Leighann Dobbs - Lexy Baker 10 - Mummified Meringues

by Leighann Dobbs

  As far as Violet Switzer was concerned, it was game on. But first, Lexy had to find just one clue that would implicate Tom O’Keefe in the decades-old murder. She closed the lid of the box and headed out to The Elms Pub.

  ***

  The Elms Pub sat on the corner of Elm and Center Streets across from the Mini-Mart gas station in the section of town where suburbia turned into small-town urban.

  Lexy stood just inside the door, adjusting to the dim lighting. In front of her, a long, wooden bar ran half the length of the room. It was lined with high-backed bar stools, their brass footrests scuffed and black from years of use. Behind the bar, a few neon beer signs added extra lighting, which, in Lexy’s opinion, was much needed.

  Tables were scattered around the edge of the room. They looked clean and were mostly empty except for one table with two middle-aged men sipping beers and a booth in the back corner where a white-haired man cooled his palms around a frosted mug of golden liquid.

  The bartender looking questioningly at Lexy’s white box as she crossed to the bar.

  “Hi.” She smiled. “I’m looking for Sam. My friend, Cassie Darling, sent me.”

  “Oh, you know Cassie? She’s a good friend. Pops is back there.” He thrust his chin toward the white-haired man in the booth.

  “Thanks.”

  Pops watched with curious eyes as Lexy made her way toward him. She stopped beside the booth, resting the bakery box on top of the table and holding out her hand. “Hi. I’m Lexy Baker, a friend of Cassie Darling.”

  His smile widened and he met Lexy’s hand with a firm, warm handshake.

  “I’m Sam Barlow. Any friend of Cassie’s is a friend of mine.” He gestured across the table. “Please sit.”

  Lexy slid into the booth just as the bartender appeared at her shoulder.

  “Can I get you something?” he asked.

  “Just a coffee, please.”

  “Comin’ right up.”

  Sam nodded at the bakery box. “What’s in there?”

  “Meringue cookies. It’s a new recipe I’m trying out for the Brook Ridge Desserts contest.” Lexy flipped the top open and angled the box toward Sam so he could get a better look.

  “Oh, you’re the one that owns the bakery where Cassie works!” Sam said as he picked out a cookie.

  “Yep. That’s me. I don’t know how well those go with beer, though.”

  Sam nodded, but bit in anyway. “It’s good. But you didn’t come all the way here to bring me cookies, did you?”

  “No. I think you might be able to help me.”

  His brows raised a fraction of an inch, his gray eyes gleaming with interest. “How’s that?”

  “I’m sure you heard about the mummy that was found in one of the houses a few streets over.”

  Sam nodded.

  “Well, that was my husband’s house, and he’s a suspect.” Lexy watched as Sam grabbed another cookie. “I’d like to help clear his name.”

  “Why don’t you have Cassie’s young man help you? Isn’t he a police detective?”

  “Actually, he’s my husband’s partner. But they aren’t allowed to investigate the case because the body was found in Jack’s house … and the detective on the case isn’t being very cooperative.”

  Sam took a swig of beer and made a sour face. “You’re right. Those cookies don’t go very well with beer. Not sweet enough. Anyway, what makes you think I can help you?”

  Lexy leaned across the table and lowered her voice. “Well, we have a theory that the killer is the builder that built all the homes in the neighborhood.”

  Sam’s brows dipped into a ‘V’. “You mean Tommy O’Keefe?”

  “Yes.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Because of the way the body was hidden. Someone made a secret room at the end of the basement—small enough so no one would notice it was ever there, and then they put the body in and sealed it off. That could only have been done before the home was occupied.”

  Sam rubbed his chin. “Not necessarily. If the homeowners were in on it, it could have been done at any time.”

  “It couldn’t have been them,” Lexy said. “They’re a nice elderly couple!”

  “Sure, now they are … but back when those houses were built, they weren’t old. You never know what people are up to.”

  Lexy tilted her head. He had a point. Still, what reason would the McDonalds have to hide a dead man in the basement?

  A coffee appeared at her elbow and she slid it across the scarred wooden table until it was in front of her. “So, you don’t think it was O’Keefe?”

  Sam shrugged.

  “You were here a lot back then, right?”

  “Yeah. I ran the place. Couldn’t afford much help back then so I was here all the time.”

  “Did you notice anything strange about O’Keefe back then? Or anyone else, for that matter.” Lexy sipped her coffee and stared at him over the rim of her cup while he thought about it.

  “Well, it was a long time ago and he was in here almost every night.” Sam sipped his beer. “But I do seem to recall one time he bought rounds for the entire house.”

  Lexy’s left brow ticked up. “Really? Did he say why?”

  “Near as I can remember he said he’d made a big house deal. He was real excited about it.”

  “Do you remember exactly when that was?” Lexy asked.

  Sam shook his head. “I can’t recall the year, but I do remember it was summertime. Everyone was wearing t-shirts. I can picture it just like it was yesterday—everyone was pretty excited and we talked about it for weeks, since free drinks don’t get offered often. Tommy was somewhat of a celebrity after that. Of course, he was already pretty well-known from the dart championships.”

  “I saw the trophies at his place.”

  “He won the championship a lot of years in a row.”

  “Until Violet Switzer came along.”

  Sam looked at her sideways. “You know her?”

  “I don’t actually know her. Just of her. I’m going up against her in the Brook Ridge Dessert contest.” Lexy pointed to the box of cookies. “This is my test recipe for my entry in the contest.”

  Sam grimaced. “I don’t envy you. That Violet can be a stickler. She likes to win, and once she has her mind set on something, she grabs on like a schnauzer’s teeth biting the mailman’s pant leg.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “But the way to deal with people like her is to not let them intimidate you. Don’t let her make you nervous.” Sam picked another cookie out of the box and bit into it. “Add a little more sugar to this recipe and you’ve got a good shot.”

  Lexy’s heart dropped thinking about the contest. Did she have a shot? She’d never had so much trouble with a recipe before. But she didn’t have time to worry about that now—she had more important things to talk to Sam about than her cookie recipe. “So … back to Tom O’Keefe. Did he have any enemies? Anyone he fought with?”

  Sam shook his head. “Nope. Not at all. He was happy-go-lucky. Still is, actually. And no wonder, with all the money he’s got.” Sam narrowed his eyes at Lexy. “I don’t get why you are so hell-bent on thinking it was Tommy. Do you have some compelling evidence that points to him?”

  “I can’t imagine who else would have been able to hide a body in the basement. It must have been done before the McDonalds moved in and, since he was the builder, he would have had the access to do that.”

  Sam shook his head. “This doesn’t make sense to me. How did you discover it if it was a sealed off room and why did you never notice the room before?”

  “The room was so narrow that no one would have noticed it was there unless they measured. Plus, the basement was full of piled up boxes so it was impossible to tell. It wasn’t until we were cleaning it out and my dog scratched away some of the cement coating on the wall that we found a little hole and discovered the room.”

  “Did you say plaster on the walls?”

 
“Yeah. It was like some kind of plaster or stucco.”

  Sam nodded. “I know exactly what you mean. Seen that technique done in a lot of basements around here and I think that means you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

  “How so?”

  “Tommy didn’t finish basements like that. If you think the killer is the one who did the cement job, then you don’t want Tommy O’Keefe … you want Bobby Nesbaum.”

  Chapter Ten

  Lexy’s cell phone chirped as she left The Elms Pub. But it wasn’t Ida or Nans with the results of their financial search like she’d hoped—it was a text from her mother.

  Lexy opened it to see a cock-eyed picture of a large, sandy area.

  The Desert of Maine?

  Lexy’s heart pinched as she wondered if the reason her parents were still there was because they were having fun or because their RV broke and they couldn’t go anywhere else. Judging by the picture, it didn’t look like there was enough of anything to keep their interest for more than one day.

  The best thing she could do to help them was to solve the case, so she let her thoughts turn toward what she’d learned from Sam.

  Both Sam and Tom had said the basement renovator, Bobby Nesbaum, would have been the one do the wall treatment, but if Nesbaum had made a secret room and hidden a body in the basement, wouldn’t Tom have noticed? Maybe the two of them were in on it together? Or, maybe Tom also knew how to put that cement on the walls and did it as a quick patch to hide the body. Maybe his plan all along was to frame Bobby if anyone discovered it.

  By the time Lexy arrived at the bakery, her mind was whirling. She decided to focus on baking and filling the bakery cases. The day’s rush of customers had made a big dent in the baked goods on display and she was happy to fill in the empty spaces with fresh-baked cookies, brownies and muffins.

  She was bent over at the waist, her head inside the case, rearranging a plate of brownies when a familiar pair of blue-jean clad legs appeared on the other side of the glass front. Jack.

  What was he doing here?

  Lexy’s stomach fluttered. Jack didn’t usually visit her at the bakery unless it was something important. She pulled her head out of the case and stood, looking up at him from her five-foot-four high-heeled height.

  “Hi.” Jack smiled.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Ida called and said to meet here and go over the clues. I just closed a case so I got off early today.”

  “Oh.” Ida had called? Lexy pulled her phone out of the pocket of her apron and noticed she had a message from Ida.

  Jack leaned against the case. “So, how did your meeting at the pub go?”

  “Not that good … I’ll fill you in when the others are here.”

  As if on cue, the door opened, revealing Nans, Ruth, Ida and Helen. They made a beeline for the pastry case.

  “Hi, there.” The ladies murmured greetings and then got busy picking out pastries. Ruth chose a lemon tartlet, Helen, a brownie piled high with chocolate frosting, Nans, a fig square and Ida, a frosted chocolate cupcake top. Lexy noticed with dismay that none of them chose a meringue cookie.

  They pulled two tables together and arranged the chairs around them. Then with pastries on napkins and steaming mugs of coffee and tea in front of them, they turn their attention to Nans.

  “What?” Nans blinked.

  “Well, aren’t you going to start off?” Ida asked.

  Nans broke off a piece of her fig square and paused with it in front of her mouth. “I don’t know anything new, actually. Lexy and I went to the McDonalds’ and they don’t remember what their basement looked like so we couldn’t say if Tom O’Keefe was telling the truth or not.”

  “What about his finances?” Jack asked.

  “He did get some large sums of money that summer … but it turns out that wasn’t unusual,” Helen said.

  “We figure being a builder and all, he was probably transferring large sums between business and personal accounts all the time,” Ruth added.

  “He could have hidden the payoff and made it look like business.” Ida’s blue eyes sparkled at them over the rim of her teacup.

  Jack narrowed his eyes at Helen and Ruth. “And just how do you ladies get this personal financial information? That stuff’s not available to the general public.”

  Ruth’s face turned pink and she waved her hand. “Oh, we have our ways.”

  Jack turned to Lexy. “What about your visit to the bar?”

  “Sam didn’t remember a lot. I mean, it was a long time ago. But he did remember Tom buying a couple of rounds for the entire bar one night. No one had ever done that before so it was memorable.”

  “Did Tom say why?” Ida asked.

  “Sam said Tom had gotten a big contract to build some houses.”

  “And when was this?” Helen wiped chocolate frosting from her lips, then took another bite of the brownie.

  “That’s the thing. Sam didn’t know. All he could remember was that it was in summer, because everyone was wearing t-shirts.”

  Jack looked skeptical. “You wouldn’t think he’d want to advertise coming into a lot of money if he got a payoff to hide a body, though.”

  “Sam also said the same thing Tom did about the basement walls—Tom O’Keefe didn’t finish them like that. He left the basements raw cinderblock.”

  “So, maybe Tom was telling the truth,” Nans ventured.

  “I’m sure Tom O’Keefe knows how to apply that cement coating to the walls. He’s in the trade so he probably knows how to do a lot of things.” Ida leaned forward. “He might even have done it on purpose to implicate Bobby Nesbaum if he was discovered.”

  “That’s what I was thinking,” Lexy said. Ida held her cup up and the two of them clinked rims.

  “I’m sure it must have happened before the house was sold, so it must have been the builder,” Ruth said.

  “No matter what, we should check out this basement refinisher guy.” Ida turned to Nans. “Mona, did you say he was dead?”

  Nans looked up from the fig square she’d been pushing around her plate. “I … well … I think—

  Just then, the door burst open and Watson Davies strode in, her blue eyes glaring at them. Her black biker boots clomped on the floor as she took two large strides over to the table.

  “Good news, Jack.” She stood with her feet apart, hands on hips, head tilted to the side looking down at Jack. Lexy thought her expression didn’t look like that of one poised to impart ‘good’ news.

  “Oh?” Jack looked up at her, his left brow ticking upwards a fraction of an inch.

  “Yep, you’re cleared off the suspect list. The M.E. pinpointed the time of death and it was quite some time before you bought the house.”

  Ida’s brows shot up. “When was it?”

  “August thirteenth, 1955.”

  “What? That’s almost five years after the McDonalds moved in!” Ruth stared at Davies, then looked around the table at the rest of them.

  “Wait a minute—they can pinpoint it down to the day?” Nans asked.

  “Yes. And not only that, but we also know who the mummy is … er … was,” Davies replied.

  “Who?” Jack, Lexy, Ruth, Ida and Helen all asked at once.

  “Earl Schute.”

  “Never heard of him.” Ida said. “You know him, Mona?”

  Nans pressed her lips together. “Schute … it sounds vaguely familiar.”

  “It should,” Davies tilted her head toward Nans. “Back in 1955, Earl Schute lived in the house right next door to you.”

  ***

  Silence descended on the bakery as they all stared at a red-faced Nans.

  “Oh, well, now that you mention it, I guess I do remember him,” Nans said sheepishly. “He didn’t live there long, though, so I guess I didn’t recognize the name right off.”

  “No, he didn’t live there long.” Davies agreed. “Because he was murdered. And it makes me wonder why no one in the neighborhood ever reporte
d him missing.”

  Nans shrugged. “He kept to himself. We didn’t see him a lot, so I guess no one noticed. I guess we just thought he moved away.”

  “So, what about my house? Can we go back in?” Jack asked.

  “Not yet. We’re still collecting evidence. “Lexy wilted as Davies speared her with a steely glare. “A task that would be easier if your dog hadn’t run in and contaminated the crime scene.”

  Lexy grimaced. “Sorry.”

  Images of the receipt from The Elms Pub sprang to mind—maybe Sprinkles had gotten the receipt from the mummy. Should she tell Davies? Lexy glanced at the stern detective and figured she was better off not mentioning it unless she was positive it was a clue.

  “So anyway, tell me about these McDonald characters,” Davies was saying.

  “Surely, you don’t suspect them?” Nans sounded outraged.

  “Of course I do. We found a dead body in their basement.”

  “Well … I’m sure it wasn’t them,” Nans sputtered. “I mean, they’re the nicest people, right Lexy?”

  “They do seem very nice,” Lexy replied.

  “Right. That’s what a lot of people say about killers.” Davies produced a notepad from her back pocket and a pen from her front. Poising the pen over the pad, she asked; “Do you know where I can find them?”

  Lexy rattled off the address. “But I’ve already talked to them and they don’t know a thing about it.”

  “Playing detective again?” Davies asked, then turned to Nans. “What about you, Mona?”

  “I’m not playing detective,” Nans bristled. “Got too much else going on.”

  “Well, no matter. I’ll have a little chat with them myself. I’m going to get to the bottom of this and find out what, exactly, went on in that neighborhood in the summer of 1955.” Davies cast a suspicious glance at Nans, pivoted on her booted heel and left.