COZY MYSTERY: French Cuisine Murder: A Margie Lauderdale Cozy Mystery (Book 1) Read online

  Mr. Carter seemed kindly enough. He was a big, hulking man with an easy smile and a big belly. Margie had been studying him most of the night and concluded it was not his voice she heard that fateful night. He was too clunky and too slow to have killed the lights and then gotten by her foot in time to murder Mr. McCarthy. At least not before someone hit the circuit breaker. Margie was nearly sure of it. He also seemed too empathetic. He hunched over his desk in the back office, beaten down by the morbid feeling that hung over the extra dollars he’d earned from his unwilling, bloody tourism. Although that feeling had pervaded the whole staff, he seemed to be hit the worst by it.

  Chapter 6

  After work, Margie and Carmelia walked through the streets back to the apartment in silence. “Well,” Camelia said suddenly, pressing her right fist into her open left palm, “we need to shake this funk, Margie. Let’s celebrate our earnings at the diner.”

  Margie laughed, her eyes lighting up. “Deal. I made a killing tonight. What about you?” If she counted the $1.40 she was earning an hour and added the tips, she certainly had come out on top.

  “A whole hoard of gold.” The brightness was back in her face, the lightness back in her step. “Deserves a proper dinner, don’t you think?” Camelia hooked her arm in Margie’s, and they both laughed.

  Margie was exhausted, but she was also too wired to sleep. “Dinner’s on me, then.”

  “Deal!”

  The diner Camelia chose was quiet. Decorated in a classic diner style left over from the last decade; it featured all the chrome and pinks, poodle skirts and jukeboxes. The sleepy waitress sat them at a booth. There only seemed to be two other patrons; neither of them had any interest in two women just out of work and starving. Margie sat down on her side of the booth facing away from the door, groaning as her weight lifted off of her aching feet. Her ankles felt bruised and swollen; it would be even worse tomorrow, she knew. “How do you do this every day, Camelia? My toes are numb from all the standing.”

  “Many many years of training, my friend.” She laughed, picking up the sticky menu off of the table.

  Margie ordered a cup of decaf and a breakfast plate, watching as Camelia contemplated the dessert menu. She twirled and tugged on her hair as she pondered her choices. “Makes you want to live a little; eat something you wouldn’t normally order or do something a little daring, doesn’t it? All of this death business.”

  The waitress dropped off their coffees. Margie nestled hers between her hands, warming them against the ceramic mug. She sipped it; the coffee was pleasantly light. It had a rich, nutty flavor and felt smooth in her mouth. She added no sugar but poured in a some creamer. Camelia did the same with her coffee, pouring in creamer until the coffee was nearly the color of milk.

  “So who do you think did it?” Camelia asked. The question was so casual that Margie looked up at her, to confirm she’d asked. Camelia was staring down at her coffee, watching as the cream she poured into the cup swirled around in ribbons.

  “I’m not sure,” Margie answered, cautiously. “Do you have a theory?”

  “You don’t think it was one of the employees do you?” Camelia still wouldn’t look at her.

  Margie took a deep breath but then puffed it out without a word. What could she say? “I don’t know, Camelia. It looks like it could have been. Just from what I know, someone must have known how to turn the power off. They needed to have known the restaurant well enough to find a certain booth in the darkness.”

  Camelia stopped swirling her coffee but didn’t drink any. “They are all my friends, or I think they are. Are you no longer friends once they’ve murdered someone? Can you be friends with someone who could just murder someone else without any remorse like that?” There was a wrinkle forming in between her brows. She started ripping her paper napkin to shreds.

  “Maybe they had a good reason.”

  “What could be a good reason for killing someone, Margie?” There was the red shine of tears in Camelia’s eyes.

  “Hard to say,” she answered, looking around the diner. “Who was working that day?”

  “The French waiter was waiting on you, Pierre. He always works. He’d even work seven days a week if we were open on Mondays.” She rolled her eyes. “Marc, the head cook. Cindy, the other hostess, was working.”

  Margie dismissed Pierre; with his heavy accent, she would have known his voice in the dark without an issue. She also dismissed Mr. Carter and Cindy without much thought.

  “Well, it certainly wasn’t Cindy; she was too busy screaming when the lights went out,” Margie said, her mind running over the details that night. “Also, I pretty sure the voice I heard was male.”

  “That’s something at least.” Camelia’s humor started to return. “Who else? There were two other waiters set to be on staff for the dinner rush, but I don’t know if they’d made it in yet. Kevin and Jacob.” Pressing a perfectly shaped nail to her chin, Camelia’s pretty green eyes looked skyward without seeing the dirty ceiling tiles of the diner. “Jeffrey, who’s the grill master. The cook Marc too. Lee, Rachel, and Christopher. I think Larry was the plating manager for the night.” She looked at Margie, a small smile on her face. “I’m not a big fan of Larry’s; I kind of wish it was him!”

  Margie laughed. “How morbid!”

  They giggled together as their food arrived, and Margie took that as a sign to change the subject. She asked Camelia about the French dishes she had tried, but her mind was still caught up in the list of names. Her mind ran over the faces she had met that evening over and over again, trying to picture which of her new coworkers could be killers.

  So who had killed Mr. McCarthy, and why did they do it?

  Chapter 7

  Margie, swishing around the restaurant in her new uniform, checked the list one more time. She checked off two of the last four items. “Dust the front counters and tidy the flowers,” she read out loud, looking around at the places that still needed her attention. “That sounds easy enough,” Margie slid back into the kitchen, looking for Camelia to help her find a dishrag.

  Jeffrey was at the stove and smiled at Margie as she stepped around him. “Lookin’ for Cammy? She’s out back; probably taking a smoke break before the dinner rush.”

  “Thank you.” Jeffrey was still on her very long list of suspects, even though she liked him. He was quiet and quick. There was something dark in his eyes that made her look twice at him. He was small, and quick enough to have pushed past her in the darkness and then get out of the way quickly. His voice didn’t sound quite right, but Margie was still unsure.

  Margie slid by Jeffrey and out the back door. There were three dumpsters out back, all reeking and swarmed with flies. Camelia was there, standing with two other employees. They all smoked, trying to soak up the last of the sunlight before the dinner rush began.

  Camelia smiled as soon as Margie popped her head out into the alley. “Whatcha looking for, Margie?”

  “Dust rags!” Margie puffed. She was worn out from the long day yesterday of hard labor; working here was even harder than helping to care for kids all day. Kids let you sit down on occasion. At least here there were no tiny children holding up dirty hands, begging to be picked up. There was no father here, no Keith. No reminders of the world she’d left behind. Just hard work and no expectations.

  “On the top shelf of the supply closet behind the cans of green cleaner,” Camelia said, politely blowing a puff of smoke away from Margie. The burning, acidic smell of the smoke still reached her nostrils, but it was only a faint whiff.

  “Thank you!” Margie swung back into the kitchen. Margie found the supply closet easily; she’d been in it several times already that day. Her skin, her hair and her clothing all smelled the same as all those bottles of cleaners. She shifted them out of the way, looking around for the promised dust cloths. They were just out of her reach; no wonder Margie hadn’t seen them before. She stretched on her tiptoes; one of the rags brushed her fingertips, but she couldn’t get a good
grip on it.

  Glancing around the chrome-colored kitchen, Margie looked for something to climb up onto. There were a few stools and a chair in the back, but none of them looked stable enough to hold even her tiny frame. She frowned; she might have to bother one of the taller men to grab it for her, and that grated on her nerves. Margie would find a way to do it on her own! She didn’t need anyone’s help.

  She found a bucket that looked like it would hold her weight. When she picked the bucket up, she realized there was something underneath it that caught the edge. Carefully pulling the bucket over whatever the object was, she peered underneath and was momentarily confused by what she saw.

  A broken electric crepe griddle. One of many appliances in the long line of fads, single use kitchen accessories that had hit the market in the last decade, the crepe griddle looked as though it had cost a pretty penny. Perhaps an employee had broken it and then thrown it down here, hoping that the management would forget it had ever existed. It couldn’t have been down there long, though; the griddle had no dust or grit like everything else on the floor had.

  Shrugging, Margie grabbed the dust rags. She felt like she had found something important, but couldn’t seem to put her finger on why. She carefully placed the bucket back over the crepe maker. Although she desperately wanted to tell Mr. Carter, she wasn’t sure if he would blame the broken machine on her or not. She was brand new. Stretching, Margie groaned at how sore her poor back was.

  Above the shelves where the bucket was, Margie saw a standard outlet. Only this one was brown around the edges. Like whatever plugged in here had short-circuited.

  Perhaps short-circuited, then tripped the breaker, very suddenly making all of the lights go off in the restaurant.

  Margie gulped in air. Glancing around and making sure that no one saw her staring at the outlet, she made her way to the front with the dust rags in hand. The broken griddle; what if it had been the culprit of the power outage? Margie felt her heart pick up speed in her chest. Had anyone seen her looking?

  Before the dinner rush spilled in the door, Margie took a quick break. She rushed down to the corner where she remembered seeing a payphone in front of a booming little convenience store. Thankfully, there was no one on it. Breathing hard, she pushed a nickel into the slot, pulling the card Officer Ray had given her if she ever needed to call him. A kind of frightened excitement pumped cold through her veins as she waited for the years it took for the phone to ring, and someone to pick up.

  “Officer Brighton,” sounded so formal on the phone. Margie sagged a little with relief at the familiar voice.

  “Ray, it’s Margie.”

  “Oh, hello.” There was a hesitant note to his voice. “Have you changed your mind about that coffee?” The hope in his voice broke her heart a little.

  “Do you know how the murderer shut the lights off, Ray?” Margie asked, ignoring his question. She didn’t want to think about how he had just asked her on a date and how completely she’d shut him down.

  That got his attention. Something about how his voice changed made Margie imagine he suddenly sat up poker straight in his seat. “We hadn’t found the source of the electrical disturbance that night yet, no.”

  As briefly as possible, Margie described what she had found, and Ray was silent for a long time when she had finished.

  Finally, he said, “Where’d a dame like you find out about tripping circuits?”

  Margie rolled her eyes at his tone. “One of my siblings once plugged in the hairdryer in the kitchen where mom was using the waffle iron. I was the one who had to reset the circuit because my dad wasn’t home. Girls can hit buttons too, you know, Officer Brighton.”

  Ray laughed on the other side of the line. “Your family was lucky to have you around.”

  Margie swallowed down the guilt that burned her throat at the word ‘was.’ There were more important things at hand than her homesickness. “What do you think?”

  “I think I need to check it out. I should come by after closing and see if I can take a look without being watched by the other employees. Can you get your boss to stick around after and let me in?”

  “I can ask,” Margie answered, hanging up the phone. She’d give Mr. Carter Ray’s phone number and let them sort it out. She ran all the way back to work, her breath puffing white in the cold air.

  Chapter 8

  After closing and most of the staff had gone home, Margie nervously waited. She had kept an eye on the bucket most of the night; no one that she saw had moved it. Once everyone else had left except the owner and Camelia, Margie lifted up the bucket. She breathed easier to see the griddle was still there.

  Ray showed up with two of the other officers who were helping him with the case, an Officer Casey and the other Officer Jameson. Margie weakly shook both of their hands and tried to smile. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion; Margie prayed she wasn’t wasting these gentlemen's time with her crazy theories and amateur detecting.

  The three of them carefully photographed the location of the crepe griddle. Mr. Carter grumbled something about a waste of money and good equipment. “Do you know what that thing cost me, eh?” He said to no one in particular. “Too much to throw it away!”

  As Officer Casey took pictures of the burnt outlet, Ray walked over to Margie and Camelia, sitting at a booth in silence. Camelia didn’t seem to be able to look up from her hands, but Margie met his eyes without flinching.

  “This short-circuit probably caused the lights to go out,” Ray said smiling sadly. His professional guise was back over his face in a split second. “You have probably saved us from losing some strong evidence that might help to put a killer away, Ms. Lauderdale.”

  Camelia glanced up at Margie, her emerald eyes glowing with suppressed mirth. She mouthed “Ms. Lauderdale,” her shoulders shaking with silent laughter she fought to hide from Ray. Margie blushed but refused to be let herself be embarrassed.

  “I’m glad I could be of assistance.” She said, forcing herself to be just as formal as Ray was. She looked at him, square in the face. No regrets. She wouldn’t look down to anyone. They were adults; there was no need to handle this situation like teenagers.

  Ray nodded, his face turning sour. “But you shouldn’t be looking, Margie. This guy has murdered before, and he might murder again if he thinks you’re snooping around looking for clues. If you catch my meaning.”

  Camelia’s laughter abruptly stopped, her wide eyes turning to Ray’s very serious expression. Margie felt the same expression contort her features. They were more than likely working in the midst of a murderer, and had nothing to help them to protect themselves. The icy fingers of doubt shivered down her spine. Margie had to fight the urge to buy bus tickets home that very instant. Her father’s voice boomed in the back of her head, “Get home right this instant, young lady!”

  “Of course, Officer Brighton. I’m done playing detective, I promise.”

  Ray stared at her a minute longer as if trying to judge whether she was pulling his leg or if she was properly frightened.

  He didn’t have to worry, though; Margie was properly frightened.

  “Thank you for trusting me, Officer Brighton,” Margie said, swallowing hard.

  Once the police had finished doing whatever it was that police do, Margie and Camelia started their walk back to Camelia’s apartment. The night was silent and still. It was chilly still for spring, but the cold felt good on Margie’s frayed nerves. How had she not thought of such a thing? She was potentially working alongside a murderer; she had been so worried that the killer might take the evidence that she didn’t even think about her safety. How could she have been so blind?

  Camelia silently cooked a pot of spaghetti and poured lukewarm red sauce over the top. The red sauce was poorly seasoned, and the acids hadn’t yet cooked out of the tomatoes, but it was better than no food. Margie ate without complaint and then took to her room. For the first time in her whole life, Margie locked her bedroom door. She swiped a kn
ife from the kitchen when Camelia wasn’t looking and felt a little better seeing it resting on the bedside table. It took her a long time to fall asleep that night, and her dreams filled with dangerous shadows and faces covered in darkness.

  Chapter 9

  The day was warmer than expected, and Camelia took the warm weather as a sign that they needed to tour the town. It was Thursday; the other hostess, Cindy, worked on Thursdays for them; they also had off Mondays when the store closed too. It was wonderful. Margie preferred not having her days off in a row; it kept her from getting bored.

  The two of them were walking down Main Street, their arms hooked together like children. Margie wore one of Camelia’s outfits, borrowed while her clothes were at the cleaners. Seeing Camelia’s overflowing closet, Margie realized her four outfits and two work uniforms made her woefully under prepared. Camelia insisted that, instead of giving her money towards the rent, they should fill up Margie’s closet with new things they could wear. Camelia was a little taller than Margie, a little rounded where girls wanted to be rounder, but they were mostly the same size. “I planned to pay for the place on my own this month regardless,” Camelia insisted. “Don’t you want to have a little fun?”