Lemon Tart

by Josi S. Kilpack

  Lemon Tart

  Josi S. Kilpack

  © 2009 Josi S. Kilpack.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, Deseret Book Company, P.O. Box 30178, Salt Lake City Utah 30178. This work is not an official publication of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The views expressed herein are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of the Church or of Deseret Book. Deseret Book is a registered trademark of Deseret Book Company.

  All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Visit us at DeseretBook.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Lemon tart : a culinary mystery / Josi S. Kilpack.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-60641-050-9 (pbk.)

  eISBN 1 60641 610 3 (eletronic)

  1. Cooks—Fiction. 2. Single mothers—Crimes against—Fiction. 3. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. 4. Kidnapping—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3561.I412L46 2009

  813'.54—dc22

  2008037662

  Printed in the United States of America

  Worzalla Publishing Co., Stevens Point, WI

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  ‘To my mother—Marle Schofield—for all the good things, baked and otherwise

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  The first police car went by at 9:23 according to the clock on the microwave. Sadie leaned forward, but the black walnut tree in Jack and Carrie’s yard obstructed her view to the west. She scowled at the tree and went back to coring the last of the apples she’d spent all morning making into applesauce. She waited for the police car to turn around in the cul-de-sac and pass by her window on its way out. That’s the only reason police cars ever drove into Peregrine Circle.

  Except this time.

  A second police car sped past less than a minute after the first, and Sadie stopped thinking about apples altogether. Living in the house on the corner, Sadie considered herself a sort of sentry standing guard over Peregrine Circle—her lack of view to the west notwithstanding—and her curiosity was piqued.

  After putting the last of the apples into the pot and setting it to simmer, Sadie removed the jars that had just finished processing and put them on a dish towel next to the sink so they could cool properly. She then rinsed her hands and dried them on the hem of the Colorado State hoodie she wore—a birthday gift from Breanna last year—and turned off the Paul Simon CD that had kept her company all morning. Before stepping outside, she inspected herself in the small mirror she’d hung by the front door. She frowned at her reflection and removed the stretchy headband that held back her hair. She ran her fingers through her hair in an attempt to shape it into some semblance of order. Usually she was quite well put together, but today she was canning which meant she hadn’t showered, which meant she hadn’t blow-dried her hair, which meant the chunked-out sections hadn’t been lifted and flipped to perfectly frame her face. But she didn’t have time for that right now, so she gave her hair a final finger comb, coaxing her bangs to the side as best she could, grabbed her jacket, and pulled open the front door.

  Her flip-flops smacked against the front steps beneath the frayed hem of her work jeans—paint-splattered denim washed so many times they felt like flannel. Never mind that the knees were nearly worn through or that she’d had to sew one of the pockets back on after an unfortunate incident involving a chain-link fence last summer. The jeans were comfort themselves and the perfect company for a day spent putting up applesauce.

  She reached the sidewalk and shot another hateful glace at the tree as she approached it. Someday she was going to accidentally chop it down or light it on fire or something.

  When Sadie and her late husband, Neil, had designed the house twenty-seven years ago, Sadie had insisted on a big window above the kitchen sink and facing the street. She liked to watch the comings and goings of the neighborhood, and with the inordinate amount of time spent at the sink since then, doing all the things a mother of two uses a sink for, the window had been a good investment. Sadie’s baby brother, Jack, and his family, had bought the lot next door a few years later and the black walnut tree had been a housewarming gift Sadie wished she’d considered with a bit more care back then. She hadn’t expected the tree to grow so big as to block much of the view she had insisted on. However, it didn’t take long to walk past the tree and see which home had been the cause of alarm.

  Anne Lemmon.

  The two police cars were parked next to the curb. Sadie increased her pace and cut across the cul-de-sac—looking both ways, just in case.

  “What’s happened?” she asked an officer posted on the front walk next to the mailbox decorated with little lemon decals—Anne loved capitalizing on her last name even though she spelled it with two M’s. Before he could answer her question, another officer, older—but not by much; thirty-five tops—came around the side of the house. His eyes locked onto hers and he came toward her.

  “Do you know the occupants of this house?” he asked when he reached her. The name on his gold badge read Malloy. She swore there was a TV cop with the same name, but she couldn’t remember which show.

  Sadie nodded. “Anne Lemmon and her two-year-old son, Trevor. Is everything okay?” Anne and Trevor had moved into the Tillys’ rental house about nine months earlier. She’d come from back East with practically nothing but her determination to change the wild ways that had landed her as a twenty-five-year-old single mom in the first place.

  Both of Sadie’s kids were away at college, and Sadie had taken early retirement eighteen months ago in order to care for her father who’d been diagnosed with colon cancer. Dad had passed away last December, and since then Sadie had enjoyed mentoring Anne—helping to quell her own loneliness—and they’d developed a wonderful friendship despite a nearly thirty-year age difference. Sadie was proud of the way Anne had taken to the changes in her life.

  “Two-year-old son, you say,” Malloy repeated, writing something down in a little notebook he held in his hand.

  “What’s happened?” Sadie asked for the second time.

  “I’m afraid I can’t give you that information, ma’am,” he said, his tone blank and unsympathetic.

  Sadie looked at Anne’s front door, wondering what could have mustered this amount of attention. A third officer came around the corner of the house—he was chubby, with thick legs and a neck that disappeared between his head and shoulders.

  Don’t you have to be in good shape to be a police officer these days?
Sadie wondered. Apparently not.

  “It’s locked up tight. We’ll have to bust in—”

  “Shut up, Harris!” Malloy yelled as he spun around, silencing the other man who seemed to have just noticed Sadie.

  “I can let you in if you like,” Sadie said, smiling sweetly and ignoring Malloy’s gruffness. Surely the officers would give her more information if she helped them—and she desperately wanted more information.

  Officer Malloy lifted an eyebrow. “You have a key?”

  “Of course,” Sadie said, her smile widening. “Just last week I let the furnace repairman in while Anne was at work. I retired a year or so ago, see, and even though I substitute now and again I’m home more than anyone else.”

  Every family in the circle had asked her, at one time or another, to keep their spare keys and she’d eventually put them all on the same ring that she always kept in her jacket pocket. Well, everyone had asked her to keep a key except for Mr. Henry, the house just next to Anne on the west side. All the same, Sadie knew he kept his spare key in one of those fake rocks you can buy online. She’d spotted that rock within days of his purchase.

  She pulled the smiley-face key ring from her pocket and took a step toward the house, excited to be part of whatever they were doing.

  “You’ll need to wait out here,” Malloy said arrogantly, stepping in front of her to block her progress. He was only a couple inches taller than her five-foot-six, and although she had a smaller build, she was strong thanks to three visits a week to the gym. If she wanted to, she could probably take him. But instead she reluctantly separated Anne’s key from the others and handed it to him, the other keys dangling on the ring. He didn’t even say thank you, and she frowned at his bad manners. The chubby cop hurried to catch up with Malloy and the two men climbed the steps.

  The officer who’d been posted on the walk came to stand next to her and together they watched Malloy unlock the door, get into position, and then push open the door.

  “Garrison police!” Officer Malloy yelled, taking Sadie by surprise and making her jump just a little. She looked at her guard, glad he didn’t seem to have noticed her reaction or at least was too polite to smirk about it. By the time she looked back to the door, Malloy and the chubby officer had disappeared inside.

  It was a long wait as she imagined what could have necessitated three police officers to investigate Anne’s house. She really wished she knew what was going on. Officer Malloy finally came out after a few minutes and said it was all clear. As he descended the steps, he spoke into the speaker clipped to the shoulder of his uniform. “There’s nothing here,” he said. “What exactly did the tip say?”

  When he reached Sadie’s position on the sidewalk, he said, “I’d like to ask you some questions about Ms. Lemmon.” He pulled a tiny notebook out of his shirt pocket just as something crackled on his walkie-talkie that Sadie couldn’t understand. She’d always wondered about those tiny police notebooks. It seemed as though they’d fill one every single day, and she imagined boxes and boxes of filled notebooks shoved into closets at the police station. She hoped they recycled.

  “Just a minute,” he said to her before turning away and talking into the speaker again.

  She looked toward the front door, and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, her anxiety growing as her imagination ran away from her. So the police had received some kind of tip. Had there been an accident? Was Trevor okay? Anne’s car was still parked in the carport. But the officer said the house was empty—how could that be?

  Malloy was still talking on his walkie-talkie when Sadie noticed a familiar smell. She sniffed the air a second time. Lemon tart, she thought as she identified the aroma.

  Anne was baking!

  Sadie immediately relaxed, all the horrible possibilities taking a backseat to simple common sense. Nothing had happened to Anne at all; the tip that brought the police to her house had been some kind of mistake. Sadie smiled to herself and took a deep breath, almost feeling foolish for letting her mind run on ahead as it had.

  “Um, officer,” she said, tapping Officer Malloy’s arm, eager to share her discovery with him. He scowled at her and took a step away, continuing his conversation on the speaker. He seemed to be having some kind of argument with a dispatcher—something about the whole thing being a waste of time and wanting permission to write up the tip as unsubstantiated.

  Sadie couldn’t make heads or tails out of what the fuzzy voice coming from the walkie-talkie was saying. She looked at the front door of Anne’s house again. Everyone knew that once you could smell whatever had been set to bake, it was nearly finished. Was she really expected to stand out here while the tart burned?

  Her guard went to get something out of his car, and Sadie assumed the chubby officer was still inside the house. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, her anxiety growing again. Taking a step toward the house, she thought better of it and retreated, tapping Malloy on the arm again. He didn’t even look at her, but took two steps farther away from her.

  Fine, she thought as she headed up the steps.

  “Hey!” she heard Officer Malloy call out as she reached the door. But she was too far into this to go back now.

  “Lemon tart!” she shouted back, then quickened her pace and hurried into the kitchen, not wanting him to catch up and stop her. “Can’t you smell it?” she yelled over her shoulder, flying past the chubby officer, Harris, who was standing in the living room writing down notes.

  Sadie had shown Anne how to cook all kinds of things over the last several months, but Anne had been particularly studious about learning to bake the perfect lemon tart—she’d wanted it to become her signature dessert.

  “She’s baking,” Sadie explained when she reached the stove.

  Harris was right behind her and reached around her to grab the handle of the oven. He seemed to be repeating what she’d just said in his mind—as if he knew the difference between a lemon tart and a quiche.

  On second thought, he might, Sadie thought after taking a second look at the belly hanging over his pants. He had a certain appreciation for food, it seemed. Sadie quickly put her hand on the door to keep it closed. “Every time you open an oven you lose five minutes of baking time,” she said to Harris, her eyes narrowed.

  “Let go of that, Harris,” Malloy said from the kitchen doorway. Harris dropped the handle, looking flushed and uncertain. Officer Malloy turned to Sadie—his face was red too, but she doubted it was for the same reason as Harris. She lifted her chin in defiance and tried to stand as tall as she could, bringing herself almost to eye level with him.

  “I told you to wait outside,” he said, his eyebrows pinched together and his eyes angry. She couldn’t be sure but he seemed to be pulling himself up taller too—perhaps to look down on her a little better. She was not impressed.

  “And let the tart burn?” she asked with exaggerated incredulity. What she wanted more than the salvation of the tart was to look around the house herself, but for the moment she kept her eyes locked on Malloy’s, not wanting to appear the least bit intimidated. She had at least twenty years on this kid and she wasn’t the type of woman who let herself be pushed around.

  He let out a breath as if she were a child and that got her back up even more. He might know how to investigate some tip and enjoy bullying the neighbors, but Sadie knew Anne and she knew this house. If something wasn’t right, she’d be the one who would notice—not him. He narrowed his eyes and took a deep breath. Sadie mimicked his expression, narrowing her eyes even more.

  “Please return outside,” he said slowly, calculating. “Harris, turn off the oven.”

  “Turn it off?” Sadie said in disbelief, stepping back to block the oven door. “No way.”

  Malloy’s expression faltered and she saw his uncertainty, which only strengthened her resolve.

  “Excuse me?” he asked as if he hadn’t heard her correctly.

  “Most people vastly underestimate the satisfaction of good homemaking
skills and I won’t have anyone sabotage Anne’s attempts. There are”—she turned her head to look at the timer—“three minutes left. This oven will not be opened a minute sooner.”

  “You’re interfering with a police investigation,” Officer Malloy said as he took a step toward her, his jaw clenched.

  “And you’re interfering with a woman’s kitchen.” Sadie lifted her chin even higher—partly because he was now only ten inches or so from her face. Malloy seemed to be trying to find a reply, but she continued before he had the chance. “You said yourself it was all clear and that whatever tip brought you here was unfounded,” she said. “And Anne wouldn’t have been baking if she weren’t going to be right back. In case she isn’t, I’ll remove it.” Yet even as she said it, the unease in her stomach grew. There were too many questions in her mind now.

  Why would Anne put a tart in the oven and then leave? Sadie had been at her kitchen window all morning, how could she have missed Anne leaving? Why was the house locked up if she were only going to be gone a few minutes? What about Trevor?

  The officer clenched his jaw even tighter; she thought she heard his teeth grind as he seemed to consider her words. “Harris, make sure she doesn’t touch anything but the oven. McKesson and I will widen the exterior sweep.”

  Apparently Malloy was in charge because Harris folded his beefy arms and glared at her while Malloy went back out the front door.

  While the tart finished baking, Sadie looked around the kitchen and the part of the living room in her range of vision. Everything looked normal—right down to the lemon-themed placemats on the table. The sink held an assortment of dishes, the counters were mostly cleared, and Trevor’s shoes were by the back door. She’d hoped to get some idea of what had brought the police here, but she was starting to admit maybe Officer Malloy had been right—everything looked clear.