Sugar and Iced (Cupcake Bakery Mystery)

by McKinlay, Jenn

  “No,” Mel interrupted. “This is the greatest event ever in the history of great events. I couldn’t be happier. My two best friends getting married is just the best thing—ever!”

  Angie hugged her close and Mel felt her throat close up again as the tears spilled down her cheeks.

  “Lupe!” Joyce came hurrying out of the ballroom. “What’s the holdup? Sweetie, you need to be inside. They’re about to start.”

  “Oh, but—” Lupe began to explain but Angie cut her off.

  “No, this is your night,” she said. “Go and shine! We’ll share the news later.”

  Lupe nodded and hurried away with Joyce.

  “Shall we go grab seats?” Marty asked.

  Tate and Angie were standing by the cupcake tower, looking at each other as if they had just met.

  “Come on,” Mel said. She used a napkin to wipe the tears off her cheeks and blow her nose. “Something tells me those two want to be alone.”

  She put one hand on Marty’s elbow and one on Oz’s and led them into the ballroom. They saw Lupe’s family and were making their way to the available seats beside them when Mel spotted Uncle Stan on the far side of the room. She knew that he and Manny probably already knew about Brandon Richards and his current difficulties, but it couldn’t hurt to be sure.

  “Will you two save me a seat?” she asked. “I need to talk to Uncle Stan.”

  “Sure, but hurry up,” Marty said. “You don’t want to miss this.”

  Mel cut across the room, moving as fast as she could, but the crowd was thick and she had to pause for little kids running through the aisle and for older folks easing their way into the hard seats. By the time she got to the place she’d seen Uncle Stan, he was gone.

  She glanced around the room but didn’t see him anywhere. Up ahead was a door and Mel wondered if Uncle Stan had gone out that way. The lights were still up, so she figured she had a few minutes. She hurried forward and slipped through the door. It led into a hallway that was empty.

  She hoped he wasn’t back with the contestants, badgering Lupe before she had to go on. Mel hurried in the direction of the dressing room. Before she could open the door, it slammed open and she had to jump out of the way to avoid getting hit.

  “Hey!” she cried.

  Brandon Richards stood there. He looked upset and when Mel went to move around him, he turned and sneered at her.

  “You need an enhancement,” he said.

  “And you need to learn some manners!” she snapped.

  He was staring at her meager chest and she had to resist the urge to kick him. Ugh! She didn’t care if he was a doctor. It was rude. She crossed her arms over her chest and moved around him to enter the room. It was empty except for the costumes and clutter that littered every available surface.

  No Uncle Stan. No Manny. Just Brandon Richards the creep who offered surgery for favors. Except he was really in no position to be offering anyone plastic surgery, now was he? She wondered if Mariel knew and, if so, had she called him out on it?

  Mel turned to leave but Richards stopped her by grabbing her arm.

  “You’re with that Lupe girl, aren’t you?” he asked. His eyes narrowed as if he were doing calculations in his head.

  “I’m not with her, but she is a friend, yes,” Mel said.

  “She has to lose,” he said. “Make her lose tonight. Have her trip or offend the crowd with her answers in the interview.”

  “Why would I do that?” Mel asked. “Or did you miss the part that she’s my friend?”

  “I’ll give you a killer bust line,” he said. He let go of her arm and cupped Mel’s breasts. She was so shocked, she gasped. Then she punched him right in the side of the head.

  “Go to hell!” Mel snapped. Her temper got the better of her and everything she’d been thinking flew out of her mouth in verbal vomit that was practically projectile. “You are suspended pending a review by the medical board for raiding your pharmacy. You can’t offer up any surgery, not legitimately. So what happened? Did Mariel figure out you couldn’t uphold your end of the bargain for free surgery and refuse to keep throwing the pageant Destiny’s way? Is that why you strangled her?”

  Brandon went perfectly still. He looked stunned. Mel clapped a hand over her mouth in shock. It was true, she hadn’t thought it out, but everything she had just said was true.

  “No, that’s not what happened,” he said.

  He didn’t look at her when he spoke. Mel could tell he was lying.

  “You don’t understand,” he said. “I’m broke. The way Brittany spends money, I can’t keep up. If I don’t give Brittany a pageant win, she’ll leave me. Mariel knew what she had to do, but she found out about my legal issues and she balked.”

  “You killed her,” Mel said.

  “It wasn’t my fault. It was an accident,” he argued. “We were alone in the green room, and I just wanted to talk to her, but she was being such a diva. She was demanding the money I had promised her for her stupid nail polish line. I didn’t have it, but she just kept badgering me. I . . . I snapped.”

  “You strangled her with a sash.”

  “I just wanted to scare her, but she put up such a fight and then she was dead. I tried to bring her back, I did.” His look was pleading, as if begging Mel to understand. She didn’t. She couldn’t. To take a life over a beauty pageant win? It was too horrible.

  “How did she get under my cupcake table?” Mel asked. She tried to keep her tone neutral and not cause Brandon Richards to freak out. Maybe if he thought she was sympathetic she could convince him that confessing all to Stan and Manny was the only way out,

  “When I couldn’t resuscitate her, I put Mariel’s arm over my shoulders and carried her out of the dressing room. I figured I’d pretend she was drunk and I was helping her out. But then I realized they’d know I was the last one to see her alive, and if they tested her blood alcohol, the drunk story would prove to be a lie.

  “I had used the sash near Lupe’s changing station. I knew her prints were probably on it. So I rolled Mariel’s body onto a luggage trolley I found in the green room. When the lounge was clear, I simply off-loaded her under the cupcake table, knowing the sash would lead back to Lupe.”

  The horror of it all washed over Mel in a deluge. He had murdered someone and thought nothing of framing an eighteen-year-old girl for it.

  “You’re insane,” she said.

  Brandon doubled over amidst the beauty pageant shrapnel as if trying to catch his breath. He was shaking, and Mel knew this was her chance to get out of there and get help.

  “You have to help me,” Brandon pleaded, glancing up at her. “I can’t lose Brittany.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Mel said. Her heart was thumping hard in her chest. The man in front of her was a monster and she needed to appease him any way she could, even if it meant agreeing with what he said. She needed to calm the crazy man. “In fact, I’ll go get Lupe to ditch the pageant right now.”

  She began to back away. When he reached for her, Mel instinctively smacked his hand away.

  Richards staggered back and Mel turned and ran toward the door. She was so rattled she was shaking, making the turning of a doorknob much more difficult than it should have been. Before Mel could push open the door, Brandon Richards dropped a satin sash around her neck and yanked her back into the room.

  “I don’t believe you,” he hissed in her ear.

  Mel struggled against his hold. Her voice was raspy when she wheezed, “Killing me is not going to save you. It will only make things worse.”

  “Shut up! With you dead and Lupe the outsider blamed for killing the baker because she only got her a tie in the cupcake competition, well, I win. There’s no way they’ll crown her Miss Sweet Tiara now.”

  “No one will believe it,” Mel gasped. She clawed at the sash that was cutting off her airway
.

  “Sure they will,” he said. “I had planned to shred Lupe’s dress with a scalpel but someone came into the green room and interrupted me. But now, it’s perfect. Clutched in your dead hand, those black roses should be all the evidence they need to charge her with your murder and Destiny wins.”

  “No!” Mel clawed at the sash that was tightening about her neck. Is this how Mariel had died? She couldn’t catch her breath. Panic was making her scratch even harder at her own skin. She kicked behind her with her leg and heard him grunt when her foot connected with his shin. The sash loosened just enough for her to draw in some air.

  She let go of the sash. Fighting his hold wasn’t helping. She thrust her arms behind her, leading with her elbows, and aimed for his middle. She connected and he let out a whoosh of air. Again the sash loosened enough for her to get a breath.

  She and Angie had taken self-defense classes, at Angie’s brothers’ insistence, and the one thing the instructor had said was that the best chance you have of fighting off an attacker in the very beginning was to put up a fight and be very difficult.

  Mel took the words to heart and she kicked backwards and punched anything she could hit behind her. The sash fell from around her throat, as Brandon was so busy defending himself that he couldn’t keep hold of it. Mel used his distraction to rip the sash away.

  She stumbled away from him as she sucked air into her burning lungs. She looked for a weapon, but unless she was going to curl him to death with an electric wand, she was out of luck.

  Brandon lunged for her, but Mel sidestepped. She saw Lupe’s skateboard on the ground and she hopped over it, keeping it between them. He charged for her and Mel jumped back against the vanity. Brandon stomped onto the skateboard, which shot out from under him, sending him to the floor with a hard smack. Mel took the opportunity and ran.

  She shoved through the door. Legs and arms pumping, heedless of her throbbing stitches or raw throat, she raced down the hallway toward the lobby. She could hear shouts and cheers coming from the ballroom. She dashed into the lobby to find her friends, but the cupcake tower stood alone, its mini-tiaras sparkling for no one.

  Damn it! Tate and Angie must have gone in to see the crowning of Miss Sweet Tiara. Across the room, three men sat at the bar. Mel raced toward it. At the very least, the bartender could call the police.

  She was halfway there when she heard Brandon enter the lobby behind her. His nose was bleeding and he was limping but he looked deranged and he was definitely coming for her.

  “Help!” Mel cried. Her voice was gruff from near strangulation and it couldn’t compete with the noise from the basketball game on the television over the bar. She tried again, her voice still not much more than a whisper.

  Brandon reached a hand out to grab her when one of the men from the bar spun around as if his ears had heard her small cry. It was Joe. Seeing Mel in trouble, he raced forward and caught Brandon in a tackle worthy of an NFL linebacker. As they skidded across the floor and slammed into a table and chairs, the other two men at the bar turned to see what the ruckus was.

  Mel was surprised to see that it was Manny and Steve. She pointed at Brandon and said, “It’s him. He killed Mariel and he just tried to kill me.”

  The words were faint, but Manny heard her. He jumped out of his seat, pulling a pair of handcuffs out of his pocket as he went. Steve stood staring as if he couldn’t believe what was happening.

  “Number three, a little help here!” Manny called.

  Joe was sitting on Brandon and using the opportunity to punch him, repeatedly. Steve raced forward and helped Manny haul Joe off of Brandon.

  Once Manny had Brandon cuffed, he dragged him to his feet. Joe slumped against the front of a chair and Mel glanced at him and winced. He had a cut on his head from where it had connected with a sharp corner of a table, and blood was pouring down his face.

  Mel grabbed a rag off of the clean stack from the bar and hurried to Joe’s side. She knelt down and pressed the cloth to his head.

  “You heard me?” she asked. She cringed, as her throat felt scraped raw.

  Joe reached out and grabbed her hand. He laced his fingers with hers and then said, “Yeah, and then I saw some nut chasing my girl so I took him out.”

  “It was a good hit, too,” Manny said. “I guess we know why you’re number one.”

  Joe grinned and Mel rolled her eyes.

  “You can’t hold me,” Brandon thrashed in his handcuffs. “You have no proof of anything.”

  “Except for the small detail that you admitted to me that you killed Mariel and tried to kill me the same way,” Mel said.

  Steve joined them with another bar rag, but this one had ice in it. “For your neck.”

  Mel glanced down and realized she’d clawed her own skin bloody, just like Mariel. She shuddered. She had come so close to losing everything. She tightened her hold on Joe’s hand. As if he understood, he squeezed her fingers back.

  “Can you tell me what happened, Mel, from the beginning?” Manny asked.

  She nodded. She began by telling them about her conversation with Olivia about the free eye tuck, and Anka’s confirmation that Mariel had a deal with Brandon for surgery. She said she had wanted to tell Uncle Stan about the free plastic surgery, and had been looking for him, when she found Brandon instead. She disclosed their horrifying conversation.

  When she got to the part about Lupe’s black roses, Manny put on a glove and searched Brandon’s pockets until he found the crushed black velvet. Mel ended the story with Joe’s tackle. Brandon argued and objected and called her a liar but Mel ignored him. The roses were evidence enough.

  “One thing I can’t figure out,” Mel said. “What about the brick?”

  “What brick?” Brandon asked.

  “The one that sailed through my bakery window,” Mel said. “Were you trying to hit Lupe?”

  Brandon gave a harsh laugh devoid of humor. “Someone else gets the credit for that. My money would be on the mean redhead in need of a nose job. She’s crazy.”

  Mel thought of Sarah Hendricks and thought Brandon might be on to something. After all, it took one to know one.

  “Mel, I’ll want you down at the station to give a statement as soon as you have Joe’s head looked at,” Manny said.

  She nodded. She would do whatever it took to put Brandon Richards behind bars.

  As Manny led Brandon Richards away, Steve fell into step behind them.

  “Where are you going?” Joe asked.

  “I’m number three, remember?” Steve asked. “I’m pretty sure my presence isn’t needed unless Mel wants to reconsider the arrangement of the Order of Mel?”

  Joe looked at Mel to see if she was interested but she just shook her head. Steve heaved a sigh and followed Manny out of the building.

  Joe looked her over. His finger brushed the scratches on her neck and gently fingered the bruises. “I should have punched him harder when I had the chance.”

  “How’s your head?” she asked. She pulled his hand away and noted that the bleeding had slowed.

  “It’s fine,” he said. Big fat lie.

  “Let’s get you to the ER,” she said.

  “No, they’re about to announce the winner,” Joe said. “Let’s go see if our girl nailed it.”

  They ducked into the back of the ballroom. The lights were low but the stage sparkled with all of the glamorous contestants, not to mention the huge glittery tiara suspended from the ceiling.

  Mel scanned the crowd until she spotted her mother with Lupe’s family, Marty, Oz, Ginny, and Joe’s brothers, Paulie and Al. Tate and Angie were with them, but they were still lost in each other’s eyes.

  Joyce, Ginny, and Gloria looked tense as did Marty, Paulie, and Al, but Oz . . . Strangely enough, Oz looked perfectly relaxed and composed. His eyes were fixed on Lupe and Mel noted that their gazes
met several times and when they did, Oz gave her a small nod of encouragement and she beamed.

  “I think Oz is convinced that she’s won it,” Joe said.

  “I think no matter what happens, she’s his Miss Sweet Tiara,” Mel said.

  Cici Hastings strolled across the stage. She looked as glamorous as an old Hollywood movie star with her pile of platinum curls and her rose-colored gown that was beaded from her neckline to the floor-length hem, and sparkled with every move she made. She clutched three envelopes in her hand and Mel tightened her grip on Joe’s arm as she realized this was it.

  Cici paused by the microphone, and in a breathy voice, she said, “And now the moment we’ve all been waiting for.” She tore open the first envelope and said, “The second runner-up for Miss Sweet Tiara is Jordan Hooper.”

  There was applause, and a cute brunette strode forward with a big smile and got her flowers and sash.

  Cici returned to the microphone. “Our first runner-up for Miss Sweet Tiara is Destiny Richards.”

  Destiny was standing next to Lupe, and Mel watched as she turned and squeezed Lupe’s hand before striding forward with a big smile to accept her sash and flowers. Mel saw a commotion near the stage and she wasn’t at all surprised when Brittany looked as if she was going to storm the stage.

  Destiny smiled and waved to the crowd, then she stepped forward and hissed, “Sit down, Mother, you’re making an ass of yourself.”

  Like a real beauty queen, she then turned and walked with her head held high and stood next to Jordan.

  “I like that girl,” Joe said to Mel. “Her parents are awful, but I like her.”

  “Me, too,” she agreed.

  Brittany sat down with a sob, but the crowd grew quiet. Cici looked at the third envelope and then she looked at the crowd. “Are you ready to greet your new Miss Sweet Tiara?”

  The cheer was deafening.

  Cici began to open the envelope. “Ladies and gentleman, our seventy-fifth Miss Sweet Tiara is Guadalupe Guzman.”

  “Yes!” Oz shouted and punched a fist in the air. Joyce and Ginny hugged each other while Gloria and her girls jumped up and down. Paulie and Al hugged each other, although they broke apart immediately and then knuckle-bumped each other.