Bonfires, Barbeques and Bodies (The Arizona Summers Mysteries Book 3) by Keene Susan

Author:Keene, Susan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bent Willow
Published: 2021-04-22T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Seven

I spent the next few hours with Lewis and the crew shoring up the plans for the night.

The Simpson boys delivered four truckloads of limbs about six feet long and ranged from a foot around to six inches. They sorted the wood by size at the end of The Gray Goose’s parking lot. Later they came back with three loads of fireplace wood and kindling to start the fire.

The boys were no older than sixteen and eighteen but had delivered firewood, first with their father and then by themselves since they were no more than seven. Rich Simpson owned a huge tree farm outside Moonstone Lake. They had the monopoly on Christmas Spruce and kept the wood stacked on most everyone’s wood rack all winter. I called Rich the Woodsman’s Guru.

Lewis had the fish out and looked it over piece by piece. Since more than three-fourths of it came out of the lake, caught and cleaned by local farmers, he worried about bones.

Two of the line cooks grated vegetables into humongous stainless steel bowls. Another two sliced potatoes into microwaveable bowls. The idea was to parboil the potatoes before frying so they would cook faster.

A line cook, Danny Foster, would fry the potatoes with onions on our big outside grill.

Randy Malone dropped by about lunch time but didn’t eat. He said he had mounds of paperwork before the fish fry started. He, along with Keith, and the two firemen would tend the fire.

We intended to close the restaurant immediately after lunch so the entire crew could help set up outdoor seating. We could seat seventy-four with chairs and when I saw the extra wall around the Bonfire, I guessed twenty-more.

I needed help to pull out the two foldable eight-top tables, five six-tops, and seven four-tops from the basement storage. They all needed washed and sanitized. We had to wait until the last minute to put the tables out. We had nowhere to store them inside the restaurant. It would take three or four of the guys to bring them up.

By four o’clock, we’d closed and cleaned the café, moved the tables into place, had all of the silverware out, and the tables covered with paper, so we could change them when they became soiled.

The entire crew met in the dining room. I hadn’t seen Keith all day, but at five-forty-five, I looked up and he waved at me from a table in the back.

The smell of wood smoke, fish, and potatoes and onions filled the air. We were officially welcoming winter.

Right on time we had everything where it should be and the fire blazing. The line already snaked from the parking lot out front, all the way around the building to the cashier’s table. Aunt Sandy had one of the stations and Becky had the other.

Sandy and Becky had the personalities to treat the man who gave a dollar for his dinner and the ones who paid a hundred, with the same sweet smiles and friendly demeanor.

I went inside to check with Lewis to see if things were all right on the food end.

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