Sugared Suspect

by Stephanie Damore

  “Where are you Milo?” I said into the darkness.

  Lying there would not do. I decided to get up and go look for him once more. Perhaps he had wandered back home, and he was outside the bakery door just waiting for me to open it and let him in.

  I walked out of the bedroom and into the living room. Granny was snoozing in the recliner. For being a new ghost, she seemed to have mastered staying in form quite well. I wondered if that had something to do with how old she was when she passed? Just another unknown.

  I covered Granny with the afghan off the back of the couch, even though it fell right through her, and left her to be while I snuck down the back staircase. At the landing I went to reach for my scarf and stopped short, remembering I had given it to Granny Saturday morning. It was one-hundred percent hers now. The county could keep it.

  It was so cold outside I could see my breath in the air. Dragon breath, as Amelia’s little boy liked to call it. I liked to call it that now, too.

  I wasted no time calling out for Milo in the biting nighttime air. I added a couple of whistles to see if he was somewhere within earshot, but I still didn’t see him. Cherry Street was empty as the village had a winter ordinance that prevented cars from parking on the street all night long. This was so the plows could clear off the streets as it snowed more nights than it didn’t. We did however have a couple public parking lots—one by the community playground and marina, and the other at the public library. I remembered reading that animals had a tendency to seek shelter under parked cars especially when it was cold out and thought I would check there, taking an indirect route past the dumpsters and shops on Cherry Street. It wouldn’t surprise me if Milo was getting into mischief behind the buildings either.

  In the silence of night, the large delivery truck made quite the entrance as it bumped down the skinny street and parked behind Cookie Heaven. The truck’s presence alone was enough to peak my interest. It’s choice of parking only increase it. I crouched behind a dumpster and peered out as the deliveryman walked around the back of this truck and rolled up the bed. Janice appeared at the back door.

  “You’re late,” she said to the deliveryman. “I’ll order from another company if you can’t get here on time.”

  “Good luck with that. You won’t find another company willing to deliver cookies at midnight,” the deliveryman shot back. I watched as he stacked box after box of cookies on his dolly and wheeled it over to Janice.

  “Did you remember two boxes of chocolate chip this time?” she asked in her snippy voice.

  “It’s all here in your invoice. You got chocolate chip, peanut butter, snicker doodles, macaroons, and frosted cut outs.”

  You had to be kidding me. Janice didn’t even make her own cookies? I know I shouldn’t have been surprised and yet there I was. Nick’s orb floated just over her shoulder. I wondered what other dirt my husband dug up on her tonight. I took a chance and straightened ever so slightly to get Nick’s attention, but I didn’t think he saw me. He certainly didn’t give any indication he had, and I wasn’t about to risk being seen any further.

  Chapter 5

  I walked back to the bakery feeling more annoyed with Janice than ever before. I knew she was a liar, but this really took the cake (and the cookies). I was convinced Janice was absolutely the most deceitful person I’d ever met. If you wanted to open a chain cookie business, then why not just do that? There were plenty of successful ones to choose from. Just walk through any airport or mall food court and you were sure to find one. Why did she have to pretend to make the cookies herself? My business was being taken down by a fraud and I was determined not to let that happen. I had a feeling it would take more than just blabbing the truth out to my customers although I might say a word to Betty Jones and let her put the truth out there, but I also knew it would take more than that to get Janice to fess up to her deceitful business practices. I just wasn’t sure what that more was. Perhaps it was being charged with murder? I also wondered how active the village’s Concerned Community Pact still was. The group had formed this past fall when a real estate developer had forced economic prosperity down everyone’s throats and threatened to turn our beloved home into a tourist trap. Would Janice’s false pretenses be enough to ruffle their feathers?

  My thoughts of Janice temporarily made me forget that Milo was missing, but as soon as I reached the back steps of the bakery my heart gave a little flip-flop. I was the worst pet parent and all of Bleu Clair Bay and to think, Adele had thought she could trust me as his guardian. One thing was for certain, I would not give up looking for him. I went inside the bakery and fetched a spare bowl and filled it with kibble and put it by the back door, enticing Milo to come back home.

  Knowing I wouldn’t go back to sleep, I got to work in the kitchen instead. My first task was always starting the coffee, which I did in short order. I didn’t dare mix up a batch of anything without taking a few sips of my morning brew—midnight or not. While the coffee percolated, I thought about what I wanted to bake for the day. I knew I had to be on my A-game what with the competition across the street and Granny’s murder hanging in the air. It would take more than a friendly smile to get customers to return to The Sweet Tooth in full force.

  The industrial gas oven made the familiar tick-tick sound it always did before lighting, but it never caught. I tried it again, still nothing. It was the third try when the explosion happened. Nick appeared at my side a millisecond before the oven door blew off. He pushed me aside and onto the ground. Black smoke billowed out choking the oxygen with it. I lay stunned on the floor. My ears rang, and the smoke stung my eyes.

  “Go to the door,” Nick instructed me. He was on the floor next to me encouraging me forward. I could barely make out his appearance through my burning eyes. Flames shot through the ceiling, bringing plaster down with it. I would be dead within minutes if I didn’t get out.

  Nick crawled ahead through the smoke and opened the door, lighting my path outside. Then, he returned, his body hovered over mine, washing me in coolness and creating a shield from the heat. It felt like ages, but it was only a matter of seconds until I reached the back door. Behind me the kitchen was fully engulfed in flames.

  “It was a gas explosion,” I told the fire chief. “The oven wouldn’t light, so I kept on trying. It was the third time when it exploded.” I was sitting on the back of an ambulance down at the marina’s public parking lot. An oxygen mask was on my face, and the paramedic was examining my wrist. Nick stood beside me.

  I winced.

  “I believe it’s broken,” the paramedic replied. I had surmised as much. Minute by minute as the shock of the explosion wore off, a throbbing pain replaced it.

  “You’re lucky to be alive,” the fire chief said.

  Believe me, I knew that. True to his name, my husband pushed me out of the way right in the nick of time.

  “Has the unit ever given you any trouble before?” the fire chief asked me.

  I thought back to this fall when had a small oven fire, but in that case, someone had accidentally bumped up the oven temperature. At least that’s what I had assumed at the time. I never figured out what had caused the oven to jump up to five hundred degrees and burn my pecan pies.

  Then, amidst the rescue personal and flashing lights, I heard it. It was the faintest meow. “Shh, be quiet!” I shushed everyone. Against the paramedics wish I took the mask off my face and gingerly slid down from the back of the ambulance.

  The fire inspector went to talk, but I silenced him once more.

  “Just one second,” I said, holding up my finger.

  I peered down below the SUV parked two cars down and there was Milo. Only he wasn’t alone. I recognized him with one of Granny’s other cats I had assumed had been adopted. The gray and white long-haired cat was sitting beside Milo looking just as guilty as he was. I think Granny called him Bernie.

  “Milo, you naughty kitty,” I said, scooping my cat up with my good wrist. Bernie meowed in protest. “Don’t wor
ry, I’m not leaving you here either,” I said to him.

  “You survived,” Autumn said from behind me. I didn’t even have time to respond. She wrapped me in a fierce hug, squashing Milo between us.

  “Watch out for her wrist!” the paramedic shouted.

  Autumn stepped back with tears in her eyes. “I saw the bakery, and I thought the worst.”

  “How bad is it?” I asked even though I already knew the kitchen was toast. “Can any of it be saved?”

  “I’m not sure, but that’s not important.”

  Autumn was right. I hugged Milo fiercely and asked Autumn to pick up Bernie. Autumn looked around unsure of where to put the cats.

  “Oh, thank heavens!” Ellen said, shutting her car door and making it over to us quicker than one would think her short legs could take her. “Betty called me. I can’t believe it. Look at you.” Ellen held my face in her between her palms. Tears swam in her eyes.

  “I’m okay,” I said. I would have nodded if she wasn’t still holding on to my face.

  “You found Milo, too?” Ellen said taking a step back and noticing the tabby for the first time.

  “Plus another one,” I said. “They were under a parked car here.”

  Ellen offered another praise to heaven that the cats hadn’t been in the apartment after all. I snuggled my face in Milo’s thick brown fur, having thought the same thing.

  “Do you mind taking the cats?” Autumn asked Ellen.

  “What? Why?” I asked before Ellen could answer.

  “Because you need to go to the hospital,” Autumn replied.

  “For what?” Of course I started coughing and choking at that moment and even I knew my voice sounded hoarse.

  “Smoke inhalation for starters and it sounds like you’ve got yourself a broken wrist, too.”

  I knew I needed medical attention, but at that moment I would have given anything to head back to the manor for a shower and a nap with Milo.

  “Fine, but I’m driving myself,” I replied. I wasn’t used to all the fussing over me and I wasn’t sure I liked it.

  “No, you’re not. Get in my car, let’s go,” Autumn replied in her deputy voice. Once again Autumn was back to bossing me around, but this time I didn’t give her any grief about it. I handed Milo off to Ellen who promised she wouldn’t let the cat out of her sight and Autumn walked with Bernie over to Ellen’s car before coming back and assisting me with getting into hers.

  “There’s something I need to tell you,” Autumn said as we drove down M-22 to Munson Hospital in Traverse City. Nick rode in the back, lost in his own thoughts.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “We’ve found out how Granny was poisoned and it wasn’t your baking.”

  “Really? That’s fantastic!”

  “Not exactly.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Autumn debated continuing. Her eyes were fixed directly ahead on the road.

  “C’mon, you can’t tell me that and not the rest. I promise I won’t tell anyone else.”

  “No, it’s not that. Sheriff Daniel’s wants you to know. I just don’t want it to upset you too much.”

  “Autumn, you’re driving me nuts here! Spit it out.”

  “Okay, it was your scarf.”

  “What?” I wasn’t following. “How?” All I could think of was Granny must’ve been allergic to wool.

  “Someone laced it with cyanide and Granny inhaled it.”

  “Cyanide? You don’t accidentally lace a scarf with cyanide.”

  “I know,” Autumn replied.

  Nick had snapped out of his thoughts and was looking anxiously between the two of us. “Ask her if they have any suspects,” he said to me, so I did.

  “Not yet. Can you think of anyone?” Autumn asked.

  I could and her name was Janice Stewart.

  Chapter 6

  Autumn listened while I shared my suspicions about Janice in between nurses and doctors stopping by my room. I ended by saying, “I know this is all circumstantial and you need hard evidence, but I don’t have it yet.”

  “Yet? Claire, you need to stay out of this. Let the sheriff’s department solve the case.”

  “Stay out of it? Are you kidding me? Someone tried to kill me with my scarf and now my bakery’s been blown up and you want me to stay out of it?”

  “Yes, I do. Maybe you should go stay with mother for a while.”

  “Oh, heck no. That’s not happening.”

  “Your sister has a point,” Nick chimed in. I completely ignored him. I wasn’t leaving town, and that was final.

  Autumn stepped outside to make a few phone calls. I was hoping one of them was to Preston so he could start investigating Janice, but I didn’t push the matter. Nick was eerily silent.

  “What?” I asked, unable to stand his brooding any longer.

  “Nothing.”

  “Liar.”

  “Claire, I’m not really in the mood right now.”

  “I get that, believe me, I do.” My own mood the last couple of days came to mind. “Just know that whenever you’re ready to talk, I’m here.”

  Nick let out a breath. It was such a human trait that I had to laugh. He realized what he had done and also let out a chuckle. After that it was a full-on laugh fest. I’m pretty sure the pain medication wasn’t helping (on my part anyway.)

  “I love you, you know that?” Nick said.

  “Of course I do.”

  “I worry about you. Did you know that?

  “Well, I suppose so. I worry about you, too.”

  “You worry about me?” Nick was incredulous.

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “But I’m already dead.”

  I thought for a minute. “There are worse things that could happen to you.”

  “Such as?”

  “I’d never see you again.” I could deal with having a ghost as a husband. What I couldn’t deal with was never seeing him again.

  Nick was silent for a minute. “The thing is, what if I’m not there next time? As much as we joke, I can’t tell when you’re in trouble. Not always, anyway. We got lucky tonight. I saw you outside Janice’s and I stopped in to see why you were outside so late at night. If I hadn’t seen you—”

  “We’d be back together again,” I replied with a winning smile.

  Nick scowled.

  I threw my good hand up. It was a moot point. Nick had been there in time. I would not stress and worry about the what ifs. “Speaking of Janice, did you find out anything else?”

  “She doesn’t bake her own cookies, she has an unhealthy obsession with money, and she has a creepy collection of miniature dolls.”

  I thought Nick’s statement through. The cookies I knew, the dolls, creepy. The money? There might be something there. “Think it’s enough motive to bump me off? Close the bakery and put her competition out of business?”

  “I wouldn’t put anything past Janice,” Nick said, repeating my phrase from earlier in the day.

  “Keep a close eye on her, okay?” I said.

  “No. Not okay. I’m not leaving your side.”

  “Nick, come on. Nothing else will happen tonight. All I’m going to do is go home and go to bed. Besides, don’t you think it’s smart to keep an eye on the person who’s trying to kill me?”

  “If it is her.”

  “It is. Trust me.”

  “Fine, but don’t be alarmed if I pop into your bedroom a time or two just to check on you,” Nick said.

  “Am I ever?” I replied.

  Nick only left my side after I was discharged from the hospital and tucked safely in Autumn’s sedan. He was heading off to Janice’s to make sure she wasn’t planning another attack. I also asked if he wouldn’t mind stopping by the bakery. I had no idea where Granny had run off to following the fire. Autumn on the other hand wasn’t that easy to shake. She would’ve followed me to the bathroom if I had let her. She did however come in handy with wrapping my cast so I could shower. Although Ellen and A
melia would have equally offered to help me. Everyone except for Jacob was awake when we made it back to the manor just before sunrise.

  “Are you sure this will work?” I asked as Autumn secured my arm in a bread bag. I had opted for a pretty aqua-colored cast. If your wrist had to be broken, it might as well still look beautiful.

  “Trust me. Remember when I broke my wrist in pursuit of a suspect?”

  “Oh, yeah, I forgot that.” Autumn had been new to the force, and a man had underestimated her tenacity. He may have knocked her down and stomped on her wrist, but he couldn’t keep her down and at the end of the chase she had her man. He was probably still in jail.

  I washed my hair twice and I could still smell the smoke in it. It would have to do because I didn’t have the energy for a third washing. I also learned that washing your hair with one hand is harder that it sounds. As long as all the soap was out, I was calling it good.

  With comfy clothes on I climbed into bed and then it was lights out.

  My eyes snapped open in the soft light of the bedroom. For a split second I thought I could smell fire. I felt panicky in the silence of the late morning until I realized the smell was still coming from my hair. Just breathe, I told myself. Thinking about the fire or my bakery would not help me get the rest my body so desperately needed. I attempted to calm my heart and convince myself to go back to sleep put it was pointless. I had no idea what time it was, but the day had fully started without me. Possibly even the afternoon. I lay in bed listening for my roommates but came up empty. Milo and Bernie slept curled together behind my legs and I let them be as I scooted up and out of bed. Like washing my hair, getting out of bed even proved awkward. This would take some getting used to. Plus plenty of pain reliever.

  I debated taking another shower, but I didn’t even want to attempt to wrap my wrist up solo, which is what I would have had to do. Ellen had left a note stating she had run out to the grocery store and to grab my prescription. Amelia and Margaret were at Jacob’s preschool for Special Person’s Day, and they would all be back home later this afternoon. I was good with that. The coffee maker was calling my name, and I was going to answer it. Then I had a morbid thought— if Janice really had wanted to kill me, she should have poisoned my coffee. I never thought twice about drinking my morning brew, but now I was having serious reservations. I was probably being ridiculous, but then again, someone had tried to kill me once already, possibly twice if I counted the fire. I eyed the coffee maker suspiciously and decided I wasn’t about to chance it. Looked like I would have to run into town for a cup of coffee.