Charleston with a Clever Cougar: A Dance with Danger Mystery #6 (12 page)

I rolled over, tossing the covers off me as I
sat up. My shoulder was still tender, but I was able to raise it
higher, high enough that I might, after a hot shower, be able to
wear my normal work apparel. I considered the choices in my closet,
finally settling on a blue cotton scoop neck top and a pair of
blue-and-white paisley stretch jeans. I had just made my bed and
laid out my clothes when there was a heavy pounding on my front
door. I headed downstairs.

“Morning, sunshine.” It was Doc, overnight
case in hand. He gave me a peck on the cheek and snaked past me up
the stairs. “I’ll be in the shower.”

With that, I was left in the lurch, so I got
busy, making coffee and mixing up a batch of buttermilk pancakes.
By the time he was down fifteen minutes later, clean-shaven and
ready for work, breakfast was warming in the oven, juice was on the
table, and I had read the front section of the newspaper.

“Flapjacks -- my favorite.” Doc helped
himself to four, buttered each one, and then doused them all in
syrup. He grabbed the sports section and buried his nose in it. He
barely noticed that I left the table five minutes later.

The shower did help me relax. I could feel
the ache melting away as I stood under the flowing water. My body
was still black and blue here and there, but most of the bruises
had begun to fade to purple. It was easier to shampoo my hair
today.

By quarter of eight, I was dressed. I threw
my hair back into a ponytail, added a blue scrunchie, and put on my
makeup before heading downstairs. Doc was on the phone.

“Right. Right. Okay then. Sure.” He nodded
several times, his expression intense. “Got it. Will do.”

He had already done the washing up. The
dishes were in the dishwasher. The griddle was clean and back on
the range. The newspaper was stacked into a neat pile on the table.
I finished the regional news while I waited.

“You’re going to love this,” he told me as he
hung up. “Mimi got a call from her hired hitman, telling her that
the cops were onto him, so he couldn’t do the job. But he had a guy
who could do it. His buddy, the guy he already had helping out at
Cady’s Cakes.”

“You?”

“Explains what I’m doing at the shop, right?”
he chuckled. “She’ll buy it because the guy told her he hired me to
get information on Daisy’s movements, and since the assault took
place in the parking lot, Mimi thinks this is now a done deal. She
didn’t even balk at my fee of ten thousand dollars. The only hitch
is that she wants it done tomorrow, right after her plane leaves,
and she wants it to look like an accident, so no one will suspect
her. I’m going to meet her at the train station in Clinton at
1:30.”

“Doc, do you think you’ll be able to get a
confession?” The thought of Mimi getting away with attempted murder
was more than I could handle. If she was able to blow it all off,
what would that do to Carole and the kids? How would Daisy feel,
knowing her stepmother wanted her dead? Would she ever feel
safe?

I still couldn’t understand how Mimi, a
mother of three, could even contemplate killing an innocent girl
like Daisy. Doc had a theory about it.

“For some reason, Mimi has it in her head
that Daisy stands in her way of achieving a goal. She’s got to get
rid of her. You said that Doug wants to change Dylan’s
custody.”

“I did.”

“Mind if I just do a quick search?” Doc went
over to my computer and woke it up with a swish of the mouse. “Mimi
Walchuk. Ah, here she is. Miriam Bithous Walchuk.”

I read over Doc’s shoulder as he scanned
through the stories about her. She was clearly pressing forth with
her effort to launch a political career. She was recently named as
candidate for the State Board of Education. All she needed was the
approval of the governor and the state senators and she would have
a four-year term.
Maryland Today
, the regional magazine, did
a feature piece on her at home and at work, touting her as an
up-and-coming superstar. There were photos of her with the triplets
and with Doug, but the reporter also slipped in the references to
Carole and the kids, the messy divorce, and how Doug and Mimi had
to move to get away from the stink of their affair. There were
other articles on her charity work, donations made to charter
school programs, and special educational events.

“It looks like she’s throwing a lot of money
at her future,” Doc decided. “You would have thought triplets would
put a damper on their finances, but Mimi must make a chunk of
money.”

“Well, she’s a lawyer. But wait,” I said,
reaching over Doc to point at the screen. “Click on that.”

“What, this?” It was an article written four
months ago, about how Mimi decided to quit her job as a corporate
attorney to concentrate on her three babies, giving up the live-in
nanny in favor of a couple of daily helpers.

“If they’re paying for help with the
triplets, that’s got to be taking a bite out of the budget. How
much can Doug be making as an assistant superintendent?”

We did a search of the salary for Doug’s
position, listed in the Maryland educational budget. Not nearly
enough to pay for daily assistance with the triplets as well as
Doug’s share of child support.

“And Daisy’s off to college shortly,” I
pointed out.

“Doug’s paying for three babies, all in
diapers, and two kids from his first marriage. And his current wife
quits her job and dumps the live-in nanny.” Doc rolled that one
around in his head for awhile. “Know what I’m thinking?”

“What?”

“I’m thinking that Mimi’s been spreading the
wealth around to all her pet projects and there’s not enough left
in the pot to send Daisy to college.”

“But there’s a college fund, Doc. That was
part of the custody agreement. Doug and Carole would each
contribute to it.”

“That was before Mimi quit her job, right?
Before she gave up that corporate salary. How much can she be
bringing in as a town solicitor? She would have been better off
staying at her job and keeping the nanny.”

“But if she did that, Doc, she’d come off
looking like a calculating politician, and people don’t like that
much ambition in their educators.”

“True. You said Doug wants to change the
custody.”

“Yes, he wants Dylan to live with him.”

“Maybe he can’t afford all the child support
payments.”

Chapter Twelve --

“When Carole made the agreement, she was in
the middle of treatment, so she had no real steady income. She was
too sick from the chemo. She’s only just now getting back on her
feet.”

“It’s amazing that Mimi didn’t take out a hit
on Carole,” Doc decided. “But that wouldn’t really solve her money
problems, would it? No way she could buy a decent life insurance
policy on the ex-wife, even for the benefit of the kids.”

“Maybe she bought one on Daisy,” I
suggested.

“No, that wouldn’t make any sense.”

“What about Daisy’s college fund? It’s been
untouchable up until now. If she dies, what happens to it?” Surely
there was a lot of money in it, given that Doug and Carole had
faithfully stocked it over the years. “And I know both sets of
grandparents also have contributed to it.”

“Four kids is a lot less expensive than four
kids and a teenager heading off to college. If Mimi kills Daisy,
she might not just assume she gets a break on the child support,
but maybe she gets her hands on the money set aside for Daisy’s
future.” Doc let go of the mouse.

“That’s horrible.”

“More than you know, Cady. This meeting’s
going to be a lulu. We should get going.”

The morning went smoothly after that. When we
got to the shop, Doc and I got busy on the wedding cake. With less
pain, I was able to do more of the actual work, but I left it to
Doc to carry the batter-filled pans to the ovens. By noon, we had
all of the cakes baked and ready to be frosted. Doc brought out the
cake board, I dabbed a good size dollop of frosting on the surface,
and he carefully centered the largest layer on top of it. Once it
was covered in buttercream, we rolled out the fondant, slipped it
on top of the cake. The smooth surface was ready for the next
layer. When we got to the fourth layer, we stood back, to make sure
it was all level and even.

“A masterpiece,” Doc declared it.

“It does look pretty good,” I agreed.

By one, Doc was ready to head for the train
station and I had my pastry bag in hand, ready to apply the lacy
details to the cake.

“I’ll be back,” he said, brushing past me as
he squeezed my hand, the gesture hidden from Walter and
Darlene.

“Be careful,” I warned him.

“Why does Doc have to be careful?” Darlene
came around the corner with her bowl of melted white chocolate,
ready to dip all of the almond shortbread wedding bells.

“He’s got a meeting with a real tough
customer.”

“Oh. Doc looks like he can handle himself in
a rumble,” Darlene decided. “He’s my kind of man.”

“He is?” I must have looked incredulous,
because Darlene burst out laughing.

“You don’t think Doc is a catch? Cady, you
really need to get out more.”

“You might be right,” I smiled, thinking
about our secret relationship. Once I had agreed to that date, it
was like a weight had lifted off my shoulders. “Time to get busy on
the Henslacker cake. Wish me luck.”

I spent the next two and a half hours putting
the painstaking details onto the cake. With a close-up of the lace
on Tara’s wedding gown in hand, I mimicked the pattern all over the
surface of the cake, dotting on the icing, until it looked as if
the cake had been draped in lace.

“Beautiful,” Darlene said on her way out of
the kitchen before packing it in for the day. Walter gave his
approval, too. Carole came in when there was a lull in customer
traffic. She wanted to know the next steps.

“I’d love for my Daisy to learn how to do
that. I think she’d be really good at it, Cady.”

“Well, she’s pretty good now at the
calligraphy part of it. She’s going to put the names of the bride
and groom on the cookies, and then she’ll packaged them in the
special bags that the wedding guests will receive tomorrow.”

“She’s very excited that you’re letting her
help with that. She’s rather nervous about Mimi’s visit.”

“Can you blame her?”

“Not really.” Carole shook her head. “I just
have a bad feeling about this whole thing. This past week has been
a nightmare. First you, then Daisy. It feels like something
terrible will happen.”

“Now, now. You have to have some faith,” I
told her. “Sometimes the good guys win.”

“I hope so. I haven’t felt like a winner
since Doug up and left me for that floozy!”

“Mimi’s not a floozy,” I corrected her. “A
floozy is just a woman out for fun, right? Mimi’s more of a
predator. She takes what she wants regardless of who she hurts in
the process. What kind of woman breaks up a marriage with two kids
involved?”

“What kind of idiot lets her?”

“Right. Doug was an idiot.” I refilled my
pastry bag with icing, changing the plain tip to a closed star, for
some of the more elaborate markings on the cake that mimicked the
Brussels lace flounce on the bottom of the dress.

“Not Doug,” she said softly. I looked up at
her on the other side of the stainless steel work table. Her eyes
were sad, as filled with tears as they were with unspoken regrets.
“I shouldn’t have let him walk away, Cady. I should have fought for
him.”

“Carole, you can’t think that way. You were
undergoing cancer treatment. You were in real peril. You had enough
on your plate.”

“Still....” Her voice trailed off. Even after
all this time, she still wanted the jerk back. It wasn’t enough
that he deserted her in her time of need. She thought it was her
fault he left.

“Carol, you’re forgetting something.” Those
big brown eyes rose up, framed by auburn curls just now growing
back after months of a bald pate. “Am I?”

“Doug was a big boy and he made a big boy
choice. It was a bad choice and it meant he left his family. Now he
has a new family. Three new kids to take care of, not to mention a
wife.”

“He was better off with us,” she insisted.
“He should have stayed here.”

“But he didn’t. Carole, there are some things
you can change and some things that just are what they are. You
can’t make Doug want you. You can’t make him appreciate you. If
it’s not in him, it’s not in him.”

“I keep dreaming about him, Cady. I keep
thinking he’s miserable.”

“And yet, he’s got his new life down in
Maryland. You have to start thinking of you. If you spend the rest
of your life hoping Doug will come to his senses, you’re missing
the bigger picture. If, and I say if, he wants to come back to you,
it’s not that simple. He’ll have to go through yet another
expensive divorce, more child custody battles, job changes -- it’s
much more complicated than just waking up one morning and deciding
he wants to come back to you.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do without
him.” Carole’s mouth trembled as the tears welled up. “I don’t know
what I’m going to do.”

“Oh, dear.” I put down the pastry bag and led
her to my office. I led her to my chair and sat her down. “You’re
going to do what you have to do as a parent, to get Daisy ready for
college. And you’re going to keep Dylan engaged in his school work
and his sports. And you’re going to get yourself out of the house
and back into your social circle. You’ll do it one step at a time,
one foot in front of the other. You’ll survive this. You may not
like the way it is, Carole. You may miss the hell out of Doug. But
you’ll live through this horrible time.”

The shop bell tinkled and I knew someone had
entered, so I patted her hand before leaving to attend to
customers. Five minutes later, I was back. Her eyes were red and
she was blowing her nose.