Chocolate Most Deadly (Sky High Pies Cozy Mysteries Book 2) (16 page)

CHAPTER
34

On Monday afternoon around four,
Julia was in the kitchen at Sky High, carefully weaving strips of dough into a
lattice top for a Bumbleberry Blossom Pie. It was an hour after closing; the
aroma of chocolate chip cookies perfumed the air, the dining room was set for
the next day and Harper was at the counter enjoying a scone with apple butter.
After praising her diplomatic skills with a disgruntled toddler—a grouchy
little gnome who became enraged about the amount of whipped cream on his ice
cream sundae, I’d walked into the kitchen, leaned against the counter and
admired Julia’s deft talents with the crinkle-cut strips of dough.

“You mentioned my lattice crust the
other day,” she said. “What gives?”

“Can’t I flatter you twice?”

She smiled. “Absolutely! But I can
tell you’re up to something.”

“How?”

The answer surprised me. Julia said
that between the tone of my voice, the way my eyes widened when I praised her
baking skills and my excessively casual stance, she knew there was a follow-up
to the kind words I’d said about the pie.

“Guilty as charged,” I said. “Do
you mind if I take off now?”

She glanced up with a smile. “You
run the place, Kate. Don’t you think you can come and go as you please?”

After waving at Harper and reminding
Julia that Minnie Battdorf was stopping by to pickup a special order for her
real estate agency meeting, I grabbed my purse and headed for the car. On the
drive to Denver, I listened to a CD of Sherlock Holmes classics performed as
radio theater. It was a huge change from my usual highway soundtrack, but Nana
Reed used to play them when she baked at Sky High and I pulled them out every
so often.

Traffic was on my side, so the
drive to Tick-Tock Donuts took just under ninety minutes. I pulled up in front
and peered through the plate-glass façade. The place was empty, but Buford was
behind the counter holding a wrinkled white cloth and spray bottle filled with
something orange.

“It’s you again!” he called when I
came through the door.

“Yep, me again. How are you,
Buford?”

His face turned the same bright red
as the filling of a cherry donut. “You remembered my n-n-name?” he stuttered.

“How could I ever forget?” I said,
reaching for my phone. “When I came in the other night, you fixed me up with
some of the best donuts I’ve ever tasted.”

He smiled, revealing teeth as
uniform and white as parallel rows of Chiclets. “Thank you, ma’am! That makes
me feel really good.”

“I’m Kate, by the way,” I said.
“And I have a feeling that I’ll be here on a regular basis.”

“Sounds good, Kate.” He put down
the rag and spray bottle before grabbing a sheet of waxed paper from beneath
the counter. “What would you like today?”

I glanced at the seemingly endless
array of doughy treats. “You know what?” I said. “Do you mind if I ask a couple
of questions before we get to the main event?”

He chuckled. “Fine with me, ma’am.”

“Remember when I was here the other
night?”

He nodded.

“Anton Hall and Jake Breen were in
that last booth,” I said. “A woman was with them, but she was in the restroom
the entire time I was here.”

He frowned. “I don’t know about
that,” he said. “I don’t really keep tabs when people use the facilities.”

I smiled. “Is the woman in this
picture?” I held up my phone so he could see the drama club photo I’d found
online.

Buford fixed his eyes on the image,
squinting and whispering to himself as he slowly studied the faces. Then he
looked at me, smiled and nodded.

“That’s a yes?” I said.

“Uh-huh,” he said with a jumpy
laugh. “That’s the woman who comes in here with Anton and Jake.” He pointed at
Lois Jordan in the front row. “Although I never understood why she bothers. She
never has donuts, only her bag of candy.”

He tugged nervously on the collar
of his starched white shirt, swiveling his gaze around the empty shop as if to
verify we were alone.

“Was she eating Rowntree’s Jelly
Tots?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t know what
they’re called. But she’s never in here without a bag of them.”

“How often does she come in with
Jake and Anton?”

Buford started to answer the
question when the front door opened. A middle-aged woman and two teenaged boys
came into the shop.

“Hi, Mrs. Wanamaker!” Buford said
cheerfully. “I see you’ve got a couple of hungry men with you there!”

The boys skulked across the room
and slumped into a booth. One pulled a phone from his pocket and began texting
while the other folded his arms and scowled angrily at the woman.

“Yes, indeed,” she said in a
scratchy voice. “We’re driving to the airport to pickup their father. They
promised not to be complete terrors if I bought them a donut beforehand.”

I smiled at Buford and thanked him
again for his time.

“You’re welcome!” he said. “Is that
all you needed?”

“For now,” I answered. “But I’ll be
back soon for more donuts.”

“Okay, Kate. Thanks for making time
for Tick-Tock!”

While he waited for the woman to
announce her selections, I headed for the sidewalk. Strolling toward the car, I
called Detective Caldwell.

“As I live and breathe,” he said.
“I was just thinking about you.”

“How’s it going, detective?”

He groaned.

“That good, huh?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a massive
headache,” he said. “And miles to go before I rest.”

“Then I’ll make this brief. I’ve
been doing some digging and think I have a theory about who killed Delmar
Singer.”

“I’m listening,” Caldwell said.

“Did you know that Jake Breen and
Anton Hall went to high school together in Omaha?”

“I did, actually. One of our guys
put together a file on them. He mentioned they were from Nebraska. Based on the
trail of background checks for apartment rentals, Anton moved to Denver five
years ago and Jake followed six months later. They worked legit minimum wage
jobs for the first eighteen months, but then the trail of withholding taxes
from their employers suddenly went cold.”

“Suggesting that’s when they
crossed over into illegitimate employment?”

Caldwell laughed. “Suggesting,
yeah. Nothing’s been proven yet.”

“But I thought Breen had been to
jail or prison.”

There was a pause and papers
shuffled in the background.

“Nothing here on that,” said Caldwell.
“Where’d you get that idea?”

“Tick-Tock Donuts.”

“A very reliable source.”

“Hey, I like Buford,” I said.
“Don’t indict him for unconfirmed reports.”

“How is Buford?”

“You know him?”

“Doesn’t everybody?” Caldwell
answered. “He’s as much of an institution as the Triple Threat Apple Fritter.”

My stomach quivered at the mention
of the legendary Tick-Tock treat. It was a massive lump of fried dough laced
with too-sweet apple filling that’s dipped in white chocolate before being
drizzled with gooey strands of raspberry-flavored dark chocolate.

“So?” Caldwell said. “Did you learn
anything else about Breen and Hall?”

“Yes,” I answered, opening my car
door. “They were both in the drama club at high school.”

“If you hear me yawning,” he said,
“it’s not because I don’t care.”

I smiled and climbed behind the
wheel. “Well, I would never think otherwise, detective. The reason I mentioned
the drama club is because that may be where Jake and Anton met two women named
Lois Jordan and Heidi Zimmer. In turn, Heidi probably introduced them at some
point to her twin sister Hannah.”

“Okay, sure. It’s a cast of
thousands, right? But what’s the connection to the murders of Delmar Singer and
Toby Wurlitzer?”

As I sat and watched traffic stream
down the street, I walked Caldwell through my theory. I explained that Tim
England and Delilah Benson attend AA meetings with the Zimmer twins. Then I
described my encounters with Heidi, Hannah and Lois Jordan.

“Okay, so far it’s a bunch of
names,” Caldwell said when I finished. “How are they related to Delmar and
Toby?”

“Did you know that patience is a
virtue?” I asked.

Caldwell snickered. “Did you know
that virtue is the seventh highest order of the nine-fold celestial hierarchy?”

I waited for the punchline.

“Don’t feel bad if you didn’t know
that one,” added Caldwell. “My grandmother married a theological scholar about
ten years after my grandfather passed away. I learned all about those things
from him.”

I waited a few seconds more. Then I
asked if he was done showing off his whiz-bang knowledge of celestial
hierarchies.

 “Yep,” he said sheepishly.

“Thanks,” I said. “Do you want to
hear the rest?”

“Please.”

“Okay, so Lois Jordan shares an
apartment with Hannah Zimmer,” I said slowly. “And I believe she may have an affinity
for a particular type of imported British candy called Rowntree’s Jelly Tots.”

“Which she can order online,” Caldwell
said quickly. “Unless she buys them at a British tea shop on Havana Street in Aurora.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“Because attentiveness is also
something I know a thing or two about,” he answered.

“The candy package by Toby
Wurlitzer’s body?”

“Bingo,” he said.

“Did you already know about Lois
Jordan?”

“Double bingo. Our forensics team
found the package that you must’ve seen. And they checked for local retail
shops that sell that particular type of candy. The place on Havana is the only
remaining store that carries them now that a shop on Washington Street in
Capitol Hill went out of business about three months ago.”

“And they sold Rowntree’s Jelly
Tots,” I said.

“They did. And clerks at both
stores remembered Lois Jordan. Although I can’t imagine why you’d need to go to
that much trouble when every drug store and mini-mart in town sells plenty of
other junk if your sweet tooth is itching.”

“They’re actually pretty tasty,” I
said. “Have you tried them?”

“Rowntree’s?” he said. “I have not.
How about you?”

I explained again that my friend in
Chicago bought them when we went to the movies. Then I told him that Buford
confirmed that Lois Jordan visits Tick-Tock Donuts with Jake and Anton where
she refrains from the Triple Threat Apple Fritter in favor of Jelly Tots.

“Bringing us back around full
circle,” Caldwell said when I finished. “All roads lead to Tick-Tock.”

“Not quite,” I said. “That’s all
circumstantial. And it might connect Lois to Toby Wurlitzer’s murder, but it
doesn’t help us link her to the poisoned cupcakes.”

“Not to mention Delmar Singer being
suffocated in his hospital room with a pillow.”

We sat and let the unanswered
questions linger in the air for a moment before Caldwell asked if Viveca had
heard from her brother.

“Not yet,” I said. “My guess is
they’ve gone deep undercover waiting to find out if anyone else is going to be
murdered in their apartment building.”

Caldwell sighed. “Unless that’s
part of a bigger ruse.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s simple; maybe Tim England
isn’t so blameless,” Caldwell said. “Maybe he’s responsible for the poisoned
cupcakes. He could’ve put his name on the box and made up the story about a
secret admirer leaving them on his doorstep.”

I sighed. “Did you know that Tim
England’s allergic to chocolate?”

Caldwell scoffed. “According to
who—Tim England?”

“His sister told me,” I answered.
“Besides, I’ve got a theory about the cupcakes.”

“Involving?”

“The green-eyed monster.”

Caldwell sighed. “Is that your
nickname for Jake Breen?”

“No, the green-eyed monster is
another way of saying jealousy.”

“Then why not just say it?”

“Because when I was a little girl, my
PopPop taught me to say ‘the green-eyed monster’ instead of ‘jealousy.’”

“I’m not even going to ask why,” Caldwell
said. “Can we move along? You think someone killed Delmar Singer because they
were jealous of him?”

“No, the intended victim was Tim
England. He’s a classic bad boy—handsome, sings in a band, breaks hearts from
here to Timbuktu, has girls swooning over him nonstop.”

“Have you met the guy, Kate?”

“No, but I know the type.”

Caldwell chuckled. “Does that mean
you fell for the classic bad boy at some point? Like maybe when you were living
in Chicago?”

“Maybe,” I said. “But we’re talking
about Tim England, not me.”

“We can talk about both,” he
suggested.

“Let’s not,” I said. “I’d rather
talk about the Zimmer twins and Lois Jordan.”

“Because you think they’re the
jealous type?”

“Everyone’s capable of jealousy,” I
said. “Including those three. But I also think one of them is capable of
murder.”

CHAPTER
35

When the alarm went off the next
morning, I nearly heaved it against the wall. After getting home from Denver
around eleven the night before, I soaked in a bubble bath, sent my parents a
long email about my first few weeks at Sky High and fell into bed with the
latest issue of
Food & Wine
. I’d barely read one page before
drifting into a deep sleep that lasted until the metallic
chirp, chirp,
chirp
announced that morning had arrived. I hit the snooze button twice,
but as I extended my arm for a third time my brain suddenly switched into
overdrive.
Get up!
it screamed.
There are ten million things to do!

Thirty minutes later, I breezed out
my apartment door, down the exterior stairs and into the kitchen just as Julia
scurried out of the pantry carrying a stack of muffin tins.

“Morning, sunshine!” she said in a
perky, bright voice. “How’re you doing?”

I scowled at her. “It’s too early
for such a complicated question.”

“Then let’s take it slow,” she
said. “What’s your first name?”

My scowl darkened. “Don’t tempt
fate, Jules. I’m running on fumes this morning.”

She laughed. “You’ve been doing
that a lot recently, Katie. What’s the latest on your neighbor’s brother?”

“Still missing,” I said. “And the
circumstances got a bit more complicated.”

She arranged the tins on the
counter and began smearing the individual cups with sweet butter.

“What’re you working on?” I asked.

“Orange-cranberry muffins. I’ve
already knocked off the raspberry-white chocolate scones and the coconut
shortbread cookies.”

I glanced at the prep list. Neat,
slender lines were drawn through the first two entries and tiny checks had been
added beside the next three.

“What’s with the checkmarks?”

She smiled, still concentrating on
the tins. “Those can wait until tomorrow if we want. I did a quick inventory
when I got here earlier. Based on the sales forecast sheet, weather report and
throbbing knots in my calves, I think we have enough bacon-maple scones,
peppermint swirl cookies and German chocolate cake pops for today.”

It was barely five-fifteen. The sky
in the east was shimmering with pale bands of blue and pink. And Julia was bright-eyed
and perky.

“What time did you come in?” I
asked.

“Three-thirty.” She gave me a quick
smile. “I fell asleep on the sofa last night at eight watching a movie. My
hubby covered me with a quilt and left me be. I woke up around two feeling
really pumped and ready to go.”

I plucked an apron from the linen
drawer. “If I had half your energy, I’d be much happier.”

“Did you go out last night?”

“More or less,” I muttered, looping
the apron around my waist. “But it wasn’t a romantic dinner with a handsome man.
I drove down to Denver again for a couple of hours.”

She stopped greasing the muffin
tins. “Something to do with Viveca’s brother?”

I nodded. “There were a couple of
things I wanted to check on,” I explained. “Just in case they might help Viv
find Tim.”

“Maybe he doesn’t want to be
found.”

“I’ve considered that,” I said.
“It’s kind of hard not to. I mean, the guy may act like a petulant child, but
he
is
an adult. At this point, it’s impossible to know what he did or
didn’t do. But if he’s involved with sketchy characters, there’s a chance he’s
off the grid waiting for the heat to die down.”

Julia snickered. “You sound like
Olivia Benson on
Law & Order
.”

“Or Miss Marple in one of Agatha
Christie’s stories.”

“No way,” Julia scoffed. “Miss
Marple never used phrases like ‘truly sketchy characters’ or ‘off the grid.’”

“Well, she would if she was still
sleuthing.”

We shared a laugh and then went on
with the morning prep. We had less than two hours to get everything ready for
another Sky High day. Since Julia arrived earlier than usual, it wouldn’t take
us as long to tackle the baking chores, set up the kitchen for breakfast and
make sure Harper had everything she needed in the dining room

As I skittered around the room,
measuring and mixing ingredients for a batch of Nana Reed’s Sunflower Seed
Sandies, I thought about how lucky I was to have such a great team. When I
inherited the bakery café from my parents, I wanted to stick as close as
possible to the way they ran the business: one chef in the kitchen handling
most of the baking and cooking; one server in the dining room juggling customer
orders; and one or two others—in this case it was just myself—lending a hand
whenever and wherever necessary during the morning and afternoon.

After I stowed the cookie dough in
the cooler so it could harden before being sliced, I walked over and twined one
arm around Julia’s shoulders.

“You know something, Jules?”

“I know a lot of somethings,” she
said with a wink. “Which one are you referring to?”

“I just wanted to tell you how much
I appreciate you,” I said.

Her lips formed a silly grin. “Ah,
that’s sweet, Katie. Is this the part where you tell me that I’m getting a
raise?”

I quickly withdrew the arm and
slapped both hands on my hips. “You can’t put a price on appreciation and
gratitude!”

She blew a curtain of feathery
bangs out of her eyes. “No, but you can put a price on trips to the
orthodontist,” she said, starting to slice apples for a pie. “We found out
yesterday afternoon that our oldest needs braces.”

“But isn’t he nine?”

She shrugged. “Nine going on
twenty-two.”

“That’s Will, right?”

“Yes, Will’s nine. Shepherd is
seven. And Emma’s five. If they all need braces, that’s going to be a cool
twenty to forty thousand.”

“Ouch,” I said, wincing. “Kids are
expensive.”

Julia laughed. “Life’s expensive,
Katie. Did you see that the cost of a dozen eggs went up thirty or forty cents
in the last month?”

“I know,” I groaned. “I sat down to
pay the bills the other day and just about fell out of my chair. Eggs are up. Milk
is up. Coffee’s up.”

“I bet your grandmother would roll
over in her grave if she saw how much things cost these days.”

I nodded. “When she started this
place, a dozen eggs cost around seventy cents,” I said. “A gallon of gas was
sixty cents. And a McDonald’s hamburger was thirty.”

Julia stopped slicing apples. “Do
you have all of that memorized or what?”

“I found Nana Reed’s old ledgers
when I was moving in upstairs,” I explained. “She was methodical about all of
the paperwork, especially during the first few years that she ran Sky High.
There were even a bunch of boxes in one of the closets stuffed with receipts
from the first decade.”

Julia giggled. “I never would’ve
thought of her as a packrat. She was always so persnickety about the way she
did her hair and how she dressed.”

“Which is why both she and my
mother were persnickety about how I did
my
hair,” I added. “And how I
dressed.” I smiled at the memory. “At least until I was around eleven or
twelve. Then they decided I was old enough to do my own thing.”

“Or maybe it was because they
realized how stubborn you are!”

I shook my head, but didn’t take
the bait. It was early. I was tired. And we had more work to do. I poured a cup
of coffee and decided to start with banana-butterscotch-pecan muffins. They
were a new addition to our roster. My sister had suggested the combination when
she was in Crescent Creek to help during my first week at Sky High. I was
skeptical, but it turned out Olivia was right. They had been a hot commodity
and an early sell-out since we introduced them the previous week.

“Maybe we can talk about the pay
increase,” I said as Julia hummed softly to herself.

She dropped the apple she’d been
peeling and spun around. “Oh, my gosh, Katie! I was joking!”

“Well, I’m not. You’re my secret
weapon, Jules. I literally could not do this without you.”

“But you like to bake,” she said.
“And you can make an omelet with your eyes closed.”

“True, but then the eggs usually
end up on the floor,” I said. “And this isn’t up for discussion. I happen to know
that you’re earning the same salary that my parents offered when you first came
to Sky High.”

Her cheeks flushed. “I know, but
it’s okay…” She looked away as her voice broke. “We’ll figure things out. I
shouldn’t have made that joke about money.”

“Yes, you should,” I said. “You
should feel comfortable joking about anything around here.” I paused and
thought about what I’d just offered. “Except, of course, my cellulite, the way
my hair frizzes in the rain and how much weight I’ve gained since I came back
to Crescent Creek.”