Lexy Baker Cozy Mystery Series Boxed Set Vol 2 (Books 5 - 7) (Lexy Baker Cozy Mysteries Boxed Sets)

by Leighann Dobbs

  7

  “Thanks for making your famous lasagna,” Lexy said to Nans as she slipped the glass baking dish filled with layers of pasta, ricotta cheese, meat sauce and mozzarella into the oven.

  “Well, it is your father’s favorite,” Nans said spreading garlic butter liberally on Italian bread.

  “Woof!” Sprinkles sat on the floor next to Nans’ chair, her eyes focused on the bread like it was the last food on earth.

  “You want a little piece?” Nans broke off a teeny piece of crust and held it out to the dog who spun in circles before gobbling down the morsel.

  Lexy looked around the kitchen. The table was set, a bottle of wine was airing and the food was under control. A horn blasted in the driveway and Nans and Lexy exchanged a glance.

  “Is that them?” Lexy ran to the front door, her eyes growing wide when she saw the forty-foot RV taking up most of her yard.

  The door to the RV sprang open and her mother burst out. Vera Baker stood about five feet tall, was equipped with a bit of extra padding and was in perpetual motion. A shock of flame red hair framed her round face. As her mother ran toward her, Lexy noticed she looked tanned and happy—apparently, the nomadic RV life suited her.

  “Lexy!” Vera practically knocked Lexy over with her usual enthusiasm.

  “Hi, Mom. You look great!” Lexy held her mother at arm’s length, warmth flooding her heart. Lexy and her mother didn’t always see eye to eye, but the time apart had made Lexy realize how much she loved her.

  Next to them, Nans and Lexy’s father, Roy, were exchanging hugs and they traded off, giving Lexy a chance to greet her father.

  “I missed my girl,” he said as he hugged her gently. Roy Baker was the opposite of his wife. Tall and slim, he was calm, cool and collected. Lexy liked to think she took more after him than her overly enthusiastic mother.

  Lexy stood back and looked at her parents. She noticed they were wearing matching Hawaiian shirts and wondered if she and Jack would ever end up wearing matching shirts. She certainly hoped not.

  “Those shirts are cute,” Nans said giving Lexy a look out of the corner of her eye that told her Nans thought they were anything but.

  “Oh thanks.” Vera bubbled. “I made them myself.”

  “You did? When did you start making clothes?” Lexy asked, surprised to learn about her mother’s new hobby.

  “Well, I had to find something to do to pass the time while Dad is driving the RV around, so I took up sewing.”

  “I have lots of custom made shirts now … that I’m forced to wear.” Roy winked at Lexy.

  Vera wrinkled her brow as she scanned the yard. “When do we get to meet Jack?”

  “Oh, he had to work tonight, but he’ll be over tomorrow for breakfast,” Lexy said, “If that’s okay?”

  “Sounds wonderful. I can make my famous cheese blintzes.” Vera rubbed her hands together. “Now, let’s get to the important stuff … I want to see your dress.”

  Lexy’s heart kicked. She didn’t want to get into the whole Bridezilla thing with her mom. Especially not the part about how Bridezilla ended up murdered.

  “Oh, it’s inside …” Lexy waved at the door, hoping her mother would sense she wasn’t that keen on showing off the dress.

  Vera whirled off in the direction of the front door. “Great. I want to see what you’ve done with the house too.”

  Lexy had bought the small bungalow from Nans a couple of years ago when Nans decided that living in the Retirement center would be more fun. It was the house her father had grown up in and the one that had given Lexy so many warm childhood memories. Not only that, but Jack lived in the house right behind hers which made dating really convenient.

  Lexy’s father shrugged and followed Vera into the house with Nans and Lexy trailing behind. Once inside, Lexy followed Vera around as she flitted from room to room commenting on the different things Lexy had done.

  Once she’d inspected each room, Vera turned to Lexy, her hands clasped in front of her. “I can’t wait anymore. Show us the dress. Do you want to model it for us?”

  “Ahh … well I can’t exactly model it.” Lexy chewed on her bottom lip.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s not exactly finished.”

  “What? The wedding is in a few days—let me see it.”

  Lexy ran upstairs and grabbed the dress from her closet. It was probably best just to get it over with—when her mother had her mind set on something, it was impossible to dissuade her.

  When Lexy came back down the stairs, she found everyone seated in the living room. They turned to look at her and she held the dress up in front of her.

  Vera gasped. “Lexy, it’s gorgeous.”

  Lexy’s heart swelled—it was gorgeous and exactly what she wanted, but would she be able to wear it? With Philippe dead, who would fix it for her?

  Vera came closer, lifting the fabric and inspecting the rips. She bent down toward the gown and did some pulling and puckering while squinting and murmuring.

  “I can fix this right up for you,” she said, straightening up and stepping back.

  “You can?” Lexy asked, hope swelling in her chest.

  “Of course. I’m quite good at sewing you know. I have a whole setup in the RV.” Vera reached her hand out for the dress and Lexy handed it over. “I’ll just take this to the RV after supper and have it fixed up for you in no time.”

  Lexy felt the tension in her shoulders ease up. She hadn’t realized how stressed out she’d been about the dress. She reached over and hugged her mother.

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  The buzzer blared in the kitchen. “Oh that’s the lasagna.” Nans bolted up from the couch and bustled into the kitchen. Lexy, Vera and Roy followed with Sprinkles dancing at their heels.

  Nans grabbed the salad and garlic bread and put them on the table while Lexy took the lasagna out of the oven, cutting it and dishing out big squares onto four plates. She put a little spoonful into Sprinkle’s dish before joining everyone at the table.

  “Oh this is delicious!” Vera gushed over her plate of food. “After supper you two can come and check out our RV. We’ll show you our slideshow of all the places we’ve visited, like the world’s biggest ball of twine, the largest hockey stick and the fifty-five foot tall Green Giant statue.”

  Nans raised her eyebrows and gave Lexy a look.

  “Oh don’t worry,” Vera said catching the look. “It’s only two hours long.”

  Lexy smiled at her mom as she bit into the gooey lasagna. Two hours of slides accompanied by her mothers’ animated descriptions? She picked up her wine glass and drained the contents. She could hardly wait.

  8

  The next morning, Lexy glanced nervously out the kitchen window at Jack’s back door while her mother busied herself at the counter mixing the ingredients for cheese blintzes. Her stomach flip-flopped when she saw Jack slip through the door and start across his backyard and into hers. She ran over to her kitchen door to open it for him feeling like a teenager about to introduce her parents to her prom date.

  “Good morning.” Jack’s smile warmed his eyes and Lexy pushed the door open further beckoning him in.

  Her father looked up from the crossword puzzle he’d been doing at the kitchen table and her mother, who was covered in flour by now, stopped mixing.

  “Jack, I’d like you to meet my parents—Vera and Roy.” Lexy motioned to each of her parents in turn and Jack shook hands with them.

  “Nice to meet you both,” Jack said then nodded at Vera’s flour covered apron. “I see the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.”

  Vera tittered. “Oh, I can see we’re going to like you,” she said pulling Jack over to the table. “Sit and I’ll have these blintzes ready in a jiffy.”

  Jack did as he was told. Vera ran back to the counter and quickly poured the pancake-like batter into a hot pan, tipping the pan this way and that to cover the entire bottom. A few seconds of cooking and she flipped the pancake o
ut and onto a sheet of waxed paper. Lexy plopped a generous dollop of the sweetened ricotta and cream cheese filling her mother had made earlier into the middle of the pancake, then folded it up like an envelope.

  They repeated the process for three more blintzes then put them all into a large pan of hot oil, the addition of the blintzes making the oil snap and pop. The sweet smell of frying dough filled the air and a few minutes later the blintzes were a crisp golden brown. Vera lifted them out onto separate plates and Lexy added fresh strawberries on top.

  Vera brought them to the table and plopped them in front of Jack and Roy, who had been mulling over the crossword puzzle together. Then she pushed Lexy down into one of the empty chairs and put a plate in front of her.

  “Eat ‘em while they’re hot.” Vera sank into the fourth chair and started in on her blintz.

  Lexy cut off a small corner of the blintz as she watched Jack dig into his, cutting it open so the cheese filling oozed out and then scooping some of the pancake, filling and a strawberry onto his fork.

  “This is delicious!” he said sliding his eyes toward Lexy. “How come you never made these for me?”

  Lexy shrugged. “I could never make them as good as Mom.”

  “Oh pffft,” Vera said as she scooted up from the table and busied herself cleaning off the counter. “So, Lexy told me a little about how you guys met. Is it true you almost arrested her?”

  Jack laughed. “Well, I had a pretty good idea she wasn’t the killer from the start. I just used that as an excuse to see more of her.”

  “Well I hardly think you need an excuse seeing as you live right in each other’s back yard.” Vera turned and winked at Lexy. “That must be convenient.”

  Lexy took a big gulp of water to try to extinguish the fire in her cheeks. It was convenient but the last people she needed thinking about that were her parents. Jack was apparently too busy finishing his blintz and then eating most of Lexy’s to be embarrassed.

  “So, it must be exciting to be a homicide detective,” Vera said as she swept over to the table and took the plates away. Lexy had to fight to keep hers—she wasn’t done yet.

  “It’s not as exciting as one might think—except for meeting beautiful women all the time.” Jack winked at Lexy and her parents laughed.

  “Are you working on any interesting cases now?” Roy asked.

  Lexy’s stomach twisted and she shook her head subtly hoping Jack would get the hint. She didn’t need her parents getting wind of the murder at Chez Philippe.

  “I’m not really on a case at the moment,” Jack said and Lexy sagged with relief.

  “It’s so exciting you two are getting married,” Vera said. “Jack, I know you’ll be a great husband and you’ll take good care of our little girl—Mona speaks so highly of you.”

  “Mona’s a great gal,” Jack said sincerely.

  Jack had bought his house behind Lexy’s when her grandmother still lived there and they’d been neighbors for a couple of years before Nans moved to the retirement center. In that time, Jack and Nans had become good friends while Jack did a lot of handy work on the house and Nans filled him with home-cooked meals. Jack had given Nans her interest in solving crimes—something Lexy was sure he regretted at times.

  “Well, I hope we’ll get to see a lot of you this week and get to know you better,” Vera said as she swiped Lexy’s plate with one hand and wiped the table with the other. She threw the plate in the dishwasher and the towel in the sink. “Come on Roy, I need you to put up some shelves in the RV.”

  Lexy’s father rolled his eyes, picked up the paper with the crossword puzzle he was working on and stood, holding his hand out to Jack. “Nice to meet you.”

  Jack stood, meeting Roy’s hand with his. “Same here.”

  “Nice meeting you Jack!” Vera yelled from the front door. “Come on Roy!”

  Roy gave another eye roll, turned and left.

  Lexy plucked at her napkin, suddenly very nervous. What if Jack didn’t like her parents?

  Jack reached over and pulled her onto his lap.

  “You’re parents are charming,” he said nibbling on her ear.

  Lexy swatted him away and tried to wiggle out of his lap but he held tight. She stayed in his lap casting nervous glances toward the door. With the way her mother operated, she could whirl back into the kitchen unannounced at any time. But she wanted to stay on Jack’s good side … she needed information from him.

  “So, have you heard anything more about the double murder case?” Lexy asked.

  “There was a break-in at Chez Philippe last night,” Jack said between nibbles.

  Lexy pushed away to look at his face. “Really? That’s kind of strange isn’t it? Do you think it’s related to the murders?”

  “Well, they were clearly looking for something because the place was ransacked. But if it was the murderer, why wouldn’t he have searched it when he was there doing the killing?” Jack asked taking a sudden interest in unbuttoning her shirt.

  “Maybe he got interrupted and had to come back later.” What if she was the one that had interrupted the killer? Lexy felt a cold chill run up her spine thinking of how she might have been the third victim.

  “And what about you?” Jack stopped the unbuttoning and studied her face. “I heard you had a run in with Detective Davies.”

  Lexy’s stomach tightened. Jack didn’t like it when she got in the middle of on-going investigations but, in this case, she felt like she had a right to.

  “Nans and I might have paid a little visit to Veronica’s fiancé.” She chewed her bottom lip and looked at Jack. “I know you don’t like it when we investigate, but I’m not that confident in Davies’ abilities. If it were you on the case I’d feel better, but right now I feel like investigating with Nans and the ladies is my best chance. You saw how hot Davies was to pin this on me.”

  “I know, and I agree with you,” Jack said massaging the tension out of her shoulder.

  “You do?”

  “Yep.”

  “Great, then maybe if you find anything out like what type of gun they were killed with or any other evidence the police found, you could pass that along,” she said. “But after what we found out yesterday, that might not be necessary, because I’m sure the police will soon find out the fiancé is the killer.”

  “Oh? What did you find?”

  “Veronica and her fiancé had a big fight and they took off in separate cars right before the murder. The fiancé hasn’t been home since,” Lexy said. “Seems to me, if I were going to kill my fiancé, I’d high tail it out of town and get as far away as I could, too.”

  “Sure, that makes sense,” Jack said. “But if the fiancé is the killer and he’s on the run, who broke into Chez Philippe?”

  9

  Lexy didn’t have time to think about who had broken into Chez Philippe—she had a lot to do at the bakery and still had to find time to meet with the wedding planner to finalize the menu.

  She extricated herself from Jack’s lap, pushed him out the back door, fed Sprinkles and then made a mad dash for her car stopping at her parents RV only long enough to bang on the door and yell a quick ‘good-bye’. The sound of her father’s power drill pierced the air as she pulled out of the driveway.

  Fifteen minutes later, she was pulling into her spot behind the bakery. The smell of vanilla and sugar hit her as soon as she opened the door. She stood in the back entrance inhaling the intoxicating scent. There was nothing she loved more than the smell of fresh baked cookies.

  Peeking into the kitchen, she could see Cassie at work folding chocolate chips into a large stainless steel bowl. Cassie looked up and smiled.

  “I’ve been waiting for you!” Cassie threw down the bowl, ran over to the other side of the room and grabbed a brown box. “This came in the mail yesterday and I’ve been dying to show it to you.”

  Lexy didn’t remember ordering anything. She walked over to the table as Cassie dug excitedly in the box, the smile growing on her
face as she lifted out what was inside.

  “I ordered it special for your cake.” Lexy stared at the item that Cassie held triumphantly in her hand. It was a wedding cake topper, the bride with a chef’s hat and the groom in a police uniform.

  “What? I didn’t even know you could order stuff like that.” Lexy’s heart swelled at the thoughtful gesture. “That was so nice of you.” She turned and crushed Cassie in a hug.

  “Well, you are my best friend … and you did trust me to make the most important cake of your life.”

  Cassie had worked as Lexy’s assistant since she’d opened the bakery and was becoming quite proficient in baking with a particular flair for cake decorating. When she’d offered to make Lexy’s wedding cake, Lexy had happily accepted, she could think of no one better to trust the job to than her best friend.

  “It’s perfect,” Lexy said.

  “Well I figured you could use a pick me up after all that business over at Chez Philippe.” Cassie put the topper gently back into the box.

  Lexy rolled her eyes and leaned against the counter eyeing the plates of oversized cookies that were waiting to be displayed in the glass bakery cases out front. Her mouth watered and she thought about nibbling on a snickerdoodle until she remembered she’d just wolfed down most of a cheese blintz. Better to hold off on the cookies if she still wanted to fit into her gown.

  “I know, I need that like I need a hole in the head … I’m so busy with all this wedding stuff, when will I find time to investigate a double murder?”

  “Yeah, John couldn’t believe they put a rookie in charge.” Cassie made a face.

  “Tell me about it … worst part is, she seems to be hell-bent on proving I did it. I would feel so much better if Jack and John were investigating it.”

  “At least you have Nans and the ladies, right?” Cassie crossed over to the oven, shoved her hands in oven mitts, took two cookie sheets out and deftly scraped the cookies onto racks to cool.

  “Yeah, thankfully. Otherwise I might be looking forward to wearing handcuffs instead of a wedding ring,” Lexy said. “Nans and I went over to talk to Veronica’s fiancé yesterday and found out something that will hopefully clear me so I shouldn’t have to worry about it anymore.”