Gluten for Punishment

by Nancy J. Parra

  I tried to think of something else. Anything else. I rolled down my window a crack and sniffed the fresh, crisp air of October. It brought back memories of high school.

  At that time, Main and Central were the streets the kids drove at night. In small towns like Oiltop, that’s all the kids had to do on a school night, cruise up and down and wave at friends. Turn around in the McDonald’s and drive the street again. If you were lucky, cute boys would follow you and you could meet up in an empty parking lot. Meanwhile you played your music too loud and flirted through windows.

  Maybe the kids didn’t do it as much anymore, what with the price of gas and the ease of the Internet. Maybe instead of fresh air and bad music, kids stayed home in their bedrooms and talked via webcam.

  I suddenly felt ancient.

  Checking out the cars around me when I drove was an old habit born out of my cruising years. One had to be ready in case the cutest guy in school—like Brad Ridgeway—happened to be driving in the car behind you. Maybe memories made me check tonight. Maybe I was paranoid. Either way, I noticed the small dark sedan that trailed behind my van at a steady pace. It was too far back for me to see who was driving. I stopped at a light, but the car let some kids cut him off so they were between me and him. The bass of their music boomed through the windows.

  I went through the light and turned down Pine Street with one eye on the rearview mirror. Sure enough, the sedan turned down Pine as well. I turned left onto Third Street, left again onto Maple, and headed back toward Central. The car still followed.

  A creepy-crawly feeling went down my back. Now what? Do I call 911? What would I say was my emergency? Someone is following me? I swallowed hard. The police station was two blocks behind Main down from the county fairgrounds. I decided I’d drive by there and see if the car followed.

  The problem with the streets behind Main was they were dark, with a streetlight only every half mile. People didn’t usually flock to the fairgrounds or the baseball stadium this late at night in October. I sped up a little, figuring if I got a ticket I could at least talk to the cop about the car staying two lengths behind me.

  I’d never been followed before; it was unnerving. The only thing I could think to do was to pull into the police station parking area. The sedan drove down the street, but pulled over and turned off its lights about a block away.

  “I can still see you,” I muttered. I was pissed off. I had work to do. It was bad enough this mess had scared away my customers, but now scaring me prevented me from working. I should have been able to go back to the bakery and work. I shouldn’t have to worry about stalkers, damn it. I had bills.

  I worked myself up to a good tizzy, got out of the van, and slammed the door behind me. A quick click of the key and I locked the doors with a comforting honk. I was only a few feet from the door to the police station. Maybe that’s what emboldened me. Instead of going inside like an intelligent woman and letting the big, strong policemen with guns take care of my stalker, I went all redhead and stormed over to the little sedan and knocked on the driver side window. “Hello. Open up.”

  The window rolled down slow. I could see the green lights of the dashboard. The driver wore a tweed suit coat with patches on the elbows He moved his face out of the shadows and a sense of relief went through me.

  “Hi, Toni.” Craig had the good grace to look a little embarrassed.

  “Craig, why are you following me?” I waved my hands. “You scared the daylights out of me.”

  “Um, I saw you leaving the inn and I thought I’d make sure you got to where you were going safely.” He ducked back into the shadows. It was hard to see his face but his tone of voice sounded sincere.

  “How did you know I wasn’t going to the police station?” My voice rose. Like I said, when I get scared, I get mad. Right now I trembled from head to toe. I had to put my hands on my hips to stabilize myself.

  “Well.” He ran his finger around his collar as if his tie was choking him. Or maybe he was worried I would choke him. “I figured you might be running in to see about your computer, but then you’d still have to go home.”

  “What? You thought you’d hang out here until I did whatever and then you’d keep following me?”

  He looked like a kid caught with their hand in a cookie jar. “Yes.”

  “No.” I stomped my foot. “I don’t need to be followed. I’m an adult who lived in Chicago. I think I can handle myself.”

  Craig leaned forward. “Toni, look—”

  “No, you look.” I pointed at him. “If I catch you following me again I’m going to do something you aren’t going to like. I mean it.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I think I got through to him. He did sort of look contrite.

  “Good, now go home.”

  “Good night, Toni.”

  I turned on my heel and stormed off toward my van. I was aware enough of my surroundings to notice that Craig rolled his window back up and took off down the street. My heart beat like a freight train and my hands shook a little. I still had a lot of pent-up energy. I glanced at the police station. Maybe I should put the energy to good use. Since I was already there, it couldn’t hurt to go bug them about returning my computer. Could it?

  CHAPTER 15

  Grandma Ruth was in my kitchen when I got up the next morning. She sipped espresso and snagged two cookies out of the cookie jar on the counter. It was day three of having a drive-to-work babysitter, and after last night’s encounter with Craig, I wasn’t in the best of moods. It didn’t help that the blinking answering machine now had twenty messages on it.

  “I don’t need you to come to work with me, Grandma,” I stressed as I worked the machine and made my own espresso. Then I dumped the thick brew into a large cup and added steamed milk until the lovely smell filled the air.

  “I’m not here to be your bodyguard, kiddo,” Grandma said. She sipped her coffee and then licked her index finger and swiped up the cookie crumbs from off her bosom. “I have news.”

  “What’d you find out?” I leaned against the counter. While I wore my usual white shirt, black slacks, thick socks, and black walker shoes, Grandma wore men’s brown corduroy slacks, a maroon butterfly-patterned waffle weave undershirt, and a flannel lumberjack shirt. She wore a thick denim rancher’s jacket over that.

  With the right hat, you wouldn’t be able to tell what gender she was. Grandma liked that.

  “I spent the day in the public records department at the county courthouse.” Grandma loved public records and, more important, she loved research. “Seems George Meister inherited his father’s farm a few years back. Did you know ever since he took it over, the place has been leaking money like a sieve? He asked for an extension on his property taxes three times last year. I talked to Roger Payne at the county extension office. Turns out George had taken a risk on a new genetically modified wheat seed.”

  “What happened?”

  “Last year, we had a rainy spring and a very dry summer. The wheat rose quickly then got spindly and died off from the lack of water. George had to till under more than half his crop.” Grandma’s blue eyes sparkled. She loved a good disaster story.

  “What was the seed supposed to do? I mean, why gamble if there wasn’t the promise of a big payoff?” I took a sip of my latte and let the caffeine go to work on my brain.

  “The seed was supposed to withstand drought, but the rainy spring ruined it.” Grandma shook her head. “The good news is he wasn’t the only farmer trying the seed and a lot of people lost their crops.”

  “How’s the fact that people lost their crops good news?” It might be early but even my sleep-addled brain didn’t like the idea of farmers losing crops.

  “Those with traditional wheat got more per acre for their harvest. George tried to sue the seed company, but a judge dismissed the case as frivolous and ordered George to pay for the company’s lawyer fees. Mr. Meister filed for bankruptcy two weeks ago.”

  I leaned against my counter and digested the news. “No
wonder he was mad. It really had nothing to do with me or my bakery.” I grabbed up my keys and my leather bag. “Are you coming?”

  “Since I’m here.” Grandma shrugged and hauled herself out the door after me. She stopped at the top of the steps and lit up a cigarette. “I heard you didn’t have any luck interviewing the business owners on your block.”

  “Well, yes and no.” I blew out a breath. It steamed out in the early morning air. There was frost on the ground for the first time. Fall was well and truly here.

  “Okay, spill.”

  I tried to form my thoughts as the sound of my footsteps on the bricks echoed through the cold air. I opened the back of the van, let down the ramp, and drove Grandma’s scooter inside. “I learned that most of the businesses open at ten,” I informed her. “Only my bakery and the pharmacy open early. Craig and Ralph were in the pharmacy working on the books and the Halloween displays but they didn’t hear or see anything.”

  “So we’re mostly clueless as to who did this.” Grandma frowned and puffed on her cigarette while she watched me work. I closed the back doors and got into the driver seat.

  “Not really,” I said as Grandma put out her cigarette butt and climbed into the passenger seat. “Todd Woles, the men’s store owner, really didn’t like George. He told me so himself.”

  “But you said he wasn’t downtown at the time.”

  “That’s what he said.” I chewed on my bottom lip. “But Tasha told me that Todd and George got into a fight last year. I guess the cops were called to force George to leave the store. Tasha thinks there might even be a restraining order on George.”

  “Huh.” Grandma narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. “I can check on that. Todd might be a good suspect after all.”

  “What I want to know is how George was killed.” I started up the van and waited for Grandma to buckle her seat belt. “It could make a difference in suspects.” I noted the small burn mark on the knee of her pants and sighed.

  “You’re right. It could make a difference.” Grandma snapped the buckle in place. “Not to worry. I have an in with the ME. I’m taking her to lunch today.”

  “Of course you do.” I shook my head and backed the van out of the driveway. “What about friends? Did George have any? Did he go to church, Play poker, anything?”

  Grandma squinted a second. “I don’t know . . . Do you think a friend would kill him?”

  I frowned. “Well, I can’t imagine a seed company executive standing out on Main Street at 5:30 in the morning. Can you?”

  “Hmm, probably not.”

  “What if he talked one of his friends into planting the seed and their farm went belly-up along with George’s? I saw George’s anger. Can you imagine how angry his friends would be?”

  “Good point,” Grandma said. “Effy Anderson did tell Eloise Blake that her son Bob was mad enough to choke a heifer over crop loss. But I have no idea if he was around that morning. I’ll tug on a few of my community strings and see what I find out.”

  “Community strings?”

  “Old folks, kiddo.” She reached over and patted me. “Oiltop is a small town. Not much goes on here that someone, somewhere, doesn’t know about. When I worked for the paper, I had a lot of tipsters. You know, friends who would call in and tip me off on something new coming down the pike. Like those ghost tours Sherry Williams talked you into being a part of. . . .”

  “Drat,” I mumbled, embarrassed again. “It’s your fault I signed up for them.”

  “My fault?” Grandma tried to look innocent by placing a hand on her bosom.

  “Sure, you’re the one who always told me there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Do you think the chief knows?”

  “Of course the chief knows.”

  My stomach turned over. I was going to have to call Brad. There was no way Chief Blaylock would give up his suspicions without prodding. I didn’t want to think about that and changed the subject. “Tasha thinks we should pay close attention to who attends the memorial. You know, because the killer always comes back to the scene of the crime to either gloat or because he or she feels guilty or something.”

  “That’s a great idea.” Grandma clapped her hands and rubbed them together. “I’ll have Bill bring me. What’re you serving?”

  “I’m offering petit fours and cheese tarts. I suppose it is ironic for George to have a gluten-free memorial.”

  “I understand the bank’s going to auction off his ranch in two weeks. Maybe Bill and I’ll go. Who knows? Perhaps he was killed for a fast sell.”

  “Now you’re reaching.” I pulled into the parking lot behind the bakery. “The auction was set up two weeks ago. If someone wanted the land, why kill him now? And speaking of the bank, don’t let me forget that I have to make a deposit.”

  “Don’t you usually do that at night?” Grandma asked as she heaved herself out of the van.

  “Yes, but I had a few things on my mind last night and forgot.” I opened up the shop and turned on the lights. As was my new habit, I checked the office, the pantry, then the front and bathrooms for any hidden dangers . . . like murderers.

  Then I unlocked the safe and took out the deposit bag. Most people paid electronically these days, but you still had people who carried cash, especially in a farming town. As much as Oiltop liked to think it was a progressive county seat—we had the county courthouse, the fairgrounds, and the semipro baseball stadium—we were still a very small town. A town surrounded by farm fields, ranches, and what Pete and the rest of the chamber of commerce hoped would soon be a tourist Mecca of a slowly filling lake created by damming the river, which tended to flood certain parts of town every spring.

  I don’t know about tourists, but farmers and ranchers dealt in cold, hard cash. Also, bankers and farmers didn’t have a good history with one another. Not when you considered how many small farms were repossessed every year. I filled out the deposit slip and stuck it in the bag, which had quite a heft to it. Bankers and ranchers . . . hmmm. I walked over to Grandma Ruth, who was currently in the office reading the New York Times. She had a weekend subscription and prided herself on being “in the know.”

  “We really need to find out how George was killed.” I leaned on the door frame and tossed the bag up and down. “I think we can rule out bullets, right? I mean, I didn’t hear a shot and they haven’t dug around for bullets in the wall.”

  “What do you think killed him?” Grandma kept her eyes on the paper. Her fingers were pinched as if she held a cigarette. She probably would have if I didn’t have a strict no-smoking policy in the bakery.

  “I don’t know.” I eyed the bag. “It’s why I want to know what the coroner’s report says.”

  “We’ll get it today. Then our investigation will really start going places.”

  I hoped she was right, because right now it was going nowhere.

  CHAPTER 16

  By mid-morning, Grandma and the breakfast crowd had left. The mirror on the door to the bakery allowed me to see the front door from the kitchen while I worked. Tomorrow was George Meister’s memorial and I was hard at work on the menu. Sherry had picked out a variety of fancy cookies such as ladyfingers, date pinwheels, and pistachio thumbprints. Also finger foods with protein, which included cheesecake bites and cheese tarts. Finally there was a wide selection of petit fours. I made them out of gluten-free white sheet cakes and filled them with chocolate, raspberry and, in keeping with the season, pumpkin filling. These were then cut into one-inch squares and topped with pourable fondant. Then there were gluten-free chocolate cakes filled with chocolate, cannoli, and cherry filling. The chocolate petit fours were decorated with a green leaf and the white with a white cross.

  It was a lot of work, but the chamber of commerce paid well, and I wasn’t about to complain. Saturday was also Amy’s son’s birthday party and the bowling league’s monthly meeting. Both of those parties had Halloween themes.

  The doorbells jingled and I glanced up to see a young woman walk in. She looked a bit
ragged with dyed black hair and a worn coat. She had her eyebrow pierced, which was an interesting contrast to her thick black cat-eyed eyeliner and what had to be false eyelashes. The combination made it hard to guess her age. Anywhere from sixteen to twenty-six might apply.

  “Hi, can I help you?” I came into the front room, wiping my hands on a towel.

  “Yes, um . . . you have a help wanted sign?” She pointed at my hand-printed bit of desperation.

  “Yes, I do.” I smiled at her because she didn’t seem too sure of herself.

  “Well, um, my uncle Sam—Sam Greenbaum—said you might be hiring.”

  Ah, handsome Sam must have seen my sign. I leaned on the counter and studied her. “I’m looking for help who can work whatever hours I need, but the pay is barely above minimum wage.”

  She brushed her bangs out of her eyes. “I graduated high school last May. I can work when you need me. That means anytime.” She glanced around. “Nice bakery.”

  “Thanks, we’re gluten-free. Do you know what that is?”

  “No wheat or malt.” Her gaze came back to mine and I noticed her eyes were a lovely shade of blue, deep enough they were almost lavender. “I, um, have a friend with celiac.”

  “I see.”

  “Oh, sorry.” She stuck out her hand. “I’m Meghan.”

  I shook her hand. It was clean and firm. Her nails were appropriately short with no polish. “Well, Meghan, do you think you might want to be a baker?”

  “Actually, yeah.” Her eyes lit up. “I love the Food Network. All those baking challenges. I thought, I want to learn how to do that. Problem is, my mom and dad kicked me out and there’s no money for school.”

  I frowned. “Why’d they kick you out?”

  “You know.” She shrugged. “Eighteen and done. My dad always said we would get a suitcase and a twenty-dollar bill on our eighteenth birthday. We all knew he meant it and that we’d better be prepared.”