Murder Al Dente: A Southern Pasta Shop Mystery (Southern Pasta Shop Mysteries Book 1)

by Jennifer L. Hart

  Jones got down on one knee to take a picture of two little girls twirling their fluffy skirts.

  New Zealand, land of the panoramic vista. My brain conjured up all sorts of lewd fantasies with a Lord of the Rings type backdrop. Could this man possibly be any more interesting? I had a million questions poised, but they all scattered like leaves in the wind when he rose to his full height and extended his hand. "Dance with me?"

  "Sure." I was a horrible dancer, but the band had switched to Patsy Cline's "Crazy," and I could pull off the eighth grade shuffle with the best of them.

  Jones took my left hand in his, and his right settled on my waist, beneath the fall of the duster. He pulled me close, and we started to move in sync. Dear God, he was tall, and I couldn't quite reach his shoulder, so my right hand landed on his bicep. I thought I might be on the verge of spontaneous combustion and searched desperately for something to say.

  "So, what brings you to Beaverton? Business? Family?"

  He smiled down at me. "A little of each. You know how that goes."

  Boy, did I ever. "So, you're staying with relatives?"

  Jones moved us easily across the dance floor. His dancing skills exceeded mine, and I could tell he was holding back for me. "No, I have my own place nearby."

  "That must be nice. I'm living with my grandfather and his smelly old hound dog."

  "Soaking up the local color?" His voice was light, teasing.

  "Believe me, I have had enough local color to last the rest of my natural life. No, it's out of necessity, I'm afraid. I'm flat broke."

  "Victim of Wall Street?"

  I stared at him for a beat. He honestly didn't know? Then again, if he didn't know who Regis was… No wonder he was being so flirty. If he knew I was the Death Chef, he would have run screaming into the night. Instead he held me closely, guiding my awkward feet through the steps.

  God help me, but I didn't want to tell him. It was crummy and deceitful, but I wanted to keep the fantasy for just a little longer.

  As if on cue, Lizzy flounced over, a great big pin to burst my bubble of tranquility. "Where's the cake?"

  "Hello, Lizzy, how are you? Lovely party." I smiled up at Jones.

  "Stop being cute, Andy. Why isn't the cake finished?"

  I sighed. She obviously wasn't going away. "Not my department. Take it up with Chef Farnsworth."

  "I can't find Chef Farnsworth." Her eyes had actually filled with tears, and considering the amount of eyeliner she had on, crying would lead to another disaster.

  We stopped dancing. "We can go look for him," Jones offered.

  I made a face but hid my reaction when he turned back to me. "Sure, we're all over that."

  "Thank you!" Lizzy flung herself at Jones. "I'm so glad you're here."

  Whoa. What the heck was that all about? And what had happened to Kyle? He should be here, peeing a circle around her to mark his territory. I crossed my arms over my chest and waited.

  Jones gave her a tight squeeze. "I told you that you ought to hire an event planner. This is too much stress."

  The fact that he was being so nice to her chafed. And he told her? Lizzy didn't take direction from anyone. She'd actually turned down the lead in the high school production of Romeo and Juliet because the director wouldn't let her rewrite the ending for Juliet to resurrect Romeo by the power of her love and beauty.

  Jones and I set off toward the house. The food tent was full to bursting, and not a single person had tossed their cookies. Gratifying, to say the least.

  "I didn't realize you and Lizzy were so chummy." I said as we pushed through the bottle neck of patrons waiting to use the bathroom.

  Jones glanced over his shoulder. "What did you expect?"

  I hurried to catch up. "I'm missing something here. You're more than just her photographer."

  "I'm her half-brother."

  "Crap." Oops, did I say that out loud? "Sorry. Jeez, I wish you'd told me before I started with that archenemy spiel. I feel like an idiot."

  Jones stopped at the doorway to the kitchen, and our eyes met. "I love my sister, but I'm not blind to her…histrionics."

  That was one way to put it.

  The kitchen sat completely empty, save for a mountain of dishes in the sink and the engagement cake on the island counter. It was gorgeous, covered with white icing and decadent frosted orchids. The piping bag sat to the side, and it looked as though Chef Farnsworth had stopped in the middle of Kyle's name.

  "Where do you think he went?" Jones asked.

  "Maybe he's holed up in the bathroom." Not the sexiest thought in the world, but when you gotta go…

  "Can you finish the writing, so we can bring the cake out?"

  "Your sister will have kittens if she finds out." To say nothing of Zoltan's reaction.

  Jones shut the kitchen door, a devilish gleam in his eye. "It will be our secret."

  I liked the sound of that. "Okay then, you play lookout."

  Picking up the piping bag, I checked the tip. The icing inside had hardened to the consistency of concrete. "Let me just go check the pantry and see if there's another one of these. If I have to clean this and let it dry, it will take longer."

  Moving over to the pantry, I opened the door. "Dear God. What's that smell? It's like rotten potatoes, or an open sewer."

  "No, it's when bladder and bowels evacuate after death."

  I looked up to see if he was kidding but his expression was grim. Uneasy, I shifted from foot to foot. Jones reached around me and flicked on the light. I blinked a few times, letting my eyes adjust, and jumped when he swore.

  Chef Zoltan Farnsworth lay on the floor of the pantry, the handle of a chef's knife sticking out of his back. A bag of flour had exploded all over the inside of the pantry. Someone had painstakingly written a message in the flour.

  Welcome home.

  Dessert Noodle Kugel

  What you'll need:

  12-16 ounces of lasagna noodles

  4 large eggs

  3/4 cup sugar

  1/4 cup of amaretto

  3 cups half and half

  1 1/2 cups ricotta cheese

  1 cup golden raisins

  1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons slivered almonds

  1 small container candied fruit

  2 tablespoons sugar

  2 tablespoons cinnamon

  1 tablespoon fresh ground nutmeg

  1/4 teaspoon cloves

  1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

  Honey for drizzling (optional)

  Spread the uncooked noodles evenly across the bottom of a 9 x 13 inch pan. Distribute the raisins and almonds evenly among the noodles, taking care not to break the noodles.

  In a 3-quart bowl, combine the eggs, sugar, milk, amaretto, and ricotta. Pour over the noodles. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. Be sure all the noodles are immersed in the liquid.

  Preheat the oven to 350°F. Mix the sugar and spices and sprinkle across the top of the kugel. Cover with foil and bake for 35 minutes. Uncover, and bake another 40 minutes, until firm in the center, puffed and browned on the top.

  **Andy's note: Don't tell Aunt Cecily, but even I get sick of traditional boiled pasta from time to time! Kugel is a great way to use up leftover noodles while adding some sweet to your savory. It can be served hot or at room temperature. Leftover kugel can be re-heated or eaten cold. Excellent alternative dessert when your pastry chef has been murdered.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Unfortunately for me, discovering Chef Farnsworth's body wasn't my first brush with death. I sat on the bumper of the van, gnawing my bottom lip while the coroner and his assistant hauled the body out of the house. Kyle stood off to the side, alternating between calming his bride to be and his future mother-in-law. Lizzy was bawling, big hysterical tears and Kyle wrapped his arms around her. Our gazes met and held for a few heartbeats and I knew he was thinking the same thing I was, how her reaction was spot-on for discovering that someone you'd conversed with earlier in the day was now dead.
A lump formed in my throat. His hands rubbed her shaking shoulders, and I swallowed hard. Lizzy was the demonstrative type, a small delicate flower in need of protecting. I looked away first and left Kyle to his stricken fiancée.

  Some people go their entire lives without finding a corpse. I just didn't happen to be one of them.

  "How are you holding up, Andy?" Danny Tate was one of the officers assigned to corralling the party guests until the detectives interviewed us. He broke ranks and moved to my side until I caught a whiff of Eau de Oscar Mayer. "Been a rough couple of days, huh?"

  "You could say that." Jones had been led away by Darryl Brown, a no-nonsense detective who had been a football star during my tenure at Beaverton high. He'd been awarded a partial academic scholarship to Notre Dame during my sophomore year. A rotator cuff injury had kept him from playing in the NFL, but he'd received his degree in Criminal Justice and brought it back to help protect and serve the town that reared him.

  Danny shifted his weight, displacing gravel beneath his boots. "So, Andy, do you want to go out sometime?"

  My head snapped up from staring at my flour-coated sneakers to his face. "Seriously? You pick now to ask me out?"

  Bologna Boy offered a sheepish smile. "Sorry, you don't exactly seem broken up about it."

  He had a point there. Still… "I'm not really in the market for a relationship right now." And I wasn't nearly fond enough of lunchmeat to spend time with him.

  A shrug. "It was worth a shot."

  "Andy Buckland," Detective Brown beckoned me toward him. Jones was nowhere in sight, and I tried not to let that bother me. Though Danny had given him a hard time after the accident, Darryl wouldn't just lock Jones up for being a newcomer. Pushing up from the van, I made my way to the door.

  Darryl nodded, the only sign of recognition as he lead me past the taped off kitchen. The smell of death overrode the luscious scents from my various pasta dishes. A chalk outline gruesomely depicted where Zoltan's body had been, but my mind superimposed his blood-stained chef's smock. Tearing my eyes from it, I swallowed and didn't realize I'd staggered into Darryl until he caught me by the arm.

  "I'm all right," I murmured, softly and somewhat unconvincingly. His dark brown eyes narrowed before he ushered me into a small sitting room and closed the door, shutting out the din of activity happening just down the hall.

  The wallpaper was classic antebellum mansion, a royal blue mosaic pattern stretching perfectly between crown and shoe molding. Antique cherry tables held matching Tiffany lamps, the kind with dragonflies. The tables flanked a large couch that faced the unlit fireplace along the back wall. An overstuffed chaise lounge squatted ostentatiously by a bay window. The heavy drapes had been drawn, but I could still see the flash of blue and red lights from the parking area.

  Gesturing to the couch, Darryl took out a small notebook and clicked a pen. I sat. Not one to mince words, he got right to it. "Step by step, go over everything that happened since you arrived here tonight."

  Taking a deep, fortifying breath, I detailed my night, leaving out nothing, including the awkwardness of discovering that I was catering my ex-boyfriend's engagement party or my history with Chef Zoltan Farnsworth. I'd seen enough police procedurals to know that omitting anything would only land you in hot water. The strong feelings that had threatened to drown me in self-pity earlier seemed so trivial in light of what had happened.

  Darryl listened without interrupting, occasionally jotting down a quick note on the pad.

  "So you have a history with the victim. What do you know about him personally?" he asked, his tone mild.

  Swallowing past the panic, I thought about how best to answer without speaking ill of the dead. "Not much, at least no more than any other pastry chef on the Eastern Seaboard. Mostly gossip and rumors, his professional reputation, that kind of thing."

  Darryl raised an eyebrow. "But you said you met him before. Surely you had an impression of him?"

  "Well, he was a showman. More interested in buffing his ego than quality of his work. His assistant took quite a bit of abuse to help him save face."

  Darryl's eyes narrowed. "Was the assistant here tonight?"

  Crap. "I didn't mean that Mimi was abused, that came out wrong."

  "What's Mimi's last name?"

  "Honestly, I have no idea." Oh hell, I was doing more harm than good, trying to dance around the issue, and I couldn't bear for poor Mimi to have to suffer scrutiny just because she'd worked for the brute. "Zoltan Farnsworth was an ego-manic, and he treated every other chef as his inferior. He was also a booze hound, showed up half in the bag at several culinary functions. If not for Mimi, he probably would have been blacklisted."

  "What does Mimi look like?"

  "Small, petite I mean. Short black hair and dark eyes. Thin, almost gaunt. Early to mid-twenties, though I'm not one hundred percent on that. Asian ancestry, Chinese, I think. I can't imagine her hurting anyone, let alone killing her boss, no matter how big of an ass he was."

  "Be sure to contact me if you see her again. No one matching that description is among the bystanders." He wrote down a few more quick notes, and I said a silent prayer that I hadn't made Mimi's life more difficult. "Tell me about Malcolm Jones."

  I blinked, surprised. "I barely know him. Just ran into him the other day for the first time. Literally, I rear-ended his car. There's a report and everything."

  "He was with you when you found the body?"

  "And for a while before that. We were dancing. Well, actually he was taking pictures while I set up the pasta bar. And then we danced."

  Darryl stood up, paced to the window, and moved the curtain aside. The soft glow of the lamps reflected off his baldpate as he peered out into the night. "It must be hard, seeing Kyle with Lizzy. I remember you guys in high school, thick as thieves, as my granny used to say. Why did you take this job, Andy?"

  "I've been asking myself that all night," I muttered. "Still don't have a good reason, other than Aunt Cecily wanted me to, and the pasta shop needs the business." Taking a deep breath I asked, "Am I in trouble? Do I need to get a lawyer?"

  He didn't answer right away, just let the curtain fall aside. The antique clock on the mantel chimed ten times, and I shifted. "Darryl?"

  He looked down at me, his face unreadable. "I'll have one of the officers drive you home. We'll need to inspect the van. I'll probably need to talk to you again, since you knew him."

  "Sure. I'll either be at Pop's place or at the Bowtie Angel." Pushing off the couch, it suddenly hit me that there was a murderer on the loose. "Darryl, do you think I'm in danger? That message—"

  He glanced up sharply. "What message?"

  "Welcome home. It was written next to the body. In spilled flour. Didn't you see it? Didn't Jones say something about it when you interviewed him?"

  Slowly, Darryl shook his head. "No. Andy, I'm sorry, but I didn't see anything." From his expression it was clear that Jones hadn't said anything either.

  * * *

  Pops was asleep when I got home. Hurray for small favors because there were only so many times in a given day that I could recount the same information. After kicking off my shoes I fell into bed fully clothed and let exhaustion do its thing. If I had any dreams, I didn't recall them, but I woke up just as the sky was beginning to lighten to blue-black.

  Stiff and achy, I pulled on some sweats and trundled downstairs. Clipping Roofus to his leash, I slipped out the back door. Irene O'Malley popped out of the house next door wearing a pink terrycloth bathrobe and bent down to retrieve her paper. She gave me a little wave and then ducked back into her nice warm house. I looked over to my friend Donna Muller's house, but there were no signs of life yet. I'd make a point of stopping by later, after her kids left for school.

  The temperature had fallen overnight, frost prominent on the grass, but it would melt away as soon as the sun hit it. Willing my quiet reprieve to go on just a smidge longer, I headed to the walking trail behind the cul-de-sac.

  Beav
erton is located in the central region of North Carolina in an area known as the Piedmont, smack dab between the mountains and the coast. It's several hours' drive to reach either so to make up for it, the community has funneled money into fitness trails. The hiking/biking path was originally laid out to run ten miles around the perimeter of the downtown area, but the economy started slowing down when North Carolina failed to transform into the new Florida. Although we have quite a few denizens who have retired from the Snowbelt, there are just as many vacant lots where real estate speculators ate a humongous loss, and the unfinished trail is only about three miles of nature surrounded by cleared land being slowly reclaimed by Mother Nature.

  Roofus snuffled a bit, and it took some tugging to urge him through the back woods and onto the trail. He lifted his leg on one of the fitness stations and then fell into an easy lope at my side. Though I was far from a natural athlete, I had endurance on my side, built up from all those years of subsisting on a starch heavy diet and needing to burn it off before it settled around my hips like a blubbery hula hoop. Atkins could kiss my grits. If I couldn't enjoy food, I doubt I'd enjoy much of anything.

  With my iPod still in the car, I had nothing to drown out the questions plaguing me other than the occasional twittering of birdsong. Why hadn't Detective Brown seen the words written in the spilled flour? And why hadn't Jones mentioned it to him? Had the message been meant for me? Maybe I was losing my mind, the stress of poisoning a bunch of strangers, of being fired and back in Beaverton, worries about Pops and Aunt Cecily and the Bowtie Angel, seeing Kyle and Lizzy together, all topped off with finding the body. Yeah, maybe my mind had snapped like a dry twig. The thought wasn't exactly reassuring.

  Up ahead the Episcopal Church steeple appeared amidst the trees, blazing white against a pink backdrop. That was Kyle's church, where he and Lizzy would get married in all the fanfare due, the town's golden couple. Rumors would fly of course, just like always, rumors that Chef Zoltan Farnsworth had been a spy, a drug dealer, or undercover paparazzi. A few of the more colorful tales would involve me as his lover/killer/protégé. Good old Andy Buckland, always greasing the gossip mill.