Wedding Bell Blunders: A Freshly Baked Cozy Mystery

by Kathleen Suzette

  “Good morning, Allie,” Lucy said, standing on my doorstep. She had a basket in her hands. “I thought I’d bring you a little something for your trip.”

  I smiled and stepped back. “That’s sweet of you, Lucy. I was just making some coffee, let’s go have a cup.”

  We headed into the kitchen, and she set the basket on the kitchen table. “It’s just some snacks and things for your trip so that you don’t have to stop when you get hungry unless you really want to.”

  “That’s so thoughtful. We will appreciate that when we go on our trip,” I said. “Thank you.” I got out three coffee cups from the cupboard and set them down on the counter. Alec was finishing dressing, and he was going to head down to the police station. I turned and looked at Lucy. “I have to tell you something.”

  She looked at me, one eyebrow raised. “Oh? What’s that?”

  “Sam Bailey thinks that someone attempted to murder Richard Thomas.”

  She gasped. “Are you serious?”

  I nodded. “Yes, sulfonylurea. It’s a diabetic medication.”

  She nodded. “Ed used to take that for his diabetes, but his doctor stopped prescribing it a few years ago. There are safer medications out there now.”

  “Really? So that medication isn’t that safe?”

  She nodded. “I was under the impression that doctors didn’t like to prescribe it as often as they used to. I’m sure some still do, though. So Richard was diabetic?”

  I shook my head. “His mother said he wasn’t.”

  “What?”

  Alec came into the room, and we turned to him. I smiled. “Look who came to visit us,” I told him. “Lucy brought us a basket of goodies to take on our trip.”

  He smiled at Lucy and then poured himself a cup of coffee. “Thank you, Lucy. That’s thoughtful of you.”

  She nodded. “I just knew you two would need some treats for your trip. So, we’ll call them sweetheart treats.” She chuckled.

  He smiled and went to the refrigerator and got the cream out, and poured some into his cup. “I’m going to drink this, and then I’m going to head out. I promise not to be too late.”

  I nodded. “I know. It will be fine.”

  Mama came to the kitchen door, still in her bathrobe. “My goodness, I can’t believe that I slept as late as I did. I should have been up early making breakfast for you two love birds. I think I’ll get to work on that right now if you haven’t already eaten. Morning, Lucy.”

  “Morning, Myrna,” Lucy said.

  “Oh Mama, we have so much food in the refrigerator from the reception that we can just find something in there to eat. Don’t worry about it.”

  “I wouldn’t feel right about that,” she said, opening the refrigerator door. “Oh, my, you weren’t kidding about the leftovers, were you?”

  I shook my head. “No, I’m not kidding.”

  “Myrna, as much as I appreciate your thinking about making breakfast for us,” Alec said and took another sip of his coffee and set the cup down. “I’ve got to run. I’ll be back in a little while.”

  “Oh,” Mama said sadly. “I was going to make you a big southern breakfast.”

  Alec grinned. “You have no idea how much I would enjoy something like that. But really, I’ve got to run. I promise I’ll be back shortly. See you all later.” He kissed me on the way out the door.

  When the door closed behind him, I turned to Mama. “The police think someone tried to murder Richard Thomas.”

  She pushed her glasses up on her nose. “That young man that passed out at the reception yesterday?”

  I nodded. “The one and the same.”

  She shook her head. “That’s a shame. Who did it? We were all here in the ballroom. It had to be one of those other two caterers. Is Alec going to go talk to them?”

  I shrugged and took a sip of my coffee, and then got another cup down to pour some for her. “He’s going to go talk to the chief of police today. We’ll have to see how it goes from there. Richard is in a coma. I sure hope he pulls through.”

  She made a clucking sound, and I handed her the cup of coffee. “How awful.”

  “I guess we get to visit a little bit longer since we’re going to put our honeymoon off for a couple of days,” I said and gave her a one-armed hug. “I wish we had more time.”

  She nodded. “Well, it’s not like you can’t come and visit me in Alabama, you know.”

  I nodded. “I know, Mama, I know.” Thad and Sarah, and my mother, brother, and sister, would fly out early tomorrow morning. I wished we had more time to visit, but I was happy that they had made it for the wedding. Next time we would plan a vacation far enough in advance that we could visit with one another for a long while.

  I didn’t know if someone had attempted to murder Richard, but I had to wonder about it. If he wasn’t diabetic, why would he have that medication in his system? Mama might have been right about the other two caterers. But where would they have gotten the medication, and why would he take it?

  Chapter Six

  “Allie, this is a beautiful house,” Mama said. “It’s a pure shame that poor girl was murdered here.”

  I sighed. “It was a shame that she was murdered anywhere.”

  “Sure, sure,” she said as she set a bowl of potato salad on the table. “That’s what I meant. It’s a shame.”

  I smiled and brought the bowl of macaroni salad to the table. We had plenty of leftovers from the wedding reception the previous day, but Mama just knew that it wasn’t right not to have both macaroni salad and potato salad with it, and so she had whipped them up after I had run to the store to get her the ingredients. I didn’t mind. She made the best potato and macaroni salad in the world.

  I heard the front door open, and I went to see who it was. Alec walked through it, looking grim.

  “Hey, how are things going?” I asked, going to him and kissing him.

  He kissed me back. “Not so well. At least not so well for Richard Thomas. He died this afternoon.”

  “Oh, no. I’m sorry to hear that.”

  He nodded. “We’re treating this as a murder since there’s no trace of him ever being diabetic or needing that medication.”

  “A murder? It figures. Why couldn’t we just have a normal wedding day without a murder occurring?”

  He chuckled and shook his head. “I wish I had an answer for you on that, but I don’t. I’m starving. I don’t suppose you made something for dinner?”

  “Not exactly. We’re going to have leftovers from yesterday, plus Mama made macaroni salad and potato salad to go with it.”

  “I love your mother’s macaroni salad. And her potato salad,” he said. “Let’s eat.”

  We headed back to the ballroom where the tables were still set up. Jake, Shelby, Thad and Sarah, and Jennifer and Dylan were all here, and we put some of the tables together to make one long one for all of us to sit at together. Before I could sit down, there was a knock at the door.

  “I’ll get that,” I said and headed back to the front door. I opened it, and Lucy and Ed were standing on the doorstep.

  “Hey Allie, since you aren’t going on your honeymoon, we thought we’d stop by and say hello. And see if there were any leftovers.” Lucy grinned.

  I chuckled. “We were just getting ready to sit down. You came at the perfect time.”

  She nodded and looked at Ed. “I told you so.”

  He nodded. “You told me so.”

  We headed back into the ballroom, and we all took our seats. “I hope nobody minds leftovers,” I said.

  “Are you kidding? Leftovers are better than when you ate it the first time around,” Ed said as he helped himself to the fried fish.

  “That’s what I was thinking,” I agreed.

  Lucy passed a serving bowl to Jennifer, and everyone helped themselves. “I’m pretty sure I’m going to eat more than I should.”

  Jennifer nodded. “Me too.”

  “Alec, what’s going on with that young man that got si
ck yesterday?” Mama asked.

  Alec reached for a pitcher of sweet tea and hesitated. “Well, unfortunately, he passed away this afternoon.”

  “Oh my,” Mama said, shaking her head. “What a shame. Do they know what happened?”

  He poured some sweet tea into his glass and nodded. “Looks like it’s a murder.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” Thad asked, looking at me. “It’s like my mother draws murder to herself.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “All right, boy,” I said. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. I had nothing to do with that murder or any other murder for that matter.”

  He shrugged and helped himself to some potato salad. “All right, if that’s your story.”

  I shook my head at him and turned to Alec. “So, any ideas?”

  He shook his head. “Not at this point. I told Sam I would look into things.”

  “Wait a minute. You'll look into things? Like, in the next day or two?”

  He looked at me hesitantly. “Well, I thought that since we were going to put the honeymoon off for a day or two, it wouldn’t hurt to put it off for a few more days. Besides that, we didn’t have a lot of time to plan the honeymoon, so now we’ve got a few extra days to do that.”

  He had a point. But that didn’t mean I liked it. I sighed. “All right, this will give me a few extra days to look up some of those small towns along the coast and plot out a better route.”

  He nodded and helped himself to some fried clams and put them on his plate. “That sounds like a plan.”

  “So Alec, do you have any idea what might have happened to Richard?” Jennifer asked, leaning past Dylan so she could see Alec at the head of the table.

  Alec shook his head. “Not just yet.”

  “You know what’s funny?” Lucy asked him. “I could have sworn that Richard had been fired from the catering company.”

  “Oh?” Alec asked. “Why do you think that?”

  She took a sip of her sweet tea and thought about it. “Well, if I remember right, Annie McMillan told me that he got into some trouble. She heard he was dealing drugs from the catering business.”

  “Are you kidding me?” my brother Jake asked.

  She shrugged. “That’s the rumor, anyway.”

  “That’s the trouble with this town,” Alec said. “Too many rumors flying.”

  Lucy nodded. “It seems that Richard got into some trouble in high school and served time in a juvenile detention facility. When he was released, he did all right for a while, but then he was back at it.”

  “I went to school with Richard,” Thad said. “And he did get into trouble with drugs.”

  “If he was using along with selling, then I can see where he might not have been able to get away from it. Drugs are hard to shake,” Shelby said and cut into a piece of fish on her plate.

  “That’s a shame,” I said. “But I wonder where he got his hands on the medication he took?”

  “Is it used recreationally?” Jake asked Alec.

  Alec shook his head. “I’ve never heard of it, but sometimes people try different things. There are all kinds of crazy things that people have been known to abuse that I never would have considered somebody thinking they could get high on it.”

  “So, suppose he had heard that you could get high off this medication. Maybe he tried it, and he took too much, and his blood sugar dropped too low for the doctors to be able to get it back up?” I asked. “Maybe it isn’t murder at all.”

  Alec nodded. “At this point, anything’s possible. I’ll look into that angle, but I’ve never heard of anybody abusing this drug recreationally.”

  I helped myself to the deep-fried clams. “If that isn’t what happened, then somebody had to have slipped it to him somehow. Is that what Sam Bailey is going on?”

  He nodded. “That’s what Sam Bailey is going on.”

  I felt bad that somebody as young as Richard Thomas had died, possibly because he did something foolish. But even worse was if somebody gave it to him on purpose. He was in his early twenties, and that was too young to die.

  I looked at Lucy. “So Annie McMillan is who told you that he got fired from the catering company?”

  She nodded. “She told me that almost a year ago if I remember right. It’s probably just gossip, of course. She said that he had gotten caught by the owner selling drugs in the back of the shop.”

  “Well,” I said. “That would be scary. If he was selling drugs, then he was attracting all kinds of people that aren’t safe to have around.”

  She nodded. “I asked her why Della Barnes didn’t call the police on him, but she said she wanted to handle it herself.”

  “That’s taking a risk,” Alec said as he helped himself to some fried fish. “There’s no telling what might have happened. He could’ve gotten angry at her while under the influence, and he could have hurt her. Or worse.”

  Della Barnes owned the catering company, and I agreed with Alec. It was foolish not to call the police. “That would be scary. I would have just called the police and let them handle it,” I said. The idea of having someone who works for you using your place of business to do his own business was terrifying.

  Lucy nodded. “Me too. I don’t want to deal with people like that.”

  The food was just as good as it had been the day before. I was glad we had a lot of it leftover so we could spend some time together enjoying dinner. I looked around at my family, and I suddenly teared up. I was so happy that they had made it to the wedding. I didn’t think I could have gone through with it if they couldn’t have made it.

  We sat up until late that night talking and visiting with one another, and it made me homesick for Alabama. Everyone from out of town was going to catch an early flight in the morning, and I wasn’t going to see them again until the summer.

  Alec would be busy for the next several days working on the case, so I knew I might not get to see him as much as I would like. Putting off my honeymoon didn’t make me happy, but at least now I could plan for it better.

  Chapter Seven

  “Where are we going?” Lucy asked when she got into my car.

  I glanced over at her. “We need to stop by the catering company. I want to express my condolences for Richard’s death as well as tell Della how good the food was and thank her for doing such great work on such short notice.”

  She nodded. “She did a great job. All the food was so good. And we need to see if we can find out any information about Richard.”

  “You read my mind,” I said and started the car. “There has to be a hint somewhere about what happened to him. I was thinking that his drug dealer could have slipped him those pills instead of something he had planned on buying from him. But in that case, the drug dealer probably didn’t want to kill him. It might have been an accident.”

  She fastened her seatbelt. “It would still be murder, though.”

  “Manslaughter. I would think the drug dealer was just trying to substitute those pills for something Richard wanted because he didn’t have the real drugs.”

  “Unless Richard had double-crossed him and he wanted to get rid of him,” she pointed out.

  “You’ve got a point.”

  The last people that were around Richard Thomas were his coworkers if you didn’t count everyone at the wedding. And since everyone at the wedding had been in the ballroom except for his two coworkers, I felt like they had to know something.

  ***

  Della ran her catering business from a storefront. You could make an appointment to taste the food that you wanted them to make for your party and decide on different dishes. Since we hadn’t given her much time to plan, Alec and I had only been able to taste a couple of the dishes that she made for our reception, but I had been to other events she had catered, and I knew that whatever she made was going to be wonderful.

  The bell over the door jingled when we walked into the shop, and Della came out from the kitchen. She smiled when she saw us. “Hello, Allie.
Hello, Lucy. How are you ladies today? And how was the food for your reception, Allie?”

  We went up to the front counter. “We’re doing great. And the food was wonderful. I can’t thank you enough for doing such fabulous work on such short notice. We wanted to stop by and tell you how sorry we were to hear about Richard. I feel so bad for his family and everyone here. I know you’re going to miss him.”

  She smiled sadly. “Thank you for your kind words. I’m glad we could squeeze you in. And we will all miss Richard.”

  I put my hands on the front counter. “You have no idea how much we appreciated your being able to help us out. I hated to put you in a tight spot like that.”

  “It was no problem. We had a cancellation, and I was happy to do it.”

  “I’m so sorry about Richard,” Lucy said, bringing her back to the subject of Richard’s death.

  She frowned. “Thank you, Lucy. It’s still such a shock. I can’t get over it. And Allie, I’m so sorry it happened at your reception. I feel so bad about that.”

  I shook my head. “Don’t you worry about that. It wasn’t anything that anyone could help. I feel terrible that he didn’t make it.”

  She nodded. “His poor mother was in here earlier. She’s broken up over it, as you can imagine.”

  I sighed. “I feel so bad for her. Was he feeling sick earlier?” I asked her. I didn’t know what she was told by the police, but I wanted to see what she had to say about this.

  She shrugged. “He and Jodi and Lisa came here to the shop early to help with the cooking, and he seemed fine. He was tired, but he’s always tired. I don’t understand what happened.”

  “Jodi told us that he said he thought he had low blood sugar, but that he wasn’t diabetic. He ate some cake frosting I had left from decorating the cake to try to bring his blood sugar up, but that didn’t work.” I shook my head. “I had hoped they could stabilize him at the hospital.”