The Diva Sweetens the Pie

by Krista Davis

  While we waited for Remy, I realized I was clenching my teeth. After all, my future depended to some degree on what Remy might say.

  We heard him enter and sit down. “Hi, boss. What’s up?”

  “We have a little problem. I was checking the time schedule about an hour ago and, right before my eyes, your status three days ago changed.”

  “Must be a glitch in the system,” Remy said. But I could hear his discomfort.

  “You want to tell me why you changed it?” asked Bernie.

  “Look, that cop called Wolf came in this afternoon asking if Willa worked that day. I told him she did, that I had seen her here. Then I pretended to look into the system and told him she had been clocked in.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  There was a long silence. “I just felt like I should have her back. A cop asking about somebody’s work schedule is always bad news.”

  Another long silence. I could imagine Bernie letting him squirm.

  “I’m going to be fired, aren’t I?” asked Remy. “Okay. I owed her. There was a guy in the bar who was a real jerk. He was being rude to the female patrons, so I tossed a drink in his face, took him outside, and punched him. There you have it. Willa knew about it, but she was a good egg and didn’t mention it to you. I’ll stop by in a couple of days for my last paycheck.”

  A chair scraped along the ground.

  “Remy, wait. Did you tell Willa that Wolf was here asking questions about her?”

  “Yeah. I called her as soon as he left.”

  “Where is she now?” asked Bernie.

  “What did she do?”

  “Do you know Alex German?”

  “Sure. The whole town is talking about what happened to him,” said Remy. “It’s been the number one topic at the bar.”

  “The cops want to talk to her about that.”

  Remy snorted. “No way, man. This is Willa we’re talking about.”

  “You gave her an alibi. Do you think you could get her to come over here now?”

  “Oh no, I’m not getting involved,” Remy protested.

  Wolf stood up and walked to the open door of Bernie’s office. Mars, Nina, and I snuck to the door of the meeting room to peek. Wolf did a pretty decent job of filling the doorway by standing with his feet apart as if ready to block Remy’s escape. “Too late, Remy. You got yourself involved when you lied to me.”

  “Aw, man.”

  For half an hour I was hopeful they would find Willa and bring her in for questioning. But she had stopped answering her phone.

  I knew I was still in deep trouble unless they could find her and get her to confess.

  There was nothing to do but go home. Bernie brought barbecued ribs, coleslaw, and baked potatoes from the restaurant. The poisoned pie had dampened our appetites for pies, but when we remembered the ice-cream pie, we were back in the game for pie.

  Fortunately, my home was still standing and not aflame. I fed Mochie and Daisy, who ate ravenously and then snoozed after their unexpected excursion to The Laughing Hound.

  Bernie, Mars, Nina, and I gathered around the kitchen table with our take-out dinner. No one, not even Nina, was interested in alcohol. We were exhausted and needed to keep our wits about us.

  “I’m so ashamed,” I said. “I’ve been so self-consumed today that I didn’t ask about Alex. How’s he doing?”

  “Better.” Mars picked up a rib. “His parents are here and they’re hoping he’ll respond to them. They say he’s healing really well.”

  “That’s great news! Let’s hope this nonsense is over by then so I can visit him again.” I sat back in my chair and thought about how lucky I was to have wonderful friends who stood by me, no matter what.

  “Where do you suppose Willa went?” Nina helped herself to more coleslaw.

  I gazed out the bay window. “Maybe she’s at Bernie and Mars’s rental house, hiding out with Peter.”

  “Peter checked out today.” Mars salted his potato. “He and Tommy Earl are on their way to New York City.”

  “Then it would be a perfect hiding place,” I said.

  Bernie and Mars exchanged a look.

  “Maybe we should go over there and check it out after we eat.” Mars took a bite of potato heaped with so much sour cream I was tempted to ask if there was any potato underneath it.

  “Maybe you should call Wolf and ask if he can have a beat cop check it out periodically,” I suggested.

  “Does anyone else feel like we’re the ones in hiding?” asked Nina, licking barbecue sauce off her finger. “Like we can’t go out in the dark because Willa could be lurking somewhere?”

  Bernie pulled out his phone and concentrated on it for a moment. “I’ve texted Wolf about the house.”

  I rose and started packing leftovers in containers. When I opened the refrigerator to stash them away, a chill ran through me. “Nina,” I said quietly, “did you eat some of yesterday’s leftovers?”

  “Are you counting?” she teased.

  “I’m being serious. This isn’t how I left the fridge.”

  Mars laughed. “You’ve lost your mind, Sophie.”

  “You don’t understand. There were so many pies in here that I had to wedge the leftovers in. They’re not how I left them.” I took out the leftover steak and peered inside the aluminum foil. “There’s definitely some steak missing.”

  “She’s here,” hissed Nina.

  Chapter 44

  Dear Sophie,

  What’s the one mistake you think beginning bakers make when baking pies?

  Beginning Baker in Thief River Falls, Minnesota

  Dear Beginning Baker,

  Not having everything ready before they start. Pie baking needs to move swiftly. No wasting time running around the kitchen in search of the rolling pin!

  Sophie

  “You’re being ridiculous, Sophie.” Mars peered in the refrigerator. “Your fridge always looks like that.”

  “Shh,” I cautioned.

  We all listened, but the only sound was Daisy’s gentle snoring.

  “I’m calling Wolf,” I said.

  “You’ll get him here faster with a text,” said Bernie.

  “How do you know that?” asked Nina. “I always call him when I need something.”

  “That’s why you get his attention faster with a text. Everyone thinks he’s their pal and calls him when they need something. He has time to glance at a text, but he can’t always answer a call.”

  Gritting my teeth a little, I reminded Bernie, “I don’t have a device that can text.”

  He flushed the color of the barbecue sauce. “I’m so sorry. I completely forgot about that.” He handed me his phone. “Help yourself.”

  I texted as fast as I could—Wolf, we think Willa could be inside Sophie’s house. “Okay. Let’s hope he takes Bernie seriously and comes right away.”

  “No one go to the bathroom. We’ll be fine if we stick together,” said Bernie, yanking open my knife drawer and pulling out a chef’s knife.

  “Gee, thanks. Now the bathroom is all I can think of,” Nina complained.

  “Should we turn off the lights?” I whispered.

  “No!” Nina shouted.

  “So we just hang out in the kitchen, waiting for Willa to show up like a deranged ax murderer?” I asked in a low voice.

  “I am not an ax murderer,” the voice came from the foyer.

  Willa emerged from the darkness. I should have been afraid. But when I saw Willa, I felt sorry for her. She was pale as a ghost and had dyed her hair blond, which made me wonder if she had planned to leave Old Town and go into hiding.

  “A knife, Bernie?” she asked. “You can put it down. It won’t do you much good against Sophie’s Taser. Besides, I thought we were friends.” She sniffed the air. “Ribs. I recognize the smell of the sauce.”

  Mars brushed by me, holding the ice-cream pie, and whispered, “Engage her.”

  I had no idea what he planned to do, but I was game. Maybe we
just needed to run out the clock until Wolf came to arrest her.

  “What happened, Willa?” I asked, inching toward the wine rack. “What brought you to this?”

  “Betrayal,” she spat. “Patsy Lee and I were so close, like you and Nina. Back then, Patsy Lee didn’t have the first clue what to do in a kitchen. It didn’t make sense to me that she would be the one who would become a star. But she was my friend in those days. I was happy for her when she married Peter and things started looking up for her. I couldn’t believe it when she fired me. I had made the mistake of believing she would always be there for me, like I was for her.” Willa snorted. “I had nowhere to go. It was like she had thrown me to the wolves. I came back to Old Town, where I had connections, to see if I could get a job. Grainger was in the process of getting his restaurant going. He hired me and even let me stay in an apartment over the restaurant until I got back on my feet.”

  “But you killed him,” said Nina.

  “You would have, too. I was so supportive of him. Who do you think picked the colors, and made up the logo, and had the menus printed? That restaurant was as much mine as it was his. I worked my tail off for him. We spent a lot of time together, and I thought I had finally found the right man. But when the restaurant was up and going, and he stole the idea of a TV show from Tommy Earl, Grainger dumped me and brought in Nellie, who was younger and way prettier than me.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  “It wouldn’t have been so bad if I had lost one thing. But I lost Grainger, I lost the apartment because he wanted me out, and I lost my job! Suddenly all our friends were asking me about his engagement to Nellie, and wasn’t it great that they were going to have a TV show? How would you have felt?”

  She wiped tears from under her eyes with the hand that wasn’t holding the Taser. “It was like Patsy Lee all over again,” she murmured. “I was good enough when they needed me, but when success was on their doorstep, I became yesterday’s garbage.”

  Trying to be subtle, I gazed around. Mars had managed to slip out of the kitchen. He must have gone through the small family room and through the sunroom. He should appear in the foyer anytime now.

  “So you cut rhubarb from Nellie’s ex-husband’s garden?” asked Nina.

  “Seemed like a good idea at the time. But the rhubarb leaves didn’t work as fast as I expected. I had to stab Grainger, too. I lived in fear that they would find the knife.”

  “It’s in the Potomac River?” Bernie guessed.

  “I was so sure that they would figure out that I had killed him. I was terrified, like I am now because there are four of you. I’m not sure how I’m going to do this.”

  “That was when you went to Alex?” I asked.

  She stepped toward me. “I needed someone on my side. He promised, Sophie. He promised he wasn’t allowed to say a word unless he thought I would kill someone else. I assured him there was just no way I would ever do that. For a long time I feared every knock on the door. And then they convicted Nellie. For a while I was fairly content. Patsy Lee dumped Peter, and when he came back to town, he looked me up. For years Peter and I had a relationship, but then Patsy Lee came back to town for the pie festival.”

  Willa’s eyes and expression changed right before me. The sad woman morphed into an angry one. “The night of her welcome dinner at The Laughing Hound, I seriously considered taking a knife and killing her on the terrace. But I had gotten away with murder once. All I had to do was be calm and figure out a way to kill Patsy Lee. Did you know that Patsy Lee spent that night with Peter?”

  Willa started breathing faster. Her nostrils flared like a bull’s. I tried to inch away from her again.

  “But I ran into a problem with fingerprints on the coffee cups. It was easy enough to pour the caffeine powder into my coffee and then swap her cup with mine, but after I did that, I realized my fingerprints were all over it. As a precaution I told people my cup was gone, so they’d think the killer swiped it. I hovered in her vicinity, hoping I could snatch the cup when everyone was watching Patsy Lee die, but Wolf and Wong were there immediately. I never got the chance.”

  I finally spotted Mars in the foyer. My old floors creaked, but he had managed to sneak around her. I needed to keep Willa focused on herself. “But why did you go after Alex? Didn’t you think you might need him again?”

  She leaned toward me, her eyes wide with fury. “He promised he wouldn’t say anything unless he thought I was going to kill someone else. He knew about Grainger. It wouldn’t be long before he suspected me of killing Patsy Lee. And then I saw you talking to him on Market Square and I had to get rid of him before he spilled the truth.”

  She was so agitated that I didn’t dare broach the fact that his files were electronically stored in a cloud backup system and she hadn’t gotten rid of them. “So you started the rumors about Alex and me having an argument?”

  At that moment a wooden floorboard creaked under Mars’s foot.

  Willa whirled toward him, hitting the button on the Taser exactly as Mars smashed the ice-cream pie in her face. I leaned over and opened a drawer to grab my French rolling pin. Using both hands, I whacked her over the head as hard as I could. She wobbled for a few seconds and then fell to the floor.

  The commotion woke Daisy, who jumped up and barked nonstop until she discovered the ice cream on Willa’s face and started licking it.

  Bernie opened the kitchen door for Wolf, who raced inside.

  I jumped over Willa and knelt next to Mars. “Are you okay?”

  “I wish I had never given you that Taser.”

  I figured he would be fine.

  * * *

  For the next couple of hours EMTs and cops swarmed through my kitchen. An ambulance whisked Willa to the emergency room. The EMTs checked out Mars, who had taken a nasty hit from the stun gun, but they thought he would be fine. Wolf took statements from everyone.

  Bernie proudly presented his iPhone to Wolf. He got the whole thing on tape.

  “So you can record with a phone!” I exclaimed. “You have to show me how.”

  At long last, everyone went home, and I went up to bed with Daisy and Mochie. I closed my eyes without worrying about landing in prison.

  * * *

  Bright and early the next morning Nina came over, her coffee mug in hand. We stood in front of my house with Daisy.

  “Did you tell Wolf about Lady Justice in your garage?” she asked.

  “Absolutely. I didn’t want them thinking I was hiding something. The cops took it with them last night.”

  Natasha crossed the street to us. “What happened over here last night? It was so noisy!”

  I didn’t have it in me to tell her the whole story at that moment. “They arrested Willa for murdering Patsy Lee and Grainger, and for attacking Alex.”

  “Thank goodness! That should finally end the rumor that you set fire to Alex’s office.”

  “Hopefully. Where have you been?” I inquired.

  “Roger is putting together a tour with cooking celebrities who will give classes and demonstrations, and he has asked me to join him!”

  Nina shot me a horrified look.

  “I’m pleased for you, Natasha. It sounds like something you would enjoy.”

  “Roger will live to regret that,” muttered Nina.

  A little boy approached us, his parents beaming behind him. “Are you Sophie Winston?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  He didn’t look happy about it, but he handed me an envelope. Gazing at me expectantly, he crossed his arms over his chest.

  My name and address had been scrawled on the envelope.

  Nina asked, “Aren’t you the kid who won the junior pie contest?”

  “Yeah. I found that envelope on the ground when everyone was being rushed out.”

  “Thank you very much,” I said.

  “No tip?” he asked.

  Nina said, “I liked the way you piped your meringue. Did you do that with an icing bag?”

&nb
sp; “Is that how we did it, Mom?” he asked.

  “Yes, sweetheart. Don’t you remember squeezing the bag?”

  I peered inside the envelope and found the check that Wolf insisted Patsy Lee had written out to me. It was for $100,000! I excused myself, dashed into the house, dug in my purse, and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill.

  I returned to the boy and handed it to him. “Thank you for bringing that envelope to me.”

  “That’s all? I shoulda just thrown it away.”

  “Now, sweetheart,” said his mom, “not everyone can be as generous as we are.”

  I balked, determined not to give the little devil another cent.

  “Did you really bake that pie all by yourself?” asked Nina.

  A rosy flush hit his mother’s cheeks. “How dare you!”

  “My mom baked it, but I got the trophy,” bragged the kid.

  Nina glared at his mother.

  “Excuse us. We have to go.” The mother ushered her child away as fast as she could.

  “I guess we know who will be banned from next year’s festival,” said Natasha. “The nerve of that woman.”

  When Nina and Natasha went home, I made a second mug of hot tea and sat down to read the letter from Patsy Lee.

  Dear Sophie,

  Since we just met for lunch, you’ll think it odd that I took the time to write this. But it’s an emotional subject for me, and I’m worried that I won’t make sense or that I’ll skip the important part and you won’t understand. If I can’t quite bring myself to explain it all to you, I’ll give you this instead.

  I was only seventeen and on my own when I gave birth to a baby girl. I had nowhere to go and was struggling to support myself, so it was clear to me that I couldn’t take care of a child. A nurse told me about a couple that couldn’t have children of their own and were looking to adopt. They were everything I would have liked in my own parents. A private adoption was arranged.

  I have thought of that child every single day of my life. Honey Armbruster is everything I ever would have wanted in a daughter. Who would have expected her to be a huge fan of mine? I wish I had the guts to tell her the truth. Maybe I can find the strength someday. In the interim, though, Honey has encountered some hard times of her own, and I would like to assist her anonymously. Please arrange for this money to be awarded to her as an up-and-coming baker.