A Frying Shame

by Linda Reilly

  “I know,” Molly choked out. “But you need help, too, and I can’t be in both places at once.”

  “You don’t have to be. You’ve helped me so much already. If your mom needs you, you have to put her first.”

  Molly nodded and sniffled. “I know Crystal didn’t do it. How could the cops be so blind? Why would she toss evidence into her own Dumpster?” She stamped her sandaled foot on the tile floor.

  “I agree, Mol. You obviously heard the news about the rolling pin they found.”

  “Yeah, I heard it this morning. Mom turned ghostly white when she saw the newscast.” Molly tossed another peeled spud into the pot. “I know the police are only doing their job. But sometimes it seems like they latch onto the first suspect they think they can pin the evidence on. Meanwhile, the real killer is laughing at them behind their clueless backs!”

  Talia had thought the same thing on occasion. She had great respect for the police. For the most part they performed their jobs admirably. But she also knew that pressure from higher-ups made them want to solve cases quickly. How many times, lately, had she heard of people being released from prison after serving decades for a crime they hadn’t committed? She knew of one case in particular that had hit too close to home.

  She would not let that happen to Crystal.

  Talia went back to making the homemade tartar sauce the eatery was known for. The recipe was one that Bea had toyed with and improved over the years. A careful dose of hot pepper sauce lent the condiment its tangy taste, and it was definitely a customer fave. She grabbed a sharp knife from the utensil drawer. With sure, quick movements, she began chopping the pickle into minuscule pieces.

  Talia and Molly both looked up when the front door opened. Martha trudged into the dining area. Talia would have sworn her face was even grayer than it had been yesterday. As if to match her mood, she’d dressed in a short-sleeved charcoal gray tee and black capris.

  “Hi, Martha,” Talia said, a lump blossoming in her throat. “Why don’t I get you a cup of coffee?”

  “You don’t have to wait on me. I’m not an invalid.” Martha navigated through the opening next to the speckled blue counter and tossed her handbag in her locker. With her puffy red eyes, she looked one step away from bursting into a waterfall. She grabbed a blue apron from the shelf and slung it around her neck. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have spoken to you that way.”

  Molly dropped her peeler and rushed over to Martha. She squeezed her in a fierce hug.

  “Martha, we all understand,” Talia said. She didn’t mention that she’d seen her in church the prior evening. “But things are going to be okay. I feel it in my bones.” My lying bones, she thought to herself.

  It was killing her not to let Martha in on the secret. If only there were a way . . .

  Talia breathed a sigh of relief when she turned the CLOSED sign to OPEN. Things got busy quickly, and before long they were frying up meals as fast as they could plunk them into the hot oil.

  By two thirty, the lunch crunch had whittled down to only the occasional diner. Maybe this was a good time to spring a surprise visit on Handsome Harry.

  Molly was sitting at the tiny table at the back of the kitchen, her thumbs moving over her cell phone at the speed of sound. In between gulps of root beer, she seemed to be searching frantically for something on one of her apps.

  Martha was wiping down work spaces in the kitchen, her movements slow and robotic. She’d never been the bubbly type—it simply wasn’t her personality. But she’d always been pleasant and quick with a humorous retort. It tore at Talia’s heart to see her this way. She was a phantom of her former wonderful self.

  Talia removed her apron and hung it in her locker. “Hey, guys, do you mind if I scoot out for a bit? There’s someone in town I want to talk to. About . . . Sunday,” she said, lowering her voice. “I shouldn’t be gone long.”

  Martha turned, and her eyes flared. “If it’s about the murder, you take as long as you want.”

  Molly waved a hand. “Yeah, sure, whatever. Go ahead. We can handle things.” She peered at her phone. “When you get back, I want to show you something. Something I found on my Facebook page.”

  Talia nodded and scooted toward the door. “See you both in a bit.”

  • • •

  Talia headed for the building on the main drag that housed Summers Realty. The sky was overcast. A light breeze blew from the west, cooling Talia’s skin. After the unusually hot summer they’d been having, it was a welcome change.

  Anxious to see if she would find Harry in the office, she quickened her pace as she approached Summers Realty. The realty company occupied a storefront space in an older brick building that housed a local dentist, along with a few other miscellaneous businesses.

  Talia peeked through the glass door. She spied Harry Summers seated at a desk along the right-hand wall, his fingers tapping away at an old-fashioned keyboard. She’d just started to tug open the door when a reflection in the glass suddenly caught her attention. Across the street, in front of LaFleur Jewelers, a familiar figure emerged from the shop.

  Jodie Ferringer.

  Talia turned around to snag a peek at her. Wearing a stunning pair of hot pink capris and a gorgeous flowered halter, Jodie had a fancy gold bag with the jewelry store’s logo dangling from her bejeweled wrist. She stopped briefly, dug into her designer purse, and whipped out her sunglasses. For one single moment, Talia was sure Jodie had spotted her staring across the street. Only to be polite, she waved at the stylishly dressed woman.

  For a nanosecond, Jodie froze. Then she quickly looked away and strode off. Was she giving Talia the cold shoulder?

  Duh. Of course she was. No doubt her husband had told her about his visit to Fry Me the evening before. He most certainly hadn’t been happy when he’d left with his manager. Talia’s refusal to host a campaign luncheon for him on a Sunday had definitely kicked his grits.

  Talia opened the glass door and stepped inside the realty office. A bell over the door jangled.

  Harry jerked his head up. His face brightened when he saw Talia. “Hey, this is a pleasant surprise. Come on in.” He stood and ushered her over to the chair that rested adjacent to his desk. “I was just going over some of our listings to see if I can spice up the language a bit. When a property’s been on the market too long, the ads start to sound stale, you know? It’s a sure sign that no one’s interested. So, I go over the listings periodically and play with the wording a bit.” He flushed. “Sorry. I’m babbling. Can I get you something? A lemonade? We have some bottles in the back.”

  “Oh, no, thanks, Harry.” She sat down in the proffered chair, her gaze drawn to his long-lashed green eyes and fabulous cheekbones. For sure he had killer looks. But that didn’t mean he was a killer. Like Dylan, he was a wild card—a suspect, for lack of a better term, about whom she knew next to nothing.

  “Then what can I do for you?” he asked. “I don’t suppose you’re looking for a condo? We have a lovely one that just came onto the market, in the new complex in Lenox. Oak flooring, Sub-Zero appliances, cathedral ceilings. And the owner is offering to pay the first three months’ condo fees. Sandra is out showing a house right now, but she could take you there when she returns.”

  His sales pitch had devolved into a stream of babble. He was so eager to push the condo on her, Talia found herself feeling sorry for him. The real estate market had taken a fierce hit from the troubled economy. No doubt Summers Realty was feeling the pain.

  “Actually,” she explained, “I live in the bungalow that used to be my nana’s. Right now it’s perfect for me. And my cat,” she added with a polite smile.

  Harry sighed. “You’re lucky. I love cats. I wish my wife did.”

  The more Talia talked to Harry, the more she liked him. For such a great-looking guy, he seemed so down-to-earth and unassuming.

  “Harry, I really came by to thank you for rescuing my clumsy butt, and my pies, at the festival on Sunday. I would have been mortified if
they’d splattered all over the ground. Can you imagine how that would’ve made me look? People would think I was the biggest klutz ever!” She cringed inwardly at her grand exaggeration, hoping Harry wouldn’t see straight through her.

  He stared at her for a long moment, then sat back in his chair. “Well, I’m glad I was there to help,” he said quietly.

  After an awkward pause, Talia opened her purse. “Anyway,” she said, “here’s a little something for you. It’s a gift certificate to Fry Me a Sliver. It doesn’t expire, so you can use it anytime.”

  He stared at it for a moment and then shook his head. “Talia, there’s really no need to do that.”

  “Honestly, I insist,” she said, and pushed it toward his mouse pad.

  “Thank you. That’s very sweet of you.” He took the envelope and tucked it under his keyboard. His face clouded. “Talia, I heard about what happened to the young man who works for you. I’m so sorry.”

  Talia fidgeted in her chair. “Thank you,” she said. “We’re all praying for him. He’s always been a strong kid. I’m confident he’s going to pull through this.”

  Kid. How could she call Lucas a kid? He’d turned twenty in the spring. She and Martha had presented him with a birthday cake from Peggy’s Bakery—his favorite cherry cheesecake. The memory made a soft lump rise in her throat.

  “My heart sank when I heard he was in critical condition,” Harry went on. “Has . . . there been any word on his condition? Any improvement?”

  Talia struggled to keep a passive look on her face. “I haven’t heard anything new.”

  Harry nodded distractedly. He looked torn, as if he wanted to get something off his chest but wasn’t sure if Talia was the right sounding board. “Well, um, that’s too bad,” he finally said. “Um, Talia, if you don’t mind my changing the subject, can I share something with you?”

  “Certainly,” she said. Share away!

  “My wife was furious with me when I entered that contest. And now, looking back, I wish I’d never done it. Imagine that poor old woman getting bashed on the head like that! Even the thought of it makes me shiver.” He shuddered slightly, and Talia sensed that it wasn’t just an act.

  “Did you know Norma?” Talia asked him. Time to get down to the nitty-gritty.

  Harry sat back in his chair. “No. I’d never met her before that day. Although I must say, she wasn’t terribly friendly. After Thurman instructed us all to go to our respective cooking stations, I wished her good luck. She opened her mouth and looked at me as if I’d sprouted antlers.” He let out a tiny laugh.

  “Huh. That’s strange.”

  “Another weird thing.” He turned in his chair and leaned forward, his hands resting on his knees. “Remember how the six finalists were told to have their cooking supplies in their assigned stations before the start of the contest?”

  Talia nodded. “That’s right. The contest instructions were quite specific about that.” She recalled stashing her things in her assigned station when she first arrived at the ball field. “I guess they wanted to be sure there wouldn’t be any delays.”

  “Probably,” Harry said. “Anyway, Norma apparently didn’t get the memo, because she had to go out to her car to fetch her cooking supplies when the contest was about to start. The rest of us were heading toward our stations when we all heard kind of a dull clang come from behind. I turned and there was Norma, staring at the ground in dismay. She’d dropped her box, and her utensils and a casserole dish had fallen out. She looked so forlorn, standing there. Honestly, I felt so sorry for her.”

  Poor Norma, Talia mused. She’d seemed totally out of her comfort zone during the entire debacle. She couldn’t even get her act together enough to put her things in her cooking station on time.

  “A couple of us helped her repack her box,” Harry said. “She didn’t even bother to thank us. And when I offered to carry the box for her, she just gave me a nasty look and shook her head.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Talia said. “I must have already been in my own cooking station.”

  He nodded. “I think you were—you’d walked ahead of us. Anyway, it struck me then that Norma didn’t seem very likable, poor soul.” He shook his head sadly. “I guess she was one heckuva cook, though. Of course none of us got to sample the winning recipe. The whole contest was strange, in my opinion. It didn’t seem very well planned. Not to me, anyway.”

  Talia bit her lip. “I tend to agree with that. But I suppose you have to cut them some slack. It was the first time they’d held the competition. They were probably testing the waters.” She hesitated for a moment. If she was going to do a bit of prying, he’d given her the perfect segue. “Harry, why did your wife object to your entering?”

  He blinked, and his handsome features went slack. “She says it’s an embarrassment to her, having a husband who only cares about cooking. I can’t help it—it’s the single thing that gives my life joy. I love creating new recipes. She tells me all the time that I don’t live up to my looks. I’m not macho enough for her. I’m not . . . forceful enough.” His face reddened. “In her opinion, real men don’t cook. It would be different if I owned a high-end restaurant, but I’m just a lowly slob who loves to play around in the kitchen.” He saw Talia start to object and said, “In her lofty opinion, that is. When I pointed out that one of the other contestants was a man, she said Dylan was just a druggie and didn’t count.”

  Sandra Summers was sounding more and more like a very disagreeable woman. But Talia was only hearing Harry’s side of it, so she didn’t want to be too quick to judge.

  “Harry, I’m sorry to hear that,” Talia said. “That really is so unfair.” While his admission made her squirm with discomfort, she knew she had to press him for more.

  “Over the years she’s called me some horrible names,” Harry continued. “Names that weren’t very nice or appropriate.”

  Talia could only imagine. “Harry, you and I both know that some of the best chefs in the world are men.”

  He laughed, but his eyes darkened. “Tell that to a woman who subsists mostly on salads. One extra calorie a day and she bloats up like risen dough, so she doesn’t bother eating food that has actual flavor.” He picked at a corner of his desk calendar. “But . . . well, that wasn’t the only reason she didn’t want me to enter the contest.”

  “Oh?” Talia sat up straighter.

  He glanced toward the door, then leaned closer to Talia. “The real reason was that she desperately wanted to work behind the scenes with Wesley Thurman. She volunteered to help him coordinate the contest. Told him she could be his ‘local liaison.’” He rolled his eyes at the dropped ceiling.

  “Really. So she’d met Wesley before?”

  His eyes popped open wide. “Oh, she’d met him, all right. In high school he was her heartthrob. Even back then, she told me, he was a real man. The implication being that I’m not.” Harry shook his head. “Sandra never got over him. She’s still in love with him. I guess she always will be.”

  Talia’s heart broke for the man. “Are you sure, Harry? Did she tell you that?”

  His sad smile was the picture of heartbreak. “No, but she doesn’t have to. Over the years she’s told me in a thousand different ways.”

  Now Talia felt her own cheeks redden. She suddenly remembered seeing Sandra standing next to Wesley at the festival on Sunday, her hand on his arm. “So, did Wes Thurman accept her offer of help?”

  “Not hardly,” he said, a slight gleam in his eye. “When he heard that her husband—me—was a contestant, he quickly gave her a thumbs-down. Truthfully, I don’t think he wanted her help. She’d sent him, like, a thousand e-mails and he ignored every single one.”

  Talia was willing to bet that Sandra blamed Harry for the fact that Wesley had rejected her offer of help.

  Harry glanced toward the door again, then sat up in his chair. “Hey, Talia, can I show you something?” he said, a mischievous glint in his eye.

  “Of course!”

&
nbsp; His slender fingers tapped expertly over the keyboard. The site he was looking for came up within seconds. He turned the monitor so that Talia could see it. “So what do you think?” he said. His eyes practically danced.

  On Harry’s screen was a photo of a nicely maintained older home flanked by neatly trimmed shrubs. The two-story house was white, with trim and shutters painted a darling shade of lilac. A flower-lined walkway led to the front porch. On the lawn was a wooden sign that read HAINSLEY HOUSE.

  Talia had seen it before. She just couldn’t remember where. “This looks so familiar, Harry,” Talia said. “But right now I can’t place it.”

  He turned the monitor back so that it faced him, then hit a few more keys. “It’s a restaurant on Elm Street in Pittsfield,” he said. “The owner’s been struggling to keep it going. His health is failing, and quite frankly, so is his menu. But look.” He flipped the monitor so she could see it again. “Aren’t these rooms to die for?”

  Talia couldn’t help smiling as Harry clicked through the photos. The dining rooms were small but cozy, with a hearth in each one. The floors were gleaming hardwood, and the walls had been papered with scenes that looked straight out of the French countryside.

  “Fantabulous, isn’t it?” he said.

  Talia grinned. “It’s beautiful, Harry. The decor is so warm and inviting. Are you . . . thinking of buying it?”

  He nodded eagerly. “I want so desperately to have it, Talia. Oh, I have so many wonderful menu ideas. I’d like to offer a combo of new age concoctions and old American favorites. You know, a dish to please every palate? I’ve been talking to the owner, and he’s keen on my taking it over. Poor fellow, he’s losing business every day. At this point he just wants to unload it.”

  Talia wondered if Harry had too many stars in his eyes. Taking over a thriving restaurant was one thing, and even that didn’t ensure success. But investing in an eatery that was floundering was, at best, a risky venture.

  Oh, who was she to talk? When she took over Lambert’s Fish & Chips, she’d had no idea what she was doing. There were so many times, especially in the beginning, when she’d wondered if she’d made the right decision. But each time she doubted herself, she would think of Bea and Howie and their blind faith in her. She was determined to make the eatery work. Or die trying.