A Parfait Murder

Table of Contents

 

 

“This lighthearted peek into small-town secrets and rumors carries enough good humor, emotional honesty, plot twists, and recipes to entertain and satisfy.”

—
Publishers Weekly

 

“A delightful amateur sleuth that is not only exciting but also never melts down.”

—
Midwest Book Review

 

“Watson takes the mystery reader on a wild Texas stampede in
I Scream, You Scream.. . .
Humor abounds and the novel features lively, interesting characters.”

—Gumshoe

 

“I Scream, You Scream
is just plain fun to read, with great characters and wonderful sensory detail . . . that makes people and places come alive.. . . Needless to say, it’s easy for me to recommend
I Scream, You Scream
to the pickiest of cozy readers.”

—Cozy Library

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First published by Obsidian, an imprint of New American Library,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

 

First Printing, June 2011
The song lyrics on page 197 are from Dan Hill’s “Can’t We Try.”
Excerpt from
I Scream, You Scream
copyright © Wendy Watson, 2009

 

Copyright © Wendy Watson, 2011

eISBN : 978-1-101-51538-9

All rights reserved

 

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PUBLISHER’S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.

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I
t took a village to write this book, and any effort to identify all the folks who helped would surely miss someone. Three people deserve special mention, however. First, the incredible artist who has worked on my covers has made my heart go zing with every one. Second, my agent, Kim Lionetti, has been a dogged cheerleader, both of the Mysteries à la Mode and my career more generally; I cannot thank her enough. Finally, for this book in particular, my editor, Sandy Harding, has been an enormous help. Not only was she patient with my stuttering start, but she provided some great suggestions for making the final product infinitely better.

As always, I couldn’t write a word without the love and support of my husband. Thank you, baby, for cleaning the cat box and making dinner and quietly playing computer games on all those days I huddled deep in the writing cave. I love you.

E
loise Carberry folded her arms across her pinkaproned bosom,
tsk
ed softly, and shook her head as she threw down the figurative gauntlet. “They sure look alike to me.”

Tucker Gentry drew himself up straight and tight as a banjo string. “Criminy, Eloise. It’s ice cream. It all pretty much looks the same.”

She
tsk
ed again.

Tucker and Eloise squared off over a stainless steel table, bare save for two white paper cups, each holding a single melting scoop of ice cream. One of those cups contained Tucker’s entry in the hand-churned ice cream category of the Lantana County Fair, a flavor he called “pepper praline.” The other cup held a scoop of Texas Twister from Remember the A-la-mode, a smooth vanilla with a swirl of dulce de leche and a kick of ancho chilies.

“They don’t just look the same. They taste the same,” Eloise insisted. Her claim drew gasps from the crowd behind her. Word of the scandal must have spread through the fairgrounds, as the gathering in the creative arts exhibit pole barn was growing by the minute.

Tucker was just a little fella, his shoulder blades clearly visible beneath the wash-worn cotton of his blue plaid shirt, but he had honed his speaking voice through years as the youth pastor at the One Word Bible Church. “I assure you, if Tally’s ice cream and mine taste the same, it’s not my doing.”

Every head in the crowd swiveled in unison to look at me.

As one of the judges in the edibles division, I had been in the exhibit when Eloise made her charge against her fellow competitor, but since it was my own recipe Tucker had allegedly copied, I’d quickly recused myself from taking any part in resolving the matter. Still, I didn’t consider the dispute personal until Tucker turned the tables and implied
I
was the thief.

Under the scrutiny of all those onlookers, I felt the burn of a blush lick up my cheeks.

I was still trying to figure out how to respond to Tucker’s veiled accusation when my grandma Peachy elbowed her way in front of me.

“Young man,” she barked, “you mess with my girl, you mess with me.”

Some folks might not think an eighty-five-year-old woman with a bum knee would be much of a threat. But Peachy’s name is the only sweet thing about her. She can shoot as straight as she can spit, and I’ve seen her stand down a longhorn bull with nothing but a wire whisk in her hand.

If Tucker Gentry’d had the good sense God gave little bunny rabbits, he’d have tucked his tail between his legs and apologized. But instead he narrowed his eyes as if he were going to go toe-to-toe with Peachy.

Garrett Simms cleared his throat. He stood a head taller than anyone else in the room, had to be close to six-four, with pale red hair all over his head and just about every visible bit of skin. Despite his height and hirsuteness, he had gentle features, womanly hips, and a quiet, lilting voice. Normally, Garrett didn’t command much respect. But as the head judge of the edibles division of the Lantana County Fair, he wielded considerable power. When he held up his soft, pale hands in a plea for silence, the bickering stopped.

“Miss Ver Steeg and I will decide whether Mr. Gentry’s entry should be disqualified.”

Kristen Ver Steeg, the third judge on the panel, shook her head. “Sorry, Garrett. I need to recuse myself, too.”

I can’t speak for the whole crowd, but Kristen’s announcement caught me off guard. Kristen Ver Steeg was a relative newcomer to Dalliance, having opened a small law firm in town just a few years before. Both her office and her swank condo community were out on FM 410, in the part of Dalliance that was more suburb than small town. The only reason she’d been given a spot on the judging panel was that, as a former member of the pageant circuit, she’d volunteered to coordinate the Lantana Round-Up Rodeo Queen Pageant.

In short, Kristen was a Dalliance dilettante. I couldn’t imagine she’d ever crossed paths with Tucker Gentry. And while she might know Eloise Carberry—as the reigning president of the League of Methodist Ladies and a founding member of the Dalliance Fat Quarters quilting club, Eloise knew just about everybody—the two women couldn’t have enough history to justify Kristen recusing herself. After all, Dalliance is the sort of town where you can’t sneeze without someone’s second cousin saying “God bless”; we had to play fast and loose with notions of “bias” if we wanted to put together a panel of judges for any of the fair competitions.

Garrett Simms must have shared my surprise. “Really?” he asked.

By way of an answer, Kristen moved a step away from the table.

Garrett shrugged. “All right, then. I guess I’ll make the call.”

Eloise Carberry handed him a plastic spoon, and Garrett picked up the first cup of ice cream. Tucker’s.