Nacho Average Murder

Book 7: Country Store Mystery

by Maddie Day

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Female Sleuths; Culinary Cozy Mysteries

Synopsis

Robbie Jordan is temporarily leaving Pans 'N Pancakes, her country store in South Lick, Indiana, to visit Santa Barbara, California—where wildfire smoke tinges the air, but a more immediate danger may lie in wait . . .

While looking forward to her high school reunion back in California, Robbie's anticipation is complicated by memories of her mother's untimely death. At first, she has fun hanging out with her old classmates and reuniting with the local flavors—avocados, citrus, fish, and spicy Cali-Mex dishes. But then she gets wind of rumors that her mother, an environmental activist, may not have died of natural causes. With the help of friends, Robbie starts clearing the smoke surrounding the mystery—but what she finds could make it hard to get back to Indiana alive . . .

Release date: June 30, 2020

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 336

Sample

Like Dorothy in Oz, I definitely wasn’t in Indiana anymore. At least the Wicked Witch hadn’t shown up. Yet.

The sun had just dipped into the Pacific Ocean, and a mild Santa Barbara breeze shooshed through tall palm trees. Mellow jazz slid out of speakers in a spacious function hall facing the water with glass doors open to a wide patio. The Chumash High School tenth reunion committee had organized every detail. I sipped a glass of pinot noir from a winery located less than an hour’s drive away in the Santa Ynez Mountains behind us, and nervously adjusted my favorite turquoise shoulder bag. So far I hadn’t seen anybody I really wanted to hang out with tonight. But people were still coming in, and I knew Alana Lieberman would be here, my bestie and constant companion from our high school days.

I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to see a different former classmate.

“Robbie Jordan!” Jason Wong said. “What a surprise. I thought you moved back east somewhere.”

I looked up at my slender friend. “Jason, it’s awesome to see you. Indiana is east of here, for sure, but nearly half the country is beyond it.” I’d had the same notion when I was growing up here on the West Coast. We all considered anywhere on the other side of the Rocky Mountains to be “back east.” “I wouldn’t miss this reunion for anything.”

He lowered his voice. “I heard about your mom, Rob. I’m so sorry.”

I smiled at the nickname he and Alana had called me by. “Thanks. It’s been two years now. I still miss her, especially being back in all the familiar places.” I blew out a breath and drew my light sweater a little closer around me. The sleeveless flowered dress I’d chosen wasn’t quite warm enough for the evening, and I was glad I’d brought the wrap. “What are you up to?”

“I’m a proud member of the SBPD.” He pushed up his glasses.

“The police department?”

“Yes. I’m kind of their tech detective. Some of the older guys, well, they’re not really up on digital anything. I investigate cybercrime, Internet forensics, the works.”

“That’s awesome. Or what did we say? That’s sick.” We’d been on math team together and had been buddies all through high school.

He snorted. “Good thing that phrase went the way of the dodo. So what do you do in Iowa?”

“Jason, it’s Indiana. You’re such a Californian. Anyway, I own a country store. I have a breakfast-and-lunch restaurant downstairs, B-and-B rooms upstairs, and an apartment at the back of the building. It’s a pretty sweet setup.”

“So the crossword queen goes all proprietor on us. I like it.”

“I do, too.” I glanced at the ID on his lanyard, which featured his senior picture. “Man, you look twelve in that photo.”

He pointed at mine. “And you don’t?”

“What can you do?” I shook my head. “Are you married? Have kids?”

“No to both. Going to college and then making it through the academy took up all my time. Still hoping to settle down, though. You?”

“I had a brief but disastrous marriage right after college. Now I’ve found a solid boyfriend, but that’s as far as we’ve gotten.”

“Glad you snagged a good man.”

I was, too. Abe O’Neill was as good as they come. I looked around. Clumps of classmates, all of us nearly thirty, stood talking, laughing, reconnecting. Sure, people were cleaned up and in nice clothes, but everybody still seemed to be in pretty good shape. I idly mused on what we would look like in forty years at our fiftieth reunion. More paunch, for sure. Plus gray, dyed, or no hair, depending.

An arm went around my shoulder. “Hey, girlfriend. Whassup?” Alana said.

I twisted to see her. “Hey, you!” I threw both arms around her for a long-overdue embrace. We pulled apart to stand grinning stupidly at each other. She’d been my puzzling friend, my biking companion, and my confidante. I’d moved east and she’d slid north to Berkeley to put her doctorate in biochemistry to good use in some high-powered lab. Despite keeping in touch online, we hadn’t seen each other in person since graduation.

“You guys need to get a room or something?” Jason elbowed me.

“Shut UP, Wong.” My petite friend exchanged fist bumps with him. “How you been? Keeping the city safe?” She wore her auburn hair in a no-nonsense ear-length cut, as usual, and tonight she’d dressed in a green silk top and loose dark pants. Alana had never been one for skirts.

“Doing what I can,” he said. “Have you figured out a cure for cancer?”

“Working on it.” Alana told him.

“Really?” I asked.

She gave a little shrug. “Robbie, you know there are all kinds of cancers. But, yes, we are micro-millimetering our way closer to—”

A fingers-in-the-mouth whistle split the air. We turned toward the side of the room where a woman stood. I looked again. It was Katherine Russom, not my favorite person from our school days. The buzz of conversation quieted.

She waved both hands in the air. “Welcome to our tenth Chumash reunion, everybody! You’ve all got your name tags, so don’t hesitate to go find your former best friend or worst enemy and tell them how much better they look now.” She paused, clearly expecting a laugh. When nothing more than a polite smattering of chuckles resulted, she flicked back shoulder-length blond hair and continued. “We did pretty well getting nearly a hundred of you here out of a class of two hundred and fifty. Who came from farthest away?”

I surveyed the room. On the other side of the crowd a man waved his hand. He was tall enough that I could see dark hair already starting to recede.

“Sydney, Australia.”

“Wow. Let’s give it up for Joe Abrams.” Katherine clapped. “Anybody from back east?”

Jason pointed to my head, so I raised a hand. “It’s only halfway back, but Indiana.”

Katherine peered. “Robbie Jordan?” Her mouth twisted like she’d tasted a moldy tortilla.

“Hi, everybody,” I called out. “It’s great to be back.” Mostly.

Katherine cleared her throat. “The buffet is all ready, so load up a plate. We have a killer entertainment lined up after dinner.”

Jason glanced at me and murmured, “If she’d ever encountered a real killer, she wouldn’t use the word so lightly.”

“No kidding,” I said. “Alana knows this, but you probably don’t. I’ve been involved in solving several homicide cases in the last couple of years.”

He raised a surprised eyebrow. “No way, Rob. Truth?”

“Truth.”

Alana nodded. “She told me about at least one of the cases. The guy in the ice?” She shivered. “That sounded like a nightmare.”

“It kind of was,” I agreed. “Small-town life isn’t always the quiet, cozy existence people think it must be.”

“Even here in paradise”—Jason gestured to the rose-colored clouds and white sand outside the doors—“we aren’t immune to crime.”

I shook my head slowly. “No, I bet you aren’t.”

The buffet food was way better than I’d expected. The chef presented a creamy lime-chili-cilantro treatment on the halibut, a light Asian dressing on a soba noodle salad studded with slivers of colorful vegetables, and flaky empanadas with a cheesy chicken filling. A perfectly Californian meal. The wines were from Los Olivos and the bartender also had two taps from the Telegraph Brewing Company on offer.

As we ate, Jason, Alana, and I caught up with several other classmates at our table, all of whom had stayed in the area. Nobody had brought spouses or significant others, and only one had started a family.

When Alana used her left hand to lift her wineglass, I caught a flash of starlight. “Give me that hand,” I demanded.

She blushed and extended it, the fourth finger of which was adorned with a fat diamond on a slender gold band.

“When?” I asked in mock anger. “Who? And how didn’t I know this?”

“Hey, it’s not like I’ve had a chance to tell you,” Alana said. “His name is Antonio Lacambria, we work together, and we don’t have a date yet.” Her smile was sweeter than homemade peach ice cream. “He only asked me a couple of weeks ago.”

“Congratulations, Al,” I said with a stupid grin. “I’m really happy for you. Is he Italian?”

“Yes. His parents are Jews from Rome, but Antonio was born in San Francisco.”

“Your marriage linen monogram will be perfect for both of you,” I said. “A–L.”

“Not that we’re the monogram type,” Alana scoffed. “But yeah, we happen to share initials. Kind of perfect, in my mind.”

Jason lifted his drink. “To Mrs. Al.”

The three of us clinked glasses and our classmates across the table raised theirs, too. Alana gave us more details about her freshly minted fiancé for a few minutes while we dined.

Katherine, making the rounds greeting each table, approached us. “How’s everything, kids?” A cloud of perfume came with her, way too strong for my taste.

“The food is outstanding,” I began.

“Thank you. I selected the city’s hottest young chef.”

Jason cleared his throat. “Katherine, I thought the committee did the selection.”

She lifted her chin and waved away his correction. “Of course, of course. Robbie, I expect you don’t get much of interest to eat back there in Ohio.”

My new mantra seemed to be geographical correction. “It’s Indiana. And we happen to have some excellent chefs in the area.”

“Robbie’s a chef, herself,” Jason said.

“I heard you were a short-order cook.” Katherine pushed a strand of hair lightly off her temple with a ring-free left hand.

I smiled at her. How else to defuse this grudge she’d apparently been harboring for more than a decade? I didn’t care what she thought of me. I was happy and supporting myself doing what I loved. “And what do you do?”

“I run a wedding planning company. We handle all the details, right down to the bridesmaids’ shoes.”

Alana regarded her. “You’d be good at that stuff.”

“I enjoy it,” Katherine said. “You still burying yourself in a lab, Alana?”

“Quite happily so, yes.” She tilted her head and gave Katherine a little smile. “You didn’t much care for lab classes, did you?”

I shot a glance at Alana. I knew what she meant. She’d been paired with Katherine for an experiment in biology class once, and had reported back that Katherine hadn’t done any of the work.

“No, I didn’t.” Katherine blinked. “So why didn’t your buddy Zoe show tonight, Robbie?”

Right. I hadn’t spotted my childhood friend Zoe Stover here. “I haven’t seen her in years, Katherine. I have no idea why she didn’t come.”

Katherine rolled her eyes a touch, as if she didn’t believe me.

“She didn’t register for the reunion?” I asked.

Katherine shook her head.

“Do you still play beach volleyball?” Alana asked her. “You were pretty competitive at that, as I recall.”

“Still am. Our team wins nearly every game.” Katherine mimed a serve, making the muscles in her tanned bare upper arm stand out. “We have pickup games every Friday, if any of you are interested.”

I certainly wasn’t. Get into a game I’d never been good at with someone who preferred to win? Not for me.

Katherine gazed at the others at the table. “If any of you need my services, you know where to find me. Enjoy the evening.” She headed for the next table.

“Didn’t she marry Bill Lombard?” Jason asked the group. “I wouldn’t think she’d be the type not to change her name.”

The woman next to him, a former cheerleader, leaned closer. “She did, with a wedding straight out of central casting and several hundred guests. But the marriage only lasted a year. She dropped Bill’s name like a ghost chile and went back to Daddy’s.”

The strum of an electric guitar caught everybody’s attention. “Good evening, Chumashers! Ready for some music?” The guitarist and his four fellow musicians had been in a garage band in high school, and it looked like they were having a reunion themselves. “We’re the Boffo Barnacles and we’re going to entice you onto the dance floor. Get set to pull out your best high school moves.”

They launched into a song by Katy Perry.

“My best high school moves were standing with my back to the wall watching everybody else dance.” Jason laughed, shaking his head.

“Mine was not even going to the dances,” I said.

“Come on, Rob.” He stood. “Let’s give it a try, anyway.”

“Sure. I’m way beyond caring what anybody thinks of my dance style.”

Jason and I danced most of the next hour, with Alana joining us for a few songs. At one point the band switched to oldies and somebody brought out a limbo stick. My low center of gravity and bicyclist’s power thighs got me in the final three as the stick went lower and lower, but I finally fell over sideways. I laughed and scrambled out of the way of a nimble and still-petite former gymnast who ended up the winner.

After the music switched to a more Latin beat, Hector Perez approached me, a guy I hadn’t known well at high school. He’d been on the dance floor since the music started, and the dude had moves worthy of the contestants on Dancing with the Stars.

“Robbie, right?” he asked. His dark hair curled onto his neck, and an open-collar black shirt was snug on his uber-fit torso.

“Hi, Hector. How are you?”

“Great.” He flashed me a white smile. “Would you like to dance?”

I accepted. I proceeded to have the dance of a lifetime, despite never having partnered with anyone during a salsa number. The man knew how to lead. With subtle pressures of his hands on mine, gently steering me in the right direction, his gaze locked on my face all the while wearing a sweet half-smile, I felt like the modern Latin version of Ginger Rogers. I didn’t step on his feet once.

After the song ended, he thanked me and gave a little bow. He went off to ask another woman for the next number. I took a deep breath and headed smiling for the drinks table to grab a glass of water.

When the band took a break, Katherine summoned us all for a class picture. “You remember the drill. Tall dudes in the back, middles in the middle row, shorties in the front. Oh, and class officers in the middle of the first row.”

Jason and I exchanged a look. He rolled his eyes. “Madam former president needs to get a life.”

I bobbed my head in agreement but went to claim a place in the first row, being all of five foot three when I stood up real straight. Somehow I ended up near the middle next to Katherine, despite my not having held office.

The photographer stood on a chair in front of us, calling out adjustments for people to move a little to their left or right. “Remember, if you can’t see me, I can’t see you.”

Katherine muttered through her smile, “I’ve never forgiven you, you know.”

I turned to stare at her. “What? Forgiven me for what?”

“Smile at the camera, Robbie.”

I obeyed, but my brain was in overdrive. She couldn’t still be mad about—

“All eyes up here,” the photographer instructed, waving her hand next to her head. “Happy cheese!” She took a half dozen shots. “It’s a wrap. Thanks, gang. The committee will have the best shot within the week.”

Katherine began talking to the person on her other side. I started to extend my hand to touch her elbow, to ask her what she meant. I dropped it instead. I expected I’d never see her again after tonight. What happened back then didn’t matter to me. And if she wanted to nurse an old hurt, imagined or real, it was her business, not mine.

My internal clock was still set to Eastern Standard Time since I’d flown in only the previous day. I awoke at three a.m. the next morning, plagued by thoughts of what had gone down at the reunion. The only thing I could think of between Katherine and me was the time Bill Lombard had asked me on a date. I knew she’d had her eye on him because she’d talked about her crush in gym class. He and I hadn’t become a thing, and she’d gone on to snatch him up. And then they’d apparently gotten divorced, which certainly had nothing to do with me. I’d gotten married and divorced myself.

I managed to slip back into dreamland after an hour, only aroused at seven thirty by the aromas of coffee, bacon, and something baking drifting upstairs to my B-and-B room. A quick shower later, I locked my room. I headed for the stairs, ready to sample whatever was on the menu for breakfast. Or inhale it, as the case may be. The Nacho Average Café was already hopping when I walked in.

“Good morning, Robbie,” proprietor Carmen Perez called out from the pass-through window to the kitchen in the back. “Sit wherever you’d like.”

“Thanks.” I slid into a seat at a two-top near the front window. I smiled to myself at her name. Carmen was the nickname I’d given my phone.

The decor here was delightfully Cali-Mex, with hues of red, orange, and green predominating. Mexican folk-art murals decorated the walls, and a dozen papier-mâché angels and clothed Day of the Dead skeletons were suspended from the ceiling. The cloth napkin at my setting was red, too. A glass door opened onto a patio dining area, where a rosemary bush the size of a sea lion grew next to the low fence and ripe oranges hung from the glossy-leaved tree just beyond. Nope, not in Indiana. The only familiar bit was a tuxedo cat snoozing in a spot of sun on the paving stones outside. He could have been my Birdy’s twin.

I perused the menu, eyes widening at the mention of avocado huevos rancheros and orange scones. My stomach growled out loud. I glanced around, but none of the other two dozen diners appeared to have heard. Some wore running outfits, and a couple on the patio had a leashed golden retriever sitting under their table.

“Coffee?” Carmen appeared at my side, pot of java in hand. “Did you sleep well?” In her fifties, she wore a long salt-and-pepper braid down her back—but with a streak dyed bright red decorating the right side. She’d tied an orange apron featuring the café’s logo around her comfortable figure.

“Coffee, please. And, considering jet lag, I did all right in the sleep department.”

“Good.” She filled my mug. “How was your reunion last night?”

“Wonderful. Truly. I caught up with a number of old friends.” I cocked my head, thinking. “Wait. Do you have a son named Hector?”

“Yes, of course.” High beams had nothing on Carmen’s smile. “He told me he was going.”

“I didn’t connect your name with him before. We weren’t close in school, but man, can Hector ever dance. I have no idea how to officially dance salsa, and he made me feel like I’d been doing it for years. Best dance I’ve ever had.”

“That’s Hector’s passion, but he’s a chef, too, you know.”

“Really?”

“He went to culinary school instead of college. He’s worked a few places, but now he has a food truck at the harbor.”

“Awesome. I’ll have to check it out this week.” I pointed to the cat. “What’s his name?”

“Pajarito.” She pronounced it pa-ha-REE-toh, trilling the r like the native Spanish speaker she was.

“Little bird?”

“Yes.”

“I have his twin, and his name is Birdy. Does yours have six toes?

“He does. That’s amazing.”

“Right?” I glanced around the room. “I love the decor here, Carmen.”

“Thanks. I do, too.” She set one fist on her waist and smiled. “It was Jeanine who suggested decorating the restaurant like this after I bought the building.”

My eyes widened. “You knew my mom?”

“I sure did. We were in the Unitarian women’s book group together. I . . .