“You’re Mel?” Officer Clark asked. Mel nodded and Officer Clark gave her a thorough once-over. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Between Uncle Stan and Detective Tara, she doubted it was anything good.
“I take it you’ve been assigned to Oz because he’s the official baker for Angie and Tate’s wedding,” Mel said.
“Exactly,” Officer Clark said. “Detective Cooper doesn’t want to take any chances that there may be another . . . incident.”
“This is ridiculous,” Oz protested. “I mean, look at me. No one is going to come near me.”
“Able to stop a bullet with your bare hands, are you?” Officer Clark asked. “Or maybe you can distract the assailant with some of your pretty baked goods.”
Mel saw a telltale red streak up Oz’s cheeks under his fringe of hair. She wasn’t sure if it was embarrassment or anger, but either way, he was her employee and she had his back.
“Officer Clark, may I speak with you for a moment?” she asked. She jerked her head in the direction of the bakery.
The woman glanced between her and Oz, then she pointed at Oz and said, “Do not leave this room.”
He looked like he was about to argue, but Paulie picked up the rubber frosting spatula Mel had been using and popped it into Oz’s mouth. Oz gagged and then mumbled something through the frosting, and Paulie gave him a bug-eyed look.
“You don’t argue with the Five-O, man.”
Oz raised his hands in frustration, but he didn’t say anything else.
Mel pushed through to the bakery, where Marty was helping two older ladies pick out their cupcakes. She paused to frown at him. He was wearing a cowboy hat with a red bandanna around his neck. It didn’t go with his navy blue bakery apron and she wondered if she’d missed one of the town’s Old West days or something.
She stared a bit too long and as his gaze met hers his please-the-customer smile slid into a look of worry. Mel gave him a tight smile and led Officer Clark to the far corner of the bakery.
“About Oz,” Mel began.
Officer Clark braced her feet and crossed her arms over her chest. For a petite thing, she sure threw up a good impression of a brick wall.
“Is there any reason to think he might be a target?” Mel asked.
“He’s making the cake for the wedding, isn’t he?”
“Yes, but—”
“No buts. Detective Cooper was very clear that anyone involved in the goods and services of the wedding was to be monitored twenty-four-seven until the big day,” she said.
“But is there any reason to think that Oz in particular has been targeted?” Mel persisted. If anything happened to Oz, she knew that none of them would be able to live with it.
“I’m not at liberty to discuss the case with you,” Officer Clark said.
Mel blinked. “But it involves me.”
“Not really,” Officer Clark said.
“What do you mean, ‘not really’?” Mel asked. Her voice was getting higher with her agitation and out of the corner of her eye she saw Marty’s face whip in her direction. “These are my people. The bride and groom are my best friends, Oz is my employee, and I went to high school with Blaise. How can you say it doesn’t involve me?”
“Because as far as we can tell, you are not a target, and since you’re not a target you have nothing to do with this case, so I will not be discussing it with you,” Officer Clark said. She spoke slowly as if intentionally giving Mel time to absorb every word. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to my assignment.”
She turned on her heel and marched back to the kitchen.
“Uncle Stan told you to say all that, didn’t he?” Mel shouted after her. “Well, you can tell him it is so my business and I’m not just going to sit back and—”
Officer Clark pushed through the doors into the kitchen without even acknowledging Mel’s tirade. Rude.
The ladies left and the bakery was quiet for the moment. Mel saw Marty watching her from under his bushy eyebrows.
“What?” she snapped.
He raised his hands in a surrender gesture. “Nothing.”
“It is my business,” Mel said.
“Whatever you say, boss,” he said.
He was being way too calm for her normally cantankerous employee. He gave a booth in the corner side eye. Mel glanced over to see two men in casual attire sitting there. She glanced back at Marty.
“What’s with the ten-gallon hat?”
“Disguise,” he said.
“It’s not going to work,” she said.
“I know, but those two goons keep showing up wherever I am. I was hoping to throw them off,” Marty said.
“With the hat?”
“It’s a good disguise,” he protested.
“Yeah, really effective,” Mel said. “Why don’t you just tell your daughters to back off?”
“I have, but they’re convinced I’m knitting with only one needle.” He looked sad, which garnered him more sympathy from Mel than his usual feistiness did.
“Oh, Marty,” she said. “What can I do?”
“Let’s just try to keep everything on the down-low, yes?”
Mel nodded and he glanced at a slip of paper on the table. “Oh, I forgot to tell you, you got a call from a Cassie Leighton. She said it was urgent.”
Mel took the slip from Marty’s fingers. There was a return call number on the bottom. Cassie and Mel went back a few years. When Mel had opened up her bakery, Cassie was already established locally as the owner of A Likely Story, a small independent bookstore and indie press that had been around for over ten years.
Being two of the few female small business owners in Old Town had made for an insta-bond they had never tainted with jealousy or power struggles. Instead, they always had each other’s backs at the monthly local business owners’ meetings and never let the other get disregarded or abused.
At this moment, Mel knew she had two choices. She could go try and talk to Oz and calm
