The Sweet Baked Mystery Series - Books 1-6

by Katherine Hayton

  “You had an argument with Jessica in the street a few days ago, Aidan. It was so bad that not only does the rest of the town know about it, the police thought it implicated you in her death. Are you seriously saying that you didn’t think I should know that?”

  “It was my business.”

  Holly started to retort, then shook her head. She gazed into the lounge again, seeing the quick jerk of Tilly and Elvira’s heads that told her they’d been listening. Well, good on them. From what Aidan was saying, he wouldn’t bother to tell them about it when he went back inside.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Holly said. Sadness welled up inside her, sitting across from Aidan. She remembered how much fun he’d been at the Inglewood Manor wedding—how steadfast when everything was falling down around their ears. The man across from her may be fun and dependable in a crisis, but Holly thought that she’d never really known him at all.

  Just like you never knew Simon was unhappy. There’s something wrong with you.

  Holly shook her head again and stood up. The self-recriminations could wait until later when she was tucked up in bed and failing to sleep.

  Now, Holly just wanted to get out of there and go talk to someone who understood her. If Meggie was still open to the offer, they could go and pig out on ice-cream or cheesecake until her bursting stomach equaled the weight of sadness in her heart.

  “Wait a minute.” Aidan stood and came around her side. A shiver ran down Holly’s spine as a gust hit her, dying away to stillness a second later.

  “What is it?”

  “Do you mind…” Aidan trailed off and looked over at the lounge, apparently noticing for the first time that he was in plain view of his cousins. He turned his back to the room, hunching a shoulder down to block his face. “Would you be able to keep the break-up just between us for the time being?”

  Holly stepped back, shaking her head.

  “Please.” Aidan looked back at the house for a second, then caught Holly’s gaze. “Just until this thing with Jessica is over. I don’t want people putting two and two together and coming up with me being a murderer.”

  “Don’t be silly.” Holly frowned and shook her head. “The police already know who killed Jessica, her father. They’ve closed the case.”

  But it was Aidan’s turn to shake his head. “No, they haven’t. Sergeant Matthewson called me just before you arrived. He wants me back down at the station tomorrow, and he told me to bring a lawyer this time.”

  Holly backed up a step, folding her arms across her chest as she shivered again. “I don’t understand. Why would they do that?”

  “I don’t know, but I swear on my life that I never hurt Jessica. The police have it all wrong.” He reached out a hand, but Holly danced out of Aidan’s reach. “I’m not asking you to get back with me or anything like that. All I’m saying is that if you wait until the police investigation is closed, I won’t have to put up with unfounded rumors for the next thirty years.”

  The last thing that Holly wanted was to be standing in Aidan’s driveway, having this conversation. “Fine,” she said, holding her hands up. “I won’t tell anybody that we’ve broken up. Not until the police close the case for real.”

  “Thank you.” Aidan closed his eyes with relief, for a second looking like the man she’d first appreciated, back on Derek’s unfortunate wedding day.

  “But as soon as the police announce the results, I’m telling everyone that we’re finished.” Holly stamped her foot for emphasis, already regretting her decision.

  “Of course,” Aidan agreed. “You can shout it from the rooftops.”

  “I’ll see you around town, I guess,” Holly said. She waved to the figures inside the lounge, still both pretending that they weren’t watching with avid fascination. Elvira raised her hand briefly in return, and Holly smiled. She hoped that the girl would continue to work with them during her holidays.

  Give her a call later. Make sure she knows that she’d be welcome.

  Yes, Holly would do that. For now, though, she just kept walking down the drive.

  Chapter Thirteen

  As soon as she walked in through the door at home, Holly was cursing her stupidity. What did it matter to her whether Aidan had rumors spreading about his involvement in Jessica’s death? That should have been his lookout only. The man had made it clear that he didn’t consider Holly part of that equation at all.

  Still, she’d given her word and supposed she couldn’t back out of it now. Hopefully, the police would get a move on and sort the whole shambles out. Then Holly could announce her news, hiding it casually behind the better announcements that her sister Crystal would soon have.

  Even if the breakup wasn’t official, Holly still deserved ice cream and called on Meggie as she’d suggested. The two of them tried to find a place open for late night desserts and came up empty.

  Either they had to sit in a restaurant and endure the strange looks from waiters, or they could buy an ice cream from the local dairy and eat it outside. There was just enough of a nip in the air to make that unpleasant.

  “Perhaps next time, I should tell you to phone me in the morning, so we can grab a fancy coffee.” Meggie laughed, throwing their sticks and wrappers into the trash.

  “I’m rather hoping there won’t be a next time.”

  “Giving up on men altogether, are you?” Meggie pulled a face, crossing her eyes.

  “Why not? What’s a man ever done for me? I’d rather invest my time and money in a house or the business. At least then I can see the improvements.”

  Meggie laughed. “Or watch as they fall down around your ears. One or the other.”

  “What about you, then? If you’re so hot on relationships, where’s your fella? Hm?”

  “I’m still waiting for Prince Charming to sweep in through the door, carrying bundles of cash to throw at my feet. Admittedly, at this point in time, he might be doing that in a rest home.”

  “Ah, true love in God’s waiting room.”

  Meggie couldn’t answer, she was doubled over laughing. After a few minutes, she wiped the tears away. “Just because I haven’t found anyone suitable for myself doesn’t mean I’ve gotten out of the game altogether. Besides, look at Crystal.”

  Holly couldn’t help but agree. Her sister had seemed to be a lifelong bachelorette until meeting Alec earlier in the year. Just a few months later, she was about to become an old married lady. Something Holly wouldn’t have foreseen a year before.

  “There’s hope for us all, I suppose.”

  Meggie nodded firmly. “And, if your life turns out like a movie, then by the end of the film you and Aidan will have worked things out.”

  At that, Holly pulled her mouth down. “If that’s your plan, I’d give up now. There’s no way that this is turning into a happy ending.”

  “Pity.” Meggie dragged herself upright, and they started the short walk back home. “I wouldn’t have minded having some gossip to ladle out to my ladies in the morning. Now, it looks like I’ll just be standing there, listening again.”

  “Well, you never know.” Holly squeezed Meggie’s arm. “Chances are, the police will sort out the finer details of the Chilvers’ deaths, and then I’ll give you a call, so you can spill the gossip.”

  “I hope so,” Meggie agreed. “I really thought that the whole matter was sewn up after what Danny did to himself. I wonder what’s going through Matthewson’s mind sometimes. If he’s stringing this whole thing out due to some pet theory, I’ll show him the sharp side of my tongue!”

  Holly thought for a moment, then shook her head. “There must be something other than a supposition,” she mused. “For the sergeant to tell Aidan to bring his lawyer with him means there’s something dire backing up his suspicions.”

  “Maybe,” Meggie said. “Who knows at this point? Most of the people I could ask down at the camping site have headed home by now. There’re just a few stragglers left there, and I don’t like to bother them.”

  “I ag
ree with that. We should leave them be.” Although Holly meant the words when she said them, by the time she said goodbye to Meggie and turned in to her home, her mind was working the problem from another angle. If she could help point the police in the right direction, then Holly could announce her breakup, and get her life back on its regular track faster.

  Maybe she could take something nice down to the folks left in the camping ground, then they might give her some idea of what was happening. It would probably come to nothing, but it was worth a shot.

  “Can I just go on record,” Crystal said, shaking her head, “as thinking this is a terrible idea?”

  “Noted.” Holly pulled the batch of newly frosted cupcakes toward her, adding the final hard candy decorations along with a fat raspberry for each one. “But since I’m ignoring all good advice at the moment, could you give me a hand getting these into the van?”

  “That leaves me without a way to make the deliveries,” Crystal pointed out. “Why don’t you just put them in the car?”

  “Because my car is parked at home, and if I go all the way there and drive back, I might change my mind.”

  “It’s only five minutes.”

  Holly put her hands on her hips, shaking her head sadly. “That might be all it takes. Now, help me or no?”

  Crystal helped her, balancing the tray as Holly slid open the back. “At least take your cell and make sure it’s switched on.”

  Holly patted her pockets and frowned.

  “It’s on the counter,” Crystal said, laughing. “I’ll go get it and put it in your hand, so you don’t forget.”

  Holly nodded. She’d gotten halfway through making a call to Elvira earlier—to check if the girl was free for the upcoming school holidays—then chickened out at the last minute.

  Not having been raised in the generation that always had a communication device at hand, Holly tended to forget her phone unless it was in her bag, where it should be.

  “Now, don’t rile up the family, and if it looks like they’re going to attack, run!”

  Holly laughed and shook her head again. “It’s not as though they’re out of the chainsaw massacre movie. They’re just a normal extended family.”

  “Already hit hard by tragedy, which you’re going in there to stir up.”

  Crystal had a good argument, but Holly wouldn’t let herself be dissuaded. “I need to do something,” she said in a soft voice. “If I leave it to the police, then I might be stuck in a rut for ages. I want this to be sorted and over with.”

  Crystal sighed. “I don’t know why you don’t just tell Aidan that. It would make everything so much easier.”

  “No, thanks.” Holly opened the driver’s side door and jumped in. “I’d rather be lynched by strangers than go through another awkward conversation with Aidan at the moment. Let’s hope you never reach that stage yourself!”

  “With Alec?” Crystal looked aghast then burst out laughing.

  She probably had a point, but Holly had held lofty thoughts about her own relationships at the start and look how that had turned out. One soon-to-be ex-husband and one not to be trusted ex-boyfriend.

  Even though the drive would only be a few minutes, Holly turned on the radio, so she didn’t have to think. There’d been altogether too much of that going on in her head the night before, thank you very much. Now, she just needed to concentrate on the task ahead of her. Get into the campground, donate her treats to the grieving family, pump them for information, get out.

  Simple.

  As soon as Holly pulled into the campsite, she realized that it wasn’t ever going to be that easy. The motorhomes that remained were deserted. Even when she gathered the courage to knock on the doors of each and every one, no responding call greeted her.

  Even the members of the family who hadn’t decamped Hanmer Springs had escaped to somewhere.

  Holly rolled her eyes with vexation. Of course, it was her stupid idea in the first place, so she could hardly blame anyone else. Still, that’s precisely what she felt like doing. Now, there were a dozen cupcakes, fully decorated and looking delicious, and no one to eat them. Even worse, they had fresh fruit on the top. That meant that if they weren’t consumed in a few hours, they’d head straight to the pigs.

  The city mission took the majority of any leftovers from the bakery while the rest were farmed out—literally—to the Henderson’s piggery. The sweetest tasting bacon in the world didn’t get that way by accident. It had been fed on the crumbling leftovers of two generations of Sweet Baked Treat day-olds.

  Holly took a quick look around the campsite again as she headed back to the car. She could always leave them out on a picnic table with a note. Still, if the family didn’t return soon, then they’d arrive back to a tray crawling with wasps. They nested in the forests, adding a zest of danger to any walk through the woods.

  “Meggie,” Holly announced, arriving at the only sensible option. If she had a full salon, then Holly could pretend that Meggie had ordered them as a treat for her customers. If the hairdresser was empty, then the two of them could probably do some damage to half the tray.

  Luckily for Holly’s waistline, the salon wasn’t empty. Not by a long shot. It appeared that every female who should still have been at the camping ground was packed into the tiny space. Once again, every drier had an occupant, while every active seat was full. The rest of the customers—or just companions—crowded into the waiting area seats, stuffing them to overflowing.

  “Cupcakes,” one of the waiting woman cried, clapping her hands together in joy.

  Meggie raised a tired face toward her friend and nodded. Holly put the tray down in the waiting area and hurried over to greet her.

  “I hope you don’t mind. I baked the cupcakes up as a care package for the family still stopping in the camping grounds, then found that they’d all gone elsewhere.”

  “Most of us are here,” one woman chirped, around a face full of raspberry cupcake. “I couldn’t stand to sit and stare at that spot a moment longer.” She shuddered, and half the room joined in.

  “I don’t blame you,” Holly said, managing to squeeze on the very edge of the small waiting room sofa. “There’s an eerie feeling down there today, and I’ve not even lost someone in my family.”

  “Next time we have a reunion, I’m for going up to the casino in Auckland. I’d rather lose my life with a pottle of chips in one hand and a drink in the other, than stuck in a motorhome—no matter how beautiful the area is.”

  “Yeah, but you’ve never been one for nature, have you Doris?” one of her friends said, nudging her in the ribs. “I remember when you were little, and we took you down to the beach for the day. You stared at it for a good five minutes, then asked if you could go home because the Pink Panther cartoon was on the telly.”

  “Who does like the beach?” Doris countered. “Getting sand in your nooks and crannies isn’t an attraction.”

  “Was it you who found the note?” Holly said. Her interruption wasn’t very subtle, but time was creeping away from her. If she didn’t get back to the bakery in time to help Crystal with the lunchtime rush, then it would leave her sister in the lurch. She didn’t want her own desires to impact on another like that.

  “Yeah, I found it.” Doris shook her head. “Stupid place to leave it, if you ask me, but then again, Danny never was the brightest spark. He once locked himself into a portable toilet at the music festival in Nelson. Do you remember that, girls?”

  There was a titter of laughter that indicated they did and Holly hid a smile at the use of the word girls. The average age in the salon was sixty, and that was mainly due to her and Meggie bringing down the average.

  “I’m sorry to pry—it must be emotional—but are you sure the letter was written by Danny?”

  The woman snorted. “You sound just like that policeman, what’s his name?” She looked around at the group of women but didn’t get any takers. “The one who walks around like a stick’s shoved up his behind!”


  At that, the waiting area exploded into laughter.

  “The police were questioning you about it, then?”

  Holly winced inwardly at her blunt prodding. She could strike being a private investigator off her dream-job list.

  “Yeah. The sergeant wanted to know about everything. The doctor-thingy…” Doris trailed off, frowning.

  “The pathologist?” Holly suggested.

  The woman snapped her fingers. “That’s the one. I know all the lingo from my telly shows, but the minute I want to say the right words, they all drop out of my head.”

  “Same here,” chorused the group, some tapping on the side of their skulls for emphasis.

  “Anyhoo, he told us that poor Danny died from the gas he turned on, but he also had a giant knock on the back of his head.” Doris tapped a finger to the side of her nose. “Don’t tell anyone, but I reckon that someone did him in, just like they did in Jessica.”

  “Poor Jess,” someone called out from under the drier. “We should have left the moment they found her.”

  There were nods of agreement.

  “The police think Danny was murdered?” Holly asked, wanting to be clear.

  “Yeah. The doctor thought that whoever turned on the gas wanted the motorhome to explode and destroy all the evidence. He said that the stick-up-the-behind sergeant thinks that someone bashed Danny over the head, mistakenly thought they’d killed him, then wanted the whole caravan to burn up to a crisp. That’s why they left the note so far away.”

  “And do you think that’s possible?”

  “Sure. I got to thinking later, before the police even asked me, that the note didn’t sound much like Danny. It was all spelled correctly for a start, and that bloke was never one for paying attention in school. He also never called his girl Jessica. Only ever called her Jessie.”

  Doris pursed her lips and shook her head with a determined air. “Nah. I reckon that the whole thing is staged, just like the policeman said. Someone wanted to blow him to bits and make it look like a weird suicide, but I can tell you right now, that was murder!”