Donuts, Antiques and Murder: A Bakery Detectives Cozy Mystery

by Stacey Alabaster

  Pippa was stalking ahead with a confidence that surprised me. After all her stories, I'd been expecting her to cower behind me. "Wait up," I called, as she had the flashlight and it was difficult for me to see three paces behind her.

  I coughed as soon as the heavy dust hit my nostrils and settled there. "I'm gonna have to give this place a good scrubbing before I actually serve food here."

  "You're going to have to give it more than a good scrubbing," Pippa muttered. "I'm thinking more like an exorcism."

  She shone the flashlight on item after item. Old paintings, vases, statues, trunks, furniture and more flickered into view before going dark again.

  "I've never actually been inside this place before. There's so much junk." I moved around carefully, trying not to knock any of the tall vases lest they smash and give us away to anyone still awake and nearby. "I wonder where Gus is going to store all this stuff once he goes out of business."

  "Probably in the garbage," Pippa said, then she stopped. She had the flashlight trained on...it.

  "I can't believe this is still in here," Pippa whispered as she stared at the old fashioned painting. The twin boy and girl depicted in it, both around three years of age, stared eerily back at her.

  "Well, where did you think it would be? Taken down to the station for questioning?" My joke was an attempt at easing the fear emanating from her, but Pippa just stared back at the painting, the flashlight trembling in her hand.

  "What, Pippa? What is it?"

  "Rachael, it's...it's moving..."

  I stared straight into the eyes of the girl and boy depicted in the picture, almost expecting their eyes to be moving, for the picture to come to life.

  Pippa really was getting to me. I shook my head and closed my eyes. "Pippa, paintings can't move."

  She looked at me like I was crazy. Then I saw what she meant. It wasn't the figures in the painting that were moving (okay, I have to admit that was a little insane) but the entire frame. It was shaking and moving from side to side.

  Despite my better senses, I screamed and almost pushed Pippa over in my rush to get out of the shop. Still shrieking, I pulled frantically on the door, screaming for it to open before Pippa came up behind me and pointed out that I needed to push it.

  We both spilled out onto the street, doubled over as we struggled to catch our breaths. I felt like there were razor blades in my lungs. And like my heart had been electrocuted.

  "What the heck was that?" I finally asked. I could hear the trembling in my voice. I looked down to see that my hands were shaking. "Why the heck was it moving?"

  I looked over at Pippa and noticed that she was empty handed. "Pippa! You dropped the flashlight in there!"

  Pippa was shaking even harder than I was. "So?" she asked. "Let's scooch! We need to get away from this place before whatever is in there gets us." She was like a wild animal, up on her hind legs ready to flee.

  I steadied my breathing. One of us had to keep our cool. "I agree that we need to get away from this place, but we can’t leave the flashlight in there. Someone will figure out it’s ours. "

  Pippa shook her head frantically. "There's no way they'll know it belonged to us."

  "Your fingerprints are all over it, Pippa."

  "I don't care."

  "We need to go back in there and get it."

  Pippa just stared at me and backed away from the door. "Well, you'll have to go back in on your own."

  "Pippa..."

  I stared inside the shop in dismay. Total blackness. The thought of stepping back in there, with that thing moving around sent shivers up my spine.

  "Well?" Pippa said. Even with the fear present in her voice, I could hear the tone of triumph shining through. "Are you really going back in there alone, Rach?"

  I slowly turned back to her, shaking my head. "No."

  * * *

  I didn't get much sleep that night. And it wasn't just due to the fact I had to be up at 5:00 A.M. thanks to Romeo's sudden disappearance. Every time I shut my eyes, all I could see was that painting, rocking back and forth, taunting me. Heck, maybe those painted eyes really were moving!

  "Hey," Pippa called out as I shuffled into the kitchen. I jumped a mile.

  "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." Pippa dug a spoon into her bowl of cereal while she sat at the bench.

  I tried to play off my nerves. "I'm just startled to see you up this early, that's all. You usually don't rise until well past midday if you can help it."

  "I couldn't sleep either," she replied softly.

  "Who says I didn't sleep?" I didn't know why I was so intent on proving to Pippa that I wasn't rattled. I just didn't want to admit that what happened the night before had actually happened. But there was no explanation for it. And that made me uncomfortable for more than one reason.

  Pippa gave me a long, slow look before she jumped up to rinse her bowl. "Well, I've got a plan," she announced. I popped a slice of bread in the toaster and waited. "I'm going to call an emergency meeting of the Belldale Paranormal Society."

  "That's your plan?"

  "Rachael, they’ll know what's going on. They'll have answers."

  I rolled my eyes. "Pippa, I really think you ought to stop hanging around with the people in that club. They are seriously messing with your mind, and now the craziness is rubbing off on other people." I reached for a carton of juice and slammed the refrigerator shut. The only reason I'd been freaked out so much the night before was because of Pippa's outlandish claims.

  Pippa pouted. "So you think I've gone crazy?"

  I looked at Pippa with her frizzy blue hair sticking out at crazy angles. I'd always thought she was a little crazy. But in a good way.

  I smiled at her. "What do you mean 'gone crazy’? I think you’re already there."

  She gave me a playful push, then turned somber. "I know some of their ideas are a little wacky when you hear them for the first time, but if you'd just come along for a meeting..."

  "Pippa, there's no way I'm coming to a meeting."

  She looked hurt. "Why not?"

  I didn't know. A hundred reasons. Too busy running a successful business, too concerned with logic...

  Pippa tilted her head to the side when I didn't immediately answer. "Are you scared?" Her tone was teasing. And I wasn't about to fall for that tactic.

  I sighed. "No, I'm not scared."

  "Because some of them are witches," Pippa said with a bit of awe in her voice. I was glad my head was facing towards the refrigerator, as she would have taken even further offense if she could see the face I made. "But don't worry, if I say that you're with me, they won't do any harm to you."

  That was the last worry I had. My primary worry was that I would lose my respected reputation if I was seen entering or exiting a meeting of the Belldale Paranormal Society.

  "Please, Rach, at least think about it."

  I was about to tell her that there was no way I was even going to think about it when we both heard something crash in the hallway. We jumped like startled cats and I could feel all my hair on edge as I crept into the hall to see what had made that insanely loud noise.

  It was still dark outside and the hallway was black. I fumbled until I found the light switch and gasped when I stepped back and banged into Pippa.

  "Sorry," she whispered.

  Suddenly there was light and the whole thing didn't seem quite so scary, but then I saw what the noise was. There was a picture frame lying in the middle of the hall, smashed into a thousand different bits, with glass scattered everywhere.

  My first thought was, how in the heck am I going to have time to clean all that up before I start work?

  But Pippa was trembling as she approached it. "Rach... Look what this is a picture of..."

  I had to follow her to see what she was talking about. My walls are lined with dozens of random photos and paintings. If you'd asked me before then to tell you what artwork was in a specific part of the house, I wouldn't be able to tell you. "What is it a pict
ure of?"

  Pippa seemed to know my own decor better than I did. She pointed at the smashed frame to the corner of the picture. At first glance, the picture was nothing more than a landscape, an oil color of an old fashioned scene, a golden field with an old house in the background and a bridge in the front of the house.

  But in the corner... In the corner, so tiny you could hardly see them, were two tiny little children.

  They looked about four years old. They looked like twins.

  I looked at Pippa. Maybe a meeting of the Belldale Paranormal Society wouldn't be such a bad idea after all.

  Chapter 5

  Knock, knock.

  A girl—woman—possibly in her late teens or early twenties stood there. She had long dyed purplish-red hair and pale porcelain skin. She was wearing a cape that made her look like Red Riding Hood, except that she was dressed in black.

  "Is Pippa here?" she said in a tone so quiet I had to lean forward to be able to hear her.

  I suddenly knew who she was. Or, at least, where she was from. The Belldale Paranormal club.

  I shook my head. "She's at work." Pippa was covering for me because I was feeling quite ill with a headache and fever. Three days had passed since the incident with the painting in the hallway and—so far—nothing else unusual had happened.

  Of course, Pippa was blaming my illness on the so-called 'curse.' Another sign that the twins would do anything to keep me from buying the antiques shop.

  But I had another reason for wanting to take a little time away from the bakery. I just couldn't accept Pippa's explanation of events. There had to be a logical explanation for everything that had happened, so I had decided to use my sick day for something more than just lying on the sofa and watching Criminal Point: I was going to get to the bottom of everything.

  I wasn't too impressed with the woman in front of me and certainly didn’t want to waste my time on her. Hoping to end the interaction quickly, I started to close the door but she stepped in front of it.

  "Maybe I should talk to you then."

  I didn't really like the sound of that. "I'm a little busy right now," I said politely. "Fighting off a bit of the flu, actually. I wouldn't want you to get infected."

  "Oh, I won't get infected," she said with eyes that opened so wide it was a little creepy. "I have a spell that makes me immune from all the winter bugs."

  Oh boy.

  "I can cast it on you if you like?"

  "No, thanks. I've got plenty of aspirin and throat lozenges. Those are my magical spells."

  She didn't seem amused. Her face had a ghostly, otherworldly quality. "Are you Rachael? Pippa's told me a lot about you."

  I nodded. "The one and only."

  "I'm Tegan," she replied.

  The name was familiar to me. I now knew exactly who she was. She was the leader of the Belldale Paranormal Society. The one that called all the shots.

  Most likely the one that had put all the crazy ideas into Pippa's head in the first place. I eyed her with suspicion.

  "I really ought to go back inside. I'm feeling rather faint."

  Tegan eyed me like she could see right through me. Literally. But also as though she could tell that I was lying. "Rachael, Pippa told me about all the mysterious things that have been happening to you.”

  "Did she?" I asked heavily.

  Tegan nodded. "It sounds to me like you have had a curse placed on you, Rachael."

  "Don't be ridiculous." I tried to close the door again.

  She stopped me. "I can help you, Rachael, if you let me. I know what's going on."

  She peered at me again with those eyes that seemed to see directly into my soul.

  I gulped and shook my head. "I don't need your help, thank you."

  * * *

  One little peek through the window couldn't hurt.

  I leaned close to the window, cupping my hands around my face to get a better look. Suddenly, a figure started lunging towards me and I screamed. Pulling back, my breathing returned to something resembling normal when I saw it was the antique store's owner, Gus.

  Gus was in his late fifties and always seemed a little gruff, his clothes were always as dusty as the antiques he kept in his shop. I'd seen less and less of him over the last few months as he'd been ill and mostly leaving the shop in the hands of his family. To tell the truth, I was glad I hadn't had much interaction with him, given that I was in the process of buying his store—effectively pushing him out of business.

  "Gus!" I said, plastering a smile on my face as he opened the door for me. This was a little awkward. Even though my intended purchase of his store was nothing personal, he probably still resented me for the fact that I would be its new owner.

  "Hello, Rachael." We'd always been on friendly terms since I'd opened the bakery three years earlier and I was relieved to find that he didn't seem, on the surface at least, to harbor any ill will towards me.

  "Is everything okay?" I asked him. Stupid question. Of course it wasn't. Not only was the poor guy about to sell the business he had put his blood, sweat and tears into, there was now the problem of the shop being...well, literally filled with blood, sweat, and tears.

  "Besides the fact that a man was murdered in my shop..." Gus started, and I braced myself. His forehead creased into a deep frown. "There was a break-in a few days ago."

  I froze.

  "A break-in?" I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.

  "Some stuff was moved around. And they were stupid enough to leave a flashlight in here."

  Yes, they were.

  "Oh no," I said, pretending to be outraged. "That's terrible, Gus. Do you know who it was?"

  Gus shook his head. "No. And strange as it is, it seems like they didn't take anything. But it makes you wonder, doesn't it?"

  "It does."

  "Whoever it was that killed that poor guy, they might have come back to clean up after themselves."

  "Well, if they left a flashlight behind, they mustn't have done a very good job of cleaning up!" I let out a forced high-pitched laugh that was far too loud.

  He gave me a suspicious look. "You didn't happen so see anything that night, did you?"

  I shook my head quickly. "No, I was home in bed early that night."

  He narrowed his eyes. "I didn't tell you exactly what night it was yet."

  I gulped and checked the time on my phone. "Shoot, Gus, I really gotta go. We're down a baker at the store and I've been doing double duty." That wasn't exactly true. If anyone had been pulling double duty, it was Pippa. But I had to get out of there.

  But I stopped just as I reached the door. I could hear the rush of customers on the other side and even through the cracks, I could smell cinnamon and vanilla wafting out. And there was Gus next to me, dutifully, sadly, clearing out the remains of a dying shop—a shop that was a crime scene no less. I wondered if hearing my own full shop next to him was just like the final twist of the knife in his guts.

  I snuck in and grabbed a Danish pastry without anyone noticing me. Pippa was running around and wouldn't have noticed if the president walked in at that moment. I couldn't do much to help Gus, but I could do one thing: offer him pastry.

  I tiptoed back to Gus's shop, hoping to surprise him, but I stopped short at the door when I saw what Gus was doing. I made sure no one was looking before I pressed my face closer to the glass. He was tampering with the painting of the twins. I looked closer. It looked like he was pulling wire off the top of the frame.

  Wire that could have easily been used to move the painting from side-to-side. Wire that could have been used to scare off trespassers.

  Gus suddenly looked up at me, locking eyes on me like I was a target. I dropped the Danish pastry and backed away from the window, but he was already storming towards the door.

  "What are you doing?" he growled. Then, with a small satisfied scoff, “Snooping around again, I see."

  "Again?"

  "I know it was you and your friend here the other night."

&
nbsp; I steadied my breathing. "Oh yeah? How could you know that unless you were here as well?" I raised an eyebrow at him, daring him to come up with a good answer for that.

  His lips moved silently for a moment. I'd got him. It must have been him in the shop that night, moving the painting around and trying to scare us off.

  But why?

  When he didn't answer, I backed away and left the pastry lying there on the ground, waiting for the stray cats to come and get it after dark.

  * * *

  "Pippa," I said, grabbing her as I ran into the bakery. "I've got to tell you something! It's urgent. I've had a major breakthrough in the case."

  She opened her mouth in disbelief.

  "Rachael, we’re slammed right now, can't you see that?" She pointed to the long line of customers snaking out the door. "You could lend a hand if you wanted," she said, a little too pointedly.

  I nodded. "Sorry," I said, grabbing an apron. As we rushed to serve customers, I managed to whisper a few details to her, but it wasn't until we closed that I was finally able to tell her the information that was about to burst out of me.

  "Pippa," I said, taking my apron off. "Listen to this." I waited until I had her full attention. "I think Gus is the one who killed that person in the antiques shop!"

  Pippa frowned as she placed a tray of brownies back in the fridge. The sweet smell made my tummy rumble and I stopped the door before it shut, grabbing one and taking a bite of the heavenly brownie. "Boy, I was starving. Especially after the day I've had."

  "Me too," Pippa said. "I didn't get a chance to take a lunch break." Again, her tone was rather pointed.

  "Are you mad at me Pippa?"

  "I just think..." She slammed the door of the fridge shut. "That you've been spending so much time on this investigation that you're neglecting your duties here. And I'm the one whose been left to pick up all the slack."

  I placed my brownie on the counter. "You're the one who keeps telling me that there is a mystery to solve, Pippa."