Murder Takes the Cake Text (22 page)

She was certainly surprised to see me.

“I’m really sorry for coming by so early. I won’t take but a minute of your time,” I added, as she took a curler out of her hair and looked at her watch. “I only wanted to tell you what I learned about Vern March’s wife.”

“Come in,” she said, “but I have to finish getting ready.”

“Of course. I’ll talk from the hallway.”

“That’ll be fine.”

I followed her down the hall, where she went into her bathroom and closed the door.

“I went to the Scott County Courthouse yesterday. Vern was married to Gloria Cline, not Gloria Carter . . . not my mother.”

“Good for you, dear. I know you’re relieved.”

“I am.”

“Cline . . . Cline . . .why does that name sound familiar?”

“Cline’s Cakes & Snacks.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Gloria is . . . was . . . I’m not sure she’s still living . . .anyway, Gloria is one of the snack cake Clines, I guess you could say.”

The bathroom door slowly opened, and Peggy stood there with a mascara wand in her hand. “Are you telling me that Jonah . . . and now Joanne . . . should be . . . ‘well-provided for?’”

“The possibility of an inheritance is certainly something you should look into, Mrs. March.”

She smiled. “Believe me, I will. Thank you. Thank you for coming and telling me this.”

I hoped Peggy would benefit from my news about Gloria Cline. I didn’t know whether or not Gloria was still living; but whether she was or not, it could be a good thing for Joanne. She stood to gain either a grandmother or some shares in a snack cake factory. Either way, she no longer had a reason to hate me and spread malicious lies about my baking. I still got mad enough to bite a nail in two when I thought of my little visit from the Department of Agriculture.

I wanted to go by Dr. Lancaster’s office next, but I knew it wasn’t open yet, so I went on over to the Save-A-Buck. Juanita was there and in her usual cheery frame of mind. She smiled broadly and waved when I walked into the store. I got one of the half carts since I didn’t need too many groceries . . . mainly my staples: confectioner’s sugar, shortening and cake flour.

I caught a glimpse of Fred stocking in the soup aisle and decided tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich would be delicious for lunch.

“Good morning,” I said.

Fred grunted in my general direction. I, naturally, took that as an invitation to chat.

“Fred, do you know anything about snakes?”

He put the can he was stocking on the shelf and turned to me. “A little bit. Why?”

“I’ve got a friend who’s on the outs with Mr. Dobbs because he only feeds his snakes live rodents. Is there anything else snakes will eat?”

“I get frozen.”

“Excuse me?”

“For my snake. There’s a company I found online that sells frozen mice.”

“Oh. Uh . . . maybe I should mention that to Mr. Dobbs.”

“Whatever. ‘Course, he has different kinds of snakes in his store. Maybe some of his snakes won’t eat dead mice.” He scrunched up his forehead. “In the books I’ve read, though, they say it ain’t good to feed live rodents to snakes, because the snakes could get hurt.”

“The
snakes
could get hurt? That’s hard to believe.” Fred narrowed his eyes. I added quickly, “I do believe you, but . . . wow. I never knew that. What kind of snake do you have?”

“A ball python.”

“Do they make good pets?”

“Yeah. I’ve had Rusty for five years, and he ain’t been to the vet but one time and that was the other day.”

“Is he okay?”

“Yeah, he was constipated is all.”

Eww . . . too much information.

“You have to keep an eye out for that.” He laughed. “I had to work, so my papaw had to take him. Papaw wasn’t too thrilled about that, let me tell you.”

“Papaw’s skittish around Rusty, huh?”

“Sure is.”

“Wait a second. I ran into Walt Duncan taking his grandson’s snake to the vet. Is Mr. Duncan your papaw?”

“Sure is.”

I smiled. “Small world.”

“Yep, but I wouldn’t want to have to paint it.” He chuckled. “Stole that from Stephen Wright . . . you know, the comedian.”

“Good one,” I said with a laugh. I got my tomato soup and moved on over into the baking supplies aisle.

I wondered if I’d got a peek at the “old Fred” Mr. Franklin had talked about . . . Fred before the car accident had ruined not only his personality but his life. So Fred was Walt Duncan’s grandson. Who knew?

At least now I could rest assured that Uncle Hal hadn’t somehow used Fred’s snake or its venom to kill Yodel Watson. The autopsy said death by venom, not strangulation by a python.

I was still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that Fred was Mr. Duncan’s grandson as I put the sugar and cake flour into my cart. Since Fred’s snake was a python, that ruled Fred out as a suspect in Mrs. Watson’s murder, too. Unless, of course, Fred knew other snake owners who had venomous snakes. I’d have to give Uncle Hal a call to see what he knew about Fred.

*

Banjo greeted me as soon as I walked into Dr. Lancaster’s office.

“Come in!”

I smiled. “Hi, Banjo.”

“Come in!”

“Good morning,” the receptionist said. “How can I help you today?”

“Annabelle Fontaine wanted me to check with you on the status of a new home for Banjo.”

“We haven’t found anyone yet. In fact, we’re thinking of keeping him here in the office. Someone is here every day—even when the office is closed—to feed and check on the animals.”

“Oh, it would be nice if he could stay here.”

“Yeah.” She pulled a string, causing a tiny bell in Banjo’s cage to ring. “He’s really growing on us. He’s such a sweetheart. Aren’t you, fellow?”

“Cash, check or credit card?” Banjo asked.

The receptionist and I laughed.

“See? He’s learning new words here and everything,” she said.

“I’ll be sure and pass that along to Annabelle. She’ll be delighted Banjo is doing so well.” I tilted my head. “May I ask you a silly question?”

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to answer it or not, but feel free to ask.”

“Someone told me people shouldn’t feed live rodents to pet snakes because the rodent could hurt the snake. Is that true?”

“Yes, depending on the size and type of snake and the size of the rodent. What type of snake do you have?”

“I don’t. I became interested in the subject through a friend who has a major grudge against Kellen Dobbs for feeding live rodents to his snakes.”

“Is your friend Belinda Fremont?”

I nodded.

“Dr. Lancaster treats Mrs. Fremont’s Satin Peruvians. She’s discussed the matter with Dr. Lancaster, and he’s tried to speak to Mr. Dobbs about it on more than one occasion.”

“I’m guessing speaking to Mr. Dobbs didn’t do any good?”

She shook her head. “No big surprise there, though. Mr. Dobbs does what he wants.”

“Somehow, I’ve gathered that. Well, thanks for the update on Banjo. Keep me posted on any changes in his whereabouts, would you please?”

“I sure will.”

*

My final stop of the morning was Dobbs’ Pet Store. The bell above the door heralded my arrival, but neither Candy nor Mr. Dobbs came to greet me. That fact, given what I’d read in Mrs. Watson’s journal, made me feel incredibly awkward. There was no way I was going looking for them. Hoping to stay as far away as possible from any inappropriate pet shop behavior, I walked over to the snake cages.

The snakes looked harmless at the moment, either coiled up or stretched out in their aquariums . . . not moving. I wondered if they were sleeping. Since they don’t have eyelids, it was hard to tell.

“What can I get for you?”

I started at the sound of Mr. Dobbs’ voice. Not only was it loud, but it was nearly touching me. I could feel his breath on the back of my head. I slowly turned.

Mr. Dobbs wasn’t allowing me any personal space whatsoever, especially since the snakes were now at my back. I took a step sideways to put a bit of distance between him and me.

“They’re fascinating, aren’t they?” I asked, jerking my head toward the snakes. “I heard something about snakes this morning that I found hard to believe.”

“What’s that?”

“I heard you should never feed your pet snakes live rodents because the rodents can hurt the snakes.”

“Did you come here to question me about what I feed my snakes, or did you come to buy something?”

“I came to get some vitamins for my cat,” I said.

“Good. I hoped you weren’t sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.” He stalked into the cat supply aisle and returned with a bottle of chewable vitamins. “Here you go. On the house. Consider it a gift for not getting involved in things that don’t concern you.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

When I got home, there was a basket of flowers on my porch step. I quickly got out of the car so I could get a closer look and find out who they were from. They were beautiful and oh, so colorful: yellow mums, white roses, orange lilies, purple aster, red carnations and yellow daisies. I plucked the card from its holder. It read: “Sorry I hurt your feelings. I do trust you and hope you’ll let me buy you dinner this evening. Ben.”

I smiled to myself, happy that things were okay between us again.

I unlocked the door and went back to the car to get my groceries. It had been a wild morning, that was for sure. I put away the groceries and checked my answering machine. There were four new messages.

The first was from Violet. “Hi, it’s me. Call me when you get a chance, okay?”

The next message was from Ben. “Hi, it’s Ben. Give me a call when you get in, would you? Thanks. Bye.”

The third message was from Mr. Franklin at Save-A-Buck. “Good morning, Ms. Martin. I was wondering if you could do a few cakes for the store. I understand you are doing a birthday party for Mrs. Fremont, so if you don’t have time right now, then perhaps you can do them once you have finished with the party. Please give me a call so we can discuss. Thank you so much, and have a great day.”

The final message was from Candy. She was nearly whispering. “Hi. I heard what Kel said to you this morning and I’m ever so sorry he was rude. He can be plumb darn touchy sometimes. I’ll give you a call back later on, okay?”

I called Ben first. I know the dating experts would’ve probably told me to make him wait, but . . . aw, heck, I didn’t want to. I’m forty years old. Who has time to play mind games?

We made plans for dinner and, despite my run-in with the testy Mr. Dobbs, I found myself in a delightful mood. After talking with Ben, I tried Violet. Her phone went straight to voice mail so I left her a “tag-you’re-it” message. Since Candy had made it apparent she didn’t want me to return her call, I called Mr. Franklin.

“Ms. Martin,” Mr. Franklin’s voice boomed when he came on the line. “Thank you for calling back so promptly.”

“You’re quite welcome. What can I do for you?”

“I realize you’re currently obligated to Mrs. Fremont, but—”

“How do you know that? I only met with Mrs. Fremont yesterday, and we don’t even meet to go over my design ideas until next week.”

“Right . . . well, good news travels fast, as they say.”

“Obviously.”

“Now then, might you have time to prepare some cakes for Save-A-Buck?”

I was still irritated with him. Within nine days, I’d gone from being a pariah to being the “It Girl” of baking. But I wasn’t going to turn my back on this opportunity. “Sure, I can make some cakes for Save-A-Buck. How many would you like and when do you need them?”

“Could you get me ten cakes—the same as you brought the last time—by next weekend?”

“I can do that, Mr. Franklin.”

“Thank you. If you could bring the cakes to the store on Friday morning, that would be wonderful.”

“Shall I put them in plain white boxes?”

“Excuse me?”

“As opposed to boxes bearing my logo.”

“Heavens, no, don’t use plain boxes. We’ll be delighted for our customers to know Save-a-Buck is a patron of Daphne’s Delectable Cakes.” He paused. “Friday then?”

“All right, I’ll see you then.”

Two cakes for clients this week, a potential new client with a lot of clout, and a cake order from Save-A-Buck complete with logo boxes. And a date with Ben this evening. I was feeling extremely pleased with the way this week was progressing. Violet’s call made things even better.

“Hi. Jason has to go out of town for a couple days for a conference related to work, and the kids and I were wondering if you’d like to come for a sleepover tomorrow night.”

“I’d love to. We haven’t done that in ages.”

“Terrific. I’ll tell Lucas and Leslie. They’ll be thrilled.”

“Where’s Jason going?”

“Chicago. He’ll be back on Monday.”

“Good. Oh, hey, I passed along the Cline information to Peggy March. She seemed happy about it.”

“Wonder why she’d never looked into the matter herself? If you had a child and both her father and grandfather were dead, wouldn’t you want to know if she had any other family out there?”

“I don’t know. Maybe not if I wanted to keep the child to myself. Maybe Peggy figured Joanne had her and her family and that was enough. Maybe she felt Joanne didn’t need her dad’s family, particularly since the child’s paternal grandmother had never appeared to have any desire to be in her life.”

“I guess that makes sense.”

“At least now, hopefully, Peggy and Joanne can gain something from Gloria Cline, even if it’s just closure.”

“And, at least now they know the truth about our mom,” Violet said.

“Exactly. So what time do you want me to come over tomorrow?”

“Is five okay?”

“Five is wonderful. I’m looking forward to it.”

“So are we.”

After talking with Violet, I went into the office to check Save-A-Buck’s previous order: three yellow, four white and three spice cakes. Still, I thought this time, they could use a couple of chocolate cakes; so I made this order for three yellow, two white, two chocolate and three spice cakes.

I went to the kitchen, donned my apron and went to work. I made the chocolate cakes first, and I increased the recipe enough to make two bitty cakes—one for tomorrow’s sleepover and one to be put in the freezer. Of course, the cakes for Save-A-Buck would have to go into the freezer, too, until next week, when it was time to frost them. I put the cakes into the oven, set two timers and went back into the office to e-mail Bonnie. She and I had several days of catching up to do.