Houses and Homicide: A Bakery Detectives Cozy Mystery Read online

  Houses and Homicide

  A Bakery Detectives Cozy Mystery

  Stacey Alabaster

  Fairfield Publishing

  Contents

  Copyright

  Message to Readers

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Thank You!

  Copyright © 2017 Fairfield Publishing

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Except for review quotes, this book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the written consent of the author.

  This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is purely coincidental.

  Thank you so much for buying my book. I am excited to share my stories with you and hope that you are just as thrilled to read them.

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  Chapter 1

  The perfectly formed puff pastry hugged the pools of glazed blueberries and cream cheese. I smiled to myself, admiring my creations before I applied the finishing touch: a criss-cross of white glaze across each one.

  By the time I brought them out to the front counter of my bakery, where my boyfriend Kenneth was manning the counter, I already had a line. Every time I’d cooked a batch the last week, they had sold out within less than an hour, and news had quickly spread.

  “These are my favorite pastry,” one woman said as she paid for four. “And Rachael’s Boutique Bakery is my favorite bakery!”

  Her words were bittersweet. It was always nice to hear praise, of course, but the truth was that within a few weeks, blueberry glaze pastries would no longer be on the menu. None of my original creations would be.

  And we would no longer be called “Rachael’s Boutique Bakery.”

  This time, the batch sold out in forty minutes and after the mad rush, I tried to clean up before the afternoon rush started. I was planning another bunch. One of my final hurrahs, you could say. Plus, I was expecting an important guest that afternoon.

  “How does flour get everywhere like this?” I asked Kenneth as I struggled to make sense of the mess. Using a damp cloth had been a mistake. I only managed to make a paste.

  “It might have something to do with the fact that this is a bakery,” Kenneth pointed out. “Not a corporate office.”

  Well, on this day, it needed to be both. The head of acquisitions and franchising from The Pastry Tree, Cheryl Spellman, was finally arriving in Belldale for an extended stay.

  “So when do they come in and destroy everything?” Kenneth commented, then corrected himself, “I mean, take everything over?”

  I was wondering that myself. Not the destroying everything part. The taking over part.

  And I was also wondering:

  Did I actually want it to come quickly?

  Or not at all.

  “It’s exciting,” I said, grinning as widely as I was able to while I tried my best to get rid of the last bit of flour. “We get to expand the business; we’ll have way more money coming in. It’s the right thing to do.”

  But Kenneth didn’t seem so sure. He ran his own business, a cake decorating business, out of his own home studio. He was against big corporations and he was against them coming to small towns and taking over. And I could just tell he thought I was doing the wrong thing, even if he hadn’t directly come out and said it. Yet.

  “This is what we need to do to take the business to the next level.”

  “But you’re not taking it to the next level, not your next level, anyway. You’re just being swallowed by someone else.”

  Wow. Maybe he was finally ready to be direct, then.

  “It will all be fine,” I said quietly.

  “Well, I just hope it works out. Because if it doesn’t, you’re going to be left with nothing. And you will be left looking pretty foolish.”

  Cheryl was running a little late, which was already making me feel foolish. I’d made a big deal to Kenneth about how important this meeting was and it was already getting off to a bad start.

  “Cheryl is here,” I said, almost knocking over a pile of buns as I hurried to straighten my apron and rush out to meet her. I shot a look at Kenneth. “I need to speak to her on my own.”

  Kenneth raised his eyebrows and grabbed his coat. “I’ll get out of your way then.”

  I brushed the flour off my apron and made sure I looked more or less presentable. Emphasis on the ‘less.’

  She was pulling up at the front of the bakery in her red BMW that always sparked a glimmer of envy in me. Even though this was our first official meeting, she’d dropped in to say hello twice already and to ‘get a feel of the town,’ as she’d put it.

  Cheryl looked extra glamorous that day in her expensive black suit and her perfect blonde blowout, or maybe she just stood out in a small town like Belldale. Either way, she certainly wasn’t covered in flour. Cheryl might have been head of acquisitions at a chain of bakery stores, but I didn’t think she often got her hands dirty. I didn’t think she ever actually saw flour.

  “I love this place,” she said with a laugh as she placed a box down. “So quaint!”

  I wasn’t sure whether she meant the bakery or Belldale. She elaborated. “You can say hello to people in the street, and they actually say hello back! And then you see them again in the afternoon! I think I’ve already bumped into the same person five times today! Plus, it’s just so lovely and quiet down here.” She sighed contentedly. “I could really get used to it around here, you know.”

  Ah, so our little town had charmed her then.

  “How long do you plan to stick around for?” I asked

  “Oh, I’ll be here as long as it takes for the transition to be complete,” she stated, dusting her hands off. “What is this? Flour?”

  I laughed a little. “Whoops, that tends to happen round here.”

  And when was this transition supposed to start, exactly? I wondered, but I didn’t say it.

  “So, I suppose we’ll be changing all the fixtures soon?” I said to Cheryl, while she unpacked a box full of folders with The Pastry Tree logo—a golden tree—on the cover. I could see the words ‘Business Plan’ on one of them. “So it looks more like The Pastry Tree interiors?” We couldn’t stay lavender and white for long. The Pastry Tree’s decor was in ‘nature’ colors of green and gold, with tree decals and leaves. So the whole thing looked like a tree, basically. A little literal, yes, but they were pretty. The Pastry Tree chain had started small and local and had grown to expand all over the state and eventually the country, but they still wanted to keep the original sentiment of being locally sourced and owned, even as they grew and expanded. They kept promising they wanted to work with me, not just take over.

  But given that growing and expanding was the focus of The Pastry Tree at the moment, at least, according to the franchise section of their website, I was a little confused about how slow the process seemed to be taking.

  “There isn’t a problem, is there?” I asked Cheryl. “I mean, everything is okay with my bakery, right? Are you having concerns?”

  She placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry, Rachael. It’s all going to plan so far. There is absolutely nothing to worry about at all!” She checked
the time on her phone. “Oh! But I do need to get going. I’ve got another appointment I have to get to. So sorry!” she called breezily, waving at me while she balanced her box of folders on her hip as she made her way out the door again. She hadn’t even shown them to me. “We’ll chat soon.”

  Appointment? What other appointment could Cheryl Spellman have in Belldale? Weren’t we the only people she even knew here?

  I was standing there a little shellshocked. What had happened to the big meeting we were supposed to have?

  My best friend Pippa arrived just in time to distract me, and she had a little grin on her face like she was hiding a secret.

  “So, are you ready to finally find out?” she asked, her newly dyed pink hair looking extra disheveled that day.

  Finally. She’d been hoarding a secret for days, and she’d been managing to avoid me for all that time as well, even though we lived and worked together. I was starting to get nervous that whatever the secret was, it was something I really, really didn’t want to know. Otherwise, why wouldn’t she just spill it?

  “Are you finally going to tell me what this big secret is?” I asked her, practically pulling her through the door and forcing her to sit down at an empty table.

  I’d been dying to hear what her big surprise was ever since my phone had died on my way home on the train the week before. She’d been all set to tell me and then, whoops, flat battery.

  And ever since then she’d been acting awfully coy, putting off telling me every time we’d met.

  I thought about how sick she had been a few weeks before. Did that mean that…maybe she was pregnant again? She already had an eight-month old baby daughter, so that would mean a lot for her to handle. No wonder she was nervous about telling me.

  Uh-oh. Sick…did that mean? Maybe there was something seriously wrong with her.

  But she had a smug little smile on her face as she climbed up onto the bench stool. Not a serious illness then.

  I made a few guesses.

  “Are you getting a pet? A dog? A cat? A…snake?” Pippa could be a little unconventional. “I don’t know where we’ll find the room in the house, with all of us living there.”

  She shook her head. “No. Well, maybe.” She paused for a second. “That could be a part of it.”

  A part of what?

  “I hope you aren’t going to be too disappointed in me, Rachael…”

  Oh, gosh. She was going to take off overseas again. Right now? When we were about to enter the next phase of our business? Right when I needed her the most?

  “I can’t believe you are going to leave me to go overseas… Pippa, how could you do this to me…” I started to say, jumping the gun.

  Hang on—how could a pet be part of a trip overseas? Now I was really confused.

  Pippa shook her head. “We aren’t going anywhere. Not for a long time. That’s kinda the point of what we are doing. We are going to be rooted in Belldale for good.”

  Just put me out of my misery already.

  “We are buying a house!” she exclaimed, clapping her hands together as she jumped up and down, hopping off the stool.

  Oh my goodness. That was huge.

  “Why did you think I’d be disappointed in you for this?” I asked, rushing over to embrace her. “Unless you think I’m going to be disappointed to see my wild best friend well and truly settled down. But, we all have to grow up at some stage.”

  Pippa shook her head and very seriously reached down and took both my hands in hers. “No, I know that you are going to be disappointed that Marcello and I will be moving out. And Lolly.”

  Oh, right. I tried to keep my face set. I would miss them, of course.

  But I wouldn’t miss the chaos. I wouldn’t miss baby food smeared all over the kitchen table.

  And it would be nice to not be woken up by a baby several times a night…

  But was I going to have to find another roommate? Without Pippa helping out with the rent, I might struggle to pay the bills. I made a mental note to post a Craigslist ad later that afternoon.

  “So where is this house?” I asked.

  Pippa was still bouncing. “Do you know that big purple cottage-looking house near the school?”

  I certainly did. That house was hard to miss. It was distinctive. And huge. “How did you afford that place?” I asked, not meaning to be rude. I was just a little shocked.

  “Well, it’s not all set in stone yet,” Pippa admitted, looking a little unsure. “We’re doing a land contract where we’ll pay in installments month to month. It’s all a little…unofficial.”

  A land contract. “Is that wise?” I asked, thinking about the fact that doing so might entail a few corners being cut. I hope she wasn’t getting ripped off. Or getting a bad deal.

  “It is,” she said firmly, nodding. “I’m excited.”

  “I just want you to be sure,” I said. “Do you know that you can definitely make the payments?”

  She nodded. “With my new position here, and all the money we’ll be making after the takeover, I’ll have no problem making the monthly payments. Thank goodness for The Pastry Tree!”

  Yes, indeed.

  We just had to hope that Cheryl wasn’t going to back out of the deal.

  Chapter 2

  Two Weeks Later

  I could think of only one reason why Cheryl was having trouble committing to a starting date with us. Two weeks of her passive aggressively avoiding my questions and being full of ‘maybe’ and ‘we’ll see’ and I had finally had enough. I needed to get some solid information from her. So I had set a formal, sit down meeting with her. That way, she couldn’t make excuses and she couldn’t just dash in and out for a quick hello before she went off to one of her other mysterious ‘appointments,’ which I was now sure were just excuses for her to avoid me.

  Okay, maybe she just doesn’t think I am serious enough. I thought, riffling through my wardrobe for my best business suit. It was probably hard to take me seriously as a business woman when I was always covered in flour and frosting.

  Pippa was still talking into my ear as I rushed down the street, trying to stay upright on my high heels. I struggled to keep the phone pressed against my head while I rushed through the street with a briefcase, feeling very unlike me. But very corporate. That was what Cheryl wanted, after all, wasn’t it?

  “Now, remember to get an exact date off her,” Pippa reminded me, even though I already knew what I had to say to Cheryl. “We need to know when you cease being Rachael’s Boutique Bakery and start becoming The Pastry Tree.”

  Deep down, I had to wonder if maybe there was a reason I hadn’t pressed the point too hard. Maybe I didn’t want to know.

  “And make sure you get an exact figure. For your salary,” Pippa said.

  “And yours as well?” I said with a smile.

  “Yes. That would be extremely helpful.”

  I felt silly sitting there in the bakery in a suit and with a briefcase, as though I was in a boardroom and not a bakery.

  Where was Cheryl? I tapped my fingernails on the counter and looked around for her.

  I couldn’t keep the bakery closed much longer. I’d set aside forty minutes for the meeting and I couldn’t stretch it much further than that.

  One of my employees, Simona, came and tapped on the door. Her long black hair was tied back in a ponytail and she already had her lavender uniform on.

  “What are you doing here? We’re not opening until ten,” I said to her as I pulled the door open.

  “It is ten, Rachael.”

  “Right,” I said, standing aside to allow her come though the door.

  This was incredibly unprofessional for a CFO to just blow right through a meeting.

  I tried Cheryl’s cell. No response.

  “So, what are we doing?” Simona asked, tying her apron around her waist as she headed for the front counter. I knew Simona still wasn’t super happy about all the changes that were happening. She’d been helping me out as manager, but
now that The Pastry Tree would be the owners, and Pippa and I would be the managers, it was going to mean a slight demotion for her.

  But she’d still be earning good money. We all would.

  That was as long as the deal actually went through.

  I was starting to get nervous.

  “Can I leave you in charge for an hour or so?” I asked Simona, hurrying out the door. “There’s someone I need to find.”

  Simona shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Sure. Good luck with that then.”

  I knew that Cheryl had been staying at a hotel called the Golden Medallion. Most of the accommodation venues we had in Belldale were motels, or B&Bs if you were lucky, but we did have one hotel that was more like luxury apartments, which catered to people exactly like Cheryl—out of town business executives who weren’t staying long enough to rent or buy a place, but who wanted somewhere that they could feel comfortable for a week or two. So, the Golden Medallion fit the bill. I’d never been there before, so I had no idea if you could just knock on individual doors or whether you’d need the permission of the front desk to enter.

  I pulled up into the parking lot and spotted Cheryl’s red BMW still parked on the other side of the lot. She hadn’t even left the hotel that morning.

  Great. She had probably slept in.

  Well, at least I knew where she was.

  So, it turned out it wasn’t a case of just being free to roam the hallways. There was a revolving glass door to enter the lobby, and unless you held a room key, you had to get permission to go any further than that.

  I could tell that the man behind the desk was the manager not only because he had a name tag that read ‘Manager’ but because of his snooty attitude. He looked down his nose at me when I walked in, and that was even with me dressed in my best suit. I shuddered to think what he would have made of me if I’d walked in wearing my usual clothes of jeans and a t-shirt covered in cake batter.