Weddings are Murder (Bee's Bakehouse Mysteries Book 7) Page 3

  “How is she?”

  Mel shook her head. “Surprisingly good. She’s in the kitchen baking.”

  Jessie took this as a good sign. She hurried through the house and into the combined kitchen and living area.

  It looked as if the place had been burgled. Not even an inch of the kitchen bench was visible underneath the piles and piles of cookbooks and ingredients. Every cupboard door was open and the room was sweltering hot. It wasn’t just from the oven: there were pots on the stovetop and the sweet smell of sugar filled the air.

  It looked as if Aunt Bee was baking for her life, she was moving around the small space so frantically.

  “What’s going on?”

  Bee paused for just a second before she carried on whisking. Jessie stepped closer.

  “What are you doing? Are you hand-beating eggs? Why don’t you use the KitchenAid the chief bought for you?”

  “Why don’t you stop bothering me?”

  Jessie groaned and pulled one of the stools from under the counter. “Aunt Bee, I know this is hard. But I’m worried about you. Look at this place. You’re usually so obsessed with tidiness. This is like some nightmare version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

  Mel snorted with laughter before quickly rearranging her features. “That’s funny, Jessie, but I’m not sure how helpful it is. Come on—let’s leave her to it.”

  “But…” Jessie sighed and looked at her aunt as she dropped the bowl and whisk and darted to the stove to stir one of the pans.

  “What are you making?”

  Bee whipped her head around, eyes shining for a moment before the light left them again just as quickly. “Butterscotch.”

  “Butterscotch. And something else?”

  Bee nodded, not turning around this time. Jessie walked slowly to her side and peered in the other pots. One of them housed a block of butter that was slowly melting into a golden puddle. The other contained hot water with a glass bowl full of chocolate sitting over it.

  “What are these?”

  “Butter and chocolate,” Bee said, looking bemused by Jessie’s dumb question.

  “But…” Jessie shook her head, unable to believe what she was seeing. “I know what they are. I’m wondering why you decided to make all this stuff at the same time. I’d struggle to make any one of these, especially by hand. This is chaos. Why…”

  Bee glanced at her and Jessie finally understood.

  “It’s making you feel better, isn’t it—all this mayhem.”

  “I’d be crawling up those walls if I wasn’t doing this, Jessie. What rotten timing. I’m so glad it happened at night when the place was quiet, but the night before my wedding? And from what Freddie has said, there’s no way anyone’s going to be using the function rooms for a long time. He’s going to have to completely rebuild that part of the building when the investigators finish with it.”

  “Investigators?”

  “It sounds like it’s standard procedure,” Mel said. “Chief Daly stopped by earlier. He thinks they’ll be done by the end of today.”

  Jessie swallowed. “Great. So we can rearrange the wedding. It won’t be the same date, but I’m sure your guests will understand if it’s pushed back a week.”

  “What on earth are you talking about, Jessie? We were supposed to get married today. It took months of planning. There’s no way we can find a new venue in a week. Don’t forget that I’d stored a lot of our décor at Lindemann’s. In fact, the only thing that wasn’t at Lindemann’s was the flowers—a lot of use they’re going to be now.” Her face screwed up. “Oh Jessie, we had people coming from out of state. What am I going to tell them? It’s a good job we convinced your mother that she didn’t have to come all of this way.”

  Jessie put her arm around her beloved aunt, feeling close to tears herself. She couldn’t believe something like this could happen to someone who was so sweet and kind to everybody around her.

  “You’ll tell them that it couldn’t be helped. It’s not your fault—it was a terrible accident that nobody could have predicted.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  Jessie spun around. That voice was much too deep to be Melanie and there had been no one else at the house when she came by.

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” Chief Daly said. “I came in through the back.”

  Jessie waved her hand. “You didn’t. It’s fine. I guess I’m just jittery from earlier. Anyway, what were you saying, Chief?”

  He shrugged off his coat and sat at the dining table, rubbing his face with a huge hand. The others stopped what they were doing immediately: you didn’t often see Charles Daly in such a stressed state.

  “It wasn’t an accident,” he said at last.

  “What do you mean? Of course it was. Lindemann’s…” Jessie trailed off and looked around at the others in shock. “What are you saying, Chief? That somebody did this deliberately? But who?”

  He shook his head. “I can’t tell you that, Jessie. But I do know this fire was set off deliberately. The fire technicians found accelerant at the scene. They’re still looking for the point of ignition, but I think we’ll all agree that there’s no good explanation for dousing gasoline around a venue like that.”

  “Somebody doused gasoline in there?”

  Chief Daly’s expression was grim. “They sure did.”

  “My goodness,” Jessie gasped, leaning back against the counter in utter disbelief. “Who would do that? Everyone in town loves Freddie. Who would try to destroy his business?”

  The chief looked at her and a strange expression flashed through his eyes. “That’s not our only course of inquiry.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean,” he said, no longer able to look at them. “We have to look at the possibility that somebody set this up to try and harm your aunt or me.”

  8

  “No,” Jessie said again, even though she had repeated the same word several times over. “No, it can’t be.”

  But even as she said it, Darlene’s words floated back to her. And Freddie’s. She shook her head and tried to make them go away. So what if Aunt Bee had been a little difficult in the lead up to her wedding? She was the most generous person Jessie had ever met and everyone in Springdale loved her.

  Other strange memories cropped up in her mind. Freddie had freaked out when she told him she was going inside. And he’d fought with that man even though he was usually so calm and reasonable. She had brushed those thoughts aside at the hospital—but that was before she found out the fire was deliberate.

  “Freddie fought with the victim just before the fire,” she said, interrupting their murmurs. She shook her head. She couldn’t let go of the image of Freddie’s face in those moments. It made no sense to her: he had always been such a gentleman. She stared into space. Her background as an insurance investigator meant that her instincts were niggling away at her now, telling her to stop ignoring the obvious.

  “It just doesn’t make sense,” Mel said. “Who would want to ruin your big day?”

  “We’ve got to consider it as a possibility. In the meantime, we’re running background checks on all the staff and I’ve asked Freddie to give me a list of anyone he thinks might have a grudge against him.”

  “Wait,” Jessie said, hating herself for having to say this about her friend but realizing she had no other choice. “I’ve got to tell you guys about this. It could be nothing, but…” She noticed they were all watching her, rapt. She sighed. “Freddie was acting very strangely before the fire. I’m not just talking about his argument with the victim. I had my mind made up that I was going to go in there and speak to those people from the other function—”

  “What people?” Chief Daly growled. “The only people there were our victim and some members of staff. And you, of course.”

  “Exactly,” Jessie said, realizing with a sinking heart that this was further proof of her theory. “But at the time, Freddie insisted there was a group of customers inside and he di
dn’t want me to disturb them. I kind of understood it at the time as him not wanting to hassle his guests, but there was nobody there.”

  “So what was he hiding?”

  “Exactly, Aunt Bee. That place was empty. What if Freddie knew there was going to be a fire?” Jessie shivered as she said those words. Freddie was her friend. Then again, she couldn’t ignore the evidence that was stacked against him.

  “We’ll check it out,” Chief Daly said gruffly. “We’re going to need to go over that place with a fine tooth comb anyway. However.” He stopped talking and looked from Jessie to Mel. “Given the circumstances, I’d still like to rule out the possibility that this was meant for your aunt or me.”

  Mel laughed. “The more I think about it, the crazier I think it is. It can’t have been an attempt to hurt you guys!”

  Jessie was a lot more serious. “What do you want us to do, Chief?”

  He nodded curtly, all business given the seriousness of the subject. “I’d like you two to carry out a secondary investigation. Let’s call it a shadow operation. Now Beatrice, I don’t want you to worry. I think it’s likely that Jessie’s theory is right. All the same, let’s follow this line of inquiry. Humor me?”

  Jessie nodded. “Freddie told me he’d had a run-in with you, Aunt Bee. And we all know that Darlene was livid about what happened with the flowers. I get that it wasn’t your fault, but all the same I’m going to check them out. Can you think of anyone else you might have been… um… snappy with in the lead up to the wedding?”

  Bee sighed and the chief wrapped his arm around her shoulder. “I’ve gone a bit off the deep end, haven’t I? I never imagined I’d turn into one of those women, especially at my age. But I wanted everything to be perfect! Oh, Jessie.”

  Jessie gripped her hand. “It’s okay. I’ve been in the same position. At least the man you’re marrying is incredibly well suited to you. I put my friendships on the line for an unhappy marriage that didn’t last. Now, tell us. No judgments here: we just need to find out who could have done this.”

  Jessie glanced at the chief and a look passed between the two of them. Neither of them said a word but they both knew what it meant.

  If the chief was right and he or Bee was the target, they had to find the culprit before he or she managed to strike again. Jessie had no doubt that they wouldn’t fail a second time. She shuddered.

  Bee’s lips were moving but no words came out. Jessie glanced down and saw that she was counting on her fingers. She sighed and buried her face in her hands.

  “Are you really struggling to count them?”

  “No. Let me see. We already spoke about Darlene. I’ve also had words with Zelda and Freddie, which you know about of course. And Mysty, I suppose. Darlene is always a bit sour so I don’t know whether to count her or not.”

  “Let’s include her just to be on the safe side,” Jessie said, slipping into investigation mode without even realizing. She had sworn off meddling in police business but there was an obvious exception when there was a possibility that her beloved aunt was the intended victim.

  “What about you, Chief?” Melanie asked. “Could it be somebody that you sent to jail? There was that article not so long ago about your arrest record.”

  Chief Daly laughed, but there was no humor in it. “At any other time I’d have been delighted you brought that up, Melanie. Now, not so much. I don’t think it could be somebody I’ve arrested. For one thing, there hadn’t been a crime more serious than a traffic violation in Springdale until last year; at least not since I became chief. So anyone I’ve sent to jail for a serious crime is still in there. I don’t see how they’d have managed to start a fire in Lindemann’s. And how would they have known I was due to get married there?”

  Jessie stifled a laugh. “It’s all over town. I’ve had people who weren’t even invited ask me how the plans were progressing.”

  Aunt Bee cringed. “Oh really? That’s embarrassing. Who was it? I’ll have to invite them when we reschedule. Whenever that may be.”

  “You’ll do no such thing, Beatrice,” the chief shot back. “We were already looking at a crowd of two hundred. More than two hundred! Anyway, we made a down payment to Lindemann’s to cover the food and the wine we ordered. We can’t afford to pay for another wedding.”

  “Won’t you get that money back? The event didn’t go ahead.”

  He shook his head. “I’m sure we will in time, but I don’t want to discuss it with Freddie right now. The poor guy is trying to come to terms with his livelihood being destroyed. That place has been in his family for generations.”

  “It has,” Aunt Bee mused. “It’s such a shame. I can’t believe what you suggested. I don’t think he’d do that to his own legacy.”

  “Maybe we can organize a fundraiser to help him rebuild,” Jessie said, quickly following up with, “after we get to the bottom of the fire. Chief, I just had a thought. Could it be a family member of one of the people you sent to jail?”

  He whistled through his teeth. “I can’t think of one; at least not a close family member. Maybe some of those people had distant cousins or the like, but if they were distant relatives would they really be hell-bent on revenge? You don’t set fire to a public venue unless you really have an ax to grind.”

  Jessie winced. “Any professional rivalries?”

  This time the chief didn’t hold back from laughing. “Jessie! Sometimes it’s clear that part of you is still stuck in big city mode. Of course not. It’s not like I have a whole building full of colleagues. It’s Stanley and Kendall. That’s it. And my assistant. I’ve known them all for at least a decade. I’ve known some of them since they were barely out of diapers.”

  Jessie groaned and glanced down at the junk mail envelope she’d been scribbling on. “Okay, so we’ve got a list of people who might have a grudge against Aunt Bee.” She sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. “But as if right now, Freddie’s the main suspect. I can’t believe it. This is different to all those cases I’ve investigated, even though Freddie was certainly acting strangely right before the fire. Lindemann’s is so busy; so popular. I can’t think why he’d have done this.”

  Mel frowned. “What if it was that guy you saw prowling around before the fire?”

  Jessie glanced at the chief. “I don’t understand why he’d set a fire without first making sure he had a clear escape path.”

  “Maybe that’s what he was doing back there when he was discovered.”

  “No,” Jessie said, remembering. “Why would he go back in there knowing the place was about to go up in flames?”

  Chief Daly nodded. “We’ll look into it. It’s a possibility, but it does seem like a misguided way to hurt an enemy. The guy was the only one fatally hurt by the blaze. Thank goodness those other guests left when they did.”

  “That’s another thing I can’t work out. Why would they sneak away like that and leave the music blaring?”

  Jessie shook her head. “I don’t know, but I wish I could find them and thank them. If they’d been a little bit more considerate, Mike and I could have been in that room when the fire started.”

  “It’s lucky for us too,” Bee muttered. “That Freddie backtracked on keeping Friday clear for us. You know, I thought about hiring the room for Friday too, but it felt extravagant and Freddie talked me out of it.”

  “That was extravagant but a chocolate fountain wasn’t?” Chief Daly asked, quirking his eyebrows.

  “Oh they’re very different things, Charles. One would have delighted our guests but the other was simply a way of guaranteeing us enough time to prepare. Boy am I glad I didn’t book it for that day. And it’s lucky those other people were out of there.”

  Mel heaved out a huge sigh. “Let’s not think about what might have been. I don’t think Freddie would have set fire to the place if we were inside.”

  “Whoa, let’s not jump to conclusions.”

  “But you’re the one who came up with that theory.”


  Jessie swallowed. It was true—she had. But this wasn’t some anonymous manila file her boss had given her to investigate. This was Freddie—her friend.

  “It’s just hard to believe it might be true.”

  Mel nodded. “Better than the idea of someone being out to get Aunt Bee though, right?”

  Jessie shivered. “That’s true. Okay, are you ready? Let’s go speak to these folks and see how they react.”

  Mel nodded.

  Jessie stood and walked to the door. She stopped before leaving the room. “I’ve been thinking. I’m confident we can get this wedding on track again if we all come together. It doesn’t have to be something out of a fairytale, does it?”

  Jessie had expected to argue her case so she was surprised when Bee shook her head.

  “No, it doesn’t,” she said firmly. “I’ve learned my lesson in that respect. We should have kept things small and we’d have been married by now.” She leaned her head on the chief’s shoulder and he stroked her hair.

  “It’s okay, Beatrice. The world is our oyster. All the good wishes in the world can’t will Lindemann’s back into existence though, Jessie.”

  “I know that,” she said ruefully. “But I’m sure we could find another venue if we looked hard enough.” In fact, she had the perfect spot in mind—she just didn’t want to mention it until she had given it a bit more thought.

  “Promise me one thing, Jessie,” her cousin muttered.

  “What’s that, Mel?”

  “Can we track down the person who was responsible for the fire before we start planning another wedding? It’s obvious that they’re dangerous.”

  “Of course,” Aunt Bee said, nodding. “That was what you meant, Jessie, wasn’t it?”

  Jessie winced. The truth was, she’d thought she could do everything: investigate the people on her list while planning another wedding for Bee and the chief. “Sure. Yes. That’s what I meant. Are you sure that’s okay with you? I mean, I thought you wanted to get married as quickly as possible.”

  “The only thing I care about right now is keeping everybody safe and well. The wedding can come after that,” Bee said firmly. “And don’t think I won’t know if you’re planning a wedding when you should be helping Charles find the monster who set that fire.”