Cozy Christmas Murder

by Summer Prescott

  “Since you already know your way around, would you like to help me out? I could use your help tonight, too, if you have time.”

  “I’d love to help you for Christmas dinner, but I can’t tonight. My shift ends in three hours, then I have to leave. I’m taking night classes, and the semester ends next week, so I have a lot of studying to do. You’ll be fine, though. Tonight’s going to be a quiet night. We don’t usually have that many extra guests during the weekdays. It will probably just be the residents here for dinner.”

  She thought that Natalie was trying to reassure her, but the thought of making dinner for thirty people was overwhelming. She had never cooked for so many people all at once. What had she gotten herself into? She was in over her head.

  “This is the menu for the rest of the month. All of the residents get a print out the menu, so you should probably stick to it. Everything should be low-sodium; the residents that don’t have to watch their sodium intake can add salt to their meals when it’s on the table. There should be a book with all the recipes around here somewhere. Some of the desserts are premade, and we just heat them up, but we try to make everything else from scratch. I know a lot of people complain that the food is bland, but don’t pay them any attention. Just follow the recipes and the menu, and things will be all right.”

  “And what if there are more guests than usual? Will I have to modify the recipes?”

  “Yes, but there’s a handy chart that will tell you how to adjust the ingredients. You should try to make three to four extra servings for each meal in case someone drops a plate on the floor or a guest arrives unexpectedly.”

  “Okay,” Autumn said. “It looks like tonight is meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green beans, and brownies for dessert?”

  “Yep. Here’s the recipe book. I think the meatloaf is on page thirty-six. Make sure that you mash the potatoes well, because some of the residents can’t chew very well. Before Mr. Holt took over, we used the dried potato mix, but now we have to use real potatoes. It’s a bit of a pain, but people like them better, so I suppose it’s worth it.”

  “Where will I find everything I need to start cooking?”

  “The potatoes and spices are in the pantry, meat and milk are in the fridge of course. The brownie mix is in the pantry as well, and I think you’ll need two or three boxes. Pots and pans will be in the cupboards, other than the ones hanging above the stove. I’m sure you’ll be able to find everything, feel free to look around. There’s a few hours before dinner, so you have some time to familiarize yourself with the kitchen. Do you think there’s anything else you might need?”

  “No, I guess not,” Autumn said, trying to keep the doubt out of her voice. “It seems pretty self-explanatory. I suppose I’ll get started. You go and do what you need to do.”

  “Good luck. Mr. Holt will be in later today, so if you need anything else, he’ll be able to help you.”

  Natalie gave her a cheery wave then left the kitchen. Autumn stood next to the island that housed the expansive stove range, feeling alone and overwhelmed. She told herself that she was only going to be doing this a couple of days a week until Christmas. It was the right thing to do. It wasn’t like she had anything better to do with her time, anyway. At least this way, she would be making a difference, and it would also give her something to take her mind off of the mess that her life had become.

  “Potatoes,” she said, looking down at the recipe book. “Let’s start with those.”

  It took her the better part of an hour to first find the bowls, knives, and peeler, and then wash and peel the potatoes by hand. By the time the potatoes were cubed and ready to be boiled, she sorely needed a break. She made her way to the bathroom. After using the facilities, she washed her hands and stared at herself in the mirror. She didn’t feel quite so overwhelmed anymore. It had been relaxing to stand at the sink peeling potatoes for an hour. Her mind had been free to wander, but instead of thinking about all the things that had gone wrong, she had been thinking about the future, and what she could do to make it better. First things first, she had decided she needed to find a new job. She didn’t have the faintest clue where she would start looking, but was sure that the Internet could help her with that. She should treat this as an opportunity to try to follow her dreams. If she could start work as a sous chef somewhere, she might be able to make enough money to support herself while she got the training she needed to become a real chef, then she could spend the rest of her life doing something that she actually enjoyed.

  Feeling a little bit better about the coming months, she returned to the kitchen, greeting Mrs. Zimmer and a couple of other familiar faces on her way. Once in the kitchen, she filled the largest pot she could find with water from the sink and put it on the stove. She was just about to turn on the gas burner when something made her hesitate. She hadn’t yet turned the dial, but the air smelled strongly of gas. Something was wrong.

  The hair on the back of her neck prickling, she looked down at the stove and saw that all of the dials had already been turned to high. Horrified, she quickly turned them off. They couldn’t have been on for the entire hour that she was peeling the potatoes — she would have noticed the smell — which meant that someone must have snuck in and turned them on when she went to the bathroom. Who would do such a thing? Chilled, she realized that this meant that Cook Benson’s death hadn’t been an accident after all. Someone was actively trying to kill the cooks at the assisted living home.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  * * *

  “Are you sure that you didn’t bump the dials, or turn them on and then forget about them?” Nick Holt asked her.

  “I’m sure,” she said. “I may not have much experience in a large kitchen like this, but I’m not stupid. I know not to turn gas burners on without lighting them.”

  He shook his head, staring at the stove in the center of the kitchen warily. “I can’t believe this. If you had lit one of the burners, the entire kitchen might have burned down. You could have died. This could have destroyed the entire home. Who would do something like this?”

  “Maybe one of the residents just got confused?” Natalie suggested. Autumn had run into her when she rushed to Nick’s office after turning the burners off.

  “It’s possible, I suppose,” Nick said. “But nothing like this has ever happened before. Natalie, I’m going to ask you to gather the staff. We need to figure out what happened here.”

  “It can’t be a coincidence,” Autumn said. Her initial fear had passed, and now she was angry. Someone had tried to kill her, and she was certainly going to take it personally. “First Cook Benson dies, and no one can find an EpiPen for him, then this happens. Someone’s trying to kill anyone who works in the kitchen.”

  “Why would someone want to do that?” Nick asked. “Killing our cooks doesn’t achieve anything, other than making the staff more stressed and taking away a member of our team. There’s no benefit to stopping the kitchen from working.”

  “I know it doesn’t make sense, but it also doesn’t make sense that there would be two accidents, one fatal and one potentially fatal, in the same room in a matter of days. I’m just as happy to believe in coincidences you are, but this is a bit much for me.”

  “I understand if you don’t want to volunteer here any longer,” he said. “And trust me, I will be looking into this. I won’t let this slide.”

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do yet,” Autumn said. “Are you going to call the police?”

  He hesitated. “If questioning the staff and residents doesn’t turn anything up, then I might,” he said. “I don’t want to waste their time, though. I know everyone here, and I’ll be able to get the truth out of them much more quickly than the police would. We don’t have any interior security cameras – all part of trying to make this place feel like a home, not the medical facility that it is. There isn’t anything that the police could do that I can’t.”

  “I still think they should know. It might help them with their inves
tigation into Benson’s death,” she said. He nodded. Glad that he had agreed with her, she continued, saying, “What should I do now? Should I try to finish the meatloaf?”

  “You can head home if you want,” he said. “I don’t think anything in the kitchen should be touched. If I do have to call the police, they might want to dust for fingerprints. If you’d like to stay for dinner, you’re free to, of course. We will probably order pizza again. It may not be the healthiest thing in the world, but the residents like it, and it will help distract them from thinking about what almost happened.”

  Autumn bit her lip, then decided that she had already planned to be here for the evening, so she might as well stay. “I’ll stick around for dinner. Let me know if you need any help.”

  “I will,” he said. He looked at her, and she saw surprise in his expression. He hadn’t expected her to stay. “Thank you, Autumn. It really means a lot that you’re staying to help.”

  Autumn joined her aunt and uncle, who were in their shared room together. When Uncle Albert saw her, despite her protests, he rose to hug her. Her Aunt Lucy, who was still unable to form clear words, and had limited mobility in her face and her right leg and arm, gave her the best smile she could.

  “Hi, Aunt Lucy,” Autumn said, bending down to hug her aunt. “It’s good to see you.”

  “Is dinner ready?” her uncle asked, looking at his watch. “It’s a bit early.”

  “No, there won’t be any meatloaf tonight,” she said. “Something came up.”

  She told them both all about what had happened.

  “Nick thinks it was an accident – that some confused resident went in and did it without knowing what would happen.”

  “Do you think it was something else,” her uncle said. “Do you think someone did it on purpose?”

  “How can I not?” She shook her head. “It can’t be a coincidence. Not with what happened on Sunday.”

  “But why would someone try to kill the cook?”

  She threw up her hands, then felt bad for taking her exasperation and frustration out on her uncle. “I don’t know. All I know about this place is what I hear when I visit you guys. Uncle Albert, do you know anyone that might have some reason to want to disrupt the kitchen? Someone who hates the food here, or hated Benson, or anything like that?”

  “Well, the food has never been great,” he said with a chuckle. “I know it’s not the cook’s fault, though. They have to give us all this low-sodium stuff, since a lot of us have issues with blood pressure and cholesterol. Plenty of people complain about it, but I don’t think anyone would actually do anything about it. Eating bland food isn’t exactly a good reason to commit murder. And Benson was great. He was always happy to laugh, and loved listening to the stories some of the residents told him. He was a good guy. He could have been making a lot more money cooking somewhere else, but he chose to work here. I don’t know anyone who would want to see him dead.”

  Autumn sighed and sat down. Her aunt reached out with her good hand and patted Autumn’s arm. She gave her aunt a tight smile. Her emotions were a tangle right now. She was angry at what had happened, frightened by the thought of someone trying to kill her, and frustrated to know that she couldn’t do anything about any of it. All she wanted was to have a nice, quiet holiday season, do some good work in her spare time, and find a new job. She didn’t want to be involved in whatever was going on here, but at the same time, she couldn’t back out now. Not with her aunt and uncle still here. She would make good on her promise to cook some of the dinners, and just be sure to keep her guard up while she was there. She would double check everything before she used it.

  About an hour later, someone knocked on the door to her aunt and uncle’s room. She got up and opened it to find Nick Holt standing outside with a box of pizza.

  “I come bearing dinner,” he said. “I was wondering, would you mind if I join the three of you? Everyone’s eating in their rooms tonight. The police are here, and they’re going through the kitchen now.”

  Autumn looked over her shoulder to check with her aunt and uncle before she said, “Yes, of course, come on in.”

  She took the pizza box from him, placing it on the coffee table. Her uncle got up and pulled some paper plates and napkins out of the cupboard. She helped him carry them over to the table, and the four of them settled down to eat.

  “So, I take it you didn’t find out anything from the staff?” she asked the director.

  “Unfortunately, no. None of the staff remember seeing anyone go towards the kitchen, but we are a little bit understaffed as it is. None of the residents were able to help either. Someone suggested that the kitchen was haunted, and now that’s the most popular theory going around.”

  “Better than the rumor about Justine,” Autumn said.

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “Natalie told me that people are saying that she let Benson die on purpose. I don’t know how it got started, but I feel bad for her.”

  “So do I,” Nick said. “Telling her that she was being put on administrative leave is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. She’s a good woman, and I know that she didn’t do it on purpose. But at the same time, I have to think about the residents’ well-being. At least she’s not here to hear the rumors about her. I will have to talk to the staff about it.”

  “Well, this is the most exciting thing that has happened since we moved in,” Uncle Albert said. “Benson’s death is terrible, of course, but there is nothing like a good mystery. When you find a new cook, will you tell them about what happened?”

  “Yes,” Nick said. “I already thought about that. Whoever decides to work here deserves to know the possibility that the incidents are connected. Of course, it will probably take a while to hire someone new. I’m just glad Autumn has agreed to stay on for a while.”

  “What?” her uncle asked, putting down his slice of pizza. “Autumn, I thought you had more sense than that. You can’t stay here and put yourself in danger for us.”

  “Look, like Nick says, we don’t even know if what happened was connected,” she said. “Even though I don’t think it’s a coincidence, that doesn’t mean that I am right. I would feel bad if I left and someone else got hurt. I’ll just be careful from now on.”

  “You better be,” her uncle said. “I’ll keep an eye out for you. I’ve got some friends here that will help as well. If anyone suspicious gets near the kitchen, you’ll know about it.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  * * *

  The next day was one of her rare days off, when Jeb would be managing the day-to-day tasks at the store, and she was free to do whatever she wanted. It was a Thursday; not exactly prime time for going out and having fun, but she didn’t mind. After the busy week that she had had, she was glad to be able to just relax on her own with Frankie. The little terrier was perfectly content to lay on her lap while she sat on the couch and caught up with her favorite shows. She reheated leftovers, made some hot chocolate, and even turned on the gas fire in the fireplace. The hiss of the gas reminded her of what had happened the day before, and she felt her mood plummet, even as she sipped her hot cocoa. The police had found nothing. They still had no idea who had done it, or whether it had been on purpose, or an accident. Even worse, she had seen some of the staff looking at her suspiciously when she left the evening before. She didn’t know why anyone would suspect her, but was sure that there must be a rumor flying around similar to the one about Justine.

  She kept telling herself that she would be perfectly safe when she went back to cook dinner that evening. Even if someone had tried to hurt her before, they wouldn’t try it again, not with the police already on alert.

  “Okay, that’s enough moping around,” she said as the credits ran on one of her shows. She got up, Frankie hopping off her lap. Autumn carried her mug into the kitchen and set it in the sink. “Do you want to go for a walk?”

  She put on her warmest socks, then pulled on her winter boots and a fluffy parka. She added a
wool hat and a scarf to the ensemble, and clipped Frankie’s leash to her collar before she put on her gloves. It was cold outside, and flurries of snow were falling from the gray sky. Regardless, it was beautiful. The world outside was a white wonderland. Even though it was daytime, some of her neighbors had their Christmas lights on, and the soft glow made her heart lift. A walk around the block with her dog would be perfect to clear her mind of gloomy thoughts.

  She locked the door behind her and started down the sidewalk, her dog sniffing and bounding through the snow. She waved to one of her neighbors, who was shoveling snow off of his driveway. When she got back, she would begin looking for a job. She loved this place, and didn’t want to leave it.