Pastries and Puzzles

by Constance Barker

  It didn’t take me long to walk there considering the strides I was taking in my frustration and impatience, and when I reached his door I barged in anxious to confront him. Much to my confusion and my surprise, there was Arthur sitting at his desk with a huge stack of money, counting it.

  He looked back at me with so much shock that I wished I’d have taken a picture, and as my eyes darted around the room to make sure that he was alone, I couldn’t believe the sight in front of me. Things certainly weren’t looking good for him or in his favor, so I confidently strode over to his desk and braced my palms on the top. With a renewed sense of anger and frustration, I glared at him and nodded at the stack of bills.

  “So, I guess this means that you’ve got some explaining to do, Arthur.”

  He went wide eyed and put his hands up, shaking his head like I had it all wrong. I of course knew that I didn’t—how could I?—and I cut him off with a pointed look as I put up my hand.

  “No no no, you don’t get to just sit there looking all smug and talk your way out of this. It’s you, isn’t it? You killed Gilbert.”

  He gasped and shook his head, stammering as he tried, and failed, to speak.

  “Look Arthur, it’s obvious,” I stated with a sneer as I shook my head, still in shock as to what I had found. “You’re sitting here in your office, counting a stack of money, for crying out loud.”

  I walked around to the side of his desk and pointed to the stationary, my brows raised.

  “Not to mention that the letters sent to Gilbert threatening him if he ever came back here were sent using your stationery.”

  “Listen, you don’t understand-”

  “No you’re right Arthur, I don’t understand. I don’t understand why you would do this and then pin it on me.”

  “Listen to me, please.”

  He looked at me with wide eyes and his chest was heaving, and I could practically see the vein in his temple pulsing as he desperately tried to get me to listen.

  I figured that if I let him talk that maybe I could catch him in a lie and just add that to the pile of evidence that I had, so I nodded and gestured for him to go on.

  “Fine, but this better be worth it, Arthur.”

  He sighed in relief and nodded in thanks before he began speaking, and he calmly told me that he simply didn’t have it in him to kill someone.

  I laughed, in disbelief that he thought I would simply take him at his word.

  “Are you kidding me? No, I don’t believe you and I know that you’re the killer. In fact, I’m going to call Logan right now and tell him that I’ve found the murderer and to come arrest you.”

  His eyes went wide with panic and he started stammering again, and as I pulled out my phone he yelped and held his hands up.

  “No, please, don’t call him.”

  “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t, then.”

  He sighed and dragged his hand down over his face, and he hung his head and gazed at the desk as he spoke.

  “I admit that during the event I wasn’t called away to an emergency. I was seeing Hestia.”

  “Hestia? Why?” I asked incredulously, glaring. “And don’t give me some lame excuse or lie, I’ll know if you’re not telling the truth Arthur.”

  It looked like he was considering something and then he finally relented, his shoulders slumping as he did.

  “I was seeing Hestia because we’re lovers. It’s a secret, so please don’t say anything.”

  I clapped my hand to my mouth and managed to stifle the strangled gasp that was trying to make its way out of me, but I’m sure that every bit of shock I felt at hearing that news was written all over my face. Still though, he continued on with his explanation while I stood there and listened.

  “I don’t like Gilbert much but I still had to convince him to come back to town because the mayor was pressuring me. Neither Hestia or I like him for obvious reasons, so when she wanted to send him the letters to keep him away I was more than happy to help.”

  He sighed again and rapped his knuckles on the desk as he continued, apparently trying to distract himself or keep focused, I wasn’t sure which.

  “Attending the seminar with that buffoon was the last thing I wanted to do, so instead I snuck upstairs and into Gilbert’s room. I stole his favorite robe so that Hestia and I could burn it together, and enjoy our little act of silent revenge. I swear Coco. I didn’t like the man, but I didn’t kill him.”

  I tried to wrap my head around what he'd said, and found myself wondering just how much I didn’t know about these people and how much was happening behind the scenes. I didn’t have time to think about that just then though so I huffed and told him that I needed to go and look into a few things. If anyone could tell me that he was telling the truth then I figured it would be Hestia, and I decided to go to her and see if she could corroborate his story.

  I strode towards the door and just as I opened it up Arthur spoke again, his voice shaky and almost quiet enough that I didn’t hear it.

  “Honestly, I truly thought that you did it.”

  I scowled and shook my head as I left, determined to get to the bottom of it before I ended up behind bars.

  Chapter 26

  I headed back to my car and drove straight to the library. Hestia needed to clear some things up.

  I parked in front of the building and went right to the door. I threw it open and went inside. I scanned the library, looking for Hestia. She was behind the check-out counter.

  I walked up to her. She looked up from the computer to greet me.

  “Coco, to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?” she asked.

  “Can we talk in private, please?”

  “What is this in relation to?”

  “It’s about Arthur. I need you to confirm his alibi.”

  I knew that would get her attention. Sure enough, her face went white.

  “Arthur? His alibi?” she sputtered out. I could see a parade of emotions going across her face.

  “I already know about you two, Hestia,” I told her, keeping my voice low. “Now I need to know if he told me the truth about where he was.”

  She looked around the library, scanning for other patrons. “Come with me to the back,” she said.

  I followed her behind the counter and into the back room of the library.

  “Alright,” she said. “What do you want to know?”

  “Arthur said that he had met with you the night of the murder. Initially, he said he was called away to an emergency.”

  She sighed. “Yes. We were together. Apparently you already know that we we’ve been seeing one another.”

  “So you were together and not anywhere near where Gilbert was killed?”

  She looked annoyed. “You really think we could have killed someone? Coco, you’re treading on thin ice here. If you keep accusing everyone in town of killing someone, you aren’t going to make many friends.”

  “Everyone is a suspect, but obviously you and Arthur are able to clear your names.” I tried to speak as unemotionally as possible in the face of her rising annoyance with my questions.

  “Sure they are,” she said. Her tone was snippy. “What else do you need to know? Keep in mind that I can permanently ban you from the library at any moment.

  “Now, the night before the murder, you spoke with Warner, right? What did you two discuss?”

  “We didn’t discuss killing Gilbert.”

  “What did you discuss then?” I asked.

  Her stern face broke as she stifled a giggle. “We discussed putting something in Gilbert’s bed.”

  My mind instantly went to old mafia movies.

  She interrupted me as if she had read my thoughts. “Nothing threatening,” she insisted. “Just something gross. Warner didn’t want to ruin the hotel’s reputation though.”

  “I guess that’s everything then. I’m sorry to have bothered you,” I said.

  “I’m sure you know your way out, Coco.”

  I ma
de my way back to the bakery. When I arrived, I found that all of my friends were still there.

  They each wore a concerned expression. I knew that something was wrong. I felt the tension as soon as I walked in.

  “What is it?” I asked. “What happened now? Is someone else hurt?”

  “Well, you see...” Masie trailed off, trying to find the words. Even though she was usually a chatterbox, she was struggling to find her words.

  “Yeah?” I said with hesitation, prompting her to continue.

  Stella, never one to mince words, picked up where she left off. “Clive stopped by earlier. He was looking for you.”

  “Oh...”

  “Oh, please don’t be sad, Coco. Vivian and Henry chased him off,” Rose said. She hesitated for a moment. “But he told them something else.”

  “What did he say?” I wasn’t asking anyone in particular. I just wanted to know the full story.

  Henry sighed. “He said he was on the verge of something big. He said he was going after it.”

  “Go after it?” I asked. “Like go after the murderer?”

  “Maybe,” Henry said. “We really don’t know.”

  Masie came over and took my hand. “Are you okay, Coco?”

  “I don’t know. I’m feeling a million things, and I don’t know which one of them is right.”

  Rose pulled up a chair for me. I sat down.

  “Sorry,” I told the group. “I just need to think for a second.”

  I tried to sort through all the conflicting thoughts in my head. I was still so furious at Clive for the article that he wrote, but I didn’t want him to get hurt either.

  “I need to call him,” I said. “I need to figure out what he’s trying to do before I decide anything else.”

  I pulled out my cell phone. I dialed Clive’s cell phone number. I held the phone to my ear and impatiently waited for an answer.

  It rang a few times before going to voicemail. I got annoyed with him. He wasn’t going to ignore my calls after all the stress he’s put me through. He owed me big time after that article.

  I called a few more times, getting ignored each time. I put my phone down, ready to accept defeat.

  “He didn’t answer,” I said.

  However, as soon as I spoke, my phone buzzed. It was a text message. It was from Clive.

  “Clive can’t come to the phone right now,” it read. “He’s a little tied up.”

  My blood ran cold in my veins. I tried to speak, but it was as though all of the air had left my lungs.

  Masie read over my shoulder and gasped.

  “That has to be from the killer!” She exclaimed. She grabbed the phone out of my hands to show the others.

  I looked around the room full of my friends. They all looked just as confused and scared as I felt.

  “What are we going to do?” I asked.

  Everyone looked around at each other, not answering my question. One by one, their gaze all went back to me.

  I shakily stood up. My legs felt like they were made out of gelatin. “We have to help him,” I declared to the group. “We need to crack this case, and crack it fast.”

  Chapter 27

  “Masie, call Logan,” I said. “Everyone else, we need to make a plan.”

  “Let’s put our thinking caps on,” Vivian said, clapping her hands together.

  “Who could the murderer be?” Scooter wondered. “That will tell us where to go, right?”

  “I suppose so,” Stella said. “Let’s see...Who have you eliminated Coco?”

  “I feel like I’ve eliminated half the town,” I said. “Clive talked to most of the hotel staff, and I cleared Warner, Arthur, and Hestia.”

  “And it definitely wasn’t you,” Scooter added.

  Rose rolled her eyes. “That isn’t helpful, Scooter. We know it wasn’t her already or else Clive would be here.”

  “Oh, of course it wasn’t Coco,” Stella said. “Are we really sure about Oliver though? I recall him being unaffected by Gilbert’s death. His own cousin. Could you imagine not caring about a family member’s murder?”

  “What if Clive did this all himself?” Scooter wondered. His eyes got wide. “He could be leading everyone into a trap.”

  “Oh, Scooter, dear, I really don’t think that’s the case,” Vivian said gently.

  “No, really, think about it. Clive published that article. It put all the heat on Coco. He was trying to get the attention off of himself.”

  “But why would he help her solve the mystery?” Stella asked.

  “To stay involved with the investigation.” Scooter insisted.

  “I don’t think that’s quite right, darling. Has anyone looked into Oliver?” Stella asked.

  “I really don’t think it’s either of them,” I said. “I was already a suspect before the article. He was just being a jerk with it.”

  “And Oliver?” Vivian asked.

  I shrugged. “My gut tells me that there’s a reason he hasn’t been too high on our radar. He’s just kind of an unpleasant guy. I think it’s someone we haven’t been thinking too much about.”

  “I wonder if we could figure out what the poison was,” Henry wondered. “Then we could find out who had access to the poison and narrow the suspect list from there.”

  “That could help too,” I said.

  “It could have been cyanide,” Vivian speculated. “Someone could have slipped it into some almond extract here at the shop and Coco would have never been the wiser. It would have smelled exactly the same.”

  “Did you use almond extract in those cupcakes?” Henry asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Probably not cyanide then. Now, for me personally, my money is on ricin. You only need a dose the size of a single grain of sand to murder someone. I had a case just like that when I was first starting out.”

  Vivian scoffed. “It would take days to even get through his system enough to kill him. No way someone would have died instantly from it. They found the poison in the cupcakes, so it had to be quick-acting.”

  Masie rushed back over to me with the phone. Logan was on the other line.

  “Coco?” Logan asked from the other end.

  “Yeah, I’m here,” I said. I tuned out the other conversations going on.

  “I’m coming as fast as I can.” Logan sounded as stressed as I felt. “Don’t go anywhere. I need you to tell me whatever you can about what happened. We need to work quickly on this.”

  He didn’t need to say it, but I knew the urgency was because we needed to save Clive’s life. It all came down to us, once again.

  “Yeah, I’ll be here,” I said. “Please hurry.”

  “I’ll be there soon,” he said.

  I passed the phone back to Masie. I knew everyone was doing everything they could, but each passing second felt like another failure. I had to figure this out quickly. Clive’s life depended on it.

  “Oh man,” Scooter said. “This means I won’t have time to remake that cake. I’m sorry Coco. Should I go work on it now while you guys do this?”

  “Remake it?” Stella inquired. “What happened that you have to remake it?”

  “The whole thing sunk. I thought if I cut it correctly, it would hold up, but even with the dowels in it, the whole thing fell over.”

  “Oh dear...”

  Henry thought for a moment. “It sunk? Did you use the right leavening agents?”

  “Yeah. I think so.”

  “What about the eggs? Did it emulsify correctly? You know, baking is just chemistry. Everything is a chemical reaction. Things don’t just happen.”

  A lightbulb went off in my head. Everything is a chemical reaction, I thought. The chemicals that Gilbert ingested were complex. Complex enough that Vivian and Henry were having trouble figuring out how it could have even been slipped into my batter.

  I knew who the murderer was. I stood up abruptly. Everyone stared at my sudden movement.

  “What is it, Coco?” Masie asked.


  I was already rushing to grab my phone. I called Logan.

  “Hello? Coco?” He answered.

  “Logan, change of plans,” I said quickly. “I know who the murderer is. I’ll text you the address.” I hung up and wrote out the text as I made my way to the door.

  The others crowded around me, trying to figure out what was going on.

  “Coco, what happened?” Stella asked.

  “I figured it out. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. Stay here. I don’t want to tip off the murderer.”

  I rushed to grab my coat and keys. The others were still asking questions, but I didn’t have time to answer them.

  Clive didn’t have much time left. I knew I was right, and I couldn’t waste another second.

  I got in my car and drove as quickly as I could. I felt a bit calmer knowing Logan was going to meet me there, but my nerves still had me on edge.

  When I arrived at the address, I turned off my car. I looked out of the window at the building I stopped in front of.

  It was now or never. We needed to end this and catch the murderer. I couldn’t let them go free another day knowing what they did.

  Chapter 28

  Logan was panting as he raced up to me. I had been standing outside the quaint little house for a few minutes waiting for him and trying to stop myself from just heading inside.

  “I parked around the corner so no one saw the car,” he whispered as he reached me and quickly hugged me. As we pulled apart, he laughed suddenly and I looked at him, confused.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Ah, you always have that trusty rolling pin ready and waiting, huh Coco?”

  He gestured to the rolling pin clutched in my hand, and I grinned too as I followed his gaze. “Hey, have some respect for the rolling pin. We saved your life, remember?”

  Logan rolled his eyes but nodded solemnly. “I thank you, oh great rolling pin.”

  Our amusement quickly faded, and we turned serious again as we turned faced the house.

  “I don’t suppose I’ll have much luck convincing you to stay outside and wait for me?” Logan hadn’t even finished his sentence before I was shaking my head.