Pies Before Guys

Book 4: Pie Town Mystery

by Kirsten Weiss

Genres: Culinary Cozy Mysteries; Female Sleuths; General Fiction; Paranormal Cozy Mysteries; humor; Cozy Mystery; funny; culinary cozy

Synopsis

Val's crime-solving club digs into a piping hot new case!

A poetry slam at a bakery? Why not! Even though Pie Town proprietor Val Harris would rather be spending time with her newfound half-brother, she knows her employee, Abril, is beyond excited to be hosting the event. Especially since it stars the apple pie of Abril's eye, poet and professor Michael Starke. But the evening ends on a sour note when Professor Starke is found murdered mere moments after being accused of plagiarism.

Just like that, Pie Town is at the center of another criminal inquiry. At Abril's request—and much to Detective Carmichael's consternation—Val and Charlene decide to investigate Starke's death. But the case is as tough as an overworked crust and the Baker Street Bakers are only coming up with scraps. If they don't pinch the cultured killer soon, Pie Town's reputation could crumble.

Release date: February 25, 2020

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 320

Sample

A poet was threatening to skewer my freshly painted ceiling, and I had no one to blame but myself.

“Die!” Professor Starke tossed his head, blond locks gleaming beneath Pie Town’s metal overhead lights. Again, he thrust his saber upward, and I tried not to cringe. “Die—”

Plink!

This time I did flinch, and I twisted in my seat to glare.

In a pink corner booth, my seventysomething piecrust maker, Charlene, held a screwdriver in her fist. She raised it over an upturned pie tin.

The darkening sky made a black mirror of the window behind her and reflected her snowy curls. Her white cat, Frederick, lay draped over her shoulders. The two were inseparable, largely because Frederick was too lazy to perambulate on his own four paws.

Charlene punched the screwdriver into the center of the tin, making a hole. With a metallic squeak, she pulled it free and caught my eye.

“Sorry,” she mouthed, looking less than contrite. Charlene slipped the screwdriver into the pocket of her green knit tunic and folded her hands on the Formica table.

I narrowed my eyes at her and got caught in the intent stare of another of the visiting professors. Professor Jezek sat in the row of chairs between Charlene and me. His sunken, near-black eyes and lank gray hair and mustache gave him a Rasputin look. Beads of sweat dampened his domed forehead. His lips moved, soundless. He could have been spellcasting, praying, or reviewing his shopping list. Anything was possible with this crew.

I smiled weakly.

Jezek’s head twitched, and I realized he was looking past me, at the reader.

Grimacing, I returned to facing forward. I’d thought holding a poetry slam in Pie Town might be fun. Chalk that up to the had-I-but-known category.

The reader, Michael Starke, glared at us both. “Die,” he finished, and jerked his saber for what I hoped was one last time toward Pie Town’s ceiling.

But in spite of the flourish, his poem had ended with a whimper, rather than a bang. Not that I’d paid much attention to its beginning or middle. At some point, I’d gotten lost in the poetry professor’s tangles of metaphors.

My employee Abril leaped to her feet and applauded, cheeks glowing. A lock of long, glossy black hair escaped the young woman’s bun. She wore a Pie Town t-shirt, and I beamed with pride. After all, this was Abril’s show. The budding poet worked part-time in the Pie Town kitchen and studied English at the local community college.

Another college-aged, olive-skinned woman rose and clapped as well.

Others joined in. Belatedly, I followed along with the small audience’s less-than-enthusiastic applause.

Professor Starke nodded and cleared his throat. Even in his tweed blazer, he looked more like a beach bum than an authority figure.

I smiled. The poetry reading might not have been a smashing success, but Pie Town was a hit. My insides warmed at the sight of the black-and-white floor, the glass display case (near empty at this time of night), and the neon logo behind the counter. Its big pink smile was irresistible above our motto: Turn Your Frown Upside Down at Pie Town!

“The hole should be round,” Charlene muttered behind me, and I shook my head. I had no idea why my friend was defacing pie tins. As far as I was concerned, ignorance was bliss.

“ ‘Death in a Parking Lot,’” Starke began.

I braced my elbow on the table and tried to look interested.

The bell over the front door jingled, and I straightened, looking toward the door. A stranger walked in and took a seat.

I slumped in my chair. My brother, Doran, was late. What had happened to him?

Since I wouldn’t get any answers listening to bad poetry, I stood and wove through the tables to the kitchen. Baking long over, it smelled of cleaning supplies. The floor-to-ceiling pie oven, industrial refrigerators, and metal countertops gleamed.

Leaning one hip against a counter, I blew out my breath. Why was I so disappointed Doran hadn’t made it? Oh yeah, because he was my only living relative who wasn’t a criminal.

The door swung open, and Charlene breezed into the kitchen. “What a snooze.” She set her damaged pie tin on the pie safe.

I eyed the elderly woman, who still wore Frederick like a stole. She knew the cat wasn’t allowed inside the kitchen, but she had stopped beside our antique pie safe. It was just outside the work area, and she’d declared it a safe zone, pun intended.

“We did sell some pies,” I said. “And the event’s important to Abril.” I wanted to support Abril and the college, even if the school wasn’t strictly in San Nicholas.

“I thought that brother of yours was coming tonight.”

I grabbed a cloth and wiped a counter that was already clean. “He said he might not be able to make it.”

“There’s still a lot you don’t know about him,” she said cautiously.

“Which is why I’m glad he moved to San Nicholas.” We hadn’t known the other had existed until recently. The discovery that I had a half brother had been a shock, but a good one.

“I thought he came here for work.”

“Mostly for work.” But partly because of me. He’d moved to San Nicholas to try his luck as a graphic designer in nearby Silicon Valley. I hoped it worked out for him. Having a family again had filled a hole in my life I’d been refusing to recognize.

The kitchen door edged open, and Abril stuck her head inside. Her brown eyes crinkled with concern. “Val, we need help.”

“What’s wrong?” I straightened off the counter. I didn’t smell smoke, so it couldn’t be too awful.

She fingered the tiny gold cross at the base of her neck. “The reading is over, and people are leaving. But then Professor Starke and Professor McClary began arguing.” Abril edged farther inside the kitchen. “It’s getting kind of heated.”

Charlene grabbed a rubber spatula from a ceramic holder. “A fight in Pie Town? I’ll take care of that.” She bustled out the door.

Ice chilled my midsection. When Charlene decided to “take care of” things, all sorts of bad things happened. Bigfoot hunts. Belly dancers. Boxing matches . . .

“Uh-oh.” I hurried past Abril and into the dining area.

On the opposite side of Pie Town’s counter, the two professors faced off. They wore similar tweed blazers, right down to their elbow patches. But otherwise, they were a study in contrasts. Professor McClary was dark-haired, with soulful, deep-set eyes that hinted at both dreaminess and passion, if that was possible. But tonight, his striking, pale face was mottled with fury.

Starke was more solid. Blond. Tanned. Clear blue eyes. He could have been any of the surfers who ambled into Pie Town after an afternoon riding waves.

Slightly off to the side, Charlene’s white curls quivered, and she scowled at the combatants. Frederick yawned and rested his head on her shoulder.

Professor McClary’s ivory hands fisted, his words flowing in an Irish lilt. “That was derivative at best and plagiarism at worst!”

Professor Starke’s lip curled, his blue eyes blazing. I was suddenly glad he’d left his sword at the podium.

“It’s not your story at all.” He glanced over his shoulder.

McClary’s elegant nostrils flared. “Eff off.”

“Hack.”

Charlene’s hand snaked out. She whacked Starke in the ear with the rubber spatula.

He jumped and rubbed his ear. “Ow!”

“I’ll have none of that language.” She shook her spatula at him. “Pie Town’s a family restaurant.”

“What language?” he asked. “I called him a hack.”

“Hack?” She rubbed her chin with the tip of the spatula. “I thought you said something else.”

The Irishman stiffened. “Your blasted poem—”

Charlene raised her spatula. “Watch it, Riverdance.”

McClary edged backward and eyed her warily, his lips twitching. “Never mind.”

“Academics,” Charlene growled.

Professor McClary turned to me with a smile and bowed shortly. “I’m mortified by my bad manners. Thank you, Ms. Harris, for hosting us tonight.”

Call me weak, but it’s hard to stay annoyed at a man with an Irish accent.

“I don’t think the dean would have come without the lure of pie,” Professor Starke said in a low voice. He nodded toward a gray-haired man of Santa Claus proportions and wearing the inevitable tweed.

Through his glasses, the dean studied the remaining treats—individual servings of pie in mason jars—on the glass counter. He scratched his neatly trimmed beard.

“You’re welcome,” I said. “But it was all due to Abril. The poetry reading was her idea.”

Abril edged from the kitchen and into the dining area. Pretending not to hear us, she scuttled to the podium she’d set up in front of the booths.

Professor Starke smiled, his oceanic eyes gleaming. “I’ll be sure to thank her. She’s one of my best students.”

“I’ve no doubt,” I said, watching Abril blush. “She’s an amazing poet. And she’s right over there.” I pointed toward the podium on the opposite side of the room. Abril had brought it from the college for the occasion.

The bell jangled over the front door, signaling the audience’s slow departure. A black-clad figure struggled against the flow and made his way inside the restaurant. My heart lifted. Doran.

Although his mother was Japanese, Doran and I looked a lot alike. Same oval-shaped face. Same blue eyes. His thick black hair, however, tended to fall into his face, hiding them. My long, brown hair was almost always pulled into a bun, as it was tonight. It’s a food-service thing.

My brother sketched a casual wave, the shoulders of his black motorcycle jacket lifting. “Hey, Val,” he called. “Sorry I’m late.” He smiled at Abril. “I’ll help with the cleanup.”

Hawklike, Charlene watched the two professors, who’d begun arguing again. She slowly raised the spatula.

“Um, Charlene?” I asked, glancing Doran’s way. “Would you mind helping me with something in the kitchen?” As much as I wanted to chat with my brother, the only way to guarantee no more spatula assaults was to get her away from the two professors.

Charlene folded her arms over her green tunic. “I’m piecrusts only, remember? I don’t do cleanup.”

“This is about the piecrusts.”

“What about them?”

“I’m thinking of changing the recipe,” I said, feeling desperate. If she hit one of the professors again, she might get charged with assault.

“What?” Her eyes widened. Our piecrusts were her own not-so-secret recipe. “You don’t mess with perfection!”

Behind the counter, I backed out of spatula-striking distance. “Still, our other changes have been successful.” I nodded to the top of the display case, and the pies in mason jars. There were only a handful of the jars left—they’d been an audience favorite.

She charged through the Dutch door and into striking range. “Change the crust! You can’t do it.”

I fled into the kitchen, Charlene close behind me.

She teetered to a halt on the tips of her hi-tops just inside the door and adjusted the cat on her shoulders. “Adding chocolate to the mix for your holiday pies is one thing,” she said. “But a recipe change? I’ll quit!”

I raised my hands in a defensive gesture. “Your crusts are perfection, and I’m not going to change a thing. I just needed to talk to you privately.”

She dropped the spatula, and it clattered on the metal counter. “So talk.”

My mind hamster-wheeled. I couldn’t exactly tell her this had been a ruse to keep her from assaulting more visiting professors. “Any cases for the Baker Street Bakers on the horizon?” I asked, grasping at straws. The Baker Street Bakers was our not-so-armchair crime-solving club. It had only two regular members—Charlene and myself. But we had allowed in the occasional associate, like my boyfriend, Detective Gordon Carmichael.

She slumped against the counter. “Not since the mystery of Gil Diefenderfer’s missing surfboard.”

And that hadn’t been much of a mystery. His wife had “lost” it at a church sale in a vain attempt to free up his time for more household chores.

“What’s with the pie tin?” I asked.

“Oh, this?” She picked up the tin and held it in front of her face. I guessed she was staring through the hole she’d punched in its center, but it was too small for me to really tell. “It’s our newest promotion.”

I eyed it askance. “Pie tins with holes?” We’d already added pie-baking classes, and sampler plates, and pies in a jar. I loved all the fun ideas, but I was starting to feel overwhelmed.

“It’s the famous McMinnville UFO hoax of 1950!”

I stared, uncomprehending.

“Oh, come on. Even you’ve seen those UFO photos. They were reprinted in Life magazine! The so-called UFO was obviously a pie tin hung on a wire. It was also just as obviously a false-flag operation.”

“False flag?” I asked.

“Designed to divert attention from our country’s real UFO problem,” she said darkly.

Moving along. “And this has to do with promoting Pie Town because . . . ?”

“Because we make pies, and I have the hottest paranormal Twitter feed this side of Northern California.”

Okay, the scheme was probably harmless, even if I did lose some perfectly good pie tins in the process. “Excellent idea. I’m in.”

“You are? Good. Because I know you’re still a bit iffy about UFOs, even if you were never abducted by one.” Charlene managed to sound disappointed by that fact. She brightened. “Now I’ve got an old fishing rod we can use—”

“Whatever you need.” Anything beat clambering on the nearby cliffs hunting Bigfoot or chasing mythical fairies in the dog park. And yes, Charlene had dragged me into those adventures and more. I’d gotten the poison oak to prove it.

Charlene sat on the stool beside our old-fashioned pie safe and made a list, while Frederick snoozed. I cleaned and loaded dishes into the industrial washer.

Abril and Doran set the dining area in order and lugged plastic bins of dirty plates into the kitchen. I presumed Doran was helping because he felt guilty about being late. Whatever the reason, I’d take it.

The kitchen door swung open, and my boyfriend, Gordon, strode into the kitchen in his favorite navy suit.

My heart jumped at the sight of the tall, dark, and handsome detective. He’d had to work tonight and hadn’t been able to make the poetry reading, but he’d come.

Charlene looked up from her notepad. “You missed—”

He hauled me roughly against him, wrapping his muscular arms around my midriff and pulling me into a bone-melting kiss.

My knees wobbled. I gasped coming up for air.

From the corner, Charlene whistled. “Detective Carmichael! Unhand that young woman.”

Gordon ignored her, his jade eyes boring intently into mine. “Val, there’s something I need to ask you.”

My heart pounded faster. We hadn’t been dating long. I hadn’t even met his parents. Did he want me to meet his parents? Or . . . something more serious? Surely not. He knew I’d had a disastrous broken engagement. I wanted to be absolutely certain before jumping into anything permanent.

“Sure.” I gulped.

His head bent closer, and his voice dropped to a rumble. “Where were you between the hours of eight and nine o’clock tonight?”

The kitchen door drifted back and forth, its motions slowing creakily.

I gaped at my boyfriend. Uh, what? “Why, Detective Carmichael,” I joked, pressing a hand to my heart and laughing uneasily, “this is so sudden.”

He released me, stepping away. “I’m serious.”

Charlene rose from her stool by the door, her joints cracking. It was getting late in the evening. She must be exhausted. On her shoulders, Frederick yawned.

“Oh.” I gnawed my bottom lip. Well then, why the heck had he given me that Rhett Butler kiss? And hang on. Serious? Serious about my whereabouts? I looked about the sparkling kitchen for answers and found none.

“So were you here?” he asked.

“Sorry,” I said, all business. “Yeah, I was here, with Charlene.” Baffled, I stared at his chiseled face. Did I need an alibi? What was going on?

In the dining area, a chair scraped across the floor.

“And I guess Abril and Doran are still here.” A wash of heat flushed through me, as if I’d been standing too close to the pie oven. Doran would have said goodbye before leaving, wouldn’t he? “But you would already know if they were because you came through the dining area. What’s going on?”

He pulled his cell phone from his blazer’s inside pocket and handed it to me. Professor Starke’s tanned face stared blankly from the screen, his blond hair mussed. Blood trickled from one corner of his mouth.

I gasped. “That’s—Is that . . . ?” I took an involuntary step back and bumped into the metal counter.

“What?” Charlene asked. Her white cat’s ear flicked, his tail coiling around her neck. “What’s happened?”

“Do you recognize that man?” Gordon asked me.

I nodded, swallowing. “That’s Michael Starke—Professor Starke. He was here thirty minutes ago.” And he’d been alive. It didn’t seem possible that he wasn’t anymore.

I scrubbed a hand over my face, heaviness dulling my chest. What had happened? A car accident? And poor Abril—did she know yet?

Gordon reached into another pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of goldenrod paper. He opened it. “He was the star of your poetry reading, right?”

“Not my poetry reading,” I bleated. “I mean, yeah. I guess.” Why was I so defensive? This was awful, but it had nothing to do with Pie Town.

“Who? What?” Charlene grabbed his phone from my hand and sucked in her breath. “Great googly moogly, that’s the blowhard blond professor. Who killed him?”

“That’s what we’re trying to determine,” Gordon said. “You said he left thirty minutes ago. Are you sure?”

I looked to Charlene, and she shook her head.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. This was awful. How could this have happened? I reached to scrape my hand through my hair, then remembered it was in a bun. “The reading ended around eight, and then I was back here loading the dishwasher for the most part. I didn’t see him go. Abril and Doran may know exactly when he left.”

“When’s the last time you did see Professor Starke?”

I shot a wary glance at Charlene. “Um, he was the last person to read. Abril came into the kitchen to warn me that he and another professor, Professor McClary, were arguing. So I went to see what was going on. Fortunately, Charlene calmed them down, and Charlene and I returned to the kitchen. I didn’t see anything after that. Did you, Charlene?”

She shook her head. “Has Starke got a small red mark on his right ear?” she asked.

Gordon nodded.

“Tell your coroner not to worry about it,” she said. “That was me. Whacked him with a spatula. It’s got nothing to do with the murder. How was he killed?”

I smothered a groan.

Gordon’s expression didn’t change. “You hit him with a spatula?”

“Well, he deserved it,” she said. “He and that Aidan fellow—”

“Aidan?” Gordon asked.

“The whole English department must have been here,” she said. “Dean Prophet; that guy who looked like a Russian hippie, Jezek; and Aidan McClary. One of those arty-farty Irish poets. If you ask me, his parents must have been hippies. Anyway, things were getting heated, so I decided to cool things down.”

“By hitting Mr. Starke with a spatula.” Gordon’s tone was flat.

“It was only a rubber spatula,” she said. “I wouldn’t have used a metal one. Not on an ear.”

“The point is,” I said quickly, “we didn’t see him leave.” And not that Charlene had assaulted a future murder victim. I forced a smile.

“Don’t look at me that way.” Charlene folded her arms over her green knit tunic and jerked her chin at me. “I’ve got an alibi.”

Gordon rubbed the back of one thumb across his brow. “All right. I’ll have a word with Abril and Doran.” He strode toward the swinging door.

I hurried after him and touched his jacket sleeve.

“Did you remember something else?” he asked, turning.

“So what was that big kiss all about?” I asked. “Not that I minded or anything, but under the circumstances . . .”

He grinned. “Potential conflict of interest diverted.”

I gave him a questioning look.

“Just in case you were a material witness in the murder and got me knocked off the case. Again. I wanted to get that kiss in first. The chief is starting to wonder about all the Pie Town–related murders this town has been having.”

“Pie Town–related? That’s not true.” Just because I’d found a body or two in the past, and . . .

Oh. They kind of all had been indirectly linked to Pie Town. “Did Chief Shaw really say that?” I asked, anxious.

“Don’t worry about it.” He pulled me into another quick embrace. “I may have more questions for you later.”

He vanished through the swinging kitchen door.

“Don’t worry about it?” I sputtered. How could I not worry about it?

Charlene stared at the door, her eyes narrowing.

“He had to be joking, right?” I asked her. “Chief Shaw can’t really believe Pie Town is at the center of some sort of... criminal conspiracy!”

“Well . . .” She adjusted Frederick around her neck.

“Well what? Don’t tell me the town thinks Pie Town is a murder vortex.”

“No, of course not. But you know how Shaw is. Er, how much does he know about your father?”

My father. My stomach hit the kitchen’s black fatigue mat. Shaking myself, I returned to loading the dishwasher. “I don’t know what happened to Professor Starke, but this had nothing to do with Pie Town or my father.”

I took my time setting the dishes and coffee cups in their racks and tried not to think of the man who’d given me his genetic code. I wasn’t like my dad. Everyone had to know that. Besides, my father was a lot of things, but he was no killer. Just a weird sort of enforcer for the mob.

Totally different.

I added soap to the dishwasher and turned it on. Spraying a cloth with cleaning fluid, I wiped down a lot of things that didn’t need cleaning.

“You know. . .