Carrot Cake & Murder: A Sweet Treats Cozy Mystery

by Woods, Lori

“Have you taken Reggie to that snack table yet, by the way?” Oscar asked, petting his shepherd. “I just took Connie, and she devoured her treats.”

  “No snacks until after the show,” George said strictly, patting his poodle on its head.

  “Same here,” Lilith said with a grin as she pet her dog on the head. “I’m following George’s lead on this one.”

  “Aw, poor Reggie and Jojo,” Dazzle said.

  “Don’t worry; they’ll get plenty of treats today,” George assured her.

  Oscar seemed to roll his eyes a bit as he led his dog to their prep station. Isaac made his way over, his grooming kit in hand. “Ready, Reggie?” he asked, petting the dog.

  “About time, Isaac,” George said.

  “Sorry. I got distracted by those treats,” he said, winking in Molly’s direction. “This girl can really bake.”

  “Thank you,” Molly said, beaming a bit.

  “Just a little trim, Isaac,” George said. “Nothing too crazy. Want Reggie to show off that natural coat of his.”

  “Of course,” Isaac said, evidently still a bit distracted as he proceeded to shave the big puff completely down the middle of the dog’s head, the trimmer’s guard not having been clipped on properly.

  George and Lilith both shrieked, and even Reggie seemed to yelp in surprise. “Oh my God…” Isaac said under his breath as a big chunk of dog hair fell to the ground.

  George’s mouth hung wide open in shock at his dog that was now bald right down the middle of his head. “Did you just…” George seemed to be in an almost trance as he stared at his dog’s head. “Reggie is my prized poodle, you idiot!” George screamed. “You just bald-ed my prize-winning poodle! He is competing in Westminster in a month!”

  “I am… I uh…” Isaac could barely stammer together a single sentence.

  Molly instinctively began ushering the kids back a bit as she saw that George’s face was turning a bright red. “Oh, it’s not that bad,” Molly tried to say.

  “Not that bad!” George shouted.

  “I can try to fix it,” Isaac said, leaning towards Reggie.

  “Don’t you dare!” George screamed and threw a punch in Isaac’s direction.

  Molly gasped as Isaac went down after receiving one straight to the jaw. “Whoa!” Braxton shouted. “Ease up, man!”

  “Yeah, back off!” Whip snapped, helping Isaac stand. “It was an accident!”

  Isaac, once standing, took off, not willing to stick around for a second punch. Jennifer was over by George a few minutes later, and she seemed much more upset by the dog’s haircut than by the fact that George punched the groomer in the face. Molly decided they needed to leave the back at this point, and she took her employees out to the main room, where the dog show would be taking place. They found themselves some up close seats and allowed themselves a moment to breathe after all the madness that had just taken place behind the scenes.

  “That was crazy,” Braxton said. “I can’t believe he just punched him like that.”

  “I can’t believe everyone seemed okay with it,” Molly said. “These people sure do take their dogs’ haircuts pretty seriously.”

  “I mean, I’d have been pretty mad too, I suppose, but to actually hit him?” Bonnie shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. That was a little nuts.”

  “I wonder if he’s even going to bring the dog out to compete now?” Dazzle questioned.

  “Who knows,” Molly said just as the first owner exited onto the floor to showcase their dog. Molly glanced over at Whip. He was gripping his stomach and looking a little sickly. “You okay?” she asked him.

  “Stomachache,” he said. “I think I had too many pieces of fudge, if I’m being honest.”

  “Yeah, you did eat like four of them on the way here, and then had several more to prove to everybody they didn’t taste like dog food,” Dazzle said, laughing a bit at her older brother. “Maybe chill out on the amount of sugar you eat?”

  Whip nodded, still gripping his stomach.

  Molly, after Whip assured her that he was fine, turned her attention to the arena.

  Chapter 3

  Molly was surprised at how interesting she found the dog show to be. For the most part, it was just a bunch of dogs walking around. But there was a segment in which the owners were able to show off any tricks their dogs knew. There was also an obedience scoring, in which the owners had to walk their dogs through a sort of obstacle course. The dogs were awarded points for remaining close to their owners and leaving plenty of slack in the leashes.

  Bonnie and Dazzle seemed much more interested than the boys in what was taking place. The girls giggled and oohed and aahed at the dogs, pointing out their favorites. Braxton had pulled out his laptop and was working on a school project, but he looked up whenever the judges announced some sort of scoring and carried on conversation with the girls about whether they believed the scoring to be fair.

  Whip, on the other hand, had hardly looked up once. He looked a bit sickly. Molly reached over and touched his shoulder. “Are you all right?” she asked him.

  “I’m fine, I’m fine,” he said for the umpteenth time. “Just a little stomachache.”

  “Do we need to go?” she asked.

  Whip looked at his younger sister and Bonnie, who were sitting in front of them, giggling and laughing at the dogs like this dog show was the most excitement they had had in days. “No, no,” he said. “The girls are having fun. I’ll be fine…”

  Molly wasn’t so sure, but he was being rather insistent. The larger dog breeds were being lined up, and, one at a time, were encouraged to hop up onto a stand where a judge would come and check out the dog, with a keen eye for judging. “This is the weird part to me,” Dazzle said. “Like, what are they even looking for? It seems like they’re looking for the dog to be perfect. They take off points for the strangest stuff.”

  “They’re looking to see how good a specimen of their breed they are,” Molly said, but Dazzle simply shrugged.

  Molly could see George and his poodle in the lineup. The man looked embarrassed to be there, and it was with good reason. Even from their considerable distance, she could see that not much had been able to fix Isaac’s mix-up. They had trimmed the poof on its head down, but it was still very obvious that he had a huge bald spot in the middle of its head. When it came Reggie’s turn, Molly could hear people in the closer seats whispering as the announcer talked about Reggie’s many, many victories in various dog show performances. The judge examining Reggie seemed to almost laugh at the catastrophe on the dog’s head, causing George to grimace a bit.

  “I feel bad for the guy,” Braxton said. “I mean, he overreacted, but people invest a lot of money into competing in these dog shows.”

  “I suppose that’s true,” Molly said, but her attention wasn’t really on George. It was on the other dogs in the lineup. Oscar’s dog, the large German shepherd named Connie, was fidgeting. Molly was sure that was going to cost his dog some points. It was all about poise and obedience. Then the dog bent its hind legs, and Molly snickered a bit as the thing went to the bathroom where she stood.

  “Ooh,” Braxton said. “That’s lovely. Probably forgot to give his dog a bathroom break before bringing her out there.”

  The mess was quickly cleaned up. That sort of thing is expected to happen on occasion at dog shows. George’s poodle was still being looked at when Connie suddenly crouched down and went again. “Geez,” Dazzle said, trying hard not to laugh. Even from where they sat, they could tell Oscar was getting a bit embarrassed.

  “You think his dog is sick or something?” Bonnie asked.

  A Great Dane standing next to Connie suddenly proceeded to do the exact same thing. People up front were beginning to laugh. Another dog started to go, and then another, and another. And, it wasn’t like they were just a bunch of dogs going to the bathroom. They were sickly.

  “Oh my gosh!” Dazzle exclaimed, having to look away from disgust.

  The announcer was a
sking all of the dogs’ owners to take them to their grooming stations, and people were rushing out to clean up the mess. “Aw man,” Whip suddenly whined. “I got to… I got to go. I’ll meet you guys by the van!” He jumped up suddenly and took off running in search of a bathroom.

  “What in the world?” Molly questioned as Whip disappeared in the crowd. Then her eyes widened. “The fudge!” she wailed, and her three young companions who had not feasted on the fudge all looked worried.

  The four of them hurried to the grooming stations in the back room, and the whole place was a smelly mess filled with screaming dog owners and howling, sickly dogs. Jennifer Dottle was running from owner to owner, trying to find out what was causing all of this craziness.

  Oscar came barging up to George, pointing at him angrily. “This is your fault, isn’t it? Couldn’t stand the idea of someone else taking home first prize because of your dog’s hair disaster, so you poisoned everyone else’s dogs!”

  George bucked up. “I would never!”

  Oscar practically snarled. “Oh yeah? Then how come your dog and Lilith’s are the only ones not stinking up the place!”

  Jennifer put herself between the two men. “Calm down, Oscar. I really doubt George had anything to do with this.”

  “Whatever,” Oscar said, storming off.

  Lilith, who had been beside George the whole time, huffed. “Maybe our dogs aren’t sick because they haven’t eaten?” she suggested, and her eyes lingered towards Molly.

  Jennifer spun around on her heels, locking eyes with Molly. “What was in that supposed dog-friendly fudge of yours?”

  Molly stiffened. “Nothing that should have made them sick! But…”

  “Hey! Isaac had a bunch of that fudge too!” another dog owner said. “He’s been in the bathroom since we all went out!”

  Molly felt herself getting a bit worked up. “I assure you, there’s nothing wrong with the fudge!” Molly said, though she wasn’t so sure she even believed it herself at this point.

  Molly and Jennifer, along with Bonnie, Braxton, and Dazzle, all went over to the display table to examine the fudge. Molly sniffed at the fudge, and she frowned. “Wait… something… doesn’t smell right…” She sniffed it again and broke open one of the fudge pieces that had the strongest oddity to it. Some of the peanut butter fudge was red on the inside.

  “Ah! Is that blood!” Bonnie shrieked.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Molly said quickly. “But someone has put something in my fudge!”

  Before Molly knew it, half the dog owners were standing around, screaming at her about their sick dogs. “I’ve invested three grand this year in my dog!” someone roared.

  “Are you kidding? I’ve invested seven!” shouted someone else.

  “My dog is still sick! She’s starting to puke now!”

  “What did you put in those treats!”

  “Jennifer, didn’t you vet this woman before you hired her?”

  Molly’s head was spinning. “No, someone else must have done something! There’s nothing in my fudge that should have turned the inside of it red like this! Someone did something to them!”

  “Did what? What’s wrong with my dog!” someone shrieked, sounding worried.

  “Calm down, everyone! Calm down!” Jennifer exclaimed. She turned and looked at Molly. “You need to find out what got into your fudge because some of the smaller dogs are very, very sick!” she said. “I’m going to go talk to all of the owners.” Jennifer started ushering people back to their prep stations, and she disappeared into the crowd of people, leaving Molly, Bonnie, Braxton, and Dazzle standing there, staring at the fudge.

  “You really think someone put something in the fudge?” Bonnie questioned.

  “Looks that way,” Molly said. “But I have no idea what this stuff is.”

  “Who would want to poison a bunch of dogs?” Dazzle asked. “That’s so cruel! They’re all so sick, the poor things.”

  “Not all of them,” Braxton said accusingly. “Oscar might have had a point. You guys think George poisoned the fudge?”

  “When would he have done it?” Bonnie argued. “He was by his dog’s prep station the whole time, and we were there talking to him.”

  They were not given much time to contemplate on their current situation. Just as Molly was beginning to fear that she was going to be getting sued by a bunch of high-maintenance dog owners, there was a loud scream coming from one of the empty prep stations. Molly’s first thought was that someone’s dog had gotten sick all over them, but the scream grew louder and more fitful. “Oh no,” Molly said out loud, fearful that someone’s dog might have gone into shock or had keeled over.

  She hurried towards the shouting, and it was far worse than her original suspicions. Oscar was hanging from an exposed pipe, a dog’s leash wrapped tightly around his neck, his feet dangling several feet off the ground. Molly gasped and felt a shout erupt from her own throat. The woman who had found him looked like she was about ready to faint. People nearby who had rushed to the screaming woman worked quickly to get Oscar down, and soon, someone was on the phone with 911, calling for help. They got Oscar down to the ground after jerking the leash so hard it pulled the pipe straight from the ceiling. But it was too late. Oscar was already dead.

  Chapter 4

  Officer Jeffrey was one of the first officers to arrive on-scene. When he saw Molly, Bonnie, Braxton, and Dazzle standing in the back room of the dog show with all the hysterical dog owners and their sickly dogs, he came hurrying over as some other officers cleared the crime scene. “So, this little group just can’t seem to stay out of trouble,” he began. “Molly, everything all right?”

  Molly practically whined like one of the sickly dogs. “No, everything is not all right. Someone put something in the snacks we made for everyone. Now, Whip is sick in the bathroom and so is the professional dog groomer, and all the dogs keep going number two everywhere! It’s gross, and everyone thinks we did it!”

  “Well, obviously, that’s not true,” he said. “Hmmm… you’re telling me that, at the same event, someone tried to sabotage the dogs and someone else was hung?”

  “Pretty much,” Braxton said.

  Jeffrey shook his head. “Doubt that’s just a coincidence. I’m going to get some samples from what’s left at your dessert table and send it to the lab. See if we can figure out what was put in them. Do you recall ever leaving the fudge by itself?”

  Molly nodded. “I mean, in our kitchen at the shop, it was all left to cool overnight. Then this morning, after we set up the table, we went to check out some of the dogs since we had backstage passes to the show. Then we went out on the main floor to watch the actual dog show, so it was unattended for a good bit of the morning.”

  “Okay, well, let me take a sample, and then make sure the rest of this gets in the trash, all right? We don’t want any more dogs eating it if it’s making them sick… wait… did you say Whip and the groomer ate the dog treats and are sick too?”

  “It’s just fudge, but it’s made with dog-safe ingredients,” Molly said. “Both people and dogs can eat it… well, they’re supposed to be able to, but someone tampered with it.”

  Jeffrey took several samples into plastic baggies and handed it off to the crime scene unit. He then returned to Molly and her team as they were making sure all the fudge wound up in the trash. “Do I get my assistant sleuth again today?” he asked Molly.

  Molly shrugged. “Might let you take this one by the reins. I really need to go check on Whip.”

  “Understood,” he said, and Molly and company departed once the last of the tampered fudge made its way to the trash.

  They searched for the nearest bathroom from where they had been seated in the stands, and Molly sent Braxton into the men’s room to locate Whip. Molly, Bonnie, and Dazzle remained outside, waiting on his return. “Do you think he’s okay?” Dazzle asked, somewhat worried.

  “I expect he’s probably having a similar reaction to the treats as all those
dogs did all over the performance arena,” Bonnie said, blushing slightly. “Poor Whip.”

  “He did eat a lot of that fudge,” Molly said, shaking her head. “I told him he could, but if I had known something was wrong with it… well, if I had known, we wouldn’t be in this predicament at all.”

  “True,” Bonnie said. “This is just awful. He is going to be so embarrassed.”

  The room to the men’s room opened and Isaac, the groomer, stepped out, gripping his stomach. He avoided eye contact with the girls as he hurried off. “He probably doesn’t even know what happened yet,” Dazzle said as Isaac hurried to the back room. “I wonder how long he’s been in there?”

  The door opened again and Braxton exited the men’s room. “Give him another minute,” he said, shaking his head.

  “Is he okay?” Dazzle asked.

  “Feeling better, I think,” Braxton said. “No offense, but I really wasn’t too keen on discussing his bowel movements while he was still on the toilet. Or at all, for that matter.”

  Dazzle covered her mouth to stifle a chuckle. “It’s really not funny. I feel awful, but I keep getting the giggles over all of this.”

  “I mean… it’s potty humor,” Bonnie said, giggling a bit herself. “But you’re right. We shouldn’t laugh. Whip is going to be awfully embarrassed when he comes out of there.”

  “It’s not his fault,” Molly said. “I’m honestly just glad he’s the only one of us who ate any of the fudge. I mean, I had one piece to sample it, but I suppose one piece wasn’t enough to make me sick.”

  “I didn’t have any,” Braxton said. “Glad I didn’t.”

  “Same,” Bonnie said.

  “I had one piece when Molly did, but Whip probably had at least six or seven pieces of fudge today,” she said. “And that Isaac guy had several too. He kept going back for them; I saw him head over to the table several times. Most of the dogs only had one or two pieces, I think.”

  “Dogs’ stomachs are a lot weaker than people’s,” Molly said. “I saw a few people eat the fudge who didn’t get sick, but it’s probably because they only had one piece, unlike Isaac and Whip.”