Houses and Homicide: A Bakery Detectives Cozy Mystery

by Stacey Alabaster

  He looked at her incredulously. “Don’t you?” He looked between both of us. “Are you really trying to tell me that neither of you came here with cell phones today?”

  “We’re on a digital diet,” Pippa explained. “One month without any phones or screens. We have to leave our smartphones and tablets at home.”

  “Well, if you’re so old-fashioned, then you will be happy using the phone in the lobby. For five dollars.” He spun around sharply and kept walking.

  Pippa and I looked at each other.

  Shoot.

  We had to get our hands on that cell phone.

  But it looked like it wasn’t going to happen today.

  “Darn it,” Pippa said, slamming the passenger door shut after she climbed into the car. “We came all this way with one purpose and we didn’t even achieve it.”

  She seemed very goal-oriented lately. What she was saying wasn’t even strictly true. “We’ll find some other way to get Anderson’s phone record,” I told her. “But remember, we came to find out more about Cheryl’s last days here.” I reached into my purse. “And we found that,” I told her, pulling out the pages of stuff I’d swiped from the hotel room.

  I unfolded the collection bill from the luxury car rental company. “I always thought she owned that car,” I said. “She certainly acted like it. But if Cheryl didn’t have enough money to even pay for a rental, maybe she was in some sort of financial trouble. Maybe she was involved in something dodgy. I think we’ve got a lead here.” I waved the piece of paper at her.

  “What’s that?” Pippa said, nodding towards my open bag.

  “What’s what? Oh,” I said, realizing what she was looking at. “That’s the business plan for taking over our bakery,” I said. “I’m not sure why I snatched it, to be honest. I guess I just wanted to see if it held any clue as to what would happen if something happened to Cheryl.”

  Pippa’s eyes grew so wide that they were practically all white.

  “Ooh, maybe she left a clue behind as to who would be taking over after her death!” Pippa exclaimed, leaning over to claw the document off me. She was like a feral animal tearing at her prey.

  I let her have at it and sat back while she ripped into it.

  She flipped the manila folder open and within a few seconds, her face had fallen and she was completely white. And she was completely silent while she read over the contents of the document.

  “What’s wrong, Pippa? What is it?”

  “Rachael, this is not a business plan for The Pastry Tree to take over our bakery. This is a business plan detailing how they are going to take over a bakery in Belldale, all right, but it’s not ours. Rachael. What on Earth is Dough Planet?”

  Chapter 5

  My heart was pounding with shock and betrayal, but I had no one to turn my anger on right then. Cheryl was already dead.

  I tried to stay calm and focus on one thing at a time. Pippa had asked a very good question: just what was ‘Dough Planet’? I had never heard of such a place. Belldale was a small town, but not teeny-tiny and there were quite a few places to eat. There was even more than one bakery, but the other ones were very ‘no frills’ and didn’t sell much more than loaves of bread and the occasional cake or slice. Our bakery was ‘boutique’—it was even in the title—and innovative, with dozens of different cakes and pastries and new recipes every week. That was why The Pastry Tree had been interested in us.

  Was there really another innovative bakery in Belldale? And why had I never heard of them? Maybe they hadn’t opened yet? Maybe Pippa had read the file completely wrong?

  I pulled out my cell phone to do a check, then saw that Anderson was out the side of the hotel, throwing a garbage bag into the trash, and had seen me. Seen me breaking my so-called ‘digital diet.’

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said, starting the car. If Anderson was capable of drowning a person, who knew what else he was capable of doing to a person who annoyed him.

  I pulled out of the parking lot, intending to drive back to our bakery. I’d left Simona in charge for too long and she’d worked too many hours that week. She would report me if I wasn’t careful. I’m not kidding. She’d really do that.

  “Okay, Dough Planet is apparently a bakery in Belldale,” Pippa said in a skeptical voice. I didn’t even know she’d been googling it. “They have an entry online on the restaurant review site. They are ranked ten spots below us, out of all the eateries in Belldale, but only because they have so few reviews. They’ve only been open for a little over a month. But, every review they do have is five stars.”

  Every review was five stars? I rounded a corner and shook my head. They’d probably written the reviews themselves. I was pretty sure that was against the terms and conditions of the site. I might have to report them for that.

  “How have we not heard of it until right now?” I asked, taking another corner a little too quickly. We were almost back in the center of town.

  “Let me check it out for a sec…” Pippa murmured, typing a few things into the phone browser. She sighed in exasperation. “Because they were only a pop-up until a few weeks ago!” she exclaimed. “They were selling direct from the market. But now, apparently, they’ve rented a tiny space between the mattress store and the fruit market,” Pippa said.

  Surely she wasn’t talking about that little hole in the wall spot that was barely bigger than a cupboard. If you were walking from the mattress store to the fruit market, you wouldn’t even notice that space. Especially if you blinked. You’d totally miss it.

  “But that space barely has room for a coffee machine, let alone a kitchen!” I exclaimed. “How can they be a bakery?”

  “I know.” Pippa looked like she was fuming. “I can’t believe Cheryl was going behind our back with these guys. Two-timing us.”

  I was in shock as well. I couldn’t quite figure out what Cheryl’s game plan had been. “Do you think she intended to have two shop fronts in Belldale?” I asked Pippa, confused.

  “No. This is a small town, Rachael. There’s not room for two Pastry Trees here. I think she was just stringing both of us along until she made a decision.” Pippa threw her cell phone back in her bag and crossed her arms.

  Anger rose in me. The sting of betrayal. If Cheryl Spellman hadn’t already been dead, I might have killed her myself.

  Pippa and I had already made big life decisions, assuming the decision to take over our bakery had already been made, that it was a done deal. Well, at least one of us had made big life decisions. I was suddenly very glad I’d found a new housemate to cover the expenses I might soon have trouble paying.

  Pippa read me an address. “Fifty-Five Seymour Street…”

  “What are you yelling that at me for?” I asked, still heading in the direction of our bakery.

  “It’s the address for Dough Planet,” Pippa said. “We’re going there. Right now.”

  I gritted my teeth and turned the wheel back around. Simona was just going to have to do more a little more overtime.

  Dough Planet might have been tiny, but it sure was popular. There was a line of people snaking out the door, which irritated me as soon as I saw it. I slammed the car door shut and stomped over to see what all the fuss was about.

  And it was modern, too. Whereas our bakery was decorated in shades of lavender and white and had more of a vintage feel to it, Dough Planet had glossy, painted black walls and all of the menu items written in white print with red labels around the titles and prices. The whole place was black, white, and red.

  “I think it’s a little too on trend, if you ask me,” Pippa said. “It looks like every other wannabe trendy eatery that has sprung up in the past few years. Ours has far more personality, if you ask me.”

  Ours did have more personality, but was that a good thing? It seemed positively old-fashioned in comparison to Dough Planet.

  The Pastry Tree liked to cater to the young, hip crowd. I didn’t want to admit it, but I could see why this place would appeal to them
.

  It was tiny but crowded, and we had to squeeze past the line to get inside, just to take a look at the menu. Unlike our bakery, there were no tables for people to dine in, though there was a short bar with stools that could accommodate three people at a time. The bar was already full and I had a feeling that as soon as the stools became free, they would be jumped on right away, like the prime seat in front of a hotel pool.

  Pippa scoffed. “Ridiculous. They should at least have space for more than three people to dine in!”

  I had to wonder, though, if maybe they were smart, keeping their overheads low like this. My bakery started out small but I expanded it to a second shop next door. And we had tables and chairs, where we encouraged people to dine. Which was good for customers, they loved it, but it also meant we had to have more staff so that we could provide table service.

  “Why would Cheryl want this place?” Pippa asked, shaking her head. “There isn’t even room for a Pastry Tree in here.”

  I shrugged. “I noticed the mattress shop next door was empty. It would probably be easy enough to take over the lease on that place as well. Then there would be plenty of space.” Way too much space, actually. But looking around at how popular Dough Planet was, I had a bad feeling they could probably fill a mattress store. Meanwhile, our bakery had been half-empty the past couple of weeks.

  “Stop defending the idea,” Pippa said.

  We finally got to the front of the line. There seemed to be only one employee working, and he was busy frothing milk for a latte. “Do we order here?” I asked Pippa.

  They had a minimalist display section of baked goods sitting next to the coffee machine, mostly cakes, pies and muffins filled with a lot of fruits. Banana muffins, coconut pie, cherry ripe slice. There was also a lot of dark chocolate.

  They seemed awfully expensive to me, and it was only when I leaned forward and read the small print that I understood why. Everything was made with local organic ingredients and every thing was vegan, and allegedly ‘healthy.’

  “No dairy or refined sugar?” I asked, leaning forward to inspect the cherry pie slice further. It seemed to hold together okay, but I had to wonder about how good it must taste.

  “Can I speak to the manager?” Pippa said to the barista.

  He looked up in surprise and stopped frothing the milk. “I am the manager.” He shot her a smile. “My name is Blake. Was there a problem with one of your orders?”

  The manager? He looked about twenty years old.

  He was good-looking, and you could tell that he knew it—the way he had his jet black hair, shaved at the sides and flicked up into a little whirl on top. And that nose ring that was surely not allowed in a bakery.

  “Um, no,” Pippa said. We were being shoved by pushy customers who wanted to order. “We haven’t ordered yet.”

  “Okay. So what can I get for you?”

  This hadn’t exactly been part of the plan, but there were so many people waiting that we had to do something. We ordered a couple of lattes and two servings of the cherry that Blake promised was completely vegan and gluten-free but still tasted delicious, and we quickly grabbed two stools when they become free, while the other patrons glared at us for getting so lucky.

  “I am not enjoying this,” I said, putting my fork down after a few bites of the slice. The dark chocolate was far more sweet than bitter, and the coconut oil that had replaced the butter in the pastry gave it a sickly creamy taste instead of a light one. It was also a little soap-like. “Call me crazy but I think baked goods taste better when they are made with butter and refined sugars.”

  Pippa looked like she had been redeemed. “I knew this place would be rubbish,” she said, sitting there smugly.

  I certainly wasn’t impressed with the taste of the food.

  It made even less sense to me now why the Pastry Tree would want to take this place over. Then I remembered reading on the company’s website that part of their push in the future would be to include more vegan items and to become more health-conscious in general, cutting refined sugars out of their items. Even if it wasn’t to my particular tastes, maybe Dough Planet was the perfect place for them to take over after all.

  I glanced over my shoulder at Blake. He was somehow managing to juggle frothing latte milk with taking orders and handing out food in brown paper bags. And he had a grin on his face the entire time. I lowered my voice. “What if he found out the same thing we did? That Cheryl was courting us as well as him?”

  Pippa tried another mouthful of the slice and grimaced. She placed her fork down for good this time. “Yeah, and if Blake is anything like me, he was probably furious.”

  I raised an eyebrow at her, the bitterness of the unsweetened chocolate still on my tongue. “Furious enough to kill?” I asked her.

  “Shoot,” Pippa said, looking at her phone. “I gotta get home.”

  I placed my coffee down and wiped my mouth. “Home? Which home are we talking about?”

  “Oh, the new one. My home, not your home.”

  Interesting that they were two distinct places these days. It still made me feel a little sad. I wondered if I would ever get used to the fact that Pippa now had her home, and I had mine.

  She got her coat caught as she pulled her purse off the bar, taking the plate of pie with her. It fell, chocolate side up, onto the floor. I grimaced as I leaned down to peel it off. It didn’t want to come, it was so sticky. I tried to ignore the look that Blake was shooting us. That mess was going to take a bit of mopping up. I bet he wished some other customers had grabbed the bar stools.

  “What’s happened?” I asked Pippa while I did my best to wipe up the mess. She was still totally distracted by whatever was in her phone.

  “Can you just drive me?” she asked, stomping out the door. “You’ll see when you get there. Believe me.”

  “We’ll have to pull in from the other side of the house,” Pippa said, pointing for me to take the next turn, the street before her house. “There’s an entry this way too.”

  “Why can’t we take the front?”

  Pippa shook her head. “Because he’s waiting for me in the back.”

  I had no idea who or what she was talking about, but I did what I was told and took the next turn.

  Even though I’d visited her briefly one time before, I’d never seen the back of her house.

  I quickly saw what all the fuss was about.

  Oh. Wow. I was a little speechless when Pippa jumped out and opened up the gate for my car to get through. I had to press down very slowly on the accelerator so that I didn’t hit anything—or anyone—on my way in.

  “This does not…look like the photo from the for sale website…” I murmured, before slamming on the brakes and hopping out. “Did all of this come with the house?” I asked Pippa, shaking my head as I walked through the backyard. I was stunned.

  ‘All of this’ referred to the miniature farm she had set up in the backyard. There was a chicken coop, which was one thing. Not that bad though, sometimes people keep chickens on their suburban properties, but they didn’t usually keep a whole menagerie. Two pigs snorted at me as I tiptoed through the now very muddy yard that the animals had torn up. But I stopped. Oh, my, goodness. Was that…a cow?

  “No, they didn’t come with the house,” Pippa said. “But it’s our property, isn’t it? Aren’t we allowed to do what we want with it?”

  No, apparently not. Not without upsetting the neighbors and breaking a few city bylaws. And I wasn’t sure which was worse. Apparently, the neighbors were so furious that they had complained to the agent that had sold her the house.

  And he was not happy about getting called.

  Her real estate agent, Clark, was waiting for her just outside her backdoor, standing on the porch. He was wearing a shiny grey suit and an even shiner silver tie, which almost blinded me in the sunlight. “You are not allowed to keep farms on this property!” he exclaimed at her. “What on Earth are you thinking, Pippa?”

  I was barel
y listening to their conversation, though. I was distracted by the two cows that Pippa had acquired. One was larger, black and white, and didn’t want anything to do with me. The other one was very sweet, small with a brown fluffy coat, and she came over to me curiously, sort of like a puppy would. I’d never been this close to a cow before and I wasn’t even entirely sure it was safe, but I reached out and patted her.

  “That’s Buttercup,” Pippa whispered to me when she walked away from Clark for a second to lock her car. Behind her, Clark was fuming, waiting for her to get back. “She’s my favorite.”

  Buttercup was a very sweet girl.

  She nuzzled my hand and licked at my palm for a second, then backed away, looking a little disappointed. She was probably hungry, but I had no idea what to feed her.

  Actually, I had no idea how Pippa was going to feed her either. Along with the rest of the animals. Jeez. She really had bitten off more than she could chew. If only she had just waited a few more days before making so many big decisions.

  Pippa managed to stretch out the locking of her car to about five minutes. During that time, the next door neighbors had come outside with cups of tea and curious faces, sitting on their porch and watching everything.

  “Buttercup is my friend,” Pippa said once she’d returned to a fuming Clark. “You can’t expect me to just get rid of her now. I’m not getting rid of any of the animals.”

  Clark gritted his teeth. “Let’s not have this conversation in front of the neighbors. You’ve already made yourself unpopular enough as it is.”

  “I’m sorry that the neighbors complained,” Pippa said in a low voice. “That doesn’t seem very…neighborly of them.”

  Clark dusted off his slick suit and glared at her. “Do you know how embarrassing it is to get a call like that? To hear a complaint about the person I sold the house to, only last week?”

  Pippa pulled out her house keys and put them in the lock, but that turned out to be a complete unnecessary gesture when the door pushed right open without needing to be unlocked. “Oh, whoops. I guess my husband must be home,” Pippa said a little uncertainly. I wasn’t sure about that story, either. If Marcello was home, why hadn’t he come out to speak to Clark?