by Lyndsey Cole
Connie’s eyebrows rose.
George frowned.
Sarah twisted her napkin into a tight wad.
“What about Jared?” Connie asked. “They both left together.”
“He’s not here but I didn’t ask if he’s still being questioned. He was in the chef’s room, after all, so he’s in a tough spot and it wouldn’t be surprising if it takes longer for the detective to question him.”
George threw his napkin on the table. “I wish that detective would figure all this out so we could leave. One more day is all I intend to hang around. We did pay for tonight, anyway.”
“Leona is planning another cooking session in the morning, dear. Aren’t we going to stay for that?” Sarah said as she looked at her husband hopefully.
“Of course. We have to get our money’s worth somehow. Not that it’s a fair deal in my opinion. We paid for Chef Marcel’s expertise, not some part-time cook who almost burned the place down.”
Annie felt her eyes pop open with that comment and was glad Leona wasn’t back in the room yet.
Alex entered with the coffee pot, followed by Leona with a tray of cake slices. Her face sagged with weariness but she managed a smile as she placed the tray on the table. “Don’t worry George, next time I’ll be sure to start the fire in the room that you’re staying in so you have something to really complain about.”
Annie faked a cough to cover her laugh. Apparently, there was nothing wrong with Leona’s hearing. She filed that away for the future.
George’s face turned beet red. He pushed his chair back from the table, stood, and stomped from the room.
“He needs to learn to keep his comments to himself,” Leona said more to herself than to the others who all looked at her, some with stunned expressions and some with amusement.
Alex laughed. “Serves him right. All he has done this whole weekend is gripe and complain as if it was your fault for what happened, Leona. Don’t let him get under your skin.”
“That’s right,” Connie agreed. “Your cooking is amazing, and so what if you burned that batch of paninis. Everything else was perfect.”
Leona pinched her lips together but managed to refrain from giving Connie a piece of her mind, too. A compliment wrapped inside an insult wasn’t worth much.
Robin poked her head into the dining room. “Oh good. I thought I smelled coffee. And more dessert, too? Great. I wouldn’t mind another piece.”
“Here, Robin,” Connie stood, “take my seat. I’m tired after all the excitement from today. I’ll take my coffee upstairs.” She filled her mug and helped herself to another slice of cake. “I don’t want it to go to waste,” she said with a sheepish look on her face.
Sarah followed Connie out, wringing her hands as usual.
“Well, do I have bad breath or something?” Robin asked. “I never managed to send people from a room so quickly in my life. She sat in the chair where Connie had been and chose the biggest slice of cake.
“How is Jared holding up?” Alex asked. “Is he still at the police station?”
“Yup.” She wrapped her mouth around a huge portion of cake balanced on her fork. After she swallowed, her tongue cleaned up a few crumbs at the corner of her lips. “Delicious. You know, that detective ate her panini in the car while she was driving. What a mess she made but she licked every bit of grease off her fingers.”
That didn’t surprise Annie. She knew Christy loved everything Leona made. “How did you get back here?” Annie asked. It had just occurred to her that Christy drove Robin and Jared to the police station.
“Some cop gave me a ride. Detective Crank was still busy with Jared. My guess is that she might be coming back here when she’s done with him. She asked me a lot of questions about George and Sarah but I couldn’t tell her much about them. I’m pretty sure she’ll show up at some point to grill them some more.”
Robin used her finger to get the last of the crumbs off her plate. “Speak of the devil,” she said with a nod toward the dining room door. “Company has arrived.” Robin leaned back in her chair and looked like she was comfortably settling in to enjoy some type of show.
Detective Crank walked to the table. Her normally tight ponytail was a bit looser than normal with several hairs floating free. A few grease splatters speckled her wrinkled shirt. She sighed. “I was planning to go home and get some rest but I changed my mind since I have a few questions that keep swirling around. Could you ask George and Sarah to come down and find the three of us a private spot to talk?”
Annie poured Christy coffee without asking if she wanted any and handed her a plate with cake at the same time. “Sit down for a minute while I run upstairs and find them.”
“Thanks. This will give me an energy boost to get through the rest of the evening.”
When Annie knocked on George and Sarah’s door, she heard a grumpy response. “Who’s there?”
“It’s Annie. Could you two come downstairs please? Detective Crank has some questions.”
The door flew open. “What does she want now?” George glared at Annie.
“I don’t know, but the sooner you come down the sooner it will be over.” Her patience with this bore was razor thin.
“She wants me, too?” Sarah asked, her voice betraying a definite nervousness.
“Uh-huh. Both of you.”
The door slammed closed in Annie’s face. “If you don’t come down in five minutes I’ll send her up here.” Annie wanted to go home, too, but she wasn’t planning to abandon Leona with this drama unfolding.
George stomped from his room.
Sarah followed close behind.
Annie shook her head wondering when and, more importantly how, it would all end.
29
Annie paused outside George and Sarah’s room after they went downstairs. She stared at the doorknob. Her hand twitched. Did she dare sneak a peek inside?
“Annie?”
She squeaked in surprise at hearing her voice. Her hand, which had been slowly moving toward the doorknob, flew to her chest instead. Getting caught even thinking about doing something unethical was a shock to her system.
“Connie? You startled me.”
“I see that.” Her voice hinted at suspicion. “Are George and Sarah in their room?”
“Not at the moment.” Annie moved away from the door. “Everyone is downstairs I think.”
“Oh. I have a favor to ask. Buddy could use a bit of fresh air and I’m in the middle of organizing my things.” She sighed. “As much as I’ve enjoyed this weekend, I have to leave tomorrow along with the other guests and I’ve made such a mess of my room. I don’t want to leave it all to tomorrow.” She held out Buddy’s leash. “Would you mind?”
Annie looked at the dachshund. “Of course, I don’t mind.” She’d do it for Buddy. “A bit of fresh air will do me good, too.”
“Don’t hurry, I’ve got a lot to organize between Buddy’s paraphernalia and all of my belongings. I always bring too much stuff when I go somewhere.” She closed her door, leaving Annie alone with the dog.
Annie slipped the leash into her pocket and led the way to the stairs. “That was a close call for me, Buddy. Good thing Connie can’t read minds.”
Roxy sat in front of the door, thumping her tail on the floor. “You heard Buddy’s nails on the stairs and figured out what we’re doing?” Annie opened the door and the dogs dashed outside. Stars twinkled overhead and the smell of wood smoke wafted to Annie’s nose. She breathed in deeply, cleansing her lungs with the cold winter air as she watched the two dogs sniff and pee and sniff some more.
“Hey, want some company?” Jason’s voice drifted from the darkness.
Annie smiled. “Leona has everything under control inside?”
“I hope so. She closed the living room door with Detective Crank, George, and Sarah inside. Robin is sitting at the dining room table while she inhales coffee, and Alex is helping Leona in the kitchen. I felt like I had nowhere to go so when I heard the front door open and close,
I came out to investigate.” Jason put his arm around Annie’s shoulders. “I’m glad I did.”
Annie leaned into the snug curve he created for her. She stuck her hands into her pockets. A chill ran down her spine. “I need to go inside and check something. Will you keep an eye on the dogs?”
“Abandoning me already?” Jason teased.
“Just for a minute.” She kept her voice steady.
“Okay then, but I’ll hold you to it.”
Annie went inside. The living room door was still closed. Except for a few sounds coming from the kitchen, all was quiet. She took the stairs two at a time, hoping her gut instinct was wrong.
With the carpet muffling her footsteps, Annie walked to Connie’s door. She turned the knob without a knock.
Connie turned, blinking quickly several times. “Back already? I thought Buddy would want to spend more time outside.” Her eyes traveled from Annie’s face to the space around her. “Where’s Buddy? Did you lose him?” Panic filled her voice.
“No. Jason is outside with Buddy.”
Connie’s hand moved to her forehead. “Oh, thank goodness. You really gave me a fright.” She flipped the top closed on a suitcase on her bed. “Well, that one is all set.” She pointed to another suitcase on the floor. “Could you lift that up here next to this other suitcase? It’s a bit too heavy for me.”
Annie quickly looked around the room. What was she doing in here? What made her feel like icy fingers were suddenly around her neck? She lifted the suitcase. For its size, it was surprisingly heavy. “What’s in here, rocks?”
Connie giggled. “Lots of papers. I never mentioned this to anyone here, but I fancy myself as a bit of a writer. Unfortunately, my stories never go anywhere, but I do research and keep plugging away.”
Annie plopped the suitcase on the bed but she misjudged the distance from the other one. One corner caught on the first suitcase, knocking the other off balance and sending it toward the edge of the bed. The movement jiggled the top open just as it tipped over the edge of the bed.
Connie was not exaggerating when she said the suitcase was full of papers. But what a bizarre collection spread across the floor in front of Annie—pictures of Chef Marcel, newspaper articles about Chef Marcel, and Chef Marcel’s brochures. The last pile of papers to land at Annie’s feet was the manuscript she had seen in Robin’s possession.
“What is all this?” Her brain wasn’t quick enough to catch up with what her eyes were looking at.
“Oh dear,” Connie said before Annie felt hands on her back, shoving her to the floor.
Even though Annie was stronger and taller than Connie, the surprise shove from behind caught her off guard. As she crashed to the floor, she reached into her pocket for the leash—Buddy’s blue leash which had no business being in Connie’s possession. The only explanation that flashed through Annie’s brain in that fraction of a second was that Connie had two blue leashes. One that she used to strangle Chef Marcel and was now evidence in Detective Crank’s possession, and this other one that she kept as a secret decoy until she could remove it from the coat tree and hide it. Clever. Except for the fact that she forgot her own scheme.
Connie lunged toward Annie but slipped on all the papers, falling and crashing on top of her. She yanked Annie’s hair and tried her best to keep the upper hand.
Annie managed to fling the leash around Connie’s arm, catch both ends, and yank it to one side, pulling Connie off. In one nimble movement, Annie was on top of Connie with her arms pinned to the floor. Under Connie’s head was brochure after brochure of Chef Marcel’s smiling face with words encouraging her to keep baking.
“Didn’t the chef put two and two together when you signed up for this workshop?” Annie asked. “All this makes me think you’ve been stalking him for years.”
“The pig didn’t even offer a smile when I first saw him here.” Connie’s eyes had turned dark and narrow. “Look at all the signed photos he sent to me. He even signed them love, Chef Marcel. He led me on; made me think we could be partners. I thought we had a cosmic connection, something special, but he laughed at me when I told him face to face. He laughed. The man I devoted these last three years to. I couldn’t believe it. What else could I do to save face?”
“What else? How about walk away from an egotistical narcissist?”
“Oh no, he got exactly what he deserved. He killed Phil, didn’t he? His partner. I thought that was all part of his plan to make room for me.” Spittle dribbled out the sides of Connie’s mouth as she railed against Chef Marcel. Her head flailed back and forth. Her eyes focused on nothing.
Annie used all her strength to keep Connie pinned to the floor. The woman was stronger than she looked.
Just as Annie felt Connie give one extra big buck underneath her and she started to slip, she heard toenails clicking on the wood floor. Buddy and Roxy tore into the room. “We heard a crash,” Leona said from right behind the two dogs.
“Are you okay?” Jason rushed to Annie’s side, kneeling next to her.
Annie felt Connie’s body lose its strength.
Detective Crank stood behind Leona. With Jason’s help, Annie slowly rose and stood to one side of Connie. The leash dangled from her hand. “Another blue leash. What a clever diversion.”
Connie sputtered that Annie had tackled her and why wasn’t someone arresting her.
Robin stood in the doorway with her phone raised as she scanned Connie’s room for her latest video. “My trap worked,” she said with a grin on her face.
“Trap?” Annie asked. “What are you talking about?”
Robin pointed. “The manuscript. When you said someone killed the chef for the manuscript, I made sure to leave it in plain sight with my door unlocked. I suspected that whoever was willing to kill for it wouldn’t stop searching until they found it.”
“Thanks for the heads up.” Annie scowled. “Your stunt could have gotten me killed, too.”
“But it didn’t.” Robin picked up the manuscript. “I knew Jared wasn’t the killer, or me, which narrowed it down to George, Sarah, Alex, and Connie. I have to admit that Connie was at the bottom of the list.” She flipped through the manuscript pages. “This is mostly a bunch of blank pages anyway. The only thing Chef Marcel was an expert at was fooling people. I don’t think that he actually knew how to make the perfect éclair or any of those other fancy schmancy French pastries he had pictured in his brochures. The guy was a fraud. Check out Phil’s Facebook profile and you’ll find the real chef behind Mr. Conman Marcel.”
Leona handed the envelope with Phil’s note and the recipes to Christy.
“What’s this?”
“I found it in one of the crates of food the chef brought. It suggests to me that Phil was doling out recipes slowly as the chef needed them for these workshops. His patience ran out this time and he demanded payment.”
“Check out the handwriting,” Annie said. “The note and the recipes don’t match the chef’s very distinctive style.” She picked up one of the many signed brochures on the floor and handed it to Christy.
“This explains a lot,” Christy said. “I found a big box of recipes in Phil’s car. If what Robin is saying is true, Phil was the expert and the chef needed those recipes for his book. He’d already gotten an advance and his publisher was getting impatient for the final product.”
“I have to know,” Robin said to Christy, “was Phil poisoned with ground up cherry pits?”
“What? Who started that rumor?”
Robin looked away as her cheeks took on a cherry red color.
Detective Crank continued, “We discovered that peanuts were added to Phil’s coffee and we suspect it was the chef that put them in there.”
Leona smacked her forehead. “I should have thought of that. When he sent in his paperwork, he said he had a peanut allergy. But don’t most people carry an EpiPen with them?”
“Phil had one in his suitcase but from what we reconstructed, we think he panicked when the allergy s
ymptoms began, he slid off the road, and slammed into a snowbank during the storm. The impact knocked him unconscious and he never recovered to give himself the shot.”
“Ask Alex to show you a video he has on his camera from Bigger Burger,” Annie said. “It should help to confirm that the chef did, in fact, add something to Phil’s coffee.” She hoped that was enough for Christy, since she didn’t want Tricia to have to get involved. Even with everything wrapped up.
Roxy whined and pawed at Annie’s leg. She bent down on one knee. “Don’t worry, I’m fine.” Buddy put his front paws on Annie’s knee and licked her face. Trouble was determined not to be left out of all the excitement and squeezed between Roxy and Buddy.
“Any room for me?” Jason’s voice whispered in her ear.
“Always.” She stood and leaned against his strong body.
30
I can’t believe that sweet old lady turned out to be a love-obsessed killer,” Annie’s mom said as she set a scone, butter, and jam in front of her on Monday morning. “And, here, Greta and I were thinking we were holding down the fort while you and Leona got to have all the fun baking with some guests at the Blackbird.” She shook her head. “Next time Leona insists she needs your help, I’m coming, too.”
“And close down the Black Cat Café?”
“We’ll figure something out.”
Jason held up the jam jar. “Sour cherry jam? Where’d this come from?”
“Leona sent it over. She said it was in one of the crates of food that the chef brought to the Blackbird. It came with a recipe. She said if it tastes good, she might make more with the rest of the cherries.”
Greta looked at the label. “What’s a sour cherry?”
Annie used her knife to scoop a little of the jam from the jar. She licked it off the knife. “Oh, my goodness.” Her whole face puckered into a mass of wrinkles. “This needs more sugar to be edible.”
Greta laughed as she read from her phone, “Yeah, sour cherries are, well, sour and have a tendency to make you pucker if you eat them.”
