Scornful Scones

by Mildred Abbott

  There was a blurred voice on the other end of the line.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me?” Athena gave a sigh and shook her head in irritation. “Goodness no. Don’t send her back. I’ll be right up.” She ended the call and stood. “Excuse me, Fred. Ms. Jessup’s father passed six months ago. And yet she’s still complaining about the obituary.” Her smile returned to a smirk. “Now, I ask you, how is it my fault that he had a second secret family in Allenspark and I just happened to list his other set of descendants while I was documenting his life?”

  Despite myself, I chuckled. Yes, I did like her. “Watson and I can step out if you need to talk to her in your office.”

  “You’re not done with me yet, I see.” She nodded in what looked like approval. “No, stay. I actually appreciate it. It gives me a legitimate excuse to only listen to a couple of minutes of her complaints. I’ll be right back.” She stepped out of the office and then swiveled once more. “There’re some lovely pastries in the box on my desk; help yourself.” And with a wink, she was gone.

  Even if my admiration was growing for Athena, I didn’t feel like I had a good read on her. I wasn’t sure if she’d had anything to do with the recent deaths, but something about her made me certain she was capable of murder, if she needed to be. But I thought that was true with most strong people.

  I was glad for the interruption. It gave me a chance to try to clear my head and figure out what direction to go. Maybe I was wasting my time talking to Athena. And though my instincts didn’t tell me if she’d killed Eustace or Sally, they said there was more to the woman than she was letting on. But again, I thought that was true with most people.

  A huffing sound caught my attention, and I looked over to see Watson had managed to prop himself up on the partially open drawer and was using his nose to shove the box of pastries closer to the edge of the desk.

  “Watson!”

  At my startled admonition, Watson jerked and not only succeeded in knocking off the pastries but a pile of notebooks and papers as well. Knowing he was in trouble, he ducked his head and slunk toward me. He gave me those big brown puppy eyes that begged for forgiveness. Before I could decide to grant it or not, his gaze darted toward the partially open box on the floor.

  “Oh no you don’t, you little scamp.” I got up from my chair and scooped the box from the floor. Though dented, it seemed the pastries weren’t all that much the worse for wear.

  Watson took shelter under the chair I’d been sitting in as I scooped up the papers and managed to make some semblance of a pile on Athena’s desk.

  Just as I was about to walk back to the chair, Sally Apple’s name caught my attention from the top piece of paper.

  With a glance out the office door to confirm Athena wasn’t on her way back, I lifted it and began to read. Athena’s handwritten script was as elegant as I would’ve expected. It nearly resembled calligraphy.

  The first part was like any other obituary, listing dates and family and career. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to write the obituaries of people you despised. Did Athena revel in it? Have a sense of retribution finally coming to roost? Or did she battle with the desire to say what she really thought about the person?

  From the looks of it, it seemed Athena was the ultimate professional. I never would’ve guessed her true feelings about Sally Apple. Until the closing line, at any rate.

  Sally Apple was a woman with subpellucid patrician sensibilities and lived her life accordingly.

  I had to read the sentence three times to make sense of it. It sounded fancy; it sounded like a compliment. And maybe, if I didn’t know Athena, I would continue to read it as such.

  But it wasn’t.

  Patrician, like an aristocrat. Complimentary in one way, but really, it denoted someone who saw themselves above everyone else. The top of a hierarchy. And that did seem to sum up what I’d witnessed about Sally.

  I started to set the paper back on the desk, then paused. Something else bugged me about the phrasing.

  Subpellucid patrician sensibilities. Really, it was nothing more than an insult closed in fancy verbiage. Sally Apple clearly had arrogant and elitist sensibilities. Obvious. And true.

  I read it again. There was something else. Something nagging at me, shouting that it was right in front of my face if I would just open my eyes.

  “I didn’t know by offering your pastries that I gave you an invitation to read things on my desk? Even if you were the one to bring in the pastries to begin with.”

  I jumped at Athena’s voice, and whipped around to find her studying me from the doorway.

  She was more amused than offended. “I’m afraid I have to deduct points, Fred. You’re not as good at snooping as I thought if you get caught so easily.” She entered the small office, and we did a bit of a dance so she could retake her seat.

  As I sat back down in mine, which still housed the sulking Watson underneath, I held the paper out toward her. “Sally’s obituary. Sorry. Watson tried to help himself to breakfast and knocked things off your desk. I couldn’t help myself.”

  She didn’t take it. “The younger ones here make fun of me. I have to write out everything before I put it into the computer.” She folded her hands in her lap. “Tell me, did you find proof of me murdering Sally in what I’d written?”

  I withdrew the paper and studied her. “You know, I won’t disagree with you. Eustace and Sally seemed like miserable people, but you seem to be finding their deaths a little more of a game than I’m comfortable with.”

  She didn’t even flinch. “I’m not the one pretending to be a detective, Winifred. Some would say you’re the one playing the game. Even if you are good at it. And… I’m not concerned whether you’re comfortable with my attitude toward Eustace’s and Sally’s deaths.”

  “And what about Nick Pacheco? I’m sure you’ve heard he’s under arrest. Is an innocent teenager taking the fall a game as well?”

  She winced. “No. Most definitely not. I don’t know the boy, though I know of him. Of his family. From what little I’ve observed, I don’t see him as being capable of murder. But no, if he is innocent, then it most definitely is not a game.”

  Suddenly I was tired of it. And I felt like I was wasting my time. I didn’t think Athena had killed them, even if she was glad they were dead. “I’ll quit wasting your time. Watson and I will…” I’d started to slide the obituary back on her desk, but once more, the last line caught my eye. More specifically, one word caught my eye, and I gasped.

  Subpellucid.

  And it clicked.

  “Pellucid.”

  I hadn’t meant to say the word out loud, but I looked up at Athena, and for the first time since I’d known her, she tensed.

  Pellucid.

  “You’re Maxine Maxwell, aren’t you? You write the Sybarite blog.”

  She stiffened, and I saw the denial rise to her lips, but then she closed her mouth and seemed to deflate somewhat in her chair. The flash of weakness was only for a moment. Less than. She straightened once more, defiantly lifting her chin. “I told you. No one tells me what I can or cannot do.”

  And with that, I was certain. Maybe that’s why I hadn’t been able to have a genuine gut feeling about her. I’d sensed a secret, just not the one I’d been searching for. I laid the paper back on her desk. “I’m assuming there’d be litigation, due to the terms of your agreement with Eustace Beaker in the paper, if it was discovered you’re doing a food blog.”

  “There would.” She nodded primly. “Although, I’m talking to my lawyer since Eustace’s death and seeing if there’s a loophole to change that particular situation.”

  Her lawyer, Gerald Jackson. I hoped he was better than I thought he was, for Athena’s sake.

  “You didn’t kill Eustace or Sally, did you?”

  “I told you as much.”

  True. She had. I felt a strange sense of relief in finally believing her. And a little justification of having liked her on such an instant lev
el. But it meant I was back to square one. Still, I was relieved.

  Athena leaned forward once more, and though the defiance didn’t leave her gaze, there was the slightest quaver in her words. “I trust I can count on your discretion until I have this matter sorted?”

  “Absolutely.” Any other option wasn’t even a thought. I smiled over at her, suddenly liking her even more than I had previously. “I have to thank you. Having such a beautiful review in the Sybarite blog might’ve been the highlight of Katie’s entire life.”

  “Well…” She smiled, and Athena Rose was fully herself once again. “Just shows she has superb taste.”

  “I think our husbands paid Harold to drive Carla’s car through our shop.” Zelda stood, hands on her hips, and glared at the inside of Lois’s old candy store, Healthy Delights. “They get to go to a conference, and we have to work on their shop.”

  Verona crossed the room and nudged her twin playfully with her hip. “Interesting theory, but I’d rather be here than at a conference filled with inventors. I can barely keep my eyes from glazing over when Jonah and Noah get going. Can you imagine hundreds of them all together?”

  They shuddered as one at the thought. Barry’s daughters were identical. Just slightly shorter than me, but willowy and graceful. They both dressed in Barry’s style of yoga garb, but theirs were always from natural fibers and never clashed like Barry’s color combos often did. The only visible difference was Verona’s blonde hair compared to Zelda’s brunette.

  Barry joined them, Watson prancing around his feet, and threw his arms over their shoulders. “Don’t be ungrateful, girls. Remember, thanks to Harold’s adventure, you get to redesign the front of your shop. That’s worth it, right?”

  “Now that’s just awful!” Mom peered out from the display case she’d been inspecting. “That was hardly an adventure. Poor Harold was in the middle of one of his seizures. And Percival and Gary could’ve been killed.” She held up a small cellophane-wrapped brown ball. “I think I found some of Lois’s licorice candy in here. Do you think it’s still good?”

  “Probably. The only good thing that poor woman ever could make.”

  “Dad.” Verona swatted at Barry as she ducked from under his arm, sounding more like a teenager than a woman in her forties. “She was on a mission to make the world healthier. Sugar kills more people than guns.”

  Though Zelda nodded along, I knew it was for show. I’d caught her at the ice cream parlor a few weeks before, and she swore me to secrecy. The twins were proud of living their all-natural, organic lifestyle. Turned out, only one of them actually was.

  We’d only been in the shop a matter of minutes, and I leaned against the wall, letting their bickering fade to a pleasant background buzz. After striking Athena off my suspect list that morning, I was a bit exhausted between the onslaught of tourists at the bookshop while replaying different scenarios through my mind.

  I was back to thinking it had to be about taking vengeance on the city council. But who in their right mind thought they could successfully murder all six members? And if the council was going to just simply replace members as Ethel had done with her husband, the murders would never stop. It didn’t add up.

  Though I hated to admit it, picturing Nick being the one who was responsible made more sense. It made perfect sense, actually, when put down in black-and-white, which was exactly what I’d done in between customers during the day. The only reason it didn’t work, was my gut feeling that he simply couldn’t do it. Maybe I was wrong. As much as I hated to think about him being capable of such actions, it would mean that everyone else was safe. There were no more poison scones or anything else headed in anyone’s direction.

  “You having a hard time in here, darling?” Mom arrived, smoothing her small hand over my back. She smiled up at me in concern. “The girls and Barry won’t mind if you don’t help. I know this place has bad memories for you.”

  “What?” I’d been so caught up in my thoughts I hadn’t noticed her come over, and it took me a few seconds to interpret her meaning. “Oh, no. I wasn’t even thinking about what happened in here.”

  Though now that she mentioned it, I supposed it was strange it hadn’t hit me before. It had been months since I’d been in the all-natural candy shop, with its walls and counters painted sickeningly sweet pastel pinks and yellows. Despite myself, I glanced toward the door that led to the back room. My time in Estes had nearly been so short. I shook it off. That was in the past; we were a long way from that. I never would’ve envisioned trying to get the store ready for my brothers-in-law the first time I’d walked into Healthy Delights.

  I refocused on Mom “I really am fine. Truly. I was just thinking about Nick, the barista at Carla’s coffee shop.”

  Mom nodded. “Yes. I heard he’s been arrested. Breaks my heart for someone so young.” Her eyes glistened with emotion, but she straightened her small frame. She still had the core of strength every spouse of a police officer had to have. “You just never know, do you?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “Though it sounds horrible to say, there is one plus side.” Mom glanced over as Barry guffawed at something the twins said, then back at me. “I visited Harold this morning. He seems better. Oh, he was so terrified about what all this was going to do to Carla and the business. I know Nick was connected to the coffee shop, and Carla, obviously, but at least it takes the suspicion off her and allows Black Bear Roaster to reopen soon. That’s going to do Harold a world of good to be able to alleviate that stress.”

  “That’s one way to look at it.” I was going to need to find some bright side to all of this.

  Her blue eyes narrowed, knowingly. “You think the police are wrong.”

  Did I? Even still? “I think so. I really do. But every other possibility I come up with either is proven untrue or simply is too farfetched to make sense.”

  She inspected me a little longer and then sighed in resignation. “Well, then I’m sure you’ll figure it out. Quickly, I hope. For Harold’s sake, if nothing else. He had another seizure while I was there today, just a few moments. Honestly, I probably wouldn’t have noticed that if not for the other day, but still.”

  “Mom…” Her belief in me never ceased to amaze me. “Just because I think the police are wrong doesn’t mean that they are.”

  She didn’t hesitate. “I know that look, Fred. It’s the same one your father would get toward the end of the case, especially when everyone thought it was nearly wrapped up but something wasn’t sitting right with him. He’d get that same expression in his eyes, and that same tone of voice. And he was never wrong. Not once.”

  “Not once?” The skepticism in my voice surprised me and gave a little spike of guilt that I would doubt my father, who was enshrined to hero status in my mind.

  “No. Not once.” Mom tilted her chin. “To be honest, he doubted himself a lot. He would get a gut feeling—that’s what he’d call it, a gut feeling—and wouldn’t be able to shake it off. All the facts would be pointing one way, and he wouldn’t buy them. He spent many nights worrying about them. Telling me how silly he felt for believing a certain way when the facts pointed a different direction. He was never wrong. And it always hurts a little how much he distrusted himself.”

  I gaped at her, and my skin tingled with gooseflesh. “Did he really?”

  “He did.” She nodded, and a look of longing and love settled over her features. “I didn’t trust his gut feelings at first either. But after a couple of years, they’d been proven true often enough that I never doubted. Even when he did. As soon as he started that little cycle of worrying and questioning all that was happening simply because he felt differently, I always knew how it would end.”

  I could almost feel him with us right there, even with Barry and the twins—the evidence of life continuing and moving in new and unexpected ways—just a few feet from us. “I’m sure it helped a lot having a wife like you, someone who always believed in him.”

  “Oh, Fred, dar
ling.” She lifted her birdlike hand and cupped my face. “Your dad was lucky—he had me, and he had you.”

  My eyes stung.

  She continued. “You are luckier. You have a host of people who believe in you completely. Me, always. Barry, obviously. Katie, Leo.” She grinned playfully and cast a glance over at the group of four across the shop and then back at me. “And Watson, of course.”

  I chuckled and sniffed. “Thanks, Mom.” It felt like more words were needed, but I couldn’t find them. And even if I did, I wouldn’t be able to say them without giving in to the emotions.

  She simply smiled, and I could see she knew all that I couldn’t say. “Let it go for a little bit. You’ll figure it out. You’re just like your dad, and he always thought best when he was working on something else. Let’s go help the family.” She slipped her hand into mine, and we left the little sacred place.

  “Noah wants to name this place Synapses.” Zelda cast a wide-eyed glance at Mom and me as we joined the circle. “Synapses! Because that’s not going to alienate people from coming in, lording it over how they are smarter than everyone else.”

  Verona gave a matching expression. “It’s better than what Jonah wants. Inventors-R-Us sounds like a toyshop for honor roll students.”

  Another wave of emotions washed over me at the conversation. A little tingle of fear. It seemed unreal that Katie and I would soon be flanked by my twin stepsisters’ new age shop on one side and their husbands’ inventor store on the other. But it was happening. It was really happening. Fear was probably too strong a word for it; maybe just a sense of wonder or surprise was more appropriate.

  “Are you girls still thinking you’re going to name your shop Chakras?” Barry looked up from where he was lavishing attention on Watson, who was nearly comatose in pleasure. He was clearly trying to distract and avoid a tangent.

  “Oh, absolutely.” Verona nodded in excitement, getting swept up in Barry’s ploy.

  “In fact…” Zelda matched her sister’s tone and glanced at me. “We’re going to use the same company that created your sign for the Cozy Corgi. Though ours will be made out of wood as well, we’re thinking a yellow-and-green tie-dyed background with the word Chakras in gold lettering.”