Case of the Passion Fruit Poisoning

  CASE OF THE: PASSION-FRUIT POISONING

  Jessica Lansberry

  Copyright 2017 - Jessica Lansberry

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Edited by: Keri Lierman

  Books in the Cookie Club Mystery Series:

  Strawberry Cream Stabbing - GET IT!

  Sugar Cream Shooting - GET IT!

  Passion Fruit Poisoning

  1

  Beatrice held the fake smile for as long as she could, not sure how long was long enough. She realized that maybe if she threw in some fake laughter that that might help, and it did. She wanted to look at her watch to see how long she had been sitting there for, but didn’t want to look rude doing it. Maybe when he went to the bathroom she would get a chance. Surely, it had been at least an hour by now.

  Beatrice was on a date. And it was a date that wasn't going too well. In fact, it was a date that she never really wanted to take in the first place. It was forced onto her by her best friend, Stella. The two ladies were out doing their weekly power walk through the neighborhood when they came across a tall, strikingly handsome gentleman. Now, tall handsome men were usually Stella's game, but for some reason the man had been extremely interested in Beatrice.

  Stella, never one to begrudge a friend, did all she could to pair the two up and before Beatrice knew it, they had a date organized for the next day. It was like a magic show in which Stella was the head magician. Beatrice had never seen someone work so fast.

  "You can thank me later," Stella said smugly, once the tall gentleman was on his way. "No, no. Don't try and deny it. It's been far too long for you... barring the detective incident. Plus, with everything that's been happening lately, god knows that you could use it."

  Stella was right of course. The last few months for Beatrice had been nothing short of a whirlwind. It was sporadic, messy and unpredictable. Just when she thought that she was starting to get a handle on everything, as sure as the sun would set that night, something would come up again and Beatrice, whether she liked it or not, would find herself right in the thick of it.

  It started with a murder. The victim was unimportant. What was important was that her best friend, Stella, had been framed for it. So, using skills that she didn't even know she possessed, Beatrice managed to get her friend off the hook. It was tough work, a little too tough for a retired teacher turned baker, but she had gotten it done and looked forward to a good long rest once she had, although that rest never came.

  A few weeks later another murder took place and this time it was her grandson that was accused. So again, Beatrice put on her detective hat and got to work solving the case. Not only did she manage to free her grandson, but she repaired a relationship between herself, her daughter and her grandson that had been fractured for some time. And again, Beatrice could relax with her feet up, content that finally, everything was going to be getting back to normal.

  There was something still nagging her as she did though. Beatrice was famous for her intuition. It was one that she used to use on her husband all the time when he was alive and one that she again employed during her investigations. She had learned to trust it like an old friend and right now, it was screaming.

  She didn't know what about, but she was a big believer that bad things always came in threes. With two murders happening so close to one another, she couldn't help but wonder if another was around the corner.

  She was a paranoid soul and she couldn't help the feeling that this time she would be more involved than she would have liked.

  After exonerating her teenage grandson, she had offered him a room. She lived alone and could use the company. Not to mention the fact that he didn't really have anywhere else to go thanks to an on-the-mend mother and deceased father. Naturally her grandson had jumped at the chance. Beatrice had never dreamed of how much work it would be looking after a teenager at her age.

  Ever since he had moved into the house she hadn't gotten much sleep. If it wasn't his loud, wild music that he blasted all day and night, it was him slipping in and out of the house at all hours or trying to sneak girls in. She had caught him several times, girl in hand, and each time it led to an embarrassing conversation that she would like to forget.

  In short, Beatrice had had a stressful couple of months and was in desperate need of a holiday or at least some sort of a distraction.

  So, there she was, at her favorite little café, Mon Chere Café, on her first date in... well to be honest, she had no idea when. It really had been that long for her. It wasn't that Beatrice was a prude or anything of that nature. It was just that one didn't get over the death of a husband that easily. Especially one that they were deeply in love with, as Beatrice was with hers.

  "See anything you like?" Asked her date as he indicated to the menu, a roguish smile on his face.

  His name was Matthew Anderson. He was a good-looking gentleman; no one could deny that, with grey hair that made him look distinguished rather than old, a thick beard covering a square chin and sparkling blue eyes. Beatrice had to ask herself what he was doing here with her.

  Of course, that was unfair of Beatrice. Beatrice too was rather easy on the eye. She had a natural beauty, one that didn't hide behind make-up or implants. And although her hair was slightly greyer than she would have liked, and new wrinkles seemed to be appearing daily, she could still hold her head high and go toe to toe with any other woman in the room.

  The only thing that may have been separating the two was their dress sense. Where Matthew was dressed to impress, in a tanned pair of chinos and button down white shirt, offset by a fancy gold watch that Beatrice was sure was encrusted with diamonds, Beatrice was the complete opposite. She wore a simple light blue Sunday dress and red, flat shoes.

  "Not really,'" Beatrice replied to the question as she gazed around the café. Although to be fair, she wasn't really talking about the menu.

  It was the café that had caught her attention and put her in such a glum mood. It was the same café that she and her husband had gone to every Sunday when he was still alive. It was sort of a tradition that she'd kept up since his passing and even with a date, she didn't want to miss it.

  She didn't even know why she had picked up the menu in the first place. Every day that she went, she ordered the same thing; she didn't even have to tell the waiters anymore because they knew what she'd order. This was to such a degree that they even had a cake named after her – Bea cake it was called and it was, from her professional point of view, nothing short of divine. She liked the family environment of the café, the way that the staff remembered everyone's name and personal business.

  That had all changed lately. They'd done a complete turnaround with both the staff and the setting, turning the Mon Chere Café from a quiet little family establishment, into a hip new café were teens could hang out to discuss their angst and how they were convinced the world was out to get them.

  This new attitude reflected in the wait staff who acted like drones as they buzzed between tables, taking orders and nothing else. Goodness, she missed the old days.

  "I think I might try the Bea cake," Matthew chimed in. "It sounds out of this world."

  It took over ten minutes, but eventually they were able to wave down a waiter. He was younger, maybe twenty, with piercings covering his face and tattoos covering his arms. Beatrice ordered her usual, a glass of cha
mpagne with a piece of passion fruit pie, while Matthew had champagne, and of course the Bea cake.

  The conversation between the two was stinted and one sided. Beatrice got the impression that Matthew wanted one thing, and one thing only. That was confirmed continuously as he mentioned his brand new apartment at least five times and invited her around to see it three times.

  By the time their drinks arrived, Beatrice was just about ready to slam it down in one go and order another.

  Their drinks and food were brought to them by a different waiter than who had taken the order. This was a point that annoyed Beatrice to no end. How were they expected to get the orders correct and keep an eye on the customers if they switched staff constantly?

  And of course, as if to prove a point, the waitress, a beautiful young lady with fiery red hair that seemed to glow in the sunlight, mixed up their order. She put the Bea cake down in front of Beatrice and the passion fruit pie down in front of Matthew. And then, before Beatrice had a chance to complain, she was gone – vanished from sight and, by the looks of things, the entire café.

  Beatrice rolled her eyes, reaching for the pie when Matthew picked it up. "Do you mind?" He asked. "I've never had it before, if you believe it."

  "Oh, sure." Beatrice offered, although truthfully not happy at all that he was about to essentially steal some of her food. He only took a small nibble, his eyes popping open with delight, before handing the dessert back over.

  "A little bitter, but not bad at all." He suddenly pushed his chair out, going to stand. "I'm just going to use the bathroom. I'll be one sec."

  He hopped up and scurried across the floor of the café toward the bathroom. As Beatrice watched him go she wondered to herself how she was going to get out of this one. It wasn't that he was a bad guy, apart from the over-the-top advances. It was just that Beatrice didn't feel she was ready to jump back in the dating pool again. Sure, there had been chances – a young police detective, to name a few – but nothing that she was really interested in. Maybe she was destined to end up alone?

  As this depressing thought hit her, a cold shiver ran down her spine. She reached for her drink, deciding that this would likely be the perfect time to turn this date around.

  Taking a sip, she then scooped up a piece of the pie. As the crust touched her lip, she paused, her eyes catching something across the café. Well not something, but rather someone. It was a man, sitting at the other end of the café. He was too far away for her to make him out clearly, and he was sitting so she could only see half of his face, but there was something about him. His hair, his profile in general. It looked like... No, it couldn't be.

  Her jaw dropped. It was him, it had to be. She was about to stand and hurry across the café to confirm her suspicion when a loud crash, followed by a scream, echoed out from the direction of the bathrooms.

  2

  The moment that Beatrice heard the crash and the scream, all thoughts of the mystery man were eliminated from her mind. She jumped from her seat and sprinted across the café in fear of what she might find. Usually her mind wouldn't go to such dark places, as no one's should, but considering Beatrice's run lately, she was only too certain in what she was going to find.

  And sure enough, just outside of the male bathroom was her date, Matthew Anderson, writhing on the ground as he pawed at his throat in apparent agony.

  "Somebody call the ambulance," she screamed, at no one in particular. She was frozen, no idea what she should do, if there was anything that she could do.

  By now a crowd had begun to gather around the man on the ground, all watching, fear and shock on their faces, but despite this, no one was actually stepping in to do anything. All the while Matthew's face slowly turned purple as his eyes bulged from their sockets. He was choking.

  "Out of the way! Out of the way! I'm a doctor!" Yelled a short man as he pushed through the crowd, falling down by Matthew's side.

  Beatrice let out a sigh of relief as the doctor instantly got to work, opening Matthew's mouth, shoving his fingers down it. Doing all he could to try and stop the choking, but there was nothing he could do. The crowd, along with Beatrice, were forced to watch on as Matthew Anderson, her date, choked to death before their very eyes.

  Beatrice looked away before it happened. She was unable to stomach the site of it. She had seen a dead body before, but never the making of one. It wasn't exactly something that she wanted to get used to.

  It was as she looked away that she felt a soft hand touch her on the shoulder. She turned, gasping when she saw who the owner of the hand was. There was no doubt about it. She must have been hallucinating.

  "How... How?" she stuttered, unable to get the words out. She blinked a few times, and then a few more times. She was sure that she must have been imagining it. Perhaps the trauma of what she had just witnessed was doing funny things to her brain. That was the only possible explanation.

  The man didn't disappear, and his face didn't morph into a different one. She had to face the facts. It was her deceased husband, staring back at her.

  "Long time no see," he said, smiling a goofy smile at her.

  It was then that Beatrice realized who it actually was that she was talking to. It was the smile that got her at first, it was so different to her husband's charming, confident one that it was almost jarring. And the way that this man stood too, hunched over rather than up straight. He was also shorter than her dead husband, and a little rounder in the face.

  It was none other than Fred, her dead husband's brother.

  "Fred?" She asked, still not believing it. She tried to remember the last time she had seen him. It had been so long. What in God's name was he doing here?

  "In the flesh," he chuckled. He looked her up and down like a man dying of thirst, laying his sights on water for the first time.

  "What are you doing here?" She asked. She wanted to believe that it was just some big coincidence that he was here, but as she looked into his light blue eyes, she slowly began to remember a few of the reasons why they didn't talk anymore. The more she thought about it, the more she decided that it was most likely anything but a coincidence.

  "I was in the area," he said with a coy smile that wasn't his. In fact, the more that Beatrice looked at him, the more she realized why it took her so long to figure out who he was. Everything about him seemed to have changed. He used to always look so run down and poor, to be perfectly honest, but today, he was in an expensive blue suit and tan leather shoes with his hair slicked back. This was a different Fred to the one she remembered.

  "In the area? Last time I heard, you were living somewhere in Canada?" She didn't mean for it to sound accusatory, but the whole thing was strange and she wanted to know what the heck was going on.

  "It's good to see you too, Beatrice," he said. He seemed almost dazed as he spoke to her, like something had come over him. It was eerie in a way that Beatrice didn't understand. That intuition of hers was acting up again.

  "Excuse me," a hand touched her on the arm. "Was he with you?" She turned around to find the short doctor addressing her.

  "Ah, no – well, yes, technically he was with me," she confirmed. She really didn't want to speak ill of the dead.

  "There's no easy way to say this, but he's gone. There was nothing I could do." The short doctor looked down at his feet as he relayed the bad news, looking truly sorry.

  "Wh... How?" Beatrice asked. She should have been more shocked. After all, people didn't just choke to death on cake and champagne. Then again, Beatrice had been through that much over the last few months that she was almost unfazed.

  "It's hard to say, but I believe it was some sort of allergic reaction. His throat just sort of closed up," the doctor said, swallowing hard while subconsciously scratching at his own throat.

  As he said this, Beatrice's eyes found their way across the room and onto her passion fruit pie, still sitting on her table, untouched. Well, that was except for one very notable exception; an exception that was now lying dead on
the ground. The doctor suspected that it was an allergic reaction, but Beatrice wasn't so sure. To her, this death had the hallmarks of poison.

  Lost for words, she turned back to see what Fred had to say, only to find that he was gone. She scanned the café, top to bottom, but he was nowhere in sight.

  She gave her head another shake, now really confused. Had she, for some reason, completely imagined her dead husband’s brother? Perhaps it was a defensive reaction from seeing someone choke to death, although she doubted that. Fred had definitely been there, talking to her. And for some reason he had disappeared without a trace.

  Mix that in with the poisoned passion fruit pie that was meant for her, and Beatrice had, whether she liked it or not, found herself smack-dab in the middle of a murder investigation.

  3

  Beatrice was sure of one thing, someone had tried to kill her. She didn't know who and she certainly didn't know why. For some unknown reason, somebody wanted her dead and they had come damn close to achieving that. Unfortunately, not everyone held that same view as she did. The local detective, Detective Rogers, being one of them.