Loaf or Death (Sweets and Secrets Cozy Mysteries Book 2) Read online

  I couldn’t imagine it, either. While I had also left Reedville after high school and then had gone abroad to live in Turkey after college, it had been under far different circumstances. Teaching English in a foreign country had been my ticket out of this small town, but I had stayed in contact with my parents the entire time, often calling home at least a few times each week. Ultimately, it had been my dad’s bouts with recurring pneumonia and bronchitis that had brought me home. And while I’d come to realize how much I actually did enjoy the comfortable, cozy, laid-back way of life that Reedville had to offer, I could still remember my own teenage years and how badly I had wanted to get out and see the world.

  It seemed I had that much in common with Steven Adler.

  “Do you think he’ll keep the bakery open now after what happened?” I asked.

  Dad scratched at the hint of afternoon stubble on his chin. “Hard to say, really. I guess we’ll all find out soon enough. If he really has taken an interest in the place, then I can’t see why he’d want to close down now. But if he was only going through the motions to appease his mother… Like I said, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

  As we’d been talking and skimming through the information in the old book, another tidbit had stuck out to me.

  “Look,” I pointed. “It says here that Thomas Adler even had a hand in the naming of the town—that he’d wanted to name it Reedville in honor of Henry Reed.”

  Dad followed along reading where I’d indicated and nodded. “That’s common knowledge.” He grinned. “Well, common knowledge among the historians and librarians in Reedville over the decades.”

  “So, like, five people?” I teased. “I’m not sure if that counts as ‘common knowledge,’ Dad.” I turned back to the book. “Were they friends? Thomas Adler and Henry Reed, I mean?”

  “It doesn’t say, but there must have been some sort of connection,” Dad answered. “Otherwise, Thomas would have probably insisted on calling the place Adlerville or something like that.”

  “Oh, it says there’s a map of the town from when it was founded.” I pointed to the footnote that cross-referenced other historical materials. “That would be cool to see. I wonder how many of the founders’ names I’d even recognize.”

  “Probably more than you’d think,” Dad looked closer at the footnote and then turned to flip through one of the large folders he’d set aside earlier. “We should have a photocopy of that map, if not—ah, yes! We actually have an original from that time period. We really shouldn’t handle it without gloves, but I’ll set it here on the table and we can at least take a closer look.”

  I peered down at the map and made sure to clasp my hands behind my back so I wouldn’t forget about the ‘no touching’ rule. “Wow,” I murmured. “This really is interesting.”

  And okay, maybe I was turning into a history nerd like my dad. But seriously, seeing that old map with the early town grid of maybe half a dozen cross-streets laid out and labeled so neatly made Reedville’s history feel a lot more real to me. It was also a good visual reminder of just how tiny the town had been way back then. “Look at all the land the Adler’s owned back then! Probably half the town.”

  Which, once I actually started counting up individual blocks of land, turned out to be pretty accurate. Nearly half of all the parcels listed on that old map had Thomas Adler’s name on them. Which made the naming thing stand out even more. He legitimately could have named the town whatever he’d wanted since he owned so much of it.

  “He must have sold some of those lots to the town as it grew.” Dad pointed to one corner of the map. “He apparently used to own the land this library sits on, and the police station too.”

  I looked from the map back to the book. Turning a couple of pages, there was a list of Thomas Adler’s descendants with a brief description of a few notable relations in the mid-1900s. There were a few more photos, with the last and most recent one taken some time in the 1980s, judging by the man’s haircut and thick glasses.

  “It says this guy—Blake Reed—is the last of Henry Reeds descendants still living in town.” I nudged Dad and pointed to the photo. The man, Blake, looked like he’d been in his late thirties or maybe even his forties at the time. “I wonder if he’s still alive. He’d have to be at least—”

  “In his seventies, if I had to guess,” Dad said with a smile on his face. “And I think that would be a pretty accurate guess, since I’m almost certain he came in here to look at these very same archives about a month ago.”

  “Really? What was he looking for? Did he say anything?” After learning so much about this guy’s relatives and how important his family had been in our town’s history, I felt like I’d been missing out by not knowing who Blake Reed was all this time. He was practically a Reedville celebrity!

  The closest thing to a celebrity we were likely to ever get, at least.

  “I wish I knew. I’m almost certain it’s him, though. He’s older now, obviously. Different glasses. Less hair. But his features are all still pretty much the same.” Dad looked genuinely disappointed as he shrugged. “We were busy here that day, and he didn’t really seem to want my help once I had pulled out all of the relevant books and maps for him. It’s a shame too, because I would have loved to get a chance to talk to him. I could have asked all sorts of questions.”

  Knowing Dad, he would have talked the old man’s ear off and learned his whole family history that same day. The phone started ringing up at the front of the library before I could ask anything else.

  “Feel free to keep looking though all of that stuff, sweetheart.” Dad was already walking back toward the circulation desk where he’d been working earlier. “Just leave it out here on the table when you’re finished. I’ll put everything back later.”

  “Are you sure?” As far as I was concerned, I’d seen everything the archives had to offer on the Adler family—and the Reed family, for that matter—but I didn’t want to leave a huge mess of scattered books and papers for Dad to clean up. “I can start putting some of these things back on the shelf.”

  He made a dismissive gesture and shot me a smile as he looked back at me over his shoulder. “There are a few more of those old maps I wanted to check out. If you put everything back now, I’ll just have to drag it all out again later. Go and enjoy the rest of the afternoon and I’ll see you when I get home.”

  He waved, and I said a quick goodbye as I tidied everything into semi-neat stacks for him on the table. It probably wasn’t much help, but the thought still counted for something, right?

  I felt like I had a better understanding of Dorothy’s situation once I left the library. Well, maybe not an understanding. I felt like I’d discovered a few more pieces to the puzzle, at least.

  I just wasn’t sure whether they were the right pieces or where they might fit.

  Chapter Six

  I was still thinking about everything I’d learned at the library earlier that afternoon when I sat down at the dinner table with my parents and Aunt Betsy. But before we could discuss any of the historical information Dad and I had uncovered, there was another—and probably more urgent—issue to take care of.

  The finances of Aunt Betsy’s bakery.

  “It’s just awful.” Betsy took a sip of the glass of wine Mom had just poured for her. “You all know I hate complaining and would much rather just solve the problem and get on with my life, but…” She gestured to the stack of ledgers and notebooks sitting in the middle of the table. “I’m not even sure where to begin with this one.”

  Mom leaned over to give her a half-hug. “I know this has to be so stressful for you, but we’re here to help however we can.”

  “That’s right.” Dad nodded, reaching for one of the ledgers. “I’m hoping it’s one of those problems that just needs a fresh pair of eyes. If Cindy, Jean, and I go through these profit and loss statements with you, maybe we’ll all be able to spot something.”

  “I hope so, Tim. I really do.” Aunt Betsy didn’t look convinced, but she had clearly run out of options. All my life, I’d known her as the upbeat, free-spirited aunt who had never let life’s troubles or problems get her down for too long. This time seemed different, though. For the first time that I could remember, she looked genuinely worried. Her business, her future, even her freedom were possibly all on the line. I just hoped we really could find a way to help.

  While Mom and Dad started looking through the ledgers, I wanted to get some more information about the afternoon Dorothy died—specifically during the time when she and my aunt had been alone together at the Adler Bakery.

  “I know you’ve probably already been over this a thousand times in your own head and then another time with the detective,” I began. “But what do you remember about that afternoon? After that crazy incident when Dorothy stormed into the Shepherd’s Falls Bakery, you went to talk to her one on one, right?”

  “Yes, I went straight over there because I just knew this was some sort of terrible misunderstanding.” Aunt Betsy’s eyebrows furrowed. “She and I had never been at odds before, and I was sure I could fix things this time if she would just listen to reason.”

  I thought back to that morning at the bakery and how irrationally angry Dorothy had seemed. I remembered thinking at the time that listening to reason might not have been something Dorothy was ready to do.

  “What happened after that?” I prompted. “After you got to Dorothy’s shop?”

  “Well, I went over there, and she was still as mad a hornet. I thought it was a good thing at the time that she didn’t have any customers to see her stomping around and slamming doors while she ranted and raved about how she wasn’t going to lose her business.” Aunt Betsy’s eyes had gone wide as she spoke about that afternoon, as if just rememberin
g that day’s crazy events still disturbed her.

  Mom reached over to top up Aunt Betsy’s wine glass and then went back to analyzing the bakery’s books with Dad. I didn’t even have to ask how the hunt for the missing money had been going. I could tell from their serious, focused expressions that neither of them had made any breakthroughs.

  But it was still early in the evening and we all still had a lot of ground to cover.

  I hated that my aunt had to basically relive that afternoon again in order to answer all of my questions, but I was hopeful that piecing the events together minute-by-minute as they happened might uncover something new—something that Dean may have missed when he’d originally questioned Aunt Betsy that evening.

  “So when you went in and she was still acting so upset,” I continued. “What did you do? Did she pick back up where she’d left off at your bakery with the finger pointing and accusations?”

  “That’s the thing. She honestly didn’t seem nearly as upset with me when I went in there and started talking to her again.” Aunt Betsy looked thoughtful as she paused for a moment. “No, her anger seemed more general, and she was moving around so frantically from one end of the shop to the other that I was actually more concerned than upset at the time.”

  Dad looked up from his ledger and cocked his head to the side. “Why was she frantic? What was she doing?”

  “Searching high and low for that sourdough recipe,” Betsy answered. “That’s all she was focused on, saying how someone had stolen it right from under her nose, and she was determined to get to the bottom of it. I don’t even think she remembered specifically accusing me of stealing it at that point.”

  “She was so worked up about it when she confronted you at your bakery,” I added. “She probably didn’t remember half the hateful things she spouted off in the heat of the moment that morning.”

  Aunt Betsy nodded. “That’s kind of what I assumed too. She was just in a rage and was lashing out. I even offered to help her look for the recipe while I was there, but she insisted it was already gone even as she kept searching for it herself.”

  I wasn’t sure whether the missing recipe actually had anything to do with Dorothy’s murder, but I felt like we were starting to go in circles without learning any new information. “Did she say anything else while you were there with her?” I prodded.

  “Oh, she said plenty,” Aunt Betsy sighed. “We had a whole conversation—mostly one-sided—but she was talking almost the entire time I was there.”

  “Do you remember how the conversation went? Like, as close to word-for-word as you can get?”

  She quirked a brow and looked at me with a mixture of amusement and curiosity. “You sound like the detective now.” She tossed me a quick wink. “But of course, he wasn’t nearly as sweet as my favorite niece.”

  I couldn’t help groan at the comparison. Dean Wheeler was probably the last person on the face of the planet who I would have knowingly tried to imitate. The fact that she’d even brought his name up at all made me think I needed to soften my approach a little. Dean might be the professional, but I knew from personal experience that his approach to asking questions and getting answers left a lot to be desired.

  Still, when it came to getting facts, maybe it was best not to sugarcoat the questions too much.

  “She kept muttering something about Blake,” Betsy continued. “It was really—”

  “Blake?” I interrupted, the familiar name making me suck in a sharp breath as I looked across the table at Dad. He must have heard it, too, because he was looking right back at me. “Did she mention Blake’s last name?”

  “No, but there’s only one Blake in Reedville that I know of—the only one she would have spoken with, anyway.”

  Dad spoke up as he looked from me to Betsy and back again. “It had to be Blake Reed.”

  “That’s the one,” Betsy agreed then made a dismissive gesture. “But I haven’t seen him around in ages. I don’t think anyone has.”

  “I have.” Dad closed the ledger and drummed his fingers on the table. “I was just telling Jean earlier that he came into the library about a month ago. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I’m sure it was him. He wanted to look through the town archives.”

  “How strange,” Aunt Betsy mused. “He’s been a virtual recluse for ages, but I suppose he does still get out and about on occasion. I wonder what he was looking for?”

  “Do you remember what Dorothy was saying about Blake Reed?” I asked, hoping to get back on track before any of the details from that day slipped through Aunt Betsy’s memory. “You said she was muttering something?”

  “Let me see if I can remember exactly what she said…” Aunt Betsy paused and squinted a little. “No, I can’t remember her exact words, but it was something about fulfilling the family promise—and I definitely remember that part. Fulfilling the family promise. It was such a strange thing to say, and she kept repeating it as she looked around the restaurant for that sourdough recipe.”

  Fulfilling the family promise.

  What in the world did that even mean?

  What promise? What family? Dorothy’s family? Blake’s? I felt like every new detail I learned brought a dozen new questions along with it.

  Dad asked the question that I was mulling over in my mind. “What do you think she meant by that, Betsy? The family promise?”

  “I have no idea,” Aunt Betsy answered. “I was just letting her talk and hoping she’d wind herself down a little so I could reason with her. And it finally worked. I told her she should have her son bring her to my birthday party that evening and promised that she and I could sit down and work everything else out the next day.” She frowned. “Obviously, none of that ever happened.”

  Aside from the mention of Blake Reed and the weird thing about a promise, none of what she’d shared was new information. There was certainly nothing there to indicate who the real killer might have been.

  Which meant—as far as Dorothy’s son and the detective were concerned, anyway—Aunt Betsy was almost certainly still a prime suspect. Maybe even the suspect at that point.

  “Is that when you left?” My stomach clenched. I didn’t want to leave the conversation like this, without even a tiny bit of hope that we could help clear her name. And judging by Mom and Dad’s heavy sighs and frustrated groans, there wasn’t a lot of progress being made with the bakery’s finances, either. “And did you go right back to your own shop or did you stop somewhere else on the way?” I asked, hoping maybe someone else in town could have given her some sort of alibi.

  “I left shortly after she agreed to come to the party,” Betsy confirmed. “And I nearly ran right over Sebastian Harlan as I pushed the door open to leave. Dealing with Dorothy had me so rattled that I didn’t even see him coming in until it was almost too late.”

  I blinked. “Wait, what? Who is Sebastian Harlan?”

  Mom looked surprised. “Sebastian? He’s in town again?”

  “I don’t suppose he’s found a steady job?” Dad raised a brow.

  “Or a steady place to live?” Mom added.

  Aunt Betsy shook her head. “I think Dorothy’s shop is the closest thing he’s had to a steady job since he got out of jail years ago. She always adored him—said he had made some bad choices when he was younger but had a heart of gold.

  “Makes me wonder if she ever accused him of stealing her recipe.” Mom exchanged a knowing look with Dad. “I’m sorry, but I think someone with an arrest record that included drugs and assault would probably be first on my list of suspects.”

  My mouth fell open. “Not just for the stolen recipe but maybe even for the murder!” In my excitement, I reached for Aunt Betsy’s arm. “Did you tell Dean about this guy yet? If he’s really the last person who was with Dorothy, then—”

  Betsy slumped a little as she shook her head. “The detective couldn’t find Sebastian that night, and apparently nobody has seen him in town since then.” She sighed. “But I honestly can’t believe Sebastian would have done something like that. I know he has a colorful past, but Dorothy made it sound like he’s been on a straight and narrow path ever since then, and he always treated her like gold whenever I was around. Like a mother figure, really.”