By Cook or by Crook (A Five-Ingredient Mystery) by Maya Corrigan

Author:Maya Corrigan [Corrigan, Maya]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2014-11-04T00:00:00+00:00

Val slid two quiches into the café oven. They should be ready before Bethany arrived at eleven to take over serving lunch. Val closed the oven and turned around.

A big-boned woman in a calf-length denim skirt stood at the entrance to the café alcove. Irene Pritchard had returned, probably with the same goal in mind as she’d had yesterday when she showed up after the café closed. She approached the counter at a funereal pace and sat on a stool, adding another few inches to her height.

Val nodded. “Good morning, Irene. I want to offer my condolences. It’s hard losing a neighbor.”

Irene donned the half-moon glasses dangling from her corded necklace and peered at Val over them. “I didn’t lose her. The good Lord took her back home.”

With help from a murderer.

Val would have to get over her awkwardness at talking to the woman who would have managed the café if Nadia hadn’t interfered. Not only could Irene provide a neighbor’s perspective on Nadia, she might have seen something the night of the murder.

Irene scrutinized the café’s short menu. “Interesting. There’s almost nothing on your menu like what I served in my tea shop. We had scones, meat pies, sausage rolls, and cucumber sandwiches on crustless bread.”

Hard to imagine the gym rats laying down their barbells to lunch on cucumber sandwiches. “Can I get you some coffee, Irene? Iced tea? A smoothie?”

“How about a cup of herbal tea?”

Val reached in the back of a drawer, feeling around for the herbal tea bags she’d stashed away. “The club members usually order high octane black tea on ice, but I should have some herbals, peppermint or chamomile, in my tea bag collection.”

“Tea bags? Not loose tea? I’ll have decaf iced coffee instead.”

“Coming up.” Val didn’t need tea leaves to tell her she faced a tough cookie. She filled a glass with ice.

“By the way, did you enter the contest for the Treadwell Gazette’s new food columnist?”

Ah. That explained Irene’s visit. She must have entered the contest. She’d come here to find out if Val was competing with her again for a job.

Val looked her in the eye. “I didn’t even know about the contest until it was too late to enter.” She hoped her answer would clear the air between them. She poured the decaf coffee over the ice and set the drink in front of Irene. “How long were you and Nadia neighbors?”

“More than fifteen years. She moved next door just about when Jeremy was starting school. He was crazy about her.”

Val heard the warmth in Irene’s voice when she mentioned her son. “Nadia thought the world of him. Tell me why he liked her so much.”

“She spent time with him. She used to read him stories and think up games that would help him learn his letters and numbers. School was hard for him.”

Chalk up another point for Nadia the Good, catching up fast to Nadia the Evil. “I heard she helped Jeremy get a job at the diner too.”

Irene stirred sugar into her iced coffee.

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