Buttercream Bump Off (26 page)

“Oh, she decided to show up,” he said. “Good. I have a yoga class to get to.” He took off his apron and tossed it on the counter. “See you tomorrow.”

“Bye, Marty.”

Angie and Roach disconnected at the lip, and he smoothed back her hair and said, “Will you still think about what I asked you?”

“Yes, but it’s so sudden,” she said.

“I’m just asking you to think about it,” he said. “For me, please?”

She nodded. He gave her another swift kiss before he left with a wave.

“Well, looks like the graveside service was informative.”

“I need a cupcake,” Angie said. She went into the kitchen and Mel followed.

“So, Roach and Elle are each other’s alibis,” Mel said.

Angie went into the cooler and came back out with two Kiss Me Cupcakes. She sat at the steel worktable and unwrapped them. She finished off the first one before she acknowledged Mel’s question.

“Yes, Elle and Roach were together at his hotel the night that Baxter was murdered. Given their past, you can imagine how much the police love that. Fortunately, they spent most of the night in the lobby bar and have plenty of witnesses. However, Roach thinks Detective Martinez got to Elle, because now she’s saying that there is a twenty-minute time gap where she can’t vouch for his whereabouts.”

“That’s not good.”

“To put it mildly,” Angie said, taking a bite out of cupcake number two.

“But you believe they didn’t sleep together?” Mel took the seat beside her.

Angie thought about it for a second and then said, “Yes.”

“But how can you be so sure?” Mel asked.

“I can’t,” she said. “But whatever happened was before I met him, so I don’t really know that it’s my business. Besides, everything has changed now.”

“Why?”

“Because Roach has asked me to move back to Los Angeles with him.”

“And you said . . . ?”

“That I needed to think about it,” Angie answered. “It’s a big decision.”

“I’ll say,” Mel said. “What about the business?”

“I was thinking we could open another shop in LA,” Angie said. “Or you could come with me.”

“But our family and friends are all here,” Mel said. “And the bakery is just beginning to take off.”

“I know,” Angie said. She sounded agonized. “But for the first time in my life, I feel adored just for being me. I don’t want to give that up, either.”

A million reasons why she shouldn’t go leapt to Mel’s tongue, but she kept her mouth shut. Angie was her best friend. It would be like severing an arm to let her go, but if Angie had found real happiness with Roach, then Mel had no right to ask her not to go.

“Whatever you decide is okay with me,” she said.

Angie looked as if she might cry, so Mel hugged her tight. The string of bells on the door jangled, so Mel pulled back and said, “Sit and relax. I’ll go man the front.”

Angie nodded and Mel left her to her thoughts. She didn’t even want to think about how Tate was going to take this news.

After Angie dumped flour instead of sugar into the buttercream frosting and then put blue food coloring into what was supposed to be red velvet batter, Mel sent her home. It was obvious Angie had more on her mind than baking, and Mel figured she’d better go before she blew something up.

In the silence of the bakery, while she wiped down the tables and restocked the napkin holders, she thought about what the place would be like without Angie. It wasn’t a pleasant thought. She’d have to hire Marty full time, and as much as she’d grown to like him, it wouldn’t be the same.

And even though Roach said Elle had turned against him because Detective Martinez was pressuring her, he was still the best possible candidate for his father’s murder. How was Mel ever going to sleep again if her best friend moved to LA with a man who could very well be a murderer?

She could only hope that Roach was as innocent as Angie believed him to be. And it was possible. Baxter had made a lot of enemies. Still, the fact that there was twenty minutes of time for which Elle couldn’t verify Roach’s whereabouts . . .
Wait.
If she couldn’t verify his whereabouts, did that mean no one could verify hers?

Baxter was strangled. If it was a crime of passion, Elle was the most likely suspect unless, like Jay had speculated before, there was more than one person involved. A cold knot of dread formed in Mel’s stomach. She felt like smacking her forehead. Of course! How perfect: Roach and Elle had done it together. They both said they were in the bar at his hotel, and plenty of witnesses could place them there.

But he’d been staying at The Phoenician, only minutes from his father’s house. He could easily have left, strangled his father, and made it back in time to cement his alibi. Or maybe it was Elle. She could have left, killed Baxter, and made it back herself. Perhaps they had planned it together, but Roach’s sudden relationship with Angie had gummed up the works. Maybe Elle had planned to share more than murder with Roach, and now she was angry enough about his new relationship to let him take all of the blame.

But how had they known that Baxter would be at his house? Elle knew he’d had a date planned. But Mel’s mother had told her that stopping back at Baxter’s had been a spontaneous idea. They were supposed to be at a show at the Civic Center, but had ditched their plans to go hot tubbing.

So, it couldn’t be Elle or Roach, unless they had been following Joyce and Baxter, which they couldn’t have been if they were in the hotel bar all evening.

Mel slammed down a napkin holder. This was maddening. Someone had murdered Baxter Malloy, and it had to be someone who knew he’d had a date with her mother.

So who knew her mother had a date with Baxter? Angie, herself, her mother’s friend Ginny, Joe, and Tate. And her favorite suspect, Elle, but that was a wash now that she had an alibi. Mel thought back to the night her mother had told her about her date with Malloy. If she could do it all over again, she’d tell her not to go.

But then she remembered how excited Joyce had been, showing up to her class in her pajamas to announce she had a date. Mel felt the cold knot in the pit of her stomach again. Her students had heard about Joyce’s date. Could it be someone from her class? She didn’t like to think it, but how could she not?

Her cell phone rang in the silence. She glanced at the number. It was Tate. Uh-oh.

“Hello,” she said.

“Los Angeles,” he said. “She’s actually considering it.”

“I know.”

“What should I do?”

“I don’t know,” Mel said. “I don’t even know what to do myself.”

“I’m going to tell her how I feel,” he said.

Mel was silent. Angie had been in love with Tate for more than twenty years. Would this get her to stay? Or would this make things awkward and bust apart their friendship for good?

“You’re not saying anything,” Tate said. “You think I shouldn’t tell her.”

“I don’t know what to think,” Mel said. “Why couldn’t you have figured out how you felt about her two weeks ago? Then we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“So, it’s my fault she took up with a rock star,” he said.

“Yes, it is,” Mel said. “Why do men have to be so stupid? Why can’t they just get it done?”

“Don’t yell at me because Joe is dropping the ball in the romance department,” Tate said.

“This is not about me and Joe,” Mel snapped.

“Have you slept together yet?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“I thought not,” he snapped in return.

“Tate, don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m hanging up on you.”

“Wait! What should I do about Angie?”

“Remember what you said about
Casablanca
? He never should have let her get on that plane. Now man up!” Mel said.

She clicked her phone shut. This was the downside to cell phones. It was nowhere near as satisfying to press end as it was to slam a phone into its holder.

She locked up the bakery and trudged up to bed. Joe had called earlier and said he was working late. Tomorrow was her last couples’ cupcake class. If someone in her class had overheard her mother’s date plans, this would be her only opportunity to see who in class may have had a motive to murder Baxter Malloy, and she wasn’t going to blow it.

“Why are you so jittery?” Angie asked.

“Too much coffee,” Mel lied.

Angie had arrived to work with dark circles under her eyes, and Mel was guessing she hadn’t slept much. She didn’t say whether she had talked to Tate or not, so Mel was guessing Tate hadn’t told her how he felt. She didn’t want to add to Angie’s personal crisis, so she said nothing about the fact that she suspected someone in their class might have whacked Malloy.

The truth was that the class was to start in fifteen minutes, and Mel was nervous. She had spent the morning making calls, and discovered more than she wanted to about her students.

Mr. Felix had mentioned before that his company had invested his pension with Malloy’s company, and sure enough, when Mel checked, the company had lost the entire pension fund. When she had asked Mr. Felix about it, he had been so angry. They were an elderly couple, so Mel didn’t really see them strangling Malloy, but maybe they knew someone younger and stronger. It was a scary thought.

The Bickersons—rather, the Bakersons—were connected, too, and not just because the Hargraves, their cousins, had lost everything by investing it with Malloy. Dan had been employed by the accounting company Malloy’s investment firm had used. He worked for them for less than a year, having been let go just before he passed probation.

Mel wondered what could have happened to result in his termination. She also wondered if the Hargraves had been directed by him to invest with Malloy. If Dan had known that Malloy was operating a Ponzi scheme, seeing the cousins lose the inheritance they’d swindled from his wife would be the ultimate revenge.

The Dunns and the Koslowskis didn’t have a connection, being from out of town. But the Gatwicks moved in the same social circle as Malloy. Mel didn’t really see any other tie to Malloy, but still, they had been there the night her mother had announced her date. As far as Mel was concerned, everyone was a suspect.

She placed tonight’s cupcakes on a cupcake tower in the middle of the steel worktable. They were making heart-shaped cupcakes called Love Me Knots, chocolate cake with amaretto buttercream frosting. Right now, she wished she could eat about five of them, but she restrained herself. Barely.

She and Angie hadn’t spoken much today. There was an awkwardness between them that Mel had never felt before. She knew it was because she was trying very hard not to influence Angie’s decision, and the only way to keep herself from saying “please don’t go” was to keep her mouth shut.

The Bickersons were the first in the door, per usual. Mel braced herself for a round of squabbling from the couple, but she found herself doing a double take. Dan was holding Irene’s hand, and they were beaming at each other. Apparently, torturing the Hargraves was better than therapy for them.

Angie gave Mel a wide-eyed look over the couples’ heads, and Mel returned it.

“Hi, Irene, Dan,” she said. “How are you two tonight?”

“Wonderful, just wonderful,” Irene gushed and gave Dan a smacking kiss on the cheek. He turned bright red but looked pleased all the same.

“Here you go, my dear,” he said and pulled a chair out for her.

“Oh, thank you, hon.”

While they put on their aprons, the Koslowskis and the Dunns arrived. While greetings were exchanged, Angie sidled up to Mel and said, “Can you believe that?”

“No.”

“How long do you think revenge can keep them together?”

“When it comes with free domestic labor and yard work, I’m betting for a while.”

“I’ve dated men for less,” Angie agreed. “Hey, did you have a chance to go over the payments for the classes? Since it’s the last class, we should probably make sure that declined payment went through.”