Cast Iron Motive (The Cast Iron Cooking Mysteries Book 4)

JESSICA BECK

CAST IRON MOTIVE

THE FOURTH CAST IRON COOKING MYSTERY

Cast Iron Motive

Copyright © 2016 by Jessica Beck All rights reserved.

First Edition: February 2016

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Recipes included in this book are to be recreated at the reader’s own risk. The author is not responsible for any damage, medical or otherwise, created as a result of reproducing these recipes. It is the responsibility of the reader to ensure that none of the ingredients are detrimental to their health, and the author will not be held liable in any way for any problems that might arise from following the included recipes.

To P & E,

My reasons why!

When the twins’ estranged Aunt Della’s life is threatened by an unknown assailant, Annie and Pat must leave their beloved Iron and travel deep into the North Carolina mountains to figure out who’s trying to kill her before it’s too late.

Chapter 1: Pat

“I
s that you, Patrick?” an oddly familiar voice asked me after I answered the phone at the Cast Iron Store and Grill, the combination general store/diner/post office that my fraternal twin sister, Annie, and I owned and operated together. I handled the main shopping area in front, Annie took care of the grill, Edith Bost oversaw the post office, and Skip Lawson was just about everybody else’s assistant. Between the four of us, we found a way to make it all work and still manage to turn a modest profit every month.

“It is,” I said. “How may I help you?”

“This is Della.”

“
Aunt
Della?” I asked. My mother’s sister hadn’t been in contact with any of us for a great many years, so why was she calling me now? Della had instigated a massive fight with Mom over her marriage to my father on her wedding day, and according to family lore, as the years passed by, the rift continued to build until, at my sixth birthday party—Annie’s too, of course—it had all come to a head, and Della had stormed off once and for all. The woman hadn’t even had the decency to come to the joint funerals we’d held for our parents two decades later. As far as I knew, it was the last time any of us had heard from her.

As far as I knew.

“Yes, it’s your aunt. How have you been, Patrick?” she asked timidly.

“Actually, I go by Pat these days, and I’m just dandy. Thanks for asking,” I said. “Listen, I’m kind of busy right now.”

“Please don’t hang up,” she pled.

“I suppose I can spare a minute. Is there something I can do for you?”

“Pat, someone’s trying to kill me, and I don’t know where else to turn. Won’t you please help me?”

“What makes you think
I
can help?” I asked her after taking a moment to catch my breath.

“Just because I haven’t been in touch with you directly doesn’t mean that I haven’t been keeping tabs on all three of you,” she said. “I know you and your twin sister have become quite adept at solving murder, and now I need you to save my life.”

“You should really call Kathleen,” I said. The news that Della had been aware of me and my siblings without us realizing it all those years disturbed me a little, but I’d deal with that later.

“Actually, she’s the one who suggested that I contact you,” Della said hesitantly.

“You’ve spoken with
Kathleen
?” I asked icily. My older sister—who also happened to be the sheriff of Maple Crest, North Carolina—was probably the logical choice for her to contact first, but it still stung a little that our long-lost aunt had reached out to her before she’d given Annie or me a call.

“We’ve been in touch for a few years now,” she admitted. “I may live in Gateway Lake, but that doesn’t mean that I’m completely isolated from the rest of the world.”

“I’m having trouble wrapping my mind around this, Della. You’re telling me that you’ve been in touch with Kathleen for years, and my older sister didn’t think it was worth mentioning?” Was there any chance that could be true? “I just don’t believe it.”

“Don’t blame your older sister for not telling you. I didn’t want you to know, and I made her promise not to breathe a word of our reconnection to you.”

“Does Annie know?” I could find a way to accept behavior from Kathleen that I would never tolerate from Annie. Sharing a womb together, though not the same egg, worked that way, at least as far as I was concerned. If Annie had kept this from me, there was going to be serious trouble between us.

“Of course not,” she said. “I wouldn’t dream of having her deceive you.”

“But it was okay to ask Kathleen to,” I said a little petulantly. This woman, my aunt, seemed to have a way of bringing out the worst side of me.

“I never meant to hurt you,” she said haltingly.

Well, it was a little too late for that now. Larry Wilson, a retired schoolteacher and frequent customer at the Iron, approached the register with an old-fashioned straw broom made with a twisted wood handle. “Listen, I can’t talk right now,” I said. “Can I call you back later?”

“Certainly,” Della said, and then she recited her number, which I wrote on a brown paper bag. “Please hurry, though. I don’t know how much time I have before the next attempt.”

Was my aunt being overly dramatic, or did she honestly believe that her death was imminent? I had no way of knowing, since my recollections of the woman were shadowy at best. I could remember her taking us to Rock Lake to swim in the quarry, and the picnic feasts we’d have afterwards, but that was about the sum total of my memories, besides a sporadic Christmas or birthday recollection here and there.

“Troubles, Pat?” Larry asked me.

“No, why do you ask?” I asked as I rang up his purchase.

“You look as though someone just punched you in the gut,” he said. “That’s a pretty callous expression, isn’t it?”

“I’ve heard worse,” I said. Trying to put on a smile I didn’t feel, I said, “I’d offer to bag that for you, but I don’t have one that’s big enough to hold it.”

“It’s a gag gift for my bride,” he said happily. He and his “bride” had been married forever, but their love appeared to be just as fresh as the day it had first been minted. I envied him that, but I was in a new relationship that had promise, so it might just turn out to be “happily ever after” for me as well, though it was much too soon to tell yet.

“Are you sure it’s a good idea to give your wife a broom?” I asked him with a smile.

“No worries, it’s an inside joke,” he said as he took his change. “Patrick, is there anything I can do to help?” he asked softly.

“Thanks, but I’ve got it under control.” The truth was anything but that, but I wasn’t about to share my problems with the retired schoolteacher. That was one of the nice things about living in a small town, though. Help was usually around the corner, and all it took was a simple request for assistance to get more than enough volunteers.

I didn’t even know where to begin, though.

After Larry was gone, I walked quickly back to the grill, where Annie was busily preparing lunch for three of our customers. She saw me and raised an eyebrow, asking in our silent language what was going on. I shrugged as I frowned to indicate that we had a situation on our hands, and she raised both eyebrows in response, asking if I needed her instantly.

I shook my head and then glanced to the front. It said to her that when she got the first chance, she needed to come see me, but I didn’t want to deprive her customers of their orders. The situation might have been urgent in Della’s mind, but that didn’t mean that it was imperative for me to act quickly.

Besides, I had a phone call to make before I took this any further.

“Kathleen, how could you?”

My older sister hesitated before answering the question. “Do you want to calm down, Pat? How could I what?” she asked.

“Talk to our aunt for years without telling me,” I said fiercely. “I can’t believe you’d lie to me.”

“When exactly did I lie to you, little brother?” she asked me defiantly.

“Omission is just as big a lie as commission, and you know it,” I said.

I could hear Kathleen let out a heavy sigh before she replied. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have kept it from you. It was wrong to do it, and I’m sorry.”

It was a rare apology from her, but I wasn’t about to take the time to savor it. “Did you tell Annie about it?”

“No, of course not. Della made me swear that I wouldn’t breathe a word about it to either one of you,” Kathleen said. “Besides, what are the odds that she’d be able to keep a secret from you?”

“Since when have I been so fragile that I need to be protected from what’s going on?” I asked her, raising my voice and not caring who overheard me.

“Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but your reaction right now is a prime example,” she said.

“That’s garbage, and you know it, Kathleen,” I said. “If you two are so close, why didn’t
you
volunteer to help her? Why drag Annie and me into it?”

“I would if I could, but there’s no way I can leave town right now,” she said. “Hank is on vacation for the next two weeks, and I can’t leave the department in Ginny’s hands. She’s too young, and she hasn’t been at this long enough to know how to handle things. When Della first told me about what was going on, I offered to help her, but when I told her that it was going to be a few weeks before I could get there, she said that she wasn’t at all sure that she’d still be alive then.”

“Is there any chance she’s just being overdramatic?” I asked. I remembered our aunt as being flamboyant, a little larger than life.

“Not this time. You don’t know her as well as I do,” Kathleen said.

“Is it
my
fault that she didn’t reach out to me?” I asked angrily.

“Pat, take a deep breath and at least hear me out. This isn’t like you, and you know it.”

“Kathleen, she didn’t even come to Mom and Dad’s funerals,” I said, fighting back angry tears.

“Della was out of the country when the car wreck happened,” Kathleen explained. “She felt terrible about missing her last chance to say good-bye.”

“I wish I could find a little sympathy for her, but I just can’t, not given the fact that the rift was her fault to begin with,” I replied.

“Be that as it may, whether you like it or not, she’s the closest thing to family that the three of us have left. When family needs you, you answer the call.”

“Even given these particular circumstances?” I asked her.

“Especially because of them. What if she’s right, and she’s murdered before you and Annie have a chance to help her? How are you going to feel having that on your conscience, that you might have been able to save her?”

Leave it to my big sister to use the voice of reason with me. I’d had a tough time going against her will when we’d been kids, and it still didn’t come all that easily to me. “Let me talk to Annie,” I said in exasperation as I saw my fraternal twin approach the front.

“Good. I’ll be right over,” Kathleen said, the relief clear in her voice.

Before she could hang up, I said, “Do me a favor and don’t.”

Kathleen was clearly hurt as she replied, “Seriously, Pat? Are you really going to hold this against me?”

“Just let Annie and me talk first,” I said.

After a moment of hesitation, she asked, “Will you at least call me and tell me what you decide to do? I might be able to get an old friend from April Springs to come up and babysit the department for me if I need to go.”

“Do you trust her with that?” I asked, surprised that my sister would let anyone run her department for her.

“It happens to be a ‘he,’ and he used to be a state police inspector before he retired to marry a donutmaker,” she said. “He’s one of the best cops I’ve ever known, but I’d hate to call him unless it’s an emergency. I heard that he just quit as acting police chief in the small town where they live, and I’ve got the feeling that he’s taking a well-earned break from law enforcement.”

“We’ll let you know the second we decide what we’re going to do,” I said, and then I hung up and faced Annie. “We need to talk.”

“No lie. I could hear you shouting at someone on the phone from the grill. Who were you talking to just now?”

“Kathleen,” I said.

“Our big sister, Kathleen?” Annie asked, her eyes going wide. “Do you have a death wish, little brother?”

Annie was every bit of seven minutes older than I was, but she loved reminding me every chance she got. “Aunt Della called me a few minutes ago. She asked me for our help.”

The smile suddenly vanished from Annie’s face. “Tell me everything.”

After I brought my twin sister up to date, she frowned for a moment before answering. “We have to help her if we can. You know that, don’t you?”

“Annie, we can’t leave the store any more than Kathleen can shut down the police force,” I said in protest. Why was my twin sister so favorable to the idea of going to our aunt’s aid, when the woman had done nothing to be a part of our lives for decades?

“Nonsense. We can at least give her three or four days,” Annie said. “Skip can run the front, and I can get Lindsey to take over the grill while we’re gone.”

“You’d seriously let her handle things in your domain?” I asked. Lindsey was more a friend of my sister’s than of mine, and I knew that she’d taken to cast iron cooking, but I had no idea that Annie held her talents in that high esteem.

“Why not? She’s been taking classes from me for years,” Annie reminded me. “You know as well as I do that I’ve even had her sub for me here before.”

“For an hour or two at a time, at most,” I said. “Three or four days is an entirely different beast.”

“She can handle it,” Annie said. “We have to do this, Patrick.”

Why did people keep insisting on calling me by my complete first name? It rarely meant anything good for me. Given Annie’s tone, I knew that there was no way I could fight this. It was happening, whether I liked it or not. “Fine. I’ll call her and let her know that we’ll be there this evening,” I said as I reached for the paper bag that had Della’s phone number written on it.

“Do you mind if I call her myself?” Annie asked me tentatively.