Biscuits and Slashed Browns Read online

  “Help him!” I cried.

  Chapter 4

  I hurried around the back of the other contestants. I had to reach the middle of the table. Maybe I could climb over it, or crawl under it. Christina was in front of the last entry at the end of the table. She tried to get around Dr. Rao but he appeared just as frozen in place as Nick, and the crowd had pressed in to see. Why wasn’t anybody doing anything?

  Adele grabbed a water bottle and tried to reach Connolly, but Abe beat her to him. He pushed through the front of the crowd, physically parting them like a strong-man Moses. He wrapped both arms around the professor from the back, covered his fist with his other hand, and yanked upward into Connolly’s diaphragm. I brought my hands to my mouth with a gasp. Let it work.

  Connolly spewed out one more cough, along with a hunk of biscuit. The biscuit hit the ground, and in the silence I heard a tiny plunk. What was that sound? My brain raced unbidden to malice. Had someone tried to make him choke? Stuck a non-food item in my biscuit when no one was looking? I shook my head. Of course not. But a tiny doubt nagged.

  Abe detached as the professor straightened. Connolly wiped his sweaty forehead with his sleeve and took a couple of deep breaths. Turning, he stared at Abe in amazement. “You saved my life, young man,” he said in a gravelly voice.

  “He certainly did,” Adele added. “Folks, Abraham O’Neill.”

  Applause and cheers started up, along with a chant of “O-Neill, O-Neill, O-Neill.”

  “Oh, hush. Cut it out, now.” Abe waved down the clapping with both hands. He was the one with the red face now. My boyfriend blushed easily, which was just one of his many charms. “All’s well that ends well, right?” he asked, looking around.

  Adele beamed. Connolly held out his hand and pumped Abe’s. The photographer edged in and took their picture, and the reporter jotted down the spelling of Abe’s full name.

  “Hey, I just did what anyone would do.” Abe said, glancing at me.

  Except nobody else had. I didn’t even know how. As a responsible restaurant owner, I was going to have to get a Heimlich lesson from Abe. I smiled gratefully at him. If the choking had gone any further, Connolly’s life would have been in danger. In addition, the contest would have been ruined right along with my reputation and that of my store, as selfish as it sounded to think about reputation at time like this. But truly, who wants to go out to breakfast when the biscuits make people choke to death?

  * * *

  By five o’clock it was all over. After Professor Connolly insisted the contest go forward—meaning he got to taste the rest of the entries—in the end the judges had awarded the maple bars the blue ribbon. I guessed my biscuits’ flavoring was too subtle for them. I didn’t mind. I knew they were delicious, and it was all for fun, anyway. I’d handed out small gift certificates good for one free juice or soda to each person as they left, hoping to lure part of the crowd back for a meal along with their drink, since the coupons were good through May.

  Two women had asked me for the biscuit recipe, remarking on how tasty they’d looked. I’d only imitated the Mona Lisa, saying it was top secret but that I served them in the restaurant most days.

  Adele and another organizer had efficiently cleaned up and restored the store to its original condition. Christina, Abe, Adele, and I now sat around one of the square tables hashing over the event. After I locked the front door, I cracked open beers for all of us and set out the rest of the batch of biscuits for us to munch on.

  “You saved that guy’s bacon, man,” Christina said to Abe, raising her bottle.

  “I’ll drink to that,” Adele added, clinking hers with the rest of ours. Today her earrings were rainbow-hued enamel set in teardrop-shaped silver, a pair I’d given her for Christmas last year. Long fancy earrings were this matter-of-fact woman’s one indulgence.

  “Your Army medic experience keeps coming in handy.” I covered Abe’s free hand with mine.

  “No kidding,” he said. “I’d never actually pulled a Heimlich before. Worked like a charm.” His irresistible dimple dented his cheek, and he must not have had time to visit the barber lately, with his hair curling a little longer than usual around his ears. I liked the look. His cell buzzed from the case where he carried it on his belt. Extracting his hand from mine, he pulled out the phone and checked the display, then glanced at me with an odd expression on his face. He tapped it and stored the device again.

  Huh. I’d have to remember to ask him later who had phoned him.

  Christina gave a snorting little laugh. “I read a couple of years ago Dr. Heimlich himself had never used it until he was in a dining hall at age ninety-something and needed to save a choking victim. He said he knew the maneuver would work, and it did. I will say it served Connolly right for eating like a glutton.” She glanced around at the rest of us. “Wait, that sounded bad. It was great you could help him out, Abe.”

  Adele laughed. “After what happened to poor Stella last fall, it’s a minor miracle anybody wants Robbie’s biscuits, even as good as they are. So you sure as heck didn’t need nobody dying from eating one, hon.”

  Stella, who had been shot to death, had been found with one of my biscuits stuffed in her mouth.

  “I can agree with that.” I took a sip of my beer.

  “That professor is super rude,” Christina said. “It’s like he thinks he occupies some special place in the world, way above all the rest of us.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Had you met him before today?”

  She rolled her eyes. “He came into Hoosier Hollow to eat a couple of nights ago. He kept sending plates back because they weren’t exactly right for him. And he had the gall to ask his server to bring me out to the front of the house so he could speak with me. Thanks—but no thanks.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” Adele asked.

  “Then he tried to bust into the kitchen.” Christina made a tsking sound. “Can you believe it? I was about to call the cops when he finally left.”

  “Did it strike anybody else as odd that the chef next to the professor—” I began.

  “Nick?” Christina asked.

  “Yes. He didn’t lift a finger to help Connolly.”

  She frowned. “You know he took over for me at the inn.”

  “Right,” I said.

  She went on. “He’s a little strange. A brilliant chef, but he doesn’t always have the same reactions you might expect from others.”

  “What do you mean?” Adele asked.

  “I don’t know.” Christina lifted a shoulder and dropped it. “Maybe it’s just social skills. He doesn’t laugh when others do, and he never makes small talk. The how-was-your-weekend kind of thing. It’s no biggie. He’s just a little odd.”

  “Talk about odd. Did anybody else hear a second sound after Abe pushed the biscuit out of Connolly?” I stood. “Darn, I meant to look before you all cleaned up.”

  “What kind of sound?” Christina cocked her head.

  “Like a small object hitting the floor.” I frowned. “And not a food object.”

  “I didn’t hear anything except an overweight, out-of-shape academic huffing and heaving.” Abe raised his eyebrows.

  Abe himself was neither out of shape nor overweight. In fact, none of us at the table was. I had generous hips, sure, but I was running my feet off here five days a week, and I took my cycle out on the hilly county roads for a long ride as often as I could. It both raised my heart rate and cleared my mind of detritus.

  “Think it was a filling or whatnot?” Adele asked.

  “Maybe he lost a tooth,” Christina said. “My mom has terrible teeth, and she lost one chewing something soft once. Go figure.”

  “Wouldn’t he have noticed if a tooth fell out?” Adele opened her mouth and felt her back teeth with her tongue. “I sure would.”

  Abe watched me as if nobody else was in the room. “You’re thinking an object might have been added to your biscuit.”

  I nodded.

  “For him specific
ally?” he asked.

  “That doesn’t make sense. Any of the judges could have eaten it,” Christina pointed out.

  “And nobody touched those entries after the contest started except the judges,” Adele added. “I made dang sure they didn’t.”

  “Could have been a filling, maybe,” Abe said. “Or a crown, or even a tooth, like you said, Christina. But you’d think he would have reacted somehow.”

  It had sounded bigger than a filling, not that I had any experience with such things. By some blessing of the universe, or maybe of Santa Barbara’s water system, I had a mouth full of strong, decay-resistant teeth. Could one of the other judges somehow have slipped a foreign object into Connolly’s portion of my biscuit, an object designed to lodge in his throat and do him harm? Both Dr. Rao and Nick Mendes had preceded Connolly. I didn’t know if Nick had any beef with the professor, or even if he’d ever met him, but Rao and Connolly certainly had exchanged less than friendly looks. Way less than friendly.

  I’d been involved in investigating more than one act of extreme malice in the last half year, and I was a puzzle freak. I did the really hard ones, like the New York Times and the London Times Sunday crossword puzzles—in ink—to relax. Right now my puzzle-solving mind refused to disengage. Had Warren Connolly’s choking been the result of an attack rather than an accident?

  I headed toward the area where the long table had been. But it was all clean, with the smaller tables set up again for tomorrow’s breakfast. Rats.

  “I swept up over there,” Adele offered.

  “Did you notice a little object?”

  “Can’t rightly say I did. I emptied the dustpan in that there trash pail.”

  My heart sank. If she’d dumped the sweepings into the big bin near the kitchen, I’d never find anything. Then I noticed she was pointing to the tall wastebasket in an antique butter churn near the door. I’d emptied it at two o’clock and put a new white kitchen trash bag into it. My hopes rose again. I lifted out the bag and spread a clean dishtowel on the stainless kitchen work counter. I tried to empty the bag slowly, but part of it got away from me and dust rose up. I turned my head away just in time not to sneeze on the pile.

  Besides the dust, the recognizable items were crumbs from all the contest entries, a few stray drink coupons, a foil gum wrapper, a couple of discarded yellow festival flyers, and a small comb. A comb?

  Abe joined me, pressing his arm deliciously into mine. “Who combs their hair at a cooking contest?” He laughed, shaking his head.

  “Hey, handsome, you’re in my light,” I said gently. He moved out of the path of the light from the western windows and I bent over to get a closer look. I poked through every bit of the refuse, starting on the left edge, sifting it with my fingers. But I didn’t find a single unusual little thing other than the comb, which read, JED’S BARBERSHOP.

  I dumped it all back into the bag and secured it in the churn again, tossing the towel into the laundry box. “I guess I was wrong.”

  Chapter 5

  I finished eating a salad in my apartment kitchen at seven-thirty that evening and entered the letters for the last answer in the crossword I was working on. After my friends had left earlier, I’d realized I still had time and daylight to grab a quick ride. The sun didn’t set until nearly seven in early March in this part of the world, so I’d spun through a twenty-mile hilly route, pushing as hard as I could. When I passed Brown County State Park, I wanted to head in and check out the traditional methods of Native American sugaring off, one of the festival’s exhibits. I returned home instead. The sun was already going down and the cooling air was stinging my cheeks.

  Now I was clean, relaxed, and fed. My sweet tuxedo cat, Birdy, snoozed on the rug at my feet. Danna was due back tomorrow from her tournament, a good thing since Turner had asked for the day off to help with the festival’s event at his family’s farm. I needed to go into the restaurant and do prep for tomorrow. I always made up the biscuit dough the night before, and I liked to cut up fruit, set up the first pots of coffee, and do whatever else I could in advance. It eased the morning rush. Instead I decided to sit just a little longer.

  I sipped the Syrah I’d poured and ran my hand over the smooth wood of the table Mom had made. That beautiful, talented, thriving woman had died suddenly more than a year ago, and I still missed her with a sharpness that time softened at a glacial pace. It had been only the two of us for my entire life with her, because I hadn’t discovered my long-lost father until last fall. Unlike many daughter-mother pairs, we’d never even fought, never butted heads about styles or curfews or homework. Mom had been a no-nonsense sort, like her much-older sister, Adele, but—also like Adele—she was fun and generous and caring.

  Not something one could apparently say about Professor Connolly. He hadn’t been particularly polite to me. He’d clearly displeased both Dr. Rao and Sonia on a professional matter. And Christina wasn’t a bit happy with him, either.

  I pictured Abe’s face grinning at me from where he’d stood on the chair during the contest—and then his timely rescue of the choking professor. Abe had been nothing but sweet and supportive since I’d started going out with him at the end of last year. Still, I was always nagged by a tiny whispering voice deep inside me insisting, “He’s going to leave you, too. Better not get too close.” “No!” I wanted to shout back to the voice. I had not a scrap of evidence he would leave. On the other hand, my previous boyfriend had basically deserted me, and my rotten ex-husband before him had done the same. My batting average was zero, or whatever it would be if I knew anything about baseball. This time I was determined to ignore the voice, to have faith my love life had at last turned around.

  I picked up my phone and idly flipped through a few e-mail messages, a couple of texts, and several Instagram shots of wildlife on Lake Monroe a friend liked to post. I was admiring an amazing close-up of a bald eagle perched on a nest when the phone rang.

  “Hey, Danna,” I said after I saw the ID. “All ready for tomorrow?”

  She groaned. “No, and I’m really sorry.”

  “What? Was your plane delayed or something?”

  “Worse. I’m home, but I twisted my ankle really bad.”

  “Ouch. You poor thing.”

  “And I’m supposed to stay off that foot for a week. The doctor said it’s a sprain, and to ice and elevate it. Which means I can’t come to work.” She sounded almost mad.

  Uh-oh. “Does it hurt a lot?”

  “Yeah, kind of.” She laughed. “It was in the last game, though. And our team managed to pull off a respectable third place. Not bad coming from a dinky place like South Lick. So I got to play almost the entire tournament. But I hate leaving you in the lurch. At least now you have Turner.”

  Or not. “Thanks for letting me know. And feel better soon.”

  “Thanks, Robbie. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “Make sure you get the all-clear from the doc first.”

  She said she would and disconnected.

  I was in deep trouble. I didn’t have Turner tomorrow. And I was going to have to run the restaurant all by my little lonesome during a festival. I sighed and aimed myself for the front of the building. I needed to prep every last thing in sight.

  Chapter 6

  “Coming right up,” I called to an annoyed-looking party of four at eight o’clock the next morning. I frantically flipped pancakes, scrambled eggs, and doused biscuits with gravy. I was losing my mind working alone in the restaurant. And it was busier than yesterday morning, if that was even possible. I’d called Adele last night to see if she could fill in, but she’d said she’d be out volunteering at the festival.

  I’d apologized and asked customers to be patient for over an hour. This one was mad because I didn’t bring coffee fast enough. That one got upset when I mixed up her order with another’s. A couple finally left after waiting half an hour for a table I didn’t have time to clear and clean. If a tour bus showed up to attend the Maple Festival, as someti
mes happened with a load of leaf peepers in the fall, I would have to refuse them.

  I glanced up when the cowbell on the door jangled. I’d never before wished for the hungry of South Lick to go elsewhere, but I did right now. I had to smile when I saw Corrine Beedle strut in, all five foot eleven of her, plus the extra added by her flaming red big hair and her heeled boots. She was not only Danna’s mom but also the mayor of our fair town. I waved as she headed in my direction. It took her a while, because she had to greet everyone in her path. For once she wasn’t wearing a cleavage-laden business jacket with a pencil skirt. Instead she’d dressed more casually than I’d ever seen her, in extra-long skinny jeans and a blue long-sleeved T-shirt. I took a second look. It was a Pans ’N Pancakes T-shirt identical to mine. I’d given her one when we opened last fall but I’d never seen her wear it.

  “Howdy, Robbie. My girl told me to come on down and help y’all out this morning.”

  I couldn’t find a single word to say for a second or two. “She did?” I squeaked out. “And the mayor has time to lend a hand in a restaurant on a Saturday?”

  She waved down my question. “Sure I do. And I had me plenty of experience back in the day. Nashville Waitress of the Month once when I was twenty-something.” She beamed her thousand-watt smile, then took a closer look at me. “Sugar, you’re sweatin’ like a whore in the front pew at Our Lady of Springs.”

  I laughed. “My other helper had to take the day off, so I’m here alone. And I’ve never heard such a fabulous offer as you saying you’ll help. Thank you.”

  She made a rolling gesture. “All righty, then. Tell me where you keep the aprons at so’s I can get to work.” She turned on the tap and started to wash her hands.

  I pointed at the box of aprons, and turned six strips of nearly overdone bacon before they turned to charcoal. “I really appreciate the help, Corrine.” I would have hugged her if six pancakes weren’t in danger of becoming toasted pucks.