Assaulted Caramel Page 11

  The girl gripped the side of her white apron and stared at the tops of her shoes. When she looked up, her eyes locked with mine.

  I stood up, and my knees ached from the sudden release of pressure. I started to walk toward her, but before I could reach her, she picked up her bucket and fled back inside the church.

  I was about to follow her when a white and black blur flew across my path and dove into the cemetery.

  “Jethro! Jethro! You get back here, you little rascal!”

  I turned to see a short round man with wire-rimmed glasses running toward me with a halting gait.

  He waved at me. “Stop that pig!”

  Without thinking, I bolted into the cemetery after the pig. The graveyard wasn’t that large, but there were many places where the small pig could hide.

  “Jethro? Come here, buddy,” I called, wondering if you could call a pig like you could a dog.

  Since the pig didn’t come running, I guessed the answer was no. Then I spotted him behind a tombstone with the name TYSON COLTON engraved on the front. I blinked at it as I read the stone more closely. There were two names on the stone. Tyson’s and a woman named JEANNETTE COLTON. This must be the stone marking the resting place of Tyson’s wife—and Jace’s mother. Her death date was thirteen years ago. I glanced back at the church. Jace was awfully young to have lost both of his parents. That made it seem all that more tragic. Maybe this compound loss was why Jace had reacted the way that he did. Maybe there was only so much loss he was equipped to process.

  The stone had been pre-engraved with Tyson’s name. All that remained was to add the death date, which would be engraved soon, now that he was also gone. I shivered. I knew it was more cost effective to have the stone carved all at once when the first half of a couple died, but I wondered how I would feel if I visited my husband’s final resting place and saw my name there every time I went to visit.

  Finally, the little man caught up with me. “Did you see him? Do you know which way he went?”

  I shook my head to chase away the thoughts of death and dying. “See who?”

  He threw up his arms. “The pig!”

  “He was right over there a moment ago.” I pointed at the stone where I had seen Jethro last.

  The man hurried behind the stone. There was a high pitched squeal, and Jethro catapulted himself over one of the low tombstones and ran directly at me. I caught him with an oomph as he slammed against my chest. He buried his pink snout in my neck it. It felt cold and wet and tickled my skin.

  “There, there,” I murmured, patting his back. I didn’t know if that was best way to comfort a terrified potbellied pig, but it was all I knew to do. “It’s okay,” I added for good measure. The animal shivered in my arms.

  The man wiped his brow and stumbled over a tree root as he approached us. “I turned my back for one minute, and he was off like a shot. He always stays with Juliet. He must have thought that he could find her.”

  “Juliet left him with you?” I cradled the pig in my arms, and he seemed to be quite comfortable there. I could be wrong, but I thought he smelled faintly of lavender. Not a smell that one would expect when holding a pig.

  The man eyed me as if seeing me for the first time. “You know Juliet?”

  “I met her and Jethro this morning.”

  He squinted. “And you are?”

  I cradled Jethro in my left arm and held out my right hand. “Bailey King. I’m borrowing the church kitchen for the Hutton wedding.”

  “Oh, yes, Eileen told me that you were here to make desserts for her daughter’s wedding.” He looked relieved, as if he’d expected me to say I was someone else.

  I found myself squinting at him a little, as he had at me.

  “I’m Reverend Brook. We’re so very grateful to you for helping with the wedding. As you may have surmised by now, Eileen would like everything to go off without a hitch.”

  “I have come to recognize that.”

  “I’m sure.” This made him laugh, and the tension in his face evaporated. Instead of a suspicious man, he was transformed into a kindly village pastor. He held out his arms to me, and after the briefest moment of hesitation, I set Jethro into them. The pig gave me a pitiful look as I handed him over.

  The back door of the church flew open and Eileen stomped out. “Bailey King, you have kept us waiting long enough. I have half a mind to cancel my contract with Swissmen Sweets. We shouldn’t be kept waiting like this.” She pulled up short. “Oh, Reverend Brook, I didn’t expect to see you out here.”

  “My apologies, Eileen.” Reverend Brook wiped sweat from his brow and tucked Jethro under his right arm like a sack of potatoes. “Juliet volunteered to run some errands for the ceremony tomorrow and left me in charge of Jethro here. He got loose and Bailey”—he glanced at me—“found him for me.”

  Eileen’s nose wrinkled as she took in the small polka-dotted pig in the reverend’s arms.

  Reverend Brook cleared his throat. “Well, I should get Jethro back inside.” He nodded to Eileen. “I’ll be in my office if you need me for any last minute wedding questions.”

  “Everything is well in hand, Reverend Brook.”

  He adjusted Jethro in his arms. “I wouldn’t expect anything less from you.”

  I felt my brow rise as I watched their conversation with interest. Why did I feel like they were talking about something completely unrelated to Mira and Jace’s wedding tomorrow?

  Chapter 18

  The next thirty minutes going through the final tastings with Eileen, Jace, and Mira were painful to say the least. Eileen nitpicked every dessert I presented. Even when the presentation and taste were flawless, she had some change that she wanted me to make before the wedding. I shouldn’t have let her criticism upset me. I was accustomed to Jean Pierre’s clients being even more critical than Eileen. What really grated on my nerves was how she treated her daughter. Any time the girl gave her opinion, Eileen shot her down.

  I set the last dessert in front of them, the three servings of white chocolate mousse.

  “It’s almost too pretty to eat,” Mira said, barely above a whisper.

  I smiled. The mousse was very pretty with a laced heart formed out of dark chocolate sticking out of the top. The chocolate work on the heart was edible and delicate—I’d taken special care to achieve the lacy effect and make each piece identical.

  Eileen pointed her spoon at her daughter. “Don’t be ridiculous, Mira. It’s meant to be eaten. That’s what it’s for.”

  The girl folded her hands in her lap and stared down at them.

  Jace, who I thought should come to his fiancée’s rescue, plucked the heart from his dessert and set it on his napkin, then broke it in two with such force I wondered whose neck he was envisioning between his hands. Mira winced at the cracking sound the chocolate made and then carefully lifted her chocolate heart from the dessert. She placed it on the white dessert plate at her elbow. Not for the first time, I wondered what the gentle young woman was doing with Jace and how he could be overpowering Eileen’s daughter.

  “This is lovely,” Eileen said, as if it caused her physical pain. “The mousse is well done. I have to say, overall, I am impressed with what you have to offer. We will expect your menu, with the few alterations that I have requested, at the wedding tomorrow.”

  “How many guests will there be?” I asked.

  “One hundred and fifty-four.” She announced this number with such precision, I didn’t doubt that she consulted the wedding guest list on an hourly basis.

  I swallowed. I had one night to make desserts for one hundred and fifty-four guests, with no professional kitchen and no help. I bit down on my tongue to hold back the excuses that bubbled up in the back of my throat as to why that was an impossible task. I’d figure something out.

  Eileen stood. “We should be going. There’s still much to do on our list before—”

  Her litany of last-minute wedding tasks was interrupted by Jace’s cell phone beeping. He looked at th
e screen. “I have to take this.”

  Eileen nodded. “Our next stop is the caterer.” “And you don’t need me, Eileen. I was only interested in the desserts.” He jumped out of his chair, pausing only long enough to kiss Mira on the cheek before he ran out of the fellowship hall.

  Eileen turned to her daughter. “What on earth was that about, Mira? Why can’t Jace just stay off of the phone at least through the end of the tasting?”

  “I—I wouldn’t know,” her daughter whispered, staring at her hands.

  “His father was murdered this morning,” I said, wondering why I even needed to remind Eileen of that fact. “I think that anyone would be acting different under the circumstances.”

  “Come along, Mira. We’re going now,” her mother said. “There’s much more we must do before the rehearsal this evening.”

  Mira nodded solemnly and rose from her chair as if it took an enormous effort to stand up against the weight pressing down on her shoulders. Although still beautiful in her melancholy way, no one would mistake Mira for a blushing and excited bride. She looked more like she would be attending a funeral the next day, not her own wedding. I wondered where and when Tyson’s funeral would be, since the family appeared to be so preoccupied with the wedding.

  I watched as mother and daughter walked across the fellowship hall. Eileen moved briskly with a perfectly straight back. Mira shuffled with her shoulders slumped.

  After they were gone, I went into the kitchen to clean up after the tasting. I groaned when I saw the collection of pots and pans in the sink. Rolling up my sleeves, I turned the faucet all the way to hot.

  I was at the church’s deep double sink and up to my elbows in sudsy water when something pinched me on the back of my leg. I jumped three feet into the air, and soap bubbles flew. I knocked a bowl of chocolate syrup off of the counter with my elbow, and it tumbled onto the potbellied pig’s head. Jethro shook the metal bowl off, and it clattered to the white tiled floor. I groaned. It would take me all night to scrub the chocolate out of the grout.

  “Jethro! You need to behave yourself,” Juliet admonished and grabbed a roll of paper towels from the dispenser mounted on the wall. She knelt on the floor and began to sop up the worst of the mess. She looked up at me as she worked. “Bailey, I’m so sorry about that. Jethro is known to nip, but he only nips people he likes. He would never touch Eileen, you see.” She lowered her voice as if Eileen were still in the building. “He doesn’t care for her much.”

  The pig looked up at me, and then with his long tongue licked the chocolate off of his white nose. I wiped some chocolate from my cheek. “Jethro’s had a busy day. We had a bit of an adventure in the graveyard.”

  Juliet blushed. “Yes, Reverend Brook told me about that. I had to run an errand and thought Jethro would do all right for a little while alone with the reverend. I do wish the two of them would make up, but they seem bound and determined to dislike each other.” She sighed.

  I stopped myself from asking Juliet why she was so keen on the pig and pastor liking each other. The answer was as clear as the polka dots on Jethro’s back. The woman was completely smitten with the widowed pastor.

  She stood and dipped a rag into the soapy water before kneeling on the floor again to scrub the grout. Jethro made short work of the chocolate that was on his face—at least the bits of it that he could reach with his tongue.

  “There should be a scrub brush under the sink there,” Juliet said. “If you grab it for me, I’ll clean up what’s left of this mess. Can you clean his face?”

  I hesitated. The pig had nipped me but hadn’t done any real harm. He’d startled me more than anything.

  Juliet smiled. “Oh, go ahead. He nipped you, so he likes you, remember.”

  I picked up a rag, leaned over and began to clean the pig’s bristly head. He stomped his hooves and wiggled his curly tail as I cleaned his face, and I found myself smiling too. The little bacon bundle wasn’t that bad after all.

  Juliet stood. “See, as good as new.”

  I stared at the floor. The white tile gleamed. I blinked. “How did you do that? I’ve tried to get chocolate out of grout before, and it’s next to impossible.”

  “Ahh, well, you’ve never been a mother to a son, then. If you had, this wouldn’t have even been a challenge. Boys are messy, and my son was the messiest when he was little. Thankfully, he has since grown out of that.”

  “How old is your son?” I asked, expecting her to say eight or ten. Twelve, tops.

  “Twenty-eight.”

  I blinked at her again. There was no way this young woman could have a twenty-eight-year-old son. “You are kidding, right? There’s no way you have a son my age.”

  “I’m very proud of him,” She went on. “He’s a sh—Jethro! What are you doing?”

  Somehow, while we were talking, the pig had managed to climb a foot stool. He had both of his front hooves on the speckled Formica counter, and his snout buried in the plate of leftover truffles. Several truffles rolled across the counter and onto the floor.

  Juliet shook her head. “Oh, Jethro.”

  The pig lifted his face out of the dish, and he had chocolate and raspberry-lemon filling all over it.

  “I’m so sorry, Bailey.”

  I waved away her concern. “It’s—”

  “Mom?” A deep voice called out. “Are you down here?”

  Juliet’s face lit up at the sound of the man’s voice. “There’s my son now.” She raised her voice. “We’re in the kitchen!”

  I turned away from the pig covered in chocolate and found Deputy Aiden Brody standing in the doorway in his navy blue uniform. He removed his ball cap from his head, and tufts of dark hair stood up every which way. He folded his hat in his hands. “I didn’t expect to find both of you here,” he said. “But I’m glad I did.”

  Juliet beamed. “You’ve already met.”

  Aiden nodded. “At the Kings’ shop yesterday before . . .” He trailed off.

  I knew he was going to say “before the murder.”

  “Oh, Bailey, what were you going to say before Aiden showed up?” Juliet asked.

  I stared at Aiden, trying to process that the deputy was Juliet’s son. “Oh, umm . . . I was just going to say that it’s all right that Jethro ate the truffles. Eileen wanted me to make different flavors for tomorrow.”

  She stared. “And when are you going to do that?”

  “Tonight, I guess. I just have to figure out where.”

  “What do you mean, where?” she asked. “It’ll be right here. You’ll use the church’s kitchen, of course. It’s the perfect place. You’ll have everything you need, and you’ll be close to the reception.”

  I tried not to look at Aiden. “Is that okay with Reverend Brook? I will be here pretty late tonight. There’s a lot to do.”

  “Leave the good reverend to me,” she said confidently.

  Aiden made a small sound that came across as a snort.

  Juliet shook her finger at her son. “Hush, you!”

  He grinned, and then he looked at me, and his smile faded. “I’m glad you are here, Bailey. I need to talk to you about the murder.”

  My heart sank.

  Juliet shook a towel at her son. “What would Bailey know about the murder other than that it happened at her grandparents’ shop? I’m sure you have already been over that.”

  Aiden pursed his lips.

  Juliet bent over and patted Jethro’s head as if she needed the reassurance that he was still at her side. “Is something wrong?”

  He frowned. “I need to talk to Bailey for a moment in private.”

  “What?” his mother asked. “Why?”

  Aiden looked pained. “Bailey?”

  I put a hand on Juliet’s arm. “It’s okay, Juliet. Thanks for all your help this afternoon. I couldn’t have done it without you and the quilting ladies. Really.”

  She frowned. “Well, Jethro and I will clean up the rest of the kitchen for you, so you can head straight home a
nd see your grandparents after you talk to Aiden. I’m sure they are wondering what became of you.”

  I was sure that they must be wondering that too. I suspected that Jethro wasn’t going to be much help with the cleaning, but I was happy to take her up on her offer. I had a long night of candy making in front of me. I needed to conserve what energy I had, knowing that a good chunk of it would be lost on the conversation that Aiden wanted to have with me. I thanked Juliet, gave her another reassuring smile, and followed her son out of the kitchen.

  Without saying a word, Aiden led me across the fellowship hall and out the door.

  Outside of the church, I took in a deep breath, basking in crisp country air after working in the church kitchen for so long. I studied the deputy out of the corner of my eye and wondered what he was thinking as we walked down the church steps. Was he focused on the murder? Or was he thinking about his mother and her relationship with the pastor?

  I still couldn’t quite wrap my head around the idea that I had been with Aiden’s mother for a good part of the day, and that his mother was dating the pastor and had a pet pig. Aiden had struck me as coming from much more traditional roots—happily married parents with a dog, probably a Lab. Aiden struck me as a Lab kind of guy.

  He walked toward his cruiser and leaned on the fender, facing me. This was going to be much more than a casual conversation about the murder. I had never been so sure about anything in my life.

  Chapter 19

  Aiden folded his arms, and his jaw was tight. “Bailey, I’ve been sent to fetch you and bring you to the station for some more questioning.”

  “About Tyson’s death?” I asked, not knowing why I even wasted my breath. Perhaps I wanted to put off the inevitable.

  He gave me a tiny smile, and the slightest hint of the dimple on his cheek appeared. “Should I know of another reason?”

  My mouth felt dry. “Am I under arrest?”

  “No.” His answer was firm, but then he added, “No one is under arrest at this time.”