Death and Sweets

by Kate Bell

  “We’re going to step out front,” one of the ambulance attendants said. “There’s not much we can do here until the coroner comes and releases the body.”

  Ethan nodded. “Go ahead, I’ll stay in here with her.”

  After they left, I looked at Ethan, “I just can’t understand this. Who would kill Stella?”

  “That’s the question of the day,” he said looking around the kitchen. He went over to the industrial-sized refrigerator, slipped rubber gloves on, and opened the door. I came to stand beside him and peered into the refrigerator with him.

  “Looks like your standard issue bakery ingredients,” I said taking note of the butter, milk, eggs, and assorted other ingredients.

  “She made the best chocolate bars in town,” Ethan said and looked at me over his shoulder. “I’m going to miss those.”

  I slapped him on the arm. “You need to miss more than her chocolate bars. You need to miss her.”

  “She was kind of a cantankerous person, you’ll have to admit that. Maybe she got cranky with the wrong person and they got tired of it.”

  I nodded. “I guess that wouldn’t surprise me one bit. Still, it’s sad.”

  “There’s no taking it back, that’s for sure,” Ethan said. He closed the refrigerator door and went over to a wall where an old-fashioned black rotary dial phone was mounted. There was a small corkboard with handwritten notes pinned to it. “Phone numbers, recipes, and a six-month-old appointment card for the doctor. Doesn’t look like much, but maybe if I sift through it, there’ll be something of interest.”

  “Is her husband’s phone number there by chance?” I asked. “Wait a minute, her purse has to be here somewhere. I’m sure she’s got a cell phone in there, or maybe it’s in her pocket.”

  Off of the kitchen, there was a tiny nook that served as Stella’s office. I peered at the papers sitting on top of the desk.

  “Don’t touch anything,” Ethan warned. “Let me do it. I’ve got gloves on.”

  Ethan picked up invoices and other papers looking for anything of note.

  “Check in the desk drawers for her purse,” I told him.

  Ethan pulled open the bottom drawer and inside of it was a black oversized handbag. “Bingo.”

  He rummaged through it and pulled out a cell phone. “It’s not even locked,” I said as he brought the phone to life.

  “Not much of a charge left on it, but let’s see if we can find her husband’s phone number.”

  I stood back as Ethan found the number in the phone listing and gave him a call. I let Ethan have his privacy as he asked Vince Moretti to come down to the bakery. It was a call no one ever wanted to get. Murder was so final and so tragic, and the thought was more than I could stand.

  When he got off the phone, I called back to him “Ethan, I think I’m going to go down to the candy shop and start making the fudge. If you need me, give me a call or come down and talk to me.”

  “You got it,” he said, walking over to where I stood. “You have to admit, Pumpkin Hollow has gotten a lot more dangerous since you got back to town.” He gave me a sly grin.

  “That’s nothing to joke about,” I warned him. “I’m going to get to work,” I said and headed out of the bakery.

  Chapter Three

  I looked up and automatically smiled when the front door opened. Mom stood in the doorway, still looking a little tired, and smiled back at me.

  “Oh Mia, I’m sorry you had to come in so early this morning, but I’m so glad you did. I think I just needed some extra sleep because I feel pretty good right now,” she said and walked up to the front counter.

  I slipped off the stool I had been sitting on behind the counter and went to the counter to lean on it. “I’m glad you’re feeling better,” I said.

  “Thank you, I think I was just working a little harder than I realized. Has it been busy this morning?” she came around to the back of the counter and stowed her purse in a drawer there.

  “Mom, I have some really bad news,” I said glancing around the shop. There was only one customer and she was looking at the bulk bins. “Stella Moretti was killed this morning,” I whispered it so the customer wouldn’t hear me.

  Mom gasped. “Stella? Are you serious?”

  I nodded. “I stopped by the bakery to get a donut and a large coffee to shake off the sleep this morning. The bakery was still dark, and the door was unlocked, so I went in. I found her in the bakery kitchen.” My eyes darted to the customer, but she didn’t seem to have heard what I said.

  Mom stared at me a few moments. “That’s just so hard to believe,” she said, looking at me. She pushed her brown curly hair off her forehead. “That’s just such stunning news that I don’t know what to say about it.”

  I nodded. “I didn’t expect it, either,” I said.

  “Does Vince know yet?”

  “Ethan called him and asked him to come down to the bakery this morning.”

  Mom picked up an apron that was sitting on one of the shelves behind the counter and put the top loop over her head and tied the apron at the waist in the back. “Oh dear, what tragic news. I can’t imagine who would want to kill Stella.”

  “Me either,” I said. “I mean, we both know she could be kind of difficult, but that wasn’t worth killing her over.”

  The customer came up to the front counter carrying a box of orange and chocolate ghosts and a plastic bag of orange and black jellybeans she had scooped from the bulk bins and set them on the front counter. She smiled at me. “I just love your shop, all the cute candies are so tempting. Halloween is one of my favorite times of the year.”

  I forced myself to smile. “Thank you, we love to hear that. I can hardly wait for Halloween myself.”

  She nodded. “Me too! I come to visit Pumpkin Hollow every fall. It’s one of the most exciting things I do each season,” she said, beaming.

  I finished ringing up the customer and when she left, I turned back to Mom. “I made three kinds of fudge, salt water taffy, and bonbons. It’s been pretty slow this morning, so we should be able to get a lot more candy made now that you’re here.”

  She nodded, looking distracted. “How did Stella die?”

  “It looked like she was shot. I didn’t see anything unusual in the bakery, other than she hadn’t gotten around to washing all the dishes in the kitchen.”

  She nodded absently. “I guess I’ll get to working on some haystacks and we might need more lollipops. It’s such a shame about Stella. I’m sorry you were the one that found her.”

  “Carrie will be in any minute now, so I can help you if you need me to,” I said. I had gone to school with Carrie Green and Mom had hired her as a part-time employee a couple of weeks earlier. She had been a big help to us and I was glad she worked here now.

  Mom nodded again. “Yes, that will be fine.”

  I watched her go back into the kitchen then I turned around just as the front door opened again. Carrie walked through the door, her eyes wide. “I just drove past the Sweet Goblin Bakery, and there are police cars all over the place. What’s going on?”

  “Stella Moretti was murdered,” I said. “I found her this morning when I stopped by to get some coffee and donuts.”

  She gasped. “Seriously? What is this town coming to?”

  I shook my head, “I have no idea. Now that you’re here, I think I’m going to take a walk down there and see if Ethan is still around. Can you keep an eye on the front counter? After that, I’ll come back and help my mom make more candy.”

  “Sure, no problem,” she said.

  I took a walk to the bakery, and I could see all the police cars parked there from the candy store. People were driving slowly down the street, craning their necks to get a look at what was going on there. It had been five hours since I discovered Stella’s body, and as I looked up, I saw the coroner's van pull away from the curb.

  Ethan walked out of the bakery and looked in my direction. When he realized it was me walking toward him, he started
walking in my direction.

  “Hi Ethan,” I said when we met in the middle. “How are things going?”

  “Well, I guess things are going as well as possible. I hate it that there’s another murder here in Pumpkin Hollow,” he said and pushed his blond hair off his forehead.

  “Did Vince, come down to the bakery this morning?” I asked him.

  He nodded. “He came right down when I called him. I hate that part of the job.”

  “I don’t envy you that either,” I said, wrapping my arms around myself. I hated this whole thing. A fall breeze blew my hair across my face and I pushed it back out of the way. I looked up at the sky. The clouds were gathering overhead. “It looks like it’s going to rain.”

  Ethan glanced up at the sky and then back at me. “It does. I’m sorry you had to see Stella that way,” he said quietly.

  I nodded. “I’m sorry about it, too. I can’t imagine who would kill her.”

  “Me either,” he said. “Her part-time help, Angela Karis, came into work after you left. She was just as shocked as anyone. I talked to her for a few minutes, but she had no idea what might have happened. She and Stella had been friends since grade school and she was pretty broken up about it.”

  “That’s a shame,” I said. “I’m glad she wasn’t the one who found her then. That would have been so traumatizing.”

  He nodded. “Hey Mia, I forgot to tell you. Tom Baker dropped off a load of bales of straw where the old straw maze used to stand. He said they had quite a lot of it, and there might be enough to rebuild the straw maze,” he said, changing the subject.

  I grinned. “Seriously? We’re going to get the straw maze back?”

  A month earlier there had been an arson fire that destroyed both the straw maze and the corn maze out at the haunted farmhouse. Pumpkin Hollow had taken a hit when two of its most popular attractions had been decimated.

  He nodded. “And that’s not all. Tom said a friend of his father’s has some goats. You just might get your wish for a goat tying event down at the haunted farmhouse.”

  I gasped. “That is awesome news! I can hardly believe it!”

  We had been in search of new attractions to draw the tourists to town and had been kicking around the idea of goat tail tying for the younger kids. I had seen it done at rodeos a couple of times and I thought it would be fun, but I didn’t think we would be able to find the goats that we needed.

  He nodded again and stuck his hands in his front pockets. “You never know what might happen until you ask around. We’ll see if we can get some volunteers to help rebuild the straw maze and the Halloween season will be back in business.”

  “I can’t tell you how happy that makes me. We’ll finally have a couple more events to replace what we’ve lost. And with the haunted house back up and running at full speed, maybe the Halloween season won’t be a complete loss.”

  Since I had moved back to Pumpkin Hollow a couple of months earlier, the Halloween season had taken some losses. The haunted house had been temporarily closed among other things. But, other than this new murder, things were starting to look up. Maybe Pumpkin Hollow would make a comeback.

  “I guess I should get back to the investigation,” Ethan said. “The coroner just removed the body and I need to close up the bakery.”

  “I understand. I hope you figure out who the killer is quickly.”

  “Keep your fingers crossed that the killer left a lot of evidence behind,” he said.

  I watched Ethan turn around and head back to the bakery and I hoped he did find some useful evidence. He had gotten a promotion of sorts with the police department and he was a part-time criminal investigator now. He was going to take the test to become a full-time detective in the future, but for now, he was both a patrol officer and an investigator when needed.

  I folded my arms across my chest against the breeze and I hoped things would completely turn around for Pumpkin Hollow.

  Chapter Four

  Stella’s death weighed on me the rest of the day and into the evening. I couldn’t imagine who would kill her and it bothered me that we were facing yet another murder. The following morning when I had a break, I decided to take a walk up by the bakery. I didn’t expect it to be open, but the image of Stella lying dead in her kitchen just wouldn’t go away and it drew me to the bakery. It was probably silly and I probably should have stayed away, but I couldn’t.

  The police tape had been removed from the front of the bakery and as I passed in front of the door, I saw that it was open just a crack. The bakery looked forlorn with its lights turned off and its windows devoid of the happy Halloween window paintings that most of the businesses sported on this side of town. I stood in front of the door wondering whether I should go in. Vince’s black pickup truck was parked out front and after a few more moments of indecision, I gently pushed the door open and peered inside. Vince sat at a corner table, his hands on the table in front of him and his eyes on the table.

  I cleared my throat and waited until he looked up at me. He forced himself to smile. “Hello, Mia,” he said quietly. “I guess you heard?”

  I nodded, entered the bakery, and walked over to where he sat. “I found her yesterday morning.”

  He winced. “I’m sorry about that. It must have been terrible. Have a seat,” he said motioning to the chair across from him.

  I pulled out the chair he indicated and sat down. “I’m so sorry, Vince.”

  “Thanks, Mia, I didn’t expect something like this to happen. We were married for over 30 years and we always talked about how when we retired, how we would sell the bakery and buy a boat and live on it somewhere on the central coast.”

  I smiled. “That sounds like that would have been fun,” I said. Vince had salt and pepper hair and in his late fifties, kept himself fit. Deep worry lines etched across his forehead and dark shadows gathered beneath his eyes.

  He gave me a sad smile again. “We thought it would be fun. But now, I guess that will never happen.”

  I nodded. “I wish there was something I could say or do, but I know there isn’t anything that will help right now.”

  He nodded. “I know there were people who didn’t care much for her, but murder her? I don’t understand it.”

  “Vince, did Stella come home Sunday night?” I asked gently.

  “I don’t know. I was over in Trukee visiting my dad. He hasn’t been feeling well lately, so I stayed the night with him. I spoke to Stella before I left Sunday morning and that was the last I heard from her.”

  I nodded, suddenly realizing I could smell the faint scent of doughnuts in the air. I wondered how long the scent of doughnuts would stay if no one made any for a while. “I know this has to be a shock for you.”

  His eyes met mine. “A lot of people didn’t like the fact that my wife had a business in the Halloween business district and didn’t fully participate in the season. She never painted the windows of the bakery, and she didn’t decorate. But she did like making the little monster doughnuts that she made.” He chuckled sadly. “I don’t know why it was so important to her to be the one and only bakery in the Halloween district. She didn’t like the season.”

  I felt guilty when he mentioned people didn’t like the fact that Stella didn’t participate in the Halloween season. I was one of those people. But so were a lot of the other business owners. It took a lot to get a business license on this side of town, and it was expected that if you were granted the license, you would fully participate in the Halloween season, as well as keep up the Halloween spirit all year long. It was a bone of contention that Stella only reluctantly decorated a few of her baked goods during the Halloween season.

  “It was kind of a hard position that she was in,” I said. “She obviously didn’t enjoy the Halloween season and yet she was the official Halloween bakery.”

  “I told her over and over that she needed to just sell the bakery. Or at the very least, move over to the other side of town so she wouldn’t have to fool with the Hallowe
en season. She was stubborn though, and she said there was no way she was going to do that and allow somebody else to have her place here in the Halloween business district.” He chuckled bitterly. “That woman was the most stubborn woman you have ever seen. Some days, she was the bane of my existence.”

  I smiled at him. “Some people are just that way, aren’t they? Tell me Vince, was there anyone in her life that she felt might have wanted to do her harm?”

  He looked at me in silence a few moments. “I hate to say this, but if I was going to point a finger at anybody, it would be her sister, Daisy Browning. The two fought like cats and dogs and I had to hear all the time what a terrible person Daisy was. And I’m pretty sure that Daisy’s husband had to hear what a terrible person Stella was,” he said and chuckled again. “Stephen and I get along just fine. But those two girls, they could really get into it. It made for difficult holiday get-togethers.”

  “Wasn’t Daisy instrumental in getting Stella a license for her bakery here in the Halloween district?” I asked him. I remembered that Stella had once made mention of that fact. Stella was proud that she had had the upper hand over others who wanted the license.

  He nodded. “That’s one of the things that drove them apart. At the time, Daisy had been on the city council and Stella assured her that she could take on the responsibilities of being the only bakery over in the Halloween district. But, that only lasted a couple of years. Stella got tired of paying someone to paint the windows with Halloween scenes, and she got tired of buying all the cute little decorated bags, and all the extra things to keep the place looking the way it should. I told her that most of the expenses were one-time expenses and she had already spent the money, so what difference did it make?”

  “I suppose it might cost a little extra, but I really don’t think my mom spends all that much on it.”

  “It was just an excuse. She didn’t want to do it, and that made Daisy furious. The last time the two spoke, it ended with them screaming at one another and Daisy swore she would open her own bakery and sell Halloween baked goods from the other side of town. Stella laughed at her and said she didn’t have a clue about running a bakery and it would never happen.”