by Morgana Best
Dianne ran behind the counter to me. She threw her arms around my neck and gripped tightly. “Help me!” she said dramatically.
I struggled to breathe, and pulled her arms from my throat. “Don’t worry,” I said. “You’re not being arrested or anything. Is she?” I asked the cops.
“No,” Detective Harrison said.
That did not seem to placate Dianne at all. She reached for my wrists. “Please help me, Amelia. I’m all alone in the world. Promise that you’ll help me! Say the words!”
“I’ll help you,” I said. I had no idea how, but my heart went out to her. I knew what it was like to be alone. “Don’t forget your cupcakes.”
“Ms. Spelled, we will be speaking to you later,” Sassafras said, pointing to me.
I winced, and handed the box to Dianne. She left with the police, casting a terrified look over her shoulder as they escorted her out the door. I headed for the swinging doors to tell Thyme what had happened, but was forestalled by the front door opening once more.
It was Kayleen, the mail lady, and she had never once bought a cake from my store. The day was rapidly heading downhill. “Hi Kayleen,” I said warily.
“Are you trying to avoid me?” she snapped.
I was puzzled. “No, why do you say that?”
“Don’t answer a question with a question,” she barked. “It’s a sure sign of guilt. You’re never home when I deliver the mail.”
“That’s because I’m always here at work,” I said, unable to keep the exasperation out of my voice.
Kayleen appeared to be digesting that for a moment. “Oh, I see,” she said after an interval. “I just thought you had a good hiding place. I couldn’t see you when I looked through your windows.”
“You looked through my windows?”
Kayleen shrugged. “Yes, but I think you should stop spraying for cockroaches, or whatever it is that you do. I always get sick near your house. I think I’m allergic.”
I nodded. “Well, I must get back to work.”
Kayleen ignored me. “Did you hear what killed that man you found?”
Now she had my interest. “No, what killed him?”
“Insulin!” Kayleen proclaimed triumphantly. “A big shot of insulin!”
I narrowed my eyes. “Are you sure?”
Kayleen winked at me. “I own the courier service here too, you know, not just the mail contract. Anyway, my girlfriends and I are going to Coffs Harbour next Monday. Wanna come?”
“I’d love to,” I lied. “Thanks for asking, but I can’t shut the shop.”
Kayleen was visibly affronted. “It will do you good,” she said angrily. “You need to take some time off.”
“I can’t afford to shut the shop.” I said it firmly but politely.
“I knew it!” Kayleen yelled. “You are trying to avoid me! I’ll get you for this!” She stormed out of the shop, almost knocking down a customer on her way.
I served the customer, and was just heading out to the kitchen to fill in Thyme on the news, when the phone rang. “Help me!” Dianne’s voice screeched on the other end. “The police have just searched my house! They think I did it!”
I did the only thing I could do. I ate a double chocolate cupcake with cream cheese frosting in one go.
Chapter 6
“Thyme, the caramel frosting is amazing.” I closed my eyes as I savored a second bite of the sample cupcake.
“The salt really makes a difference.” Thyme frosted a set of cupcakes with swirling spirals of the pale brown frosting. “Salted caramel’s a pretty popular summer treat here. It ought to help draw in more traffic.”
I nodded as I swallowed the last of my cupcake. Of course, if this kept up I would have to start my morning runs again. These sweets were going to expand my waistline before I knew it. Thyme’s cupcakes were just too tasty to resist trying. How in the world did she get it right the first time?
“Do you want to try to make a batch?” Thyme waved a hand toward the leftover ingredients scattered over the counter. “Your sponge cake there wasn’t anywhere near as bad as usual.”
“Huh, I know you’re joking,” I said. I nervously studied the cake cooling on the wire rack. It looked normal enough, if a bit on the flat side. Well, if you can call a big hole in the middle ‘flat’. Plus there was the fact that it had squashed the metal cooling rack. It looked like a giant donut gone wrong, complete with thick charred edges.
Thyme waved a spatula at me. “All righty, but you’re not getting out of making the glaze. Even if you can’t cook, icing will be a big help this weekend.”
I nodded. At least I was able to make the glaze. It was hard to mess up butter cream, so I was glad I would be able to contribute somewhere. Still, the marzipan and fondant were going to take some getting used to. Until I had taken over ownership of the cake store, I had never realized how many types of icing there were.
“The cakes should be cool enough to ice by now.” Thyme picked up one and broke off a piece. She popped the treat into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “Never mind, you might be able to make some passable cakes soon.”
“Don’t start looking for a new job, yet,” I warned her.
“Oh, don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere anytime soon,” Thyme said as the bell alerted us to a new customer.
My pulse quickened, and I quickly chided myself for my reaction. But truth be told, the view was fantastic. Craig looked as rugged and handsome as ever with his work jacket tossed casually over one shoulder. I found myself wondering how he could possibly be single. Something had to be wrong. My thoughts ran away with me—multiple personalities? An extra toe or two? A house overrun with display cases of Barbie dolls? Live taipans or other deadly snakes as pets?
“Hey.” Craig gave a quirked grin.
“Hi.” A wave of mortification hit me when the high squeak leaked into my voice. Serves me right for ogling. What was wrong with me? I cleared my throat and gave him a bright smile. “Sorry, I’m a little hoarse today. How are you?”
“Good.” To my relief, Craig seemed more amused than anything. He bent over to study the cupcakes.
The phone rang and I half turned to see Thyme hurrying to answer it. “Fingers crossed, I might have my own cakes out soon. I just need to make them edible first.”
Craig gave a good-natured laugh. “Well, let me know if you do. I’d like to boast about being first in line when you sold your first cakes here.”
“You got it.” My shoulders relaxed as I settled into the more familiar chit chat. “What can I do for you today?”
Craig shot me a winning smile. “We have a new officer in the department. I’ve volunteered to pick up cakes to celebrate her surviving orientation. You know how we are. Any excuse to unwind a little.”
“Nothing wrong with that.” I grinned and looked over the display. “There’s some biscotti, too. Maybe a couple of those to go with someone’s coffee would be an idea?”
“That sounds good. Give me a dozen of those, and a half dozen of the chocolate cupcakes.”
“You got it.” I reached for the boxes to pack the treats for his order. “Anything else?”
“That should do it for today.”
Before he could say anything else, a man hurried in. “What’s the soup of the day?”
I shook my head. “We’re a cake store.”
The man seemed puzzled. “You’re not a diner?”
“No,” I said politely. “We’re a cake store.”
“So you don’t sell coffee, or soup?”
“No,” I said, “just cakes. We’re a cake store.”
The man’s brows furrowed, and he left, muttering to himself.
Craig looked over his shoulder at the cake shaped logo painted on the glass door. He looked back at me and pointed at the logo.
I just gave a sigh and a half shrug. “Apparently the sign is a tad vague for some. It happens all the time.”
He shook his head, and then frowned. “Is everything all right, after, we
ll, you know, the body at your house?”
I nodded. I tried not to let the image of the crumpled body on my porch resurface as I took his payment. “Everything’s fine. I still don’t know what happened to him, though.”
“Well, you let me know if you need anything.”
My chest tightened as Craig stared into my eyes. “It’ll all work out. One day at a time.”
“No truer words,” Craig agreed as he picked up the box and balanced it on one broad forearm. “You take care of yourself. No more fires while you experiment back there.”
“No promises.” I smiled as I reluctantly watched him go. It was always so easy to chat with him when he made the fire’s department’s cake run.
Thyme gave her shoulder a friendly slap. “Way to ruin a perfect opportunity.”
“Say what?” I looked at her in confusion.
“Everything’s fine,” Thyme imitated me in an overly perky tone. She sighed dramatically. “Would tossing the guy a bone kill you? If you’d said you needed someone to talk to, he’d have asked if you were free for coffee or something. He was totally scoping an excuse.”
“Don’t be silly, Thyme.” I cleaned the crumbs from the counter.
“I’m not being silly. I know he likes you. You guys are so transparent that it’s painful to watch.” Thyme snagged the washcloth in mid air and nudged me out of the way with a hip bump. “And after I sacrificed my cupcakes for you to chat him up! I gotta start a new tray now. Anyway, you’re improving. You made a cake and didn’t even set off the fire alarm. Go with it.” She grinned. “You’ll be a baker before you know it.”
“Not by this weekend, though. How am I supposed to help with fifteen cakes when I can’t tell salt from sugar?”
Thyme winced slightly and forced a smile. “Fourteen. That call was a cancelation.”
“Really?” I frowned, torn between the disappointment of lost business and relief it was one less burden on Thyme this weekend. “Did they say what happened?”
“Word spreads fast. They heard about the body on your porch and…” Thyme’s voice trailed away with a sigh. “Some people are ridiculous. Don’t let them get to you.”
Before I could press for details, the door chimed. I turned to see the two detectives who had come for Madam Dianne.
“Detectives Harrison and Sassafras,” the taller one said, nodding to me. “Ms. Amelia Spelled.” He was staring at me as if I were an insect under a microscope. “Could we sit and talk?”
I felt a pang of dread. No good news ever came from sitting to talk with the cops.
As soon as we reached the back room, Detective Harrison wasted no time coming to the point. “The victim’s name was Thomas Hale. Does the name ring a bell at all?”
“No. I’ve never heard of anybody by that name. Well, I’ve heard of him now, of course, because it’s all over town. I had never heard of him when I found him, though; that’s what I mean.”
“He was a new resident. He arrived in town in last week to work as a realtor for Bayberry Creek Realty. Do you recall ever having the company approach you about the house while you were settling in? Did you maybe see a letterhead or a business card in your aunt’s belongings?”
I shook my head. “Sorry, no. Dianne Longley did tell me that she’d hired him to approach me about the possibility of selling my house. He died before he could get in touch with me, obviously.”
The second cop studied me with concern. “Mr. Hale had a notebook of your work hours as well as photos of you and your house in his motel room.”
“He had my what?” I felt my voice tighten into a sharp squeak as a wave of anxiety overcame me. I could understand him having photos of my house, but of me? Some strange man had a photo of me in his motel room. I hated having my photo taken. I would twist, run, crouch, and crab walk sideways to avoid a camera. I had chased down friends to delete ill-gotten selfies from their phones. What was this man doing with photos of me?
“They were likely provided to him by the company. Maybe from your social media pages.”
“No,” I said sharply. “I have no photos of myself online. None.” A cold chill passed down my spine at the thought. Had people taken photos of me without me knowing? What in the world was going on? “A strange man has photos of me—what does this mean?”
“Likely nothing, Ms. Spelled. He was probably assigned to approach you about selling your house, or he might have been acting independently, given that Ms. Longley had engaged him to approach you.”
“But he had my photos.” I was concerned.
“I wouldn’t worry too much about it, Ms. Spelled. He can’t use them where he’s at.” He paused and removed his glasses to wipe them clean. “You could always file a complaint with his office, if you feel the photos were in violation of your privacy.”
“No. No, that’s all right.” As creepy and weird as it was to have perfect strangers keeping notes about me and my house, a dispute would go nowhere given that the man was deceased.
The man also had a note of my hours. If I hadn’t gone shopping with Thyme, I likely would have been there when the man collapsed. Madam Dianne’s face came to mind as the cops droned on about the various formalities, asking me to sign a statement to affirm my claims.
“There is great trouble coming your way.” Her voice echoed in the back of my mind as I tried to focus on the forms in front of me.
Why did the dead man have photos of me?
Chapter 7
Ruprecht Foxtin-Flynn’s shop, Glinda’s, had a way of making a person feel welcome, even on a dreary, overcast day. The air was heavy with rain that refused to fall. The trees seemed to droop in depression from the sun’s absence. Not even the birds were out in this weather.
Yet Glinda’s was completely unaffected by its gloomy surroundings. In fact, it was the most cheerful looking building on the street. The ‘Open’ sign beckoned in an inviting handwritten script.
The red brick stones and the heavy burgundy curtains in the window made the rest of the street look drab and lifeless by comparison. I could not help but wonder if the shop had some sort of life of its own, like my house. Well, a more social one of course. It wouldn’t do to have a shop that booted people out at every turn. I smiled to myself as I imagined a shoplifter suddenly finding themselves out on the sidewalk.
I was jolted from my thoughts when the door opened with a cheerful jingle of silver bells tied to the handle.
“Amelia, what are you doing standing out there in the damp? You’ll catch pneumonia!” Mint gave me a welcome smile as she scolded me, waving for me to come inside. “Come on in!”
“Sorry, I was lost in thought.” I balanced the plastic tray between my hands.
“I wouldn’t know why you would have so much to think about. Things have been so dull and tranquil since you made it to town.” Mint winked at me before looking up at the sky and waving me in insistently. “Come inside before it starts to pour.”
As if to emphasize her point, thunder rumbled in the distance. I hurried inside and handed her the tray. “I hope sandwiches are okay. I wasn’t quite bold enough to cook anything.”
“These were so thoughtful! Thank you, Amelia.” Mint accepted the tray and closed the door. “I have some tea brewing. How about you join the others at the table?”
Before long everyone was chattering around the table. No matter how many times I came by, I always felt that the place was truly magical. The shelves lining the walls were all wood, but not the glue-and-sawdust-from-the-store type. They were true blue heavy polished wood. Each one was hand carved with intricate Celtic knots and swirling vines, and each leaf was chiseled out in exquisite detail.
The table must have been made by the same craftsman. The dark cherry wood gleamed in the light that came from a myriad of candles, giving this particular room a special ambiance.
The books on the shelves were all leather bound. Most of them looked ancient. Mint had explained that this room was for private gatherings, and housed their rare collectibles
for special patrons. There were even display cases with handmade books dated to the eighteenth century. These were no doubt Ruprecht’s pride and joy.
Despite the rows of books, the place did not smell dusty or old at all. The jars of herbs that lined the upper shelves along with the rows of candles gave the place a witchy atmosphere. There was a tapestry on the far wall, depicting a woman and a dragon under a crescent moon. The many candles burning threw the dark blue walls threw into relief.
Ruprecht smiled as he followed my eyes to the tapestry. “An old friend in England just sent that to me. His daughter crafts them for festivals every year.”
“That’s amazing!” I gazed enviously at the tapestry. I wished I had half that sort of talent. In fact, I would be happy if I could just ice a cake evenly, and maybe make icing flowers look like more than blobs of abstract colors. “She has amazing talent.”
“I’ll forward your praise when I talk to them next,” Ruprecht said with a smile on his face.
“Has there been any word from Madam Dianne?” Thyme asked as she took a sip of her tea.
I shook my head. “I was thinking of taking her something to eat.” I raised my hands in surrender as every head turned in my direction. “Nothing I cooked, of course! I was hoping one of you suggest something she’d like.”
Camino offered me a tray of crackers. “The diner always has a nice soup. It would be easy on her stomach, given that she must be stressed.”
“You could take some cakes from the store,” Thyme said. “The plum cake I made yesterday would probably be a treat. Sweet things help make everything better.” She gazed up at the ceiling thoughtfully. “Except blood sugar levels, I guess. But other than that, it’s a win-win.”
“I could cook something, too,” Mint chimed in. “We should all go and offer a little distraction from her troubles. She could certainly use it. We could welcome her to town.”
“It seems silly that the police would suspect the poor woman. She wouldn’t hurt a soul.” Camino shook her head in exasperation. “You just can’t trust the experts sometimes. They go around looking for a quick answer, not necessarily the right one.”
