The Trouble with Murder

Book 1: Gourmet Cat Mystery

by Kathy Krevat

Genres: Craft & Hobby Cozy Mysteries; Culinary Cozy Mysteries

Synopsis

Single mom and gourmet cat food entrepreneur Colbie Summers thought she’d escaped her tiny California hometown forever. But when her father needs her, she packs up her adolescent son, their finicky feline, Trouble, and her budding business. She knows change is tough—but she doesn’t expect it to be murder . . .
 
Between dealing with her newly rural life, her grumpy, sports-obsessed father, and preparing to showcase her products in the local Sunnyside Power Mom’s trade show, Colbie has more on her plate than she bargained for. Luckily, she has her official taste-tester, Trouble, by her side to vet her
Meow-io Batali Gourmet Cat Food line. Things look promising—until one of the Power Moms is found dead—with an engraved Meow-io specialty knife buried in her chest.
 
As the prime suspect, Colbie needs paws on the ground to smoke out who had means, motive, and opportunity among the networking mothers—including a husband-stealing Sofia Vergara lookalike. And the cat’s still not out of the bag when a second violent death rocks the bucolic community. Trouble may have nine lives, but Colbie’s only got one to clear her name and stop a killer from pulling off the purr-fect crime . . .

Release date: December 12, 2017

Publisher: Lyrical Press

Print pages: 304

Sample

Chapter 1

A chicken rang the doorbell.

I stood in the open doorway, a little dumbfounded, and stared down at the beige bird with a mop of floppy feathers on its head that looked like a hat. The kind of hat women wore as a half joke to opening day at the horse races. How could it even see through that thing? And did it really just ring the doorbell?

Braving the mid-morning heat of Sunnyside, California, inland from downtown San Diego by twenty miles and what felt like twenty degrees hotter, I stuck my head out and looked up and down my dad’s street. No teens were hanging around, giggling over their prank.

The chicken ruffled its whole body as if to say, “Yes, it was me.” The you idiot was implied by the way it poked his beak toward me and then scratched its feet on the wooden porch floor.

“Right.” I spoke out loud. To a chicken. I had to get out of the house more.

I’d been up since four in the morning, grinding various chicken parts and cooking them for my organic cat food business, and I was already tired. Maybe this was a poultry hallucination brought on by exhaustion. Or induced by guilt.

Maybe this was the king of the chicken underworld, seeking retribution for what was going on in my kitchen.

I shook my head. I had to stop reading so many of those horror novels my bloodthirsty twelve-year-old son, Elliott, couldn’t get enough of.

My dad shuffled over to stand beside me, tugging his bathrobe tighter around his waist. “Hey, Charlie,” he said.

I raised my eyebrows. He was talking to a bird too. “A boy bird?” I asked. Was that really the most important thing about the chicken on our doorstep?

The chicken ignored both of us, now finding the railing fascinating enough to peck.

“Of course he’s a boy bird,” he said, his Boston accent coming through. “He’s one of Joss’s Buff Laces.”

“What?”

“His chickens. This is a Buff Laced Polish chicken,” he said. “Look at that comb.”

“Comb?” I asked.

“That foofy thing on the top of his head,” he told me.

The comb in question was quite remarkable, but what did I know about chickens?

“How did it, he, make it to the doorbell?” I thought chickens didn’t fly. Wasn’t that the whole point of them? Food that can’t fly away?

“Charlie was owned by some shrink at a college or something,” he said, his normal morning mad-scientist hair almost matching the bird’s.

As if to demonstrate, Charlie flapped his wings, getting enough lift to hop onto the planter with some drooping lavender in it. He stretched out his neck to poke his beak at the doorbell. It took a few tries but then he got it, tilting his head as though he was listening to the “Yankee Doodle” tune that made me grind my teeth every time I heard it, and then hopped down, looking up at me expectantly.

Maybe this one was some kind of X-Games chicken.

“Does he want a treat?” I asked my dad.

Then my cat, Trouble, gave a low warning snarl that Charlie seemed to recognize because he turned around and fluttered down the steps in half-flight-half-run. I grabbed Trouble just as she was about to chase after the poor bird, and handed her to my dad. “Take her,” I said. “I’ll make sure Charlie gets home.”

Trouble had been an apartment cat and hadn’t been very curious about the outside world until we moved out of the city to my dad’s house. Now we had to make sure she didn’t escape every time we opened a door.

My dad held Trouble with his hands outstretched, looking unsure. Which was probably because she was still in full battle mode and swatted at me as soon as she could twist around in his arms, screeching, “Let me at ’em.”

Not really, but I knew what she meant.

“She’ll calm down in a minute,” I told my dad as I dashed after the chicken.

Charlie was sticking to the sidewalk, but headed in the opposite direction from his home. After the doorbell stunt, I imagined he knew his way around town. But it wasn’t up to me to keep him safe on an adventure. I just wanted to get him back to his pen.

Within seconds, I was dripping with sweat and regretting not grabbing my sunglasses. The glare of the mid-morning sun irritated my eyes that already felt scratchy from lack of sleep.

I ran in front of Charlie and attempted to sheep-dog him back the other way. He scooted around me.

“Damnit,” I said, and hustled to get past him. He must have decided it was a race because he started running, determined to reach his goal, whatever that was.

I got in front of him, my huffing and puffing making me realize I should get back to the gym, and yelled, “Shoo!” while waving my arms like a…like a chicken.

He came to a stop in the most theatrical, wings flapping, squawking protest the world had ever seen, and reversed course.

“Drama queen,” I said, hoping he didn’t keep up the complaining all the way back. I hadn’t yet met our neighbor, Joss Hayden, but something made me think that a certified organic farmer might not like me upsetting his chicken. Of course, I’d heard all about him from my dad, who said he was the best neighbor ever, occasional chicken coop odor notwithstanding.

Joss had bought the farm a year before, kept to himself, didn’t have any parties, and didn’t borrow any tools. I’d only seen a glimpse of him from a distance and imagined him to be some eccentric hippy, or even worse, a hipster dude getting back to nature. He grew organic vegetables in addition to his free-range chicken business.

Elliott had become a fan of Joss too, although that was probably more about visiting the baby chicks than the farmer himself.

It didn’t take long for the traumatized chicken to scurry home, probably to blab to all his chicken friends about the torture he’d endured on his jaunt. The metal gates to the various pens were all locked. How did he get out? I was about to put him back in the closest one but realized he might belong somewhere else, so I went to the front door. Charlie followed along, hopping up the two steps to join me. Then the smart aleck ran across my foot, making me jump a bit, to ring the doorbell before I could. Joss the farmer was lucky enough to have a normal ding-dong doorbell. We both stood and waited.

A man wearing a black T-shirt answered the door with an annoyed expression. Even with the frown, he was attractive, in a non-hippy, non-hipster way. More like a muscular-guy-who-puts-out-a-fire-and-then-drives-off-on-a-motorcycle way. He looked from Charlie to me and his expression became confused. “You’re not Charlie.”

Ah, he must be a constant victim of the button-pushing. “Nope. Charlie rang my doorbell, and I brought him back.” I held out my hand and then remembered that they’d been wrist deep in chicken livers. Even though I’d worn gloves to my elbows, it felt inappropriate. I pulled my hand back. “Colbie Summers. I’m, uh, helping out my dad a bit.”

He’d reached out to shake my hand and it hung out there, shake-less.

“I’ve been handling…meat,” I explained.

He smiled, as if figuring out I’d been holding chicken parts. “For your cat food business,” he said. The wrinkles around his eyes deepened, and I noticed how blue they were.

Whoa. That was a nice smile. “Um, yes,” I said, practically stuttering. “This batch is just for taste-testing. Not by me. By Trouble. You know. My cat.” Although I had been known to try a few of the recipes. “The food I sell is actually made in a commercial kitchen.” Stop talking, I told myself.

Charlie seemed to lose interest and jumped back down the steps.

“Your dad told me about Trouble,” he said, keeping an eye on the chicken. “Sorry about the whole doorbell thing. Charlie was used for some kind of psychology experiments by his previous owner and will poke at anything button-like.”

“It’s okay,” I said.

He shook his head as he came out and closed the door. “I don’t know how he gets out all the time. He’s the best escape artist I ever had.” He walked to the edge of the porch. “It must be the trough. It’s too close to the fence but I’d need a crane to move it.”

From that viewpoint the farm was picture perfect—its large red barn painted with white trim, a green tractor parked beside old-fashioned gas tanks, and the chickens scratching in the pens. “Sorry,” I said. “Don’t have one of those with me.” I turned to go. “Nice meeting you. Good luck with Charlie.” I wasn’t going to tell him that I couldn’t leave my chicken livers marinating in green curry very long or the flavor would be too intense for my feline customers.

“Nice to meet you,” he said. “You want to see the chicks before you rush back?”

“Um…” Was that how a chicken farmer made his move? I did a quick inventory of what I looked like. Cut off shorts to deal with the heat, a Padres Tshirt stained with meat juice, flip-flops, and a rolled-up bandana around my light brown hair with the copper stripe I needed to revive. And, oh yeah, red-rimmed eyes and no makeup. I was definitely safe from any moves by the farmer. And who could resist chicks? “Sure.”

He jogged down the porch steps and walked back to the pen, scooping up Charlie as he opened the gate, and setting him down inside a pen by himself. Some chickens in the next section moved closer as if to check out the action. “In here,” Joss said.

I walked carefully through the pen, watching where I put my feet. The door to the chicken coop was open and a few birds sat in nests. Then he opened a door inside and we were in some kind of incubator room. An orchestra of chick peeps reached a crescendo and an overwhelming chicken poop scent whooshed by.

“Whoa,” I said, plugging my nose and then looking over apologetically.

“Sorry,” he said cheerfully. “It takes a little getting used to.”

When Joss moved closer, the chirping became even louder.

“So, the chicks love you,” I said, not being able to resist the pun.

He looked startled for a second until he realized I was joking. “These are a bit too young for me.”

I moved closer to the raised wooden beds with high sides holding the chicks. Heat lamps shone on them, even when it was so hot outside, and the brown and black fuzz balls moved closer to us. “They’re adorable,” I said. “They don’t look like Charlie.”

“No,” Joss said. “They’re Ameraucanas. They lay blue eggs.” He picked one up gently. “Here.” He put the baby chick in my cupped hands.

I couldn’t help but say, “Aw.”

And then it pooped. Right in my hand.

“Oops,” he said. “Occupational hazard.”

And then it pooped again.

“Let me—” he started, and I gladly tipped the chick into his hands. For some reason, I kept my hands together to prevent the mess from escaping, even though there was plenty on the floor.

He gently placed the creature back in its home, and pulled a wet wipe from a handy container hanging high above chicken level by the back door. “Here,” he repeated, his eyes laughing at me.

“I got it.” I grabbed the wipe, cleaning my hands as quickly as I could. “I’m a mom,” I said a little defensively. “A little poop doesn’t bother me.” Of course, chicken poop was a different story. “I better get back.” To wash my hands with bleach.

He opened the back door and I walked outside, the sun accosting my eyes again. Then I hit something slimy, sliding a whole two feet and wind-milling my arms before coming to a halt.

I looked down.

A hose had leaked, creating a slimy puddle of mud and chicken poop, which was now slopped all over my flip flops that were pointing in different directions, my feet solidly in the mess.

This time, Joss looked chagrined. “Sorry, sorry. I meant to replace that.…” He looked at my feet as if not knowing what to do, and then bit his lip, trying not to smile.

“I’ll…” Burn these didn’t seem nice to say out loud. “Just go…”

“Yeah,” he said, valiantly holding back laughter.

Men never outgrow poop humor.

I walked back to my dad’s house, futilely attempting to scrape the mess off my flip flops onto the tiny patches of grass that lined the sidewalks. That was sticky stuff.

My dad’s street looked like it could be in a seventies sitcom, with neat row houses, all the same white stucco walls and red clay tile roofs. Small driveways led to separate two car garages in the back, usually used for storage or workshops. Every yard hosted a few palm trees and a dried-out lawn that wasn’t doing a good job surviving the summer drought regulations. The houses on my dad’s side backed up to a huge family farm. The farmer had refused to sell to developers, so my dad had the best of both worlds. The convenience of all things suburbia and a wonderful view of open farmland. Of course, that open farmland smelled strongly of fertilizer at times, but it was worth it.

I tossed my disgusting flip flops and the poop-covered wipe in the garbage and used the garden hose to clean my feet before heading inside.

“Your phone rang,” my dad called out from the living room over the sound of Storage Wars, his favorite show.

I grabbed my cell and headed back to the stove, tripping over the now-loving cat who wound around my ankles and purred, clearly saying, “I wuv you so much. Isn’t it time to taste test?”

My Meowio Batali Gourmet Cat Food was marketed as organic food for the discerning cat, and many of my customers welcomed the most exotic of spices. But if Trouble didn’t like it, I dropped it. I’d learned early on that she never steered me wrong. If she liked it, it sold. If she didn’t like it, other cats didn’t either.

My whole business was inspired by Trouble. I’d found her, not even six weeks old, abandoned in an apartment when a tenant skipped out on the rent. Elliott and I immediately fell in love with her tiny orange face and white paws, and adopted her. Because of the splash of white on her chest, Elliott had originally wanted to call her Skimbleshanks, after a cat character in the musical Cats.

She’d had a lot of digestive problems, and the only food she could handle was what I made. That, combined with her natural kitten mischievousness, earned her the name Trouble.

Soon, friends started asking to buy little jars of the same food for their cats, which is how I learned that there was a demand for organic, human-grade cat food. I increased my production, cooking at odd hours when I could sneak it in around my job managing the apartment building where we lived.

When I’d tried to expand to farmers’ markets, I learned there were a lot of regulations I’d have to follow to make it a real business, including cooking all the food sold at the market in a certified kitchen.

My previous customers still demanded my original products, including the cute packaging, so I spent at least one morning a week indulging them. Their cats had benefitted from me learning how to add vitamins and other goodies to make the food more nutritious.

I’d already been up for hours cooking and packaging my Chicken & Sage Indulgence. The herbal smell bothered Elliott and my dad, so I liked to get the kitchen aired out before they even woke up. Trouble absolutely loved that recipe–she’d come running the moment the sage hit the sizzling olive oil and yelled at me to give her tidbits the whole time I was cooking. When I was done with production, I switched to trying new recipes.

My phone had a message from my best friend, Lani, but I had to finish up the chicken liver curry dish before calling her back. I’d also received an alert that someone had given my business a review on SDHelp. I clicked over to the site and saw that a J. Greene had given me one star!

I opened the app to read the review. I bought this cat food at the local flea market—

Flea market? It’s a farmers’ market, idiot. There’s a big difference. I read on.

I had high hopes for this locally-produced, organic cat food, but my cat took one bite and walked away. I couldn’t taste it–even I don’t love my cat that much–but I sniffed it and it smelled awful. A combination of chemicals and rotten meat. Will never buy again.

What? That was impossible. I’d never had a bad review like this. Once someone complained about the price, but I’d never be able to compete price-wise with the big guys. What should I do? Ignore it? Contact Mr. J. Greene and offer to replace it?

I put a few pieces of curried chicken into the refrigerator to cool while I mentally ran through my process. Since my dad got sick, I hadn’t always been in the commercial kitchen the two mornings a week I could afford to rent, relying on my cook who always followed my instructions meticulously. Could something have gone wrong with one batch? But then I would hear from more than one customer. I clicked on the website to see if anyone had left a complaint there. Nothing. I took a deep breath. Maybe it was an isolated incident. Or total bull.

To reassure myself, I turned to the page that had testimonials from my custom. . .