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

by Jennifer L. Hart

  The wind picked up, whipping my hair into my face. I hadn't been here since Nana's funeral. I hadn't been back to Beaverton for more than an overnight stay, and I'd told myself there wasn't time for this particular trip. But seeing Zoltan Farnsworth's lifeless body sprawled on the floor had shaken up my priorities. Life was too short to fixate on all the crap that went sideways. Failure and humiliation were a part of life, but somehow I'd made them the focus of my existence, dismissing my accomplishments.

  The newer gravesites sat in the northwest corner of the cemetery were my family's plot sat beneath a leafless dogwood. Two markers held wreaths made of spring flowers. Aunt Cecily came every Sunday after Church and every Wednesday after Bible study to tend the graves of her sister and her niece, who had been the closest thing she'd ever had to a daughter.

  I knelt beside my mother's grave marker, unsure of what to say. My memories of her were foggy at best, and recalling her before illness had eaten away at a once healthy body took some doing. Too many of those earlier times involved my father, and I didn't want to think about him, the coward. My anger had no place here.

  Her grave marker was simple, elegant, much like the fifty-eight year old woman she would be if she had lived. Sofia Maria Buckland, beloved mother and daughter, an angel on Earth. No mention of her as a wife, since my father had been long gone by the time of the funeral.

  "Hi, Mom." Well, it was a place to start, dopey though it sounded. "Sorry I don't visit more. Honestly, I don't really want you to know how I'm doing because in truth, I'm scared you'd be disappointed."

  I laugh hollowly. Emotions roiled inside me like a churning sea, volatile and capable of serious damage. "A shrink would have a field day with me for sure. Don't blame Nana and Pops—they did the best they could with what they were given. I'm just a mess. And not even a hot mess." Another laugh bubbled up. Better to laugh than cry, right?

  "I thought I'd find you here." Pops stood over me.

  "You move pretty darn stealthily for an old guy." My attempt at levity fell flat.

  "It's okay to be angry with her, Andy girl," he said quietly. "I'm angry with your Nana for leaving me."

  I just shook my head. He didn't get it, and I didn't expect him to because I barely understood myself. "You know what I need? A drink."

  Pops nodded. "Good idea. Where to?"

  Several bars fell inside the city limits of Beaverton. The country club had the ritziest, naturally, a place where Lizzy and Kyle and maybe even Jones would hang out. Shaggy's was the requisite dive bar, nestled between the police station and a bail bond office, like one-stop shopping. Get drunk and stupid, get arrested, and be bonded out all in one trip. How very eco-green.

  "Let's go to O'Dell's." I suggested the middle ground bar, a dark tavern-type atmosphere that served food as well as beverages.

  The drive back into town was quiet. The street lamps were on and the businesses locked up tight. I squirmed in my seat, uncomfortable that Pops continued to ignore the elephant in the backseat. "You heard about Chef Farnsworth."

  He grunted in acknowledgment.

  "I knew him, and from what I saw he was a rat bastard."

  "Did you tell the police?"

  "Yeah."

  "Do you know who killed him?"

  "No."

  Pops pulled into the gravel parking lot, shut off the engine, and looked over at me. "So?"

  I blew out a sigh. "So nothing. I've got nothing here." As usual.

  "Come on, Andy girl. First round is on me."

  Ham and Linguini with Peas

  What you'll need:

  1/2 sweet or yellow onion

  1/2 cup water

  1/2 cup milk

  1 chicken bouillon cube

  1 tablespoon of flour

  3 tablespoons half and half

  2 cups cooked ham sliced into thin strips or cubed

  2 cups cooked peas or broccoli for color

  8 ounces cooked linguini

  2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil

  Grated Parmesan or Romano cheese for sprinkling

  Sauté the onion in a little olive oil until tender. In a small bowl, mix 1 tablespoon of flour with the milk. Boil the water and add the bouillon cube to make broth. Then add the milk to the mixture. Pour over cooking onion slowly so no lumps form. Cook until thickened, adding half and half to create cream sauce. Add ham and cooked veggie of your choice until heated through. Add linguini and serve topped with grated cheese.

  **Andy's note: Substitute half and half for the milk for a richer, creamier flavor.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The pasta shop was hopping the next day. With Thanksgiving fast approaching and with me being without a doubt the talk of the town, the pasta shop was crazy busy. Emphasis on the crazy, as Pops and Aunt Cecily bickered nonstop and in public. Maybe it wasn't professional, but it was entertaining and a trip to the Bowtie Angel was like dinner and a show. With a little distance I might see how funny their nonstop foibles had become to the outside observer who didn't have to make the pasta on the sly. There was a lesson to be learned from the response of the town. Despite my reputation as Andy the Death Chef, people didn't seem worried that I was cooking for them. Beaverton on the whole didn't hold a grudge, and neither should I.

  "Thanks so much for dinner last night." Donna slid onto a stool with her already paid for lunch of pasta primavera. "I did Atkins, and now I can't seem to stop carbo-loading."

  "I feel your pain," I told her, slapping my well-padded hip. "Maybe we should start jogging."

  We looked each other in the eye and said, "Nah," simultaneously.

  "Did you and Jones have any luck with the photos?" Donna twirled her pasta on her plastic fork.

  "Not even a hint." I busied myself with straightening the pictures on the walls, so Donna didn't see that I was holding back. I didn't want to share that ugly scene with Lizzy from the night before. "How are the kids?"

  "Driving me up a wall," Donna said with a smile. "Whoever said girls are easier was full of crap. No concussion, thank heavens, but Pippa fell because she was doing backflips off the toilet."

  Laughing, I sprayed glass cleaner on the front of the display case housing the pasta. Our signature dish of the day was linguini with ham and peas, a recipe of my own creation I had tossed together in a cream sauce one year in a fit of culinary angst.

  My mother's funeral fell the day before my sixteenth birthday, and I'd come to live with my grandparents. Filled with restless energy, I didn't know what to do to myself. Luckily Nana understood about the whole idle hands thing and put me to work in the pasta shop every minute I wasn't in school. Under her and Aunt Cecily's unnerving supervision, I went from a lost teen to a chef. I went from making fresh pasta by hand to creating innovative new dishes with pasta as the main draw. If I'd put a fraction of the amount of time and energy into math as I did into cooking, I might have been able to balance my checkbook.

  At sixteen, I had it all figured out. Kyle and I would get married, and then, after my career as a chef took on a life of its own, we'd settled down in a cute little house, have a couple of kids, and essentially live the American dream—Norman Rockwell, eat your heart out. It hadn't worked out that way, though I could take comfort in the fact that I'd given it my all. Despite the screw-ups in my personal life, for a few years I'd been a rising star in the culinary community, a chef for the next generation. Fun, feisty and fearless in the kitchen. In retrospect a tad too fearless because my bold debut cemented my reputation as Beaverton's greatest screw-up for the rest of my natural life.

  Finding Chef Zoltan's body—well—that was just the icing rose on the cake.

  "Any leads on the break-in? Or the murder?" I asked Donna. Beaverton was just a hotbed of crime these days.

  "Nope, but look what I found." Donna pulled out a manila file folder bulging with papers.

  "What's this?" Opening it up, the name Malcolm Jones jumped out at me. "Where did you get this?"

  "Steven does a lot of his research on his
home computer. I just did a history check and printed out the results. Seems like the police are spending quite a bit of time investigating Lizzy's big brother. Do you see there? Jones's mother is a former Miss Galaxy contestant? According to this, she dropped out due to urgent personal business. Dollars to doughnuts that was because she was knocked up with a future heartthrob. I wonder if she blamed him for not winning the crown."

  Though we were alone in the pasta shop, save for Aunt Cecily rattling around in the kitchen, I slammed the file shut. "Donna, no. I'm not investigating Jones."

  "Why the heck not? Andy, just because the man is jaw-droppingly delicious doesn't mean he's as innocent as a newborn lamb. Gathering a little background info is just sensible."

  "Because I have more motive to kill Chef Farnsworth than Jones!" Wait, that didn't come out right. "What I mean is—"

  The bell jingled, and Emma Shaw strode in. Donna's eyes narrowed. She and Emma had been good-natured rivals from the moment of birth, a loony competition fostered by their mothers who shared a hospital room in the maternity wing. Donna had crawled first, but Emma walked sooner. Donna talked first, but Emma was potty trained sooner. In high school, Donna grew breasts and had a boyfriend, but Emma was valedictorian. Donna married and became a widowed, single mom, while Emma became a doctor. Both were successful career women with three children, white picket fences, and a burning desire to one-up the other. Seeing the two of them facing off was like watching a showdown between two passive-aggressive gunslingers.

  "Emma." Donna nodded and then purposely turned back to her Styrofoam container of noodles and veggies.

  "Hello, Donna. I heard about your daughter's unfortunate dismount. Everything's okay?" Emma needled. Her lips curled, and I was pretty sure a doctor wouldn't be so cavalier about a child's injury unless she knew the girl was all right.

  Donna's shoulders stiffened. "She's fine. Thanks for asking."

  "Can I get you something, Emma?" I asked before Donna tried to stab the other woman with her fork.

  "Yes, actually. I'm having a little party Saturday night, and I was wondering if you could cater?"

  I barely refrained from rubbing my hands together in glee. "Sure thing. How many are you expecting?"

  Emma and I went over menu options and pricing. Another catering gig was definitely good for business, and I was relieved that word of my involvement with Chef Farnsworth hadn't driven all the customers away.

  "You two should come, to the party I mean. It would be fun to catch up." Emma smiled.

  "Wouldn't miss it." Donna offered an artificial smile that melted away like butter in a saucepan the second her nemesis left. "Crap. I better go, since I now need to dig up some dirt on her by Saturday."

  "Check at the post office. If there are any bed-wetters in Emma's closet, someone there will know."

  "Smart thinking." Donna waved goodbye, and after her taillights disappeared onto Main Street, I saw she'd left me the Jones file. Crud muffins, if this was a test I would probably fail. On the one hand, I was certain Jones wasn't a killer. He'd been with me during the time of the murder. But how could I resist peeking into his past when it was so nicely laid out on the pages before me?

  Simple, I couldn't.

  Aunt Cecily chose that moment to push through the doors and save me from myself.

  "We have another pasta bar event," I told her, showing her Emma's receipt.

  She nodded and then pointed to the kitchen door. "There is a phone call for you from a woman."

  Odd, I hadn't heard the phone ring. "Who is it?"

  Aunt Cecily gave me a black scowl. "A woman," she repeated, louder as though I was hard of hearing. Or maybe stupid.

  I sashayed into the kitchen and picked up the receiver. The ancient phone was attached to the wall by a cord. Just like everything else in the Bowtie Angel, the phone was prehistoric.

  "Hello?"

  Silence.

  "Is anyone there?"

  Still nothing. No dial tone, no heavy breathing, zilch.

  Whatever. Hanging up the phone, I turned back to the pots of sauce and drying racks of pasta. "Aunt Cecily, could you come in here?"

  Though it was probably akin to pushing a boulder uphill until the end of time, I had to try to reason with my aunt. She marched through the kitchen doors, looking small and scary like always.

  "I need to talk to you about the business."

  Her eyes became small slits in her ancient skull. "What about it?"

  Clearing my throat I managed, "Well, there is a great deal of waste—"

  "No." She stated as a fact. "People eat it. We give what is left to the shelter at church."

  "Right. But we're giving it away, not turning a profit on it." I swallowed. "Maybe we could just make a little less pasta—?"

  A sharp slicing hand gesture cut off my suggestion. "I make what we need, no more."

  "But we're losing money. It's not smart business."

  She turned her back on me and shuffled into the other room.

  I stared at the ceiling. "Little help?"

  * * *

  "Hey Mike." I greeted the mechanic with a fist bump. "How's my baby?"

  "Not pretty, Andy. You did a number on this car."

  Grimacing at the mucked-up grill, the missing headlight, and the wrecked paint, I peeked under the hood and checked out his progress. Working on classic cars had always been a hobby of mine, though I was a rank amateur compared to Mike who had practically been born with a monkey wrench in his hand. Still, I knew how to check my oil, rotate my tires, and a few other sundry bits essential for a car-adoring single woman.

  "Go easy on me here," I pleaded. "It's been a bear of a week."

  "The frame is jacked-up good, babe. She's never gonna run like she did before, and you'll be burning through tires the way my wife goes through my paycheck."

  "Damn it all." I looked around, needing something to kick other than my car or my mechanic. "How much to get her running again?"

  Mike named a sum, and when the room stopped spinning and I was able to suck oxygen into my lungs again, I thanked him and headed back to the Town Car.

  * * *

  Pops had allowed me to drive him to his eye doctor's appointment, and while I waited for him to emerge from the squat brick building, I slid the Jones file out of my shoulder bag.

  Most of what was in there was public-record-type documents. Record of live birth listing Malcolm Devlin Jones, born January 27th, 1976 at St. Lucy's hospital in Auckland, New Zealand. Mother listed as Delilah Jones, father unknown. Huh. Wonder if Lizzy's Dad had insisted on a paternity test, or if he even knew about little Malcolm prior to his birth. If there was one family in town that had been speculated on more than my own, it was the Tillmans. According to the grapevine, Robert Tillman would have been married to Lizzy's mother for about seven years around the time Jones was born. My imagination took over from there. The not so happy couple had difficulty conceiving, a much bigger deal with fewer options in the seventies than what's available today. Defying the time-honored tradition of booze and sleeping pills to mask her hurt, Mrs. Tillman had thrown all of her efforts into charity while Mr. T got his rocks off with a pretty little Miss Galaxy or two.

  I wondered why she stayed with him. She was smart and determined and had a real head for business, even if she was the mother of the biggest brat east of the Mississippi. Love was a funny thing.

  Turning back to the file I pieced together a little more on my favorite New Zealander. Delilah Jones's profession was listed as waitress Jones attended public school, earned top grades, then went to college at Oxford University, where he studied pre-clinical health. That explained the medical training.

  Halfway through his third year, his mother died in a boating accident. A lump formed in my throat when I read that one. He'd been twenty-one at the time, older that I had been when my mother died, but still. I wondered if Jones had any wacky relatives who helped him through his grief. Somehow I doubted he had the benefit of doting grandparents, beca
use he dropped out of school before the spring semester.

  There was a large span of years from the late nineties until 2007 when he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Otherwise there was almost a decade with no record of his activities. Whatever he'd been doing, he did it off the grid.

  His photography business got a big bump when he won second place in the International Photography Awards with his photograph of an almost kissing couple. There was a crummy black and white printout of the award-winning picture, and even though highly pixilated, it was intimate enough that I grew uncomfortably warm. Jones had perfectly captured the lust, the desire that radiated between the man and the woman.

  I'd thought the entire file had been about Jones, but the next page was a bullet point fact sheet of a Norman Burrows. Multiple charges for drunk and disorderly, resisting arrest, indecent exposure, and two DUI's that resulted in a suspended licenses. I chewed my lip as I read through what amounted to a rap sheet. Donna must not have realized this was in with the sheaf of papers she'd passed me. This wasn't the sort of thing your everyday average citizen was privy to, and I wondered if Norman Burrows was another suspect in Chef Farnsworth's murder.

  My cell phone rang, and I squeaked before slamming the folder shut. Then rolled my eyes at my own stupidity. It was a good thing I didn't play poker because even little a guilt ate me alive.

  "Chill out, dummy," I muttered a second before answering the phone.

  "Andrea," Jones breathed into the phone.

  "You can call me Andy," I said, and could have kicked myself. I liked the way he said my full first name as if he were savoring the way it tasted. And no one else called me Andrea. It was like our little secret code. Or maybe I was just a nitwit.