Fudging the Books (27 page)

“What?”

“Now I can’t find my
bunica
’s holiday cookie recipe. Help me.” She thrust the oversized box at me. Her hands were shaking like crazy.

“Could you have misfiled it last night? You were in such a state.”

“I . . . I don’t know.” Coco gripped her hands to steady them. “Oh, Jenna.”

I thumbed through the recipes, noting what I had before. The stains, the blurry handwriting due to age. “I don’t see it.”

“I can’t lose it. It’s the first one my grandmother ever gave me.” Coco raced to a locker, spun the combination, and retrieved her purse. “I’ve got to go home. It must be there. It has to be.”

Rhett rapped on the swinging door. “Jenna? Is this a private party?”

Before I could address Coco’s fears, she fled through the doorway that led to the alley behind the shop. The door clacked shut.

Rhett pushed through the swinging door. “Was it something I said?”

“No, it’s . . .” How could I explain Coco’s passion for her family memories? “I’m glad you came.”

“I can’t stay.” Pain flickered in his eyes. “My mother called me. I have to go to Napa.” Rhett’s parents owned a renowned restaurant in Napa Valley called Intime. For quite some time, Rhett and his father had been estranged because, at the young age of eighteen, Rhett had eloped with a woman against his father’s wishes. It didn’t help that Rhett also
struck out on his own instead of following in his father’s footsteps. His father disinherited him and banned his mother from seeing him. Rhett had been communicating with her and his two sisters clandestinely.

“Is your mother ill?” I asked.

Rhett raised an eyebrow. “Why would you say that?”

“Because your mother has put off seeing you in the past and yet you’re racing up there. Why the urgency? She must be sick; otherwise—”

Rhett pulled me to him and gently tucked a hair behind my ear. “You, my sweet, are a fatalist.”

“Pragmatist.”

“Who has seen too much grief in her young life.”

I poked him in the chest and grinned. “You sound as ancient as Old Jake. My
young life
. I’ll be thirty in a few months.”

“Luckily, I believe in the French dating system. You can date a woman half your age plus seven years.”

“Hold on a sec. Does that mean you can date someone as young as twenty-four? I’m way too old for you then,” I teased.

But Rhett didn’t smile. The edges of his eyes twitched with worry.

A pang gripped my heart. “There is something wrong.”

He clasped my hands, pressed them against his chest, and kissed my forehead. “I’m not sure. I’ll call you when I find out.”

B
AILEY WAS BUZZING
with happy vibes when we returned to The Cookbook Nook. She’d had such a good time with Tito at Sweet Sensations. Being hand-fed candies can do that to a girl. I, on the other hand, was now not only worried about Coco, but about Rhett as well. I hadn’t told Bailey about either. How could I spoil her bliss?

To put my mind at ease regarding at least one of my concerns, I hurried to the telephone at the sales counter, ready to dial Coco. My cell phone in my purse jangled. I fished it out, slung the purse beneath the counter, and answered.

“Jenna.” It was Coco. My aunt would call the timing kismet. “I found the recipe. It was in the box at home.
Phew
.” She sounded breathless. “I’m sorry I ran out on you.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m thinking about taking the rest of the afternoon off.”

“Why don’t you? Your assistant looked in her element when I left the lollapalooza. Nearly all the candy and treats in the shop had been devoured or sold.”

“That’s good. Um, Jenna?”

“What?”

Coco was silent for a long time. “Nothing. Thanks again for listening.” She disconnected.

Needless to say, I felt a little uneasy about the end of our conversation, but I convinced myself she simply needed time to heal. Simon, by showing up at her shop, had thrown her a curveball.

The afternoon sped by. With Aunt Vera’s and Bailey’s help, we set up the Valentine’s window display, all of us laughing at the whimsy as well as the florid colors. Raspberry. Strawberry. Hot, hot, hot pink. The combination made me recall a campaign we’d done at Taylor & Squibb for sunscreen. Every person in the commercial was made up to look like they were beet red. You know the color—you’ve seen people at theme parks and beaches who have forgotten to apply lotion. How people can do that to their skin with all we’ve learned about sun damage is beyond me.

Aunt Vera tapped her watch. “Quitting time, girls. Go home or go on a date.”

“A date?” Bailey carped. “Yeah, right. Tito has a deadline. I won’t see him until tomorrow or maybe a week from now.”

My aunt petted Bailey’s cheek. “Now, now, don’t get sour so early in the relationship.”

“I’m not sour. This is the first time I’ve wanted to see a guy so badly. All the time. Eek!”

Was she really talking about Tito? Ah, love. Go figure.

“See you in the morning,” Aunt Vera said and left.

Bailey stretched. “I’m starved.”

“Me, too,” I said. “Let’s go to the café for a bite.”

“A
bite
? No way. If I go there, I’ll be tempted to eat way too much.” She patted her belly. “Did you see Katie’s special prix fixe menu? Beef Wellington, potatoes Dauphinoise, Caesar salad with Parmesan crisps, and triple-decker dark chocolate cake drenched in icing and whipped cream. Uh-uh. How about we go upstairs to Vines and get a simple cheese platter or veggies and dip?”

“Sure.” I checked on Tigger and Hershey, who was still acting like king of the hill, roosting in his favorite chair and shunning my kitten. Bah! I wondered when Tito would take
possession of the prickly cat. “Back soon,” I whispered to Tigger. “Hang tough.” I chucked him under the chin.

•   •   •

VINES WINE BISTRO
was active. I recognized many of the faces I’d seen at Sweet Sensations earlier. Nothing like having a glass of wine after a sugar rush. We ordered a carafe of the house cabernet sauvignon and a cheese platter, with a selection of three cheeses, from the same wavy-haired waitress who had served us over the course of the past week.

She returned in a timely fashion. Right after she filled our glasses from the carafe and headed off, the door to Vines opened and in sauntered my aunt with Deputy Appleby. They weren’t holding hands, but they moved as one, their upper arms brushing together. Oho, I thought. Perhaps my encouraging words to the deputy had helped him find the nerve to woo my aunt a second time. If he were successful, there would be one sad mustachioed hotel manager.

I said, “Bailey, look. There.” I pointed at the happy duo.

Bailey swiveled in her chair. “No wonder your aunt wanted to close shop right on time. Good for her.” Bailey’s cell phone hummed in her purse. She fished it out and glanced at the readout. Her eyes brightened. “I’ve got to take this.” She pressed Accept. “
Hola
, Tito!” I couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation, but Bailey’s cheeks flushed and her foot started to tap in a happy way. She said a lot of
uh-huh
s, and finally, “You’re on.” When she hung up, she eyed me guiltily. “Um, he finished early, so do you mind if—”

“Go.” I’d never seen her so smitten with a guy. “I’ll pay the tab.”

“I’ll fetch Hershey.”

“Do you want me to take him for the night?”

“Would you? Could you? I mean—” She pressed her lips together, obviously embarrassed to sound so enthusiastic. “I’m blathering.”

“Go.” I laughed. “Maybe spending a little time at my cottage will help the stinker warm up to Tigger.”

Bailey exited, and I signaled the waitress to bring our
check. While waiting, I spied Simon, sport coat removed, at the specials board. He erased the top two items, nudged his glasses higher on his nose with the back of his wrist, and, referring to a note card, began to write in substitutions. Gloria was not in attendance.

Off to my right, I caught sight of Neil Foodie. He wasn’t serving customers. He was doing, of all things, a card trick for a couple. What in the world? Had he given up his comedy act and was now working on a magic show? Neil fanned a deck of red-toned cards toward the woman. She tapped a card. Neil nodded and began to shuffle the cards. He pulled them apart like an accordion, but as he attempted to restack them, they fluted upward and spewed everywhere. Neil turned the color of the deck of cards and apologized profusely. He bent to retrieve the mess. While crouched, he whipped his head right and left. Was he worried that Simon would fire him on the spot? And why shouldn’t he? Neil was neglecting his duty. A number of customers tried to snag Neil’s attention.

Our waitress appeared with the bill tucked into a leatherette folder. “Don’t mind Neil,” she said, setting the tab on the table. “He can be a goofball. Have you ever seen him pull the gallium spoon trick?”

“The what?”

“Gallium spoon trick. Gallium is this super soft metal that can be molded into a spoon shape, but when the spoon heats up, it melts and disappears into a beverage. Poof!” She showed me with her hands. “Neil just about lost his job over that. His mother would have been ticked.” The waitress laughed and moved away.

I didn’t laugh. His mother? Mother’s Chocolate Bombs. Ingrid had called Neil a
Mama’s boy
. Neil had moved home. He was taking care of her. Was it possible he wanted to get into the cookbook business to please his mother? Did Neil, a semi-delinquent, steal into Sweet Sensations and swipe some of Coco’s recipe cards? Not all of her family recipes were published in one of her books yet. Did he hope to pawn them off as his own? Had his sister figured it out?

I drummed my fingertips on the table. No, Neil was a wag, a comedian. Yes, he was a thief; he’d stolen the pot of doubloons. But I doubted he was an aspiring chef, and deep down, I didn’t think he was capable of murder. He wasn’t sly enough.

Neil rose and fanned the playing cards again. Simon glanced in Neil’s direction. His face ticked with anger. He tucked the note card to which he’d been referring into his shirt pocket, rubbed his fingers against his pant leg to rid them of chalk dust, and started for Neil.

The action triggered a vivid memory. As an advertising executive, I’d had to pay attention to what we in the business referred to as
continuity
. We might shoot a commercial out of order, but the action had to remain coherent. An actor couldn’t pick up a full glass of wine in one shot and hold a half-empty glass in the next. An actress couldn’t tuck a hair over her right ear in the master shot and then slip it over her left ear in the close-up. Details mattered.

I ran my finger down the stem of my wineglass as I imagined facets of Alison’s murder that I hadn’t been able to make sense of before.

It’s in the cards
, Deputy Appleby said at the Sweet Sensations crime scene. He hadn’t been talking about recipe cards, but right now, that was what I was thinking about—specifically the mess of cards after the break-in as well as the temporarily missing cards from Coco’s private stash.

Coco’s mother and grandmother had handed down the recipe cards. Someone had filched a few, and, if my intuition was right, had replaced them. Why?

I peeked at Simon. Brushing chalk off his trousers.

That’s it
, I thought. Not the chalk. The action. Swiping his fingertips against his pant leg.

Coco’s family recipe cards were old; stains were inevitable. Would new stains be noticeable? Would a lab be able to determine whether any stains were caused by, say, peanut oil? If there was oil on the Chocolate Bombs recipe card, it wouldn’t have come from Neil’s fingertips, because he was allergic to peanuts. But it could have come from Simon’s
hand. He handled peanuts on a regular basis at Vines. Would the recipe card or cards that had magically reappeared at Coco’s shop be contaminated with not only peanut oil but also Simon’s DNA?

No, my theory was off. Simon had been with Coco at the time of the murder. Their rendezvous lasted until the wee hours of the morning. Or had it? Yes, it must have. Coco wouldn’t have lied about that. She had been over the moon to spend time with him.

I sipped the last remnants of my wine as a more sinister scenario came to me. Did Coco and Simon carry out the murder together? No, even in teetering heels, Coco walked with clod-stomping loudness. Her entrance would have awakened Alison from her nap. Simon, on the other hand, was stealthy. I recalled observing bird-watchers outside my cottage the other day as they sneaked up on the egret. Simon was a bird-watcher, trained to be quiet. He could have tiptoed to Alison and stabbed her in the back long before she roused.

Simon came across as an easygoing soul, but he had stepped out on his wife. He wasn’t good to his mother, either, according to his wife. During the argument with Gloria on the steps outside The Cookbook Nook, she had blamed Simon for letting his mother down. Gloria ranted that Simon was a
recipe for disaster
.

The conversation with the book club ladies at Sweet Sensations a few hours ago rang out in my mind. Lola mentioned that her cookbook at Foodie Publishing might be
shelved
. Gloria had chided Simon about a project being shelved. She ordered him to
un-shelve
it.

I flashed on another exchange. With Dash. A few days ago. He told me Alison was halting production on a number of books, including the Wine Country book. Was that Simon’s work? Simon’s great-grandfather owned a vineyard in the old country.

Had Simon included recipes in his manuscript? Did he run out of ideas? Did he turn to Coco for inspiration? Simon visited Coco at her workplace. Often, she said. Did he make
a play for her in order to steal one of her recipes? Did he then break into and trash Sweet Sensations so he could reinsert the cards he had pinched?

What if Simon incorporated the notes from Coco’s mother and grandmother into his own anecdotal account and claimed them as his own? Alison was smart. She would have figured out the truth. Based on her assumption, did she tell Simon she was shelving his work? Prior to her visit to Crystal Cove?

Yes, that made sense. He planned to kill her when she arrived. That was why Simon had enrolled his wife in an out-of-town conference, and that was why Simon had chosen the book club night to cement his relationship with Coco.

I remembered Alison texting someone at the book club event. The killer had erased Alison’s text messages. If they could be recovered, would they prove Simon was the killer? Did Simon, in a text message, challenge Alison to prove his guilt? Was that why she had gone back to Coco’s, pulled up the recipes on the computer, and baked cookies?

I balked, yet again, over the fact that Coco had been with Simon that night. I didn’t think she had lied about being with him. My aunt saw her enter the room at Nature’s Retreat. How could Simon have crept out unnoticed? I swiveled in my chair and glanced at Simon. He glimpsed me peeking and tilted his head as if questioning my interest. Quickly I plucked a credit card from my purse, popped it inside the leatherette folder without looking at the charge, and waved the folder.

Smooth, Jenna
.

Simon winked at me, acknowledging my request. He pressed a hand at the arch of the hostess’s back and gestured toward me with his chin, after which he grabbed his sport coat from a hook and shrugged into it. He grabbed a bottle of wine from a slot by the bar and waggled it at the hostess. “I’m putting this baby in safekeeping.”

The hostess nodded, and Simon exited the bistro. His departure seemed hasty. Where was he off to? If he realized what I’d figured out, was Coco in danger? She was his alibi.

I thought about calling Cinnamon, but what if I was
wrong? What if Simon wasn’t the killer? Cinnamon had been pretty curt with me at the end of our last conversation. I yanked my cell phone from my purse and dialed Coco’s number instead.