A Perilous Cake Pop

by Fiona Grace

  Speaking of going forward, Ali fished out the slip of paper from her pocket upon which she’d written Timothy Clarke’s address—the other suspect on her list. The former food critic whom Arlo had replaced at the magazine was looking like a more promising lead now that Ophelia was definitely not the culprit. In fact, he was now her only lead.

  Ali gulped on her anxiety. She felt more nervous about speaking to Timothy now than she had before.

  Just then, Scruff barked. Ali moved her gaze from the address over to the scraggly boardwalk stray, who was sitting with an expectant look on his face. His tail was wagging behind him, and his pink tongue was lolling. He looked ready for adventure.

  “You want me to get a move on, huh?” Ali asked him.

  Scruff barked in a way that sounded to Ali’s ears like confirmation. Despite her worry, she found the corners of her mouth twitching upwards.

  “Well, alright then,” she told him. “As long as you promise to be my bodyguard.”

  Scruff barked again.

  “Then it’s a deal,” Ali said.

  She returned Timothy’s address to her pocket and glanced up at the hills. He lived on the other side, the peculiarly run-down part of Willow Bay. Ali had only been there once before, back when Piper shared an apartment with some awful slob of a man she’d found on Craigslist. Ali didn’t much like the idea of going back there; the place had bad vibes.

  And worse than that—Ali considered, as she began to walk in that direction—it was technically across the town’s border, a border she’d been expressly forbidden from crossing by Detective Elton. Even though there was no specific demarcation line, and the two areas seamlessly melded into one another, once you were over the crest of the hill, you were technically no longer in the “bay.” Depending on how pedantic the cops were feeling, Ali may well be putting herself in a very bad position by even visiting Timothy.

  She deliberated over it as she continued the journey, with Scruff staying close and protectively beside her ankles.

  “Is it too much of a risk?” she asked him. She really needed someone to bounce her thoughts off of, and the dog was the only one available.

  Scruff barked, as if to say it would only take a moment and they’d be back in no time.

  “Cool. Okay,” Ali said in agreement. “Then let’s keep going.”

  They forged on ahead, and as they trekked toward the top of the hill, Ali was mildly surprised to discover her thighs didn’t ache quite as much as normal. Perhaps those yoga sessions with Delaney were actually paying off?

  That, and running around town like a headless chicken trying to solve a crime… Ali thought wryly.

  As they crested the hill—stepping over that invisible line Ali had been forbidden from crossing—she immediately felt two degrees colder.

  It’s just the shadow of the hill, she tried to reason with herself, but she still shuddered. Even knowing on a logical level that it would feel colder in the shade, she couldn’t help but feel disconcerted. She was breaking a rule and felt uncomfortable about it all the way down to a physical level. But what other choice was there? She could not sit idly by and take the fall for Arlo’s murder, and so she pressed on.

  As she reached the street upon which Timothy lived, Ali glanced about herself, taking it all in. The buildings here reminded her of motels—long, mid-density apartment blocks, three stories high, with white cladding and external walkways connected by concrete staircases with rusty iron railings.

  Ali checked the address again and saw Timothy’s apartment was on the top floor. She peered up the concrete staircase and gulped. The only thing worse than being in a rough area where she was not supposed to be in the first place, was being penned-in all the way up on the third floor in a rough area where she was not supposed to be in the first place!

  Just then, Scruff pushed his furry little body past her ankles, and started confidently trotting up the steps. He did not appear to be freaked out by their surroundings in the slightest. He was braver than she was, Ali thought. Living rough on the boardwalk must’ve toughened him up a lot.

  But if he could be brave, then so could she. And so she grabbed hold of the iron railings and began to climb the concrete steps alongside him.

  As they ascended, Ali got a better look at the “bad” side of the hills, the wrong side of the tracks, the place in the shadows on the other side of the idyllic bay. It was much more run-down here, with pot-holed streets and sun-cracked sidewalks, with droopy looking trees and plants and a whole bunch of tumbleweeds. Ali wondered if the improvement works going on in the bay would benefit the people on this side of the hills, or if it would only serve to cleave them farther apart.

  She reached the top and headed along the walkway to Timothy’s apartment. When they reached the door, Ali took her notebook and pencil out of her purse. She’d devised a cover story she hoped would get Timothy to talk to her, and the notebook and pencil were props.

  “Here goes nothing,” she said out the corner of her mouth to Scruff.

  Then she took a deep breath to help settle her nerves and knocked.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Ali’s heart pounded as she waited, listening out for any noise coming from the other side. She heard the shuffling sound of feet on carpet, and her heart practically leapt into her throat. Was she about to come face-to-face with a killer?

  The door creaked open, and there stood Timothy Clarke. He looked just like he did in his photo for the Willow Bay Herald, with dark curly hair and round, jolly cheeks. He looked nothing like a killer, but Ali knew looks could be deceiving.

  “Can I help you?” he asked, looking Ali up and down. His gaze lingered on the notepad and pen in Ali’s hands, just as she’d hoped they would.

  “Timothy Clarke?” she asked, using an authoritative voice and sticking her hand out for him to shake. “My name’s Allison, I’m an editor from Cake-o-Rama. Sorry for barging in on you like this. I had a meeting with a writer at the Herald today, but it turns out he’s dead… Your boss gave me your details and said you might be willing to step in at the last minute. Can I come in and chat?”

  Timothy looked at her and blinked with surprise. Ali wondered if he’d bought her cover story. She’d pulled it off pretty well, if she did say so herself.

  If Teddy was here, he’d be proud, she thought, before remembering the feud she and her brother were currently in and backtracking.

  “Erm, yes, sure,” Timothy said, shaking the hand she’d thrust at him.

  “Fantastic,” Ali said. “Mind if my dog comes too?”

  TImothy eyed the scraggly little fur ball warily. “Er… yeah, okay…” he said, sounding even more reticent.

  Ali swirled inside before he had a chance to change his mind. Scruff trotted in after her, his head held high with self-importance.

  “The kitchen’s this way I presume?” Ali continued, using the same pushy persona as her Allison-the-editor alter-ego. She quite liked it. She was usually too concerned about being kind, friendly and agreeable, so it was a nice change of pace to behave in a demanding and slightly bossy manner.

  “That’s right,” Timothy said, as he followed behind her. “Sorry, where did you say you were from?”

  “Cake-o-Rama,” Ali said again. It was a real website, one she’d heard of plenty of times in passing, and she hoped the former food critic would recognize the name, too. If worse came to worst and he Googled it, at least she’d seem semi-legit.

  Ali entered into the kitchen—a bright room with white walls, a skylight and leafy green plants in colorful porcelain pots—and helped herself to a stool at the central island. It was a nicely decorated place, considering the neighborhood was rather run-down.

  “Do you need something to drink?” Timothy asked. He still seemed a bit taken aback by this woman who’d barged into his home. “Coffee? Soda?”

  “Water, please,” Ali said, drumming her fingers on the gray marble countertop. Teddy had taught her that one. Always accept a drink, and always make it water.
Apparently it made you seem powerful.

  Timothy went over to the sink and filled a glass tumbler with water. Ali watched him, assessing him from behind, as if there might be some clues there that he was a murderer. Of course, there was nothing. From the back, as with the front, Timothy Clarke appeared to be a very ordinary person.

  He brought the glass of water over to her and settled himself on the stool opposite. He was of a bigger build than Ali, and the stool sunk a couple inches under his weight. Which was perfect, as it gave Ali a height advantage, elevating her even further.

  “So let me get this right,” Timothy said. “You were meant to be interviewing Arlo at the Herald?”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” Ali said. “But he’s dead, so your boss sent me here. You were the critic before him, right?”

  Timothy nodded. “I wrote reviews of the boardwalk eateries. For thirty years.”

  “And then you quit?” Ali asked, taking the opportunity to dive right in. She grabbed her pencil and notebook and pretended she was taking studious notes. “What prompted that decision?”

  “It wasn’t my decision,” Timothy said, with an immediately disgruntled tone. “I was fired. Apparently being passionate makes one a bad critic.”

  Ali noted the way his teeth clenched as he spoke. The way redness crept up his neck and into his big, round cheeks. There was definitely an undercurrent of seething rage there, one he was fighting hard to keep a lid on. If just talking about his misgivings enraged him, Ali wondered just how little it would take to make him fully blow. Being fired from the job he loved perhaps…?

  “I read your reviews,” Ali said. “Quite a change in tone to the new guy. Yours always seemed pretty complimentary.” She forced out a chuckle. “I’m assuming you were paid to be nice, right? You can’t have really loved all the eateries on the boardwalk.”

  “I never lied!” Timothy said, putting a hand to his chest—an unconscious gesture Ali knew was indicative of honesty. “I genuinely loved all the places I reviewed.” He shrugged. “Maybe I have an unsophisticated palate. But why does it matter? Willow Bay’s a tourist town. Most people have an unsophisticated palate. People don’t exactly come here for fine wine and dining. They just want to know which food trucks are good value for money. Which burger joints serve the juiciest patties. Whether the seafood restaurants use daily catches and have nice views over the ocean. So, yeah, maybe my articles came across as overly nice, but that’s just who I am!”

  Ali nodded along as he spoke. That was quite the monologue, and a rather defensive one, too. Him losing his job was clearly a sore spot. Losing it specifically for being “too nice” was even more so.

  “You must’ve been pretty disappointed in the guy you were replaced with,” Ali said. “Seemed like he went out of his way to be rude.”

  “Yeah,” Timothy agreed. “Good thing the Herald’s editor-in-chief saw the light.”

  “Oh?” Ali asked.

  “They were firing him,” Timothy said. “He’d only had two articles published, but they hated everything else in his pipeline, so it was all pulled. They offered me my job back a few days ago, and I’ve been putting in all-nighters to make sure those pages are filled. I have a mammoth amount to do.”

  Ali blinked with surprise. “You got your job back? Days ago?”

  “Yup,” Timothy said, smiling. “And I got a pay raise for my troubles. I don’t know when they told Arlo, but I’m pretty sure I was the first to know.”

  Ali couldn’t believe it. If Timothy knew he was getting his job back before Arlo had been murdered, then that completely wiped out his motive. He’d already won. Killing him would be pointless.

  But there was always a chance he was just lying to throw suspicion off himself, jiggling with the timeline to make himself look innocent, so she decided to do a little bit more digging.

  “Can I take a look at one of your replacement articles?” she said, before quickly adding, “I’m really liking this angle of the nice critic busily burning the midnight oil to make up for the bad critic. It has a nice… human factor.”

  She’d plucked the last phrase out from the deep recesses of her mind and braced herself for the ruse to be up. But Timothy seemed to fall for it.

  “Sure, this way,” he said.

  He led her out of the kitchen and to a small study, where an out-of-date computer whirred away on a desk. He wiggled the mouse to bring the screen to life, and a half-written article popped up.

  “This was what I was working on when you arrived,” he said.

  Ali peered over his shoulder. The article was true to his usual form—a glowing review for the boardwalk’s best steakhouse. But what caught Ali’s attention was the date saved in the header line of the article. Two days prior. Before Arlo’s death. Unless Timothy had started writing the article in advance of killing Arlo as some kind of alibi, then it was really unlikely he was the killer. He’d just have no reason to kill Arlo to get his old job back, since he’d already gotten it!

  Ali straightened up from the computer and tucked her pencil behind her ear. “Mr. Clarke, you’ve been most accommodating,” she said. “And congrats on getting your job back. I think I’ve got all I need now to write my piece.”

  “Are you sure?” Timothy replied. “I haven’t told you about my mother yet. She’s the reason I write my articles. I started baking with her as a kid, you see, and…”

  “No, no, that’s fine,” Ali interrupted. Now she knew Timothy was innocent, she didn’t have time to waste. It was back to the drawing board. “Thanks so much for your time. I’ll see myself out.”

  She headed back along the corridor, Scruff running alongside her to keep up, shooting her furtive, confused glances. Timothy followed behind them, continuing his story about his mother as they went.

  “Sugar cookies,” he was saying. “They were the first things she taught me to make. Then sponge cake. Brownies.”

  “Sounds lovely,” Ali replied, absent-mindedly. She reached the door and heaved it open.

  “Peanut brittle,” Timothy continued. “That was a game changer!”

  Ali hopped out the door and onto the walkway and began marching away from Timothy as he continued to call out the names of different desserts after her, eager for them to be included in the fake article.

  He was a bust. It was back to square one.

  She marched back the way she’d come, down the steps and away from the apartment block, her mind turned everything over. If Arlo’s killer wasn’t Fat Tony, Ophelia, or Timothy Clarke, then who on earth could it be? She was completely stumped, and at a loss of where to go or what to do next.

  She turned to face the scraggly stray trotting alongside her.

  “Scruff?” she asked him, as they crested the hill. “Got any ideas?”

  But before Scruff had a chance to even bark in response, Ali suddenly slammed right into someone’s back. She’d not been looking where she was going, and let out a loud, “oof!” as she collided with the figure.

  She staggered back and the person she’d collided with spun on the spot to face her. Ali gasped as she realized with horror exactly who she’d just walked into…

  Detective Elton.

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  ‘Uh-oh!’ Ali thought, as she took a large step back from the detective. She’d been caught red-handed on the outskirts of town. She was totally busted.

  “Ali Sweet,” Detective Elton said, tipping down her sunglasses and peering over the top of them at Ali. Her dark eyes roved slowly up and down with scrutinizing suspicion, then she turned her gaze to the stray dog and her lip curled with disgust. Finally, she looked over Ali’s shoulder in the direction of the road she’d been walking and narrowed her eyes. “Where have you been?” she asked, brusquely.

  Ali gulped. She was about to automatically tell the truth but caught herself just in the nick of time. Detective Elton had been looking the other way when she’d slammed into her, so there was a slim chance she hadn’t actually seen her appear over the bro
w of the hill. And though it was the only logical place she could have been coming from, if the detective hadn’t seen the evidence, then perhaps Ali could get off with it scott-free!

  “Behind the bushes,” she blurted, pointed at a scraggly looking shrub in the closest garden. “Scruff lost his ball in there. We were trying to find it.” She shrugged and grinned. “No luck.” She looked down to Scruff. “Don’t worry boy, I’ll buy you a new one.”

  Scruff raised his eyebrows and let out a confused little whine.

  That’s it, Ali thought. The ruse is up. Her lie had been obtuse to say the least, and now Scruff had totally given the game away. She watched the detective with baited-breath, anticipating some kind of rebuke.

  But Detective Elton simply looked at the hedge, then the dog, then Ali. “I see,” she said thinly.

  Ali’s heart leapt. Was that it? Had she gotten away with it? Detective Elton can’t have been a dog person if she’d failed to pick up on Scruff’s confusion.

  “So...can I go?” Ali asked, slightly reticently. She was half expecting the detective to spring something else on her. She certainly looked like she wanted to.

  “It’s a free country,” Detective Elton replied.

  “Alright then,” Ali said, not quite believing she’d gotten away with it. “Come on, Scruff.”

  She passed the detective, with the dog following at her heels. But just as she thought she was in the clear, she heard Detective Elton utter the inevitable, “Oh, and Miss Sweet.”

  She flinched and froze on the spot, then turned back to look at her. “Yes?”

  “I’m watching you,” Detective Elton said.

  Ali did not like the sound of that. She swallowed hard and hurried away.

  *

  Ali was still rushing by the time she reached the beach. She’d wanted to get as much distance between herself and the detective with her scrutinizing glare, and it was only now that she was on the beach she felt able to slow down a little.