Flourless to Stop Him (7 page)

“There aren’t any illegal substances in this house, nor are there any glass pipes to smoke them with.” I crossed my arms over my chest. I could feel the heat in my cheeks. “I know what a bong is,” I stage-whispered to Brad.

“As your lawyer, it’s my duty to clarify.” Brad chuckled at my discomfort.

“The only things in the cupboard are Grandma Ruth’s collection of hand-blown art glass.” I put my hands on my hips. “You had better not have broken any. They are all one-of-a-kind pieces.”

“I only rattled them.” Emry lifted his chin. “I’m tasked with doing a thorough investigation.”

“Open search only,” Brad pointed out. “My clients do not authorize you to go any further than the warrant allows.”

“Well, now, I opened kitchen cupboards in front of her and Toni didn’t have a problem with that.”

“I didn’t know you weren’t allowed that kind of search,” I said. “I take back any implied permission to go through my things.”

“Fine,” Officer Emry said. “It doesn’t mean we can’t go through your brother’s things.”

“What are you looking for . . . exactly?”

“Any evidence of drugs,” he said.

“That’s what the warrant says,” Brad agreed. “Why?”

“Telling you that would obstruct the investigation.”

I rolled my eyes at his explanation. “Does this have anything to do with Harold’s death?”

“I can’t answer that.” Officer Emry continued to walk through the room, lifting things that were in plain sight and looking under them as if I might have hidden a stash of drugs under my mother’s ceramic poodle.

“So Harold died in a drug deal gone wrong,” I surmised.

“I did not say that.” Officer Emry narrowed his eyes. “But the killer would know for sure. You were at the hotel yesterday, weren’t you? Why?”

“I was visiting Tasha,” I said and raised my own chin. “You don’t have to be a killer to put two and two together on the drug search and the murder.”

“Wait—you identified the dead guy?” Tim asked.

I bit my lip. I’d forgotten that Tim had been sleeping and didn’t know about Harold.

“Yes,” Brad said with concern in his gaze. “The victim was positively identified as Harold Petry.”

“What?” Tim ran his hand through his hair, tugging at it. “No, no, I would have recognized Harold. That was not Harold.”

“Dental records and fingerprints tell us it was Harold Petry,” Officer Emry said. “I understand you two had a falling-out a year or more ago. Gives you motive.”

“What? No, that’s crazy. I have nothing to do with drugs or Harold’s murder. He was my best friend.” Tim pushed against the doorjamb. “He was my freakin’ best friend.”

“Your name was on the room registry,” Emry stated. “A good investigator looks at the obvious first.”

“It’s obvious I had nothing to do with it. I would not kill my best friend.” Tim closed his eyes in disbelief. “Someone is framing me, and when I find out, I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” Emry narrowed his eyes and hitched his gun belt.

“Let his lawyer know and cooperate with the police to bring the killer to justice.” Brad filled in the awkward silence. “Come on, Tim, let’s go make sure those two newbies aren’t tearing your room apart.”

I watched Brad expertly corral my brother and push him up the stairs. Then I frowned at Officer Emry. “Tim didn’t know it was Harold. How could you be such a jerk?”

“Oh, he knew,” Officer Emry said. “He and Harold were drug dealing together and I’m going to find proof.”

“There aren’t any drugs in this house.”

“Then you have nothing to worry about, do you?” he asked. “It would be best if you leave this investigation to the professionals.”

“Oh, I’m not going to investigate. I have dozens of cookies on order and I’m not feeling well. The last thing I have time for is to follow up ridiculous clues some idiot is falsifying to frame my brother.”

“Good,” Emry said and sniffed. “See that you stay out of this investigation.”

“Quit coming into my home and I’ll be happy to stay out of it.”

“Keep your brother out of your house and I will have no need.” His blue eyes glittered.

“He’s my brother, and this is his home.” I gazed at him defiantly and scrunched my eyebrows. “What is it that you have against Tim anyway?”

“Hey, I’m going to go pick Grandma Ruth up for an early senior dinner,” Mindy said. She had pulled on a camel-colored wool trench coat and brown gloves. “Want to come?”

“I can’t,” I said as Officer Emry moved on to the den. “I’ve got to get back to the bakery.”

Mindy shook her head. “It takes a lot of dedication to be a baker if you’re going when you’re not feeling well. Wait—can you do that? Can you cook when you’re sick?”

I let out a long breath. “First of all, I have celiac disease. It’s a chronic condition that is not contagious. You can’t give it to anyone . . . except maybe your children, as it tends to run in families.”

“Wait, we’re family.”

“Yes, and you should be tested. Sometimes the symptoms can be masked or show up in arthritis or other autoimmune problems,” I answered. “Not that a blood test is conclusive. Second of all, I’m devoted to my work because it’s my dream job. I’m living my dream life.” I waved my hand.

“Your dream life includes caring for your mother’s house and being invaded by policemen at random?” Mindy’s eyes were hard. She snorted. “Some dream.”

“Okay, so it’s not a perfect dream.” I shrugged. “But it’s my dream. What’s yours?”

“My dream?” Mindy pursed her red-painted mouth. “To live in New York and to have money and sophistication.”

“How’s that working for you?” I put my hands on my hips.

Mindy’s mouth went flat and she wrung her hands. “I’m fine. I have a great apartment in Manhattan and that is far better than some old house in Oiltop, Kansas.”

I took a deep breath. Mindy had never been my favorite cousin. She always hated to acknowledge that we were her family. As a kid she’d told everyone she was an orphan. As soon as she’d graduated high school, she had left Kansas for New York and never looked back. That is, until she showed up at my door this morning.

“Look I don’t want to fight.” I put up my hands. “I’m a little cranky is all. Go have dinner with Grandma. Tell her I said hi.”

Mindy’s shoulders relaxed. “Okay. I will.” She gave me a quick hug. “Keep an eye on that gorgeous lawyer for me, okay?”

“I’m sure you’re better at that than I am,” I said and patted her back.

“I know.” She grinned and winked.

A glance at the clock in the foyer told me it was nearly four. I needed to find Brad and see if he would stay until the cops left so that I could get back to the bakery.

My biggest hope was that this time, they didn’t confiscate anything of value, like my computer. During my last investigation they took my computer, which was bad. A lot of my online business information was on that computer. Which
reminded me, I should probably get a backup for my hard drive. I added that item to my mental to-do list. I sighed. I did not have time to investigate anything. How was I going to get out of helping Tim when he and Grandma Ruth were so insistent that I do?

“I
can’t believe you’re not investigating.” Tasha and her son, Kip, sat at the small table in the bakery kitchen and watched me make cookies.

“I promised myself I’d stay out of this one,” I said. “I have to trust Officer Bright.”

“You know how I feel about Calvin,” Tasha said. “I am very close to thinking he’s the one for me. But according to Tim, the police searched our home with no real compelling reason other than the prosecutor plays golf with the judge. Calvin can’t be everywhere to ensure this is done right.”

“My teacher says it takes a lot of proof to get the paper to search your property,” Kip said.

I looked at him with curiosity. “She does? Why were you talking about that?”

“They’re learning about the constitution in class,” Tasha said.

“They can’t search your stuff without a lot of suspicion.” Kip played with the little colored packets of sweeteners.

“The police got an anonymous tip that Tim had brought drugs to the house.” I layered my second batch of triple-layer cookie dough with white chocolate cookie dough and dark chocolate cookie dough with the pistachio dough. Both kinds of triple cookie used three types of dough that were rolled out into a rectangle. They were then stacked one on top of the other and refrigerated for two hours. Once they were cold enough you could slice the dough into layered bars and bake them into the classic triple cookie. I liked to make the Neapolitan with pistachio and cherry and the dark and white chocolate with pistachio for the holidays. They looked really pretty on a cookie tray.

“That’s ridiculous,” Tasha said.

“That’s what I said. Then Brad called. It seems Officer Warwick discovered cocaine in the garage.” I rolled out dough, putting my anger into my rolling pin. “I couldn’t believe it. There is no way there were drugs in or near my home. I explained that anyone could have had access to the garage. Tim is being framed.”

“They found drugs in our garage?” Tasha’s eyes were wide with horror.

“Cocaine’s real name is benzoylmethylecgonine,” Kip said as he ran a toy car around the edges of the table and down the sweetener packet roads. “It comes from the leaves of the coca plant.”

“Really?” I raised an eyebrow and gave Tasha a look. Tasha shrugged.

“Yes,” Kip said without looking up. “It can be used as a stimulant, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic. It’s illegal to possess, produce, or distribute cocaine for nonmedical purposes in almost every country.”

Tasha and I stared at Kip in stunned amazement.

“Where did you learn that?” Tasha asked.

Kip shrugged, his attention on the toy car. “I read it on a website.”

“I thought your computer access was restricted,” I said.

“I was working on a research project for school.”

“What kind of research project?” I pressed. Seriously, what were they teaching in schools if a fifth grader could tell us what benzoylmethylecgonine was?

“We’re studying Peru,” Kip said.

“Huh.” I turned back to my cookies.

“Surely Officer Warwick could tell it was planted.” Tasha wrapped her hands around a thick white ceramic mug filled with coffee.

“Brad was there,” I said, embarrassed that my lawyer had witnessed the discovery of drugs in my garage. “He argued that the garage door was broken and anyone could get inside, which is true. But Officer Emry threatened to press charges against me for possession.”

“Wow.” Tasha shook her head. “How do you avoid that?”

“I’m not certain I can; I mean, it was found on my property. The only argument we have is that they can’t prove why it was there or who put it there. Still, it builds the case against Tim or even me.”

“What about me or Kip or Mindy? What about Grandma Ruth or any one of the members in your giant family. For all you know, that could have been there for decades.”

“Officer Emry is sending it away to the state lab. There’s some kind of test they can run on the drug that gives an approximate date of manufacture.”

“Wow, what can’t they figure out?”

“They’ll also look for fingerprints,” I said. “But with the lab backed up, it might be a month or more before we know anything.”

“What are you going to do in the meantime?” Tasha wondered.

“I had Tim install a lock on the garage. Then I’m going to make gluten-free cookies for the cookie exchange, and
I’m going to run my business. I refuse to live my life around policemen and their silly theories.”

“But Tim is clearly being framed.”

I frowned. “I know. Grandma thinks I should investigate. I want to help. I really do, but I have Christmas baked goods to get out. This is my make-or-break season for the bakery. I could lose everything I’ve been working for if I don’t get these baked goods out and shipped on time. We won’t even talk about the cards I need to write and send and presents to purchase for my friends and family. Investigating crimes takes time and timing. Half the discovery is being at the right place and at the right time to uncover clues. I simply don’t have that kind of time.”

“Did you ask Grandma Ruth?”

“I’m certain she’s doing her own investigation for her blog.” I shrugged. “I’m hoping with Grandma on the loose I don’t need to investigate.” It sounded lame to my own ears, but things were desperate at the bakery. I was working fourteen-hour days, sick or not.

“Grandma Ruth is in her nineties. I’m not at all certain that she can stay awake long enough to solve a murder.”

“That’s silly. As Grandma often told me, who better to investigate than a retired person?”

Tasha frowned. “I don’t like it. Tim is a great guy. There’s no way he did this.”

For a brief moment I wondered what would happen if Tim had done it. Then I shook my head and went back to baking cookies. There’s no way Tim would kill anyone let alone his best friend. Plus, Tim was smart. He’d never put a room in his name and then kill someone. It didn’t add up. It was common sense not to leave your name at the scene of the crime.

“I’m leaving it to the professionals,” I said under my breath. “I have to or I’ll lose my livelihood. I have to trust that Officer Bright is smart enough to arrest the right man.”

“Are you making chocolate chip cookies?” Kip asked. “I like chocolate chip.”

“I made the dough earlier when I found out you were coming,” I reassured him. “Do you want to help me bake them?”

“Sure.” He jumped up. “What’s first?”

“First you need to get the dough out of the fridge.” When he rushed to the refrigerator I continued. “The chocolate chip cookie dough is in the yellow ceramic bowl on the second shelf, to the back.”

“I found it!” He pulled out the big bowl.

I had him put the bowl on the table, then wash his hands and put on an apron while I dug up a small scoop.

“You scoop them like this,” I said, careful to show him the proper amount on the scoop. “Then place them on the cookie sheets in rows of four across. You should get six rows down.”

“Four times six is twenty-four,” Kip said.

“Yes, it is.” I patted him on the shoulder. “Did you do that math in your head?”

“I’m good at that,” he said and scooped dough.

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, you are.”

“I don’t like it.” Tasha stood.

“I’m sorry? You don’t like math or you don’t like Kip making cookies?” I glanced over and noted Kip had a stricken look on his face as he stood frozen with a scoop full of dough in his hand.

“No, no,” Tasha reassured her son. “I like math and it’s okay for Kip to make cookies.”

The boy smiled and continued to plop dough on the cookie sheet.

“I don’t like that you’re trusting our small-town police force to keep your brother from being framed.”

“How can I fit in an investigation? Do you have time to help me bake or investigate? I don’t think so. Besides, Tim
might think he wants me to investigate but he doesn’t really want me in his business.”

“Are you certain of that?”

“I know my brother.” I remained firm. “It nearly killed him to come over and ask if he could crash at the house. He’s an individualist. Can you imagine him letting me go through his life with a fine-tooth comb? Seriously I wouldn’t want Richard in my business. Tim doesn’t really want me in his. He’s just tired and feeling abused.”

“The way things are going, he may be a bit more than abused if someone doesn’t help him.” Tasha’s words echoed through the kitchen ominously.

I hoped with all my heart that she was wrong.