Midnight Mysteries: Nine Cozy Tales by Nine Bestselling Authors

by Ritter Ames

  “Oui, of course. What do you think I say? We dress like the characters from mystery books.” He turned to Sam with his quirky smile. “There must be dessert. I will leave to your capable hands. Your friend Rupert is making the entertainment. All the bakery must come. Your beautiful daughter shall come, your husband—but tell him no wearing uniform, must be a book character. Da?”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Sam promised. “Da. Ja…oui… Whatever.”

  “Spasibo!” With that, he bustled out the door and headed back to his shop.

  “Thanks?” Jen guessed. “So, did he once tell me he escaped Soviet Russia and lived in various parts of Europe before coming here?”

  Sam nodded. “That’s the story. He does seem to have quite the multicultural manner, doesn’t he?”

  She carried the witchy wedding cake design to the kitchen, her mind already flitting between what type of dessert she could make for Ivan’s party and how on earth she would convince the county sheriff to dress up as a literary character.

  TWO

  “UGH, SAM, YOU know I hate that stuff,” Beau said when she told him about the costume party later at home.

  She had grilled steaks and made a colorful salad, hoping to turn his mood in favor of the idea. Her handsome husband could be spontaneous and fun-loving—she still remembered their first date where they ate his homemade chili and watched the sunset—but costumes just weren’t his thing.

  “I know, but I told Ivan I would ask.”

  “If you really want to do it, and if I’m not working that night…” He cut a bite of his steak and began chewing, making it seem as if he’d been just about ready to agree but didn’t quite get the words out.

  “You’ll be working,” she said with a grin. “It happens every year because Halloween is one of the weirdest nights of the year for pranks and parties and drunks…” Even small towns weren’t immune.

  “It is. And there’s a full moon this year. I checked. The department will be crazy-busy.”

  She laughed at the vision that popped into her head. Werewolf costumes would surely abound. “It’s fine, hon. I’ll go because he’s a neighbor and because he sends so much business my way. The party is officially being hosted by his Chocoholics Unanimous book group and they are a fun bunch. It’s a mystery theme and Rupert is apparently writing some kind of little play or skit for entertainment. He was pretty cagey when I called him. I’m trying to come up with something unique to make for their dessert so I thought I could use the theme of his play. He would only say that he found a cool old book in a flea market stall and is building a story around it.”

  “Well, I’m sure everyone will have a great time,” Beau said as he forked up a big bite of his baked potato. “What’s your costume going to be?”

  “I have no idea. It’s another addition to my to-do list, which is already long enough this week, as it is.”

  “You will manage brilliantly, as you always do.” He planted a kiss on the top of her short gray hair and began clearing the table.

  While he loaded the dishwasher, Sam searched for a scratchpad. With the party and now a costume to figure out, she’d better make some notes. All the mystery characters who came to mind seemed clichéd and overdone. She was hardly the Sherlock Holmes type, and a woman her age with a chunky build didn’t exactly fit the Nancy Drew persona. Although she would never be model-gorgeous, Beau was a very attractive man. If she could get him to commit to the party they might consider being a couple such as Nick and Nora Charles or the TV guy, Castle, and that cop who became his romantic interest. She scratched through those names. There was a ninety percent chance Beau would not be able to go, even if she could convince him he wanted to. Plus, she could never pull off the image. The empty page stared at her. She reached for her phone and called her best friend.

  “I need costume ideas,” Sam moaned.

  “If it’s for Ivan’s party, I can tell you a couple that have already been taken. I’m proud to say Rupert asked me to be the leading lady in his play and I’ll be going as a witch.” Zoë, a sort of flower-child holdover from the ’60s, with her wavy gray, shoulder-length hair could easily pull off that role.

  “A witch? What literary character is that?”

  “Well, if anyone asks, I’m Glinda the Good Witch of the North. For the play, I don’t think it matters.”

  “What’s the play about?”

  “Um, I’m not supposed to say.”

  “Zoë… Come on.”

  “I haven’t seen the script. All I know is that he’s using some old book of spells and I’ll need to recite one of them.”

  “Double, double, toil and trouble?”

  Zoë’s chipper laugh came through loud and clear. “Most likely, something like that.”

  “So, you aren’t going to feed me a brilliant idea for a costume, are you?”

  “Sweetie, I would but I’m fresh out. Plus, we have guests walking through the front door right now and I need to show them to their rooms. Gotta go.”

  Sam felt her mouth twist into a peevish wrinkle. Between Zoë and Darryl’s bed and breakfast and her own bakery she and her friend didn’t get nearly enough time to simply kick back and laugh over things the way they used to. She set the notepad aside and went to the kitchen for a cup of tea.

  Beau had left the kitchen spotless, bless him. She could hear his voice out on the porch as he set bowls down for their two dogs, Ranger and Nellie. No doubt he would next head for the barn to check on the horses and lock up for the night. The ranch property on the outskirts of Taos was their little haven of peace and quiet, and Sam loved the break it gave her from the bakery. Animals and property meant extra work, though, and she was lucky Beau enjoyed it enough to handle nearly everything. She brewed two cups of tea and walked out to the deck in time to catch him on his way back from the barn. The afternoon storm had moved out swiftly. Overhead, the sky showed off the glittering swath of the Milky Way. They sank onto their favorite deck chairs with their mugs until the high-desert chill of a late October night sent them back indoors.

  Sam fell asleep with no great ideas for a Halloween costume and with the decision about a dessert for the party crowd hanging over her.

  When her alarm went off at four-thirty she popped out of bed without hesitation. She’d had a silly dream about Cass Wolinsky’s wedding—the young witch bride, dressed in black, practically disappearing behind her all-black cake when the photographer tried to frame acceptable pictures. The scene caught in Sam’s head as she awoke and she knew just what dessert to make for Ivan’s party.

  THREE

  JULIO ORTIZ WAS already at work when Sam arrived, producing the standard breakfast pastries to fill the shelves for the morning crowd. This time of year, the offerings included lots of apples and spice—muffins, scones, and their seasonal favorite, a caramel-pear cheesecake. He pulled a rack of cinnamon streusel-topped muffins from the oven as Sam removed her coat.

  “Wow—you would think I’d be immune by now,” she said, “but that scent always makes my knees weak.”

  He sent a rare smile her way. Despite his rough appearance, tattooed arms, taciturn manner and the Harley parked out back, Julio was the best treasure she’d ever found for her business. The man knew his way around a kitchen and worked without comment or complaint, day in and day out.

  “When you get the next batch into the oven and you have a minute, let’s talk about an odd order I took yesterday.”

  She walked to the back of the room to hang up her coat and wash her hands. When she turned around Julio was waiting beside the large stainless steel worktable in the middle of the kitchen. She showed him the drawing for the black wedding cake and her suggestion to the bride that they would tint regular sponge cake to the right intensity.

  “I’ll get more black food color on order right away. We’ll be going through a lot of it this week.”

  He nodded and pulled out pans for the layer sizes she needed.

  She placed the online supply order with nex
t-day delivery before pulling out her pastry bags and decorating tips. She had piped ghostly shapes and spooky black eyes on the tops of two dozen cupcakes, frosted four dozen orange pumpkin cookies, and added little green goblins to a panful of brownies by the time the rest of the staff arrived. Although the whole crew consisted only of Jen, Becky and Julio, Sam called a little meeting.

  “It’s going to be a busy week,” she said. “You all know how the holidays are—we’ve done this every year. Jen may have told you, there’s a treat at the end of all the hard work this time, the party at the bookstore Saturday night.”

  Becky’s face lit up and she exchanged a look with Jen. Julio might have grumbled down low in his throat.

  “We’re making the dessert—Chocoholics theme. Becky, I’ll talk details with you later. Meanwhile, you all can be thinking about costumes and whether you want to bring a date. Just don’t let party plans distract you too much. We also have to get eighteen dozen cupcakes ready for various school moms, four birthday theme cakes, and a black wedding in addition to a couple of more traditional ones. And that’s just the Halloween items. We still have all the usual.”

  The oven timer punctuated that last statement, reminding Julio to take his cheesecake out of the oven, and the front doorbell called out to Jen.

  Sam pulled Becky aside and showed her the black wedding cake design.

  “Wow—cool.” Becky’s response surprised Sam.

  “Glad you like it because you’ll be up to your elbows in black decorations for most of the week,” Sam said.

  “Well, it’s going to be different. But I like that.” The head decorator studied the sketch intently. “I assume we’ll do the ruffles from fondant and the lace out of modeling chocolate?”

  “Right. Black-tinted modeling chocolate, too, for the witch hat, the wand, and the potion bottles.”

  “How about if we personalized the potion bottles somehow? Maybe a his and hers? I’m assuming that even though the bride thinks she’s a witch, and who knows what the groom thinks, there’s still got to be a romantic element here, right? We’ve got to keep it from being all about darkness and sorcery.”

  “Yes—that makes me feel a lot better,” Sam said. “I was having a hard time yesterday wrapping my head around the concept of it. I mean, I’m all for magic and marriage kind of meaning the same thing, you know. But romance and lightheartedness need to be there too.”

  Becky’s eyes narrowed in concentration. “I’ve got some ideas already. Leave it to me.”

  “Thank you.” Sam felt one of the week’s burdens lift.

  “Okay,” she said, “I might as well mention it while we’re talking about black decorations—the cake for the party at Ivan’s. I woke up thinking we could go with some of the same ideas. The Chocoholics, of course, want chocolate—their cake can’t be tinted vanilla sponge. So we’ll do a deep devil’s food for them. We can go with some eighty-percent cacao for the frosting so it’s darker than usual, then use little lacy bits and witchy things. What do you think?”

  Becky gave a little grin. “Why not? I’ll make extra of any little items that look good enough for both cakes.”

  “Run with it. I’m going to concentrate on the birthday cakes. We have one due this afternoon, two on Friday and one Saturday,” Sam said, spreading order forms across the end of the table and prioritizing them by delivery date.

  She had no sooner pulled the layers for the first one out of the walk-in fridge than she heard a familiar voice out front. A minute later Rupert came floating through the split in the curtain that separated the sales room from the kitchen. Sam laughed at herself for thinking of his movements that way, but it was true that her old friend had a flair for the dramatic. With his usual loose pants, flowing tunic and scarf wafting over his left shoulder—not to mention his six-foot portly frame—Rupert wasn’t the sort who blended into the background.

  “Ah, Samantha, my dear,” he gushed, planting a kiss on her cheek. “Lovely, as always.”

  “Rupe, you’re a case.” She knew she had a smear of orange frosting across the breast of her white baker’s jacket and most likely there were dabs of black somewhere on her face. “Or, you are mocking me.”

  “I never mock. You know that.”

  It was true. Rupert was one of the kindest men on earth—to his friends. In print, it was another story. He wrote bestselling steamy romance novels under the pen name Victoria DeVane and was known for placing his characters in situations where they made rampant fun of politics and religion and society in general. Sam was one of the very few, aside from his editor in New York, who knew Victoria’s true identity.

  “You know about the party at the bookstore on Saturday?” he asked.

  Sam nodded. “And I heard about your play. Zoë says she’s starring. So, what’s it about?” She scooped buttercream frosting into a pastry bag as they talked.

  “Uh-uh—can’t tell you that,” he said, wagging a finger. “I will only say there’s going to be an unexpected surprise ending. I’ve just been next door, working with Ivan to set up the venue.”

  Only Rupert used words like venue when talking about a neighborhood bookstore.

  “We shall move some things around and create a little stage and there will be plenty of chairs for the audience. I have even convinced him to rig up some stage lighting.”

  “Really?” Sam couldn’t imagine how all this would fit into the quaint bookshop.

  “Mostly, it involves rearranging the furniture in the reading area and re-aiming track lighting to point to one end of the room,” he admitted. “But, I refuse to think small-scale. It will be glorious in its own way.”

  Sam raised an eyebrow. Glorious?

  “Now if we can keep those new bookstore cats from being underfoot.”

  “Cats? I don’t remember Ivan having cats.”

  “A rather new addition, I’m afraid. Ivan hired a new girl last month. Now, it seems Edgar and Agatha have come along with her.”

  “I met Alex awhile back but didn’t know about her cats. That sounds like fun. People love animals in shops. I mean, I haven’t had a kitten since I was a kid, and we certainly can’t have pets here because of the health codes, but I’ve heard they’re very popular in bookstores. Their names certainly go along with the mystery theme, don’t they?”

  Rupert grumbled a small acknowledgement. Sam recalled one of his previous partners bringing a cat into the home they shared. Mark’s cat had become a character—both in the figurative sense and when it landed a role in one of Rupert’s books. She wondered if his attitude had changed or it was more a matter that Alex’s cats might upstage his Halloween production.

  “Well, must go,” he said. “I’m taking a delightful man to lunch. Pop over to Ivan’s if you have a chance and see what you think of the furniture arrangement.” With that, he breezed to the front of the shop and she heard the bells jingle his departure.

  Sam started to work on the simple layer cake for today’s birthday party, a golden slipper design. As she smoothed pink buttercream around the sides of it she thought about Rupert’s invitation. With the stack of orders currently sitting on her desk, it didn’t seem there would be any popping-over anytime soon.

  FOUR

  SAM HAD JUST set the golden slipper on top of the birthday cake for her customer’s little princess when the back door opened.

  “Hi, Mom!” Kelly’s aquamarine eyes sparkled and her brown curls bounced.

  Sam wondered what good news had created the buoyant mood, something good enough for her daughter to take a break in the middle of the morning. Maybe there’d been a lull in the number of unkempt dogs arriving at Puppy Chic, the grooming salon next door to the east. Normally the owner, Riki Davis-Jones did the heavy clipping, while Kelly’s duties mainly involved baths for the canine clients.

  “We heard about the party,” Kelly said, her dimples showing. “Riki’s going, and Ivan said I could bring Scott. Do you think he and I would make a great Indiana Jones and Marion? I don’t know…are
they considered literary? I first thought Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley, but I’m thinking it might be tough to convince Scott to be a teenage wizard. So, what do you think?”

  “I think you better remember to breathe,” Sam said with a laugh.

  Becky piped up. “I can easily see Scott as Indy. He is a history professor, after all. He probably already has a bullwhip.”

  Kelly blushed, Becky blushed, and Sam didn’t dare ask what that was about. Her daughter had only started dating this new man a few weeks ago.

  “What about you, Julio? What costume are you wearing?” Becky paused in the middle of piping a huge chocolate rose.

  Julio only grunted.

  “You are going to the party, aren’t you? We’re all invited. You’ll get to see everyone enjoying the cake we’re baking for them.”

  Sam realized she knew practically nothing about Julio’s personal life. He might have a wife and six kids at home, as far as she knew. He seemed content with his work but he rarely joined in the workplace camaraderie. Which was okay. His baking skills were what she paid for and a person was allowed a private life. She flashed Becky a look that said leave it alone.

  “What’s your costume, Becky?” Kelly asked, wiping a dab of chocolate frosting off the worktable and licking it from her finger.

  “I don’t know. If I come, it’ll probably be a quick drop-by. My kids will be nagging us to go trick-or-treating and either Don or I need to be home to hand out treats. Last year I dressed as a princess and answered the door in costume. I could dig that one up again, I suppose.”

  “Sure—you could put on your costume here, drop by the bookstore for a little while, and you can still get home in time to be with your kids,” Kelly suggested. “What about you, Mom? Do you have your costume?”

  All eyes turned to Sam. “Well, it won’t be a couple’s theme. Beau’s job pretty much guarantees he won’t be able to go. I doubt he’ll even see me in my costume. But, no, I haven’t thought of anything yet.”

  Kelly went back to her job and Sam put the princess cake into the fridge so the icing would set before the customer arrived in the afternoon to pick it up. While she kneaded black color paste into a big ball of fondant, the others drifted back to their regular work.