Cast Iron Motive (The Cast Iron Cooking Mysteries Book 4) (11 page)

“Give me a second,” she said with a grin. “I’ll be right back.”

Two minutes later, Staci came back carrying a large black foam tray, shrink-wrapped and loaded with my requested ribs. “Here you go.”

“Thanks. Do you mind if I ask you a personal question, Staci?”

“Go ahead. If I don’t like it, I’ll just ignore it,” she replied with a grin.

“How long have you been a butcher?” I asked out of curiosity.

“Oh, this isn’t my profession. It’s more of a hobby, really.”

Pat laughed beside me. “Really? It’s an interesting hobby to have.”

“For a girl, you mean?” she asked without a hint of malice in her voice.

“More like for someone your age,” Pat said.

“I’m not at all certain that’s any better,” Staci answered, still smiling. “Dad’s the butcher here normally, but he’s off hunting with my uncles, so I’m filling in. Usually I’m a dental hygienist at Dr. Pickering’s office, but she’s off this week as well, so I was free.”

“Is she hunting, too?”

“Maybe for a suntan in the Caribbean,” the girl said, laughing. “Dad wanted a son to join him in the trade, but my brother had no interest in the profession. Me, I took to it immediately. You should have seen me dissecting a frog in biology class. I’ve never been squeamish, so Dad offered to teach me, and I was happy just spending time with him.” She laughed. “That’s way more than you need to know, isn’t it? Enjoy those ribs.”

“We will,” I said as Pat and I walked away.

“I just love small towns,” he said. “You meet the most interesting people.”

“You can meet them in big cities, too,” I said.

“Maybe so, but they don’t often slow down long enough to tell you their life stories, especially over raw meat.”

“I guess that all depends on who you run into,” I answered. “Most folks have an interesting story to tell. They’re just not as open to sharing them as Staci is.”

“Then more folks should be like her,” Pat said. “Now, should we buy this stuff and head back to Della’s place?”

“We’d better. I have to do a preliminary seasoning on the Dutch oven before I start cooking with it, so we’d better get started if there’s any hope that we’re going to be eating tonight.”

“I vote for eating. Always. Not eating isn’t even an option, as far as I’m concerned.”

“Then let’s get to it.”

Chapter 13: Pat

“D
o you mind if we stop by the mayor’s office on the way back to Della’s?” I asked Annie after we loaded up our groceries.

“Why, do you want to get in another round of questioning before we start getting ready for dinner tonight?” she asked.

“No, but we’re going to need firewood for the seasoning, and I’d feel better asking him directly, even though Della said we had his permission. Besides, we still have to invite him to the meal,” I reminded her.

Annie looked at the clock on the dashboard before she answered me. “We can stop, but we can’t talk too long. I need to marinate the ribs, season the Dutch oven, and then get started on dinner.”

“It shouldn’t take long,” I assured her. I wasn’t about to get into another lengthy interview session if I could avoid it, but a lot of that depended on Davis and Serena. At least we didn’t have to worry about the meat going bad in the car. The temperature outside was cold enough to keep it safe for as long as we needed it to be.

When Annie and I walked into the mayor’s office in city hall, I was surprised to find Chief Cameron in deep conversation with Serena, the mayor’s secretary. For the life of me, it appeared that the two of them were conspiring together about something, exchanging whispers.

“Are we interrupting something?” I asked them both.

The police chief frowned the moment he saw us, but Serena’s reaction was more interesting. She began to blush, and then she tried to stammer out an explanation. “We were just…talking.”

“We could see that,” I said. “Was it about anything interesting?”

“You don’t have to tell him anything, Serena,” Chief Cameron told her.

“It’s not important. Chief, if you’re here to see the mayor, we’d be glad to wait our turn,” Annie said with her brightest and most insincere smile.

“No, thanks. I was just on my way out,” the police chief said. “Speaking of which, how long are you two planning on staying in Gateway Lake?”

“Why, do we need permission to hang around?” I asked him.

“Of course not. I know you need to get back to your store,” he said, “and I’d hate for something to happen to it while you were away.”

“No worries on that account,” I said, trying not to show any reaction to his tone of voice. “The place is in good hands.”

“Okay, then,” he said, and then he left, but not before he whispered something to Serena that I couldn’t quite make out.

“I didn’t realize you two were an item,” Annie asked her after the police chief was gone. “How long have you been dating?”

“We’re not dating,” she said a little indignantly. “What gave you that idea?”

“The fact that he was so protective of you just makes it look that way,” I said. I didn’t believe it any more than Annie did, but if we got Serena flustered, maybe she’d disclose something she wouldn’t want us to know.

“Cam is just a friend,” Serena said. After biting her lower lip for a moment, she said, “I’m afraid the mayor is awfully busy at the moment, but I’d be glad to pencil you in for sometime next week, if you’d like to come back.”

Before I could respond, Davis walked out of his office. “I thought I heard voices out here. Wasn’t Chief Cameron just here?”

“He left just a second ago. We thought he came by to see you,” I said.

“No, not that I know of,” the mayor said. “What brings you two by my office?”

“Mr. Mayor, don’t forget, you have that meeting with the Women’s Auxiliary.”

Davis glanced at his watch. “That’s not for half an hour. I have plenty of time to speak with these folks. Why don’t you both come into my office?”

“This won’t take long,” I assured him. “We’re here to invite you to a cookout tonight at Della’s place.”

“I’d be delighted to come,” he said, accepting before learning a single detail about the invitation. “Is there something I can bring?”

“How about firewood?” Annie asked. “We’re cooking ribs outside in a cast iron Dutch oven.”

“So, you need the wood for cooking,” he said.

“No, we’re using charcoal for that, but a fire would be useful for seasoning the iron. Besides, it will make it nicer for us as we cook, and Aunt Della did say that you made the offer earlier in the year.”

“Sure, grab all you want. It’s stacked up under the back deck, but you’re welcome to all that you can carry,” he said. “What time should I come by for the meal?”

“When you smell the ribs cooking, it’s time to come on over. If you need a more precise time than that, I’d say sometime around six would be fine,” Annie said.

“I’ll be there,” he said, and then his cellphone rang. After glancing to see who was calling him, he said, “Sorry, but I have to get this.”

After Davis walked back into his office, deep in conversation, he shut his door.

“That sounds like fun,” Serena said, trying to appear nonchalant.

“What’s that?” I asked her.

“A barbeque. I’ve never had cast iron ribs before. I bet they’re delicious.”

It was clearly a request for an invitation, but I wasn’t sure that we’d have enough food if she came. Besides, the dynamic might be a little odd if Della, the mayor, and his secretary were all there at the same time. I was about to say no when Annie surprised me.

“Sure, the more the merrier. Come by around six.”

I gave my sister an odd look, but before I could withdraw Annie’s invitation, she said, “I hate to just run off, but we’d better go. If you’d like to bring something, how about a dessert? Make it something decadent, okay?”

“I can do that,” she said, smiling at my sister.

Once we were back out at Annie’s car, I asked, “Would you mind telling me what that was all about?”

“Pat, there will be plenty of food. Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m not worried about the amount of food I’m going to get,” I said.

“Really?”

“Well, not just that. Why did you invite her?”

“How could we not?” Annie asked. “We can see firsthand how Serena reacts to Della and Davis together. I would have invited the police chief too if I’d thought about it when we saw him.”

“There’s still time,” I said sarcastically.

“You’re right. Let’s go find his office. It’s in the basement, isn’t it?”

“Are you serious?”

“Come on. Let’s make it a party. Do you think Gary White will come, too?”

“That’s where I’m drawing the line. Even with the police chief, we’ll have more people than we know what to do with.”

“Maybe you’ll get lucky and he’ll turn our invitation down,” Annie said.

No such luck, though. To my surprise and my sister’s delight, the police chief accepted as well. He hadn’t even had to mull it over.

“We’re going to need a bigger Dutch oven,” I said as we walked out to Annie’s car.

“Don’t forget, Aunt Della made a ton of food for lunch today. We can have a buffet
and
a campfire. Who knows? Maybe it will loosen some tongues if we bring out some wine, too.”

“You never know,” I said. “All of a sudden this has turned into a major production.”

“No worries, little brother. It will be fun.”

“I didn’t realize that we were doing this for our own amusement,” I told her.

“No, but it’s nice if it’s a bonus, don’t you think?”

We got back to Della’s, and while Annie took the food inside to start the marinating process with the ribs and barbeque sauce, I went next door to Davis’s place to get the promised firewood.

What I found under the mayor’s deck put our bonfire plans on hold, maybe indefinitely.

I could tell from the first glance that one piece of wood was different from the rest. Every other piece under the deck was split and seasoned firewood, but one was a rounded limb three inches thick, twice as long as the other pieces, and still green and covered with bark. I picked it up and was ready to throw it toward the back of the pile under the deck when I noticed two things about the limb: it had bits of hair clinging to one end of it, as well as some kind of manmade fabric strands.

Were the police wrong about what had knocked Cheryl Simmons out?

Was
this
the murder weapon instead of the flashlight they believed had been used?

“Annie, I need you right now,” I said when I called my sister next door.

“Can it wait? I’m almost finished marinating the ribs.”

“Rome is burning,” I said, our cue that something was indeed very wrong.

“Are you at Davis’s house?” she asked me, her voice suddenly cold.

“Yes.”

“I’ll be right there.”

My sister was as good as her word. Twenty seconds later, I heard Annie calling out from nearby, “Pat? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said.

She climbed beneath the deck, which was about four feet off the ground. Annie had to stoop over, but I was hunchbacked where I was. “What is it, Pat? What’s wrong?”

I showed her the length of wood in my hand. “Do you see what I see?”

I loved that my sister was so quick. “That’s what somebody used on Cheryl Simmons, not Aunt Della’s flashlight.”

“I agree. The real question is what should we do with it?”

“We have to tell Chief Cameron,” Annie said firmly.

“Do we? Are you absolutely sure about that?”

She frowned at me before she spoke again. “Pat, we can’t obstruct justice. This could be important.”

“We don’t even know with any certainty what it is,” I said.

“No, but we both have a pretty good idea, don’t we?”

“Is that enough, though? I agree, we need to tell the police chief about this. My question is, do we have to do it this exact second?”

“Are we going to just leave it here and pretend that we didn’t find it?” Annie asked me.

“Of course not. We’re taking it with us. I’m not going to take the chance that the killer might come back for it. At least not yet.”

“You have a plan, don’t you?”

“It’s more of an inkling at this point, Annie. We may be able to use this to our advantage, but if we turn it over to Cameron, we’re giving up the first real edge we’ve had since we started digging into this.”

“What if it could help him solve the murder?” my sister asked me.

“What if he’s the killer himself?” I countered.

“Do you honestly believe that the chief of police was stupid enough to throw this branch under here instead of straight in the water?”

“Who knows? Maybe something startled him, and he had to suddenly run from the murder scene. Throwing this into the water would just call attention to it, and he surely wouldn’t want to be caught with it red handed. What better place to hide a piece of wood than among other pieces of wood?”

“If he’s the one who did it, he’s going to suspect we found it, given the fact that we’re about to have a fire, and it isn’t here any more. Doesn’t that say we should leave it right here?”

“Again, I don’t want to take the chance of losing it. Is taking it ideal? No, but what choice do we have? This could be the piece of evidence that helps catch a killer.”

“I have another thought,” Annie said.