A Berry Horrible Holiday

by A. R. Winters

  “Yep,” Zoey said. “And then there’s the money.”

  “Money?”

  “Fifty-four thousand.”

  My jaw fell open. “That would be a lot of money, but what about it?”

  The screens filled with layered windows of text messages. I did a quick scan through them. “Dan stole their wedding and honeymoon fund.” I shook my head. “I’m starting to think we should have helped Rita and her dad kill him.”

  “Yep,” Zoey said.

  “Is there anything else? Anything about the newlyweds or Mama Hendrix?”

  They ran me through everything they’d managed to dig up. Mama Hendrix’s background was well laid out through social media, and the love affair of the newlyweds practically had its own YouTube documentary chronicling the whole thing. But none of it was helpful with regard to Dougie Dan’s death.

  “And water? Are there any bodies of water here on the property?” I asked.

  “None.” Zoey brought up satellite images of the orchard and surrounding land so that I could see for myself.

  “That means he probably drowned in a bathtub.”

  “But a bathtub from where?” Zoey asked.

  All I could do was shake my head. I didn’t have a clue. But there was one thing I knew. “Rita and/or Michael did it. One or both of them killed Dougie Dan.”

  Now we had to prove it.

  Chapter 17

  I needed time to think. I got up and headed for the tent’s open flap. Zoey came with me. We left behind us the buzz of people throwing themselves deeper down the rabbit hole of whodunnit. Given that it was a question that involved real life, real flesh, and real blood—versus simulated hypotheticals—I suspected it would become a life-altering experience for some of them. I just hoped it wasn’t in the form of nightmares.

  “Who do you think did it?” I asked Zoey. “Rita, her dad, or both of them?” We stepped through into the open air. A shift of movement seen from the corner of my eye had me turning my attention away from Zoey to see what it was. Or I should say, who it was.

  Lucas was fixing the tent—again. I wasn’t sure it had a problem anyone else could see but him. I supposed he was simply talented that way, and super incredibly creepy and nosy.

  I did a quick glance around. Rita was nowhere in sight.

  “Hi, Lucas,” I ventured, taking a step forward. While I might have taken a step toward him, it didn’t actually get me any closer. He stood up and focused on his tools as he took a casual step away. It was like we were magnets repelling each other, and he was completely oblivious to my existence. His movement was that natural, that inconspicuous, and I realized how it was that he managed to be in so many places without drawing any attention to him. He was smooth.

  “Lucas,” I said, speeding up my gait. He had his back to me, strolling away, but I was determined. “Lucas,” I called again, this time breaking into a jog to catch up.

  His cell phone materialized from nowhere. He put it to his ear and started talking.

  I stopped in my tracks, scowling. Like I said, the man was smooth. I doubted he’d gotten a phone call. I hadn’t heard any kind of a ringtone. Of course, it could have vibrated from where it had been tucked away in his front pocket. There was no way for me to know for sure, but him pulling it out successfully shut me up and got me to leave him alone.

  He’d won this battle.

  “I think Rita did it,” I whispered to Zoey, “but I really hope I’m wrong.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want it to be him. The guy is ticking me off.”

  “So you want him to go to prison for the rest of his life because he annoyed you?”

  I thought a moment. “Yeah, works for me.” I suspected Zoey was rubbing off on me.

  A clatter of pans falling reached our ears. The sound was muted, having made its way all the way out of the kitchen and over the yard to where we stood.

  “Think someone’s getting killed?” Zoey asked, though she didn’t sound concerned.

  A litany of very unladylike curse words filtered out into the yard. The voice was very familiar, very frustrated, and rather senior in nature.

  I wrinkled my nose. “Mmm, I doubt it, but I do think Mama Hendrix might be ready to kill someone.”

  Zoey scowled, put her hand on her belly and flashed the door leading into the kitchen a worried glance. “We need her alive.”

  “Why?” I mean, come on. There’s a difference between need and want. Mama Hendrix was a nice lady and all—and I didn’t want anything bad to happen to her—but my world wouldn’t come crashing down around me if it did.

  “She’s a better cook than you.”

  It was my turn to scowl. But then I sighed. She was right. A loss of Mama Hendrix’s culinary genius would be a tragedy. The world’s possible joy would be lesser for it.

  “I’d better get in there, see if I can help,” I said.

  “Wait.” Zoey tapped my arm with the back of her hand before strolling off across the yard toward the corner of the house. The long, winding driveway came into view. Only spots of it had been visible from where we had stood a moment ago.

  “What?”

  “What for it… There.” She pointed.

  Michael came into view. He was meandering on foot up the drive. His gait was slow and plodding, and he stared at his feet rather than at the road in front of him, but he didn't weave or stagger.

  “He’s sobered up,” Zoey said.

  I nodded in silent agreement.

  There was a fifty-fifty chance we were looking at a cold-blooded murderer. Dougie Dan had met his death at Michael’s or Rita’s hands. With him back, our odds that there was a killer on the premises had just jumped to one hundred percent.

  Of course, that was assuming that only one of them had done the deed. I suspected murder loved company.

  “I’d better get inside with Mama Hendrix,” I said, then I glanced in the direction of Michael again. He could be dangerous, and there was a chance he’d hold a grudge about what Zoey had done to his car. “Gonna keep eyes on him?”

  “Yep, either mine or somebody else’s.”

  I headed for the kitchen. I climbed the wide stairs and crossed the deep porch to the kitchen’s outer door. Things were quiet, but Mama Hendrix’s murmuring of complaints reached my ears as soon as I pulled open the heavy, weatherized screen door.

  She twirled around from where she’d been bent double with her head in the refrigerator. I was glad it hadn’t been the oven.

  Her shoulders sagged, and relief washed over her expression. “Have you come to help? Where you been? There’s twenty onions to chop, potatoes to peel, and bread dough that’s got to get beat down. And look at all those apples that need peeling!”

  “Huh…” I didn’t know what to say. Thankfully, I didn’t have to say anything.

  This time Mama Hendrix’s whole body sagged. “Listen to me carrying on, talking to you like you’re not a guest. I’m sorry.”

  Wisps of gray hair haloed her face. She looked like the same person we’d met yesterday, but the woman inside had seemed to have aged ten years. There was a frayed tiredness about her that had been completely absent a scant twenty-four hours ago.

  I decided the best tactic was to change the subject. If she had happier thoughts to focus on, maybe she’d feel better. I figured it couldn’t hurt.

  “I’m awfully excited to learn some of your cooking tips and tricks,” I said.

  Mama Hendrix laughed. Her shoulders lifted, her back straightened a smidge, and her plump cheeks went round from her smile. “I was hoping to do the same. Every time I get a chef through here, I try to learn something new. I’ve had French masters and even a bona fide Cajun gumbo artist.” She gave me a wink. “But I bet there’s stuff you can teach me that they never thought of. That’s always the way it goes.”

  Let’s see. I could show her how to catch her kitchen on fire, how to ruin pasta eight different ways, and how to burn food in a slow cooker. Oh, it can be done!
r />   I didn’t think any of that would be helpful to her, yet my ego wouldn’t allow me to admit just how bad a cook I was.

  My gaze latched onto her stove. “Actually, I’m the total novice here.” Not a lie. Not at all. “That stove of yours is something else! I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Oh,” she said, gazing with open fondness at the glossy blue Sherman tank of an oven. “Betsy’s been good to me. Always there. Always at the ready. Never faltered once in all the years I’ve had her.”

  With a deep breath, she seemed to shake off her reverie. Her eyes darted around the kitchen, landing on all the piles of fresh foods. “All right then! We best get to it! You start on peeling the potatoes, if you would. I’ve got a big bowl of water there with a lump of coal to keep ‘em from turning.”

  I took a step toward the potatoes but stopped. “Coal?”

  “Keeps the potatoes from turning brown, dear. Now get to it. Chop-chop.” She laughed. “Or rather peel-peel.”

  I followed orders and got to work. It wasn’t even that long until dinner time. Well, if you wanted to call three or so hours not that long. But looking at the mountain of food around us needing prepped and then cooked, the amount of time left before dinner felt like nothing at all.

  As I sat at the long table peeling potato after potato, Mama Hendrix peeled a pile of apples, cut them, then added a heap of blueberries. Then came an avalanche of sugar. She washed her hands then shoved them deep into the cacophony of flavors and started mashing it all together with tight hand squeezes.

  I’d never thought a great big lumpy mess could be so beautiful, but it was. And the aroma! I sighed out loud when she threw in a heavy dash of cinnamon, followed by nutmeg and a dash of ground cloves. Then came orange zest.

  My mouth was watering so much I had to catch myself to keep from drooling.

  Mama Hendrix then got some flour and added water and stirred it into a paste. That was it. Just water. She then moved the sticky glob onto her smooth work surface, floured it and rolled it out. Next came a knife. She dragged its tip with a steady and swift hand through the dough, shaping it into a rectangle.

  “Are you making flatbread?” I asked. I couldn’t figure out what she was planning to do with just flour and water.

  She gave me an odd look, kinda like one you might give a surgeon who asks what a scalpel is. “Puff pastry dough.”

  “Oh,” I said and nodded like I had a clue.

  She layered on cold, hard butter next, then folded the rectangle into thirds, like you would a letter you’re getting ready to shove in an envelope. Then she applied the rolling pressure of her rolling pin again, compressing and stretching the dough back to its original size. Then more folding and more rolling.

  Watching her work was mesmerizing, but I made my brain click back into gear. There was a murder to solve. Doug had drowned. I needed to figure out where.

  “Mama Hendrix, are there any bodies of water on your property?”

  “Bodies of water?”

  “Yeah, like a pond.”

  She chuckled. “I wish. Water features are like catnip to tourists. I’d splash pictures of the thing on every advertisement I had made.”

  She put the newly folded and refolded puff pastry into the refrigerator. “Now to chill, get that butter hardened back up.”

  She turned her attention away from the fridge to focus on me. Her expression morphed into another odd look. Her gaze went from my eyes to my busy hands to the extremely slowly shrinking stack of potatoes. “How’s it going?” she asked, her voice up half an octave from its usual. She sounded stressed.

  She’d been a whirlwind, getting things done, while I’d been moving at a crawl by comparison. I did my best to cover my ineptitude with a bright smile and an enthusiastic, “Good!”

  “Right, right.” She nodded her head absentmindedly, clearly not convinced. “Okay, change of plans! I was going for potato gnocchi, but we can do a simple potato mash instead.”

  From there, the whole menu morphed one dish at a time into simpler and simpler options. Pecan crusted pork medallions with red wine sauce became bacon wrapped pork tenderloin with a mustard and white wine sauce. An assortment of roasted fall vegetables became a huge tossed salad dressed with Mama Hendrix’s own concoction of avocado oil, rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, and a blend of dried herbs and spices. She topped the whole thing with a generous sprinkle of basil-mint salt she’d made herself.

  Interspersed with the prep of all the savory dishes, she’d managed to finish rolling-folding-rolling the puff pastry and had made lemon curd tarts topped with the blueberry and apples she’d sugared a little while earlier. Then, of all things to do, she crumbled goat cheese atop each perfect morsel.

  I popped one in my mouth, then instantly hated all the rest of my life that had come before—because all those many, many days had failed to include the best dessert I’d ever tasted.

  I swiped a pleasure tear from the corner of my eye.

  “Maybe I can get Sandra back in tomorrow,” Mama Hendrix said, worry on her face. She was looking at the many flawless dishes she’d prepared with disappointment.

  I’d failed her as a sous chef. That was very, very clear, though she was too nice to outright say so.

  Mama Hendrix’s frown deepened the longer she looked at the food. “One day’s long enough for the girl to get over Doug, right?”

  Ouch. Yep, I’d definitely failed her.

  Chapter 18

  “Tim… Tim!” Mama Hendrix called across the yard to Tim’s retreating back. She was standing outside the kitchen on the stairs. Her arms were loaded to overflowing with dishes full of food.

  I stepped past her with only one dish in each hand. I did not have her food-bearing confidence, and no way was I going to take a header with half of dinner’s yummies on me.

  Tim looked to be heading in the direction of the B&B’s small gravel parking lot. His shoulders were hunched and his head was down, but he turned around at the sound of Mama Hendrix’s voice.

  “Wash your hands and then get some plates out for dinner,” Mama Hendrix hollered.

  “I was just leaving,” he called back, hooking his thumb to point behind him to where I assumed his car was waiting.

  “Wash ‘em good,” Mama Hendrix called back. “And get a step on.”

  I saw Tim’s hesitation as he considered disregarding Mama Hendrix’s instructions, but then he put one heavily booted foot in front of the other and headed back across the yard. “Yes, ma’am,” he said when he got close enough that he didn’t have to yell it.

  He headed up the stairs and into the kitchen. I plopped my two dishes of food on the long, outside table and then hurried back inside after him. That left Mama Hendrix on her own to fuss with the placement of everything.

  Tim was at the sink scrubbing his hands by the time I pushed my way in through the door out of the crisp fall air and into the cozy kitchen. A constant warmth radiated from the oven to gently fill the entire room.

  He flashed me a quick glance out of the corner of his eye but didn’t turn to fully look at me. I got the impression he wanted nothing more than for me to leave him alone.

  That wasn’t going to happen.

  “Hi, Tim.”

  He didn’t answer back. Instead, he scrubbed at his hands harder.

  “Hey, sorry again about what happened in the tent. You doing okay?”

  “Yup.”

  Silence followed as I waited for him to say more, but nothing was coming.

  I did a slow stroll over to the counter near him and wrapped my arms around a huge wooden bowl of freshly baked yeast rolls. I managed to snag the newly mixed spread of honey-butter in the palm of one hand.

  “I saw you were on your way out…” Silly me. I didn’t phrase it as a question, so I got no response. “Did you have someplace you needed to be?”

  “My time, my business,” he said, drying his hands on a tea towel adorned with apple and spice.

  “It’s just that Mama Hendri
x was worried about Sandra. I thought maybe you might have plans to go see her.”

  The man growled. He literally growled.

  Bullseye.

  “You really like her, don’t you?” I pushed. If he attacked me, I figured—I hoped—someone would be able to run to my rescue before he’d done me in.

  “What’s all this to you?” he asked. “You some kind of sicko?”

  He hadn’t answered my question about whether or not he had plans to go see Sandra. I didn’t care that much about the sicko question. I had a small stampede of geeks ready to worship the ground I walked on if I let them, and they wanted to do it for the same reason he was insinuating I wasn’t right in the head.

  Part of me wagered that none of us were right in the head. I supposed it was all just a matter of degrees. As for me, I’d never strung a man upside down with his head buried in an apple orchard. So however messed up I was, I was at least a step ahead of somebody here.

  “You’re sweet on Sandra,” I said. “You either talk to me about it, or I’ll head straight to the sheriff—” that monstrously beautiful woman “—and tell her you had reason and want to kill Doug.”

  His face didn’t change color. It didn’t flush red and it didn’t pale, but his eyes did darken as they narrowed. I suddenly felt like a rabbit about to be chased to my death. I felt the need to zig and zag to evade him, but I stood my ground instead.

  “Tell me,” I urged at his continued silence.

  “I like her, but I didn’t kill him. Not to get her. Not for any reason.”

  “Then talk to me. Tell me what you do know.”

  “I don’t know anything! I didn’t know the guy.”

  I blew out a breath of frustration. “Doug got killed and left in the orchard. The orchard was where he worked. It’s also where you work. You’ve got to know something.”

  His eyes searched the room as he thought with his lips pressed tight into a thin line. I could tell he was trying to think of something, yet despite that, no words left his mouth.

  “Can you tell us where he lived?” I asked, both desperate and exasperated.