Sprinkle with Murder (16 page)

“My mom used to bake cupcakes for our birthday parties,” Joe said. “I always asked for vanilla with chocolate icing.”
“I wonder what that says about you,” Mel said. She reached onto the tray, found a vanilla cupcake with chocolate icing, and put it on his plate.
“Let me guess,” he said. “That I’m as bland as day-old bread.”
“Or you enjoy the subtleties in life found in the compatibly married flavors of vanilla and chocolate.”
Joe laughed out loud. “Nice spin. I forgot you were once a marketing whiz kid. You’re good, very good.”
Mel smiled. “Maybe I should make up personality matches for cupcakes. It might be the only thing that saves the shop.”
“Business has slowed?” he asked.
Mel watched as he took a bite of his cupcake. She felt a surge of satisfaction when his eyes glazed over just a little bit.
“Yeah, thanks to Olivia getting the word out that I’m a murder suspect,” she said.
She took a Red Velvet cupcake off the tray and peeled off the paper. She stuck her fork into the cream cheese frosting, appreciating how the fork glided smoothly into the cake below. She mouthed the cake off of the fork, and when she glanced up, Joe was watching her with an intensity that made her throat go dry. To keep from choking, she took a quick swallow of coffee.
They finished their cupcakes in silence, but Mel was aware of every gesture Joe made, the way he blew on his coffee before he sipped, and the way he licked the corners of his mouth after a bite of cupcake. It was excruciating.
“So, what brought you here tonight?” she asked, pushing her plate away.
“I don’t know,” he said. His brown eyes were steady when they met hers. “Honestly, it’s career suicide for me to be here, fraternizing with a suspect.”
“But you can’t resist my cupcakes,” she teased, trying to lessen the tension between them.
He looked at her and said, “Something like that.” “Something?” she asked.
“You need to steer clear of Steve Wolfmeier,” he said. “He’s bad news.”
“And so we’ve come full circle in our conversation,” Mel said. “I appreciate that you two have a history, but I need protection.”
“Why?” he asked.
“You’re kidding, right?”
His face was set. Not kidding.
“Ever since I found the body, I’ve been targeted by the police and the media as the most likely suspect just because Tate and I are friends. And now Olivia Puckett is using it to try and run me out of business. What am I supposed to do? I need help.”
“Find someone else,” he said.
“How is this any of your business?” she asked.
“You’re my sister’s business partner,” he said. “I’m looking out for her interests.”
That stung, although Mel wasn’t sure why. Maybe because a part of her had hoped he was looking out for her.
“Well, don’t worry your pretty little head about Angie, she’ll be fine,” Mel said. She glanced pointedly at the clock. “Shouldn’t you be shuffling along to attend to your little colleague? She must be wondering where you are by now.”
“How is that relevant?” Joe asked. He rose from the table, gathering their plates and mugs, and headed to the sink. He began to wash the dishes, but Mel stomped over and shut off the water.
“Don’t bother,” she said. “I’ll take care of it myself.”
“Why are you so angry?” he asked, spinning to face her.
“Do you think I’m guilty?” she asked. There—she’d said it. She watched him watching her. He didn’t answer right away.
She spun away from him and strode to the back door. She pushed it open and gestured for him to go.
“Good night, Joe.”
“Mel, I don’t think . . .” he began, but she interrupted, “Too little, too late. Good night.”
He strode past her and out the door. His jaw was clenched, and he looked as irritated as she felt.
“Mel,” he said. She glanced up at him, and his brown eyes were narrowed in concern. “Be careful.”
She said nothing, not trusting her voice, and shut the door with a definitive click.

Eighteen

Mel used an ice cream scoop to fill the paper-lined compartments of the cupcake pan with batter. The scoop was the perfect tool to keep the cupcakes uniform in size. She was making a big batch, using her thirty-five-cupcake tin.
This batch was called Moonlight Madness, because these were the cupcakes she always made in the middle of the night when she couldn’t sleep, like tonight. It was a simple chocolate cupcake with vanilla buttercream frosting rolled in coconut and a Hershey Kiss planted in the middle of the frosting. Mostly, she made these because she could eat all the Hershey Kisses she wanted while baking. Tonight, however, even a fistful of kisses wasn’t lifting her mood.
Mel opened the door to her industrial-sized convection oven and slid the large tin onto the middle rack. She set her cupcake-shaped timer for twenty minutes and began to clean the steel worktable.
The strains of the theme from
Gone With the Wind
interrupted the quiet, and Mel grabbed her cell phone off the counter. Who would be calling her at one o’clock in the morning?
She checked the number. It was Tate.
“What are you doing up so late?” she asked.
“ ‘When you have insomnia, you’re never really asleep, and you’re never really awake,’ ” he said.
“The best you can do is a quote from
Fight Club
?” she asked. “Hardly a classic, you must have insomnia.”
“It’s a classic guy flick, I don’t expect you to appreciate it,” he returned.
“Huh,” she grunted. “How did you know I was awake?”
“Because Angie and I are standing outside the back door,” he said.
Mel whirled around, and sure enough, she could see their outlines backlit against the window shade.
She hurried across the kitchen to unbolt the door. “Why didn’t you use your keys?”
“We didn’t want to scare you,” Tate said.
They grinned at each other as she swung the door wide.
“I think you two can hang up now,” Angie said as she strode around Tate. “Oh, kisses! Is it a Moonlight Madness night?”
“Technically, I think there’s a new moon out tonight, but yeah, I couldn’t sleep.”
“We figured,” Angie said. “We just finished watching the last spaghetti Western and thought we’d check on you. How did it go with Olivia? Did you make her cry?”
They pulled up stools around the worktable, and Mel passed out Hershey Kisses like she was dealing cards.
“No. In fact, I never spoke to her,” she said.
“What?” Angie demanded.
Mel told them the whole story from start to finish. About Olivia’s frail-looking mother and how compassionate Olivia was while taking care of her.
“Now why’d you go and tell me that?” Angie grumped. “I don’t want to feel sorry for that woman.”
“Me either,” Mel admitted. “But I can’t help it.”
“What if she pulls another stunt like the last?” Tate asked. “You can’t let her mess with your business.”
“I know,” Mel said. “Maybe I’ll just have to appeal to her gentler side.”
Angie and Tate gave her matching dubious looks, and she shrugged.
“It really isn’t going to matter what Olivia does to me if the police don’t find Christie’s killer soon,” Mel said. “The bad press will do us in more swiftly than any of her shenanigans.”
“Let’s revisit our suspects,” Tate suggested. “There’s me.”
“No,” Angie and Mel said together.
“There’s you.” He pointed at Mel with a Hershey Kiss.
“No,” they chorused again.
“There’s Terry Longmore,” he said. “And now that we know he’s signed on Alma and had her steal a gown for his studio, there’s motive.”
“But he has an alibi,” Angie argued. “He was at a fashion show in Los Angeles.”
“Has that been verified?” Tate asked.
Mel peeled off the tiny strip of foil stuck on her kiss. “The police must have checked it out.”
“We should find out for sure,” Tate said.
“I’ll call Uncle Stan,” Mel said.
“What about that weird Alma girl?” Angie asked. “I got a very bad feeling about her from the start.”
“She said she had an alibi,” Mel said. “Although she never said what it was.”
“We need to find out what it is,” Tate said.
“I’ll pay her a visit tomorrow,” Mel promised. “That way she can’t duck me. Maybe if I let her know that I know she took the gown, I can use it as leverage to force her to tell me what she knows.”
Angie frowned. “Be careful. If she’s a murderer, she won’t hesitate to hurt you in order to protect herself.”
“I don’t think you should go alone,” Tate added. “It could be dangerous.”
“I don’t think she’ll talk to me if anyone is with me,” Mel countered.
The timer rang, and Mel hopped off her stool to get the cakes out of the oven. She tested the top of one by gently pressing it with her fingertip. When it sprang back, she knew they were done.
She placed the large tin on a wire rack to cool and started to gather her ingredients for the frosting. She had used her industrial Hobart mixer for the batter, so she decided to go with her pink KitchenAid for the frosting. The butter had softened nicely, and she let the mixer cream it while she took a large bottle of clear vanilla extract out of the pantry. She liked to use clear because it kept the frosting a bright white or, in this case, a glowing moon color. Angie added the sugar cup by cup, and then Tate assisted by adding the milk until the frosting was the perfect consistency.
Mel marveled at how the three of them worked silently together, never getting in one another’s way. She supposed twenty-two years of friendship would do that, and she felt a sharp pang of fear that it could all be taken away if either she or Tate was fingered for Christie’s murder.
When the frosting was finished, Mel covered the bowl with a damp cloth to keep it moist. It would be a few minutes until the cupcakes were cool enough to frost.
Angie and Tate resumed their seats at the table and began talking about what movies they wanted to watch on the next movie night. Angie was lobbying hard for an action adventure night, but Tate was leaning towards a night of independent films. A fierce feeling of protectiveness swamped Mel as she watched them. These were her dearest friends, as close as you could get without sharing the same parents. She wasn’t going to let anyone or anything harm them. Tomorrow, she would talk to Alma, and she’d get some answers if she had to shake them out of her.

Mel remembered the address of Alma’s apartment from when she had looked her up to get her phone number. Alma lived only a few miles away in a duplex in an old neighborhood just on the east side of the park that ran the length of Scottsdale, known locally as the green belt.
Mel sipped a paper cup full of strong coffee as she wound through the neighborhood until she came to a squat, yellow brick house that had a front door at each end of its facade. Judging by the numbers, Alma’s was the door on the right.
Mel parked at the curb and strode towards the door. She had come early, before she had to open the bakery, hoping to catch Alma before she went out for the day.
There was no doorbell, so she rapped on the security door with her knuckles. The heavy metal door hurt, so Mel switched to the side of her fist.
She waited, expecting to see a face peer out of the window beside the door. There was nothing: no sound of anyone moving, no dog barking, nothing.
Maybe Alma couldn’t hear her banging on the door. Mel reached for the knob on the security door to see if it opened so she could knock on the wooden door behind it. The knob turned easily, and Mel gave the inner door a sharp rap with her knuckles. In the morning quiet, it sounded like gunfire. No one could sleep through that.
Except for maybe Alma, Mel thought, because there was still no answer.
“She’s home.”
Mel turned towards the voice. An older man, wearing a white T-shirt and plaid Bermuda shorts with a bright blue Chicago Cubs cap perched on his gray hair, was in the yard next door. He was unreeling his garden hose, but he paused to look Mel up and down.
“I heard her door slam late last night,” he said. “It must have been about two in the morning. She’s probably still sleeping it off.”
“Oh.” Mel wondered if she should knock again or come back later. Probably Alma wasn’t going to hear the knock. She had to admit she’d get a certain satisfaction out of waking Alma up, given all the grief she’d been through. It’d be nice to share the pain. She tried the doorknob just to see if it turned. It did.
She glanced over at the neighbor, but he had turned his back to her and was watering his roses. Mel took a cautious step into the dark duplex and called, “Alma, it’s Melanie Cooper. I need to talk to you.”
The front door opened into a large living room. There were the requisite love seat and coffee table positioned in front of a flat-screen TV. In the corner was a large drawing table littered with sketches. An ashtray sat on the coffee table. A cigarette perched in the ashtray. It had burned down to the filter, obviously forgotten by whoever had lit it. Alma was lucky she hadn’t torched the place.
The air in the apartment was stale and flavored with the musk of tobacco. Mel wrinkled her nose. It was then that she noticed the silence. It was too quiet in there, and the hair on the back of her neck prickled in alarm. Oh no, not again!
Mel hurried to the kitchen beyond. No one was there. A short hallway led to a bathroom (empty) and a bedroom. Mel shoved the bedroom door open. She didn’t care if she found Alma in bed with someone; in fact, she’d be delighted to find her so, given the panic that had just taken over her mind. But Alma wasn’t in the bed, and neither was anyone else.
Alma was lying facedown on the floor, and she didn’t appear to be breathing.