Dairy-Free Death

by P. D. Workman

  “I was in the foster care system,” Erin told Willie. “I took the name of the family I was with sometimes, to try to blend in better.” She shrugged. “That never really worked the way I thought it would.”

  This seemed to satisfy Vic’s curiosity about the matter, and she didn’t explain her own name change to Willie. She hadn’t come out as transgender to the general populace of Bald Eagle Falls, and she didn’t jump in to take the opportunity to tell Willie and Officer Piper about it. Terry gave her no sign that he already knew.

  “What other kind of things have you done?” Willie asked. It wasn’t a demand. And he didn’t ask about everything she had done. Just a background question. The kind of thing friends asked as they got to know one another.

  Erin sighed. “I was doing some accounting before I came here. I’m not certified or anything, just bookkeeping. And I’ve been in retail… home care… wherever I can find work, really. I didn’t have the opportunity to get a university degree…” she trailed off, feeling inadequate.

  “I never went to university,” Willie said with a shrug. “And if there was ever someone not prejudiced about doing odd jobs to survive, it’s me!”

  Erin chuckled. “I guess so. You do a lot of different things.”

  “I’m a restless spirit. Don’t like to be tied down to one thing. My real passion is prospecting, but that doesn’t bring in enough of an income to live on. A good cash-in every now and then, but not steadily enough to survive.”

  “You seem like… you have knowledge in a lot of areas. Not just the caves in the area, but survival and medical treatment too…”

  “It’s all part of spending time underground. Not something to take lightly.”

  “I guess not,” Erin agreed. She sucked down a few swallows of her drink. “You do everything on your own, though? Isn’t it dangerous to be in mines and caves all by yourself? What if something happened to you? Do you file a plan with anyone, like a solo pilot would?”

  “It’s always good to let someone know where you are going to be and when you’ll be back…” Willie tapped the side of his glass. “But I admit that I don’t. I don’t actually… have many friends around Bald Eagle Falls.”

  “You could file it with the police department,” Terry suggested. “We always recommend that hikers and other travelers and adventurers let someone know. If you don’t have any family or friends who would follow up on it, just give the office a call. Then at least we’d know where to start looking if you didn’t report back.”

  Willie nodded. “Yeah. Thanks. I might just do that.”

  When Erin and Vic got back home from the restaurant, Erin was strangely restless and not ready for sleep. She knew that she should head to bed before it got too late, or she would be too tired when she got up in the morning. But she didn’t want to lie down yet. She pulled down the attic stairs in the hallway and climbed to her little attic retreat. She could snuggle up in the little reading nook under the window. Or sit down to write out lists or letters or a journal entry at her writing desk. Or just sit there and daydream. It was a bright, cozy little room, and she loved it.

  But she was too restless to read or write. She just kept bouncing from one place to the other, looking for something to satisfy her mood.

  Orange Blossom started to cry. He let out a few mournful howls, and Erin heard Vic call him.

  “Kitty, kitty? Come in here!”

  But the cat continued to caterwaul, his voice getting raucous. Most of the time, he was pretty quiet and didn’t cry unless he was locked up, like when Erin accidentally shut him in the pantry. But sometimes he got it into his head that he’d been abandoned and yowled like his little kitty heart was broken.

  “Blossom! Come for snuggles, Blossom!” Vic called.

  When the cat continued to make noise, Erin got up to see to him, but Vic beat her there. Erin heard Vic pick him up and mutter to him about being so noisy. She carried him back to her bedroom, talking baby talk to him. For a few minutes, everything was quiet. And then he started up again.

  Erin walked over and looked down the stairs at him. He stood with his front paws on the bottom step, looking up and obviously calling to her.

  “Come up the stairs,” Erin encouraged.

  But he didn’t. So far, he had never climbed the stairs. Erin had carried him up to the attic a couple of times, but each time he had run back down the stairs and cowered like she had done something to hurt him.

  “Come up!”

  He yowled again. Erin sighed. She turned off the light and descended the stairs.

  “Got him?” Vic called.

  “I got him. He should be quiet now.”

  “I don’t know why he gets so upset about you going into the attic sometimes.”

  “Sooner or later he’ll figure out how to come up the stairs to see me. Silly cat.”

  Erin cuddled Orange Blossom, kissed him on top of his fuzzy head, and put him down again. She went into the sewing room, still restless for something else to occupy herself with. He followed behind her like a dog.

  Clementine’s sewing room was a fun little room, with rolls of fabric and wrapping paper mounted to the walls, little drawers full of notions, and various other craft supplies and projects. Erin picked up one of the other projects that she had seen before but not paid much attention to. One of several genealogical books, with long family tree pages mounted on posts to bind them all together. It was obvious that Clementine had spent a lot of time and effort researching her family tree and making copies of those records. Erin looked through the books. She ignored the ones that started a century or more earlier, and looked for something current. She found one that started with Clementine’s four-generation family tree, and sat down with it. She turned the page, expecting to see another family tree that went further back in town, but instead saw a family group sheet, with Clementine’s and her brothers’ names listed in the children’s box, and their parents listed above. Erin read through them. Her father. Clementine’s younger brother. And there was an older brother, Owen. Erin wasn’t sure what had happened to him, but there was a death date beside each of their names. Owen had died shortly after Erin’s father. Leaving Clementine and Erin the end of the Price line. She turned the page to find a family group sheet with her father’s and mother’s names at the top. Erin’s name alone in the box for children. She’d had no brothers or sisters, though she had always wanted them. Always wanted a baby brother or sister to help take care of. Or an older sibling to play games with. She fantasized about having a big family like some of her friends so that she would never be lonely.

  She hadn’t known how lonely she would become. Things had been good when it was her and her mother and father, but she hadn’t realized it. She’d constantly been wishing for something when she should have been treasuring what she had.

  When she was seven, both of her parents had been killed in a car accident. She’d been taken into care. There had been no one else to take her. Erin didn’t know if anyone had ever contacted Clementine to see if she wanted to take Erin. Erin liked to think that Clementine would have said, ‘yes,’ given a chance, but she had no idea if it were true.

  Erin touched the names of her parents. She traced the lines across to their death dates.

  She stared. The dates weren’t right. They were several weeks apart. And they were after Erin’s eighth birthday. She shook her head. She wasn’t sure where Clementine had gotten her dates from, but there was something wrong with them. Maybe they were funeral dates, though Erin couldn’t remember there being funerals. Everything was fuzzy so many years later. There might have been funerals that she just didn’t remember with all the disruption and trauma in her life. But wouldn’t they have had a joint funeral, both on the same day?

  Her parents had been killed instantly. She remembered being told that. They hadn’t suffered. It had seemed important to the social worker. She’d repeated it several times. “At least we know they didn’t suffer. They were killed before they knew there was a
nything wrong. They didn’t suffer any pain.”

  Now Erin wondered. Had the social worker protested too much, knowing that it wasn’t the truth? Had her parents lingered after the car accident? Each slowly failing until they died weeks or months afterward?

  She chewed on her lip.

  In the end, what did it matter? Her parents had died. Erin had gone into foster care. And when she aged out of foster care, she took care of herself. She had always been strong and independent. She didn’t need her parents, or any siblings, or even her surviving aunt. There was certainly no point in fussing about it so many years later.

  Erin turned the page and studied a family tree that went back several more generations. When she had first come to Bald Eagle Falls, someone had told her, ‘if you were kin to Clementine, you’re kin to half the mountain.’ Erin hadn’t really thought much about it at the time. She had never had any family connections to rely upon. No shared history or family reunions or traditions. But looking over the family tree, Erin saw lots of familiar names. Last names of friends and customers who frequented Auntie Clem’s Bakery. Even Piper, Cox, and Reed.

  She’d made her home in Bald Eagle Falls because that was where the house and store that Clementine had left her were. But she hadn’t thought herself part of the history of the place. A puzzle piece that belonged there. That had just been removed and was now returned, rather than supplanted.

  There was a movement in the doorway, and Erin looked up to see Vic in her nightgown.

  “Are you heading to bed soon?” Vic asked.

  Erin looked at her watch and realized it was getting late. “Oh… yes, I’d better.”

  “What have you got there?”

  Erin closed the cover of the book. “Just a puzzle,” she said and put it back where she had gotten it.

  Chapter Eight

  ERIN HAD BEEN DEALING with the whispers and rumors for several days. She knew there was no point in trying to squelch the gossip. It would be like a game of whack-a-mole. Every time she tried to talk to one person, it would just pop up somewhere else. Or people would look knowingly at each other and suggest that she was protesting too much, a sure sign of guilt. So, she and Vic tried just to keep the bakery running smoothly and welcomed any gossip as free marketing that would bring more people in to gawk and buy a few cookies. Luckily, the rumors that Erin’s baked goods had killed a second person didn’t seem to dissuade the populace from buying her food.

  She was pleased to see Terry, who had not been able to stop by for a visit since their cave exploration. He had a tall water bottle that Vic refilled for him and he chose pizza cheese bread for his lunch. The shop was busy, but Erin went over to talk with him anyway while he ate, taking with her a biscuit for K9.

  Terry brushed crumbs from his uniform and looked her in the eye. “I’ve got good news and bad news.”

  “Good news and bad news? For me?”

  He nodded. Erin searched his face for clues. There was no dimple in his cheek or twinkle in his eye, so she had to assume that it was more bad news than good.

  “Okay, shoot,” Erin told him, holding on to the back of an unoccupied chair for support. She thought maybe she should sit down. But he didn’t tell her to sit down, so maybe it wasn’t too bad.

  “The coroner’s preliminary findings came in. Trenton Plaint did have a fatal allergic reaction.”

  “Oh!” The room spun around Erin, and she was glad she was holding on to the chair. She slipped around it and sat down with a thump. “So, then… it was the cupcakes?”

  “It’s looking that way. Yes.”

  “How is that good news? Or is there something else?”

  “An allergic reaction means that it wasn’t poison,” Terry offered. “Whatever the gossips say, you didn’t poison him to eliminate the competition.”

  Erin just stared at Terry and shook her head.

  “Are you okay?” he asked belatedly. “I thought you’d be glad to hear… that it wasn’t foul play.”

  “No. I mean, I’m glad to hear that it wasn’t murder, but… my food killed a man? That’s horrible. The whole point of me running this bakery is to provide people with safe food to eat!” Tears sprang to her eyes. “I can’t believe… I just feel sick about it!”

  Terry grasped her hand, his eyes wide. “Hey… it’s okay, Erin. Don’t be upset. It wasn’t intentional. It was just a freak thing; it could have happened at any time. We don’t even know if he knew he had an allergy. He wasn’t carrying an autoinjector, like his mother.”

  “Not that you know of,” Erin pointed out, trying not to let the lump in her throat show in her voice. “Someone could have taken it, just like with Angela.”

  “We don’t think that’s what happened. We think that he just didn’t know he was allergic. He had a cupcake and never knew what happened.”

  Erin swiped at tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. “That doesn’t change the fact that I made the food that killed him!”

  Terry squeezed her hand, his forehead wrinkled. “You weren’t this upset when we thought Angela Plaint had an allergic reaction to your food.”

  “You weren’t holding my hand when we were talking about Angela.” Erin sniffled. “You don’t know how I was feeling back then. You were interrogating me.”

  He frowned but didn’t argue the point. The hours and days after Angela’s murder seemed like a distant memory to Erin. She had tried to forget them, to block them out. She had been in an unfamiliar place, being questioned by unfamiliar people. She’d been in survival mode, trying to show no weakness. It was different now, talking to someone she considered a friend. She could allow herself to feel.

  “It could still be murder.”

  Erin looked quickly to her right, where Melissa had appeared. Her cheeks were a ruddy red, hair a little wild, and she was smiling. She gave Erin a friendly pat on the shoulder.

  “It could,” he insisted. “Maybe Joelle intentionally gave him something he was allergic to. Or someone else did. It doesn’t have to be your cupcakes. Even if it was the cupcakes, someone else might have had a hand in it. You didn’t give them to him.”

  Terry scowled. “Miss Lee, is there something I could help you with?”

  She put a small stack of papers on the table with a flourish. “You were in such a hurry to get over here and talk to Erin that you forgot to sign off on your reports. And you know the Sheriff is waiting for them.”

  A slight flush rose to Terry’s cheeks. “That really isn’t your job,” he pointed out. But he pulled a pen from his uniform pocket and began to flip through the reports.

  “Clara was busy, so I offered to run them over. I knew where you would be.”

  His flush deepened. Erin watched him search out the signature lines in the report and sign them with quick, angular strokes.

  “You don’t think someone gave Trenton something he was allergic to on purpose?” Erin asked. “Not like with Angela. This was just an accident, wasn’t it?”

  “Are you confessing?” he asked, without looking up.

  Erin swallowed. It had been a stupid thing to say. If anyone had killed Trenton on purpose, then she was, again, the prime suspect. She was the one who had something to gain if Trenton was out of the way and not reopening the rival bakery. No one else would have anything else to gain from his death.

  Terry handed Melissa the reports and looked at Erin. His brows drew down. “I’m sorry… that was supposed to be funny. But it wasn’t.”

  “Murder isn’t something to joke around about,” Melissa told him sternly. She leaned down to put her arm around Erin’s shoulders and give her a quick squeeze. “Are you okay, honey? I mean really? This is such a shock for you, I’m sure. Even more than being the one to find Trenton.”

  Erin looked at Melissa, frowning. She remembered how Melissa had acted the day Trenton had returned to town and Lottie had burst into the bakery to spread the news. From what Erin could understand, Trenton had been in Melissa’s grade in school and had somehow bullied her. Er
in seemed to remember the words ‘sadistic’ and ‘demon.’ That wasn’t how you usually referred to someone you knew in school. That wasn’t just a casual acquaintanceship. Melissa had never wanted to see or hear from him again. Would she have intentionally hurt him? Killed him? She seemed very cheerful; was she gloating over his death?

  And Erin had already discovered that the people who killed over secrets were the ones who were the best at pretending, at hiding what was going on behind the mask.

  “Yes,” Erin finally agreed, aware that Melissa’s and Terry’s eyes were on her, waiting for a response. “I’m… I’m fine. It’s a shock, but… I’ll be okay. I couldn’t ever have known he had an allergy if no one told me. It sounds like he didn’t even know it himself.”

  “Oh yes, he did,” Melissa countered. “I remember. I told you, didn’t I? When we were talking about him? I told you he was allergic to soy.”

  Terry’s eyes went from Melissa back to Erin, waiting for her answer.

  “Soy.” Erin’s heart sank even further. “No… nobody told me. Those vegan cupcakes definitely had soy in them. A lot of vegan food does, it’s a quick substitute for dairy. You never said that he had an allergy, or I would have warned Joelle. And besides, the chocolate chip ones were for Joelle; the red velvet ones were for Trenton. I packaged them separately so that they wouldn’t touch.”

  “Why would you do that?” Terry asked, frowning.

  “Because she was very staunch vegan, so I figured she wouldn’t want any cross-contamination from animal products. If someone is worried about shellac in sprinkles or honey, you have to figure that they’re pretty strict and wouldn’t want even a crumb…”

  “But she bought non-vegan cupcakes as well.”

  “For Trenton. Not for her.”

  “If she was really strict, would she even buy them for someone else? If she’s worried about ethics…” Terry trailed off, raising his brows.

  “I don’t know.” Erin shook her head. “We didn’t talk to Joelle any more than we had to. She was going on and on… we just wanted to get her out of here.”