A Waffle Death, page 11
Adrienne shook her head, still looking around as if someone might attack her or might have seen her and followed her there.
“I just wondered… I know about your day-old bread program.”
“Of course,” Erin agreed. “I have so much in the freezer right now; I’d really be grateful if you could take some of it off my hands. We try not to make too much more than we need in a day but, of course, you have to keep food in the display case right up until closing time, so there has to be extra each day.”
Adrienne nodded as Erin explained this and followed Erin over to the large chest freezer along one wall. Erin opened it up, and Adrienne’s eyes popped at the variety of goods stored there. She had probably thought that Erin was kidding about needing someone to give the excess food to.
“Some bread and muffins, first of all,” Erin said briskly, taking out several bags of frozen goods. “And what else do the children like? Some cookies? Chocolate, oatmeal, gumdrop, gingersnaps…”
Adrienne’s eyes went over the possibilities. “Chocolate chip.” She pointed at one of the bags. Erin pulled them out.
“And maybe some pizza shells? Bagels? The pizza pretzels are popular, so we always keep them well-stocked throughout the day and have a few left over after closing.”
“That sounds nice.”
“Let me get a shopping bag for you.” Erin took a couple of bags of pizza pretzels out of the freezer and took a few shopping bags off of a shelf. She started loading the baked goods into bags. “Now, what else?”
Adrienne’s eyes were big. She shook her head. “It’s too much. I can’t take all of this.”
“Do you see anyone else taking it?” Erin motioned to the kitchen, occupied only by the three of them. “I take more home than I can eat with Terry—Officer Piper. Only a little bit of our day-old gets claimed, and I have to take the rest into the city for the shelters there or throw it in the garbage. And I hate throwing anything in the garbage.”
Adrienne nodded, her eyes still big and skin pale. Erin would have expected her to be tanned or sunburned, with the amount of time she must spend outside but, if she wasn’t getting enough to eat, starvation might have caused her pallor. “Of course. You can’t throw good food away.”
“Exactly. Are you sure I can’t get you anything else?”
“No, this is plenty. We can afford to go to the grocery store.” She said it defensively as if Erin had accused her of being unable to feed her family.
“Okay. Well, when you’ve used this up, just stop by. Or if you know someone else who could use it. It’s so much easier for me if someone will take it off my hands.”
Adrienne took the bags from her slowly. Her fingers were long and thin. For a moment, their eyes met.
“You are a nice woman,” Adrienne said softly. “Most people don’t understand.”
“I think there are others who would… but they don’t have as much to give as I do.”
“They don’t know what it’s like to have nothing.” Adrienne tossed another glance in Vic’s direction, unsure of speaking in front of her.
“Vic understands,” Erin countered. “When I first came to Bald Eagle Falls, she was living in the basement of the bakery. Hiding. She didn’t have anywhere to go.”
“Oh?” Adrienne looked at Vic for longer this time, and her shoulders lowered as she relaxed. “I didn’t know.”
“How would you? It was a couple of years ago, probably before you moved here.”
The woman nodded, her lips pursed. She put her hand briefly on Erin’s arm. “We know what it’s like. Vic and I.” She glanced over at Vic to elicit a nod. “Living how you can. Surviving. It isn’t like people think it is. I wouldn’t take my kids to one of those places. Catching fleas, getting molested, never being able to get a good night’s sleep. You want a home. A place of your own.” Her hand fluttered to indicate the direction of her camp. “Even if you have to start out living in a tent. Or with someone who…” Her eyes went to her feet, away from Erin. “Someone willing to help you out.”
For Vic, that had been Erin. She had taken the younger woman in and invited her into her home. Vic was now more independent with her loft room over the garage, paying Erin a small amount in rent out of her earnings at Auntie Clem’s. Erin didn’t expect anything from her. But it had been different when Erin had been left with no job, no income, and no roof over her head. There were no savings to fall back on. No Clementine back then, before Alton Summers had come looking for her to tell her of her inheritance.
She’d had to survive somehow. It had been Brandon who had given her a hand, letting her crash with him while she tried to get back on her feet. Living in his apartment, eating his food, and trying to find another job when her last employer couldn’t give her a reference and his family had refused to. Managing to find casual labor for a day or two, or saving nickels and dimes from panhandling. It took a long time working that way to put away enough money for a down payment on an apartment. And then she would need a job that paid enough to maintain it.
That’s why it was better to find a job caring for someone who needed a companion, a position where she could board. Until that job ended, and the bottom fell out, and she was left again with no place to go.
“You did what you could at the time,” Adrienne said, reminding Erin she was there, drawing her back from the memories.
Erin realized with a start that Adrienne wasn’t just there for herself. She wasn’t just there because of Erin’s day-old baking program, though she appreciated the donation. She was there for Erin, to tell her that there were people who understood. It was hard for people like Terry and Stayner, who had always had a home, always had a roof over their heads, men with good jobs to support themselves. They’d had the stability, family support, and education needed to move into their chosen professions. They couldn’t understand why she had stayed with Brandon and appreciated him despite his emotional instability and abuse.
“Thank you,” Erin said softly, and put her hand over Adrienne’s. She didn’t know how word had gotten to Adrienne so quickly and still resented Melissa gossiping about the personal, private details of Erin’s past. But she was thankful for Adrienne’s empathy, even when everyone else only saw her as the prime suspect in a murder.
CHAPTER 22
Erin had known that it would be a busy day at the bakery, as it always was after a murder or other tragedy. Initially, they had been curious about the disappearing body—the shock of first discovering it and then its disappearance. Then there had been the rediscovery of the body in the park. Now, they were even more titillated by the fact that the victim was an ex-boyfriend—what else were they going to call him?—of Erin’s. They wanted to see Erin and her red-rimmed, baggy eyes to speculate on how she felt about Brandon and his death and whether she might be his killer.
They hoped she would give them some salacious details to feed the Bald Eagle Falls grapevine and keep it chattering away. And if she didn’t give them any, they would make it up.
There was a moment of startled silence when Dave Wolfe walked in the door, and then the whispers and giggles started. Erin found herself looking questioningly in Dave’s direction to find out why he was there, even though there were several ladies ahead of him in line.
“I just thought I’d get a muffin,” Dave offered. “And… Naomi had some questions about the next book club theme…?”
“Oh.” Erin shook her head. “Things are pretty busy here today.”
“Go ahead,” Vic told her. “You look like you need a break. I can handle things here for twenty minutes.”
“Are you sure? It’s been so…”
“Go,” Vic repeated firmly.
Things would probably quiet down once Erin left and they didn’t have anyone to direct their curiosity at. Maybe they would follow her to The Book Nook and give Naomi some business. Had she been getting more customers since Erin had discovered Brandon’s body in the basement? People had probably started their back-to-school shopping early. Any excuse to scout out a murder scene, even if they couldn’t go down to the basement.
The Book Nook had just barely opened. Booksellers did not need to be up as early as bakers. There were no cars parked out in front of the store yet, even though Auntie Clem’s had been buzzing with activity for several hours.
The door was unlocked and the Open sign up, so Erin walked in. The tinkling bell drew Naomi’s attention, and she smiled at Erin, raising her brows as if surprised to see her.
“Oh, hi, Erin. What can I find for you today? Some more breakfast recipe books?”
Erin laughed. “I think I’ve already got a copy of everything you have. And a couple you don’t. Dave said you wanted to talk to me about the next book club theme? We were going to do ‘an apple for teacher,’ right?”
Naomi walked across the floor to her. “I think it was probably more that he’s just been concerned about you and wanted me to make sure you were okay. We’ve both been concerned about you since… you know. I just wanted to make sure that… things weren’t going to be awkward between us. And you coming here… sometimes people can get kind of a phobia about going back somewhere that something bad or scary happened. And I thought… finding a body in the basement is kind of traumatic and you might feel… anxious about coming back here.”
Erin had been distracted by wondering what Naomi’s concern over the book club theme was and hadn’t even thought about the bookstore being the location where she had found Brandon’s body the first time. Now she looked around, actually thinking about it, testing out how she felt about being there.
She had been at The Book Nook many times before and had always had good experiences there and positive feelings associated with it. The fact that she had found Brandon in the basement, a place she had never been before and would probably never be again, made it a little bit easier. She could imagine it was some other world, someplace far away rather than right under her feet. A sort of a nightmare world that she had been dropped into once, but would never dream of again.
“No, I think I’m okay with it, actually. As long as I don’t have to go down to the basement.”
Naomi smiled, her face lighting up like the sun had just broken over the horizon. “Oh, I’m so glad, Erin. I wouldn’t want to lose your friendship or your help with the book club just because… something unfortunate happened.”
“It’s not your fault.” Erin gave a shrug. “I don’t think you invited him over here or killed him in the basement. Why would you? You didn’t even know the guy. Now if you had known him…” Erin tried to keep a teasing tone and not let her voice get serious or malicious. What would Erin have done if she had seen Brandon again? She had never been violent toward him. She couldn’t see herself ever trying to hurt him.
And she would never have the opportunity to find out. Brandon Quayle was gone.
And good riddance.
Erin visited with Naomi for a few minutes, made sure they were both onside with the plans for the next book club meeting, and then Erin headed back to the bakery. She could see when she reached the door that the crowd had thinned out and only a couple of customers were at the counter waiting to be served. Vic had things well under control. There were a number of coffee cups, wrappers, and disposable plates on the little tables at the front of the store, where the women had gathered to gossip or catch up with one another’s lives.
She figured her time would best be spent tidying up so that it didn’t look like a pigsty for the next group of customers. She picked up the various detritus and threw it into the nearby garbage. It shouldn’t be that hard for customers to take two steps over to the garbage to throw their own trash away instead of leaving it on the tables. That was just common courtesy.
Erin picked up a folded piece of lined paper that looked like it might be a school assignment and unfolded it to see what it was. If one of the students who stopped in for a quick treat had left it behind, they might be looking for it by the end of the day. Finding out that Erin had thrown it away—and having to dig through the garbage to find it and see if it were salvageable—would not be a good experience.
It was not a school assignment, but a recipe. Interested, Erin skimmed through it to see if she could figure out who had left it behind. She read through it a second time, more slowly, her heart racing.
“Vicky… do you know who left this here?”
“What is it?” Vic studied the paper in Erin’s hand and shook her head. “No, I didn’t see. Where was it?”
“On one of the tables. I was just clearing up.”
“No. There were a lot of people over there in the past hour. It could belong to anyone.”
Erin walked slowly over to the section of the counter that folded back on a hinge and let herself back into the “employees only” section.
“What is it?” Vic asked.
“It’s a recipe.”
“One of yours?”
“No. Not one of mine. I don’t know whose it is.”
“Well, if it’s important, I guess they’ll come back for it. Probably not anything you can use, huh? It would be nice if it was. A nice little gift from the gluten-free fairies…” She giggled. “Or brownies!”
“It actually is.”
“What?”
“Gluten-free. It uses buckwheat. You don’t know of anyone else in Bald Eagle Falls who was entering the waffle contest, do you?”
“No, not that I’ve heard.”
Erin had been talking about the waffle contest to customers for a week. She thought that if anyone else had been interested in entering the contest, they would have mentioned it. Or asked her how to submit an entry to the contest. But no one else had expressed any interest in it, other than to ask her what she would be submitting.
“It’s a waffle recipe?” Vic asked. She counted Mary Lou’s change out loud and handed it over. “A gluten-free waffle recipe?”
“Yes.” Erin looked toward the table again as if the person who had left it there might have materialized.
“Maybe it is the gluten-free fairy,” Vic laughed. “She heard you wishing for a gluten-free waffle that would win the contest, and behold! There it is.”
“That’s weird.” Erin shook her head. “Weird that someone would just leave something like that here.”
“You’re not going to use it, are you?”
“No. Not without knowing where it came from. I don’t want to jeopardize someone else’s chances of winning the prize.”
“Though why anyone else would want to make twenty waffles at once, I don’t know,” Vic shook her head. “Who but a restaurant or bakery owner would want to win one?”
“Well… someone who wants to save time and put a bunch in the freezer for the kids to use for breakfasts and lunches. Someone with a big family. You know, if you’ve got six kids, twenty waffles don’t really go far. Especially if a couple of them are teenagers. Sometimes it would be convenient to make a whole bunch of waffles all at once.”
“Okay, you got me there. Maybe it was someone who is entering the contest. But why would they leave the recipe here? It seems to me that if I wanted to enter a contest, I wouldn’t leave my recipe in my rival’s house or place of business.”
“No. It’s probably not that. Just… a coincidence.”
“Or the waffle fairy,” Vic joked. She sobered up. “Or… someone who wanted to give you a chance at winning the contest. Maybe it isn’t for someone else’s entry, maybe it’s for you.”
“Then… why not give it to me? Or leave a note saying that it’s for me to use? Just leaving it here like this…”
“I hope you solve your mystery,” Mary Lou said with a smile, turning to leave the shop.
“Oh, I didn’t even say hello to you,” Erin realized. “I just barreled in here and completely ignored you. How are you, Mary Lou?”
“We are getting along fine, thank you,” Mary Lou said with a small nod, pausing in the doorway. “I think you can be forgiven for ignoring a customer when you discover that the gluten-free fairy has left you a gift.” She gave a small chuckle at their conversation.
Vic turned pink, grinning. “It isn’t every day that the gluten-free fairy comes by.” She wiped tears from the corner of her eyes as she tried to keep from laughing. “Although if there is any place in town that she should bless with her offerings, it would have to be Auntie Clem’s.”
“Of course,” Mary Lou agreed. “It’s only fitting.” She shook her head and pushed the bar on the door to leave. “Have a nice day, ladies.”
CHAPTER 23
Erin was left to puzzle over the serendipitous appearance of the waffle recipe for the rest of the day. At home, she and Terry came and went without much comment to each other, did not eat dinner together and, as evening drew on, Terry retreated to the guest bedroom again. It was earlier than he usually went to bed, so Erin could only assume it was a declaration of his intentions. He would continue to sleep separately until she talked to him about it and indicated she wanted the situation to return to normal. He wouldn’t push her, wouldn’t get in her way; he would wait until she told him she didn’t like the status quo. Either to invite him to return to her room and her bed, or to tell him that she didn’t want him in the house anymore.
She hated to think of him leaving and didn’t intend to kick him out. Not yet, anyway. She felt the situation could be salvaged. She hoped that it could be. The two of them were not incompatible. They had just run into a speed bump in one area. When it was resolved, they could move on together again.
At least, that was what Erin hoped.
She heard K9 whining, and then the dog gave two sharp barks. She hovered outside of the guest room door uncertainly.
“Do you want me to take him out?”
There was a pause before Terry answered from the other side of the door. “I can take him outside, Erin. You don’t need to do that.”
“He’s probably confused about why I’m not doing anything with him. I don’t mind taking him outside for a few minutes. Let him know that I’m not mad at him or something.”
