Gourd to Death

by Kirsten Weiss

  “Meet you at Charlene’s,” I said for her benefit.

  She shook her head. “Tell him to meet us at Marla’s.”

  “Er, can you meet us at Marla’s instead?” I asked.

  “No problem.”

  “Then what?” I asked.

  “Then we solve your stepmother problem. Together.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  We sped down the darkening highway. Charlene whipped the Jeep left, into a neighborhood of Victorians and windswept cypresses.

  For once, I didn’t mind feeling like I was in a high-speed chase. I leaned forward in my seat, Frederick snoozing in my lap. “Charlene?” I said.

  “Yes?”

  “Takako told me something, right before she disappeared.”

  Charlene cut a quick glance at me.

  “She said . . . she thinks she’s the reason my father left us.”

  “Makes sense. Your brother’s only two years younger than you, and your father left when you were three. I did the math.”

  Why was I the only person who hadn’t bothered to do the math? I really needed to get over this fear and loathing of numbers.

  “But,” Charlene continued, “at least that explains what she wants. Forgiveness.”

  “There’s nothing to forgive. It was years ago, and she said she didn’t know about me.”

  The Jeep flew through a pothole, and we bounced in our seats.

  “Val,” she said kindly, “you’re a good person, and that’s exactly the right thing to say. So why don’t I believe you?”

  “I don’t—” I blew out my breath. Okay. I was pissed. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t rational. But there it was. And now I felt ashamed of my thoughts and grateful to Charlene all at the same time. It was really uncomfortable.

  “It’s okay to be upset. And we both know you’ll feel better when you’re able to let go of it.”

  Right. She was right.

  Victorians blurred past the window, or maybe it was my vision that had blurred. Because I would get over it. Friends like Charlene, the people I loved, made dealing with life’s craziness easier.

  I changed the subject. “Why meet Gordon at Marla’s?”

  “After talking to Mrs. Thistleblossom, I’ve realized I need to be more patient with old people.”

  Uh-huh. Never mind that she and Marla had gone to school together.

  “It’s hard to believe,” she continued, “but someday I’ll get old like Marla. I know you’ve been resisting the idea, but it’s time to make her an associate Baker Street Baker.”

  I swiveled my head to stare at her wrinkled profile. I’d been resisting? “Well, yes. But I didn’t mean we should induct her on the night my stepmother’s gone missing.”

  “Also, my computer’s on the fritz, and yours is too slow.”

  “And you think Marla will let us use hers?”

  “If she wants to be an associate Baker Street Baker, she will.”

  We flew past porch steps dotted with pumpkins. Turning on a cliffside road, the Jeep screeched to a halt at Marla’s iron front gate.

  Charlene rolled down her window and leaned out. She pushed the yellow intercom button.

  The metal box crackled. Marla’s voice floated through the aether. “Yes?”

  “It’s Charlene and Val. Let us in.”

  “Why on earth would I do that?”

  “Adventure,” Charlene shouted, pumping her fist in the air.

  There was a lengthy silence.

  I leaned across Charlene. “We’d like to make you an associate Baker Street Baker.”

  “In other words,” Marla purred, “you need me.”

  Charlene bridled. “We didn’t say—”

  I nudged my friend. “Yes. May we come in?”

  The iron gate creaked open.

  “We don’t need her,” Charlene said. “We’re doing Marla a favor.”

  “We can’t let her know that, not if we need her computer.”

  We drove down the winding, flagstone drive. Charlene parked in front of Marla’s storybook-style house, complete with turret. Its diamond-paned windows shone, warm with light. A pyramid of multihued pumpkins was stacked neatly on the doorstep.

  Grumbling, Charlene followed me to the front door, carved in a peacock design.

  A gust of wind swayed the nearby cypress trees.

  I shivered, huddling beneath the eaves of the slate roof.

  A shadow darkened the peephole, framed by an all-seeing eye. The door creaked open.

  Marla braced her hand on the frame, blocking our entry. She looked us up and down and jerked her chin toward Charlene’s living stole. “That cat makes a better detective than you two.”

  Turning on the heels of her elegant sandals, she strode into the high-ceilinged foyer. Marla’s wide-legged white slacks swished in her wake. Her gold and diamond bling glittered against her blue-and-white striped shirt.

  Feeling inelegant in my dust-covered turtleneck and beigey vest, I followed.

  Charlene slammed shut the door.

  Marla paused beside a bouquet of flowers atop a polished round table. She folded her arms. “So. You lost your stepmother.”

  My jaw slackened. “How did you know that?”

  Gripping the gilt railing, Charlene sat on the curving staircase. “All of San Nicholas must know about the kidnapping by now.” She scratched her ankle, wrinkling the fabric of her orange knit leggings.

  Marla tapped a finger on her chin. “I suppose the kidnapping was inevitable. What do you expect when you let a rank amateur into your investigation?”

  “You’re saying this was our fault?” Charlene growled.

  “Yes.”

  Charlene’s shoulders dropped. “You’re probably right.”

  “Probably?” Marla paced the foyer. “The question is, was she taken by the San Adrians, or by the killer?”

  I started. “The killer? No. No way. Why would a killer take my stepmother?”

  “I suppose it depends on how insane that receptionist, Alfreda, is.”

  “She’s an office manager,” Charlene said tartly. “Are you saying Alfreda kidnapped Takako? Why?”

  Marla shot her a look that could have curdled milk. “Do you not know the meaning of the word insane?”

  “Why do you think Alfreda’s crazy?” I asked. Takako had said she was with people from San Adrian, but I wanted to know where Marla was heading with this.

  Marla lifted a silvery brow. “Have you seen her nutty paperweight collection?”

  “Have you?” I asked, suspicious.

  “I was collecting for charity yesterday,” Marla said loftily, “and she invited me inside.”

  Uh-huh. Marla had been amateur detecting. “Lots of people collect things,” I said. “It might make them obsessive or quirky, but it doesn’t make them nuts. Besides, Alfreda couldn’t have kidnapped Takako.”

  Marla paced, her heels clicking on the foyer tiles. “Trust me, I know crazy. The way Alfreda looked, the way she talked. When I saw her last, Alfreda was . . . vibrating with some intense emotion.”

  “There was no way she could have lobbed a pumpkin bomb at me last night,” I said.

  “Pumpkin bomb?” Marla asked.

  I explained about the attack in the maze. “It had to be someone else.”

  “Like Kara’s poor husband, Elon?” Marla smiled, arch. “I should pay a condolence call on the bereaved widower.”

  “You can forget about vamping Elon,” Charlene said. “That poor man’s gone through enough. And he may be a killer. Plus, he’s friends with Shaw.”

  Marla sniffed. “Shaw’s not that bad. You just need to know how to handle him.”

  “Does Elon handle him?” I asked.

  She sighed. “That’s not Elon’s style.”

  “And what is his style?” I asked.

  “That will be interesting to see,” Marla said. “Everyone knows he chafed under Kara’s authoritarian rule. I wonder who he’ll become now that she’s gone?”

 
; I shifted uneasily. “Elon has motive, means, and opportunity. If Shaw hasn’t been ignoring him as a suspect out of friendship or obligation, then why?”

  “Maybe because Elon didn’t kill his wife and Tristan Cannon,” Marla said. “Shaw knows Elon doesn’t have it in him. It would be like Detective Carmichael arresting you.”

  “You’re saying Shaw’s instincts are good?” Charlene asked.

  “Even a stopped clock is right twice a day,” Marla said.

  The two women laughed, sobered, glared at each other.

  “What a day,” Charlene grumbled. “First I have to make nice with Thistleblossom, and now this.”

  Marla straightened. “Thistleblossom?”

  “Val’s setting up a volunteer brigade to help her with housekeeping.”

  “That old witch?” Marla’s face sagged. “Why?”

  “Because she needs help,” I said.

  “She was putting the whammy on Val!”

  “It was nothing,” I said.

  “Don’t underestimate the woman. Once she caught me sneaking out with Reginald Philpott and told my parents.” Marla’s hands fisted. “I was grounded for a month. And then he started dating Rhonda Pratt. The two got married, and he became a millionaire. They’ve got a house in Malibu.”

  “But never mind,” Charlene said, “because you’ve moved on.”

  “After I went to all that trouble at the pie—” Marla snapped her jaw shut.

  “The pie what?” I asked. “Were you the one who told the judges she was cheating?”

  Marla studied the chandelier. “If she’d lost because of you, Pie Town would have been over. The coffee might be terrible, but everyone who’s anyone in San Nicholas knows that’s the place to be on a weekday morning.”

  “How’d you—?” Charlene pointed. “You followed us that morning, didn’t you?”

  “I might have,” Marla admitted. “I wanted to know what you were up to!”

  “Mrs. Thistleblossom has arthritis,” I said. “That’s why she’s been cheating. She can’t bake anymore.”

  “Well. That’s very sad,” Marla said. “But how was I to know? And she ruined my eighteenth birthday.”

  “Reginald was a putz,” Charlene said.

  “You’re right. Reginald is old news.” Marla toyed with one of her gold necklaces. “I should get in there and rescue Elon before Denise swoops in.”

  I stared. “What?”

  “Denise is in love with Elon,” Marla said. “Didn’t you know?”

  “You’re making that up,” Charlene said.

  Marla fluffed her platinum hair. “Hardly. I’ve seen the way she acts around him. She’s got it bad.”

  There had been a few things Denise had said.... Could Marla be right?

  “It’s disappointing the way some women can be so smart in one area and so stupid when it comes to love.” Marla fiddled with the table’s massive bouquet. “That said, I wish I could have invested in Denise’s software company. But my financial adviser said it was outside my risk tolerance. I need to stick with more diversified investments, like mutual and index funds.” She beheaded a yellow mum.

  “Also,” Charlene said, “you’re—”

  “Fascinating,” I said, before Charlene could remind her best frenemy she was also broke. “What else do you know about Denise’s software company?”

  “Only what she told us at her presentation at my Daughters of Western Pioneers chapter.” Marla drew a yellow rose from the bouquet and inhaled. “Nearly everyone invested, we were so impressed.”

  “Daughters of Pioneers?” I asked. “That’s a thing?”

  “Western Pioneers,” Marla corrected.

  “A bunch of bored blue-hairs,” Charlene said.

  Frederick yawned his distaste.

  “It’s a networking group,” Marla said. “There are thirty women in my Silicon Valley chapter alone.”

  “What do you need to network?” Charlene asked.

  “As a businesswoman—”

  “Ha!” Charlene sneered.

  “Can we borrow your computer?” I asked. “There’s something we’d like to look up.”

  “Fine,” Marla said. “But everything is password protected, so don’t even try to order off my accounts.”

  I followed her into a palatial kitchen. Tuscan floor tiles, marble counters, brushed-nickel fixtures. She pointed to a laptop at the wide bar beside a pink box from Pie Town. “Have at it.”

  “Thanks.” I slid onto a cushioned barstool and stared at the glowing screen. I’d thought Charlene would follow me. After all, using Marla’s computer had been her idea. My breath quickened. Charlene had rifled Marla’s closets in the past. Was my piecrust maker using me as some sort of diversion?

  Does Bigfoot live in the woods?

  But I had to keep up appearances, so I opened up the Web site for Denise’s company. It hadn’t changed since the last time I’d looked. Ophthalmology software. Close corporation. Blah, blah blah.

  I stared at the sliding glass doors. The ocean had deepened to cobalt, stars blotted out by the fog bank. I sneaked a peek inside the pink box. Mmm. Strawberry rhubarb.

  Rising, I got a fork from a drawer and dug in. My stepmother had been kidnapped. I deserved comfort food. And stress eating gets a bad rap.

  I had no idea what a close corporation was, and since Charlene and Marla still hadn’t come to the kitchen, I looked that up.

  As far as I could tell, it was a relaxed form of corporation, without all the rules of regular corporations. Designed for smaller businesses, it was limited to thirty-five stockholders. Maybe I could incorporate Pie Town someday to raise funds? Alfreda had said she’d had experience with—

  Gordon strode into the kitchen. Grinning, he leaned one hip against the gold-flecked, stone counter. “So.” He wore the navy suit that made him look like a sharp TV detective.

  I leapt from my stool. “You’re here. I’ve been going crazy.”

  “Never.” Wrapping his arms around me, he pulled me against his chest and kissed me.

  When we’d untangled ourselves and I’d gotten my breathing under control, he licked his lips. “Strawberry rhubarb?”

  I angled my head toward the open box. “Marla’s. I’ll get her a new one.”

  “In that case . . .” He grabbed a fork and dug in.

  “I’m worried about Takako,” I said, “and about you.”

  “Me?” he mumbled through a mouthful of pie.

  “Gordon, I know what it’s like to watch your parents, the people you love the most, failing. I took care of my mother when she was sick. But”—I swallowed—“my mother’s breast cancer was diagnosed too late. I only took care of her for a few months. This has been going on with your parents for much longer.”

  He grimaced, swallowed, put down the fork. “They’re my parents,” he said simply. “What am I going to do?”

  “I don’t know how or if it’s appropriate for me to help. But tell me. I’m here for you for whatever, even if it’s just leaving you alone so you can get some sleep.”

  “I know you are. I don’t know how . . . I don’t know what I need right now. Or what my parents need. I can’t help them the way they need. For the past week, it’s felt like I can’t help anyone.”

  His parents. The murder. His uncle. Shaw. It was a wonder Gordon had stayed as even-keeled as he had. “You are helping.”

  “Then let me do something for you.” He pulled his phone from the inside pocket of his suit jacket.

  “Hey, you’re back in uniform.”

  He raised a brow. “I’m a detective. I don’t wear uniforms.”

  “You know what I mean. The suit. Where were you?”

  “I had to talk to a lawyer about the case.” He dialed. “It’s Detective Carmichael. Put her on the line.” He handed me the phone.

  “Hello?” I said.

  “Val?” Takako said in an annoyed tone. “I told you not to call the police!”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

 
“Hey!” Takako shouted.

  A crash, a scuffle on the other end of the line.

  I gripped the edge of Marla’s marble counter. “Takako? Are you okay? Takako!”

  Outside the sliding glass doors, the waning moon slipped between a gap in the oncoming fog. Its reflection glinted, bright, on the ocean, and vanished.

  Marla and Charlene hurried into the kitchen.

  “For God’s sake,” a man’s voice graveled over the phone. “You didn’t call the cops, did you? We didn’t take her! We don’t want her!”

  “Who is this?” I asked.

  “Farmer John. Who’s this?”

  Farmer John? He really called himself that? I glanced at Gordon. “Val Harris.”

  “She jumped into one of our cars,” the farmer said rapidly. “In the chaos, we didn’t even realize . . . Look, take her back, will you?”

  “Take her?” I shook myself. Why was I arguing? It had all been a mistake. This was wonderful news.

  Suspiciously wonderful.

  I raised my voice. “What do you mean take her back?”

  “She’s driving us nuts. We’ll stop harassing your festival if you stop interfering with ours. It’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  “We don’t negotiate with terrorists,” Charlene hollered into the phone.

  Marla folded her arms over her striped top. “I hate to agree with Charlene, but I agree.”

  “I heard that,” he shouted back. “That woman’s the terrorist! She won’t leave us alone.”

  I stuck a finger in my ear and walked to the glass doors. Somewhere beyond them the ocean crashed, but all I could see was my bemused reflection in the dark glass. “Okay, what do you want?”

  “Weren’t you listening? We want you to take her away.”

  “Fine,” I said. “But where? Where are you?”

  “Wherever you want us to be, lady.”

  “Can you bring her back to the corn maze?”

  “We’re on our way now. You’ll be there, right?” he asked, his voice strained. “You’ll take her off our hands?”

  “I’ll be there. How far away are you?”

  “Forty minutes.”

  “We’ll see you then.” I hung up.

  Gordon’s mouth twitched.

  I pointed an accusing finger at him. “You knew.” Drat his sexy cop smarts.