Battered to Death (Daphne Martin Cake Mysteries)

by Trent, Gayle

  “That’s good advice,” I said.

  “You’ve got to see the video of Alex making the haunted-house cake,” Leslie said. “He did an awesome job!”

  “Maybe I can see it later,” I said.

  Alex shrugged.

  I wondered if we might be putting a bit too much stress on him with all our attention, so I asked Leslie if she’d like to go check on our cakes before Lou Gimmel’s figure molding demonstration.

  “I guess.” She sighed. “I’m getting kinda nervous about the whole thing.”

  Alex shook his head. “Your cake is good. You’ll be fine.”

  She smiled at him. “Thank you.”

  Molly gave me a grateful look over the top of their heads. I smiled and nodded. Hopefully, Leslie was just what the doctor had ordered to get Alex back to baking again.

  As Leslie took me by the arm and propelled me toward the kids’ division cakes, Myra headed us off.

  “That nasty little Clea Underwood is going to keep on until I knock the ever-lovin’ taste out of her mouth,” she said.

  I grinned. “She does wear a bit thin on the nerves, doesn’t she?”

  “She just wants to try to scoot poor Doug out of that head anchor chair, and she believes this is the story that’ll do it for her,” Myra said. “Well, I’ve got news for Ms. Clean Underwear, everybody in Brea Ridge prefers Doug to her—always has and always will. She’s lucky Channel Two lets her do the spots she does get.”

  “I agree,” I said.

  “Leslie, can I borrow your aunt for just a second?” Myra asked.

  “Sure.” Leslie looked around at Violet.

  “I’ll take her on to the cakes,” Violet said. “We’ll either meet you over there or we’ll see you at the figure molding demo.”

  “All right,” I said. “Thanks.” As soon as they were out of earshot, I turned to Myra. “What’s up?”

  Before she could answer, Chef Richards’s assistant, Fiona, joined us. She had a small purse on her arm that matched her hair perfectly. Otherwise, she was once again dressed all in white. “Hi. You did a great job with the van cake. It looks fantastic.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “And you were excellent at explaining everything as you went along,” Fiona said. “Have you done many demonstrations?”

  “No, but I’ve attended my fair share.” I smiled.

  “You aren’t looking for an assistant, are you?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “If I were, though, you’d be at the top of my list.” I introduced Fiona to Myra.

  “What was it like working for Jordan Richards?” Myra asked Fiona. “Was he as big a jerk to you as he was to everyone else?”

  “Bigger,” said Fiona with a slight grin. Then she shrugged. “The pay was good, though.”

  “What will you do now?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I might branch out on my own.”

  “You should,” I told her. “From what I saw Thursday, you’re every bit as skilled as Chef Richards was . . . probably more so. You did everything for him.”

  “I’m a good baker,” Fiona admitted. “But I have trouble getting up and talking in front of people . . . or even in front of a camera crew. There’s no way I could have handled that carving demonstration as well as you did. I’d have been so nervous, my hands wouldn’t have held steady long enough to cut the cake.”

  “Oh, honey, you can overcome your fear of public speaking,” said Myra. “I once knew a man who stuttered worse than Mel Gibson . . . No, wait, it was Mel Tillis who stuttered, wasn’t it? Anyway, he got over his fear and started talking just as plain as anybody. He did that club where everybody toasts each other.” She shrugged. I tried not to laugh at her description of the Friars Club. “Besides, if audiences could put up with Chef Richards being such a creep, they’d love you with your funky hair and cool persona.”

  Fiona smiled again. “I don’t know about that. . . . Besides, not everyone could put up with Chef Richards, or else he’d still be here, wouldn’t he?”

  “You have a point,” I said. “Still, I wish you the best of luck in whatever you decide to do.” I reached into my purse and handed her a business card. “Please keep me posted.”

  “Thanks,” said Fiona. “I will.”

  When Fiona walked away, I turned back to Myra. “Now, what were you getting ready to tell me earlier?”

  “Well, first of all, Mark hasn’t been able to find Jordan Richards’s ex-wife,” she said. “It’s like the woman simply disappeared about six months ago.”

  I frowned. “That’s weird. Do you think she left the country? Changed her name? Had some sort of . . . accident?”

  “She hasn’t had an accident that anyone knows about,” Myra said. “If she had, there’d be a record of it. She isn’t listed as a missing person either. Mark said he’d keep digging. With it being the weekend, his sources are limited.”

  “What does he think happened to her?” I asked.

  “He doesn’t know and would prefer not to speculate until he has more information.” Myra’s reply was so pat that I knew it had to have been copied from Mark verbatim.

  “That’s really strange,” I said. “I hope she’s okay.”

  “So do I,” Myra said. “The other thing I wanted to tell you about was that I’ve been checking around about Nickie Zane. Not many people around here know her, but . . . ” Myra sighed.

  “But what?” I asked.

  “Well, I’d heard that she and Ben were pretty hot and heavy back in the day, but I didn’t want to say anything before until I got it straight from the horse’s mouth,” she said. “And Ben’s parents reportedly told the woman who delivered their mail, who passed it along to a friend of Tanya’s mom’s, that they thought Ben was going to ask Nickie to marry him at one time. Of course, nothing ever came of that.”

  “Because Nickie wouldn’t break up with her high school sweetheart,” I said with a sigh. “Ben told me that much. He loved her, Myra. . . . He wanted to marry her.”

  “Only because he didn’t have you anymore. Remember that.”

  “I’m trying, but it’s hard,” I said. “Now she needs his help, and he’s ready to go running back to her.”

  “Not necessarily,” said Myra. “You told me he said he had a week to think about it, didn’t you?”

  I nodded.

  “If he was still head over heels for that woman, he wouldn’t need a week to think about it,” she said. “He wouldn’t need a minute. He’d have accepted the job when she offered it.”

  “I guess,” I said. “I don’t want to think about Ben and Nickie Zane right now, though. It’s too depressing. I keep going back to the worst-case scenario. Have you found out anything else about Chef Richards?”

  Myra grinned. “That’s my girl. Her love life is depressing, so let’s talk about murder.”

  I giggled. “When you put it like that, it sounds really bad.”

  “It is bad,” she said. “Wicked bad, as the kids would say.”

  I wondered if that was truly what the kids would say. Somehow I doubted it. “Hey, my life could be on the line in that capacity too if we don’t find out who the real killer is,” I reminded her. “My career could be ruined or, worse, I could wind up arrested for a crime I didn’t commit. Don’t forget, my fingerprints were on that cake stand.”

  “I know, honey. I’m only teasing you,” said Myra. “It’s good to see you smile. Mark is looking into the backgrounds of all the students who were in Chef Richards’s class, based on the names and locations you provided him. He’s also continuing the search for the former Mrs. Richards and scouring the Internet to see who had ongoing feuds with the chef.”

  “It might be easier to find out who didn’t have an ongoing feud with him,” I said. “I haven’t heard anyone at this cake show utter a single kind word about the man. And he’s dead. People are usually reluctant to speak ill of the dead. But not in Chef Richards’s case.”

  “From what I’ve been
hearing, it’s hard for them to find anything nice to say,” she said.

  “That’s true enough. Chef Richards even destroyed a child’s dreams and fragile mental health, for goodness’ sake. You saw the boy—Alex. He was with Lucas and Leslie.” I groaned. “People were probably lined up to throw a punch at that man.”

  “Yeah, but it only took one of them to land a punch with a cake stand and then drown him in cake batter,” she said. “I need to get back to loitering unobtrusively and listening in to people’s conversations so I can see what I can dig up on this end of things. Call my cell phone if you need me.”

  “All right,” I said. “I appreciate all your hard work.” And I did. But I wondered how long it would take Myra to be forcibly removed from the premises by security. As I watched her sidle up to a group of people and try to blend in, I figured she had another hour at best.

  11

  LOU GIMMEL was personable and funny while he did his figure molding demonstration. I hoped I came off both as knowledgeable and as friendly, but I’d been nervous and doubted I had related to the audience as well as Lou was doing.

  “The first thing I’m going to make is a puppy dog,” he said. His eyes sought out the children in the audience. “Does anybody here like puppy dogs?”

  The children, as well as many adults, intoned, “Yes!”

  “Yeah,” Lou said. “I thought you people looked like dog lovers. And which kinds of puppies do you like best? Fluffy ones or mean ones with snarly teeth?”

  “Fluffy!”

  There were a couple of boys in the audience who yelled out “mean” and “snarly,” but they were in the minority.

  Lou laughed. “All right, then. You’ve come to the right place. I’m going to show you how to make a plump, fluffy, friendly puppy dog. First I’ll need some fondant.” He gestured toward the table where the fondant supplier who was sponsoring his demonstration was located. “I’d like to thank our good friends at Franklin Fondants for supplying this yummy buttercream-flavored fondant for me to use to make our puppy.”

  I heard a low male voice about two rows behind me and to my left say, “He’s good. Not only is he likable with the audience, he plays to the sponsors.”

  Had I thanked the sponsors as I did my demonstration? I couldn’t remember.

  “We’re going to start by rolling our fondant into two kinda large egg shapes, and then we’re gonna make six smaller ovals. You’ll see what they’re all for in just a minute.” As Lou talked, he quickly formed the eight ovals out of the white fondant. He put all but the largest oval into a plastic bag and zipped it shut. “I put the ones I’m not using into the plastic bag so they don’t dry out before I’m ready to use them, all right? Now, this biggest fondant egg will be the doggie’s body.” He molded it a little more so that it would appear to be in a sitting position. “Okay. I told you this puppy was going to be fluffy, didn’t I?”

  The audience—especially the children—responded with an enthusiastic “yes.”

  “He is good.” This time the voice—also male—came from my right. I guessed this man was talking with the other one because they both sounded close. “I like how he continuously keeps the audience engaged.”

  “So do I,” the other man agreed. “And it’s wonderful with a live audience, but will he be as charming when it’s only him and the camera crew? I mean, it’s one thing to entertain a live audience, but how will he come across to a television audience? Or maybe we should have a studio audience if we decide to go with him.”

  “I think we should test him both ways—with just a camera crew and with a studio audience—and see how he performs best.”

  “Do you think he’ll be interested?” the first man asked. “I mean, he lives in South Carolina. That’ll mean a lot of traveling for him.”

  “So? Paula Deen lives in Georgia,” said the second man.

  These were television producers. I knew they sometimes came to the bigger cake events to see if they could find any rising stars. I hadn’t expected any to show up here in Brea Ridge, though. Had they seen my demonstration? If so, what had they said about me? Would they even consider me? Would I even want to be considered?

  I turned my attention back to Lou who was now “fluffing up” the puppy with large dots of white icing.

  “Well, now our little guy is fluffy, but he looks like his hair is sticking every which way, don’t you think?” Lou asked. “He looks like he just rolled out of bed . . . and then maybe stuck his paw in an electrical outlet.”

  The audience members laughed.

  “I’ll fix that like this.” Lou took a small paintbrush, dipped it into a ramekin of water, and patted down the peaks on the dots. “Ah, that’s better. Now he’s presentable to go out in public.”

  “Yeah, Richards would never have played to an audience the way this guy does,” the man to my right whispered. “Gimmel is a natural with people. I think that would work well for him on the talk-show circuit. We should definitely test him.”

  “I agree,” said the man to the left. “One reason Richards’s show was in the crapper might’ve been because he wasn’t nicer to the talk-show personalities. No one would have him back on after an initial visit. They went with Paula, Giada, Emeril, or some other person who was easier to work with.”

  “Can you blame them?” asked the one on the left.

  “No.” The man on the right sighed. “Richards was talented, though. He was really great at what he did.”

  “And this Gimmel guy isn’t?” asked Mr. Left. “Look at how quickly he’s taken what was essentially a mound of clay and half a cup of icing and turned it into an adorable puppy.”

  I was dying to turn around and get a look at these guys. Would I recognize them by their voices if they should talk with me later? I doubted it. They were whispering.

  Well, good for Lou. He was a nice guy. And the producers were right—he’d do great on a baking show.

  After making the puppy, Lou created a person for the audience. The person was a boy with a baseball cap, and he was created in proportion to the dog. Lou even linked them—both figuratively and literally—by having the boy hold a red leash that went to the dog’s collar.

  Ben came in as Lou was finishing up. He sat down and kissed my cheek. “How’s everything going?”

  “Lou Gimmel is doing a fantastic job,” I said softly. “In fact, I think some people behind me believe he’s destined for greater things.”

  “Really?” Ben asked.

  I nodded.

  Lou concluded the demo and asked if anyone had questions. Ben and I were quiet as the audience asked and Lou answered. When everyone began scattering, I tried to see if two men approached Lou; but so many people were headed toward the demo table, I couldn’t tell. I assumed the men would wait until the fans that had gone up for a closer look at Lou’s work had left before moving in to talk with him. But I wasn’t able to watch long enough to see because Ben was pulling me aside.

  He caught me looking toward Lou and gently turned my chin back toward him. “This is important.”

  “Okay . . . okay,” I said.

  “Wait. What is it?” he asked. “Do you think he might be the . . . you know, the guy?”

  “No. I was just trying to see which ones the producers were.” I shrugged. “You know . . . I wondered if they attended my demo . . . if I’d even recognize them. Not that it matters. It isn’t like I could just walk up and say, ‘Hey, what did you think of my demonstration?’ Right?”

  “Is that something you’d be interested in?” Ben asked. “Having your own TV show?”

  “No . . . I mean, I doubt it. I just . . . it would be nice . . . you know . . . to be considered.” I shook my head as if physically clearing away the crazy dreams of becoming the next celebrity chef. “What did you find out?”

  Ben looked around to ensure that no one was paying any attention to us. Then he said quietly, “Fiona is the one who found Chef Richards’s body and called nine-one-one. When the police arrived, she wa
s pacing back and forth wringing her hands . . . and she was wearing white gloves.”

  “And if she was wearing gloves, then she could’ve hit him with the cake stand without leaving prints,” I said. “So why are the police bearing down so hard on Pauline and me?”

  “Because they haven’t ruled out any of you as suspects. Sure, Fiona was wearing gloves, and she might’ve had more motive to kill Chef Richards than you or Pauline had, but that doesn’t mean she did, in fact, crack the guy over the head with the cake stand.”

  “Have they looked into Fiona’s past?” I asked. “Or how about their past—hers and Chef Richards’s? Maybe the two of them were having an affair.”

  He shrugged. “I’m sure the Brea Ridge Police Department is exploring every possibility as quickly as they can. They know time is crucial in this case.”

  “Fiona has the next demonstration,” I said. “She’s doing the Australian string work demo.”

  “I think we should watch it,” said Ben.

  “Yeah . . . maybe she’ll confess or something,” I said. Of course, I was being sarcastic. I didn’t really believe she would confess. In fact, I didn’t believe she was the murderer. But then, like China had told me the day before yesterday, all I really knew was that I hadn’t killed Chef Richards.

  FIONA APPEARED SMALL, awkward, and too quiet to be heard as she introduced the subject of her demonstration.

  “Australian string work is a lovely and prestigious cake decorating technique that makes it appear as if there is lace on your cake,” she said.

  “Could you speak up, please?” called someone from the back.

  Fiona nodded, cleared her throat, and tried again. “I’ll be demonstrating basic drop strings and lace points today.”

  It was better, but still not great. I could see why Chef Richards was the chef and Fiona was the assistant.

  But then Fiona began decorating. And she became more confident. Her voice became stronger and louder as she explained what she was doing. Her work was magnificent—better even than Chef Richards’s.

  I looked at Ben, who was sitting beside me. He appeared unaffected by Fiona’s talent.