A Real Pickle

by Jessica Beck

  The First Time Ever Published!

  The Sixth Classic Diner Mystery

  From New York Times Bestselling Author

  Jessica Beck

  A REAL PICKLE

  Other Books by Jessica Beck

  The Donut Shop Mysteries

  Glazed Murder

  Fatally Frosted

  Sinister Sprinkles

  Evil Éclairs

  Tragic Toppings

  Killer Crullers

  Drop Dead Chocolate

  Powdered Peril

  Illegally Iced

  Deadly Donuts

  The Classic Diner Mysteries

  A Chili Death

  A Deadly Beef

  A Killer Cake

  A Baked Ham

  A Bad Egg

  A Real Pickle

  The Ghost Cat Cozy Mysteries

  Ghost Cat: Midnight Paws

  Ghost Cat 2: Bid for Midnight

  Jessica Beck is the New York Times Bestselling Author of the Donut Shop Mysteries, the Classic Diner Mystery Series, and the Ghost Cat Cozy Mysteries.

  To my daughter, Emily

  A Real Pickle by Jessica Beck; Copyright © 2013

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. 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.

  Recipes included in this book are to be recreated at the reader’s own risk. The author is not responsible for any damage, medical or otherwise, created as a result of reproducing these recipes. It is the responsibility of the reader to ensure that none of the ingredients are detrimental to their health, and the author will not be held liable in any way for any problems that might arise from following the included recipes.

  Chapter 1

  If you had asked me before it happened, I would have said that it was impossible to murder a dead man, but that’s exactly what happened inside The Charming Moose late one afternoon in October. There was really no other way to look at it; we were in a real pickle when Curtis Trane dropped dead in our diner after taking a bite of one of the pancakes my mother was so famous for. Usually Jasper Fork, North Carolina, wasn’t known for its high homicide rate, so naturally my thoughts didn’t immediately go to murder when I saw Curtis slumped over in his booth. The pickle fortune heir was dying and had been for several months; that much everyone who saw him knew. His chauffeur, butler, and best friend, Jeffrey, had told us the first time we’d met Curtis that he wasn’t long for this world, and his employer was determined to get every last bit of life out of it that he could. Spending his fortune as his life wasted away was one of the last joys left him, and he was taking full advantage of it. The small toy pickles he left everywhere were a testament to his family’s wealth, but his smiles despite the pain said more about who the man himself was.

  And now he was gone.

  I hurried toward the booth when I first spotted Curtis slumped over. A minute before, a stranger had stumbled into his booth, said his excuses, and then left the diner. I didn’t give it another thought, and it wasn’t until I looked back at Curtis that I saw that he was in obvious trouble. There were a handful of folks in the diner, and I was thrilled to see Laney Jones enjoying some bacon and eggs before she started her shift as a pediatrics nurse. “Laney, help me,” I said urgently.

  Her smile faded when she saw Curtis. That woman couldn’t have weighed more than ninety pounds soaking wet, but she looked as though she could run through walls as she sped to my friend’s side in her Snoopy scrubs. As she checked for a pulse, I turned to everyone else at the diner. They were all starting to stand up and move toward Curtis’s table, but I couldn’t let them get in her way. “Please, would everyone stay where you are and give Laney some room to work?”

  There were a few nods from my customers, and everyone did as I asked as they sat back in their chairs. My mother came out of the kitchen to see what was going on, and Ellen Hightower, our breakfast and lunch server, pulled her off to one side and quickly caught her up to date. I was glad that she did, because I had my hands full at the moment. I looked around at my seated customers and realized that their breakfast meals were all but forgotten as they watched Laney work on Curtis.

  “Somebody needs to call 911,” Laney told me after she’d gently pulled him to the floor and was administering CPR. “I’m going to need some help here.”

  “I’ve got it,” Reverend Mercer said. The pastor’s wife was out of town yet again, which explained his presence in our diner that morning. Miriam, his wife, didn’t allow him to eat at The Charming Moose, but that never kept the good reverend from visiting us whenever she was gone.

  As Laney worked, I asked her, “How’s he doing?”

  She didn’t say a word as she continued her efforts to revive him, but she did glance at me for a split second, and from the expression on her face, I knew that it wasn’t good.

  An ambulance drove up with lights flashing and siren wailing, and as they rushed into the diner, I saw Jeffrey close on their heels. I had to stop him before he got to his boss.

  “What happened?” the chauffeur asked as I tried to restrain him. “Let me go, Victoria. Can’t you see that he needs me?”

  I didn’t move, though. “Jeffrey, what he needs right now, he’s getting. You have to let them work if they’re going to have any chance at all of helping him.”

  “This is all too soon,” Jeffrey said as he slumped against me. Tears were tracking down his cheeks as he spoke. “I thought he had at least another good month left in him.”

  “We never know when these things are going to happen,” I said, doing my best to ease his anguish.

  “Somehow he knew,” Jeffrey said.

  The emergency rescue crew loaded Curtis gently onto the stretcher and started to wheel him out of the diner.

  “I’m going with you,” Jeffrey demanded.

  “Are you family?” one of the EMTs asked him.

  “I’m the closest person in the world to him,” Jeffrey said. “That should count for something.”

  The EMT looked at me with a question in his glance, and I nodded. If Curtis managed to come back from this, I knew that there was no one that he’d rather see than Jeffrey. I was certain that their relationship had started off as employer and employee, but Curtis had admitted to me once that Jeffrey was the closest thing he had ever had to a real son.

  “Let’s go,” Laney said, and Jeffrey was right on her heels.

  As the ambulance pulled away, I was surprised to see Sheriff Croft drive up and park hurriedly in front of the café.

  “What’s going on, Sheriff?” I asked.

  “I need to secure the scene before anyone touches anything, Victoria,” he said officiously.

  The very idea that it might not have been natural causes shocked me to my core. “You can’t be serious, Sheriff. The man was dying.”

  “It’s my job to make sure that no one tried to help him along,” he said. As Karen Morgan, our Clerk of Court, got up to pay her bill, the sheriff added, “If everyone will please stay where they are seated, I’ll get around to you in a few minutes.”

  Karen clearly wasn’t very happy about that. “Edgar Croft, I have an important department to run at city hall.”

  “I know that, Karen, but you’re going to have to do things my way right now.”

  She frowned, but I was glad to see that she took her seat again. The faster the sheriff could do what he had to do, th
e sooner I’d be able to send my customers on their way. A sudden thought occurred to me. Why would that be a good thing for me? There were a dozen diners in The Charming Moose at the moment, but once they were free to go wherever they wanted to, the stories of Curtis’s demise would spread through the town like a firestorm, and I would have to find a way to defend my diner’s reputation yet again. When I’d taken the place over after my dad’s brief time at the helm, I never dreamed the type of problems I’d find myself in the middle of. Had my grandfather, Moose, had to deal with these kinds of situations when he’d run the place for all those years? Somehow I doubted it.

  One of the sheriff’s deputies came in with a video camera, and a digital camera as well. “Get all the shots you need,” Sheriff Croft said as he stepped away.

  It was a good time to corner the sheriff. “Is all of this really necessary?”

  “Victoria, a man died here this morning,” Croft said as he watched his deputy work.

  “Don’t you think I know that?” I said in an aggravated whisper. “He was more than just a customer, Sheriff. Curtis Trane was my friend.”

  The sheriff finally looked at me, and he nodded sadly as he said, “I’m sorry for your loss, but I have to follow strict procedure here.”

  “He had cancer,” I explained. “According to his chauffeur, he should have been dead a year ago.”

  “I understand all of that, but I still have to finish up here. I’ll make it as quick and as painless as I can, but the work needs to be done.”

  I knew better than to buck the sheriff while he was performing his official duties, so I saved my breath. “Is there anything that I can do to help?” I asked.

  “You can stand outside and turn away anybody who wants to come in,” he said.

  “How’s that going to look?” I asked.

  “Not good, but it’s going to be better than if one of my people does it,” he said tersely.

  The man had a point at that.

  I walked outside, hoping beyond hope that nobody would want breakfast for the next half hour, but of course, that didn’t happen.

  As I started to tell the eighth customer why he they couldn’t come in, I saw a familiar pickup truck drive up. It stopped quickly in front of the diner, and my grandfather got out, looking mad enough to spit nails. Great. This was just one more complication that I didn’t need on what had started out to be a perfectly lovely morning in October.

  There was no chance of me salvaging the day now. I’d miss Curtis terribly even though I’d known since we’d first met that he was going to die soon, but I couldn’t let myself dwell on the loss at the moment. I had to deal with my grandfather and then the sheriff. Later I’d find time to mourn for my friend appropriately, but for now, I’d have to do my best to save the business that my grandfather had started and that I hoped to carry on.

  “What happened?” Moose asked as he peered into the diner. “And more importantly, what are you doing out here instead of in there?” The last comment was flavored with a gesture toward the diner. That was Moose, never afraid of making his point with his hands.

  “Curtis Trane died in one of our booths,” I said, wondering how many times I’d have to say that in the next few hours, even days.

  “Then you should be in there,” Moose said, his voice a little calmer now.

  “The sheriff has closed us down for now, Moose. He thought it might be easier for our customers to hear it from me instead of one of his people, and I agreed with him wholeheartedly.”

  “Why is he closing us down? It was natural causes, wasn’t it?”

  “I don’t see how it could have been anything else, but the sheriff has his heart set on doing his job.”

  “We’ll just see about that,” my grandfather said heatedly as he started to walk past me.

  I put a hand on his chest. “Hold your horses.”

  “Victoria, I need to be in there right now.”

  “Moose, what you really need to do is to take a deep breath and let it out slowly. We both know that if you go in there blustering like a madman, you’re just going to make things worse.”

  He feigned surprise by my description. “I’ll have you know that I’ve never blustered in my life, young lady.”

  I tried not to laugh, honestly I did, but the grimness in the air must have done something to me. At first I cracked a small smile, but soon enough, it was a full-blown grin. “Seriously? Are you going to really try to convince me of that? I’ve known you my entire life, you know.”

  “I don’t bluster,” he repeated, but then his voice softened as he added, “Maybe I raise my voice on occasion, but it’s just to be heard.”

  It was still a downright lie, but I decided to let it slide. “If we stay out of his way, it will be over soon enough and life can get back to normal for us.”

  “Face it, Victoria, life has never been all that normal for us, even on our best days.”

  “I’ll grant you that,” I said as I peeked inside. The photographer had wrapped up, and the sheriff was moving quickly from table to table, taking the names down of our customers. “Maybe we should go inside now after all.”

  “I’m one step ahead of you,” Moose said as he hurried past me. The sheriff finished taking down every name, and as he closed his notebook, he announced, “I have one question for each of you, and then you’re all free to go. Did anyone see anything unusual at the diner this morning?”

  Most folks shook their heads, but Francie Humphries, the woman who owned the only bakery in town, spoke up. “Do you mean besides the man who tripped on a chair and nearly landed in that poor man’s lap a minute before he died?”

  “I saw that, too,” I said. “Did you get a good look at his face, Francie? I couldn’t see it behind that hooded sweatshirt he was wearing.”

  “I’ll ask the questions here, if you don’t mind,” the sheriff told me, and then he turned to Francie. “Can you describe him?”

  “I was in the same position that Victoria was in; I only saw him from behind, and I didn’t give him more than a moment’s thought. I couldn’t even guess about how old he was or what he looked like. Like I said, it all happened so fast that I barely knew what was happening.”

  “Did anyone else see this incident?” the sheriff asked.

  The Reverend Mercer said haltingly, “I don’t mean to contradict you, Francie, but I saw it, too, and I was certain that it was a woman.”

  “It was a man, Father,” she said, and then she added a little uncertainly, “At least I think it was a man. Maybe. I’m not sure.”

  I shook my head as I realized that I hadn’t been able to tell, either. So, either a man or a woman had stumbled into Curtis’s booth just before he’d died. Since I doubted that it had scared him and given him a heart attack, I wasn’t at all sure what good the information would do the sheriff, at any rate.

  Sheriff Croft nodded, jotted a few lines into his book, and then he asked, “Is there anything else anyone wants to add?”

  When no one else spoke up, the sheriff closed his notebook once more. “Okay. You’re all free to go. Thank you for your cooperation.”

  Now it was my diners’ turn to ask questions. “Who was that man in the booth?”

  “Was he really murdered?” someone else asked.

  “I thought he looked kind of sickly when he walked in,” another diner said.

  “Folks, I don’t have any answers for you right now. I’m just collecting information.”

  That seemed to satisfy no one, and as the sheriff started to leave, I asked, “Can we resume business now, Sheriff Croft?”

  “I don’t see why not,” he said. “I’ve got samples of his food and drink, and I’ve had the scene thoroughly photographed and filmed. I’m not sure that I’d use that booth until you can give it a proper scrubbing, but other than that, carry on.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I decided that we’d clean it indeed, but not with everyone watching us. I blocked the booth with a pair of chairs, and then I turned to our cu
stomers. “Folks, listen up. I’m sorry about what happened and that you had to be here to witness it. Your meals this morning are on the house, but we’re going to have to close the place for an hour now so we can get things ready for lunch. I hope you all have a great day, and come back to The Charming Moose again soon. Thanks again.”

  As they filed out, each and every one of them glancing toward the booth where Curtis had died, I did my best to smile at them all, despite the sadness in my heart. After the front door was locked tight and the OPEN sign flipped to CLOSED, I turned to Moose. “I’m willing to bet that you think I was too extravagant just now giving everyone a free meal, don’t you?”

  “On the contrary, it was exactly the right thing to do,” Moose said. “I heartily approve. It won’t keep folks from talking about the diner and what happened here, but it might give us a little positive publicity, which couldn’t be a bad thing right now.”

  Mom came out of the kitchen with a bucket, a scrub brush, and a rag.

  “I’ll take that, Mom,” I said as I reached for her little cleaning kit.

  “Nonsense. I don’t mind doing it,” she said.

  “I know, but I’m sure that you’ve got your hands full in the kitchen right now,” I insisted. I didn’t want my mother to have to deal with that booth, not while I was ready and able to handle it myself.

  “I’ll do it,” Moose said. “This place was mine from the start. That makes it my responsibility.”

  I thought about fighting him over it since I was the one who ran The Charming Moose now, but did I really want to win that particular argument? “Thanks,” I said. “You win.”

  He raised one eyebrow as he looked at me. “Victoria, you gave up surprisingly easy just then.”

  “What can I say?” I asked with a grin. “Growing up, I was always taught to respect my elders.”