The Baker's Banana Bread Murder

Chapter 1

Overripe

Recipe Tip: Let the bananas go black.

There were two kinds of people who bought bananas.

People who planned to eat them.

And people who owned a bakery.

Tessa Bramwell belonged firmly to the second category.

She stood behind the long wooden counter at Second Rise Bakery, staring at the six bananas ripening in a wicker basket as if they were ticking time bombs.

Their skins had gone from yellow to brown overnight. By breakfast, three had developed the dark, bruised patches Tessa considered beautiful.

By lunch, they would be perfect.

By dinner, they would be terrifying.

"Don't look at me like that," she told them.

The bananas, naturally, said nothing.

From the corner of the bakery came a metallic plink.

Tessa turned.

Pretzel sat beneath the little café table with a measuring spoon between his enormous gray paws.

"Absolutely not."

Pretzel blinked.

He was a magnificent Norwegian Forest cat, all silver-gray fur, black-tipped ears, and an expression of permanent aristocratic disappointment.

He had arrived at Second Rise Bakery two years ago as a skinny, rain-soaked stray and had spent approximately eleven minutes deciding the building belonged to him.

Since then, he had stolen sugar packets, ribbon, a butter knife, three receipts, a customer's glove, and once, memorably, the mayor's reading glasses.

The measuring spoon was apparently next.

Tessa crouched.

"Give it back."

Pretzel placed one paw over the spoon.

"That is not a negotiation."

His tail flicked.

"That's my measuring spoon."

Pretzel stared at her.

Tessa stared back.

"Fine."

She reached for it.

Pretzel snatched the spoon and bolted.

"PRETZEL!"

The cat disappeared behind the display case.

Tessa heard a crash.

Then silence.

She closed her eyes.

This was Monday.

The Harvest Festival was six days away.

Her bakery's stall had to be ready by Wednesday.

She had forty-eight banana loaves to test, three dozen cinnamon rolls to prep, signage to paint, a festival permit to find, and exactly zero patience left for a cat conducting petty theft operations.

"Tessa?"

The back door swung open.

Dani Kowalczyk entered carrying two coffees and a bucket of flowers.

She stopped when she saw Tessa standing in the middle of the bakery with flour on her apron and one hand raised toward an invisible criminal.

"What happened?"

"Pretzel robbed me."

Dani looked toward the display case.

"Again?"

"Measuring spoon."

"Important one?"

"Half teaspoon."

Dani nodded gravely.

"He's escalating."

A gray tail appeared briefly behind the case.

Tessa pointed.

"I see you."

The tail vanished.

Dani set the coffees down.

"He's smarter than most men I've dated."

"That's a very low bar."

"I know."

Dani pulled out a chair and sat.

Tessa took the other coffee.

The first sip was strong enough to restore feeling to her soul.

Outside, Larkspur Falls was waking beneath a pale October sky. The leaves along Main Street had turned copper and red, and the town was already dressing itself for the Harvest Festival.

Banners hung from lampposts.

Pumpkins appeared on doorsteps.

Someone had tied miniature scarecrows to the railings outside the library.

The festival was the biggest event in Larkspur Falls every year.

It was also the reason Tessa had spent the past week baking like her lease depended on it.

Because, unfortunately, it did.

Dani watched her over the rim of her cup.

"So."

"No."

"I haven't asked anything."

"I know what you're going to ask."

"Do you?"

"Yes."

Dani smiled.

"You're getting very good at this."

"At what?"

"Knowing when I'm about to gossip."

"You have a particular face."

"What face?"

"The one you make right before you tell me something that will make my blood pressure rise."

Dani considered this.

"Fair."

Tessa reached for the basket of bananas.

Dani's expression changed.

"You know who I saw this morning?"

"I don't want to know."

"Garrick Thorne."

The banana in Tessa's hand stopped halfway to the mixing bowl.

There it was.

The name she had been avoiding since Saturday.

Garrick Thorne.

Master knife maker.

Local legend.

Professional snob.

The man who could identify a chef's knife by the sound it made when placed on a wooden table.

He owned the forge on Millpond Road, where he made knives for chefs all over New England. His blades were famous. His waiting list was ridiculous. His prices were worse.

And his opinion of Tessa Bramwell was apparently somewhere below that of a badly sharpened butter knife.

"Don't," Tessa said.

Dani leaned forward.

"He asked about the festival."

"I said don't."

"He said the food stalls were getting better."

"That's almost a compliment."

"Not from Garrick."

Tessa dropped the banana into the mixing bowl.

"I don't care what Garrick thinks."

Dani's eyebrows climbed.

"You cared last year."

"Last year I was new."

"Last year you were trying to make a name for yourself."

"Exactly."

"And he embarrassed you."

Tessa sighed.

There it was.

The memory she'd spent twelve months trying to bury under buttercream.

The Harvest Festival.

Last year.

Her first year in Larkspur Falls.

She had arrived from Boston with a pastry competition on her résumé, a suitcase full of knives, and enough confidence to believe that starting over would be simple.

It wasn't.

In Boston, she'd worked in a high-end pastry kitchen where every dessert had to be precise enough to make a jeweler jealous.

Then came the night everything went wrong.

A missed delivery.

A screaming sous-chef.

A broken mixer.

Three hundred plated desserts waiting for a wedding party.

And Tessa, exhausted and furious, had finally lost her temper in front of everyone.

The video had spread.

Her face had become a punch line.

So she'd left.

Larkspur Falls had been supposed to be a quiet place where nobody knew her name.

Instead, within three months, everyone knew her name.

Including Garrick Thorne.

At last year's festival, she'd asked him whether he would make her a custom pastry knife.

He'd looked at her, then at her flour-covered hands.

"Knives aren't decorations," he'd said.

Tessa had laughed because she thought he was joking.

He hadn't been.

"Come back when you've earned one."

People had heard him.

People always heard Garrick.

And somehow, within an hour, half the festival knew that Tessa Bramwell had been deemed unworthy of a Thorne blade.

She still remembered the laughter.

She still remembered pretending it didn't bother her.

She still remembered going back to the bakery afterward and dropping a tray of macarons because her hands wouldn't stop shaking.

Dani touched her arm.

"He was cruel."

"He was Garrick."

"That's not a defense."

"No."

Tessa mashed another banana.

"Just an explanation."

The front door opened.

A bell chimed.

Desmond Hale stepped inside.

"Morning."

Dani smiled.

"Speak of the devil."

Tessa looked up.

Desmond laughed.

"I hope that's not about me."

"It isn't," Dani said.

"It definitely is," Tessa said.

Desmond was the sort of man who seemed to belong everywhere.

He owned the Copper Kettle restaurant, chaired the Harvest Festival committee, knew every town council member by first name, and had a gift for remembering birthdays.

He was handsome in a comfortable, middle-aged way, with neatly combed dark hair and an easy smile.

More importantly, he was one of the few people in town who had supported Tessa from the beginning.

He'd recommended her bakery for the festival.

He'd sent customers her way.

He'd even helped her negotiate with her landlord when her first winter had been rough.

"How's my favorite festival baker?" he asked.

"Covered in banana."

"That's promising."

Dani pointed at the basket.

"She's making enough bread to feed the entire county."

"That's the plan."

Desmond walked toward the counter.

"I actually came to talk to you about Garrick."

Tessa stopped mashing.

"Of course you did."

Desmond raised both hands.

"Don't worry. I'm not here to defend him."

"Good."

"I just think the festival is a good excuse to clear the air."

Tessa looked at Dani.

Dani suddenly found her coffee fascinating.

"You want me to apologize?"

"No."

"Because I can."

"I know."

Tessa waited.

Desmond smiled.

"I think you should make him something."

"What?"

"Something simple."

"Like?"

"Banana bread."

Tessa stared at him.

Dani's mouth twitched.

"You know," Desmond continued, "people remember kindness longer than insults."

Tessa looked down at the bananas.

Her grandmother's banana bread recipe was the first thing she'd learned to make.

Not fancy.

Not complicated.

Just brown butter, black bananas, cardamom, eggs, flour, and toasted pepitas.

The kind of thing that made a kitchen smell like home.

"I suppose I could make one."

Dani leaned closer.

"You absolutely should not."

Tessa frowned.

"Helpful."

"I'm protecting you."

"From banana bread?"

"From Garrick."

Desmond chuckled.

"Garrick isn't going to insult a loaf of bread."

"You clearly haven't met Garrick."

"I've known Garrick twenty years."

"Then you know better."

Desmond smiled.

"Leave it on his porch. He doesn't answer the door."

Tessa looked at him.

"The porch?"

"There's a pass-through box beside the forge. He uses it for deliveries when he's working."

"That sounds vaguely medieval."

"That's Garrick."

Dani folded her arms.

"And how exactly is this supposed to help?"

"She makes peace. He accepts it. Everyone moves on."

Tessa glanced toward the clock.

"I'll do it."

Dani groaned.

"Tessa."

"It'll be fine."

"Those are famous last words."

Tessa turned toward the mixing table.

"Besides, it's just banana bread."

Behind her, something clattered.

She turned.

Pretzel emerged from behind the display case with the measuring spoon dangling triumphantly from his mouth.

Desmond laughed.

"I see the bakery has security."

"He's useless," Tessa said.

Pretzel walked directly past her.

"He's also rude."

The cat jumped onto a chair.

Tessa followed.

He jumped onto another.

She followed.

He leaped onto the delivery tote sitting beside the back door.

Then, with the solemnity of a king taking his throne, he curled himself inside it.

Tessa stopped.

"Don't even think about it."

Pretzel closed his eyes.

Dani pointed.

"He heard you."

"He always hears me."

Tessa walked back to the mixing table.

The bakery filled with the warm scent of butter as she browned it in a saucepan.

She watched carefully.

Gold.

Then amber.

Then the faintest brown foam.

Perfect.

She poured it into the bowl.

The bananas followed.

Then cardamom.

Then flour.

Then the toasted pepitas.

She folded the batter slowly.

Her grandmother had always said the same thing.

Don't bully the batter.

Tessa smiled despite herself.

"Okay, Grandma."

She poured the mixture into a loaf pan.

From the tote came a faint snore.

She glanced over.

Pretzel hadn't moved.

"You're not coming."

One golden eye opened.

"No."

The eye closed.

Tessa slid the loaf into the oven.

For the next fifty-five minutes, she worked on the festival menu.

By the time the timer rang, the bakery smelled like butter, cardamom, and ripe banana.

She pulled the loaf out.

The top was golden and cracked down the center.

Perfect.

She let it cool.

Then she wrapped it in parchment and tied it with twine.

Her grandmother's knot.

Two loops.

One crossing.

A double bow that held tight without biting into the paper.

Tessa had tied that knot hundreds of times.

She tied it now with care.

Outside, the church bell struck noon.

Six days until the festival.

Three days until she would have to face Garrick.

Tessa lifted the loaf and looked toward the delivery tote.

Pretzel was still asleep inside it.

She smiled.

"You're staying here."

She turned away.

Behind her, Pretzel opened one eye.

His enormous gray body shifted silently inside the tote.

And beneath the parchment paper, Tessa's grandmother's double-bow knot sat perfectly in place.

Waiting to be untied.