Breezy Spoon Diner Box Set Collection Read online

  Nick shrugged. “No idea. Maybe he thought people in town wouldn't be happy to see him. It looks like they weren't, either. Not only did someone kill him, but when I let the police into his room yesterday I found out that the place had been trashed; pictures off the walls, furniture overturned, carpet ripped up, the whole thing!”

  “That's crazy! It's like someone thought Lloyd hid something in his room and they were searching for it,” I mused. “I wonder if they found what they were looking for?”

  “I don't know, but I can tell you this: if I find them, they're going to have a big fat lawsuit on their hands! I had to throw everything out and remodel the room from scratch! Do you think it was that Belcher guy you're looking for?”

  “I'm wondering the same thing,” I said.

  It was almost nine AM by the time I got back to our booth at the fair. The fair didn't officially open until ten but I needed the food ready to sell by then. Normally most people don't start eating until around noon, but there are always a few who want something early and I don't want to miss out on sales. I had only been working for about half an hour when I looked up and saw our first customer of the day heading for the booth: Mayor Pumphrey.

  “Morning, Dani,” he called as he came up to the front counter. “Velma's setting up my booth and she wants me to get out of her hair so she can put the finishing touches on it. Between you and me, I was glad to go! She rushed us out of the house this morning with nothing more than a light snack of bacon, eggs, cereal and toast, so I figured I'd pop down to your booth and see if I could get something to keep me on my feet until lunch. What have you got on the menu today?”

  “We're doing the Breezy Spoon version of carnival food,” I said. “Chili flavored corn dogs, Italian sausage coated with garlic bread crumbs, and Polish sausage with pretzel crumb coating, all with our three-cheese dipping sauce. For dessert, deep fried chocolate cheesecake on a stick and funnel cakes topped with fresh cranberries and homemade whipped cream. There will be the usual french fries and fried onion rings, plus milk shakes, soda, iced tea and pink lemonade.”

  “I suppose that'll do,” Mayor Pumphrey said. “I take one of everything but, uh, hold the onion rings.”

  “Sure, but the fryers are still heating up so it'll take a few minutes to get your order ready. I hope you don't mind waiting.”

  “That's fine; just as long as I can eat before the opening ceremonies get under way. I don't like making speeches on an empty stomach.”

  “At least you don't have to debate Lloyd Duval,” I said. “That must be a relief.”

  “Er, not at all,” the mayor replied, squirming a little. “I was looking forward to giving him a trouncing. He was foolish to even think about taking on an experienced politician like myself. I'd have mopped the floor with him.”

  “Yes, but it can't have been a good feeling knowing that someone was trying to take your job away. I'm sure you must have resented Duval; I'll bet you were even tempted to go meet him and give him more than a trouncing!”

  “Why, um, of course not! He was no threat to my position as mayor! Everyone in town loves me!” His voice didn't sound very confident.

  “Well, if you did go out at night to confront Lloyd and just happened to walk in on him breaking into the bank vault, I think a lot of people would call you a hero for trying to stop him,” I said. “One of your neighbors did see you get in your car and drive away from your house on the night Lloyd was killed.”

  “Oh, those old busybodies! Always peeking through curtains and spying on everyone!” Mayor Pumphrey fumed. “You can tell them that I don't care for their insinuations, and while your at it, tell them to clean their glasses better because they must have seen someone else! I didn't go anywhere near that place-- I mean, I didn't go anywhere at all! I've got important business to attend to! I can't stand here all day talking wild gossip!”

  With that he turned and strode away toward the town square. Brendan was just arriving, pulling a pair of ice chests behind him full of soda and lemonade from the Breezy Spoon.

  “Was that Mayor Pumphrey?” he asked. “What was he doing at the booth, as if I didn't know?”

  “He was leaving without waiting for his food.”

  “Wow, that has to be a first! Why would he do that?”

  “Maybe a guilty conscience,” I said.

  Chapter 8

  There was a good crowd at the fair that day, and they were hungry; by one o'clock that afternoon we were getting low on most of our dishes, except for onion rings, and I had to call Linda at the Breezy Spoon to have her get some more sausage and french fries ready for Brendan to pick up and bring to the fair. Linda and her husband Don live in the apartment above the Breezy Spoon and I was lucky enough to hire them to work the dinner shifts for me. Linda has lots of restaurant experience and they're both terrific cooks. Today they were handling the early shift at the Breezy Spoon while Brendan and I worked at the booth in the fair.

  I was still waiting for Brendan to return when Suze came up to the booth. “Hi hi,” she said. “So, how's business? It looked like you had a big crowd most of the day.”

  “Yes, we've been been busy,” I said. “Can I get you anything to eat?”

  “Thanks, but I already had a protein bar. That's good enough for me,” Suze replied, helping herself to a deep-fried cheescake on a stick. “Besides, Pollyanna says it's not a good idea to eat too much before a match or it might all come back up.”

  “I was surprised to hear that you were going to wrestle Pollyanna. Do you know a lot about wrestling?”

  “Nah, but Pollyanna said she'll tell me what to do. I did gymnastics when I was a kid and I figure it's probably not too much different.”

  As someone who had experienced the Pollyanna Death Grip I had a feeling that it was going to be a bit different than gymnastics. As I turned to hand Suze a glass of lemonade, I noticed Roger Travers heading our way. Looking around our small booth, I remembered the line from the old song that went “nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide”.

  “Hello, hello, hello, lovely ladies,” Roger called. “Just found out that the population of Ireland is twice what it used to be. You know why? It's Dublin! Get it, get it?”

  “But why is it doubling?” asked Suze.

  “Uh, because Dublin is the capital city of Ireland, get it?”

  “You mean that everyone's moving to Dublin for some reason and now there's more room for other people to come into Ireland so there's twice as many?” she asked, scratching her nose ring thoughtfully.

  “No, no, it's a joke,” Roger explained with a strained smile. “Dublin, the city, sounds the same as doubling, the word that means to have twice as many.”

  “That's sort of confusing. Maybe they should change the name or something. I mean, people are allowed to change their names so probably cities could, too.”

  “Yeah, probably,” Roger said, giving up. “Anyway, I just popped by to see if Dani had decided to fly my plane! I've got my first customers lined up and we want to schedule a flight as soon as possible. It's an easy-peasy job and I can pay you cash on the barrel-head to do the round trip. How about it, Dani?”

  “I really appreciate the offer, Roger,” I lied. “but like I said before, I just don't know how to fly your plane. I flew helicopters in the military. There really is a difference.”

  “How much difference could there be?” he asked. “They both fly. Why don't you come out to the air field and look over the instrument panel, get used to it, take it up for a spin? Flying airplanes isn't that hard.”

  “Roger's right, it really isn't, Dani,” Suze agreed. “You know, my brother Baldy is visiting from Alaska and he could tell you; he's a bush pilot and he more or less taught himself. Now he gets a lot of business from people who come to Alaska for the hunting and fishing. He flies them out into the wilderness in his seaplane.”

  “A seaplane?” Roger asked.

  “Yeah, there aren't any airports out where folks want to hunt so he has to land on a lake or so
mewhere to get them out there.”

  “Say, do you think your brother would be interested in making a flight for me? I mean, could he do it within the next few days?”

  “I'm pretty sure he would. Baldy would do about anything for a payday,” Suze replied.

  “That's great! Here's my card; have him give me a call right away,” Roger said. “This is a real relief! For a minute I thought I was going to have to try flying myself, and boy, would my arms get tired! Get it? Ha ha!”

  Suze looked confused. “Why, do you have to lift a lot of stuff?” she asked.

  “Maybe so. I'd better get going,” Roger replied.

  I've never been a big fan of Suze, but now that I knew that she was the perfect antidote for Roger I was warming up to her!

  “Well, I should run along, too,” Suze said. “I volunteered to run the booth for the horse-race game. The kids shoot water at a target and the horse moves ahead every time they hit the target. The winner gets a prize. Sounds like it has real possibilities.”

  Possibilities? I didn't know what she meant by that, but knowing Suze, I thought it was better not to ask. Brendan had just arrived with a stack of sheet pans full of sausage and fries, which was good since the crowd was picking up again and I didn't want to run out of any of our popular dishes. First in line was a teenage boy who ordered a corn dog and a side of onion rings. As he was leaving the counter with his food, a woman ran up to him and knocked the onion rings out his hand.

  “My God, don't eat those, Jamie!” she cried.

  “But, Mom ---” the boy started to say.

  “I warned you about those- those things!” the mother snapped.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked.

  “Oh, uh, no. It just that he has allergies, he's allergic to onions,” she said.

  “How about some french fries instead?” I asked. “No charge.”

  “That would be great,” she replied. “I appreciate it.”

  After they left, I said to Brendan, “Well, that was weird. You'd think the kid would know that he couldn't eat onions.”

  “That's the first order of onion rings that we've sold all day,” he said. “Everything else is going fast. I don't get it. Linda offered to give me more onions because they have plenty left over from lunch; she said everyone wanted them left off of their burgers and salads.”

  “Is it some kind of new diet that I haven't heard about?”

  “If it is, it's news to me, too.”

  I saw Pearl come up to the counter with her friend Jackie, another hair stylist from the salon.

  “Hi girls, what can I get for you?” I asked.

  “I want one of them Polish sausages,” Pearl said. “How about you, Jackie?”

  “I'll get the same thing,” Jackie said, “but can I get it with french fries? I don't want any murder onions.”

  “Don't call 'em that in front of her, dummy!” Pearl chided. “Excuse her manners, Miss O'Shea.”

  “Murder onions?” I asked incredulously. “What are you talking about?”

  “Seeing as Mr. McGee murdered Mr. Duval with those onions, I didn't want to eat them,” Jackie explained. “I know you probably wash them real good to get the blood off them, but I'd rather just have fries all the same.”

  “We're not using onions from the murder scene! These are different onions; they're perfectly fine.”

  “But you shop at from McGee's Market, right?”

  “Well yes, but-”

  “I'll have fries, too,” Pearl said.

  After they left, Brendan asked, “Is that why no one will eat the onions? How could anyone think we'd be serving the same onions that were at the scene of the murder? You'd have to be crazy!”

  “I think you just described most of our customers,” I said. “I'd better call the diner and tell Don to deep-six the onion soup he was planning to make for dinner. We'll go with broccoli cheese soup instead, and hope no one gets shot in a broccoli patch before then.”

  I went back to the counter and tried not to think about the four bushels of onions that I bought yesterday which would probably go rotten before anyone in town ordered another onion ring. I should get one of those black lights that they use on TV to see invisible traces of blood and other fluids. Every time someone comes to the counter I could just whip out the black light and shine it on the onion rings and say, “See? No blood from a dead guy. Want some?”

  As I thought it over, I remembered something Mark had told me; he said that there wasn't much blood at all in the onion crate because it seemed that Lloyd was killed somewhere else and just dumped in the crate behind the market. But where had Lloyd been killed? It seemed to me that the most likely place was at the rec center or in the bank vault. Lloyd was surely the one who had robbed the bank, but then someone came in and killed him and took the stolen money- or perhaps the killer was an accomplice who had double-crossed him. They would have cleaned up the blood, but it was probably a hasty job since they would hardly have wanted to hang around at the scene of the crime for long. If I had a black light, who knows what I might find? A footprint or maybe even some fingerprints?

  Okay, that was a long shot, but if I could get into the rec center with a black light there was a chance I could find something that would clear Gene's name. Or at least put a stop to the onion-phobia. Maybe I'd order one when I got home.

  As I was pondering this, a tall young man with long black hair and a handlebar mustache came up to the booth. He was dressed all in faded denim and wore mirrored sunglasses. “Hey, Suze says you're the dudes selling the murder onions, right?” he asked. “I'll take an order. I like living dangerously.”

  I would have explained how the onions weren't from the murder scene, but I didn't want to risk losing my first onion ring sale all day, so I let it go. “Are you a friend of Suze's?” I asked.

  “Brother.”

  “Oh! She called her brother 'Baldy' so I didn't expect-”

  “Yeah, my mother gave me that nickname because I didn't have any hair when I was a baby,” the young man said. “ I was her first kid and she didn't know how that worked. Anyway it just stuck.”

  “Suze tells me you're a pilot.”

  “Sure, I do a bit of that. She's got some dude lined up that needs to skip town real fast and wants to pay cash for me to do the flying. Sounds like a good gig to me.”

  I hadn't thought of it that way before, but it did seem like Roger was in a hurry to get out of town. Could it be related to Lloyd's murder? Unlikely, I had to admit. He was asking me to fly his plane before Lloyd was killed, and it was hard to imagine what sort of dealings a guy like Roger would have with Lloyd. Also, since Lloyd hadn't been talked to death it almost ruled Roger out completely. Still, it was a lead and I wasn't about to turn down any lead.

  “Where does he want you to take him?” I asked as I handed Baldy his onion rings.

  “I dunno,” he shrugged. “Suze will get the details. I ain't got time for that.”

  He turned and held up the bag of onion rings to the kids standing behind him in line. “Hey, look! It's the murder onions!” he said.

  “You're not really gonna eat those, are you?” a little girl asked pensively.

  Baldy laughed gleefully and tossed an onion ring into his mouth, chewing loudly with his mouth open.

  “That's so gross!” the girl cried as she and her friends ran away from the booth.

  I took out my phone and started ordering a black light with express overnight shipping.

  That evening I sat in my office at the Breezy Spoon, glad to be off my feet after I had spent all those hours standing in the booth at the fair. Even though I was trying to relax, I found my mind kept going back to the murder of Lloyd Duval and the bank robbery. I knew Gene McGee was innocent and I knew I had to do something to prove it, but I didn't feel like I was much closer to the truth than when I started.

  I had suspects now, at least; Maurice Sharp, who was sure Lloyd had stolen a lot of money from his glove factory, and didn't have the best o
f alibis. Mayor Pumphrey couldn't account for his whereabouts on the night of the murder either, and he had certainly been in a panic over the thought of contending with Lloyd over the mayor's office. Roger Travers was in a hurry to leave town, and although that could have more to do with his latest moneymaking scheme than anything to do with Lloyd, there could still be a connection. Then of course there was the grizzly bear, Troy Belcher's brother; wanting to take revenge on the man who killed his brother was a pretty powerful motive, and turning up in East Spoon Creek City right after Lloyd did couldn't have been a coincidence.

  But which one did it? Suspects were one thing, but without any evidence to point towards one of them, I was just feeling around in the dark. I couldn't exactly call up Bob and ask what the sheriff's investigation had turned up, so I had to find something of my own to go on. I opened my laptop and looked up the number for the rec center; that black light would arrive tomorrow and if I could try it out in the rec center I just might find the clue I needed.

  I dialed the number and waited while it rang. It kept right on ringing and I was about to give up when finally a voice came on the other end. “Yeah? What?” the voice mumbled.

  “Um, is this the rec center?” I asked.

  “This is Joey Tugg. If you want to know something about the rec center I guess I can help you,” he yawned.

  “Joey? From Al's Emporium?” Joey was the janitor at Al's Emporium the last I had heard, although considering how dingy the emporium was it wouldn't surprise me if he had been fired.

  “Yeah, that's me. I got me a side job managing the rec center for some extra money. Al don't pay that good.”

  No surprise there. “This is Dani O'Shea from the Breezy Spoon diner,” I said. “I'm planning an event and I'm thinking that the rec center might be a good place to hold it. I would need to look inside and see if it's big enough for my event, though. Would you have time to show it to me tomorrow?”

  “Show it to you?” Joey seemed as confused with my request as if I had just asked him to go to the moon with me. “I dunno... I don't think I'd have time for that. Why don't you just use the key under the mat, and put it back when you're done?”