Plum Deadly (7 page)

Maggie bit her tongue to keep from reacting. Generous? It was amazing.

The property was older and hadn’t been maintained. The amount of money he mentioned could probably pay for all five shops in the area
and
the land they were on. She admitted she didn’t know anything about property values in Durham, but she could find out.

She glanced at Albert Mann, who stood close to her like a large black shadow, waiting for her answer.

She recalled the medical office building deal he was after. No doubt this was a lowball offer, even though it seemed great. He wanted to make as much profit as he could.

Not that it mattered.

She was sure she wouldn’t be able to talk Aunt Clara into selling the pie shop unless she physically couldn’t get there every day. It was her life. Albert Mann would go on to something else. Her aunt wouldn’t. That made the property priceless.

Still, it was a lot of money. The house could be repaired and maintained for many years, if it was properly invested.
Aunt Clara wouldn’t have to worry about anything again. She could make pies for the library bake sale. Maggie’s banking mind was already creating a portfolio for her aunt that would double the money in no time.

Despite all of that commonsense theory, she said no. “We’re not interested. My aunt loves this place. You can’t put a price on how much it means to her. It’s a good offer, but not to give up something that’s important to her.”

He looked at her shrewdly. “You drive a hard bargain. I mean to have this land. Let me see what I can do to sweeten the pot.” He gave her his card. “I’ll let you know.”

Maggie watched him walk away. He carefully avoided any of the trash and potholes in the old alley.

That he might be willing to pay more for the pie shop didn’t surprise her. She’d thought he was probably holding back. How valuable could the property be? Even though the shop was run down, it didn’t mean the land wasn’t worth millions.

She needed to have a look at the real estate market. No doubt the land closest to the university was worth more. Just the fact that Albert Mann wanted to build a medical office here made the price go up.

Two women in crime scene coveralls walked past her into the pie shop. The police were still going over everything. She could see them inside taking samples of pie and everything else that had been for sale. Cans of soda were emptied and discarded. Bags of flour samples were taken and the rest thrown away.

She hoped it didn’t take weeks to figure out what had killed Lou—and that whatever it was, wasn’t in the pie shop.
Aunt Clara might not have any choice but to take Mann’s offer. Between being shut down and all of her food investment being destroyed, it might be bad enough to keep Pie in the Sky closed forever.

Maggie thought about Lou again on her way back to the house. It was too late to save him. She had to think how she could save herself and Aunt Clara. She had to find some answers for both the bank theft and Lou’s death. She couldn’t wait until the police showed up at her door with an arrest warrant.

She hadn’t brought much information with her. There was a flash drive of bank policy that had escaped from New York. It had been on her key chain. She was going to have to rely mostly on her memory and what she could find about the bank and its senior staff on the Internet.

Someone far up on the ladder would’ve handled this differently. That sort of person wouldn’t even know her name. This had to be someone only a rung or two above Lou. Probably someone he’d reported to, or had been involved with on a project.

Maggie got home and called Aunt Clara’s name. The reporters were gone from the front stairs. Her aunt was gone too. Maybe she was still looking up pie recipes at the library.

Exhausted from her lack of sleep the night before but determined to begin the quest to clear her name, Maggie got out her laptop. She was still working on it when she heard her aunt come home. Maggie didn’t look up as she continued looking through the bank information on her flash drive.

Aunt Clara watched her for a few minutes, standing
close beside her. She sighed heavily several times to get her attention.

Maggie looked up from the bank files after saving a few likely suspects in a list she could give to the police. She wasn’t sure if the Durham police could check these out. They might have to give the names to the police in New York.

Aunt Clara sighed heavily again.

“Find any good recipes at the library?” she finally asked her aunt.

“Yes. And I also saw that obnoxious Lenora Rhyne. She was there with her daughter. It seems they’re going into business together, opening one of those consignment places. She likes to rub it in that I don’t have a daughter. It’s annoying.”

“I’m sure it is,” Maggie said absently, her mind still on her suspect list.

“There was also a very nice man there who was interested in pies.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Now that we’re going to run the pie shop together, it changes everything. I’d like to make you half owner of Pie in the Sky.”

That got Maggie’s full attention. She closed her laptop. “Why? It’s okay the way it is, isn’t it?”

Her aunt sat on one of the damask occasional chairs. “I’d feel better about it. That way, you get half of the profits and make half of the decisions. It would be nice to know someone else is helping shoulder that burden. Like it was when your uncle was alive.”

Maggie took her aunt’s cool, soft hand in hers. “You don’t have to do that to have me work with you, Aunt Clara. I don’t think I deserve a partnership yet.”

“Well, I agree, at least not until I show you the piecrust recipe. But that won’t take long. I’ve already contacted my lawyer. He’ll have the papers drawn up right away.” Aunt Clara smiled and hugged her. “I have a very good feeling about this.”

Maggie wished she could say the same. She hated to think that her aunt felt like she had to resort to this to make her more responsible. “All right. If it makes you feel better, that’s fine. Maybe we could meet Lenora Rhyne and her daughter for lunch one day and you could rub our partnership in her face.”

Aunt Clara giggled. “Not a bad idea. What do you say to lunch and some piecrust making?”

Maggie groaned slightly. She knew she had to do this. It was a small thing, but it was important to her aunt. Surely she could figure it out. She’d watched Aunt Clara make pie hundreds of times. Her aunt always paid more attention to their conversations than to her crust making, her fingers knowing exactly what to do.

Maybe she wasn’t the world’s greatest cook, Maggie thought, but she could learn this for Aunt Clara.

They had a light lunch of salad and some chicken. After cleaning off the table, Aunt Clara got out all her crust-making utensils.

“All of these things belonged to my mother,” she explained to Maggie. “Your mother and I learned to make
piecrust when we were children. I’m sorry I didn’t carry on that tradition. You should have known how to do this a long time ago.”

“Maybe that would’ve helped.” Maggie picked up the brown ceramic bowl. “I’m afraid I’m not much of a cook. I hope you’re not too disappointed. I’ve been putting this off because I didn’t want you to know.”

“Don’t be silly,” Aunt Clara scolded in a voice Maggie remembered from her childhood when she’d lied or stayed out too late. “Of course you can cook. You haven’t really tried is all.”

Maggie smiled nervously and listened to what her aunt had to say.

“Now, the biggest secret of making the perfect piecrust every time is to make sure that everything is ice cold. That makes the crust flaky instead of chewy. You chill your bowl as well.”

Clara put on her apron and measured two cups of flour into the bowl she took out of the refrigerator. “After you get the flour in the bowl, you add one cup of chilled shortening to it. Then add your one and a half teaspoons of salt in there too.”

Maggie put on an apron and made mental notes, knowing there was sure to be a test later when Aunt Clara wanted her to make her own piecrust.

“Now you want to work in the shortening quickly, with a light hand. Our family has always prided itself on not using a pastry blender or any other implement to cut in the shortening. Nothing can take the place of the human hand, you see.”

It looked easy enough, Maggie thought. Maybe she could do it.

“Most people work the shortening in until the particles are about the size of peas.” Aunt Clara continued rubbing the flour and shortening lightly using her fingertips. “But the secret to really good piecrust is that the particles are even smaller than peas. Just be patient and keep working your dough. Not too much, keep it light.”

“What size would you say those particles should be?” Maggie asked her so she’d know later.

“You remember that time you got in trouble for accidentally shooting little David Walker next door with his BB gun?”

Maggie smiled at that memory despite the amount of trouble she’d been in at the time. Aunt Clara and Uncle Fred had told her not to spend time with David when he had the gun. He’d threatened to use it on her and Maggie had taken it from him. It had fired accidentally during that transfer. David had to have a BB taken out of his arm.

“Sure. So, BB size?”

“Exactly.” Aunt Clara tipped the bowl toward Maggie to make sure she saw the size. “This part is very important.”

“Whatever happened to David?” Maggie asked, thinking about the boy next door again.

“I think he went into the navy. He might be out now. Maybe he’s not married.”

Maggie smiled. “I thought you liked Ryan.”

“I do. He seems like a very nice man. There’s no reason you can’t shop around, right?”

That almost made Maggie burst out laughing.

Next, Aunt Clara took some cold water out of the refrigerator. “It has to be as cold as it can be to get the proper consistency.”

She began sprinkling the cold water, only one tablespoon at a time, mixing it with her fingers. When the particles were moistened enough, they began to stick together.

“Don’t use any more water than you have to and mix quickly so the crust bakes up flaky instead of tough. Cover the dough. I always use a clean tea towel, even at the shop. Then we have to let it chill for at least thirty minutes before we roll it out.”

“That doesn’t seem too bad,” Maggie said. “I thought it would be harder.”

“It’s not hard at all.” Aunt Clara put the bowl back into the refrigerator. “You have to remember the measurements and keep everything cold. Then mix with your fingers and you’ve got it.”

“Okay.”

“Of course, there’s the rolling part, and baking is important too,” Aunt Clara said. “You’ll get it. The women in our family always do.”

“So what’s your favorite kind of pie?”

Aunt Clara thought a minute. “It was always coconut custard.”

Maggie thought about the pie menu at the shop, which she’d memorized. “There’s no coconut custard on the menu. Why don’t you make that kind?”

Tears welled in her aunt’s eyes. “Because I can’t make it like your mother could. No one ever has. I gave up trying a
long time ago. Some foods are better because of the people who make them. It’s more than a recipe. It’s love.”

Maggie hugged her aunt. She’d barely been four when her parents had been killed. “I wish I could remember her. What was her favorite kind?”

“It was my deep-dish cherry pie. Delia loved cherry pie. That was her favorite. I stopped making it when she died. I couldn’t do it anymore. It was too painful to think about her.”

The two women stood in their tight embrace for a few minutes. There was still so much they didn’t know or understand about each other.

Aunt Clara sniffed and pulled a hankie from the pocket in her spring-green apron. “While we’re waiting, I was thinking about looking upstairs in the attic for some of your mother’s old clothes. I think the two of you were about the same size. It would be better than you borrowing Fred’s old things. Let’s take a look, shall we?”

They went up the long stairs that led from the kitchen into the attic. The peculiar smell of old house and musty clothes permeated the area. Aunt Clara switched on the light as they went up.

Maggie hadn’t been in the attic since she’d left home to go to New York. She’d spent many hours up here dreaming when she was a kid. It seemed like all of her dreams had to do with getting away from this place. She’d always felt there was something better waiting for her, something for her to find.

Now that she’d found it—for better or worse—she wasn’t
sure what she was thinking so many years ago. She wished in many ways that she’d never left Durham. She used to make fun of people who stayed home and never longed for anything else. Not anymore.

They spent the next hour looking through chests of clothes, some Aunt Clara’s and Uncle Fred’s, others belonging to her mother. There were plenty of hats too—some outrageous ones that Aunt Clara said had belonged to Maggie’s grandmother. Others were more conservative.

Maggie ended up taking boxes full of her mother’s clothes and some hats down the long stairs from the attic. She wasn’t sure if she’d wear all of them or not, but it would be interesting looking at them.

Most of them were classic and could be worn as easily now as thirty years ago. It was fun thinking about her mother and her wearing the same size. Her mother had only been a few years older than Maggie when she’d died.

“That was an excellent shopping trip, don’t you think?” Aunt Clara asked with a smile. She was the first one down. When she opened the door into the kitchen, she gasped. “Oh dear. Maggie, I think someone was here while we were in the attic.”