Cinnamon Rolls & Cyanide

by Beth Byers

  Her lips were trembling as she nodded.

  I had no idea who killed George, but I had discovered in the course of getting sucked into murder investigations that it was all too easy to see why someone would commit murder. The very first case I had gotten involved with ended with me paying for the lawyer for the murderer. I didn’t condone her actions, and I never would, but I could see why she’d gone where she had.

  Zee continued to talk with Helen, but we’d gotten what we needed to know. I listened as they talked and watched Helen calm down. Her eyes strayed to family photo after family photo and I’m sure she was thinking of each of her boys.

  She finally turned to me and asked, “Do you have children?”

  I shook my head.

  “You don’t know what it’s like…to be a mom…not until you have one. Everyone thinks it’s some trite thing that people say how you never knew you could love so much before kids. You never knew what it was like before, but it isn’t. You talk to any normal mother, and they’ll say how the whole world changes the second you fall in love with your baby.”

  I took her hand and squeezed. I could see that Zee agreed, but it wasn’t something I knew for myself.

  “It’s not like moms don’t know their kids are stupid or rude or silly. It’s not like they don’t see the class clown in their child or the manipulative player. We do.”

  She waited when she said that so I said, “Ok.”

  I wasn’t sure what else to say, but it seemed to be enough. She smiled at me and her laugh lines crinkled.

  “Jake doesn’t have common sense. Mitchell is too distant. Hank is a know-it-all. All of my boys have their flaws. It just never affected how much I love them.”

  I squeezed her hand again. It wasn’t like she was asking me a question, and it wasn’t like I could really feel the same. It would be rude and trite to say I could understand because Mama Dog was nippy and Daisy was a little slow. Those were dogs, not children. So I said, “They were lucky to have your unfailing love.”

  * * * * *

  “What do you think?” I asked as we got back into Zee’s muscle car and roared towards the diner. We were grabbing Daisy and Mama Dog and taking them home to let the other dogs out. Between Simon and me, we had seven dogs which was a lot of dog hair and a lot of kisses. We tried to make it home even more often lately or get friends to swing by because Simon’s oldest dog, a sweet lab, was declining. It wouldn’t be that long before we had to say goodbye, so we wanted him to be sure he knew how much he was loved.

  I went in the back and got the dogs. Az told me that Simon had been by. I sighed. I should have messaged him and told him what we were up to. Before I left the diner, I told him we’d only talked to Jenny and Jake’s mom, so he wouldn’t worry, and I promised we’d be careful.

  These were killers we were dealing with. I understood why Simon worried and why he didn’t love Zee and I getting involved in these things. That being said…I didn’t think that someone who killed for money or love or hatred of a specific person would just lash out and murder again. Maybe that was stupid of me, but I didn’t want to believe that of my neighbors.

  SEVEN

  I didn’t go back out with Zee that day. It was simple enough. Zee wanted to make Roberta pay and the next natural step was to go to Rose’s Diner and talk to the heirs. Only…I just might be pressing charges against them. This might be one of those times when we had to let the police do their jobs.

  It is what we should be doing anyway. Simon almost always cooked diner for us since I tended to feed him every breakfast and lunch. This time, however, I made us a salad and grilled some chicken to go on it. He came in while I was slicing the avocado. I’d lit the candles and started the fire. Classical music by Yiruma was playing.

  “This looks good,” he said, dropping a kiss on my forehead before he disappeared into the bedroom. When he came back out he was wearing a t-shirt and pajama pants, and I was sure his gun was locked in the safe.

  “I took the dogs out. Our old fella is tired today,” I said. If it were a nice day, sometimes the lab would sniff around. Today he just did his business and made his way back to his heated bed. Mama Dog’s pups curled up around him, and they snoozed the evening away while I made the salad.

  He nodded and leaned down to greet the dogs. We had met over a pile of puppies where we both ended up bringing one home. His Duke and my Daisy were snuggled together on the next heated dog bed while Mama Dog was at my feet, occasionally touched me with her cold nose, and begging for scraps.

  “I want you to say that you’ll move in,” Simon said, coming up behind me and wrapping his arm around my waist as I placed avocado on our plates. He pressed his lips to my cheek and said, “I know you haven’t really moved in.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that you don’t have any pictures up on the walls, Rosemary. You haven’t said you hate the bedroom’s tan walls, even though I saw the look on your face when you saw them.”

  I bit my lips and turned to face him.

  “I want you to want to be here. To make it your own.”

  I swallowed. I was afraid. Simon had been in love before, I was sure. He hadn’t only had a relationship with Roberta. But I had somehow gotten stuck in this call center purgatory life where I’d never found someone that I really cared about. Yeah, I’d dated before Simon. But I’d never loved and loving was far more terrifying that I could have ever imagined.

  “I…”

  He waited and I hoped that he knew that the reason I was here was because I loved him. I needed him to know that I wasn’t trying to wimp out on him.

  “I…love you, Simon. I’m trying to stop being so afraid.”

  He wrapped me up in his arms and let me pour all my worries out on him and didn’t seem to be in the least bothered by my fears or how it was hard for me to trust him as much as I did.

  I did trust him. I trusted him with my heart and who I was but that trust didn’t make the doubts flee. Probably, I had never let myself fall in love because I hadn’t found someone I could trust like I trusted Simon. Maybe, for me, love was only possible when I found myself trusting the person first.

  “You can have all the time you need,” Simon said, “To be afraid. But I want you to decorate the bedroom, so you love being in there.”

  “The bedroom?” I asked as I placed the dressing I’d made on the table and joined him for our dinner.

  “For starters,” he grinned at me and I had to laugh at the way his eyes crinkled in mischief.

  “So the bedroom is the gateway room?”

  “Yep,” he said, popping the P sound. “First the bedroom, then the living room, then I’ll have you buying my clothes. All those girlfriend things.”

  I had to laugh before I said, “I’m not very good at being a girlfriend. You might have to buy your own clothes.”

  “Nooo,” he wailed, purposefully filling his voice with whining. “I hate shopping.”

  “You probably need new jeans or something, right? This is all an act to make me shop for you.”

  “Maybe,” he said.

  “What did you learn today? Who are the heirs?”

  He raised his brows at me, and I could see him fighting tell me what he knew.

  “You don’t have to tell me,” I said soothingly. “Zee has probably already got it all figured out.”

  He snorted at that.

  “Do you realize how often we do that?”

  I was laughing as I reached over to pinch his cheek when he turned to ask me.“What?”

  “Snort. Like Zee. When she’s feeling mean and nasty, she snorts. We all do it now. You, me, Az, Maddie, Roxy.” I gasped and then grabbed his arm, “Does Carver do it? He does, doesn’t he?”

  Simon thought about it for a few minutes and then nodded as he laughed.

  “George has two sons. One was working at the diner with him. The other runs a plumbing business in Lincoln City. They have quite a lot of money. It wasn’t loans that let George put that
diner together. He had enough to be able to push that diner through and make it nice so quick.”

  I wondered if I could have outlasted him like I had thought. Would it have been a game of who was willing to throw the most money at the diner? But The 2nd Chance Diner was my dream. It was, however, the dream I’d made in call center purgatory. Now that I’d found my life here, my dream had expanded. It included Simon. Maybe a child or two. Good times with our friends. Now that I was in love, I wanted to travel with Simon. Before Paris had no allure, but now…now…there I craved seeing the city of lights with someone who loved me.

  I wanted to go to Hawaii. I wanted to see someone good, like Jenny, become the mayor. I wanted to see our scavenger hunt weekend to become something regular. I might even plant perennial flowers or fruit trees, knowing the joy would only come after time.

  “Who inherits the money?”

  “The sons evenly. The one who runs the diner with his dad is George, Jr. He goes by his middle name—Justin. He’s a jerk,” Simon said, scowling. “Carver asked him about the recipes that they’d found. He denied everything even though the one for the cinnamon rolls was on the board in front of where he was working.”

  I lost my happiness at that and found my rush of anger returning.

  “Did you get it?”

  Simon nodded and then said, “It’s in evidence with your other recipes, but you’ll get them back.”

  “I’m going to press charges,” I said.

  “I think you should,” Simon agreed.

  “And sue them as well,” I said. “I didn’t think I’d be that person, but what they did is wrong, and if I don’t, I can’t keep them from making my food, can I?”

  “Probably not, but…I made sure we took all the copies they’d made. Carver and I had our team search the diner thoroughly. We got every single copy. And Junior isn’t the type to memorize a recipe, I doubt they can make any of them without them.”

  I grinned at that. It didn’t make me feel all that much better, but some better. I didn’t think the local lawyer would be who I should hire. There was only one in Silver Falls, and he was more likely to be involved in family court and wills than intellectual copyright. I curled into Simon with my laptop and searched for a good lawyer who could help me, sending out queries to lawyers from Tillamook to Portland.

  Simon watched me with the understanding sort of gentleness that was almost worse than his anger on my behalf. I suppose it was because I was used to be alone—except for my mother—but his sympathy made me want to cry far more than just being a victim.

  “Do you think I should press charges against Roberta?”

  He hesitated. Unlike George and his son, Roberta was one of us. But he finally said, “Yes. She could have ended all of this and possibly saved George’s life if she’d just been less selfish.”

  I hadn’t thought about that. If whoever killed him was connected to her, outing George could have saved his life. Of course, if his son or one of his employees killed him. Or maybe if he’d done to someone else what he had been doing to me. I hadn’t known I could get as furious as I had been until George had shown me with what he’d done to me. Maybe I wasn’t the only person he’d hurt like that?

  EIGHT

  Zee met me at the diner in the morning. I refused to even talk about the case until I got to eat waffles. Yesterday, they’d been ruined for me, but I’d woken up craving them, and I was going to enjoy them this time without interruption.

  “Az buddy,” I said as I dropped my bag. I’d left the dogs at home, and I was wearing business clothes. He glanced me over and raised a brow at me in question.

  “Meeting with a lawyer in Portland. I have enough time for breakfast and then I have to go.”

  Az made the waffles extra special that day adding toffee chips and topping them with whipped cream, more toffee chips, and real maple syrup. The whipped cream and butter melted into it, and I knew I’d need extra caffeine to not need to sleep off this breakfast.

  “I’d tell you to make this for Simon when he comes in,” I said moaning around my fork, “But knowing him, he won’t want the extras.”

  Az grinned at me and with his dark, honey voice said, “He just doesn’t appreciate our creativity.”

  “That’s for sure,” I said.

  Zee handed me an envelope of cash and letter from Roberta. In the letter, she said she saw George take the recipes and that his son knew they were stolen.

  “This will help today,” I said.

  “That’s what I thought,” Zee replied.

  “Thank you.”

  I finished my waffles and drove back to Portland. The drive would take 2-3 hours depending on traffic, but it would be beautiful. I had made plans with my mom for dinner, and then I’d spend the night at her place. I couldn’t just dart in and out of town without seeing her. No matter the reason I was there or what I was doing with the murder investigation.

  I couldn’t focus my mind on any one thing while I drove. There was Simon. I wanted to tell Mom all about him. But there was also Roberta and what she’d done. There was George and the stolen recipes. I hadn’t told Mom how the diner had opened and just how frustrated I’d been. She knew, of course, that I’d been upset about the new diner.

  When I got to the lawyer’s office and told my tale, it was a simple matter. She accepted my face, ordered a Cease and Desist letter to be sent that day, and promised she’d follow up with a further lawsuit.

  “What do you want out of this?” She asked me as I wrote her a check.

  I considered for a moment and then said, “I’d be happy if they closed the diner and agreed to never use any recipe from my book.”

  She leaned back, and then said, “You might be able to get the diner from them. Or recompense.”

  “I don’t want my life wrapped up in this. I worked hard on those recipes. They’re mine, and they can’t have them. But I don’t want to be focused on all this…badness. I worked a long time to be happy in Silver Falls. I won’t let this ruin it.”

  “Then,” she said, “We’ll get your recipes as fully yours and make them stop using them. This letter from the mayor will help a lot as will the evidence of the police and the witnesses who knew those recipes were yours. They don’t have a leg to stand on.”

  That was far easier than I expected it to be, but I guess it was probably because I was in the right. My mother was still working, though I knew she’d cancel her office hours to meet me. I took the chance to stop by Powell’s Bookstore and buy several cookbooks including one Jamaican one and then I went to visit my favorite food trucks.

  I ate in my car as I looked over the cookbooks. Even though I’d only been gone a few hours, I had messages from Maddie and Jane as well as Zee, Simon, and even Carver. The last, however, was begging me to come back and entertain Zee before she drove them all mad.

  Zee: You won’t believe what I’ve been finding out. You should call me.

  Me: What have you been finding out?

  Zee: George wasn’t loaded like we thought. The money came from his Mom. We need to visit her tomorrow when you get back. Also George’s son is a jerk.

  Me: Are we surprised? Simon said the same thing.

  Zee: Carver too.

  My mom took me to my favorite restaurant and we went shopping together. I told her about Simon telling me I’d be buying him clothes as I bought him two new shirts and a sweatshirt.

  “I’d hoped you find someone when you decided to move, Rosemary. I knew you weren’t happy here, but I guess I didn’t realize how unhappy you were until now.”

  I grinned at my mom and pushed my chicken schwarma around on my plate. It was especially good since I hadn’t had it since the last time I’d come home. Baba ganoush, falafel, and schwarma weren’t so easy to find at the beach.

  “Mom why do you think someone kills another person?”

  My mom leaned back and thought. I suppose since I’d been involved in murder investigations it made the question all the more real. It had stopped
being a legal tv drama question and something that happened to people that we knew. Or that I knew.

  “I don’t know, Rosemary. I’d like to think that most people wouldn’t kill another person.”

  That was a wish I’d like to believe in. I’d like to believe that it was possible to actually be a good person. That it was possible to leave the world a better place after you’d passed through it.

  “Do you think that your parents would have been ok with how we spent the money they left us? I wonder what they intended us to do with it? I mean, I used some to get a murderer a lawyer. I am using some to get Az’s brother legally immigrated to either the U.S. or Canada. I…Mom…I’d like to do something more with it than buy boots I don’t really need.”

  My mom and I discussed several charity options with my mom being a firm voter for some sort of animal shelter given my love of dogs and her saying that she wasn’t sure she wanted to do much more than spend it while she had it and leave it to a charity.

  I was her only child, and she’d already given me half the ridiculous amount of money her parents left her. I didn’t want or expect more, and I liked the idea of her traveling or having someone deliver her groceries so she could read more novels.

  “I think I’m going to spend the summer in the south of France,” Mom said. “I…found a rental, and I reserved it on a whim a couple of days ago.”

  I paused thinking that I could have gone with her if I hadn’t bought The 2nd Chance Diner. I loved working there and I loved creating recipes, but I was a little jealous of the villa she was showing me pictures of, the gorgeous beaches, and the photos that showed a large number of loaves of bread.

  “You’re going to eat french cheese and bread every morning aren’t you?”

  “Croissants,” Mom said, with a French accent. “And berries with cream.”

  I laughed at that as she rubbed her hands together and then said, “I think that berries with cream is something a little more British than French. Perhaps something Dame Judi Dench eats with some English breakfast tea.”