The Cheesecake Fake: A Culinary Cozy Mystery Set In Sunny Florida (Slice of Paradise Cozy Mysteries Book 2)

by Nancy McGovern

  “Plus Tara Johnson, and Molly Pilgrim,” Laura said.

  Yale sat up straight against the tree where he had been slouching. “Well, I can tell you right now that Molly didn’t do it.”

  “How do you know that?” Nathan asked.

  “She’s my colleague up at the high school,” Yale explained. “We both teach Phys Ed. There’s no way she would do something like that. Why would she, anyways?”

  Faith twisted her mouth, thinking. “But maybe she might know something? You could find out? Does she talk to you like that?”

  “Sure I could find out,” Yale said, shrugging. “I highly doubt she’ll know anything, though. Molly’s very straight down the line.”

  Faith pushed that right out of her mind as soon as he said it. If there was one thing she’d learned, it was that people who looked like ‘real nice folk’ could in fact be hiding the most astonishing secrets. The people in Paradise could be concealing anything behind their friendly smiles.

  “My bet’s on Tara Johnson,” Laura said, crinkling her nose like there was a bad smell. “She’s just horrible.”

  “Maybe, but why would she want to kill Becky? I don’t see a motive.” Faith couldn’t get Dr. Asante and the cat out of her mind.

  “I think we should try to find out more from her,” Laura said, then she gasped excitedly. “I know! Let’s get her down to the tearoom, pretending we want her to review it.”

  Faith groaned. “Oh gosh. But what if she actually does review it? You know she’s going to pick fault in everything.”

  Laura grinned. “We’ll just ask Krystle not to print it. Remember she said she owed us a big favor, since we were doing the party for so cheap?”

  “Mm, that’s true.”

  “Who’s Krystle again?” Nathan asked.

  “The editor of the newspaper,” Faith said. She could hear her own voice softening when she spoke to him.

  “Oh right. Wait, couldn’t she have been the culprit?” Nathan suggested. “After all, I remember you saying she was the one who organized the party on the boat. Maybe she’d been planning it for ages, and deliberately chose the boat party.”

  “No, she chose the boat at the last minute,” Laura said. “Because Tara had a falling out with the guys at The Mango Tree.”

  “Oh.” Nathan looked a little put out. “Well, maybe Krystle paid the guys there to have an argument with Tara. Or… they worked together!”

  Yale laughed. “All right, Columbo.”

  Faith shook her head. “We really don’t know anything, do we?”

  Laura grimaced. “Nope.”

  “Okay,” Faith said with a sigh. “I guess we’d better get Tara in. And you’ll talk to Molly, Yale.”

  “I could talk to Krystle,” Nathan said quickly. “I’ll try to get a gardening column or something. Oh, hey, that’s actually a good idea. I guess I could promote my services that way.”

  “Sounds like a good plan,” Faith said. “And I’ll talk to Dr. Asante. Between the four of us, we’re bound to find out something.”

  *****

  Chapter 9

  Faith was glad Nimbus’ eye was clearing up, of course, but needed to fabricate a reason to go see Dr. Asante. If he was the killer, she didn’t want him to think she was onto him by turning up out of the blue, or saying she wanted to talk about the murder. That could put her in danger.

  “What do you think I should say?” Faith asked Laura. They were kneading dough for some apricot jam pastries, in the tea room. Stephanie had done a great job of looking after the place the previous day, and she was scheduled to do so again that afternoon when they went back to the ranch. But they had to bake up a frenzy before then, because Stephanie would just be manning the till, making drinks and taking slices of cake out to the tables. She wasn’t a baker.

  “Um… you could still just say that you’re concerned about his eye,” Laura said. “That would get you the appointment at least. Once you’re in the room, it doesn’t really matter, does it?”

  “I guess not.” Faith bit her lip. The thing was, she didn’t actually know what she was going to say to him when she got in the room. “Hey, should we make some extra for the Triggs?”

  Laura laughed. “Do you know how many kids and grandkids they’ve got in that house? Krystle was telling me it was like twenty grandkids or something. Bake some extra for the Triggs and you’ll be baking all your life, I’m telling you.”

  Faith shook her head. “And you know I get the impression that Danica cooks everything. How she does it…? beyond me.” Especially if her husband was cheating behind her back. Faith couldn’t help thinking that, even though she was trying to forget it as it was really none of her business. She hadn’t repeated it, either, not even to Laura or Nathan.

  Faith’s flip phone buzzed into life, which was strange. In all honesty, she didn’t get calls very much. Grandma Bessie gave her the occasional call to see how she and the tearoom were doing, but was otherwise enjoying life so much that she barely made contact. Faith’s mom preferred email, sending her pictures of the cabins she was viewing. And most of Faith’s friends back in Minnesota had, in all honestly, fallen away. None of them had ever been deep friendships. It was just her mom she missed the most.

  She didn’t recognize the number, but picked up quickly. “Hello?”

  “Faith.”

  She knew it was Dr. Asante immediately, from the way he said her name. Fete, it sounded like, like Mardi Gras. Or fate.

  Her pace picked up. “Hi, Dr. Asante. Is everything okay?”

  “Yes,” he said decisively, but then the long silence that stretched out afterward let her know that he definitely wasn’t. Something was up, Faith was sure of it.

  “Dr., are you still there?”

  “How is your kitten’s eye?”

  “Um… coming along well, thanks,” Faith said. “Is that why you’re ringing?”

  Then she heard a noise in the background as a patient came in, saying, “Hi, Dr..”

  “Hello,” he said, then back to Faith, “I will speak to you later. Call me later this afternoon. At 5, when my practice closes. I have something to show you.”

  “Okay.” Faith didn’t know whether to be exhilarated – a new clue in the search for Becky’s killer? – or terrified. Maybe ‘something to show’ her was going to be the sharp end of a knife blade, or the barrel of a gun.

  But as she snapped her phone shut, she tried to put all the melodramatic thoughts out of her head. No one would kill their girlfriend over a cat, surely? Even an expensive one? But she couldn’t quite convince herself.

  “Who was that?” Laura asked.

  Faith explained what Dr. Asante had said, then leaned against the counter. “I don’t know what’s going on. I really don’t.”

  “Me either,” Laura said. “Ooh, that reminds me, though, Tara says she’s going to come tomorrow. So at least we’ll get to talk to her then.”

  It seemed like Faith didn’t know how to feel about most things these days. It was quite exhausting, actually, to have so many emotions at once. Faith continued folding over the pastry, trying to enter back into the blissful bubble of baking world where everything made sense. But her mind kept flipping questions up, like was it good that Tara was coming along? Or was it going to be the end of everything they’d worked so hard for? Even though Laura had said Krystle could block any negative reviews, was that really true? What if Tara hated everything they’d done with the café? The way they’d redecorated? The tropical garden out front? The teas and coffees? The pastries, pies and cupcakes?

  It felt, in that moment, like everything was hanging in the balance. Faith felt a pressure on her shoulders as she spooned the jam mix into the middle of the pastry, like so much was pressing down upon her.

  Could she really pull it off and solve the mystery of the murder?

  Could she really pull it off and impress the hardest to please critic in town?

  *****

  “Oh man, you can’t be serious!” Laura s
lapped the hood of the van, annoyed. This is what, it’s third day, and it’s already breaking down? No way.”

  Faith couldn’t help notice how disappointed Laura had been most of their visit to the ranch. At the slightest rustle of the wind through the trees, or the clop of a distant horse hoof, she’d snapped her gaze in its direction, her eyes brightening. But when Yale didn’t appear, they dulled again. Since they’d gotten back in the van to go home she’d done nothing but moan – about the traffic, the weather being too hot, her clothes being too sticky, not having anything ready for dinner, them being no closer to solving the murder, and just about everything except what was really bothering her.

  Faith smiled to herself – it really did look like she’d been onto something with the whole Yale-Laura combination.

  “I’ll check it out,” Nathan said, popping the hood.

  “You don’t know anything about cars or engines,” Laura snapped.

  Nathan propped the hood up. “More than you do.”

  “Can you two stop bickering please?” Faith said. “I’ll just call roadside assistance. We got a year free with the purchase, remember?”

  But just as Faith was about to go back to root around in the glove box for the slip of paper, her phone began to ring again.

  She frowned, wondering for a moment if roadside assistance had some advanced way of knowing their Chevy had broken down. When she flipped her phone open, she saw it was an unfamiliar number again.

  “Hello?”

  “Faith?”

  “Dr. Asante?” She glanced at her watch. It was 4pm, so earlier than he’d asked her to call. They had been on track to get back to the tearoom for 4.30pm, so she could have finished up with Stephanie before calling him. “Is everything okay?”

  “No,” he said, his voice quivering. “And I am very sorry to call you. I have no one else here to call.”

  “Dr. Asante, what’s the matter?” Faith said, worried.

  “I think I know who it is. But I am not exactly sure.”

  “Who?”

  “It’s… oh, I cannot say. Wh-at if I am wrong? I could not do that kind of evil to somebody. To accuse an innocent person… That would maybe be as bad as the deed itself.”

  “Please, Dr. Asante, I won’t repeat it. I won’t accuse them. Just tell me.”

  “No, I cannot. Not now. I will meet with you tomorrow morning.”

  “Okay, where? At your office?”

  “No,” he said. “In your café. Early. At 7am.”

  “I’ll be there,” Faith said, though she was beginning to feel nervous. She didn’t know who she should feel nervous for – Dr. Asante, if this was all genuine, or herself, if this was all a ruse.

  Nathan was fiddling around with components under the hood. “That was the veterinarian?”

  “Yep,” Faith said. “He thinks he might know who did it.”

  “Krystle. I bet anything it was Krystle.”

  Faith felt annoyed at him poking around in the engine, when he clearly didn’t know what he was doing, and even more annoyed with him accusing Krystle. “What have you got against her, Nathan?” Her voice came out more snappishly than she’d meant it to.

  “Whoah,” he said, looking at her with wide eyes.

  Faith sighed. “Sorry. Look, I just… I just feel… frustrated, that’s all. I’m meeting Dr. Asante tomorrow morning, but it’s like… until then, what can I really do? I can’t relax. Not properly. But then I can’t really investigate, can I? Not at night. I just feel like I should be doing more. I’m not doing anything.”

  “Faith, do me a favor,” Nathan said. “Get into the driver’s seat and crank it for me, will you?”

  “Fine.” She went to the seat feeling huffy. If he didn’t want to listen to her, that was just fine. Laura was off by the side of the street, picking leaves off trees and looking moody, and Faith felt about the same. She couldn’t remember a time the three of them had felt so discordant.

  She turned the key and the engine sprang back into vibrating life.

  “Wahey!” Nathan shouted from the front of the van, so joyfully that Faith couldn’t help but break into a grin.

  Laura looked a little sheepish as she came over. “All right, so maybe you know a little about cars.”

  Nathan gave her a triumphant look, but when he turned to Faith his eyes were more vulnerable, like he was looking for her approval.

  She gave him a smile. “You did good, Nathan.”

  “Thanks,” he said casually, like it didn’t mean anything, but as he slid into the middle passenger seat, she saw his cheeks were flushed with pleasure and his brown eyes were dancing.

  Faith turned on the blinker, then pulled out onto the street.

  “So what’s tonight?” Laura said. “We’ve had Indian, then chicken stir fry, now…”

  “Pizza!” Nathan said.

  “Nope.” Laura shook her head. “Too much fat, especially after all those apricot jam pastries today. How about tuna steak with vegetables?”

  “Ick,” Nathan said. “At least let’s do real steak, not tuna.”

  “Ick?” Laura replied, incredulous. “What are you, twelve? Hey, come on Faith, back me up.”

  Even if Faith had been listening, she wasn’t going to get in the middle of anything between those two. In truth, she was sick of their going back and forth and being cheeky. But as it was she was staring out the front windshield, biting her lip.

  She made up her mind that after they’d seen Stephanie and closed up for the evening at 6.30pm, she’d head straight over to the veterinary practice. She knew he stayed late some days so that people who worked could bring their pets in after hours. Faith wasn’t 100% sure that day was one of those days, but she had to take the chance. Something wasn’t right. Something just wasn’t right.

  *****

  Chapter 10

  “Oh, my gosh. I’m so embarrassed!” Stephanie said, wiping her eyes and covering her hands in black eye makeup. “I can’t believe I’m crying like this. Sorry.”

  Faith felt so angry she was almost scaring herself. “I can’t believe she would treat you like that,” she said, pacing the gravel path out the side of the kitchen. She knew she was going to have to keep doing that for a while, in an attempt to control herself. All she wanted to do was burst into the tearoom and give Tara Johnson a good piece of her mind. But of course that would be the worst thing she could do – both for the other customers, and for the review that was coming.

  Laura was wiping her eyes along with Stephanie.

  “Oh, gosh, you’re crying now!” Stephanie said. “Really, take no notice. I should be tougher.”

  “I cry at everything,” Laura said, her voice breaking, somewhere between laughter and tears. “Seriously, it’s all right.”

  Stephanie looked worried. “Are you sure?”

  Faith managed a grin then. “Yep. See a cute kitten? Laura cries. Emotional ads on TV? Laura cries. Happy? Laura cries. Sad? She cries. Frustrated? She cries. Every single movie I’ve seen with her she cries. That’s just her thing.”

  Laura laughed, dabbing her eyes with her sleeve. “It’s true.”

  Stephanie gave her a sympathetic smile. “Well, to be honest, I’m a bit of a crier myself, though never in front of people. But this woman…” Her voice swelled with tears again. “Ugh!”

  “And she’s sitting in there right now, eating a slice of our cheesecake,” Faith said, frustrated. There was nothing more she wanted than to boot her out of there. Faith scrambled in her shoulder bag for a notepad and pen and then asked, “So what exactly did she say?” She was determined to get it exactly right.

  Stephanie pressed her lips together, trying to control herself. “She asked me all the different kind of teas you had, right? So I read from the list you had, and she was really snotty and said to me that she could read, too, surprisingly.”

  Laura rolled her still-red eyes. “So rude.”

  “Right?” Stephanie said. “Then she asked where each of the teas was source
d from, and I told her I didn’t know but that I could find out. I was going to ring you to find out. Then she cuts me off in this rude way, flicking her hand, and says I obviously don’t care about my job very much. Then when I tell her I’m just standing in for you guys temporarily she drones on and on about commitment to excellence or something, and product knowledge, and you being money-hungry. I don’t even know what she was saying, I’d tuned her out at this point.”

  “Unbelievable,” Faith said.

  “Then I kind of made a mistake,” Stephanie said. “As we were talking, I get this burning smell, so I realize I put the treacle toffee pudding in to warm up for one of the other customers, and because I’m talking to this lady I’d forgotten about it. So I go back in the kitchen and it’s burned just a little, thankfully. I spoon out the burned bit and put it in the proper plate and it looks all nice.” Then she threw her eyes up to the sky and shook her head. “Next, I can’t even…”

  “Go on,” Faith urged. She was writing it all down, feeling her blood boil as she scribbled in tight, outraged cursive.

  “You won’t believe this,” Stephanie said. “She actually followed me to the other lady’s table, and started making comments!”

  “No way,” Laura said. “You can’t be serious.”

  Stephanie’s upset was heavy in her voice. “I know, right? She kept mentioning there being a burning smell, and made the lady smell the pudding, to see if it smelled like burning.”

  “She sounds like a psychopath,” Laura said.

  Faith bit her lip. “Is that other customer still there?” She wanted to go and personally apologize, and offer to cover the cost of her pudding.

  “No, she left a short while after,” Stephanie said. “I wanted to follow her right out of there.”

  “Then what happened?” Faith asked.

  “Excuse me!” a loud voice was calling from inside, in a rude, pompous tone. “Excuse me!”

  “Three guesses who that is,” Stephanie said, then burst into tears all over again.