Live and Let Pie Page 12

  “Fork yeah!” Bethany shouted.

  “What?” I cracked up.

  She threw her hand over her mouth. “Sorry. Did that sound bad? I said ‘fork yeah.’ It’s just a funny saying that one of my favorite celebrity chefs says on his show.”

  “I heard you correctly.”

  “Okay, whew. But, OMG, Jules. OMG! I love it! I absolutely love it!” Bethany clapped so fast that her fuchsia-pink-nail polish flashed in a blaze of color. “Steph is going to flip out. I mean like totally flip out. Should I interrupt her?” She paused and shook her head. “No, I’ll wait. She looks pretty intent on that piping. I’ll go tell Andy instead. He’ll be totally into the idea.”

  I couldn’t picture Stephanie flipping out, but I was glad to see that Bethany was excited about the idea. I watched her rush upstairs. At least my staff was happy and oblivious to Edgar’s murder.

  I knew that the only thing that would help clear my head was baking. First, I needed to bake another round of cakes for the one I was ditching and then I wanted to bake something sweet and summery to take my mind off murder. I decided on Neapolitan cupcakes. We had received four flats of fresh strawberries. I would start with a strawberry cake, filled with vanilla buttercream and frosted with chocolate buttercream. Then I would drizzle each cupcake with white and semisweet chocolate sauce and finish it with a whole strawberry. It should make for a delicious afternoon snack or postshow treat.

  I got to work whipping butter and sugar in one of the industrial mixers. Then I incorporated fresh vanilla bean seeds, buttermilk, eggs, and sifted in flour, salt, and baking soda. As I rinsed and destemmed mounds of juicy, ripe strawberries my thoughts drifted away from Edgar’s murder. Soon I was lost in thoughts of a grand Ashland tour. There couldn’t be a better way to show off the wonderful, creative things happening in the Rogue Valley than with a custom tour of the places that had helped shape me. The more I thought about it, the more I loved the idea.

  I pressed the strawberries through a strainer. I wanted the cupcakes to have chunks of strawberries and their juice. Soon I had a fragrant pulpy mash to add to the batter.

  Once the batter had turned a dainty pink I used an ice-cream scoop to pour equal amounts of batter into cupcake tins. They would bake for ten to twelve minutes and then I would allow them to cool before frosting them.

  With that task complete and the kitchen humming, I decided to take a quick walk over to Ashland Springs and pitch the idea. Two Eurasian doves swept above my head as I crossed the street and headed south to Ashland’s iconic hotel. The summer tourists were out in force. They walked four-across on the sidewalk, their arms loaded with shopping bags. Not a day went by when I didn’t feel grateful that with the plethora of vacation options in this world, people still chose to come to our little corner of Oregon. Without the revenue that the tourist crowds brought in, Ashland might become a ghost town, like Malcolm had warned.

  I was about to head into the historic hotel when I spotted two young travelers panhandling by the Lithia fountains. They had two cats on makeshift leashes. I did a double take. Were those really leashes? On cats?

  Yep. My eyes weren’t playing tricks on me. The well-groomed cats were tethered together with leashes made of braided rope.

  The travelers were easy to spot with their tattered clothes and cardboard signs. One read: THIS CEREAL KILLER NEEDS SOME DOUGH.

  Ha! I chuckled internally. I had to give them credit for thinking outside of the standard “I need cash” box. The difference between Ashland’s vagabond population and the homeless families that Gretchen had been tasked to serve was that travelers had opted for a wanderlust lifestyle. They hopped from city to city along the West Coast. Sometimes following the weather. Sometimes a hiking trail. Or even a band. Many of them drove Priuses and had nicer cell phones than any of my staff. These weren’t desperate people in need of food and shelter. They simply embraced a different path.

  I walked up Main Street where many shops were hosting summer sidewalk sales. I stopped briefly to say hello to a few of my fellow shop owners. One of them pointed up the street in the direction of Ashland Springs. “Have you heard about the protests?”

  “No. What protest?”

  “Malcolm from OSF has staged a walkout for minimum-wage workers. They’ve shut down the street in front of the hotel. They’re protesting the lack of affordable housing.”

  I thanked the shop owner for the tip and hurried to the hotel. Sure enough a few hundred people had gathered on Main Street in front of the iconic historic hotel. They waved cardboard signs and chanted, “Affordable housing now! Affordable housing now!”

  Malcolm was in the middle of the action. He held a sign that read: ACTORS NEED BEDS AND ROOFS OVER THEIR HEADS!

  Thomas and a handful of other police officers were trying to gain control over the swelling crowd. He stood on one of the hotel’s outdoor bistro tables and raised his voice, trying to get their attention.

  Everyone chanted louder. “Inclusion not exclusion zones!”

  “Listen up,” Thomas yelled from the table. “Your cause deserves a hearing, but you can’t protest here without an official permit.”

  This made the group roar. Malcolm led the protestors in a freedom song. “I want to know what freedom is. I want to know where freedom lives!” They repeated this over and over.

  It seemed strange that as a mid-level employee of OSF, he would personally be involved in an unsanctioned protest.

  Thomas tried to quell the boisterous cheers. He looked to his reinforcements. They were outnumbered. Five police officers and cadets in blue uniforms flanked both sides of the hotel. Detective Kerry stood blocking the hotel’s entrance.

  As I stared at the crowd, I realized it was a mix of actors and retail, hotel, and restaurant workers who were protesting the ever-growing housing costs, but there were also several homeless people and travelers. Their mission was different. They were protesting in response to the city’s exclusion zone downtown and along Main Street that banned camping and panhandling.

  “Let’s start moving along, folks.” Thomas remained calm. “If you want to hold a formal protest you need to go through the permitting process.”

  Malcolm raised his fist in the air. “Let’s take this to the green stage! Let’s show our patrons the real Ashland!”

  A huge portion of the crowd followed him. Traffic swerved to avoid them as they marched toward OSF in the middle of the street. About twenty or thirty protestors remained. These were the travelers and homeless advocates who were unhappy with the city’s panhandling ordinance.

  “No exclusion zones! No exclusion zones!” they shouted.

  Thomas might have been able to get the crowd to disperse, but Detective Kerry stormed toward them with a megaphone in her hand. “I command you to clear the sidewalk immediately.” She didn’t waste any time trying to break up the gathering. “Move. Now.”

  This infuriated the homeless protestors.

  “I’m going to start arresting people if I don’t see movement—now!” Detective Kerry whipped out a pair of handcuffs.

  A few of the protestors took off.

  Thomas stayed on his perch on the table. “Listen, folks, there’s a right way and a wrong way to do this. Let’s all remain calm.”

  Kerry continued to direct the protestors with the help of her bullhorn. Tourists began to gather at the ice-cream shop to see what the commotion was all about.

  “We are human beings! You can’t exclude us!” a woman near the front of the group shouted and then spit near Detective Kerry’s feet.

  Kerry took this as a personal assault. In a lightning-fast move, she had the woman’s hands secured behind her back. “Let’s go. I’m taking you in.”

  Thomas looked pained. I knew that he had built personal relationships with the vast majority of Ashland’s travelers and homeless. Kerry’s style was in complete opposition to Thomas’s. While she dragged the woman down toward the police station, Thomas used a different tactic. “Can I buy everyone a
slice?”

  The leader of the group nodded. “Okay.”

  “Meet you at Tony’s Flying Pies in ten minutes. Take a minute to think about what you want to accomplish, and I’ll see what I can do to help.”

  With that the crowd dwindled apart.

  “That was impressive,” I said, as Thomas climbed off the table.

  “Nah. None of these guys are a threat. They want to cause a scene more than anything. I’ve learned that a slice of pizza or a hot cup of coffee can do wonders for negotiating and for keeping the peace.”

  “Well played.”

  He took out his mini iPad. “You know that police app that I’ve been working on?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, this is the first alert that came through on it.”

  “Alert?”

  He clicked on the iPad and showed me the Ashland City Police app that he had created. The goal of the app was to keep citizens informed, share alerts, and further community support. “We’ve had a few people running the beta version of the app, and the owner of the ice-cream shop sent in this picture and notification that there was a group gathering. Isn’t that cool?”

  Sure enough there was a picture of the crowd and a note from the ice-cream shop owner in Thomas’s app. “That’s great, but there’s one problem.”

  “A problem?” Thomas stared at his phone. “What? You don’t like the design? I went with yellow and blue because they’re Ashland’s signature colors and we want the app to be user friendly and positive. See the cute little police dog in the corner? That’s Rover—for our roving reporters.”

  “I like the app, but I can’t believe I didn’t make the cut for the beta. I thought we were friends.”

  He grinned. “We’re friends, Jules, always.” There was a subtle shift in his posture. If I hadn’t known him for so many years, I probably wouldn’t have even noticed it. “You can make the cut. I’ll send you an invite. The only reason I didn’t ask you was because I knew how busy you’ve been with the expansion.”

  “I’m never too busy to help a friend.”

  “Thanks. You have to be brutally honest. Anything that feels clunky, or you don’t like the flow, design, whatever, you have to promise to tell me, okay?”

  “Deal.”

  He turned in the direction of the pizza place. “Hey, what are you doing here anyway? Were you looking for me?”

  “No. I was going to Ashland Springs.” I told him about our social media giveaway idea.

  “That’s awesome. Count me in. I’ll give the winner a guided police escort through town, and I’m sure my parents will donate flowers.”

  “I’ll stop by the shop later,” I said, crossing the street with him. “Is there any more news on Edgar’s murder? Are you sure that he was murdered?”

  “We’re never sure until we see the coroner’s report, but it’s definitely looking that way. Why?”

  I told him about my theory that Edgar had killed himself because he couldn’t live with the guilt of killing George any longer.

  We waited at the next intersection for a family of deer to cross the street. Tourists snapped photos and clapped in delight as they watched the deer trot across the street. “It’s an idea,” Thomas said. “I’ll share it with the Professor, but why now? Sure, there’s the skull, but that alone isn’t enough for a conviction.”

  “Did you find anything else in the lake? The Professor mentioned something the other day about a potential murder weapon, but he didn’t elaborate.”

  “Actually we did. We found an old rusty hammer that matches the blunt-force trauma on the skull, but there’s no chance of getting prints off it. It’s been submerged underwater for fifty years.”

  We continued on. “I know you’re due for a pizza roundtable soon, but I wanted to tell you about my conversation with Gretchen last night if you have a minute.”

  Thomas squared his shoulders. “I’m all ears.”

  I explained how I had dropped off pastries at the homeless council and about Gretchen’s odd reaction to Edgar’s murder.

  “Really. That is interesting.” Thomas made a couple notes on his iPad.

  “Why?”

  He glanced around us to make sure that no one was listening. “This is between us, understood?”

  I gave him a solemn nod.

  “We have a reliable witness who spotted someone fleeing the scene last night. Guess who they saw sneaking down the alley right around the time of death?”

  “Gretchen?”

  Thomas pursed his lips. “Yep. The Professor is on his way to question her again, but this case might be closed before the end of the day.” He tucked his iPad back into his pocket. “Can I tempt you with a slice of mile-high meat?”

  “No, thanks.” I declined. He left to go appease the protestors with pizza. I wondered if he was right. All signs pointed to Gretchen as a killer.

  Chapter Fourteen

  As expected Ashland Springs and every other business I approached with the giveaway idea agreed. I couldn’t wait to tell Steph and Bethany that we had a package that was sure to give one lucky winner a weekend to remember. There was one more person I wanted to ask before I headed back to Torte—Lance.

  I retraced my steps along Main Street and turned left on Pioneer Street. The OSF welcome center on the corner had a display of Belle’s costume from last year’s production of Beauty and the Beast in the window. The dress was a work of art with miles of yellow silk and a hand-darted bodice.

  I headed up Pioneer toward the bricks, as locals refer to the outdoor brick courtyard where the green show takes place before every evening performance. The protestors had dispersed but many of their abandoned signs littered the steps above the Green Stage and had been propped up along the outside of the Elizabethan theater.

  Lance, flanked by his entourage, stood with his back propped up against the Bowmer Theater. He did not look happy. The object of his anger was none other than Malcolm.

  I moved closer past the stage where a couple of OSF workers were gathering the protest signs. A band, which I assumed was the evening’s headliner, was trying to unload their equipment but had to wait for the crew to clear the discarded cardboard.

  “Pull a trick like that again and you’re fired,” Lance said to Malcolm, scolding him with his index finger.

  Given Lance’s status with the company most staff members would have acquiesced and left with their tails tucked between their legs. Not Malcolm. He squared his shoulders. “If we want to solve the housing crisis we’re going to have to break some rules. We’re going to have to play dirty. The city isn’t going to listen unless we demand that they listen.”

  Lance fumed. “Enough, Malcolm. Enough. This is not how we operate. There’s a time and a place for protests. You crossed a line and you’ve trashed the bricks.”

  Malcolm started to respond.

  Lance held his finger in the air. “Not another word. Go help the crew clean this mess up.”

  I knew from experience that it took a lot to rattle Lance. He didn’t get angry often, but when he did, it was like a scene from Henry V. I thought about ducking back to Torte. Lance didn’t appear to be in the mood to chat about Ashland giveaways. But he spotted me.

  “Well, well, to what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked with a catlike grin, strolling over to the stage.

  “Do you have a minute? I want to run an idea by you, but…” I trailed off and pointed at Malcolm who had begun picking up the signs.

  “For you, my darling, I have all the time in the world.” He rolled his eyes. “Malcolm is low on my list for the moment. Very low.”

  He walked with me to a shaded area in front of the Tudor Guild gift shop. “Please tell me you’re here because of our latest case. I could use a happy distraction.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Our case, of course, darling. Why else would you be here?”

  “I came to talk to you about donating some tickets for a giveaway we’re planning.”

 
“Pish-posh.” Lance flicked his hand in disgust. “Take as many tickets as you want. Name your show. You don’t need to ask. Tell the box office I approved the request.”

  “That’s very generous of you, but don’t you want to know more about the giveaway?”

  Lance placed his long, slender hands on each of my shoulders and pretended to shake me. “Juliet, the game is afoot, and you want to talk about giveaways? Have you lost your mind?”

  “The game is afoot?” Sometimes Lance was too much for me.

  “Murder, darling. Murder.”

  “Are you talking about Edgar?”

  He let out an exasperated sigh. “Finally, the lights go on.” He flashed his fingers open and shut, mimicking a spotlight turning on and off. “Yes, I’m talking about Edgar.”

  “How did you know?”

  Lance folded his arms across his chest. He narrowed his eyes and stared at me. “Please. This again?”

  “Okay, okay.” I threw my hands up in surrender. “I forgot you are always in the know when it comes to anything in Ashland.”

  “Exactly. And don’t you forget it.” He brushed his hands together. “Now, let’s get on to the details. What do you know so far?”

  “Not much.” I shared a condensed version of what I had told Thomas.

  Lance stopped me. “No. No. That’s impossible.”

  “What?”

  “The mousy homeless advocate. I’m all for a jaw-dropping plot twist, but I don’t see it. Not Gretchen.”

  “But she was seen in the alley and when I spoke with her last night she knew that Edgar had been murdered. Why would she jump to that conclusion? He was old. I have to think that most people would have assumed that he died of natural causes.”

  “Not necessarily. And, let’s not discount what we’ve learned in our past sleuthing adventures.”

  I wasn’t sure that was how I would describe it. “What’s that?” I said to Lance.

  “You know as well as I do that simply being seen at a murder scene does not make one the killer.”

  “Yes, but it’s more than that. She wanted Edgar’s property. She’s desperate for a place for her new homeless village.” I fanned my hand in front of my face. The temperature was climbing.