by Tegan Maher
Table of Contents
Murder and Marinade (Witches of Keyhole Lake, #5)
Author’s Note
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
EPILOGUE
Chapter 1 Howling for Revenge: An unedited sneak peek
Books by Tegan
About the Author
© 2018 Tegan Maher
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This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or institutions is entirely coincidental.
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Author’s Note
Before you start reading, I thought maybe a little clarification may be in order because I’ve gotten a few emails wondering about the linguistics and grammar.
First, thank you for giving me your time!
I use local dialect both in dialogue and in narrative. Noelle, Rae, Hunter, and crew are smart and/or educated, but still drop back to default dialect sometimes, as do most of us when we’re in casual situations.
Grammatical errors and use of slang are likely intentional (me and you vs. you and I, we was going vs. we were going etc.) You’ll even find some words that look flat-out made up, unless, of course, you’re from the South. ☺
That being said, typos are never intentional and if I’ve missed any, I apologize!
So please, I ask for a little latitude for the good folks of Keyhole Lake, especially Skeeter, Earl, and Bobbie Sue. I hope you enjoy the book—I’d love to hear what you think!
-Tegan
CHAPTER ONE
I STOOD UP, STRETCHING the kink from my back, and checked out the display of my handcrafted furniture and display pieces. We'd been loading and unloading for most of the morning, and I was willing to call it good enough for the time being. "Let's take a break for a minute and go see how Bobbie Sue and Earl are doing."
Hunter rolled his head, cracking his neck and wiping the sweat from his forehead with his forearm. The late-morning sun glinted off the Ferris wheel in the distance behind him, and people hustled all around us, setting up their own booths in preparation for the fair that started the next morning.
"That sounds great,” he said. “Maybe they already have something on the grill."
In the interest of getting our tent ready for the craft fair, I'd been trying to ignore the mouth-watering scents of barbecued meat and carnival food wafting on the breeze.
At his suggestion, my good intentions flew out the window and my stomach rumbled. Our good friends Bobbie Sue and Earl owned Bobbie Sue's Barbecue, or BSB as folks had started to call it, and they were competing in a competition over the weekend.
While Hunter closed up the trailer, I dropped the sides of the tent, then he slung an arm around me and we followed our noses to the far end of the fairgrounds where the barbecue competition would take place.
"Max," I called. "We're going up to the BSB truck to grab something to eat and see how Bobbie Sue and Earl are doing. You goin'?"
Max was my miniature donkey, though there was much more to him than that. I'll touch on that in a bit, but for now, just know that he rarely turns down food and never turns down good scotch.
He pushed to his feet from where he'd been sunning himself and shook, then trotted to keep up with us. "Of course I'm coming."
I leaned my head on Hunter's shoulder as we walked. "Thanks for helping me set everything up. I couldn't have done it without you."
Since we'd met, Hunter had stuck around through ten times what most men would have. In the first three months of our relationship, he'd learned witches exist—because I am one—and ghosts are real. Then as the months progressed, he'd kept not one, but two, of my friends—and one of my enemies—out of jail, and he'd embraced the craziness that was my life.
I was the first to admit I wasn't always great at showing appreciation, but it wasn't because I didn't feel it; I just had a bad habit of assuming he knew how awesome I thought he was. I was making an effort to remedy that because some things should be vocalized.
He wrinkled his nose at me and gave my shoulders a squeeze. "It's my pleasure, sweetie. I'm proud of how far you've come in less than a year."
I'd opened my upcycling store, Reimagined, several months before, when I'd gotten an unexpected, and desperately needed, windfall. Hank Doolittle, Keyhole Lake's crooked sheriff and D-bag extraordinaire, had dropped dead at our annual Fourth of July celebration and the county had returned the excess in taxes that he'd inflated for his own profit for nearly a decade. I also got a hefty reward for solving his murder.
At that point, I'd been waitressing for my friend Bobbie Sue at her barbecue place. I was struggling just to keep the lights on and put food on the table for my kid sister, Shelby, and myself and was driving a beat-up truck that ran on a hope and a prayer: I always hoped it started, and prayed it got me where I was going.
I'm a kitchen witch at heart, and happily provided the baked goods for my best friend/cousin Raeann's coffee shop, but I had zero interest in turning something I loved into something I had to do.
So, I'd thought long and hard about what I wanted to be, and decided to combine my passion for saving old furniture and doo-dads with my love of creating something with my hands, and Reimagined was born. I'd finally managed to make enough pieces that I had an inventory, but was hoping that wouldn't be the case by the time the craft fair was over.
Bobbie Sue and her husband Earl competed in the barbecue portion of the regional fair every year, but I'd always stayed behind and kept the restaurant up and running for them. This year, though, she had a great manager and I was able to come along.
I was pretty torqued just to be there and was looking at it as a combination business venture and vacation. Since Hunter'd taken the week off to spend with me, it was a slam-dunk in my mind.
We finally made it to competition grounds and Bobbie Sue's distinctive flag—a grinning, hot-pink pig holding a knife and fork—wasn't hard to spot. Earl's beast of a cooker, Susie Q, was bellowing smoke, and Bobbie Sue was managing the more mundane task of organizing the food truck. Their son Justin was standing on a footstool at a stainless steel counter inside the truck mixing up another batch of Earl's secret herbs and spices. I don't know what was in there, but the man made the best barbecue I'd ever tasted.
"Where's Earl?" I asked.
"Bathroom," Justin snickered. "He won't use porta-potties, so he went up to the main hall." I couldn't blame him for that.
He'd no more than answered when he came lumbering down the aisle toward us, retying his apron.
I peeked under the edge of a piece of foil covering a stainless-steel pan, and the delicious smell of the steam pouring out about made me drool. Peeling it back a little more, I was ecstatic to see it was pulled pork.
Earl worked his way back to a pan full of raw meat and started pouring his rub over it. He was a big man, with a full beard and arms the size of small trees, but once you got past his scary-biker appearance, he was a teddy bear. As long as you were on his good side, anyway.
"Hey Earl," Hunter said.
"Hey Hunter, Noelle." He motioned over his shoulder with his thumb. "If'n you're hungry, the buns are in the truck. You'll have to ask Bobbie Sue where the slaw and beans are, but I'd say the top shelf of the walk-in is a good bet."
Just like Earl'd built his smoker/grill to best suit his own needs, he'd customized the food truck so it had everything they needed and nothing they didn't. That included a small walk-in fridge in the front, with locking shelves that closed during transport to keep it orderly.
Bobbie Sue dug a key out of her pocket and tossed it to me, and I nudged Justin on my way past. "Hey brat, whatcha doin'?" I glanced over his shoulder, and he shielded his project with his body and scowled at me.
"I'm makin' the rub. You know you ain't allowed to see what's in it."
I rolled my eyes. "I know, you'll have to kill me." I scooched his stool in a hair so I could squeeze behind him and was surprised to find little bowls of pre-made slaw and beans when I pulled open the fridge. I shot a questioning glance at Bobbie Sue as I grabbed a couple. Her typical method was chow-line service out of pans.
She shrugged. "I decided to mix it up. Lost what amounted to a whole pan of slaw last year cause of the durned flies." She pointed with a pair of tongs toward a rack beside Justin's station. "There's the buns. Help yourself."
She didn't have to tell me twice. I had four sandwiches made in no time flat, and grabbed a bottle of Earl's sweet and spicy sauce on my way out. Handing Hunter his, I drizzled the sauce over my meat, then took a huge bite and groaned as the seasoned pork juices and sauce caused a flavor explosion in my mouth.
The man was a magician with meat.
"When's the first competition?" I asked.
He tipped his head toward a flyer tucked under a bottle of sauce. "First thing in the morning. We gotta hand in the brisket at nine."
I glanced down the schedule. They were gonna be busy for the next three days. There were competitions for brisket, ribs, pork butt, steaks, chicken, sausage, burgers, and even beans. There was even a kids' competition. "Y'all entering every one of these?"
He nodded. "Most of 'em. We gotta, if we wanna win the overall. Well, 'ceptin' the kids' part, but Justin's set to win that one, hands down."
They'd taken home the championship three out of the last four years and they weren't planning on leaving empty-handed.
Bobbie Sue and Earl had adopted Justin several months before, and the kid had settled into the world of barbecue like he was born to it. He'd been talking about this competition for months and was every bit as serious about winning as his new folks were.
Hunter looked at the schedule over my shoulder and whistled. "Man, you're gonna be cooking for three days."
Earl shrugged. It ain't as bad as it looks, 'specially since this one starts on Friday 'stead of Saturday. We usually pack it all into two days. Lotta down time with most of it while it cooks. We'll have time aplenty to see everything and take Justin over to the carnival."
He glanced at me and grinned. "And I'll finally get ta see all your fancy-schmancy pieces of furniture and what-nots I been hearin' about."
I swallowed the last bite of my first sandwich and opened my mouth to respond when a woman's high-pitched scream tore through the air, nearly bursting my eardrums even though she was nowhere in sight. Hunter transformed instantly from happy vacationer to serious cop, and jumped to his feet. We set our plates down and ran in the direction of the shrieks. Whoever she was, she'd taken a couple breaths, but hadn't let up.
We rounded the corner to find a middle-aged woman screeching and pointing at a spot a couple of feet to the right of a tent. Hunter and I pushed through the gathering crowd and headed in the direction she was pointing.
Before we made it past her, though, she grabbed my sleeve. "Don't go back there," she said, gasping for breath. "He's ... he's dead!" she wailed.
Hunter had gone on without me, and when I approached, he held his hand out, then turned to me, attempting to block my vision. I peered around him before he could get to me, and wished I hadn't.
There was a paunchy man with graying hair and a bald spot lying face down in between the tents. Under any other circumstances, it would have been the ten-gallon hat with the huge, 80s-style feather band lying next to him that caught my attention, but the wooden-handled barbecue fork sticking out of his back trumped that.
Hunter looked at me and heaved a breath. "Really?" he said as he pulled out his phone and turned back toward the man.
My eyebrows shot to my hairline. "What? It's not like I did it," I said as I turned my back to the body and did my best to keep people back as he checked for a pulse.
He joined me, one hand holding his phone as he gave a brief run-down to who I assumed was the 911 operator. His other arm spread wide, trying to keep the looky-loos back. He flashed his badge, though he had no authority here. "Stay back, folks. The police and ambulance are on their way. This is a crime scene."
A woman roughly the size and shape of Big Bird, hustled toward us holding a clipboard. Hunter blocked her path. The bright yellow outfit she was wearing went a long way toward the resemblance.
"I demand to know what's going on here!" she said in a high-pitched voice that would have given an outraged schoolmarm a run for her money.
"Ma'am," Hunter said, taking her by her upper arms, "I need you to stand back."
"I most certainly will not," she said in a nasally voice, shaking him off. "I'm Gregoria Stanton. I run this fair and oversee the grounds while its underway. You'll step aside right now, young man."
"Ma'am," he started to say as he stepped to the side to block her again. Since she was at least as tall as he was, he didn't block her nearly as well as he had me.
She sucked in a breath and pointed. "That's Mac Moore," she said, trying to push her way around him.
Bobbie Sue'd caught up to us by then. "Huh," she said, glancing around me at the body. "Looks like Mac No Moore to me."
CHAPTER TWO
GREGORIA STANTON TRUDGED to a nearby picnic table in a daze, and people started paying attention to Hunter's badge as the scuttlebutt started making the rounds. Speculation buzzed through the crowd as folks craned their necks for a better look.
Within just a couple minutes, two cruisers and an ambulance pulled between us and the crowd, and a rangy, middle-aged guy with a sweeping mustache stepped out of his cruiser and headed our way.
"Hunter Woods, Keyhole Lake County Sheriff," Hunter said, holding out his hand.
The other man took it. "Blane Scottsdale, sheriff of"—he waved his hand toward the body then the crowd and sighed—"this mess. What happened?"
Hunter shook his head as the emergency workers rushed toward Mr. No Moore. I was pretty sure the name was gonna stick. "We
were at a friend's booth and we heard a woman scream. We were first here, and this is how we found him."
"No offense, but did you touch anything?" Sheriff Scottsdale asked.
"None taken, and nope," Hunter said.
The other man motioned toward a couple of deputies that were standing beside the other cruiser, looking lost. Murder in those parts was rare, and it was likely that, as young as they looked, this was the first one they'd seen.
"Tape this whole area off," Sheriff Scottsdale told them, and they jumped to work, happy to have something to do. He turned back toward us. "Did you see anybody leaving, or hear anything besides the scream?"
"No," I said, motioning to the screamer, who had taken a seat at the same table as Gregoria. "Just her. She was standing about where your cruisers are, screamin' bloody murder." I realized what I'd said a moment too late, as usual. "Sorry," I muttered.
He pretended he didn't hear it. "Anybody know who he is?"
Bobbie Sue stepped up and crossed her arms over her chest. "I do. His name's Mac Moore, and he's one of the most miserable old coots the Good Lord ever stretched a hide over. And a cheat, to boot."
"A cheat," the sheriff repeated. "What do you mean?"
Bobbie cocked an eyebrow at him. "I mean he was a cheat. He played favorites, he took bribes, he threw contests."
"You mean he was a judge," I said, picking up what she was laying down.
"Well, course he was a judge," she said, looking at me like I'd lost my senses. "Everybody knows that. But the only thing he ever judged was the number o'Benjamins it'd take to buy a contest. And if the man ever had a kind word to say, I sure never heard it."
I rubbed a hand over my face. "Let's go check on Justin," I said, wanting to get her away from the sheriff before she became prime suspect number one.
"Justin's just fine," she replied, waving me off. "He's back at the truck with Earl."
"You better make sure, just in case," Hunter said.
Sheriff Scottsdale held his hand out. "Now hang on just a second Ms. ..."