Quiche of Death

by Mary Lee Ashford

  There’s nothing like a time crunch to up your productivity and I have to say by the time it came to leave for lunch with Greer, I’d probably accomplished more than I had in the past two days.

  I’d written up three of the narratives to go with Arbor family recipes, saved my work to review later, and sent off a couple of email responses to potential clients.

  “I’ll be back,” I called to Dixie, latching the door on Frenchie’s carrier and grabbing my bag. “Call or text me if you need anything.”

  “Got it,” she answered. “Have fun!”

  * * * *

  Frenchie was almost as excited as I was to be going to lunch at the Good Life Retirement Village. I felt bad that she’d spent so much time in her carrier, but it seemed to be her safe place. Maybe this outing would make up for her forced confinement a little bit.

  I walked her every morning and every night. The morning walk was often brief, but the evening one was longer. I wasn’t sure Ernest was going to get over his kitty funk over losing his morning partner for coffee-and-cuddle time any time soon.

  Parking in the visitor lot, I headed across the way to Greer’s unit. The one-story, brick four-plexes were arranged to provide access to the sidewalks while still maintaining a sense of privacy. Each had a patio out front and most of the residents had decorated them to varying degrees. Some with pots of sedate flowers, others with small statues or flags. One of my favorites was a small hobbit-like garden character placed amid some greenery. Several people were out walking, enjoying the warm fall day.

  Frenchie trotted beside me, looking around, tail wagging. A couple of ladies stopped to pet her and say hello. The little pup was thrilled with the attention.

  When we approached Greer’s unit, I could see she was outside on her patio. She’d filled her flowerpots with hardy, bright yellow mums that matched her coffee cup. She stood as we approached. Her glasses were perched on top of her head, almost lost in her white curls.

  “Well, hello there.” She leaned over and scratched Frenchie’s topknot. “What a sweet girl you are.”

  “Greer, meet Frenchie.” I held out my hand toward my friend. “Frenchie, this is Greer.”

  The little dog pranced like she knew what I was saying, then sat on her haunches and held out her paw.

  Greer shook it. “Nice to meet you.”

  I was dumbfounded. Who knew?

  “I know you don’t have a lot of time, so I have lunch ready for us.” She opened the door and waved me in.

  The inside of her place was as warm and friendly as Greer herself. The furnishings were comfortable and right-sized for the compact space. I wondered sometimes if she didn’t miss her big house, but she claimed she didn’t. But that was Greer. Get on with it. Move along. No regrets.

  I followed her into the kitchen. “You didn’t need to go to all this trouble.”

  “I didn’t know you were getting a dog,” she commented as she got the chicken salad out of the refrigerator and placed it on the counter.

  “I wasn’t.”

  Croissants had already been cut and placed on a plate and in a matter of minutes she had them filled and ready.

  “Frenchie belonged to Colette,” I explained. “The girl that was killed at Arbor House.”

  “Oh, my word.” Greer stopped in her preparations. “Couldn’t her family take the poor thing?”

  “That’s just it.” I took a sip of the iced tea Greer handed me. “They can’t find her family.”

  “Come here, little dog.” Greer opened the fridge and took out some plain cooked chicken. She put it in a small dish and set it on the floor for Frenchie. “I had more than I needed for our chicken salad.”

  I’d only been giving her the fancy food that Theo had sent with her. I wasn’t sure where to buy it so I’d hoped it would hold out for the length of her stay with me. But she seemed perfectly satisfied with Greer’s plain cooked chicken. Again, who knew?

  “Are you sure I can’t help with anything?” I asked.

  “No, you can’t.” She pointed to a chair. “Sit.”

  She washed her hands and joined me at the small dining table. “Okay, let’s hear it. Who is this girl that was killed?”

  “Her name was Colette, or we think it was. She was Theo, the grandson’s fiancée,” I explained. “They’d only arrived the night before.”

  “Hmm.” Greer took a bite of the chicken salad sandwich. “This is good, if I do say so myself.”

  “It is,” I agreed.

  “So, you found her, huh?” She was back to Colette. “And what do you mean, you think that was her name.”

  “They can’t find any relatives. The emergency contacts she had on file at the place she worked were phony. Sheriff Terry says fake names, fake numbers, fake addresses.”

  “That’s odd,” Greer mused. “Do you think her name was fake as well?”

  “It sounds like they think it could be. They’re not finding any history older than the past year.”

  “What about the Arbor people?” she asked. “Tell me about them.”

  I gave her a brief rundown on Marta, the siblings, their spouses, and Theo.

  “He’s the only grandchild?”

  “That’s right and doted on by Grandma, from what I could tell.”

  “I thought I’d have grandchildren.” Greer sighed and looked out the window into the distance. “But Spencer is such a self-involved poop, I don’t think he’ll ever get married.”

  “Greer, he’s not.”

  “Thanks for saying that, my dear, but he is. You do your best, but…” She shrugged her narrow shoulders. “I hold out hope that he’ll wake up one day and realize that the world does not revolve around him.”

  I’d not had a good experience with her son. In fact, I’d had a really bad experience where he’d falsely accused me, but I didn’t hold it against him. Still, I couldn’t see how someone as nice as Greer could have a son as impossible as Spencer or Spiff, as everyone in town called him. He didn’t live in St. Ignatius, but he wasn’t that far away and the one thing I did hold against him was that he rarely had time to visit his mother.

  “I blame myself.” She used a fork to nudge some of the chicken salad back into the croissant.

  “It’s not always the parent’s fault.” I stopped to take a drink of my tea.

  “Not completely,” she agreed. “But as a mother you can’t help but wonder where you went wrong.”

  We were quiet for a few minutes.

  “Maybe if Spencer never gets married and never has kids…” She paused, looking at me over the rim of her glass, her eyes dancing. “Maybe you’ll get married and have a bunch of kids and bring them over to see me.”

  “Nothing in the near future.” I laughed.

  “Speaking of which.” She grinned. “How is the handsome Max?”

  “I don’t think we were speaking of him. But he is fine. He took a trip with me to Arbor House to get some photos of the family members.”

  “This cookbook is going to be quite the big deal then, huh?”

  “It is, kind of.” I took a deep breath. “I’m truly proud of the work we’ve done to curate the recipes and work in the family stories. I’m polishing that up and tomorrow Max is to come by the shop and shoot some more photos. This time of particular dishes.”

  “What kinds of things?” Greer folded her hands. “I’ll bet there’s some good recipes.”

  “There are. Dixie went through the family recipe cards that Marta, the mother, had written out through the years. There are quite a few classics—meat loaf, pot roast, and, of course, their signature quiche.”

  “Oh, right.” Greer nodded. “That’s what they’re famous for, isn’t it?”

  “It is.” I nodded. “I think the cookbook has a wider appeal than simply a family keepsake, but I don’t think any of them feel that way.”


  “Well, maybe they don’t want us cooking our own meals.” She refilled our glasses. “They want us buying Arbor family frozen meals.”

  “I guess you’re right. They’ve made quite a success of their family recipes over the years.”

  “They’ve done well,” Greer agreed. “Seems like I read something or saw something about them on TV a while back.”

  “Really?” I stopped with the glass partway to my mouth. “What was it about?”

  “I can’t remember. Maybe something about laying off people. Or maybe something about people getting sick from their food. Maybe some people got salmonella poisoning? Or maybe I’ve got them mixed up with a different company.” She tapped her temple. “With my memory, who knows?”

  There was nothing wrong with Greer’s memory. I’d have to check out a news story involving Arbor Family Foods. It didn’t ring a bell with me, but I’d been so wrapped up in the startup of Sugar and Spice the past year that I’d sort of had tunnel vision.

  “I’ll check that out.”

  “Now let’s get back to this dead girl.” Greer began to gather our empty dishes. “And then Max while we have dessert. I want to hear about how things are going with Max.”

  I filled her in on Colette and shared the most recent development about the necklace. I begged off any Max updates, not because I was being coy but because, despite rumors to the contrary, there wasn’t really anything to tell.

  * * * *

  When I got back to the office, the sheriff was sitting at the counter out front talking with Dixie. I could hear them laughing as I came in the back.

  That made me smile. They’d come a long way from being all prickly with each other over a longtime-passed misunderstanding, to enjoying each other’s company.

  Setting Frenchie’s crate down in my office, I rubbed my arm muscles. Not only was I getting extra steps as a result of my dog-sitting, I was getting a serious workout of my biceps.

  As I walked out front, I noted the sheriff had one of the quilt square cookies in his hand.

  “Those turned out really well.” I pointed to the cookie. “Where are the rest?”

  “I took them to the quilt ladies, but there were a few rejects.” She pulled a plate out from under the counter. “I got too much bright blue on these.”

  “Very tasty rejects, though,” Sheriff Terry added, taking another bite.

  I tried not to stare at his blue lips, but sometimes my sense of humor gets stuck in middle school. And the sight of the very serious sheriff with Cookie Monster blue lips had me trying to hold back a snicker.

  “Disco has already been by, but I saved a few for you.” Dixie pushed the plate toward me.

  “I’m not sure I have room after Greer’s lunch.” I took one anyway.

  “How was Greer?” Dixie asked.

  “Good.” I bit into the cookie, pretty sure my lips were now also blue. “She mentioned some trouble Arbor Foods had a while back. Either labor related or associated with food safety. Do you remember hearing anything on the news?”

  “I do kind of remember a story on the news a while back, now that you mention it.” Terry munched on his cookie, his lips now an even brighter blue. “I don’t think it’s relevant to our murder investigation, though.”

  “No, probably not.” I hunted for a napkin or paper towel to help us both with our cookie-induced lip stains. “I thought it was interesting was all. I didn’t remember seeing it.”

  “Terry was telling me he talked to Max about the girl that may have a connection to Colette.” Dixie handed me a roll of paper towels.

  “Was he able to help you at all?” I tore off a section and scrubbed at my lips and then handed the roll to Terry.

  “Not much.” He took the paper towels but looked confused.

  I pointed to my lips.

  “He said she asked a lot of questions about the Arbor family, but he didn’t share anything with her because he didn’t know that much about the family.” He handed the roll of towels back to me.

  “Max mentioned to me when we were driving back that he thought it was a little strange that she’d picked that area to photograph when there are so many interesting spots around the state, but I guess he didn’t ask her about it.” I wished I’d said something to her when I thought she’d been snooping around upstairs. So much for my undercover work, huh?

  “I’m headed up to the motel in Dewersville this afternoon to see what they’ve got as far as credit card records for her stay.” Terry stood. “If she paid cash, I’m out of luck, but I’m hoping somewhere she used credit and then we’ll have something to go on.”

  “You may want to see if you can get that blue food coloring off your lips before you go.” I handed him back the paper towels. “If you want them to take you seriously, anyway.”

  I headed to my office to finish up some tasks. We’d planned the food photo shoot with Max for the following morning and I wanted to make sure we had the list printed out and that both he and Dixie had copies.

  Frenchie looked up when I entered and then put her head back down. As much as I liked the pooch, this wasn’t really a life for her, either. I wondered if the mystery girl would be a connection to Colette’s family. I also wondered if she would know anything about the threatening note that had been in the coin purse with the necklace.

  * * * *

  I arrived at the office the next morning in plenty of time to get us set up for Max’s photo shoot. Dixie was already on-site and had begun the cooking process.

  I locked the front door and put up a closed sign to discourage interruptions. Mostly to discourage Disco, but also onlookers. We’d learned when Max did a photo shoot that the big front window of the shop attracted viewers, which defeated the purpose of using the area for its great lighting.

  Max arrived shortly and began setting up his equipment. Unlike the photo shoot at Arbor House, these photos were all carefully staged. He’d brought extra lighting and different lenses for various views.

  Because quiche was the dish that got the family business started it seemed like the proper place to start. Dixie had used the family recipe of basic quiche Lorraine and the smells coming from the kitchen were heavenly.

  Not only a great cook, Dixie was a blue-ribbon baker, having won numerous first-place awards at the Iowa State Fair. That meant that in addition to making dishes that tasted good, she also had perfected the attention to detail on the presentation.

  She came from the back carrying the quiche with the red silicone hot pads I’d bought her for her birthday.

  “I didn’t cut it because I wasn’t sure what you wanted to do with it.” She placed the white porcelain quiche pan on the counter. “I brought a knife in case you wanted to cut a piece out.”

  “Let’s try it both ways.” Max adjusted his camera and the lighting. “I’ll take a few photos before we cut it and then we’ll try some others with a single slice.”

  “That will be good, because it really needs to cool a bit before you cut into it.” She fanned herself with one of the hot pads.

  “It’s really pretty, Dixie,” I noted, leaning in to look at the dish. “And it smells incredible.”

  “Sugar…” Max’s voice held a warning.

  “I know.” I backed up. “But when you’re done taking photos, I’m having a slice of that.”

  He smiled.

  “Have you heard how things are coming with the investigation?”

  “There have been some developments.” I took another step back to make sure I was out of the way.

  He looked up from his camera with a raised brow.

  Since finding the threatening note and then sending the sheriff his way, Max and I hadn’t had a chance to talk.

  “Once you’re done with the shoot, I’ll fill you in.”

  “Sounds good.” He was back to full concentration on getting t
he right angle. He nudged the hot porcelain baking dish slightly, bunching the fabric, and angling the antique sterling silver server so it looked like brunch was ready.

  Man, he was so talented. I loved this part, but I needed to stay out of the way.

  “Maybe over some quiche,” I said over my shoulder as I headed back to the office to check on Frenchie. And while I was there, I’d see what I could find on that news story Greer had mentioned.

  When I sat down at my computer, the first thing I did was review some of the content I’d worked on the day before. I loved that the cookbooks we produced were, contrary to Marta’s view, more than just a collection of recipes.

  In my corporate days that hadn’t been the case. It was all about product placement. I understood magazines needed to be profitable to stay in business, but I felt like sometimes the storytelling got lost.

  The Arbor siblings thought this was a way to record their mother’s recipes for future generations, but I wondered if there wouldn’t be a wider market for it. Maybe the public would have an interest in the Arbor family recipes and the stories about them.

  Maybe I was just fascinated with family stories because I didn’t have any stories of my own. At least not on my dad’s side. I knew his adoptive parents were from Iowa. They had both passed away shortly after my parents married. But that was it.

  I polished up the pieces and then moved on to seeing if I could find that story about Arbor Foods.

  It took some digging, but Greer had been right: There had been talks of layoffs at Arbor Foods. Not because of any health scare but because, at least according to the news story, the family was considering selling the company.

  That didn’t jibe with what Marta had said about Jezzie wanting to expand.

  I printed off the story to give to the sheriff, although I was sure he and his team had done their own digging.

  Chapter Thirteen

  We’d assembled all the materials for the cookbook: the cover they’d picked, the mock-up Liz had created, the recipes we’d chosen. I’d slipped in a few tidbits from my chat with Marta. We had the latest photos from Max and had preliminary prints of the ones we were proposing to use. It was an impressive lot.