Detective Dan Walishovski stood looking up at Amelia with a bandage on his forehead and his arm in a sling.
Amelia dashed out of the back door of the truck and rushed to Dan’s side. It could be hard dating a detective, as it wasn’t Mayberry they lived in, where everyone knew everyone and the worst the police had to deal with was the town drunk taking up space in one of the two holding cells that were normally used for their weekly poker game. This was Gary, Oregon, where murders and crime were surprisingly common.
“What happened to you?” Amelia exclaimed. “Is this why you couldn’t come by last night? Why didn’t you tell me? Does it hurt? What happened?”
“If you’ll slow down and just take a breath, I’ll explain everything,” Dan said. His eyes were a bright blue. As Amelia looked up into them, she saw the familiar twinkle that assured her he had a story to tell.
“Uh-oh.” Amelia stood back. “This looks like it’s going to be quite a tale. Want to come up and sit?”
“Don’t mind if I do. Lila, you got any coffee up there?”
“For you, Detective, I sure do.”
Amelia climbed back up into the truck and pulled a stool out for Dan to sit by the door, where a cool breeze was some relief from the heat of the ovens.
“Smells good in here,” Dan observed as he took a paper cup full of coffee from Lila. “What are you two ladies cooking up in here?”
“Cinnamon-apple crumbles. Here, eat one. Lila came up with a great idea for a new healthier version of a cupcake for our health-conscious friends.”
“Oh, I’ll be diving into those.” Dan patted his stomach. “But until then...” He happily accepted the cupcake, taking a bite and chewing slowly.
“Okay, I appreciate your enjoying the cupcake, but are you going to tell me what happened, or do I have to guess?” Amelia urged.
“Let me guess,” Lila interrupted. “There was a fight between a couple of fourth graders at the school, and you got caught breaking it up.”
“No. No. Not fourth graders. A couple of rowdy seniors at the center over a bingo dispute.” Amelia chuckled.
“Two middle-aged women were fighting over the latest Disney-themed bed set, and you were on the losing team.”
“You ladies are hilarious,” Dan said as he took a sip of coffee. “But the truth isn’t that far off. You just aren’t going to believe this.”
The Gary Police Department, like every other police department in the country, had come to recognize certain addresses, phone numbers, and individuals when those calls came through the dispatcher. Some were like clockwork. Every Friday night around one o’clock in the morning, there was a call from Pat’s Pub that there were a couple of guys fighting in the parking lot. A couple times a month, the neighbors around 4201 Christine Way called to report the residents were fighting again. The casino on the outskirts of town had half a dozen calls a week to report drunk-and-disorderly conduct.
But a call from Bud Fetzer was different. Dan explained to Amelia and Lila that Bud was a very interesting fellow.
“I doubt he’s thirty years old,” Dan reported. “He lives alone, has no record, has some kind of computer gig that he does out of his house. UFO conspiracies. JFK cover-up. Some nonsense about the earth being hollow.”
“That’s his job? UFOs?” Lila inquired.
“Yup. He’s got quite a following, from what I hear. But to hear him tell it, he’s public enemy number one for what he calls anti-truth individuals. That was what he was calling about. As usual.”
Dan went on to tell Amelia and Lila that once every two or three months, they’d get a call to stop by the Fetzer place. It was a simple ranch house on a pristine piece of land that was left to Bud by his late parents. Mr. and Mrs. Fetzer had invested wisely over the years. They only had one son. So when they passed on, they had made sure their pride and joy was taken care of.
“What?” Amelia stifled a laugh. “Did he do this to you?”
“Not quite.” Dan rolled his eyes.
Dan went on to explain the call that he received from dispatch. A squad car had already shown up at the Fetzer property in response to Bud’s call saying there was a suspicious truck with two suspicious individuals lurking around his property.
“The uniforms said they checked everything out, and there were tire tracks and footprints but nothing that would lead them to believe that it was anything more than just a truck that stopped on the side of the road.” Dan took another sip from his coffee. “But Bud wasn’t satisfied with that. He needed me out there. Requested me by name. Said he and I had an understanding.”
Amelia watched Dan roll his eyes and started to giggle.
“Did you?”
“Not quite. Bud had come to the station a couple times, complaining about people on his property and hearing low-frequency radio sounds in his house. I got the assignment to check out his property and found absolutely nothing of substance. But I talked with Bud, and for all intents and purposes, he was a real nice guy,” Dan admitted while gently tapping the bandage on his forehead. “When I knocked on his door and announced who I was, the camera he installed at his front door came loose just as I was looking up into it. That’s what caused this.”
“What happened to your arm?” Amelia asked, fretting.
“After getting hit on the head, I lost my balance and fell off his porch, dislocating my shoulder and spraining my wrist.”
Lila didn’t stifle her laughter.
“Well, did you find anything at his house that little green men were planning an attack or something?” Amelia asked playfully.
“No,” he replied sourly. “If that were the case, at least I would have gotten hurt for a reason. Now I gotta hear the guys at the station ribbing me about being abducted and possibly probed.”
Amelia and Lila couldn’t help but burst out laughing.
“We don’t mean to laugh at you,” Amelia said between bursts of giggles.
“She doesn’t. I do,” Lila teased as she refilled Dan’s coffee.
“You’re all about that tough love, aren’t you, Lila?” Dan snickered back.
“I think you should head on over to my house,” Amelia suggested. “I’ve got beef stew in the crockpot already cooking. Plus, Lila came up with a genius new idea for a cupcake, and I’ll need tasters. What do you say?”
“I say that sounds pretty good.” Dan gave Amelia a cool grin. “I’ve got to go to the station and wrap up some paperwork. I’ll meet you at your place after you close up shop.”
“That sounds fine.”
By the time Amelia closed up the Pink Cupcake and drove home, she was exhausted. The idea of hiring on additional help was looking better and better all the time. She was happy to see Dan’s sedan parked in front of the house. He was just getting out of the car.
“Have you been waiting long?” Amelia asked as she parked her business in her driveway.
“Nope. Just got here a second ago. Turns out that Bud Fetzer wanted to speak with me at the station.”
“Really? I’m intrigued.”
“He swears there are people watching his house.”
Amelia bit her lower lip.
“Do you think there is any truth to what he’s saying?”
Dan shrugged, wincing as he rubbed his arm.
“I don’t know. But to tell you the truth, tonight I don’t want to talk about work or Bud or conspiracies. I’d give all the tea in China just to hear Meg’s latest school gossip or Adam’s most recent computer project.”
“Have you been drinking?” Amelia teased. “That’s hardcore.”
“No. But I think I might start.”
Once they were in the house, Dan got his wish. Amelia drank a bottle of beer with him.
“Katherine told me that she has an aunt that is totally convinced that there are lizard people in the government,” Meg piped up over her bowl of stew. “She says they are part of the Illuminati.”
“I don’t know about lizards. Snakes would be more like it,” Amelia said to Dan as she filled his bowl with stew.
“The Illuminati. That’s crazy.” Adam sniggered.
“She also said that her aunt saw a UFO. Just a tiny little weird white thing in the sky that changed direction super fast. I don’t know if it’s true. I never met this aunt.”
“You never will. They only allow family to visit people in the booby-hatch,” Adam continued.
“No one asked you, Adam,” Meg snapped.
“Adam, do we say booby-hatch? Really?” Amelia pursed her lips at her son. “That’s not very nice.”
“Sorry, Mom.” Adam chuckled.
“I heard people say that Kennedy wasn’t assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald and that it was a CIA cover-up,” Meg added before taking a mouthful of bread she had dunked in her stew.
Dan looked across the table at Amelia, who was grinning with amusement.
“I’m just glad she knows who Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald were,” she said before finally sitting down and starting to eat.
Meg carried on her conversation about UFOs and aliens while Adam interrupted, adding the fact that NASA and the SETI projects relied on computers to search for signals of intelligence in space.
Amelia and Dan sat quietly listening as the kids argued and joked and dominated the conversation at the table, giving the grown-ups a chance to unwind.
Finally, after deciding that aliens do exist but would never come near Adam because he’s too big of a nerd and that Meg would bore them to death, triggering an intergalactic war, the kids retreated to their rooms to start their homework.
“Maybe coming here wasn’t the best idea,” Amelia joked. “It’s not always a fortress of silence.”
“I’ve come to enjoy it. It’s my favorite part of the day, to tell you the truth.”
“You’re an easy man to please, Detective.” Amelia took a deep breath and patted her full stomach. “Are you interested in keeping me company while I work on this new recipe?”
“Tell me it requires tons of butter and cream and sugar.”
“Actually, I’m thinking of a green tea cupcake.”
Dan wrinkled his nose.
“You may as well have said a broccoli and Brussels sprout cupcake.”
“Come on. You’ve had green tea ice cream?”
“Where in the world would I ever eat that?” Dan stood up and helped Amelia reach into a top cabinet for a bag of flour.
“At a Chinese restaurant,” Amelia answered, taking the bag and bumping Dan with her hip. “I’m making it with applesauce instead of sugar, and I’ll be using almond milk instead of the hard stuff. And instead of frosting, I was thinking a light dusting of confectioners’ sugar.”
“That sounds real pretty. But I’ll believe it when I taste it.” Dan had been in Amelia’s kitchen more than once when she was baking and had learned where she kept most of her supplies. As she grabbed the jars of applesauce and a small bottle of vanilla extract, he got her mixing bowls, measuring cups and spoons, and electric blender.
As she started to dabble with the basic ingredients, slowly measuring them, she couldn’t help but ask about Bud.
“He lives in a nice part of town,” Amelia stated as she sifted the flour. “It’s a shame that is what occupies his time.”
“The guy is really no trouble. Just once every month or two he gets a bee in his bonnet. His nearest neighbor is Luann Jameson. You’ve heard of her, right?”
“Heard of her? Who hasn’t?” Amelia’s eyes widened at the mention of the woman. “Her real estate business is blasted all over every park bench and billboard across town.”
“Yeah, she’s got to love having that Fort Knox bunker on the adjoining property.” Dan harrumphed.
“Why would you say that?”
“You’ve obviously never seen the Jameson property.”
Amelia shook her head.
“Her late husband left her quite a bit of scratch. Plus, the real estate in Gary has always been a cash cow for those who know how to work it. From what I gather, she does. The place is professionally maintained. Flowers, shrub sculptures, koi ponds, aesthetically lit at nighttime. It is quite a sight.”
“Well, Luann is quite a sight, too.”
The billboard images of Luann Jameson didn’t do her justice even though they were the most flawless glamour shots ever taken. With blond hair down her back and a 36DD chest in front, also compliments of her late husband, Luann was someone everyone knew about. But unless you were looking into buying one of her properties in Sarkis Estates, she had very little use for you.
“Her daughter looks just like her,” Dan added.
“I never see her,” Amelia said. “She’s been kept under wraps for years.”
“Yeah. She’s real protective of her. We had a unit go out to the property because someone had vandalized their mailbox along with half a dozen others on the same stretch of road. Her daughter, Colleen, was telling the officer about finding the mailbox in pieces. Just a normal girl giving the facts, and Luann pulled in the driveway, yelling like a banshee for the girl to go inside.”
“Yikes.”
Dan leaned on the counter.
“The uniformed officer said that Luann told him to get any ideas about dating her daughter out of his head.”
“Really?”
“Yup. Officer Harvey was engaged to a real sweet girl. Patricia, I think her name was,” Dan continued. “Didn’t matter to Luann. She was convinced that everyone was out to get her daughter. ‘No daughter of mine is going to date a civil servant.’”
“She really said that?”
Dan nodded and gave a slight eye roll.
“How old is Colleen now?”
“She’s got to be in her early twenties, and she still lives with Luann.”
“Who does she want her daughter to marry?”
“Anyone with a seven-figure bank account is my guess.”
Amelia measured out the applesauce in the correct proportions to take the place of the sugar and tasted the batter before deciding it needed one more scoop.
“Maybe I’m a bad mother,” Amelia admitted. “I’ve never talked about that kind of stuff with Meg. I mean, she’s still just a baby, but I know soon enough boys are going to become important. I just want her to be happy.”
“Most mothers think the way you do.”
“Is John back from his honeymoon yet?” Dan asked, letting her know it was okay to talk about it.
“Does it show on my face that much?”
“No. I’ve just learned how to read you a little bit.” Dan took a step closer to her.
“He gets back next week,” Amelia admitted. “I had that big bank account, too. It went with John when he left. Now it’s Jennifer’s.”
“Does that bother you?”
“It does and it doesn’t. He pays his alimony, and that is enough to cover expenses for school and little else. I was just telling Lila today he is desperate to know about the books on the Pink Cupcake, but I’d rather cut off my own arm than tell him the truth. I’m nowhere near retirement, but Christmas ought to be a good one this year. We should be able to get the big goose hanging in the butcher shop before Mr. Scrooge does.” She winked playfully.
Dan slipped his arms around Amelia’s waist.
“I don’t have a fortune to offer you, Amelia. I wish I did.”
“That isn’t what I’m saying at all, Dan. You know that.” Amelia leaned against him. “I’m just wondering if Luann is really all bad for encouraging her daughter to find someone who can provide for her in that way.”
“How would you feel about a woman dating Adam for his money? Would you tell him that a girl like that would be a wise endeavor?”
“You got me there. No. I wouldn’t.”
“That kind of puts things in perspective, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“So what other kinds of poison are you adding to these health muffins?” Dan asked, kissing Amelia on the top of the head.
“You’re going to love these.” She stepped back to her mixing bowl and continued to stir the batter. “I don’t have a fortune to offer you, either, Dan. But you’ll get all the cupcakes you can swallow for as long as you like.”
“I’ll take it.”