Death of a Kitchen Diva (Hayley Powell Food and Cocktail Mysteries)

by Lee Hollis

  Sal was a bit stocky, which made no sense considering that he hit the gym every morning, but he also had a sweet tooth and kept a stash of candy in his top drawer alongside a bottle of bourbon. He was also boisterous and loud, almost as loud as Hayley. Sal said it was because he was Italian. But others questioned his reasoning. Not all Italians have a wife who is partially deaf in one ear.

  One night Sal and Hayley had stayed late at the office to finish putting the paper to bed to make up for a holiday, and someone called the police with a noise complaint. They said there was a party that was out of control at the Island Times. Probably fifty or sixty people. It was just Sal and Hayley and a couple of empty bottles of Blackstone Merlot.

  Sal and Hayley talked in shorthand. After four years together, they had a routine and system on how to run the paper. In Hayley’s mind, she was indispensable to the Island Times. And she prayed Sal would recognize that fact.

  On her way into the office that day, she stopped at the coffeehouse next door for a hazelnut latte, which she knew was Sal’s favorite. She handed it to him as she sat down in a creaky chair across from his desk.

  Sal sipped his latte, his eyes closed, a smile on his face. “You’re too good to me, Hayley.”

  “I know,” Hayley said, taking a deep breath, drawing up her courage. “I need to talk to you.”

  Sal opened his eyes, a little wary over what might be coming. “I hate those six words. They seem so innocent at first but in the end they always manage to up the dosage of my blood pressure medication.”

  Sal put his coffee cup down and folded his arms. “Shoot. What is it?”

  Hayley hesitated. She knew she had every right to ask for a raise. But she also knew the paper was struggling. Their rival across town had a larger readership, mostly because it had been the paper of record for Bar Harbor since the early 1900s. Sal was the upstart. He grew up in the town and wanted something new, something fresh, something different from the staid, boring news spoon-fed to the locals. So after a stint writing for a large Boston paper, he had moved back home and started the Island Times. And now, ten years later, it was a worthy rival to the Bar Harbor Herald. But with the Internet and blogging and instant access to information, with newspapers across the country shutting down, or just going online, Sal knew he needed a new business model to keep up with the times, and to just survive.

  “Hayley?” Sal leaned forward, a concerned look on his face.

  Hayley was having severe second thoughts. She stood up. “Never mind. Now’s not a good time.”

  She was halfway out the door when Sal said, “You can ask me anything. You know that.”

  Hayley stopped. He was right. Sal was her boss, but he was also her friend. She turned back around and decided to just go for it.

  And then he added, “As long as you don’t want a raise.”

  Hayley’s face said it all. She just stood there frozen. Crushed.

  Sal slumped down in his chair, shaking his head. “Oh, Hayley, I would love to give you anything you want, but you know I can’t. Times are tough. We’re barely above water here. Everybody deserves to be making more, but I just can’t squeeze out a spare dime right now.”

  “I understand,” Hayley said as she calculated in her head just how she was going to stretch her modest income a little more when it was already stretched so far it was ready to snap.

  Even though he turned her down flat, Sal was a softie. And she knew it was killing him to see the look of despair on her face.

  She tried to remain upbeat. “Not a problem.”

  Hayley spun around again and headed for the door.

  “Wait,” Sal said. “I may have an idea. Nothing big. Just a few extra dollars a week.”

  Hayley nodded, her excitement building.

  “I’m sure you heard about Hattie Jenkins,” Sal said, a solemn look on his face.

  Hayley gasped, covering her mouth with her hand. “Oh, no. She died?”

  Sal laughed. “Hell, no. She’s already ninety-six. That old bag’s going to outlive us all. She’s retiring. Finally.”

  Hattie Jenkins had been a home and garden columnist for the Bar Harbor Herald since the 1940s, doling out helpful hints to housewives every week. She was an institution. So when the Herald fired her nine years ago for being old and outdated, there was a public outcry and Sal seized the opportunity and immediately put her on staff writing recipes.

  “I can’t believe Hattie is finally going to retire,” Hayley said.

  “Yeah, good news for everyone who likes their recipes without Spam as a main ingredient,” Sal said. “I want you to take over the food and wine column.”

  “Me?” Hayley was floored. “I’m not a writer.”

  “Neither was Hattie,” Sal said. “She could barely form a sentence. And that was before the short-term memory loss.”

  Hayley’s mind raced. She was a whiz in the kitchen. All her friends told her so. They often said she would even make Martha Stewart proud. In fact, Hayley’s house was usually saved for last during the monthly traveling potluck dinners because she could always be counted on to come up with the night’s most mouthwatering favorite.

  “This is nothing big,” Sal said. “But it might help you out.”

  Hayley didn’t have to think about it. She jumped at the offer. “I’ll take it.”

  “Good,” Sal said. “Now get out of my office.”

  Hayley was elated. She knew Hattie didn’t make more than twenty-five bucks for each column. But maybe Sal would let her write two or three columns per week. She could sure use the extra cash.

  As Hayley returned to her desk and sat down at her computer, she started to get nervous. People she knew were going to actually be reading what she wrote. What would she write about? What if she was a big flop? What if she was ridiculed and scorned as the worst writer in the history of journalism? Hattie may not have been Joyce Carol Oates, but she certainly had been a beloved figure in Bar Harbor for decades. And nobody likes a cheap imitation. Was a little extra spending money really worth risking her reputation in town?

  Chapter 3

  Hayley’s mind raced as she made a quick stop at the Shop ’n Save on her way home from work to load up a cartful of ingredients. She had a lot of research to do. She wanted to get started right away by trying out a few recipes. She knew since this was a Maine newspaper her first column should probably have something to do with seafood. Maybe mussels. Or some kind of shrimp dip. Some interesting, fun, easy-to-make appetizer.

  Still, it was one thing cooking for friends. But the whole town? What if people tried her recipes and then wrote letters of complaint? Maybe taking over for Hattie was a huge mistake. She needed some advice. So after paying for her groceries, she headed over to Drinks Like A Fish, a happy hour hot spot on Cottage Street, one of the three main streets in town. The bar also happened to be owned by her brother, Randy, who always had opinions about everything, and would make the ideal sounding board for this new development at the paper.

  Hayley had already called her two best friends to join her for an after-work cocktail, so she was anxious to hear their take as well. She knew she had some time to hang out with her friends. Gemma was at an away game in Bucksport and Dustin was staying over at his friend Lenny’s house to play video games.

  Hayley parked the car in the Rite Aid parking lot three blocks from the bar (there was a spot in front but Hayley had never learned how to properly parallel park). She scurried past the last few remaining tourists of the season strolling the streets now that Labor Day had come and gone. Now the shops had only the occasional cruise ship that would arrive in the harbor throughout the fall and spill passengers out for an hour or two at a time.

  Hayley blew into Drinks Like A Fish to find Randy behind the bar, wiping it down with a wet rag. There were a couple of college kids at the other end playing darts, and sitting atop two stools near the front were Liddy Crawford and Mona Barnes, her BFFs since kindergarten.

  On the surface, the bar looked upsca
le with finished wood and leather bar stools and booths, soft lighting, and an overall tasteful décor. But nobody was ever fooled about this place for long. The clientele made the place what it really was, and many drunken fishermen smelling of trout and cigars were dragged out by the cops for disorderly conduct on pretty much every night of the week.

  Hayley squeezed in between Liddy and Mona, and waved at Randy. “I need a Cosmo, pronto.”

  “Cosmo, Hayley? Really?” Liddy stared at Hayley incredulously. “Sex and the City was canceled years ago. Try a Lemon Drop Martini. Same as me.”

  Hayley opened her mouth to protest but knew it wouldn’t do any good. Liddy had been bossy ever since she learned to talk. And she always managed to get her own way. It was no surprise she wound up a glamour puss real estate agent with a bunch of million dollar oceanfront listings. Some people were put off by her sometimes stinging directness and loud opinions, but they were mostly men who were threatened by her incredible financial success.

  “Make that two, Randy,” Liddy said, as she pulled out a hand mirror and checked her makeup. She always looked impeccable. Her twice a year New York shopping trips kept her in the latest fashions. Dr. Feingold, whose office was an hour away in Bangor, kept those wrinkles forming under her eyes at bay. And she had a standing Friday morning appointment with Carole, a local girl who managed to make the final cut as a contestant on Bravo’s hair design reality show Shear Genius. She didn’t win, but the notoriety made her somewhat of a local celebrity, so Liddy wouldn’t have anyone else touch her lush auburn curls.

  “Randy, I’ll have some water. No fancy bottled crap. Tap is fine,” Mona said.

  “Mona, I’m stunned. What happened to Bud in a can?” Liddy said, one eyebrow raised.

  “Can’t,” Mona said with a shrug.

  They all knew what this meant.

  “Oh, no,” Liddy wailed. “Not again.”

  “Couldn’t be helped,” Mona said, rubbing her eyes with her fists. “I swore I was done but you know how Dennis is. We could be in the middle of a nor’easter and he’d still be in heat.”

  “You already have five rug rats!” Liddy said.

  “That’s right. What’s one more? Congratulations, Mona,” Hayley said, giving her a warm, tight hug.

  “Thanks,” Mona said. “I’m gonna kill Dennis.”

  “At least it’ll stop you from getting pregnant again,” Randy said, smiling as he delivered the drinks to the three women.

  “Pretty soon you’re going to be like that awful lady on TV with the eight kids and that hideous outdated haircut,” Liddy said, taking a long, satisfying sip of her martini.

  “I’ll never be like her because I don’t give a crap what my hair looks like,” Mona said.

  “We know, honey,” Liddy said. “It’s painfully obvious.”

  Liddy and Mona sometimes pretended not to like each other. But they had been friends for so long, their sparring was like a warm blanket. Comforting and familiar. And everyone knew if one was in trouble, the other would be the first on the scene.

  Liddy was a success, but Mona was, too, in her own right. She was the owner of a lobstering business that had been passed down for generations in her family. Mona worked her butt off four months out of the year during the tourist season selling lobsters to restaurants and the private estates on the island, and then she would kick back and enjoy the fruits of her labor during the winter months. She tried going to Florida, but missed her hometown too much, even during the freezing cold blizzards that were commonplace in the early part of the year.

  Despite her thriving business, Mona lacked even an ounce of pretension. She was always in a sweatshirt (usually with some dirty joke on the front) and faded jeans and work boots. She wasn’t lying about her hair. She did it herself, cutting it into almost a pageboy look. And her fresh-scrubbed face was free of any makeup. She just didn’t want to be bothered. And she refused to trade in her beat-up Dodge pickup for anything newer. Why would she? The truck got her where she needed to go.

  She met her husband, Dennis, when he blew into town on his motorcycle after a stint in Iraq and got a job working on her father’s lobster boat. But an accident involving his leg getting caught in a trap left him on permanent disability, so now Mona was the sole breadwinner for her family.

  “Isn’t anyone besides me curious to know why Hayley called this meeting of the minds?” Randy said as he poured himself a shot of tequila.

  “Right. Enough about me,” Mona said. “I hate talking about me.”

  “I’ve never understood that,” Liddy said, without a trace of irony.

  There was an uncomfortable silence. Finally, Hayley cleared her throat. “Okay, I went in to Sal today and asked for a raise.”

  “That’s right,” Randy said. “You told me you were getting up the nerve. So what happened?”

  “He said no.”

  “You run that place,” Liddy said. “He just doesn’t appreciate you the way he should. Let me talk to him. Do you know how much I pay in advertising? I should be a shareholder! He’ll listen to me.”

  “Thanks, Liddy, but no, there just isn’t any money in the budget,” Hayley said. “He did say, however, I could take over Hattie’s food and wine column.”

  Another uncomfortable silence.

  “She’s retiring. I know. Bad idea. I mean, where do I get off thinking I can be a writer?”

  “No,” Randy protested. “I was just thinking how great it will be to finally have a column in the paper I actually look forward to reading.”

  God love Randy. He was Hayley’s number one fan. The two of them had fought like cats and dogs when they were kids. Over everything. Then, during their teen years they simply ignored each other. Hayley partied with her friends. And Randy just wanted to stay home to watch his idol Tori Spelling on Beverly Hills, 90210.

  Needless to say, after high school, Randy moved to New York to become an actor. He attended the prestigious Academy of Dramatic Arts, did a few Off-Off-Off-Broadway plays, and scored one United Airlines commercial playing a smiling, helpful flight attendant. Then he came out of the closet. Hayley was incredibly supportive except for the fact that Randy told their mother before he told her, which she took personally. Who tells his uptight mother before his cool worldly sister? But she forgave him.

  Randy always expected to live in a big city where he would be free and accepted, but he desperately missed the small-town life, and it was Hayley who convinced him he could live openly in Bar Harbor. Besides, the town had just passed a gay rights ordinance to draw more tourists with diverse lifestyles. Randy worked as a stock boy at the Shop ’n Save for a while, saved his money, applied for a business loan from the Bar Harbor Bank and Trust because he gave the loan officer her first kiss back in seventh grade (it must have been good because the loan was approved), and opened his bar. Ten years later, Drinks Like A Fish was a local staple and very profitable for Randy and his boyfriend of ten years, Sergio.

  So Hayley was with the three most important people in her life—besides her two kids—and was waiting to hear what they had to say about this new, exciting but scary opportunity.

  “So, Liddy, say something,” Hayley said anxiously.

  “There really isn’t anything to say,” Liddy said.

  “Then you think I shouldn’t do it?” Hayley said.

  “Of course you should,” Randy shouted from the other end of the bar where he was serving the college kids another round of beer on tap.

  “I’m just surprised they didn’t ask me,” Liddy said, shifting in her seat, clearly perturbed she was overlooked for the job.

  “You don’t cook,” Hayley said.

  “I know. But I have impeccable taste. Who wouldn’t want to read what I have to say about entertaining?”

  Mona raised her hand and Liddy quickly slapped it down.

  “I think you should go for it, Hayley,” Mona said. “And who knows? Maybe somebody besides me and your brother might actually read it.”

  High
praise indeed.

  Chapter 4

  Hayley stared at the blank computer screen. She had been sitting there for well over an hour, her paper cup of coffee long since swallowed, tiny beads of sweat forming on her brow. She chalked it up to Bar Harbor experiencing one of the hottest fall seasons on record. Temperatures in the low nineties with stifling humidity.

  But no, it wasn’t the weather. It was nerves. She had no idea what to write about. After testing some appetizers at home, she knew which one she wanted to use to kick off the column. Maybe build up to a main course dish and then finish off with a cool refreshing dessert. Do seven courses over the next couple of weeks. Made sense. Readers would have a full-course meal to try out at their next dinner party. She was beginning to doubt she’d even get to the salad course before Sal fired her and replaced her with someone who knew what she was doing.

  Hayley couldn’t just jot down the recipe and be done with it. She had to talk about something first. Introduce herself. A lot of the locals already knew her, but there were visitors to the island who had no idea what her qualifications to write this column were.

  Probably because she had none.

  Hayley needed more coffee. And her break was coming up, so she knew she could kill some more time by running a few errands, like buying stamps at the post office and running home to let the dog out so he could do his business. Wait. She was just delaying the inevitable. No. She was going to sit here and not get up until she had at least written the opening sentence.

  Tick. Tick. Tick.

  The phone rang and she lunged for it.

  “Island Times,” Hayley chirped, grateful for the distraction.

  It was Liddy, placing an ad for her latest listing. But really she was just calling to gossip about the dirt she picked up while getting a facial at the local beauty shop.