by Kate Bell
“Hi Angela, sorry about that. I just noticed the lights were on in the bakery and the door was unlocked, so I came in. I didn’t expect to see anyone here.” She turned back, closed the cupboard door, and then turned back to me.
“I have a key. I told Vince I was going to come down and take an inventory of the items in the kitchen. We’re going to reopen next week.”
“You are?” I asked her, my brow furrowing. I walked to the end of the kitchen island. “So Vince is going to continue with the business? I wasn’t sure what he was going to do with it.”
She nodded and walked toward me. “We are. I mean, he is.”
My eyes went to the place on the floor where Stella’s body had been and chills went down my spine again. “That’s good to hear,” I said, placing a steadying hand on the stainless steel top of the kitchen island. “It’s probably good for Vince to keep himself busy and his mind off of his loss. And the bakery certainly will do that.”
She nodded and leaned on the kitchen island. “That’s exactly what I told him. I told him he needed to get the bakery open and running again and it would give him something to do, and, I think help him grieve.”
“I think keeping oneself busy during the grieving process is helpful,” I said in agreement. “It’s such a horrible thing that happened to poor Stella. I can hardly believe it.”
“Oh, I agree completely with that,” she said, picking up a folded white dishtowel from the island and refolding it. “I feel so terrible for Vince. They were married for such a long time.”
The thought of Vince and Angela having an affair at the beginning of Vince’s marriage crossed my mind, but I kept my mouth shut. “Angela, do you have any idea what happened to Stella? Did you work the day she died?”
I thought I might as well ask her. Angela was Stella’s only employee. Stella was a workhorse and insisted on doing most of the work herself.
“Yes, I did work that day, but I left at about three o’clock in the afternoon. I asked Stella if she wanted me to stay later and help her clean up the kitchen, but she insisted that I go. You know how she was, she worked all the time.”
I nodded. “She was a hard worker, wasn’t she?”
She nodded again and unfolded the dishtowel and refolded it again without looking at me. “I can hardly wait to get the bakery reopened. I have so many ideas of what to do to salvage the last couple of weeks of the Halloween season.”
This surprised me. “Really? What do you mean?”
“Vince has given me free reign with the business,” she said and chuckled. She looked at me now and smiled, her large teeth showing. “You know how men are. They don’t know how to do some of the things that we women do. I have a million ideas to help Sweet Goblin Bakery get back in the swing of things where the Halloween season is concerned. I tried and tried to get Stella to do more, but you know how stubborn she was. She did whatever she wanted.”
I nodded slowly. I didn’t like the feel of this. “So, you’re going to be running the bakery? Not Vince?”
She beamed. “Yes! Vince trusts my judgment, and I have all these ideas bouncing around my head. He’s given me an unlimited budget to get things going. Can you believe that? I have to pinch myself!” She squealed with excitement and I found myself staring at her.
I was stunned. She seemed entirely too happy about this whole situation and I wondered how Vince had an unlimited budget to just hand over to her. Maybe he did have insurance on Stella, just like Beth had suggested.
“Well, that sounds great,” I said, for something to say. “We all wished Stella would have been more active during the Halloween season. She had such potential to make all sorts of cute bakery items and it was a shame that she never really got into it.”
“That’s exactly what I said,” she agreed, nodding. Angela had large eyes that made her look like she was always staring wide-eyed. “I’ve had so many people comment to me that it was such a waste of a business license for Stella to own the bakery here. There were so many other people who wanted it, like Beth Ramirez and even Stella’s own sister, Daisy Browning, expressed an interest in it.”
Vince had mentioned that Daisy threatened to open her own bakery across town, but she hadn’t mentioned it to me. She also hadn’t mentioned wanting the Sweet Goblin Bakery. “Really? Daisy? I had no idea she had an interest in the bakery.” What else did Angela know? I hoped she’d let something slip.
“Well,” she said slowly. “I don’t mean that she really wanted to take over the bakery, at least I don’t think she did, but she did mention that she could do a better job than Stella could.”
I nodded. “Angela, do you know of anybody that might have had something against Stella?”
She stopped smiling and looked at me for a moment. “I have no idea. I mean, you know how Stella was. She could be so crotchety and sometimes just flat-out unkind to people, so I suppose somebody could have taken offense to something she said and killed her. But I really couldn’t say that there was anyone in particular that had something against her.”
“She was kind of cranky, wasn’t she?” I said with a laugh. The more I spoke to Angela the more suspicious I got about her and Vince. Were they still having an affair like Daisy had said?
She nodded her head furiously. “You know she was cranky,” she said, and she glanced nervously at the clock on the wall behind me. “Well, I’ve got to continue getting a list of supplies together. Vince told me to get whatever we needed, and I’ve got all these ideas for cute little cupcakes, decorated doughnuts, cakes, and all sorts of things. I thought about making scones that were shaped like tombstones and maybe writing cute little epitaphs on them in icing.” She chuckled at the idea.
“That’s not a bad idea,” I said, nodding. “There are so many things that could be done with baked goods to help celebrate the season. I’m glad you guys are going to reopen before Halloween.”
“Vince is very excited,” she said, her eyes lighting up again. “Vince has a lot of ideas too. We’ve been getting together in the evenings and making up lists of things we can do to help support the town. That’s what we really want. We want to support Pumpkin Hollow during the Halloween season.”
I could suddenly hear the clock on the wall behind me ticking loudly. Everything in me sensed that maybe it wasn’t just one person that killed Stella, but maybe it was the act of two desperate people wanting to be rid of her so they could be together.
“Well Angela, I wish you all the luck in the world. I’m sure the two of you together can come up with some really great ideas and you can make the bakery a big draw for the tourists. I know people enjoy coming back to our candy shop because of all the creative ideas my mom has, and I’m sure the bakery can be just as successful in drawing repeat business.”
“Thank you for your kind words,” Angela said and followed me as I turned to head back toward the front door.
I crossed the dining room of the bakery and as I got to the door, I turned back toward her. “So Angela, where was Vince the night Stella died?” Ethan had already told me he was at his father’s house, but I wondered what she would say.
Her eyes went big, and she inhaled deeply. “Vince was at his father’s house over in Trukee. He hasn’t been feeling well lately, and Vince has been making trips over there quite a bit, from what he tells me.”
I nodded, studying her. I had a bad feeling about all of this. “Okay well, good luck to you guys then.”
I walked out the bakery door and I heard the low click of the door lock behind me.
Chapter Thirteen
“Knock knock,” I heard Ethan call from the front door. I had left the door open, and I was standing at the stove making popcorn the old-fashioned way, in a large stockpot with oil and popcorn kernels, shaking it back and forth on the stove burner.
I kept one hand on the pot and turned toward the door. “Come on in, Ethan.”
Boo entwined himself around my legs while I kept the pot moving over the flame to keep the popcorn from burning.
&n
bsp; “Well, what have we here?” Ethan asked, looking at the pot on the stove.
“Popcorn, made the old-fashioned way,” I said grinning at him. “You’re just in time. Did you hear it all the way from across the street?” I had moved into the house across the street from Ethan several weeks earlier. It made it convenient to see him when he was working long hours and the house was adorable, painted white with black shutters.
He shook his head. “Nope, I just have good timing,” he said and leaned over and scratched Boo’s head.
“You certainly do have good timing.” I said turning the flame off from under the pot. “I’ve melted plenty of butter and we can see if there’s something on TV if you want.”
“That sounds like a plan,” he said. “This takes all the stress out of trying to plan a date.”
I gave him a look. “I bet you don’t stress over where to go on dates.”
He chuckled. “Probably not.”
I took the pot off the burner and poured the popcorn into a large bowl. Then I took the butter I had melted earlier and poured it over the top of the popcorn. The popcorn sizzled as the liquid butter hit it.
“Let’s take this party into the living room and we’ll have some popcorn,” I told him.
We sat on the sofa with the popcorn bowl in my lap. Ethan turn the channels around on the TV and Boo sat on the other side of him waiting hungrily for his share of the popcorn.
“Think Boo would eat some popcorn?” he asked, holding a piece out to him. Boo sniffed the popcorn then stuck his tongue out to taste the butter on it.
“You had him at butter,” I said and took a bite of popcorn. “This is really good.”
“I know the way to a cat’s heart,” he said.
“So what’s new with the murder investigation?” I asked him as I ate some popcorn.
“Not a lot,” he said and stopped turning the channel around when he found It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. “Please tell me you want to watch this.”
I laughed. “I was afraid you would try to turn the channel,” I said. “I talked to both Polly Givens at the gift shop and Frankie Malone at the flower shop and they both said they didn’t hear a thing the evening of the murder. They also didn’t see anything, so it makes me wonder if the killer staked out the front of the bakery, waiting until everyone nearby left for the evening. Maybe they knew that Stella would stay late cleaning the kitchen.”
“They told me the same thing. I’m glad you talked to them though. Sometimes people tell other people different things. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if the killer did scope out the bakery before killing her. It was a gun after all, and unless they were using a silencer, someone close by would have heard the gunshot.”
I looked at him. “Seriously? A silencer? Do people have those things?”
He chuckled and took a handful of popcorn from the bowl. “Although they are illegal in California, they are legal in most states. They’re actually very common and easy to get a hold of. I guess if the killer really planned things and thought it out in advance, they could have gotten one illegally. That doesn’t mean one was used though.”
That was something to think about. It had never crossed my mind that someone could get ahold of a silencer for a gun. “Seems to me that kind of thing would be illegal in every state.”
He shrugged. “Did you find out anything else?”
“As a matter fact, I did,” I said, giving him the eye. “As I was getting ready to leave after talking to the shop owners, I saw the lights on in the bakery, so I stopped in. Stella’s part-time help, Angela Karis, was there looking through the cupboards. She said Vince was going to reopen the bakery next week and he’s going to let her run it.”
He looked at me, eyebrows raised. “Angela is going to be running the bakery?”
I nodded. “It seems kind of odd to me. I mean, if what Daisy said is true and they’re still having an affair, I guess that makes sense. And if they’re still having an affair, it makes you wonder if there are two killers and not just one. She also said Vince had given her the okay to buy whatever she wanted and money wasn’t an issue.”
“That does seem odd to give your part-time help license to spend whatever money she wants to,” he said thinking this over.
“She said she had been telling Stella for years that she needed to participate in the Halloween season and go all out with it. But of course, Stella was stubborn and wouldn’t do it.”
Ethan put some popcorn in his mouth. “It’s something to think about. When I spoke to Angela, she seemed upset, but maybe not as upset as I had expected. But then, people grieve differently, don’t they?”
“I guess they do. Especially if you aren’t that sad,” I said.
He sighed, thinking it over. “Vince claims he was at his father’s house over in Trukee. He gave me his father’s phone number, but when I called him and asked if Vince was there on the night of the murder, he couldn’t recall. His father is elderly and hard of hearing. I’m not even sure he understood the questions I was asking him. I’ll need to go and speak to him in person because I would really like to know if Vince was visiting him that night.”
“I went to Stella’s funeral, and I didn’t see Vince’s father there. But maybe he really is in ill health and couldn’t make it for the funeral.”
“We’re still waiting to see if the bullet can be matched up in the database to a gun. But to be honest that can take months to get a response back from the Bureau of Justice.”
“So the only real evidence we have is that Stella was shot in her kitchen. How could the killer have been so careful?” I asked.
“I don’t know. It was somebody that really thought things out, I guess,” he said.
I turned back to the television. Linus was in the middle of convincing Sally that she needed to stay with him in the pumpkin patch so the Great Pumpkin would bring them toys and candy. We watched in silence for a few minutes and my heart went out to Charlie Brown. All the poor kid got were rocks in his trick or treat bag.
Then I remembered the cookies. “Those cookies we found in the bakery were nicely decorated.”
“They were very cute cookies, with Halloween scenes painted on the frosting. I’m not sure I saw anything like that in Stella’s bakery before, but maybe she was trying to get into the swing of things since the Halloween season wasn’t canceled.”
“She was very good at decorating doughnuts and cakes, and I guess I’ve seen different cookies in her bakery, but I’m not sure they were decorated.”
“Well, until they deteriorate, we’ve got them in evidence. But I have to tell you, I don’t think any fingerprints are going to come up on those,” he said giving me a grin.
“Ha ha,” I said to him. “It does make me wonder about them, but I don’t know. Maybe Stella did have a change of heart. Angela said Daisy had wanted to open a bakery herself. Even Vince mentioned Daisy threatened to open her own bakery.”
“Maybe she got fed up with her sister after she stuck her neck out for her,” he said, popping more popcorn into his mouth, “and in a fit of rage, killed her.”
Stella had been grumpy when it came to Halloween, but she had been known to make her Frankenstein chocolate donut bars and her green zombie maple bars. She had decorated them with piped icing faces and it wasn’t out of the realm of possibilities that she had also made those cookies. Still, it seemed out of character.
Chapter Fourteen
The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. Vince had to have killed his wife. Why else would he give Angela free reign of the bakery? It seemed to be common knowledge around town that he had had an affair with her years ago and I had to wonder if it was true that he had continued the affair when she began working for Stella.
Those thoughts were running through my mind when Vince came into the candy shop two days later. He was smiling when he walked through the door and for a man who had just lost his wife, he looked pretty happy.
“Hi Mia,” he said, walking up to the fr
ont counter and peering in at the fudge.
The candy shop was empty, and it was late afternoon. I took a deep breath. “Hello Vince,” I said trying to keep my anger down. He had some nerve being this happy when his wife had just been murdered. “I stopped by the bakery the other day and talked to Angela. She said you’re going to reopen next week.”
He looked up from the fudge and smiled broader. “That’s exactly right. Angela is going to run the place for me. I’m afraid I only half-listened when Stella explained how she ran things down at the bakery and I’m pretty clueless on how things were done. Angela has been her right-hand man for over three years now and Stella taught her everything she knew.”
“Really? Stella taught her everything she knew?”
He nodded. “That’s right. Stella would always tell me what a hard worker Angela was and how glad she was that she had hired her to help out.”
I looked at him in disbelief. How could he say something like that? I just couldn’t believe that Stella would say such a thing when she knew he and Angela had had an affair.
“Stella wasn’t much on praising people, was she? I guess Angela must have meant a lot to Stella in order for her to say something that nice about her.”
He grinned and nodded. “Stella was a hard person sometimes, but she and Angela go way back. They were friends in grammar school. Inseparable.”
I slipped down off the stool I was sitting on and went to lean against the front counter. “I heard they were close. In fact, I heard that they shared a lot of things.”
“I’m sure they did,” Vince said absently. “I think I want some peanut butter fudge. How about half a pound?”
I bit my lower lip to keep from saying something hateful and went over to the display case. I opened up the door in the back and removed the tray of peanut butter fudge.
“Half a pound?” I asked.
He nodded. “I think that’ll do it. Your mom makes the best fudge, but I bet you hear that all the time. Did Angela tell you she has a lot of ideas to change up the bakery? She plans on really getting involved with the Halloween season. It’s about time, you know. I always told Stella she needed to participate since she had a business on this side of town.”