1 Nothing Bundt Murder (4 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN

The chime on the glass door of
Bundt Baby's
tinkled happily as I walked into the store. Following me inside were my ‘helpers’ Nana and Birdie, though I suspected they were really there for the gossip rather than the good deed they claimed we were doing.

Since the murder the day before, they’d become the toast of
the Sunrise Palms Senior Community coffee klatch. Not only did their granddaughter work with the killer, but she’d been there, watching as the actual murder happened! It was the most exciting thing that happened at their retirement community since……well… ever.

I stood in Babette’s empty store, looking out at the empty parking lot outside. It was clearly pointless to even think of opening the store
, though of course I hadn’t said that to Babette when she made me promise to keep going with ‘business as usual.’ It would have broken her heart if I’d told her —though if she’d been thinking more clearly she would have known it herself.

After all, who would want to buy cake from a bakery where the owner was suspected of poisoning a customer? Not me. I wouldn’t even try their free samples, and that’s saying something.

“This place is a mess,” Nana frowned, as she followed me into the store and looked at the footprints all over the usually pristine, peach and white checked floor.

“The police…” I said, realizing that the cops must have come in the day before to collect their evidence. They obviously hadn’t bothered to clean up after themselves.

I headed back into the kitchen which was in even more disarray. All the ingredients we’d need to even try to bake the cakes were missing—as were the baking utensils, the flour, the eggs the butter, the fruit. Everything had been removed from the freezer. Even the garbage cans and whatever was in them, were gone.

“Boy, they’re thorough,” I said, with a resigned sigh. Nana was about to say something back but was interrupted by the cuckoo clock, hanging high on the wall, that started chirping and gonging
.

“Not thorough enough,” yelled Birdie. “That they left?”

I nodded and held my ears, waiting for it to stop.

“Well if she did go crazy and kill her husband's hottie, we know what drove her to it,” Nana said, serenely turning down her hearing aide.

We all stared at the ugly clock, waiting for the incessant chirping and loud gonging to stop but unfortunately, since it was 9 am, we still had 7 more full chirps to get through. Finally it went silent and Nana took a deep breath as she turned to me and clapped her hands together. “Well, the place isn’t going to clean itself.”

It sure wasn’t, I thought, as I grabbed the broom. Clearly I was going to have to do it.

***

The place was spic and span and I was just waiting for Nana and Birdie to get back from the market with the list of ingredients I’d given them. As I put the mop away and put on my
Bundt Baby
apron, I heard the tinkle of the door opening in front.

“Perfect timing, Nana,” I called out, walking out of the kitchen. “You just missed all the cleaning.”
I smiled and looked up from straightening my apron to only find Mr. Evil staring at me. Mr. Gorgeous Evil.

“Don’t tell me you’re actually opening today. You realize you’re not going to have any customers after what happened," he sniffed.

Though I’d been thinking the exact same thing myself, the way he said it, all smug and cocky and gorgeously, made me feel the need to defend Babette and her store.

“
Bundt Baby
is open as usual,” I said primly. “The police will soon realize their mistake and Babette will be back baking at
Bundt Baby
before long."

“Wow. That’s
some alliteration.” He looked at me pointedly. “And some denial."

I raised my chin in the air and stared at him. “If you don’t want to order something then…”

“No, I’ll order.” He bent his broad 6 foot something frame to look into the glass display which was, unfortunately, empty.

I shrugged and brushed some nonexistent crumbs off my apron. “We’re running little late today. If you’ll come back after noon we should be open then.”

“Sure. See you at noon, Rosie,” he said. Then he gave me a charming, cocky, dazzling smile that for some reason made me blush from head to toe. Which I’m sure was exactly what it was calculated to do. But as he turned back to open the door, he almost bumped into Nana and Birdie who were just coming in with their groceries.

“Ladies,” he said, holding the door for them with a gentlemanly flourish. “May I?”

He easily took the bags from their hands as they murmured their thanks, touched their hair and giggled girlishly. They watched in appreciation as he put the bags on the glass counter, nodded at us and left.

“What a nice boy,” Nana said looking at him as he walked away.

“And what a hottie,” Birdie added. “And no ring, did you notice?”

“I did,” Nana said. Then she looked pointedly at me. “Did you?”

I rolled my eyes and started carrying the groceries to the back. “He’s bad news, Nana. Seriously. He wants to buy the store out from under Babette. To put her out of business.”

“So he’s a businessman," she nodded approvingly. “I knew there was something I liked about him. Besides those sparkling emerald eyes.”

“They were really more of an aquamarine,” Birdie corrected her.

“Pfft, please,” Nana rolled her eyes. “Aquamarine is blue. His eyes were green. Deep, pure, dazzling green.”

“No they had flecks of blue. Didn’t you see that?”

I sighed and headed back into the kitchen to preheat the oven, but
then I stopped at the doorway and turned back. “Time to get to work, ladies,” I said, shooting them each a look. “Or are you only here for the gossip?”

Though I knew the answer, I let my question hang in the air, to guilt them into helping.  Which unfortunately, didn’t work.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Two hours later we had several trays full of imperfectly decorated, slightly lumpy Bundt Babies in the display.

“They may be lumpy but they taste pretty good,” Birdie said taking a big bite.  “They’ll do anyway,” she shrugged.

I frowned at the cakes. I’d done everything that I’d seen Babette do a hundred times. But somehow, I just didn’t have her touch. I was debating whether to throw them out and start all over--or maybe to just call it a day, since clearly, no one was coming into the store anyway, when, just then, I heard the front door chimes jangling.

I looked up, it was Mr. Evil. “You came back,” I said.

“You s
aid to come back at noon and…” He stopped and cocked an ear. “If the chirping of that hideous bird is correct, then that is exactly what time it is."

I sighed. “What can I get you?”

“A dozen of those….um…lumps,” he said, studying the mini Bundts in the case before looking up at me, pityingly.

“Fine,” I said. I grabbed a box and began filling it with my sad, little creations. “Actually, maybe I better take them all,” he said, with a cocky smile. “Save some other poor customer from having to endure them.” Then he paused and looked around. “Although…it doesn’t look like you have any other customers, does it?"

I was just about to come up with a withering reply when the front door bell tinkled and a woman walked into the store.

“Actually,” I said in a smug tone, “It looks like we do.”

I turned to the woman and smiled. “Welcome to
Bundt Baby
. What can I get for you today?”

“A quote would be nice, “ the woman said. “I’m from San Coronado Local News Four. Patsy Blaire.”

I looked at her in surprise. “You’re Patsy?” I blurted out, before I could stop myself.

“Ye
s? Do we know each other?” she asked giving me a dazzling smile.

I really had to find out who everyone’s local dentist was.

“No, we don’t,” I said, then I bent down to straighten my little cakes. When I stood up I noticed Mr. Evil was looking from me to Patsy and then back again. His piercing green eyes looked thoughtful, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d guessed the reason for my strong reaction—That Patsy was the perky newswoman who’d stolen my journalism job away from me.

Well, okay, she didn’t actually steal it, it was more like she got it and I didn’t, but still, I couldn’t help resenting her for it. Especially since she was exactly the type of perky, feisty news woman I was pretending to be when I auditioned for the job.

“So!” Patsy said. “How do you feel about your boss being charged with murder?”

I looked up to see that a
cameraman had entered the store and was now filming my every move.

I stared, dumbstruck. Then I regained my voice. “Babette hasn’t been charged. They just brought her in for questioning.”

“Hmn. Obviously you haven’t seen the latest news.”

As if on cue, Nana and Birdie came buzzing out of the back room, not even pretending to not have been eavesdropping. “Did someone say ‘charged with murder?” Nana asked sounding horrified and excited at the same time.

"Is there news?” Birdie asked.

“Oh yes there is,” Patsy said, pulling out her iPad
. “I have it right here. This is from my eleven a.m. news broadcast.”

Nana, Birdie, Mr. Evil and I all crowded around to watch as she played her latest news update of the Delilah Wiggins murder.

On the screen, the fast-paced newscast music played, then the anchorman introduced the story and the image cut to Patsy, who was standing outside the police station, looking at the camera. In a serious voice, she informed the viewing audience that Daliah had been poisoned by a Cyanide-laced cake at a bridal shower.

At that point the image cut away and played some cell-phone footage from the bridal shower
. Babette was handing Delilah the gluten-free Bundt cake and telling her she
hoped she choked on it.
.

“Oh, look honey, you’re on TV,” Nana said, stroking
my hair proudly as we watched—though how she could even notice me there, in the background of the film, with only my arm and shoulder showing, was beyond me. Must be a grandmotherly thing. 

“Rosie looks so lovely in white. Doesn’t she Casey?” Nana asked with a smile.

“She does,” Casey said, watching the footage intently. “Lovely left side.”

I rolled my eyes at Casey who was obviously putting on his ‘charming’ act for Nana and the others, and which unfortunately seemed to be working. Nana smiled pleased and Birdie patted my shoulders, mumbling something about
star quality.

I shook my head and looked down at the iPad, trying to focus on what Patsy was saying on the screen. “And so, the owner and proprietor of
Bundt Baby
, Babette Berwick was arrested this morning for putting Cyanide, in the form of Bitter Almond oil, into the frosting of the gluten-free cake she made especially for the victim, who, rumor has it was sleeping with her husband.”

“See?” Patsy said to me when she turned off the iPad. “I told you. Babette was arrested.”

I nodded. I did see, though I wondered why she couldn’t just have told us all that, rather than making us watch it on TV.

“Poor Babette,” I said, shaking my head. “But I just don’t believe she did it.”

"How do they know the poison was in the cake? And not in some of the other food at the shower?” Nana asked Patsy.

“The police ran tests that confirmed that the cake was poisoned right here, at the
Bundt Baby
shop. The poison was definitely
not
added at the party or out in the van. A fact I’ll be revealing more about in my four o’clock broadcast.”

“The poison was added in here?” I asked. I looked around at the once charming little shop which had now taken on some seriously creepy undertones.

“Yes,” Patsy said darkly. “Apparently, Babette’s friend had brought two bottles of bitter almond oil back from New Zealand, as a gift for Babette. It’s illegal here in America, because, in its raw form it can cause cyanide poisoning. The police found one of these bottles in the
Bundt Baby
kitchen. And traces of the oil were found on the spatula, in the mixing bowl, on the pastry bag…”

At that point I noticed Mr. Evil looking down at his box of lumpy Bundts
.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “The police took all that stuff away. Those are all made with brand new ingredients. By my own unlethal hands.”

“Her lovely, soft, unlethal hands,” Nana said, lifting my left hand as if to show Casey its soft, unlethal, ring-free state. I frowned at her, and pulled my hand back, trying to get her to chill out, but she didn’t notice. She was too busy arranging my marriage to Casey.

“So, any comment?” Patsy asked. The camera was back on and filming, and Patsy’s mic was in my face.

Everyone looked at me, as if I was now the official spokesperson for
Bundt Baby
. Perhaps they were waiting for me to mount some impassioned defense of my boss…but I couldn’t.

Not just because it wasn’t my place to say anything. But because I didn’t know what to say. Or think. It didn’t seem possible that Babette really had killed Dahlia on purpose, but then again, if what Patsy had said was true, who else could have done it? After all,
the oil belonged to Babette. Plus, she and Doug and I were the only ones who had a key to the shop, and Babette had told me she was alone working here all that night.

I was about to say
no comment,
when we all heard a loud voice call out, “I have a comment!”

It was accompanied by the wild ringing of the front door chimes.

Doug.

He was stumbling drunkenly into the store, looking worse than I’d ever seen him. He was still dressed in full-on prep, with a pink golf shirt and khaki pants, but his eyes were rimmed with red and his normally clean shaven face was all stubbly. His blonde hair which was usually neatly combed, was now a spiky mess. 

“You can quote me on this,” Doug said to Patsy, blinking several times as he tried to focus his bleary eyes on her. “My wife killed Dahlia. And I can prove it!”

Patsy’s eyes lit up as she motioned to her cameraman to start filming
. Then she hurried over to Doug and shoved her mic in his face. “What kind of proof do you have about the murder, Mr. Berwick?”

“I…” Doug said, swaying woozily. “I…” he said again and reached for the mic to steady himself. But he missed and fell to the floor, passing out.

Patsy motioned to her cameraman to ‘cut’, then she frowned at Doug’s inert form. “Tell him to call me when he sobers up,” she said. Then she smiled at Casey, handed him her card and walked off.

I couldn’t help but notice that Casey’s eyes followed her as she went.