Sprinkle with Murder

Sprinkle with Murder Page 10

by Jenn McKinlay

  “Yeah, I know that and you know that, but Uncle Stan’s partner isn’t buying it,” she said. She sent a sour look in the direction of the door. “He wondered if I could provide an alibi for you or Tate. Mel, I’m afraid he thinks the two of you did this together.”

  “For what possible reason?” Mel asked. “If Tate didn’t want to marry her, all he had to do was call it off.”

  “He didn’t say as much, but I get the feeling there’s a lot of pressure coming from Christie’s father,” Angie said. “Mr. Stevens wants an arrest, like yesterday.”

  “Melanie? Angela?” Only one person called Angie, Angela: Mel’s mother.

  Sure enough, with a click-clack of high heels, Joyce Cooper strode through the front door into the bakery. She was wearing a narrow, knee-length black skirt with a lime colored silk blouse underneath a matching black jacket. Her champagne-colored bob was swept back from her face, and at her ears and around her left wrist she wore black pearls. She looked like she was ready to start kicking butt and taking names.

  “Angela, you look as lovely as always.” Joyce hugged Angie, she had always adored her, and then turned to hug Mel but frowned instead.

  “Why aren’t you dressed?” she asked.

  Mel glanced down. Beneath her pink Fairy Tale Cupcakes apron, she still wore her black long-sleeved tee and black jeans. A little goth, perhaps, but it wasn’t like she was in her pajamas.

  “I am dressed,” she said.

  “Honestly!” Joyce rolled her eyes at Angie. “How do you put up with her?”

  “Some days it’s tough,” Angie commiserated with a sigh. Mel stuck her tongue out at her.

  “I saw that,” Joyce said, although she still had her back to Mel.

  Mel huffed out an exasperated breath. Some people claimed their mothers had eyes in the backs of their heads, but Joyce really did.

  “Hurry,” Joyce said as she spun back to her. “Our meeting is in twenty minutes, and you need to dress appropriately.”

  “What meeting?” Mel asked.

  “With your attorney,” Joyce said.

  “You didn’t.”

  “I told you I was going to.”

  Angie’s head swiveled between them as if she were watching a tennis match.

  “Johnny Dietz, the tax attorney?” Mel asked.

  “Yes, and I don’t want to hear it. He’s a very competent attorney and he’s willing to help for free,” Joyce said.

  Free? Mel hung her head. Joyce had game.

  “Do you mind manning the shop alone for a little bit?” she asked Angie.

  “Not at all,” Angie said. She kept her head down, and Mel suspected it was because she was trying not to laugh.

  “Wear a dress,” her mother ordered. “It wouldn’t hurt you to look like a lady every now and then.”

  Mel strode to the back door with her teeth clamped together. Before she left, she heard her mother ask, “Now, Angela, why is it I never hear about who you’re dating? Surely a lovely young lady like yourself has loads of boy-friends.”

  Mel’s teeth unclenched, and she grinned. It was refreshing to have Joyce home in on someone else for a change. Maybe she could convince her to adopt Angie. Either that, or she could get her a puppy. In any event, something had to give. She could not be her mother’s only hobby.

  Johnny Dietz’s office sat in the basement of a commercial property on the edge of Old Town. Small businesses, with names that gave Mel no clue as to what they actually did, filled the squat, five-story building of tinted glass and stone.

  She followed her mother down the stairs to Dietz’s office. The receptionist offered them coffee or water, which they both declined, while they sat on the puffy brown couch and perused a collection of financial magazines that Mel thought would be grand for a night when she had a raging case of insomnia and CSPAN didn’t do the trick.

  In no time at all, Johnny Dietz shot out of a door behind the reception area and approached them with his hands outstretched, looking like an evangelist offering a conversion.

  Joyce stood and let him take her hands in his. He kissed her cheek and Mel thought, Ew.

  Dietz was short, fat, and bald. His pudgy right hand sported a diamond-encrusted pinky ring, and Mel noticed that he kept the finger extended as if to let the diamonds catch the light at every opportunity.

  “Joyce, how good to see you,” he said. “I was just delighted when I got your call. It’s been too long.”

  “Yes, it has.”

  Mel noticed that her mother surreptitiously slid her hands out of his as soon as was socially acceptable to do so.

  “And Melanie.” Dietz turned to her and held out his hand. “Why, I haven’t seen you since you were in pigtails.”

  Actually, she’d seen him at her father’s funeral ten years ago, and she was fairly certain that at twenty-four, she hadn’t been in pigtails, but she decided to let it go.

  “Well, come in, come in,” he said. “Let’s go sit in my office and you can tell me what I can assist you with.”

  Mel looked goggle-eyed at her mother. “You didn’t tell him?” she hissed.

  “I didn’t want to get into it over the phone,” Joyce hissed back.

  “Oh, my God,” Mel said. “I’m in a nightmare, aren’t I? Feel free to wake me up now.”

  “Now, now.” Dietz smiled over his shoulder at her. “I’m sure it just seems like that. We’ll get whatever it is all straightened out, don’t you worry.”

  “Really?” Mel asked. “Because the homicide detectives, one of whom is my own uncle, seem to think the best way to straighten it out is to arrest me for murder.”

  “Um . . . I’m sorry. Homicide?” Dietz faltered as he pushed open the door to his office.

  “How’s your criminal law?” Mel asked as she walked past him.

  “You’re not a criminal,” Joyce said as she followed her and sat in one of the two chairs opposite the large walnut desk.

  A small sand garden with a delicate wooden rake rested on the front edge of the desk. Mel had a feeling that by the time they left, Dietz was gong to need a miniature John Deere to ease his stress.

  He sat in his desk chair with an ominous creak and swiveled to face them. His face was round and flushed. He glanced between the two of them and gave them a smile that was meant to be reassuring, but it was hard to pull off, given that he looked as alarmed as a man in over his head should.

  “Perhaps you could get me up to speed,” he said.

  “The love of Mel’s life was about to marry another,” Joyce said. She bit her lip and looked at Mel with a pity usually reserved for the terminally ill. “And they hired Mel to make the cupcakes for their wedding, she made some samples, the bride ate one, and died. Now the police are investigating.”

  Dietz turned his head sideways to study Mel as if she were an abstract painting and he wasn’t sure which side was up.

  “It sounds worse than it is,” Joyce tried to reassure him.

  “And there are a couple of inaccuracies,” Mel said. “First, he is not now, nor has he ever been, the love of my life.”

  Joyce opened her mouth to protest, but Mel held up her hand to nix the argument.

  “Second, I don’t think my cupcake had anything to do with her dying. She just happened to be holding it when I found her body.”

  Dietz blinked. He rose from his seat and flipped through his Rolodex. He quickly copied down a name and number on a blue Post-it.

  “This is the best defense attorney in town,” he said, handing the note to Joyce. “Call him.”

  “But . . .” Joyce began, but Dietz stayed in motion as he opened his office door and gestured them out.

  “Great seeing you, really, don’t be a stranger.”

  Mel and Joyce glanced at each other and slowly rose from their seats. There was no question they were dismissed.

  As they crossed the parking lot, Joyce tucked the note into her purse. Once in the car, she turned the key and said, “Well, that was abrupt.”

  “Too bad,” Mel said. “I think he wanted to ask you out, but you come with too much baggage.”

  Joyce looked at her. “Well, if he can�
�t handle a murderess for a stepdaughter, what good is he?”

  “Indeed.”

  They drove silently back to Fairy Tale Cupcakes. Joyce pulled into a spot down the sidewalk from the shop and turned to Mel.

  “I’m worried about you,” she said.

  “Don’t be. The police will find whoever did this. I’m sure of it.”

  Joyce looked as if she wanted to discuss it more. Instead, she said, “I’m calling the number Johnny gave us—just in case.”

  “That’s because you’re a good mom,” Mel said. She leaned over and kissed her mother’s cheek. “I’ll call you later.”

  She waved as her mother drove away and then trotted back into the shop. Her happy hour cupcake class was meeting in a half hour, and she hadn’t prepped tonight’s project, the Mojito cupcake. It was another of her personal favorites, although weren’t they all? The Mojito was a golden cupcake flavored with lime zest and dried spearmint leaves and topped with a rum-flavored icing.

  Right about now Mel figured she could use a shot of rum icing—okay, maybe just the rum.

  She hurried into the shop. Angie was waiting on three booths of customers and filling two takeout orders. Mel quickly donned her apron over her dress and began boxing up the next order.

  “I baked the cupcakes for class tonight,” Angie said as they darted past each other. “You just need to frost them.”

  “I love you,” Mel said.

  “Yeah? Then give me a raise,” Angie teased.

  “I’ll double your salary.”

  “Wow. Really? Two times zero is what again?”

  Mel grinned as she rang up the next customer. He was a tall gentleman with gray hair and kind blue eyes. She’d noticed he came in every Wednesday about this time. She glanced at the name on his bank card as she handed it back to him.

  “Same time next week, Mr. Larson?” she asked.

  “Absolutely,” he said. “It’s not bridge club if we don’t have our Fairy Tale cupcakes.”

  Mel was hit again by the power of what she and Angie provided to their customers. Memories. When people bit into one of their cupcakes, they were enjoying a moment that recaptured the magic of childhood, nurtured their sweet tooth, and gave them something to share with a loved one.

  Were they curing cancer? No. But were they making the world a better place to live in? Quite possibly. At least, Mel liked to think so. She couldn’t imagine a world without cupcakes, and she hoped her customers couldn’t either.

  “Go frost,” Angie said. “I’ve got it covered now.”

  “You sure?” Mel asked.

  Angie nodded.

  “I really do owe you a raise,” Mel said.

  “You can treat me to a spa day next quarter.”

  “You’re on,” Mel agreed.

  She dashed up to her apartment to change into jeans and a Henley. She put her apron back on over that and hurried back down to the kitchen to frost the Mojito cupcakes.

  She would have liked to use real dark rum in the buttercream frosting, but instead she used two tablespoons of rum extract. Once the frosting achieved its desired fluffy consistency, she put a dollop on each cupcake and then pressed in a candied spearmint leaf. With the silver cupcake liners Angie had chosen, the effect was very partylike, and she knew her students would enjoy making these.

  She was just wiping down the table when the first of her students arrived. Emily Dubrowski, newly from Chicago, and her cousin Claire Dubrowski were the first to enter the kitchen.

  “Oh, my God.” Emily unzipped her hooded jacket and draped it on a chair. “I love those.”

  She had a broad face, dusted with freckles, and a tiny turned-up nose. She was stout but not heavy, and wore a pair of thick glasses that she usually pushed up into her gray hair when she was concentrating on a recipe. Her cousin Claire looked exactly like her, but without the glasses. Their love of cooking and the art of cupcake baking made them two of Mel’s favorites, although she tried not to show preferential treatment.

  “Thanks, Emily,” she said. Three more students wandered in and gushed over the cupcakes, and Mel put them to work at the Hobart mixer, as they would have to bake the cupcakes in a big batch in her industrial-sized convection oven in order to get everyone’s cupcakes baked, cooled, and frosted by the time the class ended.

  It was fifteen minutes past the hour when Mel realized only half the class had appeared.

  “Angie, did anyone call out from tonight’s class?” she asked.

  “Not that I know of. I’ll go check the messages,” Angie offered.

  Mel glanced up to find Emily and Claire watching her with pity in her eyes.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” Claire said as she sent Emily a look that clearly said “Shut up.”

  “You may as well tell me,” Mel said. “I’m going to find out sooner or later.”

  She saw her other three students watching, and she sighed. She had a feeling she was not going to like this.

  “No messages,” Angie announced as she came back to the kitchen.

  “Spill it,” Mel said to Emily.

  “They’re not coming,” she said. She pressed her lips together as if she wished she never had to utter the words.

  “Don’t tell me, let me guess,” Mel said. “They think I’m a murderer.”

  “We told them it wasn’t true,” Claire said.

  “We saw Barbara and Cheryl at Sprouts, in the bulk food section, and they said they weren’t coming, and neither were Marlo, Pat, or Bianca,” Emily said. “We should have told you.”

  “But we thought they’d change their minds,” Claire explained. “That newspaper article read like a tabloid, all innuendo and no fact, but obviously they believed it.”

  “Idiots,” Emily said with a sniff.

  Mel glanced at her other three students. “You don’t believe the article?”

  “No,” they said together.

  Mildred, the oldest student by far at eighty-two years of age, shook her head. “You’re from South Scottsdale, dear, you’re one of us. If you did kill that girl, I’m sure you had your reasons.”

  Mel wasn’t sure whether she wanted to hug her or throttle her. She chose to hug her.

  “Thanks,” she said as she enveloped Mildred in a loose-armed squeeze. “I appreciate that. I didn’t do it, but I appreciate your support all the same.”

  She directed her students back to work, and when everyone was busy, she sidled up to Angie.

  “You know what this means,” she said.

  “If students drop out of class because of the bad press, then our customers may go the same way.”

  “Yeah,” Mel said.

  “At least sixty percent of our customers are tourists,” Angie noted. “They’re not going to know about the Christie situation.”

  “Yes, but most of those customers buy one to four cupcakes maximum,” Mel said. “It’s our locals who order dozens for parties and weddings. Without that income, I don’t know if we can stay afloat.”

  Angie mirrored her frown. “So, what do we do?”

  “Find out who killed Christie,” Mel said. “Before our cupcakes are sunk.”

  Eleven

  Once class was dismissed, Mel locked up the bakery, gave Angie a bracing hug, and trotted up the stairs to her apartment.

  She decided to skip dinner; it was late, and anxiety about losing her business was making her stomach roll. There wasn’t much she could eat that would soothe her nerves right now. She made herself a mug of ginger tea and grabbed her cordless phone.

  Instead of tracking Phoebe on the Internet as she had Alma, she decided to call Alma and ask her for Phoebe’s information directly. She hoped that Alma could give her a heads-up on how to approach Phoebe.

  Alma answered on the third ring. “What?”

  “It’s Melanie Cooper.”

  “I know, I have caller ID. What do you want?”

  Mel was surprised she’d even picked up.

  “How’d the job interview go?”

  “Really?” Alma asked. “Is that what you wanted to ask me, or are you being polite?”

  “Polite.”


  “Don’t waste our collective time,” Alma said.

  “Okay, then, how can I get in touch with Phoebe?” There was a pause on the other end.

  “Same way you contacted me,” Alma said.

  “Or you could save me an hour and give me her information.”

  “Why have you waited this long to contact her?” Alma asked. “I’d have thought you’d talk to her right after talking to me.”

  “She seemed really upset,” Mel said. “I wanted to give her some time.”

  “Yeah, she had a real worship thing going for Christie. It’s sort of ironic.”

  “Ironic how?” Mel asked.

  “Phoebe was way more talented than Christie. In fact, every award Christie won was because of Phoebe. She gave her all of her best designs and never held anything back.”

  “Whereas you . . .”

  “Kept my best work in a vault where Christie couldn’t get to it,” Alma said. “I wanted to have a future when I was released from my contract.”

  “Do you think Phoebe’d be willing to talk to me?”

  “Hard to say,” Alma said. “She’s pretty torn up about Christie, and she knows you’re a suspect. She might not want to have anything to do with you.”

  “Encouraging.”

  “I’m just saying.”

  Alma read off Phoebe’s phone number while Mel scribbled the information on the back of an empty envelope she found on her desk.

  “Thanks, Alma.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  Mel knew she was probably feeling oversensitive with half of her class not showing up because they thought she was a murderer, but still, Alma’s tone had sounded ominously like a threat.

  Undaunted, she dialed the number, hoping to catch Phoebe before she went to bed. She waited through two rings before a very faint voice answered.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Phoebe, it’s Melanie Cooper from Fairy Tale Cupcakes.”

  Mel heard a gasp. Hard to know what to say to that, so she forged ahead as if it hadn’t sounded like Phoebe had just fainted. “I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.”

  There was a pause, and then Phoebe’s meek voice asked, “Why?”

  “Well, the police seem to think I have a strong motive for murdering Christie,” Mel said. “But I didn’t do it, and I need to find out who did.”

 

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