Murder with a Cherry on Top Page 8

  My heart pounding and my throat dry, I took a few more steps.

  When I got closer and finally realized what it was, I let out a scream.

  Chapter 6

  In 1984, President Ronald Reagan designated July as National Ice Cream Month and the third Sunday of the month as National Ice Cream Day. President Reagan called for all people of the United States to observe these events with “appropriate ceremonies and activities.”

  —International Dairy Foods Association (idfa.org)

  That wasn’t a trash bag that was lying in the doorway of Lickety Splits.

  It was a person.

  For the first time, a terrifying thought occurred to me: there’s a killer running around Wolfert’s Roost. Somebody dangerous is in town.

  And then, a second thought: I really need to start carrying an ice cream scoop with me wherever I go. A big one. Made of heavy metal.

  But that was a longer term plan. At the moment, I had a situation to deal with.

  I was debating what to do—Do some more screaming? Call the police? Offer this poor street urchin a double scoop of White Chocolate Raspberry Swirl?—when I realized in a flash that this wasn’t just any street urchin curled up before me. I could see just enough of the face protruding from a mop of ridiculously curly black hair to recognize whom it belonged to.

  “Emma?” I cried. “Is that you?”

  My niece instantly snapped awake. Blinking, she raised herself up on one elbow, looking surprisingly alert. I could tell she was instantly on guard, as if even as she’d slept she’d been aware she wasn’t exactly in the safest place imaginable.

  “Hi, Aunt Kate! What time is it?”

  “What time is it? It’s like five-thirty in the morning. But I think a much more relevant question is, what on earth are you doing here?”

  And why are you dressed like that? I wanted to ask as soon as I got a better look at her. Why do you look so disheveled?

  And why on earth is your hair streaked with blue?

  Still lying on the ground, Emma glanced up at me uncertainly. “I, um, just came for a friendly visit?”

  I let out a snort that showed exactly what I thought of her answer.

  “Come inside, Emma,” I said, wondering if I should sound sympathetic or angry. Sleeping out on the street, even in a relatively safe town like Wolfert’s Roost, was not a wise thing for a young woman to do. Especially since she had other, safer options.

  As I took my key out of my purse, Emma picked up the shabby backpack that had been serving as her pillow and scuttled aside to let me open the door.

  “If this is just a friendly visit,” I asked as I unlocked the door, “why didn’t you come to the house?”

  “The bus got in so late,” Emma said, sounding a little too whiny for an eighteen-year-old. “I took the train up from Washington to New York, then got on a Greyhound bus at around ten. Coming up we hit traffic on the George Washington Bridge. By the time we got to Poughkeepsie, it was past midnight.” She shrugged. “I was afraid that if I started banging on the door at that hour, it would freak Grams out. So I Googled Lickety Splits and told the cab driver to leave me here.”

  I snapped on the lights, which immediately created a warmer feeling than standing on a concrete sidewalk at dawn. Even though I still wasn’t sure what was up, or how, as a responsible aunt of an eighteen-year-old, I should be reacting, I couldn’t help watching Emma to see her reaction.

  I was instantly rewarded. Her entire face lit up, her dark brown eyes growing round and her mouth opening into a big round O the size of an Oreo.

  “Wow! Aunt Kate, this is amazing!” Emma dropped her backpack on the floor and began walking around, studying each detail. Her mouth remained open the whole time.

  “Wow, I love the black-and-white floor, and the pink accents like the chairs really make it pop. It feels so bright! So appealing! It’s absolutely perfect—like an ice cream fantasy!”

  “Thanks,” I said, truly grateful for her enthusiasm.

  “You must be so thrilled, having your own business,” Emma said. “And an ice cream shop, of all things. I know how much you’ve always adored ice cream!”

  “It is pretty cool,” I told her. “No pun intended. But I’m more excited about Lickety Splits than I’ve ever been about anything my entire life. It’s all mine, for one thing. I’ve never had that before. Working for someone else is fine, and I enjoyed a lot of what I did when I was in public relations. But this—this is all under my control. The way this place looks, the hours I keep, the flavors I serve . . . it’s all whatever I want it to be.”

  Of course, the one thing that wasn’t under my control was keeping out the competition. But that wasn’t something I was about to bring up.

  “I love everything about it. And look at these awesome paintings!” Emma had stopped in front of the three giant pictures Willow had created for me, the triumvirate of an ice cream cone, a banana split, and an ice cream sandwich. “Who made these?”

  “My friend Willow,” I told her. “I think you’ve met her a few times.”

  “The willowy one, right?” she replied. “Easy to remember.”

  “There’s one more painting of Willow’s in the back,” I told her. “Unfortunately, the public doesn’t get a chance to enjoy it. But this one has a higher mission to fulfill. Come, I’ll show you.”

  I led Emma to the work space in the back of the shop, pausing in front of the huge, colorful rendering of an ice cream sundae. It was hanging on the wall above the counter, the place where I did some of my most creative and enjoyable work.

  There was a good reason Willow’s fun painting was hidden away behind the scenes. When I’d rented the storefront, one of its few flaws was a huge hole in that particular wall. Somehow the drywall had been pulled away in an area about one foot by one foot, revealing the wooden slats behind it. It was quite an eyesore, especially given its prominent location.

  I’d decided that as an Empress of Ice Cream, I deserved a better view while I was playing around with my raw materials. And what better view was there than a giant ice cream sundae? Especially since this one happened to be composed of three scoops of colorful ice cream, smothered in dark brown chocolate syrup and doused with a tremendous glob of whipped cream.

  The only thing missing was the cherry on top.

  I had teased Willow about it from the moment she first showed it to me.

  “It’s gorgeous,” I’d told her sincerely. “But you forgot something.”

  “What did I forget?” she’d asked. Anxiously she studied her work, meanwhile tapping her bottom lip with one finger. “A spoon? A napkin? A few drips from melting ice cream?”

  “A cherry!” I cried. “The classic ice cream sundae always has a cherry on top!”

  “Oh, my goodness,” she wailed. “You’re absolutely right. How could I have forgotten something so basic? I’ll tell you what: I’ll come back sometime when the shop is closed with a tube of red paint and a brush. I’ll just add on a giant red cherry. . . .”

  Laughing, I leaned over and gave her a hug. “Willow, it’s perfect just the way it is. I love it. And every time I look at it, I’ll think about how unique it is. I’m actually lucky to have an ice cream sundae that makes its own statement about our expectations of the way things should be!”

  And it was true. I admired Willow’s painting every time I went into the back. Just looking at it filled me with joy.

  “I love this one, too!” Emma exclaimed. Then she frowned. “But something seems off, somehow. . . .”

  “You’ll figure it out,” I told her with a grin.

  “Willow’s a really good artist,” Emma said as we walked back into the shop. Casting me a shy glance, she added, “But maybe I could help you by making some more artwork for your store. I’m pretty good at that, you know.”

  I knew perfectly well what a talented artist Emma was. She always had been, ever since she was tiny. When the other kids were gluing pieces of macaroni onto construction paper, my geni
us niece was building 3-D abstract sculptures out of ziti and strips of fettuccini. By the time she was eight, she was winning prizes at school with her papier-mâché puppet heads and her animals made of soda cans. By fifteen, her paintings were winning prizes at community art exhibitions.

  “Have you had breakfast?” I asked her.

  She shook her head.

  “I can take care of that. What do you usually have?”

  “Just coffee, with lots of milk and tons of sugar. And something with serious protein in it, like an egg or some cheese.”

  I nodded. “Then I have just the thing.”

  I went into the back and headed straight for the stainless steel walk-in freezer tucked away there, directly opposite Willow’s painting. The one I’d gotten was six feet by six feet, with a single door. It was practically a small room, no doubt much bigger than what I needed. But I’d wanted to keep my options open. Maybe I’d end up renting the storefront next door and expanding.... Even though Lickety Splits was still a brand-new venture, you never knew what the future might hold.

  Besides, I felt so cool—again, no pun intended—as I walked inside and pulled down a giant container of ice cream, handmade by moi. I thought of my lovely freezer as a kind of temple, a shrine to ice cream. And if there was one thing on this planet that deserved a shrine, it was ice cream.

  I lugged the tub over to the display case and began scooping a large mound of Cappuccino Crunch ice cream into a glass tulip dish.

  As I handed it to Emma, she asked, “What’s this?”

  “Cappuccino Crunch ice cream. It might as well be a cup of coffee, since it’s made with real espresso, cream, and enough sugar to give you a buzz that should last all morning. It also has nuts in it, so between those and the milk you’ll get a major hit of protein.”

  She accepted it gratefully. “Perfect. Why didn’t I ever think of having ice cream for breakfast before?”

  Maybe I should start publicizing that concept, I thought. I was half serious. Why should Starbucks get all the customers?

  I scooped out a smaller serving for myself, then sat down opposite her at one of the round marble-topped tables along the wall.

  “Okay, but let’s go back to how you even knew about Lickety Splits in the first place,” I said. “It just opened, and I haven’t talked to you—well, certainly since before I decided to go into the ice cream business.”

  “Are you kidding? I heard about it from Mom, of course.” Emma was shoveling in spoonful after spoonful of Cappuccino Crunch as if she hadn’t eaten in days. Either that or she simply loved ice cream as much as I did. “She talks about it all the time.”

  “In a good way or a bad way?”

  Emma grimaced. “You know Mom.”

  I did know Mom. Or, as I usually called her, Julie.

  In fact, I could hear my sister Julie’s voice in my head: “It’s not crazy enough that that wacko sister of mine left an amazing career in the most exciting city in the world—not to mention a salary that I can’t even begin to imagine. Now she’s nutty enough to open an ice cream stand . . . ? Ice cream! Can you imagine?”

  I cringed. Not only could I hear Julie saying those exact words, I could picture her rolling her eyes, waving her arms, and practically acting out what she was saying.

  “I hear you,” I replied. “Welcome to my world.”

  My whole life I’d played the role of Little Sister in the McKay clan. Julie was seven years older than I was, and Nina was five years older. So since the day I was born the two of them were telling me what to do—and voicing their disapproval if every aspect of my life wasn’t going exactly the way they thought it should.

  As an adult, I’d done a fairly good job of getting out of the habit of looking over my shoulder to see if Julie and Nina approved or disapproved of whatever I was doing.

  But Emma’s sudden arrival on the scene instantly threw me back into playing the role of someone who had to take what my sister wanted into consideration. After all, this was obviously a lot more than just a “friendly visit.” There had to be an important reason why a levelheaded young woman like Emma had suddenly appeared on my doorstep—literally.

  “But enough about me,” I insisted. To show how serious I was, I put my spoon down. “Tell me what’s going on, Em.”

  “See, here’s the thing,” Emma said earnestly. She, too, put down her spoon. The thought of ice cream melting caused me pain. Then again, it was so good when it was a little soupy that maybe pausing for some serious conversation wouldn’t turn out to be such a bad thing. “I love art, and I think I’m pretty good at it.”

  “No argument there,” I said.

  “But I’m also really into computers,” she went on. “Computer art, but also computers in general.” With a little shrug, she added, “I just think they’re cool, you know?”

  I nodded, even though the truth was that I personally had a love-hate relationship with computers. I loved what they could do. But I also hated the way they acted sometimes. Too much of the time, actually. They were kind of arrogant, as if they surely must know what you were trying to do but for some malevolent reason insisted on making it difficult for you. Like, “I know you want to load all your photos onto your laptop from your phone. But certainly you didn’t have any intention of ever being able to find them again, did you?”

  “So what’s the problem?” I asked, sincerely not understanding where she was going with this.

  “The problem,” Emma said, exasperated, “is my parents.”

  “How do they fit in to this?” I said. “You mean they’re not supporting you in your interests?”

  “Oh, they’re supporting me, all right,” she replied. “It’s just that their answer to everything is, ‘Go to college.’”

  “Okay,” I said, still puzzled. “And that’s a problem because. . . ?”

  “Because I don’t know what I want to do!” Emma cried. “Art or computers. And until I can decide, I don’t see the point in going off to an expensive college that may or may not have the best classes in whatever it is I decide to do . . . whenever I finally do decide, which I hope will be soon but just hasn’t happened yet, okay?”

  “I got it,” I said.

  “So here it is, June already,” Emma went on. “I just graduated from high school, like ten minutes ago, and they’re both like, ‘Okay, so you’re going off to college in September. End of discussion.’ I got into a pretty good school, and that’s what they’re expecting me to do.

  “But I want to take a year off. Maybe two years. Or however long it takes for me to figure out a couple of things. Is that the end of the world?”

  I thought for a few seconds. “It all sounds pretty sensible to me.”

  “Yeah, but not to them,” Emma said, spitting out the words. “They’re like, ‘Oh, you can figure it out while you’re taking courses. You’re not the only eighteen-year-old who’s confused. Everybody needs time.’ But I want to spend the time that I’m figuring things out doing real-life stuff, not just sitting in a classroom. And maybe, after I have a chance to stop being a student twenty-four/seven, I’ll decide that it makes sense for me to go to art school. Or maybe to some two-year computer programming school that turns me into the best geek in the world so I can move to Silicon Valley and make a zillion bucks. Or maybe I’ll just end up going to college, after all, the way they want me to. But it’ll be a decision I’ve made, instead of me just following some . . . some formula!”

  Everything Emma was saying continued to make perfect sense to me. But I could see how Julie and her husband, Greg, could feel threatened by it. After all, they were pretty much by-the-book people. Formula folks, to borrow Emma’s word.

  I’d always figured that in Julie’s case, her approach to life was the result of having had the formulas work so well for her. After all, she had been the queen bee in high school, picked to be prom queen, class president, head cheerleader, and everything else that had as its main requirement being the most popular girl at school. She was kind o
f like Ashley that way.

  But the main difference was that she wasn’t mean like Ashley. Julie was someone who wore her prettiness and her popularity with grace. It was as if these were gifts that had simply been bestowed upon her, and she was so comfortable enjoying them that she didn’t need to show off to anyone else.

  Still, I could only imagine how difficult it would be to be Julie’s daughter. Especially if you were into Picasso and computers instead of school dances and pom-poms.

  “Sounds tough,” I said, resting my chin in my hand. “So you’re taking a little vacation from your parents? Is that what this is about?”

  Emma squirmed in her chair. “Sort of. But it’s actually a little more than that.”

  “Meaning . . . ?”

  She took a deep breath, meanwhile fixing her gaze on the edge of the table instead of on me. “Meaning I was hoping you and Grams would let me live with the two of you for a while.”

  “A while?” I repeated.

  “Like . . . like a year, maybe . . . ? Until I can figure out where I want to go from here . . . ?”

  My immediate reaction to her proposition was sheer joy. What fun it would be to have Emma live with Grams and me! I’d always loved her spiritedness. She was warm, funny, and one of those people who always came up with the best ideas.

  Like the Christmas all three McKay sisters had gotten together at Grams’s house, along with the rest of my sisters’ families. We had just sat down to Christmas Eve dinner when Chloe, then barely out of kittenhood, suddenly raced up the Christmas tree, knocking it down in the process. As if that bit of chaos wasn’t enough, somehow the stand got broken when the tree toppled over. So there we all were on Christmas Eve without a tree.

  Emma, who was probably only eight or nine, immediately came up with a brainstorm. She found this huge piece of green felt that Grams had stashed in her closet, something that was left over from one of her craft projects. She draped it over a coat rack and stuck it in the middle of the living room, right where the real tree had been. Then we all had a grand time safety-pinning ornaments to it, meanwhile singing every Christmas carol we could think of. We even made popcorn to string, then pinned that onto the pretend tree, too. The whole thing was so much fun that it ended up being one of the best Christmas Eves ever.