Steamed to Death
Authors: Peg Cochran
Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Cozy, #Amateur Sleuth, #Women Sleuths, #General
PRAISE FOR
Allergic to Death
“[A] delicious, de-liteful debut. Gigi is a heartfelt protagonist with calories to spare. Tasty food, a titillating story, and a spicy town and theater, rife with dramatic pause. Add a dash of romance, and you have the recipe for a successful series.”
—Avery Aames, Agatha Award–winning author of the Cheese Shop Mysteries
“Full of colorful characters, delicious diet foods, a rescued dog, and an intriguing mystery,
Allergic to Death
is tasty entertainment.”
—Melinda Wells, author of the Della Cooks Mysteries
“The meals that Gigi Fitzgerald makes may be low in calories, but author Peg Cochran serves up a full meal in her debut book.”
—Sheila Connolly,
New York Times
bestselling author of the Orchard Mysteries
“A delicious amateur-sleuth tale . . . Culinary cozy fans will take De-Lite with Peg Cochran’s first recipe.”
—
Genre Go Round Reviews
Berkley Prime Crime titles by Peg Cochran
ALLERGIC TO DEATH
STEAMED TO DEATH
Steamed to Death
Peg Cochran
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
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For more information about the Penguin Group, visit penguin.com.
STEAMED TO DEATH
A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author
Copyright © 2013 by Peg Cochran.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group.
BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME logo are trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
ISBN: 978-1-101-62380-0
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / June 2013
Cover illustration by Teresa Fasolino.
Cover design by Sarah Oberrender.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the produc of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility fo author or third-party websites or their content.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly a written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions t the recipes contained in this book
To my readers who took a chance on new writer and purchased my first book I hope you will enjoy this one as well.
Acknowledgments
First, I want to thank my editor, Faith Black, and my agent, Jessica Faust, for all their help in launching my writing career.
I’d like to thank my writing buds—Avery Aames, Laura Alden, Janet Bolin, Krista Davis, Kaye George and Marilyn Levinson—for their brainstorming, hand-holding, plot ideas, encouragement, support and stories that made me laugh.
And, of course, my family for their support and patience through the sometimes difficult process of producing a manuscript!
Contents
Chapter 1
Giovanna “Gigi” Fitzgerald was relishing the bite of her newly sharpened chef’s knife in the plump, ripe neck of the zucchini lying on her cutting board when she noticed an ominous sign. A very ominous sign.
Water was puddling on the floor by her feet, and the miniature lake was spreading by the second. Within moments it was lapping at the toes of Gigi’s sneakers.
The water was coming from the cupboard under the sink. She opened the door cautiously and bolted backward as water sprayed out, soaking the legs of her jeans and enlarging the creeping flood on her floor.
Her cottage was old but in decent shape. Gigi had spent several hundred dollars on an inspection before signing the papers that put the charming, hundred-year-old house in her name. Not that the inspection really made any difference. She’d been determined to have the cottage no matter what—it was the first place she’d felt at home in many years.
She knelt down and, shielding her eyes from the spritzing water, examined the pipe. It was caked with rust and looked to be original to the house. Maybe if she’d paid the inspector more he would have taken the trouble to bend down and examine the plumbing under the sink?
Gigi sighed. The timing couldn’t be worse. She was in the midst of preparing some test recipes for Branston Foods. They were interested in producing a line of Gigi’s Gourmet De-Lite Dinners, and she had to create a number of dishes that would translate well to being flash frozen and stuffed into a cardboard container.
And she had all the hors d’oeuvres to create for Felicity Davenport’s upcoming party to celebrate the fact that her soap opera,
For Better or For Worse
, had won the newly created Merrill Award. Felicity had originally hired Gigi to help her lose weight. Felicity had joined the cast of the soap in her twenties and had quickly become the star, but now, in her forties, she’d found that creeping middle-aged weight gain was not making her any more attractive to the camera.
Felicity had also hired Gigi’s best friend, Sienna Paisley, to organize her comeback campaign, which would launch when Felicity was ready to emerge, like a butterfly from its chrysalis, having lost twenty pounds and been made over from head to toe. Sienna had given up a six-figure income as a publicist to move to Woodstone, Connecticut, to run the Book Nook and hopefully, start a family. Her husband Oliver’s new law practice had been slow to take off, and they needed the income.
Gigi supposed she ought to turn the water off at the source. She remembered that there was a valve of some sort in the basement. She dried her hands on her jeans and headed down the dark, winding staircase.
Gigi found the control after several false starts. The knob was covered with cobwebs, and she shuddered as the thin strands tickled the backs of her hands.
There. The water was off. That would at least stop the lake that was slowly forming on her kitchen floor.
Gigi climbed the stairs back to the kitchen, swiping at the insistent cobwebs still clinging to her hair. She retrieved the phone book from her desk drawer and ran her finger down the listing marked “Plumbers.”
There were two. No one answered at the first location. Gigi listened to the brief message before clicking off. She glanced at the phone book again. It looked like it would have to be Hector’s Plumbing and Heating.
• • •
“Pipe’s sprung a leak,” Jackson, or at least that was the name embroidered above the pocket on his shirt, said, rising from his knees.
Gigi bit back a sharp retort. “Really?” she said with only a hint of sarcasm.
Jackson nodded his head. “Yup. Big leak. The pipe’s all rusted out.” He knelt down again, his knees giving a creak that sounded like a gunshot. He opened the cupboard door and stuck his index finger through a hole in the pipe. “You need a new pipe,” he concluded.
“Can you replace it for me?”
“Gotta order it first.”
“How long will that take?” Gigi twirled a strand of auburn hair around her finger—something she always did when she was stressed.
“Dunno. A couple of days maybe.”
Gigi groaned. “But I can’t wait that long. Isn’t there something you could do temporarily?”
“Like what?”
I don’t know, you’re the plumber
, Gigi wanted to say, but she bit her tongue again. “Like maybe a patch or something?”
“Wouldn’t hold.”
Gigi felt like stamping her foot. There had to be something that could be done!
Jackson took a dog-eared pad from his back pocket. “Do you want me to order the pipe for you?”
“Yes,” Gigi all but screamed. “Obviously there’s no alternative.”
Jackson looked confused.
Gigi gestured toward the paper in his hand. “Yes,” she repeated. “Please order the pipe for me.”
Jackson licked the end of his pencil and laboriously penned a note.
“Want me to call you when it comes in?”
“Of course.”
“It’s just a leak. Nothing to get all worked up about,” Jackson said, replacing the notepad and pencil in his pocket. “We’ll have it fixed for you in no time,” he called over his shoulder as he left.
No time!
Gigi thought. She wondered what sort of eternity
no time
amounted to. She paced the kitchen, furiously darting evil glances at the offending pipe. She had to have her kitchen back. There was only so much she could do without water. Correction. She couldn’t do anything without water. She felt panic rising in her throat like a tidal wave. She stared at the vegetables spread out across her worktable. They all needed to be washed before she could do anything with them. Fortunately, Felicity was her only client at the moment. She’d offered a sum handsome enough for Gigi to take a break from providing meals for upward of a dozen people at a time. And she’d asked Gigi to prepare light and tasty hors d’oeuvres for the huge bash she was planning. The entire local “A” list had been invited along with a smattering of New York people plus Felicity’s manager, leading man, and costar. Woodstone had been buzzing about the event for weeks. Gigi had enlisted Alice, who worked part-time at the police department, to help.