Candy Cane Slain by Judith Jackson

Author:Judith Jackson [Jackson, Judith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Judith Jackson
Published: 2023-11-21T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

When I arrived at Frank N’Stein at a quarter to seven the next morning, the restaurant was dark, so I figured I’d beaten Rosie there. I was wrong. She was in the kitchen with Uncle Allan and Amber. And once again, I was in my elf dress, and she wasn’t. “Marian isn’t going to wear one, so neither am I,” said Rosie with a grin. “I don’t want her to feel left out.”

“She’s actually going to work here?” said Amber. “She was friends with my grandma. She’s ancient.” She shot Uncle Allan an embarrassed glance. “No offense.”

“None taken,” he replied. “And Marian’s only seventy-four. She likes to play up the crotchety old lady thing, so everyone thinks she’s older than she is.”

“She called me last night,” said Rosie. “She said she’s bored as stink, and anything Dorothy can do, she can do better.”

Uncle Allan chuckled. “Those two ― they’ve been friends for sixty years, but they’re always taking potshots at each other.”

“I remember her from Ericsson’s,” I said. “I was scared of her.”

“Don’t be. Marian’s got a sharp tongue, but deep down she’s a marshmallow.”

“You’d have to dig pretty deep,” said Rosie, “but she was a waitressing legend in her day. She could have handled this whole place on her own.”

I didn’t want to disparage the elderly in front of Uncle Allan, but the woman did live in a senior’s home, and someone had mentioned a stroke. “When was the last time she worked in a restaurant?”

Uncle Allan shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you, but the last time I saw her she looked spry. She moved into Mistletoe Manor because some of her friends were there, and she liked the idea of having her meals cooked and someone to make her bed. She regrets it now, but she sold her house, and you know how hard it is to find a rental in town.”

“And she’s completely recovered from the stroke?”

“As far as I can tell. Some people insist that nowadays she blurts out everything that comes into her head, but I don’t know that she’s any worse than she ever was.”

I had my doubts about a seventy-four-year-old, lives-in-a-senior’s-home, says-whatever-she-feels-like waitress, but I was determined to take a page from Uncle Allan’s book and keep an open mind. “Well, if she’s spry, and we’re busy, she’ll be a huge help.” I gave the back door a wary glance. “It’ll likely be slow. People will be nervous about eating at a restaurant that was the scene of a murder.”

“They may be nervous,” said Rosie in an assured voice, “but we’ll be busy.”

And once again, she nailed it. We got slammed. By nine o’clock, there was a line out the door. A few people showed up because they wanted to pepper us with questions about Mark’s murder, but there were a lot more who were there to show their support for Paul. Paul and Uncle Allan. Word had spread that he was cooking today. “Tell Allan I don’t care what he does to my eggs,” said one woman.

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