Murder Takes the Cake Text (7 page)

“That’s why we need samples,” Hardy said. “Of your cakes, icing, flour, sugar. And we may need to come back once Mrs. Watson’s cause of death has been determined.”

“Like I told you, the cake I delivered to Mrs. Watson was never even cut! Mrs. Watson didn’t
see
the cake; she didn’t
touch
the cake; she didn’t
smell
the cake; and she darn sure didn’t
eat
the cake!” I flailed my arms. “The police know the cake wasn’t cut! If they’d thought something was wrong with the cake, they’d have taken it with them.”

“We’re not the police,” Laurel said. He shut off the flashlight and began putting my things back in the cabinet. “This one’s clear.” He looked up at me. “I’m sorry this is upsetting you. We’ll be through in a few minutes. You might want to wait in the living room or—”

“I’ll wait right here.”

“Fine,” Hardy said, holding up a sample bag. “Can you give us some sugar?” He gave me a leering grin that nearly brought my breakfast back to the surface. “Get it?”

“Confectioner’s or pure cane?”

His grin faded. “Both.”

After giving Hardy samples of all my baking supplies, I sat down at the table and watched Laurel go through all my cabinets. He was pretty quick at emptying and refilling them. Where’d he been when I was moving?

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Hardy going for the cake box that held tomorrow’s cake. I sprang out of my chair. “Don’t mess with that! It’s for my family’s Thanksgiving dinner!”

Hardy looked at Laurel. I refused to take my eyes off Hardy and was willing to do him bodily harm if he touched my cake.

“You have samples of my supplies,” I said. “You have some of every ingredient in that cake.”

Laurel must’ve given Hardy some sort of high sign because he backed away from the cake.

When they finally left, I cleaned the kitchen from top to bottom. Logically, I knew they hadn’t gotten anything dirty. They’d worn gloves and had been careful to leave everything as they’d found it. Still, it felt dirty somehow. These men had violated my home . . . my business . . . my privacy . . . my life.

After I’d cleaned the kitchen, I poured my mop water outside and sat down on the step. I saw the cat staring at me from beneath a tree, and I wished she’d come to me. I’d never felt so alone . . . well, at least, not lately. I was ever so pitiful sitting on my porch feeling sorry for myself.

I heard a vehicle in the driveway and raised my head, afraid the men from the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services had returned. I was squinting to try to recognize the man in the white Jeep when he got out. It was Ben. He was carrying a deli bag.

“Hungry?” he asked.

That simple gesture poked a needle into my balloon of self-pity, and I began to sob. Lucy Ricardo would’ve been proud.

Ten minutes later, I had stopped crying and Ben and I were at the kitchen table eating ham and Swiss on rye.

“Why in the world was the Department of Agriculture here?” Ben asked.

“Because the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services oversees bakeries.” It was the answer I was given the
first
time the department had shown up to inspect my home . . . when I’d opened my business.

“But you aren’t running a bakery.”

“Not exactly, but I do sell baked goods to the public. That brings me under the department’s jurisdiction.”

“And they simply showed up out of the blue?”

I nodded. “They said it was routine, but one of them did mention Mrs. Watson’s death.”

“How could they think your cake was responsible for that?”

“I don’t know. I tried to tell them the cake wasn’t even cut. I said it was in the police report, but they arrogantly informed me that they are not with the police department.”

“Even so, I’d expect the agencies to work together, especially if they feel your cake was somehow responsible for someone’s death.”

“How did they even know I took a cake to Mrs. Watson?”

Ben dabbed at his mouth with a paper napkin. “You said it yourself. It’s a matter of public record since it’s in the police report. But I’ll see if I can find out if someone tipped them off.”

“Tipped them off? You sound as if somebody has it in for me.”

“I don’t mean that exactly,” Ben said. “I mean, I know these visits are routine, but I’m curious to know why they came back so soon after you opened your business.” He shook his head. “Your kitchen passed muster a month ago. Why did they need to recheck everything because Mrs. Watson received a cake she never even touched?”

I took the Department of Agriculture’s invoice out of my jeans pocket and pushed it across the table. “The holiday shopping season is upon us. Maybe they needed the forty dollars.”

“What? They actually billed you for this inspection?”

“Yep. I believe that’s what is commonly known as adding insult to injury.”

“That’s certainly not the phrase I’d have chosen, Daph. But yours is the nicer one.”

After Ben left, I made up a batch of stiff butter cream. I divided the icing into fourths and tinted one fourth yellow, one fourth pink, one fourth peach and one fourth red. Thankfully, I’d remembered to put on decorator’s gloves before coloring my icing. I didn’t want to have multi-hued fingers at Violet’s house tomorrow.

Violet. That would be a pretty color for roses, too
.

But I’d already divided and colored the icing in four popular colors. I could make Vi a cake with violet roses for her birthday.

As I put couplers in four featherweight bags, I tried to remember the date of Ben’s birthday. Surely I’d known it when we were growing up. I think it was in spring. Or maybe summer.

I took out a Styrofoam block, my flower nail and my number twelve and number 104 tips. Deciding to make yellow roses first, I filled a bag one-third of the way with yellow icing. I attached a square of waxed paper to the flower nail with a dot of icing. I put the number twelve round tip into the coupler and made a generous cone base for the rose. As I stuck the flower nail into the Styrofoam, I still couldn’t remember Ben’s birthday. But, since I still had no clue as to whether he was a HUG (hot unavailable guy) or a HAG (hot available guy), I guessed it didn’t matter all that much at this point.

I traded the round tip for my number 104 petal tip and retrieved the flower nail. I made sure the wide end was at the bottom, and I made the center petal. I followed up with the three top petals, five middle petals and seven lower petals. Voila. One yellow rose. I removed the waxed paper square from the flower nail and placed it and the rose it held onto a long, flat container. I had several of these freezer-friendly containers for this very purpose.

I put a new waxed paper square onto the flower nail and stood the nail on its Styrofoam perch while I switched tips.

The phone rang, and I picked up the headset I use while I’m working. “Daphne’s Delectable Cakes.”

“Hi, hon. It’s Myra. How are you?”

“I’m fine,” I said, constructing a rose base onto the flower nail. “You?”

“Well, I just heard they got Yodel Watson’s autopsy report back.”

“Wow. That was quick.”

“Yeah, it was, and it apparently raised more questions than it gave answers.”

“What do you mean?” I switched to the petal tip and twirled the flower nail as I put the rose’s petals in place.

“The autopsy report gave Yodel’s cause of death as respiratory failure. It also said she had some gross hemorrhaging, some dead tissue and something about bad kidney tubes.”

“Ick. That sounds horrible. Where did you get the lowdown on the autopsy?”

“From Joanne Hayden. I saw her in the drugstore. She was buying hair dye. I knew that wasn’t her natural color.”

“Good ol’ Joanne. I should’ve guessed.” I put this rose into the container beside the first one. “I really need to meet her. I’ve heard so much about her, I feel I know her already.”

“Joanne says the police are afraid Yodel might’ve been poisoned.”

I froze. “Really?”

“Yeah, and she said you were even being investigated to make sure it wasn’t something in your cake that did her in.”

“Myra, you
saw
that cake . . . you’ve got that cake! It hadn’t been touched until you tasted the frosting. Did you tell Joanne that?”

“Yes . . . well, I tried to. But sometimes people can get sick from just smelling something, you know.”

“Yodel Watson did not smell my cake! Look, if there was any smell in that house, it was the smell of her corpse. Yodel was dead when I got there. Besides, if she could’ve died instantly from merely smelling the cake, why didn’t it kill me?”

“Oh, you’ve got a point. I hadn’t even thought of that. So, you think it’s okay then?”

“What? The cake?”

“Uh-huh. You know, I’d planned on serving it and the other two you made to my family tomorrow for Thanksgiving—”

“The cake is fine,” I interrupted. “But if you don’t feel comfortable serving it—and the other two—bring them back over here, and I’ll take them to Violet’s house tomorrow and serve them to
my
family.”

“No . . . uh . . . I think they’ll probably be all right.”

“If it makes you feel any better, the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services inspected my home and all my baking ingredients only a few hours ago.”

“Honey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. Joanne got me worked up is all.”

“It’s okay.” I sighed. “It’s got me worked up, too. I’m afraid these rumors will ruin my business before it even gets started.”

As I continued replenishing my roses, my mind wandered back to my lunch conversation with Ben. Could someone here in town have it in for me? Was someone spreading the unfounded rumor about my cake being responsible for Yodel Watson’s death in order to sabotage me? Or was I merely the scapegoat? It was time to get some answers.

CHAPTER FIVE

I was fed up with Joanne Hayden. I hadn’t even met the woman, and she was spreading rumors—dangerous rumors—about me around town. I was going down to that police station, and I was going to give Bill Hayden a piece of my mind.

If that didn’t work, I’d go to the chief . . . or the commissioner . . . or whomever was Officer Hayden’s boss, and I’d tell him about Joanne’s loose lips. And I’d tell him how—thanks to Bill Hayden’s pillow talk—the entire department could very well be facing slander charges if the situation was not rectified immediately. I’d make the department issue a public apology; that’s what I’d do. I’d make them put it in the newspaper. No, wait, I’d have them give a press conference. That’d teach Bill
and
his wife not to be so quick to ruin someone’s professional reputation on speculation and unfounded accusations.

The yellow rose I was working on looked like a big, shapeless glob. I mashed it back into the icing bowl. With a growl of disgust, I realized I wouldn’t make any progress on my roses until I took my anger out on the Haydens and possibly the entire police force. I covered my supplies and placed them inside the refrigerator until after I got back from the police department.

I grabbed my purse and keys off a hook hanging by the door; but before I could step out onto the porch, an attractive, fifty-ish woman with a trim figure and shoulder-length, curly black hair timidly approached the door.

“Can I help you?” I asked. My voice was a bit terse, partly due to my residual anger and partly because I’d reached my tolerance level for unexpected guests for the day.

“I . . . I’m Annabelle. I-is this a bad time?”

“Oh . . . of course not. I . . . .” I sighed. “I’m just having a rough day.”

“I’m sorry,” Annabelle said. “I should’ve called first. I can come back.”

“No, please,” I said. “I’m the one who should apologize. Please come in.” I stepped back inside and placed my purse and keys back on the hook.

“But you were obviously going somewhere.”

“It can wait.” I smiled. “In fact, it’s probably best that it does wait.”

“This shouldn’t take long,” Annabelle said. “I haven’t even been to . . . to M-mother’s yet.”

“Do you have someone with you?”

Annabelle shook her head. “My husband wanted to come, but I insisted he and my daughters go on to his mother’s house for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. Both our children are home from college and—” She closed her eyes.

“Please sit down,” I said, gesturing toward the kitchen table. “Can I make you some coffee . . . tea?”

“No, thank you.” She took a napkin from the napkin caddy and pressed it to her nose. “I would take some water, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.” I took a bottle of water from the fridge and sat it and a crystal tumbler in front of Annabelle.

“Thank you.” She filled the tumbler and drank deeply. “I hope you don’t think my husband and children are being thoughtless, because they aren’t.”

I pulled out a chair. “Oh, of course—”

“I insisted they stay behind. They’ll be here for the funeral on Saturday, but I wanted to go through Mother’s things by myself.” She took another drink. “We’ve lived in Florida since the girls were small. They hardly know mother.”

I sat quietly, not sure what I could do or say to comfort her.

She gave me a half-smile. “I guess I wanted my memories to myself when I begin going through her things.” She let a shoulder rise and drop. “I wanted to be alone with her . . . with my thoughts . . . tonight and tomorrow.” She lifted her eyes to mine. “Daffy, huh?”

“No.” I smiled. “Sweet . . . thoughtful . . . certainly courageous . . . not daffy.”

“I don’t know about courageous.” She took another deep drink. “I’ll probably rant and rave and cry and laugh and act like a complete lunatic.”

“Cathartic. The beginning of healing.”

“You speak as one who’s been there.”

I chuckled. “Suffice it to say I’ve had my share of lunatic moments.” I got up to get Annabelle another bottle of water. “Did you have any trouble finding me?”

“No. I was friends with the Pearces. Did you know them?”

I shook my head as I placed the water bottle on the table and reclaimed my seat. “I only met them at the closing. They seemed nice.”

“They’re great. Did they tell you why they were selling their house?”