Pies Before Guys Read online

  “I promise that, henceforth, when there is something or someone to investigate, you will be the first person I call.”

  “Good enough. Now about that power line . . . Starke’s ex-wife was dating Aidan.”

  “Which means she may have gone to his house and seen that cable wrapped around the branch.”

  “And as the ex, she had motive to kill Starke.”

  “But why go after Aidan?” I asked.

  “Maybe he knew too much? Maybe the lovers were in on Starke’s murder together, and now she’s getting rid of her accomplice?”

  The Stargate credits rolled down the screen.

  I shook my head. “That would make a good movie, but we’re guessing. We know hardly anything about these people.”

  “Then it’s time we find out.”

  “Gordon told us we can’t investigate outside of Pie Town without being guilty of interfering,” I warned.

  “Telling them Starke left something behind doesn’t seem to be getting them into Pie Town. We need to be more aggressive with our invitation.”

  Eureka! I snapped my fingers. “We could invite them to our new pie-making classes.”

  “No,” she said dryly, “that won’t look suspicious.”

  “What if we told Aidan and Piotr we held a giveaway for attendees of the poetry reading, and they won?”

  “Why would two English professors be interested in a pie-making class? They might give their tickets to someone else.”

  “You never liked the idea of those classes.” I tossed the pillow to the sofa cushion beside me.

  “They’re interfering with our Stargate nights!”

  Ah. Charlene was lonely. I turned my glass in my hands. “I’ll always make time for Stargate. I want to get to Stargate Atlantis.”

  “And don’t forget the movies,” she said, seemingly mollified.

  “What if we give our winners two tickets, so they can bring dates? And don’t forget Rudolph. We need to get him to the class too.”

  “It won’t hurt to try.”

  “What about Dorothy?” I asked.

  “Hm. Maybe we would increase the odds they’ll attend if we give the tickets to Dorothy instead of Aidan.”

  “But she wasn’t at the reading,” I said. “What’s our excuse for giving her a free pie-making class?” I yawned, out of ideas and out of energy. “I’ll think on it.”

  “We can brainstorm—”

  “Let’s do it independently. I’m exhausted. Do you mind giving me a lift home?”

  Grumbling, she drove me back to my tiny house. I changed into my pie pajamas and went to my kitchen for a drink. In the cupboard, I drew out a green water glass I’d brought from my mom’s house.

  Unexpected loss welled from my heart to my head, making me gasp. I ran my thumb along the bevels and blinked back unwanted tears. It was such a stupid thing. Only a cheap glass. I think my mom had won the set or got coupons for it. But my tiny house that usually felt so contained and cozy now felt empty and small and isolated.

  Charlene wasn’t the only one who was lonely.

  I forced myself to fill the glass with water and drink. Finally, I fell asleep to the rain pattering against my home’s metal sides, branches scraping and creaking against the roof.

  * * *

  I crawled from bed at my usual horrible baker’s hours. The rain and wind had stopped, but the power had gone off some time during the night, leaving my stove clock and microwave blinking. I only hoped we had power at Pie Town. I hadn’t gotten around to buying a generator, because I couldn’t afford one yet.

  In the dark, I fumbled into jeans and a Turn Your Frown Upside Down at Pie Town tee. I shrugged into a matching hoodie and stepped outside.

  A beam of light arced upward, illuminating a wavering, metallic disc. It zipped toward me, making an odd, whistling sound.

  I gasped and hopped backward, tripping over the bottom step and falling on my butt inside my front door.

  An eerie cackle drifted across my front yard.

  “Charlene!” Scowling, I leapt to my feet and brushed off the seat of my jeans. “That was just mean.”

  She strolled around the corner of my tiny house, a fishing pole in one hand and flashlight in the other. From the end of the pole dangled a flying saucer made of two pie tins glued together.

  She tut-tutted. “Looks like someone still hasn’t gotten over their fear of UFOs.”

  “I am not—” I breathed heavily. “My reaction had nothing to do with UFOs and everything to do with something flying at me from out of nowhere.”

  “But my pie-plate UFO is more realistic than you thought.” She bobbled it toward me, and I sheered away.

  “Yes,” I said with my usual pre-five-a.m. testiness. “You got me. Is the power on in town?”

  “Yep. It went off for a couple of hours last night, but it’s back.” She frowned. “Your trailer’s awfully dark. Are you telling me you don’t have any electricity?”

  “Not yet.” I zipped my hoodie higher. “I’m sure it will be fixed by the time I get home.” But I hoped it came on soon. I didn’t want to return to a dark house. I’d spent enough time last night freaking myself out over all the creaks and scrapes outside.

  We drove to Pie Town in our separate vehicles, and sunrise turned the eastern hilltops gray.

  In the Pie Town kitchen, morning was its usual whirl of prep work, taking deliveries, and baking, baking, baking. I was slowly building my staff and still didn’t have as many people as I’d like. So I had a hand in pretty much everything we made except the piecrusts. That was Charlene’s sacred domain.

  At six a.m., I set out the coffee urn and turned the sign in the front door to OPEN. I surveyed the dining area. The neon smiley face above the order window grinned rosily. The glass display case was fingerprint-free. The checkerboard floor gleamed. We were ready for business.

  The door jangled open, and Graham doddered into the dining area. At his usual counter spot, he regaled my assistant manager, Petronella, with tales of electrocution victims he’d known. “Val was nearly one of ’em,” he finished.

  I shooed a fascinated Petronella, no doubt wondering about how morticians dealt with deep-fried corpses, into the kitchen. The morning rolled on.

  Finally, at ten o’clock, Charlene emerged from the flour-work room and whipped her apron over her head. “Have you called our winners yet?”

  “Win—Oh!” I whisked a pie from the rotating racks in the giant oven and set it on a wheeled set of stacked trays. “No, but no time like the present. Er, have you got their numbers?”

  She rolled her eyes and plucked a piece of paper from the pocket of her burnt-orange tunic. “I came prepared.”

  I glanced around. We were alone in the kitchen, Petronella working the counter.

  Stomach fluttering, because I wasn’t a very good liar, I called Professor Jezek.

  “This is Piotr Jezek,” a funereal voice intoned and hiccupped.

  “Hi, this is Val Harris from Pie Town.”

  “What can I do for you?” The last word trailed off mournfully.

  “We’ve had some cancellations for this week’s pie class. I thought we’d give the classes away to randomly drawn guests from the poetry reading. You won.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  My breath caught. Was my offer that transparent? “Why?”

  “Because I never win anything.” He sighed, a ghostly sound.

  “But you did! I know it’s short notice, but I’ve got two tickets for you and a guest Thursday. Next Thursday,” I amended, because I had a date with Gordon tomorrow night. I crossed my fingers. “Would you like to come? It’s a three-hour class in the Pie Town kitchen. You’ll get a behind-the-scenes—”

  “I’ll—I’ll do it.” His voice trembled.

  I blinked. “You will?”

  “As a writer, it’s important to experience different walks of life.” He spoke rapidly, as if taking a plunge. “May I take notes and photos?”

 
“Of . . . course,” I stammered.

  “Send me the details.” He rattled off an email address.

  “Great,” I said. “We’ll see you next Thursday.”

  “No substitutions!” Charlene shouted into the phone.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” I chirped. “Bye.” I hung up. “That’s one suspect down. Three more to go.” But Aidan and Rudolph didn’t answer their phones, and we didn’t know Dorothy’s number.

  “We’d better round up those suspects,” Charlene growled, “or our investigation is DOA. Either that, or you can dump your boyfriend, so we can do some real investigating in the field.”

  I dropped the phone in my apron pocket and grabbed a ticket off the wheel in the order window. “That wouldn’t help. He’d still arrest us for interfering. Besides, Gordon’s on our side.”

  “Mm,” she said, skeptical. “In any case, we need to step up our game, my girl.”

  The order ticket crumpled in my hands. Hastily, I smoothed it on the metal counter. Charlene was right. But how was I going to interrogate suspects without falling afoul of the law?

  CHAPTER 8

  The wind had blown away the clouds, leaving a tattered pink and tangerine sunset floating above the Pacific. Gordon and I sat on the White Lady’s cliffside patio. Our feet rested against the edge of the brick firepit, a cozy blanket wrapped around our shoulders. The remains of our dinner lay on a nearby low table.

  Wineglass in hand, I shivered and huddled closer to him on the bench, but not because I was really cold. The cardigan I wore over my blue dress was enough, but his ivory fisherman’s sweater was super soft. Plus, I’d pretty much take any excuse to get closer to Gordon.

  “Alligator,” I repeated, trying not to laugh. It had to be a joke. “An alligator at the drive-through?”

  “Not at the drive-through, in the drive-through. The woman shoved the gator through the window when the guy was handing her a bag of burgers.”

  “Oh my God.” I stiffened on the bench, glad I hadn’t laughed. “Was anyone hurt?”

  “Not by the gator, but someone turned their ankle in the stampede from the kitchen. And no alligators were harmed in the perpetration of this crime.”

  “That’s good news.” I choked back another laugh, relieved. “But what did you do?” And how did Gordon get stuck with that call? Wasn’t he supposed to be investigating Michael Starke’s murder?

  “It wasn’t a very big alligator. I just picked it up and held its jaws shut.”

  “How big is not-a-very-big alligator?”

  He held his hands two feet apart.

  “And the woman?” I asked, grinning.

  A couple wandered behind us, and the glass door to the restaurant slid open and shut.

  “Said it was revenge. The guy working the drive-through broke up with her by text.”

  I folded my arms. “Then he totally deserved an alligator through his window.”

  He raised a brow. “I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”

  “That’s all right,” I said. After all, he was a detective. If I couldn’t keep Gordon on his toes, there was no way I was going to keep him around.

  “No.” He chuckled. “It’s a little disturbing.”

  “Where’d she get the alligator?”

  “It was a pet. It wasn’t legal.”

  I shook my head. “So how did you get roped into this?”

  “I caught the call.”

  My stomach lurched. Gordon was a detective, not a gator wrangler. I hadn’t gotten him thrown off a case again, had I? “But aren’t you, I mean . . . Chief Shaw hasn’t—”

  “He hasn’t pulled me off the murder investigation.”

  I relaxed, then straightened. The gray blanket slid from my shoulder. “But that’s weird. He’s always trying to showboat the interesting cases.”

  He adjusted the blanket over my shoulder and pulled me closer. I snuggled against his warmth, hard and muscular.

  “Shaw’s supposed lack of interest is . . .” He hesitated. “Let’s just enjoy the mystery. Much like the San Nicholas pie-plate UFO photos that have been cropping up all over the Internet.”

  Supposed lack of interest? But I knew a diversion when I heard one, and I rolled with it. “Those are Charlene’s, as I’m sure you’ve already deduced. She claims the photos are a promotion for Pie Town, but we both know she just likes flying tiny UFOs around town.”

  “She’s lucky they’re obvious fakes. We’ve had a few alarmed calls to 911.”

  “About her pie-tin UFOs?” I asked, chagrined. “But you said they were obvious fakes.” Were we in trouble?

  “Obvious to the police department and to most people with any brains. But she’s been posting them on Twitter. Fortunately for you, she hasn’t put the Pie Town name on them. But she needs to be careful.”

  Like that would ever happen. “I’ll let her know. How’s the murder investigation going?”

  “Mm.” He nuzzled my neck. “You know I can’t talk about that.”

  “You can’t distract me with sexy fun.” I gasped, my skin prickling with the heat of his touch. “Not on a public patio.” But he was getting darned close to succeeding.

  He sighed and sat back against the bench. “I guess not. Actually, there is something—”

  Someone banged on the window behind us. My shoulders jerked, and we turned toward the white-painted two-story. A few other couples craned their necks, searching for the source of the noise.

  The banging grew louder, and I looked up.

  Charlene stood framed in the second-floor window like Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate. Frederick curled around the neck of her sky-blue tunic. She pointed behind her and made a “Come on” motion with one hand, then disappeared.

  Seriously? I forced a smile. “If I don’t see what she wants, she’ll just come down to the patio.” I knew he shouldn’t have blabbed about our date in front of her. Charlene had busted up more than one of my rendezvous with Gordon before. And there were several dogs on the patio who Frederick might not get along with.

  He laughed. “Go on.”

  Reluctant, I shrugged out of the warm blanket and trotted across the patio and upstairs.

  Charlene waited for me at the top of the steps. “Get anything from your detective about the murders?”

  “No,” I grumped. “He won’t talk about the case.” I loved that he was so professional, but it could also be super irritating.

  “No worries. I’ve got a lead.” She strolled to the old-fashioned bar—of dark wood, its rounded edges chipped with age—and sat on a high stool.

  “Can this wait?” But I followed, of course I followed.

  “No,” she said, stroking the white cat on her shoulders.

  “You came all the way to the White Lady to tell me. So hurry up, because Gordon’s waiting.”

  “He should get used to waiting. It’s like that country song. Waiting . . .” She crooned. “Something, something waiting . . .”

  “What’s going on?”

  Crossing her legs, she exposed the white-and-blue-striped socks beneath her loose leggings. “And even though you abandoned me for your brother—”

  “I already apologized for that. Plus, you said it was okay!”

  “—when I caught a lead,” she plowed onward, “I came right to you. My partner.”

  “All right.”

  “A fellow Baker Street Baker.”

  “I get it,” I said testily.

  “Even though it was awkward, breaking in on your PDA.”

  “We were not—” Okay, we had been publicly displaying affection, but nothing over the top.

  “But I soldiered through.”

  “Charlene.”

  “Yes?”

  “What’s the lead?”

  The bartender Patel strolled along the bar to us. “Hey, Val. What can I get you? Another glass of the Cab?”

  “Um, sure.” Why not? It was only my second, I wasn’t driving, and I had a feeling I’d need
one to get through this conversation.

  Patel gave the cat a wary look. Drifting to the other end of the bar, he pulled a bottle from beneath it.

  “So?” I asked Charlene.

  “Hm?”

  “The lead, the clue, the lowdown. What is it, before Gordon comes looking?”

  “Patel.”

  “The bartender? Why didn’t you—?”

  Patel sat the glass in front of me on the bar. “Here you go. Same tab?”

  “Yeah,” I said, frowning.

  He turned to the mirrored shelves and studied the bottles there. “You know, pets aren’t allowed in the restaurant.”

  “What pet?” Charlene asked baldly. “Now, Patel, please tell Val what you told me about Professor Dorothy Hastings.”

  “What?” he asked. “That she comes in here a lot?”

  “Everyone comes in here,” she said. “It’s the most interesting restaurant on this part of the coast. No, the other stuff.”

  “About her boyfriend?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Aidan McClary.”

  “They come here a lot together.” He picked up a beer glass and rinsed it in the metal sink. “Why? Are you two investigating the murder of that professor?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Yes,” Charlene said.

  “No,” I ground out, “because interfering in an investigation is illegal. The nice policeman downstairs will tell you all about it.”

  Charlene rocked her head sideways and back. “Mm . . . Not so sure about that. The law’s not really clear—”

  “Thank you, Pa—Wait,” I said. “Why would you think we were investigating?”

  “Because someone told me the murder was connected to Pie Town.”

  What? It totally was not! “Who told you that?”

  “That friend of yours.” He nodded to Charlene. “What’s her name? Mary?”

  “Marla!” Charlene slammed her hands on the damp bar. “That harpy won’t be happy until she has ruined everything that is good in my life.”

  “Okay,” I said, “that’s not—”

  “The Ice Capades, the YouTube channel—”