I looked away long enough to poke my head out to check on Dixie. When I looked back, Tina had slid to the floor in a heap.
“I have to go check and see if the ambulance is here,” I said to her.
She nodded.
I popped back out into the hallway and Dixie handed me the phone. “You take over with staying on the line. I’m going to go downstairs and see if I can rein in the chaos down there.”
I took the phone. “Hello?”
“Yes, stay on the line. We have paramedics on the way.”
“I don’t know that’s the right choice at this point,” I said.
“What do you mean?” the dispatcher asked. And then without waiting for an answer. “They should have arrived now.”
I could hear Dixie at the front door letting the rescue crew in. “I’m hanging up,” I told the lady on the phone.
In St. Ignatius, Fire and EMS are all volunteers, so they were probably known to most of the ladies in attendance. If Kenny Farmer had in fact had a heart attack in Tina Martin’s bedroom, and that was my best guess, that fact was not going to be a secret for long.
The two medics climbed the stairs. I pointed them to the bedroom. I couldn’t hear their conversation, but I could tell there was no scramble to try to revive Kenny. I checked back in the bathroom. Tina still sat on the floor. She’d stopped crying but sat staring sightlessly, her polka-dot dress crumpled around her legs.
“Can I get you anything?” I asked.
She shook her head. I started back out to the hall and almost ran directly into Sheriff Terry. See now Dixie had me doing it too.
“Whoa,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
“I—uh, found Kenny,” I mumbled.
“I thought Tina found Kenny.”
“She did, but I’d already found him.” I waved him on. “Long story.”
He stood for a couple of minutes like he wanted to say something but then moved down the hall to where the medics were waiting for him. Then he came back.
Looking into the bathroom at Tina, he said, “I’m going to need to talk to her.” He started to leave again and then stopped. “And you.”
I looked back at Tina. She’d begun to shiver. I found the linen closet again and pulled out a blanket and tucked it around her. I wasn’t sure what else to do for her, maybe the paramedics needed to check her over.
“I’ll be right back.” I touched her arm. I was sure I could find some tea or water for her.
When I got downstairs, it was clear that Dixie had not given any details. Other than to assure the guests that Tina was okay and that the ambulance was not for her.
“What’s going on, Sugar?” Dot stood at the foot of the stairs.
“I need to get Tina some water.” I avoided Dot’s question.
The other ladies were seated around the room. Their eyes were wide and bright. And I didn’t think it was Tina’s Looking Pretty eye brightener.
“I’ll make coffee.” Dixie headed to the kitchen. I started to follow her.
“I really need to be going.” It was the dark-haired girl with the neck tattoo from the diner. Being new in town and not knowing anyone probably made it even more awkward for her.
I didn’t think there was any reason any of us had to stick around. Except maybe me, now that I’d confessed to the sheriff that I was again the dead-body-finder.
Speaking of, I could hear him clumping down the stairs. He was followed by the two medics who headed outside. They weren’t going to leave Kenny there were they? My question was answered when they returned with a stretcher.
“If everyone would stay put for a few more minutes, I’d appreciate it.” The sheriff looked around the room.
“I need to go,” JoJo (that was her name) said again.
“Not yet.” He was firm.
Dixie came in from the kitchen with a tray of cups and a full coffee pot. She placed them on the dining room table.
Sheriff Terry stopped when he saw her.
“I’ll be right back.” He turned on his heel.
The ladies gathered around as Dixie offered coffee. I headed to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. I moved three more bottles of Tina’s special energy drink that were lined up on the top shelf like Buckingham Palace guards.
Probably not the best option for her right now. Locating a bottle of plain water, I took it, slipped past the group in the living room, and climbed the stairs to Tina. She thanked me.
When I returned the sheriff was back in the living room, his face grim. He held a sheet of paper and a pen.
“I’m going to need for everyone to provide their name and contact information.” He handed the pen and paper to Minnie who was standing closest to him.
“What’s going on Sheriff?” she asked.
“Kenny Farmer has died,” he explained.
“No!” If Tina’s scream had been ear-splitting, Minnie’s was otherworldly. “That can’t be.” She collapsed on him.
I felt so sorry for her. I’m sure Sheriff Terry had forgotten that Minnie worked closely with Kenny, and I could see on his face that he’d misjudged the impact of delivering the news.
My eyes were on Minnie and the sheriff, but I could hear the ripple of a gasp that went around the room. I looked over at Dixie who was still handing out coffee.
“So, if you’ll just write down your information when the paper reaches you.” The sheriff took the pen and paper from Minnie and handed it to the next person. “In the meantime, can someone tell me what you all were doing here?”
“Tina was having a Looking Pretty party,” someone answered. It might have been Toy.
“A what?”
“Makeup, cosmetics. Tina is a Looking Pretty consultant.” I pointed to the folding table that held all the bottles and jars.
He still looked confused.
“She sells makeup.”
“Okay. And did anyone go upstairs during the party?”
“Tina did.” Toy George spoke up. “She had to get more order forms.”
“And I did,” I said quietly to the sheriff.
“Why?” He pinned me with his gaze.
“I—it’s…” I stopped. “I’d prefer to tell you privately.”
He gave me a hard look, but didn’t press the issue. “So, Tina went upstairs but only just before you all heard her scream?”
“No,” Dot Carson said. “She went upstairs earlier and then again right before she screamed. To get more order forms,” she clarified.
The others nodded. “So, none of you were upstairs at all?”
“I was.” Dixie spoke up. “But just so I could call. Sugar was dealing with Tina.”
Sheriff Terry turned away, his back to us all, and said something under his breath.
I wasn’t sure what it was that he said, but it didn’t really matter: I got the point he was completely out of patience.
Chapter Eighteen
I think I’d used the expression herding cats to describe the Founders’ Day Cookbook Committee from time to time. The committee meeting the day after Kenny’s death was a lot more like herding feral cats.
Harriet tried to get everyone to quiet down a couple of times but the group would quiet down for a bit and then pretty soon whispered conversation would turn into this yowling sound. There was no pie served today to keep them busy and everyone helped themselves to coffee or tea. Toy was short-handed because JoJo, her new waitress, had not shown up for work. After she’d been so nice to the girl, too. According to Dot, Toy had even given JoJo an advance to help her out.
Needless to say, Tina was not in attendance but she was the topic of every conversation. Once again, I found myself seated by Minnie. She sat head down, moving pens, flipping pages, not looking up and seemingly not listening to the chatter. We sat for a while in silence. She looked like she was stil
l in shock. And I felt like I was.
I wanted to ask how she was doing. The woman had been absolutely devastated last night. She didn’t make eye contact though so I didn’t want to intrude. I know from experience that it can be more difficult sometimes when people are kind to you. Sometimes you need to just continue dealing with the day-to-day to get you through. I imagined for her it added another layer that she probably didn’t know if she was going to have a job. With Kenny gone, her position with the company might be in jeopardy. When Dixie and I had been at the Farmer offices that day, it was clear that wrangling Kenny and his schedule was her one and only responsibility.
“Committee members.” Harriet finally raised her voice to the point that she got everyone to stop talking. “We simply must get through this agenda.” She turned to point at me. “Sugar, can you begin with a status update.”
I stood and spoke loudly so that I could be heard over the few who continued despite Harriet’s attempt to bring some order to the meeting. “I can. The recipes have all been finalized and the layout work is done. Later this week, we’ll complete the photos, and then those will also be added.” I took a deep breath. “As you know, we’ve allotted some space for town history. With Mr. LeBlanc’s help and cooperation, we’ve stayed with the original number of pages.”
“Thank you.” Harriet dismissed me. “Minnie, can you give us an update on sponsors.”
Minnie didn’t look up from her notepad. I touched her arm and she jumped.
“What?” She pushed her hair out of her eyes and looked around.
“The sponsor list,” I prompted.
“Oh, sorry.” She flipped to a page in her notebook and read off the businesses who were underwriting the cookbook project. The Farmer family was the biggest sponsor and so far, I’d heard nothing to the contrary, but again something we probably needed to confirm.
“Thank you.” Harriet moved on. “Bertie, you’re in charge of pre-orders, right?”
Dixie’s aunt stood. “Yes, and I’ve got order forms here for everyone to take. You should try to get as many pre-orders in advance as you can. I need them turned in in two weeks, so I have time to put them in a spreadsheet. Big orders we’ll get to you. Otherwise, people can pick them up at our table at the celebration.”
“Will you be needing to mail any?” Dot Carson asked.
“Well, I don’t know yet, Dot.” Bertie looked over her glasses at the postmistress. “They haven’t ordered them, thus the need for filling out the pre-orders.”
“Now, let’s see. Who was supposed to be in charge of signing up people to man the table?” Harriet consulted her notes. “Good grief.” She stopped and suddenly the room got quiet.
“It’s Tina.” She swallowed hard. “Who is not here today. I don’t know if, I don’t suppose we’ll be able to get her notes…” her voice trailed off.
“How about we start a new sign-up sheet?” I tore a page from my notebook. “What are the times?”
“From nine o’clock in the morning to nine at night,” Jimmie LeBlanc spoke up. “That’s on Saturday. And then noon ‘til six on Sunday. Because the Founders’ Day planners didn’t want to interfere with church services.”
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s send this sign-up sheet around.” I quickly wrote out the available shifts and handed the sheet to Minnie. “Maybe you could take the handwritten one and put it in a spreadsheet for us.” I leaned down to speak to her. I didn’t want to commit her to something if she wasn’t up to it. Clearly, she was grieving over Kenny Farmer, and I thought it might be better for her to be busy right now.
Minnie looked up and nodded.
“If you’ll pass the sheet to Minnie once you’ve signed up for your time, she has volunteered to put our info into a spreadsheet. How should we handle the people who aren’t here today?” I asked, looking in Harriet’s direction.
She still looked a little dumbstruck but quickly recovered. “I’ll get in touch with the others and can have them sign up, if you’ll let me know when we have gaps.”
She regained control and got through the rest of the details in short order.
Everyone filed out, still talking about Kenny’s death and I wasn’t too surprised to catch snippets of conjecture over whether this might be a murder rather than a heart attack. I guess it’s a reasonable jump to think so, after all, two deaths in the same family so close together. But I also caught bits of conversation that pointed to Tina as the possible killer.
As my Aunt Cricket would say, jumping to conclusions is an Olympic sport in some circles.
Once back at the shop, I was exhausted from the frenzy. The smell of fresh coffee and hot pastry hit me as soon as I came through the door. I found Dixie in the kitchen and filled her in on the meeting and the rumor-mill.
“I’m so glad you agreed to handle that part of the business.” Dixie opened the oven and slid in another sheet.
“And I’m glad you agreed to handle this part.” I plucked a puff pastry from the cooling rack and headed back to my office.
I pulled out Max’s card and dialed the number. The call went straight to voicemail and I left a message letting him know that I was simply confirming the photo shoot for the next day. It was comforting, a bit, to be back to doing something so familiar. We thought we could do the shoot in one day because there weren’t a lot of photos. Though I thought that might be too much for Dixie. She assured me that she’d grouped things together so that the more complicated dishes were at different times.
Dixie stopped in before she left. One of her nephews had a baseball game and she’d promised to attend.
I looked up from my papers. “I’m leaving soon, too.”
My cell rang just as I was walking out the door and I glanced at the display. It was Greer. She had another request. This time for a piece of green Frankoma pottery. She wasn’t positive which box it might be in, but she was almost certain it was in a box of its own. I told her I’d see what I could do.
When I dropped it off I hoped for a chance to talk to her about what I’d seen at Disco’s store. If Disco was helping her sell items she no longer wanted or needed that was entirely her choice. But the requests had become more and more frequent and I worried there was a financial angle to the whole deal too. Was Disco taking advantage of her? I didn’t think he’d cheat her, but I also didn’t think business was booming. I had no idea what any of those items were worth and could only hope she was getting good information from her friend. And my real worry was whether Greer was selling the things because she needed the money?
If she needed money, maybe the reasonable rent I was paying was not enough. I would be willing to pay more. I didn’t want to offend her by sticking my nose in her business so I would need to tread lightly, but I was concerned.
Chapter Nineteen
I arrived at the shop early the next morning in order to make sure everything was set for Dixie and Max and the photo shoot. I opened up the front curtains. Max had explained that daylight was really best for photographing food. I thought I’d heard that before, but when I was with the magazine the departments were so big that I often didn’t even meet the photographers who were assigned to a particular story.
The square was quiet and there were very few cars parked. It looked like the lights were on at the Red Hen Diner. Toy was probably there getting ready for the day. When I talked to her yesterday, she had confirmed that her new waitress had run out on her. It wasn’t that the diner was a bad place to work, it was simply that young people had so many other options for employment. The “Help Wanted” sign was back in the window.
St. Ignatius’s story was one of grit and stamina and a very strong sense of community and I’d worked hard to make sure the cookbook content reflected the town’s personality. I thought we’d put together a mixture of recipes that the community would enjoy and moreover I thought it told the story.
We’d planned a full d
ay for photographing the recipes that would be in the book. First the sections would have photos, and then there were a few more we’d chosen to give some variety to the content.
I’d also decided to include four historical photographs that Max had been able to retouch. The thing to remember when you’re putting together a cookbook is that it’s just like any other book: people are drawn to a great story.
Max arrived in a short time to set up. He unpacked a tripod, some special lighting and a couple of reflectors.
We’d met before and selected the dishes we would use for the photos as well as any table settings or accessories so I already had those laid out. He’d been all about color and making sure that we made best use of it. I understood that. If you were paying the price to print something in color, you wanted to be sure that it was worth it.
“Dixie’s already in the kitchen and has the first recipe baking.” I stood back to keep out of Max’s way as he situated the tripod and other equipment.
“Cookies, I think.” He looked up from setting up his camera and smiled. “Unless my nose deceives me.”
“You are correct.” I was already wishing they were done. “Can I get you a cup of coffee?”
“I’d love one.” He placed his camera on the counter and shifted his bags underneath and out of the way.
I headed to the backroom to grab a cup for Max and refill my own. I stopped by to see how Dixie was doing.
“I’m just going to stay out of your way,” I told her. “If you need something give a yell.”
“Sounds good.” She looked up from the mixer.
This was old hat to her. When she entered the Iowa State Fair, sometimes she entered thirty or more recipes. The food was judged on taste but also on presentation, so she understood the need to have the food look good.
Game of Scones Page 17
