Death by Scones (7 page)

"I'm starved," I said and handed her the pink box from the bakery. Inside, beside the lemon squares for all of us to share after dinner, was a fudge brownie and a chocolate cupcake with chocolate buttercream frosting. She had a major sweet tooth.

Without opening the box, she knew I'd brought something extra for her to eat later when she was alone and tomorrow at her shop. I always did. She winked and then returned to the kitchen.

Uncle Doug and I went to the dining room table and took our seats. He sat at the head of the table, and I sat to his right. Amber would take his left, and Aunt Bernie would sit on the other side. It was the same every time.

Uncle Doug patted my hand. "So, kiddo, a dead man in the bakery on your first day. I'm assuming that won't be a regular part of the store." He flashed me a sly smile.

I giggled, then mentally scolded myself. "Uncle Doug, this isn't funny."

He cleared his throat. "You're right. It's not. Forgive me." He glanced to the ceiling, so I assumed he was talking to God and not me.

"I just did a reading for the mayor, and I hadn't sensed any upcoming trouble," Aunt Bernie said while spooning the stew into a blue serving bowl.

Amber joined us and rolled her eyes. She pretended she didn't believe in this stuff, but I'd seen a deck of tarot cards in her room. She just couldn't give her stepmother an inch.

"Probably because you were focused on him and not the town at large," said Uncle Doug. I wasn't sure if he believed, but he always gave his support. He was awesome that way.

 Aunt Bernie set the bowl of stew on the table. "I guess so."

We each helped ourselves and fell into silence for a couple of minutes. Then I asked my uncle, "Did you know Nathan Dearborn?"

Uncle Doug blotted his mouth with his napkin and nodded. "Not well. We were never friends, weren't in the same circles, but we said hello on a few occasions. Because of your mother."

I nearly choked on a tender chunk of potato. "What? Mom knew him?"

Uncle Doug continued nodding. "Yeah, he was her acting coach."

Excuse me? Since when did Mom have a coach? Since when did Mom act? Uncle Doug couldn't have been talking about my mother.

"Hang on," he said, then rose and walked to the entertainment center in the living room. It was old, wooden, and bowing in the center. He opened the doors on the bottom and pulled out a photo album.

Oh my God, did he have a picture of Mom with Nathan?

He returned to his seat, and it was all I could do to not leap out of mine and snatch the book from his grip.

He placed it on the table at the same time I moved his bowl out of the way. He flipped toward the back of the book. "I know I've seen it," he mumbled.

I wasn't sure why I was so excited, but it was as if a buzzing had started within me. Aunt Bernie continued to eat but watched us intently. Amber stood and peered over her father's shoulder.

Uncle Doug pointed to the top left photograph. "There it is. I knew I saw it." He turned the book toward me. "Lily with Nathan."

I stared at the image and swallowed hard. Obviously I recognized Mom immediately. She was young, in her late teens, before she had me. She wore a light-pink short-sleeve top with a ruffle collar and a huge bow on the chest, denim capris, and flats. Her dark hair hung loose around her shoulders, making her look sultry. I only remembered her looking like Mom.

Beside her, staring into the camera, was a young man with blond hair and a sharp jawline. He wore dark jeans, a white T-shirt, and a black leather vest. He wasn't much taller than Mom, a bit broad in his chest and shoulders. Surely that wasn't Nathan. He looked so put together, so nice, so handsome.

"That's him?" I asked, disbelief coating my voice. Granted this photo was over thirty years old, but I never would've guessed this was the same unkempt man who came into the bakery.

"Yes, Nathan Dearborn. Lily was quite smitten with him."

I snapped my head up and stared at Uncle Doug. "Like, she had a crush on him?"

A look of horror fell over Amber's face. I knew how she felt.

Uncle Doug thought for a moment. "Less romance and more admiration. In his time, he was a movie star."

"Mrs. Hendrickson mentioned that, but I never knew Mom was into acting." Why hadn't I known that, and what else did I not know?

*   *   *

I refused a ride home from Amber. I wanted to ride my bike and clear my head about the news of Mom acting. It wasn't a big deal, but it sure felt like a secret. But instead of going straight home, I rode to the police station. I needed to find out exactly what had happened to the man in my bathroom. It had to be more than allergies. Maybe he'd been taking some kind of medication, or he had a bad heart. Something other than my food.

The Danger Cove Police Department was a small building with an ample parking lot. I pushed down my kickstand and locked my bike in the bike rack near the front door. The inside lobby held framed photos of the officers and an empty umbrella rack. The walls were painted cream for the top half and had wood paneling on the bottom. The dispatcher-slash-secretary usually sat at the front desk. It was empty now, so I turned into the main room. It consisted of a handful of dark wooden desks. Each held a corded phone, computer monitor and keyboard, and a nameplate, as well as some personal belongings. The chief's office was located to the left and holding cells to the right. It wasn't a large force.

Detective Marshall was seated at a desk toward the back of the room. He was eating a slice of pepperoni pizza. The paper plate was so drenched in grease it looked translucent. The bottom desk drawer was open, and he rested his feet on it. When he saw me approaching, he jumped up, nearly dripping cheese onto the floor. He tossed the slice onto its slick plate and wiped his mouth with a napkin. "Ms. Spencer, what are you doing here?"

I surveyed the top of his desk. There were no open files, no reports, nothing to show what he was working on, and I couldn't see what was on his monitor from this position. "I wanted to come down and find out if you have the official report on how Nathan Dearborn died."

He sat back down and kicked the drawer in. "It was just as I assumed. He had an allergic and fatal reaction to peanuts. Dr. Eckhardt confirmed that Mr. Dearborn was highly allergic to them."

A cold sweat clamped around the back of my neck. "That can't be. We don't bake with nuts."

Lester opened a drawer on the other side of his desk and pulled out a file. He skimmed its contents and found the sheet of paper he wanted. He slid his thick finger down the page to the middle section. "It says right here that the medical examiner determined his death as anaphylactic shock. And before you ask, the only items in his stomach were undigested coffee, flour, eggs, cinnamon, sucrose, sodium chloride, sodium bicarbonate, and peanut oil."

I shook my head vehemently. "No! You are not going to blame this on the bakery."

A smirk lifted the corners of his mouth. "The bakery didn't serve a peanut oiled dessert. You did."

My stomach sank. This wasn't happening. We didn't cook anything with peanut oil. We never even ordered it. I was certain.

Lester stood and patted me on the shoulder. "Don't worry. It was a mistake. They happen. But I'd be a lot more careful in the future."

He turned away from me, grabbed his mug off his desk, and walked over to the coffeepot.

"No," I shouted and hurried after him. "I can prove we don't use peanut oil in the bakery. Joe, our baker, does most of the cooking. He can tell you. As well as Grams. And I can show you our invoices and have you speak to our vendors. Everyone will say the same. We don't use any kind of nuts or peanut oil." My voice rose higher with each word until sound barely escaped my mouth.

He stared at me with pity in his eyes. "Ms. Spencer, that wouldn't rule out a mistake happening."

That was ludicrous. "How? Did one of us carry a bottle of peanut oil from home into the bakery for the heck of it?"

He shrugged. "All I know is what the evidence tells me. Nathan Dearborn died of a peanut allergy, and the only contents in his stomach were the ones from your bakery. From the severity of his reaction, there's no way he ate the deadly item elsewhere. He would've been dead before he arrived at Cinnamon Sugar Bakery."

I cringed at his words.

"Now, if you're insisting there's no way this was an accident, I guess we can look into other possibilities."

"Like what?" I asked, but as the words slipped past my lips, I realized what he'd say. If it wasn't an accident, it was on purpose, which would've meant someone murdered Nathan Dearborn. That was insane, but since I didn't want to be pinned for that, I whispered, "Never mind."

Lester nodded and added powdered creamer to his cup.

I turned on my heel and walked out of the police station. Back on my bike, I rode to the bakery and turned over everything Lester had said in my mind. I refused to believe this was the bakery's responsibility, although I couldn't come up with another solution. I was fearful about how this would affect the bakery. It was more than just our reputation though. People would believe I'd accidentally killed a man.

Inside, I flipped on the light switch just above the register and turned to the tables. I re-envisioned what had happened that day, but with all the people in here, there was no way to remember who had grabbed what and when. There had to be a way to find out for sure. I just couldn't accept this.

I stared at the door, hoping some revealing memory would return. But what if there wasn't one? I glanced up and saw the camera. My heart skipped a beat. Grams had one of her friends install a security camera last year after a couple of kids tried to steal money from the register during tourist season. Stuff like that never happened in the off-season.

Giddiness filled my body. I ran to the office and rewound the DVR to Friday afternoon. From the angle of the camera, it was hard to tell who was who. Why hadn't the friend installed the camera facing the register so it filmed the customer's face rather than the back of his or her head? I made a mental note to change the direction and to add another camera to span more of the room. Except for a few people, everyone else was very indistinguishable.

Just as I was ready to give up, I spotted something out of the ordinary. Instead of the arms, hands, and torsos of people mingling and eating, I saw someone carrying a plate of food.

I paused the image and cocked my head, trying to make out what I was seeing. A black-gloved hand carried a small silver tray, similar to the ones we had in the bakery. On it were triangles of dough.

Scones.

I couldn't tell who was holding it, and then the person walked out of view.

There was a tray of scones Joe had baked that morning, but I hadn't served any, and they were chocolate chunk and cherry. The autopsy hadn't mentioned those two ingredients. The scones on the monitor hadn't come from the bakery.

Oh my God, somebody had brought in the scones on purpose. This meant he had been murdered. My stomach gurgled, and I thought I'd be sick. I ran to the bathroom off the kitchen. I wasn't sure when I'd go back into the public one.

I leaned over the sink and breathed slowly, waiting for my stomach to settle. When it did, I turned on the cold faucet and wet a paper towel. I pressed it to my forehead and then the back of my neck.

I returned to the office and scanned through the rest of that day, hoping to see the black-gloved hand again. And there it was. The person passed by the register on his or her way to the restroom. I still couldn't make out who it was or if it was a man or woman. But then I caught a glimpse of the person's feet. The figure wore brown suede moccasins. There was something odd about them. I zoomed, paused, squinted, cocked my head, and did all I could to make it out. On the tip of the right shoe was a weird yellow splat—a stain.

Holy macaroons!

I'd caught the killer on film.

Out of respect, I closed the bakery the next day. Maybe I should've done that the day after Nathan died, but I hadn't thought he'd been murdered then. Today, the day he was being buried, I knew otherwise. The service was later this afternoon, which meant I had plenty of time for some sleuthing.

Last night I'd saved a copy of the security footage onto a flash drive, and as I was leaving the bakery, I'd noticed the Danger Cove Savings & Loan. Well, I hadn't
just
noticed the building. It had been there forever, situated diagonally across the street from the bakery. I'd passed it every day for years and barely noticed it anymore. But last night it sat on the corner like a giant smiley face. Its ATM machine, which wasn't separated from the building or covered in any way, faced the bakery. It had to have a security camera, which meant it might've caught the killer as well.

But going there and simply asking for that footage was out of the question. I needed to be craftier than that, which involved Tara, and she was busy with a tots' class this morning. So until she was available, I baked a batch of banana muffins with wheat germ, at home. Baking left me relaxed and no longer hungry, and the house smelling like cinnamon and bananas.

After cleaning up, I changed into high-waisted denim capris and a red-and-white checkered blouse. I plaited my dark hair into a single long braid down my back, tied a red scarf around my head, like a headband, and skated over to Nathan's. The whole trip over, I wondered why Grams never mentioned a connection between Mom and another Danger Cove resident. People knew her. There were a few old classmates, but after the well-wishers at her funeral left, no one came by to talk about her or to check on us. Mom's closest friends were Dad, Uncle Doug, and Aunt Sandra. We had been a close family.

When I reached Nathan's house, I didn't hesitate and rolled up the walkway. It was long, and I moved slowly, somewhat nervous about who would answer the door. The white Toyota Camry that was parked there the first time I rode past was there now.

An older man in dark-gray pants, a white T-shirt, and red suspenders held a pair of shears to a tall, flowering bush. He was probably at the invisible line that separated his property from Nathan's. He stared at me hard, and I could've sworn he growled. What did I do to him?