Murder Al Dente: A Southern Pasta Shop Mystery (Southern Pasta Shop Mysteries Book 1) (11 page)

"
And how exactly do I do that?" The question came out soft, breathy. He'd moved closer, and I studied his face, searching for something, though just like looking at the digital pictures, I wasn't exactly sure what.

Jones smiled down at me.
"If I figure it out, you'll be the first one to know."

His lips touched mine, just a gentle press, but there it was
. That sizzle of connection zipping up my spine. I leaned in closer, and his hands came up to cup my face. In that moment I knew what had been missing from my life, and it had nothing to do with proving myself to anyone else and everything to do with the gaping hole of need and fear yawning inside me.

Kissing Jones filled that dark pit and shone light into the furthest corners of my soul. Suddenly the world was a wonderful place to be and I was so grateful to be here, in this imperfect body, sharing this perfect moment with him.

The bell over the pasta shop jingled, and we broke apart reluctantly. "Can I help…?"

Turning, I saw Lizzy
's stricken face as she got an eyeful of me almost necking with her half-brother. Crud muffins, this wasn't going to be pretty.

"
You," she seethed and marched over to me. I barely had any time to react before she was in my face, hurling accusations. "Isn't it enough that you stole Kyle from me? Now you're seducing my brother! What the hell is wrong with you?"

Jones, probably afraid there would be a catfight
, gripped her shoulder and called her name, trying to get her attention. She shrugged him off, otherwise ignoring him, dead set on coming after me. This fight was a long time in coming.

I squared my shoulders and tried to look down my nose at her, an expression Pops had always pulled off so well. Wasn
't easy when she had two inches on me, but I had righteous indignation on my side. "Actually, he's the one seducing me, and if you don't mind I'd like to get back to it."

For a moment, I thought I actually saw smoke billow from her nostrils. My calm affectation definitely had her blood pressure up.

"Lizzy," Jones tried again. "Why are you so upset?"

She turned to him, giving me her profile.
"Because I'm the only one who sees how horrible she is! Andy gets whatever she wants, and then she messes it all up! She ruins everything she touches! Kyle was a wreck for
years
after she left, and now that she's back he's acting strange again! It's  so wrong, and I don't want to see the same thing happen to you?"

Ouch. I sank onto a bar stool, all the starch oozing out of my spine.
Melodramatic as it was, her little speech struck a chord in me.
Ruins everything she touches…

"
Get her out of here." Pops ordered from the doorway between the pasta shop and Aunt Cecily's apartment. "Don't come back until you can apologize to my granddaughter, missy."

"
Your laptop," I tried to close out the program but Jones waved me off.

"
I'll come back for it in the morning. I'm sorry Andrea—I better see her home," Jones murmured. Lizzy seemed to collapse inward once she spoke her piece, and with one broad arm around her, he ushered her out into the night.

Pops and I stared at one another, listening as the engine for Jones
's SUV turned over and he reversed out of the parking lot.

"
Well, that was fun." I made the sarcastic offering, but my tone came out flat.

"
Andy girl," Pops started, but seemed at a loss.

"
Save it, Pops. I'm fine." Or I would be, eventually. Standing up, I closed out Jones's laptop and began unloading the massive vats full of leftovers from the counter. "What do we do with all this stuff?"

"
I've been donating it to St. Bart's. They sponsor a shelter for needy families."

Sounded like a good idea to me. I helped pack up the food, wash out the pots and pans and
, since the van was still in police custody, we loaded up the Town Car. Aunt Cecily was nowhere to be seen, so I locked up. "Do you know where Aunt Cecily went?"

Pops didn
't meet my gaze. "Could be anywhere."

Such a shame that those two couldn
't get along better. The best times when I was growing up were when we all got together for Sunday dinner, Nana and Aunt Cecily busy in the kitchen, Pops watching baseball in the living room, me and Kyle making out on the back porch swing, the sounds of night peepers breaking up the stillness.

Ruins everything she touches.

Nope, I was going to take my cues from another Southern Belle and think about that tomorrow. If at all.

The shelter was off county road thirty
-six, just down the way from St. Bart's, the largest Catholic Church in three counties. Here in the land of the Baptist, the Catholic churches were fewer and farther in between. Both Nana and Aunt Cecily had been Catholic, even though Nana had married a protestant. Still, she'd dragged first my mother, and then me, to church at St. Bart's for Mass every Sunday. Nana had wanted me to go to CCD class, get confirmed, and be a good Catholic, but my mother had done all that, and I didn't want to follow in her footsteps. I was happier keeping my relationship with the Almighty between myself and God, no outsourcing required.

"
Ho there, Irene!" Pops called out.

Irene? Who was Irene? I didn
't recognize her until she circled around in a shiny black Lexus. Irene Tillman, Lizzy's mother.

"
Eugene, good to see you." Mrs. Tillman smiled warmly at Pops and me. "You too, Andy."

"
You're here almost every night lately," Pops remarked as he unloaded a huge metallic warming bin.

Mrs. Tillman nodded a conformation.
"After what happened at the engagement party, I don't like being at the house by myself. Lizzy has taken to spending all her time with Kyle, and I just need to be with people." She shuddered visibly. "Here, let me give you a hand with that.

Ignoring her cream sheath dress, she juggled a platter of meatballs and her purse
.

"
Well, these folks sure do appreciate all that you do." Even my gruff old grandfather admired Beaverton's paragon of goodness and light. I'd heard him call her a "class act" on more than one occasion, a category he usually reserved just for Nana.

Carrying the first load of food, we trudged down the stone steps to the shelter. Though the place was packed full to bursting, it was eerily quiet, as though the souls within were too beaten down to make much noise oth
er than the requisite sounds of life. Big folding tables had been lined up, and men, women, and most depressingly, children, sat waiting for their turn to eat.

As I watched a little girl hug a grubby stuffed giraffe, suddenly my problems
, though they were many, didn't seem so big. At least I had a roof over my head and a hot meal any time I wanted it. I had family to turn to and even a glimmer of hope that things would someday get better. I had to give Irene credit for coming face to face with this sort of despair every day, because I doubted I could handle it.

After the truck was unloaded, Pops donned gloves and a hair net and set to serving the food. I helped for a while
, but once everyone was served I itched to get out of there. Sensing my mood, Pops told me to take a break, and I trudged up the stairs. Though I didn't have a specific goal in mind when I started out, my feet carried me down the hill between the shelter and the Church itself and under the stone arch that led to the cemetery,

The wind picked up, whipping my hair into my face. I hadn
't been here since Nana's funeral. I hadn't been back to Beaverton for more than an overnight stay, and I'd told myself there wasn't time for this particular trip. But seeing Zoltan Farnsworth's lifeless body sprawled on the floor had shaken up my priorities. Life was too short to fixate on all the crap that went sideways. Failure and humiliation were a part of life, but somehow I'd made them the focus of my existence, dismissing my accomplishments.

The newer gravesites sat in the northwest corner of the cemetery
were my family's plot sat beneath a leafless dogwood. Two markers held wreaths made of spring flowers. Aunt Cecily came every Sunday after Church and every Wednesday after Bible study to tend the graves of her sister and her niece, who had been the closest thing she'd ever had to a daughter.

I knelt beside my mother
's grave marker, unsure of what to say. My memories of her were foggy at best, and recalling her before illness had eaten away at a once healthy body took some doing. Too many of those earlier times involved my father, and I didn't want to think about him, the coward. My anger had no place here.

Her grave marker was simple, elegant, much like the fifty-eight year old woman she would be if she had lived.
Sofia Maria Buckland, beloved mother and daughter, an angel on Earth.
No mention of her as a wife, since my father had been long gone by the time of the funeral.

"
Hi, Mom." Well, it was a place to start, dopey though it sounded. "Sorry I don't visit more. Honestly, I don't really want you to know how I'm doing because in truth, I'm scared you'd be disappointed."

I laugh hollowly. Emotions roiled inside me like a churning sea, volatile and capable of serious damag
e. "A shrink would have a field day with me for sure. Don't blame Nana and Pops—they did the best they could with what they were given. I'm just a mess. And not even a hot mess." Another laugh bubbled up. Better to laugh than cry, right?

"
I thought I'd find you here." Pops stood over me.

"
You move pretty darn stealthily for an old guy." My attempt at levity fell flat.

"
It's okay to be angry with her, Andy girl," he said quietly. "I'm angry with your Nana for leaving me."

I just
shook my head. He didn't get it, and I didn't expect him to because I barely understood myself. "You know what I need? A drink."

Pops nodded.
"Good idea. Where to?"

Several bars fell inside the city limits of
Beaverton. The country club had the ritziest, naturally, a place where Lizzy and Kyle and maybe even Jones would hang out. Shaggy's was the requisite dive bar, nestled between the police station and a bail bond office, like one-stop shopping. Get drunk and stupid, get arrested, and be bonded out all in one trip. How very eco-green.

"
Let's go to O'Dell's." I suggested the middle ground bar, a dark tavern-type atmosphere that served food as well as beverages.

The drive back into town was quiet. The street lamps we
re on and the businesses locked up tight. I squirmed in my seat, uncomfortable that Pops continued to ignore the elephant in the backseat. "You heard about Chef Farnsworth."

He grunted
in acknowledgment.

"
I knew him, and from what I saw he was a rat bastard."

"
Did you tell the police?"

"
Yeah."

"
Do you know who killed him?"

"
No."

Pops pulled
into the gravel parking lot, shut off the engine, and looked over at me. "So?"

I ble
w out a sigh. "So nothing. I've got nothing here." As usual.

"
Come on, Andy girl. First round is on me."

Ham and Linguini with Peas

What you
'll need:

1/2 sweet or yellow onion

1/2
cup water

1/2
cup milk

1 chicken bouillon cube

1 tablespoon of flour

3
tablespoons half and half

2
cups cooked ham sliced into thin strips or cubed

2 cups c
ooked peas or broccoli for color

8 ounces
cooked linguini

2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil

Grated Parmesan or Romano cheese for sprinkling

Sauté the onion in a little olive oil until tender. In a small bowl, mix 1 tablespoon of flour with the milk. Boil the water and add the bouillon cube to make broth. Then add the milk to the mixtur
e
.
Pour over cooking onion slowly so no lumps form. Cook until thickened, adding half and half to create cream sauce. Add ham and cooked veggie of your choice until heated through. Add linguini and serve topped with grated cheese.

**Andy's note: Substitute half and half for the milk for a richer, creamier flavor.

The pasta shop was hopping the next day. With Thanksgiving fast approaching and with me being without a doubt the talk of the town, the pasta shop was crazy busy. Emphasis on the crazy, as Pops and Aunt Cecily bickered nonstop and in public. Maybe it wasn't professional, but it was entertaining and a trip to the Bowtie Angel was like dinner and a show. With a little distance I might see how funny their nonstop foibles had become to the outside observer who didn't have to make the pasta on the sly. There was a lesson to be learned from the response of the town. Despite my reputation as Andy the Death Chef, people didn't seem worried that I was cooking for them. Beaverton on the whole didn't hold a grudge, and neither should I.