The Semi-Sweet Hereafter

by Colette London

  For all kinds of media, Jeremy’s demise was a win-win.

  That macabre situation brought up more than a few ghoulish questions. Could someone in the press have been desperate enough—or motivated enough—to have engineered Jeremy’s murder, I wondered? Or, given Jeremy’s supposedly legendary temper, to have actually bludgeoned him to death themselves? I doubted it.

  But seeing those tabloid papers at Primrose, I couldn’t discount the possibility altogether. The next time I returned to the Wrights’ guesthouse, I needed to talk to a journalist.

  In the back of the house—where the shop’s kitchens, work space, ovens, walk-in refrigerator and freezer, and office were all shoehorned into far too little space—the bakers all made room for me. I grabbed an apron and pulled it over my head.

  The full sheet pan of brownies in front of me was . . . abysmal. The brownies smelled nicely chocolaty, so that was a plus. But they lacked the glossy, crackly surface that all good brownies should have. When I cut one, it mushed to bits, too soft to hold together. When I sniffed it, I detected hints of charred sugar.

  That might not have been all bad. Technically, caramel is burnt sugar—expertly burnt sugar—mixed with cream and butter. But these brownies had not been expertly made. Not in the least.

  The assembled bakers shifted, staring hopefully at me. I couldn’t bear to disappoint them. That was no way to teach.

  “Not bad,” I told them with an encouraging smile. “Ten minutes less baking time, a slightly heavier hand with the flour, and more time spent whisking the eggs with the sugar, and you’d have a wonderful fudgy brownie here.” I tasted a crumb. “The chocolate must have burned in the bain-marie.” That was the first step—melting at least two kinds of chocolate together with butter in a bowl set over simmering (never boiling!) water. I rolled up my sleeves. “Let’s try again. Together this time.”

  Hugh Menadue hesitated beside me, tall and broad-shouldered in chef’s whites. He’d tied a bandanna on his head. “Don’t see the point, me.” He frowned. “We’re all bloody doomed anyway.”

  “No, we’re not!” disagreed the petite, plump baker beside him. No longer an apprentice, Myra had been through the fire. Her grit and experience showed. “Phoebe will set things right.”

  There was a general murmur of agreement over that. Except for Hugh, who was the newest apprentice, they all seemed to have the opinion that Phoebe would be able to right the ship.

  Largely, I figured, with my chocolate-whispering help.

  “It’s a matter of time. You’re all a bunch of blind idiots, if you can’t see that.” Hugh’s sinewy muscles flexed beneath the rolled-up sleeves of his whites, showing off multiple tattoos. Beneath his bandanna, he had wild hair and a pierced eyebrow. In his combat boots, he carried a knife. I’d seen it when he’d hoisted some trash. “I never should have come here.”

  He whipped off his apron, untying it with nimble fingers. He hurled it away. His knuckles bore multiple tattoos, too.

  On a stream of swearing, Hugh stomped toward the back door.

  Myra nudged me. “Shouldn’t we go after him?”

  “Nope.” Hugh needed time to cool off—time to regain hope that his apprenticeship would work out. “He’ll be back.”

  Everyone looked dubious, but I was certain. I’ve known people like Hugh Menadue—proud, hotheaded, and impervious to the dangers of fire, knives, and 115-degree heat—for years now. He was born to work in the restaurant business. He was family now.

  We all were. That was my rule. When consulting, my first order of business was diagnosing interpersonal problems in any given environment and dealing with them. Only after that did I tackle brittle cookies, failed viennoiserie, or fallen gâteaux.

  With Hugh momentarily left to his own devices—and, most likely, the comforts of a cigarette in the alleyway—I set about assigning tasks. One baker chopped chocolate with a sharp chef’s knife, turning it from a solid block to uniform tiny shards. Another cracked room-temperature eggs, kept that way so they’d blend uniformly with the batter and not “curdle” it—basically, overchill the butter in the mix, and make it harden into small lumps. Another sifted flour. A fourth added hot coffee to cocoa powder, melting the cocoa butter trapped within those particles and enabling them to meld smoothly with the brownie batter.

  That’s a trick you might not have heard of. Although it seems efficient (and obvious) to combine dry cocoa powder with flour, it’s almost always better to mix it with a liquid first. Otherwise, you’re leaving flavor untapped. Just take one whiff of the resulting slurry—as I did then—and you’ll be a convert.

  As the (lackadaisical) business went on in Primrose’s front of house, we went on with our (umpteenth) brownie lesson in the back. I might have despaired of ever teaching the beginner staff the best ways to grind almonds for macarons or beat eggs for genoise, but their mistakes were the best way to learn.

  I can tell you twenty times not to overbeat the sugar and butter for chocolate chip cookies, to substitute part bread flour for cakier results, to add more salt than you think you need, to chill the dough before baking, and not to reuse a sheet pan before it’s cool . . . on and on and on. But until you’ve spent forty-five minutes laboriously mixing chocolate chip cookie dough—only to scoop it, bake it, and wind up with a lavalike spread of greasy, flat, sadness-inducing cookies—you just won’t get it.

  While the resulting (refined) brownies baked, I got busy checking with Primrose’s resident chocolatier. To my relief, the department that handled truffles, fudge, and handmade bars full of cacao nibs, nuts, and dried fruit was doing just fine. Evidently, Phoebe had lucked into someone skilled to handle her confectionary—that, or Jeremy hadn’t been interested in stealing away the person responsible for ganache and molded candy.

  I helped to troubleshoot a batch of chocolate-cream filling that was destined for chocolate and vanilla trifles, making sure it contained the correct balance of dark and semi-sweet chocolate. I tasted a fresh sample of pain au chocolat and pronounced it acceptable. I oversaw the production of loaf cakes studded with chocolate and frosted with spicy ginger icing.

  All the while, I listened. Carefully. There was no mention of marital disharmony between Phoebe and Jeremy. In fact, several employees asked me how Phoebe was getting on. Their concern for her well-being seemed genuine. I was touched.

  Hugh lumbered inside, smelling of tobacco but full of newfound equanimity. I knew it would be better not to dwell on his earlier outburst. Men like Hugh—proud, bellicose, and new to the task at hand—needed space to thrive. I was happy to give it.

  “I can handle that.” Hugh nodded at the Breton-style sea salt caramels I’d been wrapping. His gaze was forthright, his hands reddened by recent washing. He angled his shoulder toward the other side of the chocolaterie-pâtisserie’s kitchen. “You’ll be wanting to check on Poppy’s buttercream, anyway.”

  His approach was an invitation for us to start fresh. I recognized that. With Hugh, a lot of things remained unspoken.

  He caught my eye and grinned. “I’m serious,” he nudged. “It’s a disaster situation of sugar and egg whites over there.”

  I laughed and nodded. “Good eye. Thanks for the tip.”

  Although Hugh was new at Primrose—brought to the shop via Jeremy’s charity program—he had all he needed to succeed: good instincts and a willingness to learn. Despite his inherent cynicism, I knew he could succeed. Anything else was a bonus.

  Almost two hours later, I’d successfully reset the kitchen. The bakers were turning out the last orders of the day, filling the rolling metal baker’s racks with confections and baked goods to sell to the after-school students, post-yoga mums, and stockbrokers from The City who needed “homemade” tarts for dinner parties. Their wives, who generally didn’t work in the Square Mile, wouldn’t mind the subterfuge. Happy wife, happy life.

  Speaking of which . . . with Phoebe away from Primrose, I was free to do a little well-intentioned snooping. I needed to know if the divorce
rumors Nicola Mitchell had mentioned were valid.

  Whipping off my (now chocolate-smeared) apron, I exhaled a satisfied breath and ducked around the corner. Phoebe’s office was tiny, hopelessly cluttered, and (blessedly) deserted. With the place to myself, I examined the computer and bulletin board, the calendar and filing cabinet, the desktop diary (“planner,” to you and me), and the cardigan Phoebe had left hanging on the coatrack. Her perfume clung to it. Reminded of her, I hesitated.

  Was prying in here really the right thing to do?

  Even DC Mishra and the police hadn’t come to Primrose.

  The clatter of baking pans in the kitchen made me jump and decided the issue for me. I might not have this chance again. I had to act. For myself. For Jeremy. He deserved justice.

  I grabbed the cardigan. My fingertips encountered ultrasoft cashmere in a suitably Londonesque shade of inky blue, with a discreet sewn-in label denoting the garment’s bespoke origins and a crackle in one of the pockets. I withdrew a paper scrap.

  I expected . . . well, I’m not sure what I expected to find, actually. A receipt for a marriage-ending extravagance, maybe. A matchbook with a lover’s phone number. A top secret recipe.

  Instead, it was a Crazy-for-Coconut Vitality Bar wrapper.

  That’s all it was. One of those “power snacks” targeted at women. An engineered pseudo-food that used empowerment buzzwords to sell precisely 150 calories of “energy” and “indulgence.”

  I frowned at it with antipathy, reminded of Phoebe’s fear of being caught eating breakfast on camera. Obviously, keeping her willowy figure wasn’t easy for her. Was it for anyone?

  I started to replace the wrapper where I’d found it, not wanting Phoebe to realize that anyone had uncovered her secret stash. Then I did a double take as I recognized the wrapper’s logo. Hambleton & Hart. The same company whose ready-to-bake products had littered the guesthouse’s kitchen counters.

  Someone from Hambleton & Hart was supposed to have given a statement at the London Metropolitan Police department, I recalled. Neither George nor DC Mishra had clued me in to the results. Nor were they likely to. I’d assumed Jeremy had been filming one of his TV cooking shows in the guesthouse, given the A/V equipment that was (still) on hand. Had he incorporated “molten chocolate-flavored dessert delight” and “strawberry surprise” into his latest (inevitably successful) venture?

  I made a note to look into it. I wasn’t sure how I’d gain access to Hambleton & Hart, but I was a food professional, wasn’t I? I didn’t usually seek out clients, but maybe I could get an appointment to discuss chocolate whispering on the company’s behalf . . . if they used any genuine chocolate, that was.

  Wondering if Phoebe’s “vitality bar” counted as evidence that I ought to report, I studied it. Then I shook my head and replaced the wrapper where I’d discovered it. Satya Mishra would be unlikely to consider Phoebe’s snack attack relevant to her investigation. But that didn’t mean I shouldn’t speak to someone at Hambleton & Hart about their work with Jeremy. At the least, I might be able to find out where that metlapil came from.

  With that decided, I took one final look around. I’d have to enlist Travis to have a comprehensive look into Phoebe’s finances. But even if I didn’t get another opportunity to scrutinize the office, I’d done a thorough job of inspecting the place. I’d done my due diligence. I’d found nothing. No evidence of divorce papers. No suggestion of anything underhanded or even vaguely questionable. Nothing at all to do with Jeremy.

  Nothing that would motivate a murder, certainly.

  I guessed Nicola had been deliberately stirring the pot, doing her utmost to smear Jeremy. Exactly the way, she’d said, that he’d slandered her. But now I doubted that I could trust Nicola, no matter how unfairly ill-treated she’d seemed to be.

  I’d felt sorry for Nicola earlier. But, going forward, I needed to remain skeptical, I reminded myself. When dealing with suspects, I needed to stay detached. Wary. In San Francisco and in Portland, I’d (almost) taken too long to identify who was responsible for all the wrongdoing. This time, I didn’t intend to make the same mistake. This time, I planned to remain deeply suspicious of everyone in Jeremy’s life, no matter how innocent they might seem. To me, no one could be above suspicion.

  If Jeremy had a sweet, loving, gray-haired old granny who knit scarves for the less fortunate, she was on my suspect list.

  Danny and Travis constantly insist that I’m too nice—too inclined to always think the best of everyone. I knew they were exaggerating the situation. All the same, I couldn’t let my (potential) blind spot trip me up. I had to be smarter. I had to stay alert to possible subterfuge—which seemed likely to be what Jeremy’s assistant had employed at the café today.

  In hindsight, Nicola had obviously had other motivations to meet me than simply retrieving her things. She’d also wanted to instill doubt about Jeremy’s character and his marriage. Because she’d wanted her boss dead? Because she’d wanted him for herself and had been spurned? Because she’d disliked Phoebe for some reason—maybe resented her privileged status—and wanted to implicate her? Maybe Nicola was the one who’d sneaked into the guesthouse and bludgeoned Jeremy to death with that metlapil, and she’d needed a scapegoat (like Phoebe) for her crime.

  I shook my head at the supposition. I didn’t think so.

  For one thing, Nicola would have had a hard time hoisting that metlapil effectively, much less fighting off Jeremy’s inevitable defense. For another, despite my mostly favorable impressions of her, I’d only ever heard Nicola described as “mousy.” That hardly made her sound like a cold-blooded killer.

  On the other hand, even the mousiest person could be pushed too far. Couldn’t they? I sighed, knowing it was still possible I was barking up the wrong tree. Had Jeremy’s murderer known him at all? It might still have been a random, anonymous killer.

  Maybe I ought to leave the investigation up to DC Mishra, I debated as I pulled my cell phone from my bag. After all, the detective constable hadn’t called me back in. Maybe she told all her witnesses not to leave town, as a matter of course. Maybe I didn’t need to worry about winding up in a British prison.

  I didn’t know. But I did know I was supposed to have checked in with Danny by now. I wanted him nearby, for protection and (frankly) for comfort. For a sounding board, too.

  My quick-thinking, longtime pal was invaluable for that. But we’d decided it would be too weird if my on-call bodyguard shadowed me during my chocolate-whisperer duties. That was a distraction no one needed—not while the bakers were still baffled by buttercream and confused by chocolate chip cookies.

  Listening to the distant drone of the gigantic standing mixer as it mixed a batch of pillowy Swiss-style icing at that moment, I dialed. Trying to look as though I hadn’t just been riffling through Phoebe’s office on purpose, I wandered toward Primrose’s storeroom, where the shop kept stacked bags of flour.

  I sat on one of the piles, those fifty-pound bags easily supporting my weight. They were dusted powdery white and wouldn’t do my jeans any favors, but those were the breaks. I’m fastidious with work but not too concerned with fashion. I did like Phoebe’s cardigan, though. With London’s sometimes drizzly weather to contend with, an extra layer was definitely needed.

  I wished I’d found something more incriminating in that pocket. A receipt for a metlapil bearing Phoebe’s credit card number, perhaps. Or a “how to cudgel your husband” manual.

  I couldn’t afford to be naïve about my consultee. I knew that. But it was still difficult to think of Phoebe as a killer. The most horrific crime she seemed capable of was unrepentant snobbishness. Besides, Phoebe had an alibi: her party. George had already let slip to me that they’d confirmed her presence at some la-di-da private soirée near Westminster that night.

  Danny didn’t pick up. Uneasy, I disconnected my call.

  Had my best (platonic) friend arrived at the murder scene and become a victim himself? There was a killer on the loose. Danny h
ad been planning to “secure” the guesthouse (whatever that meant) before I joined him there. In a former life, he would have been casing the place for a burglary. But those bad old days were behind him. Now he only used his powers for good.

  I took advantage of my relative solitude to write myself some investigatory notes in my trusty, omnipresent Moleskine notebook. It was something I wished I’d done more of in San Francisco and Portland. I guessed the third time was the charm, because I actually managed to put down some cogent observations and theories while sitting on the flour-sack piles with the reassuringly familiar hum of restaurant work going on nearby.

  With that done, I put away my notebook and pencil. Yes, paper and lead, nothing fancier. While my friends encouraged me to use a more modern, technologically savvy means of making my to-do lists (and sometimes suspect lists), I knew better. It wouldn’t do to run out of batteries or encounter a malfunction while globe-trotting. There aren’t a lot of power outlets on the road to Machu Picchu. Internet reception isn’t as reliable on a cacao plantation in Madagascar as it is in downtown Los Angeles.

  I’m happy to stick with something I can count on.

  Like Danny. Usually. Where was he?

  Irked, I texted him an exclamation point. Just that. It was our own private emergency code, designed to bring him running.

  I knew I shouldn’t have been the girl who cried wolf, but rules were made to be broken, right? Besides, I’d just uncovered a serious flaw in our alert system. How was I supposed to know if Danny was okay? Short of tagging him with a secret GPS tracking device—which he’d probably find, laugh at, and crush beneath his big-booted foot anyway—I didn’t have many options.