by Lee, Carol
“How did we miss him?” Grace asked, shocked.
“I wasn’t there. It was a few months ago on a weekend when I took Maple hiking. I never showed you a picture of him so you wouldn’t have known. But he went to Mia’s looking for her help in getting me back. Apparently he’s still in love with me.”
“OK, but there must have been someone else we can add to the list. What about any other ex-girlfriends? What’s his job? Could he have pissed someone off there enough to kill him?”
“He’s a librarian. I know, it doesn’t fit his personality,” Sydney said when Grace gave her a skeptical look.
“What about Allison? Would she have known him when he came? She’s a librarian.”
“Maybe. She’s always frustrated with the funding issues. Aaron’s library has all the money in the world because a donor setup a trust fund years ago.”
“We’ll add her to the list.”
“That feels like a stretch for murder.”
“Maybe she wanted his job and this was how she could get it,” Grace offered. “OK. We have someone to look into. Who else can we add? What else do you know about his life these days?”
“Nothing. That’s the problem. Oh wait! What about Levi?”
“Leah’s husband? What does he have to do with Aaron?”
“They grew up together, I remember. But they had a big falling out before I met Aaron. I can’t remember the details, but one time we’d visited Mia when Leah and Levi were there and they had a big blowout fight right there in front of everyone. And he was acting all strange this morning—like he was totally distracted and thinking about something else.”
“OK. We’ll add him too. We have a good start, something to try to figure out tomorrow at work. You focus on Levi and I’ll dig into Allison to see if they know anything.”
“Oh Grace, you’re a life saver!” Sydney said, wrapping her arms around her best friend before taking Maple home and falling into bed.
CHAPTER 3
Sydney was woken by Maple’s wet nose digging into her ear.
“It’s not time yet, is it?” Sydney asked groggily. It was unlike her to oversleep.
She rolled over, picked up her cell phone and checked the time. She still had an hour and a half before her alarm.
“What is it, Maple?” Sydney asked, getting out of bed to Maple’s whines. “You have to go out?”
She followed Maple to the back door and let her out. She flipped on the outside light and waited, eyes barely able to focus, until she came back.
“Maybe it was those treats from Jake,” Sydney said when Maple came back in and headed back to bed.
Sydney had trouble falling back into a restful sleep, but instead had vivid dreams that left her in a cold sweat.
In one, she was back with Aaron and felt just as trapped as she had toward the end of their relationship. But they were living on a boat, so she had no way to escape.
In another, she was being chased by a swarm of bees. When she woke up, she couldn’t help but feel like those bees were Detective Massey and the rest of the Twin Peaks Police Department.
Sydney finally got up early and decided to make herself a big breakfast of pumpkin spice pancakes. With real maple syrup of course.
Even with the hearty breakfast, she and Maple still arrived at Sinful Sweets early.
I guess I could check on the orders from yesterday, she thought to herself. She’d felt guilty about leaving Grace alone all afternoon, but what else could she have done? She could at least help them get caught up now.
She first whipped up another triple batch of pumpkin pies, took out frozen donuts to thaw for frying later in the morning and got the coffee ready to brew.
“Sydney, did you see the news this morning?” Grace asked, clamoring through the back door an hour earlier than Sydney expected her.
“No, I got here early. What’s up?”
“Aaron. It’s all over the news. They’re asking for leads.”
“Did they say anything about the pumpkin pie?”
“No. And they didn’t mention you or Sinful Sweets, but they did say that they were currently investigating one suspect.”
“This isn’t good. We’ve got to find out whatever we can from Allison and Levi today,” Sydney said, turning back to the orders to fill.
Grace jumped into their work. They were filling orders side by side when Sydney exclaimed, “What about all the customers who bought pumpkin pies! We have all the orders we shipped, we can look up those recipients. And we can try to remember who bought pumpkin pies for takeout. That would help us add to our list!”
“Great idea! I knew sleeping on it would clear our heads and help us move forward.”
“Here. This is the list from the last two weeks of pumpkin pie orders—37 orders. That’s a lot.” Sydney printed it out so they could narrow down their list of suspects.
“We can narrow it down. Who are our regulars? We can cross off anyone we know,” Grace said. She grabbed a black marker usually used to write messages on the boxes they shipped and crossed off eight names she recognized or knew from previous orders.
“And there were two weddings we sent some to.”
“This one,” Grace pointed. “This was one of the weddings—they wanted 100 pies.”
“And this one for 75. Already down to only 25 possibilities,” Sydney nearly laughed at the idea of checking them all out.
“What about shipping addresses? We could narrow it down to just the surrounding towns. Like here, this one is too far. This couldn’t have been it. And anyone who only ordered one. There probably weren’t many, but just in case, we can cross them off,” Grace was knocking off suspects left and right.
“Great. You tell me zip codes and I’ll search for them to see how far away they are.”
They could eliminate four more because there had been only one pie in the order, but there had been two at the crime scene. They worked through the remaining 21 orders before Maple barked, alerting them it was time to open. They were left with only three orders from the last two weeks for pumpkin pies that were all in Aaron’s hometown of Westhedge.
“We’ll have to try to think of anyone who had a takeout order. Pay attention to everyone today to try to remember their recent orders,” Sydney said as she walked to the front of the bakery. “And don’t forget to discretely question Allison,” she added when she walked back to the kitchen.
Grace was pulling the first set of pumpkin pies out of the oven when Levi walked through the front door. “Hi Maple,” he crooned.
“This is it, get something out of him,” Grace whispered and Sydney went to the counter.
“Hey Levi. How’d Wendy like her visit to the city and meeting with the state legislators?” Sydney asked, remembering her first customers from the previous morning.
“Morning Sydney. She loved it. But I think it scared her out of politics for life!”
Sydney was surprised to see him back to his usual self and not at all distracted like the previous day.
“All it took was one visit?” she asked.
“Yeah. All the budget talks were enough to scare her off. They got to sit in on a session and I think most of them ended up just surfing on their phones.”
“That’s all it’d take for me, too,” Sydney agreed. “What can I get you today?”
“What do you have for muffins?”
“We have pumpkin—everything pumpkin right now!—and apple cinnamon. If you put in a request, I could make something different for tomorrow.” He seemed to flinch when she mentioned pumpkin.
“I’ll take an apple cinnamon. And a coffee.”
“Coming right up.” As Sydney turned her back to fill the coffee cup he’d handed her, she remembered that he’d ordered half a dozen pumpkin pies a week earlier. “How’d those pies go over that you ordered last week?”
“They were a hit! Thanks. That’s why I had another one yesterday. I don’t know what you do, but it’s magical the way you can get the perfect bit of sweetne
ss into each one. I’m just a little pumpkined out today.”
Maybe he knows about the poisoned pies, Sydney thought to herself, making sure not to reveal anything in her expression.
“Glad to hear they were a success. Who’d you get them for? I can always surprise someone with another one for their birthday or something,” Sydney asked, trying not to be too obvious that she was checking his story.
“Leah and I were celebrating our forth wedding anniversary and our parents came over to celebrate with us. Her mom’s gluten free so it was extra nice that she could enjoy them.”
“I’m glad to hear it. What about the kids?” Sydney asked, realizing that with six adults, Wendy wouldn’t have been able to have dessert.
“She’s not a pie kind of person, something about the texture. We got her one of your delicious donuts.”
Sydney remembered now, there had been a donut with his order.
“Happy to hear I can provide something for everyone,” Sydney said with a smile. “Hey, did you hear about Aaron’s death?” she asked, realizing she’d have to be more direct to get him to tell her about his relationship with the deceased.
“Just heard it on the radio this morning. It’s a shame really.”
“You guys grew up together, right?”
“Yup, over in Westhedge.”
“You still kept in touch with him?”
“Not since he egged my parents’ house in college as some Halloween prank.”
Sydney was surprised by his calm demeanor after the fight she’d seen them have years earlier. She wasn’t quite ready to cross him off her suspect list, but she’d have to dig deeper to find out what else had happened in their past.
Four more customers came in. “Have a great day,” Levi said with a smile and turned to go.
“Thanks, you too!” Sydney responded cheerily. “Morning,” she greeted her new customers. “What can I get you?”
Sydney took orders, constantly on the lookout for Allison. By noon, she wasn’t hopeful Grace would be able to question the librarian.
For the second day in a row, just before closing, Sydney was surprised by who entered. Mia walked in, childless. It was rare that she didn’t have Aiden balanced on one hip, chasing after Ariel while Addison was at school.
“Mia, what brings you in today?” Sydney asked. Since Mia had handed the business over, she’d been an infrequent visitor. Who could blame her with the kids she was constantly juggling.
“I just had lunch with Austin—Detective Massey—and I thought I’d update you on what he told me.”
“Austin, huh?” Sydney asked, resentment in her voice that she didn’t want to feel. She questioned her sister’s loyalty, but knew she should give her the benefit of the doubt.
“Come on. He told me he doesn’t want to believe you did it.”
“Doesn’t want to believe or doesn’t believe? Those are very different.”
“I know. He doesn’t want to believe you did. But right now you’re their main suspect.”
“How did that happen?”
“Well, the pies for one. Your business card was also on the table. And your fingerprints were there,” Mia finished, a real blow.
“My fingerprints? Maybe on the box the pies were in, or the business card, but I was never there!” Sydney was getting riled up. She knew she shouldn’t shoot the messenger, but she couldn’t help it right now. “Did you guys just talk about me over lunch?”
“No. We also talked about my relationship with Aaron. But then he asked about your breakup.”
“What’d you tell him?” Sydney asked, panic rising up from her stomach.
“I couldn’t lie. I told him what you’d told me. That it hadn’t been an amicable breakup, but that you hadn’t heard from him or contacted him in the six years you’ve been apart.”
Sydney let that sink in. Now he knew that they’d had a messy breakup.
“Maybe you can keep clear of him until this all blows over?” Sydney requested.
“Come on Syd, he’s my neighbor. The kids love him. I’ll try to help clear your name.”
“I hope so,” she said. “You know anything about Levi? He seemed really off yesterday.”
“They just found out Leah’s pregnant again and they haven’t been trying. In fact, they’ve been trying to not have any more kids. I think she told him yesterday morning, I found out on the hayride at Jake’s before you got there. I’ve gotta go get Addison and then pick up the other kids from the playgroup. Leah was very accommodating and let me leave them under her watch so I could come update you.”
“Thanks, Mia. I’m sorry if I was coming off too harsh. I do appreciate you helping. It just doesn’t make any sense how I’m ending up on their list of suspects!”
“I know. I’ll keep you posted if I hear anything else,” Mia promised and walked out of the bakery.
Sydney leaned over the counter and rested her forehead on her arms.
“Any news?” Grace asked as she walked through the bakery to turn the sign back to closed.
“It’s not Levi. He was acting all weird yesterday because he just found out they’re having another kid. I don’t know the details of his past with Aaron, but he had an alibi for the pies he bought last week. We have to keep digging.”
“Let’s go get a bite to eat and see if we can’t track down Allison. It’s not like her to miss a morning here. We can finish up the fulfillment after lunch.”
“Thanks Grace. That’d be great. Let’s pack things up just in case we don’t make it back for a while.”
They worked efficiently, like the well-oiled machine they’d become over the years. Grace had been the first customer Sydney had served when she started working under Mia. They’d hit it off immediately and bonded over late night marathons of rerun TV shows from their youth. Now they could work side by side without saying a thing and knowing exactly what needed to be done.
Not that they often worked in silence. It was tough for them to stop talking for even a whole minute. There was always something more to share that the other would surely need to hear.
When the pies and pastries were put away, Sydney and Grace left through the back door. Sydney put Maple on a leash, something she only did when they were walking. Riding, Maple was too excited to keep up to check out smells or take off after anything. There was also a strict leash law in Twin Peaks and Sydney didn’t want to test her luck by drawing any more attention to herself right now.
“Twin Peaks Diner or Paradise Café?” Grace asked.
“Paradise Café, hands down,” Sydney told her. “I’m surprised you even had to ask!”
“Just making sure nothing had changed.” They both chuckled.
Over a lunch of creamy potato soup with fresh bread, they dove right back into their own investigation. Sydney caught her best friend up on the rest of her conversation with Mia.
“I just can’t believe she’d throw me under the bus like that,” Sydney complained. “She’s my sister!”
“It’s not like Detective Massey wouldn’t find out about your breakup one way or another. And maybe just having Mia know him will be an asset in the long run. Now he knows he can trust her with this case.”
“Maybe. We’ll see. Did you bring the list of orders we have to check out?”
“Yeah. Right here. There’s Jody Durham, Michael Helmick and Madelyn Kountz. All new customers.”
“And they’re all in Westhedge?” Sydney asked.
“Yup.”
“What about gift ordering. Were any of them ordered as gifts and shipped elsewhere? Like to a hotel?”
“It doesn’t look like it.”
“How can we be running into so many dead ends?” Sydney asked, exasperated.
“Do you remember any of these names when you were living with Aaron? Maybe they’re connected to him somehow,” Grace suggested.
“Nothing familiar. Let’s head to the library and look for Allison.”
They paid for their lunch and walked the short dist
ance to the library, hoping to find Allison.
Before they could get there, they saw Detective Massey coming their way.
CHAPTER 4
“Good afternoon Sydney. Grace,” Detective Massey greeted them on the street. “I’m surprised to see Maple on a leash. I didn’t think she’d ever leave your side.”
“Just following the rules, Detective,” Sydney said, hoping this was just a chance meeting and he wasn’t following her every move.
