Pressing the Issue

by Daryl Wood Gerber

  Cover

  Pressing the Issue

  As the annual Renaissance Fair comes to Crystal Cove, Jenna Hart’s Cookbook Nook is packed with tasty treats and all things medieval, while her pal Bailey is ready to swoon over her upcoming nuptials at a local vineyard. But when the two friends discover the body of the vineyard’s owner bludgeoned by a winepress, all their merriment fades, along with their hopes for a vintage year.

  Which churlish varlet did the deed? Was it the victim’s errant brother, who stood to inherit the vineyards? Or the owner’s crestfallen ex-girlfriend? Mayhap it was the newly arrived comely wench, or her jealous husband. Fie on them all! Verily, Jenna can’t rest until justice is served, and she vows to track down the killer. But can she sniff out the truth before the villainous culprit strikes again?

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Pressing the Issue

  Daryl Wood Gerber

  Copyright © 2018 by Daryl Wood Gerber.

  Cover design by Dar Albert, Wicked Smart Designs

  Published by Beyond the Page at Smashwords

  Beyond the Page Books

  are published by

  Beyond the Page Publishing

  www.beyondthepagepub.com

  ISBN: 978-1-946069-51-1

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this book. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented without the express written permission of both the copyright holder and the publisher.

  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 publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Acknowledgments

  “One of the things I teach my children is that I have always invested in myself,

  and I have never stopped learning, never stopped growing.”

  ~ Chesley Sullenberger, Aviator

  Thank you to my family and friends for all your support. Thank you to my talented author friends, Krista Davis and Hannah Dennison, for your words of wisdom and calm. Thanks to my brainstormers at Plothatchers: Krista Davis, Janet Bolin (Ginger Bolton), Kaye George, Marilyn Levinson (Allison Brook), Peg Cochran, and Janet Koch (Laura Alden). It’s hard to keep all the aliases straight, but you are wonderful friends with a wealth of talent and a font of terrific ideas! I adore you. Thanks to my blog mates on Mystery Lovers Kitchen: Cleo Coyle, Krista Davis, Leslie Budewitz, Mary Jane Maffini (Victoria Abbott), Roberta Isleib (Lucy Burdette), Peg Cochran, Linda Wiken (Erika Chase), Sheila Connolly, and Denise Swanson. Eight years and counting. Love you all! Thank you to my Delicious Mysteries and Cake and Dagger group mates: Roberta Isleib, Amanda Flower, Krista Davis, Jenn McKinlay, and Julie Hyzy. PR is not easy. You have made it much more fun!

  Thanks to those who have helped make this sixth book in the Cookbook Nook Mystery series a reality. To Bill Harris and Beyond the Page for your insight and expertise. (My fans were really getting after me to publish a new title.) To my agent, John Talbot, for believing in every aspect of my work. To Sheridan Stancliff, an Internet wizard and creative marvel. To my sister Kimberley Greene for your endless support.

  Thank you librarians, teachers, and readers for sharing the delicious world of a cookbook nook owner in a fictional coastal town in California with your friends. There is no better PR than word of mouth!

  And last but not least, thanks to my cookbook shop consultant and former cookbook store owner, Christine Myskowski. I will never forget that first moment I walked into Salt and Pepper and felt like I was home. Please, if you see this note, reach out and tell me how you are doing. I hate losing touch. I hold you in my heart.

  Dedication

  To all my sweet boys:

  Eliijah, Miles, Chase, Desmond, Tyler, Beau, Kayden, and Sparky.

  You are my light.

  Thank you for making me smile every day

  and for keeping me on my toes!

  Contents

  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

  Recipes

  Books by Daryl Wood Gerber

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  “Bailey Bird, stand still for a minute!” I said. Honestly, my best friend could drive me nuts when she was in a state, and today, on our one day off, she was in a state beyond a state. She was huffing and puffing while pacing between bookshelves at the Cookbook Nook. Her short hair was a mess, her flouncy white blouse askew. She hates to be askew.

  Our current project was not causing her distress. It wasn’t requiring any heavy lifting, just extra hours. We had both agreed to come in at seven a.m. to get a jump on it. We wanted the window display honoring the Crystal Cove Renaissance Fair, which officially kicked off tonight, to be perfect. When we were done, we would eat lunch. Afterward, we would primp for the evening’s revelry.

  I followed her to the sales counter. “Talk to me.”

  Bailey spun around, hands on hips, and exhaled hard enough to make her bangs fly up. “I’m worried, Jenna. Worried with a capital W.”

  Watch out. Whenever she spouts capital letters, she is ready to have a meltdown. A cute meltdown, but a meltdown nonetheless.

  “About the display? Don’t be. It’s going to be great. With the muted colors, it goes nicely with our beach-themed color scheme.” I’ll never forget the first day I walked into the shop. It hadn’t been open to the public since the 1980s, back when it was a used bookstore. The walls were a funky color and were the first things we painted. “We’ve already set out the marionettes and the backdrop of a forest, the beer stein tapestry, the shaft of wheat, and the bow and arrow.” Researching the Renaissance Fair websites for inspiration had been a joy. “I still have a box of Celtic jewelry to unpack. After that, all we have left to do is position the cookbooks and the Renaissance-themed adult coloring books, and—”

  Bailey leveled a searing glare at me.

  “The chaotic display isn’t what’s bothering you?” I asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Then what is it? The sun is shining. The temperature is a perfect seventy degrees.” April is always a good month weather-wise in Crystal Cove. I aimed a finger at my pal. “I know what you need . . . music.” I slipped into the storage room and switched on a queue of medieval-style music that started with “Maids When You’re Young” to lighten the mood. I reemerged and moved to the main display table to arrange copies of The M
edieval Kitchen: A Social History with Recipes. I had plenty more unique books to add, with long exotic titles on a variety of topics, that I would sprinkle throughout the store. I hoped fairgoers would come and browse. Ours was the sole bookstore in town, let alone at the fair. “Are you concerned about your wedding plans?”

  “Why would you say that? What have you heard?” Bailey’s voice skated up an octave. “Should I be—”

  “No, you should not.” I gripped her arm. Being a whole head taller and a ton stronger, I held sway. “I haven’t heard anything. I was worried that Tito—”

  “What about Tito?” Bailey wriggled out of my grasp.

  Bailey and her beloved Tito Martinez, a reporter for the Crystal Cove Crier, are getting married two weeks from now at Baldini Vineyards, a beautiful spread in the hills that boasts an incredible view of the Pacific Ocean. Bailey had her heart set on saying I do at a vineyard, and when the one she had secured slipped up—CC Vineyards had double-booked and had no other dates available for two years—I contacted Nick Baldini, who is a regular customer of ours and the main person responsible for putting on the annual Crystal Cove Renaissance Fair. Baldini Vineyards doesn’t do a lot of weddings, but when it does, the event is top-notch. For Bailey’s gig, Nick had engaged the catering services of a local hotshot chef.

  I said, “I was worried that Tito might be changing things up, or—”

  “It’s Mom!” Bailey stomped toward the storage room.

  My anxiety kicked up a notch. “What about your mother?” I zipped after her, my flip-flops flapping. I’m a sandals girl unless tennis shoes are required. Occasionally I’ll stuff my feet into heels. Occasionally. When I’m dressed up. Today, however, I was wearing an aqua spring sweater and matching capris. “Bailey, talk to me! Is she okay? Is it her health?”

  “She’s as strong as an ox.”

  “Phew!” I whistled. Long story short, two years after my mom died, my father and Bailey’s mother hooked up. They are now engaged. Lola has always been like a second mother to me. I would be devastated to lose her. “So what’s the problem?”

  “She’s got”—Bailey wiggled her hands next to her head—“vibes.”

  “Vibes as in V-I-B-E-S?”

  “I can spell it.”

  “Don’t snip. Vibes about what? The wedding? Relax.” I fanned the air and shifted to another display table to set the books upright. Presentation is everything at a bookstore. Covers need to be visible and appealing. “It will go off without a hitch.” As of Nick’s latest update, everything at the vineyard was going swimmingly.

  “That’s not it.”

  “Is she miffed that she isn’t in charge of the catering?” I asked. Lola owns the Pelican Brief Diner, which is known for its scrumptious seafood. We sell her cookbooks in the shop. “Is she getting vibes that something about the food will go haywire?”

  Bailey growled. “No. She’s got”—more hand twirling . . . vibes—“that something bad is going to happen. Heck, she’s so crazy, she even has Hershey and me feeling vibes, and we don’t feel vibes.”

  “Um, cats do feel them,” I said. Hershey is Bailey and Tito’s cat. Bailey has never owned a cat before. “Is Hershey acting oddly?”

  My rescue ginger cat Tigger mewed from beneath the children’s table at the rear of the shop and lifted his chin as if to signal that he was being a model cat. He’s not always, especially of late. I waved for him to go back to sleep.

  “Whatever.” Bailey swatted the air.

  “Has your mother been more specific? Does she foresee what bad thing might happen?”

  “No, but I’m warning you, the next thing you know she’ll claim she has ESP and want to start giving palm readings like your aunt Vera.”

  “Are you talking about me?” My aunt, who owned the Cookbook Nook as well as Fisherman’s Village, the mini-shopping mecca in which the shop is located, pushed through the storage room curtains, her arms filled with an assortment of cookbooks. “Because if you are, I want to be able to defend myself.” She headed toward the sales counter, the folds of her shimmery amethyst caftan rustling. My aunt loves wearing caftans and turbans and a phoenix amulet that she swears has saved her life a time or two. She is the reason why I gave up my job as an advertising executive in San Francisco and moved home to Crystal Cove. She lured me with the enticing offer of managing the bookshop and a new life filled with the unexpected. “I have a right to—”

  “Holy smoke!” Bailey shouted.

  “C’mon, pal, chill.”

  “No, I mean it. Smoke! Smell it?” Bailey raced toward the breezeway that connected the bookstore to the Nook Café, which my aunt also owns and I oversee.

  Uh-oh. I detected smoke, too.

  “Heavens,” my aunt exclaimed. “Is Katie all right?”

  Katie, our illustrious chef and one of my best friends, had closed the place for the morning so she could test recipes for the fair. During the next week, the Nook, as many like to refer to it, planned to feature all sorts of medieval foods: hawker’s mush, ginger cheesecake, mead, and more. Had something gone amiss?

  “I’ll check,” I said. “Tina!”

  Tina Gump, a twenty-year-old we’d hired a few months ago to help her earn enough to go to night school—she was taking culinary classes; she dreamed of becoming a chef like Katie—bolted from the storage room, her arms filled with cookbooks. The yellow play dress with flounce hem that she was wearing, um, flounced. Man, she had long legs. “What’s wrong?” she asked as, one-handed, she tried to rearrange her dark hair, which was tied into a knot. Strands were sticking out of the knot every which way.

  “Smoke! In the café.”

  “Your aunt and I will make sure everything is fine here. Go!” Tina had been a real find for the store. She was the epitome of calm.

  I tore after Bailey. She made it to the all-white and stainless steel kitchen first. I skidded in after her. I didn’t see fire, but smoke wafted toward the ceiling. The smell of burnt something saturated the air.

  Katie, taller than me and more substantial in a Julia Child way, was stationed at the kitchen exit, working the door to the outside like a gigantic fan. Open, shut, open, shut. What was going on? She never burned anything. Ever.

  I rushed to her. Her eyes and nose were red. Tears streaked her usually cheery cheeks. “Are you all right?” Katie, Bailey, and I have been friends for years, although during high school none of us had hung with the same crowd. Bailey was one of the popular girls; I was in the arty clique; Katie was in the foodie group. Amazing how, after a dozen years, all of those labels didn’t matter anymore. “Are you hurt?”

  “My ego’s bruised.”

  “What happened?”

  “I . . . I . . .” She shook her head. Her white toque bobbled to and fro. Her corkscrew curls bounced. “I destroyed the scones.”

  “You sure did.” Bailey donned a pair of oven mitts and grabbed the tray of blackened scones. She is as confident as Katie in the kitchen. Me, not so much. I am a work in progress when it comes to cooking. I’m a foodie, and I adore delicious meals, but whipping up a gourmet meal is a challenge. “They’re charred inside and out,” Bailey said as she scooted past Katie and darted through the door leading to the alley.

  I heard the utility garbage can open, then a flurry of thuds—dead scones falling—and the lid clacked shut.

  Bailey returned and tossed the mitts on the counter. “What did I miss?”

  “Nothing,” I said, wondering if this was the bad thing her mother had foreseen. If so, no big deal. Phew. “Katie, what happened?”

  “I lost track of time.”

  “How is that possible?” I asked. “You are a devout timekeeper.”

  Katie wears a timer pinned to her chef’s coat, and she always sets two or three timers per item so that nothing overcooks.

  “From the beginning,” I coaxed.

  “Keller stopped by.” Her boyfriend, Keller, is a charming entrepreneur who pedals around town selling homemade ice cream. “He said he m
issed me, but then he . . . he . . .” She slurped back a sob and pointed.

  Through the prevailing smoke, it was difficult to make out what she was indicating, but then I saw it. A small box sat on the marble pastry counter. It was propped open. Inside was a pretty, single-diamond ring.

  “He proposed?” I chirped with glee.

  She nodded.

  “And you said yes?” I asked.

  “I was so astounded that I didn’t say anything, but I must have done something that made him think I said yes because he whooped and kissed me and left. I was so distracted that I—” She gestured to the mess.

  Bailey said, “I’m distracted, too. Getting engaged is a big deal. It uses lots of tiny gray cells.”

  Katie laughed.

  I hugged her. “Don’t worry. We don’t have anyone coming in for a couple of hours. We’ll clear the air and neither Bailey nor I will spill the beans. We wouldn’t want your reputation of being ultra cool in a crisis to be tarnished.” I winked. “As if it could be.”

  A half hour later, after ridding the kitchen of any telltale odor, Bailey and I returned to the shop.

  “Whew, that was something,” I said. “Katie never loses it. What if—”

  “Shh.” Bailey grasped my arm and jutted her chin.

  Aunt Vera was seated at the vintage table where we typically set out foodie-themed jigsaw puzzles, but this week’s puzzle featured a Renaissance theme with medieval spirit minstrels complete with flying dragons. Very cool and exceedingly difficult. Tigger was roaming beneath the table chasing a spool of ribbon.

  Sitting in the chair opposite my aunt was Dolly Ledoux, a forty-year-old blond Louisianan whom some might call Rubenesque. Fifteen years ago she relocated to Crystal Cove and opened Dolly’s Duds, a dress shop that featured fun, colorful clothing. Over the past year, however, the shop had morphed into a Renaissance Fair–themed store that she had renamed Thistle Thy Fancy. Never wrong and occasionally loud, Dolly is one of the main reasons the Renaissance Fair has become an annual occurrence. She adores every aspect of the event. Her shop features costumes and garlands and crafts with which to make an assortment of goods for the fair.