Read Death of a Cupcake Queen Online

Authors: Lee Hollis

Death of a Cupcake Queen (16 page)

BOOK: Death of a Cupcake Queen
10.57Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
Chapter 30
“So how's the Puppy Whisperer?” Lex said, his voice dripping with attitude.
“His name is Aaron,” Hayley said, clearing her throat, trying to pretend this wasn't as awkward as it felt.
Some months ago Hayley was forced to make a choice.
Lex or Aaron.
She chose Aaron.
Lex took it hard.
In fact, he didn't speak to her for months and she even caught him avoiding her when he spotted her milling about the bananas in the produce section of the Shop ‘n Save by spinning around and hustling off in the opposite direction.
She couldn't blame him.
She broke his heart.
He had basically told her so to her face the night she dumped him.
Right after he saved her life.
She had felt painfully guilty.
They were good together.
But she felt something deeper with Aaron.
And she knew she had to keep following the path she was on to find out if Aaron was the one she was meant to spend the rest of her life with.
But she would be lying to herself if she didn't admit there were times she missed Lex and his rugged good looks.
His gravelly voice.
His sly, sometimes demented, sense of humor.
She met him when she ran over him with her car.
You really get to know a person when you rush him to the hospital.
Luckily his injuries were minor.
But his infatuation with her was anything but.
She resisted his advances at first, but he wore her down and soon they were dating.
Her kids adored him.
Her friends heartily approved of him.
Even her mother was a fan and she never took to any of the men in Hayley's life.
Especially her deadbeat ex-husband.
Her words. Not Hayley's.
It all fell apart when his boss died and he was left without a job. He left town. He returned to his home state of Vermont and it looked like he was out of her life for good.
But after only eight months he returned ready to pick up where they had left off.
The only problem was Hayley had already met Aaron.
Now she was standing in the front doorway to Lex's construction company shop located in a warehouse at the end of town asking for his help.
She feared he wasn't about to make it easy for her.
“Lex, I was hoping you might be able to shed a little light on something . . .”
“So tell me. Is he as good a kisser as I was?”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“I'm not going to answer that.”
“You can tell me. I won't tattle.”
“I didn't come here to talk about my boyfriend. Being here is uncomfortable enough . . .”
“You're uncomfortable? I'm not uncomfortable. We're friends, Hayley. We can talk to each other about anything.”
Her fears were completely founded.
He was not going to make this easy.
He was downright enjoying this.
Like a cat taunting a trapped mouse.
“Lex, please, I just have a few questions for you . . .”
“Great. You answer my question and then I'll answer yours.”
Lex rolled up the sleeves of his plaid work shirt, showing off his sinewy forearms as he folded them across his broad chest.
There was no getting out of this.
Hayley sighed. “He's a very good kisser.”
“That's not what I asked. I asked if he's better than me.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because I can,” Lex said, chuckling.
“You've been waiting a long time for this moment, haven't you?”
“Oh, you have no idea.”
“Fine. He's a better kisser than you.”
Lex studied her face and then broke out into a wide smile. “You're lying. I can always tell.”
“No, I'm not.”
“Yes, you are,” he said, beaming.
“I'm not!”
She was.
She hated to admit it.
Aaron outpaced Lex in so many areas.
But Lex Bansfield knew how to kiss a woman in a sensual way she had never experienced before in her life.
To the point where her knees buckled.
He used to have to hold her up so she wouldn't fall.
He knew he was the best.
She knew he was the best.
And he was going to enjoy forcing her to say it out loud.
“Yes or no. Pick one and we're done. Am I a better kisser than the Puppy Whisperer?”
Hayley hissed under her breath but loud enough for him to hear. “Yes.”
“Thank you,” Lex said, satisfied.
“That was cruel,” Hayley said, shaking her head.
“Maybe. But it sure did feel good. Now what do you want to know?”
“Did you come here one summer in your early twenties and work on an estate?”
“Yeah. That was the summer I fell in love with the island. I had to go back to Vermont and work for my Dad in the fall but this place was special. I couldn't get it out of my mind. It took me years, but I finally got back here when the job at the Hollingsworth estate came up about six years ago.”
“Do you remember who you worked for that summer?”
“Yeah. That big-time actor who died. Julian Reed. Guy was a big jerk but he paid well. Why do you ask?”
“I was reading some old articles about his death and saw your name.”
“Yeah. I worked on the estate the day he died. I mowed the lawn and watered the garden and fixed a leaky faucet for him, but I was out of there by three or four. Took a few buddies and some six packs of beer in my truck to the park that night. I didn't even hear he was dead until the next day when I showed up to do some trimming and the place was swarming with cops and reporters.”
“You mentioned he was a jerk. Did he mistreat you?”
“Not really. The only time he ever spoke to me was to give me orders or to complain about overgrown weeds or something like that. The guy was never happy. All that money and you could tell he was depressed and miserable. I never saw him smile once. Why are you so interested in him?”
“I'm not sure yet. I think there might be more to his death than what was in the papers.”
“Well, if you're on the case, then that must mean you think he was murdered.”
“No. I'm just trying to dig up all the facts. It could very well be just a tragic accident. Too much drugs and alcohol and a slippery tile next to the pool. Thanks, Lex.”
Hayley turned to go.
“You should talk to Glenda Goodrich.”
Hayley spun back around. “Who?”
“Glenda Goodrich. She was Julian Reed's maid at the estate he rented that summer.”
“Was she there the night he died?”
“She was the one who discovered the body and called the police.”
“Do you know where I can find her?”
“Listen, Hayley, she was already in her late sixties back then.”
“She died?”
“No. She's alive.”
“So she's still here!”
“I wouldn't quite say that.”
Chapter 31
“Natasha, would you be a dear and tell Papa Frank we should be heading to church soon,” the old woman said, combing her long thin gray hair with a wooden brush.
Hayley stood at the bedside and leaned in gently, “Mrs. Goodrich, my name is Hayley Powell and I'm here because—”
“Reverend Bishop always gives such a lovely sermon. I would hate to show up late. Now go on. Find Papa Frank. I'm sure he's outside sneaking a cigarette.”
A nurse appeared in the doorway behind Hayley. She was rather rotund in a white uniform with a pink sweater over it and had curly blond hair and a sweet quiet smile. Her name was Ashley. Hayley had just met her when she showed up at the Bar Harbor Retirement Home on the outskirts of town and asked to speak with Glenda Goodrich. “Natasha is . . . was Mrs. Goodrich's granddaughter. She died of cancer ten years ago.”
Hayley turned and nodded to the nurse.
She turned back to the old woman, who had set her hairbrush down and was now buttoning the heavy blue sweater she was wearing over her yellow nightgown.
“It's cold in here,” Glenda snapped.
“We have the temperature up to eighty degrees, Mrs. Goodrich. You shouldn't be cold.”
“Frank is always trying to cut costs by turning down the heat in the winter, but what good is having a few extra bucks in your pocket if you freeze to death?”
The nurse stepped closer to Hayley and whispered in her ear. “Frank was her husband. He died in '98 after a stroke.”
“How long has she been like this?”
“When she came here, she was just a little forgetful. She'd mix up the nurses' names or be walking down the hall and stop, not remembering where she was going. But it's gotten progressively worse over the last five years. Alzheimer's is a terrible disease. Her body is still strong, but her mind is almost gone at this point.”
Hayley knew it would be a fruitless exercise to question the poor old woman.
But she knew she had to try.
She spotted a tray of food on the credenza and crossed over and picked up a plastic cup of vanilla pudding. She scooped out a dollop with a plastic spoon and held it out to Glenda. “Would you like some pudding, Glenda?”
“Oh, thank you, Natasha. You're such a good girl,” Glenda said, closing her eyes and opening her mouth.
Hayley gently spoon fed her the pudding and then sat on the edge of the bed.
Glenda opened her eyes and gave her the once over.
“Natasha, you're not dressed properly for church. Go change into something presentable right now. I don't want Reverend Bishop thinking my granddaughter is some kind of two-bit floozy.”
Hayley was in a conservative print blouse and khaki pants.
Hardly a floozy.
But she nodded and patted Glenda's arm. “I will. I promise. By the way, Mr. Reed called.”
“Who?” Glenda chirped, a perplexed look on her face.
“Julian Reed? The man who hired you to clean his estate this summer? He wanted to know what time to expect you tomorrow.”
“I don't know anyone by that name. Why are you talking nonsense, Natasha? Is this some kind of game?”
“You don't remember Mr. Reed?”
Hayley hated pressing her.
Even if the woman did have a moment of clarity, there was no indication whatever she said would be the least bit helpful.
The woman laid her head back on her pillow, her eyes floating up to the ceiling as she struggled to remember.
When Lex told Hayley that Glenda Goodrich was suffering from Alzheimer's, she knew she had to come prepared. She went online at the office and printed out an old picture of Julian Reed in his prime from the Nineties. She hoped the sight of him might trigger something in Glenda's brain.
She pulled the picture out of her bag and held it up in front of Glenda.
“Do you remember him?”
Glenda lowered her gaze to stare at the picture. She took her time.
Studying every part of him.
And then she smiled.
“Of course I remember him. He was so hand-some.”
Hayley sighed with relief.
They were actually getting somewhere.
“That's your Papa Frank. That picture was taken right about the time he joined the Navy in 1966.”
“No, Glenda, that's the man I was talking about. Julian Reed.”
“That's not Frank?” Glenda said, her eyes suddenly filling with tears. “Why don't I remember?”
The nurse intervened. “It's time for Glenda's nap, Hayley. I'm afraid you're going to have to leave now.”
The nurse had every right to protect Glenda Goodrich.
Hayley's questions were clearly confusing and upsetting her.
And the last thing Hayley wanted was to make Glenda feel worse.
Hayley stood up and gave Glenda a gentle kiss on the forehead. “Thank you, Glenda. You get some rest now.”
Hayley turned and started to follow the nurse out the door when Glenda said in a quiet whisper, “They have their whole lives in front of them.”
Hayley whirled around. “What did you say, Glenda?”
“You know, those girls are about your age, Natasha.”
“What girls?”
The nurse sighed and placed a hand on Hayley's arm to steer her out of the room. “It's really time we left Glenda alone.”
“That bastard deserved what he got if you ask me,” Glenda spit out, chunks of vanilla pudding flying across the room.
Hayley shook free of the nurse's grip and scurried back to the bed. “Who are you talking about, Glenda? Do you remember now? Is it Julian Reed?”
The nurse finally lost her patience.
She marched up to Hayley and grabbed her arm, this time more forcefully. “Let's go, Hayley, please.”
Glenda locked eyes with Hayley, a grim look on her face, as the now angry nurse pulled her away toward the door.
“I would never say anything. Those girls did nothing wrong. And they're so young. Why would I destroy their lives?”
“Glenda, what girls? Who are you talking about?”
And then she saw the light go out in Glenda Goodrich's eyes.
“You tell Papa Frank to warm up the car before we go, Natasha. I'm not going to ride to church freezing my buns off.”
The nurse finally managed to hustle Hayley out of the room.
After a quick apology for overstaying her welcome, Hayley raced out of the retirement home to her car in the parking lot.
Glenda Goodrich may have been mostly spewing nonsense.
But for a brief second, her thoughts crystallized into a very specific clear memory.
And it was enough for Hayley to finally start piecing together the puzzle.
Island Food & Spirits by Hayley Powell
The other evening my son Dustin informed me his class was having an end-of-school-year party and handed me a list of all the treats the other parents were making for their kids to bring. I instantly knew I would make my grandmother's Chocolate Angel Food Cake. An always reliable party-time favorite. One thing I knew for sure was I had plenty of eggs for it.
This past winter I had become a bonafide chicken farmer. It was never a life-long dream, mind you, but it has certainly cut down my grocery bill now that I supply my own eggs.
My elderly neighbor, Mrs. Adelaide Gray, who feared the government was systematically poisoning us through processed food, decided to grow her own garden, which eventually included chickens to lay the four boiled eggs that she ate every morning. She had recently fenced in her yard and bought five chickens from a local former. Other than my kids complaining about the occasional clucking and a few escaping through a hole in the fence into my own backyard that I had to toss back once I got over my fear of touching them, the whole enterprise was relatively harmless.
Slowly, I began feeding them stale bread or a few leftovers since it was snowy and cold and Mrs. Gray didn't seem to be paying much attention to them. I found out why a few weeks later when I ran into one of my neighbors at the Shop ‘n Save and she informed me that old Mrs. Gray had up and moved to Florida about a month ago after a nasty bout with bronchitis during the first winter storm, and her house was to be sold. Her son would be driving up from Portsmouth and emptying it out soon along with the chickens, which would be removed by any means necessary.
Visions of chicken pot pies and chicken cacciatore and chicken quesadillas filled my head! I know I should have let it go right then and there, but I had grown rather fond of those chickens. I didn't want to see them die! Besides, I always had this Laura Ingalls fantasy ever since I watched reruns of
Little House on the Prairie
as a kid. And who wouldn't want fresh eggs every morning?
I enlisted my friend Mona to help me haul over the little coop from Mrs. Gray's backyard into mine and the chickens were finally safe and sound. They actually settled in quite nicely. I would let them out in the morning and shut the door on the coop when I came home at night. My son Dustin didn't mind tossing out chicken feed on the ground before school and filling their pail with extra food when it was empty since there was still snow on the ground and no bugs to be found.
Well, about a week later, I got home from the office one night and fixed myself a nice Friday night pitcher of strawberry daiquiris to wash away the stress from the work week. There was a knock on the back door.
When I opened it I found myself facing an angry group of neighbors, almost too many to let into my small kitchen, but I couldn't let them stand out in the cold. Once inside, they handed me a petition signed by everybody within three blocks requesting that I do something about the chickens or have them removed immediately.
I was flabbergasted. The chickens were so well behaved and hardly clucked anymore because they were fed regularly unlike at their previous home. That's when they handed me an envelope stuffed with pictures they had taken over the past week. I was horrified!
One photo after another of my chickens on top of my neighbors' cars, sitting on their porch rails, pecking through their garbage cans and even one of them chasing a cat while they all left their “calling card” (yes, chicken droppings) everywhere they went and all over everything!
I immediately offered to make strawberry daiquiris for everyone and they happily accepted, but still gave me just one week to fix this mess!
Well, no one said farming was going to be easy, so I purchased some chicken wire and bribed my brother Randy and his husband Sergio with some of my Chocolate Angel Food Cake to come over and install the fence around the coop so the chickens could have a home and keep my neighbors happy.
All in all, it worked out well and it's nice to have eggs when I need them!
 
 
Strawberry Daiquiris
Ingredients:
Four 16 ounce bags of frozen strawberries
2 cups rum (feel free to add more
when you taste)
½ cup lime juice
1 cup simple syrup
 
Add the strawberries to a large blender and then pour in the rest of the ingredients. Blend until very smooth. Pour into your favorite glasses and be prepared to be wowed!
 
 
Chocolate Angel Food Cake
Ingredients:
1½ cups egg whites at room temperature (10 eggs)
1½ cups confectionary sugar
1 cup cake flour
¼ cup cocoa
1½ teaspoons cream of tarter
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
 
 
Frosting
Ingredients:
1½ cups heavy whipping cream
½ cup sugar
¼ cup cocoa powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
 
First, make the cake. Place your egg whites in a large bowl. Sift together the flour, sugar, and cocoa powder three times (I know but this is what my grandmother always did), set aside.
Add the cream of tarter and salt to the egg whites and beat at medium speed until soft peaks form. Then gradually add the sugar beating on high until peaks are stiff and glossy. Add in the flour a bit at a time until fully incorporated.
Spoon cake mixture into an ungreased 10-inch tube pan and run a knife through it to make sure there are no air bubbles. Bake on lowest rack in a preheated 375 degree oven for 35 to 40 minutes until light golden brown and the top is dry.
Remove from oven and cool completely, then remove from pan and place on a plate.
To prepare your frosting, in a bowl combine all of the frosting ingredients and frost the cooled cake.
Sit back and get ready for the “Oohs” and “Ahhs”!
BOOK: Death of a Cupcake Queen
10.57Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Man From Boot Hill by Marcus Galloway
Randall Renegade by Judy Christenberry
Bared by Him by Red Garnier
Moonlight & Vines by Charles de Lint
Spirit Breaker by William Massa
Rules for Ghosting by A. J. Paquette
The Principal Cause of Death by Mark Richard Zubro