Murder with a Cherry on Top

by Cynthia Baxter

  Which was why running into him again, back here in the Hudson Valley no less, had been such a big deal. And why I expected some kind of reaction from Grams.

  Instead, she was being annoyingly noncommittal.

  Was it possible she couldn’t see what a big deal this was for me? I wondered. Or was it simply something she didn’t want to touch with the proverbial ten-foot pole?

  I realized quickly it was the latter.

  “And how was that for you, Katydid?” she asked gently. “Running into him again after all this time?”

  “It was fine,” I replied brusquely. “All that was a long time ago. I just thought I’d mention that he was back in Wolfert’s Roost so if you ran into him, you wouldn’t be surprised. He’s now running his uncle’s dairy, which has a new name: Juniper Hill.”

  With that, I stood up and began clearing the table. Fortunately, I’d finished my ice cream before I’d brought up Jake. For some strange reason, I’d suddenly lost my appetite.

  As I bustled around the kitchen, cleaning up, I felt bad that I’d cut Grams off that way. I knew she was surprised by my reaction, and I hoped she wasn’t angry.

  But it wasn’t that I didn’t want Grams to know what I thought and felt—not only about seeing Jake again, but also about knowing he was back in town.

  It was that I didn’t know myself.

  * * *

  Bang, bang, bang . . .

  The relentless banging, coming from somewhere downstairs, slowly dragged me out of what felt like a very deep sleep. I know I was dreaming, but aside from weird appearances by both Jake Pratt and Ashley Winthrop, the plot line vanished the moment I opened my eyes.

  Bang, bang . . .

  At first I assumed it was Grams, although I couldn’t imagine what she could possibly be up to that was making so much noise. But I quickly realized that the sound I was hearing could only be someone pounding on the front door.

  As in, “Let me in.” And, “I mean it.”

  “Ugh!” I groaned, dragging myself out of bed. As I pulled on the robe I’d left piled up in a chair, I glanced at my clock and saw it was eight-fifteen. Early enough to indicate some sense of urgency, but not late enough to feel guilty that whoever was on the other side of that door was catching me still fast asleep.

  I peered through the least-wavy part of the stained glass door and was surprised to see a face I recognized on the other side. Granted, it was a face I hadn’t seen in fifteen years, a face that had matured. But it was completely recognizable.

  Pete Bonano.

  Still the same chocolate brown eyes, the same curly dark brown hair, the same chubby cheeks, and, I suspected, the same friendly smile, even though he looked dead earnest at the moment. I’d know that face anywhere.

  Pete and I hadn’t traveled in the same social circles. He was a star athlete back at Modderplaatz High. In fact, I seemed to remember something about him being a possible candidate for some professional football team.

  But while Pete spent most of his time in the gym or out on the football field, he and I both ended up in the same English class a few times. So ever since middle school, I’d seen his big grin pretty regularly, even though it wasn’t usually directed at me.

  I decided to do a bit of flirting.

  “Why, if it isn’t Pete Bonano, the best quarterback Modderplaatz High ever saw!” I cried as I swung open the door.

  I was so busy doing my Scarlett O’Hara act that it took me a few seconds to realize that not only wasn’t Pete wearing a football uniform these days, he was wearing a police uniform.

  Naturally, my first thought was, Oh no, something bad has happened!

  I did a quick inventory. Grams was safe, standing just a few feet behind me. Even her two beloved sidekicks, Chloe and Digger, were fine. Not lost, not missing, not in any trouble of the sort felines and canines can sometimes get into.

  I was hoping he was simply here to ask for a contribution to some worthy cause when he said, “Katherine McKay?”

  “Of course it’s me,” I replied. Based on his tone of voice, I’d completely dropped the flirtatiousness. In fact, I was growing increasingly puzzled. Sure Pete recognized me, as sure as I recognized him. I hadn’t aged that much.

  Besides, he’d come to my house, the one I’d lived in since I was five years old. While Pete and I weren’t best buds, Modderplaatz—Wolfert’s Roost—was a small enough town that most of us knew where the other kids in our grade lived.

  “I’m Officer Bonano—”

  “I know who you are, Pete,” I interrupted.

  He cleared his throat. “I figured you did, Kate. But it’s what I’m supposed to say.”

  “Okay, then, Officer Bonano.”

  “Ms. McKay, I’m afraid something terrible has happened. There’s been a murder.”

  I was more confused than ever. “That’s horrible,” I replied, still not quite processing what he was saying. “Was it someone we knew? Someone from high school?”

  “Yes,” he said, his tone flat. “Ashley Winthrop. She was killed at her bakery last night.”

  I gasped. “Ashley? Oh, no! But—but I just saw her yesterday!”

  His face remained a blank slate. If anything, he was looking increasingly earnest.

  “Thank you for telling me,” I said. “I’ll try to think of whomever else I should notify. Willow Baines, of course. She and I are still friends. But there aren’t that many people from school that I’m still in touch with. You see, I’ve been living in New York City for the past ten years, and I’ve only been back here for a few months. . . .”

  Pete still wasn’t saying anything. He just stood in the same spot, looking as if he had no intention of inviting himself in—or of going away, for that matter.

  “Pete,” I asked, trying to ignore the alarm bells that were going off in my head, “why did you come to my house to tell me this?”

  “Ms. McKay,” he replied, still as stiff as a robot, “we need you to come down to the station for questioning.”

  Chapter 4

  Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, has anosmia, or no sense of smell, and nearly no sense of taste. To compensate, he insisted on adding bigger and bigger chunks to the ice cream he made because he needed it to have more texture.

  —Anosmia Foundation (anosmiafoundation.com)

  I was in a daze as I shuffled through the parking lot outside the Wolfert’s Roost Police Department. I was struck with the fleeting thought that my feet felt as if they weighed as much as a five-gallon container of cream. Heavy cream.

  Ordinarily, comparing my life to an ice cream ingredient would have made me feel better. At the moment, however, not so much.

  Even though I’d driven past this building hundreds of times, I’d never actually been inside it. Or given it more than a passing glance. The local police headquarters was housed in a dignified brick building with concrete steps leading up to double doors, painted a nondescript shade of green; a few columns added to its no-nonsense appearance. Frankly, it looked more like a bank that an official government institution.

  At the moment, it felt very much like an institution. An intimidating one.

  It didn’t help that Pete Bonano insisted on walking so close to me that he practically crunched down on my foot every time he took a step. I figured he wanted to be near enough to grab me if I decided to break for freedom.

  “Let me get the door,” Pete said politely once we’d trudged up the few steps and reached the main entrance. “It’s pretty heavy.”

  Chivalry, at a time like this? I thought. But I was willing to accept any kindness that was offered.

  Aside from movies and TV, I’d never seen the inside of a police station. And probably because those were actually sets and not the real thing, the ones I was used to seeing were much nicer than the real-life version. I blinked, taking in the cracked gray linoleum, a few framed photos of cops forcing smiles hanging on the fake wood-paneled walls, and a high counter with a uniformed officer sitting behind i
t, gazing down at us with a neutral expression.

  After nodding at his coworker, Pete began leading me down a short hallway. “This way, Ms. McKay,” he mumbled.

  “It’s Kate!” I wanted to scream. “You know, Kate, who you used to tease because I was the only kid in English who used to actually read the books that were assigned? Who sat in the same school cafeteria with you every day? Who you asked to the sixth-grade Halloween Dance?

  I’d actually forgotten all about that Halloween Dance thing until this moment. Somehow, having a personal history with Pete Bonano was making all this feel even worse. I even found myself wishing I’d said yes.

  Pete led me to a small room that had the same linoleum and the same fake wood paneling. It had no windows, however. And while there wasn’t exactly a single lightbulb dangling from the ceiling, the simple fixture that lit the room wasn’t much better.

  Even on a tight budget, I thought, someone from the police department could make an occasional trip to Ikea. The same went for the table. Metal, ugly, stark. As for the metal chairs, they looked as if they’d been specifically designed to be uncomfortable.

  Creating a warm, welcoming atmosphere clearly wasn’t a priority.

  “Take a seat,” Pete said. He was having trouble looking me in the eye.

  I’d been assuming that good ol’ Pete would be the one asking the questions. So I was surprised when a second man, one I didn’t know, strode into the room. His dark blond hair was clipped extremely short, giving him the look of a military officer. His suit fit him badly, as if he purposely wanted to avoid looking like someone who cared about his appearance. The same went for his dark blue tie, which was askew.

  “Good morning, Ms. McKay,” the newcomer said brusquely. “I’m Detective Stoltz.”

  I immediately got the sense that if Pete had been the Good Cop, this guy was definitely the Bad Cop. My sense of doom worsened.

  Detective Stoltz sat down opposite me. He was now close enough that I could smell his breakfast coffee on his breath.

  “Ms. McKay,” he began, “I know you’ve heard that Ashley Winthrop was murdered last night at her bakery on Hudson Street, right across the street from your shop.”

  I just nodded. “I’m—I’m—I don’t know what to think.”

  “She was stabbed repeatedly with a large knife, the kind professional chefs use.”

  “That’s horrible!” I cried.

  He didn’t react. “I understand you’ve known Ms. Winthrop for quite some time.”

  “That’s right.” My voice came out sounding like a frog’s. A frog with laryngitis. I resolved to do better. “Ashley and I went through school together, starting with kindergarten.”

  “Since kindergarten,” he repeated, making it sound as if kindergarten was some kind of breeding ground for terrorists. “That’s a long time.”

  “I guess.” This time, I sounded like a frog that had been given a cough drop. Better, but still not quite where I wanted to be.

  “That was when you two started having difficulties, am I right?” he went on. “Back from the very beginning?”

  “It’s not that we had difficulties, exactly.” At least I sounded like myself again. “We did have a few ups and downs, I suppose.” That jar of daffodil-yellow paint suddenly felt like the proverbial elephant in the room. At least, to me.

  “I see,” Detective Stoltz said. “So in other words, you two have been enemies for quite some time—”

  “I wouldn’t say enemies, exactly,” I corrected him. I realized I kept shifting around in my seat. I forced myself to sit still. “I mean, that’s an awfully strong word. Ashley and I may have had our differences, but really, it was nothing.”

  Detective Stoltz’s eyes bored into mine. “Isn’t it true that in high school, you and Ashley Winthrop were known to be rivals?”

  I started squirming again. “Not rivals, exactly,” I said, trying to sound matter-of-fact. “It was more like we traveled in different circles. It was just teenage stuff. Nothing that amounted to very much.”

  “I see.” The way he said those words made it clear that he didn’t see at all. “And then, after years and years of having ‘differences’ and ‘traveling in different circles,’ Ms. Winthrop suddenly decided to go head to head with you on your brand new ice cream business. That could well have been the last straw, couldn’t it?”

  “Yes. I mean no. I mean . . .” I stopped to take a deep breath, meanwhile trying to figure out what I did mean. “Look, we weren’t enemies. We were just two businesspeople who happened to be living in the same town. And sure, I wasn’t happy about it. But it was . . . well, something I would have figured out how to handle. It was really nothing.”

  “‘Nothing,’” Detective Stoltz repeated, his voice practically a hiss. “ ‘Nothing.’ ”

  He stood up and placed both hands flat on the desk, then leaned over so that his face was no more than twelve inches away from mine. “It sounds to me like all those ‘nothings’ could very possibly add up to ‘something.’ ”

  “Look,” I said meekly, “this is coming out all wrong, and I can see how it could sound—”

  “Ms. McKay,” he interrupted, “according to several witnesses, you and Ms. Winthrop had quite an argument on Thursday afternoon, just a few hours before she was murdered.”

  I gulped. “It was more like a . . . discussion.”

  A few more seconds of eye boring. Then Detective Stoltz finally sat down again. “More than half a dozen people have come forth and said they heard the two of you have a screaming fight out on the street at approximately three-thirty p.m.”

  My head was buzzing.

  “Like I said, it was a discussion,” I insisted. “Maybe a loud discussion, but really, just a discussion.”

  “And exactly what was the subject of this . . . ‘discussion’?”

  “I, uh, was a bit concerned that Ashley’s bakery had just put up that sign, saying it was now selling ice cream. You see, I just opened my ice cream shop a few days ago. Monday, in fact.”

  “We are aware of that.”

  Of course they would know that. “Anyway,” I said, “I was a little surprised to find that Ashley was suddenly in the ice cream business, too.”

  Detective Stoltz’s face remained as blank as a clean paper towel.

  “Do you think it would be fair to say that you were quite jealous of Ms. Winthrop?” he said evenly.

  My mouth dropped open so wide you could have lobbed a basketball into it.

  “In fact, isn’t it possible that Ashley Winthrop’s decision to go head to head with your new business was enough to push your lifelong rivalry over the edge?”

  “But I—I—”

  “Don’t say another word!”

  Those four words, spoken in a loud, assertive, male voice, made me jump. Instinctively I whipped my head around.

  Standing in the doorway was Jake Pratt.

  I simply stared at him in total confusion.

  He was dressed in a jacket and tie, holding an expensive-looking leather briefcase. His light brown hair was slicked back, as if it had recently made contact with some sort of gel. Somehow, his demeanor matched the rest of his look. He was carrying himself as if he were the man in charge here.

  Detective Stoltz, meanwhile, was a step ahead of me.

  “Who are you?” he demanded, twisting his mouth into a most unattractive sneer.

  “Jake Pratt,” Jake replied in that same confident tone. He stepped over to the table and set his briefcase down on it with a loud bang. “I’m Ms. McKay’s attorney.”

  My eyebrows shot up toward the ceiling. Part of me wanted to protest, to insist that Jake get the heck out immediately so that Detective Stoltz could continue giving me the third degree without any unwelcome intruders in the room.

  But another part wanted to throw my arms around Jake in gratitude.

  “And as her attorney,” Jake continued with that same breeziness, “I am advising her not to answer any more questions. In fact, I’m
wondering what right you had to drag her into the station in the first place.”

  Detective Stoltz took a few seconds to study Jake coolly. “No dragging was involved,” he finally said, his tone at about the same temperature as my giant walk-in freezer. “Ms. McKay came in on her own volition.”

  “I see,” Jake returned, his voice just as icy. “Then she will also be leaving on her own volition.”

  By that point, there was so much testosterone in the room that I half expected it to peel the finish off the fake wood paneling. I was glad that a good portion of it was coming from someone who was on my side.

  But I guess Detective Stoltz decided that it was time to try another tactic. “Mr. Pratt,” he said, sounding much friendlier, “I’m just trying to find out whatever I can. A young woman was murdered last night, and—”

  “We’ll be leaving now,” Jake said. He picked up his briefcase and nodded in my direction. “Ms. McKay?”

  “We were pretty much done here anyway,” Detective Stoltz said, as if he just had to get in the last word. He pushed his chair back hard, its metal legs making eardrum-shattering shrieks. “But I promise you, Ms. McKay, that we will be in touch should the need arise.”

  I jumped to my feet, more than ready to get out of there. I struggled to keep my expression neutral, resisting the urge to stick my tongue out at Detective Stoltz as I hurried out of there, lickety split. No pun intended, believe me.

  Jake walked down the short hallway at a brisk pace, as if he, too, was anxious to get out of the station. I trotted after him, a couple of paces behind. “Jake, I want to thank you for—”

  “Don’t say anything,” he said, holding up one hand. “Not until we’re out of here.”

  It wasn’t until we were outside the building that I realized I hadn’t been breathing normally the whole time I’d been in there. For the first time in my life I understood what the term “hyperventilating” referred to.