Diners, Drive-Ins, and Death: A Comfort Food Mystery

by Christine Wenger

  “You have to work tonight? Pardon me, but you look like you need some sleep.”

  “I do, but the pageant girls decided to have a pajama party.”

  He raised a perfect black eyebrow. “Sorry I missed it.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake. You could be their father.”

  “Nah, maybe an older brother.”

  I smiled. “I’ll give your message to ACB. Nine o’clock?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “It’s a great lead, isn’t it?”

  “Definitely. Do you remember the name of the guy who cut Nick? His partner in the restaurant.”

  “Chad. Chad Dodson.”

  “The name sounds familiar. Should I know him?” he asked.

  “He’s from a big banking family in Massachusetts.”

  “Massachusetts National Colonial Bank and Trust? They’ve led the United States in foreclosures for the past few years.”

  Ty never ceased to amaze me. “I’ll take Banking for one thousand dollars, Alex.”

  “I wonder how Nick met Chad. Nick didn’t seem to be the kind of guy who’d run in Chad’s circles.”

  “Maybe ACB can help fill in the blanks.”

  “I think I’ll get a head start.” Ty tweaked his hat and went down the stairs two at a time. “See you in the morning for an early breakfast.”

  * * *

  I jumped into the shower, a cold shower. Maybe it would help me stay awake. I smiled as I slipped into my tomato-print pants and red chef’s coat with my name embroidered on it. Underneath that was CHEF, SILVER BULLET DINER.

  I put my wet hair into a ponytail. It’d dry eventually, maybe on the walk over. Then I tried to do something about my puffy eyes with the dark circles underneath. I didn’t have time for cold tea bags, so I pulled out all the concealer I could find and blotted it under my eyes.

  I was tempted to wake up ACB and ask her for makeup help, but since she was going to have another difficult day with Nick’s calling hours at night and her nine o’clock interrogation in Ty’s office, I decided to let her sleep.

  I got to the diner about fifteen minutes early, so I made myself a cup of coffee behind the counter. I was glad to see that the place was mostly full, and I hoped it’d stay that way. The time would go by faster if it was busy, and I wouldn’t be able to think about how I hadn’t slept in a day or two.

  “How’s everything, Nancy?”

  “Fine. Judy and I have been hopping all night. The customers just love the goulash and the Spanish rice, but they can’t stop talking about Antoinette Chloe stabbing the sausage and calling out Nick’s name when she did it.”

  “That wasn’t her best moment,” I said. “Are they saying anything else about her?”

  “Some are speculating whether she was the reason Nick Brownelli found himself in a ditch. Most people are imitating her. There isn’t a sausage that’s safe in this diner,” Nancy quipped.

  I sighed. Small-town gossip can be overwhelming, but there wasn’t much I could do to stop it. Besides, I should be concentrating on my diner right now.

  “I hope there’s enough goulash and Spanish rice to last until the morning. I don’t want to run out.”

  Nothing bothers me more than when customers come in for the daily special and it’s gone. However, from a business standpoint, I suppose it’s a good thing.

  I walked through the double doors and saw that Cindy Sherwood, who usually cooked from four to midnight, was mighty happy to see me.

  “Trixie, I gotta fly. I have a date.”

  “Anyone I know?”

  “I don’t think so, but I’ll bring him by for dinner sometime. I’d love for you to meet him.”

  “Can’t wait, Cindy. I’m sure he’s wonderful.”

  Cindy worked very hard both here at the Silver Bullet and at home watching her brothers and sisters while her single mother worked at the box factory in Oswego. I knew that their family struggled to keep afloat.

  “Cindy, before you go, take home some bread and luncheon meat. And I ordered way too much tuna fish. Take some of both.”

  “No. I couldn’t, Trixie.”

  “Yes, you can. Go freshen up for your date, and I’ll get it ready for you.”

  She wrapped me in a big hug. “I know what you’re doing, Trixie,” she whispered. “And thanks.”

  I turned her around and gave her a tiny push toward the ladies’ room by the walk-in freezer. “Go. Get ready. And come back here before you hurry out.”

  I found a cardboard box and loaded it with everything I thought would be good for the kids’ lunches and dinners. I decided that they needed breakfast items, too, so I put in cereal, yogurt, and some cans of orange juice.

  After I waved Cindy off, one of my third-shift waitresses, Chelsea Young, whom I enjoyed immensely, arrived. Chels was a free spirit, a flower child who should have grown up in the sixties. She was tall and slender with a lot of energy, and her platinum hair was streaked with all the different colors of the rainbow. I hoped some of her energy would rub off on me.

  Josephine Pirro, the other graveyard-shift waitress, was a very pretty twentysomething with big black eyes and long lashes. Her hair was thick and black with a little wave in it. She was short and could stand to lose a few pounds—like me—and she was a chronic giggler. Everyone loved to make Jo laugh—it didn’t take much. The truckers teased her often, but they never stepped over the line. If they did, Jo would point her finger at them and give them a stern warning, all punctuated by giggles.

  It was going to be a fun night with Jo and Chelsea, and I needed some fun to put some pep back into my step.

  I decided that I’d bake something fun as well. I was going to make some dog biscuits for Blondie. I even had a cookie cutter in the shape of a dog bone.

  Very cool!

  I got out all the ingredients, but before I could start, Jo came in with a large order, mostly for the daily specials, with a couple of orders from the breakfast menu.

  I glanced through the pass-through window to see who was in the diner. Vern McCoy was with Lou Rutledge. They were the other two members of the Sandy Harbor Sheriff’s Department. They saw me peeking at them and waved. They were sitting with John Nunnamaker, the commander of the American Legion, and Mr. Farnsworth, the owner of the bait shop next door.

  I didn’t see Ty—not that I was looking for him. He was probably investigating Chad Dodson. By the time ACB moseyed over to the sheriff’s department office on Main Street in the morning, Ty would probably know more about the brawl at the Boston barbecue than Antoinette Chloe did.

  I went back to making Blondie’s dog biscuits. As I was kneading the dough, I had a scathingly brilliant idea: I’d put six treats each in a bunch of plastic bags, tie them with a pretty ribbon, sell them at the counter, and donate the money to the ASPCA.

  Feeling like a woman with a mission, I made a triple batch.

  In between orders, banter with Chelsea and Jo, and making the dog biscuits, the time flew. Before I knew it, it was seven o’clock and Juanita Holgado was arriving for her morning shift.

  Juanita picked up a bag of biscuits. I didn’t have ribbon or a cute basket here in the kitchen, so I’d have to go back to the Big House and get both.

  “These are terrific, Trixie.” She held up the plastic bag to take a better look.

  “Thanks. I’m going to class up the packaging and add ribbon, maybe a label. All proceeds will go to the ASPCA.”

  “Brilliant, chica. My Pancho will love them.”

  I untied my apron. “I am dead on my feet, Juanita. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Adios.”

  My feet were throbbing, but surprisingly I felt really good for being a zombie with no sleep. I had energy spurting up from I don’t know where.

  When I got back to the Big House, the noise level was breaking the sound b
arrier. The girls were dressed and getting ready for dance practice, but they were having a grand buffet of cookies, Danishes, donuts and other sweets.

  I took Antoinette Chloe aside. “Where are the committee ladies? Aren’t they supposed to help you cook breakfast and lunch?”

  She looked quite satisfied with herself. “Yes, but I gave them the morning off and had all this delivered from Gas and Grab. Jean Harrington gave me a discount.”

  “But why didn’t you let the committee cook?” I asked.

  “I didn’t want them to try talking to me about Nick. The obit is in the Lure this morning, and my cell phone hasn’t stopped ringing.”

  “Oh,” I said, and changed the subject. “I’m guessing you’re going to Margie Grace’s today.”

  It wasn’t hard to guess. ACB was dressed for a morning on Margie’s deck. It was one of those rare occasions when ACB was muumuu-less. She had a sweatband wrapped around her head, and it wasn’t just any sweatband. She’d embellished it with sequins and feathers.

  She wore bright orange and red sweatpants and a sweatshirt. And, of course, both were embellished with sequins and glitter glue.

  Her earrings had a metal pair of white-and-black sneakers hanging from them, but instead of the real thing on her feet, she had on—you guessed it—orange flip-flops.

  “Antoinette Chloe, your flip-flops are so . . . plain.”

  “Well, of course, dear. These are the flip-flops I dance in. However, the ones I wear as emcee will just dazzle you.”

  “I’m sure they will!” And that reminded me that I needed a dress.

  When no one was looking, I grabbed her arm and steered her to the front room, well out of the hearing of the girls, who seemed to be enjoying their sugary breakfast.

  “Antoinette Chloe, Ty Brisco wants to talk to you at nine a.m. in his office downtown.”

  “Why so early?”

  “It would have been eight o’clock, but I got you an hour’s reprieve because I told him a little about the incident in Boston between Chad and Nick. However, he wants to hear it all from you. And beware. He types with two fingers and a thumb, so it’ll take forever.”

  “Oh, dear. I can’t be there all day, Trix. I have to get to Margie’s for the rehearsal!”

  “Then you’d better get going, and talk slowly to the nice deputy about the Boston barbecue brawl while he types. Or you could always type it for him. Actually, you’re probably a better typist.”

  “I feel funny about naming names. I don’t want to point the finger at someone based on an old incident.”

  “It’s not that old. Besides, Ty will eliminate Chad Dodson as a suspect if things don’t point in that direction. Don’t worry.”

  “Well, okay, but I’m still worried about another thing.”

  “Talk to me, friend.”

  She hesitated, looking at her fake fingernails. They were too long and clawlike for my taste, and the one on the little finger of her left hand was unlike the others. All the rest were a sparkly leopard print, but her pinkie finger was bright pink with white daisies.

  She sighed. “After I put these all on, I remembered that one of them was missing, and I had only nine. And I wasn’t going to take them all off, so I added one from another box. I like it! Maybe the next time I’ll do all ten in a different design.”

  Her tone was clipped and her voice warbled. I could tell something was up.

  “You never answered me, Antoinette Chloe. What else has made you nervous?”

  “I think I might have found Suspect Number Two.”

  Chapter 6

  Antoinette Chloe played with her necklace of blue scallop shells and red sea horses, and I waited until she was ready to tell me what was on her mind.

  “Toxic Waste, the guy that Sal mentioned when we were visiting, called me earlier this morning. He said that he’d heard about Nick’s passing from Mad Dog Morgan, his second in command. Anyway, Toxic said that he would like to speak at Nick’s wake or at the cemetery and wanted my permission to do so.”

  “So far, so good,” I said, waiting for the rest of the story.

  “I asked him if he was going to speak on behalf of the Rubbers, and he said yes, but that he also had a lot of personal things to say about Nick to send him off on his final ride.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like how Nick welched on a deal. Apparently he was supposed to sell Toxic a vintage Panhead Harley, but Nick sold it to someone else. And then there was even more bad blood when Nick tried to start a coup to overthrow Toxic as leader of the Rubbers because Toxic had lost his three-star Michelin rating. It was knocked down to two stars. When the Michelin evaluator was at the restaurant, Nick brought him curled-up slices of pizza instead of the sauerbraten that he ordered. According to Nick, it was just a joke. He swore he thought the guy was a friend of Toxic Waste’s.”

  I must have looked confused, because she explained.

  “The highest rating that Michelin awards is three stars. And only chefs with three-star ratings can be the leader, according to the Roving Rubbers operating manual.”

  “That doesn’t sound so awful to me. It’s certainly not worth killing over, and I definitely hope he doesn’t bring this up during a eulogy that’s supposed to be nice,” I said.

  ACB took a breath. There was more. “The third strike against Nick was when Toxic’s longtime girlfriend, Leslie, left him for Nick. Toxic Waste was a basket case—a total wastebasket!”

  She chuckled, pretty proud of that joke.

  She continued. “Nick didn’t ask Leslie to leave Toxic, but when she did, the two of them struck up a romance, and it got pretty serious—I mean, Nick asked her to marry him. The plans were made, the announcement was in the paper—the whole enchilada.”

  “This is a biggie,” I said. “I can totally understand Toxic being mad, and then some. What happened?”

  “Nick left Leslie at the altar.”

  “Well, I can see her being furious and hurt and embarrassed,” I said, shaking my head. “And that was pretty cowardly of Nick.”

  ACB was quick to defend him. “Nick said he felt trapped. Once he’d asked her to marry him, the relationship stopped being fun, and she became overbearing and obnoxious. He tried to call it off a couple of times, but Leslie would always guilt him into staying. She kept telling him that he was just getting cold feet and he’d get over it.”

  “And then?”

  “This was about the same time as his motorcycle ride through the dining room and kitchen of his restaurant. Between all the drama with his partner, Chad, and his fiancée, he split, moved to Sandy Harbor, and started cooking at the restaurant with Sal. Then when Sal got into trouble, Nick saw me through it all, and we started dating. You know the rest.”

  “Getting left at the altar is a horrible thing. I’d be furious,” I said.

  ACB sighed. “I guess I’d better tell Ty about everything, starting with Chad Dodson. I might be a while.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Ty can type at least eight words a minute,” I said jokingly, but then turned serious. I wanted to ask my friend a very personal question—a question that was burning a hole in my brain. “Antoinette Chloe, was Nick that great of a catch?”

  “He was a dream, Trixie. A real good bad boy. Know what I mean?”

  “Uh . . . no.”

  “He was tall, dark, and handsome. He kind of looked like Elvis. He looked hot in black. And those lips and tongue of his . . . well . . . you know.”

  Well, actually I didn’t know. It had been a long time, and Deputy Doug . . . nah, I wasn’t going to go there.

  “And the man loved to cook—breakfast in bed, lunch in bed, dinner in bed.” She sighed, remembering, and then tears welled in her eyes. “He was something real special, Trixie.”

  I put my arm around her and led her to the door.

  “It’s e
ight forty-five. You’d better get to Ty’s office before he comes to fetch you in his sheriff’s car.”

  She sighed. “Do I look okay?”

  “You look fine. Is that a new muumuu?”

  “I ordered it from Hawaii—Muumuus ’R’ Us. I love hibiscus.”

  “It looks great,” I said. “Go. See you later.”

  She turned to wave good-bye, and just as I went to walk into the kitchen, a movement caught my eye. Was someone listening to our conversation? I mostly just caught a shadow. Then Blondie came bounding into the room. It must have been her coming down the stairs.

  Blondie needed some attention, so we snuggled together on the couch as I thought about all the people who had a grudge against Nick Brownelli.

  First, there was Sal Brownelli. With nothing to do in Auburn Correctional Facility except get tattooed, he might have become obsessed enough about ACB and his brother’s relationship that he could have arranged for a hit on Nick. Sal still loved ACB dearly, and he had nothing to lose. It wasn’t as if he was going to ever get out of jail in his lifetime, so what would another life sentence tacked onto the one he was already serving be to him?

  Second, there was Chad Dodson, millionaire from a rich family and former partner of Nick’s in a five-star restaurant that bore Nick’s name. Something had happened to their partnership and friendship, and they disliked each other enough to draw blood at a barbecue.

  Third, we had Toxic Waste, the leader of the Roving Rubbers. Nick had reneged on a Panhead deal, he tried to unseat Toxic, and Toxic’s girlfriend, Leslie, ran to Nick Brownelli—he of the full lips and bedroom meal delivery.

  As I sat there petting Blondie’s soft fur, I wondered if there were any other people that Nick had ticked off. If so, Nick’s calling hours this evening might prove to be an interesting experience if someone decided to bring out some hard feelings.

  But I didn’t want ACB upset by any derogatory remarks about Nick. She had enough to deal with. And besides, she had loved him and probably still did.

  ACB loved Nick. Nick had loved ACB. Sal loved ACB. ACB still had some retro feelings for Sal. ACB still loved Nick. What a mess!