Angie glanced back at Roach. Then she took off her apron and tossed it onto Tate’s shoulder. “You can cover for me, right partner?”
“But . . . but I . . .” Tate stammered.
“I’ll meet you guys later for the show,” she said. She tucked her hand around Roach’s elbow, and with a wave he led her to the door. It shut behind them with a soft sigh, and Tate turned to Mel.
“She’s dating that? Our Angie is dating that?”
“Tate, you knew it was Roach from the Sewers. He looks just like he does in his videos. What’s the surprise?”
“How is it he knows her well enough to kiss her like that?”
“I guess they had a good time last night.” Mel shrugged.
“Last night?” Tate huffed. “Before I had a chance to check him out? He could be a murderer! Has she thought of that? Huh?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t go there if I were you,” Mel said. She still had scorch marks from Angie’s temper yesterday when she’d forbidden her to date a possible murderer.
“Did you see those tattoos?” Tate continued. “They look like jailhouse tattoos to me.”
“I thought he looked cool,” Mr. Zelaznik said around a mouthful of cupcake. “I bet I could get any babe I wanted if I looked like him.”
“Well, who asked you?” Tate snapped.
Mel tied the apron on Tate, ignoring his hysterics.
“Why don’t you go get another batch of cupcakes from the cooler?” she suggested. “I think you need some time to chill.”
Tate grunted and, still muttering, banged through the door to the kitchen.
Mel shook her head. It appeared Angie had finally gotten Tate’s notice. But judging by how happy she looked with Roach, maybe it was too late.
Tate helped Mel load the cupcake display case. From his silence, she could tell he was still fuming about Angie and her date. She put him to work wiping down the tables before the post-lunch rush while she boxed up several special orders in back and put them in the cooler to await pickup.
Tate was just putting away his cleaning supplies in the closet when his phone rang its distinctive James Bond theme. He yanked it out of his pocket and checked it.
“Yes! I’ve been waiting for this,” he said to Mel. “Do you mind if I take it in your office?”
“Not at all,” she said.
She glanced at Mr. Zelaznik, who had looked up from his cupcakes and crossword, and they both shrugged.
While it was quiet, Mel decided to fold up some four-pack boxes. In addition to Mr. Zelaznik’s three entries today, there had been five more entries in the Fairy Tale Cupcake contest this morning alone. Most surprising was the fact that they were men. Mel had a feeling that with Valentine’s Day rapidly approaching, guys were looking for something special for their significant others, and wasn’t a night on the town topped with cupcakes just perfect?
Maybe there would even be a run on four-packs of cupcakes. She was crouched down behind the counter to pull out a stack of flat boxes to be folded into four-pack carriers when she heard the door chime.
“I’ll be right with you,” she called.
“Where’s Angie?”
“Is she in back?”
“We need to talk to her.”
“Pronto.”
Uh-oh. Mel stayed hunkered down behind the counter. The DeLaura brothers were here. It sounded like all seven of them. No, Joe would have called her if he was coming over. That meant the rest of them were here, and they were not going to be happy when they found out Angie wasn’t.
Mel wondered if she could crawl out the kitchen door before they noticed her.
Tony, the tallest, leaned over the counter and spotted her. “Hi, Mel.”
She sighed and slowly rose to her feet. Six of the seven DeLaura brothers stood before her: Dom, Ray, Sal, Tony, Paulie, and Al. Angie’s brothers. It was a bit overwhelming to be confronting six good-looking variations of her boyfriend Joe. She couldn’t help but notice that the level of testosterone in the bakery had risen to a level she’d never before experienced.
“Hi, boys. What brings you in today?”
“I do,” Tate said from behind her. He was standing in the doorway and, even in his pink Fairy Tale Cupcakes apron, he looked resolute. “Gentlemen, if you’ll follow me.”
“What are you, mob owned?” Mr. Zelaznik called to Mel from his table. “Is this just a cover operation for a house of ill repute?”
“No!” she snapped. “It most certainly is not.”
“Darn,” Mr. Zelaznik said as he stuffed in another bite of cupcake.
Mel pushed through the swinging doors after the last of the DeLaura brothers and stared at Tate as if he’d lost his mind. He met her stare, refusing to back down.
She grabbed him by the elbow and hauled him into the corner and hissed, “Did you call them all here? Does the term dead man walking mean anything to you?”
“What?” Tate asked. “Angie could be out there with a murderer right now. We need to strategize.”
“Tate, she is going to murder you for dragging the brothers into this,” Mel warned.
“If it means keeping her safe, I’ll risk it,” he said.
Melanie just shook her head. “I notice Joe isn’t here.”
“Yeah, he seemed to think you and Angie would not be on board with this plan.”
“You think?”
“Hey, Mel, how about a round of cupcakes?” Paulie asked.
“My treat,” Tate said and Mel turned to glower at him.
“You got that right,” she said.
She pushed through the swinging doors and loaded up a tray with a half dozen cupcakes and glasses of milk, except for one glass of iced tea for Sal, because he was lactose intolerant.
When she reentered the kitchen, Tate was pacing in front of the brothers, who were all seated on stools around the steel worktable, watching him with varying levels of concern.
“This Roach character,” Dom said. “How long has she known him? And what kind of name is that anyway?”
“It’s his stage name, and they met yesterday, right Mel?” Tate asked.
“Oh, no. I am not a party to this,” Mel said.
“But he could be a murderer!” Tate said. “And she’s your best friend. How can you be so unconcerned?”
“I’m concerned, but I also trust Angie’s judgment,” Mel said. “Besides, he has no reason to harm her. I saw the way he looked at her this morning. I think he really likes her.”
“How did he look at her?” Ray asked. He dropped his fork and cracked his knuckles.
“Like he wanted to see her naked,” Tate said.
Several hands slammed down on the steel worktable, and the brothers growled. It sounded as if Mel had a bear trapped in her kitchen. She raised her hands in frustration.
“Stop it!” she ordered. “Just stop it. Do any of you know why Angie has been single for the better part of the past fifteen years?”
“No one’s good enough for our Ange,” Sal said. “It would take a very special guy to deserve someone like her, and she hasn’t found him yet.”
“Yeah,” Al agreed. He was the only DeLaura who still lived at home, and Mel had a soft spot for him because he was the one who most resembled Joe.
“No, it’s because you thugs chase away every single man she’s interested in,” Mel said. “And if you do it again, I’m afraid you’re going to lose her.”
“What do you mean lose her?” Tony asked. He shoved in the last of his cupcake and swallowed.
“I mean that Roach is a rock musician who lives in Los Angeles and goes on tour quite a bit. If you try to mess this up for Angie, she may leave to go on the road with him,” Mel said.
“Nah, this is Angie we’re talking about,” Paulie said. “She could never leave her family.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Mel said. She glanced at Tate, who looked as determined as a bulldog tracking a bone, and she felt like whacking him on the head with her tray. She resisted the urge—barely.
“Mel, remember that I told you I was going to check out Baxter’s business? Well, I’ve gotten some disturbing information,” Tate said. “Which is why I think Angie needs to stay as far as possible from anyone connected with Malloy, especially his son.”
“What kind of information?”
“Baxter? That’s the dead guy your mom went out with, isn’t it?” Tony asked.
“Yes,” Mel said. “Oh, and please thank your mom for the lasagna she sent over after the . . . uh . . . incident. It was very thoughtful of her.”
“Will do,” Al said.
“Baxter Malloy—or Bastard Malloy, as some of his former business associates call him—was operating a Ponzi scheme.”
“A whatie scheme?” Ray asked.
“Ponzi,” Sal answered. “It’s when you offer fast, high returns to investors, but it’s based on nothing but getting them to invest even more, so you’re always paying them with their own money. Eventually it implodes, and the more people who have invested, the more spectacular the losses.”
“Exactly,” Tate said. “Well, Malloy had hooked in some big money. In fact, my people at Harper Investments tell me he bilked billions out of unsuspecting investors.”
“I don’t see what this has to do with his son,” Mel said. “Roach told us he hasn’t spoken to his father in three years.”
“Really?” Tate asked. “Because according to the partial list of investors I managed to obtain, Roach invested millions with his father and by all accounts has lost it all. I ran a credit check on him. He’s broke.”
“Well, that would give a guy a heck of a motive to off his own father,” Dom said. “Especially if they weren’t close to begin with.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Tate said. “Now Mel and I will be on Angie’s date with her tonight, but we’ll need you all to make sure she’s not alone with him after that.”
“Not a problem,” Ray said. “We can take turns running interference.”
The brothers spent the next half hour working out the shifts they planned to take to keep an eye on their sister. Mel tried to argue on Angie’s behalf, but her effort was halfhearted. Honestly, now that Roach looked like such a promising suspect, she didn’t like the idea of Angie dating him at all.
Finally, the DeLaura brothers trooped out. Mel and Tate followed them back into the main room, where Mr. Zelaznik was still sitting.
“You do realize what will happen if Angie finds out?” Mel asked.
“I’ll deal with that if that happens,” he said.
Mel didn’t have the heart to tell him that it would happen, no doubt about that. She just hoped that Roach was more of a fling than the real thing for Angie; otherwise, she didn’t think Angie would ever be able to forgive Tate.
“Mel, there’s more,” Tate said.
Something in his voice caused her to go still.
“Spill it,” she said.
“Malloy’s list of investors,” he said. “Your mother’s name is on that list, too.”
Nine
“What?” Mel asked. She was certain she must have heard wrong.
“The detectives will be getting the same list, if they don’t have it already,” Tate said. “You can be sure they’re going to ask your mother questions.”
“Like what?” Mel asked. “She didn’t know him. They’d just met. If she’d invested with him, I’m sure it was through a third party.”
“I don’t think the police are going to care how her money ended up in Baxter’s care.”
“Oh my God, this is a nightmare.”
“On the upside,” Tate began, but Mel interrupted.
“What upside?”
“From the peek I got, Malloy’s investor list reads like the white pages for South Scottsdale. Virtually everyone who is anyone had something tied up with him.”
“That should make my mother look innocent, right?”
“Except for the fact that she was barely dressed with his body floating in the pool, yeah,” he said.
“Your mother got naked with that shyster?” Mr. Zelaznik called from his booth.
“Half naked,” Mel snapped.
“Think she’d go out with me?” he asked. He looked as eager as a puppy; even his hair hat stood aquiver at the thought.
“No!” Mel and Tate said together. Mr. Zelaznik slumped down in his seat.
“We need to find out who had the most invested with him,” Mel said. “But how?”
“That’s easy,” Tate said. “They’re all attending the annual fundraiser luncheon at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art.”
“How do you know this?” Mel asked.
Tate pulled an invitation out of his pocket and said, “Because anyone who is anyone in South Scottsdale was invited.”
“Harper Investments has a table,” she said.
“Naturally. So, shall I squeeze you in?”
Mel took the invitation. Scanning the back, she read the list of restaurants contributing to the event. Dessert was being provided by Confections, featuring cupcakes. Surprise, surprise; the giant cupcake, Olivia Puckett, had wormed her way into the charity event.
Mel thought about it for a moment.
“Sorry, Tate, you’re not going to the luncheon.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re going to be too busy keeping Olivia from delivering her dessert to attend.”
“I’m going to what?”
“You heard me,” Mel said. “But I’m going to need another body.”
She tapped the invitation against her chin. If only Angie were here, she could get her to help. Oh, well, she was out of options.
“Mr. Zelaznik, how would you like to earn three free raffle entries for the Fairy Tale Cupcake contest?”
He looked warily at her. “Depends on what I have to do. You don’t want me to whack anybody, do you?”
“No! Do you own black pants and a white shirt?” she asked.
“Yeah.” Still, he looked suspicious.
“Can you pose as a waiter?” she asked.
He lifted a scrawny old-man arm and patted his bicep. “I think I can manage it for ten free entries.”
“Five,” Mel countered.
“Seven,” he haggled.
“Done,” Mel agreed. “Let’s get to work, fellas. We’re going to crash a party.”
“ ‘Either I’m off my nut, or he is . . . or you are!’ ” Tate said an hour later while they stuffed Mel’s Mini Cooper with boxes of cupcakes.
“George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life,” Mel said, citing the quote. “And I’m not off my nut. People talk more freely around the hired help. It’s a fact.”
“How do you think you’re just going to waltz into a luncheon and pass yourself off as Olivia Puckett?”
“Puleeeeze. I’ve done this catering shtick a million times. I know the drill.”
Tate didn’t look convinced.
For his part, Mr. Zelaznik looked more than game. In his crisp white shirt and snappy black bow tie, he carried himself with a certain dapperness that had been missing beneath his well-worn cardigan. Mel debated making him lose the hair hat, but it was sort of growing on her; besides, she didn’t have time to argue if he kicked up a fuss.
He and Mel drove to the museum in her car while Tate headed out to stall Olivia. His grand plan so far was to double park behind her big, pink refrigerator van so that she couldn’t leave to get to the luncheon.
Mel pulled into the loading dock next to two other catering trucks. Waitstaff dressed in the standard white shirts and black pants were buzzing from the vans to the back door as they unloaded the day’s luncheon.
Mel found the event coordinator in the kitchen and introduced herself.
“I’m here with dessert,” she said, intentionally vague.
The woman, whose name tag read Bonnie, checked her clipboard. “I don’t see . . . oh, wait. Cupcakes. Yes, here you are. You’re early. Dessert won’t be served for another hour.”
“No problem,
” Mel said. “We’ll just store our cupcakes in the cooler and pitch in until it’s time.”
“Fine. If you need anything, let me know,” Bonnie said. Her hair was up in a French twist, and her chic purple wraparound dress hugged a nice set of curves that made her look feminine without appearing too easy-access.
She and Mr. Zelaznik made quick work of unloading the cupcakes into the walk-in refrigerator in the kitchen. The executive chef and Bonnie seemed to be having a disagreement about the temperature of the cold soups, and Mel was more than happy to leave the kitchen before it turned ugly.
“Okay, Mr. Zelaznik,” she began, but he interrupted.
“Call me Marty, since I’m staff now and all.”
Mel smiled. “All right, Marty. I want you to work the room. Blend in as much as you can, and keep your ears open for any talk about Baxter Malloy.”
“Will do,” he agreed.
“Report back to me in the kitchen in forty-five minutes,” Mel said. She watched as he shuffled off in the direction of a cluster of ladies. Go, Marty, go!
Meanwhile, she headed in the opposite direction: into the museum. As soon as she stepped through the door, she paused to check out the crowd. It was made up of the same people who always made up these events. You had your Generation O, as in old. These were the folks who still wore cowboy hats and chunky turquoise jewelry, who had been residents of the city since the 1950s, when Frank Sinatra used to sing for his supper at the Safari and when the introduction of air conditioning made Arizona more habitable.
Then you had your younger, more newly minted money, usually discernable by the amount of cleavage and leg being shown, although some of the older ladies were giving healthy glimpses of their gams, too. Zapping those pesky spider veins with lasers will do that for a gal, or so Mel had heard.
The men all looked the same: Old or new money, they sported potbellies and receding hairlines, thin gold watches, and citrus-scented cologne. Conversation revolved around golf handicaps, exotic cruises recently taken, and how much money they had spent on luxury cars for their wives.
The women ran the gamut of shapes and sizes. The only things they all seemed to have in common were expensive clothing, expensive hairdos, gobs of jewelry, and a withering disdain for the husbands who provided it all.
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