Murder Most Sweet

by Laura Jensen Walker

Char snorted. “Not those boobs in that tight red dress. She’s not”—she paused—“wasn’t someone who’d fade into the background. No. His ex was not there,” she said, with growing conviction. “At the same time that Tavish wasn’t there either.” Char reached for her phone. “I need to tell Brady.”

  “She could have been in the little girls’ room,” I said.

  “Nope. After you texted me about your scarf being stolen, I kept a close eye on the restroom and never once saw her coming or going.”

  Wait a minute. The little girls’ room. I flashed back to the conversation I had heard earlier while trapped in the stall. One of the women had said she was there to get Tavish back and the other woman had replied that Tavish was hers now. I had assumed the second voice belonged to Tavish’s fiancée, but now, knowing he’d recently ended their engagement, maybe not. Maybe she was the one who’d said she was going to get Tavish back. Was she also the one who had said, “Over my dead body,” or was that the other indistinct voice? I rubbed my head, trying to recall.

  Sharon shivered. “Do you really think Tavish Bentley killed that poor girl?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know him, but he seems like a nice guy. Although that is what people always say after a murder—I can’t believe it! He seemed like such a nice, quiet guy. Statistically speaking, however, more than half of female homicide victims are killed by their intimate partners.”

  “Tavish didn’t kill Kristi!” Publicist Melanie barreled through the open kitchen doorway, eyes blazing behind her Harry Potter glasses that had slipped down her nose. “Are you making rash accusations against my author? Not cool. That’s called slander.”

  “Nobody’s making any accusations,” said Sharon’s innkeeper husband Jim, who had accompanied Melanie into the room. “Right?” he said to his red-faced wife.

  “Right. I’m sorry,” Sharon said. “We were just—”

  “Gossiping.” Melanie pushed her glasses back into place. “Isn’t that the sport du jour in small towns?”

  “Not just small towns,” Char said evenly. “My colleagues and I have heard plenty of publishing gossip filter down from New York over the years.”

  “Whatever. You clearly don’t know Tavish. He would never do such a terrible thing. He’s not capable of such violence.” She zeroed in on me, her kohl-rimmed dark eyes narrowing at the sight of my red-fringed scarf. “Wait. Wasn’t it your scarf wrapped around Kristi’s neck? How do you explain that? You also left the signing before it even began. Where were you off to in such a hurry?”

  “Now who’s making accusations?” Char said. “Remember, that slander thing goes both ways.”

  “I’m just asking a question.”

  “That’s okay, Char. I’m happy to answer her. Why don’t you pull up a stool, Melanie?” I pushed the plate of homemade cookies her way. “Would you like a cookie bar?”

  Always-the-mom Sharon jumped up from her stool to serve her guest. “I have some milk to go with the cookies. Or wine and cheese in the fridge, if you prefer.”

  Melanie waved her off impatiently. “All I want is an answer to my questions.” She plunked her iPad down on the counter top and folded her arms across her chest.

  “Okay. I believe you asked three questions.” I ticked them off on my fingers: “One: was it my silk scarf around Kristi’s neck? Yes. Two: how do I explain that? No idea except that someone who smelled of jasmine entered the bookstore restroom while I was otherwise occupied and apparently took my turquoise scarf, because it was gone when I came out of the stall—as was the mysterious jasmine-scented woman.

  “Three: why did I leave the signing in such a hurry?” I gestured to my flat chest. “You may or may not have noticed that I don’t have boobs.”

  Melanie flushed.

  “No biggie. Although it freaks some people out, so I wear scarves. Today, though, just before Tavish’s talk, I had a hot-flash eruption—something you won’t have to worry about for years.” I shot the twentysomething woman a rueful smile. “In my frenzied efforts to cool down in the restroom, I went overboard, resulting in what amounted to a wet–T-shirt disaster. A disaster I thought I could hide with the help of my turquoise scarf—the scarf that was no longer there because someone stole it. Hence my quick departure. I was simply trying to spare the public the sight of my soggy breastless form. Does that answer all your questions?”

  Before the publicist could answer, I heard someone clearing his throat.

  Brady. I would recognize my high school friend’s familiar throat clear anywhere. I shifted my laser focus from Melanie and saw Brady Wells and Tavish Bentley framed in the kitchen doorway.

  Chapter Three

  “So now a famous best-selling author knows you don’t have breasts?” My mother covered her face with her hands and groaned at my kitchen table the next morning.

  “Apparently,” I said, pulling out my grandma’s fattigman bakkels (pronounced “futtymon buckles”) recipe from her wooden rosemaling box with its Norwegian painted-folk-art flowers. I had a hankering for the lighter-than-air Norse cookies usually served at Christmas, and they’re one of Brady’s favorites. Since I hoped to pump him for information on the murder investigation, it wouldn’t hurt to prime the pump with something sweet.

  “I don’t understand why you always feel the need to announce your flat condition to the whole world.”

  “I’m not announcing it to the whole world. I was explaining to the publicist—who was wondering if I might have killed her author’s ex—the reason for my abrupt departure from the bookstore.” Opening the fridge, I grabbed eggs, butter, and whipping cream, and set them on the counter next to my Smeg mixer. “I can’t help it that Tavish and Brady overheard.” I gathered the rest of the ingredients from the pantry, set them on the counter, and began separating eggs.

  “If you’d had reconstructive surgery, it wouldn’t even be an issue.”

  “It’s not an issue for me, Mom.” Now you, on the other hand … I shook my head. “I still can’t believe she thought I killed that Kristi.”

  “What in the world was that woman doing with your scarf around her neck?”

  “I’m pretty sure she stole it when I was in the restroom.”

  “But it didn’t even go with her dress.”

  Fashion (and looks) have always been important to my mom, which is why I’ve always been such a disappointment to her. And why she has such a hard time with my breastless state. When I was first diagnosed with breast cancer, my folks were frightened—my dad cried and told me he was terrified he might lose me—but I reassured them the cancer had been caught early. I had the option to go with either a lumpectomy and radiation or a mastectomy followed by chemotherapy and reconstruction. I chose the latter, wanting to make sure any and all possible cancer cells were removed from my body. And then several months later my fake boob popped and I learned I had several precancerous lumps in my remaining breast. That’s when I made the choice to go flat. Something my father fully supported, but my mom simply can’t understand.

  I flipped on the mixer and began creaming the eggs, sugar, cardamom, brandy, and whipped cream, tuning out my mother as I replayed yesterday’s events in my mind again. Who was the other woman who entered the ladies’ room while I was in the stall? Was Kristi a kleptomaniac? Was that why she had stolen my scarf? I hated to admit it, but my fashionista mother was right—the turquoise did not go with her red bandage dress.

  So why steal it? Unless maybe she had something against me? No, that couldn’t be. We didn’t even know each other. Yesterday was the first time I had ever set eyes on the woman. No, the only thing that made sense was that she was someone who got a kick from stealing. What did not make sense was why someone would kill her.

  “Karma’s a bit—”

  Noticing my mother’s lips moving, I turned off the mixer so I could hear. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

  “I said karma’s a bitch.”

  “Nice, Mom.”

  “I’m just saying. W
hat goes around comes around. That girl stole your scarf and then someone else strangled her with it.”

  “But who would have done such a horrible thing?”

  “It must have been one of those out-of-towners at the signing. No one in Lake Potawatomi is a murderer, for goodness’ sake.”

  You never know. Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?

  * * *

  An hour later I knocked on the closed door of the sheriff’s office with a yellow-checked tin full of cookies and a thermos of freshly brewed French roast.

  “Come in.”

  Brady was sitting at his cluttered regulation-gray metal desk, mired in paperwork and sporting dark circles under his baby blues.

  “I thought you could use a little Norwegian pick-me-up.” I extended the tin to him.

  His bleary eyes brightened. “Is that what I think it is?” He yanked the top off the yellow tin. A whisper of powdered sugar wafted upward, landing on his sheriff’s uniform. “You made fattigman? But it’s not Christmas.”

  “Consider this your early present.” I unscrewed the lid of the thermos.

  “You didn’t need to bring coffee.” He nodded to the eighties-holdover Mr. Coffee in the corner, which stood next to a ubiquitous red plastic tub of supermarket coffee.

  “Oh yes I did. This is real coffee.” I poured the fragrant brew made from coffee beans I had ground an hour ago into two mugs. Pushing one of the mugs across his desk, I sat down across from him, sipping my coffee and munching on a cookie, leaning forward so as not to drop powdered sugar all over my paisley sage scarf.

  Brady bit into one of the airy diamond-shaped cookie twists and lifted his eyes heavenward. He finished it off in three bites and took a greedy drink from his mug. “Not only are you the best baker in town, you also make the best coffee.”

  “Norwegians are known for their classic black coffee. Grandma Florence taught me how to make it when I was fifteen, the appropriate adult age, according to her, to start drinking it.” The memory made me smile.

  “I remember having coffee and kringle at your house after we won the basketball tournament sophomore year.” Brady grinned. “I was getting ready to chug a glass of milk in the kitchen when your grandma said no, such a momentous occasion called for a good cup of coffee—black.” A grimace replaced his grin. “That first swallow was pretty potent. I had to grab a big piece of kringle to counteract that strong brew.”

  “Nothing better than kringle and coffee.”

  “Unless it’s your cookies and coffee.” He scarfed down a couple more fattigman bakkels, inadvertently dusting his desktop with powdered sugar.

  We reminisced about high school for a few minutes, and then I casually said, “So … how’s your first murder investigation going? Do you think there’s something to what Tavish Bentley said about his fiancée’s—ex-fiancée’s—old boyfriend?”

  “So that’s what the cookies and coffee are all about. A bribe for information.”

  “Not a bribe. Think of it as a little gift between friends. Besides, I have a vested interest.”

  Brady lifted his bushy left eyebrow.

  “Two people have already accused me of killing that poor woman since whoever did murder her strangled her with my scarf. I need to clear my name.”

  “No you don’t. Anyone who knows you knows you are a big cream puff who couldn’t hurt a fly. You may write about murder, but you could never commit one.”

  “Well, thank you for that vote of confidence, Sheriff. It would have been nice if you’d told me that yesterday when you were grilling me so relentlessly.”

  He lifted his shoulders in a helpless gesture. “Just doing my job. Everyone in town knows we’ve been friends since grade school and that your best friend is my girlfriend. I have to show impartiality. I need to question anyone and everyone who might have ties to the deceased.”

  “But that’s the whole point. I don’t have any ties to her.”

  “Maybe not a tie, but a scarf.” He stood up, brushed the powdered sugar from his uniform, and held out the tin of cookies to me. “Nice try, but no cigar, my friend. You know I can’t give out any information. This is an official departmental investigation.”

  “Well, you can’t blame a girl for trying.” I pushed the tin back at him. “Keep the cookies and share them with your skinny deputy. He needs them more than I do.” I screwed the lid back on the thermos and stood up to leave.

  Just then, that skinny deputy, Augie Jorgensen, burst into Brady’s office, waving a piece of paper. “Sheriff, I got the information you wanted on that Tom Rogers dude! Turns out he was holed up in a motel outside Racine the past couple days. Checked out this morning. So he was in the vicinity at the time of the murder!”

  As Brady glowered at his deputy, I gave my high school friend a sweet smile. “I’ll be going now. Always nice talking to you, Brady. ’Bye, Augie. Stay out of trouble.”

  * * *

  Staring off into the distance, I wondered how I was going to kill off my next victim. Gunshot? Stabbing? Blow to the back of the head? Or that old reliable standby, poison? One thing I refused to do was strangulation. Been there, done that, and a little too close to home for comfort.

  I sipped my coffee and stared at my laptop screen on the table. Then I scrolled up and skimmed the last chapter again. That always helped kick-start the creative juices. Yes, a blow to the head would do nicely, and require only a discreet amount of blood. Discretion is the better part of valor for the squeamish, of which I am one, along with my gentle readers. Those tender readers of a certain age do not like blood and gore and prefer their violence off the page, not in their face.

  My fingers flew across the keyboard as I continued the latest adventure of B and B owner Kate and her crime-solving canine companion Kallie. Oh yeah, baby, it is really flowing now. I’ll make my daily word count after all. I did an internal fist pump.

  “Are you a plotter or a pantser?”

  That internal fist pump deflated, replaced with a silent sigh. That’s the problem with writing in public. There is always the possibility of interruption—although most of the locals know my daily routine and know not to disturb me when they see me bent over my laptop and typing away in the back corner of Andersen’s Bakery.

  I held up a hand without lifting my head. “Two minutes. I need to finish this.” Continuing to type until I reached the end of the paragraph, I added in my brief blah-blah notes to jog my memory of where I wanted to go next. I always type in “blah-blah” along with a few key words as a placeholder. Then I typed in the perfect sentence that had come to me mere moments before. The sentence I would later weave into the conflict between Kate and the prime suspect—the sentence that would be lost in neverland if I did not write it down this very minute.

  Finally I hit save and pushed my curly hair behind my ears. Then I peered over my tortoiseshell readers to see Tavish Bentley standing before me, a contrite expression on his face.

  “My humble apologies,” he said in his plummy English accent. “I should know better than to interrupt a fellow author at work.”

  “Pantser.”

  “Sorry?”

  “You wanted to know if I was a pantser or a plotter.” My lips turned up. “I’m a seat-of-the-pants writer all the way. Plotting is not my strong suit. I like allowing the story to unfold organically through the characters. You?”

  “A bit of both, but heavier on the plotter. I was an engineer before I became a writer.” He nodded to the empty chair across from me. “May I?”

  I nodded as I took a bite of cheese Danish.

  Tavish pulled out the chair, but before he could even sit down, Bea Andersen had hustled her varicose-veined legs over to the table, coffeepot in hand, agog at the sight of the celebrity author in her shop but trying to play it cool.

  “Coffee?”

  “Yes, please.” He indicated my plate with its half-eaten Danish. “Do you have any more of those delicious pastries?”

  “Yeah, you betcha,” Bea said,
channeling Marge Gunderson in Fargo—although I doubt the seventy-five-year-old Hallmark Channel–loving Bea even knew who Marge was. Besides, Wisconsinites had been saying that phrase since long before the movie. “Cherry or cheese?”

  “One of each, if that’s not too much trouble.” Tavish delivered a dazzling smile to Bea.

  Her lined cheeks pinked. “No trouble at all, Mr. Bentley. Believe you me.”

  I watched the plump gray-haired restaurant owner I had known since childhood scurry all aflutter to the pastry case at the front counter, where octogenarian Fred Matson sat enjoying his daily bacon and eggs. “I think you have a fan.”

  “I hope so.” He gazed at me.

  “I’m a fan too. Just not your number one. The name’s Teddie, not Annie Wilkes,” I teased, recalling Stephen King’s miserable character.

  “Thank God.” His bantering tone ceased and his hazel eyes shuttered.

  Oops. Had I just stepped in it somehow?

  Before I could form an apology, Bea returned, plopping Tavish’s flaky Danish duo down in front of him. Then she shyly pulled out a rectangular object obscured beneath her left upper arm. “I’m sorry I missed your signing—I was working. Could I get you to sign Etched in Blood for me?”

  As I watched Tavish interact with a blushing Bea, I wondered what had caused him to shut down earlier. Was he having problems with some intrusive fans? I hear that can happen when you are famous. Not that I would know personally. My fame is confined to a cozy group of fans usually forty and over who often write to share stories of their dogs’ mischievous exploits that remind them of Kallie, my protagonist’s four-footed playful partner in crime.

  “Thank you!” Bea clutched her autographed book to her chest, a huge smile wreathing her round face. “I’ll go get yous guys some more coffee.” She hurried off.

  “Yous guys?” Tavish said.

  “A local expression. Kind of like ‘All right, mate’?”

  “The guys part I understand, but yous?”

  I shrugged. “The rest of America says you guys, but yous is distinctly southern small-town Wisconsin among Danes and Norwegians of a certain age. Not sure when or where it originated exactly, but I grew up hearing it from my dad and grandparents. Part of the local lexicon.”