Plum Deadly (2 page)

“Do I look like I want another piece of pie?” he snarled at her. “Leave me alone.”

“Maggie!” Aunt Clara called from the kitchen. “Come quick! I think we’re having trouble with the dishwasher.”

She looked down at the rude young man and snarled back at him, “You’d better be in a friendlier mood when I get back or this chair better be empty.”

Maybe it wasn’t good business practice, but she could take only so much.

Maggie went back to the kitchen and stared at all the soap bubbles that were spreading across the floor, bulging from the dishwasher. “What happened? I didn’t start it.”

“No, honey, I did. I think that new soap might be bad. Get the mop, will you?”

Maggie passed the box of soap that was still open on the cabinet. “Is this what you used? No wonder it’s foaming up. This is hand soap for the bathroom dispensers.”

Aunt Clara had turned off the dishwasher by the time Maggie got back with the mop. Bubbles were still oozing from it. “Oh my stars, you’re right. What was I thinking?”

The front door opened again, making a little chiming noise to let them know there were new customers.

“I’ll clean this up,” Aunt Clara said. “You tend to the customers. They’re more important than this mess.”

“Hi, Maggie.” Angela Hightower smiled and greeted her when she came back out of the kitchen. “Am I the first one here for the book club?”

“It looks like it. I saved your tables in the corner. Would you like something to drink while you’re waiting?”

“That’d be great. Maybe a little half and half—half sweet tea and half no-sugar tea.” Angela laughed, tossing her dark blond, shoulder-length hair. “My son is getting married in six weeks and I’m trying to lose a few pounds.”

“No pie today?”

“Don’t be silly. Why do you think I’m drinking half and half ? I’m going to wait for pie until the other girls get here.
We like to order different slices and share them around, you know?”

“I do.” Maggie put her order pad in the pocket of her jeans. “I’ll get your tea. What book did you read this month?”

“Something unusual for us—a murder mystery. Jean hardly had the stomach for it. But I thought it was good. Nice to read something besides family problems and books about women finding themselves. I don’t understand why all those women feel so lost in the first place.”

Maggie shook her head and hid her smile as she went to fetch the tea. She liked Angela, who was plainspoken and always ready to try something new. Aunt Clara told her Angela sold real estate and was on her fourth marriage, this time to a man almost half her age.

“The rest of the book club won’t be far behind,” Aunt Clara said as Maggie poured tea into an ice-packed glass. “I hope we have enough variety for them. I really need to teach you how to make piecrust. It’s the hardest part.”

“I could never make crust like you do.” Maggie put a slice of lemon on the lip of the glass. “I think we should keep things the way they are. You know I have to find another job. Don’t change things that have worked for years on my account.”

There would have to be changes, Maggie knew. She’d been surprised by both her aunt’s forgetfulness and the shabby condition of the pie shop. Aunt Clara wasn’t getting any younger. She might not be able to continue with the shop.

“It’s not that hard once you know the secret,” Aunt Clara said. “The women of our family have passed it on for three generations now. If you don’t learn, it dies with me. You’re all I have, Maggie. We have to stick together.”

Maggie smiled and kissed her aunt, a strong feeling of guilt clutching at her heart. She knew Aunt Clara needed her, but she couldn’t stay here tending the pie shop the rest of her life. She had her own dreams and ambitions.

She’d been good at what she did for the bank, bringing in millions of dollars with new clients every year. If she got a second chance, she knew she could do it again. She could be that blazing star, living the high life and feeling the satisfaction that came with it.

By the time Maggie took the iced tea to Angela, Jean and Barb were there. They’d already pushed some tables together in the corner and pulled up more chairs.

Jean was a nursing instructor at the university. She was very thin and always wore scrubs. Barb, a counselor at the school, wore a perpetual frown, as though life had let her down. The three women had been friends since childhood. None of them had ever lived outside of North Carolina—or Durham, for that matter.

They were examples of the women Maggie
didn’t
want to be.

“So that’s another sweet tea and a coffee.” Maggie wrote in her order book.

“Decaf,” Jean said. “I’ve already got the jitters from my new class. It scares me sometimes to think the people I teach might take care of me someday. I hope I die on the side of the road with the level of health care I see coming up.”

“Got it.” Maggie joked with the women about Jean’s new hair color and Betty’s rubber mud boots. As she’d learned in college when she worked here, talking to her customers got her bigger tips.

“Let’s wait for Liz and Sissy to order pie,” Angela said, clearly the leader of the group. “Have you heard anything about Mann Development lately, Maggie? Any new offers on the shop?”

“Not as far as I know,” Maggie replied. “I don’t think they’ll be back again with another offer after Aunt Clara ran them off with her pepper spray.”

All the ladies from the book club laughed at that image, except Angela. “They’ll be back. This piece of property is too important to that new medical office building. You know, your aunt should take advantage of the next offer. She could live in luxury the last few years of her life.”

Maggie’s generous mouth tightened a little at her words. “I think Aunt Clara is doing fine. She doesn’t need Mann’s money to live a good life.”

Angela smiled in a slightly devious way that made Maggie feel like she would never trust the other woman to buy or sell a piece of property for her.

“You and I both know you won’t be here forever, sweetie. You’ve had a few hard breaks, but you’ll be gone again in no time, leaving Clara to sort this out alone. All I’m saying is, why not take advantage of a good thing? If you encourage her now, you won’t have to feel guilty when you climb on that plane.”

Maggie didn’t know what to say. Angela’s words hit too close to the truth not to lodge in her chest. She was saying
all the things Maggie had been thinking—and feeling guilty for.

“I’ll let Aunt Clara know that you’re waiting for Liz and Sissy before you order pie. Thanks.”

As Maggie walked away from the table in the corner, she heard Angela continue, “All I did was tell her the way it is. We all know Clara can’t fight progress.”

H
er shoulders stiff
with fury, Maggie ducked behind the counter and started a fresh pot of coffee. Angela was wrong about Aunt Clara having to cope with Mann Development. Let them have the old building. She could make a nice profit and go to New York with Maggie. Aunt Clara could live fine without it.

It was very quiet in the kitchen. Maggie glanced in back to see what her aunt was doing. “Making new piecrust?”

“We don’t need it yet.” Clara brought out the big sack of flour and a few measuring cups. “But I think now would be as good a time as any for you to learn the recipe.”

“We’re pretty busy.” Maggie tried to put her off. “Why don’t you write it down and I can look over it later?”

“This recipe has never been written down, honey. It has passed from mouth to ear for three generations. I surely won’t be the one to break that tradition.”

“Well maybe later then, when we close up for the night. Or tomorrow. We could come in early and you could show me. I don’t think I can make piecrust and wait on tables at the same time.”

Aunt Clara laughed. “You sound so old, Maggie. You’re barely in your thirties. When I was your age, I could make pie, wait on tables, and still have time for a quick cuddle in the kitchen with your Uncle Fred.”

Maggie smiled at the picture her aunt painted. Her aunt and uncle had been very much in love. She’d seen it every day as she was growing up. They’d shared that love with her.

It was a much different time, a happier time. Maybe it was because she’d been a kid and hadn’t known anything about the world.

Maggie smelled the coffee brewing. “I just think we should wait for the right time. I’m going to take the coffee and tea out to the book club ladies. I’ll be right back.”

Feeling like she had escaped an execution—her own—Maggie poured tea into a glass and coffee into a mug. She never thought it would come to this. Who knew there was a secret family recipe for piecrust? Aunt Clara had never mentioned it before. Why now?

How was she going to explain that the only food she’d ever made was something that came out of a microwave oven? Even popcorn was tricky for her sometimes. She obviously
didn’t get the family gene for cooking that her mother and aunt had.

She was good with numbers. She’d cleared up Aunt Clara’s bad accounting in the first few days she’d been back. She was good with computers. She’d even understood the cash register that her aunt had declared impossible.

Wasn’t that enough?

Maggie felt sure she would never make even an adequate piecrust much less the kind people raved over. Something had to happen that would get her out of this situation. Aunt Clara too, it seemed. She realized that she couldn’t leave her alone for another ten years.

She thought about the offer for Pie in the Sky from Mann Development. She hadn’t seen the numbers, but it might be worth exploring. All she needed was a good job. She could convince Aunt Clara to sell the pie shop and they could go away together.

Maybe they could go on a cruise to the Bahamas or something. There were plenty of exciting things to do when you had money.

Maggie was dropping off the tea and coffee and picking up another order for Diet Coke from Sissy, who’d arrived while she’d been in back, when two things happened.

She heard a
ping
from her email, telling her that a possible job offer was waiting for her.

At the same instant, the chime on the front door rang and Louis Goldberg, her ex-boss, walked into Pie in the Sky.

Maggie dropped the Diet Coke on the floor. “Lou!” she squealed.

Her mind ran amok with possibilities. He was here to ask her to come back. There had been a mistake of some sort that he’d just realized. The bank had found the real culprit.

He’d come because the bank had decided to prosecute her after all.

All of these ideas ran through her head. She didn’t want to pick one. She just wanted it to be good news.

Lou stared back at her, then as suddenly as he’d shown up, he walked back out the door.

It only took an instant for Maggie to follow him. She didn’t even stop to clean up the Diet Coke. “Lou? What’s going on?”

“Maggie.” He shook his balding head and his whole large body began to tremble. His red-rimmed blue eyes teared up. “Seeing you in that getup was too much for me. I can’t believe I did this to you. I’m so sorry.”

She glanced into the pie shop window to make sure Aunt Clara didn’t need her. Excitement buzzed through her like an electric current.
Yes!

“Why don’t you come back inside and I’ll get you some pie.” She could afford to be generous. “It will make you feel better and we can talk.”

He nodded, sniffing hard and wiping his nose with his handkerchief. He was wearing an expensive gray suit and a red, white, and blue tie with a little flag for a tie tack. Lou was nothing if not patriotic.

“That sounds good. Thanks.”

Maggie put him at a table on the side of the shop by the windows, away from the sometimes noisy book club. She
needed to concentrate and didn’t want to be overheard. Her heart was beating double time in her chest.
This is it!

She got Lou a piece of Dangerously Damson pie and a cup of coffee. As she crossed the floor from the counter to his table, Mark got up to ask for more coffee and they collided.

“I’m so sorry.” He tried to wipe the spilled coffee from the table, floor, and Maggie’s wrist.

“It’s okay.” Lou’s pie seemed to be fine—a little coffee sloshed on the plate. She wiped that away with a napkin. Her wrist burned a little, but it was nothing compared to her burning curiosity to hear what Lou had to say.

“Are you sure?” Mark tried to help her with the pie and coffee she carried.

“I’m sure.” She smiled at him. He was such a nice guy. “I’ll get you some coffee.”

Maggie gave Lou his pie and coffee, then poured coffee for Mark and checked with everyone (except the rude student) to see if they were okay for a few minutes.

Finally, she set her cell phone to record whatever Lou had to say. She’d learned her lesson from the whole experience and didn’t want to take anything for granted.

But if it all worked out—
wow!

Trying not to get too excited after her six weeks of hell, she sat down across from the man who’d mentored and encouraged her for the last ten years.

Of course he’d also been the one who’d accused her of embezzlement and fired her. She figured he had no choice in that matter.