Steamed

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Authors: Jessica Conant-Park,Susan Conant

Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Mystery Fiction, #Women Sleuths, #Boston (Mass.), #Cooks, #Women Graduate Students

BOOK: Steamed
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Table of Contents
Praise for
STEAMED
“This delectable collaboration between Jessica Conant-Park and her mother, Susan Conant, author of the Cat Lover’s and the Dog Lover’s mystery series, introduces an appealing heroine . . . This scrumptious cozy, the first of a new series, has it all—charming characters, sappy dialogue, and mouth-watering recipes.”
 
—Publishers Weekly
 
 
“Famous writer of mysteries involving cats and dogs Susan Conant teams up with her daughter to write a refreshingly charming chick-lit mystery.”
—Midwest Book Review
 
 
“
Steamed
is a gem. It grabs you from the start, as the heroine is witty, down-to-earth, and rolls with the punches. Great competition to anything Diane Mott Davidson has ever offered. I am thoroughly hooked. Top this already winning combination off with some decadent sounding recipes and I can guarantee
Steamed
will be topping the bestseller list in no time.”
—Roundtable Reviews
 
 
And praise for
the novels of Susan Conant
 
Award-winning author of
the Dog Lover’s Mysteries and the Cat Lover’s Mysteries
 
 
“[An] absolutely first-rate mystery. I loved it!”
 
—Diane Mott Davidson
 
“Mystery lovers know a champion when they see one.”
 
—Carolyn G. Hart
 
 
“A fascinating mystery and a very, very funny book . . . Written with a fairness that even Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie would admire.”
—Mobile Register
 
 
See the back of the book for a preview of
Simmer Down
, the next Gourmet Girls Mystery
from Jessica Conant-Park & Susan Conant!
 
Gourmet Girl Mysteries by Jessica Conant-Park and Susan Conant
STEAMED
SIMMER DOWN
 
 
Dog Lover’s Mysteries by Susan Conant
 
A NEW LEASH ON DEATH
DEAD AND DOGGONE
A BITE OF DEATH
PAWS BEFORE DYING
GONE TO THE DOGS
BLOODLINES
RUFFLY SPEAKING
BLACK RIBBON
STUD RITES
ANIMAL APPETITE
THE BARKER STREET REGULARS
EVIL BREEDING
CREATURE DISCOMFORTS
THE WICKED FLEA
THE DOGFATHER
BRIDE AND GROOM
GAITS OF HEAVEN
 
 
Cat Lover’s Mysteries by Susan Conant
 
SCRATCH THE SURFACE
 
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
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Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada
(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
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(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,
South Africa
 
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.
STEAMED
 
A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the authors
Copyright © 2006 by Susan Conant & Jessica Conant-Park.
All rights reserved.
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. Purchase only authorized editions.
For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
eISBN : 978-1-429-55876-1
 
BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME
Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
The name BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the BERKLEY PRIME CRIME design
are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
 

http://us.penguingroup.com

To my personal chef—and husband—Bill, and the best thing he ever helped to cook up, our son, Nicholas.
 
—Jessica
 
 
 
To my husband, Carter, and the best thing
he
ever helped to cook up, our daughter, Jessica.
 
—Susan
 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For generous help throughout the writing of this book, we are grateful to Alexa Lewis and Lillian Sober-Ain. We also want to thank our agent, Deborah Schneider, and our editor, Natalee Rosenstein, for their enthusiasm and support for our mother-daughter project.
 
For their appearances herein, many thanks to everyone at Eagles’ Deli, especially Stein and Robert.
 
ONE
 
ON Saturday morning I woke up at eight, poured a nasty cup of coffee that had automatically brewed itself at 5:00 a.m. instead of the programmed time of 8:00 a.m., and plopped myself at my kitchen table to do some early morning people watching out the window. I sipped my coffee-sludge and peered down at the street. My hope was to catch sight of some miserable soul ambling home after a night of drinking or to witness a minor car accident followed by entertaining screaming and swearing. The good thing about my neighborhood in Brighton, Massachusetts, was the excellent opportunity it afforded me to spy on my neighbors from the safety of my apartment.
 
Just yesterday I’d enjoyed a good fifteen minutes of bantering among three college kids attempting to move a massive seventies-style couch through their building’s small entryway, a space that was clearly too narrow to accommodate the gigantic sofa. After much debating and tilting of the couch at varying angles, the group made one final and admirably collegiate attempt to move the beast into the apartment. The effort, which involved bungee cords and ropes, was aimed at hauling the monstrosity up the side of the building and through a window. This misguided, if entertaining, plan failed. I later saw the couch on the curb with a pleading note written on cardboard, Please Take Me Away, and one of the students passed out on the cushions, gripping a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Higher education in Boston had officially begun for the year.
 
Unfortunately, there was no activity this morning. Most of my college neighbors were sleeping it off on this Labor Day weekend, but since I was about to start my graduate studies, I felt obliged to behave like an adult and not spend most of the term in a drunken state while pretending to attend class and do schoolwork. I glanced through my
Welcome to Boston City Graduate School of Social Work
folder with the pointless abbreviation BCGSSW scrawled over every enthusiastic page. “Welcome, Chloe Carter,” the first letter began. There followed a tediously detailed breakdown of this Tuesday’s orientation, which ran from 8:15 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Right, like I was going to make it through an entire day of what would turn out to be a team of bright-eyed social work doctoral students leading mobs of us through soul-baring “trust falls” and, as the brochure promised, opportunities to “share our personal stories,” especially those that would lead us to “develop social work skills based on an understanding of the impact and influence of socioeconomic, biochemical, familial, and racial factors on mental health and social policy.”
 
The welcome packet went on to assure me that I’d be given the chance to explore my own racist attitudes and the contributions I had made to the downfall of our society. The hour and a half allotted to lunch was supposed to afford me the chance to socialize and thus to begin developing relationships with my fellow students. And most of all, as luck would have it, I was informed that I would be learning to take many “proactive” approaches in my work over the next two years. Quick learner that I am, I immediately embarked on my very first act of proactivity by vowing never, ever to utter the word
proactive
aloud—and damn the consequences, which would probably include getting kicked out of social work school for my blatant failure to demonstrate fluency in the language of political correctness. Many students, I read, were eager participants in coalitions and committees that sent representatives to legislative meetings and protests at the State House. I could pretty much guarantee that I’d do whatever I could to avoid any sort of participation in any of those horrible-sounding groups. As liberal and feminist as I was in many ways, I was not someone who enjoyed engaging in overt displays of my political views.
 
The letter ended with a “personal” invitation from the president of the school to drop by his office any old time to discuss how my year was progressing. I considered dropping by his office to say that after reading the welcome packet, I was not all that interested in attending BCGSSW. In fact, I was doing so only to get my inheritance from my late and loony Uncle Alan, whose will contained the following moronic clause: “If Chloe Carter wants her inheritance, she must complete a master’s degree program in any field this fine young lady selects.” The will granted me a moderate monthly stipend during my years of graduate school hell—my term, not the will’s—and a lump sum should I actually manage to graduate. When I’d read through the packet, it became clear that social work was a less than ideal choice for me. But I had always enjoyed my undergraduate studies in psychology, and social work wasn’t that far off. And it was only two years of school. So, when Uncle Alan died last winter and I was forced to pick something to pretend to study for a few years, I did minimal research into choices, decided I liked helping people, and impulsively applied to this program.
 
Now here I was, faced with phrases like “social policy,” “victims of a capitalist society,” and “disenfranchised youth.” Not that these weren’t important issues; I just didn’t want to be trained as some militant avenger of world evil. I’d simply have to avoid courses that focused on anything cosmic, global, or political. But when I examined the class schedule I’d been sent, I found it jammed with required classes, including Global Perspectives on Social Welfare, Peace, and Justice; and U.S. Public Policy Through the Eyes of the Social Worker. As far as I was concerned, the word
eyes
did not belong in a course title—except maybe in Ophthalmology and Therapy? At least I’d gotten into Psychopathology and Deviant Behavior, a course that should be full of juicy details about personality disorders and behavioral problems—I loved that stuff.

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