Maddie's Recipe Of Mysteries (A Rockcrest Cove Cozy Mystery Book 1) (4 page)

The three of them continued to discuss the relationship that Emma and Evan had secretly held over the last few years and wondered what else about her they didn’t know.

It was well into the evening before the three of them broke up and went their separate ways.

“Need a ride home, Gran?” Bailey asked.

“No, dear. I’m going to stay behind and do a little more cleaning up. I need to get my store back in order so I can reopen.”

“Gran, why don’t you hire a service to do that? They can come in here and have it all done in a day. It’ll be worth the investment.”

Madeline laughed at her granddaughter. “What are you going to be? A business lawyer?”

Bailey laughed too. “No, it’s just that I don’t like to see you so stressed out about things. I know how much this store means to you.”

“That’s why doing it myself is so therapeutic,” Madeline answered.

“When I’m stressed, I come here and work things out while I’m baking. I need to do this myself. It’s my stress reliever.”

“All right, Gran. Just don’t stay here too late.”

“I won’t. Astoria and I will be home before you know it.”

“I have classes tomorrow, but I can come and give you a hand afterward.”

“I’d like that,” Madeline agreed. “Now go on home, I have a lot of work to do.”

“Make sure you lock the door behind me.”

“I will.” The two walked to the door, arms around each other. Bailey gave her gran a long hard look.

“Are you sure you’re ok?”

She asked as she lovingly pushed a stray strand of hair away from her face.

“I’m fine,” Madeline assured her. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She watched as Bailey left the building and walked across the street to where her car was parked. As soon as everyone left, Astoria came out of her usual hiding place and rubbed up against Maddie’s leg. She picked her up and gave her a gentle hug.

“Ah, Astoria,” She said as she looked the cat in the face.

“You and I will have some investigating to do tonight. It seems like something fishy is going on at the bakery across town.”

Maddie busied herself around the store for another half an hour or so just to make sure that neither Bailey nor Kyle decided to come back and check up on her. Once she knew she had waited long enough, she packed Astoria in her usual bag, grabbed her keys, and headed home.

As soon as she arrived home, she headed for the garage. She had an old clunker of a car that she hardly drove. She didn’t need to, Rockcrest Cove was a pretty small town and you could get to just about any place you wanted on foot in less than 30 minutes, so cars were only for when the weather was pretty bad. She looked up the address to Evan’s bakery across town and easily found the directions on her home computer. She grabbed a couple of pieces of left over fried chicken from the fridge and gave a piece to Astoria and headed for the car.

She drove by Evan’s bakery and observed quite a flow of business coming in and out. Some of her old customers she hadn’t seen in a while had obviously switched loyalties. Madeline parked her car about half a block away and just sat and watched. She knew what she needed to find out would be in that bakery. While she didn’t know what she was looking for, she knew if she sat there long enough, she’d know it when she saw it.

Chapter Five

The bakery was finally open and as busy as ever. Madeline had been rushing about dealing with customers from the moment the doors had opened. It seemed that the news of the previous week’s excitement had accomplished just the opposite: if anyone had been trying to sabotage her business, it had certainly backfired.

At the moment Madeline was in her kitchen floating from one station to another, working feverishly to fill an unusually large order for the Wilhelm Group Foundation. While the order was the biggest she had ever had for her bakery, it was certainly not something she couldn’t handle. Madeline knew her recipes by heart and could easily adapt them to larger orders whenever needed.

The flow of morning customers had finally begun to slow down to a trickle, so she left Rita and Sandra to handle the few customers that came in so she could give her full attention to the order. She was relieved to be in the kitchen alone. That was when she could do her best thinking.

She barely heard the chime that alerted them that a new customer had walked in. She didn’t need to, because she knew that the girls were completely capable of handling the job on their own. So she was completely startled when she heard Bailey call to her as she walked into the kitchen to greet her.

“Oh! My goodness.”

Madeline reacted by putting her hand on her throat.

“My girl, you scared me out of ten years’ growth!” she laughed.

They gave each other air kisses, a custom they had when Madeline was baking. That way she didn’t have to stop to wash her hands before she got back to work.

“Bailey, what are you doing here? Don’t you have classes today?”

“No, Gran. We’re off for the holiday.”

Madeline looked up briefly from her mixing. “Oh? Holiday?”

She was trying to run the calendar through her head. What day was it? She was having a hard time keeping track of all the events that were happening. It was all becoming a blur.

“Oh. Ok,” she finally said.

She needed to get focused on filling her order. She had lost a lot of business while her store was closed and she couldn’t afford to lose any more.

“So, what brings you by then,” she said, slapping her hands together, sending a cloud of flour up into the air.

Bailey walked around the stainless steel counter so that she was facing her gran. “I had an idea,” she said with a mischievous look on her face.

Maddie gave her an inquisitive look, but the rest of her body continued to work. She said nothing, but it was apparent she was waiting for more information.

“I thought that after you closed for the day”—

Bailey watched her gran to see if there was any reaction—

“The three of us, me, you, and Kyle, could try to reenact what happened the night of the murder.”

Maddie’s hands paused for half a second while she thought about the idea.

“Yeah, but we don’t know what happened.”

Bailey continued on, not letting Maddie’s comment sway her. “I know. But, I’ve been doing a lot of research online. I’ve found out a lot about Emma and possible motives people may have for killing her. I thought we could play some of these out, here at the bakery.”

“Hmmm,” Maddie said. “I didn’t know you’d been that busy. I thought you were focusing on your studies.”

“Trust me, Gran, this fits right in with my studies.” Bailey looked hopefully at her Gran.

“What d’you say? Want to give it a try?”

Maddie thought about it for a moment.

“What the hell,” she said. “Can’t hurt.”

She began filling a pastry bag with some of her famous frosting and expertly piped her unique designs onto her freshly baked pastries. Bailey looked on with admiration; she couldn’t fathom how she could be so artistic. The intricate little designs she made without the aid of a mold or a picture always amazed her. She reached into the empty frosting bowl and ran her finger along the rim and stuck it in her mouth, relishing its sweetness.

Maddie quickly reached out and slapped her hand, a practice she had been doing since Bailey was a small child.

“Don’t do that,” she chastised.

“Oh, Gran. You’re already done with it,” Bailey argued playfully. “You’re just going to wash it all down the drain.”

“Oh hush,” Maddie commented and continued decorating her pastries.

“So, what time should I come back, Gran?”

“What?” Maddie had already turned her attention back to her baking.

“What time tonight should I come back?” Bailey asked again. “For the reenactments,” she added.

“Oh. I think we’ll close around five today.”

“Kinda late, isn’t it, Gran?”

“Yes, it is,” she agreed. “I have a lot of work to catch up on.”

“Oh, ok. I’ll call Kyle to let him know.”

Maddie didn’t respond, and Bailey knew that was her cue to leave. It was always difficult to get her gran’s attention when she was in the kitchen. It was the only place where she could totally zone out. She gave her gran an air kiss and left the room just as silently as she had arrived.

That evening, just as the sun was beginning to set, Madeline, Bailey, and Kyle sat in the office looking over Bailey’s notes. The information Bailey had collected over the last couple of days was impressive.

As Kyle finished reading the last page of Bailey’s notes, he looked up.

“Wow! The information you’ve uncovered is quite detailed,” He commented.

“Are you sure your sources are reliable?”

“Well, she’s certainly had a long list of enemies. Gran is not the only one who had a gripe with Emma.”

“Looks like it. But how do you propose we figure all this out?”

“Well, I know she slept around, but I didn’t know how far she’d go,” Maddie said as she finished reading over the notes.

“Well, none of it is proof,” Kyle added. “It’s all circumstantial until we get some hard evidence.”

“Of course,” Bailey agreed, “but we have to start somewhere. Someone was angry enough to kill her. Maybe it’s someone on this list.”

“Ok. Where do you think we should start?” Kyle asked, not really believing that the reenactments would lead anywhere.

“Well, I think we should start with this one.” She reached over and grabbed an index card off the table.

“I call this one,” she said playfully, “Emma and the Mayor.” She teasingly waved the card in front of Kyle.

Kyle grabbed the card from her. “Really?” He looked intrigued.

Madeline got up from her seat. “Why don’t you two get started? I need to finish up a few things in the kitchen first.”

“Oh, Gran. We need you,” Bailey whined.

“I’ll join you later,” Madeline assured her. “But I need to finish up an order in the kitchen before I close up for the night.”

“Can’t you get the girls to do that?”

“I sent the girls home already. They’d been here since five this morning.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Listen. If you let me do this, I’ll be all yours for the rest of the evening.”

“But I thought I could play the part of the different people that hate Emma. I think that’d be fun, and you could play Emma.”

“I will, as soon as I finish my work. I don’t want to be here too late after what happened.”

Bailey couldn’t argue with that point. Within minutes, the sound of scuffling noises coming from the kitchen somehow soothed Bailey and gave her the assurance that her gran was in fact ok. She knew that when she was stressed she always buried herself in the kitchen, baking all sorts of delectable goodies. It was a wonder that Bailey didn’t grow up with more of a cushion around her middle than she already had. She enjoyed eating her gran’s treats just as much as she knew her gran enjoyed baking them.

She turned and gave Kyle a quiet look.

“Well, I guess that’s it,” Kyle said. “We might as well call it a night.”

“Why?” Bailey asked innocently. “We can still do a little reenactment with just you and me.”

“How?” Kyle asked. “Your gran is in the kitchen and there’s no one else here.”

Bailey leaned across the desk, a little closer to Kyle than usual. She threw him a coquettish look and gave him an innocent little school-girl pout.

“You’re here.”

“Well, yeah, but.”

“You can play Emma.”

Kyle stared at her for half a beat while the thought registered in his mind. His hands flew up in front of him as if to ward off a threat.

“Oh, no,” he said, and began backing up toward the door.”

“Oh come on, Kyle. It could be fun.”

“For who?” he asked. “Certainly not me.”

“Why not?” Bailey persisted. She had a very persuasive way about her.

“No,” he protested again, more firmly this time. “Absolutely not.”

“Kyle. Don’t you want to figure out who the murderer is? Get my gran off the hook?” She tried another flirtatious approach.

“Of course,” he defended. “But how is my playing a woman going to do that?”

“You’re not playing the woman,” she said. “You’re playing the victim.”

“Oh, my mistake,” he countered.

“What’s wrong with you?” she demanded, switching characters again.

Kyle looked genuinely perplexed and confused. He’d never seen Bailey switch personas like that before. He gave a little half smile. She was turning out to be more interesting than he had thought.

In the kitchen, Madeline was deep in thought, thinking about all the information Bailey had found out about Emma. She was surprised by what she had learned, but not completely. Knowing Emma as long as she had, she always knew that there was something beneath the surface. Still, even knowing the uglier side of the woman, she would have never wished anything bad on her; certainly not this. She looked up at the back door of the shop and wondered once again, who was the real killer? She wanted to find the murderer as much for Emma as she did for herself.

Across the hall, she could hear Bailey and Kyle laughing as they were trying to role play what could have happened on that dreadful night. She felt a little guilty about the laughter, but at the same time she realized that none of them had laughed since that horrible day, and it felt good to relieve some of the tensions that had built up since then. She decided to bake some cupcakes to keep the evening light. No one could resist her cupcakes, she thought, reaching down for her special cupcake tins.

After lining them up on the counter, she started rooting around in the cabinets for her ingredients. As was her usual habit while she worked, she began talking to herself.

“Ok. Now. I have the flour, sugar, and butter, lemon extract…let’s see. Oh, I need the baking powder.”

She reached up and grabbed it. “Oh, the eggs.” She went into the large walk-in refrigerator and came out with eggs, milk, and.”

“Now,” she said, “for my secret ingredient.”

She grabbed a footstool and pulled it up in front of the tall shelving unit, climbed on top, and began to reach for her special powder. No one knew what the combination of ingredients was that she always included in her recipes. She hadn’t even told Bailey what she put in them, although Bailey never really cared. She was just happy to have them whenever she wanted them.