Macaroni and Freeze (15 page)

“I made us a pot of tea,” ACB said. “Cranberry spice. Is that all right?”

The two church ladies nodded.

“Dottie,” ACB began. “You look so familiar. Do we know each other?”

Dottie hesitated, then said, “Dorothy Spitzer, formerly Reinhardt. I went to Sandy Harbor High School. I believe we were in the same class.”

“Small world,” ACB said. “But you look very different, Dottie.”

“It's probably my wig—my hair is very thin—and I've gained a lot of weight since high school.”

“Haven't we all?” ACB laughed. “And I don't remember you wearing glasses.”

“Old eyes.”

“I hear you. Luckily, I've avoided them so far,” ACB said.

“Dottie, did you know Priscilla back in high school, too?” I asked.

“I did. Back when she was Mabel Cronk, that is. I followed her career throughout the years with interest.” I handed Dottie the platter of sandwiches, and she reached for ham with maple mayonnaise.

“Did she remember you, Dottie?” ACB asked.

“Of course she remembered me. We used to be very friendly. She'd always come to my parents' farm during U-pick season and work for them. She was maid of honor at my wedding to Sid. We kept in touch years after we graduated.” Her smile turned into pinched lips. “Then, after a while, things turned ugly between us.”

“Oh. That's too bad. Do you mind me asking what happened?” I pressed, dying to know.

“I don't particularly want to talk about it right now. Let's just enjoy our lunch.” Dottie smiled dimly.

“Please, have as many sandwiches and helpings of soup as you want, but I should warn you to save some room for Sarah Stolfus's hand pies,” I said. “I apologize, ladies. I would usually bake something special myself, but lately time has been flying. And her hand pies are simply delicious.”

We chatted for a while about nothing special, and I was enjoying their company. However, after too much
idle chitchat, I felt that I should try to get more information out of them, but of course, ACB beat me to turning the conversation around.

“Marylou, how about you? Did you know Priscilla before now?”

“Not really. I felt like I sorta knew her from watching her show on TV, but I can't say I knew her. Then, when the cookbook scandal broke, Dottie and I were elected to represent the Church of the Covered Dish. She was the original editor of the cookbook. I was in charge of finances.

“And we did a ton of work on it,” Marylou said. “Everyone in the church had participated and sent in their family recipes and anecdotes. We sold a lot of cookbooks, and the money all went to the church. We even copyrighted it. Priscilla violated our copyright.”

“Can you copyright recipes?” I wondered.

“Well, no. Not the actual recipes themselves. But all the stories and text around it can be copyrighted!” Marylou said. “And Priscilla stole everything from us, word for word.”

She was spunky, whereas Dottie seemed to be quietly seething.

“Did you manage to speak with Priscilla about the copyright violation at all before she died?” I asked.

“Briefly.” Marylou nodded. “The three of us went outside at the cook-off to talk in private, but we talked quickly because it was cold, and we weren't dressed for
it. Anyway, Priscilla asked us not to talk about the cookbook to the press and said she'd talk to us more after the contest.”

Dottie fished in her purse and pulled out a tissue. “Priscilla also said that she didn't know anything about our cookbook and that she didn't plagiarize from us, but I find that hard to believe. She was in the cookbook business, for heaven's sake.”

“Dottie, calm yourself. You said yourself that Priscilla didn't seem like the same person you'd once known.”

“She wouldn't be the same after the thirty-something years since I'd last seen her.”

“Why didn't she seem the same to you?” I asked.

“She kept losing her train of thought during our conversation,” Dottie replied. “She fished for words constantly. Just like my aunt Patty used to.”

“Did your aunt Patty have Alzheimer's?” I asked.

“Yes, she did. Oh! Priscilla seemed to have a touch of it, too.” Dottie put her hand on Marylou's. “I wonder if she had Alzheimer's, Marylou. Oh, my! When Aunt Patty was under pressure or experienced some kind of emotional upheaval, she usually got kind of scattered. And sometimes she got obnoxious.”

Scattered
. That was the word Jill had used.

Obnoxious
. That was the word I had thought.

We sat in silence for a while, sipping our tea and enjoying our soup and sandwiches. Big flakes swirled outside, and it was pretty to watch.

Blondie was curled up in front of the door that led to
my wraparound porch. If anyone from outside saw us, it would look like we were a gathering of friends, not suspects. Well, only three of us were suspects: Marylou, Dottie, and me.

Dottie fidgeted in her chair. “Later, we went back outside in the frigid cold and talked again. In exchange for our silence, Priscilla promised to give us some money for our church. It's in terrible shape and in need of extensive repair, and fifty thousand dollars would go a long way.”

“Wow! Fifty thousand!” ACB said.

“Well, I'm sure she made millions with
our
cookbook! Still, that was a lot of money. That's why we backed off Priscilla and sat nicely in our chairs for the contest,” Marylou said. “Even though Dottie was upset about it and made it known to Priscilla in no uncertain terms.”

Dottie looked ready to bolt, but instead she took a deep breath and reached for a roast beef sandwich with horseradish mustard.

“Let's compare the cookbooks, shall we?” I said. “Antoinette Chloe has Priscilla's.”

“I have ours right here,” Marylou said, pulling a yellowed, dog-eared book out of her purse.

“I'll be back in a minute,” ACB said. “Priscilla's cookbook is upstairs.” ACB's flip-flops faded; then their slapping became louder as she walked up the stairs.

“You two are good friends, aren't you, Trixie?” Marylou asked.

“Yes. She was the first person who became my friend when I bought the restaurant. Then we became closer as certain things . . . unfolded.”

Dottie's eyes began to tear, and I handed her tissues and paper napkins that were handy. Marylou and I sat quietly until she composed herself.

“Dottie, if you feel like talking, please do,” I said. “You're among friends.”

ACB plodded into the kitchen, and I held up a finger so she wouldn't speak. She nodded slightly, then took a seat.

But Dottie wiped her eyes, cleared her throat, and gave a slight smile. “Let's compare those books, shall we? Then you can see why we at Saint Dismas are so upset.”

Dottie took the books and opened them both. Priscilla's cookbook,
The Countess of Comforting Comfort Food
, was opened to page ten; the Saint Dismas cookbook to page four. “See? Grandma's Apple Betty, with an introduction by Grandma Allister of Poughkeepsie, New York. It's word for word! Only Priscilla called it Aunt Betty's Apple Betty with an introduction from Betty Smudler of Glens Falls, New York. On page eleven, there's the same story and recipe with Cousin Diane's Chicken Marinade from Poughkeepsie and Cousin Barbara of Aspen, Colorado, in Priscilla's cookbook, page five. Cousin Diane writes about her chicken barbecues around her pool. Same goes for Cousin Barbara.”

We all hunched over, comparing them both, until I was convinced. It was plagiarized.

“Mabel stole everything from me. Don't you see?” Dottie began to sob in earnest. “I used to be one of her closest friends in Sandy Harbor. Sid and I and the kids would visit her in California all the time. Then Sid, my husband of fifteen years, ran off with her and left me to raise Louise and Mark alone.” I handed her several sheets from a roll of paper towels, and she paused to blow her nose. “Priscilla stole him away from me. I loved Sid, and Priscilla knew that. They both broke my heart.” She sniffed. “And the worst part about it is that she was my friend.”

Oh, my! I wondered if Dottie held a grudge against Priscilla after all these years.

I swallowed hard. “What happened after you found out, Dottie?”

“I moved away from Sandy Harbor to avoid all the embarrassment and small-town chatter such a scandal would cause, and moved my family to Poughkeepsie to live with my cousin.”

We waited patiently for her to regain her composure. ACB put an arm around her.

“That stinks, Dottie. I'm so sorry,” I said.

Dottie blew her nose. “I—I didn't know Sid and Priscilla were having an affair behind my back until Sid said that he was moving to California to be with her. I was shocked, and then I fell apart.”

“You don't have to say any more, sweetie,” Marylou said.

“Strangely, I feel like a weight is being lifted off my shoulders, sitting in this warm kitchen and enjoying the lunch.” She dabbed at her eyes. “I can say it now: I tried to kill myself with sleeping pills. My daughter found me and called nine-one-one.” Dottie smiled weakly. “But as you can see, I lived to tell the tale.”

“Priscilla must have divorced him later. She had a handful of husbands, didn't she?” I asked.

“No. They never got married. Their relationship didn't last very long after he left me for her. After Priscilla was done with him, I took him back, but things were never the same. I—I tried everything I could to make us into a happy family, like we were before Sid abandoned us, but I couldn't please him. You see, he kept reminding me that I was no Priscilla.
Can you imagine that?
After a while, I wanted to kill him, but I wanted to kill Priscilla even more. I was angry. Angry for many, many years. I ended up hating Sid. And Priscilla . . . Well, Priscilla got richer and richer. Even though she destroyed my family and my life.”

There was dead silence.

Dottie took a break to catch her breath. “And then, to add insult to injury, she plagiarized the Saint Dismas cookbook.
My
cookbook! I was the one who compiled it. I was the one who sold it on behalf of the church. And she stole it. She took my husband, and she took my cookbook. To top it all off, my cookbook was much
better than anything she published throughout the years.”

I exchanged glances with ACB. It seemed that we were both wondering if Dottie had acted on her anger.

Marylou look stunned, and I assumed she didn't know Dottie's entire story. She'd probably thought she was just taking a bus trip with the Saint Dismas group to demand recompense from Priscilla for the lost revenues.

Marylou had gotten more than she'd bargained for.

Dottie might have gotten just what she wanted. Revenge.

“I'm so sorry.” Dottie shook her head. “I don't know what came over me. What on earth possessed me to carry on like that?”

“Don't you give it another thought,” I said. “There's nothing like sitting around the kitchen table for baring the soul, huh?”

What else was I supposed to say?

ACB nodded so hard that I thought the glow-in-the-dark bait worm would break off of her fascinator and take a swim in my pea soup.

Marylou and Dottie must have been thinking the same thing, as we all giggled at the same time.

When the luncheon was over, ACB and I walked Dottie and Marylou to the front door.

“Remember the pizza party about seven o'clock tomorrow.” I had invited them earlier, while we were eating dessert.

“We'll be there,” Marylou said. “I've heard that the pizza at the Silver Bullet is fabulous.”

“It can't be missed,” I added. “Cindy is a sculptor with her pizzas.”

ACB adjusted her muumuu. “See you tomorrow at the pizza party. We can catch up more. Right, Dottie?”

“I'll be there.”

As I shut the door behind them, I felt like taking a nap. I was mentally exhausted. But I'd gotten a lot of good information and filed it away in the back of my brain to act on later.

And Dottie had jumped to number one on my suspect list.

I
was running on empty. I wanted to take a nap, or just sleep outright, but I couldn't, so I resorted to pacing in my bedroom and picking out the squeakiest boards to play “Chopsticks.”

The suspects were twirling around in my head like Blondie chasing her tail. I picked them out one at a time to think about.

First there was Dottie. If anyone had a reason to kill Priscilla, she did. Her husband, who she loved dearly, had run off with Priscilla, her old friend. Priscilla, the nice gal that she was, sent him back to Dottie when she was done with him, but things were never the same, and poor Dottie had to move away.

But why now?

Why would Dottie kill Priscilla after all those years? Had the recent cookbook trauma finally sent Dottie over the edge? Was it because their paths had finally crossed in Sandy Harbor and the opportunity was there?

And then there were the two chefs. Walton DeMassie had already lost his TV chef job, and he'd lived to tell
the tale. He'd had high expectations of a return to fame by appearing on TV with Priscilla.

Maybe that was just speculation on his part, or wishful thinking.

DeMassie was a hothead, but I ruled him out. There didn't seem to be any reason for him to kill Priscilla. Peter was the one he wanted to beat up so he could get his bribe money back.

Now, Christopher “Kip” O'Malley, the jail chef who took a cooking correspondence class, had more to lose—especially if Priscilla told his employer about his criminal record. He wouldn't be able to work in the jail, and then he wouldn't be able to pay back the thirteen thousand dollars he owed in child support.

But all his dreams of fame and fortune and credibility as a chef died when Priscilla did. Even though Jill vowed to find another chef who would be willing to put the winner on TV, no one matched the caliber of Miss Priscilla Finch-Smythe.

Then again, when Priscilla died, his secrets were safe and sound.

Peter McCall was a wild card. He'd come back into Priscilla's life a couple of years ago and started battling with Jill, like Godzilla versus King Kong. Priscilla's favorite person to inherit her empire was anyone's guess at this point, but maybe Peter and Jill were slated to share it.

I had to get ahold of that envelope from the lawyers.
Maybe that would answer the question as to who would reap the benefits of Priscilla's lifetime of work!

And then there was yours truly. I had shot my mouth off and would have loved to win the contest and appear on TV, too, but I didn't kill anyone, and Ty knows it!

His telling me not to leave the house was his way of helping me to get some rest and of having ACB keep an eye on me.

As if I'd listen to him and stay put!

Okay, four suspects. How do I narrow them down?

I'd love to bounce things off Ty, maybe exchange information with him, but that wasn't going to happen. As he kept telling me, he was bound by law.

But I wasn't.

And neither was my partner in crime solving, Antoinette Chloe Brown.

“Antoinette Chloe?” I knocked on the wall that separated our rooms. “Are you awake?”

“How can I sleep with all that infernal squeaking? You must have walked a hundred miles. What's bothering you?”

“What isn't?”

“Let's talk,” she said. “Your place or mine?”

“I'll meet you in the kitchen. I'd like some tea and donuts.”

I slipped into my old reliable pink chenille bathrobe and my slippers and went downstairs to put the teakettle on the stove. I liked nothing better than a late-night
tea party with lively conversation, and ACB could always be counted on to provide lively conversation.

ACB appeared in a floor-length muumuu covered with sleeping birds—or dead birds, depending on your point of view. On her feet were glittery flip-flops with a huge sunflower covering most of her toes.

She was fascinator-less, but she wore her hair up in a ponytail on top of her head, secured with a leopard-print elastic band.

“Here you go, Antoinette Chloe.” I poured boiling water into a tall mug and pushed a flowered china bowl containing an assortment of tea bags over to her. Then I put a bag of sugar donuts between us, along with some paper plates, paper towels, and plastic spoons.

I didn't have to be fancy during a late-night tea party.

“So, what do you think of everything's that's been going on?” I asked, dunking my Earl Grey tea bag.

“You've been thinking a lot about what's going on. I can tell.”

“There are four good suspects.”

“I know.” She loaded her tea with sugar and stirred. “Kip, Dottie, Peter, and Jill.”

“Who can we eliminate, Antoinette Chloe?”

“Beats me. Maybe Peter. He wouldn't want to off his cash cow, if you will pardon the expression.”

“But with Priscilla gone, he could get at least half of everything—that is, assuming he has to share it with Jill—not just get it doled out to him piecemeal.

“And what about Jill?” I asked. “She has access to all of Priscilla's accounts. As her personal assistant, she must know all of Priscilla's business details, along with all the skeletons in her closet. Jill covered for Priscilla as she dealt with Alzheimer's. Jill seems like a good egg, but maybe she wanted more power. Wanted to
be
Priscilla.” I dunked a cinnamon donut into my Earl Grey. “Am I making any sense? I guess I'm just brainstorming, but my brain is failing to storm.”

“Brainstorming is good. Let's take on one person at a time. Let's investigate Kip. What do we know about him? Like his whereabouts on that fateful day?” ACB said.

“From what I remember, and I was people-watching, Kip stayed pretty close to his mac and cheese entry. He fussed over it, turning his pan every which way and putting it under various pretty napkins for a nice display. He chatted up the judges, and when Priscilla was talking, he sat intently in the audience. There was only one time when I couldn't find him, and he was in the men's room with Chef DeMassie. I know that because I was looking for someone. . . . Oh, yeah. Peter McCall! I asked Ray, who came out of the men's room, if Peter was in there, and Ray said that both chefs were in the men's room complaining that the contest was rigged.”

“So all of their time was accounted for?”

I shrugged. “At least as far as I saw, Antoinette Chloe. They could have slipped out and killed Priscilla without me knowing it, but I think I would have noticed
their absence. No, I guess I can't say that. I didn't notice them go into the men's room.” Frustrated, I pushed my bangs back. “This is going nowhere.”

“We'll come up with something. Hang on, girlfriend.”

“I got it! I have a scathingly brilliant idea!”

ACB fished out a donut chunk from her tea with a spoon and posed with it not far from her mouth. “Do tell.”

“I'm going to invite both chefs to cook with me at the Silver Bullet. You, too. You're a chef. We'll do something special for . . . what? The library! You, me, Kip, and Walton—we'll put on a special buffet for a set price. And we'll find out what makes them both tick. We can ask some special questions, like ‘Hey, Kip, did you think that you were going to lose your job if Priscilla ratted on you? Did that make you want to kill her?'”

ACB chuckled. “Do we have anything on Chef DeMassie?”

“Not really. We have to feel him out, too.”

“I wouldn't mind feeling him out! He's kind of hot.”

We giggled like two teens.

“Trixie, the buffet is a brilliant idea, but you do realize that you are doing another fund-raiser, don't you?”

“Call me crazy, but I have to find out who did this. I want to get my little town, my life, and my diner back to normal.”

“Let's call a planning meeting at the diner tomorrow
and invite the two chefs and tell them about the fund-raiser buffet.”

“And we can get the word out quickly.
The Lure
goes out in two days. First thing tomorrow I'll get Ray to work up a nice ad and drop it off to Joan.”

“This is going to work, Trixie. We'll either rule them out or put them at the top of our suspect list. I feel it in my bones, and my bones never lie.”

“Think we can get some sleep now?” I said, draining my tea.

“No way. Let's plan the menu for the buffet.”

*   *   *

The morning of the buffet, the four of us were prepping the buffet items. Juanita, my day cook, handled the regular diner orders, and we positioned ourselves on two long steam tables near the pizza oven.

We made aluminum steam pans full of kielbasa and kraut, meat loaf, baked ziti, goulash, steak fries, mashed potatoes, steamed veggies, and—you guessed it—macaroni and cheese. I decided to let Kip O'Malley prepare his own recipe. It wasn't that exciting. He just fried some burger, drained it, and added a hint of chili sauce to his melted-cheese mixture. That was okay, but at least ACB's and my food had more interesting ingredients.

We all talked and joked as we worked, and I found out that I really liked the two chefs.

But I tried to remain neutral. ACB flirted shamelessly with Chef DeMassie, so she wasn't much help in
talking to Kip, but ACB usually came through with something good.

“So, Kip, were you a big fan of Priscilla's?” I asked.

“She was okay. I took a class from her way back when, and she took a shine to me. I think she wanted to be my mentor, but when I brought it up, she looked at me like I was speaking Latin with a French accent.”

I chuckled. “Did you read her wrong?”

“Obviously, I did.”

“Priscilla was a bit of a diva. Maybe you didn't fit her mold of a TV chef.”

“Probably not.” He cut up the steak fries faster than anyone I've ever seen. His correspondence class must have come with videos unless . . . “That's fast, Kip. Did Priscilla teach you that?”

He laughed. “One of the criminals at the prison taught me that. He went by the name of Knifeman.”

I shuddered. “It must be tough to work at the prison day after day. You must feel like you're doing time yourself for the sins you've committed.”

I was proud of my excellent lead-in!

“Yeah,” was all he said.

I took a deep breath and blurted, “Have you ever been arrested, Kip?”

That was real smooth—not!

He flipped the knife into a potato, and it stuck. “Knifeman taught me that trick, too.” He hesitated, then let out a long breath. “If I have an arrest record, I can't work at the prison. Dumb rule, isn't it? I mean,
the place is loaded with criminals, and I can't have any arrests myself.”

“That's pretty unfair.”

“You said it.”

“If you have any arrests, you'd better keep it quiet or you'd probably lose your job, huh?”

“Yeah, but that's no great loss. I have another job to go to. Matter of fact, I sent in my two weeks' notice.”

“No kidding?” That was interesting. “What are you going to do?”

“I'm going to work at Syracuse University in their maintenance department. My brother-in-law is the supervisor, and he keeps telling me—very strongly because I owe my ex-wife a lot of child-support money—that I have a job waiting there for me. I'll be painting dorms and that kind of thing. I'll have great insurance, and my kids can attend college there. It's a win-win for me and my family.”

“But you won't be a chef anymore!” That was too bad. For a correspondence chef, he knew his way around a kitchen.

“I'll cook at home.”

“Sounds like your new job is a better deal. Does SU know about your record?”

“They don't care. Too bad Priscilla did. She was going to squeal on me. She told me that after she judged the contest. She said that it would be a big scandal if I were to appear on her TV show and the public found out about my record. She didn't want that to reflect on her.”

“I'll bet that made you awfully mad at Priscilla.”
Enough to kill her?

“Naw, I understood. I just want my money back from Petey-boy. I borrowed it from a coworker at a high interest rate. It was a shot in the dark anyway. Besides, it pushed me to finally accept the SU job. The old broad did me a favor.”

I was satisfied. It all made sense to me. It didn't sound like Kip cared enough to kill Priscilla. He had a better job to go to all along.

I looked over at ACB and Chef DeMassie. Her face was shiny and sweaty as she stirred a twenty-gallon pot full of macaroni. Her fascinator was about to make a dive into the boiling pot of water, and Chef DeMassie was trying to pin it to her hair.

I walked over to help. “Let's go into the ladies' room, Antoinette Chloe, and repin your hat. And you should probably cool off a bit. You're looking flushed.”

She grabbed me around the waist and pointed me toward the ladies' room. Whispering into my ear, she said, “He's totally hot, Trixie. I never realized what a hunk he is.”

“Antoinette Chloe, be careful. His show got canceled because he put the moves on a coworker and there was a scene. He seems like a player.”

“And a player is just what I need. No strings. No melodrama. Just fun and maybe a little hanky-panky.”

I chuckled. “You are too much.” I found the bobby pins holding her fascinator and made some sense out
of her hair without a brush or a comb. “Do you want this back in?”

It was a conglomeration of minuscule plastic forks, tiny plates, and a set of miniature books. I got her theme immediately: library fund-raiser.

Impulsively, I hugged her. What a sweetie she was. Unless you looked into her heart, all you saw were wildly printed muumuus, crazy hats, sequined flip-flops, and wild jewelry and makeup.

“Did you manage to find anything out about Chef DeMassie other than that you're hot for him?”

“I don't think he did it, Trixie. He's so arrogant, he thinks he's better than Priscilla, and soon the world will know it. He has other plans of a comeback, but winning the contest would have fast-tracked him. His biggest beef was directed at Peter McCall. He wants his money back.”