Chapter 20

  Niall looked at me with fear in his eyes. Not exactly the kind of reaction you’d expect from someone who was about to learn who had wanted him dead. No, it was exactly the kind of expression you’d expect from somebody who already knew the answer and didn’t want anyone else knowing what that might be. But he recovered quickly; I’ll give him that.

  “Of course I want to know, then I can put this whole affair behind me. Who is it?” His hands kept moving as if they couldn’t help putting things in order as he tried to work a way out of this.

  “I thought you might like to speak about it privately?”

  “Yes, that would probably be for the best. Where should I go?” his voice managed to squeeze out.

  “Let’s head to the dock, quiet and private.”

  I could see in the distance that Anais had moved the two lawn chairs from the dock itself onto the lawn right beside it. There was no sign of Anais nor Grace, but that was by design, I wanted Niall seated and comfortable when he was confronted.

  He sat and, with a sharp intake of breath, said, “Who attacked me, Laura?”

  “It was one of the bakers, if you had to guess which one, who do you suppose it was?”

  “Laura, come now, this is way too serious a concern to play games with."

  “Come on, professor, humor me. It was one of the bakers, and they haven’t been sent home yet. If you can’t reason it out, at least take a guess it might really surprise you. It surprised me.”

  “If I really must, but this is childish, Laura, if I had to make a guess, Lucas. I don’t think he likes my atheistic philosophy.”

  “I’m sure he doesn’t, I certainly got an earful from him about my embrace of reason. But you know what? He just doesn’t have it in him to kill, I mean. He’s a true believer, professor. He knows that if he kills, he goes to hell for an eternity. So no matter how bad our ideals rankle him, he wouldn’t dare attempt to murder either of us. No, Lucas would much rather make it some kind of heretical issue. That he could bring us in front of a church court and have us tried and burned at the stake. Nope, it wasn’t Lucas, guess again.”

  “Laura, let’s quit this playing around. It’s getting us nowhere.”

  “If you don’t want to play, I could call my cousin August. You might remember him, the chief of police. His favorite game as a kid was Clue. I think that makes him too spot-on on the nose to be a cop, but of course he disagrees.”

  “Danyl, was it him? Is he worried that I’m a better baker?”

  “No, not him, he has his own set of issues, but not with you. That’s why it made finding your real attacker harder than it should have been. You must not read many mysteries, hey, professor?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Anyone who reads mysteries knows that women prefer poison as a murder weapon. If I had thought about that fact sooner, I would have solved the case much quicker. But I’m deeply prejudiced against clergy and alt-right politicians. So having Lucas on the suspect list was like waving a red flag in front of a bull. The worst thing about prejudice for the person affected by it is that it pushes reason out the door, and you start to think with your emotions. If emotions took an IQ test, they would score much lower than a mentally challenged individual. Prejudice is also horrible for the person that it is directed against, of course. But speaking from a purely selfish point of view, it causes as much damage in the person that has it as the person it is directed against. For instance, I’m sure that Trump could probably teach me something if I sat down and actually spoke with the man. But just sitting across the table from him, I’d be worried that I would be physically ill. So now that I went off on this huge tangent of a rant, maybe we should just get down to it. "Why did you lie to me, professor?”

  “I never lied.”

  “Hmm, alright, maybe my eidetic memory suddenly failed me. When I asked you if you knew any of the other bakers prior to the bake-off. I thought you said no. Has my memory failed me? Did you actually say, "Why yes, I do, fancy seeing her here," or not?”

  He gulped and was about to reply when Anais and Grace appeared, lawn chairs in hand.

  “Welcome, welcome. Grace, I believe that you know Professor Malone. I mean, you should, having been a research assistant of his for how many years?”

  “What kind of ambush is this?”

  “Just the kind it looks like. I thought you might like to question your attacker personally. Wouldn’t you like to know the how and why she attacked you, professor? It really was quite ingenious, in a devious sort of way.”

  “No, I don’t care to know. I think I should be contacting the police right now, I don’t feel safe sitting here with you three.”

  “Let me give you August’s mobile number; he’s taken over investigating your case personally at the direction of the mayor, one of our judges. Or I could call him for you, he can be in here in just a couple of minutes.”

  His eyes darted from person to person but always lingered guiltily on Grace's. “No, don’t call him. What is it you want, money?”

  “Why would you possibly think that? Why would you give us money? We’re just trying to solve a crime. Anais, what crimes are we trying to solve?”

  “Theft/Larceny, Wire/Mail Fraud, Academic Fraud, and False Statements to the Government: best case scenario, two to seven years for the professor and around the same for Grace. Assuming both have no prior convictions, and we can prove that Grace didn’t intend to kill the professor. Which should be easy enough to do once we locate the drug dealer, who sold her fentanyl in place of the ecstasy that she requested.”

  “Alright, I get it. I knew I was doomed when I saw Grace at the inn. At first I just thought that she was on vacation. But then the next time I saw her, she was all dressed up for the party, and I knew I was in trouble. I should have walked away right then and there. But we can all still walk away, right now. I didn’t say anything to the police about you, Grace. Neither of us needs to go to prison for our past actions.”

  "You don't get it, professor; now that Anais and I know about this, I’m afraid that let’s-just-walk-away stuff flew out the window. Yes, you and Grace will do a comparable amount of time, but when the civil lawsuits against you and RPI are settled, Grace’s family in particular, Grace’s cousin Manon, for whom the software was written in the first place. Well, they will all be much better off. Grace can spend two years in prison here recreating the software that you stole. I’m not sure what you’ll be doing in prison; maybe they can make you a cook. I don’t think they do much scratch baking in prison. Then when you get out, you can look for a job. Of course no school is going to hire you. You might be able to get a job in the food service industry.”

  “Grace, I am really sorry. But please, let’s not go to prison. For my part, even if you press criminal charges against me. I won’t do that to you. You really are blameless. If I hadn’t betrayed you, you wouldn’t have been desperate enough to do what you did. I’ll give you all the money that I have left.”

  “How much do you have left, professor?”

  “Laura, I’d rather go to prison than pay blackmail, so forget it," he said firmly.

  “I’m not blackmailing you, I’m negotiating for Grace. I don’t want a penny of your dirty ICE money. Now tell me, how much do you have left?”

  “Almost all of it, twenty-seven point two million dollars—that was all I got after taxes.”

  “Anais, the first twelve million, no tax, then the next ten forty percent, right?”

  "Yeah, Laura, that is roughly correct.”

  "So, professor, now I’m blackmailing you and Grace. You will give as a gift to Manon twenty-two million dollars, and then you’ll pay the federal tax of four million. Now with some of the three million you have left. You’ll outfit a computer lab for yourself and Grace, where the two of you create an open-source equivalent to the software that you sold to ICE. After testing the software successfully on Manon, you both are free to walk away after releasing the code under an open-source license. In return, Anais and I won’t disclose either of your horrible decisions. If either of you breaks the agreement, sworn depositions that my attorney will be drawing up later today will be sent to law enforcement. If either of you harms the other or is harmed in suspicious circumstances. Depositions will be released to law enforcement. If either I or Anais is harmed in suspicious circumstances. Depositions will be released to law enforcement. I think you both get the gist. One more thing, if the police ever do figure out that Grace injected you, you will come clean and admit to taking the fentanyl on your own. Questions, suggestions, and outright refusals—we can call and discuss them with the chief of police?”

  Grace looked stricken. “You expect me to work with this man? He stole my life’s work.”

  “Yes, Grace, he did. He did a horrible, horrible thing. And now he is going to help you recreate your life’s work. If I were a priest, they would be giving me some kind of award for coming up with such a great penance. After making sure that your cousin is set financially for the rest of her life. I think the guilt was already eating him up; that’s why he didn’t spend any of the money, quit his job, and isolated himself from society. You made a horrible decision too; while you might not have been trying to kill him, you very nearly did. Anais's and my depositions will ensure that the two of you look after each other's health better than you look after your own. What about you, Niall? Any objections from you?”

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  “No, Laura, it is a very fair resolution from my point of view, thank you.”

  “No need to thank me; I didn’t do it for you two idiots, I did it for the people that have locked-in syndrome. Hopefully this open-source software will improve their lives. Now stand up and shake hands; I believe that you have a bake-off challenge to compete in.”

  The two stood and grudgingly shook hands before walking off together for the tent.

  “Hippie, you are concealing a crime; you could go to prison.”

  “I hope not; the lock-up smelled bad enough. I can’t imagine what it smells like in a real prison. Besides, aren’t you doing the same thing?”

  "No, of course not, I was never here. I had a feeling you’d ask me to commit a felony. So I left my phone in the office. I have plausible deniability.”

  "Well, thanks for the help, anyways. Even if you can’t be sent to prison for it, I appreciate it. Besides, if we sent this to the courts, what would happen? A bunch of lawyers would make a bunch of money suing each other. Two computer programmers would be in jail instead of working for free on some important medical software. If I’m not at least as good as any priest, bishop, or pope. I know I’m better than any of those reality TV judges.”

  ***

  One case down, one to go, but first they are almost ready to begin Week Four challenge number one. But I have some bad news for Roberta to save her a meltdown later: I have taken the liberty to fix the problem prospectively.

  I went over to the director; I hadn’t really dealt with her personally before, just butted in on their fight with Roberta.

  “I have it on good authority that one of your cast is going to be arrested, and that is going to throw a wrench in your schedule. So I took it upon myself to call Tyler and ask him to come over just in case you want to reinstate him.”

  “Laura, I don’t see how we could possibly do that. I think this show is just doomed, and we should just call it quits now.”

  “That’s for you to decide, not me. We get paid no matter what happens. But the person who has been causing all the issues is about to get caught. Just get footage of each of the current bakers looking sad or angry or whatever they might feel if they were sent home. I know after the arrest that the active sabotage of the show will be over. That’s not to say you won’t have any issues, but at least the sabotage ends.”

  “All right, thanks for the heads up; we’ll get the footage. We can always quit tomorrow; might as well tough it out for one more day.”

  Roberta walked to the center of the stage. “All right, bakers, we have a holiday challenge for you: not a Fourth of July cake, but a Christmas in July fruitcake. Bakers, we want a moist, dense cake with plenty of brandy and dried fruits. You have two and a half hours to complete this challenge. Don’t forget after the last of this week's challenges, one of you will be going home.”

  Roberta walked back to her judge's seat, Amy got up and started walking toward the store, and I caught up with her.

  “Don’t you have to watch them bake, Amy?”

  She shook her head. "No, I just have to be there to judge at the end. The camera people just film the bakers making their bakes, putting them in the ovens, and then again coming out. I’m just going in to check on our supper. We’re having chili tonight, one pot spicy, one pot mild. I want to check to make sure none of the writers are in there spicing up the wrong pot. Plus I want to make some rolls. It’s going to seem awfully quiet once Willow, Pappy, and Phoebe go home.”

  “We have them for almost another full week, and I think that with the success of Urge, they will be up here a lot more often. At least I hope so anyway. Phoebe already asked about running calligraphy classes as part of a leaf-peeping tour this fall, and it’s hard to believe, but that is only a month and a half away. Maybe, they’d all like to play a board game after dinner.”

  Amy smiled brightly at the mention of a board game. “That sounds nice; I just got the fifth edition Talisman board game. It’s kind of like Dungeons and Dragons but as a board game. Ask Lucy to stay for dinner; it is right up her alley.”

  Once we reached the store, Amy continued upstairs, while I headed to the sales counter. Lucy had set up a table behind the counter, out of the way but convenient for the clerks to attend to. There were three laptops sitting on the table; I saw the familiar Malwarebytes software running on all three of them.

  Lis, Zoe, and Lucy were all waiting on customers, so I stepped behind the counter and gave them a hand. It wasn’t too long before we had cleared them all out. Lis left to help a customer find a book, and Zoe went and loaded up a book cart to stock our empty slots.

  “Where’s Luke, Lucy?”

  “I sent him to the boathouse to grab another book of used books for Urge.”

  "Great, we are going to have to start actively buying used books, or Urge is going to be empty, a victim of his own popularity. Amy invited you for dinner and a board game, kind of a British D&D sort of game.”

  “Thanks, Laura. That sounds like fun.”

  “I see your ads paid off. Is this the first malware scan you’ve run?”

  “No, we already cleared malware off of five other machines. Also Claire was here with her laptop; it’s still running Windows ten. I told her it wasn’t safe, and since the laptop doesn’t meet the hardware requirements for Windows eleven, the best we could do would be to load Linux on there for her. She said she’d speak to you about it tonight at the mystery book club."

  “Sometimes I really hate Microsoft. I remember when Windows 10 came out, the bloggers were telling everyone that Windows 10 would be the last version of Windows, with new features every six months. But then suddenly there was a new version, and old hardware wouldn’t run on it. They are going to be filling landfills with e-waste for no good reason. I’ll let Claire borrow an old laptop of mine, and she can see if she likes Linux before we install it for her. Kind of try before you buy. Even though it is free, I don’t want to install Linux on people's machines until they have a look at it. But I do want to convert as many as possible; I don’t want to see people paying for expensive new hardware to watch YouTube videos about gardening.”

  “Bianca asked me to ask you to stop by her room; she has a proposal for you. But it’s time sensitive. She said.”

  So I headed to Bianca’s room to see what she had come up with. I knocked and was instantly told to come in.

  “Hey, Bianca, Lucy said you wanted to see me?”

  “Yes, great, Laura, thanks for coming. I called the tent company that Roberta is renting the tent from because I had an idea that I thought we could all talk over. But I wanted to know what we’d have to outlay to get it started. I was thinking that it would be fun and profitable for the authors to have a book fair. The authors could do readings and signings. Run some classes. Well, that big tent out there is one thousand dollars a day to rent, plus one thousand to put up and another thousand to take down. So a three-day book fair would cost five grand just for the tent. Very pricey. So I thought we could buy some smaller tents and just do lots of little events. But as luck would have it. The weekend after next the big tent was rented out to a wedding, but the bride cheated on the groom with the best man. Cliche, right? But the tent company said since the tent is already up and Roberta paid to take it down, we can have it for four days for five hundred dollars. What do you think? It might be good for business in the store. Lucy and Willow said they are both in. Willow even said that she will bring four or five writers to work at the Faire if they can stay at Amy’s. Next Wednesday we have eight new writers moving into the third floor. The construction and painting of the two new bedrooms in the attic will be finished by next Tuesday. But what do you think about the Faire?”

  “I think a Faire sounds great, Bianca. Amy was just telling me she was worried it was going to get quiet around here once our Woodstock guests go home. But it sounds like they will only be gone for a few days. What do you want me to do?”

  "Well, mainly advertise it on Genre’s website. I’ll get Lucy and Willow to post about it on social media. Maybe you could talk to your friend Sarah at the library; it would be great if they would participate. Maybe we can get Zoe to ask over at the Saranac Public Library and put up posters.” You could tell how excited she was.

  I was already thinking about things that the store might do to promote it. First and foremost, like Bianca said. Post about it on our website; for now it’ll have to be a bit generic, with more details closer to the event date. But would we be able to pull it off? We should have a welcome party, not anything like the Superb Lake Placid Bake-Off. No bees nor attempted murder will be allowed.

  I went back downstairs. There was another rush of customers, so I jumped behind the counter and helped out. Once we had the store mostly to ourselves again, I asked Lucy to start the social media hype train about a book fair happening at the store Friday, August eighth, through Monday the eleventh.

  Then I went out to Urge and cut the line, and Willow was still in the back of the bus. She handed a woman a book and pointed out Pappy, the man collecting the money.

  “Bianca said you already agreed to come back for the Book Fair."

  “Yep, I wouldn’t miss it. I already asked my part-timer to cover and also to put up help wanted signs. I know this is an anomaly, but Urge is really driving sales of new books as well as the used books we have on board. The Rabbit Hole video sales from here on the bus have doubled business back at the store. We are going to have to start giving away picture books and banned books soon, or we are going to have large tax bills, and I know that neither of us wants to give Trump any money, so we have to make sure to give it all away.”

  “That is perfect, Willow. We’ll show the world that greed is not good; generosity, that’s what is good. No matter what Wall Street says. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one.”

  She grinned and said, “You have been and always will be my friend, Laura.” while holding up her hand in a Vulcan salute.

  “You too, honey. I have one last criminal to deal with; it’s board game night if you are up for it.”

  I left the bus and found a quiet spot on the grounds to make a quick phone call.

  “Hello August, it’s Laura. I know who has been sabotaging the baking show. I have no physical proof, but I do have a plan.”

  “Is this the same person that attacked Professor Malone?”

  “No, they haven’t attacked anyone, just the sabotage and the false police report about Roberta. I’m about ninety-nine percent sure that Malone took that overdose by mistake but was too embarrassed to admit it.”

  "Alright, what do you need me to do?”

  I went back to the tent; there were about ten minutes left in the challenge. The tent smelled wonderful. I’m one of the small minority that actually likes fruitcake. I’d asked Amy to grab extra slices during the judging so I could try all the different varieties that the bakers submitted for judging. My aunt used to start baking fruitcakes in September. After they were baked, they were wrapped in cheesecloth that had been soaked in rum. Then wrapped in plastic wrap and stored in the refrigerator. Then once a week, each cake would be removed, the cheesecloth soaked again in rum, and re-wrapped. On Christmas Eve we’d all get our first slice—raisins, cherries, and nuts—it was mouthwatering. I had some store-bought once. It was dry and had hardly any fruit and very few nuts. If that was my only experience with fruitcake, I wouldn’t like it either.

  The judging itself was the same silent affair it always was. The mayor had been given an elf’s cap, which looked so much better on him than his comb-over does.

  After the judging was completed and the director had called cut, I hurried to Danyl’s station.

  "Danyl, could I please have a slice? I love fruitcake."

  “Sure, Laura.”

  He cut me a generous slice.

  “I need to have a chat; let's go down by the dock, because we need to do it in private. I need your help; I think I figured out who is trying to sabotage the competition. You’ll help me, won’t you?”