Do or Diner: A Comfort Food Mystery (10 page)

Only two people were seated at the counter: Clyde and Max. And now Ty Brisco. There were no real customers.

I poured Ty a cup of coffee and leaned against the counter. It didn’t take me long to realize that the word was out about Marvin Cogswell’s last meal at my diner.

I needed customers to make a profit to pay Aunt Stella.

The mystery of the poor man’s death had to be solved, and solved fast.

I was going to talk to Juanita about that day again. If I could keep her calm and rational, maybe there was something she remembered that would
help me find out what had happened to the poor health inspector.

Pushing open the double doors, I saw Cindy Sherlock putting cinnamon rolls onto a flowered platter.

“How’s everything going?” I asked.

“I love it here,” she gushed. “I love to cook and bake, so it’s not like a real job.”

“Where’s Juanita?”

“She went home.”

“Home? She’s supposed to be training you. She left you all alone?”

“We haven’t had many customers, so Juanita said that there was no reason for you to pay two of us.”

“I see.” I wished that Juanita had stayed and continued Cindy’s training.

A plan formulated in my mind. I was going to talk to Juanita, right now.

First, I had to give Deputy Brisco the slip—by sneaking out the back door.

Then I would see what I could find out from Juanita.

I
felt like a sneak as I watched Ty through the pass-through window and waited for him to position the
Sandy Harbor Lure
in front of his face again. He was probably rereading the story of Mr. Cogswell’s death. Roberta Cummings had left nothing out and gave a new meaning to poetic license.

When Cindy turned to take another batch of cinnamon buns out of the oven, I slipped out the door.

Her beautiful cinnamon buns would go stale unless we had more customers.

A light rain was falling and fog had descended, making me feel like I was in the middle of a Sherlock Holmes novel.

I headed for my Focus that was parked in front of my house. I suddenly realized that it’d be easy for Ty just to turn around and look out the windows of the diner to see me.

I slid onto the stone-cold, faux leather seat and fired it up. With just a minor grunt, the engine started, and I backed out, trying not to breathe so I wouldn’t fog up the windows.

I headed north onto Route 3 and enjoyed the ride without another car in sight, although I kept
looking for Ty Brisco’s black monolith SUV in my rearview mirror.

Ty had instructed me not to investigate on my own, but I couldn’t entrust the future of my business only to him. A sudden burst of adrenaline shot through me as I realized that I’d succeeded in escaping his watchful eye and was going to ignore his “request.”

This was the most fun I’d had in years, which goes to show you how unexciting my life had been.

I asked Clyde where Juanita lived, and he gave me step-by-step directions. It probably was an easy drive without the snow, but I was cautious and drove like a snail. I didn’t want to slide and end up in a ditch, because no would find me until spring. I turned onto a side road that was labeled simply
NUMBER 4
.

Juanita’s house sat on a little hill in the outskirts of Sandy Harbor known for its apple orchards. I knew the area well as I’d worked every weekend during the fall at Sonny’s Apple Acres while I was in college.

I could see Sonny’s huge barn from Juanita’s driveway. The parking lot was buried under snow, but soon there would be buds on the apple trees and work would begin in the orchards. It took a great deal of work to ensure a successful harvest, one that would draw people from miles around to enjoy the bounty of the countryside and to pick apples.

I pulled over to the side of the road, took out my notebook, and jotted down my idea of doing a
cross-promotion with Sonny’s this fall. I could advertise his business at the diner, and he could advertise mine.

There was nothing like autumn in New York: the crisp air and even crisper apples, the brilliant colors of the changing leaves, the hint of wood fires in the air and the mouthwatering aroma of Apple Betty baking in the kitchen.

I could feature Apple Betty at the diner! I’d use local Honey Crisp apples. Yum. I could smell it baking now.

But unless I found out what happened to Mr. Cogswell, there would be no one at my diner this fall, no one to eat the piles of cinnamon buns that Cindy had made, and there would probably be no one staying at the cottages or shopping at my bait shop this season.

I cautiously walked up Juanita’s steep driveway, hoping that I wouldn’t slide or sink up to my knees in slush. I liked her house immediately—it was a cute, weathered Cape Cod that looked like it would be at home sitting in the middle of…well, Cape Cod.

A giant of a black dog started barking at me the second that I got out of my car. It probably thought that either my Focus or I was lunch.

I didn’t move until I was satisfied that Cujo couldn’t get to me.

“Poncho! Quiet!” Juanita yelled from her front door; then she noticed me. “Oh, Miss Trixie, come in. He won’t hurt you. He’s just a big baby.”

Yeah, sure, I thought, looking at the bared teeth
and the drool suspended from the corners of his mouth.

I hurriedly sloshed up ice-caked cement steps to her front door.

“Sorry for the intrusion, Juanita, but I wanted to talk to you.”

“Come in.” She smiled. “I have a fresh pot of coffee perking and I just made a Wacky Cake.”

A Wacky Cake! I hadn’t had that in years. I started to drool, just like Cujo. Making a chocolate Wacky Cake was like a science experiment. All the ingredients are in one bowl, and when vinegar is added, it bubbles; then water is poured over the whole thing. Even the worst baker in the world can make a Wacky Cake.

“Juanita, I’ll only bother you for a minute. I didn’t want to talk to you at the diner.”

Once inside, I breathed a little easier. Remembering my winter etiquette, I took off my useless boots and placed them on a rubber boot tray by the front door.

“Come into my kitchen. It’s nice and toasty warm there.”

I followed her and took note of all the pictures she had positioned on every flat surface and every square inch of wall—a massive shrine to the art of photography.

“They are my brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, and their children,” she answered without my even asking. “I have a big family, and that’s good, because I don’t have any children of my own. And when we all get together…oh
my!” She laughed loudly, and her eyes focused on what looked like two shelves’ worth of scrapbooks and/or photo albums.

Please don’t pull them out; I don’t have three weeks to spare.

I felt a pang of sadness for her.

“Where does everyone live?” I asked.

“Mostly in Mexico, Nogales. Some in Arizona, more in Texas. The closest are a nephew and his family in Rhode Island.”

Juanita motioned for me to take a seat, and I pulled out a white chair from her white farmhouse table. She set out a small pitcher of milk, a bowl of sugar, and two white mugs. Even the silverware had white handles.

I noticed that in direct contrast to the living room, her kitchen was bare of any personal items. Everything was a stark white—walls, appliances. Even her china was without a petal or a leaf of decoration.

She poured coffee into the mugs, and for some reason the smell immediately brought back a memory of happier times with my ex-husband. We were newly married and living in a tiny apartment no bigger than Sonny’s orchard shack, but we always had coffee and packaged doughnuts from the bakery outlet store for breakfast. It wasn’t healthy, but it was cheap.

When Juanita put a slice of Wacky Cake in front of me, I took a look at the moist chocolate cake with the creamy white topping and prayed that it was cream cheese frosting.

I looked up at her. “Cream cheese?”

She nodded, smiling.

“Oh my!” I was going to faint from happiness on her white floor, but first I had to feast.

I took a bite. Pure heaven. It reminded me of every birthday celebration that I had until I got married. My mother would always ask what kind of cake my siblings and I wanted for our birthday. My sister and brother would spend weeks thinking about it and researching different cakes, but my answer was always the same: Wacky Cake with cream cheese frosting.

I wondered briefly why I hadn’t made it in years. But not wanting to delve into my psyche, I went back to eating it like it was my last dessert on earth.

I enjoyed a second piece, then decided that Juanita had been patient enough, so I started the conversation I had come here for.

“Juanita, is there anything you might remember about the day Mr. Cogswell died?”

She thought for a while. “No, Miss Trixie. I told Deputy Ty everything that I know.” Her eyes pooled with tears. “Deputy Ty thought that I had something against him, but I really didn’t know him. I just fed him every time he came into the restaurant and I was on duty.”

“Did you feed him the day that the Silver Bullet failed inspection?”

She shook her head. “Bob was the cook that day. Bob refuses to feed him. Those are the days that we fail inspection.”

Steam came out of my ears. I couldn’t believe that Porky and Stella had put up with that kind of nonsense from Mr. Cogswell.

“Juanita, did Porky or Stella, or you, or any of the cooks ever put mushrooms in the pork and scalloped potatoes?”

“No, Miss Trixie. Never. Porky and Stella didn’t like mushrooms, so therefore…”

“No one else could like them,” I finished.

“Sí.”
She laughed. “And they said that was not the way their grandparents made it.”

I nodded. “Purists.”

“No comprendo
.”

“Tradition.”

“Ah.”

“So Mr. Cogswell always ate in the kitchen?”

“
Sí
. At every inspection, he comes in the back door, pulls up a chair to the prep table, and waits for a meal. Then he eats. He eats at Brown’s, the Crossroads, the Gas and Grab, the ice-cream place, every place he goes to. The other cooks at these places, they tell me so.”

“And did he always use the back door of the Silver Bullet to enter the kitchen?”

“
Si
. The back door. That door should be locked.”

“Maybe,” I said, not liking the fact that Clyde and Max would use the double doors when they needed to get into the kitchen area to take out the trash or to load the walk-in cooler or freezer.

Juanita drummed her fingers on the table and stared at her floor. She seemed to be thinking.

“Tell me about Bob. What’s he like?” I asked.

“He’s a friend of Porky’s. They were in the army together, and Porky gave him a job when he retired from his job. Bob keeps mostly to himself and is sick a lot, but I like him, and he’s a good cook.”

I leaned forward. “Could he be a murderer?”

“No. Absolutely not. He’s as honest as the day is long, and he loves to help people. He was a social worker before he retired. He could no more poison Mr. Cogswell than me or you. Besides, he never fed him. Bob didn’t believe in that, and Mr. Cogswell knew it.”

Good point. I was leaning toward ruling Bob out as a suspect, but I really would like to meet him.

“Juanita, who else uses the back door?”

“I do. All the waitresses, mostly. And the delivery people. Lots of people. Too many. Sometimes I get scared when the door opens. It could be anyone.”

Maybe a doorbell would be a better idea. Or an intercom system. I was just about to pull out my notebook and make a note about it, when it dawned on me.

There was a delivery from Sunshine Food Supply made on the day Cogswell was killed, and it was around that time! I remembered seeing the truck when I was sitting in my booth, trying to eat my Monte Cristo. That was after my lunch nondate with Ty Brisco.

Could someone from Sunshine Food Supply have a grudge against Mr. Cogswell? Someone
who delivered food service products around town would know his schedule and habit of eating at every establishment he was inspecting.

And, more important, was this a clue?

It was probably something that Ty Brisco had already looked into, but I didn’t know for sure. I could always place another order with Sunshine and ask for the same delivery person.

Yes, I could.

Juanita put a hand on my arm. “Trixie, maybe you want me to call some of the waitresses and tell them not to come in. Maybe for a while, that would be better. No sense paying them. Right?”

My stomach roiled. I hated the thought of having to tell anyone that their hours were being cut. Everyone depended on the income, or else why would they want to stand on their feet for hours at a time and serve?

I debated the pros and cons. It made good business sense to at least cut back. It probably made better business sense to close, but I’d have my own show on the Food Network before I did that with Aunt Stella’s and Uncle Porky’s legacy.

“Maybe not the full-time waitresses, just the subs and the part-timers,” Juanita added. “And it’s good that Bob is sick.”

“Juanita, when did you serve the pork and scalloped potatoes to Mr. Cogswell?”

“When he walked through the door. I put it on the steam table. Mr. Cogswell, he always eats, same place.”

I shook my head. Cogswell had some nerve to
note on my inspection that he found my employees eating in the kitchen when he did the same thing.

“Then what?”

“Then he told me he was going to inspect the men’s room.”

“Did you leave the kitchen around that time?”

“Deputy Brisco asked me the same thing. I did leave, just for one
momento
, to pick up my cell phone out front. I had lost it somewhere, and Roberta Cummings, she gave it to me. She said that someone found it on the sidewalk in front of the newspaper where she works. She traced it to me through my contact list.”

“But that was only for a moment?”

“Not very long. I just said
gracias
to Roberta, and that was all.”

My heart started beating wildly. The poisoned mushrooms must have been slipped into Cogswell’s meal while Juanita was out front and he was “inspecting” the men’s room. It had to have been then.