Janet Evanovich: Wicked Business

He snapped to attention. “The key. I will die before I will disappoint my master.”

“We could probably arrange that,” Clara said.

Hatchet glared at her. “Do not scoff at me. I will have the key. And I will have these cupcakes as well.” He grabbed two off the tray and shoved them into his mouth. “Now the key,” he said.

Glo had her nose wrinkled. “Dude, you shouldn’t talk with your mouth full. Your teeth are all full of chocolate smush.”

“ The key! ” Hatchet said. “I demand that you give me the key!”

“I don’t have it,” I told him. “Diesel has it.”

He drew his sword. “Then I will take you hostage. And I will trade you for the key.”

“Hey!” Clara said to Hatchet. “What’s wrong with you? You can’t go around waving your sword in here. This is a bakery. Have some respect.”

“Yeah, and if you don’t behave, I’m going to get my broom, and he’ll give you a couple good whacks,” Glo said.

“Your broom is no match for my sword,” Hatchet said. “I’m a skilled swordsman. My aim is deadly true.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure my broom might be magic,” Glo said.

Hatchet paused for a beat. “How magic?” he asked.

“ Real magic,” Glo said. “About as magic as a broom could get.”

Hatchet cut his eyes to me. “I will retreat for now, but I will be back. I will pounce when you least expect it. And I will conjure my own dark powers to battle your evil forces. Stand back now while I take my leave, and thou willst give up these cupcakes.”

He stiff-armed his sword in our direction, grabbed the tray of cupcakes, turned, and ran out of the kitchen. A car motor cranked over in the parking lot, and there was the sound of squealing tires on the pavement.

“He needs a pill,” Clara said.

Glo shouldered a cookie tray. “I think he’s kind of cute. He’s just a little misdirected. I might be able to find a spell to help him. I’ll have to look in Ripple’s tonight.”

Oh boy, as if Hatchet wasn’t crazy enough, now Glo was going to help him.

“What’s so special about this key?” Clara asked.

“It’s the Lovey key,” Glo said. “Remember how I was saving up money so I could buy a book of sonnets, but someone bought it ahead of me? Well, there’s a little key that goes with the book, and Carl found it and gave it to Lizzy. And the guy who bought the book, Gilbert Reedy, is dead.”

“His death was on the news last night,” Clara said. “They said someone broke his neck and threw him off his balcony.”

At one o’clock, Diesel showed up. He ambled into the kitchen, slung an arm around my neck, and kissed me on the top of my head.

“What’s that about?” I asked him.

“I like you.”

“And?”

“I’m hungry.”

“For lunch?”

“Yeah, that, too.”

“There are some ugly meat pies in the fridge. Sausage, beef with curry, and roasted vegetable.”

When a pie or a pastry didn’t turn out to be perfect and wonderful, we labeled them ugly and made them available for employee consumption. Diesel grabbed an ugly sausage pie and stood at the counter, eating it cold.

“I haven’t read through everything yet,” he said, “but a couple interesting things have turned up. Shortly after Reedy got the Lovey book, he joined a dating service. He chose four women from the service because he felt they were looking for true love.”

“How do you know?”

“I found a list in the miscellaneous folder. Reedy called them True Love Seekers and sometimes Key Seekers.”

“That sounds very adventuresome.”

Diesel went back for a second pie. “The list was scribbled on the back of a professional paper written in 1953 promoting the hypothesis that the stones holding the seven deadly sins were originally virtuous. Gluttony represented joy for all things. The bearer of pride had an industrious spirit…”

“And lust?” I asked him.

“Supposedly the Luxuria Stone was originally the stone of true love. The author of the paper theorized that at some point in time, the stone was corrupted and turned sinful. There was an addendum to the paper speculating that a key might exist to find the stone.”

“The Lovey key!” Glo said. “I bet Reedy was looking for his true love.” She clapped a hand over her heart. “That’s so romantic.”

“Yeah, and he’s so dead,” Clara said.

Ten minutes later, I was out of my chef clothes, following Diesel to his car.

“I don’t understand why you feel compelled to talk to the four women,” I said to him. “It’s not like Reedy was in a relationship with any of them. How could this possibly help you find the stone?”

“It’s a place to start,” Diesel said. “I’ve got home addresses and work addresses for all of them. Cassandra McGinty is the first on the list. She lives in Lynn, and she waits tables at a restaurant in Salem. I called the restaurant, and they said she doesn’t come in until four, so I thought we’d see if she’s home.”

Lynn is on the North Shore, south of Marblehead. It’s a diverse seaside town with a sketchy history and a hardworking population. Cassandra McGinty lived in a big clapboard house on the west side of Lynn. The house had been converted to apartments, and Cassandra’s was on the third floor.

I huffed and puffed up the stairs and stood back while Diesel knocked on the door. A woman with enormous breasts and short, punked-up white blond hair answered. She was early twenties, medium height, and slim except for her chest. She was wearing spike heels, tight jeans, and a spaghetti-strap tank top that showed a quarter mile of cleavage.

Diesel checked out the breasts and smiled, his eyes locked in at nipple level. “I’m looking for Cassandra McGinty.”

“Well, you’ve found her,” McGinty said, looking Diesel up and down.

I wanted to kick Diesel in the back of his leg to see if I could knock his eyes loose, but I’d kicked him yesterday and didn’t want it to become habit-forming. So I stepped around him and extended my hand.

“I’m Lizzy Tucker,” I said. “The stupid drooling guy is Diesel. We’d like to talk to you about Gilbert Reedy.”

“Are you cops?” she asked. “I heard Gilbert tried to fly off his balcony and it didn’t turn out so good.”

“Were you dating him?” I asked her.

“Gilbert and I met for coffee, but that was all. I don’t know if you saw Gilbert before he turned himself into a pancake on the sidewalk, but he wasn’t exactly hot.” She did another full body scan of Diesel. “And I like hot men.”

“Gee, too bad I don’t know any or I’d bring them around,” I said to McGinty. “Diesel here looks good, but he bats for the other team, if you know what I mean.”

“Lucky them,” McGinty said.

“We’re looking for a book of sonnets. It was missing from Reedy’s apartment.”

“He had a book with him when we had coffee. It was real old looking, and he read this lame poem to me from it. Something about a hot eye.”

“Do you remember anything else about the poem?”

“Yeah. I remember wanting it to end. Gilbert Reedy was the king of geeks.”

“He was looking for his true love,” I told her.

“Me, too,” McGinty said. “But I want one with a big package.”

We thanked McGinty for her help, trucked down the stairs, and got back into Diesel’s SUV.

“I might have been her true love if you hadn’t ruined it with that fib,” Diesel said. “I have all the requirements.”

“You were looking at her like she was a free pass to the Super Bowl. I was afraid you were going to step on your tongue.”

Gail Danko was second on the list. She lived in a small, bedraggled bungalow a half mile from Cassandra McGinty. A black Sentra was parked in the driveway. It was showing some rust and a few good-size dents. A gray cat sat on the roof, enjoying the afternoon sun.