Pies & Peril (9 page)

"
Somebody threw this onto the deck."

He set the gray stone o
n the counter. There was a white rectangle of folded paper attached to it. Clear packing tape had been used to secure it in place.

"
It's a note," Amy said as she reached for the rock.

"
Don't touch it. There could be fingerprints."

"
You touched it."

"
Just the exposed rock. I don't think the police can collect fingerprints from a rough surface like that. The tape could have prints. Let's call the police and have them take care of it."

Mr. Calm, Cool and Rational. That was her man. He might be able to think under pressure, but she couldn
't wait for a squad car to arrive before reading the note. What if it said she had to turn over her apple pie recipe within the next five minutes or their home would be blown up? The house could be a pile of kindling before the police arrived. She set Pogo back on the floor. He scrambled to his water dish. The knife she had used to chop the vegetables sat next to the rock.

"
How about cutting around the note with a knife?" Now her brain was working. Not quite on par with her brainy hubby, but at least she had come up with a valid plan. She pulled open a nearby drawer. The latex gloves she used to clean chili peppers looked like the ones crime scene investigators used on television shows. She plucked out a pair. "I can wear these so I won't get my prints on anything."

Alex nodded in agreement. Huzzah! A brilliant idea that was all her own. She put on the gloves and then carefully traced the tip of the chef
's knife around the rectangle of paper. It slipped away from the stone. She grabbed the edges of the note with her fingernails to unfold it.

Your not lisening. Stay away or pay the price.

She laid the paper on the counter and glared at it. Alex wrapped her in a bear hug. "It'll be alright. I'm going to call Detective Shepler."

Hmph. Carla might want to share dinner with the police officer, but she certainly didn
't want to. Alex kept one arm around Amy as he dug his cell phone out of his pocket and made the call.

"
He'll be here in a few minutes." He sighed. "Judging from what this says, the part about staying away, I guess you're right about someone trying to keep you away from the pie contest. What kind of idiot makes death threats to win a couple hundred dollars?"

Amy shook her head.
"Apparently an illiterate one. Listening isn't spelled correctly and they used the wrong your. It should be Y-O-U apostrophe R-E."

Amy tapped the disconnect button on her cell phone. Kevin wasn't home or wasn't answering the phone if he was there. It was two days after his wife's funeral. He wouldn't be back to work already, would he? She looked up Kevin's accounting office number and dialed.

"
Pierce Accounting. This is Lucy. What can I help you with?"

At least somebody answered the phone, even though the voice sounded like it belong
ed to a little girl instead of an adult woman. Amy answered, "Hello. I used to work with Mandy Jo, so I made some dinners for Kevin, to help him during this awful time. I was wondering if you know where he is so I can drop them off."

"
Awww, that's so sweet. He's here working. I know he doesn't have an appointment until this afternoon, so you could drop off whatever you've made this morning."

"
That sounds wonderful. I'll be by in about an hour."

"
Okey-dokey."

Had Kevin hired a high school co-
ed to manage the phones? Okey-dokey certainly wasn't professional secretary repertoire. Plus, she hadn't even asked for Amy's name. Alex's secretary looked like an evil grandmother. Her hair was always pulled into a tight, stainless steel colored bun. Every day she wore one of the plethora of three-piece power suits from the '80s that she owned. The woman could benefit from a few meetings with a wardrobe consultant, but she was proficient. Alex never complained about getting cryptic phone messages or surprise visitors.

Amy retrieved the stack of small, square aluminum pans from the freezer. She taped recipe cards with reheating instruction
s on each one. Kevin was a man, who was also shook up by the sudden loss of his wife. Just providing one set of directions for half a dozen casseroles was a recipe for disaster. He would lose the instructions then probably end up complaining about how bad her cooking was because he didn't bake them properly. She plunked the frost covered containers into a disposable foam cooler along with a couple plastic bags filled with ice cubes. That was another thing. An unexpectedly, newly single man most likely wouldn't think to return things like dishes or ice packs. So she made sure everything was disposable. Geesh, she had barely said two words to the man and had already convinced herself she didn't like him.

When Amy walked through the door of Pierce Accounting half an hour later, she was positive she didn
't like him. Judging from the earlier phone conversation, Kevin was more into appearances than skills. The painfully informal receptionist looked like she had stepped off the pages of a fashion magazine. Long dark hair, stunning blue eyes and disgustingly thin, despite munching on half a dozen sliders which she pulled out of a greasy bag printed with the Louie's Hamburgers logo. The small restaurant was somewhere between a dump and a dive, but was legendary for its tiny slider hamburgers. Amy avoided eating there because the onion covered gut bombs always left her with a case of heartburn that threatened to sear through her stomach wall. So Lucy, according to the small tent sign on the desk, clearly had an iron stomach and the metabolism of a cheetah.

Lucy talked on her cell phone in between licking grease off her fingers. The waiting room was so small Amy couldn
't help but eavesdrop. Not that the oblivious woman seemed to care. The receptionist had just pointed at one of the sleek, black chairs in the reception area when Amy walked into the room. Apparently a customer was too much of a bother to interrupt the call. Pantomimed instructions to have a seat were sufficient for Kevin's receptionist. No speech needed.

"
Tired of the games…glad it's all over…no more sneaking around."

Amy stared at the solitaire app on her phone
's screen, trying to conceal her nosiness. It sounded like Lucy was having an affair. What man wouldn't want to play find the sausage under the sheets with the beautiful, raven haired stick woman? Amy glanced up at the sound of a door opening. Kevin walked out of his office. His expression turned from a polite, business-like smile to a scowl. He glanced at Lucy, who had quickly signed off from her call, and his expression softened. She smiled and coquettishly tilted her head. The distraction worked. He now looked like a slobbery, overzealous puppy. "Kevin, I am so sorry for your loss," Amy said as she stood.

Her voice broke the weird voodoo spell Lucy seemed to have over her boss. He returned his gaze to Amy
, and the unpleasant grimace reappeared. Was it because she interrupted his ogling session or something else that had turned him into a grumpy pants?

"
Thank you."

She waited for him to say something else, but he didn
't. He had certainly been more talkative at Mandy Jo's funeral. Amy picked up the cooler, "I made some baked ziti for you. Much better than frozen dinners from the store, I assure you."

"
My refrigerator is packed with meals. The women from St. Peter's Church keep bringing me stuff."

Amy tapped the lid of the
Styrofoam cooler. "That's why I froze the meals I made. You can keep them for a few months. If you do want to save them for awhile, I'd suggest getting them into a freezer again soon. Hopefully you have one here in your office."

He sighed and apparently decided to challenge her to a stare-off. How rude. She wanted to play a different game, like tell me your alibi.

"It was such a shock for me to find Mandy Jo. Do you have any idea why somebody would be so…drastic?"

Kevin snorted.
"You know what she was like. She's pissed off a lot of people, but I never thought someone would resort to murder as retaliation. The last time I saw her she was actually in a really good mood. She had worked all day making a pie, and she was positive it would beat anything you brought to the contest."

The man wasn
't physically imposing. In fact, he was rather short, scrawny in the muscle category and had a rather geeky haircut, but he certainly wasn't afraid of issuing a verbal middle finger salute. A slightly mellower version of his deceased wife. No wonder they got married. Luckily Amy had plenty of experience in deflecting word bombs. In some competitions, other people employed nasty comments and insults to fluster challengers. Developing mental toughness was a necessity. She smiled and said, "Since she won so many of the pie contests, I want to do something to remember her. I'm collecting money for a small memorial at the park downtown."

He just stared at her, so Amy continued.
"Can you think of anybody she'd had a disagreement with lately?"

"
You, at the Fourth of July parade."

Was he insinuating that she could
've killed Mandy Jo? He had blasted past rude and slammed into downright obnoxious territory. "Mandy Jo and I obviously didn't get along, but I let my baked goods do the talking in the Summer Festival competitions."

"
Really? Some people can't stand being defeated and will do anything to win."

*  *  *

Carla groaned as she stretched out on the couch. She had been sound asleep when Amy called, wound up about some kind of new development. Considering the message her friend had left on her voicemail the previous evening about another threat arriving via a rock, of all things, she couldn't blow her off in favor of sleep. Amy hardly ever came to the condo, preferring to chat in her own kitchen, but she was on her way over. It was like cooking was now so ingrained in her life that it had become both therapy and a part of her social life. Hopefully she didn't
need
to cook to get her thoughts in order. There was not much more than ramen noodles and instant oatmeal packets in the cupboards. Take-out containers scattered among beer and wine bottles lived in the refrigerator. She and Amy were polar opposites in so many ways, yet they were still best friends.

The doorbell woke her up again. She had closed her tired eyes, since there was nothing interesting to look at except the old brick wall at the end of the couch. The little catnap didn
't help. It had been a hectic night in the emergency room, and her body was begging for a solid, six hours of sleep. Amy rushed into the entryway the moment Carla cracked open the door. A paper coffee cup was in one hand, a bag stamped with Riverbend Coffee's logo in the other.

"
I brought you a caramel latte and a sticky bun."

Amy had sounded like a frazzled mess on the phone, but she still thought to bring coffee and sweet treats to help Carla stay awake. The later it got, the more
the adrenaline from work wore off and she needed help from some food fuel to keep functioning, or at least functioning logically. "Thanks. Didn't you get something for yourself?"

"
No. I'm serious about losing weight. Riverbend didn't have any low-fat baked goods, not that diet food has any place in a legitimate bakery or coffee shop anyway. I mean, you're supposed to indulge in full-fat, sugar-filled treats at those places. My sexy curves are developing rolling hills and cellulite potholes."

"
You look fine, but let me know if you want to come to the health club with me sometime." Carla took a sip of the silky, sweet latte. "They have an awesome steam room to relax in after you burn off the effects of a few scones on the elliptical machine."

"
I'll think about it, but not now." She waved her hands around like she was being attacked by a swarm of gnats. "There have been some developments in the case."

Carla carried her treats into the living room and collapsed on the couch again while Amy settled into the leather easy chair across from her.
"What's going on? I got your message about the rock on the porch. Do you have any new ideas about who is sending the threats?"

"
All I know is I wouldn't want to have that person pitching to me in a softball game. Whoever it is has quite an arm. Shepler figured they must've thrown the rock over the privacy fence while standing in the Millers' yard. Of course, the Millers weren't home, and nobody saw anybody sneaking around the neighborhood. It's all very frustrating.
More
frustrating than a blueberry pie bubbling over in the oven."

"
Mmm…blueberry pie. Are you working on a recipe for one? I would be more than willing to taste test for you."

Amy wrinkled her nose.
"No."

"
Sorry. You just mentioned one making a mess in your oven, so I figured the bubbling over thing had happened recently."

"
Nope, but speaking of recent events, I've got some new information about one of the suspects, or at least I hope he's a suspect. I can't imagine him not being one."

The sudden conversational direction changes were mind numbing. Carla took a deep breath.
"Okay. I'll bite. What is the new information?"

"
I think Kevin is having an affair with his secretary. He could've killed Mandy Jo because he didn't want to sneak around anymore."

That revelation came out of left field. She should
've expected it, though. Amy was all about conspiracy theories. Somehow she could rationalize the strangest scenarios and make them sound totally plausible.

"
How did you jump from barely speaking two words to him to surmising he's screwing his secretary?" She took another sip of coffee and remembered the ziti from the previous morning. "You gave him a couple casseroles and discovered he's having an affair all in one shot?"

Amy sighed. A sure sign that she was preparing to lead Carla on a twisted journey through her mind.
"While I was waiting to see Kevin his secretary was talking on the phone about being glad it was all over and how she wouldn't have to sneak around anymore. Then, when he came out of his office, you should've seen how he looked at her. Mandy Jo was pretty, and this woman looks like a stretched out, fashion model version of her. Tall, skinny, long straight black hair and the same icy blue eyes. The biggest difference is she seems to be a candy sweet bubblehead instead of a vindictive ice queen. No wonder he has a thing for her."

"
How long did you spend with them?"

"
I don't know, five or ten minutes."

"
That's an awful short time to figure all of that out." Carla grabbed the bag containing the sticky bun off the end table. A thought formed as she peeled off a hunk of caramel coated bread. Oh, no. Amy was sweet, but when she got excited all subtlety could vanish. "You didn't ask them if they were having an affair, did you?"

"
No! It was
so
obvious I didn't have to ask."

"
Okay, I'll take your word for it."

Amy pulled the rubber band that was securing
a ponytail out of her hair. Then smoothed her hair back again and redid the ponytail. Playing with her hair, a sure sign that something else was bothering Amy. "What else happened?"

"
He insinuated I could've knocked off Mandy Jo because I knew I couldn't win against her in the pie contest."

"
You suspect him. If he didn't do it, he's probably also looking for suspects to explain what happened."