1 Death by Chocolate

by Carol Lee

  “Well, then why did you come here?”

  He stiffened and said, “Actually, I went to the bakery and Ms. Stevens told me that she didn’t know exactly where you were, so I thought that I’d check here as a first stop.”

  “Come in, Detective.” I swung the door open further. “Would you like something to drink?’ I said trying to be a bit sociable. I wanted to buy some time until Mr. Cahill got here. I hoped that he drove fast.

  My phone beeped with a text from Lizzie. “Told Dicktective that I needed $ so you let me work for you…good luck.”

  “Nothing for me. Why are you not at the bakery this morning, ma’am?”

  “Oh, well, I slid my phone into my pocket. “I felt a bit tired and Lizzie needed some extra cash, so she opened for me.”

  “I wondered, Ms. Bailey, what type of training you have?”

  “Training for what?” Though I thought that I knew what he was getting at. My undergrad degree had been in chemistry because I flirted with the idea of going to medical school, but the only thing I really loved mixing and fixing were recipes for the best baked goods in the world, so I never pursued it. When I had been with Mark, he’d suggested a business track so that I could eventually start my dream bakery.

  “Your college degrees, what are they in, ma’am? Culinary Arts, perhaps?” he said this with a—I already know the answer to this question tone.

  “I have an MBA, which helped me to get my business started, but no, I never studied the culinary arts, I am self-taught.”

  “What about your undergraduate degree, that is in chemistry, if I’m not mistaken?”

  “I wanted to go to medical school so my undergraduate degree prepared me if I decided to go.”

  “But, it was a chemistry degree, right?”

  “What are you getting at, Detective?” as if I didn’t know…

  “Just that you hold a chemistry degree who bakes and that is an interesting combination is all,” he stared at me, but said no more.

  I held his gaze because I thought somehow I would seem guilty if I looked away.

  “Was there something in particular that you’d like to say, Detective?” I tried not to sound angry.

  “I’m just following up on information so that I can feel confident that when an arrest is made, it will be the right person.” He stared again.

  “Let’s hope so, for Barbara’s sake.” I said trying to stay calm. I sat on the couch and looked fiddled idly with the strings on the edge of the blanket draped over the back of the couch.

  “Ms. Bailey, approximately how many recipe cards do you print per week?”

  “I’m not sure. I fill up the holder and I refill it if it gets empty before the end of the week.”

  “You have no idea how many cards you print? 50, 100, or more?”

  I thought about the template for the cards. I think it printed eight cards per page, and I probably printed four or five sheets.

  “I think between thirty and forty. Why?”

  “Did you have any left of the,” he opened his small, lined notepad and scanned the page, “chocolate molten cake?”

  “No, the cards were all gone. In fact they went the fastest of all the ones that I have done so far.”

  He sighed, closed his notepad and put it away.

  I noticed his watch as he did. The gold watch seemed expensive, but it also seemed pretty beat up; it even looked like the stem to set the time was missing, which was kind of fit for Lynch.

  “Does that mean that anyone who had a copy of my recipe card could have killed Barbara? That’s quite a few people to investigate, huh? Almost half the town,” I said in a much braver voice than I felt. I didn’t want him to know how much he intimidated me.

  “Not necessarily,” he said and his phone rang.

  “Lynch. Okay, hold on a minute, will you?” He said as he let himself out the door.

  I followed him to the door and tried to hear anything that he said as he walked a few steps away from my house. With that, another car pulled up outside and parked behind Peter’s car. A very tall man with a full beard unfolded himself from the driver seat and walked to my door, giving Detective Lynch a once over as he passed him.

  “Hello, Ms. Bailey. I am Brian Cahill, esquire,” he held a giant hand out.

  “Hi, I’m Myra, thanks for coming so quickly,” I said as I held the door open for him.

  Inside, he looked a bit and then seated himself on the wingback chair by the door.

  “So, the Falls finest is outside. You didn’t talk to him, did you?”

  I told him about the questions about my chemistry background and the recipe cards. He frowned a bit, but said nothing, took out a pen and scribbled on the back of a card. He handed it to me.

  “This is all my contact information, including my service that can get me even when I’m in the can. Call day or night and I’ll be there in a mere matter of minutes.”

  “Thanks.” I slid the card into the khaki pocket and sat on the couch again.

  “So, what can you tell me that is different from the ten o’clock news?”

  “I’m not sure. Only that she was poisoned and poison was found in my signature chocolate cake. She’d been lying on a recipe card that came from my bakery when they found her and I didn’t do it.”

  “How much have you talked to the police so far, just what that guy asked?” he gestured toward the door.

  “They had a warrant to search my bakery and home. They took my computer at work and they came here to search. They didn’t take anything from here.”

  “Do you know what kind of poison, it was?”

  The door opened and Detective Lynch came back inside just in time to hear that question.

  “Well, Beanstalk. It has been a long time,” said Lynch and he put out his hand. Brian Cahill made no movement to shake his hand or to get up. He still looked at me with a look that I couldn’t read.

  “I can answer your question,” Lynch said as he put down his hand. “It was a castor bean, isn’t that right, Ms. Bailey? The beans have ricin in them and are toxic from just one small bean.”

  Both men looked at me as I tried to understand what he was saying.

  “A baker and a Chemistry major would easily know how to crush the bean up and mix it into the icing. You only need a very small amount of that poison.”

  “Well, Lynch,” came the gruff voice again, “I would think that someone who wanted Ms. Bailey to be a suspect would make such a choice, as well.”

  “Maybe, but it’s enough for me to place you under arrest for the murder of Barbara Simpson, Ms. Bailey.”

  “What?” I barely breathed. This couldn’t be happening, not really. I’d thought about it, but never really thought it would actually happen.

  “Please, stand up and come with me, ma’am. I am placing you under arrest. You have the right to remain silent, and anything that you do or say can be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney, him, if you like, or one will be appointed for you, if you can’t afford his rates.”

  “Myra, say nothing. I’ll meet you at the station.”

  “Will you call my friend, Lizzie for me? She’s at the bakery. Thanks!”

  Luckily, he didn’t put handcuffs on me; he just led me to his car. I guess he didn’t think I’d be much of a flight risk.

  At the police station, I got fingerprinted; they took my phone and other pocket items and logged them in and I ended up in an interrogation room. It might have been a closet originally because there were marks on the wall where shelves hung before.

  I waited a while, but I couldn’t really tell how long since the room had no windows and no clock. In spite of the nausea that I felt, my stomach growled so I guessed it had to be around lunchtime. The room had no two way mirror like in the crime shows on TV, so I felt pretty sure that no one was staring at me while I sat there waiting. I wonder where, my lawyer is? I thought. He seemed to be better known than I’d thought. Peter had called him Beanstalk—an apt nickname b
ecause of his height, but one that didn’t appear to be amusing to Brian Cahill. I wondered if David called him Beanstalk, too.

  Finally, the door rattled and opened. It was the officer that had been with Lynch when he served the search warrant. He stood aside and the door filled with Brian “the Beanstalk” Cahill.

  “Ms. Bailey,” he doffed an imaginary hat and made a shooing motion to the officer who closed the door.

  “Hi, Mr. Cahill. Thank you for representing me,” I said.

  He put his hand up for me to stop and he brushed off the chair before sitting down across from me. He opened the folder that he carried and pulled out his pen.

  “It’s Brian and I like defending innocent people. Besides, to prove that you are innocent in my fairly closed-minded hometown holds a certain attraction for me. Now, let’s get started.” He clicked the pen three times and poised it to take notes. “Where were you when Mrs. Simpson met her fate?”

  “I’m not sure exactly what time that was, but I was home and then I walked to the bakery and got things ready for the day.”

  “And I’m presuming that you were alone the whole time? Any chance that you saw someone or that someone saw you at any time that morning?”

  “I didn’t notice anybody. It’s pretty early in the morning.”

  “This town is pretty quiet most of the time, but that doesn’t leave you with an alibi that anyone can check.”

  “Well, I opened on time and had fresh muffins and breads made, so how could I do that if I wasn’t really at the bakery the whole time?”

  “While that is a logical argument, it can be called into question because couldn’t you have made the preparations the night before so that it took less time in the morning?”

  “I suppose it’s possible, but no self-respecting baker would do that and sell them as fresh,” I said, not meaning to sound huffy.

  “The law rarely cares about the quality of baked goods, my dear,” he scribbled on his tablet. “Okay. Let’s tackle motive. It seems that their working theory is that you killed Ms. Simpson because she owned the rival bakery in town and your bakery had not been doing well.” He stared at me.

  “Well, I’ve been doing well enough for just opening several months ago. I’m not raking in the dough, so to speak, by any means, but I’m making ends meet.”

  “So, if Ms. Simpson’s bakery went out of business, you’d stand to gain more business?”

  “I guess,” I felt a wave of nausea sweep over me because this lawyer believed me and still made it seem as though I had been the one to murder Barbara. I could go to jail. The weight of that thought made me gasp for breath.

  “Look, the bright side of this situation is that if there is little evidence to clear you, there is also little evidence to convict. I won’t lie to you, this is every bit of an uphill battle to get you off, but I love a challenge.”

  “So do I, usually, but not in this case,” I tried to smile.

  “Well, the rest of it is the recipe card and the chocolate cake at the scene. But, by raising questions about the dozens of people who could have had your recipe card with them, that could be a wash on both sides.” He said more to himself than me.

  “The chocolate cake is the most difficult evidence to explain. How many people could have had some of your cake? Best guess will be a start.”

  “I sold four cakes this week. I did sell two the week before, but I highly doubt that Barbara would have eaten a stale piece of cake.”

  “Do you know who bought the cakes?”

  “Yes, I do. Mark Corner, Ron Simpson, Rachel Anderson and Willie, the handyman, but I don’t actually know his last name.”

  “What about the other cakes that you said you sold last week?”

  “Detective David Bentley bought one for something here at the Police Station.” I shifted on the hard seat and decided to confide my theory about Ron’s motive for insurance and for how Willie fought with Barbara the night before she’d been found dead.

  “Okay, so that gives me some ammunition, possibly. I need to get things ready for your arraignment. Sit tight. Be strong and say nothing.”

  I sat for who knows how long before both David and Lynch came into the small room.

  “Well, Ms. Bailey, do you want anything to eat or drink?” Lynch asked nearly as soon as the door opened.

  I looked at David and he winked ever so slightly at me.

  “I guess just some water, please.”

  He nodded and left David standing in the doorway.

  “Fancy meeting you here, Green Eyes. You okay?” he said softly.

  I smiled weakly. Seeing him made me feel better. I took a deep breath.

  “So, I see that you got in touch with Brian. I think that’s a good choice. It’s all going to work out in the end, you’ll see.” He said the last part quickly as Lynch came back with a bottle of water and pushed by David.

  “Here’s your water, ma’am,” he said as he leaned over the table. “Since you have a lawyer, we can’t really speak to you, unless you decide that you have nothing to hide and a lawyer isn’t needed and then we can just talk about what happened and get everything wrapped up.”

  David shifted and started to speak.

  “No, detective,” I said first. “I think I’ll just wait to have my lawyer with me when we just talk.”

  “Of course,” he stood. “Well, here’s the drill. You’ll be here tonight in one of our cells.”

  I cringed.

  “Tomorrow,” he continued seemingly satisfied at my response, “you will be arraigned in Caraway and be in custody in the county jail while you await trial.”

  He really seemed to be enjoying the fact that I had been arrested, but why would he care that much about having me convicted? His whole demeanor made me mad and I fought with myself to keep my temper.

  David noticed and spoke up, “Hey, why don’t you get her a sandwich anyway. I’ll bring her downstairs.”

  Lynch looked at David and then at me and made a “humph” sound as he left the room. He knew there was something between us.

  “Thanks, but are you sure you want to be associated with me right now?”

  David shrugged and gestured to the door. “Too late now to worry about it. Look Green Eyes, I meant what I said. It will all work out and I’ll be waiting for you when it does.”

  He took my elbow as we left the room and I could feel gooseflesh rise on my arm as we walked down the stairs and past the uniformed officer stationed at a desk near the two cells.

  “Number one,” David said to the officer and then we heard a click.

  The cell we stopped in front of was a square box with a tiny window way too high and small to look out or to get to and it had a bench built into the wall, a small sink and toilet and that was it. The door had a window in the upper part. It wasn’t quite the barred and dank cell I’d been envisioning, but it was far from inviting.

  I stepped into the cell and turned to face David as he held the door.

  We just looked at each other for a second and in that moment, I felt closer to him than I had to anyone. I just wanted him to hold me for a while. Just as he opened his mouth to speak, his radio beeped.

  “Yah,” he said pressing a button on it.

  “Got a hit on your guy, bringing him in now.”

  “Right,” he said and then as he closed the door, he said, “See, things are already looking up. We found, Willie.” He winked and left me alone again. I felt certain that I’d never felt so alone in my whole life.

  CHAPTER 3

  I didn’t sleep at all on the hard bench and so when morning came, I felt stiff and tired in addition to the panic that seemed to have settled in the pit of my stomach. Between the lack of sleep, the worry and little food from yesterday, when an officer came in with some runny eggs and burnt toast, I nearly threw up. I did drink the really strong coffee though, and splashed water on my face. I had to find a way to clear myself. I thought as I held onto the sides of the stainless steel basin. I hoped Lizzie wou
ld be at the arraignment. I wondered if David would be.

  I also wondered if Brian Cahill could get me bail. Although it seemed unlikely in a murder case, I liked thinking about the possibility. I sat back down on the bench and hugged my knees.

  Then I heard noise from the hall and the door clicked. It was time to go. My legs wobbled as I got up from the bench and went to the door.

  “Morning, Green Eyes.”

  “Hi,” I said not nearly as cheerful.