Bran New Death (A Merry Muffin Mystery)

by Hamilton, Victoria

  “I didn’t know my uncle and Rusty Turner were in business together!”

  “Oh, yeah! I guess I didn’t exactly say that. They had a company together, and Rusty’s son, Tom, worked for them. So did Dinah Hooper, Rusty’s sorta girlfriend. Rusty and Tom had Turner Construction, too. Anyway, Turner Wynter was working on the castle, as well as on developing other properties.”

  “What other properties?”

  He shrugged. “They had a few interests.”

  “If they had a company together, that’s more than just a few common interests.” Was he being evasive or just noncommittal? “I don’t want any more trouble. If they keep digging holes . . .” I shook my head.

  “Hey, I’m just guessing that Binny and Tom are behind the holes,” McGill said, holding up both hands. He pushed away his bowl. “I don’t have a scrap of evidence to back that up.” He glanced down at his watch and leaped up. “Shoot! I gotta go.” His cell phone wouldn’t work—service in Autumn Vale and environs was spotty, at best, he admitted—so he made a quick call using the castle landline for someone to pick him up. It was fortunate that he had left the landline hooked up for just that purpose, in case he got stuck out at his most remote listing without cell coverage. He then said, “Got a client from outta town meeting me at a house, and I’d better go home and clean up first. I’ll be back tomorrow to fill in more holes. Thank you, ladies, for the lunch. Those muffins . . .” He shook his head and rubbed his stomach, where a half-dozen cheddar-bacon muffins now lived. “So good!”

  “I made a lot. Do you want to take some with you?” I asked, and laughed at the hopeful look on his face. I popped another half dozen in a big baggie and handed them to him. “They’re best while they’re fresh. You can warm them up in the microwave.”

  Shilo and I washed up the mismatched jumble of bowls, mugs, and cutlery, then took a ramble around the castle. It was soon clear that the pattern of the building was a U shape. The kitchen and pantry was on the end of one prong, with a neglected kitchen garden behind. The entrance McGill had shown me in the butler’s pantry opened right out onto the huge swath of land where he was working, filling in holes.

  But I hadn’t slept since the day before, and Shilo was always ready to snooze, so we both hit the hay early. I fell asleep right away, then awoke in the pitch black of night, feeling confused and scared for a few minutes. I finally figured out where I was, and once I fully came to, my mind began to teem with questions and ideas. I peeked in Shi’s room, but she and Magic were curled up together, deeply asleep.

  As I padded downstairs in my slippers and robe, carrying a notebook and pen, it finally, truly hit me; I owned a castle, the real deal, almost two hundred years old! It was the middle of the night, but inspiration flooded my mind as I put the kettle on for tea, which I would either have to make in a mug (shudder) or in a saucepan. I chose a saucepan and poured boiling water over a tea bag and set the lid over it to steep as I sat down at the table, one low light illuminating my notebook.

  McGill had told us a little about the castle during lunch. It had been built in the 1820s by Jacob Lazarus Wynter, an early nineteenth-century building baron who made his fortune constructing mills for the Indian bands along the various rivers emptying into Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. That was already more information about the paternal side of my lineage than I had ever known. I was descended from a robber baron? I vaguely remembered that phrase from school, but wasn’t sure Lazarus Wynter fit the mold. This place had real historical significance, and it made me sad that instead of a thriving family inheritance there was just poor little old me, who had to sell it to live. The least I could do would be to get some kind of historical designation for it, and maybe a plaque relating both what McGill had told me and whatever other family history I could dig up.

  I made a note of that idea, then jotted down a few ideas for the inn, possible places to advertise my inheritance. Everyone I have ever known in the business world dreams of one day retiring from the rat race and opening a little inn in the country. Well, for the right price I could help them fulfill their dreams. I started writing down names of people; modeling agency owners, models, actors, caterers, anyone I could think of who might be interested, or know someone who would be.

  Tapping the pen on the page, I looked around the dark, spartan kitchen. The joint lacked charm. McGill told me he and his mother had cleaned up somewhat after Melvyn died and was buried, because he knew if he was going to sell it, it would need to be at least clean. But the guy had certainly not put any imagination into it, nor had he staged the castle to sell. Who could blame him? He had other fish to fry, no doubt, and easier sales to make. I should bring my stuff out of storage, I thought. It would be nice to have all my things around me for once. I’d had to keep some of it boxed up and packed away at all times, since Miguel’s death, after I lost most of my savings and was forced to downsize. I shied away from the thought, because getting all my stuff meant going through old photos of Miguel and me in happier times. I didn’t want to face that yet. It had been seven years though; when would I be equipped to handle it?

  Not yet.

  For the time being, I would just live there with whatever I could scrounge among the stuff left by my uncle. I wondered if there were any mugs that I had missed stuffed away in the butler’s pantry, so I sidled in to that room, turning on the light and scanning the high, glass cabinets, which were mostly empty.

  I heard a noise, and quickly turned out the light, peering out the window that overlooked the land where McGill had been working. Was that the Bobcat I heard? McGill, working in the middle of the night? I squinted into the darkness, and saw the faint illumination of the excavator cab. Yes, someone was operating the machine, but instead of filling in, they had moved to a fresh patch of land and were digging!

  Chapter Five

  "FOR THE LOVE of Pete,” I yelled, annoyed. This was exactly what I had been concerned about. If it was Binny or her brother, I wanted them to know this was not acceptable, and without a thought for my safety, I flung open the butler pantry door and bolted outside into the dark, toward the roaring machine. The interior light showed some jerk in the driver’s seat manipulating the gears and digging. Grr!

  As I was crossing the wide open space between me and the Bobcat, I saw something—some creature, a streak of orange by the light of the excavator—launch into the open compartment at the operator. There was an unearthly screech, a howl of pain, and then the man bolted from the driver’s compartment and stumbled toward the woods, pursued by the animal. I followed as well as I could in slippers and a housecoat, but I tripped, went down hard, and by the time I clambered to my feet, all I could see was the fellow disappearing into the woods.

  “Merry! Where are you?” Shilo was at the door, backlit by the overhead light.

  I limped back to the door of the butler’s pantry and gasped, “Call the cops!”

  Shilo had her cell phone, and dialed 911—she got a connection, miracle of miracles, maybe because it was the middle of the night—and told the operator we were at Wynter Castle, and relayed in brief what I said had happened. We then sat in the kitchen with the door locked, and waited. And waited. Long enough that the excavator sputtered to a stop, out of fuel, I suppose. Gradually my anger and panic turned to just anger at the lackadaisical attitude of the local constabulary, so when the sheriff’s car finally pulled up to the castle, I strode outside to the lane.

  As Virgil Grace climbed out of the car, I stormed over to him and said, “What exactly is the point of coming now, an hour after the hole digger left?”

  “Pardon me for not coming immediately, Miss Wynter, ma’am,” he said, with a laconic, weary edge to his voice. “But I had a domestic, and trying to convince a beaten, frightened woman to file charges against her drunken boyfriend took precedence over a phantom hole digger.”

  In the light from the open doors I could see that he had scratches across his cheek near his hairline, and he looked exhausted. “Okay, all right. I’m sorry for
snapping at you. You’re here now,” I said. I told him what I had seen, and we went to look at the machine.

  The sheriff played his flashlight over the Bobcat, and noted some blood on the seat. “Well, whatever that animal was, it sure left a mark!”

  I looked at the scratches on the sheriff’s cheek and down at the drop of blood, and said, “It sure did!”

  *

  THE NEXT DAY MCGILL, AFTER GASSING UP THE excavator with fuel he brought with him, was back at it, filling in holes—the sheriff didn’t swab the blood he found or check for fingerprints, since there was no way the county was going to do blood testing or any other forensic examination for the “crime” of someone starting up an excavator illicitly, he said—and I knew I had to get down to work if I was going to have a couple dozen muffins for Gogi Grace when she came that afternoon.

  “I wish I had Granny’s cookbooks here,” I said, standing at the counter and looking at the pile of ingredients uneasily. “The bacon and cheddar muffins yesterday were easy; just a basic, savory muffin recipe. I vaguely remember the proportions necessary for bran muffins, but I wish I was sure.”

  McGill came to the door, rubbing his hands together. An unseasonable cold snap had taken hold of the valley. “I smell coffee. Mind if I grab a cup?”

  I waved at the percolator on the stove, and Shilo got him a chipped mug from the meager store of dishes.

  “We can’t disturb her,” Shilo whispered to him. “She’s trying to figure out a recipe. She promised Mrs. Grace two dozen bran muffins for the old-age home today.”

  “Ah, muffins! For Golden Acres? That’s swell.”

  Shilo stared at him. “Did you say that was ‘swell’? I feel like I just stepped back into the fifties.”

  McGill grinned at her, then sidled up next to me. “Say, Merry, I’ve always wondered, what’s the difference between a muffin and a cupcake?”

  Shilo groaned, hand on her head in dramatic fashion. “Oh, you’ve started her up now! Prepare to be lectured. You’ve just enrolled in Muffins 101.”

  “Huh?” he said, looking back and forth between us.

  I bit my lip to keep from laughing at the tragic look on my friend’s face. She’s just heard the lecture once too often, I thought. “You go feed your bunny, or something, while I tell McGill all about it.” I got the other three sets of my brand-new muffin tins out of the bag—I think I had wiped out the town of Autumn Vale where muffin tins were concerned—and washed them, then dried and lined them with paper cups as I answered McGill. “It’s easy. Most people think that if it’s frosted or iced, then it’s a cupcake, but that’s not so. Some muffins can be frosted, too. Instead, think of the difference between a banana cake and a loaf of banana bread.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I got that.”

  “Well, with the batter of a banana cake, you can make cupcakes, and with the batter for banana bread, you can make banana muffins. You can do the same with any cake batter or quick-bread batter.”

  “Ah!” he said, his eyes lighting up. “Cakes are to cupcakes as, uh, what did you call it?”

  “Quick bread,” Shilo, who had not gone to feed Magic, filled in.

  “Right . . . cakes are to cupcakes as quick breads are to muffins!”

  “Correct!” I scanned my pile of ingredients. I hadn’t been able to find bran at the general store, so I’d bought a big box of bran cereal. “In general, muffins are denser and a little less sweet. They’re a whole lot easier and less finicky than cupcakes, let me tell you, but right now I’d give my right arm for my cookbooks.” Why hadn’t I thrown them in the car instead of in a bin at the self-storage? Because I hadn’t foreseen a retirement home full of seniors needing bran muffins. “Well, here goes.”

  “Feel free to experiment on me,” McGill said. “But right now, I’d better get back to work.”

  For a few minutes, Shilo was my assistant, but eventually she wandered off, and I was left to work alone. I like it that way, when I’m baking. One batch came out too coarse and dry. I hadn’t let the bran cereal soak up the moisture for long enough, I thought, so I increased the milk content and waited a little longer for the next batch. They turned out a lot better, and I tried another recipe that I vaguely remembered from my grandmother’s handwritten recipe cards, locked in a storage container in Manhattan at that moment. In the end, I had two dozen each of banana bran and peanut butter–bran muffins, and a whole bunch suitable only for the birds. It had been good to cook again, even in the huge unfamiliarity of the castle kitchen, and I had gone overboard, as usual.

  Once more I offered McGill lunch, and as we three ate at the long table, I pumped him for information on Sheriff Virgil Grace and his mother, the elegant Gogi Grace.

  Gogi, he told me, was a local who had left Autumn Vale to go to college in the sixties; she did the hippie-chick thing for a few years—and had been at Woodstock, it was rumored—then came back to town and married a local boy. She would have loved my mother, I interjected. Mom always claimed she was at Woodstock, too, but then, there were a million or so people there, right? Anyway, McGill went on to explain that Virgil was her youngest, the only one of her kids who stayed in town. With Rusty Turner’s help, she had bought and renovated Golden Acres, a century-old house that had been completely redone, with modern lifts so her oldsters didn’t have to climb stairs.

  “What about the sheriff?” I asked, still wondering about those scratches on his face and the long time it took to respond to our call the night before.

  “Yeah, is he married?” Shilo, said, leaning against McGill’s arm and batting her long eyelashes up at him.

  McGill looked down at her, his mouth pursed, and said, “No, he’s not. Why, you interested? You wouldn’t be the first outsider to try to get him.”

  Shilo reared back and frowned. She looked especially pretty today, her long, black hair tied up in a ponytail with a paisley scarf. “I’m not interested,” she sniffed, her dark eyes snapping with irritation. “I was asking for Merry!”

  “Don’t do me any favors.” I said. “I’m just curious about him, McGill. How well do you know him? What’s he like?”

  He shrugged, his favorite evasion. “I’ve known him our whole lives. He’s divorced, owns his own house, which I sold him, and works a lot. When his mom had breast cancer . . . whoops!” He looked stricken. “That’s private info; I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “It’s okay. Consider it forgotten,” I said.

  “Well, when she was sick, he looked after her. Her other kids don’t get back to Autumn Vale much, but he’s stayed.”

  “He sounds like a good guy,” I mused.

  McGill shifted in his seat. “He is,” he said shortly. “I gotta go back to work. See you gals later.”

  “Swell,” Shilo said softly, grinning up at him.

  I showered and dressed carefully, choosing a soft, gray jersey Kiyonna wrap dress and letting my long, dark hair flow over my shoulders. I scanned myself in a cheval mirror in my bedroom, when a wolf whistle made me whirl around; Shilo stood at the door, grinning.

  “Who are you dressing up for?” she asked. “Some man coming that I don’t know about?”

  I laughed and turned back to the mirror, making sure the dress tie was properly draped. “Don’t you know? Women dress mainly to impress other women. You have to see Gogi Grace. That woman is stylish, and I don’t want to look frumpy.” I hooked sterling silver hoop earrings in my ears, slipped an art-glass pendant over my head, and stood looking at myself. It was good to have an occasion to dress nicely for, and I was glad I’d thrown the Kiyonna dress in my bag at the last minute.

  “And she’s the mother of that good-looking Sheriff Virgil Grace, right?”

  “Yes, but that has nothing to do with anything,” I said primly, slipping my feet into red Marc Jacobs pumps. “You were way out of line with what you said to McGill earlier. I’m not interested in him or anyone else. Let’s go downstairs. If someone knocked on that gargantuan door, I wouldn’t hear a thing from
here.”

  “Doesn’t the doorbell work?”

  “I don’t know, I never thought of—”

  Just then a sonorous gong sounded.

  “It works,” we both said at once, and laughed.

  I clattered down the stairs and across the flagstone floor, followed by Shilo, then threw the door open for Mrs. Grace, who entered bearing a large box with a huge bow on top.

  “Housewarming gift, my dear,” she said, as she handed it to me and walked past. “Or should I say castle-warming?”

  I handed the box to Shilo with raised eyebrows, and followed Mrs. Grace, who had strolled into the middle of the great hall and was looking around.

  “I haven’t been in here for years,” she said, slipping off her violet cashmere wrap. “Melvyn got a little . . . odd . . . these last few years.”

  “Odd? In what way?” I folded her wrap and put it on the side table in the entryway.

  Gogi met my eyes and smiled. “Patience, my dear. I have a feeling that there is a lot you would like to know about your uncle, and Wynter Castle, but one step at a time.”

  I watched her eyes, veiled today by a fringe of soft, silver bangs. There was something there beyond what she was saying. I remembered what I had said to Shilo about the woman being a valuable ally, and nodded. I could be patient. But still, I was curious. First things first: I introduced Gogi to Shilo, and both women looked each other over.

  “Jack McGill told me about your friend,” Gogi said, taking Shi’s hand and giving it a gentle shake. “He mentioned how beautiful you are, Shilo. I haven’t heard him say that for a long time.”

  My friend smiled, then pardoned herself to go clean Magic’s cage.

  As Gogi and I started up the stairs for her tour, I said, “I hear that Rusty Turner did the renovations on your retirement home.”

  “True. There are a few handymen in Autumn Vale, and they can do things like installing a toilet or painting a room, but Turner Construction was virtually the only game in town for large operations.”