Buttercream Bump Off (10 page)

Mel wondered if she could crawl out the kitchen door before they noticed her.

Tony, the tallest, leaned over the counter and spotted her. “Hi, Mel.”

She sighed and slowly rose to her feet. Six of the seven DeLaura brothers stood before her: Dom, Ray, Sal, Tony, Paulie, and Al. Angie’s brothers. It was a bit overwhelming to be confronting six good-looking variations of her boyfriend Joe. She couldn’t help but notice that the level of testosterone in the bakery had risen to a level she’d never before experienced.

“Hi, boys. What brings you in today?”

“I do,” Tate said from behind her. He was standing in the doorway and, even in his pink Fairy Tale Cupcakes apron, he looked resolute. “Gentlemen, if you’ll follow me.”

“What are you, mob owned?” Mr. Zelaznik called to Mel from his table. “Is this just a cover operation for a house of ill repute?”

“No!” she snapped. “It most certainly is not.”

“Darn,” Mr. Zelaznik said as he stuffed in another bite of cupcake.

Mel pushed through the swinging doors after the last of the DeLaura brothers and stared at Tate as if he’d lost his mind. He met her stare, refusing to back down.

She grabbed him by the elbow and hauled him into the corner and hissed, “Did you call them all here? Does the term
dead man walking
mean anything to you?”

“What?” Tate asked. “Angie could be out there with a murderer right now. We need to strategize.”

“Tate, she is going to murder
you
for dragging the brothers into this,” Mel warned.

“If it means keeping her safe, I’ll risk it,” he said.

Melanie just shook her head. “I notice Joe isn’t here.”

“Yeah, he seemed to think you and Angie would not be on board with this plan.”

“You think?”

“Hey, Mel, how about a round of cupcakes?” Paulie asked.

“My treat,” Tate said and Mel turned to glower at him.

“You got that right,” she said.

She pushed through the swinging doors and loaded up a tray with a half dozen cupcakes and glasses of milk, except for one glass of iced tea for Sal, because he was lactose intolerant.

When she reentered the kitchen, Tate was pacing in front of the brothers, who were all seated on stools around the steel worktable, watching him with varying levels of concern.

“This Roach character,” Dom said. “How long has she known him? And what kind of name is that anyway?”

“It’s his stage name, and they met yesterday, right Mel?” Tate asked.

“Oh, no. I am not a party to this,” Mel said.

“But he could be a murderer!” Tate said. “And she’s your best friend. How can you be so unconcerned?”

“I’m concerned, but I also trust Angie’s judgment,” Mel said. “Besides, he has no reason to harm her. I saw the way he looked at her this morning. I think he really likes her.”

“How did he look at her?” Ray asked. He dropped his fork and cracked his knuckles.

“Like he wanted to see her naked,” Tate said.

Several hands slammed down on the steel worktable, and the brothers growled. It sounded as if Mel had a bear trapped in her kitchen. She raised her hands in frustration.

“Stop it!” she ordered. “Just stop it. Do any of you know why Angie has been single for the better part of the past fifteen years?”

“No one’s good enough for our Ange,” Sal said. “It would take a very special guy to deserve someone like her, and she hasn’t found him yet.”

“Yeah,” Al agreed. He was the only DeLaura who still lived at home, and Mel had a soft spot for him because he was the one who most resembled Joe.

“No, it’s because you thugs chase away every single man she’s interested in,” Mel said. “And if you do it again, I’m afraid you’re going to lose her.”

“What do you mean lose her?” Tony asked. He shoved in the last of his cupcake and swallowed.

“I mean that Roach is a rock musician who lives in Los Angeles and goes on tour quite a bit. If you try to mess this up for Angie, she may leave to go on the road with him,” Mel said.

“Nah, this is Angie we’re talking about,” Paulie said. “She could never leave her family.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Mel said. She glanced at Tate, who looked as determined as a bulldog tracking a bone, and she felt like whacking him on the head with her tray. She resisted the urge—barely.

“Mel, remember that I told you I was going to check out Baxter’s business? Well, I’ve gotten some disturbing information,” Tate said. “Which is why I think Angie needs to stay as far as possible from anyone connected with Malloy, especially his son.”

“What kind of information?”

“Baxter? That’s the dead guy your mom went out with, isn’t it?” Tony asked.

“Yes,” Mel said. “Oh, and please thank your mom for the lasagna she sent over after the . . . uh . . . incident. It was very thoughtful of her.”

“Will do,” Al said.

“Baxter Malloy—or Bastard Malloy, as some of his former business associates call him—was operating a Ponzi scheme.”

“A whatie scheme?” Ray asked.

“Ponzi,”
Sal answered. “It’s when you offer fast, high returns to investors, but it’s based on nothing but getting them to invest even more, so you’re always paying them with their own money. Eventually it implodes, and the more people who have invested, the more spectacular the losses.”

“Exactly,” Tate said. “Well, Malloy had hooked in some big money. In fact, my people at Harper Investments tell me he bilked billions out of unsuspecting investors.”

“I don’t see what this has to do with his son,” Mel said. “Roach told us he hasn’t spoken to his father in three years.”

“Really?” Tate asked. “Because according to the partial list of investors I managed to obtain, Roach invested millions with his father and by all accounts has lost it all. I ran a credit check on him. He’s broke.”

“Well, that would give a guy a heck of a motive to off his own father,” Dom said. “Especially if they weren’t close to begin with.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Tate said. “Now Mel and I will be on Angie’s date with her tonight, but we’ll need you all to make sure she’s not alone with him after that.”

“Not a problem,” Ray said. “We can take turns running interference.”

The brothers spent the next half hour working out the shifts they planned to take to keep an eye on their sister. Mel tried to argue on Angie’s behalf, but her effort was halfhearted. Honestly, now that Roach looked like such a promising suspect, she didn’t like the idea of Angie dating him at all.

Finally, the DeLaura brothers trooped out. Mel and Tate followed them back into the main room, where Mr. Zelaznik was still sitting.

“You do realize what will happen if Angie finds out?” Mel asked.

“I’ll deal with that if that happens,” he said.

Mel didn’t have the heart to tell him that it
would
happen, no doubt about that. She just hoped that Roach was more of a fling than the real thing for Angie; otherwise, she didn’t think Angie would ever be able to forgive Tate.

“Mel, there’s more,” Tate said.

Something in his voice caused her to go still.

“Spill it,” she said.

“Malloy’s list of investors,” he said. “Your mother’s name is on that list, too.”

“What?” Mel asked. She was certain she must have heard wrong.

“The detectives will be getting the same list, if they don’t have it already,” Tate said. “You can be sure they’re going to ask your mother questions.”

“Like what?” Mel asked. “She didn’t know him. They’d just met. If she’d invested with him, I’m sure it was through a third party.”

“I don’t think the police are going to care how her money ended up in Baxter’s care.”

“Oh my God, this is a nightmare.”

“On the upside,” Tate began, but Mel interrupted.

“What upside?”

“From the peek I got, Malloy’s investor list reads like the white pages for South Scottsdale. Virtually everyone who is anyone had something tied up with him.”

“That should make my mother look innocent, right?”

“Except for the fact that she was barely dressed with his body floating in the pool, yeah,” he said.

“Your mother got naked with that shyster?” Mr. Zelaznik called from his booth.

“Half naked,” Mel snapped.

“Think she’d go out with me?” he asked. He looked as eager as a puppy; even his hair hat stood aquiver at the thought.

“No!” Mel and Tate said together. Mr. Zelaznik slumped down in his seat.

“We need to find out who had the most invested with him,” Mel said. “But how?”

“That’s easy,” Tate said. “They’re all attending the annual fundraiser luncheon at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art.”

“How do you know this?” Mel asked.

Tate pulled an invitation out of his pocket and said, “Because anyone who is anyone in South Scottsdale was invited.”

“Harper Investments has a table,” she said.

“Naturally. So, shall I squeeze you in?”

Mel took the invitation. Scanning the back, she read the list of restaurants contributing to the event. Dessert was being provided by Confections, featuring cupcakes. Surprise, surprise; the giant cupcake, Olivia Puckett, had wormed her way into the charity event.

Mel thought about it for a moment.

“Sorry, Tate, you’re not going to the luncheon.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re going to be too busy keeping Olivia from delivering her dessert to attend.”

“I’m going to what?”

“You heard me,” Mel said. “But I’m going to need another body.”

She tapped the invitation against her chin. If only Angie were here, she could get her to help. Oh, well, she was out of options.

“Mr. Zelaznik, how would you like to earn three free raffle entries for the Fairy Tale Cupcake contest?”

He looked warily at her. “Depends on what I have to do. You don’t want me to whack anybody, do you?”

“No! Do you own black pants and a white shirt?” she asked.

“Yeah.” Still, he looked suspicious.

“Can you pose as a waiter?” she asked.

He lifted a scrawny old-man arm and patted his bicep. “I think I can manage it for ten free entries.”

“Five,” Mel countered.

“Seven,” he haggled.

“Done,” Mel agreed. “Let’s get to work, fellas. We’re going to crash a party.”

“ ‘Either I’m off my nut, or he is . . . or you are!’ ” Tate said an hour later while they stuffed Mel’s Mini Cooper with boxes of cupcakes.

“George Bailey in
It’s a Wonderful Life
,” Mel said, citing the quote. “And I’m not off my nut. People talk more freely around the hired help. It’s a fact.”

“How do you think you’re just going to waltz into a luncheon and pass yourself off as Olivia Puckett?”

“Puleeeeze. I’ve done this catering shtick a million times. I know the drill.”

Tate didn’t look convinced.

For his part, Mr. Zelaznik looked more than game. In his crisp white shirt and snappy black bow tie, he carried himself with a certain dapperness that had been missing beneath his well-worn cardigan. Mel debated making him lose the hair hat, but it was sort of growing on her; besides, she didn’t have time to argue if he kicked up a fuss.

He and Mel drove to the museum in her car while Tate headed out to stall Olivia. His grand plan so far was to double park behind her big, pink refrigerator van so that she couldn’t leave to get to the luncheon.

Mel pulled into the loading dock next to two other catering trucks. Waitstaff dressed in the standard white shirts and black pants were buzzing from the vans to the back door as they unloaded the day’s luncheon.

Mel found the event coordinator in the kitchen and introduced herself.

“I’m here with dessert,” she said, intentionally vague.

The woman, whose name tag read Bonnie, checked her clipboard. “I don’t see . . . oh, wait. Cupcakes. Yes, here you are. You’re early. Dessert won’t be served for another hour.”