A Parfait Murder
Page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Acknowledgements
chapter 1
chapter 2
chapter 3
chapter 4
chapter 5
chapter 6
chapter 7
chapter 8
chapter 9
chapter 10
chapter 11
chapter 12
chapter 13
chapter 14
chapter 15
chapter 16
chapter 17
chapter 18
chapter 19
chapter 20
chapter 21
chapter 22
chapter 23
chapter 24
chapter 25
chapter 26
chapter 27
Ice Cream Terrine with Deep Dark Fudge Sauce
Flavor Combination Suggestions
Teaser chapter
Praise for I Scream, You Scream
“This lighthearted peek into small-town secrets and rumors carries enough good humor, emotional honesty, plot twists, and recipes to entertain and satisfy.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A delightful amateur sleuth that is not only exciting but also never melts down.”
—Midwest Book Review
“Watson takes the mystery reader on a wild Texas stampede in I Scream, You Scream.. . . Humor abounds and the novel features lively, interesting characters.”
—Gumshoe
“I Scream, You Scream is just plain fun to read, with great characters and wonderful sensory detail . . . that makes people and places come alive.. . . Needless to say, it’s easy for me to recommend I Scream, You Scream to the pickiest of cozy readers.”
—Cozy Library
OTHER BOOKS IN THE MYSTERY À LA MODE SERIES BY WENDY LYN WATSON
I Scream, You Scream
Scoop to Kill
OBSIDIAN
Published by New American Library, a division of
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First published by Obsidian, an imprint of New American Library,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
First Printing, June 2011
The song lyrics on page 197 are from Dan Hill’s “Can’t We Try.”
Excerpt from I Scream, You Scream copyright © Wendy Watson, 2009
Copyright © Wendy Watson, 2011
eISBN : 978-1-101-51538-9
All rights reserved
OBSIDIAN and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.
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Six Peter, Always
Acknowledgments
It took a village to write this book, and any effort to identify all the folks who helped would surely miss someone. Three people deserve special mention, however. First, the incredible artist who has worked on my covers has made my heart go zing with every one. Second, my agent, Kim Lionetti, has been a dogged cheerleader, both of the Mysteries à la Mode and my career more generally; I cannot thank her enough. Finally, for this book in particular, my editor, Sandy Harding, has been an enormous help. Not only was she patient with my stuttering start, but she provided some great suggestions for making the final product infinitely better.
As always, I couldn’t write a word without the love and support of my husband. Thank you, baby, for cleaning the cat box and making dinner and quietly playing computer games on all those days I huddled deep in the writing cave. I love you.
chapter 1
Eloise Carberry folded her arms across her pinkaproned bosom, tsked softly, and shook her head as she threw down the figurative gauntlet. “They sure look alike to me.”
Tucker Gentry drew himself up straight and tight as a banjo string. “Criminy, Eloise. It’s ice cream. It all pretty much looks the same.”
She tsked again.
Tucker and Eloise squared off over a stainless steel table, bare save for two white paper cups, each holding a single melting scoop of ice cream. One of those cups contained Tucker’s entry in the hand-churned ice cream category of the Lantana County Fair, a flavor he called “pepper praline.” The other cup held a scoop of Texas Twister from Remember the A-la-mode, a smooth vanilla with a swirl of dulce de leche and a kick of ancho chilies.
“They don’t just look the same. They taste the same,” Eloise insisted. Her claim drew gasps from the crowd behind her. Word of the scandal must have spread through the fairgrounds, as the gathering in the creative arts exhibit pole barn was growing by the minute.
Tucker was just a little fella, his shoulder blades clearly visible beneath the wash-worn cotton of his blue plaid shirt, but he had honed his speaking voice through years as the youth pastor at the One Word Bible Church. “I assure you, if Tally’s ice cream and mine taste the same, it’s not my doing.”
Every head in the crowd swiveled in unison to look at me.
As one of the judges in the edibles division, I had been in the exhibit when Eloise made her charge against her fellow competitor, but since it was my own recipe Tucker had allegedly copied, I’d quickly recused myself from taking any part in resolving the matter. Still, I didn’t consider the dispute personal until Tucker turned the tables and implied I was the thief.
Under the scrutiny of all those onlookers, I felt the burn
of a blush lick up my cheeks.
I was still trying to figure out how to respond to Tucker’s veiled accusation when my grandma Peachy elbowed her way in front of me.
“Young man,” she barked, “you mess with my girl, you mess with me.”
Some folks might not think an eighty-five-year-old woman with a bum knee would be much of a threat. But Peachy’s name is the only sweet thing about her. She can shoot as straight as she can spit, and I’ve seen her stand down a longhorn bull with nothing but a wire whisk in her hand.
If Tucker Gentry’d had the good sense God gave little bunny rabbits, he’d have tucked his tail between his legs and apologized. But instead he narrowed his eyes as if he were going to go toe-to-toe with Peachy.
Garrett Simms cleared his throat. He stood a head taller than anyone else in the room, had to be close to six-four, with pale red hair all over his head and just about every visible bit of skin. Despite his height and hirsuteness, he had gentle features, womanly hips, and a quiet, lilting voice. Normally, Garrett didn’t command much respect. But as the head judge of the edibles division of the Lantana County Fair, he wielded considerable power. When he held up his soft, pale hands in a plea for silence, the bickering stopped.
“Miss Ver Steeg and I will decide whether Mr. Gentry’s entry should be disqualified.”
Kristen Ver Steeg, the third judge on the panel, shook her head. “Sorry, Garrett. I need to recuse myself, too.”
I can’t speak for the whole crowd, but Kristen’s announcement caught me off guard. Kristen Ver Steeg was a relative newcomer to Dalliance, having opened a small law firm in town just a few years before. Both her office and her swank condo community were out on FM 410, in the part of Dalliance that was more suburb than small town. The only reason she’d been given a spot on the judging panel was that, as a former member of the pageant circuit, she’d volunteered to coordinate the Lantana Round-Up Rodeo Queen Pageant.
In short, Kristen was a Dalliance dilettante. I couldn’t imagine she’d ever crossed paths with Tucker Gentry. And while she might know Eloise Carberry—as the reigning president of the League of Methodist Ladies and a founding member of the Dalliance Fat Quarters quilting club, Eloise knew just about everybody—the two women couldn’t have enough history to justify Kristen recusing herself. After all, Dalliance is the sort of town where you can’t sneeze without someone’s second cousin saying “God bless”; we had to play fast and loose with notions of “bias” if we wanted to put together a panel of judges for any of the fair competitions.
Garrett Simms must have shared my surprise. “Really?” he asked.
By way of an answer, Kristen moved a step away from the table.
Garrett shrugged. “All right, then. I guess I’ll make the call.”
Eloise Carberry handed him a plastic spoon, and Garrett picked up the first cup of ice cream. Tucker’s.
Garrett had just closed his fleshy pink lips around the spoon when my cell phone started vibrating in the front pocket of my jeans.
I pulled it out, cussing under my breath. The screen indicated it was my cousin Bree calling. She was manning the A-la-mode booth over on the midway.
I hustled a few yards away, ducking behind a shelving unit lined with jars of preserves, and answered.
“What’s up?”
“Hey,” Bree said. She never moved faster than a sashay, but she sounded as if she’d been running. “I need you back here, pronto. You and Peachy. And bring that man of yours, too.”
“Is everything okay? Is Alice all right?” About the only thing Bree got worked up about was her precocious teenage daughter. Alice didn’t raise much heck, but she still managed to get herself into some sticky situations.
“She’s fine as frog’s hair. For now.”
“Well, I’m kinda busy here,” I said. “Eloise accused Tucker of stealing an A-la-mode recipe—”
“Tally,” Bree snapped. “This is an emergency. You’ll never in a million years guess who just moseyed past the booth.”
“Who?”
“Sonny Anders.”
“No.” The last anyone had seen of Alice’s daddy, he’d kissed his toddler child on the forehead before driving off into the night with an exotic dancer named Spumanti.
“Yep. Just strutting down the midway, bold as brass.”
“Sweet Jesus,” I breathed.
Bree laughed. “I don’t think the good Lord had anything to do with this.”
Garrett was still contemplating the two dishes of ice cream, lifting first one spoon to his lips, then the other, his freckled brow crumpled up like a used dish towel.
Quietly as I could, I told Kristen Ver Steeg I had to go. “Family emergency,” I explained. The corners of her mouth tightened a smidge, but she didn’t show any other sign of interest or concern.
I took Peachy by the hand and skedaddled out of there. As we ducked out of the barn, I glanced over my shoulder. I could see Garrett speaking, his hands clasped behind his back. Garrett’s large frame blocked my view of Tucker Gentry, but I didn’t need to see his grin to know what Garrett had decided. Eloise Carberry’s face had gone as pink as her apron, and as Garrett spoke she shook her head like a terrier with a chew toy. I felt bad that Garrett had to deal with Eloise on his own—Kristen had distanced herself from the ice cream debate and had her cell phone plastered to her ear, and I couldn’t stick around to help smooth the waters—but if anyone could restore peace, Garrett was the man.
Peachy and I made our way to the Remember the A-la-mode booth on the fair’s midway as quickly as Peachy’s arthritis would allow. As we hustled across the dusty fairgrounds, I called Finn Harper on my cell phone and asked him to poke around a bit about Sonny’s sudden appearance and then meet us back at the booth.
Finn and I had dated in high school, our relationship burning with that peculiar passion that seems reserved for adolescents. A week before we graduated, I dumped him in the Tasty-Swirl parking lot. He roared into the night in his dark green Sirocco, and I didn’t see hide nor hair of him for the next seventeen years.
Then one day he literally turned up on my doorstep, all grown up and looking more sinful than a doubledip hot fudge sundae with extra whipped cream, and pretty soon he was helping me solve a murder. We’d spent a few months dancing around each other, nervous as pigs at a barbecue, trying to figure out which feelings were real and which were the ghosts of a love long gone, before we began dating for real.
Finn wasn’t just pretty to look at. He had a good head on his shoulders, and his position as a reporter for the Dalliance News-Letter meant he had access to all kinds of information. If anyone could ferret out why Sonny Anders had slithered back to town, Finn could.
Peachy and I made our way along the stretch of the fairgrounds devoted to food stalls, past the standard fair fixtures—corn dogs, fried Twinkies, and funnel cakes—and the local favorites like the Bar None’s beer booth and El Guapo’s taco stand. It was only the first day of the fair and not quite noon, so attendance hadn’t picked up yet. The workers were still enjoying the peace as they prepped their booths for the crush of the first evening, and several shouted out friendly hellos as we passed.
We found Bree pacing the twenty-foot length of the A-la-mode booth, back and forth like a tin duck in a shooting gallery. She braced one arm across her belly while she chewed on the thumbnail of the other hand.
“What took you so long?” she snapped.
I jerked my head subtly toward Peachy. When my grandma looked in the mirror, I fancy she still saw herself with a full head of auburn curls and bright eyes that could lure a man to her bedroom or knock him flat on his backside, depending on her mood. She did not care to be reminded of her infirmities. “It’s a long hike,” I hedged.
“Well, I about piddled myself when I saw Sonny, walking down the midway without a care in the world. Like it was no big deal to just show up in Dalliance after fifteen years.” Bree plopped down on one of the folding chairs we’d set up for slow times, and Peachy gingerly
lowered herself into the other.
“Did you say something? Did he see you?” I asked.
Bree laughed. “I don’t think he saw me, and I was too stunned to speak. Lord, what am I gonna tell Alice?”
“You’ll tell her the truth,” Peachy said. “That girl’s got more sense than the two of you put together. She’s not gonna have a conniption just because her daddy’s back in town.”
“He looked good.”
Peachy sucked her teeth, her lip curled in contempt. “Now, you just keep those hormones holstered, little girl.”
Bree rolled her eyes dramatically. “Not that kind of good, Gram. Give me a little credit. I mean he looks like he’s doing good. Wearing a suit and everything. I almost didn’t recognize him. And he was walking with a woman on his arm.”
“A wife?” I asked.
Bree looked as if she’d smelled something funky. “Maybe. But for all I know, Sonny thinks we’re still married.”
When Sonny split town, he didn’t leave a forwarding address. Bree had to jump through a million and one hoops—and wait over a year—to serve process through newspaper publication and obtain a divorce on the grounds of abandonment.
She shrugged. “Whoever she was, she was a fair step up from that skank Spumanti. Lord, do you remember her?” Bree shivered dramatically. “That was the most humiliating part of Sonny leaving, the fact that he left me for that sorry creature.”
Spumanti had been a dancer out at the Pole Cat, famous for its cheap ribs and cheaper girls. I only saw her a couple of times, when Bree dragged me along to hear Sonny’s band play crappy Skynyrd covers before the dancers took the stage.
None of the girls at the Pole Cat were much to look at. If a dancer had a good body and a few moves—and wasn’t suffering from meth-mouth—she could make a lot more cash at one of the clubs off Harry Hines in Dallas or in the rougher clubs over in Fort Worth. In fact, the Pole Cat got a lot of runoff from those more upscale establishments. Girls who got fired for getting too close to the customers or doing drugs at work would show up at the Pole Cat, and the Pole Cat let everything with two X chromosomes work the pole.