Death Al Dente Read online

  PRAISE FOR DEATH AL DENTE

  “The first book in a delicious new series. Leslie Budewitz has created a believable, down-to-earth heroine in Erin Murphy, who uses her sleuthing skills and the Spreadsheet of Suspicion to catch a killer. The supporting cast of characters, from Erin’s mother, Fresca, to her cat, Sandburg, are charming. I’m looking forward to my next visit to Jewel Bay.”

  —Sofie Kelly, bestselling author of

  the Magical Cat Mysteries

  “Clever, charming, and completely yummy. Leslie Budewitz cooks up a delectable mystery! A tempting concoction of food, fun, and fatalities that will have you racing through the suspenseful pages . . . then heading for the kitchen to try out the irresistible recipes. More please!”

  —Hank Phillippi Ryan, Agatha, Anthony,

  and Macavity award-winning author

  “An intriguing sleuth who loves gourmet food, family, and her hometown, plus recipes to die for distinguish a delectable mystery.”

  —Carolyn Hart, national bestselling author of

  Dead, White, and Blue

  “Small-town charm and big-time chills. Jewel Bay, Montana, is a food lover’s paradise—and ground zero for murder! A dizzying culinary delight with a twisty-turny plot! I’m totally enamored of Leslie Budewitz’s huckleberry chocolates, Shasta daisies, and Cowboy Roast coffee.”

  —Laura Childs, New York Times bestselling author

  DEATH

  AL DENTE

  Leslie Budewitz

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia | New Zealand | India | South Africa | China

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  For more information about the Penguin Group, visit penguin.com.

  DEATH AL DENTE

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © 2013 by Leslie Ann Budewitz.

  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 trademarks 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:978-1-101-62470-8

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / August 2013

  Cover illustration by Ben Perini.

  Cover design by Rita Frangie.

  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.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as 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 to the recipes contained in this book.

  Acknowledgments

  The Merc could not have sprung to life without inspiration from my friends and neighbors. Many thanks to all of you for understanding that while Jewel Bay looks a lot like our real town, it’s not. I’ve renamed streets, created tensions, and messed with other details for my own mysterious purposes. Still, I’ve tried to paint a true-to-life picture of Northwest Montana, a truly delicious place.

  A squillion thanks to Peg Cochran aka Meg London, Daryl Wood Gerber aka Avery Aames, Krista Davis, and Janet Bolin for their encouragement and advice. Peg, you are this book’s fairy godmother. And thanks to the Guppies chapter of Sisters in Crime, where we all met—the best writers’ group anywhere.

  I deeply appreciate the work of two women well-named for their professions, Faith Black at Berkley Prime Crime and Paige Wheeler at Folio Literary Management. My instructors and classmates—all friends—at the Breakout Novel Intensive, aka BONI-HR 2012, laughed and learned with me in the rain. Thanks to you all for making this a better book.

  Thanks to Jody Fisher, a fantastic, real-life jazz guitarist, for playing at the fictional Gala; to Greg Naive at The Computer Place in Kalispell for setting up Erin’s computer system; to Stephanie Mills at Bigfork Drug for explaining

  For my mother, Alice, and my husband, Don

  Contents

  Praise for Death Al Dente

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Dedication

  • One •

  • Two •

  • Three •

  • Four •

  • Five •

  • Six •

  • Seven •

  • Eight •

  • Nine •

  • Ten •

  • Eleven •

  • Twelve •

  • Thirteen •

  • Fourteen •

  • Fifteen •

  • Sixteen •

  • Seventeen •

  • Eighteen •

  • Nineteen •

  • Twenty •

  • Twenty-one •

  • Twenty-two •

  • Twenty-three •

  • Twenty-four •

  • Twenty-five •

  • Twenty-six •

  • Twenty-seven •

  • Twenty-eight •

  • Twenty-nine •

  • Thirty •

  • Thirty-one •

  • Thirty-two •

  • Thirty-three •

  Create Your Own Festa di Pasta

  • One •

  “Who put these huckleberry chocolates on the front counter?” I grabbed the stack of purple boxes crammed with gooey huckleberry-filled chocolate wannabes swathed in purple foil and shoved them onto an open shelf on the side wall, next to the herbal snoose.

  “I did, honey,” my mother said. “Our customers love them.”

  “Our customers,” I said, “buy one for seventy-five cents and walk around the store, so preoccupied with unwrapping it and indulging their sweet tooth that they can’t fathom buying Montana-made goat cheese, or buffalo jerky, or your pastas and sauces. Then they grab a napkin that costs us five cents apiece to wipe purple goo off their fingers, and half of them drop it on the floor. There goes our profit.”

  My mother scowled. “Erin, what on earth has gotten into you? Why do you hate huckleberry chocolates?”

  “I don’t hate huckleberry chocolates. I love huckleberry chocolates. But we can’t rebuild this business on fake food and chemical sugar.”

  She picked up the boxes I’d just moved and carried them back to the cash register. “We have always had huckleberry chocolates right here, where the customers can see them.”

  “Mom, you hired me to run the place, remember? To shake things up.”

  “Some things shouldn’t be changed.”

  “Mom, we agreed. The Merc will die if it’s just another knickknacky gift shop. But an artisan market for local and regional foods—”

&
nbsp; “Those are local. They’re made five miles from here, by a woman you’ve known half your life.”

  “With high-fructose corn syrup and milk chocolate that tastes like rancid Hershey’s. If we find a vendor using fresh berries, real sugar, and high-quality fair trade dark chocolate, sixty percent cocoa solids or better, I will build the Great Pyramid of huckleberry chocolates right here.” I jabbed at a spot on the oak floor, ten feet inside the Merc’s front door, little changed in the hundred years since my great-grandfather Murphy built the place and opened the town’s first grocery. “I will worship at her kitchen stove. I will put an ad in the paper and a post on Facebook offering a free huckleberry truffle to everyone who walks in that door. And if they aren’t wrapped in purple paper, I will even consider raising the price split.”

  My mother stared as though she didn’t recognize me. Not for the first time since I’d returned to Jewel Bay, Montana, the hometown I couldn’t wait to leave after high school, fourteen years ago, to take over her struggling business so she could focus on building her own product line.

  And not, I was sure, the last.

  “But Erin, chocolate isn’t local. Neither is sugar.” Tracy, my shop clerk and sole employee, cocked her head, her thick chestnut hair swaying. One elaborately beaded earring brushed her plump shoulder.

  “That’s not the point.” I reshelved the chocolates. Poor things. Not their fault they represented the worst of the specialty food market. Overprocessed and overpriced, they were nothing more than overhyped M&Ms that melted in your hand, and gummed up your mouth. “Our mission is to sell high-quality natural and organic food. Real food. Sustainably grown.” We’d been over this, and my mother had agreed, knowing the Merc desperately needed a change in direction to survive. But while she’d turned over the reins, she hadn’t quite given up control. “We showcase the local, but we won’t sacrifice quality for proximity. We are selling a vision—the natural taste of Montana.”

  “If it’s made in Montana, it must be good.” Tracy repeated our new slogan in a singsong voice, her earrings swaying like a drunk failing a field sobriety test. She squeezed her Diet Coke can. Its metallic twang made my brain hurt.

  “I think you’re taking this Festa too seriously,” my mother said. Like you always do, I heard in her tone. “Why don’t you eat something? Slice up some tomatoes and fresh mozzarella, with basil and that yummy herbed olive oil.”

  I groaned inwardly. The two women who ran Rainbow Lake Garden had brought us incredible Early Girl tomatoes and heavenly Genovese basil from their greenhouse. Perfect for Caprese salad, the dish the angels serve when God needs a snack.

  “Mom, thanks. You go ahead and eat, but I’ve got too much to do. We still have to decorate.” The Merc, formally known as the Glacier Mercantile, backed onto a small courtyard. Our next-door neighbor, Red’s Bar, sported a larger courtyard. Tonight, we were throwing open the gate between the two and hosting the kickoff dinner for the First Annual Jewel Bay Festa di Pasta. Tracy and I had decorated our space that morning. But Old Ned Redaway—aka Red—didn’t want us to “doll the place up” until his Friday burgers-and-beer lunch crowd had cleared the door. Which meant ignoring my gurgling tummy until every table was set and the last lights strung.

  Meanwhile, we had a store to spiff up. For the next hour, we filled shelves and displays with goods our vendors and producers had delivered, and worked with the smattering of midday customers. I helped my mother—Francesca, aka Fresca—refill the coolers and shelves that held our signature products and biggest sellers: her handmade pastas, both fresh and dried, and a dozen varieties of sauce and pesto. That done, she restocked wine from Monte Verde Vineyard: Chardonnay, a red blend, and cherry wine with the peppery vibrance of a young pinot noir. She cradled a bottle of prize-winning Viognier, admiring the label my sister had designed.

  I paused to read over my mother’s shoulder. “Looks great, doesn’t it? Chiara turned Jennifer’s scribbles into a brand with a simple, attractive message.”

  “Yes,” she said. “It says ‘drink me.’”

  I laughed and kissed her cheek. Working with—for—my mother wasn’t always easy, but we were still the Murphy girls.

  On the surface, the Merc looked like any other specialty food shop. In reality, we were more like a co-op, with nearly two dozen regional growers and producers consigning their food and drink for sale in a single space. I wanted to prove that even a small mountain town with long winters and a short growing season could do a lot to feed itself, while sharing local bounty with our thousands of summer visitors. In the two months since I’d been back in town, we’d redefined our goals and realigned our product mix. The Festa—a village-wide event I’d conceived to celebrate the start of summer—was the big test. After all, we called ourselves The Food Lovers’ Village.

  I helped Tracy unpack cartons of jams and jellies, lining them up on the shelves and in the open drawers of an antique Hoosier cabinet: cherry, strawberry, black cap, wild chokecherry. And the crème de la crème, the King, the Queen, the Champion of jams, wild Montana huckleberry.

  One eye on the clock, I made sure the sidewalk produce cart was full, then headed for the back door, where crates of decorations stood ready. The front of the Merc houses the retail shop, while a certified commercial kitchen fills the back third. Fresca cooks here, and so do half a dozen vendors. We sponsor cooking demonstrations, and plan to offer regular classes this fall.

  On the long stainless steel counter dividing the kitchen from the shop, I spotted a handmade ceramic platter bearing a bit of paradise. I slid to a stop.

  “Smell that Genovese basil, darling.” My mother—I’m still getting used to thinking of her as Fresca, now that we’re in business together—closed her eyes. “Isn’t it heavenly?” She breathed deeply, the few lines in her lovely, oval face disappearing as she closed her nearly black eyes in an expression that could only be called rapture, a few strands of silver in the straight, dark hair that brushed her slender shoulders. Her secret for looking youthful at sixty-one?

  If it worked for her . . . I plucked a stack of tomato, mozzarella, and basil off the platter and savored the peppery-sweet smells before taking the first bite, my other hand cupped to catch any stray juices. “Mmm. The taste of summer.”

  “Mangia, mangia. But sit. You know women gain weight when we eat on the run.”

  “Can’t.” I’d inherited my late father’s “black Irish” fair skin and dark hair along with enough of my mother’s good genes to avoid most weight problems. We’re about the same height—five-six—and I’ve got a few pounds on her, but not enough to worry me. Still, being a grocery manager and the daughter of a woman whose idea of hello is a plate of something tempting, I know the risks. “Time to decorate.” I took another anyway.

  “Festa di Pasta,” Tracy said, sliding onto a stool and picking up her own Caprese appetizer. “Don’t you love the name?”

  “I still think you need a saint in there somewhere,” Fresca said. “Festa di Pasta di San Pietro or Tomaso or San Somebody.”

  I laughed. “No saints in this town.”

  “To be authentically Italian—”

  “Mom, the point is to be authentically Jewel Bay. And to show off the new Merc.” Jewel Bay is not what people expect in a Montana town. Cutting-edge art and lip-smacking restaurants instead of cow pies and shoot-outs on dirt streets. But we have our belly-up bar, and plenty of cowboys, with farms and ranches nearby. And even a real live dude ranch, giving guests from around the world a taste of the old Montana and the new.

  Out back, I opened the wooden gate between the courtyards and paused, soaking up the early afternoon. By six, when guests arrived, temperatures would be perfect, dinner smells mingling with the scent of sun-warmed fir and pine. A jazz quartet—the winemakers Sam and Jennifer Krauss and two friends—would harmonize with the rushing Jewel River a few hundred yards away, as locals and visitors toasted another sparkl
ing summer in Jewel Bay.

  But now, there was work to be done. As promised, Red’s staff were cleaning the picnic tables and benches, and the outdoor bar, cut from old-growth pine decades ago, glistened.

  Old Ned, seventy if he was a day, white apron around his ample waist, stood tall behind the bar, ruffling what was left of his once-red hair. “’Bout time, girlie. Let’s get this glorified spaghetti feed of yours going.”

  I’d known Ned all my life, and his gruffness never bothered me. Red’s courtyard buzzed with activity during good weather, but ours had stood dormant for years. Next spring, I plan to invite the local nursery to bring in potted flowers, herbs, and vegetables.

  Ned’s “boys,” as he called them, made quick work of the setup, stringing white Christmas lights along the walls and through the tall shade trees. Red and white—the school colors—are a Friday tradition in Jewel Bay, so we added green for the Italian touch. Fresca and I arranged candle lanterns in strategic locations, amid terra-cotta pots filled with red and white geraniums and spikey dracaena.

  We spread checkered oilcloth over the tables. She set out centerpieces: handmade red willow baskets stuffed with goodies donated by village vendors and flying small flags from America, Italy, and the state of Montana. One lucky winner at each table would take home a taste of Jewel Bay.

  I consulted the list on my iPad, making sure we hadn’t missed anything. I’d given the caterers a diagram, and all was in place: steam trays, grills, stacks of white china plates. “Drinks at the bar,” I said. “Stuffed mushrooms and the grilled fennel and prosciutto there.” I gestured toward a round table. “And the pasta and vegetable buffet there,” at a long table. Dessert would be served at the tables: grilled peaches with a red wine-balsamic reduction and cookies. “Perfect.”

  “Talking to yourself again, Erin?”

  I spun toward the deep voice. I hadn’t seen Ted come in. “The only way to be sure of intelligent conversation.”

  “I’m kinda hard to miss.” At six-two and maybe two-sixty, with a sandy beard and a bulging belly, that was an understatement. As usual, Ted Redaway—Edward, like his father, Ned—wore jeans and a denim shirt with a black leather vest and motorcycle boots. We’d known each other since kindergarten, when the teacher sat us—the only two kickers—across the table from each other. He nodded at the sandwich board reading FIRST ANNUAL JEWEL BAY FESTA DI PASTA. “Bit early to call it the First Annual.”