“Miss No Gossip,” Bailey teased.
Katie shot her a scathing look. “I mean, I don’t trust many folks. I didn’t want Sam or anyone for that matter taking advantage of the old guy, you know?” She sipped her wine. “Wouldn’t we have heard something gossip-wise at the shop about Sam before this?”
“I doubt it,” I said. “It’s not like Mitzi and Sam are regular customers. Do you know, Mitzi actually bragged to me that she never uses recipes from cookbooks?”
“The gall,” Katie said.
“I thought it was sort of funny, like she had no filter.”
“You could mention the alleged affair to Cinnamon,” Bailey said.
My turn to spew wine. “Are you kidding? And make her think that I’m snooping?”
“You are.”
“No, thank you. Not interested.”
“Jenna, cut up tomatoes.” Katie pulled a knife from the block and brandished it at me.
In the past month, I had become pretty comfortable mixing things with a spoon. And I was good with a steak knife when eating meat. But slicing and dicing things that could go squirt in the night . . . all by my lonesome? Save me.
“It’s easy.” Katie demonstrated, chopping as fast as one of the chefs on television.
I blanched. “Not a chance.”
But Katie wouldn’t let up. Relenting, I took the knife and slowly, methodically cubed the tomatoes repeating a new mantra in my head: No fear. No fear. No fear.
“Not bad,” she said. “Practice makes—”
“Music,” I finished, remembering another of my mother’s favorite sayings. In addition to being an artist, she had played guitar. Much to my chagrin, I couldn’t pluck a string to save my soul. I wasn’t bad with a harmonica; I could play a few pieces on the piano, too.
As I attempted to snip rosemary with a pair of kitchen shears, Bailey asked, “What’s this?” She displayed the bottom of the cat statue to me. “There’s writing. I think it’s Chinese. What does it say?”
I started for the Lucky Cat, but Katie stopped me.
“No, ma’am. Do not lose your focus. Cooking requires your full attention. Put all the ingredients in the blender and turn it on.” When Katie was certain I was on task, she headed for Bailey. “It probably says: Made in China.”
“I don’t think so,” Bailey said. “It looks handwritten, not factory-printed.”
Katie peered at the writing. “Hoo-boy, that’s a lot more than three characters.” She fluttered her fingers. “Wait. I’m getting a vibe. It means . . . It means . . .”
“Oh, no you don’t,” I warned. “Don’t start talking like Aunt Vera.”
“But I really do think it means something,” Katie said. “You know, like a fortune cookie fortune: Avoid taking unnecessary gambles.” She laughed. “As if any gamble is necessary.”
Bailey said, “What if David is sending you a message from the beyond?”
I shivered.
“Maybe the words say: Every departure is an entrance to new adventures.” Bailey rubbed the Lucky Cat’s belly. “Speak to me, precious cat statue. Speak.” She screeched out a cat’s yowl.
Spooked, Tigger leaped at my legs.
“For heaven’s sake,” I said. “Stop it. You’re freaking out the kitten.” I reached down to calm him at the same time that I hit Pulse on the blender. Like a volcano, tomatoes and herbs spewed upward. “Oh no!” Thanks to Bailey’s banter and Tigger’s surprise attack, I had forgotten to put on the blender’s lid. I stabbed the Off button. It didn’t matter. The kitchen looked like a crime scene: red goo upward, sideways, and everywhere.
Bailey and Katie cackled.
I grumbled. “It’s not funny. Help me clean it up.”
“Don’t get snarky.” Bailey set the porcelain cat aside; its arm held. She scrambled to her feet. “Really, you should find out what these words mean.”
“I will.”
An hour later, after I used three entire rolls of paper towels dampened with a mixture of vinegar and water to clean up the sticky tomato mess, and after I diligently made a batch of tomato soup that Katie said was pretty darned decent, my pals left.
Late into the night I searched the Internet for an interpretation of the writing on the bottom of the Lucky Cat, but because I was unable to draw the characters into the search bar—I didn’t own a scanner, so I couldn’t copy them digitally, either—I wound up stymied. The Chinese alphabet had thousands upon thousands of characters as well as countless styles: Ancient, Kai Shu, Xing. If I’d been so inclined, I could have learned to paint the characters with a choice of paintbrushes made out of rabbit, squirrel, or badger hair. Bleary-eyed, I fell into a restless sleep wondering whether the message on the bottom of the statue related to the gold coins, while at the same time hating David for leaving me with such a puzzle.
Except, of course, I didn’t hate him. I missed him.
• • •
THE NEXT MORNING, I woke with a start. A slim ray of sunshine peeked through the break in the curtains. Tigger pounced onto the bed and kneaded my chest through the comforter.
“No way, mister.” I plucked him off the spread and tucked him beneath the sheet. Instantly contented, he curled into me while I, wired and wide-awake, stared at the ceiling. What had awakened me? Had I dreamed something horrible? Had I heard a noise?
Unwilling to feel paranoid or sorry for myself, I clambered out of bed, donned my running clothes, knotted my hair with a covered rubber band, and headed outside for my daily walk/run.
A thick, foggy drizzle made it hard to differentiate between the ground and the ocean, not to mention that the sand felt mushy beneath my feet. Worried about twisting an ankle, I headed to the main road. With few cars out, I jogged in the lane instead of along the shoulder. I breathed in three counts and out four counts. After a few minutes, my shoulders relaxed. After five minutes, those teensy muscles that bind the ribcage together loosened.
As I was nearing The Pier, which due to the fog looked like a thin haze of charcoal gray, I heard a car coming up behind me. I twisted my head to look but couldn’t see anything. No headlights. No blur of color. I moved to the right and peeked over my shoulder again. A car was nearing. A dark sedan. Suddenly it was bearing down upon me. In the bicycle lane.
“Hey,” I yelled, like that would have done any good.
It didn’t. The driver seemed to be aiming straight for me. I flailed my arms. The car continued to head in my direction.
Fight-or-flight took hold. With my heart ramming my ribcage like a sledgehammer, I dodged to my right, skidded on the gravel, and stumbled. I hit a soft spot that gave way, and I tumbled down a small decline held together by scrub brush and weeds. The branches scraped me, but their assault was nothing compared to the beating I could have taken from a two-ton vehicle.
“Jerk.” I got to my feet and scrambled up the embankment to see if I could glimpse the offending car’s license plate. I couldn’t even make out what kind of car it was. I pounded pavement after the vehicle, but seconds into the chase I realized my pursuit was a lost cause. The fog had consumed any memory of the encounter.
Deciding that running on the sand might be safer after all, I headed back down the embankment. As I reached the sand, I glanced occasionally at the road, hoping that the driver would come back to check on me. No such luck. So much for having concern for one’s fellow man.
During one of my head turns, I lost track of what was in front of me on the sand, which wasn’t smart, since the fog had thickened to pea soup consistency. I ran smack into a pack of dog owners with dogs in tow. “Oops,” I yelped then, “Whoa,” as I tripped over a leash and took a header. From an embarrassing angle on my backside, I peered up and realized all the owners and dogs were wearing some form of reflector shield. How had I not seen them? How had I missed hearing them? Well, actually, I hadn’t missed them, had I?
One of them reached out a hand to help me up. “Jenna?”
Looking closer, I recognized Rhett. He gripped me by th
e shoulders. A black Labrador romped in a loop around me then sat on his rump, his head tilted as if asking who this killjoy was. The other owners and pets continued on their journey.
“Sorry,” I said. “Guess the fog’s a little thick for my own good.” Understatement of the century.
“Are you okay?” Rhett asked. “You’re shaking.”
I told him about the near miss on the road.
“Perhaps you should wear reflectors,” he said.
“The fog had lifted a bit. I could see the car. Don’t you think the driver should have seen me?”
“You don’t believe the driver swerved at you intentionally, do you?”
A chill ran through me. Was that what I was inferring? The driver hadn’t aimed for me, had he . . . or she? That was unlikely, and yet—
“I’m not sure. But—” I paused again when I realized my fingertips were tingling. Aunt Vera said that was the kind of sensation she experienced whenever she truly connected to the spiritual world. If I was psychic like her, what next? Would I hang out a shingle and tell fortunes? No. Never. I was a businesswoman, a reader, a dabbler in the arts. Not a seer. And yet I had this gut feeling about my near run-in with the car. “I jog every morning.”
“On the sand, not the road.”
“You’re right, I’m wrong. It couldn’t have been intentional.” Yet something about the event sent a shimmy of doubt through me. Had someone watched me leave the house and tailed me? Why would anyone want to harm me?
“Perhaps you should rethink your morning exercise routine. Maybe on these thick-as-mush days you should consider doing weights at home.” Rhett rubbed my arms as if to console me. At the same time, the Labrador nosed him in the back of the legs. Rhett lurched into me. He held me firmly for a split second then self-consciously pushed away.
I laughed. “Who’s this?”
“Rook. I just got him. I was missing Rufus something awful.” Rufus, Rhett’s Great Dane, passed away last year. I hadn’t met him, but Rhett sang his praises. “What can I say? I love big dogs.”
Rook nudged Rhett’s hand.
“All right, fella, we’ll get back to our run. In a sec.” Rhett tightened the leash. “Jenna, I guess congratulations are in order. The Grill Fest is back on.”
“It is.” I still felt anxious about the prospect. Natalie had died. Was her death a result of having been a contestant? Would others be targeted? Somewhere in the middle of the night, I’d had another dream pairing Natalie with David and a pot of gold. Was there something to be divined from the dream? If only I were a dream interpreter. Maybe that could be my calling once the fortune-telling talent kicked into high gear.
“What a collection of characters competing,” Rhett continued. “Between Tito and the fireman and that funky beading gal.”
“Flora. And don’t forget the librarian. Have you heard her laugh? She’s so full of life.”
He grinned. “I look forward to taste-testing the competitors’ entries, even though I’ll have to exercise harder next week. Speaking of which, I’m hungry. Want to grab a bite to eat?”
Was he asking me on a date? I delighted at the notion. One night a few weeks ago, Rhett had shown up on my doorstep with a picnic, but that hadn’t been a real date. Like many chefs, he’d had a late-night craving. He’d arrived with spareribs and all the trimmings. A day later we went for ice cream, but that hadn’t been a formal date, either. I was pretty sure I wanted to go out with him, but thanks to the conundrum my husband had left me, I wasn’t ready to do so yet.
“Can’t,” I said like a scaredy-cat. “I’ve got to open the shop.” I jerked my thumb back toward town. “And I’ve got errands, too. There’s so much to do before Natalie’s memorial at noon.” Was I running away from life? I didn’t want to. Not forever. I had to make myself emotionally available. Soon. “Are you going?”
“I’ll be there. I think the whole town will. Everyone loved Natalie.”
Not everyone.
Chapter 10
AT 9:15 A.M., I exited the stockroom and surveyed the shop. Dozens of customers were browsing the cookbook shelves, but none appeared ready to buy. Bailey was kneeling beside a pair of munchkins in the children’s section, pointing out the finer points of cake-pop decorating sets. They gawked at her as if she were the wisest person on earth. She was. Thanks to a couple of recent baking lessons from Katie, Bailey had taken up cake-pop art. Her latest batch, in honor of the beginning of the school season, were Oreo pops made with kitty cat faces. Tigger the imp lay sound asleep, stretched out on the back of one of the reading chairs. My aunt stood by the gadgets display, chatting up a pair of buyers who were engrossed with the embroidery on some potholders.
“Bailey, do you mind if I leave the shop for a bit?” I said as I exited the stockroom. “I have three errands to run before Natalie’s memorial.”
“Feel free. Your aunt and I can handle the crowd, but”—Bailey snapped her fingers and beckoned me closer—“do me a favor. Stop by The Pelican Brief and check on my mom, would you? She sounded low when I called her this morning.”
“Sure,” I said. The diner was on the way to my first errand, the bank. I needed to withdraw cash. Rusty’s Repair Shop was one of the few businesses in town that demanded honest-to-goodness greenbacks. No plastic. No ifs, ands, or buts. I certainly preferred when customers used cash at The Cookbook Nook and the café, but I wouldn’t demand that they did. However, I understood the practice. The steep fees charged by credit card companies for services rendered could put small independent businesses in dire straits.
A short while later, I rolled out my mother’s retro bicycle, which I now stowed in the stockroom—errands around town were more easily handled using the bike—and I pedaled to The Pelican Brief. I parked the bike in a rack on the sidewalk and secured it with a lock. As I entered the restaurant, Lola exited her office. She didn’t look glum; in fact, she looked buoyant. Her face glimmered with subtly glittered rouge. Her large eyes were outlined in silver to match her hair and snug outfit. She carried a fashionable leather briefcase. She saw me and hurried over.
“Sweet Jenna.” She grasped one of my hands and bussed my cheek. “What a bright spot you are in my morning.”
“You look great,” I said, meaning it.
She winked. “Fake it and you own it, as some famous actress used to say. Bette Davis, I think. Or maybe it was Mae West. I’m not sure.”
“Where are you off to?”
“To see ZZ. She wants to discuss the finer points of my case.”
“I thought she wasn’t your lawyer.”
“She’s not. But she likes to have her say. Friends: Can’t live with ’em; can’t fire ’em.” Lola chuckled. “She wants to discuss what happens if I’m arrested.”
I squeezed her hand. “You’re not going to be arrested. Chief Pritchett has nothing on you.”
“One mustn’t rely on what should be. Just like in a restaurant, preparation is everything. Seeing the pitfalls before they happen is vital.” She pulled free and let rip with a seal’s bark of a laugh. Bailey laughed with the same gusto as her mother. “Ooh, that chef of mine. He started this whole thing. If he hadn’t left me for Natalie . . . I don’t miss him. Not a whit. Yes, he was gifted with fish dishes; however, I found a superb new chef. Did you meet her the other day when we convened in the kitchen? She’s a sprite. Not good with fish but fresh out of cooking school and so daring with spices. She’ll give that Katie of yours a run for her money.” Lola glanced at her watch. “Must hurry off. Tell my daughter to lighten up.” She shook a finger. “Don’t roll your eyes.”
Had I? Of course I had.
“And don’t try to tell me otherwise. I know she sent you to do reconnaissance. Don’t worry. I’m coping. I didn’t binge shop.” Lola leaned closer. “Between you and me, I think Bailey could use a cup of coffee. It might take the edge off. Or maybe she could use a little you-know-what.”
“What?” I said, then understood. A rush of heat warmed my cheeks.
&n
bsp; Lola laughed again, then blew a kiss and dashed from the restaurant.
I made an about-face and started to head out when Keller Carmichael, a rangy young man who supplied ice cream to many of the restaurants around town—ice cream that he actually kept cold on the back of his bicycle by pedaling fast enough to energize a freezer—trudged in with a vat of ice cream balanced on his shoulder.
Blind to my exit, he nearly sideswiped me.
“Whoa,” I said. Two near collisions in one day, although Keller wasn’t one-tenth the weight of the car that had tried to run me off the road, made my heart skip a beat.
Keller swung around and caught sight of me. One-handed, he whipped off his cap and swooped a thatch of brown hair off his face. “Hey hey, Jenna. Sorry. Making a delivery.” Keller rarely used a formal miss or mister when addressing anyone. His mother, the owner of the Taste of Heaven Ice Cream Parlor, a sit-down dessert shop up the street, acted appalled, but I knew she wasn’t. She adored her entrepreneurial-though-quirky son, and why shouldn’t she? He was as cute as all get-out with his quick, toothy smile. “How’s that chef of yours?” Keller asked.
“Fine,” I said, wondering why so many people were mentioning Katie today.
“I hear she’s my competition in the chilled food category.”
Katie made delicious ice cream.
“Only at the café,” I said. “She’s not about to pedal around town, like you.” I had to admit that I wasn’t completely sure about that. Recently I had learned that Katie liked to parasail and Jet Ski. She didn’t look the type, but what did I know? I didn’t look like I would rappel off steep mountains, and yet I had done exactly that during a wilderness survival trip I’d taken with my brother during high school.
“Katie’s missing out,” Keller said. “You get to see all sorts of things biking everywhere around town.” He grinned. “Say, someone I know . . .” He scratched his head in an odd way, right hand to left ear. “Can’t remember who. Anyway, whoever it was said you were investigating the murder of Mrs. Mumford.”
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