A Zest for Murder (Sky High Pies Cozy Mysteries Book 5) (2 page)

CHAPTER
3

The picket fence surrounding
Blanche Speltzer’s cozy bungalow was decorated with twinkling white lights when
Zack and I arrived. A trio of full-size reindeer ornaments—galloping metal
animals filled with glowing blue bulbs—grazed on the lawn beneath the
outstretched limbs of several mature cottonwood trees. It was early March, but
Blanche usually left her holiday decorations in the yard long past the last
snowfall of the season.

“Do you think Santa’s home?” Zack
asked with a mischievous wink.

I laughed and grabbed my purse.
“Come on, handsome. Let’s get in there before we’re any later.”

“It’s twenty past seven,” Zack said. “Which means that we’re, like, five minutes late. Is she going to make
us sit in the corner or something?”

I shook my head. “No, but she’s a
stickler for timeliness.”

We scrambled along the walkway and
onto the front porch. Laughter and a chorus of chattering voices spilled over
the threshold when Blanche answered my knock.

“Well, well,” said the retired
history teacher. “Don’t you look cute?”

“Sorry we’re late,” I murmured,
offering the bottle of wine Zack had picked up earlier. “We thought you might
enjoy this, Blanche.”

She checked the label and smiled.
“Now,
this
is a nice surprise.” She gave me a light kiss on one cheek
before hugging Zack. “You two kids are always worth the wait!”

While she took our coats to the
guest bedroom, we made our way into the living room. I stood in the doorway and
gazed at the blaring television.

“Where is everybody?” Zack
whispered.

I shrugged. “I have no idea.
Blanche said it was going to be a small dinner party, but I didn’t realize she
meant—”

“Alrighty then!” Our hostess
suddenly appeared on the far side of the room. “What would you like to drink?
I’ve got a very lovely chardonnay, club soda with lime and some of the
raspberry chocolate ale that Jack Truman makes at his little brewpub over on Pike
Street.” She paused, raising one eyebrow. “And if you’re feeling especially
festive, I make a mean dirty martini.”

“Katie?” Zack smiled. “What would you
like, gorgeous?”

“Hmmmm…” My inner wild child wanted
a martini, but I knew the next day was going to be especially busy at Sky High.
“I’ll take a glass of wine, please.”

Blanche nodded. “And for you, hot
stuff?”

“I’ll try the ale,” Zack answered.
“I’ve heard great things about this year’s batch.”

“As have I,” Blanche smiled,
clicking off the television. “Now, why don’t you two get comfortable? I’ll get
your drinks and give my other guests a quick call to see when they’ll be
arriving.”

“Who all is coming?” I asked,
following Zack to the sofa. “I saw Tipper earlier, and she said she’d be here.”

Blanche nodded. “That’s quite
correct, dear. I invited Tipper and the gentleman she’s been seeing. I thought
it’d be nice for him to meet my favorite young couple since he might become a
local resident soon. He’s living in Denver at the moment, but if this romance
with Tipper heats up…” She covered her mouth and laughed. “Well, he’d be a fool
not to move to town.”

Tipper hadn’t mentioned anything about
a boyfriend, so I asked Blanche for the scoop. She quickly ran through what she
knew: Tipper met Kyle at an art gallery opening in Denver; he was a tall,
good-looking former DEA agent who retired shortly after being seriously wounded
in a shootout with members of a drug cartel.

“Wow!” Zack said. “That’s one
colorful past.”

“I ran into them at the drug
store,” Blanche said. “He’s cute as a button. And his manners were impeccable.
When I couldn’t reach the Fiddle Faddle on the top shelf, Kyle very gallantly
stepped in to lend a hand—literally!”

I forced a smile at the pun. “What
a gentleman! We can’t wait to meet him.”

“Yeah,” Zack said, lightly wedging
one elbow into my side. “Crescent Creek needs as many chivalrous men as
possible.”

“I so agree!” Blanche announced,
pirouetting on her tiny feet. “And I shall return!”

“She’s a firecracker,” Zack
whispered once we were alone. “I hope we’re that lively when we’re eighty.”

“I hope to be that lively next
week,” I joked. “We’re going to be working really long days between now and
then with all of the special orders and catering jobs.”

“I’ve got some free time tomorrow
afternoon. Want me to come help you and Julia?”

I leaned over and pressed my lips
against his. We lingered in the moment while Blanche hummed loudly in the
kitchen. When she reappeared in the living room, my forehead was pressed
against Zack’s cheek and our eyes were closed.

“Goodness me!” she exclaimed. “Do
you need a minute?”

Zack cleared his throat, squared
his shoulders and smiled.

“Oh, not at all,” I said. “Zack
just offered to help out at Sky High tomorrow. We’re pretty swamped with
special orders and he’s handy in the kitchen.”

Blanche shifted her gaze slowly
from me to Zack. “I have every confidence,” she said in a low rasp, “that he’s
quite handy wherever he goes.”

I felt my cheeks redden. “Well,
uh…”

“Oh, now!” Blanche said, handing me
a glass of chardonnay. “We’re all adults here!”

“Yes, but…” I sipped the wine to
try and think of what to say next. I didn’t want to offend our hostess, but I didn’t
want to wander into a discussion that might become uncomfortable. “Well, you
were right, Blanche,” I said finally. “The chardonnay really is lovely!”

“I thought you’d like it, dear.”
She offered a bottle of ale to Zack. “The sales clerk at the liquor store said
it’s one of their best sellers.” She stood with both hands pressed together for
a moment before announcing that she was returning to the kitchen for
appetizers. “I won’t be but a minute or two,” she promised. “And it’ll give you
lovebirds more time to canoodle.”

As soon as we were alone again,
Zack asked what Blanche was talking about.

“Canoodling?” I said.

He nodded. “Yeah, what’s that
mean?”

I put down my glass. Then I wrapped
my arms around him and kissed his cheek.

“Oh!” His eyes went wide. “I never
knew for sure what that word meant, but I definitely like doing it!”

As we canoodled a bit more, Blanche
yelped loudly.

“Did you hear that?” I asked Zack.

He started to get up, but I pressed
one hand on his arm and told him that I’d check on our energetic hostess. When
I walked into the kitchen, Blanche was angrily jabbing one bony finger at her
mobile phone.

“Do you know how to work this
thing, Katie?”

“Most of the time,” I said. “What’s
wrong?”

“Well, it’s Tipper.”

“Did she just call?”

Blanche jeered at the blank screen.
“No, she sent one of those little message thingies.”

“A text?”

“Yeah, sure. Whatever you call
them.”

“Is everything okay?”

Blanche sighed. “How should I know?
The minute I tapped the screen like my grandson told me to do, all of the words
disappeared. The only thing I saw was ‘Sorry for the late notice, but…’”

“Sounds like Tipper’s not going to
make it tonight, huh?”

The elderly woman stopped fussing
with her phone long enough to turn and glare at me. “Will you please see if you
can get this dagnabbit gizmo to work properly?”

I took the phone, pressed the power
switch and the screen blazed back to life. Then I tapped and swiped until the
text from Tipper was on the screen. I read the message twice before sharing it
with Blanche.

“This is very peculiar,” I said.
“Tipper’s message reads: ‘Sorry for the late notice, but we ain’t going to make
it tonight.’”

Blanche’s nose wrinkled in dismay.
“What’s so strange about that? People cancel plans all the time.”

I shook my head. “That’s not it.
Tipper used the word ‘
ain’t
’ in her message. Don’t you think that’s odd?
I mean, for an English major who writes a homemaking blog? Have you
ever
heard her say ‘ain’t’ before?”

Blanche pressed her lips into a
flat line as she contemplated the questions. Then she rolled her shoulders,
picked up the tray of snacks and said, “Her loss, Katie! Come with me. Let’s go
see how that hunk of mantasticness of yours is doing!”

CHAPTER
4

“A hunk of what?”

I laughed at Zack’s expression.
“Mantasticness,” I said. “There’s a first time for everything.”

We were driving back to Sky High
Pies from Blanche’s place. After Tipper’s odd text, I asked if we could swing
by on the way home to make sure she was okay. We’d just pulled onto her street
when I told Zack what Blanche had called him earlier in the evening.

“Mantastic!” he said, puffing out
his chest. “I kinda like that one, Katie!”

“I thought you might.”

He hit the brakes as we approached
Tipper’s house. The front porch lights were shining and two vehicles were in
the driveway: the black BMW that Tipper drove along with a dark green F-150.
The truck had New Mexico plates and a noticeable dent along one side.

“That must be her boyfriend’s
truck,” I said.

“That’s a logical guess,” Zack
murmured.

“Should I go up and check on her?”

He frowned. “What if they’re
enjoying an intimate moment?”

“Good point.” I pulled out my
phone. “I’ll just send her a quick message.”

When there was no reply within a
few moments, I sent another.

“She’s going to think you’re stalking
her,” Zack said. “Maybe you should just call her tomorrow.”

“I suppose…” I studied the front of
the house. “After all, she is an adult.”

Zack muttered something.

“What was that?” I asked.

“I said ‘most of the time,’” he
answered. “I’ve seen Tipper at Bier Haus on more than occasion acting like
she’s trying to relive her teenage years.”

“I remember those years,” I said.
“We were good friends back then.”

“Aren’t you still?”

I thought about the question. When
I moved to Chicago for college, Tipper stayed behind to help her father run his
hardware store. She visited me a few times in the Windy City and we always had
fun. But after her father died, she sold the store, married a man from Boulder
and then divorced him before the ink was dry on the wedding license. We drifted
apart during the next few years, reconnecting only after I returned to Crescent
Creek to take over Sky High Pies when my parents retired to Florida.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Zack
said.

“Huh?”

He squeezed my thigh. “It looked
like you were a million miles away.”

“Just thinking about Tipper.”

We sat in silence for a few
moments. Zack drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as I tried to shake off
the sense that something was wrong.

“Do we need to keep loitering?” he
asked finally. “Or have we seen enough?”

I glanced back at the house. The
windows on the first floor were dark, but two rooms upstairs glowed with soft
golden light. I’d been in the house enough to know the layout of both levels.
The upper windows on the left were Tipper’s bedroom; the other set were the
office that she used to publish
Home & Heart
, a blog about
everything from cleaning and cooking to shopping and fitness. Although she
started the project as more of a part-time hobby following her divorce, it
quickly became a reasonably profitable business.

As my eyes lobbed back and forth
between the upper windows, I saw a silhouette moving against the sheer curtains
in Tipper’s bedroom. It was a flash of shadow, a dark shape against the filmy
drapes.

“Katie?”

Zack’s voice was soft and gentle. I
turned and he was smiling at me with narrowed eyes.

“Will you feel better if you go
check on her?”

“No, that’s not necessary.” I took
another quick look at the house: windows glowing brightly, cars in the
driveway, no signs of anything but a typical evening on Hanover Lane. “Let’s
go,” I said, reaching over to take his hand. “I’m delivering an order tomorrow
afternoon, so I’ll just stick with the plan and talk to her then.”

CHAPTER
5

The next afternoon a few minutes
after three, Julia stood in the Sky High kitchen with a blue rubber spatula in
her left hand and a red one in her right. I’d been in the office talking to our
paper goods vendor for the past half hour. Since the conversation had rambled
from placing a quick order to Spencer’s daughter’s dance recital and his
critical analysis of the Broncos season, I had exactly five minutes to load
Tipper Hedge’s goodies into the car and deliver them by four o’clock as promised.

“Hey, Jules?”

She glanced over her shoulder.

“Everything okay?” I asked.

She smiled. “Yeah, why wouldn’t it
be?”

“Because you were in almost the
same position when I went into the office.”

Her eyes crinkled. “I was?”

“Uh-huh. What are you doing?”

She giggled. “I read this really
cool article last night about the energy of color. Blue is supposed to be
relaxing; red is better for more demanding tasks or when you feel totally
drained and need an extra little
oomph
to get the job done.”

Since Julia often dispensed new
nuggets of wisdom gleaned during late-night web surfing sessions, I simply
smiled, collected Tipper’s order and started toward the door.

“That’s it?” Julia called. “No
comment?”

I stopped and turned around. “Are
you asking for my opinion?”

She nodded.

“How about a purple spatula?” I
suggested. “Maybe that would be the perfect combination of blue relaxation and
red energy.”

“Get outta here!” she joked.
“You’re going to ruin my yin
and
my yang.”

Before she revealed any more
mystical eye-openers, I slipped through the door, loaded the bakery boxes into
my car and headed across town.

On the drive, I thought about how
lucky I was to have Julia and Harper on my team. Between the three of us, we
juggled breakfast and lunch business and special orders like a well-oiled
machine. I’d learned how to run Sky High from Nana Reed and my parents. They
were wonderful teachers and patient mentors, guiding me through everything from
simple baking tips to complex bookkeeping theories. Although my grandmother had
passed away and my parents had retired to Florida, my mother and father called
two or three times each week to check on how things were going. “We’re not
trying to snoop,” my mother would always say. “We’re just trying to be helpful.
I mean, your daddy and I ran the place for twenty-five years, Katie. After that
long, you tend to learn a thing or two.” I smiled at the thought of my parents
in their seaside condo, offering advice and wisdom like wise shamans speckled
with flour and confectioners’ sugar.

As I turned onto Hanover Lane, my
phone jingled in my purse. I checked the screen:
LIV OFFICE
. I hadn’t
talked to my sister for a few days and I’d made it to Tipper’s in record time,
so I decided to pull over to the curb and answer the call.

“I need your advice!” she yelped
after I clicked onto the line.

“Well, good afternoon to you, too.”

“Oh, sure!” Olivia said
breathlessly. “Hello and all the rest of that stuff, but this is an emergency,
Katie!”

I asked her to fill me in on the
crisis. When she explained that she was in the swimwear department at Nordstrom
trying to decide between a candy apple red bikini with mesh side panels or a
body-sculpting one-piece with a strappy back, I couldn’t help but laugh.

“What?” she hissed. “Are you making
fun of me?”

“Not at all, sis. I just find it
amusing that buying a bathing suit is your idea of an emergency.”

“Well, it is! Cooper won a trip to San
Diego in some raffle at work. We’re going in two weeks and I have to figure
out which suit will look better.”

“Which one do you like?”

She hemmed and hawed. Then she
announced that she couldn’t decide.

“Well, I can’t help you with that,”
I said. “I have about thirty seconds before I have to hang up. I’m delivering
an order to Tipper Hedge, and she—”

“Oh, really?” Olivia said. “I
haven’t heard that name in ages. How is she?”

I glanced at the dashboard clock.
“She’s going to be really mad if I don’t get there on time. Can I call you
later?”

“Sure,” my sister said. “But, real
fast before you go: body-sculpting one-piece or sexy bikini?”

“Yes!” I answered. “Buy them both so
you have options! I’ve gotta go, Liv. I love you!”

I dropped the phone back into my
purse, checked traffic and then pulled away from the curb. It took less than a
minute to reach Tipper’s house. When I came around a bend in the road, her
black BMW was in the driveway.

“Okay, Miss Capricious Whimsy,” I
murmured to myself, using the childhood nickname Tipper had received from her
mother. “Are you going to start second-guessing what you ordered or graciously
accept this delivery?”

Hoping for the latter, I parked in
front of the house, carried the Sky High boxes to the porch and rang the bell
with one elbow. As I waited for Tipper, I heard someone crunching up behind me
across the snow-covered lawn.

I turned to see a lanky guy dressed
in a snowmobile suit walking a small dog with fluffy white fur. His eyes were
covered by a pair of mirrored aviator shades and a bulky knit cap was pulled
down low on his forehead. There was something green wedged in the corner of his
mouth. I guessed it was an hors d’oeuvre toothpick with frilled cellophane on
one end. I didn’t recognize the man, but thought he might be Tipper’s neighbor
if he was walking a dog so casually down the street.

“Hey, there!” he called in a deep
voice.

I smiled a silent greeting,
carefully cradling the Sky High boxes against my body.

“She’s not home,” the man said,
coming closer with the energetic pooch. “My wife stopped by about ten minutes
ago to return a book she’d borrowed. We live just over there.” He removed the
toothpick and gestured at a yellow bungalow across the street. “Missy came by,
like, right before you got here, but there was no answer.”

The dog yelped. As I turned to coo
something reassuring, I saw its collar: a bright pink faux crocodile number
decorated with glittering crystals.

“Okay, thanks,” I said. “Any chance
you know what time she left?”

“My wife?”

I shook my head. “No, sorry. I
meant Tipper. I just thought maybe…” I looked down at the fluffy dog. “…you
know? If you were out walking the dog, then maybe you saw Tip leave with someone.
I mean, since her car’s in the driveway and all.”

The man grinned, returning the
toothpick to his mouth. “Nah. Me and Stella just got out here. It’s my day off,
so I decided to take her for a long walk.”

The dog strained against its leash,
trying to get as close as possible to the baked goodies.

“Ah!” The man pointed at the Sky
High sticker on the top box. “That’s your place, isn’t it?”

“Guilty as charged,” I said.
“Tipper ordered these for a meeting she’s having tomorrow morning.”

The toothpick twitched as he
frowned slightly. “Like I told you, she’s not home.”

His tone had shifted from cordial
and pleasant to borderline crabby, but I guessed he might be the kind of guy
who got peeved if he had to repeat something.

“Thanks for telling me!” I said as
Stella jabbed her wet nose against my ankle. “Looks like somebody else wants to
indulge their sweet tooth.”

The man shrugged. “No doubt! She’s
a Hoover when it comes to people food, but we try to limit her to a few cheese
crackers now and then.” He raised one eyebrow and looked down at the dog.
“Don’t want her to lose the girlish figure or anything.”

“That makes two of us,” I agreed.
“All things in moderation, right?”

He laughed. “Well, we’ll leave you
to it then. I hope Tipper shows up soon. Otherwise, feel free to drop those
boxes on our front porch.”

We shared a brief smile and the
pair crunched back through the snow toward the street. I tried the bell again,
waiting a minute or two before deciding to walk around back and peek in the
kitchen window on the off chance that Tipper was wearing her headphones. She
often listened to music while cleaning, so there was a possibility she hadn’t
heard the doorbell.

The walkway from the drive around
the side of the house was neatly shoveled, so I reached the kitchen window in a
flash. The trash can lid was ajar, so I paused long enough to nudge it back
into place with my hip.

“Please be in there rocking out,” I
whispered. “I do not want to sit in the car and wait any longer than—”

The thought went unfinished as I
noticed the back entrance.

The door was ajar.

An unfired bullet sat on the
threshold.

And there was something on the
handle that looked far too familiar from my days as a PI in Chicago.

“Blood,” I said in a hushed murmur.
“That definitely looks like blood.”