The room sizzled with energy. The stands buzzed with conversation as the crowds found seats, their footsteps drumming with a hollow sound on the aluminum treads of the risers.
Anna was chatting amiably with the woman to her right, appearing completely at ease. Neither one was actually at ease, Chase was sure. She looked for Grace Pilsen, but didn’t see her. Eight of the workstations were occupied. The two to Anna’s left were empty.
As the contestants got their things stashed, they then sat on the folding chairs provided. Chase knew they would sit there only until the starting buzzer, then would be standing and working for the rest of the time, maybe sitting while their concoctions baked, if they were caught up with all the other prep work.
A man with a handheld microphone introduced the five judges. One was a food columnist for the local paper, two were local restaurant owners. Chase and Julie quit listening and speculated on where Grace Pilsen could be and if she would show up. One of the places to Anna’s left was no doubt hers.
A red-faced woman rushed in, her arms full of grocery bags, the coattails of her open coat flying behind her, and quickly settled herself on Anna’s left. She peeled off her coat and plopped into the chair, breathing hard. But the station next to hers, the one on the end, remained empty. There were numbers on each station rather than names, but Chase was sure the empty place was Grace’s. Where was she? Chase glanced at the wire-caged clock. Five minutes remained before the contest was to start.
A horrid vision rose, unbeckoned, in Chase’s mind. She pictured Ron North lying in the parking lot outside at night. Then she pictured Grace in the same position. She had an urge to run outside to check it out, but couldn’t leave when the Batter Battle was starting up in—she threw another glance at the clock on the wall—two minutes.
THIRTY-EIGHT
When thirty seconds remained until starting time, with all nine bakers perched on the edges of their chairs, ready to spring up and swing into action, in rushed Grace Pilsen. The white streak in her coal black hair waved as she sprinted across the room and skidded to a stop at her station. She shoved her materials into the cupboard, shrugged off her coat onto the floor, and, as her bottom touched her seat, the buzzer sounded.
All the bakers leapt up and extracted their bags and bins, clattering the equipment, intense concentration on each face, hands flying to put their concoctions together as quickly and flawlessly as possible. Judges strolled up and down the row, taking notes on electronic pads, their faces giving away nothing.
All the bakers except Grace. She pushed herself up and proceeded slowly, her hands limp and her face haggard.
“So she came. Even though she’s obviously still sick,” Julie said.
“I think you’re right,” Chase said. “I’ve never seen her look that bad.”
“At least she’s not next to Anna,” Bill said. “But that poor woman beside her might catch whatever it is that she has.”
As he finished his sentence, Grace reached into her apron pocket and stuck a wrinkled tissue to her face, letting out a mighty sneeze.
That caught the attention of the judge nearest her, a woman in an old-fashioned pantsuit. Chase wondered if it was polyester. The woman turned and stalked to the end of the row.
“That’s Mrs. Prebbles, isn’t it?” Julie said.
Realization dawned and Chase nodded. Mrs. Prebbles had been their home economics teacher in junior high school.
“She might be wearing one of the same pantsuits she wore to our classes,” Julie whispered.
Chase tried not to giggle.
The other judges swiveled their heads toward Mrs. Prebbles and Grace Pilsen and watched.
Mrs. Prebbles reached Grace and began talking softly to her.
Grace shook her head and threw out her hand. Unfortunately, that was the hand that held her used tissue. The tissue flew to the floor at the feet of Mrs. Prebbles, who grimaced and stepped back.
A conference ensued, with all five judges and the announcer huddled a safe distance away from Grace. While they talked, Grace appeared to be stifling more sneezes, a forefinger placed delicately to her nostrils, and groping in her purse with the other hand for more tissues.
Meanwhile, Anna had gotten all her ingredients into her bowl and started the mixer. She scraped the sides of the bowl as it turned and took quick glances to her left.
The judges still huddled, some gesturing, others shaking their heads.
Grace fumbled with her bin of flour, trying to scoop some into her bowl but slopping a lot of it onto the floor. Even from where Chase sat, her trembling hands were obvious.
Chase looked down the line at the other contestants. Grace would be easy to beat today, even if she wasn’t disqualified when the judges came to their decision. But were any of the others a threat?
The woman who had come late, right before Grace, was rattled. Not as badly as Grace, but she had managed to drop two of the three lemons she was attempting to squeeze. Julie whispered to Chase that if something hit the floor, you weren’t allowed to use it. Anyway, Chase thought, that would be gross, even if it wasn’t a rule.
The others worked competently, concentrating on their own projects, some of them apparently unaware of the drama at the end of the row. The lone man, at the other end of the row, looked the most professional—after Anna.
“Who is that?” Chase asked Julie, nodding toward the male baker.
Julie shrugged.
“That’s Andy Pluck,” Bill said. “He has an all-night diner a block from my pet shop.”
“Are his baked things good?” Julie asked.
“I wouldn’t compare them to anything at Bar None. He does a lot of cookies and pies.”
“I’ve eaten there,” Jay said. “His cookies are good, all very sweet, but his pie crusts are kind of thick and hard. Good fillings, though.”
Chase surveyed the others. Maybe she was biased, but Anna was definitely the most professional. She got her dessert bars into the oven before anyone else. The contest was timed, so working quickly got them points for efficiency. Surely Anna had won that part.
The huddle finally broke up and the man who had held the microphone, now carrying a clipboard and pen, approached Grace.
Grace had managed to get flour, sugar, and eggs into her bowl and was starting to mix them together. The man motioned for her to stop. She looked up and frowned at him, the lines in her face making her seem even more haggard and much older than she was.
He was obviously asking her to leave. That must have been hard for him to do, since she had been such a big part of this event from its beginning. It was probably why the conference had taken so long. Some of them, if not all of them, must have been in favor of letting Grace compete.
When it came down to it, though, the judges would have to sample what each person made. Those who sampled Grace’s products would be exposing themselves to whatever bug she was carrying. For Chase, disqualifying her would have been an easy decision, but she hadn’t worked with Grace on the Minny Batter Battle like those people had.
Grace stood there stunned for a few moments, her eyes staring and her mouth hanging open. Then she furiously flung her things together. Her shoulders shook and Chase was sure she could see tears on Grace’s hard face. The woman held her head high and her shoulders back as she marched out. Chase felt so sorry for her, she almost forgot that this was Grace Pilsen, a woman she couldn’t stand.
At the end of the Batter Battle, when Anna was proclaimed the first-place winner, it was almost anticlimactic. The drama had been over when Grace left. Chase hoped that both Anna and Grace would compete next year to find out who was the true champion.
Anna felt the same way, she said, as they all walked together to the parking lot.
“I don’t feel like I really won when my main competition wasn’t there. I almost wish the whole thing would have been postponed for a week, unti
l Grace was better. That would have been a real battle.”
“You’re too good for your own good,” Bill said, squeezing her shoulders somehow, in spite of the fact that he was carrying three bags of her things.
Julie held the tray of the Blueberry Muffin Bars that the judges hadn’t eaten. They had big plans for those, back at the Bar None kitchen.
• • •
On Sunday, at about ten in the evening, Eddie called Chase. She debated answering it long enough that her phone quit ringing. When it immediately started again, she picked up and told Eddie, “Hi.”
“Hey, I got a great surprise for you. You gotta come by my store tomorrow morning.”
“Eddie, it’s my day off and I’m going to be terribly busy picking things up for the wedding.” She wished! The bridesmaid dresses still weren’t in.
“You won’t be sorry. It won’t take long, I promise. You’ll love it. Come by around nine.”
He hung up before she could protest further. It might be easier, she told herself, to go there. Maybe she could think of a way to tell him she couldn’t see him anymore. She was so happy that Mike had shown up to help them celebrate on Saturday. When he’d walked into the Bar None through the rear door and gave her a peck on the lips, she knew that all the tension between them was gone and they were on solid footing now. She had laughed with Mike, and with Julie, Jay, Anna, and Bill, late into the night.
She’d been pleased when Mike told her that his cousin, Patrice, had decided to go to work for the police department, teaching them how to detect and foil pickpockets and thieves. They were paying her for giving the classes and even suggested that other police departments might want to hire her, if the initial session went well.
Before Mike left, he’d come upstairs to give her a proper good-night kiss after a few pets for Quincy, and she’d gone to bed in a haze of happiness and love. She was determined not to mess things up between them again.
On Monday, she drove to Eddie’s Health Bar and arrived angry that she was there. Why hadn’t she called Eddie back and told him she couldn’t make it? She had a million things to do today.
His shop wasn’t open yet, but he let her in as soon as he saw her at the door.
“Here’s what I want to do for a wedding gift to Anna and Bill,” he said.
With dismay, she saw he’d laid out a complete buffet on his sales counter. There were at least a dozen plates full of finger food.
“Go ahead, taste a few of my creations. I’m volunteering to cater the reception.” He was grinning, waiting for her to tell him how wonderful he was.
“Eddie.” She summoned up a reserve of patience. “The reception has been arranged for a long time. Someone else is doing it.”
“The more, the merrier, right? Go on, taste something.”
Everything on the counter was green or brown. There was no way.
“Eddie. I have to be honest. We can’t use your food. And—”
“I’m not charging anything. You can just add this—”
“—and I can’t see you anymore. I’m committed to Mike Ramos. I’m seeing him.”
“Ramos? The vet?”
“Please don’t call anymore. I can’t see you. I’ve realized we don’t have a thing in common. We need to quit seeing each other.” She hurried out before he could say anything else. Starting up her car, she saw him coming out the door. She clicked her locks and sped away.
There. She had done it. Why had it taken her so long?
THIRTY-NINE
After lunch alone in her apartment—alone except for her furry guy, Quincy—Chase became aware of the sun streaming through her balcony French doors.
“You know what we should do, don’t you?” She dangled the harness and leash and Quincy jumped up and came over.
“I think we’ve done it, old boy. I think we’ve conquered this leash thing.”
As they strolled in the bright, crisp air, she called Anna.
“You were right.”
“I usually am, but what about this time?”
“We finally have it mastered, the walking on a leash.”
Quincy stopped walking to study a noisy junco in the tree above them. The small bird with its soft gray back and white breast sent out a trill that made Chase check her cell phone. Quincy swished his tail and walked on, his ears pointed rearward at the sassy bird.
“And Quincy likes it?” Anna said.
“He seems to. He comes running when I get the harness out.”
“Be sure you fasten that thing, Charity. I don’t want him finding a dead body two days before my wedding.”
“I sure wish we could find the bridesmaid dresses.”
“Oh, didn’t Julie tell you?’
“I haven’t talked to her.”
“They came! Julie dropped them off on her lunch break a few minutes ago.”
Chase had forgotten they were being sent to Julie’s place instead of hers, since they received so many baking supplies already at her place.
Whew! “That sure is good news. Should I come over and try mine on?”
“Come over when Julie’s off work and I’ll see if they need altering.”
What a relief. Chase couldn’t think of a single other thing that needed doing before the wedding. The Bar None would close Wednesday and Thursday, Christmas Eve and Christmas, and Anna would be married Wednesday evening.
Feeling like she weighed less, Chase walked on, musing about life and death and murderers.
Was Ron North a thoroughly bad person or not? He had a borderline-dangerous habit of stalking women. Okay, it was dangerous, since it had driven Dillon Yardley to try to end her life to escape him. So she came down on the side of thoroughly bad for him.
Bart Fender must have been head over heels in love with Dillon, but that didn’t excuse his actions. He must have been driven by knowing that his love wasn’t enough to keep Dillon going. All of that was on top of his drug dealing. Bart’s future would be decided by a jury, but Chase wondered what Dillon’s would be.
On the other hand, Principal Snelson and Mr. Hail had been deliberately defrauding defenseless older people for their own financial gain. They were just as evil as the others involved in this whole mess. She chuckled to think of Mrs. Snelson throwing her husband’s clothing in the dump. She had heard of women leaving their husband’s belongings in the front yard, even in the rain, but never driving them to a dump.
It looked like Dickie Byrd’s campaign had fallen through. The last time she drove past his headquarters, it was empty. A few of Monique’s posters still clung to poles and stared out from shop windows, but most were gone. Monique had been seen in the company of a local bank executive. Dickie, Rich, or whatever he was called now, had left town. Chase was confident he would run for office somewhere else eventually. He’d been politicking his whole life.
They were now in front of the Meet N Eat, since it lay along their regular route. Another few pounds of weight lifted when she thought about how she was through fending off the charming, electric Eddie Heath. A person who ran a health food place had nothing in common with a person who baked decadent cookie bars.
Julie was tied up with the rest of the real estate case, as well as an additional one she had been given in an e-mail late Saturday. She had yet to celebrate not being a murder suspect, but Chase was making plans for that. They would celebrate. Exactly where and how and with whom wasn’t clear, but Chase was thinking about it a lot. It would happen.
FORTY
“I’m sorry, Quincy,” Chase said. “I promise we’ll have a tree next year.”
Quincy loved the small artificial tree Chase usually put up in her apartment. He didn’t love the tree so much, though, as he liked batting the ornaments off and seeing where he could hide them.
This was the first year Chase hadn’t had a Christmas tree. She hadn’t had time, between going
out to dinner with Mike twice, baking far into the night after that and every day since the Minny Batter Battle, and getting last-minute wedding tasks done in her spare moments. The reception seating was constantly being redone as regrets and acceptances came in. Some people “informed” Anna they would be bringing extra people. Had they never had to manage a wedding? It was almost impossible to fit in extra people unless enough guests canceled. Something had to give and it was her own tree.
Since the dresses had arrived two days before the wedding and Chase and Julie were at Anna’s late the last two nights getting them fitted, there had been no chance for a bachelorette party. Julie promised they would have one after the wedding, somehow, somewhere.
Now, getting ready to walk down the aisle of the wedding chapel, she knew everything was worth it. Julie stood in front of her, her more petite figure showing off the asymmetrical one-shoulder design a bit better than Chase’s did, or so Chase thought.
Chase peeked around Julie’s shoulder to see the men lined up in front. Bill’s son, Rick, stood beside his father. Next to Rick was an old friend of Bill’s whom Chase and Julie had met half an hour before the wedding. Bill was appropriately pale and nervous in his handsome dark suit.
The padded pews held Anna’s and Bill’s dearest friends and a few distant relatives.
Anna stood behind them and around the corner, out of sight of her intended until the proper, dramatic moment.
The music changed to Edvard Grieg’s ethereal “Morning Mood,” the cue for Julie and Chase to start down the aisle. Chase waited for Julie to get four rows ahead, then she started the slow, unnatural, bridesmaid’s gait: step, pause, step, pause.
Anna had tried to figure out a way for Quincy to act as ring bearer, but Chase prevailed in talking her out of that. What chaos that would have been!
Mike looked up at Chase as she passed, melting her heart with his smile and those deep chocolate eyes. Mallory, close beside Tanner in the next row, sat with her left hand casually on top of her right, displaying the diamond promise ring he had given her two days ago at Bar None. Inger sat with them, smiling and happy, her baby bump getting larger every day.
Fat Cat Takes the Cake Page 21