Death Takes the Cake Page 21

  I slipped the phone back into my pocket, knowing how small the chance was that Sean Donahue would be able to find out the details of Mickey’s arrest. But I had to start somewhere.

  I didn’t look forward to seeing Mickey, knowing that I was trying to dig into his past. It was going to be especially hard tomorrow morning, when we would both be at the site of Reggie’s murder. The four other contestants and I were gathering at the test kitchens of Davis Foods International for the first day of filming our experiments in creating a brand-new cake.

  Cake. Cake batter . . .

  With a sudden chill I remembered what John had told me about Reggie’s murder. She’d been struck on the head with a heavy mixing bowl. That was a weapon of opportunity, indicating that the killer probably hadn’t gone to the test kitchens that night with murder in mind. Something must have happened to provoke the initial blow. If the confrontation had stopped there, Reggie probably would still be alive, and at most the person who’d struck her would have been arrested for assault. But the killer hadn’t stopped there. He—or she—hadn’t just committed murder, but had taken the time to humiliate Reggie by drowning her in a bowl of her own cake batter.

  In contrast to the impulsiveness of Reggie’s murder, Taggart’s was premeditated; the killer must have gone to his office with a weapon. Reggie and Taggart were linked because she’d hired him to investigate three people: Mickey, Iva, and me.

  I was convinced that the perpetrator had killed to keep hidden something that Taggart had learned. That had to be why the detective’s hard drive had been stolen. If the killer didn’t know that I had a copy of the reports, I’d be safe.

  But if he or she did know . . .

  The chill I felt suddenly got colder.

  33

  When I guided my Jeep into the parking lot behind the Davis Foods International building at the appointed time Saturday morning, I was still uneasy, but I decided that I had to concentrate on the job at hand. And, being in this location again, perhaps I could get an idea, or even some hint, as to who besides Bill, Mickey, and Iva might have been driven to kill.

  At least a dozen vehicles were already there. Among them, I recognized the big pink Cadillac that belonged to Winnie King, the Mary Kay saleswoman and owner of the Pink Lady Bakery in Beverly Hills; two TV equipment vans from the Better Living Channel; Mickey Jordan’s sunflower yellow Range Rover that I secretly thought of as his gigantic bumblebee; and several cars I’d seen the day I met the other contestants and toured the facility for the first time.

  Three of the cars were sedans in dark colors. The sight of them produced a sudden flashback to the night a dark sedan chased me in the rain and tried to force me off the road. I’d suspected T. J. Taggart, but after I’d learned Taggart had been killed before my terrifying race through Beverly Glen Canyon, I had no idea who might have been behind the wheel.

  Briefly, I wondered if one of the other contestants had tried to kill me but I quashed that thought. It was just too ridiculous. This was a cake contest, with a prize of only $25,000. That amount of money meant a great deal to me, but it wasn’t one of the million dollar prizes the broadcast networks offered on their reality competitions. We bakers weren’t being made to live in jungles and build our own shelters, or eat revolting things, or let slimy creatures crawl all over us. In my opinion, those people earned the big prizes, and I hoped they’d used some of the cash to pay for therapy.

  Besides, I told myself, if anyone thought of eliminating a contestant in the Reggi-Mixx baking contest, it wasn’t likely that I’d be the target. Handicapping this race, I’d be ranked as the hundred-to-one shot.

  It was hard to imagine the people I was up against, or their surrogates, trying to get rid of me. Every one of them was a better bet to win. Gordon Prescott had been pastry chef to a governor, Winnie King had owned her own successful bakery for fifteen years, Clay Sutton—the chef who looked like a surfer—had been described by Reggie as Hollywood’s hottest new caterer, and Viola Lee did the weekly dessert feature on the top-rated TV show GBN in the Morning. GBN, the Global Broadcasting Network, was on a par with ABC, CBS, and NBC. It had millions of regular viewers and made Viola the most famous of the five of us.

  By contrast, I was on cable TV, the underdog of show business. Although the cable networks were growing more popular every year, most of their shows still had audience numbers in the hundreds of thousands, not the millions.

  I parked my Jeep near the end of the row of spaces, where there was no car on either side. Extra walking was good for me, but my choice of spot was an attempt to avoid getting little dents in the sides from vehicles whose owners weren’t careful about opening their doors. Touching up chipped paint wasn’t in my budget.

  Entering the building’s small reception area, I saw a cameraman checking his equipment. It was Ben, the young man whose wife watched the show and enjoyed seeing me drop things. He had taped my first interview for the contest.

  “Hi, Ben.”

  He looked up at me and grinned, revealing that he still hadn’t taken that needed trip to a dentist.

  “I got you again,” he said. “I was afraid I was going to have to cover Chef-in-Love-with-Himself, but my pal Freddie got stuck with Prescott.”

  “Is Gordon Prescott hard to work with?”

  Ben grimaced. “He thinks he’s a movie star. When I did his personal interview, he demanded special high key lighting to make his complexion look smoother, and then he threw a fit until I stood on a stool and shot him from a slight high angle so his double chin didn’t show.” Ben glanced at the closed door leading to the kitchens, and winked at me. “Freddie told him that we’re using a special ‘slimming lens’ on him.”

  Hope rose in my heart. “You have a lens that makes people look thinner?”

  “Nah. Freddie just told him that so he wouldn’t have to stand on a stool, or twist himself into a pretzel trying to get a flattering angle on Prescott.” The cameraman hefted the rig onto his shoulder. “You ready to get started? Want to powder your nose or something before we start?”

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  He gave me an impish smile, and in parody of my line on the show, he said, “Let’s get cooking.”

  Inside the Davis Foods Test Kitchens there were camera people with portable equipment everywhere I looked. Stationary TV lights were aimed at the five cubicles assigned to the contestants. The rows beyond our line of kitchens, where the Davis employees worked during the week, were dark, but the aisle leading from the office at the front of the building back down to the reception area was lighted.

  As I’d learned on my first visit, there were forty test kitchen cubicles, divided into four rows of ten each. The little kitchens were separated from one another by six-foot-high plywood dividers that went three-quarters of the way around, and left the back part open.

  We five contestants had been assigned the first row, the one closest to the outside entrance. There was an empty kitchen between each of us. Viola Lee had been given kitchen number one; Gordon Prescott was assigned number two; Winnie King would be in the middle; Clay Sutton would be between Winnie and me. My cubicle was at the far end, next to the pantry.

  A faint wave of nausea swept over me as I looked down the line of assigned kitchens. I was supposed to work in the space where Reggie Davis had been murdered.

  “No, I can’t do it,” I said.

  “Can’t do what, sugar?”

  I hadn’t realized that I’d spoken aloud until I heard Winnie King’s voice behind me. I turned. Her hair still looked like a cloud of pink cotton candy, her cheeks were contoured with a deep pink blusher, and when she raised her right hand to brush away an invisible piece of lint from the shoulder of her pink silk tracksuit, I saw that she was wearing a pink diamond ring. That stone was almost as big as an ice cube.

  “Sugar, are you feeling woozy?” She leaned closer to me and whispered, “If it’s your time of the month, I’ve got a little somethin’ in my bag that’s a guaranteed tummy settler.�
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  I shook my head. “It’s not that, but thank you.” I drew back enough to keep from being smothered by her perfume. “Regina Davis was killed in my kitchen,” I said.

  “Oh, is that all?” She made a dismissive gesture. “Don’t you worry about it. I’m sure the blood’s been washed away by now.”

  For a second I thought I might throw up, but I got control of myself in time to see Mickey Jordan coming down the aisle toward us. Beside him was a woman I’d never seen before. The two of them were followed by Gordon Prescott, Viola Lee, and Addison. Addison was carrying a garment bag.

  The stranger with Mickey was about my age, but taller and stockier. Her hair was the shiny black of patent leather, and she wore it pulled back from her elongated face, tied in one long braid that she’d anchored in a circle on top of her head, like a crown. She reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t think of whom.

  Mickey performed introductions. “Della, Winnie, this is Hedda Klein, vice president of Reggi-Mixx. She’ll be supervising the contest now.”

  Now. He means in place of Reggie, who was murdered thirty feet from where we were standing, chatting so casually. But I didn’t say what I was thinking. Instead, I said that I was happy to meet her and extended my hand.

  Hedda Klein took it in a grip so firm it was just short of painful—and I remembered who she reminded me of. It was my high school PE teacher, the woman some of the girls referred to as Bone-crusher Bradley.

  Clay Sutton hurried in from outside, carrying a package wrapped in brown paper under his arm. It was about the size and shape of a pillow.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he said. “I was in Beverly Hills. A delivery van hit a Jag and I got stuck behind—”

  “Forget it,” Mickey said. He introduced Clay to Hedda Klein.

  Addison stepped forward and indicated the garment bag. “Do you want me to give these out now, Mickey?” His voice was still husky with a trace of his cold.

  Mickey said, “Yeah.”

  Working together, Addison unzipped the bag and Hedda Klein removed an array of colored smocks on hangers and displayed them for us. On the front of each were the words “Reggi-Mixx Contestant.”

  “Ooooo,” Winnie squealed. “Dibs on the pink one!”

  Addison handed it to her.

  Clay reached for the dark green smock. “That’s my color,” he said.

  “Why don’t we let Viola and Della choose first,” Addison said.

  “Let Clay have the green one, ” Viola said.

  Without a word of thanks to her, Clay took the green smock and his package and scurried to his assigned cubicle.

  Viola turned to me. “If you want the blue, I’ll take the burgundy.”

  “That’s good.” I reached for the blue smock. With Viola’s cognac-colored eyes, she would look great in the burgundy.

  Addison tried to hand Gordon Prescott the remaining smock. “Is the black okay for you, Gordon?”

  Prescott put both hands up, palms out, in an “I’m not touching that” gesture.

  “No, it is not,” he said. “Must I remind you that I am a Cordon Bleu chef? There is no way I will even consider donning one of those silly advertising billboards. I insist on wearing my proper white chef’s jacket.”

  Addison looked at his father. “Is that all right, Mickey?”

  Mickey shrugged, but I could tell he was irritated. “Prescott can wear spandex if he wants.”

  Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.

  That sound caught my attention. I turned in the direction it was coming from and saw Clay nailing up a length of heavy green fabric over the entrance to his kitchen. The paper wrapping lay on the floor at his feet.

  Mickey yelled, “Hey! Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I need privacy while I work.” Clay’s voice was set on “whine.”

  “You’re gonna be on a TV show—who wants to look at a curtain? Take it down.”

  Clay screwed up his face and pointed to Prescott. “You let him wear a different coat.”

  Hollywood’s hottest new caterer looked like a child who was about to throw a crying tantrum. I didn’t want this dispute to turn into a fight that could delay the start of our work because there were things I wanted to do as soon as I finished here.

  “Mickey,” I said, “don’t you think that the curtain over Clay’s space could add a little mystery to the show?”

  Mickey frowned in thought. “Somethin’ different, huh? Yeah, okay. Keep the curtain.”

  Clay beamed like sunshine after rain. He threw his arms out wide in a way that made me think he was about to embrace Mickey. Mickey must have thought so, too, because he backed up.

  “Let’s everybody get to work,” Mickey said. “Time is money. My money.”

  I’d wanted to speak to Mickey about my using a different cubicle from the scene of Reggie’s murder, but he was already through the door into the reception area. Mickey moved fast. I knew he’d be outside and into the Range Rover before I could catch him.

  Hedda Klein tapped me on the shoulder. “Put on your smock. Everybody else has already begun to get supplies from the pantry.”

  “I’d like to use a different kitchen—”

  “No. I’m sorry. The stationary lights have already been set up.”

  “But do you know that Reggie was killed in the space I’m supposed to use?”

  “All the more reason not to change spots,” she said. “If you aren’t in the same row with the other contestants, it will raise questions as to the reason. We certainly don’t want to remind people that a woman was murdered on these premises. Do we?”

  Hedda Klein’s imperious tone—like Bone-crusher Bradley’s when she’d threatened to send me to the principal’s office for disobedience—signaled that argument would only lengthen the hours I’d have to spend here today.

  “I understand,” I said, and gave her my best imitation of a good loser’s smile.

  Deciding to tough it out, I headed for my assigned space. I felt a lurch in my stomach as I carefully skirted the spot on the floor where I’d found Reggie. As soon as I did enough experimental baking to satisfy the cameraman’s needs, I’d get back to what I really wanted to do: find a killer.

  34

  When I got home that afternoon, Eileen was just returning from walking Tuffy. My curly-haired fella wagged enthusiastically. As soon as she let him off the leash, he raced across the lawn to greet me. I knelt down, scratching and petting Tuffy while Eileen unlocked the front door. She was smiling, but I knew her so well I could tell she was unhappy about something.

  “How’d it go at the cake place?” she asked.

  “I spent hours baking mixes to find out which one has a taste I can make into something I’m not ashamed to serve.”

  Emma trotted up from the back of the house to meet us. She and Tuff touched noses, as they always did when Tuffy returned from a walk or a drive. I wondered if he was giving her news from the outside world.

  In the kitchen, I gave Tuffy and Emma fresh water and began preparations for their dinner.

  “The baking didn’t sound like it was fun,” Eileen said.

  “No, but it was necessary. I had to discover which flavor of mix ignited a creative idea in me.”

  “Did you find one?”

  “By cutting and tasting little pieces after I baked them, I was able to eliminate chocolate, white, banana, and spice. Those flavors were pretty hopeless. I didn’t get a chance to try the strawberry mix because Winnie King—the Pink Lady baker—grabbed all the boxes in the pantry. But I think the lemon and orange mixes have potential. I just have to figure out how to make something from one of them that’s good enough to enter.”

  “I’m glad I don’t have that job,” Eileen said.

  I watched her pour herself a glass of orange juice. She was trying hard to be interested in my day, but I knew she was thinking about something else.

  “What’s on your mind?” I said.

  She flashed an eager smile at me and sat down at th
e kitchen table.

  “It’s Ad. Addison. I like him—a lot—and he’s giving every sign that he really likes me.”

  I sat down opposite her. “I’m sure he does.”

  She shook her head. “No, this isn’t like when I was a teenager and had a crush on a guy. I’m hoping Ad might turn out to be the one.”

  It startled me to think she was considering getting serious at twenty. “There’s a significant age difference between you two.”

  “He’s only thirty,” she said.

  “I know, but there’s a much bigger maturity gap between twenty and thirty than there is between thirty and forty.”

  “Older men are more interesting than the boys I meet at UCLA. Besides, it’s not as though he’s really old, like forty.”

  “Hey, be careful, or I’ll cut you out of my will.”

  She realized I was teasing and grinned. “I didn’t mean that you’re old.”

  “When I was in college, I read a collections of letters written by the English humor writer, P. G. Wodehouse. When he was in his eighties, he wrote to a friend that it was amazing how our perceptions change as we grow older. He said that now when he’s reading a novel and a new character who is sixty years old is introduced, he thinks to himself, ‘Ah, the young love interest.’ ” Eileen laughed.

  I gave her hand an affectionate pat. “There are a lot of men in this big world, and you’ll have tons of choices. Don’t be in a hurry.”

  “Oh, Aunt Del, Ad is so smart. He has great ideas about our business, and about Mickey’s company, too. I guess it’s hard for parents to think of their kids as grown-ups—as equals—but I know he’s going to impress Mickey. I can tell how important it is to him. He told me how generous Mickey’s been to him.”

  She finished her orange juice and got up. “I’m going to take a shower and change. Ad and I are working together tonight, going over color schemes for the front of the store. There’s going to be a picture of you from the TV show in the window. Oh—I almost forgot: Mickey approved the name ‘Della’s Sweet Dreams.’ He’s giving Walter a bonus for coming up with it.”