One Cup Of Flour Two Cups Of Murder (Winnona Peaks Mysteries Book 2) (9 page)

Chapter 17

Christy couldn’t stop herself.  She had to confirm what she saw behind the case.  She was going to check it out no matter what.  Gregory turned to make the call to 911 and she was gone.  Knocking on the door to the bakery, she waited for Cornelia to come over and open up the door.  Christy had to idea what she was going to say.  

Cornelia opened the door and Christy ran up to the older pastry case that Cornelia had been restocking with fresh pastries.  

“Are you here to buy a goody?”  Cornelia asked with a smile. She gave an awkward look to Travis who was raising his eyebrow, trying to not let on that he knew Christy.

All Christy could think to herself was,
what baker in their right mind puts out product at 9:30 at night?  That’s why there’s an entire section of day-old bread at the grocery store.  People want it fresh.
Funny, Cornelia didn’t seem to think so.
  She was grinning from ear to ear like Christy was her first customer.  It appeared Cornelia was tripping over herself to impress Travis. The shadows from the lantern danced on the wall and Christy couldn’t see Cornelia’s eyes with the deep-set darkness.  Christy decided to play along.  “Oh, yes.  I’d very much like to buy a goody.   I’ll take a box of those cookies right there.  Oh, and that cake.”  

Cornelia’s eyes lit up and she rushed behind the counter to pull the cookies and cake out of the case and put them into one of the brand new boxes with the freshly minted Westbrook Pastries logo on the side. 

Cornelia stumbled over something behind the case and Christy leaned over to look.  Trying to control her terror, Christy said, “I’d like to meet your bakers.  Is that one of them?”  Cornelia had tripped over a pair of legs. Christy feared the worst.

“Why yes, dear.  I told her not to sleep behind the case, but she’s just been working so hard.  She’s going to be ready bright and early tomorrow when we open.  She promised me.”

Christy rushed around the side and found Lily lying behind the case still in her baker’s uniform on from the day she was taken from the bake-off.  Feeling her neck, Christy at least found a pulse.  Whipping her head around she snapped, “Cornelia she’s barley breathing!”

A muffled yell came from the back. “Help!” 

“Anna!” Christy looked up into the darkness.  “Don’t worry Anna, everything will be okay!”  Travis stepped forward to make a move and Terrance pulled a gun out from his back pocket.

“Oh, don’t think I don’t know how to use this.  You’re not going to swoop down and take the last of the Westbrook legacy.  We may have to sell our house, but―”

“Terrance!  SHUT UP!”  Cornelia’s eyes lit up with a fire at her grandson.  “Keep that gun pointed at him.  If she moves, blow her away.”  Cornelia was frail, but she toddled around with complete authority.

“You can’t keep people here!” Christy burst out.  Terrance pointed the gun at her, and then back at Travis.   Cornelia was still in charge of the situation, seemingly. With a gun pointed at both of them, she just let her fantasy unwind.

“Leave her alone!  She’s working!  We’re going to have tons of customers tomorrow.  We’re going to be bigger than anybody in town.” Cornelia barked as she waddled away.  Christy bent down to check on Lily some more, but when she looked up again, Cornelia was standing over her with a syringe.

“Now it makes sense.  You winked at my sister in the competition because you knew exactly where Lily was. Vanessa was right, you’re nuts.  It was creepy to have you on our side in the competition.”  Christy said.

Cornelia started waving her arms in the bakery with the syringe becoming a teacher’s pointer for the moment.  “I grew up on this floor!  This very spot!  I loved it here!  They ripped it away from me!  When my nanny died, my father signed away the bakery to the city.  What did they do with it? 
NOTHING!
  They stored boxes of fertilizer in the back for the parks and recreation department for a few years.  They stored old tax records in it another year.  As soon as I could get back here and get enough money, I approached the city about buying it back.  They didn’t want to at first, but then the wiring got too old and they didn’t want to do the proper remodeling.  They finally gave in and sold me the building for a song and a dance so it wasn’t a liability on their books anymore.  Here it sits, gathering dust.  You know what the kicker was?  Nobody taught me how to bake!  My grandmother had cakes personally requested by the Governor’s office for his special dinners.  There’s a letter on the wall over there thanking her for her efforts.  For what?  For it all to come to nothing?  I’m not doing anything wrong here.  In fact, I’m correcting a
horrible
injustice.  Grandmother’s bakery will open again.  It will be great.  Your friends love to bake.  Grandmother’s bakery WILL open!” 

The woman was out of her mind.  With Terrance holding a gun to their heads and Cornelia waving around the syringe full of who-knows-what, they seemed to be out of options.

But apparently, Gregory Binks hadn’t given up everything the day he went to sell coffee.  He still had his gun.  Seeing what was going down, he decided that he needed the revolver he kept in his glove box.  The problem was he needed to get the drop on Terrance.  He figured that there was at least one back door.  In all the commotion, he ran around back and busted off the cheap lock.  Terrance didn’t even see him coming.

“Drop the gun.”  Binks had his revolver shoved into Terrance’ skull.  “And Granny, if you don’t want him dead, I’d suggest you drop that syringe.” 

Terrance’s eyes widened and he put his hands in the air.  Cornelia wavered a bit.  Binks shoved the barrel of the gun into Terrance’s head with a little more force.

“Grandmother!” Terrance whined.

“You always were a useless pansy.”  Cornelia growled.  “I should let him shoot you.  All that time you spent with Lily and you don’t have the balls to finish it off.”  Cornelia held the syringe in the air.

In the last upswing, Christy stood up caught her wrist tight so she couldn’t use the weapon on Christy.  Terrance offered his gun in surrender.  Gregory took the gun and lowered his weapon.  Travis took a swing and broke Terrance’ nose.

“What was that for?”  Gregory asked.

“I’ll explain later.” Travis said. 

Terrance started crying as his nose bled and ached with pain.

“You have no right!  You can’t do this to me!”  Cornelia was screeching. 

Gregory gently held her in place while the sheriff made their way to the property.  Christy made a second 911 call to make sure they were sending an ambulance to come pick up Lily. 

Without her syringe, Cornelia was pretty harmless and she suddenly looked like the mumbling tragic bird lady she was.  Gregory was able to take her by the wrist and order her to sit on one of the dusty chairs.  Deflated over her foiled plan, she went back to mumbling and talking to her grandmother about what they had all stolen from her.  “I knew you were in cahoots to steal my bakery,” she growled at Christy. 

Christy took over watching her and Gregory, with a little bit of force, broke the lock on the door to the back where she was holding Anna.  She was roughly in the same shape as Lily although she was still conscious.  Travis disappeared into the night.  He mentioned something about not getting along with the police very well.

“How did she get you here?”  Gregory asked.  “She’s barely 95 pounds.”

“She asked me if I wanted a ride home from the bake-off.  Terrance drove up in that huge limousine.  I mean, who wouldn’t want to take a ride! I didn’t think it was that big of a deal.  Then she asked if I could help her unload a special stack of flour and I agreed.  The next thing I knew, I felt a pinprick in my neck and everything went black.   Terrance must have drug me back here.  I don’t know what I would have done if you and Christy hadn’t shown up.  She threatened to dose me again if I made a peep when you and Fiona were talking in the front,” Anna explained her whole ordeal.

The ambulance came and took them both to the hospital to get checked out.  Anna said that she was fine and wanted to go home.  Lily was still asleep.   It was good that they got the syringe from Cornelia so the doctors could analyze what she had been using.  Apparently a while ago, Cornelia broke her hip and had trouble sleeping. She had a huge cocktail of pain and sleep medication at her disposal.  A couple of the syringes were from other countries so who knows how she got it all without getting caught before.

Watching the ambulance drive away with her friends, Christy said to Gregory, “After tomorrow, I’m sticking to muffins and coffee.  The bakery business is just a little too cutthroat.”

Chapter 18

Christy smiled from the crowd as they announced Fiona the winner of the bake-off.  Needless to say, crazy Cornelia was the talk of the competition.  Some people felt sorry for her, while others thought she got what she deserved.  Christy saw the look in her eyes when they hauled her off.  She definitely felt sorry for her. 

Gregory was allowed to follow Travis through the house after the arrest.  Even though she had the Westbrook Manor, she really only lived in a couple of rooms.   There was just a mass of food containers from local restaurants, a T.V., and a bed off to the side.  

Travis explained that after further investigation, they found out Terrance had been bleeding his grandmother for cash for years and he was the reason they had to sell the Westbrook Manor.  He’d been reporting to the family that she was in great shape, but had been living the high life off what was left of her personal fortune.  By the time people found out, it was too late.  Terrance indulged her fantasy about the bakery and so every time the family wanted to step in she would make them back off because she said Terrance was the only one who was helping her reestablish the bakery. 

Terrance met Lily at EZ Eddie’s in passing and struck up a conversation about money and the chance to make it big with Westbrook Pastries.  Lily turned them down and Cornelia decided she wasn’t going to take no for an answer.  Terrance was just desperate.  Travis and Gregory said the mountain of food containers were the worst part of the entire scene.  Well, that and cases of medication.  The terrifying thing was that there were used syringes all over the floor Cornelia was using for pain, she must have been a lonely wreck.

Vanessa and Anna all finished the bake-off but nobody’s heart was in it.  Alexander was so pleased with his stunt that he couldn’t help telling Anna on their way to the bake-off.  Anna was so disgusted she marched straight over to Fiona and told her to swap out sugar containers with her.   If people thought Vanessa could spark fireworks, they hadn’t seen anything yet when mild and meek Anna banged pots and threw rolling pins at Alexander’s head ordering him to help Vanessa clean up her station.   The scare she had being kidnapped by Cornelia made her a whole new woman. 

It was music to Vanessa’s ears when they were in the heat of preparation and she heard Alexander yell, “Yes, Chef!”  Vanessa almost burned her raspberry filling she was so distracted.  Vanessa’s mind was elsewhere anyway and every couple of minutes she asked Christy what the doctors said about Lily.

Luckily, the doctors had a vague idea of what Cornelia had been giving Lily so they were able to counteract it with a few other medications.  They said for the most part it was going to just take time for the drugs to flush out of her system and that she would be at the hospital being observes for a few days. 

Anna was standing in the crowd with Christy as Fiona was getting the medal.  “Well, it’s probably pretty obvious that Alexander and I broke up,” Anna confided.

“More like he looked like he was running for his life, I’d say.” Christy smiled.

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” she said with a sigh.

“Oh, men can do that sometimes.  Say, why don’t you come stay at my place for a few days?  We could catch up and you would have a change of pace.”

“Oh, after the Cornelia thing, I’m not sure I could compete with that ghost you have up there.” Anna smiled. 

Christy frowned, but let it go as she laughed it off.  “Ok, I’ll come tonight.” Anna said. With the crowd starting to dissipate after the announcement, Fiona ran up to them both. 

“Oh, thank you so much for helping me with that Cornelia situation.  Last night, I thought I was finished and today I have $5,000.”

“It’s nice you won’t have her chasing your customers away. Are you going to move locations?”

Fiona could barely contain herself.  “Oh, that’s just it!  The family attorney called me and begged me to stay on and continue to remodel.  He said Cornelia will probably go into an assisted living now instead of jail and so he has more leeway with the property.  He’s also on the community restoration board and so he wants me to consider restoring the building and the funds will come from the Westbrook Trust, while I continue to bake!  I can’t believe it!  The attorney is already talking to me about using the space as a combination museum and bakery!  Something about they need to reestablish some roots in Winnona Peaks where they made their original fortune. His only request was that I use the name Westbrook Pastries so that they can restore the building back to its vintage charm! Then I got another call from a grandson who said he would invest in my business and provide original family photos that I can use in the decorations. I guess everyone just felt sorry for Cornelia when they found out she was just a lonely old lady. Apparently, Terrance wasn’t all that he advertised.”

“Well that’s wonderful!” Christy said.  “You should ask Gregory what he did to get so many―.”

“So many what? Coffee anyone?” Gregory walked up with a tray of free coffee. Fiona made a beeline for the coffee and stepped between Gregory and Christy.

“So many customers. “ Fiona beamed. “I’d really love to meet with you next week and discuss that plan for our pie and coffee partnership.  I think we could do
wonderfully.
”

Christy raised her eyebrows at the back of Fiona’s head. Gregory was enjoying the attention, but knew that too many women in one location always made it dangerous for a man to stand around for very long. He kept his mouth shut.

“Here try this!” and before he could react, Fiona hand fed him a piece of the award winning dark chocolate raspberry spice cake she was holding in her hand.  Her medal dangled between her arms from around her neck.  Gregory smiled awkwardly with a mouth full of cake, glancing at Christy and then back at Fiona.

Vanessa was walking up to the crowd and looked at her sister with an “I-told-you-so look.”  Christy took a breath and looked over the afternoon horizon. Winnona Peaks was back to normal, at least for the next couple of days. Maybe she was going to get that day off after all. Gregory walked away from the group and Fiona shuffled off after him. She felt an involuntary flutter in her chest. Maybe she didn’t want that day off from Mr. Binks after all.  She would just have to test that theory. The best way was going to see if she finally got that day off with her cup of coffee and her favorite book.  Fiona squealed like a teenage girl and grabbed Gregory’s arm. Christy wasn’t sure her day off from Mr. Binks was going to work.

“So did you like your pie?” Fiona asked Gregory.

Finishing the bite in his mouth he said, “Well, yea.  It was the best pie I’ve ever had.”

Vanessa raised her eyebrows and gave Christy another nudge, shaking her head.

Christy could read it loud and clear. Vanessa was practically screaming, “
So are these two an item now?”

“I don’t know,” Christy said out loud to Vanessa.

“You don’t know what?” Gregory asked.  Vanessa’s phone rang and saved Christy from the entire awkward pause that was certainly to follow.

“Oh―that’s great news―really?  That’s great. Yes, I’ll let them know.” Vanessa hung up the phone. 

“Who was that?” Gregory asked. 

“Lily’s parents.”  They said that they were able to revive Lily and that she should make a full recovery.

“That’s great!” Fiona said, clutching Gregory’s arm tighter and claiming him in front of Christy and Vanessa.  Christy could tell Gregory didn’t have a clue.  Fiona fed Gregory another bite of cake with a big smile.

“Well, I’m glad Lily will be okay.” Christy said, crossing her arms and tucking a stray lock of hair behind her right ear. She looked at Gregory and gave him the “Oh My God look” and wondered if she read his signals wrong. She was not sure what to do next!

~~~

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