PRAISE FOR THE COMFORT FOOD MYSTERIES
“A delicious helping of comfort food with a dash of mystery and a cast of lovable characters that’ll keep you laughing long after the book ends.”
—Kate Carlisle, New York Times bestselling author of the Bibliophile Mysteries
“As down-home and satisfying as the daily special served at the Silver Bullet Diner.”
—Krista Davis, New York Times bestselling author of the Domestic Diva Mysteries and the Paws & Claws Mysteries
“Trixie Matkowski is a frisky, sassy sleuth with a heart of gold.”
—Daryl Wood Gerber, national bestselling author of the Cookbook Nook Mysteries
“A fun cozy mystery with a likable female sleuth, great supporting characters, and lots of puzzles to solve.”
—Fresh Fiction
“Good humor, down-home food, and fun diner dialect all make this a very lighthearted mystery with a feisty heroine, a steadfast deputy, and an even more adorable rescue dog companion.”
—Kings River Life Magazine
“All the right ingredients: humor, good food, a charming heroine, and a compelling mystery. Trixie is instantly likable with her sharp wit, warm heart, and hardworking attitude. . . . Overall, an impressive mystery with recipes that will surely satisfy cozy lovers.”
—RT Book Reviews
ALSO BY CHRISTINE WENGER
Do or Diner
A Second Helping of Murder
Diners, Drive-Ins, and Death
Macaroni and Freeze
OBSIDIAN
Published by New American Library,
an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014
This book is an original publication of New American Library.
Copyright © Christine Wenger, 2016
Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.
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For more information about Penguin Random House, visit penguin.com.
ISBN 978-0-698-18780-1
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
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.
The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.
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Contents
Praise
Also by Christine Wenger
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Epilogue
Recipes and Holiday Memories from Trixie’s Family and Friends
Excerpt from DO OR DINER
For Santa’s helpers, Andrea and Wladziu (Walt) Kaczor, whose beautiful Thistle Dew Inn has inspired many writers.
For all those who keep Christmas in their hearts 365 days a year.
For all those who preserve their family traditions, stories, pictures, and rituals and pass them on to future generations.
For all others, repeat after me: “I do believe. I do believe. I do believe!”
Chapter 1
I just love Christmas.
At times, the holiday season might be stressful. It always seems like there’s never enough time to decorate, bake, shop, write out thoughtful messages on cards, entertain, and enjoy the numerous events. But even though it’s busy and crazy, it’s a wonderful time of year.
I am a big list maker, and intentionally I write, “Stop, sit down, relax, and smell the cocoa.” And I make my cocoa with real chocolate, milk instead of water, whipped cream, a sprinkle of cinnamon on top, and a candy cane for a stirrer. . . .
After a long day of cooking, I was looking forward to making cocoa in my special red Santa Claus mug that Grandma Bugnacki bought me decades before when we visited Santa’s North Pole Village. I was going to sit down with a big plate of my mom’s snowball cookies with a fresh dusting of powdered sugar and wash them down with the cocoa, and maybe heat up more, if needed. . . .
I looked around at all the boxes and bins that I’d just brought up from the basement or lugged down from the attic of my Big House. Now, where was my Santa mug?
But no matter how much I loved Christmas and all that went with it, I would not decorate until the dishes were in the dishwasher after Thanksgiving dinner and all my guests were either gone or in recliners, sleeping off the tryptophan from consuming mass quantities of turkey.
Right then, on Thanksgiving night, all my guests were indeed gone. The only one sleeping in a recliner was my pal Antoinette Chloe Brown (who recently shed her married name of Brownelli).
So I could begin to decorate my diner, the Silver Bullet, which was only a few hundred yards off the main road, Route 3, the road that split Sandy Harbor, New York, in half, sort of diagonally.
I decided to take my sweet golden retriever, Blondie, for a walk in the thirteen-degree temperature and three feet of snow on the ground. Mother Nature and Lake Ontario had gone easy on us so far, with only one blizzard, but this balmy weather wouldn’t last.
“Blondie, come!” I said, and she grudgingly lifted her head from her cozy spot under my thick oak kitchen table. “Let’s go for a walk!”
She didn’t hurry to get up. “Come on. You love the snow.”
Ty Brisco, a Houston transplant who worked as a deputy with the Sandy Harbor Sheriff’s Department, and I had rescued Blondie when she’d appeared half-frozen next to the Dumpster at the back of the Silver Bullet. Poor thing.
We shared her, but I had primary custody. It got lonely at the Big House, my huge white farmhouse with green shutters and a wraparound porch.
I got winterized—puffy parka, hat, boots, and gloves—and picked up a couple of plastic bins and a couple of boxes. I called for Blondie one more time, and she appeared at my side. Juggling everything, I opened the door, let her go out in front of me, and then closed it. Carefully, I felt my way with my boots across my back porch and down the five steps that would lead me to ground level.
Or was it eight steps?
I dropped to the ground like a cut Christmas tree. My packages soared through the air and a box of lights landed on my head. I did a split that any gymnast would envy, but I bet they’d never heard anything crack as loudly as a couple of my bones.
My teeth hit the snowy and icy sidewalk, and I spit out a tooth. Oh, sure. I’d just paid off Dr. Covey after a root canal. Shoot!
Blondie was barking, and I couldn’t calm her down. I couldn’t even calm
myself down.
“Blondie, go get Ty. Go get Antoinette Chloe!”
She just stood there, barking. Then more barking.
“Get Ty, Blondie. Go get him!”
She stopped barking for a while, then tilted her head as if to say, Trixie, I’m not Lassie, for heaven’s sake!
“Yeah, I know. Just keep barking. Maybe someone will hear you.”
I tried to get up, but I felt like a manatee swimming through quicksand. Everything hurt, but mostly it was my right leg and ankle.
As I lay there trying to catch my breath, I noticed my big Santa Claus mug that I had been thinking of. It had fallen out of the box and was broken.
It was then that I began to cry.
I don’t like to cry, although I am a pro at it. I cry at sappy movies. When the channels start putting on their holiday movies, I am one big blubbering mountain of tissues.
But I was crying for myself then, because I saw my Christmas season melting away before my watery eyes.
Who was going to decorate?
Who was going to finish my shopping?
Who was going to cater the three dozen holiday parties (and counting) that I’d booked? Or the rehearsal dinners each evening for the holiday pageant at the Sandy Harbor Community Church? Most everyone was coming right from school or work during the four weeks before Christmas Eve, and they needed sustenance, so Pastor Fritz had hired me to provide food and drink.
And on top of all that, I was supposed to cater the community’s annual Christmas buffet after the play in the church’s community room.
I wasn’t going to be able to drive to make deliveries. I wasn’t going to be able to stand to cut, chop, and cook if all my bones were broken that I thought were broken.
I was getting pretty cold there, sprawled out in the snow and ice. My parka was usually jacket length, but right then it was midriff length, and I couldn’t pull it down no matter how hard I tried.
“That’s it. Keep barking, Blondie.”
Silence.
“Blondie, can you spell SPCA?”
She ran off to jump like a gazelle in the snow.
Finally Antoinette Chloe appeared at the back door.
“Trixie? What are you doing down there?”
“Counting snowflakes.”
“Interesting.” She yawned. “Why was Blondie barking? She woke me up. Want any coffee? I think I’ll have a cup before I drive home.”
“Antoinette!”
She knew something was wrong because no one, and I mean no one, ever left off the Chloe in her name if they valued their life.
And no one called me Beatrix for the same reason!
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I need help. I fell. And I heard bones snap, crackle, and pop.”
“Oh! I thought you were putting lights up around the sidewalk or stairs.”
“By lying on the ground?”
“I thought you were being . . . creative.”
“Not that creative.” My leg and ankle were throbbing. “Antoinette Chloe, call an ambulance for me. I’m hurt pretty bad.” I sniffed.
“I will! I will! I have to get my cell phone. I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.”
“Don’t go anywhere?” I mumbled grumpily. “I thought I’d go Christmas caroling with the church choir, but I don’t have my sheet music with me.”
I waited, and waited, and finally ACB returned. “You’re in luck. The ambulance drivers are at the Silver Bullet on a dinner break. Ty is on his way, too.”
“Good. Thanks.”
Under normal circumstances, I would’ve had to have been half-dead to want to travel in an ambulance, but these weren’t normal circumstances, and I felt half-dead.
I took deep breaths of the cold air and listened to ACB ramble on. She did help pull down my jacket, and I felt a little warmer.
Finally I heard Blondie barking and Ty’s deep voice in the distance. Then I saw red lights flashing. I didn’t know which made me feel better, but it wasn’t ACB’s talking about the upcoming auditions for the Christmas pageant at the Sandy Harbor Community Church.
“Trixie, why on earth do they have auditions? Everyone who wants to be in the pageant gets to be in it, for heaven’s sake. I think that being pageant director has gone to Liz Fellows’s head.”
“It’s her first time heading up a pageant,” I said, panting out each word. Where was my ride to the hospital? “She’s finding her way.”
“Margie Grace’s pageants were certainly entertaining. People are still talking about the shepherds tending a flock of salmon along with their sheep.”
I shivered. “But people didn’t get it when the shepherds did the tango with the sheep. It was a little over-the-top, even for Sandy Harbor.”
“Margie is hopping mad. She wanted to be asked again.”
“Trixie? What happened?” Ty finally arrived with Blondie, and I relaxed a little. “The ambulance guys are here.”
“I—I . . . f-fell . . . down the s-stairs.” My teeth chattered, and I tried to get them to stop. “My right leg and ankle hurt.”
“Don’t move.”
“I c-can’t anyway.”
“Here come Ronnie and Ron. Linda Hermann is with them.”
“Good.”
After much ado, I was wheeled into the back of the ambulance and covered with heaps of blankets.
“We are going to drive you to Syracuse,” said Ronnie. “I checked, and they have the shortest wait time in their emergency room.”
“Okay, Ronnie. Let’s go. I have decorations to put up!”
• • •
After an hour ride to Syracuse, two hours in the ER, and another half hour getting used to being on crutches, I was heading home in Antoinette Chloe’s delivery van from her restaurant, Brown’s Four Corners. Her van couldn’t be missed. On the side, it sported a colorful salami with a fedora dancing with a chubby ham in jogging shoes and a tennis outfit. Nearby was an assortment of cheeses watching the dancing and clapping to music that only deli items could hear.
I climbed into the van, or rather, shoved my ample butt up and into the seat, with ACB helping me. I plopped into the seat and then tried to position my behemoth of a cast into a comfortable spot.
It didn’t help that I had a couple of broken ribs.
“It smells like garlic in here,” I said, taking a deep breath.
“Fingers just made a kielbasa run to Utica. Remember?”
“Oh. I forgot.”
ACB and I loved this one kind of kielbasa that we could find only at a certain grocery store in Utica. I had turned ACB on to it, but I’d been eating it for years. It was a Matkowski tradition at Christmas and Easter and was complete only with fresh horseradish that I made.
Fingers, who was missing a couple of them, was ACB’s cook at Brown’s Four Corners Restaurant in downtown Sandy Harbor. ACB was thinking of selling the place to Fingers and opening a year-round drive-in movie theater on land she owned adjacent to mine, but she hadn’t figured out the logistics of snow and blizzard conditions on the drive-in screen or on the drive-in goers, especially if they came in snowmobiles or Amish wagons.
That was my pal ACB. Her ideas were as wild as her couture.
I glanced down at her sandaled feet. I had given up nagging her about wearing flip-flops in the dead of winter. She had some kind of aversion to winter boots. She told me that she lined her flip-flops with faux fur to shut me up.
“Do you want to stop for anything in Syracuse?” she asked.
“I’d like to go home and get some sleep, to be honest. It’s been a long day.”
“While they were putting your cast on, I called Linda Blessler. She’s going to work for you until further notice.”
“Oh! That’s so nice of her, and it’s thoughtful of you to call her for me. Than
ks, Antoinette Chloe. I’ll call her later and tell her that I might be recovering for a while. The doctor said that I did such a number on my ankle that I couldn’t have a soft boot. He had to put a cast on it.”
“Oh, and I know you have a lot of catering coming up. Of course I’ll help you.”
“What about your own restaurant?”
“Fingers will shout if he needs me, but he never does. I should just sell the place to him.”
“Does he want to buy it?”
“I think so, but we never discussed it seriously,” she said. “Maybe we should.”
“Yeah.” I yawned. “The doc gave me something for the pain. I think I’m falling asleep.”
“Go ahead, but first, tell me how to get to the highway.”
“Go straight. Down the hill. You should see signs.”
“I remember there used to be an Italian bread bakery around here, right?” she asked. “I love their bread.”
“Antoinette Chloe, it’s ten o’clock at night. It’s probably closed.” I pointed to the tiny store in an old shingle house by the highway entrance. “See? Closed.”
“Too bad. I’m in the mood for warm bread. We could have shared it on the ride home. I’m starving.”
As if on cue, my stomach growled.
Antoinette Chloe laughed. “I see a restaurant over there. Are you interested?”
My throbbing ankle yelled, Are you nuts? but my stomach screamed, Let’s go!
“It looks mostly like a bar. Do you think they have anything to go?” I asked, hopeful that I could stay in the van.
We both must have looked in the grimy window at the same time as ACB tried to park her big van in a space fit only for my cook Linda Blessler’s red Mini Cooper.
“It’s a cowboy bar,” ACB said.
The mechanical bull in the window with a cowboy type riding it and ladies in Daisy Dukes cheering for him was our first clue.
“You stay here, and I’ll see if they have sandwiches to go,” she said, reading my mind.
“Thanks, Antoinette Chloe.”
“Yee-haw!” was her response.
I was going to point out that her dancing-salami-and-ham van was only half-parked, but she was already opening the door to the Ride ’Em Cowboy Saloon.
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