Teaberry Baking Contest

by R A Wallace

  “Which of her entries?” Megan asked.

  “It was also in the same cookie category,” Jerry said. “So they were judged one right after the other.”

  “But it doesn’t make sense. Why would Gladys want to make a judge sick? She wanted to win more than anyone. And why would someone who wants to kill Gladys tamper with Gladys’s entry? She wouldn’t be eating it, the judge would,” Megan said slowly, trying to work it out in her mind. “Which means we may have more than one puzzle.”

  “You think that the two incidents are unrelated?” Jerry asked.

  “Not totally unrelated, no. How was Gladys killed and where was she found?” Megan switched gears.

  “Blunt force trauma,” Jerry said. “In the kitchen.”

  “So you have a poisoning or something strong enough to make someone sick, which would typically be pre-meditated, and something else that sounds like a crime of passion or some sort of anger in the moment?” Megan asked. “Can I assume that you’re having Lauren and Gladys’s entries analyzed, and you’ll let me know which of the foods really make Charlotte sick?”

  Erica sighed and then she and Jerry stood. “We need to get back to work. We’ll be at the high school. If you happen to stop by, and just happen to speak with anyone there and learn something useful, make sure you tell me about.”

  Megan had another thought. “Wait. I’ll also need to know which foods Gladys had with her when she was killed. I know she had something of her own and something of Lauren’s. I need to know specifically which of their entries she had.”

  “All I can tell you right now is that one of them looked like Nutmeg Cookies to me,” Erica said. “I know the recipe is from your grandmother. You both have made them for me over the years.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Megan parked her car in the lot at the high school and made her way inside. There were several police cars outside and several police inside. Megan saw a lot of the contestants milling around in the hallway outside of the auditorium, waiting for their turn to be questioned. Most were in groups, as though they needed the assurance somehow of having people around them who were as confused as they about the turn of events.

  She recognized some of them but realized that the others were from elsewhere. Assuming that she should speak with the out-of-towners while she had the chance, Megan began moving around the hallway. One man in particular caught her eye. It was Niles something, she didn’t recall his last name. He was the winner who had been surprised. Megan walked up to him and introduced herself.

  “You must have been happy to learn that you’d won first place?” Megan asked with a friendly smile. The man in front of her was not much taller than she was. His blond hair was neatly combed, and he seemed to be around her age. He was slender and casually, but neatly dressed.

  “I was. I knew that the competition here would be top notch,” Niles said.

  “And your pie with the cinnamon won?” Megan asked.

  “Yes, but…” Niles hesitated, then lowered his voice a bit. “The thing is, I’m pretty sure I didn’t put cinnamon on it. I’ve thought about it before, but I wasn’t sure if the judges would like that blend of flavors.”

  Megan tucked that away as an interesting clue. “Is this your first competition?”

  “No, I’ve been in a couple of others. I like the idea that I can meet other bakers and maybe share some ideas or learn new things to help me grow my own talents.” Niles glanced over at the doors to the auditorium.

  Megan realized that she’d found him standing by himself. “Did you have a chance to speak with any of the other contestants?”

  “Oh, not really,” Niles said, a little distracted when the doors opened to let some people out and others in. Realizing it wasn’t his turn to go in, he returned his focus to Megan. “Well, there was the one woman. I mean, I didn’t really speak with her.”

  “Oh?” Megan nodded, prompting him to continue.

  “Yes, when I was standing in line. She bumped into me and apologized.”

  “Did you catch her name?” Megan asked.

  “No, but she was tall for a woman. Taller than me anyway.” Niles shrugged and gave a self-deprecating smile. “She was wearing a colorful apron.” Niles looked back at the auditorium door again when it opened. This time, someone waved him over. Niles nodded to Megan and headed in for his turn.

  Megan watched Niles walk away. She was around five foot five and guessed Niles to be about four inches taller than she was. That would mean the woman would have to be at least five foot ten or more, which was tall for a woman. She turned and saw another man standing alone. She figured that if it had worked for Niles, she could try it with this gentleman also. He looked to be a couple of decades older than Megan and he had a kind smile. She introduced herself and learned that his name was Angelo Chandler. He liked to bake for his family, he said, and they’d encouraged him to enter.

  “I won third place in my category. I know it doesn’t sound like much but it’s way more than this old guy expected,” Angelo said with a smile. “What category did you enter?”

  “Oh, I wasn’t in the competition. I was involved with the web site for it though, so you may have seen me taking pictures.”

  “Well, the people here have been so nice,” Angelo said.

  Megan thought back to Niles. “Oh? Did you have a chance to speak with some of the other contestants?”

  “Well, one woman stopped to talk to me when I was waiting to drop off my entries. She said they looked really good. That was nice of her to take the time.”

  “Really, is she here now?” Megan asked.

  “No, but she did say she was local. You might know her. She was thin, with glasses.”

  Megan had a thought. “Did you have any problems with any of your entries?”

  Angelo frowned. “What do you mean?”

  Megan wondered how she should phrase it. “Well, were there any surprises?”

  “My cake didn’t sell afterward. At the auction, you know? I was surprised. When I looked at it, I saw that it looked like someone had stuck a pencil in it sideways on one half of it, like multiple times. It was really odd, like tunnels on one side of the cake. Maybe something happened when they were moving it after the judging.”

  “But the tunnels weren’t on the side that was judged?” Megan asked.

  “No, lucky for me or I wouldn’t have gotten third place with it,” Angelo said with a smile.

  Megan congratulated him as he was called into the auditorium. She turned and considered if any of the pieces she’d just learned would fit into the puzzle yet. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she recognized both women that had been described to her. She’d need to speak with a lot more people. But first, she thought as she glanced at her phone, she wanted to go see Dan. She hadn’t had a chance to spend time with him over the weekend. She knew that he would be in his feed store, she’d texted him before she’d driven into town.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Dan Parker was checking on inventory when he got a call over his headset that someone had stopped by the feed store to see him. He made a last entry into the computer before logging off the terminal and then headed to the front of the store. The young man waiting at the front was looking around the store with interest. With his black hair and striking blue Anderson eyes, no one would ever doubt that he was Caitlyn’s younger brother.

  “Jax! What brings you in?” Dan asked as he greeted the younger man. With around seven years between them, the two men had not gone to school together and Jax had left the area soon after graduating high school. Dan had rarely seen him in the past decade but knew that Jax had been doing well in the corporate world in Seattle.

  “I was hoping to get a few minutes with you. I have a business proposition,” Jax said with a firm handshake and a smile.

  Megan had mentioned the landscaping business idea to Dan. Intrigued with whatever Jax may have come up with, he suggested that they take a walk behind the feed store where he had his live plants,
shrubs, and trees for sale. It was a fairly sizable area with several green houses. Jax stopped and investigated many of the plants as they walked.

  “So, what did you have in mind?” Dan asked.

  Jax cut to the chase. “Megan probably mentioned my business plans?”

  Dan stopped and shifted some stock around, filling in gaps where customers had recently taken items. “She did. Anderson Landscaping. Has a nice ring to it.”

  “I’m planning to get started right away. I was hoping that we could work out a deal where I get my stock from you following a cost savings formula based on quantity and marketing. Once my business has put in a new design or reimagined an old one, I’ll have temporary signs posted saying that the work was done by Anderson Landscaping and the plants came from the Teaberry Feed Store.

  Dan thought that sounded like a good idea. After asking a few more questions to make sure they were both on the same page, he agreed, then changed to a new subject. “Are you planning to stay with your mom?”

  Jax let out a burst of laughter. “No. I love my mother, but I’m sure she’d prefer her privacy. I’m hoping to find a house I can rent for now until I get my business going. Then I’ll have to decide if I’m going to build or buy.”

  “You should check with Jessilyn. She seems to know about some of the nicer vacancies. Megan helped someone move into a real nice rental recently that Jessilyn had found.”

  “Jessilyn Brewer? I went to school with her. She’s like the event coordinator for the town, right? I haven’t seen her in years.” Jax stopped walking and took one last look around. “Well, thanks for the tip. I’ll let you get back to work but I’ll contact you as soon as I get things started.”

  Jax walked around the outside of the building rather than going back through the store. He had parked his car in the lot out front and was nearing it when a car pulled into the slot next to him. When the owner got out, he did a double take. “Jessilyn? Jessilyn Brewer?”

  Jessilyn had just pulled in to speak with Dan about some promotional materials for the upcoming Fourth of July holiday. “Jax? Wow, I didn’t know you were in town visiting.”

  “Dan and I were just talking about you. I can’t believe my luck.”

  Jessilyn wondered why her name would have come up. “Really? Why’s that?”

  “You wouldn’t happen to know about any more rental properties available, would you? I’m actually not here for a visit. I’m planning to stay.”

  Jessilyn smiled. “Your mom must be so happy.”

  Jax was about to answer when a fast-moving truck caught his attention. It had been driving down the road but then pulled into the parking lot quickly. Seth Cramer pulled in behind Jessilyn’s car and got out. Jax smiled a greeting and was surprised to see that Seth didn’t smile in return. Instead, he walked over to Jessilyn, stood next to her, and nodded a greeting to Jax.

  “Seth, hi,” Jessilyn said.

  Jax looked between Seth and Jessilyn. Jessilyn was looking up at Seth with a slight pink blush on her cheeks. An unsmiling Seth was looking at Jax. Jax grinned back and nodded. He thought about tormenting Seth and decided against it. “I was just asking Jessilyn if she knew of any available rental properties. Dan Parker suggested it.” Jax watched Seth as he seemed to cool off about a half a degree.

  “I’ll have to check my notes,” Jessilyn said. “I know I looked at several when I was finding something for the mayor’s friend. I’ll let you know.”

  Seth looked down at Jessilyn. “Are you free for lunch after your meeting here?”

  Jessilyn’s face got a little redder. “Um, yes. Yes, I am. I’d better get going.”

  Jax waited until Jessilyn had walked away then he raised both hands, palms facing Seth. “I really was just asking her about rental properties.” He smiled to show there were no hard feelings.

  Seth nodded again. “Yeah, no problem.”

  “I was here to talk with Dan about an agreement for my new landscaping business. Got a few minutes? We could get a cold drink at the Jammin’T and talk about my ideas,” Jax said.

  Megan pulled into the parking lot of the feed store and waved to first Jax and then Seth as they pulled out of the lot. She parked her car and went into the building but was told that Dan was still speaking with Jessilyn. She asked if Trina Cantrell was working but was told that she was off today because of her school work. Megan decided to walk out back and check out the stock while waiting for Dan. She wondered if he’d be able to give her an address or phone number for Trina. He came out and met her a few minutes later.

  “Hey!” Megan said in greeting when she saw him. She leaned in for a kiss. “How is your day?”

  “Busy so far. How are you doing with your investigation? I can assume that you’re looking into the events of the baking contest and the murder, right?”

  Megan smiled ruefully. “It was Lauren’s idea, honest. Actually, I was hoping you could help me.”

  “Oh?”

  Megan explained what she had learned so far and the situation with Trina. Thirty minutes later, armed with contact information and plans to meet with Dan again, Megan set off.

  Chapter Twenty

  Trina Cantrell clicked the upload button to submit the weekly assignment for her summer class and sat back in the computer chair. Summer classes were compressed and there was more work due each week. But for some classes, Trina had found that worked to her advantage. For example, with the class she was taking right now.

  Digital Forensics wasn’t going to be her major, it was one of the elective classes that she could choose from. It was a junior level course and relied on knowledge gained from taking the pre-requisite classes in the semesters before it. The subject required using all of the combined knowledge to solve the problems they were assigned each week. And Trina had found that a summer format meant she had to stay focused on the subject. That was a good thing. Otherwise, she thought she’d forget some of the more technical things in between if she didn’t have to work on it so frequently.

  This week, the topic had dealt with recovering graphics, or pictures, that had been stored on a drive and then deleted. Trina had learned early on in her classes that most files weren’t actually gone forever when they were deleted. Rather, to use a simple example, there’s usually something like a table on each drive that keeps pointers to the files. When you delete a file, the pointer is deleted and it appears to most people that the file was now gone.

  In fact, it’s usually still on the drive and you can find it using some special software. The operating system doesn’t usually delete the file for real until it starts running out of space. Then sometimes it will overwrite the whole file or sometimes it overwrites just part of the file, and the file can be recovered by finding the overwritten part. There’s also the third scenario, where sometimes people delete the first part of the file, called a file header, on purpose making it appear as though it were damaged making it harder for others to find it. The file header tells the operating system what kind of a file it is, like a specific kind of graphic file.

  That was Trina’s homework today. She had to find the deleted files using one app and then either repair the header or recover the missing parts, so the picture was viewable again. She’d been pretty happy when she’d managed to complete the assignment correctly after following through the tutorial that showed how. Not because she ever planned to work in forensics. She didn’t want that kind of responsibility and she’d discovered that she really enjoyed programming apps way more. But she desperately wanted to see if she could recover some pictures that had accidentally been deleted from the memory chip in her camera.

  They were pictures of her daughter, Jasmine, being held by Trina’s grandmother shortly before she’d passed away. They were the only pictures she had of the two of them together and she wanted to see if she could recover them. Her homework was done. If Jasmine would sleep a little longer, she’d be able to try now.

  Walking quietly to her daughter’s room, Trina peeked in. She could see h
er two year old sleeping like an angel in her crib. Trina smiled. All of the hard work she did now was for Jasmine. As a single parent, she was lucky that her own mom was able to help with her daughter. Trina and Jasmine lived with her mom, and her mom was able to watch Jasmine while Trina worked part-time at the feed store. She also took a full load of online classes working toward a degree in information technology. And sometimes she took on extra work, like with the baking contest.

  Returning to her computer, Trina opened the same software that she’d used for her homework and put in the memory card from her camera. Mentally crossing her fingers, she walked through all of the same steps that she had just learned in her lesson, first using the software to find deleted files, and then the software to repair the images.

  When she finished, she saw the name of the file she wanted on the memory chip again. Clicking to open it, she was beyond thrilled when she discovered that most of the image was now viewable. Her grandmother and Jasmine were there, both of them smiling. She’d done it! She was still grinning when she heard the doorbell.

  Moving quickly to answer the door before Jasmine was awakened prematurely from her nap, Trina glanced through the security porthole first and then opened the door to Megan. She’d seen her at the baking contest recently, taking pictures for the town web site.

  “Megan, hi.” Trina stood holding the door open, unsure what had prompted the visit.

  “Hi, I hope you don’t mind, I have a few questions. You know, about some of the things involving the contest.” Megan could see that Trina was confused and smiled reassuringly. “It will only take a few minutes.”

  “Um.” Trina turned to listen for Jasmine but couldn’t hear any fussing. “Okay, sure. Come on in. Jasmine is still sleeping.”

  Megan took the seat that Trina indicated and began quickly, wanting to get her questions asked before the baby woke. “You were responsible for checking in the entries, right?” Megan asked.