19: Hero-ing

 

 

When I wasn’t staring at the contestants and envying their success, I was stupidly chatting up as much of the staff as possible about the broken-but-now-fixed keycard reader. More than a few gave me strange looks when I started up a conversation with, “So I guess they got that keycard reader on the storefront door working again.” The majority of the people I talked to hadn’t even known it was broken and didn’t care even a little.

Less than five people I talked to had any clue what I was talking about. Of those five, one was Chelsea, who knew everything that went on, another two were floating bakery assistants like Pamela who used the door frequently, and the last two were film crew guys who only seemed to know because they’d seen the repair guy fixing the door that morning when they came in. Nobody seemed to know who first figured out the door was broken and told Pamela. There was, unfortunately, any number of youngish tech crew and show crew guys wandering around the set. All of which were extremely busy setting up for the live and show and didn’t stop moving long enough to be asked a question.

Having made the cast and crew think I was a creep, I settled in next to the coffee machine. I felt better just being near such a fabulous piece of equipment, and it allowed me to watch most of the bakery from an out of the way position. As I watched the contestants buzz around getting supplies and setting up their stations the way they wanted them, I went back through the timeline of the now infamous keycard reader.

Friday night was the last time anyone used a keycard. The clumsy assistant, Evan, had carried his dented boxes and bags of powdered sugar into the storefront. The show side of the bakery closed down shortly after. The storefront, due to its fame, kept unusually late hours for a bakery and didn’t close until ten that night. Neither keycard logs nor security footage showed anyone else even approach that door until the next morning when Pamela breezed through without even attempting the card. She came back ten minutes later and got on with her work.

I huffed, irritated I didn’t have more to go off of with the sabotage until I considered the information I’d just gone over. Evan had left. Pamela had left. Then Pamela came back. Evan never did. He’d popped back up on the security footage in the show area, but he never actually came back through the storefront door. That struck me as more than a little odd.

Bored watching the contestants fidget with things anyway, I decided to see if Coco knew where Evan had gone that day. She seemed to keep a pretty keen eye on that door. Abandoning my post, I approached the door and tapped my new, all-access keycard against the reader. A soft click sounded a moment later and I smirked, just a little. Morales had given me the new keycard after we’d gotten out of Gordy’s car, and told me Gordy had pretty much forced Mia to approve it. She still couldn’t seem to figure out what I had to do with anything and did not like giving me access to anything other than the common areas, and only if I was accompanied by an officer. She was quickly climbing my list of people I despised, though even she couldn’t dethrone Megan from the number one spot.

Pulling the door open, I strode into the storefront and scanned the area for Coco. She was helping a customer, so I waited by the door and took stock of the area. With the contest so close and the massive advertising campaign going on, I wasn’t surprised to see a long line of customers waiting for their treats. What was surprising was the lack of staff in the storefront. Coco hustled back and forth between orders, completely on her own and not looking happy about it.

While she was boxing up an order for a dozen caramel and dark chocolate cupcakes, I stepped up to ask the next customer what they wanted. Twenty minutes later there was finally a break in the flood of sweet tooth fanatics.

“Thank you,” Coco said as she leaned against the counter. “It’s been nonstop all morning.”

“Don’t you have any help?” I asked.

“Carly quit this morning. By text message.” She shook her head.

“Why?”

Coco gave me a derisive look. “She doesn’t want to die.”

I looked around the largely deserted store again. “Who else has quit?”

“One of the bakers and an assistant.” She glared at the door to the show side of the bakery. “All kinds of bakers and assistants in there, but no one can help out here.”

Frustrated Salma was hurting her store for the sake of the show, I said, “I’ll see if I can send some people out in a minute. Before I do, though, would you mind looking at something?”

She hesitated a moment, then shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”

I showed her the picture of Evan as he was trying to get through the storefront door. Coco snorted the moment she saw him. “What do you want to know about that fool? He’s always stumbling around in our way. Can barely walk across flat ground without ending up on his face.”

“Do you remember him coming through here on Friday?” I asked.

She nodded. “Knocked me into a tray of cupcakes. Smooshed the frosting. Had to toss every last one of them.” Shaking her head, she relived her irritation for a moment before considering the reason behind my curiosity. “What’s he got to do with anything?”

“Nothing, probably,” I said, “but I wondered why he was bringing boxes and powdered sugar out here, and where he went afterward.”

Coco shrugged. “He was carrying purple boxes, so I assumed they were part of the contest hoopla. The powdered sugar? Who knows? Maybe the bakers on our side ran out. I don’t have a clue where he went after dropping stuff off. Not my job to keep track of anyone but the people up front.”

“Did anyone else come through here that night or early the next morning?” I asked.

Considering the question, Coco said after a few seconds, “Granted, I don’t get here until eight, like I told you before, but the only other person I saw come through was that young girl who never shuts up. Brought out Salma’s ‘daily special’ cupcakes.”

I frowned, disappointed Coco didn’t have any new clues for me. The killer had gotten in and rummaged around without a keycard being logged, so I’d hoped maybe someone else had done the same…though unless they were a vampire their image still would have been on the security footage. So, I’d learned nothing. Great. Gordy would be thrilled.

“At least that clumsy guy only interrupts me once,” Coco said. “The annoying chatty girl could learn from him.”

Much more alert than I had been a moment ago, I tried not to let my frustration slip through. I thought I’d already asked her about this and gotten an answer. “I thought you said you didn’t know where he goes after delivering things.”

Coco shrugged. “I don’t, but he should show that girl his secret route so I don’t have to listen to her stories about what she did the night before. She has an unhealthy obsession with her dog. Maybe if she had people friends she’d quit trying to talk to me so often. I’ve got things to do.”

That was odd. Evan’s secret route, I meant. Well, Pamela and her dog, too, but that wasn’t exactly relevant to the investigation. Probably. Who knew at this point? I shook that thought away and considered Evan again. I wasn’t really sure about the layout of the full bakery. It was possible Evan’s circuitous route simply made more sense than going back the way he’d come. But the security footage hadn’t covered any other doors between the bakery sections. What if there were more to it?

“I’ll try to get you some help for out here,” I told Coco, “but I need to ask the bakers something first. Just a minute.” I dashed off before she could reply.

Both remaining bakers stopped talking the moment I burst into their sanctuary. One eyed me menacingly while the other seemed merely curious. The woman near the industrial mixer gave me a onceover and asked, “Aren’t you that baker girl who works for the police?”

“Yeah,” I said, “I am.”

The older gentleman who’d been filling a piping bag huffed. “We got enough problems without you messing things up even more.”

“I’m helping this time,” I said, only holding back my peevish tone because he was old and looked like he might be nice when not working in a bakery on the brink of either collapse or mass murder.

He didn’t buy it and turned away to frost the cupcakes in front of him. The woman was slightly less hostile, but only by the thinnest of margins. “What’re you doing back here?”

“I just needed to ask you about the assistants who come through here on occasion…the clumsy guy and the talkative girl.”

“Both idiots,” the older gentleman grumbled.

The woman rolled her eyes at him and stepped past his stooped form. “What do you want to know about them?”

“Coco mentioned that the guy, Evan, never comes back through the storefront after making his deliveries and I was curious where he went.”

The woman leaned against the counter behind her. “He goes through the pass-through hallway. It’s closer to the pantries and closet he’s usually delivering stuff into. We’re not actually supposed to use it, but I think everyone’s happy enough to keep that kid out from underfoot that no one bothers him about it.”

“Why aren’t you supposed to use the pass-through?” I asked.

The woman shrugged. “Probably doesn’t have eighteen security cameras on it like every other inch of this place.”

The older man grunted in response to that, then began frosting a little more vehemently.

In the hopes of learning something useful and not annoying the grumpy baker, I asked, “Mind showing me where this secret hallway is?”

She hesitated, then sighed and gestured for me to follow her. Leading me past the paper goods and dry goods pantries Evan delivered his items to, the woman pushed a tall tray cart aside and waved her hand in a worn out Vanna White fashion. “Nothing special, but you’re welcome to break the rules if you want.”

Breaking rules was kind of my specialty, much to Baxter’s dismay. And Gordy’s. And my sister’s. And…never mind. “Thanks, I really appreciate your help.”

“Well, if you get bored over there, feel free to drop back by and pitch in.” She shook her head. “Busiest time of the year, doubly so because of that stupid contest, and three people quit because they’re afraid they’re going to end up face down in a pool of their own blood like Alice.” She met my gaze and asked, “What is Salma thinking?”

Wishing I had a better answer, all I could say was, “I’m still working on that one.”

“Yeah,” she said, “me too.”

I said goodbye and reached for the door handle. Despite being half covered by a tray rack when we first approached it, the lock released easily and the door swung toward me. I paused there, wondering why on earth this door didn’t have a keycard lock. Stepping into the dark hallway, I took in my surroundings in confusion. The red brick was something that belonged on the outside of the building, not the inside. I glanced up and squinted at the unfinished ceiling. Then I looked at it a little harder and realized it wasn’t just unfinished, it looked as if it had been slapped together in a matter of hours and merely set in place. The little light filtering down into the hallway was from gaps between the ceiling joists and the walls.

Confused by what I was seeing, I took out my phone and let my finger hover over the flashlight app. The door swung closed when I pulled my hand away and darkness flooded the small space. After taking a moment to let my eyes adjust, I crept down the length of the hall to where more light was seeping in. Instead of only being at where the ceiling and walls met, bits of light could be seen around what appeared to be a poorly made wall.

Turning on the flashlight app, I gave up following light beams and tried to figure out what was going on with this disturbing space. No wonder nobody else liked to use it…especially in light of the murders. This was the exact place the idiotic teen girl in a horror movie would get stabbed to death. Forget the dumb teenage girl, I was the only one stupid enough to investigate death traps like this. That thought froze me for a moment. Slowly, I pressed my back against the crappy wall and turned to face the hallway. I had to force myself not to close my eyes, but I couldn’t resist crossing my fingers, even though Lady Luck and I were not usually on speaking terms.

Shining my phone’s flashlight out in front of me as far as I could, I breathed a sigh of relief when the shadowy corners remained free of hooded murderers. I took a few deep breaths to calm myself back down, then got back to puzzling out what on earth was going on with this creepy ass hallway. Given that I was in no way trained to investigate things like shoddy construction, I basically felt around for anything weird and wondered whether the gaps were intentional. I would have to remember later to ask Salma who did the construction, just to make sure Sonya never called them for repairs at the apartment building. That place had enough problems without some corner-cutting construction company building guaranteed murder boxes for the residents.

Continuing to feel around, I paused only when I scraped my fingers across something metal. After inspecting my hands for damage and only finding a faint red line, I turned my light to the offending sharp edge. At first, I didn’t know what to think of the hinge. It didn’t make any sense to have a hinge on a wall…until I saw a matching hinge and realized it was not a wall but a door. Moving to the other side, I peeked through the gap and my suspicion was confirmed by the presence of a chain and padlock.

That answered my question about why there were exterior bricks in an interior hallway. It wasn’t a hallway, but an alley. Now I had a new question of why this alley had been closed off and why the doors between the two sides of the bakery weren’t locked like everything else. That was two questions, actually, which seemed about right for me. Answer one question, end up with two more. Was that how it worked for Gordy too, or was I just special like that?

Shaking my head, I made my way to the door that would take me to the show side of the bakery. Getting five minutes alone with Salma today was going to be on par with Megan growing a heart. Maybe Morales could help me corner her. Lying in wait by her car didn’t seem like a particularly good idea when there was a killer running around.

Twisting the doorknob, I was momentarily confused when my hand jerked to a stop after only a quarter twist. What the hell? I twisted it again, and again with no result. Evan used this door all the time. Why was it locked now? Who had locked it? Another question. Annoyed, I spun around to go back the way I’d come.

Except that door was locked too.

A string of words that would have impressed Baxter flew out of my mouth as I realized I was stuck in the alley-turned-hallway of doom. I banged on the door and waited. Then I banged on it again. And yelled for someone to help me. Then I was back to banging. Maybe the baker’s couldn’t hear me. Or it was possible they could and were either too busy or didn’t care. That last part might have been true for the grumpy guy. Banging on the other door produced exactly the same response.

Angry at myself and whoever decided to use auto-locking doors, I ripped my phone back out of my pocket and dialed Morales. When it went to voicemail I wanted to scream. When I called Gordy and got the same response, I did scream.

Once I finished my hissy fit, I debated my options. Baxter was at work and Puck was probably still asleep. Sean was out of town with his family and Sonya was locked up with her batty grandmother planning the building Christmas party. She would love to get out of listening to party game ideas like making angel costumes out of toilet paper or competitive rounds of a capella Christmas karaoke, but Mrs. Osgood would never let her escape.

Of those four people, I felt least bad about waking Puck. It took three tries before he finally answered.

“Hello?” he mumbled.

“Puck, I need your help and a pair of bolt cutters.”

There was a moment of hesitation before he asked, “If you’re in jail, I’m sure you know enough cops willing to help without staging a prison break.”

“So, you wouldn’t help me break out of jail if I asked?”

“Well, I didn’t say that,” he replied. “I’m just pointing out there might be an easier solution.”

“Good to know.”

Puck yawned, then asked, “Where are you and why do I need to bring bolt cutters?”

“Do you have bolt cutters?” I asked, surprised he appeared ready to fulfill that request.

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

He hesitated. “Uh, it’s a long story, maybe one to save for after I rescue you.”

Sighing, I figured he was probably right. “Fine. I’m at Sweet Life, stuck in some weird alley-hallway thing. Both doors back into the bakery are locked and there’s a chain and padlock on the outer door-wall contraption, and either no one can hear me banging or they think it’s funny to leave me out here. And I can’t get Morales or Gordy to answer their phones.”

Chuckling a little, Puck said, “Yeah, that’s sounds about right for you. I’ll be there in twenty.”

The tension in my shoulders released immediately. Anyone else would have lectured me about this. “You’re my hero, Puck. Seriously. This place is really creeping me out.”

“After this past weekend, I have a lot of hero-ing I need to do to make up for what I put you through,” he said mournfully.

I could hear him moving around. I did the opposite and sat down on the single step in front of the bakery door. “It’s not that bad,” I told him. “Pretty much all families are a pain in the ass at times, right? It’s not like I have much room to speak.”

His keys jingled as he picked them up, and a moment later I heard his apartment door slam shut. “You and I both know that wasn’t the real reason you were so upset,” Puck said. “I know you can handle crazy people. Look at where you live and who your friends are? It was the fact that I purposely didn’t tell you about all that shit my mom brought up. I get that, and I’m really sorry.”

“I know,” I said, sighing because it was true and because it didn’t exactly erase the hurt and embarrassment I’d felt that night. “We’ll talk about it all once this case is over and I get my life back, okay?”

He seemed disappointed I didn’t want to continue the conversation right then, but I had too many other things on my mind. “Yeah,” he said, “okay. I’ll be there soon, all right?”

“Thanks, Puck.”

We ended the call and I leaned my head back against the door. I put Puck aside for a moment and concentrated on the circumstances that had led me to be trapped in a dark alley. Since it was highly unlikely Evan had a key to the show-side door, the doors must usually remain unlocked. That didn’t seem unbelievable. There was a chain and padlock on the fake-wall door, so it wasn’t like anyone could get in here or sneak anything out. Without help, anyway.

The problem with the theory that the doors were usually unlocked was that it made more sense that exterior back doors would automatically lock when closing. Saul’s, Mina’s, and the bakery I’d worked at while in hiding from Simon did that to prevent someone sneaking in the back while the staff was busy. The bakery-side door locking me out wasn’t surprising if I went with that line of thought, but then how was Evan getting back through the show-side door without a key? It was a circular problem I couldn’t seem to find my way out of…just like the alley.

Sighing, I shoved that problem aside and tried to figure out what the deal was with this stupid alley anyway. Why was there an alley with entrances to two different sides of the store, and why had it been blocked off by a so-so construction crew? The only thing that made sense was that the Sweet Life complex had once been two separate stores. That made sense, since Salma originally only had the bakery and wouldn’t have needed such a huge space. But why block off the alley? If you were going to block it off, why not do it permanently…and hire a better contractor to do the job? Salma was a detail-oriented person, and it made little sense she’d be okay with such slap-dash workmanship.

Having no solid answer for that question either, I asked myself whether any of this had anything to do with anything at all, or had I gotten myself stuck out here for absolutely no reason? Suspecting the answer was yes to that last part, I decided to spend the rest of my time waiting for Puck throwing myself a pity party in the dark. Some holiday break this was turning out to be. I already disliked this time of year enough without getting trapped in an alley by myself.

Just thinking about the upcoming Christmas and New Year’s holidays did make me glad I didn’t have time to sit around. I would take another murder case over having to think about what this time of year was like before Ben’s death. That first holiday season without him, without Bernadette and my parents, without anyone…there were times I came very close to not being strong enough to survive the pain and guilt and utter aloneness. Not thinking about picking out our tree, ice skating in the park, baking and delivering Christmas treats, watching our favorite holiday movies together, celebrating the new year with Ben, making promises about what the next year would hold for us…it was impossible.

It still was.

Bernadette called that first Christmas, but it had been too risky for her to visit even though she was worried about me. This year, Bernadette would call again, another year not seeing each other on the holidays. My parents never called and didn’t attempt to visit that first year. Or any other year. This year would be no different.

I would at least have friends and work to distract and keep me busy this year, but that was almost as overwhelming as having no one at all. Puck and Cordy wanted me to celebrate with them and had a boatload of strange traditions I was pretty sure they made up. Sonya was reluctantly planning and hosting the mandatory building Christmas party. Baxter had already mentioned something about watching fireworks on the roof for New Year’s. Sean had a list of parties around town he’d been invited to when he got back into town on Christmas Eve and insisted I come along as his plus one to act as a buffer against any women he wanted to avoid. Mina offered me extra shifts around both holidays so she could see her kids and Saul asked me at least once a day if I was sure I didn’t mind working the holidays so he could spend time with his wife.

Me? I wanted to get to January second as quickly as I could, and with as few emotional scars as possible.

“Eliza?” Puck called out. “You in there somewhere?”

“Puck!” I put my hands down on the step to push myself up…and started screaming the second I felt something furry under my fingers.

Springing up from the step, I started swatting at my clothes and body, desperate to get it away from me. I jumped and screamed even louder when something touched my leg. I only had one eye open by that point—to make sure I wasn’t surrounded by hungry rodents interested in eating me alive—but I saw a gigantic rat scurry around the alleyway in desperate search of whatever nasty hole it had crawled out of in the first place.

I was so busy watching the disgusting creature I failed to notice the alley was no longer dark and Puck was running toward me, until he grabbed me. “Are you hurt?” he demanded, shaking me a little to get my attention.

My heart rate jumped again and I frantically checked my fingers and toes for bite marks or blood. Rats had diseases, right? Did they still carry the plague? My luck pretty much demanded I would catch whatever biological threats they were spreading around willy-nilly. Luckily, my skin appeared unbroken, if not quite dirty by that point.

“I’m fine,” I said with a massive sigh of relief.

“What were you screaming about?” Puck shouted.

Amazed he hadn’t seen the monstrous rodent trying to get a bite out of me, I gaped at him. “I touched a rat! Didn’t you see it?”

Puck’s expression changed from panicked to on the verge of laughter in a split-second.

Before he could laugh, the show-side door flung open and both Gordy and Morales came bursting through with guns drawn. When they saw me, they froze uncertainly. After a quick assessment to be sure I wasn’t injured, Gordy echoed Puck and shouted, “What the hell are you screaming about?”

That was apparently the limit of Puck’s endurance because he burst into laughter, gasping, “She…touched…a…rat,” between bouts of hysteria.

Morals lowered his gun and frowned. Gordy threw his hands up, gun and all. “Well, what the hell do you expect? You’re hanging around in a damn alley! Of course there are rats!”

His response only made Puck laugh even harder. I ignored him and folded my arms across my chest.

Only Morales was capable of acting like a grown adult. He seemed more confused than anything. “What are you doing out here?” He glanced around the space and became even more confused. “What is this alley for and why didn’t we know about it?”

Still ignoring Puck as he attempted to get himself under control, I addressed only Morales. “That is one of several questions I have for Salma.”

“I’ll…go find her,” Morales said after glancing over at Gordy for permission.

“Tell her she needs a new chain on her stupid wall-door, while you’re at it,” I said as he turned away.

Gordy looked at the bolt cutters Puck had dropped and shook his head. “I can’t wait to hear the explanation for this.”