Gingerbread and a Murder Read online

  Gingerbread and a Murder

  A Rainey Daye Cozy Mystery, book 8

  by

  Kathleen Suzette

  Copyright © 2019 by Kathleen Suzette. All rights reserved. This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination, or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronically or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.

  Books by Kathleen Suzette:

  Clam Chowder and a Murder

  A Rainey Daye Cozy Mystery, book 1

  A Short Stack and a Murder

  A Rainey Daye Cozy Mystery, book 2

  Cherry Pie and a Murder

  A Rainey Daye Cozy Mystery, book 3

  Barbecue and a Murder

  A Rainey Daye Cozy Mystery, book 4

  Birthday Cake and a Murder

  A Rainey Daye Cozy Mystery, book 5

  Hot Cider and a Murder

  A Rainey Daye Cozy Mystery, book 6

  Roast Turkey and a Murder

  A Rainey Daye Cozy Mystery, book 7

  Gingerbread and a Murder

  A Rainey Daye Cozy Mystery, book 8

  Fish Fry and a Murder

  A Rainey Daye Cozy Mystery, book 9

  Books by Kate Bell, Kathleen Suzette

  Apple Pie A La Murder,

  A Freshly Baked Cozy Mystery, Book 1

  Trick or Treat and Murder,

  A Freshly Baked Cozy Mystery, Book 2

  Thankfully Dead

  A Freshly Baked Cozy Mystery, Book 3

  Candy Cane Killer

  A Freshly Baked Cozy Mystery, Book 4

  Ice Cold Murder

  A Freshly Baked Cozy Mystery, Book 5

  Love is Murder

  A Freshly Baked Cozy Mystery, Book 6

  Strawberry Surprise Killer

  A Freshly Baked Cozy Mystery, Book 7

  Pushing Up Daisies in Arizona,

  A Gracie Williams Mystery, Book 1

  Kicked the Bucket in Arizona,

  A Gracie Williams Mystery, Book 2

  Candy Coated Murder

  A Pumpkin Hollow Mystery, book 1

  Murderously Sweet

  A Pumpkin Hollow Mystery, book 2

  Chocolate Covered Murder

  A Pumpkin Hollow Mystery, book 3

  Death and Sweets

  A Pumpkin Hollow Mystery, book 4

  Sugared Demise

  A Pumpkin Hollow Mystery, book 5

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Author’s Note

  Chapter One

  “I’m so excited,” Natalie said looking at me from the passenger seat. “We are totally going to win this competition!”

  I laughed. “Yes we are!”

  My niece Natalie was home from college for winter break and was giddy with excitement at the prospect of winning the annual gingerbread house decorating contest. Sparrow, Idaho, is a small town, but we believe in community and events like this are one of the wonderful, charming events of the Christmas season.

  It was something of an honor to win the contest although it was in name only. The prize awarded was a small trophy in the shape of a gingerbread house with the name of the event and the year won. There were only twelve teams of two people allowed to enter each year and it was on a first come, first serve basis. Of course, if you were one of those teams, you had to pay an entrance fee of two hundred and fifty dollars. The money went to buy toys for local underprivileged children for Christmas. It was expensive to compete in the contest, but it was well worth it to help local kids that might not otherwise have anything for Christmas.

  “And we get to help the kids,” she reminded me. “It’s a win-win for everyone.” She had a cute little floral ladybug canvas bag in her lap that held her cake decorating tools.

  “I feel good about it too,” I said as I pulled into the high school parking lot. “You’ve gotten really good at cake decorating. I think this is going to be a piece of cake.” I chuckled at my own pun.

  The gingerbread house contest would last most of the day. We had baked the pieces of the gingerbread house earlier in the morning, and when they had cooled down enough to handle, we used royal icing to put the house together. We were just getting back from the two-hour break in the middle of the day to begin the decorating. Natalie was in charge of most of the decorating. She had a lot of great ideas that I was sure would help us win the contest. Later, the three winning houses would be put on display at Santa’s workshop near the fountain in the center of town.

  We got out of the car and headed to the foods classroom. The local high school had small kitchenettes in the classroom with each kitchenette having a stove, microwave, and a small refrigerator. The cupboards were filled with supplies and we had been given a list of what would be provided so we knew what we needed to bring along with us.

  Each team had to bake three extra cookies to be sampled by the judges because the house had to be as tasty as it was beautiful. I had a sure-fire recipe I had created to win over the judges. I was writing an Americana themed cookbook and the recipe would fit right in. Gingerbread houses may have originated in Germany, but Americans had made them a holiday tradition and added their own flair to them.

  “I think I only got two hours of sleep last night, I was so excited,” Natalie said as we strolled across the high school campus. She was dressed in a cute red and black tartan skirt, black tights, low-heeled black patent pumps, and a red sweater. She was cute as could be and in the Christmas spirit. It was the tenth day of December, and I was excited that she was home for the Christmas holiday. I had missed her.

  “Are you going to be okay in those heels?” I asked, eyeing them. We would have an hour and a half to put the roof on the house and decorate it. That would be plenty of time to get the job done. The houses would be judged in the evening and then moved to Santa’s workshop to display throughout the rest of the Christmas season. The workshop was a portable red and white metal shed that had been decorated for Christmas. There were gifts inside of it that could be purchased and the proceeds went to buy more toys for the children, and food for their families. Volunteers took in donations of toys and food, manning the workshop. Santa made an appearance every day.

  “Yes, I think so. I’ll slip them off if they bother me,” she said, shifting the canvas bag of cake decorating tips and equipment from one shoulder to the other. I was thrilled that Natalie had recently gotten into cake decorating. She had plans to begin a small side business baking cakes, cupcakes, and cookies. She sold them for parties and as greeting cards to other college students. I was proud of her for creating her own business to help pay for college.

  “I’m so excited about this,” I said. I had worn athletic shoes so my feet wouldn’t hurt while I worked. It had been too long since I wore heels regularly to be comfortable in them if I wore them for very long.

  The foods classroom was warm and snug when we entered and we headed over to the cor
ner kitchenette where we had left our gingerbread house to dry. We got some glances as we passed the other kitchenettes, but I didn’t think anything of it until we got to ours.

  Natalie gasped. “What happened?”

  I stared in horror at the pieces of our gingerbread house on the floor in front of us. The walls of the gingerbread house had cracked, and it had come apart.

  “Oh my gosh,” I said kneeling down beside it. I looked over my shoulder at one of the judges, Susan Lang. “What happened to our house, Susan?”

  Susan wrapped her arms around herself and came to the entrance of our kitchenette, peering at the pieces on the floor. Her short, curly brown hair had glitter spray in it and the tips had been dyed Christmas red.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. I just saw it a few minutes ago. We left it because we thought it would be better if you handled the pieces.”

  “Well it didn’t just fall off the counter by itself,” I said. I heard the frustration in my voice, but I didn’t care. Winning this contest meant a lot to Natalie, as well as myself, and I couldn’t imagine how the gingerbread house had been knocked onto the floor.

  “I really have no idea, Rainey,” Susan said, sounding sympathetic. “I wish I could tell you what happened, but I can’t. The pieces aren’t terribly small. Perhaps you could put them back together with icing? You know, using it like glue?”

  I felt anger rising up inside, and I bit my lower lip. “Who had access to this classroom? Was the classroom door locked while we took our break?”

  She shrugged. “The door wasn’t locked when I got back. I really don’t know what happened. I’m sorry.”

  I turned back to look at the pieces on the floor and then at Natalie. She looked as if she were about to cry. I reached out a hand and placed it on her arm. “We’ll figure something out. We can make more royal icing and glue the pieces together. It will work out.”

  “I’m sorry,” Susan repeated and walked back to the two other judges.

  “We can glue the pieces back together,” I repeated to Natalie. “It will be fine.” I said it as much for myself as for Natalie. I thought the royal icing would hold it together, but I couldn’t swear that it would work with so little time for it to dry.

  “I bet I know who did this,” Natalie hissed as we picked up the pieces of the house and set them on the counter. She looked past me and over at Chrissy Jones.

  Chrissy leaned against the counter in her own kitchenette and grinned. She looked like the cat that ate the mouse and I was pretty sure I knew who knocked our gingerbread house off the counter, too. Chrissy had been Natalie’s best friend until they began junior high, but at the beginning of the seventh grade, she dumped Natalie without a second thought. It had been heartbreaking not only for Natalie but also for myself and her mother. The two had been close and Natalie had been completely dumbfounded by the turn of events.

  “Uh-oh,” a voice sang out behind us. “It looks like somebody’s gingerbread house couldn’t even withstand a couple of hours. I guess that’s the way the cookie crumbles.”

  We looked to see Chrissy Jones standing at the entrance of our kitchenette. She had her arms folded across her chest and a smug smile on her face. I felt my blood boil.

  “Did you need something, Chrissy?” I asked, turning to face her.

  She shrugged. “Not really. I’m so sorry your gingerbread house got broken.”

  “And would you happen to know how that could have happened?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “No, sorry. It was that way when we came back from our break.” She turned and bounced back to her kitchenette. “Good luck!” she called over her shoulder.

  “Let’s try to ignore her,” I said turning back to Natalie and looking over the damage. I didn’t know if some of the pieces could handle the extra weight of the royal icing. Gingerbread house making was an art form, and I had only done it a few times.

  I glanced in Chrissy’s direction and saw her partner, Jenna Dennison, standing in their kitchenette, taking this all in. She looked unsure of what had just happened and I was willing to bet that Chrissy knew all about the broken gingerbread house, and Jenna was in the dark.

  I could see Natalie’s bottom lip tremble and I put a hand on her arm. “It will be fine, Natalie. It’s just a little setback. Most of the pieces are pretty large, so I think it shouldn’t be too difficult to fix. You just concentrate on what we’re doing here, and we’ll get it put back together again in just a few minutes.”

  Natalie nodded and turned away from Chrissy. We could hear some whispers and a giggle, but I shook it off. I was not going to let that snotty brat ruin this competition for us. Natalie had been looking forward to it ever since she went away to college in California last August. We had exchanged emails and pictures as Natalie practiced making gingerbread men and all kinds of cute scalloped designs with different sized frosting tips. I was not going to allow anyone to put a damper on her enthusiasm.

  “We’re going to win this,” Natalie said, clenching her teeth together. She looked at me and I could see the renewed determination on her face. It made me proud. “We’re going to win this thing, Aunt Rainey.”

  I nodded. “That’s my girl,” I said giving her a quick hug. “We are so going to win. And just think how sad Chrissy is going to be when we win with a broken gingerbread house.”

  Chapter Two

  “I think it turned out lovely,” I said, trying to cheer Natalie up.

  She wrapped her arms around herself, her eyes going to the floor for a moment and then she looked at me. I could see the unshed tears and it broke my heart. “It should have been so much better. And it could have been, if only it hadn’t been broken.”

  I nodded. “I know. You’re right, and I’m so sorry that happened. But I think we did a wonderful job putting the pieces back together and the decorating you did is beautiful.” And it was. She had used frosting to create tiny flowers and frosted curlicues on the roof shingles. We had used plenty of candy on it, but the frosting touches really made the house look beautiful. We had tried to repair the large cracks in the walls, and we had covered the cracks nicely with frosting, but the royal icing we’d used as glue hadn’t had enough time to dry. It was clear the roof was too heavy, and it started to sag in the middle by judging time. I was afraid it would collapse at any moment.

  She sighed. “I guess there’s always next year,” she said.

  “That’s exactly right,” I said brightly. “We’ll try again next year.” We had still managed to win fourth placed in the contest, but it was disappointing after looking forward to this for so long.

  “It makes me angry that no one seems to know who broke our house, even though we know exactly who did it,” she grumbled.

  I agreed with her, but there wasn’t anything we could do about it. And I certainly wasn’t going to give up and quit, which was exactly what whoever was responsible for breaking our gingerbread house wanted us to do. Sure, we were fairly certain we knew who it was, but we had no proof.

  “You’re right, but this was all for charity, anyway. Our entrance fee is going to a good cause, and other than the house getting broken, we had fun planning it out, didn’t we?”

  She smiled and nodded. “We did. I think we make a good team, and next year we’re going to win.”

  “We certainly will,” I said. “Let’s go get a coffee.”

  ***

  The three winning gingerbread houses were brought to the fountain at Center Plaza. A table had been set up to display them inside Santa’s workshop for the rest of the Christmas season. The fountain itself had been turned off and drained and a winter wonderland complete with lighted penguins and polar bears had been set up inside of it.

  There would be something going on at Center Plaza every evening through Christmas Eve. The high school chorus would sing a couple of nights, as well as various church choirs. I had also seen an announcement that there would be short plays put on by the grammar schools on a couple of different nights. The
city had decorated the streets around the fountain and the plaza and it felt like a mini winter wonderland. All the nearby shops had put up their best Christmas finery in the spirit of the season and there were also bake sales held by local churches to benefit worthy causes. I was so glad I had moved home from New York City earlier in the year. I missed the small town holiday excitement.

  My identical twin sister, Stormy, my mother, Natalie, and I were busy looking through the gift shop near Center Plaza the next evening. I had already seen where the gingerbread houses were on display and it made me a little sad that ours wasn’t there. Chrissy and Jenna’s gingerbread house had won first place. It left a sour taste in my mouth and I knew it bothered Natalie, but there wasn’t anything we could do about it.

  “I absolutely love this snow globe,” Stormy said picking it up to show me. She wound the bottom of it and it began playing Silent Night. Inside the globe, snow dropped on a stable scene. The entire globe lit up, and it had a bright starry sky in the background. It was quite striking.