Brownies, Bodies and Bad Guys (3 page)

Lexy balanced a bit of bun, onion ring, pickle, and cheese covered burger on her fork and carefully lifted it to her mouth. She’d learned through many dinners here, at
The Burger Barn
, that the giant burgers were much easier to eat with a fork, then trying to shove them in your mouth … even though she still tried the shove-in-your-mouth method every time.

“Yes, I know how your grandmother is—stubborn! Seems to run in the family,” Jack teased.

Lexy bristled at the comment even though she knew Jack was teasing. So what if they were stubborn?

Nans and the
Ladies Detective Club
, as the four of them called themselves, had worked on many cases with the police department and had played a critical role in solving several of them. Jack should be thankful for Nans’s stubbornness.

She sighed, swirling a piece of onion ring in a puddle of ketchup. She was overreacting. Jack and Nans were old friends, he was practically like a grandson to her and she knew he was very fond of the older woman. This whole thing with the ex-girlfriend must have her out of sorts. Speaking of which … Lexy was starting to wonder why Jack hadn’t mentioned anything about her.

“So … anything else new going on?” Lexy asked.

Jack narrowed his eyes at her. “New? No, what do you mean?”

“Nothing,” Lexy pasted an innocent look on her face, “Just asking if there’s anything new.”

Jack looked at her sideways. “Lexy, is there something wrong?”

“No.” Lexy played with the food on her plate while Jack dug into his ribs as if nothing was amiss. She noticed her engagement ring glinting off the lighting.
Was the ring less sparkly now?

She took a deep breath. She was acting just the way she had promised herself she
wouldn’t
act.
And
she was being ridiculous. She looked around the room. The old barn had a rustic decor, with antique signs and farm memorabilia. A family restaurant, it had comfortable seating and lighting that wasn’t too dim or too bright. She and Jack’s first date had been here and they’d had many fun dinners here since. She didn’t want to ruin that by acting stupid.

She pushed her plate away just as Jack finished cleaning his off. He looked up at her, and for a moment her stomach clenched when she saw concern in his eyes. He was probably wondering why she was acting so strange.

Lexy smiled at him. “Wanna split dessert?”

Jack smiled back, signaling the waitress. “Absolutely.”

The Burger Barn
had super-sized pieces of cake, and it was a tradition for them to split one at every meal. Jack ordered the double chocolate and asked for two plates and forks.

They sipped coffees and ate the dessert, fighting and laughing over who would get the edge pieces with the most frosting. Just like old times; as if there was no ex-girlfriend waiting in the wings.

When they were done, Jack paid the bill and drove her home. He walked her to the door. Lexy felt unusually awkward as they stood in front of it. She wanted to invite him in, but the image of the blonde draped over him made her hesitate.

Lexy pretended to search in her purse for her keys as she felt the tension grow in the air between them. Jack put his hand on her arm and turned her toward him. Placing his thumb under her chin, he tilted her head up, forcing her to look into his deep golden-brown eyes.

“Are you sure nothing is wrong?” Jack’s furrowed brow and concerned eyes made Lexy feel guilty for suspecting something was going on between him and his ex.

Her shoulders relaxed and she smiled. “No. Sorry. It was just a stressful day with Ruth getting pulled in to the police station and all.”

Jack nodded. The concerned look in his eye turned to something else as his finger gently traced a line down her neck, past the hollow in her throat and down her cleavage, causing Lexy’s heartbeat to kick into overdrive and tingles to race up her spine.

“Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

Lexy thought about it. The look in Jack’s eye wasn’t that of a man who was cheating. If he was, Lexy figured he’d probably want to high tail it out of there, but the glint in his eye told her he intended to stay … for a long time.

Lexy raised her eyebrow, a smile tugging at her lips. She made a big show of looking at her watch.

“Well, I would, but I do have to get to bed early. I’m bringing day old pastries over to Nans’s tomorrow at the crack of dawn,” she teased.

Jack’s lips formed a smile of their own. He wiggled his eyebrows up and down at her.

“Oh, don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll personally see to it that you get to bed very, very early.”

Chapter Five

Lexy put the pastry box that held an assortment of day old pastries from her bakery on Nans’s dining room table and opened the lid. Nans, Ida, Ruth and Helen peered into the box.

“Oh, what a lovely assortment,” Ida said, choosing a pecan roll.

“You brought my favorite! Pistachio biscotti.” Helen gingerly removed one of the crunchy biscuits from the box and put it on her napkin.

“You know I love eclairs. How can I resist?” Ruth bit into the chocolaty confection with gusto.

“Really, Lexy, this is too much,” Nans said, picking a cheese Danish out of the box. “All this fatty food will harden our arteries.”

Lexy noticed the threat of hardened arteries didn’t stop any of them from taking a bite of their pastry as she picked a cream cheese brownie out of the box for herself.

“I’ve found some exciting information on Nunzio.” Nans pushed her Danish aside and pulled the iPad she had sitting on the table in front of her. She tapped a few keys then turned the screen to face the rest of them.

“Look at these newspaper articles. He was arrested quite a few times on various charges but they never stuck. Of course, that was decades ago. But still, I think it proves there could be an organized crime angle to the case.”

“All the more reason to stay away from it,” Lexy mumbled around a mouthful of brownie.

“Oh. No, dear. That’s what makes it exciting!” Nans’s eyes sparkled, “Right girls?”

Ruth, Ida and Helen all nodded.

Lexy rolled her eyes. Apparently Nans wasn’t going to back off on this one, no matter how dangerous it might be.

“But why would the Mob take him out now? He hasn’t been active in that business in a long time,” Ruth said.

“Yeah, you’d think they would have had him rubbed out long ago if he was a threat, not wait until he was in his last years,” Helen added, with an apologetic look toward Ruth.

“Well, that’s just one of my theories,” Nans said. “The other one, of course, is his family.”

“Right, one should always look to the family first,” Ida said. “That’s what they do on TV and in the movies.”

“Why would his family want to kill him?” Lexy furrowed her brow at Nans.

“Money? Hatred? Revenge?” Nans offered. “You know, all the usual reasons.”

“Was there any tension in the family?” Helen asked Ruth. “Did anyone hate him?”

“I don’t think so. He never mentioned it. Although he did say some of his relatives didn’t live up to his expectations. And he was very disappointed in a few of them.” Ruth’s brow creased. “Seems to me there were a couple that were always looking for money.”

“Aha! That could be a reason for killing him
and
searching his condo!” Ida said.

“I suppose, but that seems rather drastic—especially during a big family reunion week,” Ruth said.

“We need to talk to the family. Feel them out. Try to figure out if anyone would have killed him,” Helen said.

“Maybe we should have a little memorial here for Nunzio and invite them!” Nans’s eyes lit up and she clapped her hands together.

“That’s a great idea!” Ida said. “Lexy could cater it.”

Lexy’s stomach felt queasy. “Oh no,” she said holding up her hands, “I don’t want anything to do with this.”

“Lexy we wouldn’t dream of having anyone but you cater it,” Nans said. “Think of how good it will be for business.”

Lexy wrinkled her brow. She
was
always looking for ways to get new customers. But ending up on the radar of the person who killed Nunzio Bartolli didn’t seem like a good way to go about it. On the other hand, she found it almost impossible to say no to Nans.

“I’ll think about it.”

“Great!” Nans beamed at Lexy.

“We also shouldn’t forget about considering the organized crime angle,” Ida said.

“Yes, we should put out some feelers to our informants and see if anyone suspicious has come to town in the past few days,” Nans added.

They had informants?
Lexy narrowed her eyes at Nans. She was about to ask what kinds of informants they had when a police siren outside the window caught her attention.

“What’s that?” Ida said getting up to look outside. “Looks like someone’s car got broken into.”

Everyone rushed to the window. Below, Lexy could see a late model black Lincoln Continental sitting in the parking lot with the front door open. A police cruiser was parked at an angle to it.

A tall, round woman with flashy jewelry and a flowing leopard print top over tight black Capri pants stood next to the car gesturing wildly with her arms. Lexy cast an admiring glance at her impossibly high platform shoes.

“What’s she saying?” Helen asked.

Nans unlocked the window and pushed it open so they could hear what was going on.

“This is my father’s car. Look at the window—it’s been smashed! God only knows what’s been taken. I want to know what you are going to do about this!” The woman yelled loudly, standing only inches from the police officer, her hands on her hips.

“Ma’am, please calm down.” The officer tried to steer the woman away from the car while the rest of the crew looked inside and performed various tasks that Lexy assumed entailed looking for fingerprints and evidence.

“Hey wait a minute.” Ruth pushed Ida and Nans aside so she could get a better look. “That’s Nunzio’s car!”

Ida narrowed her eyes, craning to see out the window over Ruth’s head. “And apparently that must be his daughter.”

“This is wonderful news,” Nans said, rubbing her hands together.

“It is?” Lexy, Ruth, Ida and Helen all asked at once.

“Of course,” she replied. “This means that whoever killed Nunzio and searched his condo is still around. They didn’t find what they wanted the first time so they looked in his car. Hopefully, they didn’t find it in there either.”

“Why do you say that?” Lexy furrowed her brow, her stomach roiled knowing she wasn’t going to like Nans’s answer.

“Because that means they will keep looking and all we have to do to catch them is figure out where they are going to look next.”

Chapter Six

“Nans wants me to cater a memorial service for Nunzio Bartolli at the Retirement Center tomorrow.” Lexy straightened up from filling the pastry case in the front of
The Cup and Cake
and turned to face Cassie who was just coming out of the doorway to the kitchen with a tray of fresh, steaming turnovers.

“That sounds like a nice idea. You don’t want to do it?”

“Well, you know Nans. She’s only doing it so she can pump the relatives for information, to figure out who the killer is.”

“Cool! She can have them gathered in one place and then blurt out the name of the murderer like Columbo.”

Lexy narrowed her eyes picturing Nans, Ruth, Ida and Helen in beige trench coats with cigars. She noticed Cassie’s eyes light up a second before she heard the bell over the door and quickly turned to see who it was.

John Darling stood in the doorway. Of course, she could have guessed who it was judging by the look on Cassie’s face. But she never would have guessed he’d have a linebacker with him. At least, that’s what the guy standing beside him
looked
like.

He stood about six and a half feet tall and looked almost three feet wide. Lexy could tell from where she stood that he was solid muscle. His expensive looking dark blue suit must have been custom made—she didn’t think you could get tree-trunk sized arms like that on suits off the rack.

“Hi honey!” Cassie bubbled.

“Hi.” John smiled at Cassie, and then turned to Lexy. “Hi, Lexy.”

“Lexy?”

“What? Oh. Hi.” Lexy’s cheeks burned. She’d been too busy staring at the other guy to pay attention to John’s greeting.

“This is Braxton Daniels from the F.B.I. He’s in town working on a case with us.” John gestured to the giant beside him, then continued. “This is my wife Cassie, and this is Lexy.”

“Please call me Brax.” The linebacker stuck out a beefy, but well-manicured hand and Lexy watched hers disappear inside it. She looked up into his face. Square jaw, green eyes, smile like a toothpaste model.

She murmured a greeting, and her stomach did a flip when his gaze traveled from her eyes, to her mouth and down the rest of her body, then came to rest on her engagement ring. Right … she was engaged. No harm in looking though. Lexy withdrew her hand and did her best to send out “not available” vibes.

“So, what kind of case are you working on?” Cassie asked.

“Organized crime. But nothing for you ladies to worry about.” Brax tore his gaze from Lexy and looked at Cassie.

“Organized crime? Does that have anything to do with Nunzio Bartolli?” Lexy’s radar immediately perked up.

Brax raised an eyebrow at her. “Why would you say that? Do you know something?”

“Well, no. It’s just that he was just murdered, and there were rumors about him being connected to organized crime, so …” Lexy let her voice trail off.

“You made the connection,” Brax filled in for her, turning up the wattage on his smile. “So, I guess there’s more than just a pretty face under that apron.”

Lexy felt her cheeks grow warm and busied herself by taking the turnovers from Cassie and arranging them in the pastry case.

“So you think he was rubbed out by gangsters or something?” Cassie asked.

John and Brax both laughed.

“Well, it’s something we are looking in to,” John said, then lowered his voice even though no one else was in the bakery to overhear them. “His family isn’t above suspicion, either. We are looking at them very closely. In fact, Jack— ”