with my father made me leery. Was she sick? Was Dad? Were they trying to make the most of their last days together?

  Gack, Jenna, stop it. Don’t overreact.

  “Is everything okay?” I said.

  My father grinned. “Yep.”

  “Your health is good?”

  “Yep.”

  I looked to my aunt. “Yours, too?”

  “Yep,” she said as briskly as my father.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” they said and exchanged a look.

  “Uh-oh. Is this weekly powwow intended to discuss me?”

  “Darling,” Aunt Vera said. “That sounds entirely paranoid.”

  “Though astute,” my father said.

  “Swell.” I didn’t have time to ask why they were chatting about me. They were family; they would discuss my fate forever.

  Eager to divert the conversation from me, and feeling somewhat puckish, I said to my aunt, “By the way, that darling, delectable Detective Appleby wants to have a chat with you.”

  She gawped. “When did you see him?”

  “At Sweet Sensations, after it was trashed.”

  “Trashed?” my father said. “How could you not tell us that the moment we walked in?”

  “Later!” I ran after Bailey while yelling over my shoulder, “By the way, the deputy’s mother reads tarot, too! It’s fate.”

  “Jenna, wait!” my aunt yelled to no avail.

  I stopped Bailey before she could hightail it out of the parking lot in her Toyota RAV4. “I’m going with you.”

  “Get in.”

  She didn’t give me time to put on my seat belt before roaring forward.

  We arrived at Wanda Foodie’s in less than eight minutes. Ingrid Lake was, indeed, piling her things into a yellow taxi. She gave a pillow a shove, tossed in a dark blue overnighter, and headed back up the path without closing the door to the car.

  Bailey and I parked in a hurry and snaked up the winding brick path. The front door hung open. We walked inside and found Ingrid returning to the foyer with a wheeled suitcase. She shrieked and braced a hand on the antique console abutting the wall. The ceramic vase of silk flowers teetered.

  Ingrid steadied the vase then shimmied to her full height and dusted off her pencil skirt. “You startled me.” Her lips moved; her teeth didn’t. She balled her hands into fists.

  Bailey took a step toward her, looking feistier than all get-out.

  Ingrid crowded back against the console. “What’s your problem?”

  “Where are you going?” Bailey asked.

  “Why do you care?”

  “Ingrid, dear, who’s here?” Wanda Foodie appeared in the hall from the direction of the kitchen. She was carrying a china cup set on a saucer. The liquid in the cup was steaming. As before at The Cookbook Nook, she seemed fragile. Her face looked puffy from crying. “Oh, Jenna and Bailey, it’s you. Come in. Sit down.” She gestured languidly toward the living room. “Did you come by to send Ingrid off? Would you care for some coffee or tea?”

  I shook my head and remained in the foyer. “We’re not staying, but thank you. We came to speak with Ingrid.”

  “What about?”

  “Her alibi for the night Alison was killed doesn’t hold up.”

  “Oh my.” Wanda teetered. Her eyes grew moist.

  I hated to bring up her daughter’s murder again, but until the case was solved, she would have to find the courage to face facts.

  “Let me explain.” Bailey reiterated Old Jake’s account as if she had been the one to hear it directly. “Care to revise, Miss Lake?” Her tone was just shy of take-no-prisoners.

  “I told you”—Ingrid scowled at Bailey and then me—“I was with Wanda. Watching television and then—”

  “Were you?” Wanda squinted, as if trying to remember.

  “You fell asleep.”

  Wanda yawned and covered her mouth with the back of her fingertips. “Yes, I probably did. What did we watch?”

  “CSI.”

  “My favorite.”

  “I know,” Ingrid said. “You chose it. I prefer food shows.”

  Wanda yawned again. Neil’s claim about his mother’s health zipped through my mind and summoned a previous thought about how similar Wanda and Alison were. I said, “Wanda—”

  “Yes, dear?”

  “Did Alison have narcolepsy, too?”

  “What do you mean, too?” Bailey cried.

  I recapped Neil’s account. Was it possible that Alison hadn’t defended herself from an attack because she had fallen asleep at the computer keyboard? If so, anyone—not just Ingrid or Coco—could have sneaked up on her.

  “Is the ailment hereditary?” I asked.

  Wanda hesitated. “Yes.”

  “Does Neil have a form of it? He zones out, though he won’t admit it.”

  Wanda frowned. “I don’t believe so. He’s simply overworked. It’s my fault.”

  Ingrid set a hand on Wanda’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

  “What a crock,” Bailey sniped. “You knew. You counted on her falling asleep so she would be your alibi.”

  “I did not know,” Ingrid protested.

  “You had to.” Bailey spoke like Ingrid did, through tight teeth. “Alison was conscientious. She would have warned you to be on alert in case her mother needed help.”

  “Alison didn’t. I swear.”

  Bailey shot a finger at Ingrid. “Your eyelids are fluttering. You’re lying. If Alison didn’t tell you, Neil did.”

  “Neil never tells me anything.” Ingrid spit out the words with such venom that I wondered again whether there had been a relationship between them. Had they dated and broken up? Was that why Neil was so adamant that Ingrid not be able to buy the company?

  Bailey pressed on. “When you went to Coco’s house that night, you counted on Alison being dead to the world.”

  I winced at her choice of words.

  “I did no such thing,” Ingrid shouted. “I came home and then I went to Vines, and . . .” Ingrid swung her gaze between Bailey and me. “I wasn’t lying when I said I drove around, but—”

  “You lied about running Jake off the road.” I jutted a finger.

  Ingrid threw up her hands. “I needed something concrete. Who would believe me otherwise?”

  “You’re right about that!” Bailey snapped. “Especially now that you’ve put in a bid for Foodie Publishing.”

  “How do you know about that?”

  “You want to buy the company?” Wanda blurted.

  Ingrid looked ruefully at the woman who had put her up for a week. “No, Wanda . . . Mrs. Foodie. I mean, yes, I want to, but Neil won’t let me.” She glowered at Bailey and me. “Do you honestly believe I would kill Alison so I could make a run at the company? Get real.”

  “You didn’t know Neil would stalemate you,” I said.

  Ingrid smirked. “That’s true. I have to admit I was surprised he had a say in it. I thought Alison would have cut him out of any portion of her estate. She hated him.” Ingrid glanced at Wanda, who looked as if Ingrid had mortally wounded her. “It’s true. He hated her, too. He said—” She cut herself off.

  “What did he say?” I asked. “Are you and he involved?”

  “Involved? Ha!” Ingrid sniggered. “Neil and I
went out one time to a comedy club because a friend of mine was the main attraction. Neil got snockered.”

  “He doesn’t drink,” Wanda said.

  “Sure he does. He’s rather sloppy. He starts running off at the mouth. Let’s just say he was not complimentary about Alison.”

  Wanda’s hand shook. The cup and saucer rattled. She reached out with her other hand as if groping for something to steady herself.

  I guided her to a ladder-back chair on the far side of the console and said, “Sit.” I took the cup and saucer from her and set it on the console. “Do you want some water?”

  Wanda shook her head. “Go on, Ingrid, tell us everything.”

  “There’s nothing more to tell.” Ingrid shrugged. “Neil and Alison were not allies. Leave it at that. It doesn’t matter now. Neil gets the business. He’ll run it into the ground.”

  I said, “Neil claims you would do the same.”

  “I wouldn’t. I have a head for business, and a passion for what I do.”

  “And a bent for being persnickety when it comes to editing,” Bailey sassed.

  “It’s not a crime to seek perfection.” Ingrid ran her fingers along the lapel of her suit jacket. “If that’s all, I’m leaving.”

  “I’m calling the police,” Bailey said.

  “Go ahead. You have no proof that I killed Alison, which I didn’t.”

  “Don’t move.”

  Ingrid cocked her head. “Are you planning to cuff me?”

  “I would if I could.”

  Bailey would, too. I’d never seen her this aggressive. Without taking her eyes off Ingrid, she pulled out her cell phone and stabbed in 911.

  I eyed Ingrid’s suitcase. “Where were you planning to run to?”

  “I wasn’t running.” Her chest heaved with the exertion. “I was heading back to the city. I have to downsize. Without a job—”

  “Did Neil fire you?”

  Wanda said, “He wouldn’t dare,” and reached for Ingrid’s hand.

  Ingrid didn’t budge. “It’s all right, Wanda. This will be my fresh start.”

  Not if she was in jail, I thought.

  A deputy arrived in minutes. Bailey, brimming with steam, filled him in. Ingrid, still professing her innocence, went willingly to the precinct.

  Chapter 25

  WHEN BAILEY AND I returned to The Cookbook Nook, I could barely contain her. Ordering her to sit down fell on deaf ears. Pacing alongside her exhausted me. My father, the voice of reason, was no longer at the shop, but my aunt, who waited out Bailey’s ranting, finally corralled her.

  I spied Rhett entering the Nook Café. Alone. Knowing Bailey was in good hands, I hurried through the breezeway and caught up with him at the hostess’s stand. I tapped his elbow. He pivoted and a smile spread across his face. He pecked me on the cheek, letting his lips linger a tad longer than appropriate. I loved it. A warm shiver of deliciousness ran through me.

  “Got time for a bite?” Rhett said.

  “I can’t. Too much to do, but I was hoping you might join me this afternoon at Sweet Sensations.”

  “What’s going on there?”

  “Coco’s having a big bash. I want to show my support, seeing as this week has been horrific for her.” I told him about last night’s break-in. He was sympathetic. “Free candy,” I added.

  “I’m in. I love her truffles.”

  I rubbed his arm and hurried back to the shop, ready to fine-tune the Valentine displays.

  With Aunt Vera’s help, we moved the boxes holding the Pirate Week window display items to the stockroom. Tigger traipsed behind me, trying to play with the heels of my flip-flops. I had to be careful not to stomp on him.

  “Psst, move, Tig-Tig.”

  He romped ahead and leaped over my foot, dragging his tail across my toes.

  “Stop,” I warned him. “That’s tickle torture!”

  Aunt Vera, arms now free, scooped him up and nuzzled under his chin. “Bailey told me all about your encounter with Ingrid Lake.”

  “She’s a piece of work.” I looked for a place to set the box that held the toy ship and sighed at the lack of level space. We were accumulating a lot of decorations in addition to a ton of books. Pretty soon, we would have to consider renting a storage space. For the time being, I balanced the box on top of a teetering mass of books, out of harm’s way, and started collecting Valentine-appropriate items.

  “Do you believe Ingrid?” Aunt Vera asked.

  “She’s told so many lies, I don’t know what to believe.” I scooped up the cupids that Bailey had attached to yarn, and then I fetched a couple of copies of Deadly Valentine, the sixth in the Death on Demand mystery series by Carolyn Hart. Her latest books were easier to obtain, but how could I have resisted the title during the season of love, right? I added children’s books to my pile, including the darling Happy Valentine’s Day, Mouse, a simplistic board book geared toward babies and not toddlers. Moms would go gaga for that one.

  Aunt Vera said, “It made me nervous when you ran off to interrogate Ingrid, Jenna. It made your father anxious, too.”

  “But he’s the one who told me to go.”

  “Only because he knows he can’t control you.”

  “It’s about time he learned that.” I grinned. “Don’t worry, Aunt Vera. I won’t do anything rash. Bailey and I were together, and we did inform the police.”

  Aunt Vera muttered what sounded like a harmony blessing.

  “Yoo-hoo!” Katie poked her head into the stockroom. “Come out here and see what I’ve created.”

  Aunt Vera set Tigger on the floor and patted his rump. He scampered into the main shop. We followed.

  Katie flaunted a tray filled with chocolate cookies. “Fresh from the oven. They’re Coco’s Chocolate Cookies. The recipe is right out of her first cookbook. Are you picking up the aroma of nutmeg?” She flapped a hand over the plate to help the scent waft toward me.

  The whiff caught me up short and made me zip back to the night Alison died. She had baked cookies flavored with nutmeg. Why did she feel the need to cook after the lavish meal we’d eaten at the book club event? Was she actually hungry? And why did she have so many of Coco’s older recipes open on her computer? Ingrid was adamant that Alison hadn’t been reviewing her work. Had Alison been looking for the perfect recipe to satisfy a craving?

  I nabbed a cookie and bit into it. “Hmm.”

  “Taste the coffee?” Katie asked. “That’s the secret ingredient.”

  Another memory came to me in a flash. When Bailey and I visited Coco at Sweet Sensations on Sunday, Coco went searching for one of her grandmother’s recipes and couldn’t find it. She thought she might have taken it home. Had someone stolen it? Why?

  “They contain triple the chocolate,” Katie went on. “A half teaspoon of nutmeg per batch and a tablespoon of brewed coffee.” She pivoted and moved into the breezeway to set up a platter of treats for our customers.

  I took a second bite of my cookie and returned to my thoughts about Alison. Had she been flipping between recipes on the computer? The topmost was titled Chocolate Bombs, from Coco’s cookbook Chocolate To Die For. The one beneath was Mother’s Chocolate Bombs. Why the altered title? Did it have a different ingredient? While Coco was having her tryst with Simon, was Alison fiddling with Coco’s recipes, tweaking one or two and retitling them so she could include them in Coco’s next manuscript—was that what publishers called a cookbook? Alison had messed with Dash’s photographs; would she have done the same to her authors’ work?

  A dastardly scenario shot through my mind. What if Coco returned home from her date and caught Alison in the act of rewriting? I flashed on the spat Alison and Coco had enacted at the book club event. Coco railed at Alison for making cuts to her material. Was there some truth in the skit they had created?

  No, I could not—would not—believe Coco was guilty. She was a good person, a friend. And she had clearly spent that night with Simon.

  I thought again about the recipes on
the computer. Why were there so many layered on top of one another? Coco claimed they were recipes from previous cookbooks. If I returned to her house, maybe I could peer at the computer, and the notion that was niggling at me would come to light.

  Quickly, I dialed Coco’s cell phone number, but she didn’t answer. My call rolled into voice mail. Why wasn’t she answering? Perhaps she was too busy preparing for her big bash. I left a message asking her to return the call, and then remembered she never locked the doors to her house.

  Bailey sidled up to me and whispered, “You look transfixed. What’s going on in that brain of yours?”

  “Why, nothing.”

  Bailey sniggered and said, in a Southern accent, “Why, darlin’, I do declare you sound like you were born and bred in the Deep South. Why, nothing, indeed! Should I get you a fan to flutter? You’re perspiring.”

  “I am not.”

  “Are, too. Talk to me.”

  “I was just wondering . . .” I replayed my theory.

  “Are you saying that Alison changed perfectly good recipes just because she had the power to?”

  “No. Maybe. I’m not sure. If I could take a peek at the computer . . .” I flailed a hand.

  Bailey clapped me on the shoulder. “Let’s go. I’m sure your aunt can handle sales on her own for a short bit.”

  Aunt Vera, who was sorting cash from the register, wasn’t pleased with our plan, especially after our most recent discussion. This time, she refused to let me leave without doing a one-card tarot reading. She didn’t have my father to dissuade her.

  Complying with her wishes, I sat at the vintage kitchen table, pushed aside the jigsaw puzzle, and drew a single card—the Sun card, which I knew was not just a good card, but a great card. It is associated with attained knowledge. The image on the card is of a child holding a red flag, while riding upon a white horse. Overhead, a big yellow sun with a human-type face looks down upon the child, which symbolizes accomplishment. I couldn’t have been happier with the draw.

  Aunt Vera’s forehead pinched with frustration. She knew she couldn’t detain me now. She rose from her chair and rubbed her amulet with passion. “Be safe.”

  • • •

  AS EXPECTED, COCO’S front door was unlocked. Amazingly, she had learned nothing about safety following Alison’s murder.