Carnations and Chaos Read online

  "I'll bet the girls are excited, Franki," I said.

  Franki was a business owner and single mother to four teenagers. She was amazing.

  "Oh yes. They will each make a hundred dollars. I can tell you those two have already been scouring the internet for things to buy with that money. I suggested something practical like school supplies or new winter coats and they nearly laughed me out of their bedroom." She straightened the menus in her hand. "I'll get this order in."

  Elsie seemed to have revived some. She sat back with her glass of ice water. "I know several of the food bloggers coming in for the fair. I went to pastry school with a couple of them. One of them, Marian Fitch, is quite famous and wealthy now." Elsie crinkled her nose. "A most undeserving woman at that. She was terribly unlikable. But she has a bestselling cookbook. Although, knowing Marian, she probably stole most of the recipes."

  Lola sat forward. "Enough about Marian." Her brown eyes twinkled as she looked across the table at me. "The big question is—who are you going to dance with first tomorrow night, Pink? Dash or Detective Briggs?" Yolanda had decided to kick off the weekend fair with a big dance.

  My cheeks warmed. I hadn't expected the question nor had I given the dance or my prospective partners much thought. "First, who said I was planning to dance? And secondly, if Detective James Briggs shows up to the dance, I will eat my hat."

  Lola patted down her own straw hat, one of many hats she wore to tame down her curly red hair. "You don't wear a hat, so you'll have to eat mine."

  "Seriously, I've hardly talked to Detective Briggs since I helped him solve Beverly Kent's murder. He's a busy man, and he is the least likely person I expect to see at the dance. I'm sure Dash will be there, but then, I'm also sure his 'dance card' is probably already full. Which is absolutely fine."

  Lola shook her head. "That's a terrible attitude. It's a dance, my friend, and I expect to see you out on the dance floor strutting your stuff and doing embarrassing dance moves just like the rest of us."

  I laughed. "We'll see."

  Chapter 3

  The southwest corner of Port Danby, where the Pickford Lighthouse stood watch over the steep, granite and shale cliffs, was a lovely choice for the food fair. The town square afforded a picturesque view of the wilderness that lay just beyond the city offices. The tiny brick house that was the mayor's office and the neighboring, uninspiring buildings next to it had a stunning backdrop of various tall trees, each lush with crisp autumn foliage. The leaves of towering ash trees fluttered in the coastal breeze like a swarm of boysenberry and blush pink butterflies. Several majestic red maples stretched their thinning branches, filling the sky with pops of crimson red. The delicate, frilly leaves of the katsura trees framed the gray shingles of the roof tops with a smear of honey yellow. And farther in, ironwood trees surrounded the town square like obedient sentries, boasting wide leaves that reminded me of a glowing orange sunset.

  "I love fall, don't you?" I asked Yolanda as I handed her two more carnation vases. She barely took the time to respond.

  Yolanda had a good ten years plus on me, but the spry woman was running circles around me as we helped deliver flowers and balloons to each of the booths. Plain, utilitarian style booths with white canopies had been set up along the entire border of the town square. The flowers and balloons would add some nice color, but the real color would come once the bloggers hung banners and piled luscious treats for display and sampling. Several of the bloggers had arrived early and were already decorating their booths.

  One woman, who looked a few years older than me, was hanging a long banner with the blog name, 'Down Home Comfy' emblazoned in bright blue along a pink gingham checked background. She seemed a little nervous or excited or maybe both. Or maybe it was just the extremely large cup of coffee sitting on the corner of her booth next to the massive bottle of cooking oil. She had thin red hair, that she made seem even thinner by wearing it long and combed down the middle. I noticed a long string of whimsical butterflies tattooed along the inside of her arm as I handed her a cluster of balloons.

  "Hello, I'm your resident balloon and flower distributor, Lacey Pinkerton. I own the flower shop in town." I shook her hand.

  "Twyla Walton of Down Home Comfy. Which I guess is obvious because of the banner." Her fingers shook a bit as she stuck her hair behind her ears. "Sorry, I'm a little overwhelmed. This is my first fair."

  "Mine too." I pointed at the balloons. "Of course, I'm just handing out decorations. I'm sure you'll do fine." I leaned back and read the small print on the banner. "First, let me say, I love your logo. You can't go wrong with a quirky drawing of a cross-eyed sheep. I will have to visit your blog. I see you specialize in southern comfort food. I'm a big fan of food that gives comfort."

  She smiled, but it was weak, a bit forced. She really was uneasy. "I'm sort of new to southern cooking. I used to be a pastry chef but that's over." Twyla waved her hand, giving short flight to her ink butterflies, before fidgeting with her hair again. "Anyhow, that's not important. Thank you so much for the balloons."

  "I'll let you get back to setting up. If you need anything, just yell." As I turned to walk away, a deep voice rained down on me from above.

  "O.K. I need help."

  I spun around and shaded my eyes to keep down the glare from the blue sky. But even with the blinding sunlight, it was easy to see Dash's wide smile.

  "How could I possibly have missed my six foot plus neighbor standing on a ladder?"

  "You forgot incredibly handsome." Dash pointed to the tool box on the ground. Yolanda had him stringing garlands of lights around and across the town square. "Could you bring me the wire cutters from that box? They look like angry edged pliers."

  I put my hands on my hips. "Excuse me, but I am a florist. I think I can pick out a pair of wire cutters."

  Dash laughed. "What was I thinking?"

  I rummaged through the tools and found the wire cutters. I walked to the bottom of the ten to twelve foot ladder and stared up at the bottom of Dash's work boots. "I have the pliers."

  "Great. Just climb up a few rungs, and I should be able to reach them. If I let this strand go, it'll fall and get tangled. And I've spent more than enough time untangling these lights."

  "You asked for the wire cutters, but you didn't mention that it required climbing." I held the wire cutters as well as I could as I took hold of the ladder with both hands. "Will it hold us both?"

  "Sure. Just climb steadily. The entire thing is balancing against a light pole."

  I managed to get three rungs up without causing any catastrophe. "This is it. I'm at my climbing adventure limit." Clinging to the ladder with my free hand, I stretched my arm up. The ladder wobbled a bit as Dash leaned down and snatched it from my fingers.

  Precarious as our balancing act seemed, he took the time to flash me a flirtatious smile. "First dance tomorrow night?"

  "Me? I suppose. But I have to warn you, I don't dance much better than I climb ladders."

  "Then you're in luck because I am a fine dancer. I think it's in the Vanhouten blood."

  I laughed and climbed back down. "Right, what with all those elaborate balls and glitzy parties you Vanhoutens have to attend." Dash's real name, Dashwood Vanhouten the third had been fabricated by his father, a salesman, who wanted people to think he came from a rich, important family. The man was clearly brilliant.

  "Yoo hoo, Lacey," Yolanda called across the square. She was holding another cluster of balloons. I headed over to her and took hold of the balloons.

  Two very young looking bloggers, a man and a woman, were hanging a banner that had the letters DAB printed across it. The small print said vegan recipes for people who love adventure and our furry friends.

  "Here are some balloons to decorate your booth. I'm Lacey, if you need anything."

  "Hey, how's it going? Byron, and this is my girlfriend, Daisy." Byron was a little shorter than me, (and I wasn't tall) with a long red beard, a purple knit beanie and an oversized shirt.
Daisy had a felt bowler pressed down over her short dark hair, and one ear had at least a dozen tiny gold hoops running along the lobe.

  Byron tied a balloon to the pole holding up the canopy. "Actually, do you know where we can buy some wheat grass for our power smoothies? Daisy forgot to pack the wheat grass."

  "The wheat grass was your responsibility," Daisy chirped from the back of the booth where she was busy pulling ingredients out of linen shopping bags.

  "I can't think of any shop in Port Danby that has it, but I know there's a health food store in Mayfield, which is the town just east of here."

  "Oh right. That's where we're staying. In the Mayfield Hotel," Byron said.

  I was surprised. I took them as more of the toss up a tent on the beach type of duo but then what did I know. "So some of the bloggers are staying in Mayfield? I just assumed everyone was staying here at the Port Danby Motel. But thinking about it, that makes sense. There aren't that many rooms in the motel."

  "Yeah, we saw a few of the fair participants pulling into the hotel parking lot as we left. Daisy and I wanted to get a head start. We've got lots of fruits and vegetables to cut."

  "Well, I will let you get back to work. Just let me know if you need anything."

  "Yoo hoo, Lacey!" Yolanda called, yet again, from across the square. At this rate, I might just be too tired for the dance.

  Chapter 4

  Elsie, who I'd quickly discovered was never one to stay grumpy or melancholy for long, had come up with a brilliant plan during her Wednesday evening run. She'd surmised that the one treat that would not be served at the fair were Port Danby Icon Cookies. Of course, those did not exist until her brilliantly clever mind came up with them. Each massive sugar cookie would have a fondant decoration of one of three Port Danby landmarks, the Pickford Lighthouse, Graystone Church and she'd even created a tiny fondant Hawksworth Mansion (imagined in its former glory, of course).

  The only flaw in her new plan was that she had very little time to prepare the cookies and have them ready to sell when the fair attendees started flowing into town. This meant a three o'clock in the morning cookie assembly line. I had volunteered to help her, and Lola begrudgingly signed on too, even though she claimed she didn't know how to walk, talk or function at that hour.

  The bakery was already filled with the buttery sweet aroma of the cookies by the time Lola and I dragged ourselves in at three. Lola sat immediately down on one of Elsie's stools, holding her coffee as if her life depended on it. In the meantime, Elsie and I organized a production line. The tiny, fit woman of boundless energy had been up all night cutting out tiny sugar and fondant decorations for the cookies.

  The tiny white, black and red lighthouse was my favorite. But then I was a big fan of the Pickford Lighthouse. It was one of the things that had drawn me to Port Danby.

  Elsie had used a grayish purple fondant for the silhouette of the gothic mansion. She'd even managed to get the turrets and gable pitch on the roof just right. The Graystone Church had tiny yellow and blue fondant squares in the windows for stained glass.

  "My gosh, Elsie, you are a genius. These look amazing. I think they'll be the perfect Port Danby souvenir, and I'm sure they'll taste way better than anything served at the fair. And, yes, this extreme flattery is my subtle way of asking for a cookie sample."

  Elsie nodded. "I saved all the broken pieces figuring you and Lola would be asking for tastes."

  Lola seemed to wake up more with the mention of samples. She climbed off the stool and lifted her cup high as she tossed back the last bits of coffee. She released a satisfied sigh and clinked the cup down on the counter like a drunken pirate slamming down his empty tankard in a tavern. "Let's get this production line going before I lose steam again."

  Elsie continued to make the decorations as I dabbed royal icing onto the center of each cookie before pressing on the delicate fondant cut out. Lola was in charge of placing each individual cookie in a cellophane bag before tying it off with thin ribbon. The first souvenir cookie off the production line looked perfect.

  "I'm going to charge double my usual cookie price for these," Elsie noted as she cut out a lighthouse. "Tourists tend not to mind the higher prices, and I need to make up for that calamity with the cinnamon rolls."

  I dabbed some icing in the center of a cookie. "That sounds like a good business plan, Elsie."

  Elsie held up the fondant lighthouse. "These really are cute. I'll have to save one for Marty Tate."

  "That's the man who takes care of the lighthouse, right?" I asked.

  Elsie's rounded eyes turned my direction. "You haven't met old Marty yet? He's a hoot."

  "And as old as the great pyramids," Lola added. "How old is he, anyhow?" She glanced over at Elsie.

  Elsie laughed. "That's sort of a running mystery in Port Danby. No one knows because for as long as anyone can remember Marty has been living in that little cottage and running the lighthouse. Kelly Dixon, over at the doctor's office, said her grandmother knew Marty as a kid and Kelly is no youngster. I'm guessing old Marty passed a hundred already."

  I shook my head. "Wow, a century old. Hey, I wonder if Marty was around at the time of the Hawksworth murders." My shoulders deflated. "No, that would put him well into his hundreds."

  "Guess you're still itching to research that old murder case." Elsie walked a tray of decorations over and set them down next to my work station. "Maybe you should ask Detective Briggs about it." She winked.

  "What's that about, Elsie? Do you have something in your eye?" I flashed her a sarcastic grin. "Besides, I have asked Briggs about it, and he suggested I try the library. Which I plan to do whenever things slow down around this bustling town."

  Elsie stretched her neck up to look outside. The pink and orange layers of dawn were just beginning to stripe the sky. "Looks like it's going to be a nice morning for the bloggers to set up."

  "Yes, it looks that way." I passed a plate of finished cookies to Lola and stepped in to help her wrap them. "A few bloggers were already setting up yesterday. Do you know someone named Twyla Walton?"

  Elsie stopped to tap her chin. "That name is so familiar. I had to leave the pastry chef class early because I pulled a tendon running in a marathon. Darn thing kept me off my feet for a month. I'd only taken the class to brush up on my techniques, so it wasn't a big deal to miss out on the last weeks." She cleared her throat. "Especially when I'd discovered that I knew more than the instructor."

  "I'll bet you did. Twyla mentioned she had been a pastry chef. Her blog is Down Home Comfy and southern comfort food seems to be her specialty now."

  "Yes, Twyla!" Elsie said enthusiastically enough to cause Lola to break the cookie she was sliding into the cellophane bag. Lola shrugged and ate the cookie.

  Elsie continued. "I don't know how I could forget. It was such a big deal in the baking blogosphere, after all. I mean, it was all everyone talked about for months."

  I cleared my throat to get her attention. "Care to fill us in on the details of this blogosphere whirlwind?"

  Elsie wiped her hands clean on a towel and walked over to join us. "Twyla did attend pastry chef school. One of the projects, the last one I did before I got hurt, was to invent a new kind of donut. Twyla came up with a brilliant little puffed donut that was filled with chocolate hazelnut filling and then rolled in cinnamon sugar. They were incredibly tasty. A few years later, Marian Fitch, who had attended the same class, sold a recipe to a major donut chain. It was called the Hazelnut Bomb."

  "Oh, I've had one of those," Lola mumbled over a mouthful of cookie. "They're the bomb. Get it?"

  I raised a brow at her. "I guess we really did pull you out of bed too early." I turned back to Elsie. "Did Marian Fitch steal the recipe?"

  "It was pretty much an exact copy, but by then Marian was already a big name with a bestselling cookbook and popular blog. Her lawyers squashed Twyla's case in court, and poor Twyla was stuck with Fitch's legal fees too. I think that's when she left the pastry world and mo
ved to comfort food. Poor kid was devastated."

  "Wow," Lola said with a shake of her head. "Don't you just hate it when the big guy wins and the little guy gets tromped on?"

  "Yes," Elsie quickly agreed, "and if there is one big guy who needs some tromping, it's Marian Fitch." Elsie carried an empty tray over and filled it with the wrapped cookies. "I think I'll display these on the top shelf with a cute sign saying 'Don't leave without a sweet piece of Port Danby'."

  Chapter 5

  After our extremely early morning in the bakery, my head felt a little heavy with fatigue. I went home for a quick hour nap before heading right back down Harbor Lane to help Yolanda at the Town Square.

  Nearly all of the bloggers had arrived now and were hustling to make their booths attractive for tonight's opening dance. At least twenty booths had been set up along the entire border of the square where grass was planted in large rectangles to break up the cement walkways. The smattering of picnic tables that normally sat in the corners and through the center had all been moved into a cluster for fair attendees to sit with their food and drinks.

  Some of the participants were lucky enough to get a booth under a shade tree. Although with autumn leaves falling faster than they could be picked up, it might have been better not to have the shade. Colorful, cleverly designed banners with blog names and logos fluttered along the fronts of the booths like a collection of mismatched skirts. As the treats and wares came out, the fair came alive with the promise of delicious bites and sips. At the 'French Confections' table, a multi-tiered display of pastel colored French macaroons sat next to a ceramic tray of tiny petit fours, each decorated with a fondant flower. In stark contrast, right next to it were the Barbecue Boyz, a pair of brothers who had an entire blog dedicated to great burgers and craft beer. They were setting up a massive grill, and their table was filled with a variety of barbecue sauces.