Death Takes the Cake Read online

The brunette checker at that register, Ginny, was one of my favorite people at the store. She always had a smile for her customers, and was sweet and helpful.

  Ginny paused before price scanning one particular item and said, “Are you sure you want to buy Reggi-Mixx? The Duncan Hines cakes are better.”

  “Thanks for the tip, but for what I’m doing it has to be Reggi-Mixx.”

  She shrugged, but as she ran the box across the scanner, she lowered her voice and said, “Use a lot of frosting.”

  Out in the parking lot a few minutes later, I was within a few steps of the Jeep when I got such a surprise that I almost dropped the bag of groceries.

  Mickey Jordan was standing beside the front fender. Waiting for me.

  39

  Irrationally, I felt like the heroine in an old film noir. I held the bag of groceries against my chest like a shield, even though I knew a bullet or a knife could cut through containers of Cool Whip, cream, orange Jell-O, vanilla pudding, and cake mix.

  Both of Mickey’s arms were visible. He wasn’t holding a weapon, but the fingers of his thick hands were slightly curled under. If this were a movie, those hands might become fists, or grasp my neck and crush my throat before I could scream.

  I shook off that idiotic fantasy and asked, “How did you know where I was?”

  “After our little talk, I sent one of my security guys to watch your house an’ let me know if you left an’ tell me where you went.”

  “Why?”

  “You wanted us to meet in public. Isn’t this parking lot crowded enough for you to feel safe when you try to blackmail me?”

  Blackmail?

  I said, “Mickey, what are you talking about?”

  He gave a snort of disgust. “I figured you for one of the good gals, but, hey, I’ve been wrong about women before. Okay, let’s have the pitch. What are you gonna threaten to do, and how much do you want to make the threat go away?”

  “Mickey, I think we’re speaking to each other in two different languages and I’m thoroughly confused. What in the world makes you think I could, or would, blackmail you?”

  “It’s been tried on me before. Tried, not succeeded. I gotta say, I admired your grit, making a new life after your husband died, but I never thought you had the chops for murder.”

  He thinks I committed murder. The realization almost made me laugh.

  “You’re wrong, Mickey.”

  I became aware that my grocery bag had gotten heavy and shifted the weight of it from one arm to the other.

  I said, “I was not intending to blackmail you. I wanted to talk to you about a man you knew a long time ago, Officer Eddie Cochran.”

  “So you do have that scum Taggart’s files.” His “Ah hahgotcha” expression morphed into a puzzled frown. “But even he didn’t know Cochran’s name.”

  “This conversation is a little bit like a bowl of spaghetti. Let’s sort it out one strand at a time. You’re admitting that you knew T. J. Taggart.”

  “I saw him once, when he tried to blackmail me. I told him he wouldn’t get a penny, and if he went through with what he threatened to do, I’d kill him. Then somebody saved me the trouble. Hey, if it was you who off’ed the bum, I don’t care. Just don’t get caught an’ ruin my network schedule.”

  He saw me shifting the weight of the bag again and gallantly reached to take it from me. I let him.

  Indicating the grocery bag, I said, “Some of those things need to be refrigerated. Why don’t we go to my house and straighten out this misunderstanding.”

  I unlocked my Jeep and opened the door so that Mickey could set the Ralph’s bag inside.

  In my kitchen, I put the groceries away while Mickey poured mugs of coffee for us from the fresh pot I’d made just before I went to the market. As usual, Tuffy was friendly to Mickey, but he sat next to my traditional chair at the kitchen table.

  I moved aside the recipe scrapbooks to make room for Mickey on the opposite side of the table.

  Before he sat, he used both hands to hold his jacket open. “I’m not wearing a wire,” he said. “And to look at that sweater you’re wearing, you couldn’t conceal one. So, this conversation is private. Time for cards on the table.”

  “Okay, Mickey. Did you kill Reggie Davis or T. J. Taggart?”

  “Nope. Did you?”

  “No,” I said. “But I did learn that after Reggie agreed to Addison’s proposal about partnering on the contest and reality show, she had us investigated.”

  “Did Taggart try to put the squeeze on you, too? Is that how you found out?”

  I evaded that question by saying, “Remember, when you surprised me with this contest, I told you Regina Davis hated me. You were sure she’d gotten over our problem by then, but it turned out that she hadn’t. I think she hired Taggart because she was trying to discover a way to hurt me. She found out whom I was closest to, and then went after my best friend’s husband. It’s been kept out of the media so far, but he became the detectives’ number one suspect. I was afraid they’d stop looking for anyone else, so I went to Taggart and forced him to give me copies of the reports he’d compiled for Reggie. After I left his office, someone killed him and took the hard drive out of his computer. Obviously, that person wanted Taggart’s files. I’m sure Reggie’s death and Taggart’s are connected. The thing linking them is that she hired him to investigate us.”

  “If you read his reports, you know what he thought he could use against me.”

  “Please understand that I wasn’t trying to pry into your private life, Mickey, but I needed to know if Taggart uncovered something that might . . .”

  “Give me a motive to kill him? Yeah, I get that.”

  “Your arrest, when you were eighteen. I had to find out what that was about.”

  “If you managed to dig up Eddie Cochran’s name, I guess you did.”

  “Yes, and I couldn’t imagine you would have killed anyone to cover that up.”

  “If the circumstances were the same, I’d do what I did all over again.” He was silent for a moment, staring off into space, perhaps replaying the old event in his mind. I didn’t say anything.

  Finally, he focused on me again. “Did you talk to Cochran?”

  “No, but I spoke to an old NYPD colleague of his.”

  “I haven’t thought of Eddie in years. He saved my skinny butt way back when. Is he still alive?”

  “Yes, and that’s what I wanted to talk to you about, where no one could accidentally overhear us.”

  “ ‘Accidentally,’ I like that. Iva an’ Addison—they both got a phone Jones. Can’t hear one ring they don’t pick it up.”

  “Officer Cochran was crippled in the line of duty. I don’t know any details, but he’s confined to what I’m told is a really bad assisted living place. He doesn’t have any family to help him.”

  Mickey took a pen and a small notebook out of his pocket. “What’s the name of the place, an’ where is it?”

  He wrote down what I told him, put the notebook away, and looked at me again.

  “We gotta clear the air about something,” he said.

  I waited, not saying anything.

  “Good,” he said. “You’re a dame who knows when to be quiet.” He took a deep breath and said, “Three times I faced a preacher an’ said ‘I do’ when I shouldda said, ‘Not on your life.’ I didn’t want to make the same mistake with number four, so I had Iva checked out before I popped the question.”

  “You did?”

  He gave me a stern look. “Don’t play dumb. If you got Taggart’s reports, you must know what I found out about Iva. Look, what she did was what she did—it isn’t who she is. You might find this hard to believe, but I’m not an easy guy to love.”

  I forced myself to keep a straight face, but he must have caught the glint of amusement in my eyes.

  “Okay,” he said, “I’m a little rough around the edges, but Iva really loves me. I know that as much as I ever knew anything in my life. I love her. I never knew exactly
what that felt like until I met Iva. She’s a good woman. Forget that old technicality.”

  “Does she know that you know about . . . the technicality?”

  “No. I don’ want her to. She’d be embarrassed. Maybe it’d change her personality, an’ I don’ want her to change. Don’t you tell her what I know.”

  “Of course not.”

  He looked at me as though he expected me to say something more, but I didn’t have a clue.

  I said, ”What?”

  “I’ve emptied the bag. Your turn. How did you find out about Taggart?”

  Because he knew Iva’s secret, there wasn’t any reason not to answer that question. “Iva told me about him. She knew Reggie had her investigated because Reggie tried to force her to persuade you to fund the entire cost of the reality show.”

  “Iva never brought the subject up.”

  “She wasn’t going to do it, but she said she kept stalling Reggie because she was terrified you’d find out about . . . the thing in her background and divorce her.”

  “I love her. Tell her that. Tell her I don’t care about anything except having her back with me.”

  “Why are you asking me to—” I was struck with a sudden, frightening premonition. “Mickey, don’t you know where she is?”

  “No.” The color drained from Mickey’s face as he realized what I was saying. “You mean you don’t know where she is either?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  The pain in his eyes was so intense that I wanted to reach out and give him a comforting hug, but Mickey Jordan was not a man one hugged.

  In the air between us hung the unspoken question: Where was Iva?

  Mickey got up. “If you hear from her, tell her I don’t care if she killed those two creeps. I can afford to hide her anywhere in the world. I just gotta know she’s okay.”

  “I will. Mickey, with what’s going on, do you want to cancel the contest?”

  “No. As far as you’re concerned, everything stays the same. Figure out a cake. If anybody asks, I’ll say Iva went off to one of those women’s spa places. Back me up.”

  “We could go to John O’Hara, tell him in confidence that she’s disappeared—”

  “I don’t care how good a friend you think he is, that guy’s still a cop. No. I want your promise: lips zipped.”

  “All right, but is there anything I can do for you?”

  “Invent a cake ASAP. I’m moving the contest schedule up.”

  “When is the new deadline?”

  “Tomorrow,” he said.

  “Tomorrow?” I couldn’t keep the anxiety out of my voice.

  “Mickey, that’s—”

  “Don’t argue. I was counting on you knowin’ where Iva is. Since you don’t, I gotta get this project over with an’ start lookin’ for her before anybody figures out she’s gone and starts askin’ questions.”

  I fought back my apprehension and told him I understood. “I’ll arrange to pay Reggie’s workers to stay home tomorrow so we can film the baking in the test kitchens all day. At six pm I’ll have the three judges there. Everybody involved will haf’ta sign a high-penalty agreement not to spill the results, ’cause the show won’t be broadcast ’til Valentine’s Day and I’ll be promoting the hell out of it as a contest. Phil Logan’s gonna get a Las Vegas bookmaker to lay odds on who’s gonna win.”

  Mickey took his cell phone out of his jacket pocket. “I gotta call Addison and have him contact the other contestants and the tech crew. I’m going to get my lawyer off his tennis court to draw up the confidentiality papers.”

  He flew out of the house.

  I reached down to give Tuffy a few strokes then straightened up. To myself, I said, “Let’s get cooking.”

  40

  Before I started baking, I called Nicholas to tell him that I wouldn’t be able to see him tonight or tomorrow because Mickey had moved up the contest schedule.

  “Is there going to be a studio audience when the contestants display the cakes? If so, I’d like to come to applaud you. Strictly as an impartial journalist, of course.”

  “Impartial? Yeah, right. But there won’t be an audience. The results have to be kept a secret until the show is broadcast on Valentine’s Day.”

  “Okay, so we’ll celebrate your triumph on Valentine’s Day.”

  “Don’t bet money on me. You work too hard to earn it,” I said. “Besides, what makes you think we’ll still be seeing each other on Valentine’s Day?”

  “I’m an optimist,” he said. “Good luck tomorrow.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’ll see you soon.”

  I told him I looked forward to that.

  My first attempt at a new version of the orange creamsicle cake was too dry. The second was too sweet. I still liked my concept for the cake, but I was getting the proportions wrong. In the late afternoon I had to rush back to Ralph’s for more ingredients.

  Eileen came home in time to taste version number three. I cut a small piece for her and watched her face as she ate it. Her frown was not what I’d hoped to see.

  “What do you think?”

  “It’s almost good,” she said. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad, but it’s a little bland.”

  I cut a piece for myself and tasted it. “You’re right,” I said. “But the good news is that now I think I know what’s missing.”

  “What kind of a cake is it? I mean, don’t you have to call it something?”

  “I hadn’t thought of having a name for it. It’s based on those frozen pops called orange creamsicles. Any ideas?”

  Eileen beamed with excitement. “Yes! Call it your Orange Dreamsicle Cake. That’ll be a perfect fit with our company name, Della’s Sweet Dreams. Maybe we can get Mickey to let us sell the cakes there, with the fudge and the brownies.”

  “Let’s see how I do in the contest. I don’t know if anyone will want to buy a cake that comes in fifth out of five contestants.”

  “Think positively,” Eileen said. “That’s what you always told me when I was about to take a test.”

  “Okay. Positive thoughts.” Maybe I’ll come in third out of five—if Prescott drops out at the last minute and Winnie King gives the judges toothaches with her pink concoction.

  While I scrubbed and dried my favorite mixing bowl preparing to begin another cake, Eileen told me about her day.

  “I’ve been all over town with my artist friend, checking out the best candy stores and bakeries. We made a bunch of sketches, but I kept coming back to the same idea. Della’s Sweet Dreams shouldn’t be elegant—that’s not you.”

  “Thanks a heap,” I joked.

  “You know what I mean. Your TV image is homey. Non-threatening. Budget-friendly. That’ll be the visual style of the walk-in part of the factory. Clean, bright, minimal decoration. The goodies will be the star.”

  I nodded while I began measuring portions for cake experiment number four. “That sounds good.”

  “Ad thought so, too,” Eileen said. “I didn’t get to spend much time with him because just after he agreed with my favorite sketch, Mickey called him and he had to rush off. He said there was an emergency.”

  “There is. Mickey’s moved up the date for filming the cake contest to tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” Eileen looked as shocked as I had been when Mickey told me. “Yikes. Are you going to be ready with the right cake?”

  “I’ll have to be, even if I have to bake all night.”

  “Working for Mickey Jordan is kind of like riding a roller coaster. I was going to spend the evening with the artist, but I’ll stay here and help if you need me.”

  “No, but thanks for the offer. Go ahead and do what you planned.”

  “Good. My plan is that my friend and I will do the painting and design work. He agreed to the small fee I offered him. By doing it ourselves, I’ll save most of our décor budget for a future emergency. If we’ve miscalculated costs somewhere, the last thing I want to do is go to Mickey and ask for more money.�
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  As she hurried off, I was practically glowing with pride in her. I knew that she wasn’t really my daughter, but my relationship with Eileen was the closest to motherhood that I would ever come. For more than fifteen years, she had filled that hole in my heart.

  Phil Logan phoned while I was waiting for version number four to come out of the oven.

  “Zachary Blye will be at your house at eight o’clock tomorrow morning to do your makeup,” he said. “I don’t need to bring you clothes because you have to wear one of those Reggi-Mixx schmatas. I’ll be over at the kitchens during the day to see how the filming is going. Don’t let my presence distract you.”

  “I won’t,” I said.

  “You come up with the winning cake yet?”

  “I’ve created a cake. Beyond that I can only hope.”

  “Just to let you know, I’ve posted security guards inside the building tonight, watching the kitchens. In case one of the contestants gets the idea to tamper with somebody else’s equipment,” he said.

  “Do you really think one of them would try to cheat?” Then I remembered the warning from Kevin Kyle, Mickey’s cake coach. Kevin had said that Clay Sutton had a reputation for sabotage, and couldn’t be trusted.

  “Cheat?” Phil laughed. “I could tell you some stories . . . Let’s just say that some reality show contestants have been known to go to great lengths to win a prize. Anyway, I’ve been busy all day, taking care of that problem.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Sorry. Can’t tell you.” He paused, and lowered his voice.

  “But here’s a little tip. Don’t do anything in your kitchen tomorrow that you wouldn’t want other people to see.”

  41

  After Zachary Blye used his magic palette and brushes to glamorize me, I was ready to face the biggest test of my career in food.

  Because both Eileen and I would be away from the house all day, I left plenty of fresh food and water for Emma and took Tuffy and some of his food over to leave him with Liddy, who had happily agreed to “Tuffy sit.” She had adored him since his puppyhood, and referred to herself as Tuff’s “Aunt Liddy.”