Crepes and Crimes Read online

  “Not another death,” I groaned, dropping my head onto my arms. “I can’t do another death, Rodney.”

  He laughed, startled and the smile that left on his face was the most sincere expression I’d seen on him so far. “No no, nothing that dire. I’m afraid Maribelle’s changed her whole wedding bouquet so the flowers on the cake have to change too. I know it’s late notice so I thought I’d bring around samples of the flowers so you could see what they’d look like.”

  I gaped at him. “Wow, the whole bouquet?” I leapt to my feet and poked my head into the back. “Scooter, don’t start on any of the flowers until I give the word, okay?”

  “Gotcha, Coco Bean!”

  I groaned, and Rodney grimaced in sympathy.

  “I’m sorry about this,” he said.

  “It’s not your fault.” I took the flowers from him and laid them out in front of me. They were expensive beautiful blooms, lilies of the valley white gardenias and peonies in purple, blue and white. I could see immediately that the wealthy Everett’s have obviously changed the bouquet to something that speaks of loyalty and purity and romance.

  It was a nice touch even if it was a bit melodramatic.

  “The petals aren’t as tight,” I said slowly. “I think that will make getting the composition perfect a lot easier. Yes. I can make this work.”

  “Really?”

  I preened a little at Rodney’s admiration, almost forgetting how annoying I’d found him the other day. “Yes, definitely. Thanks for running these over, it’s a huge help.”

  “Hey, no problem. Jordan asked me to pass on the message and I figured I might as well try to soften the blow.”

  “And how are the happy couple?”

  “They’re doing well.” He sounded a little defensive but that melted away quickly. I had to figure that the family were getting a lot of impertinent questions at the moment with the investigation still ongoing. “It’s been good to get more involved in the preparations. I’m even spending some quality time with my brother-in-law to be which I was hoping to do.”

  “That’s great,” I said, and meant it.

  “Yeah, I didn’t get much of a look in before. Wasn’t part of the groom’s party so no bachelor’s party for me.”

  I nodded while I sketched out a quick little mock-up of how the change would affect the cake and tore it out of my notepad. “How’s your sister doing? She’s not been so well lately.”

  “Can you blame her? She’s still fragile but she’s focused on the wedding now so she’s doing a lot better. Is that for me to take back to them?”

  I gave him the sketch and told him to let the couple know to phone through any requests before the afternoon because after that the cake would be an unstoppable train. He left and I went through to the back to bemoan our bad luck with Masie and Scooter. They both knew how much work this would be so chatter was kept to a minimum as we groaned and got back to work.

  Designing the full cake was going a bit more slowly than I would like when the bell at the door rang and I looked up, wondering if we would finally have a customer who wasn’t one of our four older regulars or a murder suspect.

  “Sorry I didn’t come by earlier,” Logan said, striding into the bakery with his long legs and sitting down opposite me with an ease that I frankly envied. “The case has been a nightmare and we spent all last night sifting through every piece of paperwork available on the case just looking for one more clue.”

  “It’s not a problem,” I said, smiling so broadly that my cheeks hurt a bit. “Coffee?”

  “You’re a saint and an angel, Coco.”

  I laughed and got him coffee just the way he liked it, plonking it in front of him and sitting back down. “So no progress yet?”

  “No, we’re all stalled up. There’s no solid evidence leading anywhere and there’s plenty of suspects but no one with a link to the victim that will really stick. Hey, this is pretty!” He picked up the latest sketch of the cake and tipped it back and forth.

  I beamed. Logan never gave out a compliment he didn’t mean and the wretched design immediately looked a hundred times better in my eyes. “We’ve got a few thoughts, want to hear them?”

  “Always, but first I wanted to know if you’d be happy to accompany me to follow up the last clue we’ve got. The cuff-link you found.”

  I’d completely forgotten about the cuff-link

  Chapter 19

  I told Logan about our other theories in the car, mostly to distract myself from the sheer excitement of being along on official police business. It wasn’t the first time that Logan had looked to me for advice, but this time felt more legitimate than the informal chats over coffee and that one time I tried to identify a suspect for him.

  “They’re all people that we have on our radar,” he said once I finished talking. “Nothing that we can find links any of them directly to the murder, though.”

  I felt deflated at this news but quickly perked up as we turned into a car park in front of Here’s For Haverfield, the local gift shop. Mr. Solomon was good at suggesting gifts for the men in your life, from uncles who only liked to smoke cigars through to troublesome cousins whose hobbies changed every few months. I’ve been in a few times for last minute Christmas presents so it wasn’t that much of a surprise to find out that the cuff-links had been custom made in his store.

  I followed Logan in and resolved to follow instructions and stay quiet while he did the talking but I have to admit that my walk had a bit of an extra swagger at being a proper detective and I secretly wished that Sam could see me now. Amateur my left foot!

  “Do you know who might have bought a set of these?” Logan asked and Mr Solomon, tiny and as wrinkled as a prune, picked up the cuff-link and squinted at it.

  “Oh I remember this,” he said, his voice smooth as molasses. “We only made two dozen of them, the mother of pearl was more expensive than most people wanted for a little thing like this. They were sold over the summer.”

  “Would you know who bought them?” I jumped in, wincing as Logan cast an exasperated look in my direction. “Maybe the receipts?”

  “Not from that long ago, dearie,” he said, chuckling at the idea. “No we don’t record who buys what even from a small range like this. No idea who bought them at all. Couldn’t remember what I ate for dinner last night, let alone last summer.”

  I groaned, but Logan proved again why he was the professional and I was just the assistant. “I see that you’ve got security cameras up, Mr. Solomon?”

  “Yes I do...have to have them up or people get to thinking that no one would pay much mind if they took a few things from an old man’s store and ran off.”

  “How long have you had them in for?”

  “A few years now. Got them in after that spate of robberies back when David from the jewelers lost all those gold rings and your boys couldn’t find out where they’d gone, remember?”

  Logan cleared his throat awkwardly. “Yes, I remember. Thank you, Mr. Solomon. Do you know how far back your records go?”

  “How far back?”

  “Yes, what time period do you have recorded?”

  Mr. Solomon took off his glasses and wiped them on his trousers. “Goodness. I don’t know that I’ve ever taken anything off them. The lad who set them up said that the memory would keep about a year and then start recording over that. Very neat, I thought. Low maintenance.”

  I gasped and tugged on Logan’s sleeve but he was way ahead of me. “Wonderful. Can we see those records?”

  It turned out that we could. Mr. Solomon set us up in his back room and let us figure out his computer systems on our own, muttering irritably about the young man who did all this for him. Logan figured it out and brought up the feed from the security cameras, running back through the months to the summer period.

  “Please tell me we don’t have to watch three month’s worth of security feed,” I said hopelessly, looking at the grainy black and white image in concern. “I’m not sure I could reco
gnize my granny on that, let alone a killer.”

  “He’s only open eight hours of the day,” Logan said soothingly. “We’ll fast forward through and it won’t take nearly as long as you think it will.”

  It still took forever. Mr Solomon clocked off and left us with the keys and we were still in the first week. I had horrible visions of cobwebs forming over us as we waited for the ultimate clue in front of this tiny little screen.

  But still it was our only chance so I screwed my courage and optimism up and tried not to complain too much.

  “Wait,” Logan said finally. “Look. Is that?”

  “It is!” I said, leaning forwards in interest. “It’s Derrick Todd.”

  We stared in horror as our victim himself meandered over to the counter and passed a pair of the cuff-links to Mr. Solomon, pointing at them and saying something. That was where the cuff-link came from. Derrick himself. It wasn’t a clue at all.

  “That’s it, then,” Logan said, stretching out his back and getting up. There was a gloomy look on his face and I felt a pang for him. “Dead end. We’d better clear out and head home.”

  I shook my head, my thoughts racing. There had to be some way that we could still make this work. “Wait, was there another cuff-link on Derrick when he was found?”

  Logan frowned at me. “Why does that matter?”

  “I’m pretty sure his shirtsleeves were rolled up, so the cuff-link can’t have come from him. It’s still a clue.”

  “No, Coco,” Logan patted my shoulder. “It probably rolled out of his pocket. Let’s go.”

  I heard the finality in his voice and knew I could never change his mind so I nodded along. We walked out of the dark gift shop and I palmed the key as I faked slipping it under the mat. Logan offered me a ride home and I said that I wanted the walk and waved him off.

  I wanted the walk all right. Right back into the gift shop. There was something on those tapes that would lead us to the killer and I was sure of it. We just needed to look harder.

  Time ticked on as I clicked through more and more of the security footage, watching my friends and fellow Haverfieldians come in and out and buy key rings and mugs and weird little sculptures of people fishing. My eyelids were getting heavy and I had to pinch myself to keep from falling asleep.

  Maybe I should get hold of some coffee?

  There was a loud thud in the store above me and the need for coffee fled. I remembered all of a sudden that the security cameras were offline so we could review the tapes and that I should have been all alone in here but apparently I wasn’t. Someone else was in here with me and I didn’t think it was Mr. Solomon or Logan coming to help me look through footage.

  Chapter 20

  I should be alone. I should be very alone. No one should be in here with me and the thought that someone was sneaking about in the store while I was alone in the back room made a cold shudder run down my spine.

  What could I do? My phone had long ago run out of charge. It was a cranky old thing that I hung onto because I’d thrown it at Daniel’s head before leaving him and it hadn’t even cracked. The battery life was unpredictable. Sometimes it would run on for days and sometimes it would be dead in half an hour. I’d stopped trying to guess which it would be.

  Masie had been at me for ages to get it replaced and just put the other in a display case or something if I was that attached to it and I was finally starting to see her point.

  I scrabbled frantically around the desk. It was one huge monitor, an old yellowed keyboard and a mouse that made unfortunate grinding noises whenever I clicked on something. I’d been thinking how hilarious it was that some young boy was coming in here once a month or so to work on this ancient thing but now I was just wishing that there was a web cam or something. Anything that I could use to contact another person to get help.

  Phone, phone, where was the phone? There had to be a phone back here. I dropped to my knees and scuttled as quietly as I could towards the other desk, the one covered in papers and ledger books. Maybe he kept his phone in his workstation instead of with the computer he didn’t know how to turn on.

  Aha. I could see the gray-beige of an old fashioned telephone receiver, long twisty cord and all. I groped for it, keeping myself low next to the desk. My heart was in my throat as my fingers scrambled over the desk shoving bits and pieces I couldn’t even begin to identify out of my way as I reached for the phone.

  I could feel my pulse thrumming in my veins and there was the bitter taste of fear in my mouth.

  Could I make a call for help quiet enough that I wouldn’t be noticed?

  I never found out. There was a heavy smack against the back of my head and my vision went white and then black in quick succession as though a whole lot of stars had blown out all at once.

  The room swam as I collapsed into a heap next to the desk and I thought for a moment that I would end up like Derrick. A series of images flashed before my eyes, splicing with the bloodied mess I’d found the day of the engagement party with my own face, my head, my body shoved into a small compartment for someone to find later.

  I don’t know how long I laid like that. It felt like a very long blink and when I started to piece my thoughts back together my head was throbbing like a drum. The room was dark around me and I made sure to lie very still in case the person who attacked me was waiting for a sign of life to make the fatal blow.

  Small noises from behind me made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Someone was moving around. There was a sound of something being picked up, then footsteps and the door to the shop closing and a key in the lock.

  I was being locked in.

  Before I could do more than lurch drunkenly to my knees, a car engine gunned and whoever had attacked me was well and truly gone. I’d been in a room maybe even with the murderer and I hadn’t seen anything, not even a glimmer of their face.

  “Ugh,” I muttered woozily, straightening up and immediately feeling like I was going to lose my supper all over the place. The feeling subsided only very slowly so I moved with the speed of a grandmother with an armful of eggs over to the desk and sat myself slowly down in Mr. Solomon’s chair.

  Had someone just tried to kill me? The very idea felt disconnected from reality. That couldn’t have happened. I couldn’t have been attacked like that. It wasn’t possible, was it?

  My hands started to shake and I dialed the wrong number before I got through to Masie and spent five minutes shouting at a confused woman who wanted to know what I was doing calling at 2 in the morning and I wanted to know what she was doing in Masie’s house.

  Finally I got through and nearly sobbed at the sound of a familiar voice.

  “Who in the heck is calling me this late?” she shrieked. “If it’s you, Teddy, I’m going to make sure you don’t get any more...”

  “Masie it’s me,” I gasped and her tirade to her latest ex cut off abruptly. I must have sounded even worse than I thought I did.

  “Coco? Where are you? What’s happened?”

  “I’m at the gift shop. Mr. Solomon’s. I’ve been locked in by the killer. Can you come get me?”

  There was a little pause and I wondered if she might be scared off by the mention of the killer. Perhaps I should tell her that she best not come. I had a horrible vision of some hooligan outside swinging a champagne bottle like a baseball bat and just waiting for whoever was coming to rescue me.

  “Okay lovely,” she said suddenly, cutting through my thoughts. “I’ve got my little pistol. I’ll be there in fifteen and he’d better be long gone or I’ll have something to say to him.”

  I sank back in my seat as she hung up, trembling all over. I never thought that I would be grateful for the little gun Masie bought after our last brush with murder but I’ve never been so glad in all my life. She was coming to rescue me.

  Chapter 21

  I was at the bakery the following day. My head was still pounding from the whack I took last night. By the time Masie had made it to the gift shop an
d broke me out, it was well past any reasonable hour to be conscious.

  Masie was worried I had a concussion. I didn’t want to spend the last precious hours of the night at the emergency room and insisted she take me home. She insisted on waking me up every hour, so I wouldn’t fall into some kind of oblivion that I would never wake up from.

  We were walking around the bakery like a couple of zombies who hadn’t eaten in days. While brains weren’t exactly on my diet, the ones in my head certainly felt scrambled.

  The lines on the page started to blur as my eyes rolled back in my head. “This is ridiculous,” I muttered.

  I was still trying to rework the design for the cake to include the new flowers Maribelle had picked out. The vase of real flowers Rodney had brought were still sitting on my station, but they weren’t helping with inspiration. Right now, I didn’t think anything would.

  The killer must have known I was getting close. That was the only explanation for last night’s events. And if he knew I was getting close, there was no telling what lengths he would go to keep me silenced.

  Would he come after me again? Come after the bakery? Taking down the bakery was undoubtedly the equivalent of death, at least where my professional career was concerned.

  What about my friends? Would he try to hurt them as a way to ensure I stayed silent? I wasn’t willing to put any of them in harm’s way. No matter how badly I wanted to solve the murder.

  When Rose came in on her lunch break, Masie filled her in on what happened last night.

  “You were attacked!” she shrieked.

  “I’m fine, but I want you all to be careful. There’s a chance the killer could come after you, too, if he thinks you’re any kind of threat or that hurting you would keep me quiet.” I stared from Rose to Masie to Scooter.

  Scooter didn’t appear convinced. He was still young and reckless enough to believe he was invincible.

  Rose stared back in admonishment. “I told you. Logan told you. Stay out of it. It isn’t your job to find the killer. You’re not an officer. You aren’t paid to put your life on the line and find criminals,” she seethed.