Bake Sale for Murder

by Harper Lin

  “Okay.” Meg got up from the kitchen table.

  “Where is your brother?”

  “Still in his cave,” Meg said.

  “Well, do you know if he’s awake?”

  “I’m not going down there. All he does is yell at me if I do.” Meg rolled her eyes. “Why should I help him if he’s just going to be a jerk?”

  “Because he’s your brother.”

  “Ugh, don’t remind me.” Meg jogged upstairs to get her backpack and jacket.

  “I’ll be right back,” Amelia told Lila. “I don’t understand those two. They constantly need to know where the other one is, but when they are together under the same roof, they act like oil and water.”

  “Children. I still don’t understand why locking them in a closet is frowned upon.” Lila went back to her work at the table.

  Amelia nodded in agreement then went to the basement door. Adam had taken over the space downstairs and claimed it as his own even though there was a perfectly good bedroom upstairs. But since he was the oldest and a boy in a house that was otherwise occupied by women, Amelia thought there was no harm in allowing him the bigger space. Plus, he was a straight-A student. It was hard to deny him anything when the boy barely gave her any trouble.

  “Adam?” Amelia called gently. “Are you up? You’ve got fifteen minutes before the bus.”

  “I’m up,” he mumbled from his desk. He was dressed with his backpack already slung over his shoulder as he finished typing something in a hurry then closed his laptop. It was one of three different kinds of computers he had. His father had purchased some high-end hardware and software on Adam’s seventeenth birthday. What the boy actually did with it, Amelia wasn’t sure. But he loved it.

  “What are you working on?”

  “Nothing,” he mumbled again.

  “Are you hungry? I think we’ve got some fruit, of course cupcakes, yogurt, or toast with…”

  “I’m not hungry.” He leaned down to tie his shoes.

  “Okay.” Amelia looked around. “Are you feeling all right? I hope you aren’t coming down with what I’ve got.”

  “I’m fine, Mom,” he whined.

  “Adam, I’m probably saying this because I am not feeling well, but I don’t need an attitude first thing in the morning.” Her eyes began to water again. “Hurry up so you don’t miss the bus. And don’t give your sister any grief, either.”

  Adam didn’t say anything as he huffed past his mother and bounded up the basement steps, taking them two at a time.

  Normally, Amelia would tease Adam with a barrage of sarcastic one-liners about how much he loved his mama and how articulate he always was early in the morning. But that day, she just didn’t have it in her.

  As she went up the steps, she heard Lila say good morning to him. She got the same grumble Amelia did. Well, at least the boy was consistent. A few seconds after that, she heard the front door slam shut. When she emerged from the basement, she squinted at the bright light and looked at Lila.

  “He’s a boy, Amelia. They have their mood swings too.”

  “I know.” Amelia sat down at the kitchen table and had a good cough. “I just wish I could take whatever it was and either make it go away or give it to him. Whatever made him happy.”

  “Honey, he isn’t going to realize what you go through for him until he has children of his own.”

  “I know.” Amelia looked at all the stuff on the table. “What are you doing, exactly?”

  Meg bopped down the steps and went into the kitchen, where she kissed her mother on the top of her head.

  “I don’t want to catch your germs,” she said. “And you should probably take a shower.”

  “Do I stink?” Amelia asked, pretending to be surprised.

  “A little.” Meg waved to Lila, and before Amelia could say another word, the girl was out the door.

  “She’s so good,” Amelia gushed.

  “I sure hope it lasts,” Lila grumbled.

  “Me too. Oh, Lila. I have a problem. If I don’t talk to someone about this, I’m going to lose my mind.” Amelia felt the tears come to her eyes. Had she not been sick, she would have been cursing like the sailor Lila had been telling Meg about. But everything with John taking the kids oozed and gurgled and poured out of her in snotty, phlegmy gobs until she sat there exhausted, her chest heaving as she blew her nose in a hard, scratchy piece of paper towel.

  “John can talk tough all he wants,” Lila said. “But it is a well-known fact that if children are with their biological mothers after a divorce, it is next to impossible for the fathers to get custody. Even in worst-case scenarios with crack whores and schizophrenics. They’d rather keep a child with their mother. You’ve got that on your side.”

  “Yeah, but that’s when you aren’t dealing with a lawyer who golfs with the family-court judges. Why, Lila? Why is he doing this?”

  “Do you think that woman of his is behind it?”

  “What in the world does she want two teenagers hanging around the house for?” Amelia sniffled. “Doesn’t she have friends her own age?”

  “They are her age,” Lila said with such a straight face Amelia couldn’t help laughing. The laugh turned into a cough, and the cough turned into sniffles.

  “Look, Amelia. You just need to get better. You can’t tackle this kind of crisis when you have a cold. Don’t call John or answer his calls. Wait. Then, believe me. An answer will present itself.”

  “I hope you’re right.” Amelia let her eyes scan the table some more. “What is it again that you’re doing here?”

  “Remember I told you I had some ideas about streamlining that might help us save a couple of dollars?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, Meg was helping me ration out the measurements for your most popular cupcakes. I’ve got a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who can get us some of the same ingredients but for less money if we buy more. Now hear me out.” Lila put her hands on the table and explained changing vendors as if she were running for president of the United States. Although Amelia could only follow half of it, she liked what she was hearing.

  “The most important thing is: does the cheaper brand taste the same?” Lila said. “That is what Meg was helping me put together. You know she has half of your recipes memorized?”

  “I know. She is serious when she says she wants to take over the business some day. Maybe have two trucks. One for her and one for me.”

  “What about Adam? Is he looking toward the future with as much reckless abandon?”

  “If he is, he hasn’t said. You know he’s so good with the computers that it could be anything. He’s in all the advanced classes at school, and with the straight As, it’s hard to tell.”

  The ladies spoke for a little while longer before Amelia decided she was going to go back to bed.

  “Dinner is in the freezer. Baked ziti. I already told Meg what to do. I’m taking my soup pot back home, but I’ll bring you some more tomorrow.”

  “We are back on schedule tomorrow. No matter what,” Amelia said in between a yawn and a cough.

  Lila agreed and hugged her friend, promising to see her bright and early the next day.

  Aside from Adam’s attitude, after talking with Lila and knowing she didn’t have to worry about feeding the kids for one more night, Amelia was definitely feeling better. Taking a shower was the most ambitious thing she was going to do that day.

  As she stood underneath the hot water, the steam opening up her nasal passages, she just let her mind wander. She’d been wanting to try some new ingredients in a few cupcakes. A healthier version of a cupcake, including something with quinoa, crossed her mind. She had absolutely no idea what quinoa was, but it was popping up all over gourmet cooking sites and television shows. She might as well look into it.

  When she stepped out of the shower, she felt as if half the germs that had been on her were now circling down the drain. She dried off, put on fresh pajamas, downed a couple shots of medicine, and got back int
o bed. The next day would come whether she was ready to go to work or not.

  Chapter Three

  “Do you really expect to get a job looking like that?” Lila shouted as Amelia looked out of the order window of the Pink Cupcake truck.

  “What did you think when you rolled out of bed this morning and headed over here? Did you look in the mirror and say, ‘Yes, this looks good’? Because you and I obviously have a very different idea of what good looks like.” She was talking with the latest twenty-something inquiring about the assistant job. The truck was already hot, so Lila suggested they get to know their prospective employees outside the truck. That way, Lila could decide if they were worth introducing to the boss or not. From the sound of it, this person did not cut the mustard.

  “You see, we need our cupcakes to look good in addition to tasting amazing. So if jeans hanging down around your knees and unlaced Timberlands looks good to you, I’m afraid you failed the test.”

  “I didn’t really want this job, anyway,” the scruffy-looking young man said.

  “That’s obvious,” Lila replied as she stood up, then she grabbed her folding chair and propped it against the truck before climbing back on board.

  “Do you believe these people? I know we are just a food truck, but is it too much to ask that these people show up in nice jeans and a button-down shirt?”

  “Apparently, it is.” Amelia sighed.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m better. Meg’s idea of cooking the first batch at home early this morning was a good one. So we aren’t rushing around, especially if we have any other interviewees coming by to disappoint us. Do we have any others?”

  “Just a girl by the name of Beatrice Mooch.”

  “Wow. Is that her real name or a stage name?”

  “Real, I think.” Lila looked at the notes in her calendar book. “She’s supposed to be here in about half an hour. I thought we’d at least have some luck with the previous guy, but that was a crazy assumption on my end.”

  Wednesday, business was more than crazy. Amelia didn’t mind. She was hoping the rush would make up for the two days the truck sat cold. The clouds overhead kept threatening with lightning and cracks of thunder. But just as they appeared to be splitting open with a downpour, they sailed by without releasing a drop. But it kept lots of people running to Food Truck Alley.

  Amelia felt better when she was working. Had she stayed home one more day, she would have lost her mind. At least while she was working, the ovens kept her warm, moving her body helped open her sinuses, and she took her medicine every couple of hours, which kept the dripping and ooziness under control.

  “Have you heard anything from John?” Lila asked.

  “No. And that has me worried.” Amelia stroked the back of her neck, smoothing her hair down as she always did when she was anxious about something.

  “No news is good news, I always say.”

  “Excuse me.” A nasally voice came from below the order window. Amelia and Lila peered down to find a young woman in her twenties dressed in a black skirt with a white blouse buttoned all the way up to her neck.

  “Yes?” Amelia replied.

  “I’m looking for Lila Bergman. I have an interview scheduled. I’m slightly early, but I thought if there was any paperwork you needed filled out, I could get a jump on it.”

  She had thick, round glasses, and her hair was a simple bob. In a word, she was a frump.

  “I’m Lila. You must be Beatrice. I’ll be down in a minute.” Lila looked at Amelia with wide eyes. “This one looks serious.”

  “Go easy on her,” Amelia whispered. It wasn’t polite to eavesdrop, so Amelia busied herself at the back of the truck. Just as she pulled out the latest batch of butterscotch cupcakes, her phone rang. It was Meg.

  “Hi, honey. What’s up?”

  “Mom! The school is on lockdown! They won’t let us leave the classrooms! I tried calling Adam, but he’s not answering! There are police all over outside!”

  Suddenly, Amelia forgot where she was. She forgot about her cold, the cupcakes, the interviewee, everything.

  “I’ll be right there, Meg. Just stay calm.”

  “Mom, they’re telling us to get off our phones. They said we need to get ready to—”

  The phone went dead.

  Amelia switched to autopilot. Everything came into crystal-clear focus. She could hear the police-car sirens heading toward the school. It sounded as if every car in the city was on its way.

  She grabbed her purse and ran to Lila.

  “I need your car.”

  “Sure. My God, Amelia. What’s wrong?”

  “Meg called. The school is on lockdown.”

  Nothing else needed to be said. Every adult in the country knew what it meant when a school went on lockdown. It meant that there were people there who wanted to hurt the kids.

  Lila reached in her pocket and handed the keys over without saying another word.

  “Are you a religious woman, Miss Mooch?” Lila asked as she watched Amelia speed away.

  “I’m Lutheran,” Beatrice replied, wrinkling her nose while raising her chin.

  “That will do.” Lila took her hand and bowed her head to pray.

  Amelia didn’t see the traffic. If she’d had green lights the entire way or if she just drove straight through, causing a twenty-five-car pileup in her wake, she didn’t know. She didn’t care. When she’d gotten to the school, the police had closed the whole place with yellow tape and yellow barricades. No one could get close enough to the school to see any of the children.

  While on autopilot, she parked the car on the grass in front of the school and got out with her cell phone in her hand. She dialed John’s number.

  Washington West High School was not a big place. At most, they had a thousand students inside its walls at one time. The graduating class of that year was only one hundred seventy-nine students. There were a football field and track around the back. When you walked in the front doors, there was a trophy case that shone with trophies for basketball, football, wrestling, girls’ volleyball, the debate club, spelling bee championships, and even the chess club. Photos dating back to the school’s inception in 1961 lined the walls next to handmade posters for the upcoming sock hop, picture day in two weeks, cheerleading practice—“so don’t be late!”—drama-club tryouts for the upcoming production of Peter Pan, and the art club’s gallery showing of their work at The Edge Coffee House, located on Main Street.

  Red lockers lined the hallways. Black and white tiles covered the floor like a checkerboard. Each classroom was set apart from other classrooms by the posters on the walls and books on the shelves. Pictures of Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, and Charlotte Bronte were on the walls of the language arts classroom and Einstein, Tesla, and Thomas Edison the science room.

  A visitor walking down the hallway on any given school day would hear the symphony of teachers lecturing, children talking, laughter, arguments, and the occasional stray child running to a locker for a forgotten book or heading to the bathroom. The deans would walk the halls, making sure everyone was where they were supposed to be and no child was unaccounted for.

  But not today.

  Today, the children were herded into classrooms, where the doors were locked. They were told to sit still, be quiet, and wait. Wait until they were told something.

  Amelia was shaking as she put the phone up to her ear. Around her, more and more cars full of worried parents began to line up. All of the parents had phones to their ears as they looked for anyone who would tell them something.

  When John finally answered, Amelia didn’t even notice his rudeness.

  “Amelia, I told you that you’d be hearing from my lawyer.”

  “John.” She began to cry. “I’m at the school. Meg called. The whole place is on lockdown. The police have it roped off. None of the parents can get through. I don’t know what’s happened. Meg called, but then her phone went dead.”

  At first, Amelia didn�
��t hear anything.

  “John? Are you there?”

  “Stay calm, Amelia. It’s all right. I’ll be down there as quickly as I can.”

  Amelia just nodded and hung up. She walked around the perimeter of the yellow tape, pacing back and forth with the other parents, who were getting more and more nervous by the minute. They had all been called by their children and were as worried as Amelia was.

  Everything seemed to have frozen. People were moving and talking, but Amelia felt time had just stopped. She was stuck in this horrible in-between in which there was no news, no movement from the school, no one willing to give them any information. She wanted to scream.

  Then, like a lighthouse to a lost ship, Amelia saw a familiar face.

  Detective Dan Walishovski pulled up in his unmarked police car. His face was grave. He walked up to the uniformed officers who were behind the barricade. They spoke and pointed toward different areas of the school.

  Before Amelia had even realized it, she had run right up to the men and pushed her way between them.

  “Dan?” It was the only word she could get out. Her eyes were filled with tears, and her lips trembled. She wasn’t even sure she could stay on her feet, but when he looked at her, the hardness melted away.

  “Amelia. I didn’t have a chance to call you.” He slipped his arm around her shoulders and led her away from the blockade.

  “Is it a shooter, Dan?” She clutched his shirt in a tight fist.

  “I don’t know, honey.”

  “No. Please.” The words burst from her with a rush of tears.

  “I’ve got to go. I’ll let you know as soon as I know something.” Dan kissed her on top of the head.

  Amelia felt nothing. She wouldn’t be able to leave until she saw the kids. She had to see them, hold them, hear their voices. There was no telling how long this was going to take, but Amelia knew she wasn’t going anywhere.