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  Sifting Through Clues

  Book clubs from all over have descended on Crystal Cove to celebrate the library’s Book Club Bonanza week, and Jenna Hart has packed the Cookbook Nook with juicy reads and tasty cookbooks. But she’s most excited about spending an evening with the Mystery Mavens and their moveable feast, when they will go from house to house to share different culinary treats and discuss the whodunit they’re all reading. It’s all good food and fun for the savvy armchair detectives, until one of the members of the group is found murdered at the last stop on the tour.

  As if that weren’t enough to spoil her appetite, Jenna discovers that all the evidence points to her friend Pepper as being the guilty party. And with Pepper’s chief-of-police daughter too close to the case to be impartial, Jenna knows she’ll have to step in to help clear her friend’s name before a bitter injustice sends her to jail. Sifting through the clues, Jenna unearths any number of possible culprits, but she’ll have to cook up a new way to catch the killer before Pepper’s goose is cooked . . .

  Title Page

  

  Copyright

  Sifting Through Clues

  Daryl Wood Gerber

  Beyond the Page Books

  are published by

  Beyond the Page Publishing

  www.beyondthepagepub.com

  Copyright © 2019 by Daryl Wood Gerber.

  Cover design by Dar Albert, Wicked Smart Designs

  ISBN: 978-1-946069-95-5

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this book. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented without the express written permission of both the copyright holder and the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product 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 for author or third-party websites or their content.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Contents

  Sifting Through Clues

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Contents

  ~ Cast of Characters ~

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Recipes

  Books by Daryl Wood Gerber

  About the Author

  ~ Cast of Characters ~

  Main characters

  Jenna Hart, owner of the Cookbook Nook and Nook Café

  Bailey Bird Martinez, works at the Cookbook Nook

  Cary Hart, Jenna’s dad, owns Nuts and Bolts

  Cinnamon Pritchett, chief of police

  Gran, aka Gracie Goldsmith, regular customer at the shop

  Jake Chapman, wealthy friend of Cary’s

  Katie Casey, executive chef at the Nook Café

  Lola Bird, Bailey’s mother and owner of Pelican Brief Diner

  Marlon Appleby, deputy who is dating Aunt Vera

  Pepper Pritchett, owner of Beaders of Paradise, mother to Cinnamon

  Rhett Jackson, owner of Bait and Switch Sport Supply Store, dating Jenna

  Tina Gump, works at Cookbook Nook

  Tito Martinez, reporter, married to Bailey

  Vera Hart, Jenna’s aunt, co-owner of the Cookbook Nook and Nook Café

  Z. Z. “Zoey” Zeller, mayor of Crystal Cove

  Others who live and work in Crystal Cove

  Alastair Dukas, clerk at Spellbinder Book Shop

  Bucky Winston, fireman now married to Cinnamon

  Crusibella Queensberry, owner of Spellbinder Book Shop

  Darian Drake, librarian

  Eleanor Landry, owner of Taste of Heaven Ice Cream Shoppe

  Flora Fairchild, owner of Home Sweet Home

  Hank Hemmings, owner of Great Threads Haberdashery

  Ivy Beale, owner of Dreamcatcher, a healing stones and crystal store

  Keller Landry, ice cream entrepreneur, married to Katie

  Oren Michaels, local fishmonger

  Reynaldo, head chef at Nook Café

  Thad, owner of Play Room Toy Store

  Wayne, assistant manager at Vines, a wine bistro

  Yung Yi, bank manager of Crystal Cove bank

  Epigraph

  “It is perhaps both a blessing and a curse that fictional worlds

  spring into my mind nearly fully formed, and it takes quite a while

  to sift through everything to find the story.”

  ~ Erin Morgenstern

  Chapter 1

  “Ow, ow, ow!” Bailey hopped on one foot. I feared if she bounced any more she would drop the baby then and there. She was five weeks from her due date, but the way her belly was pressing against her denim jumper made me think the baby might pop out at any second. “Paper cut! Jenna, do something.”

  I raced across the Nook Café and helped my pal into a chair by the window. For the past hour, I had been filling newly installed bookshelves with cookbooks that our customers could browse while dining, including a couple of terrific selections that were perfect for tea parties, The Afternoon Tea Collection and Afternoon Tea at Home: Deliciously indulgent recipes for sandwiches, savouries, scones, cakes and other fancies. My aunt insisted that everyone should know how to serve a proper tea.

  To keep me company, Bailey had been assembling construction paper cookbooks that children could decorate at the children’s table in the Cookbook Nook.

  “Don’t get blood on the tablecloth,” I warned. It was only eight in the morning but fresh white linens had been set out the night before. “Drink in the view while I get a Band-Aid.” I hurried to the café kitchen and retrieved the first aid kit.

  “Pain,” Bailey mumbled, sucking on her finger while staring out the window at the ocean. “Pain, pain, pain.”

  “If that’s painful, wait until childbirth,” I teased.

  “Not. Looking. Forward. To. It.”

  “Remember our motto.” I pointed to a sign I’d posted on the café’s entrance yesterday: We breathe to live. We live to read.

  She stuck out her tongue. “I’m breathing. I’m also anticipating the birth, the terrible twos, high school prom, and college tuition.”

  I applied the Band-Aid and rubbed her shoulder. “Why don’t you take the day off?”

  “Over a paper cut? Get seriou
s.” She bounded to her feet. “Let’s go. You’re done here, right? We have so much to do.” She trotted along the enclosed breezeway that connected the café to the Cookbook Nook. Over her shoulder she said, “We need to set out all the culinary-themed fiction we just received, plus we have to tweak the book club display. C’mon. Chop-chop.”

  “I’m right behind you.”

  The mayor had designated the last few days in April as Book Club Bonanza. Starting tomorrow, Saturday, the inns and hotels would be filled to the max with book club members from all over the West Coast. Tomorrow night, the Mystery Mavens, one of Crystal Cove’s local book clubs, of which I was a member, were putting on a progressive dinner event, meaning its more than twenty members would travel from one house to the next dining on appetizers, tea sandwiches, entrées, and desserts while discussing the culinary cozy mystery we’d agreed to read: The Diva Serves High Tea. The selection won out over two others: Death on the Menu and Goodbye Cruller World. I’d purchased a copy of each. I’d almost finished the first, and I couldn’t wait to read the other two.

  “Ooh, sugar cookies.” Bailey paused by the table where Chef Katie had set out treats for customers. “How cute. They look like little books. Which one should I choose?”

  “The red one.” The cookies were iced in an assortment of primary colors. “Did you read the Diva book?” I asked. My neighbor Crusibella Queensberry, whom I’d only recently learned owned Spellbinder Book Shop, had made the selection. For some reason, whenever I’d gone into her shop, I’d dealt with one of her assistants and not seen her. Each week during spring, Crusibella planned to feature a different mystery genre at the store. This week: culinary cozies. Right up my alley.

  “Absolutely,” Bailey said. “I’m not missing the event.”

  “Don’t tell me how it ends. I’ve got three chapters left to read.” I’d belonged to a book club when I’d lived and worked in San Francisco, and invariably one or two members wouldn’t have completed the assignment. I refused to be that person.

  “Don’t worry. The ladies agreed no spoilers.”

  “After a little wine, someone is bound to reveal the end.”

  “Well, I’m not drinking wine.” She chose a cookie and ate it in two bites. Visibly, the little being inside her belly moved. “Is it just me, or does this kid like sugar a lot more than I do?”

  “The doctor told you to abstain from eating salt.”

  “I miss French fries.” She petted her tummy and cooed words I couldn’t make out.

  I smiled. Bailey had been reluctant to have a child, but her husband had really wanted one. Minutes after she learned she was pregnant, her fear disappeared. She’d been enjoying the experience ever since. Even if she couldn’t eat salty foods.

  “Speak of the devil. There’s Crusibella.” I pointed out the picture window toward the parking lot.

  Fisherman’s Village, the quaint shopping mall where the Cookbook Nook and the Nook Café were located, consisted of a number of shops as well as Cameo, an art house theater, and Vines, a wine bistro. Crusibella, dressed in a silky blue frock that matched the blue streaks in her hair, was chatting with Pepper Pritchett, who owned Beaders of Paradise, the shop cattycorner from ours.

  “Pepper looks peeved,” Bailey whispered.

  Pepper was an expert craftswoman who gave lessons and made nearly all of her own clothes.

  “What do you bet they’re arguing about what they’re serving at the book club?” I joked. Just the other day, I’d overheard Pepper brag that she was making an exquisite cheese appetizer.

  “Uh-oh. Sparks will fly.” Bailey giggled.

  As she went ahead of me into the shop, I noticed movement outside, beyond the women. Someone in a tan jacket with shaggy brown hair ducked out of sight. Man or woman, I couldn’t tell.

  “Jenna!” Bailey called. “Come here. I need your help.”

  I glanced at the parking lot again. I didn’t see anyone besides the two women. Maybe whoever it was had dropped a set of car keys. I put the moment from my mind and joined Bailey, who was moving aside the one-foot Plexiglas wall that bordered the window display. Without the wall, children’s eager fingers could really mess things up.

  Tigger, my ginger cat, dashed to us and swatted his tail against Bailey’s leg.

  “I don’t need your help, cat,” Bailey chided. “Just your mom’s. Go back to sleep.”

  Tigger slinked to his favorite spot beneath the children’s table in the rear corner of the shop and curled into a ball.

  “Look at the display.” Bailey motioned to it. “What’s missing?”

  On top of a beautiful lilac-themed tablecloth, I’d set a pair of white three-tiered cake stands and filled them with artfully made porcelain candies and cookies. I’d added lavender cocktail napkins as well as a colorful array of cookie cutters, useful to design tea sandwiches. Two fine-boned china cups and saucers finished the display.

  “Cookbooks,” I said. “Let’s add a few dessert cookbooks, like Afternoon Tea: Delicious Recipes for Scones, Savories & Sweets. The beautiful purple-and-rose cover will do nicely with the color scheme. And Teatime Parties: Afternoon Tea to Commemorate the Milestones of Life.”

  “Oh, I love that one,” Bailey said. “The pictures are gorgeous, and it teaches you how to steep tea properly. I had no idea there was a method. I thought . . . Oof.” The baby kicked. Bailey flinched. “All right already.” She pointed to her stomach. “The little general is telling me to get my rear in gear. Books!” She headed to the storage room.

  As I was leafing through the new fiction we’d ordered for the visiting book clubs, I heard a tap-tap on the front door. Ivy Beale, a petite forty-something with bobbed platinum blond hair, was peering through the glass, hands framing her elegantly beautiful, aging model’s face. Beside her was Oren Michaels, a local fisherman who supplied fish to the Nook Café. Towering over her, he reminded me of the handsome seafarer we’d used in a commercial for Old Spice when I worked as an advertising executive at Taylor & Squibb.

  Oren said something to Ivy and grinned. She elbowed him playfully.

  “Jenna?” Ivy called. “May I come in? I know it’s early. Pretty please?”

  Ivy owned Dreamcatcher, a healing stones and crystals store. I’d purchased a few items there for my brother and sister as well as for a few friends. Invariably whenever I went in, Ivy would share a secret she knew about someone in town, like who’d had a face-lift or who’d been in rehab or who’d had an affair. Quirky was the word my aunt had used to describe her. I liked quirky. Ivy made me laugh.

  I opened the door. “What’s up?”

  “Oh, bless you.” She pressed her hands together in prayer. “I absolutely must find a cookbook so I can make some new goodies for tomorrow. Everything I cook is passé. You must have something.” She breezed past me toward the dessert aisle, the flaps of her smoky gray cashmere duster batting me in her wake.

  Oren stayed outside and scrolled through messages on his cell phone.

  “We’re not open yet,” I said.

  “I won’t be a moment. You don’t mind, do you?” She took a book from an end-cap display and recited the title, “Dessert for Two: Small Batch Cookies, Brownies, Pies, and Cakes. This looks good.”

  “Good choice,” I said. “The author makes it easy to scale back on tried and true recipes.”

  She flipped through it. “Mm. Salted caramel macarons, lemon meringue pie cookies, and forgotten cookies. Say, those sound mysterious. You know I love a mystery.” She clapped the book closed. “Sold.”

  “The cash register isn’t ready yet.”

  She whipped two twenty-dollar bills from the pocket of her linen trousers. “Bring me the change tomorrow. I trust you.” She blew me an air kiss and left as quickly as she’d arrived. For a moment, I wondered if she’d been the person ducking behind cars when Pepper and Crusibella were going at it. Maybe she had donned a tan jacket and wig as a disguise. Was that how she gleaned so many secrets? Had Oren been hiding with her? Maybe it wa
s a lark for the two of them.

  Shaking my head, I went back to my chore.

  Soon after, my aunt Vera waltzed into the shop clad in a silver caftan that I couldn’t recall having seen before. She habitually wore the billowy garments because she offered her services as a fortune-teller and felt her clients trusted her readings more if she dressed the part. Plus, she liked comfy. She carried her matching turban under one arm.

  “Good morning, dear.” She raked her red hair off her face, which made the multiple bracelets she wore clang. “Was that Ivy Beale who just drove off?”

  “Yes. She absolutely had to buy a new cookbook this instant.” I laughed. “She’s a bit bossy, don’t you think?”

  “Ivy gets what Ivy wants. She always has, ever since she stepped foot in this town. It’s an attitude that comes from wealth. Too-ra-loo,” she crooned. “Gorgeous day, isn’t it?” She focused on me. “I detect a lot of yellow energy around you. That means it’s going to be a spiritual yet playful day. Have fun.”

  Recently, I’d found a website that sold T-shirts featuring book slogans. I figured for Book Club Bonanza, I should wear a few. Today’s was, yes, yellow and read: Good things come to those who read.

  My aunt sashayed past me toward the storage room. “Don’t you look darling and young, by the way. All of twelve.”

  “Ha!” I was pushing thirty-one, but in jeans and a T-shirt, I looked younger. Maybe twenty-five. Not twelve.

  “Have you seen all the tents going up on Buena Vista Boulevard?” she asked after storing her purse.

  BVB was the main drag in Crystal Cove. It ran from the north end of town near the lighthouse to the south end, which was marked by a pier that featured a carousel, carney games, shops, and restaurants. The Pacific Ocean lay to the west.

  “There are a variety of them,” my aunt went on, “hosted by regional booksellers as well as used booksellers. A few book clubs have put up tents, too, to encourage membership. No cookbook sellers, by the way.”