Book Retreat Mystery 07 - Murder in the Cookbook Nook

by Ellery Adams

  “I didn’t. I froze,” Jane confessed. “After being blinded by those high-powered lights, the darkness was a shock. I couldn’t process it. Not quickly, anyhow.”

  While Jane talked, Violet, Betty, and Mrs. Pratt set the table. White plates were topped with blush-colored napkins that Violet had cleverly folded into bows. She’d secured the center of each bow with a strand of faux pearls and a sprig of baby’s breath.

  “It was Sinclair’s voice that got me moving,” Jane continued. “When we practice Tae Kwon Do hand strikes, he always yells, ‘Faster, faster.’ Hearing that made me snap to attention.”

  Phoebe and Anna exchanged wide-eyed looks.

  “I was too close to Mia to kick the gun out of her hand. And if I used a hand strike on Mia’s arm or wrist, the gun might go off. Since I had no idea where the bullet would go, I couldn’t take the risk.”

  “Go on,” whispered Anna.

  “The only thing within reach was a chair. The chairs in the Rudyard Kipling are too heavy for me to pick up. But they also have substantial thick green cushions. That’s what I threw at Mia.” Jane smiled wryly. “Only I didn’t hit her. I hit Edwin.”

  “You didn’t,” cried Phoebe.

  “I did. He’d crept up to Mia from behind. Lachlan approached from the front. He was too far away to reach Mia, so Edwin grabbed her arm and forced her to aim the gun at the ceiling.” Jane’s eyes shone with pride. “A second later, the cushion smacked into him. and he shouted at me.”

  Mrs. Pratt bounced on the balls of her feet. “I love this part.”

  Anna gripped the back of a chair. “What’d he say?”

  “‘I’m trying to save you, woman!’”

  Everyone laughed.

  “If Edwin had a British accent, he’d be a modern Mr. Darcy,” sighed Mrs. Pratt.

  “Edwin called for lights, and as if someone had flipped a switch, Butterworth, Sinclair, and Lachlan were pointing flashlights at Mia’s face. She was completely disoriented, and Edwin had no trouble wresting her gun away. At that point, she just sagged. Sinclair pushed a chair under her bum just in time. She dropped into it and wouldn’t look at anyone.”

  Phoebe studied Jane’s face. “I can understand feeling sorry for her after what happened to her cousin, but she was going to shoot a man—or you—in cold blood.”

  “That was her plan, but I don’t believe she was capable of pulling the trigger. She was frustrated and furious and deeply sad, and those feelings led her to terrible decisions. In the end, I think the Mia Mallett who creates fun food, cherishes her family, and is generous and kind would have prevailed.”

  “I guess we’ll never know what she would have done and thank goodness for that.” Betty glanced around the room. “Where are we putting the cakes?”

  Jane taped a paper teacup garland to the sideboard. “Let’s move the hall table in here.”

  “I’ll get it,” volunteered Mabel. “Can you bring in a cake, Vi?”

  Anna taped the other end of the garland and looked a question a Jane. “Why wouldn’t Mia pull the trigger? Didn’t she kill a chef and start two fires?” She jerked her head in Mrs. Pratt’s direction. “And steal from Roger?”

  “Mia’s assistant, Bentley, did those things,” Mrs. Pratt explained. “The murdered chef was her father. They didn’t know each other because Chef Pierce didn’t want to be in Bentley’s life. When she became an adult, Bentley wanted to know her dad’s identity. She found out and decided to confront him.”

  Betty said, “Which wasn’t hard to do. She just needed to convince Mia to have him on the show. He needed money to keep his restaurant from closing, so he jumped at the chance.”

  Violet appeared with the cake, and everyone stared at it in silent admiration.

  Mrs. Hubbard had truly outdone herself. The cake was a stack of three books with ivory, gold, and pale pink covers. Titles marched along each book spine, forming the phrase And They Lived Happily Ever After. A white teapot with gold hearts crowned the book stack.

  “It’s almost too beautiful to eat. Almost.” Phoebe turned to Betty. “You painted a pretty clear picture of Chef Pierce on our way here. How did Bentley feel when she learned that this awful guy was her dad?”

  Jane said, “Ashamed. Disgusted. Angry. According to Sheriff Evans, Bentley wanted to test Chef Pierce. She’d tell him that she was his daughter and see how he responded to the news. If she didn’t like his response, she’d kill him.”

  “Whoa,” Phoebe mumbled.

  “She went to his guest room in the middle of the night to deliver a note from her boss, which allowed her to put a bunch of his heart pills into his glass of wine.”

  Anna made a time-out gesture. “I thought she stabbed him with a piece of broken china.”

  “His heart pills were anticoagulants—they prevent the blood from clotting,” Mrs. Pratt explained. “Bentley wanted to give him a little cut and then let his medication take care of the rest. She didn’t realize that the medicine wouldn’t kick in for another few hours. But it didn’t matter because she stabbed him with force. It wasn’t a little cut.”

  “When did she tell him that she was his daughter?” Phoebe wanted to know.

  “In his room,” Jane said. “By then, he’d downed a bottle or two of wine. He was pretty drunk when Bentley handed him a matchbook from the bar where Chef Pierce and her mother met. She also showed him an image of the paternity test, which she had on her phone.” Jane shook her head. “He didn’t seem to care. He claimed to have no memory of Bentley’s mother. Then, he told Bentley that if it was money she was after, she shouldn’t have chosen a career as Mia’s . . . female dog.”

  Anna gasped. “No!”

  “That poor girl,” said Phoebe. “I’m not condoning Bentley’s actions, but I can see how being spoken to like that—by her father—could break something open in her.”

  Jane nodded. “He failed her test, and she decided to go through with her plan to kill him.”

  “How did she get him to the cookbook nook?” asked Anna.

  “By telling him that he could avoid getting kicked out of the competition if he made Mrs. Hubbard a recipe from her favorite cookbook,” Jane said. “If he did exactly what Bentley said, Mrs. Hubbard would convince Mia to let him stay. Chef Pierce didn’t want to cook. He was drunk and tired. He told Bentley to find the recipe online, but she explained that the cookbook was vintage, and his only choice was to borrow it from the cookbook nook and have the dish waiting in the kitchens for Mrs. Hubbard to see.”

  Mabel pursed her lips. “The girl thought she had it all covered. She tore up the note she was supposed to deliver to Chef Pierce and flushed the pieces down the toilet. And she used a jammer on the cameras on her hall, which is how she got to the cookbook nook undetected.”

  Anna’s eyes glittered with interest. “I learned about jammers in one of my pharmacy school classes. They can temporarily disrupt the signal from the camera. Everything looks like it’s working, but the footage doesn’t get updated.”

  “We found the device in her room,” Jane said. “She only needed to use it on her floor. After that, she took the stairs to hallways meant for staff use. We don’t have cameras in any of those spaces.”

  Mrs. Pratt pointed at her wristwatch. “Time’s marching on, ladies. We should finish up. Betty and I will assemble the gift cake. Where do you want it, Jane?”

  “On the kitchen table. We’ll give it to her after we’ve had the real cake.”

  For their group gift, the Cover Girls decided to build a cake using a white Dutch oven as the bottom tier, a set of mixing bowls as the middle tier, and rolled tea towels as the final tier. The cake topper would be a bouquet of kitchen utensils including spatulas, spoons, tongs, a whisk, and a pie server. The Dutch oven concealed another surprise: a box of recipe cards containing the Cover Girls’ favorite recipes.

  With the gift cake assembled, the only thing left to do was pop the quiche in the oven. Violet saw to this while Anna and Phoebe perched on stools at
the kitchen island and waited for Jane to finish her story. The other Cover Girls sat at the table or leaned against the cabinets, ready to add their two cents if necessary.

  “Desperate to stay in the competition, Chef Pierce met Bentley in the cookbook nook.” Jane held up her blue dishwashing gloves and gave them a shake. “She wore a black hoodie and a pair of skin-tone colored gloves. Chef Pierce hadn’t noticed them back in his room, but he’d sobered up a bit since then, and the gloves must have made him nervous. Nervous enough to take something out of his pocket and shove it down the back of his pants.”

  “The matchbook?” guessed Phoebe.

  Mrs. Pratt pointed at her. “Yes! It was his way of identifying the person he’d met in the cookbook nook. His daughter. A woman with murder in her eyes.”

  The room went quiet as the women imagined the sheer terror of coming face-to-face with a killer.

  “Don’t go into details, Jane,” Betty pleaded. “Not now. We should focus on Eloise.”

  Knowing Betty was right, Jane said, “Here’s the short version. After Chef Pierce hid the matchbook, Bentley pushed the dishes off the shelf. They shattered. Pieces flew everywhere. Chef Pierce reacted by calling Bentley names that no man should use on any woman, let alone his daughter. He also said that she was as deranged and low-class as her mother. Bentley picked up a piece of porcelain and told Chef Pierce to stop talking. That’s when he charged at her. Bentley pivoted and stabbed him in one fluid motion. She was agile and strong. He was slow and clumsy.”

  “With those anticoagulants in his system, he was a goner,” said Anna.

  Jane quickly explained that two pieces of porcelain in the cookbook nook and the items stolen from the Old Curiosity Shop had either a fish or chocolate motif in common. Bentley had cased the antique shop the previous day when she and Ty had come to Storyton to coerce Kathy, the chair of the Berry Jubilee, to grant them the use of the main tent. It hadn’t been hard to do. Ty had turned on the charm, written a generous check, and promised to mention the festival on the show.

  Mia was kept in the dark about the surprise challenge until she arrived at the festival with the cast. Of course, her assistants knew what was happening. They’d done her hair, makeup, and selected her outfit. And when she found out what was happening, she saw no point in canceling.

  Bentley had taken care of every detail. She’d come up with the theme and bought food from the Pickled Pig and camp stoves from Storyton Outfitters. Once the competition started, she put on a sunhat, wedge sandals, and a billowy blouse, and pilfered the chocolate pot and pillbox from Roger’s shop. After dumping her shirt, shoes, and hat in a trash can, she cut through the small tent where committee members sold raffle tickets and collected booth rental. The tent was empty, and when Bentley saw Dew Drop’s costume draped over a chair, she grabbed a permanent marker and scrawled a message on the back. The costume zips up the front, so no one noticed the message until Dew Drop skipped into the main tent.

  Phoebe frowned. “Why take the risk? She’d committed murder for crying out loud. Why add shoplifting and costume defacement to her list of crimes?”

  “Sheriff Evans asked her the same thing. At first, Bentley said that she wanted to shine a spotlight on Cook’s Pride and their unethical treatment of workers. But the sheriff pressed her until she admitted that she was in love with Mia. She’d spent years preparing to be Mia’s ideal assistant—just to get close to her. She succeeded, but her obsession continued to grow. She would have done anything to win Mia’s approval. Anything. Including murder.”

  “Did Mia know about Bentley’s plans?”

  Jane sighed. “She swears she didn’t. But when she heard about Chef Pierce’s death, she immediately suspected Bentley. Mia sent Bentley to Chef Pierce’s room in the middle of the night and feared that her assistant was the last person to see Chef Pierce before his death. She also worried that Bentley had punished Chef Pierce for assaulting another woman. Bentley was enraged when she heard how he’d groped a pastry chef in the kitchens.”

  “Why didn’t Mia say something?”

  “Bentley acted so normal the next day that Mia brushed aside her suspicions. She certainly didn’t suspect her of causing the propane tank fire. It was only when she saw the message on the mascot that she wondered if she knew her assistant at all. She confronted Bentley later that day.”

  Mrs. Pratt pointed at the clock. “It’s time.”

  Jane made a shooing motion. “Come on, girls! We need to hide!”

  The Cover Girls stepped into closets, dropped down behind the sofa, or went halfway up the stairs leading to the second floor.

  A few minutes later, they heard Edwin call out, “Hello? Anyone here?” Receiving no reply, he said, “I’ll look in the kitchen. Can you check the coffee table?”

  The Cover Girls heard Eloise say, “I don’t see you leaving your keys there, but okay.”

  As soon as Eloise entered the living room, Mabel, Mrs. Pratt, Betty, Phoebe, Violet, Anna, and Jane emerged from their hiding places with shouts of, “Surprise!”

  Eloise shrieked. She stood stock-still in the middle of the living room and put her hand over her heart. “I think I just aged ten years!” she panted. “What are you crazy women up to?”

  Jane hurried over to her best friend and placed a wedding veil attached to a rhinestone tiara on her head. “There. You now have a tiara, just as Eugenia suggested. Welcome to your shower, beautiful bride-to-be.”

  Color rushed into Eloise’s cheeks. “Really? I thought my big brother was taking me to lunch. Edwin! Was that story about the keys a total lie?”

  Edwin appeared in the living room doorway. One end of a wooden spoon touched the tip of his nose while the other end pointed at the closet. “Call me Pinocchio.” He then bowed gallantly, told the ladies to have fun, and left.

  “Eloise? Would you like a drink?” asked Betty.

  “Yes, Betty, I would like a drink!” Eloise nodded so emphatically that her tiara almost fell off. She grabbed hold of it and laughed.

  The party was off to a merry start.

  Jane and Betty opened bottles of prosecco while the rest of the Cover Girls led Eloise to the dining room.

  “This is incredible!” Eloise exclaimed as she took in the food and decorations. “I’m the luckiest woman in the world. Not because I’m getting married, but because you’re my friends.”

  Violet raised her glass. “I think that qualifies as a toast.”

  The women touched rims and sipped the bright, fruity sparkling wine.

  “I have a toast too,” said Jane. “To paraphrase Rumi: We love our friend Eloise, with neither our hearts nor our minds. Hearts may stop. Minds can forget. We love her with our souls. Souls never stop or forget.”

  There wasn’t a dry eye in the room as the women raised their glasses to Eloise once more.

  Mrs. Pratt dabbed her cheeks with a tissue and said, “No more toasts. Let’s eat.”

  Over lunch, Eloise was asked to match her friends to the correct book quote. Because she knew everyone’s reading taste, she nearly aced the challenge. Her only mistake was mixing up Phoebe’s and Betty’s quotes.

  Phoebe grinned at Betty. “You’re my reading twin. If you fall for a book, I know I will too.”

  After discussing their current reads, Eloise told her friends about the new releases she’d received in her last shipment.

  “The cookbooks sold out in two days, so the display window is now full of beach reads.”

  Eloise talked about the summer’s most anticipated books while Jane began collecting empty plates. Anna and Phoebe jumped up to help.

  In the kitchen, Anna washed dishes and Phoebe dried them. Jane started the coffeemaker and put the clean dishes away in the cupboard.

  “Is this your wedding china, Jane?” Anna asked, gesturing at a luncheon plate.

  “We didn’t register for any. Aunt Octavia gave me this set when I moved back home. The pattern is called Lady Jane.”

  Phoebe ran a towel across t
he plate, which had a blue border with flowers and gilding to the top edge. “Was Aunt Octavia upset about the pieces Bentley broke?”

  “Mrs. Hubbard took it the hardest, but to everyone’s surprise, Mia presented me with replacement pieces on the final day of filming.” Jane shook her head. “She has so many good qualities. It’s a weird thing to say, considering she threatened to kill me, but she’s an incredibly generous person. She pumped money into Chef Pierce’s restaurant, spent a fortune replacing our antiques, and gave Mr. Gilmore a huge check because she felt terrible about what happened to him.”

  “Mr. Gilmore? Was he the man who was burned?”

  Jane put the plate on the top of the stack. “Yes. He was posing as a fire safety advisor.”

  Anna dipped a plate in soapy water. “Posing? Why?”

  “For money. Mr. Gilmore is really an actor named Charlie Smail. Bentley hired him to create an on-set disaster. The propane tank he tampered with was supposed to explode when the chefs were running to the wagon to get their ingredients, but the gas didn’t leak out fast enough. Mr. Smail researched his role, but gas leaks aren’t an exact science.” Jane watched coffee dribble into the carafe. “He messed up the fire in the archery field too. It was supposed to burn the tent to the ground. Both disasters were meant to go viral. Bentley believed that such negative attention would lure Fox Watterson to Storyton.”

  “So Mia could murder him on camera? Because she blamed him for her cousin’s death?” Phoebe asked.

  “Bentley knew that Mia wanted to send a message too loud to be ignored,” Jane said. “Fox knew all about the barbaric treatment of fishermen. He received documents from the Australian division of Cook’s Pride detailing just how bad it was. But Fox turned a blind eye to the suffering of countless boys and men to protect his bottom line. That’s why Mia hated him. She was willing to throw away everything she’d built to save others from her cousin’s fate.”

  Phoebe passed her the last plate. “I know what she did was wrong, but I understand why she did it.”