Dead on Doughnuts: A Culinary Cozy Mystery (Coffee Shop Mysteries Book 1)

by Sarah Jane Weldon

  I was about to put the red velvet doughnuts out on display, but Eloise took the plate from me and put them back on the kitchen table. “Sophia suggested that we’d best keep those until the afternoon Maddy, otherwise we’ll have nothing left to sell and you know how cranky customers get when their sugar levels get low!”.

  “Good idea”. I agreed as I looked around at the people sat enjoying the warmth, music, and mixed scent of coffee, cakes, and hot chocolate. We were packed. Some customers were even leaning against the walls, waiting for tables to become available. It reminded me of Mrs Tiggywinkle’s back in Oxford, and I found myself wishing that Mrs B were here to see Eloise and I, now that we were out in the world and learning all these new skills. My French had come on no end, and Eloise’s German was getting a lot of practice too. We were a great team, especially now that Sophia had been teaching us about baking. “You must NEVER ever lick the bowl or eat the cake mixture OK”. Sophia had told me quite sternly. She was usually kind and gentle, but when it came to her pastries she could be quite a force to be reckoned with. “It’s incredibly unprofessional”. She was right of course, it wasn’t great from a hygiene perspective and I should have known better, but the temptation had been just too great.

  Margot entered the coffee shop, and I noticed that she looked just as miserable today as she had done the other day. Thankfully, we seemed to have come to some kind of unspoken truce.

  I was expecting her to be a little more civil after her last visit, but I hadn’t expected her to greet me by name and so politely, and it took me aback for a moment. “Good morning Miss Madeleine. A cup of strong black coffee, no milk or sugar, to stay if you please”. Eloise gave me an odd expression, opening her eyes wide as if in shock.

  “Certainly. One strong black coffee coming up. In fact, if you are quick, I think I just saw a seat become available over there. If you go grab it, I’ll bring your coffee right over”.

  Eloise put her hands out in front her, palms up, her way of expressing her surprise at what had just happened. “Look at you, all best buddies with Margot Baillieu-Flandin. Tell me I just entered a parallel universe? What did you do to her? Poison her doughnuts?”.

  “What? God no. Eloise, don’t be saying I’ve poisoned the doughnuts, you know how fast news spreads in this place”. I was half joking but still, it wasn’t the kind of thing that should be said out so loud and openly, even in jest.

  An Italian lady, Camilla Vicini and her daughter Francesca were in the queue waiting to be served, and the lady threw me a proper death stare, as if I might actually have poisoned the doughnuts. I hurriedly defended myself. “Don’t mind her, that’s just my best friend Eloise and it was a joke. Of course I wouldn’t poison the doughnuts”. Camilla was obviously just about to order one of my orange blossom doughnuts from the counter, but quickly changed her mind and pointed to a slice of Battenberg cake instead. There was no point trying to convince her otherwise, it would only make things worse.

  Francesca had her headphones on, and didn’t realise how loudly she was speaking. “I bloody would. Have you met half the people round here. Honestly they are all so dumb and complaining all the time. I don’t know how you guys put up with them?”.

  Camilla looked furious as she shouted at her daughter. “Francesca, that’s enough! Honestly, I don’t know what’s gotten in to you these days?”. Camilla leant in close to her daughter, pushed back the headphones from one ear and quietly asked her a very personal question, which only made Francesca more mad. “Have you got your period? Is that it? Because if it is I’ll understand completely. It would certainly explain why you are so cranky all the time”. Camilla was clearly trying to be helpful but her motherly instinct was a bit out of kilter. Francesca flushed bright red and stormed off. “For flip’s sake mother. Talk about embarrassing. I hate you”.

  Camilla stood alone at the counter, confused as to why her daughter had said that she hated her. I felt quite bad for the both of them really. They were obviously close, but struggled to communicate how they really felt about each other.

  Camilla quickly placed her order and paid by card, as Eloise placed her coffee and cakes at the end of the counter. “She’ll grow out of it in time. Honestly I’m sure our mothers despaired of us too, eh Maddy?”. I nodded, though I didn’t believe for a moment that either of us were as much of a handful as Francesca seemed to be. But to be fair, Eloise and I had both decided to leave home so that we could board at the school and focus on building up our future detective agency. So we had probably managed to avoid a lot of that whole weird parent-teen relationship and our parents had treated us like grown ups since day one, expecting us to become lawyers or some other respectable professional. We’d never actually admitted to them that we were going to open up our own detective agency one day.

  There was a slight lull in the queue and Eloise suggested that we make the most of the opportunity and clear some of the cups and plates from the tables before the backlog of crockery to be washed, became out of hand.

  Eloise was an expert in table clearing and after all of our years working in Mrs Tiggywinkle's coffee shop, we had developed a system that allowed us to work very efficiently as a team.

  “I’ll start over there, and you start there, and we’ll meet in the middle. Any customers come in, you go serve them and I’ll continue clearing”. Eloise remarked.

  I grabbed two cloths from the sink and flicked one into Eloise’s hand. “Got it. Race you?”.

  Eloise looked me dead in the eye, her evil grin apparent as it always was when we got competitive. “Ready, steady, go!”.

  Poor Sophia didn’t know what had hit her, as she suddenly found herself surrounded by the two of us armed with cups and saucers and plates and cutlery. She didn’t look very impressed, but there was little we could do about it. There was no opportunity to clear tables when we had long queues and we needed to have one of us on the till and the other making the drinks and serving the cakes. Customers just didn’t come in steady flows, they arrived in bursts, and the only time we had to clear tables, was when there gaps in the queues. It was tough luck, Sophia would just have to get over it.

  Eloise rubbed her hands together. “There. That looks loads better”.

  I smiled at a job well done as I noticed Stefan walking across the coffee shop towards the counter. It was unusual to see him in here at this time of day, he was usually too busy preparing for the evening guests at the restaurant, but he looked to be on business, wearing a fancy suite and carrying a briefcase. He looked very official. He spotted Margot in the corner, and gave her a little wave, but she didn’t look overly pleased to see him. I got the impression that their relationship was somehow strained and that the feeling was mutual. He placed his order with Eloise at the till, and I made up his drink. He seemed quiet and serious today, not quite his usual self, like he was somehow pre-occupied, so we left him to it, and he spent most of his visit on the phone.

  Sophia came out to the counter for a few moments. It was clear that she no longer trusted us to clear the tables efficiently and she obviously doubted us when we said that we hadn’t intentionally brought everything out to her at once. She’d obviously come out to check that we were really clearing tables as and when we could.

  “It doesn’t look that busy”. Sophia observed, unaware that this was not how the coffee shop had looked just moments ago when there was another massive queue as a coach load of people arrived off one of Nicklas’ glacier tours. “Why don’t you try and clear the tables as soon as the customer is done?”. Sophia advised us, as if we were new to barista work.

  I was a bit annoyed at Sophia’s attitude to be honest. Eloise and I had worked really hard all morning, and felt that we couldn’t have done anymore. Besides, Emilio was very happy with our work and if anyone was to criticise it should have been him as our employer, not Sophia, who wouldn’t even have had the job if it weren’t for Eloise and I asking Emilio to employ her.

  Eloise was annoyed too. “Because Emilio doesn’
t like it when staff hover over the customer’s shoulders waiting for them to finish eating. He wants them to feel at home, and I completely agree. It’s a coffee shop not a fast food restaurant”.

  Sophia huffed. “Fine. I’ll just have to clear the tables myself”.

  I didn’t want to tell tales on Sophia, but she was being out of order, especially criticising us like that in front of customers. Luckily the customer who heard what she said was Théo, and he happened to be Emilio’s best friend and the cafe’s most frequent customer. He wasn’t impressed either. “That was bang out of order. She should not be speaking to you like that or undermining Emilio. I think I’ll have a word with him if that’s OK with you girls. You do a great job, Emilio’s always saying it”.

  “You know I’m really starting to think that we don’t know Sophia as well as we thought we did. One minute she’s nice as pie, the next she completely flips. Maybe Audrey was right about her after all? Did you hear anything back from the culinary school yet Théo?”. Eloise really did look annoyed with Sophia and it took a lot for things to get to Eloise.

  Théo shook his head. “Sadly not. They’re closed for a public holiday but said they would call me in a few days, so I should hear something very soon”.

  Emilio had been absent for most of the morning, meeting with the bank manager but he probably would have wished that he hadn’t returned to the coffee shop at the exact moment that he did. Camilla spotted him from across the room, and came over to say hello in a rather affectionate way.

  Théo started laughing. “I think Emilio has a lady friend, look over there”. Eloise and I laughed too, Théo was right, there definitely seemed to be some chemistry between them.

  Meanwhile, her daughter Francesca was sat at the table still, her arms crossed and headphones on, but her mother looked very pleased to see Emilio. Sophia was moving plates and cups around Francesca and removed Camilla’s half drunk cup of coffee, even though it was clear that she had only left it to go and say hello to Emilio. Francesca was trying hard to get the cup off Sophia but Sophia would not relinquish it “But my mother hasn’t finished drinking it yet”. Francesca protested, to no avail.

  Sophia snatched the cup of coffee from Francesca’s hand and was met by protests from a couple of the customers who had seen what had happened, one of whom was Stefan. He was trying hard to calm her, but it was only making her more annoyed. “Sophia isn’t it? Look I’m sure Emilio won’t mind if you leave this cup of coffee here with the girl. It really isn’t a big deal. No need to behave so irrationally over it. It’s just a cup”.

  Sophia suddenly lost her temper completely. “Just a cup! Just a cup! How dare you. If it wasn’t for you, I’d be a top pastry chef by now, instead of washing up pots and pans out the back, and working with these imbeciles”.

  Stefan placed a hand on her arm, trying to calm her down and comfort her. But it only made matters worse. “Get your hands off me, you disgusting old man, who exactly do you think you are? Don’t touch me?’.

  The argument escalated, Sophia’s protestations incoherent and non sensical as the customers watched on in horror. Without warning, Sophia threw the cup of coffee all over him, along with another cup of liquid that was on the table.

  Stefan stood up in surprise, accidentally knocking the table flying as the brown liquid ran down his face and all over his business suit. Sophia flinched and pulled away, raising her arms in protest. “I’m…I’m…I’m so sorry. Please….forgive me….I didn’t mean it…I just don’t know what came over me”. Sophia collapsed to the floor and began to sob. Emilio was too much in shock to move, or he probably would have come over and thrown Sophia out of the coffee shop at that very moment. How had he been such a bad judge of character? Had he been swayed by her qualifications and gone against his better judgement?.

  Emilio finally pulled himself together and came over to where the commotion had happened. “Sophia come on outside with me please. Let’s go and get some fresh air shall we? Stefan I am so sorry. I’ve never known anything like this to happen in my coffee shop ever”. Emilio tried to lead Sophia away but she began shouting and protesting her innocence and asking forgiveness again.

  Théo presented Stefan with a selection of napkins so he could at least wipe the coffee from his face and arms.

  But to everyone’s surprise Stefan was calm and forgiving. “Please…really…it’s no big deal…honestly…look it’s coming off already…I’ll just nip into the bathroom and wash the coffee off my shirt and it’ll be good as new in no time. There’s really no need to punish her, she’s obviously distressed, we’ve all had days like that. Please don’t do anything on my account. And whatever happens, you mustn’t let Audrey find out. Things are bad enough between her and Sophia as it is, without this as well”. Stefan picked up his case and headed to the coffee shop’s toilet, as Margot opened the toilet door and stepped out of the cubicle, acknowledging him as she passed. She didn’t seem to even notice that he was covered in coffee, or that the coffee shop had gone silent in the wake of Sophia’s outburst. Margot was in a world of her own.

  Eventually Emilio and Théo managed to drag Sophia out into the back and sat her down at the kitchen table with a drink. Emilio didn’t know what to do, it wasn’t something he’d ever had to deal with before. “Look Sophia, I think it’s probably best that you go home for now, and take a few days off, then we’ll decide what to do next. I obviously can’t have my staff treating customers like that, but equally you seem like a nice enough person and your behaviour today seems very out of character. I can’t really say fairer than that right now. I’m still too much in shock”.

  Stefan came out of the toilet having washed his top in the sink and dried it under the hand drier for several minutes. It didn’t look too bad all things considered. He clutched his bag under his arm, and stepped back out into the coffee shop where everyone had gone back to their conversations now that all the drama was over.

  Emilio came rushing over to Stefan, with a large paper bag in his hand. He passed the bag to Stefan. “Call it a peace offering. Red velvet doughnuts, Madeleine made them this morning. Secret recipe. I’m more than happy to pay for the dry cleaning too, just send me the bill”.

  Stefan took the bag of doughnuts with pleasure and assured Stefan that he wouldn’t be placing charges or lodging any official complaints. “What I’d really like Emilio…”.

  Emilio nodded his head quickly. “Anything, anything at all…”.

  Stefan rolled the top of the paper bag down, sealing the doughnuts in. “What I’d really like, is for Sophia to get some help and support for whatever is going on with her, and please promise me she won’t lose her job. I don’t see that it will help her at all otherwise, and I don’t want things getting any worse”.

  Emilio was quiet for a moment. He didn’t want Sophia to feel like this kind of behaviour was acceptable, but equally Sophia was an incredible chef, was bringing in loads of business, and he really didn’t want to abandoned her in her time of need. It was a tough call. That was for sure.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Sébastien Paris Pâtisserie, Val D’Isera ski resort, Austria: 4th December 2018

  Audrey was feeling a lot calmer after her walk, but she was still frustrated with Violetta’s attitude. If she’d had her way, Violetta would have got the sack long ago, but for some crazy reason, Stefan seemed attached to the girl and wouldn’t let her go. When it came to choosing sides, he would always put Violetta’s feelings above Audrey’s even though Audrey was his fiancée. Stefan said that it was simply a business decision, and nothing personal. Besides, it wasn’t like there was anyone else around to take on the job at such short notice and for as little as Stefan got away with paying Violetta.

  Audrey threw her restaurant keys on the desk of the little office by the kitchen, and spotted a printed greetings card with a picture of a teddy holding a heart and the word’s ‘I’m So Sorry’ on the front. It was the worst card Audrey had ever seen, cheap and tacky, she hated tedd
y bears, but it was the thought that counted and at least Stefan had tried to make it up for taking Violetta’s side in their argument earlier. She couldn’t fault him for at least making an effort to put things right. What’s more he’d obviously bought her a bunch of flowers and a bag of doughnuts.

  Audrey was famished. She’d not eaten breakfast this morning, and then in all the commotion over the pineapple with Violetta and Violetta storming out of the kitchen, Audrey had gone off for a long walk, and spent most of the day crying her eyes out and trying to work out what to do to fix things. Now she got the waft of doughnuts she realised just how hungry she was. She pulled a doughnut from it’s bag and gobbled it down quickly. It tasted really good, so she had a second, and then a third. She was about to pop a fourth one in her mouth, but she heard a noise in the seating area of the restaurant, and went out to investigate.

  It was Stefan, returned from his meeting and he looked worn out as he loosened his tie and undid the top button on his shirt. “Oh, hey babe”.

  Audrey walked over to him and hugged him tight. He smelt like old coffee and was hot and sweaty and very sticky. “How did it go?”. Audrey asked him as she gave him a kiss.

  Stefan wasn’t his usual affectionate self and he was tired and irritable. It had been a long day and he didn’t want the dramas or games or getting caught in the middle of Audrey’s fights with other people. “Yeah, I think it went OK. How about you? Did you manage to get some fresh air and clear your head a bit?”.

  Audrey looked a bit miffed at his lack of interest in her. She assumed from the flowers and doughnuts, that he was apologising but now she wasn’t sure what was going on, he was giving her mixed signals. “Thanks for the card and flowers Stefan, they’re lovely, and the doughnuts are yummy too. I’m afraid I’ve almost eaten the whole bag of them already”.