Baking Bad--A Cozy Mystery (With Dragons)

by Kim M Watt

  DI Adams rubbed her eyes. The migraine vision was back again, making the lower edge of the steps hard to look at, and when she caught movement out of the corner of her eye she jerked toward it. There was nothing there, just a flowerpot fallen off a gravestone. She looked back at the sorry little group. Jasmine was staring at the man in round-eyed astonishment, her dog still barking, and Rose seemed too interested in what was happening to bother looking for her dear lost Angelus anymore.

  DI Adams opened her mouth to say something, possibly related to what sort of friends the man thought might bite, and her phone rang. She swore, held one warning finger out at the scene in general, then checked the screen.

  DCI Temple. Also known as Temper. Also known as the man that had given her this assignment with a dig about how boring it would be for a big city cop. Well. That was just perfect. “Hello, sir.”

  “Adams? How’s it going up there? Thought maybe the murderer had got you, since it’s been nothing but crickets here.”

  “I’m in the field, sir.” Well, graveyard. She peered into the shadows under the trees curiously. Whoever was looking for Walter was getting closer.

  “And?”

  “And I’m currently looking at a new suspect.” Sort of. The man on the steps stared at her with a disbelieving expression, and she ignored him.

  “Well, that would be good. Lab results are back, which you’d know if you ever got around to checking in. We do that sort of thing up here, you know.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. I’ll check in as soon as I’m done here. Ah, was it …?”

  “Poison. Belladonna, apparently, and you don’t get much more country living than that.”

  “I see.” Walter – or Walter’s owner/pursuer/whatever – sounded like he should be in sight at any moment. The inspector turned in a slow circle, looking for movement, those blurs playing across her vision again and making her eyes feel swimmy and uncomfortable.

  “Don’t eat anything the ladies of the Women’s Institute give you, Adams. That’s all I can say.” The DCI laughed, and the inspector chuckled obediently, thinking of pies and cookies and homemade lemonade, and wondering if belladonna ever had migraine-like symptoms. Then a Great Dane came careening across the graveyard with no respect for graves or markers, running flat out with his gangly legs flying everywhere, slipping on the grass and sending vases of flowers spilling to the ground.

  “Call you back,” DI Adams said, and hung up. “Control your dog,” she said to Rose. He was racing toward them, the whites of his eyes showing and drool flying in strings from his wide mouth, and showed no signs of slowing. “Control that damn dog!”

  “Angelus!” Rose shouted. “Come to Mummy!”

  The dog swerved toward her, accelerating like a greyhound on a track, and DI Adams realised that he wasn’t going to slow down.

  “Sit!” she bellowed. “Stop, sit, stay – sh—” She jumped out of the way of the dog as he bolted toward his tiny owner, then ran after him, lunging at the leash.

  “Sit, Angel! Sit!” Rose yelped, looking horrified. The dog’s eyes rolled, his legs bunching as he tried to obey, but his forward momentum was too much. He was sliding on the slick grass, Rose scuttling backward as the inspector made another wild grab for the leash.

  “Stop!” Alice and Miriam shouted from behind her, and a male voice shouted, “Walter, no!”

  DI Adams almost had the leash when her legs went out from under her, and for a moment she thought there was another dog, that there must be another dog, because something hit her legs, she was sure of it. Then she was flat on her back, wheezing, and the only dog she could see was the Great Dane as he came to a sliding halt inches from his tiny mistress, shoving his giant face into her belly as if trying to hide from something.

  “Inspector!” someone shouted, and then Alice was leaning over her, looking worried. “Are you hurt?”

  DI Adams shook her head, then pushed herself onto her elbows. The man was still sitting on the church step, looking bewildered. She knew how he felt. “Who’s Walter?” she managed.

  “Must be a friend of his,” Alice said, nodding at the man. “I don’t know anyone called Walter.”

  The inspector rubbed her eyes and sat up. “So where’s the other dog?”

  “What other dog?” Alice asked.

  “The one that knocked me over.”

  Alice frowned. “There wasn’t another dog.”

  DI Adams blinked at the green-dappled world of the churchyard. All those strange blurred spots in her vision. They were all over the place. She should get an MRI. But she’d had one after the incident in London, and it had been clear. Still, this couldn’t be normal. Shaw’s yappy dog ran over her lap, still barking, and she grabbed the noisy mutt by the collar instinctively.

  “Shut up!” she told the dog as the thing stared at her in astonishment. Then bit her. She yelped, let the dog go, and scrambled to her feet, shaking her injured hand. “Nobody move. Nobody. Move!”

  She was fairly sure she was shouting, but right now she really didn’t care.

  12

  Miriam

  Miriam was both astonished by how quickly things had gone downhill, and not surprised at all. She and Alice had been in the church, removing old flowers from the chipped vases and rinsing them out in the little half-kitchen, not really talking, just going about their business in quiet companionship. Miriam had just arranged a spray of snapdragons to her satisfaction and was carrying the vase back to the main room when a man emerged from the door in front of her. She squeaked, and almost dropped the flowers. He seemed just as startled, but managed to grab the bottom of the vase and help her steady it.

  “Who’re you?” she demanded, her heart hammering so loudly that she could barely hear her own words. Then, before he could answer, “What’re you doing in the supply cupboard? That’s the supply cupboard!”

  “I—” the man began.

  “Alice! Alice, there’s a man in the supply cupboard!”

  “I can see that,” Alice said, from over Miriam’s shoulder, making her squeak again. This time she saved the vase herself.

  “Ladies,” the man said, pleasantly enough. He had a friendly smile, Miriam thought, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. The eyes looked wary, and they darted about the place as if looking for a way out.

  “What are you doing here?” Alice asked.

  “Meter reader,” he said. “Can’t find the meter.”

  “May I see your card?” Alice asked. Miriam shifted her grip on the vase, just in case she had to use it as a weapon, then immediately felt horrified with herself for even thinking such a thing.

  The man hesitated, his smile fading, then nodded. “See there’s no putting anything over you two.”

  “You look old enough to know better,” Alice replied.

  The man gave a little huff of amusement, and Miriam saw his posture change. He’d assumed something almost obsequious before, the lost meter reader in the cupboard, innocent and a little confused. Now his jaw lifted and his weight shifted, and she had to stop herself taking a step back. “I’m an old friend of the vicar’s, is all.” She could almost hear the quotation marks around “vicar”, as if it was a word he was unfamiliar with. “Heard what happened, and thought I’d come up and see if I could do anything to help the investigation.”

  “That’s a job for the police,” Alice said, and Miriam just managed not to snort.

  “The police don’t always know what they’re looking for.”

  There was a moment’s silence, then Miriam blurted, “S.B.”

  “What?” the man asked, glaring at her.

  “S.B. Are you S.B.?”

  The pause that followed was long enough for Miriam to see indecision flash over the man’s face, then the hardening of the line of his mouth. He seemed to be preparing himself for something, but before any of them could move there was a roar from outside.

  “Oh dear,” Alice said, and the man said something spectacularly rude before mumbling an apology.
>
  “Oh dear,” Miriam said, and dumped her vase on the floor as she ran for the door, hearing Alice and the man who might be S.B. following her.

  There was a lot of confusion outside. Rose’s Great Dane was blaring his enormous hellhound bellow at Walter and Mortimer, and Beaufort was shouting at Walter not to eat the dog, and Walter didn’t seem to be too keen on listening. Mortimer was waving his wings about in alarm, and Amelia was bouncing around as if she didn’t know which way to turn. Miriam started down the steps with every intention of boxing the old dragon’s ears, but Alice grabbed her arm.

  “The inspector,” she said quietly, nodding across the graveyard, and now Miriam realised she could hear very human shouts over the dog and the dragons. She supposed that distracting detective inspectors was rather difficult when it came to roaring dragons, and said something only marginally less rude than what maybe-S.B. had said earlier. Both he and Alice looked at her in astonishment, then the man went back to peering around the graveyard with a frown on his face.

  “Who’s there?” he demanded. “I heard voices! Have you got friends out here?”

  “No?” Miriam offered, and maybe-S.B. glared at her.

  “Angelus!” someone, probably Rose, shouted in the distance.

  “I heard something,” the man insisted.

  Walter growled, and the man spun back to look at the graveyard. “What was that?”

  “The dog,” Alice said, as Beaufort growled, “Walter.”

  “Who said that?” maybe-S.B. asked.

  “I did,” Alice said.

  “Not ‘the dog’, ‘Walter’.”

  “Who?” Alice asked, her voice mild, and the man glared at her.

  “Oh dear,” Miriam said, to no one in particular.

  Rose was getting closer, and Miriam could hear the inspector shouting, too.

  Then Amelia said, very clearly, “Can anyone else smell that guy? He stinks.”

  Miriam and Alice both stared at the man. “What?” he demanded. “What? Did someone say something? Someone said something.”

  And then everything went really wrong. Beaufort and Mortimer were looking at maybe-S.B. too, and Walter took the opportunity to throw himself at Angelus. The dog yelped and bolted, Walter in hot pursuit, and Beaufort plunged after them, bellowing for Walter to stop. Amelia immediately followed, whether in the hope of actually helping or just for the fun of it.

  Alice grabbed maybe-S.B.’s arm. “You are S.B., aren’t you?”

  “Get off me,” he snapped, shaking her free. Miriam could see the inspector now, sprinting across the graveyard, and Rose jogging along behind her. Jasmine was ahead of them, chasing her silly little dog, who was running as fast as her tiny legs could carry her straight for Mortimer. He’d gone a barely-camouflaged green and looked faintly ill.

  Maybe-S.B. started down the stairs. “I’m out of here.”

  Alice reached out for him again. “You wait right here, young man.”

  The young man in question, who Miriam guessed was probably in his early fifties, shoved Alice away from him, not hard, but with enough force to make her stumble and fall back onto the steps with a very un-Alice-like gasp. “Don’t touch me, you old—”

  He never got to finish the sentence, which Miriam was quite happy about, because Mortimer gave a roar that seemed to startle the dragon as much as it did them. Before maybe-S.B. could do anything more than spin around, his mouth open to shout and a horrified look on his face, Mortimer had sunk his teeth firmly into the man’s leg.

  “Mortimer, no!” Alice hissed.

  Miriam silently applauded the dragon as the man fell backward with a howl and slid down the steps. And suddenly she realised that the detective inspector was almost upon them, and the vicar’s murderer was most likely lying right at her feet.

  “Mortimer, let go!” she shout-whispered, and flung herself on top of maybe-S.B., wishing she’d taken one of those self-defence classes they had at the hall sometimes. Although this might be stretching the definition of self-defence a little tiny bit. The man gave a grunt of protest and tried to kick her off, but Miriam was both entirely happy with her comfortable proportions and not afraid to use them. She trapped his legs with hers, and while he was still wriggling Alice dropped neatly down next to her and jammed a grocery bag over his head, then did something fancy with her legs to immobilise his arms.

  “Nice,” Miriam said, and Alice grinned at her, a single lock of dislodged grey hair falling in her face.

  “Well done yourself, Miriam.”

  Miriam had a moment to feel quite proud of herself, then the DI’s voice shattered it.

  “Everybody stop right now or so help me I’ll arrest every single one of you!”

  Miriam wondered if you really did have to wear orange in prison, or if that was just on TV. She didn’t like orange. It clashed with her aura.

  And then things went from bad to worse. DI Adams had just hung her phone up (Alice had listened intently to the DI’s side of the conversation), when Angelus came rushing back to Rose with his tail between his legs. Walter was in close pursuit, drool flying from his jaws and splattering the detective inspector’s trousers as he lurched into her and sent her sprawling to the ground. Miriam wasn’t at all sure if Walter had actually seen her and was just being ornery, or if he was so short-sighted that he’d entirely missed a human between him and his intended snack. But it did at least slow the old dragon down enough that Beaufort was able to pounce on him in a tackle not unlike Miriam’s own, with the exception that he trapped Walter’s mouth shut with one heavy paw. Amelia wasn’t far behind, and she grabbed the old dragon’s tail before he could knock anyone else flying. Primrose was in hysterics, and after biting the inspector she only got more excited, prancing around the dragons so anyone with half a brain could work out something was there.

  “I’m going to eat the damn thing myself,” Amelia growled, and Mortimer shushed her. He’d gone a peculiar shade of yellow after biting maybe-S.B., and couldn’t seem to come out of it.

  “What was that?” the detective inspector demanded. She got up, ignoring Alice’s offer of help, her hand dripping blood onto the grass. Walter’s nostrils were flaring.

  “Nothing, Detective Inspector Adams,” Alice said. “Shall we go inside and get your hand seen to?”

  The inspector glared at her. “No one’s going anywhere. Me included.”

  “This is totally unfair,” maybe-S.B. complained. “These women attacked me!”

  “Well, what were you doing in the church?” Miriam demanded, feeling quite emboldened after her unexpectedly effective capture. “You were snooping!”

  “What were you doing in the church?” the inspector countered, pointing at Miriam with her uninjured hand. Miriam made an uncertain little noise. The detective inspector had been much less intimidating when she was on the ground.

  “We were replacing the flowers,” Alice said. “The old ones are still in the kitchen, if you’d like to check.”

  “And why were you doing that?”

  The four members of the Toot Hansell Women’s Institute stared at DI Adams as if she’d asked why they ate breakfast.

  “Because it’s what we do,” Alice said patiently.

  “Well. You shouldn’t be,” DI Adams said, then looked uncomfortable when the women continued to stare at her. After a moment she added, “I mean, there’s still an investigation going on.”

  “Not in the church,” Alice pointed out.

  “Well, maybe there should be.”

  “There should be now,” maybe-S.B. said. “But I’m busy. I won’t press charges.” He brushed his hands off and nodded at the women. “I’ll be off.” There was a growl from somewhere near his knees, and he looked alarmed. “What was that?”

  “What was what?” Miriam asked innocently, giving Mortimer a pointed look.

  “It might be my stomach,” Alice said, patting her belly. “I didn’t have much for lunch.”

  “You’re not going anywhere,” DI Adams said t
o maybe-S.B. “I want to know what you were doing in the church.”

  “I’m an aficionado of English village churches,” he said, and Miriam snorted.

  “Primrose? Primrose, come to Mummy,” Jasmine called. Primrose ignored her entirely. She was trying to latch onto Amelia’s tail while the young dragon flicked it about in an effort to keep it safely out of reach. Walter was making dangerous rumbling sounds, and Beaufort was whispering urgently in his ear.

  “Mrs—” DI Adams pointed at Rose, and blinked a couple of times, her forehead furrowed with distress.

  “Howard,” Rose supplied.

  “Yes. Mrs Howard—”

  “Professor, actually.”

  The inspector took a deep breath. Miriam could actually see her trying to keep her temper. She was having a lot of trouble looking at Rose and Angelus, because there was a pile-up of dragons in the way. Her eyes were watering. “Of course. Professor Howard—”

  “Rose is fine, though.”

  For a moment it looked as though the inspector was going to start shouting again, then she said, very quietly, “Professor Howard, please take your dog and go home. I may come by later to ask you some questions.”

  “Oh, that would be nice. I made fairy cakes just this morning.”

  DI Adams blinked firmly, and a forced smile appeared on her face. “Very good.”

  “Well, bye, then,” Rose said, giving a general wave that took in the women, the dragons, and the unknown man. She pottered off, Angelus crowding so close to her side that he kept pushing her into grave markers.

  DI Adams turned her strained smile on Jasmine. Miriam was starting to worry about the inspector. A tic had appeared under one eye, presumably from the effort of not seeing dragons. “Mrs Shaw. Please take your dog and go home also.”

  “Um. Yes.” Jasmine made an ineffectual grab for Primrose, who danced away, her barks cracking at the edges and becoming almost silent. That was a relief, at least, Miriam thought. “I’ll – it just may take me a moment.”

  “I will eat her,” Amelia mumbled, and DI Adams glared at Jasmine.