A Drizzle of Murder Read online

  A Drizzle of Murder

  by

  Constance Barker

  Copyright 2019 Constance Barker

  All rights reserved.

  Similarities to real people, places or events are purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Thanks for Reading

  Catalog of Books

  Chapter One

  A large viscous glob landed on my shoe, the color reminding me of pea soup. I hated pea soup.

  "Now you're just going to whisk it until it's this gorgeous color," Adina Lovegood said from my television. Hers looked like a mint green and much more appetizing than my disaster.

  I sighed, so much for trying something different. My bakery had the standard twelve recipes passed down through my family for generations in rotation.

  I flipped the channel to a different sort of reality television. My favorite kind and chunked the batter in the trash can.

  "Listen to me Nevada, you can't just come in here flipping your hair around and think for a second you can out sashay me," one of the villains of my crazy reality show Arizona said.

  The concept of the show was a girl from each state living in a house competing for the love of one man. The twist, they were also competing to be a headline actress on an off-Broadway show called Isn't She Lovely. It was a crazy play with murder, betrayal, and dance numbers.

  My trash television loving brain could not get enough. The more they fought and sabotaged each other, the more I got into it.

  "I'll sashay all over you and that extension covered mop you call a hairdo," Nevada said back. She launched over the counter and grabbed Arizona's hair before three other girls joined the fight.

  Grabbing a bag of chips, I made my way over to the couch.

  Somewhere in the sea of flour bags, mixing spoons, and whipped cream containers my cell phone rang. I walked backward to the counter to find it and glanced at the clock. It was only four o’clock. I’d agreed to meet my friends at the Mad Batter, my bakery, at five. Looking down at my icing and chip covered clothes, I realized I wasn’t ready.

  “Are you on your way, Coco,” my best friend’s voice screeched in my ear. Though my name is Colleen, no one calls me that. Masie and I have been friends since grade school. I think she was the first person to call me Coco. Thank the stars no one calls me Cee-cee. That’s what my ex-husband called me and I always secretly hated it.

  “Not yet,” I said. “I was trying to make something different for the get-together and I messed it up.”

  “Well, get a move on. I’ve got the champagne,” she said. “Chop, chop.”

  She hung up before I could say anything, and I reluctantly turned off the television just as Florida tossed one stiletto heal at Nevada's head.

  “Get her,” I said turning the TV off and rushing for the shower. The mess that was my small kitchen would have to wait. I threw a cute yellow and white dress over my small frame and tamed my shoulder length brunette hair with a dozen bobby pins and a nice head band braid. Not too bad, if I did say so myself.

  I put all the cupcakes and cookies I’d made for the day in my handy totes with the green handles and made the way to my small FIAT. She was a yellow clunker I affectionately named Daisy. Pulling up in front of my small bakery it felt good to see the cute sign I designed with the little crooked top hat on the D of the Mad Batter.

  In college Masie and I had created a baking business out of our small apartment on the edge of campus. It paid for books and the occasional bottle of cheap vodka for some hunch punch. Oh, memories.

  “Finally,” Masie said as she leaned dramatically against Daisy. “I didn’t think you were ever coming. Listen, I couldn’t talk Stella and Vivian out of bringing anything, so they brought baked goods.”

  “They brought baked goods to a bakery going away?” I thought about this for a minute. “Well, that makes sense.” Stella and Vivian were in between the ages of sixty and eighty but they were both tight-lipped about it. You didn’t dare even think of asking either of them anything pertaining to age or dates.

  Masie rolled her eyes and pushed her hands through her massively curly blonde hair. It seemed only moderately frizzy today. She hated the humidity, but I thought it gave her a funky look. Masie loved to taste everything I baked, she baked, and anyone else baked. She weighed a little more than me but it looked good on her. She had those curves where I was just a stick. She wore a fifties style black dress complete with a red polka dot apron and red cat-eyed glasses.

  “Also, they’re already here,” she said as she walked in.

  “Coco, this is just the end of an era,” Stella said as she embraced me pulling my face to her bosom. She wore a green tracksuit and black tennis shoes. I couldn’t see anything as she kept me smushed to her chest. “I was just telling Vivian I don’t know what we’re going to do when we can’t walk here anymore.”

  “You’ll walk to the new place, Stella,” I heard Masie say from somewhere behind me.

  “Stella let her up for air,” Vivian said, “you’re going to kill her with your ridiculous bazommbas.”

  Stella finally let me go and I turned to see Vivian standing there with her arms open. She wore a matching tracksuit in purple and her short red hair was held down by a bright yellow headband.

  “Here are some of the best cookies I ever had,” Vivian said as she handed me a plate of cookies. Her hug was a lot less crushing. Probably the lack of bazommbas. “When I was postmaster, this lady named Bernice, or maybe it was Sharlice. Anyway, some lady made these for me to butter me up. I don’t have a clue what she thought I could do for her.”

  I put the cookies from Vivian on the closest table.

  “That’s not the only way the townspeople tried to butter up the postmaster,” Stella said pinching Vivian on the rear.

  “Oh, stop it,” Vivian screeched.

  Stella’s gray curls were pinned back with a huge bejeweled clip. “I brought a cake they made for me when I retired from the library,” she said. “It’s German chocolate, but don’t tell my grandma.”

  “Her grandma had a thing with Germans,” Vivian explained.

  “Glad you two got dressed up for the occasion,” my other best friend Rose said as she breezed in. Rose was five foot nine with a honey complexion and bombshell black hair. She owned the dog grooming business across from the new bakery. We’d been friends almost as long as I’d been friends with Masie.

  “Look we came right from Jazzercise,” Stella said, “let me tell you there’s a hot new instructor there. I could just squeeze his...�
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  “Okay,” I said not wanting that conversation to go too far. “Thank you for coming. I just wanted to toast the years we’ve had here and thank you all for making my first bakery, the best bakery.”

  “Let me pour the champagne,” Masie said and rushed into the kitchen.

  “I’ll help her,” Vivian said as she bustled after her.

  “Don’t put your lips on the bottle neck,” Stella yelled after her. She hooked her thumb after her best friend, “she’s a lush.”

  I laughed.

  Once everyone had glasses in their hands, I held mine up. “To the Mad Batter and everything she’s about to become!”

  “To the Mad Batter,” everyone responded.

  I’d bought a larger space further downtown and had been planning the move for a while. Closing on the space and selling my current one made it all very real for me. Where I was located was great and cozy, but my business had been expanding. We were getting orders for custom cakes and confections now that a large hotel and water park had opened less than a half hour from the small town.

  It brought people there to work, but it brought a ton of parties and the hotel didn’t have a bakery. We’d outgrown our little space and while I felt sad, I was also very elated. I tried not to become sad again as I got a little tipsy. Great things were coming for me.

  “I’m not kidding Rose,” I heard Stella say, “like two perfect hams in bicycle shorts. Meooowww.”

  Chapter Two

  The day after the celebration I woke up a little later. My head didn’t hurt like I thought it would. I’d probably finished off one bottle of champagne myself. And Stella called Vivian a lush, I thought.

  I threw off my quilt and hopped out of bed. The moving process was going to commence, and I needed to meet the mover.

  Grabbing coffee on my way out I showed up right when Rose and Masie did.

  They’d been helping me box things up all week. Rose had insisted on meticulously labeling everything. It was nice having someone with her attention to detail on board.

  “Hey sweet stuff,” I heard one of my regulars, Red, say as he came in. His name was really Wallace but like me people only called him by his nick name.

  “Hi Red,” I said as I went over to start the coffee pot, “got any good ones for me?”

  “Oh yeah,” he said sliding into one of the two stools still available in the bakery. He adjusted his ever-present Cubs baseball cap and smirked at me. “So. "Two peanuts were walking down the street. One was salted."

  He stared at me with a completely serious expression and then I lost it. “That was a good one,” I told him wiping my eyes. Red and I had long ago bonded over our love of bad jokes.

  “I’ve read better jokes on a Bazooka wrapper,” Henry said as he walked up to the counter. I poured my other regular coffee. They both went to the senior center with Stella and Vivian, so they were fond of making fun of them.

  When all four of them were in the bakery at once it really was a riot. Henry was a retired reporter for the local newspaper. Red had owned the corner General Store for years before selling it to a younger group of kids who put in a Starbucks.

  He still shook his head and said, “damn hippies,” if anyone mentioned getting coffee there. I didn’t correct him that many people loved Starbucks, not just hippies.

  “I’m happy to see you two, but I can’t serve you. All my dishes and everything are packed up.”

  “Say no more,” Red said, “we just came to see you. We missed the going away party because I had a particularly fatty meal and spent most of the night in the bathroom. This old geezer slept through it.” He pointed at Henry.

  “I was staring at my eyelids,” Henry said.

  “Look here’s some coffee, I’m going to get things ready for the mover,” I said and moved over towards the front door.

  “There’s not much to prepare,” Masie said as I walked up to the stacks of boxes. “Miss Perfect over here made sure everything was lined up.” She put her hand up to her mouth and whispered, “alphabetically.”

  “There’s no reason to make fun.” Rose said popping up from behind the boxes. “Organization will make sure the move and all the unpacking goes smooth. You could use some organization Masie,” she said, “your station was by far the hardest to sort and pack.”

  “Look, creative people are messy,” Masie said, “tidiness would mess with the muse. You want me to create amazing things for the customers, don’t you?”

  “I find it funny Coco is just as creative and super neat,” Rose said.

  My two best friends were very opposite. That meant they spent a lot of time bickering with each other.

  “Look guys, I’m thankful for both of you organized and chaotic. Okay, and thank you for all your help.”

  The moving van pulled up at that time and I went out to greet him.

  “Hi, Tom right,” I said cheerily, “the company said to expect you.”

  He just grunted as he moved past me and looked around at all the boxes. He picked up a stack of three and sort of teeter-tottered before he left the room. I held my breath hoping he didn’t drop the boxes and break all my dishes.

  “He seemed pleasant,” Masie said with a roll of her eyes.

  The next trip the mover was even more reckless. I clenched my fists and gritted my teeth hoping he wasn’t going to break anything important. Thanks to Rose’s meticulous labeling I knew exactly what was in each box. When he all but shook my nice dinnerware, I couldn’t be quiet any longer. I chased him out of the front door.

  “You’re going to break my plates. I won’t be able to serve anyone without plates,” I said the panic coming out in my voice.

  He turned around and glared. The girls came up behind me for moral support.

  “You didn’t package them in the way specified, so they could get broken,” he barked at me.

  “Excuse me sir,” Rose said moving in front of me. “I made sure everything was packed to your specifications.” She held up the paperwork the company had given me. On top it said Get The Most Out Of Your Move.

  “Whatever,” he responded. He threw my dishes onto the truck and then grabbed the box I was holding roughly out of my hands.

  “Hey there young man,” Red said walking up behind me. “You need to treat the lady with respect.”

  “Whatever old man,” the mover said.

  “You better watch it,” Henry said also coming up behind me. “Red was a hell of a boxer back in the day.”

  “Thank you, Henry, I can fight my own battles,” Red said.

  The mover shocked me by shoving Red and despite his strong front he almost lost his footing. Anger surged through me that this guy had picked a fight with basically everyone and had basically assaulted one of my elderly and best customers.

  Red swung at the guy and connected, but he only hit him in the shoulder. The guy rolled his eyes and jumped into his truck not even taking a full load to the new place.

  “Well this is shaping up to be a fun day,” I said as we headed back inside the building.

  Chapter Three

  After a morning of watching the rude man jostle my things and then not show back up for two hours, I decided we should get on with our day.

  "You want to grab a bite at Shirley's?" Masie asked me.

  "Yes, I'm feeling some cheese fries and a beer," I told her with a grin. That really did sound good.

  "Yeah right," she said, "you'll get your usual grilled chicken sandwich and white wine. I’m the one who loves to eat remember. Give the men a little bit more to hold on to.” She popped a hip and winked at me.

  "You don't know me like that," I joked as I locked the door behind me. We headed to Daisy and drove the eight minutes down the street to Shirley's.

  Shirley's was a place you could get a Greek gyro or a Philly Cheese steak. They really had a little bit of everything you could imagine. It was our go-to spot for comfort food or if we craved a light lunch. The only other restaurant in town was a Japanese restaurant wit
h amazing sushi.

  The special that day at Shirley’s was Blue Crab soup and a Watercress Salad. You just never knew what Shirley and the Cook, as she affectionately called her husband, would cook up for you.

  "A booth please," Masie told the hostess and she led us to the back-corner booth. I loved it when we could sit out of the way and not chance someone we knew coming to talk our ears off.

  We ordered and I changed it up with red wine smirking at Masie. She ordered a beer and cheese fries just to mock me.

  I had just pulled out my phone to make a list of things we still needed to get for Mad Batter 2.0 when I heard a man raise his voice.

  I recognized it right away. Out of all the restaurants in town, he had to be in this one. Mr. Shake My Boxes was two tables down arguing with another guy.

  "Well, at least we know he didn't skip town," Masie said. "I'm going to go tell him he's not being paid to gallivant all over town."

  "No, stay here," I said. "They're arguing."

  The two men were only two booths away from us. The mover had a full head of brown hair and a thick mustache. A man with a bald head and a green sweater sat across from him. We could hear everything they were saying.

  "Look, Tom," the guy said, "you know the stuff didn't show up. How can you say you're a mover when you don't move the product?"

  "You know the product is sensitive," Tom said. "I do the best I can with it. There are a lot of people breathing down my neck.”

  "Not good enough. If it's not found I could be in serious trouble, not to mention, out of a lot of money." The man slammed a hand on the table to emphasize his point.

  "Just relax...I'll find the stuff. You just have to give me some time."

  The two stopped arguing when the waitress came to them and Masie and I looked at each other.

  We didn't say anything for a while as we both took in the conversation we'd just heard. The waitress brought us our food and we busied ourselves eating for a little while. My salad was far less satisfying than French fries could be. I had to watch it because I always sampled little bites while I was cooking, but maybe I didn't need to be so stringent.