Dying For a Cupcake: A Devereaux's Dime Store Mystery Read online

  PRAISE FOR

  DEVEREAUX’S DIME STORE MYSTERIES

  Dying for a Cupcake

  “Swanson cooks up a delectable treat with Dying for a Cupcake. When former resident Kizzy Cutler arrives back in town and hosts a cupcake competition where her assistant dies under mysterious circumstances and Kizzy has several near misses, Deveraux Sinclair has to run her five-and-dime store and figure out who could be mad enough at Kizzy to want her dead. With a plentiful cast of suspects, this was a fast-paced page-turner of a mystery that I couldn’t put down. A fun, lively, and thoroughly engaging mystery with sprinkles on top!”

  —New York Times bestselling author Jenn McKinlay

  Dead Between the Lines

  “Much to enjoy.”

  —Kings River Life Magazine

  “Another great story from Denise Swanson. . . . This series is filled with very interesting characters, and I can’t wait to see where the author takes them next. The possibilities seem endless.”

  —Escape with Dollycas into a Good Book

  Nickeled-and-Dimed to Death

  “Delightful. . . . Readers will look forward to seeing more of the quick-witted Dev.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  A fabulously entertaining read. The pace is quick, the prose is snappy, and the dialogue is sharp.”

  —The Maine Suspect

  “Peopled with unique characters, Ms. Swanson’s books are always entertaining.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “Quite the caper. [Swanson] is masterful in her storytelling.”

  —Romantic Times

  Little Shop of Homicide

  “Swanson puts just the right amount of sexy sizzle in her latest engaging mystery.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  “Veteran author Swanson debuts a spunky new heroine with a Missouri stubborn streak.”

  —Library Journal (starred review)

  “A new entertaining mystery series that her fans will appreciate. . . . With a touch of romance in the air, readers will enjoy this delightful cozy.”

  —Genre Go Round Reviews

  “Swanson has a gift for portraying small-town life, making it interesting, and finding both the ridiculous and the satisfying parts of living in one. I wish Dev a long and happy shelf life.”

  —AnnArbor.com

  “A top-notch new mystery . . . all the right ingredients for another successful series.”

  —Romantic Times

  PRAISE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING SCUMBLE RIVER

  MYSTERY SERIES

  “Endearing . . . quirky . . . a delight.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  “Bounces along with gently wry humor and jaunty twists and turns. The quintessential amateur sleuth: bright, curious, and more than a little nervy.”

  —Agatha Award–winning author Earlene Fowler

  “[A] lively, light, and quite insightful look at small-town life.”

  —The Hartford Courant

  “A fun and fast-paced mystery. . . . Reading about Scumble River is as comfortable as being in your own hometown.”

  —The Mystery Reader

  “Top-notch storytelling, with truly unique and wonderful characters.”

  —CrimeSpree Magazine

  “Smartly spins on a solid plot and likable characters.”

  —South Florida Sun-Sentinel

  “Denise Swanson keeps getting better and better . . . unforgettable reads!”—Roundtable Reviews

  “A magnificent tale written by a wonderful author.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “Denise Swanson hits all the right notes in this brisk and witty peek at small-town foibles and foul play.”

  —Romantic Times (top pick)

  Also by Denise Swanson

  DEVEREAUX’S DIME STORE MYSTERIES

  Dead Between the Lines

  Little Shop of Homicide

  Nickeled-and-Dimed to Death

  SCUMBLE RIVER MYSTERIES

  Murder of a Needled Knitter

  Murder of a Stacked Librarian

  Murder of the Cat’s Meow

  Novella: “Dead Blondes Tell No Tales”

  Murder of a Creped Suzette

  Murder of a Bookstore Babe

  Murder of a Wedding Belle

  Murder of a Royal Pain

  Murder of a Chocolate-Covered Cherry

  Murder of a Botoxed Blonde

  Murder of a Real Bad Boy

  Murder of a Smart Cookie

  Murder of a Pink Elephant

  Murder of a Barbie and Ken

  Murder of a Snake in the Grass

  Murder of a Sleeping Beauty

  Murder of a Sweet Old Lady

  Murder of a Small-Town Honey

  OBSIDIAN

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014

  USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia | New Zealand | India | South Africa | China

  penguin.com

  A Penguin Random House Company

  First published by Obsidian, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  Copyright © Denise Swanson Stybr, 2015

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  OBSIDIAN and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

  ISBN 978-1-101-61560-7

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  Contents

  Praise

  Also by Denise Swanson

  Title page

  Copyright page

  Dedication

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  EPILOGUE

  Excerpt from Murder of an Open Book

  In memory of my great aunt, Margaret Pierard. Born February 18, 1911, and passed away December 10, 2013. She was an amazing woman who saw 102 years of world changes.

  CHAPTER 1

  Attendance at the Saturday Night Prayer Circle was at an all-time high, and despite our group’s nickname, it wasn’t because any of us ha
d suddenly gotten religion. We met to gripe about our problems, and although an occasional Hail Mary might be muttered under our breath, no one brought rosary beads or dropped to their knees—unless they fell off their stiletto heels.

  “Poppy Kincaid.”

  “Here.”

  “Veronica Ksiazak.”

  “Here.”

  “Devereaux Sinclair.”

  “I’m sitting right in front of you, Winnie,” I grumbled. “What’s with this roll call crap anyway?”

  “You’ll see.” She smiled mysteriously. “It’s a surprise.”

  I generally found Winnie Todd amusing, but for various reasons, not the least of which was my messed-up love life, I was in a bad mood tonight. I probably should have stayed home, but the chance to avoid my grandmother’s questions along with the lure of alcohol had overcome my better judgment.

  The fishbowl-size margaritas and endless bottles of wine that appeared miraculously in front of us whenever our glasses came close to being empty eased a lot of our group’s woes. The prompt service could be due to the large tips we always left, but more likely it was because my best friend and fellow circle member, Poppy Kincaid, owned the joint.

  Her nightclub, Gossip Central, was the most popular watering hole in Shadow Bend, Missouri—population four thousand twenty-eight. Strictly speaking, Poppy’s place wasn’t inside the city limits; it was a quarter mile across the line. Although I had never asked her about it, my guess was that she had deliberately chosen a location just outside her police chief father’s jurisdiction.

  No grown woman wanted her daddy showing up every time the authorities were called to break up a fight at her bar—especially since Poppy wasn’t on speaking terms with her dad. In fact, Poppy’s issues with her father were one of the main reasons she was a member of our little underground society.

  My motives for participating went by the names Deputy U.S. Marshal Jake Del Vecchio and Dr. Noah Underwood—two smoking-hot guys who claimed to be interested in me, but who tended to disappear from my life at regular intervals. True, I was having a hard time deciding which guy I really loved, and thus was seeing them both. But seriously, if either of them cared for me as much as they said they did, wouldn’t they be spending more time in my company than at their jobs? I mean, I understood long hours and hard work, but it had been weeks since I’d had a date with either man.

  I mentally slapped myself. I had vowed not to think about Jake—or Noah—tonight or my dilemma in trying to figure out which one was the right man for me. Instead, I was going to enjoy being with my friends and maybe even figuring out how to keep my dime store in the black for another quarter. Besides wanting to partake in a glass or three of wine, and the chance to dodge my grandmother’s curiosity about my love life, my presence at the Saturday Night Prayer Circle was largely due to the text from Ronni Ksiazak saying that during the gathering, she planned to present an idea of how to bring tourists into Shadow Bend.

  Tourists meant cash. And extra cash was something that I was sure that nearly everyone attending the evening’s meeting could use. Ronni needed to fill her huge old Italianate-style Victorian bed-and-breakfast with paying guests if she was going to repay the loan that her family had given her to buy and renovate the place. Poppy had a serious fashion addiction to support, and Winnie was continuously fund-raising for various charities that constantly had their hands out for additional donations.

  Although I didn’t know the fifth woman seated across the cocktail table, I was fairly certain she wouldn’t object to making a little spare change on the side, either. Harlee Ames was thirty-seven, eight years older than I was, and had only recently returned to town after spending the last twenty years in the service. She’d moved home a few months ago and opened Forever Used, an upscale consignment shop aimed at Shadow Bend’s affluent new arrivals.

  Our community’s population consisted of the locals—mostly farmers, ranchers, and factory workers who had lived in or around the town all their lives—and transplants from Kansas City who had relocated to the area for the fresh air and the cheap land. A huge chasm separated the two groups, and I worried that Harlee’s store would widen the gap between the haves and have-nots all the more. Even secondhand, the designer clothing and accessories her shop specialized in cost more than a lot of the original Shadow Benders earned in a week.

  But I couldn’t put my finger on whether that was what bothered me about Harlee, or if it was something else. As I mused about my reaction to our group’s newest member, Ronni brought our gathering to order.

  Raising her drink, the B & B owner said, “Here’s to the Saturday Sisterhood. May we all make a lot of moola.” Ronni was nearly as driven and competitive as I was, so I wasn’t surprised when she added, “And may we also leave our male competitors in the dust.”

  “Hear, hear!” Winnie Todd clanked her wineglass with mine. “Ronni’s idea will put my cooking school on the map. Especially since she’s arranged media coverage.”

  Ah, that was why Winnie was playing teacher. She was opening a cooking school. Considering that she had come of age in the sixties, and was rumored to be growing pot in her basement, I wondered if her specialty would be “magic” brownies. Maybe the weed was for her culinary classes rather than for her personal consumption.

  Certainly, Winnie’s wardrobe looked as if she were living in Haight-Ashbury. Tonight she had on a white vinyl minidress with a cutout midriff. The metal chains that fastened the bodice to the skirt rattled every time she took a deep breath. It was like sitting next to the ghost of Psychedelic Christmas Past.

  “How many of you know who Kizzy Cutler is?” Ronni asked, breaking into my musings about Winnie’s fashion choice.

  The name sounded familiar, but a face didn’t immediately come to my mind. Poppy was silent, and Winnie had a similarly puzzled expression, as if she, too, was trying to dredge up an elusive memory. Harlee was the only one who spoke up.

  “Kizzy was in my class in high school. Why?”

  “She lives in Chicago now and she owns the übersuccessful Kizzy Cutler’s Cupcakes,” Ronni explained. “She was a client of the advertising firm I used to work for and I was a part of the team that handled her account. She’s the one who first told me about Shadow Bend.” Ronni took a swallow of her martini. “Kizzy always spoke so fondly of her hometown that when I decided I’d had enough of city life, I took a look at what was available here.”

  “I always wondered how you ended up in our little burg,” Poppy commented.

  “Me, too,” I said, sipping my wine. I loved Shadow Bend, but was curious why someone without any friends or relatives here had chosen to relocate and open a business in our small community. Ronni didn’t seem the type to have moved for the open spaces or the air quality.

  “Seems like a lot of people end up here for various reasons.” Winnie winked at me. “Like your hunky marshal.”

  Grrr! I forced a smile. Winnie was harmless, and I didn’t want to snap at her a second time tonight, but I had just started to relax and now that she mentioned Jake, the conversation he and I had had that afternoon popped into my mind. I’d been so happy to see his picture on my cell phone’s screen. Contact with him when he was on the job was sporadic at best, and his current case—tracking down a serial killer in St. Louis called the Doll Maker who had kidnapped Jake’s ex-wife, Meg—was even more intense than his usual assignments. Too bad his news hadn’t been what I was hoping to hear. Instead of reporting that his team was making progress in finding Meg, Jake had said that the Doll Maker was still running him around with promises and threats.

  Ronni interrupted my brooding. “Kizzy and I still keep in touch, and when she mentioned that she was starting a new themed cupcake line called the Flavors of Your Life, I suggested that she should kick it off with a contest to find the most original cupcake flavor. I recommended that because she currently distributes in the Midwest and South, the competition
should be limited to those regions, and—”

  “And Kizzy agreed to hold the final rounds of baking and judging here in Shadow Bend!” Winnie shouted.

  Ronni shot Winnie an exasperated look, clearly unhappy that the older woman had blurted out the news before she could make the announcement. Then she gave a tiny shrug and said, “I told Kizzy I could provide accommodations for the judges and media at my B and B, and that the contestants can stay at the Cattlemen’s Motel.” Ronni consulted her notes. “We can use Winnie’s cooking school for the actual baking and I thought that Poppy could handle the evening entertainment here at Gossip Central.”

  “Sure.” Poppy’s expression turned serious as she grabbed a pen from her pocket and started scribbling on a paper napkin. “How many people and what kinds of events are we talking about?”

  “There are ten finalists, three judges, and the Dessert Channel has said they’d be interested in covering the contest, so we’d need to include whatever crew they send. Plus Kizzy, her partner, and her executive assistant.” Ronni ticked the attendees off on her fingers. “And if we get the buzz we hope for, there should be lots of day-trippers here to join in the fun, so we want to keep it family-friendly.”

  “Isn’t this the coolest thing you’ve ever heard of?” Winnie did a little go-go dance in her white patent leather knee-high boots. “I just wish my facility was larger. I can accommodate the ten bakers and the television crew, but there won’t be room for observers.” She frowned, then brightened. “Oh, well. The universe must have a reason, which will be revealed at the proper time.”

  Ronni turned to me. “Because of the cooking school’s limitations, we need your place, Dev. Kizzy is willing to rent the area above Devereaux’s Dime Store and pay to have it cleaned and decorated so we can display the cupcakes and do the two rounds of judging there.”

  “I see,” I said, wondering how intrusive the competition would be on my regulars. The contest people would have to march through the store to get to the flight of stairs leading to the second story. “I’m not sure my top floor will work for what you have in mind. It’s three offices with tiny reception areas—not one big room.” I hadn’t been able to figure out a good retail use of the space, so I’d kept it intact, hoping I could rent it out to an insurance agent or Realtor. So far, there hadn’t been any takers.