How to Bake a Murder (A Cookie and Cream Cozy Mystery Book 1)

by K. J. Emrick

  Madison had as much as said that if one more person died in Cookie’s bakery that she was coming down here to yank Clarissa out herself.

  Fair enough. Hopefully, Cookie had thought to herself, it wouldn’t come to that.

  “Grandma,” Clarissa said, after frosting the last of the cupcakes with purple icing, “I’m going upstairs, all right? May I use the computer?”

  Cookie nodded and Clarissa escaped out of the kitchen. Apparently she’d had enough Grandma time.

  Which left Cookie alone to think about the things that Benjamin Roth had said to her. The more she thought, the angrier she became. A growing part of her was worried as well. As certain as she was that she would defend her business and her home to the bitter end, it was becoming harder not to recognize the danger she was in.

  Her and Clarissa both.

  She needed to talk to Jerry. She wanted to tell him about Roth. Also… she wanted to know that Jerry was on her side. Not just because he might like her, but because he believed her.

  His phone number was programmed into her cell phone. It had been for a long time, from back when they were just friends. She dialed it now, sitting down at one of the tables in the bakery. It rang four times and she was just about to hang up rather than leave a message when he answered.

  “Cookie?”

  “So guess who I just got a visit from?”

  “I’m guessing it wasn’t Santa Claus.”

  “Jerry, it’s summer.”

  “The jolly old elf can’t make a special trip?”

  There was a lot to be said for a man who could make her laugh in the middle of so much going wrong. “I’m serious.”

  “Okay. I’m listening.”

  “Benjamin Roth. Just now, the man was in my store.”

  “Oh?”

  “Oh? That’s all you have to say? The man was in my business! My home!”

  “All right, Cookie, I get it. We don’t know he’s done anything, though, so all I’m saying is…”

  “He wants to buy my place. I’ve told you that. That’s something, isn’t it?”

  “He’s a businessman, Cookie. He offers to buy and sell things. It’s what he does.”

  She put a hand up to her forehead, and pressed. “I swear, Jerry Stansted, if you were here right now, I’d—”

  “Kiss me?” he asked, as he pushed his way in through the broken door, the bell announcing his entrance like an angel on the wing. He looked amazing in his police uniform, just like always.

  She still wanted to slap him.

  They put their cell phones away at the same time, and then he stood there with a smile on his face until he noticed she wasn’t smiling back.

  “What?” he asked her.

  She fought back her first reply. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here, is all.”

  “I’m starting to enjoy coming by your shop more and more, Cookie. Something about the company I get to keep.”

  The flirt in his voice was hard to miss. She liked it, she just wasn’t in the mood for it. “Well you aren’t going to enjoy coming to see me here if I don’t have a shop anymore, are you?”

  That got Jerry to take her seriously, at least. “He won’t be able to buy your store without your permission, Cookie. This is America. It doesn’t work like that.”

  “Unless someone makes it so I have to sell.”

  The light came on behind his eyes. It was a slow dawning, but she saw him finally get to the point that she had been trying to make. The murder in her bakery. The broken front window. How much more trouble could her little shop survive before she had to shut it down or go broke? Then she’d have to sell it off, and probably sell it to Benjamin Roth whether she wanted to or not.

  She prayed to God it wouldn’t come to that.

  Jerry’s smile faded. “Did he threaten you? Did he say he would do anything to you or the store?”

  “No, but he kept saying that he always got what he wanted. He said he could make my life difficult until he did. He made me nervous.”

  Jerry began pacing, back and forth, one hand on his rugged chin. She could see he was angry even if he tried to keep it bottled up inside. “I think I should have a talk with him. I know he’s the mayor’s friend, and all, but I don’t like the way he spoke to you. He didn’t exactly do anything illegal but I want to remind him there are boundaries you don’t cross. Even in business. Did he do anything else?”

  “Um. Well. He bought some lobster tails.”

  That stopped him in his pacing so abruptly that his shoe squeaked against the floor. “He did what now?”

  “I sold him some pastries, okay? He said he wanted to buy them for his friend and I just wanted him to leave, so I sold him a box of pastry so he’d go away.”

  “Okay, okay.” Jerry lifted his hands, palms out. “I didn’t mean to criticize you. It’s just going to be hard to say you felt threatened by him when you made change for him or whatever.”

  “Actually he told me to keep the change.” Which reminded her. “His hand. His hand was cut.”

  “Cut?”

  “Yes. Along the edge here.” She showed him what she meant, on her own hand. “Like it had been cut on glass.”

  She expected him to argue that lots of people cut themselves. Instead, he nodded thoughtfully. “Like the broken glass in your door here. That’s one more little thing that adds up in your theory. It doesn’t mean he’s the killer, but it means I’m worried now.”

  “Worried? About what?”

  “About you,” he said, close enough now to take her hands in his. “I want you to stay away from this man.”

  “I want him to stay away from me,” she said. “Why can’t we just go confront him with everything?’

  “Because it isn’t enough. What would be his motive?”

  “He wants my shop. Isn’t that motive enough?”

  Jerry shook his head slightly. “To kill a man? Is that a reason for murder?”

  “He said he gets whatever he wants.” Jerry’s fingers felt very good in hers. “Didn’t we just talk about how he said he’d make my life miserable until he got what he wanted?”

  “We did.” He played little circles on the backs of her hands. Hard to remember what they were supposed to be talking about. She heard Jerry sigh. It seemed he was having trouble keeping track also. After a moment he continued, “Yes, he said he would do anything to get what he wants. What he wants is this store. But… murder?”

  A little tickle worked its way across Cookie’s skin where he touched her. She stepped back from him. Not because she didn’t like the way he was giving her goosebumps, but because she needed to think clearly. She needed to convince him the way she was convinced. “It makes sense to me.”

  He considered that. “All right. I still don’t see it, but you do. So if you’re sure about this let me make a few phone calls and maybe I can figure something out.”

  “Calls? To who?”

  “Detective Kent, to start with,” he told her, taking out his cell phone from his utility belt. “Could you make us some coffee? I don’t know how long this is going to take.”

  “Sure,” she told him. He sat at a table while she went to the kitchen. She could only hear bits and pieces of his conversation as she put beans in the grinder and then put the grinds in the machine to percolate. She decided to put some oversized sugar cookies on a tray for them too. By the time she poured them two cups of homebrew, Jerry was just finishing his call.

  She put the tray down on the table and sat down next to him. “What did he say?”

  Jerry put the phone down on the table. He sat back in his chair and drummed his fingers on his leg. “He said they got a fingerprint off the shards of glass Officer Jones took from your door yesterday.”

  Her hopes swelled. “They did? Was it a good one?”

  “Good enough for a match.”

  “Well all right then! Tell me. Is it Roth?”

  “No.”

  No? It had to be him. “Then who is it?”


  “It’s Sweeney,” Jerry told her, disbelief written across his face. “The mayor’s assistant.”

  Cookie’s brow furrowed as she thought back. “The man we saw at the funeral?”

  “The guy who drove the mayor and his wife away, yes.”

  “But, Benjamin Roth…”

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Cookie. The fingerprint evidence is definite.”

  Still, she couldn’t believe it. “He’s our killer?”

  “No, he’s the guy who broke your window. That doesn’t make him a killer.”

  So Benjamin could still be the killer. But then, why would Sweeney break her window? What was the point?

  None of this was adding up.

  “Anyway,” Jerry said. “Detective Kent is working up the paperwork to arrest Sweeney now. We want to take this slow because we both agreed he could have something to do with Julien’s death. Maybe not, but we don’t want to rush into just charging him with criminal mischief. If we don’t have all of our ducks in a row, then Sweeney will just make bail and disappear. Give us some time. We’ll have Sweeney in hand by the end of the day.”

  “That’s supposed to be good enough?” She didn’t mean for that to sound so whiny, but she couldn’t help it. Her life had been turned upside down and now that they knew at least one of the people responsible, she still had to just sit and wait.

  He reached across the table and put his hand over hers. “Let us do our job, Cookie.”

  His hand felt so warm on hers. It was nice, and she wished they would have more times like this, where they could just sit and talk over coffee.

  “All right,” she told him. “I’ll wait to see what happens.”

  He smiled at her, and she smiled back, but in the back of her mind she was already thinking about what she would do next.

  Wait and see? Like Hell.

  ***

  Cookie knew that she would have to confront Sweeney before he got arrested. Once the handcuffs were on, he might close his mouth and say nothing at all, just like Jerry had said. But if she got to him first, she could make him talk. She knew she could.

  Her little Volkswagen revved to life behind the bakery. It was business hours on a weekday, and Sweeney was the mayor’s assistant. She knew right where to find him.

  The town hall had stood in the same place in Widow’s Rest since the 1800s, although it had burned down once and been rebuilt with red bricks instead of the original stonework. That’s what the historical sign in front of the wide front steps said. There was other information on it as well, about the town’s first mayor and year of incorporation, but Cookie had never taken the time to read it all. She didn’t take the time now, either. How long would she have before Jerry and Detective Kent came to arrest Sweeney on a warrant? Not long, certainly.

  The front doors led to the main hall of the first floor. The assessor’s office, and the historian’s little cubicle, and the town clerk. None of those were who she needed. She needed the big office down at the end. The mayor’s office.

  At a desk just inside the heavy wooden door to the office, a secretary sat clicking away at a keyboard. Tiny and brunette, wearing too much makeup around her condescending eyes, the woman paused as Cookie entered and closed the door behind her. “Hiya, Sweetie,” the secretary said, her tone polite even if her strained smile wasn’t. “Can I help you?”

  There was another door that led to an inner office. The mayor’s secret sanctum, no doubt, and the part of the office where Sweeney would work. That’s where Cookie needed to go. “I’m looking for Mister Sweeney,” she said.

  One of the secretary’s eyebrows shot up. “People don’t usually come to see Mister Sweeney. You sure you don’t want to make an appointment with the mayor?”

  “I’m sure.” Cookie matched the woman’s bogus smile. “Is Mister Sweeney in?”

  “I really don’t know. Let me check.”

  She pushed a button on the phone sitting on her desk, then spoke very quietly into the receiver. That was all the confirmation Cookie needed. If they wanted to play games with her, she could play, too. After sixty-one years on this Earth, patience was something Cookie only had in small supply, and she saved that up for when she was waiting for bread to rise.

  There wasn’t any left for petty bureaucrats who tried to break into her shop.

  Brushing past the edge of the secretary’s desk, Cookie threw open the door to the inner office. Sure enough, there was Sweeney. She recognized him immediately from when she’d seen him at the funeral. He sat behind the mayor’s desk, looking completely at home there, in a three-piece suit of gray and black, leafing through files that—if Cookie had to bet—he didn’t have a right to look at.

  “Wait,” the secretary was saying, “you have no right—!”

  Cookie ignored her. Shutting the door on the annoying woman, she met Sweeney’s harsh gaze. “We need to talk.”

  Very calmly, he closed the file folders. “You’re the lady that owns the bakery.”

  “I am indeed, Mister Sweeney. I’m the lady who owns the bakery where your fingerprint was found.”

  “Oh?” He sat back in the chair, folding his hands together. “My fingerprint, hmm? Well. I feel like I’d better confess to something right now. Only, I haven’t done anything illegal. Did you want to accuse me of something?”

  “I don’t need to. The police will be doing that.”

  He stared her down for a long moment. “They’re going to accuse me of… what, exactly?”

  “Of breaking into my store,” Cookie blurted out. She had planned on being much stealthier about this. On her way over she had rehearsed questions and innuendos all designed to make this man slip and tell her everything. Perhaps she should have left things to the police, like Jerry had suggested.

  “My fingerprint on your broken window doesn’t prove anything. Much less that I broke into the place.”

  Oh-ho. Cookie couldn’t help but smile. Jerry owed her an apology, because she was better at this than she thought.

  “I never said the fingerprint was on a broken window, Mister Sweeney.”

  But he had. He knew exactly where his fingerprint had been found. He’d given himself up without meaning to, and she could tell by the twitch in his cheek that he was trying to think of a way out of the corner he’d just painted himself into.

  “I don’t owe you any explanation,” he finally said. “And I don’t believe the police are coming to see me. You’re bluffing.”

  “Think what you like.” There were chairs on this side of the desk, and she thought about sitting down, but the truth was she was too nervous and standing up made her feel like she had at least a little control. “The police know everything you did. I only came here to ask you one question.”

  “Oh? Well, by all means then, Nancy Drew. Ask away.”

  “Did Roth put you up to it?”

  She was surprised when he broke out in choking laughter. “Benjamin Roth? That popinjay? Roth couldn’t hire a taxi, lady, let alone someone like me.”

  Interesting. “But the mayor and Roth are good friends.”

  “So?”

  “So, you work for the mayor. Maybe the mayor hired you to help out his old friend Benjamin Roth.”

  Sure. The mayor put Sweeney up to this, and worked out a deal for Sweeney here to kill Julien. Now there was a new thought. Cookie hadn’t looked at it that way before. If Mayor Belvedere Carson wanted to do a good turn for his friend Benjamin Roth, to help him buy the bakery, then the mayor could have hired Sweeney to commit murder and make it all happen. That way Roth’s hands would be clean. The mayor’s too, so long as Sweeney kept his mouth shut.

  She’d been so caught up in her thoughts that she didn’t realize Sweeney was standing up until he was out of his chair, the palms of his hands resting on the desk as he leaned toward her. “I think it’s time for you to leave,” he told her.

  If she’d been wrong, and Roth wasn’t the killer, then Sweeney most certainly was. That idea weighed heavily on Coo
kie and her feet were just itching to turn and run. She didn’t want to just give up, though. “I’m giving you a chance to tell the truth,” she insisted. “Before the police arrive.”

  “I’ve dealt with police before,” he said, that wicked grin returning to his face. Cookie did not like the way he said that. “If they actually come to see me, I’ll tell them whatever I choose. As for you, I’m not telling you anything. Now, get out.”

  After a moment of indecision Cookie turned and left, not even giving the hateful secretary a glance. She hadn’t exactly gotten what she came for, but she did have more now than she had just fifteen minutes ago. Sweeney was definitely the man who broke her window. That was the first thing she had learned. The second was that there didn’t seem to be any direct connection between Sweeney and Roth.

  The third, was that Sweeney might be the murderer they were looking for.

  A sigh escaped her lips. Nancy Drew. That was what Sweeney had called her. He’d meant it as an insult, and rightfully so. How did they make all of this look so easy on television? She wasn’t cut out to be a detective. She wanted it all resolved. Straightforward answers. Was that too much to ask? She just wanted her business and her life back to normal. Would that ever happen?

  As she drove back to the bakery she let her thoughts wander, hoping they might find a new angle to view this puzzle from. Would Sweeney talk to the cops? Would he confess to the murder? What was his real job for the mayor? Certainly the man wasn’t just a chauffeur.

  Cookie parked behind her building and stared out the windshield at the brick and mortar and wood of the bakery. This was her building. Her store. Her livelihood. What if she lost it all? She gritted her teeth. That couldn’t happen. Not after having built this business up for so many years.

  Climbing out of the car, she felt older than she had in years. Everything seemed to be stacking up against her. She was letting everything get to her. She made up her mind to take just a little bit longer away from the shop, go upstairs, and spend some time with Cream. He’d know how to cheer her up.