Read Battered to Death (Daphne Martin Cake Mysteries) Online
Authors: Gayle Trent
Battered to Death (Daphne Martin Cake Mysteries) (16 page)
As Pauline was talking, she was shaping her
ball of yellow gum paste into a rounded, tapered cone. She then inserted a wire hook into the center of the cone.
“Since I want the center of my calla lily to seem pollinated, I’m going to brush a little slurry onto the cone and then roll the cone in this finely milled cornmeal.” She held up a little dish to show us that it was, indeed, filled with cornmeal. As she’d stated, she rolled the cone around in the cornmeal until it looked . . . well . . . furry.
“Who’d want to eat that mess?” Myra asked.
“I doubt anyone would,” I answered. “Most people don’t eat gum paste flowers.”
“They don’t? Why have them, then?”
“For decoration,” I said.
Myra shrugged.
“Of course, we have to allow the center of the flower to dry for three or four days before we can make the rest of the flower,” Pauline said. “You don’t want to sit here with me for
that
long, do you?” She laughed. No one else did. She continued. “That’s why I made some of these centers beforehand and brought them with me today. Now let’s make our petal.”
Pauline unwrapped a ball of lavender-colored gum paste. She took the plastic rolling pin and flattened the dough into a thin sheet. She then used a sharp knife to cut the gum paste into a teardrop shape.
“If you’re uncomfortable using guesswork when making your gum paste flowers, there are all kinds
of gum paste and fondant cutters on the market to help guide you along,” she said.
Her words made me feel guilty and ashamed that I had to use the cutters rather than the knife to make my orchid petals. I knew it was merely because I wasn’t that experienced a decorator yet, but I felt that if Pauline could whip out a knife and cut a calla lily petal just by eyeballing it, then I should be able to do it too.
She placed the petal on a foam board and began ruffling the edges with a ball tool. “See how pretty this makes your flower?”
“Ain’t this the one you told me was a shrinking violet in class?” Myra asked.
I nodded.
“The shoplifter . . . ?”
Again, I nodded.
“Interesting,” she mused.
“With a little bit of slurry all the way around the bottom edge of the petal, I’ll attach it to the center piece,” Pauline said. “And to make our flower fan out prettily, we’ll wrap a bamboo skewer around the edge like so.”
Myra made a
pfft
sound. “Prettily. La dee dah.”
“At this point, we would have to let the flower dry and harden for a couple of days. But, once again, I made one beforehand so we could do this last step.” Pauline smiled as she produced another lavender calla lily with a flourish. “We’re going to take a little luster dust—you can see here that I
have yellow, orange, purple, and red—and with a dry brush, I’m going to just paint a little of the luster dust into the center of the flower. You can mix up your colors however you’d like. And,
voilà
! You have yourself a calla lily.”
“No, you don’t,” Myra muttered to me. “You have a cake decoration that you can’t even eat. With a real calla lily, you could at least put it on your table until it wilted and died.”
I started to protest that the gum paste flower would last a lot longer and wouldn’t wilt or die, but I decided not to waste my breath.
Pauline was taking questions from the audience, and Clea Underwood predictably asked her about being in Chef Richards’s Australian string work class and how his death had affected her. Pauline ignored Clea and took a question from someone who asked her to demonstrate again how to insert the wire into the flower.
“Of course,” Pauline said. She took another hooked length of wire and was in the process of inserting it into the flower when something distracted her and she jabbed the wire into her finger. Alarmed, she grabbed a paper towel and wrapped it around the wound. “Well, obviously, you don’t do it like
that
.” She tried to laugh off the incident, but she kept looking at whatever it was that had distracted her. I followed her gaze to see Gavin Conroy standing to the left of the front row.
M
YRA
, M
ARK,
Ben, and I were sitting in the Brea Ridge Inn’s restaurant awaiting Lily Richards and Pauline Wilson.
“Be very careful what you say to either of these women,” Mark warned me. “They aren’t your friends. And if it comes right down to it, they might be your enemies.”
“Mark’s right,” Ben said. “Even if Pauline is innocent of Chef Richards’s murder, she’s in the same boat you’re in. She needs someone else to pin it on.”
“But you don’t know Pauline,” Myra said. “She might not care
who
takes the blame as long as it isn’t her . . . and she might be the one who smashed him over the noggin. You just never know.”
“Myra’s right,” said Mark. “And as for Lily Richards . . . she wouldn’t have shown up at this event if she wasn’t looking for justice . . . or trying to cover her tracks. She’d have simply identified the body and left the rest of it up to the police. She’d been able to hide for a long time without anyone finding her.”
“How?” I asked. “And why?”
“As far as I can tell, she used an alias to go underground after her separation from Jordan Richards,” Mark said. “As for why she did that, I have no clue. She might have been afraid for her safety since she was claiming that Richards had been abusive toward her, or she might have wanted to avoid the publicity of the estrangement. They weren’t Brad and Angelina by any stretch of the imagination, but there were still a few paparazzi who wanted to hang out and get gossip for the tabloids.”
“Here she comes,” said Myra. Raising her voice slightly, she asked, “Wasn’t that cake that looked like it had been embroidered pretty? Not as pretty as yours, Daphne, but it was still nice. Oh, here’s Ms. Richards. How nice to see you again.”
“Hello,” said Ms. Richards as she hung her purse on the back of the chair and sat down. “Thank you for agreeing to have lunch with me.”
“It’s our pleasure,” I said. “You’ve already met Myra, Ms. Richards. This is Myra’s friend Mark Thompson, and this is Ben Jacobs.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Ms. Richards told the men. She turned to me. “Will Pauline be joining us?”
“Yes,” I said. “She should be here any time.”
“I hope she’s all right,” Ms. Richards said. “It looked like she stabbed that piece of floral wire all the way through her finger.”
“I believe she was distracted by that Conroy fellow,” Myra said. “Do you know him, Ms. Richards?”
“We’ve met,” she said. “He once applied for a position as Jordan’s assistant.”
“Really?” I asked, as if that were news to me. “The two of them didn’t act as if they knew each other during class.”
Ms. Richards shrugged. “Well, Mr. Conroy didn’t get the job, so maybe they were more comfortable maintaining their distance.”
“That’s probably it,” I said. “Chef Richards
did
criticize Mr. Conroy’s appearance. Is that why the chef thought the two of them wouldn’t be able to work well together?”
“It’s hard to tell why Jordan chose and rejected
the assistants he’s worked with over the years,” Ms. Richards said. “Some of them he’d like one day and despise the next.”
“Was he crazy or something?” Myra asked.
Ms. Richards laughed. “He had some mood swings, that was for sure.”
I wondered how extreme Chef Richards’s mood swings might’ve been and whether he could’ve initially lashed out at his attacker. Maybe the murder had been done in self-defense. I immediately rejected that theory on the basis that the blow to the head could have incapacitated Chef Richards long enough to let the other person get away. Drowning him in cake batter would have been unnecessary for someone who was simply hoping to escape with his or her life.
Pauline hurriedly approached our table. “I hope I haven’t been keeping you waiting long. The official cake and confectionary art exhibit and competition medic insisted on giving me a tetanus shot, and that darn thing hurt worse than the wire I stuck in my finger.” She pulled out a chair and sat down beside Ms. Richards. “I probably blew my chances with the producers.” Her eyes widened as she turned to Ms. Richards. “I’m sorry. That was insensitive of me.”
“Not at all,” said Ms. Richards. “I understand that up-and-comers are seeking every opportunity to better themselves. In fact, Jordan was discovered at a cake competition in Colorado.”
“Oh, sure. There are typically producers on hand at these types of events, and one—the one who eventually produced Jordan’s show—watched him do a demonstration and thought he was particularly dynamic.” She smiled. “And when Jordan got a little caustic with an audience member, the producer was sold.”
“So see? They might like it that you stabbed yourself,” Myra told Pauline. “It might prove that you’re quirky or something.”
I took that opportunity to interrupt and introduce Pauline to Mark and Ben.
Noticing that the last expected member of our party had arrived, our waitress hurried over to take our orders.
After the waitress left, Ms. Richards decided to get down to business. She took a sip of her water, then folded her hands and asked softly, “Daphne . . . Pauline . . . why were both of your fingerprints found on the cake stand used to hit Jordan?”
Pauline bit her lip. “I think I can answer that one. We—the students in Chef Richards’s Australian string work class—were all given cake stands to use for the duration of class.”
“Yes, Jordan was particular about his classes and the supplies that were used,” Ms. Richards mused. “He supplied everything and incorporated the extra cost into the class fee. He only wanted to work with particular products, and he didn’t like for
students to bring inferior ingredients in off the streets.” She shook her head. “I apologize for interrupting, Pauline. Please go on.”
“Well, I was the first student to get to class, and I noticed that my cake stand was a little tight. . . . It didn’t spin as easily as some of the others.” She raised and dropped her shoulders. “I knew that in order to properly perform the string work techniques, I’d need to be able to make the turntable spin well, so I swapped mine out with another one. Apparently, it became the one Daphne used.”
“Okay. That explains the prints,” Ms. Richards said. “It doesn’t explain why no third set of prints was found . . . unless the killer was wearing gloves.”
“I’ve seen a lot of people wearing gloves during their demonstrations,” Myra said.
“It’s not uncommon, especially when working with gel colors or kneading colored fondant,” I said.
“Or gum paste,” Pauline added.
“I suppose what I’m wondering is if any of you think this attack was planned as opposed to spontaneous,” Ms. Richards said. “Did anyone see Jordan arguing with anyone the day before he was attacked?”
“I didn’t see him arguing with anyone,” I said. “But wouldn’t Fiona be the best person to ask about that?”
Ms. Richards nodded. “She would be . . . if she and I could tolerate each other long enough to discuss Jordan.”
“Why do you say that, Ms. Richards?” Mark
asked. “Wouldn’t Fiona naturally want to get to the truth about who killed her boss?”
“I believe she would . . . but not if she had to do it through me.” Ms. Richards sighed. “I have no idea what Jordan might’ve told her about me, but she thinks I lied about the reason I left him.”
“The domestic abuse scandal?” I asked. “Sorry . . . I . . . I read about it online.”
“Yes,” she said. “That is why I left Jordan. He’d become too unpredictable. I loved him—I still love him—but I couldn’t live with a man who couldn’t control his drinking and who got so violent when he drank.”
“I understand,” I said. “But now that Chef Richards is . . . gone . . . wouldn’t Fiona want to help you bring his killer to justice?”
“No. I do believe she’d help Jordan if she could. She’d work with the police. She wouldn’t even talk with me,” Ms. Richards said. “I saw her this morning, and she very definitively turned her head and walked in the opposite direction.”
“Maybe she’d talk with me,” said Mark. “I’m an investigator. Maybe I could get Fiona to open up . . . to tell me what she knows about the murder, what she knew of Chef Richards’s life, who might’ve wanted to kill him . . . that sort of thing. I realize she’s already told her story to the police, but retelling after some of the shock has worn off might help her to remember something she might’ve previously omitted.”
“That would be wonderful,” said Ms. Richards. “Thank you.”
“Maybe the four of us could talk with her,” I said, indicating Ben, Mark, Myra, and me.
“Five,” Pauline said. “My future is at stake here too.”
A
FTER LUNCH, THE
five of us went in search of Fiona. When we couldn’t find her, we spoke to Kimmie Compton, who told us she thought she saw Fiona going upstairs. The front desk called Fiona’s room for us and got her permission for us to visit her in the seating alcove near the second-floor elevators.
“What’s this about?” Fiona asked when we essentially surrounded her.
In the elevator on the way up to Fiona’s room, we’d elected Mark as our spokesperson. Now he said, “Fiona, I’m Mark Thompson. I’m a special investigator.”
He didn’t tell her he wasn’t with the police. Of course, he didn’t tell her that he
was.
He merely let her draw her own conclusions. Besides, Mark was special . . . particularly to Myra.
“I’d like to ask you a few questions about Thursday’s class,” Mark continued.
“I’ve already told the police everything I could remember,” Fiona said.
“I know you have,” he said gently. “But now that
the initial shock has worn off, I’m hoping that your going over everything one more time might help us to uncover some little clue we’ve missed. Would you mind doing that for me?”
“Of course not.” Fiona visibly relaxed.
Man, Mark was good.
“Thank you so much,” he said, taking a notepad and pen from his jacket pocket. “Fiona, did Chef Richards seem distracted in any way before class began Thursday morning?”
“No. He appeared fine,” she said.
“Had he been troubled about anything in the days leading up to his visit to Brea Ridge . . . or couldn’t you tell?” Mark asked.
“Oh, I could always tell when something was bothering Jordan,” she said. “But he was fine. Everything was perfectly normal.”
“So the two of you had a close working relationship,” Mark said. “You talked with each other if there was something upsetting either of you.”
“That’s right,” said Fiona. “He came across as abrasive—and he could be on occasion—but, overall, he was a good person.”
“His former spouse has indicated that Chef Richards had a drinking problem and was abusive to her. Were you aware of that?”
Fiona pressed her mouth into a rigid line. “Lily Richards is a liar. Jordan did
not
have a drinking problem. He might’ve been a drinker when he was married to her, but who could blame him? She ran
through money like there was no tomorrow, and she was a horrible flirt. Jordan was better to be rid of her.”
Fiona’s description didn’t jibe with my initial impression of Lily Richards, but I remained silent. Better to let Mark do his job.
“Did you realize that Ms. Richards is here in Brea Ridge?” Mark asked. “She came here to the cake show to ask questions about what happened to her former husband. Since she identified the body, I’m assuming she was still his legal contact. Do you know whether or not she stands to profit financially from Chef Richards’s death?”
Fiona’s eyes widened. “I’ll bet she does! That gold digger!” She got up and began to pace. “Do you think she might’ve murdered Jordan herself . . . to get his money?”
“Right now, I’m only fact gathering,” said Mark. “I don’t have enough evidence to go making accusations.”
“What’re
they
doing here?” she asked, nodding toward Pauline and me.
“Our fingerprints were on the cake stand that was used to hit Chef Richards,” I said. “Pauline and I are trying to help point the police in the right direction, now that we’ve determined
why
both our fingerprints were on the stand.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think my cake stand spun well enough, and I traded it for Daphne’s,” said Pauline.
“But I certainly didn’t hang around and clobber Chef Richards with it.”
“Neither did I.” I frowned slightly. “Isn’t there a security camera in the kitchen?”
“No,” said Ben. “I’ve spoken with the police about that. There are cameras in the ballrooms, in the restaurant, and in the hallways, but not in the kitchen.”
“The killer must have worn gloves,” Mark said to Fiona. “Did you notice any of the students wearing gloves?”
She shook her head. “Some of us prefer gloves all the time, and some of us don’t. I wear gloves, even when I’m not working with something particularly messy, because I feel it’s more hygienic. But I don’t typically notice who is and who isn’t wearing them.” She sat back down. “Just wearing gloves doesn’t make the killer one of the Australian string work students, though. . . . It doesn’t even make him—or
her
—a cake decorator. Anyone could’ve put on a pair of latex gloves from the box in the kitchen before killing Jordan.” Her eyes narrowed. “Are you positive Lily Richards didn’t arrive in Brea Ridge until last night?”
“No,” said Mark. “I’m simply going on what I was told. But you can bet I’ll look into it.”