Buttercream Bump Off

by Jenn McKinlay

  “No, it’s not that,” Mel protested.

  “Really? Then why are you here?”

  “We felt left out,” Angie said.

  Tate glanced between them. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah,” they said together.

  “So, how did it go?” Mel asked.

  “I have a date with the fair Ms. Simpson for tomorrow evening,” Marty said.

  “She practically tattooed her number onto his palm,” Tate said. “Marty was perfect. He really played up being a member of the New York elite looking to retire here.”

  “Nice.” Angie beamed at Marty, and he grinned.

  “Listen, we’d best not be seen together,” Mel said. “Can’t have you two associating with the riffraff.”

  She didn’t mention Beverly spotting them. She didn’t want to panic either of them unnecessarily. There’d be plenty of time for that on Marty’s date with Elle.

  Mel had so much to tell Joe. She hardly knew where to begin. But then, when he knocked on the door with Gerbera daisies in one hand and a take-out bag from De-Falco’s Italian Deli in the other, she forgot about anything but him.

  “How is the case going?” she asked as he shed his suit jacket and loosened his tie.

  “Ugh,” he said. “I believe in everyone’s right to a fair trial, but we’ve got this guy dead to rights. We have his plate number, a witness who can identify him, and the purchase receipt for the gun he used, which ballistics has linked to the shootings. And still, his defense attorney is throwing up every roadblock he can.”

  “So, the system works?” Mel asked.

  Joe pulled her close and kissed her. He pulled back and looked her in the eye.

  “Have I told you how much the thought of coming over here at the end of the day and being with you helps me get through the insanity?”

  “Not lately,” she said. “But I feel the same way.”

  She carried the daisies and the take-out bag into the kitchenette and started unloading their dinner. The daisies went into a clear glass vase, which Mel put in the middle of her small café table, where she and Joe sat on opposite sides. He had a manly meatball sub while she had the scrambled egg and pepperoni. It was divine.

  They chatted some more about his case and a little about Angie and her new boyfriend. Mel found herself reluctant to mention Marty or his date with Elle. She had the feeling Joe wouldn’t approve, and she didn’t want to damage the one night where he actually seemed well rested.

  Maybe tonight would finally be the night.

  They cleared up together and then snuggled on the couch. As Joe went to kiss her again, Mel was sure that he was thinking the same thing she was, and it made her pulse pound in her ears.

  The theme to Gone with the Wind chimed from her cell phone, which was sitting in its dock on the counter. They pulled apart and looked at it and then back at each other.

  “You’d better check it,” Joe said. “It might be Ange with boyfriend trouble.” He sounded hopeful.

  Mel hopped up and glanced at the ID. It was her mother.

  “Hello,” she answered. She mouthed Mom to Joe, and he nodded.

  “Melanie,” Joyce said. “I need you to come over.”

  “Now?” Mel asked. She hoped she didn’t sound as reluctant as she felt.

  “Yes. I’m sure it’s nothing, but I just feel funny,” she said.

  “Are you sick?”

  Mel glanced at Joe, who raised his eyebrows in concern.

  “No, I just—okay, I have the heebie-jeebies,” Joyce said. “I hate to bother you, but if you could just come over and reassure me that everything is okay.”

  Mel glanced at Joe again and saw their romantic evening pop like a soap bubble in the air. Still, this was her mother. The woman who had checked her closet for monsters every night from ages four to eight, and who had come running in the middle of the night with soothing whispers and warm hugs whenever Mel woke up from a bad dream and called for her. How could Mel not do the same for her now?

  “Sure, Mom, I’ll be right over,” she said. She hung up and grimaced at Joe. “I’m sorry. Mom’s jittery. I have to go over and sweep the house with her.”

  “That’s all right. I’ll come, too,” he said. He leaned forward to get up, but Mel shook her head.

  “If you come, we’ll never get out of there. She loves you. She’ll ply you with coffee and pie and ask you a million personal questions.”

  “What kind of pie?”

  Mel smiled. “Trust me, it’s better if I go alone. I’ll be quick, and then we can salvage our evening.”

  “I like the sound of that.” Joe gave her his patent-worthy slow grin.

  Mel felt a little cross-eyed from the impact. “Me, too.”

  She grabbed her jacket and keys, gave Joe a quick peck, and ran out the door.

  Joyce was waiting for her in front of the house. Mel gave her a quick, firm hug of reassurance.

  “Okay, Mom, what’s got you spooked?”

  “Well, I was doing the dishes, and I just got the weirdest feeling that someone was watching me,” she said.

  “Watching you?” Mel asked. This sounded more serious than her mother had made out on the phone. “Did you call Uncle Stan?”

  “I don’t want to bother him,” she said. “He’s already done so much.”

  “Okay, well, let’s go through the house together,” Mel said. “And then you can rest easy.”

  They went from room to room, checking windows and doors. The house was clear. When they arrived back in the kitchen, Mel went out into the backyard with a flashlight and checked the back gate. It was secure. She was turning to head back to the house when she noticed a footprint in the mud. She shined the flashlight on it.

  Judging by the size and width, it was a man’s footprint. Given that her brother had just been here, it wasn’t unreasonable to assume that he had taken the garbage out and left a footprint. The troubling thing was that this imprint wasn’t from the sort of shoe her brother would wear, a sneaker or a work boot.

  This print looked more like a man’s dress shoe with a narrow toe and short heel. The footprint faced her mother’s home, as if he’d come in through the gate to watch the house. Mel felt a shudder ripple through her. She didn’t like this, not at all.

  She hurried back to the house. While her mother was getting ready for bed, Mel called her Uncle Stan and told him what she’d found. He sounded equally disturbed. He also said he was off duty and would head over to check it out. They both agreed that they wouldn’t mention it to Joyce, because it would only upset her.

  Mel was just hanging up when her mother came back into the kitchen. “Was that dear Joe?”

  “No, that was Uncle Stan,” Mel said. “He’s going to stop by on his way home and check on you.”

  “He doesn’t need to do that,” Joyce protested. Mel saw the slight ease in her shoulders, though, and knew that, despite her protestations, she felt better having Uncle Stan come by.

  “So, where is dear Joe tonight?” Joyce asked.

  Mel glanced at the clock. She’d been gone almost an hour. “Probably, he’s asleep on my couch by now.”

  “What?” Joyce squawked. “Why didn’t you tell me you were on a date?”

  “It was just dinner,” Mel said.

  “Just dinner? From what your brother said, I gather that’s all it ever is with you two.”

  “Charlie told you . . .” Mel couldn’t finish. She was speechless. Joyce, however, was not.

  “That you haven’t done the mattress mambo yet?” Joyce asked. “Yeah, he told me.”

  Mel felt her face flame hotter than a blowtorch.

  “I’m going to kill him.”

  “Your time would be better spent on your boyfriend,” Joyce said. She tossed Mel’s jacket and keys at her and pushed her towards the door.

  “How does everyone know about my sex life?” Mel asked. “Is there a billboard on the freeway or something?”

  “There doesn’t need to be,” Joyce said
. “We all know you. If you were sleeping with the man, you wouldn’t be so uptight and edgy.”

  “I’m not uptight and edgy.”

  Joyce gave her a flat stare. “Honey, you have been in love with Joe DeLaura since you were twelve years old.”

  Mel nodded. It was true.

  Her mother patted her cheek and said, “I say this to you with great love: Get the lead out. That boy is not going to wait forever.”

  Before Mel could say another word, her mother pushed her through the door and shut it behind her. She heard the deadbolt click into place.

  “Well, there you have it. My humiliation is complete,” Mel muttered as she strode to her car, grateful for the feel of the cool night air against her hot skin.

  Twenty

  Mel spent the entire ten-minute ride home psyching herself up. Tonight was going to be the night. She and Joe were going to leap forward to the next level in their relationship, and then everyone could stop talking about her sex life and get back to their own.

  She opened the front door, and a snore greeted her. To his credit, Joe looked as if he’d tried his best to stay awake. He had the remote in his hand, the TV was still on, he was even upright—all except his head, which had flopped onto the back of the couch. Thus, the snoring.

  Mel sighed. So, they would not be moving to a new level tonight. She wondered if she should take this personally, but then decided no. If she had the biggest baking event of her life happening, she would expect Joe to be patient and let her do what she needed to do. Surely, she could do the same for him.

  She locked the door and headed to the bathroom, where she got ready for bed. When she returned, she prepped the bed around Joe, and then tossed the covers over the two of them. He pulled her close and buried his nose in her hair.

  She could feel his warm breath against her skin, and it lulled her to sleep.

  “The pigeon has landed.”

  “What?” Mel asked into her phone.

  “The pigeon has landed,” Angie repeated.

  “She means they’re here,” Tate said. He and Angie were sitting at a restaurant table while Mel lurked in the kitchen. They had her on speakerphone.

  Mel had arranged for Marty to take Elle to Les Terrines, a French restaurant in the heart of Phoenix. The executive chef was a cooking-school friend of Mel’s and was letting her linger in the kitchen. She didn’t want Elle to catch sight of her and suspect anything.

  The restaurant was packed, but Tate and Angie had snagged a table on one side of a short wall, and Mel had arranged for the hostess to seat Marty and Elle on the other side. Mel hoped their plan worked. If Marty could get Elle talking about Baxter, maybe she would say something that would incriminate her in his murder. No one had as good of a motive . . . well, except maybe Roach, which she suspected was why Angie was here.

  Mel glanced through the glass window of the kitchen door and saw Angie and Tate across the restaurant. Their faces were warmly lit by the small glass votive candle between them.

  Tate was hanging on Angie’s every word. It struck Mel for the first time that they were a perfect couple. Angie’s zest for life kept Tate from being a complete dork, and his rock-solid dependability gave her stability. They had always enjoyed the same things and shared the same irreverent sense of humor.

  For months now, Mel had watched Angie staring at Tate with her heart in her eyes. Now the tables had turned, and it was Tate looking at Angie as if he had a million things to say and no idea how to go about it. It had to be killing him that, with the arrival of Roach, he may have lost his chance.

  The hostess strode into view with Marty and Elle following. Marty looked dapper in Tate’s altered dark blue Prada. Elle, meanwhile, glittered in a sequined halter dress that accentuated all of her assets. Marty was the perfect gentleman and held her chair for her. As he took his seat, Elle looked at him as if she were trying to count the bills in his wallet before he sat down.

  Tate and Angie both stilled as if trying to listen to the conversation on the other side of the wall from them. Tate, not very subtly, dropped his napkin. When he bent to retrieve it, he passed his cell phone under the table next to the leg of Marty’s chair. Mel watched as Marty bent over and scooped it up, slipping it into his breast pocket as if he were just adjusting the fold of his handkerchief. Very smooth.

  “So, Martin,” Elle began. “Tell me, how did you make your fortune?”

  “A little of this and a little of that,” he said. “I like diversity.”

  Mel felt herself get tense. Marty couldn’t be too vague or she’d figure out he was conning her.

  Elle looked at him with shrewd eyes. Marty must have realized it, too, because he added, “Mostly, I dabbled in real estate, properties in the Hamptons and Palm Beach.”

  “The East Coast?” Elle’s eyes lit up.

  Mel got the feeling she was furnishing a beach house in her mind.

  “Have you been there?” he asked.

  “Not as much as I’d like,” she said with a coquettish smile. Mel felt like gagging. Did that really work on a guy? She was going to have to ask Joe later.

  “I’d love to show it to you,” Marty said. He was channeling some serious suave here. “There is no other place for shopping like Manhattan, unless of course you’re on the continent, in Paris or Milan.”

  Elle looked as if she might swoon.

  Mel glanced at Angie and Tate’s table to see if they were getting all of this. Judging by the sour look on Angie’s face, they were.

  Tate leaned over the table and said something to Angie, and her expression darkened into a tight-lipped, biting-back-her-anger glower, of which Mel was happy to note she had never been on the receiving end. But why was she furious with Tate?

  Oh, no. Was Tate using their stakeout time to push his personal agenda of getting Angie to break up with Roach? Ack. This was terrible.

  Mel glanced around the kitchen. She needed someone to run interference. Immediately! The kitchen staff was humming. She considered sending Monique, her cooking-school pal, out to their table, but she was having troubles of her own, as she was chewing out her sous-chef for plating a dish too early.

  Mel would have gone out there herself, but she couldn’t risk being spotted. She wondered if she could peg Tate with a dinner roll from ten yards.

  “Change of subject, please.”

  Mel heard Angie’s voice on her cell phone. She couldn’t hear Marty and Elle over Tate and Angie.

  “No, you need to listen to me,” Tate said. His voice was firm. He was trying to use his corporate muckety-muck voice on Angie. Mel could have told him that was a bad plan if he had bothered to ask her before he decided this was a good time to make Angie mad.

  “No, I don’t,” Angie argued.

  Mel peered through the small glass window in the swinging kitchen door. She stared at her friends, who were completely oblivious to the holes she was trying to burn into their skulls with the intensity of her gaze.

  She tried to find their waiter. Someone needed to interrupt what was going to escalate into ugly any minute.

  “You’re being fatheaded about this whole thing, Ange,” Tate said. “And you know it.”

  “Fatheaded?” Angie looked at him as if she might do him an injury with her butter knife.

  “You can’t seriously think that you’re in love with a rock-and-roll drummer whose stage name is Roach!”

  “I can’t?” Angie asked. “Watch me!”

  Mel pushed halfway out the door. The hostess! She could send the hostess over. Mel crept out the kitchen door. She snatched a burgundy leather wine list and held it up to cover her face.

  “Well, it looks like we got front row seats for the show,” Marty joked. Elle laughed.

  Marty spun around and gave Mel a desperate look. She nodded vigorously over the menu at him.

  “Angie, you can do so much better than him,” Tate said.

  “Why would I want to?” Angie asked. Her voice was deceptively quiet, and if Tate had a brai
n in his head, he would have picked up on the danger and run.

  Mel knew she was never going to make it across the restaurant to the hostess before Angie erupted.

  She grabbed a passing busboy and hissed, “I’ll give you a hundred bucks to dump ice water in his lap.”

  He glanced where she was pointing and then looked at her like she was nuts and said, “I can’t get involved in marital disputes. You should probably take this up with your husband at home.”

  “He’s not my husband,” Mel protested but the busboy shook his head and scurried away.

  “Have you lived in Scottsdale long?” Marty asked Elle.

  “I—” Elle began, but whatever she’d been about to say was cut off as Angie popped out of her seat and yelled, “Stop it! Just stop it! You had your chance. I waited for you and waited for you, and did you ever notice me? No! Well, now somebody has noticed me, and I’m not going to walk away from him just because you think he isn’t good enough for me.”

  Forks stopped in midair, glasses paused at lips, all eyes turned towards Tate and Angie. Mel lowered the wine list so she could see.

  Angie was a vision. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes sparked with fire. She was wearing a clingy Versace drape-front jersey dress in peacock blue. Her hair was twisted up into a knot, and she was wearing heels that added several inches to her height and made her legs look three miles long. She was stunning.

  Tate’s mouth sagged open. He blinked. He rose to his feet. He looked as if Angie had just punched him in the gut. Mel would have felt sorry for him if it wasn’t his own stupid fault that he was in this mess.

  “You waited for me?” he asked.

  “Duh!” Angie snapped. “I’ve been in love with you since we were twelve years old.”

  “Sir . . . uh, Ma’am,” the hostess interrupted, but everyone in the restaurant hushed her.

  “You never said anything,” Tate said.

  “How could I when you’ve always been in love with someone else?”

  Tate looked perplexed. “Who?”

  “My best friend,” Angie snapped.

  “What?” Tate shook his head, rejecting her words.