The Smoking Bun (Apple Orchard Cozy Mystery Book 10)

by Chelsea Thomas

  The Smoking Bun

  Chelsea Thomas

  Copyright & Disclaimer

  The Smoking Bun © Chelsea Thomas, 2020

  Disclaimer -- All rights reserved. No part of this eBook may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form, or by any means, including mechanical or electronic, without written permission from the author.

  While the author has made every effort to ensure that the ideas, guidelines and information printed in this eBook are safe, they should be used at the reader’s discretion. The author cannot be held responsible for any personal or commercial damage arising from the application or misinterpretation of information presented herein.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to the actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Want updates, free cozies and recipes? Join the Chelsea Thomas Reader Club at chelseathomasauthor.com.

  Cover Design: Priscilla Pantin

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  1. A Hairy Situation

  2. A Bucking Bronco

  3. A Brunch to Die For

  4. Taking out the Trash

  5. Hashing it Out

  6. Dead Chef

  7. Cop Outs

  8. A Flood of Tears

  9. Down to Town

  10. Rebecca de Mourning

  11. Chelsea the Trash Picker

  12. Apothecary Now

  13. Poison Apples

  14. Dog Tired

  15. Morning Walks

  16. Cabin Fever

  17. Fries and Lies

  18. Dining and Dashing

  19. Clean Your Room!

  20. I Scream, You Scream, Extra Sprinkles Please

  21. To Dye For

  22. Hair Died

  23. A Hairy Situation

  24. Worked to the Bone

  25. Senior Lawsuits

  26. Groomed to Kill

  27. Fine as Frog Hair

  28. Mad Hatters

  29. Wrapping up a Clue

  30. The Proof is in the Poisoned Pudding

  31. Cooking Up Trouble

  32. French Lessons

  33. Snake Oil Saleswoman

  34. Hudgens Huzzah

  35. Ninja Turtle

  36. Dead on Arrival

  37. Coffee Break

  38. Bad to the Bone

  39. Open and Shut

  40. The Doggone Truth

  41. Two Left Feet

  42. Doctor, Doctor, Gimme the News

  43. Picking Up Clues

  44. All Signs Greenpoint to You

  45. Age is Just a Number

  46. Piering into the Future

  47. Alley Cats

  48. The Trouble with Truffles

  49. Missing Persons

  50. Race to the Finish

  51. A Modest Proposal

  Chapter 52

  Join the Club

  1

  A Hairy Situation

  Something was wrong with Teeny.

  Miss May and I were seated comfortably in our booth at Teeny’s restaurant, Grandma’s, but we could hear her slamming plates and grunting in frustration all the way back in the kitchen.

  I cringed. From the sound of it, Teeny was going to destroy the entire kitchen before the end of the morning rush.

  Miss May wiggled in her seat. “That’s the fourth angry noise Teeny has made since we sat down. I’m telling you, something’s up with her.”

  I took a big bite of pancake and a glob of buttery syrup dribbled down my chin. “The food is good as ever.” Another loud slam emanated from the kitchen. “But yeah, maybe Teeny is worked up about something.”

  Miss May craned her neck to get a look back toward the kitchen. “She hasn’t even come out to say hi yet. Do you think one of us offended her in some way?”

  “She sounded fine when we talked on the phone last night.”

  Miss May rubbed her chin. “True. Something must’ve happened overnight that upset her. Should we go back into the kitchen to talk to her?”

  I chuckled. It wasn’t often that my aunt, Miss May, seemed shaken up by a social situation. When my parents died, for instance, she’d adopted 13-year-old me, planned the funeral, mourned the death of her sister and brother-in-law, and still only missed one day of work.

  And when my fiancé who-shall-not-be-named left me at the altar, it was Miss May who suggested I come back to work at the orchard in Pine Grove and welcomed me with open arms. She was generally unflappable. So, yeah. Her worry over Teeny’s kitchen explosions was odd.

  But Miss May and Teeny had been best friends since before the dinosaurs. (Don’t tell them I said that!) When one of them was upset, the other one usually knew the reason. So I suppose I understood why Teeny’s disgruntled attitude and lack of hospitality concerned Miss May.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing,” I said. “Want a bite of pancake?”

  “Do you have any syrup left?”

  Grinning, I slid my little pitcher of real New York maple syrup across the table. Miss May looked both ways, lifted the pitcher to her lips and took a small, slow sip. “That’s so good,” she said. “People say Vermont has all the good syrup but they’re wrong. We’ve got it good down here too. And why wouldn’t we? We’ve got plenty of maple trees and the best water in the United States.”

  “This maple syrup obsession is a new thing for you,” I said. “But I’m starting to feel like you’re Popeye and the syrup is spinach.”

  Miss May chuckled. “If this syrup was spinach I wouldn’t be so soft around my waistline. Or my thighs. Or my upper arms. OK, fine. All of me.”

  “Well, all I’m saying is, I’m glad to see it bring you some strength during this difficult separation between you and Teeny.”

  Miss May gave me a playful shove. “We’re not separated. I just hope everything’s OK with her.”

  Suddenly the front door to the restaurant chimed and in walked Detective Wayne Hudson, precisely the man we were there to meet. Miss May perked up and gave Wayne a little wave. “Over here.”

  Wayne headed toward us with a small smile and a nod of the head. In my mind, his journey from the front door to our booth in the back of the restaurant took an eternity.

  As he walked, I flashed back to all the strange, sometimes awkward, sometimes beautiful moments Wayne and I had shared.

  I’d first met Wayne about a month or so after moving to Pine Grove, maybe less. He had been the first detective on the scene when I’d discovered a dead body on Miss May’s farm. His broad shoulders and blue-green eyes had stopped me in my tracks and OK, maybe made me drool a little bit.

  Since that day, Wayne and I had always been in one another’s orbit, sometimes romantically. We’d shared a slow dance under the moonlight on the orchard. And we’d had more than a couple electric encounters — even though sometimes those encounters ended with Wayne pointing out the food in my hair. Wayne had helped Miss May, Teeny and I solve quite a few murders, even though the Pine Grove Police Department at large hadn’t been helpful.

  The guy was handsome, quiet, and so, so tall — so why wasn’t I dating him? Well, Wayne hadn’t always respected my skills as a sleuth, and we’d had our share of disagreements. Plus, I was dating the eccentric and absurdly sweet Germany Turtle. Yes, Germany was living in Africa doing important scientific work with lions, but we were making the long distance thing work. Sort of…

  “Chelsea! Chelsea.” Miss May nudged me from across the table. “Slide over. Make room for Wayne.”

  I glanc
ed up. Wayne stood above me, smirking. How long had he been standing there? How long had I been contemplating our romantic entanglement? Was there drool on my face?

  I snapped to attention. “Sorry. I was daydreaming. About llamas. We should have llamas on the farm.”

  “No we shouldn’t,” said Miss May. “Llamas are high maintenance and they spit.”

  “Anyway, sorry.” I slid over and gave the seat beside me a firm pat, like I was greeting a Great Dane. “Take a seat, champ. Park it right there.”

  Wayne sat right where I patted. “Thanks, champ.”

  Miss May leaned toward Wayne with a glint in her eye. “So. Tell us what you’ve learned about the foot.”

  “Wow, Miss May. You get straight to it, don’t you? I was hoping I could order a cup of coffee first. Maybe a couple of eggs.”

  A high-pitched voice rang out from nearby. “I can do eggs. Fine. How do you want them cooked?” My eyes shifted to the toward the sound of the voice. There stood Teeny, arms crossed and blue eyes glaring.

  “Teeny,” said Miss May. “Hi.” Miss May seemed desperate for conversation but Teeny was in angry business mode.

  “Hi.” Teeny turned back to Wayne. “Fried? Scrambled? Medium, soft, hard? And do you want bacon or sausage or what? Out with it already.”

  “Sausage, I guess. Can you do it a little burnt if possible?” Wayne squeaked out his special request with fear but I related… So much stuff in life is better just a little burnt.

  “Sausage. Fine. What else, Prince? Do you want alkaline-free water? High alkaline water? Free trade, single bean, triple roasted backwards brewed coffee? A napkin made of Egyptian cotton?”

  “What’s the thread count on that napkin?” Wayne asked. He was trying to lighten the mood, but Teeny wasn’t having it.

  “You get a paper napkin like everybody else, Detective!”

  The corners of Wayne’s mouth fell. “I’m sorry. Are you mad at me?”

  Miss May shot a questioning glance toward Teeny. “I think she’s mad at me. But I don’t know why.”

  Teeny scoffed. “I’m not mad at you. May, when I’m mad at you, I tell you. Right?”

  “Then what’s the matter?” Miss May asked.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” Teeny looked back toward Wayne. “Have you given them the update on that severed foot or should I come back for that later?”

  “Nobody wants to waste any time before talking about this foot,” said Wayne. “I feel used.”

  “Get over it,” said Teeny. “You’re a police officer and you have information about a severed foot that a dog dug up at my friend’s farm. It just so happens that Miss May, Chelsea, and I are the best amateur detectives in town, no offense to the police department, so give us the information. We need to start piecing this thing together.”

  Wayne hung his head and mumbled something.

  I leaned forward. “What was that?”

  Wayne mumbled a few more words. I could make out “foot,” and “farm,” but that was it.

  “Speak up,” said Miss May.

  Wayne met Miss May’s eyes. “We’ve deduced that the foot belonged to a male somewhere between the ages of 30 and 50, most likely.”

  I lowered my fork and looked up at Wayne. “I’m sorry. I’m confused. The police department has had that foot for at least a month. I thought you were bringing it to a lab or getting forensic evidence or something.”

  “No lab for feet. Not around here. It’s not in our budget.”

  “So you and the other detectives have just been standing around looking at the foot?” Teeny asked. “‘Looks like a foot to me, Bob. What do you think?’ ‘Yes. That’s a foot. OK. Want to go to lunch?’”

  Wayne bristled. “We got some information.”

  “We already had that information,” said Miss May. “Of course the foot belonged to a male. There were visible hairs on the knuckles of the toes.”

  “Women can have hairy toe knuckles too,” I said. “Not that I do. Not really. No one would say I have hairy toes. I just have some hairs on my toes. Sorry, what were you saying, Miss May?”

  Miss May, Teeny, and Wayne all stared at me. I had a talent for sticking my slightly hairy foot into my mouth.

  “I wasn’t saying anything of note,” said Miss May. “Just letting the detective know that the three of us needed mere moments to draw the same conclusion that it took the entire Pine Grove Police Department a month to figure out.”

  “To be fair, we were busy. Humphrey’s dog ran away. We had to recover the canine.”

  “And I’m so glad they found Semolina so fast,” Miss May said. “But I thought Humphrey found his dog over in the neighbor’s yard eating tomatoes out of the greenhouse.”

  Wayne gulped. “That’s true. But we did a lot of investigating prior to that. And Humphrey didn’t tell us the dog had been found so we also did quite a bit of investigating after that.”

  “This is ridiculous,” said Teeny.

  “I’m sorry,” said Wayne. “But rest assured, we’re still looking for more clues about the severed foot and that body it was attached to. I’ll keep you all updated, I promise.”

  Suddenly, Teeny’s eyes widened and her mouth tightened in fury. She pointed over at the entrance to the restaurant. “Oh no. You are not welcome here. Get out of my restaurant.”

  I followed Teeny’s gaze to an enormous, imposing man, hulking in the doorway. He was bald, with a hefty beard and a small gold earring in his left ear. A sleeve of tattoos poked out underneath the cuff of his flannel shirt.

  I had no idea who that man was. But I had a sneaking suspicion he was somehow the cause of Teeny’s murderous mood. And I wanted to find out why.

  2

  A Bucking Bronco

  “I will never serve you food in this restaurant,” Teeny said. “You are a thief and a criminal. And I hate your earring and I hate your tattoos.”

  “I would never eat here, Teeny,” the man grunted. “The only reason I came this morning was to tell you to stop leaving threatening voicemails on my phone.”

  I leaned toward Miss May. “Three questions… Who is this guy? What are they arguing about? And what do you think of the earring and the tattoos?”

  Miss May whispered back. “His name is Buck. He’s the new head chef at Peter’s Land and Sea. I have no idea what they’re arguing about. And I’m fine with the earring but I’d have to see more of the ink before forming an opinion.”

  “Aw, poor little Buck felt threatened by my voicemails,” Teeny sneered. “Little boy got scared. Get over it. Thief.”

  Bucks laughed. “Chefs are inspired by one another’s recipes all the time. I built on something you created. I made it better. That’s not being a thief. That’s called the creative process. Nothing new is left to make. The Beatles wrote all the good songs. Everyone else has just been rewriting them for 60 years.”

  “So you admit I’m as good as the Beatles.” Teeny raised her eyebrows.

  “Of course not. You’re not even a real chef. If you were anything more than a glorified short-order cook, you’d understand the broader philosophical principles of creativity at play here. But how could I ever expect you to understand? You’re just a diner girl who knows how to work the griddle.”

  “Joke’s on you then, Bucky Boy. You stooped so low that you stole from a lowly diner girl!” Teeny wagged her finger at Buck. “You’ve got some nerve, talking about the creative process… Hashbrown lasagna is my signature dish. I had lines out the door for weeks! People waiting just to try it. City people, upstate people. The entirety of the tri-state area came to this restaurant to try my HBL. Now another restaurant in the same ZIP Code is serving it? That’s preposterous. And it’s illegal. It’s not like McDonald’s would allow you to open up a restaurant next door to them and sell a McChicken sandwich. Because that’s stealing.”

  Buck held up his hand to silence Teeny in the most condescending way possible. “Like I said, I didn’t steal your recipe. I built upon it. Your hashb
rown lasagna is a little soggy, if you ask me. There’s too much cheese. But that’s to be expected at an establishment like this.” Buck gestured around the cute and cozy restaurant like it was a rat-infested alleyway. “At Peter’s Land and Sea, we like to take simple dishes and elevate them. That’s why I’ve reimagined hashbrown lasagna with crispier potatoes, top-of-the-line cheese and, of course, truffle oil to top it all off. People have been raving. You should come by sometime. Taste it for yourself.”

  Teeny gritted her teeth. “You know what? Fine. I will try it myself.” Teeny gestured back to me and Miss May. “All three of us will come by. In fact, we’ll go right now to taste your masterpiece. I’d love to look in Petey’s eyes and ask him how he’s allowing this treachery to go in under his roof. I trained that boy in this very restaurant.”

  Buck shrugged. “So your argument is with him.”

  Teeny dismissed Buck with a wave of her hand. “He’s barely out of diapers. You’re grown-up and ugly already. My argument is with you. Take me to that restaurant.”

  Buck took out his smart phone, opened an app and started scrolling. “Let me see here… Let me see…”

  Teeny leaned forward like an angry, curious squirrel. “What are you doing? What is that? Are you stealing more recipes?”

  “Of course not. I’m checking the app that my restaurant uses to handle reservations. That’s how most nicer places handle bookings. Not a problem for a greasy spoon like this. But in fine dining, we can get booked up days, weeks, or even months ahead.”