A. Gardner - Poppy Peters 01 - Southern Peach Pie and A Dead Guy (22 page)

Trisha plucked a pair of latex gloves out of the supply box sitting at her kitchen station. "I'm pissed off and pumped up. I'll cook everything myself."

All of the competitors clapped. A pair of stagehands quickly dismantled the fan that had been tasked with blowing away the propane fumes. Sophie bumped shoulders with Amy and whispered, "Her meal will probably taste better now, without Chet messing with everything, adding his
gourmet
flourishes."

"True. Sometimes simpler is better, and I think Trisha probably doesn't fuss about things much."

"Okay, ladies and gentleman." The sparkle-ific director said. "I have word that the propane leak is fixed and the fumes have dispersed. Let's get the showdown started. Have fun and good luck!"

The announcer's deep voice, amplified by a constellation of speakers mounted in the theater space, made the floor vibrate under Amy's feet. There was a blizzard of activity onstage as people ripped plastic wrap off bowls of vegetables and double-checked recipes. She wished Carla could've stayed, but she was home catching a nap before heading into the hospital for the night. It would've been nice to look into the audience and see a familiar face that wasn't drooling while trying to catch a glimpse of the star of the competition. Chef Britton was short, but he had swagger. His square jaw and watery blue eyes added to the package that attracted pretty women like peanuts attracted squirrels.

The spotlights brightened, and the curtain slowly began to rise. Amy bumped knuckles with Sophie as the electronic bell signaled the start of the Chicken Soup Showdown. The audience cheered as soup pots clanged onto the hot plates.

There was a
pop
broadcast over the sound system. Someone had turned on a microphone. The competitors were all fitted with battery packs and tiny microphone headsets. They were supposed to talk to the crowd to drum up support for their meals. Trisha announced, "I'm sorry. Chef Britton had an emergency and isn't here at the moment. I'm his cooking partner, Trisha, from Dunbar Farms."

There were a few boos, and the crowd noise ratcheted up a couple notches. "Come on, folks," Chef Jake said to the unhappy audience. "How about cheering on the underdog? Give Trisha a hand for being brave enough to do this by herself."

Applause and cheers replaced the disappointed murmurs. There was a hiss as Sophie dropped a stick of butter into the hot pot. Amy concentrated on dicing another stick of butter into the half-inch cubes Sophie had requested. She scattered the chunks across a plate. Then she slid plastic wrap over the dish and said, "I'm going to run this back to the freezer."

Another microphone popped on. Sophie's voice boomed through the theater. "Hello, everybody. I'm Sophie from Riverbend Coffee." She waved her hand while stirring the vegetables in the pot with a wooden spoon in the other hand. "My partner, Amy, who is famous for winning many culinary competitions, including the Kellerton Summer Festival baking contests, is running some butter to the freezer backstage. I'll be making cornmeal biscuits in a bit and need the fat in the dough to be as cold as possible. Cold butter makes the biscuits light and flaky."

Amy snatched up the plate and scooted through the opening in the backdrop curtain. She stopped for a moment to let her eyes adjust to the darkness. The path she had cleared through the clutter was still open and cleared of drunks, courtesy of Holly's tough-mama smackdown. Halfway to the huge freezer Amy kicked an empty pop can. It rattled across the wooden floor, then ricocheted between the legs of a wooden chair. The unexpected speed bump distracted her, and the plate tilted dangerously to the left. Luckily, the butter was a bit sticky from being under the stage lights, and the cubes had suction cupped themselves to the china's smooth surface.

She sprinted the last few feet to the freezer and yanked open the heavy door. The plate flipped into the air as Chef Britton's arm slapped it out of her hand. Centrifugal force peeled back the plastic wrap as the heavy ceramic dish spun like a flipped coin. The waxy butter cubes detached and briefly took flight before raining dairy confetti onto the chef. His body was sprawled on the floor at Amy's feet, with one frozen arm reaching toward the ceiling. A knife protruded from his chest. An amoeba-shaped patch of blood stained his white chef jacket around the oddly sparkling knife handle. Amy screamed. The bad afternoon just got worse, multiplied by infinity.

CHICKEN SOUP & HOMICIDE

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