Vangie Vale and the Murdered Macaron (The Matchbaker Mysteries Book 1)

by R. L. Syme

  Sighing, I tried to sit up in bed. I didn’t have a television in my bedroom, but I wasn’t as tired now as I had been earlier. Part of me wished I’d taken Derek up on his offer to stay.

  I read more of Norman’s sermons until Emma showed up with a plate of cookies. I would never read his sermons in the same way again. He’d helped me to catch a murderer. I’d never met the man, but I loved him just the same.

  Emma sat with me, catching me up on the work that was being done at the bakery, which she’d promised to oversee. While it was still technically a crime scene, the window, at least, was getting fixed.

  She took me out into the living room, and we watched an old episode of Sherlock, one of my favorites, before she left me to my own devices. I could move without too much pain, right after the drugs settled in, and I tried my best to fix a sandwich in the kitchen. Peanut butter and chokecherry jam. That was about all I could manage with only one good arm.

  I sat down to watch another episode of Sherlock and looked out my window to see it was dark outside. The shades had been pulled closed on Malcolm’s guest bedroom, so I couldn’t tell if he was home or not. His driveway was on the other side of the house. Sometimes, I could see the end of his Bronco sticking out, but not tonight.

  A little breeze startled me, and my heart motored. “Derek?” I called out, waiting for a response. “Emma?” I asked. No answer.

  I swallowed hard, glaring at the dark kitchen. Creepy flute music floated out of my TV, like a soundtrack to my murder. Gathering all of my courage, I stood up and walked toward the kitchen.

  A woman’s voice came out of the television, talking about tea, and I just about jumped when I saw something move in the corner of my eye. But it wasn’t in the kitchen. It was outside. I went to the window, and there was a truck parked out on the street. Someone was walking toward it.

  On the table, just where I’d left it the morning of the bakery break-in, was Scarlet’s brown leather journal.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  I burst through the front door, out into the night, and hurried around the house. I recognized the big, broad back of Mike Van Andel. He swiveled to look at me when I called his name, but then he kept right on walking, hurrying his pace.

  “Did you just break into my house?” I yelled after him, following him off my lawn and onto the street. He finally stopped, leaning on the vehicle and panting.

  “The door was open.” He didn’t look at me as he said it.

  “It wasn’t.”

  “Yes, it was.”

  “Well, I’ll have to ask Emma not to leave my doors open anymore,” I said, reaching him. I stayed a few feet back, just in case, but walked around so he would have to look at me. “Was it you who broke in on Friday morning?”

  Mike sighed and finally glanced up. He looked horrible. I did not feel sorry for him.

  “It was Stefan.”

  My stomach tightened. “You saw Stefan?”

  “The last time I saw him was Friday morning. He came over with Scarlet’s journal.” Mike held out a hand, like he was offering a truce. “I didn’t have anything to do with all that stuff with Nikki. I promise.”

  “Then why did you want the journal?”

  Mike looked away, sagging against his truck. “I assumed you knew. Malcolm didn’t tell you?”

  I looked up at the sheriff’s house. The living room light was on, and the television seemed to be on, too, but I didn’t see the sheriff himself.

  “He didn’t tell me anything about you, other than that he’d questioned you and believed you weren’t hiding Stefan.”

  “I didn’t have anything to do with Nikki’s crazy murder stuff, and I’m not hiding my brother,” Mike said, suddenly angry. He moved his body forward, like he might come at me, but he lacked either the stones or the motivation.

  “I don’t believe that,” I said.

  “I really didn’t.” He shook his head. “I just needed to see the journal. I needed to know what Henry had told her.”

  “About what?”

  Mike’s gaze flipped down, and he chewed on his lip. “About Austin. About the party.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He shook his head. “It’s really none of your business. I don’t owe you anything.”

  I cleared my throat and pointed at my shoulder, then at my head, where they’d had to shave away part of my hair so they could put stitches in my skull. All tokens of my near-death brush with Nikki.

  “That’s not my fault,” he said.

  “Why do I have a feeling that if you’d just told someone whatever it is you’re hiding, none of this would have happened?” I grunted out a laugh. “No, let me take a crack at it, okay, Mike? I’ve had plenty of time to think this through.”

  “Don’t,” he warned.

  “C’mon, let me take a wild guess.” I crossed my good arm over my bad one. A little twinge caught me off-guard, but I gritted my teeth and kept right on talking. I deserved answers, and I was going to get them. “Rewind eighteen years. You and a bunch of buddies took advantage of a drunk girl at a party. You’re really not as original as you think you are, unfortunately, as far as douchebaggery goes…”

  “That’s not what happened.” He shook his head, but I was on a roll.

  “Oh, no, I bet it’s exactly what happened.”

  He launched at me, stopping just short of hitting me. My breath was heaving and my hands were balled into tight fists, but I’d held my ground. If he did anything to me on the street in front of Malcolm’s house, Mike Van Andel would go to jail for his entire life.

  “You don’t understand,” he said. “We were all so drunk. After Henry had been with her, he passed out, and then, Claire was so… she was on everyone. And I wasn’t the only one who had sex with her that night. It was…” He punched his truck, and I took a tiny step back. “One night. We had one bad night, and Claire has made us all pay for it for eighteen years.”

  My nostrils flared as emotion misted my eyes. I’d been more right than I had thought. Up until now, I had just been a guess that had slowly taken on more shape as I thought through Claire’s bribery, and why Mike was so deeply involved in the whole situation. If Mike had been involved, given how much older he’d been than everyone else…

  I did some quick math in my head. Not only had he been older, but…

  “Good Lord in heaven,” I whispered. “You were married.” I stepped backward. The dynamic of the conversation had just shifted. I looked back at Malcolm’s house, my heart suddenly beating quite fast.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, a sad note in his voice. “My life was ruined as soon as Claire was murdered. Everything was bound to come out after that.”

  “Does Malcolm know about all of this?”

  Mike nodded, leaning back against his truck. “Now he does. Nikki told him in her confession. Statute of limitations is up, for both Stefan and I, but—”

  “So, your brother was with you.” I took another step toward Malcolm’s house.

  The two brothers, Henry, and maybe others had all been partying with Claire on the same night. Who knew how many people were involved with this. How many maybe fathers Austin really had.

  “We all thought Claire’s kid was ours, although she never produced him, through years of blackmail, but we never knew it was Austin. We all thought that Austin was Auggie’s. For a long time, I didn’t even know Claire had been in contact with Stefan, or Henry. None of us wanted to talk about it. We all thought Henry had killed Claire, and we understood why. She had tortured and extorted us for years.”

  I couldn’t listen anymore. I turned around and walked back toward my house. It didn’t surprise me to hear Mike’s footsteps running after me, but I was genuinely shocked when he put his hand on my good arm to stop me.

  He hadn’t learned his lesson.

  What I wouldn’t have given for some Febreeze in my hand. Instead, I stood there shaking, determined not to let him win. I wasn’t going to feel
even an ounce of compassion for him. His only regret was that he’d gotten caught. At least Henry had been sorry.

  “I promise, I don’t know where my brother is, but he didn’t have anything to do with what happened to you.”

  “Except that you never took your punishment, and now everyone else is paying for your evil.” I spat the words out. So many people had paid the price—Henry, Claire, Austin, Derek, Nikki, and me. But Mike Van Andel hadn’t paid even a little drop of sweat for his sins.

  And neither had Stefan, as far as I knew, or anyone else at that party.

  “You get your hands off her,” Malcolm’s voice called out. I could hear his boots on the ground, and I saw him approach from the direction of his house. Mike braced for a tackle, but it didn’t come. Malcolm stepped between the two of us, shoulders heaving, and pushed Mike back.

  “I didn’t touch her,” Mike said.

  “The hell you didn’t.” Malcolm kept walking him farther away from me. “I saw you from my living room.”

  “It’s okay, Malcolm.” I reached for him, but he was too far away.

  “I told you to stay away.” Malcolm threw Mike Van Andel against his truck, chest first, pinning his arms behind him. “Didn’t I say I would arrest you if you came within a hundred feet of her?”

  I swallowed against the emotion that crawled up my throat. I couldn’t decide if I was mad at Malcolm for butting in, or grateful that he was making Mike go away. But the gruff, cowboy thing was turning out to be more helpful, now that he was protecting me.

  “Do you want me to arrest him?” Malcolm asked, still pinning Mike against the side of the truck. “Just say the word, Vangie. I’ll arrest him.”

  I gave him a small, tired smile, and shook my head. It wouldn’t do any good to throw him in jail for forty-eight hours, when it was much too late for him to get arrested for what he had actually done. I considered asking Malcolm to arrest him for breaking and entering, but I had such a log in my own eye when it came to B&E, I didn’t even want to hear the words out loud.

  Malcolm piled Mike into his truck and warned him never to come back to my house again. I had no doubt that Sheriff Dean would make good on his threat. After the truck had turned around the corner and out of sight, Malcolm finally turned back to me, his face lined with concern.

  “Did he hurt you?” he asked, jogging over to me and taking me by my good arm.

  “No. He just…”

  “He told you, I assume.” Malcolm shook his head back and forth in disappointment. “Now that he knows he can’t get in trouble for it, I suppose he’s all about unburdening himself.”

  “Is the statute of limitations really up?”

  “Ten years,” Malcolm said through tight lips. “Believe me, if I could put him away, I would. Nikki told me about Henry, at the basketball game. But I didn’t find out about Mike and Stefan until—” He stopped. I could feel another apology coming on, and I put my hand on his arm.

  “It’s all behind us now, Malcolm.”

  He helped me up the stairs to my back door, which was still hanging open. My whole left side throbbed, and I sat down on my couch, wishing I could have more painkillers. But my pain would be temporary.

  “What’s going to happen to Austin?” I asked as Malcolm got me a glass of water from the kitchen.

  “His aunt is a teacher at the high school. She’s offered to let him live with her while he finishes his senior year.” Malcolm handed me the full glass. “But I doubt he’ll be at school tomorrow. Both he and Leo missed on Friday, too.”

  I hadn’t seen Leo much since Friday, which was probably when he’d found out what I’d just learned from his father. Once that kind of secret out, there was just no keeping it quiet. I felt sorry for him.

  “Still no sign of Stefan Van Andel?” I asked, figuring I might as well take advantage of my captive audience.

  Malcolm moved my curtains aside, glancing back over at his house. “Still no sign. Mike swears that he saw Stefan on Friday morning, at the same time you and Nikki and Frances were at the bakery, but I think he was gone by then.”

  I pressed my lips together to keep from telling him that I was pretty sure it was Stefan whom Malcolm had chased through my yard on Friday morning. The less I had to explain about my interactions with Scarlet and Derek, the better for all of us.

  If I’d thought it would help him find Stefan, well, that would be another story.

  “Do you need anything else?” Malcolm said, putting his hands on his hips like Superman. I’d never seen him be so nice before. I wasn’t about to get used to it.

  “You’ve done too much already,” I said, holding up the water glass and taking a sip. “I appreciate it.”

  “Evangeline, I need you to know—”

  “You really don’t have to apologize to me,” I said, setting the water down and staring into his eyes. I tried to convince him by sheer willpower, but I’m sure that every time he looked at my shoulder, he remembered just how sorry he was. This wasn’t his fault, though. There was no knowing what might have happened if he’d dropped his investigation of Henry sooner. Nikki might have gone postal and hurt more people. But I could take this, if it meant saving other people from paying consequences of my actions.

  “I really do.”

  “You really don’t,” I repeated. “You are forgiven. And because I’m a pastor, it means more when I say it.”

  He almost cracked a smile. Almost. But he made sure to lock the door on his way out, without my asking. No matter what I said, Malcolm Dean might be paying for his one mistake for a long time. Everyone had to go at their own pace with reconciliation. He would believe me, eventually.

  He really was forgiven.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The Matchbakery window was fully repaired the following week, but my shoulder made work difficult. I was able to hire a local young woman, Beth Jansen, to work part-time, which was a good thing, because the crowds showed up in full force on the day we had our grand re-opening. Leo had taken some time off, understandably, and would put off his entry into Escoffier until he could sort things out with his family. I still felt guilty about that.

  But when tragedy struck in small towns, people banded together. Normally, the casserole brigade would have kicked into action, but I had given specific instructions to my parish council that I didn’t want people stopping by the house. So, in order to feel like they were contributing, everyone who wanted to share their well wishes came to buy food at the bakery.

  I was good with the trade-off.

  In my sometimes absence, I asked Beth to make whatever was comfortable for her. When I came into the bakery the Friday following the attack, the bake case was full of cinnamon and caramel rolls, and fresh sourdough bread was listed on the chalkboard. I sampled the goods for myself, and there was no denying, the girl could bake.

  If business kept up like it had been, I could afford to keep her.

  The doctor and physical therapist had assured me that full range-of-motion would return to my arm within a few weeks, but it already felt a little better. While Beth helped customers, I headed into the kitchen and made the batch of macarons I’d been planning to make with Leo. It felt like the right thing to do.

  It felt like closure.

  When the first customers of the lunch rush started to file in, I was arranging the last of the delicate cookie sandwiches in the bake case. A little boy ran up to the counter, cooing about the pretty colors, and his mother came up behind him.

  I told her about the flavors, and when I pointed out the Scarlett O’Hara, which was a Georgia peach macaron with a caramel buttercream, he clapped his hands. His mother asked for a few of the German chocolate macarons, and I boxed them up with a plastic-gloved hand, just like I had for Henry.

  It was a strange feeling, being back behind the bake case. I had been shot while standing in this very spot. I could still feel the pain of the wound—each movement awoke a dull ache, even with the drugs to dull the pain.

  Beth took
the box from my hands and rang the family up. No one asked for the Matchbaker treatment. Not even the strangers and the tourists.

  I looked out over the mostly full tables at the end of the lunch rush and wondered how many of them were reporters. That had been the downside of the previous week—an influx of people wanting to interview me, or speak to me. I had turned down everyone so far, and I’d stopped answering unknown numbers on my phone. But I was going to have to talk to someone, sometime. I wanted to. I wanted them to know a side of Henry that wasn’t all scandal. Because the news media had a tendency to want to label everyone.

  Victim. Criminal. Horror. Mess. Evil. Pristine.

  But people were more complex than that. There were elements of evil in Henry, but he was also a man who’d suffered, badly, for what he’d done. It had broken him. And, ultimately, it had killed him. He deserved compassion.

  My job was to always—always—extend forgiveness and love. That was the great thing, and the hard thing, about believing in something bigger than myself. Justice wasn’t really in my hands. Only grace.

  Someday, I would even have to forgive Mike Van Andel.

  Peter Mayhew came in that afternoon, just as Beth was leaving for the day. He had been the one to suggest her, and they spoke for a few minutes on her way out the door. I was busying myself with wiping down the counters.

  I had been avoiding Peter pretty hardcore since my release from the hospital. I knew he had initially called my denominational headquarters in Raleigh, but he promised me he hadn’t reported any scandal. When it came down to it, Peter had protected me. Like a local would.

  The bell dinged as Beth left and Peter took off his glasses, wiping them on a handkerchief he’d pulled out of his pocket.

  “If you have a few minutes, Pastor Vangie,” he said, placing the glasses low on his nose like a disapproving principal.