Murder of a Chocolate-Covered Cherry (19 page)

Skye looked at her watch; she had ten minutes before her dish had to come out of the oven. Hurriedly she moved on to the Special-Occasion Baking row. Here all was quiet. May was intently making frosting roses on what looked to Skye like a tiny lazy Susan.

Next to her the cookie blogger, Diane White, concentrated on a chocolate creation that looked something like the fusion of a truffle, a tiramisu, and a brownie. Skye licked her lips. As she watched Diane started to sprinkle chocolate shavings on the dish’s surface. Just then the blogger’s assistant arrived, gliding into the kitchen area.

Diane’s back was to the entrance, and when the assistant spoke, the blogger threw up her hands and squeaked in fright. The bowl of chocolate flakes slipped from her fingers, spilling its contents on the ground, and Diane sank to her knees, screaming.

Wow, she certainly was high-strung. Was she afraid she might be the next victim, or was she on edge because she was the killer? She had been poking around the murder scene yesterday. In fact, she’d had to be escorted out due to her hysteria. But maybe that had been a ruse to escape the scene of the crime without arousing suspicion. Could the cookie blogger be a coldhearted criminal?

S
hit!
Skye glared at her watch. If only sheer willpower could make the hands move backward. It was nearly five minutes past the time her casserole was supposed to come out of the oven. Just what she needed—another ruined mess.

But surely anyone would agree that finding out who murdered Cherry was more important than creating the perfect entrée. Skye paused and bit her lip. Well, anyone but her mother. With May’s angry yet disappointed face in mind, Skye turned on her heels and raced across the warehouse to the One-Dish Meals area. Making a tight turn at the end of the row, she skidded into her cubicle.

The first thing Skye saw was Bunny sitting on a folding chair painting her nails, wearing a red leather minidress and matching ankle boots laced with white silk ribbons. Not a good look for someone Bunny’s age, but the redhead had never appeared more beautiful to Skye. Surely Bunny would have taken the dish from the oven when the timer went off.

Skye’s smile faltered when she realized the counter was empty—no sign of the Chicken Supreme. Still, the timer wasn’t pinging, so Bunny must have stopped it.

Skye let her gaze slip to the oven just in time to see twin
columns of smoke curl upward like elephant tusks. She yelped, ran forward, and twisted the dial to the OFF position. Seizing a potholder, she flung open the door and grabbed the Corning Ware dish.

This time her scream was louder than a the tornado siren, as the casserole slipped from her hands to the floor; elbow macaroni, chunks of chicken, and cheese splattered the cubicle. Skye gazed at the oozing cabinets and closed her eyes. The orange and white mess was revolting!

As she tried to pull herself together, the smell of scorched Velveeta clogged her throat. Her eyelids flew open and she whipped around to look back at the stove. The smoke had turned from gray to black and was billowing toward the ceiling. Somehow, although the arrow on the dial was aligned to the word OFF, the oven’s broiler had been ignited.

Damn! Damn! Damn!
Some of the ingredients must have bubbled over while baking and were continuing to burn. Before she could react, the overhead sprinklers chirped, then spurted like exploded water balloons.

Bunny bounced off her chair and popped out of the cubicle like refrigerator biscuits from a tube. Skye covered her head with both arms and dashed after her. The shrieks of Skye’s neighboring finalists accompanied her flight.

Within seconds contest staff came running from the four corners of the warehouse. The first to arrive slid into Skye’s booth as if he were making a grand slam home run; others followed, looking like cars piling up on I-55 in a snowstorm.

Grandma Sal’s son, Jared, picked himself up from the heap and turned on Skye. “What the fu …” He caught himself and took a deep breath. Speaking between clenched teeth, he gritted, “What happened?”

He drummed his fingers against the partition as Skye explained, pointing to the offending dial. When she finished he said under his breath, “Great, another prank.” Then, looking out at the gathered reporters, who were firing questions faster than a Xerox machine spitting out copies, he pasted a fake smile on his face and announced, “We’ve had a little mishap. No big deal. It only affected three workspaces, because Fine Foods went to the added expense of wiring the
sprinklers in small sections. And, since the contest hasn’t started, I’ll get a cleanup crew here right away, and these people can get back to cooking.”

While Bunny and Skye waited for their area to be put to rights, Skye picked bits of green pepper and red pimento off her arms. Without looking at the older woman, afraid that if she did she might smack her, Skye asked in her best psychologist voice, “Bunny, why didn’t you take the casserole out of the oven when the timer went off?”

“Yesterday you told me not to touch it.”

“But you did turn off the timer?” Skye wondered how the woman had managed to remain both spatter-free and dry.

“Well, yeah. I had to do that.” Bunny adjusted her black-and-white-checked thigh-high stockings. “It was as annoying as a poor man begging for a kiss.”

“Didn’t you think that the timer might be set to indicate something? Like maybe when the casserole was done?”

“Nah.” Bunny resumed painting her nails. “Thinking causes wrinkles.”

“So does death,” Skye muttered as she continued to scrape burned food from herself.

“What?” Bunny peered up at Skye.

“I said, please get me some wet paper towels.”

“Sure. As soon as my nails dry.”

“You know, Bunny”—Skye jammed her hands in her pockets so she wouldn’t strangle the redhead, but she couldn’t resist a verbal jab—“that outfit you have on is a bit on the young side for you. Don’t you think?” She attempted to twist the knife. “How old are you, anyway?”

Bunny, clearly impervious to Skye’s criticism, deposited the nail polish bottle in her purse and started to wave her fingertips in the air as she replied, “Age is just a number, and mine is unlisted.”

At ten o’clock Grandma Sal blew a whistle and the Soup-to-Nuts Cooking Challenge officially started. Each contestant would have six hours to produce three identical dishes. One would go to the judges for tasting, one would go to the photographers for pictures, and the third would be cut
into bite-size pieces and put out for the audience to evaluate. It was up to each finalist to determine which of their dishes went where.

Skye knew her mother would be among the most pressed for time. Not only did May have the mixing and baking to contend with, she also had the decorating. On the other hand, she also had a recipe she had successfully produced many, many times, while the best casserole Skye had ever managed to create ended up looking like drowned roadkill on the warehouse’s floor.

As Skye set to work putting together her first official Chicken Supreme, her mind drifted to what had been happening in the outside world while she had been chained to a hot stove.

When Quirk talked to Charlie’s cleaning crew, had they told him anything about the missing teenager? Had Wally found his father or figured out why he was checked into the motel under the assumed name of a cartoon character? And most important of all, had the police found out who killed Cherry Alexander?

Skye finished the first casserole and popped it into the oven. She couldn’t start on the second one until the first was nearly done. May had warned her that each dish had to go into the oven as soon as it was finished. It could not be refrigerated nor sit at room temperature.

This left Skye between thirty and forty minutes to investigate. But what would she do about Bunny?

She glanced beneath her lashes at the redhead, who had settled back into the folding chair and was leafing through an
In Style
magazine. “Hey, Bunny, do you want anything? I’m going to take a walk and get a Diet Coke.”

“Yeah, bring me a cup of coffee. Two creams and three fake sugars.”

“Okay.” Skye slipped out of the kitchen area, then poked her head back, praying Bunny wouldn’t decide to come with her. “Listen, if I get held up and the timer goes off, take the casserole out of the oven, okay?”

“Sure.” Bunny didn’t look up from the glossy page. “I’ve got you covered.”

Skye vowed to be back before the first ding.

Most of the contestants would be too busy to be talking about Cherry’s murder, so Skye headed back to the hospitality lounge, a walled-off section furnished with tables and chairs. Coffee, tea, and soft drinks were provided, along with small pastries and sandwiches.

Two women and a man were the only occupants besides Skye. They sat at a table against the back wall, deeply involved in a conversation. Skye immediately recognized the trio as the contest judges.

Skye smiled to herself. This was perfect. She couldn’t approach them, but it made sense that they would be in the lounge, since they wouldn’t have anything to judge for the first hour or more.

She concentrated on being invisible, silently choosing a can of pop and a bear claw. Careful not to make eye contact, she selected a seat off to one side. She wasn’t facing them, but they were in her peripheral vision. Someone had left the Books section of the Sunday
Tribune
on the table, and Skye opened it in front of her face.

As she hoped, the judges paid no attention to her and continued their discussion.

The first thing Skye heard was the male judge, Paul Voss, say, “I doubt they’ll ever figure out who killed that woman. The cops here are straight out of
Mayberry R.F.D.
Barney Fife questioned me yesterday and could barely spell my name correctly.”

“You needn’t sound so pleased,” Alice Gibson, the cookbook author, chided him. “All that means is that someone gets away with murder.” She poked Paul in the ribs with her elbow. “Unless, of course, you’re the killer.”

“Very funny.” Paul took a swig from a water bottle. “It was probably the husband. It’s always the husband. Or the lover, if she had one.”

“Whoever it was, they did us a favor,” Ramona Epstein, the food editor, said. “That woman was the most annoying contestant I’ve ever run into.”

“True.” Alice fingered her napkin. “If flattery and bribes didn’t work, she tried blackmail.”

Paul straightened. “What’d she have on you?”

“Nothing I couldn’t handle.” Alice raised an eyebrow. “How about you two? She told me she had something on all of us.”

Ramona and Paul both said, “Nothing,” at the same time; then Paul added, “Well, we may be happy she’s gone, but Fine Foods sure must be upset.”

“Why?” Alice asked.

Ramona answered before Paul could. “Because Fine Foods is in the midst of a big buyout deal. This is not the time for Grandma Sal’s to look bad in the press.”

“So, Fine Foods wants the murderer caught and the case closed and forgotten ASAP?” Alice asked.

Paul nodded. “Sure, it’s just like when you sell your house—you make sure the lawn is mowed, the carpet is vacuumed, and the windows are sparkling so you can get the best price.”

The two women nodded.

He looked at his watch. “We probably should be getting back to the judging booth. If a dish comes in and we’re not there, Grandma Sal will kill us.”

After the judges left, Skye wrote down what she had heard. She’d been having some remarkable luck in eavesdropping on conversations about Cherry. On the other hand, what else would anyone be talking about the day after the murder?

Interesting that Cherry had been able to come up with information to threaten all of the judges. Of course, everyone had their secrets, but how had Cherry known about them? Did she have a private investigator on her payroll?
Hmm
. That wasn’t as wild an idea as it might seem, considering the type of books she wrote. She’d need someone to dig up the dirt on her latest victim … er, subject.

Skye made a note to find out who Cherry was writing about in the book she was currently working on, then checked the clock. She had several minutes until her casserole was due out of the oven, but not wanting a repeat of that morning’s disaster, she hurried back to her workspace.

After handing Bunny her coffee, Skye clicked on the
oven light. Her casserole looked perfect. A couple more minutes and she’d top it with the buttered bread crumbs and finish baking it. Meanwhile, she’d start on the next one.

As she worked, she casually said to Bunny, “Have you heard anything about the murdered woman?”

Bunny got up and leaned a hip on the counter. “Not much. She made big money from those tell-all books she wrote about famous people. Her husband is at least twelve years younger than her, screws any woman who is breathing, and his only job is as her manager.”

“Wow.” That certainly gave him motive. “Where did you hear all that?”

“People talking at the bowling alley.” Bunny fluffed up her red curls. “And the husband’s been hanging out at the bar, hitting on any female who crosses his path.”