Death of a Wedding Cake Baker

by Lee Hollis

  Hayley scooted up behind Liddy and spoke quietly in her ear. “Angel food cake with buttercream frosting.”

  Liddy suddenly noticed the obliterated cake surrounding Lisa’s prone body. When Sergio’s back was turned, she quickly knelt down and examined the cake closely. Her eyes widened. “You’re right, Hayley. But why? She was so insistent about not making the cake I really wanted for my wedding. What suddenly made her change her mind?”

  Hayley shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe she felt bad about not baking you the cake you really wanted for your wedding, so she decided to surprise you.”

  Liddy laughed. “That doesn’t sound like stupid, awful ogre Lisa at all!”

  “Stop speaking ill of your cousin, Liddy!” Celeste warned. “This is such a horrible tragedy, beyond comprehension.”

  “You’re damn right it is.” Liddy nodded. “Leave it to Lisa to decide to die right before my wedding and completely steal focus!”

  Hayley prayed that Lisa’s death was not ruled a homicide, because given Liddy’s callous and flippant reaction and painfully obvious ill will toward the victim, the blushing bride-to-be would undoubtedly be the first suspect brought in for questioning.

  Chapter 12

  Hayley had just removed the dinner plates from the dining room table and was rinsing them off in the sink when she felt Bruce’s arms slide around her waist from behind. He pulled her in close to his chest as he softly kissed the side of her neck.

  “We haven’t even had dessert yet,” Hayley said, dropping the dishes in the sink and shutting off the faucet.

  “I’m having mine right now,” Bruce said, spinning her around to face him, locking his fingers over the small of her back.

  “You are such a dork,” Hayley said, laughing.

  Bruce leaned down and kissed her gently on the mouth.

  Damn, he was a good kisser.

  She tried not to swoon as he unlocked his fingers and cupped the back of her head with his hand, kissing her with more passion and urgency.

  Then, his lips slowly pulled away and he was nibbling on her ear a bit before whispering, “Let’s go upstairs.”

  Before she could even respond, he took her by the hand and led her out of the kitchen, down the hallway, and up the stairs.

  About halfway to the second floor, the front doorbell rang.

  Hayley stopped suddenly and turned around.

  “Ignore it,” Bruce pleaded.

  She debated with herself.

  Gemma and Dustin were both out with friends from high school.

  It could be Liddy or Mona or the gas meter reader or a Girl Scout selling cookies.

  “Come on, if it’s an emergency, they’ll call or come back,” Bruce said, taking one last shot.

  But Hayley couldn’t help herself.

  She bounded back down the stairs and swung open the door.

  It was Sabrina Merryweather.

  “Thank God I caught you at home!” Sabrina cried as she pushed her way inside, spotting Bruce staring glumly down at her from halfway up the staircase. “Oh, hi, Bruce. I hope I’m not interrupting.”

  Bruce opened his mouth to say something—probably something rude—so Hayley jumped in before he had the chance. “Can I get you some coffee?”

  “Yes, thank you. Dash of cream and maybe a spoonful of sweetener,” Sabrina said as she wandered into the living room and shook off her lightweight pale blue wrap and plopped herself down on the couch.

  Hayley scooted into the kitchen, where she had already put the coffeepot on, expecting to have some with the cherry pie she had baked for her and Bruce’s dessert, which was still cooling on a rack on top of the stove. She grabbed three mugs from the cupboard.

  “How about a piece of homemade cherry pie?”

  “Yummy!”

  Bruce pounded back down the stairs, making no secret of his annoyance. He stalked into the kitchen, muttering under his breath, “She’s got fifteen minutes, and then I’m kicking her out.”

  Hayley shot Bruce a look to let him know he was talking loud enough for Sabrina to hear him, but he didn’t seem to care much.

  By the time Hayley served the pie and coffee, leaving Bruce sulking in the kitchen, Sabrina was off and running as to why she had shown up at Hayley’s house unannounced.

  “Well, as you know, I still keep in contact with a few of my old work colleagues at the county coroner’s office. We were a close-knit bunch there for a while, always going out for cocktails after work. Like you do, Hayley—no judgment, by the way. Anyway, they’ve all missed me terribly ever since I decided to quit a few years back.”

  Hayley heard Bruce loudly clearing his throat and then covering with a fake cough, barking, “Ten minutes!”

  He was making sure Hayley knew she was on a timer, and the clock was ticking toward Sabrina’s forced departure.

  “Yes, it’s nice you all still keep in touch,” Hayley said, smiling.

  “They adore me! Anyway, I stopped by there today just to say hello and to let them know I’m back in town, but it was quite busy, so I didn’t stay long. I did, however, get the chance to catch up with Celia, one of my former lab assistants. She only had a few minutes to talk because they were swamped working on Lisa Crawford’s autopsy.”

  Hayley quickly set her pie plate down on the coffee table and leaned forward, curious.

  Bruce was suddenly quiet in the kitchen.

  Sabrina stopped to cut a generous piece of pie with her fork and shove it in her mouth. There was an interminable wait for her to chew and swallow until she spoke again.

  Hayley tapped her foot impatiently.

  Bruce appeared from around the corner and sat down on the armrest of the recliner where Hayley was seated. He wasn’t about to miss hearing this.

  Mercifully, Sabrina finally swallowed her large chunk of cherry pie.

  “So delicious. Anyway . . .” she said.

  But then she decided she needed to wash the pie down, so she set her pie plate on the coffee table and picked up her coffee mug. She took a long, leisurely sip.

  Bruce audibly sighed, and Hayley poked him in the rib cage with her finger. He sat up straight on the armrest, his eyes fixed on Sabrina, who was now taking her second sip of coffee.

  Bruce placed a hand down on top of Hayley’s knee to stop her from tapping her foot. Both of them needed to take lessons on how to be more patient.

  After wiping the sides of her mouth with a cloth napkin, Sabrina finally continued. “Celia gave me a sneak peek, and you are never going to believe this . . .”

  Sabrina eyed the pie and reached for it again, stabbing at the last piece on her plate and stuffing it in her mouth. She was too elegant to speak with her mouth full of pie, so they were in for another wait.

  Hayley glanced at Bruce, who had a weird frozen smile on his face, trying not to give away the fact that his head was about to explode because he was so vexed by how long this was taking.

  Finally, with no more pie left on her plate, Sabrina once more dabbed at the sides of her mouth with the cloth napkin and dropped it in her lap.

  “I had trouble believing it myself,” Sabrina said, reaching down and picking up her coffee mug again. She peered into it, noticing it was empty. “I could use a spot more coffee, if you don’t mind.”

  “Sabrina!” Bruce blurted out, startling Hayley and Sabrina and himself.

  “Bruce, calm down,” Hayley scolded.

  “Just tell us what was in the report,” Bruce begged.

  Sabrina glared at Bruce, silently admonishing him for his impoliteness, but then, deciding she had drawn out the suspense long enough, she dropped the bombshell. “Lisa was murdered.”

  Hayley gasped.

  In a way, she had been expecting this. But hearing it out loud gave her suspicions a disturbing resonance.

  “Dr. Alden, my replacement—sweet man, but nowhere near as skilled as I was—found traces of a rare fast-acting poison in her system, a toxin closely related to ricin, but this one works much faster. He
suspects someone planted the poison in one of Lisa’s cake ingredients and she ate it.”

  “Was it in the angel food cake with buttercream frosting? That’s the cake Liddy wanted her to make for her wedding,” Hayley said.

  “They’re testing all of the baked goods in Lisa’s shop to see which, if any, had traces of the poison,” Sabrina said. “Now, the report is not going to be released to the public for another day or two, so please do not share this information with anyone.”

  “Of course not,” Hayley said. “We won’t say a word, right, Bruce?”

  She turned to notice Bruce only half listening. “Huh?”

  “Sabrina does not want us sharing any of what she told us,” Hayley said firmly, locking eyes onto him.

  Bruce shrugged. “Yeah, sure.”

  She could tell he was lying.

  After Sabrina chowed down on a second piece of cherry pie and two more cups of coffee, droning on and on about her upcoming vacation to Bali and how she feared her bridesmaid gown would be too tight after gorging on too many lobsters from Mona’s shop, she finally left.

  Hayley turned to Bruce, who stood at the foot of the stairs hoping they might pick up where they left off. “Promise me that none of what you just heard is going to appear in your column tomorrow.”

  Bruce hemmed and hawed and made some noises about waiting until the report was released, but Hayley knew he would not be able to stop himself. Because in his heart, Bruce was a reporter. And good, effective reporters are all about getting the scoop first.

  By the time the latest edition of the Island Times hit the newsstands and was posted online, the headline of Bruce’s crime column was “Coroner rules Crawford Death a Homicide.”

  Hayley felt obligated, out of respect to Sabrina, to give Bruce a proper dressing-down, which she did in his office when the paper first landed on her desk. But she knew his apology was halfhearted, and on some level, she didn’t blame him. Sabrina had also probably known Bruce wouldn’t keep his promise. She had never prefaced her big news with an “off the record” warning.

  By mid-afternoon it didn’t even matter, because the report was released, along with a new addendum Sabrina had been unaware of at the time she broke the news to Hayley and Bruce—the poison was only found in the angel food cake with buttercream frosting. The rest of Lisa’s cakes and cookies and assorted pastries that were in her shop had all tested negative, which meant the killer had deliberately added the poison to the cake directly, or to one of the ingredients, right before Lisa made that specific cake, the last cake she would ever bake.

  Chapter 13

  “I don’t understand what you’re trying to say to me,” Liddy said matter-of-factly as she sat on her porch in a wicker chair, slowly sipping a glass of lemonade.

  Liddy’s black Lab, Poppyseed, slept soundly at her feet.

  Hayley and Gemma, who were sitting opposite her on a porch swing, rocking back and forth, exchanged a quick glance.

  Hayley cleared her throat and tried to delicately explain again. “Gemma and I have been talking, and we both think, very strongly in fact, that you should choose another kind of cake for your wedding.”

  “But I’ve been very clear from the beginning. I want the angel food cake with buttercream frosting. It’s the whole reason I fired Lisa and hired you.”

  “Yes, we know,” Gemma jumped in. “But given what’s happened . . .”

  “What?” Liddy said, perplexed.

  “Well, your cousin Lisa was found dead in her shop poisoned by a piece of cake, which just happened to be angel food cake with buttercream frosting.”

  “So?” Liddy said, still not quite getting it.

  Hayley leaned forward. “Let’s just say it might appear to be a little insensitive, and perhaps even a bit ghoulish, if you serve that exact same cake.”

  “It’s all anybody will be able to think about at the reception,” Gemma added.

  Liddy rolled this over in her mind. “I see. So you think that even in death, from all the way down there in hell, Lisa will manage to ruin my wedding?”

  Hayley and Gemma exchanged another look. They were getting through to Liddy, but not in the way they had imagined.

  They both shrugged and nodded.

  “Yes,” Hayley said.

  “But that’s only if you choose to go with the angel food cake,” Gemma said, pulling out a bridal magazine and opening it to an earmarked page before setting it down on the wicker coffee table with a glass top. “However . . .”

  Liddy peered at the photo of a beautiful three-tier traditional wedding cake.

  “Mom and I talked it over, and we both would recommend something completely different, like this one we found that we could easily make. Classic design, chocolate fudge filling, white frosting, sugar roses, the works . . .”

  Liddy forced a smile. “It is lovely.”

  “We just don’t want anything overshadowing your big day, and right now, Lisa’s murder is definitely on everyone’s mind.”

  “Okay, let’s go with this one,” Liddy said, taking another sip of her lemonade, trying hard to hide her disappointment.

  It was the right thing to do.

  And Liddy knew it.

  “There’s one more thing,” Gemma piped in. “I know you hired Mom to bake the cake, and I’m not sure she mentioned this to you yet, but I’ve enrolled in a culinary school in New York City.”

  “Mention it? It’s all Hayley ever talks about. She’s so proud of you,” Liddy said.

  “Well, I was wondering if you would mind if we designed and baked the cake together as a team?” Gemma asked warily.

  “Mind? Of course not! I would be honored!” Liddy exclaimed. “Mother and daughter cake bakers! It sounds like a brand-new show on the Food Network!”

  “Thank you, Liddy,” Gemma said excitedly. “I’m going to text Conner right away and tell him I have my first professional catering job!”

  Gemma scooted into Liddy’s house, banging the screen door shut behind her.

  Hayley watched her go, a cheerful smile on her face.

  “She’s still seeing that actor?” Liddy asked.

  “Yes. They’re living together. I’m not exactly thrilled about that part, but she seems happy.”

  Suddenly their conversation was abruptly interrupted by a fire-engine red Cadillac ATS swerving into Liddy’s driveway, kicking up enough pebbles and dust that Hayley had to wave a hand in front of her face to keep from choking.

  Poppyseed, startled awake, sprang up on all fours, and panicked, galloped down off the porch and around the side of the house to find cover.

  The driver’s side door flew open and Liddy’s mother Celeste jumped out. She was in a frenzied state as she stomped up the porch steps.

  “I just came from Roberto’s salon!” she cried.

  “Congratulations, Mother. He did a nice job as usual.”

  “You like it?” Celeste asked, patting her coiffured and curled hairstyle. “I was afraid he cut it too short, but the shampoo girl insisted it makes me look ten years younger.”

  “Is that why you raced over here? For a second opinion?” Liddy sighed.

  “Of course not! I know I have a beautiful head of hair. It’s not thinning like Gladys Hawkins. That poor woman needs to invest in some wigs. No, I was under the dryer with my eyes closed and Gladys, who was under the dryer to my left, thought I had fallen asleep, which of course I would never do in public!”

  Liddy turned to Hayley. “Because she snores really loud.”

  “I do not!” Celeste gasped before collecting herself and continuing. “Anyway, Gladys turned to Cathy Jenkins, who was to her left and said she believed that you were the one who poisoned your poor cousin Lisa because you didn’t want her baking your wedding cake!”

  “Well, what did you say to them?” Liddy asked.

  “Nothing,” Celeste said.

  “You didn’t defend your own daughter?”

  “What could I have said?” Celeste said, throwing up her h
ands.

  “I don’t know, Mother, maybe you could have said ‘My daughter Liddy does not have a violent bone in her body! She is absolutely incapable of committing such an unspeakable act and I am appalled that you would even think so!’ You could have started with something like that!”

  Celeste nodded. “Yes, I suppose, but people are going to believe what they want to believe.”

  “That’s not the point! You’re my mother! You should stick up for me!”

  “Yes, yes, I know, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  “It just appears very suspicious! You despising Lisa, you firing her for refusing to bake an angel food cake, and then her suddenly dying after eating one that had been mysteriously poisoned . . .”

  Liddy raised an eyebrow. “So?”

  “So it just raises a lot of questions . . .” Celeste whispered.

  Liddy stared at Celeste, her mouth open in shock. “Mother, are you saying there is a small part of you that thinks I may have done it?”

  Celeste was lost in thought but quickly snapped out of it. “No! Of course not, dear. You’re my daughter. And if you were tried and convicted of the crime, I would come visit you in prison once a month, except in July, when I’m planning on renting that gorgeous villa in Italy. I have to do it. It’s one less item on my bucket list before I die.”

  “Mother!”

  “What?”

  “You’re already picturing me in prison! That doesn’t exactly bolster your argument that you believe me!”

  “I believe you!” Celeste wailed.

  Hayley noticed that Celeste’s wide eyes told a completely different story. Liddy’s mother was not one hundred percent convinced that her daughter was innocent, and at the moment, she was just saying what Liddy wanted to hear in order to keep the peace.

  “Now, enough talk about all that nasty business,” Celeste said, desperate to change the subject. “We need to send out the cards announcing the postponement.”

  “What postponement?” Liddy asked.

  “The wedding. Obviously we need to push back the date a few months out of respect for Lisa. After the burial, then we can send out a reminder so people don’t forget the new date.”