Murder Most Sweet

by Laura Jensen Walker

  Murder Most Sweet

  A BOOKISH BAKER MYSTERY

  Laura Jensen Walker

  In memory of my sweet Grandma (Florence) Jorgensen and those blissful after-school afternoons in Racine, eating her scrumptious baked goods. Best. Baker. Ever.

  And for my Renaissance-man husband Michael, the current best baker in the family.

  Acknowledgments

  Writing a book is a solitary activity; getting it published is not. I am deeply grateful to my editor Faith Black Ross, Terri Bischoff, Melissa Rechter, Madeline Rathle, and the rest of the Crooked Lane team. Thank you for taking a chance on this debut mystery author! Heartfelt gratitude to my agent Chip MacGregor for always believing in me and never giving up; and to those friends and family who read and commented on my manuscript at various stages, especially Cindy Coloma, Jennie Damron, Cathy Elliott, Cheryl Harris, Dave and Dale Meurer, Eileen Rendahl, Annette Smith, and Marian Hitchings (with extra thanks to fellow breast cancer sister and survivor Marian for the “Boobsey Twins.”) A huge shout-out to Kim “Kimmie” Orendor, my longtime journalism pal and big-hearted friend who read pages as fast as I sent them and gave me immediate and encouraging feedback. You rock, Kimmie. Special thanks to the lovely and amazing Catriona McPherson, Eileen Rendahl, James L’Etoile, Erica Ruth Neubauer, Connie Berry, and Zoe Quinton for so kindly and generously welcoming me into my new mystery-writing family and for their ongoing encouragement and support. And finally, to Michael, my creative Renaissance-man partner who is a far better cook and baker than I’ll ever be, thanks for testing and tweaking all the recipes. My sweet tooth thanks you too.

  Thanks to my fun and beloved aunts Sharon and Char who began my lifelong love of mysteries by bringing home copies of Trixie Belden from Western Printing (with additional thanks to Aunt Sharon whose bingo playing jaunts to the Potawatomi casino inspired the name of Teddie’s small town.) Thanks also to my sister Lisa and cousin Heidi who confirmed my remembrance of “yous guys” and other Racine-specific vernacular. Heartfelt gratitude to all my Wisconsin relatives—including my LaPoint cousins and those childhood sleepovers—for happy memories of growing up in Racine. (The delicious kringle and Danish layer cake didn’t hurt either.)

  Chapter One

  I miss my breasts. Occasionally. Back in the B.C. (before cancer) day, I had a nice pair. In fact, they were my best feature—small but perky, even just shy of forty, when some of my more busty girlfriends’ boobs were beginning to feel the pull of gravity. Now, five years later as I glanced down at my flat, slightly concave chest with its pale scars marking the place my breasts used to be, my hands reached up to the hollow area and rested there a moment, paying homage to my gone but not forgotten bosom.

  Then, like Taylor Swift, I shook it off.

  I’m alive-with-a-capital-A, doing what I love, and being paid for it. How many people can say that? Who cares that I am now flat as a pancake? Besides my mother. Flat is how I entered the world and how I will leave it—many years from now, hopefully. Meanwhile, I offered up my daily thank-you to God and the universe for beating cancer and for cancer compelling me to follow my dreams. Dreams that began when I was a little girl but that I did not have the guts to follow until I was slapped upside the head with my own mortality.

  In the mirror, a streak of white fur flashed behind me, followed by plaintive barking.

  “Good morning, Gracie-girl.” I pulled on my favorite boho cotton dress and turned to my eager American Eskimo, ruffling her creamy fur. “Is someone ready for breakfast?”

  My rescue dog jumped off the bed and sprang to the doorway, where she stood upright on her hind legs, pawing the air frantically with her front feet. “Okay, since you said please.” Grabbing a turquoise silk scarf from the coat rack I had repurposed to hold my myriad scarves, I wound it loosely around my neck and headed down the hall to the kitchen. Gracie zoomed past me, her nails beating a staccato click-click-click on the hardwood floor.

  “Teddie, you’re not wearing that to the book signing, are you? Can’t you at least put on a bra?” My seventy-three-year-old mother, clad in a sleeveless red linen column dress that snugged her trim frame, raised a perfectly waxed eyebrow over her shiny Botoxed face as she sat at my pine kitchen table covered with a crazy-quilt tablecloth.

  “Good morning to you too, Mom, and to answer your question—again—no bras for me stuffed with uncomfortable prostheses. Those suckers are heavy and hot.” Not wanting to continue this same tired discussion, I asked, “Are you out of tea again, or is it milk today?”

  The woman who brought me into this world, Claire St. John, now widowed, lives behind me in a sleek mother-in-law cottage—no chintz or cozy quilts for her—and is forever running out of groceries. She keeps her gray stainless-steel kitchen stocked with the essentials: coffee, tea, soy milk, fruits and veggies, cottage cheese, the occasional piece of fish or chicken, and a variety of seeds. That way she can keep her trim figure and not be tempted by any “bad” foods. Instead, she regularly drops by my vintage kitchen to steal a cookie and supplement her minimalist stash.

  She made a face at me. At least I think she did. It’s always hard to tell after she’s had one of her Botox treatments.

  “Neither. My blender broke, and I need to use yours to make my kale smoothie.”

  “Knock yourself out.” I nodded to the appliances at the end of my vintage fifties–tiled counter as I tossed a dog biscuit onto the yellow-and-black-checkerboard floor for the impatient Gracie. “I, on the other hand, am making chocolate-chip pancakes for breakfast.” I pulled down a box of Bisquick from the cupboard of my midcentury-definitely-not-modern bungalow.

  “Why don’t I make you a smoothie instead? It’s much healthier and less fattening.”

  And tastes like a glassful of grass. “No thanks. I’m good with carbs and chocolate.”

  She sighed. “You’re definitely your father’s daughter.”

  Thank you, Jesus.

  “Just remember, men don’t like big women. You’ve already got—”

  “A couple strikes against me.” I finished the rest of my mother’s common refrain. “Yes, I know.”

  “What can I say? Men are visual. They like breasts.” She sneaked a chocolate chip. “It’s not too late. You can still get a new pair—the surgeon said so. Otherwise, I’m afraid you’ll never get a man.”

  “I’m not trying to get a man, Mother. I’m quite happy with my life as it is.” I pushed my unruly hair behind my ears, but the coffee-colored curls sprang free moments later. My naturally curly hair has a mind of its own, and I had long ago given up trying to tame it. My mother used to spend hours straightening it when I was a kid, but I refuse to spend three hours a day ironing my hair. I hate ironing. Cooking and baking are more my style. As evidenced by the batch of silver-dollar pancakes studded with chocolate-chips I whipped up.

  “Don’t dawdle.” Mom leaned forward, her silver bob framing her taut features, to show me the time on her smartphone screen. “We’re going to be late.”

  “Relax.” I forked up a piece of pancake and followed it with cold milk. “The signing doesn’t start for a couple hours yet. We’ve got plenty of time.”

  “This isn’t a local author like you, dear. This is Tavish Bentley, a rich-and-famous New York Times best-selling author. Like John Grisham and Janet Evanovich. We’re lucky he squeezed us into his book tour after that Milwaukee bookstore had to cancel. There will probably be tons of fans coming from nearby towns, and a line around the block. I want to be sure and get a good seat.”

  My mother had conveniently forgotten that when my first book released nearly four years ago, there had been a line around the block for my book signing. Nearly our entire town of Lake Potawatomi, Wisconsin, had turned out for the
debut of my novel, Death by Danish. The fact that my light and frothy mystery was set in a small town similar to ours at a fictional bed-and-breakfast modeled after the Lake House, my friends Sharon and Jim Hansen’s popular B and B, might have had a little something to do with it. Having a best friend—Char Jorgensen, owner of the local bookstore—who plugged my book relentlessly to every customer that crossed the threshold hadn’t hurt either.

  Mom pulled Tavish Bentley’s last five glossy hardcover best sellers out of her tote bag. “I’m going to get him to sign these for me—I got a great deal online.”

  “Not cool, Mom. We need to support our local bookstore.”

  “I support the Corner Bookstore all the time. Didn’t I buy seven copies of your novel to send to family in Phoenix? Speaking of which, I forgot to tell you, your second cousin Kevin is writing a book and would like you to send it to your agent on his behalf.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  * * *

  As my mother grabbed a seat in the empty front row at the bookstore, I handed the platters of chocolate-chip–peanut-butter bars and lemon sugar cookies to Char.

  “Thanks. You’re a doll.” She snagged one of the sugar cookies, bit into it, and released a small moan. “Your cookies always melt in my mouth. These are so much better than the ones from the grocery store.”

  “Homemade is always better than store-bought.”

  “Unless I make them.” Char scrunched up her freckled face. “Remember my blackened chocolate-chip cookies?”

  My mouth went dry at the memory, and I gulped a cup of punch. “The taste of burnt chocolate chips is one you don’t soon forget.”

  “Good thing you inherited the baking gene from your Danish grandmother.”

  “Danish and Norwegian,” I corrected her. “Grandma Florence was equally proud of the Norwegian side of her heritage.” In our small midwestern town founded by Danes, who still account for the majority of the population, we mudbloods have to stand up for ourselves. I’m a mutt myself: Danish, Norwegian, English, French, and a touch of Potawatomi—the first peoples to inhabit our local area.

  I glanced at the spread Char had set out for the reception following the signing: frikadeller (Danish meatballs), Havarti cheese, a fresh-veggie platter, Door County cherries, my homemade cookies, and of course, several flavors of kringle, Wisconsin’s official state pastry. As much as I love to bake, I draw the line at kringle. I made the famous Danish pastry once with my grandma years ago, and that was enough. The painstaking process of hand rolling, folding, and resting the buttery dough to get the requisite number of flaky layers—some say thirty-two, others prefer forty-eight—is a three-day marathon.

  Eyeing the platters from Racine, unofficial kringle capital of the world and a mere thirteen miles up the road from Lake Potawatomi, I asked, “What flavors did you get?”

  “Apple, pecan, almond, raspberry, and because I love you”—Char flicked the pom-poms at the bottom of my silk scarf—“cherry-cheese.”

  “You rock. Keep that up and I might dedicate my next novel to you.”

  “That will be sure to shoot it to the top of the best-seller list.”

  “From your lips …”

  While we were talking, the bookstore had filled up. Most of the people I recognized from town, but a dozen or so unfamiliar faces—mostly attractive women—had squeezed into the crowded rows of chairs, clutching copies of Her Blood Weeps, Tavish Bentley’s latest suspense, and humming with anticipation. Much as I hate to admit it, Mom had called it. Out-of-town fans had made the trek to Lake Potawatomi to see the famous author—the taller-than-me English author who bore a slight resemblance to Colin Firth. The celebrated best-selling author who at this very moment was heading our way. A female hipster clad head to toe in black and intent on her iPad accompanied him, along with Char’s boyfriend, Sheriff Brady Wells, and Sharon Hansen, my childhood friend and proprietor of the Lake House B and B.

  Sharon, Char, and I have been friends since grade school. Dubbed “The Three Musketeers” by our teachers, Sharon is the petite blonde bubbly one that every boy in high school wanted to date, Char is the slim redheaded brainiac who had her fair share of bookish suitors, and I am the quirky Amazon with unruly hair who towered over most of our classmates and chose to stay home and play Scrabble with her folks on prom night.

  Charlie’s Angels has nothing on us.

  “Here she is,” Sharon said proudly, linking her arm with me and beaming, “my friend, famous author, and baker extraordinaire, Teddie St. John. Teddie, this is Tavish Bentley.”

  “Sharon’s biased.” I gave her arm an affectionate squeeze before grinning at the renowned author to show him I understood that we played in very different leagues. “My fame,” I made air quotes with my bush-league fingers, “is confined to Lake Potawatomi.”

  “Nuh-uh,” Char piped up. “We’ve gotten emails about your books from readers in Maine, North Carolina, and Oregon.”

  “Well there you have it,” Tavish said in a killer English accent. “You’re a success from coast to coast, and I’m sure that’s just the beginning. I read Death by Danish last night and found it quite delightful.”

  “Care to put that on my next book cover?” I teased, pushing my renegade curls behind my ear.

  “I’m afraid Tavish only does a limited number of endorsements,” interjected his black-clad companion with the Harry Potter glasses.

  “Sorry. This is my assistant and publicist, Melanie Richards,” Tavish said. “Melanie, meet Teddie St. John, who in addition to writing fun, lighthearted mysteries—that I’m happy to endorse, by the way—also made the scrummy oat biscuits we had last night.”

  “Biscuits?” Brady and Char exchanged a confused look.

  “That’s what they call cookies in England,” Sharon informed them with a knowledgeable smirk.

  “Awesome oatmeal-raisin,” Melanie said, glancing up at me over her glasses and releasing a brief smile. Then she pushed her glasses up her nose and peered at her iPad. “Tavish, it’s time.”

  Brady drifted off as the duo departed, with Tavish saying over his shoulder to me, “Lovely scarf. We should compare writing notes later.”

  Melanie then led the celebrated author over to his adoring public, who burst into applause as he approached the podium. Tavish Bentley smiled and lifted his hand in a brief wave to the assembled audience. A gorgeous blonde in a red bandage dress who looked like she belonged in the Baywatch reboot jumped up and waved back, the sunlight streaming in the window and reflecting off the massive rock on her left hand.

  “His fiancée,” Sharon whispered. “I met her earlier when she stopped by the Lake House looking for Tavish—she said they’d had a fight and she’d come to make up with him.”

  Char grunted as she scrutinized the Baywatch babe. “Such a cliché. Rich, hot guy our age hooks up with twentysomething blonde bimbo who’s clearly had a boob job.”

  “We don’t know that,” I said.

  “What? That she’s had a boob job?”

  “No. That she’s a bimbo. The breasts are definitely fake—they didn’t jiggle when she jumped up.” My close encounter with the silicone kind after my first mastectomy five years ago had given me the inside track on what is natural versus surgically enhanced. Lying down, my real breast, like those of every other woman who has not had work done, flattened out and dropped to the side, while the doctor-constructed one always stood proudly at attention. As a result, I can spot fake boobs poolside at fifty paces.

  Case in point: the platinum-spiky-haired giggling millennial sitting next to Tavish’s fiancée. Side by side, the two women looked like the Boobsey Twins.

  We headed to the seats Mom had saved for us in the front row, but halfway there a hot flash from hell hit that made me want to strip off all my clothes instantly. Thank you, chemo, for sending me into early menopause. Deciding that flashing the entire bookstore might not be in anyone’s best interest, I made a quick detour to the restroom instead, unwinding my scarf before the door fully
closed behind me.

  Once inside, I yanked off the constricting turquoise silk and dropped it on the oak top of the long antique dresser Char had converted into a bathroom vanity. Then I hurried to the sink, lifted up my white cotton dress with turquoise embroidery that had all at once become an electric blanket turned on high, and splashed myself with cold water. Repeatedly. Not until the splashing became a drenching did I finally feel some relief. Thankfully, after my second mastectomy I had given up bras and those heavy silicone breast forms many cancer survivors stuff inside their brassieres. Otherwise I would not have been responsible for my actions. I’d have yanked those puppies out in full view of God and everyone and thrown them like a Frisbee. Might have shot someone’s eye out, or at least knocked them down for the count.

  Hearing the squeaky doorknob turn, I quickly dropped my dress back down and scuttled into one of the two stalls as the door opened. Too bad I didn’t have the requisite equipment to enter a wet T-shirt contest—I would have won hands down. My cotton dress clung to my wet body like a second skin, highlighting every curve, lump, and bump, including my concave chest. Not having had time to grab any paper towels before the unknown woman entered, I tried drying myself off with toilet paper, leaving me looking like I had a bad case of TP chicken pox.

  It doesn’t get any better than this. As I heard the taps turn on, I decided to take the plunge. “Excuse me, could you please hand me some paper towels over the top of the stall?”

  The taps turned off.

  “Hello? You there?”

  A rustle of silk. The faint scent of jasmine.

  “Bueller? Anybody?”

  The door squeaked again.

  “What are you doing here?” an unfamiliar female voice growled.

  “I’m here to get Tavish back,” an indistinct voice said.

  “There’s no way he’ll take you back. Besides, he’s mine now.”

  “We’ll see about that.”