A Bird in the Hand (26 page)

"Sounds good to me." Sophie draped her arm over Amy's shoulders and squeezed gently. "I am so happy that we are doing this together. There's nobody else I would rather have as a partner."

The Chicken Soup Showdown was the featured event of the Eat Local Expo. Three teams of local foodie celebrities were competing against each other to make the best meal composed of chicken soup, a salad, and homemade bread. A panel of local food writers would sample the meals and choose the victorious team. The winners would have $5,000 donated to their charity of choice, along with taking home $500 each to spend however they wanted. Amy and Sophie, owner of Riverbend Coffee, were playing for the Kellerton Library's literacy program. Chef Jake Sawyer, the hottie with the man-bun who made the best ceviche in town at Nibbles & Noshes, was paired with Holly Neale, owner of Buttercream Cupcakery. They would donate to the Pathway Women's Shelter. The last team consisted of the famous, but even more famous in his own mind, Chef Chet Britton from Cornerstone restaurant and Trisha Dunbar, chief gardener and owner of Dunbar Farms. Their charity was a community garden that was being planned for a neighborhood that had seen better days.

Sophie returned to the stage to slice the raw chicken so it would cook quickly. Once a straight line to the freezer was cleared of stage debris, Amy tried to join her partner. She turned around and stifled a growl of frustration. A disheveled man was sprawled in a folding chair that he had placed in the clear strip of stage while she had worked to shove a musty, broken recliner into a corner.

"Excuse me, but could you please move? I need to get to the freezer when the showdown starts, and I just finished moving everything out of my way." She pointed at the debris-free zone behind her. And forced herself to smile. Sure, she probably looked like a crazed serial killer, but it was the nicest expression she could muster at the moment. "If you are going to watch the competition from here, could you slide your chair to the left or right? I don't want to trip over you."

The man slowly shook his head. His greasy hair flopped like squid-ink spaghetti. "Nope. I'm comfy here. You'll have to go around."

Amy inhaled through her nose. Okay, as long as he didn't stick his leg out to trip her, she could get around him when she needed to make the run to the freezer. Whoever the belligerent man was, he wasn't worth arguing with, especially when she could smell the alcohol on his breath from three feet away. Maybe he would pass out and roll out of the way.

"What are you doing?"

Holly, the cupcake wizard, stood in the gap between the heavy velvet curtains. Or at least it sounded like Holly. She was just a silhouette with her hands on her hips and elbows jutting out like mountain peaks. Amy blinked as the backlit figure advanced into the backstage darkness. It was definitely Holly, and she was definitely angry. "Get out of Amy's way. Are you drunk? Where did you get alcohol here? You better not have taken something that one of the chefs needs to use in their soup. I'm calling a cab, and you are going home. Don't even think of asking the cabbie to take you to a bar."

"I need to go check on my salad ingredients," Amy murmured as she used her hip to shove a huge metal toolbox on wheels farther to the side. If cranky man stayed put, she at least had a wide area to skirt around him. She slipped past the warring couple. Whatever was going on, she didn't want to be a part of it.

When Amy made it back to the stage, Sophie leaned toward her and whispered, "I heard you talking to someone, so I peeked backstage again to see what was going on. What a mess. That's the last thing Holly needs. She shouldn't have to deal with her obnoxious son right now. Poor woman."

That explained who the sloppy drunk was, but not why he was backstage. At least things were more hospitable on the stage. Three identical kitchen areas with four-burner hot plates, a convection oven, a long prep table, sink, and huge cooler were arranged side by side. In the center kitchen, Trisha was bouncing around her U-shaped area like a pinball. She had a piece of paper in one hand while she spun glass spice bottles on the table to look at labels. At the same time, she used her foot to flip open the cooler's lid. She was doing some serious multitasking while her diminutive partner, Chef Britton, was still nowhere in sight.

"Do you have any idea where he is, Trisha?" Jake asked as he leaned on his worktable. His forehead glistened with sweat. "Have you tried calling him? Maybe something came up at Cornerstone."

Trisha shook her head. Curly strands of blonde hair had loosened from her French braid and formed a fuzzy halo around her face. "I've been calling and texting him for the last hour. He isn't answering me. I saw him in his booth a couple hours ago, and he sounded fine. I know he likes to be the center of attention, but now is not the time to be fashionably late."

"Unfortunately, this is classic behavior for Chet." Jake swiped a white kitchen towel over his forehead. "I don't know where Holly went, but we're all done prepping. What can I do to help?"

"Nothing. I'm so mad right now I have the energy of three people." Trisha turned on her faucet and ran her hands under the stream of water. She slicked the wayward curls back with her wet fingers. "I'm pretty much done. Now to just wait for Chet to grace us with his presence."

So Amy and Sophie weren't the only ones having a rough evening. That didn't make Amy feel any better though. This was the very first showdown. It was a great opportunity to raise money for some very deserving charities. If the event went into self-destruct mode, would it continue next year? She knocked on the metal prep table next to Trisha. "We're all set too, so if you do find something that needs to be done, I can help."

"Thank you."

Trisha wiped her hands on her blue-jean apron as she disappeared into the darkness of the backstage area. A crowd was clearly gathering on the other side of the curtain that shielded the competitors from the audience. Multiple conversations blended together in a lively chorus of voices. Amy's former coworkers from Elegance Salon would be out there somewhere in the stadium-style theater seats. Her husband, Alex, wasn't. He was driving home from a business trip in Traverse City.

The scent of rotten eggs drifted past Amy as the curtains waved slightly from a breeze. She looked at Sophie. "Do you smell that? Is somebody using hard-boiled eggs?"

"I haven't seen any eggs." Sophie sniffed, then bent toward the burners in their kitchen. "That smells like propane to me. And it's coming from our hot plate."

She twisted the valve on the small propane tank sitting under the cook top. "That should stop it, but there must be a leak in one of the lines. We need to find someone to fix this fast or the showdown will start with a literal bang."

Trisha reappeared with the showdown's director at her side. Bridget Mahoney was the grande dame of Kellerton. Her family owned half of the town, including the civic arena where the competition was being held. Rumor had it that she was a shrewd landlord, but Amy knew that she was also a philanthropist. She was generous in sharing her money with charities, and never shied away from organizing huge fundraisers that would make mere mortals, or even seasoned PTA presidents, run away screaming for help.

"Your attention, please." Bridget waved her clipboard to silence the chatter of everybody onstage. "I realize we are missing a competitor, but I really can't delay the showdown. It's the end of the expo, and there is just enough time for you all to cook your meals and for the judges to decide on a winner."

Amy raised her hand. "Excuse me, but we have an even bigger problem. There's a propane leak in our kitchen."

That glitch brought a flurry of activity. Stagehands, all sporting fully stocked tool belts, clanked around replacing the leaky propane hose and setting up a high-powered fan to blow away the stinky fumes. An announcement was made to the restless-sounding crowd that the start of the showdown would be delayed for fifteen minutes because of an unforeseen problem.

Mrs. Mahoney's blue sequin-covered sweater twinkled in the harsh spotlights as she paced back and forth along the back of the stage while waiting for the explosive fumes to disperse. The burst of exercise under the hot lights would wilt most people, but her expertly applied makeup was still impeccable. Her silver hair dutifully stayed smoothed back in the simple yet elegant French twist. One of the stagehands flagged her down. She nodded as she listened to him. He disappeared backstage, and Mrs. Mahoney's face deflated into a furrowed grimace when she approached Trisha. "I am so sorry, Miss Dunbar. We need to begin the showdown in a few minutes. Do you want to forfeit or go it alone?"

Trisha plucked a pair of latex gloves out of the supply box sitting at her kitchen station. "I'm pissed off and pumped up. I'll cook everything myself."

All of the competitors clapped. A pair of stagehands quickly dismantled the fan that had been tasked with blowing away the propane fumes. Sophie bumped shoulders with Amy and whispered, "Her meal will probably taste better now, without Chet messing with everything, adding his
gourmet
flourishes."

"True. Sometimes simpler is better, and I think Trisha probably doesn't fuss about things much."

"Okay, ladies and gentleman." The sparkle-rific director said. "I have word that the propane leak is fixed and the fumes have dispersed. Let's get the showdown started. Have fun and good luck!"

The announcer's deep voice, amplified by a constellation of speakers mounted in the theater space, made the floor vibrate under Amy's feet. There was a blizzard of activity onstage as people ripped plastic wrap off bowls of vegetables and double-checked recipes. She wished Carla could've stayed, but she was home catching a nap before heading into the hospital for the night. It would've been nice to look into the audience and see a familiar face that wasn't drooling while trying to catch a glimpse of the star of the competition. Chef Britton was short, but he had swagger. His square jaw and watery blue eyes added to the package that attracted pretty women like peanuts attracted squirrels.

The spotlights brightened, and the curtain slowly began to rise. Amy bumped knuckles with Sophie as the electronic bell signaled the start of the Chicken Soup Showdown. The audience cheered as soup pots clanged onto the hot plates.

There was a
pop
broadcast over the sound system. Someone had turned on a microphone. The competitors were all fitted with battery packs and tiny microphone headsets. They were supposed to talk to the crowd to drum up support for their meals. Trisha announced, "I'm sorry. Chef Britton had an emergency and isn't here at the moment. I'm his cooking partner, Trisha, from Dunbar Farms."

There were a few boos, and the crowd noise ratcheted up a couple notches. "Come on, folks," Chef Jake said to the unhappy audience. "How about cheering on the underdog? Give Trisha a hand for being brave enough to do this by herself."

Applause and cheers replaced the disappointed murmurs. There was a hiss as Sophie dropped a stick of butter into the hot pot. Amy concentrated on dicing another stick of butter into the half-inch cubes Sophie had requested. She scattered the chunks across a plate. Then she slid plastic wrap over the dish and said, "I'm going to run this back to the freezer."

Another microphone popped on. Sophie's voice boomed through the theater. "Hello, everybody. I'm Sophie from Riverbend Coffee." She waved her hand while stirring the vegetables in the pot with a wooden spoon in the other hand. "My partner, Amy, who is famous for winning many culinary competitions, including the Kellerton Summer Festival baking contests, is running some butter to the freezer backstage. I'll be making cornmeal biscuits in a bit and need the fat in the dough to be as cold as possible. Cold butter makes the biscuits light and flaky."

Amy snatched up the plate and scooted through the opening in the backdrop curtain. She stopped for a moment to let her eyes adjust to the darkness. The path she had cleared through the clutter was still open and cleared of drunks, courtesy of Holly's tough-mama smackdown. Halfway to the huge freezer Amy kicked an empty pop can. It rattled across the wooden floor, then ricocheted between the legs of a wooden chair. The unexpected speed bump distracted her, and the plate tilted dangerously to the left. Luckily, the butter was a bit sticky from being under the stage lights, and the cubes had suction cupped themselves to the china's smooth surface.

She sprinted the last few feet to the freezer and yanked open the heavy door. The plate flipped into the air as Chef Britton's arm slapped it out of her hand. Centrifugal force peeled back the plastic wrap as the heavy ceramic dish spun like a flipped coin. The waxy butter cubes detached and briefly took flight before raining dairy confetti onto the chef. His body was sprawled on the floor at Amy's feet, with one frozen arm reaching toward the ceiling. A knife protruded from his chest. An amoeba-shaped patch of blood stained his white chef jacket around the oddly sparkling knife handle. Amy screamed. The bad afternoon just got worse, multiplied by infinity.

CHICKEN SOUP & HOMICIDE

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