Cupcakes, Diaries, and Rotten Inquiries: A Romantic, Comedic Annie Graceland Mystery, #6

by Pamela DuMond

  “She’s faking!” Mack yelled.

  I do believe I must prepare to pass to the Afterlife with Mack. I’m so glad I could help you, Dearest Diary, make a difference in someone’s life. No, you don’t have to thank me.

  My best,

  Dr. Derrick Fuller, Ph.D.

  Cheesecake Cookies by Margaret Dieman

  Ingredients and Directions:

  1/3 cup butter

  1/3 cup brown sugar

  1 cup flour

  ½ cup chopped nuts (pick those which you love)

  ¼ cup sugar

  One 8 oz. package cream cheese

  1 egg

  2Tbsp. milk

  ½ tsp vanilla

  1 Tbsp. lemon juice

  Cream butter with brown sugar in a small mixing bowl.

  Add flour and nuts.

  Mix to a crumb mixture.

  Reserve one cup for topping.

  Press the remainder into the bottom of an 8” pan and bake in 350 degree oven for 12 – 15 minutes until lightly browned.

  Blend sugar with cream cheese in a small bowl until smooth.

  Add egg, mild, lemon juice and vanilla.

  Beat well.

  Spread over baked crust.

  Sprinkle with the reserved crumb mixture.

  Bake in 350 degree oven for twenty minutes.

  Cool and cut into 2” squares.

  Chapter 30

  “Paradise by the Dashboard Light”

  Annie

  Dear Diary,

  Here we go again. The paramedics arrived, took Mable’s vitals, transferred her to a gurney, put her in the back of an ambulance and took her to the hospital. A few more black and whites showed up. The officers determined there was no immediate threat to anyone on the scene. Notes were taken and people were questioned.

  The lab techs showed up to check out the Caddie for prints, and tire marks, scratches, and DNA.

  Mack sat in the Caddie and pretended to drive.

  One officer ‘chaperoned’ us as we waited here on site, for the L.A.P.D. Detectives to show up and question us.

  I was thinking this probably meant my boyfriend, the very delicious, as well as suspicious, Detective Raphael Campillio would be arriving shortly and find me at yet another crime scene. Oh yay! If he hadn’t decided to dump me already, tonight would most likely be the turning point. “Has this been the suckiest year, or what?” I said.

  “Not for me.” Julia cuddled with Devin.

  “Not for me.” Grady had flipped open his laptop and resumed working on his novel.

  “Not for me.” Tiffany scrolled through her iPhone. “I invested in Flada and the stock just sky-rocketed.”

  “Not for me,” Bob Bubeck said. “My deadbeat son-in-law is dead, not by my hands might I add, and I just bought the car of my dreams.”

  “Good luck on acquiring that car, Bob,” I said. “It might take a while as it is evidence in a homicide.”

  “I’m happy to wait,” he said.

  My breath caught in my throat as the impossibly gorgeous Detective Raphael Campillio strode up to me with a healthy dose of concern on his face.

  “Let’s talk over here,” he said and gestured to a picnic bench on the side of the tiny restaurant. We walked over and sat down. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I’m fine. Although I really think the great aunt did it. You’re going to find evidence all over that car that’s going to match with Mack’s clothes and DNA. Are you mad at me?” I asked.

  “You’re involved in yet another murder. I don’t really understand why you’re such a magnet for this stuff.”

  “I knew Mack, Raphael. He was my college boyfriend. I had to at least try and find out who killed him. I owed him that.”

  Raphael sighed. “Okay. We’ll talk about it later.” He stood up and we started walking back.

  “Just tell me now. I need to know. Are you going to break up with me?” I asked. “Because after tonight, I just can’t take the suspense of not knowing. I’d rather you just do it cleanly and then I can go home and cry and write in my diary and order a pizza, and then cry some more.”

  He stopped in his tracks. “Do you want to break up with me?”

  “Don’t be silly. I lo….I really like you,” I said.

  He took my hand and squeezed it. “I really like you, too,” he said and turned. “Ms. Tiffany Tominski, I need to ask you a few questions.”

  She sighed, stood up, and walked past him toward the picnic table.

  Raphael swiveled and gazed at me. “Do you know what’s better than having a pretty girlfriend, who’s funny, clever, and a baker?”

  “No,” I said.

  “A pretty girlfriend who’s funny, clever, a baker, and likes to solve murders,” he said, winked, and walked toward Tiffany.

  “Aah!” I did a quick happy dance when he was far enough away and his back was turned from me.

  Strangely enough, at that exact moment, “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” by Meatloaf blasted from the Caddie’s radio.

  “Who turned the car back on?” I asked.

  “Perhaps I did it with the power of my intention,” Derrick said and hopped into the Caddie’s back seat.

  Mack cocked his head and stared at the dashboard. “This used to be my favorite song.”

  I glanced around me. Bright lights craned high above the parking lot. Lights from the various classic cars flashed on and off as one by one their drivers were cleared by the police and allowed to leave the lot. I gazed at the twinkly lights on the hills from the properties that wound their way up the Santa Monica Mountains. I saw the lights that sparkled over the Christmas tree lot. And most importantly, my gaze was pulled toward the Caddie’s dashboard light.

  “It’s time, Mack,” I said. “It’s time to go to your version of the Afterlife.”

  “Oh, my God,” he said. “Mack thinks that it seems so fitting, but Mack’s scared.”

  “I know,” I said. “But I think this is your way. It fits you. You’ve got to give it a try.”

  “What about me?” Derrick asked. “Am I simply sloppy leftovers?”

  I shrugged. “Go ahead, and try, Derrick.”

  “Goodbye, Annie,” Mack said. “I’m sorry I poisoned Theodore. I’ll always remember you fondly, even though you were mean to me on multiple occasions.”

  “Stern, Mack,” I said. “Not mean.”

  “You say poTAY-toe,” Mack said. “I say poTAH-toe.”

  “Take care,” I waved at him.

  He tried to tickle me one last time but I dodged him. His body vaporized into a blue mist and gently diffused through the tiny cracks and crevices into the Caddie’s dashboard. I started coughing up half a lung and waved a hand in front of my face. Phew, the mist’s new car smell was overwhelmingly strong! The Caddie’s’s headlights turned on and its brights flashed for a few seconds. And I do believe Mack ‘The Man’ McManus entered the Afterlife in that brief, shining moment.

  Mission accomplished!

  “I’m still here.” Derrick frowned, his arms crossed, and he tapped his toe on the car’s floor like a Chihuahua with a bad case of fleas.

  “Yeah. But you did good,” I said. “You mentored someone to the other side. Brownie points, Derrick. They add up.”

  He grumbled, hopped out of the car, and walked off the lot.

  And that, Dear Diary, concludes tonight’s craziness.

  I don’t know what will come of this. Is Mable guilty? Did Mack really pass to the Afterlife? Will Raphael stay with me? What will happen when Mom arrives tomorrow? Can Devin Dylan really find me a car? Time will tell. But I do know this. You have helped, tremendously, Diary.

  Thank you.

  Xo,

  Annie

  Official Music Video for "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" by Meatloaf

  Chapter 31

  Psych Hospital Ward

  Mable ‘The Great Auntie’ McManus

  Dear Diary,

  I’m reporting in from the Psych Hospital Ward
for the criminally insane on Thanksgiving. I don’t mind the screaming; it reminds me of living in my former apartment in the Venice ’hood.

  I usually pen a little snippet in you every night, but you are currently resting in my home at Helping Hands Assisted Living. Therefore, I’m just going to close my eyes, and pretend that I’m writing in your welcoming pages.

  As you know, there’s always ‘one’ in every family. The ‘one’ in my family was Mack McManus.

  Mack was my sister Millie’s grandson. He was cute when he was little: babbling nonsense as he toddled around after Tonka toys, and building play cars with Legos.

  I attended most of his grade-school plays when I still lived in Wisconsin. He always had the smaller, non-speaking roles—third spear-carrier on the left, a townsman in Brigadoon, the silent but menacing Nazi guard in The Sound of Music.

  But during opening night performance in the latter, he started ad-libbing, talking over the other actors when he wasn’t supposed to be talking at all. When he interrupted the very emotional breakup scene between Liesl and Rolf, the play’s director literally grabbed him by the scruff of his uniform and yanked him off stage. I’ll never forget watching Millie’s face pop bright red. I thought she was going to have a heart attack on the spot.

  Eventually I grew weary of the brutal Midwestern winters, packed my bags, and moved to Venice, California. I had squirreled away enough money to purchase a small apartment building in the ’hood and I resided in a decent-sized one bedroom on the second floor.

  Millie and I talked every day on the phone. She continued to dote on her only grandchild, Mack, sending him birthday presents, Christmas packages, Easter baskets, 4th of July celebratory gifties, and Halloween surprises. I listened to her common complaints about him as the years ticked by.

  “I just don’t understand it,” Millie would say. “Such a nice, young man, my own flesh and blood, and yet he never thanks me.”

  “He also doesn’t write or visit you,” I said.

  “But he calls me on my birthday,” she said. “At least he did three years ago.”

  “Oh, Millie,” I said. “Youth is wasted on the young. They think we owe it to them. They don’t understand that a simple ‘Thank you’ on their part would make our day, let alone month. Maybe you should talk to his parents about his bad manners.”

  “No. I don’t want to stir that pot,” she’d say. “Nothing good can come from telling your adult children how to parent their own. Besides, Mack’s a grown man. Graduating college. Just got engaged. Perhaps he’ll start his own family one of these days. Maybe his children will be nicer to me if I’m a great-grandmother instead of just a grandmother.”

  I doubted it, but I wasn’t going to tell her that.

  “Well then,” I said. “If you’re not willing to speak up, you need to let it go.”

  “You’re right. You’re always right when it comes to these things,” she said.

  Mack’s insensitivity was part of our conversation for almost thirty years including Millie’s first birthday after she’d moved into Assisted Living. Mack never bothered sending a card, calling, or visiting her. I think a little piece of her died that day. The rest of her died about a month later of a massive coronary.

  I travelled from Venice, California back to frozen, snowy Wisconsin for however long it would take to bury my sister, and help settle her affairs. We were a small group that huddled around that very cold, gravesite a few days after Thanksgiving: a few of Millie’s friends, some folks who knew her from Assisted Living, her two kids, and their spouses. But no Mack. He was too busy checking out classic cars at a fancy auto show in Vegas.

  Much to my surprise, Millie left all her jewelry, a couple of family photo albums, a few pieces of Limoge china, and her most prized possession: a 1959 Cadillac Series 62 hot red convertible to me. I shipped my sister’s belongings to my home in Venice through UPS, and hired a licensed and insured auto shipping company to transport her beloved car.

  For the most part, the vintage Caddie resided in my single garage. I took it out for a spin once a week, just to keep its juices flowing. People would notice and honk, or approach me in the parking lot at the grocery store. I started getting offers from car buffs that offered to buy it. But, I always said no. I didn’t have a lot of connections left to my sister.

  When a couple of years later, Mack resurfaced, he was divorced, living in Vegas, and was shocked his grandmother hadn’t bequeathed that car to him. He remembered all the fun trips they took to the House on the Rock, the Wonderful World of Cheese, and the Wisconsin Dells. He sent me letters and cards and refrigerator magnets. With each greeting, he offered to take the Caddie off my tired, old, arthritic hands.

  He even showed up on my doorstep, unannounced, a couple of months ago. I made him tea as he sat in my living room and told me about Vegas, and the Strip, and how he had turned into this high-powered WEPOC salesman and how much everyone loved him. He was so popular. He wanted that car. He deserved that car. It was practically owed to him. Besides, that car must be a burden for me now that I was so old…

  Oh, there was definitely a burden, but it wasn’t the car…

  I told Mack no when he wanted me to accompany him to that automobile banquet. But I thought about Millie, and how she probably would have liked if I accompanied him, and so I changed my mind. But by the time I got dressed up, got a ride to my garage, and drove to the hotel, I got turned around and ended up in a strange section of town.

  I missed the event but arrived just in time to see Mack and his raucous, tipsy friends go to the Gentleman’s (right) Club. I bided my time and read a few copies of The Reader’s Digest that I kept tucked in the glove compartment. (You know me—I always keep a book on hand.) Finally, Mack and his friends stumbled out of that house of sin and said their sloppy goodbyes.

  He wove toward his car and said, “I am Number Two! I am Number Two!” as he thrust some kind of trophy up in the air.

  And I thought—yes, you are a number two, you little shithead. You’ve been a number two for quite a while now. I decided to drive up to him, roll down the window and tell him off for good. When, I have no idea how this happened, I got confused and, I swear that I meant to hit the breaks, but I hit the gas instead.

  After that, I felt a little disoriented and bewildered. I was scared I was having a TIA. I should have gone to the police, or to a hospital, but in my confused state of mind, I drove like I was on autopilot back to my garage. I parked the Caddie, closed the garage door and locked it. I walked a few blocks. I called a taxi that took me back to Helpful Hands.

  The night nurse scolded me for being out so late, but I told her I was still an independent person who had womanly needs.

  So here I sit, until the courts decide if I am a cold-blooded killer, or just a confused older gal who had a terrible accident with awful consequences, and will no longer be allowed to drive.

  Cross fingers, Diary—I’m voting on the latter.

  I miss you, Dear Diary. I miss my sister. I think she’d come visit me if she were still walking this earth. Perhaps Mack will finally visit her now that they’re both in the Afterlife. (You’re welcome, Millie.) By the way, the banana pudding here is fabulous. Don’t let them tell you all institution food is tasteless.

  Best,

  Mable “The Great Auntie” McManus

  Banana Pudding Cupcakes by Tina-Marie Vaitl

  Ingredients:

  1 box French Vanilla Cake Mix (plus ingredients listed on box, and Buttermilk)

  8 oz. container spreadable Cream Cheese (softened)

  14 oz. can Sweetened Condensed Milk

  ¾ Cup Whole Milk

  3.4 oz. box Instant Banana Pudding

  1 Cup frozen Whipped Topping (thawed)

  1-2 Bananas, sliced in 24 pieces

  1 tsp Vanilla Extract

  1-1½ Cups crushed Vanilla Wafers

  Yield 24 Cupcakes

  Make the cupcakes according to the instructions on the cake mix, *except* use butte
rmilk in place of the water. The batter will be thick, but trust me... awesomeness is about to happen! Divide the batter equally between two 12 cup muffin tins with liners.

  While the cupcakes are baking, make the filling in a separate bowl.

  Mix together the softened cream cheese with the sweetened condensed milk until it’s very creamy looking.

  Add the whole milk, vanilla and banana pudding mix and whip until it’s thickened. Keep your mixer on medium speed until everything is blended.

  Fold in the thawed whipped topping by hand.

  When the cupcakes are done, put them on a wire rack and let them cool down. The magic is about to happen!

  Using a sharp knife, cut the middle out of each cupcake leaving about ½ inch around the edges, and be careful not to go all the way to the bottom. (Save the middles for another use, or just eat them because they are yummy!)

  Sprinkle some of the crushed vanilla wafers into each cupcake shell, and place a slice of banana in next.

  You want room to put the pudding filling, and then add some more to “frost” the cupcakes with.

  Finish them by sprinkling more of the crushed vanilla wafers on top. You could also top them with some more whipped cream before the wafer garnish if you want to.

  Chill for several hours before serving, if you can wait that long!

  Chapter 32

  The Great Date Update