Sprinkles of Suspicion

by Kim Davis

  Chapter 15

  Traffic crawled along the Pacific Coast Highway toward Costa Mesa, with beachgoers heading to the sand and surf for the afternoon and others heading for lunch with a waterfront view. The drive took far longer than I wanted, and my stomach growled when I realized I hadn’t eaten lunch. Too bad Mrs. Carlton had kept all the cookies. I needed them more than she did right now. Steve and Stan probably only had chips in their apartment, and my refrigerator was mostly bare, except for leftover buttercream frosting and baking ingredients. I needed to eat something to hold me over before dinner with Carrie.

  A quick request to Siri showed me the closest In-N-Out restaurant, and I detoured to satisfy my craving. I groaned when the drive-thru line wrapped around the parking lot and stopped me out on the street. My mouth watered as I thought about the cheeseburger, fries, and vanilla milkshake that could be mine, but I didn’t want to spend that much time sitting in line to order. I steered around the cars in line and drove past In-N-Out. I headed to the Stoner Dudes’ apartment instead.

  As I pulled up in front of their four-plex, my hands shook once I saw Tori’s place closed off with yellow crime scene tape. After parking, I trudged up rickety wooden steps, which looked like an accident waiting to happen. Rumors floated around town that Steve and Stan Miller were supposed to be wealthy. But since they lived in a dump like this, I was sure those were only rumors, probably spread by the brothers themselves as a joke. I knocked on the weathered door, its dull brown paint peeling in several spots.

  “Dudette! Revisiting the scene of the crime?” Steve smirked at me with bloodshot eyes after he had flung the door open. “Are you here to gloat over killing your frenemy?”

  “Yeah right, Steve. I need to talk to you and your brother.”

  “Hey, dude, she just confessed! Call the cops.” Steve swayed a little. “Wait, hide the weed then call them.”

  “I didn’t confess. That’s called sarcasm.” I bit off my desire to add the word “idiot.” Really, how did these guys make a living? “Someone’s framing me, and I wanted to talk to you.”

  “Oooh, playing Jessica Fletcher?”

  “What? You watch Jessica Fletcher?” Why did that surprise me? The guys probably binged on cable all day long, but the Hallmark Mystery Movie Channel being on their radar wouldn’t have been my guess. TMZ seemed more their style.

  “Dudette, we’re up on all that stuff.” Steve opened the door wider and gestured for me to come inside. Then he yelled, loudly enough for the entire neighborhood to hear, “Hey, dude, put some clothes on. We have a guest.”

  I had never been in their apartment. Instead, they visited Tori’s place for parties or hung out on their rooftop, which held a few questionable plastic patio chairs. I tried to keep my mouth from dropping open. The inside of their abode was a well-kept secret, and I never would have guessed what the two men had been hiding. It certainly belied the image they portrayed to the outside world.

  First of all, the apartment was huge. The brothers appeared to occupy the entire two upstairs units and must have knocked down walls to open the space further. Second, it was clean. I mean squeaky clean and no clutter. I had expected to spot empty chip bags and beer cans littering the place, but instead, the hardwood floors gleamed with polish, and the masculine and tasteful furniture was artfully arranged in inviting groupings. Several books sat on a glass-top coffee table, and if the titles gave any indication, they were nonfiction philosophical tomes and theories of physics. The great room opened into a gourmet kitchen with granite countertops and high-end stainless-steel appliances.

  “I would kill to have a kitchen like yours. It’s beautiful.”

  Steve’s eyes bugged out.

  “No, not literally kill. I would never kill anyone. Really! You just have an amazing kitchen. Do you use it?”

  “Of course.” He winked. “I might have even attended culinary school once upon a time.”

  Stan chose that moment to saunter into the living room, wearing nothing but boxer shorts. I quickly averted my eyes but not before I almost drooled over his amazing bod. Six-pack abs and all. Why had I gotten the impression that both these guys sat around snacking, channel surfing, and gaming twenty-four hours a day, expanding their muffin-top middles? And this apartment? Why didn’t they host parties here or let anyone in? Could their public persona be an act?

  “Uh, hi, Stan.” I still couldn’t look at him.

  “Dude, I told you to put clothes on.”

  Stan scratched his head. “Sorry, Em.”

  “Um, no problem.” I admired him covertly as he ambled to what appeared to be a laundry room. Yep, he was pretty ripped… in a good way.

  “Dudette, you wanna beer?” Steve motioned at the refrigerator. “Help yourself.”

  “No thanks. I’m good.”

  “So, what brings you back to the scene of the crime?”

  “I’m not a killer, Steve.” I had to remind myself not to call him Stoner Dude to his face. “Can I ask you and Stan if there had been any strangers hanging around? Especially the day when we, um, you know….”

  He raised his head and looked at me over the bridge of his nose. “What day?”

  “Fine! The day Tori and I got into the fight. The day she died.” I got the feeling this guy only played dense. Why did they want people to see them as stoner idiots?

  “Nope. Didn’t notice anything or anyone who didn’t belong.” Steve tilted his head at me and squinted his dark hazel-colored eyes again. The gesture reminded me of a quizzical bird. “How did you not know your husband was with Tori? Dudette, it’s been going on for months.”

  “You knew! And you didn’t tell me?” Was I the only one who missed the signs of his affair?

  “Some chicks are into stuff like that, so it wasn’t any of our business.”

  I shook my head. “Did you ask Tori about it? Did she ever say why?”

  Stan chose that moment to join us. He was dressed in pressed blue jeans that fit him just right and a polo shirt. A Ralph Lauren polo shirt. I’d never seen either of these guys wearing anything but baggy, faded cargo shorts and either raggedy flannel shirts or hoodies that had beer logos peeling and fraying from age. Clothes that made them look twenty-five pounds overweight. I was living in the Twilight Zone.

  “Tori was all about the party, the fun.” Stan leaned back on the sofa and placed a bare foot on the coffee table. “And what Tori wanted, Tori got.”

  He must get regular pedicures. Buffed nails, no overgrown cuticles, no calluses. I wondered if Tori had been his manicurist.

  “True, but she also liked to talk. Did she have any issues with anyone? Could someone else be mad at her for taking something or someone that didn’t belong to her? Was anything out of character for Tori the last few days?” I sounded desperate.

  “Nope. She didn’t say anything, and we noticed nothing.” Stan’s voice sounded deeper and more polished than I remembered from chatting with him at Tori’s. “You’re the only one who’s caused a commotion and was where you shouldn’t have been.”

  Great, even the Stoner Dudes thought I might be guilty.

  “Okay, I have to say it. You guys are blowing my mind.” I gestured around the room. “What gives? The outside of the apartment is dumpy, looking like it needs to be condemned, but this? And you? What’s up with that? Was Tori privy to your secret?”

  “Absolutely not! She was a leech, and while we didn’t care if she speculated, we didn’t need her kind of drama.” Stan chuckled. “We’re making an exception for you.”

  “Why? What if I’m a killer?”

  “Are you?” Steve’s weed drawl was gone.

  I was right. Steve and Stan had an act for their public persona.

  “No! I’m being framed.”

  “Exactly. We’d like to try to help you.” Stan stood and straightened one of the physics books on the table. “We’ve checked out our security camera recordings, but they don’t show the entry to Tori’s place. We didn’t set them up to watch her apar
tment because of invasion of privacy issues and all that. Unfortunately, we heard nothing that night either.”

  Yeah, I remembered. Music blasted from their apartment that night. I wondered if they had girlfriends or other guests visiting at the time, although I didn’t remember seeing other cars parked in front of the apartment.

  “Did you see her supposed cousin Randall at any time? He’s tall, with short-cropped hair and amazing blue eyes.”

  “Oh, you mean the cop?”

  “No, he’s not a cop. He plays in a country-western band.”

  “Dudette….” Steve’s drawl came back. “I’ve never met anyone so clueless.”

  “I am not clueless!” When they both laughed, I had to clarify myself. “Maybe naïve but definitely not clueless.”

  That made them laugh even harder.

  I wasn’t happy. “Seriously, guys, help me out here. Did Randall ever come by Tori’s place?”

  They both wiped tears of mirth from their eyes, and then Stan finally answered me. “He came a few times. He never stayed long, and Tori always slammed the door on him when he left.”

  Finally, some real information. “We could surmise they were arguing every time he saw her?”

  “You could probably surmise that.” Steve steepled his fingers together. “Tori expressed her unhappiness about him moving to the area a few times.”

  “Randall told me she was once engaged to his brother.”

  The brothers exchanged a look. I didn’t know what it meant, but I had the feeling they had more information than they were telling me.

  “What else can you tell me about Tori?” If they wouldn’t be forthcoming, I would have to play Twenty Questions.

  “Rumors. That’s all they are is rumors.”

  “Come on, guys. My freedom is on the line. Tell me what you’ve learned.”

  “This is only a rumor, but we heard she was using her salon as a front for money laundering.”

  Tori and an illegal business? It didn’t add up, even after Mrs. Landow’s accusations. She wasn’t conniving enough. Instead, she was a party girl who loved cosmos and mojitos. She never did anything illegal, aside from exceeding the speed limit every time she got behind the wheel of her car.

  “I just don’t see Tori being involved in something like that. As her best friend, I would have been aware.”

  Stan and Steve collapsed into another laughing jag.

  I wasn’t amused. “What are you laughing at? This isn’t funny!”

  “Dudette, you are so clueless,” Steve sputtered in between guffaws. “I mean, really, your husband is having an affair with her for how many months, and you have no idea? So why would you know if she was doing some laundering?”

  Okay, he had a point. Still…. “Fine. Say she did. How does Randall fit in? What’s his connection?”

  Stan shrugged. “We’re only repeating rumors.”

  “Do you have anything else you can tell me about Tori? That I might have cluelessly overlooked?”

  That sent them into another fit of laughter. This scenario was getting old.

  “Well then, I guess I’ll go track down Randall and get his side of the story if you’re not going to be of any more help.”

  “Be careful, Em. You don’t know if he’s the killer or not.”

  Chapter 16

  With Stan’s warning ringing in my ears, I drove back to my house and decided to whip up a batch of lemonade cupcakes to take to my sister’s place. It was the least I could do, since she was feeding me dinner, plus I needed to have her taste-test the recipe because I planned to serve it at one of her upcoming catering events.

  Since I wanted to get to Carrie’s house early, I took a few shortcuts in making the cupcakes. After turning the oven on to preheat, I used my food processor to grate the cold butter for both the cupcakes and the frosting. That way, it would reach room temperature more quickly. While I gathered the dry ingredients, I used my KitchenAid stand mixer to cream the semi-soft butter together with the granulated sugar. While the mixture whipped, I added eggs, vanilla, lemon juice, and sour cream. When I made cupcakes for the clients, I would use freshly juiced and zested lemons. Today I relied on lemon juice I had frozen in ice cube trays earlier in the summer as well as lemon oil extract to bump up the flavor. After a quick zap in the microwave to defrost, the juice was almost as good as fresh.

  Once the ingredients were combined, I stopped the machine and dumped the leavening, salt, and flour in all at once, instead of adding them in small increments. I tried to keep the flour from exploding from the mixing bowl but didn’t succeed when I turned the mixer back on. White powder coated my workspace and the front of my shirt. Once the flour mixed into the butter and sugar mixture, I stopped the mixer. I didn’t want to over-mix and make the cupcakes tough.

  I lined a cupcake pan with a rainbow of colorful paper wrappers I knew my nieces would like. Then I portioned the batter into each cup with an ice cream scoop. The oven chimed, which alerted me it was hot enough to bake, so I slid the cupcake pan into the oven and set the timer for fifteen minutes. My mouth watered as the scents of vanilla and lemon filled the air.

  While the cupcakes baked, I got out a clean mixing bowl and placed softened butter into it, along with half the confectioners’ sugar. I pulsed them together using the KitchenAid mixer, and once I was sure I wouldn’t be covered with a cloud of white powdery sugar, I turned it onto medium-high speed to whip for a few minutes. I added three tablespoons of defrosted lemon juice and a couple drops of lemon oil extract, mixed them in, then added the remaining confectioners’ sugar. A few minutes of whipping created a fluffy buttercream frosting that made me want to lick the bowl clean.

  The timer dinged on my oven, and I removed the golden mini cakes and placed them on a wire rack to cool. I would let my nieces pipe the buttercream frosting onto the cupcakes for dessert after dinner. I fitted two disposable pastry bags with large star tips and put enough frosting into each bag to frost four cupcakes apiece. The remaining buttercream went into a plastic container so I could refill the pastry bags as needed for the girls.

  I threw the dirty dishes into the dishwasher and wiped down the counters, placed the still-warm cupcakes into an open container, and then headed to Carrie’s. I arrived too early for dinner, but I wanted to help her cook and perhaps wheedle information about Randall out of her.

  I parallel parked in front of their craftsman-style home in Costa Mesa, narrowly avoiding scraping the rims on my wheels. Their charcoal-gray home had white trim, and Carrie somehow found time to keep the flower beds weeded and flowering bushes alive. I barely kept a philodendron plant alive, and from what I heard, those were next to impossible to kill. My brother-in-law’s car wasn’t parked in the driveway, but I didn’t expect him to get home from work for another couple of hours.

  I admired the artistic new plaque that displayed the name The Bergers etched in a scroll font, hanging from the door. My sister must have purchased it recently. As soon as the doorbell rang, I heard the excited voices of two little girls. Upon throwing the door open with abandon, Sophie and Kaylee launched themselves at me. They were dressed in matching pink T-shirts decorated with sparkly Popsicles interspersed with ice cream cones, while white shorts contrasted with their lightly tanned legs. They were proud of their recently pink-polished toes and made sure I noticed and admired them.

  “Auntie Em! Did you bring us a present?” Their bright green eyes, so much like their mother’s, beamed at me.

  “Girls, I’ve told you it’s impolite to ask guests that question,” Carrie scolded. “Let Auntie Em come in and relax.”

  “It’s okay.” I hugged the girls tightly then examined Sophie’s nose. It looked like she’d survived the raisin crisis. I didn’t mention the cupcakes and buttercream I had in my tote because I knew my nieces would whine and beg to frost the little cakes and my sister wouldn’t be happy. They needed to wait until they ate a good dinner. Plus, my sister would use the cupcakes as a bribe if needed. “I’ve missed y
ou both, but sorry, no presents today.”

  “Where’s Pipuh?” Sophie peered around my legs, looking for my pup.

  I thought my niece’s pronunciation of Piper’s name was adorable, and I loved how the two girls doted on her.

  “She’s with Uncle Philip right now.”

  “Can we go see Uncle Philip?” Kaylee bounced up and down. “Please?”

  “I want to see Pipuh. Why didn’t you bring her and Uncle Philip?”

  My mind went blank. I didn’t know how to explain the breakdown of my marriage to four-year-olds. “Uh, they’re training. So, they’re busy right now.”

  My sister looked me over and drew her eyebrows together. If she didn’t stop that, she would soon have a permanent wrinkle line between her eyes.

  “Soph and Kaylee, why don’t you go watch Frozen? You can have popcorn while Auntie Em and I fix dinner.”

  My nieces dropped me like a hot potato and raced for the family room. I was relieved the girls had been given a distraction, but I was worried too. My sister never let her daughters have a snack this late in the afternoon, so I was probably in for another lecture or something equally uncomfortable.

  I followed Carrie into her cheerful kitchen. The walls were painted buttercup yellow while the pristinely clean white pine cabinets added a nice contrast. Splashes of small red appliances dotted her white quartz countertop. I handed her the tote containing the cupcakes and buttercream frosting. She peered inside the bag then opened a cabinet door and stashed the cupcakes and frosting. I didn’t need to tell her the plan for the cupcakes, since we’d done this many times before.

  “Let me know what you think about the flavor and texture of the lemonade cupcakes. If you like it, I’ll make them for the Chamber of Commerce lunch. I’ll try to find some small strawberries to garnish the frosting for the event.”