The Sweet Baked Mystery Series - Books 1-6

by Katherine Hayton

  “Don’t worry,” Holly said, just as the door opened and Crystal emerged to join them. “I’ve got business there already, so I’ll tell them tomorrow. What they do with it afterward is up to them.”

  “Ready to go, sis?” Crystal asked. “Or did you want to trail me in the shadows again?”

  Holly laughed, even though there was an edge in her sister’s voice she hadn’t been expecting. “I’m fine to walk out in public with you this time. I’ll see you soon, Derek.”

  He looked concerned as they waved goodbye, staying outside the house even as they reached the end of the long driveway and turned onto the footpath.

  “Do I need to ask what you were whispering about with Derek at the end there?”

  Holly opened the door and stepped inside, grateful that their home had retained most of the heat from the day. “We were just talking about the investigation.”

  “You know that anything that you talked about with Clarence, or that Derek has discussed with him, is bound by the confidentiality of AA, right?”

  Holly shook her head. “No, it’s not. I’m not in AA, and it’s not like anybody made me take an oath when I walked through the front door tonight.”

  “That’s because you weren’t meant to be there,” Crystal said, a quick expression of anger dancing across her face before she turned her back to put the kettle on. “If you’d had the decency to announce you were going to come along tonight, they might have been more prepared.”

  “What do they need to be prepared for, exactly?” Holly sat down on a bar stool, leaning her elbows on the kitchen bench. “Besides, I didn’t even talk to Clarence. I stayed inside with Derek and Brian, remember? Most of what we talked about was to do with accountancy.”

  “That’s not the point.” Crystal turned a glare on her sister and didn’t dim the wattage even when Holly shrank away from her gaze. “The point is that both Derek and Clarence are in the program, so you can’t reveal their conversations to anybody.”

  “That’s a load of nonsense, and you know it.” Holly was starting to get heated herself. “The privilege of AA only holds while you’re in a meeting. It’s ridiculous to pretend that I have to keep everything I saw and heard tonight a secret just because you sometimes drop into a meeting. Is Clarence even in AA?”

  “He’s in recovery, and it’s the same principle.”

  “It’s not,” Holly said, lowering her voice through sheer willpower. “Nothing that anyone in that house said tonight was privileged. The very fact you’re trying to claim it is makes me think that you’re covering up something.”

  “Like you covered up you were following me tonight?”

  “Like you covered up that you knew where Clarence was.”

  The two sisters glared at each other, each refusing to back down.

  “This is important to me, Holly,” Crystal said, enunciating the words slowly. “I take recovery more seriously than anything else, and I’m not going to let you jeopardize that experience for someone just because you’ve got a bee in your bonnet about a murder case.”

  “Listen to yourself!” Holly’s mouth gaped open as her sister’s position left her inarticulate for a moment. A sensation that passed quickly. “The police are investigating a death, and you’re trying to stop me from reporting what might be pertinent information just because Clarence is a drunk. That’s not helping his recovery, that’s harming it.”

  “What would you know about the process? You’ve spent your whole life in denial about everything. You couldn’t even be bothered to visit here when dad was ill, and now you think you know everything just because you found the body? It doesn’t make you the lead investigator on the case, and it doesn’t make you right.”

  “And just because you’re a member of AA doesn’t make Clarence a member or offer him any protection if he’s lying to the police. Derek’s worried enough that he confessed to me Clarence has been sneaking out at night.” Holly tapped her fist against her chest. “I’m not going to hold onto that information when there’s a potential double murderer on the loose. You can’t recover from death.”

  “Nothing I do has ever been important to you, has it?” Crystal shouted. “I based my entire life here, in this township, with these people, but you think you’re on the same level just because you waltz back in after a gazillion years away. It’s not right.”

  They both turned as the kettle shrieked, then faded into silence. Holly pressed her shaking hands flat against the bench, trying to catch her breath.

  “I’m going to stay with Alec tonight,” Crystal said, whirling on her heel to stomp out of the room. “We’ve been talking about it lately, and I think it’s best that I move in with him. We can talk about you buying me out of my half of the house later on.”

  “It’s not our house,” Holly shouted, fear making her so angry that her vision came in snapshots of red. “It’s my house. You’re lucky I’ve let you stay here without paying rent.”

  Even though it was the truth, the words were delivered with such a cutting air that Holly could see the damage they inflicted on her sister. As soon as they were out of her mouth, she wanted to take them back, to soothe them away, to make the damage disappear.

  Too late. In a second, Crystal had slammed the door behind her.

  Holly sat alone in the kitchen, her heart rate slowly returning to normal.

  What have you done?

  Chapter Sixteen

  There was no sleeping after the fight with Crystal. Holly’s mind was so twisted with horror at all the blades that she had jabbed at her sister, all the wounds that Crystal had inflicted on her, that she couldn’t rest. After an hour spent staring at the ceiling, Holly got up, got dressed, and walked down to the police station.

  “Is Sergeant Matthewson about?” she asked the PC on the desk. After a second, she added, “Or anyone working on the Chilvers’ case.”

  “Yeah. Sarge is here.” The PC nodded his head toward the sergeant’s office. “He never leaves the station anymore.”

  The young officer let her through the security door and opened Matthewson’s door without knocking. That might have been a mistake, given the growl that greeted them, but the sergeant soon put his public face on and waved Holly into a chair.

  “You’re lucky to catch me at this hour,” he said. “I just stayed behind tonight to catch up on some paperwork.”

  Between what the PC had just told her and the bags beneath the sergeant’s red eyes, Holly knew it wasn’t the truth. Matthewson was sporting the face of a man who didn’t know when to let go. Holly imagined that the same expression had been on her own face an hour before.

  “I came across some information tonight,” she said slowly. Usually, before she barged into the station, Holly prepared what she was going to say. Tonight, the maelstrom whirling inside her brain wouldn’t let her do that. Instead, her mouth felt its way with caution, taking time to get to the point.

  “Derek Masters has been looking after Clarence, he told me that you knew that.”

  The sergeant nodded to her, exhaustion pulling the man’s eyes down to half-mast.

  “I don’t think he or Brian have shared that Clarence is only there during the day.”

  At that, the sergeant snapped a little more to attention. “What do you mean?”

  “According to Derek, Clarence has been sneaking out of the house at night. Rather than just walking out through the front door, he’s been opening the window and letting himself out on the lawn.”

  “For what purpose?” the sergeant barked.

  Holly shrugged, suddenly feeling that the information was stupid and worthless. She’d had a massive fight with her sister, possibly an argument so damaging that they’d never be able to fully repair it, and for what? To let someone know that somebody else left somewhere to go out at night.

  Tears started to well up inside her and Holly fought them down with horror. She couldn’t do that here! Crying was something to keep private, hidden. If she started bawling in the police statio
n in the middle of the night, someone would demand to know what was wrong!

  “I don’t know. I just thought that someone should tell you so you could factor it into whatever theory you’ve got going.” Holly sighed, rubbing her eyes and squeezing the bridge of her nose between her fingers, hard. “It’s probably useless information.”

  “I hear you’ve been asking around town for a lot of useless information lately.”

  It took Holly a while to piece the sentence together in a way that made sense. Her mind swirled and shimmied, throwing up fragments of her fight with Crystal until it was hard to think.

  “I had a chat with the blue hair brigade that was in Meggie’s shop.” Tiredness nipped at Holly’s shoulders until they slumped. “That’s all.”

  Matthewson crossed his hands over the desk blotter. “I’ve heard there’s more to it than that. You do seem to be having a lot of visitors lately.”

  That threw light into the darkness and Holly nodded. “This week, everyone in town who’s been involved in the investigation has made a point of dropping by and telling me they don’t think Aidan did it.” A small smile flickered on her lips. “Believe me. I’d rather they kept all that information to themselves.”

  “Yes,” Matthewson agreed. “It’s very annoying when people keep coming in while you’re trying to work and give you completely irrelevant facts.”

  Holly nodded along for a second before making the connection that he might be talking about her. “Hey!”

  “Just a small joke.” Matthewson waved his hand. “But if you don’t have anything further, then I think it’s a good idea you go back home, and I’ll think about getting to mine. Was there anything else?”

  Holly hesitated, then decided that she might as well tell him everything. “I don’t know if your spies told you, but I had Lucy pay a visit to the bakery the other day. She was very emphatic that either Crystal or I was hiding Clarence away from her.” She paused for a moment, her lips twisting as she thought back through the strange encounter. “I don’t want to tell you how to do your job—”

  The sergeant snorted with a burst of amusement, then quickly covered his mouth and nose with his hand. When he took it away, he’d reassembled his expression into one of formal concern. “Go ahead.”

  “Well. I know that Lucy has a crush on Clarence—a big one, by all accounts—and she overheard Jessica and her dad fighting in the fish ‘n’ chip shop, an argument during which Jessica lied and said she was pregnant and getting married to Clarence.” Holly shifted in her seat, the threads coming together more with each word spoken aloud. “And she was headed straight for the body the same day that Aidan and I found her.”

  Holly looked at the sergeant with raised eyebrows, an expression that he mimicked back to her, either without knowing or in gentle mockery. She gave a sigh and waved her hand in the air. “Don’t you think that Lucy’s worth taking a look at? An earnest look with warnings about bringing lawyers along to the conversations—” the sergeant’s face turned into a frown at that “—and long interviews and suchlike?”

  “And this is definitely you not telling me how to do my job, right?”

  Holly gave a shamefaced laugh and held up two fingers. “Scouts honor!”

  The sergeant leaned forward again, tapping a pen on the desk blotter. “I think that you should go home and get a good night’s sleep. I’m grateful to you for keeping me up to date with what you hear or remember, the same as I am when any member of the public tells me things that might be of concern to a case.”

  “But?”

  “But you’re really not privy to all the facts, so it’d be a good idea if you didn’t make accusations against anyone.”

  Holly’s mouth dropped open. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “Nevertheless, that’s what it sounded like.” Matthewson groaned as he stretched his neck out, rocking his head from side to side. “I’ve spent far too long behind this desk today.” He tapped his finger on the table. “Just because this isn’t a state secret, Lucy Walsham has a firm alibi for the time during which Jessica was killed. She was at the movie theater and then was escorted home by some family members. No matter how bizarre her behavior gets, I’d keep her off your list.”

  After a second, Holly started to stand, then collapsed back in the chair again. “You don’t really think Aidan committed this crime, do you?”

  Sergeant Matthewson offered her an inscrutable stare in return until Holly got the message and left.

  The next morning, Holly stood outside the bakery, steeling herself for a few minutes before she unlocked the front door and let herself inside.

  Crystal wasn’t there and the pent-up breath she’d been holding came out in a rush.

  Not that the situation would last forever. Either Crystal would turn up or she wouldn’t, and either eventuality was bad.

  Without a mix already in the oven, Holly worked at double time to prepare a few batches and get them ready for the early-morning crowd. As she pulled the delivery order book toward her, a note fell out.

  “Since you took over ownership of the bakery when you paid off its debt, I think it’s best I step back from the business. I ran it single-handed for a few months, so I know it can be done. Call on Ben if you need help.”

  A fist gathered up her stomach and twisted it, making Holly feel weak and ill. What have you done?

  All she’d wanted was to investigate a couple of murders that didn’t involve her, to clear her boyfriend, so she could break up with him. How on earth had Holly let that get to the stage that she was throwing everything back in her sister’s face?

  Perhaps the fight had been brewing a while, and Holly was just so self-absorbed that she hadn’t noticed? Could it be possible that Crystal had harbored this resentment since the moment Holly returned home and it just chose last night to come spilling out like bile?

  “What are you going to do?” Holly whispered. This wasn’t just a matter of phoning her sister and saying sorry. The bakery was Crystal’s life for a long time before Holly arrived back on the scene. To give that up just to avoid her meant the wound ran deep.

  The tinkle of the shop bell had Holly scurrying to the front of house, her twisted thoughts following her like a train. She served up the customers who first dotted then spilled into the shop. An automaton, smiling, nodding, exchanging goods for money. Holly wasn’t even sure if any of her small talk exchanges made the slightest bit of sense.

  By the time that Meggie arrived for her morning coffee and cake, all the nerves in Holly’s body felt like they’d transferred to her skin. Rub. Rub. Rub. Every nod, every gesture, every cursory phrase was scrubbing her raw.

  Despite her ability to fool the morning clientele, Meggie took one look and pulled Holly into a much-needed hug. “What on earth has happened?”

  It only took that one question and Holly dissolved into tears.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Holly had recovered just as the next influx of customers arrived. To her surprise, hidden amongst them was Aidan, looking very nervous, indeed.

  He sat down at the table, waiting until the other customers were gone before coming up to the counter.

  “What on earth are you doing here?” Holly asked, pleased that her voice came out sounding normal instead of the squeak she’d half been expecting.

  “Can’t a guy get a cupcake in this town?” Aidan smiled and after a minute, shook his head, recognizing that his small joke hadn’t landed. “I just thought I’d let you know that the police officially let me off the hook this morning. You can tell anybody you like that we’re broken up.”

  Holly tipped her head forward. Although she knew this moment was coming, had fought to bring it to fruition sooner, there was still a well of sadness inside her that the relationship hadn’t worked. Still, she could cry over that later. Along with everything else on her plate that she had to cry about.

  “I suppose that’s good news,” Holly said. “Did the sergeant say who they had in their sights for the crime no
w?”

  At that, Aidan gave a snort. “The person they should’ve been investigating the hardest from the start.”

  When Holly shook her head, nonplussed, Aidan added an eye roll to the mix.

  “The boyfriend,” he explained. “Some guy named Clarence did the whole thing, apparently. I don’t know why Matthewson hauled me over the coals for so long when he should have been the prime suspect from the start.”

  Aidan was actually sweet enough to order a cupcake from her before leaving to scurry back across the road to his job at the registry office. Holly sadly watched him go, wondering when Crystal and Alec would be walking in there with their happy news.

  None of her business, she supposed, grabbing a cloth and wiping down the serving counter with far more ferocity than was needed.

  A whole lot of things were nothing to do with her any longer. It should really free up a lot of spare time.

  To make the deliveries, Holly enlisted Ben’s help, a favor he seemed relieved to perform. Judging by the mulish expression on his mother’s face, the teenager had been on the wrong side of a telling off when Holly walked into the bar, seeking help.

  The roads were clear, and it didn’t take her long to clear the list. As she swung the van around into the alley behind the bakery, Holly looked across the street to the theater. Surely, Ben wouldn’t care if she popped in there for a few minutes just to check on something?

  Deciding that he wouldn’t, Holly jogged down the street and popped her head in through the door. Nina was behind the concession stand, doing yet another stock-take. Either it was a task she performed daily, or Holly had very odd timing.

  “Are you here about those Star Adventure tickets?”

  No one could fault Nina on her memory. Holly shook her head, a small frown creasing her brow. Now she was here, it wasn’t so easy to just blurt out her request. Come at it from the side, for goodness’ sake. Where have all these sudden nerves come from? Except she knew exactly where those nerves had come from, so pushed the thought away.