Wedding cake crush, p.3
Wedding Cake Crush, page 3
“No. She wanted me to do the cake and the catering.”
Terry’s brows went up in surprise. “That sounds like a lot of work. Or is she just having a little celebration at the prison?”
“No. She’s decided to go ahead and have a big wedding reception. It will just be her instead of her and Davis. So it’s… a pretty big thing, and she hasn’t left much time to get it all arranged.”
“Is it right away? She could schedule it for a few weeks after the wedding…”
“No, right away.” Erin nodded her confirmation at the look that he gave her. “Yeah. So it’s a big deal.”
“How can you take that on with everything else?”
Erin pointed at the schedule. “I’ve got it all worked out. Vic is going to see to it that all of my shifts at Auntie Clem’s are covered. So that frees me up during the workday. I need to practice because, honestly, I’m not up to snuff on my fondant decorating skills. But this will give me enough time to make the main cake and some desserts and arrange for catering for the rest of the food. She’s not doing a full dinner—thank goodness—but she does want canapés and drinks and all that.”
“You’re not going to be at Auntie Clem’s?”
“Well, some of the time. That’s the best place to bake, because I’ve got the commercial ovens and nothing will be contaminated with gluten ingredients. And I still need to do business stuff. But I won’t be doing the main baking or waiting on customers. Just doing my own thing in the back during the quieter periods.”
Terry nodded slowly, studying the schedule. Erin shifted uncomfortably, worrying that he would see the “Terry cooks dinner” before she had the chance to ease him into it gently.
“Looks like you’ve got it all figured out,” Terry observed. “What do you need me to do?”
Erin’s face warmed. His question made it easy for her. She felt embarrassed and pleased at the same time. “There’s not much,” she assured him. “I was hoping you could take over dinner prep for a few nights.”
“I’m sure I can open a can of something,” he assured her, cheekily echoing the way Willie teased Vic when it was his turn to cook or arrange a nice date night dinner. Willie liked to get Vic riled up. And Vic would oblige, telling him that opening a can of beans or soup did not constitute “making dinner” by her standards.
But Erin didn’t care. Terry could open a can of beans; she didn’t care as long as she didn’t have to think about it. “Good,” she pronounced. She pointed to the places on the schedule where she had hoped that Terry would be able to take care of their dinner.
He took out his phone and entered them on his electronic calendar. “As long as nothing comes up. If I get called to a major crime scene, you know I won’t be able to.”
Erin nodded. She understood that. It was part of the package. With such a small police department in Bald Eagle Falls, any major crime would require all hands on deck, and he would need to ensure that everything was taken care of before he could even think of making dinner.
“Deal,” she agreed.
“All right.” Terry nodded. “And now, I think you said you were starving? That chicken is driving me crazy. Speaking of which, where’s Orange Blossom? I expected him to be out here crying for his dinner.”
“Yeah. He doesn’t like all of the noise over at Mrs. Peach’s.” Erin nodded in the direction of her neighbor’s house, though Terry needed no further explanation. “So he’s hiding until he knows that I’m in the kitchen.”
They both got up from the couch and headed into the kitchen to eat. Erin waited for the familiar gallop of Blossom’s feet as he tried to reach the kitchen, and the pantry in particular, ahead of her, but he didn’t try to beat her there. She looked around.
“Blossom? You want a treat? Blossom?”
There was no raucous meow in response. Erin frowned, waiting. Eventually, she returned to the kitchen doorway and looked down the hall for the cat. He was not coming.
“You don’t think he could have gotten out, do you?” she asked Terry worriedly.
“No, you and I are both pretty careful. If he manages to slip out, we always see.”
Erin walked down the hall toward the bedrooms, first checking the spare room, looking under the bed and in the closet. “Blossom? Orange Blossom? Aren’t you hungry? Come on. Treats.”
K9 followed and nosed at Erin’s hand, suggesting that he was ready for his treat, even if Orange Blossom was not.
“Just a minute, K9.”
Erin continued, going to her bedroom. A tail stuck out from under the bed. Erin bent over and tickled it. The tail was quickly pulled in, and her cat turned around to face her, looking simultaneously angry and forlorn.
“Treat,” Erin tempted him. “Come on. Come to the kitchen for a treat. Can’t you smell the chicken?”
He didn’t come immediately but, with a little more coaxing, finally slithered out from under the bed and meowed at her plaintively.
“I know. The noise bothers me too. You don’t want to have to come out. But you’ll come for a treat, won’t you?”
He followed her to the kitchen, where he immediately began meowing and telling her how he had been starved all day, having to hide from the loud, disturbing noises next door.
“I know, I know,” Erin told him.
“Looks like you found him,” Terry commented.
“It’s that quick cop’s eye, isn’t it? Doesn’t miss a thing.”
He grinned. Erin got out a couple of the commercial kitty treats she bought for Orange Blossom and sent them skating across the floor for him to chase. He sat and washed his face and didn’t even look at them.
“Oh, is that how it is now?” Erin asked.
She put on her oven mitts to take the chicken out of the oven, and then Blossom was winding around her legs, begging for a portion.
“You’re too good for kitty treats now?” Erin asked, “You’ll only eat people food?”
She had cut human food out of his diet completely after he had been poisoned, worried about the many seemingly harmless ingredients that could harm a cat’s digestive tract and make him very sick. Pet sites on the internet and books always warned about how chocolate could poison a dog, but they never seemed to get into the long list of things she should not feed her cat.
But she had set aside a little chicken without any added ingredients for Blossom and K9. She divided the pieces between two dishes and offered the first to Blossom, who was standing up on his hind legs, trying to swipe it out of her grip before she could put it down on the floor for him.
“Blossom! Get down. You don’t need to be so aggressive.”
She managed to get it to the floor without dropping it. Blossom tucked in immediately. K9 waited patiently for his portion and ate it like a gentleman.
“You need to teach that cat some manners,” Terry said.
“It’s not quite as easy to train a cat as a dog.”
“Yeah…” Terry had a glint in his eye. “Dogs are smarter.”
“They are not. Cats are just more independent. They don’t want just to please their owner like a dog does.”
Terry smirked and set the plates down on the table.
CHAPTER 5
They had just dished up and were ready to eat when there was a loud crash from next door, followed by swearing and shouting that was even louder. All of the machinery noises stopped. Erin didn’t even think, she just dropped everything and ran out the back door.
Across her yard, out through the back gate, and through Mrs. Peach’s gate into her yard.
Something was wrong. She didn’t know what it was, but it was serious. Had someone been injured?
She knew some first aid, and Terry would be right behind her. He had first responder training and knew what to do in most emergencies.
“Erin!” She ignored Terry’s call and kept going. They could talk once they knew what was going on. “Erin, wait—”
Erin ran through the backyard filled with tools and equipment, aiming for the group of workers clustered together at the back of the house.
“What is it? What happened?”
Several faces turned to look at her. Their mouths opened, but either they didn’t know what to say to her or she wasn’t able to hear their answers, so caught up in her anxiety. What if the construction project had been completely derailed? What if Mrs. Peach blamed whatever had happened on her? She hadn’t done anything. She was trying to stay on top of the construction crew and what was going on and whether or not they had everything they needed, but she wasn’t doing the renovation herself. She couldn’t control it if they came in late or had a catastrophic failure along the way.
They moved back enough to admit her into the small semicircle around the hole in the wall.
She wasn’t surprised to see a hole in the wall. They needed to cut a hole for the internal doorway from Mrs. Peach’s kitchen area into the large greenhouse and hot tub room she was having constructed. No one wanted to go outside to get to and from the hot tub dressed in only a swimsuit or towel, especially not in the winter. Tennessee might not have the chilly winters she had experienced in the north, but it still got too cold to wander around in little more than one’s altogether.
But, of course, no one had been expecting to find anything inside the wall.
Other than the usual, of course. Erin had read about construction workers finding old newspapers, coins, or bottles when doing a renovation or restoration. And sometimes other things.
But not bodies.
She had rarely heard of them discovering a body during a renovation like Mrs. Peach’s.
Terry was right behind Erin, breathing heavily from the sprint across the yards. K9 panted at his side, ears alert, sniffing the breeze. It took a few more seconds before Terry could see past Erin or process what he was looking at.
He swore under his breath. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Despite Erin’s thoughts about first aid and Terry’s higher first responder training as she had run over from her house to Mrs. Peach’s, there was nothing they could do for the man in the wall. He was not just dead, but obviously long dead. And he would have to be. Erin had lived in her house for two years and, during that time, Mrs. Peach had not had any work done on the house. And certainly, the little old lady hadn’t walled a man up there herself during that time. The very idea was ridiculous.
And Erin was no expert in such matters, but it looked to her like the man had been there much longer than a couple of years. He hardly even looked human, but like something from a haunted house or prop room. Stretched brown skin in some places, skeletonized in others. There were still clothes draped around the body but, from what Erin had glimpsed before Terry had hustled her away—along with the entire work crew—he had been dressed in modern clothing. Blue jeans and a t-shirt with a bird crest on it. A work belt similar to Terry’s duty belt or the ones the construction workers wore, with loops and pockets for carrying equipment. Heavy work boots. How long had people been wearing blue jeans and t-shirts? Thirty years? Fifty? Not a hundred.
Terry had initially moved her and the work crew back, instructing them to stay out of the way and not to talk to each other while he called in to his dispatcher to get the rest of the police department on the scene. Erin didn’t speak to any of the men, but she could see that they were murmuring to each other and thumbing their phones, probably texting each other or someone else who would appreciate the horror of their find. When the sheriff, Tom Banks, and Stayner arrived, they split everyone up the best they could so they could not talk to each other about what they had seen or knew about it.
“Why don’t you go back to your house, Miss Price?” Sheriff Wilmot suggested. “We know where to find you. But please don’t talk or communicate with anyone else about this until we’ve had a chance to talk to you.”
Erin nodded. “Okay. I’ll…” She looked back toward the house, thinking about the meal they had abandoned and the fact that Terry would now probably be stuck dealing with the discovery of the skeleton for several more hours. “I’ll go home and have dinner. But Terry hasn’t eaten yet. We were just about to sit down.”
“We’ll give him a break once we’ve got everything under control here.”
“Okay.” Erin licked her dry lips. “I can’t believe this is happening. I mean… what are the chances…?” She remembered another grisly discovery not long ago, before she had built her new garage with the loft suite. Two bodies hidden so close together, but otherwise having nothing in common? The odds of that seemed astronomical.
“Don’t you worry about it. I’m sure we’ll be able to keep this one out of your hair. You go home and relax and don’t think about it. Put something on the TV and try not to focus on what you saw.”
Erin nodded.
“And don’t talk to anyone.” Wilmot pointed his finger at Erin’s chest, almost touching her. “And I mean no one. That includes Miss Victoria.”
“Okay.” Erin let out a pent-up breath. She felt like she couldn’t get enough oxygen. How could something like this have happened? And why did she have to be the one to see it?
But it wasn’t like she had discovered the body. She had been next door. She hadn’t known anything about it or even that the workmen would be knocking a hole in that wall today. It was all just a coincidence. She could just as easily have been at Auntie Clem’s, a restaurant, or shopping. She could have been anywhere.
But she hadn’t.
CHAPTER 6
Of course, not talking to Vic about what had happened wasn’t as easy as it sounded. As soon as Erin got back into the yard, Vic came clattering down the stairs from the loft apartment to meet her.
“Erin! What happened? What’s going on?”
“Oh…” Erin kept walking, feeling as if she were fleeing from her friend. “I’ll have to talk to you about it later.”
“Later? I want to know what’s going on now. Did something happen? Did someone get hurt?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know how to answer that. I’m not supposed to say anything to you. I’m sorry.”
“Why not? Erin?” Vic followed close behind her, not to be put off that easily.
“I’m not supposed to talk to you. I told you that. You’ll have to wait until later. After I’ve talked to… Sheriff Wilmot or whoever, then I’ll be able to talk to you.”
“Then there’s an investigation,” Vic concluded. Though, of course, that should have been obvious. Why would all of the police cars in town come to one location if there were not something to investigate? “And no one was hurt? Or someone was? I didn’t understand your answer.”
“I can’t tell you anything.” Erin reached the door and stopped, turning to look at Vic. “Go back to your apartment, and I’ll talk to you about it when I can.”
Vic looked stubborn and mutinous. But there was nothing Erin could do about it. Vic could stay in the yard, waiting for someone to talk to her about what was going on, but Erin could not let her into the house and discuss it with her. Even if all she could do was speculate, Wilmot had told her explicitly not to talk to Vic. She didn’t want there to be any suggestion that she had disobeyed his command.
Giving Vic a look that she hoped conveyed she was sorry and would have talked to her if she could, Erin entered the house and shut the door.
“Hey!” Erin shouted when she saw what was going on in the kitchen. “Get down! Off the table!”
Orange Blossom didn’t immediately obey, enjoying his feast of Chicken à la King. Erin rushed at him, waving her hands. “Get down!”
He jumped down just before she could lay hands on him to push him off or pick him up, uttering a loud growl in protest.
“You are not allowed on the table! You know that!”
He slunk a few steps away but kept eyeing her as if trying to decide if she might turn her back again to allow him a second go at the chicken.
“Get out of the kitchen. Go on. Go to bed.”
He grudgingly left the kitchen. Erin turned back and looked at the mess on the table, trying to decide what to do about it. She couldn’t tell if the cat had only been into the chicken that was on their plates or whether he had also gotten into the serving dish. If she knew, she might have been able to just toss what was on their plates and re-serve them from the serving bowl but, since she didn’t know, she couldn’t serve possibly contaminated chicken.
She sighed and started to clear it all away.
Erin had just finished her bowl when Terry returned with Sheriff Wilmot. Terry frowned and looked at the table, eyeing the small bowl of baked beans that remained from the can Erin had opened.
“What happened to the chicken?”
“Orange Blossom.”
He shook his head. “Darn cat.” He sighed and sat down. Not bothering to get out a plate, he just picked up the bowl Erin had warmed the beans in, picked up the fork she had put down, and took a bite. “It’s not Chicken à la King, but it will do.”
Erin started to stand to get him a plate or to offer him a hot dog to cut up into it, but he waved her down.
“This is fine. Let’s just get this done here.”
“Okay…” Erin sat back down. Sheriff Wilmot pulled out a chair and sat down as well. Erin felt awkward not offering him something to eat, but She didn’t have anything else prepared. “Do you want a cookie or muffin? We’ve got lots.”
“No, I have to watch my figure.” Wilmot put a hand on his slightly rounded stomach and shook his head. “My wife blames menopause for the weight she’s put on. But all I can blame is sitting on my… behind all day. Too much, anyway.”
Terry was still trim, spending much of his day on foot patrol rather than sitting in front of a computer. Though Erin knew that he had put on a few pounds in the last year and worried about how much they might slow him down. He worried that it was just the beginning of the end, that his physical fitness would just get worse as time went by.
Wilmot leaned forward. “To the matter at hand. I don’t really need much from you. I know where you were at the time of discovery. I know that you weren’t the one that killed that man or put him in a wall. But I still have to collect a statement from any witness when a dead body is discovered, so that means I need to talk to you.”
