Houses and Homicide

by Alabaster, Stacey

  I shook my head and tried to fight back tears. “It’s not just that…” I said.

  I spilled everything to Jackson. “It’s all a complete disaster,” I said, almost breaking down in tears right there on the phone. “Without Cheryl, I don’t know what we’re going to do. The bakery might close, Pippa might lose her house…and I have to explain my failure to everyone.” Feeling stupid, I pulled myself together and took a deep breath. “I’m sure I just need to stay calm. There will be a way out. I’m sure we’ll hear back from The Pastry Tree soon.” But I’d left at least ten phone messages with their head office. I was starting to think we’d been entirely abandoned. Passed over for Blake and his on-trend eatery.

  Jackson was still there, listening, even if it was only to me sniffling and feeling sorry for myself.

  “We can talk about this in person, Rachael. If you like.”

  I could hear Kenneth’s footsteps coming out the front door. I gulped.

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” I said, quickly hanging up.

  Kenneth shoved his hands into the pockets of his blazer. That meant he’d already gone to the coat check. “Who was that on the phone?” he asked, like he already knew the answer.

  I stared down at the ended call and didn’t say anything.

  Kenneth shook his head. I felt bad, in a way, for walking out in the middle of the date like that. We hadn’t even ordered entrees. But I couldn’t take one more second of Kenneth pressuring me over The Pastry Tree and making me feel like I was doing the wrong thing getting into business with them, when it was the only choice I had. “Rachael? It was Jackson, wasn’t it?”

  I knew he would have loved to have blamed the failure of the date on Jackson. On the call. But it was more than that. If I couldn’t even talk to my own boyfriend about what was going on in my life, if I felt instead like I had to escape from him to talk about it with someone else, then what was the point of it all?

  “I think we should take a break,” I said, then walked off into the night on my own.

  Chapter 8

  Simona had insisted on having the day off the following Monday and I really couldn’t blame her. She did deserve the three-day weekend. She was taking night classes at the local college and didn’t need to spend every waking second of her time covering for me while her chemistry textbooks lay neglected on her nightstand.

  Pippa, still ensconced in farm business, could only make it in at the end of the day, so I had to struggle on, the best I could, until then. After a day of trying to juggle making coffees, taking orders, and running table service to a dining room, I had a newfound respect for Blake by mid-afternoon. That was when Pippa arrived with galoshes on her feet and overalls on her body. “You do know that we have a dress code here, don’t you?” I asked, only half kidding.

  She looked me up and down. “You don’t look so clean cut yourself today, missy.”

  I looked down at my stained and splatted lavender apron. Yes, well, being covered in frosting and batter was one thing, but being covered by mud and—was that fresh cow’s milk?—was another thing entirely.

  The last lingering customer shot Pippa a polite-but-perplexed smile as he gathered his newspaper and hurried out.

  I placed the tin of still warm milk that I’d been carrying on the counter. It badly needed rinsing out, but I had to take advantage of Pippa actually being there in the non-farm world for once.

  “Pippa, I need to find out what Blake was doing at the Golden Medallion that day. I think we should follow him again. See what he is really up to.”

  But once again, Pippa was far less interested in who had killed Cheryl Spellman, and far more interested in who was taking over Cheryl’s vacant position at The Pastry Tree. More to the point, who was taking over her vacant position as our business partner.

  “What is happening with the business?” Pippa asked me frantically. Her hair was a little matted. It looked more like a bird’s nest than human hair. She actually looked like she hadn’t slept for weeks. There was also a faint…farm smell about her that I couldn’t quite narrow down to one thing. The cow’s milk probably wasn’t helping matters.

  “I don’t know…” I muttered, trying to balance the till before we closed. The tin of warm milk was solidifying beside me. I was still holding out a faint hope that I could get out of there in time to follow Blake as well, but I saw that the time was almost four already and sighed.

  “Well, can you call The Pastry Tree and find out?” Pippa asked.

  She was still pacing back and forth. “If I can’t make the first payment on the house, I am going to lose it…and not just the house. I mean, I am going to lose control. Completely.” She shook her head. “I’m not sure I can deal with the stress of being a homeowner.”

  I did think she was probably overacting, just a touch. “I can still pay you a wage, Pippa, even if it’s not going to be as high as the one you would have gotten with The Pastry Tree.”

  She spun around. “But it’s not enough!” She exclaimed. “And without The Pastry Tree, how long is it going to be before you can’t afford to pay me a wage at all? Not even a paltry one?”

  I sighed. That was kinda harsh. But there was probably some truth in it. Dough Planet was already taking our customers, and if they joined forces with The Pastry Tree, we really would be in trouble. I slammed the drawer of the till shut and the whole thing rattled. “Fine. I will call the head office in the morning. Again.” I was worried they would just ignore my messages again, though. “And I guess if they don’t get back to me this time, we’ll just have to go into the city and knock on their doors ourselves.”

  Pippa shook her head and a piece of hay fell out onto the floor. “Let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that,” she said. “You know what happened last time we went to the city to take a meeting with The Pasty Tree.”

  She pulled a straw hat out of one of her overall pockets and placed it on her head. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some animals to tend to.”

  She flounced out the door looking like some kind of mad scarecrow and I was just left there, staring at that piece of hay on the floor.

  As it turned out, I didn’t need to call anyone. And we didn’t have to take any trains into the city. Thank goodness. That was the last thing in the world I wanted to do.

  When Pippa and I arrived at the front door of the bakery the following morning, we had a special guest waiting for us.

  “Who is that?” Pippa whispered.

  He was about forty, with light blonde hair that was almost translucent, and pale skin that looked like it rarely saw daylight. Figured. He probably spent all his time in boardrooms. Even Cheryl looked like she got her hands dirtier than this guy.

  “Do you think he is from The Pastry Tree?” Pippa whispered. There was a hint of excitement in her voice, but I wasn’t willing to jump to conclusions just yet. But anyone waiting for us wearing a designer suit and carrying a suitcase had to have come from some kind of boardroom. Or a lawyer’s office. I just hoped it was the former.

  “Hello, I’m Jarrod Simmons,” he said, extending a hand for me to shake. His hands were a little bony and I quickly pulled mine away. “I am the new head of acquisitions and franchises at The Pastry Tree.”

  Right. Good. I let out a long sigh. So this Jarrod fellow had taken over Cheryl’s position, then.

  But did he know what Cheryl had been up to? Did he know that Cheryl had been courting not one bakery in Belldale but two, and lying to them both? Was he in on it too?

  “We’d love to talk to you about our merger,” he stated, looking at our bakery out of the corner of his eye with what looked to me like suspicion.

  I looked around. “We?”

  “Well, I mean, it’s just myself here today. Acting on behalf of the company.”

  I was starting to get a bad feeling about all of this. Cheryl had added more of the personal touch—that was one of the reasons we, or I, had wanted to work with her. This guy had no personal touch. I didn’t think
anyone who uses the royal We does.

  “We should talk inside,” I said. “There are plenty of spare tables for us to sit at.” Too many spare tables, if I was being honest. Business hadn’t been this slow in months. I couldn’t help but worry if Dough Planet had something to do with it. They’d been creeping up the rankings on the Belldale restaurant review site for the past few days and they still hadn’t gotten less than five stars for any of their reviews.

  Meanwhile, we were sitting on a 4.75 star rating, which was still amazing, just not perfect like Dough Planet apparently was. They may have been small but they could have a big impact if word of mouth picked up. Which I was starting to think it had.

  That was probably how they had even caught the eye of The Pastry Tree in the first place.

  “Wow. It’s very…purple in here,” Jarrod commenting, setting his briefcase down on a table. He still didn’t look very sure about the place. He was staring at the decor like it hurt his eyes.

  “It’s lavender,” Pippa commented.

  When she walked in, Simona looked at us like that cat who got the cream. If we’d had our meeting in the kitchen or my office, we would have had a lot more privacy, but I didn’t want to risk Jarrod accidentally sitting in a pile of flour and ruining his five-thousand-dollar suit.

  Simona sidled over to our table with a notepad like she was ready to take our order. She placed three menus down on the table for us to look at while I glared at her. She opened her mouth to say something, but I stood up and gently pulled her back to the front counter.

  “That is an important customer,” I whispered. “Please be on your best behavior.”

  “So, I heard about Cheryl Spellman,” she said.

  I felt my cheeks burn a little but I tried to keep my cool. “It’s nothing for you to worry about.”

  “Who’s that guy then?” she asked, nodding towards Jarrod.

  “He’s just a potential investor,” I said. Luckily we were saved by a customer walking in through the door. A real one who actually needed menus and an order taken. I hurried back to the table and apologized to Jarrod and Pippa for keeping them waiting.

  He wasn’t like Cheryl. She’d been friendly, acted like an actual human being even while taking part in business dealings with us. Asked how we were and even invited us out to lunch a few times. This guy was all corporate. Even if they still wanted to work with us, did we want to work with them?

  I caught the glare Pippa was sending me. I guessed the answer, as far as she was concerned, was yes, we did. I was clearly supposed to be on my best behavior as well.

  He opened up his briefcase and pulled put a bunch of files. They weren’t like the ones Cheryl usually had with her, with bright colors and logos. These just seemed like a string of numbers and figures.

  He looked serious as he checked—or maybe pretended to check—over the numbers. I could tell he had no intention of setting us at ease. He wanted us to feel on edge, like we desperately needed to impress him. And he also wanted us to know that we were falling short by a longshot.

  “With all due respect to Miss Spellman, she did have a habit of making some rash decisions, girls,” he said, condescendingly. It really rubbed me the wrong way. Not just the ‘girls’ part, but the way he just had to let us know that any interest Cheryl might have had in our bakery was due to one of her silly little whims. He cleared his throat and quickly added, “Not that I wish to speak ill of the dead.”

  No, of course not.

  Pippa and I looked at each other. We were both getting the bad feeling that we were one of these rash decisions. “But rash decisions can still be good decisions…right?” Pippa asked, hopefully.

  Jarrod looked like he was trying to suppress a scoff. “We are going to have to take a look at the numbers again. See if this is actually a wise decision.” He cast a scathing look over the decor of the bakery and frowned at the menu I had printed on the wall in front of him. “And there are going to have to be a lot of changes around here. I mean, a lot.” He stared at us. “I hope you girls are up to that.”

  I swallowed, trying to ignore the patronizing language.

  “Of course,” I said through a gritted teeth smile. “We understand.”

  The next thing he said surprised me. “But,” he added, “if everything seems up to code, I believe that we will go ahead with the merger.”

  Pippa was practically jumping out of her seat with joy.

  Jarrod stood up. “Thanks, girls,” he commented, throwing one last distasteful look at the bakery. “I’ll be back in contact soon.”

  Jarrod climbed into his black BMW and drove off, leaving me a little stunned. Was it all going to be that easy? Was their secret deal with Dough Planet actually off, then?

  Maybe they think that Blake killed Cheryl as well.

  Pippa turned to me with a wide grin. “Isn’t this just amazing?” she said, clapping her hands together. “Oh, I am so excited I could burst.”

  “I’m not sure,” I said slowly, picking up a sugar packet to play with.

  “What are you talking about?” Pippa exclaimed. “Jarrod is like a knight that just rode in on a white horse to save us all!”

  “Okay, that’s a little much.” I looked around to make sure Simona wasn’t eavesdropping on our conversation. Turned out she was, and not very subtly either. She had cleaned the table next to us three times already and she was just about to spray it with cleaning solution again. “I’m pretty sure you can see your reflection in it by now,” I stated.

  “Fine then.” She shot me a look and walked back behind the counter.

  I lowered my voice when I turned back to Pippa. “I don’t trust the guy,” I said.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “Think about it. He only got this big promotion when Cheryl died, right? And he seemed pretty resentful of her,” I stated. “He didn’t seem to think she was very good at her job.”

  Pippa was just crestfallen at my words. “Please tell me you are not accusing our new investor of being guilty of murder. Please, Rachael, tell me that’s not where you are going with this.”

  I shrugged. “He’s got the motive, doesn’t he? And he didn’t seem to be very sad about her passing.”

  Pippa rubbed her temples and pushed her chair back. “Oh my goodness, I cannot deal with this right now. I need some fresh air.”

  I followed her outside.

  I could tell she was mad at me by the way she completely turned away and refused to look at me when I joined her out the front. She was acting like I was invisible. And when I started to speak, she also acted like my words didn’t make any sound.

  Real mature.

  But I could see where she was coming from. She’d just had a reprieve, a piece of good news, and I had cast a long dark shadow over it.

  “Look,” I said with a sigh. “I know that you really, really want this deal to go through. Believe me, I get it.”

  “Do you?” she asked in a huff. “Because you didn’t just sign a deal with an angry real estate agent.”

  No, maybe not, but we were talking about the bakery I had started with my own money five years earlier. The one I had literally put my name to. That was about to be stripped away, and that was only the best case scenario. The worst case scenario was that I would lose it all together. So I had a lot at stake too.

  “I’ll give Jarrod a chance, okay?” I said.

  But after five minutes of fresh air, Pippa seemed to have come around to my original way of thinking. She suddenly looked a little forlorn. “What if he is involved in Cheryl’s death, though? Do we really want to get into bed—metaphorically speaking—with a murderer?”

  But I wasn’t fully listening to her question. I was distracted by a figure down at the other end of the street, with jet black hair. I squinted and leaned forward a little. When he spotted me, he quickly dashed into a shop. But after about thirty seconds, he came out again, sharply turning around and stalking off in the opposite direction.

  “Is that Blake?�
�� I asked, pointing to the figure who was practically jogging away after being spotted. “What is he doing round here?”

  Pippa looked to where I was pointing and shrugged. “It’s a small town. We’re going to run into people we know. You’ve probably seen him a hundred times before and not even realized it.”

  “I guess so.” She was probably right, but I still hadn’t figured out what he was doing at the Golden Medallion the other day—and what he had just done. That was not normal behavior. It was the behavior of someone who’d just got caught snooping around. Believe me, I should know.

  Pippa looked at her phone and saw something that made her gasp. Her face fell and she put her hand up to her mouth like she was about to throw up. I saw that her hand was shaking. “Rachael, something is wrong with the house.”

  “Yeah, you’ve started up a barnyard in a residential area.”

  She shook her head. “No, not that. Oh, shoot, I’ve got to go…” She started running toward the car we’d arrived in that morning, which was actually my car.

  Well, I guess I was driving then.

  “Can you tell me what happened?” I asked as I pulled my car out of the tight space.

  “I-I don’t know. Marcello texted me saying that the house is…that…” Her voice was shaking. “That the house is laying in ruins, Rachael!”

  Ruins? How could that have happened?

  “Oh, Rachael, I’m so worried,” Pippa said. “Can you drive a little faster?”

  Well, no, not without breaking the law.

  “I can’t think what could have possibly happened,” Pippa murmured.

  I started the car and headed towards Pippa’s new house. Pippa was white the whole time, murmuring to herself. “Just when I started to think that maybe things could turn around.”

  “It’s probably just Marcello,” I said. Personally, I wouldn’t have left him alone unattended in the house for this long already. “You know what he gets up to.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think this is Marcello’s fault. For once.”

  My jaw fell open when we arrived and I saw the destruction. The roof of the purple cottage seemed to have completely caved in at the center. There were loose wood boards jutting out at crazy angles, and smashed glass at the side of the house where the windows had smashed. “It looks like a tornado has torn through the street,” I murmured. Except for the fact that every other house on the street was still standing, so it would have had to have been a pretty localized tornado.