Honey Buns and Homicide_A Funny Culinary Cozy Mystery Read online

  Honey Buns and Homicide

  Christy Murphy

  Copyright © 2018 by Christy Murphy

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover designer, Priscilla Pantin

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  http://christymurphy.com

  As always thank you to my family.

  Mom, Dad, David, Edie, David, Diana, Darwin, Jason, Anthony, and Ana

  With special thanks to:

  Uncle Bob and Aunt Connie

  Carolyn L. Dean

  Jerri from the Cozy Mystery Corner

  Mann/Texas

  Rebecca

  Lacey

  Tammy

  Contents

  1. Buns and Bees

  2. Half Caff and Humperdinck

  3. Dates and Disasters

  4. Catering and Cops

  5. Face Offs and Flatus

  6. Catastrophes and Confessions

  7. A Note from the Author and Her Mom

  Also by Christy Murphy

  Buns and Bees

  I refused to feel awkward. Sure, we were catering an album release party at one of the hottest nightclubs in Hollywood. Yes, it was packed with beautiful, young, cool kids in hipster outfits. But I decided my self-esteem would remain intact. The bee costume didn’t help.

  But heroes come in all sizes, shapes, and colors—including potato-shaped with florescent yellow and black stripes. Did the insect getup make me look younger than thirty-six? I’ll go with yes. Any type of bug outfit that isn’t labeled “sexy” has to take off at least five years.

  “Do you know when the band is going on?” a young woman asked me.

  “About a half hour,” I said.

  She looked disappointed.

  “Do you want a honey bun while you wait? They’re free,” I said. The album was called Honey Bun hence the outfit and the menu choice.

  “Do they have a lot of carbs?” she asked. Was she just hoping, or did she live a life devoid of knowledge regarding how pastries work?

  “About a hundred grams. Maybe a little more.” It was an estimate, but I’d eaten about three of the buns in one afternoon, and they made me feel so shaky that I had to lie down. That usually happens around the three hundred-gram mark.

  She looked down at the individually tinned honey buns as if they were haunted and backed away.

  “Kid,” Mom shouted over the loud music. “We’re almost out.” She waved at the table.

  I nodded to her and motioned that I’d go to the kitchen and get some more. Mom and her best friend, Wenling, looked much cuter in their outfits. Everything looks cuter when you’re petite. Mom was taller than Wenling, and Mom was only five foot two in heels. They’d met before I was born when they were background extras for a very popular television show in the eighties. I can’t say the name, but let’s just say Los Angeles casting directors were so desperate to cast war-torn Koreans that my Filipino mom and her Chinese best friend sufficed.

  I made my way through the crowd to the kitchen. Mom and I have a reputation for being amateur sleuths. Well, Mom has the reputation for both good cooking and crime-solving. I mostly drive the van—but I’m not that good at it. Tonight we’re supposed to be on the lookout to find out who’d been sending Robert, my ex-husband who left me just as his music career started its upward trajectory, death threats. But having known the man for over a decade, I suspected the number of people who’d want to kill him couldn’t be housed in this one nightclub alone.

  “You know he doesn’t love you anymore, you psycho,” a drunken female voice screamed at me. I turned to find my ex-husband’s new girlfriend, Honey.

  “The divorce was a huge indicator,” I said.

  “What?” she yelled over the music.

  “Don’t worry, the feeling is mutual,” I said referring to her claim that Robert didn’t love me anymore. I continued making my way to the kitchen.

  A tug on the wings of my bee costume stopped me. “What feelings are mutual?” Honey slurred.

  She’s the one who cheated with my husband while I was married to him, and now she was pulling the jealous partner routine on me. My only consolation was that things were obviously not going well between them. What goes around drinks around.

  I pulled my wings away from her. It didn’t take much. They were slippery, and my plus-sized stature did give me a weight advantage.

  “He’s in love with me. That’s why he named the album after me!” she yelled.

  “Okay,” I said with my hands up. A crowd gathered around us. “I’m just trying to do my job.”

  I attempted to leave again. This time Honey grabbed me hard by the shoulder and spun me around.

  “Hey!” I yelled grabbing her hand and pushing her off of me.

  She staggered back and fell on her butt.

  “Girl fight!” I heard some guy call out. A crowd gathered around us.

  “Be aggressive, bee! B-e-e aggressive!” one frat-like guy with over-gelled hair shouted. His friends joined him.

  My face heated with embarrassment. I have this weird glitch in my memory. Whenever things get super humiliating or traumatic, my brain records every single minute of it. It’s like my senses go into hyperdrive.

  “Don’t think I don’t know what’s going on!” Honey yelled as she got up off the floor.

  “Nothing is going on,” I said, but as the words came out, I realized that was exactly what a guilty person was say. It also seemed like somehow the loud music got quieter, but maybe that was my humiliation-heightened senses.

  “The one getting up is the singer’s girlfriend,” I heard someone say. I looked over and saw a brunette that got kicked out of the VIP room earlier, Fiona.

  “Who’s the yellow potato?” her friend asked.

  “Robert’s ex-wife,” Fiona said. “She’s the one who co-wrote ‘Got a Match.’”

  “Don’t bee afraid!” someone else yelled. “Kick that girl’s bee-hind!”

  As I looked out at the crowd wishing I could crawl into a hole, Honey’s bony body slammed into me. We tumbled to the floor. The headband that secured my antennae to my head flew off, and I landed hard on my butt. Thank goodness I had some cushioning there.

  She jumped on top of me. I grabbed her hands and pushed her.

  She rolled off of me, but she was so drunk her face hit the floor. When she sat up, I saw what look like blood. I worried it was her teeth, but it turned out to be her nose. Which was better?

  I stood up and hurried to the kitchen to hide. Turning my back on Honey was a big mistake. She must’ve launched herself at me again, but this time when I tried to push her away she’d grabbed me by the bottom of my bee top. We both fell to the floor, but my bee costume got pulled up over my head.

  “Whoo! Someone bee fat!” I heard a male voice call out as I felt the telltale breeze on my exposed abdomen. I couldn’t see anything with my costume over my eyes, and I assumed Honey was trying to rip my entire top off. Someone pulled her off of me, and I pushed my top down.

  Two security guards rushed over, along with Robert and the band’s publicist, Madison.

  “Honey!” Robert
yelled. “Are you okay?”

  “She hit me!” Honey said.

  “No, she didn’t,” Dragon, Robert’s drummer, said. “I was watching from over there.”

  “Yeah, your Yoko rushed her and then she fell on her face,” Nick, the guitar player said.

  “Don’t call me a yo-yo, Nick!” Honey yelled. “I’m not dumb.”

  “Do you want us to call the police?” the one of the security guards asked me.

  “Yes,” Mom said.

  “Yeah,” Wenling chimed in.

  I hadn’t seen them behind me.

  “No,” I said. “Just keep her away from me.”

  “She won’t be staying,” the other guard said.

  The security officers escorted a screaming Honey toward the front exit of the club. Most of the crowd followed.

  “Are you all right, kid?” Mom asked.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Did you punch her in the nose?” Wenling asked.

  “No, she fell,” I said.

  Wenling nodded her head and shot me a knowing smile. “Good answer.”

  I didn’t bother to correct her. A few people were still staring at me, and I wanted to hide.

  “I’ll go and get the rest of the honey buns,” I said to Mom. Mom held up my headband antenna. She must’ve rescued it from the floor. One of the antenna drooped down, but I put it on anyway. It wasn’t like it would put me in danger of looking ridiculous. I’d crossed that line and then some already. Mom straightened my wings, and I left for the kitchen.

  “Don’t bee sad!” that same guy yelled just as I opened the door. That’s when the full effect of the embarrassment and the adrenaline hit me. I rushed away from the door and burst into tears.

  Nothing like crying alone in a strange kitchen to make a person feel like a real winner. Mom and Wenling had instinctually known to give me some space, which I appreciated. I washed my face and figured I’d make myself useful. I took a few large trays of the tinned buns out of the refrigerator, set them on the stainless steel counter, opened the large oven, and slid in the buns.

  I set the timer on my watch. The band was going to be hitting the stage soon. I decided instead of going back into the main room of the club, I’d wait in the safety of the kitchen for the next batch to ready. It would give me time to relax, and I hoped once the band started, no one would notice my return.

  I heard familiar yelling coming from outside. Robert and I had had enough fights for me to recognize his shouting. I went to the back door of the kitchen to eavesdrop, but I couldn’t hear. I cracked the door open.

  As I suspected, he was fighting with Honey. Our catering van was parked right at the back door, and they were arguing several yards away. Using the van as cover, I stepped outside to do a little spying. I justified it by telling myself that we were hired to snoop. Even though I didn’t think Honey was the one sending the threats, I couldn’t rule it out.

  “I can’t believe you’re cheating on me with her!” Honey screamed.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Robert said. I rolled my eyes. The man was in his forties and wearing fake leather pants. He had a lot of nerve telling people not to be ridiculous.

  “Then let me see your phone!” she shouted.

  “What’s a relationship without trust?” he asked.

  Honey grunted out a few profanities and pushed Robert hard.

  “Hey!” he yelled, grabbing her by the arms. “No need for any of that.”

  His smug attitude made me angry, and I didn’t even like Honey. She wrestled her arms away from Robert, pushed him again, and stormed to her car. I recognized the car. Robert had driven it to Mom’s house when he tried to get me to sign an unfair divorce settlement.

  Robert watched her, but he didn’t make a move.

  When she got to her car door, she turned around and looked back at Robert. “You’re nothing but a liar and a cheat!” she shouted.

  Robert said nothing.

  She unlocked the car, got inside, and slammed the door. It took her a moment to put her key into the ignition. It could have been her anger making it hard for her to focus on driving, but I thought she was waiting for Robert to come over and beg her not to leave. I’d been in her shoes before. She didn’t know that Robert wasn’t the kind of guy who would ever fight that hard to make a relationship work.

  She started the car and took one long angry glance at Robert. He folded his arms as if to dare her to leave. Even with Honey pouncing on me earlier in the club, I was on her side. That smug look on Robert’s stubborn face made me want to punch him. Honey blasted her horn, pounded on the steering wheel, and screamed. Then she sped out of the parking lot so fast Robert had to run out of the way of her car to keep from getting hit. The stunned look on Robert’s face made me smile.

  Laughter echoed in the parking lot. I hadn’t noticed, because it was hard to see from where I was hiding behind the van, but Robert’s bandmates, Dragon and Nick were leaning on the wall of the club smoking.

  “Yoko almost ran you down,” Dragon said.

  “Stop calling her Yoko. She’s not going to break up the band,” Robert said.

  “She’s on to you,” Nick said. “You better hope she doesn’t say anything to her uncle at the label.”

  “We’ve already got our deal. This next record’s gonna be big. He won’t want to give us up on account of her,” Robert said.

  My jaw dropped. He cheated on me with Honey, but I hadn’t realized that she had a contact at his label. So that’s how he got his record deal. The guy was always such a user. I could totally see why he was getting death threats. What I couldn’t see was how I ever married such a jerk.

  A fancy Mercedes pulled into the club parking lot and took Honey’s space. Robert’s manager, Trey Jacobs, hopped out of his car.

  “Shouldn’t you guys be onstage about now?” he asked.

  “Just having one last smoke and waiting for things to calm down after the girl fight,” Nick said as if fights broke out amongst the crowd all the time.

  “Okay, great,” Trey said not at all affected by the talk of a fight. “Knock ‘em dead.”

  Robert and Dragon followed him in. Nick said that he’d finish his cigarette and see them inside.

  I figured I’d head back into the kitchen.

  “Did you enjoy the show?” Nick called out.

  It took me a moment to realize he was talking to me, but when I glanced in his direction I saw he was walking my way.

  “I thought I saw you there,” he said, smiling. Nick and I never spoke much when he was in the band. I always had the impression that he didn’t like me. “Your ex-husband’s a real—”

  I held up my hand and interrupted, “I know.”

  He tossed his cigarette to the ground and rubbed out the butt on the bottom of his boot.

  “It’s funny. I never knew you wrote songs when you guys were together,” he said.

  “It was only just the one.”

  “Ever think of doing it again?”

  I paused and thought about it. “I don’t know if I could.”

  Nick nodded. “So how about me and you giving songwriting together a go?”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “I know you’re busy with catering and the detective thing, but think about it,” he said and then left.

  I was flattered. Nick had played with some pretty big artists. I had to admit I was tempted, but could I even write another song? That last one was probably a fluke. But on the other hand, it had been lots of fun. And if it didn’t work out, it wasn’t like I’d have to worry about being embarrassed. I never came into Hollywood anymore.

  And then there was also the idea that if I wrote a song with Nick that it would show Robert that I hadn’t just gotten lucky with that song. Mom, Wenling, and I had only agreed to cater this party and see if anything jumped out at us regarding the death threats. I could honestly say the only thing that jumped out at me was Honey.

  The alarm went off on my phone. I headed back insi
de to take the honey buns out of the oven. My mind was preoccupied with the idea of writing a song with Nick. Could I really do it?

  I grabbed my oven mitts and pulled the buns out of the oven. The smell of the honey and cinnamon filled the kitchen as I slid the large pan onto the counter. We’d put the icing into what my brain thought of as plastic mustard and ketchup containers to make it easy to squeeze on top. I grabbed a bottle and drizzled the icing onto each of the pastries and then moved each individual pastry tin onto a serving tray.

  I was so preoccupied with my work that I didn’t hear Fiona enter the kitchen.

  “So there’s a rumor that Nick might leave the band,” she said.

  Startled, I jumped a little and burned my hand on the hot tray.

  “Ow!” I said pulling my hand away from the hot tray. “You’re not supposed to be back here. The kitchen is for staff only.”

  “Since he used to be married to Robert, you know the band pretty well, don’t you?” Fiona asked.

  “Listen, I’m only the caterer. And you need to leave,” I said.

  There was something about Fiona that I didn’t like. Maybe it was because she was so pushy and nosy.

  “The band’s probably going on stage soon,” I said. “You don’t want to miss out on getting near the stage.”

  Fiona rushed out of the kitchen, and I went back to my work.

  I heard the band start their set and figured it was safe to go out. I managed to get the honey buns through the crowd and back to the table where Mom and Wenling were waiting. They were just about out, but no one seemed to mind while the band played. It gave us plenty of time to restock.

  For a moment it looked like the evening was getting back to normal, but just as the band wrapped up their set with “Got a Match” the police came in. Honey had gotten into an accident driving home, which would have been bad enough, but she’d complained about trouble with her brakes. When police saw the brake fluid in the parking lot and found out from the mechanic that it wasn’t natural wear, they considered it attempted homicide.