Rosemary and Crime

by Oust, Gail

  “Hey, Lindsey.” I turned to my daughter and gave her a hug, which she returned in her typical lukewarm fashion.

  “Meemaw worried people might talk if we didn’t come today,” Lindsey said as she pulled away.

  The fact that Lindsey was here at all attested to Melly’s power of persuasion. I knew from experience how hard it was to rouse a teenage girl from bed before noon on a Saturday. “Well,” I said brightly, “whatever the reason I’m glad you’re here to show your support.”

  “So, this is what all the fuss is about,” Melly said, parroting her son’s comment of the previous day. She pivoted slowly, taking in the shelves of carefully selected spices from the far corners of the globe. “Anise…?” she said, wrinkling her aristocratic nose. “Who uses anise?”

  I bridled at her tone. “Anise happens to be used in baking cakes, breads, and cookies. Next time I make Italian biscotti, I’ll be sure to bring you some. You’ll love the sweet licorice taste.”

  “Hmph,” she sniffed, moving on to another display. “And what is this? Surely, dear, you can’t expect anyone in their right mind to spend so much money for such a teensy amount?”

  “Saffron happens to be the most expensive spice there is.” I gently took the jar from her hand and replaced it on the shelf. “Fortunately a little goes a long way.”

  “Interesting.… What does one do with saffron?”

  “It’s wonderful in paella.”

  “Paella? Another of those fancy, foreign dishes you seem to favor. What’s wrong with plain-old meat and potatoes? That was good enough for my husband. Good enough for my son. Plenty good enough for the rest of us, too.”

  “Why don’t you and Lindsey find yourselves a seat?” I suggested.

  CHAPTER 7

  STANDING ROOM ONLY.

  Reba Mae’s prediction proved true. A steady stream of people poured into Spice It Up!, filling chairs and jamming the aisles. Among the crowd, I spotted Gina and Tony Deltorro, owners of the Pizza Palace. Behind them were Diane Cloune, wife of the local councilman Dwayne Cloune, and Dottie Hemmings, the mayor’s wife. Dottie waggled her fingers at me. Diane gave me a brittle smile. I wished it was my newly opened spice shop that captured their interest, but I knew better. It was the prospect of pure, unadulterated gossip that drew them like honeybees to buttercups. A dead chef trumps a grand opening any day.

  I took my place behind the demo table and looked out over an expectant audience. They stared back. I felt like an exhibit in a freak show. My gaze chanced on Melly, who pointedly tapped her watch with a fingernail, signaling it was time for me to get this show on the road. Bored already, Lindsey stifled a yawn behind a French-manicured hand.

  “Good morning!” I cleared my throat. “Welcome to Spice It Up!”

  The shop was so still you could have heard the proverbial pin drop. From the fluttering in my stomach, it felt like I swallowed a hummingbird along with my morning’s yogurt. People had come to gawk, to ask questions. I crossed my fingers they wouldn’t leave without purchasing bags and bottles of my precious spices. I desperately wanted—needed—to hear my cash register jingle.

  “All righty then,” I said with false heartiness. “Let’s get started, shall we? Today I’m going to demonstrate how to prepare one of Trattoria Milano’s specialties, Roast Lamb with Rosemary and Juniper. Naturally the first thing you’ll need is lamb.” I surreptitiously wiped damp palms on the sides of my apron. “After all, you can’t expect to serve roast lamb with rosemary and juniper without the lamb, right?”

  No one laughed at my feeble attempt at humor. No one even cracked a smile.

  I soldiered on. “Ask the butcher for a leg of lamb that weighs approximately three pounds. Like this lovely choice cut.” I held up the meat for a little show-and-tell. “Then ask him to butterfly it for you.”

  “Must take a pretty sharp knife to slice through a piece of meat that size,” a woman in the second row commented loudly.

  Ignoring the outburst, I continued with my presentation. “Pete at Meat on Main will be happy to accommodate you, but I’m sure the manager of the meat department at the Piggly Wiggly will be equally agreeable.” I had no idea if this was true or not, but at this point in my fledgling career I didn’t want to risk alienating the chamber of commerce. Best to give them equal billing.

  “Next, add four cloves of chopped garlic, a sprig of finely chopped rosemary, and Chef Barrone’s secret ingredient—juniper berries. Six ought to do it.” I dumped the contents of three small prep dishes into a marble mortar. “For those of you unfamiliar with this particular spice, juniper berries are the ripe, dried cones from the juniper evergreen shrub that grows throughout the northern hemisphere. If any of you are married to hunters, juniper helps tame the gamey character of venison.”

  “Told Harvey, my husband, the mayor, next time he brings home a deer, I’m going to Mother’s. He can cook the dang thing himself,” Dottie Hemmings declared.

  The audience tittered at hearing this. To the best of my recollection, Dottie rarely mentioned her husband’s name without reminding everyone within earshot that he was the mayor of our fair town. I waited until quiet prevailed, then continued. “Juniper berries have a pleasant woody odor and when crushed smell unmistakably like…”

  “… gin,” a member of the audience offered.

  “Is it true the Tratory reeked of booze when you found Mario?”

  “Heard Barrone was in a pool of blood the size of Lake Lanier,” another volunteered.

  Pretending deafness, I grabbed the pestle. “Pound the garlic, rosemary, and juniper berries into a smooth paste.”

  “Someone said he was shot,” a man in the back piped up.

  “I heard he was stabbed to death.”

  Stabbed? Did the woman on the far end of the first row say stabbed? I’d conveniently—too conveniently—forgotten about finding a knife in the weeds outside the Tratory’s back door. I must’ve dropped it when I spied Mario on the floor. To make matters worse, Dr. Doug, the vet, said the mutt I’d found the night before had sustained a knife wound.

  Coincidence? I felt the blood drain from my face. Personally, I’ve never been a great believer in coincidence.

  “Hey, Piper, you okay?” Gina Deltorro asked, frowning.

  I mustered a smile. “Fine, thanks.”

  My mind on guns and knives and blood, I pounded the garlic, rosemary, and juniper into mush. I realized I was being overzealous when bits of the concoction flew out of the mortar. As casually as I could, I wiped a gob of goo from my cheek and whisked flecks off my apron to a chorus of snickers.

  Darting a glance in Lindsey’s direction, I tried to catch her eye, but her attention was fixed on a nonexistent spot on the heart pine floor.

  “Yes, well,” I said, regrouping. “Season the lamb with salt and pepper. I carry a great Kosher salt. If you only purchase one type of salt, you might consider making that your mainstay.” I sprinkled on a generous amount, then reached for the pepper mill and ground away. “There’s nothing to compare with fresh ground pepper. It’s a spice that adds great flavor to almost every dish. Spice It Up! sells not only black Tellicherry peppercorns from India, but sophisticated white peppercorns from Borneo, and pink peppercorns from the French island of Reunion.”

  Just then a door opened and a latecomer slipped inside. None other than Chief Wyatt McBride in the flesh. I groaned inwardly at the sight. I doubted he’d come hoping to find a new recipe for lamb. His presence made me even more nervous.

  “Hey, Piper,” Dottie prompted. “What’re we supposed to do next?”

  I took a calming breath, which did little good, then searched my work area for a utensil of some sort. It occurred to me then that I’d forgotten spoons or spatulas. They were nowhere to be found, which left me little choice but to improvise. “Hands were made before spoons and forks, as Granddad once told me. Take about half the paste,” I instructed. Using my fingers, I scooped up a portion and flung it on the meat. “Smear it around.”

&nb
sp; I heard my former mother-in-law gasp at my technique.

  “Now roll the lamb into a compact roast.” Juniper paste oozed out of each end as I worked. In the dim recesses of my mind, I wondered if Mario had encountered this problem as well. I daintily ran my index finger down one edge and flicked the excess paste toward the mortar. It missed by a country mile, landing instead on the large bosom of Bertha Fox in the front row. This time the snickers turned into outright laughter.

  “S-sorry,” I apologized, my cheeks flaming. I plastered on a smile so wide it made my face ache.

  Melly, tight-lipped with disapproval, leaned over and handed Bertha a handkerchief with which to wipe her blouse. Lindsey, I noted, slouched further down in her seat.

  “Almost finished,” I announced cheerily, picking up a ball of string I’d scrounged from my junk drawer. “Now tie the damn … I meant dang … lamb with string or twine to hold it together while it cooks.”

  To be honest, I’d never been especially creative when it comes to wrapping packages. This time proved no exception. It was like wrestling a greased pig at the county fair. Slick with juniper paste and the meat’s inherent fat, the leg of lamb shot out of my hands, skidded off the worktable, and landed on the floor with a plop.

  I was so mortified, I’d like to have died right then and there. Knowing my face matched the color of my hair, I picked the roast off the floor and brushed it off as best I could and proceeded to hog-tie the blasted thing. “That ought to do it,” I muttered, and was surprised to hear a smattering of applause.

  “Piper, dear, what about the rest of the juniper paste?” Melly prompted.

  I stared at her blankly for a moment. The rest of the juniper paste? What “rest”?

  “What do you do with the other half, dear?” Melly persisted. “Surely it shouldn’t go to waste.”

  “Right,” I muttered, absently shoving back a rebellious curl. This had to be the worst cooking demonstration in the history of cooking. Bad enough to find a dead body, now I had to pretend to know what I was doing. “Okay,” I said, reaching for a paring knife. “Make a series of slits.”

  I vented my frustration on the miserable hunk of mutton with more vigor than probably necessary. After forcing what was left of the juniper paste inside the slits, I sprinkled on enough salt to make a cardiologist cringe, and dropped the sorry mess into a roasting pan. Praise the Lord. I was in the homestretch.

  “Pop this baby into a four-hundred-fifty-degree oven. Roast for thirty minutes, then add a cup of dry red wine.”

  Blame it on a combination of nerves and oratory, but my throat suddenly felt parched. Reaching for the wine I’d poured earlier for this part of the demo, I took a big glug of Cabernet Sauvignon. Straight from the measuring cup.

  “Now,” I continued, “scrape the browned bits from the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon and cook for another ten minutes for medium rare. Bon appétit!”

  Sweeping my gaze over the audience, I had the distinct satisfaction of knowing I’d wiped the boredom from Lindsey’s pretty face. Amid all the mashing, splashing, slashing, and plopping, it had disappeared, leaving her staring at me wide-eyed.

  Then, to my dismay, I looked toward the front of the shop and saw McBride approach. Not caring who watched, I took another swallow of wine.

  I attempted to avoid him by doing an end run toward the register near the front of the store, but Melly intercepted me. “You need to work on your presentation, dear. I suggest you consider a course in public speaking.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed McBride elbowing his way toward me. The crowd parted in his wake like he was Moses and they were the Red Sea. “We need to talk,” he said without preamble.

  “Now?” I squeaked.

  Melly’s eyes slid from me to the sheriff. “You go ahead, dear. Lindsey and I will man the register. I expect sales to be quite brisk.”

  Why, now of all times, did my ex-mother-in-law pick this moment to be helpful? Conscious of dozens of pairs of eyes boring into my back, I trailed after McBride out the store.

  “You need to come down to the station to make a formal statement,” he said the minute we hit the sidewalk.

  I gestured behind me. “Can it wait? I have a shop full of customers.”

  “Looks like we found the murder weapon.”

  My heart about came to a screeching halt at hearing this. “Oh,” I said, trying to sound noncommittal.

  “My men found a knife. We think someone tried to hide it under the refrigerator.”

  Why couldn’t Mario simply have hit his head and died of a fractured skull? Then I brought myself up short. I was a terrible person. Here I was blaming Mario for his own untimely death.

  “Are you sure you told me everything that happened this morning?”

  “Everything…?”

  “The coroner gives cause of death as a stabbing. You’ll need to be fingerprinted.”

  “Fingerprinted…?” I seemed incapable of sentences consisting of more than one word.

  “Just routine.” McBride drilled me with laser-blue eyes. “We need to rule you out as a possible suspect.”

  He paused to let this sink in. At what point was I was supposed to ask for a lawyer? Were we there yet?

  “Mom?” Lindsey stuck her head out the door. “Meemaw said some lady wants to know the difference between cinnamon from Vietnam and cinnamon from Ceylon.”

  “Be right there, sweetie.” I gave her a weak smile. When she disappeared back inside, I turned to McBride. “Listen, every cent I own has gone into making Spice It Up! a success. I can’t just walk off and leave it in the hands of someone who doesn’t know diddly squat about spices. I promise, I’ll come to the station as soon as the shop closes at five.”

  His gaze shifted from me to the store crowded with people. “All right,” he agreed, albeit reluctantly.

  I was too relieved to wonder whether he responded to the desperation in my voice or merely decided I wasn’t a flight risk. Either way, I was itching to ring up sales.

  “Not so fast,” he ordered as I turned to go.

  I watched wordlessly as he reached out to me with his index finger.

  “Missed a spot,” he said, dabbing my cheek. “Thought it might be a speck of that juniper concoction, but, nope, it’s a freckle.” He started toward the patrol car parked at the curb. “Five o’clock. Don’t be late. I don’t take murder investigations lightly.”

  I doubted the man ever took anything lightly, I thought as I watched him drive away.

  CHAPTER 8

  THE DAY PASSED in a flurry of activity punctuated by the sweet chime of the cash register. At closing time, I decided to forego tallying the day’s receipts till later and trudged the short distance to the police station.

  “Hey, hon.”

  A dark-skinned woman, her elaborate braids tied back with a red ribbon, looked up from a computer screen and greeted me with a friendly smile. Her black polo shirt bearing the Brandywine Police Department logo had either been purchased a size too small or laundered in the wrong wash cycle to house her ample frame.

  “You must be Miz Prescott. Chief said you’d be by. I’m Precious Blessing.”

  “Nice to meet you, Precious. Just call me Piper.”

  “Heard all about your cookin’ show. Dorinda said it was a hoot. Sorry I missed it.”

  Great. I suppose I should be happy if it didn’t go viral on YouTube. “Chief McBride wanted me to come down to make a formal statement about … you know.”

  “Yeah, the whole town’s talkin’ about how that stuck-up cook who called hisself a chef died all at once.”

  “Right,” I said.

  “Who would’ve thought the chief would land a murder case right off? Best of my recollection, Brandywine Creek ain’t had a killin’ in years. Not since that country singer down at High Cotton got hisself shot by a jealous husband.”

  “Guess that was before my time.”

  “I’ll let the chief know you’re here.”

  While
Precious called to inform her boss of my arrival, I took a quick look around, more depressed than impressed by the décor. Worn wooden benches huddled against scuffed beige walls. A giant wall calendar courtesy of the local lumberyard comprised the lone artwork. Functional and drab has never been a favorite of mine, not even in the early days of my marriage to CJ when functional and drab were all we could afford.

  “Best not to keep the chief waiting,” Precious said, rising from her chair. “C’mon. I’ll show you the way.”

  Precious waddled down a short hallway, with me lagging behind. She paused outside a door, which still bore the faint imprint of the former chief’s name, and stepped aside. “Don’t let ’im scare you none. Some folks growl worse ’n they bite.”

  I managed a sickly smile. “Thanks.”

  Feeling a bit like Little Red Riding Hood, I mentally braced myself to meet the Big Bad Wolf or, in this case, the Big Bad Policeman. I gave myself a pep talk. There was no need to be nervous. After all, I had nothing to hide. Why, then, was I a wreck about this whole statement thing? Only the thought of meeting Reba Mae afterward for nachos and a margarita kept me from bolting. When Reba Mae heard about my command performance to appear before McBride, she made me promise to stop by—no matter the hour. Taking a deep breath to steady my nerves, I shoved open the door.

  McBride glanced up from a sheaf of papers on his desk. “It’s about time.”

  “Chief…?” Precious poked her head in the door. “Can I get you and your guest something to drink? Coffee, sweet tea? A soda?”

  “Mrs. Prescott isn’t a guest, Miss Blessing. She’s here for questioning. Please see that we’re not disturbed.”

  “Yes, boss.” Precious gave me an impudent wink as she quietly closed the door, leaving me alone with Big Bad McBride.

  “Have a seat,” McBride ordered, pulling a yellow legal pad from a drawer. “How did your first day go—after the cooking demonstration, that is?”

  I lowered myself into the chair opposite a battered desk that didn’t look like it would fetch twenty bucks at a garage sale and eyed him suspiciously. Was he genuinely interested in my day? Or was this some sort of ruse designed to put a “suspect” at ease? “I haven’t totaled up the receipts yet,” I returned cautiously, “but Melly seemed pleased.”