Died to Match (22 page)

“So what have you got to show us?” I asked.

“Surprise,” she said smugly. “You’re gonna have to wait.”

I noticed she had blisters along one forearm. “Let me guess. Something wonderful in pulled sugar?”

Pulled sugar creates lovely, brittle fantasy shapes—not unlike Dale Chihuly’s blown glass—but it has to be kept hot while it’s worked, and even careful bakers end up with a burn or two. The smart ones keep a bowl of ice water close at hand.

“You got it,” said Juice. “But I’m not saying anything else.”

She went back to the kitchen, and I went to look out the window through the thin hazy fog, in case the Buckmeisters came to the wrong door. Across the street, up on the utility roof of a south-facing apartment building, I saw something odd: a uniformed policeman, visible only from the waist up, behind some ventilation equipment. There was no one else around, but he wasn’t slouching, or smoking, or fidgeting. He was standing very still, and something about the somber look on his round young face made me curious to know what he was doing up there.

“Carnegie! You ready for some cake for breakfast?” The familiar voice boomed across the empty room and resounded from the plate-glass windows. Buck, Betty, and Bonnie trooped in, bundled against the chill, all six cheeks rosier than ever. Juice followed them in, and when they reached the center of the room and turned to get a better look at her, I held my breath for the reaction.

“Goodness!” said Betty, her black curls bouncing. “I can’t believe it!”

For all her bravado, Juice looked a bit discomfited. “Believe what?”

“Ray Jones peanut-brittle lizard! Look at that toebug!”

I thought Betty had lost her mind, but Juice smiled broadly and stuck out one foot. “Like ’em?”

“Dear Lord,” said Buck, in the quietest tone I’d ever heard from him. Then he reverted to his usual bellow. “Young lady, where in the name of I don’t know what did you get a pair of handmade Ray Jones boots? He’s been gone for decades!”

“My girlfriend found them for me at a pawnshop in Oklahoma. And they fit perfect. It’s like they were destined for me, y’know?”

“I’m giving my fiancé a pair of Henry Camargos for a wedding gift,” said Bonnie, blushing like, well, blushing like a bride. “Cognac alligator.”

Juice sighed. “Cooool.”

The Buckmeisters went on exclaiming and admiring and agreeing about the destiny of footwear for about ten minutes, and by the time they took their seats at the tasting table, the color of Juice’s hair was clearly immaterial. So far, so good. But could she get Christmassy enough for these Yuletide fanatics?

I shouldn’t have doubted. Juice swaggered into the kitchen— now that I was looking, they were pretty nice boots—and
reappeared with a tray bearing three small, exquisite cakes decorated as Christmas gifts, wrapped in three different and elaborate ways, swathed in gossamer ribbons and bows, and surrounded by Christmas tree ornaments in glittering, stained-glass colors. The Buckmeisters were struck dumb—for once—so I spoke up.

“Juice, those are fabulous! But we have three hundred guests—”

“I’ll do a different cake for every table, like centerpieces,” she said, trying to be nonchalant but brimming with pride in her creations. She set the tray on the second table so we could marvel at it from all sides. “This one is white chocolate hazelnut torte with raspberry liqueur filling, then there’s mocha mousse torte, and this one is ‘lemon impossible,’ that’s golden sponge cake with lemon curd filling. It’s awesome.”

Buck found his voice. “I have never seen anything so pretty that you could eat!”

After four other tastings, Betty was learning the lingo. “Is that what they call gum paste?”

Juice bridled. “I freakin’ hate gum paste. You can model it like clay, but it tastes gross.”

“Sorry, dear. No offense. What is it, then?”

“The wrapping is poured fondant, the ribbons are pulled sugar, and the ornaments are blown sugar.”

“It’s a very tricky technique,” I told them. “Juice is a real artist when it comes to sugar work.”

“She surely is!” said Buck. “I could look at these all day.”

“You look all you want while I get you some coffee,” Juice offered, then winked at me. “You wanna help me back here?”

I followed her into the kitchen. As we assembled a thermos pot and the cream and sugar tray, I whispered, “Juice, are you crazy? You can’t possibly charge enough to cover that
many individual cakes. Not ones that elaborate, anyway. It would cost a fortune!”

“I’m only gonna charge them three-quarters of a fortune. I’ll still end up working for chump change by the time I do all the custom work on these puppies, but I figure it’ll make such a splash that snotty guys like Joe Solveto will start taking me seriously.”

“Still, that’s an immense amount of work.”

She shrugged. “Rita’s out of town the first half of December. When I’m not getting any, I got energy to burn.”

We poured coffee for the Killer B’s, now looking sweet as honeybees, and Juice began slicing cake. I declined—I can’t handle sugar that early in the day—and took my coffee cup over to the window again. It was lighter now, the flat shadow-less light of winter in Seattle, and I could see the rooftop scene across the way with eerie, two-dimensional clarity.

The policeman was still there, joined now by three men in suits. One of them carried what looked like a doctor’s bag. The others deferred to him, and when he knelt down with his bag, out of my line of sight, the young policeman grimaced and turned away. Off to one side, a janitor in coveralls stood holding a bucket and wearing long rubber gloves. The hair on the back of my neck began to stir.

“Come taste this lemony one!” Betty called to me. “It’s just divine.”

“No, thanks,” I said faintly. I was trying to remember the cross streets in this part of town, and figure out which building that utility roof belonged to. I had a guess, but maybe I was wrong. “I’m really not hungry.”

“These are dee-lish, every one of them,” Buck announced. “Now, young lady, what’s all this pretty cake going to set me back?”

I turned to watch, expecting some price resistance, or at least shrewd negotiation. Juice looked Buck right in the eye and named an astounding sum of money. The ladies fluttered a bit, but Buck just half-closed his eyes and worked his jaw for a minute.

Then he slapped a hand on the plate-filled table and said, “Done! You get what you pay for, isn’t that right, Mother? Juice, honey, you got yourself a deal.”

It’s the boots, I thought, trying not to think about the man with the doctor’s bag. And then, absurdly, Maybe they’ll start showing up at Juice’s place for breakfast instead of mine.

The Buckmeisters began the long happy process of deciding on flavors, and as the delectable terms filled the air— cappuccino truffle, strawberry buttercream, Grand Marnier praline—I signaled to Juice that I’d be right back. I jaywalked across the street, glancing down the block as I approached the sign at the intersection.

My guess was right. The utility roof was on the south side of a building whose main entrance was around the corner, facing west. A building I had been inside just two days before. I hurried around the corner, into the lobby, and onto an elevator, passing clusters of people with eager, horrified faces. As the doors slid closed I heard one of them say to a new arrival, “Some woman fell—”

The moon-faced young policeman stopped me partway down the hall of the thirteenth floor.

“Excuse me, miss, may I ask where you’re going?”

I pointed silently to the door beyond him.

“Did you know the occupant?”

Did. Not do. Past tense. Oh, God.

Angela Sims was dead.

B
Y THE TIME
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Buckmeisters were gone and Juice was clearing away the cake plates.

“Hey, where’d you go, Kincaid? Buck and the gang said they’ll see you later. Man, they are great people! And you were afraid—What’s the matter? You look like death.”

I heard someone laughing, as if from a distance. It was me. She left the plates and came over to take my arm.

“No kidding, you look like you’re gonna keel over. Here, sit down.” I sat, taking long shuddering breaths, while Juice brought me a mug of milky coffee. “Lots of sugar. Good for shock. Now, what’s up?”

“I… had some bad news about a friend,” I said at last. I didn’t feel up to explanations. Not that there were any; the cop had just taken my name and address and sent me on my way. I knew what had happened, though, as surely as if I’d been there myself. But why hadn’t Angela secured her door? And why, I asked myself painfully, why hadn’t I warned all the attendants about Skull the day of the dress fitting? I could have saved her life.

Juice was staring at me, waiting for more, but I shook my head.

“It’s a long story, and I have to get back to the office. Um,
congratulations about the Buckmeisters. You really impressed them. I’ll get back to you later about the cake contract, OK?”

“No prob. Sorry about your friend.” Then she frowned angrily. “What the hell does she want?”

Someone was banging on BBA’s locked front door. Juice stomped to the window and gestured at the Closed sign, but the pounding continued, and I heard a woman’s voice.

“Carnegie, open up!” It was Corinne, wild-eyed and frantic. I pointed toward the side entrance, and went through the kitchen to let her in.

“I saw him!”

Corinne stumbled through the door and into my arms. Her raincoat was unbuttoned, the belt dangling, and her upswept hairdo was coming down. For a moment I felt her panic infecting me as well. But only for a moment. It’s funny; nothing helps you pull yourself together like somebody else falling apart. So I reacted as I usually do in a wedding crisis, and started ordering people around.

“Juice, lock that door, would you? It’s OK, Corinne, you’re safe, he’s not coming in here.” It didn’t sound as though she knew about Angela, and I didn’t intend to tell her until she calmed down. “Now sit here and tell me what’s going on.”

“I saw the tattooed man! I was going to have breakfast at the Athenian Café, but when I saw him I just kept going through the Market and I think he followed me! I was looking for a policeman but then I saw you through that window and, and…”

“Here, take a swig of this.”

Juice, instead of interrupting with questions, had very sensibly kept silent and brought over the rest of my coffee. As Corinne sipped at it, there was another knock at the front
window, businesslike this time, and Juice went to unlock the front door for three burly men in coveralls—the cleaning crew, here to do the floors.

“Kincaid, I kinda need you to leave, I gotta help these guys. If your friend’s OK now?”

“She’s fine,” I said firmly. “Come on, Corinne, let’s go back to my office for a little while, and then you can go home, or to the Sentinel, or wherever.”

“I should go to work,” said Corinne. She put down the coffee and rooted in her pocket for a tissue. “I have a deadline—”

“OK, but we’ll stop at my office first, and we’ll call Lieutenant Graham. Juice, thanks a million.”

On the way to the houseboat, I tried and failed to reach the detective on my cell phone. Just as well; I didn’t want to break the bad news to Corinne until I had her safely in my office. Climbing my stairs, the two of us kept glancing anxiously around, as if Skull had the powers of Dracula himself and could come swooping at us like a bat. It would have been laughable if I wasn’t still imagining Angela’s plunge from her balcony. Thirteen stories. Did she know what was happening? Did she scream?

Eddie looked up from a snowstorm of printouts and welcomed us with his customary savoir faire.

“So how’d it go with the cake? And who’s your friend?”

My partner rarely meets the attendants for our weddings. I introduced Corinne, then settled her on the wicker love seat in the good room while I spoke to him privately, with the connecting door shut.

“Eddie, another one of the Lamott bridesmaids has been killed. I have an idea who’s doing it, but—No, don’t interrupt, I need your help. Call Lieutenant Graham—here’s his card—and tell him Lester Foy was in the Pike Place Market
this morning. Then call Elizabeth and her sister, tell them Angela is dead and the purse-snatcher is on the loose, they’ll know what that means. Tell them to be very, very careful, and I’ll talk to them soon. Got that?”

“Got it.” And he picked up the phone. Eddie was a master of fuss and sputter when it came to the small stuff, but he knew a crisis when he saw one.

Back in the good room, I sat next to Corinne and took her hand. It was cold, and she was trembling.

“Corinne, you understand that you’re safe now, don’t you?” I said gently. “OK, I have to tell you something, about Angela. The police found her this morning, down below her balcony. She’s dead.”

I was right about the hysterics. Corinne wrenched her hand away and leapt to her feet with a wail of horror. Then she threw herself against me, clutching me like a life preserver, and sobbed aloud. Always over the top, that was our Corinne.

Suddenly I was overcome with distaste for her dramatics. I had felt obligated to break the news to her, but now I wanted her out of my office so I could have my own reaction to Angela’s death, and get on with my own work. I wondered, with a horrible sense of déjà vu, if Paul and Elizabeth would still want to carry on with the wedding. Beyond the expense issue and the heartbreak for dear old Enid, lay a grim question: What good would it do to cancel? Skull would still be lurking around, whether Elizabeth and her attendants spent the evening at a wedding or home watching TV

This nightmare would continue until he was caught. Or until Elizabeth, Patty, Corinne, and I were all dead.

Gradually the sobs died away, and Corinne slumped back into the love seat, hiccupping.

“What are we going to do?” she whispered. “He’s going to get us all.”

“The first thing to do is get you over to the Sentinel. You’ll be safe there, and they’re bound to arrest this guy soon. Do you have someone who could stay with you tonight?”