Breezy Spoon Diner Box Set Collection Read online

  Three Courses of Murder

  A Breezy Spoon Diner Mystery Collection

  by Tracey Quinn

  The Dessert Corpse

  Brutally Kaled

  Smothered in Onions

  copyright 2018-2019 by Tracey Quinn

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination and not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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  Table of Contents

  The Desert Corpse

  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

  Brutally Kaled

  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

  Smothered in Onions

  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

  The Desert Corpse

  Chapter 1

  It was a quiet Tuesday afternoon when a tall, very good-looking man came into the Breezy Spoon Diner and asked if he could talk with the owner about a business deal. Did I mention that he was tall and very good-looking? Blond buzz-cut, hazel eyes and built like, well, someone who works out a lot. For some reason he didn't seem to have any eyebrows but the rest of the picture was great. At that moment I was very glad that I was the owner so I came out from around the counter and invited him to sit down in one of the booths. I asked Charlene, my teen-aged waitress, to bring us some coffee. I wasn't interested in any business deals but, hey, I'm single and the number of unattached men in a town of 1200 people is limited to say the least.

  I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Dani O'Shea. Dani, short for Danielle, because my mother loves Danielle Steele novels, and O'Shea because my great-grandfather came over from Ireland in the 1800's. I have an older brother named Bob --- Mom also loves Nora Roberts. I am 34 years old, have blue eyes and shoulder length black hair which I usually keep in a pony tail. I'm 5'6” and weigh about ten pounds more than I should but I'm a civilian now so, who cares?

  After 14 years in the military I moved back to my old home town, East Spoon Creek City. The town isn't exactly on the Top Ten List of the most exciting places to live in the U.S. I mean, the motto under the sign at the edge of town is “You've Got To Live Somewhere”. But I grew up here and so it's home to me.

  I bought the local diner where I used to waitress when I was in high school. Well, actually I made a down payment on the local diner and will be paying off the mortgage for the next 20 years or so. The former owner, Jesse Timkins, had met someone one the Internet, married her and moved to Florida, and needed to sell the diner. Some folks in town criticized him for marrying someone 20 years younger than he was, but he was 82 and I doubt if it mattered.

  I refurbished the diner inside and out, updated the menu and changed the name from “Jesse's Joint” to The Breezy Spoon. Apparently the locals were tired of Jesse's soggy meatloaf covered with ketchup, powdered gravy over instant mashed potatoes and canned green beans, so the new menu which featured fresh fruits and vegetables along with entrees such as roast beef, grilled chicken, steak, shrimp and fresh fish, brought in a lot of new customers. My best friend Tammy Stevens, who owns the bakery down the street, provides fresh baked bread and rolls daily as well as some of the greatest pies and Danish that I've ever tasted. It all adds up to make the mortgage payments and then some.

  And so it was that I was sitting at a booth in The Breezy Spoon with Tall, Blond and Dishy. He introduced himself as Mark Adams, and I had just told him my name when the door flew open and my self-appointed nemesis Millie Farnsworth strode over to our table.

  “Everyone in town will know the truth about you in....” she said to me, ostentatiously looking at her watch, “...about 15 minutes.”

  She tossed down a copy of the East Spoon Creek Gazette in front of us. It was folded over so that Town Notes by Amelia was displayed with a section highlighted. “It has come to our attention that claims have been made about one Dani O'Shea that she has been a helicopter pilot in the US Army and as such has participated in rescue missions in the Middle East. In the interest of truth we have been informed by a confidential source that since the name Danielle Gwendolyn O'Shea is a common name in the Army and particularly in the area of female helicopter pilots. This matter is under current investigation and should in no way be considered accurate. We have no confirmation that the military helicopter pilot Danielle Gwendolyn O”Shea is in any way connected with the local waitress, Dani O'Shea.”

  I laughed. “Oh, Millie, why don't you settle down before you get high blood pressure. Charlene can bring you some pie and coffee. You like lemon meringue, don't you? It's on the house.”

  “The name is Amelia, not Millie,” she snarled. “And don't think you can get better press by trying to bribe a reporter.” She turned to look at Mark. “I understand that you're the new fireman in town. I'm Amelia Farnsworth of the Farnsworth Bank and Trust family. I work as an investigative journalist for the award-winning East Spoon Creek Gazette. You may not know this, but this establishment has a very unfortunate reputation. I would be happy to have you as my guest for dinner at the Oxen Lake Hunting Lodge and Golf Club so that you can associate with a better class of people.” She placed her business card on the table in front of him and turned to go. “Call me when your eyebrows grow out.”

  Here's some free advice: don't start to laugh when you're in the process of swallowing coffee. I only hoped the stain on the front of my white uniform would wash out.

  As she reached the door, Millie turned and looked back at me. “Oh, you're so disgusting!” she huffed, and stalked out.

  “Are you okay?” Mark asked.

  “Absolutely,” I replied. “Sorry about that. I hope I didn't spit on you.”

  “No, I was out of the spray zone,” he said, “but what was that about?”

  “Oh, just a 'Millie Attack',” I said. “They occur every now and then. You learn to ignore them.”

  He shook his head as he picked up the copy of the Gazette. “How can the paper print something like that about you? Are you going to sue them?”

  “Oh, no, Millie's just a silly goose and everyone in town knows it. Her father owns the Bank and her uncle owns the newspaper. Her father gave her uncle the loan to buy the paper and he still owes on the mortgage, so he has to keep Millie on the staff. Therefore, even if it did bother me, which it doesn't, it would be a waste of time to complain. Wait till you read
a few more of them; they're always hilarious.”

  “Why does she have it in for you? Did you steal her boyfriend, break up her marriage or what?” Mark asked.

  “No, she broke up three of her own marriages but I didn't have anything to do with it. She hates me because I got engaged before she did. We were seniors in high school and Johnny Winston won a $12 cubic zirconium ring at the spring fair. He asked me if I would marry him as soon as we graduated. He was a nice guy so I said, 'Sure, why not?' He gave me the ring and I was engaged for all of three weeks until the Uptown Famous Movie Theater showed the musical Showboat continually for a month and I fell in love with Howard Keel. I gave back the ring to Johnny and the next day he asked Millie to marry him. She was miffed because she wasn't asked first, but she said yes.”

  “So did they actually end up getting married?” he asked.

  “Yes, they did,” I replied. “She was a gorgeous June bride with 12 bridesmaids and they had a humongous reception at the country club. The marriage lasted about a month before the annulment. Johnny worked part-time at the car wash and they couldn't afford a place of their own so after the reception they each went back to their own homes and never lived together. They didn't seem to like each other very much to begin with, but she managed to be the first girl in our class to get married and that satisfied her. She beat all of the rest of us 'old maids' to the altar and that meant she won. Ah, the good old high school days or should I say d-a-z-e?”

  “Daze is right!” Mark laughed. “I'd just as soon forget about my time in high school. I don't even go to reunions because I don't want to anyone to remind me of all the stupid stuff I did back then. By the way, did you fly helicopters when you were in the Army?”

  “Sure, for about 10 years,” I answered. “A lot of people did. I enlisted when I was 20 and after I was in for about four years I got the chance to train to be a helicopter pilot. It was interesting work. Were you in the military?”

  “Oh, yes,” he replied. “I was in the Middle East, too.”

  “Not flying helicopters, I assume.”

  “No, just trying to stay alive, mostly. I was Special Forces and folks over there didn't seem to want to make nice with us. They kept wanting to shoot us or blow us up.”

  “Did you ever get shot?” I asked.

  “Nothing too serious. I had a bullet graze my scalp once and got a flesh wound in my arm. Although I've got to say, when you hear someone on TV say, 'It's nothing serious, just a flesh wound,' I'm pretty sure they've never had one. Hurts like hell! What about you?”

  “Just bumps and bruises,” I replied. “And a couple of times I pulled my arm out of the socket getting out of the helicopter too fast because I wanted to get to cover before someone did shoot me. I had a sore throat for days from all the screaming I did when they put it back into the socket.”

  “How did you end up buying a diner?”

  “When I got back home I heard that the owner had it up for sale, and I've always loved the place, so I snapped it up. You see, I liked to cook back when I was a kid. My Dad was the high school principal and my mom taught math, so when I was a teenager I started doing some cooking to make it easier on my mom. I got cook books from the library and tried different recipes, most of which didn't turn out very well. When I was 16 I went to work as a waitress at this diner. It was called Jesse's Joint back then. Why Jesse ever started a diner, I'll never know, because he hated to cook. He started letting me do some of the cooking and I enjoyed it. I liked to 'chef it up' and make the food taste a little better and look nicer.

  “The same customers would come into the diner a lot and we all got to know each other. It was sort of like an extended family. It was a comfortable feeling, safe and secure around people that you know and like. But after a few years of that I guess my sense of adventure kicked in. I decided to join the Army and see what the world looked like outside of East Spoon Creek City.”

  “I guess the world looked mostly like the Middle East at that time,” he said. “Not what you'd call 'safe and secure'.”

  “True. But you're not from around here, right? Why did you decide to be a fire-fighter in an out of the way little l town like this?”

  “Well, it's a funny thing. Since I was a kid I always wanted to be a fireman. Then after I got out of high school and learned a lot about the war in the Middle East, I decided that I wanted to go fight the bad guys. Keep the world safe from the folks that wanted to destroy it, that kind of thing. When I came home I took some time off trying to figure out what I wanted to do.

  “My brother Dave is a police detective up in Chicago and he mentioned that there were openings in the Fire Department there, so I applied, not expecting to get it because I was over 35 years old, but I guess they didn't have a lot of candidates who were willing to work in certain areas of the city. After I worked there for a couple of years I could see why! After a while I got tired of being shot at by gangs while I was trying to put out a fire. Then I read an article in the military newspaper about a little town 500 miles south of there where people get together every week to make up packages of goodies to send to soldiers in the war zones, and since I was looking for a change, I thought I'd see if I could get on the fire department there. So here I am. Do you guys still do that? The packages thing, I mean.

  “Oh, sure,” I replied. “I think you'll find the people here are really nice even though some of them are, shall we say, marching to a different drummer. I don't know exactly how to describe this town but you'll see what I mean after you've lived here a while.”

  “That's what I wanted to talk to you about,” he said.

  “About living here in town?”

  “Yeah, I wanted to know if you'd like to move in with me.”

  This was interesting. Here was a guy who wanted to cut to the chase!

  “Move in with you? No dinner and a movie first?” I asked. “Well, here's something that I want to know: would you like for me to stab you in the chest with the steak knife or the butter knife? I'd recommend the butter knife because it will be easier for the undertaker to hide the wound since it doesn't have serrated edges.”

  He laughed. “I think you misunderstand me.”

  “Would you care to explain or do we go straight to the knife thing?” I asked.

  “First of all, I play softball with your brother Bob on Saturdays and he suggested that I might want to come and see you. I just bought the old Henderson house on Oak Street,” he began.

  “You bought the safe house?”

  Mark looked surprised. “You knew it had been a safe house?”

  Charlene, my 16-year-old waitress, had just come over to the table to top off our coffee.

  “Oh, good, are you going to start doing the safe house tours again?” she asked. “My boyfriend Jimmy and I had signed up for the tour, but then they had that shooting thing there and the Sheriff wouldn't let anyone go in anymore.”

  “Safe house tours?” Mark was wide-eyed. “Are you kidding me? How did anyone find out it was a safe house?”

  “That would be thanks to your next door neighbors, Heather and Helen Jameson, the biggest gossips in the known world. They're sisters, both in their eighties, and have nothing better to do than to find new stories to spread around town and even further. I was in Afghanistan when I first heard about the safe house; my cousin Phil who lives in New Mexico wrote and told me about it. His sister-in-law Amy teaches school in Des Moines and she had told him.”

  “Well, whose idea was it to put a safe house there?” he asked.

  “When old Fred Henderson passed on, he left his house to his nephew Ralph who sells insurance in the state capital,” I responded. “Ralph had an affair with a woman who worked for the city administration and he managed to convince her to have the city buy the old house for a hefty sum so that their witness protection program could use it as a safe house. I don't know all the details, but the house consists of two apartments, one upstairs and one downstairs, so it probably seemed like a place to put witnesses a
nd keep an eye on them. Didn't work out so well, as you can see.”

  “So what was the shooting about?” he asked.

  “There was a lot of shooting there, but if you mean the last shooting, I can tell you about that,” I replied. “A marshal named Russell was sent down here to guard a witness. Her name was Tiffany something-or-other and she was supposed to testify in a bank robbery trial. She had been the driver for the getaway car when her boyfriend Chuck and two other guys robbed a bank. After the robbery she and the boyfriend dropped off the two accomplices along with the bag of cash at his apartment while he and Tiffany went for booze and cigarettes. Since the accomplices had the bag with the money, the they weren't suspicious when Chuck and Tiffany didn't come back right away.

  “However Chuck had hidden a bag filled with paper under the tire in the back of the getaway car. It was identical to the one with the cash in it. He had switched bags as he was putting the money in the trunk while the others were rushing to get into the car. After he left the guys at the apartment he and Tiffany went to the bus station where he put the bag of cash into a locker. The police had a description of the car from the cameras outside the bank and they caught up with them not long after they had left the bus station.

  “Tiffany was arrested and charged with driving the getaway car. She didn't care to go to jail so she offered to give them all the evidence they needed to convict Chuck and the other two in exchange for a lesser plea. Since the other two guys were at large and she was the prosecution's star witness, they decided to put her in a safe house, and what could be safer than East Spoon Creek City?

  “It worked out fine until a friend of one of the robbers stopped at a station outside of East Spoon Creek City for gas, and the station attendant told him that with a fill-up he could get $2 off a ticket for the tour of the safe house. She explained that the tours were only available when Russell and Tiffany were out to eat breakfast, lunch or dinner or when they were hanging out at Sammy's Bar and Lounge in the evenings.”