Читать книгу Gourd to Death - Kirsten Weiss - Страница 9

Chapter Three

Charlene paced Pie Town’s gleaming kitchen, pleasantly warm from the giant pie oven. “And then he had the nerve to tell me to shoo!”

My goth assistant manager, Petronella, turned a shade paler. “You’re sure it was my father’s pumpkin?” She reached behind her and untied her apron strings. “Val, can I—?”

“Of course,” I said. “Go. Your dad was talking to Chief Shaw by the giant pumpkins when we left.” I knew the helpless worry for a parent all too well.

Whipping off her gloves and hairnet, her black, spiky hair standing on end, Petronella hurried from the kitchen.

My assistant, Abril, paused beside the dough flattener. She clutched a round of dough in her hands, her brown eyes serious. “You don’t think Mr. Scala is in trouble, do you?” Her thick, inky hair strained her hairnet. She looked a little like a mushroom, willowy at the base with a puff of white on top.

“I think whoever wrecked his prize pumpkin is in for it,” Charlene said. “That was his baby. You know how nutty those pumpkin growers get.”

“Chief Shaw seemed to be treating him as a witness,” I said cautiously, “not a suspect.” So far.

Abril’s slim shoulders relaxed. “That’s a relief.”

We returned to the business of baking, and Charlene vanished into the flour-work room.

At six, I lugged the coffee urn to the counter and turned the sign in the window to OPEN. Watching the glass door for Petronella, I set a tray of day-old, half-price hand pies on the counter.

I did a final check of the dining area. The glass counter, where pies would go, was crystal clear. The pink tables and booths were spotless, the black-and-white floor blemish-free.

Everything was perfect, but I couldn’t shake my worry. I knotted my hands in my pink apron. Was Mr. Scala in trouble with Shaw? I glanced up at the pink neon sign with its big smiley face beside the clock. tURN YOUR FROWN UPSIDE DOWN AT PIE TOWN. My logo didn’t have its usual, cheering effect. I hurried into the warm kitchen, scented with baking pies.

At a central, butcher-block table, Abril arranged dough leaves and pumpkins on top of a pumpkin pie.

I paused to watch. She was better at pie decorating than me, and I was glad to let her do it. This was prefestival crunch time. Pie Town needed to shine, and our decorated pies were powerhouse sellers.

The bell over the front door jingled, and I peeked through the order window.

Senior citizens strolled into the dining area. Drawing back, I shook my head at Abril, and she grimaced. No Petronella.

The swinging kitchen door creaked open. One of our elderly regulars, Tally-Wally, poked his drink-reddened nose through. “Hey, Val. You’ve got a visitor.”

“Thanks.”

He nodded and vanished into the dining area.

I peeled off my gloves. Wiping my damp hands in my apron, I strode from the kitchen.

Chief Shaw stood beside the counter. He frowned down at the half-price hand pies, and my insides lurched.

I could guess what he wanted, and I forced a smile. “Chief Shaw, hi. How can I help you?”

Heads swiveled along the counter. The kaffeeklatsch at the center tables went quiet.

“A word alone,” Shaw said, “if you don’t mind?”

“Sure.” I glanced at our goggling regulars. “We can talk in the back.”

I led him behind the counter and to my spartan office. Metal desk. Metal shelves lined with boxes of supplies. An outdated desktop computer. All my decorating instincts had gone into the kitchen and dining areas.

The VA calendar fluttered as he shut the door.

“Are you ready for the fund-raiser?” the chief asked.

I blinked, wrong-footed by the unexpected question. Maybe he was a better investigator than I’d thought. But I nodded. During the festival tomorrow, local cops would act as waitstaff at Pie Town. All their tips would go to the Police Athletic League, a children’s charity. It would be easy for the cops; people ordered at the counter, so all they had to do was bring pies to the tables. The coffee was usually self-serve, but I suspected the cops would give top-ups to work the tip angle. It had been Gordon’s idea, and I loved him more for it.

“Good.” The chief pulled his phone from the inside pocket of his tracksuit and tapped the screen. “I’m speaking with Val Harris. It is six-thirty A.M. on Friday, the thirteenth of October. I’m recording this conversation,” he said to me as an aside. “Tell me about finding the body.”

I explained about our walk down Main Street and the gruesome discovery.

“And you say you abandoned your kitchen just to look at pumpkins?” His hawkish eyes narrowed.

I stepped backward, my hip bumping the metal desk. “It was only supposed to be a quick peek.”

“Of course, this isn’t the first body you’ve found.”

“Well. No. But—”

“Nor is it the first time I’ve had to remove Detective Carmichael from a case.”

I didn’t respond. Gordon didn’t need me arguing on his behalf.

“I’d say it was quite a coincidence,” he continued. “You find bodies and Detective Carmichael miraculously catches their killers.” His eyes narrowed. “But I don’t believe in coincidence. Do you believe in coincidence, Ms. Harris?”

“Well, I mean, no, probably not, but it really was—”

“Collusion?”

I gulped. “What?”

“You setting ’em up, and Carmichael knocking them down?”

“Setting what up?” What was he saying? That I was murdering people so Gordon could solve the crimes?

He tapped his phone and slipped it into his jacket’s inside pocket. “I’ll talk to Mrs. McCree now. Send her in. And I want you, the both of you, to stay out of my case, or I’ll arrest you for interfering.”

Stunned, I tottered from the office and into the kitchen.

At the butcher-block work island, Abril looked up from ladling apple filling into pie pastry. “Is everything okay?”

“He wants to ask Charlene some questions.” My voice cracked like an egg, and I hurried into the flour-work room.

The air conditioner hummed, ensuring the butter stayed at the right temperature for optimal dough. I shivered in my Pie or Die T-shirt.

Charlene set a ball of dough on a metal rack. “That’s the last of ’em.” She turned to me. “What’s wrong?”

I glanced at the slowly closing metal door. “I think Chief Shaw just accused me of being a serial killer.”

She laughed. “Tell me another one.”

The door clanged shut, and I started.

“I’m serious,” I said. “He implied—” But that was too crazy. Had I heard right? I must have misunderstood. “I’m not sure what he was saying.”

“Chief Shaw probably didn’t know either.”

“And he wants to talk to you now.”

“Oh, does he?” She untied her apron from around her purple knit tunic and flung it onto the long table in the center of the room. Flour poofed into the air.

Charlene sailed past me and into the kitchen.

“He’s in my office,” I called after her.

“Huh!” She slammed out the kitchen’s swinging door.

Abril stared, frozen. “He thinks you’re a serial killer?”

Maybe I shouldn’t have said that until after the door had shut. “Well, I’m not.”

“I know you’re not.”

“I must have misunderstood. I mean, he was just trying to shake me.” But why? I was a witness, not a suspect. Just because I’d found . . .

Hmm. I had stumbled across quite a few bodies in the last year.

I had to call Gordon, and I fumbled in my apron pocket for my phone. But what if that was what Shaw wanted?

What if he’d bugged our phones?

What if I’d tipped over the butter-knife edge into paranoia?

I hesitated, phone in hand.

The phone vibrated, and I started.

It was a text from my brother, Doran: ON MY WAY. DON’T PANIC.

In spite of the day’s horror, my heart warmed. Doran was the half brother I hadn’t known I’d had until last summer. He’d moved here to try his hand at graphic design in nearby Silicon Valley. But how had he found out about the murder so quickly? Or that I’d been involved?

It was a little weird.

“What is it?” Abril asked, anxiety threading her voice. “Is something else wrong?”

“No, it’s Doran. He’s coming to Pie Town.”

She smiled. Abril and Doran had recently started dating. I hoped he didn’t screw it up. Good pie makers were hard to find.

“Did you tell him about the murder?” I asked.

“No.” She adjusted the net over her coal-black hair. “Why?”

“Nothing, I guess.” Uneasy, I slid a pie into the oven’s rotating racks.

Thirty minutes later, Charlene stormed into the kitchen. Her white ringlets trembled with indignation. “Shaw’s an idiot. He accused me, me, of being behind murders in San Nicholas going back to Prohibition. I wasn’t even alive then!”

“If he’s focused on us,” I said, “he’s never going to figure out who really killed—was it Dr. Levant?”

“It was,” she said heavily.

Abril gasped. “She’s my little brother’s eye doctor.”

“Shaw was none too happy when he realized he’d let that slip,” Charlene said. “And with your detective off the case, you know what this means.”

I nodded, glum. The Baker Street Bakers really were back in business.

Charlene and I had inherited an armchair detecting club. And since Charlene was involved, we spent less time in armchairs and more on actual footwork. But I thought we were getting pretty good at it. We’d helped solve several murder cases. Gordon was even pushing me to get a private investigator’s license and make it legal. But there was no way I could study for a license. I was too busy building the best pie shop on the NorCal coast.

“Let’s get started.” Charlene bustled from the kitchen.

“Wait, I can’t—” I said to the swinging door, and rubbed my arms. “Don’t worry,” I told Abril. “I’m not leaving you alone again today.” Especially since Petronella still hadn’t returned. I hoped she was okay.

I hurried into the dining area. The Friday morning kaffeeklatsch had dragged the center tables together. The ladies sat gossiping, their aging faces beaming with good humor. My other elderly regulars lined the counter. An elfin, white-haired lady in a flowered gray dress sat alone in a corner booth nursing a cup of coffee. She adjusted her spectacles and squinted into the cup, her nose wrinkling.

I hadn’t seen her in Pie Town before. Was she all right alone? I shook myself. Don’t assume senior citizens are charity cases. My piecrust specialist had disabused me of that notion quickly enough.

From behind the counter, Charlene glowered at her archnemesis, Marla Van Helsing.

Marla, dressed like a Dynasty villain in a red silk blouse and black slacks, smiled. She turned up the collar of her black sequined jacket. “I hear you’ve found another body, Charlene.” The elderly platinum blonde curled her lips and waved a negligent hand. Diamonds flashed, glittering beneath the pendant lamps. “You’re like a rat to garbage when it comes to corpses.”

Charlene glanced toward the front windows. “What are you doing out of your coffin, Marla? It’s past sunrise.”

“Just checking out my so-called competition for the pumpkin race.”

Uh-oh. I hadn’t known Charlene planned to enter the pumpkin race. This could be trouble.

“So, it’s true?” Tally-Wally braced a long arm on the counter and rubbed his drink-reddened nose.

“Yes,” Charlene said. “Marla is a vampire.”

“I am not!”

I squinted. In her red and black outfit, Marla did look like a sequined Countess Dracula.

“I meant,” he said, “was Dr. Levant really killed?”

“It looks that way,” I said. “Did you know her?”

Tally-Wally pulled a pair of reading glasses from the pocket of his stained jacket. “She did my glasses.”

“And my cataracts,” his best friend, Graham, said from beside him. Graham was as round as Tally-Wally was tall. He crumpled his checked cap in his fist. “Terrible. Must have been the spouse.”

“Or the business partner,” Tally-Wally said. “I never liked that Cannon fellow.”

“The killer could have been anyone who knew Dr. Levant,” Marla said. “She was not an easy woman.”

“Don’t be catty,” Charlene said. “Just because she refused to get you those fancy, colored contact lenses—”

Marla’s grip tightened on her mug. “I needed them for my show.” Marla ran a lifestyle channel on YouTube. It was a bone of contention, since all Charlene had was Twitter. Marla fluffed her hair and sighed. “But she said my eyes were too delicate.”

“Too—”

“Charlene,” I said warningly, and she subsided, grumbling.

“I suppose your ridiculous detecting club will be snooping again,” Marla said.

“We’ve solved plenty of cases,” Charlene snapped.

Marla rolled her eyes. “Ah, yes. The Case of the Missing Moose Head? The Case of the Missing Surfboard?”

“Murders too,” Charlene said. “And I’m going to win that pumpkin race.”

“Doubtful. My entry is solar powered.”

Charlene paled. “They’re supposed to be gravity powered.”

“Not this year,” Marla said. “This is Silicon Valley, haven’t you heard? You did read the new rules, didn’t you? Oh, I forgot, you’re going blind as a bat in your old age.”

Charlene’s nostrils flared. “Better blind as a bat than a vampire bat.”

Petronella strode into the restaurant, her motorcycle boots loud on the checkerboard floor. “Sorry I took so long.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “Is everything okay?”

“My dad’s convinced San Adrian’s responsible for destroying his pumpkin,” Petronella said.

Customers gasped. “No!”

“Not his pumpkin!”

“San Nicholas finally had a chance to win our own prize.” Graham’s bushy gray brows drew downward. “I knew it would come to this.”

“I warned everyone,” Marla said. “San Nicholas has been resting on its laurels for too long. And now that we’ve stepped up our game, San Adrian is taking steps.”

“What’d they do to the pumpkin?” Graham asked. “Poison?”

“They dropped it on top of Dr. Levant,” Petronella said. “The fall cracked its shell.”

Silence fell.

“Well,” Tally-Wally said, “that’ll do the trick.”

I cleared my throat. “Isn’t it more likely Dr. Levant was the intended victim, and the pumpkin an unintended casualty?”

There was another long silence. Customers cocked their heads and considered.

Marla blew on her coffee. “Really, Val, you don’t understand a thing about pumpkin festivals.”