Murder by Meringue (Sky High Pies Cozy Mysteries Book 25) Read online

  Murder by Meringue

  Sky High Pies Cozy Mysteries / 25

  Mary Maxwell

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  © 2018 Mary Maxwell 10122018

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, recorded or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a review.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  NANA REED’S SKY HIGH RECIPES

  CHAPTER 1

  “What would you call that particular shade of frosting?” asked Blanche Speltzer. “Bruised Ego? Grumpy Malcontent?”

  We were standing in the kitchen at Sky High Pies on a Tuesday afternoon, gazing at a picture on her phone. It depicted a three-layer cake that someone had entered in Food Town’s Family Flair Bakeoff, the annual fundraiser for the local pet shelter. Against a smooth field of lustrous white buttercream, four words were written on the top of the cake in a curiously unappetizing shade of murky purple frosting: A Nite to Remember.

  Blanche had served as the head of the judging committee during the event’s final auction the previous evening. The position seemed particularly fitting for the vivacious octogenarian. During more than eighty years in Crescent Creek, Blanche had taught high school, outlived multiple husbands, championed countless civic organizations and developed an impressive network of secret sources to monitor the local gossip.

  “So?” She nudged me with one elbow. “What would you call it, Katie?”

  “I’d go with either Maudlin Mulberry or Pouty Plum,” I said, examining the photograph. “And if I had to guess, I’d also say that whoever made that cake never won the Crescent Creek Spelling Bee.”

  Blanche laughed. “Touché, dear! It peeves me that they used the lazy spelling for the word ‘night.’” She tapped the screen repeatedly. “See? Right there; ‘n-i-t-e’ instead of ‘n-i-g-h-t.’ When I was a teacher, that sort of thing hurt you on the final grade!”

  “I remember those days in your class,” I said. “Thank goodness I always used traditional spelling instead of slang or shortcuts.”

  Blanche brushed one finger across her mouth. “Lousy Lingo!” she declared. “That’s a good name for the frosting!”

  I studied the image for a few more seconds. “That’s pretty good,” I said. “But as a judge, how much weight do you give to their spelling acumen if the cake itself is flawless?”

  “After you’ve looked at nearly thirty entries,” she replied, “they start to blur together. I stopped by today to hear what you two culinary virtuosos thought of the five finalists.” She glanced at Julia, busy on the front line with the breakfast order that Harper had submitted a moment before. “Jules? Do you have time to look at these cakes?”

  “Can you give me about ten minutes?” asked the resident Sky High chef and dessert maven. “Polly and Rita just walked in, so I need to fix their usual orders fast as a rabbit.”

  Blanche groaned. “Those two troublemakers again? Weren’t they just here last week?”

  Julia grinned. “It’s a public place, Blanche. They’re allowed to come and enjoy themselves as much as the rest of our guests.”

  I glanced at our silver-haired friend. A disapproving frown squirmed on her face as she swiped through more Family Flair pictures. I’d never heard the cause for the rift between Blanche and the other two women, but whispered rumors pegged it on a disagreement about which cast member from The Golden Girls would have made the best spin-off sitcom back in the show’s heyday. Although they conducted themselves with decorum in public, I knew from experience that Blanche, Polly and Rita grumbled frequently about the feud in private.

  “Well, I know that!” Blanche called to Julia. “I just think it would be better for the rest of the world if they did at least some of their enjoying elsewhere. For example, I hear it’s quite nice in Fiji this time of year.”

  Julia giggled. “Isn’t it always nice there?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Blanche said. “None of my husbands thought that was a good honeymoon destination.”

  “What about Boris?” I asked. “You and he could take a trip to Fiji.”

  The stern expression on her face softened. “That’s a very good point, dear. And we were discussing a second honeymoon just the other day. Boris suggested Cabo, but I think he’d be up for Fiji as long as they stock Tums and Pepto in the hotel gift shop.”

  Blanche and Boris had been married for just over a year. Although they had small disagreements about inconsequential things like most couples, I’d never seen two lovebirds flutter through their days and nights with such contentment and bliss. Not even my own parents, who retired to Florida after I agreed to move back to my hometown and take over the bakery café that my grandmother started more than four decades earlier.

  “Couldn’t you just buy those here and pack them in your luggage?” asked Julia as Harper whirled into the room carrying a bus tub of dirty glassware.

  As the resident dining room overseer at Sky High, Harper provided impeccable customer service to our breakfast and lunch customers six days each week while Julia and I handled duties in the kitchen.

  “Well, if it isn’t Mrs. Speltzer!” she said, smiling at Blanche on the way to the dishwasher. “I didn’t know you were here.”

  “Hello, dear,” Blanche replied. “I came in the back way. And it’s a good thing that I did since Tweedledee and Tweedleditz are out there holding court.”

  I glanced through the pass window into the dining room just in time to see a trio of women approach the table where Polly Winchester and Rita Sheffield were sitting.

  “From what I can see,” Blanche continued, “the monthly meeting of the coven is about to begin.”

  Harper made a face. “Well, that’s not a very nice thing to say. Those women are all your friends, Blanche.”

  For a few seconds, I couldn’t tell if Blanche would accept the gentle rebuke graciously or reward us with one of her trademark snarls. Luckily, the stars and planets were aligned because she simply pressed one finger to her chin, considered what Harper had just shared and then offered a sincere apology.

  “I’m sorry, ladies,” she said. “I’m wearing a new brassiere this morning, and it’s a little tight. I think it
’s cutting off the blood flow to my lower extremities.”

  “Well, that’s never a good thing,” I said. “Maybe we could look at the Family Flair entries another time so you can go home and change your bra.”

  “No worries, dear,” Blanche said. “Let me just run to the ladies’ room and slip it off. I may be losing the battle with gravity, but it’s not like I’m a big busty broad. I don’t think anybody will even notice that I’ve removed my over the shoulder boulder holder.”

  CHAPTER 2

  By nine o’clock that night, I was fading fast and hoping that the Icy Hot patch on my lower back would ease the spasms that had been plaguing me since I’d tweaked a muscle lifting a box of lettuce that morning.

  “How’s the patient?” asked Zack.

  We were twined together on the sofa in my living room beneath a vintage quilt. Two empty bowls on the coffee table were ready, willing and able to hold a second serving of Salted Caramel Swirl from Scoops of Joy, the local ice cream parlor that I visited far too often.

  “I’m holding my own,” I said. “And I’ll be even better once the Icy Hot starts working.”

  He kissed the tip of my nose. “Want more ice cream?”

  The angel on my left shoulder whispered that we were satisfied, but her naughty counterpart on my right hissed that it would be a crime to leave the piddling amount of sweet creamy confection in the freezer. “If you don’t eat it now,” suggested the devilish inner voice, “you’ll be back out in the middle of the night.” I was still trying to decide about the ice cream when my favorite newspaper photojournalist tapped my shoulder.

  “Babe?” he said. “One more scoop?”

  I shook my head. “I’ll pass, but knock yourself out, tiger.”

  He pressed against me. “I’m good for now. I ate too much pasta for dinner.”

  I leaned over and kissed his cheek. “I know at least three ways we can work off some of those calories.”

  Zack laughed. “Yeah? Tell me two.”

  When I whispered my suggestions into his ear, he chuckled again, swiveled closer and returned the favor by sharing another option that I hadn’t considered.

  “Really?” I smiled. “The laundry room?”

  He nodded enthusiastically. “Two birds, one stone. We can start a load of wash and have some good clean adult fun. I once read a story in—”

  My phone trilled from somewhere under the quilt.

  “You’re popular tonight,” he said.

  I smiled. “Third time’s a charm,” I replied, searching for the phone. “My mother promised to call back again and let me know how it went with the croquembouche.”

  Zack chuckled. “The what?”

  “It’s a fancy French dessert,” I told him. “It’s a cone-shaped tower of pastry balls covered with threads of caramel. She and a couple of her friends wanted to make one for a baby shower.”

  “Sounds tricky,” said Zack. “Wouldn’t it be easier to bake a cake?”

  “Much,” I said. “But my mother almost never goes for the easy solution. She likes to make a big impression.”

  I found the phone, pulled it out from under the quilt and felt a slight tickle of anxiety when I saw the name on the screen.

  “Detective Kincaid,” I said after the call connected. “How are you on this rainy Tuesday evening?”

  Dina Kincaid and I had been friends for years. We attended Crescent Creek High together, along with Trent Walsh, who was now Deputy Chief of the Crescent Creek PD as well as Dina’s ex-husband.

  “I’m a little dazed and confused,” she said.

  “Join the club, sister,” I told her. “Confusion is part of the human condition.”

  Instead of responding with one of her barbed quips, Dina ignored my remark and asked if I’d heard the news about Amelia Felton, a local resident of Crescent Creek and frequent visitor to Sky High Pies.

  “What news?” I asked, feeling a faint chill of dread along my spine.

  Dina sighed loudly. “She’s dead, Katie. When her neighbor went to pick her up for choir rehearsal late this afternoon, she rang the bell several times and waited. After waiting for about ten minutes, the woman finally looked through the front window and saw Amelia on the floor in the living room. It’s way too early to know anything for certain, but the initial cause of death is poison.”

  My breath wedged in my throat. “Amelia Felton?” Her image flashed through my mind: a tall woman in her mid-thirties, with light brown hair, chunky red eyeglasses and a bubbly laugh. “Are they sure it was poison?”

  “Afraid so,” Dina said. “Specifically, the lab found traces of strychnine in her blood.”

  “Oh, that’s horrible,” I said as the flicker of anxiety swelled in my chest. “Strychnine?”

  At the sound of the word, Zack put one hand on my arm. He squeezed a few times before rubbing the spot lightly. It was his customary way of offering encouragement and support without saying anything.

  “I wanted to let you know just in case you hear anything around town or at Sky High,” Dina said. “I know that Amelia and some of the other choir members come in fairly often.”

  “What do you know so far?” I asked.

  “Next to nothing,” she replied. “I’m truly stunned by this, Katie. Amelia is one of those people that everyone loves. I can’t imagine who would want to hurt her.”

  “Next to nothing?” I hesitated for a few seconds. “That’s not exactly the same as nothing.”

  “But it is exactly what I can share at the moment,” she said. “The preliminary reports point toward strychnine, but we’re running more tests overnight and the full scans will take a couple of days.”

  “Do you mind if I ask a few questions?”

  She laughed. “Do I ever?”

  “Of course not,” I said.

  “Unless you start going off the rails.” Dina added with a weary laugh. “Which happens far less often than it did when we were kids.”

  “See?” I said. “Older and wiser.”

  She laughed. “I’ve heard that happens over time for some people.”

  “I’m trying anyway,” I said. “But enough about me. Let’s get back to Amelia. Do you know how she ingested the strychnine?”

  Dina shrugged. “There was a cup in the sink with some tea,” she said. “And an empty Ziploc bag containing a few crumbs on the kitchen counter. Those are the most obvious places to start because they were in plain sight, but we’re running tests on everything in the refrigerator and developing a timeline of where Amelia was throughout the day.”

  “And remind me,” I said. “How long does it take strychnine to be fatal?”

  “That depends on several factors,” Dina told me. “But people exposed to it can show symptoms in the first fifteen to thirty minutes.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Were there any signs of forced entry?”

  “None,” Dina answered. “The doors and windows were all locked. One of the neighbors told me that Amelia’s brother had been visiting for the past few days, but he left two nights ago.”

  “I didn’t know that Hugh was in town,” I said, genuinely surprised by the disclosure. “She didn’t mention him when I talked to her the other day.”

  “Same here,” Dina said. “And there was something strange about Amelia’s behavior the last time I saw her. When I asked about her brother, she instantly changed the subject. I figured that maybe they were going through one of their infamous rough patches following an argument.”

  “Have you talked to him yet?” I asked. “Maybe he’ll have some useful information about Amelia’s whereabouts and mood during the past few days.”

  “We have to find Hugh before we can talk to him,” she said. “Amelia’s sister doesn’t know where he is, although she said there’s a chance he went back to Texas.”

  “Well, that all sounds a bit on the odd side, don’t you agree?”

  “No doubt,” Dina said. “I’ll jump online later and see what I can learn about her family tree. Maybe anoth
er relative can put us in touch with the brother.”

  “And since Hugh’s been in town for a visit,” I added, “maybe he can put us in touch with helpful information about Amelia’s last few days.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Zack draped one arm around my shoulders as soon as I finished the conversation with Dina.

  “What’s going on?” he asked. “That sounded like bad news.”

  I moved closer, turning my face toward his chest. He smelled like lemon verbena hand soap and Oreo cookies with a faint trace of garlic from the carryout Italian that we’d enjoyed earlier.

  “A woman named Amelia Felton was found dead earlier this evening,” I told him. “Dina said the preliminary cause of death was poison.”

  “That’s awful,” he said. “Do you know her?”

  “Somewhat,” I replied. “She comes to Sky High on a fairly regular basis. She’s three years older, so I never really knew her in school when we were kids.”

  “What about your sister?” he asked. “Olivia’s about the same age, right?”

  “Yes, they were close friends when they were younger.”

  “Are her parents still in the area?”

  I shook my head. “They retired to Arizona a couple of years before my mother and father moved to Florida. I think her brother is living in Dallas these days, although he visits every year to do the Family Flair Bakeoff in their grandmother’s honor. Amelia’s older sister lives here in Crescent Creek, but she’s a bit of a recluse.”

  I burrowed deeper into his warmth. For a few seconds, I closed my eyes and conjured an image of Amelia: big brown eyes, a prominent nose and a high-pitched, squeaky laugh that sounded like air escaping a balloon. She and my sister were especially close friends in high school, but the connection fizzled when Olivia moved to Denver. Even though she still saw Amelia whenever she visited Crescent Creek, my sister said their connection never seemed the same after she left town, got married and started a family.