Ginger of the West

by Meg Muldoon

  “But you’re not here to make small talk either, are you?”

  I couldn’t explain why, but I was getting flustered.

  “No,” he said. “I’m afraid I’m not, Ging.”

  I let out a short sigh.

  “You didn’t hear the news, did you?” he asked.

  “What news?”

  He opened the messenger bag that was slung over his shoulder and handed me a folded-up newspaper.

  It was a special late edition of The Broomfield Dispatch.

  With a headline that nearly caused me to drop it.

  “Questions Arise in Mayor’s Death.”

  “But… but she lost control of her car and drove off her driveway,” I said. “It was an accident.”

  I glanced up at Eddie and then back down at the paper.

  “Looks like it might have been something more than that,” Eddie said. “At least, that’s what my editor thinks. We heard the rumors and she sent me here to check it out. She thinks it’s going to be a good story. A quirky mayor who fought regulations to build her house up on a massive cliff ends up dead after driving off her own driveway. And maybe there’s more to it than that.”

  “Wait… your editor?”

  He pulled something from his jacket pocket and handed it to me.

  I ran my fingers over the black embossed ink.

  Eddie Cross

  Associated Press, Pacific Northwest Division

  Portland, Oregon.

  “I was hoping to talk to your aunt. I know that Vivian and the mayor go way back, and I thought she’d be able to paint a better picture of Penelope Ash—”

  “Aunt Viv hated Penelope Ashby, and vice-versa.”

  I instantly regretted saying it.

  “Well, even better then,” Eddie said. “It’ll add a little color to the story.”

  “I don’t think she’s home, but I’m not sure. Did you stop by the Victorian yet?”

  “No, I came here first.”

  He smiled.

  “I saw a red-head working out here in the greenhouse. I was hoping she was you.”

  He gazed at me for a long while.

  “It’s good seeing you, Ging.”

  My heart skipped a few beats.

  “You, too, Eddie.”

  But then my eyes traveled down to the long scar on the inside of his wrist, and I felt a deep chill rush through me as strong and cold as the waters of the Pacific.

  “I better get back to work here,” I said, turning toward the table. “I’m already behind.”

  He didn’t say anything for a moment, and I resisted the urge to turn back around and say more.

  “Uh, yeah, sure,” Eddie finally said. “I know you’re probably really busy. Tourist season and all.”

  I nodded awkwardly.

  “Well, see you around, Ging.”

  I heard slow footsteps walking away. Then the sound of the plastic flap of the greenhouse.

  “Wait, Eddie?” I shouted after him.

  But the flap didn’t move again.

  I let out an unsteady breath.

  My hands were sweating. And my stomach felt as though it had just dropped like Mayor Ashby’s car off that cliff.

  Chapter 11

  The next day, all hell broke loose.

  I pulled the hot Lavender Madeleines from the oven and exchanged them for two Bundt cake pans filled with Sour Cream Ginger Coffee Cake batter. When the madeleines cooled off a little, I popped them from their scalloped baking shells and then dipped the tops into a bowl of sweet lemon glaze.

  Héctor walked in with two long empty trays and placed them on the butcher block next to me.

  “Those look really good, but I think we need about a thousand more if we’re gonna keep up with the crowd out there.”

  “Still busy, huh?”

  “Standing room only and the line is out the door. We’re running out of things left and right.”

  Héctor started arranging the madeleines and the giant chocolate chip cookies I had made earlier on the trays and then hoisted them up on his muscular shoulders like an acrobat.

  “Hey Héctor, I know it’s short notice but do you think you could stay on for a couple more hours?”

  I hated asking. He had already put in an eight hour shift, as he was the one who opened up at four in the morning each day to start baking. But I knew we would need him going into the afternoon with these crowds.

  “I already planned on it,” he said. “I’ll stay for as long as you need.”

  Héctor was amazing that way. He was my right hand man as well as my left ever since I had taken over the café eight years ago. Despite his outward appearance, which was a little intimidating to some with his long black hair braided down his back, a red bandana on his head, and arms covered in inky tattoos, he had one of the biggest hearts I’d ever seen. He’d do anything for anybody.

  “How about we give Sapphire a call, too?” he said as he reached the double swinging doors that led to the front of the house. “She could help with work back here.”

  “That’s a good idea.”

  Sapphire Lewis was my newest hire, a mopey 24-year-old with razor sharp baking skills and eyes that matched her name. She was a great employee if she stayed in the back, away from the crowds. She had a powerful aura around her, but it was so depressing most days that she often sent people fleeing for reasons they didn’t even understand. However, she somehow found a way to channel her sad moods into cakes, pies, and pastries that were nothing short of remarkable. I was lucky to have her on my staff.

  In fact, I was lucky when it came to all of my employees.

  “I’ll give Sapphire a call as soon as I get these trays in the case,” Héctor said, leaving the kitchen.

  When I finished mixing up some crumbly peanut butter cookie dough, I took a short break and peeked over the swinging doors that led to the dining room. It was still chaotic out there, and very clearly, a different kind of crowd than the usual sunburnt tourists and eccentric beach locals that normally swamped my café in June. Most of the people were wearing suits and high heels and had salon-perfect hair.

  I scanned the crowd looking for Eddie, thinking he might be in line with his fellow reporters, but I didn’t see him.

  But I did see someone else familiar in all the chaos – Sapphire, dressed all in black, pushed through the hordes of reporters and cameramen. She grunted a quick hello to me as she headed into the back, but returned a minute later wearing an apron.

  That was another thing I appreciated about Sapphire – aside from being a great baker, she would drop everything and get to the café as soon as she could if we needed her.

  “Who are all these people?” she asked, her eyes taking in the unfamiliar out-of-towners.

  “Reporters and a few state officials, I’m betting,” I said. “Maybe a sprinkling of detectives from Portland coming in to help with the investigation.”

  “What investigation?”

  “The mayor’s murder,” I said, looking at her.

  Her eyes went wide.

  “You haven’t heard?” I asked.

  “She was murdered?”

  “That’s what the news reports are saying.”

  Earlier that morning, the local TV station had had a breaking news bulletin – The Broomfield Bay Police Department confirmed that Mayor Ashby’s death had not been accidental.

  She had been murdered.

  The whole town was still in a state of shock.

  I went back to the butcher block and started quickly rolling balls of the peanut butter dough, placing the rounds on a greased cookie sheet and flattening them down with a fork. Sapphire pulled out some flour and baking powder from the large walk-in pantry and got down to work too.

  “I thought it was an accident,” she said in low voice. “Didn’t Mayor Ashby’s car skid off that cliff?”

  “Yes, but when they pulled her Mercedes out of the ocean, they found that the brake lines had been severed.”

  “Oh, no,” she said.
“That’s so, so terrible.”

  Then she added – “Can you imagine dying like that?”

  It surely was terrible, but death and murder were the last things Sapphire needed to focus on right now. A lost cat could send her spirits plummeting for days.

  I had to redirect.

  “They’ll find out who did it, Sapphire. Until then, our job is to feed the town. And anyone else who might wander in.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  But from the downcast expression on her face, I could tell she was still thinking about what it would be like to die in such a horrible way.

  I went over to the speaker system and put some cheerful pop music on low, hoping it might help take Sapphire’s mind off the mayor’s death. Then I slid the baking sheet in the oven and started mixing up a batch of Magic Marionberry Scones, four-dozen Chocolate Crinkle Cookies, and two Lemon Ginger Bundt Cakes.

  I hoped I could work fast enough to keep up with the crowds.

  I was placing a plate of the purple-splotched marionberry scones out under the display case when I heard a sudden hush fall over the packed café.

  I sighed heavily, knowing exactly what had caused the silence.

  “Toadstools and mandrake,” I mumbled.

  In the madness of the day, I hadn’t realized that it was now 12:45 sharp.

  You see, 12:45 was the time that God came to my café for lunch.

  Chapter 12

  Okay, maybe he wasn’t God.

  It was just that everybody in Broomfield Bay treated him like he was.

  Sure enough, all eyes in the café were on the tall, well-dressed man who had just entered. Nobody said a word. Some looked like ventriloquist dummies with detached jaws.

  “Shoot, shoot, shoot,” I mumbled angrily.

  How could I have forgotten that Nigel Parks was coming in? He only came to my café every single day when he was in town. I should have saved his usual table, or at the very least called his personal secretary to warn him that it wasn’t available. And on top of those transgressions, I had forgotten to save him a Ginger Lemon Bar, the one that he ordered whenever he came in.

  I didn’t need any witchy foresight to know that he would not be a happy customer today.

  “Mr. Parks is here!” Charlene Cole, a regular who liked her coffee sickly-sweet and her reading material even sweeter, shouted out.

  Her voice crashed through the hush of the café like an anchor dropping on a still-morning ocean.

  Nigel Parks was a bestselling British author who not only made Charlene Cole swoon – he made the entire town swoon. The millionaire romance mystery writer owned a large, sprawling house that overlooked the ocean, a residence which he referred to as “Cliffside Manor.” People loved him here in Broomfield Bay, especially the female citizens, because in addition to being rich and famous, his books were all about women finding true love.

  “She knew in her heart he was her soulmate, the only one, and would be for all eternity.”

  That was the kind of sappy writing Nigel was famous for, and people ate it up like chocolate truffles on Valentine’s Day. Many of his novels had been turned into movies, which went on to be hits at the box office. Nigel was by far Broomfield Bay’s biggest celebrity, and many tourists even came here with the sole purpose of finding Nigel and getting a selfie with him.

  It didn’t hurt any either that the author was also ridiculously handsome, and could have easily been on the cover of one of his books. He had an abundance of straw-colored hair, which framed his chiseled and well-sculpted features, a classic dimple on his chin, and deep-set eyes.

  To boot, Nigel was single, making him the town’s most eligible bachelor.

  For the life of me, though, I couldn’t figure out what all the hoopla was over. Looks aside, what I’d seen of Nigel was fussy and cheap. He rarely smiled and usually treated me and my employees as nothing more than the help.

  But he was a customer and I knew, just as Aunt Viv had taught me, that it was important to be nice. He must have liked my food, because for the last seven years, since he’d bought Cliffside Manor, he came into the café every single day that he was in town at precisely 12:45 p.m. for the same exact lunch: A brie and tomato sandwich on a crusty French roll, a Ginger Lemon Bar, and two cups of coffee.

  Nigel clutched a book under his arm, looking around the room from beneath dark lenses, his lips locked in a deep frown.

  I weaved my way toward him, grinning nervously.

  “Hi, Nigel.”

  He didn’t acknowledge me for a few seconds. I could see his eyes fixed on his usual table by the window, the one taken by two young photojournalists who were busy snapping his picture.

  He blinked his eyes several times beneath the dark shades in surprise.

  “Ginger, in the name of Aphrodite herself, what is going on here?”

  “It’s been this way since they made the announcement about Penelope Ashby’s murder,” I said, keeping my voice low. “But let me set you up by the garden. I have a small table out there. It’s where I usually take my breaks when the weather’s nice. It’s very private.”

  He let out a little disappointed sigh, still eyeing his table.

  “I suppose… I suppose that will have to do.”

  I started leading the way for him through the crowd, but we didn’t get very far before he was accosted.

  “Mr. Parks, I love your books. I love them all!” a woman I didn’t recognize screamed, her heels clicking across the floor as she approached him. “You really know women, Mr. Parks. Nobody writes like you!”

  I felt a sarcastic smile cross my lips, but I forced it down before anyone noticed.

  To me it seemed like Nigel didn’t know the first thing about women. In his books, the characters were always young, beautiful, and perfect. And the only thing the women in those novels were concerned with, in addition to solving whatever crime had taken place, was finding their soulmate. Of course, they always seemed to. And everybody lived happily ever after.

  His books were pure fantasy, though they were labeled as romantic suspense at the library. Fiction that came nowhere near the truth of what it was like to fall in love, get married, and keep that marriage going.

  Or maybe I was just jaded and bitter at the ripe age of 32. I guess I wanted some measure of truth in my own reading material. And maybe I wanted answers, too. I wanted to know why a husband suddenly leaves his wife one day out of the blue despite a good marriage. I wanted to know how come that same husband didn’t return her calls. I wanted to know how to get through a night without demolishing an entire quart of ice cream.

  But of course, I had never told Nigel that I couldn’t stomach his books. And being a savvy business woman, I even made sure to read his latest novel in case he asked.

  Not that he ever asked.

  Nigel leaned in slightly to the super fan as she snapped a selfie with her phone, but he didn’t smile for the shot.

  He never did.

  She let him go, and he quickly followed me through the café before any other fans came out of the woodwork.

  “I think I could try and sit out here,” he said as I took him outside to the back and showed him the empty table and chair I had set up in the garden.

  It was a nice spot, with the sun streaming down through the large, wind-whipped pine trees, and right next to the raised beds of bountiful tomato plants, lettuce, and cucumbers.

  “So she was really murdered?” he said, sitting down and playing with the wobbly table some.

  “Yep. That’s what they’re saying.”

  Héctor appeared with a napkin, silverware, and a cup of coffee. He put it all down in front of Nigel, who nodded stiffly. Nigel then pulled out another napkin with his initials embroidered on it from his breast pocket, folded the cloth, and put it underneath one of the legs so the table would steady.

  “What a horrid shock,” he said, making rare small talk. “You know, I was just out at Penelope’s house last month.”

  “Really?” I sa
id. “I didn’t know you were friends with the mayor.”

  “She asked me to talk to her book club. Apparently, she enjoyed my work. And besides, I owed her one.”

  I was surprised that someone of Nigel’s caliber would have bothered speaking at a small town book club like that.

  “It was a lovely affair,” he continued. “Black tie and catered. The members were so complimentary, and I was happy to meet some of the town’s most important residents.”

  He pursed his lips together.

  “What a horrid, horrid shock,” he muttered again, taking a sip of his coffee and making a face. “Oh, would you be a dear and fetch me some cream, Ginger?”

  Héctor was already coming out the door carrying a little silver container with the cream. He handed it to Nigel and left.

  Héctor always seemed to have a sixth sense for those kinds of things.

  I just wished I did. I would have made sure to keep a few Ginger Lemon Bars on hand if I had.

  “I hate to tell you this, Nigel, but with all the insanity around here…”

  “Yes?” he said, looking up.

  “Well, we’ve run out of the lemon bars you always order,” I said. “I’m very sorry.”

  “No… no lemon bars?” he stammered, his expression falling quickly.

  “My apologies. But we have some Ginger Lemon Bundt Cake, fresh from the oven, if—”

  He stood up abruptly and put his sunglasses back on.

  “Perhaps I will return when everything is right and proper again, Ginger.”

  I swallowed hard as he turned and headed down the cobblestone path that led to the street without so much as another word.

  I started clearing the table.

  Fussy. That was the polite way of describing Nigel Parks.

  Chapter 13

  I walked back inside, found Rudy – our sandwich chef – and told him to wrap up Nigel’s sandwich and put it in the fridge. Then I told Héctor to take a break. The line had finally become manageable, although the tables were still crammed with reporters and other officials. I manned the register and after about fifteen minutes, was glad to see a familiar face walk through the doors.