“I can rally for that,” Mel said.
“Thought you might,” Angie said. “Come on. If we’re kicking this off tomorrow, like we say in the ad, we have to get to the shop and get some work done.”
“Right behind you,” Mel said. They hugged Tate good-bye and hurried out of Lo-Lo’s and back to the bakery.
It was a quiet afternoon at Fairy Tale Cupcakes. A few tourists popped in wanting individual cupcakes, and Angie took two phone orders for cupcakes for the next week, but otherwise all was quiet.
Mel decided they’d better come up with a raffle box for the contest, so she took some leftover silver wrapping paper and a large cardboard box she’d been hoarding in her office for just this sort of thing. She had just finished covering the box with the silver paper when the front door banged open, shoved with more force than necessary, by an angry-looking man. He was tall and lanky, dressed in jeans and a flowing white shirt with a thread count that was so low she could see the ink of the many tattoos covering his arms through the fabric. He had long, straight black hair, a hook in his nose as if it had been broken repeatedly, full lips over a stubborn chin, and piercing pale blue eyes. He was attractive in a bad-boy, “your mom would have a coronary if you brought him home” kind of way.
He did not look like a lover of cupcakes, or anything else sweet, for that matter. In fact, Mel would place odds that he was a salt guy. He stalked across the room, stopping by the booth where she was finishing the box.
“May I help you?” she asked.
He looked her over with an insolence that crossed the border into rudeness.
“That depends,” he said. His upper lip curled slightly in what would have been an attractive, Elvis-like sneer if it hadn’t carried a butt-load of hostility with it. “Are you Ms. Cooper?”
“Yes, I am,” she said. She tried to place him. Had they met before? Did he have a reason to be mad at her? Had she cut anyone off while driving lately? Or worse, had she dated him at some point and forgotten?
She glanced at his face. No, she’d remember those eyes. Although he did look familiar, she just couldn’t figure out why.
“You’re a little young for him, don’t you think?”
“Excuse me?” she asked.
“But then, that makes sense doesn’t it?” he asked.
“No, actually, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said.
Angie came through the swinging doors from the kitchen with a tray full of Death by Chocolate Cupcakes for the display case. She plopped the tray on the counter and glanced over at Mel and the man with the bad attitude.
“Need help?” she asked.
The man glowered at her. “Tell your friend her little plan won’t work.”
Angie glanced at Mel. “Your little plan won’t work.” Then she looked back at the man. She cocked her head and studied him. “Just to clarify, what plan would that be?”
“To get away with murdering my father,” he said. He glared at Mel. “I heard the old man was running around with a blonde.”
Mel opened her mouth to protest, but he gave her a scathing head-to-toe sweep with his eyes. “I don’t know what you have to gain by killing an old man, but I plan to find out.”
Mel felt her eyes pop, but she was rendered temporarily speechless from sheer shock. Angie, however, was not.
“What are you talking about?” she snapped.
She did not have seven older brothers for nothing. Virtually no one and nothing ever intimidated her. She stomped around the counter and, despite her diminutive stature, she managed to get right under the angry man’s nose and give him what for. “Who do you think you are, coming into our place of business and accusing one of us of murder? Why I ought to . . .”
She paused to look for a weapon and, in a show of good sense, the angry man backed up a few steps. Not that it helped him any as, unable to latch on to a suitable weapon, Angie pursued, keeping her face inches from his chest while she jabbed him in the belly with her pointer finger.
“Apologize, you big dummy, and make it quick, because I am losing my patience!”
The man raised his hands in surrender and looked at Angie as if she were the most marvelous thing he’d ever seen.
“I . . . I’m . . . sorry,” he stammered. “The police said Ms. Cooper was with my father when he died. After they got done questioning me, I just lost it. I called information, and they gave me this address.”
“Is that the best you can do?” she challenged.
“I am very sorry,” he said, looking over Angie’s head at Mel. “Please forgive me.”
“You’re Baxter Malloy’s son?” Mel asked.
“Yes,” he said.
Mel stepped forward and put her hand on Angie’s shoulder, easing her back from the man. “He just lost his father,” she said. “Let’s give him a break.”
Angie squinted at him and finally muttered, “Okay.”
“Would you like to sit down?” Mel asked.
The man nodded and slid into an empty booth. His rage was gone, leaving him looking bewildered. Mel knew how it felt to lose a father, and she couldn’t help but feel sorry for him, even if he had wrongly accused her of being involved.
“Can I offer you a cupcake?” she asked.
“Thanks, but I’m not really a sweets guy,” he said.
Mel nodded. She’d figured.
“How about a glass of iced tea, unsweetened?” Angie offered. She looked as if it pained her to do so.
The man smiled at her, and the grin transformed his face into one of pure charm. Again, Mel felt sure she had seen him somewhere before. “Thanks, that would be great.”
Angie went to the kitchen, and Mel took the seat across from him.
“I’m Mel Cooper,” she said and extended her hand. “My mother is Joyce Cooper. She’s the one who had a date with your father.”
He shook her hand, looking chagrinned. “Oh, I really did step in it, didn’t I?”
“Barefoot,” Mel confirmed.
Angie returned to the booth with a tray of three iced teas. She slid in beside Mel.
“I’m Brian Malloy,” he said. He held out his hand to Angie, who took it grudgingly.
“Angie DeLaura,” she said. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” he said. “Honestly, my father and I were not close. He didn’t approve of my life, and I thought his was . . . well, I guess I didn’t approve of his, either. It made for some tense family holidays until we finally scrapped the whole thing after my mother died. I moved to Los Angeles three years ago, and we haven’t spoken since.”
“I’m sorry,” Angie said.
Mel glanced at her and realized that her sympathy was heartfelt. Angie was all about family. Her brothers drove her crazy, but she’d take a bullet for any one of them and vice versa. Angie always felt badly for people who didn’t have that unconditional love in their families.
“Me, too,” Mel said. A thought wriggled in the corner of her mind, however, and she had to ask. “How is it you’re here now if you live in Los Angeles?”
“Quite a coincidence, isn’t it?” Brian said. He tossed his long black hair back over his shoulder with a humorless laugh. “The police really loved that one. But the fact is, I’m on tour, and I’m just passing through. I was in rehearsal for our gig at the time of his death.”
Angie sat bolt upright. “Oh! Now I recognize you. You’re Roach! You’re the drummer in the band the Sewers. I love you guys.
“Na na na. Na na na. Step on this! Yeah, step on this! Like this? Yeah!” Angie sang with a mean air guitar riff. Unfortunately, Angie was not known for her singing.
Brian gave her a small smile. “Thanks.”
An awkward silence filled the booth. Now that Angie and Mel knew they were sitting with a celebrity, it felt different. Roach took a long sip from his glass while Mel and Angie stared at him, trying to process the information that they were sitting with someone who had three platinum albums and was on a world tour.
“Well, I
guess I’d better get back to the hotel. Our manager wants me to do a press conference about my dad’s murder, something about damage control.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” they said. As one, they rose and followed him to the door.
Roach grabbed the door handle and said, “Thanks for the iced tea.”
“Any time, we’re open from ten to eight every day but Sunday, which is one to five, but you can probably read that on the door.” Mel stammered to a halt, and Angie gave her a look that told her quite plainly she sounded like an idiot. She clamped her lips shut.
“Hey,” Roach said, looking at Angie, “if I leave a ticket for tomorrow night’s show at the box office, will you come?”
“Can I have three?” Angie asked with a grin.
“Will you have dinner with me after?” he asked.
She studied him for a second. “Yes.”
“Then you can have as many as you want,” he said.
“Three will do,” she said.
“See you tomorrow night,” he said.
The door shut behind him, and Mel goggled at Angie.
“Did you really just accept a date with a rock star?” she asked.
“Yes, I think I did.”
“What about Tate?” Mel asked.
Angie walked back to the counter where she’d left her tray of Death by Chocolates. She started putting them into the display case.
“What about him?” she asked as Mel followed her and began to help.
“I thought you were in love with him,” she said.
“I am, but he’s not in love with me, and he probably never will be,” Angie said. “I need to move on.”
“With a guy named Roach?”
“That’s his nickname,” Angie said. “Besides, he’s hot. You have to admit, he’s hot.”
“So? Don’t you find it the least bit odd that he just happens to be on tour in town when his father is murdered? He even admitted that they had a strained relationship. Angie, he could be a murderer!” Mel said. “You can’t date him. I forbid it.”
Seven
Angie’s face took on a ferocity that in twenty-plus years of friendship Mel had never had turned upon her. It was wet-your-pants scary, and she wished more than anything that she could bite back the words that had just escaped her lips.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” Angie said. The words were even more intimidating because they were said quietly.
Mel raised her hands. “My bad. Sorry. You’re right. It’s your life. I’m just concerned because I love you.”
In a blink, Angie’s face softened, and she reached out and hugged Mel.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You know how crazy I get when someone tries to boss me around. Thirty-four years of living with the brothers will do that to a gal.”
“It’s okay,” Mel said. “I was out of line.”
“You’re my best friend,” Angie said. “You’re never out of line. And you don’t need to worry. If I get any crazy murderer vibe off of him, I’ll dump him flat.”
Mel stared at her hard.
“What?”
“I don’t like this.”
“It’s just dinner.”
“So was my mother’s date with his father,” Mel said.
“Mel, relax. I’ll be fine. Now, bigger picture—it’s a free concert, and I scored tickets for you and Tate, too, so how cool am I?”
“Pretty cool,” Mel admitted with a smile.
Mel’s phone began to ring its distinctive Gone with the Wind ringtone. She fished it out of her apron pocket and glanced at the screen. It was her mom.
“Hi, Mom, how are you?”
“I need you to come over and take away the dress,” Joyce said.
“The dress?” Mel asked.
“Yes, I am sure it’s cursed. It’s killed two men already. I can’t let it kill another.”
“Mom, the man at Dillard’s didn’t die, and the medical examiner said Baxter was strangled,” she said. “He didn’t have a heart attack. It had nothing to do with the dress.”
“You don’t know that,” she insisted. “Please, I need you to come and get the dress.”
“What do you want me to do with it? Take it to Goodwill?”
“Oh, goodness no,” Joyce said. “Then some poor unsuspecting person will suffer the curse. No, you have to destroy it.”
“Will you feel better if I do?”
“Yes,” Joyce sighed.
“Okay, then I’ll come over after work and get it.”
“Thank you.”
“Anytime,” Mel said.
Angie looked at her with raised eyebrows.
“I have to get rid of ‘the dress,’ ” she said.
“Makes sense,” Angie agreed.
Of course it made sense to Angie. She was Italian and had a very healthy superstitious streak running through her. If her palms itched, she was convinced she was going to have good luck. She even wore an amethyst pendant of her grandmother’s to ward off the malocchio, the evil eye.
“No, it doesn’t,” Mel said. “It’s just my mother being weird. Malloy didn’t die because of her dress.”
“How do you know?” Angie asked. “It could be cursed.”
Mel rolled her eyes and picked up the finished raffle box and placed it prominently on the front counter. They would run the raffle for one week. That should give them plenty of entrants for the drawing.
The front door was pushed open, and in shuffled an older gentleman. Mel looked more closely. No, there was nothing merely “older” about him. This guy was a fossil. She was only surprised he didn’t leave a trail of dust behind him when he walked.
His back curved like a question mark, leaving him significantly shorter than he’d most likely been a half century before. He wore dark pants that were hitched a bit too high by a pair of wide, red suspenders. His shirt was white with thin blue stripes, buttoned up to the collar and covered in a thin cardigan sweater in nondescript beige. He wore gold-rimmed glasses that slid low on his nose, and his hair . . . well, it was more of a removable hair hat in a shade of reddish brown that his head had not produced on its own in at least thirty years.
“Good afternoon, sir,” Angie greeted him. “May I help you?”
The man shuffled forward in his orthopedic shoes and smacked the newspaper down on the counter. “I want to enter the contest.”
“Well, it doesn’t actually start until tomorrow,” Angie said.
“I might be dead tomorrow,” the old man grumped.
“He has a point,” Mel said. “I think we can let him enter today.”
“Okay,” Angie said. “When you buy a four-pack of cupcakes, you get an entry form, and you can fill it out and put it right in that box. What four cupcakes would you like?”
“How should I know?” he snapped. “What do you have?”
Angie looked over her shoulder at Mel, who shrugged. It had been long established that Angie was the cranky magnet. It never failed that if a cranky person came in, he went right to Angie.
“What’s that one?” he asked as he tapped the glass of the display case.
“This one?” Angie asked, pointing to a Death by Chocolate.
“No, the other one,” he said. His tone made it clear that he didn’t think she was very bright.
“That’s our Blonde Bombshell,” she said. “It’s an almond cupcake . . .”
“Then why is it pink?” he asked.
“It’s not pink,” she said.
“Then it’s not the one I’m asking about,” he said. “What’s the pink one?”
“That’s called a Tinkerbell,” Angie said.
“Stupid name,” he grumbled.
Angie took a deep breath through her nose and kept going. “It’s a lemon cupcake with a raspberry buttercream frosting.”
“Give me four,” he said.
“Okay, then,” she said. Angie reached below the counter to get a box, but he stopped her.
“I don’t need a box,” he said. “I’m g
oing to eat them here.”
“All four?” she asked.
“Yep,” he said. “And don’t forget my entry form.”
“Certainly,” Angie said. “Anything to drink?”
“Water,” he said.
The man filled out the form with a shaky hand while Angie rang up his order. He handed it to Mel and asked, “Can you read it?”
The writing resembled spider tracks, but it was still legible.
“Yes, Mr. Zelaznik,” she said. “I can read it.”
“Good,” he said. “I have a hot mama I’ve been planning to ask out, and your contest is just the ticket to show her a good time.”
Angie and Mel exchanged a glance and then Mel turned back with a smile. “Well, good luck.”
She tucked his form into the box while Angie took his tray to a nearby booth. Mr. Zelaznik trailed after her, easing into the booth as if he were afraid he might fall and be stuck on his back like a turtle on its shell.
Two hours later, Mr. Zelaznik was still in his booth. The Sunday afternoon tourist crush had come and gone, and still he sat working on his sixteenth cupcake.
“Do you think he might go into sugar shock?” Angie asked. “I love sweets more than anyone, but even I’d throw up if I ate that many cupcakes in one sitting.”
Mr. Zelaznik looked red-faced and sweaty. His hair hat was askew, and his eyes were becoming glassy. Mel was worried he’d had a four-pack too many.
“Maybe we should call him a cab,” she said to Angie. She had locked the front door and flipped the hanging sign on the front window to CLOSED.
“Mr. Zelaznik,” she said. “It’s time to go home.”
He looked at her, but she could tell he hadn’t heard a word she’d said.
“Mr. Zelaznik, put down the fork!” Angie barked in her schoolteacher voice.
He dropped his fork and blinked at them.
“You know, you don’t have to eat the cupcakes all at once,” she said. “You could take some home and share them with a friend.”
“Nah,” he grumped. “I don’t want anyone to know what I’m doing. They’ll steal my idea.”
He shuffled out of the booth. Mel was encouraged to see he was moving faster than when he came in, but that could be all the sugar coursing through his bloodstream.
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