Dead Velvet Cake

by James, Emily

  If we couldn’t ask the medical examiner to test for something specific, we needed to at least know if there were other options that could have preserved the body and thrown off the time of death. We also needed to know whether it would change the window by weeks, days, or only a few hours. A few hours wouldn’t matter, but a few days definitely would.

  It’d also explain why I hadn’t seen or heard anything while I was parked beside the beach making cupcakes for the sandcastle competition. And why there hadn’t been any footprints or drag marks. Anthony would have been killed and buried long before I showed up. Long before the people in charge of the competition had smoothed the sand.

  I knew of someone who might be able to help us, but contacting her directly could put her at risk. Jarrod would use her to get to me if he even suspected she knew where I was or how to contact me. Knowing her condition, I wanted to do that even less now than I had before.

  “I know someone who might be able to help.” I held out a hand. “May I borrow your phone?”

  Dan pulled it from his pocket. It was a little moist but not soaked. “Is your phone dead?”

  I shook my head. “It’s safer this way.”

  Confusion flashed over his face, but it vanished in the time it took for him to extend the phone to me. He’d rushed to find me because he thought Jarrod might have already found me. He was the one person who might understand why I went to such lengths to protect people who knew I wasn’t actually Isabel Addington.

  I dialed the number.

  “Nicole Cavanaugh…err…Fitzhenry-Dawes…It’s Nicole.”

  The voice on the other end of the line held a touch of self-frustration. I smiled despite my reason for calling. The way she answered was very Nicole-like. Her married name was Cavanaugh, but she still practiced law under her maiden name. “It’s me.”

  “Isabel? Are you okay?”

  The fact that she felt the need to ask that but didn’t ask where I was spoke volumes. “I’m okay. I’m helping a friend, but I need to ask Mark a question.”

  “He’s right here. Let me put him on speaker.”

  She didn’t even hesitate. Tears pressed at the back of my eyes. Nicole had been my first friend when I hadn’t even realized how much I needed one. I missed her.

  There was a bit of a rustling noise.

  “You have us both now,” Mark Cavanaugh’s voice said. It sounded like he was speaking from a distance, but I could still hear him clearly.

  I tapped the speaker phone icon on Dan’s phone as well, so he could listen in. “I’m here with Detective Dan Holmes of the Lakeshore police. We’re wondering if there’s a poison that could make a dead body look fresher than it actually is.”

  “Arsenic’s the most common one,” Mark said, “but if you’re asking, that must not have shown up in the tox screen. There’s also antimony.”

  I typed it into the search bar on my phone. The websites that came up showed what looked like a gray rock. I wasn’t sure what form that rock had to be turned into to poison someone, but the site I’d pulled up first said that factory workers made up the majority of accidental antimony poisoning cases.

  “It’s colorless, odorless, and tasteless, so it’s easy for someone who comes in contact with it to experience even accidental poisoning,” Mark was saying, almost like he’d been standing beside me and saw what I was reading. “But your ME should have been able to tell you that, Detective.”

  Dan shifted beside me. “It’s not exactly my case.”

  I thought I heard a sound in the background like Nicole had snort-laughed.

  “Okay.” Mark drew the word out as if he wasn’t sure what Nicole had gotten him into this time, but he’d learned to go with it. “Well, if your victim was poisoned with antimony, you won’t be able to get a clear TOD from the body. You’ll need to use contextual clues instead. The body could be weeks old but look days old.”

  If that were the case with Anthony Rigman, it opened up the suspect pool again.

  Dan leaned close. “The last day anyone saw Rigman alive was the day after the argument you broke up between him and Eve,” he whispered. “He was supposed to leave for a conference the next morning. He didn’t show up. Strobel discounted that because the body seemed to be fresh, and Rigman had a history of canceling plans at the last minute. But if he has antimony in his system, that means he could have been killed any time after he left work the day of the argument.”

  Our suspect pool would be wide open again. I still didn’t think Harper did it. Her angry message sounded like she had no idea he was dead, and that would have likely been after he’d been killed.

  The caterer, Kaylani Mitchell, though, might have.

  Muffled voices carried through Mark and Nicole’s end of the line. It sounded like Nicole had said something close to Is there any way we can help?

  “You said you’re in Lakeshore?” Mark asked.

  Dan took the phone from me to hold it closer to his mouth. “That’s right.”

  “I know your ME. He and I have consulted together a few times on difficult cases. I’ll give him a call and suggest he run an extra test for antimony. I’ll also ask him to tell the detective in charge that he had a hunch. That way the investigation won’t be looking in the wrong places and also won’t be held up by someone’s toes being stepped on.”

  The tone of Mark’s voice said he didn’t have a lot of patience for grandstanding and being worried about who’d get the credit when it came to solving a crime. No wonder he and Nicole made such a great team.

  “Thank you,” Dan and I said at the same time.

  We might not be a couple like Mark and Nicole were, but we seemed to make a pretty good team.

  14

  We’d just finished Sunday night dinner, and I was helping Dan wash and dry the dishes while Claire got Janie ready for bed.

  Dan’s cell phone pinged with a text, and he dried his hands on a dish cloth. He glanced at the screen. “It’s from Mark Cavanaugh. He says he didn’t know if we’d have a way to find out, and he wanted us to know that our hunch was right. Anthony Rigman died of antimony poisoning.”

  Relief rushed through me. That made all the difference. Or it could make all the difference. The suspects who’d had concrete alibis were now possibilities again. Eve and I weren’t the only ones.

  “Mark also wanted us to know that antimony poisoning doesn’t mean Rigman couldn’t have died when the medical examiner originally thought. It just means the window of death is larger.”

  Much larger. A whole week larger. Anthony Rigman could have been killed at any point during the week between the argument I’d broken up and the sandcastle competition. Detective Strobel would probably still think Eve and I were the most likely suspects unfortunately. Just because he could have been killed at some other time didn’t mean he was.

  But I was confident now that he had been. I barely sleep most nights listening for footsteps outside my truck. There’s no way I could have been so tired or distracted that I wouldn’t have heard someone burying a body right in front of me. “It seems like the day after he argued on the street with Eve makes the most sense. Otherwise, someone would have seen him or heard from him during that time. He’d have gone to work.”

  “He didn’t have many messages on his answering machine.”

  “True. But we don’t know if that’s because most people called his cell phone rather than his house phone or if it’s because he was playing them.”

  Dan moved next to me and leaned against the counter, so we were both facing out in the same direction. “Would I be right in guessing you’re planning to continue investigating now that a lot of the people of interest are back on the table?”

  I nodded, turned back to the sink, washed the final plate, and handed it to him.

  Dan accepted the plate from me. “If I know Strobel, he’ll be re-interviewing everyone who knew Rigman to see if he can figure out the last time someone spoke to him. Now that he has a bigger gap for a possible time of death, he
’ll want to narrow it down.”

  I stripped off the yellow rubber gloves. I couldn’t even take myself seriously while wearing them. “I’d like to start with the caterer.”

  He shifted beside me, and I looked up to meet his gaze. Standing side by side this way, we were close enough that I could smell the peppermint he’d popped into his mouth after dinner. He was looking down at me.

  My brain felt like it suddenly ground to a halt, and it took me a minute to realize I hadn’t asked if he was still onboard. “Assuming you’re still willing to help me. We do work well together, and you said you wanted to keep me out of trouble.”

  Claire’s footsteps approached from behind. I stepped back. My cheeks suddenly felt hot. Which was ridiculous. We hadn’t been doing anything other than talking.

  Claire’s eyes narrowed slightly and the look she gave said am I interrupting something?

  “We’re into the case too deep to stop now.” Dan’s voice was scratchier than usual. “The caterer it is.”

  Claire planted her hands on her hips. “How do you expect to do that? Neither of you are officially investigating this case, and you told me Detective Strobel already wanted to have a reprimand placed in your file.”

  I flinched. Dan had downplayed it for me when he’d told me how Detective Strobel reacted. I’d gotten him in trouble at work.

  My shoulders hunched forward. I wanted to collapse in on myself and slink from the room, but Claire stood between me and the door. The expression on her face said her question hadn’t been hypothetical.

  I frowned. She wasn’t trying to stop us then? She was just trying to make sure we had a plan that wouldn’t end up with one of us in trouble?

  Dan took my hand, linking his fingers with mine, and held it up. “Don’t you recognize my fiancé? We need to interview caterers for our wedding. No one can have a problem with that.”

  My brain stopped working altogether. His hand was warm and firm, but it felt different with our fingers intertwined than it had that first time he’d shaken my hand. It was such an intimate gesture, palm to palm.

  The rational side of me knew this was a great front for a caterer, and that Dan had plenty of experience with undercover roles. Another side of me couldn’t help remembering the time we’d both been investigating his grandfather’s murder, and there was an onion ring misunderstanding. Dan made a joke about getting engaged before we’d even had a first date.

  It’d saddened me then, but it hadn’t turned me into a mind-numbed jellyfish.

  “Are you and Isabel getting married?” Janie’s tiny voice said from the doorway.

  I yanked my hand from Dan’s as if he’d given me a shock. Janie stood just inside the kitchen in her Disney princess pajamas, a stuffed bunny clutched in her arms.

  “Isabel and I were just playing make-believe.” Dan scooped her off the ground and carried her out of the room. “You must be ready for your story?”

  “It’d be okay if it were for real.” Janie’s voice was barely audible and getting softer. “Then Isabel could live here all the time.”

  My eyes felt like they were full of grit. I blinked hard. There was no way to explain to a five-year-old that her wish could never be. All the things I’d have to explain to her like abuse and divorce to make her understand were things she shouldn’t know about for years yet.

  Besides, Dan was my friend. I wasn’t even trying for anything more. I wasn’t ready for anything more even if I’d been free to date someone.

  And a man like Dan could have pretty much any woman he wanted. He wouldn’t want a mess like me. Even someone with a good heart had to have his limits for how much baggage he could overlook. I’d be an idiot to even let myself daydream. My heart had enough stab wounds in it. I didn’t need to self-inflict any more.

  I looked away from the door, and my gaze snagged on Claire’s. She’d been watching me.

  “She’s lost a lot already,” Claire said. “Janie I mean.”

  As if I could have thought she meant anyone else.

  She didn’t need to warn me away from Dan. I knew better than she did that nothing would ever happen there.

  So all I could do in response was nod.

  15

  I pulled the seatbelt of Dan’s car slightly away from my chest. It’d started to feel like it was crushing the air out of my lungs. “I’m not sure this is a good idea after all.”

  The closer we got to the catering company, the harder it was for me to get what Claire and Dan had both said about Detective Strobel out of my head. I had to continue investigating, for my sake and for Eve’s. Dan didn’t. He didn’t need to put his career at stake. He had a little girl to support. And if he got fired, would he even be able to get another job in his field? Not to mention a job in another city would mean leaving his family behind. Leaving Claire behind. She’d never forgive me.

  I gulped in a large breath and nearly choked on it. “You could drop me off, and I could tell the caterer that my fiancé couldn’t make it. I’m sure that happens a lot. Some men aren’t even interested in wedding details, only the honeymoon.”

  Shoot. That sounded bad. Now he’d think I was saying that all men only cared about sex.

  “Do I need to get you a bag? You look like you’re about to hyperventilate.” Dan’s voice had taken on that tone I’d come to recognize as his first responder voice. It was the voice that said I got this and everything’s going to be okay. “If you’re worried I’ll blow your cover, I’m the one with the experience, remember?”

  He gave me that smile that made me feel like he really could make anything happen. I was willing to risk a lot more than I had been half a year ago in order to see justice done, but his and Janie and Claire’s welfare weren’t one of those things.

  His smile faded. He pulled the car over in front of Casa Bella Catering. “Okay, what’s on your mind? If we go in like this, the caterer will think we’re fighting.”

  That dragged a little smile from me. If we’d actually been fighting, it was more likely no one would have been able to tell when they saw me. In that kind of situation, I was great at hiding the truth. Case in point was that Dan hadn’t figured out I was living in my truck.

  “I don’t want to risk you getting fired for helping me.” Claire’s words last night zinged back into my mind in a different context. “Janie’s lost too much already.”

  “Good.” He didn’t wink, but I heard one in this voice. “I’d hate to think you didn’t want to even try imagining what it’d be like to be engaged to me.” His expression sobered. “When I worked undercover, I saw too many situations that looked like they should be safe turn bad. Having something happen to you when I could have prevented it would be worse for Janie than anything that could happen with my job.” His smile peeked out again. “Besides, Strobel’s on shaky ground if he does complain. I’m not impeding his investigation in any way, and I’m not neglecting my own cases. I’m doing all of this on personal time, and if anything, I’ve helped him.”

  I’d lived with a law enforcement officer before. I knew that investigating cases on personal time wasn’t exactly kosher. As long as Dan didn’t use his influence as a police officer though, it wasn’t exactly forbidden either. He couldn’t be dismissed for talking to people any more than I could be charged with a crime for talking to people—as long as nothing we did hurt the official case.

  He unbuckled his seatbelt, went around the car, and opened my door for me. “Come on, darling. We don’t want to be late for our appointment.”

  I took the hand he offered and tried to ignore the way the warmth of it seemed to tingle up my arm. “Darling?”

  “Too black-and-white movie?”

  I nodded.

  “Honey?”

  It sounded so natural coming out of his mouth that, hearing it, I could almost forget we weren’t really a couple, nor were we ever likely to be one. “Honey works.”

  He linked his fingers with mine the way he had the night before. His hands were bigger than mine, bu
t not so big that the hold would be uncomfortable, even over time. Instead, it felt secure.

  That feeling was almost worse than if it’d felt threatening. At least if it’d felt threatening, I wouldn’t have wanted to leave my hand in his.

  He gave my hand two quick squeezes as if to say we can do this and pushed open the door.

  The young woman behind the counter was in her twenties and leaned toward plump. Her hair was pulled up into an updo, revealing a single purple stripe, and tattoos covered all the bare skin on her arms.

  She grinned at us and came out from behind the counter. “You must be Dan and Isabel. I’m Tina, and I’ll be walking you through our catering options.”

  She shook Dan’s hand first, then mine. She held onto my hand a moment extra. “You look really familiar. Have we met before?”

  I had the sense that this wasn’t the first time I’d seen her either. Likely we’d both been at an event at some point. If I didn’t confess to that, and she figured it out, she might think we were lying about why we were here. Which, of course, we were, but she’d likely assume it was because we were trying to do a little bakery espionage rather than that we were investigating a murder.

  “I run How Sweet It Is, a cupcake truck.” I put the smile on my face that I used to give to Jarrod whenever he gave me an expensive present that showed how little he actually knew me. It’d fooled him every time. “One thing I know from what I do for work is that you never want to cater your own event.”

  She pursed her lips in a way that said ain’t that the truth. “Kaylani catered my wedding last summer, and it was bad enough having my boss and co-workers serving. I kept feeling like I should pitch in.” She motioned to one of the tables in the corner of the shop. “Why don’t you two take a seat over there, and I’ll be right back with a list of what we can do and our wedding packages.”

  That sounded like she was going to be the one sitting down with us. She hadn’t said take a seat while I get Kaylani.