Murder, Basted and Barbecued Read online

  Murder, Basted and Barbecued

  by

  Constance Barker

  Copyright 2017 Constance Barker

  All rights reserved.

  Similarities to real people, places or events are purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  Red came galloping into the Old School Diner. Now, this was pretty unusual, since Red was 72 years old and usually pulling his oxygen tank behind him. But today, he was running. No oxygen, and no “Hidee ho” to all of the usual denizens of my quaint little café in the small town of Paint Creek, Kentucky.

  “Hey, Deloris! Fire up that dusty old TV,” he said excitedly, pointing to the little 12-inch 1960s Sylvania on top of the soda dispenser. “Hurry!”

  The tiny TV hadn’t seen much use since the moon landings, and now it usually just got turned on for a big Kentucky basketball game during March Madness.

  “Hold your horses there, Red,” Deloris groused. “Unless they’re announcing that this place is on fire, these old feet are going to be moving at my preferred pace – slow.” The pretty 62-year-old waitress leisurely meandered to the end of her post behind the counter as Red impatiently drummed his fingers on the worn Formica. She slid out the little step-stool she used for reaching high places and pulled out the stem of the missing ON knob.

  “Relax there, Red. Sit down,” Jake told his buddy. Jake was the 46-year-old owner of Carter and Son, our local construction and handyman company. “It’s going to take those old vacuum tubes a while to warm up. What’s all the fuss about, anyway?”

  “You’ll see,” he said with a sly grin, looking at his watch. “Put it on Channel 3, Deloris.”

  It was just about five o’clock and time for the early news.

  She shot Red one of her typical sarcastic looks. “Well, it’s either Channel 3 or snow, Red, since we only get one channel. You know that. You’re not going to be seeing HBO on our big-screen Jumbotron here any time soon. It’s always on Channel 3.”

  The distorted black and white image started to take form on the small dust-laden screen, and the intro graphics for the Live at Five newscast could be seen coming into focus. Babs, our short, round waitress who handled the tables and booths stood next to Jake, and I joined them there too. I’m Mercy Howard, and this is my little slice of paradise.

  “Turn it up, Deloris,” Red commanded. “There’s no sound.”

  Deloris didn’t usually take direct orders very well, but she could see Red was anxious to hear this, and she seemed to be a little curious too. She had shot down all of Red’s advances for years, but recently she had gone to a couple of movies and the county fair with him.

  “Smoke, get in here,” Red hollered through the food pass-through window to our cook in the kitchen.

  Smoke, aka Jerry Kowalski, was the 66-year-old cook who worked here for my grandfather when the diner first opened 50 years ago. He came out of the swinging doors, took off his paper hat, and followed Red’s finger toward the TV.

  Deloris pulled a metal emery board out of her beehive hairdo and slid the end of it into the slot at the end of the knobless all-purpose off/on volume shaft jutting out of the top of the TV. She gave it a crank. It was just in time to hear Clarice Andrews-Garcia start the first story:

  “Well, Kentucky, it looks like McLean County is going to finally get its fifteen minutes of fame. Chester Monsoon, the world-famous chef from EATS-TV, has selected our own Daniel Boone State Park as the site for this year’s prestigious Catch It & Cook It smoker and barbecue competition. A dozen of the world’s top outdoor chefs plus four lucky cooks from area restaurants will vie for this year’s coveted Silver Tongs Award. The winner also gets bragging rights that come with the title of World’s Best Outdoor Chef and a cash prize of fifty-thousand dollars from the popular cable network.”

  Smoke yawned and headed back to the kitchen as a few puffs of white smoke started to come through the food window. He hadn’t started a full-blown fire for more than a week now.

  “Where are you going, Smoke?” Red asked. “There’s an interview with Chef Monsoon coming up in a minute – I saw Talia Jones interviewing him in front of Rocco’s in Calhoun. They had a big Catch It & Cook It sign and network cameras, plus the local TV lady. That’s why I came flying in here.”

  “I gotta flip over Jake’s liver before it gets burnt, Henry,” he said to Red.

  “Why start doing things differently now, Smoke?” Jake chided him with a smirk on his face.

  Smoke gave him a good-natured scowl and stopped in front of the swinging kitchen doors to listen to Red, who was still pretty excited.

  “They’re going to tell you how to enter your name for the competition too, Smoke.”

  “Not necessary.” Smoke looked to see more smoke rolling through the window now.

  “What are you talking about? You’ve been dreaming about joining this contest for years – since Monsoon’s daddy, Chef Horatio, started this thing when we were kids.”

  “It’s not necessary because I put in my name three weeks ago, Henry. Sheriff Hayes brought me the form. I filled it out, and he sent it in for me.” Smoke disappeared into the kitchen as a burnt aroma began to waft into the dining room.

  Red finally sat on his usual stool in the middle of the counter looking a little dejected. “Well, it’s mighty neighborly of you all to keep me informed on important things like this,” Red said sarcastically, shaking his head. “Seems like I’m the last one to know everything around here.” He folded his hands on the counter in front of him and hung his head.

  “Oh, don’t look so pitiful, Red,” Deloris said, patting his hands with hers. “Smoke keeps things pretty close to the vest; you know how he is. I didn’t know either. Smoke!” she hollered to the cook.

  He poked his head through the window as he slid a plate onto the pass-through shelf. “What is it, Deloris? I’m cooking.”

  “How many people can you have on your team if you get picked?”

  “Four.”

  “Okay. Count me and Red in for sure. You’ll need us, especially since one of your meals has to be something you shoot. I get my deer every year, and no one can butcher a buck better than Red.”

  “Count me in too!” Babs said in her bubbly manner. “You need a hostess with the mostess.” She bounced around the end of the counter with a swaggering waggle of her shoulders. “That’s me!”

  It certainly was. Babs was always our little ray of sunshine, which was a pleasant contrast to Deloris’s sarcasm and faux grouchiness.

  “That sounds like a winning team to me!” I said loud enough for Smoke to hear in the kitchen. “I sure hope they accept you.”

  “Sheriff put in a good word for me, Mercy. But I couldn’t get him to threaten to shoot them if they didn’t pick me.”


  “Huh,” I said with a smile. “I guess you can’t count on your friends for anything these days.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Deloris said as she set the plate of liver and onions in front of Jake, “I’ll shoot a couple of them for you, Smoke. Here’s your liver, Jake, just the way you like it – burnt on one side and raw on the other.”

  Jake smile and shook his head. “It’ll eat.”

  Smoke was actually a top-notch chef. He started training under my grandfather here at the Old School when he was 16 and was a cook on a battleship in the South China Sea during the Vietnam War. He’d won quite a few awards and ribbons over the years and had a big write-up in the Sunday Magazine in the Louisville newspaper a few years back. He could be a little absent-minded sometimes when he had food on the grill, though, which is how he earned his nickname.

  Chapter Two

  The front door swung open and a young man with an armful of electronic audio equipment pulled it wide. Talia Jones walked in backwards, microphone in hand, talking to the camera that followed her. I looked up at the blurry TV image, and sure enough, the Old School Diner was live on the five-o’clock news!

  Smoke poked his head out of the food window to see what was going on, and I thought his eyes would pop out of his head when he saw Chef Chester Monsoon coming through the door.

  “We’re here at the Old School Diner in Paint Creek, Chef,” Talia said to Monsoon. “I understand you’re looking for someone you’d like to invite to join your smoker competition here in McLean County.”

  “That’s right, Talia.” Chester looked around the small diner and then toward the kitchen. “My Father, Chef Horatio Monsoon – the Cosmopolitan Connoisseur of Quaint Cuisine – stopped into this place with me 45 years ago, when I was just a boy, seven years old. A young soldier by the name of Jerry Kowalski came in the door while we were here, still in uniform as he returned from duty in Vietnam. Well, Dad wasn’t too impressed with the gravy on the turkey dinner and was thinking about putting in a mediocre review. But that young man, who was coming back for his job as a chef here, just smiled and said, “Give me 15 minutes, Chef. I’ll bring you a meal you’ll never forget. And, by golly, he did.”

  The swinging doors opened, and Smoke stepped through, looking very nervous and rigid. His paper hat was gone, and he was wearing a clean white chef’s uniform with buttons at the shoulder and a poufy white chef’s hat. His old blue jeans bagged over his beat-up Reeboks.

  “And, if I’m not mistaken, that is the man I’m looking for. Are you Jerry Kowalski, Chef?”

  Smoke’s eyes were huge. He nodded slowly, and the camera put a close-up of his face on the TV screen. Babs grabbed his arm and pulled him toward Talia and Chef Monsoon.

  “I’m Jerry, but everybody calls me Smoke.”

  “Well, sir – Chef Smoke,” Monsoon said, “I got your letter applying for my daddy’s contest, which I am proud to carry on today. Since you are a man that Chef Horatio admired, a Navy veteran, and a legend right here in Paint Creek, I’d like you to be the first one that I invite to compete for the title of World’s Best Outdoor Chef.”

  He handed Smoke a large white envelope. The camera moved to the envelope. Smoke took it as they shook hands and smiled for the camera. Babs was right between them, photobombing the exchange with her bright smile.

  “Hey, look!” Jake hollered from the counter. “Babs is on TV!”

  Talia liked to come to our little diner during campaign season to get the “pulse of America” on an upcoming election, so she knew who I was. “Miss Howard!” she called to me, still live on the air.

  I had to go over to her, and I had to smile. But, it was good PR for the restaurant.

  “As the owner of the restaurant that Chef Kowalski will represent, you are the manager of Team Smoke and will get 30 percent of the prize money if he wins. What would an extra fifteen thousand dollars mean to the Old School Diner?”

  That was all news to me. Manager? Bad idea. Big money? Hmm...not so bad.

  “Well, with that kind of money, we could finally give Smoke, uh, Chef Smoke, the kind of kitchen he deserves. We’re old school around here, as you can tell from our name, but a new oven and flame broiler would go a long way in making even better old-fashioned meals for our friends and neighbors, Talia.”

  I was glad when the TV crew finally left. I’m not really a fan of lights and cameras. Zack, Smoke’s teenaged protégé, was cooking so that Smoke could bask in the glory of the big honor and opportunity he had just been given. We were all at the big table on the end of the diner by the door.

  “So, what four people are you taking with you, Smoke?” Jake asked him. “Red and Deloris are two good ones, but you need two more. You need an organizer to hold it all together. I guess that’ll be Mercy. But you’ll need a pastry chef to whip up some tasty desserts, too.”

  “Ahem!” Babs said, her fists on her hips. She picked up some menus to bring to a table of people that just sat down, and stared at Jake. She had been chasing him for years and finally managed to get his attention and affection, if only once every week or two. “I already volunteered, Jakey. Are you saying my pies and muffins aren’t good enough for Catch It and Cook It?”

  He turned red and looked towards the door, like he was looking for someone. “Uh, no! No, Babs, your cooking and baking is the best. I love your muffins, sweetie pie.”

  Red chuckled and scratched his forehead. “I’ll bet you do, Jake. But it sure sounded like you were saying her desserts weren’t good enough for the big show.” He loved to stir the pot when got the chance.

  Jake’s son, Junior, walked in waving an envelope in his hand.

  “Did you get it, son?” Jake asked his partner, who was a 26-year-old version of his father – strong, not too tall, and with a round face and belly.

  Junior slapped the envelope in his hand and jumped up and kicked his heels together. “Got it right here, Pops! We got one of the twenty-five permits for a campsite across from the cooking competition.”

  “Hot dog! That’s what I was trying to tell you, Babsy. We’re going to be one of the amateur teams, and I need you on our team.”

  I looked at Jake, confused. “Amateur teams?”

  Red answered. “Haven’t you ever watched the smoker contest, Mercy? There are always a bunch of people who camp out nearby and have their own little unofficial cook-off. They each throw in hundred bucks or so, and the spectators who come out vote for whose food they like best over the four days by dropping ping pong balls in a barrel. Each team gets a number or letter, and the voters write it on the balls.”

  “Oh, that sounds like fun,” I said.

  “And since Smoke will be out there for five days,” Jake continued, “I figure Mercy can close down the diner here, and we can set up shop as the Old School Diner out there in the park. There’ll be hundreds of people there looking for good food, and there won’t be many folks around town here anyway.”

  “That’s not a half-bad idea, Jake,” I said. “I can have the restaurant cleaning company come in and give the place a good once-over. It’s time to degrease the hood and vent anyway.”

  Smoke’s brow was furled, and he had a troubled look on his face. “You might have to do double-duty, then, Babs,” Smoke said, rubbing his chin, “unless you know someone else who can bake up some blue-ribbon desserts for me.”

  “Hi, everyone!” My neighbor and best friend, Ruby Owana, bounced in the front door with a covered baking pan in her hand. “I saw the news on TV, and thought I’d run down to celebrate with you.” She took off her jacket and hung it over the chair next to me. “I was just taking my raspberry cobbler out of the oven, so I brought it with me. Help yourselves, and congratulations, Smoke!”

  She leaned across the table and gave Smoke a loud smooch on the cheek. Smoked turned a bright shade of red, as Ruby was young and the most beautiful woman in town. Since the day she moved in next door to me to be the new history teacher, I stopped asking my mirror on the wall who was the fairest
in Paint Creek.

  “What an honor, Smoke!” Ruby said as she pulled the foil off her cobbler. The aroma got everyone’s attention. “They aren’t even announcing the other winners till next week, and they invited you as part of their rollout today. Wow!”

  Deloris passed out small plates and forks, and she dished up a piece of the dessert for everyone.

  “You know, Babsy,” Deloris said to her good friend, “The team gets a cut of the purse. Smoke gets half, if he wins. That’s 25 thousand. Mercy gets 15, and the four team members share the other 10 thousand.”

  She gave a painful nod. “I know, but I have to help my Jakey.” She hugged his neck and kissed his cheek.

  Jake looked at his son. “Junior, go out to my truck and get the checkbook.” Junior went out the door, and Jake turned to Babs. “I hope a check is okay, Babs. I really need you on my team.”

  We all turned and looked at him as Junior came back in and handed him his checkbook.

  “Twenty-five hundred, right?”

  The stunned silence was deafening, and Jake looked at us as he tore off the signed check and handed it to the dumbfounded waitress.

  “What?” he said to our disbelieving faces. “I own a construction company. It’s no big deal. Come here and give me some sugar, Babs.”

  “Ooh,” she said, kissing his cheek again, “I feel like a princess!”

  “Yeah,” Delores said, coming back for more cobbler, “and you look like one too – Princess Leia with Jabba the Hut.”

  “But what will you do, Smoke?” Babs didn’t want to abandon her friend.

  Every head at the table turned toward Ruby. She made the best cookies I ever tasted, award winning pudding for the county fair, and this cobbler was amazing.

  “Ruby,” Smoke said looking at her with puppy dog eyes, “do you think you can bake up something like this in a brick oven or a covered grill outside?”

  “I can bake it under a car hood, if I have to. Why?”

  “You have to be my pastry chef for the cook-off.”