Death by the Dozen Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Twenty-six

  Twenty-seven

  Twenty-eight

  Twenty-nine

  Recipes

  Teaser chapter

  Berkley Prime Crime titles by Jenn McKinlay

  Praise for Sprinkle with Murder

  “A tender cozy full of warm and likable characters and a refreshingly sympathetic murder victim. Readers will look forward to more of McKinlay’s tasty concoctions.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “McKinlay’s debut mystery flows as smoothly as Melanie Cooper’s buttercream frosting. Her characters are delicious, and the dash of romance is just the icing on the cake.”

  —Sheila Connolly, author of Bitter Harvest

  “Jenn McKinlay delivers all the ingredients for a winning read. Frost me another!”

  —Cleo Coyle, national bestselling author of

  the Coffeehouse Mysteries

  “A delicious new series featuring a spirited heroine, luscious cupcakes, and a clever murder. Jenn McKinlay has baked a sweet read.”

  —Krista Davis, author of the Domestic Diva Mysteries

  Berkley Prime Crime titles by Jenn McKinlay

  Cupcake Bakery Mysteries

  SPRINKLE WITH MURDER

  BUTTERCREAM BUMP OFF

  DEATH BY THE DOZEN

  Library Lover’s Mysteries

  BOOKS CAN BE DECEIVING

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

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  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

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  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.

  DEATH BY THE DOZEN

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / October 2011

  Copyright © 2011 by Jennifer McKinlay Orf.

  Excerpt from Red Velvet Revenge by Jenn McKinlay copyright © by Jennifer McKinlay Orf.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN : 978-1-101-54470-9

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME

  Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For my brother Jon ( Jed) McKinlay.

  Thanks for never letting me quit.

  I love you forever.

  Acknowledgments

  Big, fluffy cupcakes to my agent, Jessica Faust; my editor, Kate Seaver; and her assistant editor, Katherine Pelz. I couldn’t do this without all of you.

  More cupcakes to Tori and Brad Niemiec for entering the contest at the annual Scottsdale Cupcake Love In to win a walk-on part in this book. Have fun finding yourself, Tori! Special thanks to Tree and Susie Matazzoni for hooking me up with the Love In and to Sheila Levine for going halfsies with me on all of those cupcakes! Next year we don’t start with the mini Bundts!

  A big thank-you to Kelly Garcia of Butter & Me (she doesn’t need any cupcakes) for being so gracious in answering my cupcake questions and for baking some seriously spectacular cupcakes for my book signings!

  And lastly, but with sprinkles on top, extra yummy cupcakes to all of the McKinlays and the Orfs, and especially to my dudes Chris, Beckett, and Wyatt, the best sous-chefs and hug givers a girl could ever have!

  One

  “Fifteen minutes!” Angie DeLaura yelled. “ We have to turn the registration form in by ten o’clock or we’re locked out of the competition.”

  Melanie Cooper scrambled into her tiny office with Angie hot on her heels. Paperwork was scattered all over the top of her desk. There was a reason she was a cupcake baker and not a bookkeeper. She did much better with her pantry organization than her file cabinet.

  She ran a hand through her short blonde hair in exasperation.

  “I know I put it here,” she said. “Why didn’t I turn it in last week like I planned?”

  “Because you had a hot date with my brother,” Angie said. “And you forgot.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Mel said. She couldn’t stop the silly grin that spread across her face as she remembered her romantic evening with Joe DeLaura. A heavy sigh escaped her, and Angie snapped her fingers in front of Mel’s face and said, “Snap out of it!”

  Mel shook her head, trying to regain her focus.

  “You start on that side of the desk, and I’ll start on this side,” Angie ordered as she dug into a stack of cookware catalogs.

  Mel shuffled through a pile of flyers advertising Fairy Tale Cupcakes’ unique flavors and special-occasion cupcake tiers. Sure enough, stuck by a smear of royal frosting to the back of the flyers was their registration form for the Scottsdale Food Festival. “I found it!”

  Angie glanced at her watch. “We have twelve minutes.”

  “We’d better run,” Mel said.

  Together they bolted through the kitchen and the bakery. Mel turned and locked the front door behind them. Then they pounded d
own the sidewalk of Old Town Scottsdale, passed a Western-wear store, a Mexican import store, a jewelry store, and around the corner they passed a tattoo parlor and a hair salon.

  Mick, the owner of the tattoo parlor, stepped outside as they whizzed by. At six foot four with a shaved head and covered in ink, he was fairly intimidating, but Mel and Angie knew he was a big old softie, who had a weakness for Mel’s Moonlight Madness coconut cupcakes.

  “Where’s the fire?” he called after them.

  Angie opened her mouth to retort, but Mel grabbed her arm and kept running. “No time! Chat later.”

  They hit the entrance to the Civic Center Mall and had to dodge an elderly couple, who stood admiring the bronze sculpture of three horses running entitled The Yearlings. Mel loved the sculpture, too, but this was not the time to stop to admire it.

  They had to turn their registration form into the Scottsdale Art Association office, which was housed in one of the small buildings that encircled the many fountains and sculptures that made up the Civic Center Mall. The mall, a large twenty-one-acre park, was one of Mel’s favorite spots in the city. She frequently walked to the library on the opposite side just to enjoy the lush flowers, trickling fountains, and beautiful public art that filled the meticulously tended area.

  A small group of tourists blocked the path ahead as they admired a short fountain that formed a ball of water. Mel followed Angie as she cut around them and onto the grass. Like track stars, they jumped over the narrow stream that fed a larger fountain, and they raced down the slope farther into the park.

  Mel could feel a stitch cramping her side, and she was wheezing just a bit as Angie skidded to a stop in front of the darkened glass doors of an office building.

  “What office do we need?” Angie asked.

  Mel glanced at the papers in her hand. “Twelve-B.”

  “Second floor,” Angie said. She glanced at her watch. “Seven minutes.”

  Mel suppressed a groan as they pulled open the doors and hit the stairs on the right. They wound up in a tight turn. Mel jogged up the steps, breathing hard, when she slammed into Angie’s back.

  “Ow!” She grabbed the rail to keep from falling backwards and glanced up to see why Angie had stopped.

  Blocking the way upstairs in a fair imitation of a brick wall was Olivia Puckett, owner of the rival bakery, Confections, and Mel’s own personal pain in the patoot.

  “Step aside,” Angie growled.

  Olivia spread her beefy arms wide. “Make me.”

  Angie took a step forward as if she would do just that, but Mel grabbed her arm and held her back. Angie was known for being a bit of a firecracker, and Mel didn’t want her sending off any sparks here.

  Olivia obviously didn’t know what kind of trouble she was inviting when she challenged Angie. Although it had been more than twenty years, Mel still hadn’t fully recovered from the day Angie had bloodied the nose of their seventh grade class bully, Jeff Stanton, when he dumped chocolate milk over Mel’s head at lunch one day and called her “Bessie, the chocolate cow.”

  Although that incident had only gotten Angie a week’s detention, Mel was always afraid that one day Angie’s temper was going to land her in a jam that Mel wouldn’t be able to fix.

  “Breathe, Angie,” she said. “I’ll take care of this.”

  Angie gave her a mutinous look, but she complied. Mel stepped around her and faced Olivia.

  “You can’t seriously think you’re going to stop us from registering to compete in the challenge to the chefs,” Mel said.

  “Oh, yeah, I can and I will,” Olivia said. “I called my contact in the Arts office last night, and she told me you hadn’t registered yet. I knew your last chance was this morning. I’ve been waiting since eight. You are not going to get by me.”

  “You’ve been waiting here for two hours?” Angie asked. “You’re mental. You know that?”

  “No little snot-nosed Scottsdale princess is going to beat me out of my title,” Olivia said. “I’ve won it five years in a row, and I’m not giving it up, not now, not ever.”

  “Who are you calling a Scottsdale princess?” Mel snapped, feeling her temper begin to heat. “I’m a Southie, born and raised off of Camelback Road. I am no princess.”

  “Look at you. You’re tall, blonde, and thin,” Olivia snorted. “For someone who says she isn’t a princess, you sure look the part.”

  The irony was almost too much to take. When Mel was a chubby adolescent, she was derided and called “Bessie, the chocolate cow.” She would have given anything to be considered a princess back then.

  Now, after years of struggling with her weight, she had developed a healthy relationship with food and felt good about her body and herself. And she was being mocked for it. It was all so ridiculous.

  “Olivia, you need to step aside,” Mel said. “I have just as much right as anyone to enter.”

  “Maybe you didn’t hear me,” Olivia said. “You’re not entering my contest.”

  She puffed out her chest, and Mel was sure she was going to expand to fill the entire landing. She was stocky with corkscrew gray hair that she wore in a stubby ponytail on top of her head. She also wore a blue chef’s coat that Mel suspected she thought made her look like Cat Cora on the Iron Chef TV show. Mel wanted to tell her that it just made her look like Grumpy Smurf, but she didn’t think that would get Olivia out of her way.

  “Five minutes,” Angie hissed from behind her.

  Mel felt her panic swell. Olivia was not known for being reasonable, and the clock was ticking.

  “‘I don’t scratch my head unless it itches, and I don’t dance unless I hear some music. I will not be intimidated. That’s just the way it is,’” Angie muttered.

  “Coach Boone in Remember the Titans,” Mel identified the movie quote. She and Angie and their other childhood friend, Tate Harper, were old movie aficionados and frequently quizzed one another with movie quotes. But why was Angie doing it now? Didn’t she know they were in a crisis? But then, she’d chosen a football movie quote, and Mel realized that was no coincidence. She knew what Angie was thinking.

  “No, we can’t do that,” she said over her shoulder.

  Olivia was watching them through narrowed eyes.

  “We have no choice,” Angie said. “It’s got to be the fall-over feint.”

  Mel groaned. Angie had seven older brothers, who loved to play touch football, and Mel had spent enough time at the DeLaura family gatherings to be drafted into play. When they were younger, she and Angie had never been able to get their hands on the ball, and the brothers only allowed them on the field to humor them and keep their mother from scolding them. So naturally, Mel and Angie had been forced to create a few plays of their own, one of which was the fall-over feint. It was guaranteed to get them where they wanted to go with the ball, but usually resulted in someone getting fairly banged up.

  “Three minutes,” Angie said through gritted teeth.

  “All right, all right,” Mel said. “On three.”

  Olivia was beginning to look concerned.

  “One,” Angie counted.

  “Two,” said Mel.

  “Three!” they said together.

  Mel fell over to the side, curling up into a tight ball as she went, as Angie sprung over her. Mel felt Angie’s sneaker kick the side of her head, but she came out of her crouch and crawled past the collision of bodies, barely registering that Angie had Olivia pinned to the floor as Mel hurried up the stairs.

  Olivia let out a furious bellow, and from her splayed position on the landing, she reached out an arm and tried to grab Mel’s leg, but she was too late. Mel reached the top of the stairs and took off in a sprint.

  The door to 12B was open, and Mel skidded into the room and glanced at the digital clock on the wall. It read 10:00. An elderly woman was working the counter, and she squinted at Mel through her reading glasses. She held out her hand, and Mel shoved the papers into it. As the woman hit it with a rubber stamp, the clock flipped
to 10:01.

  “You’re cutting it pretty close, miss,” the woman said. Her short hair was dyed a champagne color, and her purple lipstick matched the frames of her reading glasses.

  Mel sagged against the counter and glanced at the woman’s name tag. “You have no idea, Jane.”

  Angie came tearing into the office. Her T-shirt had a small rip, and her long brown hair was hanging haphazardly out of her hair band. “Did we make it?”

  Too winded to speak, Mel held up her fist, and Angie banged knuckles with her.

  “Excellent!” she said and then sagged against the counter beside Mel.

  Jane, the clerk, looked at them in concern and then left the counter. She came back with two Dixie cups of water.

  “Thanks,” Mel said. She held hers up toward Angie, and they clinked paper.

  “Let’s take Olivia down for good,” Angie said.

  “I hear that,” Mel agreed. They downed their water and crushed their cups. Tossing the cups into the wastepaper basket, they left the office calling a thank-you to Jane. There was no sign of Olivia on the stairs, just a smudge of flour on the floor where she’d been sprawled. Mel took it as a good sign.

  Two

  “How did it go?” Tate asked as he pushed open the front door of the bakery. “Are you registered? You didn’t forget, did you?”

  “Why would you think I’d forget?” Mel asked.

  Tate was wearing his usual power suit. Today it was an Armani in navy with a crisp white shirt and jade green tie. His wavy brown hair was cropped in a conservative cut to suit the investment clients he dealt with each day, and he looked every inch the wealthy businessman that he was.