A Scone of Contention

by Lucy Burdette

  She shuddered with emotion and fell quiet for a few minutes, then shook her head. “I can’t think of anything out of the ordinary. I did all the cooking. We got deliveries as usual—smoked fish and sausage and greens and vegetables and cheese. I accepted most of them myself, though it’s possible …” She paused. “I had the lamb marinating ahead, so that was already set. But nothing out of place. Not that I noticed. And Miss Ainsley hired the same two waiters she always uses to help me serve. There’s nothing dodgy about either one.”

  So far, her memory was producing zippo, zero, zilch. “It might come to you when you’re not trying so hard. Memories are like that.” I smiled reassuringly. “Did Ainsley seem upset or tense about anything to do with the dinner?”

  “She seemed happy,” Grace said quickly. “She loves to entertain. And we’d talked for ages about the menu, and it was all coming together so beautifully. And she loved having guests from America.” She managed a small smile. “We had such fun thinking about what you might enjoy and how to showcase Scottish food.”

  I smiled back. “And we loved every bite. I have to say you ended on such a high note with the cream whiskey and those heavenly cheeses. And butter cookies too.” I nibbled on my lip, trying to think about how to unravel what had really happened. “Did you happen to notice anything odd when Glenda and her husband arrived? What I’m getting at is, was there any tension between them and the other guests or our hosts?”

  Her eyes grew wider and, in what felt like slow motion, filled with tears.

  I slung my arm around her shoulders and gave a comforting squeeze. I wasn’t sure why that particular question would cause her to fall apart, but clearly I was pushing too hard, too fast. “That’s too many questions at once, isn’t it? Let’s go back to things in your kitchen. Tell me about the process of planning and preparing the meal.”

  She nodded and swiped at her wet cheeks. “Of course, we started preparing for the dinner days ago. I made some of the hors d’oeuvres ahead of time so I could pop them in the oven right before the guests arrived and serve them hot. The sausage rolls freeze up perfectly, for example. And for the cock-a-leekie soup, naturally the broth has to be prepared ahead. If it has a few days to settle, the flavor is so much better. And it’s easy to skim the fat.”

  I nodded. Soup always tasted richer if you could hold off eating it for a day or two to allow the ingredients to meld.

  “And as I mentioned, I set the lamb to marinate the day before with garlic and rosemary and olive oil. Is this what you mean? Am I telling you too much?”

  “It’s exactly right,” I said. “The thing is, you don’t always know what you’re looking for, what will help solve the mystery of what happened to her. For that reason, I like to hear everything.” I chuckled. “You can probably tell that I love hearing about food anyway.”

  The streets had gotten busier as we approached the Fife Farmers Market, and up ahead I could see the colorful tents of the vendors and begin to hear cheerful conversation between them and the shoppers. Dogs were barking and a rooster crowed, and the scent of the most wonderful grilled sausage wafted by on a wind gust, beckoning us closer. Grace led me down each of the aisles, urging me to taste samples from the vendors of local cheeses, handcrafted oatcakes, pickles and mustards, sausages, and cottage pies made of wild venison and game birds. There were also booths stocked with luxury candles, bouquets of colorful flowers, and knitted hats and tartan scarves. I reminded myself to come back around, after circling the market with Grace, and choose souvenirs to take home for my friends and family.

  The shoppers, too, were picturesque, people wearing shawls and scarves against the chill, carrying baskets, negotiating prices in thick Scottish burrs. The vendors greeted Grace warmly; some wanted to know how her dinner party had turned out, and what she was shopping for today, and others had obviously heard rumors about Glenda’s unfortunate illness. The cheese maker next to the flower vendor seemed to have heard all about the party’s disastrous ending. He came out from behind his booth, smoothing his hands over a pristine white butcher’s apron. He had rusty curls, thick eyebrows, and warm brown eyes.

  “Is the woman all right?” he asked in a low voice. “Did they determine what caused her illness? I am hoping it wasn’t cheese …” He had a smile on his face, but at the same time he looked absolutely serious—and worried.

  Grace glanced at me and then explained: “This is Blair, whose family makes goat and sheep’s milk cheese from the animals on their farm not too far from here. That’s why it’s called farmhouse cheese. You tasted two of them last night.”

  “Your cheese was amazing,” I said, reaching over to shake Blair’s hand, which was strong and calloused, as though he was a man familiar with hard work.

  He gestured at the refrigerated case with a stunning array of cheese on three shelves. “These aren’t all mine, but I belong to a cheese makers’ coop, and we take turns manning this booth.” His gaze flitted from mine to hers. “Tell me what happened?”

  Grace took a step closer and lowered her voice. “They’re testing the contents of her stomach. Unfortunately, the incident occurred at the end of the evening”—she glanced at me for confirmation, and I nodded—“right after I served the cheese. That’s why I’m not buying anything for the house today—don’t worry, they weren’t concerned about the cheese specifically. But Glenda seems to think someone tried to poison her, and isn’t the cook the obvious suspect? Ainsley agreed that I should skip preparing anything at all, at least until we have the facts.”

  He frowned, the lines on his face deepening. “You know Glenda’s a hammy queen. Always looking for the spotlight. Has to be, with a husband like the one she’s got. She probably felt overlooked at the dinner table and figured this would draw all eyes to her.” He rubbed a hand over his forehead and grimaced.

  Grace did not look convinced, and neither was I. Who ever heard of pretending to be poisoned in order to get more attention and move the spotlight in her direction? And another thing—hadn’t Grace just told me that she barely knew Glenda? Blair made it sound as if they both knew her perfectly well.

  “You’ve known Glenda a while it seems,” I said to Blair.

  He snuck a furtive glance at Grace. “St. Andrews is a small town. I worked for her some years ago until I recognized that cheese was my true calling. She’s a very rivalrous woman, and I got the sense that she believed that her good fortune could be taken away from her at any moment. I was quite relieved to be away from her, truth be known.”

  Grace was looking more and more glum as he talked, and he seemed to realize he wasn’t helping. Could he mean that she believed her good fortune was Gavin? He had not seemed like such a prize to me.

  “Was there anyone you didn’t know at the party? Did Ainsley hire people to help you out in the kitchen?” he asked. The same questions I’d wondered about.

  Grace shook her head. “All the regulars attended, mostly her friends who are working on that Scotland book and a few golfers. And Hayley and her family, of course. We’d never met, but then they didn’t know Glenda either and would hardly have a reason to want to do her in.”

  “If we wanted to end the evening, we could have pled jet lag. We’d have no reason to poison one of the other guests,” I tried to joke. “Her husband, maybe. He’s a bit of a blowhard,” I added.

  Blair got a funny look on his face, and I realized I’d probably said too much. I was scrambling to think how I could fix that faux pas and coax him to say more about Glenda and Gavin, but several new customers approached the cheese stand. Grace tugged on my elbow, and we backed away to allow him to attend to them.

  “He seems like an awfully nice fellow,” I said.

  She gave me a quick smile and nodded.

  “You mentioned you didn’t know Glenda terribly well,” I said to Grace. “But Blair called her a hammy queen. Which is kind of a perfect description. Are you certain you haven’t had any run-ins with her in the past? Something that would give you the idea she wa
s out to harm you in particular?”

  Grace blanched. “I can’t think why she’d be unhappy with me. The women had a number of meetings about the book project here at the house,” she said, “and Ainsley asked me to provide the cream tea, which of course I did.”

  “What does your cream tea menu consist of?” I asked. Not that I thought this would provide any kind of clue to possible psychological discomfort between the women, but more because the very words “cream tea” had me salivating, drawn like a moth to candle. After last night’s delicious spread, I suspected that her tea would be spectacular too. Thinking about her baked goods, I was having trouble concentrating. I wanted to hear her menu and hoped she might share her recipes. And besides, some people got great ideas by clearing their minds of everything—mine came when I was focused on food.

  “Often I’d make a standard scone and serve it with clotted cream and a wee bit of raspberry jam. And sometimes Scottish cheddar shortbread cookies, although if I remember correctly, Glenda did not care for those. ‘A cookie should taste sweet, not lie in wait like an unpleasant brackish ambush,’ she’d say.”

  I visualized those cookies from the cheese course after dinner. They were sharp with cayenne and good cheddar and just the right amount of salty. To me, one of those wafers would never come as an unwelcome surprise. “Is there a certain kind of butter that works best for you in the scones? At home I started experimenting with Irish Kerrygold, and it seems softer, which changes the texture a bit, right?”

  She was looking at me so oddly that I finally realized how far I’d veered off track. I pushed my mind back to the problem at hand. “While they were having these meetings to plan the project, was there any particular problem or tension between the women? Can you put your finger on anything out of the ordinary in their relationship or their work together before the party?”

  She glanced over at me again, and from the worried look on her face, I thought she was probably doubting whether she ought to be talking behind her boss’s back. “I wouldn’t even ask you this kind of thing,” I added, “if it wasn’t for the poisoning accusation.”

  “They knew each other forever, since college,” she said. “I imagine there was the usual amount of bickering. But no one thing stands out.” She glanced at her watch and turned around.

  “I need to get back to the house,” Grace said. “Do you want to walk with me?”

  “I’ll stay a bit longer,” I said. “I want to look at all these wonderful booths again. If either of us hears something new, we’ll be in touch?” I exchanged cell phone numbers with her, then bid her goodbye and returned to the florist to choose a bunch of cut flowers as a small gift for Vera.

  All this food gave me a powerful urge to cook, or at the very least, eat. I restrained myself from buying dinner ingredients as I didn’t know what our host’s plans were for the next few days. But houseguests are always hungry, and Vera might be too distraught to plan meals. And wasn’t cheese always welcome? Besides, I had the impression that Blair had something more to say about last night’s disaster than what he’d already told us. Returning to his counter, I bought several pieces of his family’s cheese and then chose a glorious hunk of Dunsyre Blue, strong and peppery and streaked with blue. I took a picture of the label that described how the cheese was aged in an old stone farm building.

  “What makes blue cheese appear blue?” I asked Blair.

  He grimaced. “It won’t sound right, but we add mold cultures before the cheese is ready to be aged, and then the cheese is salted and spiked with stainless steel rods to allow the mold to grow into those lovely blue streaks.” He grinned and I did too. Unless you stuck to raw vegetables—which were safe but kind of boring and plain, a lot of food went through an ugly phase on the way to becoming delicious.

  “What else should I choose for a hostess gift?” I asked. “For snacking. Something I could compare to the Dunsyre?”

  In addition to a wedge of his sheep’s milk feta that I’d overlooked, he steered me toward a lump of Strathdon Blue, made further north in Scotland in the Highlands. I could picture a whole feature on cheese in my Key Zest piece.

  I accepted the package from Blair. “I hope you don’t mind me saying that it appeared you knew more than you said earlier about the people involved in the incident at Ainsley’s home last night.” Then I waited. No telling how willing he’d be to share facts, or even gossip, but worth a try.

  He leaned across the counter to whisper. “Glenda’s husband is an awful pig. He made a pass at Grace not long ago at another of Ainsley’s gatherings. Pushed her into the pantry, pawed her private places, and slobbered all over her.”

  “That’s disgusting,” I said, remembering the unwelcome feeling of his arm draped across my back and his wife’s angry glare.

  “She was horrified,” he said, nodding grimly. “And terribly afraid she’d lose her job if she said anything to Ainsley. And for certain she wouldn’t mention it to Glenda. I wanted to go pummel that arsehat, but had to agree that the best course for her sake would be keeping her silence and her distance. She hoped he was drunk and would forget all about it.” He brushed a few crumbs off his cheese cutting board and straightened his knives, the frown still on his face.

  “Anything else?” I asked. “Maybe the incident had nothing at all to do with Grace, but is it possible that someone on the outside had it in for Ainsley? Maybe someone who makes her deliveries?”

  “I deliver the bigger cheese orders if it’s too much for Grace to carry, and the butcher does his meat, and so on.” He crossed his muscular arms and squinted. “But for the sake of argument, how would this work? Say a person wanted to poison a certain guest in the party. They would have to target the exact hunk of cheese that guest would be consuming, not poison everything. And if they wished to target one particular plate, Grace would have had to be involved in order to know which food to serve to the victim.”

  His face got red. “I’m blathering on, but you see it makes no sense. Grace would never hurt anyone. And besides, it wouldn’t work. You could end up poisoning the wrong party or, for that matter, the whole party.”

  “I do see. It would be very difficult to pull off and lots could go wrong. But thanks for talking to me. And for the cheese lesson.” I smiled and took the package that he’d set on the counter. “I know we’ll enjoy every bite.”

  Once I’d finished my perusal of the shops, I paused on the cobblestone lane that led back to the center of town. The sun had risen just enough to take a bit of the chill out of the air. I was glad that Nathan would be having a glorious day on the golf course, but to be honest, I missed him a little, and he hadn’t even left yet.

  I started back to my sister-in-law’s house, mulling over the strange conversations I’d had at the market. One thing I needed to know for sure: aside from her husband assaulting Grace in the closet, did Glenda and Grace have an unpleasant history? And what about Blair and Grace? She hadn’t said anything about a relationship between them, but he was awfully protective of her.

  And who might want to ruin Ainsley by poisoning her guests?

  Chapter Nine

  He was about to sip the tea cooling in the mug on the table in front of him, but then the thought of the rat poison in the unfortunate woman’s coffee made him stop.

  —Ragnar Jonasson, Rupture

  My phone rang as I reached Vera’s home; it was a FaceTime call from Connie. I quickly stashed my cheese in the fridge and rested the flowers in the sink, and then accepted the call and sat at the kitchen table. As the screen came into focus, I could see that Lorenzo, Connie, and my mother were all on Miss Gloria’s deck, sipping cups of something steaming. The cats were there too; T-Bone, Miss G’s orange kitten, had splayed across Lorenzo’s lap, and the other two snuggled against his legs.

  “Hi everyone,” I said, realizing there was only the barest hint of light in the sky beyond our boat and that I couldn’t see their faces clearly. “Isn’t it the middle of the night in Key West?”

&nb
sp; Ziggy woofed as soon as he heard my voice, looking around frantically for the person that went with the words. Mom scooped him up and stroked him, trying to calm him down.

  “It’s early, but we all miss you so much that we decided to meet for a breakfast call,” Connie said, gesturing at the others. “I hope you don’t mind that we helped ourselves to tea and some scones I found in the freezer. We wish we were there with you. We figured that eating scones in Key West might help us pretend to be in Scotland.”

  “I don’t mind a bit, and I’m sure Miss Gloria won’t either. We are eating our body weight in scones here anyway.”

  “How are you enjoying Scotland?” my mother asked. “I can’t wait to hear all about it.”

  “It’s lovely, beautiful. This morning I went to the farmers market with the chef of one of Vera’s friends. I tasted the most amazing cheeses. And sausages, oh my gosh. Sam would be in heaven. In a little while, Nathan and William tee off in their tournament, and the rest of us are going to visit some kind of local site. We’re still a little bit off-kilter because of the time change.”

  “Of course,” said my mother, “don’t they say it takes a day to adjust to each hour of change?”

  “I hope not,” I said. “That would mean we won’t feel right until the day we’re coming home.” Then I noticed Connie’s face, which looked pinched and gloomy. “How are things there? Did anything get resolved with Ray?”

  She shook her head sadly. “I did talk with him, just as you suggested. I pleaded with him to tell me what’s going on. And then I told him about Eric and how people think they have to protect secrets and that often makes things worse.”

  “So true,” said Lorenzo, “people are funny that way. I offered to read some cards for him.”

  “But Ray being Ray, he of course wants nothing to do with that,” said Connie.