Bakeshop Mystery 13 - Mocha, She Wrote

by Ellie Alexander

  Then there was Sammy. I didn’t know much about the reigning national Barista Cup champion, but she had been furious with her third-place finish. If I hadn’t witnessed the competition myself, I would have blown off the idea that a low placement for Sammy could be motive for murder, but now I wasn’t so sure. Her intensity when it came to coffee was like nothing I’d ever seen. She had mentioned that she might stop by Torte. I would have to cross my fingers that she would make an appearance at the bakeshop, or I would have to figure out a way to track her down. I hoped that she would show up at Torte so I could butter her up with some of our delectable lemon rosemary shortbread cookies and see if she might be more forthcoming.

  Doubtful, Jules, I said to myself as I passed the vast green lawns and impressive line of cherry trees on the Southern Oregon University campus. Summer school students lounged on beach blankets and tossed Frisbees. A group of cheerleading campers wearing matching blue T-shirts practiced pyramids on the grass. SOU hosted a variety of camps throughout the summer from cheerleading to theater—staffed by OSF actors—to science, held in its labs. I always enjoyed watching young campers trot around campus. The thought brought a slight tightness to my chest.

  Lately I’d been thinking more and more about children of my own. I wasn’t ready yet. That much I knew for sure. Carlos and I needed time together to rebuild our relationship before we considered having a baby. We had just found our way back together, I didn’t want to throw the stress of starting a family into the mix.

  The problem was that I didn’t have unlimited time. Yes, women were having babies well into their forties these days, but not without risk. If Carlos and I decided to take the plunge into parenthood at some point, I wanted to be young enough to enjoy the experience. The other looming question was whether Carlos was even interested in having more kids. He already had Ramiro, who was now fourteen years old. Was Carlos open to the idea of providing Ramiro with a sibling?

  I brushed the thought out of my mind as I continued down Siskiyou Boulevard toward the plaza. Carlos had been in Ashland for only a couple of months. Now wasn’t the time to broach the subject. However, I couldn’t put it off forever either.

  You don’t have to add that to your list of worries, Jules, I told myself as the creamy rooftop of Ashland Springs, the plaza’s only skyscraper, came into view. I had a tendency to overthink everything for better and for worse, and I didn’t need to ruminate on my future at the moment.

  When I arrived at Torte, every outdoor table was taken. Families enjoyed cold brew and our concrete milkshakes under large red and teal umbrellas mounted on each table. Banners advertising the upcoming Juneteenth celebration and Fourth of July parade hung from the antique streetlamps. Next door, at A Rose by Any Other Name, large tins with poppies, reedy grasses, and stargazer lilies sat in front of the window, which was draped in white with bridal bouquets in pale blushing palettes hanging from twine. I made a note to talk to Rosa and Steph after Andy finished the competition about doing a bridal showcase for our window display. It was hard to believe, but wedding season was upon us.

  Inside the bakeshop there was a line for pastries and generous scoops of concrete in our house-made waffle cones. “Hi Sequoia, I’m back. Do you need a hand?” I called.

  Sequoia had her dreadlocks twisted in a loose braid. Her hands flew in a choreographed rhythm as she poured shots over ice. “Nope. I’m good. Rosa could probably use some help, though.”

  Rosa stood behind the pastry case taking orders and payments, scooping creamy concretes, and boxing up pastries.

  I squeezed past the line and tied on an apron. “It looks like the afternoon rush came early.”

  She brushed her hands on her apron. “Only within the last few minutes. It’s been steady all day and then boom—it exploded! Everyone came at once.”

  I helped box and plate orders. Then I did a sweep of the dining room, refilling coffees and taking away empty dishes. Within twenty minutes the line had died down.

  “Thank you.” Rosa wiped her brow with the back of her hand. “That was quite the rush.”

  “Agreed.” I rearranged a stack of our diner-style mugs.

  Rosa closed the ice-cream cooler. “I was laughing with Carlos the other day. It’s funny to compare his Spanish to mine. You know there are many differences between the Spanish spoken in Spain versus Mexico. Take ‘ice cream’ for example. I would say ‘nieve,’ while Carlos calls it ‘helado.’” She emphasized her accent.

  “You told him your pronunciation was right, though?” I teased.

  “Yes. I let him know that he is absolutely butchering my native language.” Rosa’s face lit up when she smiled.

  Bethany came upstairs balancing two trays of black and white cupcakes, strawberry shortcakes, pecan shortbread, mini rhubarb pies, and lemon champagne cakes. “This is the last of it. Customers have gone through the pastries like crazy today.”

  “How’s everything in the kitchen?” I asked, making room for her to slide the trays into the pastry case.

  “Good. Sterling is finishing the last of the lunch orders. Marty is packaging the rest of the bread for delivery, and Steph and I are almost done with custom cakes. How did it go? No one has told me a word yet. We got caught up in the rush as soon as Marty and Steph came back. Actually, come to think of it, why are you all back? I can’t believe you’re already here. Is the competition over? Does that mean Andy didn’t win?”

  Since there was a lull in the line, I filled everyone in on what had happened.

  “Oh my God! I can’t believe it. Poor Andy. I hope Diaz gets in serious trouble for ruining his drink. Did they arrest him?” Bethany scowled. She twisted one of her curls around her finger. It was her tell. She had harbored feelings for Andy for a while. I wasn’t sure if he reciprocated the interest. Not because he wasn’t attracted to Bethany, but because he had been obsessed with coffee and the Barista Cup. Once the competition was over, I wondered if he would let some of the pressure he’d been putting on himself go.

  “I don’t know, but he has been kicked out of the competition.” I explained how the event was being rescheduled for tomorrow. “What do you think about closing up shop and having all of us go cheer him on?”

  “That would be awesome!” Bethany beamed. I could count on her for never-ending positivity. “We could even livestream it on social. That would be cool.”

  Sequoia and Rosa agreed that attending together would be good for Andy but also a fun team-building exercise.

  “Yeah, come to think of it, I’ll call James and see if I can get a reservation for dinner. We could do a late dinner after the event outside on the patio. What do you think?”

  “Count me in,” Bethany said.

  Rosa and Sequoia seconded her.

  I was excited about the possibility. Not only would it be nice to spend the evening with my hardworking staff outside of Torte, but it would also give me a reason to get in contact with James.

  I was about to go downstairs to fill Sterling, Marty, and Steph in on my plans when Sammy came in the front door.

  She wore a black leather biking jacket and a pair of dark sunglasses. A large cargo purse with coffee pins and badges was tucked on her arm.

  What luck.

  “You made it,” I said when she stepped up to the counter. “What can I get you? A coffee—dare I ask how you take it?”

  “How I take my coffee?” Sammy didn’t remove her sunglasses.

  “Yeah.”

  “Seriously. I take my coffee seriously.”

  I laughed. “I have no doubt about that. But, seriously what can I get you? It’s on the house.”

  “I wasn’t kidding. Coffee is my life.” She frowned, staring at me from behind the gray-toned lenses. “And, you don’t need to do that. I can pay my own way.”

  “No, I insist.” I glanced over to the windows where a booth had just opened up. “In fact, why don’t you go grab that booth? I’ll bring you an assortment of pastries for us to taste. You mentioned expanding your b
aking options, so I’ll grab some of everything we have in the case today.”

  “Uh, I guess.” She sounded unsure. “I wasn’t planning on hanging out for long. I have a lot of practicing to do.”

  “You should give yourself a little break. I told Andy the same thing.” I cut a slice of the lemon champagne cake that was layered with lemon curd and champagne buttercream. Then I added a pecan shortbread bar and a mini rhubarb pie. “Sequoia, will you make a couple of special drinks? I’m going to deliver this to Sammy.” I lowered my voice. “By the way, she’s one of the baristas Andy has been competing against. She’s won the last three years in a row, so make whatever you’re in the mood for.”

  “I’m totally down with that.” Sequoia reached for a gallon of almond milk. “I know just the drink.”

  “Great.” I took the pastries and joined Sammy. “Here’s a sampling of our baked goods.”

  “Impressive.” She had taken off her jacket and pushed her sunglasses on the top of her head. When she reached for a fork and took a stab of the champagne lemon cake, I couldn’t help but stare at her tattoos. They were all of coffee—coffee cups, coffee art, coffee beans, coffee sayings. It was impossible to tell where one tattoo began and another ended. Her skin reminded me of the tattoo sleeves the costume shop down the plaza sold for the Halloween parade.

  After savoring the lemon cake for a minute, she looked at me. “This is good. Like big-city level good. Not bad. I’m impressed.”

  “Thanks.” Sammy’s perspective didn’t surprise me. Many tourists who visited Ashland for the first time were shocked at the plethora of top-notch restaurants in town. For a small community, our food scene was on par with any major city on the West Coast. It was one of the many reasons I loved being a part of Ashland’s thriving downtown.

  Sequoia brought over two iced coffees. “This is our special today. It’s an iced almond milk latte infused with house-made simple almond syrup, vanilla, and a pinch of cocoa. You’ll see I went heavy on the froth.”

  She wasn’t kidding. Our drinks had nearly three inches of frothed foam on the top.

  “Cool. Cool.” Sammy gave her a nod. Whether it was of approval or disdain was difficult to tell, given that Sammy made Steph look effusive.

  “So you’re from Spokane,” I asked. “What’s the coffee culture like there?”

  “It’s small, but there are about ten or twelve indie shops doing pretty cool stuff. My place, Fluid, has been there for almost a decade now. We started when there was no one doing artisan coffee.” She rummaged through her purse looking for something.

  Sammy couldn’t be more than twenty-six or seven. When had she gotten in the business?

  She stopped searching her purse. She must have sensed my confusion. “I started working there part time when I was going to school at Gonzaga, and then once I graduated, I bought out the owner.”

  “That’s quite a feat for a recent college grad.” Now it was my turn to be impressed.

  “I had help. It was my parents’ graduation gift.” She sounded nonchalant.

  Nice gift, I thought.

  “When did you start competing?”

  She thought about it for a moment. “Probably five or six years ago. Right after I bought the shop. It was Benson who got me into the Barista Cup.”

  I tried to keep my expression neutral. Benson had gotten Sammy into the Barista Cup? Clearly they had had a lasting relationship. The question is, what did that mean in terms of his murder?

  Chapter Sixteen

  “How did Benson get you involved in the Barista Cup?” I asked, hoping my tone matched my passive expression.

  “He recruited a bunch of us back in the day.” Sammy pushed her purse to the side. She rubbed her forearms repeatedly as if we were in the middle of a Siberian snowstorm.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked.

  She took another bite of the cake, stabbing her fork with force to break off a piece of the light and airy slice. “I can’t find my medication. My doctor prescribed a pill that helps me relax during competitions.”

  That wasn’t a shocker. Sammy’s fierce approach to the Barista Cup would definitely fray her nerves. What I did wonder was whether the missing medication could be linked to Benson’s murder.

  “It’s missing?”

  She rubbed the back of her neck. “Yeah, I must have left them at the hotel.”

  I dropped the subject for the moment. “Anyway, what were you saying about Benson encouraging you to compete?”

  “That was the way things went when the Cup started. Listen, this is when the coffee scene was underground. You had to know the right people or get invited. It wasn’t the free-for-all it is now. There were no newbies. The Cup was reserved for the best of the best. I’m talking about baristas who lived and breathed coffee and understood the science, history, and culture that goes into each cup. I mean, any barista from Starbucks, or one of the big corporate coffee chains, can compete today, which is total crap if you ask me.”

  “Really, so Benson recruited baristas?” That seemed odd. Why would a judge recruit contestants? I didn’t bother to respond to Sammy’s commentary on who should or should not be allowed to compete in the challenge. I could tell that she and I likely had opposing viewpoints on that issue. Although her words may not have completely spelled it out, I suspected she her choice of “newbie” was a dig at Andy.

  Sammy answered my question before I’d had a chance to voice it. “He started the Barista Cup, you know that, right? It’s common knowledge.”

  “No, I didn’t know that.” That wasn’t entirely true, but I wanted to hear what she had to say.

  “Yeah. It was his baby.” Sammy stopped short of saying duh.

  “It sounded like it still was his baby.”

  “Yeah. He was pretty protective of the Cup. But he deserved to be. He built it from nothing to what it is today. You could say that he helped make coffee a trend. He was the Seattle Times food critic for years. Seattle was the hub of the coffee scene then. That’s where Starbucks started. Seattle’s Best, Tully’s, Caffe Vita. All the big players in coffee originated in Seattle. Once that trend started to take off, Benson began writing and reviewing coffee shops just like restaurants. He was one of the first critics to make the shift.”

  “I had no idea.” I took a drink of Sequoia’s frothy almond milk latte. The almond milk gave the coffee a light texture and brought out the nutty undertones in the roast.

  “Yeah, a good review from Benson could put you on the map, and a bad review could kill you. I had a bunch of friends who lost jobs because of his scathing reviews.” Her sunglasses slipped from her head. She readjusted the dark frames, using them like a headband to hold back her jet black hair.

  Losing a job could be motive for murder. I also found it interesting that she had used the word “kill” to describe getting a bad review.

  Sammy continued. “Benson did a five-part piece for the Seattle Times about Washington’s coffee regions. He came to Spokane and was pretty impressed with what we were doing at Fluid. It was a big deal for us. At the time, we had a faithful crowd of locals, but Benson helped put us on the map. People came from all over to try our coffee thanks to Benson’s write-up.”

  “How did that translate into competing?” I swirled the ice in my coffee.

  She scrunched her forehead in concentration. “I don’t really remember exactly. We kept in touch via email. Anytime he was in the area he would stop into Fluid to see what we were doing next. He kind of took me under his wing. I think he saw my potential. At some point when he and Piper decided to start the Barista Cup, he sent an email to a bunch of us asking if we’d be interested in competing.”

  “Wait, did you say he and Piper started the competition?” The line was starting to pick up at the counter. Sequoia placed four drinks on the bar and was working on the next order, while Rosa sent people off with bags of our house-made granola and pistachio cream pies. If the crowd continued to grow, I would need to excuse myself to go help them
.

  Sammy tapped her fork on the edge of her cake plate in rhythm, like she was playing the drums. “Yeah. They were a thing for a while. I think they lived together.”

  Woah. That was major news. Piper and Benson had been a couple?

  “When was this?” I asked.

  Sammy frowned. “I don’t know, I think six years ago, maybe five.”

  I wish I had a notebook with me. I tried to memorize everything Sammy was telling me. “And, you’ve been competing ever since?”

  “Basically. If you want to take competing seriously you have to treat it like a job. I’m lucky to be the sole owner of Fluid. I can dedicate my time at the coffee lab to practicing. I hired a coach after I went to nationals the first time. I finished in seventh place—not where I wanted to be. I knew I needed to level up. Ever since, I’ve made it my singular mission to win the Barista World Cup. That takes hours and hours of practice.” She took a taste of the drink and moved her head from side to side as if trying to decide if she approved of Sequoia’s creation. “Benson was good to me at the beginning.” She trailed off.

  “Did something change?”

  She cleared her throat. “No, not at all.”

  Was she lying?

  “Did Benson continue writing reviews for the Seattle Times?”

  “No. He gave that up a few years ago. There was a lawsuit. I don’t know the details, but a coffee roaster sued him for ruining their reputation and lost revenue.”

  That was interesting. “Do you know who?”

  “Nope. I don’t even know if that is true. It was rumored, but I never heard more about it.”

  I made another mental note to look into Benson’s past articles in the Seattle Times.

  Sammy finished the slice of cake. “I can’t eat all of this. It’s really good, but if I finish it, I’ll be in a sugar coma, especially since I’m already jacked up on caffeine.”