The Veggie Burger Murder: A Sleepy Creek Cozy Mystery Book 5 by Rosie A. Point

Author:Rosie A. Point [Point, Rosie A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub

Fifteen

The following day…

I had learned to expect the unexpected in Sleepy Creek, so it shouldn’t have been shocking to me when Aggy and I rounded the corner in my cherry red Chevrolet to find smoke filling the pleasant suburban street.

“Fire!” Aggy cried.

But the smell seeping through the car wasn’t that of a house fire. The smoke was too white, almost vaporous.

I sniffed, slowing down as I searched for the house that was our “target” for the day. “Is that… meat?”

“A fire and there’s someone trapped inside!” Aggy made a gagging noise. “Someone’s burning!”

“Don’t be disgusting, Agatha,” I said, and steered the car toward a spot next to the sidewalk. “That’s a barbecue. A lot of barbecue. Someone’s cooking meat.” And the meat didn’t smell burned either. It smelled delicious.

I opened the car door and got out into the street outside Alfred’s house.

He was our next lead—though we hadn’t yet found a clear motive for him to have hurt his friend, and realtor, we had to cover our bases.

I wasn’t going to let this one slip away from me. And I certainly wasn’t going to let a new detective stand in my way.

Aggy emerged from the car. “You’re sure?” she called. “You’re sure that it’s just meat?”

I ignored her, drawn toward the side of the postal worker’s house. The smoke was definitely coming from the back yard. I walked along the neighbor’s high fence—higher than they usually were in Sleepy Creek—and entered the yard in time to witness Alfred brandishing a spatula at another man.

“Get out of my yard,” Alfred shouted, from behind a barbecue that was spewing delicious-smelling smoke into the air.

“You don’t scare me,” the other man said, then coughed at the smoke. “And I’m not leaving this time. You can’t keep doing this. You’re smoking out the whole street.”

“I’m having lunch. You can’t tell me when and where I can eat.”

“You’ve been doing this all week,” the neighbor replied, not backing down even though Alfred was glaring at him threateningly. “It can’t go on. We have vegetarians living in this neighborhood, you know.”

“These are vegetarian patties!”

That was impressive. They smelled surprisingly meaty.

“I don’t believe you,” the neighbor said. “And I don’t care. This isn’t a normal barbecue, Alfred. What are you cooking for an army or something? You’ve been out here day in and day out.”

“None of your darn business what I do.”

“It becomes my business when you disturb the entire neighborhood with your smells and smoke.”

Alfred grumbled and waggled the spatula at his neighbor. “That’s just how they smell. They produce a lot of smoke and fat. It’s not my fault.”

“Fat? I thought they were vegetarian.”

“Get off my property before I call the cops.”

The neighbor sighed. “Alfred, if you called the cops, they would be on my side. This is pollution. And the town by-laws are pretty clear on smell pollution so—”

Alfred looked about ready to step through the hazy smoke and whap his neighbor on the nose, so I stepped up. “Good morning, gentlemen.”

The neighbor gave a muted cry of shock, turning toward me.

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