Chapter 15

  I have even less patience with Christians recently, due to the rise of christian nationalism. I certainly don’t think Judaism or Islam are any better, I wouldn’t live in Israel or any state that had Islam as the state religion. I don’t even think that the Christians have thought the whole idea through. If you live in a Christian State what flavor of Christianity do you use? Catholics are the largest christian sect, so it’ll only be a matter of time before they use their superior numbers to push a Catholic agenda. If the Evangelicals, the second largest sect, pass the Catholics in numbers then they will just push the others to bow to their numbers. Tyranny of the Majority is worse than the tyranny of a king. It’s a lot more satisfying to hate the king, then your neighbors who happen to be that other sect, making you bow down to their version of what Christianity means.

  I’ve said it time and time again, religious people need to read more than just their ‘Holy book’ whatever that book is. People fighting for christian nationalism seem to forget why the pilgrims came to America, because their fellow Christians of another sect, wouldn’t allow them to worship as they saw fit. But I had to hurry arguing with Lucas had taken up way too much time. So I left the dock and the sweet breeze and moved toward the tent and the second challenge in the second series of challenges.

  Amy and the mayor were already seated at the judges table when I arrived. Roberta stood in the center of the tent and started her introduction.

  “Alright bakers, we are now ready to begin Week Two’s second challenge. Are you excited to hear what you’ll be baking?”

  There were some half hearted yes’s from a few of the bakers, It would probably be to the production's benefit if they at least explained a little how the introduction was expected to go. Most especially when they expected some kind of response from the bakers.

  “I expected that you would.” She pushed on as if she had just gotten a most enthusiastic response from the bakers, instead of a few anemic ‘yeses’. “The judges want you to make a Savory Shortcrust Pastry Quiche, the flavor is your choice but must be savory. The judges aren’t allowing you any time for mistakes, you have one hour and thirty minutes to complete your bake, starting right now.

  Now there actually seemed to be some urgency, a few of the bakers were already using their food processors. I really like quiche, I haven’t eaten it very many times, but I quite like the idea of pie as a main course. Two camera people moved around among the kitchens taking shots of the bakers in action. It seemed like only a few minutes had passed before many of the bakers were putting their pie crusts in the oven to prebake.

  “For the audience at home,” Roberta began, “The bakers have put their pie shells into the oven to prebake. While not a requirement, prebaking does help to prevent soggy bottoms, something I and my fellow judges hate.”

  Amy must have told Roberta what to say. As Roberta has never baked anything more challenging than toast I don’t believe. I started to smell bacon frying and the smell of fried onions soon filled the air. I had skipped lunch to interview Lucas, and I still couldn’t completely rule him out. But I strongly suspected that he wasn’t the saboteur, or the attempted murderer. Which was too bad on so many levels. If it was him, the investigation would be over then we could just concentrate on the contest and the increased business in both of the bookstores.

  But I never would have been able to eat anyway, until I had sat out on the dock and breathed the sweet breeze. The smell of urine from my brief stay in lockup was all my poor nose could identify. But a half hour on the dock, a gentle breeze and now I was ready to eat. I could hear my stomach rumbling. I hoped that no one else could. My phone dinged an alert.

  I grabbed it to put it on silent, which I did but I took a look as long as I had it out. I checked to see who had just messaged me. It was a link to a picture of Willow and Pappy in Urge. What a great picture they both looked so happy. The post went on to say that Willow of hashtag willowsdad is here in Lake Placid. Stop by and say hello and see her dads incredible artwork. I craned my neck around to look at Urge and there was a line waiting to get on the bus.

  I texted Lucy back, thanking her for the link.

  Laura:How’s business?

  Lucy:Busy but not as busy as yesterday, at least not yet. It’s just the right amount of busy

  Laura:Good, I’ll try and stop in after this bake off round is over. We are having a warrant clearing party for Pappy tonight. Tell everyone, I may need Luke to run to the store later. I’ll let you know. How is he doing with the used book inventory?

  Lucy:Good, he moved one box of ours from the store and two boxers from Willow's car out to Urge and they showed him where to stock it.

  Laura:Perfect

  Then Roberta got up from the judges table and walked back to the center of the tent, where she announced that the bakers had ten minutes left. I heard groans from a few of the bakers. I can only assume that they must be running behind.

  Some of the bakers now appeared to be rushing, but more then half were frozen in place, and appeared to be staring into space. They were in actuality staring into their ovens willing the quiche to bake faster.

  Roberta rose from her seat to announce five minutes remaining. Somehow all of the bakers had managed to get their quiches out of the oven. The tent smelt amazing. Roberta rose and announced that the time was up and asked the bakers to please line up at the judges table.

  The judging was the usual silent affair, the bakers approached the table one at a time, they put down their quiche and sliced three slices from the dish, and handed one portion to each of the judges. Who each took a single bite, then wrote a score on a scratchpad by their elbows.

  Ten minutes later it was all over. Then Roberta stood up and announced to the bakers that the next round would begin in one hour. I had a few things that I wanted to do. I wanted to get another interview in. I still had three bakers to question. I also wanted to speak quickly with Amy about a little party, we could order pizzas, Chinese, or have a barbecue. I certainly didn’t expect Amy to cook it, after working out here as a judge probably the last thing she’d want to do would be to cook.

  Amy hopped up from the judge’s table and started moving toward the store but I caught up before she had gotten too far.

  “Amy, I was thinking that we should have a party tonight for Pappy. So I thought we could order in or maybe do a barbecue, I can have someone set up the grills and Ezra is good with the actual grilling. What do you think?”

  “No, we can’t do that Laura, I already have dinner cooked, it just needs to be reheated. I asked Pappy this morning what his favorite meal was. I figured that we’d want to have a party for him. Imagine being out from under a fear that must have always been in the back of his mind for the last fifty years.”

  “I already invited the staff from the store to join us. I assume that Zoe will probably go home to eat with her son, but that is still three more than you planned on. Should I get pizza for us?”

  Amy smiled, “No, don’t be silly, Pappy’s favorite meal is lasagna so I made three huge pans, plus we’ll have salad and garlic bread. We’ll have plenty for every one. I’m just going to go in now and get the garlic bread ready for the oven. You go take care of whatever you have to do, I’m fine. It was nice of you not to let Pappy get locked up alone. Willow was gushing about you.”

  “I felt like it was my fault that he was in danger, in the first place. It seemed like the right thing to do. When I saw the toilet sitting in the room, no toilet seat nor any toilet paper I began to rethink my decision. But luckily, I hadn’t had a lot to drink this morning, so it never became an issue. Don’t ever get arrested Amy, the smell is horrendous.”

  She laughed, “I’ll keep that in mind the next time you ask me to commit a felony, she’ll I call and invite Anais?”

  “Yes she risked a felony for him too, so it seems only fair that she be included in his celebration dinner. I have to see if I can interview another baker, I still have three left. By the way, who just won?”

  “Jovana, she made a delicious Quiche Lorraine.”

  “Thanks Amy I’m going to see if I can grab a slice, I’m starving and the tent smelled so good. See you later.”

  ***

  But Jovana had already divided her quiche into small pieces and was handing out samples to the crowd, all of the bakers were, except for Niall. He stood alone at his station. His quiche was still in front of him.

  “Hey, Niall, could I please have a slice of your quiche and if you have time, I’d love to do our interview, maybe down on the dock, it’s both private and quiet, while also having the best view.”

  He cut me a generous slice of his quiche. Which I scarfed down way too quickly, but in my defense, I was really hungry and also he had made a very good quiche. Which made me extra disappointed that I had missed Jovanas’ if hers was actually better. Not that I doubted Amy.

  We walked down to the dock in companionable silence, maybe I was just a little embarrassed that he had seen my gluttonous side.

  He looked serious for a moment, “Before we start I just want to say thank you, I know that Amy actually saved my life, but Roberta has told me that you are doing all that you can to find out who did that to me. If this event had actually been held at the original venue, I very well might be dead right now. So thank you for having the bake off here and also for investigating, just what is going on.”

  Stolen story; please report.

  “I’m just glad you are feeling better, you had us all really worried. As far as the investigation goes, if something bad happens on my property, I feel it is only right that I try to set things right. The police are also working on it. I know they have sent samples to the State Police lab in Albany and are waiting on the results as we speak.”

  That wasn’t really true, the test had already come back, no one had tampered with the epipen, that Niall was tricked into using.

  “That’s encouraging Laura, if someone messed with my epi pen. Hopefully they left a fingerprint on there. If I didn’t smudge them when I used the pen.”

  “Yes, I’m sure that is what the chief is hoping for. So I’ll just ask you a few questions then we’ll get you back with plenty of time to spare before the next round begins. First off I heard you were a professor, where do you teach?”

  “Yes I was, I taught at RPI, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for almost twenty years, but I retired a few years ago.”

  I had learned from Eve how to not say anything to the cops when they waited for you to go on with an answer, supplying more info then you want to reveal. But maybe Niall was given the same advice before because he didn’t say why he had retired so young, nor how he could possibly afford to. RPI is probably only just behind Stanford and MIT as engineering schools go and is very pricey but I can’t imagine that they pay their professors enough to just leave after less than twenty years.

  “That’s wonderful Niall, it wasn’t that long ago that I retired from publishing to come back home here and run the bookstore. What did you teach?”

  He slouched into the lawn-chair, “I was in the computer science department, the only course I taught each semester was a machine intelligence course. The rest of my time was spent on research.”

  Alarm bells were ringing, Roberta had been hacked, here was a computer science professor. I’d feed him some information and see if he bites.

  “If only I had known sooner, you might have been able to help us out.”

  He looked interested, “In what way?”

  “Roberta had been hacked, so I cleaned her computer for her and removed a njRAT that had infected her. But I had no idea how to trace it back to an IP address. So the threat was removed, but you might well have helped us catch the hacker.” I watched him closely as I had spoken and either he was a great poker player or he had nothing to do with the hack.

  “I’m afraid I wouldn’t have been any help at all Laura, I was all about artificial intelligence, that is what I spent every day for nearly twenty years doing, but aside from practicing safe browsing the only thing I knew about computer security was that we had a whole department dedicated to it. Whenever I thought I was having an issue, three grad students would be in my lab within an hour. The best advice I can give about computer security is to use Firefox web-browser, uBlock origin adblocker, and Noscript that toggles off JavaScript site by site. The last one is hard to deal with but if you really don’t want to get compromised it gives you control. The last tip is don’t download any extensions unless you really can’t live without them and make sure they are recommended by Firefox before installing. Not much help you probably knew all of that before I started mansplaining. I’m sorry it’s not a sexist thing, it’s a problem all professors have, even the retired ones. We have a tendency to over explain.”

  Unfortunately I believed him, it sounded a lot like the academia that I had been exposed to in the publishing world. Each department is jealous of every other department and sub departments. All in a fight over funds, year after year. The only thing collegial about college is there is never as much money in your budget as you want in your budget. Time to change directions and try to draw some connections.

  “Niall, had you met any of the bakers before coming here to Lake Placid?”

  “No, I’d never had the pleasure of meeting any of them, and they all seem so nice. I find it very hard to believe that one of them tried to kill me. Are you really sure that it was one of them?”

  “To my understanding, fentanyl is super fast acting, the only people who were close enough to you would have been on the dance floor. The only crew member close enough to you to do it was cleared by the police. Plus he had tape of the whole thing, First Grace then you, so if he was close enough to film, but not close enough to change epi pens with you. So it was either the cast or Roberta, Bobby, Me, Amy, and my friend Anais. Amy, Anais and myself all alibied each other. But that leaves the cast, Roberta or Bobby. But if Roberta or Bobby wanted to kill you, it makes more sense to kill you, in the same manner at their house.”

  “Yes I see what you mean. But it still doesn’t explain why a baker might want me dead.”

  “It could be as simple as greed, Niall.”

  I watched as his nostrils flared, when I mentioned greed. “That’s horrible that someone would kill another person just for money, that is about the worst reason I could think of. But when I die, any of my money that is left is being split between two non-profits, Wikipedia and the Internet Archive. Two of the only websites that actually live up to the original dream of the internet. Before it was gobbled up by one corporation after another. So if greed was a motive, I’m afraid our suspects are Brewster Kahle and Jimmy Wales.”

  I laughed, “Well, it might not be for your bank account, it just might be for the prize money. At least that is the assumption that I am working on. Feel free not to answer, and if you do I promise to keep the information private. Just how much are you worth and where did the money come from.”

  He looked at me seriously, “I don’t mind answering Laura, but there are Non-Disclosure Agreements in place. So I can just answer generally, would that be acceptable?”

  “Yes, and as I said, unless it is something that I am required to share with the police, this stays between us.”

  A quick head nod, acknowledged that he agreed to my terms, “When I was a researcher at RPI, I retained full rights to any patents that my research produced. I actually came up with an algorithm that made facial recognition orders of magnitudes faster. I sold the patent to the government in hopes to prevent any future terrorist attacks like those that took place on nine eleven. The government can be very generous when they deem it to be in their best interest. So after I made tens of millions of dollars, I retired. I thought I had done my bit to keep America safe and educate America’s youth. It was time to get on with the rest of my life. But like I say, that money is already going to some non-profits, so it can’t be the reason I was attacked.”

  “No, as you say, it’s not a dot org, trying to kill you. But something that just occurred to me that is far more terrifying. What if it was a foreign government? I don’t mean to go all James Bond, but what if it is a revenge plot. I know that it is a very unlikely scenario, however it is not a non zero chance. So like I say, very unlikely but I do feel that we need to keep it on the possible motive board until we can rule it out. The problem is I’m not at all sure how I would go about actually ruling it out. I’ll mention it to the police, but I expect that I will get laughed out of the office. Which I really won’t be able to blame my cousin for assuming that I have read far too many spy novels. But let’s push on from there and let me ask you some more normal questions, like how did you start baking and when did you start?”

  “I started baking, just a few years ago. I had read some early research being done on ultra processed foods, and early mortality. So with time on my hands I decided to teach myself how to cook. I had the kind of money that would have allowed me to hire a chef, but I was also looking for a hobby that would get me on my feet and out of my head. The two just seemed to fit together perfectly. I enjoyed cooking, the improvisation, and getting to eat what I created. But my programming brain, yearned for structure and baking was a lot more precise, you could still experiment with flavors, but measurements, temperatures and bake times couldn’t just be improvised. So I spent much more time baking, and less time cooking. I also lost lots of weight. I controlled the amounts of sugar and fat that I was putting into my body. I also started jogging, but quickly switched to walking, as I was constantly sore from jogging. The more I walked, the more whole grain breads I ate, the leaner I became. It was a perfect feedback loop. I felt better, had more energy, and everything just tasted better. So now I’ve become one of those annoying types who tries to get everyone to change their lifestyles to match mine.”

  “So, how good a baker are you?”

  “Not as good as I’d like to be. I’m like a healthy baker, at least that is the way I think of myself. I like to think that I bake bread, soft pretzels, dinner rolls , biscuits, pretty well. But the more sugary and fat laden bakes, I have very little experience actually making so at best, fair. But anyone with more experience would easily out do me in muffins, pies, cakes and cookies.”

  “Had you met Roberta or Bobby prior to applying to the bake off?”

  “No I hadn’t. The first time was at the interview at their house.”

  “Did you see any bees flying around at the party?”

  “No, not a one, I felt like I was stung, then Grace started yelling, after she was stung, but I never actually saw one of the bees.”

  “How about since then, have you seen any bees at all around the property, I would imagine you are more aware of the presence of bees then other people would be given your condition.”

  “No, I haven't seen a single bee flying around your property, which strikes me as very odd. Two bees out at night but yet a diurnal species and not a one seen during the day. It’s very puzzling.” His brows knitted together.

  “I think it speaks to the attacker. They had planned this, they brought and released the bees. Wishing to cause chaos. Which of course succeeded. It’s hard to tell if you were the target or just an unlucky convenient victim, would any other baker have suited the perpetrator just as well. Just a few more questions, Niall. What do you think of the challenges and have they been fair, so far?”

  “The first two I thought were rubbish, but the last two have been much better. I suppose it takes a little while for a show like this to find the correct balance between entertainment and education. I just hope the future rounds are more like the last two. I’d also like to see more bread making. But that is just because it is my specialty, I suppose. I understand why it’s been avoided, bread takes hours and hours to make, with all the time rising. Still I hope as the production moves forward, earlier start times would help.”

  “Final question for now Niall, although this isn’t as relevant for you as the others. If you win, what is your plan for the prize money?”

  “Pretty much as you might have expected, half to Wikipedia and half to the Internet Archive. Not that I expect to win, rather the opposite, I would imagine that I’ll be going home as part of the first pair. Which makes sense, as I must be the baker with the least amount of experience that has entered.”

  “If you do get sent home, will you stay in Lake Placid to watch the rest of the bake off or will you go home?”

  “I’d like to stay around and keep an eye on the other bakers, I have a lot to learn and watching someone who is good at something is the best way to learn.”

  “At this stage, who do you think is the best baker?”

  “Hmm, that’s hard Laura. But just going by the last two bakes, my money is on either Tyler or Jovana.”