A Catered Christmas Killer (A Sinful Sweets Cozy Mystery) (5 page)

“What else do you know about him?”

“Almost nothing. He let Julia do all of the planning. Or at least hire everyone to do the planning,” Sydney told her.

The sound of the front door opening made them both stop their conversation as Marcus walked through to see who it was.

He came back into the kitchen, leading a woman dressed in a traditional maid’s uniform. Sydney had to stifle a chuckle. She didn’t know anyone still made their hired help wear uniforms like that.

“Sydney. Grace. This is Maria, our housekeeper. She’ll be cleaning the house from top to bottom today and will be staying through the party as well. I suspect that she’ll want to clean the kitchen at some point but I’ll let the three of you work that out.”

“Oh no, Mr. Duran. I can wait until Monday to clean the kitchen. The guests won’t be coming in here, so unless you’d like me to clean it up—” She looked expectantly to Sydney and Grace.

“It’d be easier for us if we didn’t have to worry about that today, thanks. We’re already a little behind schedule because of this morning’s . . . events.” Sydney wasn’t sure Maria knew about her boss’ death yet.

“No problem.” Maria made no indication that she’d been informed of the murder. “I’ll get to work in the main room. Will there be others who I should expect today?”

“Drew should also be arriving soon. He’ll be the bartender, I think. Julia was taking care of all of that.”

“Where is Mrs. Duran?” Maria asked innocently.

“She was . . . murdered last night,” Marcus said slowly, emotionlessly.

“Oh my.” Maria didn’t know how to react. “I’ll start in the bar then so that I’ll be out of his way whenever he gets here. Good to meet you Sydney and Grace.”

“You too, Maria.”

Marcus and Maria left the kitchen in opposite directions and Sydney and Grace were free to get back to their work. And their conversation.

“I bet Maria knows all the inner goings on of this house,” Grace said. “I wonder how long she’s been working for them.”

Sydney nodded her agreement. “Yesterday, something interesting happened. Maybe she’ll have insight into it.”

Grace turned and gave Sydney her full attention, inviting her with her eyes to continue.

“On Thursday, I met Ryan Jacobson, the manager of Natural Wonders. He and Julia seemed very . . . friendly. Then, yesterday, when Julia and Marcus were gone all day, Ryan showed up with a bouquet of flowers. I told him she wasn’t here and he told me not to tell her he’d stopped by. I forgot about it right after because I had so much to do, but maybe that had something to do with her murder.”

“That
is
interesting. You don’t think she was having an affair, do you?”

“I couldn’t tell from the littler interaction I saw, but Maria might know something. Do you think an affair could have led to her murder?” Sydney asked.

“Maybe Marcus had found out about it! He seems a little callous today about his wife dying. And he was here all last night.”

“And Ryan seemed really surprised when I told him Julia wasn’t here. Like they’d had plans and she hadn’t had a chance to tell him they’d been changed. Maybe Marcus brought her somewhere she couldn’t refuse just to get her out of the house.” As Sydney talked, getting more and more into this scenario, she kneaded her dough harder and harder, small clouds of flour making their way into the air.

“This seems like a place that would have security cameras. Did you see any outside?”

“No. But, if Marcus suspected Ryan was coming yesterday and he wanted to get Julia out of the house, he could have checked the cameras to see if he came. Or they would have caught the murderer on camera entering the house and there wouldn’t be a need for any of this investigation. Hey, have you seen my knife?”

“Your knives are all here,” Grace pointed to the drying rack right next to her.

“No, the one that’s engraved.”

Grace looked through the knives in the drying rack but didn’t find the knife in question. “When was the last time you used it?”

“Yesterday. When I was cutting the ham for the quiches. And then I washed it. I’m sure I did. And I would have put it with the rest of them to dry.”

“Did you see it this morning?”

Sydney shook her head, no.

“Could it have been what was used to kill Julia?” Grace asked, fear in her eyes.

Remembering the large pool of blood on the tile, Sydney said, “Oh my God. I’m not going to just be a suspect. I’m going to be the main suspect. My fingerprints are all over that. It has my name on it. It even says Sinful Sweets. If this gets out, we’re done.”

“We’re not done. Remember when our pumpkin pies were found poisoned at the scene of another murder? We never even suffered from that. And this isn’t happening in Twin Peaks.”

“But the Durans are a big name. We have to find that knife!”

***

Sydney and Grace didn’t have the freedom to leave the kitchen to hunt for a knife. They were on a tight schedule and had to stick to it. By noon, the first loaves of bread were in—they’d had to speed up the rising process by sticking them in a warm oven and they hoped they wouldn’t suffer criticism because of it—and the quiches were cooking. Sydney was putting layers into glasses for the parfaits and Grace was finishing up the shrimp scampi. They just had the dipping oils and the eggnog to finish in the next five hours and they thought they could get it all done early.

The doorbell, once again, interrupted them.

To their surprise, Maria opened the door. They hadn’t seen Marcus since early morning and Sydney assumed he was resting after the traumatic events.

“You must be Drew,” Maria greeted whoever was at the door.

“Yes. Is Julia home? She told me to come at noon to get everything setup and she wanted to walk through everything with me,” Drew explained.

“She will not be joining us today. There was an accident last night.”

Accident?
Sydney thought to herself.

“Is she okay?”

“Not quite. She’s dead. But Mr. Duran would like for the party to continue—he says that is what Julia would have wanted—so we’re all preparing. Let me show you to the bar.”

Maria led Drew through the kitchen, introducing him to Sydney and Grace. Sydney was immediately struck by how young he was. And good looking. If Julia was having an affair, why wouldn’t she have had it with him instead of Ryan?

She chided herself for even thinking that. She and Austin hadn’t yet labeled their relationship, but in her mind, she was exclusive.

Austin!
She knew she should have called him after Julia’s murder, but she hadn’t even thought of it.

“Are you done with those shrimp?” Sydney asked Grace when Maria and Drew had left.

“Just a few left. I’ll start on the eggnog next.”

“Could you actually finish these parfaits up when you’re done? I’m going to call Austin and let him know what happened.”

“You haven’t told him?” Grace asked. “That would have been the first thing I would have done!”

“Well, the first thing I did was get you up to speed. But thanks for ignoring me in your hypothetical world.” Sydney laughed.

“Go call him. I’ll work on the parfaits next.”

Sydney went back upstairs to her room so she could have some privacy and called Austin on his cell. He was good about answering it even if he was at work.

“Hey Sydney,” he said when he answered. Sydney could hear the smile in his voice.
 

“Hey. How’s work?” She wondered if he’d heard about Julia’s murder already.

“Slow today.
Saturdays are usually busier. How’s the catering job going?” He must not have heard if he wasn’t asking about it.

“Well, it’s gotten interesting. Julia Duran was killed last night.”

“I heard on the scanner about something going on in Newhall. That’s the family you’re working for, right?” He sounded worried.

“Yeah.”

“So are you back home?” he asked, the smile returning to his voice.

“No. Sorry. No dinner tonight,” she teased. “But I just wanted to let you know I was okay. I found her body when I woke up early this morning to start working again. She was stabbed in the kitchen. And now one of my knives is missing.”

“Oh man, Sydney. Who’s the lead detective over there?”

“Detective Joe Moore.” Sydney had to pull the business card out of her pocket to remember his name. “You know him?”

“No. But if you need my help in anything, let me know. Just stay out of it and be careful.”

“Yeah. Of course.” She knew she wouldn’t be staying out of it with her knife missing and possibly the murder weapon, but she would be careful.

***

“Grace, we forgot the mushrooms and cheese plates!” Sydney exclaimed as the afternoon wore on and their five o’clock deadline was quickly approaching.

“What mushrooms and cheese plates?” Grace asked. She was pulling the final loaf of bread out of the oven. She thought they were finished with the bulk of the work and just had to get everything laid out before guests arrived.

“Julia wanted bacon-wrapped stuffed mushrooms added to the menu, and cheese plates too. We talked about it Thursday when I got here. We have all the ingredients, we just have to make them.”

“Okay. You start destemming the mushrooms, I’ll start making the filling. We can add the cheese plates last even once guests are here. That doesn’t have to cook. And then we can do the eggnog.”

They got to work on the mushrooms and it wasn’t long before Maria interrupted them.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” she asked.

“Actually, yes. We have all this cheese that needs to be cut into cubes. If you don’t mind—” Sydney left the instructions open for her to back out just in case she had other work to do but was just being polite.

“Sure. Do you have a knife I can use?”

“Let’s see if we can find you one.” Sydney started opening drawers looking for Julia’s knives. With her missing knife, she and Grace were using everything she’d brought. “Here’s one. And a cutting board.”

Sydney was grateful for Maria’s help, and she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to ask Maria about her relationship with the Durans.

“Maria, how long have you worked for Julia and Marcus?” Sydney asked, opening the conversation.

“I’ve been with Mr. and Mrs. Duran for seven years. They’ve been wonderful to work for.”

Sydney had paused her work so she could turn and see any expressions Maria gave away, but Maria kept her back to both Sydney and Grace as she worked facing the windows.

“And you’ve been their housekeeper all that time?” Grace asked.

“Yup. My late husband used to be their gardener, rest his soul.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.” Sydney turned back to her mushrooms, realizing Maria wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of looking at her.

“It’s been nearly five years now. Time has flown by.”

Sydney thought that was an odd way to talk about the time since one’s spouse had passed. Many widows had trouble recovering, ever.

“You must have a strong community here to have been able to bounce back after that,” Grace jumped in. Sydney realized she must have been thinking along the same lines.