Софи Келли - Cat Trick

“What time is Susan bringing lunch?” Abigail asked.

I glanced up at the clock. It was almost eleven thirty. “About an hour,” I said.

She swept her braided hair over one shoulder. “I don’t suppose there are any muffins in the lunchroom, are there? I’m hungry now.”

I shook my head. “Sorry. To paraphrase Dr. Seuss, the only crumbs in our lunchroom are crumbs that are even too small for a mouse.” Then I remembered that description pretty much described my kitchen and I’d invited Elizabeth and Wren over. I made a face. “Crap on toast!”

“It’s okay,” Abigail said. “I’m not going to pass out from hunger in the next hour.”

“I’m glad,” I said. “But I just realized that I invited Harry’s sister and her friend over tonight, and there isn’t so much as a brownie crumb in my kitchen.”

Abigail smiled. “I could call Georgia and see what she has for cupcakes. I don’t mind holding the fort here so you could run over there. She’s just over on Washington Street.”

That sounded a lot better than having to make coffee cake the moment I stepped through the door. “Please,” I said.

She reached for the phone. “And if you decided to reward my brilliance with a double-chocolate cupcake, I would be filled with gratitude.”

I smiled and shook my head. “You’re full of something.”

Good fortune was on my side. Georgia had just finished frosting a batch of cupcakes and I could have half a dozen. And Washington Street was close enough that I could walk. “I shouldn’t be much more than half an hour,” I told Abigail. “Mia is helping Mary.”

“Take your time,” she said. “I wouldn’t want you to smush the icing or anything. You know, for your guests.”

I waved at her and headed out the door.

Washington Street was a couple of streets above Main, two blocks east of the library. Georgia was working out of a blue-shingled two-story house that, like most of the other buildings on the street, had a business on the main level and apartments on the second floor. Abigail had told me to go to the back, and as I stepped onto the small verandah, I could see Georgia through the screen door, filling a pastry bag with what looked like chocolate frosting.

She looked up when I knocked on the doorframe and beckoned me inside. The kitchen smelled of a delicious mix of chocolate, vanilla and caramel.

“Mmm, it smells good in here,” I said.

Georgia made a swirl of dark chocolate on the top of a dark-chocolate cupcake and set the pastry bag on the counter. “That’s probably my cupcakes and Liv’s caramels,” she said with a smile.

“You share this space with Olivia Ramsey,” I said. “I thought the address sounded familiar.”

She nodded, icing sugar dusting her dark curls. “Actually, there are three of us: Decadence—that’s Olivia— me, and Earl of Sandwich. I’ve been here only a month.”

Olivia Ramsey was a chocolatier who specialized in handmade truffles and caramels. Decadence’s reputation was beginning to spread outside the state. Earl of Sandwich ran two lunch wagons that serviced pretty much all the construction sites in the area. And yes, the owner’s name really was Earl.

I looked around the kitchen. The walls were painted a pale creamy yellow, like whipped butter. The appliances were all gleaming stainless steel. At the far end of the space, I could see two brick ovens built into the wall.

Georgia followed my gaze. “They still work,” she said. “This was a pizza place at one time, I guess.” She gestured at two wire racks to her left on the long butcher-block table. “What would you like? The ones with the green frosting are Chocolate Mint Madness and the others are Devilishly Decadent Chocolate.”

“Could I have half a dozen of each?” I asked.

“Absolutely,” Georgia said. She brushed off her hands and reached for a couple of flattened boxes from a nearby shelf.

“Are you ready for the food tasting?” I asked.

“I think so,” she said, glancing up from the box she was folding into shape. “I’m doing six different cupcakes. And Liam rearranged things so now I’m next to Molly’s Coffee, which should be good for both of us.”

“I hope everything works out,” I said.

Georgia set the finished carton aside and started bending the other one into shape. “I think it will . . . now.”

“Mike Glazer made things difficult.”

She nodded, keeping her head bent over the half-formed box. “Nothing seemed to satisfy him. He was on Liam about every little thing. Then he started in on Mr. Chapman about the style of the tents and if looks could kill—�� She realized then what she’d said. “I’m sorry. That was insensitive.” There were two blotches of red high on the cheekbones of her otherwise pale face. She wiped her hands on her long white apron.

I gave her a small smile. “It’s okay,” I said. “I think Mike had alienated pretty much everyone who was involved with the tour project.”

Georgia finished the box and reached for the cupcakes. “He stuck his nose into things that were none of his business, and now he’s dead.” She exhaled slowly and looked at me. “He just shouldn’t have done that.” I was a bit taken aback by the intensity in her voice.

Georgia finished boxing the cupcakes, and I paid her and put them in the canvas shopping bag I’d brought with me. She walked me to the door.

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll look for you at the food tasting. I hope it goes well.”

She wiped her hands again on the front of her apron and gave me a small smile. “I think it will, now,” she said.

Walking back to the library, I thought again how sad it was that Wren Magnusson was the only person who seemed to feel any grief about Mike Glazer’s death. Georgia certainly didn’t seem sorry, although to be fair, she’d barely known the man. I thought about the tension in her voice when she’d commented that Mike had been sticking his nose into things that were none of his business and the way that she’d kept wiping her hands nervously on her apron. What had happened had clearly left her feeling unsettled.

Back at the library, I stashed the cupcakes in my office and took over from Abigail at the front desk. Susan came in at twelve thirty, carrying a large crock of soup—the lunch Eric had reminded me about. He was testing a new recipe and we were going to be his guinea pigs. She smiled sweetly as she passed me on her way to the stairs. A small feather duster with Kool-Aid-orange feathers was stuck through her topknot. Obviously Eric had repeated my threat about dusting all the shelves.

“So not funny,” I called after her. She didn’t even turn around, but I saw her shoulders shake with laughter.

The soup—chicken with spinach dumplings—was delicious, no surprise. So were Georgia’s cupcakes. I spent the afternoon doing paperwork and working on the list of new books I wanted to order.

It was raining when I left the library, fat drops that splattered on the windshield of the truck. As I hurried around the side of the house, I could see Hercules’s black-and-white face peering through the porch window. I shook my umbrella before I stepped inside the porch; then I picked him up off the bench under the window. He didn’t even object to the dampness of my jacket. Instead he peered at my face and then looked over at the door to the kitchen. Something was up.

“What did your brother do?” I asked. Herc looked back over my arm as though there were something incredibly fascinating all of a sudden on the floor behind us. “It can’t be that bad.” I stuck the key in the lock. He rested his chin on my shoulder and made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a sigh of resignation.

It was that bad. It looked liked catnip-loving zombies had attacked. There were bits from at least two—or maybe three—of Owen’s Fred the Funky Chickens spread all over the kitchen. Yesterday I thought I’d found—and gotten rid of—all the chicken parts he had hidden around the house. Obviously I was wrong.