A TREACHEROUS TART

by Fiona Grace

  “I bet it’s his heart,” Bob said, pacing back and forth. “He’s morbidly obese. I told him a hundred times to exercise. This line of work, it’s a strain on the heart. Did he listen? Did he listen?”

  “Bob!” Eunbi yelled. “We don’t know it was his heart, okay! You’re making a bad situation worse by speculating!”

  Bob pouted, but he stopped pacing and muttering.

  “We thought he was choking at first,” one of the baby-faced stewards said. He looked traumatized. “But when we checked his airwaves, they were clear.”

  Mad Frank stepped forward. “Can we see him?”

  Ali glanced back at the medical tent, shuddering at the memory of the horrible thing she’d seen inside. “I don’t think so.”

  “There’s a cop in there,” Emilio said. “He wants people to stay away.”

  “A cop?” Mad Frank repeated, looking terrified at the prospect. “Why is there a cop?”

  “He’s off duty,” Ali interjected. “He’s just a fan. We were here together on a date.”

  Mad Frank visibly relaxed. But the reprieve was only short-lived. Because a second after Ali had explained why the cops were involved, a loud, commanding voice bellowed into the sound system.

  “This is the police! Everyone shut up!”

  The voice was unfortunately very familiar to Ali. It was the formidable voice of Detective Elton.

  She gulped and looked over toward the cordon. There was Detective Elton in her black biker leathers and dark sunglasses. She had taken the microphone off the TV crew and was holding it while looking out over a sea of people. An eerie silence fell as they all stared at her in rapt, terrified attention.

  “That’s better,” Detective Elton barked. “Now, no one move. Let my team through, and let them do their job. If anyone interferes, I’ll have them arrested for perverting the course of justice. This is a crime scene.”

  As she unceremoniously shoved the microphone back at the camera crew man, a ripple of noise akin to a gasp went through the audience. They were clearly too afraid by her threat to speak, but too shocked by her words not to.

  It was the camera crew man who plucked up the courage to ask the question on everyone’s terrified lips. He raised the microphone to his mouth, and in a trembling voice said, “Excuse me, Detective. If this is a crime scene, does that mean a crime has been committed?”

  Detective Elton froze on the spot, then swirled around to face him, her eyes unreadable behind her black sunglasses. But her angrily arched eyebrows and aggressive stance were enough to make him cower back in fear. And it was enough for Ali, who knew her better than she’d ever wanted to, to know exactly what was going through the detective’s mind. She’d dropped the ball. Made a slip-up by admitting it was a crime scene. Now she had to bite the bullet.

  Detective Elton angrily snatched the microphone back from the camera man. In one hurried exhalation she blurted, “We have reason to suspect foul play.”

  The fallout hit like a nuclear bomb. But Detective Elton was out of there, turning her back on the crowd and marching away, leaving utter chaos in her wake.

  And now, Ali thought with a gulp of dread, she was heading this way!

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Ali stood in a shell-shocked huddle with the rest of the crew as the backstage area transformed into a crime scene. Detective Elton stood outside the tent, watching everything like a hawk, while conversing quietly with her specialist EMTs. Crime scene operatives dressed in white coveralls and plastic blue shoe-coverings began milling about the place, while Detective Callihan busily strung crime scene tape from pillar to post.

  Ali shuddered. This was so far from what she’d envisaged for the day, and her head was spinning from the shock of it all.

  Just then, she felt eyes upon her, and looked over to see Detective Elton peering intently at her over the rim of her sunglasses. The unmistakable glower of suspicion sparked in her dark eyes.

  Ali gulped. She knew Detective Elton disliked her to an unhealthy extent for always meddling in her cases, but surely she wasn’t thinking Gilbert’s death was anything to do with her? There were literally hundreds of witnesses to back up the fact that she was nowhere near Gilbert when he died. To try and pin anything on her would be a stretch of epic proportions.

  Ali decided she needed to hear what they were saying. She broke apart from the huddle of witnesses and skirted around the perimeter of the tent until she was in earshot of Detective Elton. She strained to listen, and could just about pick up their voices.

  “An allergy?” said the easily distinguishable husky voice of Detective Elton. “Are you sure?”

  “It’s looking that way,” a second voice replied, a male, with a twang to his accent. “The victim had left an Epipen with the stewards backstage, which explains why he hurried off stage if he was attempting to get to it.”

  Ali felt a surge of relief in her chest to hear the foul play theory debunked. Though still tragic, it was infinitely preferable for Gilbert’s death to be due to accidental freak circumstances rather than a malicious choice made by another. Detective Elton, on the other hand, seemed to be thinking quite the opposite.

  “Allergy?” Ali overheard her bark again, this time with disdain. “He died because of an allergy?”

  She seemed so displeased by this new turn of events, it was almost as if she wanted the man to have been killed deliberately. Ali shook her head with disapproval.

  “What about this Epipen?” Detective Elton continued. “Didn’t the staff give him the shot? Was it defective? Tampered with?”

  Ali couldn’t help but roll her eyes. Detective Elton seemed to be looking for evidence to fit her theory now.

  “The steward confirmed he administered the shot,” the second EMT, a woman, explained. “And the puncture wound on his arm corroborates it. But for whatever reason, the Epipen failed.”

  “Was it tampered with?”

  “Ummm,” the female EMT said, uncertainly. “There’s no way for us to know that.”

  “That would be something the lab would need to look at,” the male added, backing her up.

  “Hmmm,” Detective Elton said. “And what was the allergy?”

  “Oysters,” the male EMT said.

  Ali frowned with confusion. Oysters? How had Gilbert ingested oysters in the middle of the contest?

  “Oysters?” Detective Elton repeated, with an air of suspicion. “That’s not a typical ingredient in hot dogs, is it?”

  “No,” the female EMT agreed. “And the other thing is, all the contestants submit medical forms, and the cooks used for the contest have to follow a strict recipe, right down to the brands used.”

  “Who were the cooks?” Elton asked.

  “The contract for the chef went to Emilio Rossi, and the premises is listed as Seaside Sweets. It’s a bakery—”

  “I know what it is,” Detective Elton snapped, cutting her off.

  Uh-oh, Ali thought.

  “Seaside Sweets belongs to the most meddlesome woman I’ve ever known,” Detective Elton continued. “Any time anything strange happens in this town, Ali Sweet is usually at the center of it. I should’ve known this would have something to do with her. And who is Emilio Rossi? He doesn’t run Seaside Sweets, so why is he the chef, if the bakery is the premises? Something fishy is going on. Excuse the pun.”

  Ali’s heart began to race. She thought back to the night before, wracking her brains. Could she have accidentally put oyster sauce in the mixture? She was a little tipsy on rum! Or what if she’d used an incorrect brand? The trip to the Cash ’n’ Carry had been last minute and rushed. A mistake may have been made.

  “Ali?” a voice said from behind, breaking through her ruminations.

  Ali jumped a mile. She swirled on the spot. It was Emilio.

  “What are you doing back here?” he asked.

  Ali put a finger to her lips. “Shh! Detective Elton is there.” She jabbed her pointer finger behind her. “She says Gilbert died of an allergy to oyster
s. Did we contaminate the food?”

  Emilio looked just as panicked as Ali felt. “No! Of course we didn’t.”

  Then, suddenly, Detective Elton leapt around the corner. “Ali,” she said with a sinister sneer. “And Emilio Rossi, I presume? Just the people I wanted to see.”

  Ali gulped. Detective Elton was pursuing the theory that Gilbert had been poisoned. Deliberately. And that she was somehow involved.

  Detective Elton pulled open the flap to the caterer’s tent. “Let’s talk inside, shall we?”

  Ali and Emilio had no choice but to follow her inside.

  *

  They sat either side of the fold-out picnic table, the detritus from the Kraft services food all over the place. Ali had been interrogated in some strange places before, but this was really something else.

  “It says here you were the hot dog maker,” Detective Elton said, firing her question at Emilio. “But the announcer attributed the work to…” She flicked through her notes. “Sullivan’s Steakhouse?”

  “That was a mistake,” Ali said. “It was actually Se—”

  “—Me,” Emilio interrupted, cutting her off before she had the chance to say Seth’s full name. “I was the hot dog maker. Sullivan’s name was mentioned by mistake. He’s just one of the funders.”

  Ali frowned. Why didn’t Emilio want Seth’s name mentioned? If they had done nothing wrong during the preparation of the hot dogs, then why omit parts of the truth? It would only make them look more suspicious when the truth did eventually come out.

  The tent flap being opened sounded from behind, and Ali turned to see Detective Callihan enter. He was all professional now, and any hints of the budding romance between them had entirely evaporated.

  “Elton,” he said. “May I speak to you?”

  Detective Elton glowered at her two interrogatees, then stood and went over to Detective Callihan. Ali listened carefully, trying to overhear them.

  “I’ve arranged for forensics tests on the hot dogs,” Sebastian was saying. His eyes flicked over to Ali. He added, “…and the buns, to confirm the cause of death.”

  Ali’s stomach dropped. Being suspected by Detective Elton was one thing, but it was worse to hear it come from Sebastian.

  “I’d like the health and safety inspectors to come in, too,” Detective Elton told him. She cast a disgusted side-eye at the exposed sandwiches, one of which had a fly crawling on it. “I think Mad Frank has violated a million and one laws.”

  Ali held onto the hope this may all be a big misunderstanding yet. Perhaps it simply was a health and safety issue, a lapse.

  That was, until her eyes were drawn to something on the table. Among the chip packets and cookie wrappers, Ali spotted a small, shiny black and gold package, about the size of a matchbox. Oyster sauce.

  She gasped. The packet was open, empty. And it was right where the boxes of buns had been placed. What if she’d put the box on top of the packet, and the sauce had seeped into the buns through the cardboard? What if she was the killer of Gilbert The Gobbler?

  Ali leapt up so suddenly her chair flew back. It hit the floorboards with a clatter.

  “Ali?” Detective Callihan asked. “What’s wrong?”

  Ali pointed a shaking hand at the oyster sauce packet. “L—look!”

  Detective Callihan zeroed in on the packet. “Don’t touch it.”

  Detective Elton was already on her radio. “Someone get to the food tent with an evidence bag. I’ve located the murder weapon.”

  Murder weapon? Ali thought, and her mind began to spin.

  The tent suddenly filled up with people. She and Emilio were grabbed and ushered to the door.

  As they passed Detective Elton, she leaned in. “Neither of you had better leave town. I have plenty of questions for you.”

  Stunned and disoriented, Ali staggered out of the tent, flanked on either side by two police escorts. They marched her all the way through the backstage area, beneath the police crime tape that had been set up around the stage, pier, and a large section of the boardwalk where the audience had earlier stood.

  Now it was eerie quiet, like a zombie land. The crowds that had been gathered before had dispersed, their detritus fluttering in the breeze now the only indication they’d ever been there.

  Ali was dumped outside the perimeter, followed shortly by Emilio. She turned to face him.

  “What was that about?” she asked. “Why did you stop me mentioning Seth and Eunbi?”

  “Because the person I spoke to about adding you and Seth as chefs clearly made a mistake by leaving him off the list. Probably the same reason his name was forgotten during the announcement. Either way, it’s going to work out better for him now. We’re all innocent and there’s no point dragging more people into this mess.”

  Emilio seemed shifty to Ali. She put her hands on her hips. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Nothing!”

  “Emilio…”

  He ran his hands through his hair and lowered his voice. “Fine. Seth was upset because I didn’t tell them about him. Okay? I skirted around a rule or two, here and there.”

  Ali clenched her hands tightly. “What rule?”

  “That there are only supposed to be two chefs and one premises,” Emilio said in an exhalation.

  Ali couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She was a suspect in a man’s death, and now she’d discovered she’d also violated a rule? It couldn’t look any worse for her.

  “I can’t believe this,” she exclaimed. “You tricked us?”

  “I just thought we could work quicker that way,” Emilio said, hanging his head in shame. “I thought what you didn’t know couldn’t hurt you. I didn’t know a man was going to die.”

  Ali glowered at him. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

  But before she was able to continue scolding him, her phone started to ring. She huffed and checked the screen. It was Piper.

  “Yes?” Ali asked, testily, picking up the call, her gaze still laser focused on Emilio. “What is it?”

  “Um… I think you’d better get back to the bakery,” Piper said. “There’s been a development.”

  Ali’s pulse spiked. She thrust her phone back in her pocket and pointed her finger at Emilio. “This conversation isn’t over.”

  And with that, she marched away, leaving a very sheepish Emilio behind to think about what he’d done.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Ali hurried into the bakery to find it empty of customers. Piper was standing behind the counter, eyes glued to her phone. She glanced up as Ali shut the door behind her.

  “Ali! Thank goodness you’re back!” she exclaimed. “What is going on? It says here that someone died on stage!”

  Ali took a breath to steel herself. The rumor mill was already churning, and it had only been a few hours. She paced over to the counter. “One of the competitors died. Gilbert the Gobbler. But it happened backstage, not in front of the audience.”

  “Everyone seems to think he was poisoned!”

  Ali tensed. “That’s a theory. The police still have to run tests before they can properly determine foul play. It might have just been a terrible accident, contamination or something. Gilbert was allergic to oysters and an empty packet of oyster sauce was found in the catering tent.” She knew she was clutching at straws here, but she was still clinging on to hope this would blow over before she was implicated in something even bigger.

  “It’s not just a theory,” Piper contested. “It says here it was murder.”

  She spoke confidently, as if she were somehow more knowledgeable on the subject than Ali, despite the fact Ali had actually been present.

  “And where is ‘here’ exactly?” Ali queried.

  “The Armchair Sleuths forum,” Piper replied.

  “The what?”

  “Armchair Sleuths forum,” Piper repeated. “For unsolved crimes. Murders. Disappearances. Kidnappings. That sort of thing. People post up information and videos and stuff.
That’s how I found out.”

  Ali tutted. Only a few hours had passed and there was already a forum?

  “Well, as sure as I am that the Armchair Sleuths forum is a well-regarded source of properly researched and unbiased journalism—” She stopped her sarcastic comment as she realized Piper had started playing a video on her phone and a very familiar voice was now floating out of it. “Wait. Is that Detective Callihan?”

  “Uh-huh,” Piper said, orienting her phone toward Ali so she could see the screen.

  And there he was. Sebastian Callihan. Her date turned detective in the middle of an interview with a local news channel.

  Ali was surprised by the speed of the investigation. By the time she’d made it here, an armchair sleuth had already managed to find and embed a live news feed online! She was going to have to eat her words about it being an unreliable source.

  She focused on the screen.

  “Yes, that’s correct,” Detective Callihan was saying. “We are launching a murder investigation into the death of Gilbert Brown.”

  “See,” Piper said. “Told you it was a murder.”

  Ali’s mind began to spin. It was very bold to come out this early on in the investigation to publicly declare the case to be murder. The detectives were usually much more cautious than that, trying to avoid widespread panic whenever possible. But something must have given them reason to believe the oyster sauce packet was indeed the murder weapon, and that Gilbert’s death had come about through deliberate and malicious intent. And since Detective Callihan was usually the more cautious of the two detectives, the fact the comment was coming from him really spoke volumes. Ali would have to accept it sooner or later. Gilbert the Gobbler had been murdered.

  “How did this even get posted so quickly?” Ali asked Piper, giving her back the phone.

  “There’s an insider.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “A local. Someone who lives nearby. They have loads of behind the scenes footage and information. They seem to know a lot about you, as well. They’re pretty convinced you’re involved somehow.”