Cupcakes and Killing: A Cozy Mystery (Sweet Shoppe Mysteries - Book 2) by Cora Wilkins Page A

had dropped a tray, and luckily it was empty, otherwise there would have been crumbs and frosting all over the floor.
    “Kaye, are you all ri…” I began to say before looking up and realizing what had startled her. It was Deputy Ted himself.
    “Err…hello, Ted. What can we do for you?” I asked, trying to keep my voice as light as possible. Truthfully, I wanted to leap across the counter and pummel his chest with my fists, crying ‘ Did you murder Zara? Admit it, you sociopath!’ , but thankfully I managed to keep myself under control.
    “Afternoon, ladies,” he said with a smile. “We’re all working mighty hard on this case down at the station, and it’s really built up an appetite. I thought I’d come down and see what cupcakes you still had left today.”
    When none of us moved for a few seconds, he raised his eyebrows. “Is everything okay?”
    “Oh, it’s fine,” Kaye said, looking flustered. “We’re just all a bit on edge after what happened to Zara.”
    “I understand. It’s a very hard time for all of us,” he said, and I thought I saw a tinge of sadness in his eyes. Remorse, possibly?
    “Have you…um…made any progress in the investigation?” I asked.
    “We brought in Amy McNamara earlier on. It’s not looking good for her. As you ladies informed us, she threatened Zara only a few days before her murder, and a few witnesses reported seeing her not far from where Zara’s champagne was sitting at the reception. She also recently purchased fertilizer, which we think could’ve been used to obtain the cyanide.”
    We already knew all of this, but we played dumb and nodded. “Wow, I see,” Kaye said. “Anyway, which cupcakes did you want? Just whatever’s left?”
    He nodded. “Yep, that’ll do.”
    She removed the day’s remaining cupcakes from the display case and put them in a white cardboard takeout box, and I noticed her hands were shaking as she did it. Luckily, Ted didn’t seem to notice, and he smiled, paid us and finally left.
    “I can’t believe he’s acting so normal,” Tori said, her eyes narrowed.
    I held my hands up. “Wait a minute. Kaye was right earlier. We might be wrong about Ted, and we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. We don’t even know if he actually was seeing Zara. We need to confirm that he was before we take our suspicions anywhere.”
    “How do we do that?”
    “Well, his mother and sister are probably still in town. Why don’t we go and visit them? His mother was harassing him so much about seeing someone, so if he really was seeing Zara, he might have told her.”
    “Good idea.”
    ***
    Ted lived just down the road from me and we figured Amelia and Evie would be staying with him, so we headed over there and knocked on the door. Amelia answered, smiling as she saw us.
    “Why, hello! You’re the candy and cupcake ladies!”
    “Yes, we are,” I said, forcing a polite smile. “We were just wondering if we could talk to you and Evie about Ted.”
    “Evie went out for a walk,” she replied. “What’s this about?”
    “Errr…we were thinking of setting Ted up with someone we know,” Kaye hastily lied. “So we were wondering if you knew if he was actually seeing someone already.”
    “Oh, I see. How lovely of you. Come in, come in. We’ll chat.”
    She let us in and directed us into the lounge room. “Would any of you like some tea?”
    “That’d be lovely,” Tori said.
    Amelia bustled away, then returned from the kitchen a moment later with a floral-patterned teapot and four china cups. She smiled as she poured us all some tea. “So, you might know someone who would be interested in my Teddy Bear?”
    “Er…yes,” Kaye said. “But like I said, we just wanted to make sure he wasn’t already seeing someone. Otherwise we’d just be wasting our friend’s time in introducing her to him.”
    “Yes, of course. Well, I do know that he was dating a woman until quite recently. Very recently, in fact. But that’s over now.”
    “Do