by Maddie Day
I shook his extended hand. The academic conference on maple tree science was on a parallel track with the Maple Festival, which aimed to bring tourists to town in March, a normally dead time of year for local businesses. The festival schedule included opportunities to learn about sugaring off, fun events for children, a Native American maple syrup demonstration in Brown County State Park, and themed culinary cook-offs. This afternoon was the breakfast event, with area chefs competing to produce the winning maple-favored breakfast item right here at my restaurant. I hoped I was ready.
But I’d never really trusted people who talked and smiled at the same time. Elissa looked like she didn’t, either.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Connolly,” I said. “Are you at Indiana University or from out of town?”
“It’s Professor Connolly. I teach and do my research at Boston College.”
“Research.” Elissa surrounded the word with finger quotes. “You call accepting money from climate-change deniers and then countering well-established facts with some environmental fantasy research?” She shook her head and turned away, her words sizzling the frosty early-March air. “Great breakfast, Robbie,” she called as she headed for her car.
“Thanks,” I answered, but I wasn’t sure she heard me. I shivered, since I wasn’t exactly dressed for forty-degree weather in my jeans, long-sleeved t-shirt, and blue store apron. The sun promised to warm the day later, though. Cold nights and warm days created perfect conditions for inciting maple sap to run in the veins of trees all over Indiana’s most heavily forested county. Since it was only eight o’clock, we were still in the chilly part of the cycle.
“How about that breakfast?” I said in a bright tone to the professor.
He laid a hand on the railing. He nodded slowly. “Excellent idea,” he said, but his now unsmiling gaze was on Elissa’s sedan as it disappeared down the road toward the center of town.
* * *
My new employee, Turner Rao, gave me a frantic look. Danna, my tall and able assistant since I’d opened last fall, was away at a volleyball tournament and I’d apparently been outside a few minutes too long. Turner was frantically flipping whole wheat banana walnut pancakes, turning sausages and bacon, and rescuing an almost burnt pair of toasts. Across the room a customer with an empty platter waved his hand in the air like he wanted his check, while another held up her coffee mug signaling for a refill. I pointed Professor Connolly to a table for two in the corner, mouthed “Sorry” to Turner, and grabbed the coffee pot.
I’d restored order in a couple of minutes, grateful I’d found the slim twenty-two year old to help out, since Danna and I had agreed we really needed a third worker. Turner was a good enough short order cook to man the grill, and despite his recent college degree he didn’t mind waiting and busing tables or doing cleanup. Danna and I also wore all hats around here, although I was the only one who did the books and paid the bills. It was my business, after all. I’d purchased the run-down country store over a year ago, and had used the carpentry skills my late mother taught me to do the renovation work myself. I was the proud proprietor of a popular breakfast and lunch restaurant that also sold vintage cookware and a few other odds and ends, including my Aunt Adele’s gorgeous yarn from her nearby sheep farm. I was almost done renovating the second floor of the building into several rooms I planned to rent out as a bed and breakfast. The village of South Lick in scenic hilly Brown County was now this native Californian’s home—my apartment conveniently abutted the store at the back—and I couldn’t be happier.
It would all fall apart, though, if I didn’t keep my customers happy, too. I delivered a menu to the professor and asked if he’d like coffee.
“Sure.” He gave the menu a once-over glance and handed it back. “I’ll have the Kitchen Sink omelet, with biscuits, plus bacon—crisp—and hash browns.”
I waited for the “please.” When it wasn’t forthcoming, I said, “You got it.”
“I don’t suppose you serve Bloody Marys, do you?”
“Sorry, no liquor license.” I decided not to mention I had a BYOB policy in place. I didn’t advertise it, but regulars knew they could bring a bottle of wine or a couple of beers to lunch to celebrate special occasions. The state restricted the practice to wine and beer, only, and I wasn’t allowed to pour it. Someone occasionally showed up with a bottle for Sunday brunch, but never for breakfast on a Thursday.
“I didn’t think so.” He pulled his mouth in disappointment. “What’s the best bar in town?” He drummed his puffy fingers on the table. A gold ring featuring an embedded diamond dented his right pinkie.
I glanced at the big old school clock on the wall—he wanted a bar before nine in the morning? “The Casino Tavern, on the other side of town. Actually it’s the only bar in town.” A casino in South Lick had flourished over a hundred years ago, in the heyday of the mineral springs, but the present-day bar was a casino in name only. “The conference is in Nashville, right?” I’d lived in Brown County for four years. By now I said the name of the colorful artsy county seat like the locals did, swallowing the last syllable instead of pronouncing it like the first vowel in “villain,” like I’d learned it growing up in Santa Barbara.
“That’s correct.”
“The bar’s on the road out of town heading that way. You probably passed it on your way here.” I saw Turner make the hand signal that meant an order was ready. “I’ll go get your food started.”
Apparently “please” wasn’t the only word missing from this Bostonian’s vocabulary, since he didn’t thank me, either. I gave Turner the order, delivered three platters to some South Lick residents, and poured Connolly’s coffee. He didn’t even look up from whatever he was doing on his phone.
Back at the grill, I asked Turner, “Want to switch?” We tried to change jobs once an hour or so to avoid boredom—and to give each other a break from rude customers.
“Sure. One second.”
I watched Turner’s long smooth-skinned fingers deftly wrap around the handle of the pitcher holding the pancake batter. His mother, Fern Turner-Rao, was a local girl but his father, Sajit, had been born in India. The family owned a maple tree farm in the county and Sajit was also somehow affiliated with the university over in Bloomington. After pouring six pancakes worth of batter into identically sized disks, Turner pulled off his apron and donned a fresh one from the box.
I was checking the status of the current orders on the lined up slips of paper when the bell on the door jangled.
“What’s he doing here?” Turner muttered under his breath.
His father hurried toward us. He wore a fleece vest over a blue Oxford button-down. “Turner, I need your help at the farm.” His accent wasn’t a strong one, but his son’s name sounded almost like “Durner.”
“Baba, I told you.” Turner kept his voice low. “I have a job, I can’t just leave.”
“But we have much to prepare for tomorrow. You know we are hosting the sugaring-off demonstration for the Festival.” His hands flew through the air as he talked.
“I can’t.” Turner, at six foot two a couple of inches taller than his father, put his face right in front of his father’s. “Robbie would be alone here. I’m not leaving.”
Sajit made some kind of exclamation. “You are a smart boy. What are you doing cooking for your job? We paid for you to earn your degree. You should be using it, not doing women’s work making American breakfast.”
I sniffed, and tore my gaze away from the pair. Just in time I flipped the cakes before they burned, and scooted four crispy sausages to the cooler end of the grill. Turner had told me his father wasn’t particularly happy with his son working for me, but I hadn’t realized Sajit felt so strongly about it.
“You didn’t pay much,” Turner said. “You know I got free tuition because of your IU affiliation, and I lived at home.”
“I have sacrificed much for you. You are my only son.”
“And Sujita is going to graduate school. Your only daughter
will be a doctor one day. That should make you happy. Me, I love to cook,” Turner said, loading his forearms with four orders. “I want to be a chef. This is great experience for me. Please don’t make a big fuss, Baba.”
“It will be on your head if a hundred people come tomorrow and we are not ready.” Sajit turned away with a huff of air.
I ladled out an omelet’s worth of beaten eggs, but out of the corner of my eye I saw Sajit freeze. Now what was wrong? I sprinkled sauteed green peppers, mushrooms, and onions onto the egg base, added capers and a handful of grated cheddar, and looked up to see what the problem was. Sajit stared with narrowed eyes at Warren Connolly, who shot him the curled lip under flared nostrils for a second. Then Connolly plastered on a fake grin and waved to Sajit with one pudgy hand.
“Dr. Rao. Join me, would you?” the professor called.
This time whatever Hindi word Sajit muttered sounded a lot more like a curse than the earlier expression of frustration, but he made his way to Connolly’s table.
I exchanged a glance with Turner. He only shrugged. As he delivered his plates to their destination, I turned half of the omelet over onto itself, hoping the men’s interaction wasn’t going to turn into a display of in-store fireworks. That was never good for business.
* * *
After a super busy hour, which was exhausting but always great for the old bottom line, ten o’clock brought a total lull in business. Also great was the lack of a blowup between Sajit and Warren, contrary to what I’d thought was going to happen. Sajit had sat with the other professor and talked for about ten minutes. Every time I glanced their way, Sajit hadn’t looked happy, but neither man had raised his voice. Turner’s father left without saying goodbye to his son, which seemed to relieve the young man. Maybe I’d been wrong about the look Connolly and Sajit had exchanged.
“Sit down for a few while you can, Turner,” I said. “And make yourself whatever you want to eat, first. If it’s like earlier, we won’t have a minute for lunch until we close at one-thirty.” I was still trying to ensure he both felt welcome as my employee and paced himself on both rest and eating. The last thing we needed was one of us passing out from low blood sugar. I threw a slice of sharp cheese on top of a sad-looking unclaimed pancake and topped it with another, making myself a goofy sandwich. I brought it and a glass of milk to a table and sank blissfully into a chair.
He joined me a couple of minutes later, with a plate full of an egg-meat scramble and some overly crisp hash browns.
“I didn’t realize your dad felt so strongly about you working here,” I ventured. “I hope it’s going to be okay at home.”
He swallowed a bite of potato. “It’ll be fine. But it’s time for me to move out. Dad grew up in India, and the expectations for first sons—and especially only sons—are pretty different there, even now.”
I wanted to ask what his mom thought, but I also didn’t want him to think I, his boss, was prying into his personal life. His dad had brought the issue to my grill—that one was fair game. Then he answered my unasked question anyway.
“At least Mom’s got my back. She’s always said Su and I could do whatever we wanted with our lives, as long as it was legal and we could support ourselves.” He scarfed down his eggs while I finished my pancake sandwich. “Are you all set for this afternoon?”
I shot a quick look at the clock. “I think so. I’m really glad I decided to close an hour early today. The judges and officials will be here by two-thirty, so we’ll have plenty of time to clean up and get the place presentable. I’ll have my biscuits all ready to pop in the oven fifteen minutes before the entry deadline.”
“The doors open at three, right?”
“That’s right, and the judging is at three-thirty. I hope we pack the place.”
“The contest is just one locally made breakfast item, I think you said.”
“Exactly, and it has to include maple. The county doesn’t have a multi-cookstation facility like they set up on those cooking competition shows, so the cooking won’t be live.” I cringed a little. Murder had entered my life more than once since I’d opened the store, and I’d become just a teensy tiny bit sensitive to phrases like live. “I’m doing maple-flavored biscuits—but they’ll include your secret ingredient. The judges are going to love them.”
“Who’s judging?” He stood and cleared both our places.
“Some of the scientists at the conference, I think, and maybe some locals, too. I don’t know who.” I joined him in the kitchen area. “I’m going to prep the dough now. It’ll bake up better after a couple of hours of chilling.”
“Good idea.”
“I don’t really care if I win the contest or not, even though they’re lumping chefs together with amateur cooks. But it’s great exposure for the store and restaurant.” I measured out flour, baking powder, salt, and the touch of both curry powder and cayenne that Turner had added, with scrumptious results, a month earlier. As I cut in the butter, I asked, “Do you know that professor who was in this morning? The man from Boston?”
“No. The one Dad was talking to?”
“That’s the one. His name is Warren Connolly. They didn’t exactly seem to be best buds.”
“I’ve never seen him at the house. But my father knows all kinds of people professionally who he doesn’t hang out with for fun.”
“What’s your dad’s exact occupation again?” I added the milk mixed with syrup to the flour-butter mixture and gave the dough a quick knead.
“He’s a research biochemist.” He finished setting up the last table for the next round of customers just as the little cowbell on the door set up a jangle. “He’s tacked into climate change waters recently. Mostly because he’s seen the change in the trees on our farm.”
A tall thin figure in uniform pushed through the door. “Hey, Buck, come on in,” I called to our lanky police lieutenant as I wrapped the thick disk of dough in plastic. “Are you a sailor?” I asked Turner.
His dark eyes lit up. “You bet. Me, a sailboat, Lake Monroe? It’s the best.”
“I used to sail off the Pacific coast back home.”
“You did? That’s one of my dreams. To be executive chef on a touring yacht. I want to see the world, but from the water.” His eyes were dreamy, focused on a faraway horizon.
“You should totally go for it.” I carried a menu over to Buck.
“I hear y’all talking ‘bout sailing?” he asked, laying his uniform hat on the small table he preferred at the back of the restaurant, where he could eat and keep an eagle eye on the town, too.
When I nodded, he went on.
“You might could sail a boat all the way to China through the hole in my stomach right about now. I’m that hungry.”
No wonder. He was only about six foot a hundred—or at least a foot taller than my own five three—and as skinny as a twig. “You must have a metabolism like a hummingbird, Buck.” I smiled fondly at him.
“Welp, I got me a appetite like a horse. Can I get one of everything?”
“For a change?” I snorted.
“Shucks, Robbie. Anymore, I don’t even know why you ask.”
A couple of minutes I carried over a tray and set down three plates in front of him. He beamed at the sight: a tall stack of my signature pancakes, two over easy next to three links and a mound of hash browns, plus a couple of biscuits covered in creamy homemade sausage gravy. He tucked his napkin into his collar and his fork into the biscuits.
“You ain’t seen no more dead bodies, have you?” he asked, laden fork halfway to his mouth, gravy dripping onto the pancakes.
“I’m happy to say I haven’t.” A shudder ran through me remembering the one my friend Lou and I had encountered this winter while we were out snowshoeing. The man had been murdered, and his killer had later come after my boyfriend Abe and me in a remote cottage in the woods during an ice storm. “Thank goodness.”
“I sure don’t know what it is with you and murder. You’re like a flame to them moths.�
��
Was I? It was true, I’d helped solve three murders since my store opened. I was the one who’d found two of the bodies, in fact, one right here in my store. But surely that was a coincidence. I had no intention of brushing up against even one more violent person. I loved my store and my town, I had a very nice relationship developing with Abe, and life was good. My plan for it definitely didn’t include murder.
* * *
As it turned out, two of the judges that afternoon had been in the store a few hours earlier. At three twenty-five, two of my still-warm biscuits were displayed on a small white plate in the middle of the array of other entries. My plate, with both biscuits neatly halved, was identified only by “#8 - Maple Biscuits” on the typed white card in front of the plate. The biscuits had come out as close to perfect as was even possible, rising high and flaky with golden brown tops and a crumb you just couldn’t wait to get your mouth around. I’d done a pre-taste, of course, and the combo of maple and Indian spice was exactly right, with a subtle zing following the hint of sweetness.
To my entry’s left were dark heavy-looking maple donuts and then plump maple sausages, all on identical plates. On the other side sat maple bars, topped with a glistening icing, with a plate of maple bran muffins beyond. The other offerings were along the same vein, with only one, a pecan-topped coffee cake, offered by another area chef. Most looked way too sweet for my tastes, but I kept my mouth shut. I was a contestant, not a judge.
I’d grabbed time to wash up and don a magenta silk tunic for the occasion. I’d tried to tame my full black curls with a couple of clips, and had thrown on a dash of colored lip gloss. I was glad I had, as a reporter from the Brown County Democrat had snapped a photo of all the entrants lined up in a row at the side of the contest table. He’d also taken a couple of me alone, since I was hosting.
The store was packed to the gills with tourists and locals alike. Since three o’clock they’d been filing past the contest entries, pointing, murmuring, but not touching. The organizers, one of whom was my Aunt Adele, had stretched a cord in front of the length of the table to keep viewers a couple of feet away.
