Murder Gone A-Rye (A Baker's Treat Mystery) (9 page)

T
he week before Thanksgiving was almost as busy for the bakery as Christmas. People were planning their huge family celebration meals. If they weren’t gluten-free but had GF family, they often came in to pick up their pies, breads, stuffing, etc. It was too much to cook a feast for their regular guests, let alone the special eaters.

I didn’t mind. It meant I worked long hours, but the extra money I made from the holidays could help sustain me through the leaner times early in the next year. Now that I had the actual bakery separate from my kitchen I was able to bake all night without interrupting the others in my household.

Pushing racks of pies into the freezer, I closed the door to the little room tight and marked the time on the sheet taped to the front door. Each group had to freeze for a specific number of hours before I could box them and package them for shipment the next day. It was hard when everyone wanted their pies Thanksgiving day or, at the very earliest, the day before.

The first year I’d run my online bakery I’d been able to spend the entire night before Thanksgiving Thursday baking and packaging. Come Thursday morning I’d hand-delivered my boxed creations. From those fifty desserts my business had grown to five hundred and then this year, a record eleven hundred desserts. Most of them were pies, but there were a few cakes, and even some cupcake requests.

Luckily most of my new clients were local enough that they had scheduled to come in and pick up their desserts. And still many more paid the extra ten dollars to have theirs delivered. Meghan would spend the first three days of the week distributing pies over the three closest counties. It was my hope that people would tip her well; if they didn’t, then I would give her a bonus. It took a lot of effort to ensure the desserts arrived on time and in fresh-from-the-oven condition.

It was all good practice for Meghan. She was saving her extra cash to enroll in culinary school next year with the goal of opening her own bakery someday. But for now it was my pleasure to teach her my business from the ground up.

For now, I was as caught up with work as I could be and so it was that I was the one who stepped out of the kitchen to answer the ring of the door bells when Candy Cole came in.

“I understand Ruth was investigating Homer Everett when she murdered Lois Striker,” Candy said as she stirred sugar into her tea. “What was Ruth’s connection to Lois? Was it truly all about Homer Everett, or was it something even more sinister?”

“Candy, I’m not speaking on the record,” I said as I wiped down the coffee bar in my bakery. “Why don’t you write a piece on Thanksgiving?”

“Thanksgiving has been celebrated since the pilgrims; officially celebrated by the federal government since 1863. And modern Thanksgiving has been celebrated since 1941. That’s a lot of years to cover the same story, Toni. I need something fresh, something local, like Homer Everett Day and the murder of a cornerstone of the Oiltop community.”

“Find another story, Candy. My family is off limits. Now, do you want apple or pumpkin pie for your holiday order?”

“It wasn’t pumpkin,” she said absently. “If you don’t tell me what Ruth was researching I’ll have to go to Ruth myself . . . and I can’t promise I’ll be all that nice to her in my exposé. I can see the headline now . . . ‘Local grandma guilty as charged for the murder of Chamber of Commerce icon.’” She spread her hand through the air as if setting out each word in the headline.

I tried not to flinch. When it came to Candy, our resident newspaper reporter, you had to watch every body movement. She had a tendency to jump on any perceived weakness. “I’ll have Meghan deliver your pies on Wednesday. Will that work for you?”

“Yes, of course.”

“How many people will you need to serve?” I asked. It was a good question and also a way of discovering what her plans were for the holiday. If she had a lot of relatives coming, then it was a safe bet she already had her article written. If she only had a few relatives, then she would still be out looking into who killed Lois Striker.

“I’m serving ten,” she said, and sipped her tea. “You know twelve is too many and eight is too few.”

“I wouldn’t know.” I shrugged. “I’m serving twenty-four and that is only my closest relatives.” I stopped from writing down her order and looked her in the eye. “Would you be interested in trying the chocolate-chip pecan pie? I’m making it with dark chocolate chips.”

“Oh, sounds wonderful, yes, throw one of those in my order. What’s a few extra pieces, right?”

“Right.”

“Besides, isn’t gluten-free better for you anyway?”

“Only if you’re gluten-sensitive,” I answered honestly. “It can be too full of fats for a normal diet.”

“That’s okay.” She shrugged. “It’s not like pie is diet food, right?”

“Right.” I added a chocolate-chip pecan pie to her order and ripped off the top sheet, handing her the pink bottom sheet. “Keep this for your records. I don’t plan on any mistakes in the order, but I’m cooking a lot of pies and there’s no telling.”

“Great,” she said. “How’s Meghan doing? I hear she might be quitting—is that true?”

“No, it’s not true.” I tried not to bristle. Investigating and asking questions was what Candy did for a living. It was my fault if I felt it was rude or off-putting. Candy and I’d been in the same class in high school. She had been on the school newspaper and the yearbook staff. Meanwhile, I’d been in debate. It was a bit of popular girl versus nerd. It was hard to believe we would grow up to be friends, but college had brought us together.

My divorce and last month’s murder investigation had split our friendship apart, though. I didn’t forget too quickly that she had tried to pin the murder of a wheat farmer on me. She was so happy to investigate that she forgot the cardinal rule: first do no harm—no, wait, that was the Hippocratic oath. So what was it? Do unto others what you would have others do unto you? Or is it . . . don’t suffer any fools?

Either way, she tended to go with public opinion and not the facts. It only made her look worse when the truth came out.

“Oh, come on, when are you going to forgive me for last month?” she asked and put on her best sad puppy dog look. I wasn’t buying it.

“I forgave you last month.”

“Oh.” She straightened. “Then why the disconnect?” She pointed her fingers back and forth between herself and me.

“I didn’t say I’d forgotten that you all but hung me out to dry in your exposé.”

“Come on now, it was business, not personal.”

“That’s the trouble, Candy,” I said. “I can’t tell with you when business stops and personal begins and vice versa.”

“I’m no different than your grandmother Ruth.” She sipped her tea. “We are very much alike, she and I. I’m sure she had a very good reason for murdering Lois.”

“Now, there, see, that was ridiculous. You just took a personal conversation and twisted it to see if I would reveal something about my grandma.”

“Oh, come on.” She flung her arms wide. “I’m a reporter.”

“I suppose that means you have to try.”

“Yes,” she said most sincerely, “I have to try.”

“Look, Grandma Ruth didn’t kill Lois. She wasn’t even there until later.”

“You’re absolutely certain?”

“I’m certain,” I said and crossed my heart. “You need to go looking for new leads . . . ones not found in my bakery.”

Candy pouted prettily. “I don’t have any other leads.”

“Then why not write a story on the parade floats?”

“Can’t,” she said and finished her tea. “Rocky Rhode has that covered. He’s doing a photo story. He met with Hutch Everett last night to get some candid shots around the floats. Rocky was in the office when I left this morning. I swear it isn’t right when a silly parade makes the front page, especially with a murder in town.”

I leaned on the counter, dishrag in hand. “I hate to break it to you, Candy, but no one reads newspapers anymore. They’re slower than the Internet, and people don’t want to wait. Even blogs have been abandoned for short things like Tumblr and Twitter.”

“How do you know so much about the Internet?” she asked. “I thought you spent every waking hour in your bakery.”

“I do. Grandma Ruth keeps me up to date. It’s amazing what the senior set is up to these days.”

She opened her mouth and I raised my hand in a “stop” sign. “Don’t say murder.”

“I won’t say it,” she agreed. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t suspect it.”

• • •

E
arly the next morning, I sat in my office and studied the computer screen. The bakery office used to be a utility closet. It still held the faint scent of pine cleaner and damp mop. I had all the lights on in the back of the bakery. In the background,
The Wizard of Oz
played on my small television. The movie was a Thanksgiving classic. I’d learned long ago to stop questioning why they showed it on this particular holiday and simply enjoyed the familiar sound of Judy Garland trying to figure out how to go home.

“Stay in Oz!” I advised the television. No one listened. Couldn’t they see the appeal of colorful munchkins and glittery ball gown–wearing witches? Seriously, why would you leave all that to come back to Kansas?

I sat down at my tiny desk, which held my computer monitor, keyboard, and stacks of receipts . The computer tower sat on the floor. A small printer perched on the thick window casing above my desk. Why the builder had thought to put a window, even a window as small as this one, in a closet had always perplexed me. But for now the sill made a nice place to put my printer.

I entered a handful of receipts into my accounting software before checking on the list of supplies and orders for the week. The sharp scent of dark roasted coffee mixed with pine. Besides the holiday dessert orders, I still had the daily pastries, cookies, cupcakes, breads, and other goods that were sold in the shop itself. Not to mention the sub rolls that I had convinced the deli owner to purchase. His gluten-free customers increased his profits by ten percent that first month. He repaid me by ordering more rolls, along with the occasional dessert.

When it came to the holiday season, I’d planned a careful, yet diverse, menu for the bakery. People needed to be able to run in and order take-home boxes to please last-minute guests. So I concentrated on donuts, muffins, and pastries in the morning. Yeast breads, quick breads, and desserts came out in the afternoon. Then there was the notice that had gone up last week letting people know that limited varieties would be offered between Thanksgiving and New Year’s to accommodate all the holidays. And, hopefully, start traditions that included my gluten-free bakery.

A pounding at the back door startled me, sending a pile of receipts flying. “Darn it.” I jumped up and grabbed the baseball bat I kept in the corner of my office. After last month’s vandalisms and attacks, I’d thought it wise to have something on hand that I’d actually think to use.

My brother Rich had painted
KILLER
on the handle of the bat in red, while Tim had painted a bull’s-eye around the new peephole in the back door, along with the words
LOOK HERE FIRST!

Whoever was out there pounded again. I bit my lower lip to keep from yelping at the startling sound.

“I know you’re in there!”

The voice was definitely female. I looked through the peephole to see Aunt Phyllis glaring back at me.

“Toni, open the door!”

I unlocked the two deadbolts and opened the door. “Aunt Phyllis, what time is it?”

“It’s four
A.M.
,” she said as she strode in and made a beeline for the coffeepot. “It’s also cold outside. The cops took my van and the tent is freezing this time of year.”

“The tent? What tent?” I closed and double-locked the door.

“My tent, of course. Where else was I going to sleep with the van in lockup?”

“Good Lord, Aunt Phyllis, I have four empty bedrooms, plus the apartment over the carriage house. There is no need for anyone I know to ever sleep in a tent, let alone in a tent in the winter.” I ran my hands up and down the length of the bat and wondered if I needed to knock some sense into her.

She grabbed a white mug from the mug tree next to the coffeepot, poured thick black coffee into it, and added creamer and sugar. Her blue eyes sparkled as she blew on the steaming liquid. “How could I sleep in a comfy bedroom knowing Ruth was spending the night on a cot in a chilly jail cell?”

“Aunt Phyllis . . . you didn’t.”

“I most certainly did.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did. When they told me I was free to go but Ruth was going to remain in jail overnight, I pitched my tent on the front lawn of the police station.”

“Aunt Phyllis!”

“I also informed that Sergeant What’s-his-face that I was a taxpayer and the police station is funded by taxpayer dollars, therefore I own the land it’s sitting on and pitching my tent is not trespassing.”

“Sergeant What’s-his-face?” I collapsed on the stool next to the counter.

“You know . . . the one who looks like Barney Fife.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. Oh. The man is a nincompoop.”

Officer Joe Emry was one of five police officers who worked the city of Oiltop beat. He was a thin, nervous sort and reminded me of the character from the old Andy Griffith television show that I watched on the classic TV channel.