Murder Gone A-Rye (A Baker's Treat Mystery) (11 page)

I
’d lied to Meghan. I had opened the box we’d “borrowed” from the Homer Everett display. My curiosity had gotten the best of me. I wanted to know what was so important that Aunt Phyllis had risked going to jail for it. Inside were a series of journals from the 1950s. They were carefully written in a flowing feminine script.

Feminine, not masculine, slants and curls on pages that were carefully dated. Who kept Homer’s journals? Lois, perhaps? It was a log of all of Homer Everett’s activities. The first journal held a tone of admiration and love, but by the third journal the tone had turned to one of anger. Interestingly enough, whoever took dictation for Homer’s journal added her own side notes. What was that note?
He always puts Champ’s needs before mine.

Who was the woman behind the man? Was it his wife? Wait . . . Grandma Ruth and Aunt Phyllis never mentioned Homer Everett’s wife. How strange. Why would his wife have allowed this? He had to be married. . . . Interesting . . . I knew Homer had a son. Hutch Everett and his wife, Aimee, were a force to be reckoned with in Oiltop. Hutch was on the Chamber of Commerce board of directors. He was the marshal of the Homer Everett parade every year. And Aimee ruled the country club as if she were Princess Diana. Their son, Harold, seemed to be following in his parents’ footsteps.

“I’m back.” Meghan popped her head into my office, startling me out of my thoughts. “It’s getting kind of warm out. We might want to figure out a way to keep the pies cool—”

I turned in my seat and placed my arm across the stack of journals.

“What are you doing?” She stepped in and took in the open box. “Is that the stuff you stole from the courthouse?

“I didn’t steal it. I borrowed it.” Yeah, I know, it sounded lame even to my own ears. “It’s not like I’m reading the words off of it.”

She pushed my arm aside and snagged one of the open journals. “Wow, neat handwriting. ‘June 2, 1958. Homer has a meeting tonight. I hope he comes home in a good mood because I plan on telling him the news. The doctor confirmed that the rabbit has died.’” She paused and looked at me, her well-groomed eyebrows drawing into a
V
. “What does that mean, ‘the rabbit has died’? Is it some kind of wacko stalker? Did they have those in the fifties?”

I snagged the journal out of her hands and added it to the pile. “I think it means—”

“She was pregnant,” Aunt Phyllis said as she walked into my office. “Used to be they tested a lady’s pee by injecting it in a rabbit. So if they turned up pregnant, they would say the rabbit died.”

“Ew—animal testing, really?” Meghan said.

I sent Meghan a look that said I cared less about animal testing than I did the fact that she picked up Aunt Phyllis.

She shrugged. “Yeah, I was about to tell you that I saw your aunt hitchhiking so I picked her up.”

Phyllis went through the books in the box. “So, 1940 to 19 . . .” She pushed my hands aside and counted the journals. “Looks like 1960.”

“What’s so important about a bunch of journals?” Meghan asked.

“We’re trying to prove that Homer Everett killed a man back in 1959,” Aunt Phyllis said.

“Whoa, you mean
the
Homer Everett? The guy whose statue is in the town square? The one with the parade every year?”

“The very one.” Aunt Phyllis opened the 1958 journal, licked her thumb and turned the pages too quickly to read them.

“Awesome.” Meghan grabbed one of the kitchen stools, rolled it into my little closet of an office, and sat down. “Who’d he kill and why? Is it in the journal? Can I read one of those?”

“No, you cannot read those.” I got up and rolled Meghan out into the kitchen and closed the door, shutting Phyllis and the confiscated journals in my office. “As far as the world is concerned you know nothing about that box or those journals. Do you understand?”

“Sure. You’re worried I might get in trouble.” Her grin was the biggest I’d ever seen on her lovely face. “You care about me.”

“That’s right,” I said, and my heart squeezed a little. “I don’t want to see anything get between you and your goal of culinary school, especially not my family.”

Meghan whirled the stool in a circle. “Sweet. You care.” She stopped the stool with her hand to the stainless steel counter. “Seriously, though, I am eighteen. I can vote. That makes me an adult, and as an adult, I am fully capable of making my own choices.”

“No one is capable of making their own choices around my family,” I muttered as I put on a fresh apron. “Now, you were saying something about keeping the pies cool?”

“Yeah, I know it’s November and all, but have you been outside? It’s like eighty and especially the cream pies are all, like, wilting toward the end of the delivery.”

I frowned. “Did you have the air conditioner in the van turned up?”

“All the way,” she said with a shrug, “but it kind of spit out this funny vapor and died on me.”

“Great,” I muttered and chewed on the side of my cheek. “Fine. I’ll make a call to get the van into the shop . . . after the holiday. In the meantime, let’s pray for cold weather and deliver the cream pies first thing in the morning and last thing at night when it’s cooler out.”

“Okay, I’ll go reorder the pies in the cooler,” she said and put on a fresh apron. “What about the orders that have both cream and other pies? Should I do the same thing? Wait for the cooler hours?”

“Yes, we’ll do the same. When you get done in the freezer, run down to Safeway and get a couple of the biggest coolers you can find and some bags of ice in case it remains warm the rest of the week.”

“Will do, boss.” She opened the walk-in freezer and closed it behind her. I glanced at my office. I was tempted to go in and ask Aunt Phyllis some questions, like
What happened to Homer Everett’s wife? Why would she let his affair with Lois go unchecked?

Fortunately the front bell to the bakery rang. I turned my back on the office and went out to attend to my customers.

After the morning rush, I usually gathered the breakfast pastries onto one tray then put out more cookies, cupcakes, and mini pies. People who came into the shop after noon usually were here for the coffee and tea and wanted afternoon snack foods, or they popped in to grab something tasty for after-dinner dessert.

I kept a schedule posted on the white board in the café of what goods were featured on which days. That way people knew what would be here when. Of course they could special-order anything for any day of the week, but for walk-ins the schedule was set.

On Fridays, I featured chocolate. It was my slowest day and I figured it was the universal favorite to draw in clients. I had a group of three or four regulars who came to take advantage of the free refills on coffee or tea. Today was the monthly meeting of the knitting club.

Mary Stewart, Tasha’s mom, was the first to come in and help herself to coffee. She took a seat in the corner nearest the windows.

“Hi, Mary, I wasn’t sure if you all were meeting today,” I said as I came out. “It’s so close to the holiday.”

“I know,” Mary said. “I’ll be surprised if Francy and Julie show up. But I had to get out of the house. I’ve been cleaning up a storm in preparation for the holiday, and I needed to take a break.”

I picked up the coffeepot and refreshed her mug. “Do you want anything?”

“I’ll take some of those wonderful chocolate chip cookies,” she said. “I might be baking, but I’m not eating.” She winked. “I need to ensure I don’t run out before the guests leave on Sunday.”

“If you do run out, give us a call.” I returned the coffeepot to the coffee bar. “I’ve made a few extra pies for emergencies.”

“You are so thoughtful.” Mary pulled her knitting out of the blue-and-white tote at her feet.

I slipped three chocolate chip cookies on a white plate and added a tiny garnish of curled chocolate and white chocolate dots. I straightened and took in the warm expression on Mary’s face.

Like Tasha, Mary Stewart was a beautiful blonde. Her hair more of a champagne color, but still perfectly coiffed. I swear neither Mary nor Tasha’s hair dared to stray out of place—unlike my own curly mass. But then again I never had the time it took to curl, straighten, and spray my hair into submission. I’d learned long ago that my hair had a mind of its own. We sort of had an agreement. It wouldn’t look too bad and I wouldn’t do too much to it.

Currently it was pulled back into a low ponytail, with bits and pieces allowed to escape in a flyaway manner.

Mary wore dark jeans in a flattering cut and a simple tee shirt and cardigan of pale blue. Her gold hoop earrings and diamond tennis bracelet gave her a look of understated wealth. Mary and Tasha were members of the country club set, something my quirky family scoffed at—yet I secretly wondered what it was like to have that easygoing elegance old money could buy.

I wiped my hands on my yellow-and-white striped apron. My uniform of black slacks and white button-down shirt was clean, my black tennis shoes meant to be comfortable after ten hours on my feet.

I slipped the plated cookies on the table next to her cup. “What are you working on?” I asked, admiring the fine, even stitches of blue and white.

“I’m making a baby sweater and bootie set.”

I must have looked startled, because she laughed. It was a crystal clear, bell-like sound.

“No, it’s not for Tasha,” she reassured me. “We are putting together bassinet sets for Mercy Medical Center. In this economy there are quite a few young mothers struggling to make ends meet. Poor babies are going home wearing only little white onesies. We thought we’d donate as many sweaters and booties as we could this year.”

“That is so nice,” I said. The woman had a heart of gold, even if she did serve trout on Thanksgiving. “Maybe we can do a box for donations here in the bakery. I could ask Mrs. Becher next door. I’m sure she knows quilters who come into her fabric shop who would be happy to make quilts or blankets for newborns.”

“Oh, there’s Francy,” Mary said as she looked out the window and gave a little wave.

“I’ll bring more coffee and cookies.” By the time I had Francy settled in, Julie McGee had shown up. I made two fresh pots of coffee and put out plates of cookies, then left the ladies to their knitting. Francy knitted a pale green blanket. Julie knitted a lemon-yellow sweater. They sat in companionable silence and I went to the back to give them room to chat a bit. Besides, I’d heard the back door open and close twice. Either Meghan and Phyllis had left, or Grandma Ruth was out of jail.

The sound of the copy machine whirring came through the open door of my closet office. I went back to see who was busy copying. Grandma Ruth’s walker rested beside my office door. Inside my office, Grandma sat in my chair, taking up all the extra space as she used my printer/copier to make copies of the journals.

“Grandma, where’s Phyllis?”

“She went to go get bail money.” Grandma didn’t even look up from her copying.

“Bail money? But I bailed you out.”

Grandma shot me a look. “After you left me to rot in jail all night.”

“We both know you loved the experience. You’ll probably do an exposé on your blog: ‘How the county jail wastes taxpayer money.’” I used my hand to draw a headline in the air.

“That’s beside the point,” Grandma said. “I know you were trying to teach this old dog a lesson. I get it. That’s why I sent Phyllis to get bail money.”

I shook my head, confused. “I still don’t understand.”

She stopped what she was doing and turned to me, her blue eyes serious. “We have to return the box tonight. If we get caught, I want to be able to post my own bail.”

“D
on’t ask and I won’t tell,” I said as I set the stolen box of journals down on Brad’s desk. His office was richly appointed and spoke of his family’s oil background. There was dark cherry paneling halfway up the wall. The rest of the wall was cream-colored with hunter green and deep red accents. One wall was covered completely by a cherry wood piece of furniture with shelves and cupboards accented with proper lighting. He had pieces of aeronautics memorabilia and photos of his granddad and the Ridgeway family’s first oil well.

Then there were the framed diplomas; the tiny replicas of the personal jets he loved to fly. A basketball signed by the KU championship team from the year he played.

I tried not to be intimidated by it all, or by the Armani suit he wore. I know I was a bit ragtag, my hair coming out of its confines and my clothes still smelling of frosting.

“Toni, I’m happy to see you.” He got up in one long, fluid motion, unfolding his six-foot-five-inch, Nordic-god frame from the leather desk chair. His cherry wood desk had a marble top and stood three feet from the shelves on the back wall. There wasn’t a paper in sight except for a neatly stacked brief in the leather folder open on his desk. He worked on an ergonomic keyboard wirelessly connected to the thin LCD monitor hanging at eye level on the wall to his left.

“I should come see you at work more often,” I said as he kissed me on the cheek. “If nothing else, it reminds me how very different our worlds are.”

“What are you talking about?” He pulled his thick blond brows together, rested his lovely backside on the top of his desk, and crossed his arms over his chest.

“This.” I waved around at everything in his office, including him and his Italian loafers. “It doesn’t really work with this.” My hand waved in front of my wrinkled baker’s uniform with the food stains and scents of my bakery.

“Oh, come on, now, you know this is all for show. It’s how I get the bigwigs to give me their money. It has nothing to do with who I really am.”

I winced, because my outfit was every bit of who I was. “Right.”

“Now, don’t take that as anything but the compliment it was meant to be. One of the things I love about you is how real you are. Your warm heart, your inquisitive mind, your dedication to improving lives . . .”

I lifted the left corner of my mouth in a half smile of denial. “You make me sound like Florence Nightingale.”

“You are, in a way.” He reached up and tucked a stray lock behind my ear, making all my nerves twitch. “You care about people getting to have memories of good food even though they have special needs.”

I let out a nervous laugh. “Here I thought I was running a bakery.”

“What’s in the box?” he asked.

“I said, don’t ask so I don’t have to tell,” I replied, my cheeks warming. “But this box might have gone missing from the Homer Everett display in the courthouse historian records.”

He glanced up, freezing me with his electric-blue gaze. Suddenly he was all lawyer. “This is stolen material?”

“I heard it was borrowed.”

“Without permission, if this belongs to the records department in the courthouse.”

“I brought it back to you. They were going to break in agai—” I snapped my mouth closed.

“Again.” He finished the word and gave me a long hard look. “What’s in the box?”

I kept my mouth shut. Don’t ask. Don’t tell. Don’t ask. Don’t tell. Don’t tell. Seriously, don’t tell.

“Fine.” He blew out a long perturbed breath. “I’ll see that it gets returned. But this better be the last time you bring me something stolen—”

“Borrowed,” I interrupted.

“Maybe we don’t come from the same world.” He raised an eyebrow.

“That’s what I said.” I shifted from one foot to the other. “If it helps any at all, it was done out of good intentions.”

“Stealing is stealing.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought you were going to say.” I brushed my hands off on my pants. “Thanks for your help.”

“You’re welcome.” He stood, and I took off toward his door. “What, no invitation to dinner?”

“I didn’t want this to feel like a bribe.” I waved my hand in the general direction of him and the box. “You’re a good guy, Brad. I’ll try to keep you out of my family’s mischief from now on.” I had my hand on the doorknob, this close from escape.

“Oh, no, you don’t.”

“What?” I asked, looking over my shoulder. “Do I need to give you a retainer or something for your time? Because I can. Have Amy bill me. You have my address.”

“Billing isn’t an issue, and you know it,” he said. “I don’t want you to leave me out of whatever your family is up to, do you understand? If you need a lawyer, you come to me, day or night. I mean it, Toni. Even if we never date, I’m here, and I want to help you.”

“Why?” I was a bit taken aback. I was used to men like my ex, who were there for my help, not the other way around.

“Because you need someone to be,” he said, “and I happen to be good at taking care of people.”

“Oh, okay.” I opened the door and shot out of there like a bat out of hell. I’d think about what he said later. After a few hours’ sleep and a long hot shower. Right now, I was trying to keep Grandma out of jail.

That’s what I told myself, anyway.

• • •

D
oing a little investigating on my own couldn’t hurt, right? I mean, if I was going to stay one step ahead of Grandma, then I needed to find out a few things about Homer Everett and how he had been connected to the poor murdered Lois Striker.

The smells of fall and Thanksgiving—you know, that particular scent of cold rain that should always come with football and turkey—wafted into my home office. It was early evening and Aubrey was playing with a chew toy at my feet. Kip had relinquished his new best friend while he took a bath.

I had my computer up and was going through some old news pieces on Homer Everett. Since Oiltop celebrated him every year, there were plenty of stories about the man’s greatness and achievements. I can understand why Grandma Ruth wanted to dig deeper and discover what flaws he may have had.

Instead of concentrating on Homer, I decided to do some research on the people around him. The first was Champ Rogers. Who was he? Why did his parents name him Champ? Who would have wanted the man dead in 1959? And why? Finally, was there a connection between Champ and Lois Striker? Grandma seemed to think so. But that didn’t make it a fact.

I typed Champ’s name into my search engine. I discovered a few small news articles. Born William “Champ” Rogers, he had been raised on a ranch in northern Oklahoma until the dust bowl had him and his family moving east to live with relatives in Pennsylvania.

Champ had gotten into trouble bootlegging and spent ten years in Leavenworth prison. Once he got out he was drafted and by 1944 was on his way to Europe. It was while he was in the army that he became friends with Homer Everett. One article asserted that he’d run interference for Homer, taking on his duties at KP or latrine. Champ made himself Homer’s best friend and confidante.

Then came the infamous day when Homer had climbed out of his foxhole and run headfirst into enemy lines. He’d looked like a madman and scared the Germans so bad they’d run the other way. This cleared a path for American soldiers to stream into a small French town and save its people. And an American hero was born.

Champ and Homer went on a USO tour afterward, never seeing battle again.

“Brilliant,” I muttered.

Aubrey paused from chewing one of his many chew toys.

“It all sounds so convenient, doesn’t it, Aubrey? Do you think this is the secret that got Lois killed?”

The pup tilted his head as if to think over what I said. I chuckled and picked up a toy and tossed it. Aubrey chased after it and sat down to chew on the caught prize.

I turned back to my computer. Who was the force behind the war story? Homer? Champ? Was it just a story, or did it really happen? I had to learn more. I scrolled through the search engine looking for anything that might help me.

“Hey, sis.” Tim stuck his head into the office. “What’re you doing? Aren’t you usually in bed by now?”

“What?” I glanced at the time on the computer screen. It was nearly nine
P.M.
“Oh, huh, I got caught up in research. What about you? Aren’t you late for work?”

Tim leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms. “It’s Friday, my night off, remember?”

“Oh, right.” I went back to my screen. Tim, acting like an older brother, walked in and started reading the monitor.

“‘Homer Everett, famous football player and war hero, married Susan Fisher of Kansas City in 1949,’” Tim read out loud. “Why are you researching this? I thought you weren’t helping Grandma Ruth and Phyllis with their little adventure.”

“I’m not.” I sat back and crossed my arms.

Tim hitched his hip onto the edge of my desk and gave me the look that said I couldn’t deny the obvious.

“All right, fine, someone has to keep an eye on them,” I said, and it sounded silly even to my own ears. “Don’t you have a date or something?”

“I’m meeting Tom Thomas to work on the American Legion’s float,” he said. “Shouldn’t you be working on your float?”

I glanced around to make sure I wasn’t in earshot of Tasha or Kip. The look had me realizing that Aubrey was gone. Kip must have come in while I was deep into research. “If I never see another tissue-paper flower, it would be too soon.”

Tim chuckled. “So no tissue daisies for the Prairie Port Festival?”

“No!” I made a face.

“After looking at your float, I have to agree.”

“Thanks,” I grumbled.

“Tell me what you’re researching.” He crossed his arms.

“I’m trying to figure out what it is that Grandma Ruth thinks she knows about Homer—besides her supposition that Homer murdered Champ and hid the murder weapon in the county courthouse. I thought I might find a clue to how Champ died or a motive behind whoever killed him.”

“Do you really think it was Grandma’s investigation that got Lois killed?” He tilted his head in thought. “It doesn’t seem plausible that Champ’s death had anything to do with Lois. It happened a long time ago. I mean, Hutch is what . . . nearly sixty?”

“I was getting to that part. Grandma’s thinking the war hero story is not quite what they made it out to be. Champ could have been blackmailing Homer over the truth.”

“Interesting—blackmail is good motive for murder.”

“Right? Anyway, Grandma and Aunt Phyllis are combing through Homer’s journals looking to see if he spilled the beans about lies, blackmail, and murder. What we’ve noticed is that he didn’t write his journals—some woman did. We all know that he dictated regularly to Lois. Maybe he told her the truth and she’s spent the rest of her life hiding it.”

“So why come clean now?”

“Grandma told her she knew where the murder weapon was. Maybe Lois was hoping to stay ahead of the scandal. Hutch could have found out and killed Lois. After all, his father had gotten away with murder. There’s no reason why Hutch couldn’t.”

“Would it be that easy?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Think about it, though—the way Hutch and Aimee act, it would be the height of embarrassment if the war hero story were untrue.”

“Embarrassment, yes, but is that enough to kill over?”

I shrugged. “People will kill over a carton of cigarettes. Can you imagine what would happen if it was discovered Homer was a fake war hero and a murderer? Why, Aimee wouldn’t be able to show her face around town—people would not treat her nicely after the way she’s treated them over the years. Her kid, Harold, would be ostracized—what mother would let that happen to her child?”

“How are you going to go about proving that theory?” Tim straightened.

“I have no idea. It’s not like you can put ‘murderous war hero’ in a search engine and have Homer’s name pop up.”