Pumpkin Spice & a Body on Ice

by Willow Monroe

  “So was it suicide?” Winnie asked.

  “That’s the general consensus,” I said. I’ve got my share of flaws, but spreading rumors and gossip is not one of them. My mama raised me better than that.

  “Why else would Nadine be up on that old bridge to begin with?” Winnie asked aloud.

  “You’re gonna freeze,” I said, pointing to her bare legs, eager to change the subject.

  “Nah, we’ll be warmed up soon,” Julie said. “Thank goodness you found her when you did. Why, if that train had hit her...”

  “Yeah, it’s a good thing,” I said, reluctant to even think about that.

  “I heard she caused a little scene in the diner this morning,” Julie put in.

  “Well, not really.” I shrugged and took a step toward the bank. “Just the usual stuff with Tom Brown and...” I really wished they would change the subject.

  Finally, Winnie got the hint. “Hey, we’ve added another mile to our run,” she boasted, stretching her arms overhead. Her shirt slipped upward, revealing a flat tummy.

  I suddenly felt like a big clumsy cow, but I managed a smile at my two old friends. “I can assure you if you find my dead body on that running trail, I was killed somewhere else and placed there.”

  “You have to admit, we look great,” Julie said.

  I agreed.

  “The old man thinks so, too,” Winnie said with a giggle and then turned around and wiggled her trim behind.

  I laughed, feeling more like crying by the minute.

  Julie was already running in place and then leaned over and touched her toes. “And both of us feel amazing.”

  “Why don’t you join us some morning?” Winnie asked.

  “Oh, I’m pretty busy with the diner in the mornings and...” I couldn’t really think of another excuse so I let the sentence dangle.

  “I’m telling you, it’ll change your life,” Julie said.

  “There’s a walking group that meets every morning at the park,” Winnie told me. “You could start there.”

  “The weather will soon be so bad...” Another excuse.

  “They meet at the mall and walk there in the winter. They’re called the Happy Lappers. You should check them out,” Julie explained.

  “I might do that,” I said, with absolutely no intention of doing so or walking around with anyone or anything called The Happy Lappers.

  Someone called out and all three of us looked across the street to see another friendly face. I was stunned. The last time I’d seen Betty Jean Pilzner she’d barely fit in one of the booths in the diner. Now here she was wearing running shorts, fancy running shoes and sporting a sexy new hair-do as well. After looking both ways, the slender redhead trotted across the street toward us.

  “You okay?” Winnie asked. “You look a little shook up.”

  Betty Jean shrugged. “Just...something weird happened this morning.”

  “What?” I asked, wondering what could be weirder than finding someone you know dead on the railroad tracks behind your diner.

  “I was folding clothes in the laundry room, right off the garage and the phone rang. I went to answer it. It turned out to be my mom, but while I was talking to her I thought I heard something out in the garage.”

  “One of those stray dogs roaming the neighborhood, I’ll bet,” Julie said, hands on her lean hips, shaking her head. “I feel bad for them, but someone...”

  “My panties were missing.”

  “What?” All three of us said at the same time.

  Betty Jean looked around nervously and lowered her voice. “Some of my panties were missing.”

  “You think someone sneaked into the garage while you weren’t looking and stole your panties?” I asked.

  “I’d just bought some new ones to wear just for Robert. Sexy little things, all satin and lace in all different colors. A pink pair and a blue pair were missing.”

  Then I noticed Julie and Winnie exchange glances. “What?”

  “Pretty much the same thing happened to me,” Julie confessed. “I thought I’d just misplaced them, but some of my panties have come up missing as well.”

  We all stood there quietly for a few minutes and then I asked, “Did you report this to the police?”

  All three of them shrugged.

  “I can’t even prove they’re missing,” Julie said.

  “Neither can I, really,” Betty Jean added.

  “Listen, if anything else happens, anything at all, please call the police,” I begged, looking from one of them to the other. Suddenly, I felt as if every woman in town was in some kind of danger. “Next time you might be in the way and...”

  “I will. I promise,” Betty Jean said, holding up her right hand.

  “Me, too,” Julie did the same.

  “Good.”

  “We gotta go,” Winnie said, giving me another quick hug.

  “Please be careful,” I called out to them as they dashed across the street and disappeared into the park, where I’d heard there were hiking, biking and running trails.

  I stood there for a moment longer, wondering if our new police chief had sparked the healthy living craze that seemed to have taken over town.

  Not so healthy for Nadine. And what was up with the missing panties? I made a mental note to count mine when I got back home.

  Even as I stood there, Eva Lord came out of her yoga studio, A Beautiful Balance, and began washing the glass doors. I watched her thin body move gracefully as she worked, thinking that she looked like a ballet dancer.

  With each step I took toward the bank, I felt heavier, weighed down by a whole lot more than my curves. The cupcake contest was pretty much put on the back burner. Now the topic on everyone’s mind was what happened to Nadine.

  Normally, I liked the way I filled out my clothes. Most of the time, anyway. Sometimes I had to be careful about what kind of tops to buy so as not to show too much cleavage. And sometimes it took me a while to find new jeans that fit my hips AND my waist. I told myself they just didn’t make jeans to fit hour glass figures any more.

  Until this morning.

  What had happened? Nothing. Other than the fact that the one man in town who never ate sugar was going to be the judge of the cupcake competition. And Poppy’s one rival for Tom Brown had been found dead on the railroad tracks. And someone was stealing panties.

  Somehow I felt that if I didn’t win that competition, it might just reflect badly on the diner somehow. That diner was everything to me. Holding the title of Cupcake Queen for so long had given me such a sense of accomplishment, my one claim to fame in my tiny hometown.

  Suddenly, I didn’t like Chief Whitt as much as I had earlier that morning. Yes, he was dashingly handsome in his dark blue uniform. Yes, it was fun when he teased me about his healthy lifestyle and my not so healthy one. And, yes, I’d had more than one fantasy about talking him out of that uniform and showing him what my curvaceous body could do to please him. But right at that moment, I could have strangled him for the changes he’d brought to this town.

  The bank was big, old and quiet, the tellers all nestled safely behind their tall counter. I fought the urge to tiptoe across the marble floor toward them, almost cringing when my sneakers made little squeaking noises that seemed way too loud. All but one window had a ‘This Window Closed’ sign in front and I headed toward it.

  “Oh. Hello, Starla.”

  The teller who spoke to me was old Mrs. Snyder, who had worked at the bank for about a hundred years. With her tightly permed blue hair and owl-like glasses, she had been old when I was little, coming to the bank with my mama just to get a sucker.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Snyder,” I said, pushing the blue pouch filled with cash and checks through the glass opening.

  “I heard the news about Nadine. Just horrible. Horrible,” Mrs. Snyder said as she tugged at the zipper on the pouch with gnarled fingers. “And you must have been just scared spitless to find her like that.”

  “Yes, ma’am, it was pret
ty scary,” I confessed, watching her struggle to open the pouch as long as I could. “Here, let me do that for you.”

  “Thank you, dear,” Mrs. Snyder said handing the pouch back to me.

  “So you pulled her off the railroad tracks?”

  “Yes, ma’am. A train was coming and...”

  I unzipped the pouch and slid it back toward her, wishing everyone would quit reminding me about Nadine. I could hardly wait to get back home and hide away in my apartment for a while longer.

  Mrs. Snyder slowly removed the contents and then carefully divided them into several different stacks. Thank goodness Poppy made sure the same bills were all together and all pointing the same direction. I never understood why this was important, but it seemed to be with money people. Still, Mrs. Snyder checked every one and then began counting.

  Now I remembered why I rarely made the deposit. This was going to take a while.

  “Hey, Starla.”

  I looked up to see another old friend from school coming toward me, her high heels tapping softly on the marble floor. The beautiful blonde homecoming queen, Susan Rhodes, had risen through the ranks at Sugar Hill Bank & Trust to become vice-president. Of course, it didn’t hurt that she’d married the owner’s son, Charlie Rhodes. She looked every bit the part in her perfectly tailored dark gray suit as she click-clicked toward me. She’d always been tall and thin, but now she seemed willowy and moved with a gracefulness I hadn’t noticed before.

  Suddenly, I felt like a beached whale.

  “I haven’t seen you at the diner for a while,” I said, hugging her warmly.

  “Oh, as good as your food is, honey, I’ve decided it’s time to watch my weight,” Susan said, stepping back and doing a graceful turn. “I’ve lost about 20 pounds over the summer.”

  “You look great,” I said sincerely.

  “I’ve been doing yoga at A Beautiful Balance. Oh my, it has changed my life,” Susan exclaimed. “I’ve had to buy all new clothes and I have so much more energy.” And then she paused and lowered her voice. “And I’m so much more flexible - which Charlie loves, if you know what I mean.”

  Charlie Rhodes and Susan had fallen in love in junior high school and gotten married right after graduation. Evidently, the fire was still hot.

  “Good,” I said, my spirits sinking even lower. “Good for you.”

  “Oh, here’s your mail,” she said, handing me a small stack of envelopes, almost all junk mail.

  “Mr. Nettle got tired again?” I asked.

  Susan nodded and chuckled.

  Mr. Nettle was a kind, soft spoken white haired guy who had delivered the mail on foot all over town for as long as I could remember. Lately, when he got tired, he’d just leave the mail wherever he was. Sometimes I’d get a call from the book store saying that my mail was there, sometimes it never left the post office. Today, he’d made it all the way to the bank.

  “I heard about Nadine. Such a tragedy that she would take her own life like that,” Susan said, shaking her head.

  “Yes, it is. Very sad,” I agreed.

  “Are Tom and Poppy still seeing each other?” Susan asked, changing the subject abruptly.

  “Yes. She’s sure he’s going to ask her to marry him any day,” I told her.

  Susan shook her head. “Not gonna happen.”

  “I know...but I’m not telling her that.”

  Susan nodded in agreement. “What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “Are you still seeing what’s-his-name?”

  I shook my head. I’d broken up with what’s-his-name when I found out he’d been seeing that stripper from over in Charlottesville. “I really don’t have time for a relationship right now,” I said. My standard excuse for that as well. “The diner keeps me plenty busy.”

  “Don’t put it off too long,” Susan warned with a sweet smile and then a wink. “All work and no play...”

  “Here you go, dearie,” Mrs. Snyder said, breaking gently into our conversation as she pushed a deposit slip toward me. A grape sucker lay on top.

  “Thank you,” I said, reaching for the pink slip of paper.

  “Oh, and I heard that the Mayor made an announcement in the diner this morning,” Mrs. Snyder said, lowering her voice just like Susan had earlier. “What are you going to do?”

  “Do?”

  “Yes, about Chief Whitt judging the cupcake competition. Everyone knows what a health nut he is.”

  I didn’t need to be reminded, but I was happy they seemed to have forgotten about Nadine momentarily. Trying to think of a witty comeback, a reply that I knew would be repeated all over town, hopefully to my competitors, I noticed Susan as well as all the other tellers were tuned in, waiting for an answer.

  Chapter Five

  “Well, it’s a man’s place to have opinions,” I paused, letting that sink in. “And it’s a woman’s job to change his mind.”

  And with that I turned and sauntered out with an attitude that I couldn’t quite make myself believe.

  I hurried back to the diner praying I didn’t run into anyone else to ask me about cupcakes or Nadine or my love life. When I reached the back door, I still wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone. I checked to make sure Chet was at the grill. He waved a beefy hand at me and I moved on. Poking my head out into the busy diner, Poppy was nowhere in sight.

  “I sent her home,” Barbara Ellen said. “She was a basket case.”

  Barbara Ellen Jones, with her black hair pulled back into a tight bun and her cat’s eye glasses, had worked at the diner for twenty years or more. She kept a close eye on everyone and everything all at the same time and could probably run it single handed even at the busiest of times. Right then, I was glad she was at the helm. We were as busy as ever and more customers were coming in the front door.

  “Thanks. Do you need me to help?” I asked, praying she would say no.

  “Nah, I got it,” she said waving me away.

  Thankfully, I got out of there as fast as I could before anyone could ask me questions.

  My cozy rooms over the diner were my haven, my sanctuary, and I really needed their protective arms right now. No one ever comes up here except for Poppy, and that’s not often. We’re best friends but we see each other every day at the diner; not much time for socializing for either one of us. And her spare time is spent with Tom Brown.

  Sometimes (if I let myself think about it too much) I envied her. But right this minute, I had more important things to think about. I was pretty sure the women in town were preparing to go overboard trying to impress Chief Whitt with their culinary skills. Maybe I should just retire, undefeated and let the yoga instructors and health food store owner have at it.

  That sounded an awful lot like giving up to me.

  Still, it was an option.

  I made a pot of coffee and stood looking out the window. When it gurgled the last of the water through the pot, I poured some into my favorite purple mug and went to the window seat in my bedroom. That afforded me a bird’s eye view of downtown Sugar Hill, where I grew up. I pulled my favorite blanket over my legs and tried to relax.

  There wasn’t much traffic. Sugar Hill is so small that people usually walk everywhere they go, and that includes most of our small police force. The bank was busy again, people going in and out. I noted that Naturally Yours was busy, too, as was A Beautiful Balance. As I sipped the hot brew, I saw Police Chief Rob Whitt jogging down the street. Was it lunch time already? I looked at my watch. He was a little late today, but that was to be expected.

  Chief Whitt was an avid runner and he often jogged from the square brick building that housed our police department on one end of town to the high school track out on the other end. Today was no different and I continued to sip my coffee thinking that he looked just as good out of uniform as he did in it...maybe better.

  Several people stopped him to shake hands and say hello. He was cordial and polite, but it was obvious he had one thing on his mind and it was getting to
that track. Two or three of the ladies he’d spoken to moments before turned to watch him run away, but he didn’t seem to notice. Nor did he know that Tiffany had come to the door of her shop after he passed just to watch. And I had a feeling one or both of the Lord sisters were hovering just inside the door of their yoga studio to get a good look.

  Couldn’t blame them. Even though I didn’t like him much right then, Chief Whitt was delicious eye candy. I watched from my private perch, amazed at his fluid movements as he lengthened his stride and settled into a gallop. He ran like a gazelle, his feet barely touching the ground and made it look effortless at the same time.

  Tiffany had gone back inside her shop and I imagined her researching recipes for healthy cupcakes. If she even had to do research. Maybe these ladies already had the perfect healthy cupcake recipe and was just waiting for their chance to show it off. They had all entered the cupcake contest once or twice, but I couldn’t even remember what their entries were like.

  Police Chief Whitt passed under my window and I switched positions so I could watch as he continued to run toward the high school. The view was just as good from this side, too.

  My thoughts strayed back to finding Nadine that morning. I’d tried not to think about it but there it was, plain and simple. Nadine just didn’t seem like the type to commit suicide. The alternative was too scary. If someone had pushed her off that bridge, that meant someone in our fair city, probably someone I’d known all my life, was a murderer.

  I shook my head, trying not to think about poor Nadine. Of course, that sent my thoughts reeling back to the dessert festival. With Mayor Gillespie or the ladies from the garden club doing the judging, I hadn’t had to work too hard to win. I knew exactly what to make; a cupcake that was light, sweet and delicious, topped with even sweeter frosting and then drizzled with chocolate.

  Everyone loved the blue velvet recipe I’d used the last couple of years, friends and customers alike. One friend had actually ordered them for her niece’s sixteenth birthday party instead of a birthday cake from the bakery. The colors for the party were teal and zebra stripes. That’s how I ended up with the blue velvet cupcake and zebra striped icing. This year I was originally planning on trying for a purple velvet cupcake.