Cassie picked up her coffee and cradled it in her hands as if to warm them. Mel suspected she was still in a bit of shock from the events of the night.
“You know we can’t get involved in this,” Marty said. Everyone looked at him and he rolled his eyes. “Okay, I can’t get involved. If the daughters find out, they’ll go ballistic and try to have me put in a home.”
“No one is putting you in a home,” Angie said. She looked like she could spit fire at the mere suggestion. “They’ll have to go through all of us to do it.”
“No offense, but I don’t think they really consider a bunch of cupcake bakers an obstacle,” Marty said.
“We’ve been underestimated before,” Mel observed.
“But we always win,” Tate said. He patted Marty on the shoulder and that seemed to settle the matter.
“One thing I don’t understand,” Oz said. “Why were the other vendors killed? What did they have in common besides the book signing? I mean it just seems . . .”
“Excessive?” Joe offered.
“Yeah,” Oz said. He bobbed his head and his bangs swung back and forth in front of his eyes.
Joe looked at Cassie and asked, “What do you think? Did they have anything in common besides the signing?”
“Not that I know of,” Cassie said. She put down her coffee cup and picked at her cupcake. “I’ve used them all before for different events but I’ve also used others. They all work in the area, but other than that, I don’t see how they’re connected.”
“Were any of them in the book?” Tony asked.
Joe gave his younger brother an impressed look.
“Not really a big brain leap there,” Tony said. “The book has been pretty controversial ever since word leaked out that Penworthy was writing it.”
“It’s true,” Cassie said. “She started getting threatening phone calls and e-mails before she’d even accepted her movie deal. It is a very thinly veiled fictional account of that exclusive neighborhood. Elise barely disguised the people that she wrote about.”
“What do you mean?” Mel asked.
“Hair plugs,” Cassie said.
Marty clapped a hand on his bald head. “Really? And here I thought I was rocking the no hair thing.”
“You are. I wasn’t talking about you,” Cassie assured him. She looked at Mel and Angie, and asked, “If I say ‘hair plugs,’ who did you see tonight that brings that image to mind?”
“Oh, totally, Elise’s ex, Todd Cavendish,” Angie said. “It was a sad scraggly mess up there.”
“Exactly,” Cassie said. “Well, in the book, she actually refers to him as ‘Hair Plugs’ and you can bet everyone who lived in the Palms knew who she was talking about, especially since she referenced the woman he left his wife for as ‘Child Bride,’ which was what Elise always called Mallory.”
“Nicknames like that could apply to a variety of people,” Al said. “How does anyone know exactly who she’s talking about?”
“She didn’t cloak the scandals very well, either,” Cassie said. “Chapter three is devoted to the failed banker who has a women’s shoe fetish, a borderline personality disorder, and a gold incisor.”
“Rick Jakelisk, a total nut job,” Tony said. Everyone looked at him. “What? His daughter was in my class in high school, and she was one messed-up dudette with daddy issues. Now I know why.”
“See?” Cassie said. “And you didn’t even read the book, did you?”
Tony shook his head. “But I know most of the people who live in the Palms since they went to the same high school that we did. In fact, I’d be willing to bet our entire family knows most of the people mentioned in the book through school.”
“Hit us with another one,” Al said, as if it was a game.
“All right.” Cassie thought about it for a moment and gave them all a considering look. “Baby Talk and the Unibrow had a thing for wife swapping until they tried it at a backyard barbecue with their new neighbors, who were a very religious couple, who put their house up for sale the day after the ‘incident.’”
“No way! The Swansons were into wife swapping?” Al choked on his cupcake. “I dated their daughter Anastasia. For the record, she did not have her dad’s unibrow nor did she baby-talk like her mom.”
“I don’t remember her,” Tony said.
“That’s because I broke up with her after our second date because her mom tried to corner me in the bathroom. I thought it was just my imagination, but I still didn’t want to go over there ever again. OMG, I feel so violated.”
Angie gave her brother a hug. “That is creepy. I’m glad I didn’t know about her; I’d have drop-kicked that woman.”
“Thanks, Ange.” Al rested his head on his sister’s shoulder.
“I think I still want to drop-kick them,” Joe said.
“You can see why Elise’s book has blown the doors off the neighborhood,” Cassie said. “Reputations have been shredded, families maligned, friendships destroyed. It’s been bad, and Elise is loving every vengeful bit of it.”
“That could make for a whole lot of enemies,” Joe said. “I think I’m going to call Stan. We might want to have more than one officer watching over Elise.”
He rose from his seat and took his phone into Mel’s office. Four knocks sounded on the back door, and Oz hurried across the room to open the door for Officer Clark.
“What are you doing, Ruiz?” she snapped. She glared up at him. “I could have been the killer.”
“You knocked four times,” Oz said. “Wasn’t that the signal?”
“The killer could have knocked four times,” she said. She tossed her hair back.
“But it wasn’t the killer, it was you,” he argued. His voice was annoyed and Mel got the feeling he would have preferred it if it were the killer.
“You have to be more careful,” Officer Clark berated him. “Just because you aren’t considered to be high-risk anymore, doesn’t mean there’s no risk.”
She was winding up to continue her lecture on safety. Oz
