Éclair and Present Danger (3 page)

The tricky part was how to make him feel needed when they'd all been living on the same street for years. Bart was an intelligent man. If his help was sought for something bogus, he'd know it in an instant.

Then again, she
had
just gotten a cat. Maybe he could help with Lovey . . .

Or maybe she could use him as a sounding board on what to do with her life in the weeks and months to come . . .

Better yet, maybe she could ask for his help in planting a flower bed outside the Victorian she shared with Mr. Nelson. After all, she had time on her hands now that the bakery was gone . . .

She made her way up Bart's driveway and over to his front porch, the slow, steady breath she needed finally finding its way through her lungs.

Help him feel needed . . .

Let him know we all care about him . . .

Encourage him to live for Ethel . . .

The plan made perfect sense. Now, all she had to do was execute it.

She knocked on the navy blue door and waited. When he didn't answer, she knocked a second and third time.

No answer.

Double-checking the driveway for Bart's car, Winnie tried the doorknob and found it unlocked.

“Bart?” she called through the now-open door. “Are you here? It's me—Winnie.”

When there was still no response, she raised her voice a bit louder in the event he'd fallen asleep in his favorite chair. “Bart? It's Winnie. I have your special peach pie from Ethel.”

She stepped all the way into the foyer and closed the door, the click of the lock echoing eerily in a house that was far too quiet.

“Bart?” Slowly, step-by-step, she made her way down the hallway and into the living room, her gaze skirting the mantel and its plethora of framed photographs artfully arranged around a glass-fronted display case before finally landing on Bart's empty chair.

An odd sense of unease skittered up her spine as she returned to the hallway and continued toward the rear of the house, checking the study and the dining room as she passed.

Maybe he was in the kitchen . . .

Or sitting out back on the patio . . .

“Bart? It's me . . . W—”

Rounding the corner into the kitchen, she froze, her name morphing into a bloodcurdling scream even Mr. Nelson was sure to hear.

B
reathe in . . .

Breathe out . . .

Breathe in . . .

Breathe out . . .

Winnie pulled the brown paper bag from her mouth and did her best to muster a reassuring smile for Bridget. “I'm okay. Really.”

“You say a
willow
was over his face?” Mr. Nelson shouted from his observation station at the front window. Having secured a prime location to watch the comings and goings of the Silver Lake Police Department and the medical examiner's office, Winnie's friend showed no sign of moving anytime in the next century.

“A
pillow
, Mr. Nelson. A pillow.” She dropped the bag onto the coffee table and joined her elderly friend in his quest to be in the know. It took a moment, but Winnie managed to pick out the detective who'd grilled her for information upon his arrival on the scene.

“Why in God's name would Bart hold a pillow over his own face?”

“He wouldn't,” Bridget rasped. “Someone else would.”

“Bridget?” Winnie glanced over her shoulder toward the couch she'd just vacated. “Are you okay?”

“How can I be okay? How can any of us be okay with a—a
murderer
on the loose?” Bridget looked down at her Lovey-topped lap and closed her eyes. “The elderly make perfect victims because we aren't strong enough to fight back. Particularly those of us with health ailments.”

“Still thinking you need a scope done?” Mr. Nelson asked.

Bridget peeked through her lashes then quickly closed them when she saw that she had Winnie's concern. “I'm
convinced
I do, Parker. Here I am, chilled to the bone over Bart's passing, yet my abdomen is strangely warm. My blood must not be flowing properly.”

Winnie crossed back to the couch and claimed the cushion closest to Bridget. Lovey popped up from her peaceful slumber (against Bridget's abdomen) and whirled around to glare at Winnie. Her attempts to soothe the feline via a soft pet were met with two short hisses and something that sounded an awful lot like a growl.

Ahhh, that's nice . . .

Giving up, she squeezed Bridget's hand, instead. “I'm sure the police will figure out who did this to Bart and why.” Yet even as she said the words, she knew the likelihood of them being true was slim to none. The Silver Lake Police Department was small—as in
really
small, and deduction and logic weren't their forte.

Bridget looked up. “Please tell me that Detective Wyatt at least
pretended
to ask good questions?”

She cast about for some sort of positive spin she could use to deliver her answer, but there was none. Besides, Bridget was sharp; she knew the drill. “Not really, no.”

“He asked if he could eat that peach pie, didn't he?” Mr.
Nelson released his hold on the curtain and let it drift back across the window, momentarily inhibiting his view of the action. At Winnie's nod, he waved his cane in the air. “I hope you didn't give it to him, Winnie.”

“How could I say no?” She fidgeted with the hem of her powder blue top and tried to think back on the conversation she'd had with the detective. He'd confirmed that Bart's door was unlocked . . . he'd asked if she saw anything unusual . . . and he'd asked if Bart could have simply fallen, pulling the pillow with him as he went.

Rising to her feet once again, Winnie made her way back to the now-unmanned window, her gaze searching for (and finding) Detective Wyatt and the handful of officers who'd arrived on the scene with donut powder on their uniforms. Maybe they'd figure out what happened to Bart; maybe they wouldn't. Either way, she refused to let Bridget, Mr. Nelson, and the remaining dozen or so elderly folks on Serenity Lane live in fear.

Besides, it wasn't like she had anything else to do with her time at the moment.

“We're smart,” she said without turning around. “We can figure this out.”

“Figure what out?” Mr. Nelson hobbled back to his spot next to Winnie.

“Figure out who did this to Bart.”

This time, when she looked back at Bridget, she saw hope pushing through the fear—hope that Winnie was right and that she would deliver on her word.

And she would.

One way or the other . . .

*   *   *

I
t was ten-thirty by the time she and Lovey finally made it upstairs to their apartment. She was tired, the cat was hissy, and Bridget and Mr. Nelson were safely tucked away behind locked doors in their respective homes.

Now that Winnie was finally alone (save for Lovey, of course), and able to have the cry she'd been fighting off since she locked the bakery's door for the very last time, there were no tears.

Sure, she was still sad—devastated, even. But seeing Bart's lifeless body stretched across his linoleum kitchen floor and hearing Bridget's subsequent fear that she or Mr. Nelson could be next had put things in perspective, at least a little.

Did she still want her bakery back? Without a doubt.

Was she still at a complete loss for what to do with her life? Head-spinningly so.

But wallowing did nothing.
Baking
did.

From the time Winnie's line of vision was able to clear the countertop in her mother's kitchen, she'd loved baking. Her favorite picture books as a pre-reader had been those containing desserts. Once she started reading, she'd shunned the fiction books favored by her peers and devoured every cookbook she could find. In her teens, she'd pushed aside those same cookbooks to experiment with her own flavors and tastes, techniques and presentation.

Soon, blue ribbons for her pies and cakes at the county fair segued into money prizes and inclusion in several dessert-specific cookbooks and magazines. By the time she was done with college, her destiny was all but certain. A few stints in various bakeries elsewhere in the state eventually led her, and the money she'd managed to sock aside in a drawer, to Silver Lake and her very own bakery, Delectable Delights.

She reached for the row of canisters beside the sink, measured out two cups of flour, and sifted it into a large mixing bowl. When the flour was as fine as dust, she added salt, shortening, and cold water. With clean hands, she mixed the dough until it was ready to be rolled out across a lightly floured board and then transferred to a waiting pie dish.

In a different bowl, she mixed sugar, cornstarch, salt, and cinnamon, and sprinkled it over the blueberries Mr. Nelson had picked for her the previous day. Quickly, she scooped the blueberry mixture into the crust, dotted it with butter, and then latticed it with strips of remaining dough.

As she worked, she could feel the day's tension slipping away and the rational side of her brain engaging.

If she had money, she could take a class at the community college. If she had money, she could remain in the two-family house she shared with Mr. Nelson. If she had money, she could—

The ambulance!

Winnie slid the pie onto the top rack of the oven and shut the door. Once the timer was set, she crossed to the opposite side of the kitchen and her purse. A quick search of the unzipped center compartment yielded the phone number of her one and only chance to stay afloat.

Granted she had no idea how much money she could get for a 1960 ambulance, but she had an interested buyer in Master Sergeant Hottie, er—she peered at his handwritten note—
Greg Stevens
. And thanks to the Internet, she could access the approximate value of just about anything under the sun.

Fifty minutes later, she had an asking price for the ambulance in her head and a freshly baked blueberry pie sitting atop her kitchen counter. Buoyed by her accomplishments, she carried the dirty bowls and measuring cups to the sink, turned on the tap, and looked out the window at her next-door neighbor's still-lit home.

As she watched, she could just make out Bridget's stout frame as it paced back and forth behind a too-sheer parlor curtain. A glance at the oven clock confirmed what she already knew to be true. Bridget was scared—scared to go to sleep, and scared to take her eyes off the doors and windows that separated her from a killer who, in the elderly woman's eyes, had already preyed on one comrade in age.

Winnie turned off the water, shooed a not-so-happy Lovey back into the cat carrier, retrieved the still-warm pie from the cooling rack, and made her way out of her apartment, down the stairs, and out into the night. Slowly, carefully, she picked her way across the yard that separated her two-family Victorian from Bridget's single-family home and knocked softly on the parlor window. “Bridget . . . it's me, Winnie.”

The back door swept inward just long enough for Bridget to reach onto the top stoop and pull Winnie inside. “Is everything all right? Did the killer come back? Did he get Parker?”

She set the cage down, shifted the pie to her now-empty hand, and released Lovey with the other. “Everything is fine, Bridget. You need to get some sleep. It's one o'clock in the morning.”

“I have a horrible case of amnesia,” Bridget said, bringing her hand to her head with award-winning theatrics.

“When did that start?”

“An hour ago.” Bridget pointed at Winnie's hands as Lovey wound her tail around the woman's legs. “What's that?”

She followed the path forged by Bridget's finger and remembered the pie. “Oh. I made this for you. Here. It's my”—she searched her thoughts for an appropriate name—“Don't-Be-Blue Berry Pie. Because everything
will
be okay. I promise.”

Bridget looked from the pie to Winnie and back again, a single tear slipping down her weathered face as she did. “Oh, Winnie. Thank you. I've nearly worn a hole in my carpet thinking about what happened to Bart. Worked myself up so much I can't even think about sleep. But you being here? Checking up on me? It means more than you can ever know, dear.”

“I love you Bridget, you know that.”

The woman's slow nod gave way to a pointed look. “Don't think I'm not aware of what's going on with your
bakery, dear, because I am. And I'm awfully sorry, Winnie. I know how much running that place meant to you. That landlord of yours is a good-for-nothing, and everyone in this town knows it.”

Steeling herself against the kind of sentiment capable of unearthing the tears she'd managed to escape thus far, Winnie forced herself to smile, to keep her mood light. “I'll figure something out, Bridget. Really.”

“I know you will, dear. You're a smart cookie.” Bridget held the pie to her nose and inhaled. “Even so, with everything on your plate right now, it was mighty thoughtful of you to rescue me with one of your special desserts the way you—”

Rescue?

“Wh-what did you just say?” Winnie stammered.

The late hour, coupled with the stress of Bart's murder, weighed on Bridget's tired frame, bringing with it a momentary flash of irritation. “Which part, dear?”

“The last part. About rescuing you.”

“Oh.
That
. I just said that it was mighty thoughtful of you to rescue me with one of your special desserts.”

Rescue . . .

Desserts . . .

Stepping forward, Winnie planted a hand on each of Bridget's shoulders and pulled the woman in for a hug—pie and all. “That's it! Bridget, you are a veritable
genius
!”

“I am?”

“You sure are.” Winnie released the woman and her pie and headed back into the night. Halfway down the porch steps, she stopped as Bridget called her name.

“Winnie, wait. Didn't you forget something?”

She looked down at her empty hands and then back up at Bridget. “No. The pie is for you, remember?”

“I'm talking about Lovey!”

And then it dawned on her . . .

She was a cat owner now. Lovey's care and well-being were her responsibility.

Turning, she started back up the steps only to stop as Lovey peered up at Bridget and began to purr as if her ninth life depended on it. “Actually, on second thought, why don't you hang on to her for the night? Something tells me you'll both sleep a lot better that way.”