Death Takes the Cake Page 6

  I recited their names and told him the little that Reggie had said about each of them.

  Kyle grimaced. “You’re in trouble. Three of those are celebrated bakers with years of experience, and one is a lying, cheating poisonous snake of a semihuman.”

  I felt my eyes widen. “What do you mean?”

  He emitted a snarl of distaste. “Clay Sutton, caterer-to-the-stars. He’s as phony as a sugar substitute. Phonier—fake sugar doesn’t claim to be real sugar. Be sure you lock the door to your kitchen.”

  “No doors,” I said. “We’re working in open cubicles, separated from each other on only three sides.”

  “Then take the ingredients home with you every night and bring them back the next day.”

  “Nothing is allowed to leave the Davis Foods building or be brought in.”

  The pastry chef pursed his lips for a few moments. Finally, he said, “You’re in even bigger trouble than I thought. That guy will do anything he can to sabotage his competition. On the bright side, maybe he won’t think you’re enough of a threat.”

  “That’s your idea of the bright side? And what makes you so sure he’ll try to sabotage anyone?”

  “Because he did it to his former employer. That’s how he managed to start his own business—by ruining his mentor.”

  “What about the others?”

  “Gordon Prescott is an amoral bastard. Even if Mickey Jordan wasn’t paying me to help you, I’d want to see you beat the confectioner’s sugar out of him.”

  “It sounds as though you two have a history,” I said.

  “In a manner of speaking. At one point our lives bisected, one might say. He stole the woman to whom I had been engaged.” His mouth curved into a wry smile. “When she married Prescott she found herself part of a triangle: She was in love with him and he was in love with him. I realize now that she did me a favor by running off with Prescott. I wouldn’t have been happy with a woman so shallow.”

  That was a fascinating chapter of real-life soap opera, but I wanted to learn something useful to my problem. “What is Gordon Prescott like as a baker?”

  “All show. He bakes to be admired—spectacle without substance. I have to admit that he’s masterful with icing, but his cakes beneath the froufrou are virtually without taste. Inoffensive in the mouth, but lacking the distinction of discernible flavor.”

  “What about the others? Winnie King and Viola Lee?”

  “I know Winnie. All sugar and no spice. Inhaling as you pass her bakery is enough to put a diabetic into a coma, but she’s got a devoted following because she specializes in sweet-sweeter- sweetest. In my not-so-humble opinion, your toughest competition will be Viola Lee. She bakes cakes so light you think you’ll have to weigh them down to keep them from floating away, and she’s mastered melt-in-your-mouth flavor.” He aimed a deeply sympathetic glance at me. “From what Mickey told me, you’ve had no experience in the world of competitive pastry.”

  Competitive pastry. “I never thought of baking as a sport.”

  “Filmed as a national television special, my dear, it will be a blood sport.” A cheerful thought seemed to occur to him because his grim expression eased. “There is one tiny little spot of hope in this gloomy picture.”

  “Please, tell me.”

  “While you’re up against superior bakers, the fact that all of you have to use that awful Reggi-Mixx could level the playing field just a smidge.”

  Kyle’s “picture” still appeared gloomy to me.

  Tuffy stood up and looked at me with that “I need to go out” signal in his eyes. Kyle saw it, too.

  “Let’s take him for a walk and talk cake,” he said.

  I don’t know if Tuff understood “cake,” but he certainly knew “walk.” He was trotting toward the front door before I could take his leash from the hook on the kitchen wall.

  Kevin Kyle and I strolled around the neighborhood with Tuffy for close to an hour. He took the opportunity to cover the history of baking.

  “The first people to show skill in baking were the ancient Egyptians, who sweetened some of their breads with honey.” With the enthusiasm of a little boy who’d just won a prize in school, he asked, “Did you know that it was the ancient Greeks who created a form of cheesecake? And that the early Romans developed the fruitcake, with nuts and raisins and whatever other kinds of fruit they could find?”

  “Some of the Christmas fruitcakes I received when I was teaching high school English were so hard they might have been made by the early Romans.”

  He ignored my remark, and continued his eager tutorial. “Wars—although tragedies, of course—have been a great advantage in the spreading of recipes. What I mean is that it was through marauding armies and the sacking of various lands that fruitcakes traveled to fourteenth-century England. Chaucer mentions huge cakes made with barrels of flour and cream and eggs, spices and honey.”

  “I wish I’d thought of bringing food into the classroom for a kind of eat-and-tell when I tried to teach Chaucer. The students might have been more interested.”

  “Undeniably,” Kevin Kyle said, apparently missing the irony. “Historians say that modern cakes—round ones with icing—began to appear in the seventeenth century, in Europe, when bakers started using hoops or round molds to shape their creations. But it was the development of bicarbonate of soda and baking powder in the nineteenth century that was the great leap forward in the epic story of baking. Did you know that it was the Industrial Revolution that gave us dry mixes?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Aunt Jemima was born, so to speak, in the 1890s. Then packaged mixes for cakes began to appear in the 1920s, but they didn’t become popular until the 1940s.” He shuddered with disgust. “That dreadful slogan ‘just add water and stir’ has led to the debasement of the glorious treat that was: the sifted and creamed, hand-aerated and folded celebration of pure and unadulterated ingredients—the personal cake. And the worst offender by far was old Rupert Calvin Davis, creator of the contemptible Reggi-Mixx.” He emitted a gagging sound that made Tuffy stop and stare at him.

  “Sorry, boy,” he said to Tuff. “I’ll try to control myself.”

  “I agree that Reggi-Mixx isn’t a good product. Who buys those boxes?”

  “In my opinion, it’s people whose taste buds have been degraded by plastic-wrapped imitation cakes. I’m convinced the reason it exists is that Regina Davis likes to see her name on those boxes.”

  “The company—or at least that division—can’t be doing very well. Why is it still in business?”

  “That woman’s ego. It’s a privately held company so she doesn’t have to make stockholders happy. This contest will bring them a lot of publicity, and probably increase sales.”

  Back in my kitchen, Kyle and I went through his albums of creations. I was dazzled at his imagination and skill.

  “But I can’t make cakes like these,” I said.

  “It won’t be easy, given that you’ve never attended pastry school, but I can help you—”

  “No,” I said.

  “What do you mean, ‘no’? You can’t possibly win this competition without my expertise.”

  “From what you’ve said about at least three of my competitors, it doesn’t seem likely that I’d win no matter how much you helped. But the point is that I want to try to succeed on what I can do. If you help me, then it’s as though two of us are competing against the others. That’s not fair.”

  “Without me, you’re going to come in fifth out of five.”

  “I’ve agreed to be in this contest, so I’m just going to have to accept the consequences of competing on my own. Besides I’ve been making birthday cakes for my honorary daughter, and the cupcakes she’s needed for school events over the years. I’ve never used a mix and I’ve never had so much as a crumb left over, so I must be a pretty good home baker.”

  “Against the competition you’re facing, ‘pretty good’ will get you zilch. Kiss off any hope of winning that $25,000 prize.�
��

  “I appreciate your advice—really—but if I won the contest because of what you can do, it would be a kind of baking plagiarism. I can’t do that.”

  “Well, I wish you good luck.” His tone was pleasant, but it was obvious that he wouldn’t be placing a bet on me. He leaned over to give Tuffy some affectionate strokes.

  “Maybe I’ll drop around to see how you’re doing,” he said. “Ever since I took the side of the British in a high school debate on the American Revolution, I’ve been a sucker for lost causes.”

  9

  After Kevin Kyle left, I admitted to myself that I had about as much chance of winning that $25,000 as there was of snow falling in Florida. Then I remembered the trip that Mack and I had taken to visit his grandmother in West Palm Beach. It was during the Easter break one April. Some snowflakes had fallen. . . . Maybe—okay, probably—I would lose the contest, but it wouldn’t be because I didn’t try as hard as I could.

  Something besides cake was on my mind: Liddy’s problem. It was Tuesday afternoon, a few hours before Bill might—or might not—go to his weekly poker game.

  Liddy answered on the second ring. This time she didn’t have the usual lilt of an invisible question mark in her voice when she said, “Hello.”

  “Hi, it’s me. How are you?”

  “Do you mean have I gone to pieces, screamed, and thrown a vase at Bill’s head? No. I’m keeping up the ‘I’m-not-even-a-little-bitty-bit-suspicious’ act. But it’s so hard it’s just about killing me!”

  “Hang on, honey. We’ll find a way to get through this.”

  “It’s Tuesday,” she said in a tone full of despair. “Wasn’t it a Tuesday when the stock market crashed and the Great Depression started?”

  “It might have been.” I said that cautiously, even though I knew she was right: Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929.

  “My depression started last week. How long did the Great one last?”

  I thought: Until 1941, when the United States went to war. Instead of answering the question, I tried to comfort her. “Oh, Liddy, you’re tormenting yourself. We don’t know the truth yet. I still believe that Bill will have an explanation that’s not going to break your heart.”

  As though she hadn’t heard me, she said, “It’s four o’clock. I don’t know how I’m going to be able to keep up the pretense when Bill comes home to change his clothes before he goes to his”—her voice took on such a bitter edge that I could envision her using her fingers to make sarcastic quotation marks in the air—“poker game.”

  I reminded her that she’d promised me she wasn’t going to follow him tonight.

  She sighed heavily. “No, I won’t do that, but I want to confront him.”

  “Don’t do it yet, Liddy. You don’t know enough.” I didn’t want her to damage their years of trust in each other in case she was wrong. Confrontation could wait a day or two. Certainly, lying to Liddy was a stupid thing for Bill to do, but it might not mean what she feared. “I’ll call you later. Now do something to raise your spirits before Bill comes home.”

  “Like what?”

  “Eat some ice cream. Carbohydrates are a natural tranquilizer.”

  “I don’t want to get fat—I have to be better looking than the other woman.”

  “You could exercise,” I said. “Wear yourself out, then relax in a hot, foamy bath.”

  “All right . . .” she said.

  I tried to make a joke out of how gloomy she sounded. “Eileen was more enthusiastic when she was ten years old and we told her she had to have her tonsils out.”

  In response, Liddy elevated her pitch to theatrical super-bright. “All right!”

  I clapped my hands, applauding her performance. “Brava! That’s my good actress friend. I’ll call you later.”

  For the rest of the day my mind was divided. I watched the clock, mentally tracking Bill Marshall working in his dental office, and Liddy pacing the dimensions of her house like a captive tiger in a cage. I didn’t know what Bill was thinking, but I was pretty sure Liddy was in turmoil, wondering how her life was going to turn out.

  I forced myself to shut out those visions and concentrate on my cake problem. Ransacking my memory for Mack’s and Eileen’s favorites didn’t help. Mack preferred a triple layer chocolate-on-chocolate, but it wasn’t interesting enough to enter in a contest. Growing up, Eileen usually asked for a banana split cake. Delicious, but it was more ice cream and toppings than cake.

  At six o’clock I gave Tuffy and Emma their dinner. As usual, Tuffy ate heartily and then settled down next to the kitchen chair where I was working at the table. Emma, who liked to dine in spaced segments, nibbled delicately and then made one of her amazing leaps to the ledge beneath the kitchen window. There, she stretched out like a sphinx and stared into the mysteries of the night, as though she could see things in the darkness that mere humans could only imagine.

  I put aside thoughts of Bill and Liddy and cake to prepare for the three half-hour TV shows I was scheduled to tape tomorrow. At least with taped shows I didn’t have to prepare the finished dishes in advance. During taping, when I put something into the oven, we’d stop the cameras and pick up again when the dish finished baking and was ready to come out to be exhibited.

  By six thirty I’d decided on the vignettes I’d share while cooking. Whether doing the show, or teaching cooking classes, telling stories about the food is as important as putting together the ingredients in the dishes. Even if the viewers couldn’t write everything down while watching, the recipes would be posted on my website, DellaCooks.com. I was sure that my years of teaching were what had made it possible for me to function with ease during In the Kitchen with Della broadcasts. The trick was pretending that the TV cameras were my students.

  I put away my notes just as Eileen came bounding into the kitchen from her gym workout, all glowing cheeks and tousled hair. As usual, she greeted Tuffy and Emma first, with a few affectionate strokes and kissing sounds. Turning, she started to say something, but stopped to stare at me. “Aunt Del, you look gorgeous! What happened?”

  I arched one eyebrow. In a wry tone, I said, “Thanks a lot.”

  Realizing her gaffe, she emitted an embarrassed little giggle. “Ooops! I mean you always look pretty, but . . .” She peered at me closely. “It’s a surprise to see you all dolled up at home. Did Aunt Liddy give you a makeover?”

  “Remember Phil Logan, the network’s head of publicity? He brought a professional makeup man here this morning to apply some glamour for the TV interview today about the cake contest. I’ve been so busy ever since I got home I forgot to wash my face.”

  “Don’t wash it,” she said firmly. “Maybe this will be your magical night.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Eileen scooted the kitchen stool over beside the table, perched on it and leaned toward me. “This could be the night when Mr. Right’s car breaks down outside the driveway, his cell phone’s battery is dead, and the lights on the rest of the street are out so he’s forced to ring the doorbell and ask to use your phone.”

  With such a gaudy imagination she should be majoring in creative writing instead of business.

  “I’m not looking for Mr. Right,” I said.

  That didn’t discourage her. “Just go with me for a moment. Suppose some wonderful man with car trouble came to the door tonight, with you looking so great—”

  I waved my hands to stop her. “I wouldn’t let a stranger into the house, and I hope you won’t do it, either. Asking to use the phone could be a robber’s ploy.”

  Eileen’s expression was so disappointed that I relented an inch. “But if this man you imagine did have car trouble and rang the bell, I’d offer to call AAA for him—while he stays outside. That’s what you should do, too.”

  She sighed. “I know.”

  “Why are you so intent on me . . . connecting . . . with a man?”

  “I want you to be happy, Aunt Del.”

  “I am happy.” Pretty happy
. More or less.

  “But I’ll bet there is a Mr. Right somewhere for you,” she insisted. “Don’t you want to meet him?”

  “No.” Eileen didn’t know that I’d tried a new relationship with NDM, who turned out to be Mr. Wrong. I wasn’t going to let myself get hurt like that again. I gave Eileen an affectionate pat on the hand. “My life is fine, sweetie. Mack and I had a good marriage. I don’t expect I’ll ever fall in love again.”

  Eileen slipped off the stool and hugged me. Straightening up, she said, “Stranger things have happened. A year ago who’d have thought you’d be starring in a TV show?” Before I could think of a reply, she went to the refrigerator and opened the door. “What can I grab for dinner?”

  “I can heat the leftover cacciatore and make us a spinach salad. How does that sound?”

  “Fab! I’m going to go get cleaned up.”

  While dinner was reheating in the oven and Eileen was in the shower, I looked up Phil Logan’s number and dialed it. He wasn’t home, so I left a message telling him about my first reality TV interview, and asking if he could get Zachary Blye back again when I found out when the silent footage was going to be shot.

  Phil called back while I was snapping the stems off the fresh spinach leaves. From the noise in the background I guessed that the Better Living Channel’s head of publicity was in a busy restaurant. “I’m having dinner with the biggest talent manager in town, trying to talk him into giving us one of his clients as a ‘guest cooker’ on your show.”

  “I didn’t know you were thinking about something like that, but I like the idea,” I said. “What I called you about—”

  “I know—I got your message. As soon as we know when they want to shoot B roll, I’ll book Zachary. Since they want you in different locations, it’ll take several hours, so block out the time.” He must have covered the phone’s mouthpiece because I heard him mumble something. When he came back on the line, he said. “Gotta go now.”