Eggs Benedict Arnold

PRAISE FOR

Eggs in Purgatory

“
With a plot that holds interest and characters who are well-
envisioned and well-executed, Childs will have readers plan
ning another trip to the Cackleberry Club and its treats.
”

—
Richmond Times-Dispatch

“
Childs excels at creating comforting settings in which to
put her characters, and the Cackleberry Club is a place you
’
d
l
ike to visit.
”

—St. Paul Pioneer Press

“
Eggs in Purgatory
has plenty of humor, emotion, good food
(with recipes), and fantastic plotlines to make it another suc
cess Story.
”

—
Fresh Fiction

PRAISE FOR

THE SCRAPBOOKING MYSTERIES

BY LAURA CHILDS

“
Childs rounds out the story with several scrapbooking and
crafting tips plus a passel of mouthwatering Louisiana reci
pe
s.
”

—
Publishers Weekly

“
The heroine is a plucky, strong, and independent woman
who takes charge when necessary as she is the original steel
magnolia.
”

—
The Best Reviews

“
If you are a scrapbooker and like to read, then Laura Childs
’
s
Scrapbooking Mystery series is for you! These books are so
great that I just couldn
’
t put them down! I just can
’
t wait for
the next one to be released.
”

—BellaOnline

“
Scrapbook aficionados rejoice! Ms. Childs creates a charm
ing mystery series with lively, quirky characters and plenty of how-to... Serving up some hors d
’
oeuvres of murder and mystery, creativity and fashion, she has a winning formula to get even the laziest of us in a scrapbooking mood.
”

—
Fresh Fiction

continued. ..

“
An entertaining who-done-it.
”

—
Midwest Book Review

“
Perfect reading.
”

—
Romantic Times
(four stars)

“
Childs does an excellent job of weaving suspense with great
tips for scrapbooking and crafting aficionados.
”

—
I
Love A Mystery

PRAISE FOR
THE TEA SHOP MYSTERIES BY LAURA CHILDS

Featured Selection of the Mystery Book Club

“
Highly recommended
”
by The
Ladies ‘Tea
Guild

“
A delightful read . . . Childs has an eye for great local
color.
”

—
Publishers Weekly

“
A paean to Charleston, the genteel enjoyment of tea, and
the tasty treats that accompany it.
”

—
Kirkus Reviews

“
Murder suits Laura Childs to a Tea.
”

—
St. Paul Pioneer Press

“
Tea lovers, mystery lovers, [this] is for you. Just the right blend of cozy fun and clever plotting.
”

—Susan Wittig Albert, bestselling author of
Wormwood

“
It
’
s a delightful book!
”

—
Tea: A Magazine

“
Will warm readers the way a good cup of tea does
...
A
delightful series that will leave readers feeling as if they have
shared a warm cup of tea on Church Street in Charleston.
”

—
The Mystery Reader

“
This mystery series could single-handedly propel the tea
shop business in this country to the status of wine bars and
bustling coffee houses.
”

—
Buon Gusto

“
If you devoured Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden, this new
series is right up your alley.
”

—The Goose Creek (SC) Gazette

“
Gives the reader a sense of traveling through the streets and
environs of the beautiful, historic city of Charleston.
”

—
Minnetonka (MN) Lakeshore Weekly News

Berkley Prime Crime titles by Laura Childs

Tea Shop Mysteries

DEATH BY DARJEELING

GUNPOWDER GREEN

SHADES OF EARL GREY

THE ENGLISH BREAKFAST MURDER

THE JASMINE MOON MURDER

CHAMOMILE MOURNING

BLOOD ORANGE BREWING

DRAGONWELL DEAD

THE SILVER NEEDLE MURDER

OOLONG DEAD

Scrapbooking Mysteries

KEEPSAKE CRIMES

PHOTO FINISHED

BOUND FOR MURDER

MOTIF FOR MURDER

FRILL KILL

DEATH SWATCH

TRAGIC MAGIC

Cackleberry Club Mysteries

EGGS IN PURGATORY

EGGS BENEDICT ARNOLD

Anthology

DEATH BY DESIGN

Laura Childs

Eggs Benedict Arnold

BERKLEY PRIME CRIME, NEW YORK

For Dawn and the dogs

(With special affection for Honeybee,

Sam Henry, and Camille.)

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Sam, Tom, Bob, Jennie, Dan, Asia, and Moosh. And
thanks to all the readers who embraced
Eggs in Purgatory,
my first Cackleberry Club Mystery, with so much enthusiasm.
You
’
re the reason there
’
s a second one.

Chapter One

It
might have been Kindred Spirit Days in Elmwood Park, but Suzanne
The
tz wasn
’
t exactly feeling the spirit. Shifting from one moccasined foot to the other, stuck behind a table
selling slices of soggy pineapple cake, hard-as-a-rock fudge,
and gooped-up cherry pies for the Library Committee
’
s fund-raiser, Suzanne would have much preferred to be
back at her own place, the Cackleberry Club.

Closing her eyes against the intrusion of laughing
clowns, frenetic jugglers, and accordion music, she imagined herself bustling about in her own cozy cafe this Sun
day afternoon. If brunch ran late, as it often did, she
’
d
be juggling plates of eggs Florentine, huevos rancheros,
Slumbering Volcanoes, and towering omelets stuffed with
gooey, molten Gruyere cheese.

Eggs, of course, were the morning specialty at the Cack
leberry Club. But lunch was delectably creative, too, with
menu items like drunken pecan chicken, brown sugar meat-
loaf, and frozen lemonade pie. And Suzanne also laid out a pretty snappy afternoon tea that could probably tempt even
the most proper English lady.

“
We ought to be selling our own cakes and muffins and
scones,
”
Petra murmured, as if reading Suzanne
’
s mind. Petra was the second partner and principal baker and chef at the Cackleberry Club.
“
I don
’
t know how we got roped
into this. Trying to be do-gooders, I suppose. I thought we
’
d be selling books!
”

“
Me, too,
”
said Suzanne as she brushed back shoulder-
length silver blond hair and gazed with keen blue eyes at the morose selection of baked goods.
“
Ours would certainly be
better quality. Unfortunately, this stuff is . . .
”
She glanced around to make sure one of the pie makers, a glum-looking
little woman named Agnes, wasn
’
t in earshot.
“
. .. beyond
pathetic.
”

“
I
’
m terrified folks will think these baked goods are from the Cackleberry Club,
”
Petra murmured in hushed
tones. Brown-eyed and square-jawed, Petra was big-boned
and bighearted. She was known to show up at the front door of a new neighbor with casserole in hand, owned an overweight Russian Blue cat named Rasputin, and had mastered the art of trout fishing.

“
Heaven forbid,
”
said Suzanne, pushing up the sleeves of her denim shirt and letting loose a slight shudder. The Cackleberry Club was her baby and she considered herself a stickler for quality control.

“
Just look at us,
”
said Petra with a giggle.
“
We
’
re two volunteers who are really curmudgeons at heart.
”
In fact, they weren
’
t curmudgeons at all. Suzanne, Petra, and their friend, Toni
—the third partner in the troika that ran the Cackleberry Club—were just mature women who didn
’
t give a rat
’
s backside about what people thought or said about them. Now that they were on the high side of forty, careening toward fifty, they spoke their minds and lived their lives with grace and fortitude, without dwelling on past actions or feelings of remorse. For some reason, this
somewhat pragmatic midlife philosophy led to better men
tal health and left them all feeling strangely liberated.

“
We
’
re on our own now,
”
Suzanne had told Petra some
six months ago.
“
Free to blaze our own trail; free to make
our own mistakes.
”
Suzanne
’
s husband had just passed
away and, a few months earlier, Petra
’
s husband, Donny,
had gone into the Center City nursing home. But even as
Alzheimer
’
s had robbed Donny
’
s mind, it had ignited Pe
tra
’
s spunk and determination.

As a final coup de gr
a
ce, Toni
’
s slightly younger juve
nile delinquent husband, Junior, had up and left her for a
bar waitress with a head full of hot pink extensions.

That
’
s when a merciful God had smiled down, taken
pity, aligned the planets, and helped set gentle plans
in motion for the Cackleberry Club to be
—excuse the
pun—hatched.

The Cackleberry Club, a whitewashed, rehabbed Spur
station out on Highway 65 was a kitschy, quirky place.
With a decent kitchen installed, battered wooden tables
and chairs put in place, and legions of antique salt and pep
per shakers and ceramic chickens arranged on shelves, a
delightful little cafe with a tangle of wild roses out front
had emerged.