A Fishy Dish (A Hooked & Cooked Cozy Mystery Series Book 3)

by Lyndsey Cole

  Hannah nodded.

  Samantha’s eyes followed to where Hannah was looking. “He’s biting his nails. Something is making him nervous.”

  “For crying out loud, Sam, his daughter is missing. Of course something is upsetting him,” Jack pointed out.

  Samantha shushed Jack. “Don’t call me Sam unless I’m playing that role. I don’t want my cover to get blown before I’ve even started this investigation.”

  Hannah jabbed Samantha’s side. “The opposite corner. Sean Payne. All by himself, engrossed on his tablet.”

  “He’s only pretending with that tablet. He’s keeping his eyes on the Whites.”

  The waitress stopped at the table. “Ready to order?” she asked in an over-the-top-perky voice.

  Meg ordered a draft for everyone whether they wanted it or not.

  “And water,” Hannah added. “And we’re all having the fried fish platter.”

  Heather nodded as she jotted down the orders. “Great choice. Fresh caught haddock dipped in a beer batter. Crispy on the outside, moist and tender on the inside. And the tastiest tartar sauce I’ve ever had.” She leaned over the table. “You know what Chef Belair’s secret ingredient is?”

  That got Meg’s attention. Knowing his recipe would give her a leg up making the Fishy Dish’s tartar sauce even better.

  “Lemon,” Heather said as she raised her eyebrows. “Genius, huh?”

  Meg rolled her eyes. “Not much of a secret about that.”

  “Chef Belair’s fish platter is the best around,” Heather added.

  “Ha. We’ll see about that,” Meg mumbled.

  As soon as that comment left Meg’s lips, the chef, dressed in his white apron and hat, marched through the swinging doors that led from the kitchen. His eyes searched the room before the hostess led him to the Whites’ table.

  “You have a complaint, Sir? I am the Chef.” He pointed to his chest. “Nico Belair,” he shouted in his French accent. His voice filled the room.

  Silence fell like a thick drape over the diners.

  All eyes turned toward the commotion.

  Matt White stood up quickly, knocking his chair over backwards with the force of his movement.

  The crash echoed through the dining room like a gunshot. Hannah’s heart skipped a beat and she ducked before her brain had time to process what caused the explosive noise.

  Leah White’s hand shot out but it missed her husband’s arm.

  “Yeah. Your fried fish sucks.” Matt stared at Nico. His face flushed. “This whole restaurant sucks.”

  He threw his linen napkin on the table.

  Hannah wondered if it was a challenge to some sort of duel.

  Matt walked passed Nico, letting his shoulder bump the chef, almost knocking him off his feet. “Your boss is worse than pond scum.”

  Gavin Abbott, who Hannah had met that the morning at the fish pier, rushed through the swinging kitchen doors.

  His arms flew in every direction.

  His nostrils flared.

  Matt got as close to Gavin as he possibly could without actually touching him. “Where’s my Sally? What did you do to her?”

  Gavin’s face paled. “You’re crazy if you think I had anything to do with her disappearance. She worked here. That’s all.”

  Matt’s hands balled into fists.

  Leah pulled him toward the door.

  Gavin turned his attention to his chef, stopping inches from Nico’s face. “What have you done?”

  Nico pointed to Matt White’s vanishing back. “He insulted my cooking.”

  “Of course he did, I tasted your fish. What on earth did you do to that fresh haddock? It’s inedible. You’re fired!”

  The diners sat. Stunned.

  Gavin turned, eyes blazing. He disappeared through the swinging kitchen doors with Chef Nico Belair hot on his heels.

  “Wow,” Meg said before she burst out laughing. “I guess we’ll have to cook our own dinner tonight.”

  “And we won’t have to worry about any competition from this so-called high class seafood restaurant after all,” Hannah added. “What an embarrassing spectacle to happen with this big crowd of diners.”

  Shouting from the kitchen filtered into the restaurant.

  Diners waiting to be served, sheepishly gathered their belongings and left.

  Diners with food, looked at their plates, poked at the fish, gathered their belongings, and left.

  Within a half hour, The Chowder House was almost empty. The only remaining patrons were Meg, Jack, Hannah, and Samantha.

  Even Sean Payne’s seat was empty, Hannah observed.

  “What now?” Hannah asked as she surveyed the deserted dining area. “I’m thinking it just got a lot harder for us to find a ride back to the cottages.”

  Samantha was already on her feet. “Now, we talk to the owner of this establishment. There is something going on between him and Sally White’s father. I’m sure of it. Mr. White came in with an agenda and I want to dig into that.”

  Samantha’s silver hair disappeared behind the closing kitchen doors.

  “Can we leave her here?” Meg asked. “I’m hungry and tired.” She finished her beer. When no one responded, she helped herself to Samantha’s untouched beer.

  The kitchen doors swooshed open.

  Samantha returned to the dining area. “The kitchen is empty, but there’s a big mess. Come take a look and help me figure out what happened.”

  “Great,” Meg grunted. “No food, and Samantha’s putting on her P.I. hat.” She reached over to the neighboring table, passed over the fish platter, and grabbed a basket of rolls. “This is better than nothing.” She settled back on her chair as she stuffed a roll in her mouth.

  Jack helped himself to one of the rolls while he kept Meg company at the table.

  Hannah followed Samantha into the kitchen. They heard the back door click closed.

  “The wind?” Hannah said, more to herself, hoping to ward off her spooked feeling. Everything about this whole dining experience had her nerves on edge.

  Hannah tiptoed carefully through the mess in the kitchen. The silence was an eerie, out of place surprise. Where was everyone who should have been working in the kitchen?

  A draft of cold air blew against Hannah’s arms that turned her skin into goosebumps. A shiver surged down her spine. Where had it come from? She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw a cloud of misty air seep from the cracked open walk-in freezer door.

  But why was it open? Who left in such a hurry?

  Hannah just wanted to leave. She quickly pushed the heavy door closed without even a glance inside.

  Samantha turned around when the freezer door clicked. She followed a smudged trail to the closed door, her eyes intent on the droplets. She bent down and wiped her finger in the still-wet liquid.

  Hannah watched as Samantha’s finger came away crimson. Her heart raced even faster.

  Before Hannah could process anything, Samantha yanked the freezer door back open. A rush of misty air poured out.

  Hannah peeked over Samantha’s shoulder; her skin crawled with the feeling that she felt someone’s eyes on her.

  A bright, uncovered lightbulb lit up the space inside the freezer and momentarily blinded her. She blinked until her eyes adjusted to the glare, her right arm shielding the light from her face.

  Gavin Abbott’s two dark eyes stared up at Hannah and Samantha. His hair was more of a mess than this morning when Hannah first met him.

  The only problem, for Gavin, at least, was that the last thing his eyes most likely saw was the face of his murderer before someone slashed his chest open.

  And he wouldn’t be telling anyone who that face belonged to.

  Chapter 5

  A body bumped into Hannah’s back, making her jump. Her blood pressure was going to go through the roof if she wasn’t careful.

  “What’s going on in here?” Meg asked as she stood on her tippy toes to look over Hannah’s shoulder.

  Ja
ck squeezed around Hannah’s other side.

  “He’s not going to be any competition for us anymore,” Meg announced more cheerfully than Hannah thought was appropriate. “Can we go home now? The last place I want to be is standing over a body when the police arrive.”

  “I should have known when I received an anonymous call about a problem at The Chowder House that I’d find you all in the middle of it.” The voice felt like nails on a chalkboard to Hannah’s ears.

  “Pam,” Jack said to his daughter. “We discovered a problem.”

  Deputy Pam Larson pushed everyone away from the walk-in freezer door, finally pulling Hannah out of her shock-induced stupor.

  Pam’s body leaned into the freezer. She turned her head and frowned at her father. “You call a body a problem?” She crossed her arms over her chest and honored each person staring at her with a penetrating glare. “Would any of you care to inform me how Mr. Gavin Abbott ended up dead? And, just for some extra chuckles, why is his body in this freezer?”

  “Your guess is as good as ours,” Jack calmly told his daughter.

  “That’s right,” Samantha stepped forward. “We wanted to find out what was going on between Sally’s father and,” she tilted her head toward the body, “him.”

  Pam closed the freezer door, ushered everyone out of the kitchen, and called in more emergency personnel. Hannah and her friends were forced to wait as patiently as they could manage.

  Once Pam finished those work details, she set her eyes on Samantha. “Who are you?”

  Samantha stood up as straight as possible. Her five foot two inches barely reached past Pam’s nose. Samantha rose higher on her tiptoes and took a deep breath, filling the room with as much of her presence as possible. “I’m Samantha Featherstone, and since you’ll probably figure it out anyway, I’m also known as Sam Stone. I’ve been hired to find Sally White.”

  Pam looked Samantha up and down. Her lip twitched at one side. “If you have any sense, keep to that investigation and stay out of mine.”

  With sirens screaming their arrival, the restaurant was suddenly crawling with police.

  Pam pointed to the farthest corner from the action and told Hannah, Jack, Meg, and Samantha to make themselves comfortable.

  Comfortable, meaning, stay out of the way. And there was no telling how long they would be stuck waiting.

  “For crying out loud,” Meg whined. “Why didn’t we stay at The Fishy Dish and eat our own fried fish platter.” Her stomach grumbled loud enough for the nearest detective to turn around and snicker.

  Hannah scooted her chair so she could reach the table behind them. She slid a basket of onion rings closer, and as she picked it up, she noticed a piece of paper stuck to the bottom of the basket. “This is interesting.”

  “Yuck. Greasy, cold, soggy onion rings. Why did we ever worry about the food in this,” Meg curled her fingers into air quotes as she continued, “fancy restaurant. I’d sooner give these to your niece’s pot belly pig before I’d let any of our customers try one. Even someone I don’t like.”

  “Speaking of someone you don’t like,” Jack nodded toward the door, “look who just made a grand entrance.”

  Four pairs of eyes turned toward the door as if they were a single unit.

  “Sean Payne,” Samantha whispered. “What’s he doing coming back to the scene of a crime?”

  Hannah leaned against Samantha’s shoulder and whispered, “I’ll bet you a fish platter that he’s back to find this.” She moved the basket of onion rings a few inches to one side. The corner of a drawing peeked out from under the basket.

  Samantha grinned. “Nice work.”

  Jack nibbled on an onion ring. “Wait till Pam sees him.”

  “Hey! What are you doing in here?” Pam charged forward to intercept Sean Payne.

  Jack chuckled. “That took less time than I expected. Sean Payne’s gonna wish he got in his car and kept driving all the way back to Boston by the time Pam’s done with him.”

  Hannah used the distraction to shove the drawing into her sling bag. Even though they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and Pam had them corralled for a while, at least she corralled them right next to the table where Sean had been sitting. His sketch of someone’s face might prove to be an important clue once she figured out who the face belonged to.

  While Pam gave Sean the third degree, Hannah studied the police deputy.

  Had Pam changed since Hannah moved into Hooks Harbor and befriended her neighbor, Jack, who inconveniently was Pam’s father?

  As Hannah watched the deputy work, her answer became clear. Pam hadn’t changed a bit.

  If anything, Pam seemed to be more annoyed with Hannah every time their paths crossed.

  Hannah sighed. Pam definitely had a chip on her shoulder. Jack had alluded to a problem, but it certainly wasn’t a subject Hannah would ever broach with Pam.

  The lucky thing for Hannah tonight was the fact that Sean Payne had Pam’s attention now. He was the recipient of Pam’s full wrath for the moment.

  The unlucky thing for Sean was the fact that his attitude was making steam come out of Pam’s ears.

  Hannah heard Jack chuckle again. “That boy has no clue what he’s in for. He’s actually arguing with Pam. A police deputy. Is he completely clueless?”

  “Serves him right,” Meg added. “He’s a twit. A dumb twit. A dumb twit with a big mouth.”

  “I only came back to find something I left on the table where I was sitting,” Sean actually whined at Pam. “It’s a drawing I need for my article.”

  Hannah’s ears perked up. Who was the drawing of, she wondered.

  Pam’s head tilted to one side. “Is that right? Silly me.” Her finger jabbed at his chest. “I thought you came back to get the scoop on Gavin Abbott’s murder.”

  Sean’s mouth fell open. The color drained from his face, not that there was much color in his pasty skin to begin with. He must spend all of his time in a dark cave, Hannah noted to herself.

  He pulled a pen and pad from his shirt pocket and scribbled some notes. This action made Pam’s face turn from red to purple and her mouth twisted into an even tighter grimace.

  “You’re kidding, right?” the deputy asked. “You tried to make me believe you came back to retrieve something, and the first thing you do is jot down some notes? How about you join those others until I have time to waste on your observations.”

  She escorted Sean to Hannah’s table, dragging a fifth chair next to Meg.

  “Sit,” Pam ordered.

  A collective groan rose from everyone’s throat as they made room for the additional—unwanted—chair.

  “What?” Sean asked as he sat down and looked around the table.

  “It was bad enough we got stuck in here without any food, but now we have to keep you company?” Meg snarled.

  She slid her chair as far as possible away from Sean, eyeing him as if she was afraid she might catch some contagious disease from him.

  He remained totally oblivious.

  Or he just didn’t care that he was an unwelcome guest at their table.

  Probably the latter, Hannah decided.

  “We found the murder weapon,” a detective told Pam. Unfortunately for Hannah and her friends, Pam quickly ushered the detective into the kitchen and out of earshot.

  Sean’s eyes widened. “Is it true what that bad-tempered police deputy told me? Gavin Abbott was murdered?”

  “Listen here, sonny boy.” Jack looked like he was ready to leap across the table and strangle Sean with his bare hands. “That police deputy is my daughter so you’d better be extra careful what you say about her. And, she doesn’t lie.”

  Sean’s hands flew up. “Sorry, man. Just saying, she could have been friendlier.”

  Meg jabbed him with her elbow. “You best keep that trap of yours shut before you stick your other foot in it, too. Or someone does it for you,” she added in a whisper to Hannah.

  As soon as the words were out of Meg’s mout
h, the kitchen doors swung open and Sean’s favorite deputy strode toward their table.

  With no preamble, and no information about what was going on in the kitchen, Pam took down everyone’s names, contact information, and told them to be ready for more questions before saying, “You can all leave. We have a suspect in custody.”

  “Who?” Sean asked.

  Pam glared and pointed a strong finger at Sean. “Don’t leave town. Just in case.” She ignored his question.

  “In case of what?” he stood up and shouted at Pam. “You can’t think I’m involved in this murder.”

  Pam stepped inches away from Sean. With a low, controlled voice, she told him, “At this point, I’d like nothing better than to have a reason to drag you to the police station; let you sweat it out for a while before I have the satisfaction of asking you a few tough questions. Understand?”

  Sean kept his mouth closed and nodded.

  Slow learner at best, Hannah thought.

  Hannah and Samantha followed behind Meg and Jack toward the front door of The Chowder House. Hannah glanced over her shoulder and saw Sean searching the table he sat at earlier before all the drama started. Too bad for him, she thought. She clamped her arm tighter against her sling bag with Sean’s drawing safely hidden inside.

  “Ah, finally, some fresh air,” Meg said. “Let’s get out of here before Pam changes her mind and hauls us all to the police station.”

  “Who do you think the suspect is?” Samantha asked. “My money is on Matt White. There was a blatant hostility between him and the dead guy. Not so much in the words that were spoken, but in their body language. Especially Matt. He could barely control his fist from pummeling Gavin in front of the whole dinner crowd.”

  “What about Chef Belair? If someone has already been arrested, I bet it’s because of the murder weapon. A knife would be easy to grab in the kitchen,” Hannah suggested. “And he had a hot temper, as demonstrated in front of all the diners. Never mind, a motive. What a humiliating way to get fired.” She shivered at the thought. She would never treat her employees that way.

  “Good point.”

  Meg smacked her hand on the hood of her broken down truck. “I couldn’t care less who their suspect is. We’ve got a bigger problem—how will we get home?”