1 Nothing Bundt Murder (11 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY
FOUR

I went back to the casita and took a nice hot bath. Then I combed out my wet hair and blew it dry so that it was shiny and bouncy and soft to the touch. Just in case anyone planned to touch it.

I put my makeup on carefully, soft brown eye shadow, black eyeliner, mascara and pale pink lip gloss. Then I went to the closet to survey my choices.

It felt like ages since I’d put on anything but work clothes or jeans, so I pulled out the one semi-nice outfit I’d brought out with me. It was a pretty, body-hugging, sleeveless black dress that landed just above the knee and had a flattering V neck top. I put that on along with the deep blue wrap that Nana had knit for my birthday, which I threw over my shoulders.

There. All ready.

I looked at my phone but realized I still had half an hour to kill before my date with Casey
. In the meantime I planned to put down on paper, my immediate impressions of what had happened with Doug. Or on computer anyway.

Unfortunately Cupcake kept trying to jump into my lap and I feared that her long, sharp nails would demolish my one nice dress. I tried to shoo her away but she wouldn’t give up, so I quickly grabbed my big comfy sweater and put it on over my dress. Then I pulled her on my lap and petted her as I started typing.

Writing about the crazy look in Doug’s eyes made me shudder. It was something I didn’t think I would ever forget. Coming that close to a crazed killer.

The odd thing was, I didn’t think it was an act either. He really did seem to sincerely believe that Casey was the killer. Which was so odd. Casey was the last person who would kill Dahlia. Or kill anyone for that matter. He wasn’t even a lying cheater
. He was just a handsome, sweet, kind, gorgeous, lifesaving man…

I sat smiling off into space for a full minute, then I forced myself to get back to work.

Wondering what the odd thing was that Birdie had found about the bakery footage, I decided to watch it again. After all, I had promised Doug I’d look at it and it made sense to follow through, if only for the sake of my article.

Clicking on the surveillance footage file, I found the video from that night in Babette’s kitchen. Then I hit ‘play’ and the
Bundt Baby
kitchen appeared on screen.

Babette was in the store, mixing up her gluten-free cake and pouring it into the mold. Then she cocked her head, listening, as though hearing something outside. She walked out of the store.

I watched, still entranced, even though I’d seen the footage several times before. Something about it was still compelling. And disturbing. It was almost as though you could reach into the screen and stop Doug from doing it. Stop him from committing the crime.

The killer came in, wearing the black hoodie, his gloved hands in his pockets, his head down, as he nervously looked around.
He walked over to the Bundt mold that Babette had put on the counter and looked at it. Then he looked at the bowl of frosting. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the bottle and emptied it in. Then he mixed it with the spatula, put the bottle into a cabinet and turned to go.

He was about to walk back out when he stopped and listened. He must have heard something outside, because he ducked back behind some baker’s racks. As he did, he stood near the double stacked convection oven.

I squinted at the screen closely. If there was any time the killer’s face would have been reflected in the oven’s glass, it was then. But try as I might, I couldn’t see anything clearly. I even zoomed in on the image but still there was no reflection.

So much for Doug’s theory.

I let the tape play on anyway. The killer waited, frozen, except for his hand which was nervously scratching his wrist. To me that meant it had to be Doug. After all, he was the one with the allergies. He was always scratching himself in someplace or other.

But then I frowned and backtracked to watch that part again. There was something about how he was scratching his wris
t that reminded me of something—but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was. As I watched, I thought that it might not have been scratching exactly. It was possible he was just touching it…

I finished the tape feeling that something was trying to
break through into my conscious mind but try as I might, I still could not figure out what it was.

Then it hit me.

Earlier that day when I’d been hiding from Doug, he’d been waving the knife around in his right hand. But here on the tape, the poisoner pulled the bottle out of his hoodie pocket with his left hand. He emptied it into the frosting with his left hand. Which would seem to imply that the killer was left-handed.

But Doug was definitely right-handed—or least he seemed to be today.

I sat back in my chair, frowning. This was something I should probably tell the police. Maybe they had the wrong person in custody after all. Was it possible?

Maybe the killer really was someone else. Someone who was left-handed. Someone like…

No. That was ridiculous. It couldn’t be Casey.

A lot of people were left handed. Including me. And Babette. Even Birdie! Just because Casey was a leftie didn’t mean anything.

Then it hit me. Casey’s tattoo, the one on his right wrist that he was trying to hide that time in the car. He’d been sort of touching his wrist in that same nervous fashion as the poisoner on the film.

I replayed the tape again, my heart pounding in my ears, as all the things that Doug had said earlier in the evening came back to me
. “Could Doug be right?” I whispered aloud to myself, shaking my head, dumbstruck.

“Right about what?”

The response came from behind me.

I whipped my head around.

Casey.

He
was standing near the back door, looking handsome and dapper in a pair of blue jeans, black tee shirt and casual black linen jacket. His chestnut hair looked freshly washed and his dazzling white teeth and green eyes stood out against his tanned skin.

There was no doubt about it, he was handsome. Deadly handsome.

He smiled and came towards me.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

“Casey! What are you doing here?” I was trying to keep my voice even and natural-sounding, even though I could barely think. I was scared to death.

“I believe we had a date,” he said, looking at hi
s watch then back at me. “I knocked on the front door but obviously you didn’t hear me. So I came around back.”

He came up behind me and started rubbing my shoulders. “You don’t look happy to see me,” he said, in a soothing voice. Then he noticed what was on my computer screen. “Now what’s all this? Don’t tell me you’re starting to believe Doug’s accusations?”

“No…no of course not,” I said, slamming the laptop shut. “I was just watching it for my magazine piece. I must have lost track of time.”

I quickly shoved the laptop away and stood up. “I guess we should get out of here, right? Time for dinner. Don’t want to be late this time.”

He frowned at me, as though sensing something off in my behavior.

I tried to smile but don’t think I succeeded very well
, so I quickly grabbed my keys and purse, ready to leave.

“Actually,” Case
y said, leading me over to the dining table. “I brought dinner with me. I hope you don’t mind.”

He sat me down at the dining table and snapped his fingers. A tuxedoed waiter came in and with graceful efficiency, placed a candelabra on the table along with two place-settings of fine china and silver as well as several plates of food from Madrilenos
.

“Oh,” I said, looking at the trays of food being carried in. It smelled delicious, but for maybe the second time in my life, I wasn’t hungry.

I frantically tried to think of some excuse to leave, but my mind wouldn’t cooperate. All I could come up with was that I had another date—but of course Casey would know that wasn’t true.

The waiter set our food out, poured our champagne, then turned to Casey stiffly. “Anything else sir?” he asked formally.

“No,” Casey nodded. “Thank you, Arturo. You can go.”

The waiter began walking out.

“Wait!” I called, frantically. I had to keep him there. I couldn’t be alone with a killer.

He turned, startled.

“I dropped my fork,” I said, quickly knocking it on to the floor with a loud clatter.

The waiter cocked an eyebrow, then nodded and came back over. He quickly replaced the  old fork with a new one and then again began walking out
.

Casey was studying me in a way I would normally find sexy, but this was something else altogether. 

“I can’t do this!” I said, standing up. “I just can’t.”

“Why not?” Casey asked looking at me
warily.

“Because…”

Think. Think!
I told my brain. But it refused.

“Because…”

And just then I was saved by the bell.

I ran to the phone and saw Babette’s number on the caller ID.

“Babette!” I screamed breathlessly into the phone as I held it up to my ear. “I was waiting for your call. What time can you be here?”

“What? Did we have plans?” she asked in a surprised tone. “I was just calling to make sure you’re okay. I feel so terrible about what happened with Doug and I wanted to see how you were.”

“No. absolutely not!” I said, smiling stiffly and waving at Casey who was watching me closely. Thankfully he could only hear my side of the conversation and not Babette’s
. “It’s fine!” I said loudly to her. “I understand that tonight…now…is the only time we can do this interview. So come on over, I’m home.”

And before she could say anything else, I hung up the phone.

Casey frowning, held his steak knife in one hand and touched the sharp blade with the other. I decided I wouldn’t get too close to him, or that knife, so I moseyed casually to the door as I talked.

“I’m so sorry, Casey but this is what I was trying to tell you. I have to do that interview with Babette tonight. That’s the only time she can do it, after all. So…maybe we can do dinner another night.”

I grabbed his jacket off the hook and held it out to him. He stood, looking at it and then at me.

“What’s going on?” he said, studying me, his brow furrowed in concern. Or suspicion.

I swallowed hard. He looked so handsome, so sincere, there was no way he could be a killer. Could he? I’d kissed him after all. Wouldn’t I have known if I was kissing a killer?

No!
I told myself.
He’s a killer! That’s so much worse than a cheat!

“You really better go,” I told him sadly. “I just…I really need to do this interview.”

He frowned, studying me, but he didn’t move.

Then, as if an answer to my prayers, Babbette’s car lights flashed across the window and we heard the sound of her engine turning off.

Casey got up and grabbed his coat out of my hands. “Fine,” he said. “Have a good night.” Then he shook his head and walked out.

As soon as he left, I ran to get my phone and with shaking hands, tried to dial Detective
Sanders. I had to call and tell him what I’d figured out. But just as I was about to press ‘send’ Babette knocked at the door.

“Babette!” I flung the door open and put the phone in my pocket. I really needed to talk to her first. What if my paranoia and lack of sleep was making me overreact? What if Casey was totally innocent and I’d just kicked him out of my house in the rudest possible manner?

No wonder my love life was in such a shambles.

CHAPTER
TWENTY SIX

Babette stepped inside, looking frazzled and out of breath. She studied me and then looked around worriedly. “Are you okay? What happened? I was so worried. I didn’t know whether to call the police or to just come myself. But I was nearby, on the way home from the store so I just came by.”

“I’m fine, now,” I said,
reaching to close the behind her and checking again to make sure Casey was nowhere around. He wasn’t, thank goodness.

I led the way into the dining room with Babette following behind. “Casey was here and Babette…I think he’s the killer.” I sank down onto a dining room chair and exhaled loudly.

She took the seat opposite me.

“What? Casey?” She frowned and shook her head. “No Doug is. ”

“That’s what I thought,” I said. I got up and grabbed my laptop. “But he’s not. Look. The killer is left handed.” I opened my computer and played the footage from the bakery for her. “See, the poisoner pulls the bottle out of his pocket with his left hand and puts in the frosting with his left hand too.”

Babette was leaning forward, watching the footage closely. “You’re right,” she said, surprised. “I never would have noticed that.”

She sat back and looked at me. “But maybe he just had it in his left pocket and that’s why he did it that way.”

“Maybe,” I shrugged. “But…I know it’s weird, but …earlier tonight. I just really got the sense that Doug was telling the truth. He honestly seemed too crazed to be lying.”

“Really?” Babette’s blue eyes looked huge. “Then you have to go to the police and tell them.” She was looking at me intently, winding her watch in that way she did when she was nervous. Then she stood up.

“Here let me make you some tea,” she said.

She went into the kitchen and put the hot water on, looking out at me over the counter. “What would Casey’s motive be?” she asked, watching me from the kitchen.

“The store. If he ruined your business through a poisoned cake, you’d have to sell. You’d have no choice. No chance to convince Doug to keep it open.”

She nodded. “Hmn…I suppose it could be possible,” she said, thinking about it. “But I mean, is that all you have on him? The fact that he’s left handed? After all, a lot of us are lefties, me, you, the detective…”

I shrugged and sat back, exhaling loudly. “I know
. But Doug seemed to really think it was him. And who else had a motive? To set you up or to set Doug up that way.”

The teapot started shrieking and Babette went to the stove to turn it off. Then she pulled two mugs from the cabinet and put a teabag into each of them . She added water and carried the two mugs to the table. “It would be better if you had some proof, though. Like…maybe the other bottle of Bitter Almond Oil or something. I had two of them and they never found what happened to the second one.”

I sighed and shook my head. “I have nothing like that. Unfortunately.”

She seemed to be thinking it over. “Do you know where Casey would hide it?” She sat down and steeped her teabag, gently. “If he had it and kept it?

I thought about it. “Hmn. Probably not at home. He’s living in a hotel, so there’s probably a maid that cleans every day. Maybe in that little trailer. His office is on that building site up on Maple Street. I noticed he had a safe in there.”

She nodded, thinking about it. “That makes sense,” she said
. “The whole thing could make sense. Possibly.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” I said miserably, sitting back in my chair, defeated. “I wish I’d just left it alone. I finally find a guy I like and now I have to figure out that he’s a murderer.”

She was nodding, considering me with wary eyes as she nervously wound the watch on her wrist. “You certainly are dogged,” she said, shaking her head, still winding her watch.

The watch on her right wrist
.

That watch…

I looked into her eyes and my heart froze. I gasped.

Oh no! I’d made a terrible mistake. The scratching of the wrist I saw on the film. It wasn’t Casey’s tattoo. Or Doug’s itching. It was Babette! Nervously winding her watch.

I tried to breathe but found it hard to catch my breath.

“Figured it out?” she said, staring at me.

I stared, unmoving.

“Tsk tsk, now what are we going to do with you?” She frowned. “You were never going to give up on this case were you? Not until you found the real killer…”

I swallowed hard, trying to catch my breath. “But it couldn’t be you,” I said, still unable to believe it. “You left the bakery that night when you heard the cat…and then the killer came in and…”

She looked at me scornfully. “Yes, I left the bakery. But there was no cat. I
pretended
I heard a cat and I left through the back door. It was all an act for the camera. I knew that Doug’s stuped camera was filming me the whole time.”

“But…”

She ignored my interruption.. “I left the bakery through the back door, then I changed outside and came back in dressed in Doug’s hoodie. I put the Bitter Almond oil into the cake frosting. Then went outside again, took off the hoodie and came back in for the last time dressed as myself. It was all me…”

“I can’t believe it,” I said, covering my mouth with my hand
. “I don’t even understand it. You were arrested. You could have gone to prison.”

Babette waved off the idea with a flick of her delicate hand. “I would never have let it go that far. I mean, I knew I’d be arrested. But I also knew that if I pushed you hard enough, you’d figure it out. You’d get the footage from Doug that would clear me. And if you didn’t…I would have somehow sent an anonymous note to tell the cops or you about it.” She smiled at me. “I didn’t hire an investigative reporter to work at my bakery for nothing. Especially one who can’t  even bake.”

“So that’s why you kept wanting me to go into your house to feed Cupcake?”

She nodded. “I hate cats. And all dirty needy animals. I only got one last month, when I came up with this plan. After Dahlia hired me to cater the shower. After I hired you.”

She shook her head and took another sip of her tea. “Seriously, maybe if Doug weren’t so drunk all the time he would have been more careful, but I was constantly hearing that stupid cuckoo clock chirping in our den.” She rolled her eyes contemptuously. “Doug,” she spat the name out.

“You’re such an amazing liar,” I whispered.

She shrugged off my comment.

“
I couldn’t just divorce him or I’d lose more than half of the store and wind up with nothing. While he would wind up with most of the money and with with Dahlia!” She paused and took a deep breath.

“I couldn’t just kill Doug or it would be too obvious. So this was my one opportunity to get rid of Doug and his tramp, once and for all. And to get even more money out of the
Bundt Baby
franchise. I put a sedative in his coq au vin so he’d fall asleep that night, that way he wouldn’t leave the house and have an alibi.”

“Wo
w, you thought of everything,” I said. I was shaking my head in disbelief. I thought about getting up and running out, but I was discouraged from the idea when her hand came out of her pocket holding a gun. Which was pointed at me.

“So no one took your two bottles of Bitter Almond oil,” I whispered
. “You took them and planted one in the kitchen.”

“Absolutely. I was planning on planting the other one in Doug’s storage unit, just to cinch the case against him. But now I guess I’ll have to plant it in Casey’s office-trailer. Since I know exactly where to put it.”

“What? No,” I said. “No one will believe you.”

“Oh, but I’ll make sure they do. Thanks to you, I’ll have to set
Casey up now, instead of Doug. After all, now that you’re going to die, someone on the outside has to be blamed.” Her eyes lit up. “Who knows maybe I’ll even have a big lawsuit against Baron real estate after this. For all my pain and suffering. Gosh, I love suing big companies.”

“You’ll never get away with this!” I screamed. I wanted nothing more than to strangle her then and there, but I didn’t dare act – the gun pointed at my head was keeping me glued in place.

Though I didn’t feel at all cold, I noticed that I was shivering and hugged my sweater around myself. I tried to think of some way out, but my mind wouldn’t cooperate. It just kept thinking,
gun gun gun.

I hugged myself tightly and my hand knocked
into my sweater pocket, feeling something hard inside it. My cell phone! I’d put it in my pocket when Babette arrived.

She would notice if I tried to reach my hand in to surreptitiously dial, but there had to be something I could do…before it was too late.