One Last Bite_A Darling Bakery Cozy Mystery

by Brenda De Witt

  Dani had to smile at her mother’s enthusiasm. “Yeah, maybe one day I’ll look into it, but right now all my energy is going into the bakery.”

  If her mother only knew how much energy that was taking at the moment!

  “I understand, honey. Well, I don’t want to keep you. I just wanted to let you know I was thinking about you. Your father and I are so excited about seeing the bakery next weekend.”

  A streak of panic shot through Dani. She’d forgotten all about her parent’s plan to visit her.

  “Is there anything you want me to bring you from Florida?” her mother asked.

  Dani started to say customers, but that answer would start a conversation she wasn’t ready to have yet.

  “No Mom, I don’t need anything here. I’m looking forward to seeing you and Dad too, but right now I’d better run. I’m in the middle of a big delivery.”

  Dani felt a little pang of guilt, but what she said to her mother wasn’t totally a lie.

  “Alright, Sweetie. Take care of yourself. We’ll see you soon!”

  Dani tapped end call quickly and let out a big sigh. She had just over a week before her parents came to visit. She had to get things straight with the bakery before then. There was no way she could let her parents walk into an empty store. She had to find some more customers and fast!

  Dani looked around the shopping mall again and decided to try The On Time Tax Service next. She wasn’t sure how many customers might be having their taxes done in the middle of a June afternoon, but maybe there were some like Dani, who always seemed to file her taxes late.

  Dani hurried across the parking lot toward the storefront, balancing a box of cupcakes in her hands. When she got to the door she reached to open it, but before she grasped the handle, the door swung open and a tall red-haired woman barreled out of the door almost colliding with Dani.

  “No. I’m telling you that’s not gonna to work,” the woman croaked into the phone.

  She was so focused on her conversation — and trying to light a cigarette — that she barely acknowledged Dani as she blew past her.

  “Sorry.” The woman exhaled a throaty apology in a cloud of cigarette smoke and then went back to her phone conversation. “We’ll just have to find another way to get the job done.”

  Dani stood there for a moment, wide-eyed, wondering if the woman who’d almost knocked her over was the owner of the tax service or just a customer. Her question was answered as soon as she stepped in the door. The room was completely empty. There wasn’t another person in sight.

  Dani looked around the room as she considered whether or not it was worth waiting for the barking faux redhead to come back inside. The On Time Tax Service didn’t seem like the kind of place where she was going to drum up much business. There were only two desks in the space — each stacked with piles of papers, but who was Dani to critique someone else’s messy desk.

  The space was rather dim, largely due to the number of advertising posters covering the front windows. The floor was covered with faded old linoleum that was cracked in several places revealing the grey concrete underneath it. When Dani took another step into the space her shoe almost stuck to the sticky floor.

  The rear wall of the office was lined with filing cabinets, which Dani found particularly odd in this day and age. Her accountant in Atlanta barely kept any paper in her office. She did all of her client’s taxes on her computer and kept backup copies in the cloud. Clearly, the On Time Tax Service wasn’t on time with its technology.

  On one side of the room, the wall was covered floor to ceiling with posters. There must have been more than a dozen of them stuck to the wall with multi-colored push pins. Dani stepped closer to take a better look.

  “Don’t stumble over something behind you,” she read out loud. “You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. You didn’t come this far to only come this far. Believe you can and you’re halfway there.”

  Dani had to admit, in spite of the shabbiness of the rest of the office, reading the posters was making her feel a little better about her current situation. Obviously, this wasn’t a place where she was going to find new customers, but the posters were a reminder for her to hang in there and keep trying.

  Dani was just about to turn and leave when a petite blonde haired woman appeared from behind a door in the back corner of the space. She walked toward the more tidy desk on the opposite side of the room.

  “Good afternoon,” she said cheerfully. “I thought I heard someone talking out here and I knew it wasn’t Trish’s voice. I was back there making a little afternoon pick me up. Trish drank the whole pot from this morning and this is my first cup,” she said with a slightly irritated laugh. “Are you here to get your taxes done? Trish should be back inside in a moment. That’s her office,” the woman said gesturing to the messier side of the room.

  “Uh, no. I’m not here about my taxes,” Dani explained. “I come bearing gifts.” She smiled and extended the now open box of cupcakes she was holding. “Gifts that would go really well with a nice cup of afternoon coffee.”

  The woman stood to her feet and leaned toward the box Dani was now holding over her desk. “Ooo, I have a wicked sweet tooth,” the woman said. “How much are they?”

  “They’re free. Please have one.” Dani pushed the box closer under the woman’s nose.

  “Oh my, you’re giving away free cupcakes?” she said excitedly and she reached for a Red Velvet one. “What’s the occasion?”

  “Well, my name is Dani Darling and…”

  Before Dani could finish her introduction the woman’s hand froze in mid-air. Her face went pale and she took a step back distancing herself from Dani and the box of cupcakes. “Those are from the Darling Bakery?” the woman asked with a sudden change in demeanor. “No thank you,” she said abruptly.

  Dani’s smile dropped.

  “You’re the one who made the cupcake found next to Guy Mason’s body!” The woman said with a slight look of terror in her eyes.

  Before Dani could respond a cell phone sitting on the woman’s desk rang.

  “Hello, Davenport Realty,” the woman answered with a voice that was still a little shaky. “Yes, this is Anne Davenport speaking.”

  Anne continued her conversation while Dani just stood there holding the box of cupcakes. She wasn’t sure what to make of Anne Davenport’s attitude. Had word about Guy’s death gotten around to all the real estate agents in Riley?

  “Okay, that’s great Ms. Cunningham. I’ll meet you at the property at 3pm.”

  Anne hung up the phone and turned her gaze back to Dani.

  “I was the one who found Guy Mason that morning,” Anne said after a long pause. “And I don’t want any cupcakes from your bakery!”

  Dani knew she was about three seconds from getting kicked out of the office, but she wasn’t thinking about her cupcakes anymore. This was the first time she’d had an opportunity to talk to someone who was an eyewitness at the scene where Guy was found. Dani couldn’t let the chance to ask her some questions slip through her fingers.

  “Look, I’m sorry, Miss Davenport. I didn’t mean to bring up what must be a very uncomfortable memory,.” Dani tried to keep her voice calm in an attempt to ease the tense situation. She closed the cupcake box and sat it on one of the two empty chairs in front of the woman’s desk. “Guy was a friend of mine,” she continued. “And now my business is in jeopardy for something I know my cupcakes had nothing to do with. I know you must understand how hard it is as a female business owner and how important it is to have a good reputation. All I want to do is ask you a few questions.”

  The woman eyed Dani cautiously, but her comment about the difficulty of running a business must have struck a nerve. Anne let out a long sigh.

  “I’ve only been in the real estate business for six months,” Anne confessed. “It’s been really hard. That’s why I’m sharing this space.” She looked around the room in disgust. “It’s all I can affor
d right now.”

  Dani nodded her head. “I understand,” she said with genuine compassion. “Now just imagine if someone came in and started saying bad things about your business that you knew weren’t true.”

  Dani saw a flash of compassion flicker in Anne’s eyes.

  “That would be really hard,” she said.

  “And wouldn’t you try to do anything you could to save your business?”

  Anne looked down at the box sitting in the chair and nodded her head.

  “Okay, Dani. I’ll answer your questions, but I hope you don’t mind if I still pass on taking a cupcake.”

  Dani had to admit that stung a little, but she shook it off. “So, what happened that morning?”

  Anne’s eyes got teary and she collapsed down to her chair. “It was just awful,” she said as she dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve. “I’d never seen a dead body before,” she whispered. “It wasn’t at all like you see on television. He was just laying and his face was kind of blue. His eyes were staring up at me.” She shook her head rapidly obviously trying to dislodge the memory. “And one of your cupcake boxes was laying on the floor beside him.”

  Before Anne could say more, the front door swung open and Trish walked back into the store, bringing the pungent smell of cigarette smoke along with her and coughing like she was about to lose a lung.

  “Hey, Anne. Do you have anymore those candies I like?”

  Anne nodded and held up a small candy dish that was sitting on the corner of her desk.

  Trish walked over, scooped up a handful and dropped them in her pocket. She was about to walk away when she noticed the box sitting in the chair beside Dani.

  “What’s in the box?” she asked hungrily eyeing the decorative cupcake logo on top.

  “They’re cupcakes,” Dani replied. She opened the box and held it up to Trish. “Would you like to try one?” The woman may have been rude, but Dani wasn’t in a position to be picky about potential customer’s right now.

  “Yeah, sure,” Trish said eagerly.

  Dani watched as the woman dropped the candies she’d taken from Anne’s desk into her jacket pocket freeing both hands. She reached down and grabbed two cupcakes from the box.

  “Thanks,” she said with a grin. “One for now and one for later.” She winked at Dani and then walked over to the other side of the room.

  Once Trish was back on her side of the room Dani turned back to Anne.

  “Were you by yourself when you got to the house?”

  “Yeah,” Anne said softly, “I was supposed to meet a client there at 10am, so I got there a little early just to take a look around. I didn’t recognize the car in the driveway, but the front door was open so I knew whoever was inside had to have a lockbox code. I went in and called out so I wouldn’t startle whoever was inside.” Anne let out a long sigh. “Then I walked into the kitchen and saw him. Just laying there on the floor.” Anne squeezed her eyes shut.

  “Did you know Guy?” Dani asked timidly, not wanting to make recounting the memory anymore difficult than it was.

  “No. I mean we’d never met before. I didn’t recognize him by face, but once the police got there and looked in his wallet they told me his name. I’ve seen his name listed as the appraiser for other properties in the area, but I didn’t know him personally.”

  “Hey! These are really good!” Trish bellowed from her side of the room as she brushed cupcake crumbs from her shirt.

  Dani didn’t know how Anne could take it. There was no privacy in the small office. How was Anne able to do business in such close quarters and with such an irritating officemate?

  “Well, thanks for sharing what you know,” Dani said to Anne.

  “I really wish you luck on clearing your name,” Anne said to Dani.”If you want to leave the rest of those cupcakes with me, I’d be happy to pass them out to my afternoon clients. And I’ll make sure that they don’t all get eaten before I leave the office,” she whispered and glanced over at Trish who was now licking lemon meringue frosting from her fingertips.

  Chapter 8

  By the time Dani finally got back to the bakery it was almost 7pm. Matt and Rhonda had locked up the store and left her a note saying they’d see Dani in the morning.

  Even though Dani had successfully passed out seven dozen cupcakes, she had no idea how many of those people would actually turn into paying customers. The thought of customers made Dani curious about how business had gone at the bakery while she was out on her mission.

  She flipped open her laptop and was about to open the accounting software that Matt used to keep track of sales when she had a better idea.

  When she renovated the bakery, she’d installed a security camera that pointed to the cash register. It would be easier for her to just look at the video. Somehow watching actual bodies go in and out of the store, or not, seemed less painful than looking at rows of numbers.

  Dani opened the security app icon and hit a key on her keyboard to rewind the video feed. She hadn’t used the application before and she missjudged how fast the footage would rewind. By the time she hit stop, the timestamp on the video feed read 6/5/18 5:26am.

  Dani let out a big sigh. Tuesday. There was no need in watching the footage from that early in the week. Seeing the steady stream of customers that the bakery had during it’s first few days would only make her depressed.

  Dani tapped the fast forward key, making sure the timestamp didn’t go too far ahead, but when Wednesday’s date rolled over on the screen she had an idea.

  “Let’s see, Anne said she found Guy’s body just before 10am,” Dani said out loud. “We opened the store at 7 on Wednesday.”

  Dani tapped the fast forward key until she got to Wednesday at 7:15am.

  She didn’t want to miss Guy’s entrance, but she also didn’t want to watch two hours of what it was like to have her now empty store filled with people. Fortunately, it only took another few taps on her keyboard before she saw Guy’s portly frame walk into the bakery door.

  Dani hit pause and just stared at the image for a moment. This was the last time she could have seen Guy alive. Her heart felt heavy knowing that she was only a few feet away in the kitchen baking. If only she’d known.

  “Oh, Guy. I’ve got to find out what happened to you,” Dani said with a tearful voice. “Not just to save my business, but also because you were such a supportive friend. I promise I won’t stop until I find out exactly what happened!” Dani declared emphatically.

  She hit the play button again and watched as Guy approached the counter and pointed to several different flavors of cupcakes. She could see glimpses of Matt putting the cupcakes in a dozen size box.

  “That’s strange,” Dani mused out loud remembering the box the police officer had tried to give her when she picked up Guy’s belongings. She was a little distracted then and hadn’t thought about how unusual it was for Guy to buy so many cupcakes at one time. Normally, he only bought a single cupcake because he said he didn’t have the willpower not to eat them all in one sitting. Dani smiled at the thought of Guy’s funny sense of humor.

  She watched as Matt handed the box across the counter to Guy. Guy then paid for the baked goods, but before he walked away from the counter Matt handed Guy a coffee cup and his usual single cupcake box.

  “Hmm,” Dani mumbled to herself. Guy must have bought the dozen cupcakes for some special event. An event he obviously never made it to.