Buttercream Bump Off

by Jenn McKinlay

  The detective narrowed his gaze at her. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Joe DeLaura’s girlfriend,” she said.

  “And I’m his sister,” Angie chimed in.

  “I’m neither,” Tate said. “But I play a mean game of golf.”

  The detective glowered at them. It was obvious he could not care less who they were dating or were related to or what their golf handicaps were. When it looked as if he was about to open his mouth and yell, he was interrupted by a new arrival.

  “Detective Martinez,” Uncle Stan said as he held out his hand. “Detective Cooper, Scottsdale PD.”

  “A bit out of your jurisdiction, isn’t it?” Martinez asked as they shook.

  Uncle Stan gestured to Mel and Joyce. “Family.”

  Martinez gave him a curt nod. “Dry her off, but she doesn’t leave until I say.”

  “Thanks,” Uncle Stan said. He put his arm around Joyce and led her back to the outside fireplace, which was ablaze.

  Mel, Angie, and Tate followed. Mel went to pull the sodden blanket off her mother’s shoulders, but Joyce only clutched it tighter.

  “Mom, we need to dry you off. You’re going to catch pneumonia.”

  “I can’t take it off,” Joyce whispered.

  “Why not?”

  Joyce lowered her head and mumbled.

  “I didn’t catch that,” Mel said.

  Joyce sighed. “I can’t take it off. I’m in my underwear.”

  She flashed Mel a shot of her blue bra strap, and Mel gasped.

  “Mom!”

  “What?”

  “On a first date?” Mel asked. “I am shocked!”

  “It’s not how it looks,” Joyce said. “We were going to jump in the hot tub.”

  “Hot tub?” Mel slapped a hand to her forehead.

  “Don’t be such a prude,” Joyce chided her. “I went into the cabana to hang up my dress and borrow a robe, and when I came out, Baxter was floating facedown in the pool.”

  “Good grief,” Tate muttered. “Did he fall in and hit his head?”

  “No, I think it was the dress,” Joyce said in an ominous voice. “I think it’s cursed.”

  “Mom, it’s not the dress,” Mel said. “It’s just a freak accident.”

  “Joyce,” Uncle Stan interrupted, “did you see or hear anyone on the premises?” He had his cop face on. His usual affectionate expression was gone, lost behind the hard angles and planes of a face that had spent too much time catching bad people making bad decisions and telling bad lies. His worldview was just all-around bad.

  “No, there was no one,” Joyce said. Her teeth clacked together, and she pulled the blanket tighter. “I thought he was swimming at first, then I thought he was joking, then I realized he was in trouble, and I jumped in and fished him out. I called 9-1-1, and I tried to do CPR, but he was already gone. That’s when I called you, Melanie.”

  “Mel, go get your mother’s clothes,” Uncle Stan said. “I’m going to talk to Martinez and see how much longer they’re going to need you.”

  Joyce reached out and clutched his hand. “Thanks, Stan.”

  The hard lines disappeared. Uncle Stan’s face was once again filled with gentleness, and he leaned forward and placed a kiss on Joyce’s head. “It’s going to be all right.”

  Mel hurried across the patio towards the cabanas. They were four small changing rooms built into the side of the house just beyond the hot tub.

  A knot of police, including Martinez, a photographer, and a medical examiner, were near that end of the pool. Mel knew they were gathered around Baxter Malloy’s body. And just like at the scene of an accident on the highway, she felt herself slowing down, rubbernecking, to get a look-see at the man her mother had been out with.

  She saw a shock of white hair over a very tan face—unnaturally tan, in fact. He was splayed out on his back with his arms wide. He was still clothed, thank heavens, from his dress shirt and slacks to his loafers. Obviously, he hadn’t gone into the pool by choice, then.

  She felt a pair of eyes watching her, and she glanced up to see Detective Martinez studying her. He was younger than she had first realized and handsome, too, in a testosterone laden “I put away bad guys” sort of way.

  Her toes hit the bottom step of the stairs that led up to the cabanas, and she broke eye contact with the detective in order to stop herself before she tripped. She failed and had to catch herself on the steps, narrowly escaping a full splat against the hard stones. Grace in motion, hardly.

  When Mel glanced back up from her stooped position, Martinez was watching her, and he looked amused. She pushed herself into an upright position and felt her face get hot with embarrassment. She stomped up the stairs. Served her right for gawking at a dead man, she supposed.

  She found her mother’s blue dress on a hanger in a tiny closet in the second cabana. Her shoes had been carefully placed on the floor beneath the dress. Joyce was always tidy; even at someone else’s house there was a place for everything and everything in its place.

  She took the dress and shoes and trotted back to the fireplace. When she got there, Detective Martinez was holding a large brown envelope and a small notepad and was asking her mother questions while Uncle Stan hovered protectively behind her.

  “Can you identify this, Mrs. Cooper?” he asked.

  Mel saw Detective Martinez hold out a clear plastic bag containing one nude thigh-high stocking with lace-trimmed edges.

  “Oh, that’s mine,” Joyce said.

  “Can you explain how this came to be in Mr. Malloy’s pocket?” he asked.

  Joyce’s face turned a shade of red only found on small, bitter root vegetables.

  “I, uh, we . . .” she stammered. She glanced skyward as if hoping a meteor might plummet to Earth at that very second and spare her this conversation. Mel glanced up, too. Clear sky. No such luck.

  With a heavy sigh, Joyce said, “We were playing shoe salesman, and Baxter took my stockings off for me.”

  It was safe to say every single person in the group was now hoping for a meteor to hit. Tate cleared his throat. Uncle Stan puffed out his cheeks. Angie and Mel exchanged glances of equal parts wow and ew. The noted exception was Detective Martinez, who looked unfazed, as if he heard worse than this every day.

  “Can I get dressed now?” Joyce asked.

  Martinez looked up from the pad on which he was making notes. “Yes.”

  “Thank you,” Joyce said. Mel handed her the dress and shoes.

  “One thing,” Martinez said.

  “Yes?” Joyce asked, looking wary.

  “We only found one of your stockings on his person,” he said. “What happened to the other one?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered, looking pained. “He had both of them when I went to change.”

  “Interesting,” Martinez said.

  “How so?” Uncle Stan asked.

  “The medical examiner seems to think Mr. Malloy didn’t just have a heart attack and fall into the pool,” he said. “In fact, it appears he was strangled by this.”

  Martinez produced another baggie with a stocking in it from inside the large brown envelope. This one was wet and left droplets of water in the bag.

  “We found this one in the pool. His assailant must have dropped it after killing him,” Martinez said.

  Joyce gasped and then keeled over with a thud.

  Five

  “Shoe salesman, Mom? Really? ” Mel asked as she drove her mother home.

  “It was fun,” Joyce sniffed. She held an ice pack that one of the ambulance guys had given her over the knot on her forehead. “You have to remember, I haven’t dated in thirty-five years. How am I supposed to know what to do?”

  Mel sighed. Obviously, she had let her mother go out woefully unprepared.

  “Fair enough,” she said. “Just promise me if that if one of your dates ever pulls out a video camera, you’ll run. I don’t think I’m up for an X-rated film of my mother being circulated on the Interne
t.”

  Joyce looked at her in horror. “That’s it. I’m never dating again.”

  Mel thought about talking her out of it, but something stopped her. She had a guilty feeling it was relief.

  She pulled up in front of the house her mother had lived in for over thirty years. Nestled in the Arcadia neighborhood with a lovely view of Camelback Mountain, it was an old, low-slung ranch that boasted a large yard and several of the original orange trees. Mel walked her mother up the cobbled path to the front door.

  A sedan pulled into the drive. It was Uncle Stan. Watching him stride up the drive reminded Mel so much of her father that she felt an ache in her chest. Uncle Stan was robust like his older brother had been and had the same “taking a room by storm” sort of walk. The Cooper men were not the type to be ignored. But where Charlie Cooper, Mel’s father, had been found frequently chomping the soggy end of a cigar and telling bawdy jokes, Stan popped antacids, grinding them between his molars like sidewalk chalk under a bicycle tire, quietly watching the world at large, suspecting everyone was up to no good.

  “Do you want me to spend the night, Mom?” Mel asked.

  “No, I’m fine, dear,” Joyce said. “You needn’t trouble yourself. You have a shop to run.”

  “It’s no trouble,” Mel protested, but Uncle Stan cut in. “Don’t worry, Mel. I’ll stay the night in the guesthouse. You don’t happen to have the fixings for an omelet, do you, Joyce?”

  “I do,” she said. “Mushrooms and cheese?”

  “That’d be nice.” He smiled at her.

  A look of understanding passed between them that made Mel feel like a child trying to grasp an adult conversation. She suspected they both knew that Mel’s company would not make Joyce feel as safe as Stan’s would, but neither of them wanted to offend her by saying as much.

  “I’ll just go change into my pajamas and robe and meet you in the kitchen,” Joyce said. She kissed Mel’s cheek on the way to her room. “Thanks for coming to get me. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  Uncle Stan walked Mel out to her car.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll keep an eye on her.”

  “Thanks,” she said. He opened his arms, and she stepped into them. He wrapped her in a huge bear hug that somehow made her feel like everything was going to be okay, even as it made her miss her dad all the more.

  Mel arrived home to find Joe sitting on the steps that led up to her apartment.

  “Angie called me,” he said. He gave her a quick hug and stepped back to study her. “Are you okay? Is your mom okay?”

  “She . . . I . . . we’re fine,” Mel said. “What a crazy night.”

  She walked up the stairs to her apartment with Joe following. Once inside she dropped her purse, kicked off her shoes, and landed on the futon with a thump.

  Joe sat down beside her and pulled her close. “You know you could have called me.”

  “It didn’t seem right,” Mel said. “It was all very odd with Mom being in her underwear, and Uncle Stan was there. I didn’t want to bother you.”

  “You had no problem saying you were with me to the police,” he said. He sounded irritated. “We’re dating. It’s no bother.”

  Mel glanced at him and felt a spurt of annoyance. His short black hair was mussed, his tie was askew, and the cuffs on his dress shirt were rolled back to his elbows. It was closer to Saturday morning than Friday night, and he looked as if he’d just come from the office. In fact, she was sure he had just come from his office. The man was a workaholic, and he wondered why she hesitated to call him?

  “We’re not dating,” she argued, feeling cranky. “We’re roomies on nights you drag your sorry carcass over here and pass out. My mother was half naked and playing shoe salesman. I think she went further on her first date than we have in months. Is it really any wonder I didn’t call you?”

  Joe frowned at her. By birth order, he was smack dab in the middle of Angie’s seven older brothers. A smart kid, he had turned that spot into his niche, always being the sibling mediator, the peacemaker, the one everyone turned to with their troubles. Really, it had surprised no one when he became a lawyer. He liked to be the fixer. He liked to be needed. He did not like to think he was blowing it big time.

  “Shoes? Would that do it for you?” he asked. He looked at her sock-clad feet. “I could probably get one of those metal foot-measuring things on eBay.”

  He wiggled his eyebrows, and Mel had to press her lips together to keep from laughing.

  “You’re missing the point,” she said, trying to maintain her ire and failing spectacularly.

  “Listen,” he said, “I know the case I’ve been working on really came at a bad time for us, but it’s almost over.”

  Mel looked at him. She’d heard this before. She untangled herself from him and rolled off the couch. She crossed the room to the door.

  “Tell you what, Joe: When your case is over, call me,” she said.

  He stood. “Are we breaking up?”

  “There isn’t anything to break up,” Mel said. “ ‘I think what we got on our hands is a dead shark.’ ”

  “Alvy Singer in Annie Hall,” Joe said, identifying the quote. He moved to stand in front of her. “Our shark isn’t dead. Hell, he hasn’t even had a chance to get in the pool.”

  He pulled Mel into his arms and planted a kiss on her that made her knees buckle. How did he do that?

  “I’m not giving up on us, Cupcake, and neither should you. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  Mel closed the door behind him and couldn’t figure out if they’d just broken up or not. She suspected not. And suddenly, that was okay. Any man who could nail a line from Annie Hall deserved another chance.

  Besides, given the evening she’d had, she wasn’t sure she was in a proper emotional state to declare the status of any relationship.

  Tate strolled into Lo-Lo’s Chicken and Waffles with the Sunday paper tucked under his arm. Angie and Mel sat at their usual table, waiting for him. Lo-Lo’s was a Phoenix landmark known for the best fried chicken and red velvet cake in the state. Mel had been thrilled when they opened up a second restaurant just down the road from the bakery. As usual the place was mobbed, and Tate had to throw a few elbows to get to his seat.

  Angie had already ordered him a Lo-Lo’s, which consisted of three pieces of chicken, southern style, and two waffles. Mel and Angie had lesser versions of the same, as they always saved room for Sanny Sand’s red velvet cake. They each had a large sweet tea to wash it all down.

  “So, how is Mom doing?” Tate asked Mel as he sat down and tucked into his food.

  “Shaky,” Mel said. She gave him a pained look. “Apparently Detective Martinez asked my mother if Baxter was into eroto-asphyxiation, and Uncle Stan almost punched him in the face.”

  Both Tate and Angie cringed.

  “Then, of course, Uncle Stan had to explain what that is to Mom, which gave her a fit of hysterics.”

  “I’m assuming they’ve ruled that out then?” Tate asked, wiping his mouth with his napkin before taking up another piece of chicken.

  “Yes, so far it looks as if they believe Mom was just an innocent bystander, but until they come up with another suspect, she’s on the hot seat. I get the feeling they would really love it if she could just remember seeing someone else there that night.”

  “Do they have any other suspects?” Angie asked.

  “Uncle Stan said Malloy’s son is in town and that the police are questioning him as well.”

  “Was there bad blood between them?” Tate asked.

  “I don’t know.” Mel took a bite of her chicken and almost swooned. It was crispy and crunchy and seasoned to perfection.

  “Well, after you told me what Mr. Felix said about his company investing all of their pensions with Malloy’s company, I did some checking in investment circles,” Tate said. “I knew I had heard the name Baxter Malloy. He used to live on the East Coast and was a big trader. There were a lot of rumors about him, however, that
something wasn’t quite right.”

  “Can you find out more?” Mel asked.

  “I’ve already put my feelers out,” Tate said.

  The rest of lunch passed in silent, chewing appreciation of Lo-Lo’s, with the occasional debate about what to view for their next movie night. Angie was lobbying for a romantic comedy, since Valentine’s Day was rapidly approaching. Mel was hankering for an over-the-top Carmen Miranda musical, like she always did in times of stress. Tate was favoring any of Clint’s classic spaghetti Westerns.

  “So what we need is a singing, ‘fruit basket on the head’ heroine, falling in love with a funny hero, while they ride off into the sunset together having gutshot a bunch of bad guys,” Tate said.

  “That’d do it,” Angie said.

  “I’ll see what I can come up with,” he said.

  As they lingered over their sweet tea and red velvet cake, Tate handed out sections of the newspaper. Mel took the Life section first. She scanned an article about teeth care and then turned the page. Her heart stopped in her throat. “Oh, fudge!” she said.

  Six

  “What? What is it?” Tate and Angie asked together.

  Mel flipped the paper open so they could see. On a quarter-page in bold pink was their advertisement for the Fairy Tale Cupcake Contest. For every four-pack of cupcakes purchased, customers could enter a drawing to win a night on the town, courtesy of Fairy Tale Cupcakes.

  “In all of the hullabaloo I completely forgot,” she said.

  “Me, too,” Angie moaned.

  “You have to go through with it now,” Tate said. “Besides, it’s not that much work. All you have to do is sell cupcakes and fill that raffle box. The dinner is all set and so is the car. It’ll be fine.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Mel said. “My heart is really not in it right now.”

  “No, but just imagine Olivia Puckett’s face when she picked up the paper this morning. I bet she about had a stroke,” Angie said.