Murder Takes the Cake Text

by Gayle Trent

  I found the willow branches, but afterwards I also found Janey Dobbs. She was looking through bins of embroidery thread and referring to a list in her hand as she gathered skeins.

  “Hi, Janey.”

  She turned. “Hello.” She patted her hair which, I have to admit, did look unkempt. “I didn’t expect to run into anyone I know.” Her face was wan and devoid of makeup.

  I felt awkward, not knowing how to respond to her comment. I came up with, “I’d better get going. It was good to see you.”

  “You, too,” she said. Then her face crumbled, she bowed her head and started crying.

  And I’d thought things were awkward before. Part of me wanted to ease on out of the aisle and pretend I didn’t notice the sobbing woman. It’s not as if we were actually friends. I barely knew her.

  The compassionate part of me kicked in. “Is there anything I can do?”

  Janey dug in her purse and brought out a tissue. She dabbed at her eyes and nose. “Could we get a cup of coffee? I’d rather like a good cup of coffee . . . and some company.”

  “Of course,” I said. “I have what I need. I’ll go ahead and check out.”

  “I’m nearly finished, too. How about I meet you at that place up the street?”

  “That’ll be fine. See you in a few.”

  I did detour by the cake decorating aisle—I couldn’t help myself—and I did pick up a couple things; but I didn’t linger as long as I would have ordinarily. I paid for my purchases and went out to the parking lot and put my bags in my car. I hadn’t seen Janey come out of the store yet, so I walked up the street to the coffee shop.

  I got a cappuccino and sat at a bistro table near the back of the shop. Janey came in about ten minutes later. She saw me and came over to the table to deposit her shopping bag.

  “Thank you for doing this,” she said. “Let me grab a coffee, and I’ll be straight back.”

  I smiled and took a sip of my cappuccino. I suppose I should’ve said “my pleasure,” or some other such nicety, but it wasn’t my pleasure. It was a terribly uncomfortable situation, especially in light of Candy’s phone call Saturday night.

  Janey returned to the table with the coffee. “I apologize for breaking down before. I’ve been under quite a lot of stress this week.” She forced a smile. “But we aren’t talking about that. We’re having a nice coffee break.” As if to underscore her point, she took a sip of her coffee. “Mmm . . . delicious. How’s yours?”

  “It’s very good.”

  “If only we had a piece of your cake to go with it, huh? I think I neglected to tell you what a marvelous cake that was.”

  “Thank you. I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

  “I . . . I did.” Her eyes filled with tears again.

  I bit the bullet. “If there’s anything you’d like to talk about . . .”

  She took another drink of coffee. “Have you ever been married, Daphne?”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “What happened . . . if you don’t mind my asking?”

  I did mind her asking. I certainly didn’t feel comfortable enough with Janey Dobbs to share the details of my painful past with her. “We divorced.” I said it as lightly as possible and then took a sip of my cappuccino.

  “Do you miss him?”

  I actually got strangled on that one. Janey got up and hurried to the counter to get me a glass of water. I drank some of the water and eventually got my coughing under control.

  “Excuse me,” I said hoarsely.

  “It’s okay. I’m sorry my question was upsetting for you.” She opened her purse and produced another tissue. She handed it across the table to me.

  I wiped my still-watering eyes and then took another drink of water. “So . . .have you got your Christmas tree up yet?”

  “Not yet.” She stared down at the table for a long moment. “I don’t think this was such a good idea after all.”

  I didn’t say anything. I merely switched back from the water to my cappuccino.

  “It’s hard not to have anyone to confide in,” she said. “I’m a laughingstock. Everybody in town knows my business . . . or some concocted, perverted version of it.”

  My mind flashed back to the days after Todd shot at me. The press . . . the whispers . . . the conjecture . . . the humiliation. “I know the feeling.”

  Janey raised her eyes to meet mine. “You do?”

  “I do.”

  “How do you deal with it?”

  I half smiled. “I eventually ran away and started a new life here.”

  “I wish I could run away, but I have nowhere to go.” She paused. “Have you heard the rumors about my husband and his lovely assistant?”

  I nodded. I figured it was better to be honest and spare her the pain of having to tell me.

  “I think it’s true that they’re having an affair,” she said quietly. “But even worse than that, I think Kellen is trying to kill me.” She looked back down at the table. “I believe he killed Yodel Watson, and I believe he’s going to kill me.”

  I was too stunned to speak. I simply sat and stared wide-eyed at the top of her head until she looked back up.

  “You probably think I watch too much television,” Janey said, “but I’m not imagining things. I’m constantly afraid that the day I’m living in will be my last.”

  “H-have you gone to the police?”

  She shook her head. “I have no proof. He hasn’t come out and actually threatened me.”

  “And yet you’re afraid. And you think he might’ve killed Yodel Watson. Janey, you’ve got to go to the police. I’ll go with you. We’ll—”

  “I can’t go to the police. Without evidence, they won’t arrest Kellen, much less hold him; and if I was unsuccessful in my attempt to have him arrested, he’d hunt me down with a vengeance.”

  “Y-you’ve moved out of the house, though, haven’t you?”

  “Not yet.” She took a shaky breath. “Up until Thursday morning, I was doing my dead-level best to save my marriage.”

  “What happened Thursday morning?”

  Janey took a drink of her coffee and appeared to be steeling her nerves. “It was before Kellen left for the store, of course. I was in the bedroom, and I picked up the phone to make a call. Kellen was already on the line. He was talking with our insurance agent. Asking all these questions about hypothetical circumstances of our deaths.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as if we were in an accident, would the death benefit be greater than if we died from natural causes.”

  “But he was talking in terms of both of you, right?”

  “Naturally. He isn’t stupid. He wouldn’t come out and ask the insurance agent, ‘How can I best profit from my wife’s death?’”

  “No, I don’t suppose he would.” I began fidgeting with a napkin. “You’ve got to get out of that house.”

  “I can’t. If I leave Kellen, then it’s desertion. I become the villain.”

  “It’s better than being dead.”

  “If I leave, he’ll take everything. I’ll have nowhere to go . . . nothing.” She sighed. “I can’t do it.”

  “Okay, then, don’t move out. Simply tell Mr. Dobbs you’re taking a short vacation.”

  She considered my suggestion. “That might work.”

  “Sure, it would. Plus, you could go to the police with your suspicions and then hide until—”

  “I’ve already told you, dear, I have no proof.”

  “What if the police do? What if all they need is a viable suspect?”

  “But if it doesn’t work . . . ”

  “They can help you, Janey. They’ll know what to do.”

  “Maybe. I’ll think it over.” She folded her hands as if in prayer and put them to her lips. “Poor Yodel. I think he killed her with snake venom.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “He told me once that’s how he’d kill someone. That it would be practically untraceable to determine snake venom as a cause of death
in the absence of fang marks.” She closed her eyes. “He said they might believe the victim had been poisoned, but they wouldn’t suspect snake venom.”

  “But why? Why would he kill Mrs. Watson?”

  Janey opened her eyes. “Yodel knew. She caught Kellen and . . .that woman . . .in an embrace in the store. She told me about it. But Kellen doesn’t know that.”

  “Still, she couldn’t have hurt him with that knowledge,” I said.

  “She could have if she’d agreed to be a witness for me in divorce proceedings.”

  “But you said he didn’t know she’d told you.”

  She huffed out a breath. “Don’t you see? She didn’t ‘mind her own business.’ Kellen is unrelenting in protecting his privacy.”

  “She couldn’t help what she saw.”

  “No . . . but he knew about her book. He knew she wrote everything down in that confounded journal of hers.”

  “If he knew that, why didn’t he find the book and take it with him after the murder?”

  “How do you know he didn’t?”

  I swallowed. “Annabelle has it . . . in Florida.”

  “He must not have been able to find it then.”

  “Please go to the police,” I said.

  “I need to go.” She stood up. “I’ll think about going to the police. If I decide to go, will you accompany me . . . for moral support?”

  “I’ll be happy to.”

  She smiled. “Thank you.” Her smile faded. “But whatever you do, don’t let any of this slip to anyone. If Kellen knew I’d told you, your life would be in danger.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I called Ben on my way home from Johnson City. “Would it be all right if I stop by your office?” I asked. “I need to talk with you about something.”

  “How about we meet for lunch? That way you don’t have to deal with our nosy receptionist and we can have some privacy.”

  “Where would you like to meet?”

  He named a sandwich shop where they have cozy niches for people to sit and chat while lunching. I told him I’d be there in half an hour.

  When I walked into the sandwich shop, I didn’t see Ben until he stood up and waved at me. He looked terrific: jeans, dress shirt, brown leather bomber jacket . . . hair a tad messy from running his hands through it in either concentration or frustration . . .eyes I could float away in . . . It was all I could do to keep from running to him and launching myself into his arms. I did hug him. He seemed touched and a bit amused by the gesture.

  “Rough day?” he asked.

  I told him about my encounter with Janey Dobbs.

  “That’s . . . strange at best,” he said. “Why would a man tell his wife exactly how he’d kill someone and then do it?”

  “To scare her? To make her believe he knew away to commit a murder and get away with it?”

  The waitress came and took our orders. We waited until she’d returned with our drinks before resuming our conversation.

  “I find it hard to believe Kel Dobbs would be that stupid,” Ben said. “As one of the few people in this area with a license to own venomous snakes, he would surely find some other way to kill his victim. Anyway, he has been questioned by the authorities about Yodel Watson’s death.”

  “And?” I prompted.

  “And he has a rock-solid alibi. Like I said, it would be idiotic for him to kill the woman using snake venom. Why on earth would he do that?”

  “Because he thought it would be undetectable. And it nearly was. Until the stain on Mrs. Watson’s carpet was analyzed, the coroner knew she’d been poisoned but didn’t realize the toxin was snake venom.”

  “True, but if I was a doctor, why would I kill someone using a scalpel?”

  “Would an autopsy be able to differentiate between a scalpel wound and a wound made by some other kind of knife?”

  “I think so,” Ben said. “Look at Jack the Ripper. It was widely believed that he had a background in medicine.”

  “You’re comparing apples to . . . to frankfurters.”

  “How so? A killer is a killer. It’s just that some are smart and some are dumb, and nearly all of them make mistakes.”

  “To my knowledge, Jack’s wife never told anyone, ‘Me hubby once expressed a desire to kill prostitutes with a medical kit, govna.’”

  “I have a desire to kill that horrible cockney accent.” He grinned. “Seriously, I respect what you’re telling me and I sympathize with Mrs. Dobbs, but the police are no longer considering Kel a suspect.”

  “Because of his alibi.”

  The waitress arrived with our food: a club sandwich and fries for Ben and a chef’s salad for me. We thanked her and she left.

  “Let me guess.” I speared a cucumber slice. “Candy is the alibi.”

  Ben nodded as he poured ketchup onto his plate.

  “Then who do the police suspect?”

  “Right now, they’re stumped.”

  I ate my cucumber. “I think he did it.”

  “What proof do you have?”

  “The testimony of his wife and the snake venom . . . used because he thought it was practically undetectable, he had easy access to it, and he figured the police—and our own local Clark Kent—would believe him to be too smart to use it.” I jabbed my fork into my salad. “Come on . . . don’t you think he’s guilty?”

  “Probably.” He dipped a fry into the ketchup. “But without proof, we’re sunk.”

  *

  I was positive Kellen Dobbs was guilty of killing Mrs. Watson. I didn’t know how to prove it, but I knew he was guilty. I stopped at the video store on my way home and rented an armful of mystery movies—everything from Jagged Edge to The Hound of the Baskervilles. Somehow I had to figure out how to help Janey Dobbs trap Kel Dobbs in his own web and get a ton of publicity for Daphne’s Delectable Cakes.

  Four hours later, I was no closer to a solution to getting Mr. Dobbs convicted, but I felt confident I could do it with the help of Basil Rathbone, Glenn Close and Robert Loggia. The trouble with that reasoning, though, is that they were on celluloid and I was here in real life. I was way over my head on this detective business.

  There was one thing I had gained during those hours spent watching movies. I had made almost enough flowers to complete Guinevere’s cake . . . provided Belinda Fremont liked my designs.

  Still, as I stored away my flowers and put up my gum paste kit, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something more I could be doing. I had a nagging suspicion that Janey was right—if Mr. Dobbs thought I was interfering in his business, my life could be in danger, too. I couldn’t let him go free and live here in fear for the rest of my life. I’d lived in fear; it was no life. I detested the thought of letting a killer go free, but how could I stop him?

  My only idea was to call Candy. Luckily, she was home. Alone.

  “Hi,” I said. “Can you talk, or is this a bad time?”

  “No, I can talk. What’s going on?”

  “I’d rather talk to you in person. Can we meet somewhere?”

  “I reckon we can. You want me to come over to your house?”

  “I hate for you to have to come all this way. I can come there . . . or we can meet somewhere in the middle.”

  “Oh, it ain’t that far, and you sound like this is kind of serious, hon. Why don’t you let me come to you?”

  “I don’t want you to have to go out of your way, when I’m the one who wants to talk.”

  “That’s not a problem. I’ll be there in a jiffy.”

  While I was waiting for Candy, I put Rebecca into the DVD player. I’d seen the movie before, but somehow a movie based on a book written by my namesake gave me a teensy sense of security. I know it’s dumb, but I had to have something to cling to when I was getting ready to confront a killer’s alibi. I decided to take on the guise of the perfect, cold, impenetrable Rebecca. Not the unnamed, mousy heroine. Rebecca—with her expensive stationery with the fancy “R”—would be able to ferret out the truth.<
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  Candy showed up, all smiles and concern. “Hi,” she said. “You sounded upset over the phone. I hope everything’s okay.”

  “Come on in. Can I get you something to drink?”

  “No, honey, I’m fine.” Her megawatt smile faded. “What’s got you fretting?”

  “I understand the police found snake venom in Mrs. Watson’s house.”

  Candy shook her head and flopped onto my club chair. “That Joanne Hayden. Ain’t she got nothing better to do than to run her mouth?”

  “I’m not complaining—at least, she’s not running it about me this time,” I said with a smile.

  “Still . . .” She blew out a breath. “She and Yodel Watson must be kin somewhere down the line.”

  “So gossip is a genetic trait?”

  “Must be.”

  I sat down on the sofa. “I’m worried about you.”

  “Why? You think Kel killed her?”

  “Who else would have snake venom?”

  “Anybody that wanted it. Anybody that wanted to set Kel up.”

  “Who’d want to do that?”

  “I don’t know, okay?” She was glaring at me. “All I know is that one day the old woman was wagging her finger at us and not long after that she was dead. But Kel did not kill her.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “As sure as I’m sitting here. Kel’s wife had gone off to a spa retreat somewhere for a few days, and he spent that entire weekend with me.” She stood. “Are you done with the questions?”

  I got to my feet, too. “Candy, please don’t be angry with me. I truly was worried about you. I didn’t want you to be in danger.”

  “It’s okay. I appreciate your concern, but I’m not in danger, Daphne.”

  “Good. I’m glad. And I’m sorry someone made it look as if Mr. Dobbs was to blame.”

  “Me, too.” She marched to the door. “I’ll tell you who else is gonna be sorry—Joanne Hayden. She’s gonna be sorry she ever ran her mouth about this.”

  “Please . . . I don’t want to be the cause of any trouble.”