Christmas Cupcakes and a Caper Read online

  Christmas cupcakes & a caper

  Death by Cupcake, Book #4

  D.E. HAGGERTY

  Copyright © 2019 D.E. Haggerty

  All rights reserved.

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Christmas Cupcakes & a Caper is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and events are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental. The incidents depicted are pure imagination.

  Christmas Cupcakes & a Caper

  It’s all candy cane cupcakes and peppermint coffee until you find a dead elf on your doorstep.

  Only the elf wasn’t a real elf, because elves don’t actually exist – not even at Christmas time. A college student dressed like an elf decided taking a nap nap on the stoop of Callie's Cakes in sub-zero winter temps was a good idea. It wasn’t. Anna, the pink-haired baker extraordinaire, is convinced the student’s death was not an accident. She drags Callie and Kristie along with her as she attempts to discover who killed the elf … um… student.

  Will the gals of Callie’s Cakes find the killer before Christmas is ruined?

  Cupcakes not included, although you’ll find recipes for all the delicious Christmas cupcakes Anna baked.

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  Dedication

  This one's for all the wonderful readers out there who love Christmas and cupcakes!

  Table of Contents

  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

  Recipes

  An Excerpt from Never Trust a Skinny Cupcake Baker

  About the Author

  Complete book list

  Chapter 1

  Santa stop here. We have cookies.

  “Holy cow, batgirl, these cupcakes are the bomb.” The chocolate cupcakes with buttercream frosting are decorated with red and green sparkles for the Christmas season and look absolutely scrumptious. I grab one and rip the paper liner off before shoving half into my mouth. I moan as the taste of chocolate and fluffy cream combine to create heaven in my mouth but then the heavenly cream melts and a burn replaces it. My eyes water and I start to cough. “What the heck did you put in these?” I somehow manage to ask.

  “Too much?” Anna scrunches up her nose and frowns at the cupcakes as if the things have let her down.

  I wave a hand in front of my face to cool the heat now spreading across my face. “Um, yeah. Just a bit.”

  “Huh.” She wrinkles her nose. “The original recipe called for six teaspoons of Irish Cream in the frosting and two teaspoons of whiskey in the ganache filling. Sounded like way too little.” She grabs a pencil and starts scribbling notes on a piece of paper.

  Throwing cupcakes away, anything chocolate really, is sacrilege, but there’s no way I can finish this thing. I toss the remaining cupcake in the trash with a shake of my head. “Remember,” I tell her as I walk to my office. “We don’t have a liquor license.”

  I’ve nearly reached my office when Kristie pushes the swinging door into the kitchen open. “I hate to interrupt your loving on some cupcakes, but we have a problem.”

  “I got this,” I shout to Anna and start to follow Kristie.

  “Um, I think both of you are going to want to see this.”

  Well, now she has my attention. “What’s going on?”

  “You have to see it to believe it.”

  I motion for her to lead the way as I follow her through the door with Anna hot on my heels. I stop when I see the room is empty. “Why haven’t you opened yet?”

  “That’s what I needed to show you.” She points to the front door.

  As the door is glass, I immediately spot the problem. There’s an elf sitting in front of the door, leaning his back against it while obviously passed out. I roll my eyes. Typical. This time of year brings out the drunks, which is saying a lot in Wisconsin. “I got this.”

  I march to the door and unlock it. As soon as I pull the door open, the elf falls backwards. I jump out of the way, and his body lands with a thump in the doorway. Ugh. I hate dealing with drunks. Not that we get too many drunks coming to Callie’s Cakes. We are a cupcake bakery and not a bar after all. “Come on, dude. Time to move on.” I gently prod him with my foot, but he doesn’t move or make a sound. “How much did you drink?” I lean over and squeeze his shoulder. No reaction. Uh oh.

  “Rotten eggnog, you don’t think he’s dead, do you?” Anna asks as she kneels down next to me.

  “Could be. Around thirty people a year die of exposure in Wisconsin.”

  “Thanks for the totally irrelevant information, Ms. Encyclopedia.”

  I ignore Anna’s dig. I can’t remember a time I didn’t sprout trivia when I’m nervous. And my best friend since the first day of junior high school has been making fun of me about it since the second day of junior high.

  “Kristie?” I look at her and gesture towards the man. As a doctor’s daughter and social worker, she’s taken numerous first aid classes. As such, she’s our go-to person whenever anything slightly medical comes up.

  I stand and move out of her way. She kneels and feels for a pulse on his wrist. Her eyes widen, and her hand trembles. “I can’t feel a pulse.” She moves her hand to place her fingers under his neck. “Still nothing.” Before I know it, she has him laying flat on his back on the ground and is giving him chest compressions.

  I whip out my phone and dial 911. Then, I call my boyfriend, Ben. He’s a local cop, a detective actually. I don’t think we need a cop, but if I don’t let Ben know about the elf before he hears it over his radio, he will not be amused. An unamused Ben is no fun.

  Within minutes, an ambulance arrives. Without saying a word, the paramedics shove Kristie out of the way before taking over the chest compressions. Kristie joins Anna and me in our little huddle in the doorway. It’s freezing out and we’re letting all the warm air from the café escape, but wasting heat is the least of our current problems.

  We watch as one of the paramedics rushes back to the ambulance for a stretcher. When he returns, they lift the elf up to place him on it. As he’s being moved, the elf’s ears and hat fall off. I gasp when I recognize the face. “I know him! He’s one of my students.” In addition to co-owning the bakery with Anna, I’m an adjunct professor in German literature at the local university.

  Kristie steps forward and studies the man’s face. “I know him, too. He’s an intern at the Youth Center.” In addition to being a grad student in the social work program, Kristie runs a Youth Center for wayward youths in the inner city.

  Anna comes closer to have a look as well. “Not to brag or anything, but I also know dude loves my cupcakes. He’s here like every mo
rning. I win.” Leave it to Anna to make recognizing a guy who is most likely dead into a contest.

  I don’t have time to berate her as a car screeches to a halt behind the ambulance. Ben jumps out and rushes towards me. He pulls me into his arms. “What’s going on? Why is there an ambulance here?”

  “We found a dead elf.”

  I grunt at Anna’s response. She couldn’t have said a drunk? I feel Ben stiffen in my arms. Oh great, here we go. “A dead elf? How did you find a dead elf?”

  Sirens blare. I swivel in Ben’s arms to watch the ambulance leave, but it’s not the ambulance making a racket. Nope. A cop car has arrived on the scene. Sigh. We’re going to be super late opening the bakery if we have to deal with a bunch of cops and their questions. Trust me. I know from experience.

  One of the police officers walks to the ambulance to speak to the paramedics, but the other approaches our group congregating near the entrance to the café. His eyes catch on Ben and he lifts his chin in greeting. Typical. What is it with men and non-verbal greetings?

  “Can someone tell me what happened here?”

  “We found a dead elf on our doorstep,” Anna chimes in before anyone can speak.

  “We don’t know he’s dead,” I point out. Anna gestures to the ambulance pulling away without its lights flashing or siren blaring. Not a good sign.

  “What did you say?” Logan, Anna’s boyfriend and all-around-scary-dude, demands as he pushes his way through the crowd gathering in front of the bakery. The couple met and fell for each other when Logan was working undercover and trying to protect Anna. Long story. He’s a gang squad cop now but no less protective of his pixie girl.

  “An elf died on our doorstep,” Anna repeats.

  He does a slow blink before shaking his head. “You know, a few months ago, I would have been shocked by those words coming out of anyone’s mouth. Now?” He shrugs.

  I turn to Kristie. “You’re lucky Tyler is a fireman.”

  Her mouth twists. “Except he’s on duty now. I expect to see a fire truck come flying down the street at any moment. Is it wrong to hope there’s a real fire somewhere?”

  I can’t blame her. Tyler still hasn’t calmed down one iota from when Kristie was in danger after she started an investigation into rapes happening on campus even though the rapist – who also happened to be a murderer – was put behind bars months ago.

  “I’m going to need to take a witness statement,” the uniformed officer says in a loud voice. Guess someone is feeling ignored.

  Before I get a chance to wave the officer into the bakery, Tyler comes running down the sidewalk and practically tackles Kristie. “Oh look, my words conjured him.”

  “At least he’s not in the fire truck.”

  I giggle at Kristie’s response before responding to the officer. “Come on in,” I tell him. The crowd takes this as a signal the bakery is now open and follows us in. Kristie and Tyler rush behind the counter to start serving the crowd while Logan follows Anna into the kitchen.

  The next half hour passes in a blink as I try to serve customers while also answering the cop’s questions. Not that I have any answers. Sure, I know the guy is a student in my class, but that’s it. Kristie isn’t much help either. She hasn’t been spending much time at the Youth Center this semester, as her class schedule for the second year of her master’s program is intensive. I’m pretty sure having an overprotective boyfriend has something to do with her lack of free time as well.

  As soon as the officer leaves, Ben approaches the counter. “I’m taking off, sweetheart.” He leans over the counter and kisses my forehead.

  “See? You didn’t need to rush over here.” One day I’ll cure the man of his need to rush to my side anytime anything exciting happens. He chuckles and waves as he walks out the door. I may be annoyed with him, but nothing can stop me from watching him walk away. The view is too fantastic to pass up.

  Chapter 2

  Dear Santa, I can explain.

  “Did you hear the elf was DOA – dead on arrival?” Anna asks.

  Anna, Kristie, and I are having a cup of coffee together before the café opens the next day. Nowadays, this is the only time we get to spend together when we’re not working especially with the holiday season upon us. Anna is practically baking nonstop to fill the multitude of orders for Christmas cakes and cookies.

  “Yeah,” I nod as I take a sip of my Christmas peppermint coffee. My eyes practically roll back in my head as the taste of peppermint and coffee combines in my mouth. Yum-my! I do love the holidays.

  “It was pretty obvious the poor guy was dead when they weren’t in a hurry to leave,” Kristie adds.

  “Can we stop calling him the elf or the poor dead guy? He had a name.”

  Anna shrugs. “I don’t know his name. To me, he was salted-caramel-cupcake-guy. At least, he had good taste.”

  “Donald Griffin was his name.” To be honest, I had to go through my class roster last night to figure out his name. My Introduction to World Literature class has over one hundred students. It’s impossible to remember everyone’s names, especially those like Donald who sit in the back seat and sleep their way through class. It’s a miracle I even recognized his face.

  “Did you know him well?” I ask Kristie.

  She shakes her head. “Not really. I haven’t been spending as much time at the Youth Center as I’d like. This final year of grad school is kicking my butt. I can’t believe you managed to get your PhD while running this bakery.”

  “I didn’t have a hot fireman to distract me.” I waggle my eyebrows at her. “Pun intended.”

  “Well, it can’t be a coincidence someone who was connected to both of you ended up dead on our doorstep.”

  “We’re blocks from the university where I teach and Kristie goes to school. Statistically speaking, it would be more suspicious if it were someone neither one of us knew.” I don’t actually know if what I’m saying is true, but using words like ‘statistically’ is a surefire way to get Anna to move on.

  Anna looks around the empty kitchen before leaning forward and whispering, “What if he was murdered?”

  I roll my eyes. Someone sure likes to create drama when none is to be found. “Donald passed out drunk in the cold in December in Wisconsin. There’s no big mystery as to how he died, Anna.”

  “Oh yeah?” She raises an eyebrow. “If there’s no big mystery then why did the family order an autopsy?”

  I cross my arms over my chest. “That doesn’t necessarily mean anything. If the police thought the death was suspicious, they would have ordered an autopsy – not the family.”

  “But what if this dude – Donald – wasn’t a big drinker. What if the family finds it suspicious because he would have never just laid down and taken a nap on the ground when it was freezing outside?”

  I narrow my eyes at her. “What are you talking about?”

  She ducks her head but not before I see the blush spreading over her cheeks.

  “Oh my gosh, what did you do to poor Logan to find out this information?” I hold up my hand before she can speak. “No wait, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”

  “Me either,” Kristie adds. “It’s bad enough I walked in on you yesterday.” She shivers. “If I ever wondered how a man over six-foot tall and a woman a foot shorter kissed, I now have my answers.” She stares at her coffee cup and whispers. “Too much information.”

  I’m with Kristie. I too have been subjected to entirely too much visual confirmation as to how the mismatched in height couple makes things work. Back to the subject at hand. “All parents think their children are little angels, but they have no idea what goes on at college. No idea.”

  “True,” Kirstie nods. “You can’t believe how many parents of gangbangers think their children are little angels, despite the gang tattoos plain as day to see.”

  “Come on. You can’t tell me you don’t find anything about this situation suspicious.”

  “Even if it is suspicious—”
Anna squeals and springs from her chair. “Sit down. I said ‘even if’.” I wait for her to take her seat before I continue. “We don’t have time to be chasing a murderer. It’s nearly Christmas. You’re practically sleeping in the kitchen as it is. I’m sure Kristie has a ton of schoolwork to deal with. Personally, I’ll be marking papers and exams until Christmas Eve. If I’m lucky, I’ll be able to take a break for the actual holidays.”

  Anna tilts her head and scrunches her nose. “You have been a bit more preoccupied than normal.” She looks at Kristie who nods in agreement. “What’s going on?”

  Geez o peas! I didn’t want to get into this with them. I feel stupid thinking about it, let alone saying anything.