Brownies & Betrayal (Sweet Bites Mysteries, Book 1) (5 page)

“Hey, be careful about fingerprints,” Honey reminded me as she used the hem of her shirt to open the top dresser drawer.

“Right.” I followed her example, picking up a scarf and using it flip things over and poke through the clothes.

A few kid’s clothes were in the room as well—her daughter’s, I realized, and remembered the little girl’s tears. I moved to the closet and found four dresses, including the bridesmaid dress that matched the others, though this one had additional flourishes at the waist—probably to indicate her elevated status. Then I wondered if Analesa had known about the additions to the dress, or if Valerie had added them without permission. Six pairs of dress shoes with four-inch ice-pick heels lined the floor.

“And we have liftoff,” Honey said as I admired Valerie’s taste in footwear.

“What?” I turned to find Honey flipping through a planner and some papers.

“Here’s a statement for her cell phone. There’s also one from the bank.” She picked up the paper and scanned it, flipping it over to check the charges and deposits. “Looks like regular charges: home, car, gas, food, nothing special.” Still, she pulled the notebook from her purse and scribbled down the account numbers for both.

“I wish we could see her cell phone or computer or something, see if she had a note written down about her schedule.” Honey muttered this as she flipped through a few more pages, but didn’t find anything useful.

“We’ll have to see what else we can dig up, I guess.” I checked my watch again. “It’s almost eleven. Want to see if the same clerk is on duty tonight?”

“Let’s go.”

I closed the closet door and checked to make sure everything else was the same as when we arrived. I didn’t want anyone to know we’d been there, and since we weren’t taking anything with us—other than Honey’s notes—I hoped there wouldn’t be a problem. I dropped the scarf back with the clothes where I’d found it.

We arrived at the front desk in time to see the changing of the guard. A young Latino man and little redhead were swapping the computer and cash register. We walked over and both clerks turned and smiled. “Can we help you?” the young man asked.

“Yes. I’m Tess Crawford, the cake lady from the wedding. I wondered, were either of you working last night?” I folded my arms across the chest-height counter and directed my attention to the young man.

“I was,” he answered. “It’s spooky, thinking about something like that happening only a few rooms away, without me knowing about it.” He shifted his shoulders almost in a shrug, but looked a little unnerved.

I couldn’t blame him. I often saw the murder scene when I closed my eyes. I was totally not looking forward to my dreams. “Yeah, I bet. Do you remember Valerie coming in last night, or passing through the reception area? I know you probably have a lot of people through here, but she’d be hard to miss in her little red dress.”

He blushed a little. “Oh, yeah, I remembered the dress. She came in around midnight. I know because I was in the middle of the daily reports.”

His expression said he remembered the parts of her which
weren’t
in the dress, rather than the other way around. I wondered why she had left the hotel and with whom. “Do you remember how she acted? Did she appear drunk or upset or anything?”

“No.” He shrugged. “She came in chatting on her cell phone, like it was normal to hold conversations with people at midnight. She didn’t look my way, but she was on those tall, skinny heels and didn’t seem wobbly to me, so she couldn’t have had too much to drink.”

I thought it was sweet and rather naïve that he thought someone couldn’t walk on stiletto heels while drunk. Some people were super coordinated. I was not so lucky. “Did you see anyone else around? Anyone who appeared to be looking for someone?”

“No. Like I told the police, I didn’t see anyone else for a long time after that, and hardly anyone in the half-hour before it. Once the hotel restaurant closes, we don’t get a lot of people in and out.”

It didn’t surprise me. Silver Springs was practically the polar opposite of Chicago and New York. “Yeah, the city all but rolls in the sidewalks by ten. Thanks.”

I wiped the keycard on my jacket to get any fingerprints off of it, and on the way out the door, I dropped it next to a planter where a cleaning person would most likely find it in the morning.

“What do you think?” Honey asked once we were out of hearing of the clerks.

I wrapped my jacket closer around me and wished I’d worn something warmer. Arizona may be far warmer than Chicago, but in March, the temperatures still dipped to or below freezing at night. “I think whoever she met must have come down the back way. Valerie’s room was in the same wing as the conference room, but I think Analesa mentioned they bought a block of rooms for the wedding party, so that’s not much to go on.”

“So we’re no better off than we started?” Honey asked.

“Not unless we can get one of them to admit they saw someone leaving their room between midnight and one.” I was discouraged, though I knew it was stupid to let it get to me. We’d barely begun to investigate.

“If we only knew why someone would want her dead,” Honey said.

“Let’s hope we only find
one
reason for her death.” I grimaced as I thought of how rude she was. “The woman knew how to make enemies, that’s for sure.”

“Then we’ll have to keep digging.”

I frowned and tried to think of our next move. Since we were tired, though, we returned to my home for a snack. I still had a few brownies left from the batch I’d made for the wedding breakfast.

I unlocked the door to the apartment over the restaurant and headed up. The lamplight fell in pale splashes against the faded yellow paint on the right wall of the stairwell, showing rub marks and chips in a few spots. Family portraits and postcards from trips my family had taken littered the walls. The Acropolis, Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, Egyptian pyramids and St. Basil’s Cathedral in Russia made appearances, many with me and my parents in the corner of the shot. 

The little apartment still held a slight musty smell despite my having been there for a week. Everything was familiar, and contrary to the pain I’d felt on my more recent visits, comforting. The room held old, worn sofas covered with afghans Grandma had knitted, the fake plants standing sentinel in the corners and on tables. More faded paint in mint green, more pictures and knickknacks. Coming back here had been a balm to my broken heart.

The restaurant had kept me busy with cleanup and renovations, but I’d managed some basic cleaning in the apartment since my return to town. There was a lot still to be done.

While Honey plated up the brownies, I headed to my tiny room for a comfy sweatshirt. The thought of moving into Grandma’s much bigger room hadn’t occurred to me until she’d been gone over a year, but I was so rarely here, I hadn’t bothered. Since it would have required going through her personal effects, the bigger space wasn’t worth the time, or the pain it would have dredged up. Now some time had passed, I might be able to face it.

Two sparkling salad plates, now with a couple of brownies on each, and two tall glasses of milk sat on the coffee table when I returned to the living room.

With a sigh, I kicked off my newest pair of Monolo Blahniks and wiggled my toes. They weren’t very practical for walking around the hotel, but they made my feet pretty, and had cheered me up when I thought of being arrested for murder. Okay, so nothing could make that thought less horrible, but I’d been focused more on my aching feet than my questionable future, so that was something.

Honey picked up one shoe and held it reverently. “How unfair is it that I can never borrow your shoes? I can’t believe your feet are smaller than mine.” 

I knew the tactic was intended to delay the conversation, and decided to humor her. “It’s all that coveting you did as a kid. This is Karma blowing back at you.”

She pulled a face at me. “I don’t need to be reminded of what a brat I used to be.”

“Used to be?” I lifted my brows at her, but I was teasing.

Honey laughed, her voice like the sound of tiny seashells as they clinked together. She was so feminine, from her short frame and tiny hands to her womanly curves. She even looked the part of a mother of three, though I still struggled sometimes to believe her oldest son was already eight. “I’m much better behaved now. Most of the time.”

 “Good enough for me,” I took a bite and moaned in appreciation over our famous rocky road brownies. Filled with walnut chunks and chocolate chips, topped with melted marshmallows and slathered with my famous fudge frosting, nothing on the planet tasted better than these babies. “Can we say heaven?” This dessert wasn’t sophisticated enough for my Chicago clients’ palates—or that’s what the head chefs claimed when I suggested adding them to the menu. But I couldn’t imagine anyone not melting into a puddle of fulfillment with a single bite—I was totally stocking them in my bakery and knew the repeat business would be phenomenal.

Honey stayed around for another hour. I waved goodbye to her, and turned to study the apartment. I’d rarely been back to Silver Springs since I settled my Grandma’s bills and everything after the funeral. Honey had told me more than once that I was avoiding the pain, and I’d feel better if I faced it all instead of staying away.

I hadn’t believed her, but now I was home again—and wasn’t it funny that I’d already begun to think of Silver Springs as home?—I found the ache of losing my last parental figure wasn’t what I’d expected. The intense pain I’d felt last time had softened a great deal, though the bittersweet pain of being around Grandma’s things now made tears spring to my eyes and I longed to have a chat with her. I decided I’d make a trip to the cemetery to visit her tomorrow.

Despite the late hour, my cell phone rang and I listened to
Marry Me
by Train play through until it went to voice mail. I was still avoiding Bronson’s calls. If I didn’t answer, just let him leave message after message, all of them pleading, none of them sincere, would he eventually stop? I wasn’t sure, but the last thing I needed right after my trying day was to deal with him. He had been the one to pick the ringtone for his number, the cheating, lying jerk. I’d actually thought it was sweet at the time. Gag me.

Bronson was another hurt I’d have to deal with, and maybe it was why I’d had to come home again. Isn’t that what people did when they had wounds that needed licking? Go home? I was sure there must be some primal draw to this town, even if it hadn’t officially been home at any point in my life.

Despite the comforting surroundings, the knife of surprise at walking into Bronson’s office to find him kissing someone else still sheared through me when I let myself think about it. Though he’d been trying to get me to agree to marry him for months, I’d only accepted a few weeks ago. Apparently he got what he wanted—whatever that was—and was ready to move on. That hurt, even as I hated myself for thinking maybe he had an excuse. Maybe, just maybe, we could make this work after all.

No. Ignoring the calls was best.

It was late when I headed to bed, still smelling the sweet sachets Grandma always stuck in with her linens. It permeated the clean sheets I’d pulled out of the cupboard earlier. It was almost as good as having her arms wrapped around me.

I kept a close eye on everyone as I stood at the table with my cake the next evening. The police had cleared the room for use again only two hours before the wedding ceremony was scheduled to start, which meant the hotel staff and I had scrambled to set up everything.

The ceremony was over and Honey mingled through the crowd, making a point of tracking down all the people who’d been in the hotel the night of the wedding rehearsal—which, according to reports, had been the entire wedding party.

Because I was the hired help, it was my job to stand behind the cake table or in the corner out of the way, rather than chatting with guests—a rule I mostly intended to follow. It gave me a chance to watch everyone and see how they interacted. It was a smaller group than originally planned, but that was okay by me. One hundred people instead of a hundred and sixty meant I could see all the possible suspects.

The tone of the event was far more subdued than it would have been a couple days earlier. Even from my corner, I could see the tears, comforting touches and delicate sniffles against lacey handkerchiefs. Was this a wedding celebration or a wake? It was hard to tell, and the answer was, of course, that it might have been a bit of each.

After everyone had eaten their dinners, the bride and groom went through the ritual cake cutting and serving. They were totally circumspect about it—no frosting on the face for this couple. Then they moved away for the next set of pictures and I took off the top layer for the bride and groom to freeze for their first anniversary and sliced the next tier to be served to guests.

There’s a science to slicing wedding cakes so all the pieces are the same size and no one feels picked on if they get a smaller piece than their neighbor. I seldom had the opportunity to do the cutting when I worked at the DeMille Hotel—I’d trained several of the wait staff there to do the job properly. Despite people’s regrets that the masterpiece had to be destroyed, no matter how gorgeous, how elaborate the confection, it was, at heart, still just cake—fabulous and delicious, but cake all the same. I never felt bad about seeing one massacred for the guests to enjoy. It was meant to be eaten. If I wanted my art to last forever, I’d have taken up painting instead.