Here is a free sample of Mock Apple Alibi for your reading pleasure!
Chapter 1
Everything was quiet in Bald Eagle Falls. Erin stood at the front window of Auntie Clem’s Bakery, looking out at Main Street. Trees and flowers bloomed along the road. A gentle breeze carried the light scent of dogwood into the bakery.
It was too quiet.
The town looked just as it had the first time she had rolled into town to claim her inheritance from Clementine after an absence of twenty years. When her mother had taken her away from Bald Eagle Falls that fateful night, Erin had not had any idea that it was the last time she would see the town until she was an adult. Driving by the charming storefronts with their colorful sunshade canopies, she had thought that it was just a trip like any other. They were going into the city. Maybe for shopping or visiting a friend; she hadn’t really had any idea then. Her parents were not in the habit of consulting with her about their plans.
Returning to Bald Eagle Falls had been like coming home, even though it had never been her permanent home. Just where they visited Aunt Clementine and crashed at her place for a while. Much like they had crashed with many other friends and relatives during Erin’s short lifetime, living a somewhat nomadic existence as her parents moved from one short-term job to another.
Erin had loved staying with Clementine and going with her to work in what had then been a tea shop. Erin had been a mature child and enjoyed helping Clementine with the tea orders and baking cookies, but she must have gotten underfoot sometimes. She couldn’t imagine having a seven-year-old working alongside her at Auntie Clem’s Bakery. But Clementine had always been kind and patient with her and Erin couldn’t remember her ever getting angry or impatient about her mistakes or clumsiness.
Main Street seemed to be frozen in time. The cars and clothing styles had changed. Some of the storefronts had changed. Auntie Clem’s was now across the street from the storefront she had inherited from Clementine. But in other ways, it looked and felt just the way it had when Erin had been there twenty years before.
“Is everything okay?” Harold asked. He leaned on the top of the display case, his lanky teenage body relaxed, acne-pocked face curious.
“It’s too quiet,” Erin said, looking up and down the street again. “I don’t like it.”
“You’re worried about not getting enough business?” Harold asked.
“No…” There was a momentary lull in the arrival of customers, but Erin knew it would pick up again as people left work and started to think about what they wanted to make for supper, or for breakfast or lunch the next day. “It isn’t customers I am worried about. It’s… I was expecting everything to change. I thought that with Willie claiming leadership of the Dyson clan, there would be a lot of… unrest.”
“You’re worried that there isn’t a gang war going on in front of the store?” Vic asked as she came out of the kitchen with a tray of muffins. “You were hoping for gunplay?” As usual, her long blond hair was neatly tucked away in a baker’s hat, and Erin’s shorter dark hair was forever escaping bobby pins and getting in her face.
“No!” Erin’s cheeks got hot. If anyone should be worried, it was Vic. She was the one who had belonged to the opposing clan, born into the Jackson family, and whose romantic partner had just claimed leadership of the Dysons.
Maybe because Vic had already been disowned by the Jackson family for being transgender, she thought she was safe from anyone targeting her for her choice of partner. Or maybe she felt that because Willie was now the leader of the Dysons, no one would dare lay a finger on her.
But she was the one who had the most to worry about. The Jacksons could easily target her because she was important to Willie. Or because she had turned traitor and joined the Dysons—even though she hadn’t. Vic didn’t want anything to do with either clan. Raised to hate and fear the Dysons, she had been pretty upset when she had first found out that Willie had neglected to mention his history with the clan to her. It had nearly broken them up for good. But Vic had eventually accepted that Willie had done his time as a Dyson soldier and wasn’t involved in clan business anymore.
Until now. Erin had expected her young employee to blow up when Willie accepted leadership of the clan, even though the only reason he had done it was to prevent Erin and her sweetheart, Officer Terry Piper, from being killed. But Vic hadn’t had much to say about Willie’s claim on the leadership of the Dyson family as a direct descendant of Hannah Dyson.
“Why aren’t you worried?” Erin asked Vic. “Aren’t you concerned about Dyson members gunning for Willie because they don’t like someone who has previously turned his back on the clan suddenly taking over? Or about someone coming after you to hurt him?”
Vic was silent as she arranged muffins in the display case with practiced ease. She looked back over her shoulder at Harold. “Shouldn’t you be doing the washing up back there?”
Harold straightened up and nodded, agreeing that he should get back to his duties.
“Yes, Miss Victoria.” He walked through the door into the kitchen to do as he was told.
“Of course I’m worried,” Vic admitted. “I know that sooner or later, something is going to happen.” She looked out the front window, scanning up and down the street to reassure herself, as Erin had, that it was still quiet. “But I don’t think there is any point in scaring Harold about it. Or saying anything to any of the customers. For now, just… wait…”
“Pretend there is nothing to be worried about?”
“What good is it going to do to fuss about it?” Vic challenged. “Is that going to stop it from happening? Is it going to make you feel better? Make you better prepared?”
“Well, no,” Erin admitted. Vic was barely out of her teens, but she had been raised with clan warfare and politics, and had wisdom beyond her years as a result. “Although, if there is something I can do to be better prepared for what’s coming… I would like to do it.”
Vic nodded her agreement and understanding. “We’ll talk about that later. For now, since there are no customers, why don’t we take the opportunity to talk about your mock apple pie?”
She said it as she turned around and walked back into the kitchen, raising her voice so that Erin could still hear her with her back turned.
Erin left her place at the window. Vic was right, of course. Standing around looking out the window, worrying when something terrible was going to happen, wouldn’t do anything but give her an ulcer and keep her from her work. The actual running of the bakery was her life’s work. A clan war wasn’t going to change that. No matter what happened, people would still need to buy bread. The clans didn’t have any reason to target the bakery. It would stay open and keep running no matter which clan had the upper hand in their ongoing, generations-long feud.
“What exactly is a mock apple pie?” Harold was asking as Erin followed Vic into the kitchen.
“It is an apple pie made without apples,” Vic told him. She took a binder out of the niche under the upper cabinets where they stored several binders of information on procedures, ingredients, and vendors. The slim binder contained copies of the recipes that had been in the vintage recipe book published by the Bald Eagle Falls Women’s League, the original of which was no longer in Erin’s possession.
Vic flipped through the binder to find the recipe for mock apple pie.
“It doesn’t have apples in it,” Harold repeated doubtfully.
“Nope. No apples.”
“Why would anyone make apple pie without apples?”
“Because sometimes, historically, apples were very expensive to ship across the country and spoiled faster than something like crackers, which could sit on the shelf for months.”
“Crackers?”
“Ritz crackers. There was even a recipe on the back of the cracker box.”
Harold looked at Vic, his brows furrowed, then turned to Erin, waiting for her to tell him it was all just a joke.
“It’s true,” Erin said. “During the depression and wartime, women made apple pie with Ritz crackers.”
“And no apples,” he said.
“And no apples.”
Harold shook his head like it was the most bizarre thing he had ever heard, and Erin had to agree with him. When she had first heard of mock apple pie, she hadn’t believed it either. But she had talked to several women who had eaten it and assured her it was a fairly convincing fake.
“It has to do with the spices,” she told Harold, “and lemon juice for tartness. Apparently, the way you prepare the crackers in the filling gives them a texture that is like cooked apples.”
Harold shook his head slowly. “Ain’t that something!” he declared. “And how are you going to make gluten-free mock apple pie? Ritz crackers are not gluten-free, and if you get the gluten-free crackers, won’t they just dissolve without any gluten to hold them together?”
Vic turned and looked at Erin, raising her brows. They’d already had this discussion, and Erin had been researching different approaches to the problem. Make her own gluten-free crackers that would stay together better? She was sure that the texture still wouldn’t be right.
“Okay,” Erin got closer to Harold and Vic so that it was easier to hold the conversation without raised voices and the possibility of anyone who came into the bakery overhearing them. “I’ve been working on it, and I have a few ideas about the direction to go…”
Chapter 2
The bells over the door jingled and Erin hurried out to the front to greet her customer. It was a face that she didn’t recognize, which instantly sent her heart racing. The twenty-something baby-faced young man did not look dangerous, but as with mock apple pie, looks could be deceiving. Young men were recruited as street-level soldiers in both clans, and this fresh-faced stranger could be there looking for trouble. Plenty of people knew Willie’s girlfriend worked at the bakery.
Erin forced a smile to her lips and inquired pleasantly. “Welcome to Auntie Clem’s Bakery. How can I help you?”
The man pulled something out of his pocket, and for an instant, the sun’s reflection off a metallic surface convinced her it was a gun. But before she could react, the young man held a phone out in front of him, and the shutter-click whir told Erin that he had snapped a picture of her. She kept her smile steady.
The customer stepped up to the display case and scanned the rows. The camera tipped Erin off as to what he was looking for.
“Morning sunshine muffins?” she guessed.
His face lit up. “Yes, how did you know?”
The late Gerald Montgomery’s social media followers were still making pilgrimages to Bald Eagle Falls to eat the last thing he had sampled before his death.
It still bothered Erin that the strawberry compote surprise at the center of the morning sunshine muffins had given Montgomery an anaphylactic reaction that had killed him within minutes. But she wasn’t about to stop making them as a result. Not when people traveled across the country and around the world just for the chance to eat one of the muffins.
She took a muffin from the display case and placed it on one of the garish gold paper plates they now stocked for just such an occasion. If people were going to make the purchase of a morning sunshine muffin a social media event, Erin was going to get as much mileage as she could from it. She inserted a toothpick mounted with the words Auntie Clem’s Bakery into the top of the muffin. She set it in the best position for the Instagrammer to take pictures from the most advantageous angles.
He snapped a few more pictures, but as the young man reached out to take it, Erin removed it from the top of the display case and put it on the counter beside the till. “Payment before tasting,” she informed him, and rang it up. He paid with a twenty-dollar bill and a smile, telling her to keep the change. Erin put the change into the tip jar to be divided among the employees.
He recorded himself taking a big bite of the infamous muffin, pausing a dramatic moment to see if it would kill him, then declaring how delicious it was and giving a thumbs-up and a challenge to his followers to make the trip to Bald Eagle Falls in Tennessee to taste it for themselves.
Erin smiled and nodded and saw the customer out the door. As much as she disliked the morbidness of people’s fascination with the “murder muffins,” she couldn’t deny that she made a very good profit on them—this latest customer was not the first to give her twenty dollars, or even more, for a single muffin—and the muffins attracted a lot of customers to Auntie Clem’s that would not otherwise have even been in the vicinity. They often stayed at the bed and breakfast and came back again to sample her other wares.
“Erin, have you heard anything from Charley?”
Erin turned to look at Vic, who was standing in the doorway of the kitchen, frowning.
“Uh, no, I haven’t heard anything.” Erin looked at the clock on the wall. Charley was on the afternoon shift and should have been there twenty minutes ago. “She must have slept in. Can you give her a call?”
“I already have. There’s no answer.”
“Oh, good grief,” Erin snapped. She wasn’t irritated at Vic, but at Charley. Her half-sister had been a much more reliable employee than Erin had expected her to be, but occasionally she still flaked out and didn’t show up on time for her shifts. They only scheduled her for the afternoon shift so she could sleep until noon and still get there in time. If they were really stuck for help with the early morning time slot, Charley would arrive at the end of her day, after partying or whatever else she did past midnight, and would put in a few hours before going home and going to bed.
Erin wanted to gripe about this not being a good day for Charley not to show up for work, but in truth, it wasn’t any worse than any other day; she was just tense and wound up.
That was just Charley. She would end up calling them at three o’clock, embarrassed that she had slept in and asking whether they needed her to help with the last few hours.
Erin relieved her stress by swearing quietly under her breath, and she addressed Vic in a calm, cool voice. “Would you see whether Bella is free? I think she only has morning classes on Wednesday.”
“Sure,” Vic agreed. “No problem.”
She returned to the kitchen. The bells tinkled and Erin turned her attention back to her new customer. Mary Lou usually came either first thing in the morning when the bakery opened or at the end, just before Erin locked the doors; it was unusual for her to be there in the early afternoon. Mary Lou worked down the street at the General Store, so she usually worked the rest of the day and didn’t come to the bakery on her break, if she took one.
“Hi, Mary Lou,” Erin greeted her warmly. “It’s nice to see you.”
“Good afternoon,” Mary Lou returned. She smoothed her unwrinkled pantsuit over her hips and perused the display case. “I only have a minute, but I just found out that Cam will be coming for supper and wanted to make sure I had something nice for dessert. I think maybe… a variety of cookies?” she suggested, with slight frown lines between her eyes. “Yes… a selection of twelve cookies. Then everyone can be sure to have one of their favorites.”
“Sure,” Erin agreed. She got out a box and selected several different kinds of cookies for the Cox men. Mary Lou’s husband, Roger, and sons Joshua and Campbell, would enjoy the sweets. However, as this order was over and above Mary Lou’s usual carefully-budgeted order, she worried it would strain the family’s meager finances. “Can I unload some day-old goods on you?” she asked. “My freezer is full to bursting, and I’m going to have to start throwing stuff in the garbage. Maybe… some rolls for dinner tonight, bagels for breakfast? I know you always plan your menu beforehand, but if you could see your way to taking some off my hands, that would be helpful. Maybe Cam will stay over for breakfast?”
Mary Lou glanced over her shoulder to verify that she was the only customer in the store and none of her friends would hear about her accepting charity. Then she gave a quick nod. “Rolls and bagels would be lovely,” she agreed.
“And maybe a couple of pizza shells?” Erin suggested, “Just in case Cam is looking for a midnight snack?”
“Okay,” Mary Lou agreed. “Thank you, Erin.”
“I’ll just be a minute,” Erin promised, and hurried into the kitchen to grab what she had promised from the day-old freezer. She wanted to make sure she handed it to Mary Lou and gave her a chance to get out of the store before anyone else arrived. Returning to the front, she bagged everything and rang up the cookie order at the till.
“You know you can always pop in the back door if you know of anyone who needs help,” Erin reminded Mary Lou tactfully. “We always have day-old available, no questions asked.”
“Of course,” Mary Lou agreed with a nod. “You are very generous for caring for the community as you do.”
She counted out change to pay her bill to the penny, and then was gone, headed back to the General Store.
Bella came in the front door just as Mary Lou left, turning her head to look at Mary Lou’s retreating figure. She knew Mary Lou’s schedule as well as Erin and was obviously surprised to see her.
“I thought I saw Campbell earlier,” she said to Erin. “I guess that was him, and Mary Lou needed a little something extra for supper tonight.”
“You guess correctly,” Erin confirmed. “Thank you for coming in. I don’t know what happened to Charley.”
“Sure, no problem. Luckily, I was in town already, so getting here didn’t take long.”
Bella and her mother lived on a farm outside Bald Eagle Falls, and it would have taken her at least another half hour to get in if she’d not already been there.
“I appreciate you being able to drop everything to help us.” Erin sighed. She moved back to give Bella room to pass her so she could wash up and get her apron on. Erin poked her head into the kitchen to talk to Vic. “Did Harold get on his way already?”
Vic nodded. She looked at her watch. “He should have made it back to school in time.”
Both Harold and Bella were still in school, and worked around their class schedules. Harold had relief time for work experience some mornings, and Bella had organized her class schedule to give herself afternoons off a couple of times a week. Both were able to put some time in after school dismissed or on weekends. Erin enjoyed the younger employees’ energy and interest level. Bella was a business student and hoped to run her own business after college. Not a bakery, but she hadn’t yet decided what kind of a business it would be.
“Great. We’re good for this afternoon, then.”
I hope you enjoyed this sample of
Mock Apple Alibi
By P.D. Workman
