Dead Pan (16 page)

“Okay then. Jason was telling me this afternoon that after Fred Duncan’s car accident, half the town believed Don Harper was a hero, and the other half saw him as a villain. What did you think?”

Myra sipped her hot chocolate and seemed to consider how to best frame her response. “I think Don’s heart was in the right place. But I believe he should’ve left the boy where he was. People that don’t know what they’re doing can do more harm than good in a situation like that.”

“But I thought Mr. Harper was a trained paramedic.”

“Well, I don’t know how much training he’d had, but I do know that when China’s daughter-in-law was in a car accident, two EMTs strapped her to a backboard and got her out of the car because they were scared she’d hurt her head or neck.” She waved her biscotti. “So I know there’s regulations and protocols and stuff like that. And that car wasn’t on fire or anything. Don Harper should’ve waited instead of trying to be Superman.”

I slowly nodded. She had a point. She also had a point about why Dr. Broadstreet would have the party catered at the office. Why not his home, a restaurant or a conference center? Maybe I should talk with Dr. Broadstreet and find out.

Chapter Twelve

On Wednesday morning, I started my day at Brea Ridge Pharmaceuticals. I took a loaf of oatmeal cinnamon bread with a business card affixed to the top of the box.

“Hello,” I said to the receptionist. Her back was turned; but when she faced me, I could see she was a former high school classmate. “Helen!”

“Why, Daphne Carter, when did you move back to Brea Ridge?”

“Just a couple months ago.” I started to tell her my last name was “Martin” now, but then she’d ask who I’d married, if I had any children and countless other questions I’d prefer not to answer. “Is Dr. Broadstreet available? I don’t need but about two minutes of his time.”

“Let me check and see if he’s busy.” She walked away from the desk and stepped down the hall.

Although Dr. Broadstreet had ordered the cake for the Christmas party, I’d never actually met him. He’d ordered the cake over the phone, I’d delivered it the afternoon of the party and I’d received my check in the mail.

“Dr. Broadstreet will see you,” Helen said when she returned to the window. She pressed a button and a green light came on over the door to her right. “You may come on in.”

I opened the door and went through to Helen’s office. The door shut behind me with a clang.

“Oops,” I said. “I didn’t mean to let the door slam.”

“That’s okay. All the doors here slam. They’re heavy and automatic, and they’re loud.  These guys are big on security.”

“They deal with a lot of sensitive stuff, I guess.”

“You’re telling me. That’s why I keep a big bottle of hand sanitizer on my desk at all times and one in my purse.”

“Were you at the Christmas party?” I asked.

“No way, and thank goodness I wasn’t.”

“Really. I’ll talk with you again in a sec. I don’t want to keep Dr. Broadstreet waiting.”

“Right. He’s straight down this hall, second door on your left.”

“Great. Thanks, Helen.”

I followed Helen’s instructions and knocked on Dr. Broadstreet’s door. He called for me to come in.

He was a large man with a florid face, heavy black-rimmed glasses, white hair combed back to reveal a high forehead and a full beard. He was wearing a white lab coat over a yellow T-shirt. His office was half lab, half office—all mess. I wondered how he ever found anything in this room. Test tubes, beakers, microscopes and papers cluttered the counter against the wall to the right. Papers, files, notebooks and more beakers cluttered the desk.

“Yes? What can I do for you? Didn’t you get your check?”

“Indeed, I did, Dr. Broadstreet, and I merely wanted to stop by and thank you for your business.” I handed him the box containing the oatmeal cinnamon bread.

“What’s this?”

“Just a little thank-you gift . . . oatmeal cinnamon bread.”

By the time I got those words out of my mouth, Dr. Broadstreet had a bite of oatmeal cinnamon bread in his.

“Delicious,” he said with his mouth full and his beard dotted with crumbs.

“Thank you. Please keep me in mind for future baking and catering needs.”

“I shall do that, young lady.” He pinched off another piece of the bread and popped it in his mouth. “Anything else?”

“No, sir. Um . . . enjoy the bread. My business card is on the top of the box.”

He simply waved and kept eating.

Okay, so I didn’t have the guts to come right out and ask him why he’d host a Christmas party in a pharmaceutical cafeteria. By the way he’d delved into that bread, I took it he wasn’t terribly particular about when and where he ate. Besides, I’d probably make more headway on that topic by talking with Helen.

I saw a sign with an arrow pointing toward “Accounting.” Remembering that Connie was the bookkeeper here, I thought I’d drop in very quickly to see how she was doing today. When I opened the door to the accounting department, a man was standing in front of the filing cabinets thumbing through a file. He was tall and slender with gray-streaked brown hair and a thick but neatly-trimmed moustache.

“Can I help you with something?” he asked.

“Please. I was here visiting Dr. Broadstreet, and I wanted to stop by and see Connie Duncan before I left.”

“Connie stepped into another office,” he said, “but she should be back any minute. You’re welcome to wait.”

“Thank you. I’m Daphne Martin.”

He stretched out his arm and shook my hand. “Pleasure to meet you, Daphne. I’m Don Harper.”

“Don Harper. I recognize your name from a newspaper account I read about Fred Duncan’s car accident.”

“You must have some memory. That accident happened well over a year ago.”

“Still, you were quite the hero.”

He grunted. “Not everybody shares your opinion, Daphne.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. What an ordeal that entire day must’ve been for you.”

“You can say that again. That’s one time I wish I’d minded my own business and not got involved in any of it.” He returned the file to the cabinet and slammed the drawer shut. “I’d better get back to work.” He strode into the office labeled “comptroller” and closed the door.

I decided not to wait for Connie after all. I went back out front and said goodbye to Helen.

“Thanks for all your help,” I said. “I really appreciate Brea Ridge Pharmaceuticals’ business.” I leaned in and lowered my voice conspiratorially. “Although why they decided to have their party here is beyond me.”

“I’ll tell you why,” Helen said. “This place is bleeding money, and they don’t have any bandages big enough to make it stop. Two drug companies pulled their funding for research, and there are fewer government grants available right now to help offset costs. Personally, I’m keeping my options open just in case. If you hear of anyone who’s hiring . . . .”

“I’ll let you know,” I said.

“Thanks. Oh, and Merry Christmas, Daphne.”

“You, too, Helen.”

*

On the way home, I called Fran to see if she could help me get some baking done. She said she could and that she’d meet me at my house.

I got there first and put my hair up, slipped on my apron and washed my hands. I was making peanut butter fudge when Fran got there.

“We’re making candy today,” I said, “for Save-A-buck and for our families.”

“Our families? I get some, too?”

“Of course. But don’t worry, you’re still getting paid.”

“Are you kidding? That’s the least of my worries. I’m just thrilled to be able to take something home and show off what I helped make.”

“By the end of the day, you’ll have lots to take home and show off.” I stirred the fudge, which was almost ready to pour into the pan. “Besides this fudge, we’ll be making cake balls, chocolate-covered coconut candy, white and milk chocolate dipped strawberries, haystacks, macadamia brittle and maple fudge.”

“I’m gaining weight simply thinking about it.”

I smiled. I was thinking
as if
, but I didn’t say it. “We’ll be packaging the candy in small boxes of individual types and larger boxes of assorted candies.” I poured the fudge into a large pan and sat it in the refrigerator to set. “Now let’s do the cake balls.”

“What on earth are cake balls?” Fran asked.

“You know how I sometimes carve cakes into particular shapes?”

Fran nodded.

“Instead of wasting the cake trimmed away, I use it to make cake balls. Here, I’ll show you.”

I took a freezer bag of cake trimmings from the counter where they’d been thawing. These pieces were chocolate, marble and white. I divided the cake trimmings into various flavors. I had a small bowl of chocolate butter cream and a small bowl of vanilla butter cream. I slipped on plastic gloves and handed the box to Fran so she could do the same.

“Start tearing the white into smaller bits please,” I said, starting on the chocolate. “Put the pieces into the vanilla frosting.” I put the chocolate cake into the chocolate frosting.

I showed Fran how to mix the cake and frosting together with her hands until she could form one-inch balls from the mixture. It’s messy but by no means difficult; and within minutes, we had two dozen chocolate cake balls and two dozen white cake balls. We divided the marble cake, using white frosting for one dozen and chocolate frosting for the other.

“Cool,” Fran said. “Now what?”

“Now we put them in the freezer for a few minutes so they’ll set up enough to dip in chocolate. We could use white, dark or milk chocolate; but I thought we’d use milk chocolate and then roll the balls in white sprinkles.”

“Are they as good as they sound?” Fran asked.

“Better.” I took off my gloves and tossed them into the garbage can. I then slid the trays into the freezer and sat on a stool at the island.

Fran threw her gloves away and took a seat on the other stool. “Remember the football player I was telling you about the other day? He came to Fred’s funeral.”

“That was nice.”

She smiled slightly. “Yeah, it was. I might invite him over to have some of these cake balls.” She looked down at her hands. “He did say he was there if I needed to talk.”

“That was
very
nice.”

“Yeah. I didn’t want to mention that in front of Mom. You don’t think that’s taking advantage of Fred’s death, do you?”

“No. I think he reached out to you during a sad time and that if you want to call him up and thank him for that, it would be perfectly all right. And then, if he asks you out, or if you want to invite him over for dinner with you and your parents or something, that would be all right, too.”

“Thanks, Daphne.”

“Now let me ask you something. Did your aunt think it was strange that Brea Ridge Pharmaceuticals had their Christmas party at the office, or was it customary to have it there?”

“They usually have their parties at the Brea Ridge Inn’s banquet hall or at a restaurant in Bristol. But they said things were a little tighter this year. They had you make the cake, of course, but Dr. Broadstreet’s wife made everything else.”

“She must’ve been a wreck when everyone got sick.”

“She got sick, too. But I guess it did worry her to think it could’ve been her food that made everyone sick . . . which, of course, is what everybody thought until the police told us it wasn’t.”

“That makes me wonder . . . .”

“What?” Fran asked. “What are you wondering?”

“I’m wondering if Dr. Broadstreet or one of the other doctors would contaminate something else with the bacterium so they could pull out their terrific new drug, become heroes, get a lot of good publicity and have the money start rolling back into the company.”

“I don’t know about Dr. Broadstreet. I mean, with his wife making the food, wouldn’t everybody automatically suspect her first?”

“Yeah. But what do we know about the other doctors? What do we know about Dr. Broadstreet, for that matter? Maybe the guy hates his wife, and he saw this as an opportunity to take care of his financial problems and his marital problems at the same time.”

“True,” Fran said, “but that doesn’t seem likely since the bacterium wasn’t found in the food.”

I nodded. Connie would have a lot better insight into the doctors and which of them—if any—might be driven to pull a stunt like this. I’d promised Violet I wouldn’t investigate the case anymore, though. And Fran’s mother didn’t want
her
investigating the case. I tapped my fingernails on the island.

“What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking Connie could help us out on this one. This thought might have even crossed her mind already.” I shrugged.

“I’ll stop by her house and talk with her on the way home.”

“What will your mom say?”

“She’ll think I was terribly sweet to stop by with some candy for Aunt Connie.” She batted her eyes and smiled.

I laughed. Okay, I know I shouldn’t be encouraging her. But encouraging and refraining from discouraging are actually two different things. Aren’t they?

*

I packed up the boxes of candy I was taking to Save-A-Buck and placed them in the backseat of the car. I went back to get the invoice I’d left on the counter. When I stepped back onto the porch, Sparrow rubbed against my legs. I bent and stroked her head, and she purred.

I’ll get you moved in soon
, I thought, my mind conjuring up an image of the cat coming to the door with her worldly possessions wrapped in a bandana and tied to a stick.

When I arrived at the store, I retrieved a cart and stacked the boxes of candy in it. I’d printed labels with the candies’ names and ingredients and placed the labels on the clear boxes. I have a computer program that will also provide nutritional information, but I didn’t include that. Who wants to think about calories at Christmas? I know I don’t.

Mr. Franklin met me at the door. “Goodness! It appears Save-A-Buck customers have hit the jackpot today.”

“I hope they’ll agree.”

“After you get those arranged on the display table, come on back to my office. I have a check for the birthday cakes and some other items that have sold this week.”