Ashley Crane Cozy Mystery Collection

by Laurie Anne Marie

  “No excuses,” she thought.

  She had to go to a shelter next week and get a cute kitten to keep him company. The thought made her smile of adding an addition to their family.

  ***

  When she arrived at work, Ashley realized she was in for a reality check of the worst kind. Everything was a mess. It looked like the dining room had not even been properly cleaned up from the night before. It was still early, but the place would soon be filling up for breakfast as the doors were supposed to open soon. There were only a few servers scrambling around in the dining area and when she got into the kitchen, she realized she was the only main cook there.

  She grabbed her apron and started getting her station ready for breakfast. The line cook Jose glared at her. He was furiously chopping veggies and onions for omelets. She saw he had sausages and bacon on the grill already.

  “You should have come in yesterday,” Jose grumbled.

  “Jose, it was my day off! I was also really sick.”

  He didn’t answer, he just muttered to himself and kept doing prep. Unfortunately, orders started coming in as the morning customers arrived. Just as fast as she cooked, new orders kept piling up.

  “Where is Chris? Wasn’t he supposed to be here already?” Ashley asked.

  Jose glared at her again.

  “Dios Mio. Do you look at the schedule? He not here till 10:30.”

  Why was everyone mad at her for actually taking her day off? She looked at the time she was supposed to be in today on the board. It turned out she had actually arrived ten minutes early. The backup happening now in the kitchen was not her doing. The fact was, if Chris or another line cook were already here, everything would be fine.

  Ashley was furious.

  “That’s crazy. Why can’t Darren get more people?”

  This was just bad business. People loved Ashley’s food. She had created a great menu with the other head cook, Chris Durtz. If there wasn’t enough time to prepare it properly though, they were all going to start getting complaints. Her boss Darren Short seemed set on keeping the labor costs so low that the cooks and servers were always scrambling. Ashley started to work faster, and her heart was racing as each dish went out, and new orders kept on coming in.

  ***

  Just as things really started heating up in the kitchen, Ashley’s boss Darren arrived at work and made his presence immediately known.

  “Why didn’t you answer your phone yesterday?” Darren shouted, from across the kitchen.

  “It was my day off, and I was really sick Darren.”

  Ashley turned to glance at him, but she had to look away again and keep going as she was already falling behind with no other help than Jose doing prep.

  “We really needed you. It was a mad house, and I don’t like it when you don’t answer your phone,” he snapped.

  Ashley went right back at him.

  “Well, I don’t like it that this place is understaffed.”

  As soon as the words came out of her mouth, she regretted them. Jose nervously glanced at them both.

  Darren glared at Ashley. It was clear he never expected to hear that from her. But at the moment, she had to keep moving and get the orders done.

  “When the rush is over, we need to talk,” Darren said.

  He stormed out of the kitchen.

  “Ay yai yai,” Jose whistled. “You have cojones.”

  Ashley went red in the face. Between the heat in the kitchen, the orders flying in, her leftover hangover, and her boss being a jerk, the rest of the morning went by in a blur.

  ***

  Word spread quickly that Ashley had told the boss off. Jose couldn’t resist gossiping about it. The few employees that were there came by and told her ‘way to go’ or ‘you said what we’ve all been thinking’ to her. Even the part-time office assistant came by and gave her a thumbs up.

  “Thanks Ashley. He deserved it.”

  Ashley knew people at the restaurant were disgruntled, but she didn’t expect this reaction. Soon the afternoon and evening shifts would hear of it too, and no doubt talk to her about it. Her mind was racing as she quickly got the orders out.

  Suddenly she heard arguing outside the back of the kitchen door. It was Darren and his wife Julia going at each other again.

  “I told you a million times not to come here and pick a fight,” Darren said.

  “Why, because you don’t want your little honeys to hear me?” Julia Short said.

  “Accuse me of whatever you want, but do it at home. I have work to do. A restaurant to run. Money to make. All so you can have the good life dear,” Darren growled.

  “The good life is one thing Darren. Cheating on me is another. Which one of the girls here are you sleeping with? I demand to know,” Julia shouted.

  “Keep your voice down. I won’t have you causing a scene at the business. I’m not talking about this anymore. I’m going back to work. Go get a manicure or something,” Darren said.

  “Don’t you even care about me? You never tell me you love me anymore,” Julia cried.

  “Stop blubbering. You don’t care about me either, and you know it. Go spend my money, that always makes you feel better,” Darren said.

  “Oh, I will dear. I’ll spend your money all right. I’ll make you as miserable as you make me.”

  Julia Short spit out her last words and ran to her car. Darren stomped into the kitchen and glared at Jose and Ashley before he went into the main dining room. Jose whistled softly under his breath.

  “They are something, huh?” Jose said. “Matrimonio sin amor.”

  “Yeah, kind of makes me glad I’m single, “Ashley remarked.

  As soon as the other cook Chris Durst got in to start his shift, she let out a sigh. Thank goodness. Her arms ached, and she felt sweaty and gross after cooking at high speed.

  Chris stared at her. “Rough morning?”

  “What do you think Chris? We’re getting busier and busier, and the boss is pinching more and more pennies with labor. It was crazy this morning!”

  Chris continued to stare.

  “Weasel,” he muttered, to himself.

  “What did you say?” she asked.

  “Nothing. Only that he will get his due soon enough.”

  Now it was Ashley’s turn to stare.

  “What do you mean by that? Is he on his way out or something?

  “Something like that. Now take a break. I got it from here. See you in fifteen.”

  Chris turned his back and fired up some more grills. Ashley took her apron off and sighed. She could use 15 minutes to sit down and rest. Lunch rush would be starting soon, and she was already exhausted.

  “Okay, no use fighting it. I’ve got to have sugar today,” she thought. She made her way over to the trays of desserts set up on the rack for lunch.

  Just then the dishwasher Jimmy Potenski burst through the kitchen door.

  “I’m gonna kill him!” he yelled while throwing dishes in the sink. His face was red, and his veins were bulging in his neck.

  “Jimmy, calm down. What’s wrong?” Ashley said.

  “Boss told me I’m not moving fast enough. Says the servers are complaining that I’m not bussing the tables good enough. I’m going as fast as I can. Everyone needs to help out ‘cause it’s been crazy this morning! Why can’t he get another busboy? What else can he squeeze outta me?”

  Jimmy threw some dishes in the sink so hard that everyone could hear them breaking. He was middle-aged and bent over already. He had been in the military and suffered from PTSD. This job was the first he had gotten since he was rehabilitated, and he worked really hard.

  He was polite and nodded at everyone when he came in and left for the day, but other than that he pretty much kept to himself. He seemed to have a long-running feud with their boss, and he could always be heard mumbling Darren’s name in anger at some point in the day.

  Darren seemed to put up with Jimmy only because he was a veteran, and he felt compelled to hire him to look
good in the public eye. Otherwise, Ashley could hear him making sarcastic remarks about Jimmy from time to time. That upset her. Jimmy was doing the most backbreaking work at the restaurant and probably got the lowest pay. Darren could at least be nicer to him.

  She remembered back when Jimmy first started working at the restaurant that he had looked so sad. One day they both had the same break, and she tried to get him to open up and chat with her.

  “So, are you enjoying being here at Gratitude?” she asked.

  “Not much to enjoy when you’re washing dishes. Still, it’s better than sitting around depressed and thinking about bad things that happened when I went off to war,” he said.

  “Yeah, I guess it would be. Sorry you had a tough time,” Ashley said.

  “Me too. I got lotsa bad memories. Killing never solves anything. I never wanted to hurt anybody, and I still don’t.”

  “I can certainly understand that.”

  “Anyways, my shrink thinks it's good therapy for me to get out in the world and be around people. Take a job to get my mind off things. Earn a little money too. I wish I could sit on the beach in Hawaii or something though,” he said.

  Me too,” she laughed. “If you go, can I go with you?”

  He gave her a shy smile, then got up abruptly.

  “Look, I can’t talk about this no more. But thanks for being nice.” He went back to the kitchen.

  Ashley had sat there and thought about how much suffering he must have been through. He never talked to her too much after that, but he was always nice to her when she asked him for help in the kitchen. There was an unspoken understanding between them, and she had always felt he was a nice person despite his gruff exterior.

  That day however, all the tensions between Darren and Jimmy seemed to be boiling over. The kitchen door swung open wide, and Darren stood there, red-faced.

  “Jimmy, I need to talk to you in my office now!”

  Darren’s jaw was clenched, and sweat was on his brow. Ashley saw a menacing look on his face.

  Jimmy glared back at him.

  “You ain’t talking to me. I’m done talking. Take this job and shove it where the sun don’t shine!”

  Jimmy threw off his apron and ran out of the back door of the kitchen as fast as he could. Darren stood there speechless.

  “Guess you’re gonna have to do some real work here today, aren’t you boss?” Chris sneered.

  Darren whirled around and snapped. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Well, Ashley and I are cooking, and the servers are serving, so who’s gonna do the dishes? Not me.”

  Chris then turned his back to Darren and went back to sautéing his meat.

  Darren stared daggers at Chris. Then he walked out of the kitchen in a hurry. You could have heard a pin drop for a moment.

  Chapter Three

  “What’s up Chris? Are you crazy? Why are you talking to him like that? And what is going on here? It seems everything is falling apart in this place,” Ashley said.

  She stared at Chris’s back. He slowly turned around and gave her a fake smile.

  “Ash, I already heard that you told him off this morning too. And wow, would you look at the time! Sorry about your break, but lots of orders coming in. Need you to get back to work. Lunchtime!” Chris replied.

  Ashley sighed and put her apron right back on. She felt sick to her stomach after what had just happened. She had a feeling that Chris knew information about something that was about to happen but wasn’t going to share the news. Maybe a new owner was taking over. There was a big investor who seemed to be in the restaurant almost every day for the last month. His name was Mr. Nash, and he never seemed happy with what he saw when he came in to eat.

  Maybe Mr. Nash was going to run the place. Or perhaps the restaurant was having money problems, and Mr. Nash was putting pressure on Darren to cut corners. Maybe that’s why Darren didn’t want to hire more people? Then again, the restaurant was busier than ever, so that didn’t make sense. Maybe Darren was just having personal problems.

  Ashley wouldn’t dare to ask him about that. Whatever it was, she was getting a massive headache. She grabbed some water and popped two aspirin and got back to work. It was turning out to be the longest day ever. On top of that, she never got that chance to have a dessert.

  “I’m grabbing two of them to take home,” she grumbled to herself.

  ***

  Lunch was crazy busy, but Ashley powered through. When her shift ended, she heaved a big sigh of relief and hung up her apron. She said goodbye to Chris, who waved with the same fake smile that he gave her earlier. Then he turned and scowled over the pans on the stove. Ashley shook her head and walked out of the kitchen.

  “Weird,” she thought. Chris was always a bit moody, but they had gotten on alright in the kitchen. They both loved to cook and had created some new and delicious seasonal menus that were drawing in the customers. Their online reviews were great, and they prided themselves on giving the customers good food.

  Even Darren had complimented them from time to time. He understood why people kept coming back. In addition, most of the servers gave excellent service. Some were lazy, but that’s how it went in restaurants. Always a few ones who didn’t work as hard as others.

  The main problem which made itself very evident today was that as time went on, Darren was cutting too many corners with labor. If this kept up, the quality of the food would go down as the cooks would be too rushed. The service would deteriorate as everyone would be running around like chickens with their heads cut off, never being able to give a table its proper due. A quick look around the dining room revealed a lot of stressed out faces.

  Three servers were now on the floor for lunch, but that still wasn’t enough. The boss had also asked the servers to split dish duty which left the dining room even more hectic. And the angry investor Mr. Nash was sitting off in the corner again. He was complaining loudly to the server Serena that the place was going downhill. He made a few snide remarks about Darren, then demanded to see him.

  Serena took off to get Darren and then Ashley could hear her boss arguing with Mr. Nash. Their voices were getting loud, and the dining room patrons were glancing over their way. She shook her head again. Why would Darren have an argument in front of his customers? Everything seemed to be breaking down. The atmosphere in the restaurant was toxic. Darren had better get his act together and hire another dishwasher and some more bussers and servers soon.

  Ashley said a few goodbyes and made a mad dash for the door before anyone could ask her to do anything else. But first she quickly stopped to grab two yummy desserts off the kitchen trays.

  “Lemon ricotta mousse and chocolate lava cake. Yum.” For good measure, she took a salad to balance it out.

  Just as Ashley exited the kitchen and headed out, her ex’s new girlfriend Meagan Twicking sashayed by on her way back from a table. Ashley had made a point of avoiding her as best she could since she and Ray had broken up, but Meagan leaned in close and smirked at her.

  “Ray’s doing fine in case you’re wondering,” Meagan purred. She was petite with blonde hair and big boobs. Ashley hated her at the moment.

  “I’m not wondering. You don’t need to let me know how he is. I don’t care.”

  “That’s not what he said. He said you were begging him to stay.”

  “Just please go away. Don’t you have tables to take care of? This is so high school,” Ashley said, in disgust.

  Whenever she heard Meagan’s last name of Twicking she thought of ‘twitching’, or worse yet, ‘twerking.’

  “Bimbo,” Ashley muttered, under her breath.

  Meagan smirked at Ashley again, then flashed a big smile to Darren as he walked by. She pivoted on her foot and then leaned into him and whispered something. Then she giggled. Darren gave her a besotted look with a goofy grin plastered on his face.

  Meagan beamed at him. “Talk to you later Mr. Short.”

  Ashley froze. Were her boss and Me
agan flirting with each other? By the looks exchanged between the two, it seemed more than ‘employer and employee’ to Ashley. She wondered if her macho ex-boyfriend Ray had any suspicion of this. All of a sudden she caught Darren smiling a sickly smile at her.

  “If you have time to stand around and stare, I could think of some work for you to do,” Darren remarked.

  Ashley didn’t need her boss to say one more thing. She bolted out into the fresh air.

  Chapter Four

  Ashley had always been a Shakespeare buff. It was her favorite subject in literature class. She was thinking of quotes to apply to everything that happened today.

  “There’s daggers in men’s smiles.” That was from Shakespeare’s play ‘Macbeth’ and it was perfect to describe Chris after he confronted her and Darren with fake smiles. Not to mention to describe Darren, who had just given her the most sickening smile ever.

  And how to sum up the day itself? Just as she was thinking of a quote for that, her cell phone rang. It was her best friend, Lara Longley.

  “Hi Ash. I was thinking of you all day. Heard you had some hangover. How did work go today?” Lara asked.

  “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark, “Ashley quoted, from the play ‘Hamlet.’

  “What?” Lara stammered.

  “Oh, that was a quote from ‘Hamlet.’ It was a rough day at work. Something weird is going on, and all is not as it should be.”

  Lara laughed. “You and your Shakespeare quotes.”

  “Well, he said it all. About life and love and betrayal,” Ashley mused.

  Lara laughed again. “Yeah, so you keep telling me. How about putting it in 21st-century lingo for your feeble minded friend.”