The Bite-Sized Bakery Cozy Mysteries Box Set Page 3

  “Who are you?” I asked and scratched behind its ears.

  “I think that’s Samantha’s cat,” Bee said. “She mentioned it this morning at breakfast. It’s a tom.”

  The cat’s collar jingled, and I caught the name tag between my fingers. “Trouble,” I said. “His name is Trouble.”

  “Fitting, given that he nearly scared the cocoa out of my hands.”

  I grinned and kept on stroking Trouble. “I’ve always wanted a cat.”

  “Why didn’t you ever get one?”

  I paused, thinking over how to word the answer. “Well, I’ve never had the chance. My ex was allergic, and now that we’re on the road…”

  Bee nodded. “Seems like you’ll have Trouble’s company while we’re in Carmel Springs.” She paused then broke out in peals of laughter. “I just realized how that sounds.”

  “You’re not wrong. Trouble has certainly found me.”

  Hopefully, the only type that would accompany me through my day tomorrow would be the furry, purring kind.

  5

  I stifled a yawn as I took another order for a Mudslide Chocolate Cake and handed out change. I hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep after the whole “lobster mallet murder” thing, and Trouble had spent the night on the end of my bed, purring and massaging my comforter.

  “Careful,” Bee said, as I yawned a second time. “Keep doing that and you’ll swallow someone whole.”

  I managed a watery-eyed smile as I dished a delectable, mudslide chocolate mini-cake into one of our branded boxes. Bee was a master at making these. They were ever so chocolatey, with a fudge frosting on the outside, moist cake beneath it, and then a runny, oozy chocolate filled center.

  “These are delicious,” the customer said, as she accepted the box. “I had one yesterday morning.”

  I vaguely remembered her from my early morning stint in the truck. She’d definitely introduced herself to me, and though I usually had a knack for placing names with faces, I pulled a blank now.

  The woman, a blonde, slim, petite and in her twenties from what I could tell, offered me a smile. “It’s Grace,” she said. “Grace Allen. We met yesterday morning?”

  “I remember. Sorry, I’m exhausted and forgetful this morning. How are you, Grace?”

  “Oh, doing fine. Just fine. Well, fine given the circumstances.” She rounded her words, nicely. “You heard about what happened at the Lobster Shack?”

  “Yes. Regrettably,” I said.

  Bee took over the register, and I stepped to one side in the truck, Grace following me to continue the conversation.

  It was always good to get to know the locals, and I had come to soak up the atmosphere in the small town. Granted, I hadn’t planned on soaking up a murder while I was at it.

  “Terrible way to go,” Grace said, softly, her fingers clutching the cake box.

  “Terrible.” I agreed. “I suppose folks around here are shaken up about it.”

  Grace shrugged. “I guess.”

  “No?”

  “Some of them are,” she said. “But most are carrying on. It’s the New England way. That and … no, I shouldn’t say.”

  “Please do,” I replied. “This gossip session is helping to wake me right up.”

  Grace’s lips, crimson with lipstick, parted. “Between you and me, Owen wasn’t exactly the most popular guy around here. You know, he got under a lot of people’s skin. I should know. I work at the Lobster Shack. He was always around. And he—”

  The whoop of a police siren cut across Grace’s words.

  The car had parked right next to the truck. The long line of customers turned their heads as Detective Jones emerged from the cruiser.

  “Uh oh,” Bee muttered. “Looks like Danny DeVito is back to question us again.”

  “Bee.”

  “You’re right, Danny DeVito is a talented man. A treasure.” Bee nodded to the detective. “Can’t say the same for him.”

  “Bee.”

  “Don’t expect me to be civil,” she hissed. “Terrible excuse for an officer. The way he treated you last night…”

  Grace had already backed away from the window, and the other customers did the same, making way for the detective as he strode importantly through the crowd, casting glances left and right and readjusting his belt.

  “All right,” Jones called out. “Everyone back up. Back away from the food truck.”

  “Excuse me,” I said. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “You can’t chase our customers away,” Bee put in.

  I exited the truck, clattered down the side steps, and came face-to-face with the detective. The fall morning was chill, but Jones wore a thin veneer of sweat on his ruddy cheeks.

  “You can’t chase off—”

  “Everyone clear out. This truck is being confiscated,” Detective Jones said, “by order of a judge.” He flashed a piece of paper at me, and I grabbed it, scanning the document.

  “Let me see that.” Bee trundled down the stairs behind me. She held the paper close to her nose since she didn’t have her reading glasses and frowned. “Shoot. It’s a warrant.”

  “A warrant?” I said it too loudly, and a murmur spread through the crowd of onlookers.

  Over near the benches that looked out on the beach, Grace set down the box of cake she’d just paid for and backed away from it.

  “Why? Why are you doing this?” I asked.

  The eager listeners hadn’t left, and Detective Jones scowled at the question. “Come with me, ma’am.”

  We walked around to the back of the truck, out of earshot of the onlookers and listeners. Bee came too, marching instead of walking and glaring at the back of the detective’s head.

  Detective Jones turned on us. “I’m confiscating this truck because it is now an active part of a murder investigation.”

  “What?”

  “That’s impossible,” Bee said. “The truck was nowhere near the pier yesterday.”

  “Owen Pelletier wasn’t just hit over the head. Preliminary reports indicate that he was poisoned as well, and since the last thing Owen was seen eating was a slice of your cake…”

  My eyes widened. “That’s not… No. You can’t do this. There’s no poison on my truck, and there’s no way he died because of one of our cakes.”

  “If that’s true,” Jones said, and his lips curled downward at the corners, “you won’t have anything to worry about. You’ll have your truck back before the end of the week. But for now, it’s being confiscated. An officer will escort you into the truck to remove any personal effects you might have left inside. After that, you’re done.”

  “But there’s a tray of mudslide minis in the oven,” I said.

  Bee’s hand settled on my forearm. “I don’t think they care about the minis, Ruby.”

  We were guided back into the truck by another officer, younger and less mean, and allowed to collect our handbags and phones. Detective Jones grabbed the keys to the truck himself, all while our would-be customers looked on.

  Shame curled through my belly. This was exactly what I hadn’t wanted when I’d decided to go on this trip—too much negative attention. It was the reason I’d chosen a food truck and not a restaurant. We could easily move on from one town to the next, and I would never have to settle down in a place where embarrassment could catch up with me.

  But now, the food truck was gone, and our only escape was too.

  Bee and I stood side-by-side as the truck was taken away.

  “What now?” Bee asked.

  I hesitated, chewing on the inside of my cheek. “We get the truck back.”

  “But how, Ruby? I get the feeling that the ‘good’ detective won’t be giving it up any time soon.”

  “We figure out who killed Owen.” I set my jaw.

  I’d investigated plenty of strange cases during my stint as a journalist. This would be no different. Apart from the fact that it would probably be a little more dangerous. OK, a lot more. But still.

&nbs
p; “I’m with you,” Bee said.

  We turned and headed off down the street back toward the Oceanside Guesthouse.

  6

  “Are you sure you’ll be fine?” Bee asked, as she checked her reflection in the bathroom mirror. She had chosen a red trench coat cinched at the waist, paired with jeans and a blouse beneath it.

  I had selected a woolen dress, thick leggings, and a pair of ankle-high boots that clicked when I walked. The sound was pleasant, and I fixated on that instead of worrying about the evening ahead. The news of what had happened this afternoon had likely traveled.

  I’d grown up in a small town, and I understood exactly how they worked. People were always in everyone else’s business, sometimes in a harmless way, or out of concern, but I couldn’t, by any stretch of imagination, assume that the folks of Carmel Springs would be concerned for me.

  I was new. And one of the locals was dead.

  “Ruby?”

  I tucked my chestnut brown hair behind my ears, enjoying that it was short now. Daniel never wanted me to cut it. “Sorry, Bee, my mind is all over the place.”

  “That’s why I’m asking,” she said. “Are you sure you want to go back to that restaurant?”

  “Of course,” I replied. “We made a booking, and it is the scene of the crime. I’m surprised they opened it up so soon after what happened.”

  “It doesn’t take too long to search a scene for evidence if the forensic team is on point,” Bee replied, sweeping mascara over her lashes.

  I frowned. “How do you know?”

  Bee capped the mascara and gave me the side-eye. “I watch a lot of crime scene investigation shows.” And then she skedaddled out of our bathroom to collect her purse.

  I didn’t quite buy her excuse, but I wasn’t about to pry, just like she wouldn’t pry in my personal business or ask me strange questions about the things I did or didn’t know. It was nice to have a friend who cared enough not to put me in an awkward position. That was easy and fun, rather than pressured and full-on.

  I collected my handbag from the end of my bed and gave Trouble a scratch behind the ears—he’d hung around me all afternoon, even while we’d had tea and cookies in the living room of the guesthouse.

  Finally, we were out the door and walking along the road that led past the beach and toward the pier. The wharf was further down, occupied by fishing boats. Had Owen eaten my mini-cake out there?

  We made our way onto the pier and past locals and tourists. It was clear who was who here. Most of the locals stared and whispered when they caught sight of us.

  ”—from the food truck.”

  “Poison?”

  “—should just leave. Outsiders.”

  I chewed on the inside of my cheek, and Bee patted me on the back. “Don’t let them get to you. Not everyone will have that opinion of us. Innocent until proven guilty.” She said the last part loudly.

  Perhaps it was my imagination, or the fact that I was jumpy after the murder and Detective Jones’s confiscation of the truck, but it sure felt as if the gazes followed us all the way to the Lobster Shack.

  The front doors were open, and laughter and music drifted out along with the smells of cooking—fish and fries and chowders, garlic and butter and oh my. My mouth watered.

  A waiter stepped out from behind a wood podium and offered us both a smile. “Hi there. Welcome to the Lobster Shack. How may I help you?”

  “We have a booking under the name Holmes,” I replied. “For two?”

  “Of course.” The waiter checked a list of names then grabbed two menus out of a dispenser attached to the stand. “Right this way. I’ve got you seated out on the deck.”

  His friendly attitude helped me relax. Bee was right: not everyone would instantly hate us. And we hadn’t done anything wrong.

  We exited out onto the deck and took a seat at one of the tables with a gorgeous view of the ocean. The moon had only just arced into the sky, casting its glow on the waters below. A fire roared in a central iron-grated pit, shedding its warmth underneath the overhang.

  The waiter lit a lamp on our table then handed us the menus.

  “Thank you.” I opened mine and browsed.

  Bee scanned the outside of the restaurant, occasionally wriggling her nose or narrowing her eyes.

  “That’s strange,” I said, paging through the menu.

  “What is?”

  “The lobster dishes on the menu have been scratched out. Is it the same in your menu?”

  Bee opened hers and paged, turning the thick card between her fingers. “Yes, it’s the same.”

  “Good evening!” The merry tone came from our waitress.

  “Grace,” I said.

  It was the same woman who’d ordered the mini-cake from us this morning before the detective had confiscated the truck.

  “You’re our server?”

  “Yes,” Grace said, smiling as she brought a notepad out of the front pouch of her apron.

  “Sorry our conversation got interrupted this morning.” This was our opportunity. She had been in the middle of telling me about Owen—how he hadn’t exactly been the most popular guy around. What if she knew more? Maybe she could tell us who’d been enemies with Owen.

  “Oh, that’s OK. Sorry your truck got taken away. Between you and me, I think that Jones doesn’t know what he’s doing,” Grace said, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Owen was hated by just about everyone.”

  “Everyone?” I asked.

  “Well, yeah. Especially the waitresses here. He used to flirt with them.” She pressed her lips together and shifted her eyes left and right, checking that none of the other waiters or customers could hear us. “And he did more than just that.”

  “Like what?” Bee asked.

  “He got into a fight with the chef,” she said. “I’m not sure why, though.” Another waiter exited onto the deck, and Grace straightened, hastily, neatening her apron. “Anyway. Um, can I get you something to drink or eat?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I’ll have a banana milkshake please.”

  “Strawberry for me,” Bee said, then pointed to the menu and its scratched out items. “You don’t have lobster rolls?”

  Grace shook her head. “We’ve had a problem with our supplier, so all our lobster menu items aren’t available at the moment. Sorry.”

  “Oh. Oh, all right. Then I’ll guess I’ll have the Cheesy Garlic Bread and the Fried Maine Oysters,” I said, my mouth already watering.

  My brain definitely had food for thought too—Owen had argued with the chef. Why? And about what?

  “And I’ll have the New England Salt of the Seafood Chowder, please.” Bee handed the menu over, and Grace hurried off into the restaurant.

  “That was interesting,” I said, after she was gone. “What do you think? Should we talk to the chef after our meal?”

  “That sounds like a good idea to me. If this Owen guy was so hated by everyone, it stands to reason that someone around here would have had motive to murder him,” Bee whispered back, her hazel eyes alive with excitement. “Let’s hang around for a while. Have some dessert too.”

  A night away from the guesthouse would be fun, and if we managed to find out more about what had happened to Owen … well, even better.

  The sooner I got the food truck back, the happier I’d be—it was my dream, and it had been snatched away by a detective who clearly didn’t like me one bit.

  7

  The laughter in the restaurant had died down quite some time ago, and fall’s cold bite had grown stronger as the evening had worn on, well into the night. The moon was full and round and absolutely beautiful over the water, but, for once, I was kind of spooked out.

  The quieter it got, the more my thoughts turned toward what had happened to Owen. And right here, in the restaurant where we’d enjoyed a meal, and then dessert, milkshakes, and sodas, and then another entrée because why not?

  We weren’t technically on holiday, but it sure felt like it. Th
e last time I’d sat and enjoyed the view, even if it was chilly underneath the overhang attached to the restaurant’s side, had been, shoot, I couldn’t remember.

  “The fire’s dying down,” Bee said, gesturing to the pit. She shivered and rubbed the arms of her coat. “And it looks like the staff are getting ready to clean up.”

  “That’s our cue.” I raised my hand and scribbled in mid-air.

  A few moments later, Grace hurried out with the check and handed it over. I took some money out and placed it on the little saucer that held the receipt. “Thank you so much, Grace,” I said. “This was lovely.”

  “Lovely,” Bee echoed.

  Grace bobbed her head, smiling. “I’m glad you enjoyed it. The restaurant’s been quieter lately, you know with the whole lobster problem. And the murder.”

  “That tends to dissuade people,” Bee said. “Corpses aren’t exactly the fine-dining aesthetic most folks are looking for.”

  Grace didn’t seem to know how to respond to that. Bee did have a strange sense of humor, one I happened to like.

  “Grace,” I said, directing her back to me. “Could we talk to the chef? You know, the food was so delicious, it would be great to compliment him on it in person.”

  “Oh, sure.” She hurried off to fetch him.

  “What a strange woman,” Bee said.

  “Strange? Why?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, maybe it’s just me that’s strange. I’m not the type who’ll share everything so openly, and she was more than happy to gossip.”

  “You’ve never lived in a small town before, have you?”

  Bee laughed. “Maybe that’s it.”

  We waited a few moments, chewing on some mints Grace had brought to our table, until, finally, a figure in chef’s whites appeared. He trudged out of the back door and toward us. His coat was surprisingly clean—if it was me in there, I’d have probably burnt the sleeves of my shirt—and he was young too.

  And handsome. Not that it was appropriate to think that about a suspect. A suspect? What are you, a police officer?