The Mud Pie Murderess: A Bakery Detectives Cozy Mystery

A
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T
his story is
a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is purely coincidental.

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hank
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A
scream shot
out from the front of the bakery.

I bolted upright in my desk chair, rubbing my eyes. Where was I?
Right, I fell asleep in my office again.
I blinked a few times.
Did I just dream that someone was screaming?

I looked at the cold cup of coffee and the half-eaten muffin discarded on my desk, and placed a hand on my cheek to feel for crumbs. Yep, I had fallen asleep with my face in the muffin. Great. I blinked a few more times and caught sight of myself in the mirror across from my desk.
Geez, Rach, you look like an absolute mess.

I heard another cry of "ouch!" from the bakery and started to wonder if that initial scream hadn't actually been a dream.

Shoot, what if a customer has been hurt! That is the last thing I need.

Before I even took a minute to wipe the muffin off my face, I raced out of my office and through the kitchen, pushing through the swinging doors that led to the front of the shop.

I was met not by the usual smell of sugary sweet baked goods, pastries and fresh roasted coffee, but by paint. I cringed a little and stopped as I stared at the freshly painted walls. I'd thought the fumes had settled, but after an hour's nap at my desk, my fresh nose could smell it again. Was that what was keeping the customers away? These fumes could kill someone.

I blinked a bit and looked for the source of the screaming.

My new employee Chloe, a replacement for my best friend Pippa, was standing by the cappuccino machine, clutching her finger. "I'm sorry, Rachael!" she said, and I could see that her index finger was bright red, scalded by the milk frother. "I'm such a klutz!"

I raced over to her. "Don't be silly!" I said, reaching into the freezer behind the counter where we keep the ice cream for milkshakes and ice coffees. "Err, this will have to do," I said apologetically as I pulled out a four-liter tub of vanilla ice cream and awkwardly tried to ice her hand with it as she winced.

"Sorry," I said.

But Chloe burst out laughing. She was young, only nineteen, on break from college, and the breezy sort of girl who laughed off things like this. She was pretty, always wore her long golden hair in a ponytail, and always had a smile for any customer that walked through the doors. We just didn't have any right then.

"I was cleaning it, trying to make myself useful while we were quiet," Chloe said. "And it just spurted steam everywhere.”

"Hey, don't worry about it. You were doing the right thing. I probably need to get the machine serviced."

There wasn't anything wrong with Chloe, per se. She was polite, attentive to customers, always well groomed and willing to work any hours I asked of her. Okay, she was pretty much the perfect employee. Not a klutz at all, despite what she'd said.

She just suffered from the fatal flaw of not being Pippa. I could hardly blame her for that, could I?

With her finger mended a bit, I put the ice cream back in the freezer and wondered if it had melted too much to be any good.

Chloe had perked up and was already back to work, wiping down surfaces and rearranging displays.

I screwed my nose up, trying to see if I could still smell the paint. "Can you smell that?" I asked her.

"What?"

"The paint?"

She shook her head. "Can't smell anything."

"I could smell it when I woke up." Whoops, I'd just given away the fact that I was asleep in the back. Chloe giggled at the guilty look on my face and laughed even harder when she noticed the muffin on my cheek.

"Oh, shoot," I said, grabbing a napkin. "I am a total disaster today."

"That makes two of us."

I still wasn't convinced the fumes from the paint weren't too strong. I'd already closed the bakery for four days after the new paint job, but now I was worried that hadn't been long enough.

Another thing I wasn't totally sold on was the color. "I'm still not used to this new look," I mused.

"I think it looks perfect," Chloe said, her ponytail swinging around as she admired the new decor. "White and lavender is much more pleasing on the eye than the hot pink." She caught the look on my face and held her hands up. "No offense," she said quickly. "I'm sure you had good reasons for choosing the previous color scheme."

I sighed. "Pink is my favorite color. But don't worry, I didn't take any offense. I appreciate your honesty."

"I think a fresh coat of paint is just what this place needed," Chloe said with a knowing raise of her eyebrow. "And you needed something to mark a fresh start as well."

I agreed. That had been my rationale behind it. A makeover for the place, a fresh start. After everything that had happened over the past year, all the...well, all the murders that had happened, a fresh start was just what I needed. I was firmly focused on the bakery now, ready to get it back on track. I suddenly stopped and stared at Chloe. "Hang on, just how much do you know?"

Chloe shrugged a little. "Sorry, I just heard a few rumors, that's all. Nothing to worry about." She shot me a bright smile. "Don't worry, I'm not judging you or anything. This is the best place I've ever worked. I didn't mean to upset you." She looked genuinely worried.

I shook my head quickly. "No, no, it's fine. I'm just worried that people will walk in and walk right back out."

"Because of the purple?"

"Because of the fumes."

Chloe was pretty and charming, but she wasn't always the brightest. Or was she right? Would the color purple turn people away?

The jingling sound of the bell over the door interrupted my thoughts. Customers, finally! I waited with my breath held to see if they seemed bothered by the fumes.

They were a gaggle of older women, with one man in the mix, just to be different. They were all impeccably dressed in expensive, pressed clothes, and one woman, who seemed like the leader of the gang, took charge, leading the rest to a table and letting everyone know where they could sit. She had shoulder-length grey hair styled in a wavy bob, and pearls around her neck.

"Who is that?" Chloe asked. "She looks rich."

I frowned and narrowed my eyes. "She looks familiar." But I couldn't quite place her. I got a little nervous. She seemed like the kind of woman who would complain about paint fumes.

In the bakery, customers normally come to the counter to order and we bring their food and coffee to them if they are eating in. But this group made no signs of standing up and I realized that they expected table service. We'd better oblige.

I grabbed the few loose menus we had but dropped them before I could get to the table. I cringed, hoping the group hadn't noticed my clumsiness.

Chloe shot me a sympathetic smile. "You look exhausted, Rachael. Why don't you go to your office and rest? Read or watch some TV. Nap again, even. There are only a few customers. I can deal with them."

"I'm not sure," I said. I caught sight of the woman with the grey hair and the pearls. "I feel like I should stick around for this lot." Her gang might not be many, but they looked like the kind of difficult customers who would send a cappuccino back for not being the perfect temperature. I looked at poor, young, innocent Chloe. I wasn't sure she could handle it.

But I
was
exhausted. And the thought of putting my feet up for half an hour was too appealing to turn down. Maybe the paint fumes were getting to me. I wasn’t normally so tired in the middle of the day.

"Seriously, I'll be fine,” Chloe said with a little wink. She shot a covert nod towards the coven of women and the one solitary man, who was eyeing us skeptically. "And I've handled far worse than this before. Trust me."

"Okay," I said, taking off my apron. But just before I went, I grabbed Chloe by the arm. I'd figured out a surefire way to win a picky customer over. "Give her the mud pie," I said with a whisper and a wink.

Chloe gave me the thumbs up. "You've got it."

* * *

I
was just about
to close my eyes when my cell phone rang. Pippa.

I answered right away.

"How is she?" Pippa demanded to know.

"Who?" I asked. For a second I thought she was talking about our rich customer with the pearls, and wondered whether Pippa was somehow spying on us from her sick bed.

"Who do you think? My replacement," she said.

"Pippa, are you sulking?" I asked as I placed my feet up on my desk. "I can hear the pout on your face even over the phone. You wanted time off, remember."

She was quiet for a moment. "I know. I'm just being a brat. But tell me she's not better than me, at least. Go on, it's good for my ego."

I laughed. "She's not better than you, Pippa."

I pulled a face though and caught sight of myself in the mirror across from my desk. Had I just lied? It wasn't that I liked Chloe better than Pippa, of course, not as a person, not as a friend...

But as an employee? I had to admit, she kind of was better than Pippa. Chloe always turned up on time, was always there when I needed her, had a great resume with good references and no unexplained job losses. Unlike Pippa. Pippa had a very long resume as well, but not in a good way. Before she had settled down and gotten married, the average amount of time she stayed at a job was one week.

I wiped the guilt off my face. It wasn't like I was going to give Chloe Pippa's job as assistant manager. As soon as Pippa was back, she would get her hours back and Chloe's would have to be cut. I wasn't going to totally stab Pippa in the back like that. I had nothing to feel guilty over.

"Are you still there?" Pippa asked.

I realized I was about to tip back on my chair. "Yes, still here. Don't worry, Pippa, you're irreplaceable to me."

Chloe popped her head in the office and I quickly placed my hand over the receiver.

"Just wanted to let you know," Chloe said, "that she loved the mud pie. No complaints. They are all very happy, so you can relax and take that nap now," she said with another wink.

"What would I do without you?" I asked Chloe. "You're irreplaceable."

She left and I took my hand away from the receiver.

"What was that you just said?"

Shoot.

"Nothing!" I said. "I was just talking about ordering some stock...that we need replacing. That's what you must have heard."

Pippa was silent for a moment. "Maybe I should come back."

"You're too sick," I said, rubbing my own temples. "And I think I might have caught it myself actually," I said with a yawn. "I gotta go, Pips."

But just as I was shutting my eyes, about to take a power nap, I heard a scream coming from the front of the bakery. And I knew I hadn't dreamed it this time.

It was Chloe's voice again.

But this time, she hadn't burnt her hand.