Christmas Cupcakes and a Caper

by D. E. Haggerty

  “Nope. I leave the hiring to my manager.” I nearly choke when I hear Kristie’s lie. She’s very involved in the hiring at the center. She doesn’t trust just anyone to work at her baby.

  The detective scribbles in his notebook before flipping it shut. “What about me? Aren’t you going to ask me anything?” I roll my eyes at Anna’s questions. She never could stand being left out.

  “Um,” Detective Flanigan glances at Detective O’Hare who shrugs in response. “Did you know Donald Griffin?”

  “No. He used to come here a lot to buy cupcakes, but I didn’t know him. I didn’t even know his name.”

  Detective Flanigan opens his mouth but Ben shakes his head as if to tell him there is no sense in trying to understand Anna.

  “My boyfriend is Logan Allen. Maybe you’ve heard of him. He works in the gang squad.” I see Flanigan swallow at the mention of Logan’s name. It seems even police officers find the man scary. “I’ll be sure to tell him you stopped by.” Flanigan nearly chokes at her words. I cough to cover my giggle at the look as his face. Anna is such a troublemaker.

  The detectives don’t bother with further questions and excuse themselves. “Were you worried?” I ask Ben. The last time detectives came to question me, they ended up hauling me off to the police station and accusing me of murder.

  “No, Flanigan and O’Hare are good cops.”

  “What’s going on with the case? Have they finished the autopsy yet? What about trace evidence? Anything worth finding?” Anna fires off question after question.

  Ben shrugs. “Not my case.” He gives me a quick kiss and then saunters off claiming he needs to get to work. I narrow my eyes at his back. It’s not yet 6 a.m. Since when does he need to get to work this early?

  “Well, that was different,” Anna announces as soon as the door shuts behind my boyfriend. “Cops who don’t accuse you of murder. They do exist!”

  Chapter 9

  Dear Santa, Any chance of grading on a curve?

  I use my ample rear end to push the door from the kitchen to the café open while carrying a tray of Anna’s awesome Christmas cupcakes. The white chocolate peppermint cupcakes are drool-worthy and appropriately Christmassy topped with crushed candy canes and red and green sugar sprinkles.

  I nearly drop the tray when I see Kristie’s boyfriend, Tyler, working behind the counter with a pink frilly Callie’s Cakes apron tied around his trim waist and a Santa hat perched on his head. Now I know why there’s a line trailing out the door of women waiting for cupcakes and coffee. When he sees me, he blushes before reaching forward to grab my tray.

  “Hi, Callie,” he whispers before leaning forward and kissing my cheek. I hear a collective sigh from the group of women and smirk. I can’t blame their fangirling. With his height of around six feet, fit body, and dark blue eyes, Tyler is a catch. Add in the fire department t-shirt straining against his muscles underneath his apron and it’s a miracle no one has deliberately started a fire to see him in action.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask as I start arranging cupcakes in the display case.

  “It seems the only way I get to see my girl this year is when I’m here.”

  Kristie strolls over while wringing her hands. “You don’t mind, do you? Tomorrow’s my day off and he’s got a twenty-four-hour shift then.”

  “Of course not.” I’m more than familiar with how difficult it is to find time for a significant other when you’re both working odd hours.

  I’m pretty sure the shine has worked off the excitement of seeing his girlfriend when Tyler leaves a few hours later. His shirt has chocolate stains on it and there’s flour in his hair. I doubt he’ll be coming back to help anytime soon.

  “I thought he’d never leave!” Anna shouts as the door closes behind him.

  Kristie glares at Anna. “What in the name of mocha latte is wrong with you?”

  Anna waves her hand at Kristie. “I didn’t mean it like it sounded. I discovered a huge clue in the murder case, but I couldn’t talk about it with him here.”

  My eyes widen. Anna actually kept her mouth shut for a whole day? I should call the Guinness World Records. “What’s going on?”

  She bounces on her toes. “I know how Don was killed.”

  “As do we,” Kristie points out. “He was suffocated.”

  “But do you know how he was suffocated?” At Kristie’s head shake, Anna grins. “With a plastic Christmas bag from Athens Department Store.”

  I cross my arms over my chest. “How does that help us? Every single person who shops at one of their two stores in town gets a Christmas bag with their purchase, which means there are approximately—”

  Anna raises her hand to cut me off. “I don’t need a statistics lesson, nerd.”

  “But how are you going to narrow down the suspects when there are probably thousands of those bags in the area?” I nod at Kristie’s question. Exactly.

  Anna claps. “I have an idea.” Of course, she does. “We can go through the pictures on social media of the frat party and see if anyone had an Athens bag with them.” It’s actually not a bad idea.

  As soon as the café is cleaned up, Kristie grabs her laptop and we gather around it to peruse the frat party pictures. It doesn’t take long before my eyes cross. Each picture is jam-packed full of students. It’s nearly impossible to decipher who the individuals are, let alone who is carrying a Christmas bag from a department store.

  I give up and go grab a cupcake from the counter. I moan as I take a bite. I’m usually not a fan of white chocolate – white chocolate is not chocolate! – but these white chocolate peppermint cupcakes are to die for. I savor the cupcake as I watch Anna and Kristie stare at the pictures on the computer.

  I’m licking my fingers when Kristie gasps and points to a picture. I lean forward to see what triggered her surprise. My eyebrows raise when I see Donald’s roommate, Greg, holding a plastic bag and glaring at Don.

  “If that’s not a clue, I’m not sure what one is,” Anna announces. “We need to go talk to Greg, pronto.”

  I nearly nod in agreement before it dawns on me Anna’s talking about visiting the frat house again. “Um, no. I’m not going back to the frat house.” One visit was suspicious. Another visit is going to land me in hot water with the college administration, which is the last thing I need weeks before Christmas.

  “Why don’t we go visit him at work?” Kristie asks.

  “Do you know where he works?”

  She smirks and taps her finger on her computer screen. The screen is open to Greg’s Facebook page, which indicates he’s a barista at Dream Bean Coffee Shop. “Dream Bean? I’ve never heard of it.”

  Kristie snorts. “Because they don’t serve sweets. Just coffee and sandwiches. They’re open for another thirty minutes.”

  Anna jumps up. “Awesome! Let’s get our cupcake groove on.”

  Which is how we find ourselves trudging through the snow and wind towards a coffee shop that doesn’t sell baked goodies. I didn’t know such a thing existed. Maybe we should start a partnership with the shop. Supplying other restaurants and cafés with our baked goodies is something Anna has been pushing ever since I made her a partner in Callie’s Cakes. I didn’t see the need, but that was before I found out coffee shops without pastries existed.

  “Oh, goodie, he’s here!” Anna shouts and opens the door before I can stop her. I spot Greg standing behind the counter next to another man who is wiping down the coffee machine. The way he’s using two hands and rubbing in circles looks an awful lot like caressing instead of cleaning. What kind of place is this Dream Bean?

  “Guess we’re not going to discuss a game plan,” Kristie mumbles as she follows Anna into the café. She immediately marches up to the counter. “Can I get a white chocolate cinnamon latte?”

  The barista frowns while keeping one hand on the coffee machine. “I’m sorry, but the beans are being very fussy today. Can I get you something else?”

  Kristie’s mouth drops open
and she stares at him. “Can’t you force the beans to cooperate or something?”

  “Hey,” Greg shouts when he notices Anna standing in front of him. “Aren’t you Don’s sister?”

  Anna nods her head. Oh no. Are we seriously continuing with that lie?

  “Professor Muller, what are you doing here?”

  I clear my throat. “Actually, I came here to ask you something. Can we talk?”

  Greg looks at the other worker, who must be his boss, and the man nods. “Go ahead and take your break. I’m going to talk to the coffee beans. See if they’re unhappy about something.”

  “Since when do coffee beans have feelings?” Kristie whispers. Her mouth is hanging open and she’s looking longingly at the coffee machine.

  Greg motions to a table in the corner of the café where we all take a seat. “I’d offer you a drink, but…” He shrugs.

  “We’ll be quick,” I say. I rush to ask a question before Anna can open her mouth. “We wanted to ask you about the frat party you were at the night Don was killed.”

  “I already talked to the police about it. I don’t know when Don left. I know he had plenty to drink. We all did.”

  “Do you know if he left with someone?” Kristie asks.

  “No idea. It’s possible. Don was quite the player.”

  Kristie growls at his answer, but I decide to move on.

  “Was there a special reason for the frat party that night?” Although I know a frat doesn’t need a reason to party, a reason behind the party may help us form an idea on how to move forward.

  “It was a dual party between Lambda Kappa Pi and Kappa Alpham. Not sure why. Maybe an anniversary or something.” He stands. “I really do need to get back to work.”

  We watch as he walks away. Kristie is still looking longingly at the coffee machine, while Anna is pouting. “What a bummer.”

  I’m not sure this was a wasted trip. My spidey senses are tingling. Kappa Alpham. Why is the sorority name making my spidey sense tingle? I snap my fingers when I realize the connection. Allison and Tanya are members of the sorority. I wonder if they were at the frat party. And why didn’t they mention it if they were? Time to talk to the girls again.

  Chapter 10

  Dear Santa, Let’s negotiate.

  “Okay, everyone, that’s it for today. One more week to hand in those research papers if you haven’t done so yet.” I look down at my desk to hide my smile as moans fill the room. The door opens and I’m not surprised to see Anna walk in carrying a tray of cupcakes when I look over. The woman thinks cupcakes are the answer to every question even though she has no idea what the question is most of the time.

  “What are those?” a student asks as he walks towards the door and his eyes catch on the cupcakes.

  “Candy cane Oreo cupcakes.” She’s pulling out the big guns today. No one can resist chocolate, Oreos, and candy canes. Or at least I can’t. The student obviously agrees with me since he grabs a cupcake and shoves the top half of it in his mouth. Anna beams as he groans before grabbing another one. The rest of the class makes sure to file by her and grab a cupcake as they leave.

  Tanya and Allison don’t leave. Instead, they walk to the front of the room and take seats. When I raise an eyebrow at them, Alison shrugs. “We figured you wanted to talk to us.”

  They’re right. I do want to talk to them. Preferably without Anna present. In fact, we agreed yesterday I would question the two women by myself. I should have known better than to believe Anna would actually keep to our agreement.

  “Do you want a cupcake?” Anna asks as she joins me. She’s holding out the tray with only two cupcakes left on it to Allison and Tanya. I glare at Anna as the girls grab the last cupcakes.

  “You could have at least saved one for me!”

  “Oh please, it’s not like you don’t live above a cupcake bakery or something.”

  I glare at her for a moment longer before turning my attention to the two students who are now eating the Oreos off their cupcakes. “You’re both members of the Kappa Alpham sorority, right?” When they nod, I continue. “And you were at the frat party the night Don died?” I phrase my words like a question, but I know they were there. Anna, Kristie, and I rushed back to Callie’s Cakes yesterday afternoon after talking to Greg and went through picture after picture until my eyes burned, and we finally found what we were looking for – a picture of Allison and Tanya at the party.

  “Why didn’t you tell us you were at the party?” I push when Tanya and Allison remain silent.

  Tanya shrugs, but Allison blushes and I narrow my eyes on her. Her blush deepens, but she answers. “It’s not like we lied, but you didn’t ask us.”

  “Plus, you’re obviously nosing around the investigation like you did last year when that stripper got killed. We didn’t want you getting the wrong impression,” Tanya explains.

  “The wrong impression?”

  “Yeah,” Tanya nods, “like we did something wrong.”

  Allison sniffles. “We didn’t do anything wrong, but you heard us talk smack about Donald at the memorial.”

  “You were worried you would be implicated in Don’s death because you made some nasty comments about him at a memorial?” I ask to be perfectly clear.

  Tanya looks away as Allison sniffles grow louder. “We should never have said those things.”

  “Or at least not at the memorial,” Tanya mumbles.

  This is getting us nowhere. Before I can figure out a way to get us back on track, Tanya continues, “I don’t know why you keep asking us a ton of questions. Sure, we said some not nice things about the guy at the memorial. Our bad. We shouldn’t have mouthed off. But it’s not like the guy didn’t have tons of enemies.”

  I sigh. Are we back to this again? Of course, I understand any one of the women Don took advantage of would have a motive to do Don harm, but we haven’t been able to find any evidence Don was taking advantage of students. As far as I can tell, there aren’t even any rumors floating around about him. I want to believe Tanya, but without any proof, our hands are tied.

  “You said he had tons of enemies.” Anna’s words interrupt my internal musings. “Like who else?”

  “You could start with his roommate,” Tanya immediately answers.

  “Greg?”

  “Yeah,” Tanya nods. “The two got in a huge fight over a girl.”

  “What girl?”

  Tanya grins, eager to gossip. “I don’t know the whole story, but supposedly Greg was in a serious relationship until he came home one day and walked in on his girlfriend and Don getting hot and heavy.”

  My skin tingles. Now, there’s a motive for murder right there. Add in Greg not bothering to tell us about his girlfriend and it’s downright suspicious. Time to talk to Greg again.

  “Thanks. You can go now. I’ll see you next week.”

  The door opens before they can stand to leave. At their gasp, I look over to see who entered my classroom. I smile when I see Logan. He’s standing with his arms crossed over his chest staring at Anna.

  Anna rolls her eyes at him. “Stop scaring the co-eds and get out of the doorway, so they can leave.”

  Tanya giggles. “We’re not scared.” Her eyes rove over Logan. I can’t blame her. Even looking annoyed and angry, the man is hot.

  Allison is not in agreement. She keeps herself as far away from Logan as she can as she walks through the door. “Speak for yourself.”

  As soon as the two women are gone, Anna launches herself at her man. “Hi! Miss me?” He catches her in his arms, and she peppers his face with kisses.

  “Mmm… Oreo?”

  “Candy cane Oreo cupcakes!”

  Logan chuckles. “You do know you can’t solve a murder with cupcakes, right?”

  She snorts. “Sure I can!”

  “Let’s get home, my pixie girl.” He looks my way and lifts his chin. “See ya, Callie.”

  I watch as Logan walks off with Anna in his arms. She’s talking a mile a minute and he�
��s looking down at her as if she’s the most precious thing in the world. At least there’s one way to get her mind off murder and accusations of murder.

  Chapter 11

  Dear Santa, Yes, I was naughty. Totally worth it.

  Anna rubs her hands as we walk up the sidewalk to the Lambda Kappa Pi frat house. I would prefer to talk to Greg on neutral territory especially considering the noise emitting from the house indicating the house is not empty like the last time we were here. I hope his frat brothers don’t give us a hard time. Too bad Greg wasn’t working at the coffee shop when we stopped by there.