by January Bain
“Is it working?”
I glanced up from overworking the brownie mixture, catching his intent interest in the subject, and made myself look away.
“Could you move back a bit? I need to get a pan.”
He did as I asked, moving his hot bod out of my way and finally giving me some breathing room.
I poured the chocolate batter into the prepped pan, carefully spreading it to the edges. He popped the oven door open for me and I tucked the brownies inside to bake. I took a second to set the cute rooster timer by his bright red comb then turned to confront him.
“Okay. What are you doing here?” I focused on the comforting tick tock of the timer, finding it soothing to my jangled nerves.
“Don’t you remember I said I needed to talk to you?”
“Sorry. Been a crazy day. Do you want some coffee?”
“Sure.” He walked about the room as I fired up the coffee machine, picking up this or that utensil, then looking at it like it housed some odd mystery of the universe. Still in jeans and a white shirt, he looked absolutely nothing like any Mountie I’d ever seen. Now, a sexy actor playing a sheriff in the movies, that I would buy.
“Cream or sugar?”
“Don’t think I’m sweet enough, darlin’?” he teased, looking up from inspecting a cookie press we used for larger orders, adding, “Black, thanks.”
“If your objective is to get the suspect to relax enough to confess with idle chitchat, Officer, you’re failing big time.” My heart hammered, overcome with the severity of my predicament. I had to find the murderer to clear my name and keep a roof over my Granny and siblings. Pressure was building, and I didn’t like it, afraid I’d screw up even more than I already had, kissing the man investigating a murder I was implicated in. Didn’t he worry about the same thing? Or was he okay with it?
“Why? Do you have something you need to get off your chest, Miss McCall?” He pinned me with a look. He set down the cookie press and joined me, pulling out a chair and sitting across the small table I’d placed our cups of coffee on.
“No, I do not.” I took a sip of the hot coffee, breathing out a sigh of contentment.
He followed my actions, the smoldering look in his eyes saying more than words ever could.
“So, you ready to tell me what you know about Fred Smith?”
“I know he didn’t do it.”
“And you know this how?” He took a sip from his cup and nodded. “Good coffee.”
“Thanks. Consider yourself reimbursed for the kiss.”
His eyebrows rose. Good. Surprised you for a change.
“Okay. So, Fred Smith?”
“Pretty much the same way I find things for people. I touched him and got a reading. I was fortunate enough that he was thinking about the case at the time. He thinks I did it.” I ignored my fear.
“You touched him? How?” His eyebrows came together like thunderclouds, a tic developing in his cheek again. I froze, thinking a suspect would spill all they knew if this big guy was standing over them.
I gulped. “Just on the arm when I was reaching for something.”
He nodded, still frowning. “I guess I wasn’t clear enough last time. I’m the one investigating this case, not you.”
“Couldn’t you deputize me or something? I can help you. I know these people. They’re my people. And my inside knowledge will solve it quicker.”
His eyebrows rose higher, a look of astonishment replacing the anger. “No such thing as a civilian deputy.”
“There must be some way. Look, this affects me far more than you. Our business of selling our baked goods is our livelihood. Surely you can make an exception?”
“It’s my job to protect the citizens of Snowy Lake, Charm.” He shook his head. “I need you to promise me you’ll stay out of this.”
“Or what? You’ll arrest me?” Anger boiled over.
“I don’t want it to come to that. But interfering, going around burgling people’s houses, I can’t allow that kind of lawlessness.”
I pressed my lips tightly together to avoid saying something that could only worsen the situation.
He stood up, his frustration clear. I remained sitting, refusing to promise anything. I did not want to be shown a liar. I had to continue my quest. My family were counting on me.
“So that’s it then? You refuse to listen to me?”
I shook my head, my mind churning.
I defiantly looked anywhere but at Ace, and the back door slammed behind him. With trembling fingers, I poured myself another cup of coffee. But it grew cold, untouched, as I stared into space.
Chapter Ten
Ding.
The brownies. I stumbled to my feet, grabbed a pair of oven mitts and pulled the tray from the oven.
Infuriating man. My anger grew as I whipped up a batch of chocolate buttercream frosting for the brownies while they cooled. I like everything iced, so sue me.
I went about boxing them up in groups of six, intending to carry out my plan no matter how annoying the edict from His Holiness was. Brownies were currency in Snowy Lake and the murderer would know they were fine to eat.
Picking up the stack, I exited the kitchen, heading for Thor. One night to solve the mystery before Granny came home and I couldn’t afford to waste a second.
First up, Boyd Thompson. I drove toward his car dealership, Boyd’s Wheels, keeping an eye out for Ace. The last thing I needed was him noticing me snooping around. I hoped my cover of brownies would divert suspicion, but our most recent interaction suggested not. His warnings hadn’t exactly been unclear.
The lot was still open, as it was every Friday night. Boyd was the kind of man to know that as the festival closed, people would mosey on over to have something else to look at before calling it a night. A family was enjoying ice-cream cones as they drifted around the lot, followed closely by a salesman. I pulled in alongside Boyd’s Lexus and switched off the motor. Grabbing a box of brownies by the string, I climbed out and took a deep breath. The odors of fair food lingered in the evening air, stirring up my hunger again. I promised myself a brownie later, though my pangs argued for one now. Hopefully I’d be having two or three in celebration of knowing the identity of the killer.
I hurried through the front sliding glass doors, intent on making a beeline for Boyd’s office. I nodded at the employee coming out, whose eyes widened on seeing me.
“Evening, Shirley.”
She smiled tentatively and kept walking away.
I entered Boyd’s spacious office. The walls were covered with photos of him and different people, shaking hands over the buying of a vehicle. All locals. Boyd knew his audience. Everyone liked to be appreciated and hung on his wall of honor.
“Charm McCall.” He looked up from his laptop and set his coffee cup down, his eyes alert and calculating. Of course, he’d have seen me coming on the lot monitor. “What a nice surprise. And you’ve brought me something, I see.”
I handed the box of brownies over, the odor of his favorite almond roast coffee lingering in the air. “Your favorite treat, triple chocolate brownies with buttercream frosting.”
“Mighty sweet of you.”
“My pleasure.”
“Did the new constable finally catch up with you?”
I nodded. “Yeah. He talk with you as well?”
“Why would he be interested in me? It was your jam that was laced with poison.”
I swallowed down the sour bile and pasted a smile on. “He’s talking with everyone who saw Mrs. Hurst on her last day. And that puts you squarely on the list.”
“Yeah, well, I had a legitimate reason for being there.” He smoothed his bad combover. “Mrs. Hurst was looking to order a new car.”
“She get around to signing a deal?”
“Not sure that’s any of your business. But as it happens, no. For the best really, now that she’s gone.”
“Yeah, not much call for the dead to drive.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Was th
ere anything else? I do thank you for the brownies.”
“Thinking of buying a new vehicle myself.”
“Ah, do you think the timing is right?”
“Why, because I’m also on the list of suspects?”
“I would say it’s a bit more than that, Charm. I had a good reason for seeing Mrs. Hurst and I did not harm a hair on that dear lady’s head. I didn’t lace my jam with arsenic or cyanide or whatever poison you used.”
“Excuse me.” This was going too far. ‘“Dear lady’s head.’ Why, Boyd Thompson, I’m surprised your head doesn’t explode.”
“I have to ask you to leave my office now. I won’t stand for this slanderous talk. I thought more of you than this. Why, if your granny was here, she’d be horrified at what you’re suggesting.” His eyes squinted at me, his mouth twisted up in a silly way. Pompous idiot.
My legendary streak of patience must have ended without my knowledge.
“Boyd Thompson.” I stood. “Tell me what happened. Did you do something to Mrs. Hurst?” I moved around the desk. He was now standing as well, his expression wary. I moved in closer, grabbed his arm and closed my eyes to get a reading.
A vision came firing into my brain, making me shudder. I held on, trying to see what he was seeing. Yes. Think about Mrs. Hurst…
“Miss McCall, what do you think you’re doing?” A thundering, commanding voice made me let go of Boyd and stagger backwards.
Oh-oh, crap on a cracker. Constable Ace Collins stood in the doorway, looking thoroughly pissed-off.
“Just trying to get to the truth,” I whispered. Not able to look away from the outraged Mountie, I stood and stared, beyond horrified. Being found out so soon did not bode well for the rest of my plan. Abort. Abort.
“And what did I warn you of not even an hour ago?”
“To say out of your investigation. That you had it handled.”
“I thank you, Officer, for coming by. I was just asking this woman to leave and she was not willing to.”
“Are you wanting to press charges, Mr. Thompson?”
“Charges!” Equal parts horrified and angry, I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at the two imbeciles. I must have dreamed the kiss. This was as far from that divine experience as humanly imaginable.
“No, I just want her to leave.”
“Good, then we see eye to eye. Miss McCall, if you would?” His Holiness held out a hand to me that I studiously ignored, making a point of walking around the desk and pushing past him to get into the showroom. The zing of electricity I got touching Ace did not help my mood.
I walked stiff-legged out into the warm July weather, enjoying the slight breeze that cooled my overheated skin. I spun round soon as I heard him behind me.
“You just had to follow me. Stalk me like…like…a darn Mountie!”
“Sorry, ma’am. Just doing my sworn duty.”
“That Sheriff Taylor from Mayberry sh—stuff doesn’t work on me.”
“You couldn’t use a bad word if your mouth was full of it.”
“And that’s a bad thing? The world is going to hades in a handbasket—”
“Now who’s acting all Miss Goody Two-shoes!”
“Phhht.”
“Back at you, Miss McCall.”
We glared at each other, unminding of our audience.
“Okay, let’s calm down.”
“I am calm.”
“I can see that.”
“How about we sit in your jeep and discuss this? It will be less obvious than using the patrol car.” He nodded toward the interested parties watching the sparks fly.
“Fine.”
I crawled into my side and stared out of the windshield, not seeing much of anything except the color red.
“What were you thinking? Going in there after I explicitly warned you to stay out of my investigation?”
“I needed to know if he did it.”
“And did he?”
I turned, venturing a peek at him. He genuinely seemed to want to know, under his very pissed-off Mountie look.
“Inconclusive. He hated her enough. They’d had some kind of long-standing beef. But I can’t say for certain.”
“I’ll look into it. Now, will you leave this alone?”
I bit my lower lip to keep from saying the exact wrong thing. One of my specialities.
“Tell me how to get through to you? For such an intelligent woman, you can be so headstrong.”
“Okay.” I asked through stiff lips, “Do you think I did it?”
“What?”
“Do. You. Think. I. Did. It?”
He rubbed the back of his neck, then gave me a rueful glance. “Truthfully, no. I don’t think you have murder in your heart. At least not for a townie.” His look suggested for a non-townie I might be provoked into the act. He might be right.
A rap on the window right beside my face made me jump halfway out of my seat. I placed a hand over my heart, rolling down the glass with a few twists of my wrist.
“Tulip. What’s up?”
“Ah, you’re needed back at the café. There’s an important meeting you should attend.”
“A meeting?” I stared at her, noticing the high color in her fair cheeks and her slightly disheveled hair from sprinting across the parking lot. She must have run all the way, I couldn’t see her little Volkswagen bug any where.
“Yeah, there’s a consortium gathering to prevent the strippers from working at the Boots & Lace.” Her expression suggested I needed to get with it. “I said they could meet at our place. Thought it might be good for business.”
“You thought right. Good call.” I couldn’t have cared less either way about the strippers doing shows to anyone over the age of majority. However, it was best to insert ourselves in the midst of the fray and try to steer it if it went south.
“Can we finish this later?” I asked brightly as Tulip came around the back of my jeep to wait for Ace to step out.
“I think we are finished for now. You go to your meeting, stay out of my business and all will be well. Deal?”
I didn’t dare look at him. I nodded once, the skin prickling on the back of my neck. I wasn’t into his business. I was into my own and no one need be the wiser if he took it the wrong way.
“Okay then. I’ll leave you to host that meeting. Sounds like it might contain fireworks, but I’m sure you can handle it. Call me if it gets out of hand.”
I chanced another look and found him grinning widely at me.
I watched him climb out of my jeep, his tight gluteus maximus on display in his well-fitted jeans. Phhht, the guy was just too, too—what was the right word? Yes. Just too much.
Chapter Eleven
Before Mr. Too-Much made his vehicle, Tulip had jumped in beside me and I was directing Thor out of the parking space. I floored the gas petal in my rush to get back to the café before it was torn to pieces by a horde of angry villagers. A crowd with pitchforks as in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein came to mind. Not a reassuring image.
I parked out back and the two of us raced inside, finding the café filled to bursting with the human version of a noisy swarm of killer bees.
“Well, I say we need to let them know they’re not welcome here. We should elect a group to go right over to the hotel right now and let them know that. Tonight.” Harriet Stokes, one of the stylists at the Clip Joint, had the rapt attention of the women assembled in our café. At least some of the invited guests were occupied, munching cookies and drinking coffee, watching the antics as though they were at the drive-in movie theater our town boasted during the summer months.
I poured myself a cup of coffee, laced it with a jolt of cream and sat, nabbing a peanut butter cookie from a tray sitting open on the tabletop. Tulip had placed cookies on every available open space. Smart. Temptation would lesson suspicion of our products. Maybe this stripper problem would turn out to be a boom for us. Take the heat off, if nothing else. Thank you, strippers, I silently toasted them, munching on the cooki
e.
“Yes. We need to make it abundantly clear. It’s not acceptable in Snowy Lake for women to remove their clothing for money,” another voice spoke up from the back of the room.
I didn’t bother to mention that that was already the case for a few women who’d chosen another way to make their daily bread in town, not wanting to stir the pot. I guess because they were our scarlet women, it made it okay.
“It’s disgusting! Every time I think of it, my heart flutters. I’m going to have a heart attack or something and it will be on their heads. Mark my words.”
I didn’t bother to check who said it. It could have been any of a number of the women.
I stood. Time to wade in. “They need funds to fix their tour bus, right?” Every eye in the place turned to me. I tried not to shiver and pressed on. “How about we help them with that problem? You know, raise funds in a socially acceptable way for them?”
Silence.
“You know, that’s not a half-bad idea. We could have a bake sale or something. You’d help with that, right, Charm? Tulip?”
I nodded. More free cookies. Well, goodwill is priceless. Harriet Stokes glared at the woman agreeing with me, but thankfully remained silent. A number of heads nodded. Good. It wouldn’t be a consensus, but hopefully enough to push the idea through to a vote.
“We’ll bake up dozens, and all the profit goes to the cause. Every last penny. That bus will be rolling out of town before you know it,” I assured them.
Tulip added her voice. “Yes. We’ll get right on it. Start baking tonight.”
“I’ll add a dozen loaves of my homemade bread,” a strong voice rang out. Was that Helen? I searched the crowd, locating her beaming face behind a couple of other women. She shone, rosy with health. I breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe things were looking up in Snowy Lake.
I waded through the crowd, managing to get close enough to Helen to speak. “That’s nice of you, to help out with your famous bread. I would love to spend a day with you learning your recipe.”
“Least I can do. Sure. When things calm down, I’ll set a day aside and teach you my method. It’s as old as I am. A pioneer recipe from the eighteen hundreds that an ancestor brought over from the old country,” she teased. “Though I must say I haven’t felt this good in years.” Her eyes twinkled as she looked up at me. “Must have been something to do with the iced tea and companionship we shared this afternoon, eh, dear?”
