Murder & Marble Cake Read online

  “You’ve known Scott and Emily all your life, right?” Rachel asked. “Arthur too?”

  Jay nodded. His eyes looked lined and tired. “It’s unbelievable that he’s dead. It’s all I can think about.”

  “Why did you come bail me out?” Rachel asked. “I can’t thank you enough for it, but didn’t you suspect me?”

  Jay shook his head. “I’ve dealt with criminals, Rachel. I know you’re not one.” But there was something he wasn’t telling her, Rachel knew. This was too easy an explanation. More likely, Jay didn’t think she was the killer because he suspected someone else. Who?

  “Emily mentioned that Paul Johnson and Arthur had a fight recently,” Rachel probed.

  Irritation flashed across Jay’s face. “Paul’s my biggest client—well, he was—until Arthur got into a stupid, drunken argument with him. But did Paul kill him? I doubt it.”

  “Sheriff Tanner—Scott—mentioned a love letter that was found in pieces over Arthur’s body,” Rachel said. “Maybe Arthur was having an affair with Paul’s girlfriend, Lacey?”

  “Lacey? No, Arthur broke up with her a decade ago. Arthur wasn’t having an affair with Lacey.”

  “Broke up with her?” Rachel’s eyes widened. “So Arthur was dating Lacey once upon a time?”

  Jay nodded. “Years and years ago. Way before we even met. It was just a stupid, high school fling. He definitely wouldn’t have anything to do with Lacey now.”

  “How would you know?” Rachel asked. “I mean, it’s possible, isn’t it? That’s why he and Paul probably fought.”

  The doorbell rang, and Jay walked out with Ollie in his arms. Ollie, who had a ring of milk around his mouth, and crumbs of fruit loops all over his t-shirt, yelled a delighted, “HELLO!” to Rachel as he left. She heard Jay speak to the nanny for a few minutes, and then he entered the kitchen again, minus Ollie.

  “Sorry, I have to leave now,” he said, dusting off his hands and then wiping them on a towel. “Rachel, as your lawyer, I’d say don’t go about talking to too many people or asking questions. Sit tight and do something to take your mind off this mess. Obsessing over Arthur’s death won’t end well for you.”

  “I’m not obsessing,” Rachel said. “I’m just . . . trying to make sense of it all.”

  “That’s Scott’s job,” Jay pointed out. “Leave him to it.”

  “Well, what am I supposed to do? Bake a cake? I’m locked out of my house and twiddling my thumbs!”

  “A cake. Not a bad idea.” Jay grinned. “I’d love some. The ingredients are all in the cupboard next to the fridge, if you fancy it. At least it’ll get your mind off Arthur. Whatever you do, don’t irritate Scott. He’s convinced you’re the killer and just itching for an excuse to throw you in jail.”

  “OK,” Rachel said. “I’ll sit around and bake. But I have one last question for you first.”

  “Hit me with it.” Jay smiled, adjusting his tie, and reaching for his jacket.

  “You know who killed Arthur. Who was it?”

  Jay froze in the act of wearing his jacket, for just a second. He locked eyes with Rachel, and Rachel suddenly had to take a step back at the intensity in them. Arthur had described Jay as a machine, and Emily had called him a tornado. She could see why. These were the eyes of a man ready to tear down everything in his path in order to get what he wanted. The question was, what did he want right now? And how was Rachel a part of it?

  “I don’t know who killed Arthur,” Jay said, with a smile that almost looked genuine from a distance. “I wish I did, believe me.”

  “Even if you don’t know, I think you have a very strong suspicion,” Rachel said. “That’s why you don’t think I did it even if the cards are stacked against me. You suspect someone else. Who?”

  “Bake that cake, Rachel,” Jay said. “Don’t think too much about Arthur. Like I said, it won’t be good for you.” With that, he gathered his briefcase and left.

  Alone in the kitchen, Rachel watched him leave with some irritation. Why was he being so mysterious? He could have denied having a suspicion, instead, he’d more or less told her to keep her nose out of it. Well, fat chance of that. The way things were going, there was a good chance Rachel could end up behind bars if the killer wasn’t caught fast, and she didn’t entirely trust Sheriff Tanner to do a good job of it.

  Even as she stewed in anger, Rachel found herself walking automatically to the cupboard and taking out flour, baking powder, salt, milk, and eggs. She hunted around the kitchen for cocoa and vanilla and paused in surprise as she opened a drawer.

  Inside, she found an assortment of various types of chocolate—powdered chocolate, cooking chocolate in bars, chocolate chips, and even fresh cocoa beans! Clearly Emily liked her chocolate. Even more surprising, there were a range of vanilla powders, vanilla essences, and vanilla pods from different companies.

  “Huh,” Rachel said out loud. “Maybe she was looking for the right ingredients to put in her coffees? Some people are particular like that.”

  Aunt Rose hadn’t been. One Christmas, Rachel had gifted her a bottle of expensive truffle oil. Aunt Rose had appreciated it quite a lot and even made some delicious pasta the next day. A few months later, however, when the two had met for coffee, Aunt Rose had confessed, “I never know what to do with fancy ingredients. They intimidate me.”

  “You should try them out more often,” Rachel had replied. “They’ll make your dishes more delicious. You could really upgrade your cakes with some fresh vanilla or chocolate. Maybe your next cake could be passion fruit or something fancy. I’m sure your customers would love it.”

  But Aunt Rose had said, “I don’t believe in all that, you know.”

  “All what?”

  “Upgrades,” Aunt Rose had said. “People are silly that way. You can charge someone five dollars for a Café Au Lait, and they will happily pay up. But call that same drink coffee with milk—which is the literal translation—and they’ll be disappointed with it. All exotic ingredients are local somewhere and that’s where they belong—in the hands of their local cooks. The best dishes come from the simplest of ingredients as long as you’ve had the time and experience to match them to your tastebuds and cooking techniques.”

  “That’s a rather old-fashioned way of looking at it.” Rachel had laughed.

  “It probably is. I’m not saying you should never experiment, or try new things. I just don’t like people who fall for fads. Give me a simple sandwich with local ham and cheese, and I’ll bet it tastes better than imported caviar, nine times out of ten.”

  Smiling at the memory of her aunt, Rachel ignored the fancier ingredients in Emily’s drawer and took out a packet of cocoa powder and a bottle of vanilla essence that had been bought from the local store.

  Since she was going to bake a cake anyway, Rachel thought a marble cake would be a good idea. After all, she’d eaten Emily’s last slice of Aunt Rose’s cake last night. Whistling to herself, she moved around the kitchen and began preheating the oven.

  “What doing?” Ollie’s little face, marginally cleaner now, peeked in from the door.

  “Hey Ollie. Where’s your nanny?” Rachel smiled.

  “Phone.” Ollie sighed.

  “Well, want to come in and help me?” Rachel asked. “I could use the company.”

  “Me?” Ollie’s eyes were wide, and he looked around the kitchen uncertainly, as though a boogeyman might jump out any second.

  “Yes, you. Come on, I really need help.”

  He stepped forward hesitantly, and Rachel handed him a pan. “Now, take this butter, and smear it all over the pan. The more the merrier. Like this.”

  “I can do that.” Ollie’s chest stuck out, and he grabbed the pan from her, nearly dropping it in the process. He held the stick of butter like a crayon, and began stabbing at the pan with it. Rachel bit back a smile, and the urge to smack his cheeks with kisses. She’d started “cooking” at the age of three too, thanks to Aunt Rose. One of her first memories was weighing the f
lour and butter with her aunt. She’d never realized it was a sneaky way of getting her to count.

  “I’m doing it!” Ollie exclaimed. His face was shining with pride.

  They spent an hour and a half in the kitchen, with Rachel carefully guiding Ollie through easier steps like weighing the flour and stirring the batter. Ollie was fascinated by the entire process, and although he had a tendency to dip his fingers into the batter when he thought Rachel wasn’t looking, he was well behaved throughout.

  There was a special pleasure in baking with a toddler. Each step that Rachel took for granted, or thought of as tedious, was a whole new experience for Ollie. He was fascinated by the weighing scale, and they spent time weighing all sorts of things, including spoons, Rachel’s apron, and a nearby banana. He was excited when the dry ingredients were mixed with the wet, and a gloopy batter began to form. He was even excited when Rachel separated a yolk from an egg to add it in.

  When the marble cake batter finally went into the oven, Ollie stared at the warm-yellow light illuminating the inside of the oven.

  “When will it be ready?” he asked.

  “Patience, young man.” Rachel smiled. “All good things take time.”

  “I don’t like time,” Ollie said. “I want it now!”

  She knew how he felt. She’d distracted herself for a few hours, but the truth was, she wanted answers now. Answers like—what had Emily wanted in Aunt Rose’s study? Who did Jay suspect? What was in that love letter that had been strewn over Arthur’s body? And most important of all—who had killed Arthur and why?

  *****

  Chapter 10

  The Puppy Theory

  The cake was as delicious as she’d expected it to be. She’d baked two of them at once, and while one was left on Emily’s dining table with a note thanking her and Jay, Rachel packed up the other in tinfoil and headed out.

  Rachel felt self-conscious as she walked through Swaddle. Maybe she was imagining it, but it felt as though cars slowed down a little when passing her. Stranger’s eyes would be suddenly averted if she met them, and not a single one of her smiles was returned. What a change! She felt her mood become progressively more dispirited as she walked on, and by the time she reached Audrey’s house on Willow Street, Rachel was gloomy.

  It was probably a terrible idea to try and meet Audrey. What had she even been thinking? Audrey was going to throw her out of the house, and probably cause a painful scene. Rachel paused on the curb in front of Audrey’s Craftsman cottage. She had just about made up her mind to turn around when the door opened, and a man wearing a plaid shirt stepped out onto the brick-laden porch. He leaned his considerable heft on one of the pillars that framed the front porch and quickly put a cigarette in his mouth. He’d just brought the lighter up when he caught sight of Rachel. He stared at her, and his mouth dropped open a little.

  In three giant strides, he was beside her. “Rachel? What are you doing here?”

  “Jackson?” Rachel remembered him now. This was Jackson Wyatt, owner of the local hardware store. He was a hard man to forget, really, what with his bulk and bright-red hair. She’d last met him when she had ordered the sign for Comfort Cakes. With a pang, she remembered that the sign was still rolled up somewhere in her kitchen and would probably never be unfurled. Maybe the forensics team had bagged it up as evidence.

  “Terrible news, isn’t it?” Jackson said. “About Arthur, I mean.”

  “Really sad,” Rachel agreed.

  “Reminds me of a poem by Wordsworth,” Jackson said. “To her fair works did nature link/The human soul that through me ran;/And much it grieved my heart to think/What man has made of man.”

  “That’s beautiful,” Rachel said.

  “Thanks. I was thinking of reading it at the eulogy.” Jackson sighed. He shook his head as he observed the dark circles under her eyes. “I heard they arrested you, and I told everyone immediately that there was no way you’d done it. I told 'em it couldn’t be you.”

  “That’s really kind.” Rachel smiled. “Considering that the evidence seems to be against me.”

  “Pfft. Evidence.” Jackson waved it aside. He rubbed the thick, lustrous, red beard that fluffed out above his plaid shirt. “Look, as far as I’m concerned, evidence isn’t all that. You can read it one way, you can read it another. Character is what matters. Now I remember you; the day you came into my store to order your sign, my little puppy, Scooter, had just broken a leg. You spent half an hour playing with the wee thing and comforting him. In my mind, nobody who’s that kind to animals can be a murderer. You just can’t.”

  Jackson’s words cheered her considerably. Here was another person who was convinced that she hadn’t done it—and unlike Jay, with his mysterious motives and shifting moods—Jackson was a sweet, teddy bear with no agenda.

  “Thanks,” Rachel said. “I came by here to offer my condolences to Audrey, but I wasn’t sure if she’d want to see me. I mean, I don’t know what she believes right now.”

  Jackson sighed. “Poor Audrey. She’s barely functioning since she found out about Arthur. She’s terrified about the killer, too. Begged me to move in a couple nights until her parents reach here tomorrow. I thought Scooter would cheer her up a bit. It’s hard on me to see her like this.”

  “You known her long?”

  “You could say that I’ve known her since before I was born.” Jackson gave a weak grin.

  Rachel raised an eyebrow, and he continued, “Our moms were pregnant at the same time. We were born a month apart and then we were neighbors for eighteen years.” Jackson said. “Her parents are on a fifteen-day trip to Hawaii. I mean, they’ve cut it short now for her. She needs all the support she can get.”

  “Did you know Arthur well, too?”

  “Everyone knows everyone in Swaddle,” Jackson said. “Arthur and I were on the football team together back in the day—Swaddle Panthers—Class of ninety-four. We’re a pretty historic team, actually. We won the sectional title that year. Arthur was our tight end. Scott Tanner was quarterback, and Jay Frank and Paul were receivers. As for me—” He looked down at his body and widened his arms a bit. “With a build like this, I pretty much got shunted into being the linebacker.”

  Rachel laughed, “I bet you were good at it too.”

  “Oh, I did OK.” Jackson smiled. “But Jay was our hero. He had a real shot at going professional, everyone said so. Then he injured his knee, and that was the end of it. Poor guy, he still misses those days, I think. We all do. We get together every year for the Super Bowl and—” A shadow crossed his face. “And I guess it’ll be different from here on out. Poor Arthur. No more football for him . . .” He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand and looked at the ground. “Listen, Rachel, when you meet Audrey, do me a favor and don’t bring up Arthur too much. She’s really sensitive right now. She needs a friend not a questioner.”

  “I won’t. I promise,” Rachel agreed. She’d meant to question Audrey but Jackson was right. Audrey was probably too upset to be questioned right now. Jackson, however, was open game.

  “So . . . I have to ask. Did you know anyone who might have had a grudge against Arthur?” Rachel queried. “I mean . . . anyone at all?”

  Jackson shook his head. “There’s no point in guessing games. I guess Sheriff Tanner will do his work and catch the killer real soon.”

  “I heard Arthur had a big fight with Paul recently,” Rachel prompted.

  Jackson looked at her with surprise. “You heard that?”

  “Word gets around.”

  “Yeah, well, Paul has a hair-trigger temper, and everyone knows it. He’s not a nice guy. But I wouldn’t assume he killed Arthur. That’s stretching it.”

  But if he did, Rachel thought, then that might explain why Jay was being so shifty. If Jay suspected Paul had killed Arthur, perhaps he felt obligated to be true to his oldest client and protect him from the law. It was a stretch but it was possible.

  “Why did they fight?” Rachel asked. “Was it over
Lacey?”

  “It was over beer,” Jackson said. “I was actually at the bar when it happened. It was just one of those things, you know. Well, I guess a big-city girl like you wouldn't know. Here in Swaddle, a bar fight is like a political argument over Thanksgiving dinner. You don’t take it very seriously the next day and you don’t hold grudges. You certainly don’t kill.”

  “But something must have prompted the fight,” Rachel said. “Did Paul throw a punch? Did Arthur?”

  “Well it was last Friday night at the Corrupt Jackal—that’s our local watering hole. I was watching the game, minding my own business, when Paul and Arthur walked in. They were already pretty drunk but not completely out of it, you know? Pleasantly drunk. Paul had his hand around Arthur’s shoulders and as usual, he offered to buy us all a round. Arthur began teasing him a bit. Said something like, “You keep doing this and one day you’ll be dead broke.” Paul started boasting that he could buy Arthur twice over if he needed to. That’s when Arthur said, 'You can buy cars and houses and maybe even people’s loyalty, but you can’t buy love.'” Jackson paused. “Now see, that might not mean much to an outsider, but everyone in town knows that Lacey’s a mighty bit better looking than Paul. It wasn’t his looks that attracted her. It certainly wasn’t his personality that attracted her either. Rumor is, it’s his deep pockets she likes. Everyone also knows that Lacey always had a thing for Arthur, and was quite upset when he chose Audrey.”

  “So it was a subtle dig,” Rachel said.

  “Hardly subtle. Paul’s face turned red and he got mad real fast. He didn’t start throwing punches right then, but it didn’t take much. Half an hour later Arthur made some comment about one quarterback being better than another, and Paul escalated the whole argument until punches started getting thrown. I had to pry them apart before real damage was done.”

  “That sounds pretty serious.”

  “I know it does,” Jackson said. “But . . . it’s just drunk guy talk, you know? Nobody remembers it the next day. You forget it and move on.”