Risky Biscuits

by Mary Lee Ashford

  “Stanley B. Marchant and don’t you forget it,” she reminded me.

  * * * *

  Okay, I knew how to get to Dixie’s aunt’s B&B. I drove there first. From the Jefferson Street Bed & Breakfast, I knew the next street was Washington, and I thought I was supposed to turn right. I turned and perused the addresses. If I didn’t spot it right away, I was not above asking for Matilda’s help. If she’d been able to find Arbor House, finding the Marchant house should be a piece of cake.

  The sun was setting and the large shade trees that lined the streets in this part of town made the curbside seem darker. I peered at house numbers.

  Ah-ha. There it was.

  I had been so intent on locating the house that I almost missed spotting the red sports car that had pulled out of the driveway. The driver backed out in a rush, did a one-eighty, and then burned rubber a half block down the street. The pause when the car whipped around to change directions was right beside my car and long enough for me to spot a redhead in the passenger seat.

  I didn’t think Dixie had given in to the dinner offer or been sucked in by the lure of a ride in the Jag, so Nick Marchant must have talked a different redhead into a date. Judging by his recklessness, he was either upset or in a big hurry to get somewhere. Or maybe trying to impress his passenger with his driving skills.

  I had to admit that I was a little relieved that he wouldn’t be there. The town seemed to be enamored of its returning hometown hero. Granted, they knew him better than I did. But I wasn’t really sure what it was that gave me pause. Maybe it was Dixie’s reaction to him. In any case, I didn’t feel like dealing with the flirt right now. I was on a mission.

  I pulled into the drive and got out. The house was impressive and the yard immaculately groomed. Ringing the doorbell, I glanced around, wondering which house had been Alma’s. From what Greer had told me, Alma and her daughter had lived next door to the Marchants for years.

  On one side there was a nicely kept but smaller brick house and on the other side was an impressive Victorian somewhat similar to Greer’s house but a bit larger. Both houses looked to be in good shape.

  Hopefully, the Marchant family had better neighbors than I did. I guess that wasn’t entirely fair; the couple on one side of me was extremely friendly and, in fact, had brought over keys to their house and asked me to keep an eye on things when they’d gone on a Caribbean cruise. It was only Mrs. Pickett who was a grouch of the first order.

  It had been long enough that I began to get worried that Stanley wasn’t there. Maybe he’d been in the car with Nick. No, that couldn’t be. There wasn’t room in the low sports car for three people. But maybe there’d been an emergency of some kind and everyone had to leave. When Bertie had talked to Stanley on the phone, he’d said he’d be home. I reached out and was about to poke the doorbell again, when the heavy front door swung open.

  “Hello. Sorry to take so long.” Stanley had one hand braced on a cane I hadn’t noticed when I’d seen him at the breakfast club meeting. “It takes me a while to get to the door and I’m the only one home right now.”

  Retirement had clearly not made Stanley lower his standards of dress. He wore dark dress pants, a white shirt, and a striped tie. His shirt looked a little big as if he’d perhaps lost some weight. Fighting family members, even if they’re grown sons, can be stressful. And though, as I mentioned before, I didn’t understand people who lost weight when they were stressed, some did.

  “No problem at all.” I held open the glass storm door. Apparently, he wasn’t going to ask me in. “I’m sorry to trouble you for the Crack of Dawn Breakfast Club list, but Alma was our primary contact for the cookbook and she did all of the back and forth with contributors.”

  “She was a good organizer.” Stanley noted as he held out a paper. “Here’s the list that I have of everyone who is a regular attendee at the breakfast club. Don’t know if it will help you, but it’s a start.”

  I took the spreadsheet from him. “I’m sure it’ll be helpful, and again I really appreciate this.”

  Just as I was walking to my car, Nate Marchant pulled into the driveway. Nate drove a very nice late-model BMW sedan. Nice, but not flashy like the Jag.

  “I’m sorry.” I tucked the paper I’d gotten from Stanley in my bag. “I hope I didn’t block you from getting into your garage. I didn’t think about that when I parked in the driveway.”

  “Not a problem.” He turned toward me as he shut the car door. “This is where I usually park. Lately anyway. Nick’s Jag took my spot in the garage.”

  “A bit of an adjustment, your brother being back home.” In the dimming light, I couldn’t see how bad his nose was, but it appeared swollen.

  “You’ve got that right,” he muttered as he reached inside the BMW and grabbed a thick briefcase from the backseat.

  “I don’t have any siblings, but I’m guessing you two were close growing up.”

  His deep blue eyes clouded, and I realized I probably sounded snoopy.

  “We had different paths.”

  “I didn’t mean to pry.” I reached in my bag for my car keys. “It’s just you all here in town have known each other a long time, and I know nothing about your history together.”

  Nate shifted his briefcase to the other hand and sighed. “Consider yourself lucky, Sugar. Consider yourself lucky.” He disappeared inside.

  Lucky?

  Not sure what to make of that comment, I stood dumbstruck for a minute or two before I moved toward my car.

  Chapter Seven

  The next morning, armed with my list of members of the breakfast group, I sat down at my desk and started sending emails. Stanley’s list was very thorough and had street addresses, emails, and phone numbers. Bertie had been right; there was some color-coding involved too, though I wasn’t sure what it all meant.

  I’d decided to start with emails and then make phone calls if I didn’t get responses from my email.

  My message was short and sweet. They could email me their recipes, or they could bring the recipes to the breakfast on Saturday, and Dixie and I would collect them there. I attached the release form with a reminder to fill it out as well. I really hoped for emails in the interest of legibility but figured realistically only a small percentage would do that. Still, a few, where I didn’t have to decipher handwriting, would be a net gain.

  Last night I’d cross-referenced the list with the ones I already had and marked those. In many cases, even if I had the recipe, I didn’t have the release form.

  Soon my spreadsheet was even more complicated than Stanley’s.

  “Hello.” Dixie waved a hand in front of my face.

  I looked up.

  “Wow, you were lost in number land there.”

  “Sorry. For such a simple, straightforward project, this one has become way more complicated than I’d ever dreamed. For some I have recipes, but no release forms, for others I have the reverse, and for an added level of complication, there are those for which I have neither.”

  I suddenly realized Dixie had someone with her.

  Leaning to the side, I looked to see who was behind her. “Oh, hi, Tina.”

  “Hey, Sugar.” Tina was dressed in a bright royal blue today and her nails matched. “You know the other day when you were asking me about that development company that’s been buying land north of town?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, the Cheeters guy is going to be in our office later this morning. He has an appointment with Ethan. I thought I’d let you know.”

  “What time is that?” I glanced at the clock.

  “Ethan’s calendar shows a ten o’clock appointment.”

  “Thanks, Tina.” I tapped my fingers on the desk, thinking.

  “Uh-oh, I know that look.” Dixie pivoted. “I’m out of here and, if you’re smart, you would be, too, Tina. She’s about to talk you into something.”

  Luckily Tina didn’t heed Dixie’s advice, and with only a little urging agreed to help me with an
opportunity to ask Mr. Greg Cheeters a few questions.

  * * * *

  Just prior to ten o’clock, I sat in the waiting area at the real estate office pretending to flip through a magazine I’d picked up from the pile on the nearby table. Ethan rushed in carting a golf bag over his shoulder. He didn’t even notice me sitting there.

  In less than five minutes, Greg Cheeters walked in.

  On cue, Tina went to Ethan’s office to ask him some preplanned questions. Questions about listings that weren’t truly urgent, but that Tina thought could keep him tied up for a few minutes.

  “Have a seat, I’m sure they’ll be right with you.” I smiled at the developer. He wore dark suit pants and a bright blue dress shirt.

  He sat down a chair away and pulled out his phone.

  “Sugar Calloway.” I reached across the empty chair and held out my hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  Looking up from reading messages, he finally looked at me. “Greg Cheeters, Ross & Cheeters Development.”

  I could see on his face he was trying to place me. I glanced toward Ethan’s office, where Tina was doing a great job of keeping Ethan busy as well as blocking his view of the waiting area. I knew I didn’t have long so there wasn’t time to establish much of a rapport. I would have to dive in.

  “You’re the ones doing the development north of town.” I turned toward him, feigning surprise. I could play stupid with the best of them. “How is that going?”

  “It’s going well.” He looked me up and down.

  “So, Ethan must be helping with the closings, huh?” I gave him a bright smile.

  “Hmmm.” He was noncommittal and still hadn’t placed where he’d seen me before.

  “Several properties, I guess. What a complicated project.” I glanced over my shoulder and could see Ethan standing. It was clear I only had a little more time.

  “Everyone on board with that? No holdouts?” I pressed.

  “Everything is coming together.”

  “I heard,” I lowered my voice and leaned in, “that Alma Stoller had been a holdout and others were upset with her. I’m sure you know who those people might be.”

  “Ms. Calloway. Sugar, is it? Mrs. Stoller had come to terms with us. The deal was done. Signed, sealed, delivered. But I can’t talk to you about someone else’s business. Surely you understand that.” That’s what he said out loud anyway, but his tone said, “Surely your little female brain can grasp something that simple.”

  Maybe I’d poured on the playing stupid a bit too heavy.

  “Sugar, what are you doing here?” Ethan appeared in front of us. “Ready to stop renting from Greer and look into a buying a house? Those trips to the Good Life have to be getting old.”

  I could see on Greg Cheeters’s face that he suddenly realized where he’d seen me before. He leaned across the space between us.

  “It’s best not to ask too many questions about things that don’t concern you,” he said, low enough that only I could hear the words.

  “I’m waiting to talk to Tina.” I stood and walked away quickly.

  “Come on back, Greg,” I heard Ethan say, but I didn’t turn around.

  I quickly said my good-byes to Tina and scooted back to the shop. Once safely in the office, I did an info dump and repeated the whole conversation for Dixie.

  “He sounds like a jerk.” Dixie made a face.

  “Agreed. And the worst of it is that I didn’t really get any information other than according to him, they had ‘come to terms.’”

  It had been worth a shot but I’d hoped for more.

  “If they really had, Cheri must have the details,” Dixie noted. Which is exactly what I’d been thinking. Cheri Wheeler must know whether there were any problem and if, in fact, the deal had been “signed, sealed, and delivered.”

  I spent the rest of the day working my email list, glad that Stanley was such a stickler for detail. With any luck most of the group would read my email and come on Saturday with their recipes and we could get this project back on track.

  Chapter Eight

  When Dixie and I arrived at the Crack of Dawn All-You-Can-Eat Breakfast on Saturday morning, things were in full swing. They had planned this one in the city park shelter house they were raising money to restore. I parked the Jeep in the gravel lot beside the shelter. The lot was full of vehicles but I managed to squeeze in between a ten-year-old Buick and an old rusty pickup that had seen better days.

  “The location doesn’t seem to have hurt their attendance any,” I noted as we walked across the gravel.

  “I wondered if it would, given this is where Alma was killed.” Dixie carefully carried the basket of Mile-High Biscuits she’d brought along to contribute to the effort. “Maybe it actually worked the other way around and more people came.”

  “You mean people have such a morbid curiosity that more people turned out than the usual?”

  “No, I mean because the location is related to Alma’s death, they may feel like coming to the breakfast and supporting the fundraiser is sort of a tribute to her.”

  “I like that explanation much better.” I was sure relief tinged my voice and probably showed on my face.

  Under the large canopy, the picnic tables had been pulled together to create one long buffet. I could smell the hot coffee and it mingled with the aroma of food and damp green grass, making my stomach growl. There’s something about eating outside that makes good food taste even better.

  Greer sat at a folding table right at the entrance, selling tickets for five dollars each. I paid for two tickets, one for Dixie and one for myself, while Dixie dropped off her biscuits to Freda Watson, who was accepting all the donated food items. Feeling bad because I hadn’t brought anything to donate, I dropped another five-dollar bill in the cash donation jar.

  Thinking I should have grabbed one of Dixie’s biscuits when we were in the car, I checked out the piles of biscuits that were being refilled. They looked good, too, but Dixie’s had looked (and smelled) exceptional. She joined me in line, and I handed over her ticket.

  I smiled at the irony of paying for food you’d just brought, but who was I to question? It seemed to be working out for the breakfast club.

  We each picked up a paper plate and plastic silverware at the first station and then started our progression down the line.

  Biscuits first.

  I guessed it would be rude to ask for a couple of fresh ones out of that basket Dixie had just handed over.

  Next stop, two ladles of gravy on top.

  In my head I added two miles to my morning run for all the calories I was about to consume.

  Who was I kidding? My morning run was really more like a monthly run lately. I’d fallen into some bad habits and I knew I needed to shape up.

  But not today.

  With my paper plate loaded with biscuits and gravy, I headed to the next station, which was the drinks table. I looked at Dixie, but she shook her head, so I poured a cup of steaming coffee for myself. Spotting small cartons of milk, I handed one to her. I spied a table with a couple of seats open and headed in that direction.

  Sliding my plate onto the table before it buckled under the weight of the gravy, I took a sip of the coffee and set it down beside my plate. As I dug in, I decided these might be the best biscuits I’d tasted in my life.

  “These are even better than the Red Hen Diner’s biscuits,” I said under my breath to Dixie.

  “You’d better not say that within earshot of anyone who will tell Toy,” she cautioned.

  “Do these fundraisers hurt her business when they have them?” I’d wondered about whether that was the case.

  “I imagine they do cut into her breakfast crowd some,” Dixie pushed a forkful of gravy onto her last piece of biscuit. “But it’s a limited time. Once they have their money for the shelter house improvements, they’ll be done.”

  “They must be getting close to their goal.” I remembered the total Stanley had shared at the breakfast club meeting.
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br />   Once we finished, Dixie carried our trash to the receptacle and I went to locate a folding table and set up off to the side so we could collect recipes from anyone who’d gotten my email.

  I had the spreadsheet from Stanley Marchant, a stack of release forms, and a folder to collect the recipes people handed us. Once Leela made the announcement about where the cookbook table had set up, there was a steady stream of people who handed me recipes on notebook paper, recipe cards, and one on the back of a grocery receipt. Remembering the ones in Alma’s folder that were a challenge to read, I was careful to make sure I had contact information for each and every recipe I accepted.

  The line finally slowed and Dixie had gone to find us some water. I was sorting through the pieces of paper, making sure I hadn’t lost any in the flurry of activity.

  “What happened to your face, Nate?” I heard from behind me.

  I looked over my shoulder. Jimmie LeBlanc and Nate Marchant were helping to clean up and Nate held the trash bag while Jimmie gathered up used paper plates and dropped them in. The area around Nate’s eye was bruised and his nose was indeed still swollen.

  “Nothing.” He shook his head dismissively.

  “Looks painful,” Jimmie noted.

  “Not so much anymore.” Nate shrugged. “I bumped into the vault door at work. Ellen was coming out while I was going in, and I slammed right into it. Hurt like heck at the time.”

  Why had he lied? I knew exactly how he’d gotten that injury and it hadn’t been a vault door. It had been his brother. Pride, I supposed.

  “Are we still on for skeet shooting later this afternoon?” Jimmie asked.

  “Absolutely,” Nate answered.

  “See you there then.” Jimmie moved away.

  I sat still, going through the motions of sorting the papers. I didn’t think they’d noticed me but if Nate spotted me, I didn’t want him to think I’d overheard. It was apparently important to him to maintain appearances and if he didn’t want the world to know his brother was responsible for his messed-up face, that was his prerogative.