Fudging the Books

by Daryl Wood Gerber

  “Do you think Alison knows her brother has an iffy reputation?” Coco asked.

  “She’s sharp,” Bailey said. “I’ll bet she does. I’m sorry she didn’t join us, but here’s to you.” Bailey raised a toast to Coco. “To your continued success.”

  Coco tapped her glass to Bailey’s and mine. “I couldn’t have done it without you. You hooked me up with Alison.”

  “Speaking of hookups,” I said, “is Alison into Dash?”

  “Huh? Heavens, no!” Coco shook her head. “Dash is, well, at least I think he is into another type.”

  “No way,” I said.

  “I don’t think so, either,” Bailey said. “I saw the way he looked at her.” She batted her eyelashes. “Dreamy eyed.”

  “Maybe you missed my innuendo.” Coco tittered. “He’s gay.”

  “Uh-uh,” I said. “I know gay and he’s not. Remember, we lived in San Francisco.” I wagged a finger between Bailey and me.

  “So does he,” Coco teased.

  “That doesn’t make a guy gay,” I said. “He’s totally into Alison.”

  Bailey bobbed her head, agreeing with me.

  “Ingrid hinted at the same thing I’m implying.” Coco winked. “She said Dash was taking pictures of pirates.”

  “Yes,” I said, “but Dash corrected her. Quite vehemently.”

  “Perhaps he doth protest too much.” Coco took a sip of wine. “Maybe you didn’t know, but Dash is staying with that jewelry store owner. The one who sells those gorgeous pearls.” She shot a finger at me. “You know the guy I’m talking about. He wears tight jeans and T-shirts with the funky logos on them. Pierced earrings in his ears. And usually dozens of glitzy bracelets.”

  “That doesn’t make him gay, either,” I said. “That makes him an entrepreneur showing off his wares.”

  Coco laughed. “Either way, Alison isn’t into Dash. She’s not into anybody, as far as I know. I wish she had a boyfriend. She could use a little love, if you know what I mean. She has worked so hard to take her publishing company to the next level. But there’s no one in her life. At the very least, she should go on a vacation.”

  I said, “Maybe she wouldn’t enjoy such success if she slacked off.”

  “Is that why she hired Ingrid?” Bailey asked. “To ease the load?”

  Coco leaned in and whispered, “Between you and me, I think Ingrid might add to the load. You heard Alison. Ingrid is a stickler for detail. That can slow down the editing process.”

  “You don’t want a shoddy product out on the market, do you?” Bailey asked.

  “No,” Coco said. “You’re right. I love the quality of books Alison puts out. Each one is individual and unique. You heard the fans tonight. They love the photographs, the paper, the high-gloss covers.” She air-painted her vision with her fingers. “No, I want Alison to keep on doing what she does, as well as she does.”

  “To Alison.”

  We all toasted. Then the three of us yawned, and soon after, we called it a night.

  • • •

  EARLY FRIDAY MORNING, way before the sun was due to rise, the landline telephone next to my bed rang. It rarely did. I used my cell phone for practically every call. But Aunt Vera, who owned the cottage I lived in—her house was situated less than a hundred yards away—had installed the old-style telephone. She insisted I keep it in service. I didn’t pay rent. How could I refuse?

  I flopped onto my stomach and reached for the jangling disturbance. Tigger, who had nestled at my feet, roused. I told him to go back to sleep. He didn’t; he roamed in a circle and pawed the comforter.

  “Hello?” I rasped.

  “Jenna.” Bailey sounded stuffed up, like she had a raging cold. “I’ve been calling your cell phone. You weren’t answering. I had to resort—” She sniffed. “Come to Coco’s house. Please. Right now. I can’t believe it. I can’t—”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Alison . . . is dead.”

  Chapter 5

  COCO CHASTAIN LIVED in a darling house, not unlike my one-room cottage where the kitchen blended with the living room and bedroom, except her house was located in the swank part of Crystal Cove, near the top of the mountain, right around the corner from Nature’s Retreat Hotel, which was a fabulous inn tucked into a grove of oaks. Most of the houses in the area were similar in size to Coco’s. Many had been purchased by out-of-towners who wanted a simple but elegant vacation abode.

  When I arrived at the house, Deputy Appleby, with whom I’ve had a verbal run-in or two in the past—he has been nicer ever since he started wooing my aunt—tried to block me from entering. He was big and burly. His moose-like face didn’t flinch. “Uh-uh,” was all he said.

  “Bailey called me. Let me pass. Please.”

  “Deputy, it’s okay.” Cinnamon Pritchett, who was positioned directly inside the door, waved to allow me through. She didn’t say a word to me as I crossed the threshold. She stood erect, shoulders rigid, jaw set. Her gaze moved deliberately around the expansive room, which was tastefully done in pink tones. The floor mats, towels, and kitchen pots and pans matched the décor.

  Bailey and Coco huddled near the refrigerator, holding hands. Bailey looked scruffy, like something out of the movie Flashdance, in her leggings and sweatshirt with the collar cut off. Her eyes were puffy; her lips trembled. Coco, who was still wearing the formfitting magenta dress she had worn to the cookbook club soiree, looked torn up, too. Mascara streaked her face. Her foot drilled the hardwood floor.

  Alison Foodie laid slumped forward onto the antique oak kitchen table, her back to the front door, her face buried in her folded arms. She, too, was dressed in the clothes she had worn to the book club event, although the red-toned tartan was slung over the back of another chair. A laptop computer stood open on the table about an arm’s length from Alison’s head, as if she had pushed it away to take a nap. A pair of intricate kitchen shears jutted from her back. There was a lot of blood. Some of it dried. She had to have been dead for hours.

  On the kitchen counter to the right of the kitchen table stood a knife block, a toaster, a hot pink kitchen tool crock filled with pink-toned utensils, an opened recipe box, which was stuffed with recipe cards, a KitchenAid mixer, six or seven decorative floral canisters, a dusting of flour, a bag of cocoa pinched with a clip, and the remainder of a stick of butter. The scent of nutmeg hung in the air. A tray of bite-sized chocolate chip cookies sat cooling on a rack set on top of the stove. Had Alison baked them? Why? Hadn’t our delicious meal satisfied her appetite? The sink held a number of bowls, measuring cups, and mixing blades.

  On the table beside the computer rested a Sweet Sensations mug and a china plate. A decorative silver tea strainer as well as the remnants of a chocolate cookie sat on the plate. The window beyond the kitchen table was black with a faint hue of gray around the edges—dawn had not yet broken. I could see the reflection of Cinnamon, the deputy, and the rest of us.

  Cinnamon looked like she was ruing the day she had accepted the position of chief of police now that we’d had four—no, five—murders since August, the month I returned to town. Thoughts about me being a bad luck charm for Crystal Cove whizzed through my head. I pushed them aside. My aunt assured me that my karma was no worse than anyone else’s. My father said sometimes cities went through tragic cycles. He had seen it all too often in his previous line of work. He used to be an FBI agent; now he owned a hardware shop in town.

  Finally, Cinnamon said, “Good morning, Jenna.”

  “Not so good. Not so morning.”

  “Right.” She rolled her lower lip between her teeth.

  “Did you just arrive?” I asked.

  “Moments ago. Why are you here?”

  “As I tried to tell Deputy Appleby, Bailey called me.”

  Cinnamon cut a look at Bailey and back at me. “How well did you know Ali—” She stopped herself from using Alison’s familiar name. “Miss Foodie?”

  “Well enough. Bailey introduced us. We were years ap
art at school. I think she was your age. Did you know her?”

  “Yes.” One word. Clipped off. No elaboration. “Miss Bird—” Cinnamon crooked a finger.

  Bailey released Coco’s hand and hurried over. “Please call me Bailey,” she said to the chief. “I hate my last name. It’s so . . . frivolous.” Bailey often wished her mother, after she divorced Bailey’s father, would have switched back to her maiden name, Hastings, but she didn’t. How could Bailey? “You probably want the rundown.”

  Cinnamon nodded.

  Bailey moistened her lips. “Coco found Alison when she came home. She was distraught.”

  “Naturally.”

  “She called me seconds later.”

  I cut in. “She came home as in, she was out? Where did she go?” We had called it a night around ten.

  “Out.”

  “Out?” Cinnamon echoed.

  Bailey worked her tongue around the inside of her mouth. “On a date.”

  I peeked at Coco. So that was why she hadn’t changed clothes. “Who did she go out with?”

  “She won’t say.”

  “Won’t?” Cinnamon shot a look at Coco.

  I whispered to Bailey, “If she was getting it on, why did she come back before dawn?”

  “She wanted to shower and switch into her uniform before going to work.”

  I gave my pal a knowing look. Coco very easily could have taken her uniform with her on the so-called date. I would bet she kept a uniform at the shop, too. There was another reason she would have come home early. “Is the guy married?” I asked.

  Bailey scrunched up her mouth. “Probably, but who am I to throw stones?” Much to her dismay, Bailey had dallied with a married man in the past. He was out of her life now. She ditched him. But she still had emotional scars.

  I glanced from Coco, who was studying the toe of her high heel and plucking at the seams of her dress, to Alison. Then I glanced past Alison, at the opened computer sitting on the table. At Taylor & Squibb, I had a reputation for being able to read upside down as well as at a distance. At times an executive needs to know what notes her subordinates are passing around behind her back. Yes, there had been a few who didn’t like me. Early on in my career, I had been a stickler for detail. I had earned a few colleagues’ wrath until I learned to ease up.

  On Alison’s computer, four Word documents were open. The topmost read: Chocolate Bombs. Right below it was another file, Mother’s Chocolate Bombs. I peered at the lower icon bar. All other programs, other than Word, were closed.

  I whispered, “Bailey, what was Alison working on?” and pointed at the computer. “Did you get a closer look?”

  Bailey edged in that direction. Cinnamon grabbed her arm to thwart her. At the same time, a woman screamed. We all spun to face the front door.

  Ingrid Lake, the copyeditor at Foodie Publishing, was clawing Deputy Appleby. “Let me in. Tell me it’s not true. Alison?” Ingrid, so reserved at the book club event earlier, looked jittery. Her sculpted hair was in a snarl. Her already pale face looked as white as paper. Her teeth still didn’t move, but that was understandable. Fear was making me grit my teeth, too. “Let me in,” she demanded. The deputy continued to restrain her.

  “Who alerted her?” I asked.

  “I called Alison’s mother,” Coco said. “I thought Wanda should know about”—Coco winced—“her daughter. Wanda must have told Ingrid.”

  Bailey said, “Ingrid looks like a wreck.”

  I had to agree. She looked like she hadn’t checked herself in a mirror. Neither had I, come to think of it. Was my hair sticking out at odd angles?

  “Let me in,” Ingrid demanded. “If Alison’s dead, I’m second-in-command.”

  “No, she’s not,” Coco said to Cinnamon, then whirled on Ingrid. “No, you’re not. You’re a copyeditor, not a partner.”

  Cinnamon strode to Ingrid and the deputy. She blocked Ingrid from progressing farther inside. “I’m sorry. You are . . . ?”

  “Ingrid Lake.”

  “You were the company’s second-in-command?”

  Ingrid’s gaze narrowed. “Well, no, not really,” she said, her teeth still locked, her lips doing all the work. “Not officially. Not yet. I’m on track to be a partner. Alison was drawing up papers, until . . .” She heaved a sigh and slung a hand in Coco’s direction. “Coco is right. For now, I’m just the copyeditor, but there are only the two of us, Alison and me, and with her dead, that puts me in charge.”

  What about Dash Hamada? Could a photographer be second-in-command at a publishing house? Was he exclusive to Foodie Publishing? Had Alison considered herself anything other than a one-woman operation?

  “She did it!” Ingrid stared daggers at Coco. “She killed Alison.”

  “What?” Coco’s voice skipped upward.

  Why on earth would Ingrid say something so ridiculous?

  “No.” Coco wagged her head. “I . . . I was out. On a date. I came back and found Alison like that.” She pointed at the body. “The shears were already there, poking out of her, and I—” She slapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh no.” Coco swung around to face Cinnamon. “I touched them. My fingerprints will be on them. I mean, they would be anyway because I use them.” She splayed her hands. “But, you see, I rushed to Alison. I thought I could help. And I grasped them by the handle. But then I realized I shouldn’t pull them out. I’ve seen the movies. She would bleed more. So I released them, and I . . . I—”

  “Don’t believe her!” Ingrid shrieked. “She did it.”

  Coco sank into herself, wrapping her arms around her rib cage. Her chest was heaving. I wished I could comfort her.

  Cinnamon held up a warning hand to all of us not to move and drew near to Coco. “What time did you get home, Miss Chastain?”

  Coco flushed fuchsia pink. “Just a bit ago. I . . .” She hesitated.

  Where had she been? With whom? Coco didn’t add more. Why not? Who was she protecting?

  “Are those your shears?” Cinnamon asked.

  “Yes,” Coco said. “They’re Messermeister take-apart utility shears.”

  I owned a pair of utility shears. My aunt had stocked my kitchen with a variety of tools. The shears, in addition to cutting through poultry and snipping herbs, could act as a screwdriver, jar lid opener/gripper, knife, and nutcracker. In my opinion, the knife aspect of the shears would have been a better choice of weapon than scissors.

  On the other hand, the murderer would have needed to pull the shears apart, which suggested that he . . . or she . . . hadn’t had time to disassemble them; the killer had acted swiftly. Had he or she—I hated to consider Coco a suspect, but I had to, right?—come into the house to confront Alison, seen the scissors in the knife block, and seized upon the idea to kill her? Was it spur-of-the-moment? Unplanned? Why hadn’t Alison twisted around in her chair? Had she been so focused on the documents on her computer that she’d been blind to all other intrusions? Perhaps she had attempted to close the computer, which would explain why it sat nearer the center of the table. What were the documents she had been working on?

  “My mother gave me the shears the day I graduated culinary school,” Coco went on, still clutching herself like a lifeline. Tears pooled in her eyes. “She . . . she was so proud of me. She was the one who taught me to cook. I stowed the shears in the knife block.” She released her hold and flailed a hand in that direction. “Anybody could have used them. I never would have—” She jammed the knuckles of her right hand into her mouth.

  Cinnamon strode to the front door and assessed the knob and lock. “The entry has not been compromised. Someone must have used a key to gain access. Are you the only person with a key to this house, Miss Chastain?”

  “Yes, I’m the only one with a key, but”—Coco glanced tearfully from me to Bailey to Cinnamon—“I don’t lock the front door. Ever. It’s a bad habit, I know, but I never use a key.”

  Was she crazy?

  “We live in such a safe neighborhood,” Coco added.
r />   In this day and age, that was just darned naïve.

  Coco swallowed hard. “Please, you have to believe me. Why would I want Alison dead? We were friends. I didn’t do this. Someone is framing me.” She swiveled and glowered at Ingrid with such spite that the young woman retreated a step.

  “Chief Pritchett,” I said, doing her the honor of calling her by her title, not her first name, “what document was Alison working on?”

  “Why?” Cinnamon tilted her head. Her eyes narrowed.

  “She must have been completely focused on her work not to have noticed her killer.” I gestured to the window and explained my reasoning. It was dark out. The reflection worked like a mirror. “If she did see the killer, she trusted whoever it was.”

  “You see?” Ingrid shouted. “That proves it. Coco did it. She lives here. Alison wouldn’t have swiveled in her seat to talk to her.”

  Though I didn’t like the young copyeditor, I had to agree with her. But Alison was familiar with a lot more people in town than simply Coco. On the other hand, anyone other than Coco entering the house unannounced between midnight and now would have been suspect, right?

  No, Jenna. Coco did not do this.

  “I’ll bet . . .” Ingrid inhaled sharply, her thoughts coming faster than her breath. “I’ll bet Alison told Coco about the cuts she was making.”

  Coco visibly bristled. “What cuts?”

  All heads turned toward her.

  “To your latest manuscript,” Ingrid said. “You were getting too wordy. Alison said you would throttle her for the myriad cuts she was making.”

  Cuts. Were the scissors metaphorical? I gazed at Cinnamon, who appeared to be wondering the same thing, her gaze roving from the scissors to Coco and back again.

  “Uh-uh.” Coco wagged a finger. “We were done with edits on my latest manuscript. We’d already gone through that phase.”