Baked Alive in Oven

Another bakery death that mirrors a Silly Karl’s Bakery Murder Mystery.  In particular, Baked to a Crisp.   It’s fine in fiction, but to read about it in the news, it’s just bad.  Read it here.

Body Parts Made of Bread

Just in time for Halloween: gruesome bread.  I’d love to visit this bakery someday,  located in Ratchaburi, Thailand.  Pretty cool, but don’t think I could actually take a bite….

Beach House Greetings is now carrying my books!

I am quite happy to say that Beach House Greetings, located at North Richmond Beach Road and 8th in Richmond Beach, is carrying The Silly Karl’s Bakery Murder Mystery Series. Yay! I love this shop.  It has an awesome gift card selection, as well as other gifts from local artists.  Thank you Susan!

A Chocolate Battering is now rewritten!

Thanks to this blog, I have finally rewritten A Chocolate Battering.  I now have the Original Version and the Rewritten version now available on the right.   I feel that the Rewritten version is a huge improvement; the plot has remained the same, but some details have been tweaked, and the story has been fleshed out a bit more.  I’m always open for feedback, so please leave me an honest opinion in the comments section.  That’s what helps me improve my writing!

Coming Soon! Iced

This is the fifth (and final – for now, anyway)  story in the Silly Karl’s Bakery Murder Mystery Series.  In the near future I will attempt to bundle these babies and do a collection of sorts, but more polishing will be needed I’m sure.   I will also be participating in Art Up Greenwood-Phinney this Friday, September 11th from 6-9 pm, at Balderdash Books & Art.

Roses Don’t Tell: A Preschool Teacher’s Dirty Secrets

This is my latest short murder mystery and was actually an auction item that I donated and wrote for the highest bidder.  I think there may be potential for expansion on this one.  To read, click on story chapters over to the right.

Entire Rewrite Almost Complete

Well, I’ve discovered that rewriting the end of a story will undoubtedly affect the first chapter, and the second, and third, and so on.  So, I have decided to post the entire rewritten story when it is complete – which won’t be too much longer.  It’s rewritten now, but I’m doing some polishing to make it better.

I’m getting about four days away from the kids to write, and I can hardly wait!  No “Moooooom, he hit me!”  No “Mom, I’m hungry – again.”  No “I don’t  wanna go to that park!  That park is boring.”  No “Mooooom, she’s trying to wipe her booger on me!”  No, just the serenity of the quiet hum emanating from my G5 and the dancing green leaves on the tree outside my window;  Some yummy Java Teeccino;  Maybe some good classical music to get the juices flowing, or maybe some Pink Martini – depending on my creative mood. Can’t wait!

Chapter 1 is Rewritten!

I have finally – after ONLY two months – finished rewriting the first chapter of A Chocolate Battering, further expanding it from 3 1/2 pages to 6 (to read, click on Chapter 1, rewritten over in the right-hand column under A Chocolate Battering).

I feel pretty good about it, but as always I could probably obsess over it for another two months and still not be satisfied.  I am amazed at how difficult it is to do any kind of writing with three kids running around!  I’m lucky if I can get in 10 minutes of uninterrupted writing.  The last thing I want to do is neglect my kids, but the idea of getting up at 5AM does nothing for my artistic flow.

Baked to a Crisp

My latest bakery story titled Baked to a Crisp has been posted.  You’ll find it under the Silly Karl’s Bakery Murder Mystery heading.  Enjoy!

Baked to Death in a Bakery Oven!

I SWEAR I didn’t get any story idea from this one, but it sure is darn close to Baked to a Crisp.  I’m just curious though – didn’t they stick their hand in first to see if it was hot?  Poor guys.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1443939.stm

Death at Karl’s Good Stuff Bakery

Here is the unfortunate story of a teenager killed in a bread dryer in Queensland, Australia. I’m not quite sure what a bread dryer is, but it sounds pretty bad. Very eerie that the name of the bakery has “Karl’s” in it.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,19874887-29279,00.html

A Matter of Loaf and Death

Now I am certain that the Silly Karl’s Bakery Murdery Mystery Series isn’t that far off the mark. Here is a trailer for the new Wallace & Gromit movie that takes place – yes, you guessed it – in a bakery. Murder and mayhem abound!

New Jersey Worker Dies in Vat of Chocolate!

Wow. This story hit way too close to home for me. Of course in my fictional story someone dies in a vat of chocolate cake batter, but it’s still pretty spooky.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,530703,00.html?test=latestnews

A Chocolate Battering

Hello and welcome to my web log!

The Silly Karl’s Bakery Murder Mystery Series started out with A Chocolate Battering, which I wrote for my mom (who is the actual owner of Karl’s Bakery and Coffee Shoppe (now Karl’s Bakery & Cafe), located in Everett, Washington.  After writing the story, we put it out for the customers to read.  To my surprise, they liked it, and wanted more. The series now consists of 4 stories, with a 5th in progress.  They are as follows:  A Chocolate Battering; The Baker’s Butcher; Death by Donut; Baked to a Crisp; and Iced (almost done).  They are not short enough to be considered short stories, but are not long enough to be considered full-length.  They are intended to be a quick, fun read, and I hope that you enjoy them.

I am posting the first chapter of my story titled A Chocolate Battering.  This is the first story I wrote in the series, and I feel it is in need of some rewriting.  So, I will be attempting to rewrite the story chapter by chapter, while posting both versions so that you can see my progress and make comments.  So, without further ado, here is my first (original) chapter:

Chapter 1

It was another early morning at Karl’s Bakery and Coffee Shoppe.  The loud clunking of mixers drowned out the music on the radio as the day’s bread dough was mixing. Good things were baking while the residents of Everett, Washington slept.
Judy Bacon was the owner of Karl’s Bakery. This was what she loved, and her bakery was her life. Since she’d taken her first job as a baker at the age of sixteen, she’d never looked back.
Judy was pleasantly plump, in her sixties, with short salt and pepper hair and hazel eyes.  She stood in front of the donut fryer, with large wooden sticks in her hands.  These were the fry sticks she used to turn the donuts in the hot boiling oil.  Frying the donuts was not a job she wholeheartedly relished, but one she knew was important.  After all, Karl’s Bakery had recently won Best Donuts in the tri-county area.
Stella Martin, Judy’s right-hand gal, and had been with Karl’s for over ten years.  She stood at the large maple workbench chopping the Apple Chop-Chop bread dough as if it were her ex-husband.  She was recently divorced, but was still trying to work out some lingering personal issues.
Earl, Judy’s husband of over forty years, was upstairs in the office doing paperwork. Mazey, the cake decorator, was in the decorating corner filling a banana walnut cake. And standing at the scaling bench was the newest employee, Eddie Talbot.
Eyeing the scales carefully, Eddie gingerly poured powdered sugar out of a large metal scoop into a scaling boat until the scale tipped.  Then he dipped his scoop back in and took a bit off the top, causing the scale to tip back to where it started.  He cursed under his breath and began all over again.  Judy and Stella watched this display of obsessive behavior, trying not to laugh.  When he finally had the amount to his liking, he carried it over to the Champ mixer – the largest one in the shop – and poured it into the large mixing bowl, all in one dump.  A cloud of powdered sugar went everywhere, saturating the air like a dense fog.
“What the heck are you doing?” Stella stood at the bench waving a rag through the air, back and forth, coughing.  “You’re gonna kill us with powdered sugar inhalation!”
Eddie let out a few coughs.  “Sorry about that.”  He looked towards Judy, embarrassed.
“Just put the paddle on and start it up,” said Judy, dipping hot donuts into steaming chocolate icing.  “You can clean up the mess later.”
Judy had owned Karl’s Bakery for over twenty-five years.  Until now, she hadn’t had the chance to take a lot of time off.  Yes, there were the Memorial Day weekends, and the Labor Day weekends, and the Christmas holidays, but nothing of any significant length of time.  The last time she’d had a real vacation was her family reunion in Norway, and that was ten years earlier.  So, she decided to hire another baker in hopes she could have some vacation when the opportunity arose.
Eddie Talbot was handsome in a schoolboy sort of way.  Tall, with short brown hair and vivid blue eyes. But Judy wasn’t interested in good looks.  She only wanted someone who could do the job.
Eddie turned around and eyed the rack of paddles suspended from the wall. Which one would he need for the Champ, he wondered.  He reached up and grabbed the biggest one he saw.  He scrutinized the paddle and the mixer, hoping to figure out how they fit together.
The delay was irritating Judy.  “I thought you told me during your interview that you knew how to run an industrial-sized mixture?”
“I…well.” Eddie flushed. “These mixers are different than the ones I used in England.  Remember, English baking standards and equipment are different from the ones here in the US.”
“Yes, but I’m sure even the English are capable of putting the paddle on the darn thing.”  She grabbed the paddle out of his hand.
Stella tried hard not to smile as she added more apples to her Chop-Chop.
Judy attached the paddle to the mixer and turned to Eddie. “If you can successfully finish this batch of icing today, I’ll promote you to chocolate cake tomorrow morning.”  She pointed a finger at him. “And whatever you do, don’t go sticking your arm into the mixing bowl when the mixer is running.  These are powerful enough to break your arm faster than you can blink.”

An hour later, around six AM, the rest of the employees arrived.  Betty, Shannon, Nelly and Elizabeth came in through the back door and down the ramp.
“Good morning girls,” said Judy.  “Just about got these babies ready for you.”  She lifted the screen of donuts out of the fryer and slid them onto a cake pan.
They each murmured an incoherent “good morning”, still half asleep.
Betty, Shannon, Nelly and Elizabeth worked the front of the bakery, selling the pastries and running the deli.  Betty, Shannon and Nelly had been at Karl’s the longest.  Then came Elizabeth, Mazey, and then Eddie.
Eddie focused on the women instead of his icing.  They noticed him instantly and smiled, giggling like schoolgirls.
“Uh, Earth to Eddie.”  Stella was trying to get his attention.  “You’re dripping icing all over the floor.”
“Huh?”  Eddie snapped out of it.  “Oh, crud.”  He began wiping up the mess.
Stella looked on. “I guess Travis will have his clean-up work cut out for him tonight.”
At that moment, Earl came tromping down from the office, waving a piece of paper over his head, extremely agitated.
“Judy!  You are not going to believe this!”
Earl was on the short side, with a large belly and skinny legs. He wore a white apron over a white short-sleeved shirt and white pants. When he wasn’t helping with donuts or icings, his job was bookkeeper.
“What is it now?” Judy was irritated by the fact that she now had a baker who probably couldn’t boil water, and her whole reason for hiring a baker was so that she could take some time off.  Now she’d have to figure some way of getting rid of Eddie so that she could find a baker who could actually do the work.
“I’ve got a letter here from Enos Bailey, our landlord.” Earl began to read the letter word for word. “It says here, ‘Mr. & Mrs. Bacon, bla bla bla…’ Earl scanned the page to find what he was looking for.
“Ah, here it is. ‘I have been left no choice but to sell your building to Consolidated Conglomerates, Ltd., due to the common wall.  CC, Ltd has purchased the adjoining building and has already received permission from the Honorable Judge Cornelius Strominhammer, to begin destruction on said building within two weeks.’ ”
Judy was so busy listening to the contents of the letter that she burned her fritters. “What!  They can’t just tear down the building next door!  Everyone knows we both share the wall.  If they tear down the building, we’ll have no wall! That can’t be right, can it?  They can’t do something like that so quickly!  It’s… it’s unconstitutional!”
Judy began turning a bright shade of crimson.  Stella and Eddie were afraid Judy might burst a vessel.
“Jesus, Earl,” she continued, almost in tears, her donuts a lost cause. She slumped down onto a bucket of cherry filling, head in her hands.  “What are we going to do?”
Earl shook his head.  “I don’t know that there is anything we can do.  It looks to be legal and everything.”  He glanced back at the letter, shaking his head.  “But I’m going to make a phone call to our lawyer.  Maybe there’s something we can do to stall them.”

It didn’t take long for the news of the wall to reach the girls working up front.
“I can’t believe a company could be so heartless,” said Shannon, bagging some whole wheat bread. “Don’t they even care about anyone else but themselves?”
“Well what would be the point of that,” answered Nelly, washing donut trays. At almost six feet three inches she had to bend at the waist to reach the sink. “If they had any compassion for other people or businesses, they wouldn’t be the rich, powerful people they are today.  I hate to say it, but I’d probably do the same thing.”
Elizabeth was loading the dishwasher, her nose wrinkled in disgust.  “I wish people would quit stuffing their dirty napkins into their coffee cups.  I hate having to pull them out with my bare hands. Gross.”  She turned to Shannon and Nelly. “I can’t figure out why no one said anything about it before now.  At least have the decency to give more notice than two weeks.”

***

Mazey Smith was a relatively new cake decorator, having been at Karl’s for only a few weeks.  She was what the girls considered happy-go-lucky.  In fact, she was so chipper it disgusted everyone who had to work with her. Never in a bad mood, never an unkind thing to say, and never one to gossip.  What kind of woman never gossiped?
Elizabeth took a quarter sheet of cake that needed some writing on it to Mazey.  Mazey hummed as she mixed her colors.
“Good morning, Mazey.”
Mazey looked up from her work. “And a good morning to you, too, Elizabeth dear.  What can I do for you this fine morning?”
“This cake needs ‘Happy 50th Birthday Charles’ written on it.  I’d do it myself, but I’m afraid I’d end up ruining the merchandise.”
Mazey waved away the negative comment.  “Oh don’t be ridiculous dear.  Why, I couldn’t tell the difference between a frosting tube and a cake foil when I was your age. In fact,” she reflected,  “I had thought about a career as a lawyer.  So many lawyers in my family, it seemed the logical thing to do, but finally found my calling in cake decorating.  And look at me now.  It takes time to get good at something.  What you need is a little patience and lots of practice.”
Elizabeth smiled, thinking she’d been given more information than was necessary.
Mazey gave her a wink. “Now why don’t you hand me that cake and let’s see if I can’t fix it up for you.”

Later that morning, Judy and Earl left to meet with their attorney to discuss the situation with the common wall.  Eddie and Stella were finishing up in the back.  Eddie gathered up the dirty rags and placed them in a bucket.
“I guess I’ll put these in the laundry,” he said.
“Oh, don’t worry about those,” said Stella.  “Travis takes care of that later after closing.  He’s the one who’ll let you in tonight.”
“Oh?” said Eddie. “Who’s Travis?”
“Judy’s son.  He does the cleaning.  He’s been doing a lot of work in the basement lately, cleaning out clutter and junk. He can do the laundry for you. Why don’t you go ahead and get out of here.  We’ll see you early in the morning.”
Eddie seemed relieved by the invitation to go, but was still insistent.  “No, I’ll just go ahead and pop these in.  I should clean up my mess from earlier this morning.”
Stella shrugged her shoulders. “Suit yourself.  You know how to get into the basement?”
“Yep.  Thanks.  See you tomorrow bright and early.”
Stella grabbed her coat, and left out the front door. Eddie watched until she was out of sight.