Mousse, Moscato & Murder

by Jamie Lee Scott

  “Becca didn’t show up for her night shift the night before either. She works for my ex-husband, Peter.” That gave the cops a good timeline for her disappearance. It had to be between the time she left The Bent Fork and before her shift at Vendredi.

  I heard a voice call across the dining room. “Vicki, you have a phone call.”

  Before Vicki left the table, she said, “Sorry. We took too much time talking. Do you know what you want?” She said it in a rush, like she really needed to get to that phone call.

  “I’ll have the dinner salad and the turkey club, please, and just a glass of water.”

  Vicki was scribbling in her order pad as she walked away. I saw her grab the cordless phone from her employee, hand her the order pad, and disappear into the back. Another waitress, who I didn’t know, served my food and left the ticket on the table at the same time. She was nice enough, but she wasn’t Becca. I scrolled through my phone to check my emails while I was eating. I’d gotten halfway through my salad and had a couple of bites of my turkey club sandwich when I saw the email from my client.

  Oh, crap. As I read through the email, I lost my appetite. The client wasn’t happy with the photographs. Luckily, it wasn’t the quality of the food, he just didn’t like the mood of the settings that I had used. He thought they seemed too serious.

  “How do you make food look less serious?” I said aloud. I put my phone in my pocket, grabbed my purse, and walked up to the counter to pay. I didn’t even bother to walk back to the table, leaving the tip on the counter. I walked out of The Bent Fork, trying to figure out how I could make the soda shop photo shoot look less serious. And wondered if they had planned on using the images as they were, or put them on other backgrounds.

  I wanted to be mad at the client, as if they hadn’t been specific enough, but I knew it was my fault. I’d been distracted by Becca’s murder and had called in the photo session.

  This was hard for me to admit, and I chastised myself all the way back to my studio.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jacob had been with me long enough that he now had a key to the studio and he was there when I arrived.

  “Hey, did Tommy stay at your house last night?” I said by way of greeting.

  Jacob looked up from the computer. “No, I didn’t even know she was in town. What’s going on?”

  I walked in and set my purse on the table next to the door. “She said she talked to you, and that you told her about Hattie and the Becca Roundhouse investigation. So, she came up to talk to Hattie. Weird that she’d just come up and talk to Hattie, then turn right around and go back home. I checked her room this morning and her bed wasn’t slept in. I talked to Hattie this morning, and she didn’t mention anything about Tommy staying the night.”

  Jacob swiveled in the office chair and stood up. “I’ll be honest, Tommy was really worried about her grandmother. After what happened to her when you guys investigated that last murder, she didn’t want anything to happen to Hattie. I’m not surprised she drove all the way to town to talk to her.”

  Like I had said before, if Hattie was going to listen to anyone, it would be Tommy. Tommy was smart enough to know that if she needed to tell her grandmother something, she needed to do it face-to-face. Telling her over the phone wouldn’t get the point across nearly as well.

  Jacob pulled out his phone and was texting. I was slightly irritated that he was only half listening to me until he said, “I just sent her a text, let’s see what she says.”

  It was better that Jacob sent the text. I’d already resolved to not be that mother. I had to stick to my resolve, or I’d be back to texting her a dozen times a day.

  Jacob walked over to my photography set up and said, “You did the ice cream shoot without me? I thought we were doing this together.”

  I walked over and picked up all the dishes that I had left behind the night before. My arms loaded up, I took them over to the sink. I turned on the garbage disposal and scooped everything out of the cups. As the homemade concoctions were being gobbled up by the disposal, I grabbed soap and a brush and started cleaning the dishes.

  Jacob had to know something was wrong, because I usually pawned the dishes off on him.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  I looked over my shoulder while I finish the dishes. “The client hated the photos. Said they were too serious.”

  Jacob laughed hard. “You’re kidding me, right? How can ice cream be too serious?”

  I turned off the water and grabbed a towel to dry the dishes since I was going to need them for another photo shoot right away. “Apparently he wants candy confetti and other types of sprinkles on the table for the sundae pictures. Said he sent samples. I didn’t dig all the way to the bottom of the box, thinking that it was just bubble wrap. I need to look again and see what else is in there.”

  Jacob walked over to the box that was labeled with the soda shop’s name. He started pulling out the bubble wrap. “Yep, he sent you some props. I’d like to say I feel bad for you that you have to do this over again, but you promised that you would teach me how to make fake ice cream.”

  I guess this was my penance for going back on my word.

  The next couple of hours were spent teaching him my ice cream tricks.

  “Isn’t this kind of false advertising?” Jacob asked.

  “It would be if it was a brand name. But we are not using a brand name; we’re just showing what something would look like, so it’s okay to use things other than ice cream.”

  Jacob continued to mix the flavors in my KitchenAid, marveling at the “food” I made every day.

  “It just kills me that the food we make here a lot of the time is inedible, especially for your clients. At least when we’re working on the blog, we get the photos done fairly quickly and we get to eat our recipes.”

  I patted my belly. “I need to stop testing my recipes.”

  “Oh please, you look just fine. Besides, we definitely have to taste test chocolates for the Valentine’s Day posts.”

  I gave Jacob a sideways look. “I didn’t know you liked sweets.”

  Jacob nodded his head. His unruly blonde hair moving and getting in his eyes. “I’m a junkie. Energy drinks and candy are my go-to foods.”

  “I don’t think those are actually considered food,” I said.

  “They are to me. The addiction is real.”

  “Don’t I know it. That’s why go have my coffee and cupcake every morning. In my case, though, I have to cut any sugar intake early in the evening or end up with a nasty migraine somewhere around three o’clock in the morning. Last night, I had crème brûlée after dinner and thought I was definitely going to have a headache today.”

  Jacob looked at me and wiggled his brows. “Oh, that’s right, Peter told me you guys had a hot date.”

  I laughed. “If you want to call me falling asleep on the couch after dinner a hot date, we’ll go with that.”

  Now Jacob was laughing, too.

  I was amazed at how much smoother things went when I had Jacob in the kitchen. He picked up the food styling tips so quickly and it was a joy to have him in the studio. I couldn’t quite admit it out loud because my ego wouldn’t let me, but I thought Jacob’s ice cream treats looked better than mine. His mint chocolate chip ice cream looked so good, I wanted to eat it.

  Before the photo shoot even got started, I decided to make sure we were doing the right thing. We had used the props that my client had sent, adding the confetti and sprinkles that they had wanted added to the pictures. It made a mess, and was going to take twice as long to get the photographs done, but that was my fault for not paying attention when I opened up the box.

  Just to make sure that we were on the right track, I sent text messages with images to the client before we moved on from the first picture setting.

  Jacob and I waited around for about ten minutes for a response.

  No way was I going to keep going and waste my time if this wasn’t the style that the c
lient wanted. I breathed a sigh of relief when the client texted back that he absolutely loved it. We had set up three different miniature tables so we could photograph the sodas, sundaes, sarsaparillas, and banana splits on all three of them. Lastly, I set them up on a green screen so that they could be removed from the background and used as posters with bright colored backgrounds. If I was being honest with myself, I had taken shortcuts yesterday, and it served me right that I had to do it all over again. As we were finishing up and were taking the dishes to the sink, I asked Jacob, “Do you know Vicki’s son, Austin?”

  Jacob looked at me questioningly. “Vicki?”

  I couldn’t for the life of me remember her last name off the top of my head. “The lady who runs The Bent Fork.”

  “Oh, that Vicki. I didn’t even know she had a son, why?”

  “No reason. He’s a couple of years younger than you, so I wasn’t sure if you would know who he was or not.”

  I didn’t want to dwell on the subject, because I didn’t want Jacob saying anything to Tommy about me continuing to investigate. As I was drying off the dishes, I changed the subject.

  “I think the thirty days of meal prep was a success, don’t you?”

  Jacob continued to wash dishes and run the garbage disposal. He spoke loud so I could hear him. “I do think it was a success. Why?”

  He asked me “Why?” so many times during the day that sometimes I wondered if he was two years old.

  “I was thinking of doing a thirty-day, no sugar challenge after February. I was thinking March would be good.”

  Jacob turned off the disposal and the water, and shook his hands out. He walked over to get paper towels. Drying his hands, he said, “That’s a lot. That gives you less than a month to put up thirty recipes. Maybe you should push it off to April or May.”

  I wasn’t even thinking about how close March already was. And with February being a short month, and us doing the seven days of chocolates for Valentine’s Day, it really was going to be pushing it.

  I continued to dry the dishes, fully engrossed in what I was doing. My mind had completely vegged out.

  “There is one way to make it work,” Jacob said. “Instead of making all of the recipes and photographing them, we could use external links. You know, we can look at other sites for sugar-free recipes, discuss the recipe, and link to their photo and their site. You have a great thirty-day challenge, but it’s not a challenge for you.”

  I looked up at him and had to force myself not to hug him. He was a genius. “That is a great idea. I don’t want to do all of them that way, but we can do at least half.”

  “I’ve been reading up on the best way to get blog traffic. Having external links in your posts helps bring traffic back to you,” he said.

  I already knew this, but I wanted him to think that he’d done something pretty nice by looking into it, so I said, “It’s a great idea, and almost a full month of having external links can only help us.”

  A big smile spread across Jacob’s face. “Sometimes I wonder which job I like better.”

  Secretly, I wanted him to like working for me better.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The house was dark and quiet when I got home. Peter had a night shift at Vendredi, so I had a night to myself. When you’re constantly around people, sometimes it’s nice to be alone.

  I stood in front of the refrigerator with both doors wide open, trying to decide what to eat.

  One of the benefits of being married to a chef who owned the restaurant he worked at: lots of leftovers. Peter wasn’t OCD about much, but he was fanatical about labeling and dating food containers. It came from so many years of working in kitchens. Once a container was opened, or fresh food was stored, it had to have a date, and it was only allowed to be used in the next seven days. Usually on day six, it ended up in our fridge for another seven days.

  Just because the government said the restaurant could only keep it for such a short period didn’t mean that the food actually went bad in that time. And they didn’t regulate what was in my kitchen. But Peter did date everything in our fridge, too.

  I reached to the back of the second shelf and pulled out a clear plastic container. The label said it was roasted red pepper soup. I put it back. I wasn’t in the mood for soup.

  My stomach gurgled loud enough to be heard clearly, reminding me that Jacob and I hadn’t been working with edible food. Unless lard mixed with confectioner’s sugar was your idea of edible. So many days we had food left over from the blog post photography, so we ate at work. Not to mention, we wanted to taste test the recipes to make sure they worked and tasted delicious. We’d had a few failures since Jacob had started working for me.

  I heard a loud knock at the back door, blocking out the sound of my stomach. I closed the refrigerator and walked over to see Hattie through the paned window.

  Opening the door, I said, “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

  I was being facetious, but it was lost on her.

  “I have fresh French bread and cream cheese with habanero jam. Are you hungry?”

  It wasn’t often Hattie came over with food. When she did, she usually wanted something from me or Peter.

  Lucy had been rubbing around my legs, wondering who our visitor could be, but when she heard Hattie’s voice, she dashed off to another room. We’d gotten Lucy from Hattie, who was seriously allergic to cats, so it was interesting that the cat hid when she came over. Most cats liked to bother people who weren’t cat fans. Maybe it was that Hattie liked cats, she just couldn’t be around them.

  “I was just standing in front of the fridge looking for something to eat. Good timing.”

  “Did you open the door? It’s easier to find stuff when you open the doors,” Hattie chuckled as she placed her cooler on the table.

  Hattie came prepared for a full-on picnic. She pulled out forks, knives, spoons, plates, napkins, glasses, and a big bottle of Prosecco. After setting the table, she unwrapped a square of cream cheese and plopped it on a small plate. Next, she opened a miniscule jar of habanero jam and poured it over the cream cheese.

  I walked over and picked up the bottle of Prosecco. Peeling the foil and unwrapping the wire, I placed a dish towel over the top and held the bottle at a forty-five-degree angle before twisting the cork. I loved the smell of Prosecco when the cork popped.

  “I had a crazy busy day,” Hattie said. She took the bottle from me and poured a full glass for each of us.

  By the time the bubbles subsided, the glasses were only half full. I picked the bottle back up and topped them off.

  “I met Bob today.”

  Hattie sat down. “Really? And I thought I had interesting news.”

  I told her about how I saw him at the gas station and followed him to the Crow’s Nest.

  “You’ve got some balls on you,” she said as she spooned cream cheese and jam onto our plates.

  Only Hattie would say something like that to another woman. I ignored it and took the French bread out of the bag. “Cut or torn?” It was very fresh and could easily be torn.

  “Let’s eat with our fingers,” she said.

  As I tore a dozen golf ball sized pieces of bread off the loaf, I told her about how he’d told me his name was Sam Thompson and that I didn’t believe him. “I took down the license plate, but I don’t know how I’m going to get the owner’s name.”

  “Did you call John?” Hattie started eating.

  “No, I didn’t really think about it. He wouldn’t give me the information anyway.”

  “That’s not what I mean. They have no idea who your Bob person is. They don’t even know what he looks like. Not really, anyway. He’s a person of interest.”

  “They know who he is. They got his prints off the book I gave them. But John won’t tell me who he really is.”

  Hattie mumbled, “That’s right, the book.”

  “Yeah, the book I gave them,” I said, getting miffed again about John not sharing the information.

 
; Totally changing the subject, Hattie said, “That Randy is not a good guy.”

  “Why do you say that?” How would she know such a thing?

  “I did a little checking around today. Ivy has quite a rap sheet herself. Petty larceny, burglary, fraud, and a few more I can’t remember. She’s the complete opposite of her sister.”

  “You snooped around about Becca, too?” I sat staring at my ex-mother-in-law like she was a stranger with a tale to tell.

  “I did. Squeaky stinkin’ clean. Not so much as a traffic ticket.”

  I chewed slowly and contemplated what Hattie was telling me. Why on earth would Becca have let her sister come live with her? Ivy had to be manipulative.

  “Oh, yeah, and a domestic charge against her, too. I was able to read the police report since it’s a public record. The charge was for violence against Becca.”

  I stopped chewing and had to take a drink of my wine. “Unbelievable.”

  “Right? It gets better. Guess who was arrested today?”

  I felt like I was watching a wreck about to happen and I couldn’t turn away. “Who?”

  “Guess.” Hattie stuffed more bread in her mouth so she couldn’t tell me.

  “I don’t want to guess. I’m tired and don’t want to think.” I mirrored her and slathered cream cheese and jam on a big piece of bread and shoved it in my mouth.

  “That Randy guy. His full name is Randy Donovan, by the way.”

  Good for her, she knew his full name. I was tired of playing her game. Either she’d volunteer the rest of what she knew, or I’d never know. Besides, if she was talking, I could eat.

  “That explains the black hair. Irish.”

  Hattie shrugged. “Maybe. I’d say he’s more likely a mutt. And he was ridin’ dirty!”

  I almost choked on my wine. “Riding dirty? Do you even know what that means?”