Fudging the Books (A Cookbook Nook Mystery 4) Read online

  “Nah. I never text.”

  “Sure you do. I saw you texting that night. Here, at Vines.”

  “Uh-uh, I don’t text.”

  “Over there.” I pointed. “You were lingering by the entrance to the kitchen, leaning against the wall and punching the buttons of your telephone.”

  He grinned, but there was no warmth in his gaze. “Man, you are observant, but nah, I wasn’t texting. I write down jokes on a cyber notepad as they come to me. Here.” He opened an application on his phone and thrust it at me. “Check, if you don’t believe me.”

  I glanced at the screen. Jokes appeared on the notepad app—ordinary jokes, nothing with pizzazz. The date and time on the note synched with what he was saying. I clicked on his text message app. There was nothing there. Not even one text.

  “Hand back the phone now,” he said.

  Another thought occurred to me. Boldly, I moved away from him while hitting the telephone icon.

  “Hey.” Neil followed me and batted my arm. “Give it back.”

  I spun around. His face was a fit of rage. What did he intend to do? Wrestle me for it? What was he hiding? I pressed on the Recently Called list.

  “Don’t,” he hissed. “Stop.”

  I saw a record of phone calls with only two numbers dialed repeatedly, each of which had a designation: his mother and Vines. I suspected the killer had erased all communication from Alison’s phone. Wouldn’t Neil have been diligent enough to do so on his own phone? Was he innocent after all? If so, why was he so adamant that I relinquish the phone?

  “Please,” he pleaded. “If the boss sees me with my cell phone out, I’m toast.”

  “You’re lying. You just said you pulled out your phone to call a friend to check on your mom.”

  “I was going to make one call. Back there. Out of sight. C’mon, hand it back.”

  I did.

  Neil stuffed the phone into his pocket and said, “Keep your distance from me from now on, okay?”

  “You need to talk to the police.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” He shuffled away.

  When I returned to the table, Katie was sipping a glass of wine. Half of it was already consumed. She had ordered me a glass of the same. I took a sip and sighed. It was a cool and crisp Riesling, perfect after a heavy meal.

  “Is everything okay?” Katie asked.

  “I thought Neil might have killed Alison, but now, I don’t think so. He isn’t smart enough. Whoever killed her was savvy.” I swirled the wine. Thin streams of the gold liquid trickled down the insides of the goblet. I took another sip and thought about Ingrid Lake. She wanted to purchase Foodie Publishing. Was that enough motive for murder?

  “Hello,” Katie said. “Where did you go? La-la land?”

  I flicked the air with my fingertips. “I’m here. I won’t dwell on it anymore. Did you eat?”

  “I tasted everything that went out of the café kitchen earlier. That’s plenty of food for me.” Katie ran a finger down the stem of her glass. “Besides, I’m not very hungry, with my mother . . .” She bobbed her head. “You know. I’m sort of wondering how much longer she can go on like this. I’ve studied the statistics. She’s in the four percent of people under age sixty-five who have Alzheimer’s. Most can live a long life, but does she want to?”

  “What is the alternative?”

  Katie leaned forward on both elbows. “It’s draining.”

  “I wish your dad would help.”

  “Me, too.” Katie offered a rueful smile. “I remember learning to cook at my mother’s side. She was marvelous. Did I tell you? She could whip up stuff in a blink of an eye. Add a little this, remove a tad of that.”

  “My mother did the same.” Which was one of the reasons I had never learned to cook until now. Why try when there was a great chef at the helm?

  Katie polished off her wine and signaled the waitress to bring her another. “What do you think about Bailey and Tito?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Do you think they make a good match?”

  “It’s early yet, and for Bailey, that means it’ll probably end soon.”

  “Wow. Aren’t you the cynic.”

  “She’ll find a reason to end it.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because she’s nervous about forever. I think it has to do with the fact that her mom and dad got divorced.”

  “It’s better to get divorced than live a lie, like my parents.” Katie sighed. “Besides, Bailey’s mother is completely in love with your father. That’s got to show her there’s an ideal to strive for.”

  Our waitress appeared with a second glass of wine for Katie. She took a sip and nodded. The waitress departed.

  “What about you and Rhett?” Katie asked.

  “What about us?”

  “You seem destined.”

  My cheeks warmed. “Destined is a big—” My cell phone buzzed in my pocket. I fished it out and looked at the readout. No name. I answered anyway.

  “Jenna!” Coco cried. “I—” She inhaled. “I’m sorry to bother you. I—” She sobbed.

  “What’s wrong? Are you sick? Throwing up? Do you need to go to the hospital?”

  “No, I’m fine.” She moaned. “I tried calling Bailey, but she’s not answering. Can you come to the shop? Quick!”

  Chapter 23

  I VEERED MY VW into a parking spot in front of Sweet Sensations and skidded to a stop. I told Tigger to sit tight, and I rushed inside. The place was a mess. Fresh baked goods littered the floor. Trays of candies lay overturned inside the glass display cases. I found Coco in the kitchen retrieving the precious recipe cards that the perpetrator must have strewn on the floor. Flour and sugar were scattered everywhere. A carton of broken eggs lay in front of the walk-in refrigerator. Wet paper towels clung to the walls and dripped from the edges of the sink and off shelves. Ugh!

  Coco raced to me and grabbed me in a fierce hug. “Thank you for coming. I didn’t know—” She released me and fanned herself with a fistful of recipe cards. “I didn’t know who else to call.”

  “The police,” I suggested.

  “Yes, of course.” She buffed the tip of her nose with the back of her hand. “We must.”

  I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and dialed the precinct.

  “Who would do this?” Coco muttered.

  A kid, I thought. The mess had all the earmarks of a TP-type job, mean and childish in its intent, carried out in a matter of minutes.

  “Crystal Cove Police Department,” a clerk said on the other end of the line.

  I explained the problem. She patched me through to Detective Appleby, who was driving in the location. When he answered, I recapped what I had told the clerk. The detective promised he would arrive soon and disconnected.

  “After distributing the invitations,” Coco said, “I was so grimy and still nauseous, I went home to take a shower. Then I laid down for a couple of hours. I need to feel refreshed before I make candy.”

  “What time did your assistant close up shop?”

  “I would assume the normal time. At six. When I arrived, the lights were out. I switched them on and found this”—Coco brandished her hand—“fiasco.” She returned to the chore of retrieving recipe cards. I bent to help. Many of the cards had frayed corners. Some were stained with oil and other unidentifiable cooking items, like milk, oil, chocolate, or juice. I tried to categorize the cards but realized my sorting pattern might not be Coco’s and decided to stack them instead.

  “You don’t think it was someone who hates Valentine’s Day, do you?” Coco asked.

  “Why would you say that?”

  She pointed. Someone had shredded the sparkly, pale pink heart decorations Coco had yet to hang in the windows.

  A siren whooped outside.

  I set
the recipes I’d collected on a counter and hurried through the saloon-style swinging doors to the main shop. Coco followed. A patrol car pulled up behind my VW. The light rotating on top of the car bathed the shop in red. Deputy Appleby lumbered out of the driver’s side. A younger deputy, wafer-thin in comparison to Appleby, scrambled out of the passenger side.

  Appleby paused inside the front door of the shop and scanned the area. “Nasty,” he muttered. To his colleague, he said, “Take pictures.”

  I rushed to the deputy and shook his hand. “Thanks for coming.”

  His mouth quirked up on one side. “Might I ask why you are at yet another scene of the crime?”

  “I’m Coco’s friend. She called me.” I gestured at the chaos. “Is there any way to figure out who did this?”

  “The door looks intact.” Appleby eyed Coco, who had followed me from the kitchen. “Miss Chastain, don’t tell me you leave this door unlocked, too?”

  “Of course not, Deputy.”

  “Does anyone else have a key?”

  “No, but my assistant might have neglected to lock it. She’s a hard worker and dedicated, but she can be”—Coco pressed her lips together—“a bubblehead.”

  Appleby sauntered to the kitchen and paused in the doorway; his gaze seemed to be taking in every detail. “The delinquent must have seen her leave and then made his move.”

  “Why do you think a delinquent did this?” I asked.

  The deputy jerked a thumb at the wet paper towels in the kitchen sink. Then he indicated the eggs on the floor. “Kids love making messes.” He pivoted and resumed examining the main shop again. “I’d bet you’re missing a bunch of stock, Miss Chastain. The chocolate truffles in the glass display case look pretty picked over.”

  Coco sighed. “All the cake pops are gone, as well. All that work—”

  “Yep. Teens,” the deputy said. “We’ll file a report, but there’s not much else we can do.”

  “Can you lift fingerprints?” I asked.

  “That won’t help if the culprits aren’t in the system.” Appleby scrutinized the upper corners of the shop. “You don’t seem to have any security cameras, Miss Chastain. You might want to install some for the future.”

  Coco shook her head, dismayed. “I pay Crystal Cove Security Patrol to keep an eye on the place.”

  “Worthless,” Appleby mumbled. “If they’re not in the vicinity at the time of the crime, they can’t do a blasted thing. This wreckage took less than ten minutes, tops.”

  Exactly what I had calculated.

  “I’d bet the teen had been plotting his move for weeks,” he added.

  “Or her move,” I said, believing a local teenage girl who loved to create chaos might be the culprit. Poor thing didn’t have a mother; her father didn’t keep her in tow.

  When the deputy and his associate were done with what little they could or would do, I said to Coco, “I’ll stay and help you clean up.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “No arguments.”

  Appleby strode toward the exit. He paused and cleared his throat. “Jenna? A word?”

  Uh-oh. I joined him, my senses on hyperalert.

  “How is your aunt doing?” he asked.

  I knew it. He wanted me to spill family secrets. No way. I smiled. “She’s fine, Deputy.”

  “Has she mentioned . . .” Appleby shrugged. “You know.”

  “You? Yes. She hinted that you’re no longer dating.” I could say that much. No harm, no foul.

  “Do you think she’ll change her mind?”

  “Why should she?”

  His face twisted with love that looked painful. “Because she’s my soul mate.”

  “Says who?”

  “My mother.”

  I bit back a giggle. His mother?

  “Mother says it’s in the cards,” Appleby continued.

  Honestly? Another chuckle threatened to surface. Keep cool, Jenna.

  “She reads tarot, like your aunt,” Appleby added.

  Aha! Now I understood the attraction.

  “Mom did a reading for me.” Appleby rotated his hand as if flipping over cards. “She turned up the Lovers, the Two of Cups, and the Four of Wands.”

  I knew the significance. I’d learned from my aunt that there were ten top love cards. All three in the deputy’s reading were included in the ten; the Lovers being the ultimate. I said, “Do you believe in that mumbo jumbo?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Not really. It’s fun, and I know my aunt believes in it, but I feel we create our own fate. Anyone can alter their outcome by making different choices.” My reasoning didn’t seem to be swaying the detective. “Look, if you feel this confident about changing the tide, be bold. Ask my aunt to tea. Tell her your hopes and dreams, but don’t expect miracles. Once a Hart woman’s mind is made up, it’s hard to change it.” I weighed whether to say more, and decided why not? “By the way, how would your kids feel if they had a stepmother in her sixties?”

  “My children are in their thirties. They won’t get a say.”

  I gawped. “Are you joshing me? Did you have them when you were twelve?”

  He grinned. “I’m fifty-eight.”

  “Really?” Wow! I thought the guy was in his early forties. He was closer in age to my aunt than I had imagined.

  “Good genes,” Appleby said, “plus I don’t eat a lot of starch.” He offered a two-fingered salute. “Thanks for the advice.”

  • • •

  COCO AND I spent the better part of two hours cleaning up Sweet Sensations. During the process, she professed repeatedly that nobody, not even an angry, deviant kid, could sidetrack her. A delinquent could plot and loot, but he—or she, I reminded her—would not keep Coco from having her Valentine’s Day Lollapalooza. No, sir.

  When I woke the next morning with only five hours of sleep, I was dog tired. Somehow I had to drum up the energy to finish decorating my own shop. Too-ra-loo, as my aunt would say. One day at a time. I skipped my morning exercise routine, slugged down a strong cup of coffee, loaded up with a homemade energy bar packed with sunflower seeds, honey, and oats—my aunt made them, not me—and I headed to The Cookbook Nook.

  Bailey was already there. She had revamped the children’s corner, decorating with strings of hearts and miniature cupids. On a typical day, we always put out coloring books and crayons on the circular table. Today, she’d added a bucket of scissors, construction paper, and glue sticks. Her cat Hershey was nestled in the reading chair. I waved at him, but he didn’t bat an eyelash.

  “Good morning,” I said.

  Bailey didn’t respond. After a date with Tito, I had expected her to be glowing, but she didn’t look all that good. She was dressed entirely in black—a rarity for a woman who adored color. She wasn’t wearing makeup or jewelry. And she was mumbling to herself. Call me crazy, but given her mood, I didn’t feel I should tell her about Coco’s disaster right off the bat.

  “Good morning,” I repeated and slung my purse onto the sales counter. I set Tigger on the floor. He romped into the stockroom and back out, as frisky as all get-out. He stared at Hershey, who still hadn’t roused, and made a beeline for me.

  “It’s okay, Tigger,” I cooed. “Don’t take the rejection personally. Hershey has issues.”

  Tigger raised his head and whisked his tail, asking me to follow him. I did. He romped to the children’s corner, ducked beneath the table, and yowled. I knelt down and spied a few maps from Pirate Week scattered on the floor.

  I collected them and rose to my feet. “Bailey, uh, girlfriend, yoo-hoo. Did you hear me? What’s up?”

  Bailey muttered something that sounded an awful lot like, “I’m so stupid.”

  “Are you talking to yourself?” I asked.

  “No!”

  “Did you and Tito brea
k up?”

  “Why would you say that?” she snapped. “We are fine with a capital F. Comprende?”

  I shot up my hands to defend against slings and arrows. “I understand. Sí.”

  “Sorry.” Bailey exhaled through her nose. “I didn’t mean to bark at you. Tito and I are in great shape. The best. In fact, I think I’m in love.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Not a whit. He’s cute and funny and smart.”

  “We’re talking about Tito Martinez, right?”

  Bailey swatted my arm. “Cut it out.”

  I had to admit, ever since Tito subbed for a magician who bowed out of one of our special events, my opinion of him had changed. I liked him. “So what’s wrong?”

  “The cat.”

  Hershey raised his head and leered at her.

  “Yeah, you,” Bailey snarled then choked back a sob. “He doesn’t like me. I’m not savvy when it comes to cats, and he knows it.”

  “How could he possibly know that?” I unrolled a map that was tied with raffia ribbon and admired the handiwork. A parent must have helped a child. I slotted it at the top of the pile I’d amassed.

  “Tito says it’s my nose.”

  “Huh? You have a darling nose.”

  “No, not my nose nose. Yes, I do have a pretty cute one.” Bailey tapped her nose with a finger. I was pleased to see her sense of humor was still intact. “Tito says I wrinkle my nose whenever I get near the litter box.”

  “So do I. Yuck.”

  “I also squinch it whenever I pick up the cat. I don’t do that with dogs. I stick my nose right in their fur and breathe deeply. I must be a dog person.” She sighed. “I’m so stupid.”

  “You’re not stupid. So, you’re not a cat person.” In truth, she was a cat person; she did with Tigger exactly what she was describing she did with dogs. The problem was Hershey, but Bailey had to come to that realization on her own.

  “Tito offered to take the cat,” she said. “He adores him.”

  Hershey lifted his head again and, I swear, gave a satisfied Cheshire Cat grin, as if he had planned all along to be returned to Tito. Did cats have a say in the matter? Tigger glanced at me, and I laughed. Obviously, they did. They picked their human, not the other way around.