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

  “Chief Pritchett,” I said, doing her the honor of calling her by her title, not her first name, “what document was Alison working on?”

  “Why?” Cinnamon tilted her head. Her eyes narrowed.

  “She must have been completely focused on her work not to have noticed her killer.” I gestured to the window and explained my reasoning. It was dark out. The reflection worked like a mirror. “If she did see the killer, she trusted whoever it was.”

  “You see?” Ingrid shouted. “That proves it. Coco did it. She lives here. Alison wouldn’t have swiveled in her seat to talk to her.”

  Though I didn’t like the young copyeditor, I had to agree with her. But Alison was familiar with a lot more people in town than simply Coco. On the other hand, anyone other than Coco entering the house unannounced between midnight and now would have been suspect, right?

  No, Jenna. Coco did not do this.

  “I’ll bet . . .” Ingrid inhaled sharply, her thoughts coming faster than her breath. “I’ll bet Alison told Coco about the cuts she was making.”

  Coco visibly bristled. “What cuts?”

  All heads turned toward her.

  “To your latest manuscript,” Ingrid said. “You were getting too wordy. Alison said you would throttle her for the myriad cuts she was making.”

  Cuts. Were the scissors metaphorical? I gazed at Cinnamon, who appeared to be wondering the same thing, her gaze roving from the scissors to Coco and back again.

  “Uh-uh.” Coco wagged a finger. “We were done with edits on my latest manuscript. We’d already gone through that phase.”

  “You told her not to edit you at all,” Ingrid said. “You told her you had proprietary ownership.”

  I flashed on the fake fight Alison and Coco had performed at the café earlier. Had there been some truth in their sparring?

  “I was kidding.” Coco eyed Cinnamon. “Here’s how it goes. I turn in the manuscript.” She used her hands to explain the process. “Alison reviews it. She makes suggestions. Then I—”

  “Made,” Ingrid inserted. “Made suggestions. Past tense.”

  Coco snarled but continued using the present tense. “Alison sends them to me. I work on her suggestions and return the manuscript. Then she sends it to Ingrid.” Coco glowered at the copyeditor. “It was your turn to review. My latest manuscript should be on your desk. That can’t be my manuscript on the computer.”

  Cinnamon held up a hand to keep everyone at bay and edged toward the computer. Reading from the screen, she said, “Chocolate Bombs. That seems to be the title of a recipe. Is it yours, Miss Chastain?”

  Coco blanched and muttered, “Yes, but that wasn’t . . . why would she have—”

  “There are other documents here,” Cinnamon said, leaning forward and dragging the documents aside so she could read titles beneath. “A second Chocolate Bombs file. One for Chocolate Desire. Another for Chocolate Macadamia Bites. All yours?”

  “Yes, those are my titles, but—”

  “There are comments on this topmost document from three different sources in the margins,” Cinnamon went on. “Alison Foodie in green, Author in yellow, and Copyeditor in light blue.”

  “Copyeditor. That’s me,” Ingrid said then quickly corrected herself. “I mean, I; that is I. Alison doesn’t . . . didn’t want her authors to get confused. She used her first and last name so there was no mistake, and then the copyeditor’s name was generic. There’s only one of me at the company, but even so . . . generic. The author responds first to Alison’s comments, then to mine.”

  “Is that the way it goes, Miss Chastain?” Cinnamon asked.

  Coco nodded again, but she looked confused. She pivoted, as if searching the kitchen for something.

  “There are a lot of comments made by you, Miss Lake,” Cinnamon said.

  Coco spun back and threw out a zinger. “That’s because Ingrid makes picayune suggestions.”

  “I do not!” Ingrid shrieked.

  “You do, too!”

  “Nothing I do is trivial.”

  “Ladies,” Cinnamon said.

  Ingrid didn’t heed the warning. “Every comma and colon matters. Eats, Shoots and Leaves,” she added, citing the title of a humorous book about punctuation. I had read it in college. “Authors don’t grasp the value of a copyeditor’s expertise.”

  “Bah!” Coco said. “Even Alison said you were heavy-handed. I wouldn’t put it past you to have killed her.”

  “Me?”

  “You were not on track to become a partner.”

  “I was, too. Besides, I just got here. You did it. A desire for creative control can be a very powerful motive for murder, and you—”

  “Ladies, silence!” Cinnamon yelled. “Let’s take this outside. Deputy Appleby, snap a few photos, please. The coroner will be here shortly.”

  I trailed the pack and heard Coco whisper, “If anyone deserved to die, it was Ingrid.”

  Chapter 6

  AROUND DAWN, HEARTSICK for Coco, but mindful of my obligations and knowing I couldn’t do anything to change the course of Cinnamon’s inquiry, I said I needed to go home. Bailey asked if she could remain behind to support Coco. Just for a few hours. I told her of course. I totally understood. As I was leaving, Deputy Appleby asked if he could have a word with me about my aunt, but Cinnamon intercepted him before we could chat, so I left.

  An hour later, after showering and doing something with my hair, I threw on trousers and a cute aqua sweater, downed a necessary meal of oatmeal lavished in sugar and fresh fruit—I made oatmeal once a week and reheated it in the microwave—and, with Tigger in tow, headed to work.

  Aunt Vera had arrived at The Cookbook Nook before me. She was already sorting money into the cash register till slots when I entered. She looked colorful in a cardinal red caftan, her hair swept up in a chignon. Her turban rested on the stool behind her. A threesome of tarot cards lay turned up on the vintage kitchen table. I didn’t take a peek, but seeing as we didn’t have any customers, I figured she was trying to read her own future.

  “What’s the special occasion?” I asked and set Tigger by the children’s corner. He explored beneath the chairs, weaving in and out of the legs as if they were his own private forest, and finally came to rest.

  “Whatever do you mean?” My aunt toyed with a hoop earring. Her cluster of silver bracelets jingled.

  I twirled a finger. “The getup. I happen to know this particular caftan is your favorite. Do you have a big date with Deputy Appleby today?” The two had gone out on a number of dates in the past three months. My aunt told me it wasn’t serious between them, but dating a younger man had done worlds for adding a spring to her step.

  “No,” she said. “I mean, yes, I have a date, but no, not with the deputy.”

  “Oho,” I said, sounding more like a pirate than I’d intended. “Are you dating more than one man?”

  “Um, I’m not seeing Deputy Appleby anymore. My decision.”

  Aha. Now I understood why the deputy had tried to speak with me earlier. I said, “Care to tell me why not?”

  “It’s not your concern.”

  “No, of course not, but I am worried. When I saw him this morning—”

  “What?” Aunt Vera turned pale. “You saw him? Where? When? Why?”

  I held up a hand. “Alison Foodie was murdered.” I told her how I came to be at the crime scene.

  My aunt grasped the phoenix amulet she always wore around her neck and rubbed it furiously with her thumb. “What is this world coming to? How will Crystal Cove handle yet another tragedy like this?”

  My thoughts exactly.

  “How did Bailey know?” she asked.

  “Coco called her. Coco was the one who found Alison.” I sighed. “Alison was stabbed with scissors.”

  “Heavens.” Aunt Vera gripped my hands and
dragged me to the vintage table. She guided me into a chair and sat as well. “Who did it and why?”

  “We don’t know yet. I’m pretty sure Cinnamon has her eye on Coco. The copyeditor said Alison was slashing Coco’s manuscript to shreds, hence the scissors.”

  “It’s not possible. It couldn’t be Coco.”

  “A number of documents were on the computer. All Coco’s. With lots of edits.”

  “No, that’s not what I mean.” Aunt Vera batted the air. “If Alison was killed during the night, Coco couldn’t have done it. I saw her.”

  “You did?”

  My aunt studied her fingernails for a brief moment.

  “Don’t hold me in suspense, Aunt Vera. Speak.”

  “I was at Nature’s Retreat last night. Coco was there. I spied her slipping into a room around eleven.”

  Now I understood my aunt’s hesitancy. She must have been a guest at the hotel. She wouldn’t have gone there alone, so she must have been with a gentleman—not Deputy Appleby. Well, whoever it was, good for her. I wanted her to be happy. She had suffered her share of heartbreak.

  However, back to the matter at hand . . . Coco was there. At the hotel.

  “Are you sure it was her?” I asked.

  Aunt Vera nodded. “She was hard to miss in that alluring dress she was wearing.” She outlined Coco’s curvy figure.

  “Did you see who she met?”

  “No, but whoever he was, he wore a wedding ring.”

  “You caught a glimpse of his hand?”

  “As he tugged her inside. She looked positively giddy with delight.”

  I drew in a deep, slow breath. “Aunt Vera, this is major. You are Coco’s alibi.” So was the married man, of course. I wondered if Coco had coughed up his name to the police by now. If she hadn’t, would he come forward on his own? “Did whomever you were with also see Coco?”

  Aunt Vera cleared her throat. “What makes you think I was with someone?”

  I offered a knowing glance.

  Aunt Vera waggled a hand. “Fine. If you must know, I was with that darling mustachioed manager of the Crystal Cove Inn.”

  “Hooray.” I spanked the table. “I knew you were destined to be together.” I didn’t add that I was glad she had ended it with the leader of the Crystal Cove Coastal Concern or that I was thrilled she wasn’t involved with the deputy any longer, my awkwardness about that whole affair aside. I wanted her to be fulfilled.

  “I’m not sure we’re destined, dear.” Aunt Vera’s cheeks reddened. “There is such a fine line between what the universe serves up as destiny and what we do of our own free will.” My aunt’s beliefs were sometimes hard to pin down. I would swear she believed Fate had a hand in all things, and yet she warned any who asked for her fortune-telling services to take what she said with a grain of salt . . . or magic—her word. She stood and smoothed the wrinkles in her caftan. “All I will say is that we do enjoy each other’s company. The deputy will have to accept that as . . .” She twirled a hand.

  “Destiny,” I finished.

  “Too-ra-loo.” My aunt uttered the carefree expression often. I translated it to mean pretty much the same thing as que sera, sera: whatever will be, will be.

  “I think he’d like some closure,” I said.

  Aunt Vera nodded. “Yes, he deserves that. He’s a darling man. Better suited to you.”

  “Because of his age?”

  “He’s more active than I ever will be. He wants to hike and explore. I’m simply too old.”

  “Get out of here.” I waved her off. “You’re in your sixties. Hardly old.”

  “Hardly young. But enough about me. Back to Coco and poor Alison. Such a fine young woman. What can I do to help? Anything?”

  “Call Cinnamon. Tell her what you know.”

  “I will.” My aunt petted my cheek and returned to the sales counter. “By the way, do you know the time of death?”

  “Sometime between the end of the book club dinner and when Coco returned home.”

  “Of course. Hard to pin things down.” Aunt Vera picked up the phone but immediately hung up when my father entered the shop with Bailey’s mother, Lola, the new love of his life.

  Dad was carrying a tool kit and a tube of paper. Lola held two to-go cups from Café au Lait.

  Lola said, “Jenna, darling. I heard about Alison. How horrible. And to think I just saw her last night at book club.”

  Dad nodded his condolences.

  “Word is out?” I asked.

  Lola said, “You can’t keep much from this town once the buzz gets going. Bailey must be torn up.”

  “She is.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Either at Coco’s house or the precinct. She wanted to offer Coco emotional support.”

  Lola whispered something to my father, handed him his coffee cup, and pecked him on the cheek. Then she hurried out of the shop.

  Dad, who was a handsome man in an aging leading man way, grinned with a devilish twinkle. “You’ve got to admit the woman has get-up-and-go.”

  “She does indeed.” I would never forget the first time I met Lola. I was five. She clutched me to her chest, rumpled my hair, and told me how pretty I was but that I should never rely on my looks. She was going to make it her mission to ensure I became an avid reader. I promised her that my mother and father were already doing that, but she wouldn’t let up. Every month, she bought me a Newbery Medal– or Honor–winning book, some with the most exotic titles, like Island of the Blue Dolphins or Red Sails to Capri. I attributed my love of reading to her. She opened new worlds. She and my father had started dating a few months ago. They were almost as perfect a match as my father and mother had been.

  My father finger-combed his silver hair. “I’m ready to be put to work.”

  “Work?” I said.

  Aunt Vera cut in. “I forgot to tell you, Jenna. I’ve asked your father to do a few tweaks around the shop.”

  Dad was an expert handyman. After retiring from the FBI and before purchasing his hardware store, he put in a lot of volunteer hours at Habitat for Humanity.

  “We have a squeaky door in the stockroom.” Aunt Vera ticked the list off her fingertips. “The register drawer gets stuck. And the phone line crackles.”

  Dad didn’t need the income from the handyman work—he had a tidy sum in his savings accounts—but he loved to fix things. Didn’t all men? Well, not all. My husband David hadn’t. He’d had no knack for that kind of thing. I was pretty sure Rhett could do whatever my father could—he whittled wood like a pro—but he used my father’s services instead. He had enough to do, running a thriving business.

  “By the way”—Dad jabbed the tube of paper in my direction—“don’t you, for one remote second, try to blame yourself for this twist of fate, Tootsie Pop.” He loved using the sobriquet he’d dubbed me when I was a tween. I felt somewhat foolish whenever he uttered it, but I would always be his little girl, and face it, what could I do? Tell him to stop? Like he’d listen.

  “She wouldn’t blame herself, Cary,” Aunt Vera said.

  I would, but I wasn’t. At least I was trying not to. When I was new to town and so many murders had occurred in rapid succession, I’d thought it was somehow my fault. Perhaps I had brought bad luck to Crystal Cove. I didn’t feel that way any longer. Maybe I was more like my father than I realized. He, unlike my aunt, was not a believer in hoo-doo, as he called it. On the other hand, he did profess that Crystal Cove had a spirit or an essence, if you will. That was about as far as anyone could push him into acknowledging an ethereal influence in his life. Each choice was ours to grow or blow—his words. Whenever he couldn’t concoct one of his own adages, he could quote a ton of philosophers verbatim to support his theories.

  Dad set his tool kit on the sales counter and leaned forward on his elbows. “Tell me about Alison. W
hat happened?”

  I gaped. My father rarely liked to bat around ideas when it came to murder. He felt that our police force was one of the best small-sized forces in the state. He had mentored Cinnamon Pritchett in her teens, so he took personal pride in her being a stalwart and perceptive leader.

  “You didn’t hear at the coffee shop?” I asked.

  “Only the fact that she was murdered and the police are investigating. Give me the details.”

  I told him about the crime scene, the unlocked door, the fact that Alison hadn’t swiveled to see the intruder.

  Dad hummed as he pondered something. “Seems like a vengeful thing to do, stabbing. Could it be symbolic? Did Alison stab someone in the back business-wise?”

  “Tit for tat.” Aunt Vera bobbed her head. “That would make sense. Do you know, Jenna?”

  “Maybe an author was angry at her,” my father suggested. “Seems like everyone has a book in them nowadays. Even I do.”

  “You do?” I said.

  “Yeah.” My father buffed the edge of the counter with his hand.

  “It’s with a small press,” Aunt Vera inserted.

  “Small presses put out some of our best cookbooks,” I countered. “Dad, is it about your life in the FBI?” His work had involved ultra-clandestine stuff. My siblings and I never got the full story about what he did. Would we now find out the truth?

  “Heck, no. I can’t go blabbing state secrets.”

  Rats.

  “I’ve written about the beauty of tying a fishing lure and how that relates to life in general.”

  Aunt Vera rolled her eyes.

  I stifled a laugh. “Are you kidding me?”

  “I know.” My father held up a hand. “It’s not your kind of book.”

  How well he knew me. I no longer read literary novels. Now I devour mysteries and thrillers. In my preteen years, I discovered Agatha Christie: Appointment with Death, Murder on the Orient Express, Ten Little Indians. I swear, after reading all of her books, I imagined myself as an amateur sleuth. In addition, I am also a cookbook fiend. But nonfiction? About fishing lures? Bleh.