A Killer Cake (9 page)

“Our family never lets threats keep us from
doing what we think is right,” Moose said. “We never have, and
we’re not about to start now.”

“No matter what might happen because of
this?” I asked. For some reason, this petite woman’s threat had
unnerved me more than if it had been uttered by a two-hundred pound
madman.

“No matter what,” Moose replied.

The rest of the evening was fairly quiet, and
though we weren’t anywhere near our usual number of diners
throughout the remainder of our time open, the drop-off wasn’t so
large that a casual observer would notice it.

I knew, though.

We wouldn’t feel the losses much at the cash
register, but if this trend continued, The Charming Moose could be
in some serious trouble.

“Are you ready to head home?” Greg asked me
as he came up front from the kitchen area. “Everything’s set back
in the back.”

“Almost; I need one more second,” I said.
Since Martha had spent some time working the cash register, I was
running into a few discrepancies, nothing too large to worry about
too much, but enough to make me scratch my head and wonder how
she’d managed to come up with four dollars and twenty seven cents
more than the report showed we should have. I balanced out the tape
with the irregular entry, and then I did my best not to think about
it.

After zipping the money, credit card
receipts, and our deposit slip into a bank bag, I turned to Greg
and said, “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

“How bad was it?” he asked with a grin as he
pointed to the night-deposit bag.

“All I can say is that it could have been
worse,” I replied.

“In the end, that’s the best we can hope for,
isn’t it?”

“I suppose so,” I said. “I just wish that it
wasn’t necessary for Martha to pitch in so much around here. She’s
earned her retirement, and she should be able to enjoy it.”

“You don’t see her when she’s working,” Greg
said. “I wouldn’t worry about your grandmother at all. She might
not be great with the register, but folks absolutely love her, and
it’s clear that the feeling is mutual.”

I nodded absently, and Greg pressed me a bit.
“Victoria, you seem down. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Not unless you know the identity of who
killed Roy Thompson,” I said.

Greg shrugged a little. “Sorry, but that’s
one area where I can’t help you out.”

I nodded. “I know. Don’t get me wrong; it
would have been bad enough if Roy had been killed with something
else today, but the fact that it was your dessert makes it a
thousand times worse. Greg, why aren’t you more upset about it than
you seem to be? After all, you’re the one who made that cake.”

“I don’t deny it, but whoever put poison in
that slice killed Roy, not me. I can’t change what happened. You
and Moose are trying to find out who did it, so what’s left for me
to do? Worrying won’t solve a thing, so I refuse to let it steal a
single minute of my life that it doesn’t have to.”

“I just wish that I felt the way you do,” I
admitted. “Sometimes I really envy your happy disposition.”

He took me in his arms and hugged me. “Well,
we’re even. I admire your willingness to put yourself in harm’s way
just to be sure that justice is done. You don’t give yourself
enough credit for the things you do, and more important than that,
the things you
are
.”

“How did I get so lucky finding you?” I asked
as I stared into my husband’s eyes.

“I like to think that we’re
both
lucky,” Greg said.

I was about to reply when I saw the hint of a
frown forming on his lips. “What’s wrong? Did you change your mind
about being lucky that fast?”

“No, it’s not that. To be honest with you, I
planned a surprise for you for tonight, but I’m not sure it’s the
best time to spring it on you now.”

That was so sweet of him. “If it’s a happy
surprise, it’s always welcome,” I said. “You should know that by
now.”

“That’s good, because I can’t wait.”

I hesitated a few seconds, and then I asked
him, “What are you waiting for? Let’s have it,” I said as I stuck
my hands out greedily.

“I don’t have it
on
me,” Greg said
with a laugh. “You’ll have to wait until we get home to get
it.”

“Exactly what kind of surprise are we talking
about here, Greg?”

He laughed as I raised one eyebrow.
“Victoria, I can give you two hints. It stays outside all of the
time, and I had to have help to make it happen.”

I bit my lower lip as I considered the
possibilities. “Those have to be two of the worst hints ever in the
history of the Guessing Game.”

“That’s because you’re not supposed to guess.
I’m afraid that you’re just going to have to wait until we get
home.”

“Then, what are we standing around here for?”
I asked him. “Let’s go.”

“Yes, Ma’am, but we’re still stopping by the
bank first.”

“You’re no fun at all,” I said with a laugh
as we turned off the last few lights. Once that was accomplished,
we locked the diner up for the night, got into our separate cars,
and then Greg and I drove home together in single file. Since we
worked such divergent shifts during the course of the day, it was a
rare closing that found us both in the same vehicle at the end of
the working day.

When we got home, I parked first as I looked
wildly around the front yard, but I couldn’t see anything out of
the ordinary. “I thought you said that it was outside,” I said as I
met Greg when he opened his door.

“Have a little patience. It’s supposed to be
in back,” he said as he took my hand and led me through the side
yard. It was growing chilly out, and I instinctively walked a
little closer to my husband, as though I was trying to draw some
warmth from his presence. I didn’t care what was waiting for me in
the back, no matter how sweet the gesture was. I promised myself
that I’d spend at least thirty seconds admiring it after the
unveiling, but then I was going to head straight inside, make some
hot cocoa, and settle in for the night. It had been a long and
trying day, and I for one was ready to see the end of it.

However, my husband clearly had other
plans.

Chapter 7

“What is it?” I asked my husband as we
stumbled around in the dark. “Can’t we have some kind of light back
here?”

“We could, but I don’t want to spoil the
surprise,” Greg said.

“If I’m in the hospital because I tripped and
fell, there won’t be any surprise at all. I can always close my
eyes, if that would help.”

I heard him laugh. “Victoria, if you close
your eyes, how will that be any different from the way things are
right now?”

“Well, at least, then,
one
of us will
be able to see,” I said with a smile.

“Too late. We’re already here.” Greg flipped
the switch to our outdoor lights in back, and I saw the new
addition instantly.

“It’s the gas fire-pit I’ve had my eye on for
months,” I said as I raced to it. “How did you manage to do
this?”

“Jack Kiley at the hardware store owed me a
favor, so he came over and set this up on his lunch break. There
should already be propane in it,” he said as he knelt down to
check. “I told him to leave some spare one-pound tanks. Look at
that. They fit in your hand. Here are some matches, too,” Greg said
happily. “Jack’s really on the ball. So, should I go ahead and
light it?”

“I can’t wait,” I said as I pulled two chairs
over to where the new pit was stationed. The propane went up with a
satisfying whoosh, and in an instant, we had fire. “Wow, that’s a
lot faster than getting a fire started in our old pit.” I looked
over six yards to our original wood burning fire pit. Greg and I
had enjoyed a lot of roasted marshmallows around that pit in the
past. “We don’t have to get rid of Old Smokey just because we have
this one now, do we?”

“No, Jack told me that this one doesn’t put
out a lot of heat. It’s more here for the dancing flames, and the
fact that we can have a ten minute fire whenever we want one. If we
want some real heat, we’ll still have to fire up the wood-burning
pit.”

“I feel so
rich
having both of them,”
I said with a laugh. “Are you sure we can afford such
decadence?”

“I think we’ve earned it,” he said. “Besides,
it wasn’t
that
much. So, what do you say? Would you like to
hang out around here a little, or should we shut it off and go
inside?”

I shivered a little and warmed my hands near
the fire. While it was true that the heat it put off couldn’t touch
its wood-burning brother, it still managed to toast them nicely. “I
can stay out a little if you can.”

“Tell you what,” Greg said. “Why don’t we
wait until it warms up a little? I just wanted you to have this now
whenever you wanted a little fire.”

“It’s wonderful,” I said, and then I kissed
my husband soundly.

“Do you really like it?”

“How could I not love it? After all,
you
got it for me.”

Greg laughed. “Don’t forget, I got you those
red and green socks one year for Christmas, too, and you haven’t
worn them since.”

I smiled back at him, happy yet again that he
was all mine. “That’s because I’m saving them for a special
occasion. It wouldn’t do to wear them out.”

“No, by all means, save them,” he replied. I
loved to hear the happiness in his voice. He’d surprised
me—something I admitted was not that easy to do—with something I’d
truly wanted. I knew all about that particular sense of elation,
because it was the same feeling I got when I managed to reverse
roles and do it for him.

As Greg leaned over to turn off the propane
feed to the flames, I said, “Leave it on for another few minutes. I
love watching the flames dance in the wind.”

“That’s something we can’t do with our old
fire-pit,” Greg said. “It would be too dangerous.”

“Shh, not so loud; she might hear you,” I
said.

Greg didn’t comment, other than to shake his
head and smile.

Things were good, at least they were at home
between us. It was a shame that murder had to intrude on our lives.
Without that, I just might be able to say that my life was perfect
exactly the way it was. Sure, we could have used more money, and
even more important, more time together, but what we had was pretty
excellent, and I wasn’t about to take one second of it for
granted.

“Mom, what happened here?” I asked my mother
in dismay the next morning as I neared the diner. It was still dark
out, but there was enough light coming from the street so I could
see the glass window at the front of the diner. Someone had painted
a giant X through the lettering in bright red paint, Mom had
brought out a bucket and rag with her from inside.

“My guess is that vandals were having a
little fun at our expense,” she said as she started to wipe the wet
rag through the paint.

“That’s not going to work,” I said just as
the paint started to smear. How odd. “That shouldn’t happen, should
it?”

“It’s not real paint,” Mom said as she dunked
her rag back into the bucket, and then she cleaned away the smeared
edge she’d just made.

“It looks real enough to me,” I said.

“Somebody must have bought some of that
special paint folks use to decorate their windows for Christmas. It
washes off easily enough. I suppose it could have been a lot worse.
I swear, sometimes I wonder what teenagers do with themselves these
days.”

“What makes you think that teenagers did it?”
I asked as I took the rag from her and reached a few areas she
couldn’t get to. She was right about one thing; the paint came off
easily enough when it got wet.

“Well, if they’d meant any real harm, they
wouldn’t have bothered with the paint, now would they? If someone
wanted to send us a message, a rock through the window would have
been quite a bit more effective, don’t you think?”

I didn’t even want to consider the
possibility of how bad a mess broken glass would have made, but I
still couldn’t accept the fact that this was just a random act of
mischief.

We had just about finished cleaning the
window when a squad car drove up, and the driver parked in such a
way that his headlights reflected off our glass.

Sheriff Croft got out, and then he nodded in
our direction. “Melinda, Victoria. It’s awfully early to be Spring
cleaning, isn’t it?”

“Someone spray-painted a big red X on our
window,” I told him.

“So, they got you, too?”

“What do you mean, too? Who else got tagged
with paint?”

The sheriff pointed toward the square. “I’ve
seen four other businesses so far myself, and I just got started.”
He studied our window, and then he asked, “How’d you get it so
clean? Is that just soap and water in your bucket?”

Mom explained, “It’s just temporary paint,
Sheriff. I keep telling Victoria that it’s random mischief, but she
doesn’t believe me.”

The sheriff turned to me. “You haven’t been
interviewing my suspects behind my back, have you?”

“We haven’t talked to
anyone
on your
list,” I said, happy that I could tell him the absolute truth.

“That means that you’ve started a list of
your own, then, doesn’t it?” he asked.

“How could you possibly know that?” Mom
asked.

“It just figures, Melinda. If your daughter
truly believes that someone is warning her off of her
investigation, that means that she had to have spoken to at least
one person she believes is a suspect, and most likely it’s more
than one.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked. He was right,
but I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of acknowledging
anything he said at the moment.

“If there was just one suspect, you’d have
mentioned them by name. Now, why don’t we all go inside, have some
coffee, and you can tell me all about it? There
is
coffee,
isn’t there?”