Raspberries and Retaliation

by Katherine Hayton

  The hustle and bustle of a typical weekday would take over tomorrow. There’d be an early get-up and a furious round of baking and decorating to ensure that Sweet Baked Treats’ first morning customers had a warm treat ready and waiting.

  Crystal handled most of that part, in return for Holly standing out front with a smile on her face. Most of the time, it was genuine and those days, working in the shop was the best feeling in the world. Tomorrow, Holly could feel the muscle strain already from having to affix a fake expression to cover the real one.

  Monday was going to be a very long day.

  Crystal banged open the front door, laughing at something Alec had just said. The two of them tramped into the kitchen, their footfalls as loud as a pair of baby elephants. Cupboards were thrown open, and pots and pans banged about. All the noise bouncing along aloft on a sea of shared jokes and hearty laughter.

  Holly turned and faced the wall, unsure if she wanted to make her presence known yet. Just a few more minutes of quiet to prepare her for the coming week would be excellent. It would have to wait now until Crystal fell asleep. Sometimes, it seemed to Holly that extraverts only functioned adequately when they were noisy.

  The phone rang, cutting through the bubble of joyous laughter like a spike. No one bothered to use the landline any longer. That was for wrong numbers or emergencies. Holly rubbed her stomach as it pulled tight, wondering which of those it was.

  “Holly? Are you home?”

  For a brief flash, Holly thought of crawling under the bed and pretending that she didn’t exist. She even lifted the edge of the covers and peered into the shadows beneath.

  “I’m here,” she called out, wrinkling her nose at the amount of dust underneath the mattress. With her and Crystal working five and a half days out of seven, they never wanted to donate more time than they absolutely had to for cleaning. Corners got missed.

  Holly pushed open the door, running a few steps to take the dangling receiver from her sister’s hand. “Who is it?”

  Crystal staged a dramatic whisper, cupping her hand over her mouth and leaning forward. “It’s the police!”

  “Hey, Matthewson,” Holly said into the mouthpiece, turning her back as Crystal began to giggle. “Do you want me to come down to the station?”

  Crystal and Alec’s noise stopped entirely as she asked the question.

  “Yeah. I’d like to get a statement of what you did this morning. Now would be great.”

  The grumpiness that the sergeant had exhibited that morning had faded into exhaustion. Holly caught the tiredness dripping from his words and reciprocated with her own. By the time she hung up the phone, her back was slumped against the wall for support.

  “What’s up?” Crystal stared at her with concerned eyes. “Are you in trouble?”

  “No.” Holly shook her head and closed her eyes for a brief second. If only that nap had eventuated, she’d feel a lot better now. “Aidan and I found a body on our walk this morning.”

  “Oh, no!” Crystal enveloped Holly in a warm hug, rubbing up and down her spine. “Is it someone we know?”

  Holly extricated herself and walked back to her room to snag her handbag and shoes. “Nobody. Have you seen there’s a big family reunion in Hanmer this weekend?”

  “Sure. Everywhere we went today, there was a queue.”

  “It’s a woman from that family who died. It looked like she fell down the side of the mountain last night.”

  Crystal held a hand to her open mouth, while Alec linked his arms around her waist from behind. “When did that happen?”

  “Last night, sometime. I have to go.”

  “Do you want me to leave something for you when I cook dinner?”

  Holly couldn’t even face the thought of food at the moment. She shook her head. “I’ll grab something while I’m out,” she lied. “It shouldn’t take too long.”

  “Give me a call if you want a lift,” Alec offered. “I know it’s not far, but sometimes it’s nicer to drive at night.”

  Holly nodded, grateful for the offer, and let herself out of the front door. On the stoop she closed her eyes again, listening to the sounds of the world settling down for the evening.

  The walk to the station was shorter than the wait Holly had for the sergeant to finish up his current task and get to her. As he walked her through to the interview room, Holly mused that until she came to Hanmer Springs, she’d barely seen the outside of a police station, let alone the inside. Now, she practically lived there.

  “I’d like you to describe what happened this morning that led to you finding the deceased on the track.” The bags under Sergeant Matthewson’s eyes were so large that his entire face appeared in shadow.

  Holly nodded and shifted in her seat. She wondered if Aidan was still inside the building somewhere. Her anger turned on a little bit, not enough to scald but adding just a touch of heat.

  “We were walking on the trail. There were a lot of people about for that time of morning.”

  Holly continued on with a dry recitation of the facts, the sergeant barely appearing to pay attention until she got to the part where Aidan lifted up the tape.

  “Why did he do that?”

  Holly shrugged. “He said it was to get off the main path. Avoid all the extra foot traffic down there.”

  “And it didn’t worry you?” The sergeant’s eyebrows were raised so high that they nearly buried themselves in his hairline.

  “Not particularly. The conservation department had been laying possum bait—it’s hardly going to affect me.”

  “Unless you put your hand on some of it and end up transferring it into your mouth. There’s a reason why the department put tape up, you know.”

  “Does it matter?” Holly didn’t know what the third degree was about, and she was quickly becoming too tired to care. “We didn’t break the law, just lifted a warning tape and went under it. It’s not like it was a crime scene or something. Just a lookout for people who like to lick suspiciously colored paste in little boxes on trees.”

  At that, the sergeant snorted, and Holly felt some of the weight lift off her shoulders. With the reminder that the man sitting across from her was a human just doing his job, she carried on. Not for long.

  “Who owned the dog?”

  “It’s a woman named Lucy. She’s staying with the group of relatives out that way.” Holly paused while Matthewson wrote Lucy’s name down and circled it. “Her dog’s name is Petey,” she added.

  “And it was her who found the body, then?”

  Holly shook her head. “No, it was her dog first, then Aidan. He called out to Lucy and me not to come along the path any further, so I didn’t see the body at all.”

  “And did Lucy?”

  Holly shrugged. “She was a bit farther up than me, but not much. I could see the woman’s leg lying out on the track, so she should’ve seen that, but not much more.”

  Again, the sergeant nodded, scribbling down a few notes. Even though Holly knew that her interview was being recorded, both visual and audible, she understood the habit. No matter that she could punch an order into the machine at work to have it calculate the price, Holly still liked to scribble down the costs and add them up. She’d never beaten the till yet, but the impulse remained.

  “There was a bottle lying nearby,” Holly added as the silence stretched out. With nothing to look at in the room beside the blank walls, table, and Matthewson, it encouraged conversation to relieve the monotony.

  Holly shifted in her seat, hoping that the interview wouldn’t take much longer. Her bed was calling to her, and she didn’t care if it made her look like an old lady to go to bed before nine.

  “What sort of bottle?”

  Holly was sure that he must already have the description, probably from multiple sources. By this time of day, he could probably put together her morning walk and discovery better than she could. Still, Holly played along.

  “It was a bottle of Texas Man Bourbon. Looked to be empty and fro
m the smell of the woman, it had been tipped all over her.”

  At that, the sergeant frowned. “What do you mean?’

  “She stank to high heaven of booze.” Holly frowned. “What did you think I meant?”

  “No. Why do you say someone had tipped it over her? Surely, she’d drunk it?”

  “Oh.” Holly sat back, rubbing her forehead. “Her boyfriend said that she didn’t drink.” She shrugged.

  “What else?”

  Holly closed her eyes. “If she’d drunk the bottle, then I wouldn’t have been able to smell the alcohol from where I was standing.”

  “Fair enough.” The sergeant was still staring at her with an intensity that was unnerving.

  Holly felt the pressure to explain herself, even though she couldn’t remember thinking the situation through at all. “If she’d spilled the bottle over herself when she fell, it wouldn’t have had time to drench her that well. Just a splash then they would have hit.”

  A squirm hit her stomach as the words came out of Holly’s mouth. She didn’t want to think about the moment of impact.

  “The bottle was further out in the path than she was,” Holly continued. “But I didn’t really notice it until after I smelled her. If she’d fallen with it full, there would have been more of a scent coming from the bottle area than her.”

  “Sounds reasonable.”

  “And I was only standing there for a minute, so you can ignore all of that as conjecture.” Holly shook her head. “I don’t really know why I said it that way.”

  The sergeant nodded. “Did you hear anything when you walked back to the park?”

  Holly pursed her lips, trying to remember. Even though it had just been that morning, it was already turning hazy. “Not that I recall. The most interesting thing was when you arrived, and the victim’s father started shouting.”

  “Yeah. I already know more than enough about that bit.”

  Holly smiled, catching the sergeant’s eye until they were both stifling laughter. She shook her head. The act was inappropriate with a dead body lying somewhere nearby—a life snuffed out far too early.

  Sergeant Matthewson shuffled his notebook, then closed it with a snap. “Your boyfriend is ready for release if you want to wait for him.”

  Despite the disturbing revelations about Aidan that the day had served her, Holly still felt a quiet measure of relief. “I’m glad you came to your senses and worked out he wasn’t a suspect.”

  But at that, Matthewson stopped, his hand clasped around the door handle. He turned back to her, a frown using up his face. “I didn’t say that. He’s still very much a suspect and has been warned not to leave the area.” The sergeant opened the door and waved her out. “I’m sure we’ll be talking to him again very soon.”

  Aidan’s car was still parked at the start of the walking track. It only took fifteen minutes to walk there, but the silence that compounded with each second made it feel longer to Holly. When he opened the door, she almost told Aidan not to worry, she’d walk back home alone. Then her tiredness overtook the decision, pointing out that it was fully prepared to brave the awkwardness if she could get back home a few minutes early.

  “Not exactly the date I was hoping for,” Aidan said with a laugh as he pulled into the road. “I guess we should put a pin in this and try it again at another time.”

  “Not for a while, though.”

  Aidan’s head jerked around to look at her before turning back to the road. “Why?”

  “Because we found a dead body on the walking track, and I’d rather not think about that for a while.”

  He still hadn’t mentioned anything to her about his previous relationship with the victim. Holly wondered if it was worth playing the game of keeping her mouth shut and seeing how long it would take him to admit the truth.

  That seemed dishonest, but for the moment, Holly couldn’t think of a way to phrase the sentences, so they didn’t sound like an accusation. Maybe during the week would be better. Perhaps leaving it for a phone call, so she didn’t have to stare at his face.

  “Thanks,” she said, getting out of the car and slamming the door closed before Aidan could lean across for the customary good-night kiss. As Holly walked under the ‘Home Sweet Home’ sign and to the door, she refused to let herself turn around to see what he was doing.

  Only when Aidan pulled the car away from the curb did she allow herself to look, and by that time, it was far too late to read expressions.

  “How did it go?” Crystal asked, greeting her at the door with a cup of hot chocolate, liberally topped with marshmallows. Holly’s favorite on colder nights.

  “It went, that’s all I care about.” She sat down on the couch, Alec moving into the chair to give her space, even though it was wide enough for the three of them.

  “I called and talked to a few people around town,” Crystal said. “I’m not usually so slow to catch up on the news.”

  “Not much to catch up on at this stage,” Holly said, hoping that her sister wouldn’t ask about Aidan. To forestall the conversation, she struggled to her feet, the cup of hot chocolate still in her hand. “I’m going to turn in early tonight. I’m absolutely beat.”

  The disappointment on Crystal’s face told Holly that she had been hoping to hear something more. Given that the entire town would be talking about the situation, it wouldn’t be fair to keep her in the dark for too long.

  Still, one night wouldn’t matter. Tomorrow morning, while baking up the first batch of cupcakes, Holly could fill Crystal in on every detail.

  Better then, when she could bury her face in a mix of batter, or stare intensely at a cupcake top for decoration purposes.

  And who knew? Everything might seem better in the morning.

  Chapter Seven

  Holly forced a smile into place for their first customer of the day. “Good morning, Miss Crozier. How are you doing?”

  It appeared that Miss Crozier was full of the need to intently stare and try to dig out information with awkward questions. By the time Holly had fulfilled the order and shown the woman the door, she felt like she’d gone ten rounds with David Tua.

  Holly had found the strength to tell her sister everything while they were opening up shop and getting the first batches of cupcakes into the oven. She recounted the awkward conversation that she’d had with Tilly—even if she kept the hurt it caused to herself.

  “I can’t believe that man,” Crystal said, indignant on Holly’s behalf. “If I thought for one minute that he hadn’t filled you in on his history, then I would’ve told you myself!”

  Holly nodded at her sister’s belated offer and accepted it in the spirit it was given. However, it still irked her that Crystal had known about Aidan’s previous relationship while she’d been in the dark.

  Not Crystal’s fault. If Holly had the decency to be in Hanmer Springs when the whole thing happened, she would have known as well. Just like she’d been fed every tidbit of gossip that had happened since her arrival.

  Nobody’s fault, except for Aidan’s.

  “I’m sure you would’ve,” Holly said, giving her sister a quick peck on the cheek. “And I’m sure I would have appreciated it a lot more if I’d been told by the person meant to tell me.”

  “Hm.” Crystal stared into the oven with a glare so hot that Holly was surprised the cupcakes didn’t burst into flame. “When I get a chance to have a word with that man—”

  “You won’t say a thing,” Holly interrupted her. “That’s my job.”

  “Well, at least when you haul him over the coals, tell me all about it afterward. Then I can experience it variously through you!”

  Holly laughed and nodded, knowing that she’d never do such a thing.

  Now, watching Miss Crozier give one last curious glance at the shopfront before heading on her way, Holly wondered if that was going to be her entire day. Fielding pointed questions while under the pretense of a desperate need for cupcakes.

  Feeling a stab of mischief hit he
r funny bone, Holly pulled the whiteboard toward her, rubbed out the current special for raspberry cupcakes, and posted a new sign. She propped it in front of the counter just as a genuine early-morning customer came through the door. Old Man Jack from the local dairy.

  “Gossip, twenty bucks, eh,” Jack said with a grin. “That’s a bit rich for my blood, but I’d love one of your chocolate cupcakes.”

  Holly sent him on his way with a fresh cupcake and a smile on his face.

  The sign may have been satisfied Holly’s sense of mischief, but it didn’t stop the township from pouring in all morning. Even with the sign front and center, too many people wanted the goods for free. Holly grew sick of pointing at the sign and was relieved when the mid-morning rush was at an end.

  “Do you know,” Crystal said, counting up the stragglers in the case, so she knew how many to prepare for the after-lunch crowd. “We’ve sold two trays more than usual.”

  “Not to mention that all the raspberry specials have been at full price,” Holly said, turning the whiteboard sign around for her sister to have a laugh.

  “If you could stumble across a dead body every weekend, imagine the profits!” Crystal mimed a rocket taking off.

  “If only it were the dead body, I’d oblige. You know as well as I do, it’s nothing of the sort!”

  “Morning, ladies.” The two sisters turned to see Meggie standing hesitantly in the doorway. “Is the coast clear for my usual?”

  Holly laughed and went out the back to fetch their coffees while Crystal sorted out the cakes.

  “If you don’t mind keeping shop alone, I’ll make a mad dash for the deliveries,” Crystal said. “But feel free to call over Ben if you need a hand. I saw him lurking earlier. Make sure you let him know about the special, though.”

  She pointed at the sign for Meggie to laugh over. As soon as Crystal was out the back door, the van loaded, Meggie placed a comforting hand over Holly’s. “I know you’re making a joke of things, but how’s it really been?”

  Holly relaxed fully for the first time that day as she recounted her morning.