2 A Deadly Beef

by Jessica Beck

  The First Time Ever Published!

  The Second Book in the Brand New Classic Diner Mystery Series from Jessica Beck,

  the New York Times Bestselling Author of The Donut Shop Mysteries

  The Classic Diner Mystery Series

  Book 2

  A DEADLY BEEF

  by

  Jessica Beck

  Books by Jessica Beck

  The Classic Diner Mysteries

  A Chili Death

  A Deadly Beef

  A Killer Cake (coming 2013)

  The Donut Shop Mysteries

  Glazed Murder

  Fatally Frosted

  Sinister Sprinkles

  Evil Éclairs

  Tragic Toppings

  Killer Crullers

  Drop Dead Chocolate

  Powdered Peril

  Illegally Iced (coming December 2012)

  A Deadly Beef: Copyright © 2012 by Jessica Beck

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Recipes included in this book are to be recreated at the reader’s own risk. The author is not responsible for any damage, medical or otherwise, created as a result of reproducing these recipes. It is the responsibility of the reader to ensure that none of the ingredients are detrimental to their health, and the author will not be held liable in any way for any problems that might arise from following the included recipes.

  To all the diners I’ve spent time in over the years, enjoying every second of my research!

  Chapter 1

  It’s important to remember that we had to fire Wally Bain, and if that made us all suspects when he was murdered the next day, we had no way of knowing it at the time. The Charming Moose Diner prided itself on providing good comfort food at a fair price to the folks of Jasper Fork, North Carolina, and Wally had not lived up to his part of the bargain supplying us with fresh fruits and vegetables from his farm when they were in season.

  Sheriff Croft had that ‘tough lawman’ look on his face when he walked into our diner one afternoon a week before Thanksgiving. Tall, fit, and looking quite official dressed in his police uniform, the sheriff headed straight toward me the second we made eye contact.

  "Victoria, I need to know about the blowout you had with Wally Bain yesterday."

  "What happened, did he come crying to you about it?" I asked. "I’m not sure why he thought it was any business of yours, but, Sheriff, you should have seen the last load of spinach he brought us. It was wormy!" The season for Wally’s supply schedule to the diner was just about finished, and we hadn’t been happy with many of his offerings over the past few months. We were on a yearly contract with him that was up for renewal again, and his last delivery of substandard goods had been the final straw.

  "I heard you shoved him when he was here," Sheriff Croft said calmly.

  "That’s absolutely not true," I said. "As I was walking him out of the diner, Wally’s foot caught on a chair and he stumbled a little, but I never laid a hand on him, Sheriff. What did he say to you? Is he claiming that I assaulted him?" I held my wrists out, both facing up. "If you believe him instead of me, you might as well take me to jail right now, but it’s ridiculous. Rebecca will have me out by lunchtime, and we both know it." Rebecca Davis happened to be my best friend, and the fact that she was also an attorney was just a bonus in my mind.

  "Did you fire him before or after you were walking him out the door?"

  "Well, technically I told him that we weren’t renewing his contract for next season, but yeah, I guess you could say that I fired him before he made it outside."

  "How did he take it?" the sheriff asked.

  "About how you’d expect him to react," I said. "He clearly wasn’t happy about it, and when he started yelling at me by the front door, Greg and Moose came running to my defense." I had been proud of my family the day before. Neither my husband nor my grandfather had even hesitated to act when they thought that I was in trouble.

  "So, now you’re telling me that the three of you ganged up on him."

  What was the sheriff’s problem today? He was on edge, something that was out of the ordinary for him, and while his tone of voice wasn’t all that provocative, his word choices surely were. "Sheriff Croft, is he claiming that someone hit him?"

  He chose to ignore my question, asking one of his own instead. "Was anyone else here at the diner when all of this happened?"

  I thought about it, and then I realized that we’d been in one of those odd lulls at the diner that happened from time to time when nobody but our staff was on hand.

  "No, not a soul." I thought about it a second, and then I asked, "Since there weren’t any other witnesses, nobody but my staff and my family can vouch for what really happened. I give you my word that none of us laid a finger on the man, and if he told you otherwise, he’s a liar. Bring him in here, and I’ll say it to his face."

  "I’m sorry to say that I can’t do that," the sheriff said as he shook his head sadly. "Someone murdered him on his farm sometime between midnight and noon today."

  This wasn’t good, and I knew it. "I’m sorry to hear that. I haven’t been Wally’s biggest fan lately, but I’ve known him for years. How did it happen?"

  "Somebody stabbed him in the chest with a pitchfork," the sheriff said. "It wasn’t pretty, I’ll tell you that."

  I didn’t even want to think about how the crime scene must have looked. "That’s terrible. I’m curious about something, though. If he was just murdered, how did you happen to already hear about me firing him? It just happened yesterday."

  "I pulled him over after he left here," the sheriff admitted. "He was going fifty in a thirty-five mile-an-hour zone. As I was writing him up, all he could do was complain about you. Honestly, I don’t think he even realized he was getting a ticket. When I handed it to him, along with his license and registration, all he said was, "Mark my words, Sheriff. I’ll get every last one of them at The Charming Moose. Just you wait and see."

  I shivered a little hearing the threat relayed from a man who was now dead. I knew that I was beyond Wally’s reach now, but I hated the idea of someone who was that unhappy with me on the day he died. "To tell you the truth, I could have done fine without hearing that," I said.

  "Well, I figured that you and Moose would probably be asking around town about Wally when you found out what happened to him and what he told me, so I thought you should know his last words, at least the ones to me, anyway."

  "Sheriff, what makes you think we’d try to solve his murder ourselves?" I asked as innocently as I could.

  "Come on, Victoria. You and your grandfather have done it before, and this is too close to home for both of you to just let it go."

  It was true that Moose and I had tried our hands at crime-solving once before, but I hadn’t even thought about looking into Wally’s murder at that point. Then again, the news was still pretty fresh, at least to me. "I’m the one who told Wally that he was finished. Moose didn’t have anything to do with me firing the man," I said.

  "But you just admitted that he and Greg came to your defense when they heard Wally yelling at you," Sheriff Croft said.

  "They weren’t going to do anything to him. They just wanted to make sure that I was okay," I admitted.

  "I don’t doubt it for a second, but look at it from my point of view. You, yo
ur husband, and your grandfather all have to go on my suspect list."

  I realized that it was true from his perspective, but I didn’t have to like it. "Hang on a second. We weren’t the only folks around town who had a bad beef with Wally."

  That got his attention. "Give me some names, if the knowledge is all that common."

  He had me there. "Well, I don’t know anybody specifically," I admitted, and the sheriff folded his notebook closed.

  "Nice try," Sheriff Croft said. "But you’re all staying on my list."

  "It sounds like we have to dig into Wally’s murder ourselves. Give us a chance to snoop around a little, and I bet we’ll be able to find you some other suspects. You’re going to need them, too, since none of us touched Wally. Why would we? We fired him, remember? He might have had a problem with us, but we didn’t have one with him. As far as we were concerned, the man was out of our lives."

  The sheriff shook his head. "Victoria, he threatened you in front of a cop. What if he lured one of you out to his barn to hurt you, and you stopped him before he could do anything to you?"

  "That sounds more like a motive for self-defense if it were true, but it’s still reaching pretty far, wouldn’t you say?" I hated the thought that anyone could even consider the possibility that I, or someone in my family, was ever capable of murder.

  "If someone who loved you was trying to protect you by striking out at Wally first, I can see it as a possibility, and if you’re being honest about it, so can you."

  "Sheriff, if that were the case, then you’d have to put my mother and my grandmother on your list as well."

  When he didn’t answer right away, I asked, "They’re on there, too, aren’t they? You’ve got to be kidding me."

  The sheriff just shrugged. "I made up the list based on the information I have. Do you happen to have an alibi for those twelve hours in question? It would make my life a great deal easier if I could start eliminating suspects, and I’d like to start with you and your family if I could."

  "Well, I was home in bed with my husband from midnight to five AM this morning, but only he can vouch for that. When I got up, I took a quick walk, showered, got dressed, and I was here at six. Then I worked my first shift until eight, just like I do every other morning."

  "Where did you go after you got off here?" the sheriff asked after he pulled his notebook back out and started taking notes.

  "Mostly I drove around looking for decorations for the diner."

  "What stores did you visit?" he asked, his pen poised over the notebook.

  "I didn’t visit any," I admitted.

  That earned me another look from him. "How did you plan on buying anything, then?"

  "I wasn’t looking for turkey posters or paper cut-outs," I said. "I wanted some hay bales, some pumpkins, and maybe some cornstalks, and the best place to find any of those is out in the country."

  "Did you have any luck?" he asked.

  "No, as a matter of fact, I didn’t," I said reluctantly. Normally our area was populated with roadside stands set up by farmers to take advantage of the tourist trade, but I hadn’t had a single bit of luck that morning.

  "Victoria, I hate to say it, but it sounds as though you had plenty of time to go to Wally’s farm, kill him, and then drive back here to work."

  I shrugged. "I guess you could interpret it that way, but the fact is, I didn’t do it."

  He ignored that. "Was anyone with your husband at the house while you were out driving around looking for decorations? What time does he start, anyway?"

  "Eleven on the dot, every day that we’re open," I said. "You’ll have to ask Greg for his alibi, because I can’t supply one for him, but I’d be amazed if he had one."

  "But we do know that neither one of you can alibi the other for the entire time."

  "That’s true enough," I said, growing more upset by the second. "How many people can actually supply you with one, anyway?"

  "More than you could imagine," he said.

  "Well, we’ve probably got a lot more flexibility in our schedules than they do, I suppose."

  "Possibly. How about Moose?" he asked me, just as my grandfather walked into the dining area from the kitchen. When had he slipped in?

  "What about Moose?" my grandfather asked, his voice bold and barreling as he approached us.

  "I need an alibi from you for the hours between midnight and noon today," the sheriff said.

  Moose just shrugged. "Really? I myself need a hot shower, some clean clothes, and a nice long nap, but I doubt I’ll be getting any of them soon enough to suit me." My grandfather turned to me and said, "I got the hay bales, the corn stalks, and a few pumpkins. I brought them in the back way. What’s this all about, Victoria?"

  "Somebody killed Wally Bain between midnight and noon today," I said.

  Moose frowned, and then he looked hard at me. "You’re not kidding, are you?"

  "I never tease about murder."

  "How did it happen?" Moose asked as he scratched his chin.

  "He was stabbed with a pitchfork in the chest," the sheriff said. "I asked you a question, Moose, and I’m going to need that alibi."

  "If I was a little flip before, I’m sorry. I didn’t know," my grandfather said softly.

  "No worries, but I really do need to know where you were."

  "I’m just sorry I can’t tell you," Moose said.

  "So am I," the sheriff answered a little stiffly. "Are you telling me that you can’t come up with at least part of an alibi for those hours?"

  "Sure, I can cover from midnight to six. I was with Martha," he said. "The two of us had breakfast when we woke up, and after that, I went junking. Later, around eleven, I got a call from Victoria that we needed some decorations here at the diner, so I started looking around for some."

  "It was more like ten forty-five when I called," I said.

  "Close enough," Moose replied.

  "Were you serious when you said that you suspected all of us?" I asked the sheriff.

  "Victoria, this is murder we’re talking about here. Everybody who had contact with Wally Bain recently is a suspect until they can be eliminated," he said. "But no, honestly, I don’t think your mother or grandmother had anything to do with it."

  "At least that’s something," I said, and then I turned to my grandfather. "Moose, who else do you know that might want to see Wally Bain dead."

  My grandfather frowned, and then he thought about it for a full minute before he finally spoke. "I can come up with three people right off the top of my head, but there may be more that I don’t know anything about."

  That definitely got the sheriff’s interest. "I could use some names of the ones you do know," he said.

  "I bet you could," Moose said. "There’s one condition before I give them to you, though."

  "What’s that?" Sheriff Croft asked, clearly skeptical about Moose’s stipulation.

  "Victoria and I get to dig around this thing ourselves along the edges. We’ll stay out of your way if we can, but even if you manage to eliminate us as suspects, there are plenty of folks in Jasper Fork who won’t believe that we’re innocent just on your word."

  He thought about it, and then Sheriff Croft finally nodded. "I sort of assumed that the pair of you would dig into this when I talked to Victoria earlier. It has to be the same terms as before, though. You share what you find with me, and I mean instantly, and you stay out of my way."

  "If at all possible," I said.

  "If at all possible," the sheriff agreed. "What do you say?"

  Moose stuck out a hand, and the sheriff took it. Since I was involved in that particular promise, I put my hand on theirs, and the three of us shook on it.

  "Now, what are those names?" the sheriff asked. "If you have any motives to go along with them, I’d consider it a personal favor if you’d share that information as well."

  "Well, his farmhand left the place last week," Moose said. "His name is Ron Watkins. Do you know him?"

  "Not off the top o
f my head," the sheriff said, "but I’ll track him down if he’s still around. Why did he leave Wally’s farm?"

  Moose shrugged. "I don’t know the details, but there was some bad blood between the two men at the end, I can tell you that much. If you want more information than that, you’ll have to ask him yourself."

  "I plan on doing exactly that. How do you know him, Moose?" the sheriff asked.

  "He helped me clear some trees off my land a couple of months ago on his day off," Moose said. "I ran into him again in Laurel Landing two days ago, and he was plenty steamed about the way he and Wally had been getting along, but when I pressed him for specifics, he wouldn’t give me any details."

  The sheriff nodded as I stared at my grandfather. Moose knew so much about what went on in our area that it amazed even me at times.

  "How about the other two names you promised me?" the sheriff asked him.

  "You really should talk to Penny Rusk. Wally dumped her last week," Moose said.

  "How on earth could you know that?" I asked, forgetting that I wasn’t the one posing the questions here.

  "I hear things," Moose said. "I don’t go around looking for information, but it still seems to find me just fine."

  My grandfather was an excellent source of gossip, which he liked to call information, and I didn’t doubt that anything he was reporting was true.

  "And lastly?"

  "Try Dave Evans. Victoria and the rest of us here weren’t the only ones who bought produce straight from Wally’s farm. I heard Dave and Wally myself almost come to blows over a bill last week as I was passing by the back of the grocery store. I hate to say it now, given what happened to Wally, but Dave was as mad as I’ve ever seen him."

  "Is that it?" the sheriff asked as he finished taking his notes.

  "Like I said, that’s just off the top of my head. I feel bad enough telling you about those three. I don’t like the idea of being a rat."

  "You’re not being one in my book," the sheriff said as he put his notebook away. "You’re facilitating an ongoing police investigation."