A Killer Cake (4 page)

“I suppose so,” I said. I took a deep breath
of air, and then I explained, “He was poisoned, as a matter of
fact. Do you have any idea who might want to see him dead?”

“Poison? Really?” I was waiting for her to
ask how he’d been dosed, and I wasn’t exactly sure how I was going
to tap dance around that particular answer, but it turned out that
I didn’t have to.

Moose said, “It really could help if you knew
of anyone.”

Kelly sat back in her chair, looking stunned,
and not much like the lovely woman she’d seemed to be earlier. This
was more a little girl, afraid, and more than a little confused. “I
just don’t know. I don’t have to tell either one of you that Mr.
Thompson wasn’t the easiest person in the world to get along with.
I’ve worked for him for seven years, and there have been times I’ve
wanted to walk out that door in a huff myself. That’s a horrid
thing to admit right now, isn’t it?”

She began to cry softly, and Moose laid a
hand on her shoulder. She seemed to take a great deal of comfort
from his act of kindness and compassion, and I wondered yet again
how my grandfather could do what he did with just a single touch.
He was amazing when it came to offering comfort, and when he tried
to ease someone’s pain, he nearly always succeeded.

“There, there,” he said softly, and after a
moment, she nodded, wiped at her eyes carefully, and then gathered
herself again.

“If anyone poisoned him, I would think it
would probably be his ex-wife, Sylvia Jones. She lives in Molly’s
Corners. Frankly, she hated Mr. Thompson, and she wasn’t a bit shy
about who knew it. I don’t know how that pair managed to stay
married as long as they did before they finally divorced. The only
times I ever saw them together, they acted as though they wanted to
kill each other.” She must have realized how that sounded, because
she quickly went on. “Mr. Thompson’s son was no better.” She
shivered a little in her chair, as if the very thought of the
younger man scared her. “Asher didn’t come here often, but when he
did, I always felt as though he was staring at me and thinking vile
thoughts.” Kelly paused, and then added with a slight smile, “I
know that I sound a tad melodramatic, but I can’t help it. There’s
no other way to describe it.”

“Is there anyone else you can think of?”
Moose asked in his gentlest voice.

“There’s someone, but I don’t know exactly
who it is. Mr. Thompson had a heated telephone conversation with a
new partner, and he was as angry as I’ve ever seen him. I just wish
I knew who it was. And then there was his stalker.”

“Stalker? Someone was following him around?”
I asked.

“He thought it was some kind of joke at
first,” Kelly said. “He’d turn around, and she’d duck out of sight
like a chipmunk running for cover. I’m sorry, but I don’t know who
she was, either.”

“Don’t worry. We can ask around,” I said.

Kelly nodded, and then she looked at me
curiously. “Excuse me for asking, but why exactly are you both so
interested in what happened to Mr. Thompson? I never realized you’d
ever consider him a friend, and I know it’s not because he was a
customer at your diner. He seemed to take a great deal of pleasure
in crowing about his complaints concerning your food.”

We were saved from answering her question
when the doors opened again. I half expected to see James
Manchester reenter, but instead, it was Sheriff Croft, and from the
sour expression on his face, it was clear that he wasn’t at all
pleased about finding us in Roy Thompson’s office ahead of him.

As he approached, he asked us, “How long have
you two been here?”

“Not long at all,” I said quickly.

The sheriff shook his head. “I don’t like it,
not one little bit. You had to know I was headed this way
next.”

“We didn’t mean anything by it,” I replied
quickly. “We just wanted to be sure that someone told Kelly about
what happened.”

“Frankly, I’m surprised that you’d be all
that eager for her to know what happened to her boss,” the sheriff
said.

“Why would you say that?” Kelly asked,
clearly confused by the sheriff’s comment.

“They didn’t tell you, did they?” he asked as
he glanced over at her.

“Tell me what?”

“It was their celebration cake that did your
boss in.”

Kelly couldn’t have looked more surprised if
the sheriff had told her that we were the town’s new royal family.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “Why would either one of them want
to kill him?”

“We didn’t,” I said hastily. “But you can see
why we’d want to find out who did.”

“That’s enough, you two,” the sheriff said.
“I’ll be by the diner for a little chat in a bit, but for now, I’d
appreciate it if you’d both head back there and stay until I get
around to it. Agreed?”

“Yes, sir,” I said aloud, though Moose only
nodded.

“Good bye, Kelly,” I said as we were leaving,
but she didn’t reply. While I felt a little bad about taking
advantage of her, we were investigating her boss’s murder, so I
thought that gave us a little leeway in trying to get information
from her.

As Moose and I walked back to the diner, I
had to wonder which one of his enemies might have poisoned Roy
Thompson. Whoever had done it had made a critical mistake using our
cake to kill him. Now it directly involved me and my family, and
we’d relentlessly search until we found the killer ourselves, if
the police didn’t manage to catch them first.

“So, who should we talk to first?” Moose
asked me after we left the office. “Manchester looked pretty
steamed. I personally think we should track him down while he’s
still upset. Who knows? Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

I looked at my grandfather to see if he was
teasing me, but he looked deadly serious. “Moose, you
did
hear the sheriff, right? We’re under orders to go straight back to
the diner and wait for him. It was pretty clear that he was not
very happy with us.”

“We both know that he’s going to be tied up
with Kelly for at least an hour. That gives us plenty of time to
track James Manchester down first before he comes looking for
us.”

I grabbed my grandfather’s arm and stopped
him. “If we do that, Sheriff Croft is going to hear about it, and
we both know it. We can’t take a chance of getting on his bad side.
I know how hard it is to do this, but at least this time, we need
to do as we’re told.”

Moose frowned and pursed his lips for a
second before speaking. “I guess you’re right, but I hate to let an
opportunity pass like that. If we wait too long, Manchester’s going
to have time to collect himself.”

“We really don’t have much choice.”

“I know you’re right, but I don’t have to
like it,” Moose said. My grandfather was a real go-getter, and to
be honest, I was much the same way, but there were times when one
of us had to put on the brakes, or we’d constantly be getting
ourselves into all kinds of trouble.

Back at the diner, we found the place
brimming with people. Ellen was swamped with customers, even though
Martha, my grandmother, was helping out as well. “What’s going on?”
I asked her.

“With the celebration canceled so abruptly,
folks didn’t have anywhere else to go. Most of the street vendors
have already packed up and left.” She kissed Moose soundly, and
then she said, “It might not be a bad thing if you lend Greg a hand
in the kitchen. I called Melinda, but I couldn’t reach her.”

My mother, who normally worked the grill as
our morning cook, was on her way to the mountains with my father
for the day.

“It doesn’t surprise me. She left her cell
phone at home,” I said.

“Should we go try to find her?” Martha
asked.

I just smiled. “It wasn’t done by accident.
Mom and Dad wanted to get away for the day. They’ll be back before
dark, but in the meantime, we can handle this ourselves.”

“Of course we can,” Moose said as he
literally rolled up his sleeves. “I’m happy to help out in the
kitchen. It will be just like old times.”

I grabbed a pitcher filled with iced sweet
tea in one hand, and then added a coffee pot to the other as I
started topping off glasses and cups.

An hour later, I was ringing up a party of
eight when I felt a tap on my shoulder. “Give me one second,” I
said without even turning around.

“I don’t have that much time,” a familiar
voice said.

I looked at the sheriff and said, “Sorry, but
I can’t help you, then. As you can see, we’re jammed at the moment,
but if you can come back in five minutes, I should have some time
to talk to you.”

“I might as well eat while I’m waiting,” he
said as he started for an empty stool at the counter. “Come over
and join me when you get a breather.”

I nodded as I finished ringing up the orders
in my hand. I saw Martha greet the sheriff, so I knew that he was
well taken care of as I finished up with the last of the customers
in line. We had a bit of a lull at the register, so I made my way
over to the sheriff.

“What can I do for you?”

He took a sip of tea, and then put the glass
down. “I need to know what Kelly Raven said to you earlier.”

I glanced at the clock over the counter. “You
were there for over an hour. I can’t believe she said anything to
us that she didn’t tell you.”

“Well, I won’t know that until you tell me
about your conversation, will I?”

“Are you being snippy with me, Sheriff?”

He frowned down at his tea, though I knew
that his displeasure was with Moose and me. “Victoria, you and your
grandfather headed straight to Roy Thompson’s office as soon as we
finished talking, and what was even worse, you did it behind my
back.”

“Hang on a second,” I said. “The man had a
piece of cake from our diner, and then he died. You knew we were
going to investigate what happened, you as much as said so
yourself. Why are you so surprised that we’d start digging
immediately?”

“I’m not, but I didn’t expect you to jump
ahead of me like that.”

“You know that we always do our best to stay
out of your way,” I said, “but this is personal, and you know it. I
apologize if we stepped on your toes, but what choice did we
have?”

“You could just let me handle this,” he said.
In a gentler voice, he asked, “Victoria, don’t you think I know how
to do my job?”

The man’s feelings were hurt, that much was
clear. I didn’t always think about the ramifications of what Moose
and I did, and we’d all managed to be friends for years before
Moose and I started getting dragged into murder. It was clearly
time to do a little damage control with our relationship. “Sheriff,
we know you’re good at what you do. It’s just that there are times
when folks will tell us things that they’ll automatically keep from
you. It’s just human nature. And remember, we always tell you what
we discover as soon as we can. My grandfather and I would never do
anything to undermine your authority, or try to hamper your
investigations.”

“It’s easier to
say
that you’re not
going to do something than it is to actually refrain from doing
it,” he said, though he seemed a little placated.

Everything would have been just fine if Moose
hadn’t been eavesdropping via the pass-through window. “My
granddaughter said what she meant, Sheriff.”

“How long have you been listening to our
conversation?” Sheriff Croft asked.

“It’s my diner. I can eavesdrop whenever I
want to,” he said loudly.

I hated to do it, but I had to spank my
grandfather a little, or we were going to lose the tenuous amount
of goodwill I’d just gained with our local law enforcement. “Funny,
I thought that
I
owned the place these days, Moose, or am I
mistaken?”

He waved a hand in the air. “Sure,
technically it belongs to you, but that’s beside the point. Blast
it all, I’m trying to defend you here, girl.”

“Moose, I haven’t been a girl in quite a
while, something we’re both well aware of, and when exactly did I
need
anyone
to defend me?”

My grandfather looked exasperated by my
reaction, but I noticed that the sheriff’s scowl had eased up quite
a bit. Moose turned to Greg, and though I couldn’t see my husband
directly, I knew that he was manning the grill. “Help me out here,
Greg.”

I could hear my husband chuckle from where I
sat. “Sorry, but you’re on your own with this one.”

Moose shook his head. “Who would have
believed it? My own family’s turning on me.”

Martha approached the window, and my
grandfather turned to her. “Surely my own wife has my back
here.”

She reached through and patted his cheek as
she smiled. “Not this time, Dear. Now, don’t you have some
mooseburgers to make? Try as he might, Greg still hasn’t mastered
your technique, and as soon as folks heard you were working the
grill with him, they started ordering them like crazy.” My
grandmother paused, and then she turned to Greg. “I meant no
offense to you. You’re a fine cook in your own right.”

“Hey, I don’t disagree with them. I like
Moose’s version better than mine myself.”

It rarely happened, but my grandfather was
clearly flummoxed by our behavior. “You’ve all gone over the edge;
you know that, don’t you?”

“Whatever you say, Dear,” Martha said, and I
watched as my grandfather’s countenance softened. I might have been
the bravest person in the family when it came to standing up to my
grandfather when he needed to be brought in check, but my
grandmother could win a smile with just a glance, even when he was
at his crabbiest. “Now, those mooseburgers aren’t going to make
themselves, are they?”

“I’ll get right on it,” Moose said. “At least
I understand
that
part of my life.”

I turned back to the sheriff, and his smile
was open and warm now. “That was quite a show. I hope it wasn’t all
on my account.”