The Death by Cupcake Series: Books 1 - 3, page 26
Ben nods at Logan. “Fat Daddy’s protected,” he says. Before I get a chance to ask what the candied confections that means, he places a finger on my lips and tells me, “He’s got friends in high places.” My eyes widen at the implications of that statement. I’m thinking mayor, hookers, sexual deviance involving whips and chains. “If we want to go after Fat Daddy, we need a lot more than just hearsay from a woman who will be destroyed on the witness stand.” I smile up at him. Proud of how he managed to avoid calling Laurie a hooker.
“So what do we do?” Callie’s like a dog with a bone. She reminds me of, well, me. My chest puffs out in pride. I’ve taught her well.
Ben has to ruin the moment. “Nothing.” Callie sputters and he qualifies his remark. “For now.” She nods and he continues. “We need to gather more evidence.”
“How do we do that?” I ask because if they think they’re leaving me and Callie hanging, they’ve got another thing coming.
Logan and Ben do that silent communication thing again. I narrow my eyes at Logan, but he refuses to look at me. “Let us think about that and get back to you,” Ben answers before he entwines his hand with Callie’s and pulls her towards the front door. “See you, Pinky.” With a chin lift at Logan, he’s gone.
I know what just happened here, and I’m totally not down with it. The men are trying to placate us. Well, they can dream on if they think Callie and I are going to give up the game now. No way. Game on, boys. Game on.
Chapter 25
Level a dose of scheming
My alarm blares at 3:30 a.m. scaring the fudge out of me. That’s what I get for staying up late interrogating a fallen woman and then arguing with my friends on how to proceed. My eyes are still glued together when I fall through the bakery door at four a.m. I wave in the general direction of Callie’s office before starting my baking prep work. I’m assuming by Callie’s grunt of a greeting that she’s just as tired as me.
Right before opening, Kristie sticks her head through the door separating the kitchen from the café and waves hello but doesn’t linger long enough for me to question her about her disappearance the previous night. I can’t exactly follow her since I’m in the middle of making caramel sauce. Every baker knows better than to leave caramel sauce on the stove unattended. Callie peeks out of the office and I tilt my head to the front, indicating she needs to get her behind out there and find out what’s going on.
Callie disappears into the café, but two hours pass before Callie returns, dragging an obviously annoyed Kristie behind her. They head into Callie’s office and I’m hot on their heels – as soon as I finish packaging the caramel sauce that is. Kristie’s sulking in a chair and Callie’s standing staring down at her when I arrive. “What’s going on?” I ask even though I’m not stupid and am perfectly aware of the tension in the room.
“Ask her,” Kristie whines.
I slowly take a seat in the chair next to Kristie’s. I look to Callie to respond to Kristie’s insolence, but Callie just shrugs. Although Kristie and Callie get along well and have gotten rip-roaring drunk together on occasion, there’s still distance between the two of them. Callie’s a professor at the university where Kristie is still a student, albeit a grad student, and Callie has even had Kristie as a student in her class before. Between that and Callie being the owner and thus the boss of Kristie, there’s awkwardness. The pink-haired pixie comes to the rescue again!
“Kristie, babe,” I start in a gentle voice. “What’s going on with you?”
Kristie huffs. “What do you mean?”
“Well, to start with, you just disappeared on us yesterday.”
Kristie rolls her eyes. “Between you two and your boy toys, you had things covered.”
I lean back in surprise. Does she feel like a third wheel? Is that where all of this snappiness is coming from? “I’m sorry. We didn’t mean to exclude you.”
“Yeah,” Callie chimes in. “You’re our expert advisor. We totally need you.”
Callie’s exaggeration brings another eye roll out of Kristie. I ignore it and latch onto Callie’s line of thinking. “Yeah.” I nod. “Like now. We have no idea how to proceed and those ‘boy toys’ are trying to block us.” Callie bobs her head in agreement.
“Okay,” Kristie sighs and gives in. “What happened?”
“Well,” I start and go on to explain what Laurie told us the previous night.
“So,” Kristie nods in thought, “you think Fat Daddy killed Arthur.”
“Exactly. But Ben and Logan claim Fat Daddy is protected and they need something solid before they go after him.”
“Because his lawyers would tear apart a woman like Laurie’s testimony,” Kristie concludes.
“It’s such bologna. Just because a woman sells her body to survive; something I’m sure, by the way, Laurie has no choice in, doesn’t mean she’s a liar.” Callie sounds like she’s winding up to start a lecture on feminism. Luckily, Kristie chimes in before Callie can jump on her soap box.
“True,” Kristie agrees before going in for the kill. “But a woman who sells her body is vulnerable to blackmail and police persuasion. A defense attorney will exploit that on the witness stand.”
“When did you get so smart?” Callie asks with genuine fondness in her voice.
Kristie shrugs but otherwise refuses to acknowledge the compliment. “So where does that leave us? Any ideas?”
“Well,” I chime in. “I have an idea, but you’re not going to like it.” I’ve got their attention now. “We need to set a honeypot.”
“Do you even know what a honeypot is?” My eyes bulge out of my head at Kristie’s sarcastic accusation. Cookie crumbles! Maybe we were too easy to dismiss Kristie’s problems. It certainly sounds like there’s more wrong than just feeling like a third wheel. I try to catch Callie’s attention out of the corner of my eye, but she’s obviously taken Kristie’s words as an honest to goodness question.
Callie nods and starts spouting nerd. “A honeypot is a sting operation that involves a person, usually a woman, going undercover to seduce an individual in order to pump secrets from him or put him into a compromising position for future blackmail purposes.” She takes a breath before continuing. “It also … erm… refers to a woman’s,” her voice lowers to a whisper, “honey.”
“So you see the problem then?”
I just stare at Kristie. What’s the problem? Besides trying to figure out how to actually pull off a honeypot operation without having to have sex with Fat Daddy because ew - just ew. Callie and Kristie must be on the same wavelength, though, because they’re both nodding. “Okay.” I throw up my hands. “I give up. What’s the problem?”
Kristie giggles, she actually giggles. “You can’t exactly use sex to trap someone who’s a pimp. The man most likely forces his women to ‘service’ him whenever he wants.” Dag nab it! She’s probably right. After all, the prostitutes on the corner were certainly eager enough to rub themselves all over him. I shiver. The man is just gross with beady eyes and a lanky body that doesn’t have an ounce of muscle on it. On second thought, I’m just going to be happy I don’t have to pretend to want to get myself some of that.
“Well, that was my only idea,” I admit.
“What about this Laurie woman? Couldn’t she help?” Kristie asks.
“In what way?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. But she must have a bunch of inside information about this Fat Daddy character. Something that would help us figure out how to trap him.”
“Trap him?”
“Yeah,” she nods. “If the man is protected like the men think, he’s way too smart to actually be convicted of murder based on physical evidence. Heck, for all you know, he had someone else carry out the murder.”
I shake my head. “He beat Laurie up himself. I think he likes to personally mete out punishments.”
“Whatever. All I’m saying is there’s no way you’re going to be able to catch Fat Daddy based on physical evidence. Assuming he did it, you’re going to need a confession.”
Callie nods. “I think she’s right.”
“Which leaves us where exactly?”
“We need to get him to confess.” Callie nods as if a confession is a foregone conclusion.
“Okay,” I draw out the word. “How in the world are we going to do that?”
“We need to figure out who’s protecting him.” I roll my eyes because it will be just that simple. “That’s where Laurie comes in,” Kristie continues. “She’ll probably know a lot about Fat Daddy: where he hangs out, his close guards, stuff like that.”
“I have the feeling getting Laurie to tell us anything isn’t going to be easy.” We had to have Ben pretend to be a customer last night. Since we’re now on a secret squirrel mission, we can’t exactly ask him for help.
“Yeah,” Callie says as she leans back against her desk. “It won’t be easy, but if anyone has a chance of getting her to open it, it’s you.”
Me? I want to disagree with Callie, because I don’t fancy getting anywhere in the vicinity of Fat Daddy, which is exactly where we’ll find Laurie. But she’s right, which is super annoying as always. Laurie knows I was a friend of the man she loved. If anyone’s going to get her to spill the beans, it’ll have to be me. “I’m totally not dressing up like Hooker Barbie, though.” Gotta draw the line somewhere.
Chapter 26
Cream together with a secret spy mission
Kristie walks in my apartment with Callie hot on her heels. They’re both carrying shopping bags. I immediately back up with my hands held up. “No way,” I shake my head. “I’m not doing the whole woman of the night get-up.”
Callie snorts. “Told ya.”
Kristie shakes her head. “Whatever,” she mumbles to Callie before turning to me. “We can’t chance that people will recognize you. It could be dangerous.” Darn it. She’s right.
“But I don’t want to be a hooker,” I pout.
“Yeah,” Callie pipes up. “We kinda figured that out when you stomped your foot in my office and started ranting about Barbie and her hookers. Words, by the way, that should never be said in the same sentence.” She hands me one of the bags. “We thought we’d dress you up like a college student.” She looks me up and down. “Lord knows you look young enough.”
I narrow my eyes at her. Why does everyone think that short equals young? Just because I have to buy clothes from the junior department doesn’t mean I am a junior. I open the bag and sigh in relief. A pair of ripped up jeans and a t-shirt with a picture of the university’s mascot on it are the contents. I can totally do this. Kristie shoves another bag at me. This one contains the brown-haired wig and a pair of glasses as well as a backpack that has seen better days.
“My backpack never looked this bad, even after four years of daily use in college,” I say as I pull the ratty thing out of the bag.
“Daily use?” Callie snorts. “You barely went to class and only opened your books to study for exams.” She’s got me there.
“Come on.” Kristie grabs my wrist and pulls me into my bedroom. “I don’t want to be out there any later than I have to.” She does an exaggerated shudder, and I remember just exactly where we’re going and what I’m doing.
In less time than it takes to bake a tray of cupcakes, I’ve morphed from a pixie-baking thirty-year-old to a lost college student. The glasses are a nice touch. Even I don’t recognize myself when I look in the mirror. Of course, the wig with brown curly hair that’s long enough to touch my butt may have something to do with that as well. My hair has been pink or a shade of pink since I left home for college over a decade ago. Can you say rebel?
“Come on, fresher,” Callie says as she throws me the backpack. “Let’s get moving.”
We make it all the way to the infamous corner before our plan falls apart. The street corner is packed. In addition to Laurie and the pride of four proud hookers who harassed me when I tried walking up to the corner like I owned it, a trio of men are chatting away to the ‘ladies’ who are strutting around like they’re on parade. I guess they kind of are.
“I thought you said customers drive in cars,” I hiss at Kristie.
Kristie turns around and glares at me. “What am I? The expert on hooker behavior?”
There’s no correct answer to that, but that doesn’t stop Callie from trying. “Scientists do study the sociology behind prostitution, though,” she starts but, before she can get any further, I reach up and smack her upside her head.
Back to the matter at hand. “Anyway, I can hardly walk right up to Laurie and talk to her with those men hanging around. What am I going to say? ‘Hey Laurie, Remember me? I’m Arthur’s friend and, oh, yeah I’m now a college student?’” I shake my head.
“Why don’t you act like you’re lost?” Callie suggests. “You can go up to her and ask her for directions.”
“And then what? Just ask her if she can please tell me everything she knows about Fat Daddy?” That’s going to work – not.
Kristie turns around. “You can’t say Fat Daddy’s name out loud. Those women will eat you alive if they think you’re competition.” Like I need a reminder of the last time I was here.
“Oh, I’ve got it!” Callie says and starts rummaging around in the messenger bag that is permanently attached to her hip.
I lean over the front seat. “What?”
Callie ignores me and pulls out a large notebook. She starts writing away in the chicken scratch that seems to be inherent in all college professors. “There!” She hands me the notebook with a flourish.
I try to decipher her handwriting but almost immediately give up. “What does it say?”
Callie rolls her eyes at me as if I’m a small child who needs help with reading comprehension. “Where’s Fat Daddy?”
“Oh no,” Kristie immediately backs herself as far away from Callie and her crazy ideas as she can. She’s completely squished against the driver side window. “We can’t just ask her that. I told you – no saying Fat Daddy’s name! And besides that – how is that going to help us? We’re just going to walk up to the pimp and ask ‘Did you kill Arthur?’ I don’t think so.” She shakes her head.
“How about, ‘How can we find Fat Daddy?’” Callie suggests.
“Seriously, do you not listen? We need more than information on how to find him.”
“I got it,” I say and grab Callie’s pen. I turn to a new piece of paper and write: How do we get Fat Daddy? I finish writing and show the words to Callie and Kristie. Callie immediately smiles and gives me a thumbs up.
I look to Kristie for her reaction. She just shrugs. “I guess that’s the best we can do.” I nearly ask her why she bothered to come if she’s just going to be Debby Downer who doesn’t believe we can get any useful information from Laurie. And wasn’t it Kristie’s idea to come here in the first place? The woman confuses me. I shake those thoughts right out of my head. I need to have my head screwed on right if I’m going to get anything from Laurie without tipping off the other women.
“Here goes nothing,” I say before exiting the back seat. I throw the backpack over my shoulder and hug the notebook to my chest. I’m totally rocking the whole little-college-girl-lost look. I shuffle over to the corner, making sure to obviously check out the street signs as I go while peeking at Laurie and the other women at the corner.
I notice that the ladies are still busy trying to entice the men into buying their ‘services’ and hurry over to Laurie before they notice me. “Hi,” I say in a squeaky voice. No, I’m not trying to sound young. I’m just nervous. “I’m lost. Can you help me?”
Laurie doesn’t seem to recognize me. She rolls her eyes before saying, “The college isn’t anywhere near here.” Told you I’m totally rocking the disguise.
I nod and get within whispering distance of her. “Can you just look at this address for me?” I turn the notebook over and show her my question. She jumps and starts backing up. I can’t have that. I grab her wrist as gently as possible. “It’s me, Anna,” I say. Her eyes jump to mine. I release her wrist and quickly raise the fake glasses. Her eyes widen in recognition and she nods.
I hand her a pen and hold the notebook open for her. “Please,” I beg.
She chews on the pen while staring at the paper for such a long time that I’m about to give up and walk away when she clicks the pen. She quickly scribbles something and then shuts the notebook and hands me the pen. “Don’t come back here again,” she orders in a low voice before loudly saying, “Just follow this street for two blocks and then hang a left.”
I nod and mouth thank you before I turn and practically run back to the car where Kristie and Callie are waiting. I jump in the back seat. “Let’s get out of here,” I instruct Kristie before collapsing against the seat.
“What happened?” Callie is not known for her patience.
“Hold on,” Kristie says and proceeds to drive like a maniac until we’re stopped in the parking lot at the mall. She doesn’t bother to turn off the engine before turning around and demanding. “Tell us.”
I open the notebook and read Laurie’s message. Wednesday night, The Concourse. I turn the paper around and show it to the impatient front seat passengers.
“What the cupcake does that mean?” Callie asks.
“The Concourse is that super fancy hotel downtown, isn’t it?” I continue without waiting for a response. “That must be where Fat Daddy spends his Wednesday nights. Maybe he has some high-end escorts or something that use the hotel.” Obviously, I’m talking out of my behind. I have no idea who, what, how. Heck. I don’t even know what the question is.
“I got this,” Kristie says. I raise an eyebrow at her. “One of the kids I counseled at the youth center got a job in the maintenance department at the Concourse. I’ll get in touch with him and see if he knows what’s what.”
