Sprinkle with Murder (2 page)

Two

Christie was late. Forty-five minutes late, to be exact. Mel glanced at her watch for the third time in five minutes. She supposed she could call Tate to find out where his fiancée was, but she hesitated. Somehow, it felt like tattling if she called to complain that Christie had blown her off. Then again, she could pretend to be concerned for Christie’s welfare, but sadly, Mel didn’t think she was a good enough actress to pull it off.
She would give her five more minutes and then she was closing the shop. If Tate asked her what happened, she would have to say Christie never showed up. Surely, he couldn’t get mad at her for that.
Angie had left early. She said she had a dentist’s appointment, but Mel suspected it was an excuse, a lame one, to get out of this meeting. Although she wouldn’t put it past Angie to book a root canal just to duck having to deal with Christie. From what they’d already seen, Christie could be a tad high maintenance, and Mel would be a big fat liar if she said she wasn’t dreading working with her.
The bells on the door jangled just as Mel was beginning to think she’d been given a stay of execution. No such luck.
Christie strolled in, wearing a cinched, thigh-length leopard tee over white leggings and silver ballet flats. The outfit screamed “Look at me!” She shoved her oversized sunglasses onto her head, pushing her blonde extensions back off her face.
“Oh, this is so cute!” she squealed as she glanced around the shop. A tiny, furry head poked out of her oversized bag, and Mel found herself staring at a dainty Yorkshire terrier with a large purple bow on its head.
“This is Puddles,” Christie said, and she put the dog on the floor.
“Puddles?” Mel asked.
“Isn’t she adorable?” Christie squealed again. “I was going to name her Princess, but she piddles when she’s overexcited.”
“How’s she feeling now?” Mel asked.
“I don’t know.” Christie blinked at her, and then she giggled with a hand over her mouth. “Oh, you’re being funny. Tatums said you were funny.”
Tatums? Mel felt her gag reflex kick in.
“So, what do you have to show me?” Christie asked.
Mel led the way to a small, round café table in the corner. On it, she had put an album of all of the weddings she had done since she finished studying at the Scottsdale Culinary Institute several years ago. Primarily, she had done cupcake tiers, but there were a few cakes as well.
“This should give you some ideas. Of course, we’ll tailor it to the style, colors, and flavors of your choosing.”
“No,” Christie said as she examined the first page. She continued to flip through the book, saying, “No. No. No.”
It seemed every page was a no. Mel could feel the back of her neck getting hot. She forced herself to breathe in through her nose, hold it, and let it out through her mouth. She did this several times. It didn’t help.
Christie slammed the book shut with a final “No.”
“Maybe you could tell me what you have in mind,” Mel suggested. She was pleased that her teeth weren’t gritted so tight that she could actually get the words out.
“I’m so glad you asked.” Christie dug into her voluminous purse and pulled out a thick wad of paper. “Here’s what I was thinking.”
She took a deep breath.
“I want laser-cut cupcake liners in my wedding colors.
I’m thinking our monogram should be worked into a delicate filigree, don’t you agree?”
Mel nodded.
“We’re inviting five hundred guests, so I need to have at least five different flavors of cupcakes.”
Mel nodded again. So far this was doable.
“Of course we’ll have a smaller wedding cake to sit on top of the cupcake tier for Tatums and I to cut together.”
“Of course,” Mel agreed. So far this was pretty standard. Mel felt a flicker of hope. “What are your wedding colors?”
“Red, white, and black,” Christie said. “
Trčs élégant
.”
Mel nodded. Again, doable.
“So, what do you think?” Christie asked.
“It sounds fabulous,” Mel said. “The popular flavors of wedding cupcakes are generally red velvet, chocolate, vanilla-almond, champagne, cookies and cream . . .”
“No.” Christie wrinkled her tiny, upturned nose. “I can’t have any flavors that have ever been used before.”
“Excuse me?” Mel was quite positive she must have heard her wrong.
“I am Christie Stevens. I have a reputation as a cutting-edge designer in fashion. I can’t have just any old cupcakes. I need originality. I need to be unique.”
“So you want me to create five flavors of cupcakes that have never been created before?” Mel asked.
Christie clapped her hands together. “Oh, yay, you understand.”
Mel was speechless. She glanced at the dog that was now sniffing at the display case and looking suspiciously like she was about to squat.
“And I just need you to sign this agreement,” Christie said.
“Agreement?”
“Well, yes, it’s just a tiny little legal formality.” She unfolded the ten-page document in her hand and placed it on the table. “It simply states that the cupcakes you design for the wedding are owned by Tate and me, and can’t be replicated in your shop or for any other persons—just us.”
“You’re joking?”
Christie pressed her lips together and glanced off to the side as if considering the question, then she looked back at Mel with hard blue eyes. “No.”
“But that means you would own what I create.”
“Well, Tatums did say we were paying you, although I can’t imagine why, since he’s your boss,” Christie said. “And since we’re paying you, I think we should own what we pay for, don’t you?”
“Tate is not my boss,” Mel said. “He’s my partner.”
“Without whom this cute little shop wouldn’t exist,” Christie sneered. She rose from her chair, and Mel got the distinct impression that she was being dismissed.
“Let me know when you have some samples for me to taste. Will Friday do?”
It was Wednesday. Mel felt her temples contract. This had to be a bad dream; surely she would wake up at any moment.
“Puddles!” Christie said, and stomped her foot. “You naughty little girl.”
Mel glanced over and saw a rather large puddle for such a small dog seep across the black-and-white floor.
Christie’s phone rang, and she fished it out of her bag while plopping Puddles back into the bag.
“Hello,” she answered. “What do you mean the shipment is delayed? Well, I have a meeting with a buyer tomorrow. I need that shipment, Phoebe. Well, what are you going to do to make it right?”
Christie walked towards the door as she talked. She turned and gave Mel a dismissive wave as she stepped through the door and back onto the street. Unbelievable!
Mel glanced from the puddle to the door and back again. She’d just left. Her dog peed on the floor, and she just left. Mel wasn’t positive, but she was pretty sure she felt an aneurysm coming on.
She grabbed a wad of paper towels and a bottle of Lysol, and cleaned up the mess. Then she called Angie.
“How was the dentist?” she asked.
“Uh . . . painful,” Angie said. “My hygienist really enjoys her work, especially the gum scraping. How was your meeting?”
“We’re going to have to kidnap Tate. I’m thinking if we drag him to Peru and leave him with no ID or money, it’ll take him so long to work his way back that he’ll miss his own wedding.”
There was a beat of silence on the phone.
“So, it went well?” Angie asked.
Mel told her about the contract and the puddle. It took five minutes of spluttering before Angie calmed down.
“You need to take that contract to my brother Joe and have him look at it,” she said. “He’ll be able to tell you if it’s legal or not.”
“Looks pretty legit to me,” Mel said as she flipped through the long sheets of fine print.
“Oh please, you think a pinky swear is a binding contract.”
“It isn’t?”
“Hey, as long as you don’t say ‘no crosses count’ and then cross your fingers behind your back while making the pinky swear, you’ve got a loophole.”
“I never say ‘no crosses count.’ ”
“I know.” Angie sighed.
“You’re sneaky,” Mel said.
“It’s a part of my charm,” Angie agreed. “I’m going to call Joe and see if he can drop by the shop.”
“Do you really think that’s necessary?”
“Oh yeah,” Angie said. “I’ll call you later.”
Mel hung up. Joe DeLaura was going to stop by her shop. She felt the same fluttery feeling she always got when Joe’s name was mentioned. She’d had this reaction to him ever since she’d seen him twirling his keys when they were kids. She thought she’d outgrown it, but judging by the skittery feeling she had at the thought of seeing him again, she hadn’t.

Three

“ Rise and shine ,” a lovely, lilting voice sang out from the kitchenette. “It’s time to make the donuts, or in your case, the cupcakes.”
Mel glanced at the blue digital clock on her nightstand. It read six thirty. A glance at the window shades, and she knew it was still dark out.
“Mom,” she mumbled, but it was muffled by the pillow she pulled over her head. She tried again, “Mom!”
“Yes, dear?” Her mother appeared by her bed, bearing a cup of coffee. She put it on the nightstand and hunkered down beside the bed to be eye level with Mel.
“Why are you here?” Mel asked. She didn’t mean to sound ungrateful—truly, coffee delivered bedside was like a small miracle—but when it came via her mother, Joyce Cooper, questions needed answers.
“We’re taking your about-to-expire cupcakes to Waste Not Want Not,” her mother reminded her. Joyce was big on not wasting food. Mel still remembered all of the starving children in China who would have killed for her broccoli. Unfortunately, her mother had never let her mail them any.
Now every Thursday was cupcake roundup. Joyce collected all of the cupcakes that were too old to sell in the shop and took them to her feed-the-hungry group.
“But even if it wasn’t cupcake collection day, can’t a mom just pop in on her daughter?” she asked.
Mel pushed the pillow aside. She took a bracing sip of steaming coffee.
“What if I’d had company?” she asked.
Her mother laughed. It didn’t help that it was a full-on belly laugh. Surely, the idea of her having a date hadn’t slid into the realm of the improbable and ridiculous.
“You’re so funny,” her mother said. Okay, apparently, it had.
Joyce Cooper flitted around Mel’s kitchenette as efficiently as if it were her own. It could be, considering how much time she spent here, Mel thought sourly. But then she felt guilty. Joyce had been widowed ten years before, and Mel’s only sibling, her brother Charlie, lived in Flagstaff with his wife and kids, and although they came to Scottsdale quite often, it wasn’t enough to keep Joyce from smothering Mel.
Melanie couldn’t help but wonder how her life would have played out if her father hadn’t had a massive coronary and shuffled off to the great steak house in the sky. Charlie Cooper had loved his meat red, his beer stein full, and his cigar pungent, or smelly, depending upon whom you asked. He had always been the first guest at the party and the last one to leave. There was not a day in Mel’s life that he hadn’t made her laugh, and she couldn’t help but wonder if this was why her mother had never dated again. No one had the same spark as Charlie Cooper.
It was this respect for her mother’s grief, her understanding of it, that kept Mel from demanding her key back, even on the day she discovered that her mother had painted her bathroom mango orange. Joyce had promised it would make her look younger when she looked in the mirror. Instead, she felt as if she were an orange headed for the juicer. Still, she hadn’t had the heart to repaint.
“So, I heard from Shelby Grady, at the grocery store, that Tate and Christie have asked you to make their wedding cupcakes,” Joyce said.
“That’s correct.” Mel pulled herself up to a half slouch.
“Honey, do you really think that’s wise?” her mother asked.
Mel glanced up and saw her own blue-green eyes staring back at her from her mother’s face. There were more layers of wrinkles around them, but still, they were the same eyes she looked at in the mirror every morning. This was why she had never been able to lie to her mother. It would be like lying to herself, and what did that ever get anyone?
“Actually, from a business standpoint, it’s very wise,” she said. “They’re inviting five hundred people to that shindig.”
“But your poor heart,” her mother said, putting a hand over her own chest. “How can you bear to see the man you love marry another?”
Mel flopped back down onto the bed. “Mom, we’ve been over this and over this. I am not now, nor have I ever been, in love with Tate. He’s my friend. That’s it.”
“De Nile isn’t just a river in Egypt, you know,” Joyce retorted.
Mel groaned. Her mother had believed that she and Tate were meant to be together since the first day Mel dragged him home. Never mind that neither he nor Mel felt this way, Joyce had clung to the vision of her daughter as Mrs. Tate Harper since she was eleven, and she was not giving it up until they were both married to someone else, and even then she might not give it up. Joyce Cooper had staying power.
“Speaking of Tate,” Joyce said, “we’d better get moving.
He’s meeting us downstairs in half an hour.”
Mel sat up. “Why?”
Joyce blinked innocently. “I asked him for help, that’s why.”
“Help with what?”
“Carrying the cupcakes”
“There are maybe five dozen cupcakes,” Mel said.
“Surely, you and I can manage.”
“I have a twinge in my back,” Joyce said. “I didn’t want to risk any heavy lifting.”
Mel stared at her hard.
“Mom, is this another ploy of yours to push Tate and me together?”
“Now why would you ask a thing like that?”
“Because two weeks ago, you locked us in the walk-in cooler in the bakery, and we almost froze to death because you thought a near-death experience might bring us to our senses about our feelings for each other. Or does that little episode not ring a bell?”
“I should have left you in for five more minutes.”
“Mom!” Mel was dismayed to hear her voice come out in a five-syllable whine. But truly, enough was enough. She rose from her bed and faced her mother. “You have to get a grip. Tate is marrying someone else.”
“Aha!” Joyce pointed at Mel’s face. “I saw that!”
“Saw what?” Mel looked behind her to see if there was a big spider or something.
“I saw your face when you said he was marrying someone else,” Joyce said. “It was not a good face.”
“Oh, that.” Mel sighed. “I’m trying to like his fiancée, I really am, but . . .”
“You can’t, because you love him yourself.”
“No, I can’t, because she’s a head case bridezilla, and I have no idea what he sees in her.”
“Same thing,” Joyce said. She opened the front page of the morning paper as if the discussion were closed.
“No, it isn’t,” Mel corrected her. “Now I’m going to take a shower, and while I’m in there, you’re going to call Tate and tell him he doesn’t have to come over and help with the cupcakes.”
Her mother did not look up from the paper.
“I know you can hear me. Call him, Mom.”
Her mother snapped the paper shut with a sigh and reached for the phone. “Fine,” she said.
Mel shuffled to the bathroom. Joyce was going to have to go stay with Charlie in Flagstaff during Tate’s wedding. Otherwise, Mel was afraid she might make a scene, especially during that “Does anyone have any objections?” part. Then again, it might be the only thing that saved Tate from making the biggest mistake of his life. She’d have to weigh public humiliation against saving her friend. Tough call. She’d have to think on it.