Read A Spoonful of Murder Online
Authors: Connie Archer
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Mystery
A Spoonful of Murder
A Chilling Discovery…
Meg took another order from one of the new customers and clipped it above the kitchen hatch. She hesitated and turned back, rising on her tiptoes to look for Sage. He hadn’t returned. “Hey, Lucky, where’d Sage go?”
Lucky looked through the hatch. “He’s still out back. I’ll fill those.” She headed into the kitchen and, quickly slicing bread, put the new orders together on a tray and carried them out to Meg. She checked the kitchen again.
What was taking him so long?
She waved to Janie to stay by the cash register, and headed down the corridor. Sage was squatting by the door, his back to the wall, taking deep breaths.
“Sage!” Lucky rushed to his side. “Are you sick?”
Sage shook his head. He pointed wordlessly to the back door.
“What is it?”
He rose and took Lucky’s hand, leading her out the door to the Dumpster behind the building. He pointed to a mound of snow and ice. Lucky stared, unsure what she was supposed to see. A tuft of blonde hair stuck incongruously out of the snow. A chill ran through her. She was staring at a death mask—a death mask of ice. It was the face of their customer, the tall, elegant blonde woman. Dark clotted blood had frozen on the side of her head. A single jeweled earring dangling from one ear flashed in the thin winter light. The rest of her was buried under three feet of snow…
A Spoonful of Murder
Connie Archer
BERKLEY PRIME CRIME, NEW YORK
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) • Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
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 publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: 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.
A SPOONFUL OF MURDER
A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / August 2012
Copyright © 2012 by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Excerpt from
A Broth of Betrayal
by Connie Archer copyright © 2012 by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Cover illustration by Cathy Gendron.
Cover design by Diana Kolsky.
Interior text design by Kristin del Rosario.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
ISBN: 978-1-101-58121-6
BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME
Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
ALWAYS LEARNING
PEARSON
To cast in order of appearance:
Jennifer, Stephanie, and Tom
Acknowledgments
With thanks and appreciation to Paige Wheeler of Folio Literary Management for her hard work, good advice, and expertise and to Emily Beth Rapoport of Berkley Prime Crime for her enthusiasm and support for the Soup Lover’s Mysteries.
Thank you to Marianne Grace for her copyediting skills in making this book the best it could be; and to everyone at Berkley Prime Crime who had a hand in bringing this book to life.
Many thanks as well to the writers’ group: Cheryl Brughelli, Don Fedosiuk, Paula Freedman, R. B. Lodge, and Marguerite Summers for their criticism and encouragement.
Chapter 1
“I
KNOW YOU
worry about me, Mom, but you don’t have to. And I know you’d love my new apartment. Elizabeth is renting it to me, for a while at least, till I figure things out.”
Lucky sighed. “I know what you’re going to say, but the shop is a big responsibility. And I’m really struggling—struggling with everything right now.” Shivering in her down jacket, she blew on her hands to keep them warm. Lingering rays of winter light cast long shadows over the snow.
“The apartment’s small, but the back windows overlook a garden. It’s not in bloom now, of course, but it will be in the spring. It feels peaceful, and I think I’ll be able to sleep well there. I haven’t slept very much since…since I got the call about you and Dad.”
Lucky looked down at the freshly turned earth, large, dark scars against the snow, covered now with only a light dusting. In a short time, the earth would sink, snow would cover the mounds and eventually grass would grow. Her parents would rest in peace.
“I wish I could tell you how sorry I am that I haven’t been
here—that I stayed away all these years and didn’t come home after college. I wanted to do something special—live for something other than tourist season, but I never accomplished very much at all. If I could do over the last few years, I’d have come back and hugged you and Dad every single day of your lives.”
Lucky didn’t know how she would ever recover from the guilt that washed over her every day. She remembered how hard her parents had worked and how she had rejected that life for herself. Now she was completely alone. Alone even at the gravesite. No one could hear the one-sided conversation she was having with her parents, the only conversation she could have with them now. Death was so final, and there was nothing in her life that had prepared her for the shock of her parents’ fatal car crash.
“I’ve brought these for you. They’re just evergreens and two roses, one for you and one for Dad.” Lucky knelt and, dividing her bouquet in two, placed the greens and a rose in each of the containers at the headstone. She stepped back and stood for a few more moments, remembering her mother’s smile and the scent of her cologne, until she shivered again in the icy wind, her tears already frozen on her cheeks.
B
Y THE TIME
she reached Snowflake’s main street, Lucky’s face was numb with cold. She pulled her woolen scarf up to her nose, hoping to reach By the Spoonful, her parents’ soup shop, without running into any more old friends and acquaintances. Everyone had been so kind, but whenever condolences were offered, she felt as if she would burst into sobs. She missed her parents terribly. They had always been there for her. She had never considered the day when that would not be true.
The streetlights had already blinked on in the darkening evening, and lights in the shape of large snowflakes hung at each pole all the way down Broadway. Local shops had closed, but the windows of By the Spoonful Soup Shop were brightly lit and fogged from the warmth inside. Lucky stood
across the street as if seeing the restaurant for the first time. The old blue and yellow neon sign her Dad had been so proud of still hung in the front window. For a moment, she imagined her parents, Martha and Louis Jamieson, would be inside. She could rush into the warmth and throw her arms around them, as she did when she was very young.
Her grandfather Jack stood at the cash register now. It was dinnertime, and the simple restaurant was filled to capacity with tourists and locals alike. The menu was a rotating variety of soups, stews and sandwiches, depending on the time of year. Hearty meat-filled soups or thick lentils for winter, lighter ones for the summer. Each soup was served with a generous hunk of crusty bakery bread or ladled into a bread bowl. Tonight’s special was an original created by Sage, the Spoonful’s talented chef.
