by Jessica Beck
“Well, we certainly can’t eat outside, given the number of guests we’ll be feeding,” Aunt Della said. “The picnic table won’t hold that many, and besides, where are we going to put all of the food? Can’t you cook the ribs inside?”
“I could, but I like them better cooked in coals outside,” I said. I really did prefer that method, but it wasn’t why I was pushing for it at the moment. I wanted our suspects to be tempted by Davis’s firewood. If someone kept glancing over there, it might tell us something. Then again, if they made it a point to never look in that direction at all, that could tell us something as well. Dining inside was not in my plans.
Evidently I didn’t have the final say in the matter, though. “I’m not at all sure that’s going to work out,” Aunt Della said as she looked around. “If we add the leaves to my table, we’ll have plenty of room, and there’s space on the island to pile up the food. Besides, it’s going to be too chilly outside to have a picnic.”
“But we’ve already…”
I was interrupted by my aunt’s hand being held up in the air. “It’s already been decided, Annie. You may cook out there if you’d like, but we’re eating inside, and that’s final.”
“I suppose that would be fine,” I said as I headed for the door.
Aunt Della glanced at the clock. “Surely it’s too early to start cooking now.”
“Not as early as you think, but the truth of the matter is that I still need to season the cookware before we get started.”
“Doesn’t it come preseasoned?” she asked.
“The new stuff does, but this is all vintage cookware. I need some time to build up a little seasoning, or everything’s going to stick to the bottom.” I could have cheated by using too much oil and layering the veggies, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that to vintage Griswold cast iron. As it was, I was pushing things quite a bit, but I didn’t have six hours to bake the pot’s seasoning in Aunt Della’s oven. Besides, the process would have filled the house with a smell that I doubted my aunt would appreciate. It wasn’t exactly a burning odor as the oil baked into the iron, but to the unappreciative, it probably didn’t smell all that great, either.
“Very well, but at least take some mittens with you,” she said as she tried to shove a pair into my hands.
“Thanks, but I have my own gloves.” I hadn’t worn mittens since kindergarten, and I didn’t even realize they made them in my size.
Pat had a nice fire going outside when I joined him, and he’d managed to already begin building up a lovely set of coals. “Well done.”
“Don’t give me too much credit,” he said with a grin. “This is some pretty awesome firewood.”
“Nothing but the best for the mayor, right?” I asked. I would season the outside of the pan later, but right now, I needed to take care of the inside. I’d already wiped the dust from all of the surfaces, so I took some oil and spread it thinly using a paper towel on the bottom and sides of the pot. The top would get a light coat before the first bake, but that could wait. After I wiped off the excess with a clean paper towel, I nestled the pan into the coals, allowing the metal to heat up slowly as it absorbed the oil. In five minutes, the surface oil was gone, so I added another small dollop, being careful to spread it around again. There was no puddling yet, which meant I was doing a good job adding thin layers at a time. Some folks tried to speed up the process by adding enough oil to choke the pores of the metal. That led to too much oil on the surface and not enough absorbed into the pot, and nothing good ever came from that. I kept up the process for half an hour, watching things carefully. After I was satisfied that I had a good start, I wiped out the last of the oil and, using the paper towel, I wiped the top of the lid’s surface as well. Placing the oven back on the coals with its lid in place, I had Pat add some on top as well to give us a nice even bake.
“There, that should do for the next hour, and then we’ll do it once more,” I said.
“Will two seasonings be enough?” Pat asked me. We were both good with cast iron, but by virtue of our jobs back at the Iron, I had more daily exposure to cooking with cast iron, whereas Pat kept up with everything else we handled. I would have a tough time running the register up front, especially making the final report and balancing the books, but I could do it in a pinch, which described my brother’s cast iron care and maintenance abilities as well.
“It’s not perfect, but it should be okay,” I said. “I still feel guilty about how we got this iron.”
“Hey, you paid the asking price on the Dutch oven and the skillet,” Pat said. “You shouldn’t beat yourself up about that.”
“I’m talking about getting Tommy fired,” I said.
“He said it himself. You probably did him a favor.”
“I suppose so. Did you ever imagine that Gary White could turn out to be so mean after how nice he was when we first met him?”
“You never know with some folks,” Pat said. “He’s got himself a temper, there’s no doubt about that.”
“I know, but could he have gotten mad enough to try to kill Aunt Della just because she wouldn’t alter the parade route?” I asked my brother. “It just doesn’t seem reasonable.”
“How about all of those road rage incidents we keep hearing about?” Pat countered. “Do those acts of violence seem logical and well thought out to you?”
“No, I see what you’re saying. I just can’t buy him trying to kill her so passively, though.”
“What do you mean?” Pat asked as he stoked the fire to the side where his feeding coals were coming from. He was really good at tending a fire, but what man wasn’t a little boy at heart when it came to dancing flames? Every man I knew reverted to their youth given a hearty fire and a stick to prod it with.
“The snowman off the roof doesn’t seem like a rage-driven attempt, does it?”
Pat thought about that for a second before he answered. “No, but it could have just been an accident. Those snowmen are bulky. Who could have possibly thought that putting a few of them on the bank roof was a good idea?”
“I know. They must have gotten caught up in the spirit of the festivities. Don’t quote me, but given Aunt Della and Henrietta, it’s amazing the whole thing came off as well as it did.”
“They make quite the pair,” Pat said, adding another small chunk of wood to the fire. “It’s no wonder the operation is in the red, though. I hope folks had fun at the festivities, because from the sound of it, that’s all anyone’s going to get out of it.”
“Let’s get back to the attempted murders. Even if we assume that the falling snowman was an accident, how about the idea that someone pushed Aunt Della out in front of the fire truck?”
“Again, people get jostled watching parades all of the time,” Pat answered. “It could have easily just been another accident.”
“Are you starting to have doubts about what we’re doing here?” I asked my brother. “Is there the slightest chance that you’re thinking that this is all in Aunt Della’s head after all?”
“No, I’m not saying that at all. Cheryl Simmons is dead, and someone tried to get into the house last night after we all went to bed. I’m not about to discount either one of those things. I’m just saying that they all might not be related to attempts on her life.”
“What about the food poisoning?” I asked him.
“If that was attempted murder, it was botched pretty badly. Evidently Della wasn’t even that sick from it, and there’s no proof that there was anything wrong with her food in the first place.”
“Maybe not, but it’s awfully convenient that her plate was gone when she came back from the restroom, so there was no way to tell for sure one way or the other.”
“It’s like most of the other attempts she’s faced,” Pat said. “They could have all been earnest, for all we know. Then again, some of them could have just been coincidences.”
“But at this point, we have no way of separating fact from fancy,” I said. “What about our other
suspects? Do any of the attempts fit any of them?”
“Well, the mayor was the one who saved Della at the parade, so that should clear him,” Pat answered.
“It was a good thing he was standing nearby.”
“Was it?” Pat asked as though something had suddenly occurred to him. “Annie, what if Davis gave her the push himself, but then he was worried that someone might have seen it happen? That would give him the opportunity to shove her and then just as much reason to grab her before she was hurt.”
“As far as we know, he could have made all of those attempts on her life,” I said as I brushed the coals away before I used the jack handle Pat had brought from my car for me to use as a lid lifter. It wasn’t technically meant to do the job, nor were the hammers or crowbars that I often used back home, but it worked fine for our purposes. The olive oil had been well absorbed, with very little residue remaining. I decided that it was time to give the interior surfaces a second coat of olive oil and another baking session. As I worked, I continued talking. “There’s one thing that bothers me about that theory. Davis wouldn’t be stupid enough to throw the murder weapon under his own deck, would he?” I asked Pat as I settled the pot back onto the fire.
As he piled more coals on the top, my brother replied, “What better place to hide it than there? No one would be under there but him.”
“But he told us we could grab all of the wood we wanted this afternoon,” I reminded my brother.
“Yes, that’s a point, but maybe he was taking a calculated risk that we wouldn’t notice it. If that’s the case, he’s going to be pretty relieved this evening when no mention is made of the firewood.”
“We might be able to use that to our advantage,” I said.
“How’s that?”
“Let’s wait until everyone is gathered around the table, and then we’ll make it a point to thank Davis for the use of his firewood from under his deck. If anyone reacts, we’ll have ourselves a solid suspect.”
“It’s risky though, isn’t it?” Pat asked.
“What’s not in what we’re doing? It’s worth a shot, isn’t it?”
“I’m game if you are,” he said. “It won’t be the first time we put ourselves out there as bait.”
“And yet I never get used to the idea,” I said with a smile. “So, Gary White is less likely as a suspect, while Davis is more of a possibility than we’d realized before. What about Chief Cameron?”
“I like him for it,” Pat said. “Don’t ask me why. There’s just something about the man that I don’t trust.”
“But you don’t have any concrete reasons to feel that way,” I said.
“No, not a one, but he’s got to be on our list.”
“Agreed. How about Serena Jefferson?”
“I can see the snowman, the shove, and the poison, but I’m not at all sure she could club Cheryl from behind,” Pat said.
“Why not? Women are just as capable of violent crime as men. It’s turned into an equal-opportunity world.”
“I’m not saying that a woman couldn’t have done it. I’m just not sure that Serena did.”
“Pat, you’ve got a dangerous blind spot there. No matter what we’ve seen in the past, you still hate thinking of women as being capable of murder, and it might end up biting you on the rear one of these days.”
“That’s why I’ve got you,” he said with a sheepish grin. “It’s your job to keep me focused and in line.”
“I’m not sure I’m up for a task as daunting as that,” I said with a laugh, “but I’ll try. Have we forgotten anyone?”
“Well, I know that we ruled out the grocery store manager, but he’s still a possibility if there’s backstory there that we’re not aware of. Besides him, I can’t think of anyone else. Do you have any dark horses that you like?”
“No,” I said. “I think we’ve covered all of our bases.” I scraped off the coals again, checked the interior of the pot, and then I took the whole thing off the fire. “I think we’re ready.”
“Excellent,” Pat said. “Do you still want to use the charcoal we bought?”
“Yes, just so we can be sure that we get an even heat. I don’t want to take any chances with so much company coming.”
“Then I’ll get the briquettes ready while you go get the food,” he said.
CHAPTER 15: PAT
By the time Annie had everything prepped in the house, I had the briquettes firing up at a nice white glow outside. Scraping aside the burning chunks of wood from our earlier fire toward the edge of the pit, I spread some of the coals in a rough circle the size of the Dutch oven’s perimeter. “What’s the ratio top to bottom you like?” I asked my sister as she approached.
“How many did you make to start with?”
“Twenty briquettes,” I said, doing a quick count.
Doing a quick calculation in her head, she said, “Put eight below and twelve on top. Heat rises, you know, so we need more coals on top than we do on the bottom.”
“Yes, ma’am, I’m well aware of that fact,” I said as I made sure I had eight pieces of charcoal in place, and then I put the empty oven over the top of them. Now it was up to Annie to build the meal inside the pot before I could place the lid and add the rest of the charcoal to the top. She took thick slabs of onion, green pepper, and chunks of carrots and spread them out on the bottom. Then she added half a cup of water, along with a few spices she’d mixed in, and finally, the ribs went on top, bone side down. Coating them with half the sauce in the bottle, Annie smiled at me as she wiped her hands on a nearby paper towel. “We’re all set.”
I placed the lid on top, and then I spread the twelve remaining coals around on top of the lid. Once we had everything in place, Annie said, “We’ll need twenty more in about an hour.”
I set the timer on my cellphone. “What do we do in the meantime?”
“The first thing I’m going to do is to wash my hands properly in the sink,” Annie said. “We don’t really have to baby this meal. There’s no wind to speak of, and the outdoor temperature seems to be holding pretty steady.”
“How’s the barometric pressure doing?” I asked her with a smile.
“You laugh, but just about anything can affect the way food cooks outdoors.”
“I’m just teasing. Why don’t you go in, and I’ll stay out here and mind the fire?”
“Pat, you know that it wouldn’t kill you to spend a little of your free time with Aunt Della.”
“You’re probably right, but why take the chance?” I grinned to show that I was teasing, but I could tell that I’d pushed Annie a little too far. I’d have to back off unless I wanted another lecture, one for a class I hadn’t remembered signing up for in the first place. Fortunately, I was saved by my cellphone’s ring, and I was delighted to see that it was Jenna. “Sorry, I have to take this.”
Annie laughed after I showed her who was calling. “Saved by the bell.”
“I couldn’t have planned it any better myself,” I said. After I answered the call, I said, “Hey, stranger. How are things in Maple Crest?”
“Well, I’m up to my eyebrows in cows at the moment,” she said with a hint of laughter in her voice. Only a vet would find that amusing.
“Wow, that sounds like a lot of cows.”
“To be fair, it doesn’t take a lot of them to be surrounded. I’m waiting for the farmer to grab something for me, so I thought I’d give you a call and see how your investigation is going.” Jenna loved being a veterinarian, and she was usually the one who was too busy to talk between the two of us, so it was nice getting a call from her.
“It’s going, however slowly.”
“How’s your aunt? Are things okay on that front? I know when you left you weren’t quite sure how you were going to be able to handle that situation.”
It was a sweet way of asking how I was dealing with my long-absent aunt, but I really didn’t want to get into it over the phone. Instead, I deflected by saying, “She’s doing okay, but her b
est friend was found murdered yesterday, so there’s that.”
“That’s terrible!” Jenna said. “What happened?”
“The woman was struck from behind. It wasn’t enough to kill her, but it did render her unconscious. After that happened, evidently she rolled into the lake and drowned.”
“I can’t imagine how awful that must be. Your aunt must be beside herself with grief.”
“You know what? She’s really not,” I said, not fully realizing the fact until that moment. “She was pretty choked up about it yesterday, but today she seems as though she’s handling it just fine. She should still be torn up, shouldn’t she? Especially since she believes that the killing blow was meant for her all along.”
“Why on earth would she think that?” Jenna asked me.
“Cheryl, that’s her friend, was wearing Della’s jacket at night, walking home from my aunt’s house on a path rarely used that time of the evening. How would you handle it if it were your best friend?”
“Honestly, I’d be curled up in a ball on the floor crying my eyes out, but different people react to tragedy in different ways. Maybe it hasn’t fully sunk in yet what’s happened.”
“Or maybe she’s fully expecting the next attempt on her life to succeed,” I said. There had been something about my aunt’s behavior all day that I hadn’t been able to lay a finger on until that very moment. She’d resigned herself to being the next victim. After accepting the fact that her days, even her hours, were probably numbered, it was no wonder she was going about her business as though nothing had happened. How else could she cope with it?
“Pat, are you still there?”
“I’m here,” I said, coming out of my fog. “You’ve just given me something to think about, that’s all.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“Always,” I said.
“You and Annie are being careful, aren’t you?”
“Mostly,” I said.
“Why don’t I like the sound of that?” Jenna asked me.
“Well, I didn’t feel right about lying to you. Was that the wrong choice?”
