Punch, Pastries, and Poison

by Harper Lin

  I snapped my hand to my heart and gasped. “Was that a compliment, Mike?”

  “Don’t get excited. I’m sick. I don’t know what I’m saying.”

  I chuckled to myself. It was the closest thing I’d get to a compliment on my detective skills from him. He barely even gave them out for my coffee and baking, and I knew he enjoyed those.

  He swallowed down some more of his tea. “Now that you know it was the punch and you’ve had a chance to chat with your friend about it, have you thought of anything that might be suspicious? Or just worth mentioning to the person actually in charge of this case?”

  Ephy.

  He looked at me with the kind of piercing look that made me wonder if he could read my mind.

  I felt bad, like I was lying to him if I didn’t tell him about Ephy. I wasn’t, though. Not really. I didn’t have any specific reason to suspect her—just a nagging thought in the back of my mind. And that wasn’t nearly enough of a reason to turn her in to the police, especially not when that nagging thought probably had more to do with my bad first impression of her than anything she’d done the night of the party.

  He was still looking at me, waiting for my answer.

  “No. Nothing at all.”

  Chapter 14

  With the poisoned food identified and all the punch ingredients disposed of, Mike gave me the name of a good cleaning company and permission to reopen the café.

  I was a little hesitant to call up a company called Crime Scene Clean-Up, particularly since the motto emblazoned across their website was “Blood, Guts & Goo—We’ll Clean it All for You!” But I didn’t think I could literally or figuratively stomach cleaning the café to the extent it needed to be, even if I called all the girls in to help. Or maybe especially not if they helped, since I knew Rhonda and Sammy were still feeling queasy.

  Mike had assured me that this company was the best and fast to boot, so I sucked it up and called them. The girl who answered the phone sounded almost disappointed when I told her that very few bodily fluids needed to be cleaned up and they were all confined to the bathrooms. Apparently, stale food and fingerprint dust weren’t the most exciting things to clean. Still, she assured me that a team would be out within the hour, and they’d have everything cleaned up and ready to go for the café to reopen in the morning.

  Sure enough, when I walked in just before dawn the next morning, the place was immaculate. It somehow didn’t even smell like cleaning chemicals like I’d expected—it was why I’d gotten there extra early—so I could prop the doors open and air the place out before customers came in. Whatever the cleaners had used, though, left the place smelling fresh more than anything. And soon, I planned to have the mouthwatering aroma of fresh-brewed coffee floating on the air, which I did by the time Sammy walked in.

  “I was about to call the police until I saw you behind the counter. Are you okay? Why are you here so early?” Sammy walked in through the door I’d decided to prop open after all as a kind of advertisement that we were open again. Aside from a pinker-than-usual flush to her cheeks, she looked like she was back to her usual self.

  I laughed. “Just wanted to make sure everything was looking good and ready for us to open.” I opened my arms and gave her a hug as she walked around the counter to me.

  Sammy put her head to my forehead. “Are you sure? This is awfully early for you.” She stopped and chuckled. “It’s even early for me! I thought I’d have some cleaning up to do before we opened.”

  I made her a cup of coffee as we chatted about how we were feeling, and I updated her on the police investigation so far.

  “Do they have any suspects?” She cradled her coffee cup in her hands and breathed in its smell.

  “I don’t think they do.”

  For the thousandth time, I wondered if I should have mentioned Ephy’s behavior at the party to Mike. And then I wondered if I should mention it to Sammy. On the one hand, her boyfriend was a police officer, but on the other, she knew Ephy as well as I did and would have a good perspective. Plus, she thought the absolute best of people until they had proven that they really didn’t deserve it, and even then she wouldn’t give up on them entirely. In the end, my anxiety over whether I was doing the right thing won out over the risk she’d spill everything to Ryan.

  “Actually, about that—can I ask you something?”

  “Of course! Anything.” She gave me her patented bright Sammy smile.

  “This is probably crazy, but—” I stopped to wonder one last time whether it was a good idea to tell her. Then I blurted it out. “Ephy spent the whole party leaning against the wall over there, right next to the poisoned punch. And she was drinking water the whole time because she ‘doesn’t like sweet stuff.’ But I’ve seen her eat sweet things here at the café, haven’t you? I don’t know whether this is really something you should tell Mike or if I’m just jumping to conclusions because she can be abrasive sometimes.”

  Sammy nodded slowly and chewed on her lip. “I think—” She stopped, and her forehead wrinkled. She took a long, deep breath. “I think you should tell Mike. But not that you think she may have had something to do with it—just that you saw her by the punch bowl and maybe she saw something that would help. I think that’s most likely what could have happened anyway. I can’t imagine our Ephy poisoning anyone, but she could have seen something and not even realized that it was important, especially since people didn’t start getting sick until later.”

  I wanted to hug her. In fact, I did. I couldn’t believe such an obvious solution had been sitting there all along, and I’d just been so busy thinking about the possibility that she’d poisoned everyone that it didn’t even occur to me that she might not have done anything but seen someone do something instead. It felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. And just in time, too, because our first customer of the day walked through the door.

  “Good morning, Mr. Paul!” Sammy called, flashing that smile again. “How are you on this beautiful day? The usual?”

  She had such a way with customers that my mind held no doubt that she was a large part of the café’s success, especially in the early morning hours when most people were grumpy and surly. Sammy, by contrast, was like a ray of sunshine then, bouncing around the café and making everything and everyone a little brighter.

  As Sammy moved to start making his coffee—an order she knew by heart, just like she did with all the regulars—I stepped over to her. “I’m going to go make some muffins. Thanks again.”

  She nodded, and I hurried into the back. Virtually nothing in the pastry case could be saved after being closed for a whole day. I had to make everything fresh. I preferred to make everything fresh anyway, but I didn’t mind leaving a few things that kept well an extra day. Today, though, I’d have to remake almost everything, especially since I knew that hungry customers would be coming in and looking for their breakfast at any moment.

  Muffins seemed like just the thing. A quick, basic batter that multiplied easily and cooked quickly enough that people wouldn’t be waiting forever for their breakfast. Especially not if I started out with a batch of mini-muffins.

  I set the oven to preheat and set to work greasing my muffin pans. That done, I started mixing my ingredients, and by the time the oven had heated up, I had my trays of mini-muffins ready to go in the oven. A good thing, too, since Mr. Paul had been the start of a steady stream of customers who kept us busy straight through until the lunchtime rush. By then, I’d at least gotten a few salads and mozzarella-tomato-basil sandwiches ready, although the orders kept coming, and I only ever escaped the kitchen long enough to deliver a freshly made salad or sandwich straight to a customer’s table.

  I exchanged a few brief words with people I knew and a few more with those who had been at the party. Mary Ellen was cozied up at a small table with her silver fox from the party. He looked slightly less polished than he had when I’d seen him before, but she looked as immaculate as ever.

  “Looks like somebody man
aged to avoid getting sick with the rest of us!” I put Mary Ellen’s salad down in front of her and her friend’s sandwich in front of him.

  Mary Ellen held her hand to her chest and rolled her eyes dramatically. “Don’t I wish! I only managed to pull myself out of bed this morning because this handsome man called and just begged me to go to lunch with him!”

  “Well, you don’t look like it. You look like the picture of health.” I grinned at her.

  “Makeup, dear,” she said, leaning in and putting her hand on my arm. “Very good, very expensive makeup. You can wake up looking like you’re ready for death to appear and scoop you up, but with a little dab of this and a little dab of that, you look like nothing worse than tequila has passed between your lips.” She gave me a sly wink and smiled.

  Mary Ellen always exuded polish and poise, but I could tell she’d turned it up for her friend. She wasn’t even trying to hide it either. She had the mysterious ability to pull the curtain back and show men everything behind it, only to have them fall even more in love with her.

  I grinned. “I’ll have to get you to take me for a makeover sometime.”

  “Of course, dear. Just say the word.”

  I thanked her and excused myself back to the kitchen. On the way, I saw Todd and Karli at one of the two-tops along the exposed brick wall and stopped to say hello. Todd had dark circles under his eyes and blond stubble covering his cheeks. Karli, on the other hand, either used the same high-end makeup as Mary Ellen or hadn’t drunk any of the poison punch at the party. Of course, I wasn’t sure that she’d even had her twentieth birthday yet, so she shouldn’t have been anywhere near the alcohol-spiked punch anyway.

  I smiled sympathetically at Todd. “How’re you doing?”

  He raked his hand through his perfectly mussed blond hair. It flopped back down looking even messier but somehow even more perfect. “Been a rough thirty-six hours.” He smiled, setting his blue eyes sparkling. He really was excessively good-looking, even in a T-shirt and shorts that had both seen better days.

  I turned to Karli, who was dressed in what I took to be her standard uniform of a couple of layered tank tops paired with skintight, not-quite-opaque leggings. Today, the tank tops were neon green and fluorescent yellow, and her eyes were coated in eye shadow to match. “What about you?”

  She flicked her thick-lashed eyes at me without turning her head from where it rested on her hand. “I’m fine.”

  “Karli,” Todd said quietly.

  She looked at him and took a heavy breath before turning to face me. “I’m fine,” she repeated, her hot-pink-lacquered lips curling into an expression that was as much a sneer as a smile. “I didn’t have any of whatever poisoned everyone.”

  “Karli!” Todd said again, sharper this time. He looked at me apologetically. “I’m sorry about that. She’s just—she had a lot on her shoulders yesterday keeping the gym running while I was out of commission.”

  Karli shrugged her thin, tanned shoulders. Every time I saw her, I found myself wondering whether that tan came from the sun or a bottle. Of course, this time of year, a tanning bed was likelier than the sun, but I still couldn’t tell. She folded a napkin in half then ran the back of her fingernail along the fold, making a tight crease before looking up at Todd. She fluttered her fake lashes at him—not a lot, just enough that I, a former teenage girl, noticed it. “I just want to do whatever I can to help you.”

  “I know,” he said quietly. He reached across the table and patted her hand, letting his linger on hers for just a beat longer than necessary. They’d been seeing each other the summer before, but she’d broken up with him after the murder outside the gym drew her parents’ attention to their relationship. At least, that was the story I’d heard from Todd. Now, I wondered if he’d told me the truth—or if things had changed again since then.

  They held each other’s eyes for long enough that I felt like it was time for me to go. I wished them well and went to step away but backed right into Dean Howard.

  He made a big production of stepping back and holding his to-go coffee cup far away from his white dress shirt. “You’re lucky you didn’t spill any of this on me. This shirt cost more than your whole outfit. It’s bad enough that I spent yesterday in front of the toilet because of you.”

  I bit my tongue to keep myself from snapping back that it was a good thing the dry cleaner was reasonable. It wouldn’t have been professional.

  Fortunately, Todd stepped in before I had a chance to reconsider. “Give her a break, Dean. It wasn’t on purpose. We all feel like crap. We don’t have to get on each other’s backs about stupid stuff.”

  “I feel fine!” Karli chirped.

  Todd shot her a look.

  She sank down in her chair, looking visibly chastised.

  “Whatever,” Dean muttered and escorted himself out.

  I watched him go. Then I turned to thank Todd, but Karli already had his attention again. Instead, I slipped away back to the kitchen and the mountain of salads and sandwiches that still needed to be prepared.

  Chapter 15

  Ephy showed up about halfway through the lunch rush, an hour or two after I would have liked her to be there. I was too busy to stop and check the schedule even though I wanted to, so I just set her to work beside me, having her layer ingredients onto sandwiches and wrap them up to go. As much as I hated to admit it, she was doing a great job—she was fast and efficient, and her sandwiches were beautiful. She even arranged the ingredients so they peeked out tantalizingly from between the slices of bread. I knew my irritation with her wasn’t completely justified—my suspicions about the punch were affecting my judgement. I still wanted to check on whether she’d come in on time, though.

  Ephy and I emerged from the kitchen when the lunch rush finally slowed down. We’d managed to get a decent stock of sandwiches and salads ready for the afternoon and could finally go help Sammy out front. Rhonda had come in while we were in the back, so Sammy hadn’t been completely alone, but the café still bore the evidence of the busy, hectic lunch service.

  “I’m sorry, Fran. It was just so busy. It was all I could do to keep the drinks coming out and—” Sammy started gushing the second she saw me.

  “Stop it,” Rhonda snapped, somehow still managing to sound affectionate. It was a skill I knew she’d honed over the years of dealing with her two teenaged sons. She waved her hand around the room. “All this means that we were busy. Fran understands if things get a little out of hand while we’re busy. Don’t you, Fran?” She gave me a look that dared me to say no.

  I did understand, but with the piercing glare on Rhonda’s face, it would have taken a brave woman to say she didn’t. “Of course I do.” I took a quick look around the café and realized just why Sammy had jumped to groveling. It looked like a tornado had swept through. A very tame tornado, of course, one that just hovered over the tabletops and scattered plates and cups and napkins and crumbs all around, but a tornado all the same. I was surprised, but given how many salads and sandwiches Ephy and I had churned out, I could guess at the size of the crowd that had rolled through. I smiled at Sammy. “You did great.”

  Sammy smiled back weakly. She was somehow simultaneously pale and flushed. The edges of her blond hair were matted down with sweat, and her ponytail had slipped down to the nape of her neck. It wasn’t just the rush that had her so exhausted—she wasn’t fully recovered yet from the ill effects of the poison. “Why don’t you head home?” I suggested.

  She shook her head, looking anxious, like she thought I was trying to punish her for not having the superhuman power it would have taken to serve everyone and keep the place immaculate too. “No, it’s okay. I’ll help clean up.”

  “Sammy, you look like you’re going to keel over any second. Go home and take a nap.”

  “Really, I’m fine.”

  I sighed. I was as stubborn as they came, but I wasn’t sure I was going to win this battle of wills. Not unless I resorted to some underhanded tactics.
<
br />   “Well, as your boss, I’m telling you it’s time for your lunch break. Grab yourself something to eat and go have a seat in the back. We’ll see you in half an hour.”

  I turned away from her before she had a chance to argue. She took a deep breath like she was still going to try then exhaled, grabbed a salad from the case, and disappeared into the back room.

  “Well done,” Rhonda said quietly to me. “I think she made it through lunch on sheer adrenaline.”

  “I’m still going to try to get her to go home after her break. She’ll run herself ragged if I let her.”

  Rhonda nodded and grabbed a rag. “Guess I better get to work cleaning things up back here.” She started wiping down the counters.

  I turned to Ephy, who was examining her cuticles and looked dangerously close to biting one off.

  “Ephy, can you work on busing and wiping the tables while I—” I stopped and glanced around the room, trying to figure out where to start. I waved my hand in the air helplessly.

  Rhonda chuckled quietly to herself as she scrubbed at a coffee stain on the counter, and Ephy, to her credit, grabbed a dish tub and started clearing dishes from the closest table. I stood for another second and stared, trying to get a grip on the situation. Then I gave up, grabbed another dish tub, and headed to the next table.

  We worked slowly but steadily, making our way around the room, clearing dishes from the tables as we went. A few customers came in, and Rhonda stopped her scrubbing to take their orders while I ran and grabbed a clean cloth to wipe off the tables so the customers would have somewhere to sit. I started just following behind Ephy, wiping the tables as she cleared them so at least everything looked a little cleaner. The floor still needed to be swept and mopped, but the sweeping could wait until the dishes were cleared, and the mopping could wait until we closed. At least I kept reminding myself of that to keep from going crazy. I imagined toting around a dustpan and broom under one arm with a mop and bucket under the other while somehow wielding a rag and dish tub at the same time. Even at my overachieving best, I didn’t think I could pull that off, so I resigned myself to taking it one step at a time. Slow and steady wins the race and all that.