Breezy Spoon Diner Box Set Collection Page 38

  “I hoped I got your text messages right,” I said. “I'm not all that good with deciphering abbreviations.”

  “Oh, yeah. I'm not good at texting with my left hand. Tim Donahue was bandaging my right hand at the time and I didn't want to make you wait for an answer,” he replied, holding up his hand which was wrapped in a white bandage. “What happened was ---”

  Suddenly a combination of guilt, love, remorse, and sympathy all flooded over me like a tsunami and I rushed at Mark, almost knocking him down, and began kissing his face all over, saying, “I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry!”

  He was laughing. “I don't know what you're sorry for, but this is great! Don't stop!”

  “Obviously I'm sorry that you hurt yourself rescuing me from the bank vault. How bad is it?”

  “It's not from the bank vault; I scratched my hand on the locker door when I was getting dressed after I took a shower. The medical chest didn't have band-aids so Tim Donahue just wrapped some gauze around it temporarily. But let's get back to the kissing thing. I think you missed my forehead and chin. I know you got the nose because I couldn't breathe for a few seconds.”

  “Oh,” I said, releasing my death grip on him. “Does it hurt?”

  “Well, I was going to lie and say it does so we could continue what we were doing, but I smell steak and I don't want to interrupt your cooking.”

  When I took the steaks out of the oven they looked just right. I added the garlic roasted new potatoes and creamed corn I had brought from the Breezy Spoon on the side, and set out the chocolate cream pie from Tammy's bakery on the counter. As I put the plate in front of him I offered to cut Mark's steak for him.

  “No, thanks, I'm good,” he said. “Besides it would be sinful to chop up a beautiful steak like this into little chunks with that machete you always use, and I would never encourage you to sin.”

  “It's called a chef's knife,” I said. “And I appreciate your concern for my morals.”

  Chapter 12

  The next morning I was up early so I could get to the Pumpkin City Mall and back to the city fair before it was time to open our booth. Tammy had left a message last night telling me about a dress shop at the mall that was going out of business. She said they were marking everything 50 per cent off, so it seemed like just the opportunity to get a new dress for Kitty's party without denting my emergency fund too badly.

  When I got to the mall I found the store, and it looked like they still had plenty of dresses left. Near the front of the store a young woman was fixing price tags to a rack of nice-looking dresses.

  “Are all these dresses 50 per cent off?” I asked her.

  “Everything in the store, expect for this rack,” she responded. “These are for the new shop. My mother ran this business for years but she's retiring and I'm starting my own store, something more modern than this. I'm specializing in the size two, four and six crowd.”

  “I haven't been size two, four or six since I was two, four and six years old, so I think I'll look around the rest of the shop,” I said.

  The shop was crowded and it was going to take some time to elbow my way through the mob to find the right dress. After about a half hour of looking and not finding anything quite right I noticed a girl hold up a red dress and ask her friend what she thought.

  “Red dress with red hair? Not workin' for you, girlfriend,” she said.

  As soon as she put it back I snatched it and headed for the dressing room. I was in line for almost 10 minutes before I could try it on, but it was worth the wait. It had a square neckline and a flared skirt that was going to look great for dancing, plus it fit me just right. I looked at the price tag and I saw that it was originally $89.95 which was more than I'd ever spent for a dress in my life. I had spent the last 14 years in military uniforms so I wasn't too sure what was a good price for a dress. One thing I did know was that the clearance price on the tag read $40 and that wasn't half price.

  I found the young woman again, who had just finished checking out a customer. “Excuse me, is this the right price? This dress was originally $89.95 and it's marked down to $40. That isn't 50 percent off.”

  “Well, I can let you have it for $35, but that's as low as I can go,” the woman said.

  “No, I mean that's less than 50% off. I don't want to cheat you.”

  “Look, I didn't have time to go around with a calculator and divide all those prices. I just marked them what I thought was close enough. I need to get rid of all this old stuff so I can get started on the new shop. You're welcome to it for $35. You might want to look at some of the shoes and handbags over in the corner. They've got to go, too.”

  I found a pair of cream colored suede boots that came a little below mid-calf and had a four inch heel. They were marked down from $49.95 to $20 and they were my size. God bless people who didn't pay attention in math class.

  By the time I got back to the fair Linda was already at the booth prepping dishes for the day ahead. As soon as I pulled back the curtain at the back of the booth I was met with the aroma of Andouille sausage, and I remembered that today was sausage-making day at the Breezy Spoon. Brendan loves making sausage and I love that fact that he does. He's an expert at making all kinds, country sausage, smoked sausage, garlic sausage, ham sausage, turkey sausage, kielbasa, chorizo and even Andouille. That gives me a wide range of items I can feature on the menu such as kielbasa chili, chorizo breakfast patties, grilled bratwurst, sausage meatballs, chicken and sausage gumbo, Jambalaya, cheese and sausage muffins, buttermilk biscuits with sausage gravy, and today at the fair we were offering Andouille corn dogs.

  I jumped into the prep work alongside Linda and by the time the fair opened for the day we were all ready to serve great food to hungry customers. Unfortunately our first customer of the day was my self-proclaimed arch-nemesis Millie Farnsworth.

  “Good heavens, Dani, you look horrible! That white uniform makes you look totally washed out,” she said as she reached the counter. “You never were much to look at but you really should do something about your appearance if you're going to represent an East Spoon Creek City business! Maybe you could get by looking homely when you were in the military, but it won't do in an upscale town like ours!”

  “Good to see you, too, Millie,” I replied. “What can I do for you?”

  She reached into her purse and produced a small paper bag which she pushed across the counter towards me.

  “You can take this. We certainly don't need it at my father's bank,” she sneered.

  “What is it?”

  “It's your sex toy! You and that fireman left it in the vault of our distinguished bank after you two did your thing in there! Incredibly disgusting, even for you! I had to use three cans of disinfectant in there before I even dared go in! You should be ashamed for leading that poor young man astray with your wanton ways! He is a public servant, you know!”

  With that she turned on her heel and stalked away. I looked in the paper bag and saw my black light. It was smudged with soot and had melted a bit on one end. Well, that was $29.95 plus shipping I'd never see again.

  “You should have thrown water on her,” Linda said. “It worked with the Wicked Witch of the West.”

  “I guess so,” I replied, “but it would have been a shame to waste our water and the Port-a-potties are too far away for me to get a substitute.”

  As I watched Millie leave, I saw her pass Mark, who was just coming from the parking lot. When he reached the booth, he said, “Did I just miss a daring daylight attack by East Spoon Creek City's favorite journalist?”

  “Oh, once you've seen one you've seen them all,” I said. “Would you like something to eat?”

  “No, it's too early in the day for murder onions.”

  “You're getting close to becoming the first person in history to die from spatula-inflicted wounds.”

  “I see you left your sense of humor back at the diner. And here I was hoping to get a tour of the fairgrounds from the beautiful proprietor of the Breezy Sp
oon.”

  “The beautiful proprietor of the Breezy Spoon will be glad to give you a tour,” I said, “but we should probably avoid the kissing booth. I saw Dora yesterday and she said she was waiting for you to stop by.”

  “She'll have a very long wait,” Mark said. “Maybe Pollyanna can strongarm more people over to the kissing booth for her now that the wrestling matches have been canceled.”

  “The wrestling matches have been canceled? I didn't know that. Why did they do that?”

  “Canceled due to injury. I heard about it from on of my EMT buddies.”

  “Good heavens, was it Suze? I knew it was a bad idea for her to wrestle someone like Pollyanna!”

  “No, it was Sammy Brown.”

  “Wait, Pollyanna was wrestling her own husband?”

  “No, Sammy was just watching,” Mark explained. “He was sitting in the front row to cheer Pollyanna on, and then Pollyanna threw Suze out of the ring and she landed on him and knocked him right out.”

  “Ouch! I hope he's okay,” I said. “That's the second time he's been injured at one of Pollyanna's matches. Maybe he should cheer her on from the back row next time.”

  We were just passing Mayor Pumphrey's booth, and I saw him wave to me. I assumed he wanted to give us one of his re-election brochures, but he had something else in mind.

  “Miss O'Shea, I want to apologize for our little misunderstanding the other day,” he said, shaking my hand and then Mark's. “When I heard of Lloyd Duval's murder, I was quite shaken up. It occurred to me that it may have been a political rival who had planned to kill us both, and there I was, alone and totally vulnerable! I was simply overcome with emotion.”

  At this point, the Mayor stopped, took a handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbed his eyes (even though they were dry) before he continued.

  “I must admit that it still troubles me that I too may be at risk, and I've thought about staying out of the public eye until the perpetrator is caught, but I feel that I owe it to my loyal constituents such as yourselves to show no fear and to demonstrate that I put the good of the community above my own personal safety. As such, I will be giving a eulogy for the late Mr. Duval this afternoon as well as an informative speech summarizing the benefits that I was able to confer on our community during the past four years. As you can imagine, this won't be easy for me to do because I felt so highly of Mr. Duval and I still mourn that he was taken from our midst in such dastardly manner while I was asleep in my bed and had not left my house at all in spite of what any short-sighted busybodies might say. By the way, what's today's lunch special at the Breezy Spoon?”

  I had mentally zoned out while he droned on and I was jolted back to reality by his question.

  “Lunch special?” I repeated. “Oh, uh, that would be a ham sausage and cheese sub, French fries or mixed greens and walnut salad, bacon mac and cheese or barbecued baked beans, and for dessert we have chocolate chip shortbread with strawberries and whipped cream. You can order in advance over your phone if you're in a hurry to get back for your speech.”

  “No, no,” he replied. “I don't mind waiting. You know how it is every time I go into the diner. People stop eating and rush over to shake my hand, some want autographs. I have a duty to be an example for the people in this town to show that no cowardly villain will force us into hiding. By the way, if I drop the salad can I get both the mac and cheese and baked beans along with the fries?”

  “Sure,” I said. “No problem.”

  As we left the booth Mark said, “Was it just me or did Mayor Pumphrey seem more worried about being suspected of murdering Lloyd Duval than he was about being murdered himself, as he claimed?”

  “He's got you to thank for that,” I replied.

  “Me? Why?”

  “When you weaseled your way out of talking to Helen and Heather and stuck me with them like a cowardly backstabber, which as you can see I've completely forgiven you for, they told me that one of Mayor Pumphrey's neighbors saw him drive away from his house on the night of Lloyd Duval's murder and he was gone all night.”

  “And you think he was out at the rec center using Lloyd Duval for target practice?”

  “Someone killed him and it wasn't Gene McGee. I'd like to know where Mayor Pumphrey went that night. Let's face it, he wasn't going to get up in the middle of the night to do anything related to his duties as mayor.”

  We were approaching the horse-race game booth and I could see that Suze already had a good crowd of bettors even at this early hour. It seemed like something that the authorities should shut down, but then again, most things that Suze did seemed like that so I guess this was just par for the course. I saw Katie West near the crowd of onlookers, pushing a stroller with her toddler Wendy in it. Katie is the wife of Jerry West, an old school friend of mine and coach of the East Spoon Creek High School basketball team.

  She saw us too and called, “Once I can drag the kids away from these games I'm going straight to your booth! I missed breakfast today and I could eat a horse!”

  “I hope you'll settle for a corn dog,” I replied.

  “Make it two corn dogs and it's a deal,” Katie laughed. “The boys are waiting in line to get a turn to play this horse-racing game. It must be a lot of fun; look at how big the crowd is for it!”

  “Er, yes, it certainly has a lot to offer people of all ages.”

  “Oh, I almost forgot, Jerry said to tell you that Jimmy is going to be the starting forward in the next basketball game. He thought you guys might want to come and see it.”

  “Jimmy? You mean Jimmy from the Breezy Spoon?” Mark asked incredulously.

  “Yes, it's his first game. He's had a hard time getting onto the team since he's only about 5' 6” but four of the starting players came down with some kind of flu so Jerry's giving him a chance. Jimmy's really excited about getting to play.”

  “Well, I wouldn't want to miss that,” I said. “We'll try to be there.”

  After we left Mark said, “It's too bad Suze doesn't know that Jimmy's playing. I wouldn't mind making a bet on the other team.”

  “You'd never get anyone to take that bet,” I said. “So are you okay going with me to the basketball game so we can be supportive of Jimmy?”

  “Do we have to?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I'm okay with it.”

  My phone was ringing and I pulled it out of my pocket and saw that it was Charlene once again. “Someday when I'm rich I'm going to have a secretary whose job is to handle phone calls from people I don't want to talk to,” I said.

  “It's Charlene, is it?” Mark asked.

  “Who else?” I hit the call button on the phone and said, “What is it, Charlene?”

  “Hi, Miss O'Shea. Where do we buy the disposable gloves we use for cleaning?”

  The disposable gloves again! What was her obsession with them? It's not like she ever did any cleaning! “I don't know where we buy them, Charlene. If we're not out of them, why does it matter?”

  “Well, I suppose it doesn't unless we buy them from the Kettletown glove factory,” Charlene said. “The Breezy Spoon is boycotting the glove factory.”

  “Boycotting the glove factory? What are you talking about?”

  “Well, Jolene told me how a big truck that said 'Kettletown Glove Factory' on the side ran into Dr. Griffin's car down by the rec center and then it just drove away without stopping or anything! It was a hit and run; can you imagine? He called the sheriff but that was the night of the bank robbery so the sheriff didn't come and the truck got away. Jolene says everybody in town should boycott the glove factory until they do right by poor Dr. Griffin and pay to fix his car, so I've been telling everyone who comes in to the diner not to buy gloves from them, but then I saw our gloves for cleaning and I thought I should call you to see if we needed to throw them away to make a point.”

  I couldn't believe what I was hearing from Charlene, and not just for the usually reasons; a truck from the Kettletown glove factory had been driving dow
n the street by the rec center on the night of the bank robbery! And it hadn't stopped when it got into an accident, probably because either Maurice Sharp or his son had just killed Lloyd Duval in the bank vault and had to get away from the scene of the crime! I needed to have another conversation with Maurice Sharp, and soon.

  “Don't throw away the gloves,” I said. “Just wait on the customers, okay?”

  “What about the men from the glove factory?” Charlene asked. “Is it okay to wait on them?”

  “What men?”

  “There are two men from the glove factory here and they want to talk to you. Should I wait on them or do you want me to boycott their order?”

  “I'll be right there,” I said.

  “Lake monster attacking the Breezy Spoon?” Mark inquired as I hung up.

  “Something like that. I'm sorry but I've got to get over there so we'll have to cut short the tour.”

  “That's okay. If we went much further I was going to have to start crawling on all fours to stay out of Dora's line of sight, so this works for me.”

  Chapter 13

  When I walked into the Breezy Spoon I saw Maurice Sharp and his son Todd sitting at a booth in the corner, eating omelets and hash browns. Don was behind the counter and he grinned at me as I came in.

  “The guy said they weren't going to leave until they could talk to you, but I told them they couldn't stay unless they ordered something,” he said.

  “Good thinking.”

  “Hey, I never miss a chance to make a sale!”

  I walked over to the Sharps' booth, but before I could say anything, Maurice snarled, “It's about time you showed up! What's the idea of telling everybody to boycott us?! If you wanna play hardball, we can play hardball, too!”

  “You mean like you did with Lloyd Duval?” I asked.

  “Is that what this is about?” Maurice demanded. “So you're still trying to pin the murder on us, are you? Why don't you get a different hobby, lady!”